A critical review of the dating evidence for Petralona cave

An early hominid skull found in Petralona Cave in Greece has been widely quoted by the archaeologist now excavating the cave as being about 700,000 years old. A recent volume of the journal Anthropos (Athens) carried several papers dealing with uranium series, thermoluminescence, ESR and palaeomagnetic studies on material from Petralona. Careful reading of these papers shows that there are problems with all these methods when applied to material from this site and that it is not possible at present to give an age for deposits in the cave. In this paper we discuss each technique in the light of current knowledge.     

Hopewell Archaeology: A View from the Northern Woodlands

A tremendous amount of research on Hopewellian societies in the Northern Woodlands of the United States has been conducted within the last decade. This article summarizes the main themes and directions of that current research and presents a general model of Hopewellian societies. Local communities appear to have been small in size and relatively sedentary; sets of these communities shared a greater sense of cultural identity within a lineage and possibly clan organization, with each riverine drainage system occupied by a mosaic of lineages. Each in turn was spatially centered on specific clusters of religious, nonresidential public architecture. Alliances were based on a number of historically shifting variables, including religion, kinship, politics, and economics. It is suggested that future research continue existing methodologies and analyses and consider new ecological, genetic, and ideological research as a means of adding greater local historic nuance to this general model of Hopewellian societies.     

Alice through the looking glass: emotion,personal connection,and reading colonial archives along the grain

This is a paper about Alice Ravenhill, an under-scrutinized early twentieth-century colonial settler in British Columbia, Canada. It is also a paper about the relationship and deep connections that I developed with her through archival research, a relationship and set of connections that I suggest open new spaces to (re)consider present-day colonial power in British Columbia. Specifically, I propose that ‘against the grain’ archival readings of BC’s past, with an emphasis on finding evidence of resistance to colonial power, can serve to distance the present from the past, thus positioning both contemporary geographies and researchers at work in the province today as existing in a different time and place than those of Alice Ravenhill and other colonial subjects. If, by reading ‘along the archival grain’ as I attempt to do in this paper, we (particularly those of us who live and work in BC today) instead understand ourselves as deeply and emotionally connected to colonial settlers like Alice Ravenhill, and if we understand their lives and work as similar to our own, there is a chance we might avoid some of their more egregious undertakings.     

Art and archive: memory-work on a Montana homestead

Practices of inventory and collection, intended to organise artefacts in systems of conservation and display, may be unable to cope with deposits of ambiguous or degraded matter. The article chronicles the inventory of residual material culture at a homestead in Montana, and the development of a curatorial practice sensitive to the peculiar qualities and resonances of waste things. Critical and creative resources, drawn from contemporary artists who incorporate such matter in their work, catalyse methodological experimentation with the ordering of objects and their histories. Explorations of artful inventory lead to reflections on the relation between place, memory, and the geographical specificity of curatorial practice.     

Ohio Hopewell Depictions of Composite Creatures: Part II–Archaeological Context and a Journey to an Afterlife

Abstract

Archaeological contextual analyses of four artifacts that depicted composite creatures and that were recovered from the Turner earthwork in southwestern Ohio are integrated here with a biological identification of the creatures' component animals and a survey of historic Woodland–Plains Indian knowledge about their roles in Woodland–Plains life (previously reported in this journal). Together, the three studies reveal that the creatures were likely employed in a ritual drama concerned with the welfare of recently deceased persons on their journey to an afterlife through underwater–underground realm(s), where they encountered the creatures. The location of the journey to an afterlife through Below realm(s) differs from that of nearly all historic Woodland–Plains Indians, who knew the journey to take place on the earth-disk or to occur by ascension. Implications of the ritual drama at Turner for some recent interpretive trends in Woodland archaeology are explored, including an overemphasis on “world renewal” as the primary motivation behind Ohio Hopewell ceremonialism, the scarce attention given to eschatological matters, and the misleading notion that all agentive behaviors, including mortuary rites, are political.     

A Bobcat Burial and Other Reported Intentional Animal Burials from Illinois Hopewell Mounds

Abstract

The Elizabeth site is a bluff-top mortuary mound group constructed and primarily used during Hopewellian (Middle Woodland) times. Recent reanalysis of nonhuman skeletal remains from the site reveals that an intentional burial previously identified as a dog (Canis familiaris) is actually an immature bobcat (Lynx rufus). As a result of this discovery, we reevaluated eight other purported animal burials from Illinois Middle Woodland mounds, including seven dogs and a roseate spoonbill (Platalea ajaja). The dogs all appear to be intrusive or unrelated burial events, but both the bobcat and the roseate spoonbill were definite Hopewellian mortuary interments. The roseate spoonbill was decapitated and placed beside a double human burial. But the bobcat was a separate, human-like interment wearing a necklace of shell beads and effigy bear canine teeth (Figures and ). To our knowledge, this is the only decorated wild cat burial in the archaeological record. It provides compelling evidence for a complex relationship between felids and humans in the prehistoric Americas, including possible taming.     

ESR dating of the Neanderthal site, Kebara Cave, Israel

In 1985 a Neanderthal skeleton was found in the cave of Kebara in southern Mt. Carmel. Electron spin resonance (ESR) dates have been obtained on tooth enamel of gazelles found in layer X, just overlying the layer in which the skeleton was found. Assuming early uptake of uranium by the teeth, they yield an age of 60 ± 6 ka; assuming gradual, linear uptake of uranium yields an age of 64 ± 6 ka. Both age estimates are consistent with a previous estimate for the skeleton, based on TL dating of burnt flint, of 60 ± 4 ka.     

古陶瓷热释光测定年代发展

对古陶器热释光测定年代的两个标准方法——“细粒混合矿物技术”和“粗粒石英技术”作了详细的论述,介绍了这两个方法中古剂量和年剂量测量方法的发展和现状,对影响古剂量和年剂量测量准确性的一些复杂因素和解决的方法进行了分析,着重叙述了古瓷器热释光测定年代的新发展——“前剂量饱和指数法”。几十年的研究结果表明,热释光测定年代在古陶瓷真伪鉴定上已经取得了很大的成功,但是在年代测定的精确度和准确度上还不够,需要深入研究。     

热释光测定青铜器陶范年代

本工作利用热释光法对9件青铜器中的陶范进行了间接青铜器年代测定,揭示了这些青铜器的真实年代,并为青铜器定代提供了重要的科学依据。由于大部分中大型的青铜器中都存有陶范,并在取样过程中一般不会对器物造成伤害而为文物界所接受,使得这一方法在青铜器的真伪鉴定中具有广阔的应用前景,也是目前青铜器真伪鉴定中最有效的科学方法之一。     

湖南道县玉蟾岩遗址早期陶器及其地层堆积的碳十四年代研究

位于湖南道县的玉蟾岩遗址包含大量灰烬,丰富的动物遗存,砾石和石片石器以及骨角器。从出土遗物,特别是人工制品来看,该洞穴应是一处旧石器晚期狩猎采集者的营地。洞穴堆积反映出人类的一系列短期活动或栖居,其间穿插着遗址被废弃的时期。微形态学研究显示堆积中的红色粘土条带是当时人类从洞外搬进来的。该遗址还出土了若干陶片,可以复原成2件或更多的陶器。多数陶片出自于1993和1995年的发掘。另有10多件陶片在2004和2005年的发掘中被发现。我们将在本文介绍该洞穴堆积的年代研究过程和结果,包括样品的采集、预筛选和前处理过程,以及最后对保存好的炭屑和骨头样品的测年。玉蟾岩遗址的年代为距今21000～13800年(校正后,后同),年代数据表明下层堆积中存在人类栖居的间断,陶片的年代为距今17,000～18,000年。这些陶片是在中国发现的制造陶器的最早证据之一。     

Photographic methods to detect colourants in archaeological textiles

Protocols for photography of archaeological textiles to detect components of differing chemistry that are indicative of colourants were developed. Parameters of light source, camera distance, filter type, film type, film speed, and aperture size were evaluated for visible, UV-reflectance, UV-fluorescence, and infrared photography. Using these techniques facilitates selective sampling for further analysis that maximizes critical data acquisition while minimizing destruction of the artefact. Hence, forensic photography of archaeological perishable materials should be regarded as a precursor to destructive analytical methods.     

Accuracy of obsidian hydration dating based on obsidian–radiocarbon association and optical microscopy

Most archaeologists using obsidian hydration dating (OHD) in the United States develop hydration rates from association of obsidian hydration rims with dates based on radiocarbon, subsequently using the rate for chronometric analysis. The overall accuracy of the process has never been quantified. This paper reports an accuracy analysis in which sources of uncertainty are defined and modeled and their effects quantified. A Monte Carlo simulation is used to quantify errors from rate development, while uncertainties in age resulting from chronometric analysis are calculated analytically. For typical ranges of error values, hydration rate errors of ∼5% or less are achievable in the absence of systematic errors, with errors of chronometric age estimates ∼20–30% or less.     

瓷器热释光高温峰测年的初步研究

对陕西耀州窑4个古瓷器碎片的热释光高温峰测量的结果表明,瓷器样品具有天然热释光信号,而且,其信号增长呈良好的线性,高温峰可以用于瓷器的年龄测定和真假鉴定之中,瓷器热释光高温峰技术有望成为热释光测定瓷器年龄的一个方法。