Pub Date : 2026-01-28DOI: 10.1007/s10814-026-09219-2
Adam S. Green, Jessica Munson, Victor D. Thompson, Jennifer Birch
{"title":"Meeting the Urgent Need and Growing Demand for Archaeological Synthesis","authors":"Adam S. Green, Jessica Munson, Victor D. Thompson, Jennifer Birch","doi":"10.1007/s10814-026-09219-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-026-09219-2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47005,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Research","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146070236","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-13DOI: 10.1007/s10814-025-09218-9
Wolfgang Alders
Urbanism shaped social, ideological, and environmental transformations on the tropical eastern African Swahili Coast from the end of the first millennium AD onward. However, it is unclear how settlement trajectories in this region compare with recently expanded understandings of urbanism within the contexts of tropical ecology globally. To address this question, I consider the biogeographical and sociopolitical conditions of urban growth in the region from AD 1000 to 1900, drawing from archaeological research around the city of Zanzibar Stone Town. Unlike other parts of the tropics, Swahili urbanization did not involve extensive landscape engineering, distributed urban networks, or low-density sprawl. Rather, mercantile, communal, and ritual activities drew people into dense, compact towns and cities that persisted through significant social and environmental transformations. I argue that the ethnographically derived model of the Swahili townland is a suitable framework for characterizing tropical Swahili urbanism. It featured compact, high-density settlement forms, managed tropical resource landscapes, and long-distance mobility and connectivity enabled by open, bilateral kinship systems. In the 19th century, however, globalizing forces drove deforestation and expansion into rural countrysides for cash cropping, setting certain Swahili cities like Zanzibar Stone Town on a trajectory toward their present-day sprawling, peri-urban form. Townland dynamics, featuring concentrated urban functions but widely distributed resource acquisition practices enabled by distributed social networks, may help explain urban growth in other parts of the tropics where dense, compact settlement systems emerged.
{"title":"Townlands of the Swahili Coast: A Framework for Compact, High-Density Tropical Urbanism on Eastern Africa’s Indian Ocean Rim","authors":"Wolfgang Alders","doi":"10.1007/s10814-025-09218-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-025-09218-9","url":null,"abstract":"Urbanism shaped social, ideological, and environmental transformations on the tropical eastern African Swahili Coast from the end of the first millennium AD onward. However, it is unclear how settlement trajectories in this region compare with recently expanded understandings of urbanism within the contexts of tropical ecology globally. To address this question, I consider the biogeographical and sociopolitical conditions of urban growth in the region from AD 1000 to 1900, drawing from archaeological research around the city of Zanzibar Stone Town. Unlike other parts of the tropics, Swahili urbanization did not involve extensive landscape engineering, distributed urban networks, or low-density sprawl. Rather, mercantile, communal, and ritual activities drew people into dense, compact towns and cities that persisted through significant social and environmental transformations. I argue that the ethnographically derived model of the Swahili townland is a suitable framework for characterizing tropical Swahili urbanism. It featured compact, high-density settlement forms, managed tropical resource landscapes, and long-distance mobility and connectivity enabled by open, bilateral kinship systems. In the 19th century, however, globalizing forces drove deforestation and expansion into rural countrysides for cash cropping, setting certain Swahili cities like Zanzibar Stone Town on a trajectory toward their present-day sprawling, peri-urban form. Townland dynamics, featuring concentrated urban functions but widely distributed resource acquisition practices enabled by distributed social networks, may help explain urban growth in other parts of the tropics where dense, compact settlement systems emerged.","PeriodicalId":47005,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Research","volume":"83 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145962019","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2026-01-06DOI: 10.1007/s10814-025-09215-y
Eric Alden Smith, Brian F. Codding
{"title":"Explaining Inequality in Northwest Coast and Native California Societies: A Critical Assessment","authors":"Eric Alden Smith, Brian F. Codding","doi":"10.1007/s10814-025-09215-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-025-09215-y","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47005,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Research","volume":"43 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2026-01-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145947283","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-27DOI: 10.1007/s10814-025-09217-w
Karen D. Lupo
The use of evolutionary models in zooarchaeological analysis is a well-established practice but the last few decades have witnessed modifications to existing foraging theory and insights from other evolutionary perspectives. Traditional applications of foraging theory continue to be successfully applied in zooarchaeological contexts, but researchers are increasingly focused on re-evaluating and exploring how trade-offs are made under circumstances of nutritional limitations, risk, sociopolitical constraints, and future returns from resource management. This review casts current and new perspectives within an optimality framework to promote and facilitate the integration of multiple perspectives in addressing far-reaching questions about the evolution of the human condition at different scales. This review also identifies central challenges to the application of different models, some of which can be addressed through high-resolution modeling, ethnographic, experimental, and ethnoarchaeological research. Going forward, researchers should consider the potential value of using complementary approaches, alternative currencies, and different goals and constraints. Future research trends should consider modifying existing perspectives to accommodate and include the multiple currencies, the full-range of different kinds of interactions hunter-gatherers have with animals and other populations, and, where possible, Indigenous Systems of Knowledge and Traditional Knowledge Systems.
{"title":"What’s New in Applications of Evolutionary Theory to the Zooarchaeological Record of Hunter-Gatherers?","authors":"Karen D. Lupo","doi":"10.1007/s10814-025-09217-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-025-09217-w","url":null,"abstract":"The use of evolutionary models in zooarchaeological analysis is a well-established practice but the last few decades have witnessed modifications to existing foraging theory and insights from other evolutionary perspectives. Traditional applications of foraging theory continue to be successfully applied in zooarchaeological contexts, but researchers are increasingly focused on re-evaluating and exploring how trade-offs are made under circumstances of nutritional limitations, risk, sociopolitical constraints, and future returns from resource management. This review casts current and new perspectives within an optimality framework to promote and facilitate the integration of multiple perspectives in addressing far-reaching questions about the evolution of the human condition at different scales. This review also identifies central challenges to the application of different models, some of which can be addressed through high-resolution modeling, ethnographic, experimental, and ethnoarchaeological research. Going forward, researchers should consider the potential value of using complementary approaches, alternative currencies, and different goals and constraints. Future research trends should consider modifying existing perspectives to accommodate and include the multiple currencies, the full-range of different kinds of interactions hunter-gatherers have with animals and other populations, and, where possible, Indigenous Systems of Knowledge and Traditional Knowledge Systems.","PeriodicalId":47005,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Research","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145847164","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-10DOI: 10.1007/s10814-025-09216-x
Václav Vondrovský, Václav Hrnčíř, Daniel Hlásek, Ondřej Chvojka, Petr Květina, Petr Šída, Jan John, Petr Pokorný, Michaela Ptáková
The past two decades have revolutionized our understanding of European prehistory, shaping new grand narratives focused on core regions with rich archaeological records. These studies suggest that major sociocultural shifts in central Europe, such as the Early Neolithic transition to farming, the spread of steppe ancestry during the Late Neolithic, and the rise of complexity at the beginning of the Early Bronze Age, were synchronous across extensive territories. However, peripheral areas, like uplands and vast wetlands, remain understudied despite indications of alternative developmental trajectories. Their role in broader prehistoric frameworks remains poorly understood. This paper critically reassesses these narratives by analyzing a dataset of nearly 900 radiocarbon measurements from five environmentally distinct regions in the heartland of central Europe. Using Bayesian chronological modeling and the concept of the inner periphery derived from world-systems analysis, we move beyond traditional cultural classifications to explore regional diversity in key Neolithic and Early Bronze Age transformations. Our findings reveal a significantly delayed adoption of novel practices in upland regions, challenging the notion of simultaneous and homogeneous change. This study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the interplay between core and peripheral regions, offering new perspectives on past sociocultural dynamics.
{"title":"Rethinking Key Transformations in the Neolithic and Bronze Age Central Europe: A Radiocarbon Modeling Approach","authors":"Václav Vondrovský, Václav Hrnčíř, Daniel Hlásek, Ondřej Chvojka, Petr Květina, Petr Šída, Jan John, Petr Pokorný, Michaela Ptáková","doi":"10.1007/s10814-025-09216-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-025-09216-x","url":null,"abstract":"The past two decades have revolutionized our understanding of European prehistory, shaping new grand narratives focused on core regions with rich archaeological records. These studies suggest that major sociocultural shifts in central Europe, such as the Early Neolithic transition to farming, the spread of steppe ancestry during the Late Neolithic, and the rise of complexity at the beginning of the Early Bronze Age, were synchronous across extensive territories. However, peripheral areas, like uplands and vast wetlands, remain understudied despite indications of alternative developmental trajectories. Their role in broader prehistoric frameworks remains poorly understood. This paper critically reassesses these narratives by analyzing a dataset of nearly 900 radiocarbon measurements from five environmentally distinct regions in the heartland of central Europe. Using Bayesian chronological modeling and the concept of the inner periphery derived from world-systems analysis, we move beyond traditional cultural classifications to explore regional diversity in key Neolithic and Early Bronze Age transformations. Our findings reveal a significantly delayed adoption of novel practices in upland regions, challenging the notion of simultaneous and homogeneous change. This study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the interplay between core and peripheral regions, offering new perspectives on past sociocultural dynamics.","PeriodicalId":47005,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Research","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145711315","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-12-01DOI: 10.1007/s10814-025-09209-w
Joanne P. Baron, Ivan Marić
{"title":"Understanding Money Through Archaeology: Debates and Recent Developments","authors":"Joanne P. Baron, Ivan Marić","doi":"10.1007/s10814-025-09209-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-025-09209-w","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47005,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Research","volume":"115 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145657230","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-11-27DOI: 10.1007/s10814-025-09212-1
Joaquim Fort
This paper reviews the data and some models of premodern farming expansions. Comparison of archaeological data and models makes it possible to estimate the relative importance of demic and cultural diffusion, as well as the number of hunter-gatherers that were incorporated in the populations of early farmers per farmer and generation. At continental and large scales, most inland spread rates around the world were about 1 km/year and driven mainly by demic diffusion. However, the 1 km/year general rate is an average, which is useful as a metric that can be contrasted with the regional variation to understand the processes that sped or slowed expansion. At regional scales, estimations of spread rates performed so far refer to the Neolithic in Europe and Anatolia, the areas from which more radiocarbon dates are available. Along the inland European route, early farmers found increasing densities of hunter-gatherers and the wave of advance slowed down. Competition for space explains this slowdown reasonably well. In contrast, along the western Mediterranean, the expansion was extremely fast and can be explained by very long dispersal distances, about 300 km per generation. Other factors such as non-isotropic dispersal, mountains, soils, climate, diseases, etc. could have also affected spread rates.
{"title":"Tendencies in the Tempo of Prehistoric Agricultural Expansions","authors":"Joaquim Fort","doi":"10.1007/s10814-025-09212-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-025-09212-1","url":null,"abstract":"This paper reviews the data and some models of premodern farming expansions. Comparison of archaeological data and models makes it possible to estimate the relative importance of demic and cultural diffusion, as well as the number of hunter-gatherers that were incorporated in the populations of early farmers per farmer and generation. At continental and large scales, most inland spread rates around the world were about 1 km/year and driven mainly by demic diffusion. However, the 1 km/year general rate is an average, which is useful as a metric that can be contrasted with the regional variation to understand the processes that sped or slowed expansion. At regional scales, estimations of spread rates performed so far refer to the Neolithic in Europe and Anatolia, the areas from which more radiocarbon dates are available. Along the inland European route, early farmers found increasing densities of hunter-gatherers and the wave of advance slowed down. Competition for space explains this slowdown reasonably well. In contrast, along the western Mediterranean, the expansion was extremely fast and can be explained by very long dispersal distances, about 300 km per generation. Other factors such as non-isotropic dispersal, mountains, soils, climate, diseases, etc. could have also affected spread rates.","PeriodicalId":47005,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Research","volume":"97 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145609076","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-11-25DOI: 10.1007/s10814-025-09214-z
S. Anna Florin, Monica N. Ramsey
{"title":"The Broad Spectrum Species: Plant Use and Processing as Deep Time Adaptations","authors":"S. Anna Florin, Monica N. Ramsey","doi":"10.1007/s10814-025-09214-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-025-09214-z","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47005,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Research","volume":"191 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-11-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145593577","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-11-21DOI: 10.1007/s10814-025-09211-2
Justin Bradfield, Michelle C. Langley
{"title":"Bone Tool Diversity During the Stone Age: More Insights into the Human Story","authors":"Justin Bradfield, Michelle C. Langley","doi":"10.1007/s10814-025-09211-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-025-09211-2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47005,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Research","volume":"64 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145575670","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-11-19DOI: 10.1007/s10814-025-09213-0
Gary M. Feinman, Linda M. Nicholas
{"title":"Reflective Perspectives from 33 Years at the Journal of Archaeological Research","authors":"Gary M. Feinman, Linda M. Nicholas","doi":"10.1007/s10814-025-09213-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10814-025-09213-0","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47005,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Research","volume":"244 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.8,"publicationDate":"2025-11-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145546194","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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