Neolithic (Other Keyword)
251-275 (386 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Current Issues in Japanese Archaeology (2019 Archaeological Research in Asia Symposium)" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents a study of the clays used in the manufacture of ceramic figurines, or dogu, from the Jomon period of Japanese archaeology. Analyses of clays in dogu from sites in Niigata (eastern Honshu) and Okayama (western Honshu) using a handheld XRF machine will be discussed in the context of...
A New Hypothetical Framework of Understanding the Evolution of Agriculture in the Lower Yangzi Region (2018)
Although a number of studies in recent years have contributed fresh knowledge to our understanding of the origins and development of agriculture in the Lower Yangzi, updated data have made this issue even more complicated. The empirical evidence shows very little information about any hunter-gatherers who might have lived in this area and indicates that, 10,000 years ago, humans first appeared here as successful resource managers or niche constructors. The human ecosystem characterized by...
New Insights from a Reanalysis of the Flaked-Stone Assemblage from the Neolithic Site of Wadi Shu’eib, Jordan (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the ongoing research on the Neolithic of the Southern Levant, flaked-stone assemblages continue to play a key role in interpretations of social organization and interaction. Despite the prominence of research on lithic assemblages during the Neolithic, few comprehensive studies come from the large settlements with long, continuous occupation spans (2,000...
New Multi-disciplinary Studies Re-shape our Understanding of Neolithic Peopling and Biocultural Adaptations in Western Liguria (Northwestern Italy) (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances in the Prehistory of Liguria and Neighboring Regions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Beginning in the mid-1800s, about 200 burials and an undefined number of scattered human remains have been reported from several caves and rock shelters in western Liguria. The skeletal series, excavated following the methodology of the time, were considered likely/probably/possibly "Neolithic" or "Middle Neolithic",...
A New Multi-Scalar, Multi-Methodology for the Detection, Identification and Analysis of Ancient Animal Dung (2017)
Animal domestication has traditionally been investigated through archaeozoological approaches which can be problematic and may not detect the earliest stages in this important transformation (Zeder 2006). The study of dung provides an alternative line of evidence for the investigation of: animal presence and proximity, increased animal management, domestication and sedentism, potential secondary product use, animal diet and environment. To identify and analyse faecal material there is still the...
New Stones, New Uses: Sillimanite Ground Stone Tools from Central Iberia (5000–2500 BCE) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ground stone tools can indicate important patterns in food production, craftwork, and farming practices in Neolithic and Chalcolithic Iberia due to their varied use. As Iberian communities adopted sedentary practices and social inequalities emerged, they began to create tools made from new raw materials, indicating a changing relationship with their...
The Nitrogen Challenge at Çatalhöyük (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Challenges and Future Directions in Plant Stable Isotope Analysis in Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotopic values of archaeobotanical remains from the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük have presented us with a series of challenges for interpreting ancient crop management systems in a complex environment. An exceptionally wide range of δ15N values (0 to 18‰) obtained...
The Not Very Patrilocal European Neolithic (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Two decades of strontium isotope and aDNA research on Central European Neolithic cemetery populations have consistently interpreted patrilocality, which is now a foregone conclusion. This paper questions those interpretations from a social anthropological perspective. Models are presented for interpreting strontium isotope ratios and aDNA that consider the...
Nutrient hotspots and pastoral legacies in East African savannas (2015)
Negative impacts of pastoralists on African savannas have been debated but creation of nutrient hotspots may have significant positive effects. African savanna productivity is largely nutrient limited, however, ecologists show corrals in abandoned Maasai pastoral settlements have high nitrogen and phosphate levels, and distinctive vegetation and grazing successions. Such hotspots may drive ecosystem structure and function, but little is known about how long-term or how widespread they may be....
"Off with their heads": skull removal in the prehistoric Near East (2016)
While there is a huge difference in every aspect of existence between simple human societies, i.e. hunter-gatherers and complex ones, i.e. industrial groups, the head is always considered as the residing place of the essential part of what defines ‘us’ as rational human beings at the individual level. One may thus assume that this was the case also in prehistoric times, which at least partially explains the special treatment of heads that one can observe through millennia, from the...
On the Neolithic Edge: Predicting Crop Adoption by Paleolithic Foragers of Taiwan (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology on the Edge(s): Transitions, Boundaries, Changes, and Causes" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The adoption of agricultural crops by intensified foragers occurred throughout Southeast Asia, resulting in mixed and low-level economies. Behavioral ecology provides models for evolutionary decision-making for mixed forager-gardener economies. The Paleolithic to Neolithic transition in Taiwan is represented by a...
The ordering of space at Boncuklu, central Anatolia (8500-7500 cal BC); household and community. (2015)
This paper explores the degree to which the spatial ordering of Neolithic settlements may be related to the nature of households and their inter-relationshps and where symbolic and cosmological factors may have had a role, using evidence from central Anatolia, notably from Boncuklu, where practices antecedent to those at Çatalhöyük are well attested. Still influential is a ‘ Domestic Mode of Production’ model in which it is proposed that increasing household autonomy in the Neolithic reflects...
The Origins of Agriculture and Neolithic in the American Southwest: The View from Western Europe (2016)
The transition from foraging to farming is certainly one of the most dramatic processes in human history. The use of domesticated plants spread widely across Western Europe from the Near East, and across the American Southwest from Mexico. Research in Western Europe has traditionally focused on the movement of farming communities across the region which displaced or subsumed local foragers. Recently various aspects of this process have been discussed including climate change, the expansion of...
An Overview of Technological Changes in the Pottery of the Early Holocene Shangshan Culture, Zhejiang Province, China (2018)
This presentation provides a preliminary overview of the diachronic modifications that occurred in the Shangshan ceramic technological tradition (approximately 11,400 to 8,600 cal. BP). It is hypothesized that Shangshan peoples engaged in low-level cultivation of rice and began the process of bringing this crucial cereal under domestication. The authors explore the relationship between changes in Shangshan pottery technology, culinary practices, and the emergence of rice cultivation as factors...
Paleoenvironmental Conditions of Holocene Southern Mozambique: Multiproxy Data from Coastal Lake Nyalonzelwe Cores (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. To understand the role climate played in facilitating the development and expression of human behaviors, our interdisciplinary research team cored the interdunal Nyalonzelwe lake (Inhambane coast, southern Mozambique) during the summer of 2019. Lake Nyalonzelwe sits 5 m above MSL and is sheltered from the Indian Ocean by a Pleistocene dune system. Its...
The Past inside the Present: Interpreting Archaeological Evidence of Weaving in Mainland Southeast Asia in the Light of Present-Day Textile Making Traditions (2021)
This is an abstract from the "The Current State of Archaeological Research across Southeast Asia" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Woven textiles have played an important role in Southeast Asia both as practical items and markers of status, a role that continues to this day. Many important traditions and techniques, ranging from simple to complex, have survived to the present day, or the recent past. In this paper I will review the archaeological...
Pathways to Plant Domestication: Categories of Cultivation Practice and Convergent Evolution (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Questioning the Fundamentals of Plant and Animal Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Taking inspiration from Zeder’s notion of pathways to animal domestication (commensal, prey, directed), this presentation will outline equivalent pathways of plant domestication types, and suggest a range of species that can be grouped by these pathways. These pathways are united by issues of habit (annual, perennial),...
A Pawsitively Interesting Prehistory of Dogs: New Stable Isotope and Morphometric Analyses from Croatia (2018)
Though dogs are recognized as important points of comparison for archaeologists seeking to reconstruct prehistoric human diet and lifestyles (e.g., canine surrogacy approach), less attention has focused on understanding the cultural and ecological significance of dogs themselves in these same contexts. We report new morphometric and stable isotope results from prehistoric (Neolithic-Iron Age) sites from Croatia that represent different cultural and environmental contexts that potentially...
Phytoliths, Geochemistry and Ethnography: A Multi-method Approach for Interpreting the Neolithic Sites of WF16 and ‘Ain Ghazal (2018)
Understanding Neolithic sites in southwest Asia is often difficult because of the lack of preservation of organic remains and the effects of various taphonomic processes that alter the original record. It is, therefore, critical that we maximise the information that can be acquired from these sites. Here, we use an ethnographic approach to test the potential of using plant phytoliths and geochemistry to aid our interpretation of southwest Asian Neolithic sites. We sampled two Neolithic...
Picking Up the Pieces: The Continued Influence and Impact of Redding's “Breaking the Mold” on Animal Domestication (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Breaking the Mold: A Consideration of the Impacts and Legacies of Richard W. Redding" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Richard Redding’s work on “breaking the mold” on how we explain the development of food production is emblematic of the major contributions he made to zooarchaeological thinking: his creativity, curiosity, and willingness to question dearly held beliefs. In this paper, we overview some of Redding’s many...
Pig Management in Neolithic North China: Foddering and Social Change in the Western Liao River Valley (2019)
This is an abstract from the "From Tangible Things to Intangible Ideas: The Context of Pan-Eurasian Exchange of Crops and Objects" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent models for pig domestication in China have suggested that initial domestication was contingent upon millet cultivation, which allowed for foddering through agricultural surplus. For this study, a combination of bulk collagen carbon and nitrogen isotopic analysis and compound...
Pigs and Power Centres in Late Neolithic Britain (2015)
This paper explores the interplay between food provision, landscape and power centres in late Neolithic Britain. This period is characterised by iconic megalithic ceremonial complexes, the most famous of which is Stonehenge. These centres represent a new scale of labour mobilisation, not previously seen in Britain. Evidence for feasting, invariably focussing on pork, is rife is in the environs of these monuments, yet settlement evidence is generally sparse. It is likely that these feasting...
Pigs by Sea: The Establishment of Pig Husbandry on Wallacean Islands during the Late Holocene (2018)
Domestic pigs play a crucial role in the socioeconomic systems of Island Southeast Asian cultures today. However, the timing of their introduction into the region during the late Holocene and details of their use by prehistoric inhabitants is not entirely clear. The introduction of domestic pigs by maritime Neolithic horticulturalists to the Wallacean island region of eastern Indonesia and Timor-Leste, which has never been connected to a major landmass, appears to have been an advantageous...
Pitchstone in Prehistory: New Insights into the Mesolithic and Neolithic use of Pitchstone in Scotland (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Advances in Obsidian Studies of the Old and New Worlds" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pitchstone is a glassy volcanic rock similar to obsidian but in Europe, its geological occurrence and its use as a raw material for prehistoric chipped-stone assemblages are much more restricted. In northern Britain where good quality flint is scarce, pitchstone circulated widely in the Neolithic with artifacts made from this...
Politics and Possibilities in Prehistoric Europe: An Alternative View on Power and Wealth (2024)
This is an abstract from the "In Defense of Everything! Constructive Engagements with Graeber and Wengrow’s Provocative Contribution" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. An overarching idea of *The Dawn of Everything* is that archaeologists should be encouraged to explore the past as a world of possibilities, not the least with regard to social and political organization. Taking up this call, this paper will reexamine two of the main conceptual...