Showing papers in "Journal of Anthropological Archaeology in 2014"

TL;DR: The results demonstrate a large amount of isotopic variability among individuals and an inconsistent amount of within-individual variation, with no consistent shift in the diet leading up to the time of death for a group of animals from a single ritual event, suggesting that camelid husbandry in the Viru Valley was a small-scale activity.

TL;DR: Using phylogenetic analysis to evaluate fluted-point classes from the eastern United States, preliminary results suggest that there is both temporal and spatial patterning of some classes and that much of the variation in form has to do with modifications to hafting elements.

TL;DR: This article explored the origins of social inequality via a case study of Neolithic Catalhoyuk East (Turkey), in particular its ground stone artefacts, which were central to food preparation and craft production.

TL;DR: This article presented taphonomical data of a faunal assemblage originating from a very special context, a central, superimposed hearth, dated somewhat earlier than 300 kya.

TL;DR: In this paper, a wide range of sediment samples for micro-botanical phytoliths remains is analyzed, of an assemblage of 35 samples, aimed at exposing plant use at the site both in burial contexts and hewn bedrock features (e.g., mortars, cupmarks).

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explored the feasibility of using combined strontium (87Sr/86Sr) and oxygen (δ18O) isotope analyses of archaeological animal remains from Puerto Rico to investigate precolonial networks of exchange in the Circum-Caribbean.

TL;DR: The most abundant form of violence was sharp force/projectile trauma (462/6278, 7.4%), followed by blunt force craniofacial trauma (264/6202, 4.3%), and trophy-taking/dismemberment (87/12,603, 0.7%).

TL;DR: It is demonstrated that within the context of past communities vitamin D status represents a very significant source of information that can contribute to the analysis of the organisation, operation, and evolution of past human societies.

TL;DR: In this paper, the emergence and evolution of social complexity remains a major topic in African later prehistory, and the authors examine this question in the Dogon Country in Mali by reassessing the chronocultural sequence of Toloy-Tellem-Dogon that was defined 40 years ago.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors used oxygen and carbon isotope data in tooth enamel and slaughter arrangements through dental microwear to test whether animals were reared by one or many social groups, and found that cattle were raised in multiple locations but died in the same season at one location, giving support to the social networking model.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors asses changes in the exploitation of osseous raw material (namely deer antler) during the early Upper Palaeolithic in Europe, through examining four variables; raw material procurement, blank production, object manufacture and equipment maintenance.

TL;DR: Shellmounds and fishmounds show a complex pre-depositional history that denies the traditional view of them as secondary deposits of food remains, and substantial implications result from this analysis related to the identification of recurrent behaviors in shellmound formation and growth.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors measured strontium, oxygen and carbon isotopes in human tooth enamel from 32 human burials in structural complex 10J-45 at the Classic Maya site of Copan in western Honduras.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an examination of data from the Bronze and Iron Ages of Northeast Thailand with special reference to sites surrounded by channels and embankments and argue that the channels were instrumental in the elite's establishment of enduring hierarchies in the region and that they were used to leverage the populace to produce a surplus to support the elite and served to entrench hierarchical order through the Iron Age and beyond.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a case from northernmost Europe in which pronounced differences in raw material availability caused by a distinct geological setting existed within a relatively small area, and conclude that restricted availability of high-quality raw material due to increased mobility or changes in the size or location of the foraging range does not necessarily lead to formalization and intensification and can, in certain situations, as in the studied case, lead to the application of an adaptive strategy that can be called raw material diversification.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined empirical evidence for mobile pastoralists' modes of inhabiting and transforming local landscape over the last 600-700 years on the edges of the Upper Tigris River Valley, southeastern Turkey.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors compare the Late Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic personal adornments from the southeastern Mediterranean, with a particular focus on the site of Vela Spila (Korcula island, Croatia).

TL;DR: It is argued that, like modern humans, Neanderthals could have maintained tribal cohesion, but that their tribes were substantially smaller than those of contemporary modern humans living in similar environments.

TL;DR: In this article, the impact of copying error on change in artifact morphology is studied through a field experiment with three groups of potters, each with a distinct potting tradition (one from France and two from India).

TL;DR: A detailed assessment of residential storage practices at Numayra, a fortified settlement inhabited from c. 2850-2550 Cal. BC during the southern Levantine Early Bronze Age III is presented in this paper.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated the relationship between subsistence and urbanism in three northern Mayan lowland cities: Coba, Mayapan, and Chunchucmil, by comparing variation in the number of associated domestic structures (an approximation of multigenerational coresidence) and the amount of vacant houselot area enclosed within property walls.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the interactions between resource productivity, food harvest and storage, animal husbandry, demographic growth, and socio-political change in the late Holocene Middle Fraser Canyon.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the ways in which individual and group decision-making, social and political circumstances, and physical environments articulated to shape the material features of circular stone houses at the settlement site of Monte Viudo.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss different levels of social identities operating simultaneously in the social landscape of San Pedro de Atacama (northern Chile) during the Middle Horizon (ca. 500-950 AD).

TL;DR: In this article, a bottom-up exploration of Harappan material culture at two small, recently excavated Indus settlements in Gujarat is presented, which suggests that the residents of these sites were integrated into the wider Indus Civilization by way of inclusionary ideologies that served to unify socially diverse borderland communities.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors use zooarchaeological analysis of faunal remains from 367 flotation samples recovered from five archaeological sites to discuss the interplay between fishing, environmental change, and the emergence of sociopolitical complexity in the Taraco Peninsula of Lake Titicaca.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the nature and degree of interaction between the Early Postclassic period archaeological sites of Moxviquil, Huitepec, and Yerba Buena in highland Chiapas, and the degree to which the relationships between them constitute communities as social networks.

TL;DR: In this article, a set of four high-quality garments were found in a single child burial at the Tiwanaku site of Omo M10 in Moquegua, Peru (700-1050 AD).

TL;DR: In this paper, the transition from atlatl and dart technologies to the bow and arrow for the precontact Coast Salish economy is considered, focusing on consequent organizational changes in hunting strategies.

TL;DR: The infant feeding practices used at the Pitted Ware Culture (PWC) site of Ajvide on the Baltic island of Gotland were investigated using carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratio analysis as mentioned in this paper.