Gonzalo Pimentel G. , Mariana Ugarte F. , José F. Blanco , Claudia Montero-Poblete , Juan Gili , Javier Arévalo , Francisco Gallardo , Christina M. Torres , William J. Pestle
{"title":"On the pathways. Inter-nodal archaeology in the Atacama desert Pampa (c. 7000 BP-400 BP)","authors":"Gonzalo Pimentel G. , Mariana Ugarte F. , José F. Blanco , Claudia Montero-Poblete , Juan Gili , Javier Arévalo , Francisco Gallardo , Christina M. Torres , William J. Pestle","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2023.101526","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2023.101526","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We present a synthesis of our investigation into pre-Hispanic pathways of the Atacama Desert Pampa -one of the driest and harshest environments on our planet- where we have identified a variety of mobility strategies and dynamics deployed by the different communities that inhabited both the Pacific coast and the inland oases of this region. Specifically, we focus on the inter-nodal archaeological and biogeochemical data that provides direct evidence of the presence of individuals from myriad regions traversing this area from the Middle Archaic to Late periods (<em>c.</em> 7000 BP-400 BP). Moreover, we analyze how, beginning in the Formative Period, this multiplicity of peoples employed different mobility systems, circulation, relationships, and social exchanges to integrate this apparent “empty space”. In doing so, we discuss and reformulate the classic highland caravanning model of the Andes, which considered highland caravanning groups as the only agents promoting long-distance mobility and exchange.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"71 ","pages":"Article 101526"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49722525","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}
Indira Montt , Daniela Valenzuela , Barbara Cases , Calogero M. Santoro , José M. Capriles , Vivien G. Standen
{"title":"Chinchorro fibre management in the Atacama Desert and its significance for understanding Andean textilization processes","authors":"Indira Montt , Daniela Valenzuela , Barbara Cases , Calogero M. Santoro , José M. Capriles , Vivien G. Standen","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2023.101530","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2023.101530","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Textilization processes envisioned as technological transformation of animal fibres and the incorporation of textiles into human bodies, is analyzed among Chinchorro hunter gatherers, along the hyperarid Pacific coast of the Atacama Desert throughout the Holocene (ca. 7800–3500 cal BP). The Chinchorro, as producers and consumers of South American camelid fibres and textiles, created a range of textilized mortuary corporealities. We studied bodies (Artificially Treated Bodies, Statuettes, Figurines), tools and textiles. Based on technological analysis of textiles dressing the bodies, we address the technological procedures employed in textile production. We defined: (a) textilization of Chinchorro bodies, (b) the entailed social relations and technological practices and, and (c) the temporal variability of camelid fibre textile production. These results are discussed within the broader context of early Andean textile fibre management and camelid domestication. From a worldwide perspective, we highlighted how Chinchorro textilization processes, as a microhistory, can be seen in the flow of human-nonhuman animal mutual interactions that gave rise to domestication and the later textile industry. We conclude that progressively ties between people and camelids intensified, by increasing the incorporation of fibres and textiles in the bodies, and the development of communities of practice which shared a concern for textile embodiment.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"71 ","pages":"Article 101530"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49736836","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}
C. Trevor Duke , Neill J. Wallis , Lindsay Bloch , Ann S. Cordell , Michael D. Glascock
{"title":"Sourcing ritual specialists in ancient Tampa Bay (AD 650–1550): A multi-method chemical and petrographic approach","authors":"C. Trevor Duke , Neill J. Wallis , Lindsay Bloch , Ann S. Cordell , Michael D. Glascock","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2023.101528","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2023.101528","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Archaeologists have long relied on material proxies of labor organization to identify different social formations. Conventional wisdom holds that specialization is particularly integral in developing hierarchical states, and that hunter-gatherers are typically “generalists” provisioning their immediate household and community. However, archaeological evidence from eastern North America challenges these assumptions in showcasing evidence of specialized production among nonhierarchical societies. Because specialization is now known to exist outside the chiefdom or state, some researchers have questioned its analytical utility. Further, recent approaches to crafting discourage the use of generalizing heuristics (e.g., specialization), and instead center the historical dimensions of community and identity. In this study, we argue that archaeological research on specialization can mature by shifting focus from determinative wholes like hierarchies, to the relationships between crafters and recipients. To demonstrate this point, we present results of a multi-method chemical and petrographic study of Late Woodland (ca. AD 650–1050) and Mississippian (ca. AD 1050–1550) pottery from the Tampa Bay region of Florida. By contextualizing these data within historical relationships between communities and crafters, our study identifies two different forms of ritual specialization among nonhierarchical hunter gatherers; one predicated on religious leadership, the other on securing access to esoteric knowledge and property.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"71 ","pages":"Article 101528"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49722440","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}
Holly Pittman , Reed Goodman , Sara Pizzimenti , Paul Zimmerman , Jennifer Pournelle , Liviu Giosan
{"title":"Response to Emily Hammer’s article: “Multi-centric, Marsh-based urbanism at the early Mesopotamian city of Lagash (Tell al Hiba, Iraq)”","authors":"Holly Pittman , Reed Goodman , Sara Pizzimenti , Paul Zimmerman , Jennifer Pournelle , Liviu Giosan","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2023.101532","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2023.101532","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span>Remote-sensing techniques play an important role in the resumption of archaeological research in southern Iraq. These tools are especially powerful when ground-truthed through excavation and survey, and when informed by local environmental histories. This response engages with propositions put forward by Hammer (2022): “Multi-centric, Marsh-based urbanism at the early Mesopotamian city of Lagash (Tell al-Hiba).” Using a mix of UAV photography and magnetic gradiometry data, Hammer argues that Lagash was a marsh-based city toward the end of the Early Dynastic period in Mesopotamia (c. 2,900-2,292 BCE), and that on-site habitation had previously been restricted to points of high elevation because of excess water. Fundamental geoarchaeological and chronometric data, however, are absent. Based on evidence from previous excavations and general conditions of site preservation, we review Hammer’s interpretations, including the validity and reliability of the data that the paper uses to advance its arguments. Ongoing work at that site has the potential substantially to enhance our understanding of ancient urbanism. Ultimately, this response seeks to rectify basic principles of chronology, </span>taphonomy, and paleoenvironment at Lagash, and to highlight the importance of verifiable representation in the presentation of remotely-sensed datasets.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"71 ","pages":"Article 101532"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49736312","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}
Jack M. Broughton , Michael J. Broughton , Kasey E. Cole , Daniel M. Dalmas , Joan Brenner Coltrain
{"title":"Late Holocene tule elk (Cervus canadensis nannodes) resource depression and distant patch use in central California: Faunal and isotopic evidence from King Brown and the Emeryville Shellmound","authors":"Jack M. Broughton , Michael J. Broughton , Kasey E. Cole , Daniel M. Dalmas , Joan Brenner Coltrain","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2023.101512","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2023.101512","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Previous research has documented declines in the abundance of high-return resources including tule elk (<em>Cervus canadensis nannodes</em>) over the past three millennia in central California, suggesting the occurrence of resource depression. We test the hypothesis that hunting depressed tule elk in this setting by articulating stable isotope analyses from 88 directly dated tule elk specimens with data on the age structure and skeletal part representation from the King Brown and Emeryville Shellmound sites. Late Holocene trends in stable isotopes and modeled climatic variation are inconsistent with climate-based population declines. However, at King Brown, located within the Central Valley and vast tule elk freshwater marsh and grassland habitat, increasing isotopic diversity, a decline in mean age, and increasing abundance of high-utility skeletal elements suggest local depression stimulated the increasing use of distant elk patches. Although faunal trends are consistent with the depression of elk at Emeryville, the site is located on the shore of the San Francisco Bay where limited elk habitat existed, and no evidence of distant elk patch use is indicated. This analysis underscores how human behavioral responses to resource depression can vary in relation to the local ecology as they affect patch use economics for specific prey and demonstrates how such responses can be deciphered through stable isotope and faunal data.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"71 ","pages":"Article 101512"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49762161","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}
Cecilia Dal Zovo , César Parcero-Oubiña , A. César González-García , Alejandro Güimil-Fariña
{"title":"Mapping human mobility and analyzing spatial memory: palimpsest landscapes of movement in the Gobi-Altai Mountains, Mongolia","authors":"Cecilia Dal Zovo , César Parcero-Oubiña , A. César González-García , Alejandro Güimil-Fariña","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2023.101516","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2023.101516","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The significance of local spatial choices and memory and their impact on mobility networks is scarcely recognised in Mongolian archaeology. Here, we present a mapping strategy aimed at disentangling the landscapes of movement and investigating the materiality that accumulated in the palimpsest of the Ikh Bogd Uul Mountain (Bayankhongor, Mongolia).</p><p>Based on an integrated and diachronic approach, our analysis encompasses a variety of strategies and sources: satellite imagery and historical cartography, a rescaling of the research area and path-centered fieldwork, which we conceptualize as 'linear’ survey. We document Late Prehistoric mounds as well as ‘modern’ springs, pastoral campsites, and paths. They are interpreted as landscape-objects associated with persistent mobility patterns and the construction of local knowledge and identity – in the sense of a <em>nutag</em> or homeland.</p><p>This study thus contributes to expanding the archaeological information available for a remote and scarcely investigated area and enriching the archaeological approach to a complex and highly mobile context over time. It also offers new insights into how ancient mobility contributed to shaping the local landscapes of movement, both in terms of seasonal pastoral shifts and long-distance networks in the Mongolian and Central Eurasian Late Prehistory and afterwards.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"71 ","pages":"Article 101516"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49722626","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}
{"title":"Revisiting cremation practices of the Pastoral Neolithic in Kenya","authors":"Lorraine W. Hu","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2023.101523","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2023.101523","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>As global archaeological studies of cremation increasingly integrate detailed methodology alongside mortuary theory, case studies from sedentary, agricultural societies – most commonly from Europe and North America - still dominate. This paper examines the earliest known cremation tradition from Africa, associated with a period termed the Pastoral Neolithic c. 3300–1200 BP, at the sites of Njoro River Cave, Keringet Cave, and Noomparrua Nkosesia in Kenya. These burial sites contained remains of multiple cremated individuals in settings of caves and subterranean cavities. Using bioarchaeological and contextual analyses, this paper presents site-specific <em>chaînes opératoires</em> to explore variability in funerary processes. Shared traits including the rocky, secluded environments and patterning of ochre staining demonstrate the potential maintenance and transmission of fundamental aspects of cremation ritual knowledge by different mobile communities throughout the Pastoral Neolithic.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"71 ","pages":"Article 101523"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49762214","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}
{"title":"Plant use and peasant politics under Inka and Spanish rule at Ollantaytambo, Peru","authors":"R. Alexander Hunter , Luis Huamán Mesía","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2023.101529","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2023.101529","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In the Andes, successive waves of Inka and Spanish imperialism reshaped local ecologies and transformed agricultural practices between the 14th and 17th centuries. As the Inka (ca. 1450–1532CE) consolidated control over the region they co-opted existing resources, directed the development of new farmland, and imposed new labor obligations on Andean people. In turn, Spanish colonizers (1533-1824CE) introduced foreign flora and fauna, created new tributary regimes, and reorganized agricultural production around forcibly resettled communities and Spanish-owned haciendas (agrarian estates). In this paper, we explore how agricultural workers managed this extended period of upheaval through analysis of botanical data from recent excavations at the site of Simapuqio-Muyupata, in Peru’s Cusco region. We track how agriculturalists living at the site altered patterns of plant use—and, by extension agricultural practice—across the period of Inka and Spanish Colonial governance. These farmers remained reliant on a similar suite of cultivated plants under both political regimes, but shifted practices of land management to conserve labor when confronted with the structural conditions of servitude to Spanish landlords. By altering agricultural practices, these agriculturalists re-shaped the agroecological context in which they lived and worked to ensure survival in the face of political upheaval.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"71 ","pages":"Article 101529"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49722476","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}
{"title":"Late Maritime Woodland period hunter-fisher-gatherer complexity in the Far Northeast: Toward an historical and contingent approach","authors":"M. Gabriel Hrynick , Matthew W. Betts","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2023.101535","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2023.101535","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We review archaeological research from the Late Maritime Woodland period (1300–550 cal BP) on the Maritime Peninsula and argue that there is substantial evidence for sociocultural and economic hunter-fisher-gatherer complexity prior to the arrival of Europeans. This is relevant because the region was the stage for some of the earliest contacts between Indigenous and European peoples in the Americas, and aspects of sociocultural complexity among the Wabanaki have sometimes been attributed to European contact, a conception which requires exploration. More broadly, we argue that hunter-fisher-gatherer complexity may be conceived of as a suite of practices that hunter-fisher-gatherers deploy in specific contexts to deal with historical or environmental contingencies, and which may have had long histories as seasonal and/or heterarchical practices that are difficult to resolve archaeologically. We suggest that this perspective helps to reframe recent debate around the development of hunter-fisher-gatherer complexity as one that is focused on contingent historical process.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"71 ","pages":"Article 101535"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49722393","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}
{"title":"Pounding the ground for the thunder god: Sounding platforms in the Prehispanic Andes (CE 1000–1532)","authors":"Kevin Lane","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2023.101515","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2023.101515","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The past is silent, or mostly so, yet sound can open a window to this same past. Early Spanish colonial ethnohistoric sources from the Andes are littered with references to indigenous dancing and music as an accompaniment to ritual and feasts. Recent archaeological research in the upper Ica Drainage on the late Prehispanic (CE 1000–1532) site of Viejo Sangayaico has revealed an open-air platform potentially prepared as a type of sprung or ‘sounding’ dancefloor which produces a deep percussion-like sound when stepped upon. I interpret this feature as a sounding platform for stomp dancing. The larger site’s association to veneration of Andean lightning and thunder deity suggests that dancing at this location might have been in part attuned to this supernatural entity. Wider ethnohistoric evidence provide a potential parallel into understanding what type of activities were practiced on this platform and site.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"71 ","pages":"Article 101515"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49745565","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}