What is a Burin? Typology,Technology, and Interregional Comparison

Classification of artifacts has long marked a significant edge between theory and practice in archaeology. While considering classification to be a necessary methodological device, most practitioners also recognize that it carries with it built-in assumptions. This essay approaches the issue by way of a specific stone tool type from Old World sites: the burin. By asking “what is a burin?” the study shows the need to reconsider typologies to reflect changes in research questions and progress in dating methods, especially when working with museum collections and secondary data between regions and across national traditions, and the need to study whole collections from the perspective of technological choices.     

An Osteometric Study on the Variation in Orientation of the Lesser Trochanter in an Early Medieval Human Skeletal Assemblage and Comparison with an Individual from the Late Upper Palaeolithic

Anatomical textbooks describe the lesser trochanter in contemporary humans as being oriented posteromedially. In contrast, orientation of the lesser trochanter towards posterior was observed in some human femora from the Upper Palaeolithic, including the femur of a young adult individual from Germany (Irlich 1), radiocarbon dated to 12 500–11 200 bp (calibrated AMS age). The present study analysed the orientation of the lesser trochanter in femora originating from an early medieval skeletal assemblage (Greding, Germany) and compared the results with those for the Irlich 1 femur. Eleven landmarks, four on the proximal femur, four on the mid‐shaft and three on the distal femur, were recorded with a MicroScribe® digitizer and analysed using AutoCAD® 2010 software. Seven angles and five distances were measured. In the Greding femora, significant differences (p  < 0.05) between sexes were found for several linear measurements, while no significant sex‐related differences existed for angular measurements. For some angular variables related to the orientation of the lesser trochanter, the values for the Irlich 1 femur lay outside the range of variation of the Greding specimens, reflecting the more posterior orientation of the lesser trochanter in the Irlich 1 femur. This posterior orientation of the lesser trochanter was not associated with a particularly low degree of femoral anteversion. It is hypothesised that the differences in orientation of the lesser trochanter between the Irlich 1 femur (and other femora of Upper Palaeolithic individuals) and the femora from Greding could basically reflect differences in traction exercised by the iliopsoas muscle during infancy and childhood between the sedentary agricultural population from Greding and Upper Palaeolithic hunter‐gatherers with a mobile lifestyle. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A 14th–17th century osteoporotic hip fracture from the Santa Clara‐a‐Velha Convent in Coimbra (Portugal)

Osteoporosis is an evocative term for a metabolic disorder characterized by loss of bone mass and organization, which predisposes to fracture. The clinical consequences of osteoporosis lie in the problems associated with it, specifically hip, Colles and vertebral fractures. We present here an extracapsular fracture of the proximal femur in an aged female skeleton from the Santa Clara‐a‐Velha Monastery (14th–17th centuries) in Coimbra, Portugal. This fracture is probably secondary to an osteoporotic disorder. Bone remodeling at the fracture site confirms that this woman survived for a long period after sustaining a fracture of the proximal femur, suggestive of a solid community assistance and support. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Kana Tamata or Feasts of Men: An Interdisciplinary Approach for Identifying Cannibalism in Prehistoric Fiji

By integrating osteological, taphonomic, archaeological and stable isotopic data, we test for cannibalism in the Lau Group, Fiji and discuss the potential underlying cause(s) and context(s) of this behaviour. First, we compare taphonomic and element representations of human skeletal material from two contexts in Fiji, examining human bone fragments from archaeological sites, including middens and burials in the Lau Island Group. Fourteen sites produced human remains. Only two of those sites included distinct human burial contexts, but in the remaining 12 sites, the human bone was recovered from middens or contexts where midden was mixed with possible secondary burials. A total of 262 number of identified specimens per species, representing an estimated 15 minimum number of individuals make up the Lau human assemblage. Second, we analysed bones contained in 20 individual human burials from four different sites that are housed at the Fiji Museum for comparative purposes. Third, we examine previously published stable isotopic (δ¹³C, δ¹⁵N) analysis of bone collagen to gauge protein consumption of likely cannibalised humans in midden contexts and potential cannibals from primary burials. We model a cannibalistic diet category within the context of isotopically measured Pacific Islands food groups and apply an isotopic mixing model to gauge plausible dietary contributions from six sources including human flesh. Isotopic mixing models of the Lauan samples illustrate a high diversity in reconstructed diets. The percent contribution of human flesh is low for all individual Lauans. We conclude that mortuary rituals evidenced by sharp‐force trauma may suggest non‐nutritive and non‐violent practices that may have included the consumption of small amounts of human flesh. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Defusing Dualism: Mind,Materiality and Prehistoric Art

The paper presents a sculpture made of a fossilised shell. It was found during an excavation at the site Torpum 9b in Østfold, south‐eastern Norway. The site and thereby the figure are dated to the late Mesolithic period. The sculpture is interpreted as an essence of female attributes, that is the hips and pelvis of a female human with the genitalia marked. This interpretation requires a discussion of the relations between general principles and actual historical situations. The interest in fossils is presumable universal, but the specific culture‐historical interpretation of the sculpture from Østfold must take the local Mesolithic context as its framework. Through an examination of fossils in folklore and prehistory, and a presentation of the particular fossil's geological origin and context, the universal and non‐historical meaning of the sculpture is presented. This perspective is then discussed in the context of the east Norwegian Mesolithic.     

Stature estimation in a central Patagonian prehispanic population: development of new models considering specific body proportions

Stature estimation of individuals from extinct human populations is a classic topic in anthropology. The estimations, using regression formulae generated from different reference samples, display different results. This fact is related to inter‐populational differences in body proportions, which is a phenotypic trait mainly correlated with climatic parameters. The aim of this paper is to address the problem of stature estimation of an archaeological skeletal sample from Patagonia – a region for which there are no specific models available – using different methods and considering differences in body proportions between reference and target populations. The sample used in this analysis is composed of 35 Late Holocene adults of both sexes recovered in central Patagonia (Argentina). The stature of each individual was first reconstructed using the anatomical method [Fully G. 1956 . Une nouvelle me´thode de de´termination de la taille. Annales Medicine Legale 35 : 266–273], which has no assumptions on body proportions. The results were compared with estimations based on 32 different regression formulae [Trotter M, Gleser G. 1958. A re‐evaluation of estimation of stature based on measurements taken during life and the long bones after death. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 16 : 79–124. 10.1002/ajpa.1330160106] and three femur/stature ratios [Feldesman MR, Fountain RL. 1996. Race specificity and the femur/stature ratio. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 100 : 207–224. 10.1002/(SICI)1096‐8644(199606)]. The average reconstructed stature was 160.8 cm for females (95% confidence band = 155.6–166.2 cm), and 170.5 cm for males (95% confidence band = 168.8–172.2 cm). Most of the comparisons of the regression formulae and femur/stature ratios showed significant differences, which are explained by differences in body proportions between the Patagonian sample and the ones chosen as reference. Finally, a set of new equations was developed using simple regression techniques. It is suggested that whenever possible, population‐specific formulae should be used in archaeological studies. In any other situation, the choice of a reference population should be made by taking into account its geographic (latitudinal) provenance. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Of Winds,Worms and Mana: the Traditional Calendar of the Torres Islands,Vanuatu

This paper explores how the expression of ‘capacity’ (mena, more commonly known as mana in other Oceanic settings) and the evocation of abundance are played out in relation to seasonal change and human‐environmental relations, as observed in the Torres Islands, Vanuatu. It considers the importance for communities of North and Central Vanuatu of the appearance of a ubiquitous sea worm known as the Palolo, in combination with the regular motions of the sun and the moon, the prevaling winds and various other ecological patterns. While human‐environmental relations are often mediated by the idea of mena, this also constitutes a basic social value that informs local senses of place and belonging. The study of temporality and environmental knowledge can help to de‐centre territorial notions of ‘place’ by situating this concept within the broader context in which people experience it. Finally, because these data bear on macro comparisons that span the Western Pacific, this article is aimed in part at putting the interpretation of time and calendrics within the Indo‐Pacific frame of reference that they should begin to take.     

Assembling attachments to homes under bushfire risk

This research, conducted in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia, explores attachment to the home in the context of bushfire risk. The paper builds on existing research that has focused both on the home and on emplaced and mobile methods therein and seeks to understand the range of human and non‐human attachments. We situate our examination of attachment in the context of a bushfire‐prone suburban area to consider whether attachments to home may be influenced by an external risk. We use a mix of verbal, visual, and sensory methods (walking and image‐led interviews) to examine both verbal and sensorial articulations in place and in the home. We report on a stepwise analysis of place attachments, home, and bushfire risk. First and while interviewing, we moved with the participants inside and outside of their homes to understand how attachment to those sites was constructed and maintained. Second, we considered those encounters as assemblages of attachments to place. Finally, we studied those assemblages of home‐bound attachments in the context of the risk of bushfire in proximate suburbs.     

A Spanish Man‐o‐War in New Zealand? The 1864 wreck of Grafton and its lessons for pre‐Cook shipwreck claims

This paper considers the 1864 wreck of Grafton in the Auckland Islands, and its implications for wreck analysis and pre‐Cook exploration claims. The captain of Grafton, Thomas Musgrave, stated that the schooner was built from the wreck of a Spanish man‐o‐war, and archaeological analysis of the wreck found that the timbers are a tropical South American species, and had possibly been reused. The implications of this are clear; it is possible that timbers that originated in pre‐Cook (1769) ships lie in New Zealand, but without a full understanding of the historical and archaeological context of any such timbers, including their reuse in later ships, it is not possible to claim proof of pre‐Cook European exploration of New Zealand.     

Embryotomy in the 19th Century of Central Italy

An enormous earthquake in L'Aquila in 2009 brought to light human bodies buried in the underground rooms of the medieval St. John the Evangelist church (Casentino, Central Italy). Among the remains, we discovered a human fetus, whose post‐cranial bones were wrapped in bandages and cranial bones were reallocated inside a sort of hood. Anthropometrical investigation revealed an age at death of 29 ± 2 weeks of pregnancy for the little mummy. Radiograph analysis of the fetus showed that the skull was dissected and disconnected from the vertebral column, and the post‐cranial bones were completely disarticulated from the axial skeleton. The body was reassembled in a way of anatomic connection at a later stage. This mummified fetus dated to ad 1840 showed paleopathological evidence of a possible embryotomy and could be a rare and unquestionable case of embryotomy in archaeological context. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Some Recent Trends in the Study of Religion and Youth

From the beginning of the twenty‐first century there has been a sharp increase in research on the ways in which young people engage with religion and spirituality. Three trends are apparent: first, there has been a shift away from focusing on the formal processes of young people's religious socialisation and a realisation that youth exercise considerable agency in their construction of personal and group identities; second, the 1970s and 1980s assumption that religion was in decline in developed countries and was of little interest to young adults has been challenged by the growth of trans‐national religions including Pentecostal Christianity, and by the emergence of a myriad spiritualities and identity‐conferring subcultural groups including Paganism, Satanism, Goth culture and vampirism; and third, there is an increased acceptance that youth is less a uniform stage that all human beings undergo, and is more intimately connected to the specific historical, geographical, economic, and social context in which it is experienced. This article reviews four recent publications on religion, spirituality and youth, three of which are from Australia. The fourth volume is an international edited collection containing studies from the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Australia, and a small number of European countries.     

How Prophecy Became Literature

Prophecy—the transmission of divine messages to human recipients—is essentially an oral phenomenon. However, all knowledge of ancient prophecy is based on written sources. The Hebrew Bible forms a special case, since it includes the only extant collection of prophetic books, a genre otherwise unknown in the ancient Near East. The article investigates the process of the literarization of prophecy, proceeding from the late sociohistorical context of the biblical prophetic literature towards its hypothetical beginnings. It is argued that the literarization of prophecy required the support of the literate circles of any given community in both pre‐ and post‐exilic times.     

Human Right to Water: Contemporary Challenges and Contours of a Global Debate

Abstract: In recent years, significant debate has taken place around the concept of the “human right to water”. In this paper, we seek to respond to recent critiques and clarify the terms of the debate by presenting an in‐depth exploration of the human right to water. We explore several critiques of the concept, situate it in the context of the current neoliberalization of water provision and in relation to contemporary water challenges, and present some examples of how it has been deployed to further the cause of access to water for vulnerable populations in varied contexts. We conclude that, rather than abandoning the concept as critics have suggested, the human right to water maintains importance as a discourse and strategy in the contemporary moment.     

Multiple bone tuberculosis in a child from predynastic Upper Egypt (3200 BC)

Tuberculosis, one of the most ancient human diseases, was present in ancient Egypt and has been observed since predynastic times. Excavations in the predynastic to early dynastic necropolis of Adaima, Upper Egypt (3500–2700 BC) led to the discovery of a number of remarkably well‐preserved skeletons of children. The skeletal remains of a 4.5–5‐year‐old child dated from Nagada III A2 (3200–3100 BC) displayed various lesions on the post‐cranial skeleton: spondylitis on the thoracic (T12) and lumbar (L1) vertebrae, partial lytic destruction of the right radio‐ulnar joint, lytic lesions on the scapula and a clavicle, dactylitis on the short bones of hands and feet, enlargement (spina ventosa) and periosteal new bone formation on the long bones. Radiographs show well‐defined radiolucent (cyst‐like) lesions in the metaphysis and the diaphysis of long tubular bones (ulna, radius, femur, tibia, fibula). The lesions recorded during macroscopic and radiological analysis strongly suggest a case of multiple bone tuberculosis. The occurrence of this case of tuberculosis in a child provides a picture of a period where tuberculosis must have been endemic throughout the population living during the origins of urban settlement in Upper Egypt during the predynastic period. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Seeing into hearts and minds: Part 2. ‘Big data’, algorithms,and computational counterinsurgency

In this second of his two‐part article, the author analyzes the rise of ‘predictive policing’ and its Pentagon connections, reviews two programmes, and poses these in the context of scientists' concerns over artificial intelligence and long‐term human survival.     

Bioarchaeology in the United Arab Emirates*

Physical anthropology and bioarchaeology (one of the newer interdisciplinary sub‐disciplines) are alive and well in the U.A.E. Older analytical approaches that rely on subjective observations and non‐systematic study of human remains are being replaced with more biocultural and processual approaches that integrate biological data from human remains within a broader archaeological and cultural context. With the publication of a major synthetic work based on analysis of the human remains from Jebel al‐Buhais, a new era of skeletal analysis in the U.A.E. has been heralded. This short review examines the ways that skeletal analysis can be integrated within broader archaeological contexts.     

Terminal Pleistocene Later Stone Age Human Remains from the Mlambalasi Rock Shelter,Iringa Region,Southern Tanzania

This paper introduces research at the Mlambalasi rock shelter in the Iringa Region of southern Tanzania. The deposits are composed of a historic and Iron Age occupation, a microlithic Holocene Later Stone Age (LSA), and then a macrolithic Late Pleistocene LSA. Middle Stone Age deposits are also present on the slope in front of the rock shelter. Excavations in A.D. 2002, 2006, and 2010 yielded fragmentary human remains as well as pottery, iron, stone tools, faunal bone, and glass and ostrich eggshell beads. Among the human remains, four individuals are present: two adults and a juvenile were found in the same LSA context, and another adult associated with the Iron Age/historic period. The most complete skeleton is an adult of indeterminate sex that was found in situ in an LSA deposit. Charcoal in proximity to the bone was AMS radiocarbon dated to 12,925 cal BC (OxA‐24620), which is consistent with radiocarbon dates on giant land snail shells from above and below the remains. The skeleton exhibits a series of pathological changes such as extensive dental wear and carious lesions, as well as damage most likely caused by termites, post‐mortem. The most striking aspect of this individual is its small size; stature and body mass estimations place it in the range of historic Khoesan from southern Africa. Consequently, this research adds to the discourse regarding the existence of small‐bodied people in the East African LSA. Findings from this new skeletal sample will contribute to studies of human biology and variation in Africa during the terminal Pleistocene and Holocene. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Simple(R) Model to Predict the Source of Dietary Carbon in Individual Consumers

Quantitative individual human diet reconstruction using isotopic data and a Bayesian approach typically requires the inclusion of several model parameters, such as individual isotopic data, isotopic and macronutrient composition of food groups, diet‐to‐tissue isotopic offsets and dietary routing. In an archaeological context, sparse data may hamper a widespread application of such models. However, simpler models may be proposed to address specific archaeological questions. As a consequence of the intake of marine foods, individuals from the first century ad Roman site of Herculaneum showed well‐defined bone collagen radiocarbon age offsets from the expected terrestrial value. Taking as reference these radiocarbon offsets and using as model input stable isotope data (δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N), the performance of two Bayesian mixing model instances (routed and concentration‐dependent model versus non‐routed and concentration‐independent) was compared to predict the carbon contribution of marine foods to bone collagen. Predictions generated by both models were in good agreement with observed values. The model with higher complexity showed only a slightly better performance in terms of accuracy and precision. This demonstrates that under similar circumstances, a simple Bayesian approach can be applied to quantify the carbon contribution of marine foods to human bone collagen.     

Rethinking Development Space in Emerging Countries: Turkey's Conservative Countermovement

Despite an increasingly flexible global policy context, most emerging countries refuse to venture beyond their pre‐existing development strategies. This article contends that in some cases domestic political constraints under liberalized markets might preclude policy dynamism. In particular, it draws attention to the tension between market expansion and social cohesion as a formative influence over policy patterns. This tension is sometimes addressed through a conservative countermovement whereby liberally‐oriented governments entice sections of the poor into broad electoral coalitions by employing palliative interventions alongside market‐expanding policies. Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) is one example. Central to the Turkish case has been the redeployment of the country's historic foreign capital‐dependent pattern of growth in the service of selective redistribution and credit‐fuelled consumerism. The ensuing deficit‐led neoliberal populism assured stable and equitable growth in the extraordinary international and domestic context of the mid‐2000s, but has proven unfeasible since the global crisis. However, this coupling of market and social preferences has become politically so firmly entrenched in time that it now constrains the policy options to address Turkey's developmental impasse.