Coles Creek fauna procurement strategies: subsistence diversity among late prehistoric hunter-gatherer-horticulturalists in the Lower Mississippi Valley

In the late 1980s, a collaborative effort between Harvard University’s Lower Mississippi Survey and Tulane University’s Center for Archaeology launched a study examining the causes and consequences of subsistence change in the Lower Mississippi Valley. The Osceola Project contributed the first formal study of late prehistoric faunal remains within the Alluvial Plain, becoming the standard against which all subsequent Coles Creek faunal assemblages have been measured. Recent evidence recovered from three sites located in the Eastern Uplands presented the opportunity to compare and contrast vertebrate subsistence in these two distinct physiographic regions. We hypothesize that a clear distinction exists between lowland and upland Coles Creek procurement strategies. This article evaluates this claim by examining species diversity, spatial patterns, and temporal trends evident within an eight-site sample. The results suggest that the primary factor influencing Coles Creek fauna procurement was the immediate environment, and that the composition of Late Woodland period diets may be a reflection of efficiency of effort rather than food access or scarcity.     

Indigenous Bioregionalisms (Love Mother Earth) Relationship,Creation, Ethics,Love

Indigenous Bioregionalisms (Love Mother Earth) are identities, methods, and philosophies defining our relationships between beloved Home Land Place and all Living Beings (written here as Home/Land/Place). Indigenous Bioregionalisms actively creates, maintains, and ensures the continuance and thrive‐ance of all Beings. It proposes a way to understand Indigenous belonging to and with Home/Land/Place—the expansive physical, natural, and SuperNatural source of life, transformance, and regeneration—of every Being.     

Late Holocene Historical Ecology: The Timing of Vertebrate Extirpation on Crooked Island,Commonwealth of The Bahamas

We report eight new accelerator-mass spectrometer (AMS) radiocarbon (¹⁴C) dates performed directly on individual bones of extirpated species from Crooked Island, The Bahamas. Three dates from the hutia (Geocapromys ingrahami), recovered from a culturally derived bone assemblage in McKay's Bluff Cave (site CR-5), all broadly overlap from AD 1450 to 1620, which encompasses the time of first European contact with the Lucayan on Crooked Island (AD 1492). Marine fish and hutia dominate the bone assemblage at McKay's Bluff Cave, shedding light on vertebrate consumption by the Lucayans just before their demise. A fourth AMS ¹⁴C date on a hutia bone, from a non-cultural surface context in Crossbed Cave (site CR-25), is similar (AD 1465 to 1645) to those from McKay's Bluff Cave. From Pittstown Landing (site CR-14), an open coastal archaeological site, a femur of the Cuban crocodile (Crocodylus rhombifer) yielded an AMS ¹⁴C date of AD ～1050–1250, which is early in the Lucayan cultural sequence. From a humerus in a non-cultural surface context in 1702 Cave (site CR-26), we document survival of the Cuban crocodile on Crooked Island until AD ～1300–1400, which is several hundred years later than the well-documented extinction of Cuban crocodiles on Abaco in the northern Bahamas. We lack a clear explanation of why Cuban crocodiles likely survived longer on Crooked Island than on a larger Bahamian island such as Abaco. One AMS ¹⁴C date on Crooked Island's extinct, undescribed species of tortoise (Chelonoidis sp.) from 1702 Cave is BC 790 to 540 (2740 to 2490 cal BP), which is ～1500–1700 years prior to human arrival. A second AMS ¹⁴C date, on a fibula of this tortoise from McKay's Bluff Cave, is AD 1025 to 1165, thereby demonstrating survival of this extinct species into the period of human occupation.     

Faunal remains from the Islamic fort at Luluyyah (Sharjah,UAE)

Knowledge about human subsistence and the role of animal economy in the Islamic period of south‐east Arabia is still sketchy. The analysis of faunal remains from the coastal fort at Luluyyah (Sharjah, UAE), dated to the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century CE, provides some information. People depended on marine resources and domestic animals, a trait observable in the region since the Neolithic. Livestock breeding was not particularly developed. Judging by the distribution of their skeletal remains, the animals were slaughtered at the fort, implying that they either lived there or reached it alive.     

Assessing the level of visibility of cultural objects in past landscapes

Visibility is often understood to play a significant role in the placement of cultural objects within past landscapes. In recent years, GIS-based visibility studies have become popular as a method for assessing the role of views to and from sites and features. A significant drawback to these analyses is that they do not take into account how far an object can be clearly seen and recognized. A number of factors influence the visibility of objects, including the limits of human visual acuity, environmental effects such as atmospheric extinction, and the physical properties of object and surroundings. Current approaches that attempt to account for these influences focus on defining visual zones, but are limited because they do not directly address object size. A fuzzy viewshed approach, modified to account for target size, is suggested as a solution for assessing the level of visibility of cultural objects in past landscapes.     

Using microscopy to improve a diagnosis: an isolated case of tuberculosis‐induced hypertrophic osteopathy in archaeological dog remains

The use of histology to estimate age, understand taphonomic history and diagnose disease in human skeletal and mummified remains is a well‐known method. Even though non‐human animals experience stress and disease similar to humans, microscopy is rarely applied to faunal remains to obtain a diagnosis. Histological results from a 16^th‐century Iroquoian dog which had previously been diagnosed by macroscopic and molecular methods with tuberculosis‐induced hypertrophic osteopathy (HPO) are presented here. Comparisons indicate that canid microscopic skeletal manifestations of HPO are reminiscent of human alterations caused by this condition. In addition, the microscopy reveals an aggressive form of HPO that was chronic in nature which could not be identified by either macroscopic or molecular methods. By providing an extension to the original diagnosis, the impact of a chronic case of tuberculosis is discussed. This study helps to emphasise the utility of palaeohistopathology in both biological anthropology and zooarchaeology, as it allows for a deeper discussion of the manifestation of HPO and the impact of tuberculosis on both dogs and humans. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Graptolite faunas and monaxonid demosponges of the Cyrtograptus lundgreni event (late Wenlock,Silurian) interval from the Orange district,New South Wales

Muir, L.A. & Botting, J.P., December, 2007. Graptolite faunas and monaxonid demosponges of the Cyrtograptus lundgreni event (late Wenlock, Silurian) interval from the Orange district, New South Wales. Alcheringa 31, 375-395. ISSN 0311-5518.

Three monograptid and five retiolitid graptoloids, and one species of sponge, are described from late Wenlock sections (Cyr. lundgreni and Co. ludensis biozones) at Spring Creek and Wallace Creek, near Orange, New South Wales, Australia. The sponge Janussenia orangense gen. et sp. nov. is the first monaxonid demosponge to be described from the Australian Silurian. An object containing broken Testograptus testis, and interpreted as the faecal pellet of a predator or scavenger on graptoloids, is described.

Lucy A. Muir [l.muir@nhm.ac.uk], Department of Palaeontology, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK. Joseph P. Botting [joe@asoldasthehills.org], 2C Roslyn Close, Mitcham CR4 3BB, UK. Received 28.4.2006; Revised 10.10.2006.     

The southernmost records of Anhingidae and a new basal species of Anatidae (Aves) from the lower–middle Miocene of Patagonia,Argentina

New bird fossils from the Santa Cruz Formation (lower–middle Miocene), Santa Cruz Province, Patagonia, Argentina, are described. They represent an indeterminate species of the extinct anhingid Macranhinga and a new genus and species of basal Anatidae Ankonetta larriestrai. The record of the giant darter Macranhinga constitutes the southernmost record for the family, and expands the known stratigraphic range of the genus, previously restricted to the upper Miocene. Based on an analysis of the fossil anhingid record from South America, we hypothesize that giant darters disappeared from South America in the early Pliocene due to climatic deterioration, regression of marine and freshwater environments, the arrival of placental carnivorous mammals, and also probably by competition with phalacrocoracid cormorants. The new anatid Ankonetta is based on an incomplete but informative tarsometatarsus, with superficial similarities to extant Dendrocygna. A brief overview of several fossil ducks from the Patagonian Cenozoic concludes that most pre-Pliocene examples belong to non-anatine taxa, indicating that plesiomorphic ducks were the dominant anseriforms in those times, a pattern also evident on other continents.     

Comparing methods for analysing mortality profiles in zooarchaeological and palaeontological samples

In this study, I examine three methods that are currently used for comparing mortality profiles from zooarchaeological and palaeontological samples: (1) histograms with 10% of life‐span age classes; (2) boxplots showing tooth crown height medians; and (3) triangular plots of the proportions of young, prime and old animals. I assess the advantages and disadvantages of each method using data collected on two samples of Northern Yellowstone elk (Cervus elaphus nelsoni) with known, or cementum annuli‐determined, ages at death. One sample was hunted by wolves (n = 96), and the other was hunted by recent humans using rifles (n = 226). I tested each method with the known or cementum annuli age distributions and with age estimation techniques appropriate for archaeological assemblages. Histograms are best used when the relationship between dental eruption/attrition and age is well established so that individuals can be confidently assigned into 10% of life‐span groups, and when more than 30 or 40 individuals are present in the assemblage. Boxplots employ raw crown heights, thus removing the error introduced by assigning specimens to age classes, and therefore they allow the analysis of species where the relationship between dental eruption/attrition and age is unknown. Confidence intervals around the medians allow samples to be statistically compared. Triangular plots are easy to use and allow multiple samples and species to be considered simultaneously, but samples cannot be statistically compared. Modified triangular plots bootstrap samples to provide 95% confidence ellipses, allowing for statistical comparisons between samples. When possible, samples should be examined using multiple methods to increase confidence in the results. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Radiocarbon age determinations of fossil Margaritifera auricularia (Spengler) from the River Thames in West London

In the early 1900s shells of a large freshwater mussel, Margaritifera auricularia (Spengler), were discovered in calcreted gravel dredged from the channel of the Thames at several sites between Mortlake and Battersea in west London. These specimens were said to have been associated with Neolithic polished stone axes, supposedly as food remains. M. auricularia is now extinct in Britain, but it has been reported living in several large rivers in southern Europe although apparently not in recent years. Three radiocarbon dates of 4140±50, 4340±45 and 4860±40 bp have been obtained from Thames specimens, supporting a Neolithic age for these shells. The theory that the shells represent debris from imported human food is discounted and it is considered more likely that M. auricularia was actually living in the Thames in Neolithic times. Its extinction in Britain should be seen as part of a general recession during the Post-glacial, as revealed by fossil occurrences to the north and east of its present-day range.