FTIR imaging and HPLC reveal ancient painting and dyeing techniques of molluskan purple

Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and imaging coupled to optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy coupled to energy dispersive x-ray spectroscopy and high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled to diode-array detection are used to investigate two samples removed from a painted decoration of a burial kline and a textile fragment, both found in Koru tumulus (fifth century BCE) in Daskyleion. Tyrian purple and kaolinite were identified in both samples, thus suggesting that the aluminosilicate compound had an important role in the applied painting and dyeing processes. The textile fragment is composed of undyed cotton and silk yarns dyed with the molluskan dye. The relative compositions of the molluskan materials used in the two archaeological objects are similar and comparable with the corresponding composition measured for a purple sample originated from Murex trunculus mollusks according to the HPLC results. This result is supported by principal component analysis (PCA) which, furthermore, takes into account the relative compositions of the extracts of the three Mediterranean mollusks, published in previous reports.     

The use of different amber sources in Italy during the Bronze Age: new archaeometric data

The production of amber ornaments occurred in Italy during the Eneolithic (E)–Early Bronze Age (EBA), although very few beads from the Italian peninsula have been found and analysed. The number of data available for provenience study of Bronze Age ambers is larger, but still a precise picture of when and to what extent the local sources of amber were exploited is lacking. In the present work, 22 amber finds from six Sicilian sites have been studied and analysed by infrared spectroscopy, in particular with DRIFT (diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transformed) analyses. The amber samples are dated between the Eneolithic and the Final Bronze Age–Early Iron Age and are from the collections of the P. Orsi Museum, in Syracuse (Sicily). The data show that only simetite was used in South Italy in the Late Eneolithic (LE)–EBA. In the Bronze Age, the exploitation of simetite shows different intensity in different chronological phases. The results are discussed in comparison with the information available for coeval European ambers.     

Changes in crop cultivation during the last five centuries before the Roman conquest: archaeobotanical investigation in the Clermont-Ferrand basin,Massif Central,France

For several decades, a growing number of protohistoric sites in Auvergne (Massif Central, France)—mostly excavated through preventive archaeology—have been subject to the collection of archaeobotanical analysis. This study presents the archaeobotanical results from ten La Tène sites dating from the last five centuries before the Roman conquest. In addition to providing an inventory of taxa, this paper concerns crops and crop cultivation methods. These results are interpreted in a wider context, dealing with crop husbandry, arable farming, storage and consumption practices. The sites are located in the Limagne plain within a 50-km radius around the city of Clermont-Ferrand. A total of 23,579 carpological remains were identified from 163 sediment samples totalizing a volume of 1096 l. Comparable to other sites in Gaul, the spectrum of cereals and pulses is restricted. Spelt (Triticum spelta), einkorn (Triticum monococcum) and foxtail millet (Setaria italica) are disappearing or becoming rare. A better control of agricultural techniques and increased yields is supposed during the ca. five centuries of the La Tène period. Mixed cultivation is hereby replaced by the sowing of monocrops. At the beginning of this period, farming systems are dominated by a polyculture of cereals and pulses. They become more specialized during the last two centuries before the Roman conquest; diversity of cereals and pulses is decreased.     

Commentary: feeding Teotihuacan in the context of commodities research

This commentary on the Feeding Teotihuacan collection of papers provides an “outsider” perspective on the contributions, by an archeologist who conducts research on agriculture and plant use by the ancient Maya.     

Experimental and archaeological investigations of backed microlith function among Mid-to-Late Holocene herders in southwestern Kenya

This study takes an experimental and comparative approach in order to evaluate the circumstances driving the deployment of microlithic tool technologies by food-producing mobile herders during the Mid-to-Late Holocene in southern Kenya. The predominately obsidian microliths used by contemporaneous, but culturally distinct, herding communities were replicated and used as arrow tips in archery experiments and within composite knives used in animal processing. This allowed for patterns of damage associated with production, different forms of projectile use, and butchery to be identified on microlithic specimens and evaluated against each other to assess the criteria for diagnostic macrofracture and wear patterns reflective of each activity. Experimentally generated criteria were used to identify the most likely functions for microlithic tools in three archaeological assemblages belonging to early Kenyan pastoralists. The analyses showed that while the same microlithic form is shared by culturally distinct groups across a wide time range, these tools were being used to vary different functions that do not clearly correlate with subsistence economy, culturally affiliation, or time period. Environmental variability and instability throughout the Late Holocene likely contributed to the persistence of highly adaptable microlithic toolkits. These data contribute to ongoing dialogues on the emergence and evolution of microlithic toolkits.     

Multi-technique investigation of historical Chinese dyestuffs used in Ningxia carpets

In this article, an extensive work is presented concerning the characterization with both chromatographic (high-performance liquid chromatography) and spectroscopic (surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy and visible reflectance spectroscopy) techniques of historical Chinese dyestuffs in several carpets, mostly coming from the Ningxia region in Northern China and dating to the seventeenth–nineteenth centuries. Notably, the color of the background of these fine artifacts has been an object of debate since, while being depicted as bright red in the ancient iconography, nowadays it appears as orange/yellow. Therefore, in addition to the identification of all the colorants used in the carpets, the present study investigated the reasons of this apparent inconsistency, pointing out an explanation based on the joined use of the yellow dye obtained from the pagoda tree and a “fugitive” dye obtained from brazilwood.     

Paleodietary analysis of the sacrificial victims from the Feathered Serpent Pyramid,Teotihuacan

The consumption of different types and quantities of food frequently serves as a practice that expresses and reinforces social distinctions among individuals within complex societies. This study explores the dietary behavior of probable sacrificial victims interred within the offering complex underlying the Feathered Serpent Pyramid as a line of evidence concerning the identities and life experiences of individuals selected for inclusion within one of Teotihuacan’s public monuments. Stable carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen isotope values from rib samples of 12 individuals within the Feathered Serpent Pyramid complex were compared with those of 14 individuals interred in residential contexts within the city. Results provide new information concerning daily subsistence at Classic period Teotihuacan (ca. A.D. 200–600) and highlight the dietary distinctiveness of individuals interred within the Feathered Serpent Pyramid as compared to the general residential population of the site, particularly in terms of the carbon isotope composition of protein sources consumed by a number of the sacrificial victims. Oxygen isotope analysis suggests that most individuals from the Feathered Serpent Pyramid resided within the local Teotihuacan area during the years immediately prior to their deaths, indicating that the unique dietary pattern seen in stable carbon isotope values cannot be attributed to nonlocal residence prior to sacrifice. Rather, these dietary differences may suggest that the group of individuals selected for interment within the Feathered Serpent Pyramid offering complex maintained a distinctive social or economic identity as compared to the rest of the Teotihuacan population during their lives.     

Faunal acquisition,maintenance, and consumption: how the Teotihuacanos got their meat

The compilation of the last 40 years of zooarchaeological exploration at Teotihuacan, Mexico, provides a unique opportunity to create more nuanced models of New World vertebrate consumption that did not focus on domesticated animals (dog and turkey). Any single model of ancient food systems fails to represent how varied ecological and social contexts led to a complex web of adaptations, and here, it is argued that Teotihuacan’s arid, highland, and urban environment contributed to a distinct faunal acquisition strategy. Intra-site variation and diverse degrees of animal procurement and management were practiced throughout the site. For example, the low proportion of deer compared to the abundant evidence of rabbit/hare consumption suggests small-scale animal management and breeding programs in the residential complexes supplemented with opportunistic garden hunting and meat purchased through a market economy. Such foodstuffs would have been both more predictable and readily made available to organize large feasting events, a possibility that is strengthened by evidence of extraordinarily high abundances of rabbits in ceremonial contexts.     

Agricultural change in Copper Age Croatia (ca. 4500–2500 cal B.C)?

The Copper Age in the Carpathian Basin is marked by a distinct change in settlement patterns, material culture, social traditions and subsistence practices; however, few studies address the nature of crop cultivation in the region. This paper examines new archaeobotanical data from 13 Copper Age (ca. 4500–2500 cal BC) sites located in continental Croatia, in order to assess the extent to which crop agriculture may have changed and contributed to overall subsistence economies in the Copper Age. From the archaeobotanical results, a dominance in einkorn and emmer is seen followed by barley. Less frequently millet, naked wheat and spelt/new glume wheat are also recovered, but due to their limited numbers, it is less clear whether they were grown as crops or represent weeds. Pulses (e.g. lentil, pea and grass pea), fruit remains (e.g. cornelian cherry and chinese lantern) and wild plant and weed species are also recovered, although more commonly from the late Copper Age sites. The archaeobotanical results show a clear reduction in the quantity and range of plant species recovered during the early/middle Copper Age; however, this is likely the result of taphonomic bias rather than a reduction in crop cultivation. The results therefore highlight problems of recovery bias in the region, which makes comparisons between sites as well as the reconstruction of crop husbandry regimes difficult. Overall, the results from continental Croatia suggest that the type of crops cultivated continued relatively unchanged from the late Neolithic, although it is clear that more research is desperately needed to explore the relationship between crop agriculture and the changing socio-economic environment of the Copper Age in the region.     

Reconstructing Diet of the Early Qin (ca. 700–400 BC) at Xishan,Gansu Province,China

Here we report the bone collagen carbon and nitrogen isotopic results of humans (n = 33) and animals (n = 58) to reconstruct the dietary practices of an early Qin population dating to the Zhou Dynasty (Late Western–Early Eastern period ca. 700–400 BC ) at the Xishan site in Gansu Province, China. The humans have a very large range of δ¹³C (−23.3‰ to −7.1‰) and δ¹⁵N (4.3‰ to 10.9‰) values which reflects extraordinarily diverse diets and included individuals with predominately C₃ as well as those with exclusive C₄ diets. This wide span of isotopic results produced a subtle linear trend (R² = 0.62) in the human data, which paralleled the animals across the C₃ and C₄ environmental gradient. However, the majority of the individuals had a predominately C₄ diet based on millet with δ¹⁵N results only slightly elevated above the animals, except for the pigs and cattle. This is evidence that many of the animals were likely used for their secondary products, labour or as sacrificial offerings and that pork and beef were the main sources of animal protein for the population. High status individuals had elevated δ¹⁵N values (10.2 ± 0.6‰) compared to medium (8.9 ± 0.3‰) and lower status (8.8 ± 0.8‰) individuals, possibly related to increased animal protein in the diet. Differences related to gender were also found with females having elevated δ¹³C (−11.2 ± 1.9‰) and δ¹⁵N (9.4 ± 0.8‰) values compared to the males (δ¹³C = −14.1 ± 4.2‰; δ¹⁵N = 7.9 ± 1.9‰), but these results necessitate caution given the large number of individuals that could not be sexed. The results of this study support the view that the early Qin people were a more sedentary society focused on millet agriculture and animal husbandry, and that they were influenced by the pre‐existing populations of the central Gansu region. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.