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":"2024-12-01","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":"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":"2024-12-01","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":"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":"2024-12-01","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":"2024-12-01","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":"Violence as a lens to Viking societies: A comparison of Norway and Denmark","authors":"Jan Bill ,&nbsp;David Jacobson ,&nbsp;Susanne Nagel ,&nbsp;Lisa Mariann Strand","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101605","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101605","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Comparing Viking Age Norway and Denmark, the article examines the primary proposition that as centers of authority become progressively more robust, violence will be proportionately contained. The article introduces a new approach in using indications of violence as a focal point to elicit broader social practices. The disciplines employed in this study – archaeology, osteology, philology, and sociology – are used together in the study of covariance of different indicators across a societal range. The indicators for assessing violence include skeletal trauma and weapon frequency. For assessing the steepness of the social pyramid, we use runestones, indicating variations in social stratification, and monumental constructions as a measure of power to command labor. Among the findings: weapons and interpersonal violence in Norway was much more widespread than in Denmark, and the social pyramid in Denmark was progressively steeper and more complex than in Norway. “Official” executions accounted for the preponderance of violence in Denmark, while rare in Norway. Denmark was evidently a more “civilianized” society than Norway. The comparative research supports the primary proposition. The research, furthermore, suggests that Denmark and Norway were sociologically distinct societies, which accords with recent findings that the respective regions displayed distinct, though still similar, genetic profiles.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 101605"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278416524000369/pdfft?md5=c58b4c460df561af098c193d7885304b&pid=1-s2.0-S0278416524000369-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141463138","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":"Archaeologies of people and space: Social network analysis of communities and neighborhoods in spatial context","authors":"Adrian S.Z. Chase ,&nbsp;April Kamp-Whittaker ,&nbsp;Matthew A. Peeples","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101607","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101607","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Applications of SNA to interpret archaeological evidence have been increasing dramatically, as has an interest in identifying communities and neighborhoods. Social Network Analysis (SNA) can be a lens and a tool to explore neighborhoods and communities with archaeological datasets from a range of temporal periods and regions. The spatial distribution of material culture facilitates the creation of spatially located networks that demonstrate social linkages between individuals or communities. Yet, limitations exist in using archaeological data; we cannot directly ask individuals who they interacted with or for how long – and we must work to combine data and theory in reconstructing emic perspectives. Communities exist interstitially at multiple scales through a combination of relational and categorical identities. Neighborhoods represent a specialized form of community (one of spatially co-located residents with frequent face-to-face interaction that exhibit a union of relational and categorical identity). The articles in this special edition use network theory to identify, reconstruct, and test the presence and extent of communities and neighborhoods in the past, and in doing so they open avenues of research with applicability beyond archaeology.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 101607"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141540097","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":"A comparative study of early shell knife production using archaeological, experimental and ethnographic datasets: 46,000 years of Melo (Gastropoda: Volutidae) shell knife manufacture in northern Australia","authors":"Fiona Hook ,&nbsp;Sean Ulm ,&nbsp;Kim Akerman ,&nbsp;Richard Fullagar ,&nbsp;Peter Veth","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101614","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101614","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We investigate archaeological evidence for the early production of <em>Melo</em> (or commonly named ‘baler’) shell knives recovered from Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene deposits in Boodie Cave, Barrow Island. The site is in the Country of Thalanyji people in northwestern Western Australia. The oldest shell knife fragments were recovered from units dated to 46.2–42.6 ka, making this one of the oldest <em>Homo sapiens sapiens</em> shell tool technologies currently described. We situate this early and ongoing tradition of shell tool manufacture within recent discussions of the early development of shell industries from both Island Southeast Asia and globally. Although shell knives have been previously reported from Pilbara and Gulf of Carpentaria surface middens in northern Australia, systematic analysis of the manufacturing process and associated debris, and especially from pre-Holocene contexts, has not been previously conducted. This research explores the shell knife<!--> <em>chaîne opératoire</em> <!-->through the integration of three data sets derived from archaeology, ethnography, and experimental archaeology. This study highlights the significance of shell tool industries in the northwest of Australia, and globally,<!--> <!-->from the Pleistocene and into the<!--> <!-->Late Holocene<!--> <!-->in areas with limited access to hard rock geology where shell reduction represents a unique technological strategy.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 101614"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027841652400045X/pdfft?md5=827a65e4b43040827ca7bc8033f62ee7&pid=1-s2.0-S027841652400045X-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141877794","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":"Beyond Uniformity: Technical and historical dynamics among pottery traditions in the Falémé Valley, eastern Senegal","authors":"Adrien Delvoye ,&nbsp;Anne Mayor ,&nbsp;Ndèye Sokhna Guèye","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101602","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101602","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Ceramic traditions are constantly evolving, but the pace of change is variable and not all stages of the <em>chaîne opératoire</em> are affected in the same way, depending on the causes of borrowing, abandonment, or innovation. Few ethnoarchaeological studies in Africa have focused on a detailed understanding of these dynamics, which are important for the interpretation of past societies. Our study was conducted from 2012 to 2015 along the Falémé Valley in eastern Senegal, characterized by diverse cultures and environments. It aims to understand the historical dynamics of ceramic traditions by documenting the variability and spatial distribution of the different stages of the <em>chaîne opératoire</em>, and analyzing the factors that explain the transformations of techniques, potters’ tools and finished objects over different temporalities, both long- and short-term.</p><p>The results show that the same fashioning technique, molding on a convex shape, is used by all potters, whatever their cultural identity. On the contrary, firing procedures indicate two different traditions. The reconstruction of potters’ genealogies and apprenticeship networks anchor both traditions in distinct social trajectories, and their spatial distribution corresponds with the ones of precolonial kingdoms expanding after the <em>Mâli</em> empire’s collapse, between the 17th and the 19th century CE: the Fulbe kingdom of Boundou in the north, and three Mande kingdoms in the south. Beside this long-term dynamic, elements of paste recipes’ or potter toolkits’ transformation, and the abandonment of certain types of pots refer to recent dynamics dating back to a few decades, in a context of climate change and growing globalization.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 101602"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278416524000333/pdfft?md5=ff7582224b89aa8f8f26396300efbd5e&pid=1-s2.0-S0278416524000333-main.pdf","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141250285","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":"Dogs under urbanization: Isotopic insight from the Bronze Age Central Plains of China (ca. 2000–1000 BCE)","authors":"Xinyi Ouyang ,&nbsp;Zhipeng Li ,&nbsp;David Cohen ,&nbsp;Xiaohong Wu","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101608","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101608","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Although dogs played multifaceted roles during the early stages of urbanization in China’s Central Plains, research remains limited concerning the management of dogs, the dynamics of human–dog relationships, and dogs’ entanglements with the political economy, ritual, and daily life. Here, we compare stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data from 95 dogs and associated human skeletons from 15 Late Neolithic – Bronze Age sites. Results show two distinct dietary patterns in dogs. Early sites (Xinzhai-Erlitou period, 1900–1520 BCE) show more variability in dog diets, indicative of looser approaches to dog management. Later sites (Late Shang-Western Zhou periods, 1320–770 BCE) show a widespread, homogeneous diet among dogs characterized by higher consumption of C₄ millet (greater than in humans’ diets), suggesting the possibility of the emergence of specialized, broadly shared dog management practices linked to increased ritual use of dogs. This study also underscores the complexity of management practices, which would have been influenced by site-specific conditions, including environment and available resources, the site’s position in hierarchical settlement networks, and the varying roles of the dogs. Importantly, this study demonstrates that the comparison of isotopic data from broad temporal and spatial contexts can shed light on animal management practices in early urban economic systems and political economies.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 101608"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141540091","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":"Reconsidering narratives of household social inequality","authors":"Ian Kuijt","doi":"10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101591","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2024.101591","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The emergence of social inequality is one of, if not the, most important research question in anthropological archaeology. Social inequality within different types of households is relational, between individuals as well as within communities, multidimensional, multi-scalar, and is measured in degrees instead of merely being present or absent. In exploring how archaeologists develop narratives of inequality we need to keep in mind that field archaeologists do not find inequality, as if it was hidden beneath the ground or cultural ruins, so much as we create arguments for inequality based on material variability. Engaging with Jeanne Arnold’s (1993) paper Labor and the Rise of Complex Hunter-Gatherers, in this brief essay I explore how archaeologists are often quick to use the label inequality but fail to consider if this was meaningful to people in the past. At times we draw upon methods such as Gini indexes but without any sense of what we are measuring, and we often fail to consider how household social inequality might be connected to food storage.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47957,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Archaeology","volume":"75 ","pages":"Article 101591"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141097881","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}