{"title":"Contrasting strategies: Social organization and interaction in the Early Bronze Age of northwestern Scandinavia","authors":"Knut Ivar Austvoll , Mikael Fauvelle , Johan Ling","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101708","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101708","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The transition to the Nordic Bronze Age included new technological innovations, social institutions and sociopolitical structures pushed by extensive long-distance exchange of metals and other exotica. However, traditional views often oversimplify this as a simple two-way trade system, failing to adequately explain the complex interactions in and between the regions like Scandinavia in which the societies organised themselves based on varied strategies tied to local resource potentials. Recent research, involving methods such as isotopic analysis and genomic sequencing, has provided solid evidence of movement and interaction. Despite this progress, the evidence at hand often lacks well-founded interpretations grounded in thorough theoretical frameworks. This study addresses interpretive challenges by employing an innovative framework grounded in collective action theory, integrating other aspects of social complexity and supported by regional datasets to achieve a more nuanced understanding of social dynamics. This approach informs us about the complex and contrasting organizational strategies and trade networks across northwestern Scandinavia (i.e. modern-day Norway up to the borders of Troms), illustrating further how local societies contributed to broader European networks. The study aims to offer a nuanced understanding of the region’s social dynamics, highlighting the interplay between coercive and cooperative strategies within the overarching Nordic Bronze Age system.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 101708"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144255158","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":"Materiality of forager food insecurity in the archaeological record: A case study from the central Canadian Boreal Forest, ∼1100–1300 CE","authors":"M. Boyd","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101707","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101707","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Food insecurity is a highly disruptive force at the individual and group levels, particularly when scarce resources are culturally important. Due to the close connection between food and material culture, periods of cultural food insecurity in the past may be associated with changes in the materiality (the physical and relational manifestations of the preparation, presentation, and consumption) of these foods. In the central Canadian Boreal Forest, pottery was traditionally used to cook aquatic foods as evidenced by wild rice (manoomin, <em>Zizania</em> <!-->spp.) microbotanical remains in carbonized food residues on cooking pots. This paper explores the connection between periods of aquatic ecosystem instability driven by climate change and the disruption of material and social traditions linked to wild rice consumption and cooperative harvesting. This connection provides an alternative explanation for sudden stylistic transformations that occurred in pottery throughout this region approximately 800 years ago.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 101707"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144243289","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}
Armando Falcucci , Stefano Bertola , Martina Parise , Matteo Del Rio , Julien Riel-Salvatore , Fabio Negrino
{"title":"A crossroads between the Mediterranean and the Alps: Lithic technology, raw material procurement, and mobility in the Aurignacian of Riparo Bombrini","authors":"Armando Falcucci , Stefano Bertola , Martina Parise , Matteo Del Rio , Julien Riel-Salvatore , Fabio Negrino","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101705","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101705","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Riparo Bombrini is a collapsed rockshelter within the Balzi Rossi site complex, located at the intersection of the Maritime Alps, Northern Apennines, and Ligurian Sea. This unique environmental setting served as a crucial biogeographical corridor for human mobility along the Liguro-Provençal Arc during the Paleolithic. Multidisciplinary research at Bombrini identified three archaeological layers (i.e., A2, A1, and A0) overlying a semi-sterile Mousterian level. This paper explores the internal variability of the Protoaurignacian by analyzing lithic assemblages from layers A2 and A1, as well as a previously undescribed Early Aurignacian assemblage from layer A0. An analysis of assemblage integrity, lithic technology, and raw material procurement reveals distinct mobility and land-use strategies, despite technological uniformity. Remarkably, lithic production and use in both Protoaurignacian and Early Aurignacian layers frequently involved exogenous materials sourced from distances exceeding 150 km, with some reaching up to 450 km, spanning from the Rhône Valley to the Central Apennines. Variability in the procurement distance of discarded lithics and their changing reduction intensities highlight distinct patterns of logistical and residential mobility. Comparative analysis with regional sites indicates that foragers possessed sophisticated territorial knowledge, challenging the traditional view of the Protoaurignacian as the outcome of pioneering groups entering unfamiliar landscapes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 101705"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144190463","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}
Eleanor M. Williams , Alastair Key , Ignacio de la Torre , Bernard Wood
{"title":"Who made the Oldowan? Reviewing African hominin fossils and archaeological sites from 3.5 million years ago","authors":"Eleanor M. Williams , Alastair Key , Ignacio de la Torre , Bernard Wood","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101704","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101704","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The question of which African hominin taxon/taxa was responsible for producing Oldowan stone tools has persisted for nearly a century. <em>Homo habilis</em>, <em>Paranthropus boisei</em>, <em>Homo erectus</em>, <em>Australopithecus garhi,</em> and <em>Australopithecus africanus,</em> among others, have been proposed as candidates, but we have never had a definitive answer to ‘who made the Oldowan’. We review the hominin taxa that overlap temporally with the Oldowan, and use optimal linear estimation modeling to estimate first and last appearance dates for each taxon and the Oldowan. These modeled temporal trends suggest the Oldowan emerged c. 3.25 Ma lasting until either 1.6 or 1.2 Ma, a time span that would make the Oldowan the longest-lived human cultural tradition. The modeled emergence of the <em>Homo</em> genus and extinction of early <em>Homo</em> coincide well with the first and last appearance dates of the Oldowan, but there is also considerable temporal overlap between the Oldowan and other hominin taxa, particularly <em>Paranthropus boisei.</em> Early members of the <em>Homo</em> genus remain the principal candidate for making and using the Oldowan throughout its shorter modeled temporal range (c. 3.25–1.6 Ma), and, if the Oldowan was produced until 1.2 Ma, <em>P. boisei</em> is the prime candidate for producing these later artifacts.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 101704"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144125130","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":"“Weaving” the tupi: The study of kʷaẽ language and the persistence of pottery-making knowledge among the Akuntsu women, southwestern Amazon","authors":"Carolina Coelho Aragon , Roseline Mezacasa , Juliana Salles Machado","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101691","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101691","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Grounded in the archaeology of persistence, decolonial perspectives, and technological approaches to ceramic manufacture, this study examines pottery-making as both a material expression of resilience and a site of ongoing identity negotiation. Integrating notions of intersubjectivity and intercorporeality, this paper explores the interrelation between technical processes, embodied knowledge, and territorial experiences. Focusing on the persistence of pottery-making knowledge among Akuntsu women (Tupi, Tupari), the study highlights its ties to cosmology. The Akuntsu, a recently-contacted Indigenous people, faced genocidal attacks as their ancestral territory in the Rondônia State, Brazil, was violated. Today, only three Akuntsu women—Pugapia, Aiga, and Babawro—remain as survivors of this group. To understand the <em>chaîne opératoire</em> of pottery production among Akuntsu women, this research promotes interdisciplinary dialogue, recognizing the fusion of knowledge with territorial, language, and material experiences from an ethnoarchaeological perspective. We explore the interplay between women featured in historical narratives, fermented beverage, saliva, <em>tupi</em> (clay), and pottery-making process as carriers of subjectivity and potentiality. The findings reveal that the <em>chaîne opératoire</em> of production of <em>kʷaẽ</em> (clay pots) endures as a cultural practice despite historical disruption from contact-related violence. The persistence of the three Akuntsu women in <em>tupi</em> shaping exemplifies the resilience of their traditions and illustrates how Indigenous material practices engage with broader debates on persistence, coloniality, and the interconnections between bodies, artifacts, and territories.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 101691"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144115094","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}
Jennifer M. Farquhar , Arlene Rosen , Loukas Barton , Robert Drennan , Claire E. Ebert , Dalantai Sarantuya , Yadmaa Tserendagva
{"title":"Wetlands and grasslands: Habitat choice of hunters and herders across the transition to mobile pastoralism in Mongolia’s desert-steppe","authors":"Jennifer M. Farquhar , Arlene Rosen , Loukas Barton , Robert Drennan , Claire E. Ebert , Dalantai Sarantuya , Yadmaa Tserendagva","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101685","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101685","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper presents the results of a study that investigates the settlement history of Mongolia’s desert-steppe to understand the role of foragers in the evolution of pastoralism. The study examines land use, mobility, technological organization, and environmental context prior to, during, and after the transition to food production (Neolithic-Kitan Periods, ca. 6050 BCE-1150 CE) to detect differences in how, when, and why people moved, illuminating how people make decisions about existing environments. Employing frameworks of habitat suitability and behavioral optimization, this study documents important shifts in land use and mobility across the Neolithic-Bronze Age transition (ca. 2550 BCE) as people began to take up herding. Settlement and population patterns indicate a pronounced change in habitat choice across this transition, suggesting that preferences of committed herding societies (Iron Age and beyond) were firmly established during the Bronze Age as people began to prioritize upland grasslands and productive wintertime vegetation. This shift coincided with the onset of dry, cool conditions, a reversal of wetter, cool environments where prior foragers targeted a broad range of habitats, including wetlands. These patterns set the stage for adaptations that came to define mobile pastoralism across Eurasia including high residential mobility, long distance connections, social differentiation, and broadly adopted mortuary traditions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 101685"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144088774","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":"Commodification of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in 17th century southern New England","authors":"Elic M. Weitzel","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101693","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101693","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Sustainable natural resource use and management is widely proposed as the solution to our current planetary ecological crises. However, there are multiple pathways to sustainability: consume fewer resources or modify the environment to be more productive. White-tailed deer (<em>Odocoileus virginianus</em>) in 17th century New England provide an informative case study of the historical ecology of sustainable and unsustainable natural resource use as the species was ostensibly used sustainably by Native peoples for millennia but hunted nearly to extinction soon after European colonization. Zooarchaeological analyses of white-tailed deer remains from two sites in the lower Connecticut River Valley suggest that deer abundance in this locality declined in the 17th century due to increased hunting pressure consistent with commodification of the species within a novel mercantile capitalist economy. Depression of this deer population in the 17th century—at a time of general human population decline—appears to have been driven by capitalist market forces that increased demand for deerskin clothing for purposes of social signaling. These results illustrate the importance of addressing the harms of commodification when promoting sustainable natural resource use and management.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 101693"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144068864","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":"Integrating cross-collections research and archival study: new insights on macaws and parrots from Chaco Canyon, NM","authors":"Katelyn J. Bishop","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101690","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101690","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>North American archaeology is increasingly embracing the study of existing museum collections to fulfill longstanding ethical obligations to document curated materials and to avoid unnecessary excavation of archaeological sites. Working with collections from historic excavations in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, this article confronts some of the challenges of collections-based research and demonstrates the benefits of overcoming them. Chaco was the center of a regional network that developed in the northern U.S. Southwest between AD 800 and 1150. Frequently referenced is the presence of nonlocal macaws and parrots, brought in and raised within the canyon. The foundation of our understanding of these birds, however, remains shaky. The research presented here integrates a zooarchaeological reanalysis with legacy data and archival documentation from more than 130 years of archaeological exploration. It provides a revised number of individuals, diachronic and spatial perspectives on deposition, evidence for the practice of curation, and insight into the care that birds were afforded. The construction of osteobiographies refocuses attention on these birds as living beings rather than as objects leveraged in trade and social status. Though often complex and time-consuming, working across multiple collections—both artifactual and archival—has the potential to provide new insights from “old” data.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"78 ","pages":"Article 101690"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143935092","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":"Mask motifs in the land of geometrics. A systematic exploration of the rock art landscapes of Southern Mendoza region (Central-West Argentina)","authors":"Danae Fiore , Agustín Acevedo , Hugo A. Tucker","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101692","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101692","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper is based on a theoretical perspective focused on the materiality of rock art: breaking away from the primacy of communication and representation in the archaeology of art, it proposes a set of concepts to approach the engagement of people with rock art via its techno-visual and performative qualities. These concepts are applied to a regional case study in Southern Mendoza (Central-West Argentina), in order to characterise the visual codes underlying the materiality of images. Rock art landscapes are characterised by analysing a database of 89 sites in the three biogeographical units: Altoandina, Patagonia and Monte. Technical choices are related to taphonomic and economic factors such as differential conservation of engravings vs. paintings, support hardness, and labour investment in image production. A relational map shows two different sets of inter-site relations, each one characterised by recurring motif-class combinations within the region. The links between motifs’ morphologies and techniques are systematically analysed, leading to the identification of certain motif classes (e.g. geometric motifs) which were “technically-flexible” enough to be produced via different techniques –their meanings being probably more rooted in their morphology–, <em>versus</em> other “not technically-flexible” motif classes (e.g. head-mask figures) which were only produced with specific techniques, thus suggesting that their contents/messages, aesthetic effects and performative functions stemmed from a combination of techno-visual and morphological features embedded in their materialities. In sum, the paper shows how the engagement of people with rock art motifs and landscapes involves perception and production processes that shape their materialities.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"78 ","pages":"Article 101692"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143923425","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":"Mold-making technology at architectural compound 60 (CA-60): A newly discovered ceramic workshop at Huacas de Moche, Peru","authors":"Federico Mosna , Carlos Rengifo","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101677","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101677","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Ceramic molding is often addressed as a simple, repetitive, and standardized technique. Similarly, mold-making, though much less studied than molding itself, is frequently viewed as equally straightforward. Yet what specific gestures, techniques, and tools are involved in mold-making? Does internal technical variability exist behind apparent external standardization? What insights into ancient craft production can mold-making evidence provide? This paper addresses these questions through a technological study of molds from a recently discovered ceramic workshop at Huacas de Moche (Trujillo, Peru). Our study reveals that mold-making comprises multiple complex sequential steps with significant technological variation. We suggest that local Moche artisans maintained autonomy in their mold production methods, employing diverse technological approaches while sharing a common artistic repertoire, meanwhile elite oversight ensured quality standards in final products.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"78 ","pages":"Article 101677"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-05-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143916899","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}