•The use of spherulites successfully isolates Early Upper Palaeolithic context.•INTCAL2020 radiocarbon calibration confirms Early Upper Palaeolithic deposit.•Silt lenses lain by sheetwash separate ...occupational episodes with hearths.•Fruit phytoliths and charred macrobotanical remains, indicate use of plant foods.
With a rich, well-dated Early Upper Palaeolithic layer, the Mughr el-Hamamah cave site is key for understanding the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic transition in the Levant. The archaeological deposit consists of two units. Layer A resulted from pastoral activities during the 20th century and Layer B dated between 44.5 and 40.0 ky BP. During Layer A’s formation, shepherds disturbed Layer B, redepositing Early Upper Palaeolithic sediments and lithic artefacts in Layer A matrix. Activity from Layer A’s formation also resulted in spatially patchy percolation and bioturbation, leaving microarchaeological traces such as dung spherulites in some areas in Layer B. In contrast, contemporaneous chemical diagenetic processes from Layer B’s primary formation caused spatially uneven post-depositional dissolution of animal bone. In this article we present a multi-proxy microarchaeological approach to investigate the post-depositional processes in Layer B, focussing on possible impacts on the plant archaeological record. The identification of intrusive spherulites from shepherds’ activities define the limits of disturbance in Layer B. Micromorphological analyses have identified four intact micro-facies in Layer B, representing an interplay of natural and anthropogenic factors. Micromorphological details in bedded combustion features favour the interpretation that associated phytoliths represent fuel traces. Dicot fruit phytoliths occur in the western area of the cave, where well-preserved charred wood and seeds were also found. Grass-diagnostic phytoliths correspond to C3 and C4 taxa, indicating an overall humid environment with dry spells. Microarchaeological analysis identifies traces of both bedded and dispersed hearth materials, mixed with variable plant resources for food, fuel, and possibly other uses. This strengthens the interpretation of Mughr el-Hamamah Layer B as a dense, complicated palimpsest of recurring activities, formed over many millennia.
Display omitted
•Geoarchaeology•Cave Archaeology•Sedimentology•FTIR•ICP-MS•SEM-EDS•Anthropogenic vs Natural Deposits•Fijian Archaeology
This report summarizes the results of a series of original ...investigations of Naihehe Cave on Viti Levu, Fiji, which include excavations and laboratory analyses. The goal of this research was to investigate evidence of human occupation of Naihehe cave in prehistory via analyses of sediments, sedimentary processes, and identification of parent materials and anthropogenic deposits. Analyses of sediments were conducted at “macro” and “micro”-scales: the macro-scale approach analyzed aggregates of sediment grains using Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and Laser-ablated Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). The micro-scale approach focused on individual grains of sediment using Scanning Electron Microscopy with Energy Dispersion Spectroscopy (SEM-EDS). Identified charcoal and radiocarbon dating were used to determine the age of deposits. The results of these analyses identified different classes of sediment based upon their textural and mineralogical qualities and determined major and minor elemental components of individual grains and aggregates. These in turn provide unique insights into the origin and depositional environment of the cave’s sediments. Analyses also identified anthropogenic deposits via the detection of elemental and mineralogical signatures and intrusive microfossils. Combustion features in the cave’s deposits, two of which produced calibrated radiocarbon dates of 886-1013 CE (2σ) and 260-529 CE (2σ), identify human activity in the cave in the two millennia following human colonization of Fiji. This report discusses these primary findings and argues that instrument-based studies of sediment are insightful for the identification of natural and anthropogenic deposits.
•Multiple Holocene human remains from caves in S Poland have been recently radiocarbon dated.•In 9 caves human remains have been radiocarbon dated to Late Roman and Early Migration Period.•This ...indicates the unrecognised phenomenon of funeral cave use in Barbaric Central Europe.•The phenomenon was not restricted to specific age or gender and included both locals and non-locals.•The surprising funeral use of caves shed light on the turbulent times of the Late Roman Period.
Although caves have been used for funerary purposes almost since the dawn of time, there is very little evidence of such use in Central European Barbaricum. This paper presents newly obtained results from the Cracow Upland (southern Poland) concerning multiple skeletal remains that apparently share a similar third–fifth centuries AD chronology, corresponding to the Late Roman and Early Migration Periods. Multiple analyses have been performed to supplement archaeological data, including radiocarbon dating, osteoarchaeological analysis, ancient DNA research and isotopic analysis. The complex picture points towards unusual burial practices, which generally spanned from the third to the fifth centuries AD and involved a broad demographic, with no indication of selection based on an individual's biological profile. Isotopic analysis has also indicated the individuals’ heterogeneity with regard to diet and local versus nonlocal origin. The results point towards the previously unrecognized unique role of caves in the Przeworsk culture, then present in southern Poland.
Although multiple Mesolithic cave sites have been recognised in Europe, the use of such sites by Early Holocene hunter gatherers was extremely scarce north of the Carpathians. Single Mesolithic ...artefacts have been found thus far only in six cave sites in Poland. The rich Early Mesolithic assemblage found in Bramka Rockshelter in southern Poland seems to be quite extraordinary in such a context. The site was excavated over 50 years ago, but the results have never been published or analysed beyond a short mention of child burial found in the Mesolithic context. The paper presents new radiocarbon dates obtained for the Mesolithic occupation and the child burial, showing the Early Holocene chronology of the Komornician assemblage and the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age chronology of the burial. The assemblage's techno-typological analysis allowed us to identify six human occupation phases at the site, with the most intensive phase connected to the Mesolithic. Comparative analyses of other Mesolithic assemblages from the region, together with an extremely high percentage of debitage found in the Bramka Rockshelter assemblage, allow us to discuss the possibility of identifying the site as a knapping workshop located in the vicinity of Jurassic flint outcrops.
For the first project in its "Dates in Drawers" programme, the Yorkshire Archaeological and Historical Society collaborated with the Craven Museum to obtain a radiocarbon date for one of the three ...crouched burials recovered from Elbolton Cave in the nineteenth century. The Early Neolithic date range that was obtained finds corroboration in the conclusions drawn from ongoing aDNA work on human remains from the cave, whilst a review of the pottery assemblage has found no unequivocal Early Neolithic material that might be associated with the burials. Although the archive from this excavation was lost long ago, the recent and ongoing research demonstrates that the finds from the cave are still able to make a significant contribution to the wider understanding of the chronology of prehistoric cave use in the Yorkshire Dales.
•A multiproxy approach was applied for palaeoenvironment analyses in Koziarnia Cave.•Layers related to Middle Palaeolithic, Jerzmanowician, and Early Gravettian were analysed.•Two MIS 3 climate ...oscillations were detected.•Jerzmanowician occupation was connected with a relatively cold episode.•Middle Palaeolithic and Early Gravettian groups inhabited the cave during milder climatic conditions.
Marine Isotope Stage 3 is considered a period with several climate oscillations that drove the environments to rapid changes. To understand how these stadial-interstadial cycles affected southern Poland, we combined the results of eight proxies analysed in the samples from the old excavations and a new 2017 trench of Koziarnia Cave (Ojców National Park, Kraków-Częstochowa Upland, Poland) in layers related to Middle Palaeolithic, Jerzmanowician, and Early Gravettian. Among the studied proxies were charcoals, pollen record, remains of malacofauna, and vertebrates (including rodents, birds and large mammals, and ZooMS analysis of fragmented bones). Moreover, sediment samples have been analysed for lipid composition (by Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry, GC–MS).
Despite several taphonomic issues, it was possible to recognise two oscillations. The first one, reflected in pollen record and lipid analysis, took place during Dansgaard-Oeschger (DO) 14 to 8 and included Heinrich Stadial (HS) 4. The second one, recorded by rodents and bird proxies, was related to DO 8/7 to DO 6 and included HS 3. Charcoal and large mammal proxies provided the broad context of our study. The Jerzmanowician occupation was connected with a relatively cold episode in a landscape characterized mainly by grassland and periglacial environments, while the Late Middle Palaeolithic and Early Gravettian groups settled the cave during milder climatic conditions, where environments were open with sparse boreal woodlands. Such trends provide additional arguments in a broad discussion on Middle-Upper Palaeolithic transition in Central Europe.
After groundbreaking work by multiple archaeologists in the latter half of the 20th century, caves in the Maya world are currently acknowledged as fundamentally ritual rather than domestic spaces. ...However, a more nuanced read of the anthropological literature and conversations with Indigenous collaborators in the past and present pushes us to move still farther and see caves not as passive contexts to contain ceremonies directed elsewhere but animate beings with unique identities and personalities in their own right. This article combines archaeological, ethnohistoric, and ethnographic documentation of Maya cave use in central Guatemala to build a foundation for examining caves as living beings, with particular attention played to the role they play as active agents in local politics and quotidian life. Through ritual offerings, neighboring residents and travelers maintain tight reciprocal relationships with specific caves and other geographic idiosyncrasies dotting the landscape to ensure the success of multiple important activities and the continued well-being of families and communities.
A new Late glacial – Holocene palaeoenvironmental record from Cerro Benítez (51°33′S 72°35′W), Seno Última Esperanza, is presented. A pollen and spore record, from a closed basin mire, provides ...insight into the dramatic landscape changes spanning the past ~16,000 years. AMS radiocarbon dating, supplemented by the application of tephrochronology, provides robust age constraint. Our record of landscape change is set alongside a summary of the archaeofaunal records from the suite of caves and rock shelters that surround Cerro Benítez. Our record begins c. 16.3 ka, sometime after glacier retreat from the area, and describes a treeless landscape favoured by large grazing animals. At c. 14.9 ka, southern beech trees began to migrate into the area, but the landscape remained open with sufficient open ground for grazers. At c. 12.0 ka there was a dramatic expansion of woodland, but the decline of large mammals appears to have started some ~700 years earlier and is coincident with the arrival of hunter-gatherers in the area c. 12.7 ka. However, there is no archaeological evidence for human induced mass killing events, and it is likely that Cerro Benítez was a marginal resource area for early hunters that fell in and out of favour as the landscape changed during the Holocene; initially, less favourable during the early Holocene dry period (c. 11.0–8.0 ka) and more in favour during the mid-to late Holocene, although increasingly supplemented by more distant (~5–10 km) materials, including marine resources from the Golfo Almirante Montt.
Over three field seasons between 2007 and 2012, we excavated three caves—Mota, Tuwatey, and Guio—situated at an average elevation of 2,084 m above sea level in the cool and moist Boreda Gamo ...Highlands of southwestern Ethiopia. Anthropogenic deposits in these caves date from the Middle to Late Holocene (ca. 6000 to 100 BP) and provide excellent preservation of material culture, fauna, flora, and human skeletal remains from which to investigate changes in technologies and habitat use over the last several thousand years. Here, we present results and interpretations, suggesting ways in which Holocene communities of the Boreda Gamo Highlands constructed new landscapes and technologies in their transition from hunting and gathering to an agropastoral way of life. Entre 2007 et 2012, au cours de trois missions de terrain, nous avons fouillé trois grottes—Mota, Tuwatey et Guio—situées à une altitude moyenne de 2154 mètres au dessus du niveau de la mer. Sur le haut plateau au climat froid et humide de Boreda Gamo, dans le sud-ouest de l'Éthiopie. Les gisements anthropiques dans ces grottes datent de l'Holocène moyen à tardif (environ 6000 à 100 BP) et présentent une excellente conservation de la culture matérielle, de la faune, de la flore et des restes humains, à partir desquels ont pu être étudiés les changements technologiques et dans les modes d'occpation au cours des derniers millénaires. Nous présentons ici les résultats et les interprétations, proposant les modalities par lesquelles les communautés holocènes des hauts plateau du Boreda Gamo ont construit de nouveaux paysages et technologies pour passer de la chasse et de la cueillette à un mode de vie agropastoral.
PDF
