Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory最新文献

{"title":"Evaluating Random Forest Model Performance for Cave and Sinkhole Prediction in the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa: Preliminary Analysis and Variable Importance Assessments","authors":"Margaret J. Furtner, Robert L. Anemone, Lei Wang, Juliet K. Brophy","doi":"10.1007/s10816-025-09761-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-025-09761-1","url":null,"abstract":"Surveying an area for new fossil sites is a labor-intensive and resource-draining activity that can be alleviated with the aid of machine learning models. In karst landscapes of southern Africa, Plio-Pleistocene fossils that inform the paleoanthropological record are primarily found preserved in caves and sinkholes. The purpose of this study is to assess the utility of Random Forest (RF) models for cave and sinkhole prediction in the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa. Multispectral satellite imagery, digital elevation models (DEMs), and geologic maps were converted into raster (pixelated matrix) images in a GIS environment to denote varying aspects of the local topography, including elevation, slope, aspect, curvature, drainage, spectral reflectance, vegetation cover, fault proximity, and underlying geology. The rasters were stacked and overlaid with 1080 known cave and sinkhole locality points and 1080 random non-cave points in the study area for model training. Variable values associated with these geopoints were input into an RF model in Python for training and evaluation using a spatial ten-fold cross-validation. The model performed with 81.6% accuracy and an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.912. The importance of each variable for prediction was evaluated by measuring the increase in prediction error when variable values were shuffled. Distance to major faults, location within the Chuniespoort geologic group, dolomite presence, chert presence, and elevation exhibited the highest importance for model accuracy, while three out of 48 total predictor variables exhibited less importance than a randomly generated variable. The identification of important/unimportant variables will help build more efficient, robust models in future iterations, as well as help identify variables that could be useful in other karst regions.","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"60 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147368044","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":"Forest Herding and Tree Foddering in Neolithic Europe: Comparing δ13C Values in Caprine Enamel with Archaeobotanical Evidence at Lake Shore Settlements in Switzerland and the French Jura","authors":"Marie Balasse, Alexa Dufraisse, Laurent Emmanuel, Denis Fiorillo, Rose-Marie Arbogast, Urs Leuzinger, Pierre Pétrequin","doi":"10.1007/s10816-026-09773-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-026-09773-5","url":null,"abstract":"Forest grazing and tree leaf foddering were once widespread in Europe. Stable carbon isotope analysis of faunal remains can help investigate the practice back to the Neolithic. The approach presupposes the empirical definition of a threshold δ¹³C value beyond which a forest component in diet is arguable. This objective can be attained in contexts where animals feeding on forest trees were demonstrated independently. We analyzed caprine teeth from the sites of Arbon-Bleiche 3 (34th century BCE, Switzerland), where forest fodder was directly evidenced from macroremains in caprine faeces; and from Clairvaux (39th–37th c. BCE) and Chalain (32nd–30th c. BCE; French Jura) where it was suggested from thousands of branches accumulated in the occupation layers. Sequential isotope analysis in caprine tooth enamel revealed δ¹³C values ≤ −14‰ at Clairvaux and Chalain, and ≤ −15‰ and down to −16.7‰ at Arbon during winter, the lowest recorded to date in Neolithic Europe. A more ¹³C-depleted signal at Arbon, associated with significantly lower δ¹⁸O values, may reflect the abrupt cooler and wetter climatic event recorded at this time in the Lake Constance sediments, causing harsher winters and the need for complementary feed in the form of tree leaves, as well as a potential tree-line decline leading to a greater proximity of the fir forest. Inter-individual variability reflects adaptability of extensive herding systems subjected to environmental uncertainties. These results confirm that in these chronocultural contexts, forests were fully integrated into husbandry systems, shaping practices and animal behaviors, and potentially contributing to the reshaping of the landscape.","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147507873","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":"Bone Weathering Variability in Semiarid Environments: Insights from Taphonomic Experiments in the Dry Chaco, Central Argentina","authors":"María Paula Weihmüller, Andrés Darío Izeta, Gabriela Roxana Cattáneo","doi":"10.1007/s10816-026-09769-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-026-09769-1","url":null,"abstract":"Understanding the factors that govern bone weathering is essential for interpreting faunal preservation and site formation processes in archaeological contexts. This study presents the first four-years of an actualistic long-term experiment conducted in three contrasting depositional settings of the Dry Chaco ecoregion of Central Argentina: two open-air contexts (Arid Chaco and Mountain Chaco; <italic>n</italic> = 54, <italic>n </italic>= 76) and a sheltered context within the Mountain Chaco (<italic>n</italic> = 44). Annual observations of weathering progression were recorded for camelid skeletal elements and integrated with climatic data to evaluate the influence of environmental and anatomical variables. Using a Bayesian regression model, we assessed the relative contributions of temperature, precipitation, solar radiation, and microenvironmental conditions to weathering trajectories. The model outputs demonstrate pronounced differences across contexts: rockshelter context showed an extremely low probability of transitioning into higher weathering stages, remaining at stage 0 across all years, while open-air settings exhibited faster and more heterogeneous weathering. Element morphology played a major role, with flat and axial bones showing higher susceptibility than long or compact elements. Microenvironmental factors—including shading, substrate, moisture regimes, and vegetation cover—proved more influential than broad regional climate, underscoring the need to interpret weathering within local ecological and geomorphological conditions. To explore ontogenetic effects, we generated exploratory estimates of neonatal weathering stages using adult–newborn differentials from an independent experiment. These suggest reduced survivorship of neonatal elements in open-air settings, highlighting the importance of age in mortality and taphonomic interpretations. Overall, our findings caution against using weathering stages as direct chronological markers and demonstrate the value of Bayesian approaches for modeling taphonomic processes. The methodological framework presented here provides a robust basis for expanding actualistic studies and improving archaeological inference in semiarid environments.","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"19 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147507883","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 Drills, Big Questions—Investigating Late Neolithic Dickenbännli Drills Through Experimentation, Technology, Traceology and Residue Analysis","authors":"Hannah Huber, Claus-Joachim Kind, Patrick Schmidt, Yvonne Tafelmaier, Flavia Venditti","doi":"10.1007/s10816-026-09768-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-026-09768-2","url":null,"abstract":"The manufacture of limestone beads using so-called Dickenbännli drills has been proposed to be part of a large-scale societal development: specialization of labor and the resulting emergence of social stratification. These small lithic drills are abundant at many Middle and Late Neolithic sites in Southern Germany and Northern Switzerland, frequently co-occurring with limestone beads. However, the use of the drills for bead manufacture is mostly assumed rather than demonstrated. Furthermore, there is little experimental, technological and traceological evidence to support the hypothesis of a specialized production, except for the site of Hornstaad-Hörnle, where the argument is based on spatial distribution and manufacturing skill. The Late Neolithic assemblage of Kohlhau-Abri, which includes both drills and disc bead fragments, serves as a case study to reconstruct the manufacturing process of drills and limestone beads and evaluate their interconnection, ultimately examining the technical skills involved. This was achieved through explorative and controlled experiments, coupled with traceological and residue analysis of both drills and beads. Our use wear results show that the drills were used, likely to work limestone. Raman spectroscopy of a white residue found at the tip of one of the drills indicates calcite, the primary component of limestone. Neither the experimental nor the archaeological evidence suggests a necessity for specialists in bead manufacturing. Our study highlights how the application of multiple analytical approaches can provide us with complementary lines of evidence, and how such a holistic approach enables us to tackle not only small-scale but also large-scale questions.","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"132 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147287348","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":"Benefits of Niche Construction in Northern Rio Grande Pueblo Agriculture: Modeling Cotton, Maize, and Wheat Cultivation","authors":"Kaitlyn E. Davis, R. Kyle Bocinsky","doi":"10.1007/s10816-026-09764-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-026-09764-6","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"93 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147287114","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":"Food Equality: Multiproxy Biomolecular Dietary Analysis Shows Unstratified Foodways Among Protohistoric E Baltic Communities","authors":"Ester Oras, Mari Tõrv, Eve Rannamäe, Kristiina Johanson, Agnes Unt, Shidong Chen, Almira de Villa, Holar Sepp, Annaliisa Männik, Sven Isaksson","doi":"10.1007/s10816-026-09765-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-026-09765-5","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"52 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147287115","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":"Settlement Patterns and Community Delimitation in Chibcha Chiefdoms of Colombia and Panama","authors":"Luis Miguel Soto Rodríguez","doi":"10.1007/s10816-026-09767-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-026-09767-3","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146205147","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":"Using Archaeological Road Data to Evaluate Limits of Topography on Road Location: Roman Roads in the Near East as a Test Case","authors":"Adam Pažout","doi":"10.1007/s10816-026-09766-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-026-09766-4","url":null,"abstract":"The article presents a new methodological approach to understanding (post-dicting) the location of ancient roads based on an inductive topographic analysis of existing road remains. The research is focused on the analysis of a spatially highly precise dataset of Roman roads in the Near East, using selected topographic variables (maximum slope, topographic position index, vector ruggedness measure). The identified limits of the topographic variables are used to create an isotropic (direction-independent) model of ‘natural corridors of movement’ using an adapted ‘from everywhere to everywhere’ (FETE) method. The modelled movement corridors are then overlaid by the known Roman road network in the Near East, and their overlap is calculated. The overlap between the modelled corridors and Roman roads is around ~ 25%, suggesting that the selected topographic variables and slope categories have limited explanatory power in understanding the layout of the Roman road network as a whole. The performance of the isotropic model is compared to four selected slope-based anisotropic functions (Tobler, Naismith, Herzog, Llobera-Sluckin). It is shown that the isotropic model incorporating a limited number of topographic variables better explains the location of Roman roads than the selected functions. It is argued that these results suggest that additional anthropic, cultural variables have a stronger influence on the layout of the Roman road network, and an alternative approach on how to incorporate topographic and anthropic variables is proposed.","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-02-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146153522","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":"Developing Geo-Ethnoarchaeological Methods for Studying Archaeological Pastoral Sites: the CAMP project","authors":"Stefano Biagetti, Abel Ruiz-Giralt, Keelie S. Rix, Antonios Koutroumpas, Jordi Ibañez-Insa, Carla Lancelotti, Nuria Garcia-Tuset, Celine Emmanuelle Kerfant, Katherine M. Grillo, Elisabeth A. Hildebrand, John Lonyala, Malebogo Mvimi, Stefania Merlo, Giulio Lucarini, Silvia Lischi, Marco Madella","doi":"10.1007/s10816-025-09759-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-025-09759-9","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents the aims, methods, and some initial results of the project ‘(Re)Constructing the Archaeology of Mobile Pastoralism (CAMP)’, a multi-disciplinary investigation into anthropogenic deposits from pastoral contexts in dryland regions. Ethnoarchaeology has played a pivotal role in transforming the study of pastoralism, particularly in environments where material traces are often ephemeral and underrepresented in the archaeological record. By linking contemporary practices with their material signatures, ethnoarchaeology has reshaped both the interpretation of pastoralist material remains and broader understandings of pastoral societies, revealing them as adaptive and innovative actors in highly variable environments. Building on recent theoretical and methodological advances—especially in geo-ethnoarchaeology—CAMP seeks to develop a robust interpretive framework for identifying chemical proxies that can be linked to specific human activities. Research in the first stage has focused on three ecologically and culturally distinct regions: Maitengwe (Tutume Dist., Botswana), Khor Rori (Dhofar, Oman), and Loreamatet (Turkana, Kenya), with supplementary test areas to evaluate the broader applicability of the developed protocol. Fieldwork has targeted three site categories: inhabited campsites, to document the relationship between activities and their anthropic markers; abandoned campsites, to assess post-depositional and diagenetic transformations; and key archaeological pastoral sites, to reinterpret ancient deposits using models derived from present-day contexts. Preliminary results presented in this paper highlight significant differences in the composition of chemical elements across activity areas within settlements, underscoring the potential of these proxies to distinguish activity-specific signatures. By integrating ethnoarchaeology, geoarchaeology, and geochemistry, the project advances methods for detecting and interpreting pastoral signatures in the archaeological record, while contributing to the repositioning of drylands as dynamic centers of resilience and innovation.","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"46 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-02-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146153523","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":"Validating Pottery Seriation with Radiocarbon Dates: Relative and Absolute Chronology of the Early Bronze Age Necropolis in Mokrin","authors":"Marko Porčić, Mihailo Radinović, Marija Krečković Gavrilović","doi":"10.1007/s10816-026-09762-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-026-09762-8","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"103 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2026-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146070234","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}