bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Strategic and sporadic marine consumption at the onset of the Neolithic: increasing temporal resolution in the isotope evidence
Authors: Montgomery Janet , Beaumont Julia , Jay Mandy , Keefe Katie , Gledhill Andrew R. , Cook Gordon T. , Dockrill Stephen J. , Melton Nigel D.
Published: January 2015

Stable isotope analysis has provided crucial new insights into dietary change at the Neolithic transition in north-west Europe, indicating an unexpectedly sudden and radical shift from marine to terrestrial resources in coastal and island locations. Investigations of early Neolithic skeletal material from Sumburgh on Shetland, at the far-flung margins of the Neolithic world, suggest that this general pattern may mask significant subtle detail. Analysis of juvenile dentine reveals the consumption of marine foods on an occasional basis. This suggests that marine foods may have been consumed as a crucial supplementary resource in times of famine, when the newly introduced cereal crops failed to cope with the demanding climate of Shetland. This isotopic evidence is consistent with the presence of marine food debris in contemporary middens. The occasional and contingent nature of marine food consumption underlines how, even on Shetland, the shift from marine to terrestrial diet was a key element in the Neolithic transition.
The origins of terraced field agriculture in the Caucasus: new discoveries in the Kislovodsk basin
Authors: Korobov Dmitry S. , Borisov Alexander V.
Published: January 2015

Terraced field systems are a feature of many regions of the world and have been dated as early as 6000 cal BC in the Levant (Kuijt et al. in Antiquity 81 (2007: 106–18)). The discovery of agricultural terraces in the northern Caucasus, reported here, extends their distribution into a new area. Relatively low population levels in the late medieval and early modern periods have preserved several blocks of terraced fields, some of them created at the beginning of the first millennium BC, others in the mid first millennium AD. The earlier terraced fields, associated with material and settlements of the Koban culture, culminated in over-exploitation of the land and exacerbated erosion during environmental change in the mid first millennium BC. The later series of terraced fields are of different form and are associated with the settlement in the area of communities of Alans in the first millennium AD. They largely avoided the areas rendered infertile by Koban period overexploitation. The morphology and chronology of the terraced field systems are explored using a combination of aerial photography, GIS analysis and field investigations.
The earliest Buddhist shrine: excavating the birthplace of the Buddha, Lumbini (Nepal)
Authors: Coningham R.A.E. , Acharya K.P. , Strickland K.M. , Davis C.E. , Manuel M.J. , Simpson I.A. , Gilliland K. , Tremblay J. , Kinnaird T.C. , Sanderson D.C.W.
Published: January 2015

Key locations identified with the lives of important religious founders have often been extensively remodelled in later periods, entraining the destruction of many of the earlier remains. Recent UNESCO-sponsored work at the major Buddhist centre of Lumbini in Nepal has sought to overcome these limitations, providing direct archaeological evidence of the nature of an early Buddhist shrine and a secure chronology. The excavations revealed a sequence of early structures preceding the major rebuilding by Asoka during the third century BC. The sequence of durable brick architecture supplanting non-durable timber was foreseen by British prehistorian Stuart Piggott when he was stationed in India over 70 years ago. Lumbini provides a rare and valuable insight into the structure and character of the earliest Buddhist shrines.
Between prehistory and history: the archaeological detection of social change among the Picts
Authors: Noble Gordon , Gondek Meggen , Campbell Ewan , Cook Murray
Published: January 2015

The development of small-scale kingdoms in the post-Roman world of northwestern Europe is a key stage in the subsequent emergence of medieval states. Recent excavations at Rhynie in north-eastern Scotland have thrown important light on the emergence of one such kingdom, that of the Picts. Enclosures, sculptured ‘symbol stones’ and long-distance luxury imports identify Rhynie as a place of growing importance during the fifth to sixth centuries AD. Parallels can be drawn with similar processes in southern Scandinavia, where leadership combined roles of ritual and political authority. The excavations at Rhynie and the synthesis of dated Pictish enclosures illustrate the contribution that archaeology can make to the understanding of state formation processes in early medieval Europe.
Cycles of change in Jomon settlement: a case study from eastern Tokyo Bay
Authors: Crema Enrico R.
Published: January 2015

Japanese archaeology benefits from the large number of rescue excavations conducted during recent decades that have led to an unparalleled record of archaeological sites. That record is here put to use to interrogate changing settlement patterns in the north-eastern corner of Tokyo Bay during several millennia of the Jomon period (Early, Middle and Late Jomon: 7000–3220 cal BP). Jomon hunter-gatherer occupation is characterised by large numbers of settlements, some of them substantial in size, containing hundreds of individual pit-house residential units. Detailed analysis of the rank-size distribution of these settlements reveals a pattern in which periods of settlement clumping, with few large settlements, alternate with more dispersed settlement patterns on a regular cycle of approximately 600 years. The regularity of this cycle might suggest a correlation with cycles of climatic change, such as Bond events. Closer scrutiny shows, however, that such a correlation is unconvincing and suggests that cyclical change in Jomon settlement patterns may instead be due to other factors.
Calculating ceramic vessel volume: an assessment of methods
Authors: Rodriguez Erin Christine , Hastorf Christine A.
Published: January 2015

Calculating the volume of ceramic vessels found whole or in fragments on archaeological sites is a key analytical endeavour that can have implications for economic and social activity, including storage and feasting. Established methods for estimating volumes are mostly based on the assumption that vessel shapes approximate to a circular form in plan-view. This new study shows that such an assumption may not be warranted and that methods that assume circularity produce less accurate volumetric estimates than approaches which accept that a less regular elliptical shape may be closer to reality. Statistical analysis allows the accuracy of the different methods to be compared and evaluated.
Cemetery or sacrifice? Infant burials at the Carthage Tophet
Authors: Smith Patricia , Stager Lawrence E. , Greene Joseph A. , Avishai Gal
Published: January 2015

The recent article on the Carthage Tophet infants by Schwartzet al.(2012) takes issue with our paper (Smithet al.2011) that claims the Carthaginians practiced infant sacrifice. Both studies were carried out on the same sample of cremated infant remains excavated by the ASOR Punic project between 1975 and 1980 (Stager 1982). We examined the contents of 334 urns while Schwartzet al.(2012) examined the same sample plus an additional fourteen urns (N = 348). We differed, however, in our conclusions regarding the age distribution of the infants and the extent to which it supported or refuted claims that Tophet infants were sacrificed. This note explains why we think that Schwartzet al.(2012) erred in their age assessments and introduces additional evidence to show that the age distribution of the Tophet infants supports our contention of infant sacrifice.
Understanding the Middle Palaeolithic assemblage typology
Authors: Moyer Colin Campbell , Rolland Nicolas
Published: January 2015

Middle Palaeolithic tool assemblages have a long history of controversy. This new analysis employing principal components addresses the recurrent issues of comparing tool assemblages from different sites, whilst retaining support from the seminal study of Bordes.
Dating Egypt's oldest ‘art’: AMS 14C age determinations of rock varnishes covering petroglyphs at El-Hosh (Upper Egypt)
Authors: Huyge D. , Watchman A. , Dapper M. De , Marchi E.
Published: January 2015

Direct dating, using the Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) 14C method, indicates that some petroglyphs (rock art) at El-Hosh in Upper Egypt pre-date the early 7th millennium BP (mid 6th millennium cal BC), making it the oldest graphic activity recorded in the Nile Valley.
D-Day sites in England: an assessment
Authors: Schofield John
Published: January 2015

Between midnight on 6 June (D-Day) and 30 June 1944, over 850,000 men landed on the invasion beachheads of Normandy, together with nearly 150,000 vehicles and 570,000 tons ofsupplies. Assembled in camps and transit areas over the preceding months, this force was dispatched from a string of sites along Britain's coastline between East Anglia and South Wales (Dobinson 1996: 2). The article reviews those sites in England involved in this embarkation. English Heritage's Monuments Protection Programme (MPP) aims to identify surviving sites and recommend appropriate protection for them.
Middle Palaeolithic stone tool technology in the Kortallayar Basin, South India
Authors: Pappu Shanti
Published: January 2015

A study of the Middle Palaeolithic stone tool technology from assemblages in South India reveals diverse reduction strategies, including preferences exercised in the choice of row material and blanks for tool manufacture. Various behaviour patterns are identified which have significant implications for the relatively little known Indian Middle Palaeolithic
A pot in house 54 at Lepenski Vir I
Authors: Garašanin Milutin , Radovanović Ivana
Published: January 2015

Pottery was found in situ in the Mesolithic layers of the site Lepenski Vir in the Iron Gates gorges of the Danube. This discovery raises issues about Meso-Neolithic contact in the second half of the 7th millennium cal BC. Here discussion of the evidence from Lepenski Vir and Padina explores the Neolithic groups which made contact, opening the debate on the process of neolithization in the Balkans and southeast Europe in general.
The South Scandinavian barrows with well-preserved oak-log coffins
Authors: Holst Mads Kähler , Breuning-Madsen Henrik , Rasmussen Marianne
Published: January 2015

Recent archaeological and pedological research on South Scandinavian Bronze Age barrows reveals that the remarkable conditions of preservation in a number of mounds are the result of particular construction techniques or special activities during construction. Augerings indicate that the phenomenon is concentrated within specific groups of barrows with central positions in a hypothetical Bronze Age communication system.
Did the potter's wheel go out of use in Late Bronze Age Palestine?
Authors: Magrill Pamela , Middleton Andrew
Published: January 2015

Wheel-thrown pottery was widely produced in ancient Palestine during the Middle Bronze Age. However, evidence from two sites in Jordan has led to recent suggestions that this technique went out of use throughout the region during the Late Bronze Age. Investigation by xeroradiography of the pottery-forming techniques used in a Late Bronze Age potter's workshop at Lachish, Israel, suggests that the situation may be more complex and that further research is needed before generalized conclusions can be drawn.
Voyage to Polynesia's land's end
Authors: Finney Ben
Published: January 2015

Evidence that the earliest settlers on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) may have come from Mangareva and its outlying islands in Central East Polynesia is supported by the journey of the experimental voyaging canoe Hōkūle'a from Mangareva to Rapa Nui.
Rules of engagement
Authors: Carman John
Published: January 2015

A two-day conference, Fields of Conflict: progress and prospect in battlefield archaeology, held at the University of Glasgow, 15–16 April 2000, began by considering techniques of research and the interpretation of events and moved to consideration of site management and preservation
Palaeolithic weaving — a contribution from Chauvet
Authors: Bahn Paul G.
Published: January 2015

The author draws attention to Gustave Chauvet's belief, 90 years ago, in Magdalenian weaving on the basis of ethnography, interpretation of Palaeolithic tools and motifs in portable art of the period.
Camels in antiquity: Roman Period finds from Slovenia
Authors: Bartosiewicz László , Dirjec Janez
Published: January 2015

Camels were not native to Europe during the Holocene and were evidently imported by conquering peoples. The discovery of camel bones at two sites in Slovenia is an important contribution to understanding the distribution and function of these animals during the Roman Imperial Period.
Megalithic engineering techniques: experiments using axe-based technology
Authors: Osenton Clifford J.
Published: January 2015

The author reports on experiments in megalithic construction using axe-based technology and proposes methods whereby relatively small groups of skilled workers could effectively transport and erect standing stones and dolmens.
Were ancient seals secure?
Authors: Johnston Roger G. , Martinez Debbie D. , Garcia Anthony R. E.
Published: January 2015

Forgeries of ancient seals have been found in modern times, but there has been little previous analysis of how much security ancient seals might have offered. In this paper, we demonstrate four different vulnerabilities of clay seal impressions using attack methods and materials that were available thousands of years ago. The success of these attacks suggests that ancient stamp and cylinder seals may have been highly vulnerable to spoofing.
An engraved bone fragment from c. 70,000-year-old Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa: implications for the origin of symbolism and language
Authors: D'Errico Francesco , Henshilwood Christopher , Nilssen Peter
Published: January 2015

Examination of marks on a bone from Blombos Cave reveals that they were intentionally engraved and there is evidence of bone working techniques at the site. Engraved designs have also been identified on pieces of ochre from Blombos Cave, suggesting such engraving was a symbolic act with symbolic meaning.
Lithic assemblages from the Chang Tang Region, Northern Tibet
Authors: Brantingham P. Jeffrey , Olsen John W. , Schaller George B.
Published: January 2015

Archaeological evidence from the Chang Tang Reserve suggests that humans may have first colonized the Tibetan Plateau during the late Pleistocene. Blade, bladelet and microblade technologies are found as surface assemblages in a variety of contexts above 4500 m elevation. The lack of modern analogues for foraging populations in high-elevation environments brings about a reconsideration of the diversity and organization of Pleistocene hunter-gatherer adaptations.
Absolute age range of the Late Cypriot IIC Period on Cyprus
Authors: Manning Sturt W. , Weninger Bernhard , South Alison K. , Kling Barbara , Kuniholm Peter Ian , Muhly James D. , Hadjisavvas Soophocles , Sewell David A. , Cadogan Gerald
Published: January 2015

Extensive radiocarbon data are examined, including results from short-lived samples contemporary with use-contexts. An absolute date range for the main Late Cypriot IIC period on Cyprus, from c. 1340–1315 BC to c. 1200 BC, is proposed.
Archaeobotanical evidence for pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) in sub-Saharan West Africa
Authors: D'Andrea A. C. , Klee M. , Casey J.
Published: January 2015

The remains of pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) dating to 3460±200 and 2960±370 BP have been recovered at the archaeological site of Birimi, northern Ghana, associated with the Kintampo cultural complex. This finding represents the earliest known occurrence of pearl millet in sub-Saharan Africa. Results indicate that Kintampo peoples developed effective subsistence adaptations to savannas as well as tropical forest habitats.
Broken fingers: Classic Maya scribe capture and polity consolidation
Authors: Johnston Kevin J.
Published: January 2015

This paper addresses how the rulers of the Classic Maya sought to promote polity cohesion and to maintain power. New information is presented on scribe capture and its importance in reinforcing the power and importance of the king.
‘The Oldest British Industry’: continuity and obsolescence in a flintknapper's sample set
Authors: Whittaker John C.
Published: January 2015

A set of gunflints and other artefacts produced by Fred Snare at Brandon is an example of ways in which craftsmen in a declining trade attempted to create new markets by introducing new techniques and forms, and finding new ways to sell traditional skills. Sample sets and artefacts made for collectors reflect how some gunflint knappers, drawing on romantic conceptions of their craft as ‘heritage’, assigned new meanings to the flint industry as part of a survival strategy for an obsolescent trade.
Three-dimensional imaging in archaeology: its history and future
Authors: Nicholson Paul T.
Published: January 2015

Whilst digital cameras and computer graphics are starting to be used in archaeological recording, stereoscopic photography tends to be overlooked. This technique has been used successfully in three recent projects and could be beneficial as a means of 3D photographic recording.
A Palaeolithic ‘Pompeii’ at Kostenki, Russia
Authors: Sinitsyn Andrei A.
Published: January 2015

A new Upper Palaeolithic occupation layer has been discovered in 2000 at the site of Markina Gora (Kostenki 14) on the River Don (the Voronezh Oblast), in Russia. The layer was sealed by volcanic ash, suggesting that a natural catastrophe had put an end to a human settlement there, just as Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae were destroyed and buried following the powerful eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in AD 79. The Palaeolithic site is notable for its assemblage of ornaments
The earliest writing? Sign use in the seventh millennium BC at Jiahu, Henan Province, China
Authors: Li Xueqin , Harbottle Garman , Zhang Juzhong , Wang Changsui
Published: January 2015

Early Neolithic graves at Jiahu, Henan Province, China, include tortoise shells which are incised with signs – some of which anticipate later Chinese characters and may be intended as words. Is this the earliest writing? The authors decide rather that the signs in this very early period performed as symbols connected with ritual practice, but they presage a long period of sign use which led eventually to a writing system.
Neolithic transition in Europe: the radiocarbon record revisited
Authors: Gkiasta Marina , Russell Thembi , Shennan Stephen , Steele James
Published: January 2015

Understanding the introduction of farming and the adoption of Neolithic culture continues to be a major research objective in Europe. The authors make use of a new database of radiocarbon dates from Mesolithic and Neolithic sites to map the transition. While the overall effect is still a diffusion into Europe from the south-east, detailed spatial analysis reveals fascinating local variations: in some places change was rapid, and one population replaced another, in others it was gradual and owed to incoming ideas rather than people.
Agricultural origins in the Korean Peninsula
Authors: Crawford Gary W. , Lee Gyoung-Ah
Published: January 2015

The authors report the first direct scientific evidence for the beginnings of agriculture in the Korean peninsula.
In B or not in B: a reappraisal of the Natufian burials at Shukbah Cave, Judaea, Palestine
Authors: Weinstein-Evron M.
Published: January 2015

Dorothy Garrod's classic excavation of Shukbah Cave revealed a sequence of burials from the middle Palaeolithic into a period transitional between the Palaeolithic and Neolithic which she named the Natufian after the wadi in which the cave is located. Using the original field notebooks, the author re-examines the stratigraphy (Layers A–D) and proposes most of the human bone is Natufian (from Layer B) except a group burial which may in fact belong to a later layer. This research implies a redefinition of burial-types belonging to the Natufian.
Current problems in dating Palaeolithic cave art: Candamo and Chauvet
Authors: Pettitt Paul , Bahn Paul
Published: January 2015

New discoveries of cave art at Chauvet and elsewhere have produced radiocarbon dates which may seem startlingly early and demand dramatic revision to the traditional stylistic sequence. The authors warn that the radiocarbon dates may themselves need better validation.
Putting the record straight: Rock art and shamanism
Authors: Lewis-Williams J. D.
Published: January 2015

Is the term shamanism being applied uncritically and subjectively to rock art? J D Lewis - Williams responds to criticism from Alice B Kehoe and Mairi Ross featured in earlier numbers of Antiquity.
Centres and peripheries amongst archaeologists – archaeological theory after communism
Authors: Gheorghiu Dragos
Published: January 2015

How should archaeological theory in eastern Europe respond to its new theorectical circumstances? Dragos Gheorghiu advises us to be even-handed.
Prehistoric trade between Ecuador and West Mexico: a computer simulation of coastal voyages
Authors: Callaghan Richard T.
Published: January 2015

The author studies prehistoric sea travel along the coast between West Mexico and Ecuador using a computer simulation incorporating the performance characteristics of sailing rafts. The model predicts that while northward voyages may have taken as little as two months, southward voyages would have entailed at least five months and may have required a strategy that took the rafts offshore for as long as a month.
Towards an understanding of hafting: the macro- and microscopic evidence
Authors: Rots Veerle
Published: January 2015

How were stone tools hafted? Based on experimental evidence the author shows how hafting arrangements can be recognised from macro-and microwear traces on the stone objects.
Neanderthals as fiction in archaeological narrative
Authors: Hackett Abigail , Dennell Robin
Published: January 2015

The authors deconstruct the fictional image of Neanderthals, showing why we see them in the way we do.
Lower Magdalenian secondary human burial in El Mirón Cave, Cantabria, Spain
Authors: Straus Lawrence Guy , Morales Manuel R. González , Carretero Jose Miguel
Published: January 2015

The authors describe the discovery of the first human burial of Magdalenian age to be found in the Iberian Peninsula—the partial skeleton of a young adult whose bones were stained with red ochre. The burial was well stratified in a sequence at the vestibule rear running from the Mousterian to the Mesolithic, and was adjacent to a large block that had fallen from the cave roof and been subsequently engraved. A preliminary AMS radiocarbon date on associated faunal remains from the ochre-stained, galena speckled burial layer yielded a date of 15700 BP, while a hearth directly above the burial is dated to 15 100 BP, placing the interment of this individual in the Lower Cantabrian Magdalenian, the period of most intensive human occupation of El Mirón Cave during the Upper Palaeolithic.
First evidence of Pleistocene rock art in North Africa: securing the age of the Qurta petroglyphs (Egypt) through OSL dating
Authors: Huyge Dirk , Vandenberghe Dimitri A.G. , De Dapper Morgan , Mees Florias , Claes Wouter , Darnell John C.
Published: January 2015

Long doubted, the existence of Pleistocene rock art in North Africa is here proven through the dating of petroglyph panels displaying aurochs and other animals at Qurta in the Upper Egyptian Nile Valley. The method used was optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) applied to deposits of wind-blown sediment covering the images. This gave a minimum age of ~15 000 calendar years making the rock engravings at Qurta the oldest so far found in North Africa.
Pongosymbolism in the geometric rock art of Uganda
Authors: Namono Catherine
Published: January 2015

In this paper the author places the rock art of Uganda in context. It probably belongs to the Late Stone Age period to the Holocene and its symbolism may be interpreted in the light of later belief systems recorded amongst the historical Pygmy people.Pongois the bark cloth used to make the distinctive loin cloths of men and aprons of women.Pongoare probably depicted in the rock art to evoke the fecundity ofndura, linking the real and supernatural within the Pygmy cosmos.
Beyond the drip-line: a high-resolution open-air Holocene hunter-gatherer sequence from highland Lesotho
Authors: Mitchell Peter , Plug Ina , Bailey Geoff , Charles Ruth , Esterhuysen Amanda , Thorp Julia Lee , Parker Adrian , Woodborne Stephan
Published: January 2015

The activities of hunter-gatherers are often captured in rockshelters, but here the authors present a study of a riverside settlement outside one, with a rich sequence from 1300 BC to AD 800. Thanks to frequent flooding, periods of occupation were sealed and could be examined in situ. The phytolith and faunal record, especially fish, chronicle changing climate and patterns of subsistence, emphasising that the story here is no predictable one-way journey from hunter-gatherer to farmer. Right up to the period of the famous nineteenth-century rock paintings in the surrounding Maloti-Drakensberg region, adaptation was dynamic and historically contingent.
Consumption, exchange and production at the Great Settlement Shang: bone-working at Tiesanlu, Anyang
Authors: Campbell Roderick B. , Li Zhipeng , He Yuling , Jing Yuan
Published: January 2015

Excavations at the Shang capital of Anyang have uncovered a massive bone-working industry. The animal bones, mainly those of cattle, pig and deer were provided as a spin-off from regular large-scale sacrifice, and made mainly into pins, awls and arrowheads. Although some of the pins were destined for the tombs of prominent women, a penetrating analysis shows that production greatly overran local consumption and the authors are able to raise the likelihood of a wide market for traded objects in addition to the more expected control of production by the elite.
Roman rules? The introduction of board games to Britain and Ireland
Authors: Hall Mark A. , Forsyth Katherine
Published: January 2015

Competitive board games, played on the ground, on the floor or on wooden boards, provide entertainment, distraction and exercise for the mind — it is hard to believe that north-west Europe was ever without them. But the authors here make a strong case that the introduction of such games was among the fruits of Roman contact, along with literacy and wine. In Britain and Ireland games were soon renamed, but belonged like children's jokes to a broad underworld of fast-moving cultural transmission, largely unseen till now.
New light on the early Islamic West African gold trade: coin moulds from Tadmekka, Mali
Authors: Nixon Sam , Rehren Thilo , Guerra Maria Filomena
Published: January 2015

Tadmekka, a town at the southern edge of the Sahara desert, has produced good evidence for making gold coins in the ninth–tenth century AD, the first concrete proof of coinage in pre-colonial West Africa. These were produced by melting gold dust or nuggets in ceramic moulds, similar to those used for the first pellet-like coinage of the European Iron Age. The authors suggest these coins were not political statements, but were probably blank and intended to facilitate the busy early Islamic caravan trade to destinations north, south or east. On arrival at the Mediterranean coast, these blank pieces would have been melted down or converted into inscribed coins by the local authorities.
The filth and the fury: 6 Denmark Street (London) and the Sex Pistols
Authors: Graves-Brown Paul , Schofield John
Published: January 2015

In case readers are wondering whether this paper is written tongue in cheek — or with tongue sticking out — it is worth recalling that modern archaeology includes recent periods in its remit, and uses recent materiality to help understand more ancient times as well as a critique on modernity itself. Here the authors find graffiti left by a notorious group of popular musicians and probe it for social meaning as earnestly as students of cave art. Their archaeological study finds an underlying driver that is part political, part personal and therefore also part (anti-)heritage.
Proteomics and Coast Salish blankets: a tale of shaggy dogs?
Authors: Solazzo Caroline , Heald Susan , Ballard Mary W. , Ashford David A. , DePriest Paula T. , Koestler Robert J. , Collins Matthew J.
Published: January 2015

Identifying animals to species from relict proteins is a powerful new archaeological tool. Here the authors apply the method to answer questions relating to the Salish of west coast North America. Did they weave their blankets out of dog hair? The proteomic analysis shows that they did, interweaving it with goat, and that the woolly dog was increasingly superseded by sheep in the later nineteenth century.
What happened to the human mind after the Howiesons Poort?
Authors: Lombard Marlize , Parsons Isabelle
Published: January 2015

The authors deliver a decisive blow to the idea of unidirectional behavioural and cognitive evolution in this tightly argued account of why the bow and arrow was invented and then possibly laid aside by Middle Stone Age communities in southern Africa. Finding that all are modern humans (Homo sapiens), they paint a picture of diverse strategies for survival and development from 75 000 years ago onwards. It is one in which material inventions can come and go, human societies negotiating their own paths through a rugged mental landscape of opportunity.
The rise and fall of ancient Egypt? Egyptology's never-ending story
Authors: Carruthers William
Published: January 2015

In an op-ed piece onThe Wall Street Journal'swebsite promoting his latest book,The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt(Wilkinson, T. 2010), Toby Wilkinson draws parallels between events in Egypt's past to those in its present. “The current situation in Egypt”, we are told, “comes as no surprise to a student of the country's long history” (Wilkinson, T. 2011). It is only appropriate to observe, then, that the problematic nature of Wilkinson's book comes as no surprise to a historian of Egyptology. Both it — and the accompanying comparison of the country's past to its present — are part of a long tradition (although tradition is too positive a word) of questionable Egyptological analysis.
Chronology, mound-building and environment at Huaca Prieta, coastal Peru, from 13 700 to 4000 years ago
Authors: Dillehay Tom D. , Bonavia Duccio , Goodbred Steven , Pino Mario , Vasquez Victor , Tham Teresa Rosales , Conklin William , Splitstoser Jeff , Piperno Dolores , Iriarte José , Grobman Alexander , Levi-Lazzaris Gerson , Moreira Daniel , Lopéz Marilaura , Tung Tiffiny , Titelbaum Anne , Verano John , Adovasio James , Cummings Linda Scott , Bearéz Phillipe , Dufour Elise , Tombret Olivier , Ramirez Michael , Beavins Rachel , DeSantis Larisa , Rey Isabel , Mink Philip , Maggard Greg , Franco Teresa
Published: January 2015

Renewed in-depth multi-disciplinary investigation of a large coastal mound settlement in Peru has extended the occupation back more than 7000 years to a first human exploitation ~13720 BP. Research by the authors has chronicled the prehistoric sequence from the activities of the first maritime foragers to the construction of the black mound and the introduction of horticulture and monumentality. The community of Huaca Prieta emerges as innovative, complex and ritualised, as yet with no antecedents.
An Early Holocene task camp (~8.5 ka cal BP) on the coast of the semi-arid north of Chile
Authors: Ballester Benjamín , Jackson Donald , Carré Matthiu , Maldonado Antonio , Méndez César , Seguel Roxana
Published: January 2015

According to current thinking, the peopling of South America involved a coastal as well as an inland exploitation. Here the authors describe a camp that may denote a transition between the two. As indicated by bifacial tools, the investigation shows that people began to move inland and hunt mammals around 8500 cal BP, perhaps in association with a change in the climate.
The chalcolithic of the Near East and south-eastern Europe: discoveries and new perspectives from the cave complex Areni-1, Armenia
Authors: Areshian Gregory E. , Gasparyan Boris , Avetisyan Pavel S. , Pinhasi Ron , Wilkinson Keith , Smith Alexia , Hovsepyan Roman , Zardaryan Diana
Published: January 2015

The archaeological exploration of a cave in the southern Caucasus revealed evidence for early social complexity, ritual burial and wine-making in the early fourth millennium. The marvellous preservation of wood, leather and plants offers a valuable contrast to the poorer assemblages on contemporary tell sites. The authors make the case that the Areni-1 cave complex indicates connections between the urbanisation of early Mesopotamia and the Maikop culture of south Russia.
African earthen structures in colonial Louisiana: architecture from the Coincoin plantation (1787–1816)
Authors: MacDonald Kevin C. , Morgan David W.
Published: January 2015

Coincoin, probably of Kongo parentage, was born a slave, became the concubine of a French planter, Pierre Metoyer, bore him ten children, and in 1787 was settled by him on a plantation of her own. Locating and excavating her house, the authors discovered it to be a type of clay-wall building known from West Africa. The house, together with an adjacent clay boundary wall, was probably built by slaves of Bight of Biafra origin loaned from the neighbouring plantation of her ex-partner. These structures are witness to emerging initiatives and interactions among people of African descent—but different African origins—in eighteenth-century Louisiana.
Space and movement in an Iron Age oppidum: integrating geophysical and topographic survey at Entremont, Provence
Authors: Armit Ian , Gaffney Chris , Hayes Ashley
Published: January 2015

The famous Celtic site of Entremont, well known for its head cult and warrior statues, is a heritage gem of southern France. This naturally inhibits further excavation there, but the authors show just how much can be achieved through an integrated package of remote mapping techniques. Their exemplary methodology produced more than a high resolution plan of the unexcavated part of the site; this type of integrated procedure generates ground-breaking research, without breaking any ground. Here the investigation mobilised arguments for pre-urban monuments, and the activities, enclosures, entrances and circulation of the oppidum.
Disease, CCR5-Δ32 and the European spread of agriculture? A hypothesis
Authors: Holtby Ian , Scarre Chris , Bentley R. Alexander , Rowley-Conwy Peter
Published: January 2015

From its origins in the Starčcevo-Körös culture of the Hungarian Plain around 5700 BC the Neolithic archaeological assemblage of the Linearbandkeramik (LBK) spread within two centuries to reach Alsace and the middle Rhine by 5500 BC, though the rapidity of the spread makes it difficult to measure using available radiocarbon evidence (Dolukhanov et al. 2005). In this same time period, during the Terminal Mesolithic, c. 5800 to 5500 BC, there is evidence for forager-herder-horticulturists in Central andWestern Europe prior to the appearance of the LBK (Gronenborn 1999, 2009). The Cardial Neolithic complex spread round the shores of the northern Mediterranean from southern Italy to Portugal in the period 5700’5400 BC.
Opening the Mediterranean: Assyria, the Levant and the transformation of Early Iron Age trade
Authors: Fletcher Richard Nathan
Published: January 2015

The evidence for structures of exchange in the Early Iron Age Mediterranean has been rationalised in many ways, variable in terms of both the evidence selected and the arguments applied. However, the most pervasive and tenacious explanation has been based upon a coreperiphery model, which approaches the expansion of Phoenician commerce in the Early Iron Age by conceptualising it as flowing from a largely eastern Mediterranean core to the western Mediterranean periphery. Thus the Early Iron Age expansion has been interpreted as a direct function of Neo-Assyrian imperialism (Frankenstein 1979), an idea that has circulated in the work of many scholars (Shaw 1989; Kuhrt 1995: 403’410; Coldstream 2003: 240’41, 359; Fantalkin 2006).
In the gallery: priorities today
Authors: James N.
Published: January 2015

How do visitors make sense of displays? What should curators be trying to achieve with them? Some 70 experts and students spent a day on these and related issues at the Fitzwilliam Museum, in Cambridge University, on 23 September last, to celebrate the completed rearrangement of its Greek & Roman gallery. That project provoked much of the discussion but comparisons were drawn from the current development of Oxford Universitys Ashmolean Museum and from elsewhere in Britain and overseas (James 2009, 2010). Short lectures by Kate Cooper and Lucilla Burn, of the Fitzwilliam, and by Rick Mather, architect of the Ashmolean’s rearrangements, were followed by eight panellists’ remarks on technical and methodological issues; and the day was rounded off with the Museum’s Severis Lecture for 2011,Dimitrios Pandermalis on The new AcropolisMuseum: project and realization’ (Figure 1).
Animation in Palaeolithic art: a pre-echo of cinema
Authors: Azéma Marc , Rivère Florent
Published: January 2015

Marc Azéma a Palaeolithic researcher and film maker has been exploring the representation of animal movement in cave art for more than 20 years, and here shares with us his latest examples, culled from the parietal art in the Chauvet Cave (Ardèche) and La Baume Latrone (Gard). Here he has shown that Palaeolithic artists have invented systems of breaking down movement and graphic narrative. His co-author, Florent Rivère, discovered that animal movement was also represented in more dynamic ways—with the use of animals drawn on a spinning disc. In these flickering images created by Palaeolithic people, the authors suggest, lie the origins of cinema.
Early herders and monumental sites in eastern Africa: dating and interpretation
Authors: Hildebrand Elisabeth Anne , Grillo Katherine M.
Published: January 2015

Using excavation and radiocarbon dating, the authors show that construction of megalithic pillar sites begins in eastern Africa by the fifth millennium BP, and is contemporary with the earliest herding in the region. Mobile herders and/or hunter-gatherers built and used these sites in a dynamic context of economic and social change. We are more familiar with monumentality as an adjunct of cereal cultivators—but this study demonstrates a relationship between early herding and monuments, with clear relevance to pre-cultivation monumentality of very much earlier periods elsewhere.
Rediscovering the settlement system of the ‘Dian’ kingdom, in Bronze Age southern China
Authors: Yao Alice , Zhilong Jiang
Published: January 2015

Surface collection, exposed sections and the use of irrigation wells and channels enabled the authors to map the settlement pattern of the elusive Dian kingdom before it became a subsidiary of the Han empire. The pattern showed that the Dian were already hierarchical, with settlements of different sizes and a political centre in which ritual bronzes featured. The empire redrew the landscape, with settlement migrating away from the wetlands into the hills where it could oversee the routes of communication into Southeast Asia.
Pride, prejudice, plunder and preservation: archaeology and the re-envisioning of ethnogenesis on the Loango coast of the Republic of Congo
Authors: Denbow James
Published: January 2015

This is the first description of the prehistory of the coastal Congo, won by the author and his colleagues against considerable odds: war, exploitation by big business and, above all, by the entrenched assumption that this part of the world had no history to save. Here is a first glimpse of that history: 3300 years of prehistoric settlement, movement and change chronicled by radiocarbon dating and a new ceramic typology.
Pioneers above Jordan: revealing a prehistoric landscape
Authors: Kennedy David L.
Published: January 2015

Aerial photography is so fundamental an instrument of modern archaeology that we often take it for granted. But its methods are surprisingly specific and its most important experimental theatre was probably the territory of the Levant—and especially the rocky terrain of Jordan. The author, a prominent aerial archaeologist of our own day, takes time off to review the achievements of the pioneers, serving officers who established routes over the desert to deliver mail between Egypt and Iraq. The fabulous ancient landscape they discovered could only be appreciated through the low-level window provided by these slow-moving rickety machines and their intrepid pilots. In these days of jet travel, the precious basalt landscape is in danger of slipping off the agenda again—both for researchers and conservers.
Spatial methods for analysing large-scale artefact inventories
Authors: Bevan Andrew
Published: January 2015

Finds distributions plotted over landscapes and continents, once the mainstay of archaeological cultural mapping, went into a lengthy period of decline when it was realised that many were artefacts of modern recovery rather than patterns of their own day. What price then, the rich harvest of finds being collected by modern routine procedures of rescue work and by metal-detectorists? The author shows how distribution patterns can be validated, and sample bias minimised, through comparison with maps of known populations and by presenting the distributions more sharply by risk surface analysis. This not only endorses the routine recording of surface finds currently undertaken in every country, but opens the door to new social and economic interpretations through methods of singular power.
Pseudoarchaeology: the concept and its limitations
Authors: Derricourt Robin
Published: January 2015

The familiar term “pseudoarchaeology” allows us to categorise and comfortingly dismiss a diverse group of alternative presentations of the past, and reinforce our own professionalism as scholars and scientists. Glyn Daniel regularly denounced the ideas of a “lunatic fringe” inAntiquityeditorials, and contributors to a recent unforgiving book analyse “how pseudoarchaeology misrepresents the past” (Fagan 2006). Other terms like “alternative” or “cult” archaeologies describe the same phenomena, and it is appropriate to consider elements of pseudohistory in the same argument. The conventional image is of a clear gap between the knowledge gained through our scholarly and scientific research and thinking, and the illusory pasts and falsehoods created by others. But such a binary division does present problems.
The Flying Dutchman reaches port
Authors: Megaw Vincent
Published: January 2015

Christopher Hawkes, foundation Professor of European Archaeology at Oxford, was once asked whether he knew a young archaeologist called Vincent Megaw. He responded: “Megaw? Megaw? There’s a whole tribe of Megaws!” This was a slight exaggeration. I was born in Stanmore, Middlesex, in 1934 to a Dutch Jewish mother, Th´erèse, a talented pianist and mezzo-soprano whose parents were taken to Auschwitz in 1942 and an Ulster Protestant father, Eric, a pioneer of ultra short-wave propagation who died at the age of 48 (Figure 1). One uncle, A.H.S. (Peter) Megaw was a distinguished Byzantinist and great singer of contemporary Greek songs. He was the last Director of Antiquities of the former Colony of Cyprus and then Director of the British School at Athens. His younger brother, Basil, read Archaeology at Peterhouse where he met (and subsequently married) Eleanor Hardy—family mythology has it that they got engaged while studying Early Bronze Age decorated axes (Megaw & Hardy 1938).
The emergence of bone-working and ornamental art in the Caucasian Upper Palaeolithic
Authors: Golovanova Liubov V. , Doronichev Vladimir B. , Cleghorn Naomi E.
Published: January 2015

New work from the Caucasus is revolutionising the timing and character of the shift from Neanderthals to early Modern humans in Eurasia. Here the authors reveal a powerful signal of that change from excavations at Mezmaiskaya: the abrupt appearance of a well-formed bone industry and ornaments.
New rock art discoveries in the Kurnool District, Andhra Pradesh, India
Authors: Taçon Paul S.C. , Boivin Nicole , Hampson Jamie , Blinkhorn James , Korisettar Ravi , Petraglia Michael
Published: January 2015

The authors have surveyed the little known paintings of the Kurnool area in central south India, bringing to light the varied work of artists active from the Palaeolithic to the present day. By classifying the images and observing their local superposition and global parallels, they present us with an evolving trend – from the realistic drawings of large deer by hunter-gatherers, through the symbolic humans of the Iron Age to the hand-prints of more recent pilgrims and garish life-size modern ‘scarecrows’. Here are the foundations for one of the world's longest sequences of rock art.
A first ‘Wessex 1’ date from Wessex
Authors: Needham Stuart , Pearson Mike Parker , Tyler Alan , Richards Mike , Jay Mandy
Published: January 2015

The furnished barrow burials of Wessex represent a maturation of the Beaker rite during the Early Bronze Age in Britain. Many of these burials were unearthed centuries ago, when archaeology was at its most eager and insouciant, but – happily for us – there were often a few careful recorders on hand. Thanks to their records, the modern scientists engaged in the Beaker People Project can still follow the trail back to a museum specimen and obtain high precision dates – as in the case of the ‘Wessex 1’ grave from West Overton in Wessex reported here.
Living on the lake in the Iron Age: new results from aerial photographs, geophysical survey and dendrochronology on sites of Biskupin type
Authors: Harding Anthony , Rączkowski Włodzimierz
Published: January 2015

The island site of Biskupin with its densely planned interior bears an uncanny resemblance to a prison camp. Is it typical of the Iron Age in Northern Europe? The authors here explore neighbouring sites around Poznań using aerial photographs, geophysical survey and dendrochronology – to stunning effect. These low impact methods have given high impact results: dated street plans, some similar and others different from Biskupin, but within the same time frame: almost a repertoire of early urbanism. The authors must also be congratulated on the identification of a new type of Iron Age feature, the ‘open area for spouse avoidance’ defined at Sobiejuchy.
Ancient bird stencils discovered in Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, Australia
Authors: Taçon Paul S.C. , Langley Michelle , May Sally K. , Lamilami Ronald , Brennan Wayne , Guse Daryl
Published: January 2015

The discovery of rare bird stencils from a unique Australian rock art complex is reported, the species they most closely resemble is discussed and their significance in terms of world rock art and climate change is highlighted.
Fire on the desert: conflict archaeology and the Great Arab Revolt in Jordan, 1916–18
Authors: Saunders Nicholas J. , Faulkner Neil
Published: January 2015

Archaeologists specialising in twentieth-century conflict here turn their attention from the trenches of Europe to the desert landscape of the Arabian theatre. The thrust and parry between the Ottoman Army and Lawrence's Arabian forces are reflected in defence-works and the outgoing and incoming bullets found there. The Ottoman generals changed their defences from long lines to redoubts, implying that the less visible guerrillas were having a palpable effect on strategy. Here, archaeology amplifies and enhances the story told in T.E. Lawrence'sSeven Pillars of Wisdom.