Journal of Anthropological Archaeology最新文献

{"title":"Blood symbolism at the root of symbolic culture? African hunter-gatherer perspectives","authors":"Ian Watts","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101627","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101627","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>At ∼160 ka, near the end of our African speciation, archaeologists identify a change from sporadic to habitual use of red ochre, interpreted as ‘blood-red colorant’ for decorating performers’ bodies during group rituals, with habitual ritual considered pre-requisite to symbolic culture’s ‘shared fictions’ (<span><span>Dapschauskas et al. 2022</span></span>). This article considers the proposed motivations for such behaviour, and asks whether cross-cultural data on African hunter-gatherer ritual uses of red substances and associated beliefs can further constrain the interpretation of the archaeological finding. The comparative survey fills a basic knowledge gap. The survey’s interpretation relies upon proposed relations of relevance bridging the past and present, foremost being predictions of symbolic culture derived from evolutionary models of group ritual. The main symbolic theme encountered is a metaphoric relationship between women’s reproduction and men’s hunting, expressed as a form of ‘blood’ symbolism. This is consistent with a long theoretical tradition within social anthropology, and the neo-Darwinian re-casting of that tradition by the Female Cosmetic Coalitions hypothesis, which arguably predicted the timing of habitual ochre use thirty years ago. Models aside, this article hopefully demonstrates that if evolutionary and social anthropology are to jointly address how we became a symbolic species, they will have to attend more closely to African hunter-gatherer voices.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"76 ","pages":"Article 101627"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142696693","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}

{"title":"Kinship as social strategy: A contextual biodistance analysis of the Early Mycenaean Ayios Vasileios North Cemetery, southern Greece","authors":"Paraskevi Tritsaroli ,&nbsp;Efthymia Nikita ,&nbsp;Ioanna Moutafi ,&nbsp;Sofia Voutsaki","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101633","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101633","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Early Mycenaean era in mainland southern Greece is characterized by radical social transformations. The changes observed in the mortuary sphere include the introduction of new practices that stressed group identity alongside traditional modes of burial. Our hypothesis is that these mortuary choices should be seen as a social strategy for redefining kinship relations.</div><div>Here, we examine the extent to which the adoption of specific mortuary practices was based on biological or social affiliation by using the Ayios Vasileios North Cemetery, southern Greece (ca. 1700–1500 BCE) as a case study. We collected cranial and dental phenotypic data (measurements and non-metric traits) recorded for 69 individuals. Interindividual Gower distance coefficients were used to combine these metric and nonmetric data in the estimation of biological relationships.</div><div>The results show a biologically related burial group that shared relatively homogeneous mortuary practices. Therefore, biological kinship was not a determining factor in the adoption of different mortuary practices; instead, social kin ties were constructed by being buried together, and by sharing practices, experiences and choices. Finally, the burial of such a group in the same ground over a long period of time implies social strategies of exclusion and inclusion based on age and kinship divisions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"76 ","pages":"Article 101633"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142655375","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}

{"title":"Households, Community, and Crafting at Kanono: The archaeology of a 2nd millennium village in Western Zambia","authors":"Zachary McKeeby ,&nbsp;Chisanga Charlton ,&nbsp;Hellen Mwansa ,&nbsp;Constance Mulenga ,&nbsp;William Mundiku ,&nbsp;Samuel Namunji Namunji ,&nbsp;Richard Mbewe","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101631","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101631","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Machile River and its surrounding tributaries in Western Zambia formed a significant locus of Iron Age life in Zambia and served as a conduit for the localized movements of people, things, and ideas in south-central Africa over much of the last two millennia. Within this dynamic corridor, the early 2nd-millennium CE Kanono site represents a short-lived but well defined Middle/Late Iron Age farming community that integrated local crafting practices with global and regional orientations, during a period of dramatic political and economic changes across southern, central, and eastern Africa. Combining high-resolution geophysical survey and the results of targeted excavations at Kanono, we trace the emergence, growth, and abandonment of the village between the mid-thirteenth and early fifteenth centuries CE. We argue that changes seen in the village relate to the formation of a bounded co-residential community built around unilineal descent, which may have leveraged prestige in iron working into other forms of prestige – namely wealth in people and access to exotic goods. Approaching the archaeological record at Kanono from the perspective of household archaeology and daily life allows for an evocative ‘peopling’ of south-central African political economies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"76 ","pages":"Article 101631"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142572302","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":"“We always remember for whom we make a tandyr”. Ethnoarchaeological research on tandyrs in southern Kyrgyzstan","authors":"Jozef Chajbullin Koštial","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101629","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101629","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The article has two informative levels: (a) describes the construction, distribution and use of tandyr cores as a traditional product of the bread-baking culture in southern Kyrgyzstan; compares these processes with the well-documented phenomenon of tandyrs in the Middle East and (b) tries to define the implications for potential archaeological research of tandyrs in this area, where (despite their claimed general distribution and use) these products have not been archaeologically identified to date. The basic method of the work is the direct collection of ethnographic data at four production locations and dozens of consumption locations through direct observation and formalized questionnaires.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"76 ","pages":"Article 101629"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142535028","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":"Potters’ technological choices in turbulent times: Exploring the transition from the Neolithic to the Copper Age on the Great Hungarian Plain through communities of practice and technological investment theories","authors":"Attila Gyucha ,&nbsp;Danielle J. Riebe ,&nbsp;Orsolya Viktorik ,&nbsp;László Máté ,&nbsp;Attila Kreiter","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101622","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101622","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper explores how technology can be used to discern socio-cultural variations and how technological analyses can contribute to a better understanding of the origins and aftermaths of fundamental socio-political changes in prehistoric societies. To study pottery technology, we carried out petrographic analysis on ceramics from six Late Neolithic (ca. 5000–4500 BCE) and Early Copper Age (ca. 4500–4000 BCE) sites located within a single microregion in the Körös Basin on the Great Hungarian Plain. The communities representing two Late Neolithic cultural units (i.e., the Tisza and the Herpály) applied distinct ceramic decorations and sustained a strongly enforced socio-cultural boundary. By the Early Copper Age, dramatic changes unfolded, including the abandonment of Neolithic centers, a departure from Late Neolithic symbolic systems, and the emergence of an overall homogeneity in material culture. The petrographic analysis, however, revealed a high degree of similarity in ceramic manufacturing between the Tisza and Herpály that persisted into the Copper Age. To understand these patterns, we apply the concepts of communities and constellation of practice, alongside technological investment theory. We argue that a potting constellation of practice explains the similarities between Tisza and Herpály manufacturing practices. In addition, the ceramic technological continuity into the Copper Age, despite major socio-political turbulence, illustrates that potters continued to interact with the landscape, technology, and each other in similar ways, even as other, social aspects of the craft changed. The persistence of technological traditions suggests that internal developments rather than external factors were responsible for the profound socio-cultural transformations that occurred during the transition from the Neolithic to the Copper Age on the Great Hungarian Plain.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"76 ","pages":"Article 101622"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142441958","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":"Sociopolitical evolution, population clustering, and technology among early sedentary communities in northeastern Andes, Colombia","authors":"Sebastian Fajardo ,&nbsp;Pedro Argüello","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101628","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101628","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Several prehistoric societies did not develop robust hierarchical systems even after centuries of population clustering and advancements in constructing structural earthworks and crafting materials like ceramics and alloys. What social dynamics characterized these non-state complex societies and how did they influence technological production? Here we analyze population clustering and hierarchical structures through two regional settlement studies in the northeastern Andes of Colombia. Employing both a traditional Inverse Distance Weighting interpolation (IDW) approach and an unsupervised machine learning method, Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise (DBSCAN), we identify settlement clusters within the pre-Columbian sedentary settlement sequence. Analyzing rank-size distribution and <em>A</em>-coefficients based on identified clusters, we discern differences in hierarchical systems between the two regions. Results reveal that these early sedentary communities did not establish strong settlement hierarchies over centuries of clustering. Our findings suggest that the lack of robust hierarchical systems in Muisca societies may be attributed to slow and non-linear settlement clustering and limited site specialization. We compare this with evidence for technologies in the Muisca area, arguing that the emergence of strong and permanent settlement clustering is a threshold for early communities before developing information-storage technologies, such as standardized representations for counting or writing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"76 ","pages":"Article 101628"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142422199","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}

{"title":"The land of the last hunter-gatherer groups in the Ebro basin: Forgers of their own destiny","authors":"Alfonso Alday ,&nbsp;Ander Rodríguez-Lejarza ,&nbsp;Adriana Soto ,&nbsp;Lourdes Montes","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101626","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101626","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In this paper we adopt a new perspective on the chronology and settlement strategies of the last Mesolithic societies of the Ebro basin. For this purpose, we applied concepts from population biology (carrying capacity) and redefined the catchment area of the sites using GIS analysis tools. We concluded that the last hunter-gatherer groups lived below their means, so that physical and cultural reproduction was guaranteed. Therefore, the changes that the societies underwent—from Notches and Denticulate Mesolithic to Geometric Mesolithic, and from there to Neolithic—were not motivated by external factors, but rather were social decisions. The chronology suggests a rapid assumption of the new technological norms—in either of the technological transitions, although the process of experimentation with the production economy must have been slower, so that the Mesolithic territorial strategy remained in force during the first three centuries of the Neolithic. Throughout this process, the efficient Mesolithic networks allowed the transmission of objects, ideas and people.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"76 ","pages":"Article 101626"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-10-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142422198","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}

{"title":"Hunting, Herding, and diet breadth. A landscape based approach to niche shifting in subsistence economies (Gobi Desert)","authors":"Lisa Janz","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101624","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101624","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Diet is fundamental and closely interconnected with land-use, technology, and economy. When societies undergo major diet shifts, the entire human niche shifts, including all interrelated aspects of social organization. As such, larger patterns in social organization can inform us about diet in the absence of direct evidence. This study focuses specifically on patterns of land-use in the Gobi Desert of China and Mongolia, a place where direct evidence of diet is scanty due to the poor preservation of organics. The purpose is to explore diachronic changes in the spatial distribution of sites and variation in intensity of site use in order to explore proposed changes in subsistence economies. Here, a reorganization of technology, raw material use, and settlement that began in the early to middle Holocene (“Oasis 2”) supports the idea of diet breadth expansion between the Palaeolithic and Bronze Age. Strategies of land-use during all three periods are considered. The findings offer a foundation from which to build testable hypotheses about local land-use and subsistence, but also a model for exploring such transitions in other regions where direct evidence is scanty (e.g., forest landscapes, many arid regions and the very deep past).</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"76 ","pages":"Article 101624"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142314806","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":"The politics of provincial site planning and the architectural evolution of the Inka administrative center of Turi, northern Chile","authors":"Beau Murphy ,&nbsp;Diego Salazar ,&nbsp;Frances M. Hayashida ,&nbsp;Andrés Troncoso ,&nbsp;Pastor Fábrega-Álvarez","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101623","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101623","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Political aspects of imperial architecture are usually evaluated in terms of the symbolism of specific buildings as opposed to overall site planning and layout. This reflects a shortcoming in our understanding of imperial tactics, as provincial site layouts were likely politically calculated. Here we present an architectural study of the Inka provincial capital of Turi, a well-preserved local population center in northern Chile co-opted for Inka imperial administration of the Atacama Desert area. We reevaluate layout planning at the site using concepts of building coordination and inter-site standardization to identify potentially planned features, and add to this a chronological study of surface architecture based upon wall-abutments and radiocarbon dates associated with a sample of building events. Results indicate significant Inka-era remodeling took the pre-existing site’s layout in a more coordinated and monumental direction, serving to increase site symmetry, reference political ideas through inter-site standardization, and focus greater attention upon Inka political buildings. Political buildings themselves grew more formalized and monumental over the course of the imperial occupation, culminating in the construction of a large <em>kallanka</em> state building near the end of the 15th century. Overall, we argue that layout remodeling was used to form increasingly strong architectural pronouncements of state legitimacy over time, and that moving past a ‘planned’ versus ‘unplanned’ conceptual binary will aid in gleaning more information from imperial sites in future research.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"76 ","pages":"Article 101623"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142319545","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":"From space to Place: The making of temples","authors":"Matthew Susnow","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101625","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101625","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper investigates temple-building traditions using concepts of space and place, exploring various perspectives of temple placemaking in archaeological, textual and ethnographic data. The study first looks at temple-building practices in Mesopotamia and South Asia, before exploring the nature of temple-building traditions in the 2nd and 1st millennium BCE southern Levant. From Mesopotamia, a unique temple foundation ritual from the 1st millennium BCE is analyzed in order to provide one perspective on how a space is turned into sacred place. The study then focuses on the role that sacred models (mandalas) play in building and conceptualizing temples in South Asian traditions, as well as how ritual dances generate demarcated ritual places. Using and applying various ideas encountered in the first two case studies, the article then investigates the Bronze and Iron Age archaeological data of the Levant for traces of sacred placemaking. Amongst the various observations on how Levantine temples were conceptualized as places, the study identifies a fundamental distinction between institutionalized and non-institutionalized temple-building traditions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"76 ","pages":"Article 101625"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142314805","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}