Storage adaptations among hunter–gatherers: A quantitative approach to the Jomon period

Food storage economies among hunter–gatherers have been fundamentally important in research within anthropological archeology. It is well recognized that food storage was a key element in the evolution of hunter–gatherer societies. This paper examines storage facilities utilizing a digital planimeter to evaluate the volume and morphology of storage pits in the Jomon period (ca. 13,750–500 cal. BC). Quantitative analysis of Jomon storage pits shows temporal and spatial variability in terms of size. This research demonstrates that the quantitative analysis of storage pits is an effective way to improve our understanding of storage and its role in the Jomon economy in particular and subsistence adaptations in general. Thus, this approach has potential applications to other storage economies worldwide.     

Diversity in hunter–gatherer technological traditions: Mapping trajectories of cultural ‘descent with modification’ in northeast California

Recent work has demonstrated that technological traditions can be considered as systems of information transmission that operate on the principle of ‘descent with modification’. In this paper we present an ethno-historical case-study of northeast Californian hunter–fisher–gatherers. Our goal is to understand the factors generating long-term diversity in local material culture, and we begin by investigating the extent to which branching and reticulation explain variation in four distinct technological traditions – basketry, cradles, ceremonial dress and earth-lodges. We then examine whether these four traditions have been transmitted in tandem, or are characterized by entirely different descent histories. The results for this particular case-study suggest that the first three traditions have been closely associated during branching descent, while the earth-lodges appear to have entirely distinct transmission histories. The general analytical framework presented in this paper is readily exportable to other world regions, where local case-studies may generate contrasting insights into historically-contingent patterns of cultural inheritance. Further studies examining potential co-transmission of technological traditions are strongly encouraged as a welcome addition to the cultural transmission literature.     

Forager–farmer connections in an ‘unoccupied’ land: First contact on the western edge of LBK territory

The interaction between local foragers and incoming farmers is one of the hot topics in the study of Europe’s recent prehistory. In Central and Western Europe’s loam region, occupied by the first farmers of the Linearbandkeramik (LBK), hunter–gatherer remains are scarce and consist mostly of surface finds. Hence, the hunter–gatherer occupation and activity on the loess has never been studied in detail. This paper tackles the problem of the visibility of hunter–gatherer activity on the loess belt. An interregional comparison of microlith datasets allows identifying behavioural changes and differences in exploitation intensity. With regard to forager–farmer interaction, a mutual influence in the spatial patterning of activity or settlement is demonstrated.     

Canids as persons: Early Neolithic dog and wolf burials, Cis-Baikal, Siberia

Interpretations of dog burials made by ancient foraging groups have tended to be based upon our own relationships with such animals and modern western cosmological and ontological concepts. Osteological studies of early dogs often focus only on issues of taxonomy, and as a result very little is known about these animals’ life histories. Eastern Siberia has produced many Holocene dog burials, but these are typically not well described and the explanatory frameworks provided for them are very underdeveloped. Here we examine in detail two Cis-Baikal canid burials, one of a wolf and the other a dog, both in large Middle Holocene hunter-gatherer cemeteries. We link the mortuary treatment of these animals to other cultural practices, particularly the treatment of the human dead, and broader patterns in Northern human-animal relationships. This interpretive model is combined with detailed osteobiographies for the canids and contextual information for these and other dogs and wolves from Middle Holocene Cis-Baikal. It is argued that canids here were understood and treated in a variety of ways. We suggest that some animals with unique histories were known as distinct persons with ‘souls’ and because of this at death required mortuary rites similar to those of their human counterparts.     

Caching your savings: The use of small-scale storage in European prehistory

Understanding of European prehistoric storage practices tends to focus on the long-term and large-scale storage of cereals from the Neolithic onwards. In addition, storage is often associated with the development of sedentism and social complexity. Through the use of anthropological and ethnographic data this paper demonstrates that storage by both hunter-gatherers and farmers is more complex. New storage categories, such as closed and open caches, and portable storage, are suggested as ways of understanding whether similar storage practices were used during European prehistory. We learn that although direct evidence for storage is difficult to find in the archaeological record, a combination of ethnographic data and indirect evidence demonstrates that storage, especially this use of small-scale storage, was practiced in prehistory. In the conclusion, this paper demonstrates that storage during the Mesolithic (11,300-6000 BP) would have played a vital role in the lifeways of hunter-gatherers and that for the Neolithic (6000-4500 BP) the use of small-scale storage of a variety of foods would have been equally important as the storage of grain.     

Climate change, uncertainty and prehistoric hunter–gatherer mobility

The onset of Little Ice Age conditions in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains resulted in increased temporal and spatial variability, and hence uncertainty regarding the distribution and production of resources targeted by its inhabitants, the Western Mono. The Mono responded with a risk-averse strategy composed of lowland winter population aggregation supported by logistical forays and seasonal residential dispersals to the high country, both ways of averaging variance in environmental productivity. These patterns were reconstructed using surface archaeology, GIS, and two straightforward spatial statistics, nearest-neighbor and variance-to-mean ratios, that combined provide a robust, objective picture of population aggregation and dispersal and the scale of these phenomena in different environments and seasons. These diverse strategies conform to expectations regarding the best ways for hunter–gatherers to cope with uncertainty, particularly in mountain environments. Despite this, the residentially mobile aspect of the pattern is rare in mountains and probably the result of historical connections between the Mono and Great Basin groups employing similar behaviors. Ultimately, this research suggests that climate change and environmental variability condition risk-averse, satisficing economic behaviors focused more on security than optimization, implying that pronounced environmental variability runs counter to economic intensification and its association with the evolution of more complex societies.     

Geoarchaeological investigations at Diepkloof Rock Shelter,Western Cape,South Africa

The sedimentary sequence at Diepkloof Rock Shelter formed through a complex interaction of depositional and post-depositional processes and was variously influenced by biogenic, geogenic, and anthropogenic agents. Here, we present the results of a micromorphological study of the sediments at Diepkloof, focusing in particular on the numerous anthropogenic inputs and modifications recorded within the sequence. By applying the microfacies concept, we were able to identify hearth burning and maintenance, bedding construction and burning, and surface modification by trampling as major processes that contributed to the formation of the site. The human activities recorded within the sediments show a marked change throughout the sequence, implying a shift in the use of the site over time. The present study also provides a context for evaluating other classes of artifacts and data collected from the site.     

Late Holocene climatic fluctuations and soil genesis in southern Patagonia: effects on the archaeological record

Geoarchaeological research conducted at five localities in southern Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego identified a mollisol within late Holocene aeolian and colluvial deposits associated with archaeological material. The mollisol's origin and development are related to an increase in humidity (c. 1000 BP) following an episode of severe drought during the Medieval Warm Period. Corroborating data is supplied from dendroclimatic and pollen studies. A drastic reduction in frequency of artefact distribution recorded at the sites studied corresponds to this pedologic event, suggesting a greater human presence at these sites during earlier, regional-scale arid conditions. However, the paucity of archaeological remains may also be the result of the low resolution of cultural evidence following the pedologic development due to superimposition over previous archaeological deposits.     

Mineralogical And Chemical Investigations Of Bloomery Slags From Prehistoric (8th Century Bc To 4th Century Ad) Iron Production Sites In Upper And Lower Lusatia,Germany

More than 400 fayalitic bloomery slags from prehistoric iron production sites in Upper and Lower Lusatia, eastern Germany, as well as bog iron ore samples and intermediary samples of the smelting process, were analysed by chemical and mineralogical techniques. While the precursor bog iron ores exploited in the two regions under investigation were very similar in composition, consisting of low‐manganese/low‐barium as well as high‐manganese/high‐barium types of ore, pronounced differences in slag composition were detected. Slags from 17 investigated sites in Upper Lusatia showed average P₂O₅ contents between 1 and 3 mass%, whereas slags from 15 investigated sites in Lower Lusatia were generally much richer in phosphorus, reaching values as high as 7 mass% P₂O₅. Since a reasonable correlation exists between calcium and phosphorus contents in the slags of the latter sites, it is conjectured that deliberate addition of CaO to the ore/charcoal charge of the bloomery furnace may have taken place in order to fix the phosphorus in the slags effectively. In many samples, this conjecture is being supported by the detection of a slag mineral Ca–Fe phosphate Ca_9?xFe_1+x(PO₄)₇ that presumably crystallized from a residual phosphorus‐rich melt and shows a cotectic relationship to both Ca‐rich fayalite and wustite, as well as to members of the solid solution series magnetite–hercynite.