World Prehistory

• The Sri Lankan ‘Microlithic’ Tradition c. 38,000 to 3,000 Years Ago: Tropical Technologies and Adaptations of Homo sapiens at the Southern Edge of Asia

  2015-06-01 03:00:00 AM

  Abstract

  The prehistoric archaeology of Sri Lanka is of considerable significance for investigations of the evolution, dispersal and adaptation of our species within a variety of environments beyond Africa during the Late Pleistocene. In particular, the archaeological and fossil sequences of Sri Lanka’s ‘Microlithic tradition’, c. 38,000–3,000 cal. years BP, have yielded some of the earliest Homo sapiens fossils, microlithic technologies, osseous toolkits, and evidence for symbolic ornamentation and long-distance contacts anywhere in South Asia. The further association of the Late Pleistocene portion of these records with the tropical rainforest of Sri Lanka’s Wet Zone also makes Sri Lanka of particular interest for debates regarding the viability of tropical rainforest for early human foraging and specialization. Yet beyond mentions of its fossil evidence, the archaeology and palaeoenvironmental contexts of the ‘Microlithic tradition’ have remained little-explored in the international literature. Here we present the first critical review of this period of Sri Lankan prehistory, examining its local chronologies, the spatial and diachronic patterns of its material cultural sequence, and relating its technological and fossil record to broader international archaeological, anthropological and genetic debates.
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• Religion, Violence, and Emotion: Modes of Religiosity in the Neolithic and Bronze Age of Northern China

  2015-06-01 03:00:00 AM

  Abstract

  This paper explores the development of religious traditions in the Neolithic and Bronze Age of northern China. It applies the cognitive anthropological theory of Divergent Modes of Religiosity (DMR) for the first time in this part of the world. DMR theory frames ritual behavior in two distinct modes, one that is more traumatic/emotional and occurs less frequently (imagistic rituals) and another that is more placid and occurs more frequently (doctrinal rituals). Various archaeological and historic sources indicate that violent imagistic rituals involving human sacrifice and feasting began deep in the Neolithic; but religion did not become more tame when societies entered the Bronze Age, as predicted by DMR theory. Instead, violent imagistic rituals continued and became arguably more brutal. The application of DMR theory here is a useful means to explore the challenging topic of religious violence and to reveal biases in the treatment of ritual and religion in Shang studies.
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• Getting to the Bottom of It All: A Bayesian Approach to Dating the Start of Çatalhöyük

  2015-03-01 02:00:00 AM

  Abstract

  A new radiocarbon dating program, conceived at the outset within a Bayesian statistical framework, has recently been applied to the earliest levels of occupation on the Neolithic East Mound at Çatalhöyük in central Turkey. Çatalhöyük was excavated by James Mellaart from 1961 to 1965 and new excavations directed by Ian Hodder started in 1993. In 2012 the site was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. However, the precise dating of the site has remained insecure, bracketed somewhere between the late eighth and the early sixth millennium BC calibrated. In a new dating program reported on here, dates previously obtained from the site have been allied with new dates to produce a series of models that could be evaluated statistically and in relation to taphonomic considerations. The preferred model puts the earliest excavated layers at Çatalhöyük 200 years later than previously thought. The implications of this later dating for local continuity and for the spread of pottery are discussed.
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• Bioarchaeology of Neolithic Çatalhöyük: Lives and Lifestyles of an Early Farming Society in Transition

  2015-03-01 02:00:00 AM

  Abstract

  The bioarchaeological record of human remains viewed in the context of ecology, subsistence, and living circumstances provides a fundamental source for documenting and interpreting the impact of plant and animal domestication in the late Pleistocene and early to middle Holocene. For Western Asia, Çatalhöyük (7100–5950 cal BC) in central Anatolia, presents a comprehensive and contextualized setting for interpreting living circumstances in this highly dynamic period of human history. This article provides an overview of the bioarchaeology of Çatalhöyük in order to characterize patterns of life conditions at the community level, addressing the question,What were the implications of domestication and agricultural intensification, increasing sedentism, and population growth for health and lifestyle in this early farming community? This study employs demography, biogeochemistry, biodistance analysis, biomechanics, growth and development, and paleopathology in order to identify and interpret spatial and temporal patterns of health and lifestyle under circumstances of rapid population growth and aggregation and changing patterns of acquiring food and other resources. The record suggests that the rapid growth in population size was fueled by increased fertility and birthrate. Although the household was likely the focus of economic activity, our analysis suggests that individuals interred in houses were not necessarily biologically related. Predictably, the community employed resource extraction practices involving increased mobility. Although oral and skeletal indicators suggest some evidence of compromised health (e.g. elevated subadult infection, dental caries), growth and development of juveniles and adult body size and stature indicate adjustments to local circumstances.
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• From Labour Control to Surplus Appropriation: Landscape Changes in the Neolithization of Southwestern Korea

  2014-12-01 02:00:00 AM

  Abstract

  The transformation of sociopolitical landscapes during the Mumun period (1300–100 BC) in southwest Korea is evidenced by major shifts in monumentality, mortuary activities and storage practices. This transformation is argued to represent one of the final stages in an extended process of Korean Neolithization that began much earlier with the adoption of pottery by hunter-gatherers and later saw the adoption and intensification of agriculture, triggering the rise of new forms of power and ideology. Importantly, elite groups employed a range of strategies to mask and then legitimate growing social inequality, generating major changes in human–landscape relations.
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• Why did People go up the Hill? Prehistoric Landscape Shifts and Neolithization of the Northern Ryukyu Archipelago, Japan

  2014-12-01 02:00:00 AM

  Abstract

  The remote Ryukyu archipelago, which runs from southern Japan southwest to Taiwan, is located in the subtropical zone, and consists of small coral and volcanic islands, with mainland Okinawa, the largest island, forming the main centre of settlement. Most of the islands are surrounded by coral reefs, beach sand dunes, and interior terraces lower than 700 m above mean sea level (amsl). Throughout human history, these geographical factors have conditioned the formation of cultural landscapes across the archipelago. Neolithic innovations and developments on these islands resulted in significant cultural landscape shifts, evidencing a unique Ryukyu trajectory of Neolithization that was quite different from those taking place elsewhere in the East Asian Inland Seas. In particular, major settlement and subsistence shifts on the islands mark the change from nomadic lifeways to increasing sedentism in the interior uplands between 4000 and 2500 BP, and a subsequent shift to lower coastal locations.
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• The Transformation of Farming Cultural Landscapes in the Neolithic Yangtze Area, China

  2014-12-01 02:00:00 AM

  Abstract

  This paper discusses aspects of landscape formation in the age of Neolithization, with examples of the farming-culture formation process in the Yangtze (長江) area of China. This research systematically links practical archaeological artefacts with farming culture to explore the development of the farming cultural landscape. In addition, differences between farming formation processes in the Lower Yangtze and Middle Yangtze areas are demonstrated from a landscape perspective, moving beyond the present culture-historical understanding of rice cultivation in the greater Yangtze area.
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• The Formation of the Ainu Cultural Landscape: Landscape Shift in a Hunter-Gatherer Society in the Northern Part of the Japanese Archipelago

  2014-12-01 02:00:00 AM

  Abstract

  Ainu history includes a dramatic socio-cultural transition, reflected in landscape formation, between the Epi-Jomon (third century BC–seventh century AD) and the Satsumon period (seventh–thirteenth centuries AD). This article examines the nature of this landscape shift, revealing, between the Epi-Jomon and the Satsumon, a variety of profound changes in the ways in which land and bio-resources were used for subsistence activities, even though natural and physical environmental cycles underwent no fundamental transformation during this time. These results lead us to conclude that the Ainu landscape—as the product of a system of ecological and socio-cultural adaptation, described in the historical and ethnographic eras—was established in the Satsumon period. This landscape shift is illustrated by a case study of a hunter-gatherer society directly influenced by the market economy and political systems of outside societies and nations during East Asia’s medieval stage, before completing its spontaneous process of ‘Neolithizaiton’.
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• Landscape ‘Neolithization’ Among the Hunter-Fisher-Gatherers of Lake Biwa, Central Japan

  2014-12-01 02:00:00 AM

  Abstract

  The concept of Neolithization has been used to examine a wide range of human relationships to the post-glacial environment, including the rise of farming and the invention of new adaptive technologies, like pottery. This paper focuses on understanding the establishment of sedentary life-ways by Jomon hunter-fisher-gatherers living around Lake Biwa, Central Japan, as a key aspect of Neolithization processes. Natural landscapes in this area presented different opportunities for human subsistence and settlement. Focusing on the characteristics and distribution of key aquatic and terrestrial resources, it is clear that two settlement strategies could have been sustained by local hunter-fisher-gatherer populations. The first involved targeting settlement in areas with complementary resources to avoid the risk of seasonal shortfalls; these areas are, however, limited geographically and would have filled up quickly. The second strategy involved a more elaborate approach to the logistics of mobility and food storage to secure the resources to sustain a settled life; this strategy opened up much larger areas for colonization. This analysis demonstrates that early populations initially favored the first strategy, but then shifted to the second, as population pressures generated major landscape shifts toward the end of the Middle Jomon period (4000 cal BP).
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• Neolithization and Ancient Landscapes in Southern Primorye, Russian Far East

  2014-12-01 02:00:00 AM

  Abstract

  Archaeological and paleoecological investigations of Neolithization processes in Southern Primorye (or the Maritime Region) of the Russian Far East are generating new insight into the complex interactions between human populations and the natural environment during the Middle Holocene. Dynamic coastal and terrestrial ecosystems have been linked to transformations in the paleoeconomy and social structure of prehistoric societies that gave rise to the Boisman Neolithic culture (7500–4500 BP) of coastal hunter-fisher-gatherers. These human–environment relations are reconstructed in the current paper, drawing from a wide range of available evidence.
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• Investigating Neolithization of Cultural Landscapes in East Asia: The NEOMAP Project

  2014-12-01 02:00:00 AM

  Abstract

  The Neolithic is regarded as one of the most important developments in prehistory, a major cultural threshold marked by combined shifts in economy, technology, ideology, settlement and social organisation. Many foundational ideas about the Neolithic emerged within the context of European archaeology, and substantial work has now been directed at understanding how this ‘package’ of innovations appeared first in the Near East, and then dispersed steadily out into the rest of northwest Europe. Papers presented in this special issue are an output of the international NEOMAP Project (Neolithization and Modernization: Landscape History on East Asian Inland Seas) (2005–2012), which sought to apply two key approaches drawn from European Neolithic studies to the archaeology of East Asia: (a) the concept of Neolithization, defined as a long-term and historically-contingent process of culture-change; and (b), the contextual study of this process via the framework of cultural landscaperesearch. This exercise has been highly productive, and provides new insights into a series of unique cultural transformations in East Asia, most of which have a very different sequence and character to those in the European Neolithic. It is hoped that, in turn, these comparative insights into the Neolithization of East Asian cultural landscapes will encourage those working on the European Neolithic to look back over their own regional datasets and critically reflect on some of their deeper assumptions about the internal logic and cultural content of the European Neolithic transition. Given the existence of so many fundamentally different kinds of Neolithic across the broader continent of Eurasia, the overall goal of this special issue is to re-kindle international debates about how best to explain each of these distinctive regional Neolithization trajectories.
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• Migration and Cultural Change: The Northern Iroquoian Case in South-Central Ontario

  2014-08-01 03:00:00 AM

  Abstract

  This paper explores processes of cultural change by contrasting migration scenarios with in situ cultural development. I argue that a detailed, fine-grained analysis of patterning within the archaeological record provides the means with which to distinguish between these scenarios. The archaeology of the Rice Lake–Trent River region in south-central Ontario provides a case study for the investigation of these processes of cultural change across the Middle to Late Woodland transition and in relation to the origins of Northern Iroquoians. Expectations for ceramic patterning are derived from each cultural change scenario and then evaluated against the regional database. This assessment is facilitated through the use of two statistical techniques: frequency distributions and correspondence analysis. The results clearly demonstrate both continuity and patterned change within the region, thus supporting the in situ hypothesis. I place these findings in a broader context through comparisons with contemporary developments in southern Ontario, southwestern Quebec and northern New York State.
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• Deglaciation and Human Colonization of Northern Europe

  2014-08-01 03:00:00 AM

  Abstract

  Few places worldwide experienced Late Glacial ecological shifts as drastic as those seen in the areas covered by, or adjacent to, the massive ice sheets that blanketed much of the northern hemisphere. Among the most heavily glaciated regions, northern Europe underwent substantial ecological shifts during and after the Last Glacial Maximum. The climatically unstable Pleistocene–Holocene transition repeatedly transformed far-northern Europe, placing it among the last regions to be colonized by Paleolithic societies. As such, it shares paleoenvironmental and archaeological analogues with other once glaciated areas where human populations, entrenched in periglacial environments prior to glacier retreat, spread into newly deglaciated territories. Perhaps most significant for northern Europeans were post-glacial effects of the Younger Dryas and Preboreal periods, as shifts in climate, plant, and animal communities elicited several adaptive responses including innovation, exploration, and the eventual settlement of once glaciated landscapes. This paper is a detailed review of existing archaeological and paleoecological evidence pertaining to the Late Upper Paleolithic of northern Europe, and offers theoretical observations on human colonization models and ecological responses to large-scale stadial and interstadial events.
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• Contextualizing Early Urbanization: Settlement Cores, Early States and Agro-pastoral Strategies in the Fertile Crescent During the Fourth and Third Millennia BC

  2014-03-01 02:00:00 AM

  Abstract

  This paper employs data from selected sample survey areas in the northern Fertile Crescent to demonstrate how initial urbanization developed along several pathways. The first, during the Late Chalcolithic period, was within a dense pattern of rural settlement. There followed a profound shift in settlement pattern that resulted in the formation of large walled or ramparted sites (‘citadel cities’) associated with a more dynamic phase of urbanization exemplified by short cycles of growth and collapse. By the later third millennium BC, the distribution of larger centres had expanded to include the drier agro-pastoral zone of northern and central Syria, termed here the ‘zone of uncertainty’. This configuration, in turn, formed the context for Middle Bronze Age settlement, and the pattern of political rivalries and alliances that typified the second millennium BC. Evidence is marshalled from archaeological surveys and landscape analyses to examine these multiple paths to urbanization from the perspectives of (a) staple production within major agricultural lowlands; (b) the shift towards higher risk animal husbandry within climatically marginal regions; (c) changes in local and inter-regional networks (connectivity); and (d) ties and rights to the land. Textile production forms the core of the proposed model, which emphasizes how the demand for wool and associated pasture lands opened up new landscapes for agro-pastoral production and settlement. The resultant landscapes of settlement are then compared with the picture in the southern Levant where a more restricted zone of uncertainty may have limited the opportunities for agro-pastoral production.
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• Architectural Discourse and Social Transformation During the Early Neolithic of Southeast Anatolia

  2014-03-01 02:00:00 AM

  Abstract

  Within the Near Eastern research canon, the transition to more sedentary lifestyles during the Neolithic is often framed as an economic necessity, linked to plant and animal domestication, climatic change and population stress. In such a framework, an increasingly complex social structure, arising in response to the increasingly complex relations of agricultural production, is presumed. For example, some researchers would argue that feasting-based rituals became an arena of social control and an increasingly complex society began to emerge around ritual leadership and monumental ritual architecture. Yet the research projects conducted at many Near Eastern sites indicate neither that sedentism can be directly linked to the requirements of agriculture, nor that the presence of monumental architecture can be successfully associated with social control based on unequal redistribution of agricultural surplus. While ritual activity appears to be central during the Neolithic, two important questions remain to be explored: (1) what exactly did the rituals control, given that the societies under consideration are commonly perceived to have an ‘egalitarian’ ethos?; and (2) what happened to the ritual control in the second half of the PPNB, when ritual architecture completely disappears from the archaeological record at a time of increased reliance on agriculture? Through a critical review of the use of terms like ‘sedentism’, ‘egalitarianism’ and ‘ritual’, I argue that the architecture of the Early Neolithic is related to the management of social relationships through symbolic place-making activities. Based on a comparative review of burial activity, building continuity and the use of symbolic imagery, I examine the symbolic construction of some of the earliest examples of long-term occupational focus in southeast Anatolia, such as Hallan Çemi, Demirköy, Körtik Tepe, Hasankeyf Höyük, Gusir Höyük, Göbekli Tepe, Çayönü and Nevalı Çori, in an attempt to understand the social factors behind the emergence and demise of Early Neolithic monumental architecture. The evidence from the above-mentioned sites suggests that Early Neolithic place-making reflects community formation at a variety of scales, at the center of which lay the continuous reinvention of kinship concepts. While some sites, with concentrations of burials, may have become the locus for construction of more intimate local place-based networks, other sites, such as Göbekli Tepe, may have integrated the extended networks. Arguably, the formation of large scale networks during the PPNA posed a threat to local groups. Thus, a focus on local group formation and close control of social exchanges may have begun during the early PPNB, and the places such as Göbekli Tepe may have fallen out of use during this process. In the context of the symbolism and figurine evidence, I further argue that sex and gender may have become important issues, both in the formation of place-communities during the late PPNA—early PPNB, and in the emergence of autonomous households during the later PPNB.
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• The Nomad as State Builder: Historical Theory and Material Evidence from Mongolia

  2013-12-01 02:00:00 AM

  Abstract

  Theory on nomadic political complexity has largely been based on twentieth century ethnography and numerous historical accounts of the military confederations of pastoral nomads. Over the past two decades, archaeologists have increasingly used material evidence to evaluate ideas about nomadic polities and have added indigenous and local-scale perspectives to an understanding of nomadic political process in many regions across the Old World. One of these is Mongolia, a major center of nomadic state and empire formation, where archaeologists have recently focused attention on an early regional polity that arose at the end of the first millennium BC and is known as the Xiongnu (also Hsiung-nu) state. This paper synthesizes the latest archaeological research on the Xiongnu state in order to evaluate historical models that explain state emergence among nomads on the far eastern steppe. The material record from Mongolia adds the detail and resolution needed to refine existing explanations for Xiongnu state emergence. 
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• Ice Patch Archaeology in Global Perspective: Archaeological Discoveries from Alpine Ice Patches Worldwide and Their Relationship with Paleoclimates

  2013-12-01 02:00:00 AM

  Abstract

  In recent years, in association with global climate change, researchers have found significant quantities of preserved archaeological material melting from kinetically-stable alpine and subalpine ‘ice patches’ all around the world. This paper synthesizes the findings and the methodologies of ice patch archaeology worldwide thus far in an effort to provide researchers with a broadened perspective on artifact collection and interpretation. In addition, I test the hypothesis that increased quantities of alpine ice in prehistory should correlate with decreased human use of these areas, and vice versa. I analyze the relationship between the frequencies of regional artifact dates over time, the nature of these artifacts, and glacial advances and retreats. Ultimately, I conclude that fundamental differences among these assemblages and their correlation (or lack thereof) with prehistoric alpine ice extents stem from the intention and the activity of the people who deposited the artifacts.
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• Waterfowl and Lunate Crescents in Western North America: The Archaeology of the Pacific Flyway

  2013-09-01 03:00:00 AM

  Abstract

  California and Great Basin archaeologists have long discussed and debated the function of chipped stone crescents found in Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene sites in the Far West of North America. Because they are found over a vast area, in sites occupied over a period spanning at least 4,000 years (~12,000–8,000 cal BP), it may be that crescents were used for a variety of purposes. Here we focus on lunate crescents and their strong association with wetland localities (lakes, marshes, estuaries, and islands). We reconsider whether crescents could have been used as transverse projectile points to hunt waterfowl. We also assess the biogeographical legacies of migrating birds to propose that as many as four species of large anatids (tundra swan, greater white-fronted goose, snow goose, Ross’s goose) that now breed in the Canadian High Arctic once bred in the Great Basin and adjacent regions during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene. We propose that crescents were used primarily in the taking or processing of geese and swans, some of which may have bred and molted in what are now temperate latitudes. After the Laurentide ice sheet retreated, these four species established High Arctic breeding grounds and no longer bred in the Great Basin. In this scenario, the absence of some populations of molting geese and swans helps explain why crescents fell out of the archaeological record after ~8,000 cal. BP. When crescents were used, Native Americans in the Far West may have had access to millions of large waterfowl.
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• East Africa and Madagascar in the Indian Ocean world

  2013-09-01 03:00:00 AM

  Abstract

  The Indian Ocean has long been a forum for contact, trade and the transfer of goods, technologies and ideas between geographically distant groups of people. Another, less studied, outcome of expanding maritime connectivity in the region is the translocation of a range of species of plants and animals, both domestic and wild. A significant number of these translocations can now be seen to involve Africa, either providing or receiving species, suggesting that Africa’s role in the emergence of an increasingly connected Indian Ocean world deserves more systematic consideration. While the earliest international contacts with the East African coast remain poorly understood, in part due to a paucity of archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological studies, some evidence for early African coastal activity is provided by the discovery of early hunter-gatherer sites on offshore islands, and, possibly, by the translocation of wild animals among these islands, and between them and the mainland. From the seventh century, however, clear evidence for participation in the Indian Ocean world emerges, in the form of a range of introduced species, including commensal and domestic animals, and agricultural crops. New genetic studies demonstrate that the flow of species to the coast is complex, with more than one source frequently indicated. The East African coast and Madagascar appear to have been significant centres of genetic admixture, drawing upon Southeast Asian, South Asian and Middle Eastern genetic varieties, and sometimes yielding unique hybrid species. The biological patterns reflect a deeply networked trade and contact situation, and support East Africa’s key role in the events and transformations of the early Indian Ocean world.
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• Establishing the Prehistoric Cultural Sequence for the Lopburi Region, Central Thailand

  2013-06-01 03:00:00 AM

  Abstract

  This study comprises the first archaeologically-defined chronological and cultural sequence for central Thailand. Based on collaborative research between the Thai–Italian Lopburi Regional Archaeological Project and the Thai–American Thailand Archaeometallurgy Project, the results of excavations at seven pre- and protohistoric sites that witnessed three millennia of local cultural development, from the early second millennium BC onward, are synthesized herein. This study fills a significant gap in Thailand’s prehistory, also identifying important cultural interactions ranging into southern China and Vietnam that led to the formation during the second millennium BC of a ‘Southeast Asian Interaction Sphere’. This interaction sphere, at the close of the second millennium BC, facilitated the transmission of the knowledge of copper-base metallurgy from southern China into Thailand, where it reached the communities of the Lopburi Region who took advantage of their ore-rich environment. At the end of the first millennium BC, strong South Asian contacts emerge in Southeast Asia. Among this study’s salient contributions is the characterization of these critical prehistoric antecedents, which culminated in a process of localization of exogenous elements, usually termed ‘Indianization’. The impact of this dynamic process was initially felt in central Thailand in the late first millennium BC, leading over time to the rise there, by the mid first millennium AD, of one of Southeast Asia’s first ‘state-like’ entities.
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