Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Abstract: Abstract This paper explores the historical and contemporary significance of visibility in human interactions with their environments, particularly in the context of archaeology and the application of geographic information systems (GIS) for visibility analysis. The study highlights the role of visibility analysis in investigating not only the physical visibility of features in landscapes but also the cultural significance associated with seeing or not seeing them. It draws from the ‘visibility relates’ principle, which argues that individuals tend to establish connections with visible entities. The focus is on comparing nineteenth-century urban settlements (Kaditshwene, Molokwane, and Marothodi) in the Magaliesberg region of South Africa, particularly examining the strategic positioning of kraals within these Sotho-Tswana farming communities. These settlements are some of the more popular Late Farming Communities (AD 1300–1840) in South Africa; hence, they have archaeological background and are among the few, if not the only ones, that have LiDAR data coverage. The findings reveal distinctions in visibility at both settlement and household scalar levels, with Kaditshwene standing out as different from Marothodi and Molokwane. This suggests that kraals were strategically located to be more or less visible based on specific settlement circumstances, such as attracting people from other communities and concerns about cattle theft. This study contributes to GIS approaches to archaeological sites and landscapes in Africa and calls for more extensive use of geospatial statistics in African archaeology. PubDate: 2024-07-11 DOI: 10.1007/s10437-024-09586-5
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Abstract: Abstract Archaeological and environmental research by an international and interdisciplinary team opens new perspectives into the settlement histories of Kansyore, Early Iron Age, and Bigo period peoples in the once forested regions of the Ndali Crater Lakes Region (NCLR) of western Uganda. The research examines the role of Kansyore agropastoralists and their Early Iron Age and Bantu-speaking contemporaries in remaking a once forested environment into a forest-savannah mosaic from circa 500 BC to the end of the first millennium AD. Archaeological settlement and subsistence evidence is examined within a framework of social interaction of Sudanic speakers with Bantu speakers, drawing on historical linguistics and environmental studies to arrive at a new synthesis of late Holocene history in western Uganda. This perspective also unveils the significance and chronology of Boudiné ware, a long enigmatic ceramic tradition that we identify as contemporary to Transitional Urewe and deeply influenced through social interactions with those making Kansyore ceramics and inhabiting the same landscape. Using archaeological evidence from fifteen sites and multiple burials spanning from 400 to 1650 calAD, new views of ceramic histories, lifeways, and symbolic values are revealed, including Bigo period settlements that arose in what was an environmental refugium beginning in the early fourteenth century AD. This research also shows that the Kansyore of the forested region east of the Rwenzori Mountains had greater affinities to late Holocene archaeological evidence from western Equatoria, in the southern South Sudan, and Kansyore Island, Uganda, than it does to the Kansyore in eastern Kenya. PubDate: 2024-07-09 DOI: 10.1007/s10437-024-09583-8
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Abstract: Abstract Direct 14C accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dates obtained on a selection of pottery sherds recovered from surface sites in the Western Sahara have confirmed that the first potteries of this region appeared at the middle of the seventh millennium cal. BP. From the geographical point of view, these early results are detected all along the latitudinal gradient and from the Atlantic to the inland regions, which indicates that adoption of the new ware was fast and uniform in the entire territory. The decorative motifs are dominated by herringbones and series of short segments, always impressed with combs. These graphisms do not correspond with the abundant and widely distributed rock art motifs of the same region. However, they do appear incised on the surfaces of the pierced ostrich eggs used as containers since the Epipaleolithic. This may indicate a certain degree of symbolic continuity between the Epipaleolithic and the Neolithic in this region. PubDate: 2024-06-13 DOI: 10.1007/s10437-024-09588-3
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Abstract: Abstract The period between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries in Old Dongola, Sudan, marks a significant political and religious transition. The Makurian kingdom collapsed, and in the sixteenth century, the city became subordinate to the Funj Sultanate. Simultaneously, domestic architecture exhibited a high level of uniformity, with urban space dominated by two-room houses clustered in compounds with a shared courtyard. In these transformative conditions, the seeming persistence of household requires explanation. This paper examines residues of human actions, applying a multielemental analysis of domestic floors of four house compounds dated from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century. It allowed us to understand domestic space in intensive terms, as created by everyday domestic activities. The analysis of macro- and micro-residues resulted in the identification of various ways particular households engaged with domestic space. In this study, the role of heterogeneous domestic space played in the persistence and changeability of households was discussed, particularly how the striated residential units coded relations of dwellers, while the smooth open spaces had creative potential. Lastly, it is proposed that the temporality of households did not align with the temporality of the political changes in the city. PubDate: 2024-05-24 DOI: 10.1007/s10437-024-09584-7
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Abstract: Abstract The Mumba rockshelter, located in the northwest of Lake Eyasi is key to understanding the Stone Age in East Africa. The stratigraphy of the site spans the last 130 ka BP and comprises levels from the Middle Stone Age, the Later Stone Age, the Pastoral Neolithic, and the Iron Age. In terms of the Middle Stone Age (MSA), Mumba has helped to define two lithic industries: Sanzako (130 ka BP) and Kisele (90–50 Ka BP) that characterize this techno-complex in northern Tanzania. The Sanzako industry was defined based on level VI-B at Mumba, which was excavated in 1938 by Köhl-Larssen. Here we present the study of the lithic assemblage excavated by Mehlman between 1977 and 1981. Mehlman subdivided this unit into three sublevels (Lower, Middle, and Upper), all of which remained unanalyzed and therefore, unpublished. The main features of the lithic assemblages found in the three sublevels are the presence of discoid, Levallois, and bipolar knapping methods. Additionally, the retouched tools are mainly sidescrapers, denticulates, and notches. This recent research enables us to understand the Sanzako industry in more detail, as well as its nature within the chronocultural framework of the MSA in northern Tanzania. PubDate: 2024-05-16 DOI: 10.1007/s10437-024-09582-9
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Abstract: Abstract This paper describes the lithic aggregates from Sitwe 23 (SW23), a Stone Age locality in a previously unstudied region of the northern Luangwa Valley, Zambia. This area yielded two surface lithic scatters containing abundant artifacts derived from Pleistocene sediments on uplifted terrain and exposed by recent erosion on two adjacent terraces. The scatters are time-averaged palimpsests formed by deflation, but most of the lithics lack evidence of significant fluvial transport or post-depositional damage, indicating minimal horizontal displacement. Typological and attribute analyses of samples from both spurs reveal predominantly simple and expedient core and flake technologies, as well as sophisticated biface manufacture and Levallois technique producing flakes and points that are differentially distributed between the terraces. The artifacts identified in this analysis include types conventionally considered diagnostic of the Acheulean, Sangoan, and Middle Stone Age, suggesting that the collections may document one or more temporal windows during the Chibanian age (770–126 ka). Whether artifacts in these samples were originally deposited sequentially or concurrently is not yet known and alternative hypotheses are presented and discussed. The collections are compared to sites in Zambia and the northern Lake Malawi basin and found to be similar technologically but typologically different. Given the paucity of previously known Ston Age archaeological sites in the region, our work now demonstrates that northern Luangwa has significant archaeological potential and deserves further study. PubDate: 2024-05-10 DOI: 10.1007/s10437-024-09581-w
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Abstract: Abstract Australopiths are a group of early human ancestors that lived approximately 4 to 2 million years ago and are considered a key transitional form between apes and humans. Studying australopiths can help to understand the evolutionary processes that led to the emergence of humans and gain insights into the unique adaptations and characteristics that set humans apart from other primates. A bibliometric-based review of publications on australopiths contained in the Scopus database was conducted, analyzing approximately 2000 of them. The main authors, institutions, and countries researching this subject were identified, as well as their future development. The connections between authors, countries, and research topics were also analyzed through the detection of communities. The more frequent keywords in this subject are hominid, animal, human, South Africa, and Australopithecus afarensis. Four main research clusters were identified in the field of australopiths: palaeobiology, cranial evolution, locomotion, and mandible evolution and morphometry. The most important countries in terms of collaboration networks are South Africa, the UK, France, and Germany. Research on australopiths is ongoing, and new research clusters are expected to emerge, such as those focused on pre-australopiths and the molecular evolution and taxonomy of australopiths. Overall, this work provides a comprehensive overview of the state of research on australopiths and offers insights into the current direction of the field. PubDate: 2024-04-20 DOI: 10.1007/s10437-024-09580-x
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Abstract: Abstract Between the sixth and fifteenth c. CE, a vast expanse of central and southern Sudan belonged to the kingdom of Alwa, ruled from the urban metropolis of Soba. Renewed investigation of the city unearthed a small cemetery in the northern part of the site. The heterogeneity of burial practices raised some questions as to the cultural and religious affinities of the deceased and suggested potential multiculturalism of the local urban population. We applied isotopic analyses to investigate the origins of the people buried at Cemetery OS and their concomitant ways of life. Non-concordance of 87Sr/86Sr and δ18O values with local hydro-geological background speaks to the mixing of water sources as a result of residential mobility. The concordance of human and faunal strontium and oxygen results, combined with elevated δ13C values corresponding to almost exclusive reliance on C4 produce, points to the possibility of seasonal movement of people with their herds between the Nile valley and the adjacent grasslands. Despite the turn of the medieval Nubian economy towards settled agriculture, by revealing the granular specificities of human adaptation in challenging ecosystems, our results produce the first insight into the enduring diversification of economic production, even in urbanized settings, and persisting participation of local peoples in agro-pastoral symbiosis. PubDate: 2024-04-20 DOI: 10.1007/s10437-024-09579-4
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Abstract: Abstract The spread of pottery-producing communities into the Congo rainforest is commonly linked to demic diffusion, driven by the so-called “Bantu Expansion.” It is considered the primary linguistic, cultural, and demographic process in Holocene sub-Saharan Africa. A key region in the reconstruction of this process is the western Congo Basin. This paper presents, for the first time, a coherent picture of the archaeological settlement history in the western and northern Congo Basin, uncovered by fieldwork of the late 1980s along the rivers Ngoko, Sangha, Likwala-aux-Herbes, Ubangi, and Lua. Archaeological research of the River Reconnaissance Project, directed by Manfred K. H. Eggert from 1977 to 1987, produced a pottery sequence for the region. Archaeological features and findings uncovered during the project’s field campaigns in the northern and western Congo Basin have only recently been studied in detail. The present analysis provides the only reliable source for a reconstruction of the cultural dynamics within the region due to the lack of subsequent archaeological fieldwork. Archaeological data and the sequence of pottery styles within the western Congo Basin, along the Sangha river, cannot support the claim that this region, due to a climate-induced extension of savannas, played a unique role as a ‘‘corridor” within the expansion of putatively “Bantu” speaking groups during the latter half of the 1st millennium BCE. PubDate: 2024-03-28 DOI: 10.1007/s10437-024-09576-7
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Please help us test our new pre-print finding feature by giving the pre-print link a rating. A 5 star rating indicates the linked pre-print has the exact same content as the published article.
Abstract: Abstract Archaeobotanical investigations at the site of Ona Adi in Tigrai were conducted during the 2013–2015 field seasons within the framework of the Eastern Tigrai Archaeological Project (ETAP). The site occupation spanned the Middle/Late Pre-Aksumite period (ca. 750/600 BCE) to the fall of the Aksumite Kingdom (ca. 700 CE), including the Pre-Aksumite to Aksumite transition (ca. 400 BCE–CE 1). The main objective of the study was to examine the agricultural economy in Eastern Tigrai during these periods and to evaluate the impact of social and cultural developments on the agricultural practices at Ona Adi. Recovered macrobotanical remains included wheat, barley, linseed, noog, lentil, and wild/weedy plants. In addition, evidence of finger millet was recovered along with tentative identifications of t’ef. The phytolith record shows evidence of grass processing, including morphotypes associated with Chloridoideae, Panicoideae, and Pooideae grasses. Results indicate that plants of both African and Southwest Asian origins were present in the region from the mid-eighth century BCE to the eighth century CE, but their relative importance varied throughout time in relation to socio-political changes at the regional level. Our data demonstrate a significant degree of continuity in the local agricultural economy, which remained largely unchanged even after the decline of Aksumite state. PubDate: 2024-03-06 DOI: 10.1007/s10437-024-09574-9
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