Changing histories and ethnicities in a Sámi and Norse borderland

Hedmark County is a large inland district in southeast Norway that represents the southern part of the Sámi settlement area, and a Sámi–Norse borderland. Centred on the municipalities Rendalen and Engerdal, the study investigates the long-term cultural and social processes involved in the construction and maintenance of a borderland using theories of ethnicity and cultural tradition. Over time, different groups of people have used the diverse landscapes, and two periods are highlighted: the Late Neolithic and the Bronze Age (2350–500 BC), and the Iron Age and the Middle Ages (500 BC–AD 1500). The focus is on how different groups of people used the landscapes as seen through variation in settlement, subsistence, borders and contact networks with neighbouring and distant regions.     

Body Mass Estimates in Dogs and North American Gray Wolves Using Limb Element Dimensions

Body mass is a key biometric that is useful in interpreting many aspects of an animal's life history. For many species, including dogs and wolves, methods for estimating body mass are not well developed. This paper assesses the utility of using limb dimensions to predict body mass in dogs and North American wolves. Regression analyses are utilized here to explore the correlations between limb dimensions and body masses of modern dogs and wolves, all of known body mass at death. These analyses reveal that a number of limb end dimensions are correlated with body mass in both dogs and wolves. Regression formulae generated through the analyses appear to allow body masses to be predicted with relatively small margins of error, often less than 10%. Formulae are calculated for groups with and without juveniles. In some cases, the dimensions of the juvenile specimens plot distinctly from those of adults, indicating that regression formulae specifically for juvenile canids may be needed. The strength of the limb dimension correlations is then compared with that of regression formulae for dog and wolf cranio‐mandibular dimensions. For the dogs, the cranio‐mandibular dimensions appear to slightly out‐perform the limb element dimensions in predicting body mass. The wolf limb dimensions, however, always appear to provide better predictions of body mass than do the skull dimensions. The newly developed regression formulae are applied to several Middle Holocene dog skeletons from Siberia for which previous body mass estimates are available, the latter based on cranial dimensions. These two sets of estimates are then compared. The overall results of our study indicate the need for further research, particularly with larger sample sizes, including more juvenile specimens. We also argue that work on body size estimation in single dog breeds may be warranted in some cases. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Nami's Middle Bronze Age Suburb: The Coastal Settlement at Site 104–106

This study presents a late 19th to early 18th cent. BCE, MBIIA settlement in the immediate vicinity of Tel Nami on the Carmel Coast of Israel. Site 104–106 has been all but destroyed by modern agricultural activity as well as quarrying, but a large number of ceramics and small finds were salvaged during a 1985–6 survey of Tel Nami?'s hinterland as well as subsequent geoarchaeological research of the area. Little of the site remains, and the current study functionally amounts to a salvage project for an MBIIA coastal site, which was mentioned in an earlier survey. Geomorphology reveals how the sandstone kurkar ridges in this area of the coast governed the dynamic relationship between Tel Nami and its hinterland. Comparable ceramic chronology for Site 104–106 presented derives from Aphek-Antipatris, Megiddo, Kabri, Tel Ifshar, Tel Nami itself, and other MBIIA coastal sites of the Southern Levant. The ceramics include well-produced local wares as well as imports from coastal Lebanon, Syria, and Cyprus confirmed by petrographic analyses. Finds suggest a small agro-industrial site in the immediate periphery of the coastal Tel Nami.     

Inhabiting Remote Tropical Seashores at 1500–1100 b.c.: Water,Practicalities, and Rituals in the Mariana Islands

When people first inhabited the Remote Oceanic region of the world at 1500 b.c., they generated archaeological sites attesting to their practical coastal adaptations in tandem with their ceremonial traditions, wherein water figured vitally in daily living and ritual performance. Of eight known first-settlement sites in the Mariana Islands, Ritidian in Guam uniquely incorporates one residential habitation plus two caves related to water collection, pictographs, consumption of unusual foods, and use of exceptionally decorative objects. The inter-connected findings clarify what was “special” about the special-use caves, in total articulating a fuller sense of cultural life and landscape than otherwise could be possible.     

Milky Quartz Bipolar Reduction and Lithic Miniaturization: Experimental Results and Archaeological Implications

We present experimental data examining the energetics and identification of axial bipolar reduction in contexts of lithic miniaturization on milky quartz. These experiments answer two specific questions. First, does bipolar reduction provide any benefits over freehand reduction? Second, can axial bipolar reduction be distinguished from freehand reduction? Our data show that bipolar reduction requires significantly less time to reduce a percentage unit of core mass and to produce a millimeter of cutting edge on milky quartz than freehand reduction. Milky quartz bipolar reduction surpasses even the cutting edge production efficiency of obsidian pressure blades. We outline a series of quantitative criteria for identifying bipolar cores and flakes. Our results show that bipolar cores and flakes can be distinguished from those produced using freehand reduction by quantifying platform crushing, distal flake rebound scars, bulb shearing, as well as axial, bipolar, and splintered flake terminations. Our results challenge the widely held perceptions about the wastefulness of bipolar reduction and provide clear guidelines for identifying this reduction strategy in archaeological milky quartz assemblages.     

Radiocarbon Dating and the Historical Archaeology of Korea: An Alternative Interpretation of Hongryeonbong Fortress II in the Three Kingdoms Period,Central Korea

Relying heavily upon historical records to build archaeological chronologies, many Korean historical archaeologists question the utility of radiocarbon dating. To challenge this tendency, we test a model based on historical records by analyzing radiocarbon dates. We dated two bulk samples from Hongryeonbong Fortress II, Seoul, South Korea, which is known historically to have been occupied between a.d. 500 and 551. By dividing bulk samples into smaller aliquots, we dated 40 subsamples and statistically estimated consensus dates. The consensus dates do not support expectations of the historical model, as they do not lie within the temporal range provided by historical records. We propose an alternative model that explains both the radiocarbon dates and the historical records. It is suggested that radiocarbon dating can be successfully applied to the reconstruction of historical periods and is a way of mitigating possible biases of models based solely on historical records.     

The Farasan Islands,Saudi Arabia: towards a chronology of settlement

An archaeological survey of Saudi Arabia's Farasan Islands in May 2010 recorded a broad range of sites that have not previously been documented. The survey concentrated on Greater Farasan and Segid islands, and comprised a rapid recording of sites shown to the authors by representatives of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities. The sites were photographed, their positions logged, sketch drawings made of the principal features and surface pottery drawn and photographed. Detailed drawings were made of a stone anchor and a well with possible Ancient South Arabian carved decoration. The sites visited included settlements, wells, cemeteries and a cave. Several sites included the remains of buildings made of massive ashlar blocks, as well as others of rubble‐stone construction. Datable material at the sites points to several periods of occupation, from the early first millennium BC to early modern times. Some locations were characterised by long periods of settlement. Apart from the findings of this survey, most of the sites remain largely uninvestigated, and suggest significant potential for future research into settlement on the archipelago, as well as into past maritime activity and technology in the southern Red Sea region and beyond.     

Building G at Makaynūn: a late pre‐Islamic settlement above the ruins of a South Arabian town

This article presents the results of the excavation of a residence dated between the second and fourth centuries AD, constructed over the ruins of the South Arabian town of Makaynūn, in central Hadramawt (Yemen). The building yielded a large quantity of material including objects proving contacts between the central Hadramawt and regions located to the north‐east, such as central Oman, the Gulf area and India.     

New World States and Empires: Economic and Social Organization

We take a critical perspective in discussing recent publications on the archaeological study of the ancient state-level societies of Latin America. For some topics, such as intensive agriculture and exchange, data are far ahead of theory, whereas for others (e.g., gender and ethnicity), theory has outstripped data. Craft production, a topic that has achieved a good balance of data and theory, is one of the success stories of recent Latin American archaeology. After a discussion of sources of data, we review these and other topics (e.g., consumption patterns, household studies, social organization) in terms of both data and theory. In a second review article, we cover the topics of politics, religion, urbanism, and the processes of change.     

When the Revolution Reached the Countryside: Use and Destruction of Imported Wares in Alta Gracia,Córdoba, 1810

During the 1970s, excavations were conducted in Alta Gracia, Córdoba, Argentina, in a compound that once was a seventeenth and eighteenth-century Jesuit Convent and is presently a museum. During the excavation, an amazing amount of historic material never studied before was discovered inside a sealed privy. After studying the material, we were able to identify the objects as once belonging to Santiago de Liniers, a man who successfully resisted and expelled British invaders from Buenos Aires. As a result, he was appointed Viceroy, though eventually he was shot in 1810 for confronting the Independence movement. Our hypothesis is that these objects were thrown into the privy as a gesture of contempt associated with his capture and execution.