Daniel Sosna

Modeling neolithic dispersal in Central Europe: Demographic implications

On the basis of new examination of ancient DNA and craniometric analyses, Neolithic dispersal in Central Europe has been recently explained as reflecting colonization or at least a major influx of near eastern farmers. Given the fact that Neolithic dispersal in Central Europe was very rapid and extended into a large area, colonization would have to be associated with high population growth and fertility rates of an expanding Neolithic population. We built three demographic models to test whether the growth and fertility rates of Neolithic farmers were high enough to allow them to colonize Central Europe without admixture with foragers. The principle of the models is based on stochastic population projections. Our results demonstrate that colonization is an unlikely explanation for the Neolithic dispersal in Central Europe, as the majority of fertility and growth rate estimates obtained in all three models are higher than levels expected in the early Neolithic population. On the basis of our models, we derived that colonization would be possible only if (1) more than 37% of women survived to mean age at childbearing, (2) Neolithic expansion in Central Europe lasted more than 150 years, and (3) the population of farmers grew in the entire settled area. These settings, however, represent very favorable demographic conditions that seem unlikely given current archaeological and demographic evidence. Therefore, our results support the view that Neolithic dispersal in Central Europe involved admixture of expanding farmers with local foragers. We estimate that the admixture contribution from foragers may have been between 55% and 72%.

Burials and Graphs: Relational Approach to Mortuary Analysis

This article demonstrates the analytical potential of graph theory for understanding mortuary practices in past societies. We take advantage of social network analysis software PAJEK to model relationships among burials. The case study of the Early Bronze Age cemetery Rebešovice (Czech Republic) is used to explore the potential of the network approach to explain the contrast between the center and the periphery of the cemetery. Two hypotheses are proposed to explain this contrast: Chronological and social. The first hypothesis explains the difference between the center and the periphery as an effect of social standing, while the latter as an effect of time. The data set includes archaeological and biological data from 72 burials. We calculate simple matching distance matrices as a measure of dissimilarity among the burials based on socially and chronologically significant variables and Euclidean matrix as a measure of spatial proximity among pairs of graves. We project the results into geographic space and compare the patterns with the expectations derived from the two research hypotheses. The evaluation of results allows us to reject both hypotheses and formulate a new model of spatial organization based on a few contemporary subsections of the cemetery used by different corporate groups. Finally, the potential of computer-aided modeling of matrices and graphs is discussed in context of other analytical techniques used for the investigation of intracemetery mortuary variability.

Measuring human remains in the field: Grid technique, total station, or MicroScribe?

Although three-dimensional (3D) coordinates for human intra-skeletal landmarks are among the most important data that anthropologists have to record in the field, little is known about the reliability of various measuring techniques. We compared the reliability of three techniques used for 3D measurement of human remain in the field: grid technique (GT), total station (TS), and MicroScribe (MS). We measured 365 field osteometric points on 12 skeletal sequences excavated at the Late Medieval/Early Modern churchyard in Všeruby, Czech Republic. We compared intra-observer, inter-observer, and inter-technique variation using mean difference (MD), mean absolute difference (MAD), standard deviation of difference (SDD), and limits of agreement (LA). All three measuring techniques can be used when accepted error ranges can be measured in centimeters. When a range of accepted error measurable in millimeters is needed, MS offers the best solution. TS can achieve the same reliability as does MS, but only when the laser beam is accurately pointed into the center of the prism. When the prism is not accurately oriented, TS produces unreliable data. TS is more sensitive to initialization than is MS. GT measures human skeleton with acceptable reliability for general purposes but insufficiently when highly accurate skeletal data are needed. We observed high inter-technique variation, indicating that just one technique should be used when spatial data from one individual are recorded. Subadults are measured with slightly lower error than are adults. The effect of maximum excavated skeletal length has little practical significance in field recording. When MS is not available, we offer practical suggestions that can help to increase reliability when measuring human skeleton in the field.

Harmonizing Diversity: Tuning Anthropological Research to Complexity1

The contributions in this issue of Social Science Computer Review represent a range of computational approaches to theoretical and disciplinary specializations in anthropology that reflect on and expand the future orientation and practice of the formal and comparative agenda in the context of an increasing emphasis on complexity in anthropology as a discipline. Themes covered in this issue include kinship, funerary burials, urban legends, eye tracking, and looking at mode influences on online data collection. A common theme throughout the articles is examining the relationship between global emergent processes and structures and the local individual contributions to this emergence, and how the local and global contexts influence each other. We argue that unless complexity is addressed more overtly by leveraging computational approaches to data collection, analysis and theory building, anthropology and social science more generally face an existential challenge if they are to continue to pursue extended field research exercise, intersubjective productions, deep personal involvement, interaction with materiality, and engagement with people while generating research outcomes of relevance to the world beyond the narrow confines of specialist journals and conferences.

Drinking and dreaming in the dormitories: Workers struggle in times of economic development

This article focuses on alcohol consumption among the migrant workers living in the dormitories in the Pilsen region, Czech Republic, to understand different notions of personhood in the changing and uncertain environment of multinational industrial companies. The authors combined garbological analysis of waste with interaction with the inhabitants of two dormitories to account for potential bias in exploring a sensitive topic such as alcohol consumption. They argue that drinking provides an arena for becoming a person embedded in social relations, acting and experiencing the world in a way that contrasts with the neoliberal emphasis on individuality and flexibility. It is a strategy that pursues stability and mutuality in uncertain times. Also, drinking helps to temporarily escape inequality and dissatisfaction with the living conditions of those who became doomed to the symbolic bottom of the social hierarchy.