Ancient plant use and palaeoenvironmental analysis at the Gumugou Cemetery,Xinjiang, China: implication from desiccated plant remains

The Gumugou Cemetery is located in the Lop Nor region of the Tarim Basin in Xinjiang, northwest China. Radiocarbon dating found the site to be 3800 years BP. Due to the exceptionally arid conditions, most of the plant remains are well-preserved. Morphological and anatomical studies suggest that the plant remains consist of: Triticum cf. aestivum, Phragmites australis, Populus euphratica, Ephedra sp., as well as Typha sp. These ancient plants imply that the indigenous people lived in oases surrounded by extensive desert. Caryopses of T. cf. aestivum might have been used as funeral objects of the mummies as well as a subsidiary food source of the inhabitants, while the wild plants were used in other aspects of daily life.     

The Role of the Student Researcher: Notes from Hadrian’s Wall

Fieldwork carried out for a Masters dissertation examined, through interviews, how well a consultation on the future management of the Hadrian’s Wall World Heritage Site had been carried out. Unexpected access was granted during a tense and uncertain period for those involved in managing the Site, at least partly because as a student, the author was not affiliated with any of the organisations concerned. This paper will examine the roles and relationships that the student may find him/herself in, in such a situation, and the possible benefits and dangers these bring. It will also look at the student’s privilege of a sustained period to focus on a single topic, often denied to academics. In the case of an MA, this produces relatively quick results and the possibility of contributing to urgent current issues, if students can be persuaded to publish.     

Cave Art in Context: Methods for the Analysis of the Spatial Organization of Cave Sites

Investigations of prehistoric cave art have long neglected the surrounding context: space, archaeological objects, and imprints. As a result, an integrative structural approach that analyzes cave art as part of an anthropomorphized landscape has not been available. This article draws on urban planning and the physiology of the human eye to provide an innovative archaeospatial analysis of cave sites. A set of relevant features from the caves of Bédeilhac, Fontanet, and Le Portel was selected and defined (light zone, chamber type, path network, mode of movement, and available space). An analysis of the prehistoric remains in the caves allows the reconstruction of different concentrations of human activities (cave art, archaeological objects, and imprints). The projection of these concentrations onto the structured map of the caves results in four types of locations: drawing location, supply location, drawing location with substantial activities, and drawing location with consumption activities. This approach opens new avenues for the archaeological perception of caves and their inhabitants: Upper Paleolithic humans were very familiar with caves and probably followed a master plan during their stay in the dark.     

Editorial

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Dwellers by the Sea: Native American Adaptations along the Southern Coasts of Eastern North America

This comparative synthesis examines archaeological and ethnohistoric data pertaining to Native American coastal adaptations along the southern coasts of the eastern United States. We consider the totality of experiences of people living along coasts, examining such issues as technological innovation, environmental variability and change as it relates to site visibility, the built environment, the use of coastal food resources, the nature of complex coastal Calusa and Guale polities, and European contact. We link our topical discussions to broader issues in anthropology, arguing that the archaeology of southern coasts has much to contribute to our understanding of worldwide adaptations to coastal environments and broad-scale shifts in the trajectories of human societies.     

Early African America: Archaeological Studies of Significance and Diversity

This article examines archaeological studies of the cultural heritage and social dynamics of African descendant populations in the United States and Canada from AD 1400 through 1865. European colonial enterprises expanded in Africa and the Americas during that time span, effecting an accompanying movement of free and captive Africans into North America. Archaeological investigations of early African America are remarkable for the diversity of analytic scales and research questions pursued. This diversity of research efforts has yielded a highly productive, interdisciplinary expansion of knowledge concerning African diaspora histories.     

Graffiti of Ships in the Bahá’í Mansion at Mazra‘ih,Israel

Graffiti of ships were found on a wall of a courtyard of the Bahá’í mansion in the village of Mazra‘ih, near Akko, Israel. It is suggested that three graffiti depict frigates, near Akko, the largest of about 850 t burden, some time in the second quarter of the nineteenth century. This is evidence for maritime activities at Akko in these years, and for the type of ships.