Palaeoecology and Archaeology of the Village of Uukuniemi,Eastern Finland

Abstract

In the present article, pollen analytical results from Lake Kirkkolampi are presented and compared with results provided by archaeological material. Pollen analysis is connected with the archaeological research project at Papinniemi in Uukuniemi. Papinniemi is one of the numerous Greek Orthodox settlements that existed in Karelia in the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries. Archaeological evidence of settlement preceding this period is very scarce, and in this respect Uukuniemi represents a typical area in eastern Finland. There is no archaeological evidence of permanent settlement in Uukuniemi from the Early Metal Period (c. 1800 bc–ad 400), the Middle Iron Age (c. ad 400–800) or from the Late Iron Age (c. ad 800–1300). Pollen analysis demonstrated the onset of cultivation c. cal ad 300. Marked intensification of agricultural activities and cultivation in permanent fields took place around cal ad 800. A shift in land-use practises, including a declining use of fire, is visible at cal ad 1520–1600. The discrepancy between archaeological and palaeoecological records raises several questions, and the problems of Early Metal Period and Iron Age populations, as well as settlement continuity, are discussed.     

Agricultural production in the Central Asian mountains: Tuzusai,Kazakhstan (410–150 b.c.)

Abstract

The site of Tuzusai is located in the Tien Shan Mountains of eastern Kazakhstan; occupation at the site between 410 B.C. and a.d. 150 represents the transition between the Saka and Wusun periods (Saka: 800–200 b.c.; Wusun: 200 b.c.–a.d. 400). Iron Age people of Central Asia are often described simply as mobile pastoralists, yet at Tuzusai, we have evidence that agriculture was practiced along with pastoral transhumance. This multiresource economic system combined pastoralism and hunting with the cultivation of a variety of crops. Our new finding is significant because Tuzusai has the first clear evidence for the presence of agriculture from the Iron Age of northern Central Asia. The diversity of crops grown at Tuzusai required varying labor and time inputs and a well-planned scheduling system.     

House time: Neolithic settlement development at Racot during the 5th millennium CAL B.C. in the Polish lowlands

The settlement of Racot 18 in the western Polish lowlands is used as a case study in the investigation of continued development and expansion following initial Neolithic beginnings, and in the formal chronological modeling, in a Bayesian framework, of settlement development. The site belongs to the Late Lengyel Culture of the later 5th millennium cal b.c., and represents the intake of new land following earlier initial colonization. The formally estimated chronology for the settlement suggests individual house biographies spanned from as little as a generation to over a century; distinctive substantial buildings from late in the sequence may have lasted longest. Racot 18 is compared to its formally modeled context of the later 5th millennium cal b.c.     

JERUSALEM'S HINTERLAND IN THE EIGHTH–SEVENTH CENTURIES BCE: TOWNS,VILLAGES, FARMSTEADS,AND ROYAL ESTATES

Abstract

Although many excavations and extensive surveys were carried out in the vicinity of Jerusalem, very few systematic attempts were made to analyse the Iron Age city's hinterland in its entirety. The present article summarises some of the general results of a detailed study of the area around Jerusalem, identifies the territories of the city's ‘daughters’ (satellite towns), and then focuses on two such units, in which settlement distribution was markedly different from other units: Moza and Ramat Ra?el. The article concludes that most of the territory around Jerusalem belonged to organically developed towns, the territories of which were densely dotted with villages and (mainly) farmsteads. Moza and Ramat Ra?el, however, functioned in the late Iron Age II (7th century bce) as royal estates (perhaps even as a palatial estate in the latter case), responsible for both the production and storage of surplus.     

From site formation to social structure in prehistoric Thailand

Abstract

The archaeological record in mainland Southeast Asia from ca. 2000 b.c. to the formation of early states in the mid-first millennium a.d. is built on excavations in mounded settlements that incorporate habitation, industrial, and mortuary remains. For most sites, formation processes are not readily identified. have presented a new view of the social organization of the Southeast Asian “metal age” based on a reinterpretation of mortuary and settlement data, founded on their premise that the dead were interred in, under, or in conjunction with domestic residences rather than dedicated cemeteries. They argue that such house societies were instruments for remarkably long-term occupation of individual settlements by heterarchic, non-violent supravillage affiliative social groupings. A detailed examination of the evidence for such residential burial suggests a lack of convincing evidence until the Iron Age. Moreover, new dating programs have shortened the prehistoric sequence, leading to more rapid and intense social changes than hitherto suspected.     

Landscapes of Prehistoric Northwestern Sichuan: From Early Agriculture to Pastoralist Lifestyles

We describe a preliminary survey of a relatively unknown part of the eastern Himalayas: northwestern Sichuan. This survey revealed that three phases of occupation are represented across the landscape. Large settlements with dense remains characterize the landscape during the Neolithic (3400–2000 cal b.c.). Following a hiatus in occupation, stone-cist graves characterize the region during the Bronze Age (1450–800 cal b.c.). The lack of settlement remains from this period indicates that mobile pastoralism increased in importance. Finally, between a.d. 500 and 1500, dense scatters of ceramics over a wide altitudinal range correspond to a fragmentation in Tibetan history, when local warlords established themselves in the region. While some changes in occupation and subsistence practices are linked to climate change, others relate to changes in political power. We argue that further survey work is needed to expand our understanding of past land use and the development of pastoralist practices.     

Areni-1 Cave,Armenia: A Chalcolithic–Early Bronze Age settlement and ritual site in the southern Caucasus

Abstract

The beginning of the Bronze Age in the southern Caucasus has been thought to coincide with the appearance of the Kura Araxes (KA) culture around 3500 cal b.c. KA artifacts are known not only from the southern Caucasus but also from sites in Anatolia, Iran, and the Levant. Recent discoveries from Areni-1 Cave in the Vayots Dzor region of Armenia demonstrate that the origin of the distinctive KA artifact assemblage lies in the Late Chalcolithic of the late 5th to early 4th millennia b.c. The cave contains rich assemblages of desiccated botanical remains that allow the site to be precisely dated and that demonstrate that its inhabitants exploited a wide variety of domesticated and wild plants. It would appear that from 4000 cal b.c. onwards, people used Areni-1 Cave for habitation and for keeping goats, storing plant foods, and ritual purposes; unusual for this time period are ceramic vessels containing the skulls of children.     

Introduction

The settlement on Nor'nour, a small island in the eastern group of the Isles of Scilly, presents a most unusual complex of at least three structural phases, accompanied by a rich and varied assortment of artifacts in bronze, enamel and pottery. Roman jewellery was made on the site, which was excavated from 1962 to 1966.

The presence of a Bronze Age population was clearly indicated. A room built in the form of a Scillonian Passage Grave, with sherds similar to those of the primary urns at Knackyboy Carn, suggest a date of c. 1200 B.C. for this group. In the early Iron Age, c. 600 B.C., immigrants from western Europe, particularly perhaps from Brittany, reached the island. Room I was altered to the form of a wheelhouse, which still clearly shows the features of its type. At the same time a D-shaped room was added to the eastern side of the wheelhouse and seems to have been used as a kitchen. An extensive kitchen-midden lay east of this additional room and to the north-east a workshop was made containing three well-made pits and an enclosed hearth or furnace area.

The latest phase showed a complete change; the wheelhouse became the finishing-room in the manufacture of Roman jewellery and, probably, a store for the import and sale of objects from western Europe. Roman coins found here date from A.D. 74 to A.D. 383. There is also some evidence for the early and gradual subsidence of the Scillonian archipelago.     

Characterizing the rural landscape during the Iron Age and Roman period (ca. 1200 b.c.–a.d. 400): An intensive survey of Wadi al-Feidh,southern Jordan

Abstract

Archaeological surveys in the southern Levant have traditionally focused on areas with favorable climates and flat terrain where large urban sites are found, corresponding with a research focus on social complexity and state formation. Fewer surveys have explored the rocky, difficult-to-reach areas where large-scale agriculture was rare. This article uses survey data from the 2009 survey of Wadi al-Feidh, southern Jordan, to demonstrate the importance of exploring these environmentally marginal areas. Employing an intensive survey methodology, we recorded a range of sites and features previously unrecognized in this region. These findings suggest that subsistence patterns shifted from small-scale, mixed agro-pastoralism in the Iron Age (1200–586 b.c.) to a more intensive, top-down strategy of agricultural production by the Roman period (ca. 100 b.c.–a.d. 400). The results provide new insight into regional socioeconomic change in the southern Levant from the perspective of peripheral communities.     

Late Prehistoric High-Altitude Hunter-Gatherer Residential Occupations in the Argentine Southern Andes

Test excavations were conducted at Risco de los Indios (RDLI), a site at 2480 masl with 29 residential features and a well-developed midden containing abundant floral, faunal, lithic, and ceramic materials. Analyses indicate the site was intensively used ca. 500 cal b.p. as a residential base for groups focused on hunting guanaco, supplemented by locally-available wild flora and fauna as well as domestic beans transported from the lowlands. Ceramic and obsidian artifacts indicate these groups were highly mobile and in contact with groups on the eastern and western margins of the Andes. These patterns compare favorably to those seen in the region’s other high altitude villages. It appears that the development of these patterns began with population increase and economic intensification in the lowlands ca. 2000 cal b.p. and that the move to slightly lower elevation settings like RDLI may have been conditioned by the onset of the Little Ice Age.     

Ojakly: A Late Bronze Age mobile pastoralist site in the Murghab Region,Turkmenistan

Abstract

Excavations at Ojakly (site 1744) in the Murghab alluvial fan in Turkmenistan mark the first systematic collection of archaeological materials related to Bronze Age mobile pastoralists in the region, and the earliest evidence to date of their occupation patterns, subsistence practices, and ceramic production activities. Because the appearance of mobile pastoral groups in the Murghab during the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1950–1500 b.c.) is traditionally associated with significant changes in regional sociopolitical structures, these data are important for establishing local strategies of and the relationship between sedentary agricultural and mobile pastoral populations. Here, we present ceramic, faunal, archaeobotanical, and lithic data that force us to reconsider the traditional sedentary-mobile dichotomy. Specifically, we find that while the subsistence economies are distinct at urban and non-urban sites, the ceramic production and trade interactions are significantly intertwined and more complex than previously acknowledged for this time period. Additionally, the presence of a ceramic kiln at Ojakly (Turkmen for “place with kiln”) containing unfired ceramics of a type typically associated with sedentary farmers in the Bronze Age Murghab suggests the transfer of technical knowledge between groups who nevertheless maintained distinct material cultural identities. Ojakly provides important new data about coexisting economies in the Late Bronze Age Murghab that can productively unsettle traditional notions of dominance, control, and polarization in sedentary-mobile interactions.     

Taming Surface Water in Pre-Islamic Southeast Arabia: Archaeological,Geoarchaeological, and Chronological Evidence of Runoff Water Channeling in Masāfī (UAE)

In semi-arid to arid environments, water is the most constraining resource for agricultural communities. In Southeast Arabia (Sultanate of Oman and United Arab Emirates), the demographic growth and the increase of sites at the beginning of the Iron Age II (1100–600 b.c.) is generally attributed to the development of groundwater harvesting techniques, and more precisely to qanāt technology. While only little is known on the origin of this technology, even less is known about other hydraulic techniques, which could have been used as a complementary source of water. An irrigation system, recently discovered near an Iron Age settlement in the oasis of Masāfī (UAE) was studied thanks to the combination of various methods—archaeology, geoarchaeology/micromorphology, spatial analysis, and chronology—which have allowed us to identify the technological development of small-scale runoff farming and to link this practice to social as well as environmental issues.     

The Regional History of the Guan River Valley,China: Cultural Periphery,Ecological Diversity,and the Development of Social Complexity before A.D. 220

Regional settlement pattern studies in China have overlooked interregional interaction in the development of social complexity. This study examines settlement patterns, land use practices, sociopolitical structure, and interregional interaction from 4000 b.c. to the early Imperial period (before a.d. 221) in the Guan River valley, China. The Guan valley is located at the inter-montane corridor to three cultural core zones in China. An international collaborative team used regional full-coverage survey to locate 96 sites in 135?km² in the Middle Guan valley, the earliest of which dated to the middle Yangshao period (4000–3500 b.c.). In the late Yangshao period (3500–2900 b.c.), occupation increased rapidly and expanded to the upper reach and tributaries of the river. After an occupational collapse during the Early States period (1900–771 b.c.), the population recovered rapidly and reached a new level of organizational complexity in the Eastern Zhou period (770–221 b.c.). This pattern continued into the Qin-Han period (220 b.c.–a.d. 220), when hamlets increased in number and expanded into hilly areas.     

Early ironworking in Iron Age South India: New evidence for the social organization of production from northern Karnataka

Abstract

Iron production was integral to political and ritual practices during the South Indian Iron Age (ca. 1200–300 b.c.), yet the investigation of the social relations of metals production during this period has been overshadowed by studies of iron consumption, particularly of iron objects in megalithic mortuary contexts. Recent archaeological research in the Tungabhadra River Corridor, Karnataka, has revealed iron production debris within and between settlements in more ephemeral occupational contexts, such as rockshelters. One notable discovery is the earliest ironworking facility in South India at Bukkasagara. The regional pattern suggests that iron production involved at least two classes of specialist producers—smelters and smiths—who exercised varying degrees of control over the practice and products of their craft. It also suggests that iron production was an important component in the construction and negotiation of Iron Age social differences, affiliations, and inequalities.     

New light on the prehistoric Purrón Dam Complex: Small corporate group collaboration in the Tehuacán Valley,Puebla, México

Abstract

The 2003 and 2004 surveys at the Purrón Dam Complex (PDC) demonstrate the value of resurveying previously studied areas. Additional habitation sites, water management features, a cave with pictographs, and a major canal were discovered, increasing the number of recorded sites from eight to 57. From this survey, the collected ceramics and a synthesis of 12 chronometric dates suggest that water management was initiated in the complex by Early Formative times at ca. 1050–1100 b.c., and that the Purrón Dam was completed by the Middle Formative Period (ca. 650–450 b.c.), when settlements were small and decentralized. This challenges previous interpretations that place the PDC florescence during the Early Classic Period (ca. 150 b.c.–a.d.250), a period with larger aggregated communities displaying social ranking. The results of our survey have implications for understanding the links between political complexity and agricultural intensification, and support recent ethnographic and archaeological research discrediting the argument that increasing social complexity necessarily leads to the construction of large water management systems.     

The earliest evidence of domesticated wheat in the Crimea at Chalcolithic Ardych-Burun

Abstract

This paper reports the discovery of the earliest evidence of domesticated wheat in the Crimean peninsula from the Ardych-Burun shell midden site, Ukraine. The Ardych-Burun site dates to middle of the 4th millennium cal b.c. For the first time, the chronology of a Ukrainian Chalcolithic period site has been established through direct radiocarbon dating of cereal grains retrieved from it. This discovery allows for a wider discussion of the chronology and geographical origins of domesticated plant species in Ukraine and the role the Caucasian corridor may have played in the spread of agriculture into eastern Europe. The presence of cereal crops in the southern Crimea enriches our understanding of the subsistence strategies of the coastal population, which was previously linked only with pastoralism, hunting, and the exploitation of marine resources.     

The Temple of the Fishermen: Early Ceremonial Architecture at Gramalote,a Residential Settlement of the Second Millennium B.C., North Coast of Peru

The archaeology of the Late Preceramic (3500–1800 b.c.) and Initial Periods (1800–800 b.c.) on the north coast of Peru is focused on monumental ceremonial buildings and little attention has been paid to small residential settlements. Here, I introduce the excavations carried out at Gramalote, a fishing settlement that was interpreted as a specialized producer of seafood with a narrow range of non-subsistence activities. Current data support a broader view of fishing communities during the second millennium b.c. in northern Peru. In this view, the discovery of a ceremonial facility at the Gramalote site opens a discussion about the role of community-level ceremonies and how these local practices are related to those at religious monumental centers of the same period.     

Rock-cut tombs and funerary landscapes of the Late Bronze and Iron Ages in Sicily: New fieldwork at Pantalica

Abstract

Rock-cut chamber tombs are characteristic monuments of the Bronze and Iron Ages in southern Sicily. They are found in large numbers and prominent locations at several Late Bronze Age sites, most of which were first investigated over a century ago by Paolo Orsi, but received little attention subsequently. One famous example is the UNESCO World Heritage site of Pantalica, where the author recently conducted fieldwork aimed at clarifying the form, distribution and topographical relationships of the tombs, which date from about 1250–650 b.c. Although these monuments present various practical problems for research, and their contents were removed long ago, the author argues that they can be profitably studied from an architectural, contextual, and landscape perspective. A new sample of the Pantalica tombs is presented, showing a wide range of forms and associations that provides a basis for the discussion of several issues: links with domestic architecture, demography, accessibility, visibility, temporality, and perception.     

Fossil wood of the Mimosoideae from the early Paleocene of Patagonia,Argentina

Brea, M., Zamuner, A.B., Matheos, S.D., Iglesias, A. & Zucol, A.F., December, 2008. Fossil wood of the Mimosoideae from the early Paleocene of Patagonia, Argentina. Alcheringa 32, 427–441. ISSN 0311-5518.

An anatomically preserved mature stem from the Salamanca Formation (early Paleocene) at Palacio de Los Loros, central Patagonia, Argentina, is described and assigned to Paracacioxylon frenguellii sp. nov. The material was preserved by siliceous permineralization and shows features of the secondary xylem typical of subfamily Mimosoideae. This species represents the oldest record of the genus and of the Leguminosae along the western border of Gondwana, and is the world's second oldest record of Leguminosae wood. The species is characterized by ring-porous to semi-ring-porous vessels that are solitary, in multiples of 2–4 and clustered, simple perforation plates, alternate and vestured inter-vessel pitting, homocellular 1–6 seriate rays, tyloses, crystals and diffuse apotracheal, vasicentric paratracheal and confluent axial parenchyma. Paracacioxylon frenguellii has anatomical similarities to Acacia Miller. The presence of Paracacioxylon frenguellii associated with pulvinate leaves suggests that the legumes might have been a component of mesothermal forests developed along the western margin of the Golfo San Jorge Basin during the early Paleocene.