{"title":"Construction, Maintenance and Ritual Practices on the Neolithic Rondel at Nowe Objezierze (Northwestern Poland): The chaîne opératoire of Rondel’s Architecture","authors":"Lech Czerniak","doi":"10.1007/s10816-024-09669-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-024-09669-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In the history of the “Danubian Neolithic” society, monumental ceremonial centers appeared around 4800 BCE and lost their importance around 300 years later. Among them, one of the most distinctive forms are rondels. However, it is worth remembering the contemporary Rosheim-type circles and Passy-type tombs. The name “rondels” refers to the currently preserved architectural form, dominated by concentric ditches. The article presents an analysis of the biography of a rondel from Nowe Objezierze (north-western Poland). For this purpose, the <i>chaîne opératoire</i> method was used, which is a very effective tool for reconstructing the full sequence of events including the construction, use and abandonment of the examined monument, in its historical and social context. Thanks to this, it was possible to draw attention to previously little-explored details of planning construction works, the skills of ritual leaders and the seasonal availability of some construction materials. As a consequence, the construction and use of rondels can be presented as a complex ceremonial cycle, stretched over time and interrupted by festivals. When the rondel was ready, the cycle began with renovating the surrounding wall and digging the ditch, most likely reaching its culmination on the day of the winter solstice. The celebrations ended with a ceremony of backfilling of the ditch.</p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142753636","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":"Traditions of Equality: The Archaeology of Egalitarianism and Egalitarian Behavior in Sub-Saharan Africa (First and Second Millennium CE)","authors":"Alfredo González-Ruibal","doi":"10.1007/s10816-024-09678-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-024-09678-1","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Interest in egalitarianism and egalitarian behavior in complex societies has grown in recent years, spurred by anarchist approaches and collective action theory. Sub-Saharan Africa, however, has seldom figured in the discussions, despite the fact that it has been historically home to a diversity of societies that have either rejected political centralization altogether or put limits to it. The aim of this article is to examine, from an archaeological point of view, the forms of resistance that have restricted—or thwarted—monarchic power in the continent during the last two millennia. For this, I use the concept of traditions of equality. They can be defined as sets of political practices that are materially constituted, shaped by culture and transmitted through collective memory and that generate and structure egalitarian behavior in any given society. They occur across different types of sociopolitical organizations, from undivided societies of hunter-gatherers to strongly hierarchized kingdoms. Here, I will explore six of such traditions as they operate in Sub-Saharan Africa: relocation and isolation, anarchic and heterarchical settlements, adverse sacralization, equalizing technologies, counterinfrastructures, and revolution. </p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"71 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142690576","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":"A Burning Platform? Critical Reflections on the Impact of Research on the Developing Bioarchaeology of Cremation","authors":"T. J. U. Thompson, Antonia M. Nannetti","doi":"10.1007/s10816-024-09679-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-024-09679-0","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142679175","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 Taphonomy of Status: The Creation of Group Identity and Social Inequality in Medieval Croatia","authors":"Anna J. Osterholtz, Ivan Valent","doi":"10.1007/s10816-024-09671-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-024-09671-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This article focuses on the taphonomy of inequality visible in within-church burials from the site of the Church of St. George at Đurđevac-Sošice, a Medieval church in Northern Croatia. Building on concepts of Whitehead’s Poetics model, the three-body model, and landscape archaeology, we examine the role of church architecture in the development and affirmation of social inequality though burial practices. Burial within church spaces was typically limited to those of higher social status (relative to the rest of the community). Here we examine how those practices acted both as leveling acts that promoted group identity at the same time as they highlighted social inequality. This theoretical model is then used to understand more about the use of the Church of St. George at Đurđevac-Sošice as a burial location. The Church of St. George was used as a place of worship from twelfth until the beginning of the nineteenth century, and as a place of burial (as far as the current research has shown) between the twelfth and first half of the sixteenth century. During excavations in 2017–2019, 243 graves were identified, many of which were disturbed or incomplete due to subsequent burial activity during the use of the church as a burial location. These disturbances resulted in a large amount of comingled remains from within the fill of the recognized graves, as well as from levels which resulted from overlapping of younger burial fills over older ones.</p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142673212","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}
Lauren E. Kohut, Steven A. Wernke, Justin Dunnavant
{"title":"Modeling Marronage: GIS Heuristics of Refuge Affordances in Colonial St. Croix","authors":"Lauren E. Kohut, Steven A. Wernke, Justin Dunnavant","doi":"10.1007/s10816-024-09680-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-024-09680-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p>On the Caribbean island of St. Croix, archival documents reference settlements of runaway enslaved Africans in the mountainous range known as Maroon Ridge. These settlements provide an important record of Afro-Atlantic resistance to enslavement. However, as both intentionally secluded and ephemeral places of refuge, these maroon settlements are difficult to locate in the archaeological record. Geospatial modeling provides one avenue for understanding African geographies of resistance. Building on prior geospatial modeling efforts, this paper uses a GIS-based multicriteria suitability analysis to characterize the shifting affordances of marronage on Danish colonial St. Croix across the second half of the eighteenth century. By considering how the island landscape “looked” to those seeking refuge, we trace how possibilities for refuge were distributed through space and over time. In this paper, we develop affordance heuristics to model refuge using digitized historic maps and publicly available LiDAR data. The resulting model suggests shifting maroon refugia sites over time and demonstrates how geospatial approaches, paired with historical archives, can model historic affordances across time.</p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"10 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142673207","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":"Taphonomic Approach to the Interpretation of Isolated Human Skulls: Distinguishing Natural from Intentional Deposition","authors":"Silvia M. Bello, Lucile Crété","doi":"10.1007/s10816-024-09675-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-024-09675-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The human cranium is probably the most common single anatomical element manipulated after the death of the individual. However, it is not uncommon to find isolated crania for which it is difficult to unequivocally determine the nature of the deposition, either intentional or natural. In order to establish whether naturally deposited and intentionally deposited skulls are characterised by different taphonomic patterns, we evaluated the state of preservation of 75 isolated crania (68 naturally deposited and 7 intentionally deposited) from sites in Africa, Europe, Near East and Asia, from approximately 2 million to 20,000 years BP. As a comparative reference, we evaluated the preservation pattern of further 101 skulls from individuals buried in primary deposition at two cemeteries. Finally, to determine whether the breakage pattern of skull-cups (skulls intentionally modified and manufactured into bowls) mimics a natural skull breakage, we analysed the preservation pattern of 19 skull-cups from archaeological and ethnographic contexts. Preservation and breakage patterns were evaluated using the Zonation method and the Landmark method. Results suggest that the intentionally deposited skulls have a pattern of preservation similar to the skulls found in cemeteries, and for both these categories, skulls were generally better preserved than naturally deposited skulls. The natural breakage pattern of isolated skulls also significantly differs from the breakage pattern of skulls modified into skull-cups, suggesting that it is unlikely that skull-cups were fashioned in a manner that imitates natural breakage patterns.\u0000</p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"53 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142673209","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":"Confronting Taphonomic Challenges from Excavation Through Curation of Human Remains","authors":"Brenda J. Baker","doi":"10.1007/s10816-024-09672-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-024-09672-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Taphonomy as it applies to human remains from archaeological contexts typically considers issues of preservation and diagenesis in the burial environment. Less attention has been paid to biocultural taphonomic factors including excavation techniques, expertise of excavators, and post-excavation treatment. The ways in which human remains are transported from the field to the lab and long-term storage area; effects of field conservation; how skeletons are cleaned, stored, and organized; the degree to which excavation records and osteological analyses are documented; and the management and maintenance of collections over time all have substantial impact on the ability to evaluate and contextualize them. Examples drawn from fieldwork and study of human remains from Cyprus, Egypt, Sudan, and the USA confront these human-induced taphonomic factors. Insufficient expertise and planning for storage and ongoing care of human remains may lead to missing or damaged skeletal elements, mixing, loss of provenience information, and limited accessibility. Best practices are recommended, even where locally available materials are limited. All archaeological projects in which human burials are anticipated must include experienced bioarchaeologists in fieldwork and study to minimize damage and loss of information and to ensure ethical treatment of human remains at all stages.</p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142610602","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}
Santiago Sossa-Ríos, Alejandro Mayor, Laura Sánchez-Romero, Carolina Mallol, Manuel Vaquero, Cristo M. Hernández
{"title":"The Time of the Stones: A Call for Palimpsest Dissection to Explore Lithic Record Formation Processes","authors":"Santiago Sossa-Ríos, Alejandro Mayor, Laura Sánchez-Romero, Carolina Mallol, Manuel Vaquero, Cristo M. Hernández","doi":"10.1007/s10816-024-09666-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-024-09666-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The dissection of archaeological palimpsests has become a crucial process for achieving a diachronic understanding of the history of human groups. However, its widespread application to archaeological deposits has been hampered by both methodological and theoretical limitations, as well as by the inherent characteristics of the deposits. This paper explores whether overcoming these barriers, both methodological and theoretical, truly represents a significant shift in understanding past human behaviour, thereby motivating the pursuit of shorter timescales. To this end, we have analysed the lithic assemblages of Unit Xb from the Neanderthal site of El Salt (Alcoi, Iberian Peninsula) focusing on lithic attributes and raw material analyses, enabling the definition of raw material units and refitting sets. Considering these variables, we have applied archaeostratigraphic and spatial analyses in order to generate units of analysis whose content is compared to that of the entire unit. The defined archaeostratigraphic units display different spatial distributions and lithic composition. Some of them are attached to certain hearths and composed of refitted sets, while other units are related to areas without combustion evidence and integrated with bigger and heavier single products. Through this approach, here, we show that reducing the spatiotemporal scale of the record helps to unravel behavioural variability, reducing interpretative errors implicit in the assemblage-as-a-whole approach. This highlights the role of temporal resolution in reconstructing site formation processes and challenges research perspectives that assert the unnecessary or impossible nature of palimpsest dissection.</p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142444522","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":"Discrimination of Cereal Residue Adsorbed by Pottery Based on Metabolomics","authors":"Lei Lu, Rui Wen, Junjun Cui","doi":"10.1007/s10816-024-09667-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-024-09667-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Cereal remains are common and important archaeological finds, providing crucial evidence for the origin and development of agriculture. Many previous studies have utilized one or several molecules as biomarkers to identify archaeological remains. However, there is a lack of systematic research on characteristic metabolites of common grains, especially of ancient varieties. The goal of this study was to derive a series of more species-indicative biomarkers using untargeted metabolomics as well as provide new insights into the identification of cereal remains excavated in archaeology. First, modern cereal, pottery and archeological samples were used for untargeted metabolomics to obtain plant metabolites. Then, statistical analyses were employed to screen candidate biomarkers. It was determined there are 73, 42, 138 and 58 metabolites representing broomcorn millet, foxtail millet, wheat and rice, respectively. Among the compounds mentioned above, 33 were found to be present in the archaeological samples from the Dongxiafeng site dating back around 3600 years. These 33 biomarkers would serve as characteristic elements for systematic clustering. The results indicated that among pottery sherds from the Dongxiafeng site, the most likely processed cereal is foxtail millet, and the least likely processed cereal is wheat. The theoretical calculated proportions of four grains are as follows: broomcorn millet 26%; foxtail millet 51%; wheat 18%; rice 5%. This aligns with the agricultural tradition in this region during the early Bronze Age, characterized by dryland farming with a focus on foxtail millet and broomcorn millet, while rice and wheat were also introduced.</p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142384510","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":"Chipped-Stone Crescents from the Terminal Pleistocene–Early Holocene of Far Western North America and the Transverse Projectile Point Hypothesis","authors":"Daniel S. Amick","doi":"10.1007/s10816-024-09665-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-024-09665-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Crescents are a distinctive component of several terminal Pleistocene–early Holocene (TP–EH) toolkits in the Far West, including the concave-based projectile point techno-complex, as demonstrated by archaeological associations, toolstone preferences, and manufacturing techniques. Archaeological and paleoenvironmental evidence suggests regular association with periods of wetland expansion across this region. Numerous speculative hypotheses have been proposed for the possible function(s) of these tools, but little direct investigation or testing has been conducted. This study uses the method of multiple working hypotheses to investigate these competing propositions. It draws on multiple lines of evidence from morphological and techno-functional patterns of tool damage and rejuvenation developed from a large artifact assemblage; analogs from ethnographic, historic, and archaeological cases; paleoenvironmental and ecological observations; an actualistic experimental program; and applications of foraging and design theories. Results show how morphological variation often reflects original blank form and individual tool life-history. Patterned recycling strategies include occasional manufacture from concave-base projectile points and conversion into gravers. The combined evidence best supports the hypothesized interpretation of lunate crescents as specialized transverse projectile points used primarily for open-water hunting of waterfowl by early foragers of the Great Basin and California, especially during episodic and localized increases in their abundance. These conclusions contribute to the growing picture of diversity and adaptive flexibility among early foragers in the Far West and further indicate waterfowl as a significant but temporally and spatially variable dietary component.</p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142100600","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}