‘Why did they take him away?’ The theft of Neddy Larkin

Neddy Larkin, a Bundjalung man from New South Wales, Australia, was stolen from his grave and in 1891 sold to the Peabody Museum, Cambridge, MA. This paper uses the methodology and concepts outlined in Latour’s An Inquiry into Modes of Existence to chart Neddy Larkin’s transitions from kinsman to scientific data.     

Trace-element evidence for foreigners at a Maya port in Northern Yucatan

The present paper explores the potentials of trace elements in human dental enamel to indicate mobility and to detect the presence of individuals who had migrated into a community after childhood. Three Pre-Hispanic samples of infants from the Yucatán peninsula were chosen, one from the northern coast (Xcambó), one from the coast of the Gulf of Mexico (Campeche) and the last one from the tropical inland rain forest (Calakmul). Infants’ first permanent molars are the term of reference because infants were very likely born in the same place where they died and therefore are supposed to represent the local geo-chemical environment. Their chemical signature was then compared to the one of the adults from the site of Xcambó. The elemental composition was recorded by means of laser ablation-time of flight-ICP-MS. Sr and Ba (and secondly Mg and I) discriminate well the three infant samples. All the Early Classic adults from Xcambó fall within the range of variation of the site’s infants, while 25% of the Late Classic adults fall outside the range in agreement with archaeological, bioarcheological, and isotopic evidence. LA-ICP-Ms analyses of trace elements in archaeological samples can be an important analytical tool to detect foreigners in local populations. The selection of infants as reference values helps reduce the limits faced by trace element analyses in past human populations studies.     

Lifestyle,occupation, and whole bone morphology of the pre‐Hispanic Maya coastal population from Xcambó, Yucatan,Mexico

The present bioarchaeological study examines the external diaphyseal geometric properties of humeri, radii, femora and tibiae of the Classic period skeletal population of Xcambó, Yucatan, Mexico. The diaphysial proportions are evaluated using a biomechanical approach together with data from the material context and other osteological information. Our intent is to provide new answers to questions concerning lifestyle, domestic labour division and subsistence strategies of this coastal Maya settlement that was inhabited from the Late and Terminal Preclassic (300 BC–350 AD) to the Postclassic Period (900–1500 AD). Our results provide evidence for a marked sexual division of labour when compared with values from contemporaneous inland populations. The overall male and female loading patterns differ remarkably in terms of form and in bilateral comparison. A high directional asymmetry in the upper limbs is evident among males, a condition related to maritime transportation and trading activities. On the other hand, female upper limbs are characterized by very low side differences. Forces on the arms of women were probably dominated by food processing, in particular the grinding of grains or seeds. In the lower limbs, males show significantly higher anteroposterior bending strengths, which can be explained by greater engagement in transportation tasks and carrying heavy loads. In the course of the Classic period (350–900 AD), diachronic changes affect the male sample only, which suggests a shift of occupational pattern and physical demands. This shift, in turn, reflects Xcambó's changing role as the centre of a densifying settlement area and its place in the trading activities of northern Yucatan. Other topics of discussion relate to general regional trends and local prehispanic subsistence strategies. Our conclusions emphasize the value of geometric long bone analysis in the reconstruction of activity patterns and lifestyles in ancient coastal settlements. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A proxy of potters’ throwing skill: ceramic vessels considered in terms of mechanical stress

This study is aimed at evaluating potters’ skills according to the mechanical characteristics of the vessels they produced. It focuses on wheel thrown vessels. In a first stage, considering that the difficulty of throwing ceramic vessels is to a significant extent determined by the risk of collapse of the thrown structure, we applied the method of finite element modelling to derive an index of mechanical stresses operating within a vessel. Validated via compression tests, the so-called Von Mises stress index was employed as a global index of mechanical difficulty. Because this index allows comparisons between vessels of different form, mass, and clay properties, it provides a more powerful tool than existing techno-morphological taxonomies. In a second stage, in order to relate the Von Mises stress index to throwing difficulty, we analysed the geometrical and mechanical characteristics of vessels thrown by eleven expert potters invited to reproduce four different model forms with two different masses of clay. The results demonstrated that reproductions revealed subtle but systematic deviations from the model forms that allowed a decrease in the mechanical difficulty. More difficult forms showed larger degrees of mechanical optimisation. These results, in combination with a new analysis of data from Roux’s (1990) study with potters of different skill levels, indicate that skill resides, at least to a certain extent, in the capacity to marshal the operative mechanical constraints. In other words, the latter, measured by the Von Mises index, provides a useful signature of a potter’s skills.