Policing paternity: historicising masculinity and sexuality in early-modern France

In early-modern working communities, masculinity for young lower-rank men was embedded in particular performances and practices of licit intimacy. This essay analyses the specific expectations and parameters for men as well as women through which communities acknowledged and validated expressions of youth sexuality while marking and policing boundaries beyond which youthful courtship could become threatening to household and neighbourhood stability. Young men and women were the focus of these efforts just as they themselves participated in the assessment of appropriate behaviour. These issues suggest an on-going negotiation and contestation about what was appropriate for single men and women in terms of intimacy, and a clear sense that a violation of the community norms carried consequences for men as well as women.     

Paleoclimates and the emergence of fortifications in the tropical Pacific islands

Paleoclimatic data from the tropical Pacific islands are compared to archaeological evidence for fortification construction in the Holocene. The results suggest that in some regions, people constructed more fortifications during periods that match the chronology for the Little Ice Age (AD 1450–1850) in the Northern Hemisphere. Periods of storminess and drought associated with the El Niño Southern Oscillation have less temporal correlation with the emergence of fortifications in the Pacific, but significant spatial correlation with the most severe conditions associated with this cycle. These temporal and spatial correlations require additional study to investigate possible causal relationships.     

Assessing the effects of conservation treatments on short sequences of DNA in vitro

Little is known about what effects conservation treatments used to preserve human and animal hard and soft tissues have on DNA preservation. We have developed a method to assess quantitatively the extent of lesions or strand breakage caused by conservation treatments on short sequences of DNA in vitro. The method developed enables the determination of the percentage of DNA preserved following exposure to a conservation treatment solution relative to control samples, thereby allowing the direct comparison of treatments based upon their preserving/damaging effects on a DNA sequence. Forty-three chemicals commonly used in the preparation and/or conservation of human and/or animal remains were examined. We found that the majority were damaging, in particular and as expected, acidic treatments and treatments carried out at elevated temperatures. A few, primarily organic solvents, were not damaging. The approach we have adopted can be applied to screen other treatments either used in the past or for future conservation applications as they are developed to assess their effects on DNA. How these results should be interpreted in terms of conservation and sampling is also discussed.     

Spatiotemporal dynamics of the Clovis–Folsom transition

Despite the importance of the Clovis–Folsom transition for understanding the history of western North America, its spatiotemporal dynamics remains unclear. Here we report a three-part study in which we investigated the transition using radiocarbon dates from Clovis and Folsom sites. In the first part of the study, we used dates from Folsom site-phases to determine when and where Folsom originated. In the second part of the study, we employed Clovis and Folsom dates in analyses designed to determine whether Folsom spread via demic diffusion or cultural diffusion. In the third part of the study we investigated the velocity of the Clovis–Folsom transition. The analyses suggest that Folsom first appeared around 12,800 calBP in the northern High Plains and spread north and south from there. They also suggest that the spread of Folsom was, at least in part, the result of population expansion. In addition, the analyses indicate that the spread of Folsom was relatively fast for a prehistoric diffusion but well below the maximum velocity that has been estimated for such events. These findings, in turn, have implications for the hypotheses that have been put forward to explain the Clovis–Folsom transition. They refute the idea that the Clovis–Folsom transition resulted from an extraterrestrial impact over northern North America at 12,900 ± 100 calBP but are consistent with the alternative proposal that the transition was a response to climate-driven environmental change.     

Guest editors’ foreword

This special issue of Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy is the result of the conference ‘Archaeological Failaka, Recent and Ongoing Investigations’ organised at the National Library of Kuwait by the National Council for Culture, Arts, and Letters (NCCAL) of the State of Kuwait and the French Research Center of the Arabian Peninsula (CEFREPA, formerly known as CEFAS) between 26 and 28 November 2019. Not less than 13 articles on the archaeology of Failaka offer an overview of the most recent works on sites dating from its first occupation in the Bronze Age to the late Islamic period. It provides a new insight into the rich history of Failaka – an island explored by Kuwaiti and international teams since the 1950’s and that was connected with Mesopotamia, Iran, the Near East and India – and begin to fill in some gaps, in particular concerning the late Islamic period, the pottery studies, the long-distance trade and the geomorphology of the island.     

Assessment of the Southern Dispersal: GIS-Based Analyses of Potential Routes at Oxygen Isotopic Stage 4

This paper explores the geographic and environmental context of the Southern Dispersal Route, which has been proposed as a migratory route for Homo sapiens from East Africa to Australasia during oxygen isotope stage (OIS) 4 (71–59 kyr). A series of assumptions and constraints garnered from modern hunter-gatherer observations are used to build a model of coastal foragers, which is then integrated with high-resolution physiographic analyses to produce a potential dispersal route along the coastline of the Indian Ocean. Paleoenvironmental conditions that may have supplied critical resources or served as obstacles to human colonization are identified and discussed in regards to human subsistence, the speed of migration, and demographic expansion. These factors suggest that rapid dispersals along coastlines and river valleys would have occurred upon the initial expansion out of Africa, but slowed as populations expanded demographically into South Asia and the Sunda Shelf. This also suggests that archaeological signatures relating to the earliest modern Homo sapiens are more likely to be recovered in South Asia.