Ancient Field Research Articles

Chapter 1. The state of the field: Emerging approaches to the archaeology of agricultural landscapes

AbstractAlmost 30 years ago, Naomi Miller and Katheryn Gleason edited the influential volume, The Archaeology of Garden and Field, a guide to the identification and interpretation of evidence for past agricultural practice inscribed within the landscape. Here we introduce a new collection of papers that advance both theoretical discourses and methodological approaches to the study of ancient field systems. Contemporary archaeological debates bring new urgency to explorations of relict agricultural features, as they offer powerful perspectives on the entanglements of humans with their environment in the Anthropocene, while also serving to decolonize the past through engagement with Indigenous and traditional ecological knowledge. Although many ancient fields are at dire risk of destruction or have already been lost to modern land‐use changes, an emerging suite of new technologies and innovative methods are now enabling archaeologists to find and interpret past agricultural systems as never before. Herein, we argue for the critical importance of archaeological investigations that prioritize discovery and interpretation of relict fields and their constitution within larger landscapes, both as a means to better understand people in the past as well as our role as a species in shaping global ecosystems.

Chapter 5. Finding and understanding ancient irrigated agricultural fields in southern Arizona

AbstractFor over a century, archaeologists have investigated the vast network of prehistoric Hohokam canal irrigation systems in the lower Salt River and middle Gila River valleys, as well as in other areas of southern Arizona. However, documentation of the agricultural fields in which prehistoric farmers irrigated their crops generally was lacking until the last 25 years. This is largely a result of the difficulty in identifying ancient fields, since they are not visible on the surface and have been obscured or destroyed by natural landscape processes as well as historic and modern disturbances. More recent archaeological investigations have revealed ancient irrigated fields through innovative methods and excavation techniques. The fields were constructed both by Hohokam irrigators (450–1450 CE) as well as by farmers from preceding cultural traditions during the Early Agricultural period (2100 BCE–50 CE). These discoveries occurred during projects conducted in compliance with the National Historic Preservation Act. In this chapter, I highlight these important studies that have expanded the view of ancient agricultural landscapes in southern Arizona.

Chapter 11. Finding fields: Concluding remarks

AbstractAncient agricultural landscapes are increasingly recognized as a vital subject of archaeological inquiry, the study of which requires methods and approaches of the social and natural sciences as well as the humanities. This chapter identifies three recurring themes addressed variously in the contributions to this volume that demonstrate the broad relevance of agricultural landscapes to an understanding of ancient society: globalization and hierarchy, niche construction, and memory embedded in agricultural practice and material traces of ancient fields.

Chapter 9. Feral fields of Northern Dalmatia (Croatia)

AbstractHow do we identify ancient fields and farming systems in areas where the same spaces of cultivation have been used repeatedly over thousands of years? In the limestone karst landscapes of northern Dalmatia, on the Adriatic coast of Croatia, drystone field walls, terraces, and cairns are common features that attest to generations of working the land for agriculture. While confounding archaeological objects due to complex histories of reuse, drystone terraced field systems throughout the Mediterranean are believed to have roots in ancient and prehistoric land use. Against this backdrop, this paper works to better understand the dynamic patterns and outcomes of field “recycling” through multiple lines of evidence for long‐term changes in cropping patterns and agroecology in multi‐millennial agricultural landscapes of northern Dalmatia. We compare archaeobotanical data from the Ravni Kotari plain to documents of preindustrial land use from the 1826 Franciscan cadastre. We also draw upon contemporary observations of traditionally managed, semi‐wild olive groves on the nearby Adriatic island of Ugljan to better understand the land‐use legacies inherent in the landscapes of northern Dalmatia today. These data show that, despite a relatively static agricultural built environment of field walls and terraces, Dalmatian communities held historically dynamic relationships with domesticated and wild plant ecologies. Prehistoric integration of cereal agriculture with wild forest resources appears to have shifted to commercial‐scale domesticated arboriculture in the Classical period, leaving a multifaceted legacy of commercial agriculture, traditional farming, and rewilding among the contemporary cultural landscapes of Dalmatia.

현행 역사교과서 내 한국 고대사 분야에 대한 고고학 관련 서술 검토

This paper is about the basic framework and archaeological descriptions of the ancient Korean history in the current history textbook in middle and high school. History textbooks are the most fundamental to history education, and it is necessary to review the descriptions in the field of archaeology at a time when public interest in archaeology is increasing. As a result of examining various history textbooks, it was found that the ancient history section not only fails to properly reflect the results of archaeological surveys and research in Korean historical archaeology, but also contains errors in related descriptions and some visual materials due to the lack of understanding of archaeological materials and the failure to properly reflect the latest research results by the writing team composed of only history majors. Due to the biased composition of writers consisting of only history majors, errors were found in related descriptions and visual materials due to lack of understanding of archaeological materials or lack of understanding of the latest research and research results. The ancient field has limitations only with the study of literature history due to the lack of historical records, so assistance in the field of archaeology dealing with material data is essential. In order to properly implement historical education, close cooperation between archaeology, history, education, and the education sector is necessary. First, the archaeological community should start by communicating with the history community, which is actively participating in the writing of history textbooks, in order to form a consensus, and then strive to improve the descriptions and system of history textbooks in a more desirable direction through cooperation with the education community in the future. In the case of history textbooks currently being written, at least the participation of archaeologists in the review process is essential.

On the Statistical Accuracy of Paleodirections

This study examined the applicability of R. Fischer’s approach to the analysis of sample directions in the flow of eruptive rocks. A test of the hypothesis that all samples share a common direction of the ancient field was proposed.

The Logical Foundations of the Legal Rhetoric Laws

Any science creates the laws of the studied field of knowledge. The relevant laws were created by mathematics, logic, and jurisprudence. Rhetoric is one of the ancient fields of knowledge, which acquired scientific status simultaneously with mathematics and earlier than logic and jurisprudence. The main object of rhetorical practices, in addition to political activity, has always been legal activity, in particular legal proceedings. It was judicial eloquence that made the name of rhetoric. Eloquence developed both in theory and in practice. For many centuries, rhetoric has been the leading science in the educational sphere and in the field of jurisprudence. It was impossible to become a lawyer without studying rhetoric. Due to the development of specific sciences, interest in rhetoric was lost for a long time; the previously revered discipline acquired a reputation as outdated, suitable only for misleading listeners. However, in the second half of the 20th century under the influence of radical economic and political transformations in the life of society, new requirements for speech practice were put forward. A new informational view of the world required a new ability of judgment, which became neoritoric. Neoritoric, like any science, needs its own laws, which are presented in this paper. The laws of rhetoric that apply in all spheres of its use, including in jurisprudence, are the law of the correlation of word and deed, the law of adequate description, the law of complete and finalized narration and the law of argumentative speech in natural language. All the listed laws may be violated and are violated by the user. A complete description and a complete narrative is not always possible, argumentative speech is often replaced by sophisms and paralogisms. However, similar shortcomings are inherent in other sets of laws. The proposed construction of laws is a model of the functioning and further development of rhetoric, the role of which is great in the modern world.

IoT – Application and Architecture

Abstract––The Internet of things (IoT) describes physical objects (or teams of such objects) with sensors, process ability, software, and alternative technologies that connect and exchange information with alternative devices and systems over the net or alternative communications networks. net of things has been thought of a name as a result of devices don't ought to be connected to the general public net, they solely ought to be connected to a network and be severally available. the sphere has evolved because of the convergence of multiple technologies, as well as omnipresent computing, goods sensors, progressively powerful embedded systems, and machine learning. ancient fields of embedded systems, wireless device networks, management systems, automation (including home and building automation), severally and put together change the net of things. within the shopper market, IoT technology is most similar with merchandise relating the construct of the "smart home", as well as devices and appliances (such as lighting, thermostats, home security systems, cameras, and alternative home appliances) that support one or additional common ecosystems, and may be controlled via devices related to that system, like goodphones and smart speakers. IoT is additionally utilized in tending systems. Keywords––IoT, embedded system, computing, Internet

Detecting dipolarity of the geomagnetic field in the paleomagnetic record

Recovering the geomagnetic field strength in the past is key to understanding deep Earth dynamics and detecting potential geodynamo regimes throughout the history of Earth. To better constrain the predictive power of the paleomagnetic record, we propose an approach based on the analysis of the dependency between geomagnetic field strength and inclination (angle made by the horizontal with the field lines). Based on the outcomes of statistical field models, we show that these two quantities should correlate for a wide range of Earth-like magnetic fields, even with enhanced secular variation, persistent nonzonal components, and severe noise contamination. Focusing on the paleomagnetic record, we show that the correlation is not significant for the Brunhes polarity chron, what we ascribe to inadequate spatiotemporal sampling. In contrast, the correlation is significant for the 1 to 130Ma interval, whereas it only marginally succeeds prior to 130Ma when strict filters on both paleointensities and paleodirections are applied. As we cannot detect significant variations in the strength of the correlation over the 1 to 130Ma interval, we conclude that the Cretaceous Normal Superchron may not be associated with enhanced dipolarity of the geodynamo. The strong correlation obtained prior to 130Ma when strict filters are applied indicates that the ancient field may not be on average so different from the present-day field. If long-term fluctuations nevertheless existed, detecting potential geodynamo regimes during the Precambrian is currently impeded by the sparsity of high-quality data passing strict filters in both paleointensities and paleodirections.

The Process of Reconstructing the Ancient Magnetic Field Direction: A New Approach to Paleomagnetic Data for a Better Estimate of Accuracy

Traditionally, the accuracy of paleomagnetic data obtained from samples of igneous rocks relies on the widely known method a95. We propose here a novel statistical method to estimate the ancient field direction using information from Zijderveld diagrams. We show a way to detect outliers in a sample of directions by constructing a confidence domain (convex, but complex in shape) on the direction sphere. Such a region statistically localizes the common direction of the ancient field over a given set of specimens from the lava flow. Often, even for a small sample, this confidence domain is much smaller than the confidence domain that the a95 method gives for the average direction over the sample. Improving the accuracy is obviously important for describing the evolution of the magnetic field.

Leadership Coaching: Are We Missing the Alchemy?

In an era characterized by fear, uncertainty and doubt Leadership Coaches now find themselves operating on more difficult and unfamiliar terrain. Enabling their clients to cope, survive and thrive in such tenuous conditions offers a significant professional challenge. This paper offers an unusual supplemental approach to more conventional and traditional coaching methods. Utilizing principles derived from the ancient field of alchemy, as well as from modern neuroscience, this article provides both new ideas and guidance to the practitioner of leadership coaching. Beginning with a guided imagery, this piece will then cover the connection between alchemy and leadership, followed by alchemy’s relationship to leadership coaching. The article will next review some relevant findings from contemporary brain science focusing, in particular, on the role of the unconscious mind. The ensuing section provides some ideas for what Leadership Coaches might consider doing differently to be more effective in working with their clients. The article concludes with a short summary and discussion of future implications.

Mantle cooling regulation and ancient geomagnetic field

The joined core and mantle thermal evolution model of the Earth for 6 Gy is considered. The model describes evolution of the heat fluxes, temperature distribution in the Earth, energy available for the magnetic field generation. Using Monte Carlo method we find parameters of the model which produce realistic inner core size, heat flux at the surface of the planet, viscosity and temperature of the mantle. The quite large heat flux at the core-mantle boundary and corresponding energy source for geodynamo after accretion help to explain existence of the ancient geomagnetic field before the inner core origin.

Geochemical Study of the Iron Age Settlement Occupational Layer and the Early Roman Time Agricultural Layer at Voorthuizen, The Netherlands

The application of geochemical analysis in archaeology provides a better understanding of ancient human activities. This paper presents the results of geochemical multi-element, LOI, MS, and geochronological analyses of a cultural layer at the Voorthuizen (The Netherlands) archaeological site. The study has revealed a difference in the geochemical composition of an occupational surface in the Iron Age settlement and an early Roman Time agricultural horizon. The former is enriched in Ba, Sr, Rb, Th, Cl, and Mg, while the latter displays elevated P, Pb, Ni, Mn, and V values. The study has provided a deeper insight into the agricultural techniques applied at the Voorthuizen site and on the so-called Celtic Fields, known as ancient field systems dating from the same period and widespread throughout north-west Europe. It seems that household waste was not used as a fertilizer at Voorthuizen, while the application of manure is characteristic of Celtic Fields. However, phosphorous values in the Voorthuizen agricultural horizon are comparable to those in the Celtic Fields, suggesting similar sources of P in both cases. Elevated Si and “mobile” Fe, Mn, V, Pb, As, and Sn, along with higher MS measurements, are indicative of the use of extra mineral matter for the fertilization of the Voorthuizen ancient arable field.

Semantic Segmentation (U-Net) of Archaeological Features in Airborne Laser Scanning—Example of the Białowieża Forest

Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) technology can be used to identify features of terrain relief in forested areas, possibly leading to the discovery of previously unknown archaeological monuments. Spatial interpretation of numerous objects with various shapes and sizes is a difficult challenge for archaeologists. Mapping structures with multiple elements whose area can exceed dozens of hectares, such as ancient agricultural field systems, is very time-consuming. These archaeological sites are composed of a large number of embanked fields, which together form a recognizable spatial pattern. Image classification and segmentation, as well as object recognition, are the most important tasks for deep learning neural networks (DLNN) and therefore they can be used for automatic recognition of archaeological monuments. In this study, a U-Net neural network was implemented to perform semantic segmentation of the ALS-derived data including (1) archaeological, (2) natural and (3) modern features in the Polish part of the Białowieża Forest. The performance of the U-Net segmentation model was evaluated by measuring the pixel-wise similarity between ground truth and predicted segmentation masks. After 83 epochs, The Dice-Sorensen coefficient (F1 score) and the Intersect Over Union (IoU) metrics were 0.58 and 0.5, respectively. The IoU metric reached a value of 0.41, 0.62 and 0.62 for the ancient field system banks, ancient field system plots and burial mounds, respectively. The results of the U-Net deep learning model proved very useful in semantic segmentation of images derived from ALS data.

Soil Pollen Indicators of Historical Arable Horizons from the Zvenigorod Biological Station of the Moscow State University

In this work we present the results of spore and pollen analysis of forest soils from the Zvenigorod biological station of Moscow State University (Moscow Region, Russia). A comparative analysis of forest soils formed on the site of historical fields of the XVIII–XIX centuries and beyond showed that a specific complex of pollen and spores remains in the residual arable horizons, characteristic only of soils that have passed through the stages of plowing and fallow. It includes pollen from cultivated cereals and arable weeds (buckwheat, cornflower blue), spores of the mace-shaped plaunus (Lycopodium clavatum), as well as spores of the mosses Riccia glauca and Anthoceros spp. The latter are exclusive indicators of fallows, since they are practically not found in other habitats. The identified pollen indicators can be used in landscape and archaeological research to interpret the data of spore-pollen analysis of cultural layers, buried soils, gully-ravine sediments. They can also be used to define the boundaries of ancient fields under modern vegetation.

Soil chemical changes in ancient irrigated fields of Udhruḥ, southern Jordan

AbstractSince ancient times, irrigation has been fundamental for achieving large agricultural yields, especially in the more arid areas of the world. An example of this practice is represented by the vast water infrastructures found near Udhruḥ (southern Jordan). These engineering works were constructed, maintained and restored from the Nabataean to early Islamic periods (first century BCE to eighth century CE). It still remains unknown why the ancient agricultural landscape of the region shifted towards an unproductive desert. In this study, we analysed the soil chemical and physical properties of an ancient irrigated field to assess whether ancient agricultural practices have altered soil properties that are still noticeable today, and might have contributed to the abandonment of the area. Soil samples were taken randomly from within an ancient qanat‐irrigated agricultural field and from adjacent surfaces believed never to have been irrigated. Our results indicate that the effects of irrigation are still detectable today; electrical conductivity and total Na, B, Li and Sr in the soil of the ancient fields were significantly lower than those in the undisturbed control soils, which suggests leaching of soluble elements due to irrigation. Our results provide evidence of the mastery of ancient civilizations in their agricultural practices. Engineers and farmers apparently managed to conduct irrigation in the area of Udhruḥ for long periods of time without causing soil degradation.

TKGWV2: an ancient DNA relatedness pipeline for ultra-low coverage whole genome shotgun data

Estimation of genetically related individuals is playing an increasingly important role in the ancient DNA field. In recent years, the numbers of sequenced individuals from single sites have been increasing, reflecting a growing interest in understanding the familial and social organisation of ancient populations. Although a few different methods have been specifically developed for ancient DNA, namely to tackle issues such as low-coverage homozygous data, they require a 0.1–1× minimum average genomic coverage per analysed pair of individuals. Here we present an updated version of a method that enables estimates of 1st and 2nd-degrees of relatedness with as little as 0.026× average coverage, or around 18,000 SNPs from 1.3 million aligned reads per sample with average length of 62 bp—four times less data than 0.1× coverage at similar read lengths. By using simulated data to estimate false positive error rates, we further show that a threshold even as low as 0.012×, or around 4000 SNPs from 600,000 reads, will always show 1st-degree relationships as related. Lastly, by applying this method to published data, we are able to identify previously undocumented relationships using individuals that had been excluded from prior kinship analysis due to their very low coverage. This methodological improvement has the potential to enable relatedness estimation on ancient whole genome shotgun data during routine low-coverage screening, and therefore improve project management when decisions need to be made on which individuals are to be further sequenced.

Landsat-derived bathymetry of lakes on the Arctic Coastal Plain of northern Alaska

Abstract. The Pleistocene sand sea on the Arctic Coastal Plain (ACP) of northern Alaska is underlain by an ancient sand dune field, a geological feature that affects regional lake characteristics. Many of these lakes, which cover approximately 20 % of the Pleistocene sand sea, are relatively deep (up to 25 m). In addition to the natural importance of ACP sand sea lakes for water storage, energy balance, and ecological habitat, the need for winter water for industrial development and exploration activities makes lakes in this region a valuable resource. However, ACP sand sea lakes have received little prior study. Here, we collect in situ bathymetric data to test 12 model variants for predicting sand sea lake depth based on analysis of Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) images. Lake depth gradients were measured at 17 lakes in midsummer 2017 using a Humminbird 798ci HD SI Combo automatic sonar system. The field-measured data points were compared to red–green–blue (RGB) bands of a Landsat-8 OLI image acquired on 8 August 2016 to select and calibrate the most accurate spectral-depth model for each study lake and map bathymetry. Exponential functions using a simple band ratio (with bands selected based on lake turbidity and bed substrate) yielded the most successful model variants. For each lake, the most accurate model explained 81.8 % of the variation in depth, on average. Modeled lake bathymetries were integrated with remotely sensed lake surface area to quantify lake water storage volumes, which ranged from 1.056×10-3 to 57.416×10-3 km3. Due to variations in depth maxima, substrate, and turbidity between lakes, a regional model is currently infeasible, rendering necessary the acquisition of additional in situ data with which to develop a regional model solution. Estimating lake water volumes using remote sensing will facilitate better management of expanding development activities and serve as a baseline by which to evaluate future responses to ongoing and rapid climate change in the Arctic. All sonar depth data and modeled lake bathymetry rasters can be freely accessed at https://doi.org/10.18739/A2SN01440 (Simpson and Arp, 2018) and https://doi.org/10.18739/A2HT2GC6G (Simpson, 2019), respectively.

Four‐Dimensional Paleomagnetic Dataset: Plio‐Pleistocene Paleodirection and Paleointensity Results From the Erebus Volcanic Province, Antarctica

AbstractA fundamental assumption in paleomagnetism is that a geocentric axial dipole (GAD) geomagnetic field structure extends to the ancient field. Global paleodirectional compilations that span 0–5‐million year support a GAD dominated field structure with minor non‐GAD contributions, however, the paleointensity data over the same period do not. In a GAD field, higher latitudes should preserve higher intensity, but the current database suggests that intensities are independent of latitude. To determine whether the seemingly “low” intensities from Antarctica reflect the ancient field, rather than low‐quality data or inadequate temporal sampling, we have conducted a new study of the paleomagnetic field in Antarctica. This study focuses on the paleomagnetic field structure over the Plio‐Pleistocene. We combine and reanalyze new and published paleodirectional and paleointensity results from the Erebus volcanic province to recover paleodirections from 98 sites that were both thermally and alternating field demagnetized and then subjected to a set of strict selection criteria and paleointensities from 26 sites from the Plio‐Pleistocene that underwent the IZZI modified Thellier‐Thellier experiment and were also subjected to a strict set of selection criteria. The paleopole (201.85°, 87.65°) and α95 (5.51°) recovered from our paleodirectional study supports the GAD hypothesis and the scatter of the virtual geomagnetic poles falls within the uncertainty of that predicted by TK03 paleosecular variation model. Our time‐averaged field strength estimate, 33.57 ± 2.71 μT, is significantly weaker than that expected from a GAD field estimated by the present field.

Understanding Nonideal Paleointensity Recording in Igneous Rocks: Insights From Aging Experiments on Lava Samples and the Causes and Consequences of “Fragile” Curvature in Arai Plots

AbstractThe theory for recording of thermally blocked remanences predicts a quasilinear relationship between low fields like the Earth's in which rocks cool and acquire a magnetization. This serves as the foundation for estimating ancient magnetic field strengths. Addressing long‐standing questions concerning Earth's magnetic field requires a global paleointensity data set, but recovering the ancient field strength is complicated because the theory only pertains to uniformly magnetized particles. A key requirement of a paleointensity experiment is that a magnetization blocked at a given temperature should be unblocked by zero‐field reheating to the same temperature. However, failure of this requirement occurs frequently and the causes and consequences of failure are understood incompletely. Recent experiments demonstrate that the remanence in many samples typical of those used in paleointensity experiments is unstable, exhibiting an “aging” effect in which the (un)blocking temperature spectra can change over only a few years resulting in nonideal experimental behavior. While a fresh remanence may conform to the requirement of equality of blocking and unblocking temperatures, aged remanences may not. Blocking temperature spectra can be unstable (fragile), which precludes reproduction of the conditions under which the original magnetization was acquired. This limits our ability to acquire accurate and precise ancient magnetic field strength estimates because differences between known and estimated fields can be significant for individual specimens, with a low field bias. Fragility of unblocking temperature spectra may be related to grain sizes with lower energy barriers and may be detected by features observed in first‐order reversal curves.