Growth and decline in complex hunter-gatherer societies: a case study from the Jomon period Sannai Maruyama site, Japan

Antiquity ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 82 (317) ◽  
pp. 571-584 ◽  
Author(s):  
Junko Habu

The Sannai Maruyama site (3900-2300 BC) is one of the largest known from Japan's Jomon period (14000-300 BC). This study shows that over 1500 years the number of dwellings, their size, the type of stone tools and the fondness for figurines varied greatly. Nor was it a story of gradual increase in complexity: the settlement grew in intensity up to a peak associated with numerous grinding stones, and then declined to a smaller settlement containing larger buildings, many arrowheads and virtually no figurines. Using a bundle of ingenious analyses, the author explains what happened.

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (21) ◽  
pp. 8869
Author(s):  
Andrew McCarthy

Cultural objects are thought to have a lifespan. From selection, through construction, use, destruction, and discard, materials do not normally last forever, transforming through stages of life, eventually leading to their death. The materiality of stone objects, however, can defy the inevitable demise of an object, especially durable ground stone tools that can outlive generations of human lifespans. How groups of people deal with the relative permanence of stone tools depends on their own relationship with the past, and whether they venerate it or reject its influence on the present. A case study from the long-lived site of Prasteio-Mesorotsos in Cyprus demonstrates a shifting attitude toward ground stone objects, from the socially conservative habit of ritually killing of objects and burying them, to one of more casual re-use and reinterpretation of ground stone. This shift in attitude coincides with a socio-political change that eventually led to the ultimate rejection of the past: complete abandonment of the settlement.


2009 ◽  
pp. 150-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Patrick Quinn ◽  
William Jr. Andrefsky ◽  
Ian Kuijt ◽  
Bill Finlayson ◽  
Jr. Andrefsky
Keyword(s):  

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 535-553
Author(s):  
Shanti Morell-Hart ◽  
Rosemary A. Joyce ◽  
John S. Henderson ◽  
Rachel Cane

AbstractIn recent years, researchers in pre-Hispanic Central America have used new approaches that greatly amplify and enhance evidence of plants and their uses. This paper presents a case study from Puerto Escondido, located in the lower Ulúa River valley of Caribbean coastal Honduras. We demonstrate the effectiveness of using multiple methods in concert to interpret ethnobotanical practice in the past. By examining chipped-stone tools, ceramics, sediments from artifact contexts, and macrobotanical remains, we advance complementary inquiries. Here, we address botanical practices “in the home,” such as foodways, medicinal practices, fiber crafting, and ritual activities, and those “close to home,” such as agricultural and horticultural practices, forest management, and other engagements with local and distant ecologies. This presents an opportunity to begin to develop an understanding of ethnoecology at Puerto Escondido, here defined as the dynamic relationship between affordances provided in a botanical landscape and the impacts of human activities on that botanical landscape.


Experiments involving the manufacture and use of stone tools are described. The original tools that served as models came from two sites in upper bed IV at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. The following conclusions are drawn. Widespread use of terms such as ‘crude’ or ‘refined’ in describing stone tools tells us nothing of the technical level achieved by the makers of the assemblages. The different qualities of the available raw materials, the forms in which they occur and how they function when used may have influenced the tool maker’s designs and the morphology of the tools. The experiments suggest uses for the tools that are relevant to our understanding of what is found on some archaeological sites.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 9-11
Author(s):  
Pooja J Kotian ◽  
Seetha P Devi

Hashimoto's thyroiditis is chronic inflammation of the thyroid gland due to the formation of autoantibodies. It is an autoimmune disorder that would lead to hypothyroidism. Failures of host defense do occur, however, and fall into three broad categories: immune deficiencies, autoimmunity and hypersensitivities. Ayurveda has a unique approach in treating the auto immune disorders through Shodhana and Rasayana Therapies. Due to Nidana Sevana, Kapha - pitta vata dushti takes place leading to Jatharagni Vaishamya and Ama Utpatti. This causes Asamyak Ahara Pachana, Rasavaha Srotodushti, Rasa Dhatwagni Vaishamya leads to Uttarottara dhatwagni and Dhatu Vaishamya. When Agni becomes too low, metabolism is affected. Shodhana karma has a great efficacy in Sroto-shodhana and in turn it corrects the functioning of Jatharagni, dhatwagni Srotas and Doshas. The present case study includes a female patient of 26 years age suffering from Hashimoto's thyroiditis complaints of gradual increase in size of swelling over neck for 3 years She was treated with Shodhana and Shamana Aushadhis for 3 months and found effective in reducing the levels of antibodies.


2005 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 225-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Halkon ◽  
Jim Innes

This article assesses the major changes in landscape and coastline, which took place in an area adjacent to the northern shore of the inner estuary of the river Humber, in East Yorkshire, UK, from the beginning of the Holocene to the Iron Age. It considers the effect of these changes on material culture as represented by artefact distributions, including flint assemblages and polished stone tools located during field survey. The conclusions presented here derive from a continuing programme of research in this study area and they are placed in the context of the wider Humber region and the North Sea Basin. This article advocates a restoration of balance with regard to geographical determinism – a new pragmatism – accepting that environmental factors have a great importance in determining the nature and location of certain activities in the past, though cannot be used to explain them all.


Author(s):  
О.Н. Загородняя

Археологические источники свидетельствуют, что в тех или иных сообществах могли быть сосредоточены как все технологические процессы металлопроизводства, так и лишь отдельные из них (добыча, обогащение руды, металлургия и металлообработка). В качестве объектов изучения выступают, прежде всего, металлические изделия, различные категории орудий труда, а также древние рудники, которые представляют собой разновидность следов - видоизменений естественной структуры геологических напластований и ландшафта. Долгое время внимание исследователей было направлено преимущественно на изучение металлических изделий и литейных форм. Орудия попадали в поле зрения в зависимости от археологического контекста, указывающего на возможность их соотнесения с металлопроизводством. Ситуация изменилась с появлением методики, выявляющей и объясняющей характер и природу деформаций изготовления и изнашивания. Исследование включает систематизацию материалов из горных пород, кости и керамики из Картамышского археологического микрорайона в Донбассе БМСК позднебронзового века. Источниковая база составляет 1091 предмет. Для их изучения применены структурно-сырьевой, технологический, функциональный и контекстуальный анализы. Наиболее представительная серия металлопроизводственных орудий: горнодобывающие (мотыги, кайла, молоты) (рис. 1: 4-11), горно-обогатительные (песты-терочники, рудодробильные/рудотерочные плиты, орудия из кости, применяемые в процессе гравитации, совки), металлообрабатывающие (литейные формы, молотки, наковальни, абразивы, скребок) (рис. 2: 4-19). Выделен новый тип орудий из кости для гравитационного обогащения руды (рис. 3: 1-10). Следы на артефактах идентичны полученным в ходе экспериментов по сухому обогащению руды, гравитации и металлообработке следам. The paper reports on the studies of metalworking tools from the Kartamysh archaeological microregion. Archaeological sources demonstrate that both the complete production cycle (extraction, ore processing, metallurgy and metalworking) and the incomplete production cycle could be used by various communities. Metal goods, various types of tools, ancient pits were examined. The latter are represented by a variety of traces such as changes of the natural structure of the geological depositions and the landscape. The research includes systematization of the artifacts made from rocks, bone and ceramics from the Kartamysh archaeological microregion in Donbass (Berezhnovka-Maevka Timber-grave culture of the Late Bronze Age). The collection consisting of 1091 items was subjected to the structural/raw material, technological, functional and contextual analyses. The paper publishes a series of metal production tools such as mining tools (mattocks, hacks, hammers - Fig. 1: 4-11), ore processing tools (pestles/grinding stones, mortars/grinding slabs), metalworking instruments (moulds, hammers, anvils, abrasives, a scraper) (Fig. 2: 4-19). Bone tools for gravitational ore processing were singled out (Fig. 3: 1-10). Traces on the artifacts were compared with the traces obtained during experiments on dry ore processing, gravitation and metalworking.


2007 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Shott ◽  
Jesse A. M. Ballenger

Stone tools were reduced during use, with implications both for classification and curation rates. Ballenger's “expended utility” (EU) is a continuous reduction measure devised for Dalton bifaces, described by its mean but also its distribution among specimens. We validate EU as a reduction measure by reference to experimental and contextual controls. We compare EU between the “special context” Dalton assemblages Sloan and Hawkins in Arkansas and Ballenger's eastern Oklahoma “occupation context” ones. Then we fit EU distributions to mathematical functions to model the curation process. Results show that Oklahoma bifaces were better curated than Arkansas ones. Fitting distributions to the Gompertz-Makeham model efficiently describes distributions' shape and scale, which are as important to know as central tendency. Curation is not a categorical state but a continuous variable whose complex variation implicates complex causes.


1971 ◽  
Vol 34 (12) ◽  
pp. 583-583 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. L. Duitschaever ◽  
D. M. Irvine

A large lot of Cheddar cheese was refused by a food processing plant on the basis of extensive mold growth. The mold belonged to the genus Penicillium. There was a gradual increase in pH from the center of the cheese (pH 5.48) towards the moldy, surface (pH 7.80). All portions of the cheese yielded staphylococci, but those isolated (100–1000/g) from the subsurface moldy areas were all coagulase-positive. Coliforms and salmonellae were absent. Aflatoxins could not be detected but the isolated coagulase-positive staphylococci were able to produce enterotoxin D.


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