The Rural Estate through the Eyes of the Land Agent: A Community in Microcosm c1812 – 1844

This article explores how the Castleman/Anglesey archive forms a micro-study of an estate and its associated rural community at work. It will survey the type of data which can be found within the land agent’s estate vouchers and diurnal correspondence and why they are important. It will begin by examining the concepts and ideology of the rural community and seek to explain why it is so hard to define. The article will then investigate how a micro-study can assist in understanding the ways in which estates reacted to periods of economic difficulties. This will include: why landowners left rent arrears to accrue, the types of petition which the local populace presented, the reasoning behind improving landscapes and the ways an estate contributed to the relief of the labouring poor. The Castleman archive reveals the multi-layered, complex nature of the rural community and the diverse role of the land agent in balancing the relationships which existed within it. In effect it acts as an historical prism.     

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.     

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.     

The geographic origins of Nasca trophy heads using strontium,oxygen, and carbon isotope data

Scholars continue to debate the identity of individuals curated as trophy heads in the Nazca Drainage of southern Peru (c. 1–800 AD). What was the role of trophy heads in Nasca society? Were they victims of warfare or venerated ancestors? Strontium, oxygen, and carbon isotope data from archaeological human tooth enamel from Nasca trophy heads from Aja, Cahuachi, Cantayo, Majoro Chico and Paredones, and from individuals buried in Nasca cemeteries at Cahuachi, Cantayo, and Majoro Chico elucidate the geographic origins and paleodiet of trophy heads in the Nazca Drainage. The ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr and δ¹⁸O_c(V-PDB) data from both the trophy heads and the Nazca Drainage burials are all quite variable, and do not support the hypothesis that the Nasca trophy heads were obtained from a geographically-distinct population. Similarly, the δ¹³C_c(V-PDB) data demonstrates that the individuals included in this study consumed similar diets. These data suggest that the Nasca trophy heads likely derive from the local Nasca population. Rather than obtain heads from enemy warriors through geographic expansion or warfare as seen in other parts of the world, this complex social practice existed within the Nasca polity throughout space and time.     

中国早期陶器的研究

本文通过对历史、考古文献的梳理,将学界对于中国陶器起源及早期发展的探索过程分为三个阶段进行回顾;并指出早期陶器研究中存在的几个问题,认为多学科的综合研究将有利于中国早期陶器相关问题的深入探讨。