Neolithic settlements of the Upper Tigris Basin, prehistoric human-animal and environmental relations provide very important data from past to present. Zooarchaeological studies have been carried out ...in the Upper Tigris Basin from the 1980s to the present, at various times and for various purposes. Among them are the settlements of Körtiktepe, Hallan Çemi, Gusir Höyük, Hasankeyf Höyük, Demirköy, Çemka Höyük and Boncuklu Tarla from the PrePottery Neolithic (PPN) Period, while the settlements of Çayönü from the Pottery Neolithic period (PN), Next to Salat Mosque, referee Use, Sumak Höyük and Kerkuşti Höyük. The faunal remains of which zooarchaeological studies were carried out in these Neolithic settlements are approximately 55,046. In addition to the faunal remains, there are micro and macrobotanical remains that provide an understanding of the environmental conditions of the period, housing structures showing their social organizations, stone tool industries related to hunting factors and symbolic products showing the forms of belief, nutrition. The fauna, flora, architecture, tomb, symbolism and stone tool remains found in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic and Pottery Neolithic settlements allowed the human-animal-environment relations of the Basin to be reconsidered and examined. This study focuses on the nutritional habits of the first inhabitants of the Upper Tigris basin, as well as the development of their relations with animals in the transition from hunting to pastoralism. In addition, ethnographic, ethnoarchaeological, ethno-zoo-archaeological and anthrozoological data were used to support human-animal relations of prehistoric Neolithic societies. In general, in this study, it is aimed to contribute to the prehistoric literature by presenting a new perspective on the Anatolian Neolithic, especially the West Asian Neolithic.
The article presents new radiocarbon datings made for a funeral complex from Malice, site 1, located on the Sandomierz Upland and related to the Globular Amphora culture. The complex included at ...least two human graves (features no. 32 and 33) and two animal deposits or sacrificial pits (no. 31 and probably 54). Feature 32 was a collective grave including five burials (of a male, a female and three children), while in Feature 33 the only one disarticulated human skeleton has been excavated. Pit 31 contained at least three animal individuals. It is possible the unexamined Pit 54 also contained animal depositions. The described features probably formed two clusters, each of which included a human grave and an accompanying pit with animal deposits. Altogether ten radiocarbon dates were obtained with the dated bone samples coming from five human skeletons found in Graves 32 and 33, and animal remains from Pit 31. The calibration results point to the first half of the 3rd millennium BC and stay between 2909 and 2472 BC (with the probability of 95.4%) or more precisely between 2898 and 2490 BC (probability of 68.2%). However, thanks to the stratigraphic documentation it was possible to determine that five deceased from Feature 32 were buried in three phases most likely to ca. 2850–2750 BC. It is highly probable that individual burials were separated by short time intervals. A similar age should be adopted for Feature 31 – a sacrificial pit linked to Grave 32. However, it is not possible to determine with any certainty the age of Grave 33: it could have been contemporaneous with, or slightly younger (ca 2620–2500 BC) than Feature 32.
The Sino-Tibetan language family is one of the world’s largest and most prominent families, spoken by nearly 1.4 billion people. Despite the importance of the Sino-Tibetan languages, their prehistory ...remains controversial, with ongoing debate about when and where they originated. To shed light on this debate we develop a database of comparative linguistic data, and apply the linguistic comparative method to identify sound correspondences and establish cognates. We then use phylogenetic methods to infer the relationships among these languages and estimate the age of their origin and homeland. Our findings point to Sino-Tibetan originating with north Chinese millet farmers around 7200 B.P. and suggest a link to the late Cishan and the early Yangshao cultures.
Direct, accurate, and precise dating of archaeological pottery vessels is now achievable using a recently developed approach based on the radiocarbon dating of purified molecular components of food ...residues preserved in the walls of pottery vessels. The method targets fatty acids from animal fat residues, making it uniquely suited for directly dating the inception of new food commodities in prehistoric populations. Here, we report a large-scale application of the method by directly dating the introduction of dairying into Central Europe by the
Linearbandkeramik
(LBK) cultural group based on dairy fat residues. The radiocarbon dates (
n
= 27) from the 54th century BC from the western and eastern expansion of the LBK suggest dairy exploitation arrived with the first settlers in the respective regions and were not gradually adopted later. This is particularly significant, as contemporaneous LBK sites showed an uneven distribution of dairy exploitation. Significantly, our findings demonstrate the power of directly dating the introduction of new food commodities, hence removing taphonomic uncertainties when assessing this indirectly based on associated cultural materials or other remains.
We present a new approach combining ethnoarchaeology and experimentation aiming towards a better understanding of prehistoric firewood use and management. The example of present fuel management ...practices among a residentially mobile group of Evenk Siberian reindeer herders, shows how ethnoarchaeology can provide an analytical background for the study of complex man–environment interrelations. Ethnographic observation confirmed in particular that the moisture content and structural soundness of the wood can be linked to hearth function: rotten conifers for instance, are used for hide smoking by several groups living in the boreal forests of the Northern hemisphere. Charcoal samples from an Evenk hearth fed with rotten Larix cajanderi (Siberian larch) showed a high proportion of microscopic features diagnostic of fungal alterations.
A series of systematic experimental combustions on Pinus sylvestris (scots Pine) confirmed the existence of a relationship between the frequency and the intensity of fungal alterations visible after the combustion and the initial state of the wood used in the hearth. The establishment of an alteration index allows now to take a new parameter, the structural soundness of the wood, into account when performing archaeological charcoal analyses.
•Traditional fuel use was observed among Evenks of Eastern Siberia.•Fungal decay features on charcoals from Evenk and experimental fires were analysed.•Proportions of wood decay intensity varied according to the soundness of the wood.•Quantitative studies led to create 3 statistical groups: healthy/dead/rotten wood.•This method allows evaluating the state of the wood used in prehistoric hearths.
Depuis que son statut scientifique a été établi à la fin du XIIIe siècle, l’archéologie funéraire se trouve au cœur des recherches menées sur les sociétés antiques d’Italie du Sud. Suscitant comme ...les vases l’admiration des élites culturelles, les marqueurs de tombe des nécropoles de la région sesont très tôt retrouvés dans les collections européennes, privés de contexte, et ont été étudiés par les historiens de l’art avant d’attirer l’attention des archéologues.En prenant en compte les questions de terminologie – bien qu’il soit moderne, le mot « marqueur » est pertinent – et sur la base d’un corpus d’environ huit cents éléments réunis dans une base de données en ligne, ce volume démontre qu’une étude minutieuse et méthodique des marqueurs enrichit la connaissance historique et ouvre de nouvelles perspectives. Ces édifices et objets installés dans les nécropoles avaient pour fonctions de signaler les tombes, de définir le nouveau statut du mort et de lui rendre hommage ainsi que de célébrer sa famille aux yeux des vivants, véritables acteurs de performances au sein des nécropoles. Du Ve – quand les échanges s’intensifient entre les populations implantées dans la région – au IIIe siècle avant notre ère – quand les Romains y prennent pied –, ils donnent donc à voir des pans entiers et méconnus dessociétés grecques et non grecques d’Italie du Sud et de leur genèse. Cette étude, confrontant l’ensemble des sources disponibles, aborde des aspects variés des sociétés : mutations sociales, hiérarchisation des communautés et affirmation de pouvoir, relations entre Grecs et non-Grecs, phénomènes d’acculturation, rites funéraires et croyances eschatologiques, paysages funéraires.
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