Hunter–gatherer foraging ranges, migrations, and travel in the middle Holocene Baikal region of Siberia: Insights from carbon and nitrogen stable isotope signatures

Foraging ranges, migrations, and travel among Middle Holocene hunter–gatherers in the Baikal region of Siberia are examined based on carbon and nitrogen stable isotope signatures obtained from 350 human and 203 faunal bone samples. The human materials represent Early Neolithic (8000–6800 cal BP), Late Neolithic (6000–5000 cal BP), and Early Bronze Age periods (∼5000–4000 cal BP) and come from the following four smaller areas of the broader region: the Angara and upper Lena valleys, Little Sea of Baikal’s northwest coast, and southwest Baikal. Forager diets from each area occupy their own distinct position within the stable isotope spectrum. This suggests that foraging ranges were not as large as expected given the distances involved and the lack of geographic obstacles between the micro-regions. All examined individuals followed a similar subsistence strategy: harvesting game and local fishes, and on Lake Baikal also the seal, and to a more limited extent, plant foods. Although well established in their home areas, exchange networks with the other micro-regions appear asymmetrical both in time and direction: more travel and contacts between some micro-regions and less between others. The Angara valley seems to be the only area with the possibility of a temporal change in the foraging strategy from more fishing during the Early Neolithic to more ungulate hunting during the Late Neolithic–Early Bronze Age. However, the shift in stable isotope values suggesting this change can be viewed also as evidence of climate change affecting primary productivity of the Baikal–Angara freshwater system.     

西藏旧石器时代的再认识——以阿里日土县夏达错东北岸地点为中心

一、引言面对险恶的生存环境,初上西藏高原的人们在体会了缺氧、寒冷、资源缺乏后,都不仅要问人类何时拓殖这一片广袤的高原[1]。西藏高原有无旧石器时代遗存,是21世纪     

四川汉源县麦坪遗址2008年发掘简报

2008年度对麦坪遗址的发掘,共清理房址5座、墓葬13座、灰坑102座,出土陶器、石器、铜器等各类遗物200余件。该遗址是大渡河中游地区的一处中心聚落,本次工作区分出四类不同的文化遗存,对遗址的分期和年代有了更深刻的认识,为研究本区域的考古学文化谱系提供了重要资料。     

内蒙古扎鲁特旗南宝力皋吐新石器时代墓地C地点发掘简报

C地点共清理墓葬37座,为圆角长方形土坑竖穴墓,多数墓葬为单人仰身直肢葬。随葬品主要是陶器,器物组合以筒形罐和壶为主,还出土石器、骨器、玉器等。C地点墓葬的文化内涵与此前发掘的A、B两地点新石器时代墓葬应属同一种文化,可暂称为南宝力皋吐类型。     

Intramural Burials of Children at Bronze Age Sites in the Southern Urals (Early 2nd Millennium Bc)*

Intramural child burials are rare in Bronze Age settlements of the Southern Urals. The study addresses this type of burial at sites associated with the Sintashta and Petrovka traditions. Their analysis generates two interpretations: one related to fertility and ancestor worship, the other to family relationships and the mentality of the people living in the Bronze Age.     

Dental Affinities of The Irmen People,Western Siberia

Dental features of the Late Bronze Age Irmen population of Western Siberia (14th–10th centuries BC) were studied on the basis of cranio-dental remains from 23 cemeteries in the Kuznetsk Basin, Baraba forest-steppe, the forest-steppe zone of the Altai, Tomsk and Novosibirsk areas of the Ob basin. The results suggest that the Irmen people originated in the Novosibirsk and Baraba areas from a mixture of Andronovo (Fedorovka) and autochthonous groups. Dental data are inconsistent with the idea that the Karasuk tribes might have taken part in this process. The Karasuk people clearly descended from the Okunevo people, as evidenced by the elevated frequencies of the Carabelli cusp and deflecting wrinkle. None of these traits is present in the Irmen people, who display dental gracility evidently introduced by Andronovo (Fedorovka) tribes.     

河南境内出土早期玉器初步研究

综合利用PIXE、XRD和Raman三种无损分析方法,准确判明了河南出土新石器时代至东周90余件玉器的质地,这些玉器的玉材种类非常丰富,并具有时代和地域特色。新石器时代至夏代,河南透闪石型玉器很少而绿松石占绝大多数,商代开始透闪石激增并占据主体地位。根据绿松石的类质同像、伴生矿物或围岩成分及透闪石所舍微量元素,探讨了玉...     

Roman Comedy in Humanities Courses

The article reviews the situation of the critical edition of the “entremeses” and other comic short plays of Calderon, highlighting numerous textual and interpretative problems in the current editions, and proposing solutions for establishing the correct text of many passages. It also provides a number of explanations that clarify other references.     

Middle Bronze Age metallurgy in the Levant: evidence from the weapons of Byblos

This paper constitutes a synthesis of a technological investigation on copper base alloy weapons from Byblos. Most of the weapons are typical of the Middle Bronze Age in the Levant. Methods such as metallographic examination and chemical analyses by EDS were used to identify the different stages of the chaîne opératoire used in the making of these weapons. The results reveal precise information regarding the production of several types of weapons such as the type and performance of the moulds used for casting and the deformation process. Furthermore, these results highlight the contribution of economic and cultural factors in the choice of components in a copper base alloy recipe. Finally, the use of silver–copper brazes for joining copper base alloy objects is recorded for the first time for the period and region concerned.     

Diversity in foddering strategy and herd management in late Bronze Age Britain: An isotopic investigation of pigs and other fauna from two midden sites

Abstract

Middens of the southern British late Bronze and Iron Age are vast accumulations of cultural debris that can be explained as refuse dumps linked with large periodic feasting events. A distinctive feature of these sites is that their faunal assemblages invariably comprise a considerably higher proportion of pig remains than contemporaneous settlement sites. This paper presents results from a programme of stable carbon (δ¹³C) and nitrogen (δ¹⁵N) isotope analysis of fauna from two major midden sites, Llanmaes in South Wales and Potterne in Wiltshire. The research aim is to reconstruct husbandry strategies and foddering regimes, particularly concerning pigs, to better understand how the challenges of raising large herds were met. Analysis produced exceptionally wide-ranging results for pigs and other domesticates at both sites, particularly in terms of δ¹⁵N values, demonstrating that diverse foddering strategies were employed. Diversity in the late Bronze Age pig foddering regimes indicates that the Neolithic husbandry practices (focusing on woodland fodder) had not been abandoned, but that new husbandry methods (consumption of household waste) were also being practised, which subsequently became more widely established in the Iron Age. The heterogeneity of signatures suggests that animals may have been husbanded in a piecemeal fashion at a local, household level. This in turn hints that fauna may have been brought to these sites from households across the surrounding landscape, rather than being husbanded by specialist producers in the vicinity of the middens.