The transportation of Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age ivory raw materials and artefacts across the Mediterranean has been in the focus of archaeological research for over a century now. However, tracing the flow of ivory has mostly been restricted to traditional theoretical models of raw materials distribution deriving from socio-culturally centred considerations. Environmental...
Mesolithic groups in Mediterranean Iberia lived during a period of bioclimatic and cultural changes. Thus, their economic behaviour and the availability of plant and animal resources show some interesting variation compared to previous periods that indicate changes in mobility patterns and social connectivity networks. This paper presents information on patterns of animal...
While lead isotopes serve to determine potential ore provenance, silver isotopes help evaluate if a specific ore flagged by Pb isotopes has actually been exploited as a silver source of bullion in antiquity. The combination of Ag and Pb isotopes thus constitutes a powerful tool to address provenance and identify potential ore sources. It has recently been observed that the vast...
Forty-six glass finds, including vessel fragments, windows, one inlay and one indicator of production (moil) excavated in the dump of the Sarno Baths in Pompeii were selected for an interdisciplinary technological, typological and chemical study. The identification of the moil demonstrates that a glassblowing workshop most likely existed in Pompeii, thus putting an end to a long...
This study introduces a collection of 33 glass samples, encompassing production indicators (blocks, fluidity tests, drops, cuts and wastes) and finished products (mainly goblets and probably a lamp) dating to the second half of the 7th century, except for a single more recent specimen (12th-14th). Additionally, a fragment was taken from a crucible bearing a thin layer of glass...
In recent years, the dental microwear analysis technique has been proven as an approach for contributing to animal husbandry research. It has been tested with good results on providing information related to the animal feeding strategies of bygone agri-livestock societies. In this paper, we present the first dental microwear study from the northeast of Tarraconensis province –the...
This study presents the results of a combined dendrological, macrobotanical, and dung spherulite analysis of flotation samples collected from Bronze Age, Late Assyrian, and post-Assyrian contexts at the site of Ziyaret Tepe, located on the southern bank of the Tigris River in southeastern Anatolia. The results of this study show shifting fuel resource exploitation between pre...
A rapidly increasing number of bronze mirrors dated to the Chinese Han dynasty (202 BC – AD 220), known for their unique decorative patterns and highly developed alloying techniques, have been widely discovered in both China and beyond, providing fresh materials and scientific data to revisit their geological provenance, production and circulation network along the ancient Silk...
Sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) has become one of the standard applications in the field of paleogenomics in recent years. It has been used for paleoenvironmental reconstructions, detecting the presence of prehistoric species in the absence of macro remains and even investigating the evolutionary history of a few species. However, its application in archaeology has been limited...
Hódmezővásárhely–Gorzsa is a multi-period tell settlement in South Hungary in the centre of the Great Hungarian Plain, about 15 km southwest of the city of Hódmezővásárhely. The thickest section of the settlement belongs to the Late Neolithic Tisza Culture period. In total, 1061 macrolithic artefacts were unearthed, a quarter of which was polished, and three quarter of which were...
This study aims at establishing a historically based model of animal husbandry in urban and rural settlements, in the Southern Levant. This type of model is required in the field of zooarchaeology, to better analyze and study ancient faunal remains. It also applies a non-traditional method to study and differentiate between urban and rural economies. For this aim, we used British...
The creation of rock art in the deep areas of caves was one of the most unique symbolic activities of Magdalenian societies in southwestern Europe between 13.5 and 21 thousand years ago. Previous research has suggested that these works of art were not placed in caves at random but rather their location corresponds to a pre-established structure. However, despite the suggestive...
This study aims at reconstructing foodways in the north-east (NE) of the Iberian Peninsula, focusing on lipid residue analysis of utilitarian vessels and using as case studies the sites of Puig Castellar of Biosca (180–120 BCE) and Guissona (120 BCE-third century CE). In total, fifty vessel fragments of different types and origins were analysed with techniques such as gas...
The Phoenician colony of La Fonteta in southeastern Iberia holds significant importance for understanding Phoenician settlement patterns in the region. While previous research has primarily focused on wheel-thrown ceramics indicative of the new technological advancements and trade networks implemented after the Phoenician arrival, handmade ceramics have been somewhat overlooked...
Rice and millet arrived in Western Japan from Korea around 3,000 years ago and spread eastwards across the archipelago in the next 700 years. However, the extent to which agriculture transformed traditional Jōmon hunter-gatherer-fisher communities is debated. Central Japan is a key area of study as remodelling of radiocarbon dates shows a slowdown in the dispersal rate of rice...
The material from which an archaeological piece is made provides a great deal of information regarding the society in which it was made; thus, any misidentification can lead to erroneous conclusions. The uniqueness of many of these pieces hinders their mineralogical analysis because the pieces cannot be damaged for sampling; therefore, errors in the classification of these...
The analysis of traumatic injuries in human skeletal remains from archaeological contexts offers important challenges for the reconstruction of past populations’ behaviors. In this study, a sample of 303 buried skeletons retrieved from the Etruscan necropolis of Spina (Ferrara, Italy) and dated back to the 5th to the 3rd century BC, were macroscopically analyzed for traumatic...
A methodological approach for a semi-quantitative non-destructive testing (NDT) of the effects on hydric properties after the application of different conservation treatments (commercial ethylsilicate and siloxane compounds with consolidant, water repellent or consolidant + water repellent properties) is presented in this study. The NDT used for this purpose is a simplified...
Through the second millennium BC, Bronze Age communities of Southern Italy have shown a remarkable degree of resilience in coping with changes in both macro-trends of cultural interaction and the landscape. In this paper, we will examine long-term processes of adaptation to shifting historical and environmental conditions from the vantage point of the impasto ware production at...
Horse tooth retouchers have been identified in several Middle and Upper Palaeolithic sites. They have been typically characterised as ‘soft’ hammers and/or grouped into the category of ‘bone retouchers’ at a technical level. Bone and teeth have different chemical compositions; teeth are denser and heavier than bone, and consequently, their technological features should not be...
Dietary reconstruction using carbon and nitrogen isotopes has been applied to the La Tène population buried at Prosmyky, a large cemetery of the 4th-3rd centuries BCE in northwest Bohemia. The analysis of bone collagen from 55 individuals showed a diet that did not differ noticeably from other contemporary sites in the region. However, chronologically sensitive development in...
The European populations of Homo heidelbergensis may have contributed to the genetic heritage of modern Eurasians. A better understanding of the possible effects of palaeoenvironmental alterations on the evolution of ancient humans can help to understand the origin of developed traits. For this purpose, the spatiotemporal alterations of physical factors were modelled in Europe...
Over the last few decades, research has significantly enhanced our understanding of the role played by shellfish in human subsistence during the Mesolithic period along the Atlantic coast of Europe. Instrumental to this advance has been the analysis of stable oxygen isotope measurements (δ18O) from mollusc shells, which offers valuable insights into the seasonality of shellfish...
Zooarchaeological research all over Europe has suggested a generalised pattern of livestock size decrease during the transition between the Roman times and the Early Middle Ages. Different reasons have been proposed to explain this pattern, including a change in management and feeding practices, in the context of a shift of animal husbandry from large to small scale production...
Recent research on human exploitation of molluscs, echinoderms and crustaceans during the Mesolithic in the Cantabrian region (northern Iberia) has shown significant variability in the intensity of the use of coastal resources by the last hunter-fisher-gatherers throughout the ~ 4000-year expanse of the Mesolithic (10,700 – 6,700 cal BP). Previous studies have proposed hypotheses...