Journal of Anthropological Archaeology最新文献

Valencina: A copper age polity 瓦伦西娜：铜时代的政体

IF 2 1区社会学

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology Pub Date : 2025-05-03 DOI: 10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101688

Leonardo García Sanjuán , Timothy Earle

{"title":"Valencina: A copper age polity","authors":"Leonardo García Sanjuán , Timothy Earle","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101688","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101688","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>For a century, Copper Age Iberia (c. 3200-2200 BCE) has been seen as a grand laboratory for discussions of early social complexity. And yet, most theories were, from an empirical view point, infra-determined, as evidence was limited and restricted to a few sites. This situation has changed, as the availability of high-quality scientific data for a broader spectrum of sites now provides opportunities for fresh theoretical approaches. We propose a new take on emergent Iberian Copper Age social organisation, based on elements of political economy and collective action. We use the Valencina Copper Age mega-site, located in south-western Spain, to postulate the crucial role played by monumentalised central places in early complex societies. This site, and others like it, operated as attractors of large contingents of people, probably in the thousands, for social congregations that extended the fabric of society along a distinctive Neolithic pattern. Monument-building, largely (but not only) in the form of megaliths and ditched enclosures, brought people together, creating and maintaining a sense of belonging and cooperation, while at the same time keeping in check top-down impulses for more authoritarian and centralised political organisation. In the Neolithic tradition, monuments appear to create identity tied to place among expanding corporate social groups. Copper Age social formations lived in a ‘monument-oriented’ mode of production of sorts, in which the establishment of place and associated monumentalism served both to encourage and ‘burn’ surplus that could otherwise be manipulated and controlled by aspiring leaders. As part of this process, distinctive female leadership emerged at Valencina as materialized by identities supported by sumptuary objects made on exotic raw materials and produced by specialists. The social world built around Valencina as a monumentalised central place came to a rather abrupt end c. 2300, after which a different social medium, the Bronze Age, was started.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"78 ","pages":"Article 101688"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143899081","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

A reappraisal of interaction spheres 对相互作用领域的重新评价

IF 2 1区社会学

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology Pub Date : 2025-04-30 DOI: 10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101686

Daniel A. LaDu

{"title":"A reappraisal of interaction spheres","authors":"Daniel A. LaDu","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101686","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101686","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Migration and diffusion are universal phenomena that fell out of favor in American archaeology during the processulist turn. David <span><span>Anthony’s 1990</span></span> defense spurred renewed interest in migration as a structured behavior worthy of serious analysis; yet we continue to dismiss diffusion as a nonexplanatory cultural force that is both difficult to identify in the material record and overemphasizes the roles that internal invention and external stimuli play in the process of culture change. The interaction sphere concept offers us an established theoretical means of rehabilitating diffusion and integrating the other microsocial theories, frameworks, and perspectives that have since proliferated. This article outlines seven key tenets: four drawn from the formative Eastern Woodlands literature, two illustrated in an indigenous North American map making tradition, and a final tenet observed in the application of the concept to the complex issue of Plaquemine cultural emergence in the Lower Mississippi Valley. Without acknowledging the vital role that intellectual and material exchange plays in the process of continuity, innovation, and change, we continue to ignore the many ways in which interaction shaped history. I advocate for a return to the concept of interaction spheres for the same reasons originally promoted by Joseph Caldwell: it contributes a new understanding of the archaeology, it facilitates comparisons between different networks of extra-regional exchange, and it correlates well with various other theoretical models.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"78 ","pages":"Article 101686"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143886647","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Culinary chronicles of ancient Ebla: A multidisciplinary exploration of diet, nutrition, and health in a 3rd millennium BCE Syrian civilization 古代埃博拉的烹饪编年史：公元前三千年叙利亚文明中饮食、营养和健康的多学科探索

IF 2 1区社会学

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology Pub Date : 2025-04-25 DOI: 10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101689

Ninar AlJerf , Abdullah H. Maad , Loai Aljerf

{"title":"Culinary chronicles of ancient Ebla: A multidisciplinary exploration of diet, nutrition, and health in a 3rd millennium BCE Syrian civilization","authors":"Ninar AlJerf , Abdullah H. Maad , Loai Aljerf","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101689","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101689","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The discovery of Ebla in 1964 revolutionized our understanding of ancient Near Eastern civilizations, offering a unique glimpse into the sophisticated urban culture that flourished in the 3rd millennium BCE. Despite extensive research on Ebla’s administrative and cultural achievements, its culinary traditions have remained largely unexplored. This study seeks to fill this knowledge gap by reconstructing the dietary habits and nutritional practices of ancient Ebla through a comprehensive analysis of historical records and archaeological findings. By integrating insights from food biochemistry, historical analysis, and cultural context, we provide a nuanced understanding of the intricate relationships between food, culture, and well-being in this ancient civilization. Our findings reveal a diet rich in whole, minimally processed foods, with a strong emphasis on local, seasonal ingredients and traditional cooking techniques. This study highlights the importance of preserving cultural heritage and embracing traditional wisdoms in promoting optimal health and sustainability. The implications of our research are far-reaching, offering a compelling model for promoting healthy eating habits in contemporary populations and informing modern approaches to nutrition and health.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"78 ","pages":"Article 101689"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143869578","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Recovering a substantive landscape of mobility 恢复流动性的实质性景观

IF 2 1区社会学

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology Pub Date : 2025-04-23 DOI: 10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101684

Mark Hauser

{"title":"Recovering a substantive landscape of mobility","authors":"Mark Hauser","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101684","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101684","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This special issue explores the complex question: What does it mean to talk about identity in the context of subjects shaped by mobility, and what insights can archaeology provide that other fields may overlook? This inquiry lies at the heart of both archaeology and historical archaeology, which have long grappled with the diverse mobilities and identities reflected in the archaeological record. As this issue demonstrates, these studies are more than just academic exercises—they respond to contemporary global debates on migration, where material evidence is often politicized to construct “others.” The papers demonstrate how mobility, enacted across various scales, reshapes geographies and reveals the frictions experienced by past subjects. This approach moves beyond mere recovery of individual experiences to interrogate the ideological structures that legitimize social hierarchies. By focusing on the variety of past human mobilities and their material legacies, the authors suggest that archaeology can contribute significantly to understanding migration as a complex driver of human history. Ultimately, this collection highlights the need to explore how these intellectual practices intersect with global inequalities in wealth and risk-free mobility between the global north and south.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"78 ","pages":"Article 101684"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143859604","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Diasporic Kinship: Indentured laborers and the archaeology of relations in Mauritius 散居的亲属关系：毛里求斯的契约劳工和关系考古学

IF 2 1区社会学

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology Pub Date : 2025-04-11 DOI: 10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101666

Julia Jong Haines

{"title":"Diasporic Kinship: Indentured laborers and the archaeology of relations in Mauritius","authors":"Julia Jong Haines","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101666","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101666","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article explores the material and social relations of Indian Ocean indentured laborers in post-emancipation Mauritius. Shifting away from traditional identity categories used in archaeology, I draw on queer and diasporic frameworks to examine shared consumption practices of indentured laborers who lived and worked at Bras d’Eau, a nineteenth-century sugar estate. Through the concepts of kala pani (black waters) and jahaji-rishte (ship-relations), this article explores how laborers formed kinship bonds, negotiated caste, and expressed intimacy through everyday practices around food and watery substances. By analyzing domestic material culture and household spaces it reveals how these objects were used to reinforce social boundaries or deepen kinship ties. It concludes that while the structured caste hierarchies were mostly discarded in the diaspora, the embodied practices of purity and relationality manifested in the ways people interacted with one another in domestic spaces. The article challenges conventional notions of nuclear families and mononormative interpretations of households. Ultimately, the study argues for a rethinking of material culture to understand how social relations were materially expressed in the context of diaspora and labor migration.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"78 ","pages":"Article 101666"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143820609","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Who is keen about jades? Evidence for socioeconomic differences between early Neolithic households at Chahai in Northeast China 谁喜欢玉器？中国东北察海地区新石器时代早期家庭社会经济差异的证据

IF 2 1区社会学

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology Pub Date : 2025-04-11 DOI: 10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101683

Yumeng Qu

{"title":"Who is keen about jades? Evidence for socioeconomic differences between early Neolithic households at Chahai in Northeast China","authors":"Yumeng Qu","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101683","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101683","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The rarity, color, hardness, and durability of jades provided them with special social, symbolic, and utilitarian value in many Neolithic communities. However, the process through which jade was transformed into objects of value in early communities and its role in household economy remains poorly understood. Therefore, this study examined these questions using household artifact data from an early Neolithic village in Northeastern China. The relationship between proxies for jade consumption and differences in various aspects of daily life, including domestic ritual, household scale, and economic production, was examined using household artifact assemblage analysis. The results indicated that some small households may have accumulated more jades than large households. Some of these households pursued jades holding ritual and religious significance, whereas others obtained durable jade tools. This initial consumption pattern may have been associated with different risk-buffering strategies stimulated by a limited household scale. The integrated evidence from Chahai offers an intriguing illustration of the potential origins of jade consumption within the matrices of households and their underlying socioeconomic dynamics. Furthermore, this may help explain the origins of jade consumption in Neolithic Northeastern China and other early complex societies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"78 ","pages":"Article 101683"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143816481","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Warrior institutions and martial networks in Viking-Age Scandinavia 维京时代斯堪的纳维亚半岛的战士制度和军事网络

IF 2 1区社会学

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology Pub Date : 2025-04-08 DOI: 10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101661

Ben Raffield , Sophie Bønding , Christian Cooijmans , Marianne Moen , Declan Taggart

{"title":"Warrior institutions and martial networks in Viking-Age Scandinavia","authors":"Ben Raffield , Sophie Bønding , Christian Cooijmans , Marianne Moen , Declan Taggart","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101661","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101661","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The figure of the warrior occupies a key position in both scholarly and popular representations of the Viking Age. Despite this, many aspects of martial culture and lifeways during the period remain obscure. In order to address this issue, this article offers an exploration of the identities, roles, and social position of warrior groups in Viking-Age Scandinavia. We adopt a recently developed institutional approach for the study of the archaeological record, which allows us to target and analyse a number of key properties that shed light on the objectives, activities, and ideologies of these groups. In doing so, we mobilise and combine a range of evidence types, deriving from both archaeological and textual sources, which collectively have the potential to provide a more holistic understanding of warrior institutions and their place within the wider social formations that constituted prehistoric society. Our analysis reveals the complex networks of obligation and dependency that not only bound these institutions together, but which also influenced and shaped the ways in which they interacted with their communities.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"78 ","pages":"Article 101661"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-04-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143790881","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Dearly De-Parted: Ancestors, body partibility, and making place at Dos Hombres, Belize 亲爱的分离：祖先，身体分离，在伯利兹的Dos Hombres安家

IF 2 1区社会学

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology Pub Date : 2025-03-26 DOI: 10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101681

Angelina J. Locker

{"title":"Dearly De-Parted: Ancestors, body partibility, and making place at Dos Hombres, Belize","authors":"Angelina J. Locker","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101681","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101681","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Interments of Ancestors linked past peoples with the living. However, less attention has been given to secondary burials and their role in social memory and placemaking. Given these ties between Ancestors, the living, and the landscape, Ancestors may have been brought when descendants moved from place to place. I applied biogeochemical methods to address questions about movement, placemaking, and ancestry. In this paper I present isotopic data from a non-elite Late Preclassic (300 BCE – 250 CE), simple, co-burial from the archaeological site of Dos Hombres, Belize. Archaeological evidence indicates multiple ancestral veneration practices were associated with this burial. I measured oxygen and strontium isotopes to assess whether individuals were born where they were buried and to gauge how bodies may have been used to make and claim place. Strontium isotope ratios and δ<sup>18</sup>O values suggest the primary individual was local to Dos Hombres; however, the secondary individuals have strontium isotope ratios which fall outside the local range, indicating these individuals were non-local. In this paper, I argue that the practice of removing and reburying pieces of Ancestors’ bodies was used by the ancient Maya at Dos Hombres to claim and make place.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"78 ","pages":"Article 101681"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143703978","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Critiquing the logics of prestige in the interpretation of Cycladic Figurines: Towards an archaeological theory of value 基克拉迪人雕像解释中的声望逻辑批判：走向一种考古价值理论

IF 2 1区社会学

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology Pub Date : 2025-03-18 DOI: 10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101680

Alexander Aston

{"title":"Critiquing the logics of prestige in the interpretation of Cycladic Figurines: Towards an archaeological theory of value","authors":"Alexander Aston","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101680","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101680","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article applies the concept of enactive signification to the subject of Early Cycladic figurines, critiquing the use of prestige frameworks for the interpretation of these objects and contributing to the archaeological analysis of the semiotics of value. I examine social organisation during the emergence of the Aegean Early Bronze Age and the material sign relations of Grotta-Pelos mortuary practices to argue that the figurines developed through kinshipping practices and gifting dynamics. Grotta-Pelos schematic figurines were small, personal, and mobile objects that emerged during a period in which dispersed communities were highly dependent upon local interaction networks for social reproduction and survival, suggesting that the circulation of these figurines supported a form of distributed intersubjectivity. The schematics were readily sourced, easily shaped, attractive, mobile, and unlikely to inspire particularly competitive interactions, properties that indicate that these marble objects acted as a locus of social value generated through acts of crafting, imitation, gifting, and circulation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"78 ","pages":"Article 101680"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143642835","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) castration in Fennoscandia: Domestication theory, archaeological methods, and interpretive perspectives 芬诺斯坎迪亚驯鹿（Rangifer tarandus）阉割：驯化理论，考古方法和解释观点

IF 2 1区社会学

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology Pub Date : 2025-03-13 DOI: 10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101678

Mathilde van den Berg

{"title":"Reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) castration in Fennoscandia: Domestication theory, archaeological methods, and interpretive perspectives","authors":"Mathilde van den Berg","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101678","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101678","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The traditional practice of reindeer castration is an integral component of all known past and present reindeer herding cultures. It has likely played an essential role in the reindeer domestication process, making it relevant for understanding initial and subsequent human-reindeer interactions beyond hunter-prey relationships. This paper presents data on the Traditional Knowledge of reindeer castration among Sámi and Finnish reindeer herders in Finland and explores human-reindeer relations through this practice, providing a tentative interpretative framework and a multi-voiced perspective on current, historical and archaeological narratives of reindeer herding. Based on the effects of castration on bone and antler growth, it proposes osteological methods to detect castration in the archaeological record. Lastly, the paper integrates Traditional Knowledge of castration with domestication theory, arguing that castration is a key element in reindeer domestication. Firstly, castration seems indispensable for the keeping of reindeer for working purposes. Secondly, the keeping of working reindeer is fundamental to (the development of) reindeer pastoralism. Thirdly, this paper shows that castration is an essential feature of pastoralism beyond the use of working reindeer. It is discussed how castration can be seen as a form of holistic care through relations like domination, subjugation, mediation, growth, respect and partnership.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"78 ","pages":"Article 101678"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143621181","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0