Maciej T. Krajcarz

Late Middle Palaeolithic occupations in Ciemna Cave, southern Poland

Recent excavations in Ciemna Cave in the Prądnik valley near Ojców, southern Poland have brought to light new stratigraphic and techno-typological evidence concerning Late Middle Palaeolithic groups and their cultural affinities. In 2007, excavations began in the hitherto-unexplored main chamber of Ciemna Cave, with the goal of clarifying the results of previous work in other parts of the cave. During excavation the rocky floor of the cave was reached. About 1000 stone artifacts have been collected to date. Three cultural traditions have been documented: Mousterian, Taubachian, and Micoquian. Within the Micoquian tradition, three cultural levels were observed, which enriches the previous understanding of occupational phases at the site. These findings permit revision of the traditional terms “Prądnik industry” and “Prądnik technique.”

Human-mediated dispersal of cats in the Neolithic Central Europe

Archeological and genetic evidence suggest that all domestic cats derived from the Near Eastern wildcat (Felis silvestris lybica) and were first domesticated in the Near East around 10,000 years ago. The spread of the domesticated form in Europe occurred much later, primarily mediated by Greek and Phoenician traders and afterward by Romans who introduced cats to Western and Central Europe around 2000 years ago. We investigated mtDNA of Holocene Felis remains and provide evidence of an unexpectedly early presence of cats bearing the Near Eastern wildcat mtDNA haplotypes in Central Europe, being ahead of Roman period by over 2000 years. The appearance of the Near Eastern wildcats in Central Europe coincides with the peak of Neolithic settlement density, moreover most of those cats belonged to the same mtDNA lineages as those domesticated in the Near East. Thus, although we cannot fully exclude that the Near Eastern wildcats appeared in Central Europe as a result of introgression with European wildcat, our findings support the hypothesis that the Near Eastern wildcats spread across Europe together with the first farmers, perhaps as commensal animals. We also found that cats dated to the Neolithic period belonged to different mtDNA lineages than those brought to Central Europe in Roman times, this supports the hypothesis that the gene pool of contemporary European domestic cats might have been established from two different source populations that contributed in different periods.

Alteration of the metal content in animal bones after 2.5-year experimental exposure to sediments

Fossil and sub-fossil bones accumulated in caves and other sites tend to form large assemblages. One of the primary questions posed by taphonomists that is especially important to archeologists, zooarchaeologists, and forensic scientists is whether a bone assemblage represents a singular episode of accumulation or is a palimpsest—the result of stratigraphic concentration or redepositional mixing. Radiocarbon dating may be used to answer this question; however, this method has three significant disadvantages: it is limited to assemblages not older than 50,000 cal. years BP; it is limited to well-preserved material that has been neither weathered nor contaminated; and it is relatively expensive. The alternative method is geochemical fossil provenance analysis. While chemical composition of the bone may be affected by some environmental and behavioral factors during life of animal or human (Balter et al. 2002; Martínez-García et al. 2005; Allmäe et al. 2012; Martiniaková et al. 2011), the concentration of metals in buried bones are usually much higher than in fresh ones, which indicates advanced post-mortem chemical alterations (Trueman 2007). Diagenetic parameters of bones, such as their chemical composition, are influenced by the environment, including the chemistry of surrounding sediment (Henderson et al. 1983; Wright et al. 1984; Plummer et al. 1994; Johnsson 1997; Dauphin et al. 1999; Trueman 1999; Pawlikowski and Niedźwiedzki 2002; Trueman et al. 2003, 2006; Martin et al. 2005; Smith et al. 2007; Cook and Trueman 2009; Rogers et al. 2010). According to Kohn and Moses (2013), the bone acts as a sink for trace elements, causing the depletion of particular metals in the surrounding sediment. For some trace elements, it has been shown that the element content in the bone does not correlate with its content in the sediment (Nelson and Sauer 1984; Denys et al. 1996), which suggests that the chemical composition of archeological bone is affected by factors other than only the chemical composition of the surrounding sediment. Those additional factors may include not only moisture, porosity, pH, redox conditions, climate, and time (Pate and Hutton 1988; Nielsen-Marsh and Hedges 2000b; Smith et al. 2007; Trueman 2007) but also the valence and ionic radii of accessible competing cations due to different fit to the crystal lattice of the bone apatite (Kohn and Moses 2013). Accordingly, Trueman et al. (2006), Denys et al. (1996), and Iliopoulos et al. (2010) have demonstrated that various stratigraphic layers at the same site contain bones with different contents of trace elements. This phenomenon, called a Bgeochemical fingerprint,^ can be used to identify the layer from which a particular bone originates. Geochemical study of bone assemblages deposited in alluvial deposits (MacFadden et al. 2007) showed that bones representing different faunal communities, but accumulated together, bear variable chemical traces, probably related to different primary depositional environments. Studies of metal compositions, both of macro-elements and trace elements, in assemblages of animal bones and teeth from several caves in Poland (Krajcarz 2009, 2013; Krajcarz and Cyrek 2011) exhibited not only differences between layers but also some intra-layer inconsistency, which may also be related to postdepositional mixing. This observation has been confirmed by inconsistency in the results of radiocarbon dating observed in Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s12520-017-0533-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

New investigations of the Epipalaeolithic in western Central Asia: Obishir-5

Intensive research on the Mesolithic of western Central Asia began in the mid twentieth century, when the discovery of key sites allowed for the formulation of the main regional cultural-chronological schemes (Figure 1).

Ślad osadnictwa z wczesnej epoki brązu w Schronisku w Udorzu II (Udórz, gm. Żarnowiec, woj. śląskie)

The Rockshelter in Udorz II (Udorz, Żarnowiec Commune, Śląskie Voivodeship) lies at the northern end of the Udorka valley (fig. 1) in the Ryczow Upland (central portion of the Krakow-Czestochowa Upland). In 2012 an interdisciplinary programme of trial trenching was carried out at the shelter site (fig. 2) as one of the stages of a project designed to record evidence of prehistoric occupation in the Udorka valley and to examine its palaeoenvironmental context. Sedimentary fill of this site comprise four strata of different lithology (fig. 3). The lowermost layer 4 is a sediment which was created by frost weathering in cold climatic conditions during the Pleistocene. Layer 3 consists of a light brown silty sand with a high content of sharp-edged debris, deposited during the Last Glacial Maximum. Layer 2 can be related to the Late Pleistocene and most of the Holocene. It is composed of grey-brown silty sand with a high content of sharp-edged limestone debris. In contrast, layer 1 is a dark grey-brown silty sand with small amounts of rounded limestone debris, which was formed in the warm climatic conditions of the Late Holocene. Flintwork and potsherds were recorded at the interface of layers 1 and 2, and in the roof of layer 2. Analysis of distribution patterns reveals that these finds were concentrated around a hearth, traces of which were recorded at the south-west part of the trial trench (fig. 4). The small flintwork assemblage is not very distinctive and shows evidence of having been burnt (fig. 6: 1–3). Most of it forms a similar scatter to the pottery. The ceramic sherds represent the remains of at least three vessels, probably including a bowl; decoration in the form of cord impressions was noted on this pottery (fig. 5: 4–12). Based on typological, chronological and comparative studies this assemblage was attributed to the early period of development of the Mierzanowice culture, dated to 2200–2050 BC. The fragmentary remains of a camp recorded at the Rockshelter in Udorz II suggest that as well as larger caves, late Neolithic and early Bronze Age communities also readily adapted smaller ones for use as short-term occupation sites, avoiding those where no daylight penetrated. This model of temporary or seasonal camps is consistent with current archaeological findings. Analysis of early Bronze Age materials from Malopolska (Little Poland) indicates that late Neolithic and early Bronze Age communities did not inhabit the Krakow-Czestochowa Upland on a permanent basis, only making forays into this area in search of flint and probably also rare plants and fruit.