Showing papers in "Antiquity in 1998"

Abstract: ANTIQUITY has had a long tradition of publishing pieces on Stonehenge, represented in our cover design. Here we present an intriguing and thought-provoking paper, which draws an analogy with Madagascar to help explain the meaning of the enigmatic monument.

Abstract: Rice, Oryza sativa L., is one of the most important cereal crops in the world, and its emergence as a domesticated subsistence plant drives much of the interest and research in archaeology in South and East Asia. The homeland of domesticated rice has been proposed as: 1 a specific area, such as India (Vavilov 1926; Ramiah & Ghose 1951), South China (Ding 1957), Southeast Asia (Spencer 1963) and the Yangtze valley in China (Yan 1982; 1989) 2 a biogeographic region, such as the so-called ‘belt region’ with a great diversity of Oryza species (Chang 1976), or 3 an ecological zone, such as coastal swamp habitats (Higham 1995).

Abstract: Knowledge of rice domestication and its archaeological context has been increasing explosively of late. Nearly 20 years ago rice from the Hemudu and Luojiajiao sites (FIGURE 1) indicated that rice domestication likely began before 5000 BC (Crawford 1992; Lin 1992; Yan 1990). By the late 1980s news of rice from the south-central China Pengtoushan site a thousand years older than Hemudu began to circulate (Bellwood et al. 1992; Hunan 1990; Pei 1989). Undocumented news of sites having a median date of 11,500 BP with domesticated rice has recently made the rounds (Normile 1997). In addition, the first domesticated rice in Southeast Asia, once thought to be to be older than the first rice in China, is not as old as once thought (Glover & Higham 1996: 422; Higham 1995). Finally, wild rice (Oryza rufipogon) was reported to be growing in the Yangzi valley, well outside its purported original range, making domestication there plausible (Yan 1989; 1990; 1997). Significant progress continued to be made in the 1990s and unlike research on other major crops, the literature is generally not accessible to western scholars, with some exceptions (Ahn 1993; Crawford 1992; Glover & Higham 1996; Higham 1995; MacNeish et al. 1997; Underhill 1997).

Abstract: Recent strontium isotope analysis of Beaker burials from Bavaria raises important new questions about prehistoric migrations in Europe.

Abstract: Domesticated rice (Oryza sativa) is one of the five major crops in the world and a staple food for more than 30% of the world population. Yet the question of where, when, why and how the domestication of rice originated has been, and still is, a question under debate. However, as more archaeological and archaeobotanic discoveries have recently come to light, the question of the origin of rice cultivation now seems less elusive than it was a few decades ago. To date, both archaeological and archaeobotanic discoveries seem to indicate that rice cultivation first began in the middle Yangzi Valley by 8500–8000 years BP, and subsequently expanded to south China and Southeast Asia.

Abstract: Research on six late Mesolithic shell middens on the small Hebridean island of Oronsay address questions of permanent and seasonal occupation. Stable isotope analysis of human bones shows marine resources providing the majority of protein, supporting year-round occupation of Oronsay. One individual, however, demonstrated a mixed diet of marine and terrestrial protein, suggesting seasonal visits and different patterns of site occupation.

Abstract: Discussion about a possible African origin of modern humans is hampered by the lack of Late Pleistocene skeletal material from the Nile valley, the likely passage-way from East Africa to Asia and Europe. Here we report the discovery of a burial of an anatomically modern child from southern Egypt. Its clear relation with Middle Palaeolithic chert extraction activities and a series of OSL dates, from correlative aeolian sands, suggests an age between 49,800 and 80,400 years ago, with a mean age of 55,000.

Abstract: Recent availability of declassified satellite images of landscapes and ancient cities in Turkey offer new and valuable material for archaeolgical research. Here David Kennedy explains the significance and use of some images in the Euphrates Valley.

Abstract: Sambaqui is the name given to a certain type of archaeological evidence left by fisher/hunter/gatherer groups who inhabited large expanses of the Brazilian coast. The word is of Tupi etymology, tamba meaning shellfish and ki a piling-up (Prous 1991: 204). The Tupi were a horticultural/potter group who lived on the Brazilian coast at the time of the first European arrivals; they coined the term which describes the main characteristic of the sites — the accumulation of great quantities of mollusc shells (FIGURE 1) .

Abstract: Stone artefacts reported from the Orce region (Grenada, Spain) indicate a first human presence in western Europe as early as the Plio-Pleistocene boundary, making a ‘long chronology’ for European hominids against the claims for a briefer human presence. Excavations of Barranco Leon-5 and Fuentenueva-3a in 1995 have produced two groups of lithic artefacts of ‘Oldowan’ type, seen as the most ancient of western Europe by faunal associations and palaeomagnetic study.

Abstract: Paviland is the richest Early Upper Palaeolithic site in the British Isles and has produced Britain's only ceremonial burial (the ‘Red Lady’) of that age. Excavations in the 19th and early 20th centuries, combined with the action of the sea, have removed virtually all of the cave's sedimentary sequence. A new, definitive study of the site and its finds, together with over 40 radiocarbon dates, shows that Paviland currently holds the key to our understanding of the chronology of human activity and settlement from c. 30,000 to 21,000 years ago. The age of the ‘Red Lady’ is also finally resolved at c. 26,000 b.p.

Abstract: La tres grande expansion territoriale des Tupis a ete etudiee depuis le siecle dernier. Cette culture s'est developpee a partir d'un centre, se differenciant par certains processus culturels tout en gardant des caracteristiques communes. Il n'y a cependant pas de consensus quant a l'origine des groupes qui la compose et aux routes prises par eux. Depuis 1960, de nouvelles donnees archeologiques et linguistiques ont ete exploitees. L'auteur tente dans cet article de montrer qu'il existe aujourd'hui suffisamment d'elements pour d'une part faire le lien entre groupes Tupis prehistoriques et historiques et pour comprendre leur origine, les modifications subies, et/ou leur extinction, d'autre part fonder la chronologie sur des temoignages archeologiques et linguistiques plutot que sur des speculations personnelles.

Abstract: The discovery of a perforated cave-bear femur from the Neanderthal levels at Divje Babe has been interpreted as the oldest musical instrument in Europe. Here we present the current discussion on the ‘flute’ and its implications for other similar bone finds from early prehistory.

Abstract: The recent study of Kis-Mohos To lake in Hungary reveals an important sequence of prehistoric landscape changes from the earliest land clearance to the early Middle Ages. The recognition of land degradation, through the application of new analytical methods, forms an important part of the discussion.

Abstract: The role and place of children is frequently overlooked in archaeology. Here Robert Park presents an intriguing analysis of the toys of childhood found in Inuit societies in Canada and Greenland, and assesses how such objects inform on the role of children in Arctic societies.

Abstract: Many claims have been made linking ancient languages with genetically identified prehistoric and modern populations. There is much new ‘evidence’ and intense debate on the validity and appropriateness of such interdisciplinary work. Here Patrick Sims-Williams provides a timely comment on linguistics and the quest for ancient populations.

Abstract: To what extent was gender an important factor in plant domestication? How much of the domestication process can be considered as cultural rather than biological? Christine Hastorf considers these and many associated questions in this topical essay about plants and people.

Abstract: A new study of Kamares ware, integrating stylistic and petrographic analysis, suggests that Protopalatial Knossos was a centre of ritual consumption rather than production, obtaining some of its specialized vessels for drinking and feasting ceremonies from production centres elsewhere in central Crete.

Abstract: There is a preconception among American archaeologists that the late Pleistocene (c. 12,000-10,000 hap.) and early Holocene human occupation of the Americas would have had highly formalized and diagnostic technologies (Bryan 1986), as seen in bifacial fluted projectiles (Clovis and/or Folsom points) or Palaeoarctic microblades. This bias carries with it two presumptions which have no reason to exist: • Clovis and related industries had to be diffused throughout the Americas; and • there should be a ‘big-game hunting’ horizon in South America.

Abstract: Advances in our understanding of the Quaternary history of the earth's magnetic field provide the means to correct the radiocarbon time-scale for long-term (millennia) deviations from the calendrical one beyond the upper limit of the tree-ring-based calibration. The conversion is essential when Middle and Upper Palaeolithic archaeological sites are to be placed within the context of the complex climatic history of the last glacial interval and following deglaciation.

Abstract: Agricultural productivity and Amazonian settlement The nature of Pre-Columbian agricultural systems in Amazonia has stimulated considerable debate, specifically: can one or another cultigen — maize or manioc — provide a stable agricultural base for sedentism and population growth (eg. Carneiro 1961; 1986; Gross 1975; Meggers 1996; Roosevelt 1980)? Certain ecological factors are generally seen to limit production and intensification of those subsistence resources that can support sedentary or densely distributed populations. Low agricultural productivity, characteristic of many Amazonian soils, and the generally low density and patchy distribution of terrestrial game are commonly cited as limiting factors (Gross 1975; 1983; Johnson 1982; Meggers 1954; 1996; Ross 1978; Sponsel 1989). It has become accepted that the highly restricted vairzea regions, primarily the floodplain settings of the major ‘white-water’ rivers (the Amazon and its Andean-derived tributaries), did not impose these environmental constraints on demographic or economic growth due to their fertile soils and higher concentrations of rich aquatic resources (e.g. Brochado 1984; 1989; Carneiro 1986; 1995; Denevan 1996; Lathrap 1968; 1970; 1987; Lathrap et al. 1985; Meggers 1996; Moran 1993; Roosevelt 1980; 1989; 1994).

Abstract: T.J. Dunbabin's book The western Greeks was published 50 years ago. In it he modelled the development of the Greek cities of Italy on the British Empire of the 1930s. Here Franco De Angelis explores the problem of faulty and distorting analogies.

Abstract: In the Near East, the inherent dualism of clay as both symbol and instrument was a feature of its use from the inception of farming villages to the formation of cities, and the extensive record of its ‘changing face’ allows us to trace the continuous history of development between them.

Abstract: Recent excavations at the Kulpi Mara Rockshelter in the Palmer River catchment of central Australia have produced radiocarbon determinations spanning an archaeological sequence of 30,000 years. These results enable re-assessment of models addressing the how, where and when of arid zone colonisation, and human adjustments to environmental change in the later Pleistocene. Whilst the evidence supports early occupation of the central arid zone during wetter conditions, doubts are raised about the continuity of occupation during the height of glacial aridity.

Abstract: China is one of the places for the origin of the Asian cultivated rice (Oka 1988), but there are different theories for precise locations where ancient cultivated rice first originated, including those proposing South China and Yunnan (Li 1989) or the middle and lower Yangtze River Valley (Yan 1989), or the middle Yangtze and the upper Huai River Valley (Wang 1996) as the site of the oldest rice cultivation in China. The discovery (Zhang et al. 1994) of ancient rice at Jiahu in Henan province not only pushed the history of rice agriculture in the Huai River region back to 9000 BP, but also indicated the existence of an agricultural tradition of rice cultivation in the region from the beginning of the Holocene Anathermal until the end of the Holocene megathermal.

Abstract: Christopher Hawkes was one of the leading British archaeological theorists in the middle decades of this century. Much underrated, Hawkes is reassessed here in the broader development of processual archaeology in Britain.

Abstract: The Liyang plain, located in the northwest of Hunan province, is part of the plain on the north of Dongting Lake. It is situated at longitude 111°22′30″E to 111°51′30″E, and latitude 29°35′31″N to 29°47′30″N. It is made up of the Li River, its tributaries and the alluvial plain, and occupies about 600 sq. km in area (FIGURE 1). The plain is saucer-shaped and surrounded by small hills on three sides, joined at the eastern part to the plain north of Dongting Lake. The area is a classic ‘plate-basin’ structure. Inside its boundaries, the land is broad and flat, with small streams winding in different directions, and lakes and ponds dotting the landscape. It is 32–45 m above sea level, with an incline of 2° to 3°.

Abstract: The meat and milk of horses are highly valued food products, past and present. Horses were an especially valuable food resource in grassland habitats, which may explain their increased exploitation in the central Eurasian forest steppe during the late Eneolithic. It may also explain the emphasis on horses in final Upper Palaeolithic art.

Abstract: In June ANTIQUITY published a novel contribution by Mike Parker Pearson and his Madagascan colleague Ramilisonina, which addressed the question of the significance of stone at Stonehenge(ANTIQUITY 72: 308–76). They argued that stone symbolized death and the dead, and provided examples from ethnographic studies to support this notion. The paper has stimulated two replies–from John Barrett & Kathryn Fewster, and from Alasdair Whittle. We are pleased to publish these here, as part of the continuing debate on analogy in archaeology, and on Stonehenge.

Abstract: Excavations at Flixborough, Lincolnshire (1989–91) revealed an important Anglo-Saxon settlement. Here the various interpretations are discussed, ranging from monastic to ‘magnate’.