Roman traces in Germania magna: New thermoluminescence and pIRIR290 data from a lime kiln at Bergisch Gladbach,Germany

The applicability of a post‐infrared infrared stimulated luminescence (pIRIR₂₉₀) protocol and two different thermoluminescence (TL) protocols—a single aliquot regeneration (SAR) and a multiple aliquot additive dose (MAAD)—was tested on six polymineral fine‐grain (4–11 μm) samples extracted from the wall remains of a Roman lime kiln and a Roman roof tile. These remains had been excavated close to Bergisch Gladbach, which was at that time part of Germania magna. For the pIRIR₂₉₀ measurements, no dependence of D_e on first‐stimulation temperature was detectable, and the standard first stimulation temperature at 50°C was adopted. Fading tests and dose‐recovery tests were made for all samples. Background subtracted glow curves were recorded up to 480°C for TL after a preheat of 220°C for 120 s. A‐values were determined for all TL and pIRIR measurements. The results for all three protocols were fairly consistent, and TL and pIRIR₂₉₀ protocols are shown to be suitable to estimate reliable equivalent doses for the fired kiln walls. The resulting ages are in agreement with the expected time range—Roman Iron Age—and with independent age control provided by radiocarbon ages of animal bones and charcoal from the firing chamber.     

古陶瓷热释光测定年代发展

对古陶器热释光测定年代的两个标准方法——“细粒混合矿物技术”和“粗粒石英技术”作了详细的论述,介绍了这两个方法中古剂量和年剂量测量方法的发展和现状,对影响古剂量和年剂量测量准确性的一些复杂因素和解决的方法进行了分析,着重叙述了古瓷器热释光测定年代的新发展——“前剂量饱和指数法”。几十年的研究结果表明,热释光测定年代在古陶瓷真伪鉴定上已经取得了很大的成功,但是在年代测定的精确度和准确度上还不够,需要深入研究。     

The 13th century polynesian colonization of Hawai’i Island

We assess 926 radiocarbon dates from Hawai’i Island, the largest assemblage of dates compiled from a single island in Oceania. Based on a classificatory approach that arranges the dates based on their reliability, accuracy, and precision, our results indicate that the most reliable estimate for the initial Polynesian colonization of Hawai’i Island is AD 1220–1261, ∼250 to 450 years later than the current consensus. This conclusion is strikingly convergent with recent estimates for the colonization of remote East Polynesia. Our analysis highlights the need for wood charcoal identification to insure selection of short-lived plants/plant parts for radiocarbon dating, and that a reliance on dating unidentified wood charcoal is a waste of resources that only serves to retard progress in refining the settlement chronology of Hawai’i Island and other locations.     

New evidence for the establishment and management of the European fallow deer (Dama dama dama) in Roman Britain

The semi-domestic status of the European fallow deer (Dama dama dama) renders its ancient biogeography a reflection of human activity with the potential to provide important insights into the movement, trade patterns and ideology of past societies. Given this potential, fallow deer have received surprisingly little attention from scientists within the fields of archaeology, biology and zoology. Here we present new AMS radiocarbon dates, stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data and genetic evidence (the first ancient DNA sequences for the species) resulting from the analysis of a set of remains recovered from the Roman settlement at Monkton on the Isle of Thanet, Kent, UK. By viewing our results against the very limited available comparative data, this paper provides new information for the establishment and management of fallow deer in Britain. We argue that much more could be achieved with even a slight increase in sample sizes and a plea is made for greater research into this culturally significant species.     

The Making of Fired Clay Bricks in China Some 5000 Years Ago

Fired bricks are a hard and durable masonry material that has played a major role in the emergence of early human urban civilization. In China, fired clay bricks have been widely used as a building and flooring material since the Qin Dynasty (476?206 bc ), although a few lines of evidence show that fired clay bricks might have been invented as early as 5500 years ago in eastern central China. However, these burnt clumps of clay appear not to be bricks in the strict sense, and our knowledge about the origin of fired clay bricks in China still remains fragmentary. Archaeological excavations at a Middle Neolithic cultural site in northwestern China reveal that the making of fired clay bricks began some 5000 years ago. Our findings also open a window into the process of prehistoric brickmaking in East Asia.     

A re-assessment of Basketmaker II cave 7: massacre site or cemetery context

Our ongoing investigation of early maize farming in the American Southwest has entailed stable isotope analysis and accelerator radiocarbon dating of Basketmaker II remains from sites in the Four Corners region. Here we report radiocarbon dates on a large mortuary assemblage excavated by Richard Wetherill in 1893 from a burial cave in southeastern Utah. It has long been thought that all individuals interred in Cave 7 were massacred in a single violent attack given embedded projectiles and evidence for blunt force trauma. However, accelerator radiocarbon dates on purified bone collagen (n = 96) do not lend strong support to this argument, even among the subset of individuals with clear evidence for violent injuries. Moreover, nearly 80% of Cave 7 burials examined in the study show no evidence of perimortem trauma and no adult females or subadults under the age of 12 appear to have suffered violent deaths. Rather than an anomalous single-event massacre, the Cave 7 radiocarbon dataset suggests that raiding and intra-group, male/male violence was episodic among Basketmaker groups in southeastern Utah. Population densities were relatively high and individuals interred in Cave 7 and elsewhere in the region were heavily dependent on maize agriculture, a prehistoric economic strategy typically characterized by high amplitude fluctuations in productivity. Variability in the array of grave goods accompanying Cave 7 male burials and elsewhere suggests competitive social differentiation likely heightened during periods of resource shortfall leading to intra-group conflict, raiding and perhaps ritualized acts of violence.     

Statistical tool for dating and interpreting archaeological contexts using pottery

Analyzing chronological patterns is one of the major issues in archaeology. How can the date of a specific context be estimated? Is it possible to identify residual and intrusive material in it at the same time? Numerous statistical methodological approaches have been developed and implemented to estimate dates but have less often addressed the issue of socio-economic area or the functional interpretation of contexts. This article deals with the construction and analysis of two different probability estimate density curves of context dates using pottery. By contrasting the two curves we can define the boundaries of the socio-economic area and make a chrono-functional interpretation of a context. This statistical tool allows the archaeologist to visualize and analyze chronological patterns easily. The method is applied to the analysis of contexts in the town of Tours in particular and more generally in the centre-west of France, based on collected pottery finds.     

Chronologies in wood and resin: AMS C dating of pre-Hispanic Caribbean wood sculpture

This paper establishes a chronological framework for selected pieces of Caribbean (Taíno/Lucayan) wooden sculpture, enabling previously ahistoric artefacts to fit back into the wider corpus of pre-colonial material culture. Seventy-two ¹⁴C AMS determinations from 56 artefacts held in museum collections are reported, including 32 ceremonial duhos, or seats. Far from being constrained to the last few centuries prior to contact, the dates for these objects extend back to ca. AD 250, and include the artistic legacies of various cultures. Duhos in both low and high back styles are present from about AD 600, if not earlier, in a distribution that spans the Antillean island chain from Trinidad to Cuba. Complex, drug-related paraphernalia and elaborate ancestral reliquaries are in evidence by AD 1000, as are some distinctive regional styles – such as the unique iconography from the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos islands. This paper explores relevant methodological issues – from the challenges of working with museum pieces (e.g., uncertain provenance, discrete sampling techniques, impact of previous conservation treatments on dating results), to dealing with potential ‘in-built’ age in tropical hardwoods.     

A review of rock art dating in the Kimberley, Western Australia

This paper critically reviews the various approaches used to estimate the age of the rock art in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. They include: (i) the relative superimposition of styles; (ii) the use of diagnostic subject matter (depictions of extinct animals, stone tool technology, introduced European and Asian objects and animals); (iii) the recovery of a ‘painted’ slab from a dated archaeological unit; (iv) radiocarbon dating of beeswax figures, charcoal pigments, organic matter in overlying mineral deposits and ‘accreted paint layers’ (oxalate rich crusts and amorphous silica skin), pollen grains from an overlaying mud-wasp nest; and (v) optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of quartz grains from overlying mud-wasp nests. Future directions for rock art dating in the Kimberley include uranium-series dating of overlying and underlying mineral deposits.     

Geochronology of Palaeolithic cultures in the Hiran Valley, Saurashtra, India

The U and Th concentrations of 16 miliolite samples from the Hiran Valley in Saurashtra ranged from 0·3 to 2·14ppm and 0·12 to 0·82ppm respectively. The ²³⁴U/²³⁸U activity ratio ranged from 1·09 to 1·16, with a mean of 1·12±0·02. It agrees well with the seawater value of 1·14±0·02 within the quoted errors. Nine of the samples were datable by the ²³⁰Th/²³⁴U method and the ages ranged from 56·8 to 190 Kyr. The problem of chronology of Palaeolithic artifacts is interlinked with the miliolite and other coastal formations. The present investigations permit the development of a chronological framework for the Palaeolithic cultures in the Hiran Valley in particular, and generally in Saurashtra Peninsula. On the basis of radiometric dates and relative chronology, the Lower Palaeolithic cultures fall in a time-bracket of 190-69 Kyr bp. The Middle Palaeolithic industry is much older than 56·8 Kyr bp. The dates obtained for the Lower Palaeolithic cultures are perhaps the oldest reported to date.