河南淅川县阎杆岭83号墓发掘简报

2005年12月,为配合南水北调中线丹江口水利枢纽加高工程,河南省文物考古研究所对阎杆岭墓群Ⅱ区的83号墓进行发掘。该墓为"甲"字形积石积炭墓,出土鼎、罐、瓮、壶、仓、灶、井等陶器和铜盆、铜甑、铜釜、铜五铢钱、铜兵器、铜车马器、铁剑等随葬器物99件,年代为西汉晚期,为汉墓以及相关问题的研究提供了新资料。     

Human corpse manipulation and the body as symbol: A case study from the Eastern Pampa–Patagonia transition (Argentina) during the Final Late Holocene

Human body manipulation and secondary burials are widespread funerary practices in many areas of the world. The archaeology of the Pampas and North-Eastern Patagonia, Argentina, is no exception. In this paper, archaeological case studies from the lower basin of the Colorado River during the Final Late Holocene (ca. 1000–250 years BP) are presented and discussed. Secondary burials were recovered that indicated an intentional manipulation of bodies. Evidences of cut marks and the coloring of bone surfaces were recorded. The bundles were composed of individuals of both sexes and diverse age categories. The Pampean region and North-Eastern Patagonia witnessed significant hunter–gatherer population dynamics during the last 1000 years BP. Climatic, ecologic, demographic, and economic explanations have been proposed as the background to these changes. In this paper, it is argued that accompanying these factors, as part of a broader socio-cultural scenario, were significant social interaction networks and processes of social complementarity between groups. In this context, it is proposed that the complexity observed in relation to the handling of bodies is part of a worldview in which the body was seen as material culture – as a symbol – that played an important role for the community in group identity maintenance in a cultural context undergoing significant organizational changes.     

Opacifiers in Late Bronze Age glasses: the use of ToF-SIMS to identify raw ingredients and production techniques

Time of Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) is applied to the study of four samples of opaque glass of Late Bronze Age date. The technique is uniquely capable of identifying compositional heterogeneity at a sub-micron resolution within the crystalline opacifiers dispersed through homogeneous glass matrices. It is shown that this provides crucial information on the possible raw ingredients of the opacifying inclusions used, and has the potential for highlighting regional variations in the production technology involved in creating different colours of opaque glass.     

河北正定县吴兴墓地战国墓葬发掘简报

吴兴墓地位于河北省石家庄市正定县新安镇吴兴村,距正定县城15公里。京广铁路在墓地东南2.5公里处南北向穿过,滹沱河在墓地南12公里处自西向东流,地势平坦(图一)。2006年,南水北调中线工程河北段考古发掘工作全面展开。受河北省文物局委托,辽宁省文物考古研究所与朝阳市博物馆     

云南滇池地区聚落遗址2008年调查简报

经国家文物局批准,云南省文物考古研究所与美国密歇根大学人类学系签订为期3年的合作协议,进行"滇池区域史前聚落形态考古调查"项目,目的是通过开展全面的区域系统调查,寻找并确认与石寨山文化(亦称滇文化,时代约从春秋时期至西汉末期)有关的遗址和聚落[1],揭示这些聚落的     

《郑子家丧》与《铎氏微》

《郑子家丧》与《铎氏微》竹书《郑子家丧》是一篇战国时期的《春秋》学佚籍。全篇记述楚、晋邲之战的原因与经过,弘扬了楚庄王的霸业。其文本脱胎于《左传》,应属楚威王傅铎椒所作之《铎氏微》。此书见载于《汉书·艺文志》,久已失传,今复重见,具有重要的文献学价值。文中对竹书内容进行考释,并就其文本属于《铎氏微》提出证据。     

Pre-Clovis in Texas? A critical assessment of the “Buttermilk Creek Complex”

Lithic artifacts from the lowest strata of the Debra L. Friedkin site, located on Buttermilk Creek in central Texas, have been interpreted as an undisturbed pre-Clovis assemblage (Waters et al., 2011a). Stone tools and debitage were recovered from sediments stratified just below diagnostic Clovis artifacts and dated by OSL to between 13.2 and >15.5 cal kya. Invoking commonly observed cultural and natural site formation processes, we offer an alternative explanation of the “Buttermilk Creek Complex” as a Clovis assemblage in secondary association with the dated sediments.     

Temporal nature and recycling of Upper Paleolithic artifacts: the burned tools from the Molí del Salt site (Vimbodí i Poblet,northeastern Spain)

Recent research in Paleolithic archeology has stressed the importance of temporal issues in assemblage interpretation. Archeological assemblages are temporal constructs, formed by the addition of an unknown number of depositional events. This temporal dimension is also evident at the artifactual level, since single artifacts may undergo different events of modification and/or uses over time. The recycling of previously discarded blanks for tool production is one of the best examples of the temporal nature of artifacts. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the importance of recycling in a Late Upper Paleolithic site, examining a type of artifact – burned tools – that has up to now been little used to approach this issue. Our results suggest that recycling was probably a significant component of Upper Paleolithic provisioning behavior, with important implications in site formation processes and the typological variability of assemblages. The expedient or curated character of recycling is also discussed.     

Petrography as a technique for investigating Iroquoian ceramic production and smoking rituals

Petrographic data and macroscopic observations are used to examine some of the social contexts and functional considerations underlying the production of pottery containers and smoking pipes at Antrex, a Middle Ontario Iroquoian village site located in southern Ontario. Results suggest that while pottery was produced by small groups of people for widespread consumption within the community, pipes were made by individuals for their own personal use. Overall, this research supports the hypothesis that by the beginning of the Late Woodland period, a shift away from communal ritual practices led by ritual specialists or shamans had occurred. Smoking might have, in some contexts, become a solitary religious experience.     

Transition in the use of cobalt-blue colorant in the New Kingdom of Egypt

Cobalt-blue colorant was first used in the 18th Dynasty in the New Kingdom of Egypt. The source of this cobalt was cobaltiferous alum from the Western Oases of Egypt. The use of this alum, especially in glass, was suddenly limited at the end of the 18th Dynasty. There is little evidence of the production of cobalt-blue glass in the Ramesside Period (the 19th–20th Dynasties) in the New Kingdom of Egypt. In this study, we brought a portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometer to two archaeological sites located in the Memphite region and used it for onsite analyses of Ramesside cobalt blue-colored glasses and faiences. This method revealed that the compositional characteristics of the cobalt-blue colorant in these Ramesside glasses and faiences is different from the colorant derived from cobaltiferous alum used in the 18th Dynasty, based on the comparison of transition metal composition and alumina content with those of the cobalt blue-colored artifacts from the 18th Dynasty. This result suggests that a new cobalt source other than cobaltiferous alum from the Western Oases was utilized in Egypt during the Ramesside Period.