bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A 14 000-year-old amber elk and the origins of northern European art
Authors: Veil Stephan , Breest Klaus , Grootes Pieter , Nadeau Marie-Josée , Hüls Matthias
Published: January 2015

A Late Palaeolithic amber figurine has been skilfully recovered and reassembled from a ploughed open site in northern Germany. Dated between 11 800 and 11 680 cal BC it occupies a key point between the Magdalenian and the Mesolithic. The authors show that the figurine represents a female elk which was probably carried on the top of a wooden staff. They argue for continuity of art but change of belief in this crucial transition period.
Did Neolithic farming fail? The case for a Bronze Age agricultural revolution in the British Isles
Authors: Stevens Chris J. , Fuller Dorian Q
Published: January 2015

This paper rewrites the early history of Britain, showing that while the cultivation of cereals arrived there in about 4000 cal BC, it did not last. Between 3300 and 1500 BC Britons became largely pastoral, reverting only with a major upsurge of agricultural activity in the Middle Bronze Age. This loss of interest in arable farming was accompanied by a decline in population, seen by the authors as having a climatic impetus. But they also point to this period as the time of construction of the great megalithic monuments, including Stonehenge. We are left wondering whether pastoralism was all that bad, and whether it was one intrusion after another that set the agenda on the island.
Composition, colour and context in Muisca votive metalwork (Colombia, AD 600–1800)
Authors: Villegas María Alicia Uribe , Martinón-Torres Marcos
Published: January 2015

Chemical analysis of the stunning Muisca metalwork shows that the alloys of copper and gold were especially composed for each offering. Traditionally, the Muisca objects have been collected and studied as works of art. Our authors show that when it comes to drawing understanding of people from the objects they have left us, context is all. The results have much to reveal to metallurgists and students of symbolic metalwork everywhere.
Confirmation of the first Neolithic rondel-type enclosure in Poland
Authors: Kobyliński Zbigniew , Braasch Otto , Herbich Tomasz , Misiewicz Krzysztof , Nebelsick Louis Daniel , Wach Dariusz
Published: January 2015

The early Neolithic rondel is a large curvilinear ditched and palisaded enclosure found in increasing numbers in Central Europe. It has close links with the tells of the Danube region, themselves highly suggestive instruments of the earliest Neolithic. Here the authors extend the distribution of rondels further to the north-east, with the discovery and verification of the first example in Poland. As they point out, it is aerial photography that made this advance possible and we can expect many more discoveries, given appropriate investment in the art.
Agro-urban landscapes: the example of Maya lowland cities
Authors: Isendahl Christian
Published: January 2015

The author sets out to explain why Maya cities are so dispersed, with a ceremonial core surrounded by spacious neighbourhoods. Using the case study of Xuch, and the judicious application of phosphate analysis, he shows that these were clusters of farmsteads, growing food. Tackling the apparent confrontation of town and country in the same settlement he urges us to reconsider ‘urbanism’ as being too narrow a term in archaeology. Solutions that combine food production and ritual can be seen as increasingly diverse. The paper provides valuable reflections for archaeologists studying settlement evolution the world over.
Desert labyrinth: lines, landscape and meaning at Nazca, Peru
Authors: Ruggles Clive , Saunders Nicholas J.
Published: January 2015

The shapes drawn out by the famous Nazca lines in the Peruvian desert are at their most evident from the air—giving rise to some famously fantastic theories about their origin. The new understanding offered here is the result of a piece of straightforward brilliance on the part of our authors: get down on the ground, where the original users were, and see where your feet lead you. Using stratigraphic and taphonomic reasoning to decide which lines were contemporary, they discover an itinerary so complex they can justify calling it a labyrinth, and see it as serving ceremonial progressions.
Recognising strategies for conquered territories: a case study from the Inka North Calchaquí Valley
Authors: Acuto Félix A. , Troncoso Andrés , Ferrari Alejandro
Published: January 2015

In this detailed study of fifteenth-century settlements in Argentina, the authors show how the Inka did not just use force, production and ritual to subdue the indigenous population. The conquerors' strategy included the re-ordering of settlement plans, routeways and landscape, class separation and even the imposition of a rigorous discipline on the indigenous vision, controlling what could be seen looking out or looking in. The material readings made in these South American examples have much to offer to archaeologists working in colonial periods elsewhere.
M.R. James and the archaeological uncanny
Authors: Moshenska Gabriel
Published: January 2015

Does the curiosity of an archaeologist lead to encounters with forbidden things, inviting retribution? The learned antiquary M.R. James, writer of celebrated ghost stories, certainly thought so. In this vivid analysis, our author unearths the roots of James' impetus and compares it with that of his contemporary, Sigmund Freud. Of course, those days of paranormal terror are long gone, we are all rational now … or are we?
Jiahu 1: earliest farmers beyond the Yangtze River
Authors: Chi Zhang , Hung Hsiao-chun
Published: January 2015

The authors summarise the latest evidence for the introduction of rice cultivation into northern China, and show that it most probably began there in the early seventh millennium BC as a result of influence or migration from the Yangtze Valley.
Life, death and beyond in Akhenaten's Egypt: excavating the South Tombs Cemetery at Amarna
Authors: Kemp Barry , Stevens Anna , Dabbs Gretchen R. , Zabecki Melissa , Rose Jerome C.
Published: January 2015

The authors report a summary of the results of six seasons of excavation at one of the cemeteries of Tell el-Amarna, the celebrated city of the ‘monotheistic’ revolutionary, Akhenaten. The osteology shows a workforce enduring stress and injuries to bone and muscle. The burial rites indicate low investment and personal interpretations as to spiritual meaning. In this exploration of a slice of a whole Egyptian urban society, the contrast between the working lives of the elite and its workforce becomes striking.
An early date for cattle from Namaqualand, South Africa: implications for the origins of herding in southern Africa
Authors: Orton Jayson , Mitchell Peter , Klein Richard , Steele Teresa , Horsburgh K. Ann
Published: January 2015

When did cattle come to South Africa? Radiocarbon dates on a newly found cow horn indicates a time in the early first millennium AD. In a study of the likely context for the advent of cattle herding, the authors favour immigrants moving along a western route through Namibia.
Illuminating the Late Mesolithic: residue analysis of ‘blubber’ lamps from Northern Europe
Authors: Heron Carl , Andersen Søren , Fischer Anders , Glykou Aikaterini , Hartz Sönke , Saul Hayley , Steele Val , Craig Oliver
Published: January 2015

Shallow oval bowls used on the Baltic coast in the Mesolithic have been suggested as oil lamps, burning animal fat. Here researchers confirm the use of four coastal examples as lamps burning blubber—the fat of marine animals, while an inland example burned fat from terrestrial mammals or freshwater aquatics—perhaps eels. The authors use a combination of lipid biomarker and bulk and single-compound carbon isotope analysis to indicate the origin of the residues in these vessels.
Complex topography and human evolution: the missing link
Authors: Winder Isabelle C. , King Geoffrey C.P. , Devès Maud , Bailey Geoff N.
Published: January 2015

Why did humans walk upright? Previous models based on adaptations to forest or savannah are challenged here in favour of physical incentives presented by steep rugged terrain—the kind of tectonically varied landscape that has produced early hominin remains. “Scrambler man” pursued his prey up hill and down dale and in so doing became that agile, sprinting, enduring, grasping, jumping two-legged athlete that we know today.
Magdalenian pioneers in the northern French Alps, 17 000 cal BP
Authors: Mevel Ludovic
Published: January 2015

Using the multi-disciplinary forces of the CNRS, the author defines an early group of colonisers in the northern Alps as the glaciers retreated. At the key site of La Fru, analysis of the lithics shows an assemblage characterised by microblades made from good quality flint supplied from sources a hundred or more kilometres away. Analogies with early assemblages in Beringia and in Britain suggest this may be identified as a pioneer phase. Later in the Magdalenian, the supply is more varied and regional, generating networks for the dissemination of new ideas.
Chronology of the perishables: first AMS 14C dates of wooden artefacts from Aeneolithic–Bronze Age waterlogged sites in the Trans-Urals, Russia
Authors: Chairkina Natalia M. , Kuzmin Yaroslav V. , Burr George S.
Published: January 2015

Intriguing wooden objects, excavated (mostly unstratigraphically) from peat bogs in the Trans-Urals region of Russia, are here dated by AMS and found to belong to the Aeneolithic and Bronze Age. In spite of a long sojourn in museums, and conservation with various chemicals, the dates obtained were consistent and reliable.
Sacred landscapes of the south-eastern USA: prehistoric rock and cave art in Tennessee
Authors: Simek Jan F. , Cressler Alan , Herrmann Nicholas P. , Sherwood Sarah C.
Published: January 2015

Systematic field exploration in Tennessee has located a wealth of new rock art—some deep in caves, some in the open air. The authors show that these have a different repertoire and use of colour, and a different distribution in the landscape—the open sites up high and the caves down low. The landscape has been reorganised on cosmological terms by the pre-Columbian societies. This research offers an exemplary rationale for reading rock art beyond the image and the site.
The Nordic razor and the Mycenaean lifestyle
Authors: Kaul Flemming
Published: January 2015

The bronze razor with the horse-head handle appeared in Scandinavia in the fifteenth century BC. Where did it come from and what did it mean? The author shows that the razor had some antecedents in the Aegean, although none of these objects were imported to the north. He argues that the Scandinavian warrior class consciously adopted elements of the Mycenaean warrior package, including a clean-shaven face. This vividly exposes new aspects of the busy and subtle nature of international communication in the Bronze Age.
Rethinking Early Iron Age urbanisation in Central Europe: the Heuneburg site and its archaeological environment
Authors: Fernández-Götz Manuel , Krausse Dirk
Published: January 2015

The Heuneburg on the Upper Danube has been one of the best-known archaeological sites of Early Iron Age Europe since the first excavations of the 1950s. Fieldwork carried out during recent years, however, has radically changed our accepted understanding of what was clearly a central place of supra-regional importance. In addition to the three-hectare hilltop fortification with its famous mudbrick wall, an outer settlement some 100ha in extent has been discovered. Its investigation has given new insights into the centralisation process that took place from the end of the seventh century BC. Moreover, recent discoveries from the richly furnished burials in the surrounding area offer significant clues to issues of social hierarchy and status transmission within Late Hallstatt communities. The results provide an entirely new picture of the earliest stages of urbanisation north of the Alps.
Situating megalithic burials in the Iron Age-Early Historic landscape of southern India
Authors: Haricharan Smriti , Achyuthan Hema , Suresh N.
Published: January 2015

The megalithic burials of southern India—a wonderfully varied set of monuments—have long needed a chronology and a context. Broadly contemporary with the Roman and Sasanian empires, these dolmens, cairns and cists have continually raised contradictions with their material contents. The authors attack the problem using luminescence applied to pottery at the site of Siruthavoor in north-east Tamilnadu. Although sharing material culture, this first pilot project gave dates ranging from 300 BC to AD 600, so exposing the problem and perhaps, in OSL, its long-term solution.
Rock art landscapes beside the Jubbah palaeolake, Saudi Arabia
Authors: Jennings Richard P. , Shipton Ceri , Al-Omari Abdulaziz , Alsharekh Abdullah M. , Crassard Rémy , Groucutt Huw , Petraglia Michael D.
Published: January 2015

The authors have undertaken a systematic survey of rock art along the Jubbah palaeolake in northern Saudi Arabia and interpret the results using GIS. They conclude that the overwhelming majority of prehistoric rock art sites overlook contemporary early Holocene palaeolakes, and that the distribution of later Thamudic rock art offers insights into human mobility patterns at Jubbah in the first millennium BC.
Tangas of the Marajó (Brazil): ornamental pubic covers, their typology and meaning
Authors: Prous André
Published: January 2015

Tangas are small convex triangular pottery covers found in large numbers in the Amazon delta. Their suggestive shape has long been attributed to use as a cover or shield for the female Mound of Venus, for protection, modesty (‘cache-sexe’ is the French term) or embellishment. Here the author offers a typology and searches for correlations between the shapes, sizes and patterns of the tangas and the date, location, purpose and status of the women who wore them. He emphasises that in spite of this advance, better understanding requires new information from properly designed excavations; 85 per cent of known tangas have been acquired by looting, purchase or low-precision digging.
A Bayesian chronology for Great Zimbabwe: re-threading the sequence of a vandalised monument
Authors: Chirikure Shadreck , Pollard Mark , Manyanga Munyaradzi , Bandama Foreman
Published: January 2015

Great Zimbabwe is one of the most iconic sites in southern Africa and indeed the world, but like so many famous monuments it has suffered from the attention of early excavators who have destroyed key categories of evidence. Chronology is crucial to understanding the development of the various elements of Great Zimbabwe and its relationship to other important regional centres such as Mapungubwe. A number of radiocarbon dates are available, however, and in this study they have been combined with the limited stratigraphic information and with datable imports to provide a Bayesian chronology of the site and its structures. Construction of the stone walls probably began at the end of the twelfth or beginning of the thirteenth century AD, reaching its peak in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, although occupation continued up to at least the sixteenth and probably into the seventeenth century AD. These results indicate that occupation at Great Zimbabwe must have overlapped with that at Mapungubwe, and argue for a polycentric model of sociopolitical complexity in this region of southern Africa during that crucial formative period.
Neanderthal self-medication in context
Authors: Hardy Karen , Buckley Stephen , Huffman Michael
Published: January 2015

In a recent study, Hardy et al. (2012) identified compounds from two non-nutritional plants, yarrow and camomile, in a sample of Neanderthal dental calculus from the northern Spanish site of El Sidrón. Both these plants are bitter tasting and have little nutritional value but are well known for their medicinal qualities. Bitter taste can signal poison. We know that the bitter taste perception gene TAS2R38 was present among the Neanderthals of El Sidrón (Lalueza-Fox et al. 2009), and their selection of yarrow and camomile was hence probably deliberate. With few nutritional benefits, reasons must be sought for why the Neanderthals collected and ingested these plants. They could have consumed them as flavouring, but this presupposes a degree of complexity in cuisine for which there is little evidence. The widespread evidence for animal self-medication, or zoopharmacognosy, however, offers an attractive behavioural context.We propose, indeed, that these plants were selected and ingested deliberately for the purpose of self-medication.Here, we investigate the implications of this new finding for Neanderthal knowledge of plants and we offer a context for plant knowledge and self-medication among early human and hominin populations.
The antiquity of sustained offshore fishing
Authors: Anderson Atholl
Published: January 2015

The first settlement of Australia over 40 000 years ago provides evidence of the maritime capabilities of early modern humans. Did they also take to the sea to fish? Recent analysis of fish remains from sites in Timor-Leste and on islands off the coast of Papua New Guinea have been held to include deep sea species that must have been obtained through pelagic fishing. Here Atholl Anderson takes issue with the evidence, arguing that inshore fishing is a more likely scenario, and that deep sea fishing was beyond the scope of Pleistocene communities. Despite the early settlement of Australia, advanced boat technology was developed only during the Holocene. His reassessment is followed by responses from Sue O'Connor and Rintaro Ono, Geoff Bailey and Jon Erlandson, and finally by Atholl Anderson's reply to those comments.
The case for complex fishing technologies: a response to Anderson
Authors: O'Connor Sue , Ono Rintaro
Published: January 2015

For one who is so intent on factual accuracy and precision in others, Anderson is surprisingly lenient on himself, and misrepresents our arguments. Some points of clarification are required before we proceed to address the more substantive issues regarding Pleistocene fishing and fishing technology. In the introduction to his critique, Anderson (above) states that "in regard to Wallacea, O'Connell et al. (2010: 60) cite" the evidence for fishing at Buang Merabak and Kilu Cave (Papua New Guinea), and Jerimalai (Timor-Leste) and that they conclude that "these data are best read to indicate angling from boats well offshore". Firstly, as outlined in O'Connor et al. (2011) Wallacea is a strictly defined biogeographic region which comprises the Indonesian Islands lying to the east of Sundaland and to the west of Sahul and Near Oceania. Kilu Cave and Buang Merabak are in Near Oceania, not in Wallacea, and while the two island regions share depauperate terrestrial faunas the biota of the two are very different.
The Chinese school of archaeology
Authors: Liangren Zhang
Published: January 2015

In 1959, at a meeting reviewing the 'archaeological achievements of the past 10 years' in celebration of the tenth anniversary of the 'New China (1949-)', the leading archaeologist Yin Da (1906-1983), then director of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), urged all the archaeologists in China "to cooperate fully, so that in the next three or five years, in the entire nation, we can build up a scientific and holistic system out of all cultural remains of all periods; that is to say, to build up a Marxist Chinese archaeological system" (Yin 1959: 123).

This call had two keywords in it.One was 'Chinese'. Ever since the early twentieth century, growing nationalism had drum-beaten Chinese archaeologists to search for Chinese cultural origins (Liu & Chen 2001: 317). A particularly urgent matter for archaeologists of the 1950s was to dispel the notion of 'the western origin of Chinese culture' that was current among foreign and native archaeologists during theNationalist Era (1911-1949). To achieve this goal, it was imperative to undertake archaeological investigation systematically so as to prove the autochthonous origins and undisrupted development of Chinese civilisations. The second word, 'Marxist', reflects a process of cutting the umbilical cord of the reborn archaeology of the 'New China' from the 'bourgeois archaeology' of the 'Old China' and swaddling the discipline with the mantle of Marxist theories and models
Early seventh-millennium AMS dates from domestic seeds in the Initial Neolithic at Franchthi Cave (Argolid, Greece)
Authors: Perlès Catherine , Quiles Anita , Valladas Hélène
Published: January 2015

When, and by what route, did farming first reach Europe? A terrestrial model might envisage a gradual advance around the northern fringes of the Aegean, reaching Thrace and Macedonia before continuing southwards to Thessaly and the Peloponnese. New dates from Franchthi Cave in southern Greece, reported here, cast doubt on such a model, indicating that cereal cultivation, involving newly introduced crop species, began during the first half of the seventh millennium BC. This is earlier than in northern Greece and several centuries earlier than in Bulgaria, and suggests that farming spread to south-eastern Europe by a number of different routes, including potentially a maritime, island-hopping connection across the Aegean Sea. The results also illustrate the continuing importance of key sites such as Franchthi to our understanding of the European Neolithic transition, and the additional insights that can emerge from the application of new dating projects to these sites.
The persistent presence of the dead: recent excavations at the hunter-gatherer cemetery at Zvejnieki (Latvia)
Authors: Stutz Liv Nilsson , Larsson Lars , Zagorska Ilga
Published: January 2015

The well-known Mesolithic cemeteries of Northern Europe have long been viewed as evidence of developing social complexity in those regions in the centuries immediately before the Neolithic transition. These sites also had important symbolic connotations. This study uses new and more detailed analysis of the burial practices in one of these cemeteries to argue that much more is involved than social differentiation. Repeated burial in the densely packed site of Zvejnieki entailed large-scale disturbance of earlier graves, and would have involved recurrent encounters with the remains of the ancestral dead. The intentional use of older settlement material in the grave fills may also have signified a symbolic link with the past. The specific identity of the dead is highlighted by the evidence for clay face masks and tight body wrappings in some cases.
A Late Antique Christian king from Ẓafār, southern Arabia
Authors: Yule Paul
Published: January 2015

Southern Arabia was an important trading partner for the Roman world but owing to geography and politics its archaeology has been less intensively studied than that of neighbouring regions. A succession of kingdoms rose and fell in the last centuries BC and first centuries AD, but in the late Roman period the dominant power was Ḥimyar, with its capital at Ẓafār. In 2008 a relief sculpture was discovered at the site depicting a crowned ruler accompanied by symbols of office. This study reviews the arguments surrounding the date of the sculpture, but more importantly throws light on the cultural and political connections that it embodies. The proposal is that it represents an Aksumite puppet-ruler of the sixth century, at a key moment in the history of the Ḥimyarite kingdom. The crowned king of Ẓafār is significant not only in itself but also in helping to delineate the cultural and political stage on to which Islam was shortly to emerge.
The early Swahili trade village of Tumbe, Pemba Island, Tanzania, AD 600–950
Authors: Fleisher Jeffrey , LaViolette Adria
Published: January 2015

Indian Ocean maritime networks have become a special focus of research in recent years, with emphasis not only on the economics of trade but also the movement of domesticated plants and animals (see Fulleret al. inAntiquity2011: 544–58). But did such contacts inevitably lead to radical social change? Excavations at Tumbe reveal a settlement of the late first millennium AD that was heavily engaged in the traffic in exotic materials and may have been producing shell beads for export. This activity seems to have flourished within a domestic context in a village setting, however, and does not seem to have stimulated pronounced social stratification nor to have led inexorably towards urbanisation. These results demonstrate that some communities were able to establish a stable balance between the demands of the domestic economy and long-distance trade that could persist for several centuries. Activities at Tumbe should hence be viewed in their own right, not as precursors to the formation of the Swahili trading towns of the later medieval period.
The death of trance: recent perspectives on San ethnographies and rock arts
Authors: Solomon Anne
Published: January 2015

The argument that shamanism is the key that unlocks the hidden meaning of rock art continues to provoke debate over three decades after it was first proposed. In a recent article inAntiquity(86: 696–706), David Lewis-Williams and David Pearce defend the argument that nineteenth-century ethnographies provide evidence for a trance dance and shamanic healing that are vital to understanding southern African rock art. In this reply, Anne Solomon challenges the claim that the ethnographic evidence describes shamanism and trance healing and argues that elision of southern San (/Xam) and Kalahari San practices in a single narrative has obscured important differences. The author suggests that there is no evidence that dances or trance states were connected with healing in /Xam society. These confusions, it is argued, undermine key aspects of the shamanistic interpretation of rock art.
Orientations and origins: a symbolic dimension to the long house in Neolithic Europe
Authors: Bradley Richard
Published: January 2015

The long houses of the Linear Pottery Culture and its immediate successors are usually interpreted in functional terms, but they have certain anomalous features. This paper considers the processes by which they were built, lengthened, abandoned and replaced and suggests that they may have charted the development of the households who lived inside them. The buildings in Linear Pottery settlements were generally orientated towards the areas of the origin of the communities who lived there.
Early horse remains from northern Cameroon
Authors: MacEachern Scott , Bourges Claire , Reeves Maureen
Published: January 2015

Horses were status symbols in central-west Africa in the last millennium. Here, the importance of some very early horse bones is discussed in the context of emerging African society.
Direction of dispersion of cochineal (Dactylopius coccus Costa) within the Americas
Authors: Rodríguez Luis C. , Méndez Marco A. , Niemeyer Hermann M.
Published: January 2015

Dactylopius coccus has been used in Mexico and Peru as a source of natural dyes since pre-Columbian times. A phylogenetic analysis of the genus Dactylopius, and the disjoint distribution of D. coccus, suggest that the origin of D. coccus is South America and was introduced into North America by sea routes.
Catastrophic seismic-related events and their impact on prehistoric human occupation, coastal New Zealand
Authors: Goff J. R. , McFadgen B. G.
Published: January 2015

The catastrophic 1855 AD Wellington earthquake is used to predict likely environmental impacts of earlier seismic events (earthquake and tsunami) that have been reported for the Cook Strait region in the period following first human settlement 700 years ago. Environmental changes around Palliser Bay in prehistoric Maori times, inferred from archaeological research, parallel those that occurred in 1855 AD. We consider that devastation caused by earthquake activity and subsequent tsunami, rather than climatic deterioration invoked previously, precipitated the rapid abandonment of the Palliser Bay coast by human communities in the 15th century AD.
The use of ‘skailie’ in Medieval and Post-Medieval Scotland
Authors: Walker Bruce
Published: January 2015

Recent archaeological reports from excavations carried out round the Royal castles and palaces suggest that a completely new chronology of roof covering for high-status buildings in Scotland should now be formulated.
West Heslerton seminar
Authors: Rahtz Philip
Published: January 2015

We are pleased to present this assessment of a recent seminar on West Heslerton, one of the key sites of Anglo-Saxon northern England, as a prelude to the impact of its publication.
The chronology of the Iron Age ‘moats’ of northeast Thailand
Authors: McGrath R. J. , Boyd W. E.
Published: January 2015

This paper reports the first chronometric study of the ‘moats’ of the abundant mounded Iron Age sites of northeast Thailand. Here AMS14C dates and TL dates are reported which indicate that the moats date from a short period in the Mid to Late Iron Age, before being infilled. The dates also contain preliminary evidence for the chronology of landscape change, which is critical to the understanding of the Iron Age occupation of this region.
A glimpse at Moche Phase III occupation at the Huacas of Moche site, northern Peru
Authors: Chapdelaine Claude , Pimentel Victor , Bernier Hélène
Published: January 2015

The emergence of the Moche Civilization into an expansionist state is still a matter of debate. Burial data and stratigraphic and radiometric data are used to shed light on the Moche III phase at the Huacas of Moche site. The implications of this new set of data will enhance our understanding of the early history of the site.
The Wolf of Baikal: the “Lokomotiv” Early Neolithic Cemetery in Siberia (Russia)
Authors: Bazaliiskiy V. I. , Savelyev N. A.
Published: January 2015

The authors present a synopsis of research on the remarkable early Neolithic cemetery near Lake Baikal known as “The Lokomotiv” which was first discovered by the constructors of the Trans-Siberian Railway in the 1880s. A current campaign of research is beginning to understand the great variety of the burial rites and their contexts. The rites include communal burials, burial in pairs head to toe and decapitation before burial, the position of the skull being sometimes taken by a carved object. Among the earliest graves was one containing a Tundra wolf.
The Neolithic transition in Europe: comparing broad scale genetic and local scale isotopic evidence
Authors: Bentley R. Alexander , Chikhi Lounès , Price T. Douglas
Published: January 2015

Genetic studies of modern populations are raising many interesting questions about how far the modern gene pool is owed to incoming populations during the agricultural revolution in Neolithic Europe. But, as the authors show, studies of isotopic data from cemeteries reveal a picture of increasing subtlety at local level. While early farmers may have been initially newcomers in the upper Rhine they may also have soon intermarried with contemporary hunter-gatherers in the uplands.
Mesolithic to Neolithic transitions: new results from shell-middens in the western Algarve, Portugal
Authors: Stiner Mary C. , Bicho Nuno F. , Lindly John , Ferring Reid
Published: January 2015

New research on shell middens in the Algarve region of southern Portugal shows continuity of marine exploitation from the Mesolithic into the early Neolithic periods, where the Neolithic period is defined by the appearance of pottery in c 5500BC. The authors propose that either shellfish remained important to Neolithic people in Portugal or that Mesolithic and Neolithic subsistence strategies co-existed in this area for a relatively long time.
CORONA Satellite Photography and Ancient Road Networks: A Northern Mesopotamian Case Study
Authors: Ur Jason
Published: January 2015

Middle-eastern archaeologists are winning new information from declassified military photographs taken 25 years ago. This study shows how pictures of north-eastern Syria are revealing the routeways, and by inference the agricultural systems of Mesopotamia in the early Bronze Age.
A wiggle-match date for Polynesian settlement of New Zealand
Authors: Hogg Alan G. , Higham Thomas F. G. , Lowe David J. , Palmer Jonathan G. , Reimer Paula J. , Newnham Rewi M.
Published: January 2015

Dating initial colonisation and environmental impacts by Polynesians in New Zealand is controversial. A key horizon is provided by the Kaharoa Tephra, deposited from an eruption of Mt Tarawera, because just underneath this layer are the first signs of forest clearance which imply human settlement. The authors used a log of celery pine from within Kaharoa deposits to derive a new precise date for the eruption via “wiggle-matching” – matching the radiocarbon dates of a sequence of samples from the log with the Southern Hemisphere calibration curve. The date obtained was 1314 ± 12 AD (2σ error), and the first environmental impacts and human occupation are argued to have occurred in the previous 50 years, i.e. in the late 13th– early 14thcenturies AD. This date is contemporary with earliest settlement dates determined from archaeological sites in the New Zealand archipelago.
Dating resin coating on pottery: the Spirit Cave early ceramic dates revised
Authors: Lampert C.D. , Glover I.C. , Hedges R.E.M. , Heron C.P. , Higham T.F.G. , Stern B. , Shoocongdej R. , Thompson G.B.
Published: January 2015

Pottery found at Spirit Cave, Thailand, has been claimed as among the earliest ceramics in the world – a radiocarbon date of 7500 BP being obtained from associated charcoal. However radiocarbon dating of organic resin found on some of the sherds gave a date of around 3000 BP. This is another example of improved precision in dating by pin-pointing the context and using AMS. The authors describe how it was done and assess its validity
Style, Chauvet and radiocarbon
Authors: Valladas Hélène , Clottes Jean
Published: January 2015

The article by Bahn and Pettitt (above) carries the suggestion that the diverse dates obtained for Candamo in some way throw doubt on those for Chauvet and by implication on the performance of the Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement (LSCE) at Yvette-sur-Gif (Gif). The authors respond. Readers might also like to note the article by Marian Scott and colleagues which follows.
How reliable are radiocarbon laboratories? A report on the Fourth International Radiocarbon Inter-comparison (FIRI) (1998–2001)
Authors: Boaretto Elisabetta , Bryant Charlotte , Carmi Israel , Cook Gordon , Gulliksen Steinar , Harkness Doug , Heinemeier Jan , McClure John , McGee Edward , Naysmith Philip , Possnert Goran , Scott Marian , van der Plicht Hans , van Strydonck Mark
Published: January 2015

Radiocarbon laboratories undertake rigorous programmes of internal quality control (QC) and overall quality assurance (QA). In a laboratory “inter-comparison” samples of the same age are dated at different laboratories using a range of techniques and the results are then compared. The authors summarise the results of the fourth of these scientific audits.
Direct dating of plaster and mortar using AMS Radiocarbon: a pilot project from Khirbet Qana, Israel
Authors: Rech Jason A. , Fischer Alysia A. , Edwards Douglas R. , Jull A. J. Timothy
Published: January 2015

The authors demonstrate the potential for dating structures in Near Eastern archaeology by applying AMS radiocarbon to organic inclusions found in mortar and plaster. The method was successfully applied to date and sequence excavated walls and floors, and to spot-date structures exposed in surveys.
Don't knock the ancestors
Authors: Pitts Mike
Published: January 2015

“Too many ancestors?” said James Whitley. Mike Pitts responds.
Roman archaeology: crisis and revolution
Authors: James Simon
Published: January 2015

Roman archaeological research in Britain has undergone a revolution in recent years, becoming a theoretically-informed subdiscipline exploring exceptionally rich data sets in new ways. It has a great deal to offer the rest of archaeology: however, it remains unduly isolated, and some perceive serious threats to its future. These were issues discussed at the recent seminar, ‘Whither Roman Archaeology?’
Mesolithic dwelling places in south Scandinavia: their definition and social interpretation
Authors: Grøn Ole
Published: January 2015

In this paper the author assembles the evidence for Mesolithic dwelling places surviving as posts, floors and assemblages. This evidence can be used to show how space was organised, where men and women slept, and how some of the implied family relationships anticipated Neolithic practice.
Did Neanderthals eat inner bark?
Authors: Sandgathe Dennis M. , Hayden Brian
Published: January 2015

Using ethnographic parallels the authors identify ‘bark peelers’ used in Ice Age Europe. They suggest that Palaeolithic Europeans used these to extract edible and nourishing new growth from the trunks of spring trees.
Mesolithic and Neolithic cultures co-existing in the upper Rhône valley
Authors: Perrin Thomas
Published: January 2015

The cultural transition from the Mesolithic to Neolithic in the Rhône valley has been radically illuminated by excavation in the Grotte du Gardon (Ain). Examination of the well-stratified assemblages shows that flint and pottery associated with early Neolithic cultures in the Mediterranean occurred with lithics of local Mesolithic traditions. The author proposes that during the transitional period in this region in the sixth millennium BC, peoples of the two cultures lived side by side.
Cutting a long story short? The process of neolithization in the Dutch delta re-examined
Authors: Raemaekers Daan
Published: January 2015

Traditionally, the process of neolithization in the Dutch delta has been considered to have been slow, spanning some 1500 years. Re-examination of the available evidence makes clear that a ‘short transition model’ fits the available data equally well.
Bronzes, mortuary practice and political strategies of the Yan during the early Western Zhou period
Authors: Sun Yan
Published: January 2015

The relations between the emergent Yan state, local groups and the power blocks of the Shang and Zhou are vividly chronicled by bronze vessels, weapons and burials rites in Bronze Age northern China.
Recent radiocarbon results and King Solomon
Authors: Finkelstein Israel , Piasetzky Eli
Published: January 2015

Radiocarbon dating and stratigraphy here offer a new chronological structure for the Iron Age in the Levant. The credit for the construction of massive public monuments in the northern part of Israel is here wrested from David and Solomon and attributed to the later Omride dynasty. The early Israelite monarchs actually ruled over a small kingdom in the highlands around Jerusalem rather than a great empire.
Franchthi Cave revisited: the age of the Aurignacian in south-eastern Europe
Authors: Douka K. , Perlès C. , Valladas H. , Vanhaeren M. , Hedges R.E.M.
Published: January 2015

The Aurignacian, traditionally regarded as marking the beginnings of Sapiens in Europe, is notoriously hard to date, being almost out of reach of radiocarbon. Here the authors return to the stratified sequence in the Franchthi Cave, chronicle its lithic and shell ornament industries and, by dating humanly-modified material, show that Franchthi was occupied either side of the Campagnian Ignimbrite super-eruption around 40000 years ago. Along with other results, this means that groups of Early Upper Palaeolithic people were active outside the Danube corridor and Western Europe, and probably in contact with each other over long distances.
A question of style: reconsidering the stylistic approach to dating Palaeolithic parietal art in France
Authors: von Petzinger Genevieve , Nowell April
Published: January 2015

The authors deconstruct the basis for dating the Palaeolithic cave paintings of France and find it wanting. Only five per cent are directly dated and the remainder belong to a stylistic framework that has grown organically, and with much circularity, as new paintings were brought to light. Following a constructive bouleversement, the authors recommend a new chronometric foundation based on chains of evidence anchored by radiocarbon dates. The story so far is striking: it brings many of the themes and techniques thought typical of the later painters into the repertoire of their much earlier predecessors.
Hakenasa Cave and its relevance for the peopling of the southern Andean Altiplano
Authors: Osorio Daniela , Jackson Donald , Ugalde Paula C. , Latorre Claudio , De Pol-Holz Ricardo , Santoro Calogero M.
Published: January 2015

Researchers in the High Andes in northern Chile report the study of a fine cave sequence, supported by 19 radiocarbon dates. The initial occupation atc. 11 500 cal BP represents the earliest human occupation known at this altitude. The toolkit suggests a hunting (logistical) camp used to take advantage of the animals gathering in the rich wetland of the neighbourhood.
Miners and mining in the Late Bronze Age: a multidisciplinary study from Austria
Authors: Schibler Jörg , Breitenlechner Elisabeth , Deschler-Erb Sabine , Goldenberg Gert , Hanke Klaus , Hiebel Gerald , Plogmann Heidemarie Hüster , Nicolussi Kurt , Marti-Grädel Elisabeth , Pichler Sandra , Schmidl Alexandra , Schwarz Stefan , Stopp Barbara , Oeggl Klaus
Published: January 2015

The extraction and processing of metal ores, particularly those of copper and tin, are regarded as among the principal motors of Bronze Age society. The skills and risks of mining lie behind the weapons, tools and symbols that drove political and ideological change. But we hear much less about the miners themselves and their position in society. Who were these people? Were they rich and special, or expendable members of a hard-pressed workforce? In this study the spotlight moves from the adits, slags and furnaces to the bones and seeds, providing a sketch of dedicated prehistoric labourers in their habitat. The Mauken miners were largely dependent on imported meat and cereals, and scarcely hunted or foraged the resources of the local forest. They seem to be the servants of a command economy, encouraged to keep their minds on the job.
What was a mortarium used for? Organic residues and cultural change in Iron Age and Roman Britain
Authors: Cramp Lucy J.E. , Evershed Richard P. , Eckardt Hella
Published: January 2015

The Romans brought the mortarium to Britain in the first century AD, and there has long been speculation on its actual purpose. Using analysis of the residues trapped in the walls of these ‘kitchen blenders’ and comparing them with Iron Age and Roman cooking pots, the authors show that it wasn't the diet that changed — just the method of preparing certain products: plants were being ground in the mortarium as well as cooked in the pot. As well as plants, the mortars contained animal fats, including dairy products. The question that remains, however, is why these natural products were being mixed together in mortaria. Were they for food, pharmaceuticals or face creams?
An ‘Imperial Philosophical Machine’: the archaeology of the Cambridge Observatory and early modern science
Authors: Evans Christopher , Newman Richard
Published: January 2015

Commercial excavators often find that their way back to the past runs through relatively recent structures. What should we do with them? Intellectually sensitive modern excavators, like our authors, are beginning to convince us that these recent constructions not only matter in themselves, but may have interesting links to what lies beneath. Here they introduce us to the foundations of an early telescope, a monument that takes its context both from the much-investigated lands of West Cambridge, and the more abstract landscape of early science. Forcing archaeology to ask fresh questions and make ambitious connections is only proper in a place heavy with the aroma of investigative scholarship.
Exploring an early medieval harbour and settlement dynamics at Stavnsager, Denmark: a geo-archaeological dialogue
Authors: Loveluck Christopher , Salmon Yossi
Published: January 2015

In this neat investigation of a harbour site, the authors show how much can be learnt by site survey — and by surface plotting and remote mapping in particular. Here the excavations are used to pilot the geophysics, rather than the other way round, and ground-penetrating radar is employed to show not just where features are, but their sequence and their current vulnerability. This exemplary project demonstrates how, in modern approaches to fieldwork, sites are to be studied rather than excavated, comprehended rather than stripped.
Hunter-gatherers, biogeographic barriers and the development of human settlement in Tierra del Fuego
Authors: Morello Flavia , Borrero Luis , Massone Mauricio , Stern Charles , García-Herbst Arleen , McCulloch Robert , Arroyo-Kalin Manuel , Calás Elisa , Torres Jimena , Prieto Alfredo , Martinez Ismael , Bahamonde Gabriel , Cárdenas Pedro
Published: January 2015

Tierra del Fuego represents the southernmost limit of human settlement in the Americas. While people may have started to arrive there around 10 500 BP, when it was still connected to the mainland, the main wave of occupation occurred 5000 years later, by which time it had become an island. The co-existence in the area of maritime hunter-gatherers (in canoes) with previous terrestrial occupants pre-echoes the culturally distinctive groups encountered by the first European visitors in the sixteenth century. The study also provides a striking example of interaction across challenging natural barriers.
Large-scale cereal processing before domestication during the tenth millennium cal BC in northern Syria
Authors: Willcox George , Stordeur Danielle
Published: January 2015

At Jerf el Ahmar in northern Syria the authors have excavated a settlement where the occupants were harvesting and processing barley 1000 years in advance of its domestication. Rows of querns installed in square stone and daub buildings leave no doubt that this was a community dedicated to the systematic production of food from wild cereals. Given the plausible suggestion that barley was being cultivated, the site opens a window onto a long period of pre-domestic agriculture. Rye was also harvested, its chaff used to temper mud walls.
Interpreting the Beaker phenomenon in Mediterranean France: an Iron Age analogy
Authors: Lemercier Olivier
Published: January 2015

The author offers a new descriptive explanation of the Beaker phenomenon, by focusing on Mediterranean France and making reference to the Greek influx in the same area 2000 years later. In the Iron Age, the influence began with an exploratory phase, and then went on to create new settlements and colonise new areas away from the coast. The Beaker analogy is striking, with phases of exploration and implantation and acculturation, but adjusted to include a final phase where Beaker practice was more independent. Comparing the numerous models put forward to explain it, the author shows that immigration and a cultural package are both aspects of the Beaker phenomenon.
Soilscapes and settlements: remote mapping of activity areas in unexcavated prehistoric farmsteads
Authors: Salisbury Roderick B.
Published: January 2015

It is excellent to be able to present this latest achievement in the onward march of remote mapping, the art and science of exploring archaeological sites without digging them. Using a particularly graphic case study in Hungary, the author shows that deposits characterised by geophysical and chemical means can reveal their plans and the emphasis of their activity in some detail. This is not only a rapid and economic means of landscape investigation, but offers striking research results over a broad canvas, indicative of the numerous small dispersed settlements that so often escape the attention of the great excavation campaigns.