Scientific Analysis and Conservation of Waterlogged Woods Excavated from Suyoeng-ri Site, Hwaseong, Korea

Five waterlogged wood artefacts were excavated from Suyeong-ri site in Hwaseong, South Korea. The aim of the present study was to identify the species and estimate the date of manufacture and the manufacturing method of these artefacts. The study also aimed to conserve the original shapes of waterlogged wood artefacts by using the vacuum freeze drying method. The two large waterlogged woods were identified as Ulmus spp. and Morus spp., whereas one of the three small waterlogged woods was identified as Abies spp. and the other two as hard pine. Radiocarbon dating using wiggle match dated the manufacturing of these wooden artefacts between BCE 8520-8490 or BCE 8470-8290 in the Neolithic age, and a similar period was also confirmed for seed excavated from a place close to the location where the waterlogged wood artefacts were excavated. The surface of waterlogged wood artefacts had several traces of manufacturing processes - traces of tearing and chopping - were observed. Based on these observations, it was confirmed that stone adz was used to make these wooden artefacts. Thereafter, the waterlogged wood samples were conserved by immersing them into PEG#4,000 of concentration in water from 10% to 40% at room temperature(15~25℃) and subjecting them to vacuum freeze drying. However, the internal moisture was not completely removed in some thick parts of waterlogged woods by applying the general schedule such as raising the shelf temperature as the surface temperature rises. Therefore, additional study is required using the schedule-method for vacuum freeze drying of large waterlogged wood.

Revisiting the 5000-Year-Old Tally at Mnajdra, Malta

The pillars at the entrance of the inner apse of one of the cluster of Neolithic temples at Mnajdra, Malta display rows of drilled holes which have been interpreted as a tally of days. Furthermore, it has been proposed that the number of holes in the rows on the east pillar coincides well with a sequence of intervals between the heliacal rising of bright stars or star groups. Is this remarkable correspondence simply a chance occurrence, or do the drilled holes represent material evidence of deliberate time reckoning by means of heliacal star risings in the Neolithic age? This question has led to the statistical investigation described in this paper, which takes into account the heliacal risings of all stars of magnitude 2.0 or brighter visible from Malta 5000 years ago as well as the Pleiades and the Hyades star clusters, which attracted the attention of other ancient cultures. The paper presents and discusses the method used and the challenges involved in the investigation. The results show that with a tolerance of ±1 day for uncertainty in the calculated heliacal rise days, the probability of achieving an exact correspondence between a random ordering of the tally and a series of star rises is 0.0014. With a wider tolerance of ±2 days the probability is 0.011. The final section discusses the significance and implications of these results.

Interlude IV

There are nine and sixty ways of constructing tribal lays, And every single one of them is right! RUDYARD KIPLING, “In the Neolithic Age” There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don’t. Popular mathematics T-shirt slogan...

Different Human–Dog Interactions in Early Agricultural Societies of China, Revealed by Coprolite

Dogs served in a variety of capacities in prehistory. After their domestication in Paleolithic hunter-gatherer societies, the emergence of agriculture shifted their partnerships with people. However, the associations between dogs and early farmers are not readily visible in the archaeological record. In the present study, dog coprolites, uncovered from two groups of early agricultural societies in China during the Neolithic Age, the early rice agricultural site of Tianluoshan in the lower Yangtze River, and three early millet-rice mixed agricultural sites of Shuangdun, Yuhuicun, and Houtieying along the middle Huai River, were examined based on the comparisons of lipid and palynological results to reveal different relationships of dogs and humans. The Tianluoshan dogs showed a plant-dominated diet with higher contents of plant sterols and fatty alcohols with longer chain lengths. Dogs may have lived on foraging or been provisioned with refuse for the cleanness purpose. On the contrary, dogs from the sites of Shuangdun, Yuhuicun, and Houtieying showed a meat-dominated diet with higher proportions of animal sterols and short-chain fatty alcohols. It most probably referred to their assistance in hunting and thus being provisioned with meat. Furthermore, activity areas of the dogs also reflect different deployment strategies and agricultural systems, evidenced by pollen spectra from the coprolites. Dogs at Tianluoshan mostly appeared in the rice field area, in correspondence with the labor-consuming rice cultivation as the main targeted resource, showing their participation in daily agricultural activities. On the other hand, high concentrations of pollen from forest and grassland revealed that hunting dogs played a regular role in the early millet-rice mixed farming societies, probably related to the importance of hunting activities in the daily subsistence.

SETTLEMENT BARSOVA GORA II/42 (NEOLITHIC, ENEOLITHIC AND BRONZE AGE COMPLEXES)

The settlement Barsova Gora II/42 is located in Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug-Yugra, 15 km west of Surgut, on the high bank of the Ob' River. The settlement is being actively destroyed due to the activities of oil companies. More than 20 objects and structures were investigated in 2011 during rescue excavations, some of them are pits of ancient dwellings (sites 1, 2, 6, 15, 19), some are household outbuildings and pits (sites 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 20), two objects have a cult purpose (sites 5, 12). An important feature of the monument is that archaeological structures of different epochs and cultures overlap each other, allowing us to trace the sequence of settlement of this part of the Ob River bank. During the Neolithic Age the constructions of Bystrinsky and Barsovogorsky cultural types were located here, the cultural layers containing ceramics of Vakhovsky type belong to the Eneolithic Age, and the constructions and household pits of Kulugansky type belong to the Bronze Age. An ochre storage pit and a ring ochre structure represent a unique object, which is probably related to ancient rituals. The revealed objects (Nos. 15, 19, 18, 2, 1, 5, 17, 13) are partially investigated and require further excavations.

The history of human land use activities in the Northern Alps since the Neolithic Age. A reconstruction of vegetation and fire history in the Mangfall Mountains (Bavaria, Germany)

Millenia of sustainable, low intensity land use have formed the cultural landscapes of central Europe. Studies from the Central Alps show that mountain pastures also look back onto many thousand years of land use history. In this palynological and pedoanthracological study in the border region between Germany and Austria in the Mangfall Mountains, we aim to close the knowledge gap that exists for the German part of the Northern Alps, where no conclusive evidence for the onset of pastoral activities has been presented so far. Our results reveal strong evidence, that mountain pasture use in this region reaches back to the Iron Age at least. However, the reconstruction of vegetation and fire history indicates human interaction with the environment much earlier, starting in the Neolithic Age, where we found evidence of slash and burn activities and first occurrences of pasture indicator pollen. A rising number of mega charcoal pieces dated to the Bronze Age suggests increased slash and burn activities, possibly linked to the creation of open space for pasturing. Therefore, our results provide profound evidence of human interaction with the mountain environment, beginning in the Neolithic Age and clear evidence of mountain pasture use beginning during the Iron Age at 750 BC. Based on palynology and pedoanthracology it is, however, difficult to clearly differentiate between pasturing, hunting and other human interactions with the environment. Further archaeological studies in this area could add valuable information to our findings and shed more light onto the early history of farming activities in the Northern Alps.

The Wangjiabang cemetery of the Chenghe site of the Neolithic Age in Shayang County, Hubei Province

From March 2018 to January 2019, the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and other institutions excavated the Wangjiabang cemetery outside the north moat of the Chenghe ancient city site. They recovered 112 burials and three pottery ware pits and unearthed large numbers of artifacts, including pottery wares, jade and stone yue-battle-axes, ivory objects, bamboo-woven wares, lacquer wares, pig mandibles, and so on. These burials all belonged to the Qujialing culture, the large-scale ones mostly double- or triple-chamber burials in the same graves, and many burials were furnished with tree trunk coffins. Some pottery assemblages in the grave goods also had unique features. This discovery has filled a gap of the prehistoric burials in the middle reach of the Yangtze River, and provided valuable materials for further understanding the funeral customs and social structure of the Qujialing culture.

The Lushanmao site of the Neolithic Age in Yan’an City, Shaanxi Province

The Lushanmao site is a large-scale settlement site from the late Miaodigou Phase II culture to the late Longshan age located in Yan’an City, Shaanxi Province. The core zone of the settlement is on a hill ridge, on the top of which four large-sized rammed-earth platform foundations are distributed, each of which had large-sized rammed-earth architecture sites on top. On the top of the excavated Da Yingpan Liang (Large Garrison Ridge), one large courtyard and two smaller courtyards were distributed. Of them, the large courtyard was facing south, which would be the earliest palace complex in an axial symmetrical plan known to date in China, and the two smaller ones would be its guardhouses. In the large courtyard, a set of roof tiles, which would be the earliest ones known to date in China, were unearthed; and jades were also found in the rammed-earth foundation or walls. These discoveries are significantly valuable for the studies on the early capital city planning, origins, and evolutions of palaces and the developments of the early ritual systems and architectural materials of China.