西藏旧石器时代的再认识——以阿里日土县夏达错东北岸地点为中心

一、引言面对险恶的生存环境,初上西藏高原的人们在体会了缺氧、寒冷、资源缺乏后,都不仅要问人类何时拓殖这一片广袤的高原[1]。西藏高原有无旧石器时代遗存,是21世纪     

Bois Laiterie revisited: functional,morphological and technological analysis of a Late Glacial hunting camp in north-western Europe

Previous exhaustive analysis of the remains at Bois Laiterie Cave resulted in the classification of this site as a Magdalenian hunting camp. However, during recent analysis of usewear-traces on selected artefacts, one of the authors [KS] noticed in the collection numerous backed points which are rather untypical for the classical Magdalenian. In light of this, a typological and technological reinvestigation of the Bois Laiterie assemblage was undertaken. Here, we present the results of this investigation and the traceological analysis. Further, implications of these results for the interpretation of the chronological, archaeo-cultural and functional position of the Bois Laiterie site within the context of the north-western European Late Glacial are discussed.     

Discriminating Paleoindian point types from Florida using landmark geometric morphometrics

Traditional artifact typologies are typically poorly defined. While several attributes usually help define a “type,” shape is invariably the most important. Here I report on a study that uses landmark-based geometric morphometrics to better define three Paleoindian point types from Florida: Suwannees, Simpsons, and Transitional Side Notched. Bilaterally symmetric specimens were created from the original artifacts to capture the presumed ideational forms of the points. The shapes of the bases and the entire points were tested to determine whether the types could be discriminated, and if so which shape was best at discriminating the types. The results show that the base configurations were best at discriminating the groups in two different jackknife allocation tests. The entire point shape was less robust due to the variability in blade shape. The study demonstrates that the three point types can be rigorously defined in ways that are usable in daily archaeological practice, and that base shape, rather than the entire shape, is a better discriminator. Further, the study demonstrates the utility of using several freeware programs for processing and analyzing shape data.     

Morphometry of Middle Bronze Age palstaves. Part II – spatial distribution of shapes in two typological groups,implications for production and exportation

For archaeologists, metallic artifacts are key materials to assess Middle Bronze Age production areas and cultural exchanges. Here, a set of 629 bronze palstaves excavated in northern France, belonging to Breton and Norman typological groups, was treated by (open) outline-based morphometrics with orthogonal polynomial regression. Using robust statistics developed for outlier detection, these Norman and Breton palstave outlines can be divided into two groups: those for which the shape fluctuates close to the standard shape, called “congruent” axes, and those which are far enough from this standard to be considered as “non-congruent”, although they possess most of the features of the typological group. The highest density of discovery (whether congruent and non-congruent in shape) is in the extreme east of Brittany for the Breton axes, while the Norman axes are concentrated in northern Normandy, hence the choice of names. However, the distribution of congruent and non-congruent artifacts appears to be spatially dependent for the Norman group, and to a lesser extent for the Breton group, as there are proportionally more congruent specimens inside the supposed production areas than outside. This contradicts the generally accepted archaeological scheme which hypothesizes that all axes in a group originate from the same production center, and that some items were exported from there to supply neighboring regions. Other minor production centers probably existed, copying the original model with greater shape variation.     

The Absolute Speed of Change: Multidimensional Scaling and Innovation Rates

The evaluation of societal developments depends on a clear determination of the rate of change that occurs within societies. While many statistical approaches are able to indicate similarity/dissimilarity distances between archaeological assemblages, only a few can be linked to linear timescales. In the following approach, the advantages of non‐metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) are described as a method that produces gradients for a quantitative measurement of cultural change on a linear timescale. Thus, the speed of innovations or the regression of cultural developments could be quantified. In consequence, a quantified proxy of societal developments on a linear timescale is provided. In two examples, the usefulness of such a proxy is described in relation to other data.     

渭河流域老官台文化的分期研究

The Laoguantai Culture is used to describe the archaeological remains distributed in the Wei and Han River Valley during the Middle Neolithic Period. This article is mainly dealing with the chronological sequence of the Laoguantai Cul- ture in the Wei River Valley. Based on the stratigraphical relationships and the characteristics of ceramics, the author subdivides the archaeological remains into two major periods and five phases, and generalizes the chronological idiosyncrasies of the Laoguantai Culture. This paper then lies down a solid foundation for the studies of settlement, demography and teelmology during the Middle Neolithic Period.     

Glass Trade Beads from the Goose Lake Outlet #3 Site (20MQ140), Marquette County,Michigan

This article describes analyses of the glass trade-bead assemblage of the Goose Lake Outlet #3 (GLO#3) site (20MQ140), a probable short-term winter campsite located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Based on typological and attribute analysis of the beads, which employed the Kidd and Kidd classification system and comparison with published “glass bead periods” or GBPs developed for assemblages in Ontario, the GLO#3 bead assemblage is assigned a date within the 1630s. Comparison with other midwestern protohistoric assemblages further supports this interpretation. Situated within a protohistoric period of intercultural interaction and exchange, the material culture from the site provides archaeological evidence for some of the earliest arrivals of European-made trade items in the Midwest.     

Archaeological and archaeomagnetic dating at a site from the ager Tarraconensis (Tarragona,Spain): El Vila-sec Roman pottery

A very accurate archaeological dating of a Roman site in NE Spain (El Vila-sec) was made based on the typology of pottery artifacts. Three different phases were identified with activity ranging from the mid-1st century BC to the early-3rd century AD. Analyses of bricks from kilns at El Vila-sec produced data on their stored archaeomagnetic vector. These data were compared with the secular variation curve for the Iberian Peninsula and the SCHA.DIF.3K regional archaeomagnetic model. Both, the reference curve and the model, produced probability distributions for the final period of use for two kilns from the second archaeological phase that were not used during the third phase. At a 95% confidence level, both time distributions cover a wide chronological range including the presumed archaeological age. Both the Iberian secular variation curve and the SCHA.DIF.3K regional model proved to be suitable models for dating the site, although on their own they do not produce a single unambiguous solution. This archaeomagnetic approach could also be applied to neighbouring archaeological sites that have an imprecise archaeological age.     

Morphometry of Middle Bronze Age palstaves by Discrete Cosine Transform

The Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) is a Fourier-related transform widely used in signal processing and well suited to the analysis of open outlines. This method was applied here to evaluate the discrimination power of the inner lateral rib for two palstave populations dating from the Middle Bronze Age, excavated in northwest France. A corpus of almost 400 palstaves (bronze axes) of the Breton and Norman types was processed, and compared to specimens found at Sermizelles in Burgundy. The procedure is robust and produces a discrimination in good agreement with the traditional typology. Besides the definition of a ‘standard’ shape for each population, the morphometrical approach allows shape disparity, which is generally inaccessible to the naked eye, to be visualised and quantified. Shape disparity indicates that, contrary to previous assumptions, the bronze axes from the Sermizelles hoards cannot be explained as an assortment of Breton and Norman palstaves alone. We believe that this approach is quick, reproducible, and generalisable enough to be applied to a wide variety of artefacts from different periods, in order to clarify their typology and even their origin.