Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory最新文献

{"title":"Modelling Southern Mesopotamia Irrigated Landscapes: How Small-scale Processes Could Contribute to Large-Scale Societal Development","authors":"Dengxiao Lang, Maurits W. Ertsen","doi":"10.1007/s10816-023-09632-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-023-09632-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Early Southern Mesopotamia shows a complex history of expansion of (irrigated) farming in relation to urban developments and changing landscapes. As a first step to study expanding irrigated farming system, an irrigation-related agent-based model was developed to explore farm(land)s and irrigation systems in relation to decision-making processes, both of farms and their farmlands (an agriculture unit) and collective decision-making processes for irrigation system management—especially sharing water between farms. The decision-making processes include options to move farms, expand the system, or start a new system, as these would be options available for Mesopotamian farmers as well. In this text, we report how model parameters contribute to the generation of various patterns of yields and expansion of farms and system. Additionally, the Gini coefficient (based on yields) is applied to estimate levels of inequality among farmers. Our results show how (1) human decision-making determines the level of influence of and benefits for farms, as well as the overall irrigation system; (2) Gini values effectively capture the degree of inequality in yields among farms based on water availability; and (3) our model is a suitable base for further study, by incorporating additional agents into the irrigation system and expanding the spatial–temporal scales of the irrigated landscapes, to reach a more comprehensive understanding of the evolutionary dynamics of irrigation systems in Southern Mesopotamia.</p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"69 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2023-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138582921","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":"Beautiful, Magic, Lethal: a Social Perspective of Cinnabar Use and Mercury Exposure at the Valencina Copper Age Mega-site (Spain)","authors":"Leonardo García Sanjuán, Raquel Montero Artús, Steven D. Emslie, José Antonio Lozano Rodríguez, Miriam Luciañez-Triviño","doi":"10.1007/s10816-023-09631-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-023-09631-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Today, mercury is a matter of concern for health and environmental authorities across western countries, and legislation has been passed and programs have been implemented for its total elimination from human activity. But this was not always the case: mercury and its compounds have been highly appreciated and used since remote times all over the world with very diverse purposes ranging from decorative, medicinal, metallurgical and symbolic. In particular, cinnabar (HgS, mercury sulfide), a mineral of an intense red color, has been considered in many cultures as an exotic raw material, highly valued and associated with the elites and sacred practice. In this paper, we examine one such case, set almost 5000 years ago, in Copper Age Iberia, by investigating mercury exposure through human bone. The study presented here includes a total of 170 samples from 70 different human individuals and 22 animals (plus one soil sample) from the Copper Age mega-site of Valencina, south-western Spain. It is the largest ever single-site study of exposure to mercury based on human bone in combination with cinnabar use. Abnormally high values are recorded in some individuals dating between 2900 and 2650 BC, especially in those buried in remarkable tombs belonging to the social elite of this period, but high levels of mercury are also recorded in the rest of the population. Three lines of interpretation are used to explain these results, including the manipulation of cinnabar (grinding it into powder, mixing it with other substances, using it for the decoration of objects, buildings and the human body), its direct consumption through ingestion or inhalation by a ‘special’ social group and the contribution of environmental factors. Based on the currently available evidence, which is carefully reviewed, Valencina represents the most intense and prolonged case of exposure to mercury recorded in human history, which makes it an important site to assess the long and complex history of use of this substance.</p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2023-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"109233359","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":"Entropology: an Information-Theoretic Approach to Understanding Archaeological Data","authors":"Paula Gheorghiade, Vaiva Vasiliauskaite, Aleksandr Diachenko, Henry Price, Tim Evans, Ray Rivers","doi":"10.1007/s10816-023-09627-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-023-09627-4","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The main objective of this paper is to develop quantitative measures for describing the diversity, homogeneity, and similarity of archaeological data. It presents new approaches to characterize the relationship between archaeological assemblages by utilizing entropy and its related attributes, primarily diversity, and by drawing inspiration from ecology. Our starting premise is that diachronic changes in our data provide a distorted reflection of social processes and that spatial differences in data indicate cultural distancing. To investigate this premise, we adopt a parsimonious approach for comparing assemblage profiles employing and comparing a range of (Hill) diversities, which enable us to exploit different aspects of the data. The modelling is tested on two seemingly large datasets: a Late Bronze Age Cretan dataset with circa 13,700 entries (compiled by PG); and a 4^th millennium Western Tripolye dataset with circa 25,000 entries (compiled by AD). The contrast between the strongly geographically and culturally heterogeneous Bronze Age Crete and the strongly homogeneous Western Tripolye culture in the Southern Bug and Dnieper interfluve show the successes and limitations of our approach. Despite the seemingly large size of our datasets, these data highlight limitations that confine their utility to non-semantic analysis. This requires us to consider different ways of treating and aggregating assemblages, either as censuses or samples, contingent upon the degree of representativeness of the data. While our premise, that changes in data reflect societal changes, is supported, it is not definitively confirmed. Consequently, this paper also exemplifies the limitations of large archaeological datasets for such analyses.</p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"74 19","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2023-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71435871","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 Social Life of Palimpsests: Skill, Bifacial Stone Knapping, and Differentiation in the Plowed Fields of La Martre","authors":"Manek Kolhatkar","doi":"10.1007/s10816-023-09629-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-023-09629-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Archaeological palimpsests are depositional units where the remains of various human occupations have been mixed for hundreds to hundreds of thousands of years. They create various sets of analytical scales that archaeologists must deal with routinely. In this paper, I argue that sociocultural processes derived from a communities of practice framework — scaffolding, guided participation, and continuity through shared activities — can be used by archaeologists to describe a palimpsest’s lithic assemblage, to differentiate its patterns, and to interpret their meaning. These processes must first be remapped onto an ecological approach to skill before they can be expanded onto new sets of scales, however. I ground my work at the site of La Martre (Quebec, Canada), a nexus of fifteen marine terraces spread over 500,000 m². Slow depositional processes and plowing have mixed its lithic remains to create a 10,000-year-wide depositional unit with poor chronological and spatial control. Fieldwork conducted between 1995 and 1999 sampled 0.03% of its total surface. Most of its 2111 tools and 207,506 flakes were uncovered in its 40-cm-thick plowzone. I build methodological tools — dispersion surfaces, skill combinatorics, and extended skilled reduction sequences — to describe a small subset (<i>N</i>=93) from one of La Martre’s loci (16-west). I describe ten extended skilled reduction sequences showing various degrees of skill and knapping methods. Concepts of scaffolding, guided participation and continuity through shared activities are then used to interpret these patterns.</p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"74 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2023-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71435883","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 Complex Past’: Theory and Applications","authors":"Jan-Eric Schlicht, Aleksandr Diachenko","doi":"10.1007/s10816-023-09630-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-023-09630-9","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"77 8","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135868478","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":"Culture and Evolvability: a Brief Archaeological Perspective","authors":"Michael J. O’Brien, Kevin N. Lala","doi":"10.1007/s10816-023-09624-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-023-09624-7","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Evolvability refers to the capacity, ability, or potential of an organism to generate heritable variation. Under this view, much extragenetic inheritance is regarded not as noise, fine-tuning, or a luxury add-on to genetic inheritance but as an essential tool for short-term adaptation. With respect to humans, the cultural contribution to evolvability is key to understanding evolution. In many instances, cultural inheritance directs genetic inheritance, not the other way around. Culture, being relatively free from the genetic leash, can produce change that genetic inheritance cannot. Soft inheritance—the view that heredity can be changed by an organism’s experiences—has been disdained for over a century, but in light of the recent outpouring of data demonstrating extragenetic inheritance, defining evolution only in terms of genetic change ignores half the adaptive process, discarding much of what is interesting and relevant. Archaeologists can play a key role in evolvability research, given their contributions to topics such as niche construction, modularity, mosaic evolution, and developmental bias.</p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"2 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71417658","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":"Where the Grass is Greener — Large-Scale Phenological Patterns and Their Explanatory Potential for the Distribution of Paleolithic Hunter-Gatherers in Europe","authors":"Andreas Maier, Louise Tharandt, Florian Linsel, Vladislav Krakov, Patrick Ludwig","doi":"10.1007/s10816-023-09628-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-023-09628-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p>A unique property of the Paleolithic record is the possibility to observe human societies in large areas and over long periods of time. At these large spatial and temporal scales, a number of interesting phenomena can be observed, such as dynamics in the distribution of populations in relation to equally large-scale environmental patterns. In this paper, we focus on phenological patterns of vegetation and discuss their explanatory potential for differences in site densities in different periods and parts of Europe. In particular, we present a case-transferable approach to diachronically estimate the timing of the vegetation period and resulting phenological gradients. We discuss results for two complementary case studies. First, we look at the Aurignacian in Western and Central Europe, a period of dynamic population dispersal in a topographically heterogeneous region. Second, we focus on the Middle and Late Upper Paleolithic in the East European Plain, a period after the arrival of anatomically modern humans in a topographically rather uniform area. We visualize phenological trajectories and boundaries otherwise invisible in the archaeological record with certain explanatory potential for the observed archaeological patterns. Importantly, we do not intend to reconstruct specific plant communities or dispersal routes of animals or humans. Rather, we aim at highlighting gradients which in themselves and on small temporal scales might be comparatively weak, but over the course of millennia may potentially influence the distribution of animal biomass and human populations by biasing the aggregate of at times opposing actions of individuals towards particular directions.</p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"35 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2023-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50166734","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":"Quantifying Spatial Complexity of Settlement Plans Through Fractal Analysis","authors":"Hallvard Bruvoll","doi":"10.1007/s10816-023-09626-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-023-09626-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In this paper, I investigate the possibilities and limitations of fractal analysis methods applied to archaeological and synthetic settlement plans, with the goal of providing quantitative measures of spatial randomness or noise, as well as potential tools for automated culture-historical attribution of settlement plans and socio-economic intra-site differentiation. The archaeological sample is made from Linear Pottery settlements in south-west Slovakia and Trypillia settlements in the Southern Bug—Dnieper interfluve in central Ukraine, all based upon high-quality geomagnetic site plans. Synthetic plans are constructed as geometrically ideal versions of the archaeological ones, with varying degrees of added spatial noise. A significant correlation between fractal dimension and noise level is revealed for synthetic settlement plans, independently of size, density, house-size distribution and basic layout. However, several methodological challenges persist, and further systematic exploration on larger samples is needed before these results may be generalised. All analysis is performed in the R language and the script is made freely available in order to facilitate further development.</p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"35 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2023-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50166736","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":"Convergent Evolution of Prehistoric Technologies: the Entropy and Diversity of Limited Solutions","authors":"Aleksandr Diachenko, Ray John Rivers, Iwona Sobkowiak-Tabaka","doi":"10.1007/s10816-023-09623-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-023-09623-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Linking the likelihood of convergent evolution to the technologies’ complexity, this paper identifies the scales of technological diffusion and convergence, <i>i.e.</i>, the evolving of structures that are similar, but not related to a common “ancestor.” Our study provides quantitative measures for understanding complexity and connectivity in technologies. The utility of our approach is exemplified through the case study of Cucuteni-Tripolye pottery kilns in Chalcolithic Southeastern Europe. The analysis shows that technological evolution has to be scaled to the “technologically important” (in quantitative terms) component parts, whose introduction shapes a ground for extinction and self-evolvement caused by the cascade effects along technological design structure. Similar technological solutions to the technological design structure engender the spread of similar devices in various locations. Surprisingly, such a broad distribution may be the result of relatively low internal diversity, rather than arising from higher efficiency. This gives some reasons for the underestimation of convergence as a mechanism for evolution of technology in current prehistoric archaeology.</p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"35 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2023-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"50166735","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":"Linking Up Bell Beakers in the Iberian Peninsula","authors":"Joaquín Jiménez-Puerto, Joan Bernabeu Aubán","doi":"10.1007/s10816-023-09625-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-023-09625-6","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Many studies in complexity theory employ agent-based models whose interactions can be expressed as networks. In such models, the pattern of interactions between actors is crucial, and the network topology that emerges from the raw data can be characterized through many metrics. One tool previously used in archaeology studies has the potential to deal with networks in social contexts at different scales of analysis: social network analysis (SNA). This discipline has been applied successfully in a wide range of archaeological problems, providing valuable insights and a different perspective. It also could be helpful to quantify concepts associated with social complexity, such as robustness or resilience. In this work, we propose some methodologic possibilities for consideration in the phase definition of the adaptive cycle model (ACM), using SNA tools. To illustrate the process, we will present a case study from the Copper Age in the Iberian Peninsula: the Bell Beaker phase.</p>","PeriodicalId":47725,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory","volume":"91 12","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2023-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71435506","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}