Xu Liu , Shuhan Zhang , Rubi Wu , Bingyan Wang , Haohong Cai , Yanbo Song , Anne P. Underhill , Xuexiang Chen
{"title":"Beyond the “Luxury Food” Paradigm: Reassessing the social significance of rice in Late Neolithic (4500–4000 cal BP) Southeastern Shandong, China","authors":"Xu Liu , Shuhan Zhang , Rubi Wu , Bingyan Wang , Haohong Cai , Yanbo Song , Anne P. Underhill , Xuexiang Chen","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101710","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101710","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The role of food in hierarchical societies has been widely discussed, particularly for rice (<em>Oryza sativa</em> L.), a crop of great economic importance and symbolic significance in Asia. Previous studies have emphasized the role of rice as a luxury food and a status symbol in the middle and lower Yellow River during the Late Neolithic to Bronze Age, primarily based on its concentrated presence in large settlements in various areas. However, the “luxury food” hypothesis remains contested due to insufficient comparative analysis of rice utilization patterns across settlements of different sizes. This study examines the nature of rice farming practices and the social significance of rice during the Late Neolithic period through new archaeobotanical evidence from Sujiacun (4,500–4,000 cal BP) alongside material from contemporaneous sites in southeastern Shandong, China. The results suggest that rice processing and consumption at Sujiacun were organized at the household level, with cooperation among households for some activities. We argue that rice served as a staple food across settlements of different sizes in southeastern Shandong, a pattern that transcends the explanatory scope of the traditional “luxury food” paradigm. This widespread adoption was driven by improvements in rice cultivation techniques, supported by community cooperation and inter–household collaboration. The study reveals that the social significance of rice is dynamic in both time and space, influenced by the developmental trajectories of rice cultivation in different social and environmental contexts. This further underscores the importance of evaluating specific archaeological contexts in investigations about access to rice or to other hypothesized luxury foods.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 101710"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144556709","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":"Complicated endings: Household-based foodways and the demise of Early Bronze Age urban society in the southern Levant","authors":"Hanna Erftenbeck , Meredith S. Chesson","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101687","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101687","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The end of the Early Bronze Age III (EB III, c. 2900–2500 BCE) period in the southern Levant (modern day Jordan, Israel, Palestine, southern Lebanon, and southern Syria) has traditionally been characterized as a time of wide-scale, total collapse. Recently, researchers have highlighted evidence for cultural continuity and slow transitions as people abandoned EB III urban settlements throughout the region to disperse into villages, hamlets, and farmsteads during the EB IV (c. 2500–2000 BCE). Focusing on the last occupations of EB III Numayra and Tall al-Handaquq South in Jordan, we examine household-based food practices as indicators of what everyday life was like for EB people living through the decline of their communities. Analyzing ceramic storage and serving vessel data, we found an overall continuity in serving and storage practices at both sites before their abandonment, suggesting that residents of both communities did not alter their daily food practices and likely maintained their social and economic networks despite approaching a ‘collapse’ of EB urbanism. However, significant decreases in platterbowl size and serving vessel decoration indicate smaller scales of food-sharing and possibly early hints of out-migration from Numayra and Tall al-Handaquq South. This research requires scholars to pursue a more nuanced understanding of EB urban abandonment, one that recognizes the continuity in foodways between terminal EB III and early EB IV settlements.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 101687"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144365042","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":"Home, hearth, and housekeeping: Alternative methods for detecting migrants in the Wari Empire, Peru","authors":"Donna J. Nash","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101701","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101701","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The existence of a Wari Empire in Peru was debated for several decades. Despite shifts in settlement patterns and large-scale landscape transformations, researchers questioned Wari hegemony based on the prevalence and quality of “imperially branded” ceramics. These artifacts were predominantly from tombs and could be attributed to a network of prestige exchange or markers of political affiliation. In recent years, studies of archaeological households have reshaped perspectives on Wari expansion by allowing for different types of migrants: those originating in the core, those moving within regions or moving between provinces. In this paper I advocate for household archaeology, a focus on domestic assemblages, and attention to the tangible features of quotidian activities as the means to move beyond narratives posing the conquerors vs. the conquered and a reliance on diacritical goods, which may be limited to the elite and/or mask the regional origin of people participating in imperial projects. Household archaeology is in a better position to detect culture differences in Wari-affiliated colonial settlements, where locals and migrants from diverse cultural backgrounds interacted with each other, differentially participated in the polity as state agents, formed regionalized traditions, and changed some practices, while retaining others, over the course of several generations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 101701"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144272040","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}
Elizabeth Arkush, Paul Roscoe, Jennifer Birch, Ben Raffield
{"title":"Problematizing ‘alliance’ in anthropological archaeology","authors":"Elizabeth Arkush, Paul Roscoe, Jennifer Birch, Ben Raffield","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101706","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2025.101706","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Alliances are critical components of human sociality, often essential to social existence itself. It is no surprise therefore that alliance crops up everywhere in anthropological and archaeological discourse. Yet scholarship on alliance consists largely of case studies rather than analytical discussion of the phenomenon itself. While alliances can be difficult to identify with confidence in the archaeological record, they are too important in human affairs to ignore. Motivated by our belief that anthropological archaeology cannot fully address competition and conflict without a better understanding of alliances, we survey here various dimensions of alliance that we hope can be useful in advancing the field. We focus primarily on military and political aspects of alliances – i.e., alliances intended to increase non-lethal and lethal collective strength and power. Our investigation draws from the ethnographic and historical record of premodern societies to identify both the common characteristics of alliances and their dimensions of variability. We offer thoughts on how some of this variation might be explained, and we conclude with some hypotheses and suggestions for future research.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"79 ","pages":"Article 101706"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144272039","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":"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}