Numerous fragments of
Cornus sanguinea
(dogwood) fruit stones were found in the cultural layer of the Late Neolithic pile dwelling site Strojanova voda at Ljubljansko barje, Slovenia, which indicate ...the Late Neolithic use of dogwood fruits. While these fruits are considered to be inedible, the research question about their use arose. Ethnobotanical and archaeobotanical sources were examined and experimental work on processing and using fresh
C. sanguinea
fruits was done, followed by chemical analyses of modern fruits (endocarps, mesocarps and exocarps) and archaeological fruit stones from the site. All these various approaches together suggest some possible uses. Fresh dogwood fruits can be crushed to give a soapy, creamy and oily emulsion with an exfoliant effect on the skin, which proved to be applicable, besides for oil, for cleaning and washing bodies, clothes and/or dishes. It can be concluded that Late Neolithic pile dwellers had a great knowledge of wild plants and their properties, and not only for food, and that the use of
C. sanguinea
fruits, at least south of the Alps, has been undervalued until now.
Tepe Tula’i in Khuzistan, Iran is one of the few acknowledged Neolithic pastoralist camps, but some question whether it is a camp of nomadic pastoralists. Features of Tula’i and its environment are ...discussed in relation to the possibility of nomadism. The debate concerns whether whole-group nomadic pastoralism could be sustained before the use of horses and other pack animals. The alternative is seasonal transhumance by small groups of herders detached seasonally from permanent settlements. Using evidence from Tula’i and other archaeological sites, ethnography, climatic and environmental studies, and physiological needs of humans and livestock, this paper argues for nomadic transhumance in the Neolithic and for the necessity of nomadism in the Iranian Zagros Mountains for as long as people have inhabited these lands.
Abstract
This article presents an interdisciplinary study of two Late/Final Neolithic gallery graves (Kernic and Lerret) located on the orthwestern coast of Brittany (Western France). These monuments ...show striking similarities in terms of architectural style and geographical position. This paper aims to provide a better understanding of the construction strategy of these monuments by (i) determining the origin of the megalithic blocks using comparative petro‐structural analyses of blocks and surrounding rocks, (ii) reconstructing the coastal environment from sediment core analyses and (iii) defining the significance of these monuments in the territories from an intervisibility analysis. The study reveals marked differences between the two monuments studied. The Lerret gallery grave was erected close to a unique source of stone material on the margins of a marshland zone. In contrast, the Kernic monument, erected on the edge of an estuary, seems to have been built using a deliberate diversification of stone extraction sites. An intervisibility analysis shows a dense network of visual interconnections between a number of megalithic tombs present in the study area, where the two monuments occupy very distinct sites. The social implications of stone selection and the geographical location of Late/Final Neolithic funerary monuments are also discussed in an enlarged regional context.
In southern France, the analysis of fossil dung layers from caves and shelters occupied by the first Neolithic farmers has provided a wealth of information about the lives of shepherds and their ...flocks, and thus on pastoral systems. Since the early 1980s, the development of sedimentological, archaeozoological and archaeobotanical studies has made possible to collect a large amount of data. More recently, the implementation of a whole range of innovative approaches allows a more detailed approach to pastoralism. This paper proposes a synthetic approach of 40 years of bioarchaeological analysis on Neolithic sheepfold caves (grottes-bergeries). Their interpretation focuses on understanding the early agropastoral system: pastoral use of wild and cultivated plant resources (fodder, litter, care and health of livestock), mobility systems, seasonality, practices and appropriation of territory.
This short paper reports on the discovery of a possible Neolithic cursus at Lovington. The potential cursus is a crop-mark site which was discovered on aerial photographs during the Hampshire South ...Downs Mapping project.
This is a significant outcome as no other cursus monuments
have previously been identified in Hampshire. Its relationship with the potential causewayed enclosure is also important given the apparent absence of Early Neolithic enclosures in Hampshire. The paper describes the crop-mark and reviews the evidence for the interpretation of the site as a
cursus monument.
The spread of farming out of the Balkans and into the rest of Europe followed two distinct routes: An initial expansion represented by the Impressa and Cardial traditions, which followed the Northern ...Mediterranean coastline; and another expansion represented by the LBK (Linearbandkeramik) tradition, which followed the Danube River into Central Europe. Although genomic data now exist from samples representing the second migration, such data have yet to be successfully generated from the initial Mediterranean migration. To address this, we generated the complete genome of a 7,400-year-old Cardial individual (CB13) from Cova Bonica in Vallirana (Barcelona), as well as partial nuclear data from five others excavated from different sites in Spain and Portugal. CB13 clusters with all previously sequenced early European farmers and modern-day Sardinians. Furthermore, our analyses suggest that both Cardial and LBK peoples derived from a common ancient population located in or around the Balkan Peninsula. The Iberian Cardial genome also carries a discernible hunter-gatherer genetic signature that likely was not acquired by admixture with local Iberian foragers. Our results indicate that retrieving ancient genomes from similarly warm Mediterranean environments such as the Near East is technically feasible.
Archaeobotanical and genetic analysis of modern plant materials are drawing a complex scenario for the origins of cereal agriculture in the Levant. This paper presents an improved method for the ...study of early farming harvesting systems based on the texture analysis of gloss observed on sickle blades through confocal microscopy. Using this method, we identify different plant harvesting activities (unripe, semi-ripe and ripe cereal reaping and reed and other grass cutting) quantitatively and evaluate their change during the time when plant cultivation activities started and domesticated crops appeared in the Levant (12 800–7000 cal BC). The state of maturity of cereals when harvested shifted over time from unripe, to semi-ripe and finally to ripe. Most of these changes in harvesting techniques are explained by the modification of crops during the transition to agriculture. The shift in plant harvesting strategies was neither chronologically linear nor geographically homogeneous. Fully mature cereal harvesting becomes dominant around 8500 cal BC in the Southern Levant and one millennium later in the Middle Euphrates, which accords with the appearance of domestic varieties in the archaeobotanical record. The change in plant harvesting method fits better with the gradualist model of explanation of cereal agriculture than with the punctual one.
•Confocal microscopy and texture analysis are used to analyze sickle gloss in experimental and archaeological tools.•Sickle gloss from harvesting different types of plants are discriminated.•Sickles from archaeological sites in the Levant dated from 12.000 to 7.000 cal BC are analyzed.•The long-term change in plant harvesting during the transition to agriculture in these regions is elucidated.
In this study the stable nitrogen (δ15N) and carbon (δ13C) isotopic compositions of carbonized cereal grains from 18 archaeological sites in Poland, dating from the Early Neolithic to the turn of the ...Bronze Age and the Iron Age, were determined. There were two main aims of this study. The first aim was to test the archaeologically accepted model of a change from intensive ‘horticulture’ in the Early Neolithic in Lesser Poland to more extensive cultivation in the Middle Neolithic, which is expected to be evidenced by decreasing levels of manuring and labour input, reflected especially in a shift to lower cereal grain δ15N values. The second aim was to assess how cereal grain δ13C values reflect crop watering conditions and landscape openness regionally and through time. Despite the limited plant material, the study showed that all cereal plots potentially received some inputs of manure (including household waste), but there seems to be a clear regional difference in the intensity of manuring practice in the Early Neolithic, with greater manure application on plots in southern Poland than in northern Poland. Moreover, cereal plots in southern Poland in the Early Neolithic seem to have been located on soils with higher water retention and/or within denser vegetation than plots in northern Poland. In the Middle Neolithic, however, plots in southern Poland seemed to have expanded into areas with lower water availability or that were more open, supporting the evidence from former archaeological interpretations that agriculture spread into different, usually elevated areas at this time.
•δ15N and δ13C of carbonized cereal grains.•All cereal plots potentially received some inputs of fertilizer, understood as manure and household waste.•Some regional and diachronic diversity was observed for the Neolithic crops.
In this article we put forward an alternative account of the famous wristguards, or bracers, of the European Early Bronze Age. Combining new materialism with empirical microwear analysis, we study 15 ...examples from Britain in detail and suggest a different way of conceptualizing these objects. Rather than demanding they have a singular function, we treat these objects as ‘multiplicities’ and as always in process. This, in turn, has significant implications for the important archaeological concepts of typology and object biography and our understandings of material culture more widely.
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