Who Lived in Mauermanshoek Shelter, Korannaberg, South Africa?

Mauermanshoek Shelter, in the Korannaberg of the eastern Free State, has traditional San hunter–gatherer rock art together with white finger-painted horsemen of uncertain authorship. The excavated material dates to between 3500 bp and approximately 200 bp. The lithic assemblages show little change throughout, but ceramics, glass beads, and domesticated animal remains appear in the uppermost levels. The issue of most interest is that of the shelter's occupancy in the last few hundred years. Historical records show that the ethnic composition of the eastern Free State was complex during this time and that there were both aggressive and cooperative interactions between the various groups. Kora pastoralists were notorious stock raiders and the secure identification of other people on the landscape was complicated by a tendency for early writers to call all raiders Kora. A combination of archaeological and historical evidence suggests that San occupied the shelter for most of its history but that Kora herders may have been responsible for the finger-painted horsemen somewhere between 1837 and 1851 when a Wesleyan Mission Station, Merumetsu, served the Kora of Korannaberg.La grotte de Mauermanshoek, située dans le Korannaberg, à l'est de la province du Free State, contient des peintres rupestres de tradition San, réalisées par des chasseurs/bergers, ainsi que des cavaliers blancs, peint avec le doigt, d'une origine incertaine. Le matériel qu'on a trouvé dans les fouilles daté d'une période entre 3500 bp et approximativement 200 bp. L'industrie lithique est très homogène sur l'ensemble du site, mais des céramiques, des perles de verre et des restes d'animaux domestiques sont présents aux niveaux supérieurs. L'occupation de l'abri pendant les quelques centaines d'années passées est d'un inérêt tout particulier. Selon les archives historiques, la composition ethnique de la partie est du Free State était, à l'époque, complexe et il y avait les interactions à la fois agressifs et coopératifs entre les groupes différents. Les pasteurs Kora sont bien connus pour leur réputation d'attaquer les troupeaux mais l'identification certaine des autres peuplades est compliquée par le fait que les premiers écrivains rapportaient tous les aggresseurs comme des Kora. Une combinaison d'indices archeologiques et historiques suggère que les San occupèrent cette grotte pour la plus grande partie de son histoire mais que des bergers Kora pourraient être à l'origine des cavaliers peints avec le doigt, probablement entre 1837–1851, la période durant laquelle une mission Wesleyan servait le Kora de la région du Korannaberg.     

Notes & News

Abstract

This paper examines the British Museum unpublished records related to an Early Bronze (EB) Age pithos burial uncovered a century ago in the Inner Town at Carchemish. The grave, cursorily cited and variously dated (Chalcolithic, EB or even LBA) in the final reports, was described in some detail by Hogarth and Thompson; a precise dating is, however, possible today thanks to the information of paramount importance given by T. E. Lawrence who identified and took a picture of the associated finds, which was recently rediscovered in the Carchemish Archives. The pithos can be now ascribed to the third quarter of the third millennium BC and helps to confirm the recent theory according to which the Inner Town of Carchemish, with its massive earthen rampart, had already developed at the time of the second urbanisation in Syria and upper Mesopotamia.     

铜仁锦江流域先秦时期遗址发掘的主要收获

2010年3～5月,贵州省文物考古研究所等单位对贵州省东部铜仁市锦江流域的磨刀湾、笔架冲、方田坝等遗址进行了发掘和试掘,此次工作是建国以来在贵州省锦江流域首次进行的系统考古发掘工作,获得了一批夏商、西周、两汉和宋明清时期的考古资料,具有重要的学术意义.本文着重介绍此次考古发掘中先秦时期遗存的主要收获,并对其学术意义展开初步讨论.     

HELLENISTIC ARCHITECTURE IN JAFFA: THE 2009 EXCAVATIONS OF THE JAFFA CULTURAL HERITAGE PROJECT IN THE VISITOR'S CENTRE

Abstract

In 2009 the Jaffa Cultural Heritage Project undertook a pilot-project excavation within the soon-to-be-renovated visitor's centre in Qedumim Square. These excavations were intended to clarify stratigraphic questions within area C of Jacob Kaplan's excavations (1961, 1965) and to lay the groundwork for future excavations by the project which was founded in 2007 as a partnership between UCLA and the Israel Antiquities Authority. Along with achieving these goals, the excavations exposed one of the best preserved examples of Hellenistic architecture in the southern Levant and confirmed the employment of a Hippodamian-style town plan from as early as the late Persian period.     

A computerized system to determine the provenance of finds in archaeological sites using acoustic signals

Some archaeological excavations require the accurate determination of the provenance of finds (three-dimensional location and orientation) for a subsequent spatial analysis. The traditional manual measurement using a grid reference is not a very efficient registration method. Some proposed computerized solutions based on total stations, photogrammetry and DGPS, are more effective but have some limitations. This paper presents a new acoustic localization system (3D-LOCUS) for measuring the three-dimensional position of finds in archaeological sites. The system can also be used for registering the size, shape and orientation of artifacts. 3D-LOCUS basically consists of a set of wireless rod-like pointing devices that are localized with a network of intelligent nodes installed above the excavation site. Archaeologists use the pointing device as a stylus to locate and outline the object under study. The main technological characteristics of the system are: omnidirectional wideband acoustic transducers, Bidirectional Time-Of-Arrival (BTOA) estimation, redundant ranging and robust trilateration. 3D-LOCUS achieves an accurate registration, even if used simultaneously to the digging labor, or in noisy or turbulent airflow conditions. We tested the system in the Gran Dolina archaeological site (Atapuerca, Spain). The typical location accuracy is below 10 mm in natural conditions, and the achieved resolution is 5 mm, which allows us sketching objects with enough detail.     

Writing the History of Archaeology in the Pacific: Voices and Perspectives

ABSTRACT

In histories of world archaeology to date the Pacific is all but missing. There has been some investigation into the history of archaeology in Australia and New Zealand, and other piecemeal work focusing on single countries or biographies of individuals, but much remains to be done. We offer a critical overview of general literature on the history of archaeology in the Pacific and stress the potential for a deeper knowledge of archaeology's histories in the region to transform current archaeological theory and practice. We then suggest important avenues for further investigation, including the historiography of Pacific archaeology, diverse national and linguistic traditions, international linkages between scholars and practitioners, pre-World War II excavations, theories about trans-Pacific contacts, and the often-hidden importance of women and Indigenous scholars and interlocutors in the field. Each of these themes is addressed by one or more of the papers in this special issue.