Human soft tissue preservation in the Cova des Pas site (Minorca Bronze Age)

The preservation process of soft tissues in an archeological context is mainly unknown because they occur only in truly exceptional situations. The Cova des Pas is a Bronze Age site in Minorca where the special conditions enabled the preservation of some soft tissues associated with 66 individuals. This finding allows the study of the preservation process that took place by means of the analysis of the histological and chemical characteristics of the tissues. Our results show that the preservation mechanism was the adipocere, because the fatty acids profile shows higher concentration of saturated than unsaturated fatty acids. The evidence indicates that the kind of funerary ritual and the environmental conditions favored this preservation.     

Resources and spatial analysis at actual Nenets campsites: Ethnoarchaeological implications

The aim of this paper is to present and discuss empirical evidence on the dynamics of occupation and site formation processes from contemporary mobile campsites in Northwest Siberia. The questions posed are derived generally from archaeological studies of Upper Paleolithic record in Europe. We document the active Nenets summer camps at lakes and the abandoned winter and spring camps in the open tundra and the forest tundra. Analysis of the floral and zoological resources shows that plant resources and fish are available predominantly in the summer while reindeer are abundant in these regions in fall and winter when they return from summer pastures further north. When natural resources are not available, groups supplement with food purchased at shops. Within these living camps, “structures évidentes” and “structures latentes” of classical French paleoethnology cannot be distinguished as clearly as at Upper Paleolithic sites: and architectural remains, ash from hearths, and other objects may be removed from the central areas towards the site peripheries. However the investigated camps preserve a discrete structure with interior living areas (including children’s playgrounds), exterior areas with evidence of reindeer carcass processing, woodworking, and other activities, peripheral toss zones, and dispersed activity remains in the surrounding landscape.     

Canids as persons: Early Neolithic dog and wolf burials, Cis-Baikal, Siberia

Interpretations of dog burials made by ancient foraging groups have tended to be based upon our own relationships with such animals and modern western cosmological and ontological concepts. Osteological studies of early dogs often focus only on issues of taxonomy, and as a result very little is known about these animals’ life histories. Eastern Siberia has produced many Holocene dog burials, but these are typically not well described and the explanatory frameworks provided for them are very underdeveloped. Here we examine in detail two Cis-Baikal canid burials, one of a wolf and the other a dog, both in large Middle Holocene hunter-gatherer cemeteries. We link the mortuary treatment of these animals to other cultural practices, particularly the treatment of the human dead, and broader patterns in Northern human-animal relationships. This interpretive model is combined with detailed osteobiographies for the canids and contextual information for these and other dogs and wolves from Middle Holocene Cis-Baikal. It is argued that canids here were understood and treated in a variety of ways. We suggest that some animals with unique histories were known as distinct persons with ‘souls’ and because of this at death required mortuary rites similar to those of their human counterparts.     

‘Like two pieces of the sky’: Seeing North Korea through accounts of the famine (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

North Korea is renowned for its inaccessibility, with anthropologists and others compelled to work beyond its borders. Presented in this article are select findings from ethnographic research carried out in 2006 among refugee survivors of the North Korean famine living in South Korea. The ethnographic material shows how refugees’ accounts of their plight are shaped by the political conditions of North Korea.