Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences最新文献

The jiandiping 尖底瓶 amphora is a distinctive pottery type of the Yangshao culture (5000 − 3000 BCE), predominantly found along the middle course of the Yellow River, with a significant concentration in the Wei River Valley. Despite its widespread presence, the function of this vessel has remained elusive in scholarly discourse. This article investigates the amphora’s spatial relationship to salt deposits and examines its physical characteristics, evaluating these aspects within the context of the Yangshao population’s lifestyle in the Wei River Valley. By incorporating evidence from Shang dynasty oracle bone inscriptions and various ethnoarchaeological studies, we propose a new interpretation of the jiandiping amphora as a tool for salt processing. This study prompts a reevaluation of Neolithic cultural and technological practices, highlighting the Yangshao society’s potential involvement in salt exploitation in the Wei River Valley.

The Grotta d’Oriente, on the island of Favignana (Egadi, Sicily) has yielded a series of burials and human remains attributable to the final Epigravettian and Mesolithic. The Epigravettian burial, known as Oriente A, is characterised by funerary equipment consisting of perforated shells and a pebble with traces of red ochre. This site is one of the rare cases in which there is evidence of the use of ochre in a funerary context in Sicily and therefore the archaeological reconstruction requires the chemical-mineralogical characterization of this pigment using SEM, EDS, XRD, FORS and Raman spectroscopy. The comparative analysis of this pigment with a series of Terra Rossa from Favignana and other areas of Sicily has demonstrated that the Oriental A ochre does not derive from these sediments. This study shows the importance of applying different analysis methods for the characterization of ochres to try to define their origin.

Determining the provenience of archaeological objects relies on the so-called “provenience postulate,” namely, that sources of these objects are more compositionally distinct from each other than they are internally variable. For ceramics, it can be relatively straightforward in geologically heterogeneous environments to determine where vessels were produced, and whether they were traded or not. In geologically homogeneous regions, this can be far more complicated. In this study, we mineralogically and chemically compare Bronze Age ceramics (primarily Middle Bronze Age) from five archaeological sites on the Great Hungarian Plain to a large regional clay sample. The Great Hungarian Plain is comprised almost entirely of Pleistocene loess deposits, yet prior compositional studies have identified patterned variability between ceramics from different sites. Our results show that chemical variation in the region is continuous and clinal, making it difficult to strictly apply the provenience postulate to identify distinct production locations. However, we show that this clinal chemical variability can be used to make broad statements about whether most ceramics at any given site were produced relatively locally or were obtained from further distances (c. 50 km or more). We show that while production at most of our study sites was likely relatively localized, in one instance (the tell at Berettyóújfalu-Herpály-Földvár), many ceramics may have been obtained from other Bronze Age communities, including those in the Körös River drainage.

The pilgrimage to the Second Temple included ceremonial elements of strong spiritual significance that elevated the participants to spiritual exaltation. This ceremonial process began with the first steps pilgrims took from their homes towards Jerusalem and concluded when they reached the Temple. This article presents the ceremonial element of the pilgrimage in light of archaeological and anthropological research, integrated with historical sources and with reference to the topography of Jerusalem and its surroundings (including the use of geographic information systems). These tools are used to retrace the path that pilgrims walked and present what the pilgrimage meant for them. The article also investigates whether the physical act of walking can shape the pilgrimage experience and, if so, how this occurs. It is also argued that the main approach to the Temple Mount for Jewish pilgrims led from the south (via the Kidron and Hinnom valleys), and that the construction of this route was designed with geophysical and architectural details meant to enhance the spiritual experience of the pilgrims.

Isaac GL (1969) proposed that Large Cutting Tools (LCTs) made on large flake blanks detached from giant/boulder cores are the key technological variable that distinguishes the Acheulian from the Oldowan. The production of large flake blanks was initially observed in the earliest records of the Acheulian technology in Africa ca. 1.75 Ma, subsequently becoming a technological feature of many sites across eastern Africa. Still, the mode and tempo of evolution of the large flake-based Acheulian technology remains poorly understood. Here we report on the large flake-based Acheulian assemblage at locality MW5 in the Melka Wakena site-complex, chronologically constrained between 1.37 and 1.34 Ma. At the site-complex level we note that aspects related to small flake production remain relatively unchanged since ~ 1.6 Ma. Secondary modification of small flakes by retouch remained marginal and there is only a slight increase in the frequency of structured reduction of cores, compared to the earlier 1.6 Ma assemblage. In contrast, the MW5 lithic assemblages inform of the diachronic shift of lithic techno-economy into a large flake-based LCTs technology. This shift is characterized by: (1) A highly selective use of a specific raw material (glassy ignimbrite) for the production of large flake blanks; (2) transport of prepared large flake blanks from relatively distant sources into the sites as part of a spatially and temporally fragmented reduction sequence; (3) improved know-how of large flake production, (4) the introduction of the Kombewa technology; (5) a unified technological concept for the production of handaxes and cleavers, diverging only in the specific decisions determining their final shape parameters. Taken together, these trends indicate changes in techno-economic strategies related to LCT production, including higher levels of pre-planning in the raw material acquisition stage and higher investment in controlling the morphometric properties of the artifacts.

Compositional data, which have relative rather than absolute meaning, are common in quantitative archaeological research. Such multivariate data are usually expressed as proportions, summing to 1, or equivalently as percentages. We present a comprehensive and defensible workflow for processing compositional data in archaeometry, using both the original compositional values and their transformation to logratios. The most useful logratio transformations are illustrated and how they affect the interpretation of the final results in the context of both unsupervised and supervised learning. The workflow is demonstrated on compositional data from bronze ritual vessels to provide compositional fingerprints for the Shang and Zhou periods of the Chinese Bronze Age. Predictions, with caveats, of the fabrication age of the vessels are made from the compositional data – in effect, compositional rather than typological seriation of the bronzes. In the Supplementary Material, we further explore the effect of zeros in the dataset and compare logratio analyses with the chiPower approach, where we replace any value in the original data determined as being below the detection limit of the instruments for the element, with zeros. The data and R code for reproducing all the analyses are provided both in the Supplementary Information and online.

Only recently has the use of 3D-scanning technology enhanced our ability to consider shape using landmark approaches to geometric morphometrics (GM). Studies examining several types of anthropological datasets have provided mixed reviews of the utility of the third dimension in landmark GM shape analyses. In this paper we present the results of a study examining the methodological utility of three dimensions in landmark GM shape analysis of prehistoric stone points. We used GM to generate principal components (PCs) of shape variation from independent data sets of Clovis and Dalton points in different shape spaces using 2D and 3D versions of the same sample and examined variation in the distribution of shape variables on PCs generated for each data set. Results of uniform multivariate statistical tests performed on each dataset’s PCs were compared to observe whether 2D or 3D data is more effective at determining group membership. We then generated PCs of shape variation in the same shape space using dependent 2D and 3D datasets to observe whether 2D versions of the data cluster with corresponding 3D versions of each point in a PC biplot and multivariate cluster analysis. Results suggest that 2D GM analysis is as capable of discriminating between Clovis and Dalton points as analyses conducted with 3D data. However, those interested in manufacturing technology will benefit from information provided by 3D data sets, which can capture information such as original blank form and thinning strategies.

In this study, cosmetics from the thousands of tombs of wealthy non-elites living in the capital of the Tang dynasty (618–907) in China, were comprehensively analyzed. One moisturizer was identified as ruminant fat with a small amount of Brassicaceae seed oil, which is easier to spread than ruminant fat in the cold, dry winters of northern China. This indicates that the recipe of the moisturizer had been optimized. Two organic residues in shells were identified as color cosmetics, one made from a mixture of vegetable oil, moths, and plant extracts, and another was from a mixture of rosin and plant pigments. Meanwhile a piece of graphite ore was used as an eyebrow cosmetic, and a mixture of cinnabar and animal glue was used as a lipstick or blusher. However, no white cosmetic powders were found in the thousands of Tang tombs. These findings suggest that the cosmetics were diverse and made from a wide range of raw materials, including plants, animals, and minerals, during the Tang dynasty in China.

Terrestrial snails gathered for consumption are found in large quantities at Capsian and Neolithic sites in Tunisia. Signs of preparation and consumption practices (cooking, piercing the shells) are frequent. At the same time, there are some unique finds, which could be related to a local culinary or cultural practice. The discovery of shells with epiphragms in the Upper Capsian (7710 ± 40 BP) rammadiya of Kef Ezzahi is the only known case in North Africa. All of the shells can be attributed to Sphincterochila candidissima. Ethnographic data suggests that the presence of shells with calcified epiphragms could be connected with a culinary tradition. Since shells with epiphragms have been identified only at Kef Ezzahi, this can be regarded as a local dietary practice, as is the case for the eating of Cantareus apertus with epiphragms in northern Tunisia today. The position of the epiphragm at the peristome in these specimens is consistent with collection at the beginning of aestivation (April- July).

This article presents an assemblage of 36 glass samples excavated in the urban site of San Esteban, part of the arrabal of Arrixaca (Murcia) (in al-Andalus, an arrabal was a relatively dense urbanised area outside the city walls) in contexts securely dated to the 12th and early 13th century, spanning the rule of Ibn Mardanīš, and the early period of Almohad domination in the city. The samples were analysed by electron microprobe (EMPA) for major and minor elements and laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) for trace elements. The results are examined within the context of glass production, circulation, and consumption in al-Andalus and the Islamicate Mediterranean more broadly. The results show that some of the glasses found in San Esteban-Arrixaca may have been imported from other Islamicate regions (Egypt and Mesopotamia), but that the vast majority can be related to previously recognised compositional Iberian glass groups. At the same time, the identification of several fragments of production waste and raw glass suggest that some glass-working facility may have existed in the vicinity of San Esteban-Arrixaca. The compositional evidence also indicates that recycling (including of imported glass objects) may have been a fairly common practice in Andalusi glassmaking, but it is suggested that some of the usual chemical markers of recycling may, in the case of al-Andalus and perhaps also elsewhere in the medieval Mediterranean, be the result of the cross-breeding of glass- and glaze-making activities.