Historical Archaeology Research Articles

The Ludovic technique: the painting of the Cochno Stone, West Dunbartonshire

The painting of the Cochno Stone rock-art panel, West Dunbartonshire, in 1937 by Ludovic McLellan Mann is one of the most eccentric acts in the history of archaeology in Scotland. Despite publishing widely and being a compulsive user of newspapers to publicise and report on his activities, Mann left very few direct clues to explain what the grid and symbols he painted onto the Cochno Stone meant. This paper describes the different elements of Mann's paintjob based on historic photography and observations made during the brief uncovering of the Cochno Stone in 2016. The logic underpinning the multiple elements of this painted scheme, including two different grids, is explored with reference to other works published by Mann and his broader body of research. It is argued that Mann saw the arrangement of rock-art symbols carved into the Cochno Stone as a microcosm of a Neolithic cosmological scheme and associated with the documentation of and prediction of eclipses. The paper concludes with reflection on the legacy of this act.

Ancient Monuments and Modern Identities: A Critical History of Archaeology in 19th and 20th Century Greece

Ancient Monuments and Modern Identities: A Critical History of Archaeology in 19th and 20th Century Greece

Kurgan Tunnug 1—New Data on the Earliest Horizon of Scythian Material Culture

ABSTRACT Questions surrounding the emergence of highly mobile nomadic pastoralism and the origins of the associated Scythian material culture have a long history in Eurasian steppe archaeology, but advances in knowledge have been hindered by a lack of data. Here we present new findings on the Early Iron Age royal burial mound Tunnug 1 in Tuva. While the site belongs to the same cultural tradition as Arzhan 1, the conceptual roots of the funerary ritual architecture can be traced to precursors in the Mongun Taiga culture and the Mongolian deer stone khirigsuur complex. The clay architecture uncovered at Tunnug 1 does not find any regional comparisons and possibly hints towards a western Central Asian contribution to the formation of the earliest Scythian horizon. Our research demonstrates the value of a multi-disciplinary approach to documenting monumental earthen architecture, including technical approaches (satellite imagery, aerial photographs, 3D models, digital elevation models, geophysics, and radiocarbon dating) with an analysis of construction material and associated finds.

Vinča Burials in the Research of Miloje M. Vasić

Miloje M. Vasić (1869–1956) is considered to be the founding father of Serbian archaeology. This paper directly challenges, as based on detailed archival research, the prevailing view that his excavation of the Vinča archaeological site is a model standard for Serbian archaeology. Instead, Vasić’s handling of the excavation was selective, non-systematic and destructive when viewed today from the perspective of modern practices.
 Vasić originally gained authority based on the discovery of Vinča, a prehistoric archaeological site that contains layers from the Neolithic to the middle ages. In his zeal to uncover “prehistory”, he deliberately ignored the other archaeological layers present. The most significant example of neglected archaeological remains is his excavations of Vinča’s medieval cemetery where he did not document observations systematically. This prioritization of the importance of one archaeological period over another was reflected in the further development of archaeology in Serbia, so that medieval archaeology was treated as marginal and second-rate compared to others.
 The aim of this paper, therefore, is to contextualize Vasić’s approach through the methods used in the history of archaeology. The key research question thereof is how Miloje M. Vasić failed to document the burials at the Vinča site, which is the consequent reason why there is little to no documented evidence of them.
 The theoretical and methodological basis of the analysis is based on the approach of Gavin Lucas who views the creation of the primary field documentation as testimony. Lucas notes that the debate concerning knowledge production had drifted from merely an epistemological issue to a phenomenon centered around archaeological practice. Here the key questions have come to concern the social and material setting of knowledge production and not the objective coherence of the argument.
 Burials that were noted in Vasić’s documentation are categorized into four groups: 1) unwanted or medieval burials; 2) incidental burials originating from prehistory 3) an “ossuary” from Vinča containing nine skeletons and 4) imagined multiple cremations based on one found cremation. Therefore, even while documenting several “lateral” prehistoric graves, he entirely omitted any thorough documentation of the medieval cemetery, considering them of less import.
 If there is any lesson that may be learned from this journey through the history of archaeological practice, it is that archaeological documentation as a form of testimony should be done ethically, adequately and responsibly. It should not be done according to the practices of the “bad science” of its founding-fathers.

Notes on Contributors

Notes on Contributors

Engaging with the Çatalhöyük Database

Çatalhöyük remains one of the most intensively and meticulously excavated prehistoric sites in the history of archaeology. Two large excavation campaigns, carried out in the years 1961–1965 and 1993–2017, have generated a large amount of data. A particularly large body of data was accumulated over the twenty-five-year period of excavation and analyses carried out by the Çatalhöyük Research Project. One of the project’s major undertakings was to make all data collected accessible for wider audiences. To realize this idea the project’s digital database was designed and made accessible for everyone, both scholars and non-scholars, via the Çatalhöyük website since the very beginning of the project. This article explores different forms of engagement with the Çatalhöyük database that not only enhance its visibility and accessibility, but can serve as an exemplary case for archaeology at large.

Landscapes and Ethnicity: An Historical Archaeology of Khami-Phase Sites in Southwestern Zimbabwe

Although numerous dry-stone-walled Khami-phase sites are scattered throughout southwestern Zimbabwe, their finer archaeological and historical credentials remain largely elusive. Deliberations of how several dynastic and ethnolinguistic formations that are historically linked to the rise and spread of these sites can be archaeologically defined also remain multiple and fragmentary. Correspondingly, in attempts to trace Rozvi ethnicity, a sample of three ancient Khami-phase capitals––Danamombe, Naletale, and Zinjanja––was scrutinized in the light of an agency landscape framework. For the first time, radiocarbon dates from these sites are compared with each other in order to assess the validity of oral traditions and documentary sources describing the Rozvi past.

Archaeologies of dispossession: removal, resettlement, community formations

Dispossession—the action of taking away and depriving people of their homeland, property, history, language, identity, cultural practices and/or livelihoods—underlies and connects these two publications. Dispossession is a long-standing interest in historical archaeology dating to the 1970s when its study was referred to as the ‘archaeology of the disenfranchised’. Both books contribute superb additions to this established research area, and more significantly, they introduce new themes, approaches and insights into the myriad ways that communities were dispossessed in the distant and recent past, as well as in the present.

Historical Archaeology and Indigenous Collaboration: Discovering Histories that Have Futures

Historical Archaeology and Indigenous Collaboration: Discovering Histories that Have Futures

Reverend Voyce and Père O'Reilly's excavated collection from Bougainville: a case study in transnational histories of archaeology in the Pacific

This paper considers the transnational collection, interpretation, and circulation of archaeological material acquired in North Solomon Islands (now the Autonomous Region of Bougainville) by Hobart born Methodist missionary the Reverend A. H. Voyce (1899–1984). In 1935, he gave an archaeological assemblage to Father P. O’Reilly, a French Marist priest, in the region to fulfil an ethnographic mission for the Musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro/ Musée de l’Homme in Paris, France. Understanding the context of their encounter through international missionary networks, and the subsequent curation and interpretation of the artefacts collected by Voyce in multiple countries and according to different academic traditions, requires an approach that transcends traditional, nationally framed histories. Voyce and O’Reilly were from different socio-cultural and religious backgrounds, deeply inscribed in different national histories. Yet, they were nodes in an extensive network linking early twentieth-century ‘missionary-ethnographers’, Pacific interlocutors, and international scholars that could sometimes transcend language and denominational barriers. Both Voyce and O’Reilly shared a particular interest in ancient artefacts that has positioned them as important contributors to the early twentieth-century formulation of Pacific archaeology; their collections and the ideas they supported quietly becoming significant legacies for the discipline. We cross-analyze the sets of data we have been gathering independently on Voyce and O’Reilly to examine this collection’s story as an exemplary case-study in the transnational history of science.

Which town did it come from?: Sourcing locally-made ceramics in the Mid-Atlantic

Historical archaeologists working in the Middle Atlantic rarely use archaeometric techniques to source ceramics. Yet, there are several important research questions we can ask if we sourced more of our ceramics. This article presents the findings from a neutron activation analysis study that sourced 100 presumably locally-made vessels recovered from an early to mid-19thcentury enslaved quartering site in the northern Shenandoah Valley determined that 99 vessels were made in the region and were able to source 90% of the vessels to three towns in the region. Using these results, we argue that in the northern Shenandoah Valley it is not only possible to determine where consumers went to acquire locally-made ceramics, but that doing so lets us create histories of local ceramic industries that highlight consumer agency.

The Celts in Antiquity: Crossing the Divide Between Ancient History and Archaeology

ABSTRACT One historical actor in Antiquity are the populations of Western-Central Europe, commonly called ‘Celts’ by classical authors. Themselves (mostly) illiterate until approximately the 1st century BC/AD, reports about them, written by foreigners like Polybius, Caesar, Diodorus and others have survived. The study of ‘Celtic’ societies thus can hardly rely on classical historiography, but is mainly based on archaeology. Historical sources and archaeology are difficult to reconcile, even if common themes can be identified in both types of sources. This article examines the differences, but also similarities between the various ‘Celtic’ societies of Europe and their neighbours, and the use of the term ‘the Celts’. The case study of the excavations at Meillionydd in North Wales is used to demonstrate how different types of source material and local and global scales can be integrated into a single, coherent explanatory model.

EXPLORING THE GUALE VILLAGE AND SPANISH MISSION OCCUPATIONS AT THE SAPELO SHELL RING COMPLEX THROUGH BAYESIAN ANALYSIS

ABSTRACTBayesian analysis of radiocarbon (14C) dates in North American archaeology is increasing, especially among archaeologists working in deeper time. However, historical archaeologists have been slow to embrace these new techniques, and there have been only a few examples of the incorporation of calendar dates as informative priors in Bayesian models in such work in the United States. To illustrate the value of Bayesian approaches to sites with both substantial earlier Native American occupations as well as a historic era European presence, we present the results of our Bayesian analysis of 14C dates from the earlier Guale village and the Mission period contexts from the Sapelo Shell Ring Complex (9MC23) in southern Georgia. Jefferies and Moore have explored the Spanish Mission period deposits at this site to better understand the Native American interactions with the Spanish during the 16th and 17th centuries along the Georgia Coast. Given the results of our Bayesian modeling, we can say with some degree of confidence that the deposits thus far excavated and sampled contain important information dating to the 17th-century mission on Sapelo Island. In addition, our modeling of new dates suggests the range of the pre-Mission era Guale village. Based on these new dates, we can now say with some degree of certainty which of the deposits sampled likely contain information that dates to one of the critical periods of Mission period research, the AD 1660–1684 period that ushered in the close of mission efforts on the Georgia Coast.

An Archaeobotanical Approach to Well-Being: Enslaved Plant Use at Estate Cane Garden, 19th Century St. Croix

ABSTRACT Recent paleoethnobotanical approaches in historical archaeology have successfully explored the intersection of plantation foodways, social relations, and the environment in contexts of enslavement, including in the colonial period Caribbean. This article presents an analysis of macrobotanical remains from Estate Cane Garden, a 19th century a.d. plantation hospital in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands. In this study, we demonstrate how enslaved people actively negotiated the adverse conditions of slavery by using plant resources to secure their own well-being, by examining the types of plants found at the hospital, interpreting potential plant use, and by situating the hospital assemblage within a broader Caribbean comparative analysis. Ultimately, we argue for the need for a greater number of paleoethnobotanical studies of historic (16th–19th century) Caribbean sites to develop more robust intersite comparisons in order to reach a more nuanced understanding of the roles of plants in plantation lifeways.

Archaeological history of Middle Holocene environmental change from fish proxies at the Monte Castelo archaeological shell mound, Southwestern Amazonia

Monte Castelo, an archeological shell mound located on the southwestern periphery of the Amazon basin, is an artificial forest island occupied from the Middle to late-Holocene, and it contains one of the longest, continuous sequences of human occupation anywhere in the basin. Analysis of fish remains investigates fluctuations in the fish communities that are markers of changes in the paleoenvironment. The 8112 taxonomically identified remains document diagnostic taxa that are drought-tolerant (armoured catfishes, swamp-eels and tiger fishes) and from swampy environments, indicating probable occupation during low-waters periods. The results from Monte Castelo contrasts with the use of shell mounds as refuges from high-water season floods, a dominant hypothesis. A considerable shift in the nature of the fish spectrum occurred around 4000 BP with increased diversity; the number of taxa jumps from 18 to 48. The Middle Holocene occupations, from 6000 to 4000 BP, reflect long-term stability in drought-tolerant taxa collaborating with paleoecological evidence of dryer conditions. The post 4000 BP introduction of small-sized cichlids and characins suggests an initial exploitation of flooded forests. Archeological fish remains corroborate paleoenvironmental records of increased precipitation between the Middle and Late-Holocene. The probable replacement of some savanna areas by forest vegetation, and the accompanying alteration of aquatic landscapes, is documented through the presence/absence of certain taxa in Monte Castelo’s occupations. This suggests new economic strategies and the exploitation of new ecological niches, as the fish remains correspond to approximately 80% of the vertebrate fauna throughout the archeological sequence.

MD dating: molecular decay (MD) in pinewood as a dating method

Dating of wood is a major task in historical research, archaeology and paleoclimatology. Currently, the most important dating techniques are dendrochronology and radiocarbon dating. Our approach is based on molecular decay over time under specific preservation conditions. In the models presented here, construction wood, cold soft waterlogged wood and wood from living trees are combined. Under these conditions, molecular decay as a usable clock for dating purposes takes place with comparable speed. Preservation conditions apart from those presented here are not covered by the model and cannot currently be dated with this method. For example, samples preserved in a clay matrix seem not to fit into the model. Other restrictions are discussed in the paper. One model presented covers 7,500 years with a root mean square error (RMSE) of 682 years for a single measurement. Another model reduced to the time period of the last 800 years results in a RMSE of 92 years. As multiple measurements can be performed on a single object, the total error for the whole object will be even lower.

Human resilience to Holocene climate changes inferred from rodent middens in drylands of northwestern Patagonia (Argentina)

We reconstruct the Holocene vegetation, climate, and archaeological history for drylands of northwestern Patagonia, Argentina, based on multiproxy analysis (plant macrofossil, pollen, and parasites) of rodent middens integrated with a database of 14C dates associated with human occupations. The local scale corresponds to the Huenul paleoecological and archaeological locality, emplaced in north-western Patagonia (Neuquén Province, Argentina). The rodent midden record from the Huenul series reflects subtle vegetation changes driven by climatic variability at millennial timescale. Drier than present environmental conditions prevailed during the early Holocene (10,500–9400 cal yr BP), peaking during the mid-Holocene (9200–5500 cal yr BP), when wetter than present conditions established during the late Holocene (4400–2500 cal yr BP). These environmental and climatic dynamics agree with other paleoclimatic records from northern Patagonia, suggesting the winter precipitation dynamics related to the Southern Westerlies as a common driver. The diachronic distribution of anthropogenic radiocarbon dates from the western area of the South American Arid Diagonal between 32°–40°S conforms to a fitted exponential model of steady background population growth, not suggesting significant demographic changes that may have been the result of the impact of climate change. This record indicates that these human populations coped successfully with aridity, particularly during the mid-Holocene. These findings reinforce the need to integrate multi-scalar interdisciplinary analyses to assess the impact of climate change in human societies.

Editorial. Virtual models and scientific value

This number of SCIRES-IT is a special issue on Virtual Models and Scientific Value , which summarises significant outcomes from the international meeting and conference series on “3D models in the history of art, architecture and archaeology”. Key topics include the documentation and analysis of architecture with digital means, processes of and tools for the semi-automatic analysis of e.g. point cloud representations, practices of modelling and the use of virtual models for answering innovative research questions in architectural history. Collaboration and exchange platforms for digitally native projects, which aim at preserving and fostering their scientific quality, are a further focus

In Pursuit of Pre-/Protohistory: Simone Corbiau’s Unsuccessful Archaeological Expedition to the North-West Frontier Province of British India

This paper adds to the history of Indian archaeology a new chapter. It discusses and analyzes Simone Corbiau’s archaeological expedition to North-West Frontier Province and the Malakand Political Agency in 1938. Corbiau was a Belgian archaeologist having interest in pre-/protohistoric terracottas. In the first place, we give a scholarly background to her research so as to understand the importance of the work. In the early 1930s, D.H. Gordon published some terracotta objects from the then NWFP and Corbiau’s disagreement with him about dating the materials brought her into India in 1936. She did fieldwork and its results were immediately published. Corbiau visited India for the second time in 1938 but her expedition this time could not meet success. She made an unsuccessful attempt to work at Malakand and Swat, in addition to Peshawar, Mardan and Swabi, and it is this obscured story in the history of the area’s archaeology that this paper entirely deals with. We argue that despite the desperate support provided by the Archaeological Survey of India to the party, colonial geostrategic politics coupled with some inherent operational shortcomings in the project doomed it to failure.

Collaborative Archaeology, Relational Memory, and Stakeholder Action at Three Henequen Haciendas in Yucatan, Mexico

In the Mexican state of Yucatán, the Industrial Revolution is intimately linked to the cultivation and commercialization of henequen (Agave fourcroydes). The second half of the nineteenth and the first decade of the twentieth century are most often referred to as the region’s Gilded Age. Some local families accrued immense wealth, while many peasants were essentially enslaved. The city of Mérida saw the construction of magnificent mansions, and the new port of Progreso was connected through thousands of kilometers of railroads. At the same time, the rural landscape experienced the foundation of countless new and the expansion of existing haciendas. In this article, we provide a comparison of the relational memory of local communities regarding three of these historical settlements: San Pedro Cholul, San Antonio Nohuayún, and San Antonio Sihó. We present the circumstances leading to the historical archaeology project at San Pedro and recount our efforts at involving its descendant community. In the face of the recent destruction of San Pedro’s core buildings, we end with a discussion about the potential fates of Yucatan’s henequen haciendas and a series of suggestions on how to safeguard related material remains, while allowing stakeholders to benefit from historic preservation.