Evolving Location Analytics for Service Coverage Modeling

Among the wide range of geographic analysis methods are service coverage models. These location analytic approaches have been invaluable for better understanding existing (and past) conditions, deriving creative plans, and developing policy for addressing associated societal problems. Increasingly sophisticated spatial information and better knowledge about interrelated mechanisms of process and behavior have made it possible to enhance coverage models, enabling more nuanced formalizations to be devised. This has proven both important and essential in many ways. Mathematical details associated with service coverage models are derived to highlight evolving capabilities. Empirical results are presented in order to illustrate the significance and substantive importance of advanced location analytics capabilities.     

The weight of nineteenth century Mexicans in the Western United States

When traditional methods for measuring economic welfare are scarce or unreliable, heights and BMIs are now well-accepted measurements that represent biological conditions during economic development. Weight, after controlling for height, is an additional measure for current net nutrition. Little is known about how weights varied among Mexicans living in the nineteenth century American West. Between 1870 and 1920, average Mexican weight was low and remained constant. Mexican farmers had the heaviest weights, and unskilled worker weights were low. Weight of Mexican-born individuals were higher than Mexicans born in the United States at low weights but lower at high weights. For combined characteristics, weight varied the most with age, an uncontrollable characteristic, indicating that nineteenth century Mexican current net nutrition varied the most with factors over which they had no control.     

Land Snail Shell Beads in the Sub-Saharan Archaeological Record: When,Where, and Why?

Shell beads are well established in the archaeological record of sub-Saharan Africa and appear as early as 75,000 BP; however, most research has focused on ostrich eggshell (OES) and various marine mollusc species. Beads made from various land snails shells (LSS), frequently described as Achatina, also appear to be widespread. Yet tracking their appearance and distribution is difficult because LSS beads are often intentionally or unintentionally lumped with OES beads, there are no directly dated examples, and bead reporting in general is highly variable in the archaeological literature. Nevertheless, Achatina and other potential cases of LSS beads are present at over 80 archaeological sites in at least eight countries, spanning the early Holocene to recent past. Here, we collate published cases and report on several more. We also present a new case from Magubike Rockshelter in southern Tanzania with the first directly dated LSS beads, which we use to illustrate methods for identifying LSS as a raw material. Despite the long history of OES bead production on the continent and the abundance of land snails available throughout the Pleistocene, LSS beads appear only in the late Holocene and are almost exclusively found in Iron Age contexts. We consider possible explanations for the late adoption of land snails as a raw material for beadmaking within the larger context of environmental, economic, and social processes in Holocene Africa. By highlighting the existence of these artifacts, we hope to facilitate more in-depth research on the timing, production, and distribution of LSS beads in African prehistory.     

An Interview with James Kwesi Anquandah

Professor James Kwesi Anquandah was Ghana’s first archaeologist. He was also the first Ghanaian to become head of the Archaeology Department at the University of Ghana, which was the first archaeology department in sub-Saharan Africa, established in 1951. Dedicating his life to Ghanaian archaeology, particularly during the difficult years in Ghana in the 1980s and early 1990s, Anquandah had a significant impact on the development of archaeology in Ghana. In addition to his research, advisory and curatorial work, Professor Anquandah was instrumental in the training of three generations of Ghanaian archaeologists. During the course of a professional career that spanned nearly six decades, Professor Anquandah made archaeology relevant and accessible to all Ghanaians.     

The Middle Neolithic of Morocco’s North-Western Atlantic Strip: New Evidence from the El-Khil Caves (Tangier)

The period comprising the end of the Early Neolithic and the Middle Neolithic, dated broadly within the fifth millennium cal BC, corresponds to an interval that remains largely unknown in the extreme north-western tip of Africa. This situation contrasts with that of the Early Neolithic, a period characterised by the earliest evidence of the diffusion of a productive economy, cultivated plants and domestic animals. The paucity of data for these later phases can be explained in part by the lack of secure contexts and sequences based on radiocarbon datings of short-lived samples. The current study presents the results of the excavations of El-Khil Caves B and C that yield materials allowing re-evaluation of the chronology of a type of ceramic known as Ashakar ware. The study also identifies two traditions in the northern Moroccan Middle Neolithic. The first is heir to the so-called Impressa Mediterranean ware and rooted in the Cardial Neolithic, while the second is characterised by roulette cord impressions, red slip and tunnel lugs and probably rooted in the region of the Sahara, and has no technological precedents in the study area.     

Marginalized Potters and Ceramic Compositional Groups: Neutron Activation Analysis of Contemporary Pottery from Tigray,Northern Highland Ethiopia

The study presents the results of neutron activation analysis (NAA) of contemporary pottery from Tigray Regional State, northern highland Ethiopia. This is the first regional-scale study of ceramic composition of Tigray’s pottery and is part of an ethnoarchaeological study of the material and social contexts of pottery production and consumption in Tigray’s Eastern (Misraqawi), Central (Mehakelegnaw), and North-western (Semien Mi’irabawi) zones. The analysis identifies clear compositional groups with strong regional patterns, an encouraging result for the use of NAA to study Tigray’s ancient pottery trade. Significantly, the study further contributes to discussions of how mutually constituted social identities of potters and consumers affect compositional patterning in the distribution of pottery in market networks.