Physical and Cultural Constraint of Innovation in the Late Prehistoric Metallurgy of Cerro Huaringa, Peru

1992 ◽  
Vol 267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen M. Epstein
Keyword(s):  
Technological Innovation ◽  
Copper Smelting ◽  
Industrial Site ◽  
Late Prehistoric ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Human Breath ◽  
Spanish Conquest ◽  
Physical Constraints ◽  
Arsenical Copper

ABSTRACTThe arsenical copper smelting technology reconstructed from the archaeological record at the late prehistoric industrial site of Cerro Huaringa, Peru, remained unchanged for the six centuries preceding the Spanish Conquest. This lack of technological innovation is argued to be a result of the physical constraints imposed by a cultural commitment to human breath as the source of draft.

scholarly journals Late prehistoric copper smelting in the Lao PDR: Experimental reconstruction based on the Vilabouly Complex evidence

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 102932
Author(s):  
Mélissa Cadet ◽  
Florian Tereygeol ◽  
Thongsa Sayavongkhamdy ◽  
Viengkeo Souksavatdy ◽  
Thonglith Luangkhoth ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Lao Pdr ◽  
Copper Smelting ◽  
Late Prehistoric

Bear's Journey and the Study of Ritual in Archaeology

2006 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meghan C. L. Howey ◽  
John M. O'Shea
Keyword(s):  
Great Lakes ◽  
Great Lakes Region ◽  
Ritual Practice ◽  
Late Prehistoric ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Ritual Performance ◽  
Northern Michigan

This paper considers the archaeological study of ritual and explores the interrelationships that exist between ideologically meaningful accounts of ritual and the material representations of ritual practice that remain for archaeological evaluation. Specifically, the paper addresses the development and antiquity of the Midewiwin ritual, a ceremonial complex that is known historically throughout the Great Lakes region. The serendipitous discovery of a linkage between the Mide origin tale of Bear's Journey and the layout of the Late Prehistoric earthwork enclosures of northern Michigan provides an opportunity to document how a ritual system is represented in the archaeological record and to evaluate how the understanding of the archaeology is altered by having access to the meaning underpinning the ritual performance. The research provides unambiguous evidence for the prehistoric antiquity of the Mide ceremony and illustrates the contribution archaeology can make to understanding the long-term processes of ritual practice and change.

scholarly journals More Perspectives on the Late Prehistoric Site of Qiryat Ata

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 307-319
Author(s):  
Amir Golani
Keyword(s):  
Future Research ◽  
Late Prehistoric ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Archaeological Data ◽  
History Of

In a recent SAAC article, Eliot Braun (2012) has published a critique of my excavations at the late prehistoric site of Qiryat Ata. Reexamination of a site’s stratigraphy and reinterpretation of archaeological data are welcome, if their purpose is to truly enhance our understanding of the history of the site and thus gain a better understanding of the archaeological periods of its occupation. Such a reevaluation should be based on factual evidence, exacting analysis and the realization that even the same data can and is open to different interpretation. Reexamination of the data would strive to offer accurate and useful conclusions that could substantially augment our perception of the archaeological record and be a catalyst for future research and fruitful collegial discussion among scholars.The purpose of the following is to address the claims and allegations raised by Braun in his article. While some points of Braun’s critique may have their merit and provide a future basis for discussion, examination of his major points shows them to be basically unfounded.

Bone Refuse and Insect Remains: Their Potential for Temporal Resolution of the Archaeological Record

1991 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 680-686 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen A. Chomko ◽  
B. Miles Gilbert
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Resolution ◽  
Bighorn Basin ◽  
Late Prehistoric ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Settlement System ◽  
Late Prehistoric Period

The contents of a bone-filled pit from a Late Prehistoric period site in the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming, are inferred to represent the remains of a meal originally cooked in a skin container. The residue remained in the container, outside of the pit, for at least three weeks. Subsequently, but within a few weeks of cooking, the residue was dumped upside down into a pit which was then sealed with a sandstone slab. Preparation of the food and its disposal took place between June and September. The temporal resolution made possible by the analysis of the insect remains permits the inference that the site assemblage accumulated during two separate occupations. Such an inference affects how the site assemblage may be interpreted within the context of a settlement system.

Man and Climate in the Maya Lowlands

1987 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 407-414 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara W. Leyden
Keyword(s):  
Calcium Sulfate ◽  
Lake Basin ◽  
Pollen Record ◽  
Environmental Disturbance ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Maya Lowlands ◽  
Spanish Conquest ◽  
Sedimentary Core ◽  
Maya Collapse ◽  
Climatic Information

AbstractA 15-m sedimentary core from Lake Salpeten provides the first complete Holocene sequence for the lowlying Peten District, Guatemala. Today, Lake Salpeten is a brackish, calcium sulfate lake near saturation surrounded by tropical semievergreen forest. The basal pollen record depicts sparse juniper scrub surrounding a lake basin that held ephermal pools and halophytic marshes. The lake rapidly deepened to > 27 m in the early Holocene and may have been meromictic, because nearly 2 m of gypsum “mush” was deposited. Mesic forests were quickly established and persisted until the Maya entered the district 3000 yr ago and caused extensive deforestation. Any climatic information contained in the pollen record of the Maya period is thus masked, but a regional pollen sequence linked to the archaeological record is substantiated because environmental disturbance was pervasive. Local intensification of occupation and population growth are seen as an increased deposition of pollen of agricultural weeds and colluviation into the lake, while the Classic Maya collapse is marked by a temporary decline in Compositae pollen. Effects of perturbations induced by the Maya persist in the pollen and limnetic record 400 yr after the Spanish conquest.

Horticulture and the Maintenance of Social Complexity in Late Woodland Southeastern New England

1997 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Benison
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
New England ◽  
Social Complexity ◽  
Late Woodland ◽  
Economic Systems ◽  
Late Prehistoric ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Environmental Regimes ◽  
Complex Relationships ◽  
Land Use Practices

Macrobotanical data from several southeastern New England sites are reviewed to provide a framework for examining changing social organization during the Late Woodland (ca. a.d. 800–1600). This article argues that the degree to which incipient maize horticulture entailed shifts in social complexity has not been well-defined by researchers. Minimally, introduction of maize into traditional economies gave rise to comparatively more complex relationships between resident late prehistoric groups and local environmental regimes. A gradually increasing commitment to economic systems which included maize and other seed-bearing plants led to increased levels of complexity in labor organization and land-use practices. Changing perceptions of cultural “belongingness,” prompted by competition for lands suitable for cultivation, influenced how local groups conceived and expressed intra-and intergroup sociopolitical identities. Such shifts in perceptions of sociopolitical differences in late prehistory are traceable in ideological structures reflected in mortuary patterning represented in the regional archaeological record.

A Lost Landscape: Ancient Settlement of Samaca and Ullujaya

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Beresford-Jones
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Use Changes ◽  
Archaeological Survey ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Spanish Conquest ◽  
Late Horizon ◽  
Early Horizon ◽  
The Rich

This chapter explores the archaeology of the lower Ica Valley. This is based upon many seasons of archaeological fieldwork with the purpose of gathering different datasets with which to reconstruct geomorphological, ecological, and land-use changes in the Samaca and Ullujaya basins. The chapter looks at the rich archaeological record in these basins from the Early Horizon (c.750 bc) through to the Inca Late Horizon that ended abruptly with Spanish conquest in ad 1532, as revealed through detailed archaeological survey and excavation.

Data Integration in the Service of Synthetic Research

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith W. Kintigh ◽  
Katherine A. Spielmann ◽  
Adam Brin ◽  
K. Selçuk Candan ◽  
Tiffany C. Clark ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Data Integration ◽  
General Procedure ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Research Community ◽  
Late Prehistoric ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Digital Repository ◽  
Specific Content ◽  
Integration Procedure ◽  
Archaeological Data

ABSTRACTAddressing archaeology's most compelling substantive challenges requires synthetic research that exploits the large and rapidly expanding corpus of systematically collected archaeological data. That, in turn, requires a means of combining datasets that employ different systematics in their recording while at the same time preserving the semantics of the data. To that end, we have developed a general procedure that we call query-driven, on-the-fly data integration that is deployed within the Digital Archaeological Record digital repository. The integration procedure employs ontologies that are mapped to the original datasets. Integration of the ontology-based dataset representations is done at the time the query is executed, based on the specific content of the query. In this way, the original data are preserved, and data are aggregated only to the extent necessary to obtain semantic comparability. Our presentation draws examples from the largest application to date: an effort by a research community of Southwest US faunal analysts. Using 24 ontologies developed to cover a broad range of observed faunal variables, we integrate faunal data from 33 sites across the late prehistoric northern Southwest, including about 300,000 individually recorded faunal specimens.

Evidence of arsenical copper smelting in Bronze Age China: A study of metallurgical slag from the Laoniupo site, central Shaanxi

2017 ◽  
Vol 82 ◽  
pp. 31-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kunlong Chen ◽  
Siran Liu ◽  
Yanxiang Li ◽  
Jianjun Mei ◽  
Anding Shao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Metallurgical Slag ◽  
Copper Smelting ◽  
Arsenical Copper

scholarly journals Holocene Climate and Cultural Evolution in Late Prehistoric–Early Historic West Asia

2006 ◽  
Vol 66 (3) ◽  
pp. 372-387 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Staubwasser ◽  
Harvey Weiss
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Transfer Functions ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Abrupt Climate Change ◽  
Late Prehistoric ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Holocene Climate ◽  
The Holocene ◽  
Change Events ◽  
Early Historic

AbstractThe precipitation climatology and the underlying climate mechanisms of the eastern Mediterranean, West Asia, and the Indian subcontinent are reviewed, with emphasis on upper and middle tropospheric flow in the subtropics and its steering of precipitation. Holocene climate change of the region is summarized from proxy records. The Indian monsoon weakened during the Holocene over its northernmost region, the Ganges and Indus catchments and the western Arabian Sea. Southern regions, the Indian Peninsula, do not show a reduction, but an increase of summer monsoon rain across the Holocene. The long-term trend towards drier conditions in the eastern Mediterranean can be linked to a regionally complex monsoon evolution. Abrupt climate change events, such as the widespread droughts around 8200, 5200 and 4200 cal yr BP, are suggested to be the result of altered subtropical upper-level flow over the eastern Mediterranean and Asia.The abrupt climate change events of the Holocene radically altered precipitation, fundamental for cereal agriculture, across the expanse of late prehistoric–early historic cultures known from the archaeological record in these regions. Social adaptations to reduced agro-production, in both dry-farming and irrigation agriculture regions, are visible in the archaeological record during each abrupt climate change event in West Asia. Chronological refinement, in both the paleoclimate and archaeological records, and transfer functions for both precipitation and agro-production are needed to understand precisely the evident causal linkages.

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