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Publication date: August 2018Source:Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 96 Author(s): Stefania Titton, Deborah Barsky, Amèlia Bargallo, Josep Maria Vergès, Miquel Guardiola, José García Solano, Juan Manuel Jimenez Arenas, Isidro Toro-Moyano, Robert Sala-RamosDated to 1.4 Mya, the Barranco León site (Orce, Andalusia, Spain) is currently the oldest and richest late Lower Pleistocene stone tool assemblage discovered so far in Europe. Archeological and paleontological remains are found clearly associated in lacustrine deposits traversed by a small channel. This paper provides new data about the lithic assemblage from level D, focusing on the abundant active percussion implements that form a part of the highly divers set of limestone macro-tools unique to this assemblage. Morpho-technological and experimental analysis of these tools allows us to hypothesize about the kinds of activities that might have been carried out by hominins at this site. Experimental work allows us to define percussive trace morphologies and to identify new types of percussion tools in the collection, beyond those of classical, ellipsoidal morphology. Analysis of the stone surfaces used for active percussion demonstrates that, while some of the tools could have been used for stone knapping, other hammer morphologies are not well adapted for this kind of activity. The morphology of the tools and the type of percussion damage displayed on their active surfaces provide criteria with which to widen the activity range of the hominins that used them. This study of the percussion instruments from Barranco León contributes essential data with which to buttress the growing interest in the macro component of Oldowan stone toolkits African and Eurasian sites and their possible uses.

Publication date: August 2018Source:Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 96 Author(s): Giovanna Ganzarolli, Michelle Alexander, Alexandra Chavarria Arnau, Oliver E. CraigMillets have been cultivated in Europe since the Late Neolithic but, beyond recording their presence, little is known about their use and context of consumption. As a C4 plant, the contribution of millet on diet can be readily identified through stable isotope analysis of human bones. Using this approach, however, previous studies have been unable to distinguish direct consumption of the cereal from the consumption of millet fed animals. Historical evidence suggests that the latter was common practice. To address this issue, we present the first direct evidence for millet consumption in Medieval period using organic residue analysis. Lipid were extracted from 45 pottery vessels from the Episcopal centre in Padua, Northern Italy dating from the 6th to 10th centuries AD. Miliacin, a biomarker for broomcorn millet, was present in many of the cooking vessels tested. Based on the co-occurrence of miliacin with other food derived lipids and the vessel typologies, we suggest that millet was a common culinary ingredient during the Early Medieval period in this region. The earliest evidence dates to the 6th c. AD and notably derives from deposits associated with high status occupation of the site, a surprising result given the common association of these crops as low-status or starvation foods in the historic periods. It is likely that millet was a common cereal staple in human diet during this period in North-eastern Italy and that its use was far less restricted than previously thought. More broadly, our study highlights the efficacy of combining organic residue analysis and stable isotope analysis of bone to relate culinary and dietary information of ancient populations.

Publication date: Available online 27 June 2018Source:Journal of Archaeological Science Author(s): E. Perruchini, C. Glatz, M.M. Hald, J. Casana, J.L. ToneyWhile ancient Near Eastern cuneiform texts and iconography unambiguously demonstrate the social, economic, and ritual significance of beer, direct archaeological evidence for beer production or consumption remains surprisingly rare. This scarcity of material evidence renders it difficult to extrapolate information about the ingredients and production processes of beer, on the one hand, and the paraphernalia and social contexts of its consumption, on the other. In recent decades, organic residue analysis has become an essential tool in the identification of ancient alcoholic beverages, but research on Near Eastern beer has focused largely on production and storage vessels, whose form, archaeological context, and associated macroscopic residues already indicated their use in beer production. In this paper, we present a novel field sampling protocol that prevents contamination along with a refined organic residue analysis methodology that relies on a series of co-occurring compounds to identify confidently beer in ceramic vessels. The same compounds were identified in several modern beer samples and, thus, support our identification of a similar fermented barley-based beverage in archaeological samples from the late second millennium BCE site of Khani Masi in northeastern Iraq. The results presented in this paper allow us, for the first time, to unambiguously link a diverse range of vessel types to the consumption and production of beer, identify a fundamental change in Mesopotamian consumption practices, and shed light on the cultural dimensions of Babylonia’s encounter with the Zagros-Mesopotamian borderlands.

Publication date: August 2018Source:Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 96 Author(s): Maria Coto-Sarmiento, Xavier Rubio-Campillo, José RemesalThe aim of this study is to identify dynamics of social learning between amphorae workshops during the the Roman Empire. The Baetica province developed a massive infrastructure of olive oil production that supplied the Western provinces of Rome for almost 300 years. The olive oil produced in this area was shipped through maritime and riverine transport networks in a standardized amphoric shape made in several workshops spread around the region. These workshops have generated a large amount of evidence but it is still difficult to understand through archaeological proxies how the production of amphorae was organized.We apply here an evolutionary framework to find links between workshops through the morphometric similarities of the amphorae they produced. The suggested approach identifies how individual potters acquired and transmitted technical skills by exploring small yet statistical significant differences in the amphorae made in 5 different workshops. Multivariate methods are used to cluster a variety of amphorae based on morphometric measurements and the outcome shows that the analysis is useful even when a high degree of standardization exists, such as was the case for Roman amphorae (i.e. Dressel 20).Results suggest that morphometric similarity is inversely correlated with spatial distance between workshops. This pattern suggests that pottery-making techniques were transmitted through oblique transmission with little or no movement of potters between distant workshops. The conclusion is that morphometric similarity may be an effective proxy to identify social learning dynamics even amongst workshops producing exactly the same amphoric type.

Publication date: August 2018Source:Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 96 Author(s): Daniel Patón Domínguez, Jose M. González Bornay, Fidel A. Roig JuñentThe absence of precise dates in Extremadura’s Renaissance heritage can generate ambiguities that hinder the cultural interpretation of regional history. The analysis of the duration of the art styles, the date of construction of buildings and artefacts or the exact determination of restoration periods are severely affected by the absence of specific chronological information. Dendrochronology can help to resolve these unknowns. We analysed historical woods from timbers, painting panelings, ceilings, furniture and art objects, all from two Renaissance monumental buildings: the San Vicente Ferrer church in the city of Plasencia and the Las Veletas palace in Cáceres, both in Spain. We used a local chronology of living trees as reference. This living chronology was developed with tree-ring data hosted in the International Tree Ring Data Bank (ITRDB) but reinforced with recent wood samplings from the Sierra de Gredos, a mountainous area close to the historic sites. After a step-by-step crossdating process, the historical timbers were dated and a floating chronology was built. The comparison between this floating chronology and that obtained from living trees reached a Pearson-r correlation of 0.65 with a temporal overlap of 106 years. Thus the living tree-ring chronology was extended 253 years into the past (from 1769 CE to 1516 CE), allowing the dating of new historical materials that may arise in the future for this period and confirming that tree-ring dating is a feasible technique to use in the dating of historic buildings and artefacts in western Spain. The results indicate that it is feasible to admit that Mudejar art, a mixture of Arab and Christian styles, remained in active development in Extremadura for much longer than in any other regions of Spain.