Role Of Archaeology Research Articles

Out of the Dust of Years: Archaeology in Palestine from the Ottomans to the Mandate

This article explores the legal regulation of archaeology under the Ottoman Empire and the role of archaeology in the governance of Palestine during the period of the British Mandate. The founding, fieldwork, and publications of significant Western archaeological and antiquarian organizations active in the region in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are discussed in this context.

Unearthing Identity: the Role of Archaeology in Shaping English National Identity and Heritage Interpretation

ABSTRACT This study examines the significant impact of archaeology on English national identity and heritage interpretation, focusing on key sites like Stonehenge, Sutton Hoo, and Hadrian’s Wall. Using a multidisciplinary approach, we analyze how archaeological discoveries shape national narratives, emphasizing continuity, rootedness, and cultural uniqueness. Through qualitative methods, including interviews and focus groups, we find that public perceptions of these sites highlight themes of engagement, inclusivity, and the need for more comprehensive interpretations. Our results reveal that archaeological interpretations evolve with societal values and political agendas, often reinforcing or challenging notions of national identity. This study underscores the dynamic relationship between archaeology, nationalism, and cultural memory, advocating for a more inclusive and nuanced approach to heritage management and public engagement.

Thematic Analysis of Indigenous Perspectives on Archaeology and Cultural Resource Management Industries

AbstractThis article explores Indigenous perspectives on archaeology in Canada and the United States and the role of archaeologists in engaging with Indigenous communities. As part of our study, we interviewed Indigenous community members about their experiences in archaeology and their thoughts on the discipline. We analyzed each interview thematically to identify patterns of meaning across the dataset and to develop common themes in the interview transcripts. Based on the results of our analysis, we identified six themes in the data: (1) Euro-colonialism damaged and interrupted Indigenous history, and archaeology offers Indigenous community members an opportunity to reconnect with their past; (2) archaeological practices restrict access of Indigenous community members to archaeological information and archaeological materials; (3) cultural resource management (CRM) is outpacing the capacity of Indigenous communities to engage meaningfully with archaeologists; (4) the codification of archaeology through standards, guidelines, and technical report writing limits the goals of the discipline; (5) archaeological methods are inconsistent and based on individual, or company-wide, funding and decision-making; and (6) archaeological software offers a new opportunity for Indigenous communities and archaeologists to collaborate on projects.

Niche Construction and Long-Term Trajectories of Food Production

AbstractNiche construction theory has played a prominent role in archaeology during the last decade. However, the potential of niche construction in relation to agricultural development has received less attention. To this end, we bring together literature on the forms and sources of agronomic variability and use a series of examples to highlight the importance of reciprocal causation and ecological inheritance in trajectories of agricultural change. We demonstrate how niche construction theory can inform on emergent mutualisms in both inceptive and established agronomic contexts, the recursive relationships between humans and their agronomic environments, and bridges between the past and present.

ABOUT THE STUDY OF MONUMENTS OF THE MESOLITHIC PERIOD IN UZBEKISTAN

This article discusses the Mesolithic monuments, early explored on the territory of Uzbekistan and their role in archeology. The discovery of ancient rock paintings of the Mesolithic era helps to clarify important questions regarding the worldview of the people of that time.

Archaeology and Social Justice in Native America

Over the past 20 years, collaboration has become an essential aspect of archaeological practice in North America. In paying increased attention to the voices of descendant and local communities, archaeologists have become aware of the persistent injustices these often marginalized groups face. Building on growing calls for a responsive and engaged cultural heritage praxis, this forum article brings together a group of Native and non-Native scholars working at the nexus of history, ethnography, archaeology, and law in order to grapple with the role of archaeology in advancing social justice. Contributors to this article touch on a diverse range of critical issues facing Indigenous communities in the United States, including heritage law, decolonization, foodways, community-based participatory research, and pedagogy. Uniting these commentaries is a shared emphasis on research practices that promote Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination. In drawing these case studies together, we articulate a sovereignty-based model of social justice that facilitates Indigenous control over cultural heritage in ways that address their contemporary needs and goals.

Researching Change – Understanding Change – Facing Change. 3500 years of human-environment relations in the Hallstatt/Dachstein region

The Hallstatt High Valley represents one of Europe’s oldest cultural and industrial landscapes. For millennia this remote alpine valley was the demographic and economic center of a wide region. In this landscape the venture of large-scale underground salt mining spans from the present back to the Bronze Age. The oldest secure evidence for large-scale underground salt mining dates to the 14th cent. BC. But various indicators point towards a much older tradition of salt production, reaching far into Neolithic times. The extraordinary preservation conditions in the salt mines and the variety of archaeological, historical and environmental sources allow for unique insights into prehistoric technology, raw material management, working processes and human-environment relations. The Hallstatt/Dachstein region represents an alpine environment, where the evolution of human-environment relations can be tracked over a long time period. Recent research has focused on the impact of natural extreme events on these highly sophisticated socioeconomic systems. Through this research it was possible to document the high degree of resilience of Bronze Age and Iron Age communities in the face of devastating extreme natural events such as mass movements and substantial climate change. In this paper we will address the questions of “understanding past adaptation strategies and facing future challenges” and “the role of archaeologists in addressing climate change” based on our longstanding research and outreach activities in the Hallstatt region.

Policies, Brae, and Hill grounds: A microarchaeology of an Ochils estate

SUMMARY This paper seeks to explore life during the post-medieval period in a small part of the Ochil Hills in Perthshire, Scotland, and in doing so, demonstrates how landscape archaeology can uncover stories which reflect the complexity and nuance of life in the past. Drawing on a range of approaches, this paper explores the stories uncovered through a programme of landscape archaeology. This includes considering the dramatic changes and reformations that have shaped the landscape over recent centuries, histories of specific people and places - and the relationship between the two. It asks questions of the role of archaeology in telling these stories and considers how a variety of approaches can reveal a multitude of voices and narratives from the past.

Obishir culture: Study, interpretation and significance

The article describes the study of the great Mesolithic culture of the Fergana Valley - Obishir culture, its stone industry, comparative analysis with the cultures of neighboring regions, the interpretation of culture and its role in archeology.

Ethnicity, Archaeology and Nationalism: Remarks on the Current State of Research

While in the modern world, ethnicity has become the politicization of culture, the old controversy over the relation between ethnicity and archaeology refuses to die. The first studies of that relation dealt primarily with what made the historical interpretation of the archaeological material dependent upon the political situation. Soon, the emphasis shifted to the link between archaeology and the beginnings of nationalism, especially the influence of Romanticism, the rise of the culture-history paradigm, and of the historical interest in ethnogenesis. Now, the emphasis is more on the role of archaeology in the shaping of social memory as past that may be used politically. This study focuses on the new trends in this research field, particularly those concerned with the social mobilization by means of the ancestors’ myths, with pseudo-archaeology, and the staging of historical authenticity through heritage tourism. The second part of the article highlights differences between approaches to ethnogenesis in the European and American archaeology and illustrates the latter by means of three key studies by Christopher Stojanowski, Scott Ortman, and Laurie Wilkie. To judge from the titles of the publications that came out in Eastern Europe and the United States over the last year, several common trends are apparent, along with significant divergences. Archaeology is increasingly perceived as the most important, if not the only way to understand the ethnicity of immigrants in the (medieval) past. Archaeologists have taken a front seat in all debates about ethnic identities. Instead of state authorities or the ideological pressure of various political regimes, the emphasis in Eastern Europe is now on individual archaeologists, the role of their life experience and of their education in the ethnic interpretation of the archaeological record. Meanwhile, in the Unites States, it is the ethnic identity of the archaeologists themselves that has now come under lens. In other words, agency is restored to archaeologists, who are now regarded as much more capable of original work and decision making than before. Finally, gender perspectives are now applied to the study of the relations between ethnicity, archaeology, and nationalism. In both Eastern Europe and the United States, there is a conspicuous interest in women archaeologists.

Art, Creativity and Automation. From Charters to Shared 3D Visualization Practices

Abstract In this study, we introduce the themes of the Special Issue on Art, Creativity and Automation. Sharing 3D Visualization Practices in Archaeology, and present the most important outcomes of a roundtable session involving prominent researchers in the field, organized by the authors during the Archon Winter School in February 2020. By assessing the diversity of research aims, artistic projects, creative practices and technology used in the contributions to the Special Issue, and drawing on the thoughts and perspectives generated during the roundtable discussion, we seek to identify shared challenges within the community of visualizers which could ultimately pave the way to shared practices. In this light, we assess whether established charters and guidelines are still relevant in a now matured digital archaeology, where visualization techniques have attained a central position in archaeological knowledge production. Although parts of the guidelines have become common practice, the remainder did not keep up with the fast pace of development of digital practice and its current fundamental role in archaeology, and as a result some of the guidelines risk becoming obstructive in archaeological creative practice.

Radiology Role in Archaeology: Moses’ Pharaoh as a Case

Radiology can help in rewriting human history and verifying historical narratives. By using medical imaging scans like CT, the mummies of pharaohs can be scanned to find the cause of death using the Virtual Autopsy technique. The issue is that some of history is connected with the world’s religions. For example, the pharaoh who chased Moses and the Hebrews out of Egypt is mentioned in different narratives in the Quran and the bible. Which book has the true story indicates that it is the book of the true religion. Therefore, Radiology could find which religion is true and present a piece of physical evidence of which religion is true.

The Dead Sea Scrolls dan Sumbangsihnya terhadap Kanon Perjanian Lama

Many have attacked the inerrancy and infability of the Bible. Inherence which means free from defects, in writing and infability means infallibility, in the teachings, which conservative evangelicals hold firm to the Bible, are always under attack and accusations, that the Bible is no longer authentic. Through descriptive qualitative methods with library studies, it can be concluded that there is a role of archeology and the dating of dead sea scrolls so that in the Qumran Old Testament, which is approximately 2,200 years old, it adds one manuscript evidence about the authenticity of copying. The Scriptures of no religion have documentary evidence like this. More importantly, the contribution of The Dead Sea Scrolls is evident through the acknowledgment of the world of critical scholarship which must undeniably admit that the events of Jesus are historical events, not as they have been about

Reflections on an Unreflected Sphere - Archaeological Exhibitions and Nationalism

There is an open nationalism, clearly stated through national symbols as well as through various rituals. However, there is also an underlying form of nationalism, operating on a structural level, so obvious that it becomes "invisible". This is not only true for the actions of people in general, but to a great cxtent also for the understanding of different normative institutions, not least the museums. Nationalism is included as a hidden facet in the communicating activities. This article sheds light on the role of archaeology in this context, with particular emphasis on archaeological exhibitions. At a closer look, it becomes obvious that one elementary aspect of the archaeological communicating activities is missing —the conscious reflection.

Evolution and Material Culture

In this paper the authors argue that the renewed interest in cultural evolution in archaeology may have a fundamental effect on the taxonomies employed and the role of archaeology as a discipline.

Archaeology and Research in the History of Kashmir- Perspectives and Concerns

Research in history is digging into the past through multidisciplinary approach, with the requisites of professionalism, critical aptitude, technical erudition, analytical mind and incisive faculty to reconstruct the past and to elaborate, analyze, synthesize, philosophize the ideas and critically examine the data in the light of objectivity. Historical research is primarily based on literary and archaeological sources. Literary sources are more or less infected of personal bias and prejudice by the author or interpreter. So, here archaeology comes to rescue for reconstructing comparatively an unbiased history. Archaeology is an auxiliary science or ancillary discipline with its numerous approaches, which assist in historical research. It is a sub-discipline of anthropology which is concerned with the study of human evolution and his environment and the material culture associated with him in pre-historic, proto-historic and historic periods through practical undertakings, methods and theories. Kashmir is an ancient geological land with glorious past where the man lived since the pre-historic times and has always been contacts with her neighbors and witnessed influx and efflux of races and cultures. So the role of archaeology with literature is of vital significance in the research of history of Kashmir. But, the application of archaeology in the research of history of Kashmir in general and in ancient and medieval history in particular seems very negligible. The attitude and interest of research about the ancient history of Kashmir and fresh explorations of archaeological sites among the regional institutions,students and scholars is meager. The national and international surveys and studies about archaeological research have also come to halt. The deteriorating condition of archaeological sites in the valley gives us the glimpse of our vanishing history. Archaeology is not confined to historical archaeology, it includes ethno-archaeology, Environmental Archaeology, Rural and Urban Archaeology, Marine Archaeology, and the list goes on. In this paper I will try to investigate the different perspectives and concerns of archaeological research in the history of Kashmir, its application on vast and wide areas of research, keeping in view the post-processual and postmodern viewpoint. Besides methodological problems, descriptions and fundamental goals, this paper seeks to evaluate the reasons why and based on these evaluations some suggestions for future research in Kashmir history are proposed. As the history of Kashmir is the significant and an inseparable part of Kashmir Studies

Combined Low-/High-Density Modern and Ancient Genome-Wide Data Document Genomic Admixture History of High-Altitude East Asians.

The Tibetan Plateau (TP) is considered to be one of the last terrestrial environments conquered by the anatomically modern human. Understanding of the genetic background of highland Tibetans plays a pivotal role in archeology, anthropology, genetics, and forensic investigations. Here, we genotyped 22 forensic genetic markers in 1,089 Tibetans residing in Nagqu Prefecture and collected 1,233,013 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the highland East Asians (Sherpa and Tibetan) from the Simons Genome Diversity Project and ancient Tibetans from Nepal and Neolithic farmers from northeastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau from public databases. We subsequently merged our two datasets with other worldwide reference populations or eastern ancient Eurasians to gain new insights into the genetic diversity, population movements, and admixtures of high-altitude East Asians via comprehensive population genetic statistical tools [principal component analysis (PCA), multidimensional scaling plot (MDS), STRUCTURE/ADMIXTURE, f3, f4, qpWave/qpAdm, and qpGraph]. Besides, we also explored their forensic characteristics and extended the Chinese National Database based on STR data. We identified 231 alleles with the corresponding allele frequencies spanning from 0.0005 to 0.5624 in the forensic low-density dataset, in which the combined powers of discrimination and the probability of exclusion were 1–1.22E-24 and 0.999999998, respectively. Additionally, comprehensive population comparisons in our low-density data among 57 worldwide populations via the Nei’s genetic distance, PCA, MDS, NJ tree, and STRUCTURE analysis indicated that the highland Tibeto-Burman speakers kept the close genetic relationship with ethnically close populations. Findings from the 1240K high-density dataset not only confirmed the close genetic connection between modern Highlanders, Nepal ancients (Samdzong, Mebrak, and Chokhopani), and the upper Yellow River Qijia people, suggesting the northeastern edge of the TP served as a geographical corridor for ancient population migrations and interactions between highland and lowland regions, but also evidenced that late Neolithic farmers permanently colonized into the TP by adopting cold-tolerant barley agriculture that was mediated via the acculturation of idea via the millet farmer and not via the movement of barley agriculturalist as no obvious western Eurasian admixture signals were identified in our analyzed modern and ancient populations. Besides, results from the qpAdm-based admixture proportion estimation and qpGraph-based phylogenetic relationship reconstruction consistently demonstrated that all ancient and modern highland East Asians harbored and shared the deeply diverged Onge/Hoabinhian-related eastern Eurasian lineage, suggesting a common Paleolithic genetic legacy existed in high-altitude East Asians as the first layer of their gene pool.

Remote Sensing for Cultural Heritage Assessment and Monitoring: The Case Study of Alba Iulia

In recent times, satellite-based remote sensing has a growing role in archaeology and inherently in the cultural heritage management process. This paper demonstrates the potential and usefulness of satellite imagery for the documentation, mapping, monitoring, and in-depth analysis of cultural heritage and the archaeological sites located in urban landscapes. The study focuses on the assessment and monitoring of Alba Iulia, which is one of the Romanian cities with the richest historical past. Multitemporal analysis was performed to identify the land use/land cover changes that might contribute to an increased cultural heritage vulnerability to natural disasters. A special emphasis was dedicated to the assessment of the built-up area growth and consequently of the urbanization trend over a large time interval (30 years). Next, the urbanization and urban area expansion impact was further analyzed by concentrating on the urban heat island within Alba Iulia city and Alba Iulia Fortress (located in the center of the city). As temperature change represents a key element of climate change, the temperature trend within the same temporal framework and its impact on cultural heritage were determined. In the end, with regard to the cultural heritage condition assessment, the research was complemented with an assessment of the urban ground and individual building stability, using persistent scatterer interferometry. The results contribute to the detailed depiction of the cultural heritage site in such a manner that the site is monitored over an extensive timeframe, its current state of conservation is accurately determined, and the future trends can be identified. In conclusion, the present study offers reliable results regarding the main factors that might endanger the cultural heritage site as a basis for future preservation measures.

Archeologia odpowiedzialna społecznie. Działania z zakresu public i community archaeology w Polsce

This paper aims to conceptualize the social role of archaeology and archeological heritage in the present. First, it contextualizes the legal and doctrinal background of activities aimed at dissemination of cultural and archaeological heritage and engagement of public in initiatives around that heritage. Next, it describes main forms of outreach activities undertaken by archaeologists in Poland. Further, it presents community-oriented activities and initiatives that go beyond education of the general public about the past and archaeology and strive for engaging local communities in activities centered around archaeology and archaeological heritage. It concludes with a statement that openness of archaeology to society helps to strengthen its current social position, determines its role in the world and attributes social activities of archaeologists with a deeper meaning.

Molecular identification and geographic origin of a post-Medieval elephant finding from southwestern Portugal using high-throughput sequencing

Molecular species identification plays a crucial role in archaeology and palaeontology, especially when diagnostic morphological characters are unavailable. Molecular markers have been used in forensic science to trace the geographic origin of wildlife products, such as ivory. So far, only a few studies have applied genetic methods to both identify the species and circumscribe the provenance of historic wildlife trade material. Here, by combining ancient DNA methods and genome skimming on a historical elephantid tooth found in southwestern Portugal, we aimed to identify its species, infer its placement in the elephantid phylogenetic tree, and triangulate its geographic origin. According to our results the specimen dates back to the eighteenth century CE and belongs to a female African forest elephant (non-hybrid Loxodonta cyclotis individual) geographically originated from west—west-central Africa, from areas where one of the four major mitochondrial clades of L. cyclotis is distributed. Historical evidence supports our inference, pointing out that the tooth should be considered as post-Medieval raw ivory trade material between West Africa and Portugal. Our study provides a comprehensive approach to study historical products and artefacts using archaeogenetics and contributes towards enlightening cultural and biological historical aspects of ivory trade in western Europe.