bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Dia archaeological project: rescuing cultural heritage in the Inland Niger Delta (Mali)
Authors: Bedaux Rogier , MacDonald Kevin , Person Alain , Polet Jean , Sanogo Kléna , Schmidt Annette , Sidibé Samuel
Published: January 2015

Mali is a country with a rich history and diverse cultures. Its cultural heritage is, however, threatened by both the pillage of archaeological sites and illicit trade (ICOM 1995; Bedaux & Rowlands, this volunle). Looting has dramatically increased in recent years, especially in the Inland Delta of the Niger, and has obliged Malian authorities to take measures to counteract this destruction. Within the framework of a long-term Malian-Dutch cultural heritage programme, the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde at Leiden recently initiated large-scale excavations in the Inland Niger Delta at Dia, in close cooperation with the Université du Mali, the Institut des Sciences Humaines and the Musée National du Mali in Bamako, the Mission Culturelle in Djenné, the Universities of Paris I and VI, the C.N.R.S., University College London and Leiden University. This excavation, financed principally by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, started in 1998 and will continue until 2004. It is a continuation of previous international programmes of site survey and documentation in the Inland Niger Delta, which the Institut des Sciences Humaines in Bamako has co-ordinated over the past two decades (e.g. Raimbault & Sanogo 1991; Dembele et al. 1993; Togola 1996). An initial season of prospection was carried out in 1998 in the Inland Delta, following which the vicinity of Dia was chosen as the principal research zone for the project.
Urban precursors in the Horn: early 1st-millenniumBCcommunities in Eritrea
Authors: Schmidt Peter R. , Curtis Matthew C.
Published: January 2015

Eritrea fought a war of liberation for three decades between the early 1960s and 1991. While professional research stagnated because of the war, amateur archaeologists provided the sole source of information for ancient material culture in the country during this era. With the coming of independence in 1993, awareness of the potential value of Eritrea’s heritage resources began to grow, leading to an initiative in 1997 to teach archaeology and heritage management at the University of Asmara.

Out of the combined training and research programmes conducted by the University of Asmara have come several major discoveries that change the way that the rise of urbanism is seen in the Horn of Africa. We highlight research showing that between 800 BC and 400 BC the greater Asmara area of Eritrea supported the earliest settled agropastoralist communities known in the highlands of the Horn. These communities pre-date and are contemporaneous with Pre-Aksumite settlements in the highlands of southern Eritrea and northern Ethiopia.
Diversity in mastic-mounted stone adzes and the use of mastic in precolonial South Africa: evidence from Steenbokfontein Cave
Authors: Jerardino Antonieta
Published: January 2015

Composite tools and hafted tools were used world-wide over the last 35,000 years, and possibly earlier than that (Boëda et al. 1996; Holdaway 1996). Evidence for the use of composite tools in South Africa is provided by a small number of arrows from ethnohistorical and archaeological collections (Binneman 1994; Deacon & Deacon 1999: 158–9), a handful of mounted stone artefacts, and a significant number of mastic stained stone artefacts from archaeological sites (Deacon & Deacon 1999). On the basis of the limited sample of near intact mounted artefacts found in South Africa, it appears that small scrapers were side-mounted (at almost 90° to the axis of the handle) and fixed asymmetrically by surrounding resin (Deacon & Deacon 1980: 31–2). Adzes, on the other hand, were end-mounted (on one extreme, and along the same plane, of the handle) and held by a large ovoid lump of mastic (Hewitt 1921; Goodwin & Van Riet Lowe 1929: plate 42; Sampson 1974: figure 105). From their analysis of the available material two decades ago, Deacon & Deacon (1980: 37) concluded that the size and form of the insert was determined largely by the mode of hafting.
Cultural resource management and Africanist archaeology
Authors: MacEachern Scott
Published: January 2015

Among the general public, the extraordinarily important role played by cultural resource management (hereafter CRM) procedures in the conservation of archaeological materials usually goes unrecognized. Popular images of the swashbuckling adventures of Indiana Jones, or somewhat more generally of intrepid archaeologists making the latest Fiild of the Century, do not accord well with the concept that the remains of past human activities are actual resources, ones that can and should be managed in the interest of nations and their citizens. All too often, the significance of CRM legislation and the archaeological research that stems from it is not recognized even by academic archaeologists, in part because publication procedures and venues are so different in the worlds of academic and contract archaeology.
Gardom's Edge: a landscape through time
Authors: Barnatt John , Bevan Bill , Edmonds Mark
Published: January 2015

Six seasons of excavation, survey and test pitting in the Peak District National Park, England, were conducted by the Park Authority and the Department of Archaeology & Prehistory, University of Sheffield, on a moorland rich in features surviving from Prehistoric use and occupation of the area. Investigated features include a Neolithic rubble-built enclosure bank, Bronze to Iron Age cairnfields and settlements and cup-and-ring rock art. From this work a long-term landscape narrative of the area is being produced.
Open-air rock-art, territories and modes of exploitation during the Upper Palaeolithic in the Côa Valley (Portugal)
Authors: Aubry Thierry , Llach Xavier Mangado , Sampaio Jorge David , Sellami Farid
Published: January 2015

A study of the differential preservation of the famous Côa engravings, in the light of the site of Fariseu, place the distribution of the art in a chronological setting, which is in turn placed within the context of lithic raw material procurement.
Ancestral Archives: Explorations in the History of Archaeology
Authors: Schlanger Nathan
Published: January 2015

Historiographic revelations

Back from his famous visit to Boucher de Perthes in the spring of 1859, John Evans hastened to invite some antiquarians friends in London to examine his finds. The flint implements he had collected with Joseph Prestwich in the undisturbed gravel beds of the Somme valley were indeed. or so ho believed, altogether new in appearance and totally unlike anything known in this country [Evans 1869: 93-4):

But while I was waiting in the rooms of the Society of Antiquaries, expecting some friends to come out of the meeting room, I looked at a case in one of the windows seats, and was ahsolutely horror-struck to see in it three or four implements precisely resembling those found at Abbeville and Amiens. I enquirer1 where they came kom, but nobody knew, as they were not labelled. On reference, however, it turned out that they had been deposited in the museum of the Society for sixty years, and that an account of them had been published in Archaeologia …
Between antiquarians and archaeologists — continuities and ruptures
Authors: Schnapp Alain
Published: January 2015

The current renewal of interest in the history of archaeology can be explained in several ways, and notably in view of the extraordinary extension of the discipline's objects and methods. In the last decades, the most far-flung regions of the earth have been subjected to systematic exploration, radiometric dating techniques have continually improved, DNA studies have contributed to the transformations of biological anthropology, and indeed the very process of human evolution has heen cast in new light by the changing boundaries between humanity and animality. A natural science for many founding fathers of prehistory, a social science for those who emphasize its anthropological dimensions, archaeology has remained for others a historical discipline by virtue of its proximity to ancient languages and inscriptions. At one end of the spectrum, some archaeologists see themselves as specialists in material culture, able to deal with ohjects, both ancient and modern, as simultaneously technical and semiotic systems. At the other end, there are those who will only put their faith in the detailed approach of singular, particular cultures. To put the matter in extreme terms; it seems as if there existed a universalist archaeology standing in opposition to a plethora of incompatible and irreducible vernacular archaeologies.
How to organize oneself within history: Pehr Tham and his relation to antiquity at the end of the 18th century
Authors: Nordbladh Jarl
Published: January 2015

Recently a doctoral dissertation was submitted to the Department of Archaeology at IJppsala [Jniversity. The author, Michel Notelid, presented and defended a text, called Den omvanda diskursen (The Second Glance: A study of transitions in the history of archaeological discipline). This work (Notelid 2000; 2001) represents quite a new way of looking at the discipline’s past, with the serious ambition to understand the romantic approach to prehistory in its own right, and not primarily as a fumbling, imaginative and pre-scientific start of a new discipline. The archaeological community was puzzled by this work, and very few scholars were able to read and appreciate this distinctive and unexpected perspective. There were obstacles, and possibly the most difficult one was the very language used. This language was in itself a sort of romantic reconstruction, which did not clearly indicate the difference between the plain text and passages of citations.
Boule's error: on the social context of scientific knowledge
Authors: Reybrouck David Van
Published: January 2015

Introduction

On August 3, 1908, two young French clergymen with a passion for prehistory, the brothers Amédée and Jean Bouyssonie, discovered in a cave near the village of La Chapelle-aux-Sains (Department of Corréze) an almost intact Neanderthal skeleton. Recognizing both the importance of their find and their own inexperience with such fossils, they handed the skeleton to Marcellin Boule, professor of palaeontology at the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle in Paris.
Archaeological illustrations: a new development in 19th century science
Authors: Lewuillon Serge
Published: January 2015

A museum on paper

A recent colloquium on French archaeology in the second half of the 19th century drew attention to the work of a talented illustrator, Victor Caucheiné, several of whose watercolours may be seen at the niuseuni in Compiègne. Additional research, intended to place this painterarchaeologist in historical context, showed that his situation was not unique and that, during the same period, in France well as elsewhere in Europe, there was a surge of interest in reproductions of objects and of archaeological sites. This is not to be confused with the fashion for romantic landscapes, of which Baron Taylor's Voyuges dons l'ancienne France serves as a good example (Adhémar 1997), nor with the passion for monuments, as shown by the imposing collection of Laborde (Laborde 1816-1836). Rather, this activity was the doing of an archaeological school which, for three-quarters of a century, set out to explore the meaning of archaeological excavation and their associated finds.
Alluvial landscapes in the temperate Balkan Neolithic: transitions to tells
Authors: Bailey D.W. , Andreescu R. , Howard A.J. , Macklin M.G. , Mills S.
Published: January 2015

This paper focuses on the 5th-millennium BC shift from short-term habitations to permanent tell settlements in southern Romania: from the Criş, Dudeşti and Boian to the Gumelniţa Cultures. Archaeological and geomorphologic data suggest that changes in river stability conditioned shifts in settlement and economies.
The chronology of the Mariupol-type cemeteries of Ukraine re-visited
Authors: Telegin D. Ya. , Potekhina I.D. , Lillie M. , Kovaliukh M.M.
Published: January 2015

Recent results of radiocarbon analyses from sites in Ukraine suggest that a revision of the chronology of the Late mesolithic and early Neolithic is required. The subsequent Neolithic period up to the beginning of the Early Bronze Age (c.3000 cal BC) should be divided into two separate periods, the Neolithic and Neo-eneolithic.
The age of the common bean (Phaseolus vulgarisL.) in the northern Eastern Woodlands of North America
Authors: Hart John P. , Asch David L. , Scarry C. Margaret , Crawford Gary W.
Published: January 2015

This study addresses the lack of chronometric research on the common bean (Phaseolus vulgarisL.) to establish precisely the timing of its adoption and spread across the northern Eastern Woodlands of North America. Bean and directly associated maize samples were subjected to accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating. The results show that the common bean apparently spread rapidly upon its introduction to the region, becoming archaeologically visible from the Illinois River valley to southern New England in the calibrated late 13th century AD, some 200–300 years later than previously thought.
Deserted Britain: declining populations in the British Late Middle Pleistocene
Authors: Ashton Nick , Lewis Simon
Published: January 2015

This paper defines the potential reasons for low population levels in Oxygen Isotope Stages 6–4: climate, habitat preferences and sea level.
The Venerable Bede, druidic tonsure and archaeology
Authors: Venclová Natalie
Published: January 2015

Dr Venclová is well known to readers of ANTIQUITY as the excavator of the site of Mšecké Žehrovice in Bohemia, find-place of the most famous example of Iron Age human representation. What she presents here is a provocative theory — that the Mšecké Žehrovice stone head represents a Celtic druid!
The role of the Environment and Heritage Service in Northern Ireland archaeology
Authors: Brannon Nick
Published: January 2015

The Environment and Heritage Service (EHS), an agency within the Department of the Environment, aims ‘to protect and conserve the natural and built environment and to promote its appreciation for the benefit of present and future generations‘ (EHS 1996: 7). EHS has a central statutory, regulatory, management and participatory role in Northern Ireland archaeology.

Official care of archaeological sites and monuments in what is now Northern Ireland goes back to the Disestablishment of the Church of Ireland and the Irish Church Act of 1869. This made provision for the upkeep of certain irnportant ecclesiastical sites; 137 ruined churches and crosses were vested in the Commissioners of Public Works, to be maintained as National Monuments. Of these, 17 were in what was to become Northern Ireland. This precedent was noted in Parliamentary debates on the Ancient Monuments Protection Act 1882, which applied to Britain and Ireland, and of the 18 Irish sites, 3 were in what is now Northern Ireland. The Ancient Monuments Protection (Ireland) Act 1892 increased the scope for protection of sites in the earlier schedule.
Palaeolithic landscape of extraction: flint surface quarries and workshops at Mt Pua, Israel
Authors: Barkai Ran , Gopher Avi , Porta Philip C. La
Published: January 2015

The authors report on investigations at quarrying sites on Mount Pua, Israel. they suggest that the area shows a degree of industrial organization from the late Lower Palaeolithic with a resultant impact on the landscape.
Hiatus or continuity? New results for the question of pleniglacial settlement in Central Europe
Authors: Terberger Thomas , Street Martin
Published: January 2015

The authors present new dating evidence for a refined understanding of human presence in Central Europe between 23,000 and 14,000 BP.
The Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in the sandy lowlands of Belgium: new evidence
Authors: Crombé Philippe , Perdaen Yves , Sergant Joris , Roeyen Jean-Pierre Van , Strydonck Mark Van
Published: January 2015

The site of Doel lies beside the Schelde, close to Antwerp. Excavations have uncovered the remains of two prehistoric zones, one from the Final Mesolithic and one from the Neolithic. Preliminary study suggests that current theories of the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in northern Belgium require revision.
Regional survey and the development of complex societies in southeastern Shandong, China
Authors: Underhill Anne P. , Feinman Gary M. , Nicholas Linda M. , Bennett Gwen , Fang Hui , Luan Fengshi , Yu Haiguang , Cai Fengshu
Published: January 2015

This article shows that full-coverage regional survey is an effective tool for understanding change over time in regional settlement patterns in north China. Five seasons of survey in the Rizhao area of southeastern Shandong demonstrate a nucleated pattern of settlement around the Longshan site of Liangchengzhen and a clear settlement hierarchy, with distinctly different patterns for later periods.
Seeing the woodandthe trees: dendrochronological studies in Scotland
Authors: Crone Anne , Mills Coralie M.
Published: January 2015

Introduction

The value of dendrochronology as a precise dating tool is well established (Ashmore, this volume) and this paper concentrates on other aspects of its value to Scottish archaeology and history. Timber in Scotland has been a resource under pressure for a long time, and consequently the history of timber trade and woodland exploitation is particularly interesting. Scotland now has very restricted semi-natural woodland, representing about 1% of land cover. While the extent of semi-natural woodland has undoubtedly shrunk in recent centuries, pollen evidence indicates that much of Scotland has been characterized by open landscapes since later prehistory (Tipping 1994).
The radiocarbon dating programmes of The National Museums of Scotland
Authors: Sheridan Alison
Published: January 2015

Since 1991, the Archaeology Department of the National Museums of Scotland (NMS) has been undertaking programmes of AMS radiocarbon dating of organic items in its collections, particularly wetland finds. This work was initially stimulated by the success of Caroline Earwood’s research on dating bog butter containers and other wooden vessels from the National collections (Earwood 1990; 1993a; 1993b; 1997), which demonstrated among other things that the practice of bog butter deposition in Scotland extended at least as far back as the early centuries AD.
Investigating jet and jet-like artefacts from prehistoric Scotland: the National Museums of Scotland project
Authors: Sheridan Alison , Davis Mary , Clark Iain , Redvers-Jones Hal
Published: January 2015

Introduction

The black spacer plate necklaces and bracelets of the Early Bronze Age (Figure 1) are among the most technically accomplished prestige items of this period in Britain and Ireland. There has been much debate over the years as to whether these artefacts and other prehistoric black jewellery and dress accessories are the product of specialist jetworkers based around Whitby in North Yorkshire — Britain’s only significant source of jet. As early as 1916, for example, Callander was arguing that the Scottish finds had been made using locally available materials — cannel coal, shale and lignite — rather than Whitby jet. There has also been much confusion over the identification of these various materials. Flirthermore, the conservation of newly discovered jet and jet-like artefacts can be problematical, and the correct identification of raw material is important in determining the best method of treatment.
Scotland's First Settlers: the Mesolithic seascape of the Inner Sound, Skye and its contribution to the early prehistory of Scotland
Authors: Hardy Karen , Wickham-Jones Caroline
Published: January 2015

Background

The Mesolithic occupation of Scotland began soon after the end of the last glaciation, between 10,000 and 9000 years ago. Considerablc research has been undertaken in the past two decades (Mithen 2000; Pollard & Morrison 1996; Woodman 1989; Young 2000); much has been published, more is awaited, and work continues apace. Mesolithic sites occur throughout Scotland, though recent archaeological activity has been concentrated on the western seaboard.

The coastal nature of much of the Scottish Mesolithic has long been recognized, although the contribution of inland sites is becoming more apparent. The relationship between shell middens and lithic scatters and the nature of the midden sites themselves are slowly becoming clearer (Bonsall 1996; Finlayson 1998), though the make-up of the material culture remains vague, as known early sites with preservation of organic materials are few and far between and specialists remain divided over their interpretation. More widely, it is generally recognized that the Mesolithic occurred during a time of dynamic enviromnental change although the impact on the human population remains to be documented.
Contract archaeology in Scotland
Authors: Carter Stephen
Published: January 2015

Introduction

The subject matter for this article is a large one and could be approached in a number of different ways. I have chosen to focus on some of the more distinctive characteristics of contract archaeology as it is currently practised in Scotland. This may encourage comparison with the situation elsewhere but it is not my intention to ‘compare and contrast’. I will leave it up to the reader, if they wish, to set their own experiences against the Scottish situation.

I define contract archaeology as all types of archaeological work undertaken through a commercial contract. Scotland is a small country with a small economy and it has a commercial archaeological sector to scale. The nuniber of commercial archaeological organizations working regularly in Scotland is somewhere between 10 and 20 depending on your point of view. Only five of these organizations have permanent staff numbers in double figures; some of the others are effectively sole traders who may take on staff with project-specific contracts.
The Palaeoindian–Archaic transition in North America: new evidence from Texas
Authors: Bousman C. Britt , Collins Michael B. , Goldberg Paul , Stafford Thomas , Guy Jan , Baker Barry W. , Steele D. Gentry , Kay Marvin , Kerr Anne , Fredlund Glen , Dering Phil , Holliday Vance , Wilson Diane , Gose Wulf , Dial Susan , Takac Paul , Balinsky Robin , Masson Marilyn , Powell Joseph F.
Published: January 2015

The transition from Palaeoindian to Archaic societies in North America is often viewed as a linear progression over a brief but time-transgressive period. New evidence from the Wilson-Leonard site in Texas suggests social experimentation by Palaeoindians over a 2500-year period eventually resulted in Archaic societies. The process was neither short nor linear, and the evidence shows that different but contemporaneous lifeways existed in a variety of locales in the south-central US in the Early Holocene.
Taphonomic interpretation of the Developed Oldowan site of Garba IV (Melka Kunture, Ethiopia) through a GIS application
Authors: D'Andrea Andrea , Gallotti Rosalia , Piperno Marcello
Published: January 2015

A GIS intra-site application for the taphonomic interpretation of the Developed Oldowan site of Garba IV (Melka Kunture, Ethiopia) allowed the automatic data processing of more than 12,000 lithic artefacts and faunal remains lying on a 100-sq. m excavated palaeosurface dating to about 1,500,000 years ago.
Discovery of Palaeolithic cave art in Britain
Authors: Bahn Paul G. , Pettitt Paul , Ripoll Sergio
Published: January 2015

We are pleased to present here a preliminary account of the first discovery of Palaeolithic cave art in Britain.

On 14 April 2003 we made the first discovery of Palaeolithic cave art in Britain. Since portable art of the period has long been known in this country (Sieveking 1972; Campbell 1977: vol. 2, figs 102, 105, 143), it has always seemed probable that parietal art must also have existed. We knew that we were most unlikely to discover paintings, since these are generally quite visible; but as far as we knew, nobody with a trained eye and advantageous lighting had combed the British caves in search of engravings, which are often extremely difficult to see. Such was the purpose of our initial survey and, sure enough, we rapidly encountered engraved marks in a number of caves, which we will be investigating more fully and systematically in the near future. At the well-known sites of Creswell Crags, in Derbyshire, we found both figurative and non-figurative engravings of the period. What follows is a brief, preliminary announcement of a discovery soon to be further amplified in print following systematic investigation.
Iron Age society and chronology in South-east Kazakhstan
Authors: Chang Claudia , Benecke Norbert , Grigoriev Fedor P. , Rosen Arlene M. , Tourtellotte Perry A.
Published: January 2015

This new view of Iron Age society in Kazakhstan breaks away from the old documentary and ethnic framework and offers an independent archaeological chronology. Excavated house types and new environmental data show that nomadism and cultivation were practised side by side. Scholars had previously tended to emphasise the ability of documented Saka leaders to plunder and collect tribute from sedentary agriculture groups through military aggression. But what really gave them a political and economic edge over other steppe groups was a dual economy based upon farming and herding.
The management of space in a Palaeolithic rock shelter: defining activity areas by spatial analysis
Authors: Yvorra Pascale
Published: January 2015

Flints scattered in the earliest stratum of Mandrin, a rock shelter in the Rhône valley, were clustered by k-means and Principal Component Analysis to reveal areas dominated by particular tools or waste products. These areas suggest the way in which Palaeolithic people managed their domestic space.
Imaging the past: recent applications of multispectral imaging technology to deciphering manuscripts
Authors: Chabries Douglas M. , Booras Steven W. , Bearman Gregory H.
Published: January 2015

Multi-spectral imaging (MSI), which was developed to explore the surface of the earth and other planets from space, has been adapted to read and record faded or burnt manuscripts. The authors show how MSI achieved new readings from carbonised and damaged fragments of papyrus scrolls from Herculaneum, Petra and the Judean Desert. The method has potential for investigating the degraded ornamental surfaces of other artefacts.
William Stukeley: an eighteenth-century phenomenologist?
Authors: Peterson Rick
Published: January 2015

Phenomenology is the modern theoretical archaeologist's word for the appreciation of how a prehistoric monument relates to its landscape. The author shows how the one of the earliest antiquaries, William Stukeley, pre-echoed some of its principles methods and thinking.
Settlement and economy in Neolithic Ukraine: a new chronology
Authors: Telegin D. Ya. , Lillie M. , Potekhina I. D. , Kovaliukh M. M.
Published: January 2015

The authors use their revised chronology for the Mariupol-type cemeteries (presented in Antiquity 76: 356-63 (2002)) to offer a new sequence for Neolithic settlement and economy in Ukraine. They find that the transition to the Neolithic began about 6500 cal BC, but co-existed with Mesolithic communities for a further millennium. In about 4500 cal BC early copper age cultures appeared, which in turn coexisted with the Neolithic in neighbouring areas. Co-existent cultures are defined in terms of their artefacts, subsistence strategies, burial practice and physical types. The Mariupol-type cemeteries seem to have had their origins in the late Mesolithic and endured into the Copper Age, a period of more than two thousand years (c. 6500–4000 cal BC).
Monuments in a flood zone: “builders” and “recipients” in ancient Varendri, (Eastern India and Bangladesh)
Authors: Panja Sheena
Published: January 2015

The modern study of ancient landscapes is showing how the landscape and the monuments within it may have been perceived by those alive at the time. The author here broadens the discussion, distinguishing the perceptions of those who built the monuments from those who viewed them. In this example from the area comprising eastern India and Bangladesh where settlements were regularly washed away, the monuments acted as icons of permanence, and continue to impress today. However, they may not have been so appreciated by the riverside dwellers …
A measure of conviction: recording emphasis in Scandinavian rock carvings
Authors: Coles John
Published: January 2015

Making sense of rock carvings requires that the busy scenes depicted be resolved into groups. Using Swedish examples, John Coles shows how the depth of carvings can help identify images and subjects and urges that the depths become a regular part of the record.
Immutable laws of friction: preparing and fitting stone blocks into the Great Pyramid of Giza
Authors: Stocks Denys A.
Published: January 2015

How did the pyramid builders prepare and fit large stone blocks so that they were horizontal, orthogonal and flattened to within one hundredth of an inch? The author's experiments suggest that the surfaces were prepared using basic instruments made of rods and string, while to move the blocks the immutable laws of friction were mitigated by lubricating with mud and gypsum.
Archaeology under the Judiciary: Ayodhya 2003
Authors: Chakrabarti Dilip K.
Published: January 2015

After more than a decade after its demolition, the December 1992 destruction of the sixteenth century mosque in Ayodhya remains a powerful heritage issue. The site is considered sacred by Hindus as the birthplace of their god Rama, and the mosque's demolition caused the loss of about 2000 Indian lives in Hindu-Muslim rioting across India and led to the destruction of Hindu temples in the neighbouring countries of Pakistan and Bangladesh.
Mending the past: Ix Chel and the invention of a modern pop goddess
Authors: Ardren Traci
Published: January 2015

For modern communities, she is the moon goddess and protectress of Maya culture and women; for scholars she is one of a number of deities with different roles in the Postclassic period. Which is the real Ixchel? The author excavates the story of the Maya goddess and her re-invention by myth-makers – including archaeologists.
Boat-building and its social context in early Egypt: interpretations from the First Dynasty boat-grave cemetery at Abydos
Authors: Ward Cheryl
Published: January 2015

The boat-grave cemetery at Abydos has provided the world's oldest sewn planked hulls, and vivid evidence for the way early Egyptian wooden boats were built. As well as sailing on the Nile, they were designed to be dismantled for carriage over land to the Red Sea. By the mid-fourth millennium BC the ship was a major technical force in the Egyptian political economy as well as an iconic force in ceremonial burial.
The first settlers of Iceland: an isotopic approach to colonisation
Authors: Price T. Douglas , Gestsdóttir Hildur
Published: January 2015

The colonisation of the North Atlantic from the eighth century AD was the earliest expansion of European populations to the west. Norse and Celtic voyagers are recorded as reaching and settling in Iceland, Greenland and easternmost North America betweenc. AD 750 and 1000, but the date of these events and the homeland of the colonists are subjects of some debate. In this project, the birthplaces of 90 early burials from Iceland were sought using strontium isotope analysis. At least nine, and probably thirteen, of these individuals can be distinguished as migrants to Iceland from other places. In addition, there are clear differences to be seen in the diets of the local Icelandic peoples, ranging from largely terrestrial to largely marine consumption.
Tectonics and human evolution
Authors: King Geoffrey , Bailey Geoff
Published: January 2015

The authors propose a new model for the origins of humans and their ecological adaptation. The evolutionary stimulus lies not in the savannah but in broken, hilly rough country where the early hominins could hunt and hide. Such ‘roughness’, generated by tectonic and volcanic movement characterises not only the African rift valley but probably the whole route of early hominin dispersal.
Prehistoric human impacts on Rapa, French Polynesia
Authors: Kennett Douglas , Anderson Atholl , Prebble Matthew , Conte Eric , Southon John
Published: January 2015

New excavations and survey on the island of Rapa have shown that a rockshelter was occupied by early settlers around AD 1200 and the first hill forts were erected about 300 years later. Refortification occurred up to the contact period and proliferated around AD 1700. Taro cultivation in terraced pond-fields kept pace with the construction of forts. The authors make a connection between fort-building and making pond-fields, demonstrating that the pressure on resources provoked both the intensification of agriculture and hostility between the communities of the small island.
The domestication of water: the Neolithic well at Sha'ar Hagolan, Jordan Valley, Israel
Authors: Garfinkel Yosef , Vered Ariel , Bar-Yosef Ofer
Published: January 2015

A well in the Jordan Valley shows that the Neolithic revolution included an understanding of underground water and how to access it. The excavation of the well in longtitudinal cross-section is also something of a revolution in fieldwork.
Developments in radiocarbon calibration for archaeology
Authors: Ramsey Christopher Bronk , Buck Caitlin E. , Manning Sturt W. , Reimer Paula , Plicht Hans van der
Published: January 2015

This update on radiocarbon calibration results from the 19th International Radiocarbon Conference at Oxford in April 2006, and is essential reading for all archaeologists. The way radiocarbon dates and absolute dates relate to each other differs in three periods: back to 12400 cal BP, radiocarbon dates can be calibrated with tree rings, and the calibration curve in this form should soon extend back to 18000 cal BP. Between 12400 and 26000 cal BP, the calibration curves are based on marine records, and thus are only a best estimate of atmospheric concentrations. Beyond 26000 cal BP, dates have to be based on comparison (rather than calibration) with a variety of records. Radical variations are thus possible in this period, a highly significant caveat for the dating of middle and lower Paleolithic art, artefacts and animal and human remains.
The emergence of the Scythians: Bronze Age to Iron Age in South Siberia
Authors: Legrand Sophie
Published: January 2015

The Minusinsk Basin is located where China, Mongolia, Siberia and Kazakhstan meet. Enclosed, but broad, and rich in copper and other minerals, the valley offers missing links between the prehistory of China and that of the greater Russian steppes. In the late Bronze Age the material from Minusinsk was important for the origins of bronze metallurgy in China, and in the Iron Age the area was a focus for the development of that equestrian mobility which was to become the elite way of life for much of the Eurasian steppe for more than a millennium.

We are privileged to publish the following two papers deriving from research at the Institute for the History of Material Culture at Saint Petersburg, which give us the story so far on the archaeology of this remarkable place. In The emergence of the Karasuk culture Sophie Legrand discusses the people who occupied the Minusinsk Basin in the Bronze Age, and in The emergence of the Tagar culture, Nikolai Bokovenko introduces us to their successors, the horsemen and barrow-builders of the first millennium BCE.
Inhumation and cremation in medieval Mongolia: analysis and analogy
Authors: Crubézy E. , Ricaut F.X. , Martin H. , Erdenebaatar S. , Coqueugnot H. , Maureille B. , Giscard P.H.
Published: January 2015

The authors study burials of the medieval period in western Mongolia shortly before emergence of Genghis Khan. They find that both inhumation and cremation are practised, with a variety of accompanying rituals. Systematic micro-analysis of bone fragments on the one hand, and the accounts of early travellers on the other, allow these researchers to propose detailed explanations of mortuary practice in thirteenth century Altai that will be highly suggestive to prehistorians working elsewhere.
Prehistoric and early historic agriculture at Maunga Orito, Easter Island (Rapa Nui), Chile
Authors: Stevenson Christopher M. , Jackson Thomas L. , Mieth Andreas , Bork Hans-Rudolf , Ladefoged Thegn N.
Published: January 2015

A long section adjacent to a former obsidian quarry on Easter Island (Rapa Nui) reveals a sequence of agricultural strategies, beginning with the clearing of palm trees in the twelfth century AD, and the making of an open garden growing yams and taro, that continued through the fifteenth century. The later phases between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries include veneer and boulder gardens that reflect the broader strategy employed by the islanders to fight the increasingly arid soil.
Engineering the past: Pitt Rivers, Nemo andThe Needle
Authors: Evans Christopher
Published: January 2015

Exploring parallels between the careers of Lt.-General Pitt Rivers and Verne's Captain Nemo, this essay is concerned with time and disciplinary flagships. It considers how their respective collection activities propelled their very personal projects of science and, in the case of the General, its interrelationship with the institutionalisation of archaeology in the later nineteenth century. In particular, the implications of his renowned excavation medallion will be discussed and compared to a celebrated time capsule of the period; it being argued that ‘deep time’ consciousness itself engendered notions of futuristic projection.
From Digger to Director, Cornwall to Caithness
Authors: Mercer Roger
Published: January 2015

Roger Mercer, prehistorian and formerly Secretary of the Royal Commission of Ancient and Historical Monuments for Scotland, looks back.
Pottery Neolithic landscape modification at Dhra'
Authors: Kuijt Ian , Finlayson Bill , MacKay Jode
Published: January 2015

This report of the discovery of low walls running across the slopes east of the Dead Sea presents an important landmark in the history of farming, for these were terrace walls put in place to conserve soil and control water around 6000 cal BC. The authors point to some of the implications of what they see as early landscape modification at the scale of a small community or household.
Evaluation of Corona and Ikonos high resolution satellite imagery for archaeological prospection in western Syria
Authors: Beck Anthony , Philip Graham , Abdulkarim Maamoun , Donoghue Daniel
Published: January 2015

Satellite surveys in Syria have made use of imagery recorded some 30 years apart. By comparing the earlier pictures (Corona) with the later (Ikonos), sites captured on the former can be accurately located by the latter. The comparison also reveals the stark implications for archaeology as large parts of west Asian landscape change from a state of ‘benign neglect’ to active redevelopment. Based on their experience in the Homs survey, the authors have important advice to offer in the design and costing of surveys using satellite imagery.
History and archaeology: the state of play in early medieval Europe
Authors: Hills Catherine
Published: January 2015

How useful is archaeology to historians? Do they use it in their work? If so how? Catherine Hills considers a number of mighty histories of early medieval Europe that have recently appeared and examines how far the extremely productive archaeology of the last two decades has affected them – or failed to.
Designs and designers of medieval ‘new towns’ in Wales
Authors: Lilley Keith D. , Lloyd Christopher D. , Trick Steven
Published: January 2015

Medieval ‘new towns’ seem to echo Roman towns in having a grid of streets associated with a fortress, and have often been credited with a standard plan applied by the hand of authority. Here the authors analyse the new towns founded by Edward I in Wales and find some highly significant variations. Rediscovering the original layouts by high precision survey and GIS mapping, they show that some towns, founded at the same time and on similar topography, had quite different layouts, while others, founded at long intervals, had plans that were almost identical. Documentation hints at the explanation: it was the architects, masons and ditch-diggers, not the king and aristocracy, who established and developed these blueprints of urban life.
The transition from the Lower to the Middle Palaeolithic in Europe and the incorporation of difference
Authors: Hopkinson Terry
Published: January 2015

The author argues for a significant social and cognitive transition between the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic in Europe. Between about 300 000 and 200 000 years ago, early Neanderthals developed stone working techniques which combined methods that were previously discrete, began to occupy high-relief terrain and to settle systematically the highly seasonal environments of central and eastern Europe – skill-sets here termed the ‘incorporation of difference’. These findings make us rethink the competence of pre-modern hominins and to review, in the author's words, ‘the boundaries we erect to police the uniqueness of humanity’.
A shark-tooth ornament from Pleistocene Sahul
Authors: Leavesley Matthew G.
Published: January 2015

The tooth of a tiger shark, perforated to make a pendant, was lost in New Ireland, New Guinea between 39500 and 28000 years ago. The author argues that this has to be the work of anatomically modern humans, and implies the use of symbolic language not only across the former continent of Sahul, but also Eurasia.
Presumed domestication? Evidence for wild rice cultivation and domestication in the fifth millennium BC of the Lower Yangtze region
Authors: Fuller Dorian Q , Harvey Emma , Qin Ling
Published: January 2015

Prompted by a recent article by Jiang and Liu in Antiquity (80, 2006), Dorian Fuller and his co-authors return to the question of rice cultivation and consider some of the difficulties involved in identifying the transition from wild to domesticated rice. Using data from Eastern China, they propose that, at least for the Lower Yangtze region, the advent of rice domestication around 4000 BC was preceded by a phase of pre-domestication cultivation that began around 5000 BC. This rice, together with other subsistence foods like nuts, acorns and waterchestnuts, was gathered by sedentary hunter-gatherer-foragers. The implications for sedentism and the spread of agriculture as a long term process are discussed.
Towards a refined chronology for the Bronze Age of the southern Urals, Russia
Authors: Hanks B.K. , Epimakhov A.V. , Renfrew A.C.
Published: January 2015

Cultural interactions in central Russia are famously complex, but of very wide significance. Within the social changes they imply are contained key matters for Europe and Asia: the introduction of Indo-Europeans and other languages, the horse and the chariot, and the transition towards nomadism. Of crucial importance to future research is a sturdy chronological framework and in this contribution the authors offer 40 new radiocarbon dates spanning the conventional Bronze Age in the southern Urals.
Creating urban communities at Kilwa Kisiwani, Tanzania, AD 800-1300
Authors: Wynne-Jones Stephanie
Published: January 2015

Urban communities on the medieval East African coast have been previously discussed in terms of ethnicity and migration. Here assemblages from coastal towns and from surface survey in the interior are used to paint a different picture of urban (Swahili) origins. The author shows that coast and interior shared a common culture, but that coastal sites grew into ‘stonetowns’ thanks to the social impact of imports: the material culture structured the society.
New evidence from East Timor contributes to our understanding of earliest modern human colonisation east of the Sunda Shelf
Authors: O'Connor Sue
Published: January 2015

New dates by which modern humans reached East Timor prompts this very useful update of the colonisation of Island Southeast Asia. The author addresses all the difficult questions: why are the dates for modern humans in Australia earlier than they are in Island Southeast Asia? Which route did they use to get there? If they used the southern route, why or how did they manage to bypass Flores, whereHomo floresiensis, the famous non-sapienshominin known to the world as the ‘hobbit’ was already in residence? New work at the rock shelter of Jerimalai suggests some answers and new research directions.
Tools, space and behaviour in the Lower Palaeolithic: discoveries at Soucy in the Paris basin
Authors: Lhomme Vincent
Published: January 2015

We are privileged to publish this interim report on the discovery of open settlement sites of the early Palaeolithic in the Paris basin. The early occupation areas were defined beside the river Yonne at Soucy during gravel-quarrying, which were to produce flint bifaces and débitage and the bones of elephant, rhinoceros, horse and a wealth of other mammals. The sites differed from each other, both in their assemblages and in their location with respect to the old river channels. In the author's analysis this demonstrates signs of subsistence strategy and spatial organisation in the buried valley between 365 and 345 000 years ago.
Early Mesopotamian urbanism: a new view from the north
Authors: Oates Joan , McMahon Augusta , Karsgaard Philip , Quntar Salam Al , Ur Jason
Published: January 2015

For many years, the southern Mesopotamia of Ur and Uruk, ancient Sumer, has been seen as the origin centre of civilisation and cities: ‘The urban implosion of late-fourth- and early-third-millennium Mesopotamia resulted in a massive population shift into large sites’ said Nissen in 1988. ‘These new city-states set the pattern for Mesopotamia as the heartland of cities’ (Adams 1981; Yoffee 1998). And for Stone & Zimansky (2005) ‘Remains of the world's first cities are the most noteworthy feature of the landscape in southern Iraq’. But at Tell Brak Joan Oates and her team are turning this model upside down. A long campaign of study, culminating in the new discoveries from 2006 reported here, show that northern Mesopotamia was far along the road to urbanism, as seen in monumentality, industrialisation and prestige goods, by the late fifth millennium BC. The ‘world's earliest cities’ are as likely to have been in north-eastern Syria as southern Iraq, and the model of a core from the south developing a periphery in the north is now ripe for revision.
The age of Stonehenge
Authors: Pearson Mike Parker , Cleal Ros , Marshall Peter , Needham Stuart , Pollard Josh , Richards Colin , Ruggles Clive , Sheridan Alison , Thomas Julian , Tilley Chris , Welham Kate , Chamberlain Andrew , Chenery Carolyn , Evans Jane , Knüsel Chris , Linford Neil , Martin Louise , Montgomery Janet , Payne Andy , Richards Mike
Published: January 2015

Stonehenge is the icon of British prehistory, and continues to inspire ingenious investigations and interpretations. A current campaign of research, being waged by probably the strongest archaeological team ever assembled, is focused not just on the monument, but on its landscape, its hinterland and the monuments within it. The campaign is still in progress, but the story so far is well worth reporting. Revisiting records of 100 years ago the authors demonstrate that the ambiguous dating of the trilithons, the grand centrepiece of Stonehenge, was based on samples taken from the wrong context, and can now be settled at 2600-2400 cal BC. This means that the trilithons are contemporary with Durrington Walls, near neighbour and Britain's largest henge monument. These two monuments, different but complementary, now predate the earliest Beaker burials in Britain – including the famous Amesbury Archer and Boscombe Bowmen, but may already have been receiving Beaker pottery. All this contributes to a new vision of massive monumental development in a period of high European intellectual mobility….