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Nanzuo is a key Neolithic archaeological site in the central Chinese Loess Plateau (CCLP). The site is important for understanding the origin and development of the Chinese civilization, yet, it lacks a robust chronological framework. The current work, for the first time, dates two different types of heated materials (pottery and burnt soil) from a profile near the main excavation of the Nanzuo archaeological site using various luminescence dating techniques. These techniques included single grain (SG) quartz OSL and K-feldspar post-infrared infrared-stimulated (pIRIR) dating for burnt soil samples and pottery, and pIRIR dating for pottery slices using the rock surface luminescence technique (RSL). The reliability of luminescence dating was investigated by comparing SG quartz, K-feldspar and pottery slice ages with radiocarbon (14C) ages obtained from the same cultural layer. The results show that the SG quartz OSL and K-feldspar pIRIR 225 age estimates of the two coarse potteries are consistent with the 14C ages, however, the age estimates of the pottery slice (NZ22-CPS150) are significantly younger, which is primarily explained by underestimation in equivalent doses (D e). Moreover, it is noted that while there is a considerable variation in the D e of coarse pottery slices with depth, no significant correlation is observed between K- content and D e. Heterogeneous K content was revealed by μ-XRF scanning on coarse pottery slices. Conversely, fine pottery displayed homogeneous K-content distribution and age estimates consistent with the 14C ages. Thus fine pottery slices are suggested to be more suitable for pIRIR dating relative to coarse pottery slices. The underestimation of D e values in mixed minerals is observed as the primary reason for underestimated slice ages compared to SG K-feldspar, with grain size of K-feldspar and K content variation playing only a minor role. Therefore, by integrating the 14C ages with the luminescence ages of the pottery, it is inferred that human occupation of the Nanzuo site occurred around 5100 to 4500 years ago, which aligns with the 14C ages obtained from the main section of the Nanzuo site. The current work further concludes that the single-grain luminescence dating method is reliable for pottery. The study recommends to prioritize materials characterized by relatively uniform potassium (K) content for pIRIR dating using pottery slices. • Single-grain luminescence technique is reliable and recommended for pottery dating. • Slice ages of the coarse pottery were underestimated due to D e measurement. • Materials with homogeneous K content are preferred for pIRIR dating using slices. • The Nanzuo site was occupied by humans 5100 to 4500 years ago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeological interpretations of the capital region of ancient empires often rely on documentary sources and assume the existence of a highly integrated and institutionalized state polity. A multiscalar archaeological study of the imperial heartland of the Inca empire (c. 1400–1530s) reveals variable manifestations in Inca power from the period of local expansion until the European invasions of the 1530s. Large-scale patterning from numerous regional surveys identifies variations in pre-Inca and Inca settlement patterns and the distribution of Inca architecture and pottery. More intensive analyses from the Sacred Valley, a study region lying immediately to the north of the Inca capital, reveal additional patterns of interaction that contrast early Inca expansion practices with later generations of royal estate development. Excavations from domestic and public buildings at the large upland village of Pukara Pantillijlla indicate limited Inca efforts to incorporate local horticulturalists and herders within their existing villages. The variability of Inca power in the Sacred Valley and the kin-based nature of the institutional forces transforming valley-bottom farming areas draw attention to the prevalent role of Inca elite kinship practices for state formation and institutional development. These observations raise important questions about the role of kinship in other non-Western states and empires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• New approaches to deposition analysis were developed to study a large data set of prehistoric settlement discard. • The archaeological context was studied as a compressed, synoptic record of the lifecycle of things. • Phases of the cultural biography of Bronze Age houses were identified including their use, intentional cremation, the burial of remains (burnt settlement refuse) and closing deposits. • Houses are explained as the central (albeit non-human) actors of hybrid actor-networks. • The actor's role of the houses was strengthened by their ontological status as living beings. This paper deals with the application of deposition analysis to an unusual type of features in the Late Bronze Age settlements in Central Europe. These are long narrow trenches (referred to as 'long pits' in this text) with characteristic standard form and alignment, as well as find contents, including high amounts of secondary-burned pottery fragments. In the context of prehistoric research, these features represent a relatively new phenomenon that has attracted attention in the last two decades due to new excavations in Bohemia and Bavaria. Based on the finds from Březnice (Czechia), the authors conclude that the long pits were connected with the closing rituals following the abandonment and burial of dwellings. Although no houses were directly documented on this site, their presence must be assumed, and their cultural biography can be reconstructed from the depositional characteristics of the accompanying finds. In order to fully understand the processes of deposition, the authors find it useful to focus not only on human agency but also on the relationships between the things themselves. This way, houses are understood as the central element of a hybrid actor-network. Their role may have been strengthened by their ontological status of living beings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The need for a quantitative approach to the morphologic study of ceramics is becoming increasingly evident. Ceramics are the most common material in many archaeological sites and a huge amount of data has accumulated over time. This data can be handled by Machine Learning algorithms which are rapidly gaining popularity in archaeology. Although most approaches can be referred to classification tasks, in this contribution a particular type of Neural Network is proposed for feature extraction from archaeological ceramics. Through this proposed method it is possible to gain a numerical weighted representation of the pottery profile that can be used for multivariate analyses. The case study will focus on regionalisation processes in pottery production between the end of the 2nd millennium BC and the first half of the 1st millennium BC in central Tyrrhenian Italy, a period that saw major transformations in the cultural and socio-political structure of Ancient Italy. The results seem to confirm the regionalisation hypothesis and offer interesting insights into the quantitative study of archaeological ceramics. • A Variation Autoencoder is used to extract features from archaeological ceramic profiles drawings. • Dataset including near 5000 pottery profiles from Final Bronze Age to Orientalizing period in Central Italy. • Multivariate analysis, such as Dimensionality reduction methods, can be used on pottery profiles. • Regionalisation processes in pottery production are confirmed by the analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cereal farming, such as rice and foxtail and broomcorn millets, originated in mainland China. When such farming was introduced to surrounding areas of East Asia remains an archaeological mystery because of scant data on carbonised grains from the initial farming stage. Even when data are sufficient, there remains uncertainty in whether the grains coincided with the accompanying pottery type. This problem can be overcome by examining grain impressions in pottery fabric through the use of silica casts, which allows us to obtain data on the introduction of crops without contamination, even from archaeological sites where flotation was not conducted or carbonised grains have not been detected. Thus, the estimated age of the grain impression can be assessed through the associated pottery type. However, where the chronology of pottery types is not clearly established, and chronological variations exist over a wider geographic area, this method alone cannot establish the first appearance of grains. We thus propose a new method that uses X-ray equipment to search for carbonised grains embedded within earthenware and directly date these grains to overcome the aforementioned limitation. We apply this method to a key site, the Etsuji (江辻) site, Fukuoka, Kyushu Island, to examine the introduction of rice and millet agriculture to Japan. The results push back the dating of the Etsuji Phase and the introduction of cereal farming by about 100 years to 1190–820 cal BC. This method could make a significant contribution to the study on the introduction of agriculture across East Asia, where similar problems with floating pottery typologies are encountered. • The study assessed whether Jomon people sowed rice and other continental grains. • Grain impressions embedded/adhered to shards from the SX-1 pit were assessed. • Methods like soft x-ray and CT scan were used for assessments. • Results revealed that grain impressions corresponded with the 'Etsuji SX-1 Phase'. • Therefore, continental grains were present in Japan during the Final Jomon period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific dating is an invaluable tool to understand the development of human civilizations from prehistoric to historic times. Ceramics is the most abundant material recovered from archaeological excavations, but a satisfactory scientific dating method is still lacking. So called rehydroxylation (RHX) dating promises precise age information, but the validity of the method still has to be proven. We have investigated one possible obstacle imposed by the presence of organic carbon in the samples. Such a contamination can lead to significant deviations of the dating result. The amount of CO 2 released from the following samples was determined: A medieval clay brick from Alkoven, Austria; two authentic archaeological samples from the Iron Age from Megiddo, Israel; a 1600 AD earthenware sherd from Enkhuizen, Netherlands, which had been successfully dated with RHX at another laboratory. We investigated several possibilities to remove such contamination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper is focused on a spectroscopic study of some pottery shards from an archaeological site in Syracuse (Sicily, Southern Italy), dating back to the Hellenistic–Roman period. Structural characterization was performed at different scales of observation, i.e. from macroscopic to mesoscopic. The main goal was to point out the potentiality of the small angle neutron scattering (SANS) technique as a non-invasive analytical tool in archaeometry, also in conjunction with other, more usual, methodologies. Correlation of experimental data, i.e. macroscopic typology and texture, obtained from petrographic analysis, and radius of gyration and fractal dimension of the interfaces of the mesoscopic aggregates obtained using SANS, together with mineralogical X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis, allowed hypotheses to be made on the production technology of the investigated samples. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The identification of the chaff used as temper in ancient ceramics represents a possible source of information about the area of origin of the pottery. This paper studies the occurrence of rice (Oryza sp.) chaff in potsherds from the archaeological site of Sumhuram (Dhofar, Sultanate of Oman). The information gathered at the site offers insight into commerce routes and networks to which the town belonged in the first centuries AD. The analysis of the plant material in the pottery and potsherds can also furnish interesting data on the ancient technologies of pottery production. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The Nene Valley, in eastern central England, was a major pottery production centre in the Roman period. Many kiln sites have been identified in the Lower Nene Valley region and, although comparatively less is known about production in the Upper Nene Valley, substantial amounts of mortaria and other coarse wares have been recovered during excavations at Roman sites in the area, and much of it is thought to be locally made. However mortaria made in the Upper and Lower Nene Valley can be difficult to tell apart, and many also have similar forms and fabrics to mortaria produced in Mancetter–Hartshill, Warwickshire. Therefore ICP analysis was used in an attempt to identify the products of different regions. The ICP data showed that the Nene Valley mortaria are compositionally distinct from the Mancetter–Hartshill mortaria in terms of major and trace elements, and the Upper and Lower Nene Valley mortaria could be differentiated from each other using trace elements. Some mortaria were stamped by the potters that made them and so the compositional data could be used to determine where each potter worked. The Nene Valley mortaria were made from the Upper Estuarine Series clay, in common with other types of Roman pottery produced in the Nene Valley, and so the data presented here have also proved useful for investigating the origins of other types of wares. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Coarseware vessels from excavations at Isthmia, Greece, in contexts dating from the Hellenistic and Roman periods, resemble ceramic beehives used by the ancient Greeks and still in recent use on the Cycladic islands and Crete. Chemical investigations of absorbed residues were performed with the aim of obtaining direct evidence for the use of these vessels as beehives. High-temperature gas chromatography (HT-GC) and HT-GC/mass spectrometry (HT-GC/MS) were used to screen lipid extracts for the presence of compounds characteristic of beeswax. Samples of beeswax taken from a 19C ethnographic beehive was used as reference material. Potsherds from 10 pithoi recovered from the same Isthmia excavation served as controls. A significant proportion of the sherds from the putative beehive vessels contained compounds, i.e. n- alkanes, wax esters, fatty acids and long-chain alcohols congruent with those seen in the reference beeswax. δ13C values were determined for the individual components of the lipid extracts and reference beeswax by means of compound specific GC-combustion-isotope ratio mass spectrometry (GC-C-IRMS). On the basis of the molecular structures, carbon number distributions and δ13C values 16 of the 40 sherds studied were shown to contain residues of beeswax. None of the pithoi contained beeswax residues although two yielded residues consistent with degraded triacylglycerols. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Spatial representation based on the distribution of artefact, especially pottery, is widely used in archaeology. The questions raised are often related for the construction of economic or cultural areas, based on fabrics, style or types of vessels. The middle Loire Valley with the study of an important corpus of medieval pottery constitutes an essential framework for understanding this mechanisms over long time. The corpus of data collected and studied for over twenty years includes archaeological sites with reliable chrono-stratigraphic sets whose pottery assemblages are sufficiently large to respond to the problem posed. The permanent increase of the corpus of data, especially since the last publication on this subject in 2013 for which the approach was purely empirical, requires the development of statistical tools adapted here to the spatial clustering analysis of the data. This article deals with a divisive hierarchical clustering method with geographical constraints: MapClust. It is based on spatial indicators called spatial patches. This statistical tool allows the archaeologist to visualize and analyse geographical patterns easily. The comparison of the present results with those of 2013 is a way to see the relevance of the method. • MapClust: hierarchical divisive clustering method with geographical constraint. • This is a project on medieval and modern pottery from the middle Loire Valley. • Identification with MapClust of two cultural areas (North-East and South-West). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The early consumption of wine or other grape derivatives (such as vinegar or must) is suggested from organic residues analysis conducted on Bronze Age pottery recovered from two sites in north-eastern Italy, Pilastri di Bondeno (Ferrara) and Canale Anfora (Aquileia, Udine). Pilastri is part of the Terramare culture of the Po plain, from which the archaeobotanical context has suggested that Vitis vinifera L. was known and used during the Middle Bronze Age. At Canale Anfora Vitis, macro-remains were found in earlier levels of the local stratigraphy. Organic residue analysis conducted by gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry allowed the identification of tartaric acid in twenty samples out of thirty-one recovered from different ceramic vessels (e.g., drinking cups, coarse ware pots, presumed storage vessels) found at the two archaeological sites and dated to the 15th-14th centuries BC. Based on integrated studies, we suggest that grape juice derivatives (including wine or vinegar) were likely consumed at the sites. This is the earliest direct evidence of grape derivatives consumption in this area. Combined with the botanical evidence, these findings contribute to our understanding of the emergence of wine consumption in the western Mediterranean. • Tartaric acid is present in Bronze Age ceramics from northeastern Italy (c. 1500–1300 BCE). • We hypothesize that wine was consumed and possibly produced at the studied sites. • Traces of tartaric acid were detected in cups and vessels with different forms and capacities. • We hypothesize different ways of consumption and different uses of wine and its derivatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]