Harvey M. Bricker

Grave Shortcomings: The Evidence for Neandertal Burial [and Comments and Reply]

Evidence for purposeful disposal of the dead and other inferences of ritual behavior in the Middle Paleolithic are examined geoarchaeologically. Cave geomorphology, sedimentology, and taphonomy form the basis for a reexamination of the Neandertal discoveries most often cited in this connection: La Chapelle-auxSaints, Le Moustier, La Ferrassie, Teshik-Tash, Regourdou, and Shanidar. Logical incongruencies are identified between the published observations and the conclusion that Neandertals were being buried by their conspecifics.

Astronomical References in the Throne Inscription of the Palace of the Governor at Uxmal

The Palace of the Governor at Uxmal is known from previous scholarship to be associated with Venus in terms of both its sculptural decoration and its orientation, which is aligned to an infrequently occurring extreme position of Venus on the horizon. A hieroglyphic inscription above the central doorway of the Palace is shown here to relate specifically to the concern with Venus and other celestial phenomena. Part of the inscription depicts zodiacal constellations, and its uppermost row is a sort of map of the constellations at the ‘base of the sky’ at the time of the Venus alignment. The Throne Inscription from Uxmal may now be recognized as one of the major sources of information about the pre-Columbian Maya zodiac.

Classic Maya Prediction of Solar Eclipses [and Comments and Reply]

Work by earlier scholars has shown that the Dresden Codex contains a table of temporal intervals appropriate to the cyclic occurrence of solar eclipses. This paper demonstrates that if the Maya calendrical dates in the table are converted to the Gregorian calendar by using the so-called Modified Thompson 2 correlation constant, the table gives very accurate warnings of solar eclipses for the late-8th-century A.D. span to which it refers. During the approximately 33 years between November 10,755, and September 6, 788, all of teh 77 solar eclipses affecting the planet occurred within three days of dates appearing in the table. Although most of these eclipses did not affect the Maya area, the table itself provides a mechanism for recognizing and discounting irrelevant predictions. No visible solar eclipse of the late 8th century could have occurred without a very precise warning if the table were used in the fashion suggested here. It has often been assumed that the table was intended to be recycled or reused, but scholars have differed on how this might have been done. This paper suggests that the information necessary to an accurate recycling is given in the tables own introduction. Using this information, a model for recycling and periodically correcting the table over a span of approximately 1,400 years is presented and tested against the data of Western astronomy. The efficacy of the recycled tables as solar eclipse warning devices proves as high as that of the original.

Deciphering the Handwriting on the Wall: Some Astronomical Interpretations of the Recent Discoveries at Xultun, Guatemala

This study places the recently excavated ninth-century A.D. four-part calendrical notations at Xultun (Lunar Table, Ring Number, Long Count, and Multiplication Table) in the context of both Classic monumental inscriptions and astronomical knowledge in the Postclassic Dresden Codex. We demonstrate that the Lunar Table employed a formula attributed to Palenque and that it could have been used as a device to determine precisely where to break the sequence of alternating 29- and 30-day months one finds on dated monuments. All four categories found at Xultun appear in the Dresden Codex. The Ring Number, which bridges a date in the deep past with one in the recently completed era, is a perfect fit with one of the most fundamental Dresden eclipse cycles. Our analysis of glyphs accompanying the Long Count date enables us to place candidate eclipses, especially one that corresponds with a conjunction of Mars, in real time. We argue that the large multiples were extracted from, or prepared for, warning tables like the Dresden eclipse table, and we demonstrate why such tables must have existed well before the Xultun inscriptions. Thus, while the writings in the Dresden manuscript constitute a finished product, the writing on the wall of residential Structure 10K-2 is more akin to what one might find in an astronomers notebook.

Perigordian and Noaillian in the Greater Périgord

During the past two decades, there has been intensive research on the systematics of the earlier Upper Paleolithic cultures of the Perigord region of southwestern France and to an increasing extent the traditional typological aspects of such research have been supplemented by information about environment and chronology provided by the natural sciences (e.g., Delpech 1983; Laville 1975; Paquereau 1978). An important part of this work has concerned the so-called “Perigordian” tool-making tradition, which although named and defined in the 1930s by Denis Peyrony (1933, 1936), has received significant redefinition in recent decades (e.g., Bordes 1968b; Delporte 1976; de Sonneville-Bordes 1960). One modern view of Perigordian systematics was presented by Henri Laville, Jean-Phillippe Rigaud, and James Sackett (1980) in their general monograph on the archaeology and geochronology of Paleolithic rock-shelter sites in the Perigord. Another, rather different view of the same subject has been developed by several scholars who have worked during the past two decades with many of the same materials but who have taken as their point of departure a series of assemblages from the site of Abri Pataud (Les Eyzies, Dordogne), excavated in the 1950s and 1960s under the general direction of Hallam L. Movius, Jr. (1974, 1975, 1977). Until recently, the Pataud data concerning the Perigordian and the Noaillian were known only from several preliminary papers (Bricker 1976, 1978; Clay 1976; David 1973; Movius and David 1970) but by now two monographs relevant to our topic have been published (Bricker and David 1984; David 1985), and a well-illustrated, one-volume, descriptive summary of all the Pataud assemblages is in preparation. With much of the documentation on both sides of the issue now or soon to be available, it is a convenient moment for us to present a brief statement of our view of the Perigordian and the Noaillian in the Perigord.