Food for thought: using game cameras to better understand the movement of bones by scavenging in archaeological faunal assemblages

This paper questions our understanding of the movement of bones by animal scavengers in the archaeological record. Since assumptions regarding the effects of animal scavenging shape final interpretations of skeletal element frequencies in archaeological faunal assemblages, they are important for our understanding and reconstruction of ancient human behaviour. The results of a 4-year actualistic kangaroo scavenging study from Australia are used to question our understanding of the movement of the bone by contrasting visual data captured by motion-activated digital game cameras with traditional taphonomic studies using skeletal element frequencies. Game cameras are commonly used by ecologists to capture the behaviour of living species but have not yet been used in experimental archaeology where visually documenting animal scavenging behaviour can be used to understand the movement of carcasses and individual bones. Results suggest that traditional zooarchaeological analyses may not be accurate indicators of hunted versus scavenged prey in archaeological faunal assemblages. Moreover, they most certainly fail to document the entire suite of animals scavenging a carcass. These implications are discussed with particular reference to the ability to definitively ascertain the role of humans in the megafaunal extinction debate in Australia.     

Functional,symbolic or ritual?

Tools for determining the value of metal appear as symbols among grave goods in prehistoric and early medieval Europe and the Near East. Also, five boat burials excavated in eponymous Vendel contained touchstones. This article presents the results of chemical microanalyses of metal traces preserved on them and discusses the linear streaks of zinc in light of extraordinary ore deposits in central Sweden, exploited as early as the Early Middle Ages. In addition, forging tools found in four boat burials in Vendel are interpreted as symbols belonging to the funerary assemblages of ancient leaders. However, although both forging tools and tools for determining the value of metal were used in the treatment of metal, it would be misleading to search for their functional connection. They are linked in prehistoric and early medieval graves exclusively by their function as a symbol, one which they share with other objects, regardless whether exclusive or common.     

Dating European Palaeolithic Cave Art: Progress,Prospects, Problems

Over the last decade several dozen direct dates on cave art pigments or associated materials have supplemented more traditional style-based attempts to establish a chronological (and developmental) scheme for cave art. In the “post-stylistic” era an holistic integration of pigment “recipe” analysis, formal stylistic analysis and direct chronometric dating have been applied to a handful of dates. Here, we examine the state-of-the-art of Palaeolithic cave art dating, with particular emphasis on certain radiocarbon and Uranium-series projects. We examine the relative successes and weaknesses of this cutting edge science. We conclude that there are several weaknesses in current applications that are in serious need of addressing. Issues of sample contamination and of the heuristic relationship between materials dated and the production of the art are particularly problematic. It follows that one should at present be very cautious about straightforward interpretations of apparent “dates” of cave art.