Formulaicity in Child Ballads as a Means to Express Assertiveness

Oral traditions resort to formulas not only for memorability, but also to transmit meaning of socio-historical import. In the case of Child ballads, ‘she kilted her kirtle’ and ‘she took her mantle her about’ serve to construct an image of powerful women. Thus, at least in some ballads in English, the stereotype of passive women breaks down.     

MAKING A DIFFERENCE: PALAEOLITHIC ICONOGRAPHY AS A TRAIT OF IDENTITY IN THE IBERIAN PENINSULA

The study of the figurative repertoire of Palaeolithic artists allows us to approach aspects such as iconographic diffusion and cultural preferences. This paper presents an updated corpus of figurative rock art for the Iberian peninsula and analyses its distribution in the Cantabrian region, inland Iberia and the Mediterranean basin, three areas frequently used in the literature. This corpus contains 3341 graphic units that were analysed using multivariate statistics and hypothesis testing. The results show that the main figurative themes can be classified according to their discriminating power. Horse, ibex and deer were the animal motifs that formed the common background of this artistic expression. In contrast, Palaeolithic artists used different proportions of bison, hind and aurochs to create a possible distinctive identity. Finally, it is discussed whether the iconographic selection is due to palaeoecological reasons, cultural motivations, or a combination of both.     

Fires at Neumark-Nord 2, Germany: An analysis of fire proxies from a Last Interglacial Middle Palaeolithic basin site

Few sites with evidence for fire use are known from the Last Interglacial in Europe. Hearth features are rarely preserved, probably as a result of post-depositional processes. The small postglacial basins (<300?m in diameter) that dominate the sedimentary context of the Eemian record in Europe are high-resolution environmental archives often containing charcoal particles. This case study presents the macroscopic charcoal record of the Neumark-Nord 2 basin, Germany, and the correlation of this record with the distinct find levels of the basin margin that also contain thermally altered archaeological material. Increased charcoal quantities are shown to correspond to phases of hominin presence—a pattern that fits best with recurrent anthropogenic fires within the watershed. This research shows the potential of small basin localities in the reconstruction of local fire histories, where clear archaeological features like hearths are missing.     

Refining the <Emphasis Type="Italic">Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization</Emphasis>: How Plant Fiber Technology Drove Social Complexity During the Preceramic Period

Moseley’s (1975) Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization hypothesis challenges, in one of humanity’s few pristine hearths of civilization, the axiom that agriculture is necessary for the rise of complex societies. We revisit that hypothesis by setting new findings from La Yerba II (7571–6674 Cal bp) and III (6485–5893 Cal bp), Río Ica estuary, alongside the wider archaeological record for the end of the Middle Preceramic Period on the Peruvian coast. The La Yerba record evinces increasing population, sedentism, and “Broad Spectrum Revolution” features, including early horticulture of Phaseolus and Canavalia beans. Yet unlike further north, these changes failed to presage the florescence of monumental civilization during the subsequent Late Preceramic Period. Instead, the south coast saw a profound “archaeological silence.” These contrasting trajectories had little to do with any relative differences in marine resources, but rather to restrictions on the terrestrial resources that determined a society’s capacity to intensify exploitation of those marine resources. We explain this apparent miscarriage of the Maritime Foundations of Andean Civilization (MFAC) hypothesis on the south coast of Peru by proposing more explicit links than hitherto, between the detailed technological aspects of marine exploitation using plant fibers to make fishing nets and the emergence of social complexity on the coast of Peru. Rather than because of any significant advantages in quality, it was the potential for increased quantities of production, inherent in the shift from gathered wild Asclepias bast fibers to cultivated cotton, that inadvertently precipitated revolutionary social change. Thereby refined, the MFAC hypothesis duly emerges more persuasive than ever.     

Footpaths Marked by Changes in Geological Clasts as Indicators of Mobility in Tenerife,Canary Islands

Studies on the mobility of past populations are useful in the interpretation of trade and lifestyle. Preservation of ancient paths is uncommon. In Tenerife, a volcanic island of the Canary Archipelago, ancient paths are still preserved, due to the dry climatic conditions and the presence of extensive lava fields in inhospitable areas of the Island. The Guanches who inhabited this island before the Spanish conquest, those surviving in the highlands after the conquest, and modern goatherders, utilised a still identifiable net of paths to access the central mountains. Clasts in the beds of these paths have suffered variable abrasion, depending on the time during which the path was used and on the number of people and/or animals that have walked on it. We estimated roundness of 1819 clasts collected at different parts of the net of paths crossing different lava fields of known antiquity. Significant differences in roundness of clasts among different parts of the paths allowed an inference about the relative importance of each of the paths constituting the net. Therefore, assessment of roundness of the clasts of the beds of paths may aid in the understanding of the migrations of people.     

Osteological and paleodietary investigation of burials from Cova de la Pastora,Alicante, Spain

We present results of osteological and isotopic analyses of human remains from Cova de la Pastora (Alcoi, Alicante, Spain) and discuss the implications in light of a new sequence of radiocarbon dates indicating that the cave was used as a burial site in the Late Neolithic (ca. 3800–3000 cal BC), Chalcolithic (ca. 3000–2500 cal BC), Bell Beaker Transition (Horizonte Campaniforme Transicional - HCT; ca. 2500–2200 cal BC) and the Bronze Age (ca. 2200–1500 cal BC). Similarities in stable isotopic values of C and N indicate little variation in subsistence between men and women, and a similar nutritional base from the Late Neolithic to the Bronze Age. This pattern of stability is augmented by evidence of trauma and disease found on numerous skulls in the collection. Since no clear associations of specific grave goods with certain individuals based on sex or age could be determined, the only suggestion of social inequality lies in the burial practice itself, where certain individuals were interred in caves while others were not.     

New insights into the neolithisation process in southwest Europe according to spatial density analysis from calibrated radiocarbon dates

The agricultural way of life spreads throughout Europe via two main routes: the Danube corridor and the Mediterranean basin. Current archaeological literature describes the arrival to the Western Mediterranean as a rapid process which involves both demic and cultural models, and in this regard, the dispersal movement has been investigated using mathematical models, where the key factors are time and space. In this work, we have created a compilation of all available radiocarbon dates for the whole of Iberia, in order to draw a chronological series of maps to illustrate temporal and spatial patterns in the neolithisation process. The maps were prepared by calculating the calibrated 14C date probability density curves, as a proxy to show the spatial dynamics of the last hunter-gatherers and first farmers. Several scholars have pointed out problems linked with the variability of samples, such as the overrepresentation of some sites, the degree of regional research, the nature of the dated samples and above all the archaeological context, but we are confident that the selected dates, after applying some filters and statistical protocols, constitute a good way to approach settlement spatial patterns in Iberia at the time of the neolithisation process.     

Beyond Adornment: Cowry Use as Potter's Tool in the First Impressed Wares of the Southwestern Mediterranean Coast (Northern Morocco)

The use of seashells for the decoration of pottery from the sixth millennium cal BC is well known in the western Mediterranean, with the emergence of so-called Cardial Pottery. Actually, the most discussed issue up until now has been the use of bivalves for impressed decoration. However, the experimental approach followed in the present study provides for the first time clear evidence for the utilization of a very specific group of shells as tools for the decoration of some of the early pottery productions in northwest Africa. In particular, we propose the use of cowry, a gastropod family with a well-known ideological and symbolic role in many human cultures around the world. Also, it is suggested that cowry was used for making impressed wares on the opposite European shore. The implications for reconstruction of Neolithic diffusion along both the European and African coasts of the Mediterranean are of great significance.     

How diverse were early animal communities? An example from Ediacara Conservation Park,Flinders Ranges,South Australia

Coutts, F.J., Gehling, J.G. & García-Bellido, D.C., August 2016. How diverse were early animal communities? An example from Ediacara Conservation Park, Flinders Ranges, South Australia. Alcheringa 40, xxx–xxx. ISSN 0311-5518

Fossils of the Ediacara biota record the earliest evidence of animal communities and, as such, provide an invaluable glimpse into the abiotic and biotic processes that helped shape the evolution of complex life on Earth. A diverse community of Ediacaran macro-organisms is preserved with high resolution in a fossil bed recently excavated from north Ediacara Conservation Park (NECP) in the Flinders Ranges, South Australia. Many of the commonly described Ediacaran taxa from the Flinders Ranges are represented on the bed surface and include: Parvancorina, Rugoconites, Spriggina, Dickinsonia, Tribrachidium, Kimberella, Charniodiscus and Yorgia, including two new taxa. Numerous additional fossil-bed fragments from the same locality were analysed that preserve a similar suite of taxa and shared sedimentology. On all surfaces, preserved microbial mat appeared complex, both in topography and in texture, and the unique combination of fine grainsize, high diversity and trace fossils provide insights into the palaeoecology of the ancient organisms that lived during the Ediacaran Period some 550 Ma. Several trace fossils are overlapped by body fossils, indicative of successive events, and complex organismal behaviour. The complexity of this fossil surface suggests that the primordial community was relatively mature and possibly at late-stage succession.

Felicity J Coutts [felicity.coutts@adelaide.edu.au], School of Biological Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide 5000, South Australia, Australia. James G Gehling [jim.gehling@samuseum.sa.gov.au], South Australian Museum, North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australia 5000, Australia. Diego C. García-Bellido [diego.garcia-bellido@adelaide.edu.au], South Australian Museum, North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australia 5000, Australia.