Excavator Bias at the Site of Pech de l'Azé IV,France

Abstract

Existing archaeological collections hold great potential for archaeologists who seek to answer specific research questions with minimal investment of time and money. Unfortunately, biases introduced in the field and during curation require us to evaluate and reorganize collections before and during analysis. Biases are reflected in collections as a result of research design, recovery methods, interpersonal variability, and the storage of both objects and documentation. By comparing collections from two different excavations at the Middle Paleolithic site of Pech de l'Azé IV, France, a number of biases in the older collection were identified and corrected. While all older collections are not affected by the same problems, our experience serves as a useful example to others who work with them.     

Looting and vandalism around a World Heritage Site: Documenting modern damage to archaeological heritage in Petra’s hinterland

Abstract

In 2012 the ancient city of Petra celebrated the 200th anniversary of its Western re-identification. The Brown University Petra Archaeological Project (BUPAP) has sought to document the northern hinterland of Petra through a multi-component methodology that includes intensive field survey, feature documentation, and limited test excavations. The iconic site of Petra has a long and storied history, and it is a site that presents many challenges to archaeologists and cultural heritage managers. During a series of test excavations, meant to ground truth locations earmarked by the overlapping intensive field survey and feature documentation, several patterns of looting were identified. These instances of looting were often paralleled by observed vandalism that defaced archaeological heritage, within and outside the Petra Archaeological Park, with archaeological artifacts being sold to tourists at nearby shops. This study provides crucial documentation of these processes of vandalism and looting recorded over the last three years. We propose that only through continued monitoring can local authorities be provided with ample evidence calling for additional cultural heritage protection.     

Archaeological Collections, Government Warehouses, and Anxious Moderns: The Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory

This paper focuses on archaeological curation repositories and their role as more than mere storage facilities. Archaeological collections are increasingly marshaled to confront anxieties about a seemingly ‘vanishing past’ and to arrest its disappearance. In Maryland, the state has invested heavily in a ‘state-of-the-art’ facility to protect and study archaeological collections in its custody. The facility has become the proxy for the collections and a form of cultural property itself, becoming part of the ongoing process that serves to recast this portion of the state as a place rooted in the past.     

Raw material economy in Salento (Apulia, Italy): new perspectives on Neanderthal mobility patterns

This paper presents a case study that questions the behavioral model of a “non-modern” provisioning of raw materials by Neanderthals. The Salento is a peninsula in south eastern Italy rich in Mousterian sites and Neanderthal remains. This region is particularly suitable for raw material economy studies, for its peninsular status and the scarceness of good raw materials. Surveys made in 2006 showed the pattern of utilization of different local raw materials (limestone, siliceous limestone) and the absence of good quality raw materials, that are present in archaeological record. A very long distance provisioning is supposed to be at the origin of their presence in Mousterian Salento sites.     

Ungulates and the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition at Grotte XVI (Dordogne, France)

Grotte XVI (Dordogne, France) contains a rich archaeological sequence that begins during the Mousterian and continues through the Magdalenian and includes Châtelperronian and early Aurignacian assemblages. Analyses of the ungulates from this site show no significant change in skeletal part representation, butchering intensity (as measured by cut mark numbers and placement), degree of bone fragmentation, and intensity of carnivore damage across the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition. Relative taxonomic abundances of ungulates change significantly from the Mousterian to the early Aurignacian, but these changes are consistent with climatic forcing and continue throughout the sequence. Only the Magdalenian ungulate assemblage is clearly distinct from all others when examined in terms of these variables, perhaps because of altered predator/prey ratios on the local landscape. Cave bear relative abundances decline precipitously across the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition; this decline may reflect increased human residence times and/or group sizes during this interval, just as Kurtén observed many years ago.     

Stone tools for the hunt: points with impact scars from a Middle Paleolithic site in southern Italy

We present the find of impact scars on six Middle Paleolithic points from the rock shelter site of Oscurusciuto in southern Italy, dated to MIS 3. We review our knowledge of hunting weapons in the European Middle Paleolithic, the available evidence for the use of Mousterian points as spear tips and the interpretations of impact scars. Our identifications are based on comparisons to similar scars observed on experimental material and archaeological material of known function, made of the same raw materials (cryptocrystalline varieties of silica) as the points from the Oscurusciuto site. The scarce evidence available prior to our work suggested that at least some Mousterian points were used to tip hand-delivered spears already by MIS 6 (i.e. between 186 and 127 ka). The evidence from Oscurusciuto confirm that Neanderthals in Western Europe sometimes used Mousterian points to tip spears to hunt large and medium size mammals, like the fauna present at the Oscurusciuto site. The significance of this sample is not diminished by its small size, as indicated by a discussion of the factors that influence the frequencies of impact scars in different archaeological samples and a review of comparable evidence from residential sites of similar and younger ages.     

河南考古六十年 保护科研结硕果

河南省文物考古研究所成立于1952年。60年以来,本所配合国家、省、市建设项目,相继开展了大量文物普查和考古发掘工作,并为解决学术课题进行了一系列主动发掘项目,取得了许多重要考古发现及重大学术突破。在旧石器时代向新石器时代过渡研究、裴李岗文化研究、仰韶文化研究、中国古代文明起源研究、夏商文化研究、古代冶金研究、古代陶瓷研究等诸多重要考古研究课题中取得突出成就,文物保护、科技考古等工作也得到了长足发展。科研合作硕果累累,编著出版大型考古报告专集、图录与论文集、学术专著180余部,在专业刊物上累计发表考古发掘报告、简报、简讯、研究论文和其他文章2500余篇,取得了丰硕的科研成果。     

Public Archaeology as Renewer of the Historical Museum

Abstract

Working towards greater public interaction in the museum, and with archaeology reflecting on its contemporary context, traditional collection practices will inevitably be challenged. Archaeologies of the contemporary bring new kinds of artefacts to collections and raises ethical and political questions, since it must interact with the world of the living. Public archaeology, on the other hand, strives to involve people in the making of history, with an aim towards more inclusive, and even democratic, pasts and collections. Three recent research projects at the Swedish Museum of National Antiquities have dealt with these issues. The case studies future memories, archaeologist for a day and public contract archaeology question artefact categorizations, policies for storage and display, as well as database organization, design, and availability. It clearly turned out that the way museums work with collections structure and limit the ways in which audiences can engage with them. To deal more intensively with the public relations of archaeology, and to get more engaged in the contemporary, has definite consequences for the collections and collection practices of archaeological museums. A public-need focus will inevitably give opportunities for archaeologists and institutions to renew their perspectives and practices.     

Conserving sites on the Central Asian Silk Roads: the case of Otrar Tobe,Kazakhstan

Abstract

Conservation activities have been carried out during the four years of the UNESCO project for the Preservation and Restoration of the Ancient City of Otrar, an archaeological site located in a loess clay area in southwest Kazakhstan at the confluence of Syr Darya and Arys rivers. The paper focuses on certain conservation activities carried out at the site, including documentation of observed deterioration phenomena, authentication of surviving mudbrick and fired brick structures, and the repair of structures using an earth-based repair mortar specially developed for the site. The paper summarises the main achievements of the project in terms of conservation, documentation, training, promotional activities and master plan preparation.     

Recording dental caries in archaeological human remains

Dental caries is an important condition to record in archaeological collections, but the way in which recording is carried out has a large effect on the way in which the results can be interpreted. In living populations, dental caries is a disease that shows a strong relationship with age. Both the nature of carious lesions and their frequency change with successive age groups from childhood to elderly adulthood. There is also a progression in the particular teeth in the dentition which are most commonly affected and, in general, the molars and premolars are involved much more frequently than the canines and incisors. Lower teeth are usually affected more than upper, although the condition usually involves the right and left sides fairly equally. In the high tooth wear rate populations represented by many archaeological and museum collections, there is a complex relationship between the form of lesions and the state of wear, which adds yet another range of factors to the changing pattern of caries with increasing age. In the same populations, chipping, fracture and anomalous abrasion of teeth are also common, and these contribute similarly to the distribution and forms of carious lesion observed. Amongst the living, the pattern of ante‐mortem tooth loss is important in understanding caries and, in archaeological material, there is also the complicating factor of post‐mortem tooth loss. Finally, there is the question of diagnosis. There are diagnostic problems even in epidemiological studies of living patients and, for archaeological specimens, diagenetic change and the variable preservation of different parts of the dentition add further complications. For all these reasons, it is difficult to define any one general index of dental caries to represent the complete dentition of each individual, which would be universally suitable for studying a full range of collections from archaeological sites or museums. Variation in the nature of collections, their preservation, tooth wear, and ante‐mortem and post‐mortem tooth loss mean that when such a general index appears to differ between sites, there could be many other reasons for this, in addition to any genuine differences in caries incidence and pattern that might have been present. It is suggested here that the best approach is instead to make comparisons separately for each tooth type, age group, sex, lesion type and potential lesion site on the tooth. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Single carcass of Mammuthus primigenius with lithic artifacts in the Upper Pleistocene of northern Italy

This paper presents the find of a Mammuthus primigenius carcass and associated Mousterian implements from the Last Glacial site of Asolo, in north-eastern Italy. We review the exploitation of proboscidean carcasses at Lower and Middle Paleolithic sites of Africa, Europe and the Levant, including evidence of elephant killing, and summarize recent research on hafting and use of Mousterian points as spearheads already before the end of the Middle Pleistocene. The bones and implements from Asolo are described in detail; we provide information on other Italian sites with mammoth remains and on the Mousterian record of the north-eastern quadrant of the peninsula. A possible impact fracture has been detected on a Levallois point from Asolo; its interpretation is based on comparisons to similar scars found on spear points of verified function from archaeological sites of later age, and on experimental material. We conclude that the evidence of Asolo is consistent with information from a number of Western European sites supporting a picture of Neanderthals as capable hunters of large game, such as woolly mammoth.     

Recent Research on Obsidian from Missouri Archaeological Sites

Obsidian has been noted at archaeological sites in the Midwest for over 160 years, although very few artifacts made from this material are recorded in archaeological contexts in Missouri. Background research revealed that only 16 obsidian artifacts from 13 sites had been documented from the state and that only 5 of the specimens had been geochemically analyzed and attributed to a source. Recent excavations at the Droste site (23PI1291), a Late Woodland period site in northeast Missouri, yielded two obsidian artifacts. The two specimens from the Droste site along with two previously unsourced obsidian artifacts from the Burkemper site (23LN104) and two from the Stapleton site (23HD110) were tested for trace element composition via X-ray fluorescence analysis. This article reports the results of these geochemical analyses, reviews the other obsidian artifacts reported from Missouri, and examines the cultural context and source of obsidian artifacts from other states in the upper Midwest.     

Collections,Collecting and Collectives: Gathering Heritage Data with Communities in the Mountains of Matatiele and Lesotho,Southern Africa

Gathering digital data is a twenty-first-century research concern. Working in the previously undocumented region of the Eastern Cape’s former 'Transkei' homeland presents several data collection opportunities and obstacles. Local community collectives can vastly enhance the data collection process, aiding in administration, field walking, translation and—as trained archaeologists—excavation and rock art documentation. In the last 7 years, the Matatiele Archaeology Rock Art (MARA) team has discovered over 240 archaeological sites, the vast majority of which contain rock art. The principal investigator (PI), postdoctoral fellows, technical skills specialists and students have all engaged with, helped train and benefitted from field technicians chosen by the local communities to work with us. With their help, we have undertaken excavations and taken thousands of documentary photographs. We have documented oral traditions and the indigenous knowledge of local healers, all of which research is produced, and stored, digitally and requires preservation in perpetuity. The present contribution outlines some of the many and varied ways in which this programme has undertaken these tasks, in the endeavour to redress the imbalance in this region’s history.     

The Excavations at Stična in Slovenia by the Duchess of Mecklenburg, 1905–1914

Abstract

Museum collections of documented but unpublished archaeological material often constitute excellent sources of primary archaeological data. The Duchess of Mecklenburg excavated extensively at Iron Age cemeteries in Slovenia, in what is now part of Yugoslavia, just before the First World War. Her collection, which is now being published, provides hundreds of well-documented grave groups for study. This article considers her work at the site of Sti?na and is concerned particularly with the graves containing weapons excavated at that site.     

Cost-effective deep water archaeology: preliminary investigations in Trondheim Harbour

In the past few years there has been an increased interest in deep water archaeology, and a growing number of archaeological institutions now use remote sensing equipment and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to locate and investigate deep water archaeological sites. The article presents some important projects that have been carried out around the world. These include Norwegian projects. In Trondheim Harbour several shipwrecks have been located in relatively deep water. One of these wrecks was selected as an experimental site for testing new methods, and the results of this work, including documentation and excavation with ROVs and other robotic solutions, are presented. © 2000 The Nautical Archaeology Society     

The Archaeology of Tula, Hidalgo, Mexico

The site of Tula, Hidalgo, Mexico, is well known for its distinctive architecture and sculpture that came to light in excavations initiated some 70 years ago. Less well known is the extensive corpus of archaeological research conducted over the past several decades, revealing a city that at its height covered an area of c. 16 km² and incorporated a remarkably diverse landscape of hills, plains, alluvial valleys, and marsh. Its dense, urban character is evident in excavations at over 22 localities that uncovered complex arrangements of residential compounds whose nondurable architecture left relatively few surface traces. Evidence of craft production includes lithic and ceramic production loci in specific sectors of the ancient city. Tula possessed a large and densely settled hinterland that apparently encompassed the surrounding region, including most of the Basin of Mexico, and its area of direct influence appears to have extended to the north as far as San Luís Potosí. Tula is believed to have originated as the center of a regional state that consolidated various Coyotlatelco polities and probably remnants of a previous Teotihuacan-controlled settlement system. Its pre-Aztec history exhibits notable continuity in settlement, ceramics, and monumental art and architecture. The nature of the subsequent Aztec occupation supports ethnohistorical and other archaeological evidence that Tula’s ruins were what the Aztecs called Tollan.     

ESR Dating of the Last Interglacial Mousterian at Karaïn Cave, Southern Turkey

We have obtained ESR ages on 18 teeth from archaeological levels AH16-AH27 exposed at the east profile in compartment E at Karaïn Cave. This sequence exhibits a transition in lithic assemblage from a Classic Charentian to a Karaïn (Zagros-type) Mousterian between levels AH27 and AH25, and two calcite-cemented soils at levels AH22 and AH16 which have been interpreted as climatic warm phases. Since we found no systematic increase in tooth ages with depth, we assigned this sequence a mean early uptake (EU) age of 108 ± 23 ka and mean linear uptake (LU) age of 121 ± 27 ka, on the basis of 37 subsamples from 16 teeth. In this site, the precision of individual tooth ages suffered little from the problems associated with uranium uptake. However, this advantage was offset due to uncertainties arising from the rather inhomogeneous nature of the enclosing strata which contained various sizes of limestone blocks with intervening sediment. This led to difficulties in ascribing a precise annual gamma radiation dose to individual teeth in such a "lumpy" gamma radiation field. Considerable scattering of the individual tooth ages occurred mainly because the annual gamma dose comprised greater than 50% of the total annual dose to the individual teeth. On the basis of the ESR dating results, we infer that deposition of the two different lithic assemblages and both the penultimate and the final climatic warm phases at Karaïn probably occurred during oxygen isotope stage 5. We also conclude that these lithic assemblages are significantly different than contemporaneous Levantine Mousterian industries which occur about 700 km to the southeast.     

Thirty Years of Monitoring in England — What Have We Learnt?

Abstract

Over the last thirty years, over sixty separate episodes of monitoring waterlogged archaeological sites have been carried out in England. This paper lists these projects, summarizes basic information about them, and reviews what we have learnt over these last thirty years. Recommendations are given to help improve future monitoring projects. In particular, it is suggested that more work is needed on assessing the state of preservation of a site before monitoring is considered; that a proper project design needs to be developed at the outset of the work; and that more thought should go into deciding why monitoring is needed for a given site, including identifying mitigation options that can be initiated if monitoring data suggest optimum conditions for survival are no longer being maintained.     

Who brought in the rabbits? Taphonomical analysis of Mousterian and Solutrean leporid accumulations from Gruta do Caldeirão (Tomar,Portugal)

In the Iberian Peninsula, leporids, and specifically rabbits, play a key role in the understanding of hunter-gatherer economies. They appear to have been especially important in the Tardiglacial, when large numbers of small prey animals and of the European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) in particular, are a ubiquitous feature of faunal assemblages from archaeological sites. Since a large number of non-human predators can also contribute to the formation of such assemblages, the ability to discriminate between bones accumulated by humans and by other kinds of predators is a key prerequisite to their interpretation. On the basis of systematic actualistic studies carried out on modern leporid remains produced by mammalian terrestrial carnivores, nocturnal and diurnal raptors, and humans, we identified diagnostic taphonomic indicators of the different predators. In this paper, the patterns observed on the modern material are applied to the taphonomical analysis of two archaeological samples of rabbit and hare remains from Mousterian and Solutrean layers of Gruta do Caldeirão, a cave site located in Central Portugal. Our results suggest that Eagle Owl (Bubo bubo) were mainly responsible for the Mousterian accumulations, whilst the Solutrean ones were most likely the result of human activity. These data support the notion that, in Iberia, significant reliance on rabbits does not become a feature of subsistence strategies until later Upper Palaeolithic times.