Pub Date : 2019-08-13DOI: 10.1007/s10963-019-09133-0
Hamed Vahdati Nasab, Sanaz Shirvani, S. Rigaud
{"title":"The Northern Iranian Central Plateau at the End of the Pleistocene and Early Holocene: The Emergence of Domestication","authors":"Hamed Vahdati Nasab, Sanaz Shirvani, S. Rigaud","doi":"10.1007/s10963-019-09133-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-019-09133-0","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47061,"journal":{"name":"Journal of World Prehistory","volume":"32 1","pages":"287 - 310"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2019-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s10963-019-09133-0","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41601372","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 : 2019-08-03DOI: 10.1007/s10963-019-09132-1
S. Salvatori, D. Usai
{"title":"The Neolithic and ‘Pastoralism’ Along the Nile: A Dissenting View","authors":"S. Salvatori, D. Usai","doi":"10.1007/s10963-019-09132-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-019-09132-1","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47061,"journal":{"name":"Journal of World Prehistory","volume":"32 1","pages":"251 - 285"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2019-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s10963-019-09132-1","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47035879","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 : 2019-05-22DOI: 10.1007/s10963-019-09129-w
Feng Li, S. Kuhn, O. Bar‐Yosef, Fuyou Chen, Fei Peng, XingYou Gao
{"title":"History, Chronology and Techno-Typology of the Upper Paleolithic Sequence in the Shuidonggou Area, Northern China","authors":"Feng Li, S. Kuhn, O. Bar‐Yosef, Fuyou Chen, Fei Peng, XingYou Gao","doi":"10.1007/s10963-019-09129-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-019-09129-w","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47061,"journal":{"name":"Journal of World Prehistory","volume":"32 1","pages":"111 - 141"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s10963-019-09129-w","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"52463862","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 : 2019-05-16DOI: 10.1007/s10963-019-09131-2
Andrea U. Kay, D. Fuller, K. Neumann, B. Eichhorn, A. Höhn, Julie Morin‐Rivat, Louis Champion, V. Linseele, E. Huysecom, S. Ozainne, L. Lespez, S. Biagetti, M. Madella, U. Salzmann, J. Kaplan
{"title":"Diversification, Intensification and Specialization: Changing Land Use in Western Africa from 1800 BC to AD 1500","authors":"Andrea U. Kay, D. Fuller, K. Neumann, B. Eichhorn, A. Höhn, Julie Morin‐Rivat, Louis Champion, V. Linseele, E. Huysecom, S. Ozainne, L. Lespez, S. Biagetti, M. Madella, U. Salzmann, J. Kaplan","doi":"10.1007/s10963-019-09131-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-019-09131-2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47061,"journal":{"name":"Journal of World Prehistory","volume":"32 1","pages":"179 - 228"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2019-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s10963-019-09131-2","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"52464022","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 : 2019-01-22DOI: 10.1007/s10963-018-09128-3
Jonathan R. Wood, Ignacio Montero-Ruiz, Marcos Martinón-Torres
The origins of the silver trade across the Mediterranean, and the role of the Phoenicians in this phenomenon, remain contentious. This is partly because of difficulties encountered when trying to assign archaeological silver to its geological sources. Here we present a reanalysis of Iron Age silver hoards in the southern Levant, which demonstrates not only that recycling of silver was widespread in the Early and Late Iron Age, but that the components of this mixed silver originated from the Aegean, Anatolia and the western Mediterranean. An assessment of lead isotope analyses combined with compositional data allows the identification of mixing lines based on gold levels in the silver and the Pb crustal age (or, more loosely, geological age) of the ore from which the silver originated. It is shown that, from as early as the 11th century BC, these mixed silver signatures derive from the Taurus mountains in Anatolia, from Iberia and an unknown source—with Sardinia as an additional possibility—and Laurion in Greece in the Late Iron Age. In contrast to copper, which was deliberately alloyed with silver, gold appears to have been mixed unintentionally, through the melting down of silver objects with gold parts. It is suggested that vertical mixing lines (with constant Pb crustal age but variable Au), may indicate the melting down and mixing of silver in times of unrest, both here and in other contexts. Gold and lead concentrations in the silver indicate that native silver from Iberia was most likely used in the Early Iron Age, suggesting that the first people to convey silver to the southern Levant were not miners but traders who had acquired silver directly from the indigenous Bronze Age inhabitants of Iberia. However, evidence of the exploitation of jarosite also supports that silver ore mining and cupellation was ongoing in Iberia at a similar time, and continued in the Late Iron Age—potentially a result of technological transfer from the East. In essence, the western Mediterranean origin of the silver in these Early Iron Age southern Levantine hoards supports an emerging picture of Mediterranean interactions and trade relations in the increasingly bright Dark Ages (c. 1200–800 BC).
{"title":"From Iberia to the Southern Levant: The Movement of Silver Across the Mediterranean in the Early Iron Age","authors":"Jonathan R. Wood, Ignacio Montero-Ruiz, Marcos Martinón-Torres","doi":"10.1007/s10963-018-09128-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-018-09128-3","url":null,"abstract":"The origins of the silver trade across the Mediterranean, and the role of the Phoenicians in this phenomenon, remain contentious. This is partly because of difficulties encountered when trying to assign archaeological silver to its geological sources. Here we present a reanalysis of Iron Age silver hoards in the southern Levant, which demonstrates not only that recycling of silver was widespread in the Early and Late Iron Age, but that the components of this mixed silver originated from the Aegean, Anatolia and the western Mediterranean. An assessment of lead isotope analyses combined with compositional data allows the identification of mixing lines based on gold levels in the silver and the Pb crustal age (or, more loosely, geological age) of the ore from which the silver originated. It is shown that, from as early as the 11th century BC, these mixed silver signatures derive from the Taurus mountains in Anatolia, from Iberia and an unknown source—with Sardinia as an additional possibility—and Laurion in Greece in the Late Iron Age. In contrast to copper, which was deliberately alloyed with silver, gold appears to have been mixed unintentionally, through the melting down of silver objects with gold parts. It is suggested that <i>vertical mixing lines</i> (with constant Pb crustal age but variable Au), may indicate the melting down and mixing of silver in times of unrest, both here and in other contexts. Gold and lead concentrations in the silver indicate that native silver from Iberia was most likely used in the Early Iron Age, suggesting that the first people to convey silver to the southern Levant were not miners but traders who had acquired silver directly from the indigenous Bronze Age inhabitants of Iberia. However, evidence of the exploitation of jarosite also supports that silver ore mining and cupellation was ongoing in Iberia at a similar time, and continued in the Late Iron Age—potentially a result of technological transfer from the East. In essence, the western Mediterranean origin of the silver in these Early Iron Age southern Levantine hoards supports an emerging picture of Mediterranean interactions and trade relations in the increasingly <i>bright</i> Dark Ages (c. 1200–800 BC).","PeriodicalId":47061,"journal":{"name":"Journal of World Prehistory","volume":"51 12","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138513297","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 : 2019-01-19DOI: 10.1007/s10963-018-09127-4
Manuel Will, Andrew W. Kandel, Nicholas J. Conard
Coastal adaptations have become an important topic in discussions about the evolution and dispersal of Homo sapiens. However, the actual distribution and potential relevance of coastal adaptations (broadly, the use of coastal resources and settlement along shorelines) in these processes remains debated, as is the claim that Neanderthals exhibited similar behaviors. To assess both questions, we performed a systematic review comparing coastal adaptations of H. sapiens during the African Middle Stone Age (MSA) with those of contemporaneous Neanderthals during the European Middle Paleolithic. In both species, systematic use of marine resources and coastal landscapes constitutes a consistent behavioral signature over ~ 100,000 years (MIS 6–3) in several regions of Africa and Europe. We found more similarities than differences between Neanderthals and modern humans, with remaining disparities all in degree rather than kind. H. sapiens exploited a wider range of marine resources—particularly shellfish—more intensively. MSA shellfish-bearing sites are also more often associated with intense occupations on coastal landscapes, and more evidence of complex material culture such as shell beads. In terms of broader ramifications, Pleistocene coastal adaptations are best conceived of as an ‘add-on’ to previous adaptive strategies, complementing more frequently exploited inland resources and landscapes. Still, Neanderthals and modern humans increased their dietary breadth and quality, and added options for occupation and range expansion along coastlines. Potential evolutionary implications of these multi-generational behaviors include higher intakes of brain-selective nutrients as a basis for neurobiological changes connected to increased cognitive capacities, but also greater reproductive success, dispersal abilities and behavioral flexibility. Whether gradual differences between modern humans and Neanderthals stimulated different evolutionary trajectories is a question for future research.
{"title":"Midden or Molehill: The Role of Coastal Adaptations in Human Evolution and Dispersal","authors":"Manuel Will, Andrew W. Kandel, Nicholas J. Conard","doi":"10.1007/s10963-018-09127-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-018-09127-4","url":null,"abstract":"Coastal adaptations have become an important topic in discussions about the evolution and dispersal of <i>Homo sapiens</i>. However, the actual distribution and potential relevance of coastal adaptations (broadly, the use of coastal resources and settlement along shorelines) in these processes remains debated, as is the claim that Neanderthals exhibited similar behaviors. To assess both questions, we performed a systematic review comparing coastal adaptations of <i>H. sapiens</i> during the African Middle Stone Age (MSA) with those of contemporaneous Neanderthals during the European Middle Paleolithic. In both species, systematic use of marine resources and coastal landscapes constitutes a consistent behavioral signature over ~ 100,000 years (MIS 6–3) in several regions of Africa and Europe. We found more similarities than differences between Neanderthals and modern humans, with remaining disparities all in degree rather than kind. <i>H. sapiens</i> exploited a wider range of marine resources—particularly shellfish—more intensively. MSA shellfish-bearing sites are also more often associated with intense occupations on coastal landscapes, and more evidence of complex material culture such as shell beads. In terms of broader ramifications, Pleistocene coastal adaptations are best conceived of as an ‘add-on’ to previous adaptive strategies, complementing more frequently exploited inland resources and landscapes. Still, Neanderthals and modern humans increased their dietary breadth and quality, and added options for occupation and range expansion along coastlines. Potential evolutionary implications of these multi-generational behaviors include higher intakes of brain-selective nutrients as a basis for neurobiological changes connected to increased cognitive capacities, but also greater reproductive success, dispersal abilities and behavioral flexibility. Whether gradual differences between modern humans and Neanderthals stimulated different evolutionary trajectories is a question for future research.","PeriodicalId":47061,"journal":{"name":"Journal of World Prehistory","volume":"51 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138513308","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 : 2018-11-15DOI: 10.1007/s10963-018-9125-z
Federico Bernardini
This paper reports the results of a long-term project on the stone axes from Caput Adriae. Available data show that jade axes originating in the western Alps reached the Neolithic groups of Friuli Venezia Giulia and coastal Istria as early as the second half of the 6th millennium BC, during the Danilo/Vlaška culture. The exchange of this and other classes of lithic artefacts testifies that in this period this area was fully integrated into long-distance exchange systems that used mainly coastal routes. These systems would have continued in the 5th millennium BC, as indicated by a few oversized jade axe blades and other materials. Far from the coast, jade axes entered central Slovenia, probably reaching sites of the Sava Group of the Lengyel culture in the first half of the 5th millennium BC. In roughly the same period, shaft-hole axes made of Bohemian metabasites (BM) spread over central and southeastern Europe, crossed the Alps and reached Italy. According to different Neolithic traditions, during the 5th millennium BC Europe appears to be divided into a jade-using western area and a central-eastern BM-using one. During the 4th millennium BC, the exchange networks of Caput Adriae are increasingly influenced by the eastern Alpine and Balkan world, where the raw material sources of the main groups of shaft-hole axes are located. The association of the rocks used for axe production and copper ore suggests that the changes in raw material exploitation strategies during the Copper Age were probably related to the development of the first metallurgy.
{"title":"Polished Stone Axes in Caput Adriae from the Neolithic to the Copper Age","authors":"Federico Bernardini","doi":"10.1007/s10963-018-9125-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-018-9125-z","url":null,"abstract":"This paper reports the results of a long-term project on the stone axes from Caput Adriae. Available data show that jade axes originating in the western Alps reached the Neolithic groups of Friuli Venezia Giulia and coastal Istria as early as the second half of the 6th millennium BC, during the Danilo/Vlaška culture. The exchange of this and other classes of lithic artefacts testifies that in this period this area was fully integrated into long-distance exchange systems that used mainly coastal routes. These systems would have continued in the 5th millennium BC, as indicated by a few oversized jade axe blades and other materials. Far from the coast, jade axes entered central Slovenia, probably reaching sites of the Sava Group of the Lengyel culture in the first half of the 5th millennium BC. In roughly the same period, shaft-hole axes made of Bohemian metabasites (BM) spread over central and southeastern Europe, crossed the Alps and reached Italy. According to different Neolithic traditions, during the 5th millennium BC Europe appears to be divided into a jade-using western area and a central-eastern BM-using one. During the 4th millennium BC, the exchange networks of Caput Adriae are increasingly influenced by the eastern Alpine and Balkan world, where the raw material sources of the main groups of shaft-hole axes are located. The association of the rocks used for axe production and copper ore suggests that the changes in raw material exploitation strategies during the Copper Age were probably related to the development of the first metallurgy.","PeriodicalId":47061,"journal":{"name":"Journal of World Prehistory","volume":"51 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2018-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138513298","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 : 2018-10-16DOI: 10.1007/s10963-018-9124-0
Igor V. Chechushkov, Andrei V. Epimakhov
This paper aims to examine some societal principles that underlie the development of horse-drawn chariots in Inner Eurasia during the Middle and Late Bronze Age (cal. 2050–1750 BC). Analysis is based on an evaluation and re-examination of the archaeological evidence for horse-drawn chariots, and the social constructs they entail. Chariots were developed in the zone of the Northern Eurasian steppes before c. 2000 BC in the context of complex but stateless societies. Because chariots depend on a set of developed skills, valuable resources, and complicated technologies, which involve several outstanding improvements to previously known solutions, they require specific conditions for their development and maintenance in social life. Most fundamentally, they require a group of people with an interest in this complex technology: a class of military elites characterized by aggrandizing behavior. The competition between collectives of military elites for resources, power and prestige brought into life the earliest chariot complex in the world.
{"title":"Eurasian Steppe Chariots and Social Complexity During the Bronze Age","authors":"Igor V. Chechushkov, Andrei V. Epimakhov","doi":"10.1007/s10963-018-9124-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-018-9124-0","url":null,"abstract":"This paper aims to examine some societal principles that underlie the development of horse-drawn chariots in Inner Eurasia during the Middle and Late Bronze Age (cal. 2050–1750 BC). Analysis is based on an evaluation and re-examination of the archaeological evidence for horse-drawn chariots, and the social constructs they entail. Chariots were developed in the zone of the Northern Eurasian steppes before c. 2000 BC in the context of complex but stateless societies. Because chariots depend on a set of developed skills, valuable resources, and complicated technologies, which involve several outstanding improvements to previously known solutions, they require specific conditions for their development and maintenance in social life. Most fundamentally, they require a group of people with an interest in this complex technology: a class of military elites characterized by aggrandizing behavior. The competition between collectives of military elites for resources, power and prestige brought into life the earliest chariot complex in the world.","PeriodicalId":47061,"journal":{"name":"Journal of World Prehistory","volume":"53 11","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2018-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138513285","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 : 2018-08-25DOI: 10.1007/s10963-018-9123-1
Hannah Cobb, Amy Gray Jones
Fifty years ago, approaches to Mesolithic identity were limited to ideas of ‘Man the Hunter’ and ‘Woman the Gatherer’, while evidence of non-normative practice was ascribed to ‘shamans’ and to ‘ritual’, and that was that. As post-processual critiques have touched Mesolithic studies, however, this has changed. In the first decade of the 21st century a strong body of work on Mesolithic identity in life, as well as death, has enabled us to think beyond modern Western categories to interpret identity in the Mesolithic. These studies have addressed the nature of personhood and relational identities, the body, and the relationship between human and other-than-human persons. Our paper reviews these changing approaches, offering a series of case studies from a range of different sites that illustrate how identity is formed and transformed through engagements with landscapes, materials, and both living and dead persons. These are then developed to advocate an assemblage approach to identity in the Mesolithic.
{"title":"Being Mesolithic in Life and Death","authors":"Hannah Cobb, Amy Gray Jones","doi":"10.1007/s10963-018-9123-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-018-9123-1","url":null,"abstract":"Fifty years ago, approaches to Mesolithic identity were limited to ideas of ‘Man the Hunter’ and ‘Woman the Gatherer’, while evidence of non-normative practice was ascribed to ‘shamans’ and to ‘ritual’, and that was that. As post-processual critiques have touched Mesolithic studies, however, this has changed. In the first decade of the 21st century a strong body of work on Mesolithic identity in life, as well as death, has enabled us to think beyond modern Western categories to interpret identity in the Mesolithic. These studies have addressed the nature of personhood and relational identities, the body, and the relationship between human and other-than-human persons. Our paper reviews these changing approaches, offering a series of case studies from a range of different sites that illustrate how identity is formed and transformed through engagements with landscapes, materials, and both living and dead persons. These are then developed to advocate an assemblage approach to identity in the Mesolithic.","PeriodicalId":47061,"journal":{"name":"Journal of World Prehistory","volume":"52 11","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2018-08-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138513295","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 : 2018-08-09DOI: 10.1007/s10963-018-9122-2
Ben Elliott, Aimée Little
{"title":"Introduction: A Social History of the Irish and British Mesolithic","authors":"Ben Elliott, Aimée Little","doi":"10.1007/s10963-018-9122-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10963-018-9122-2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47061,"journal":{"name":"Journal of World Prehistory","volume":"31 1","pages":"315 - 320"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2018-08-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1007/s10963-018-9122-2","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45128943","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}