Dogomomo Xmas,Kwangwe's Races,and a Murder: W.E. Armstrong and the Rossel Island Money

W.E. Armstrong, British anthropologist, visited Rossel Island in 1921 and derived a theory regarding the islanders' monetary system, which attracted much debate at the time. However, his analysis was ultimately shown to be a misunderstanding of the situation. In this examination of Armstrong's field notes, I show how the linguistic difficulties he worked under, together with the complexity of the monetary exchange and the short term of his fieldwork, combined to lead him astray.     

Starchy shells: Residue analysis of precolonial northern Caribbean culinary practices

Determining culinary practices is critical for understanding phytocultural complexes, transported landscapes and human niche constructions. Starch analysis is an exemplary method for reconstructing human–plant dependencies. However, certain types of artefacts from the Greater Caribbean region, such as flaked lithics, lithic griddles, coral artefacts and shells, have not been extensively analysed for starch remains. Moreover, there has been no comparison of culinary practices between The Bahama archipelago and the Greater Antilles (the presumed origin of foodways transported to The Bahama archipelago). The paper investigates 60 bivalve shell artefacts for starch remains, which were recovered from three archaeological sites: El Flaco and La Luperona (Dominican Republic), and Palmetto Junction (Turks & Caicos Islands). In contrast to ethnohistorical narratives that characterize shell tools exclusively as manioc peelers, the starch remains recovered in this study suggest a broader suite of plants and functions. The results provide evidence that a diversity of plants (Dioscorea spp., Dioscorea trifida L., Fabaceae, Ipomoea batatas L., Manihot esculenta Crantz, cf. Zea mays L., cf. Acrocomia media O. F. Cook, and Zingiberales) were prepared with these shells. This new evidence contributes to ongoing discussions about culinary practices in the Caribbean and other related late precolonial (c.800–1500 ce ) foodways.     

The Hull Construction of Yenikapı 14 (YK 14), a Middle Byzantine Shipwreck from Constantinople's Theodosian Harbour,Istanbul, Turkey

Yenikap? 14 (YK 14) is one of 37 shipwrecks discovered by the Istanbul Archaeological Museums during the Marmaray Project excavations in Istanbul's Yenikap? neighbourhood, the site of Constantinople's Theodosian Harbour. Dated to the 9th century AD, YK 14 is one of a group of Yenikap? round ships constructed using similar methods: it was a flat‐floored, shallow‐draught vessel built primarily of oak using a distinctive combination of shell‐ and skeleton‐based construction methods. Regularly spaced pegs called coaks were used to assemble the hull planking edge‐to‐edge from the keel to the first wale, above which planks were fastened exclusively to frames.     

A New Find of a European Pond Tortoise,Emys orbicularis (L.) from The Netherlands: Osteology and Taphonomy

A recent find of a European pond tortoise is presented in relation to former finds of Pleistocene and Holocene age from the Netherlands. The new find, with a ¹⁴C date of 5400±70 years BP, allows for a detailed study of the carapace, plastron and skeletal elements contained within the complete shell.     

The study of collector variability in the transition to sedentary food producers in northern Colombia

Human adaptation to the tropics by populations of collectors has been a longtanding issue of debate, especially with regard to the role that collectors may have played in pathways toward sedentism and food production. In this essay, I examine significant differences in strategies developed for estuarine environments versus the inland environments of the transitional savannas of northern Colombia to analyze how these two adaptations articulate with the processes which led toward sedentism and food production in neotropical northern Colombia. Contrary to the received wisdom, I argue that the exploitation of rich estuarine environments is not necessarily a prelude to food production; seed exploitation early in the sixth millennium B.P. in the northern Colombian transitional savanna zone provides a second and arguably more probable model.     

Analysis of suspected human coprolites from Terra Amata, Nice, France

Dietary analyses were conducted on 400,000 yr old specimens recovered during the excavation of the Terra Amata Palaeolithic site in Nice, France and initially identified as coprolites. The results of our analyses demonstrate that the identification of these specimens as coprolites is difficult to confirm due to the age of the samples. Consequently, they provide no new data pertaining to the suspected dietary habits of prehistoric man.     

远古刻画符号与中国文字的起源

中国古代自裴李岗文化至汉魏时期器物上常见的单字、刻画符号和图形文字,分布广泛,一脉相承,大都独立刻铸在器物(或铭文)的特殊位置上,不与其他文字相连属.它们不但与八卦之象多用单字来表述的特征相符合,而且有的还与纪卦象类筮数易卦相并署.因此,它们可能大都是反映八卦之象的卦象文字.一般地讲,每件器物本身及其上面的单字、刻画符号或图形文字,大都应是同一易卦的卦象.它是中华先民"制器尚象"习俗的产物.     

Worked and decorated shell discs from southern Arabia and the wider Near East

This article presents and discusses a corpus of worked and decorated shell discs from recently excavated archaeological sites in southern Arabia, including Dibba (northern Oman), Saruq al‐Hadid (UAE) and Sumhuram/Khor Rori (southern Oman). The artefacts are compared to a wide range of shell discs from controlled excavations in Arabia and the broader Near East in order to better understand their date, manufacture and use. The comparative study highlights the wide distribution of decorated shell discs across the ancient Near East, particularly during the early Iron Age, and the complex economic and cultural connections that underpinned the collection, crafting, exchange and significance of such items.     

The Conception of Hull Shape by Shell‐builders in the Ancient Mediterranean

Did ancient Mediterranean shipbuilders at the turn of the first millennium have methods to pre‐design the shape of their hulls prior to the construction of the ship? If so, can these methods be identified? This paper proposes that ancient shipwrights were in possession of such design methods, based on geometry, that are comparable to the medieval and post medieval hull‐design procedures called whole‐moulding. These methods are well suited to be transformed into rules‐of‐thumb, therefore allowing the storage and transmission of accumulated knowledge. The implications of this proposal on the present understanding of the transition from shell‐ to skeleton‐building are explored.     

Discoveries of Neolithic prehistoric sites at Pleistocene carbonate rock shelters on the east coast of the UAE

Three newly discovered prehistoric sites on the east coast of the United Emirates (UAE) are described. All are located on surfaces of Pleistocene carbonates or rock shelters that are generally rare along the eastern coast of the Gulf of Oman. Aqqah 1 (Le Meridien al Aqqah Beach Resort), the most important and best preserved of these sites, is a partially collapsed rock shelter with an exposed section, lithic finds and marine molluscs. Deriving an exact date from the material present is difficult because of a lack of comparanda. A bifacial fletched arrowhead made of yellow jasper and the lithic debris of five different raw materials as well as an undecorated ceramic fragment might suggest a date in the Late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age. The presence of many marine bivalves and snails with operculae, which differ from recent coastal species, indicates the collection and consumption of living molluscs by the prehistoric population of Aqqah. Nearby burials may be related to the rock shelters.