Anthropological Archaeology

Dimensions of inequality. Comparing the North Atlantic and the US Southwest Publication date: June 2019 Source: Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, Volume 54 Author(s): Orri Vésteinsson, Michelle Hegmon, Jette Arneborg, Glen Rice, Will G. Russell Abstract Analysis of three different realms of inequality in two pairs of small-scale pre-industrial societies in two very different and culturally unconnected regions – Hohokam and Mimbres in the US Southwest and Greenland and Iceland in the North Atlantic – suggests that inequality can be successfully used as a yardstick to compare societies in the past. The study finds that there were significant inequalities in these small-scale farming societies – often described in previous studies as "egalitarian" – but that proxies for economic inequality like access to productive resources and to exotic goods do not fully reflect the range and nature of these inequalities. Access to ritual space is found to be a more sensitive measure of actual inequalities as experienced by members of these societies.

Reconsidering sex and gender in relation to health and disease in bioarchaeology Publication date: June 2019 Source: Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, Volume 54 Author(s): Molly K. Zuckerman, John Crandall Abstract As an interdisciplinary field that integrates historical, ethnographic, archaeological, and biological data, bioarchaeology is well positioned to contribute to understandings of the health of past peoples in their socio-cultural contexts. Recently, following a longstanding trend in archaeology, many bioarchaeologists have begun to productively engage with concepts of sex, gender, and to a lesser extent, sexuality, particularly in relation to issues of health and disease. In response, this review interrogatively and synthetically surveys recent bioarchaeological work on this nexus, querying how bioarchaeologists theorize sex and gender, how they operationalize these concepts relative to health and disease, and the relative merits of these approaches. Within this, the review focuses on studies addressing metabolic disease, trauma and violence, infectious disease, and overall health (e.g., frailty). Throughout, the review highlights how theoretically informed bioarchaeological data can be used to further elucidate the biosocial factors that shape past patterns of health. It also highlights the distinct insights generated from this scholarship, as well as the unresolved questions, methodological difficulties, and theoretical tensions facing it. The aim throughout is to give future scholars novel, social theory-informed, and operationalized theoretical frameworks and interpretive devices that can be used to answer these questions and resolve these conflicts within bioarchaeology.

Supply and demand in prehistory? Economics of Neolithic mining in northwest Europe Publication date: June 2019 Source: Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, Volume 54 Author(s): Peter Schauer, Stephen Shennan, Andrew Bevan, Gordon Cook, Kevan Edinborough, Ralph Fyfe, Tim Kerig, Mike Parker Pearson Abstract The extent to which non-agricultural production in prehistory had cost-benefit motivations has long been a subject of discussion. This paper addresses the topic by looking at the evidence for Neolithic quarrying and mining in Britain and continental northwest Europe and asks whether changing production through time was influenced by changing demand. Radiocarbon dating of mine and quarry sites is used to define periods of use. These are then correlated with a likely first-order source of demand, the size of the regional populations around the mines, inferred from a radiocarbon-based population proxy. There are significant differences between the population and mine-date distributions. Analysis of pollen data using the REVEALS method to reconstruct changing regional land cover patterns shows that in Britain activity at the mines and quarries is strongly correlated with evidence for forest clearance by incoming Neolithic populations, suggesting that mine and quarry production were a response to the demand that this created. The evidence for such a correlation between mining and clearance in continental northwest Europe is much weaker. Here the start of large-scale mining may be a response to the arrival by long-distance exchange of high-quality prestige jade axes from a source in the Italian Alps.

The persistence of place: Hunter-gatherer mortuary practices and land-use in the Trent Valley, Ontario Publication date: June 2019 Source: Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, Volume 54 Author(s): Samantha Walker Abstract Hunter-gatherer mortuary practices identified in the Trent Valley region, ON are highly patterned for the Middle Woodland period (400 BCE-700 CE), but the importance of many of these mortuary sites can be recognized as far back as the Late Archaic period (2500–1000 BCE). A geospatial modelling approach is used to predict the distribution of mortuary sites based on ecological factors that may have influenced land use strategies. The assessment reveals that Late Archaic and Middle Woodland mortuary sites were primarily located near aerobic wetlands that were likely rich in emergent plant life. The predicted suitably of mineral soil horizons, when compared with Trent Valley floodplain behaviour, suggests that wild rice may have been a particularly abundant resource near mortuary sites. The position of wild rice in Anishinaabe traditional stories is discussed to contextualize its potential early food value to Indigenous occupants of the Trent Valley, prior to the resource's documented historic importance. The highly selective positioning of mortuary sites and their continuity within the Trent Valley region shed light on how ancestral ties to key places were established and maintained in precolonial hunter-gatherer societies.

Biocultural consequences of the Late Woodland transition at Forbush Creek, North Carolina (AD 800-1200) Publication date: June 2019 Source: Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, Volume 54 Author(s): Steph M. Berger, Dale L. Hutchinson Abstract After several centuries of cultural continuity, the Late Woodland transition (AD 600-1000) in the Southeastern Woodlands involved a significant intensification of existing lifeways. This study examines the biocultural consequences of the Late Woodland transition at Forbush Creek (AD 800-1200), a Yadkin River Valley site from the Piedmont region of North Carolina. Twelve percent of individuals recovered from the site sustained violence-related trauma, including five individuals with healed blunt force trauma, two individuals with perimortem cranial trauma, and a single projectile point injury. Secondary burial individuals exhibited significantly more trauma (n = 10, 42%) and nutrient deficiencies (n = 12, 50%) than primary burial individuals (n = 1, 4%; and n = 5, 19%, respectively). The Forbush Creek remains provide new evidence of the biological impacts of cultural transitions and suggest that uncertainty, scarcity, and conflict arising from changing lifeways contributed to inequality in the Forbush Creek community. Secondary bundle burial inclusion may represent marginalization and an increased vulnerability to morbidity and mortality risks. The emergence of social inequality in the Late Woodland period likely shaped long-term cultural dynamics that preceded the complex sociopolitical hierarchies of the later Mississippian period.

Southeast Asian early Maritime Silk Road trading polities' hinterland and the sea-nomads of the Isthmus of Kra Publication date: June 2019 Source: Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, Volume 54 Author(s): Bérénice Bellina, Aude Favereau, Laure Dussubieux Abstract In Southeast Asia, archaeological research has recently shown that the earliest centralised polities qualifying as incipient States emerged by the late 5th and early 4th c. BCE (Kim, 2013; Stark, 2015; Bellina, 2017, 2018). Understanding of their hinterland is still very limited. This essay presents the results of a regional study conducted since 2005 in the Isthmus of Kra in the Thai-Malay Peninsula, a narrow piece of land located between the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea. It argues that in this region, Maritime Silk Road incipient trading states' emergence went along economic specialisation, cultural differentiation and cooperation between different groups participating in local and long-distance networks. Amongst these so-called "marginal" groups emerge "sea nomads". Like those described in historical and ethnographic sources some of which are referred to here, these early sea nomads appeared to have already played a crucial economic and political role as part of these maritime trading polities hinterland. Along with an archaeology of sea nomadism, this study opens perspectives on reconstructing a more complete narrative of Southeast Asia and beyond of the Maritime Silk Road, a narrative that integrates marginal groups.

Meat outside the freezer: Drying, smoking, salting and sealing meat in fat at an Epipalaeolithic megasite in eastern Jordan Publication date: June 2019 Source: Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, Volume 54 Author(s): Anna Spyrou, Lisa A. Maher, Louise A. Martin, Danielle A. Macdonald, Andrew Garrard Abstract Even though pivotal for understanding many aspects of human behaviour, preservation and storage of animal resources has not received great attention from archaeologists. One could argue that the main problem lies in the difficulties of demonstrating meat storage archaeologically due to the lack of direct evidence. This paper represents an attempt to refine zooarchaeological methods for the recognition of meat preservation and storage at prehistoric sites. Drawing on the faunal assemblage from Kharaneh IV, an Early/Middle Epipalaeolithic aggregation site in eastern Jordan, this study demonstrates that a combination of taphonomic and contextual analyses alongside ethnographic information may indeed lead archaeologists to insights not directly available from the archaeological record. The empirical evidence presented here contributes to the archaeological visibility of meat preservation and storage, providing a clearer concept of the nature of these practices in pre-agricultural societies.

Toward archaeological predictive modeling in the Bosutswe region of Botswana: Utilizing multispectral satellite imagery to conceptualize ancient landscapes Publication date: June 2019 Source: Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, Volume 54 Author(s): Carla Klehm, Adam Barnes, Forrest Follett, Katie Simon, Christopher Kiahtipes, Sarah Mothulatshipi Abstract Geospatial technologies such as GIS, remote sensing, and GNSS are transforming landscape archaeology, particularly in research areas that are hard to access due to geographical size, environmental challenges, lack of infrastructure, and/or political instability. In the following article, we explore the potential of high-resolution, multispectral satellite imagery for building a predictive model of the settlement pattern of the Iron Age polity of Bosutswe (700–1650 CE) in Botswana. While the case study lies in Africa, the problems that Africanists experience extend far beyond the continent. With limited funding, poor access to survey regions, and countless others, predictive modelling has the potential to identify more robust archaeological landscapes. Using ArcGIS 10.6, ENVI 5.4, and WorldView 2 and 3 imagery, we catalog 22 prospective archaeological sites within a 5 km radius of Bosutswe (100 sq. km), demonstrating the potential for image classification to identify sites difficult to locate in a traditional pedestrian survey. The discovery of these new, often small sites has implications for past environmental utilization and for regional sociopolitical dynamics. We describe our test excavation at one new site, Letlalolanoga, to demonstrate how it may contribute towards a growing body of literature that favors heterarchical power relations within African complex societies.

Isotopic perspectives on pastoralist mobility in the Late Bronze Age South Caucasus Publication date: June 2019 Source: Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, Volume 54 Author(s): Hannah Chazin, Gwyneth W. Gordon, Kelly J. Knudson Abstract Isotopic methods of studying the geographic and seasonal movements of herd animals provide new data pertinent to ongoing scholarly re-consideration of the relationships between pastoralist mobility and the development of new forms of political organization. Radiogenic strontium and mass-dependent oxygen and carbon isotope analysis on a large sample of herd animals (sheep, goats, and cattle) from Late Bronze Age (1500–1100 BC) sites in the Tsaghkahovit Plain, Armenia indicate that long-distance movements across geological zones were not common, but that animals were drinking from a range of water sources. Connecting this variation to movement is complicated by limited intra-tooth variation in δ13C values. Data from the study provide preliminary evidence for foddering. These results reveal a gap between the emphasis on mobility in theoretical models of pastoralism and political organization and the way that animal diets mediate isotopic proxies for movement. These interpretive difficulties emphasize the need to consider herds' seasonal and geographic movement within a wider range of pastoralist practices. These findings also highlight the need for large sample sizes in isotopic investigations of pastoralist mobility, in order to accurately identify and evaluate the diversity in both geographic and seasonal movements within a single ancient pastoralist system.

Navigating the ancient Tigris – insights into water management in an early state Publication date: June 2019 Source: Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, Volume 54 Author(s): Stephanie Rost Abstract This paper offers the first detailed investigation of water management in pre-classical antiquity based on primary sources. The importance of water management for ancient societies can hardly be overstated, as many of the earliest civilizations emerged in large river valleys (Nile, Euphrates and Tigris, Indus, Yellow and Yangtze river). More importantly many of those early civilizations occupied the reach of the river, which was located in the arid/semi-arid zone, by which rivers vital sources of water, in particular for irrigation. Many studies on ancient water management have focused on irrigation, often failing to recognize the full extent to which rivers were managed and utilized. The water management scheme of late 3rd millennium Southern Mesopotamia, described in this paper, was designed to not only serve irrigation, but equally navigation and flood control. It combined the manipulation of water levels with the diligent observation and maneuvering of water masses of the ancient Tigris, by which the otherwise conflicting demands of irrigation, navigation and flood control could be reconciled. The written sources used in this study allowed to describe this water control system in great detail and is a testimony to remarkable ancient hydraulic engineering as early as the 3rd Millennium BC.