Millennium BP Research Articles

Habitation and land use patterns in the Upper Mangrove Creek catchment, New South Wales central coast, Australia

Explanations for dramatic late Holocene changes in numbers of habitation sites and artefacts in Australia include changes in demography, technology, subsistence strategies, risk minimisation strategies, levels of mobility and land use patterns. Archaeological fieldwork in the Upper Mangrove Creek catchment, New South Wales central coast hinterland, revealed evidence of increasing numbers of habitation sites over the past 11,000 years, with dramatic increases in the 2nd and 1st millennia BP. However, the timing and direction of changes in artefact accumulation rates in individual habitations and the catchment as a whole did not coincide with trends in the habitation sites. Dramatic increases occurred in the 3rd millennium BP and substantial decreases in the 1st millennium BP. This paper explores ways of interpreting the late Holocene trends in the habitation indices for the Upper Mangrove Creek catchment in terms of changing habitation, mobility and land use patterns.

An Early Mesolithic Seasonal Hunting Site in the Kennet Valley, Southern England

A small-scale excavation, undertaken in advance of building works at Faraday Road, Newbury, Berkshire, encountered an apparently intact Early Mesolithic layer containing abundant worked flint directly associated with animal bones. The site lay on the floodplain of the River Kennet in an area already well-known for Mesolithic remains and certainly represents an extension of the site found at nearby Greenham Dairy Farm in 1963. The flint assemblage was dominated by obliquely-blunted microlithic forms accompanied by a restricted range of other items. The animal bones were, unusually, dominated by wild pig with clear evidence of both primary butchery and food waste. Spatial analysis of the bone and flint assemblages indicated discrete activity areas, possibly associated with hearths. Both pollen and molluscan data were recovered which, together with the results of soil micromorphological examination, confirmed an Early Holocene date for the formation of the Mesolithic layer. Radiocarbon dates place the site in the late 10th–early 9th millennium BP. The paper re-examines the nature of known Early Mesolithic activity in this part of the Kennet valley, with particular reference to the specific environmental conditions that seem to have prevailed. It is concluded that the Faraday Road site represents one part of a continuum of Early Mesolithic occupation that stretches along a considerable length of the floodplain, with each focus of activity witnessing repeated, but intermittent, occupation spanning a period of more than a millennium.

Beyond Star Carr: The Vale of Pickering in the 10th Millennium BP

For the last 50 years the site of Star Carr has retained a role of considerable importance within Mesolithic studies. Recent archaeological and palaeoenvironmental survey of the Vale of Pickering (Schadla-Hall 1987; 1988; 1989; Lane & Schadla-Hall forthcoming) permits an understanding of the regional context of Star Carr and indicates the site itself now needs to be re-evaluated. This paper will focus on the lithic evidence recovered during the recent excavations and field survey in order to explore the nature of peoples' engagement with the landscape of the Vale of Pickering during the Early Mesolithic.

Cattle Before Crops: The Beginnings of Food Production in Africa

In many areas of the world, current theories for agricultural origins emphasize yield as a major concern during intensification. In Africa, however, the need for scheduled consumption shaped the development of food production. African cattle were domesticated during the tenth millennium BP by delayed-return Saharan hunter-gatherers in unstable, marginal environments where predictable access to resources was a more significant problem than absolute abundance. Pastoralism spread patchily across the continent according to regional variations in the relative predictability of herding versus hunting and gathering. Domestication of African plants was late (after 4000 BP) because of the high mobility of herders, and risk associated with cultivation in arid environments. Renewed attention to predictability may contribute to understanding the circumstances that led to domestication in other regions of the world.

Pearl Millet and Kintampo Subsistence

Subsistence practices of the Kintampo cultural complex of sub-Saharan West Africa are now known to have included pearl millet cultivation, in addition to the utilization of tropical forest margin species such as oil palm. Charred plant remains recovered from the Birimi site, northern Ghana, suggest that the growing of pearl millet, possibly in uniform stands, was occurring amongst northerly Kintampo groups during the fourth millennium bp. The cultivation of this drought-tolerant crop facilitated the establishment of sedentary villages by providing a storable food resource enabling Kintampo people to survive the protracted dry season of the West African savanna.

Diet and health changes at the end of the Chinese neolithic: the Yangshao/Longshan transition in Shaanxi province.

In this paper we discuss diet and health changes of millet agriculturists in Northern China, Shaanxi province, during the period 7,000-4,000 BP. An episode of intensive climatic oscillations that preceded the onset of colder climate circa the fifth millennium BP divides the period (Shi et al. [1993] Global Planet. Change 7:219-233). The onset of the cooler climate marks the decline of the egalitarian society of Yangshao and the rise of the chiefdom-like society of Longshan. Skeletal materials from the two sites of Beiliu and Jiangzhai are from the earlier phases of Yangshao culture (7,000-6,000 BP), while remains from the Shijia site were excavated from the terminal phase of Yangshao culture (6,000-5,000 BP), a phase that would be expected to show adjustments to strong climatic fluctuations. Human remains from the Longshan culture (5,000-4,000, BP) were found at the Kangjia site. In order to investigate whether the trajectory of diet and health changes persisted beyond the Longshan, a skeletal sample from the Xicun site of the Western Zhao Dynastic period (3,800-2,200 BP) is included in our analyses. All Yangshao sites in our study are characterized by low frequencies of anemia and carious lesions. Some subsistence changes probably occurred during the later phase of Yangshao culture that resulted in elevated masticatory stress and occlusal macrowear among the Shijia people. However, deterioration of community health did not begin until the Longshan, when increased occurrence of porotic hyperostosis and caries is accompanied by decreased adult stature. The transition to softer, more extensively processed food during Longshan is evident in decreased rates of occlusal wear. Increased population density and diminished food values were most likely responsible for these changes. Poor health persisted into the subsequent Dynastic period of Western Zhao.

Environmental change and archaeology: lake evolution and human occupation in the Eastern Sahara during the Holocene

The West Nubian Palaeolake is the most large-scale hydrographic evidence in the Eastern Sahara of the early to mid-Holocene wet phase that affected northern Africa. It is the result of a significant increase in local rainfall due to the northward shift of the tropical rainfall belt. A series of fieldwork-based differential GPS (DGPS) measurements along several profiles across the West Nubian Palaeolake basin provides the first precise topographic data from this up to a 5330 km 2 large palaeolake feature. In combination with sedimentological, geochemical, and archaeological results, an almost complete picture of significant palaeoclimatic changes and human occupation during the early to mid-Holocene for this region is presented. Different stages of palaeolake evolution ranging from non-existence of the lake through stable freshwater conditions to its extinction were identified in the period from 9400 to 3800 14C yr BP. These lake stages coincide with phases of intensive human inhabitation between ca. 6300 and 3500 14C yr BP, and include at least four settlement phases distinguishable by style of pottery. These are known from adjacent areas of the palaeolake region, emphasizing strong prehistoric cultural connections in the Eastern Sahara. During the highstands of the palaeolake in the early to mid-Holocene, the Dotted Wavy-Line pottery relates to the Early Khartoum type culture with its supra-regional distribution from the Nile Valley to the Chad, and possibly with slightly different forms even to the Atlantic coast. Later in the Holocene, Western Nubia with its large palaeolakes and migration paths along palaeowadis, such as Wadi Howar, acted as an important natural and cultural link between the Nile Valley and the Chad Basin until the region was deserted during the fourth millennium BP.

FOCUS: Estimated Wheat Yields During the Emergence of Agriculture Based on the Carbon Isotope Discrimination of Grains: Evidence from a 10th Millennium BP Site on the Euphrates

The analysis of carbon isotope discrimination (Δ) in crop seeds from archaeological sites may help to assess yield during early agriculture. Wheat was among the first crops to be domesticated in the Near East. Here, a yield model based on Δ in grains from present-day crops of durum wheat (Triticum durum Def.) is developed using a wide range of genotypes, most of which were cultivated in the Eastern Mediterranean basin (Syria). A strong positive linear regression (r2=0·72) between yield on a logarithmic basis and grain Δ was observed. Initial estimates of ancient wheat yields were then obtained by fitting the Δ values of archaeological grains to the above relationship. The yield estimates were subsequently corrected to take into consideration the two main differences between ancient and modern crops not accounted for by the Δ of ancient samples: atmospheric CO2levels and grain/total above-ground biomass ratio. The model was then used to estimate yields of naked wheat (Triticum durum/aestivum) attained at Tell Halula, an early agricultural site, ranging from Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB, c.9550bp calibrated) to Late Neolithic (Pre-Halaf, c.8630bp calibrated). This is the earliest archaeological settlement in the Middle Euphrates region (Rakka Governorate, Syria) at which the cultivation of domesticated naked wheat has been reported. Productivity, calculated from Δ of wheat grains found at this site, was relatively high, with an average (mean±s.d. ) of 1·56±0·28Mg ha−1. Although these yields are well below those attained in this region by present-day wheat crops under irrigation (e.g. 3·83Mg ha−1, mean value for 1987–1996 period at Rakka Governorate), they are higher than those achieved for wheat under the current rainfed conditions of this semi-arid region (1·05Mg ha−1) and suggest natural growing conditions were wetter than those than are prevalent today. In addition, our estimates for Tell Halula suggest that Neolithic agricultural practices may have produced greater yields than those to be expected from stands of wild cereals, which would have favoured the transition from gathering to cultivation.

Dating Egypt's oldest ‘art’: AMS 14C age determinations of rock varnishes covering petroglyphs at El-Hosh (Upper Egypt)

Direct dating, using the Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) 14C method, indicates that some petroglyphs (rock art) at El-Hosh in Upper Egypt pre-date the early 7th millennium BP (mid 6th millennium cal BC), making it the oldest graphic activity recorded in the Nile Valley.

Holocene climatic changes in an archaeological landscape: The case study of Wadi Tanezzuft and its drainage basin (SW Fezzan, Libyan Sahara)

AbstractRecharge of aquifers in the SW Fezzan dates back to the last millennia of the Late Pleistocene and to the very beginning of the Holocene, with a consistent delay between the mountain area (at the beginning) and the ergs. Since that period and up to the end of the fifth millennium BP, the whole area of the Wadi Tanezzuft and of its basin, including mountain ranges and low lands (ergs and pediments), consisted of a wet savannah, and in the low lands displayed a continuous belt of ponds and lakes. During this period, all the physiographic units of the landscape were exploited by hunters and collectors and later, much more intensively, by pastoral communities. Apart from two minor dry episodes, the whole area dried out around 5000 years BP. The wadi Tanezzuft was substantially reduced in discharge and size, but its main course was still fed with water for about three millennia, and during the third millennium BP it was a green oasis about one hundred kilometres long; and for this reason it was intensively settled by the Late Pastoral communities and later by the Garamantes. The different behaviour of the Tanezzuft valley in comparison with the surrounding areas is to be attributed to the fact that it is the main outlet of the Eastern Tassili hydrographic basin, whose water reserve was recharged during the wet Holocene and reduced, but not exhausted by the onset of aridity at 5000 years BP.During the first centuries AD the size of the oasis was strongly reduced as a consequence of the final depletion of water reservoirs. However strong wind erosion, which is the present dominant geomorphic process, began in the late medieval period.

The Wild Goats Of Lebanon: Evidence For Early Domestication?

This article discusses the biogeography of Persian wild goat in an attempt to identify the most likely early centres of goat domestication in the Levant. It is suggested that Persian wild goat may have been first domesticated in or immediately adjacent to the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon mountains during the mid-tenth millennium BP (uncalibrated), approximately a millennium earlier than has been previously assumed. Goat domestication may therefore have first occurred at approximately the same time as early Neolithic sedentary agricultural communities first emerged in the moist steppe zones of the central and southern Levant.

The Wild Goats Of Lebanon: Evidence For Early Domestication?

This article discusses the biogeography of Persian wild goat in an attempt to identify the most likely early centres of goat domestication in the Levant. It is suggested that Persian wild goat may have been first domesticated in or immediately adjacent to the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon mountains during the mid-tenth millennium BP (uncalibrated), approximately a millennium earlier than has been previously assumed. Goat domestication may therefore have first occurred at approximately the same time as early Neolithic sedentary agricultural communities first emerged in the moist steppe zones of the central and southern Levant.

Early and late Holocene water-level fluctuations of Lake Annecy, France: sediment and pollen evidence and climatic implications

Early and late Holocene water-level changes in Lake Annecy, France, were reconstructed from a sediment sequence from Annecy. Two early Holocene successive rises in lake level at ca. 8900-8700 BP are recorded. Another increase in lake level, beginning at ca. 780 BP, is documented. The higher lake-level conditions in Lake Annecy during the 9th millennium BP, i.e. between the Preboreal oscillation and the 8200 yr event, appear to coincide with a more widespread cooling period which has been recorded in western Europe, in the Greenland ice-sheet and the North Atlantic ocean. The rise in lake level at ca. 780 BP can be related to the early Little Ice Age.

Agro-pastoralist colonization of Cyprus in the 10th millennium BP: initial assessments

Unexpectedly early evidence for the precocious spread of farming has recently emerged in Cyprus. It is argued that the transmission occurred as a result of migration related to ecosystem stress in the Levant. So strong are the connections of the colonists with the mainland that we suggest the term Cypro-Pre-Pottery Neolithic B to describe what has hitherto been a major lacuna in Cypriot prehistory. Consistent dates from key sites and the evolution of material culture indicate that this Cypro-PPNB sequence represents the hitherto elusive ancestry for the Khirokitian.

Crop water availability in early agriculture: evidence from carbon isotope discrimination of seeds from a tenth millennium BP site on the Euphrates

AbstractThe analysis of carbon isotope discrimination (Δ) in crop plant remains from archaeological sites may help to assess water availability for early agriculture. This study presents the analysis of Δ in seeds of naked wheat (Triticum aestivum/durum), lentil (Lens orientalis/culinaris), and flax (Linum sp.) found at the archaeological site of Tell Halula in the valley of the Middle Euphrates (Syria). This Neolithic site is the oldest in this region of the Fertile Crescent where the cultivation of domesticated plants has been reported, with seed remains ranging from 9550 to 8465 BP. Most of the seeds analysed showed Δ values greater than 16 ‰, reaching 20 ‰ for some samples of flax. For wheat, Δ values were much higher than those reported in present‐day (1996) durum wheat crops cultivated under rainfed conditions in north‐west Syria under environments with somewhat higher rainfall than Tell Halula. Similarly, grains of present‐day (1997) barley cultivated in the archaeological site also showed lower values than those found in archaeological kernels. An empirical relationship between Δ of mature kernels and total precipitation (plus irrigation where applicable) from heading to maturity (r2 = 0.82, n = 11) was established for durum wheat, currently cultivated in different environments of the Mediterranean basin. The resulting relationship was applied to the data on Δ of wheat fossil kernels from Tell Halula to estimate the accumulated water inputs during the time (about 6 weeks) the kernels were produced. Calculated water inputs for wheat during early agriculture were (over 110 mm) at least 5 times higher than current‐day rainfall accumulated in Tell Halula during the same phenological period. These results strongly suggest that early agriculture wheat was cultivated at Tell Halula under much wetter conditions than are currently to be found in the area. The presence of flax and its very high Δ values also support this conclusion. Whether such humid conditions during cultivation were due to moister conditions prevailing at this time, by planting in alluvial areas or by irrigation works is discussed.

Chronology of Greece and South-east Europe in the Final Neolithic and Early Bronze Age

Final Neolithic to Early Bronze Age chronology in Greece remains obscure due to a lack of stratified deposits and radiocarbon dates. In this paper the Greek evidence is considered in the light of typological parallels, stratigraphic sequences, and the larger series of radiocarbon dates available from the south-east European cultures, and a tentative chronology for Greece and south-east Europe is presented. The evidence does not support the earlier notion of an overlap between the Thessalian Rachmani period and the Early Helladic period of southern Greece, but rather suggests that Rachmani is essentially contemporary with the southern Greek Final Neolithic. The Final Neolithic–Early Bronze Age transition in southern Greece shows affinities to Petromagoula in Thessaly and the Boleráz culture of Europe. Several radiocarbon dates place the Boleráz period in the early 5th millennium BP, suggesting that dates from FN–EBA transitional contexts in Greece may, in the future, help to fill the existing early 5th millennium gap in the Greek radiocarbon date series.

Resharpening and Recycling of Flint Bifacial Tools from the Southern Levant Neolithic and Chalcolithic

This paper attempts at reconstructing the life cycle of flint bifacial tools in two major technological trajectories, each aimed at a different end. It is focused on discarded polished flint bifacial tools (axe, adze, chisel) and bifacial polished debitage items found in Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites (9th–6th millennium BP) from the Southern Levant.Recent studies of Holocene flint assemblages revealed special types of debitage items such as blades, flakes, cores and core trimming elements, all bearing traces of polish. The discovery of these polished debitage items in Levantine sites enabled a study of bifacial tool resharpening and recycling techniques, emphasising the exceptional attention paid to this tool category. Since polished bifacial tools appear in many old world Holocene archaeological contexts, the data and interpretation presented in this study have implications far beyond the Southern Levant and could relate to universal technological properties of flint axes and other bifacial tools.

Abu Salem: A Pre-Pottery Neolithic B Camp in the Central Negev Highlands, Israel

Renewed excavations at the site of Abu Salem near Har Harif revealed the presence of a substantial Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) occupation that partly overlapped the previously documented Late Epipalaeolithic Harifian settlement. The latter occupation is quite limited in extent, comprising a beehive arrangement of small oval architectural features and related installations; however, the use to which the structures were put remains enigmatic. A small groundstone tool assemblage was recovered. The chipped stone tool assemblage is dominated by projectile points, notches and denticulates, retouched blades and flakes, and borers. Seriation analysis of the arrowheads indicates that the Neolithic settlement was sporadically occupied over a considerable periods beginning during the Early PPNB, towards the end of the ninth millennium BP (uncalibrated). The specific location and nature of the site are indicative of repeated seasonal (summer?) occupation of the highest elevations of the Negev by a small group of hunter-gatherers.

Dancing and the Beginning of Art Scenes in the Early Village Communities of the Near East and Southeast Europe

Dancing is depicted in the earliest art of the ancient Near East. It appears in many variations from the ninth to the sixth millennium BP over a vast geographical range. This article discusses the dancing performance, the social context of the dance and cognitive aspects of the dancing scenes. Ethnographic observations are used in order to gain a wider view of dancing and dancing scenes in pre-state societies. A correlation can be observed between art, symbolism, religion and social organization.

STUDIES ON THE EARLY SETTLEMENT OF SCOTLAND AND IRELAND

Abstract Following the Creswellian recolonization of England in the 13th millennium BP (uncalibrated), Scotland and Ireland were among the last regions of Europe to be occupied by humans — by at least 9000 BP. In both cases, there is considerable debate concerning (1) the precise nature of the environments and resources at the time of human entry; (2) the timing of the colonizations (and, in the case of Ireland, even its mode: across a terminal Last Glacial land bridge or by boat); (3) the nature of the Mesolithic human adaptations to these ‘new’ habitats; and (4) the nature of variability among artifact assemblages among regions (coastal vs interior, insular vs mainland, lowland vs upland) and through time in these two countries. This chapter provides a review of the latest research and thought on the peopling of these farthest northwestern ‘outposts’ of the European Mesolithic world.