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Egyptian Bioarchaeology: Humans, Animals, and the Environment, by Ikram, S., Kaiser, J. & Walker, R. (eds). Sidestone Press, 246 pages, 2015, ISBN: 9789088902871

We review the major stable carbon and nitrogen isotope studies conducted on human remains in the North American Arctic (NAA) and discuss the findings with respect to two major research themes: diachronic subsistence, and the development of food cultures across the NAA. The interpretation of stable isotope data from human bone collagen and hair keratin is complicated by issues of equifinality in addition to uncertainty arising from the high fat/high protein diets of Arctic hunter gatherers. We suggest future lines of inquiry which may help to alleviate some of these challenges. Our review of Arctic stable isotope studies shows the ongoing potential of stable isotope analysis of Arctic hunter-gatherers and faunal populations, but we include the caveat that regardless of how cutting-edge or refined the analytical method, future stable isotope studies must be contextualized with other lines of evidence from well-excavated sites, and would profoundly benefit from the incorporation of indigenous perspectives and research priorities.

Paleogenetics is a relatively new and promising field that has the potential to provide new information about past Indigenous social systems, including insights into the complexity of burial practices. We present results of the first ancient DNA (aDNA) investigation into traditional mortuary practices among Australian Aboriginal people with a focus on North-East Australia. We recovered mitochondrial and Y chromosome sequences from five ancestral Aboriginal Australian remains that were excavated from the Flinders Island group in Cape York, Queensland. Two of these individuals were sampled from disturbed beach burials, while the other three were from bundle burials located in rock shelters. Genomic analyses showed that individuals from all three rock shelter burials and one of the two beach burials had a close genealogical relationship to contemporary individuals from communities from Cape York. In contrast the remaining male individual, found buried on the beach, had a mitochondrial DNA sequence that suggested that he was not from this location but that he was closely related to people from central Queensland or New South Wales. In addition, this individual was associated with a distinctive burial practice to the other four people. It has been suggested that traditionally non-locals or lower status individuals were buried on beaches. Our findings suggest that theories put forward about beach burials being non-local, or less esteemed members of the community, can potentially be resolved through analyses of uniparental genomic data. Generally, these results support the suggestion often derived from ethnohistoric accounts that inequality in Indigenous Australian mortuary practices might be based on the status, sex, and/or age of individuals and may instead relate to place of geographic origin. There is, however, some departure from the traditional ethnohistoric account in that complex mortuary internments were also offered to female individuals of the community, with genomic analyses helping to confirm that the gender of one of the rockshelter internments was that of a young female.

With the advent of ancient DNA, as well as other methods such as isotope analysis, destructive sampling of archaeofaunal remains has increased much faster than the effort to collect and curate them. While there has been considerable discussion regarding the ethics of destructive sampling and analysis of human remains, this dialogue has not extended to archaeofaunal material. Here we address this gap and discuss the ethical challenges surrounding destructive sampling of materials from archaeofaunal collections. We suggest ways of mitigating the negative aspects of destructive sampling and present step-by-step guidelines aimed at relevant stakeholders, including scientists, holding institutions and scientific journals. Our suggestions are in most cases easily implemented without significant increases in project costs, but with clear long-term benefits inthe preservation and use of zooarchaeologicalmaterial. his work was supported by the Icelandic Research Fund grant no. 162783-051, Finnish Academy grant no. SA286499, the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie SkłodowskaCurie grant agreement no. 749226 and Estonian Research Council grant nos. PRG29 and IUT 20-7. Publisher's version (útgefin grein) Peer Reviewed

AbstractThis study investigates human environmental adaptation in northern Finland at the cemetery of Iin Hamina. The cemetery was in use in the 15th and 16th centuries AD during the cool climate anomaly called the Little Ice Age. It is possible that these extreme climatic conditions may have impacted human survival in this agriculturally marginal region. In previous studies, carbon and nitrogen isotopes in the bone collagen of humans and fauna have shown that the main protein source for people at Iin Hamina was fish. In this study, I observe annual changes in diet derived from isotopic studies of teeth. Apart from one individual whose protein source shifted radically during tooth formation, the results show the inhabitants of Iin Hamina experienced only minor changes in diet over periods of several years. Moreover, none of the dietary profiles provided evidence of dietary or physiological stress through raised nitrogen isotope ratios. The results indicate that the individuals in this study appear to have been well-adapted to their environment.

We review the major stable carbon and nitrogen isotope studies conducted on human remains in the North American Arctic (NAA) and discuss the findings with respect to two major research themes: diachronic subsistence, and the development of food cultures across the NAA. The interpretation of stable isotope data from human bone collagen and hair keratin is complicated by issues of equifinality in addition to uncertainty arising from the high fat/high protein diets of Arctic hunter gatherers. We suggest future lines of inquiry which may help to alleviate some of these challenges. Our review of Arctic stable isotope studies shows the ongoing potential of stable isotope analysis of Arctic hunter-gatherers and faunal populations, but we include the caveat that regardless of how cutting-edge or refined the analytical method, future stable isotope studies must be contextualized with other lines of evidence from well-excavated sites, and would profoundly benefit from the incorporation of indigenous perspectives and research priorities.

Este trabajo analiza los diferentes tipos de violencia en la sociedad panameña de los siglos XVI y XVII en perspectiva interdisciplinar. A través de la combinación de fuentes y métodos arqueológicos e históricos, se perciben unos patrones comunes que indican una tipología de violencia interpersonal cotidiana multiétnica y socialmente transversal. Las fuentes archivísticas y arqueológicas se complementan en esta investigación para dotar de mayor complejidad a una realidad social hasta ahora poco explorada, como es la de la violencia interpersonal en contextos coloniales tempranos. This work analyses the diverse types of violence in Panamanian society over the 16th and 17th centuries from an interdisciplinary perspective. Through a combination of methods and sources from archaeology and history, common patterns emerge and point to a typology of quotidian interpersonal violence that was multiethnic and socially transversal. In this research, archival and archaeological sources complement each other to offer more complexity regarding the social reality of interpersonal violence, which has been understudied in early colonial contexts to date. Instituto Universitario Europeo Universidad del Norte