bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The date and context of Neolithic rock art in the Sahara: engravings and ceremonial monuments from Messak Settafet (south-west Libya)
Authors: di Lernia Savino , Gallinaro Marina
Published: January 2015

The authors find a context for the rock art of the central Sahara by excavating and recording examples of engraved stones from circular platforms used to sacrifice animals. The type of rock art known as the Pastoral style, featuring evocative outline drawings of cattle, appears on upright stones incorporated into the platforms in the period 5430–5150 BP, and probably earlier. Furthermore, they show that these places were part of a dense and extensive monumental landscape, occupying a harsh environment, supplying quartzite, but with little settlement, appearing to serve the spiritual needs of hundreds of Neolithic people.
Earliest direct evidence for broomcorn millet and wheat in the central Eurasian steppe region
Authors: Frachetti Michael D. , Spengler Robert N. , Fritz Gayle J. , Mar'yashev Alexei N.
Published: January 2015

Before 3000 BC, societies of western Asia were cultivating wheat and societies of China were cultivating broomcorn millet; these are early nodes of the world's agriculture. The authors are searching for early cereals in the vast lands that separate the two, and report a breakthrough at Begash in south-east Kazakhstan. Here, high precision recovery and dating have revealed the presence of both wheat and millet in the later third millennium BC. Moreover the context, a cremation burial, raises the suggestion that these grains might signal a ritual rather than a subsistence commodity.
Co Loa: an investigation of Vietnam's ancient capital
Authors: Kim Nam C. , Van Toi Lai , Hiep Trinh Hoang
Published: January 2015

History, legend and memory have long pointed to Co Loa, an earthwork enclosure outside Hanoi, as the seat of an indigenous power that gave identity to the people of the Bac Bo region, north Vietnam. Survey, excavation and a set of radiocarbon dates now put this site on the historical map. The main rampart of the middle circuit was built in the later centuries BC, before the coming of Han Imperial China. Nor was this rampart the first defence. The authors show the potential of archaeology for revealing the creation and development of a polity among the prosperous people of the Dongson culture.
The Sarmizegetusa bracelets
Authors: Constantinescu Bogdan , Oberländer-Târnoveanu Ernest , Bugoi Roxana , Cojocaru Viorel , Radtke Martin
Published: January 2015

We present the authentication and analysis of these beautiful Dacian bracelets of the first century BC, originally pillaged by treasure hunters and recovered thanks to an international crime chase. They were originally fashioned from gold panned from the rivers or dug from the mines of Transylvania and hammered into the form of coiled snakes. The lack of context is the greatest loss, but a votive purpose is likely given their proximity to the great sacred centre at Sarmizegetusa Regia.
Mancala players at Palmyra
Authors: de Voogt Alex
Published: January 2015

Playing mancala-type games was an addictive pastime of antiquity and leaves its archaeological imprint on steps and ledges in the form of rows of little scoops. Here the author examines the traces of the game at Palmyra and shows that the Roman game of the third century (with five holes a side) was superseded when Palmyra's Temple of Baal was refashioned as a fort in the seventh century or later. The new Syrian game, with seven holes a side, was played obsessively by the soldiers of an Arab or Ottoman garrison on the steps and precinct wall of the old temple.
Prehistoric Timbuktu and its hinterland
Authors: Park Douglas Post
Published: January 2015

Timbuktu, an iconic destination for medieval caravans crossing the Sahara, has a prehistoric phase, here before AD 1000, which shows varying urban traits. The author's new project examines the context of Timbuktu's prehistoric urbanism by mapping the settlement patterns in its hinterland, and seeks to understand the social impacts of the Sahara's changing climate.
Charting the effects of plough damage using metal-detected assemblages
Authors: Haldenby D. , Richards Julian D.
Published: January 2015

Many thousands of metal objects are retrieved from arable fields every year, by casual discovery or by treasure-seekers with metal-detectors. What is the status of this material? Here a senior archaeologist and a metal-detectorist get together to demonstrate scientifically the hostile context of the ploughsoil and the accelerating damage it is inflicting on the ancient material it contains. Their work raises some important questions about the ‘archive under the plough’: is it safer to leave the objects there, or to take advantage of a widespread hobby to locate and retrieve them?
Will the sky fall in? Global warming – an alternative view
Authors: Rowland Michael J.
Published: January 2015

Peter Mitchell (2008) has recently suggested in this journal that the world is facing a ‘catastrophe’ due to anthropogenic climate warming. Mitchell divides his commentary into two parts, and asks two key questions: what is the role of the archaeological community and individual archaeologists in this impending catastrophe and, how will this affect our day-to-day practice? I support most points in the second part (see Rowland 2008) but offer some alternative perspectives to issues raised in the first section of Mitchell's paper. There is a multiplicity of dimensions to the debate about ‘global warming’ (also referred to as ‘enhanced greenhouse warming’, ‘human-induced climate change’ or ‘anthropogenic warming’), including the socio-political milieu, the climate science itself and resulting government policies and guidelines. Archaeologists/anthropologists have a role to play in each of these areas; in particular the longue durée of the archaeological record can provide some fresh insights, a point on which bothMitchell and I agree. Where I differ fromMitchell is that I see a need to refocus the debate toward issues of sustainability and away from the current over-emphasis on global warming.
Figurine enigmas: who's to know?
Authors: James N. , Chippindale Juliet
Published: January 2015

Should a public archaeology exhibition focus on objects as objects, or should it also explain something of where they come from and processes of interpreting them? If background is necessary, then how much is needed to make sense of the exhibits? Two recent exhibitions offered different answers. The first was largely descriptive, the second theoretical, and specifically, ‘post-processualist’. Both featured prehistoric anthropomorphic figurines of fired clay. Whether or not because ‘themore human, the less intelligible’ (Hawkes 1954: 162), figurines are among the most intriguing and enigmatic finds. What were they for, and what did they mean? Why do they captivate us today; and how should archaeologists cater for that interest?
Sanzuodian: the structure, function and social significance of the earliest stone fortified sites in China
Authors: Shelach Gideon , Raphael Kate , Jaffe Yitzhak
Published: January 2015

The authors present new research on the Chifeng area of north-eastern China where they have been studying the remains of a society of the second millennium BC. This northern region, which saw the introduction of agriculture at the same time as the Yellow River basin experienced a brief and intensive period of fortification in the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age: natural ridges above the valleys were ringed with double stone walls and semicircular towers enclosing clusters of round houses with yards. Using large-scale survey and analysis of the structures at the key site of Sanzuodian, they place this phenomenon in its cultural and social context.
Human sacrifice and intentional corpse preservation in the Royal Cemetery of Ur
Authors: Baadsgaard Aubrey , Monge Janet , Cox Samantha , Zettler Richard L.
Published: January 2015

The Royal Tombs at Ur have been long famous for their chilling scenario of young soldiers and courtesans who loyally took poison to die with their mistress. The authors investigate two of the original skulls with CT scans and propose a procedure no less chilling, but more enforceable. The victims were participants in an elaborate funerary ritual during which they were felled with a sharp instrument, heated, embalmed with mercury, dressed and laid ceremonially in rows.
Exploring the Mesolithic and Neolithic transition in Croatia through isotopic investigations
Authors: Lightfoot E. , Boneva B. , Miracle P.T. , Šlaus M. , O'Connell T.C.
Published: January 2015

The generalised picture of Mesolithic marine diet giving way to a Neolithic terrestrial diet, as derived from isotope measurements, has been both championed and challenged in this journal. Here new results from the Balkans offer a preliminary picture of a diversity of food strategy, both before and after the great transition.
The eyes have it: human perception and anthropomorphic faces in world rock art
Authors: Watson Ben
Published: January 2015

Why do early artists draw eyes? The author argues that they reflect the evolution of the brain in its expressions of fear, love and behaviour, and invites us to apply this ethological approach more widely to the study of early symbolism.
The Staffordshire (Ogley Hay) hoard: problems of interpretation
Authors: Webster Leslie , Sparey-Green Christopher , Périn Patrick , Hills Catherine
Published: January 2015

The hoard presents us with a startling number of unfamiliar images from the Anglo-Saxon past, not least in the new icon of treasure that it presents. As the descriptions of treasure and gift-giving in Beowulf so vividly remind us, the gaining of treasure, and its corollary, gift-giving, were major preoccupations for Anglo-Saxons and their northern European contemporaries, whether Clovis, showering the crowds in Tours with gold solidi when he was created consul in 508, Oswiu attempting to buy off Penda before the Battle of Winwæd with what Bede (HE III.24; Colgrave & Mynors 1969: 288–91) described as an incalculable and incredible store of royal treasures or the huge Danegelds extorted by Vikings in the tenth and early eleventh century. But until July 2009, the picture presented by the archaeological evidence for Anglo-Saxon treasure could hardly have been more different: the material remains of treasure with which we are familiar come overwhelmingly from high-status burials, or as individual gold finds without context, most of them the result of relatively recent metal-detecting activity. Only one seventh-century Anglo-Saxon gold hoard exists, from Crondall in Hampshire, dated to c. 640; but that is essentially a coin hoard, the only non-numismatic items two small clasps which must have fastened the purse or satchel containing the coins.
Response to ‘The fall of Phaethon: a Greco-Roman geomyth preserves the memory of a meteorite impact in Bavaria (south-east Germany)’ by Rappenglück et al. (Antiquity 84)
Authors: Doppler Gerhard , Geiss Erwin , Kroemer Ernst , Traidl Robert
Published: January 2015

The authors comment on the date of the formation of the Tüttensee, holding that it was not created by a meteorite in the first millennium BC as claimed in the Antiquity article, but formed at the end of the Ice Age and can have nothing to do with Phaethon and his chariot. In reply, Rappenglück et al. offer a brief defence of their thesis.
Dzudzuana: an Upper Palaeolithic cave site in the Caucasus foothills (Georgia)
Authors: Bar-Yosef Ofer , Belfer-Cohen Anna , Mesheviliani Tengiz , Jakeli Nino , Bar-Oz Guy , Boaretto Elisabetta , Goldberg Paul , Kvavadze Eliso , Matskevich Zinovi
Published: January 2015

The report announces the important radiocarbon-dated sequence recently obtained at Dzudzuana Cave in the southern Caucasus foothills. The first occupants here were modern humans, inc. 34.5–32.2 ka cal BP, and comparison with dated sequences on the northern slope of the Caucasus suggests that their arrival was rapid and widespread. The rich, well-dated assemblages of lithics, bone tools and a few art objects, coloured fibres, pollen and animal remains deposited at Dzudzuana through 20 millennia provide an invaluable point of reference for numerous other sites previously excavated in western Georgia. Detailed information has been placed in a supplementary excavation report online. The data support the significance of these excavations for a better understanding of modern human dispersals.
Ritual in the landscape: evidence from Pınarbaşı in the seventh-millennium cal BC Konya Plain
Authors: Baird Douglas , Carruthers Denise , Fairbairn Andrew , Pearson Jessica
Published: January 2015

Excavations in the rockshelter at Pınarbaşı, 24.5km south-east of Çatalhöyük, have brought to light a sequence of structures and a rich assemblage of animal bones, with some of the bones embedded in plaster objects. The authors argue for a strong link with Çatalhöyük, and propose a hunter-herder site operated by a close-knit group from that settlement, supplying meat to it, but practising their own up-country rituals — so providing a glimpse of the ‘lived landscape’.
Towards a social geography of cultivation and plant use in an early farming community: Vaihingen an der Enz, south-west Germany
Authors: Bogaard Amy , Krause Rüdiger , Strien Hans-Christoph
Published: January 2015

Through integrated analysis of archaeobotanical and artefactual distributions across a settlement, the authors discover ‘neighbourhoods’ using different cultivation areas in the surrounding landscape. Differences between groups also emerge over the life of the settlement in the use of special plants, such as opium poppy and feathergrass. Spatial configurations of cultivation and plant use map out the shifting social geographies of a Neolithic community.
A Bronze Age battlefield? Weapons and trauma in the Tollense Valley, north-eastern Germany
Authors: Jantzen Detlef , Brinker Ute , Orschiedt Jörg , Heinemeier Jan , Piek Jürgen , Hauenstein Karlheinz , Krüger Joachim , Lidke Gundula , Lübke Harald , Lampe Reinhard , Lorenz Sebastian , Schult Manuela , Terberger Thomas
Published: January 2015

Chance discoveries of weapons, horse bones and human skeletal remains along the banks of the River Tollense led to a campaign of research which has identified them as the debris from a Bronze Age battle. The resources of war included horses, arrowheads and wooden clubs, and the dead had suffered blows indicating face-to-face combat. This surprisingly modern and decidedly vicious struggle took place over the swampy braided streams of the river in an area of settled, possibly coveted, territory. Washed along by the current, the bodies and weapons came to rest on a single alluvial surface.
Foraging-farming transitions at the Niah Caves, Sarawak, Borneo
Authors: Barker Graeme , Lloyd-Smith Lindsay , Barton Huw , Cole Franca , Hunt Chris , Piper Philip J. , Rabett Ryan , Paz Victor , Szabό Katherine
Published: January 2015

The Niah Caves in Sarawak, Borneo, have captured evidence for people and economies of 8000 and 4000 years ago. Although not continuous on this site, these open two windows on to life at the cultural turning point, broadly equivalent to the transition from Mesolithic to Neolithic. They have much in common, inferring that the occupants, perhaps belonging to an older maritime dispersal, had a choosy appetite for the Neolithic package.
The prehistory of a Friction Zone: first farmers and hunters-gatherers in Southeast Asia
Authors: Higham C.F.W. , Guangmao Xie , Qiang Lin
Published: January 2015

The prime-mover for the arrival of the Neolithic in Island Southeast Asia is thought to be the expansion of rice farmers speaking an Austronesian language and coming from the north (see Spriggs, above). Much less is known of the indigenous hunter-gatherers and their interaction with the new farming communities. The mutually occupied area, in the definition of Peter Bellwood, was a ‘Friction Zone’, where two radically different cultures met. This paper emphasises how much land, and information, was lost when the rising sea drowned Sundaland, an area the size of India, and brings to bear archaeological and DNA evidence to emphasise the continuing role of hunter-gatherers in the later prehistory of Southeast Asia.
Anything but a backwater
Authors: Kirch Patrick V.
Published: January 2015

In the spring of 1970, tired of the chilly Philadelphia winters where I was studying archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania, I arranged to spend a semester at the University of Hawai'i. There I enrolled in Professor Wilhelm G. Solheim II's course inthe prehistory of Southeast Asia. Bill Solheim — a colorful character if ever there was one, with his handle-bar mustache and endless anecdotes — was just then stirring up the sleepy field of Southeast Asian archaeology and prehistory. Together with his graduate students Chet Gorman and Don Bayard, Bill was making all kinds of startling claims about thecourse of cultural evolution in what most scholars had taken to be a secondary backwater: evidence for strikingly early plant domestication from Spirit Cave, precocious advances in bronze metallurgy at Non Nok Tah, and similar claims. At the time, Peter Bellwood, then based at the University of Auckland, was still focused on research among the islands of eastern Polynesia. But Peter saw the exciting developments coming out of Southeast Asia and soon decamped to The Australian National University in Canberra. Out of this new base he began his long and fruitful career of fieldwork in island Southeast Asia, and as the preeminent synthesiser of the region's prehistory.
Museums of oblivion
Authors: Hamilakis Yannis
Published: January 2015

The relationship between antiquity, archaeology and national imagination in Greece, the sacralisation of the Classical past, and the recasting of the Western Hellenism into an indigenous Hellenism have been extensively studied in the last 15 years or so (see e.g. Hamilakis 2007, 2009). In fact, Greece has proved a rich source of insights for other cases of nation-state heritage politics. The new Acropolis Museum project was bound to be shaped by the poetics of nationhood right from the start, given that its prime referent is the most sacred object of the Hellenic national imagination, the Acropolis of Athens. This site is at the same time, however, an object of veneration within the Western imagination (you only have to look at the UNESCO logo), a pilgrimage destination for millions of global tourists, with all its revenue implications, and an endlessly reproduced and modified global icon (in both senses of the word).
Isotopes and impact: a cautionary tale
Authors: Pollard A.M.
Published: January 2015

There can be no doubt that isotopic studies have made a huge contribution to archaeology in recent years, so much so thatisotope archaeologyis now seen as an essential subdiscipline of archaeology in much the same way as isotope geochemistry is a key subdiscipline of geochemistry. Ignoring for current purposes the contribution made by the measurement of a particular radioactive isotope of carbon (14C) since 1950, we can date the beginnings of isotope archaeology to the mid 1960s with the first measurements of lead isotopes in archaeological metals and slags by Brill and Wampler (1965, 1967). This was followed by carbon stable isotopes in human bone collagen in the late 1970s, building on previous work measuring σ13C in archaeological bone for radiocarbon determinations (Vogel & Van der Merwe 1977; Van der Merwe & Vogel 1978). Other isotopes followed rapidly, such as nitrogen, oxygen, sulphur and hydrogen for archaeological, palaeoecological or palaeoclimatological purposes and, more recently, the heavier radiogenic isotopes of strontium and neodymium for determining the provenance of organic and inorganic materials (Pollard & Heron 2008).
Processes of change in Magdalenian societies in the Pyrenean isthmus (20–16 ky cal BP)
Authors: Langlais Mathieu
Published: January 2015

The author uses a detailed analysis of lithic assemblages to propose a major social and economic change in the Pyrenees around 18 ky cal BC, roughly the watershed between the Lower and Middle Magdalenian periods. Nomadic groups begin to settle down, occupy loose territories, move raw materials over vast distances and specialise in manufacture for hunting and domestic use. These trends coincide with a cold period and an increase in grassland, the Heinrich Stadial.
The Beaker salt production centre of Molino Sanchón II, Zamora, Spain
Authors: Guerra-Doce Elisa , Delibes de Castro Germán , Abarquero-Moras F. Javier , del Val-Recio Jesús M. , Palomino-Lázaro Ángel L.
Published: January 2015

The authors take us to the salt lakes of Villafáfila in north-west Spain, where they have demonstrated by excavation that salt extraction had begun by the second half of the third millennium BC. The salt pans uncovered were accompanied by copious amounts of decorated Beaker pottery, for which political and symbolic interpretations are proposed.
Corneşti-Iarcuri — a Bronze Age town in the Romanian Banat?
Authors: Szentmiklosi Alexandru , Heeb Bernhard S. , Heeb Julia , Harding Anthony , Krause Rüdiger , Becker Helmut
Published: January 2015

A massive Late Bronze Age fortified settlement in Central Europe has been the subject of a new and exemplary investigation by excavation and site survey. This prehistoric enclosure, nearly 6km across, had a complex development, dense occupation and signs of destruction by fire. It can hardly be other than a capital city playing a role in the determinant struggles of its day — weighty and far reaching events of the European continent now being chronicled by archaeology.
Restoring the balance: an Early Bronze Age scale beam from Tell Fadous-Kfarabida, Lebanon
Authors: Genz Hermann
Published: January 2015

The author reports an object of modest appearance but great significance — a small bone beam for weighing precious commodities. Weighing indicates the regulation of quantities for exchange or manufacture and is thus a key agent of social and economic complexity. Well-stratified and dated to the early third millennium BC, this find puts the people of the Levant among the earliest to quantify mass. We are rightly urged to inspect faunal assemblages for similarly subtle modifications of bones.
The meaning of wine in Egyptian tombs: the three amphorae from Tutankhamun's burial chamber
Authors: Jané Maria Rosa Guasch
Published: January 2015

Three wine jars in Tutankhamun's fabulously preserved burial chamber had been opened and placed east, west and south of the sarcophagus. By means of inscriptions, endorsed by residue analysis, the author distinguishes the contents as red wine, white wine and a high quality fortified wine, and goes on to argue for specific symbolic meanings for these choices in the context of religious change after Akhenaten.
The first settlement of Remote Oceania: the Philippines to the Marianas
Authors: Hung Hsiao-chun , Carson Mike T. , Bellwood Peter , Campos Fredeliza Z. , Piper Philip J. , Dizon Eusebio , Bolunia Mary Jane Louise A. , Oxenham Marc , Chi Zhang
Published: January 2015

The authors compare pottery assemblages in the Marianas and the Philippines to claim endorsement for a first human expansion into the open Pacific around 1500 BC. The Marianas are separated from the Philippines by 2300km of open sea, so they are proposing an epic pioneering voyage of men and women, with presumably some cultivated plants but apparently no animals. How did they manage this unprecedented journey?
Strategies for constructing religious authority in ancient Hawai'i
Authors: McCoy Mark D. , Ladefoged Thegn N. , Graves Michael W. , Stephen Jesse W.
Published: January 2015

Through intensive archaeological investigation of temples in Hawai'i, the authors reveal a sequence of religious strategies for creating and maintaining authority that has application to prehistoric sequences everywhere. Expressed in the orientation and layout of the temples and their place in the landscape, these strategies develop in four stages over the course of a few hundred years, from the fifteenth to nineteenth century AD, from local shrines associated with agriculture to the development of a centralising priesthood serving the larger political economy.
Chalcolithic and modern potting at Gilund, Rajasthan: a cautionary tale
Authors: Sarkar Amrita
Published: January 2015

By an interesting coincidence the village of Gilund in Rajasthan, north-west India was host to an important Chalcolithic settlement of the early third millennium BC and to some of the last indigenous potters still working in the twenty-first century AD. The author shows how her study of the prehistoric potters was enhanced by what she learnt from their modern successors, pointing out that she was only just in time. These potters will be the last to practice and in this respect ethnoarchaeology is itself under threat.
The Theran eruption and Minoan palatial collapse: new interpretations gained from modelling the maritime network
Authors: Knappett Carl , Rivers Ray , Evans Tim
Published: January 2015

What was the effect on Late Minoan civilisation of the catastrophic destruction of Akrotiri on Thera (Santorini) by volcanic eruption? Not much, according to the evidence for continuing prosperity on Crete. But the authors mobilise their ingenious mathematical model (published in Antiquity 82: 1009–1024), this time to show that the effects of removing a major port of call could have impacted after an interval, as increased costs of transport gradually led to ever fewer routes and eventual economic collapse.
The microstratigraphy of middens: capturing daily routine in rubbish at Neolithic Çatalhöyük, Turkey
Authors: Shillito Lisa-Marie , Matthews Wendy , Almond Matthew J. , Bull Ian D.
Published: January 2015

Microstratigraphy — the sequencing of detailed biological signals on site — is an important new approach being developed in the Çatalhöyük project. Here the authors show how microscopic recording of the strata and content of widespread middens on the tell are revealing daily activities and the selective employment of plants in houses and as fuel. Here we continue to witness a major advance in the practice of archaeological investigation.
Bridging the gap: new fieldwork in northern Morocco
Authors: Barton R. N. E. , Bouzouggar A. , Stringer C. B.
Published: January 2015

The question of human contacts between Africa and the Iberian Peninsula in the Middle and Upper Pleistocene is of key interest in research of human origins. Discussion continues to focus on whether the sea gap separating the landmasses proved an effective barrier to cultural interchange and population movements. At its narrowest point the Gibraltar Strait is no more than 14 km wide and at times of lower sea level in the Pleistocene the gap would have been considerably reduced by the exposure of several offshore islands. Such sea crossings were apparently well within the capabilities of early human colonizers, as shown by the 800,000-year-old occupation of islands in the Indonesian archipelago. Despite these observations, many archaeologists have pointed to the ostensible lack of evidence for human interactions between Europe and North Africa until some time in the Upper Palaeolithic. This is surprising, given the presence of populations in both areas from the Lower Palaeolithic onwards. Such an ‘isolationist’ view is emphasized by the recent work of the Gibraltar Caves Project (Barton et al. 1999; Stringer et al. 2000) which has shown that Neanderthal populations with Middle Palaeolithic technology lived there until at least 32,000 years ago uncal, at a time when anatomically modern humans were already present elsewhere in Europe and Africa. Until now, no evidence of Neanderthals has been found in North Africa but the dating and nature of the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition in this region remains poorly understood.
Shell rings of the southeast US
Authors: Russo M. , Heide G.
Published: January 2015

Shell rings are circular and semi-circular deposits of shell (mostly oyster, Crassostrea virginica), faunal bone, artefacts and soil constructed along the Florida, Georgia and South Carolina coasts of the southeastern United States.

Rings in Georgia and South Carolina date to c. 4200–3200 BP and range in size from 1 to 3 m tall and 22 to 83 m across. These little-studied sites have been suggested to be the remains of gaming arenas, astronomical observatories, torture chambers, houses of state, and fish traps. Most archaeologists view the sites as the subsistence remains of egalitarian hunter/fisher encampments. The rings’ generally symmetrical, circular shapes are seen as reflective of the equal status among their societal members wherein no individual or family held a unique or favoured position over another. The general absence of exotic or prestige artefacts, elaborate burials and ceremonial mounds has reinforced the concept that these Late Archaic shell rings reflect rudimentary hunter/fisher cultures. Ironically, shell rings have also been cited as the earliest evidence for the rise of hierarchical social development in North America (Russo 1991; Russo & Saunders 1999). Shell rings have yielded evidence of the earliest permanent year-round occupations, the earliest development of pottery and the earliest examples of large-scale monumental architecture. Consequentially the function of shell rings remains an open question.
Prehistoric burial and ritual, in southwest Ireland
Authors: Collins Tracy , Lynch Linda
Published: January 2015

Archaeological monitoring of the construction of the N21 road improvements, Co. Kerry, Ireland, in 1999 uncovered four sub-circular features in the townland of Rockfield (FIGURE 1).

The central feature revealed itself to be small pit containing a cremation burial. The bones in this shallow pit had been subjected to intense heat, though the boulder clay beneath was unburnt. Radiocarbon (calibrated σ2) dating showed that this cremation dated from 1440–1140 BC, the date being firmly placed in the Irish Bronze Age. The total weight of the cremation was 29 g. The general size of the bone fragments recovered was very small with 72.4% being less than 5 mm in size. This severely limited the osteological analysis. At least some of the fragments, particularly some of the long bone pieces appeared to be human. On the basis of size, the cremation represents at least one adult. The uniform chalky white appearance of the bones recovered indicated that the individual was very well cremated and was probably processed by crushing or pounding of the bones after cremation.
Roman armour and metalworking at Carlisle, Cumbria, England
Authors: McCarthy Mike , Bishop Mike , Richardson Thom
Published: January 2015

Recent excavations at the Roman fort in Carlisle, Cumbria, have yielded a large number of pieces of articulated Roman armour and other items. This is the most important such find in Britain since the Corbridge hoard was excavated in 1964 (Allason-Jones & Bishop 1988).

On the north side of the via principalis adjacent to the headquarters building (principia), the corner of a timber building was uncovered (FIGURE 2). On the floor was a quantity of articulated and disarticulated fragments of predominantly ferrous Roman armour, including as many as three crushed, but complete, laminated arm defences. Although first used by Hellenistic cavalry and referred to in Xenophon’s Art of horsemanship (XI.13-XII.5), and later used by gladiators, this type of armour was adopted by Roman legionaries. It was once thought that armguards (manicae) were very rare and only employed under special circumstances, such as Trajan’s wars in Dacia where they were used to counter the deadly scythe-like falx (Richmond 1982: 49–50). A number of similar finds have been made, as at Newstead (Curle 1911: plate XXIII) and Richborough, Kent (M. Lyne pers. comm.), but they are often isolated and the pieces crushed, making reconstruction difficult and speculative. A graffito from Dura-Europos (FIGURE 1) shows a mounted soldier with a tall helmet and a mail or scale neck-guard, with similar limb and abdominal defences (Robinson 1975: figure 190). The Carlisle assemblage is important for the retrieval of articulated pieces, with associated copper-alloy rivets and leather.
Processing palm fruits in the Nile Valley — biomolecular evidence from Qasr Ibrim
Authors: Copley Mark S. , Evershed Richard P. , Rose Pamela J. , Clapham Alan , Edwards David N. , Horton Mark C.
Published: January 2015

While palaeobotanical remains provide clear evidence for the exploitation of the date at various locations in Egypt and Nubia, it is the detection amongst lipid residues in closed form vessels of fatty acid distributions dominated by diagnostic short-chain fatty acids, i.e. C12:0 and C14:0′ that provides the first direct evidence for the processing of palm fruit in pottery vessels.
Emerging trends in rock-art research: hunter–gatherer culture, land and landscape
Authors: Ross Mairi
Published: January 2015

Where is rock-art study heading? The author analyses the current trends and proposes a landscape-based, gender-sensitive approach for future work.
Fragmentary endings: a discussion of 3rd-millennium BC burial practices in the Oman Peninsula
Authors: Blau Soren
Published: January 2015

This paper reviews the architectural and human skeletal remains from Umm an-Nar period tombs (c. 2500–2000 BC), found across the Oman Peninsula. Possible meanings for the regional dispersal of the tombs across the region are considered. Tomb Unar 2 may provide possible interpretations of 3rd-millennium BC burial practices.
Knobbed spearbutts of the British and Irish Iron Age: new examples and new thoughts
Authors: Heald Andrew
Published: January 2015

How can study of material objects be employed to develop archaeological explanation? Recent finds suggest that past views on the date and distribution of doorknob spearbutts need to be revised with consequent effects on the interpretation of their cultural significance.
A large area archaeological excavation at Cuddie Springs
Authors: Field Judith , Fullagar Richard , Lord Garry
Published: January 2015

Large area excavation at Cuddie Springs has revealed that the Pleistocene sediments have remained undisturbed. This eliminates the possibility that stone artefacts found in association with megafauna may have been introduced by disturbance from higher levels and indicates an overlap of megafauna with humans of at least 10,000 years.
Dating Shuidonggou and the Upper Palaeolithic blade industry in North China
Authors: Madsen David B. , Jingzen Li , Brantingham P. Jeffrey , Xing Gao , Elston Robert G. , Bettinger Robert L.
Published: January 2015

Shuidonggou is unique within the Chinese Palaeolithic sequence and its assemblage is reminiscent of Upper Palaeolithic core-and-blade technologies in Mongolia and southern Siberia. Limited chronological controls have prevented evaluation of this technology in both the Chinese and greater Eurasian Palaeolithic. Dating of recently discovered hearths at Locality 2 places Shuidonggou firmly at 29,000–24,000 BP, and suggests the spread of the Eurasian large blade technology was primarily from north to south. The concurrent production of small microblade-like bipolar bladelets at the site may also presage the development of a microlithic industry.
New AMS radiocarbon dates for the North Ferriby boats—a contribution to dating prehistoric seafaring in northwestern Europe
Authors: Wright Edward V. , Hedges Robert E. M. , Bayliss Alex , Van de Noort Robert
Published: January 2015

A new series of radiocarbon measurements on three sewn-plank boats from North Ferriby, Yorkshire, has provided consistent new dating for these craft, which suggests that the appearance of such boats may fall in the early Bronze Age.
Geophysical and palynological investigations of the Tell El Dabaa archaeological site, Nile Delta, Egypt
Authors: El Beialy Salah Y. , Edwards Kevin J. , El-Mahmoudi Ahmed S.
Published: January 2015

The authors present preliminary results of geophysical and palynological reconnaissance at the Tell El Dabaa, eastern Nile Delta. The geophysical survey reveals the presence of floodbasins, levees and channel deposits. Low palynomorph concentrations probably result from the high sedimentation rate and mean that further work is needed on the methods for palynological study in the region.
Between fasting and feasting: the literary and archaeobotanical evidence for monastic diet in Late Antique Egypt
Authors: Harlow Mary , Smith Wendy
Published: January 2015

Fasting was an important element of early Christian behaviour in Egypt. In spite of a wealth of Late Antique monastic sources describing acts of fasting, the reality must be that food was consumed at regular intervals. To date, discussion of monastic dietary practice has been largely a historical debate. Although we do not discount this approach and will use it ourselves, this paper departs from this academic tradition by incorporating new archaeobotanical evidence from the recent excavations of the 5th–7th-century AD monastery at Kom el-Nana. Middle Egypt into the study of monastic diet. It is our belief that the use of independent forms of evidence (in this case written sources on attitudes to fasting and archaeobotanical evidence) is the best way forward to answering fundamental questions about what monastic diet was like in Late Antique Egypt.
Rock art in sub-Saharan Mali
Authors: Kleinitz Cornelia
Published: January 2015

Sub-Saharan West Africa has remained largely a blank space on the world rock-art map, in spite of a steady trickle of reports during the past century on pictograph and petroglyph sites in the West African sahel and savanna belts. It seems that the nature of the rock art reported, predominantly ‘geometric’ and saurian motifs, and ‘stick figures’, as well as its apparent recent age, formed little incentive for in-depth studies of rock art in this region. From sub-Saharan Mali, for example, only two sites have been published to a satisfactory standard (Huysecom 1990; Huysecom et al. 1996). The richness of the region in rock art, as indicated by several authors (e.g. Griaule 1938; Huysecom & Mayor 1991/92; Togola et al. 1995), has been confirmed by on-going research on rock art in the Boucle du Baoulé region (map, FIGURE 5) in the southwest of the country (Kleinitz 2000). In three field seasons, 14 known and 38 newly identified rock-shelters and open-air sites with pictographs and peboglyphs have been recorded.
Soil erosion, iron smelting and human settlement in the Haubi Basin, north-central Tanzania
Authors: Lane Paul , Mapunda Bertram B. B. , Eriksson Mats
Published: January 2015

The Haubi Basin, situated in the Irangi Hills of Kondoa District, Dodoma Region, Tanzania (FIGURE 1), exhibits some of the most extreme examples of erosion and associated sedimentation in the region (Christiansson 1981; Payton et al. 1992) (FIGLIRE 2). The severity of the problem, with its consequent loss of productive land, has been known since the beginning of the 20th century (Kannenberg 1900; Obst 1915). Recognition of the extent and severity of the issues encouraged the British colonial government to introduce a variety of measures aimed at soil conservation in the 1930s (Fosbrooke 1950). These included the construction of check-dams, contour bunds and contour planting with sisal. After independence, a second programme of soil conservation measures was launched. These were initially similar to those employed under colonialism, but later included de-stocking, resulting in the removal of some 90,000 livestock from the most severely eroded areas. As in the colonial period, recent overexploitation of land resources by local populations was regarded as the primary explanation for the continuing soil erosion.
Rescue archaeology in eastern Cameroon
Authors: Mindzie Christophe Mbida , Asombang Raymond , Delneuf Michèle
Published: January 2015

Many infrastructural development projects are now being carried out in Cameroon (e.g. road building, oil pipeline construction, and urban renewal). At present, no specific data base exists to determine the current and potential extent of damage to archaeological and historical sites. To redress this, we believe that there is an urgent need to make impact assessments and mitigation work a mandatory precondition of development approval for entrepreneurs and public works professionals operating in the country.
Research into the formlings in the rock art of Zimbabwe
Authors: Mguni Siyakha
Published: January 2015

In 1929, commenting on southern Africa’s rock art, Leo Frobenius remarked: ‘… oddities occur which are completely outside our understanding. There are large forms, shaped like galls or livers, into which human figures are painted …’ (1929: 333). He coined the term‘formling’ to ‘denote this composite type of forms and yet not easily explained’ (Goodall 1959: 62, my emphasis). These motifs (FIGURE 1) still remain poorly understood. In 1998, I began research into their form and meaning. In this note I set out the history of the formling debate and introduce some of my new findings.
Late Pliocene Oldowan excavations at Kanjera South, Kenya
Authors: Plummer Thomas , Ferraro Joseph , Ditchfield Peter , Bishop Laura , Potts Richard
Published: January 2015

The appearance of Oldowan sites c. 2.5 million years ago signals one of the most important adaptive shifts in human evolution. Large mammal u butchery, stone artefact manufacture and novel transport and discard behaviours led to the accumulation of the first recognized archaeological debris. Although the earliest instances of these behaviours are 2.5 million years ago, most of what we know about Oldowan palaeoecology and behaviour is derived from localities more than half a million years younger, particularly c. 1.8 million-year-old sites from Bed I Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania (Potts 1988). Sites from Kanjera South, Homa Peninsula, southwestern Kenya, yield dense concentrations of artefacts in association with the oldest (c. 2.2 million years) substantial sample of archaeological fauna known thus far from Africa. This study is the first to use a wide range of traditional and innovative techniques to investigate Oldowan hominin behaviour and site formation processes before 2 million years ago.
Bananas and the archaeology of Buganda
Authors: Reid Andrew
Published: January 2015

The Buganda state, which flourished on the northern shores of Lake Victoria from the 17th to the 19th centuries AD, is widely regarded as one of the most significant socio-political developments of the African continent, most notably having featured prominently in Frazer’s The Golden Bough. In bananas, Buganda had a unique subsistence base, and its later history suggests an unusual urban trend of large capitals occupied over short periods of time. Given these prominent characteristics it is incredible, therefore, that there has been no concerted archaeological research programme in Buganda.
The Kintampo Archaeological Research Project (KARP): academic collaboration and field research in Ghana
Authors: Watson Derek , Woodhouse James
Published: January 2015

The Kintampo Archaeological Research Project is the first venture conducted under the auspices of the academic collaboration established between the Department of Archaeology, University of Ghana (UG) and the Institute of Archaeology, University College London (UCL). KARP is a field-based project designed around two separate areas of research, encon~passingth e Late Stone Age (LSA) Punpun (hunter–gatherers) and Kintampo Cultures (agropastoralists) and development and change within iron metallurgical technology in the region. These studies aim to elucidate the social, economic and technological dynamics of prehistoric Ghana and to generate material that will be made available to researchers from both Universities. The direct responsibility for supervision of the project on the British side is Dr Kevin MacDonald (UCL), Dr Yaw Bredwa-Mensah (UG) supervises and co-ordinates the research collaboration, and overall responsibility for the project lies with Professor Peter Ucko (UCL). To date the project has undertaken three field seasons: an initial survey of the study area, followed by the excavation of several suitable sites during the second season and this year. An additional season will be conducted during summer 2002, completing the first phase of KARP. However, continuing joint collaborations are envisaged.
Environment and settlements in the Mid-Holocene palaeo-oasis of Wadi Tanezzuft (Libyan Sahara)
Authors: Cremaschi Mauro , di Lernia Savino
Published: January 2015

Past research in the Acacus mountains has been mostly concerned with studies of rock art (Mori 1965) and site-oriented investigations, particularly rock-shelters in the central and northern Acacus (Uan Muhuggiag: Mori 1965; Barich 1987; Ti-n-Torha North: Barich 1974; 1987; Wadi Athal: Barich & Mori 1970). This important research disclosed the astonishing archaeological richness of the area. Particular emphasis was given to data suggesting the existence of early forms of pastoral economy in the region (Mori 1961; 1965; Barich 1987). This led to the hypothesis, differently and repeatedly formulated, of a Saharan focus for the emergence of food-producing activity, based on cattle herding, independent from the Nile Valley and the Near East (Mori 1961; Barich 1987). This is not the place to discuss in detail this interesting, but now largely discarded, hypothesis; what is important to underline, however, is the limited database used in its formulation. The results of only three excavations, all located in the mountain ranges, provided the basis of the evidence presented without any attempt to place these sites in a broader regional framework.
Time and the ancestors: landscape survey in the Andrantsay region of Madagascar
Authors: Crossland Zoë
Published: January 2015

The landscapes of the central highlands of Madagascar are inhabited by the spirits of the dead as well as by the living. The ancestors are a forceful presence in the everyday world, and the archaeology of the central highlands is intimately entwined with them. This is made manifest both in the on-the-ground experiences encountered during fieldwork, and in archaeological narratives, such as the one presented here. Tombs are a traditional focus of archaeological research, and those that dot the hills of the central highlands are part of a network of beliefs and practices which engage with the landscape as a whole and through which social identity is constructed and maintained. In the central highlands, and indeed elsewhere in Madagascar, there is an intimate relationship between peoples’ understandings of their social and physical location in the world and their understanding of their relationship to the dead.
The future of Mali's past
Authors: Bedaux R. M. A. , Rowlands M.
Published: January 2015

One of the greatest disasters for African archaeology is the systematic plundering of archaeological sites for the antiquities trade (e.g. Schmidt & McIntosh 1996; ICOM 1994). An eloquent proof of this plundering is the beautiful catalogue ‘Earth and ore’, published in 1997 by Schaedler. Of the 668 objects illustrated fullcolour in this catalogue all come, except for a dozen objects and some forgeries, from recent looting of sites in Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad, Ghana and Nigeria.

Regions in Mali that are particularly rich in cultural heritage, such as the Niger Inner Delta and the Dogon country, are particularly shocking examples of this systematic plundering. Archaeological research in 1991 in the south of the Delta, undertaken within the framework of the Malian-Dutch ‘Toguéré’ project of the Institut des Sciences Humaines at Bamako, showed that 450h of the 830 visited sites exhibited traces of illicit excavations (Dembele et al. 1993). In 1996, a sample of 80 of these sites was revisited by Annette Schmidt. The percentage of plundered sites had increased by 20%) (Annette Schmidt pers. comm.). One does not need much imagination to realize the scale of this disaster.
Excavation at Lene Hara Cave establishes occupation in East Timor at least 30,000–35,000 years ago
Authors: O'Connor Sue , Spriggs Matthew , Veth Peter
Published: January 2015

Reinvestigations of the cave of Lene Hara in East Timor have yielded new dating evidence showing occupation from before 30,000 BP. These will further fuel the debates on early colonization of the region.