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Publication date: Available online 22 July 2016Source:Journal of Archaeological Science Author(s): Tim Denham, Elle GronoKuk Swamp is a globally significant archaeological site of early agriculture in the highlands of Papua New Guinea. Mixed-method and multi-scalar investigations of the stratigraphy and selected feature fills at Kuk were instrumental in determining the character of plant exploitation and agricultural practices there during the early and mid Holocene. In this paper, macro-scale (field recording), meso-scale (X-radiography) and micro-scale (thin section micromorphology) analyses are presented in summary form for a stratigraphic column, as well as for a palaeochannel and palaeosurfaces associated with plant exploitation at c.10,000 cal BP and cultivation at 7000–6400 cal BP. Major and minor stratigraphic units have been characterised, primary and secondary formation processes differentiated, and the anthropic associations of specific stratigraphic units determined, especially in regards to cultivation. The Kuk research highlights several methodological problems with the investigation of early cultivation on allophane-rich soils in tropical environments.

Publication date: August 2016Source:Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 72 Author(s): Adam S. GreenThe engravings on Harappan stamp seals allow the identification of particular artisans in the past. Toward this end, this article employs three-dimensional optical microscopy of stamp seal engravings to provide a non-destructive source of data for reconstructing specific sequences of action. Comparing these operational sequences (chaînes opératoire) reveals similarities that probably resulted from past production events undertaken by differing individual carvers. Applying this high resolution approach to a sample of five unicorn stamp seals from Mohenjo-daro (2600–1900 B.C.) strongly suggests that their engravings are the work of three artisans. The differences in their operational sequences provide preliminary insights into the boundaries between the communities of practice that produced Harappan seals. This approach can extend archaeological inquiry into many aspects of the social conditions in which seal production occurred. A close analysis of operational sequences reveals how the traces of specific actions, faithfully recorded in stone, can help us find people in the past whose specific activities would otherwise lie outside of scholarly investigation.

Publication date: June 2016Source:Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 70 Author(s): Kerstin Schillinger, Alex Mesoudi, Stephen J. LycettSpatio-temporal patterns of artifactual variation are increasingly being studied via the explicit application of cultural evolutionary theory and methods. Such broad-scale (macroevolutionary) patterns are mediated, however, by a series of small-scale (microevolutionary) processes that occur at the level of individual artifacts, and individual artifact users and producers. Within experimental biology, “model organisms” have played a crucial role in understanding the role of fundamental microevolutionary processes, such as mutation and the inheritance of variation, in respect to macroevolutionary patterns. There has, however, been little equivalent laboratory work to better understand how microevolutionary processes influence macroevolutionary patterns in artifacts and their analysis. Here, we adopt a “model artifact” approach to experimentally study the issues of copy error (mutation) and resultant phylogenetic signal in artifact traditions. We used morphometric procedures to examine shape copying error rates in our “model artifacts.” We first established experimentally that statistically different rates of copying error (mutation) could be induced when participants used two different types of shaping tool to produce copies of foam “artifacts.” Using this as a baseline, we then tested whether these differing mutation rates led to differing phylogenetic signal and accuracy in two separate experimental transmission chains (lineages), involving participants copying the previous participant’s artifact. The analysis demonstrated that phylogenetic reconstruction is more accurate in artifactual lineages where copying error is demonstrably lower. Such results demonstrate how fidelity of transmission impacts directly on the evolution of technological traditions and their empirical analysis. In particular, these results highlight that differing contexts of cultural transmission relating to fidelity might lead to differing patterns of resolution within reconstructed evolutionary sequences. Overall, these analyses demonstrate the importance of a “model artifact” approach in discussions of cultural evolution, equivalent in importance to the use of model organisms in evolutionary biology in order to better understand fundamental microevolutionary processes of direct relevance to macroevolutionary archaeological patterns.

Publication date: August 2016Source:Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 72 Author(s): Daniel García Rivero, Jesús María Jurado Núñez, Ruth TaylorThis paper addresses the plain common pottery associated with Beaker contexts in the Southwest of the Iberian Peninsula. The detailed systematic study focuses on the pottery assemblage provided by one of the region’s most important settlements, San Blas (Badajoz, Spain), while comparisons are made with other important sites in the study area. By means of the stratigraphic, typological and statistical analysis of the data, the main patterns of change in this material culture throughout the temporal sequence are identified and the historical explanatory factors are inferred. Specifically, during the second half of the 3rd millennium cal BC, an important change took place in the management of economic risk, which is materialised by a significant reduction in food storage and by the more immediate direct or indirect consumption of resources. We suggest that these patterns reflect a shift towards a short-term projection of the future, in a context with strong evidence of instability.

Publication date: June 2016Source:Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 70 Author(s): Kristine M. Bovy, Jessica E. Watson, Jane Dolliver, Julia K. ParrishDetermining whether seabirds recovered from coastal shell middens were obtained via active hunting or scavenging of beached carcasses is a challenge for archaeologists. Traditional methods have included analyzing skeletal part frequencies, abundance, age profiles, and contextual evidence. The assumption has been made, based on limited biological data, that an assemblage of carcasses scavenged from the beach will have more wing elements, and fewer legs and heads. Few studies, however, have embraced modern beaching data to verify this assumption and assess the potential faunal resources available for scavenging. We analyze the skeletal part representation of modern beached birds observed by the Coastal Observation and Seabird Survey Team (COASST), comparing the COASST dataset to two idealized hypotheses used by archaeologists: the human scavenging hypothesis (wings only are recovered, while heads and legs are absent) and the human hunting hypothesis (all body parts are found in equal proportions). Finally, we apply these results to analysis of the bird remains from the Minard site (45-GH-15), a late Holocene coastal site in Grays Harbor, Washington. We find that contemporary beached bird data are closer to replicating the human hunting hypothesis as compared to the human scavenging hypothesis, as >75% of the 19,599 carcasses in the COASST dataset had a combination of head, wings and legs. This result, and the similarity in taxonomic distribution between our contemporary beached bird data and Minard assemblage, suggests that indigenous peoples may have used scavenging as a viable means of resource acquisition in the past. Use of contemporaneous beached bird data may provide zooarchaeology with a statistically defensible baseline of information on the phenology, abundance and condition of bird carcasses.

Publication date: September 2016Source:Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 73 Author(s): Sophy Charlton, Michelle Alexander, Matthew Collins, Nicky Milner, Paul Mellars, Tamsin C. O’Connell, Rhiannon E. Stevens, Oliver E. CraigIn the last decade, our knowledge of the transition from foraging, fishing, and hunting to agricultural food production has been transformed through the molecular analysis of human remains. In Britain, however, the lack of Late Mesolithic human remains has limited our understanding of this dietary transition. Here, we report the use of a novel strategy to analyse otherwise overlooked material to identify additional human remains from this period. ZooMS, a method which uses bone collagen sequences to determine species, was applied to unidentifiable bone fragments from 5th millennium deposits from the Late Mesolithic site of Cnoc Coig (Oronsay, Inner Hebrides) using an innovative new methodology. All samples bar one produced ZooMS results, with 14/20 bone fragments identified as human, and the remainder a mixture of pig and seal. 70% of bone fragments had sufficient collagen for stable isotope analyses, however none of three human bone fragments analysed had sufficient endogenous DNA. By conducting AMS dating and stable isotope analysis on this identified collagen, we provide new data that supports the view that the exploitation of marine resources partially overlapped with the earliest agricultural communities in Britain, and thus argues against the idea that forager lifeways in Britain were immediately replaced by agriculture c.4000 cal. BC. Unfortunately, we were unable to explore the genetic relationship between contemporaneous farmers and foragers. However, the more persistent bone protein could be used to identify species, determine date, and assess diet. This novel approach is widely applicable to other early prehistoric sites with fragmentary skeletal material.

Publication date: July 2016Source:Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 71 Author(s): Thomas S. DyeThe tempo plot, a statistical graphic designed for the archaeological study of rhythms of the long term that embodies a theory of archaeological evidence for the occurrence of events, is introduced. The graphic summarizes the tempo of change in the occurrence of archaeological events using the model states generated by the Markov Chain Monte Carlo routine at the heart of Bayesian calibration software. Tempo plots are applied to the archaeological record of Hawai‘i to expose rhythms of i) tradition in taro pond-field construction, ii) innovation in temple construction, and iii) fashion in the harvest of branch coral for use as a religious offering. Rhythms of the long term identify a hitherto unrecognized transformation of religious practice in Hawai‘i, establish temporal coincidence in temple construction in leeward sections of Maui and Hawai‘i Islands previously described as regionally idiosyncratic, suggest shallow temporal limits to the use of the direct historical approach in Hawai‘i, and disclose processes at work in the political economy recorded at the time of western Contact.

Publication date: August 2016Source:Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 72 Author(s): Vladimír Sládek, Martin Hora, Kristýna Farkašová, Thomas R. RocekThis paper proposes and tests the idea that a major change in technology associated with the grinding of cereals may account for changes in asymmetry in the upper arms of women in the Neolithic through Iron Age across a large area of Europe. It has been observed that bilateral asymmetry in humeral strength (i.e., polar section modulus) decreased to near zero in early agricultural females, but increased again during the Iron Age. These changes in asymmetry in females have been interpreted as the direct consequence of the adoption of the saddle quern at the start of the Neolithic and its subsequent replacement by the rotary quern in the Iron Age. To test the impact of these alternative cereal grinding methods, we tested the efficiency of saddle and rotary quern grinding with 16 female volunteers and the effect of grinding on muscle activity of the upper limb with 20 female volunteers. We used electromyography to measure muscle activity in the pectoralis, deltoideus, infraspinatus and triceps muscles and adjusted muscle activity for efficiency and muscle size. Saddle quern grinding was 4.3 times less efficient than rotary quern grinding and produced a significantly higher amount of coarse- and middle-grained flour but a significantly lower amount of very fine grained flour than rotary quern grinding. Saddle quern grinding showed symmetrical muscle activity in all four studied muscles, whereas rotary quern grinding yielded consistent directional asymmetry in a majority of muscles even during bimanual rotation. Saddle quern grinding required about twice as much muscle activity per kg of grain when adjusted for muscle size than rotary quern grinding. Our results support the view that saddle quern grinding may have played a major role in the decrease in directional asymmetry in humeral strength in early agricultural females and that the adoption of the rotary quern during the Iron Age may have increased humeral directional asymmetry mainly because of increased asymmetrical loading and the reduced time needed for grinding in favor of other manipulative tasks.

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