Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Ramapithecus

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Ramapithecus Oct 15th 2011, 10:01 Definition: Ramapithecus is one of our non-human primate ancestors from between 12 and 14 million years ago. Fossils of Ramapithecus were first identified in 1932 in the Siwalka hills of India and are now considered a member of the genus Sivapithecus. This glossary entry is part of the Dictionary of Archaeology. Sources for the term include the references listed on the front page of the Dictionary, and the websites listed in the sidebar. Any mistakes are the responsibility of Kris Hirst.

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Blombos Cave

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Blombos Cave Oct 15th 2011, 10:01 Blombos Cave is a site at the very tip of South Africa where great strides in understanding the development of modern human beings are being taken these days. While much of the recent press attention has been on the scholarly debate on whether humans evolved once in Africa (the Out of Africa theory), or several times all over the world (the multiregional hypothesis), a quiet revolution has occurred centered on what it means to be human. Blombos Cave and the Creative Explosion For several decades--probably since the discovery of the Lascaux Caves in France--archaeologists believed that while anatomically modern Homo sapiens evolved somewhere between 100,000-150,000 years ago, humans didn't actually develop modern behaviors and thought processes until around 50,000-40,000 years ago. This event, known in some scientific circles as the "creative explosion," was announced by what researchers saw as a sudden blossoming of symbolic thought. What researchers mean by symbolic thought is the ability to identify--and create--representations of things. Thus, the theory went, a species really not much smarter than other hominids of the time suddenly began painting bison and mammoth on cave walls in France. Evidence of the flowering of modern human behavior is held to including fishing, the manufacture of bone tools, the use of decoration, and the production of art. Modern Behaviors in Africa Part of the trouble was, none of the major scientists was really doing much research in Africa-there was a lot to be investigated in France, after all; but in retrospect the neglect of Africa is a little weird, since we've known for a very long time that that's where the earliest humans evolved. Then, evidence of an earlier flourishing of the creative mind began to appear, in southern Africa south of the Zambezi River, dated to the Middle Stone Age, 70,000 years ago and more. Similar artifact collection types-known as assemblages in archaeological parlance-alled Howiesons Poort and Stillbay have been found at sites such as the Klasies River Caves, Boomplaas, and Die Kelders Cave I in South Africa. These sites included sophisticated bone tools, backed blades, a careful selection of raw material for stone tools and the use of a punch technique; but most of these were controversial in one respect or another. That was until Blombos Cave. Modern Behaviors at Blombos Cave Since 1991, South African researchers led by Christopher Henshilwood have been working at the Blombos Cave site. Artifacts found there include sophisticated bone and stone tools, fish bones, and an abundance of used ochre. Ochre has no known economic function; it is almost universally accepted as a source of color for ceremonial, decorative purposes. Read about 100,000 Year Old Paint Pots at Blombos Cave The Blombos Cave layers containing used ochre are dated 70,000 to 80,000 years before the present. Most recently (April of 2004), a cluster of deliberately perforated and red-stained shell beads dating to the Middle Stone Age has been found, and is being interpreted as personal ornaments or jewelry for the occupants of Blombos. The best and most likely interpretation of these finds, and numerous others throughout Africa, is that the growth of the human symbolic thought was a slow process that continued throughout the Middle Stone Age in Africa. How that flourishing of creative thought left Africa is still under discussion, but one way may have been through the Southern Dispersal Route. Flint Knapping at Blombos Cave On October 28, 2010, researchers writing in Science magazine reported the discovery of advanced flint knapping. The photo essay "Flint Knapping Technology at Blombos Cave" includes a description of the cave, a discussion of what pressure flaking is, and the evidence identified at Blombos for pressure flaking. Oh, and a bibliography, of course, with some great photos from the research team. Sources Blombos Cave is part of the Guide to the Middle Paleolithic, and the Howiesons Poort/Stillbay complex, as well as the Dictionary of Archaeology. See the official Blombos Cave website for a great deal of information and photos about the ongoing excavations by Chris Henshilwood. Thanks to Chris Hardaker for the suggestion and assistance in producing this article; to Scott MacEachern for his improvements, and to the (unwitting) members of Palanth-L whose fabulous archives were very helpful indeed. A brief bibliography has been collected for this project.

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Ochre

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Ochre Oct 15th 2011, 10:01 Ochre (also spelled ocher) and hematite (or haematite) refer to several forms of iron oxide, a type of clay or sandy clay mineral found in natural deposits in many different regions of the world. Ochre's primary use prehistorically was as pigments--coloration for everything from rock art paintings to pottery to human tattoos. Ochre is often associated with human burials: for example, the Upper Paleolithic cave site Arene Candide has an early use of ochre at a burial of a young man 23,500 years ago. The site of Paviland Cave in the UK, dated to about the same time, had a burial so soaked in red ochre he was called the "Red Lady". A second "Red Lady", this time actually referring to a female burial, was discovered at the Maya site of Copan. There are many other examples. Similar terms for ochre seen in scholarly records are ferrous oxide or iron oxide, limonite, hematite, red ochre and yellow ochre. Ochre Colors Ochre comes in a variety of colors, from brown to red to yellow; and interestingly enough, it does change color under circumstances. Red ochre is associated with sesquioxide of iron (i.e., it forms in areas where the soil is well-drained), while the yellow ochre (called limonite or goethite) is hydrated iron oxide (i.e., where iron was allowed to freely combine with water). Yellow or brown ochre can turn to red as the mineral picks up water and converts to hematite. Ochre and Archaeology Ochre is very common on archaeological sites world-wide, and it is generally assumed to be a coloring agent. The earliest possible use of ochre is nearly 300,000 years old, in the site of GnJh-03 in the Kapthurin Formation of East Africa, and at Twin Rivers in Zambia. Often associated with religious ceremonies, ochre is was (and still is) a popular pigment choice for artists beginning right with the first art of the Middle Stone Age (MSA). The assemblages of MSA sites including Blombos Cave and Klein Kliphuis in South Africa have been found to include examples of engraved ochre, slabs of ochre with carved patterns cut into the surface. Recent studies researching the potential to source ochre--that is, to determine where the ochre came from at a particular site or instance--have been attempted in the Tucson basin of Arizona. Using instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA), researchers were able to identify specific geochemical characteristics of three sources, based on percentages of their metals and rare earth elements. Investigations at Sibudu Cave, a Middle Stone Age site in South Africa, revealed that ochre was often associated with a starchy plant resin used to attach stone tools on wooden shafts or handles. The association with mastic substances was also discovered at Enkapune Ya Muto in Kenya, and a handful of Upper Paleolithic sites in France, suggesting that the practice may have been wide spread and in use over a very long period of time. Read about 100,000 Year Old Paint Pots at Blombos Cave Sources This glossary entry is part of the Dictionary of Archaeology. Barnett JR, Miller S, and Pearce E. 2006. Colour and art: A brief history of pigments. Optics & Laser Technology 38(4-6):445-453. Erdogu B, and Ulubey A. 2011. Colour symbolism in the prehistoric architecture of central Anatolia and Raman Spectroscopic Investigation of red ochre in Chalcolithic Çatalhöyük. Oxford Journal Of Archaeology 30(1):1-11. Henshilwood C, D'Errico F, Van Niekerk K, Coquinot Y, Jacobs Z, Lauritzen S-E, Menu M, and Garcia-Moreno R. 2011. A 100,000-Year-Old Ochre-Processing Workshop at Blombos Cave, South Africa. Science 334:219-222. Lombard M. 2007. The gripping nature of ochre: The association of ochre with Howiesons Poort adhesives and Later Stone Age mastics from South Africa. Journal of Human Evolution 53(4):406-419. Mackay A, and Welz A. 2008. Engraved ochre from a Middle Stone Age context at Klein Kliphuis in the Western Cape of South Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science 35(6):1521-1532. Popelka-Filcoff, RS et al. 2008. Elemental analysis and characterization of ochre sources from Southern Arizona. Journal of Archaeological Science 35(3):752-762. Pough, FH 1993 Hematite. Lapidary Journal(January 1993):16, 112, 116. Stafford MD, Frison GC, Stanford D, and Zeimans G. 2003. Digging for the color of life: Paleoindian red ochre mining at the Powars II site, Platte County, Wyoming, U.S.A. Geoarchaeology 18(1):71-90. Tankersley KB, et al. 1995. They have a rock that bleeds: Sunrise red ochre and its Early Paleoindian occurrence at the Hell Gap site, Wyoming. Plains Anthropologist 40(152):185-194. Wadley L. 2010. Cemented ash as a receptacle or work surface for ochre powder production at Sibudu, South Africa, 58,000 years ago. Journal of Archaeological Science 37(10):2397-2406. Wadley L, Williamson B, and Lombard M. 2004. Ochre in hafting in Middle Stone Age southern Africa: a practical role. Antiquity 78(301):661-675.

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Abu Simbel (Egypt)

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Abu Simbel (Egypt) Oct 15th 2011, 10:01 Definition: Abu Simbel is a temple built by Ramesses II (Pharaoh of the 19th Dynasty of the Egyptian New Kingdom, who ruled 1279-1213 BC) in Nubia, what is now in Egypt near the border of Sudan. It was investigated by James Breasted at Chicago's Oriental Institute. Originally carved into and out of the sandstone cliffs of the Nile River, the site was threatened in the 1960s when the Aswan Dam was proposed; and in an amazing feat of engineering technology, the temple was cut out of the rock, lifted above the floodplain, and rebuilt in an appropriate location for preservation. More Information TourEgypt's page on Abu Simbel is worth a visit; also see the Oriental Institute's slide show on Abu Simbel for some great black and white photos of the monument. Be sure to try your hand at the Trivia Quiz on Abu Simbel. An 8 minute video from the University of Gloucester is excellent. This glossary entry is part of the Dictionary of Archaeology. Any mistakes are the responsibility of Kris Hirst.

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Archaeology: 100,000 Year Old Paint Pots at Blombos Cave

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100,000 Year Old Paint Pots at Blombos Cave Oct 14th 2011, 10:07 Reported in Science today are the results of investigations at Blombos Cave, a Middle Stone Age site on the Indian Ocean coast of South Africa. Researchers report that they found two tool kits which the inhabitants of the cave used to make paint pigment from red ochre. The nacre and inside of the Tk1 abalone shell (Tk1-S1) after removal of the quartzite grindstone. The red deposit is the ochre rich mixture that was in the shell and preserved under the cobble grinder. Image courtesy of Grethe Moell Pedersen Red ochre is a natural substance found throughout the world, and used by people or their ancestors to decorate objects, to paint walls, to tattoo one another and in rituals associated with burials. At 100,000 years old, the tool kits from Blombos are the earliest such found to date: but ochre use for pigments dates back at least another 200,000 years before that. The photo essay called 100,000 Year Old Paint Pots at Blombos Cave presents some of the photos provided by the researchers, and some background and context on what they found there. More Information 100,000 Year Old Paint Pots at Blombos Cave: A Photo Essay Blombos Cave Ochre Guide to the Middle Stone Age Blombos Cave Official Site is currently down, and I'm wondering if it isn't just because of traffic Henshilwood C, D'Errico F, Van Niekerk K, Coquinot Y, Jacobs Z, Lauritzen S-E, Menu M, and Garcia-Moreno R. 2011. A 100,000-Year-Old Ochre-Processing Workshop at Blombos Cave, South Africa. Science 334:219-222.

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Amelia Earhart's Fate

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Amelia Earhart's Fate Oct 13th 2011, 10:02 The records ended in early 1942, with the bones being held for government by Hoodless. Needless to say, we immediately launched a search for them, with the aid of the Fiji Museum. At this writing, we’ve not located either the bones or the shoe, bottle, and sextant box. And a comparison of Gallagher’s description of the sextant box with such boxes in historical collections around the world has produced only one with similar features. Interestingly, however, that one--now in the Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola, Florida--belonged to Fred Noonan. If we can’t find the bones in Fiji, we thought, perhaps we can find some on Nikumaroro. Unfortunately, Gallagher left no map--or at least we haven’t found one--showing where on the southeast end of the island the bones were discovered. But the Seven Site is near the southeast end, and we began to wonder about those colonial-era artifacts on it, and the water tank, and a hole in the ground. Did the debris represent stuff left during Gallagher’s search? Had the tank been set up to supply the searchers? Gallagher had written that the original discoverers of the skull had buried it, and he was poised to excavate it. Did the hole in the ground represent where the skull had been buried, and then dug up? Might there be teeth--excellent reservoirs of mitochondrial DNA, left in the hole? So in 2001 we attacked the Seven Site, clearing a lot of Scaevola and very, very carefully re-excavating the hole. We found no teeth, but nearby we did find a whole series of locations where there had been fires, associated with Frigate Bird, reef fish, and Green Sea Turtle bones. And we found some clusters of giant clam (Tridacna) shells, and a few artifacts. It’s clear that someone spent time at the Seven Site cooking birds, fish, and at least one sea turtle. Someone also hauled at least thirty or forty Tridacna clams up to the site, probably from nearby clam beds, and opened some of them in odd ways. Island people typically sneak up on giant clams while they’re sitting with their shells open, siphoning microscopic food particles out of the water, and quickly slice the adductor muscle that allows them to close their shells. With the clam immobilized, the harvester can then cut out the meat or safely bring the open shell ashore with the meat aboard. The clams at the Seven Site, however, had been brought ashore closed, and then someone had tried to pry some of them open by jamming a sharp piece of metal (which we found) through the hinge. When this didn’t work, they’d taken the clam in one hand and used the other to smash it open with a coral rock. The way you open an oyster in the eastern U.S. is by jamming an implement through the hinge. Was whoever tried to open Tridacna at the Seven Site more familiar with eastern U.S. oysters than with giant Pacific clams? Most of the artifacts found so far at the Seven Site are probably of colonial origin, or associated with the Coast Guard (M-1 rounds, for example), but a few may be something else. There's the little metal implement that someone tried to use to open the clams--a pointed chunk of ferrous metal, perhaps a piece of a hatch from the Norwich City, a 1929 shipwreck that lies on the reef off the northwest end of the island. There are three pieces of glass--one piece of plate glass, one fragment of a drinking glass, one fragment of a fishing float--found together in a cluster, as though they’d been in a bag or pocket, perhaps picked up on the beach and held for use in cutting things. There are two littleâ€"things--made of aluminum, punctured with wood screws, with scalloped edges. They look like perhaps clips of some kind, but several other uses have been suggested, and we really just don’t know. And there’s a lot of corrugated iron that someone spread over much of the site at some time in the past--all reduced to rust now. What on earth, we wonder, is that all about? Ric Gillespie speculates that whoever camped there dragged it in to catch water; I think he’s nuts, and speculate that Gallagher had it brought in to cover up the area he inspected to impede vegetation growth. We estimate that we cleared and inspected only perhaps twenty percent of the Seven Site in 2001. We found five fire areas, and excavated only three of them. We need to do more work at the site, and until we do, we’re reserving judgment, but it certainly looks like we may have found the site where Gallagher and the colonists found the bones--a place near the southeast end of the island, associated with fire, bird, and turtle bones. Perhaps--just perhaps--more archaeology at the site will tell us whether the human bones were Earhart’s.

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Yuchanyan Cave (China)

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Yuchanyan Cave (China) Oct 13th 2011, 10:02 Yuchanyan Cave is a karst rockshelter south of the Yangzi (or Yangtze) River basin in Daoxian county of Hunan province, China. It is one of several caves in the area which exhibit very good preservation and are known or suspected to have been inhabited by Upper Paleolithic and Early Neolithic hunter-gatherers during the Late Pleistocene and early Holocene--others include Xianrendong and Diaotonghuan in Jiangxi Province and Miaoyan in Guangxi Province. Yuchanyan's deposits contained the remains of at least two ceramic pots, securely dated by associated radiocarbon dates at having been placed in the cave between 18,300-15,430 cal BP. These sherds represent the earliest pottery ever discovered. Yuchanyan's cave floor includes an area of 100 square meters, some 12-15 meters (~40-50 feet) wide on its east-west axis and 6-8 meters (~20-26 feet) wide on the north-south. The upper deposits were removed in historical period, and the remaining site occupation debris ranges between 1.2-1.8 meters (4-6 feet) in depth. All of the occupations within the site represent brief occupations by Late Upper Paleolithic people, between 21,000 and 13,800 BP. At the time of the earliest occupation, the climate in the region was warm, watery and fertile, with plenty of bamboo and deciduous trees. Over time, a gradual warming throughout the occupation occurred, with a trend towards replacing the trees with grasses. Towards the end of the occupation, the Younger Dryas (ca. 13,000-11,500 cal BP) brought increased seasonality to the region. Plant and Animal Remains Yuchanyan cave exhibited generally good preservation, resulting in the recovery of a rich archaeological assemblage of stone, bone and shell tools as well as a wide variety of organic remains, including both animal bone and plant remains. Botanical species recovered from the cave's deposits include wild grapes and plums. Several rice opal phytoliths and husks have been identified, and some scholars have suggested that some of the grains illustrate incipient domestication. Mammals include bears, boar, deer, tortoises, and fish. The assemblage includes 27 different types of birds, including cranes, ducks, geese and swans; five kinds of carp; 33 kinds of shellfish. The floor of the cave was purposefully covered with alternating layers of red clay and massive ash layers, which likely represent deconstructed hearths, rather than production of clay vessels. Tools The sherds from Yuchanyan are some of the earliest examples of pottery yet found. They are all dark brown, coarsely made pottery with a loose and sandy texture. The pots were hand-built and low-fired (ca. 400-500 degrees C); kaolinite is a major component of the fabric. The paste is thick and uneven, with walls up to 2 centimeters thick. The clay was decorated with cord impressions, on both the interior and exterior walls. Enough sherds were recovered for the scholars to reconstruct a large, wide mouthed vessel (round opening 31 cm in diameter, vessel height 29 cm) with a pointed bottom; this style of pottery is known from much later Chinese sources as a fu cauldron. Stone tools recovered from Yuchanyan include cutters, points and scrapers. Polished bone awls and shovels, perforated shell ornaments with notched-tooth decorations also were found within the assemblages. Archaeology at Yuchanyan Excavations at Yuchanyan were conducted beginning in the 1980s, with extensive investigations between 1993-1995 led by Jiarong Yuan of the Hunan Provincial Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archaeology; and again between 2004 and 2005, under the direction of Yan Wenming. Sources This glossary entry is a part of the guide to the Invention of Pottery , and the Dictionary of Archaeology. Boaretto E, Wu X, Yuan J, Bar-Yosef O, Chu V, Pan Y, Liu K, Cohen D, Jiao T, Li S et al. 2009. Radiocarbon dating of charcoal and bone collagen associated with early pottery at Yuchanyan Cave, Hunan Province, China. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106(24):9595-9600. Prendergast ME, Yuan J, and Bar-Yosef O. 2009. Resource intensification in the Late Upper Paleolithic: a view from southern China. Journal of Archaeological Science 36(4):1027-1037. Wang W-M, Ding J-L, Shu J-W, and Chen W. 2010. Exploration of early rice farming in China. Quaternary International 227(1):22-28. Yang X. 2004. Yuchanyan Site at Daoxian, Human province. Pp. 34-35 in: Yang X, editor. Chinese Archaeology in the Twentieth Century: New Perspectives on China's Past., Volume 2. New Haven: Yale University Press.

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Archaeology: The Piazza dei Cavalieri Blacksmith Shop

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The Piazza dei Cavalieri Blacksmith Shop Oct 12th 2011, 08:12 This photo is the backside of a statue of the Grand Duke Cosimo I de' Medici, grand duke of Tuscany and friend and patron of Leonardo di Vinci in the 16th century. Cosimo is standing and looking into the Piazza dei Cavalieri (Knight's Square) in Pisa, Italy, near the site of the long-gone church of San Sebastiano alle Fabbriche Maggiori. Photo by Eric Perrone Underneath this quiet plaza are the remains of some five centuries of iron-mongering beginning in the 7th century AD: the San Sebastian church was named "near the blacksmith shops" when it was built in the 11th century. Archaeological excavations by Studio Associato InArcheo and led by G. Gattiglia have uncovered detailed information about one of the workshops, built during the 12th century. Frankly, five hundred years of the noise and smell of iron-working right in the middle of Pisa sounds pretty unpleasant to me, and by the time de' Medici rebuilt the square in grand style in 1558, all visible traces of the blacksmith's shops were gone. But not entirely.... Read more about the Piazza dei Cavalieri Blacksmith Shop

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Mounds

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Mounds Oct 12th 2011, 10:02 A mound is the generic word for a type of earthwork found throughout the world. Whether they are called by a different name, such as barrow, tumulus, platform mound, rammed earthwork, even some earthen pyramids, mounds are works primarily built of soil, perhaps augmented by a stone or wood foundation. Some are small and barely noticeable rises on the landscape, particularly after the affects of hundreds or thousands of years of erosion. Others can clearly be classed as monumental architecture, requiring the collaborative work of many individuals working for many weeks, months or years. These structures may or may not contain human burials. The term is most frequently used to describe the Mississippian mounds of the central and eastern North American continent, but the tradition of raising earthworks may be found in one form or another in prehistoric cultures around the world. Building a Mound Recent geophysical survey work on Mississippian mounds in the United States has revealed much detail about mound construction methodologies. What has been considered a fairly straightforward process (and often pictured in dioramas) of conscripted people carrying basket loads of soil to build up a mound of earth is turning out to be architecturally and ritually a far more complex process. First, a location is prepared. Depending on where a mound would be placed, terraforming activities to create the initial footprint might include leveling the region by cutting and filling. Then, the construction material must be located and transported to the site. Materials are usually selected from nearby, but depending on physical requirements and local resources, some mounds are built with soils carried from as far away as 100 meters (~300 feet). Some mounds may be built from multiple sources: some (like Monk's Mound in Cahokia) were built of purposefully mixed soils, perhaps for a ritual or geotechnical purpose. Mound Construction Types Mound construction, as defined for the Mississippian examples studied by Sherwood and Kidder, falls into five types: sod blocks, soil blocks, loaded fill, zoned fill and veneers. Sod blocks: intact sections of surface soil or turfs cut down through several soil horizons (A, B and/or E horizons). This method has been identified in northern and western European Neolithic and Bronze Age burial mounds, and found at the Mississippian site of Shiloh and Monks Mound at Cahokia. Most often placed with the sod top down. Soil blocks: intact sections of soil without the surfaces, consisting of clay-rich B-horizon or C-horizon soils. These were selected by the builders at Shiloh to create a solid internal core. Loaded fill: basket-loads of loose soil used to construct one fill event. Massive loaded fills have been identified at Cahokia mounds, consisting of alluvial soils brought in from the nearby floodplain. Loaded fills are often used to reconfigure a mound, to cover a previous construction or to raise the level of an existing mound. Zoned fill: purposefully placed light and dark layers, sometimes called "blanket mantle". Alternating types of fill may have had a structural purpose: for example, alternating a water-permeable soil layer with a non-permeable layer might help control erosion. There might also have been a ritual use: in some cases, such as Monks Mound at Cahokia, the layering is visually striking. Prepared veneer: thin layers of different source materials placed on the external slopes or stepped surfaces of a mound. Thickness ranges between 2-15 centimeters, depending on the scale of the mound. Veneers have been identified at Cahokia, Shiloh, and Lake George. Sherwood and Kidder found that of the mounds they examined in detail (Poverty Point, Raffman, Cahokia and Shiloh), construction occurred rapidly, on the order of weeks or months of effort rather than years. The larger mounds (Monks Mound at Cahokia, and Shiloh's Mound A) appeared to have been built and rebuilt over generations. Sources and Further Information This glossary entry is part of the Guide to Archaeological Site Types and Dictionary of Archaeology. Sherwood SC, and Kidder TR. 2011. The DaVincis of dirt: Geoarchaeological perspectives on Native American mound building in the Mississippi River basin. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 30(1):69-87. Trubitt MBD. 2000. Mound Building and Prestige Goods Exchange: Changing Strategies in the Cahokia Chiefdom. American Antiquity 65(4):669-690. Van Nest J, Charles DK, Buikstra JE, and Asch DL. 2001. Sod blocks in Illinois Hopewell mounds. American Antiquity 66(4):633-650.

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Pre-Clovis Culture

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Pre-Clovis Culture Oct 12th 2011, 10:02 Definition: Pre-Clovis culture refers to one of the defining debates in American prehistory is when did people get arrive? At present, the first absolutely agreed-upon culture in the Americas is a Paleoindian culture called Clovis, after the type site discovered in New Mexico in the 1920s. However, in many places, including North American sites like Cactus Hill and Meadowcroft Rockshelter, and South American sites such as Monte Verde, there appears to be fairly reliable (if still somewhat controversial) evidence for people in the Americas before Clovis. Since archaeologists can't even agree that there were humans in the Americas before Clovis, the term 'PreClovis' is used to mean those sites predating Clovis. See Tony Baker's Clovis First/Preclovis Revisited for a discussion of what PreClovis artifacts might look like. Chances are, that who ever preclovis people were, they were certainly not organized in anyway, but may have led an Archaic-like lifestyle, hunting, gathering and fishing. Dates for PreClovis run from the absolutely crazy of 50,000 or greater years ago, to the fairly reasonable of 15,000 years ago. PreClovis Sites All of these sites have been characterized as having preclovis components, although some are more accepted than others. Monte Verde, Meadowcroft Rockshelter, Cactus Hill, Paisley Caves, Manis Mastodon, Arlington Springs, Daisy Cave, Guitarrero Cave, Tlapacoya, Pedra Furada, Topper, Debra L. Friedkin Sources A Preclovis/Clovis Bibliography has been assembled for this project, and a collection of site descriptions for PreClovis sites is also available. This glossary entry is part of the Dictionary of Archaeology. Any mistakes are the responsibility of Kris Hirst. Alternate Spellings: pre-clovis, pre-Clovis

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Amelia Earhart's Fate

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Amelia Earhart's Fate Oct 12th 2011, 10:02 What "the Toms"â€"Willi and Gannonâ€"pointed out to Ric Gillespie back in the '80s was that to a celestial navigator, that last radio message, about flying 157-337, had a very specific meaning. A line from 157 to 337 degrees on the compass is a line perpendicular to the sunrise on the morning of July 2. It's a line that, following standard navigational practice of the day, Noonan would have laid out when he shot the sunrise with his navigational instruments and fixed their position. He then would have advanced that lineâ€"alled the "line of position" or LOP--by dead reckoning along their line of flight until he calculated that they should be within sight of Howland Island. If they couldn't see the island, then they'd simply fly up and down the line until they did see it, or got in contact with the Itasca. And if they didn’t see Howland, didn't contact the cutter? Then there was another bigger island, much more visible than Howland, a couple of hours flying time right down the LOPâ€"an uninhabited island in the Phoenix Island group, at the time called Gardner Island, now called Nikumaroro. That, the Toms proposed, was where Earhart and Noonan had wound up. Nikumaroro today is part of the Republic of Kiribati, pronounced "Kiribas". In Earhart’s day it was part of the British Crown Colony of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. Ric and Pat raised the several hundred thousand dollars necessary to get a team to Nikumaroro, and in 1989 we undertook our first archaeological survey. We've been back to the island five times in the last 16 years, and have done research on other islands in the vicinity as well as in Fiji, Tarawa, Funafuti, Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, the Solomon Islands, and even--to gain comparative data from Lockheed Electra crash sites--in Idaho and Alaska. We haven’t proved the hypothesis to be correct, but we have quite a bit of evidence pointing that way. A lot of that evidence is archaeological. Evidence From the Village In 1938, Nikumaroro was colonized as part of the Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme (yes, the PISS)--an effort to bleed off surplus population from the southern Gilbert Islands into economically self-sufficient coconut plantations in the mostly uninhabited Phoenix group. A village was established near the north end of the island, and in 1940 the colonial administrator, Gerald B. Gallagher, set up his headquarters there. Gallagher died and was buried on the island in 1941, but the colony lasted until 1963 when it succumbed to drought conditions. The village is a rather ghostly place today. Through the rampant vegetation--coconut, pandanus, a really nasty shrub called Scaevola--you can still see the neat coral-slab curbs that line the dead-straight, seven-meter-wide streets, and the remains of the big flagstaff can still be seen in the middle of the graveled parade ground, next to Gallagher’s grave. Public buildings stood on concrete platforms, which today loom out of the foliage, and the ground is littered with the artifacts of daily life--cans, bottles, dishpans, a bicycle here, a sewing machine there--poking up through the rotting coconuts and palm fronds. We didn’t plan to do archaeology in the village--an unlikely place to find a big Lockheed Electra or a couple of lost flyers--but as it’s turned out, we've done a bit of work there, and found a lot. To put it simply, the place is crazy with aircraft aluminum, most of it cut into small pieces for use in handicrafts--made into hair combs, used as inlay in woodwork. The colonists were apparently "quarrying" the aluminum somewhere and bringing it to the village. In surveys of specific house sites and in more general walkabouts, we’ve found several dozen little pieces, and a few bigger ones. Where were they quarrying it? Some of the aluminum is from a B-24; it's got part numbers that match B-24 specifications. A B-24 crashed on Kanton Island, northeast of Nikumaroro, and there was some travel between the islands during and after the War, so the source of these pieces is easily nailed down. But much of the aluminum, especially the small, cut-up pieces, doesn't appear to be military. No serial numbers, no zinc chromate paint. And some pieces have rivets that match those in Earhart's Electra. Four pieces, all from the same part of the village, represent some kind of interior fixture that was nailed to a wooden deck. Until recently we thought they were “dados”--used along the edges of an airplane’s deck to give it a finished look and cover up control cables, but we now think they may be insulating devices, perhaps used to insulate fuel tanks from nearby heater ducts. But we still don't know where any of the apparently non-military aluminum came from.

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Invention of Pottery

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Invention of Pottery Oct 12th 2011, 10:02 Of all the kinds of artifacts which may be found at archaeological sites, ceramics--objects made from fired clay--are surely one of the most useful. Ceramic artifacts are extremely durable, and may last thousands of years virtually unchanged from the date of manufacture. And, ceramic artifacts, unlike stone tools, are completely person-made, shaped of clay and purposely fired. Clay figurines are known from the earliest human occupations; but clay vessels, pottery vessels used for storing, cooking and serving food, and carrying water were first manufactured in China at least 15,500 years ago, and perhaps a little earlier yet. Upper Paleolithic: Yuchanyan Cave (China) The oldest pottery in the world is from Hunan Province, in China, at the karst cave of Yuchanyan. In sediments dated between 15,430 and 18,300 calendar years before the present (cal BP) were found sherds from at least two pots. One was partially constructed, and it was a wide mouthed jar with a pointed bottom that looks very much like the Incipient Jomon pot illustrated in the photograph and about 5,000 years younger. The Yuchanyan sherds are thick (up to 2 cm) and coarsely pasted, and decorated with cord-marks on the interior and exterior walls.Read more about Yuchanyan Cave Pre-Jomon: The Kamino Site (Japan) The next earliest sherds are from the Kamino site in southwestern Japan. This site has a stone tool assemblage which appears to classify it as late Paleolithic, called Pre-ceramic in Japanese archaeology to separate it from the Lower Paleolithic cultures of Europe and the mainland. At the Kamino site in addition to a handful of potsherds were found microblades, wedge-shaped microcores, spearheads and other artifacts similar to assemblages at Pre-ceramic sites in Japan dated between 14,000 and 16,000 years before the present (BP). This layer is stratigraphically below a securely dated Initial Jomon culture occupation of 12,000 BP. The ceramic sherds are not decorated, and are very small and fragmentary. Recent thermoluminescence dating of the sherds themselves returned a 13,000-12,000 BP date. Jomon Culture Sites Ceramic sherds are also found, also in small quantities, but with a bean-impression decoration, in a half-dozen sites of the Mikoshiba-Chojukado sites of southwestern Japan, also dated to the late Pre-ceramic period. These pots are bag shaped but somewhat pointed at the bottom, and sites with these sherds include the Odaiyamamoto and Ushirono sites, and Senpukuji Cave. Like those of the Kamino site, these sherds are also quite rare, suggesting that although the technology was known to the Late Pre-ceramic cultures, it just was not terribly useful to their nomadic lifestyle. In contrast, ceramics were very useful indeed to the Jomon peoples. In Japanese, the word "Jomon" means "cord-mark," as in cord-marked decoration on pottery. The Jomon tradition is the name given to hunter-gatherer cultures in Japan from about 13,000 to 2500 BP, when migrating populations from the mainland brought full-time wet rice agriculture. For the entire ten millennia, the Jomon peoples used ceramic vessels for storage and cooking. Incipient Jomon ceramics are identified by patterns of lines applied onto a bag-shaped vessel. Later, as on the mainland, highly decorated vessels were also manufactured by the Jomon peoples. Read more about Jomon culture By 10,000 BP, the use of ceramics is found throughout mainland China, and by 5,000 BP ceramic vessels are found throughout the world, both independently invented in the Americas or spread by diffusion into the middle eastern Neolithic cultures. Porcelain and High-Fired Ceramics The first high-fired glazed ceramics were produced in China, during the Shang (1700-1027 BC) dynasty period. At sites such as Yinxu and Erligang, high-fired ceramics appear in the 13th-17th centuries BC. These pots were made from a local clay, washed with wood ash and fired in kilns to temperatures of between 1200 and 1225 degrees Centigrade to produce a high fired lime-based glaze. Shang and Zhou dynasty potters continued to refine the technique, testing different clays and washes, eventually leading to the development of true porcelain. See Yin, Rehren and Zheng 2011. Read more about the Shang Dynasty Sources and a Bibliography This article was written based on Keiji Imamura's Prehistoric Japan: New Perspectives on Insular East Asia, and with the assistance of Charles Keally's summary of Japanese archaeology. A source bibliography on the invention of pottery is on the next page.

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Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Radiocarbon Dating

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Radiocarbon Dating Oct 12th 2011, 10:02 Definition: Radiocarbon dating uses the amount of Carbon 14 (C14) available in living creatures as a measuring stick. All living things maintain a content of carbon 14 in equilibrium with that available in the atmosphere, right up to the moment of death. When an organism dies, the amount of C14 available within it begins to decay at a half life rate of 5730 years; i.e., it takes 5730 years for 1/2 of the C14 available in the organism to decay. Comparing the amount of C14 in a dead organism to available levels in the atmosphere, produces an estimate of when that organism died. So, for example, if a tree was used as a support for a structure, the date that tree stopped living (i.e., when it was cut down) can be used to date the building's construction date. Studies have indicated that the amount of carbon in the atmosphere has not remained constant, and beginning about 1500 BC, dates provided by radiocarbon are too recent. These dates become farther off the older the time is indicated. Calibration of radiocarbon dates to offset the error is accomplished by a fairly complicated set of formulas, but they primarily use comparison to dendrochronology dating referents. Because of the rates of decay, radiocarbon dating is not useful for sites older than 50,000 years old. Archaeological sites older than that period must rely on alternative means of dating. See the article on RCYBP for more information. Sources For more detailed information on this and other dating techniques used in archaeology, see the Dating in Archaeology Short Course. This glossary entry is part of the Dictionary of Archaeology. Any mistakes are the responsibility of Kris Hirst. Also Known As: Carbon dating, C14 dating

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Archaeology: Most Popular Articles: Dog Domestication

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Dog Domestication Oct 12th 2011, 10:26 Dog history is really the history of the partnership between dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) and humans. That partnership is based on human needs for help with herding and hunting, an early alarm system, and a source of food in addition to the companionship many of us today know and love. Dogs get companionship, protection and shelter, and a reliable food source out of the deal. But when this partnership first occurred is at the moment under some controversy. Dog history has been studied recently using mitochondrial DNA, which suggests that wolves and dogs split into different species around 100,000 years ago; but whether humans had anything to do with that, no one really knows. Recent mtDNA analysis (Boyko et al.), suggests that the origin and location of dog domestication, long thought to be in east Asia, is in some doubt. Dog History and Archaeological Data The oldest dog skull discovered to date is from Goyet Cave, Belgium. The Goyet cave collections (the site was excavated in the mid-19th century) were examined recently (Germonpré and colleagues, cited below) and a fossil canid skull was discovered among them. Although there is some confusion as to which level the skull came from, it has been direct-dated by AMS at 31,700 BP. The skull most closely represents prehistoric dogs, rather than wolves. The study examining the Goyet cave also identified what appears to be prehistoric dogs at Chauvet Cave (~26,000 bp) and Mezhirich in the Ukraine (ca 15,000 years BP), among others. However, I am told that what the Goyet Cave skull represents is not a "domesticated dog" but rather a wolf in transition to a dog, and that the physical changes seen in the skulls (consisting primarily of the shortening of the snout) may have been driven by changes in diet, rather than specific selection of traits by humans. That transition in diet could well have been partly due to the beginnings of a relationship between humans and dogs, although the relationship might have been as tenuous as animals following human hunters to scavenge, rather like the behavior that is believed to have existed between humans and cats. You could argue that cats never have been domesticated, they just take advantage of the mice we attract. Evidence of a "Real" Domestication Partnership A burial site in Germany called Bonn-Oberkassel has joint human and dog interments dated to 14,000 years ago. The earliest domesticated dog found in China is at the early Neolithic (7000-5800 BC) Jiahu site in Henan Province. European Mesolithic sites like Skateholm (5250-3700 BC) in Sweden have dog burials, proving the value of the furry beasts to hunter-gatherer settlements. Danger Cave in Utah is the earliest case of dog burial in the Americas, at about 11,000 years ago. Dogs as Persons A reanalysis (Losey et al. 2011 cited below) of dog burials dated to the Late Mesolithic-Early Neolithic Kitoi period in the Cis-Baikal region of Siberia suggests that in some cases, dogs were awarded "person-hood" and treated equal to fellow humans. A dog burial at the Shamanaka site was of a male, middle-aged dog (probably a husky) which had suffered injuries to its spine, injuries from which it recovered. The burial, radio-carbon dated to ~6200 years ago (cal BP), was interred in a formal cemetery, and in a similar manner to the humans within that cemetery. Losey and colleagues believe the dog may have lived with its human family at Shamanaka. A wolf burial at the Lokomotiv-Raisovet cemetery (~7300 cal BP) was also an older adult male. The wolf's diet (from stable isotope analysis) was ungulates, and although its teeth were worn, there is no direct evidence that this wolf was part of the community. Nevertheless, it too was buried in a formal cemetery. These burials are exceptions, but not that rare: there are others, but there is also is evidence that Kitoi culture consumed dogs and wolves, as their burned and fragmented bones appear in refuse pits. Losey and associates suggest that these are indications that Kitoi hunter-gatherers considered that at least these individual dogs were "persons". Haplotypes and Grey Wolves A recent study led by Robert Wayne (vonHoldt et al., below) at UCLA and appearing in Nature in March 2010 reported that dogs appear to have a higher proportion of wolf haplotypes from grey wolves native to the Middle East. That suggests, contrary to earlier studies, that the middle east was the original location of domestication. What also showed up in this report was evidence for either a second Asian domestication or a later admixture with Chinese wolves. Dog History: When Were Dogs Domesticated? It seems clear that dog domestication was a long process, which started far longer ago than was believed even as recently as 2008. Based on evidence from Goyet and Chauvet caves in Europe, the dog domestication process probably began as long ago as 30,000 years, although the oldest evidence for a broader relationship, a working relationship, is at the Bonn-Oberkassel site, 14,000 years ago. The story of dog domestication is still in transition itself. Evidence for the appearance of breed variation is found in several European Upper Paleolithic sites. Medium-sized dogs (with wither heights between 45-60 cm) have been identified in Natufian sites in the Near East (Tell Mureybet in Syria, Hayonim Terrace and Ein Mallaha in Israel, and Pelagawra Cave in Iraq) dated to ~15,500-11,000 cal BP). Medium to large dogs (wither heights above 60 cm) have been identified in Germany (Kniegrotte), Russia (Eliseevichi I) and Ukraine (Mezin), ~17,000-13,000 cal BP). Small dogs (wither heights under 45 cm) have been identified in Germany (Oberkassel, Teufelsbrucke and Oelknitz), Switzerland (Hauterive-Champreveyres), France (Saint-Thibaud-de-Couz, Pont d'Ambon) and Spain (Erralia) between ~15,000-12,300 cal BP. See Pionnier-Capitan et al for more information. Brief Bibliography Thanks to researchers Bonnie Shirley and Jeremiah Degenhardt for fruitful discussions about dogs and dog history. This article is part of the Guide to the History of Animal Domestication. Akey, J. M. et al. 2010 Tracking footprints of artificial selection in the dog genome. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107(3):1160-1165. Boyko, Adam R., et al. 2009 Complex population structure in African village dogs and its implications for inferring dog domestication history. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Early Edition)(in press). Bozell, John R. 1988 Changes in the role of the dog in Proto-historic Pawnee culture. Plains Anthropologist 33(119):95-111. Haag, William G. 1948 Dog Remains in Archeological Sites. Plains Anthropologist 1(3):27-28. Germonpré, Mietje, et al. 2009 Fossil dogs and wolves from Palaeolithic sites in Belgium, the Ukraine and Russia: osteometry, ancient DNA and stable isotopes. Journal of Archaeological Science 36(2):473-490. Henderson, Norman 1994 Replicating dog travois travel on the northern plains. Plains Anthropologist 39(148):145-159. Losey RJ, Bazaliiskii VI, Garvie-Lok S, Germonpré M, Leonard JA, Allen AL, Anne Katzenberg M, and Sablin MV. 2011. Canids as persons: Early Neolithic dog and wolf burials, Cis-Baikal, Siberia. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 30(2):174-189. Morey, Darcy F. 2006 Burying key evidence: the social bond between dogs and people. Journal of Archaeological Science 33 158-175. Pionnier-Capitan M, Bemilli C, Bodu P, Célérier G, Ferrié J-G, Fosse P, Garcià M, and Vigne J-D. 2011. New evidence for Upper Palaeolithic small domestic dogs in South-Western Europe. Journal of Archaeological Science 38(9):2123-2140. Pluskowski, A. 2006 Where are the Wolves? Investigating the Scarcity of European Grey Wolf (Canis lupus lupus) Remains in Medieval Archaeological Contexts and its Implications. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 16:279-295. Snyder, Lynn M. 1991 Barking mutton: Ethnohistoric, ethnographic, archaeological, and nutritional evidence pertaining to the dog as a native American food resource on the Plains. In Beamers, Bobwhites, and Blue-Points: Tributes to the Career of Paul W. Parmalee. James R. Purdue, Walter E. Klippel, and Bonnie W. Styles, eds. Pp. 359-378. Springfield: Illinois State Museum Scientific Papers Vol. 23. White, Christine D., Mary E. D. Pohl, Henry P. Schwarcz, and Fred J. Longstaffe 2005 Isotopic Evidence for Maya Patterns of Deer and Dog Use at Preclassic Colha. Journal of Archaeological Science 28(1):89-107. Vila, Carles et al. 1997. Multiple and ancient origins of the domestic dog. Science 276(5319):1687-9. vonHoldt BM, et al. 2010. Genome-wide SNP and haplotype analyses reveal a rich history underlying dog domestication. Nature advance publication, 17 March 2010. This glossary entry is part of the Dictionary of Archaeology. Any mistakes are the responsibility of Kris Hirst.

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