Am Rosen

Settlement Patterns and Development of Social Complexity in the Yiluo Region, North China

Abstract This international, collaborative, and interdisciplinary archaeological program examines changes in settlement patterns from the early Neolithic to the full development of states (ca. 6500–200 B.C.) in the Yiluo region of central north China. Full-coverage regional surveys are integrated with geoarchaeological investigations, ethnobotanical studies, and lithic analyses. The data are used to assess changes in population, environment, land use, agricultural production, and craft production, and to test theoretical propositions regarding the emergence and development of social complexity. Research results suggest a significant sociopolitical transformation taking place in the Yiluo basin during the Erlitou period, including the development of the first four-tiered settlement hierarchy, marked population nucleation, and economic integration between urban center and rural areas. These changes indicate the emergence of the earliest state in China.

Holocene climate, environment and cultural change in the circum-Mediterranean region

This book provides a major synthesis of evidence for past climate variability at the regional and continental scale across Europe and Africa. It focuses on two complementary time-scales, the Holocene (approximately the last 11,500 years) and the last glacial-interglacial cycle (approximately the last 130,000 years). An overview of the climate system of the past has never been attempted before on this scale, and, as such, the volume represents a benchmark for future research. It is written by an expert group of climate change scientists and presents an insight into past climate variability that challenges climatologists who seek to explain climate dynamics of the past and provides climate modellers with a work of reference for data-model comparison. The book is an advanced but very readable text essential for all students and scientists interested in global environmental change.

Iron Age society and chronology in South-east Kazakhstan

This new view of Iron Age society in Kazakhstan breaks away from the old documentary and ethnic framework and offers an independent archaeological chronology. Excavated house types and new environmental data show that nomadism and cultivation were practised side by side. Scholars had previously tended to emphasise the ability of documented Saka leaders to plunder and collect tribute from sedentary agriculture groups through military aggression. But what really gave them a political and economic edge over other steppe groups was a dual economy based upon farming and herding.

Ancient Town and City Sites: A View Through the Microscope.

Archaeological studies concerned with reconstructing activity areas, room functions, and site-formation processes can benefit greatly from analyses of the microartifacts found on and within occupation surfaces. These remains are often primary refuse directly related to activities, and can be used to identify such locations as food-preparation areas, flint-knapping stations, and storage facilities. In addition, certain microartifacts are informative about siteformation processes. For example, the grain-size distribution of charcoal may be indicative of primary vs. secondary refuse, high percentages of corroded and crushed bone from scavenger feces may indicate locations of secondary refuse, and many small sherds could point to heavily trampled areas. A case study from the Iron Age city site of Tel Miqne-Ekron in central Israel demonstrates the use of microarchaeology at a complex sedentary site.

Diversity and Complexity in Early Farming Communities of Southwest Asia: New Insights into the Economic and Environmental Basis of Neolithic Çatalhöyük

Intensive but localized cultivation of cereal crops on alluvial wetlands is thought to have provided the ecological basis for the primary Neolithic settlement that spread across southwest Asia and southeast Europe. New excavations at Çatalhöyük provide an opportunity to test this horticultural model via multiple data sources. Geoarchaeological studies show that the main Neolithic occupation coincided with a period of active river alluviation. Most of the area surrounding Çatalhöyük was therefore under floodwaters each spring that would have seriously damaged any autumn‐sown cereal crops. Independent evidence that the cereal crops consumed at Çatalhöyük were grown under rain‐fed conditions derives from the paucity of silicified multicellular wheat phytoliths at the site. Together, these and other data suggest that the bulk of the cereal agriculture was not carried out in the immediate vicinity of Çatalhöyük but was at least 13 km and 3 h away in dryland soils. In turn, this implies that there may have been seasonal fission and fusion of Çatalhöyük’s population, with systematic exploitation of, and impact on, a range of different ecological zones. This phase of nucleated settlement ended when river flooding ceased, coincident with a multidecadal drought from 6300 to 6140 BC.

Palaeoenvironments and economy of Iron Age Saka-Wusun agro-pastoralists in southeastern Kazakhstan

A detailed geoarchaeological and environmental study of southeastern Kazakhstan reveals subtle changes of land use and environment during the Iron Age. Major economic changes from pastoralism to agriculture over time may be reinterpreted from these new findings.

Middle Paleolithic Behavioral Organization: 1993 Excavation of Tor Faraj, Southern Jordan

Abstract Excavation of a Levantine Mousterian rockshelter exposed two living floors in the upper part of a deposit more than 3.5 m thick. An intrasite study, focusing on the spatial patterns of data recovered from the two floors, complements an earlier intersite study of settlement and procurement patterns. The arrangement of hearths and the spatial distributions of artifacts and manuports indicate redundant behavioral organization for the two components. Moreover, the behavioral patterns reflected in site use by the occupants of the shelter some 70,000 years ago strongly resemble those recorded for modern foragers.

Environmental change and settlement at Tel Lachish, Israel.

Alluvial sequences in central Israel reveal a history of climatic and landscape changes from Chalcolithic through Byzantine times. These are closely related to social and historical events at Tel Lachish. The deposits indicate a moister climate during initial settlement in the Chalcolithic period and Early Bronze Age. Rapid floodplain buildup in MB I suggests an instability in the drainage system corresponding to widespread abandonment of Levantine cities, including Lachish. A dry period of wadi incision followed. This lasted until a phase of colluvial deposition in the Late Iron Age, which apparently resulted from neglected agricultural terraces after the Assyrian destruction of Israelite Lachish. A later fill accompanied Byzantine settlement and may be related to an amelioration in climate.

The geoarchaeology of Holocene environments and land use at Kazane Höyük, S.E. Turkey

Geoarchaeological investigations at Kazane Hoyuk, S.E. Turkey demonstrate a record of Holocene environmental change, fluctuating agricultural potential, and human environmental impact. A mid-Holocene alluvial phase with seasonal swamps and steady channel flows suggests a moister climatic regime than at present. This was a suitable landscape for raising pigs and cattle (reflected in the fauna of archaeological levels from this period), and high-yield cultivation of cereals. These environmental conditions continued from the Chalcolithic period through the Early Bronze Age. Subsequent desiccation led to downcutting of the streams and drying out of the marshy environs around the site, although the occupation continued well into the Middle Bronze Age. Alluviation was renewed again in the Medieval period. The lowermost of these Late Holocene deposits indicate fine-grained floodplain and levee development suggestive of a climatic amelioration with later indications of sediment disturbances and colluviation related to human land use and deforestation in Medieval times. ©1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

BA Guide to Artifacts: Microartifacts and the Study of Ancient Societies

Artifacts like amphorae, terracottas, inscribed bowls and structural remains garner much attention from archaeologists, who learn much about the history of a particular site and era from these relics. Often overlooked, however, are microartifacts, or pebble- and sand-sized artifactual remains. Microartifacts are a great source of information about building functions, the delineation of activity areas and the processes involved in site formation.