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Figurative Representations in the North European Neolithic—Are They There? Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2024-03-18 Rune Iversen, Valeska Becker, Rebecca Bristow
This article offers a comprehensive survey of figurative finds from Neolithic northern Europe. The survey shows that the immediate absence of figurative representation in the region is real and that the almost complete lack of figuration stands out from the previous Mesolithic and the contemporary northern and northeastern European Neolithic hunter-gatherer groups. Furthermore, the absence of figurative
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The Future of Periodization. Dissecting the Legacy of Culture History Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2024-03-18 Gavin Lucas, Orri Vésteinsson
This paper discusses the future role of periodization in the wake of recent critiques of culture-historical chronologies concurrent with the rise of high-definition radiocarbon dating. It is argued that periodization has two distinct facets, a narrative function and a dating function, which should be separated. Archaeology may eventually be able to abandon the latter, but not the former. However, the
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Bridlington Boulevard Revisited: New Insights into Pit and Post-hole Cremations in Neolithic Britain Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2024-03-15 Jake T. Rowland, Jess E. Thompson
The majority of excavated human remains from Neolithic Britain emanate from monumental sites. However, it is increasingly recognized that multiple funerary practices are often attested within these monuments, and that diverse treatment of the dead is evident contemporaneously at non-monumental sites. In this paper, we highlight such variation in non-monumental funerary practices in Neolithic Britain
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Wounded Animals and Where to Find Them. The Symbolism of Hunting in Palaeolithic Art Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2024-03-12 Olivia Rivero, Miguel García-Bustos, Georges Sauvet
Representations of wounded animals and humans in European Upper Palaeolithic art have traditionally been conceived as figures related to the hunting activities of hunter-gatherer societies. In this paper, we propose an analysis of Franco-Cantabrian figurative representations showing signs of violence between 35,000 and 13,000 cal. bp to qualify the interpretations of hunting and death in Palaeolithic
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An Anarchist Archaeology of Equality: Pasts and Futures Against Hierarchy Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2024-03-11 Aris Politopoulos, Catherine J. Frieman, James L. Flexner, Lewis Borck
Scholars of the past frame the ‘origins’ or evolution of inequality, usually using archaeological or anthropological evidence as a basis for their arguments, as an intentional, inevitable, important step towards the development of states, implicitly framed as the pinnacle of human political and economic achievement. Anarchist archaeologies reject the idea of hierarchy as a positive or inevitable evolutionary
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Texts, Politics and Identities: New Challenges on Iron Age Ethnicity. A Case from Northwest Iberia Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2024-03-11 Samuel Nión-Álvarez
This paper presents an approach to the study of European Iron Age ethnicity, a core topic for several decades which has begun to lose interest in the last years. A review of some of the uncertainties involved in the archaeology of ethnicity, focused on several key issues, is proposed. Moreover, some relevant topics that are usually undermined are suggested in order to address new challenges in the
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An Argaric Tomb for a Carpathian ‘Princess’? Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2024-03-04 Juan A. López Padilla, Francisco Javier Jover Maestre, Ricardo E. Basso Rial, María Pastor Quiles
Around 120 years ago, a burial was discovered in the Argaric settlement of San Antón, 60 km southeast of Alicante (Spain). Although it was similar to many others recorded during more than a century of research, some gold objects found made this burial exceptional in the Iberian Bronze Age funerary record. Based on the most recent archaeological data, this article reviews both the context and the whole
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Commentary Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2024-02-19 Kathleen Sterling
Greer offers an excellent primer on some Black Studies scholars’ critiques of humanism, for which he uses the label ‘counter-humanism’ after Erasmus (2020), distinguishing these approaches from ‘posthumanism.’ He identifies two primary strains of posthumanism relevant to archaeological interpretation, symmetrical archaeology and posthuman feminism, though examples of the latter are drawn from a broader
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Comments Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2024-02-19 Susan Pollock
Matthew Greer offers us a powerful, refreshing and thought-provoking critique of posthumanist approaches in archaeology as he sees them through the lens of Black Studies. He asks us to leave aside—temporarily—concerns with anthropocentrism to concentrate instead on the human side of the equation, while nonetheless positioning himself in line with posthumanist efforts to dismantle the human–non-human
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On Striving as Readers: A Response to Greer Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2024-02-19 Christopher Witmore
The capacity of northern European gentlemen scholars educated in the love of wisdom, human dignity, friendship and rationality to treat their fellow human beings with irreconcilable prejudice and hold to ghastly beliefs of racial superiority, which legitimated violence, exploitation and extermination elsewhere, is one of the great tragedies of humanism. That the images of the human cultivated in texts
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Commentary Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2024-02-19 Craig N. Cipolla
Does non-anthropocentrism necessitate a turn away from marginalized people? This is a crucial question, asked lately by a growing number of archaeologists. Some see a turn toward things as a turn away from people, while others take a more nuanced view. Greer falls into the latter group, exploring this question by highlighting important contributions and corrections from Black Studies. Although the
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Reflections on a Counter-Humanist Archaeology: A Commentary on Greer 2023 Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2024-02-19 Lindsay M. Montgomery
In ‘Humanist Missteps’, Matthew Greer makes the pointed observation that non-anthropocentric frameworks, including symmetrical, object-oriented and posthuman feminist archaeologies, have primarily focused on deconstructing the human–non-human binary while failing to problematize humanist assumptions about who counts as Human. At the core of Greer's argument is the matter of citational practice: which
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Humanist Missteps, A Black Studies Critique of Posthumanist Archaeologies Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2024-02-19 Matthew C. Greer
Posthumanist archaeologies have attempted to move beyond humanist conceptions of the human for over a decade. But they have done so by primarily focusing on the ontological split between humans and non-human things. This only addresses one part of humanism, as Black studies scholars have long argued that it also equates humanity writ large with white, economically privileged, cis-gendered, heterosexual
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Reply: Citational Politics and the Future of Posthumanist Archaeologies Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2024-02-19 Matthew C. Greer
I want to begin by thanking Craig Cipolla, Lindsay Montgomery, Susan Pollock, Kathleen Sterling and Christopher Witmore for their responses. I am honoured to be in conversation with such thoughtful and insightful scholars. In my reading, two main themes emerged from their comments—citational politics and what the future of posthumanist archaeologies might look like. To conclude our discussion of archaeology
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When the Foreign Becomes Familiar: The Glass Bead Assemblage from Madjedbebe, Northern Australia Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2024-02-01 Mirani Litster, Lynley A. Wallis, Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation
By investigating the materiality of colonial encounters, specifically the consumption of introduced commodities by Indigenous peoples, archaeologists can explore questions concerning value, agency, consumer choice and localization. This has the significant capacity to broaden understandings of intercultural encounters and challenge colonial narratives. Glass beads represent one of the earliest foreign
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Gold and Silver: Relative Values in the Ancient Past Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-11-28 James Ross, Leigh Bettenay
We have documented more than 200 relative values of gold and silver across almost 3000 years (2500 bce–400 ce) to establish value benchmarks for essentially pure metal. Our aim is to improve understanding of ancient economies by enabling regional and temporal comparisons of these relative values. First, we establish silver as an early, reliable benchmark for valuing gold of varying purity before implementation
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Visible Wealth in Past Societies: A Case Study of Domestic Architecture from the Hawaiian Islands Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-11-07 Mark D. McCoy, Joseph L. Panuska
Domestic architecture is increasingly revisited as a source of data about wealth inequality in the distant past via the Gini coefficient, a statistical tool often used in economics to compare income inequality. Many areas—including South America, Africa, South Asia and Oceania—remain under-sampled, making it difficult to develop a more complete picture of ancient political economies. In this paper
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The Constructed Desert: A Sacred Cultural Landscape at Har Tzuriaz, Negev, Israel Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-10-25 Lior Schwimer, Roy Galili, Naomi Porat, Guy Bar-Oz, Dani Nadel, Steven A Rosen
Past and present cultures perceive their natural landscape as an integral and vital component of their complex worlds, while particular landscape features and associated monuments built in selected locales become sacred and revered through stories, legends and rituals embedded in mundane and ceremonial events. The hyper-arid Har Tzuriaz area in the southern Negev, Israel, offers a case study of culture-geographic
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Posthuman Archaeology and Rock Art Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-10-16 José Chessil Dohvehnain Martínez-Moreno
This paper aims to contribute to the current debate about Posthumanism in archaeology, arguing for the potential that Posthumanism can have for the study of rock art. Through a case study in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, this work seeks to explore a posthuman approach to rock art as vibrant and relational assemblages, through affects as relational agencies and non-human personhood and ritual landscape as
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Conversations with Caves: The Role of Pareidolia in the Upper Palaeolithic Figurative Art of Las Monedas and La Pasiega (Cantabria, Spain) Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-09-21 Izzy Wisher, Paul Pettitt, Robert Kentridge
The influence of pareidolia has often been anecdotally observed in examples of Upper Palaeolithic cave art, where topographic features of cave walls were incorporated into images. As part of a wider investigation into the visual psychology of the earliest known art, we explored three hypotheses relating to pareidolia in cases of Late Upper Palaeolithic art in Las Monedas and La Pasiega Caves (Cantabria
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An Archaeology of Traces Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-09-13 Bruce Routledge
Archaeology is centrally concerned with the tension between material remains in the present and a reconstructed past. This tension is captured by the concept of a trace, namely a contemporary phenomenon that references the past through some sort of epistemic intervention. Traces are deceptively complex in terms of both their epistemology and their ontology and hence worthy of detailed exploration.
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Southeast Asia and the Mediterranean World at the Turn of the First Millennium ce: Networks, Commodities and Cultural Reception Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-09-07 Krisztina Hoppál, Bérénice Bellina, Laure Dussubieux
Archaeological materials from the Mediterranean world in Southeast Asia are scarce and their social context and cultural implications are rarely considered, while objects in Mediterranean style are often misinterpreted or overlooked. Concomitant to the increasing implementation of laboratory analysis, the range of new evidence, especially coming from recently excavated sites in Thailand and Myanmar
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Acheulean Handaxes in Medieval France: An Earlier ‘Modern’ Social History for Palaeolithic Bifaces Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-07-11 Alastair Key, James Clark, Jeremy DeSilva, Steven Kangas
Handaxes have a uniquely prominent role in the history of Palaeolithic archaeology, and their early study provides crucial information concerning the epistemology of the field. We have little conclusive evidence, however, of their investigation or societal value prior to the mid seventeenth century. Here we investigate the shape, colour and potential flake scarring on a handaxe-like stone object seen
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A Small Rural Travel Stopover at the Late Postclassic Maya Site of Mensabak, Chiapas, Mexico: Overland Trade, Cross-Cultural Interaction and Social Cohesion in the Countryside Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-07-03 Joel W. Palka
A small rural stopover along overland Maya and Aztec trade and travel routes was identified in surveys and excavations at adjacent settlements and shrines at Mensabak, Chiapas, Mexico. This collection of Late Postclassic to Spanish conquest-era (c.ad 1350–1650) Maya sites are similar in function to rural Old World and Andean caravan stopovers, such as caravanserai and way stations, where travellers
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On the Periphery of the Inka Empire: Spatial Arrangement at the Pre-Hispanic Rock-art Site of Villavil 2 (Catamarca, Argentina) Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-06-24 César Parcero-Oubiña, Pastor Fábrega-Álvarez, Julieta Lynch
This paper describes the analysis of the Late Prehispanic rock-art site of Villavil 2 (Catamarca, Argentina). Despite its modest and inconspicuous nature, this is one of the few examples of rock-art sites known in the area to date. The relationship of the site with the surrounding landscape and the distribution of rock art throughout the site are analysed using a combination of GIS and 3D modelling
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Using Topic Modelling to Reassess Heritage Values from a People-centred Perspective: Applications from the North of England Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-06-15 Martina Tenzer, John Schofield
The historic environment—comprising a palimpsest of landscapes, buildings and objects—carries meaning and plays a crucial role in giving people a sense of place, identity and belonging. It represents a repository of ever-accumulating collective and individually held values—shared perceptions, experiences, life histories, beliefs and traditions. These social or private values are mostly ascribed by
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Hanging over the Void. Uses of Long Ropes and Climbing Rope Ladders in Prehistory as Illustrated in Levantine Rock Art Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-06-08 Manuel Bea, Dídac Roman, Inés Domingo
Direct or indirect evidence of ropemaking are scarce in European prehistory. Only a few references to Middle or Upper Palaeolithic remains are known to us, with more examples towards the Holocene. The archaeological contexts of ropes offer little information about possible uses, as the activities they are used for are often archaeologically invisible. However, some rock-art traditions shed some light
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Making Wonder in Miniature: A New Approach to Theorizing the Affective Properties and Social Consequences of Small-Scale Artworks from Hellenistic Babylonia Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-05-29 Stephanie M. Langin-Hooper
This article proposes an interpretive framework of paradox and wonder as a new approach to understanding the affective properties and social consequences of miniature objects in the archaeological record. Building upon current scholarly theories of miniatures as inherently intimate, this approach accounts for how small-scale artworks were also designed and deliberately manufactured to elude user attempts
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Minds on Fire: Cognitive Aspects of Early Firemaking and the Possible Inventors of Firemaking Kits Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-05-29 Marlize Lombard, Peter Gärdenfors
Thus far, most researchers have focused on the cognition of fire use, but few have explored the cognition of firemaking. With this contribution we analyse aspects of the two main hunter-gatherer firemaking techniques—the strike-a-light and the manual fire-drill—in terms of causal, social and prospective reasoning. Based on geographic distribution, archaeological and ethnographic information, as well
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Social Exclusion in Ancient Egypt: A Sociological Approach Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-05-29 Beatriz Jiménez Meroño
Social exclusion has been faced in modern societies as a phenomenon to be prevented in terms of equality. However, it can also be explored in past societies, where some individuals could confront situations of marginalization and exclusion. Previous scholars have accepted or rejected the existence of social exclusion in Ancient Egypt, although none of them has employed a theoretical framework to study
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Life and Death of the Macrolithic Tools from the Third-millennium cal. bc Necropolis of La Orden-Seminario in Southwest Spain Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-05-25 Francisco Martínez-Sevilla, José Antonio Linares-Catela
Macrolithic tools are linked to daily activities and, fundamentally, to settlements, hence their importance for the study of Late Prehistoric societies. However, these objects are also associated with funerary contexts, but have not often been analysed holistically. This paper studies an assemblage of macrolithic elements from three collective tombs from the third millennium cal. bc at the site of
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Error or Minority? The Identification of Non-binary Gender in Prehistoric Burials in Central Europe Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-05-24 Eleonore Pape, Nicola Ialongo
Gender is under focus in prehistoric archaeology, with traditional binary models being questioned and alternatives formulated. Quantification, however, is generally lacking, and alternative models are rarely tested against the archaeological evidence. In this article, we test the binary hypothesis of gender for prehistoric Central Europe based on a selection of seven published burial sites dating from
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From Typology and Biography to Multiplicity: Bracers as ‘Process Objects’ Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-05-11 Christina Tsoraki, Huw Barton, Rachel J. Crellin, Oliver J.T. Harris
In this article we put forward an alternative account of the famous wristguards, or bracers, of the European Early Bronze Age. Combining new materialism with empirical microwear analysis, we study 15 examples from Britain in detail and suggest a different way of conceptualizing these objects. Rather than demanding they have a singular function, we treat these objects as ‘multiplicities’ and as always
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The Proceduralization of Hominin Knapping Skill: Memorizing Different Lithic Technologies Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-04-20 Antoine Muller, Ceri Shipton, Chris Clarkson
Reconstructing the technical and cognitive abilities of past hominins requires an understanding of how skills like stone toolmaking were learned and transmitted. We ask how much of the variability in the uptake of knapping skill is due to the characteristics of the knapping sequences themselves? Fundamental to skill acquisition is proceduralization, the process whereby skilful tasks are converted from
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New Materialism and Posthumanism in Roman Archaeology: When Objects Speak for Others Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-04-17 Eva Mol
Theories derived from the ontological, posthumanist, or the new materialist turn have been increasingly employed in various fields within archaeology in the past decade. Recently, Roman archaeology also picked up on these theories: however, critical integration as well as more theoretical refinement is necessary to show the real potential of such theories. New materialism is not about writing a ‘history
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Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in San Forager Theories of Disease, and Its Implications for Understanding Images of Conflict in Southern African Rock Art Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-04-17 Andrew Skinner, Sam Challis
San forager populations in nineteenth-century southern Africa were forced to adapt to greatly destructive aspects of the colonial project. Forging new societies from heterogeneous sources, they engaged in prolonged armed insurgency, recording their exploits, presence and beliefs in the rock-art archive of the Maloti-Drakensberg. These images reference conflict and trauma, conventionally interpreted
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Earthen Architecture as a Community of Practice: A Case Study of Neolithic Earthen Production in the Eastern Mediterranean Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-03-20 Marta Lorenzon
This article analyses the development of Neolithic earthen architecture in the Eastern Mediterranean as a concrete example of ‘communities of practice’. Recent studies on earthen architecture have highlighted its adaptability to different climates, architectural forms and craftmanship levels, focusing on the technological aspects of earthen construction. This paper explores the anthropological significance
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Humans Making History through Continuities and Discontinuities in Art Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-03-15 Iain Davidson
Early representational art seems to tell a story all of its own, but in reality, it depended on the oral stories that accompanied its production. The art system has four parts: the producer, the subject of the story, the images of that subject, and the seer. Through the stories of the producer and the seers, this system implicated members of society in ways that were not limited to the images produced
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Revisiting the South African Unicorn: Rock Art, Natural History and Colonial Misunderstandings of Indigenous Realities Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-03-13 David M. Witelson
European ideas about unicorns spread across the world in the colonial era. In South Africa, hunts for that creature, and indigenous rock paintings of it, were commonplace. The aim was proof from ‘terra incognita’, often with the possibility of claiming a reward. There has, however, been little consideration of the independent, local creature onto which the unicorn was transposed. During cross-cultural
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Understanding Archaeological Tells: Circulating Memories and Engaging with Ancestors through Material Attachments Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-03-09 Stephen A. Dueppen, Daphne Gallagher
Tell sites are central to archaeological interpretation in many world regions due to their lengthy sequences of stratified deposits. However, the cultural choices that create architectural remnants and associated materials are more poorly understood, as are the ways that previous layers situate the living community above. This article calls for agentive understandings of tell-formation processes through
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Neolithic Cultural Heritage in Greece and Turkey and the Politics of Land and History Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-03-02 Stella Souvatzi
The paper explores and compares the ways in which Neolithic heritage in Greece and Turkey—two archaeologically and historically influential cases—has been used at the level of the state and the diverse meanings, values and histories ascribed to it by local communities and public discourse. Using four very representative examples as case studies, including the World Heritage sites of Çatalhöyük and
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Ancestral Waters: Material Culture, Notion of Transformation and Shamanism in the Stilt Villages in Eastern Amazonia Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-02-15 Alexandre Navarro
This work aims to apply the theories of new materialities to the study of the material culture of the Formoso stilt village, a pre-colonial settlement from the ninth–tenth centuries ad, located in the Baixada Maranhense. Appliqués of the pottery bowls at this archaeological site present cosmological information regarding the transformation or metamorphosis of bodies, aspects that are fertile for the
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‘Vandalizing’ Father Hittite. Karabel, Orientalism and Historiographies Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-01-23 Néhémie Strupler
This paper provides a framework to highlight the entanglement of discovery and historiography based on the example of the rock-relief figure of Karabel (Turkey), a pivotal monument to recognize the Hittites and the biblical past. I lay out the common narrative of the re-discovery's story that resemble a hagiography, and I put it into perspective with critiques from post-colonial studies. Due to the
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Out of Ruins: Contextualizing an Ancient Egyptian Spectacle of Architectural Reuse Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-01-17 Luiza Osorio G. Silva
Architectural reuse was common in ancient Egypt. Modern interpretations of this practice, particularly in royal contexts, usually ascribe it either a practical or ideological function, only rarely considering it possible that different motivations were involved. This type of approach is particularly true for the reuse of Old Kingdom blocks by the Middle Kingdom king Amenemhat I in his pyramid at Lisht
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Socializing the Materiality of Earthen Structures: The Chaîne Opératoire of Construction Practices at the Neolithic Site of Kleitos 2, Greece Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-01-12 Evita Kalogiropoulou, Dimitris Kloukinas, Kostas Kotsakis
This paper describes the chaîne opératoire of earthen architecture relating to buildings and thermal structures at the Neolithic site of Kleitos 2 in Kozani. It provides a material-based approach to the variable processes involved in construction as a practice of community involvement. The chaîne opératoire, adapted based on a refined concept of technology, is employed here as a key analytical tool
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An Upper Palaeolithic Proto-writing System and Phenological Calendar Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-01-05 Bennett Bacon, Azadeh Khatiri, James Palmer, Tony Freeth, Paul Pettitt, Robert Kentridge
In at least 400 European caves such as Lascaux, Chauvet and Altamira, Upper Palaeolithic Homo sapiens groups drew, painted and engraved non-figurative signs from at least ~42,000 bp and figurative images (notably animals) from at least 37,000 bp. Since their discovery ~150 years ago, the purpose or meaning of European Upper Palaeolithic non-figurative signs has eluded researchers. Despite this, specialists
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A Kin-based Trade Partnership Model for Obsidian in the Halafian Interaction Sphere: A View from the Southern Levant Wadi Rabah Culture Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2023-01-05 Doron Yacobi, Avi Gopher
The abundance of obsidian at the Pottery Neolithic Wadi Rabah culture (7600/500–6800 cal. bp) settlement of Hagoshrim IV in northern Israel, the rich repertoire of stamp seals, and imported chlorite vessels at the site, as well as the presence of skilled obsidian knappers, indicate intensive trade. Reviewing the archaeological data, we propose that the obsidian discovered at Hagoshrim IV and at other
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Building Ideas out of Wood. What Ancient Egyptian Funerary ‘Models’ Tell Us about Thought and Communication Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2022-12-21 Camilla Di Biase-Dyson
This paper unpacks the cognitive processes potentially involved in comprehending funerary ‘models’ from ancient Egypt. These objects comprise small scenes, usually made of wood, which have been found in burial chambers of pharaonic-era tombs. After considering the fittingness of the term ‘model’, the paper illustrates how a cognitive approach might better help us understand the purported functionality
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Revealing the Earliest Animal Engravings in Scotland: The Dunchraigaig Deer, Kilmartin Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2022-12-19 Joana Valdez-Tullett, Tertia Barnett, Guillaume Robin, Stuart Jeffrey
The recent discovery of animal carvings in the Early Bronze Age burial cairn at Dunchraigaig (Kilmartin Glen, Scotland) prompts a re-evaluation of current knowledge of rock art in Britain. The deer and other quadrupeds represented in the monument are the first unambiguous depictions of prehistoric animals of prehistoric date in Scotland, and among the earliest identified in Britain and Ireland. This
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Frontier Archaeology: Excavating Huli Colonization of the Lower Tagali Valley, Papua New Guinea Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2022-12-06 Jeremy Ash, Tim Denham, Chris Ballard, John Muke, Joe Crouch
Archaeological investigations have documented an ideological and occupied frontier in the Lower Tagali Valley along the southern margins of the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Open-area excavations document two types of house structure associated with Huli occupation of the Lower Tagali Valley landscape, a women's house (wandia) and a lodge and ceremonial complex associated with a bachelor cult (ibagiyaanda)
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Alterity, Otherness and Nomad Geometries: New Trajectories for the Interpretation of Late Neolithic Monuments Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2022-12-01 Mark Gillings
This paper focuses upon alterity and how we can more fully embrace intimations of otherness in our dealings with prehistoric monuments. Taking as its inspiration recent attempts to explain such structures, and the landscapes of which they were part, it makes two arguments. First, that while ethnographic analogies offer a vital point of departure for thinking through the possibilities raised by alterity
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Ayllus, Ancestors and the (Un)Making of the Wari State Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2022-12-01 Justin Jennings, Stephen Berquist
At the time of the Spanish invasion, central Andean society was organized around ayllus. These extensive social units, bound together by kinship, reciprocity, land claims, honoured ancestors and other criteria, are an example of the kin-based sodalities that have long been seen in political science as impediments to state development. Class should replace kin when large and complex polities like the
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Learning About Death and Burial: Mortuary Ritual, Emotion and Communities of Practice in the Ancient Andes Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2022-11-21 Sarah Baitzel
Mortuary rituals are conservative and transformative. As practices of hands-on and conceptual learning, memory making, and inter-generational knowledge transfer they take place within Communities of Practice, where emotionality and temporalities shape learning about death, interment, and commemoration. Drawing on mortuary, ethnographic, and archaeothanatological evidence, this paper explores how inhabitants
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The Cognitive Processus Behind Neolithic Schematic Rock Art. Archaeological Implications and Research Hypothesis Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2022-11-16 Claudia Defrasne
The issue addressed in this article is essentially whether the same cognitive processes are at work for mimetic prehistoric graphic productions and schematic ones. Holocene schematic rock art is one of the main graphic expressions of European prehistory, from the Iberian peninsula to Italy. Despite its wide distribution and the incomparable insight it may provide on the functioning of prehistoric human
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Towards a Broader Understanding of the Emergence of Iron Technology in Prehistoric Arctic Fennoscandia Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2022-11-10 Carina Bennerhag, Sara Hagström Yamamoto, Kristina Söderholm
The article critically examines interpretations of Old World ferrous metallurgical developments with reference to their consequences for Arctic Fennoscandian iron research. The traditional paradigm of technological innovations recurrently links the emergence of iron technology to increasing social complexity and a sedentary agricultural lifestyle, typically downplaying ‘peripheral’ areas such as Arctic
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Material and Sensory Experiences of Mesolithic Resinous Substances Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2022-10-28 Aimée Little, Andy Needham, Andrew Langley, Benjamin Elliott
Mesolithic resinous adhesives are well known for their role as hafting mastic within composite technologies, yet it is increasingly clear that their usage was more diverse than this. Birch-bark tar has been recovered from Mesolithic contexts as chewed lumps linked to medicinal treatment of toothache and oral diseases, and as a decorative element on ornaments and art objects; and an amorphous resinous
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Insights into Natufian Social Identity: A Case Study from the Graveyard of Hayonim Cave Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2022-10-20 Leore Grosman, Anna Belfer-Cohen
Summing up the data deriving from the Natufian burials at Hayonim Cave which incorporates information pertaining to the last grave uncovered on site (Grave XVII), the paper endeavours to understand the role of burials within the evolving Natufian society at large. It seems that certain sites—Hayonim Cave being a case in point—served as special localities, used by a particular group as a burial ground
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Naturalistic Parrots, Stylized Birds of Prey: Visual Symbolism of the Human–Animal Relationship in Pre-Hispanic Ceramic Art of the Paraná River Lowlands, South America Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2022-10-18 Flavia V. Ottalagano
The pre-Hispanic art of the Lowlands of Paraná comprises very realistic to extremely simplified ceramic figurines made by complex hunter-gatherer groups during the Late Holocene. In particular, the article seeks to discuss the differences found between parrot and raptor figures, which are the most frequent motifs. Alternative styles of representation were involved in the visual symbolism of the two
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The Wider World of Writing. Networks of People, Practice and Culture Underpinning Writing in Late Bronze Age Ugarit Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2022-09-27 Philip J. Boyes
Writing is a social practice, and as such is fundamentally entwined with a wide array of other forms of human activity, professional categories and aspects of cultural life. However, this is often not fully reflected in scholarly approaches to writing practices, which tend to focus almost exclusively on the act of inscription itself, and on the practices of literates alone. Taking as its case study
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Cultures of Creativity: Hieroglyphic Innovation in the Classic Maya Lowlands Cambridge Archaeological Journal Pub Date : 2022-09-14 Mallory E. Matsumoto
Classic Maya hieroglyphic writing displays a coherence across time and space that points to intensive, sustained communication among scribes about what they were writing and how. Yet we know little about what scribal transmission looked like on the ground or what knowledge scribes were conveying among themselves. This article examines the monumental hieroglyphic corpora from two communities, at Copan