Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory最新文献

{"title":"Late Mid-Pleistocene hominin fire control inferred from sooty speleothem analysis","authors":"Ségolène Vandevelde, Edwige Pons-Branchu, Damien Deldicque, Abdou Niane, Cyrielle Mathias, Dany Savard, Yves Perrette, Bruno Desachy, Ludovic Slimak, Kevin Bouchard","doi":"10.1007/s10816-025-09709-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-025-09709-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The origin of fire control is considered a major turning point in human evolution and remains a highly debated albeit central subject in archaeology. Studying paleo-fires is challenging because of taphonomic phenomena that alter combustion structures and hinder the identification of the oldest hearths. Moreover, hearths do not record all fire events and do not provide a chronological record of fire. In contrast, speleothems, carbonated cave deposits, can preserve evidence of ancient fires, including soot traces, and these features can be dated directly using radiometric methods. Orgnac 3, an important archaeological sequence in Western Europe, provides a case study on the origins of habitual fire use in this region during the transition between the Lower and Middle Paleolithic. This paper presents the first documented record of over 20 fire events at this ancient site. The habitual use of fire by Mid-Pleistocene hominins at the site is well documented within sooty speleothems, as opposed to relying on scattered and rare traces. The soot deposit sequence at Orgnac 3 is the strongest and best-documented evidence of repeated fire use at the site to date. The robust fire-use chronology is established using stratigraphic U-Th dating of the speleothem. The soot record at Orgnac 3, testifying to fire events during both dry and wet periods, supports the hypothesis that Mid-Pleistocene hominins could control fire around 270,000 years ago in the Rhone Valley, with the possible ability to light it, or at least maintain it over a long term.</p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143819234","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}

{"title":"The Role of Palaeolithic Cave-Art: Estimating Social Investment in Symbolic Expressions Through the Making Cost","authors":"Diego Garate","doi":"10.1007/s10816-025-09707-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-025-09707-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The symbolic expression, due to its social and cultural potential, should make a decisive contribution to the reconstruction of Palaeolithic social systems. Paradoxically, the limitations of the traditional study methods do not facilitate the exploitation of this possibility. In this article, we have presented an initial proposal to approach the study of visual rock art from a different perspective, focused in the calculation of the resources invested in the creation of rock art. This allows us to relate it directly to the societies that produced it and the implications it may have had on them. Furthermore, the use of cutting-edge technologies in this approach enables an exhaustive reconstruction of such processes and, ultimately, an objective, quantifiable, and global replicable system to calculate the exact minimum costs and social investment in Palaeolithic art. Consequently, the degree of complexity of the actions related to artistic production and the number of resources invested in it have palaeo-ethnographic implications for the organisation systems of Palaeolithic people. That is, ultimately, we can infer these societies in terms of structural questions such as hierarchy, inequality, division of labour, or knowledge transmission.</p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"37 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143775961","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}

{"title":"An Open-Source Machine Learning–Based Methodological Approach for Processing High-Resolution UAS LiDAR Data in Archaeological Contexts: A Case Study from Epirus, Greece","authors":"Nicodemo Abate, Dimitris Roubis, Anthi Aggeli, Maria Sileo, Antonio Minervino Amodio, Valentino Vitale, Alessia Frisetti, Maria Danese, Pierluigi Arzu, Francesca Sogliani, Rosa Lasaponara, Nicola Masini","doi":"10.1007/s10816-025-09706-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-025-09706-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This study shows and discusses an innovative approach devised for archaeological feature detection using unmanned aerial system (UAS) LiDAR and an open-source probabilistic machine learning framework. The methodology employs a Random Forest classification algorithm within CloudCompare’s 3DMASC plugin to analyse dense LiDAR point clouds. The main steps include classifier training, hyperparameter adjustment and point cloud segmentation to produce digital terrain models (DTM), digital feature models (DFM) and digital surface models (DSM). Experimenting different parameters led to the determination of the best set to be employed for the training model. Subsequent data enhancement with the Relief Visualisation Toolbox (RVT) refines the visibility of archaeological features, particularly within complex and heavily vegetated terrain. The use case selected to validate this approach is the site of Kastrí-Pandosia in Epirus (Greece), which is particularly suitable for LiDAR analysis by UAS. This approach significantly improves archaeological detection and interpretation, revealing previously inaccessible or obscured microtopographic and structural features. The results highlight the site’s defensive walls, terracing and potential anthropogenic routes, underlining the methodology’s effectiveness in detecting archaeological landscapes at multiple levels. This study emphasises the utility of accessible and open-source solutions for the identification of archaeological features, promoting cost-effective methods to improve the documentation of sites in remote or difficult locations.</p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143757999","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}

{"title":"Site-Seeing in Mallorca? Exploring the Visual Influence of Architecture and Location in Talayotic Iron Age Sites in Mallorca (Balearic Islands, Spain)","authors":"Alejandra Galmés-Alba, Mark Gillings","doi":"10.1007/s10816-025-09704-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-025-09704-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p>During the Iron Age, or Talayotic period, the landscape of Mallorca was transformed by the construction of cyclopean, tower-shaped structures that served as communal gathering spaces. The scale and location of these monumental structures have led to their interpretation as places designed to see and be seen, with a range of GIS-based viewshed studies caried out in order to characterise and delineate the visual landscape of which they were an integral part. However, despite this focus on all things visible, there has been little investigation into whether this visual prominence was primarily due to the choice of location or the architectural form itself. This paper aims to explore how the combination of location and architecture contributed to the visual prominence of Talayotic structures within the landscape. By integrating Visual Neighbourhood Configurations (VNC) and viewshed analysis, the study examines the significance of site selection and whether the architecture leveraged the inherent visual properties of these locations to enhance their prominence. As the visual presence of these architecture has been central to the explanation of the Talayotic phenomenon, understanding how this was generated is key to understand the role these sites played in the Mallorcan Iron Age landscape.</p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"72 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143712923","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}

{"title":"Bronze Age Frontiers and Pottery Circulation: Political and Economic Relations at the Northern Fringes of El Argar, Southeast Iberia, ca. 2200–1550 BCE","authors":"Adrià Moreno Gil, Carla Garrido García, Bárbara Bonora Soriano, David Gómez-Gras, Roberto Risch","doi":"10.1007/s10816-025-09702-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-025-09702-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This paper explores the nature and dynamics of economic and political borders emerging in Later Prehistory between highly centralised and exploitative societies and their much more dispersed and small-scale neighbours. While increasing evidence indicates that Early Bronze Age entities such as El Argar, Únětice or Minoan Crete reached highly complex economic and political forms around 1850–1750 BCE, the processes by which their relations and borders with adjacent, less hierarchical groups were established and maintained still remain poorly understood. To identify such economic and political borders and asymmetric interactions in archaeology, a specific methodological approach was developed which combined extensive field survey, pottery petrography, and spatial modelling of pottery production and circulation areas. Our research focuses on the middle and upper Segura River valley, a largely unexplored borderland between distinct geographic and cultural zones of the Iberian Peninsula. While El Argar expanded over the semi-arid Southeast, adjacent regions—La Mancha and the Spanish Levant—were home to smaller-scale socio-economic entities, known as La Mancha or Las Motillas and the Valencian Bronze Age cultures. At the junction of these three groups, we surveyed 61 settlements across 4800 km² and analyzed 1643 pottery sherds, conducting the largest petrographic study of Iberian Bronze Age ceramics. Spatial modeling of the results traced pottery production and circulation, offering insights into economic exchanges, social boundaries and the articulation of borderland spaces. By mapping distinct pottery-making practices, we reveal interactions between El Argar’s core regions and its neighbours, demonstrating the potential of ceramic analysis for understanding Bronze Age border dynamics. Comparable studies in other regions are expected to lead to a better understanding of the role of borders in shaping prehistoric societies and inter-group relations.</p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"33 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143635773","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}

{"title":"The Skills of Handaxe Making: Quantifying and Explaining Variability in 3D Sinuosity and Bifacial Asymmetry","authors":"Antoine Muller, Gonen Sharon, Leore Grosman","doi":"10.1007/s10816-025-09705-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-025-09705-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Observations about handaxe techno-morphology, like their symmetry, refinement, and fine edges have long been used to reconstruct the evolution of hominin cognition, skills, and technological decision making. However, these interpretations about the cognitive and technical abilities of Acheulean hominins often rely on the most ‘beautiful’ or supposedly ‘archetypical’ looking handaxes. But how often do these finely made handaxes actually occur in assemblages and how can we identify handaxes that were more skillfully made than others? Instead of seeking to estimate the skill level of individual past knappers, a trait that is oftentimes obscured in the archaeological record, we approach the question of knapping skill from the other direction. We instead ask how much skill was required to manufacture a handaxe? We explore, not the skill level of a handaxe’s maker, but how skillfully an individual handaxe was made. We put forth a suite of novel 3D methods of handaxe analysis for calculating their 3D edge sinuosity and 3D asymmetry. Using these methods, we quantify traits that are difficult to achieve during handaxe-making, providing an estimate of the requisite amount of ability, experience, attention, and effort demanded by their manufacture. Among our large sample of handaxes from the later Acheulean of the southern Levant, we find that blank size and tool-/site-use best explain the presence of more skillfully-made handaxes. Handaxes made on larger original blanks appear to afford more volume with which to enact longer and more skillfully demanding reduction sequences. Moreover, handaxes occurring at more recurrently occupied sites demanded less skill investment and appear geared towards the more expedient fulfilment of quotidian tasks. In the later Acheulean of the southern Levant there appears to be a great diversity in how skillfully handaxes were made, likely reflecting a diversity in the goals of handaxe making.</p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143607823","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}

{"title":"Moments of Movement and Stillness for Senebtisi Since 1907","authors":"Alyson Caine","doi":"10.1007/s10816-025-09703-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-025-09703-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p>During my study of Senebtisi, an elite Egyptian woman from the Middle Kingdom period, I noted several missing skeletal elements which contradicted the archival and original representativeness of the individual. My initial interest into where, when, and how this loss occurred resulted in the following paper that sought to understand the ‘epi’-taphonomic factors influencing Senebtisi’s skeletal remains. Using object itinerary, the resultant narrative provides a cultural view to how these processes impact non-cultural factors, including skeletal preservation and the information available for study, all of which influence the bioarchaeological interpretative trajectory. Moments of movement and stillness for Senebtisi, including her representations (textual, photographs, drawings, and/or exhibits), afforded an understanding of alterations to her as an object and shifting value attributions since her exhumation in 1907. Ultimately, my focus on ‘epi’-taphonomic factors influencing Senebtisi exposes the subjectivity of her history as influenced by those that have studied her. Of note is the additive properties of processes that current (bio)archaeologists deem destructive, including reconstruction and unwrapping of mummified individuals. Importantly, my own study and research of Senebtisi represents additional interactions that influence the representations, representativeness of this individual, and preservation of her skeletal remains that ultimately result in further transformation to what is known and knowable about her.</p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143528330","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}

{"title":"“Slow” Network Research? A Mixed-Methods Approach Towards Funeral Status Representation in the Late Urnfield Period","authors":"Aline Deicke","doi":"10.1007/s10816-025-09698-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-025-09698-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p>From its earliest stages on, the rise of computational approaches in the humanities—whether in archaeology, history, or digital humanities more generally—has been accompanied by discussions and critical reflections on the way in which data-driven research methods are informed by the representation of research objects as data structures. Various dimensions, challenges, and characteristics can be roughly divided into three intersecting aspects: the subjectivity of data, their complexity, and their size. Archaeological network analysis as a formal, quantitative method is situated firmly within the tension between these fields, and many authors focus on the application of network research to archaeological data while respecting their complex nature. This paper adds to this growing body of work by focusing on the specificities of a medium-sized data set that offers multiple perspectives on a complex question of social archaeology: the study of intersecting social identities and their materialisation in funeral assemblages, particularly of a collective identity of high status-individuals or “elites”, during the Late Urnfield Period. It offers a mixed-methods approach that centres quantitative results and qualitative contextualization across different scales, and minimises loss of information and context, while transparently disclosing its practices of data selection, pre-processing, and analysis. In doing so, it aims to make the reflective positionings of “slow data” and “slow technology” productive for a methodology of “slow networks”.</p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143477499","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}

{"title":"Shining Light on Dark Matter: Advancing Functional Analysis of Obsidian Tools with Confocal Scanning Microscopy","authors":"Fiona Pichon, Juan José Ibáñez Estevez, Laurence Astruc, Bernard Gassin, Amelia Rodríguez Rodríguez, Carlo Lugliè","doi":"10.1007/s10816-025-09700-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-025-09700-0","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Over the past decade, confocal microscopy has increasingly been employed to examine changes in stone tool surfaces and has proven to be an accurate technique for quantifying use-wear texture. Promising results have emerged from characterizing Polish formation on experimental and archaeological flint tools. Recent studies also highlighted the potential of confocal microscopy for analyzing tools made from reflective materials, such as quartzite. In this paper, we investigate the capability of confocal microscopy to discriminate use-wear on obsidian quantitatively. We examine whether confocal microscopy and 3D texture analysis can correctly classify several worked materials that are challenging to differentiate using the optical standard method of use-wear analysis. For cutting activities, we include butchery, de-skinning a fresh hide from grease and meaty tissues, cutting tanned leather, harvesting domestic ripe cereals, harvesting semi-green wild cereals, and sawing wet limestone. As for scraping activities, we explore discriminating differences among tools used for working dry hide, dry antler, soaked antler, fresh bone, softwood, fresh reeds, and wet limestone. Our results demonstrate that these worked materials can be confidently identified in experimental tools. While other relevant factors affecting use-wear texture, such as the intensity of use or post-depositional alterations, need to be controlled before employing the method on archaeological materials, our research suggests that the quantitative approach can enhance the standard method of use-wear analysis, providing unprecedented precision for identifying worked materials in obsidian tools.</p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"234 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143435657","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}

{"title":"Archaeological and Experimental Lithic Microwear Classification Through 2D Textural Analysis and Machine Learning","authors":"Paolo Sferrazza","doi":"10.1007/s10816-025-09701-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-025-09701-z","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The paper focuses on introducing 2D texture analysis as a quantitative method for functional analysis in archaeology. The paper aims to demonstrate the validity of this method for quantifying use-wear analysis and to evaluate different processing, extraction, and classification techniques. The method presented relies on five techniques of quantitative feature extraction from photographic images and nine classification techniques through machine learning algorithms. After creating a training dataset with experimental traces, machine learning models were validated through experimental and archaeological image classification. The best result achieved a classification accuracy of 80%, suggesting convolutional neural network and grey level co-occurence matrix as the best quantification options and neural networks as the best classification algorithm. The paper proposes to use the method as a fundamental tool in functional analysis to remove subjectivity criteria from traditional analysis and to address issues related to the credibility of the discipline, calibration, standardisation, and reproducibility of methods and results.</p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2025-02-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143418485","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}