Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory最新文献

“Open Sourcing” Workflow and Machine Learning Approaches for Attributing Obsidian Artifacts to Their Volcanic Origins: A Feasibility Study from the South Caucasus

IF 2.3 1区历史学

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory Pub Date : 2025-01-27 DOI: 10.1007/s10816-025-09695-8

Pavol Hnila, Ellery Frahm, Alessandra Gilibert, Arsen Bobokhyan

{"title":"“Open Sourcing” Workflow and Machine Learning Approaches for Attributing Obsidian Artifacts to Their Volcanic Origins: A Feasibility Study from the South Caucasus","authors":"Pavol Hnila, Ellery Frahm, Alessandra Gilibert, Arsen Bobokhyan","doi":"10.1007/s10816-025-09695-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-025-09695-8","url":null,"abstract":"Traditionally, reliable obsidian sourcing requires expensive calibration standards and extensive geological reference collections as well as experience with statistical processing. In the South Caucasus — one of the most obsidian-rich regions on the planet — this combination of requirements has often restricted sourcing studies because few projects have geological reference collections that cover all known obsidian sources. To test an alternative approach, we conducted “open sourcing” using portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) analyses of geological specimens with three key changes to the conventional method: (1) commercially available calibration standards were replaced with a loanable Peabody-Yale Reference Obsidians (PYRO) set, (2) a comprehensive geological reference collection was replaced with a published dataset of consensus values (Frahm, 2023a, 2023b), and (3) processing in statistical packages was replaced with two semiautomated machine-learning workflows available online. For comparison, we used classification by-eye with JMP 17.2 statistical software. Furthermore, we propose a new method to evaluate calibrations, which streamlines comparisons and which we refer to as a symmetric difference ratio (SDR). The results of this feasibility study demonstrate that this “open sourcing” workflow is reliable, yet currently only in combination with classification by-eye. When the consensus values were combined with the machine-learning solutions, the classification results were unsatisfactory. The most encouraging aspect of our alternative “open sourcing” workflow is that it enables correct source identification without physically measuring reference collections, therefore surmounting an obstacle that, until now, has severely limited archaeological research. We anticipate that rapid developments in machine-learning will also soon improve the workflow.","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-01-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143049971","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Comparing Summed Probability Distributions of Shoreline and Radiocarbon Dates from the Mesolithic Skagerrak Coast of Norway

IF 2.3 1区历史学

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory Pub Date : 2025-01-24 DOI: 10.1007/s10816-025-09696-7

Isak Roalkvam, Steinar Solheim

{"title":"Comparing Summed Probability Distributions of Shoreline and Radiocarbon Dates from the Mesolithic Skagerrak Coast of Norway","authors":"Isak Roalkvam, Steinar Solheim","doi":"10.1007/s10816-025-09696-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-025-09696-7","url":null,"abstract":"By developing a new methodology for handling and assessing a large number of shoreline dated sites, this paper compares the summed probability distribution of radiocarbon dates and shoreline dates along the Skagerrak coast of south-eastern Norway. Both measures have previously been compared to elucidate demographic developments in Fennoscandia, but these have not been based on probabilistic methods for shoreline dating. The findings indicate a largely diverging development of the two data sets through the Mesolithic. The number of shoreline dated sites undergoes some process of overall decrease through the period, while the radiocarbon data is characterised by a lacking signal in the earliest parts of the period and then undergoes a logistic growth that quickly plateaus and remains stable for the remainder of the period. The precise nature of this discrepancy will necessitate further substantiation and the method of shoreline dating itself still requires further testing and assessment. Having noted this, we still tentatively suggest that while the number of shoreline dated sites is not devoid of influence from a demographic signal, this measure could be more heavily influenced by mobility patterns. Conversely, we also suggest that the lacking radiocarbon data from the earliest part of the Mesolithic is in part the result of mobility patterns, but that the radiocarbon data could be reflecting population dynamics more directly.","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"49 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-01-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143030912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

“A Network of Mutualities of Being”: Socio-material Archaeological Networks and Biological Ties at Çatalhöyük “相互存在的网络”：社会-物质考古网络和生物联系，网址：Çatalhöyük

IF 2.3 1区历史学

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory Pub Date : 2025-01-23 DOI: 10.1007/s10816-024-09692-3

Camilla Mazzucato, Michele Coscia, Ayça Küçükakdağ Doğu, Scott Haddow, Muhammed Sıddık Kılıç, Eren Yüncü, Mehmet Somel

{"title":"“A Network of Mutualities of Being”: Socio-material Archaeological Networks and Biological Ties at Çatalhöyük","authors":"Camilla Mazzucato, Michele Coscia, Ayça Küçükakdağ Doğu, Scott Haddow, Muhammed Sıddık Kılıç, Eren Yüncü, Mehmet Somel","doi":"10.1007/s10816-024-09692-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-024-09692-3","url":null,"abstract":"Recent advances in archaeogenomics have granted access to previously unavailable biological information with the potential to further our understanding of past social dynamics at a range of scales. However, to properly integrate these data within archaeological narratives, new methodological and theoretical tools are required. Effort must be put into finding new methods for weaving together different datasets where material culture and archaeogenomic data are both constitutive elements. This is true on a small scale, when we study relationships at the individual level, and at a larger scale when we deal with social and population dynamics. Specifically, in the study of kinship systems, it is essential to contextualize and make sense of biological relatedness through social relations, which, in archaeology, is achieved by using material culture as a proxy. In this paper, we propose a Network Science framework to integrate archaeogenomic data and material culture at an intra-site scale to study biological relatedness and social organization at the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük. Methodologically, we propose the use of network variance to investigate the association between biological relatedness and material culture within networks of houses. This approach allows us to observe how material culture similarity between buildings is associated with biological relationships between individuals and how biogenetic ties concentrate at specific localities on site.","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-01-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143020295","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

The Trade Theory of Money: External Exchange and the Origins of Money 货币的贸易理论：外部交换和货币的起源

IF 2.3 1区历史学

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory Pub Date : 2025-01-21 DOI: 10.1007/s10816-025-09694-9

Mikael Fauvelle

{"title":"The Trade Theory of Money: External Exchange and the Origins of Money","authors":"Mikael Fauvelle","doi":"10.1007/s10816-025-09694-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-025-09694-9","url":null,"abstract":"For over a century, scholars have debated the merits of two competing theories for the origins of money. The commodity theory of money has traditionally held that money developed as a medium of exchange in order to increase the economic efficiency of barter economies. Alternatively, chartalist explanations have given causal primacy to the role of state taxation in standardizing money as a unit of account. Recently, skepticism over the existence of barter economies in either contemporary societies or ancient history has led to the increased popularity of the state-centric chartalist approach. Evidence from many pre-state societies around the world, however, shows that commodity money was often used in long-distance trade networks where systems of debt and reciprocity would have been impractical. This paper draws on evidence from two such exchange systems, the “interior world” of pre-Columbian western North America and the Bronze Age of western Europe, to argue that money can come about to facilitate exchange between strangers and across borders. As such, I suggest that the commodity theory of money is more accurately explained by the importance of exchange in external rather than internal economic systems. I propose that a trade theory of money can explain the origins of money in pre-state societies without relying on the “myth of barter”.","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142991204","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Decoding Palaeolithic Hand Stencils: Age and Sex Identification Through Geometric Morphometrics 解码旧石器时代的手模板：通过几何形态计量学识别年龄和性别

IF 2.3 1区历史学

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory Pub Date : 2025-01-21 DOI: 10.1007/s10816-025-09693-w

V. Fernández Navarro, D. Fidalgo Casares, D. García Martínez, D. Garate Maidagan

{"title":"Decoding Palaeolithic Hand Stencils: Age and Sex Identification Through Geometric Morphometrics","authors":"V. Fernández Navarro, D. Fidalgo Casares, D. García Martínez, D. Garate Maidagan","doi":"10.1007/s10816-025-09693-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-025-09693-w","url":null,"abstract":"This study pioneers the application of geometric morphometrics to Palaeolithic hand stencils, offering new insights into the problematics of classic rock art using innovative methodology. Employing a triple approach encompassing contemporary, experimental, and archaeological populations, the research achieves a precise estimation of age and biological sex through hand morphometry, enhancing our anthropometric understanding of the individuals whose hands were stencilled. The results of the analysis of the archaeological sample reveals a notable presence of sub-adults, indicating children’s participation in the creation of hand stencils. The findings also suggest a balanced, mixed participation between sexes across age groups and cave locations, reflecting cohesive social behaviour among Upper Palaeolithic human groups. Statistical analysis indicates that finger width in the Palaeolithic population is larger than in the modern sample, possibly due to a more active lifestyle. Most importantly, the study demonstrates the methodology’s repeatability across various chronologies and geographies, especially in well-preserved samples, underscoring its applicability worldwide. Overall, this research represents a significant methodological advancement in our ability to understand Palaeolithic rock art, shedding light on lifestyle and cultural dynamics of hunter-gatherer societies.","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"74 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-01-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142992737","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Biocultural Taphonomies and Analysis of an Emerging Terminal Classic (750–900 CE) Maya Deathway 一个新兴的终端经典（公元750-900年）玛雅死亡之路的生物文化分类和分析

IF 2.3 1区历史学

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory Pub Date : 2025-01-18 DOI: 10.1007/s10816-024-09689-y

Saige Kelmelis, John P. Walden, Kirsten Green Mink, Julie A. Hoggarth, Claire E. Ebert, Carolyn Freiwald, Tia B. Watkins, Victoria S. R. Izzo, Michael Biggie, Amy E. Thompson, Rafael A. Guerra, Christina Warinner, Jaime J. Awe

{"title":"Biocultural Taphonomies and Analysis of an Emerging Terminal Classic (750–900 CE) Maya Deathway","authors":"Saige Kelmelis, John P. Walden, Kirsten Green Mink, Julie A. Hoggarth, Claire E. Ebert, Carolyn Freiwald, Tia B. Watkins, Victoria S. R. Izzo, Michael Biggie, Amy E. Thompson, Rafael A. Guerra, Christina Warinner, Jaime J. Awe","doi":"10.1007/s10816-024-09689-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-024-09689-y","url":null,"abstract":"In bioarchaeology, funerary taphonomy and preservation become part of the biocultural narrative of the dead. We evaluate the role of these factors in reconstructing the identities of those buried in an emerging deathway, the ventrally placed legs flexed (VPLF) burial position, during the Terminal Classic (750–900/1000 CE) period at the Maya polity of Lower Dover in western Belize. The term “VPLF” describes a divergent burial practice which may have resulted from intentional binding prior to burial. In our analysis of VPLF burials (n = 12), we use a two-step process to reconstruct the social identities and potential meaning of the burial pattern: (1) interpretation of the archaeological context based on excavation observations and biogeochemistry and (2) osteological analysis of curated individuals to reconstruct their biological profiles and post-mortem/post-excavation histories. Osteological analyses included age and sex estimation, paleopathological assessment of frailty and trauma, and skeletal modifications from cultural and taphonomic forces. Radiocarbon dating and ceramic analyses were used to date the burials. Stable and radiogenic isotopic analyses were applied to reconstruct diet and mobility for a subset of the VPLF burials. Our results show that individuals were buried in the VPLF position irrespective of age, sex, or social status, consistent with patterns at other Terminal Classic and Postclassic Maya sites, although VPLF interment may have been practiced earlier at Lower Dover. We hypothesize that the appearance of VPLF burials in the Terminal Classic period signified an ideological shift in light of emerging social and environmental pressures in the region.","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"37 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-01-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142988824","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Consumption Trends, Trading Patterns and Economic Development in Italy Across Centuries: Data Analysis of Roman Amphorae in a Long-Term Perspective 几个世纪以来意大利的消费趋势、贸易模式和经济发展：罗马双耳罐的长期数据分析

IF 2.3 1区历史学

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory Pub Date : 2025-01-11 DOI: 10.1007/s10816-024-09686-1

Paulina Komar, Tom Brughmans, Ekaterina Borisova

{"title":"Consumption Trends, Trading Patterns and Economic Development in Italy Across Centuries: Data Analysis of Roman Amphorae in a Long-Term Perspective","authors":"Paulina Komar, Tom Brughmans, Ekaterina Borisova","doi":"10.1007/s10816-024-09686-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-024-09686-1","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents novel insights into the long-term chronological patterns related to the distribution and consumption of amphora-borne foodstuffs in Italy. The study specifically focuses on the consumption of wine, olive oil and fish sauces, which exhibit diverse provenances. Notably, it contributes significantly to our understanding of the Roman economy by utilising an open dataset and a replicable research method. The analysis reveals a pronounced growth pattern during the late Republican to early Imperial period. Importantly, quantitative evidence demonstrates that the diverse consumption pattern observed in the capital city of Rome is less exceptional than previously believed. The study draws upon a substantial dataset comprising 28,851 diagnostic amphora fragments excavated and documented from 28 different urban and rural settlements in the North Adriatic and Central Italy, spanning the period from the 4th c. BCE to the 7th c. CE. The analytical approach employs a probabilistic aoristic method, evenly distributing amphora frequencies across relevant date ranges.","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-01-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142961660","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Landscape Chambers: Towards an Archaeology of the Cognitive Landscape 景观室：走向认知景观考古学

IF 2.3 1区历史学

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory Pub Date : 2025-01-06 DOI: 10.1007/s10816-024-09687-0

Zoran Čučković

引用次数: 0

Filling the Gaps—Computational Approaches to Incomplete Archaeological Networks 填补空白——不完整考古网络的计算方法

IF 2.3 1区历史学

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory Pub Date : 2025-01-03 DOI: 10.1007/s10816-024-09688-z

Deborah Priß, John Wainwright, Dan Lawrence, Laura Turnbull, Christina Prell, Christodoulos Karittevlis, Andreas A. Ioannides

{"title":"Filling the Gaps—Computational Approaches to Incomplete Archaeological Networks","authors":"Deborah Priß, John Wainwright, Dan Lawrence, Laura Turnbull, Christina Prell, Christodoulos Karittevlis, Andreas A. Ioannides","doi":"10.1007/s10816-024-09688-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-024-09688-z","url":null,"abstract":"Networks are increasingly used to describe and analyse complex archaeological data in terms of nodes (archaeological sites or places) and edges (representing relationships or connections between each pair of nodes). Network analysis can then be applied to express local and global properties of the system, including structure (e.g. modularity) or connectivity. However, the usually high amount of missing data in archaeology and the uncertainty they cause make it difficult to obtain meaningful and robust results from the statistical methods utilised in the field of network analysis. Hence, we present in this paper manual and computational methods to (1) fill gaps in the settlement record and (2) reconstruct an ancient route system to retrieve a network that is as complete as possible. Our study focuses on the sites and routes, so-called hollow ways, in the Khabur Valley, Mesopotamia, during the Bronze and Iron Age as one of the most intensively surveyed areas worldwide. We were able to predict additional sites that were missing from the record as well as develop an innovative hybrid approach to complement the partly preserved hollow way system by integrating a manual and computational procedure. The set of methods we used can be adapted to significantly enhance the description of many other cases, and with appropriate extensions successfully tackle almost any archaeological region.","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"73 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142917400","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Death and Dichotomy: Exploring Varied Human and Animal Depositional Practices in the Iron Age at Battlesbury Bowl, UK, through Histotaphonomy 死亡与二分法：通过组织分类学探索英国巴特尔斯伯里碗铁器时代不同的人类和动物沉积实践

IF 2.3 1区历史学

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory Pub Date : 2025-01-02 DOI: 10.1007/s10816-024-09674-5

A. Bricking, B. Revell, R. Madgwick

{"title":"Death and Dichotomy: Exploring Varied Human and Animal Depositional Practices in the Iron Age at Battlesbury Bowl, UK, through Histotaphonomy","authors":"A. Bricking, B. Revell, R. Madgwick","doi":"10.1007/s10816-024-09674-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-024-09674-5","url":null,"abstract":"Taphonomic analysis of bone microstructure, commonly known as histotaphonomy, has been used as a proxy for interpreting early post-mortem treatments in archaeological contexts with increasing frequency. This method is especially useful when evidence for varied pre-depositional practices such as disarticulation and taphonomic markers (e.g. fracturing, gnawing, cut marks, weathering) is present in the assemblage, but is rarely used on faunal remains. Iron Age Britain provides the ideal context for comparative study due to the wide range of depositional practices employed for both humans and animals. While human and faunal remains from single sites in Britain have been studied before, such as at Cladh Hallan and Danebury hillfort, they were usually examined separately without substantial synthesis of the data. Thus, this study represents the first single-site comparative histotaphonomic analysis of archaeological human and animal remains from Britain. To this end, this research assesses archaeological human and faunal bone from Battlesbury Bowl, an Iron Age site in Wiltshire England, with 70 samples (46 faunal and 24 human) taken from a range of contexts, and from both articulated and disarticulated deposits. It explores evidence for the mortuary practices afforded to human remains and how they compare to the treatment of fauna from the site. Macroscopic analysis was undertaken prior to thin section microscopy using the Oxford Histological Index (OHI) and the Birefringence Index (BI). Results showed that the faunal samples from Battlesbury Bowl have more varied microstructural preservation with some species treated similarly to humans post-mortem, while others (especially caprines) are generally better preserved. This suggests that humans and animals at Battlesbury Bowl were subject to different early post-mortem processes, thus shedding light on mortuary practices and the complexity of human-animal relations in life and death.","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142917409","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0