Pastoral Neolithic Settlement at Luxmanda,Tanzania

The later Holocene spread of pastoralism throughout eastern Africa profoundly changed socio-economic and natural landscapes. During the Pastoral Neolithic (ca. 5000–1200 B.P.), herders spread through southern Kenya and northern Tanzania—areas previously occupied only by hunter-gatherers—eventually developing the specialized forms of pastoralism that remain vital in this region today. Research on ancient pastoralism has been primarily restricted to rockshelters and special purpose sites. This paper presents results of surveys and excavations at Luxmanda, an open-air habitation site located farther south in Tanzania, and occupied many centuries earlier, than previously expected based upon prior models for the spread of herding. Technological and subsistence patterns demonstrate ties to northerly sites, suggesting that Luxmanda formed part of a network of early herders. The site is thus unlikely to stand alone, and further surveys are recommended to better understand the spread of herding into the region, and ultimately to southern Africa.     

Archaeological Site or Natural Marine Community? Excavation of a Submerged Shell Mound in Ninigret Pond,Rhode Island

ABSTRACT

Submerged shell midden sites and natural shell deposits can have similar characteristics and can be difficult to distinguish archaeologically. We excavated two test units from a large (at least 35 m×70 m) submerged shell mound in Fort Neck Cove in southern Rhode Island to assess whether it was natural or cultural in origin. This mound had been recognized as a potential archaeological feature as early as the 1970s. Excavation, radiocarbon dating, and subsequent laboratory analysis of excavated materials suggest that the mound was a natural oyster reef rather than a submerged archaeological site. No artifacts were found; there was no clear evidence for human modification of any shells; small species that would not have been targeted as food were present; and δ¹³C values of oyster shells from the mound were consistent with freshwater input into their growth environment, suggesting that they grew in an estuarine environment that did not exist prior to the inundation of the ponds. The stratigraphically oldest radiocarbon date we could obtain (430–190 cal BP, 2σ range), from 70 cm below the pond floor, placed deposition of shells at least 3,000 years after the inundation of the pond. The excavation methods that we used and the process of testing, irrespective of whether the feature is cultural, are valuable contributions to the methodological literature on submerged site archaeology and help provide insight for other researchers working to discern natural from cultural shell midden sites.     

An Archaeomagnetic Study of a Roman Bath in Southern France

Absolute Thellier–Thellier archaeointensity determinations were conducted on 137 tiles and sedimentary blocks from five different structures from the ‘Site de la Molère’, southern France, to constrain the archaeological interpretation of a relative age difference between structures and add new data to the French secular variation database. We present 89 new archaeointensity and 20 new directional results, with averages of 57 (±8) μT in the second century ad and 68 (±7) μT in the third century ad . The overall data trend is consistent with the limited available data, indicating rapidly increasing field intensity from the second to the third century ad .     

觉公簋年代管见

朱凤瀚先生新近撰文介绍并作了详细讨论的觉公簋,由于其铭文关涉到晋国的早期历史,从而又影响到西周王年,故引起了学者的重视。之后,夏商周断代工程办公室的《简报》又登载了李学勤先生的     

A Late Iron Age settlement in Wādī Banī Ḫālid: First season of the joint Omani-Italian archaeological project

This paper introduces the first results of the joint Omani-Italian archaeological project at Wādī Banī Ḫālid (northern Šarqiyyah governorate, eastern al-Ḥaǧar), where a dense Iron Age and ancient Islamic occupation was detected. The aim of the project is the definition of the Iron Age settlement patterns along the eastern al-Ḥaǧar landscape and its relationship with both the coastal areas and the al-Ḥaǧar inner piedmont sites of central Oman. In fact, this project follows previous studies of the coastal environment between Muscat and Raʾs al-Ḥadd, where several seasonal fishermen villages were investigated, and their connections with inner permanent sites, such as Lizq, recognised during the Early Iron Age II (1300–600 BCE). Therefore, Wādī Banī Ḫālid stands as a peculiar case of an Iron Age territorial unit, a natural scenario made of a narrow alluvial valley which provided natural conditions for the development of a complex culture. Moreover, the material culture emerged after a first excavation campaign proved that the main occupational phase of the imposing fortified settlement WBK1 is the Late Iron Age (late first millennium BCE to third–fourth centuries CE), thus hopefully allowing new questions to be posed for the definition of Late Iron Age cultures and the chronology in central Oman, which is mostly known based on the excavation of funerary evidence. For this reason, the first part of the paper focuses on the results of the first season in Wādī Banī Ḫālid, and the second part discusses the links between Wādī Banī Ḫālid and the south-eastern Arabia general framework during the Late Iron Age.     

Palaeoecological research in the Department of Geography and Environment,University of Aberdeen

ABSTRACT

Palaeoecological research in the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of Aberdeen can be traced back to pollen-analytical (palynological) and geomorphological collaborations in the early 1970s. The research has generally been nested within Quaternary science and it features strong interdisciplinary links with archaeology, chronostratigraphy, climate change and ecology more generally. The pollen-based emphasis has been augmented by multi-proxy approaches including plant macro- and microfossils, geochemistry and pedology. There has always been techniques- and methodologically-orientated output and the chronological focus has spanned especially the period from the Lateglacial through to the present. With an emphasis upon research since the year 2000, the account is structured around such themes as environmental change in Scotland and the rest of the British Isles, human-environment interactions in the North Atlantic region, Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, atmospheric pollution and metals in prehistory, and carbon sequestration and chronologies. A final section looks briefly and selectively at future research.