Of Buffalo and Butchers: Coupling Traditional Procurement Studies with Taphonomic Analyses to Explore Intensive Wild Animal Processing Patterns at Two Early Iron Age Sites in the Kruger National Park

Located in northeastern South Africa in the Kruger National Park, the wild-dominated faunal assemblages at Le6 and Le7 allow for a site-level examination of the treatment of wild species within the highly variable spectra of Early Iron Age animal use. Looking at hunting beyond pure subsistence choices, this paper couples traditional morphological analysis with taphonomic analysis and theoretical frameworks of intensification to ask new socially focussed zooarchaeological questions of these assemblages. Through this, both the procurement and processing methods utilized at Le6 and Le7 are identified and the significance of these choices is discussed. In so doing, the paper addresses possible specialization in both the hunting and the processing of large wild mammals. The socio-economic implications and potential drivers of these faunal choices are then considered within the broader context of the southern African Early Iron Age, and a potentially new faunal use strategy and site type are introduced.     

Light and Darkness in an Edwardian Institution for the Insane Poor—Illuminating the Material Practices of the Asylum age

Natural light and its provision within asylum and other buildings is a neglected aspect of the historical archaeology of institutions. An Edwardian asylum in the north of Ireland is analysed for the management of natural light through the siting of buildings, window design and placement of interior glazing. A close reading of selected contemporary literature relating to natural light is employed to assess the significance of light provision within institutions of this period and contemporary discourses are in turn illuminated by the material practices recorded in the case study.     

A Contemporary Archaeology of Cultural Change in Rural North-Western Spain: From Traditional Domesticity to Postmodern Individualisation

This paper explores the built environment in two rural areas of Northwest Spain that were historically inhabited by two of the so-called “cursed peoples.” Combining contemporary archaeology and material culture studies, we analyze the role played by the house in processes of socio-economic and cultural change, and in the reproduction of internal hegemony within villages. To do so, we study the tensions and connections existing between the transformations undergone by the built environment during the last century and different socio-economic processes, including the depopulation of the rural areas, their conversion into tourist attractions, and the current process of individualisation of subjectivity in line with the transformations taking place in the postmodern era.     

A Context for Concealment: The Historical Archaeology of Folk Ritual and Superstition in Australia

Are there traditions of folk ritual practice in Australian historical contexts, and are they observable in the archaeological record? Studies from the US and UK have documented a range of practices suggesting the persistence of British and European traditions of folk magic well into the twentieth century and previous historical work has identified numerous examples of ritual concealments in Australian buildings. In examining over 4,500 Australian historical archaeological sources, however, we found very few examples of possible folk ritual practices. This raises the question of why such practices are not being captured by current archaeological recording methods. As counterpoint, a general model is constructed from US, UK and Australian work that raises intriguing possibilities for the situating of superstitious behavior in Australian historical archaeology, including the contexts in which people might be more prone to practise such behaviors and how they might be materially identifiable.     

Zooarchaeology and Changing Food Practices at Carrizales,Peru Following the Spanish Invasion

Through analysis of zooarchaeological remains from two occupations at the site of Carrizales, we examine how an indigenous Peruvian maritime community responded to imperial interventions in their daily lives in the late sixteenth century. Following their forced resettlement into a planned reducción village, and amidst demographic decline and tribute extraction, Carrizales’s residents significantly changed how they put food on the table, pursuing less time-intensive strategies of food collection and incorporating Eurasian animals into their diets. These results illustrate the dynamism of relations between imperial political economies and domestic life and the efficacy of indigenous survival strategies.     

A Landscape of Assimilation and Resistance: The Mount Pleasant Indian Industrial Boarding School

In the late nineteenth century the United States Federal government established off-reservation boarding schools that sought to accomplish an internal colonialism of American Indian communities by forcefully assimilating them into mainstream American culture. The landscape of these institutions was a primary tool to achieve their assimilationist goals. This research examines the Mount Pleasant Indian Industrial Boarding School through archival, archaeological and oral history evidence. The landscape and material record of this school also indicate that students vigorously resisted the institution.     

Reduced Population Variance in Strontium Isotope Ratios Informs Domesticated Turkey Use at Chaco Canyon,New Mexico,USA

Traditionally, strontium isotopes (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) have been used as a sourcing tool in numerous archaeological artifact classes. The research presented here demonstrates that ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr_bioapatite ratios also can be used at a population level to investigate the presence of domesticated animals and methods of management. The proposed methodology combines ecology, isotope geochemistry, and behavioral ecology to assess the presence and nature of turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) domestication. This case study utilizes ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr_bioapatite ratios from teeth and bones of archaeological turkey, deer (Odocoileus sp.), lagomorph (Lepus sp. and Sylvilagus sp.), and prairie dog (Cynomys sp.) from Chaco Canyon, NM, USA (ca. A.D. 800–1250). Wild deer and turkey from the southwestern USA have much larger home ranges and dispersal behaviors (measured in kilometers) when compared to lagomorphs and prairie dogs (measured in meters). Hunted deer and wild turkey from archaeological contexts at Chaco Canyon are expected to have a higher variance in their ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr_bioapatite ratios, when compared to small range taxa (lagomorphs and prairie dogs). Contrary to this expectation, ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr_bioapatite values of turkey bones from Chacoan assemblages have a much lower variance than deer and are similar to that of smaller mammals. The sampled turkey values show variability most similar to lagomorphs and prairie dogs, suggesting the turkeys from Chaco Canyon were consuming a uniform diet and/or were constrained within a limited home range, indicating at least proto-domestication. The population approach has wide applicability for evaluating the presence and nature of domestication when combined with paleoecology and behavioral ecology in a variety of animals and environments.     

A Test of Ideal Free Distribution Predictions Using Targeted Survey and Excavation on California’s Northern Channel Islands

Using targeted survey, excavation, and radiocarbon dating, we assess the extent to which human settlement patterns on California’s northern Channel Islands fit predictions arising from the ideal free distribution (IFD): (1) people first established and expanded permanent settlements in the regions ranked high for environmental resource suitability; (2) as population grew, they settled in progressively lower ranked habitats; and (3) changes in the archaeological record associated with high population levels such as increases in faunal diversity and evenness in high-ranked habitats are coincident with the expansion to other areas. On Santa Rosa Island, the early permanent settlements were located in both high- and middle-ranked locations, with the most extensive settlement at the highest ranked locations and only isolated sites elsewhere. Settlement at a low-ranked habitat was confined to the late Holocene (after 3600 cal BP). Drought influenced the relative rank of different locations, which is an example of climate adding a temporal dimension to the model that episodically stimulated population movement and habitat abandonment. Because the IFD includes a wide range of cultural and environmental variables, it has the potential to be a central model for guiding archaeological analysis and targeted field research.     

Identifying Female in the Halaf: Prehistoric Agency and Modern Interpretations

This article considers ways that representations of anthropomorphic imagery in the form of figurines from prehistoric village communities have been interpreted and provides a new framework for analyzing figurines. It has been long suggested that prehistoric figurines should be interpreted as representations of female gendered qualities related to ritual, fertility, and motherhood combined into a concept called “mother goddess.” The impetus for the adoption of this interpretation and evidential association with prehistoric figurine assemblages and bound to binary gender is briefly critiqued. The methodology for studying figurine assemblages presented here utilizes typological, archaeological, and comparative analysis and is cognizant of inherent ambiguities in the object biographies of the full assemblage. This study applies this methodology to a corpus of figurines excavated from sixth millennium settlements associated with the Halaf material culture. This approach is then operationalized with case studies of figurines excavated from Domuztepe (Turkey) and Chagar Bazar (Syria) as examples of engagement with those who conceived, made, used, and discarded them. The Halaf figurine corpus is shown as nuanced, displaying sexual difference and humanness on a spectrum from overt to ambiguous. Considered as a whole, the Halaf corpus is shown to have had mundane and mutable use lives related to embodied identities entangled with culture and community, unconnected to gender binaries, ritual, fertility, or motherhood.