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Publication date: June 2018Source:Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 94 Author(s): Emily V. Johnson, Adrian Timpson, Mark G. Thomas, Alan K. OutramImportant nutritional resources can be acquired by breaking bone shafts to access marrow, whereas heavy comminution and boiling of cancellous bone is required to extract bone grease. Since labour and fuel costs of these processes differ considerably, the relative intensities of these activities provide a possible proxy for nutritional stress or elevated fat requirements in the context of an overall subsistence strategy. We investigated faunal material from eleven early Neolithic sites in central Europe for bone fracture and fragmentation patterns to ascertain the intensity of bone marrow and grease exploitation. These data indicate that bone grease processing was practised rarely if at all during the early Neolithic, likely made unnecessary by ample access to crop carbohydrates. Bone marrow was exploited at all sites, but with varying intensity that exhibited a significant negative correlation with the proportion of milk-producing domestic ruminants. This observation is consistent with the hypothesis that fats obtained from dairy products reduced requirements for intensive marrow exploitation.

Publication date: Available online 25 April 2018Source:Journal of Archaeological Science Author(s): Mercedes Okumura, Astolfo G.M. AraujoGeometric Morphometrics (GM) is a method originally applied in Evolutionary Biology studies, using the analysis of change in size and shape in order to better understand ontogenetic sequences, phylogenetic relations, among other issues. The application of GM in archaeological materials has seen a sharp increase in the last decade, mostly associated with theoretical approaches from Evolutionary Archaeology. This is not an isolated case, since most methods used by Evolutionary Archaeologists have been borrowed from Biology, provoking discussion with regard to the future development of Evolutionary Archaeology and its methods (Lycett, 2015). This article aims to discuss some concepts that have been directly borrowed from the application of GM in Biological Sciences and that have not been subject to much thought when used in Archaeology. Such concepts include homology and landmark types, the concept of modularity, as well as the idea of allometry. As much as archaeologists using GM can learn from past discussions held by biologists regarding the above mentioned concepts, it is high time for archaeologists to further discuss ideas concerning the use of these concepts in archaeological studies.

Publication date: May 2018Source:Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 93 Author(s): Andreas Angourakis, Verònica Martínez Ferreras, Alexis Torrano, Josep M. Gurt EsparragueraSeveral analytic techniques can provide data for characterizing archaeological ceramics. These data sources are not alternative but rather complementary to each other. They report on different aspects of ceramics concerning the origin of raw materials and the technological processes involved. However, when studies integrate more than one data source, they often do it through textual description and argument, not through a combined statistical analysis.We aim to help to overcome this situation by presenting four protocols for exploring data on archaeological ceramics. These protocols cover four different paths when interrogating ceramic samples. Protocol 1 aims to assist the definition of chemical reference groups using geochemical compositions, for instance, given by X-ray fluorescence analysis (WD-XRF). Protocol 2 focuses on fabric groups using petrographic examinations, such as in thin-section optical microscopy. Protocol 3 offers a hybrid assessment of provenance, using the integral sum of the two data sources. Last, Protocol 4 consists of the same approach as Protocol 3 but using geochemical data and a selection of petrographic variables that are considered indicative of the origin of raw materials and independent of human factors. We demonstrate their performance by applying them to a well-studied Roman wine amphorae dataset from Catalonia, NE Spain, and contextualising the results. Through a comparison of the results produced by these protocols, we restate the conclusion of Baxter et al. (2008) that a ‘mixed mode’ approach is preferable to analysing data from different sources separately. Moreover, we argue that treating geochemical data as compositional and petrographic semi-quantitative observations as ordinal variables, when calculating dissimilarity, offers a more complete image of ceramic materials.The protocols are the synthetic product of several multivariate statistical methods developed for similar purposes in other disciplines, such as geology and ecology. To allow future users to replicate our analysis and apply the protocols, we published online two R packages containing all necessary procedures, from data cleaning to plotting. We also offer in the appendices a tutorial and the example scripts.

Publication date: May 2018Source:Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 93

Publication date: June 2018Source:Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 94 Author(s): Alberto De Bonis, Ilenia Arienzo, Massimo D’Antonio, Luigi Franciosi, Chiara Germinario, Celestino Grifa, Vincenza Guarino, Alessio Langella, Vincenzo MorraThe potentiality of isotope analysis has largely been explored in archaeological sciences to date objects, attribute their provenance and depict ancient human dietary habits. However, the potential of this technique for provenance studies of ancient ceramics has barely been explored, due to the fact that the ceramic process often involves the selection of different raw materials and, consequently, different sources of radiogenic isotopes.In this paper, 87Sr/86Sr and 143Nd/144Nd isotope ratios were measured on raw materials (clays and volcanic temper) that were exploited in antiquity for producing pottery in the Campania region of Italy and, for the first time, on experimental ceramic materials that replicate archaeological pottery. To validate the method, Sr and Nd isotope ratios were also measured on selected archaeological pottery from Cuma.The results of this pioneering approach clearly show that the synthetic mixtures used for the ceramic replicas plot exactly on the theoretical mixing curve between the clay and volcanic temper end-members. On the other hand, technological processes employed during pottery manufacturing such as firing and levigation induce no significant variations in Sr and Nd isotope ratios.Isotope characterisation represents an effective fingerprint of pottery that strictly depends on the geochemical affinity of the raw materials, thus providing a better discrimination among different ceramic productions.

Publication date: June 2018Source:Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 94 Author(s): Ivan Jerković, Željana Bašić, Ivana Kružić, Šimun AnđelinovićThe study aimed to test the applicability of the Probabilistic Sex Diagnosis (DSP) method in the bioarchaeological context by validation with known sex data obtained by aDNA analysis on the medieval samples from the Eastern Adriatic coast. We tested the method on 57 skeletons of known sex using 30 different combinations of measurements. The possibility of sex estimation ranged from 35.90 to 86.11% depending on the combinations used while sexing accuracy ranged from 92.86 to 100%. Females were classified correctly in all cases, and only one male was misclassified in all combinations that could be tested. Accuracy rates higher than 95% were obtained for every combination where the number of available measurements was larger than 15. Therefore, we encourage further validation of the method on different ancient populations and implementation of the method for creating reference sex data and development of metric and non-metric population-specific sex estimation standards.

Publication date: May 2018Source:Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 93 Author(s): Rudolph Alagich, Armelle Gardeisen, Natàlia Alonso, Núria Rovira, Amy BogaardIntegrated stable isotope investigation of plant and animal ecology can shed new light on the practicalities and politics of land management. Ecological analysis of archaeobotanical weed flora offers a complementary approach to arable growing conditions. Here we introduce the first combined study of stable isotope compositions (carbon and nitrogen) of plant and faunal remains and functional weed ecology from mediterranean France in order to investigate agricultural strategies under urbanisation and their social implications. Animal bones and charred crops and weeds are investigated from two archaeologically distinct residential areas from 5th century BCE Lattara, zones 1 and 27, during a period characterised by significant urban expansion in the region. Plant carbon and nitrogen isotope composition and functional weed ecology suggest some differences in growing conditions between crops found in the two zones, zone 27 being associated with more intensively cultivated crops than zone 1, where extensive cultivation, which can achieve much greater surplus, was dominant. These findings coincide with archaeological evidence of a ‘richer’ variety of material culture and foodstuffs in zone 1. Carbon and nitrogen isotopic values of animal bone collagen suggest that the main domesticates from both zones consumed a similar diet; however, rabbits exhibit a difference, with those from zone 1 having significantly higher δ15N, implying that the two zones sourced this species differently.

Publication date: June 2018Source:Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 94 Author(s): Andrew Barker, Jonathan Dombrosky, Barney Venables, Steve WolvertonDespite the growing body of evidence demonstrating that proteins can survive for thousands to even millions of years in selected contexts, there are relatively few examples of the successful recovery and identification of archaeological protein residues from ceramic artifacts. Claims of positive results are sometimes contentious and frequently challenged. One source of confusion in the debate is a general lack of consideration for the taphonomic histories of ceramic-bound proteins. To gain insight into this issue, we conducted an integrated, mass spectrometry-based study examining ceramic-bound protein that was experimentally aged over the course of 12 months. Results demonstrate the rapid degradation of proteins, raise questions about the degree to which ceramic-bound proteins can be expected to survive over time, and reveal some of the limitations of non-targeted mass spectrometry-based analyses. Further, by comparing results from our experimentally-aged samples to the those we obtained from a multi-pronged study of archaeological ceramics from the American Southwest, we are able to draw more confident conclusions regarding our lack of meaningful matches in the archaeological samples.

Publication date: June 2018Source:Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 94 Author(s): Magdalena Blanz, Kate Britton, Karen Grant, Jörg FeldmannEvaluating the extent of an individual’s exposure to arsenic, (potentially) indicative of proximity to smelting activities, poisoning, or dietary history, has proven difficult in archaeological contexts due to uncertainties surrounding how arsenic biogenically accumulates in the tissues commonly found at archaeological sites such as bone and tooth, in addition to issues of diagenesis. In this study, teeth of modern sheep naturally exposed to high amounts of arsenic by means of seaweed in their diet are compared to the teeth of a less exposed ‘control group’ of modern sheep consuming predominantly grass.Through analysis of total arsenic and other element concentrations in samples of enamel, cementum and dentine by hydride generation atomic fluorescence spectrometry (HG-AFS), as well as by bioimaging of radial tooth sections of sheep molars by laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS), this research demonstrates that in teeth of sheep exposed to dietary arsenic, arsenic predominantly accumulates in the infundibulum and occlusal dentine. The major route of uptake of arsenic in these teeth is therefore likely not by ingestion and metabolisation during growth of the tooth, as is thought to be the case for lead and barium, but rather due to direct surface contact, potentially even occurring during mastication. The implications of this type of in vivo chemical alteration of teeth for archaeological trace element studies are explored.

Publication date: June 2018Source:Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 94 Author(s): Pauline Hanot, Corentin BochatonThe identification of domestic equid remains is a recurrent issue and an intense subject of discussion in zooarchaeological studies. Indeed, despite historical sources describing the key role of equids in numerous past societies, their accurate identification on archaeological sites is still problematic, and only few methods have been developed in order to distinguish the bones of horses, donkeys and their hybrids. Moreover, some of the extant published visual macroscopic criteria are considered as possibly unreliable, partly because of the absence of preliminary test on a large sample of modern specimens. In this work, we try to solve these issues by testing a set of macroscopic visual criteria, collected in the literature or newly described, on a comparative sample of 107 modern skeletons of domestic equids. We quantified the reliability of these criteria and found evidence of 26 osteological characters allowing for the identification of between 90% and 100% of the horses and donkeys of our comparative sample. A method to identify the complete or sub-complete skeletons of hybrids is also proposed using combinations of characters observed on several bones. Finally, the defined osteological criteria are observed on a set of archaeological skeletons, coming from antique to modern sites, in order to demonstrate the applicability of our approach to archaeological remains. The use of our methodology on zooarchaeological samples could allow for a better assessment of the presence of donkeys and hybrids in archaeological sites, and thus, could help improve the knowledge of their respective importance and use by human past societies.