The Tantura F shipwreck: hull remains and finds—final report

The Tantura F shipwreck was discovered in 1996, and was excavated in 2004–2007. It was dated to between the mid 7th and the end of the 8th centuries AD. The remains comprised the bottom of the hull, including the lower part of the turn of the bilge on both sides and the beginning of the upward curvature at the bow and the stern. It was constructed based on frames. Among the finds were two anchors, 30 ceramic items, fish remains, food remnants, matting and ropes. The finds are of eastern Mediterranean and Egyptian origins. The Tantura F shipwreck is evidence of frame‐first construction in the period. It is also evidence of a trade route along the Levant coast and of the existence of a settlement in the Dor region at that time.     

The Paleolithic of Dzungaria (Xinjiang,Northwest China) Based on Materials from the Luotuoshi Site

The paper reports the results of an analysis of surface collections of artifacts made at the Luotuoshi site in Dzungaria, Xinjiang, northwest China. The site was discovered in 2004 by a joint Chinese-Russian-American archaeological expedition. A techno-typological analysis of the artifacts was carried out noting aeolian abrasion of the artifacts’ surfaces. This technocomplex is quite homogenous and is characterized by a combination of Levallois-like and subprismatic blade-based reduction techniques. Analogs of the Luotuoshi assemblage have been identified within the lithic industries of the Altai, the Orkhon-1 and Tolbor-4 sites in Mongolia, and at Shuidonggou in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in China, all of which have been attributed to the Early Upper Paleolithic. Luotuoshi is the first site associated with the blade-based Early Upper Paleolithic discovered in northwest China and its particular features make it possible to correlate this technocomplex with those from southern Siberia and northern Central Asia.     

New Early Iron Age Statue From Sary-Arka

The article introduces a statue of the Saka period from Sary-Arka (Central Kazakhstan) and shows the similarities between its attributes and the weaponry of the Early Iron Age cultures of the Eurasian steppes. Specific features of the Sary-Arka statues and their iconographic similarities with Eastern European Scythian sculpture are described.     

Transformations in an early agricultural society: Feasting in the southern Levantine Pre-Pottery Neolithic

Feasting is a powerful and transformative phenomenon. Societies are both integrated and differentiated through feasting; identities are both enacted and altered; and ideologies are inculcated. This paper uses ethnographic data to establish criteria for the archaeological recognition of prehistoric feasting. These criteria are then used to assess the changing evidence for feasting across the southern Levantine Pre-Pottery Neolithic (ca. 10,200–7500 BP/9700–6250 cal BC), with the aim of shedding light on changes in social organization across the transition to agriculture.During most of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, the extent and scale of feasting expanded as sociopolitical complexity increased. Towards the end of the period, however, populations dispersed and feasting probably declined. Feasts were simultaneously integrative and competitive, ameliorating scalar stress even as they offered opportunities for individual or household competition. Feasts may also have played a key role in conferring ideological prominence on Neolithic cattle, and perhaps even contributed to their adoption as domesticates.     

Standing at the gates of Europe: Human behavior and biogeography in the Southern Carpathians during the Late Pleistocene

This study presents a behavioral analysis of Middle and Upper Paleolithic lithic assemblages from 14 sites located in the southern Carpathian Mountains. Using a whole assemblage behavioral indicator, we show that the hominins that manufactured those stone tools do not appear to have differed in terms of the flexibility of the mobility strategies they employed to exploit their landscapes. Rather than biological change, we argue that large-scale climate changes are likely more important drivers of behavioral changes during the Late Pleistocene of the region, including during the Middle–Upper Paleolithic transition. These results agree well with the results of studies having employed this methodology in other regions, suggesting that this is a generalized feature of the transition across Eurasia. Recasting the transition as a mainly ecological rather than purely biocultural process allows us to generate new perspectives from which to approach the question of behavioral change during the Late Pleistocene, and ultimately suggests that the process referred to as the ‘Middle–Upper Paleolithic transition’ is essentially a brief segment of a much more extensive process driven by prehistoric human–environment interactions that would culminate in the highly logistical mobility strategies documented throughout the continent at the Last Glacial Maximum.     

Immunological evidence of Plasmodium falciparum infection in an Egyptian child mummy from the Early Dynastic Period

A 15–18 months old child mummy, presently housed in Turin's Museum of Anthropology, was discovered in Gebelein (Upper Egypt) during excavations carried out by the Missione Archeologica Italiana, most likely in 1914.     

Neurocranial abnormalities of the Gongwangling Homo erectus from Lantian,China

The Homo erectus cranium found at Gongwangling, near Lantian, China, and dated to ≈1.2 ma BP has been analyzed with respect to its evolutionary position. However, the remains, and especially the internal and external surfaces of the neurocranium, present a series of marked abnormalities. These irregularities consist principally of a pronounced cresting and scalloping of the external surface of the frontal bone and anterior parietal bone and a similar alteration of the internal surface of a mid transverse section of parietal bone that connects with the fossilization break across the anterior parietal bone. There is no obvious exposure of diploë on the surfaces. Woo (Vertebrata PalAsiatica 10:1–16, 1966) briefly ascribed these abnormalities to postmortem erosion, and Caspari (Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 102:565–568, 1997) has attributed the irregularities of the right supraorbital torus to antemortem trauma. It has been suggested that the pervasive neurocranial alterations might be pathological. Computerized tomography (CT) analysis of the frontal and parietal bones revealed complete radiopacity of the anterior half of the fossil; it is possible to distinguish large frontal sinuses but other details, including in the area of the purported traumatic lesion, are invisible. However, in the posterior frontal bone and preserved portions of the parietal bone the diploë and tables are discernible. Externally on the frontoparietal section and internally on the transverse parietal piece, there are clear erosional lacunae in the associated table, combined with a thin layer of matrix which obscures the eroded diploë externally. The superficial irregularities are therefore due to postmortem taphonomic alterations of the bone and not pathological processes. In addition, it is apparent that the two pieces were embedded in the matrix at different angles, resulting in their differential erosion.     

Single carcass of Mammuthus primigenius with lithic artifacts in the Upper Pleistocene of northern Italy

This paper presents the find of a Mammuthus primigenius carcass and associated Mousterian implements from the Last Glacial site of Asolo, in north-eastern Italy. We review the exploitation of proboscidean carcasses at Lower and Middle Paleolithic sites of Africa, Europe and the Levant, including evidence of elephant killing, and summarize recent research on hafting and use of Mousterian points as spearheads already before the end of the Middle Pleistocene. The bones and implements from Asolo are described in detail; we provide information on other Italian sites with mammoth remains and on the Mousterian record of the north-eastern quadrant of the peninsula. A possible impact fracture has been detected on a Levallois point from Asolo; its interpretation is based on comparisons to similar scars found on spear points of verified function from archaeological sites of later age, and on experimental material. We conclude that the evidence of Asolo is consistent with information from a number of Western European sites supporting a picture of Neanderthals as capable hunters of large game, such as woolly mammoth.