Compensatory bone remodelling in moose: a study of age,sex, and cross‐sectional cortical bone dimensions in moose at Isle Royale National Park

We studied interrelationships among age, sex, and cross‐sectional cortical bone dimensions using quantitative computed tomography (QCT) scans of metatarsal bones of 180 moose (Alces alces) that died in Isle Royale National Park, Michigan. As a large‐bodied quadruped with demanding ecological constraints on movement and behaviour, a moose experiences different weight‐bearing and mechanical stressors than humans, to whom most existing studies of mechanical adaptations of bone pertain. In moose, both sexes showed significant subperiosteal expansion and an increase in medullary area, with an overall increase in cortical bone area over time. Female moose did not exhibit cortical thinning or reduction in cross‐sectional area with age, rather they showed an increase in cortical bone area with periosteal apposition exceeding endosteal resorption, similar to the males. We also found that moose undergo changes in bone geometry through remodelling of bone similar to humans, suggesting a compensatory mechanism for increasing bone strength under conditions of decline in bone mineral density with age. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Zooarchaeology and Historical Archaeology: Progress and Prospects

This review assesses the development and current status of zooarchaeological research in historical archaeology. Analytical issues in recovery, identification, quantification and interpretation are discussed with particular reference to assemblages from historical sites. The results section summarizes the substantive contributions zooarchaeological studies of historical assemblages have made to our understanding of past diet, food production systems, social and cultural variation, and archaeological interpretations. The last four decades of research has provided a strong basis for future analyses that draw together diverse strands of zooarchaeological, historical, scientific, and anthropological evidence.     

What's in a bone? Recent advances in archaeological bone chemistry

This paper focuses on advances in archaeological bone chemistry since 1989. At that time studies generally shifted from development and application of techniques in bone chemistry to more experimental approaches. In stable isotope studies, controlled feeding experiments have been carried out to determine the routing of various dietary components into bone tissues. Biological apatite has been added to collagen as a tissue of study for stable carbon isotope analysis, providing the ability to study much older remains. Other elements have been added such as hydrogen for the study of paleoclimate and oxygen and strontium isotopes to study life history. Trace element studies have focused on methods of detecting and controlling for diagenesis, and barium has been added to the list of useful dietary indicators. Attempts to extract DNA from archaeological bone have been successful, however, this field is still in its early stages in terms of applications to understanding prehistoric biological relationships.     

Barbed Bone Points: Tradition and Continuity in Saharan and Sub-Saharan Africa

Examination of African barbed bone points recovered from Holocene sites provides a context to interpret three Late Pleistocene occurrences from Katanda and Ishango, Zaire, and White Paintings Shelter, Botswana. In sites dated to ca. 10,000 BP and younger, such artifacts are found widely distributed across the Sahara Desert, the Sahel, the Nile, and the East African Lakes. They are present in both ceramic and aceramic contexts, sometimes associated with domesticates. The almost-universal presence of fish remains indicates a subsistence adaptation which incorporates a riverine/lacustrine component. Typologically these points exhibit sufficient similarity in form and method of manufacture to be subsumed within a single African tradition. They are absent at Fayum, where a distinct Natufian form occurs. Specimens dating to ca. 20,000 BP at Ishango, possibly a similar age at White Paintings Shelter, and up to 90,000 BP at Katanda clearly fall within this same African tradition and thus indicate a very long-term continuity which crosses traditionally conceived sub-Saharan cultural boundaries. L'étude des pointes barbelées en os del' Holocène africaine fournit un contexte à l'interprétation de trois gisements du Pleistocene superieure, notamment, Katanda et Ishango (en République Démocratique du Congo, ex-Zaire), et White Paintings Shelter au Botswana. Cettes pointes ont une distribution étendue à travers le Sahara, le Sahel, le Nil et les grands lacs du rift d'Afrique orientale, notamment sur certains sites datant de 10,000 ans avant notre ère. Ces pointes sont associées avec des types d'industries céramiques ou acéramiques, avec ou sans squelettes de faune domestiques, mais toujours avec des squelettes de poisson, indiquent une subsistence comportant des ressources lacustres ou riveraines. Sur le plan typologique, cettes pointes présentent une telle ressemblance, soit de forme, soit de manufacture, qu'elles constituent une tradition unique africaine. Au Fayum en Egypte, les formes des pointes rappellent, par contre, plutôt les series Natufiennes du Levant. Les pointes barbelées d'Ishango, datant de 20,000 ans environ, celles de White Paintings Shelter, datant probablement de la même époque, et celles de Katanda datant au maximum de 90,000 ans BP, appartiennent à la même tradition africaine, ce qu montre ainsi l'existence d'une continuité de très longue durée àtravers les frontières culturelles traditionelles.     

基于后人类思想的国际城市研究：理论溯源与概念辨析

进入二十一世纪以来,以赛博格城市、混合城市、城市政治生态学、集合城市主义为代表的后人类城市研究思想成为揭示当代城市中人类与非人类复杂交织关系的前沿性理论视角。本文在深入探讨上述概念的理论渊源、主要思想观点及其应用进展的基础上,指出后人类城市思想在我国城市研究中的可能方法论意义,即城市分析不能将人类与非人类绝对割裂地看待,而需要将城市中的主体或客体重新定义为人类与非人类的“混杂体”,整合以往分散在自然、工程、社科与人文等不同领域中的观察与分析,拓展人们对城市过程的认知,开创更多的城市研究可能性。     

An Investigation Into the Relationship Between Funerary Treatment and Bacterial Bioerosion in European Archaeological Human Bone

A central problem in funerary archaeology is interpreting how the corpse was manipulated in the immediate post mortem period. The extent of bacterial bioerosion to the internal bone microstructure has been proposed as a means to infer the early post mortem history of a corpse, as it has been suggested that this form of bone diagenesis is produced by an organism's putrefactive gut bacteria. Under this model, different forms of funerary treatment would be expected to leave characteristic signatures of bioerosion in archaeological bone. Here, we tested the extent to which bacterial bioerosion of ancient human bones reflected funerary treatment, through histological analysis of 301 archaeological human bone thin sections from 25 European archaeological sites. We found that bioerosion was significantly influenced by whether a bone originated from a neonatal individual or an anoxic context. When these remains were excluded, bioerosion was controlled by archaeological phase in a manner consistent with known early post mortem treatment and forensic models of bodily decomposition. These findings suggest that microscopic analyses of bone have useful applications in reconstructions of funerary processes and provide some insight into factors that may control the persistence of organic biomolecules and fossilization.     

Insights into the processes behind the contamination of degraded human teeth and bone samples with exogenous sources of DNA

A principal problem facing human DNA studies that use old and degraded remains is contamination from other sources of human DNA. In this study we have attempted to contaminate deliberately bones and teeth sampled from a medieval collection excavated in Trondheim, Norway, in order to investigate this poorly understood phenomenon. Five pairs of teeth and bone samples were bathed in water containing various concentrations (from 10⁻⁹ and 10⁻²¹ g/l) of purified ΦX174 DNA. Subsequently the samples were subjected to a routine decontamination protocol involving a bleach bath followed by exposure to λ=254 nm ultraviolet light, prior to DNA extraction and analysis for evidence of the persistence of the contaminant. The results support previous speculation that bone is more susceptible to water‐borne sources of contaminant DNA, although both bone and teeth are readily contaminated and are difficult to decontaminate using the tested protocol. We believe that this is largely due to the porous nature of bone and teeth facilitating the deep penetration of the contaminant DNA. To simulate a more realistic handling situation, 27 further teeth were directly handled and washed, then decontaminated, prior to assaying for the residual presence of the handler's DNA. Surprisingly, although our results suggest that a large proportion of the teeth were contaminated with multiple sources of human DNA prior to our investigation, we were unable to contaminate the samples with further human DNA. One potential explanation may be the deposition of sediment or other structural changes that occur within the samples as they desiccate post‐excavation, which may protect samples from subsequent contamination, but also prevent the efficacy of bleach baths in decontaminating specimens. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Stone Age exploitation of birds on the island of Gotland,Baltic Sea: a taphonomic study of the avifauna on the Neolithic site of Ajvide

We have conducted a detailed taphonomic study of the avifauna of the Pitted Ware culture site of Ajvide on the Island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea, in order to investigate the fowling patterns and the taphonomic history of the bird remains. We have investigated cultural as well as natural modifications on the bird bones, fragmentation and fracture patterns, and performed a systematic surface modification study. No specific area for the deposition of bird remains or specific bird species was identified. All major anatomical parts of birds are present in the assemblage, but there is a dominance of specimens from the wing elements. Traces of cultural modification were observed on the bones, including cut marks, burning, modification (implements, beads, raw material), and gnawing marks. The bone surface modifications and fracture analysis indicate that the majority of the bird bones at Ajvide did not lie on the soil surface for an extended period of time before being deposited in the soil. Dry fractures increase while fresh fractures decrease towards the upper levels of the stratigraphy, indicating more extensive post‐depositional destruction. This may partly be connected to modern agriculture, but also to later use of the settlement area as a burial ground. The Ajvide assemblage contains a variety of birds living in different biotopes. However, bird hunting was mainly focused on sea birds. Auks and ducks are the most common families in the assemblage. We find it likely that the Ajvide hunters conducted organised hunting expeditions to two nearby islands for the hunting of auks, while it was possible to hunt other birds such as ducks closer to the site. The presence of medullary bone and bones from subadult birds indicates a main hunting season in late spring and early summer. However, comparisons with modern migration patterns indicate that hunting may have occurred throughout the year. Of special palaeozoological interest is the find of gannet (Morus bassanus), which apparently in Neolithic times visited the Baltic area more regularly than today. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Lead isotope analysis of intra‐skeletal variation in a 19th century mental asylum cemetery: diagenesis versus migration

Living bone sequesters environmental lead (Pb) from both inhalation and ingestion, providing a record of Pb exposure over a lifetime. Questions about the effects of diagenesis and how to remove them have hampered most isotopic and elemental determinations. As a result, researchers often restrict their analyses to tooth enamel, despite its limitations. We report Pb isotopes in teeth and bones in a frontier population of 15 individuals from a late 19th century mental hospital graveyard in Pueblo, Colorado, a town active at that time in the smelting of ores. Analysis of lead isotopes sequestered in healing bone from rib fractures gives an isotopic fingerprint from the last few months of individual's lives. When bone tissues or teeth from different stages of life are analysed, life history trajectories such as migration routes can be developed which are partially self‐correcting for diagenesis. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The recognition of multiple spatial patterns: a case study from the French upper paleolithic

A pattern recognition approach to spatial analysis is applied to artifact distributions from the Magdalenian site of Pincevent, Section 36. Patterning is investigated using a κ-means cluster analysis that permits iterative mapping of artifact distributions at several scales of spatial complexity. Multiple scales of patterning are recognized in the Pincevent distributions. These patterns are assessed in terms of those discovered by the excavators through intensive visual inspection of the materials. Basic concordance is seen between these two approaches. Finally, the analysis detects more detailed patterning. A relationship between artifact abundance and location seems to hold constant throughout the site.