Animal Exploitation in the Early Prehistory of the Balearic Islands

The Balearic Islands were the last large islands in the Mediterranean to be settled, with colonization not occurring until the third millennium cal BC. The richest assemblages of zooarchaeological data for reconstructing patterns of animal exploitation and management come from Mallorca, Menorca, and Formentera and date to the late third and second millennia cal BC. In this article, I consider these exploitation and management strategies from the perspective of human ecodynamics. In general, the early settlers of the Balearic Islands adopted economic strategies which remained very conservative throughout the Early and Mid Bronze Age (i.e., 2500/2300–1200 cal BC). On Mallorca and Menorca, animal resources were derived mainly from domesticated fauna, with the evidence supporting a mixed-farming model wherein cultivation is complemented by small-scale and relatively unspecialized animal husbandry. In contrast, on Formentera there is a diversification of the faunal economy, with fish and wild birds providing an important contribution to the diet; this probably relates to the extreme marginality of the Formenteran environment. This case of initial human settlement and flexible adaptation to the Balearics highlights one of the core aspects of human ecodynamics: the ability for colonizing populations to both uniquely respond to and affect ecological conditions in island environments.     

The Wadi al‐Hijr (Sultanate of Oman) in the third millennium BC

In 2010–11 a pedestrian survey of the western end of Wadi al‐Hijr in northern Oman identified 1507 archaeological features in a 124 km² area. Data were collected on each feature's architectural characteristics, associated artefact assemblages, topographic and environmental locations, condition of remains, and relations to other archaeological features. The majority of datable features belong to the third millennium BC and divide unequally between the Hafit and Umm an‐Nar periods. While the majority of these third‐millennium BC features were tombs, other feature types were identified, including towers, settlements, quarries, dams, enclosures, and possible platforms. Third‐millennium BC features were organised into clusters and ranged considerably in size, from a few features to several hundred. All of the clusters established during the Hafit period were maintained in the Umm an‐Nar period, suggesting a continuity throughout the third millennium. Some preliminary hypotheses regarding settlement patterns are suggested.     

Violence in the Central Iberian Peninsula during the Bronze Age: A Possible Prehistoric Homicide

One of the most interesting sites of the Bronze Age in the central area of the Iberian Peninsula is La Motilla del Azuer (Daimiel, Ciudad Real), dated between 2200 and 1350 bc . The main objective of this study was to investigate interpersonal violence in this site and to report an uncommon case of violent death. No traumatic injury was detected in any child, and men and women significantly differed in the frequency of traumas. More traumatisms were found in men from the earlier stages of occupation, including a young man with at least three blunt force traumas and 26 sharp force traumas. The archaeological findings and trauma patterns in the skeletons of the 65 individuals studied suggest a relatively intense level of exposure to violence for adult men in the earlier stages of occupation of this settlement. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Of Ships and Deer: early Western Mediterranean ship graffiti reappraised

Re‐analysis of the Hal Tarxien prehistoric ship graffiti, the incised figure on a pottery sherd, from the Neolithic site of Grapceva cave on a Croatian island, known as the ‘Hvar boat’, and the Villanovian‐Etruscan bronze razor from Bologna allow the last two to be reinterpreted as animals rather than ships, and the first to be dated to the Bronze Age Cemetery phase of the site. These findings require the earliest ship graffiti in the western Mediterranean to be reconsidered.     

Seascapes and Landscapes—the Siting of the Ferriby Boat Finds in the Context of Prehistoric Pilotage

The foreshore of North Ferriby, within the Humber estuary, is the site of the earliest sewn plank boats known outside Egypt. Despite a large corpus of research relating to their construction and function, there has, as yet, been no consideration of their location. This paper examines the contemporary environment and sailing conditions of the Humber during the Bronze Age, and assesses pilotage in relation to natural features that might help to explain why North Ferriby was such a significant focus for Bronze Age mariners.
© 2005 The Nautical Archaeology Society     

The Protohistoric ‘Quicklime Burials’ from the Balearic Islands: Cremation or Inhumation

Traditionally, the Balearic so‐called ‘quicklime burials’ of the Iron Age have been considered to be inhumations in quicklime. The general appearance of the bones, however, resembles more closely that of cremated bones. Laboratory tests reveal that the observed features of the bones from these burials, including cracks, thumbnail fractures and warping, cannot be explained by an inhumation in quicklime. The δ ¹³C value, Fourier transform infrared spectra, SF values and the low carbon content of the apatite moreover indicate a thermal manipulation of the bones. The ¹⁴C content is depleted with regard to the accepted archaeological age of the sample, which can best be explained by carbon exchange between bio‐apatite and fossil CO₂ released during the heating of limestone. This implies that the Balearic ‘quicklime burials’ must be interpreted as an elaborate cremation practice in presence of limestone. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Late Krotovo (Cherno-ozerye) Culture in the Irtysh Forest-steppe,Western Siberia

The study explores the origins and evolution of the Late Krotovo (Cherno-Ozerye) – a Middle Bronze Age culture in the Irtysh drainage. The Late Krotovo culture emerged in the late 3rd – early 2nd millennium BC in the Baraba forest-steppe as the final stage of the Krotovo culture proper. The people associated with the Late Krotovo were natives influenced, first indirectly and then directly, by the Andronovo (Fedorovka) tribes. The Andronovo impact is mirrored by the material culture, burial rites, decorative art, and paleogenetics. The outcome of the interaction constitutes a new archaeological phenomenon, represented by sites such as Cherno-Ozerye-1 and Tartas-1.     

New light on old pumice: the origins of Mediterranean volcanic material from ancient Egypt

This paper presents and discusses the Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) results newly obtained from pumice pieces found decades ago at the Egyptian sites of Maiyana, Sedment, Kahun, and Amarna – now in the collections of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London – which could be successfully related to several volcanic eruptions in the Mediterranean. The work contributes to the constant accumulation of knowledge concerning the first appearance of pumice from the so-called Minoan eruption of the Santorini volcano. In addition, it unexpectedly sheds more light on the long-distance trade of Mediterranean volcanic material in the Bronze Age world by disclosing another connection between Lipari and the Eastern Mediterranean.     

Dietary Variability During Bronze Age in Central Italy: First Results

This research aims at delineating the dietary practices in Central Italy during the Bronze Age. The study of food choices is a mean for investigating palaeoenvironmental agricultural and economic activities and social relationships, which have been little explored until now in Italy from this specific perspective. Recent researches have showed that the Middle Bronze Age is a crucial period of dietary changes in Italy. Following these first observations, we studied three Bronze Age sites in Tuscany and Latium: Grotta dello Scoglietto, Grotta Misa and Felcetone. Analyses of stable carbon, nitrogen and sulphur isotopes on 38 human and 22 animal collagen samples were performed. The results show three different dietary patterns. Data from Grotta dello Scoglietto (Early Bronze Age) indicate a high‐protein intake, with a probable consumption of fish. Additionally, sulphur results let us infer the presence of some non‐local people. Individuals from Felcetone (Initial phase of the Middle Bronze Age) show a terrestrial diet dominated by plant proteins, which suggests a low δ¹⁵N food intake, namely legumes, as well as C₄ plant, such as millet. Finally, values from Grotta Misa (Middle Bronze Age) highlight a mixed terrestrial diet and the consumption of millet. Given the variety of the obtained results, we are able to conclude that the transition from the Early to the Middle Bronze Age represents a moment of change, which is reflected by the presence of different dietary patterns. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

四川汉源县麦坪遗址2008年发掘简报

2008年度对麦坪遗址的发掘,共清理房址5座、墓葬13座、灰坑102座,出土陶器、石器、铜器等各类遗物200余件。该遗址是大渡河中游地区的一处中心聚落,本次工作区分出四类不同的文化遗存,对遗址的分期和年代有了更深刻的认识,为研究本区域的考古学文化谱系提供了重要资料。     

Archaeobotanical inference of Bronze Age land use and land cover in the eastern Mediterranean

Charcoal and charred seeds at five Bronze Age archaeological sites discern ancient land use in the eastern Mediterranean. Seed frequencies of orchard crops, annual cereals and pulses, and wild or weedy plants are used to characterize plant utilization at different archaeological sites on the island of Cyprus, in the Rift Valley of Jordan, and in the Jabbul Plain and along the upper Euphrates River valley in Syria. Seed to charcoal ratios provide proxies to determine the relative usage of dung versus wood for fuel across the ancient Mediterranean landscape. Greater charcoal and lower charred seed values are interpreted to represent a wooded environment, while higher amounts of charred seeds and minimal wood charcoal suggest a much great use of dung as a fuel source. Interestingly, Politiko-Troullia (Cyprus, Cypriot archaeological sites are, by convention, named for the nearest modern village (Politiko), followed by an italicized toponym (Troullia) referring to the plot of land that incorporates the site) has the lowest seed to charcoal ratio, suggesting its residents primarily burned wood and that the landscape surrounding Troullia remained relatively wooded during the Bronze Age. In contrast, villagers at Tell el-Hayyat (Jordan) utilized a mixture of wood and dung, in contrast to Tell Abu en-Ni’aj (Jordan), and especially Umm el-Marra and Tell es-Sweyhat (Syria), where inhabitants relied solely on dung fuel. Comparative analysis and interpretation of seed and charcoal evidence thus illustrates the variety of fuel use strategies necessitated by the dynamic and diverse Bronze Age landscapes of the Eastern Mediterranean.     

Food Rituals and Their Social Significance in the Mid‐Second Millennium BC in the Southern Levant: A View From Megiddo

Ceremonies involving intentional burial of animals with humans are acknowledged to bear religious, social and political connotations, and we explored both the ritual activity and the social trajectory of these activities. To date, these ceremonies have rarely been examined within the context of nearby daily activities. We studied faunal remains associated with intramural burials in comparison with contemporaneous daily life in the midsecond millennium bc at Tel Megiddo, as well as comparison with concomitant extramural burials and locations of public feasts. Our study highlights the human interaction with animals that are not often treated as bearing social meaning or having interrelationships with human, the livestock animals. We demonstrate that livestock animals in the second millennium bc had a significant social role as well as economic value. The choice of animals consumed and sacrificed in these rituals is strongly related to the animal's symbolic potency and is based on the desired social message that the population aims to convey. Finally, the form of luxury food that is found in the Megiddo funerary rituals supports the hypothesis regarding the intramural burials' role in creating and enhancing social family bonds. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Patterning and Its Causation in the Pre-Neolithic Colonization of the Mediterranean Islands (Late Pleistocene to Early Holocene)

In 1981 one of us (Cherry) first attempted to identify spatial and temporal patterning in the human colonization of the Mediterranean islands. Since the 1980s, slowly accumulating evidence has suggested that the Mediterranean islands were sporadically inhabited by hunter-gatherers during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene. Here we seek to establish whether or not these data exhibit regularity. We suggest that evidence for Upper Palaeolithic to Mesolithic activity, tending to cluster on larger or less remote islands, indicates that while humans were clearly capable of reaching the Mediterranean islands prior to the Neolithic, their general reluctance to do so can be explained in terms of the variable environmental attractiveness of the insular Mediterranean. Tending to be relatively small, dry, and biologically depauperate, the Mediterranean islands were largely inhospitable to mobile groups preferring extensive territories with diverse and robust biotas. Sedentism only became a widely viable strategy in the insular Mediterranean with the development in the Neolithic of what we might regard as “terraforming”—that is, the introduction of cereals, pulses, and ovicaprids, all tolerant of xeric environments.     

Emergence,collapse and continuity of the first political system in the Guadalquivir Basin from the fourth to the second millennium BC: The long-term sequence of Úbeda (Spain)

Over the last decade, a long-running archaeological project in the Guadalquivir Basin (Spain) has identified the emergence (c. 3000 BC) and collapse (between c. 2500 and c. 2300 BC) of a regional inter-settlement hierarchical system centred on the south-western Pyrite Belt and the Lower Guadalquivir Basin.     

Economic Change in the Prehistoric Hexi Corridor (4800–2200 bp), North‐West China

It is widely known that the Hexi Corridor in North‐West China lies at a hub of trans‐Eurasian cultural exchange. Its role became increasingly important during the late prehistoric period, particularly as the ancient Silk Road began to be used. While the profound transformation of local cultural characteristics in the late Neolithic and the Bronze Age is well documented, the detailed economic dynamics of cultural evolution have not yet been clearly illustrated. In this paper, we report on significant new zooarchaeological and faunal isotopic data from the Neolithic and Bronze Age sites in the Hexi Corridor. The primary objective is to systematically reconstruct the prehistoric economic context of this area by combining these new data with previous archaeological studies and radiocarbon dates. We argue that the primary economic activities of local inhabitants changed dramatically in the prehistoric Hexi Corridor. This was marked by agricultural production at c.4800–4000 bp , agro‐pastoral production at c.4000–3000 bp and animal husbandry at c.3000–2200 bp , respectively. The major subsistence strategies of these three periods show considerable variation. It is very likely that these transformations of economic patterns in the prehistoric Hexi Corridor were primarily triggered by transcontinental cultural exchange and, to a lesser extent, by climate change.     

Settlement and Subsistence in the Remote Western Pacific: Archaeological and Radiocarbon Data from Alamagan,Northern Mariana Islands

Small, remote islands were marginal environments for prehistoric human populations. We report archaeological and radiocarbon data from Alamagan, a small and isolated island in the northern part of the Mariana Islands archipelago. Challenging environmental conditions, including rugged terrain, active or recent volcanism, and uncertain freshwater availability posed significant challenges for permanent settlement throughout the Northern Islands. The Alamagan archaeological investigations documented 14 megalithic domestic structures, or latte sets, as well as isolated and non-portable Latte Period artifacts, and one historical site. Test excavations were undertaken at two of the latte features. These investigations add to a growing body of data suggesting colonization of the Northern Islands during the middle part of the Latte Period (probably during the late a.d. 1200s or early 1300s). We consider the implications of these data for the study of human adaptations to marginal insular environments in the Pacific.     

辽宁西丰县东沟遗址及墓葬发掘简报

2009年辽宁省文物考古研究所对西丰县东沟遗址和墓葬进行了发掘,共清理灰坑25个、灰沟4条、墓葬11座。遗址出土遗物有陶器、石器和铁器,其年代为战国至西汉初期。墓葬出土遗物有陶器和石器,依据墓葬形制及随葬器物组合等,推测其年代为春秋末至战国初。     

Ante Mortem Cranial Trepanation in the Late Bronze Age in Western Siberia

We report a case study of cranial trepanation in a male subject 30 to 40 years of age from the Nefteprovod II burial ground in the Anzhevsk archeological site. This burial dates back to the Late Bronze Age, in particular the Karasuk culture located in the Minusinsk Basin on the Yenisei River and on the upper reaches of the Ob River. The left parietal bone had an opening with evident signs of bone healing, as well as signs of inflammatory reaction from both bone plates of the calvarium. The strongest signs of inflammation were located around the trepanation opening at the exocranium, suggesting that it occurred after, rather than before, the operation. Although trepanation was the main cause for the development of the changes noted in the preceding texts, there are no reasons to believe that the subject died from complications arising from infection after trepanation. The patient survived and later died for reasons that may never be determined. Medical necessity was the most likely justification for trepanation. Immersion in altered states of consciousness may also have been a necessary part of the trepanation process as a mode of sedation, along with other shamanic practices, such as consumption of psychotropic substances or ecstatic dance. These data, together with reports of other ante mortem burials, raised questions about the application of anaesthesia and possible techniques of cranial trepanation. These issues and possible postoperative complications are discussed in the following text. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Improvements in Archaeomagnetic Dating in Western Europe from the Late Bronze to the Late Iron Ages: An Alternative to the Problem of the Hallstattian Radiocarbon Plateau

We present a new curve of the directional secular variation of the geomagnetic field in Western Europe between 1500 bce and 200 ce . Its computation relies on a Bayesian framework. The fast secular variation during the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages makes archaeomagnetic dating efficient with a respective precision of 150–200 and 60–100 years during these periods. The Bayesian method also provides posterior date distributions that refine the dating of reference data, especially during the period of the Hallstattian radiocarbon plateau. Archaeomagnetism becomes a valuable alternative to radiocarbon and will help to improve the archaeological chronologies.     

论远古中南半岛与中国西南的整体性格局

以考古材料为主,结合民族史和历史地理学已有的研究成果,以文明交往论为理论指导,探讨远古时代(从新石器时代到青铜时代)中国西南地区内部及其同中南半岛之间的整体性格局,这很有意义。地缘、文化传播和民族迁徙流动等因素在古代综合促成的这一格局,影响了近代乃至现代该大区域的总体形势。文明交往使中南半岛与中国西南地区之间不同文化和文明之间的相互联系、相互影响不断加强,这在该大区域整体性格局的形成和发展过程中起了决定性作用。