Assessing the Scale and Pace of Large Shell-Bearing Site Occupation in the Prince Rupert Harbour Area,British Columbia

Methodological advancements in geoarchaeology and spatial and chronological modeling are opening new avenues to interpreting large coastal shell-bearing sites. We document the developmental histories of two such sites around Prince Rupert Harbour, Canada, using systematic percussion coring, intensive radiocarbon dating, and 3D surface mapping with Total Station and LiDAR. We also re-analyze a third site (Boardwalk/GbTo-31) excavated and radiocarbon dated in the 1960s, 1970s, and early 2000s using archival field notes, site maps, and stratigraphic profiles georectified using LiDAR. We map the natural landform beneath the sites and document the degree to which people physically modified landforms through the deposition of massive shell accumulations. We model site development through time and space and use accumulation rates and OxCal modeling to test for intentional deposition events. All three sites demonstrate complex and heterogeneous occupation histories. At each we identify instances of very rapid deposition that effectively terraced and extended parts of the natural landform to create places for constructing houses, though these episodes take place within longer histories of slower quotidian deposition. The anthropogenic modifications to the coastline in this area are the result of these mixed processes associated with long histories of occupation.     

Finding Vikings in the Danelaw

Historical, artefactual and place‐name evidence indicates that Scandinavian migrants moved to eastern England in the ninth century AD, settling in the Danelaw. However, only a handful of characteristically Scandinavian burials have been found in the region. One, widely held, explanation is that most of these Scandinavian settlers quickly adopted local Christian burial customs, thus leaving Scandinavians indistinguishable from the Anglo‐Saxon population. We undertook osteological and isotopic analysis to investigate the presence of first‐generation Scandinavian migrants. Burials from Masham were typical of the later Anglo‐Saxon period and included men, women and children. The location and positioning of the four adult burials from Coppergate, however, are unusual for Anglo‐Scandinavian York. None of the skeletons revealed interpersonal violence. Isotopic evidence did not suggest a marine component in the diet of either group, but revealed migration on a regional, and possibly an international, scale. Combined strontium and oxygen isotope analysis should be used to investigate further both regional and Scandinavian migration in the later Anglo‐Saxon period.     

Mapping of subsurface shell midden components through percussion coring: examples from the Dundas Islands

Following earlier examples of mapping the subsurface of shell bearing sites using augering, we employ percussion coring to identify early Holocene shell midden components at two types of sites on the Northwest Coast of North America. We describe a method for mapping subsurface components at shell bearing sites including basal deposits, paleosols and transitions between distinct cultural components. Our research was undertaken for the purpose of identifying early Holocene shell middens above the modern shore, and as components below large shell midden villages. Our results augment the developmental trajectory of shell middens on the Northwest Coast by suggesting that pre-5000 BP forms of these sites may be more common than previously thought. In light of these results, we argue that the Northwest Coast cultural historical sequence, which locates an increase in the number and rate of accumulation of shell middens beginning 5000 years ago, to be premature. However, there are insufficient data from shell middens in the early Holocene, a sampling problem that the percussion coring methods described here can address.     

From Friend to Foe: The Portrait of Licinius in Eusebius

The object of this article is to analyse the portrait of emperor Licinius in three important sources of the reign of Constantine the Great: Lactantius' De mortibus persecutorum and, especially, Eusebius' two historical works, the Historia ecclesiastica (HE) and the Vita Constantini (VC). The influence of rhetoric, with the keywords vituperatio/laudatio and progymnasmata, is emphasized in Eusebius' way of depicting Licinius, this great loser in Late Roman History.