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Using the organic artefacts from the fourth-century BC grave at Bulhakovo in southern Ukraine, this article discusses the economics of the perishable material culture of the Scythians of the Pontic Steppe region. Thanks to the survival of organic materials (wood, leather, textiles), the burial provides important information about the complex networks of production and exchange that existed in European Scythia. Scientific analyses produced new data regarding materials and techniques used for the production of wooden, leather and textile objects, providing an opportunity for a more nuanced discussion of their production and consumption.

This article presents the findings of the minimally destructive biomolecular species identification method known as ZooMS (zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry) to identify the use and choices of resources for manufacturing leather shoes in urban contexts in Viking and medieval Denmark. Whereas parchment and historical skin samples have been previously analysed by ZooMS, the potential of the method is demonstrated here for archaeological, vegetable-tanned, and waterlogged leather from the eleventh to thirteenth-century Danish cities of Ribe, Odense, and Viborg. Sheep, goat, and cattle were used to produce shoes, with explicit choices of species for specific purposes. The selection seems to be largely based on the skins’ material properties, suggesting that functionality was more important than signalling. The urban environment is seen as promoting synergy among providers of resources, crafts, and customers.

The semi-arid steppe and forest-steppe regions of southern Siberia have a long history of human occupation. During the Bronze and Iron Ages, the area became home to a number of archaeological cultures that greatly influenced the cultural and technological development and exchange processes in the middle latitudes of Eurasia and left a rich archaeological record. One of the lesser-known Iron Age archaeological cultures is the Tashtyk culture, which flourished in the Minusinsk Basin in the upper reaches of the Yenisei during the 1st to 7th centuries CE. Using an extensive set of radiocarbon dates and identifications of plant and animal remains from the best-preserved and most spectacular Grave 4 of the Oglakhty burial ground, our study aims to improve the age determination of the examined grave and to better understand the natural environments and way of life of the local population in this remote region of Central Asia during the early 1st millennium CE. Our dating approach could narrow down the probabilistic age range of the time at which Grave 4 was constructed and used to ca. 250–300 CE. The inferred age together with polychrome jin silks documented in Grave 4 suggests a connection between the local populations and silk producing centres in eastern China via either oases-states in the Tarim and Turfan basins or via the Mongolian steppes. The records of zooarchaeological remains and artefacts approve that the local Tashtyk people were skilful craftsmen and had a complex subsistence economy mainly based on animal husbandry, which was supplemented by hunting-gathering and small-scale agriculture. The available evidence on the use of sheep indicates that they played an important role in the local economy, although other domesticated animals (such as goats, cattle, horses) were bred as well. Whether reindeer were present locally (i.e. domesticated) or their skins were obtained through hunting or more distant exchange requires further investigation. Also, the role of agriculture and millet cultivation (mentioned in the reports of the first archaeological excavations) remains an important topic for upcoming research. The available, albeit still rare, palaeoenvironmental records from the region suggest drier conditions during the 4th to 1st centuries BCE, partly corresponding to a colder and dryer phase in the North Atlantic region. The regional pollen and isotope records demonstrate a weak trend towards wetter and warmer climate during the following five centuries representing the Tashtyk culture.

Next Generation Lab turns large and hitherto unstudied urban assemblages of archaeological leather and bone into a laboratory learning experience for high school students. The students, in turn, provide species identifications and thus increase knowledge on medieval and Renaissance livestock exploitation and material selection by craftsmen.

In this paper, two species identification methods are compared and discussed based on a case study of medieval archaeological leather shoe parts from the Danish cities of Ribe, Viborg and Odense. The species identifications are performed by both morphological grain pattern analysis using stereomicroscopy and zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry (ZooMS), which identifies species based on small structural differences in collagen type I, creating unique fingerprints of genera and in some cases species. Of the 105 shoe parts analysed and sampled, only 37 shoe parts were found to have preserved grain patterns. Grain pattern analysis was in some cases complicated by the lack of hair holes, degraded grain and the presence of soil particles. The varying morphological appearance and condition of the grain patterns are demonstrated through a series of stereomicroscope colour photos at 10x enlargement. The microscope photos reveal considerable complexity and variety in the morphological appearance of the decayed archaeological leather in comparison with well-preserved modern leather. The colour photo examples of the grain pattern and ZooMS-identified leather may help to improve the grain pattern analysis of archaeological leather in future. Where grain patterns were preserved, a good correlation between the two methods was observed. ZooMS had a high overall success rate and has a large potential for species identification of archaeological leather. In the cases where grain pattern analysis was problematic, ZooMS was found superior for species identification. Even though grain pattern analysis had a lower success rate, in a few cases it did produce results at a higher taxonomic level than ZooMS identification. Moreover, grain pattern analysis provided additional contextual information. In conclusion, an interdisciplinary approach is recommended for conservators, archaeologists and other researchers of cultural heritage wishing to find the most potential way to identify different species. The identification method used should be tailored to suit each given archaeological leather assemblage depending on the degree of preservation, object type and context of the material in question, as well as the available expertise, time and budget.

In recent years, extensive archaeological studies have provided us with new knowledge on wool and woollen textile production in continental Europe during the Bronze Age. Concentrations of large numbers of textile tools, and of zooarchaeological evidence suggesting intense sheepherding, hint at specialized centres of wool production during the Bronze Age. The aim of this paper is to discuss whether engagement with this economic activity was facilitated by the introduction of new foreign sheep types, possibly from the Eastern Mediterranean, where well-established wool economies existed, or by using local sheep, or a mixture of local and non-local types. A small-scale genetic pilot study, presented in this paper, primarily aimed at testing the DNA preservation, and thus the genomic potential in Bronze Age sheep remains provides evidence of both mitochondrial haplogroups A and B among Bronze Age sheep in Hungary. This result could hint at sheep herds with mixed origin but further in-depth studies are necessary to address this. We aim to promote scholarly interest in the issue and propose new directions for research on this topic.

Keratinous tissues such as nail, hair, horn, scales and feather have been used as a source of DNA for over 20 years. Particular benefits of such tissues include the ease with which they can be sampled, the relative stability of DNA in such tissues once sampled, and, in the context of ancient genetic analyses, the fact that sampling generally causes minimal visual damage to valuable specimens. Even when freshly sampled, however, the DNA quantity and quality in the fully keratinized parts of such tissues is extremely poor in comparison to other tissues such as blood and muscle - although little systematic research has been undertaken to characterize how such degradation may relate to sample source. In this review paper we present the current understanding of the quality and limitations of DNA in two key keratinous tissues, nail and hair. The findings indicate that although some fragments of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA appear to be present in almost all hair and nail samples, the quality of DNA, both in quantity and length of amplifiable DNA fragments, vary considerably not just by species, but by individual, and even within individual between hair types.

The use of wool derived from sheep (Ovis aries) hair shafts is widespread in ancient and historic textiles. Given that hair can represent a valuable source of ancient DNA, wool may represent a valuable genetic archive for studies on the domestication of the sheep. However, both the quality and content of DNA in hair shafts are known to vary, and it is possible that common treatments of wool such as dyeing may negatively impact the DNA. Using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR), we demonstrate that in general, short fragments of both mitochondrial and single-copy nuclear DNA can be PCR-amplified from wool derived from a variety of breeds, regardless of the body location or natural pigmentation. Furthermore, although DNA can be PCR-amplified from wool dyed with one of four common plant dyes (tansy, woad, madder, weld), the use of mordants such as alum or iron leads to considerable DNA degradation. Lastly, we demonstrate that mtDNA at least can be PCR-amplified, cloned and sequenced from a range of archaeological and historic Danish, Flemmish and Greenlandic wool textile samples. In summary, our data suggest that wool offers a promising source for future ancient mitochondrial DNA studies.

Tierhäute gelten seit langem als wesentliche Elemente in der Herstellung von eisen- und wikingerzeitlichen Schilden Nordeuropas. Trotz vieler gut erhaltener Funde blieben diverse grundsätzliche Fragen bezüglich der Beschaffenheit dieser Produkte bisher jedoch weitgehend unbeantwortet. Wie wurden beispielsweise die Tierhäute behandelt bevor sie auf die Schilde aufgezogen wurden und welche Tierarten wurden bevorzugt? Beide Aspekte sind sehr wichtige Faktoren in der Interpretation prähistorischer Schilde und deren Widerstandsfähigkeit sowie der damit verbundenen Kampftechniken und taktischen Überlegungen. Das Ziel des in diesem Beitrag vorgestellten Projekts war es, diesen Fragestellungen mittels Mikro- sowie sogenannten ZooMS-Analysen an Tierhautproben von vier gut erhaltenen eisen- bzw. wikingerzeitlichen Schildfunden nachzugehen. Die Untersuchung brachte neue Erkenntnisse zur Schildkonstruktion in Nordeuropa. Zudem ist es nun zum ersten Mal gelungen, die Beschaffenheit der Tierhautprodukte solcher Schildfunde genauer zu ermitteln. Im Zusammenspiel mit früheren Untersuchungen bieten die Resultate einen bisher unerreichten und praktisch vollständigen Erkenntnisstand zur Konstruktion der untersuchten Schilde. Alles in allem haben die in diesem Beitrag präsentierten neuen Methoden und Erkenntnisse nicht nur wichtige Diskussionen zur Waffentechnologie und zu den Kriegspraktiken Nordeuropas angeregt, sondern auch den Weg für eine Vielfalt an weiteren Untersuchungen, vor allem in den Bereichen der naturwissenschaftlichen und experimentellen Archäologie, geebnet. (S. H.), Bericht der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission, Bd. 97 2016(2020): Bericht der Römisch-Germanischen Kommission