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The paper presents new research on an assemblage of metallurgical crucibles used in the assay of minerals at colonial Jamestown. The aim of the study is to explore the range of chemical operations carried out at the site of the first permanent British settlement in America, for which little is known in the documents. The results show that the colonists used high-quality Hessian crucibles to perform tests on different types of complex polymetallic sulphides. This was done to (1) prospect for potential silver and copper ores and (2) to find suitable sources of zinc and tin to be alloyed into brass and bronze through cementation with imported copper offcuts. This study makes a relevant contribution to the growing field of the archaeology of early chemistry and mineral prospection as well as the archaeology of early European colonies in the New World. In particular, material culture can shed fresh light on how European settlers reacted to the many challenges of a new and unfamiliar natural environment and how they tried to make sense and exploit it for financial profit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the "old wood effect," wood is not an ideal material for radiocarbon dating if there are other options available. However, in regions where short-lived taxa are not well preserved, archeologists face a dilemma whether to use wood dates to construct archeological interpretations, often leading to controversies over validity of their chronologies. To systematically access this problem, this paper evaluates the intensity of the old wood effect in Korea. First we compared radiocarbon dates assayed from five wood and 32 soybean (Glycine max) samples obtained from a prehistoric pithouse in central-western Korea. Statistical analysis shows that there is no significant disparity in the ages between the materials in this case. To further assess the issue, we compared 24 cases from the Korean Radiocarbon Database in which both wood and short-lived taxa were found and dated from the same house feature. The results demonstrate that, in general, the old wood effect is not substantial in Korea. However, further analysis of these results suggests that the potential for an old wood effect increases slightly over time in Korea, despite the fact that there was no significant climatic change. We interpret the adoption of iron for woodcutting around the first century BCE as a catalyst for a noted increase in the thickness of wood timbers of houses, which consequently produced conditions more opportune for the occurrence of an old wood effect. It suggests that the variability of an old wood effect can be the result of technological factors even within the same general physical environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Middle Palaeolithic stratified and dated sites are still rare in Arabia, recent archaeological, palaeoenvironmental, population genetic, geomatic and geochronological studies have noticeably contributed to a re-evaluation of the prehistory of the region. Here, we report the discovery of a stratified open-air Middle Palaeolithic site in central Saudi Arabia, a novelty given the paucity of dated Pleistocene lithic assemblages in the region. The site of Umm al-Sha'al is located in the Rufa Graben where a substantial number of Middle Palaeolithic surface occurrences have been reported. It contains artefacts produced using Levallois technology, indicative of Middle Palaeolithic human exploitation of locally abundant quartzite raw material. The site comprises two horizons with archaeological finds dating to Marine Isotope Stages 5 and likely 7 or even older. During this period, hunter-gatherers would have benefited from bodies of water and streams in the vicinity of the site, which were active during humid phases, contributing to the development of a significant biomass. Our discovery supports the hypotheses of an early colonisation of inland Arabia by hominins and of a solid link with North and East African lithic traditions of the Middle Stone Age, which awaits further refinement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quaternary stratigraphy and sea level changes have been extensively investigated in many areas of the Mediterranean. However, numerical dating of coastal deposits and the associated paleoenvironmental information are limited for the coasts of Cyprus, principally based on radiometric and radiation-exposure geochronological techniques on fossils which bear a range of limitations and uncertainties. As such, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating techniques are deemed to be the most suitable in direct dating of the coastal sediments of Cyprus. In the southeastern Cyprus, coastal dunes (aeolianites) now forming elongated ridges appear as morphological features running parallel to the current shoreline presenting an indicator of sea level and climate changes of great paleoenvironmental significance. We present our first chronological results for the exposed aeolianites and underlying littoral deposits formed along the southeastern coastal Cyprus ranging from 78.4 ± 9.9 to 56.2 ± 7.4 ka. The post-infrared-infrared stimulated luminescence (pIR-IRSL) revealed that dune formation took place during the marine isotope stages (MISs) 3, 4, and possibly 5a. Late Holocene reworking is proposed for a distinctively isolated dune with an age of ~1.3 ka ago. This study also showed that pIR-IRSL dating of feldspars may be a reliable alternative to quartz OSL dating when the quartz luminescence characteristics are unsuitable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report the first absolute dating for rock paintings by Andean hunter-gatherer groups. Analysis by Raman spectrometry of remains of black paintings from the center-north of Chile (30° lat. S) allows for the identification of carbon as the raw material. Radiocarbon dating situates these paintings between 1623-1431 BCE and 80-240 ACE, dates that are supported by other lines of independent evidence. These results are consistent with proposals that suggest the appearance and popularization of rock art in various places in the Andes for the temporal transect of 3000-1000 BCE. Finally, these new datings are added to the scant corpus of absolute dates for rock art that exist in South America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]