Domestic and wild ungulate dietary traits at Kouphovouno (Sparta,Greece): implications for livestock management and paleoenvironment in the Neolithic

The objective for this study is to explore interspecific variations in domestic and wild ungulate diets and management at the Neolithic site of Kouphovouno (Sparta, southern Greece). We tested four hypotheses related to environmental context and livestock management using, for the first time, a combination of mesowear and microwear analyses on a Neolithic site. We identified interspecific differences between ungulate taxa, especially between wild and domestic ungulates, however there is no significant difference between Ovis and Capra. There is no diachronic change in diet from the Middle Neolithic to the Late Neolithic. Changes in animal utilization are not reflected in their diet. Whatever the purpose of the husbandry, animals had access to the same food resources. The study of dental wear patterns gave some insights regarding the management practices for the domestic livestock as well as paleoenvironment through the study of wild ungulates.     

Investigating the role of food processing in human evolution: a niche construction approach

While it is generally agreed that food processing has had a role in human evolution, the specific ways that is has affected our evolution are not well understood. Using a Niche Construction Theory (NCT) perspective, coupled with methodologies borrowed from “post-harvest” research in the plant sciences, this paper investigates the means and mechanism by which food processing is of evolutionary consequence. The central tenet of NCT is that organisms have an active role in their own evolution through reciprocal interactions with their environments; niche construction is understood to occur when organisms initiate long-term changes to their environments that modify the selection pressures on themselves and their descendants (and on other organisms in the environment). Humans and our hominin ancestors are considered to be the ultimate niche constructors due to our ability to modify selection pressures through diverse culturally generated and transmitted cultural means, i.e. cultural niche construction. In this paper, post-harvest methods are used to identify how food processing could feasibly have permitted hominins to modify their evolutionary selection pressures. Food processing is shown to facilitate access to increasing amounts of digestible nutrients and energy (kilocalories/kilojoules) as well as promoting increased dietary breadth and making possible the production of safer and more stable foods. It is argued that these advancements catalysed related technological and ecological skills and knowledge, which together with the nutritional benefits, further triggered changes in hominin brain and body and locomotory adaptations and increased longevity, disease prevention and juvenile survival rates.     

Catholic-Confucian Mortuary Practices in a Rural Manchurian Cemetery

Historical Archaeology - Catholic missionaries were active among rural populations in Manchuria, in northeast China, around the turn of the 20th century. Their presence influenced everything from...     

‘The Old Woman as Hare’: Structure and Meaning in an Irish Legend

This paper looks at the St Kitts and Nevis Mummies' plays as published in Folklore by Roger Abrahams (1968). It demonstrates that the texts were originally taken from a play published by the Victorian children's author Mrs J.H. Ewing. This play appeared in several editions, most notably in two series issued by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Mrs Ewing's text was itself compiled from three northern English chapbook texts and a version from Silverton, Devon. The relative contribution of these texts to Mrs Ewing's play, and the way she put them together, are both explored.     

Documentary Evidence and the Medieval Pottery Industry

EARLY in my study of the medieval pottery industry it became clear to me that, contrary to general belief, a reasonable body of documentary evidence bearing on the industry had survived, but that it would take some years to assemble and interpret. There is no corpus of documents from which to begin, for surviving evidence is not only scattered in a very wide variety of documents, but is also dispersed geographically in a number of local record repositories. It might seem sensible to delay publication until a larger proportion of this evidence has been studied, or at least to avoid analysis and generalization at this stage; but pottery and potters are of interest to archaeologists here and now, and there is nothing written on the industry save assemblages of unrelated facts, often strung together from widely different periods. An effort has, therefore, been made to assemble the material so far available into a coherent pattern. Since this is the first time that this has been done, the result will probably require drastic modification in a few years' time. If the interim report here presented stimulates others to prove it wrong, this paper will have achieved at least one of its purposes.¹