Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory最新文献

{"title":"Crops in Motion: Strontium Isotope Analysis of Cereal Provenance in a Foraging-Oriented Neolithic Economy","authors":"Francesco Breglia,Richard Madgwick,Emily Holt,George Cooper,Marta Dal Corso,Silvia D’Aquino,Federico Polisca,Giorgio Piazzalunga,Cristiano Nicosia","doi":"10.1007/s10816-026-09830-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-026-09830-z","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Strontium isotope analysis offers a powerful tool for investigating mobility and provenance in prehistoric contexts, yet its application to archaeobotanical finds remains limited. This study applies ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr analysis to charred cereal grains from Molino Casarotto, an Italian Middle Neolithic wetland site characterised by a foraging-oriented subsistence strategy and unusually limited cereal use compared to contemporary Neolithic farming sites. A locally defined bioavailable ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr baseline was established through systematic sampling of modern plants across distinct lithological units surrounding the site. The isotope ratios of the archaeological cereals reveal a non-local and heterogeneous supply pattern, with values consistent with both regional fluvial units and more radiogenic extra-regional sources. These results provide direct evidence for a spatial decoupling between crop production and consumption and demonstrate the methodological viability of strontium isotopes for tracing cereal provenance. By extending isotopic provenancing to plant remains, this study contributes a new analytical framework for investigating crop circulation and provisioning systems in prehistoric societies. More broadly, it highlights the potential of archaeobotanical isotopic data to address fundamental questions concerning surplus, exchange, and the organisation of economic networks in non-state contexts.","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"13 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148934161","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":"Modelling Local Strontium Isotope Baselines from Human Isotopic Data Using Machine Learning: Implications for Past Mobility Studies","authors":"Samuel Kertés, Alžběta Danielisová, Daniel Bursák, Lukáš Ackerman","doi":"10.1007/s10816-026-09827-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-026-09827-8","url":null,"abstract":"Estimating bioavailable strontium isotope baselines is a critical step in archaeological mobility studies. Conventional proxy-based approaches, which rely on environmental samples, such as soils, fauna, plants, or waters, are not always feasible and may be affected by environmental, taphonomic, or sampling-related biases. Here, we introduce MobSr, a machine-learning-based model designed to estimate probable local <jats:sup>87</jats:sup> Sr/ <jats:sup>86</jats:sup> Sr baselines directly from human enamel isotope data. The model combines four first-layer classifiers—Naïve Bayes, k-nearest neighbours, support vector machine, and Random Forest—with a Bayesian ensemble layer that integrates classifier outputs and refines local/non-local probability estimates. MobSr was trained on a dataset of approximately 3000 human enamel samples from 86 archaeological sites, using published expert-derived local/non-local classifications. Local isotopic ranges are estimated by analysing posterior probabilities assigned to individual observations. Model performance was evaluated through general cross-validation and through site-specific case studies, including a La Tène period cemetery from the Czech Republic, an Early Medieval cemetery from Finland, and multi-period burial assemblages from Bahrain in the Arabian Peninsula. The results show 87–95% agreement with published local/non-local classifications, depending on the evaluation strategy and treatment of atypical cases. These values quantify concordance with the source-study labels. These findings demonstrate that MobSr can replicate and refine local baseline estimates without requiring additional environmental sampling. The model offers an efficient tool for preliminary mobility assessment and provides a complementary strategy to traditional baseline construction in bioarchaeological research. In addition, the use of a large training dataset enables broader exploration of expert-derived locality assignments across predominantly sedentary populations from different regions and periods.","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"30 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148883524","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":"Small Heaps on Large Mounds: Where Mole Activity Meets Moated Sites: Re-evaluating and Refining Molehill-Archaeology in the Shadow of the Zwin City Damme (Belgium)","authors":"Jaan Verliefden, Jan Trachet, Jeroen Verhegge, Philippe De Smedt, Wim De Clercq","doi":"10.1007/s10816-026-09819-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-026-09819-8","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"47 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148883525","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":"Characterizing Core Morphology and Scar Patterning Within a Unified Spherical Harmonic Framework","authors":"Pei-Yuan Xiao, Hao Li, Ben Marwick","doi":"10.1007/s10816-026-09828-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-026-09828-7","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"45 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148885556","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":"Shiny by Design: Establishing Diagnostic Criteria for Intentional Burnishing on Prehistoric Bone Artifacts","authors":"Justyna Orłowska, Grzegorz Osipowicz, Emanuela Cristiani, Ilga Zagorska","doi":"10.1007/s10816-026-09824-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-026-09824-x","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"136 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-08-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148842856","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":"Foraging Theory and the Colonization of Unfamiliar Landscapes: Assessing Late Pleistocene Projectile Point Reduction Strategies","authors":"Jesse W. Tune, D. Shane Miller","doi":"10.1007/s10816-026-09825-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-026-09825-w","url":null,"abstract":"How humans perceive risk has long been of interest to the social sciences. The colonization of unfamiliar landscapes by Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers is a valuable case study that required novel strategies of risk management, technological organization, and ecological knowledge acquisition. Here, we apply evolutionary theory to projectile point reduction in the Tennessee River Valley to model utility thresholds and assess resharpening versus replacement decisions. We evaluate attributes of Clovis and Cumberland points to quantify artifact use-lives and curation intensity using a dataset drawn from the Paleoindian Database of the Americas. Results indicate that Clovis groups practiced a more conservative lithic resource management strategy by resharpening points further to extract greater utility. By contrast, subsequent Cumberland groups more frequently discarded points with variable amounts of utility remaining, suggesting reduced emphasis on resource conservation. We interpret this difference as reflecting the resolution of landscape knowledge barriers. Clovis groups confronted higher search costs in raw material acquisition, whereas Cumberland groups inherited generational knowledge of local lithic resources and became more familiar with known resource distributions. More broadly, our study demonstrates that lithic artifacts, when modeled as patches of utility, provide archaeologists with rare opportunities to test predictions of optimal foraging theory and risk management.","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148842858","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":"Performing Power and Transitional Space: the Use of Acoustics and Multimodal AI in Etruscan Painted Tombs","authors":"Maurizio Forte, Jacqueline K. Ortoleva","doi":"10.1007/s10816-026-09820-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-026-09820-1","url":null,"abstract":"This article presents a new multimodal AI and acoustic methodology using two 5th c. BCE Etruscan painted tombs at Tarquinia, Italy, the Tomba del Gallo and the Tomba dei Demoni Azzurri as case studies. Via the integration of AI computer vision–based visual saliency analysis, architectural affordance modelling, acoustic data, and agent-based perceptual trajectories, the study suggests that each tomb affords distinct experiential strategies. The Tomba del Gallo privileges visual sequencing, threshold control, and gaze discipline, whereas the Tomba dei Demoni Azzurri potentially induces perceptual disorientation and immerses the visitor into a sensory and spatial environment that has the possibility of inducing trance-like experiences. A central contribution of the study is the reinterpretation of subterranean funerary spaces as possible transitional spaces, where architectural and symbolic devices mediate between life and death, order and chaos, memory and transformation, and sensory manipulation operate as core ritual technologies. Ultimately, we argue that when combined with scientifically documented acoustic data, AI enables archaeology to move beyond representational interpretation toward the experimental modelling of ritualised experiences in the ancient Mediterranean.","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148768926","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":"Revisiting the Agropastoral Landscape of Çatalhöyük East Through Agent-Based Modeling (9100–8100 BP)","authors":"Neriman Erdem, Bülent Arıkan, Kemal Koçaklı","doi":"10.1007/s10816-026-09822-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-026-09822-z","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"9 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-08-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148728811","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":"Reconstructing the Life History of Double Perforated Ivory Beads from the Swabian Aurignacian: A Combined Traceological and Experimental Approach","authors":"Shuqin Guo, Marian Vanhaeren, Nicholas J. Conard, Natasha T. Singh, Rudolf Walter, Sibylle Wolf","doi":"10.1007/s10816-026-09818-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-026-09818-9","url":null,"abstract":"Aurignacian ivory beads provide valuable insights into ivory-working techniques, labour investment, production organisation, and the symbolic behaviour of Early Upper Palaeolithic people. Although decades of research have led to a detailed understanding of the <italic>chaîne opératoire</italic> of these iconic beads, systematic approaches for identifying and interpreting manufacturing- and use-related traces remain limited. Using 74 double perforated ivory beads (DPIBs) from Archaeological Horizon IV at Hohle Fels Cave as a case study, we integrate taphonomic, typological, morphometric, and traceological analyses with experimental replication to develop an analytical framework for reconstructing the manufacture and use of archaeological ivory beads. Our results suggest that DPIB production followed a broadly shared production sequence while allowing flexibility in the order and execution of individual manufacturing steps. The archaeological evidence indicates that the beads were produced, used, and discarded on site. Experimental replication further provides a basis for evaluating labour investment and identifying surface modifications associated with manufacture and use. The observed morphological variability may reflect differences in production practices related to variation in skill, individual behaviour, and the involvement of multiple craftspeople. The analytical approach presented here is transferable and can be applied to other archaeological ivory bead assemblages.","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148717453","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":"Blowing Leaves in Archaeology—The Multidimensionality of Technological Complexity in Human Origins Research","authors":"Matthias A. Blessing, M. Will","doi":"10.1007/s10816-026-09814-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-026-09814-z","url":null,"abstract":"Technological complexity has been a continuous trope in archaeological research from its beginnings in the nineteenth century. Based on a concept of unidirectional cultural evolution, archaeological material was ordered along a linear progression from simple to complex. While creating hierarchies of extant populations based on the complexity of their tools is not overtly practiced in archaeology anymore, the same is not true for the deep past. The concept of behavioural modernity and research on human cognitive evolution is still partly founded on technological complexity. The turn away from technological complexity to symbolic behaviour in pursuing questions surrounding behavioural modernity and humanness was less a reaction to criticisms of the concept but served to maintain the hierarchical ranking between modern humans and extinct hominins. Here, we propose an alternative view on technological complexity that attempts to overcome linear hierarchies and lingering progressivist notions. By reviewing several measures of complexity alongside their analytical units and underlying definitions, we show that technological complexity is not suitable for creating a single hierarchy of artefacts, assemblages, or hominin species. The multitude of existing definitions, methods, and measures does not imply a fundamental flaw in these approaches but exemplifies the multidimensionality of technological complexity. We propose a new way of understanding multiple, justified measures for technological complexity through a heterarchical structure that allows various kinds of ranking to exist depending on context, need, scale, or function, including the potential for competing or even contradictory hierarchies. A heterarchical perspective on technological complexity asks ‘How were technologies or hominins complex?’ rather than ‘How complex were technologies and hominins relative to another?’ This approach can shed persistent historical bias and overcome simplistic dichotomies such as ‘us’ and ‘them’ in deep-time archaeology that hinder our ability to engage with questions about the becoming of humans in a meaningful way.","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148693295","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}