Neolithic (Other Keyword)
101-125 (386 Records)
First developing around 8,000 years ago, pastoralism in Africa has continued as a flexible and dynamic mode of subsistence. One key feature of this dynamism is mobility, which is crucial for many East African pastoralists today to access seasonally available pasture and water. In areas of unpredictable rainfall, mobile pastoralism permits more people to live in dry lands than do other subsistence strategies. How the earliest herders in Tanzania used the landscape is still relatively unknown....
The EAST Typology: A Remedy for Eastern Africa’s "Lithics Systematics Anarchy" (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances and Debates in the Pleistocene Archaeology of Africa" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Eastern Africa boasts the world’s longest archaeological record, more than 3,4 million years so far. And yet, that record defies easy synthesis due to "lithics systematic anarchy." Archaeologists working in Eastern Africa describe and measure stone tools in so many different ways, that detailed comparisons within...
The emergence, development and regional differences of the mixed farming of rice and millet in the upper and middle Huaihe River, China (2017)
In this research, flotation and starch analyses were conducted on samples from eight archaeological sites in the upper and middle HRV. The results indicate that the mixed farming of rice and millet first appeared in the later phase of the middle Neolithic in the regions of the Peiligang Culture, then developed quite rapidly in the late Neolithic (6.8–5.0 ka BP), finally becoming the main subsistence economy at the end of the Neolithic in the upper HRV. However, there are obvious differences in...
The Entanglement of Nature and Culture in the Neolithic and Chalcolithic of Central Anatolia: The Transition of Çatalhöyük East to West (2017)
Prehistoric communities need to be seen as firmly embedded in their ecosystem and landscape where the nature is a very real factor in the decision making processes. The human-environmental relationship is complex and non-linear, which different societies shape it in variable ways. Responses to nature are always of social character made of a number of intertwined explicit and implicit elements. They ultimately have far reaching consequences for the condition of any group including a survival in...
Environmental Change’s Impact on Settlement Development during the Late Neolithic at the Site of Csökmő-Káposztás-domb (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the Körös region of the Great Hungarian Plain, the Late Neolithic (ca. 5000–4500 BC) tell site of Csökmő-Káposztás-domb features an ancient paleomeander that weaves through the site. Magnetometry and systematic surface collection have identified a contemporaneous Late Neolithic settlement surrounding the tell, spanning almost 130 ha. Many Late Neolithic...
European Neolithic Houses & New-Guinean Contemporary Houses: Toward a Material Culture Theory (2015)
The archaeological and ethnographical study of domestic dwellings gives us the opportunity to grasp the logical structure which underlies the transformation of any architectural tradition, then the process of reproduction-transformation of a cultural group, and ultimately the evaluation of its sustainability. A comparative architectural approach between Bandkeramik Neolithic and New-Guinean Anga groups) allows us to extract the structure inherent in architectural traditions; i.e. the...
Evaluating the Advent of Neolithic in Southern Kyushu, Japan, through Systematic Ceramic, Lithic, and Paleoenvironmental Studies (2018)
Archaeologists suggest that during the transitions between the Pleistocene and the Holocene, drastic changes occurred in the lifeways of humanity. They are termed the "Neolithization processes." Changes include the advent of food production and sedentism, and the adoption of pottery and ground stones. However, case studies around the world suggest that the timings, order, and nature of the occurrence vary. More case studies are required to better understand the "Neolithization." In this study,...
An Examination of Circum-Alpine Lake Dwelling Botanicals at the Milwaukee Public Museum (2018)
The lake dwelling sites of circum-Alpine Europe were discovered by the archaeological community in the mid-19th century and their artifacts were dispersed to museum collections in the United States and Europe. The Milwaukee Public Museum houses one such collection, which includes zoological material, textile fragments, tools, and carbonized botanicals and food. This paper focuses on the collection of plants and food, which come from Robenhausen, a lake-dwelling site south of Zurich. In studying...
Examining the Shift in Seed-Dispersal Mechanisms During Early Plant Domestication (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Frontiers of Plant Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Scholarship is reframing the study of plant evolution under cultivation to focus on the effects of complex human harvesting practices (seed predation), increased human population size, and sedentism, while turning away from conscious human selection. Research has pointed out that parallelism in domestication is linked to seed-dispersal mechanisms, but...
Expanding Individual Life Histories to Large-Scale Dietary Comparisons of Early Neolithic Cemetery Populations at Lokomotiv and Shamanka II, Cis-Baikla, Siberia (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Northeast Asian Prehistoric Hunter-Gather Lifeways: Multidisciplinary, Individual Life History Approach" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Reconstructing individual life histories using bio- and geochemical proxy records from 3-molar sequences of incremental dentin has elucidated a surprising degree of interpersonal variability amongst Early Neolithic populations in southwestern Cis-Baikal, Siberia. Previous...
Expanding the Niche: Gender and Bioarchaeology among Prehistoric Farming Groups (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Gender in Archaeology over the Last 30+ Years" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the early 1990s when I began my explorations of changing divisions of labor associated with agricultural transitions in the Levant, archaeology was grappling with the tip of the biocultural iceberg that was “gender” (sensu Fausto-Sterling 2000). During the intervening three decades, discussions of gender in archaeology have broadened....
Experimental Reconstructed Vinča Gradac Phase Copper Smelting (2018)
Recent dating projects have determined the oldest known date for copper smelting to appear around, 5000 BCE, associated with Vinča (Gradac phase) sites in the Morava Valley, Serbia. Recent Studies of Vinča metallurgy (Radivojevic 2010) were directed towards the characterisation of slags and associated minerals, and their provenance. This body of work has had important implications for theories relating to the beginnings of metal-using communities. Despite this important research, few studies...
Experimental Study of Lentil Taphonomy in Gangetic Early Farming Period to Understand Culinary Practices (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Advances in Macrobotanical and Microbotanical Archaeobotany Part 1" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological studies can uncover various foods associated with different cultures, where species selection holds ecological importance and preparation/consumption bear cultural significance. Regrettably, there is a shortage of research on food-related behaviors. This is especially true in the India Gangetic Early to...
Explaining Variation in the Scale of Neolithic Quarry and Mine Production (2018)
In recent years new methods have been developed for using summed radiocarbon probabilities as a population proxy and for comparing radiocarbon datasets to establish whether they are significantly different from one another, while taking into account sampling variation and the patterns in the calibration curve. On the basis of newly collected and updated radiocarbon data on the dating of Neolithic mines and quarries in in Britain, Ireland and continental Northwest Europe, the paper will present...
Exploiting, Exchanging, and Establishing Boundaries: Lithic Trade during the Neolithic on the Great Hungarian Plain (2015)
There has already been extensive analysis of Late Neolithic material culture on the Great Hungarian Plain. Much of that research, however, typically has been restricted to one site as opposed to multiple sites within a region. This paper explores assemblage variation in lithic materials from multiple sites across the Plain. By identifying differences in lithic materials, one can assess the extent to which lithics either reflect or even potentially reinforce social boundaries. In addition,...
Exploring Ancient Foodways: Starch Grain Analysis of Ceramic Residue in Wansan, Yilan County, Taiwan (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This research examines starch residues on food related pottery vessels in order to investigate the utilization of various plant foods in the late Neolithic Wansan society. Based upon preliminary identifications, most of the residue starch belongs to Panicoideae, with definite identification of foxtail millet and Job’s tears. No taro or yam have been...
Exploring Plant Exploitation and Food Practices in the Loess Plateau, China: A Comparative Microbotanical Analysis in Urban and Rural Settings during the Late Neolithic Period (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Archaeology of Food and Foodways: Emerging Trends and New Perspectives" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the late Neolithic period in the Yellow River region (ca. 5000–4000 cal BP), a significant wave of urbanization unfolded, marked by the rapid development of settlement hierarchies, social stratification, and interregional interactions, which laid the foundation for the emergence of early state-level...
Exploring the Engagement, Imagination, and Alignment of Potters and their Practices in Neolithic S. Calabria, Italy (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Mediterranean Archaeology: Connections, Interactions, Objects, and Theory" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In this presentation we use the results of a raw materials survey, replicative experiments in the field and the laboratory, and physicochemical and mineralogical analyses of local geological clays and archaeological ceramics from the sites of Umbro Neolithic and Penitenzeria in Southern Calabria, Italy to ask 3...
Exploring the Island Southeast Asian Neolithic: New results from Seram Island, Indonesia (2016)
The Island Southeast Asian Neolithic remains a controversial archaeological construction. Traditional theories explain the appearance of pottery, domestic plants and animals in the region about 3500 years ago as the result of migrations from Taiwan and SE China. Archaeological and genetic data collected in the past decade do not fit well with those theories, and scholars have begun to investigate new explanations. One area of renewed focus is in the relationship between fishing and farming at...
The External Connections of the Yingpanshan Site Cluster in Western Sichuan, China (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Previous studies suggest that both painted pottery vessels and certain kinds of cereals, such as millets, were introduced to the Upper Min River from the north due to the expansion of the Neolithic cultures in the upper reaches of the Yellow River, during the fourth millennium BC. By investigating related ceramic samples and human and animal teeth and bones...
Faunal evidence for the Neolithic colonization of Franchthi Cave, Greece (ca. 7000-6500 cal BC) (2015)
Franchthi Cave is a pivotal case in research on the mechanisms of the forager-producer transition in the southern Balkans region. Publications on this site have documented the geological, artifactual and macrobotanical records, but detailed information on the faunas is lacking. This zooarchaeological study focuses on the Final Mesolithic and Initial Neolithic periods and the question of whether livestock were adopted as isolated components by late Mesolithic foragers or the site was colonized by...
Faunal Perspectives on Occupation Intensity and Use of Space at Neolithic Kfar HaHoresh (2018)
During the transition to agriculture in southwest Asia, patterns of settlement site use reflect a major shift in the use of space by the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period. Diverse types of sites were utilized by this time, including locales primarily for ritual activities. More studies of ritual site use are needed to clarify how space was organized and used during the Neolithic Transition. This paper presents evidence of animal selection and refuse management to investigate the intensity of site...
Feeding Stonehenge: The Potential of Coprolites as Tools for Reconstructing Diet (2018)
The Feeding Stonehenge project combined zooarchaeology with pottery residue analysis to explore the diets and provisioning of the inhabitants of Neolithic Durrington Walls, the settlement associated with the construction of the iconic Stonehenge monument in southern Britain. A lack of preserved plant remains at the site, and an overwhelming dominance of porcine and ruminant lipids in the pottery, suggests that animal products were the major source of nutrition. This research tests this...
Fieldwork Prior to the CPAS and the Influence of CPAS on Recent Fieldwork (2023)
This is an abstract from the "The Chengdu Plain Archaeology Survey (2004–2011): Highlights from the Final Report" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster examines archaeological fieldwork and discoveries made in the Chengdu Plain prior to the launch of the Chengdu Plain Archaeological Survey (CPAS) project in 2005. We pay particular attention to pre-Qin sites found in key areas of CPAS. Since the 1980s, due to the urban development of the...
Filling the Envelope: a History of Archaeobotanical Research in Cyprus (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Pushing the Envelope, Chasing Stone Age Sailors and Early Agriculture: Papers in Honor of the Career of Alan H. Simmons" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since the first experiments with the method of flotation in 1962, the sub-discipline of archaeobotany (paleoethnobotany) has developed and revolutionized our understanding of the origins and spread of agricultural systems worldwide. The history of modern...