Body mass estimation in skeletal samples using the hybrid approach: the effect of population-specific variations and sexual dimorphism

Body mass is estimated from skeletal records with low accuracy, and it is expected that population-specific equations derived by a hybrid approach may help to reduce the error in body mass estimates. We used 204 individuals from five Central European Early Medieval sites to test the effect of population-specific femoral head breadth equations on the accuracy of body mass estimates. The baseline for living body mass was computed using the biiliac breadth and stature. We also analyzed the agreement of five general femoral head techniques that are used in body mass estimation (Elliott et al. (Archaeol Anthropol Sci 1–20, 2015b; Grine et al. (Am J Phys Anthropol 97:151–185, 1995); McHenry (Am J Phys Anthropol 87:407–431, 1992); Ruff et al. (Am J Phys Anthropol 148:601–617, 2012); Ruff et al. (Am J Phys Anthropol 86:397, 1991)). Our results support previous findings showing that body mass is predicted with lower accuracy than stature, even when population-specific equations are derived. However, the population-specific approach increases the agreement with the body mass estimated from the biiliac breadth and stature, particularly when sex-specific equations are used. Thus, our results advocate for the employment of sex-specific equations when possible and show that the possibility of deriving equation for each sex separately is the main advantage of the population-specific approach. The best agreement among the body mass techniques in the Central European Early Medieval samples was observed using the femoral head equations reported by Ruff et al. (Am J Phys Anthropol 148:601–617, 2012) and McHenry (Am J Phys Anthropol 87:407–431, 1992), whereas other studied equations provided lower agreement. The particularly low performance obtained using the technique reported by Elliott et al. (2015b) questioned the use of their equations to estimate body masses.     

Maintaining Traditions: a Study of Southern Ontario Late Woodland Ceramics Through a Communities-of-Practice Approach

A communities-of-practices approach has been employed in this paper to investigate potting traditions of Late Woodland potters. The author has integrated Wenger’s (1998, Organization 7(2):225–246, 2000) constellation of practice and boundary objects with Smith’s (1997, 2005a) attribute combination system to study decorative practices of Middle Iroquoian potting communities in southern Ontario. The results of the study indicate similar distribution trends relating to the practice of decorative motifs. The author argues potters maintained potting traditions through time and space. This study demonstrates how the integration of more recent conceptual frameworks provides further opportunities to investigate the relation between pottery production and broader practices and beliefs.     

Dental and oral nonmetric traits in a Coimbra reference sample: testing intrasample chronological and spatial variation

A reference sample of dental and oral nonmetric traits should represent its biological population from which it stems. The presence of individuals born at different times, different regions, and separate countries in the Coimbra-identified cranial collections provides the test of whether this sample reflects the biological continuity of this Portuguese sample among the late modern (early industrialization, nineteenth century) to early contemporary (early demographic transition, first half of the twentieth century) population of this region of central Portugal. The Coimbra collections were scored for 61 traits using methodology by Hauser and De Stefano (1989), Turner et al. (1991), Scott and Turner (1997), Irish (1998), and Marado and Silva (2016). The 600 individuals in the sample were divided by generation, region, and nationality. Their phenetic diversity was tested with principal component analysis and with the mean measure of divergence statistic. The proximity between the subsamples was generalized, and it mimicked previous genetic marker results. Some small subsamples hindered conclusions; nevertheless, this Coimbra sample is considered a reliable dental reference sample for the Portuguese late modern/early contemporary population.     

Introduction

The public are engaging more with archaeology today than ever before, whether this is through the plethora of television channels increasing access to and providing reinterpretations of archaeological sites and finds, or through the blockbuster exhibitions hosted by museums (see Holtorf 2005, 2007). However are the public just expected to be consumers or should they be encouraged to participate and help direct the archaeological work being undertaken through active engagement?     

Maroon Archaeology Is Public Archaeology

Researchers of the contemporary past have sought to be instrumental in public dialogue about how artifacts speak to heritage matters relevant to living communities and decision-making polities (Emberling and Hanson, Catastophe!: the looting and destruction of Iraq’s past, 2008; Gibbon, Who owns the past?: cultural policy, cultural property, and the law, 2005; Mullins, Places in mind: public archaeology as applied anthropology, 2004; Renfrew, Loot, legitimacy and ownership: the ethical crisis in archaeology, 2000; Skeates, Debating the archaeological heritage, 2000). This approach has made archaeology a public endeavor that serves the needs of inquisitive researchers, as well as those groups of individuals whose lives may be directly affected by the excavation, analysis, and interpretation of archaeological remains. This paper will broadly assess how the archaeology of Maroons—tribal communities of runaway slave descendants—has affected the application of scholarly research in the former Dutch territory of Suriname, SA. The shift in relevance is due to the Inter-American Court on Human Rights 2007 judgment that allows Suriname Maroons to assert decision-making authority on matters of land management and development in ancestral and contemporary habitat. Vital to this endeavor is, Maroon involvement in archaeological research and more importantly, an overhaul in Surinamese antiquity laws.     

Unearthing Barrow Island’s Past: The Historical Archaeology of Colonial-Era Exploitation,Northwest Australia

The “modern world” of recent centuries is characterized by colonialism and imperialism, greater instances of cultural encounter and competition, increasing global connectivity, and the enhanced movement of resources and people especially for their labor (Falk 1991; Orser 1996). Northwest Australia provides important insight into these elements of modernity, as a region where the capitalist production of resources for international markets followed British colonization and relied on forms of non-European labor, both Indigenous Australian and Asian. This paper describes Barrow Island in the Northwest Australian maritime desert where archaeological research at recently discovered historic settlements indicates the deliberate translocation of Aboriginal people to the island presumably by white pearlers. The sites provide new information regarding commercial extractive industries, particularly the colonial pearl fisheries and their multicultural and exploitative nature.     

From Moments to Histories: A Social Archaeology of the Mesolithic?

This contribution will provide a critical overview of the other papers within this special issue of Journal of World Prehistory (Elliott and Little 2018), identifying key aspects of the discussion and assessing potentials and problems in the development of Mesolithic archaeology in Britain and Ireland as a whole since 2006 (Conneller and Warren in Mesolithic Britain and Ireland: New approaches, Stroud, Tempus, 2006a). Reflections will include how the contribution of very high-resolution analyses to Mesolithic archaeology has changed since 2006 and the scale of our interpretations. The review will also identify areas which appear to be falling from analytical focus, including the role of analogies in Mesolithic archaeology and the nature of power and social relationships in Mesolithic communities.     

A geometric morphometric relationship predicts stone flake shape and size variability

The archaeological record represents a window onto the complex relationship between stone artefact variance and hominin behaviour. Differences in the shapes and sizes of stone flakes—the most abundant remains of past behaviours for much of human evolutionary history—may be underpinned by variation in a range of different environmental and behavioural factors. Controlled flake production experiments have drawn inferences between flake platform preparation behaviours, which have thus far been approximated by linear measurements, and different aspects of overall stone flake variability (Dibble and Rezek J Archaeol Sci 36:1945–1954, 2009; Lin et al. Am Antiq 724–745, 2013; Magnani et al. J Archaeol Sci 46:37–49, 2014; Rezek et al. J Archaeol Sci 38:1346–1359, 2011). However, when the results are applied to archaeological assemblages, there remains a substantial amount of unexplained variability. It is unclear whether this disparity between explanatory models and archaeological data is a result of measurement error on certain key variables, whether traditional analyses are somehow a general limiting factor, or whether there are additional flake shape and size drivers that remain unaccounted for. To try and circumvent these issues, here, we describe a shape analysis approach to assessing stone flake variability including a newly developed three-dimensional geometric morphometric method (‘3DGM’). We use 3DGM to demonstrate that a relationship between platform and flake body governs flake shape and size variability. Contingently, we show that by using this 3DGM approach, we can use flake platform attributes to both (1) make fairly accurate stone flake size predictions and (2) make relatively detailed predictions of stone flake shape. Whether conscious or instinctive, an understanding of this geometric relationship would have been critical to past knappers effectively controlling the production of desired stone flakes. However, despite being able to holistically and accurately incorporate three-dimensional flake variance into our analyses, the behavioural drivers of this variance remain elusive.     

Belts vs. Blades: the Binary Bind in Iron Age Mortuary Contexts in Southwest Germany

The complex interplay between dress and identity has long been a subject of analysis in several fields of study, but until recently, the approach to gender in archaeological mortuary contexts has tended to default to a reductionist binary structure. The concept of intercategorical intersectionality (McCall Signs, 30(3), 1771–1800, 2005) as applied to dress and its material correlates both confounds and challenges this problematic and restricted view of gender in prehistoric societies. Data from an area of Europe in which Iron Age populations marked an interconnected set of social roles through the medium of personal adornment in mortuary contexts reveal significant ambiguities, including two related and apparently significant patterns: the relative under-representation of adult males as compared to females (with a correspondingly large “indeterminate” gender category) and what appears to be an exclusively (and improbably) “female” subadult elite group buried in tumuli. The complex interdigitization of gender with other social roles in mortuary contexts suggests that our interpretations of the early Iron Age burial program must be correspondingly flexible to do justice to this intersectional complexity.     

How Pre-modern State Rulers Used Marriage to Reduce the Risk of Losing at War: A Comparison of Eight States

Approaching warfare in pre-modern states from the perspective of risk reduction, we see that royal marriage was one strategy rulers used to reduce the probability that they would lose a war. Judicious marriage exchanges intensified and prolonged patron-client relations between rulers or between rulers and societal elites. Clientelism could affect the size and composition of their armies. The more warriors and troops one could field, the greater the chance of not losing a war (Otterbein 2004; LeBlanc 2006). Examination of eight pre-modern states suggests that their rulers used the same patterns of wife exchange even though most states developed independently. Marriage secured long-term patron-client relationships, which they used to support their military efforts. When rulers married their kin or married them to rulers outside the system (“foreigners”), they did not gain military support. Analysis of these marriage-military patterns reveals several characteristics of pre-modern states. First, marriage alliances helped rulers form networks of support that helped them win wars. Therefore, marriage—and by extension, royal women—is a key component to the study of warfare and a critical mechanism of network formation, as Blanton et al. (1996) write. Second, alliances were based on a different organizing principle from Levi-Strauss’ tribal societies, for rulers selected main wives (for themselves or their kin) based on relative rank rather than particular kinship ties. Third, marriage alliance reveals an important difference between alliance and patron-client relationships, a distinction that is often blurred in the archaeological literature.     

Simulating Lithic Raw Material Variability in Archaeological Contexts: A Re-evaluation and Revision of Brantingham’s Neutral Model

This paper presents a systematic re-evaluation of Brantingham’s (American Antiquity, 68(3), 487-509, 2003) neutral model of raw material procurement. I demonstrate that, in its original form, the model is ill-suited to the identification of archaeologically visible patterns, as it can only simulate processes governing the composition of toolkits and these differ substantially from those influencing the composition of discard records. I discuss and implement a series of modifications, and provide a detailed analysis of discard records produced under revised model definitions. On this basis, I argue that qualitative similarities in patterns generated by the neutral model and those evidenced in archaeological contexts cannot be used to prove, or disprove, the adaptive or functional significance of raw material variability (cf. Brantingham 2003). However, I show that the revised model can be used to detect deviations from neutral expectations quantitatively and within well-defined error ranges. I outline a new set of predictions for what archaeological variability should look like under the simplest procurement, transport, and discard behaviors, and argue that deviations from each of these may be traceable to specific behavioral domains (e.g., biased mobility, raw material selectivity). I also demonstrate that (a) archaeological sites or assemblages do not offer an adequate proxy for the average composition of ancient forager toolkits; (b) assemblage richness is, by itself, a very poor predictor of occupational histories; and (c) that the common practice of calculating expected frequencies from distances to sources is flawed, regardless of how such distances are measured.     

Proto-Cities or Non-Proto-Cities? On the Nature of Cucuteni–Trypillia Mega-Sites

The Eneolithic Cucuteni–Trypillia mega-sites were undoubtedly the largest residential agglomerates in southeastern Europe from c. 4100 to 3400 cal BC. Their sheer size and estimated population have triggered animated discussion of whether or not they should be regarded as ‘proto-cities’. Considering trajectories of change in, for instance, density of dwellings and settlement size, this paper discusses a series of issues that will help the reader decide in which category these large sites should be placed, while at the same time examining the arguments for and against Trypillia low-density settlement patterns, recently problematized by Chapman and Gaydarska (2016).     

Estimating Core Number in Assemblages: Core Movement and Mobility During the Holocene of the Fayum,Egypt

The utility of the cortex ratio first developed by Dibble et al. (American Antiquity, 70(3), 545–560, 2005) and extended by Douglass et al. (American Antiquity, 73(3), 513–526, 2008) is examined in contexts where cores rather than flakes may be transported. The cortex ratio is used to demonstrate the movement of artifacts by quantifying missing surface area, typically where it is the flakes that were removed and the cores that were left behind. In such situations, the removal of flakes with small volumes will result in the removal of relatively large cortical surface areas resulting in a low cortex ratio. However, when it is the cores that were removed, assemblages will lose greater proportions of artifact volume relative to the loss of artifact surface area. Here, we propose methods to investigate the effects of high-volume artifact removal from archeological assemblages as a proxy for human movement in addition to the cortex ratio. We apply the methods to stone artifact assemblages from the Fayum, Egypt, where changes in mid-Holocene mobility are closely linked to food production.     

Modeling Expansive Phenomena in Early Complex Societies: the Transition from Bronze Iron Age in Prehistoric Europe

The Bronze Age/Iron Age transition in Prehistoric Europe represents a perfect case study to test different and competing hypotheses of social dynamics and economic change in small-scale societies. The paper discusses the possibilities of modeling what could have happened in Europe between 1800 and 800 bc, in terms of spatiotemporal dynamics. The paper presents some theoretical aspects of the dynamic study of expansive phenomena and gives an overview of a computer model programmed to explain the way new burial forms expanded in Europe. The main idea is comparing classic demic diffusion models (spread of population), cultural transmission models (spread of ideas), and technological innovation diffusion model (spread of goods). We will present the fundamentals of a preliminary study towards the computational simulation of such hypothetical social mechanisms, using a dataset composed of more than 1,500 georeferenced and radiocarbon dated archaeological contexts of a period between the Early Bronze Age and the first Iron Age (1800–800 bc) from an area including the North-East of Iberian Peninsula, Southern France, Northern and Central Italy, Switzerland, Austria, and Southern Germany.     

Iron age chronology and biblical history rejoinders: The late bronze/iron age transition,Tel ʿEton and Lachish

ABSTRACT

In this article, I review three recent articles. In the first, Asscher and Boaretto (2018 Asscher, Y. , and Boaretto, E. , 2018. ‘Absolute time ranges in the plateau of the Late Bronze to Iron Age transition and the appearance of Bichrome pottery in Canaan, Southern Levant’, Radiocarbon 60, 1–25. doi: 10.1017/RDC.2017.96 [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]. ‘Absolute time ranges in the plateau of the Late Bronze to Iron Age transition and the appearance of Bichrome pottery in Canaan, Southern Levant’, Radiocarbon 60, 1–25) suggest that the Late Bronze/Iron I transition occurred in neighboring sites a century and more apart. In the second, Faust and Sapir (2018. ‘The “Governor's Residency” at Tel ?Eton, the United Monarchy and the impact of the old-house effect on large-scale archaeological reconstructions’, Radiocarbon 60, 801–820.) date the construction of a solid building at Tel ?Eton to the tenth century bce and interpret this as validation for the historicity of the United Monarchy of ancient Israel. In the third, Garfinkel et al. (2019a Garfinkel, Y. , et al. , 2019a. ‘Lachish fortifications and state formation in the Biblical kingdom of Judah in light of radiometric datings’, Radiocarbon 61, 1–18. doi: 10.1017/RDC.2019.5 [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]. ‘Lachish fortifications and state formation in the Biblical kingdom of Judah in light of radiometric datings’, Radiocarbon 61, 1–18) announce the discovery of a city-wall belonging to Level V at Lachish, and affiliate it with the building operations of King Rehoboam of Judah, described in 2 Chronicles. Scrutiny of the methods and facts dismisses all three theories.     

Micro-photogrammetric and morphometric differentiation of cut marks on bones using metal knives,quartzite, and flint flakes

In a previous article, we presented an innovative method to analyze cut marks produced with metal tools on animal bones from a metrical and tridimensional perspective (Maté-González et al. 2015). Such analysis developed a low-cost alternative technique to traditional microscopic methods for the tridimensional reconstruction of marks, using their measurements and sections. This article presents the results of an experimental study to test this photogrammetric and morphometric method for differentiating cut marks generated with metal, flint, and quartzite flakes. The results indicate statistically significant differences among cut marks produced by these three types of raw material. These results encourage the application of this method to archeological assemblages in order to establish a link between carcass processing and lithic reduction sequences on different raw materials and also to define the kind of tools used during butchery.     

Are Methodologies for Children keeping them in their Place?

As participatory methodologies gain popularity and are increasingly adapted to carry out research with ‘children’, I return to the methodological question: is doing research with children different from doing research with adults? (Punch, 2000 Punch, S. 2000. Research with children the same or different from research with adults?. Childhood, 9(3): 321–341. [Web of Science ®] [Google Scholar]). As a participatory researcher, I raise concerns around methods designed for ‘children’ that stamp a ‘how-to-research’ label upon a diverse group of individuals prior to entering the research space. Rather than continue the well-worn debate around the incompetent/competent/powerless child versus the competent all-powerful adult, I attempt a different approach that aims to dissolve this dichotomy. I draw on hybrid theories of identities (Benhabib, 1992 Benhabib, S. 1992. Situating the Self, New York: Routledge.  [Google Scholar]; Butler, 1990 Butler, J. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, London: Routledge.  [Google Scholar]; Adams, 2006 Adams, M. 2006. Hybridising habitus and reflexivity: towards an understanding of contemporary identity?. Sociology, 40(3): 511–528. [Crossref] [Google Scholar]), that recognise identities as multiple and fluid, and present social identities as unhelpful guides in designing participatory methods, principally the mythical notion of the competent all-powerful adult (Lee, 2001 Lee, N. 2001. Childhood and Society: Growing Up in an Age of Uncertainty, Milton Keynes: OUP.  [Google Scholar]). I present the case that pre-labelling participants contradicts the bottom-up approach of participatory methodologies, particularly when Participation is understood as spatial practice (Kesby, 1999 Kesby, M. 1999. Beyond the Representational Impasse? Retheorising Power, Empowerment and Spatiality, mimeo [Google Scholar]; Cornwall, 2000), and participants are invited into a research space, where identities are performed (Thrift, 2000) and are, therefore, something we ‘do’ not ‘have’ (Butler, 1990 Butler, J. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, London: Routledge.  [Google Scholar]).     

Ceramic Production and Interaction in the Northern Range of Trinidad

Regional syntheses based on data recovered mostly from outside of the Northern Range have characterized the mountainous region in northern Trinidad as a boundary between two distinct interaction spheres during the Early Ceramic Age (ca. AD 350–650/800) (Boomert 2000 Boomert, A. 2000. Trinidad, Tobago and the Lower Orinoco interaction Sphere: An Archaeological/Ethnohistorical Study. Alkmaar: Cairi Publications. [Google Scholar]). Changes occurring on Trinidad, other islands of the southern Lesser Antilles, and the South American mainland resulted in the disintegration of these earlier style zones during the final centuries of the Early Ceramic (Boomert 2000 Boomert, A. 2000. Trinidad, Tobago and the Lower Orinoco interaction Sphere: An Archaeological/Ethnohistorical Study. Alkmaar: Cairi Publications. [Google Scholar], 2010). This period of Late Ceramic cultural realignment was characterized by climate change, the renegotiation of political and social networks, and demographic transformations. We consider newly recovered ceramic evidence from the central Northern Range in order to evaluate the characterization of the region as a boundary and the region's role in broader Caribbean trends. We examine participation in interaction spheres to provide a more nuanced understanding of regional dynamics as they were expressed locally. Ceramic data indicate that occupants of the central Northern Range interpreted regional styles using locally derived materials, thus simultaneously engaging regional traditions and constructing local patterns of resource exploitation.     

Quarantine Matters: Colonial Quarantine at North Head,Sydney and Its Material and Ideological Ruins

Australia’s quarantine regulations have their roots in colonial practice. This paper is concerned with the “matter” of quarantine—its location, spatialization, and materialization—and the ways in which it contributed to the colonial agenda. Through an exploration of Sydney’s North Head Quarantine Station, quarantine is shown to be a technology through which the colony and the continent were framed as simultaneously pure and vulnerable. These colonial roots of quarantine practice are then brought back to the present, drawing on Stoler’s (2008) concept of “imperial debris” to contemplate the contemporary ruins, both material and ideological, of colonial quarantine practice.     

Fuelling the Fires: The Contribution of Wood Charcoal Analysis to a Landscape Scale Project at and Around Pre-Conquest Iron Age Silchester and a Reflection on Its Wider Implications

ABSTRACT

The contribution of targeted wood charcoal analysis (anthracology) to understanding of the 1st millennium BC Pre-Conquest Late Iron Age oppidum and transition to Early Roman town life at Silchester and nearby late prehistoric hinterland sites investigated by the Silchester Environs project is considered. Attention is given to whether substantive differences in charcoal assemblages of varying size and origin are discernible through time and space, and to their value in elucidating landscape, environment, woodland structure, taphonomy, site function and lifestyles. This paper aims to take stock of the work so far and reflect on what lessons can be learned within and beyond the project. Site-level data are summarised and contrasted for the reader, while full context-level interpretation is published elsewhere [Barnett Forthcoming a. “The Early Roman Wood Charcoal and Waterlogged Wood at Silchester.” In Silchester Insula IX: The Claudio-Neronian occupation of the Iron Age Oppidum. Britannia Monograph Series, edited by M. G. Fulford, A. Clarke, E. Durham, and N. Pankhurst. London: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies; and Barnett Forthcoming c Barnett, C. Forthcoming c. “Overview of the Archaeobotanical Evidence.” In Silchester Environs: the Landscape Context of Iron Age Calleva, edited by C. Barnett and M. G. Fulford. Oxford: Oxbow Books monograph due 2020. [Google Scholar]. “Overview of the Archaeobotanical Evidence.” In Silchester Environs: The Landscape Context of Iron Age Calleva, edited by C. Barnett, and M. G. Fulford. Oxford: Oxbow Books monograph].