Category: Culture

Human sacrifice as means of social control and power display in Upper Mesopotamia (early 3rd mill. BC)

anatolian-bronze-age-migrations

Radical ‘royals’? Burial practices at Başur Höyük and the emergence of early states in Mesopotamia, by Hasset and Sağlamtimur, Antiquity (2018) 92:640-654.

Interesting excerpts:

The discovery of sacrificial burials attending a ‘royal’ burial in a cist tomb at Early Bronze Age Arslantepe in Anatolia (Frangipane 2006; Erdal 2012) has dramatically broadened the known range of social responses to the political upheaval of the early third millennium BC. Following the longstanding interpretation of human sacrifice at the Royal Cemetery of Ur just a few hundred years later (Woolley 1934), this raises new questions about the role of human sacrifice in

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BMAC: long term interaction between agricultural communities and steppe pastoralists in Central Asia

indo-european-indo-iranian-migrations

Interesting new paper Mixing metaphors: sedentary-mobile interactions and local-global connections in prehistoric Turkmenistan, by Rouse & Cerasetti, Antiquity (2018) 92:674-689.

Relevant excerpts (emphasis mine):

The Murghab alluvial fan in southern Turkmenistan witnessed some of the earliest encounters between sedentary farmers and mobile pastoralists from different cultural spheres. During the late third and early second millennia BC, the Murghab was home to the Oxus civilisation and formed a central node in regional exchange networks (Possehl 2005; Kohl 2007). The Oxus civilisation (or the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex) relied on intensive agriculture to support a hierarchical society and specialised craft production of

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Origins of equine dentistry in Mongolia in the early first millennium BC

New paper (behind paywall) Origins of equine dentistry, by Taylor et al. PNAS (2018).

Interesting excerpts (emphasis mine):

The practice of horse dentistry by contemporary nomadic peoples in Mongolia, coupled with the centrality of horse transport to Mongolian life, both now and in antiquity, raises the possibility that dental care played an important role in the development of nomadic life and domestic horse use in the past. To investigate, we conducted a detailed archaeozoological study of horse remains from tombs and ritual horse inhumations across the Mongolian Steppe, assessing evidence for anthropogenic dental modifications and comparing our findings

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About Scepters, Horses, and War: on Khvalynsk migrants in the Caucasus and the Danube

steppe-horse-sceptre-khvalynsk

dergachev-scepters-khavlynsk-horsesAbout two months ago I stumbled upon a gem in archaeological studies related to Proto-Indo-Europeans, the book О скипетрах, о лошадях, о войне: этюды в защиту миграционной концепции М.Гимбутас (On sceptres, on horses, on war: Studies in defence of M. Gimbutas’ migration concepts), 2007, by V. A. Dergachev, from the Institute of Cultural Heritage of the Moldavian Republic.

Dergachev’s work dedicates 488 pages to a very specific Final Neolithic-Eneolithic period in the Pontic-Caspian steppe, and the most relevant parts of the book concern the nature and expansion of horses and horse domestication, horse-head scepters, and other horse-related symbology… Read the rest “About Scepters, Horses, and War: on Khvalynsk migrants in the Caucasus and the Danube”

Cogotas I Bronze Age pottery emulated and expanded Bell Beaker decoration

bronze_age_iberia

Copying from Sherds. Creativity in Bronze Age Pottery in Central Iberia (1800-1150 BC), by Antonio Blanco-González, In: J. Sofaer (ed.): Considering Creativity Creativity, Knowledge and Practice in Bronze Age Europe. Archaeopress (2018), Oxford: 19-38

Interesting excerpts (emphasis mine):

Several Iberian scholars have referred to stab-and-drag designs in both Bell-Beaker and Bronze Age ceramics (Maluquer de Motes 1956, 180, 196; Fernández-Posse 1982, 137), although these have not always been correctly appraised. In the 1980s it was finally realized that the sherds retrieved at the Boquique Cave should be dated to the Middle-Late Neolithic (4400-3300 BC), and that the same technique

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Inca and Spanish Empires had a profound impact on Peruvian demography

peru-population-history

Open access Evolutionary genomic dynamics of Peruvians before, during, and after the Inca Empire by Harris et al., PNAS (2018) 201720798 (published ahead of print).

Abstract (emphasis mine):

Native Americans from the Amazon, Andes, and coastal geographic regions of South America have a rich cultural heritage but are genetically understudied, therefore leading to gaps in our knowledge of their genomic architecture and demographic history. In this study, we sequence 150 genomes to high coverage combined with an additional 130 genotype array samples from Native American and mestizo populations in Peru. The majority of our samples possess greater than 90% Native

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The end of the Kura-Araxes settlements: large-scale phenomenon but with varied causes

kura-araxes-indo-european-uralic-migrations

Open access The End of the Kura-Araxes Culture as Seen from Nadir Tepesi in Iranian Azerbaijan, by Alizadeh, Maziar & Mohammadi, American Journal of Archaeology (2018) 122(3):463-477.

Interesting excerpts (emphasis mine):

The test trenches at Nadir Tepesi suggest that the Kura-Araxes occupation ended abruptly in the mid third millennium B.C.E. and that the site was then occupied or visited by a new group of people with new cultural traditions. Evidence for a significant destruction followed by the sharp discontinuity in the material culture could represent a violent termination of the Kura-Araxes occupation at Nadir Tepesi. This possibility provides one

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Wang et al. (2018) Suppl. data: R1b-M269 in Baltic Neolithic?

eneolithic-forest-zone

Looking for information on Novosvobodnaya samples from Wang et al. (2018) for my latest post, I stumbled upon this from the Supplementary Data 2 (download the Excel table):

Latvia_MN1.SG (ZVEJ26)

Skeletal element: petrous
Sample: Latvia_MN_dup.I4627.SG
Date: 4251-3976 calBCE
Location: Zvejnieki
mtDNA: U4a1
Y-DNA: R1b1a1a2
Coverage: 0.15
SNPs hit on autosomes: 167445

The data on Mathieson et al. (2018) is as follows:

I4627 (ZVEJ26)

Skeletal element: petrous
Origin: ThisStudy (New data; Individual first published in JonesNatureCommunications2017)
Sample: Latvia_MN
Date:4251-3976 calBCE (5280±55 BP, Ua-3639)
Location:Zvejnieki
mtDNA: U4a1
Y-DNA: R1b1a1a(xR1b1a1a2)
Coverage: 1.77
SNPs hit on autosomes: 686273

Y-Chromosome derived SNPs: R1b1a1a:PF6475:17986687C-

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On the Maykop – Upper Mesopotamia cultural province, distinct from the steppe

caucasus-europe

New paper (behind paywall) The Production of Thin‐Walled Jointless Gold Beads from the Maykop Culture Megalithic Tomb of the Early Bronze Age at Tsarskaya in the North Caucasus: Results of Analytical and Experimental Research, by Trifonov et al. Archaeometry (2018)

Interesting excerpts (emphasis mine):

In 1898, two megalithic tombs containing graves of a local social elite dated to the Early Bronze Age were discovered by N. I. Veselovsky near the village of Tsarskaya (modern Novosvobodnaya, Republic of Adygeya) (Fig. 1 (a)) (Baye 1900, 43–59; IAC 1901, 33–8; Sagona 2018, 281–97).

Radiocarbon dates place both tombs within the Novosvobodnaya phase

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