Exploring ancient socio-economic adaptation is a basic issue of human-environment interaction. Xinjiang in northwest China is a region of high geographic diversity. Past human adaptations to this ...arid marginal area is a current focus of research interest but still lacks in-depth study. This article presents data from the Wupu Cemetery, located in the extremely arid Hami Basin in the eastern Tianshan Mountains. Archaeobotanical analysis is used to reconstruct the local environment niche and the subsistence economy of inhabitants. Radiocarbon dating results indicate the cemetery was occupied between 3000 and 2400 cal BP, during the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age. In total 16 species of the plant remains are identified, including four cereal crops, foxtail millet (Setaria italica), broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum), naked barley (Hordeum vulgare var. coeleste), wheat (Triticum aestivum) and 12 wild types. The riparian plant Populus euphratica and aquatic plant Typha sp. indicate inhabitants lived in an oasis near the cemetery. Environmental interpretation of this data compares well with other seven sites in arid southern Xinjiang. In addition to faunal remains from the site, it is assumed that a flexible system of multi-crop farming and herding was the subsistence pattern around Wupu. This system was widespread across Inner Asia and appears to have played a central role in adapting to different marginal environments during the Bronze Age and Iron Age.
This study defines early Iron Age burials in Northern Israel as a coherent assemblage with traditions that are archaeologically distinguishable from those of northern Phoenician and southern ...Philistine societies. These burial traditions are distinct from funerary customs of the Late Bronze Age and Iron IIB. The study discusses the main developments and regional differentiations of early Iron Age burial traditions with an emphasis on their chronological contexts.
Excavations in a series of superimposed Iron Age II collective buildings located at Masafi (Fujairah, UAE) by the French Archaeological Mission in the UAE allowed the discovery of two deposits of ...copper-base metal items buried in two jars. Copper smelting played a major role in the economy and the society of the region and consistent evidence suggest that it also had a symbolic importance. A summary of the archaeometallurgical study of the items discovered at Masafi is presented here and the context of the two deposits is discussed, in order to reconstruct the nature of these two hoards and the function of the buildings.
This article analyses the architecture of the Early Iron Age royal burial mound Tunnug 1 in the "Siberian Valley of the Kings" in Tuva Republic, Russia. This large monument is paramount for the ...archaeological exploration of the early Scythian period in the Eurasian steppes, but environmental parameters make research on site difficult and require the application of a diversity of methods. We thus integrate WorldView-2 and ALOS-2 remote sensing data, geoelectric resistivity and geomagnetic survey results, photogrammetry-based DEMs, and ortho-photographs, as well as excavation in order to explore different aspects of the funerary architecture of this early nomadic monument. We find that the large royal tomb comprises of a complex internal structure of radial features and chambers, and a rich periphery of funerary and ritual structures. Geomagnetometry proved to be the most effective approach for a detailed evaluation of the funerary architecture in our case. The parallel application of several surveying methods is advisable since dataset comparison is indispensable for providing context.
This book analyses the causes, characteristics and chronology behind the emergence of Iron Age Cypriot city-kingdoms. It suggests the received autochthonous theory is not supported by archaeological ...or textual evidence, and posits a more nuanced variant of the Phoenician theory, placing Cyprus as a relay point between the Levant and Aegean worlds.
Early Iron Age pottery from central Italian regions has so far largely been studied with a particular emphasis on typological and stylistical features. However, an analytical approach to ancient ...ceramic technology can reveal a wealth of data on the know-how of early Iron Age central Italian craftspeople and their production choices. With this aim we conducted archaeometric analyses of forty vessels from one of the main protohistoric cemeteries of Vetulonia, coupled with geological surveys of the territory around the settlement and the collection of raw materials. The occurrence of a ceramic fabric marked by fragments of metasedimentary rocks, as opposed to a fabric tempered with flint fragments, indicates the existence of separate traditions, characterised by distinct processes and the addition of specific tempers, probably reflecting different technological practices. The significance of our findings is briefly discussed within the historical and social scenario of early Iron Age Vetulonia, at the dawn of urbanisation.
Ancient Rome was the capital of an empire of ~70 million inhabitants, but little is known about the genetics of ancient Romans. Here we present 127 genomes from 29 archaeological sites in and around ...Rome, spanning the past 12,000 years. We observe two major prehistoric ancestry transitions: one with the introduction of farming and another prior to the Iron Age. By the founding of Rome, the genetic composition of the region approximated that of modern Mediterranean populations. During the Imperial period, Rome's population received net immigration from the Near East, followed by an increase in genetic contributions from Europe. These ancestry shifts mirrored the geopolitical affiliations of Rome and were accompanied by marked interindividual diversity, reflecting gene flow from across the Mediterranean, Europe, and North Africa.
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