Virtual Representation: the Production of 3D Digital Artifacts

As new digital technologies now pervade the discipline of archaeology, the practice of creating digital 3D representations of artifacts has become widespread. The rapid growth and acceptance of these technologies into the discipline leaves us in a position where we must engage with how these tools fit our epistemologies. I propose that we look to a much older technology, photography, to inform the way that these digital artifacts are dealt with as we move into an increasingly digital field. In doing so, I will argue that the creation of a 3D digital artifact is a productive process, just as any form of media used to document and interpret the archaeological record. Through this production, the digital form is decoupled from the original physical artifact. The creation of a new representation of the artifact (in the form of a photograph or digital model) provides a new dimension to our interactions with these artifacts. The result of the digital movement in archaeology is a more interactive experience with artifacts, allowing researchers and the public alike digital access to archaeological collections. If the current trend continues, digital artifact modeling will become as indispensable to archaeology as traditional photography. It is therefore necessary for archaeologists to be aware of the subjectivities and biases that exist during this productive act as we move into a more integrated field of digital, representational technologies.     

A Twenty-First Century Archaeology of Stone Artifacts

Archaeologists today, as in the past, continue to divide their stone artifact assemblages into categories and to give privilege to certain of these categories over others. Retouched tools and particular core forms, for instance, are thought to contain more information than the unretouched flakes and flake fragments. This reflects the assumption that information to be gained from stone artifacts is present within the artifact itself. This study evaluates a continued interest in the final form of stone artifacts by first considering ethnographic accounts of stone artifact manufacture and use in Australia and then by utilizing the patterns observed in these accounts to investigate assemblage patterning within an Australian archaeological case study. Reading the ethnographic accounts provides no indication that Aboriginal people valued more or less complex artifacts, in uniform ways, in every situation. In fact, the opposite is true. Stone artifacts were always valued in some sense but which ones, and in which ways, depended on the situations the people who needed the artifacts found themselves in. Aboriginal people were quite capable of making and using expedient and informal artifacts in complex ways. The significance of these observations is considered for stone artifact studies in general and in relation to a case study from western New South Wales, Australia.     

Investigating absence: Assessing the cumulative effects of casual collecting at a 19th century Bahamian plantation

Abstract

Recent archaeological work at Prospect Hill, a 19th century plantation in the Bahamas, revealed artifact patterns that are inconsistent with expectations for a plantation site. The quantity and quality of artifacts in residential areas associated with the planter family and the enslaved population were inverted and suggest significant post abandonment changes. The site of Prospect Hill has been a destination for tourists and student groups since the mid-20th century, and the areas of the site most accessible to these visitors are also those with surprisingly low artifact counts. I investigated the possibility that regular visitation involved casual collecting using historical data as well as artifact assemblages from archaeological work at Prospect Hill. My analysis suggests that the archaeological record has been altered significantly through casual, opportunistic collecting, and it offers insights for identifying casual collecting elsewhere.     

DISTRIBUTION AND CONTEXT OF WORKED CRYSTALLINE ARTIFACTS FROM THE MIDDLE CUMBERLAND REGION OF TENNESSEE

Antiquarian and modern explorations within the Middle Cumberland region of Tennessee have uncovered vast quantities of ceramic, stone, bone, and shell artifacts. Objects made from mineral resources represent a modest percentage of the overall artifact assemblage. Specimens manufactured from crystals comprise a very small portion of the mineral sample, as only six worked crystalline artifacts are documented to date for the Middle Cumberland region. These specimens of fluorite and calcite consist of four earplugs, one bird effigy pendant, and one bead from four different Mississippian period sites. Fluorite and calcite deposits occur within the study area, but additional research is needed to determine whether these sources were used to make the Middle Cumberland items. The recovery of three earplugs (two of which are very unusual) and raw calcite crystals from the Castalian Springs mound complex comprises intriguing evidence for the production of crystalline objects as a site activity.     

Evaluating the usefulness of phytoliths and starch grains found on survey artifacts

Archaeologists use survey artifacts to study any number of interesting topics. The focus of this study is to test the usefulness of starch grains and phytoliths found on artifacts recovered during archaeological survey. Phytolith and starch grain analysis was used to determine the level of environmental contamination on three types of medieval ceramics collected during survey work from plowed fields in the parish of Wicken, Northamptonshire, England. The plant residues found on these artifacts were compared with their surrounding soil and with contemporaneous excavated artifacts recovered from under the floorboards of a medieval house in nearby Wyton, Cambridgeshire, England. Through the use of the “piggyback” approach pioneered by Chandler-Ezell and Pearsall, phytoliths and starch grains were systematically removed from the artifacts surface. Residues associated with contamination were removed from the outermost layer of the artifact surface while potentially uncontaminated residues were removed from the innermost layer of the artifact surface. Matching phytoliths and starch grains were found on the outermost surface of the survey artifacts and in the surrounding soils. No phytoliths and starch grains were found on the innermost surface of the survey artifacts suggesting that residues from the surrounding soils did not penetrate into the pores and crevices of the artifacts. The overall results suggest that, although they are preliminary, there is potential for plant residue analysis of survey artifacts.     

Integrating pattern and context in spatial archaeology

Traditional approaches to intrasite spatial analysis in archaeology have concentrated on identifying associations among classes of artifacts over a site surface. This focus has tended to ignore the possible effects of contextual constraints on inter-class relationships, for example the “gravity effects” of hearth features on object deposition. Consequently, sets of co-occurring artifact classes defined in space are usually ascribed behavioural significance as “tool kits”, even though they may represent unrelated objects simply discarded into the same spatial location. This paper attempts to illustrate this problem through contextual integration of artifact and feature distributions. Quantitative methods are employed to carry out contextual spatial analysis of artifact distributions from the Upper Palaeolithic rockshelter site Le Flageolet I (Dordogne, France). Results indicate that associations among artifact classes in space might be constrained by feature locations at Le Flageolet I and that contextual interpretations are warranted for the observed inter-class relations.     

Paleoindian technological provisioning strategies in the northwestern Great Basin

Great Basin populations during the Pleistocene–Holocene Transition (PHT) are often characterized as being mobile and focused on wetlands; however, the factors that influenced where Paleoindians selected residential campsites are poorly understood. Using predictions derived from optimal foraging-based patch choice models and GIS reconstructions of the PHT landscape, some researchers have argued that occupations in smaller wetlands should have been shorter than occupations in larger wetlands but such arguments have rarely been evaluated using empirical data. The PHT lithic record provides an opportunity to evaluate the relationship between wetland size and occupation span by applying Kuhn's (1995) concept of technological provisioning. Kuhn expects more mobile populations to provision individuals and more sedentary populations to provision places and suggests that: (1) a strategy of provisioning individuals should be reflected by a high proportion of more extensively used artifacts made on non-local raw materials; and (2) a strategy of provisioning places should be reflected by a high proportion of less extensively used artifacts made on local raw materials. We apply the technological provisioning concept to lithic assemblages from two of the Parman localities, extensive PHT sites in the northwestern Great Basin, and compare local and nonlocal artifacts to determine if Paleoindians shifted from provisioning individuals while moving to/from the sites to provisioning the place while occupying them. There is no relationship between artifact transport distance and artifact use intensity. We interpret these findings as evidence that Paleoindians did not alter their provisioning strategies while occupying the Parman localities, likely because occupations were brief within a small wetland poorly-suited to support groups for long periods.     

Exchange economies of late prehistoric eastern Sonora,Mexico: A re-evaluation based on provenance data analyses

This paper presents provenance data on mundane and rare artifact classes from eastern Sonora in order to revise interpretations of the political economy of late prehistoric Northwest Mexico. Previous researchers have argued that long-distance exchange was a predominantly elite activity utilized to generate economic wealth as a means to political ascendance. Data presented in this analysis contradict these previous models and indicate that all segments of society employed exchange to forge relationships for diverse reasons. Aspiring leaders rarely utilized unequal access to regionally acquired goods to attract local supporters. There is no evidence that foreign objects or symbolism imported from Mesoamerica were a component of aspirant leader strategies. Commoner households exchanged mundane artifacts to bank social capital with groups unlikely to undergo simultaneous social depredations. Overall, exchange and other data indicate a fairly balkanized landscape with few signs of elite offices.     

Testing for the presence of thermal pretreatment of flint in the mesolithic and neolithic of Sweden

Through ethnographic accounts, the method of heat treatment of silica materials to improve the flaking qualities is shown to have been known almost worldwide. Some mesolithic and neolithic flint artifacts from southern Sweden were examined in order to determine if they too were heat treated. From several methods proving or indicating thermal alteration of flint, analysis using scanning electron microscopy was chosen. Two samples were taken from each artifact, one being examined unaltered, the other being heat treated. No two samples from the same artifact had the same kind of surface appearance. Thus these analyses prove that the artifacts examined had not been heat treated.     

The correlation of surface and subsurface artifacts: A test case from Late and Terminal Classic Popola,Yucatan, Mexico

Abstract

Surface collections are commonly used by archaeologists to sample artifact assemblages, but the correlation of surface and subsurface artifacts is not fully understood. Cultural, taphonomic, and research-design factors that can affect the relationship of surface and subsurface deposits are reviewed and the correlation of surface and subsurface deposits is tested statistically with data from the site of Popola, Yucatan, Mexico, a Late and Terminal Classic period (a.d. 600–1100) village in the northern Maya lowlands. This study suggests that surface artifact density is not correlated with subsurface artifact density. Large-scale surface collections can characterize the overall assemblage of a site, but not any small area in particular. In shallow bioturbated soils there is no significant variation between surface and subsurface assemblages at any depth. Surface artifacts may be used to identify the presence of subsurface artifacts, but should not be used to suggest their absence.     

The Mortality of Things: Correlates of Use Life in Wola Material Culture Using Age-at-Census Data

How long ancient artifacts lasted affects the composition of archaeological assemblages. Some research suggests that longevity or use life relates to size and other artifact properties, but we know less than we should about what determines use life. An ethnographic census of Wola objects from highland Papua New Guinea recorded artifact age. From these data we use Hildebrand and Hagstrum's method to estimate mean use life. It does not covary generally with object size as in previous studies but does with commodity value. Among arrows alone, use life covaries with object size. Results complicate in some respects and clarify in others our growing understanding of what determines artifact use life.     

Geochemical impacts to prehistoric iron-rich siliceous artifacts in the nearshore coastal zone

In the Middle Atlantic region of the United States, landscapes drowned by sea level rise contain scores of prehistoric archaeological sites. These sites provide archaeologists with a rare opportunity to investigate various geologic processes. During the transition from a terrestrial to an offshore setting, the materials associated with an archaeological site are exposed to a series of geochemical processes inherent to the formation of tidal marsh. The duration of the geochemical exposure to tidal marsh is largely dependent on the rate of marine transgression. Here we describe the stages associated with the sulfidization and sulfuricization scheme and the impact to iron-rich lithic artifacts from naturally drowned archaeological sites. Sulfidization and sulfuricization should also impact buried archaeological materials as a result of anthropogenic dredge spoil dumping and the creation of man-made tidal marshes along modern coastlines. Our results indicate that the surfaces of an iron-rich artifact, as well as its interior are visually and geochemically altered by prolonged exposure to the anaerobic conditions of a tidal marsh. Not only should researchers be cautious about making lithic material identification on artifacts found within coastal tidal marsh areas, but museum curators should be aware of the damaging impact of long-term aerobic storage. The geochemical tidal marsh scheme that has altered or corroded iron-rich lithic artifacts in the nearshore zone is an expression of a process that has impacted numerous earlier prehistoric sites currently located on the continental shelf or beneath the coastal estuaries around the world.     

Experimental Design and Experimental Inference in Stone Artifact Archaeology

Lithic researchers rely heavily on experimentation to infer past behaviors and activities based on stone artifacts. This paper explores the analogical nature of archaeological inference and the relationship between experimental design and inference validity in stone artifact experimentation. We show that actualistic flintknapping lacks vital aspects of scientific experimentation, and thus has inherent inferential issues of analogical adequacy and confidence. It is argued that a greater emphasis on hypothesis construction and variable control is needed in order to establish sound referential linkages upon which constructive analogic inferences about the past can be built.     

Sweep widths and the detection of artifacts in archaeological survey

In many parts of the world, one of the principal means for discovering archaeological resources is terrestrial archaeological survey for small scatters of generally unobtrusive artifacts on the surface. Yet archaeologists have expended relatively little research on the factors that affect detection of such artifacts or the impacts they have on the reliability of surveys. We employ mock survey of plowed fields ‘seeded’ with a variety of artifacts in order to evaluate the effectiveness of pedestrian survey (fieldwalking) with respect to search time and transect spacing. Our results confirm theoretical expectations about the diminishing returns on increases of search effort, while also demonstrating variation in ‘sweep widths’ for different artifact types and surveyor speed and the effects of walking toward or away from the sun. Preliminary results have implications for the most efficient spacing of survey transects as well as the evaluation of completed surveys, since some artifact types have extremely low probabilities of detection even at high densities of search effort.     

Modeling ground slate knife production and implications for the study of household labor contributions to salmon fishing on the Pacific Northwest Coast

Despite longstanding anthropological concerns with the origins of intensive delayed-return subsistence economies and the timing of the development of increasingly complex political systems on the Northwest Coast, the use and production of slate knives—one of the most archaeologically visible tools used to process seasonally available salmon—has received little attention in the archaeological literature. This can be attributed, in part, to the persistence of artifact typologies that have failed to generate behavioral implications for variability in slate artifact assemblages. In this article, I use data derived from ethnographic, experimental, and actualistic research to develop an approach to the classification of slate artifacts expected of knife-production activities. Emphasis is placed on framing slate knife production as a temporally emergent and situated activity, but also as an operational sequence that can be modeled due to regularity in the decisions and motions expected of tool makers producing functionally specific tools. Using slate assemblages recovered during the partial excavation of seven Late and Contact period Coast Salish houses in southern British Columbia, I then evaluate and demonstrate the utility of this approach by considering variability in household labor contributions to salmon fishing.     

汉代翠鸟铜饰研究

我国西南地区的汉墓中出土了若干小鸟造型的青铜器,鸟背上或有罐、钱币、羽人等形象,鸟嘴中有的还衔有鱼。在相关考古报告中,对这些鸟的类型有不同的认识,对于器物的用途也缺乏合理解释。通过对相关资料的系统分析和比较,根据这类铜器中小鸟具有头大、颈短、尾短、喙长的特点,笔者     

Explaining recent fertility increase in Central Asia

After a swift decline during the 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union, period fertility rates have either been stagnating or increasing in all countries of Central Asia. In this paper, I investigate the role of data artifacts, population composition effect, economic context and shifting tempo effect in explaining fertility changes in Central Asia. The analysis is primarily based on comparison of fertility data from the vital registration system with estimates from other data sources. The results show that the recent changes to be real and not a result of data artifact. The most plausible explanations are to be found in the three other non-exclusive factors (population composition effect, economic context and shifting tempo effect) that contributed jointly and simultaneously to push up the period fertility rates in the region.     

Invisible Culture: The Use of Soft X-ray Radiography in Perishable Research

Analysis of perishable artifacts has at times been hampered by our inability to “see inside” an item to examine internal construction and attribute characteristics. Early researchers sometimes resorted to dissection to determine construction sequences and to view interior elements, but this practice is destructive and currently avoided. In this article, I discuss the use of soft X-ray radiography (using medical X-ray units designed for mammography) to analyze perishable artifacts. Case studies from the North American Great Basin and Southwest demonstrate the utility of this technique as effective, nondestructive, and inexpensive.     

试论文物摄影的表现方法

文物摄影是摄影艺术的一个门类 ,除了要注重科学性和真实性外 ,还要强调其艺术性和欣赏性。本文从拍摄角度、背景处理、光线运用等几个方面论述了文物摄影的表现方法。     

Core Use-Life Distributions in Lithic Assemblages as a Means for Reconstructing Behavioral Patterns

Artifacts with varying use-lives have different discard rates and hence are represented unequally among archaeological assemblages. As such, the ability to gauge the use-lives of artifacts is important for understanding the formation of archaeological assemblage variability. In lithic artifacts, use-life can be expressed as the extraction of utility, or work potential, from existing stone volume. Using experimental data and generalized linear modeling, this study develops models of artifact use-life on cores in the form of reduction intensity. We then apply these models to two archaeological case studies to (a) reconstruct the reduction intensities of archaeological cores and (b) investigate the survivorship curves of these archaeological cores across the reduction continuum using the Weibull function. Results indicate variation in core reduction and maintenance with respect to raw material properties and place use history and implicate evolutionary differences between Early Stone Age hominins and Holocene modern humans.