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Abstract: Although considerable attention has been devoted to early urbanism in southern Mesopotamia, the later development of cities in the region has been neglected. By studying the Babylonian cities of the second and first millennia BC, it is possible to trace continuity and change in urbanism over some 3000 years of recorded history, from city-state to empire. The ideal of the southern Mesopotamian city comprised a standardized inventory of architectural elements that was remarkably persistent but also flexible, since it did not dictate the details of their plan or construction, nor their spatial relationship with one another. The salient characteristic of the city was its role as religious center: each city’s identity was bound up with its main temple, which housed its patron deity and dominated the social and economic life of the city and its hinterland. PubDate: 2023-06-01
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Abstract: Niche construction theory has played a prominent role in archaeology during the last decade. However, the potential of niche construction in relation to agricultural development has received less attention. To this end, we bring together literature on the forms and sources of agronomic variability and use a series of examples to highlight the importance of reciprocal causation and ecological inheritance in trajectories of agricultural change. We demonstrate how niche construction theory can inform on emergent mutualisms in both inceptive and established agronomic contexts, the recursive relationships between humans and their agronomic environments, and bridges between the past and present. PubDate: 2023-05-23
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Abstract: Invented in the 19th century as an allegory for large-scale human interaction across Eurasia, the idea of “the Silk Road” continues to shape archaeological investigations of trade, travel, cultural exchange, and mobility in the region between the Near East and East Asia. Though long used to refer to trade between the ancient and late medieval periods, the framework of the Silk Road has grown increasingly popular and is used to orient research on mobilities of much earlier periods, as well as to frame movement and exchange at the molecular level, including of human genes. This article reviews the shared challenges confronted by Silk Road archaeologists and explores the narratives about human culture that have been tied up in the Silk Road metaphor from the beginning. Through a review of recent work on and along the Silk Road, I trace common narratives and shared scalar challenges across archaeologies of landscape, material culture, gender, mobile lifeways, and isotopic and genetic assemblages, and examine tensions between globality and locality within Silk Road cultural heritage and the implications of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. PubDate: 2023-05-22
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Abstract: Island archaeology is a well-established field within the wider discipline, but African contributions to it remain scarce. The Canary Islands are unusual in the broader African context for their relatively long history of occupation (~2000 years) and the intensity with which archaeological research has been, and is, undertaken there. Much of that research, however, has focused on specifically Canarian issues, including efforts to demonstrate connections between the islands’ initial settlement and the Classical Mediterranean world. Relatively little of it has been conducted within the broader comparative framework that an island archaeology perspective provides. Additionally, much of the Canarian literature is not directly accessible to non-Hispanophones. In response, I synthesize what is currently known about the archaeology of the Canary Islands, focusing on determining when, how, and by whom they were first settled; the impacts of human settlement on their environments; inter-island variability in precolonial subsistence, social, and political trajectories; and the record left by European contact and subsequent colonization, which began in the 14th century AD. As well as pointing to further opportunities for research within the archipelago, I simultaneously map out several areas where archaeological work there could contribute to wider debates in island archaeology as a whole. PubDate: 2023-05-15
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Abstract: Pre-Columbian food production in the Maya Lowlands was long characterized as reliant on extensive, slash-and-burn agriculture as the sole cultivation system possible in the region, given environmental limitations, with maize as the dominant crop. While aspects of this “swidden thesis” of Maya agriculture have been chipped away in recent years, there has been an underappreciation of the many forms of long-term capital investments in agriculture made by ancient Maya people. Here, we review the last three decades of research that has overturned the swidden thesis, focusing on long-term strategies. We demonstrate long-lasting agricultural investments by Maya people, in social capital including multigenerational land tenure, in cultivated capital including long-lived trees, and in landesque capital including soil amendments and landscape engineering projects, such as terracing and wetland modification. PubDate: 2023-04-20
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Abstract: One of the most significant aspects of cultural variation that world archaeology has revealed is the many different forms of social complexity among ancient and more recent premodern societies. Although this exposes the shortcomings of older evolutionary approaches, Levantine and broader Near Eastern archaeology remains relatively inflexible and conservative in the perception of social complexity in the archaeological record. A necessary association between complexity and monumentality remains prevalent, whereby monumentality is understood as an important operative cog in the complexity machine. Conversely, complexity can only be read in the archaeological record where monumentality is present. This paper seeks to untie this necessary association by demonstrating that complexity without monumentality occurred in societies of the biblical period that were fully or partly nomadic and otherwise lacked a clear cultural conception of monumentality as central to the ideology of political authority and structure. This is done through the presentation of early Iron Age Edom and its implications for the understanding of the neighboring United Monarchy of ancient Israel. PubDate: 2023-03-28
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Abstract: In this paper, we argue that the sociopolitical trajectory of Bronze Age of Crete was characterized by the progressive but intentional manipulation of an enduring collective ethos, notably in the organization of gatherings and feasts. These key practices, meant to ensure cohesion, took place within a larger social organization of which the constituents were formed by corporate groups that we interpret as “houses.” We also argue that the nature of these houses changed over time. This process is particularly evident in the varying contexts in which these gatherings took place, with differences in terms of scale and origin of participants and variations in the balance between base-driven and imposed practices. We highlight that a landscape initially dotted with small local communities, connected through kinship bonds and shared practices at the microregional level, was progressively transformed into a homogenous, all-embracing ideological structure, which pervaded society and constituted the backbone of its hierarchical organization. Legitimized and mobilized within a religious system with clear political overtones, this process resulted into a supra-regional, global network that can rightfully be called “Minoan.” PubDate: 2023-03-10 DOI: 10.1007/s10814-023-09183-1
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Abstract: Despite the ethnographic importance of the Southeast Asian house and household, an explicitly Southeast Asian “household archaeology” is still in its infancy. Nevertheless, archaeologists in Southeast Asia have undertaken excavations within habitation areas and residential spaces, identifying domestic debris, the partial remains of house structures, and activity areas. As a result, archaeologists of Southeast Asia have addressed many topics of relevance to those who use a household archaeology approach, including the identification and description of houses and household activities; the domestic economy; domestic ritual; diversity and variability both within houses as related to questions of identity, specifically gender and age, and between houses, especially as related to status; and identification of supra-household communities. In this review, I consider how archaeologists have addressed these themes using examples from a diverse set of geographic locations and time periods in mainland and island Southeast Asia. I conclude with suggestions for future research directions to continue building an archaeology of residential spaces and communities in Southeast Asia. PubDate: 2023-03-01 DOI: 10.1007/s10814-021-09170-4
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Abstract: Analysis of starch grains recovered from ancient human dental calculus provides unique insights into the spectrum of starchy plants that were available and consumed at different spatiotemporal scales. Applying this methodological approach to a dataset of dental calculus samples from 60 individuals from different Caribbean islands, we unfold new perspectives on the culinary practices from precolonial to colonial times in this region. Our phytocultural interpretations from the studied scenarios contrast with dominant historical and archaeological narratives of the Caribbean regarding the emergence and evolution of manioc-reliant plant food systems. Instead, our analysis strongly suggests that a diversity of plant-based culinary practices was in operation throughout the islands, and over time, the switching dietary role of maize and other important economic plants such as wild marunguey, manioc, bean, and sweet potato (among others) was the trademark of ancient Caribbean culinary scapes. PubDate: 2023-03-01 DOI: 10.1007/s10814-021-09171-3
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Abstract: Settlement pattern analysis offers a range of insights about social, economic, and political relationships of Aksumite civilization. Two common approaches involve analyzing site size distributions and the spatial distribution of sites to evaluate possible clustering. We review the history of archaeological survey and settlement pattern analyses for Pre-Aksumite, Aksumite, and Post-Aksumite periods. We focus on data from two areas of northern Ethiopia collected by the Eastern Tigray Archaeological Project and the Southern Red Sea Archaeological Histories Project. We conduct Ripley’s-K multi-distance spatial cluster analysis to evaluate spatial clustering/dispersion, and Gaussian mixture model/Bayesian information criterion analysis to evaluate possible site size hierarchies. Results show similar patterns in the two areas, including site clustering predominantly during the Pre-Aksumite period, an increase in the number of sites and decrease in average site size from the Pre-Aksumite to Aksumite periods, and no definitive evidence that site size hierarchies are an indicator of political changes over time. Overall, results indicate locally aggregated political organization during the Pre-Aksumite period, locally decentralized organization, infilling, and population growth during the Aksumite period, and a subsequent decline in population and political centralization during the Post-Aksumite period. PubDate: 2023-03-01 DOI: 10.1007/s10814-021-09172-2
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Abstract: We focus on pre-Columbian agricultural regimes in the Maya Lowlands, using new datasets of archaeological wood charcoal, seeds, phytoliths, and starch grains; biological properties of plants; and contemporary Indigenous practices. We address inherited models of agriculture in the lowlands: the limitations of the environment (finding more affordances than anticipated by earlier models); the homogeneity of agricultural strategies (finding more heterogeneity of strategies across the lowlands than a single rigid template); the centrality of maize in agriculture (finding more reliance on root crops and tree crops than historically documented); the focus on the milpa system as food base (finding more agroforestry, homegardening, horticulture, and wild resource management than previously documented); the dominance of swidden strategies in agricultural practices (finding more diverse practices than accounted for in most models); and the foregrounding of maize crop failure in collapse models (finding more evidence of resilience and sustainable agricultural practices than predicted). PubDate: 2022-12-12 DOI: 10.1007/s10814-022-09180-w
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Abstract: Animal domestication is a profound change for human societies, economies, and worldviews. The shifting definitions of animal domestication reflect its varying and process-like nature. Reindeer is one of the species whose domestication is not easily pinned down using standard definitions and research methodologies of animal domestication. In recent years, advances in archaeological methodology and the conceptual understanding of animal domestication have opened new avenues for research on this topic. This review summarizes recent research on the archaeology of reindeer domestication among the Indigenous Sámi of northern Fennoscandia. It compiles a chronological framework of reindeer domestication with an emphasis on the development of reindeer-herding practices and human–reindeer relationships. I argue that while a major transition to reindeer herding occurred among the Sámi from the 15th century onward, small-scale reindeer herding characterized by interspecies sociality, cooperation, and care developed earlier during the Late Iron Age, with regional variations in the timing and details of the events. By focusing on reindeer-herding practices and the human–reindeer relationships embedded in them, I also argue that reindeer domestication, and animal domestication in general, is a relationship constructed and constantly renegotiated in everyday interactions with the animals. PubDate: 2022-12-09 DOI: 10.1007/s10814-022-09182-8
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Abstract: Archaeologists have not readily applied collective action and institutional approaches to the study of hunter-gatherers. This is especially true of the American Southeast. Here, I use a review of the recent literature to illustrate the value of such approaches to understanding long-term histories. This review of hunter-gatherer archaeology spans the entire temporal range of Native American history in the Southeast. I argue that the term “hunter-gatherers” itself is constraining. In its place, I suggest that a focus on institutional change and collective action provides a way to better connect histories across temporal units, which then allows for a greater understanding of how such traditions developed, were maintained (or abandoned), and reinvented over the course of history. At the end of the review, I pose five key research areas that archaeologists should focus on that speak to institutions, the nature of public and private goods, common pool resources, and collective action regarding large-scale labor projects. PubDate: 2022-12-08 DOI: 10.1007/s10814-022-09179-3
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Abstract: Intensified social complexity emerged in some parts of the lowland Maya region during the Middle Preclassic period (800–300 BC). Though data for Middle Preclassic complexity remain very thin, states may have formed in the Mirador Basin and other areas that exhibit settlement hierarchy, evidence of centralized administration, and specialization. However, these developments have been obscured by a shift from a more cooperative to a more competitive system during the Late Preclassic period (300 BC–AD 200). Unilinear thought has confused this change in organization with a shift toward greater complexity. Such positions incorrectly assume that divine kingship and its accouterments are a baseline for complexity. Judging Middle Preclassic period complexity according to Classic period developments is dubious given the cooperative–competitive oscillations; the tendency in the Maya area for states to have been secondary with longstanding interactions among Chiapas, Pacific Coast, Isthmian, and the Gulf Coast areas; and internal innovations. New data are needed to characterize early complexity in the Maya lowlands on its own terms. PubDate: 2022-12-01 DOI: 10.1007/s10814-021-09168-y
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Abstract: The Etruscans, who dominated central Italy for much of the first half of the first millennium BC, are ripe for new analysis: the quantity of data for their culture is now substantial, wide ranging, and qualifies for large-scale comparison. In this paper, we survey how research in the last decade has affected our understanding of settlements, of changing models of the transfer of ideas, and of Etruscan religious behavior, among other topics. We place them into complex spatial, architectural, and economic narratives to show that the interplay between microhistorical case studies and macrohistorical trends has now achieved what ought to be a paradigmatic status. Despite the continuous flow of specialist publications and an industry of exhibitions, however, the Etruscans have not broken through into mainstream archaeological awareness. We argue that this could be achieved if future research becomes more thematic and agenda driven and embraces comparative study. PubDate: 2022-12-01 DOI: 10.1007/s10814-021-09169-x
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Abstract: The first Neolithic settlements in Southwest Asia began with a dual commitment to plant cultivation and a sedentary lifestyle. The benefits that foragers-turned-farmers gained from this commitment came with some inescapable constraints, setting new evolutionary pathways for human social and economic activities. We explore the developmental process at the early Pre-Pottery Neolithic site of Aşıklı Höyük in central Anatolia (Turkey), specifically the relationship between internal dynamics and external influences in early village formation. Feedback mechanisms inherent to the community were responsible for many of the unique developments there, including domestication of a variant of free-threshing wheat and the early evolution of caprine management, which gave rise to domesticated stock. Gradual change was the rule at Aşıklı, yet the cumulative transformations in architecture, settlement layout, and caprine management were great. The many strands of evidence reveal a largely local (endemic) evolution of an early Pre-Pottery Neolithic community. However, burgeoning inequalities stemming from production surplus such as livestock likely stimulated greater regional interaction toward the end of the sequence. PubDate: 2022-12-01 DOI: 10.1007/s10814-021-09167-z
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Abstract: The Kalahari debate deals primarily with the influence that contact with incoming groups had on San communities in southern Africa. Two schools of thought emerged and engaged in heavy debate. The traditionalists, most of whom collected primary ethnographic data in the Kalahari Desert, argued that the San were relatively isolated and affected minimally by contact with outsiders. Arguing against this were various revisionists who contended that “San” identity arose due to a long period of social and cultural interactions with farmer communities. This conflict—broadly isolationism versus historical production—has overarching implications for the use of ethnography to understand precolonial forager groups. In this contribution, the debate’s salient points are revisited and contrasted with the archaeology of the middle Limpopo Valley, where forager communities participated in the rise of a state-level kingdom within farmer society. Interactions in the valley led to a range of forager responses including craft development, hunting intensification, and trade relations, but also social and cultural continuity. These reactions and their feedbacks offer different perspectives to those provided by the two schools of thought in the Kalahari debate and reinforce their antithetical perspectives. Here it is argued that a binary approach is incapable of capturing transformations that took place in the middle Limpopo Valley, and that a focus on historicism and social systems associated with cultural sequences leads to greater insights. PubDate: 2022-09-01 DOI: 10.1007/s10814-021-09166-0
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Abstract: This paper reviews significant issues related to the fossil hominins from the Altai Mountains of Siberia (Russia), namely Denisovans, Neanderthals, and early modern humans. Uncritical acceptance of the recovered information by some authors has resulted in unreliable chronologies of the Middle and Upper Paleolithic artifact assemblages and the animal and hominin fossils. We examine the chronostratigraphic contexts and archaeological associations of hominin and animal fossils and the lithics discovered at the Denisova, Okladnikov, Strashnaya, and Chagyrskaya cave sites. Taphonomic, site formation, and geomorphological studies show evidence of disturbance and redeposition caused by carnivore activity and sediment subsidence at these sites, which complicates the dating of the human remains. Our analysis indicates that the Middle Paleolithic is dated to ca. 50,000–130,000 years ago, and the Upper Paleolithic to ca. 12,000–48,000 years ago. The best age estimate for Denisovans is ca. 73,000–130,000 years ago. The ages of Neanderthals can be determined as more than 50,000–59,000 years ago, and of modern humans at roughly 12,000–48,000 years ago. Denisovan and Neanderthal fossils are associated with Middle Paleolithic complexes only. PubDate: 2022-09-01 DOI: 10.1007/s10814-021-09164-2
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Abstract: This article builds on recent archaeological theorizing about early complex societies to analyze the political anthropology of Neolithic and Bronze Age China in a culture-specific trajectory over the longue durée. Synthesizing the latest archaeological discoveries, I show that a series of successive declines, beginning around 2000 BC, took place throughout lowland China. This put an end to the lowland states of the Longshan period (2400–1900 BC) and provided the context for the constitution of the Erlitou secondary state (1900–1500 BC). Following the shift in “archaic states” studies from identifying “what” to investigating “how,” I focus on the strategies, institutions, and relations that undergirded and sustained the Erlitou secondary state. I explore how heterogeneous lowland populations were reorganized after collapse, how a new collective identity was created through ritual and religious performance at the household level at Erlitou, and how Erlitou’s ideologies, political system, and economic network were shaped by the upland polities and societies. Through a series of innovative practices, the Erlitou secondary state did not replicate the preceding Longshan states but instead pioneered a sociopolitical order that was repeatedly reenacted and referred to as a source of legitimacy in successive Bronze Age Central Plains polities. PubDate: 2022-06-09 DOI: 10.1007/s10814-022-09173-9
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Abstract: In this paper, we describe the development and state of archaeological surface survey in the Mediterranean. We focus especially on surface survey as a means of documenting long-term settlement patterns at various scales, as an approach to the archaeology of regions, and as a pathway to the interpretation of past landscapes. Over the last decades, the literature on Mediterranean survey has increasingly emphasized a distinct set of practices, viewed both favorably and critically by regional archaeologists in the Mediterranean and elsewhere. We show that Mediterranean survey in fact comprises several discrete regional traditions. In general, these traditions have much to offer to wider dialogs in world archaeology, particularly concerning sampling and research design, the interpretation of surface assemblages, and the integration of complex, multidisciplinary datasets. More specifically, survey investigations of Mediterranean landscapes provide comparative data and potential research strategies of relevance to many issues of global significance, including human ecology, demography, urban–rural dynamics, and various types of polity formation, colonialism, and imperialism. PubDate: 2022-06-08 DOI: 10.1007/s10814-022-09175-7
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