New Archeology Papers (Titles and Abstracts Only, Please)

[JonikW]

Making wine in earthenware vessels: a comparative approach to Roman vinification

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2024

Dimitri Van Limbergen and Paulina Komar

Abstract:

Wine was deeply embedded in all aspects of Roman life and its role in society, culture and the economy has been much studied. Ancient Roman texts and archaeological research provide valuable insights into viticulture and the manufacture, trade and consumption of wine but little is known of the sensory nature of this prized commodity. Here, the authors offer a novel oenological approach to the study of Roman dolia through their comparison with modern Georgian qvevri and associated wine-production techniques. Far from being mundane storage vessels, dolia were precisely engineered containers whose composition, size and shape all contributed to the successful production of diverse wines with specific organoleptic characteristics.

[JMcB]

Evaluating the impact of the Storegga tsunami on Mesolithic communities in Northumberland

Patrick D Sharrocks, Jon Hill

First published: 19 December 2023


ABSTRACT

The Holocene Storegga tsunami, 8120–8175 cal a bp, resulted in run-up heights of up to 3–6 m around mainland UK and coincided with a suggested large population decline in the coastally focused Mesolithic population in Northern Britain. At Howick, Northumberland, the site of a Mesolithic settlement, a nearby sediment deposit may be of tsunamigenic origin, but this is uncertain. Here, a numerical model was used to simulate the Storegga tsunami in Northumberland. Two scenarios of relative sea-level change, and a third incorporating high tide, were simulated with mortality estimated within the intertidal zone for the Mesolithic sites in the region. The results showed that only with the addition of high tide could the sediment deposit site have been inundated by the tsunami. At Howick, mortality estimates varied but were up to 100% within the resource-rich intertidal zone. The tsunami inundated a large area and would have led to the loss of key resources such as hazelnuts prior to the winter months. These combined effects would have probably been replicated throughout coastal settlements in Northern Britain, possibly leading to the contemporary population decline estimated to have occurred at this time.



Figure 1

The locations of the Storegga slide and Storegga tsunami sediment deposits (red circles) with the run-up heights at each location indicated (produced in QGIS; based on Bateman et al., 2021). [Color figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com



https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jqs.3586

[VladMC]

The Sacred Lake Project: preliminary findings from the Lusatian site of Papowo Biskupie, Poland

Introduction
During the period 1200–450 BC, the Chełmno land in north-central Poland was home to one of the northernmost communities of the Lusatian culture—an archaeological culture that formed part of the North European Bronze Age and continued through the Urnfield culture into the Early Iron Age. Traditionally, the Chełmno group people are thought to have been largely unaffected by the social and economic developments of the Urnfield period and the subsequent Hallstatt culture and, in contrast with the widespread metal-hoarding seen in Lusatian regions that gravitated towards the Nordic zone and Danubian-Alpine centre of the south, metal does not appear to have featured prominently in the social and ritual activities of the Chełmno community (Gackowski Reference Gackowski2012). But this image of disinterested metal movement and consumption in the region was challenged in early 2023 when metal detectorists of the Kujawsko-Pomorska Grupa Poszukiwaczy Historii located metal deposits and stray finds in a dried-up lake in the village of Papowo Biskupie. Subsequent rescue excavations, conducted by the Provincial Office for the Protection of Monuments in Toruń, recovered more than 550 bronze artefacts, human bones and other archaeological material, rendering the site at Papowo Biskupie one of the most eloquent testimonies of ritual activity from the Lusatian period in Poland.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/...18BA574A4A

[JMcB]

The identification of the Royal Tombs in the Great Tumulus at Vergina, Macedonia, Greece: A comprehensive review


Antonia Bartsiokas, Juan Luis Arsuaga, Nicholas Brandmeir


Abstract

This review contributes to the long-running debate over the identities of the occupants of the unspoiled 4th-century BCE Royal Tombs at Vergina, in northern Greece. The human skeletal remains from Royal Tombs I, II and III are related to the King and Pharaoh Alexander the Great. We review the skeletal evidence as well as archaeological, historic, and geological evidence. We evaluate the relative criticism concerning the identification of the occupants of the Royal Tombs. We studied the skeletal elements with the aid of macrophotography, radiographs and anatomic dissection. Stratigraphic evidence is provided. A knee fusion was found in the male skeleton of Tomb I consistent with the historic evidence of the lameness of King Philip II. No evidence of trauma was found in the male skeleton of Tomb II and evidence of cremation in the male and female skeletons is consistent with the historic evidence for King Arrhidaeus. The evidence presented supports the conclusion that Tomb I belongs to King Philip II, his wife Cleopatra and their newborn child. Tomb II belongs to King Arrhidaeus and his wife Adea Eurydice. Tomb III to Alexander IV. These conclusions refute the traditional speculation that Tomb II belongs to Philip II. Some of the artifacts in Tomb II belonged to Alexander the Great.


Highlights

• The skeletons belong to the father, the brother and the son of Alexander the Great.

• The skeletons studied are among the most historically important in Europe.

• This is a unique case for which there is BCE historical evidence for the skeletons.

• The review demonstrates the pitfalls in identifying skeletal evidence.

• Some of the items in Tomb II belonged to Alexander the Great.


https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar...f0bc716771

[JonikW]

Tiarp Backgården. An Early Neolithic Dolmen in Falbygden, Sweden and Early Megalithic Tombs in South Scandinavia and Northern Central Europe

Karl-Göran Sjögren, Malou Blank, Torbjörn Ahlström, Tony Axelsson, Stefan Dreibrodt, Johannes Müller

Abstract
The excavation of the simple dolmen at Tiarp, Falbygden, dating to around 3500 BCE, has provided important information for the understanding of the megalithic and early TRB in southern Scandinavia and northern Central Europe. The absolute chronological dating shows that dolmens were erected at about the same time between Falbygden and Altmark, before the main passage grave architectural phase. Although fragmented and affected by taphonomic processes, the bone assemblage provides insights into the bur-ial practices. At least twelve individuals, from neonates to elderly, had been buried within the chamber. The predominance of hand and foot bones sug-gests that they were primary inhumations. Their isotope values indicate an already agrarian society, which, however, was based only to a certain extent on agriculture. Insofar, the dolmen at Tiarp signals transformations – not only in respect to the introduction of agriculture but also regarding ritual practices – within the Early and Middle Neolithic.

[JonikW]

Women of the Conversion Period: a biomolecular investigation of mobility in early medieval England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2024

Helena Hamerow, Sam Leggett, Christel Tinguely and Petrus Le Roux

Abstract 

Exogamous marriage alliances involving royal women played a prominent role in the conversion of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to Christianity in the seventh century AD. Yet the large number of well-furnished female burials from this period suggests a broader change in the role of women. The authors present the results of isotopic analysis of seventh-century burials, comparing male and female mobility and the mobility of females from well-furnished versus poorly/unfurnished burials. Results suggest increased mobility during the Conversion Period that is, paradoxically, most noticeable among women buried in poorly furnished graves; their well-furnished contemporaries were more likely to have grown up near to their place of burial.

[JMcB]

Evidence of the intentional use of black henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) in the Roman Netherlands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 February 2024

Maaike Groot, Martijn van Haasteren and Laura I. Kooistra


Abstract:


F
Figure 5. A) The bone cylinder and plug (reproduced from Groot & van Haasteren Reference Groot, van Haasteren, van Renswoude and Habermehl2017: fig. 14.14B); B) black henbane seeds (photograph by BIAX Consult).


The remains of black henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) are relatively common at archaeological sites as it grows naturally around settlements in north-western Europe. All parts of the plant may be used as a medicine or a narcotic but its natural prevalence in built environments makes it difficult to interpret any intentionality behind its presence in the archaeological record. Evidence of the deliberate collection and use of black henbane seeds in the Roman Netherlands is presented here for the first time. Examination of Classical texts and interrogation of the archaeobotanical data allow the authors to place the discovery at Houten-Castellum of a hollowed bone containing hundreds of black henbane seeds within the context of the wider Roman understanding of the plant and its properties.


Link:

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/...9157D5131C

[JMcB]

Plant-related Philistine ritual practices at biblical Gath

Suembikya Frumin, Aren M. Maeir, Maria Eniukhina, Amit Dagan & Ehud Weiss



d i
View of Tell eṣ-Ṣâfī/Gath showing the location of the study area (Area D) and votive offerings found in the temples. Photos 2a, 2c–f by A. Maeir. (a) View of northern side of Tell eṣ-Ṣâfī/Gath, showing Area D temples (yellow rectangle) and the valley to the north of the site. (b) Topographical map of Tell eṣ-Ṣâfī/Gath, showing location of excavation areas, the HaEla riverbed course and the valley to the north of the site. The yellow rectangle marks the temples’ location. ArcGIS Desktop 10.6 https://www.esri.com/. © Aerial photo of Area D with temples and surrounding buildings. Yellow marks denote the location of offerings (d) and the altar (f). (d) Cultic assemblage of miniature vessels and an endolium shell (Tonna galea) found in temple D4. (e) Decorated chalices found in temple D3. (f) Altar found in temple D3.



Abstract:

The Philistine culture (Iron Age, ca. 1200-604 BCE) profoundly impacted the southern Levant's cultural history, agronomy, and dietary customs. Nevertheless, our knowledge of the Philistines’ cultic praxis and deities, is limited and uncertain. Here, we combine archaeological data with a meticulous study of plant use at two successive temples at Tell eṣ-Ṣâfī/Gath. We provide a list of the plants used, their time of harvest, mode of offering, and possible symbolism. Analysis of the temples' macrobotanical (seed and fruits) plant assemblage reveals the offerings; that the inception date for rites was early spring; and sheds light on the date of the final utilization of the temples (late summer/early fall). Besides food crops, we note the earliest cultic use of chaste tree (Vitex agnus-castus), crown daisy (Glebionis coronaria), and scabious (Lomelosia argentea). These wide-spread Mediterranean plants were known so far only in later cults—of early Greek deities, such as Hera, Artemis, Demeter, and Asclepios. We discuss the data as reflecting that the Philistine religion relied on the magic and power of nature, such as fresh water and seasonality, which influence human life, health, and activity. In sum, our results offer novel insights into the culture of the Philistines.



[…]

In sum, it is possible that the wild plants were part of the plant offerings as an integral component of the harvest (bitter vetch and poison darnel), yet chaste tree does not grow in crop fields, while crown daisy is easily discerned from the cereals. Thus, it is plausible that temple ritual praxis included the use of medicinal and mood-enhancing additions to regular foods. The presence of strainer spout jugs within the temples suggests the offering and consumption of various fermented foods and beverages in situ. This fits with the importance of the alcoholic beverages in Philistine culture Gath 36,63, as well with the proven use of plant-related oils with hallucinogenic properties in ritual chalices, and incense altars found in Philistine temples 4,64,65,66,67.


https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-52974-9

[Radko]

I'm not sure if this paper was posted previously...

Pollen, brooches, solidi and Restgermanen, or today’s Poland in the Migration Period 

Abstract: The work synthesises in 26 monographic chapters the results of a six-years long (2012–2018) interdisciplinary international project whose aim was to present the state of knowledge on today’s Poland during the Migration Period, and to compare the evolution of its settlement with that of its neighbours. One of its main results – the accordance between the palynological evidence of the change of environment (extensive reforestation and drastic reduction of anthropogenic indicators) and the archaeological reconstruction of the change of settlement (disappearance of the Przeworsk, Wielbark and other cultures of the Roman Period by the mid-fifth century) – conclusively confirms the often questioned verdict of a sudden severe depopulation of the lands between the Vistula and the Oder, similar to that revealed in the rest of Central/Eastern Europe (disappearance of the Elbe and Chernyakhiv-Sântana de Mureş cultures). An entirely new perspective opened by the project is the survival of enclaves with contacts all round the compass (the Eastern Empire, the Merovingian West, the Danubian lands, Scandinavia, the Western Balts). None of them yielded Slavonic material (...)"

https://historia.uw.edu.pl/wp-content/up...2-0007.pdf

https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/1...ml?lang=en

[rp48]

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07208-3
Article
Published: 20 March 2024
Adaptive foraging behaviours in the Horn of Africa during Toba supereruption

John Kappelman, Lawrence C. Todd, …Sierra Yanny Show authors
Nature (2024)Cite this article

Metrics details
Abstract
Although modern humans left Africa multiple times over 100,000 years ago, those broadly ancestral to non-Africans dispersed less than 100,000 years ago1. Most models hold that these events occurred through green corridors created during humid periods because arid intervals constrained population movements2. Here we report an archaeological site—Shinfa-Metema 1, in the lowlands of northwest Ethiopia, with Youngest Toba Tuff cryptotephra dated to around 74,000 years ago—that provides early and rare evidence of intensive riverine-based foraging aided by the likely adoption of the bow and arrow. The diet included a wide range of terrestrial and aquatic animals. Stable oxygen isotopes from fossil mammal teeth and ostrich eggshell show that the site was occupied during a period of high seasonal aridity. The unusual abundance of fish suggests that capture occurred in the ever smaller and shallower waterholes of a seasonal river during a long dry season, revealing flexible adaptations to challenging climatic conditions during the Middle Stone Age. Adaptive foraging along dry-season waterholes would have transformed seasonal rivers into ‘blue highway’ corridors, potentially facilitating an out-of-Africa dispersal and suggesting that the event was not restricted to times of humid climates. The behavioural flexibility required to survive seasonally arid conditions in general, and the apparent short-term effects of the Toba supereruption in particular were probably key to the most recent dispersal and subsequent worldwide expansion of modern humans.

[JMcB]

Must Farm pile-dwelling settlement: Volume 1. Landscape, architecture and occupation

Knight, M., Ballantyne, R., Brudenell, M., Cooper, A., Gibson, D., & Robinson Zeki, I. (2024). Must Farm pile-dwelling settlement: Volume 1. Landscape, architecture and occupation. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.106697


Summary

The Must Farm pile-dwelling settlement (Cambridgeshire,
UK) is one of the most extraordinary Bronze Age
sites in Europe. Located in Must Farm Quarry, Whit-
tlesey, the site was situated on the southeastern edge
of the Flag Fen Basin, Peterborough. First exposed in
the edge of a quarry pit in 1969, but not ‘discovered’
until 1999, the settlement was subject to evaluation
by the Cambridge Archaeological Unit (CAU) in 2004
and 2006 and open area investigation in 2015–16. The
excavation revealed a uniquely preserved group of
wooden domestic structures, unparalleled in the qual-
ity of their architectural detail, material assemblage
and spatial-temporal clarity.

The settlement was built in a slow-flowing, fresh-
water distributary of the River Nene, which itself
followed the course of an earlier tidal channel or
roddon. The settlement comprised a curving palisade
enclosing five stilt-raised houses. Built in the mid-9th
century bc, the settlement was destroyed by fire less
than a year after construction. Though the occupants
escaped, the conflagration sent the remains of all five
buildings and their artefact-rich contents to the riverbed.
Fire, water and burial by oxygen-depleted silts provided
the conditions for exceptional preservation. The site’s
stratigraphic simplicity, it’s short-lived duration and
the vertical collapse of buildings gave the remains a
pristine quality, allowing spatially and temporally
coherent household inventories to be identified.

Pages 20 & 21



https://api.repository.cam.ac.uk/server/...07/content

[JMcB]

The first Neolithic boats in the Mediterranean: The settlement of La Marmotta (Anguillara Sabazia, Lazio, Italy)

Juan F. Gibaja , Mario Mineo, Francisco Javier Santos, Berta Morell, Laura Caruso-Fermé, Gerard Remolins, Alba Masclans, Niccolò Mazzucco



Abstract

Navigation in the Mediterranean in the Neolithic is studied here through the boats that were used, the degree of technical specialisation in their construction and, above all, their chronology. After a brief explanation of the exceptional site of La Marmotta, the characteristics and chronology of the five canoes found at the settlement and one of the nautical objects linked to Canoe 1 are discussed. This will allow a reflection on the capability of Neolithic societies for navigation owing to their high technological level. This technology was an essential part in the success of their expansion, bearing in mind that in a few millennia they occupied the whole Mediterranean from Cyprus to the Atlantic seaboard of the Iberian Peninsula.




Link:

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/articl...ne.0299765

[JMcB]

Parasites in ancient Egypt and Nubia: Malaria, schistosomiasis and the pharaohs

Piers D. Mitchell

Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, The Henry Wellcome Building, Fitzwilliam Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom



Abstract

The civilizations of ancient Egypt and Nubia played a key role in the cultural development of Africa, the Near East, and the Mediterranean world. This study explores how their location along the River Nile, agricultural practices, the climate, endemic insects and aquatic snails impacted the type of parasites that were most successful in their populations. A meta-analysis approach finds that up to 65% of mummies were positive for schistosomiasis, 40% for headlice, 22% for falciparum malaria, and 10% for visceral leishmaniasis. Such a disease burden must have had major consequences upon the physical stamina and productivity of a large proportion of the workforce. In contrast, the virtual absence of evidence for whipworm and roundworm (so common in adjacent civilizations in the Near East and Europe) may have been a result of the yearly Nile floods fertilising the agricultural land, so that farmers did not have to fertilise their crops with human faeces.


Link:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar...via%3Dihub

[JMcB]

Radiocarbon chronology of Iron Age Jerusalem reveals calibration offsets and architectural developments

Johanna Regev, Yuval Gadot, Joe Uziel, and Elisabetta Boaretto

April 29, 2024


Significance

Establishing a detailed absolute chronology in an actively inhabited urban environment is challenging. The key to the solution is to apply stringent field methodologies using microarchaeological methods, leading to dense, radiocarbon-dated stratigraphic sequences. In Iron Age Jerusalem, 103 14C measurements on samples from a range of contexts were used to reconstruct Jerusalem’s urban history. By wiggle matching against the calibration curve, a decadal resolution, not usually possible during the problematic 300-y-long Hallstatt plateau, was achieved. Results also revealed excursions in 14C concentration that were outside the ranges of the calibration curve, verified by a set of 100 calendar-dated tree rings. This field and lab approach could well be applicable to dating other urban contexts.



Abstract

Reconstructing the absolute chronology of Jerusalem during the time it served as the Judahite Kingdom’s capital is challenging due to its dense, still inhabited urban nature and the plateau shape of the radiocarbon calibration curve during part of this period. We present 103 radiocarbon dates from reliable archaeological contexts in five excavation areas of Iron Age Jerusalem, which tie between archaeology and biblical history. We exploit Jerusalem’s rich past, including textual evidence and vast archaeological remains, to overcome difficult problems in radiocarbon dating, including establishing a detailed chronology within the long-calibrated ranges of the Hallstatt Plateau and recognizing short-lived regional offsets in atmospheric 14C concentrations. The key to resolving these problems is to apply stringent field methodologies using microarchaeological methods, leading to densely radiocarbon-dated stratigraphic sequences. Using these sequences, we identify regional offsets in atmospheric 14C concentrations c. 720 BC, and in the historically secure stratigraphic horizon of the Babylonian destruction in 586 BC. The latter is verified by 100 single-ring measurements between 624 to 572 BC. This application of intense 14C dating sheds light on the reconstruction of Jerusalem in the Iron Age. It provides evidence for settlement in the 12th to 10th centuries BC and that westward expansion had already begun by the 9th century BC, with extensive architectural projects undertaken throughout the city in this period. This was followed by significant damage and rejuvenation of the city subsequent to the mid-eight century BC earthquake, after which the city was heavily fortified and continued to flourish until the Babylonian destruction.


https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2321024121

[JMcB]

Published: 16 May 2024

The Egyptian pyramid chain was built along the now abandoned Ahramat Nile Branch

Eman Ghoneim, Timothy J. Ralph, Suzanne Onstine, Raghda El-Behaedi, Gad El-Qady, Amr S. Fahil, Mahfooz Hafez, Magdy Atya, Mohamed Ebrahim, Ashraf Khozym & Mohamed S. Fathy


Abstract:

The largest pyramid field in Egypt is clustered along a narrow desert strip, yet no convincing explanation as to why these pyramids are concentrated in this specific locality has been given so far. Here we use radar satellite imagery, in conjunction with geophysical data and deep soil coring, to investigate the subsurface structure and sedimentology in the Nile Valley next to these pyramids. We identify segments of a major extinct Nile branch, which we name The Ahramat Branch, running at the foothills of the Western Desert Plateau, where the majority of the pyramids lie. Many of the pyramids, dating to the Old and Middle Kingdoms, have causeways that lead to the branch and terminate with Valley Temples which may have acted as river harbors along it in the past. We suggest that The Ahramat Branch played a role in the monuments’ construction and that it was simultaneously active and used as a transportation waterway for workmen and building materials to the pyramids’ sites.


https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01379-7