Growing scientific evidence from modern climate science is loaded with implications for the environmental history of the Roman Empire and its successor societies. The written and archaeological ...evidence, although richer than commonly realized, is unevenly distributed over time and space. A first synthesis of what the written records and multiple natural archives (multi-proxy data) indicate about climate change and variability across western Eurasia from c. 100 B.C. to 800 A.D. confirms that the Roman Empire rose during a period of stable and favorable climatic conditions, which deteriorated during the Empire's thirdcentury crisis. A second, briefer period of favorable conditions coincided with the Empire's recovery in the fourth century; regional differences in climate conditions parallel the diverging fates of the eastern and western Empires in subsequent centuries. Climate conditions beyond the Empire's boundaries also played an important role by affecting food production in the Nile valley, and by encouraging two major migrations and invasions of pastoral peoples from Central Asia.
Combustion features inform archaeologists about the prehistoric use of space, subsistence behaviors, and tempo of site visitation. Their study in the field is difficult because burned sediments are ...susceptible to reworking and diagenesis. Microarchaeological analyses, including micromorphology, are essential for documenting the composition, preservation, and function of hearths and other burned residues. These investigations focus on the description of fuels, depositional fabrics and structures, and mineralogy. As evidenced by a literature review, microarchaeological analyses have much to offer Paleolithic archaeologists, while applications of the techniques to Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene sites and in ethnographic or experimental contexts are presently rare.
This open access book brings together key issues from transformative processes and events across Europe (and in some cases beyond) from 15,000 to 1 BCE. This volume covers the research output ...produced by the Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) 1266 "Scales of Transformation" – the first interdisciplinary centre to diachronically investigate transformations in past societies with a summary of their individual aspects from the Late Palaeolithic to the Roman Period. Following the introduction, the book is divided into three main sections: In "Identification of anatomies of socio-environmental transformation", the concept of scales of transformations is first explained, and the various parameters of transformational change are identified. This is followed by "Expressions of socio-environmental transformations: from climate preconditions to decision making", in which transformation processes are illustrated with individual examples. The third major part of the book deals with"Perspectives on decision making processes in socio-environmental transformations". In conclusion, the results are framed in a broad temporal framework, and patterns of socio-environmental change are presented across common time frames from the Eastern Mediterranean to Scandinavia. This book is of interest to researchers in archaeology and palaeoecology.
This terrestrial and underwater archaeological research project around a Mediterranean islet identifies that it was a commercial centre during the fifth century AD. The results shed light on Late ...Roman island occupation dynamics.
Bayesian Statistics in Archaeology Otárola-Castillo, Erik; Torquato, Melissa G
Annual review of anthropology,
10/2018, Letnik:
47, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Null hypothesis significance testing (NHST) is the most common statistical framework used by scientists, including archaeologists. Owing to increasing dissatisfaction, however, Bayesian inference has ...become an alternative to these methods. In this article, we review the application of Bayesian statistics to archaeology. We begin with a simple example to demonstrate the differences in applying NHST and Bayesian inference to an archaeological problem. Next, we formally define NHST and Bayesian inference, provide a brief historical overview of their development, and discuss the advantages and limitations of each method. A review of Bayesian inference and archaeology follows, highlighting the applications of Bayesian methods to chronological, bioarchaeological, zooarchaeological, ceramic, lithic, and spatial analyses. We close by considering the future applications of Bayesian statistics to archaeological research.
The article introduces materials of monuments studied in the Semeytau and Kokentau mountain ranges. During the period 2014–2018, the research team has unearthed 13 burial mounds, distributed across ...six burial grounds and groups of burial mounds. The accompanying artifacts comprise iron rods (pins?) and the tail vertebrae of a ram. In three cases (Karatobe burial ground, mounds no. 2 and 3; Karasu-Ushtobe burial ground, mound 1), necklaces crafted from semiprecious stones have been discovered. Armament items are represented by a set of bone and one bronze arrowheads. In general, the ground and inside burial mounds find analogies in the materials of the Kulazhorga type (3rd century BC – 1st century AD) within the Upper Irtysh region, as well as in burial mounds from the early stage (3rd–2nd centuries BC) of the Wusun archaeological culture in the Ile River valley. It is worth noting the proximity of the design features of the burial structures and the subject complex of most of the described mounds with the monuments of Saryarka, first of all, the greatest parallels can be traced among the materials of the monuments of the Karamola type. According to the results of radiocarbon analysis, the objects studied date back to the 5th–3rd centuries BC.
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