The Pleistocene of Rabat (Morocco): Mollusks,Coastal Environments and Human Behavior

The Rabat-Témara region of the Moroccan Atlantic coast reveals a succession of Quaternary palaeobeaches. This coastal area is dotted with numerous prehistoric caves. The study of the Upper Pleistocene coastal landscape associated with these caves is of paramount importance in the knowledge of human population subsistence. During the Upper Pleistocene, the ocean level changes drastically influenced the coastal geomorphology as well as the fauna assemblages. The chrono-lithostratographical analysis of the coastal sedimentary formations allows the distinction of three sequences rich in marine fauna. These sequences date from MIS 11 to MIS 5. The identification of malacofauna species from these deposits revealed 39 species, along with Bryozoans, Crustaceans, and Echinoids. These assemblages show a constant fauna cortege highlighted by the dominance of the amphi-Atlantic species Stramonita haemastoma. This species shows an increase in the number of specimens in the uppermost part of marine deposits, probably in relation with a climate warming in the MIS 5. This fauna of both intertidal rocky substrates and sandy substratum indicates environmental conditions close to the present-day Rabat-Témara coastline. As in other coastal locations of Africa from MIS 5, the Middle Stone Age Homo sapiens population benefitted from a littoral environment rich in coastal resources. Comparison between thanatocenoses and archaeological records allows us to identify both species available for Middle Stone Age population and those preferred for human use.     

Home Is Where the Hearth Is: Anthracological and Microstratigraphic Analyses of Pleistocene and Holocene Combustion Features,Riwi Cave (Kimberley,Western Australia)

The manipulation of fire is a technological act. The identification of the archaeological signatures of the controlled use of fire has important implications not only for the estimations of the origins and functions of the first fireplaces but also for our understanding of prehistoric technological development and resource use. At Riwi (Kimberley region, Western Australia), excavations over two field seasons have revealed a discontinuous occupation sequence over the past 45 ka, showing numerous, different combustion features interspersed within the deposit. Anthracological and micromorphological investigations at Riwi Cave indicate that the combustion features at the site can be categorised into three types: flat combustion features (type A), dug combustion features (type B) and thick accumulations of mixed combustion residues (type C). These provide evidence for two kinds of combustion practice: (i) fires lit directly on the ground and most likely not re-used and (ii) ground ovens, the latter appearing some 10,000 years after the first evidence for occupation of the site. A comparison of the wood species identified within these combustion features with those from equivalent scattered context levels, enables an exploration of the potential factors influencing wood selection and fire use through time at the site. A detailed understanding of the relationship between wood charcoal remains and archaeological context yields significant information on changes to environmental context and site occupation patterns over time.     

Lapita before Lapita: The Early Story of the Meyer/O’Reilly Watom Island Archaeological Collection

ABSTRACT

Seventeen years before the first excavation at the archaeological site of Lapita (New Caledonia) in 1952, two men of the cloth met and exchanged artefacts, notes and ideas to produce some of the earliest analyses of what later became known as Lapita pottery. Otto Meyer (1877–1937), a Sacred Heart Missionary stationed on Watom Island, described chance finds of ‘prehistoric pottery’ in 1909, following these with more systematic excavations. Patrick O’Reilly (1900–88), a Marist Father associated with the Musée de l’Homme in Paris, drew on Meyer’s work, his own extensive bibliographical knowledge and his observations during a one-year mission in the region in 1934–5 to present part of the collection in France, laying the ground for further theories. The publication, interpretation and curation of the Meyer/O’Reilly collection represents an exemplary journey through the history of Pacific archaeology and the emergence of the Lapita paradigm. We consider the context of Meyer’s encounter with O’Reilly, the ideas both men advanced in analysing the collection and the site, and how these resonated during the development of Pacific and Lapita archaeology throughout the first half of the 20th century.     

Contentious Realities: Politics of Creating an Image Archive with the Negev Bedouin in Southern Israel

This paper discusses the politics of creating an image archive amidst local Bedouin historicity in Southern Israel. To do so, it summarizes an archival initiative conducted during my fieldwork in Rāha?, Israel between 2011 and 2013, which broadly examined the presence and values of images in their society. I suggest that members compete over historical resources in attempts to augment limited cultural capital in the Negev, making efforts to collect and exhibit ‘shared’ histories contentious. This is particularly the case when local societies consider archival images rare artefacts and thus objects to be owned and protected. This paper concludes that control over archives and image objects, and the past, present, and future ideals to which they are used, is far from uniform amongst peripheral peoples in the Middle East. Visual evidence and the histories and presents it serves are indelibly localized within the prevailing status negotiations and current spatial divisions between Bedouin members in the Negev.     

An astrologer's map: A relic of late antiquity

Abstract

A Greek map of the world, which includes a windrose, zones, places in and around Egypt, and hell, is studied in reference to its context: an anonymous astrological miscellany. Other examples of this map have been found in a second context, among anonymous scholia to Theon of Alexandria's commentary on Ptolemy's Handy Tables (Procheiroi kanones), which were also of use to astrologers. The selection of Egyptian place‐names found on the map provides some clue to its possible origin, while the omission of the Mediterranean as well as the port of Alexandria is significant. Evidence suggests that the original map (known today only through later copies) is of an earlier date than the texts surrounding it, and that it may be one of the earliest world maps preserved from Late Antiquity.     

Seasonality and season of birth of modern and late Neolithic sheep from south-eastern France using tooth enamel δO analysis

Stable oxygen isotopic analysis of tooth enamel was used to investigate seasonality and season of birth in sheep. Analyses were performed on the teeth of eight modern sheep bred at the Carmejane farm in south-eastern France and born in different periods of the year. This reference data set confirms that oxygen isotopic records in the second and third molars can be used to differentiate between sheep born in late winter and those born in early autumn. The results show that inter-individual variability in the timing of tooth formation is low for the second lower molar and more pronounced for the third lower molar in this population. The duration of the process of enamel mineralization has been estimated at approximately six months. The teeth of four sheep and two goats from the late Neolithic site of Collet-Redon in south-eastern France were analyzed using the same methodology. At this site, lambing occurred between the late winter and early spring. A slight difference appears in the seasonal sequence recorded in sheep and goat, although it cannot be determined, whether this is due to different timing of tooth development, or an actual shift in the birth period. From the distribution of slaughter ages and birth period, it is suggested that domestic caprines were killed throughout the year and that Collet-Redon was probably a permanent settlement.