The Secondary Products Revolution: Empirical Evidence and its Current Zooarchaeological Critique

Andrew Sherratt is perhaps best known for the concept of a ??Secondary Products Revolution??, which stressed that the ??primary?? pattern of exploiting domesticated animals for meat in the Early Neolithic was followed by a more diversified exploitation of secondary applications and products such as milk, wool, textiles, and traction. This paper discusses how changes in animal exploitation in the European Neolithic, including secondary uses and products, can be inferred from faunal remains. It also challenges a meat-based, livestock-rearing system for early farmers and stresses the idiosyncratic nature of the introduction of secondary products in particular areas of Anatolia and Europe.     

Wheels of Time: Some Aspects of Entanglement Theory and the Secondary Products Revolution

This paper responds to that aspect of Andrew Sherratt??s writings that argued for building specifically archaeological theory. In describing a theory of entanglement, I have focused on the archaeological sensitivity to the complexities and practical interlacings of material things. The theory argues that human?Cthing entanglement comes about as a result of the dialectic between dependence (the reliance of humans and things on each other) and dependency (a constraining and limiting need of humans for things). Andrew??s discussion of the role of the wheel in his Secondary Products Revolution is a good example of how humans and things have become entangled so that, over the long term, we have been channeled down particular evolutionary pathways.     

Early Neolithic Sites at Brześć Kujawski,Poland: Preliminary Report on the 1976–1979 Excavations

Abstract

Since 1976, excavations have been conducted on two neighboring Early Neolithic sites at Brze?? Kujawski, Wloclawek district, Poland. The aim of this research is to improve the understanding of the developmental sequence of Early Neolithic cultures on the Polish lowlands as well as to recover palaeobotanical and archaeozoological materials to study the changes in subsistence patterns over time. There are three components of Early Neolithic settlement at Brze?? Kujawski: the Linear Pottery, Early Lengyel, and Late Lengyel cultures, which span the period between 4300 and 3000 radiocarbon years B.C. Large amounts of animal bones indicate a shift from cattle-centered stockbreeding in the Linear Pottery component to a very diverse pattern of animal exploitation in the Late Lengyel component. Early Neolithic house remains, storage pits, flint industries, and copper artifacts are also discussed.     

The Brno Effect: From Culture to Mind

This paper connects to several of Andrew Sherratt??s abiding interests: grand narrative, general theory, Mitteleuropa, typology, the problems of comparative method, and, tangentially, the question of the origin and nature of the relationship between faith and reason. In addition, what I have to say builds strongly on the work of David Clarke, whose powerful influence was exerted on me principally via Andrew. The title reference is to the Middle Upper Palaeolithic mammoth ivory marionette of a male human figure from Brno, Czech Republic, which serves as a pivot for my argument (although the paper does not pretend to present a detailed and fully contextualised account). By building on observations and contentions concerning the unique life-world of humans, it is possible to argue that a recognizably modern form of human intelligence appeared (and perhaps could only have appeared) as a product of some essentially accidental, initially perhaps epiphenomenal, interactions between minds and material artefacts. I want to show that the familiar idea of a genetically-driven reorganisation of cognition, moving from mind to culture, in our genus, can be challenged by a reverse proposition, using a materiality perspective to work from culture to mind.     

Palaeodiet at Eton College Rowing Course, Buckinghamshire: isotopic changes in human diet in the Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman periods throughout the British Isles

Through isotopic investigations of directly dated human remains recovered from the Eton College Rowing Course, we examine changes in diet from the Neolithic to the Roman period. The human isotope signatures point to a diet based on C₃ terrestrial resources. A significant correlation is visible between human ??¹³C values and time, but no such trend is observed in ??¹⁵N. The animal isotope data from Eton are unevenly distributed, making it difficult to determine if the human values mirror the animal values. To assess whether the results from Eton are typical, we compare our results to isotope data from other British sites dating from the Neolithic to the Roman period. Across this time period, we see a strong correlation between the mean ??¹⁵N of the humans and that of the main domesticated herbivores, with an offset of ??4.5?? between the two. Thus, the changes in the human isotope values are likely linked to changes in the isotopic signatures of the herbivores rather than changes in the protein composition of human diets. By contrast, no clear temporal relationship is observed between the mean ??¹³C of the humans and that of the main domesticated herbivores, with an offset of ??1.4?? between the two. There is, however, a weak correlation observed between the mean ??¹³C of the humans and that of the cattle, which may account for some of the variation in human ??¹³C values between sites. The absence of a strong correlation between mean human and animal ??¹³C suggests that the primary factor influencing human ??¹³C values between sites is dietary composition. The lack of co-variation between ??¹³C and ??¹⁵N is likely to reflect the different representation of dietary macronutrients. Given that the nitrogen results suggest that the animal protein consumption patterns are similar across sites, the human ??¹³C variation between sites is likely to reflect the plant portion of the diet.     

The impact of the Roman Empire on animal husbandry practices: study of the changes in cattle morphology in the north-east of the Iberian Peninsula through osteometric and ancient DNA analyses

The change in cattle size during the late Iron Age and the Early Roman period is a widely known phenomenon. However, hardly any information is available about this change and its causes in the north-east of the Iberian Peninsula. In order to shed more light on this issue, variations of cattle size and shape through the analysis of Bos taurus remains from ten archaeological sites located in the north-east Iberia and occupied from the middle fifth century bc to the third century ad are examined in this paper. Osteometric postcranial and teeth analyses show a clear change in cattle size and shape during the Romanization period at newly founded sites. This change is documented at all the sites from the Early Roman period. Genetically, authenticated results from a short fragment of the mitochondrial d-loop were obtained from 6 cattle metacarpals out of 33 tested. They affiliate to the main European taurine haplogroup T/T3. The integration of the available data including the archaeological background suggests that the presence of these morphologically different cattle, introduced during the Romanization period, was more pronounced at sites interpreted as villas and trading posts, rather than at cities during the Early Roman period.     

Book Reviews

Twenty Years On, special issue of Australian Historical Studies (1996) Carpenter, Jennifer and MacLean, Sally-Beth (eds) Power of the Weak: Studies on Medieval Women (1995); Ward, Jennifer (ed.) Women of the English Nobility and Gentry, 1066–1500 (1995); Goldberg, P. J. (ed.) Women in England c. 1275–1525. Documentary Sources (1995) Surtz, Ronald E. Writing Women in Late Medieval and Early Modern Spain: The Mothers of Saint Teresa of Avila (1995); Yarbro-Bejarano, Yvonne Feminism and the Honor Plays of Lope de Vega (1993) Matter, E. Ann and Coakley, John (eds) Creative Women in Medieval and Early Modern Italy: A Religious and Attistic Renaissance (1994); Monson, Craig A. Disembodied Voices: Music and Culture in an Early Modern Italian Convent (1995) Goodman, Dena The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment (1994) Ruane, Christine Gender, Class, and the Professionalization of Russian City Teachers, 1860–1914 (1994) Dyhouse, Carol No Distinction of Sex? Women in British Universities, 1870–1939 (1995) Bonner, Thomas Neville To the Ends of the Earth: Women’s Search for Education in Medicine (1992); Roberts, Shirley Sophia Jex-Blake. A Woman Pioneer in Nineteenth Century Medical Reform (1993); Leneman, Leah In the Service of Life: The Story of Elsie Inglis and the Scottish Women’s Hospitals (1994) Hartman Strom, Sharon Beyond the Typewriter: Gender, Class, and the Origins of Modern American Office Work, 1900–1930 (1992); Kwolek-Folland, Angel Gendering Business: Men and Women in the Corporate Office, 1870–1930 (1994); Cohen, Miriam Workshop to Office: Two Generations of Italian Women in New York City, 1900–1950 (1992) Swindells, Julia (ed.) The Uses of Autobiography (1995) Alexander, Sally Becoming a Woman and Other Essays in 19th and 20th Century Feminist History (1994): Davidoff, Leonore Worlds Between: Historial Perspectives on Gender and Class (1995)     

Early Woodland Upland Encampments of Central Ohio

Abstract

Most published studies of the Early Woodland period (1000 B.C.–200 B.C.) in Ohio have traditionally focused on the mortuary/ceremonial aspects (e.g. mounds) of the latter half of this time period. Less energy, however, has been devoted to nonmortuary sites, such as those that appear in the uplands as surface lithic scatters. In the past decade archaeological studies in central Ohio have yielded a rapidly growing amount of information concerning upland Early Woodland sites. In this article we compare and contrast variability in site structure, flint acquisition and stone tool production, diet, ceramic attributes, and radiocarbon dates from three central Ohio upland sites: President’s Club, 33LI183, and McCauley. Together, these data reveal an emerging pattern of upland site use during the Early Woodland period in central Ohio.     

Dating the A Cemetery at Kish: A Reconsideration

Abstract

The site of ancient Kish consists of a series of mounds about eight miles east of Babylon in the flood plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. On several of the eastern mounds extensive remains of the Sumerian (Early Dynastic = ED) period in the early 3rd millenium B.C. were excavated in the 1920s. Among these remains was a cemetery in which were found many examples of a distinctive kind of pottery, the so-called “goddess-handled jars,” which have come to be associated with the last phase of the period and thus to serve as a criterion for dating sites where these occur.

It will be argued here that such jars were actually manufactured over a longer span of time within the Early Dynastic period and that they are therefore a less precise instrument for dating than has been believed. In my view their absence from some sites is to be explained not by chronology but by regional differences. If this argument is correct, then the dating of a number of Early Dynastic sites will have to be re-examined with greater attention to regional considerations that have often been overlooked in the past.     

The archaic prehistory of the North American Southwest

Evidence today suggests that by at least 8000 to 8500 B.P., Archaic hunter-gatherer economies were established throughout the North American Southwest. The Early Archaic seems to be a period of considerable variability across the subregions; this may be a product of currently slim knowledge of the period, or it may indicate that the region witnessed considerable flux. With the Middle Archaic period from 5500 to 3500 B.P. there seems to be greater similarity in material culture across the region and a definite increase in the number of known sites. Finally, the Late Archaic/Early Agricultural period from 3500 to 2000 or 1500 B.P. sees the establishment of a mixed farming-foraging economy in much of the Southwest with apparently major changes in subsistence-settlement systems. Preagricultural Archaic land use patterns are known in broad outline but not in detail; high mobility by small social groups in an annual round would have permitted exploitation of diverse biotic communities. In most parts of the region, significant socioeconomic change accompanies the incorporation of agriculture into the late preceramic period, as witnessed by the appearance of longer-term residential sites with pitstructures and storage features.     

Settlement and subsistence among the Early Formative Gulf Olmec

Mounting archaeological evidence suggests that floodplain resources, not maize (Zea mays) agriculture, were instrumental in the emergence of Early Formative (ca. 1500–900 uncal BC) complexity across Mesoamerica’s isthmian lowlands. The lion’s share of these data derives from the Pacific side of the isthmus; discussions of the Early Formative Olmec along Mexico’s southern Gulf lowlands have not kept pace. This paper presents settlement and subsistence data that highlight the role of floodplain resources in the development of Gulf Olmec politico-economic complexity. These data support a non-agricultural alternative to traditional models of Gulf Olmec emergence at San Lorenzo, the premier Early Formative Gulf lowlands center. Increased productivity of maize toward the end of the Early Formative period challenged San Lorenzo’s extant politico-economic basis, bringing about a short-term, hyper-acceleration of elite competitive displays. Ultimately, the adoption of maize agriculture generated a reorganized Middle Formative period (ca. 900–400 uncal BC) landscape in and around San Lorenzo. This agrarian adjustment saw occupation move out of the floodplain and into the upland areas, a process sometimes characterized as a cataclysmic system collapse in the Coatzacoalcos basin.     

Storage Structures of the Late Early Bronze I in the Southern Levant and the Urbanisation Process

Nearing the end of the Early Bronze (EB) I period (3350–2950 bce) the southern Levant underwent a transition from a village-oriented to an urban-centred society. An outstanding phenomenon of this period throughout the region is the proliferation of rounded circular structures, usually interpreted as storage facilities, often found in proximity to domestic buildings. These imply increased food production of individual households and a greater need for storage of food surpluses. The agricultural prosperity and resulting surpluses suggested by these storage structures reflect the changes affecting local society and may have been one of the catalysts for urbanisation and the formation of ruling elites during this period.     

Perfectly absent: the emergence of the Modern Greek perfect in Early Modern Greek

Abstract

This paper traces the emergence of the Standard Modern Greek perfect ?χω + infinitive in the Early Modern Greek period. It shows that the construction appears in written sources towards the very end of the seventeenth century. Special attention is given to ‘phantom’ perfects, which can be found in editions of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century literary and non-literary texts as well as in the bibliography and which distort the picture of its emergence.     

London-Bahrain Archaeological Expedition: 1994 and 1995 excavations at Saar, Bahrain

The long-term aim of the project is to excavate the entire central area of the Dilmun settlement. During the 1994 and 1995 seasons a further twelve buildings were excavated, most of them located along the main arteries of the settlement. A resistivity survey, followed by selective excavation, determined the size and extent of the site. A well excavated on the eastern flank provided valuable information about the level of Bahrain's aquifers in the Early Dilmun period.     

The Transition from Prehistory to the Historic Period in the Upper Mun Valley

The Early Historic Period in the Mun Valley occupies a critical three centuries, from A.D. 500 to A.D. 800, a period often known as that of Zhenla, a name derived from early Chinese accounts. This article first describes early findings of fieldwork designed to illuminate the prehistory of the upper Mun Valley, a period which covers approximately two millennia, with initial settlement now dated between 1500 and 1000 B.C. It then considers the nature of the transition to the complex polities of Zhenla. This involves a combination of archaeological and documentary evidence. Sources for the latter are rare for the Mun Valley, but by broadening the area considered, it is possible to integrate archaeological and historical sources in order to portray the intensifying social changes which characterize the Early Historic Period. It is suggested that most of the Mun Valley was occupied by Khmer speakers during the Iron Age, people responsible for the transition to increasingly centralized polities of the Early Historic Period. In the upper reaches of the Mun catchment, and in the Chi Valley to the north, the late prehistoric inhabitants spoke Mon. They had close affinities with the Dvaravati polities of Central Thailand. If confirmed, this hypothesis would indicate a series of local trends towards increasing social complexity which we can recognize in the early epigraphic record.     

A geochemical study of bituminous mixtures from Failaka and Umm an-Namel (Kuwait), from the Early Dilmun to the Early Islamic period

This paper is the last in a series presenting geochemical analyses of fragments of bituminous mixtures excavated from archaeological sites in Kuwait. The first was devoted to bituminous boat remains from the Ubaid‐related Neolithic site of H3, As‐Sabiyah, while the second dealt with bituminous amalgams from the Partho‐Sasanian site of ^cAkkaz, a former island now joined to the south side of Kuwait Bay. This, the third, refers to bitumen‐bearing samples from two other islands, Failaka and Umm an‐Namel, and covers a time span including the Early Dilmun period, the Kassite period and the Hellenistic to Early Islamic periods. The composition of the bituminous amalgams was studied in detail. The proportions of soluble and insoluble organic matter as well as vegetal organic matter were evaluated. Mineralogical composition by X‐Ray diffraction and thin‐section analysis was used to estimate the mineral input in the bituminous mixtures. It can be confirmed that the recipes used in the preparation of these bituminous amalgams comply with those traditionally used in antiquity, as seen at many sites in Mesopotamia and the Gulf. Analysis of the soluble organic matter, and especially its ‘‘saturates’’ fraction, provided sterane and terpane distributions and the measurement of diagnostic molecular ratios. These data, complemented by the isotopic composition of asphaltenes, allowed the identification of the sources of the bitumen, by calibration with numerous references from Iran and northern Iraq (oil seeps, bitumen from archaeological sites). It was established that the bitumen from Failaka and Umm an‐Namel was mainly imported from central Iraq (Hit‐Abu Jir) and northern Iraq (around Mosul). One sample of oil‐stained sand, dating to the Early Dilmun period, originated from Burgan and thus documents small‐scale imports from inland Kuwait. These results, and those of previous analyses, agree with the geopolitical context of the Early Dilmun, Kassite and Hellenistic periods, and the maritime trade routes that linked Mesopotamia to the settlements of the Gulf and beyond. The paper concludes with an overview of recent bitumen provenance analyses, and discerns chronological patterns in the distribution of Iraqi and Iranian bitumen in the Gulf and Indian Ocean, from the Neolithic to the Islamic periods.     

Starch grain analysis for groundstone tools from Neolithic Baiyinchanghan site: implications for their function in Northeast China

Large numbers of groundstone tools have been uncovered from archaeological sites in the Early Neolithic period in China. Traditionally they are often regarded as agricultural tools for processing cereals. In this paper we report preliminary starch grain analysis of groundstone tools from Baiyinchanghan site to gain a better understanding of use of these tools in the Northeast China. We found that starch grains on these groundstone tools are most likely from Quercus sp. The result of this study indicates that many groundstone tools for the Early Neolithic period were used to process wild and domesticated plants alike.     

Dental health at the transition from the Late Antique to the early Medieval period on Croatia's eastern Adriatic coast

Dento‐alveolar pathologies: caries, ante mortem tooth loss, abscesses, calculus, alveolar resorption and tooth wear were analysed in two composite skeletal series from Croatia's eastern Adriatic coast (Dalmatia). The first consists of 103 skeletons from seven Late Antique (3rd–6th century AD) sites, the second of 151 skeletons from three Early Medieval (7th–11th centuries AD) sites. As recent bioarhaeological studies (Šlaus, 2008 ) showed a significant increase of disease loads and trauma frequencies in Dalmatia during the Early Medieval period, the aim of this study was to investigate whether dental health was equally adversely affected by the Late Antique/Early Medieval transition. The results of our analyses show that the frequencies of carious lesions, ante mortem tooth loss, abscesses and alveolar resorption increased significantly during the Early Medieval period, as did the degree of heavy occlusal wear on posterior teeth. These data suggest a change in alimentary habits, with a significantly higher dependence on carbohydrates and a greater reliance on hard, fibrous foods requiring vigorous mastication in the Early Medieval diet. The combination of higher calculus and lower caries rates in the Late Antique series similarly suggests more protein in the Late Antique diet and is, therefore, also consistent with the hypothesised change in alimentary habits. In general (the two exceptions are male caries and female alveolar resorption frequencies) lesion frequencies increased uniformly in both sexes suggesting that the deterioration of dental health during the Early Medieval period equally affected males and females. Cumulatively, the collected data suggest that the political, social, economic and religious changes that characterised the Late Antique/Early Medieval transition in Dalmatia resulted in a clear discontinuity, not only from the cultural, but also from the biological point of view with an evident deterioration of oral health during the Early Medieval period. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Assessing the Importance of Local Supporting Organizations in the Automotive Industry: A Hybrid Dynamic Framework of Innovation Networks

Abstract

The advancement of knowledge on networks entails acknowledging the heterogeneity of their participants, more precisely, the organizations that lie beyond the scope of the activities of firms. Adopting a dynamic perspective of networks, and considering different types of innovation exchanges, we propose a hybrid and wider notion of industry which implies taking account of a set of local supporting organizations (LSOs) in domains such as research and technology, production factors, consultancy and training, and public support. Based on a rich data set built from face-to-face interviews with Portuguese automotive organizations, which resulted in a network comprising 867 organizations, we apply social network analysis techniques to analyse the structure, content and dynamics of the networks. The evidence gathered unveiled huge industry turbulence and significant changes in the boundaries of the Portuguese automotive networks over a 20-year period, with the emergence (and decline) of different prominent organizations. Specifically, following AutoEuropa major foreign direct investment (in 1995), the analyses reflect a clear increase in connectivity within the industry (from 524, before 1995, up to 2327 connections after 1995), with greater involvement among suppliers and between suppliers and LSOs, with the latter achieving top positions in the ranking of innovation networks.