Saturday, October 29, 2011

Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Maya Civilization Guide

Archaeology: What's Hot Now
These articles that had the largest increase in popularity over the last week // via fulltextrssfeed.com
Maya Civilization Guide
Oct 29th 2011, 10:03

Archaeological Sites of the Maya

Really the best way to learn about the Maya is to go and visit the archaeological ruins. Many of them are open to the public and have museums and even gift shops on the sites. You can find Maya archaeological sites in Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and in several Mexican states.

Major Maya Cities

Belize: Batsu'b Cave, Colha, Minanha, Altun Ha, Caracol, Lamanai, Cahal Pech, Xunantunich

El Salvador: Chalchuapa, Quelepa

Mexico: El Tajin, Mayapan, Cacaxtla, Bonampak, Chichén Itzá, Cobá , Uxmal, Palenque

Honduras: Copan, Puerto Escondido

Guatemala: Kaminaljuyu, La Corona (Site Q), Nakbe, Tikal

More on the Maya

Books on the Maya A collection of reviews of a handful of the recent books on the Maya.

Finding Maya Site Q. Mysterious Site Q was one of the sites referred to on glyphs and temple inscriptions; and researchers believe they have finally located it as the site of La Corona.

Spectacles and Spectators: Walking Tour of Maya Plazas. Although when you visit archaeological ruins of the Maya, you generally look at the tall buildings--but a lot interesting things are to be learned about the plazas, the big open spaces between the temples and palaces at the major Maya cities.

Maya Civilization Quiz

Are you ready to take the Maya Civilization Trivia Quiz?

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.
If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions

Archaeology: What's Hot Now: The Taj Mahal (India)

Archaeology: What's Hot Now
These articles that had the largest increase in popularity over the last week // via fulltextrssfeed.com
The Taj Mahal (India)
Oct 29th 2011, 10:03

The Taj Mahal, at Agra, India, was built at the request of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in the 17th century in memory of his wife and queen Mumtaz Mahal who died in AH 1040 (AD 1630). The exquisite architectural structure, designed by the famed Islamic architect Ustad 'Isa, was completed in 1648.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.
If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions

Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Teo Mask, Teotihuacan, Mexico

Archaeology: What's Hot Now
These articles that had the largest increase in popularity over the last week // via fulltextrssfeed.com
Teo Mask, Teotihuacan, Mexico
Oct 29th 2011, 10:03

This ceramic mask was created by the people of Teotihuacan, one of the largest cities in the world at AD 500, with an estimated population of 125,000 people. The rulers of Teotihuacan remain nameless to this day, leaving behind anonymous masks and statues.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.
If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions

Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Otzi the Iceman

Archaeology: What's Hot Now
These articles that had the largest increase in popularity over the last week // via fulltextrssfeed.com
Otzi the Iceman
Oct 29th 2011, 10:03

Otzi the Iceman is one of those amazing discoveries that continues, even decades after the original find, to surprise us with new bits of information. The glossary entry includes a summary, and you'll find some news stories, a bibliography, and even an extended joke in the Bulwer-Lytton style.

1. Otzi the Iceman (definition)

This entry is a summary of everything known about Otzi that's been published to date: where he was born, where he lived, how tall he was, what he weighed, what he ate, what he did for a living, what his clothes were like, how old he was, and what killed him. We don't know why he was killed--but science suggests that somebody didn't like him very much at all.

2. Moss and the Iceman

Studies of the Iceman's innards revealed a surprising variety of mosses, from different climate regimes suggesting that Otzi was a local man who knew and traveled the Alpine region widely

3. Death of an Iceman

Using multislice computed tomography, a research team from the Swiss Mummy Project at the University of Zurich discovered a 13-mm tear in an artery in the Iceman's chest, and have pinpointed what they think led to the Iceman's death.

4. Otzi's Clothing

A summary and links to detailed news stories about the MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry used to examine Otzi's clothes.

5. Bibliography of Otzi the Iceman

A list of the journal articles and books written about Otzi to date.

6. A Bulwer-Lytton-like Take on the Iceman

T.R. Talbott won a dishonorable mention in the 1997 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction contest (where WWW means "Wretched Writers Welcome"). He (or she, I was never able to contact him or her) took as his/her text the Iceman--and every time I read it I laugh out loud.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.
If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions

Friday, October 28, 2011

Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Australopithecus

Archaeology: What's Hot Now
These articles that had the largest increase in popularity over the last week // via fulltextrssfeed.com
Australopithecus
Oct 28th 2011, 10:03

Australopithecus is one of several species of hominins who may or may not be Homo sapiens direct ancestor. Fossils of Australopithecus have been found in Africa dating to the period between 4.2 and 1.4 million years ago. They discovered how to use tools approximately 2 million years ago, marking the beginning of the Lower Paleolithic period.

Australopithecus used bipedal locomotion (walked upright on two legs), had a long forearm and lumbar column relative to African or Asian apes, stood between 1.2 and 1.5 meters, and had a body mass of 30-35 kilograms and a brain size between 350 and 600 cubic centimeters.

Australopithecus Species

In general, scientists recognize seven species of the genus Australopithecus (although certainly there is debate). A. sebida, reported in 2011, may not be Australopithecus, and reports suggest that the species definition may need revising.

Australopithecus afarensis, 3.6-2.9 million years ago (mya). Laetoli (Tanzania), Koobi Fora and West Turkana (Kenya), Omo and Selam aka Dikika (Ethiopia), Middle Awash and Hadar regions in Ethiopia, Sterkfontein, South Africa

A. aethiopicus, 2.7-2.3 mya. West Turkana in Kenya, Omo Shungura in Ethiopia.

A. africanus, 3-2 mya. Makapansgat, Sterkfontein, Taung in South Africa.

A. anamensis, 4.17-3.9 mya. Kanapoi and Allia Bay in Kenya, Fejej and Galili in Ethiopia.

A. boisei, 2.3-1.4 million years ago. Chiwondo in Malawi, Olduvai Gorge and Peninj in Tanzania, Koobi Fora and West Turkana in Kenya, Omo Shungura and Konso-Gardula in Ethiopia.

A. garhi 2.5 mya. Bouri and Omo Shungura in Ethiopia, Baringo-Chemeron in Kenya.

A. robustus, 1.7 mya. Kromdraai, Swartkrans, Drimolen and Gondolin, South Africa.

A. sebida, 1.977 mya. Malapa cave, South Africa.

Sources

This definition is part of the Guide to the Lower Paleolithic.

Alemseged, Zeresenay, et al. 2006 A juvenile early hominin skeleton from Dikika, Ethiopia. Nature 443:296-301.

Alemseged, Zeresenay, et al. 2006 A new hominin from the Basal Member of the Hadar Formation, Dikika, Ethiopia, and its geological context. Journal of Human Evolution 49:499-514. Free download.

Asfaw, Berhane, et al. 1999 Australopithecus garhi: A New Species of Early Hominid from Ethiopia. Science 284(5414):629-635. Free download.

Brown, P., et al. 2007 A new small-bodied hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia. Nature 431:1055-1061.

de Heinzelin, Jean, et al. 1999 Environment and Behavior of 2.5-Million-Year-Old Bouri Hominids. Science 284(5414):625-629.

Johanson, Donald C. 2004 Lucy, Thirty Years Later: An expanded view of Australopithecus afarensis. Journal of Anthropological Research 60(4):465-486.

Kimbel, William H., et al. 2006 Was Australopithecus anamensis ancestral to A. afarensis? A case of anagenesis in the hominin fossil record. Journal of Human Evolution 51134-152.

McKee, Jeffrey K. 1993 Faunal dating of the Taung hominid fossil deposit. Journal of Human Evolution 25:363-376.

McNulty, Kieran P., Stephen R. Frost, and David S. Strait 2006 Examining affinities of the Taung child by developmental simulation. Journal of Human Evolution 51274-296.

Prat, Sandrine, et al. 2005 First occurrence of early Homo in the Nachukui Formation (West Turkana, Kenya) at 2.3-2.4 Myr. Journal of Human Evolution 49(2):230-240.

Raichlen, David A., Herman Pontzer, and Michael D. Sockol in press The Laetoli footprints and early hominin locomotor kinematics. Journal of Human Evolution in press.

Schoeninger, Margaret J., Holly Reeser, and Kris Hallin 2003 Paleoenvironment of Australopithecus anamensis at Allia Bay, East Turkana, Kenya: evidence from mammalian herbivore enamel stable isotopes. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 22(3):200-207.

Schubert, Blaine W., Peter S. Ungar, Matt Sponheimer, and Kaye E. Reed 2006 Microwear evidence for Plio-Pleistocene bovid diets from Makapansgat Limeworks Cave, South Africa. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 241:301-319.

Semaw, Sileshi 2000 The World's Oldest Stone Artefacts from Gona, Ethiopia: Their Implications for Understanding Stone Technology and Patterns of Human Evolution Between 2·6-1·5 Million Years Ago. Journal of Archaeological Science 27:1197-1214.

Tobias, Phillip V. 1998 Ape-like Australopithecus after seventy years: Was it a hominid? Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4(2):284-307.

Tuttle, R. H., D. M. Webb, and M. Baksh 1991 Laetoli toes and Australopithicus afarensis. Human Evolution 6(3):193-200.

Villmoare BA, and Kimbel WH. 2011. CT-based study of internal structure of the anterior pillar in extinct hominins and its implications for the phylogeny of robust Australopithecus. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Early Edition.

Ward, Carol, Maeve Leakey, and Alan Walker 1999 The new hominid species Australopithecus anamensis. Evolutionary Anthropology 7(6):197-205. Free download.

White, Tim D. 2002 Earliest hominids. In The Primate Fossil Record. Walter C. Hartwig, ed. Pp. 407-418. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wynn, Jonathan G., et al. 2006 Geological and palaeontological context of a Pliocene juvenile hominin at Dikika, Ethiopia. Nature 443:332-336.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.
If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions

Archaeology: What's Hot Now: A Walking Tour of Machu Picchu

Archaeology: What's Hot Now
These articles that had the largest increase in popularity over the last week // via fulltextrssfeed.com
A Walking Tour of Machu Picchu
Oct 28th 2011, 10:03

Half-way down the Inca Road from Machu Picchu on the mountain called Huayna Picchu lies the Temple of the Moon. The Temple covers the entire landscape of the slopes of Huayna Picchu and consists of a set of architecturally enhanced caves, most likely used to hold mummies of important Inca ancestors and provide places for their worship. More fine stonework embellishes the walls of these caves, some of which are decorated with niches and altars carved into the native rock.

More Inca Resources

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.
If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Archaeology: What's Hot Now: The Sphinx

Archaeology: What's Hot Now
These articles that had the largest increase in popularity over the last week // via fulltextrssfeed.com
The Sphinx
Oct 27th 2011, 10:03

The ancient Egyptian sculpture called The Sphinx is also located on the Giza plateau, and was probably carved at the request of the 4th dynasty pharaoh Chephren or Khafre. The statue is carved out of the native bedrock, and has the body of a lion and (so is believed) Pharaoh Chephren's face. Later the Sphinx became associated with the Egyptian god Harmakhis. For more in-depth reading:

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.
If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions

Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Zapotec Monte Alban

Archaeology: What's Hot Now
These articles that had the largest increase in popularity over the last week // via fulltextrssfeed.com
Zapotec Monte Alban
Oct 27th 2011, 10:03

On the summit and shoulders of a very high, very steep hill in the middle of the semiarid Valley of Oaxaca, in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, lies one of the most well-studied archaeological sites in the Americas. Known as Monte Albán, the site was the capital of the Zapotec culture from 500 BC to AD 700, reaching a peak population of over 16,500 between AD 300-500.

The earliest Zapotec city was San Jose el Mogote, also in the Oaxaca Valley and founded about 1600-1400 BC; it was abandoned about 500 BC, when the capital city of Monte Albán was founded at the beginning of the Zapotec heyday. The Zapotecs built their new capital city in the middle of the valley of Oaxaca, between three populous valley arms and at the top of this steep hill. Building a city away from major population centers is called 'disembedded capital' by some archaeologists, and Monte Alban is one of very few disembedded capitals known in the ancient world.

Monumental Architecture at Monte Alban

The site of Monte Albán has several memorable extant architectural features, including pyramids, thousands of terraces, and long deep stone staircases. Also still to be seen today are Los Danzantes, over 300 stone monuments carved between 350-200 BC, carved with life-sized figures which appear to be portraits of slain war captives. Building J, interpreted by some scholars as an astronomical observatory, is a very odd structure indeed, with no right angles on the exterior--perhaps intended to represent an arrow--and a maze of narrow tunnels in the interior.

The Zapotecs were farmers, and made distinctive pottery vessels; they traded with other civilizations in Mesoamerica included Teotihuacan and the Mixtec culture. They had a market system, for the distribution of goods into the cities, and like many Mesoamerican civilizations, built ball courts for playing ritual games wtih rubber balls.

Monte Albán's Excavators and Visitors

Excavations at Monte Albán have been conducted by Jorge Acosta, Alfonso Caso, and Ignacio Bernal, supplemented by surveys of the Valley of Oaxaca by Americans Kent Flannery, Richard Blanton, Stephen Kowalewski, Gary Feinman, Laura Finsten, and Linda Nicholas. Together these studies illuminate this strange yet familiar society.

Today the site awes visitors, with its enormous rectangular green grassed plaza with pyramid platforms on the east and west sides. Massive pyramid structures mark the north and south sides of the plaza, and the mysterious Building J lies near the center.

-----

Further Reading

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.
If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions

Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Mammoth Bone Dwellings

Archaeology: What's Hot Now
These articles that had the largest increase in popularity over the last week // via fulltextrssfeed.com
Mammoth Bone Dwellings
Oct 27th 2011, 10:03

Definition:

One very early type of housing used by hunter gatherers in central Europe during the Late Pleistocene was mammoth bone dwellings. A mammoth (Mammuthus primogenus, and also known as Woolly Mammoth) was a type of enormous ancient now-extinct elephant, a hairy large tusked mammal that stood ten feet tall as an adult. Mammoths roamed most of the world, including the continents of Europe and North America, until they died out at the end of the Pleistocene. During the late Pleistocene, mammoths provided meat and skin for human hunter-gatherers, and, in some cases, building materials for houses.

Mammoth Bone Hut Dates

Mammoth bone huts, structures built primarily from the bones and tusks from mammoths, are known from sites throughout eastern Europe (Russia, Ukraine, Poland) between about 27,000 and 12,000 years ago, with a concentration found in the Dneiper River valley of Russia and Ukraine dated about 15,000 years ago. The Dneiper River sites are located on promontories with good vistas, and the sites generally consist of a single circular or oval structure surrounded by pits filled with bone and stone tools, fragments, and ashes. The huts are constructed of mammoth bones and tusks, and were probably covered with hide and sometimes with rough stone foundation rings. Many of them contain exotic tools or decorated mammoth skulls and scapulae, and although it is tempting to attribute some sort of ceremonial importance to such objects, I'll resist.

Mammoth bone dwellings are not the only or first type of house: Upper Paleolithic open air houses are found as pitlike depressions excavated into the subsoil or based with stone rings or postholes, like that seen at Pushkari or Kostenki. Some UP houses are partly built of bone and partly of stone and wood, such as Grotte du Reine, France.

Sources

See specific site data below.

Examples:

Dneiper River sites which have been extensively published in English include Mezhirich, Molodova, and Ginsy, all located in what is now Ukraine.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.
If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Archaeology: Identifying the Effects of Landnám

Archaeology
Get the latest headlines from the Archaeology GuideSite. // via fulltextrssfeed.com
Identifying the Effects of Landnám
Oct 26th 2011, 09:27

Landn�m ("land take" in Old Norse) is a type of agriculture used in the 9th and 10th centuries by Norse farmers during their expansion into the Atlantic from their homes in Scandinavia. Essentially, when the Norse came to Iceland and Greenland, they instituted the form of farming they practiced at home: cattle grazing. Didn't work very well.

Iceland Vista taken from Borgarvirki in Vestur-H�navatnss�sla
Iceland Vista taken from Borgarvirki in Vestur-H�navatnss�sla; photo by Atli Har�arson

Scholars sometimes use landn�m to mean "colonization": which is right on the mark, because the processes of landn�m brought about not just an infusion of people colonies, but also plant colonies into a region. The Norse colonies in Greenland lasted three hundred years before failing: scholars believe they fell victim to climate change and their unwillingness to adapt the landn�m system to new circumstances.

A recent article in Vegetation History and Archaeobotany by Norse scholars JE Schofield and KJ Edwards describes how archaeologists use the presence of pollen, charcoal and fungal spores to identify landn�m in a landscape, and gives me a terrific reason to update my article on Viking agriculture.

Schofield J, and Edwards K. 2011. Grazing impacts and woodland management in Eriksfjord: Betula, coprophilous fungi and the Norse settlement of Greenland. Vegetation History and Archaeobotany 20(3):181-197.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.
If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions

Archaeology: Most Popular Articles: Terracotta Army

Archaeology: Most Popular Articles
These articles are the most popular over the last month. // via fulltextrssfeed.com
Terracotta Army
Oct 26th 2011, 10:31

The exquisite terracotta army of the first Qin Dynasty ruler Shihuangdi represents the emperor’s ability to control the resources of the newly unified China, and his attempt to recreate and maintain that empire in the afterlife. The soldiers are part of Shihuangdi's tomb, located near the modern town of Xi'an, Shaanxi province in China.

The first emperor of all China was a fellow named Ying Zheng, born in 260 BC during the "Warring States Period", a chaotic, fierce, and dangerous time in Chinese history. He was a member of the Qin dynasty, and ascended to the throne in 247 BC at the age of twelve and a half. In 221 BC King Zheng united all of what is now China and renamed himself Qin Shihuangdi ("First Emperor of Qin"), although ‘united’ is rather a tranquil word to be using for the bloody conquest of the region’s small polities. According to the Shiji records of the Han dynasty court historian Sima Qian, Qin Shihuangdi was a phenomenal leader, who began connecting existing walls to create the first version of the Great Wall of China, constructed an extensive network of roads and canals throughout his empire, standardized written language and money, and abolished feudalism, establishing in its place provinces run by civilian governors. Qin Shihuangdi died in 210 BC, and the Qin dynasty was quickly extinguished within a few years by the early members of the Han dynasty. But, during the brief period of Shihuangdi’s rule, a remarkable testament to his control of the countryside and its resources was constructed: a semi-subterranean mausoleum complex and an army of 7,000 life-size sculpted clay terracotta soldiers, chariots, and horses.

Terracotta Army and Shihuangdi's Necropolis

Shihuangdi’s necropolis was surely large enough to merit the name of city of death. The outer wall of the mausoleum precinct measured 2100 x 975 meters and enclosed administrative buildings, horse stables and cemeteries; the heart of the precinct was the 500x500 meter tomb for Shihuangdi. Found in the precinct were ceramic and bronze sculptures, including cranes, horses, chariots, stone carved armor for humans and horses, and human sculptures that archaeologists have interpreted as representing officials and acrobats. The three pits containing the now-famous terracotta army are located 600 meters east of the mausoleum precinct, in a farm field where they were re-discovered by a well-digger in the 1920s.

The mausoleum precinct was built beginning shortly after Zheng became king, in 246 BC, and construction continued until about 209 BC. Four pits were excavated to hold the terracotta army, although only three were filled by the time construction ceased. The construction of the pits included excavation, placement of a brick floor, and construction of a sequence of rammed earth partitions and tunnels. The floors of the tunnels were covered with mats, the life-sized statuary was placed erect on the mats and the tunnels were covered with logs. Finally each pit was buried. In the largest pit (14,000 square meters), the infantry was placed in rows four deep. Pit 2 includes a U-shaped layout of chariots, cavalry and infantry; and Pit 3 contains a command headquarters. Only about 1,000 soldiers have been excavated so far; archaeologists estimate that there are over 7,000 soldiers (infantry to generals), 130 chariots with horses, and 110 cavalry horses.

The statues of the infantry soldiers range between 5 foot 8 inches and 6 foot 2 inches; the commanders are 6 and half feet tall. The lower half of the kiln-fired ceramic bodies were made of solid terracotta clay, the upper half hollow. It is evident that the statues were vividly painted including a color called Chinese purple; although most of that paint has flown, traces of it may be seen on some of the statues.

Chinese excavations have been conducted at Shihuangdi’s mausoleum complex since 1974, and have included excavations in and around the mausoleum complex; they continue to reveal astonishing findings. As Xiaoneng Yang describes Shihuangdi’s mausoleum complex, “Ample evidence demonstrates the First Emperor’s ambition: not only to control all aspects of the empire during his lifetime but to recreate the entire empire in microcosm for his after life.”

Sources

Hu, Ya-Qin, et al. 2007 What can pollen grains from the Terracotta Army tell us? Journal of Archaeological Science 341153-1157.

Liu, Z., et al. 2007 Influence of Taoism on the invention of the purple pigment used on the Qin terracotta warriors. Journal of Archaeological Science 34(11):1878-1883.

Xiaoneng Yang. 2004. “Mausoleum of the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty and its Terracotta Army Pits at Lishan and Xiyang, Lintong, Shaanxi Province.” In Chinese Archaeology in the Twentieth Century: New Perspectives on China's Past, Volume 2, pp 225-229. Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut.

More on the Terracotta Army

See the terracotta army photo essay.

Pollen and the Terracotta Army describes how pollen has helped identify where the various terracotta sculptures were made.

Chinese purple is a manufactured pigment used on the soldiers.

Stan Parchin, Senior Museum Correspondent for Art History, reports that replicas of the terracotta soldiers currently reside in the public lobby of an office building on Fifth Avenue and East 53rd Street in Manhattan. England just executed a cultural agreement with China, and some of the terracotta figures will be featured soon as part of a special exhibition in London.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.
If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions

Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Guilá Naquitz (Mexico)

Archaeology: What's Hot Now
These articles that had the largest increase in popularity over the last week // via fulltextrssfeed.com
Guilá Naquitz (Mexico)
Oct 26th 2011, 10:03

Definition:

Guilá Naquitz is a small cave located within the eastern range of mountains in the Valley of Oaxaca. The site was occupied at least six times between 8000 and 6500 BC, by hunters and gatherers, probably during the fall (October to December) of the year.

A wide range of plant food was recovered within the cave deposits of Guilá Naquitz, including acorn, pinyon, cactus fruits, hackberries, and most importantly, the wild forms of bottle gourd, squash and beans. Researchers have taken this to be evidence of early cultivation of bottle gourd, squash and beans.

Three cobs of teosinte (the wild progenitor of maize) were found within the deposits and direct-dated by AMS radiocarbon dating to about 5400 years old; they show some signs of domestication. If that is correct, the Guila Naquitz domesticated teosinte is older than that from the Tehuacan valley sites by about 700 years.

Guilá Naquitz was excavated in the 1970s by a team from the University of Michigan led by Kent Flannery.

Sources

This glossary entry is part of the Guide to the Domestication of Corn and the Dictionary of Archaeology.

Benz, Bruce. 2005. Archaeological evidence of teosinte domestication from Guilá Naquitz, Oaxaca. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98(4):2104-2106.

Flannery, Kent V. 1986. Guilá Naquitz: Archaic Foraging and Early agriculture in Oaxaca, Mexico. Academic Press, New York.

Marcus, Joyce and Kent V. Flannery. 2005. The coevolution of ritual and society: New 14C dates from ancient Mexico. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 101(52):18257-18261

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.
If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Easter Island

Archaeology: What's Hot Now
These articles that had the largest increase in popularity over the last week // via fulltextrssfeed.com
Easter Island
Oct 25th 2011, 10:03

Easter Island, home of the enormous statues called moai, is a tiny dot of volcanic matter in the South Pacific Ocean. Called by Chileans the Isla de Pascua, Easter Island is known as Rapanui by its inhabitants, today primarily newcomers from Chile and the Polynesian islands.

Original Settlement of Easter Island

Genetic research has shown that Easter Island was settled by about 40 Polynesians, who landed on the island ~700 AD and went on, undisturbed, for several centuries. During that time, the population grew, reaching a total population of perhaps some 10,000 at its height, ca 1000 AD. The original Easter Islanders were hunters and fishers, relying on the large variety of birds that made the island, covered at the time with a lush palm tree forest, their home.

The most striking feature of the island are the moai, over 900 large stone statues or megaliths of faces, between 6 and 33 feet high. Construction of the moai is thought to have begun ~AD 1000-1100 and ended ~AD 1680. Each was carved out of the Rano Raraku quarry, a volcanic crater on Rapanui. More than 300 unfinished moai are still in place there-the largest unfinished statue at Rano Raruku is over 60 feet tall. Moai were moved by the islanders distances of up to 10 miles to prepared sites all over the island, set upright and decorated with inlaid coral eyes and a 'pukao', a hat of red scoria.

Ecological Disaster at Easter Island

The feverish construction of the moai apparently caused the breakdown of the society. The palm tree forest was cut down for housing and to allow agricultural fields, but primarily, it must be said, to move the enormous moai into place. As the palm trees and shrubs disappeared-18 different plant species went extinct-the birds left, and without palm trees to build canoes, the people were unable to fish. According to dated pollen core samples from an interior lake, the sharpest decline (90%) took place ca 1150-1165 cal AD. After that, the society apparently devolved to warfare, as evidenced by human skeletal remains showing the effects of violence and the presence of stone tool weapons about 1100 AD and increasing over time. The violence was also aimed at the moai, with many of them toppled and broken. The last of the trees were gone ~1475-1500 AD.

  • In The Statues that Walked, however, researchers Hunt and Lip argue that moai construction actually made it possible for the Rapanui to survive in the face of nearly impossible odds.
  • Read the review of The Statues that Walked

The records of the rise and fall of Easter Island's population are found in the archaeological remnants of the society: the pollen, skeletal remains, and other elements show that the survivors of the violence were able to adapt to the crisis and rebuilt a system of agriculture based on sweet potatoes and sugar cane. By the time the Dutch landed in 1722, however, the society had recovered and rebuilt peaceful farming communities with a population of about 3,000.

But the Dutch and British brought syphilis with them, devastating the population. In 1866, Peruvian kidnappers took half the remaining population away and enslaved them. A year later, they brought 15 survivors back to the island, some of whom had contracted smallpox. By 1872, there were no more than 110 descendants of the original inhabitants of Easter Island.

Agriculture on Easter Island

Horticulture was being practiced on the island by AD 1300, evidenced by the remains of house gardens, horticultural fields and chicken houses. Crops were tended or grown in a mixed-crop, dryland production systems, growing yams, sweet potatoes, bottle gourd, sugar cane, taro and bananas. "Lithic mulch" was used to increase soil fertility; rock walls and stone circle planting pits helped protect the crops from wind and rain erosion as the deforestation cycle continued.

Easter Island Archaeology

Ongoing archaeological research about Easter Island concerns the reasons for the environmental degradation and the end of the society about 1500 AD. One study argues that a colonization of the island by the Pacific rat (Rattus exulans) may have exacerbated the end of the palm trees; another says that climatic changes had an effect on the agricultural stability of the economy.

The dating of all events at Easter Island is under debate as well, with some researchers arguing the original colonization took place later, or that the birds and palm trees were gone as early as AD 900. Most argue that the major deforestation took place over a period of about 200 years; which 200 years seem to be the biggest question.

The precise manner in which the moai were transported across the island-dragged horizontally or walked upright-has also been debated. Both methods have been tried experimentally and were successful in erecting moai.

Building Easter Island Statues

The statues on Rapa Nui were built from a variety of materials, but primarily volcanic tuff from two quarries, the Puna Pao quarry and the much larger Rano Rakaru quarry. The ahu--the platforms upon which the statues were erected--were painstakingly constructed from beach boulders and dressed flow lava stone walling.

Sources

See the photo essay Moai in their Landscape for more images and information

Barnes, S. S., E. Matisoo-Smith, and T. L. Hunt 2006 Ancient DNA of the Pacific rat (Rattus exulans) from Rapa Nui (Easter Island). Journal of Archaeological Science 33:1536-1540.

Cole, Anthony and John Flenley 2008 Modelling human population change on Easter Island far-from-equilibrium. Quaternary International 184(1):150-165.

Hamilton S, Seager Thomas M, and Whitehouse R. 2011. Say it with stone: constructing with stones on Easter Island. World Archaeology 43(2):167-190.

Horrocks, Mark and Joan A. Wozniak 2008 Plant microfossil analysis reveals disturbed forest and a mixed-crop, dryland production system at Te Niu, Easter Island. Journal of Archaeological Science 35(1):126-142.

Hunt, Terry L. 2007 Rethinking Easter Island's ecological catastrophe. Journal of Archaeological Science 34:485-502.

Hunt, Terry L. and Carl P. Lipo 2006 Late Colonization of Easter Island. Science 311(5767):1603-1606.

Lipo CP, and Hunt TL. 2009. A.D. 1680 and Rapa Nui Prehistory. Asian Perspectives 48(2):309-317.

Louwagie, Geertrui, Christopher M. Stevenson, and Roger Langohr 2006 The impact of moderate to marginal land suitability on prehistoric agricultural production and models of adaptive strategies for Easter Island (Rapa Nui, Chile). Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 25:290-317.

Mann, Daniel, et al. 2008 Drought, vegetation change, and human history on Rapa Nui (Isla de Pascua, Easter Island). Quaternary Research 69(1):16-28.

Meith A, and Bork H-R. 2010. Humans, climate or introduced rats - which is to blame for the woodland destruction on prehistoric Rapa Nui (Easter Island)? Journal of Archaeological Science 37(2):417-426.

Prebble, M. and J. L. Dowe 2008 The late Quaternary decline and extinction of palms on oceanic Pacific islands. Quaternary Science Reviews 27(27-28):2546-2567.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.
If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions

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

Archaeology: What's Hot Now
These articles that had the largest increase in popularity over the last week // via fulltextrssfeed.com
Pre-Clovis Sites
Oct 25th 2011, 10:03

The Pre-Clovis culture, also spelled Preclovis and sometimes PreClovis, is the name given by archaeologists to the people who colonized the American continents before the Clovis big-game hunters. The existence of Pre-Clovis sites has been widely discounted up until the past fifteen years or so, although evidence has slowly been growing and most of the archaeological community support these and other such dated sites.

Cactus Hill (Virginia, USA)

Cactus Hill is an important Clovis period site located on the Nottaway River of Virginia, with a possible pre-Clovis site below it, dated to between 18,000 and 22,000 years ago. The PreClovis site is redeposited, apparently, and the stone tools are somewhat problematic.

Debra L. Friedkin Site (Texas, USA)

Artifacts from the Pre-Clovis Occupation at Debra L. Friedkin Sitecourtesy Michael R. Waters

The Debra Ll. Friedkin site is a redeposited site, located on a fluvial terrace close to the famous Clovis and pre-Clovis Gault site. The site includes occupation debris beginning in the Pre-Clovis period of some 14-16,000 years ago through the Archaic period of 7600 years ago.

Guitarrero Cave (Peru)

12,000 Year Old Textiles from Guitarerro Cave in Peru© Edward A. Jolie and Phil R. Geib

Guitarrero Cave is a rockshelter in the Ancash region of Peru, where human occupations date to approximately 12,100 years ago. Fortuitous preservation has allowed researchers to collect textiles from the cave, dated to the Pre-Clovis component.

Manis Mastodon (Washington State, USA)

3-D Reconstruction of the Bone Point in Manis Mastodon RibImage courtesy of Center for the Study of the First Americans, Texas A&M University

The Manis Mastodon site is a site in Washington State on the Pacific Coast of North America. There, some 13,800 years ago, Pre-Clovis hunter-gatherers killed an extinct elephant and, presumably, had bits of it for dinner.

Meadowcroft Rockshelter (Pennsylvania, USA)

If Monte Verde was the first site seriously considered as Pre-Clovis, than Meadowcroft Rockshelter is the site which should have been seriously considered. Discovered on a tributary stream of the Ohio River in Pennsylvania, Meadowcroft dates to at least 14,500 years ago and shows a technology which is decidedly different from traditional Clovis.

Monte Verde (Chile)

Tent Foundation, Monte Verde IIImage courtesy of Tom D. Dillehay

Monte Verde is arguably the first Pre-Clovis site to be taken seriously by the majority of the archaeological community. The archaeological evidence shows a small group of huts were built on the shoreline in far southern Chile, about 15,000 years ago. This is a photo essay of the archaeological investigations.

Paisley Caves (Oregon, USA)

Paisley is the name of a handful of caves within the interior of the American state of Oregon in the Pacific northwest. Fieldschool investigations at this site in 2007 identified a rock-lined hearth, human coprolites and a midden dated to between 12,750 and 14,290 calendar years before the present.

Pedra Furada (Brazil)

Pedra Furada is a rockshelter in northeastern Brazil, where quartz flakes and possible hearths have been identified dated to between 48,000 and 14,300 years ago. The site is still somewhat controversial, although the later occupations, dated after 10,000 are accepted.

Tlapacoya (Mexico)

Tlapacoya is a multicomponent site located in the basin of Mexico, and it includes an important Olmec component site. Tlapacoya's Pre-Clovis site returned radiocarbon dates between 21,000 and 24,000 years ago.

Topper (Virginia, USA)

The Topper site is in the Savannah River floodplain of the Atlantic coast of Virginia. The site is multicomponent, meaning that human occupations later than Pre-Clovis have been identified, but the two Pre-Clovis component date to 15,000 and 50,000 years ago. The 50,000 is still fairly controversial.

Upward Sun River Mouth Site (Alaska, USA)

Excavating at Xaasaa Na’ in August 2010Image courtesy of Ben A. Potter

The Upward Sun River Mouth Site has four archaeological occupations, the oldest of which is a Pre-Clovis site with a hearth and animal bones dated to 11,250-11,420 RCYBP.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.
If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions

Monday, October 24, 2011

Archaeology: Guide to the Moche

Archaeology
Get the latest headlines from the Archaeology GuideSite. // via fulltextrssfeed.com
Guide to the Moche
Oct 24th 2011, 08:32

Recently, I ran across a terrifically comprehensive article by scholar Claude Chapdelaine on the Moche in the Journal of Archaeological Research, and I used it as a starting point to update my Guide to the Moche and beef up my overall coverage.

Moche Portrait Head
Moche Portrait Head. This portrait vessel, with its commanding features, depicts a prominent ancient Moche ruler from northern Peru. The Moche people were masters of sculpture and frequently depicted elite individuals through sculpture, often creating record of their childhood, adulthood and even death. John Weinstein � The Field Museum

The Moche [AD 100-750] (aka Mochica) were urban dwellers, who built vast cities, enormous pyramids and an extensive canal system on the narrow strip of land between the northern Pacific coast of Peru and the Andes mountains. They are best known, no doubt about it, for their amazing ceramic expertise; but their art and ritual history is as rich and varied as any society I've ever come across. Their large cities with dual pyramid-temples are open to the public, although I shudder to say that, since tourism sometimes signals damage to come. I'll say this: be gentle when you go.

I couldn't even scratch the surface of all the information that Chapdelaine has compiled, so if you are a student of the Moche, you ought to get your hands on the original and fan out from there. In the meantime, here is my revised Guide to the Moche, as well as other new and newish Moche materials.

Chapdelaine C. 2011. Recent Advances in Moche Archaeology. Journal of Archaeological Research 19(2):191-231.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.
If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions

Archaeology: What's Hot Now: Manis Mastodon (USA)

Archaeology: What's Hot Now
These articles that had the largest increase in popularity over the last week // via fulltextrssfeed.com
Manis Mastodon (USA)
Oct 24th 2011, 10:03

The Manis Mastodon site is a preclovis site, located on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state in the Pacific northwestern United States. It was discovered in 1977 when a farmer unearthed two mastodon tusks from a pond in a glacial kettle, a marshy depression in the Sequim Prairie bog within a dense conifer forest.

Pollen studies at Sequim Prairie were conducted in the 1980s. These indicated that at the time of the occupation, the region was undergoing an arid period, and the site would have been within an opening dominated by shrubs and other plants that included cactus. The region was colonized by coniferous forest between 11,000 and 9,000 years ago.

Manis Site Artifacts

Manis consists of most of the bones of a single male extinct elephant (mastodon), excavated in 1977-1979. The mastodon lay on its left side within a depression, and the left (lower) half of the mastodon was fairly intact. Its right (upper) side was missing two bones (the right femur and right fibula), the rest of the bones were disarticulated (taken apart and scattered) and the skull was fragmented. Cut marks, spiral fractures and flaking were noted, although there is no evidence that the bones were weathered or gnawed by carnivores.

No stone tools were identified at the site, but the tip of a bone point is embedded in a rib. The point was examined by high-resolution computed tomography (CT) and reported in 2011. The point fragment is 3.5 centimeters (1.4 inches) in length, and 2.15 cm (.85 in) of its length is embedded in the rib. Scholars calculated the minimum length of the bone point as 27-32 cm (10.6-12.6 in) long, based on the amount of animal skin and muscle the point would have had to penetrate to make it into the living rib. No bone growth is in evidence around the embedded point, indicating that the mastodon died soon after it had been attacked. The bone point itself was made from another mastodon's bones.

Dating Manis

Radiocarbon dates taken during the 1970s on the organic materials within the site averaged ~12,100 RCYBP, earlier than any Clovis occupations, which date between 11,000-10,800 RCYBP. At the time, Clovis was the earliest widely-accepted human culture believed to have occupied North America, and, because of that, and because there were no stone tools found at Manis, the site was not accepted by most scholars.

By the early decades of the 20th century, sufficient evidence of occupation within the Americas predating Clovis had been discovered, leading to additional investigations of Manis, among many other possible pre-Clovis occupations. A suite of Accelerated Mass Spectrometer (AMS) radiocarbon dates were reported in 2011, on the purified bone collagen extracted from the mastodon rib in which the bone point is embedded, and from two different mastodon tusk fragments. These new dates range between 11,890+/-35 to 11,990+/-30 RCYBP, or 13,860-13,763 cal BP, some 800-1,000 years older than Clovis.

Manis and Pre-Clovis

The location of Manis in the Pacific northwest, the identification of bone points, and the new suite of radiocarbon dates, strongly supports adding Manis to the growing number of accepted Pre-Clovis occupations in North America. Unlike most other Pre-Clovis sites, Manis, suggest that megafaunal (large mammal) hunting was part of the subsistence strategy of these little-known diets of hunter-gatherers. Other sites which reflect such early megafaunal hunting strategies include Ayer Pond in Washington state, and Hebior and Shaefer sites in Wisconsin.

Sources

This glossary entry is a part of the guide to Pre-Clovis culture, and the Dictionary of Archaeology.

Borden CE. 1979. Peopling and Early Cultures of the Pacific Northwest: A view from British Columbia, Canada. Science 203(4384):963-971.

Petersen KL, Mehringer Jr. PJ, and Gustafson CE. 1983. Late-Glacial Vegetation and Climate at the Manis Mastodon Site, Olympic Peninsula, Washington. Quaternary Research 20:215-231.

Waters MR, Stafford Jr. TW, McDonald HG, Gustafson C, Rasmussen M, Cappellini E, Olsen JV, Szklarczyk D, Jensen LJ, Gilbert MTP et al. 2011. Pre-Clovis mastodon nunting 13,800 years ago at the Manis site, Washington. Science 334:351-352.

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to this feed at blogtrottr.com.
If you no longer wish to receive these emails, you can unsubscribe from this feed, or manage all your subscriptions