Elite Strategies and the Spread of Technological Innovation: The Spread of Iron in the Bronze Age Societies of Denmark and Southern Korea

I look at the process and speed of innovation spread, examining the economic aspects from the perspective of those who adopt the innovation. Defining innovation adoption as an investment which requires initial cost and risks, I argue that at the time of introduction of a new technology that is expected to have socioeconomic importance, elites of adopting societies try to avoid the initial cost and risks of adoption, actively intervening in the process of its spread. Thus, it is crucial to analyze the strategies and needs of elites, which strongly influence the speed of spread. One of these strategies is to change innovation's role by locating the innovation in a different realm of economy. Comparing the spread of iron technology in the Danish and southern Korean Bronze Ages, I demonstrate that differences in what elites needed to obtain through iron technology in different contexts critically affected the speed and process of iron spread into the two regions.     

Design and performance of microlith implemented projectiles during the Middle and the Late Epipaleolithic of the Levant: experimental and archaeological evidence

The study comprises an experimentally based investigation of interaction between temporal change in the morphology of microlithic tools and transformations in projectile technology during the Late Pleistocene in the Levant. Archery experiments with differently designed arrows fitted with various types of microliths representing subsequent Epipaleolithic cultures of the Levant allowed analyzing performance abilities of the arrows, identifying projectile damage types characteristic of particular hafting modes, detecting factors influencing the frequency of projectile damage and estimating the frequency of projectile damage expected to be found in archaeological samples. The data obtained through the experiments applied in the analysis of the archaeological microliths from Geometric Kebaran and Natufian sites in Israel indicate different approaches to the design of projectiles fitted with microliths characteristic for these cultures. The shift in design, associated with such important economic and social transformations as transition to sedentary settlements and a broad-spectrum economy, may reflect a demand for light, flexible and efficient projectile weapons requiring low time and labor investment for preparation and retooling. The use of such efficient weapons in conditions of growing population density and restricted areas available for Natufian hunter–gatherers can be considered as one of the factors that could have affected the subsequent transition to food production that took place in the early Holocene.     

The Evolution of Theory, Method and Technique in Southern African Rock Art Research

Southern African rock art research has progressed from an essentially denigrating social and political milieu, through an empiricist period, to contemporary social and historical approaches. Empiricism, once thought to be the salvation of southern African rock art research, was a theoretically and methodologically flawed enterprise. Attempts to see the art through an emic perspective facilitated by copious nineteenth- and twentieth-century San ethnography is a more useful approach. It began briefly, but was then abandoned, in the nineteenth century. Today, diverse theoretical and methodological approaches are being constructed on an ethnographic foundation. The centrality of the San in South African national identity has been recognized.

对《英山毕昇碑与淮南摩尼教》一文中几个问题的商榷

本通过对《英山毕舁碑与淮南摩尼教》一中所依据的一些碑刻、墓志及相关献的原进行审读后,结合其研究所得,认为唐碑《重岩寺记》不能证明英山县在唐代就有摩尼教寺;毕舁墓碑上的“神主”一词不是摩尼教祖师的专称;毕舁夫妇并非胡族,也不是粟胡商人和回鹘摩尼师的后裔;毕昇墓碑镌刻的日月图形与摩尼教信仰无关,而是反映了我国古代道家的阴阳思想和儒家的伦理观念,属汉族思想化的传承。     

Aging mountain gazelle (Gazella gazella): refining methods of tooth eruption and wear and bone fusion

This paper refines current methods for aging mountain gazelle (Gazella gazella), one of the most common species hunted by prehistoric humans in the southern Levant. Most importantly, we present a new tooth wear scheme for aging the lower deciduous fourth premolar (dP₄), the lower permanent molars (M₁, M₂, M₃) and the lower fourth premolar (P₄) of the gazelle. Broader wear stages for complete mandibles and individual teeth and bone fusion stages are also provided. Finally, a comparison of the tooth wear and bone fusion data indicates that the two methods can be linked at the important transition when a gazelle reaches adulthood (ca. 18 months of age). The completion of the fusion of the gazelle skeleton corresponds directly to the replacement of the dP₄ by the P₄ and the beginning of wear of the M₃. The coincidence of these aging indicators allows for direct comparison of gazelle bone fusion and tooth wear data.     

秦岭-淮河南沿线地区宋代墓葬的初步研究

目前秦岭一淮河南沿线地区发现的宋代墓葬已积累了一定的数量,从这些墓葬所反映的特点来看,受到了南方地区和中原地区的共同影响.我们从墓葬形制和随葬品的特征出发,总结了这些墓葬的特点和阶段性特征,并对这些现象产生的原因进行了初步的探讨.     

被建构的历史:当代贵州地方志中的南明史叙述

在历史的建构中,人的思维与意志占据着重要位置。通过对历史进行建构,今人将自己的意识写进历史之中。当代贵州地方志中对南明史的叙述,恰恰正是历史与建构之间的一种复杂反映。编撰者在编写南明史时其实就是对贵州安龙的南明史进行重构,从某种程度上说,被建构了的历史已经不完全是原来意义上的历史,字里行间,历史建构者的褒贬之意、好恶之感贯穿历史的始终,溢于言表,袒露无遗。     

Homicide rates in rural southern Norway 1300–1569

Fairly good data enable us to estimate mid-16th-century homicide rates (to between 10 and 15 per 100,000). Data from the earlier centuries, documents from the standardized process for homicides, and occasional other mentions are at first sight not promising, but can be treated with advanced statistical methods. With these, the homicide rates for the region and period in question can be estimated to between 8 and 13 per 100,000 for the part of Norway that they cover: southern rural Norway.     

A zoomorphic sickle terminal from the Natufian site of Wadi Hammeh 27 in Jordan

Excavations at the Natufian site of Wadi Hammeh 27 in Jordan undertaken in 2014 led to the discovery of several new portable art pieces, including the representation of an ungulate mammal (RN 140226), probably intended as a gazelle, carved in the round from bone. The small object was extensively damaged by fire and had become separated at its neck from longer pieces of fragmented, burnt bone lying distally to it. This configuration and the style of the animal head leads us to interpret the piece as the decorated terminal of a bone sickle haft. The piece is unusual in that is it is one of the few figurative Natufian art pieces with incised geometric decoration added to its surface. Its finding extends the distribution of the ‘gazelle-headed’ sickle haft from Mount Carmel, where three well-known examples were unearthed in the early twentieth century, to the northern Jordan Valley. The piece adds to the limited repertoire of zoomorphically rendered Natufian artefacts associated with plant gathering and processing.     

Evidence for Migration Influx into the Ancient Greek Colony of Metaponto: A Population Genetics Approach Using Dental Nonmetric Traits

Ancient Greek colonies were founded by Greek seafarers all along the Mediterranean coast as early as the eighth century bc . Despite extensive archaeological and historical research, the population structure of the inhabitants of Greek colonies and their relationship to indigenous populations are still debated. Here, we perform a biodistance analysis to reconstruct migration and gene flow between the ancient Greek colony of Metaponto (southern Italy) and indigenous groups in the surrounding hinterland (900–250 bc ). We collected dental nonmetric trait data of 355 human skeletons from the indigenous Italic sites of Santa Maria d'Anglona, Incoronata and Passo di Giacobbe. This data set is compared with an urban and rural sample of the Greek colony of Metaponto comprising 351 individual dentitions. The R‐matrix approach is used to estimate inter‐population relationships and F _ST. The resulting kinship coefficients indicate that the three indigenous groups exhibit greater similarity to each other and possess lesser similarity to the two Metapontian samples. Interestingly, the two samples of Metaponto are least similar to each other, although they are geographically very close. The F _ST estimates confirm this pattern and reveal greater biological variation between the two nearby Metaponto samples (F _ST = 0.0603) than between the three geographically fairly distant indigenous groups (F _ST = 0.0389). We conclude that the Greek colony of Metaponto included large numbers of people with diverse geographical origins, whereas the indigenous Italic communities of the surrounding hinterland exhibited high levels of homogeneity and cohesion. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.