Archaeological human hair in a burial context: Microscopical evaluation of samples from Iași,Romania (18th–19th centuries)

Owing to its resistance to degradation, hair is an important bio-sample with unique properties used to study post mortem decompositional changes. The present paper is a microscopical approach to preserved human scalp hair discovered at the 18th–19th-century archaeological site of Iași, Romania. The hair fibre alterations were assessed using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, image analysis and hair histological scores. External alterations showed a statistically significant heterogeneous degradation. Image analysis results of the internal degradation of hairs were correlated to external lesions. The results consider the implication of intrinsic biological factors in the post mortem degradation of human hair preserved in graves with comparable environmental conditions.     

Criminalization of Homicide in Early Modern Denmark (16th–17th Centuries)

This article explores the criminalization of homicide in early modern Denmark, 16th–17th centuries. Criminalization is here defined, primarily, as the harshening of penalties for homicide in law and practice. The article shows that a process of criminalization took place that contributed to a pacification of the population (demonstrated by a decrease in homicides) but also engendered practices of resistance and evasion which were reminiscent of a medieval feud culture. The attitude towards homicide was for a long time ambivalent, not just among the lower classes but at all levels of society. Criminalization and pacification were mainly products of state-building through harsher punishment and the formation of a more reliable legal system. This top-down process meshed with the broader population’s demands for justice and security.     

Gendered Inuinnait (Copper Inuit) landscapes of Banks Island’s northern interior,Arctic Canada, 17th–20th centuries a.d.

Abstract

Archaeological survey data from the northern interior of Banks Island in Canada’s western Arctic builds upon traditional interpretations of past land use to explore the ways in which this landscape was perceived by different groups. The data confirm earlier archaeological, ethnographic, and oral history work which suggest that the area was occupied primarily in the summer months at two separate times in the past: the Palaeoeskimo period and the Inuinnait (Copper Inuit) period. The earlier occupation was less intensive than the latter and both were focused on muskox hunting. Drawing on ethnographic studies of the Inuit in both the early and late 20th centuries, and on the distribution of archaeological camp sites versus hunting sites, a reconstruction is made of the different ways in which men and women experienced and understood the survey area during Inuinnait times. It suggests that the main drainages formed important travel routes, and that while women’s knowledge of the region was concentrated along these corridors and in favorite camping places, men’s knowledge extended into hunting areas beyond their peripheries.     

Heating the house. An archaeological and archaeometrical investigation into the tile-stoves of late-medieval Flanders,Belgium (14–17th centuries)

SUMMARY: Tile stoves arise in the Low Countries from the 14th century onwards. Although they have been well documented in northern and central Europe, they have remained an almost forgotten aspect of the material culture of the historic county of Flanders (Belgium). In recent years the amount of stove tiles found in archaeological excavations has increased considerably, raising questions concerning their production and origin. Micro X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy was used to determine the elemental composition of these tiles to see if they could be divided into groups and what these groups could tell us about the distribution of workshops, resources and finished products.     

Geochemical provenience of 16th–19th century C.E. Asian ceramics from Torres Strait,northeast Australia

Existing insights into the history of southeast Asian contacts with northern Australia prior to British colonization in 1788 are limited to Macassan visitors and the trepang industry beginning in the early 18th century and perhaps 16th century. Neither historical nor archaeological evidence indicate extension of such contacts to Torres Strait of northeast Australia. To shed further light on this issue, a collection of 16 Asian ceramic sherds surface collected and excavated recently from the islands of Pulu and Mabuyag in Torres Strait were compared to a large database of Southeast and East Asian stoneware jars that are well characterised, elementally, typologically and chronologically. This comparison matched a number of sherds with two jar types with likely production origins in Thailand and southern China. While the surface collected sherds from Pulu sourced to Thailand date probably to the 19th century, the small glazed sherd from Mabuyag island is typical of a southern Chinese decorated jar type dating to c. 1500–1600 C.E. This Chinese sherd is the earliest known Asian artefact in Australia and parallels recent archaeological evidence on the antiquity of contacts between Macassan trepangers and Aboriginal Australians. It is unknown if the Chinese sherd came ashore to Mabuyag through direct contact with Asian traders or from a nearby shipwreck through salvage.     

Paleopathology of The Population of Krasnoyarsk,Central Siberia (Pokrovskiy and Voskresensko-Preobrazhenskiy Cemeteries of the 17th– Early 20th Centuries)

Published data on the paleopathology of Siberian populations are scarce. However, two samples of adult and non- adult skeletons taken from excavations at the Pokrovskiy (17th–18th centuries) and Voskresensko-Preobrazhenskiy (17th–early 20th century) cemeteries in Krasnoyarsk (123 and 204; 101 and 81, respectively) revealed cases of rickets, tuberculosis, and congenital syphilis in children, and vertebral tuberculosis and tertiary syphilis in adults. Trauma areas included ribs, hands, forearms, and tibiae. These two samples provide evidence on which to base an assessment of the health of the Krasnoyarsk population from 1628 to the early 1900s.     

Investigating the dietary life histories and mobility of children buried in St Gertrude Church cemetery,Riga, Latvia, 15th–17th centuries ad*

Carbon and nitrogen isotope profiles were obtained from incremental dentine analysis of 19 non-adults from a cemetery in Riga, Latvia. The research compared the life histories and diet between people buried in two mass graves and the general cemetery. The δ¹³C profiles of several children from the mass graves were similar but did not resemble the patterns seen in children from the general cemetery, suggesting that they probably represented a different population group. The rise in δ¹⁵N values towards the end of the life of four individuals from one mass grave suggests they were victims of an historically documented famine.     

Detecting the environmental impact of the Baltic Crusades on a late-medieval (13th–15th century) frontier landscape: palynological analysis from Malbork Castle and hinterland,Northern Poland

Palaeoecological analysis of peat deposits from a small bog, combined with pollen analysis of sediments infilling the moat of the nearby Teutonic Order castle at Malbork, have been used to examine the ecological impact of the Crusades on the late-medieval landscape of Northern Poland. Studies of the environmental impact of the Crusades have been almost exclusively informed by written sources; this study is the first of its type to directly investigate the environmental context of Crusading as a force of ecological transformation on the late-medieval Baltic landscape. The pollen evidence from Malbork Castle and its hinterland demonstrate that the 12th/13th–15th centuries coincide with a marked transformation in vegetation and land-use, characterized by clearance of broadleaved woodland and subsequent agricultural intensification, particularly during the 14th/15th centuries. These changes are ascribed to landscape transformations associated with the Teutonic Order’s control of the landscape from the mid-13th century. Human activity identified in the pollen record prior to this is argued to reflect the activities of Pomeranian settlers in the area. This paper also discusses the broader palaeoecological evidence for medieval landscape change across Northern Poland.     

Warriors from the East. Skeletal evidence of warfare from a Lombard-Avar cemetery in Central Italy (Campochiaro,Molise, 6th–8th Century AD)

The early mediaeval cemetery of Campochiaro is located in Molise (Central Italy) and dates to the 6th–8th centuries AD. It consists of two inhumation areas: one at Morrione and the other at Vicenne. This site is important because of the contemporary presence of locals, Lombards and Avars of the steppes. Campochiaro was probably an outpost against the Byzantine army settled in southern Italy. Since no signs of a stable settlement or built-up area have been found, it seems the cemetery can be attributed to a semi-nomadic group. Many graves contained a man and his horse with the harness complex and typical Avar stirrups. The military nature of this settlement is shown by ostearchaeological evidence of warfare and violence on three skeletal individuals: n. 20, n. 102 and n. 108. Two of them exhibit lesions of the cranial vault probably produced by shock weapons in the fashion of the Byzantine armies: a spiked mace and a battle-axe. The cicatrisation of the wounds and the bony neo-formation suggest that the individuals survived these injuries for a long time. The third individual suffered from leprosy. He shows a long perpendicular cut in the left section of the frontal bone. The wound is clean and, because it is without traces of bony neo-formation, was probably a peri-mortem blow landed with a sharp weapon. The wound was not mortal, because it was very slight and probably produced only a slash. As ritual or magical practises and/or damage produced during the excavation or by the action of roots in the earth can be excluded, this individual was perhaps really a leper warrior who died in combat.     

Ritual practices and collective consumption of animal products at the Iron Age rural settlement of Mas Castellar de Pontós (Girona,Spain) (5th–4th centuries BC)

Abstract

Animals have played an important role in certain ceremonies or rites in the past. During such activities, animals may have been alive, dead or been used as raw material. The disposal of detritus from these practices can lead to the formation of faunal assemblages with a particular taxonomic and anatomic composition. At the Iron Age ‘Mas Castellar de Pontós’ site (Girona, Spain), associations of archaeological materials excavated from Pit feature FS362 were suggestive of deposits arising from collective ceremonial consumption. Analysis of the 1309 mammal remains recovered from this feature is used to determine the nature and dynamics of the ceremony. At the same time, the relationship of these faunal remains with the other archaeological materials recovered in the pit will allow light to be shed on the significance and importance of these ceremonies in the framework of the social and political relations that governed the life of the inhabitants of this settlement.     

The southernmost records of Anhingidae and a new basal species of Anatidae (Aves) from the lower–middle Miocene of Patagonia,Argentina

New bird fossils from the Santa Cruz Formation (lower–middle Miocene), Santa Cruz Province, Patagonia, Argentina, are described. They represent an indeterminate species of the extinct anhingid Macranhinga and a new genus and species of basal Anatidae Ankonetta larriestrai. The record of the giant darter Macranhinga constitutes the southernmost record for the family, and expands the known stratigraphic range of the genus, previously restricted to the upper Miocene. Based on an analysis of the fossil anhingid record from South America, we hypothesize that giant darters disappeared from South America in the early Pliocene due to climatic deterioration, regression of marine and freshwater environments, the arrival of placental carnivorous mammals, and also probably by competition with phalacrocoracid cormorants. The new anatid Ankonetta is based on an incomplete but informative tarsometatarsus, with superficial similarities to extant Dendrocygna. A brief overview of several fossil ducks from the Patagonian Cenozoic concludes that most pre-Pliocene examples belong to non-anatine taxa, indicating that plesiomorphic ducks were the dominant anseriforms in those times, a pattern also evident on other continents.