Raised fields in the Bolivian Amazonia: a prehistoric green revolution or a flood risk mitigation strategy?

The Llanos de Moxos (LM), Beni, Bolivia, with its impressive number of pre-Columbian earthworks, is an ideal region for studying past human–environment interactions in the Amazonia. Agricultural raised fields are among the most striking of those earthworks. They can offer us valuable information about the region’s agricultural carrying capacity and the nature and extent of human occupation in pre-Columbian times and, therefore, help adopt better informed conservation and development strategies for Amazonia in the future. However, before tackling these issues we need to further our understanding of why pre-Columbian raised fields were built and how they were managed in the past. Published data on raised fields in the LM is contrasted with new data gathered from field and remote sensing images. Raised fields have been analysed in relation to the hydrology, soil, topography and paleoclimate of the areas where they are found. In light of this new data we believe that there are grounds to question the current model that suggests raised field agriculture provided high yields without the need of fallow periods, representing a kind of pre-Columbian green revolution. Our alternative proposal suggests that raised field agriculture allowed pre-Columbian peoples to mitigate the risk of more intense and frequent flooding than is experienced today in the LM. We show that raised fields were built only in those areas where there were no alternatives, which do not coincide with those areas where pre-Columbian societies seem to have flourished and reached high levels of social complexity.     

A Problematic Mississippian Pipe from the William Vaux Collection

William Samson Vaux, Esq., was an enthusiastic nineteenth-century collector of minerals, artifacts, and coins. Passionately interested in the sciences, particularly archaeology and geology, he amassed an unparalleled collection of Native American artifacts that he later donated to the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. Today these finds are housed by Bryn Mawr College. Included in the collection is a noteworthy Mississippian effigy pipe. Carved from stone, the pipe depicts a Birdman encircled by rattlesnakes and holding a chunkey stone. This article examines the pipe in its cultural, historical, and religious contexts. It also explores the larger question of the pipe’s authenticity. Ultimately, we argue that the pipe is almost certainly an original Mississippian pipe and an important addition to the corpus of known Mississippian effigy pipes. Moreover, its study highlights the potential of museum collections to provide new information about both past societies and the history of archaeology.     

Early Neolithic diet and animal husbandry: stable isotope evidence from three Linearbandkeramik (LBK) sites in Central Germany

The first appearance of the Neolithic Linearbandkeramik (LBK) in Central Germany occurred during the 6th millennium BC. However, though LBK sites are abundant in the German loess areas, there are only a few studies that reconstruct the diet of these first farmers using biochemical methods. Here we present the largest study undertaken to date on LBK material using stable isotope analysis of carbon and nitrogen to reconstruct human diet and animal husbandry strategies. We analyzed the bone collagen of 97 human individuals and 45 associated animals from the sites of Derenburg, Halberstadt and Karsdorf in the Middle Elbe–Saale region of Central Germany. Mean adult human values are ?19.9 ± 0.4‰ for δ¹³C and 8.7 ± 0.8‰ for δ¹⁵N. The δ¹³C values are typical for terrestrial, temperate European regions, whereas the δ¹⁵N values fall within an expected range for farming societies with a mixed diet consisting of products from domestic animals and plants. The consumption of unfermented dairy products is unlikely as there is direct palaeogenetic evidence of lactose intolerance available for one of the sites. There are no clear indications for dietary differences in sex. Young children under three years of age are enriched in δ¹⁵N due to breastfeeding indicating that weaning likely occurred around the age of three years. The fauna exhibit mean δ¹³C values of ?20.9 ± 0.8‰ and mean δ¹⁵N values of 7.0 ± 0.9‰ respectively. Variation in the δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N in the domestic animals is probably caused by different livestock managements.