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Abstract: Abstract Explaining material traces of movement as proxies for past movement is fundamental for understanding the processes behind why people in the past traversed the landscape in the way that they did. For this, least-cost path analysis and the use of slope-based cost functions for estimating the cost of movement when walking have become commonplace. Despite their prevalence, current approaches misrepresent what these cost functions are, their relationship to the hypotheses that they aim to represent, and their role in explanation. As a result, least-cost paths calculated using single cost functions are liable to spurious results with limited power for explaining known past routes, and by extension the decision-making processes of past people. Using the ideas of multiple model idealisation and robustness analysis, and applied via a tactical simulation, this study demonstrates that similar least-cost paths can be produced from slope-based cost functions representing both the same hypothesis and different hypotheses, suggesting that least-cost path results are robust but underdetermined under the tested environmental settings. The results from this tactical simulation are applied for the explanation of a Roman road in Sardinia. Using probabilistic least-cost paths as an approach for incorporating multiple cost functions representing the same hypothesis and error in the digital elevation model, it is shown that both model outcomes representing the minimisation of time and energy are unable to explain the placement of the Roman road. Rather, it is suggested that the Roman road was influenced by pre-existing routes and settlements. PubDate: 2023-09-15
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Abstract: Abstract Earth ovens are a ubiquitous feature of eastern North America, used throughout many cultures and periods, leaving a highly visible signature of habitational life. This study focusses on one of the four uniquely outsized earth ovens from the center of a woodhenge at Hopewell Mound Group, the type site of the Hopewell culture. Cleaned of artifacts and fire-cracked rock, this feature required specialized analysis to shed light on its function: macrobotanical methods of seed identification and wood charcoal analysis along with phytolith and soil micromorphological analysis. These analyses create a holistic picture of the earth oven, the woodhenge, and the nature of feasting and ritual at Hopewell Mound Group, along with a snapshot of the paleoenvironment. Results show ritual use of ash wood (Fraxinus sp.), Eastern Agricultural Complex seeds seasonally timed with a summer solstice ritual, and grass leaf phytoliths deposited deeper than the surrounding natural strata. Feasting at this site seems to be focused on feeding large numbers of people, as opposed to a small set of competitive elites. PubDate: 2023-09-13
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Abstract: Abstract The paper proposes a new method to quantify the flow of water and water accumulation zones on bedrock panels. This can be used to investigate how water influences the placement of rock art. The analysis is based on photogrammetric models on which water flows and accumulations were modelled using a NetLogo simulation and the SAGA hydrology package. To test the hypothesis that water was a structuring element in the creation of rock art, case studies of Bohus-granite panels from south-western Sweden were used. The described approach should be possible to use on most rock art placed on bedrock panels regardless of rock type, its state of cleaning, or present microfauna. The modelling of water flows and accumulations is a powerful tool to compare the image placement and image density in relation to water even on widely separated panels on which such observations cannot be made directly. PubDate: 2023-09-01
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Abstract: Abstract Personal ornaments are widely viewed as indicators of social identity and personhood. Ornaments are ubiquitous from the Late Pleistocene to the Holocene, but they are most often found as isolated objects within archaeological assemblages without direct evidence on how they were displayed. This article presents a detailed record of the ornaments found in direct association with an Early Mesolithic buried female infant discovered in 2017 at the site of Arma Veirana (Liguria, Italy). It uses microscopic, 3D, and positional analyses of the ornaments as well as a preliminary perforation experiment to document how they were perforated, used, and what led to their deposit as part of the infant’s grave goods. This study provides important information on the use of beads in the Early Mesolithic, in general, as well as the relationship between beads and young subadults, in particular. The results of the study suggest that the beads were worn by members of the infant’s community for a considerable period before they were sewn onto a sling, possibly used to keep the infant close to the parents while allowing their mobility, as seen in some modern forager groups. The baby was then likely buried in this sling to avoid reusing the beads that had failed to protect her or simply to create a lasting connection between the deceased infant and her community. PubDate: 2023-09-01
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Abstract: Abstract The analysis of site locations is an important component of archaeological research. Recent advances in this topic include the use of ecological models such as the ideal free distribution and its variants, which predict site locations under various conditions in relation to criteria that promote the greatest adaptive success. Such models can face problems in determining such criteria and especially their relative importance. Another approach, which can be used in conjunction with these models, uses the concept of decision trees to infer the relative ranking and the hierarchy of the role of different criteria in the actual locational decisions underlying site placement. Examples from ethnography and European archaeology demonstrate this approach and additionally allow the consideration of another issue, the contexts in which site function and location are likely to be strongly correlated. PubDate: 2023-09-01
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Abstract: Abstract Analysis of a large assemblage of Sus scrofa remains from Hallan Çemi, an Early Holocene (c. 11,700 BP) site in southeastern Turkey, provides new insights into pre-domestication patterns of human harvesting and management of this important species. Harvest profiles resulting from a range of documented hunting and herding strategies, when combined with new methods for demographic profiling, reveal emergent mutualisms between humans and wild boar that set the stage for active management. As local wild boar populations began taking advantage of increasingly anthropogenically altered environments around Hallan Çemi, humans developed procurement strategies that both increased harvest yields and helped sustain population levels of S. scrofa. The evolution of these strategies into more active management at later sites in the region is also traced. New methods for detecting morphological change in S. scrofa over the c. 300 year occupation of Hallan Çemi show that lower molars underwent size change. Metric data from 18 contemporary and later sites reveals the differential impacts of emergent domestication on different S. scrofa skeletal elements over a 4000-year period. Taxonomic and part distributional data highlight the increasing importance of S. scrofa in feasting activities at Hallan Çemi over time. We conclude that feasting and other community-enhancing activities at Hallan Çemi worked together with increasing engagement in niche modification to promote the level of cohesion and material support needed to sustain a sedentary community over the longue durée and to create the sustained interactions needed for domestication. PubDate: 2023-09-01
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Abstract: Abstract Toward the end of the Pleistocene, the world experienced a mass extinction of megafauna. In North America these included its proboscideans—the mammoths and mastodons. Researchers in conservation biology, paleontology, and archaeology have debated the role played by human predation in these extinctions. They point to traces of human butchery, such as cut marks and other bone surface modifications (BSM), as evidence of human-animal interactions—including predation and scavenging, between early Americans and proboscideans. However, others have challenged the validity of the butchery evidence observed on several proboscidean assemblages, largely due to questions of qualitative determination of the agent responsible for creating BSM. This study employs a statistical technique that relies on three-dimensional (3D) imaging data and 3D geometric morphometrics to determine the origin of the BSM observed on the skeletal remains of the Bowser Road mastodon (BR mastodon), excavated in Middletown, New York. These techniques have been shown to have high accuracy in identifying and distinguishing among different types of BSM. To better characterize the BSM on the BR mastodon, we compared them quantitatively to experimental BSM resulting from a stone tool chopping experiment using “Arnold,” the force-calibrated chopper. This study suggests that BSM on the BR mastodon are not consistent with the BSM generated by the experimental chopper. Future controlled experiments will compare other types of BSM to those on BR. This research contributes to continued efforts to decrease the uncertainty surrounding human-megafauna associations at the level of the archaeological site and faunal assemblage—specifically that of the BR mastodon assemblage. Consequently, we also contribute to the dialogue surrounding the character of the human-animal interactions between early Americans and Late Pleistocene megafauna, and the role of human foraging behavior in the latter’s extinction. PubDate: 2023-09-01
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Abstract: Abstract The ability of early hominins to overcome the constraints imposed by the characteristics of raw materials used for stone tool production is a key topic on the discussion about the evolution of hominin cognitive capabilities and technical behaviours. Thus, technological variability has been the centrepiece on this debate. However, the variability of lithic assemblages cannot be correctly interpreted without understanding site occupational models and function and considering that individual tools represent specific discard moments in a continuous reduction process. In Europe, the earliest technological record is represented by the scarce and scattered Mode 1 technologies, often deriving from occasional occupations or restricted activity areas yielding unrepresentative assemblages. In this paper, we approach the technological behaviours exhibited by Lower Palaeolithic hominins from the subunit TD6.2 of the Gran Dolina site (Atapuerca, Burgos) by including the perspective of reduction intensity studies on the analysis of technological variability. Gran Dolina TD6.2 is a unique and extremely significant archaeological context, as it represents the oldest multi-layered unit of domestic hominin occupations in the Early Pleistocene of Europe. We use the Volumetric Reconstruction Method (VRM) to estimate the original volume of the blanks and quantify the reduction intensity of each core individually to characterise the reduction distribution patterns using Weibull probability distribution functions. Our results suggest differential raw material management in terms of reduction intensity, according to the characteristics of each lithology. This could reflect a solid understanding of raw material qualities and a certain degree of planning. Altogether, the continuity between knapping strategies through reduction denotes constant adaptation to raw material constraints as well as particular knapping conditions, rather than specific compartmentalised mental schemes. In conclusion, Homo antecessor toolmakers would have been situational knappers whose technological behaviour would be highly adaptive. This research constitutes the first reduction approach for the European Early Pleistocene assemblages that will lead to a referential framework for other European Early Pleistocene sites. PubDate: 2023-09-01
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Abstract: Abstract Dental microwear has been widely used to reconstruct mammals’ past diet and to understand their dental evolution. In archaeology, it can help reconstruct anthropogenic herd-feeding systems. However, deciphering the impact of exogenous mineral particles on dental wear is an ongoing challenge since studies have shown that soil ingestion can generates microwear traces that interfere with the dietary signals. To bridge this gap, this study relies on the first large-scale controlled-food experiment on wild boars (Sus scrofa) to test how soil ingestion can affect the dietary signal recorded in dental microwear. It provides the opportunity to investigate the impact of natural soil ingestion over microwear traces by comparing penned boars that were able to root with stalled boars that were not. We performed 3D Dental microwear texture analysis (DMTA) on 22 controlled-fed boars kept captive either in an indoor stall with no soil ingestion, or in a wooded pen with natural soil ingestion. We analysed shearing and crushing facets on upper and lower first and second molars using standard texture parameters. We also conducted particle size distribution analyses of the ingested soil. In line with previous works, the consumption of exogenous abrasives in rooting boars leads to less rough, less complex and more anisotropic wear surfaces than in stall-fed boars, even though they received the same diet. Thus, we highly recommend studying DMT when investigating ancient pig husbandry systems, particularly local changes in food management. Overall, this study contributes to a better comprehension of how exogenous abrasives impact DMT among mammals. PubDate: 2023-09-01
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Abstract: Abstract The potential influence of bias long has haunted archaeological practice and discourse. In North America, late Pleistocene fluted-point studies commonly assess the role of sampling, or recovery, bias on site distributions, often with conflicting results. Interestingly, archaeologists rarely examine potential sampling bias on the distributions of later, post-Paleoindian assemblages. In this study, I evaluated how three commonly cited sources of bias in fluted-point research — modern population density, land cover, and research intensity — impacted late Pleistocene through middle Holocene site distributions in the upper Ohio Valley. Results indicate that Paleoindian, Early Archaic, and Late Archaic site locations all positively correlate to areas of dense modern populations, presence of agricultural land, and intensity of research activity. This highlights the conspicuous fact that sampling bias is ubiquitous and affects more than just our oldest assemblages. Since bias is impossible to eliminate entirely from legacy collections, this study proposes two quantitatively simple methods for working with biased datasets: (i) data scaling and (ii) cross-temporal comparison. Data scaling transforms site counts into a ratio to facilitate comparison between analytical units with variable research histories. Cross-temporal comparison relies on the presence of artifacts from one period at find spots to validate the absence of artifacts from additional periods. Application of these approaches reveal several cultural trends, most notably that strong cultural ties existed between the Bluegrass region of the Ohio Valley and the Midsouth during the late Pleistocene with subsequent localization of group interaction during the succeeding Holocene. PubDate: 2023-09-01
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Abstract: Abstract Over the past three decades, there has been a growing body of research examining the history of African slavery in colonial Peru. These studies have contributed new information about the origins, roles, and experiences of enslaved peoples of African descent in colonial society. However, despite these advances, relatively few studies exist that directly examine the lives of enslaved women of African descent. This article responds to these concerns by using bioarchaeological evidence to examine the lives of enslaved women in conditions of plantation slavery in central Peru. As a case study, it focuses on recent bioarchaeological research at Hacienda La Quebrada, a former sugar estate located in the coastal region of Cañete, Peru. Research findings reveal the disproportionate impacts of conditions of plantation slavery on young women, many of whom perished by their twenties—an average of 10 years younger than enslaved men. Skeletal indicators of work offer further insights into these patterns, suggesting that enslaved women endured additional labor burdens while facing limited access to resources and care. These findings counter traditional narratives of enslavement in Peru that often center on the labor of adult men, instead illuminating the roles of women in the colonial economy and early Afro-Peruvian life. In doing so, this project offers a model of an intersectional approach to the study of African slavery in colonial Peru and to bioarchaeological studies of the African diaspora more broadly. PubDate: 2023-09-01
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Abstract: Abstract Research into ancient Chinese metallurgy has flourished over recent years with the accumulation of analytical data reflecting the needs of so many archaeological finds. However, the relationship between technology and society is unlikely to be revealed simply by analysing more artefacts. This is particularly evident in the debates over the sources of metals used to manufacture the Chinese ritual bronzes of the Shang (c. 1500-1046 BCE), Western Zhou (c. 1046–771 BCE) and Eastern Zhou (c. 771–256 BCE) dynasties. This article recognises that approaches to analytical data often fail to provide robust platforms from which to investigate metallurgical technology within its wider social and cultural contexts. To address this issue, a recently developed multivariate approach is applied to over 300 Chinese ritual bronzes from legacy data sets and nearly 100 unearthed copper-based objects from Anyang and Hanzhong. Unlike previous investigations that have relied predominantly on interpreting lead isotope signatures, the compositional analyses presented here indicate that copper and lead used to manufacture the bronzes are derived from mining progressively deeper ores in the same deposits rather than seeking out new sources. It is proposed that interpretations of social, cultural and technological change predicated on the acquisition of metals from disparate regions during the Chinese Bronze Age may need to be revised. PubDate: 2023-09-01
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Abstract: Abstract This work aims discussing the contribution of environmental and technological factors in rock art painting preservation, based on a 3-year experimental program and two archaeological cases from Patagonia (South America). Concerning technological factors, microscopic information of experimental and archaeological contexts indicate that fine-grained pigments have a better preservation potential than coarse-grained ones, likely related to the high binder adsorption capacity of silty and clay size particles, resulting in a strong pigment agglutination and substrate adherence. Mechanical entrapment/translocation of such small particles into the substrate further contributes to preservation. The experiment also evidences that blood-bearing paints present preservation advantages over fat/water-based ones, probably due to clotting and drying processes which agglutinate pigments and seal rock voids, avoiding binder migration. In contrast, experimental gypsum- and, to a lesser extent, charcoal-based paints show a rapid and significant deterioration, particularly in the temperate and humid context. The low archaeological expectancy derived from these results is supported by the scarce and/or ambiguous regional representation of these black pigments in ancient Patagonian paintings. Among natural factors, water-related processes (i.e., rainfall, snow, freezing and water infiltration) play a decisive role in the physicochemical paint degradation, also favoring bioactivity. Raman spectroscopy of neoformed white crystals in experimental paints may evidence, in a short term, a first stage of the profuse biomineralizations archaeologically observed, associated with lichens, fungus, and endolithic organisms. Finally, sheep rubbing and wind abrasion are proposed as the main agents affecting vertical frequencies and integrity of archaeological motifs at the cave and open-air contexts, respectively, whereas differences related to cardinal insolation likely impact in frequencies, motif color and weathering stages at the open-air site too. PubDate: 2023-08-26
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Abstract: Abstract Despite years of debate, the factors that control the long-term carrying capacity of human populations are not well understood. In this paper, we assess the effect of changes in resource extraction and climate-driven changes in ecosystem productivity on the carrying capacity of hunter-gatherer populations in a terrestrial and coastal ecosystem. To make this assessment, we build time-series estimates of changes in resource extraction using stable isotopes and ecosystem productivity using paleoclimate models and geomorphic records of flood events. These estimates of resource extraction and ecosystem productivity allow us to assess a complex model of population expansion that proposes linked changes between population density, resource extraction, and intensification. We find that changes in resource extraction had a larger effect on carrying capacity in both the terrestrial and coastal ecosystems than climate drivers of ecosystem productivity. Our results are consistent with the idea that both Malthusian limits on resources and Boserupian pressures to reorganize economic systems operate in hunter-gatherer populations over the long term. Our data and analysis contribute to evaluating complex models of population growth and subsistence change across archaeological cases. PubDate: 2023-08-24
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Abstract: Abstract Organizing archaeological artefacts under a conceptual system is part and parcel of archaeological research. As an abundant material category, pottery artefacts classified in an effective typological model provide a rich source of information for the discipline. However, building a typological model from scratch, as well as maintaining it, often represents a challenge. To support archaeological research, automated methods are increasingly utilized in sustaining classification models. Yet, there is potential for advancement in creating, rethinking, and updating typological arrangements by means of digital, label-driven, or data-driven algorithmic approaches. In this paper, we take a step towards fulfilling this potential while highlighting the fuzziness involved in typological arrangements. We present a complete research pipeline of pottery form quantification, fuzzy-type description, and fuzzy-type definition which is in principle applicable to any typological model. The methodological pipeline is implemented, first, in rim segments to algorithmically construct polythetic rim descriptors; second, in complete profiles to algorithmically connect the global form with the attributed functional class; and third, in types to investigate within-class form variation and its chronological relevance. This paper provides tools to formalize the ambivalence of typological classification using fuzzy logic and revisit the theoretical model to investigate the vagueness of belonging to a class based on morphological aspects of pottery profiles. PubDate: 2023-08-21
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Abstract: Abstract In the field of prehistoric archaeology, the concepts of notation and notational sequences were first introduced by Alexander Marshack in 1964 to describe the orderly arranged series of marks commonly found engraved on Upper Paleolithic artifacts. Three key concepts can be inferred from the detailed artifact accounts published by the American researcher, the first of which is that each mark was notational and therefore symbolic for a natural or cultural event and the resulting series record of those events. The second is the notion that each mark was meant to represent a day, making the corresponding series an observational or calendrical record. The third and last is the hypothesis that notational sequences reveal lunar periodicities. This was met with skepticism and along with methodological issues attracted most of the early criticism on his research, but the first two concepts still stand as the only modern theory addressing the symbolic meaning and use of non-figurative visual creations from the Magdalenian and earlier cultures. Later criticism was more focused on the technological analyses performed by Marshack and their implications for our ability to identify notations in the archaeological record. PubDate: 2023-08-15
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Abstract: Abstract Major complications in the palaeopathological analysis of burnt human remains include distinguishing whether bone was fresh or dry at the time of burning, and whether trauma/damage was inflicted ‘perimortem’ or postmortem. Some prehistoric societies are suggested to have defleshed human remains prior to cremation, mostly classified based on the lack of warping and thumbnail fractures. The distinction between perimortem and postmortem sharp force trauma (SFT) characteristics has rarely been investigated on burnt bones. This study investigates whether these features are distinguishable on burnt bone, as well as assessing the rate of cutmark survival, and the presence of heat-induced fractures in relation to the bone’s pre-burnt collagen content. Pig (Sus scrofa domesticus) tibiae were left to decay in a field for 14, 34, 91, 180, and 365 days in Wytham Woods, Oxfordshire, UK. Prior to burning, bones were inflicted with SFT by a non-serrated and partially serrated knife and a flint blade (N = 15/bone). Fleshed bones with cutmarks and bones without trauma served as controls. Cutmark survival, features, and heat-induced fractures were recorded on the burnt bones and compared with the collagen extracted from unburnt bones at the abovementioned time intervals. Statistical analysis included linear regression and MANOVA. Heat-induced fractures did not depend on the limited collagen loss during the 1-year postmortem inverval (PMI) prior to burning. There was a loss (mean 18.4%) of identifiable cutmarks after burning. Significant alterations in the cutmark characteristics appeared after 6 months of exposure in burnt bones, marked by the increase in postmortem features, which can inform on the pre-burning PMI. PubDate: 2023-08-15
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Abstract: Abstract In a poorly understood yet recurring phenomenon, communities occupying diverse settings within a region may undertake large-scale migrations that cannot be easily attributed to single variables such as climate change. As a result, the study of these movements has increasingly focused on the distinct histories of localities to address how they may have articulated as large-scale abandonments. We adopt this micro-history perspective on the fourteenth to fifteenth century depopulation of a large portion of the North American Midwest and Southeast, popularly referred to as the Vacant Quarter. Our research on the Middle Cumberland drainage within the Vacant Quarter suggests that a significant exodus began slowly ca. 1300 CE; then, it accelerated extremely rapidly in the first half of the fifteenth century CE. This genesis of this trajectory seems to be related to a pattern of severe droughts, but it was brought to a close by social and demographic challenges such as endemic conflict and adverse health conditions. PubDate: 2023-06-29 DOI: 10.1007/s10816-023-09613-w
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Abstract: Abstract The Central Ohio Archaeological Digitization Survey (COADS) documented large samples of prehistoric artifacts, notably points, held by private collectors in south-central Ohio, USA. COADS captured two-dimensional images of over 10,000 points and several hundred three-dimensional images. Many were processed for landmark-based geometric morphometric (LGM) analysis using two standard protocols, for entire points and for stems only. This case study tests for resharpening allometry—the possibility that preferential resharpening of blades caused change in shape with change in size of points—and related LGM concepts of modularity and integration. It justifies allometric tests as logical preconditions to typological and other studies of original design. To date, most LGM studies of this nature in North America involve Paleoindian fluted points. We test for allometry in COADS Kirk points, an Archaic type, using LGM and complementary reduction measures. MorphoJ and limited gmshiny analysis suggest a strong allometric signal with fairly high modularity; blade shape much more than stem shape varies with size, corroborated by independent measures. Separate analysis of stems alone indicates no allometry, as expected since stems vary little in resharpening. Allometry must be considered before attributing variation in whole-object shape to adaptation, drift, or other mechanisms. PubDate: 2023-06-15 DOI: 10.1007/s10816-023-09612-x
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