Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory最新文献

By developing a new methodology for handling and assessing a large number of shoreline dated sites, this paper compares the summed probability distribution of radiocarbon dates and shoreline dates along the Skagerrak coast of south-eastern Norway. Both measures have previously been compared to elucidate demographic developments in Fennoscandia, but these have not been based on probabilistic methods for shoreline dating. The findings indicate a largely diverging development of the two data sets through the Mesolithic. The number of shoreline dated sites undergoes some process of overall decrease through the period, while the radiocarbon data is characterised by a lacking signal in the earliest parts of the period and then undergoes a logistic growth that quickly plateaus and remains stable for the remainder of the period. The precise nature of this discrepancy will necessitate further substantiation and the method of shoreline dating itself still requires further testing and assessment. Having noted this, we still tentatively suggest that while the number of shoreline dated sites is not devoid of influence from a demographic signal, this measure could be more heavily influenced by mobility patterns. Conversely, we also suggest that the lacking radiocarbon data from the earliest part of the Mesolithic is in part the result of mobility patterns, but that the radiocarbon data could be reflecting population dynamics more directly.

Recent advances in archaeogenomics have granted access to previously unavailable biological information with the potential to further our understanding of past social dynamics at a range of scales. However, to properly integrate these data within archaeological narratives, new methodological and theoretical tools are required. Effort must be put into finding new methods for weaving together different datasets where material culture and archaeogenomic data are both constitutive elements. This is true on a small scale, when we study relationships at the individual level, and at a larger scale when we deal with social and population dynamics. Specifically, in the study of kinship systems, it is essential to contextualize and make sense of biological relatedness through social relations, which, in archaeology, is achieved by using material culture as a proxy. In this paper, we propose a Network Science framework to integrate archaeogenomic data and material culture at an intra-site scale to study biological relatedness and social organization at the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük. Methodologically, we propose the use of network variance to investigate the association between biological relatedness and material culture within networks of houses. This approach allows us to observe how material culture similarity between buildings is associated with biological relationships between individuals and how biogenetic ties concentrate at specific localities on site.

For over a century, scholars have debated the merits of two competing theories for the origins of money. The commodity theory of money has traditionally held that money developed as a medium of exchange in order to increase the economic efficiency of barter economies. Alternatively, chartalist explanations have given causal primacy to the role of state taxation in standardizing money as a unit of account. Recently, skepticism over the existence of barter economies in either contemporary societies or ancient history has led to the increased popularity of the state-centric chartalist approach. Evidence from many pre-state societies around the world, however, shows that commodity money was often used in long-distance trade networks where systems of debt and reciprocity would have been impractical. This paper draws on evidence from two such exchange systems, the “interior world” of pre-Columbian western North America and the Bronze Age of western Europe, to argue that money can come about to facilitate exchange between strangers and across borders. As such, I suggest that the commodity theory of money is more accurately explained by the importance of exchange in external rather than internal economic systems. I propose that a trade theory of money can explain the origins of money in pre-state societies without relying on the “myth of barter”.

This study pioneers the application of geometric morphometrics to Palaeolithic hand stencils, offering new insights into the problematics of classic rock art using innovative methodology. Employing a triple approach encompassing contemporary, experimental, and archaeological populations, the research achieves a precise estimation of age and biological sex through hand morphometry, enhancing our anthropometric understanding of the individuals whose hands were stencilled. The results of the analysis of the archaeological sample reveals a notable presence of sub-adults, indicating children’s participation in the creation of hand stencils. The findings also suggest a balanced, mixed participation between sexes across age groups and cave locations, reflecting cohesive social behaviour among Upper Palaeolithic human groups. Statistical analysis indicates that finger width in the Palaeolithic population is larger than in the modern sample, possibly due to a more active lifestyle. Most importantly, the study demonstrates the methodology’s repeatability across various chronologies and geographies, especially in well-preserved samples, underscoring its applicability worldwide. Overall, this research represents a significant methodological advancement in our ability to understand Palaeolithic rock art, shedding light on lifestyle and cultural dynamics of hunter-gatherer societies.

In bioarchaeology, funerary taphonomy and preservation become part of the biocultural narrative of the dead. We evaluate the role of these factors in reconstructing the identities of those buried in an emerging deathway, the ventrally placed legs flexed (VPLF) burial position, during the Terminal Classic (750–900/1000 CE) period at the Maya polity of Lower Dover in western Belize. The term “VPLF” describes a divergent burial practice which may have resulted from intentional binding prior to burial. In our analysis of VPLF burials (n = 12), we use a two-step process to reconstruct the social identities and potential meaning of the burial pattern: (1) interpretation of the archaeological context based on excavation observations and biogeochemistry and (2) osteological analysis of curated individuals to reconstruct their biological profiles and post-mortem/post-excavation histories. Osteological analyses included age and sex estimation, paleopathological assessment of frailty and trauma, and skeletal modifications from cultural and taphonomic forces. Radiocarbon dating and ceramic analyses were used to date the burials. Stable and radiogenic isotopic analyses were applied to reconstruct diet and mobility for a subset of the VPLF burials. Our results show that individuals were buried in the VPLF position irrespective of age, sex, or social status, consistent with patterns at other Terminal Classic and Postclassic Maya sites, although VPLF interment may have been practiced earlier at Lower Dover. We hypothesize that the appearance of VPLF burials in the Terminal Classic period signified an ideological shift in light of emerging social and environmental pressures in the region.

This paper presents novel insights into the long-term chronological patterns related to the distribution and consumption of amphora-borne foodstuffs in Italy. The study specifically focuses on the consumption of wine, olive oil and fish sauces, which exhibit diverse provenances. Notably, it contributes significantly to our understanding of the Roman economy by utilising an open dataset and a replicable research method. The analysis reveals a pronounced growth pattern during the late Republican to early Imperial period. Importantly, quantitative evidence demonstrates that the diverse consumption pattern observed in the capital city of Rome is less exceptional than previously believed. The study draws upon a substantial dataset comprising 28,851 diagnostic amphora fragments excavated and documented from 28 different urban and rural settlements in the North Adriatic and Central Italy, spanning the period from the 4th c. BCE to the 7th c. CE. The analytical approach employs a probabilistic aoristic method, evenly distributing amphora frequencies across relevant date ranges.

This article is introducing a method for the analysis of landscape visual coherence. Inspired by landscape and architecture research, the landscape chambers method is based on quantitative analysis of visibility networks, modelled in a digital environment. It relies on an algorithm for the detection of closely connected subgroups within an intervisibility network, in order to isolate visually distinct areas or landscape chambers. This approach is applied to prehistoric landscapes in the Parisian Basin (2000–500 BCE), where funerary monuments reveal complex relationships between past populations and their visual landscape. The analysis uncovered that these monuments were typically placed in visually exposed locations, with preference, in certain cases, for visually coherent landscape chambers. The proposed approach thus offered insights into the semiosis of the prehistoric landscape, i.e., the production of new meanings through visual discourse. More generally, the proposed method aims to provide a conceptual and methodological bridge between the study of physical and mental spaces.

Networks are increasingly used to describe and analyse complex archaeological data in terms of nodes (archaeological sites or places) and edges (representing relationships or connections between each pair of nodes). Network analysis can then be applied to express local and global properties of the system, including structure (e.g. modularity) or connectivity. However, the usually high amount of missing data in archaeology and the uncertainty they cause make it difficult to obtain meaningful and robust results from the statistical methods utilised in the field of network analysis. Hence, we present in this paper manual and computational methods to (1) fill gaps in the settlement record and (2) reconstruct an ancient route system to retrieve a network that is as complete as possible. Our study focuses on the sites and routes, so-called hollow ways, in the Khabur Valley, Mesopotamia, during the Bronze and Iron Age as one of the most intensively surveyed areas worldwide. We were able to predict additional sites that were missing from the record as well as develop an innovative hybrid approach to complement the partly preserved hollow way system by integrating a manual and computational procedure. The set of methods we used can be adapted to significantly enhance the description of many other cases, and with appropriate extensions successfully tackle almost any archaeological region.

Taphonomic analysis of bone microstructure, commonly known as histotaphonomy, has been used as a proxy for interpreting early post-mortem treatments in archaeological contexts with increasing frequency. This method is especially useful when evidence for varied pre-depositional practices such as disarticulation and taphonomic markers (e.g. fracturing, gnawing, cut marks, weathering) is present in the assemblage, but is rarely used on faunal remains. Iron Age Britain provides the ideal context for comparative study due to the wide range of depositional practices employed for both humans and animals. While human and faunal remains from single sites in Britain have been studied before, such as at Cladh Hallan and Danebury hillfort, they were usually examined separately without substantial synthesis of the data. Thus, this study represents the first single-site comparative histotaphonomic analysis of archaeological human and animal remains from Britain. To this end, this research assesses archaeological human and faunal bone from Battlesbury Bowl, an Iron Age site in Wiltshire England, with 70 samples (46 faunal and 24 human) taken from a range of contexts, and from both articulated and disarticulated deposits. It explores evidence for the mortuary practices afforded to human remains and how they compare to the treatment of fauna from the site. Macroscopic analysis was undertaken prior to thin section microscopy using the Oxford Histological Index (OHI) and the Birefringence Index (BI). Results showed that the faunal samples from Battlesbury Bowl have more varied microstructural preservation with some species treated similarly to humans post-mortem, while others (especially caprines) are generally better preserved. This suggests that humans and animals at Battlesbury Bowl were subject to different early post-mortem processes, thus shedding light on mortuary practices and the complexity of human-animal relations in life and death.

Mortuary archaeology in the Maya region is complicated by both cultural and natural factors. Distinctive funerary depositional and post-depositional secondary activities, in addition to tropical climate, contribute to the complexity of pre-Hispanic Maya funerary practices. This paper proposes to merge 2D and 3D recording data to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the taphonomic phenomena that affect heavily altered burials at the site of Palenque, Mexico. Employing an archaeothanatological approach, we argue that careful 3D imaging, integrated with earlier produced legacy data, provides additional insight into the formation processes of funerary contexts compared to previous methods. Digital photogrammetric analyses improve our capacity to reconstruct joint articulations of the body and its original funerary deposition in situ. The results of this research elucidate the intentional activities that led to the archaeological arrangement of the grave assemblage. By noticing the degree of articulation and clarifying the pace at which bodies decomposed, these results showcase the depositional sequence of one collective mixed burial from Group IV, a domestic compound in Palenque. These results suggest the viability of 3D methodologies in assessing post-depositional disturbances and movements of the body, both for illuminating funerary taphonomic practices and serving as important recording procedures for the future.