The Technology of the Early Oakhurst Lithic Techno-Complex from Klipdrift Cave,Southern Cape,South Africa

The analysis of the lithics recovered from the layers dating between cal bp 10,700 and cal bp 13,700 at Klipdrift Cave, southern Cape, South Africa, provides new information on the Oakhurst techno-complex. A comparison with contemporary sites such as Matjes River Rock Shelter indicates not only technological similarities, but also unexpected differences. The Klipdrift Cave Oakhurst shares many characteristics typical of this techno-complex from the southern Cape, for example, in the dominance of quartzite, irregular and unstandardised flakes; the occurrence of irregular cores; and typical large side and end scrapers. It differs from most coastal Oakhurst sites however, in the more intensive exploitation of quartz, and the presence of a blade component, especially in the lowermost layers. Palaeoenvironmental data, derived from stable isotope analysis of ostrich eggshell, suggest that it was dry in this region during this time period. This was partially a result of the colder conditions that prevailed during the Younger Dryas. The lithic technological production techniques are stable at Klipdrift Cave during the period that the site was occupied from cal bp 13,700 to cal bp 10,700. Our data suggest that the lithic technology did not change in response to possible climatic variability.     

Breaking Ground: Hoes in Precolonial South Africa—Typology,Medium of Exchange and Symbolic Value

In sub-Saharan Africa, every cultivator of the soil in a precolonial, agriculturist society needed a digging implement, and this normally took the form of a hoe with an iron blade hafted on a wooden handle. This paper marks the first attempt to document the surprising variety of hoe blade styles and map their regional distributions within South Africa. While the primary function of the hoe—this key item of material culture in African farming communities—was to cultivate the soil, the large quantity of metal and therefore labour required to make a hoe blade accorded it great value in the years before European industrial copies flooded the market. The hoe was an important item in trade networks, in marriage transactions and in a number of symbolic contexts associated with individual and collective ancestry. This biographical approach to hoe exchange, use and recycling reveals the complex significance of this tool in the lives of precolonial farmers. In particular, we are able to show that hoes could in some circumstances be accorded the same values as cattle in marriage exchange.     

Caracol,Belize, and Changing Perceptions of Ancient Maya Society

Archaeological research at Caracol, an ancient Maya site that was rediscovered in 1937, has become a major resource in the interpretation and understanding of the ancient Maya. Caracol, in west-central Belize, is situated in a subtropical region once characterized as being unsuitable for the development or maintenance of complex societies, yet it is one of the largest, if not the largest Classic period Maya site in the southern Maya Lowlands, home to over 100,000 people at its height between AD 600 and 700. The investigations at Caracol underscore the utility of long-term archaeological projects incorporating large-scale settlement study that combine excavation with varied research designs and the use of a contextual approach. By employing Maya epigraphic history, traditional archaeology, and modern technology like LiDAR, research at Caracol details the rise, maintenance, and fall of an ancient Maya city, affording a large window into ancient Maya lifeways. Archaeological work provides evidence of sustainable agriculture, a market economy, city planning that included a road system, the impact of warfare on the site’s inhabitants, the sociopolitical status of women, the role that archaeology can play in refining written history, and the significance of commemorating the cyclical passage of time to the ancient Maya. This article summarizes archaeological research efforts at the site by the Caracol Archaeological Project over the last three decades.     

An Experiment in Using Visual Attention Metrics to Think About Experience and Design Choices in Past Places

The influence of the visual properties of a built space or landscape on the behaviors of people within them and the manipulation of these visual properties to cue or constrain behaviors are subjects of long-standing archaeological interest. Advances in cognitive neurosciences and a suite of improved computational modeling tools, combined with the proliferation of detailed 3D models of archaeological complexes and landscapes, offer an opportunity for new approaches to these topics based on models of low-level perceptual cues and visual attention. The approach described here takes aim at the question of where people will look, rather than simply what is visible, with the goal of investigating the intentions of designers of spaces and visual aspects of the experience of a place. In simple terms, our approach involves placing detailed 3D models of built spaces or landscapes into a digital environment. An individual then virtually walks through the space and what is visible at each moment is recorded in the form of a video stream, which may be broken down into a sequence of scenes. This set of scenes is then analyzed using software that calculates and maps the visual saliency of each scene and the path of focuses of attention (FOAs) over time. This set of saliency maps, raw images, and FOA paths provide the basis for further interpretation. This paper presents an initial experiment to illustrate the approach, carried out in the eastern passage at Knowth, one of the main mounds in the Brú na Bóinne in Ireland.     

Seeking a Better View: Using 3D to Investigate Visibility in Historic Landscapes

The examination of historic landscapes at complex, multi-phased archaeological sites is hampered by the limitations of traditional two-dimensional (2D) visibility studies in geographic information systems (GISs). This paper argues for integrating three-dimensional (3D), qualitative methods into the study of visibility of monumental architecture at ancient sites. By transforming 2D GIS data into 3D representations of ancient built and natural landscapes, visibility studies can be greatly enhanced, adding into analysis perspective, monument shape, and color, as well as changing levels of visibility across time and space. The ancient Egyptian site of Saqqara (29° 52′ 16.55″ lat./31° 12′ 59.58″ E long.) is one of a number of cult locations with monumental architecture neighboring the administrative capital of Memphis. The Old Kingdom cult site of Saqqara (2670 bce–2168 bce) is utilized to demonstrate the potential for 3D visibility studies that better replicate such elements of human perception. This method offers new possibilities for more human-centered studies of past landscapes.     

The Enduring Toltecs: History and Truth During the Aztec-to-Colonial Transition at Tula,Hidalgo

Tula, Hidalgo, was an important early Postclassic city that dominated much of central Mexico as well as adjacent regions to its north and west. For many decades, Tula was thought to be the city that early colonial documents referred to as “Tollan,” or “place of the reeds.” It is clear that the Aztec Empire, a later civilization that dominated a much larger area, revered Tollan and connected themselves to the city and its people, the Toltecs, in various ways. Recent research has questioned whether Tula was indeed the Tollan that the Aztecs revered; instead, Tollan may have been a concept that referred to all of the great civilizations that preceded the Aztecs. These two perspectives, which I frame as the “single Tollan/many Tollans” debate, have important consequences for our understanding of the early Postclassic period as well as colonial configurations of power. I argue that to understand the Aztecs’ relationships with their past, and the colonial consequences of those relationships, it is important to shift away from questions of truth. Instead, I concentrate on historical narratives and the social, material, and biological effects that they produced, including the early and late Aztec interventions at Tula. I argue that Jorge Acosta’s data provide evidence for an Early Aztec period termination ritual and a Late Aztec period New Fire ceremony that ushered in a new population boom at Tula. In turn, these connections allowed for the unprecedented rise of the Moctezuma family during the colonial period. This evidence forms part of a broader argument that the two sides of the Tula debate are not mutually exclusive. Rather, they both form part of attempts to control, claim, and revere the past in the inherently unstable fields of power that characterized the late Postclassic and early colonial periods in central Mexico.     

The Archaeological Survey Project in Fatschenbrunn,Municipality of Oberaurach,Germany: A Case Study for the Reconstruction of Past Farming Regimes in the Late Medieval and Post-Medieval Era

This paper presents the preliminary results of a survey project which is being carried out in the small village of Fatschenbrunn, in Lower Franconia, Germany. The project combines archaeological, historical geographical, botanical, geological and pedological data to reconstruct the farming regimes and land use in the late medieval and post-medieval era. Although the project is still on-going, the collected data allows the formulation of hypotheses on the formation of fertile agricultural soils through long-term human intervention in the past.     

No need to hear your voice,when I can talk about you better than you can speak about yourself…’ Discourses on Knowledge and Power in the !Khuiseb Delta on the Namib Coast, 1780–2016 CE

Indigenous pastoralists at Walvis Bay on the Namib Desert coast were drawn into global commerce at the end of the eighteenth century. A hundred years later, they were impoverished and peripheral to colonial settlement, but their resilience and traditional reliance on the endemic !nara melon gave them a unique cultural identity and a way into the informal domestic market. Subaltern and subservient in the past, the Topnaar today are creating a niche in the modern Namibian economy. I present a background historical archaeology and some of the challenges facing the Topnaar through the subjective voices of a number of historical and current stakeholders. There may be parallels between the story of the Topnaar in the Namib and the archaeology of indigenous communities in Australia, the Americas and elsewhere in the world.     

Functionality and Morphology: Identifying <Emphasis Type="Italic">Si</Emphasis> Agricultural Tools from Among Hemudu Scapular Implements in Eastern China

Most Chinese archaeologists assume that the scapular implements used in the Hemudu culture in eastern China (7000–5000 BP) were the si agricultural implements (tools for breaking ground and turning soils over to assist in seeding) recorded in ancient Chinese literatures and, accordingly, assume the Hemudu culture was a farming society. However, ethnographic and historical literatures worldwide have suggested inconclusive functions for similar implements. We conducted a range of experiments under realistic conditions, including hide and plant processing and earth-working, followed by use-wear analysis, to identify the functions of the Hemudu scapular implements. The results suggest that no more than half of the implements were employed as si and that their penetrability and durability were rather limited. These findings help explain why Hemudu should not be labeled as a farming society. Through experimentation and use-wear analysis, we produced relatively large datasets that make a significant contribution to the identification of soil-derived wear patterns on bone tools. We also included quantitative measurements of soil properties to ensure similarities in use contexts between our experimental and archaeological analogies in order to reach reliable functional identifications. Our approaches and results, therefore, provided a solid base for re-evaluating previous research as well as building a standardized database of scientific value for future evaluation and adjustment, even if that future research is done in isolation and in different soil contexts.     

Computational Reproducibility in Archaeological Research: Basic Principles and a Case Study of Their Implementation

The use of computers and complex software is pervasive in archaeology, yet their role in the analytical pipeline is rarely exposed for other researchers to inspect or reuse. This limits the progress of archaeology because researchers cannot easily reproduce each other’s work to verify or extend it. Four general principles of reproducible research that have emerged in other fields are presented. An archaeological case study is described that shows how each principle can be implemented using freely available software. The costs and benefits of implementing reproducible research are assessed. The primary benefit, of sharing data in particular, is increased impact via an increased number of citations. The primary cost is the additional time required to enhance reproducibility, although the exact amount is difficult to quantify.