我国史前人类治水的考古学证明

治水是史前人类主要的社会活动,考古发现中的环壕、城址、堌堆、水井、水池、水渠等遗迹是人类治水的实物遗存,人类的治水活动始于公元前9000年～公元前7000年的新石器时代中期,治水的主要方法是疏堵结合--修筑城池,城是人类治水的产物,在治水的实践中,人们发明了凿井、蓄水、排灌等技术.     

Evidence of Prehistoric Scalping at Vosberg,Central Arizona

Four crania recovered during the 1970 Arizona State University field school season at a prehistoric site in Vosberg, Arizona show parallel clusters of cut marks characteristic of scalping with a stone knife. These victims were identified during a general survey of the Vosberg skeletons for evidence of trauma and pathology. The discovery of these four victims in the same atypical burial context provides clues to the nature of the scalping custom in the American Southwest prior to European contact and brings the total number of prehistoric scalping victims reported from the Southwest to 15 individuals. Perimortem depressed fractures in two of the crania, and the presence of a stone arrow point within the chest of one of the skeletons, indicates that the scalping of these individuals was the result of violence rather than medicinal or ritual treatment.     

More Evidence for an Advanced Prehistoric Iron Technology in Africa

Abstract

Ethnographic and technological observations of iron smelting among the Raya people of NW Tanzania during 1976 and 1979 have contributed important new evidence for a technologically advanced culture in East-Central Africa. The ethnoarchaeology of Haya iron working shows that the Raya practiced an iron-smelting technology that employed preheating of the air blast—a highly efficient technique—and formed a massive steel altogether different from that known in the European tradition of iron production.

Excavations in 1977 at the KM2 site near Kemondo Bay west of Lake Victoria in Kagera Region, Tanzania, provided abundant evidence for an ancient technology, dating to the first six centuries A.C., that shared many similarities to the living iron-smelting technology. Excavations during 1978–1979 at the KM3 site, also located near Kemondo Bay, yielded physical evidence for the antiquity of the preheated process and provided definitive proof for a technology similar to the process in historical times. These discoveries affirm that one of the most advanced technologies in the ancient world developed in Africa independent of European influence.     

Economic and Land-Use Implications of Prehistoric Fire-Cracked-Rock Piles,Northern Arizona

Abstract

Intensive archaeological survey of 14.5 sq km of the Upper Basin, an area located near the Grand Canyon's eastern South Rim in northern Arizona, has discovered 126 fire-cracked-rock piles that are surrounded by artifact scatters of varying size and assemblage composition. Because these phenomena are unprecedented in upland conifer ecosystems of the American Southwest, several hypotheses are explored regarding their formation histories. Analyses of artifact assemblages, botanical remains, pollen, and faunal remains recovered from four excavated sites indicate that they result from flaked-stone artifact production, ground-stone artifact reuse and recycling, ceramic-vessel-fragment recycling, and animal and plant processing. In addition, radiocarbon dates and temporally diagnostic projectile-points and ceramics imply that the sites differ in terms of frequency, intensity, and patterns of use, and with respect to the groups of people who formed them (Anasazi, Cohonina, Havasupai, or Hopi). Byproducts of a little-known, long-term land-use pattern in Southwestern prehistory (ca. A.D. 417–1650), these sites represent a key source of information for understanding how different sources of variability come to be expressed in archaeological landscapes.     

New Research on the Late Prehistoric Coastal Polities of Northern Peru

Previously, the Chimú empire was thought to have dominated the north coast of Peru during the Late Intermediate period, virtually to the exclusion of other polities. However, new research on sites from this period has not only changed perspectives on the Chimú, but also shed light on two other important coastal polities: the Lambayeque/Sicán and the Casma, providing insights with the potential to reshape our understanding of the development of urbanism and the Andean state. This article presents a critical summary of recent literature, fieldwork, and discoveries. Analyses of these new data address a wide range of topics that can be loosely grouped into four major areas: complexity in political organization and the geopolitical landscape, variations in the urban environment, the intensification of trade and exchange, and dynamic expressions of religion and ideology. The latest interpretation of the north coast Late Intermediate period is a story of three major, competing polities that were eventually subsumed under one.     

Excavations at Prehistoric Sites on the Navajo Indian Irrigation Project,Northwestern New Mexico

Abstract

The results of a large excavation project in the San Juan Basin of NW New Mexico are summarized in this article. Discussion is limited to prehistoric and protohistoric sites, 22 of which were excavated. The majority of the remains are small, surface aceramic sites that are believed to relate to the Archaic Cultural Complex. These sites reflect a specialized adaptive strategy focusing on seasonal mobility and the exploitation of resources occurring at or adjacent to sand dunes. The lithic assemblages from these sites generally are homogeneous and reflect opportunistic usage. Occupation of the project area during the Anasazi phases was limited. A considerable protohistoric Navajo occupation is apparent, with one excavated site suggesting a very specialized economic orientation emphasizing antelope procurement. The research focus of the project was on comprehensive lithic analysis and on paleoeconomy. Several methodological considerations are discussed, as is the necessity for developing a unified research perspective that will produce comparable data for the region.     

北魏的农田水利建设

北魏农田水利建设是伴随着鲜卑族由游牧生活向定居生活的转变而出现和发展的,并形成了薄骨律镇地区、幽燕地区、徐淮地区、河洛地区等几大灌溉区。其发展与政府的重视是密不可分的,旱涝灾害的频仍发生使政府对农田水利事业关注有加,并积极进行农田水利建设。     

Prehistoric population history: from the Late Glacial to the Late Neolithic in Central and Northern Europe

Summed probability distributions of radiocarbon dates are used to make inferences about the history of population fluctuations from the Mesolithic to the late Neolithic for three countries in central and northern Europe: Germany, Poland and Denmark. Two different methods of summing the dates produce very similar overall patterns. The validity of the aggregate patterns is supported by a number of regional studies based on other lines of evidence. The dramatic rise in population associated with the arrival of farming in these areas that is visible in the date distributions is not surprising. Much more unexpected are the fluctuations during the course of the Neolithic, and especially the indications of a drop in population at the end of the LBK early Neolithic that lasted for nearly a millennium. Possible reasons for the pattern are discussed.     

Lithic Evidence for the Peopling of Northern Ethiopia

A comparative study of lithic assemblages from the Gash Delta lowlands of eastern Sudan and from Seglamen in the highlands of northern Ethiopia is used to investigate the origins of the pre-Aksumite people and their anonymous predecessors. Multiple similarities in knapping strategies and in lithic tool types support the hypothesis of a south-eastward movement of agro-pastoralists into the highlands of the Tigray Plateau, probably starting in the fifth millennium BC.     

人类早期文明中的自然铜

自然铜是人类使用最早使用的金属之一,它与人类早期文明存在重要联系。本文介绍了自然铜的属性、地质与世界分布,并结合考古证据和相关文献对人类早期自然铜的认识、利用、开采、加工及其社会价值进行了分析,对自然铜与早期金属文明之间的关系进行了探讨。     

浙江的史前文化

距今六七千年的河姆渡文化和距今四五千年的良渚文化是浙江史前文化的一头一尾,遗存非常丰富,被誉为浙江史前文化的“两朵花”,亦有人称之为浙江史前文化的“双璧”。     

Recent Prehistoric Field Research in Central Tunisia: Prehistoric Occupations in the Meknassy Basin

Recent field prospection and test excavations in the Meknassy Basin (Central Tunisia) has revealed many prehistoric sites covering almost all the phases of North African prehistory from the Palaeolithic to the Neolithic. Excavations at the Aïn El-Guettar Mousterian site has yielded a faunal assemblage dominated by bovids and equids. One human tooth was found in situ. The stratigraphic sequence contains charcoal-rich occupation layers with faunal, human and lithic finds. A level with an industry resembling the Aterian was found beneath a Mousterian layer. The excavations at Aïn Oum Henda 2 (Jebel Maloussi) provided many Middle Palaeolithic lithic artefacts, some of which are pedunculates. From the excavations of the Rammadiya El Oghrab (Jebel Bou Hedma) we recovered some bones of antelope, many fragments of ostrich egg shell (among them a worked disc), an enormous quantity of flint (tools and splinters) and of land snails. In spite of the scarcity of land snails and the absence of bone in the rammadiya of Jebel Bou Hedma 1, the site produced a beautiful flint collection including an arrowhead found on the surface, which led us to place the site in the Neolithic.     

Prehistoric Culture of Tibet

TheofficialopeningoftheTibetMuseumtookplaceonOctober5,1999.Theexhibitsinthemuseumaredividedintofourparts:"PrehistoricCulture,"InseparableHistory,"CultureandArt"and"Folklore."Thefollowingisabriefintroductiontothefirstpart:"PrehistoricCulture."Theprehistoricdevelopmentofmankindisdividedaccordingtothetypeofproductiontoolsusedintothepalaeolithic,themesolithic,theneolithic;theBronze-neolithic(theRedAge),theBronzeAgeandtheIronAge.THEPALAEOLITHIC.ArchaeologicalfindsrevealthattheTibet…     

Prehistoric Investigations in Cantabrian Spain

Abstract

The rich Paleolithic record from Cantabrian Spain has long been interpreted in light of the phylogenetic, chronological scheme developed largely in the Périgord region of SW France, despite important differences in industries, environments, and faunas. This paper outlines the development of prehistoric research in Cantabria from its beginnings a century ago to the present, from the early work of establishing a regional chronology to the on-going attempts to understand and explain the changing regional adaptations of Pleistocene and early Post-Pleistocene hunter-gatherers. Cantabria is usually treated only in passing in syntheses of the prehistory of Western Europe, and its extensive literature is far less widely known than that of SW France. We hope in part to remedy the situation by providing a concise regional overview and an extensive bibliography of classic and modern references.

Preliminary conclusions from archaeological investigations and allied paleoenvironmental research by members of the La Riera Paleoecological Project are also discussed. The La Riera Project is an example of a modern, problem-oriented regional approach to the study of prehistoric human adaptation. It was designed to generate and test hypotheses about Late and Post-Pleistocene ecosystems in Cantabrian Spain. These hypotheses examine the relationships among habitat selection, site location, and climatic change, test for periodicity in prehistoric occupation, and examine patterns of covariance in artifact and faunal debris categories with the objective of isolating changes in adaptation recoverable from the 12,000 year record at the La Riera cave, and at other sites of comparable antiquity in the Cantabrian zone. Preliminary results define patterns of site-functional variation at La Riera related to prehistoric activity sets. These patterns appear to cut across the culture/stratigraphic units upon which much Upper Paleolithic research in western Europe is based.     

我国史前玉鸟饰管窥

我国新石器时代晚期出现的玉鸟饰是对东方沿海和东南地区鸟崇拜传统的承袭和发展.这些玉鸟型饰有单体鸟型饰和组合型饰,亦即直接用玉制成鸟形饰或鸟与其他动物的组合型玉器,或将鸟纹和以鸟为部分构成单元的组合纹饰刻画其上.它们主要分布于良渚文化、龙山文化、石家河文化、红山文化以及凌家滩玉器中,既体现了各种文化不同的表现手法和特征,又表达了社会化人格化功能差异性与文化内涵的一致性.     

Prehistoric Survey in Central Afghanistan

Abstract

In August of 1976 the authors made an initial archaeological survey of the Dasht-i-Nawur, a highland volcanic-tectonic basin in Central Afghanistan. Two Epi-Paleolithic surface sites and one later hill fortification of uncertain date were discovered and investigated. An outstanding feature of the Epi-Paleolithic sites was that the source of virtually the entire tool industry was a locally available obsidian, a material that has not been found before in archaeological context in Afghanistan or nearby regions. The Dasht-i-Nawur, therefore, must be added to the short list of obsidian sources in Southwest Asia.     

史前考古学中的术语问题

术语是学术研究中的一套具有自身特征的符号系统,术语的规范化是学术研究得以发展的重要前提。在我国的史前考古学界,这个问题不太受人重视,其结果便是近年来出现了一些不规范的术语,研究工作也出现了一些混乱的现象。本文呼吁学界重视史前考古学术语的规范化管理问题,认为这是学术研究规范化的一项基础工作。