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Archaeologists have not readily applied collective action and institutional approaches to the study of hunter-gatherers. This is especially true of the American Southeast. Here, I use a review of the recent literature to illustrate the value of such approaches to understanding long-term histories. This review of hunter-gatherer archaeology spans the entire temporal range of Native American history in the Southeast. I argue that the term "hunter-gatherers" itself is constraining. In its place, I suggest that a focus on institutional change and collective action provides a way to better connect histories across temporal units, which then allows for a greater understanding of how such traditions developed, were maintained (or abandoned), and reinvented over the course of history. At the end of the review, I pose five key research areas that archaeologists should focus on that speak to institutions, the nature of public and private goods, common pool resources, and collective action regarding large-scale labor projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our paper describes the demarche of our research trail in Ethnoarchaeology over 20 years through various research projects since 1986, when we begun carrying out research projects in Tierra del Fuego (TdF). Our objective was to test and develop the archaeological methodology to open up the possibility of approaching the social organization of prehistoric hunter-fisher-gatherer (HFG) societies. We follow chronologically and discuss the successive stages of our line of research and how one step led us to the next step, structuring a successive series of research projects. The bulky volume of bibliography produced including all the methodological details, empirical data, concrete results, etc... is cited at each step for readers who want to dig deeper into the details. There is also an open repository with all the documentation and information on the TdF projects. The conclusion of this long lasting ethnoarchaeological experimental trail was that it is indeed possible, through Archeology, to determine the existence and functioning of social organization in prehistoric HFG. Along these years following the same system of ethnoarchaeological contrasting, we analyzed the development of the coastal societies of the Northwest Coast of America with that of TdF, considered examples of the opposite extremes of HFG social organization. We stated the preponderance of social norms that regulate reproduction and their direct relationship with the discrimination of women and the division of labor according to sex. We have proposed as an explanation for this divergent development the alternative options for the management of reproduction. To reinforce these conclusions, we replicate through the use of Agent Simulation the effect of specific social norms on the reproduction of five groups of HFG. The conclusions reinforced that social norms that affect biological and social reproduction are critical for the sustainability of societies that do not directly control the reproduction of their resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper addresses the understanding of the complexity in intentional and random manipulation with deceased human bodies in the Mid-Upper Paleolithic in Eurasia. A series of single or multiple anatomic modern human burials at open air-sites, in caves or under rock shelters have been documented. Some of them are decorated and covered by extra-large sized mammal bones for protection. Beside these ritually buried individuals, isolated human cranial and postcranial fragments are scattered through the cultural and other depositional layers, many of them being identified during the post-excavation processing of faunal remains (e.g. Dolní Věstonice I, II and Pavlov I sites in the Czech Republic). These bits and pieces often lack direct evidence of predator or human manipulation (except intentionally perforated human teeth), which raises the question of a differential mortuary practice employed by our ancestors and/or the presence of specific depositional and post-depositional taphonomic conditions in the preservation of human remains. The paper addresses ethnoarcheological observations in different types of treatment of deceased human bodies among recent Arctic and sub-Arctic hunter-gatherers and reindeer herders in Eurasia with a special emphasis on the burial rites among the Nenets from northwestern Siberia. The work aims at the author's own social and economic scope, in which inappropriate or partial manipulation with the deceased human body presents a disputable, unethical and even illegal act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Ngaut Ngaut (Devon Downs) and Tungawa (Fromm's Landing) 2 and 6 are located in the Gorge Section of the Lower Murray River. They were excavated more than 60 years ago. Unusually, they preserved fauna over the 6000 or 7000 years of occupation. Assessing this record, it is concluded that Aboriginal agents were responsible for the middens in these rockshelters. Following this, Ngaut Ngaut and the Tungawa sites are compared in terms of their dating, stratigraphy and changes in the fauna through time. While the majority of species are present throughout at all three sites, there are shifts in the number of animals in concert with Holocene environmental changes. After 3000 BP, the trend is to increased attention being given to resources from the riparian and river zones and away from the dryland Murray Plains. An increase in shellfish and the presence of crayfish gastroliths support this contention. Nearby Tartanga Island provides a record of Holocene sedimentary changes in the Murray River associated with altered sea level and flood regimes, particularly the deposition of the Monoman and Coonambidgal formations. The latter creating a landscape of highly productive swamps and backwaters. The information from these legacy excavations supports the conclusion that a shift in the locus of Aboriginal hunting and gathering activities accompanied mid- and late-Holocene environmental changes on the Lower Murray River. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an editorial that discusses the behaviors and adaptations of prehistoric hunter-gatherers in (sub)tropical rainforest areas. The authors highlight the importance of studying human evolution in these regions, as our understanding of human evolutionary history in (sub)tropical rainforest regions is relatively limited compared to other environments. The article presents findings from studies conducted in southern China, the Philippine archipelago, Sri Lanka, and India, which provide insights into the technological and environmental adaptations of early humans in these regions. The authors hope that this research will encourage further exploration and discussion of human evolution in (sub)tropical rainforest areas. [Extracted from the article]

During the 4th millennium BC, an intensive artefact circulation system existed among the hunter-gatherer peoples of north-eastern Europe. Along with other goods, ring-shaped ornaments that were mainly made of different kinds of slates or tuffites were commonly distributed. Although commonly referred to as 'slate rings', these ornaments consist mainly of fragments of rings. In this paper, we suggest that the 'slate rings' were never meant to be intact, complete rings, but were instead fragmented on purpose and used as tokens of social relationships relating to the gift-giving system. By refitting artefact fragments together, analysing their geochemical composition, micro details, and use-wear, we were able to prove that these items were not only intentionally fragmented but also likely worn as personal ornaments. Moreover, ED-XRF analysis of 56 of the artefacts showed a correlation between their geochemical characteristics and stylistic detailing, suggesting different production phases or batches. Comparative data analysis confirmed the provenance hypothesis that the majority of the analysed objects, or at least their raw materials, were exported over hundreds of kilometres from the Lake Onega region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The year 2020 was an awakening for some. For others, it reiterated the persistent social injustice in the United States. Compelled by these events, 30 diverse individuals came together from January to May 2021 for a semester-long seminar exploring inequity in archaeological practice. The seminar's discussions spotlighted the inequity and social injustices that are deeply embedded within the discipline. However, inequity in archaeology is often ignored or treated narrowly as discrete, if loosely bound, problems. A broad approach to inequity in archaeology revealed injustice to be intersectional, with compounding effects. Through the overarching themes of individual, community, theory, and practice, we (a subset of the seminar's participants) explore inequity and its role in various facets of archaeology, including North–South relations, publication, resource distribution, class differences, accessibility, inclusive theories, service to nonarchaeological communities, fieldwork, mentorship, and more. We focus on creating a roadmap for understanding the intersectionality of issues of inequity and suggesting avenues for continued education and direct engagement. We argue that community-building—by providing mutual support and building alliances—provides a pathway for realizing greater equity in our discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While interest in land use in the prehistoric periods in Italy has received attention, that cannot be said of the Post-Medieval period. The general view is that all activities and objects from the last 300–500 years or so are so indecipherable from their contemporary counterparts and that there is no need to study them. There is, in fact, very little Post-Medieval archaeological work done in the south of Italy, which is the focus of this paper. The landscape of southern Calabria has changed radically over the centuries. The distribution of dense macchia forests was diminished in the late 18th and 19th centuries for building railroads and ships, and more recently, arson has been used as social or political revenge. The removal of the macchia led to erosional landscapes and the loss of archaeological footprints. This paper explores agricultural practices and forest exploitation in the early 19th and 20th centuries by the citizens of Bova to better understand the social and economic dynamics that continue to influence the lives of people living in the community. It utilizes cadastral records, archival documents from the early 1800–1900s, and spatial analysis to better understand the potential economic and social dynamics in this community. Consideration is also given to how social status and power, represented by Church-owned vs. lay citizen-owned properties, was reflected in local land use. The overall paucity of archaeological materials from this period across the landscape supports and complicates the overall picture while also supporting an interpretation of a very local and insular community poorly integrated into the greater Italian economy of the day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past, anthropology and archaeology also viewed hunter gatherers this way, placing them in a culture evolutionary framework. One way to act as a socially responsible Mesolithic archaeologist may be to collaborate more with the farmers, hunters and fishers whose lands we survey and excavate for archaeological remains. I agree that archaeology is political and should be engaged in the contemporary world, and I am pleased to see this issue explicitly brought into focus for the Mesolithic, which often has remained on the margins of these debates. [Extracted from the article]

Hunter–gatherers past and present live in complex societies, and the structure of these can be assessed using social networks. We outline how the integration of new evidence from cultural evolution experiments, computer simulations, ethnography, and archaeology open new research horizons to understand the role of social networks in cultural evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The extra‐site activities of hunter‐gatherers and artifact curation between functionally different camps raise the issue of items a site lacks. This issue is usually addressed using the fractal properties of raw material. The model presented in this paper simultaneously considers the qualitative and quantitative (exponential) properties of missing artifacts. Our model was tested on Federmesser and Swiderian materials from the site of Lubrza 10, Western Poland. The obtained results confirm the utility of this model application to comparative analysis of assemblages coming from different sites and their structural units and identification of their function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how the materiality of the past has been mobilized to simultaneously erase Indigenous presence and create white public space at Spanish mission sites in California. As the site of present-day Santa Clara University, Mission Santa Clara de Asís presents an important case study. The documentary record associated with more than a century of archaeology at the mission reveals its intersections with heritage-making, particularly the maintenance of public memory that privileges and valorizes whiteness. These same records further detail how the university and local residents effectively erased the heritage of the thousands of Ohlone people and members of neighboring Indigenous groups who lived, worked, and died at Mission Santa Clara. Recognizing how archaeology has contributed to the current heritage landscape at Santa Clara and other California mission sites is a necessary first step in the creation of new archaeological and heritage practices that center the experiences and persistence of Native Californian communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New and improved methods for obtaining chronometric dates for southern African hunter-gatherer rock paintings raise questions about how researchers can use the new dates to say more about the past. Traditionally, however, differences of opinion about the necessity of robust and reliable chronological frameworks for integrating rock art and excavated deposits separate those who think chronology is key from those who see it as an unnecessary obsession. This article takes a step back and scrutinizes the concept of integration itself. It shows that the ideas behind the desire to integrate rock art and excavated materials have a much longer history in South Africa than is usually acknowledged; that there is no consensus among researchers about what integration actually means; and argues that integration is a questionable research objective. The article challenges some of the assumptions implicit in the conventional view of integration and suggests that we need better tools for thinking about the relationships between rock art and excavated materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The widest definition encompasses all burial rites outside those prescribed by the Church, including non-normative practices within consecrated spaces, such as prone or staked burials and post-burial practices, including translated burials. As argued above, Christian burial practices encompassed a broad range of atypical and minority burial modes that carried contextual social meanings; in some circumstances, even prone burials constituted spiritual strategies to signal pious humility.[96] The term deviancy should be reserved for late-medieval burials outside consecrated ground, particularly those that have been deliberately dismembered. While burial practices drew largely upon a common vocabulary of Christian mortuary rites, individual cemeteries demonstrate idiosyncratic preferences in traits including positioning of the body, the shape of the grave, the prevalence of "multiple burials" (ie the interment of more than one individual in a single burial plot), the frequency of clothed burial, or the selection of specific objects and materials placed with the dead. At St Margaret in Combusto (Norwich), a documented place of burial for hanged felons (12th-15th century), excavations revealed that 40% of interments were part of multiple burials that included prone individuals, dumped in the grave face down.[77] These non-normative burial rites were expedient measures tolerated within consecrated ground. [Extracted from the article]

It is possible to identify developments from the prehistoric period onward in India that led to the formation of agro-pastoral communities, state society, and a reduction in, as well as transformation of, the hunting-gathering modes of life. The formation of caste societies saw forest dwellers, called Ādivāsis or Scheduled Tribes today, being categorized as outsiders, residing in the fringes of the habitats of caste-based settled communities and complex relationships of exchange and labour developed among them. Within caste societies, the communities that formed the labour class, now categorized as Scheduled Castes, were relegated to the bottom of the social hierarchy. Throughout history, communities such as the forest people and the labouring classes have been marginalized in the process of social formation, with little or no access to political and economic power and resources. Their histories constitute the subject of the archaeology of the margins. This article focuses on the role archaeological sources can play in the reconstruction of the histories of such marginalized communities, and also on the importance of anthropological field methods to understand their material life and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The period from c. AD 900 to AD 1300 in southern Africa is characterized by transitions from small-scale Iron Age mixed economy communities to the beginnings of more intensive food production and eventually the emergence of complex polities. In Zambia, this coincides with the appearance of larger and more permanent agro-pastoralist villages that began participating in Indian Ocean trade networks. Unlike other parts of southern Africa where stone architecture became common, the predominance of wattle-and-daub type construction methods across Zambia have often impeded preservation of Iron Age activity areas. It has therefore been difficult to reconstruct how economic and land-use changes between the Early and Later Iron Ages impacted family and community relationships reflected in intra-site and intra-household spatial organization. Fibobe II, in the Mulungushi River Basin of Central Zambia, is a rare example of an Early-to-Mid Iron Age village site where these spatial patterns may be discernable due to preservation of activity spaces and vitrified remains of wattle-and-daub structures. This paper reports on new investigations following original testing of the site in 1979, confirming preservation of an Iron Age hut with distinct patterning of features, artifacts, and charcoal. These results reaffirm the unique nature of Fibobe II and indicate the potential for programs of household archaeology aimed at studying this important and understudied period in Zambian prehistory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista del Museo de Antropología is the property of Museo de Antropologia - IDACOR and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

When we trace back to the past on the issue of women, the earliest evidence that archaeology encountered are the Venus figurines from the Upper Paleolithic Period. These artifacts, which have been discovered in a wide area from Europe to Siberian context, are generally depictions of women with exaggerated female organs. The most famous one of them is the Willendorf Venus that was made of limestone. There are also samples of Venus figurines with hair and facial details, as well as the ones which generally do not have any hair and facial details. The existence of these figurines raised the question of why the interest of prehistoric people focused so much on certain points of the female or female body. There is no consensus on the social, economic or cultural functions of these artifacts among the researchers, so different suggestions have been offered up to the present day. The figurines are associated with femininity, motherhood, fertility, fruitfulness, survival, rebirth, magic and shamanism, as well as a simple toy or sign object. Female figurines were engraved on clay, bone, stone and marble not only in the Paleolithic period, but also throughout the entire Mining ages. The fact that these figurines were treated in the same category as a single type, without considering the cultural / economic / ecological diversity, has been one of the factors that make it difficult to understand the historical roles of women and the process of change imposed upon them. Another factor is the lack of philological evidence to support archaeological ones in Anatolia, especially until the Bronze Age. The cuneiform tablets discovered by archaeological studies in Anatolia in the Bronze Age, a period that its history could be traced in writing, were able to provide more detailed information on the place and importance of women in political, social and economic life, compared to previous periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anatolia has been home to various civilisations from prehistoric ages to the present. Anatolian geography that still has traces of many civilisations has always been at the centre of interest ın archaeology world. Mysia Region with the historical processes antique cities and works is a geography that is worth examining. Kybele is important for Anatolian civilizations in terms of having unique characteristics and influencing different cultures. The cult of the mother goddess has affected all civilizations starting from Anatolia and passing through this geography. It is possible to come across the mother goddess Kybele, who is defined as "the symbol of motherhood or goddess representing creativity, fertility, sexuality, birth, raising children and cycle of development", in almost every region of Anatolia since the earliest times. Mysia region is one of the specific cult centres of Goddess Kybele in Anatolia who was widely worshipped and has many sacred places. In this study the place of Goddess Kybele in Mysia region has been studied and traces of worship for Anatolia's oldest and most important goddess Kybele has attempted to be revealed with findings such as construction ruins, statues, statuettes, temples, votive plaques etc. and epigraphic findings that were obtained in Pergamon, Daskyleion, Miletopolis, Cyzicus, Zeytinliada and Eğridere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The episcopal seat of Meshmahig or Mašmahig is referred to in various historical sources, such as the synods of the Church of the East of 410 and 576. These sources have been extensively explored, and it is suggested that Mašmahig can be linked to the village of Samahij in north‐east Muharraq Island, Bahrain. However, archaeological evidence for a Christian presence in Samahij, or elsewhere in Bahrain, was lacking. Excavations completed within the village cemetery at Samahij uncovered part of a large building complex. Based on the architecture, associated material culture and chronology, it is suggested this building was occupied by a Christian community, perhaps as part of a monastery or even the episcopal palace itself. This was abandoned after Islamisation, seemingly in the eighth century. The results of the first season of excavations are described, and the implications for Christianity, Islamisation and settlement in Bahrain are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The archaeology of the contemporary past is equally committed to the subaltern, and some of the most important research in this subfield deals with hypermarginalised communities, including homeless people (Zimmerman, Singleton, and Welch [87]; Kiddey [43]), ethnic minorities (Nordin, Fernstål, and Hyltén-Cavallius [55]) and refugees (Hamilakis [35], [36]), among others. In this introduction to the issue on the archaeology of marginal places and identities, I have emphasised places, since their role in producing subaltern identities and subjectivities, while being of paramount importance, has been less frequently addressed per se in archaeology. Exceptions are the archaeology of colonization in the Mediterranean, where there is a plethora of studies on silenced and peripheral groups (Given [28]; Delgado Hervás [17]; Van Dommelen [76]; Marín-Aguilera [50]), and of the Roman provinces, where scholars have paid attention to subaltern identities and cultural expressions (Webster [80]; Hingley [41]). Marginal lives have been the focus of particular concern in historical archaeology (Orser [56], 159-182; Hall [34]), probably because they have proliferated since 1500 and become archaeologically conspicuous - slaves, prostitutes, indentured labourers, the colonised, the poor (Singleton [67]: Yamin [84]; Spencer-Wood and Matthews [71], Hansson et al. [37]). Post-processual archaeology brought attention to the diversity of social experiences that were often invisibilised or at least disregarded in processual accounts and, more specifically, to subaltern communities. [Extracted from the article]

Archaeologists have long been called on to use geophysical techniques to locate unmarked graves in both archaeological and forensic contexts. Although these techniques—primarily ground-penetrating radar (GPR)—have demonstrated efficacy in this application, there are fewer examples of studies driven by Indigenous community needs. In North America, the location of ancestors and burial grounds is a priority for most Indigenous communities. We argue that when these Indigenous voices are equitably included in research design, the practice of remote sensing changes and more meaningful collaborations ensue. Drawing on Indigenous archaeology and heart-centered practices, we argue that remote-sensing survey methodologies, and the subsequent narratives produced, need to change. These approaches change both researchers' and Indigenous communities' relationships to the work and allow for the inclusion of Indigenous Knowledge (IK) in interpretation. In this article, we discuss this underexplored research trajectory, explain how it relates to modern GPR surveys for unmarked graves, and present the results from a survey conducted at the request of the Chipewyan Prairie First Nation. Although local in nature, we discuss potential benefits and challenges of Indigenous remote sensing collaborations, and we engage larger conversations happening in Indigenous communities around the ways these methods can contribute to reconciliation and decolonization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the archaeological background of the Leivu and Lutsi Finnic language islands. In contrast to the earlier research tradition, a hidden Finnic presence is suggested by the distribution area of Roman Iron Age tarand graves up to and including the Medieval Period when the presence of a Finnic population in northeastern Latvia (“the Chud in Ochela”) is noted in 1179/80. The Leivu language island west of Alūksne may be the last descendants of this population, formed by the merging of a Finnic substrate and Latgalian superstrate and standing between the Estonians and Livonians. The borders of this Finnic area in northern and northeastern Latvia – a diverse network of communities, existing in parallel with Latgalian ones and based on various ethnic components – are difficult to determine, as archaeological traces of its cultural pattern in the 12th–14th centuries have much in common with the Latgalians despite definite peculiarities. The Finnic traces in the Lutsi area are more difficult to identify archaeologically, although physical anthropology suggests a former Finnic presence there too. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes our creative responses to a surface assemblage (a scatter) of lithic artefacts encountered on either side of a worn track across a field early on in the pandemic. Our art/archaeology response takes place within a phygital nexus in which artefacts or assemblages can be instantiated either physically or digitally, or both. In the nexus we create, connect and explore an ontological multiplicity of – more or less – physical and digital skeuomorphs and other more standard forms of records for sharing (i.e. Latour's immutable mobiles, such as photographs), but rendered with radically different properties and affordances, at different scales, with different apparatus. These include interactive Reflectance Transformation Images, graphical surface models, machine intelligence style transfer, and 3D prints, all of which were produced in a variety of isolated analytical "bubble" settings and transmitted to and from (both digitally and physically) a home office in an isolated Hampshire village and a home studio in a London suburb. Our approach is to describe, diffractively, the ontological shifts and itineraries associated with some of these objects and assess how this assemblage came to matter as an art/archaeology installation. Ultimately, some of these deterritorialised, (re)colourised, affective, biodegradable, and diffractively born metamorphic instars, now inscribed with new meanings, are returned to the original findspot of the lithics to be (re)discovered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teeth fusion is a developmental anomaly characterized by the union of two and, more rarely, three adjacent teeth. The fusion is caused by the physical pressure between two adjacent teeth during their development due to congenital, inherited, acquired or idiopathic factors. Nowadays, fused teeth occur with a frequency ratio between 0.1% and 1% in permanent dentition and 0.5% and 2.5% in primary dentition, and with an equal distribution between males and females. Fused teeth are a rare clinical finding, so there are not standardized clinical protocols and each case should be treated independently. This condition is rare in archaeological populations, likely due to taphonomic processes that cause the lack of information, as well as for the general low occurrence of the defect itself. In the European archaeological literature, there are no reports of two permanent fused teeth so far. Therefore, the present paper represents the first case study of two fused permanent incisors in the past Europe populations as this anomaly has been recognized in an adult man buried in the Longobard cemetery of Guidizzolo (VI–VII century A.D., northern Italy). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Intersecciones en Antropología is the property of Universidad Nacional del Centro de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Recent archaeological studies revealed that the Neolithic hunter–gatherers in south‐eastern Anatolia established highly developed settlements with evidence of the production of sophisticated symbolic artefacts, the existence of long‐distance trade, and elaborated burial practices. Their social organization was complex and can even be compared with that of the Levantine Early Pre‐Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) farming society. The presence of such highly developed hunter–gatherer settlements requires a reconsideration of the neolithization process. However, a complete understanding of the sizes and plans of the settlements remains lacking because excavations so far have only been conducted in limited areas of the sites. This article presents the results of geophysical investigations using magnetometric and ground penetrating radar (GPR) surveys at the hunter–gatherer site of Hasankeyf Höyük in south‐eastern Anatolia. The results showed that a combination of magnetometric and GPR methods complementarily provides better prospection of sub‐surface structures than a single method does. In addition, this research has demonstrated that the Neolithic hunter–gatherers at Hasankeyf Höyük established a sedentary village with densely arranged buildings, which had not previously been substantiated at any other Neolithic site in south‐eastern Anatolia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The central Colorado Plateau contains an exceptional density of cultural resources. Historically, however, archaeological investigations have overlooked the late Pleistocene and early Holocene record of this region. As such, there is currently a biased understanding of the earliest human occupations and adaptations. The regional Paleoindian record is reviewed here to assess the nature of initial human occupation of the area. Projectile point typologies, toolstone selection, and site distributions are used to characterize the land use patterns used by the region's earliest inhabitants. Results suggest that as early as circa 13,000 cal BP Clovis groups were familiar with the lithic landscape and habitually made use of local materials. Subsequent Paleoindian populations maintained relatively consistent levels of occupation throughout the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. Finally, the presence of classic Southwest, High Plains, and Great Basin--related lithic technologies suggests that the central Colorado Plateau was part of early interregional land use strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses the archaeological record to analyse the forms of social inequality that existed within early medieval rural communities. The paper takes as its case study Álava, where there is a significant density of high- resolution archaeological records, making it possible to compare the nature of the changes that took place within various peasant communities, and explore their interactions with active domain structures at the local and supralocal levels. Therefore, a bottom-up multilayer perspective has been used, based on the contrast between the logics of political economy and moral economy. Three main themes are explored: the formation of medieval villages and village communities; the hierarchisation of peasant communities; and the interaction between these communities and the networks of aristocratic power. As opposed to narratives that have analysed this period in terms of the progressive and necessary subjection of the peasantry to the power of lordship, it is concluded that local societies constituted active arenas of negotiation, counter- positioning, and experimentation in the early Middle Ages, which, although barely visible in the written documentation, generated multiple forms of dominance, and asymmetric social cooperation, and conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hunter-gatherer societies held sway in midwestern North America for at least 11,000 years. Those at the end of this period were more complex and less mobile, and they supported larger populations than those at the beginning, but there are relatively few general conceptions as to when and how this took place. Here we examine the fit of gradual, one-way social change as it relates to the size and shape of lithic supply zones for Upper Mercer and Flint Ridge flint as well as the inflow of exotic materials. Our results show no singular cline either in the size of successive lithic supply zones or in the inflow of exotic materials. Hunter-gatherer societies can make remarkable behavioral changes through time and not necessarily in any consistent (unilineal) direction. Such differences impose more contingency—and less directionality—into particular historical sequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the results and evaluate the impact of our community archaeology project carried out at the Pori Reposaari Takaranta rock carving site in 2019. Takaranta is a popular leisure destination featuring hundreds of carvings on the shoreline rock cliffs, the oldest dating from the 1850s and the latest just recently inscribed. The project activities included documenting the rock carvings with local primary school students using the frottage technique and interviewing the children after the fieldwork. Our project also recorded four senior citizens' personal memories, experiences, and stories related to Takaranta. Local oral histories have often been ignored in archaeological research, although they can significantly deepen the understanding of the phenomena under investigation. Moreover, the project aimed to influence long-term cultural relationship of the Reposaari residents: positive cultural experiences reinforce people's local identities and the sense of belonging to the place, which in turn can contribute to the preservation of archaeological heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The archaeology of hunters and gatherers has long focused on the economic and technological dimensions of food use and procurement. In marginal environments especially, hunter-gatherer food use has often been situated within an adaptationist calculus of survival and environmental accommodation. The ethnographic record of hunter-gatherers that inhabited such environments, however, indicate that social and cultural considerations also critically informed indigenous peoples' procurement, consumption, and discard practices. Drawing on the later prehistoric and early historic archaeological record of the island of Newfoundland, in northeastern Canada, this paper explores how the procurement, consumption, and handling of subarctic foods conveyed identity, reflected historical conditions and social relations, factored into ritual and ceremonial practice, and embodied worldviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acommon cultural practice within southern Africa is the organisation of youths as part of an initiation ceremony. Literature refers to this practice as regimental groups, age regimental groups, age sets or simply as age groupings (Kuper 1954, 1986; Hughes 1956; Hoernlé 1962; Omer-Cooper 1966; Laband 1995; Knight 1995). After the period of aggression among the northern Nguni of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, a new version of the regimental system had developed. A key component of the new system was the military settlement, which acted as an administrative centre in addition to providing regimental housing. Called amakhanda (sing. ikhanda), each community had its own architectural and socio-demographic organisation. Amakhanda were built in close association with traditional family homesteads (imizi). The close proximity and physical similarities between these two settlement types makes it difficult to distinguish them apart in the archaeological record. This study therefore examines the archaeological signature of each settlement form in order to determine whether or not it can be distinguished from any other within the archaeological record. This was done by examining and comparing the size, function and cultural material deposition of each settlement type. It was found that differences existed in the size of the central enclosure, the number and placement of huts, along with different faunal and cultural material assemblages. It emerges that these two settlements were sufficiently distinct in their function so that they represent unique features and material signatures that can be used to distinguish them in the archaeological record. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Environmentally transformative human use of land accelerated with the emergence of agriculture, but the extent, trajectory, and implications of these early changes are not well understood. An empirical global assessment of land use from 10,000 years before the present (yr B.P.) to 1850 CE reveals a planet largely transformed by hunter-gatherers, farmers, and pastoralists by 3000 years ago, considerably earlier than the dates in the land-use reconstructions commonly used by Earth scientists. Synthesis of knowledge contributed by more than 250 archaeologists highlighted gaps in archaeological expertise and data quality, which peaked for 2000 yr B.P. and in traditionally studied and wealthier regions. Archaeological reconstruction of global land-use history illuminates the deep roots of EarthÕs transformation and challenges the emerging Anthropocene paradigm that large-scale anthropogenic global environmental change is mostly a recent phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Circumpolar North is generally recognized as a challenging environment to inhabit and yet, we know relatively little about how people managed their welfare in these places. Here, we add to the understanding of maritime hunter-gatherers in the subarctic North Pacific through a comparative approach that synthesizes biogeographic and archaeological data from the Kuril Islands. We conclude that our faunal, ceramic and lithic evidence support expectations from biogeography as assemblages from low biodiversity and insular regions show limited diet breadth, more locally produced pottery and a conservation of lithic resources. However, we highlight that these ecological factors did not strictly determine the occupation history of the archipelago as radiocarbon data suggests all regions experienced similar demographic fluctuations regardless of their biogeography. These results imply additional pressures influenced the strategic use and settlement of the Kuril Islands and the need for increased chronological resolution to disentangle these complex historical factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As obligate tool users, humans habitually reconfigure resource distributions on landscapes. Such resource restructuring would have played a nontrivial role in shaping hunter-gatherer mobility decisions and emergent land-use patterns. This paper presents a model of hunter-gatherer mobility in which the habitual deposition of material resources at places on landscapes biases the future mobility decisions of energy-optimizing foragers. Thus foragers effectively construct the environments to which they adapt. With the aid of an agent-based model, this simple niche-construction model is used to deduce four predictions for emergent structure in hunter-gatherer settlement patterns. The predictions are tested against archaeological data from a hunter-gatherer settlement system in the Lake Titicaca Basin, Peru, 7,000–5,000 cal BP. Good agreement is found between the predicted and empirical patterns, demonstrating the model's efficacy and suggesting a behavioral explanation for structural properties of hunter-gatherer settlement systems. The niche-construction behavior and its self-organized properties may have been key components in the emergence of socioeconomic complexity in human societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]