Oak disks from pile dwellings of the prehistoric site of Gran Carro (lake Bolsena, Italy) were analysed in order to estimate wood degradation. Micro-morphological observations showed that the ...microbial decay could be mainly attributed to erosion bacteria. The most important physical properties, i.e. Maximum Water Content (MWC), Residual basal Density (RDb), and the calculation of the Lost Wood Substance (LWS) highlighted that heartwood (HW) was moderately preserved, with MWC values slightly higher or comparable to that of recent oak, whereas sapwood (SW) was very degraded. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was tested as an alternative method for the chemical characterisation of archaeological wood. The TGA profiles were critically discussed taking into account the results of the physical and micro-morphological analyses. Potentialities and drawbacks of TGA were underlined.
Multi-proxy analysis of the coprolites which were found during excavations at two Late Neolithic (fourth millennium
bc
) pile-dwelling sites (Črnelnik and Stare gmajne) in Slovenia yielded some new ...insights into human–dog relations and behaviour. The digested content is presented in a multidisciplinary approach, in which palynological, palaeoparasitological, archaeobotanical and archaeozoological features are studied and genetic signs are tested. Beside the origin of the coprolites, the size of an animal and the diet, the faeces provided some additional information, such as health, status, nutrition habits, environment and season.
The onset of the Bronze Age (approximately 4150 yrs cal. BP) in the southern Lake Garda region (N-Italy) is marked by an increase in the number of settlements and by the widespread adoption of ...pile-dwelling building techniques. The prominence of this phenomenon polarized the attention of local palaeoenvironmental investigations. As a result, pre-Bronze age landscape and climate dynamics have been investigated to a lesser degree. In an attempt to address this disparity, our contribution focuses on the period between ∼7100 and ∼3800 yrs cal. BP, i.e. approximately between Early Neolithic and Early Bronze Age. The location of our analysis is the former lake of Bande di Cavriana (Mantua). Multi-proxy investigations highlight few major climatic shifts prior to the Bronze Age onset. A first transition into more warm/dry conditions is recorded between ∼6300 and 6100 yrs cal. BP. Similar conditions occur again after ∼4600 yrs cal. BP, peaking at ∼4300 yrs cal. BP. Speculatively, taking into account dating uncertainties, this second shift might represent the local expression of the ‘4.2Ka’ event. A marked transition into a colder/more humid situation occurs then after ∼4300 yrs cal. BP and persists into the Bronze Age. Major vegetational changes begin during the Neolithic with the steady rise of Carpinus betulus pollen (from ∼5700 yrs cal. BP). A more rapid expansion of this taxon after ∼5100 yrs cal. BP might reflect shifts in forest exploitation strategies during the Copper Age (e.g. coppicing) or changes in the ruminant fauna (e.g. grazing vs. browsing habits), arguably due to human intervention. Nonetheless, pollen grains of anthropogenic indicators appear with consistent frequency only since the Bronze Age. The establishment of the Bande di Cavriana pile dwelling (∼3950 yrs cal. BP) is marked by declining arboreal pollen values and growing anthropogenic taxa. This behavior likely reflects a more intense landscape exploitation (deforestation, expansion of arable fields and meadows), although an influx of herbaceous pollen from near-site activities (e.g. cereal processing, garbage dumping) should not be overlooked.
•Climate and land cover changes are investigated between ∼7100 and 3800 cal. BP.•A first transition into warmer/more arid conditions occurs between ∼6300 and 6100 cal. BP.•A second warm/arid event begins ∼4600 cal. BP and peaks at ∼4300 cal. BP.•The Carpinus betulus rise after ∼5100 cal. BP was arguably favored by human intervention.•The Bronze Age onset (∼4150 cal. BP) occurs during a marked colder/wetter shift.
Dendrochronological studies demonstrate a highly dynamic settlement system in prehistoric wetland sites in the northern Alpine forelands. In this article, we apply an agent-based simulation model of ...the human–environment system to better understand possible causes of these dynamics. Therefore, we formulate a generic quantitative model of land use and calorie supply in Neolithic wetland sites ca. 4300–3700
bc
. Archaeological, geographical and palaeoenvironmental data together with information from an agronomic crop yield model (MONICA) are used in an agent-based simulation of Neolithic land use (WELASSIMO model). We fit the generic model to specific conditions at six archaeological sites and their surrounding environments, using local data. In our simulations, annual crop yields fluctuate markedly around a long term mean which starts to decrease after a few years of crop production. Crop plants supply 60–90% of the annual calorie demand. As sources of readily available non-crop calories are needed to compensate potential low crop yields, we argue that
Corylus avellana
(hazelnuts) were especially important to provide these extra calories; the simulated importance of non-crop calories is 10–40%. Records of human-induced fires are interpreted as being indicative of a strategy to generally open up the woodland canopy and promote the growth of light-demanding hazel. The extent of the different land use methods is quantified and visualized in tiles of 8 km
2
around the six study sites. The specific vegetation cover, the importance of hunting and the number of livestock animals have a major effect on the total area required.
It is assumed that people practiced woodland management, i.e., coppicing and pollarding, in prehistory, but details are poorly known. This study aims for a better understanding of woodland ...exploitation through time in the wetland basin of the Ljubljansko barje, Slovenia, from 3700-2400 BCE (Before Common Era). To do so, uncarbonized, waterlogged wood from 16 Eneolithic pile dwellings situated in two geographical clusters that cover a time span of c. 1300 years were subjected to age/diameter analysis. It is the first time that age/diameter analysis has been applied to multiple sites from the same region. The investigated posts represent a wide range of taxa, but oak (
sp.) and ash (
sp.) represent 75% of the total, indicating selective use of wood for this purpose. Diameter selection of ash may have taken place as well. At both site clusters, the age/diameter data do not reveal any unequivocal evidence for woodland management. Only at the youngest sites do the data possibly show some gradually changing practices. The outcomes are discussed within the framework of recent discussions about woodland management in Europe.
For the period of the Neolithic lake-shore occupation on Lake Constance (~4000–2400 bc), settlement and woodland developments are investigated in parallel using dendrotypology, a dendroarchaeological ...approach based on the classification of oak timber according to tree age, growth patterns, and degree of stem conversion. Along with characteristics related to architectural adaptations and settlement relocations, dendro-groups allow an insight into the structure and dynamics of the exploited forest stands. From clearing activities through intermediate coppice practices to forest degradation, dendrotypological models show a strong relationship between demographic developments and woodland use in a region largely covered by forest at that time. It appears that against a background of climate evolution, regional patterns of settlement development can be directly linked at a higher resolution of time to the management of woodland as well as to the intensity of land use. Regarding the varying ecological susceptibility of a mosaic-like landscape around Lake Constance, the consideration of the ecological components enhanced by dendrotypology allows a better balance in the interpretation of the interaction between climate impact and settlement behavior. Consequently, dendrotypology has to be seen as a reliable interface between humanology and natural sciences in wetland archaeology, and from this perspective, further prospects of this approach are presented.
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•Development of Eneolithic oak chronology for 3771–3330 BC in Slovenia.•Common tree-ring patterns with German/Swiss oak chronology.•First dendrochronologically dated prehistoric pile ...dwellings at Ljubljansko barje.•Improvement of dendro-archaeological investigations south and south east of the Alps.
We present dendrochronological dating of Eneolithic pile dwellings on Ljubljansko barje, Slovenia, from the 4th millennium BC, partly included on the UNESCO world heritage list in 2011. Samples of oak (Quercus sp.) timbers from the posts on which the dwellings were built have been collected over the past 20 years. They have been dendrochronologically cross-dated and (pre) dated by 14C wiggle-matching. We describe the construction of a 442-year chronology BAR-3330 based on 106 cross-dated tree-ring series of wood from six pile-dwelling sites. Comparison of BAR-3330 with reference chronologies of more than 500km distant areas north of the Alps showed that it can be teleconnected and dated with a combined German Swiss chronology. The time span of BAR-3330 was defined in this way as 3771–3330 BC. We were thus able to date exactly building activities on the pile dwellings Strojanova voda (SV), Hočevarica (HO), Maharski prekop (MP), Črešnja pri Bistri (CR), Spodnje mostišče (SM) and Stare gmajne (SG), in which early copper metallurgy played an important role. This is the first dendrochronological dating of prehistoric pile dwellings south of the Alps using reference chronologies from the north based on teleconnection. It provides an opportunity to continue filling the spatial and temporal gaps in the absolute chronology of the 4th millennium BC in the area south and south east of the Alps.
Settling Waterscapes in Europe Hafner, Albert; Dolbunova, Ekaterina; Mazurkevich, Andrey | Pranckenaite
2022, Letnik:
1
eBook
Odprti dostop
Pile dwellings have been explored over a vast region for a number of decades now. This has led to the development of different ways, methods, and even schools of under-water and peat-bog excavation ...practices and data analysis techniques under the influence of different research traditions in individual countries. On the one hand, these and other factors can limit our understanding of the past, whilst on the other hand they can also open up further avenues of interpretation. By collecting the papers presented at the 2016 session of the EAA in Vilnius, this book aims to take this diversity as an opportunity. The geographical scope extends from the Baltic to Russia, Belarus, Albania, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Croatia, Greece, Germany, Austria and Switzerland to France. The volume thus provides a current insight into international research into life in and around a vast array of prehistoric waterscapes. Extensive multidisciplinary research carried out in recent years has provided new data with regard to the anthropogenic influence on the landscapes around Neolithic and Bronze Age pile dwellings, which allows us to characterise in more detail the lifestyles of the settlements’ inhabitants, the peculiarities of the ecological niche and the interaction between humans and their environment. The volume also contains various case studies that demonstrate the importance of scientific analyses for the study of settlements between land and water. Overall, the volume presents an important new body of data and international perspectives on the settlement of European waterscapes.
O muiraquitã é um artefato arqueológico raro e característico das sociedades pré-coloniais do baixo Amazonas e de área circum-caribenha. Foi confeccionado por meio de diversos tipos de minerais, ...sendo os mais conhecidos os de pedra verde, sobretudo a nefrita. Embora sua função ainda seja desconhecida, a literatura etnográfica e arqueológica sugere que estes objetos conotavam símbolos de poder, haja vista a ampla rede de circulação em que estavam inseridos. Este artigo descreve um muiraquitã encontrado na estearia da Boca do Rio, região das estearias maranhenses. As análises foram feitas por MicroRaman, com auxílio do equipamento de bancada BWTEK, da GemExpert, difração de raios X (DRX), evidenciando que o artefato foi confeccionado em tremolita/actinolita, um mineral inexistente no Maranhão. Propõe-se uma possibilidade acerca da cadeia operatória do artefato e analisam-se as possíveis redes regionais de interação comercial e simbólica nas quais este muiraquitã esteve envolvido.
The article presents the results of a study on archaeological structures and horizons developed in the palaeolake shore-zone of the Serteya II site that was occupied intermittently and to a greater ...or lesser intensity from the Mesolithic up to the Middle Ages. The Serteya II site is a multilayer complex used by hunter–fisher–gatherer communities in the 9th–8th mill. BC, and from the end of the 7th till the end of the 3rd mill. BC. The article is focused on the particularities of the formation of archaeological layers and the reconstruction of the ancient environment in different periods of time. The study of the sets of artefacts, their state of preservation, as well as the traits of archaeological features, may indicate the peculiarities of the formation of different sedimentological units. Based on the results of complex natural-scientific research it was possible to reconstruct the palaeo-ecology of changing water regimes as well as changes in environmental conditions.
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