Atlantic salmon, archaeology and climate change in New England

A paucity of archaeological remains of Atlantic salmon in Northeast North America has been cited as evidence that the species may have been present in the region only during and after the Little Ice Age (ca. 1450–1850 AD), one of coldest periods of the Holocene. However, significant problems of preservation, recovery and identification remain. Here, improved methods of identification use vertebra structure to distinguish salmon from trout, and strontium/calcium ratios to differentiate sea-run from landlocked salmon. In addition to the Little Ice Age, Atlantic salmon is identified in tightly dated contexts at 7000–6500 and 3500–3000 calendar years BP, during climate periods that were comparatively warm and wet.     

Explaining the monopoly in shell-bead production on the Channel Islands: drilling experiments with four lithic raw materials

Significant political and economic developments among the Chumash of southern California were catalyzed in part by the emergence of an intensive, specialist-driven shell-bead industry during the second millennium CE on the Santa Barbara Channel Islands. The production of millions of beads depended in turn on the availability of lithic microdrills of standardized form and materials. Channel Islanders quarried a particular stone type, a blocky Monterey Formation chert, from multiple outcrops situated close to the eastern shores of Santa Cruz Island. Rich archaeological assemblages document the lithic and shell byproducts of these intertwined production systems, each of which endured for several centuries (CE 1150–1819). Islanders invariably chose Island chert for making microdrills: hundreds of thousands of specimens recorded to date are of this material. Furthermore, nearly every microlith in all of Chumash territory (post CE 1150) was produced on the islands; the large populations on the mainland did not participate in microlith making or bead making after CE 1150–1200. We argue that this pattern had its roots not only in the patchiness of key resources and shifting regional social relationships, but also in the physical properties of available raw materials. Here we experimentally assess the properties of Santa Cruz Island chert alongside three important mainland raw materials—Grimes Canyon fused shale, Coso obsidian, and Vandenberg chert—that potentially could have been tapped to make microliths. We test the proposition that Island chert outperforms other lithic materials in drilling efficiency and drill use life. Our experimental results from 108 drilling trials reveal sharp distinctions in performance characteristics across the four materials. We infer that the process by which Islanders became the more-or-less exclusive manufacturers of shell-bead currency in southern California was facilitated by both the efficacy and physical properties of the Island cherts and the propitious locations of the outcrops.     

Avenging ‘Bridget’: Irish domestic servants and middle-class America in the short stories of Maeve Brennan

This article will examine the representation of Irish women servants in Maeve Brennan's short stories, first published in The New Yorker in the 1950s, and collected in The Rose Garden (2001). The Irish ‘Bridget’, the most publicly visible, if troubling, image of Irish womanhood in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America, has received much-needed attention from historians and social scientists in the last decade, and is a central figure in discussions of Irish women and diasporic identity in the American context. Drawing on this body of work, and focusing in detail on key stories from the collection, including ‘The Bride’, ‘The View from the Kitchen’, ‘The Anachronism’, ‘The Divine Fireplace’, and ‘The Servants’ Dance', I argue that Brennan's reimagining of the Irish Bridget can be approached as a form of feminist revisionism, as Brennan's stories enter into a charged dialogue with the history of imagining the Irish woman servant as an undesirable but necessary presence in middle-class American domestic culture. Brennan's self-reflexive reworking of this paradigm is informed by her work as a satirist for The New Yorker, and proves an effective means of writing back to this problematic history, as she takes up recognisable tropes and motifs from earlier representations of Bridget in popular and literary culture, and alters them in knowing and subversive ways.     

Tooth wear in two ancient populations of the Khazar Kaganat region in the Ukraine

Tooth wear is a common phenomenon in archaeological material. It has been related to the abrasiveness of diet and to the tribological attrition of teeth of individuals. Numerous investigations have been carried out in north and middle American samples as well as African anthropological material. Not much is known about tooth wear in European cultures. Eleven skulls from Chervona Gusarovka, and 14 skulls from the Upper Saltov sites of the Khazar Kaganat region (8th–10th centuries AD) in eastern Ukraine, with different diets were examined. A total of 208 teeth were studied for tooth wear, caries prevalence and periodontal status. Abrasion grades were determined according to a standardised classification and statistically evaluated. Periodontal status was measured using the distance between the enamel‐cementum junction and alveolar crest and the gingival attachment level respectively. Tooth wear was significantly different (P < 0.01) between the two populations. A low caries prevalence of 4.2% in the Chervona Gusarovka population and 1.7% in the Upper Saltov population was found. Significantly more alveolar crest bone resorption on the lingual side was found in the premolars and anterior teeth of the Chervona Gusarovka population. No significant differences were found regarding gingival attachment levels and gingival recession. It is concluded that the content and mode of food preparation influenced tooth wear, as reflected by the prevalence of dental caries and periodontal diseases in these ancient populations. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.