Archaeobotanical and GIS-based approaches to prehistoric agriculture in the upper Ying valley,Henan, China

Archaeobotanical survey has sampled a series of late Neolithic to early Bronze Age settlements in the upper Ying valley (part of the central plain of China) and provided useful data for understanding prehistoric arable ecology and farming during a period of increasing local social complexity. A combination of the modelling functions offered by Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and the data reduction possibilities offered by Principal Component Analysis (PCA) allow us to explore possible relationships between local arable ecology, crop-processing strategies and the natural environment. The results should be treated cautiously given the size of the analytical sample but suggest that differences in the natural environment around each site may explain varying patterns of wild food collection, while social and cultural factors may better explain variation in farming practice and crop-processing at different sites.     

Shell Middens, Ships and Seeds: Exploring Coastal Subsistence, Maritime Trade and the Dispersal of Domesticates in and Around the Ancient Arabian Peninsula

The Arabian Peninsula occupies a critical position at the intersect of several major Old World landmasses. Inland aridity and a major coastal perimeter have long made maritime activities critical to Arabia’s cultural trajectory. A wealth of recent studies, not previously synthesised, suggest not only that the peninsular littoral offered a rich resource base for thousands of years of human occupation in the region, but also that Arabia witnessed some of the world’s earliest seafaring and maritime exchange activities, and played a role in Bronze Age maritime trade that has often been underestimated. Maritime activities were closely linked to developments in agriculture, which not only fuelled trade and exchange, but were also impacted on by the dispersal of domesticates along early maritime corridors. While regional specialisation has to some degree prevented consideration of the maritime prehistory of the peninsula as a whole, it is clear that there are interesting parallels, as well as important differences, between cultural trajectories in different parts of the peninsula.     

Isotopic Reconstruction of the Late Longshan Period (ca. 4200–3900 BP) Dietary Complexity before the Onset of State‐Level Societies at the Wadian Site in the Ying River Valley,Central Plains,China

During the late Longshan period (ca. 4200–3900 BP) settlements on the Central Plains of China underwent a diversification in food production technologies, which set the stage for rapid economic and social development. The introduction of novel domesticates such as rice, wheat, cattle, and sheep not only provided more food choices, but also changed ideas concerning land use, farming techniques, and the use and mobilization of large scale labor forces. To better understand the contribution that these new dietary items and practices made to shaping the late Longshan period societies, a stable isotope ratio study of humans (n = 12) and animals (n = 42) was conducted at the late Longshan period site of Wadian. The human δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N values are clustered into two distinct groups. One group of nine individuals (δ¹³C = −9.9 ± 0.7‰; δ¹⁵N = 7.5 ± 0.5‰) had a predominately C₄ diet based on millet grains with little protein input from the domestic animals. The other group of three individuals (δ¹³C = −14.3 ± 0.8‰; δ¹⁵N = 10.2 ± 0.3‰) had a mixed C₃/C₄ diet of millets and rice and were consuming sheep and cattle. The animals also displayed dietary diversity with the pigs (δ¹³C = −11.3 ± 2.5‰; δ¹⁵N = 6.9 ± 1.0‰, n = 10) and dogs (δ¹³C = −10.1 ± 1.0‰; δ¹⁵N = 7.2 ± 1.1‰, n = 7) having mostly a C₄ plant based diet (millets). In contrast, the cattle (δ¹³C = −12.8 ± 2.1‰; δ¹⁵N = 7.6 ± 0.7‰, n = 9), sheep (δ¹³C = −16.7 ± 0.9‰; δ¹⁵N = 7.6 ± 0.1‰, n = 2), and cervids (δ¹³C = −20.8 ± 0.9‰; δ¹⁵N = 5.0 ± 1.2‰, n = 10) had diets with a greater contribution from C₃ sources such as rice and wild plants. The discovery that humans and animals had different subsistence patterns indicates dietary complexity at Wadian and that rice agriculture, and cattle and sheep husbandry practices were already an important part of the local economy by the late Longshan period in the southern region of the Central Plains of China. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An Isotopic Perspective on Animal Husbandry at the Xinzhai Site During the Initial Stage of the Legendary Xia Dynasty (2070–1600 BC)

Located in the Central Plains of China, the early Xia Dynasty site of Xinzhai (2050 BC–1750 BC) with large archaeological features and exquisite artifacts of jade and copper is pivotal for probing the origin and formation of Chinese civilisation. Here, stable isotope ratios analysis, supplemented by zooarchaeological results, was used to investigate the exploitation and management of animals utilised by humans. It was demonstrated that a diverse pattern of animal raising and exploitation was present at the Xinzhai site. The domestic pigs were fed with substantial amounts of millets or their byproducts to guarantee a food source for the dietary demands of the humans. Dogs were also found to have consumed large amounts of C₄ protein sources, likely in the form of human food scraps or leftovers. The domestic herbivores, sheep and cattle, showed different dietary characteristics in that the former mainly grazed in the natural environment, while the latter species were fed with large amounts of C₄ products. This intra‐species variation was somewhat related to their physiological characteristics but seems to have been more determined by their different status in social and ritual activities. Thus, this research at Xinzhai provides a glimpse of the organisation of animal resources during the initial formation of Chinese civilisation. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

HISTORY,ANTHROPOLOGY, COLONIALISM,AND THE STUDY OF INDIA

Autobiography of an Archive is a collection of essays by Nicholas B. Dirks written since 1991, preceded by an autobiographical introduction. This review article discusses the collection in relation to Dirks's overall scholarship and the wider intellectual field in which history, anthropology, and colonialism intersect in the study of India. Dirks has written three books: The Hollow Crown (1987), an “ethnohistory” of a “little kingdom” in south India; Castes of Mind (2001), about colonialism, anthropology, and caste in India; and The Scandal of Empire (2006), which discusses the foundations of British imperial sovereignty. In The Hollow Crown and other writings, Dirks significantly contributed to the debate about the “rapprochement” between anthropology and history, which was prominent in the 1980s. But in the 1990s, Dirks thought, the rapprochement ground to a halt; the relationship between anthropology and colonialism then came to the fore, and Castes of Mind, as well as some of these essays, were influential critical studies of colonial anthropology. In recent essays, Dirks has examined the “politics of knowledge” and the postwar development of South Asian area studies in the United States. This article argues that although the relationship between anthropology and history is now rarely debated, historical anthropology has continued to develop since the 1980s. Moreover, anthropologists in general now recognize that history matters, and that colonialism crucially shaped modern society and culture in India, and other former colonial territories. Many of Dirks's conclusions about, for example, Indian kingdoms and caste in colonial discourse, have been criticized by other scholars. Nonetheless, anthropological writing, especially on India, is no longer unhistorical, as it once often was, and Dirks's scholarship has played a valuable part in bringing about this change.     

Does digital video enhance student learning in field-based experiments and develop graduate attributes beyond the classroom?

The connection between fieldwork and development of graduate attributes is explored in this paper. Digital technologies present opportunities to potentially enhance the learning experience of students undertaking fieldwork, and develop core digital attributes and competencies required by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and employers. This paper reports the success of adopting digital video capture in technology-rich field experiments that form part of final year undergraduate courses in Physical Geography at an HEI in New Zealand. Student perceptions were obtained via a range of approaches. Results suggest that deployment of digital video reinforces student learning and connects with core graduate attributes.     

Nursing mothers and feeding bottles: reconstructing breastfeeding and weaning patterns in Greek Byzantine populations (6th–15th centuries AD) using carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios

Traditionally, documentary evidence (mainly medical works and the vitae and miracles of saints) served as the primary source of information for perinatal nutrition in the Byzantine era. In the last decade, however, stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratio analysis has also been applied for the reconstruction of Byzantine breastfeeding and weaning practices. This paper reviews the documentary evidence for Byzantine weaning and compares it to isotopic data for eight Greek Byzantine skeletal samples from the sites of Eleutherna, Kastella, Messene, Sourtara, Stylos, Nemea, Petras and Servia (6th–15th centuries AD). The documentary evidence suggests that Byzantine children were weaned at a relatively late age. The age patterning of the stable isotope data is not as clear as normally seen at single sites. However, the presence of a higher proportion of elevated values in juveniles aged three years or less suggests that weaning was completed by the fourth year—a pattern consistent with the written sources. The data available from this study allow us to make some tentative suggestions about cultural and temporal differences in weaning, and to recommend directions for further research. A comparison of the Byzantine data presented here to data published for Roman-era sites from the Mediterranean and Western Europe suggests that the Byzantines maintained a Roman-era practice of relatively late weaning. In contrast, medieval data for Western Europe and the few measurements made on post-Byzantine Greek material suggest more variation, with some groups weaning late and others weaning earlier, by two years of age.