The recovery and interpretation of microvertebrate bone assemblages from archaeological contexts

The analysis of microvertebrate remains recovered from buried contexts is frequently problematic for archaeologists. Diminutive size is a major obstacle to recovering, identifying, and interpreting microfaunal bone materials successfully. Their taphonomic history is often obscure, thus the significance of microvertebrate accumulations for settlement, subsistence, and ecological interpretation is difficult to evaluate. Recognizable and reliable archaeological signatures are sought for assessing the effect of taphonomic history on microvertebrate assemblages. Relevant signatures of bone damage, skeletal survivorship, taxonomic composition, and context are examined in assemblages produced and modified through accidental non-predator-related death, predator accumulation, and postmortem alteration.     

The death and burial of sunghir 1

The Mid Upper Paleolithic Sunghir 1 burial of an older adult male is one of the most elaborate burials known, with red ochre, thousands of mammoth ivory beads, and other body ornaments. Reanalysis and cleaning of the skeletal remains revealed a perimortem incision in the ventral–lateral first thoracic vertebra (T1) body, most likely from a sharp blade or point and the probable cause of death. Context indicates that the trauma was most likely from a hunting accident or social altercation. The unusual cause of death may be correlated with the exceptional burial elaboration of Sunghir 1, adding to the high frequency of unusual individuals in the ‘red ochre’ burials of the Mid Upper Paleolithic. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Late Pleistocene mammalian extinctions in North America: Taxonomy,chronology, and explanations

Toward the end of the Pleistocene, North America lost some 35 genera of mammals. It has long been assumed that all or virtually all of the extinctions occurred between 12,000 and 10,000 years ago, but detailed analyses of the radiocarbon chronology provide little support for this assumption, which seems to have been widely accepted because of the kinds of explanations felt most likely to account for the extinctions in the first place. Approaches that attribute the losses to human predation depend almost entirely on the assumed synchroneity between the extinctions and the onset of large mammal hunting by North American peoples. The fact that only two of the extinct genera have been found in a convincing kill context presents an overwhelming problem for this approach. Climatic models, on the other hand, are becoming increasingly precise and account for a wide variety of apparently synchronous biogeographic events. While a role for human activities in the extinction of some taxa is fully possible, there can be little doubt that the underlying cause of the extinctions lies in massive climatic change.