• Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage
• Publications close
• GB close
• Hyper Article en Ligne - Sciences d... close
• Journal of Archaeological Science close

In the Eurasian Upper Paleolithic after about 35,000 years ago, abstract or depictional images provide evidence for cognitive abilities considered integral to modern human behavior. Here we report on two abstract representations engraved on pieces of red ochre recovered from the Middle Stone Age layers at Blombos Cave in South Africa. A mean date of 77,000 years was obtained for the layers containing the engraved ochres by thermoluminescence dating of burnt lithics, and the stratigraphic integrity was confirmed by an optically stimulated luminescence age of 70,000 years on an overlying dune. These engravings support the emergence of modern human behavior in Africa at least 35,000 years before the start of the Upper Paleolithic. International audience

Abstract The term “stress” remains poorly defined, often misused, and has clearly lost its meaning in the study of archaeological human remains. In this special issue we reconsider the use of this term in human remains research, to untangle what we actually mean when we say “stress” in archaeology. To this aim, we looked at this topic from two broad perspectives: dental anthropology and paleopathology. Based on revision of the previous work on this topic, the new contributions of this issue, and in the light of the rapid advancement in other medical disciplines, we conclude that the term “stress” is not suitable for the study of archaeological skeletal remains unless it is precisely defined (e.g. mechanical stress).

International audience; The city of Demetrias was founded in the early third century BCE and became the second capital of the Macedonian kingdom and an important naval station for the Macedonian fleet. Demetrias flourished from third until the first centuries BCE when its importance started to diminish. In the present study we examine the chemical composition of finished glass objects from the north cemetery of ancient Demetrias dated to the Hellenistic times looking at the specific chemical signature in order to better understand the various compositional groups of the period.

Millstones and grindstones of the prehistoric to Roman periods include saddle querns, rectangular hopper-rubber mills, rotary querns and Pompeian-style donkey mills. Many of these were manufactured from igneous rocks which can be provenanced to their geological sources using chemical analysis, giving information about trade contacts of sites. Sixty-nine samples of 10-20 g each were removed from broken parts of lava millstones of prehistoric and early historic date, from sites in Israel, Syria, Egypt, Greece and Turkey. These were analysed for major and trace elements using X-ray fluorescence, and petrological features were examined in thin section. The millstones were all young generally fresh lavas ranging from vesicular basalt to porphyritic andesite. Potential sources occur in younger volcanics of mainland Greece, the Aegean, Turkey and the Levant (Israel, Syria and Jordan), and in Egypt. Thirty-four geological samples from Israel, Syria and Turkey were collected and analysed in the same way as the archaeological samples, and an intensive literature survey carried out to supplement these by published analyses. Comparison of archaeological samples with source data is done by using a series of discrimination graphs, following a simple flow diagram. The archaeological samples were of two types, within-plate lavas, and island arc or other subduction-related lavas. All samples were successfully assigned to sources, and results show use of the source areas as follows. During the prehistoric period (Neolithic, Bronze Age, pre-6th century BC Iron Age samples) saddle querns in mainland Greece were made of Aegina andesire, while sites in north Syria used local Syrian lavas, and in Israel basalts from near Lake Tiberias and from the Dead Sea area were used. Earlier work by the authors and others has shown import of Levant millstones to Cyprus in the Late Bronze Age. Hopper-rubbers of the 5th century BC onwards were made at specialized quarries in Aegean islands, on Nisyros, Kimolos and Santorini, and exported to mainland Greece, western Turkey, Egypt and Cyprus. Less well-finished hopper-rubbers were made and used in western Turkey and in Israel. Roman Pompeian-style mills were made of Levant lavas from several sources, particularly around Lake Tiberias, and were transported within Israel as well as to Cyprus as shown by earlier studies. Rotary querns were made of lavas from Santorini and probably Nisyros, and of locally-used west Anatolian rocks. Rotary querns of Roman and later (10th-12th century AD) dates were also produced at several sources in the Levant, again around Lake Tiberias and probably in north Syria and within the Dead Sea volcanics, for use within Israel. Olive-crushing trapeta used in Turkey and Greece were manufactured from andesites from Anatolia and Aegina respectively. West Anatolian lavas (mill types unknown) have also been identified at Roman sites in the eastern desert of Egypt. Millstone distributions increased in complexity and extent over time, with hopper-rubbers being traded up to 820 km from sources, and Roman rotary millstones up to 1300 km. The three major source areas—Aegean, Anatolia and the Levant—were in apparent competition by the Roman period, when there is extensive overlap of distributions from different sources, with Aegean and Anatolian products traded the furthest. The millstone trade in the eastern Mediterranean is separate from that of the west Mediterranean (west of Greece) except for one hopper-rubber of Nisyros lava identified in a shipwreck off Mallorca. This dichotomy is in marked contrast to the distribution of amphorae, within which west Mediterranean (Italian) products were widely used in the east from at least the 2nd century BC. Stylistically, east Mediterranean millstones also show differences from those in the west, in the prevalence of hopper-rubbers, and later in decorative Features common on Pompeian-style mills.

Archaeological fish bones reveal increases in marine fish utilisation in Northern and Western Europe beginning in the 10th and 11th centuries AD. We use stable isotope signatures from 300 archaeological cod (Gadus morhua) bones to determine whether this sea fishing revolution resulted from increased local fishing or the introduction of preserved fish transported from distant waters such as Arctic Norway, Iceland and/or the Northern Isles of Scotland (Orkney and Shetland). Results from 12 settlements in England and Flanders (Belgium) indicate that catches were initially local. Between the 9th and 12th centuries most bones represented fish from the southern North Sea. Conversely, by the 13th to 14th centuries demand was increasingly met through long distance transport - signalling the onset of the globalisation of commercial fisheries and suggesting that cities such as London quickly outgrew the capacity of local fish supplies. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

AbstractThis article will focus on the ways in which musicians of North African origin—either born in North Africa or in France and living in France and Britain—define their musical and artistic identities in relation to their national origins, place of birth, migration trajectories and location in which they perform their music. In particular, the article will focus on how perceptions of musicians’ national and post-migrant identities vary according to their location on either side of the Channel but also according to how the musicians themselves choose to present their music, depending on whether they are based in France or Britain. In addition to the individual strategies adopted by musicians, the article also considers how the shifting socio-political contexts in post-9/11 France and Britain have affected the choices and opportunities available to artists of North African origin in both national contexts.

Abstract This paper presents the results of a survey of Coleoptera in thatch, turf and floor deposits from abandoned blackhouses on South Uist, the Outer Hebrides, U.K. The potential uses of these analogue faunas and their implications for archaeo-entomology, in general, are discussed.

The Late Neolithic of southeast Hungary is known almost exclusively from excavations of large settlement mounds, or tells. Geochemical analyses of sediments collected from boreholes at small, flat Late Neolithic and Early Copper Age settlements in Hungary's Koros River basin provide data necessary to interpret the spatial organization of small settlements for the first time in this region. Principal Components Analysis of multi-element data produced a workable number of variables. Spatial analyses of these components via interpolation in ArcGIS 9 identified specific task areas, and when combined with sediment characterizations, phosphate ‘spot-tests’ and pH, suggest long-term cultural traditions in the location of activity zones within small farmsteads. The results demonstrate the usefulness of multi-element geochemistry as an intra-site prospection method.