Search

A newly discovered site at Shangshan in the Lower Yangzi River region has revealed the oldest open-air sedentary village and domesticated rice in south China.

The early, ephemeral adoption of pottery arose under different circumstances in both the Transbaikal and Russian Far East regions, however in both instances it was likely used to intensify extraction of more nutrients from resources already heavily in diets focused almost exclusively on riverine environments. In the Transbaikal, earliest ceramic use is correlated to an increase in residential mobility with no other technological or subsistence change. Ceramic vessels may have allowed more extensive processing of these food sources, including small mammals and fish, already in the foraging diet. In the Russian Far East, however, earliest ceramic use is correlated to higher rates of sedentism and ground stone technology, with intensification of land mammals in the Middle Amur Basin, and fish and C3 plant extraction in the Lower Amur Basin. Furthermore, it is clear that early on ceramics were incorporated ephemerally into behavioral systems throughout a relatively long period of time, thus the use of terminology such as “Final Late Paleolithic” and “Initial Neolithic” may only be descriptors of whether individual sites contain pottery, not a meaningful description of “cultures” or “time periods”. Thus, during the late Pleistocene, pottery may have been incorporated by hunter-gatherer-fishers into one behavioral system that initially comprised locations with and without ceramic use depending on the specific behavioral and environmental circumstances of the given region.

A wide range of rapid innovations are associated with the shift from mobile communities to sedentism in southwestern Asia. It was during this period that human societies generated many solutions de...

Neolithization was a complex, protracted process of domestication, sedentarization, and technology change that occurred in various combinations in various times and places around the world. Understanding the causal relationships among those and other important human behaviors remains an analytical challenge. This study examines Neolithization through the lens of lithic artifact variation in the Lake Titicaca Basin, Peru. Drawing on previous lithics research, we outline a synthetic model linking changing diet, mobility, and projectile technology to predicted trends in lithic assemblages. The expectations are then compared to two large, well-dated lithic assemblages from the Titicaca Basin—one from the Middle/Late Archaic forager site of Soro Mik’aya Patjxa (8.0–6.5 cal. ka) and the other from the Terminal Archaic horticultural site of Jiskairumoko (5.2–3.4 cal. ka). We find that the strongest signal in lithic technology change is related to the introduction of archery technology. Signals for subsistence change and declining mobility are relatively weak. The results suggest an early but unconfirmed adoption of archery technology in the Terminal Archaic Period with major transitions in mobility and diet likely to have occurred subsequently in the Terminal Archaic or Formative periods. The findings are consistent with a behavioral model in which changes in projectile technology played a prominent role in the evolution of resource intensification and residential sedentism as well as resource privatization and sexual division of labor in the high Andes.

Investigation of underwater prehistoric sites during the twenty-first century has been gathering momentum. This has been a positive development for the discipline that has been strengthened by research into human occupation of the drowned lands around the British coastline, particularly the submerged forests of the Solent seaway on the south coast of England as well as the North Sea. Over the last two decades underwater investigations at the Mesolithic site of Bouldnor Cliff, off the isle of Wight has revealed advanced wood working technological capabilities, the presence of sedimentary DNA from einkorn and outstanding levels of organic preservation including string, worked timbers, and most recently, a wooden platform. The timber assemblage represents the most extensive collection of Mesolithic worked wood in the country including previously unknown methods of timber working and wooden artefacts. The material evidence indicates links across Europe, while the wooden structures suggest some degree of sedentism. The site was occupied just prior to the severance of Great Britain from continental Europe, therefore, similar sites could remain in comparable landscapes before they were drowned by the emergent North Sea. This paper presents new evidence from Bouldnor Cliff to support previous interpretations, demonstrates how shallow underwater sites near the modern coastline can reveal new information about patterns of land use, population contacts and dispersal patterns over wide areas. It highlights their significance as a complement to large scale mapping of more deeply submerged landscapes and as a model for the discovery of archaeological sites in deeper water, and emphasises the need for more intensive investigation given the constant threat of erosion and destruction of such evidence.

An unresolved issue in the vegetation ecology of the Indian subcontinent is whether its savannas, characterized by relatively open formations of deciduous trees in C4-grass dominated understories, are natural or anthropogenic. Historically, these ecosystems have widely been regarded as anthropogenic-derived, degraded descendants of deciduous forests. Despite recent work showing that modern savannas in the subcontinent fall within established bioclimatic envelopes of extant savannas elsewhere, the debate persists, at least in part because the regions where savannas occur also have a long history of human presence and habitat modification. Here we show for the first time, using multiple proxies for vegetation, climate and disturbances from high-resolution, well-dated lake sediments from Lonar Crater in peninsular India, that neither anthropogenic impact nor fire regime shifts, but monsoon weakening during the past ~ 6.0 kyr cal. BP, drove the expansion of savanna at the expense of forests in peninsular India. Our results provide unambiguous evidence for a climate-induced origin and spread of the modern savannas of peninsular India at around the mid-Holocene. We further propose that this savannization preceded and drove the introduction of agriculture and development of sedentism in this region, rather than vice-versa as has often been assumed.

Objectives This study compares lower limb diaphyseal robusticity between Native Alaskan hunter-gatherers to reconstruct patterns of mobility and engagement with terrain. Materials and methods Ancestral remains included in this study date between 600 and 1800 C.E. and were divided into three regions: Coastal Bay, Far North Coastal, and Inland/Riverine. Cross-sectional properties were determined at femoral and tibial midshafts and standardized by powers of body mass and bone length. Results Consistently elaevated areas and second moments of area were found in ancestral remains from the Far North Coastal, while the Coastal Bay remains had reduced diaphyseal robusticity. Individuals from the Inland/Riverine region were intermediate in robusticity for male femora, but similar to the Coastal Bay group for females. Sexual dimorphism was greatest in the Inland/Riverine ancestral remains and comparable between Coastal Bay and Far North Coastal regions. Conclusions Ancestral remains from the Far North Coastal region have the greatest diaphyseal robusticity in response to intensive hunting and travel over rugged terrain. Reduced sexual dimorphism in the Far North Coastal region suggest female participation in hunting activities. Intermediate diaphyseal robusticity among Inland/Riverine males and increased sexual dimorphism reflects diverse patterns of mobility in relation to the hunting cycle between males and females. Reduced diaphyseal robusticity and sexual dimorphism among the Coastal Bay group is associated with sedentary villages established around net fishing in regions with low relief. Such findings argue against technocentric views of sedentism in hunter-gatherer lifeways and generally reflect diverse adaptive strategies and interaction with local terrain among Indigenous Late Holocene hunter-gatherers of Alaska.

The archaeological site of Checua is located on an isolated hill in the Checua river valley in the Sabana de Bogota, Northern South America. Archaeological data obtained at the site two decades ago, suggested that it was occupied by groups of hunters and gatherers since Early Holocene. Good preservation of cultural materials allowed researchers to study several aspects of ancient inhabitants of the site including subsistence strategies as well as lithic and bone technologies to manufacture artefacts. Since 2015, a research program has been carried out at Checua in order to obtain relevant data to clarify chronology and to suggest a more detailed sociocultural characterisation of the people dwelling the place. We obtained new and complementary information about chronology, subsistence and mortuary practices. Radiocarbon data allowed us to assess the earliest and latest occupation of the site, showing that while it was used since ca. 9500 years BP, mortuary practices where carried out only between 7580 and 7475 years cal BP (2σ) and 5190-5052 years cal BP (2σ). We also discuss how these data can be used to explore permanence of human occupation at places in the landscapes during the process of sedentism among hunter and gatherers groups in Northern South America.

Scholars have long debated when the Neolithic began in China. Neolithisation, however, is a process rather than an event. It is more realistic to investigate the timing and nature of the socio-economic trajectory from mobile, microblade-using foragers to sedentary communities during the Palaeolithic–Neolithic transition in northern China. Here, the authors use artefacts from Shuidonggou locality 12 to demonstrate the socio-economic organisation of the site's inhabitants. They identify long-term site occupation by a large group exhibiting high levels of individual mobility. Comparative analyses with contemporaneous data indicate that the early stages of complex social organisation—a fundamental element of Neolithisation—emerged among microblade-using groups.

The shift to sedentary lifeways represents a significant change in human adaptation. Despite the broadly contemporaneous timing of this transition across East Asia during the Holocene Climatic Optimum, such changes varied regionally. This article synthesises new and existing data from Neolithic sites on the Mongolian Plateau to reveal a simultaneous shift towards investment in site architecture, with distinct variation in the organisation of settlement and subsistence across biogeographic zones. The development of sedentary communities here emphasises the importance of climatic amelioration for incipient sedentism, and demonstrates how differences in ecological and cultural contexts can encourage various responses to the same environmental stimuli.

The Neolithization of Northern Eurasia is marked by the emergence of pottery among hunter-gatherer societies. The driving forces behind the adoption of ceramic cooking vessels among non-agricultural societies remain unclear, although previous research, mainly in North East Asia (e.g. Japan, Korea and the Russian Far East), suggests that it was adopted as a specialist technology for processing aquatic resources, linked to the intensification of fishing activities and a move to sedentism. The stratified site of Zamostje 2 in the forest zone of the Volga-Oka region includes both aceramic Mesolithic and two early ceramic horizons dating to Early Neolithic (EN) and Middle Neolithic (MN). This provides a unique opportunity to look at the impacts of the adoption of pottery on the wider economy and determine whether pottery function changes over time. This was achieved through the analysis of lipids from 166 potsherds dating from the earliest phases (mid-6th millennium cal BC) to the MN (5th millennium cal BC). Contrary to our expectations, the pottery from the EN phase was used to process a broad range of foodstuffs including terrestrial resources, such as forest fruits, in addition to freshwater fish. In contrast, pottery from the MN phase was used exclusively for processing aquatic resources. The results show that in this case, pottery was adopted as a more general-purpose cooking container, at least in the earliest phases of use, and that a specialist function only emerged later.

Lately, evidence for early-Holocene emerging sedentism has been suggested among foragers in Northern Europe. The core of this suggested sedentism lies in the increasing dependency on large-scale fishing and mass consumption of fish and a territorial behaviour associated with access to the best fishing locations. This territoriality might also be associated with increasing numbers of people settling and living in Northern Europe at this time. In this article, we review the evidence for forager sedentism and territoriality and relate it to large-scale fishing, during a time of global warming, in early-Holocene Scandinavia. We explore the requisites of using the archaeological record to study the long-term effect of intense fishing on some of the best-preserved Stone Age sites in the area of study. We suggest that the archaeological record can enable a discussion of how aquatic life varies corresponding to human exploitation and climate change. In addition, we discuss how these changes might be traceable through temporal fluctuations in species composition, within species size reduction/increases, temporal fish age changes and within species dietary changes. In the end, we suggest that the archaeological record holds one of the keys to predict future impact on life below the surface, by offering a long-term perspective on aquatic exploitation in a period of climate change. At the same time as we acknowledge the potential hidden in the archaeological record, we also raise the dire warning that this record might be rapidly disappearing, because of an accelerated deterioration of archaeological organic remains in areas previously known for their good preservation.

The ethnographic literature of California has long attributed some measure of reduced mobility to nearly all of its Native societies, but methods for determining this measure for any given group ha...

The Palaeolithic–Neolithic transition in East Asia is characterised by the transformation of mobile hunter-gatherer groups into sedentary communities. The existence of ‘ice-age’ pottery in the Japanese archipelago, however, is inconsistent with claims that directly link climatic warming with sedentism and the development of ceramics. Here, the authors reconsider the chronology and palaeoenvironment of the Maedakochi site in Tokyo. New AMS dating and environmental data suggest that intensified inland fishing in cold environments, immediately prior to the Late Glacial warm period, created conditions conducive to sedentism and the development of subsistence-related pottery.

Anthropologists and historical comparative social scientists have seen value in understanding not only how different locations and cultures are distinct but also where and when sociocultural complexity and hierarchy have emerged over the past 12 000 years. Knowledge of where and when the sizes of human settlements have changed over time is useful for testing aspects of general models of sociocultural evolution. This chapter examines the roles of settlement networks in sociocultural evolution using the comparative world-systems perspective. The first section focuses on settlements, and the interaction networks built among them, before the emergence of states. The second section describes how interaction networks were involved in the rise and fall of large settlements and polities and in the emergence of settlements that were larger than any that had existed before. The third section discusses the early emergence of cities and states in Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus River Valley, the Yellow River Valley, Mesoamerica and the Andes, and the expansion of empires and their building of empire cities. The fourth section considers the emergence and spread of semiperipheral capitalist city-states, and their roles in the construction of commodity trade networks and the spread of commercializations networks in world-systems in which state power and tributary accumulation remained the main instruments of reproduction. Then we consider how the emergence of the Europe-centered capitalist world-system drove and was driven by the establishment of core world cities and dependent colonial cities. We conclude by providing an overview of the implications of research on the evolution of settlement systems for understanding the contemporary global system of city-regions and possible futures for the world city system. The emergence of sedentism, the growth of settlements and interaction networks among settlements and polities, are fundamental processes of social change that required the invention of institutions that could facilitate cooperation and enable polities to effectively compete with one another for resources, including territory. The study of settlement-size distributions – the relative sizes of interacting settlements within polities and in networks of independent interacting polities – provides another important window for viewing and comprehending the emergence and growth of human organizational complexity and hierarchy.

The author suggests that the presence of early Late Archaic houses in Falls region reflects changes in hunter-gatherer social organization associated with increased sedentism. The aggregation of domestic structures implies greater investments associated with territorial demarcation and smaller home ranges. With more permanent settlements and decreased mobility, individuals and groups would have made efforts to communicate their social affiliations and status to others. This led to distinctive bannerstone styles that reflected social boundedness and identity within the Falls region and bone pin styles that signaled ties to those living to the west in the lower Ohio River Valley.

In the Levant, the Epipalaeolithic is a long sequence of cultural entities dated between ca. 24,000 to 11,500 cal BP. Different Epipalaeolithic entities are mainly defined based on chronological and geographical patterns in the produced types of microliths. However, typological variability provides limited information on the dynamics of the local learning communities through time. The present study wishes to test whether the analysis of the microlith manufacturing process can help track the movement of people and ideas beyond the observed variability in microlith types, providing a novel insight on the population dynamics. The study focuses on the area of Ein Gev, where three different Early and Middle Epipalaeolithic cultural entities (Kebaran, Nizzanan, and Geometric Kebaran) were recorded respectively in three sites (Ein Gev I, III, and IV). We conducted an attribute analysis of cores and production blanks. Our results were discussed in light of a theoretical framework for the transmission of typological and technological traits among prehistoric populations. It suggests that, in a geographically limited area, continuity of technological traits among assemblages attributed to different cultural entities can be associated with continuity in the population. The analysis enabled tracking the continuity between the local Kebaran and Geometric Kebaran manufacturing traditions. In contrast, the Nizzanan occupation of the area presents technological traits that may reflect a different manufacturing tradition. It is suggested that the possible increase in territoriality of local groups can be considered among the factors that triggered, during the Natufian, the onset of sedentism.

For over 120 years, the shell middens of western Scotland and the series of open-air sites on Oronsay have been the focus of debate in European Mesolithic studies. This paper challenges the significance of Oronsay in light of results from the geophysical survey and test-excavation of a new limpet and periwinkle shell midden dated to the late 5th or start of the 4th millennium calbcat Port Lobh, Colonsay that offers fresh evidence to re-evaluate critically the role of Oronsay and coastal resources in island settlement models ahead of the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition. Test excavations recovered a marine molluscan assemblage dominated by limpet and periwinkle shells together with crab, sea urchin, a fishbone assemblage composed mainly of Gadidae, some identifiable bird and mammal bone, carbonised macroplant remains, and pumice as well as a bipolar lithic assemblage and coarse stone implements. Novel seasonality studies of saithe otolith thin-sections suggest wintertime tidal fishing practices. At least two activity events may be discerned, dating from the late 5th millennium calbc. The midden could represent a small number of rapidly deposited assemblages or maybe the result of stocastic events within a more extended timeframe. We argue that alternative research questions are needed to advance long-standing debates about seasonal inter-island mobility versus island sedentism that look beyond Oronsay to better understand later Mesolithic occupation patterns and the formation and date of Oronsay middens. We propose alternative methodological strategies to aid identification of contemporaneous sites using geophysical techniques and lithic technological signatures.

Over the past 50 years, it has been increasingly evident that there are population differences in bone mass and the risk of osteoporosis. In the United States, many studies have reported a lower prevalence of osteoporosis in African Americans compared with people of European descent. If we trace the trajectory of changes in lifeways from the earliest migrations of early Homo out of Africa over the past two million years or so, to include lower vitamin D levels in higher latitudes; more meat in the diet; increasing sedentism; and a longer lifespan/longer postmenopausal period, it is not surprising that osteoporosis occurs more frequently in populations of European descent. While many scholars have explored the apparent "paradox" of higher bone mass, lower vitamin D levels, and higher parathyroid hormone levels among African Americans, this brief review of evolutionary shifts that affected our species may change the approach to understanding the current population differences in the United States.

Hafting is an important part of lithic technology that can increase our understanding of socioeconomic behavior in the past. In this article, we develop a holistic approach to studying hafting by using the concept of curation within a broader assessment of lithic technological organization in early villages. Early villages were loci of socioeconomic transformation as part of the shift from mobile foraging to more sedentary cultivation lifeways. We suggest that an examination of hafting can provide new insights into how early villagers negotiated technological requirements, economic decision making, and social interactions in these novel contexts. As a case study, we develop a curation index and apply it to an archaeological context of hafted and unhafted pointed tools from the early Neolithic village of Dhra’, Jordan. This curation index allows for a discussion of the technological, economic, and social dimensions of hafting strategies at Dhra’. The presence of multiple hafting traditions within early Neolithic villages of Southwest Asia is evidence of persistent social segmentation despite food storage and ritual practices that emphasized communal integration. Through the lens of lithic technological organization, we demonstrate that hafting and curation patterns can increase our understanding of technological, economic, and social strategies in early villages.

Physical, mineralogical and geochemical analyses were conducted to ascertain the techniques used to manufacture Gosan-ri-type pottery (GTP) excavated on South Korea's Jeju Island. The results indicate that Neolithic occupants of Jeju Island addressed the challenge of sourcing raw materials, in the absence of sufficient clay content and high specific gravity minerals, by selecting plants of the family Poaceae to use as temper. The technique of pottery production using plant materials as temper was prevalent on Jeju Island alone in the Korean Peninsula during the period 7600–4500 cal BC. This phenomenon is acknowledged as a unique local tradition on the island. Structures and artifacts found in association with GTP indicate that its users practiced sedentism.

Storage has long been recognized as critical to understanding the behavior and cultural evolution of hunting and gathering communities living at mid-latitudes throughout the world. Storage is a complex and powerful strategy, with profound results for human behavior and evolutionary consequences such as sedentism and population growth, increased sociopolitical complexity, social inequality, and the development of agriculture. One of the more provocative aspects of storage is how it may influence territorial behavior and defense tactics in human societies - a question that has been given little attention. In this paper we present a model of storage defense and suggest a simple notion: that storage defense territoriality is expected when the cost of defending stores is less than the cost of losing them. The cost-benefit dynamics of defending stored food are critically influenced by seasonality and storage (front-back loaded) timing. Territoriality in western North America developed along two fundamentally different evolutionary trajectories: expansive territorialism and intensive territorialism, which influence rational choice and socio-political developments. Expansive territorialism involves higher level decision making which incentivizes greater physical risk tied to territorial expansion and defense, whereas intensive territorialism involves inward turned interests that incentivize drudgery. Empirical evidence supports the notion that at the time of European contact intensive territorialism was the more common strategy followed by groups in California and much of the Pacific Northwest Coast. In contrast, some distinct Pacific Northwest groups were set along expansive territorial trajectories. These trajectories profoundly influence diet choice and territorial strategizing: Expansive Northwest Coast groups are heavily engaged in raiding and territorial expansion and rely more on front-loaded fish and marine mammals than do non-expansive Northwest Coast or northwestern California groups, who instead of raiding and poaching the front-loaded resources of their neighbors, turn intensification inward, supporting themselves in ever-smaller areas by emphasizing the use of back-loaded plant resources.

Archaeobotanical remains recovered from a large ∼8000-year-old-shell midden (CA-SRI-666) on Santa Rosa Island provide the first ancient plant data from this large island, shedding light on ...

Recent survey and excavation conducted in the Mil Plain region of the southern part of the Republic of Azerbaijan challenges traditional notions of Neolithic sedentism. Here, the authors present their findings, and propose that prior to its abandonment towards the end of the sixth millennium BC, the occupation of the region was comprised of numerous highly variable short-term sites and multi-mounded sites (Qarabel Tepe), as well as anchoring sites (Kamiltepe). This indicates multi-scalar patterns of mobility of a much more complex nature than had previously been supposed, making this region quite unique for the Late Neolithic of South-western Asia.

The ultimate establishment of the agricultural economy in the central zone of the Fertile Crescent took place in the late Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPNB), while the heyday of symbolism, establishing complex social relations among the population of Northern Mesopotamia occur in the era of the early Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPNA). In this period, the domestication of any plant species is not yet registered in South-Eastern Anatolia (an area where the long-term intertribal cult center of Gbekli Tepe was found) unlike the neighboring Levant. The paper discusses possible models for the producing economy establishment in the region, analyzes materials suggesting that the ritual practices of the transition period to the Neolithic in some cases could contribute to the emergence and new economic strategies spread on the territory of Northern Mesopotamia. At the same time, the comparison of the climatic changes scientific studies results, archeobotanical and archaeozoological collections and material evidence of the development of social and spiritual life from Epipaleolithic and early Neolithic monuments of Northern Mesopotamia shows the coevolution/mutual influence of people and the surrounding natural environment. In our opinion, on the basis of the available data it is impossible to assert the primacy of the symbol revolution in the process of Neolithization in relation to early attempts at plant cultivation.

The number of Mesolithic structures known in Britain has significantly increased since 2000, providing new opportunities for economic and social interpretations of this period. We describe a further structure, represented by features from the Mesolithic site of Criet Dubh, Isle of Mull. We compare the inferred Criet Dubh structure to other Mesolithic structures from Britain, notably those described by Waddington & Bonsall (2016) as ‘pit-houses’. We then consider the implications of the radiocarbon dates from such structures for the temp of occupation and past settlement patterns. While the use of Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates has encouraged interpretations of prolonged occupation and sedentism, we propose alternative interpretations with patterns of intermittent occupation for Criet Dubh and the pit-houses, involving their re-use of after extended periods of abandonment within a sparsely populated landscape. The ability to debate such interpretations reflects the transformation in Mesolithic research made possible by the discovery of such structures, the use of multiple radiocarbon determinations, the application of Bayesian analysis, and the exploration of associations between cultural and environmental change. These developments have made the Mesolithic a particularly innovative period of study.

Neolithic material engagements transformed the ways in which communities interacted with the physical world and one another. Based on evidence from the flanks of the Zagros Mountains, in western Iran and north‐eastern Iraq, Robert Braidwood initially proposed his ‘Hilly Flanks’ hypothesis for the origins of agriculture and sedentism. The evidence for multi‐centred developments in domestication has demonstrated that elements of these practices spanned south‐west Asia in the Early Neolithic. The Zagros Mountains (and the eastern branch of the Fertile Crescent as a whole) constituted an area of vibrant engagement with new ideas, materials, experimentation and innovation, participating in the networks of interaction and exchange that facilitated the spread of alternative lifeways. This research examines how engagements with clay influenced the development and spread of new ways of thinking about the physical world, highlighting the role of clay as a transformational material through sites in the Central Zagros.

The lowlands of south-western Iran have been studied archaeologically since the mid nineteenth century. The Neolithic period, however, was mostly investigated in the 1960s and 1970s, when Early Neolithic settlements were reported in the western plains, positing the idea that the rest of the lowland plains had been populated after the Neolithic period. The excavation at Tapeh Mahtaj in 2015, however, has changed this view. This article provides inter-disciplinary results and discusses the nature of the Early Neolithic in the Iranian south-western lowlands, thereby enabling a better understanding of the emergence of early domestication and sedentism in the region specifically and in the Eastern Fertile Crescent.

The transition from hunting and gathering to sedentism began on the Ecuadorian Coast c. 10,000 years ago. Changes in adaptation, year-round settlements, and an increased dependence upon cultigens transformed prehistoric Andean cultures and created widespread modifications within the coastal ecology. Coastal Ecuador is characterized by extreme ecological diversity, particularly with regard to terrestrial plants, animals, birds, and maritime resources. Cultural changes in adaptation resulted in dramatic increase in population densities. Interdisciplinary research presented here incorporates zoological, botanical, and faunal remains identified archeologically, with descriptions and analysis of their representations on pre-Hispanic material culture and symbolically depicted in ancient iconography. The interdisciplinary research presented here enriches our knowledge and understanding of the rise of complex social organization associated with a more agricultural way of life. Our evidence indicates the cultivation and domestication of plants and animals, as well as the increased exploitation of maritime resources, provided the basis for early social complexity along coastal Ecuador.

This chapter explores the study of Egyptian settlements and the characteristic range of domestic architecture and artefacts found within living spaces and urban contexts. It will focus on the changing approaches to the material culture of sedentism, urbanism, and use of domestic artefacts in Egypt over the last 150 years. The main section, discussing settlement archaeology in Egypt, aims both to provide a summary of progress to date and to highlight areas of the topic that are neglected, controversial, or disputed. The final section discusses artefacts that derive from ancient Egyptian domestic contexts, with specific emphasis on the study of patterns of production and consumption and the physical locations in which these activities took place.

In the archeological record, the presence of smaller-bodied species is often assumed to indicate a decline in higher-ranked, larger-bodied prey and broadening of the diet to include lower-ranked items with higher handling costs. This shift is typically considered to be a product of a “broad spectrum revolution” that gave rise in many regions to increased sedentism, subsistence intensification, and investments in farming at the Pleistocene/Holocene boundary. However, recent evidence suggests that the use of small, fast prey may have emerged much earlier in hominin evolution than previously appreciated. Here, we assess ethnographic, historical, and actualistic observations of European rabbit hunting to explore whether such small, fast prey are inherently lower-ranked than larger ones. We find that, in combination, the type of procurement method and the population density of rabbits substantially affect foraging returns and the definition of prey types. When rabbits are locally abundant and mass-captured in the open, on-encounter returns are predictably high, sometimes higher than those of large-bodied ungulates. We suggest that rabbit hunting may have been locally and intermittently common during the European Middle and Late Pleistocene as rabbit densities waxed and waned.

One of the most prominent cultural changes during the end of Ice Age in northeastern Asia was the adoption of microblade technology by prehistoric hunter&ndash, gatherers to deal with the challenge brought by the climate deterioration and oscillation during and post the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). The Pleistocene to Holocene transition in North China witnessed the rise of broader spectrum subsistence alongside a series of cultural changes, including adoption of food production, highly mobile lifeways being replaced by sedentism, and the formation of new social organization based on their agricultural land&ndash, use patterns. From the perspective of technological change, this project aims to build a socio&ndash, ecological framework to examine the cultural change of prehistoric microblade&ndash, based societies. In contrast to previous studies, the present research employs a macroecological approach based on Binford&rsquo, s Constructing Frames of Reference (2001) to reconstruct the behaviors and demography of prehistoric foraging groups, under both modern and LGM climate conditions. Three case studies are conducted to show cultural and technological changes among microblade&ndash, based societies in North China during the Pleistocene&ndash, Holocene transition.

In the mid-1950s Western Desert of Australia, Aboriginal populations were in decline as families left for ration depots, cattle stations, and mission settlements. In the context of reduced population density, an ideal free-distribution model predicts landscape use should contract to the most productive habitats, and people should avoid areas that show more signs of extensive prior use. However, ecological or social facilitation due to Allee effects (positive density dependence) would predict that the intensity of past habitat use should correlate positively with habitat use. We analyzed fire footprints and fire mosaics from the accumulation of several years of landscape use visible on a 35,300-km(2) mosaic of aerial photographs covering much of contemporary Indigenous Martu Native Title Lands imaged between May and August 1953. Structural equation modeling revealed that, consistent with an Allee ideal free distribution, there was a positive relationship between the extent of fire mosaics and the intensity of recent use, and this was consistent across habitats regardless of their quality. Fire mosaics build up in regions with low cost of access to water, high intrinsic food availability, and good access to trade opportunities; these mosaics (constrained by water access during the winter) then draw people back in subsequent years or seasons, largely independent of intrinsic habitat quality. Our results suggest that the positive feedback effects of landscape burning can substantially change the way people value landscapes, affecting mobility and settlement by increasing sedentism and local population density.

Models in demographic ecology predict that populations in agrarian villages experience cycles of growth and decline as tied to relationships between founding population sizes, birth and mortality rates, habitat constraints, landscape productivity, and socio-economic practices. Such predictions should be equally applicable to fisher-hunter-gatherers. Intensive research at the Bridger River site on the Canadian Plateau has provided significant new insight into the dynamics of population growth and decline, subsistence productivity, cooperation, and development of social inequalities in material goods. In this paper, we present new evidence drawing from the fine-grained stratigraphic record of Housepit 54 to assess details regarding change in subsistence and technology as related to population and social dynamics. Results indicate a long and complex history characterized by two complete demographic cycles. Critically, the two subsistence downturns were managed using different tactics. Reduced local resources during the first period was likely managed with shorter stays in winter residences, somewhat more extensive use of the landscape, and continuation of egalitarian social relations. The second economic downturn followed a short-lived boom in resources and population growth that created extremely competitive social conditions. The subsequent downturn was managed by entrenched winter sedentism and likely social control of access to critical resources.

First published online: 1 March 2020 Best Essay Award by Commission for Nomadic Peoples. With reference to Jeffrey C. Kaufmann’s concept of a ‘sediment of nomadism’, for which pastoralism is still, implicitly or not, referenced and essentialised to ‘pure’ degrees of mobility and ‘pure’ food economies centred around livestock, this article argues that, in pastoral settings, sedentism is equally essentialised. This article reverses the traditional critique of the nomadism/sedentism dichotomy by questioning the relevance of ideal types of ‘pure sedentism’. Based on fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in the Northern Kenya arid lands, this article looks away from big cities and regional urbanities to focus on small settlements springing up along improved roads and telecommunications infrastructure, showing that places are never motionless, despite measures of emplacement promoted by national and local governments and the international community. The drilling of boreholes, the construction of health centres and schools, the distribution of aid does not stop the mobility of places nor of their inhabitants. Until places remain mobile, they are alive; otherwise they clot. This argument makes it possible to move beyond a dichotomic definition of sedentism and nomadism to value changes, flexibility, and plasticity as important features of places created and recreated by mobile pastoralists.

Author(s): Kennett, DJ; Anderson, A; Winterhalder, B | Editor(s): Kennett, Douglas J; Winterhalder, Bruce | Abstract: Islands in Oceania were some of the last habitable land masses on earth to be colonized by humans. Current archaeological evidence suggests that these islands were colonized episodically rather than continuously, and that bursts of migration were followed by longer periods of sedentism and population growth. The decision to colonize isolated, unoccupied islands and archipelagos was complex and dependent on a variety of social, technological and environmental variables. In this chapter we develop an integrative, multivariate approach to island colonization in Oceania based on a model from behavioral ecology known as the Ideal Free Distribution. This ecological model provides a framework that considers the dynamic character of island suitability along with density-dependent and density-independent variables influencing migratory behavior. Unique among existing models, it can account for the episodic nature of certain aspects of the colonization process. Within this context we critically evaluate the role of foraging, lowlevel food production, and ultimately intensive food production, as important contextual variables that influenced decisions to disperse. We argue that intensive food production was one variable that contributed to decreasing suitability of island habitats, stimulating dispersal, and ultimately migrations to more distant islands in Oceania. © 2006 by The Regents of the University of California.

Eggs from an intestinal parasite has been found in a burial radiocarbon dated to 5210-4840 cal BC in Motala, east-central Sweden. The two helminth eggs are identified as Trichuris trichiura (human whipworm). Control samples from the cemetery site were all negative and confirmed that there was no evident contamination of younger material. This discovery raises new questions concerning the early geographical spread and timing of parasitic diseases among hunter-gatherer societies in northern Europe, and in the temperate zone of the northern hemisphere. Whipworm infection (Trichuriasis) is perhaps the disease most associated with crowding and poor sanitation, and as it manifests itself in the youngest dated burial, it could be a contributing factor to the final abandonment of the Mesolithic settlement. Also, parasite eggs found in a soil sample from the Neolithic Alvastra pile dwelling could indicate the continued presence of the Trichuris parasite in east-central Sweden. Generally, parasite ecology can aid in reconstructing human behaviors that include aspects of sedentism, mobility, food preferences, hygiene and other social practices.

This study presents, for the first time, an environmental reconstruction of a sequence spanning nearly the entire Mediterranean Epipaleolithic (∼22.0–11.9 ka cal. BP). The study is based on a well-dated, high-resolution pollen record recovered from the waterlogged archaeological site Jordan River Dureijat (JRD), located on the banks of Paleolake Hula. JRD's continuous sequence enabled us to build a pollen-based paleoclimate model providing a solid background for the dramatic cultural changes that occurred in the region during this period. Taxonomic identification of the waterlogged wood assemblage collected from JRD was used to fine-tune the paleoenvironmental reconstruction. The chronological framework is based on radiocarbon dating and the typology of archaeological findings. The LGM (∼22–19 ka cal. BP) was found to be the coldest period of the sequence, marked by a distinct decrease in the reconstructed January temperatures of up to 5°C lower than today, while mean annual precipitation was only slightly lower than the present-day average (∼450 vs. 515 mm, respectively). The wettest and warmest period of the record was identified between ∼14.9 and 13.0 ka cal. BP, with maximum values of 545 mm mean annual precipitation reached at ∼14.5 ka cal. BP. This time interval is synchronized with the global warm and moist Bolling-Allerod interstadial as well as with the onset of the Natufian culture and the emergence of sedentism in the Levant. The Younger Dryas began around 12.9 ka cal. BP and was identified as an exceptional period by the JRD sequence with low temperatures and minimal climatic seasonality contrast: an increase in rain contribution during spring, summer, and autumn was documented concurrently with a significant decrease in winter precipitation. The detailed vegetation and climatological reconstruction presented in this study serves as backdrop to seminal events in human history: the transition from small nomadic groups of hunter-gatherers to the sedentary villages of the Natufian, eventually transitioning to the agricultural, complex communities of the Neolithic.

Pre-Columbian frequencies of bone-disseminated non-venereal treponemal disease (yaws, treponarid) increase with the shift to food production. This increase is associated with two subsistence corollaries: sedentism and settlement aggregation. The later prehistory of East Tennessee includes two socio-politically distinct maize-intensive sedentary agriculturalist phases: Dallas (1300–1550 CE) and Mouse Creek (1400–1600 CE). The Dallas phase is widely distributed across both steep-sided narrow and broad river valleys within the catchment areas of three reservoirs (Tellico, Melton Hill, Chickamauga). The Mouse Creek phase is confined to a single reservoir (Chickamauga) and differs from Dallas in social status/role and settlement organization. Physiographic differences (affecting population density and agricultural productivity) and changes in settlement organization potentially affect treponemal disease prevalence. This study tests these variables in ten sites segregated by phase and geographically by the three reservoirs. Treponemal disease was considered minimally present in a sample based on two levels of diagnostic reliability (i.e., pathognomonic and indicative). Results indicate that physiography does not consistently impact treponemal disease visibility. Negating the role of settlement organization, temporal differences occur only within the Chickamauga Reservoir, suggesting other testable epidemiological influences of extrinsic (e.g., internal Dallas cultural diversity, regionally varying sex roles) and intrinsic (i.e., frailty, disease synergisms) variables.

The Aceramic Neolithic site of Ganj Dareh (Kermanshah, Iran) is arguably one of the most significant sites for enhancing our understanding of goat domestication and the onset of sedentism. Despite its central importance, it has proven difficult to obtain contextually reliable data from it and integrate the site in regional syntheses because it was never published in full after excavations ceased in 1974. This paper presents the Ganj Dareh archive at Université de Montréal and shows how the documentation and artifacts it comprises still offer a great deal of useful information about the site. In particular, we 1) present the first stratigraphic profile for the site, which reveals a more complex depositional history than Smith’s five-level sequence; 2) reveal the presence of two possible pre-agricultural levels (H-01 and P-01); 3) explore the spatial organization of different levels; 4) explain possible discrepancies in the radiocarbon dates from the site; 5) show some differences in lithic technological organization in levels H-01 and P-01 suggestive of higher degrees of residential mobility than subsequent phases of occupation at the site; and 6) reanalyze the burial data to broaden our understanding of Aceramic Neolithic mortuary practices in the Zagros. These data help refine our understanding of Ganj Dareh’s depositional and occupational history and recenter it as a key site to improve our understanding the Neolithization process in the Middle East.

The nature of the Neolithic Pitted Ware Culture (PWC) has been debated in Scandinavian archaeology since the beginning of the 20th century. This material culture post-dates the inception of an agro-pastoral Neolithic economy in the region (TRB) but demonstrate a semi-foraging lifeway. The PWC is considered elusive in the sense that the economy has been interpreted as either based on maritime foraging (isotope analysis), or a mixed-Neolithic economy based on boar (Sus scrofa) (archaeozoology). The mobility of the PWC group on Gotland has not been studied previously. We provide an analysis of strontium data from the site Vasterbjers, Gotland, and engage in the question whether this population was mobile (foragers) or stationary (mixed-Neolithic). We also discuss the strontium baseline of the island in the light of new data. The results presented demonstrate a group that was confined to the island and with no strontium data suggesting a supra-regional mobility. We cannot discriminate between a regional mobility pattern on Gotland (mobility between sites) and a local, stationary group (fully sedentary), but we present data that suggest the former. Thus, our conclusion is that the PWC group on Gotland was stationary, the sedentism disclosed being supported by a mixed-Neolithic economy based on boar (Sus scrofa). In fact, the PWC group is depicting less variance with respect to 87Sr/86Sr ratios than the TRB and Late Neolithic groups on the island, being more stationary than the agricultural groups.

Monagrillo pottery (ca. 4500-3200 14C yr B.P.) is the earliest in Panama and one of the first ceramics in the New World. It is found in two distinct site types: (1) shell-bearing middens of the northeastern Azuero Peninsula and (2) rock shelters of the Pacific plains, foothils, and cordillera, and the Caribbean slopes of central Panama. Here, I present a study that sources Monagrillo ceramics using petrography to distinguish locally produced from transported wares. Results indicate that ceramics were mainly produced in two zones: northeastern Azuero, and the Pacific slopes around Rio Grande. Diachronic changes in ceramic sources were not observed. A number of vessels found in the Pacific plains rock shelters in the intermediate area were wares transported from both production zones. Most ceramics from the Caribbean slopes were manufactured on the Pacific slopes. As the first systematic pottery sourcing project conducted in Panama, this research provides the basis for future evaluations of degrees of sedentism, patterns of human mobility, and exchange, which can improve the knowledge of the context of ceramic origins in New World tropics.

Objectives The objective of this work is to characterize dental wear in a skeletal sample dating to the Middle/Late Archaic period transition (8,000-6,700 cal. B.P.) from the Lake Titicaca Basin, Peru to better define subsistence behaviors of foragers prior to incipient sedentism and food production. Materials and Methods The dental sample consists of 251 teeth from 11 individuals recovered from the site of Soro Mik'aya Patjxa (SMP), the earliest securely dated burial assemblage in the Lake Titicaca Basin and the only burial assemblage in the region from an unequivocal forager context. Occlusal surface wear was quantified according to Smith (1984) and Scott (1979a) to characterize diversity within the site and to facilitate comparison with other foraging groups worldwide. General linear modeling was used to assess observation error and principal axis analysis was used to compare molar wear rates and angles. Teeth were also examined for caries and specialized wear. Results Occlusal surface attrition is generally heavy across the dental arcade and tends to be flat among posterior teeth. Only one carious lesion was observed. Five of the 11 individuals exhibit lingual surface attrition of the maxillary anterior teeth (LSAMAT). Discussion Tooth wear rates, molar wear plane, and caries rates are consistent with terrestrial foraging and a diverse diet. The presence of LSAMAT indicates tuber processing. The results therefore contribute critical new data toward our understanding of forager diet in the Altiplano prior to plant and animal domestication in the south-central Andes.

Based on calibrated AMS radiocarbon dates from stratigraphically controlled contexts, the Early Formative period site of La Consentida was occupied between 1950 and 1550 cal BCE. In addition to evidence of early pottery and mounded earthen architecture, this site has produced fourteen sets of human remains in twelve discrete burials. The people of La Consentida lived and died during a period of key socioeconomic transitions including the establishment of sedentary villages, a shift toward agriculture, and the origins of formalized social inequality. In this paper, we discuss the archaeological context of La Consentida's burials and the results of bioarchaeological and stable isotopic analyses of human and faunal remains from the site. Stable isotope values and paleopathological data suggest significant maize consumption concurrent with increasing dental attrition. Considered alongside changes in food processing tools, this pattern suggests a culinary transition regarding maize use. Burial goods and associated features (including a ceremonial cache containing faunal remains, ceramics, and a musical instrument) shed light on mortuary practices. As some of Oaxaca's earliest known human remains the burials of La Consentida offer a rare opportunity for multidisciplinary investigation of the diet, lifestyles, and mortuary traditions of an early Mesoamerican village.

Delayed-return foraging strategies connected with a sedentary lifestyle are known from Late Mesolithic Scandinavian settlements. However, recent evidence from the archaeological site of Norje Sunnansund, in south-eastern Sweden, indicates the presence of sedentism from the Early Mesolithic. By analyzing the faunal assemblage from Norje Sunnansund, patterns of delayed-return strategies were examined for five categories of faunal exploitation/interaction: seal hunting, fishing, ungulate hunting, opportunistic hunting and rodent intrusions. The evidence suggests selective hunting strategies, large catches of fish and all year round seasonality indicators as well as evidence of commensal behavior in non-typical commensal species. The data were related to ethnographic accounts and sedentary foraging societies' modes of subsistence. The evidence suggests an expanding, sedentary, aquatically dependent Early Mesolithic foraging lifestyle in southern Scandinavia, which, it is argued, came to dominate the mode of subsistence, implying larger settlements and a larger prevalent population. This process may have been going on for millennia prior to the rise of the Late Mesolithic Ertebolle culture, implying much larger Late Mesolithic populations than previously realized, perhaps comparable with the native cultures of the north-west coast of America.

Pottery was adopted by hunter-gatherers in the Eastern Baltic at the end of the 6th millennium cal BC. To examine the motivations for this cultural and technological shift, here we report the organic residue analysis of ceramic vessels from the earliest pottery horizon (Narva) in this region. A combined approach using GC-MS, GC-C-IRMS and bulk IRMS of residues absorbed into the ceramic and charred surface deposits was employed. The results show that despite variable preservation, Narva ceramic vessels were preferentially used for processing aquatic products. We argue that pottery was part of a new Late Mesolithic subsistence strategy which included more intensive exploitation of aquatic foods and may have had important implications, such as increased sedentism and population growth.