This paper presents a small, cableless and cost-effective (circa € 500 in 2022) device that embeds an RTK-enabled GNSS receiver and IMU in a 3D printed case to record the exterior orientation of photos via the camera's hot shoe. This hardware solution was developed within the academic graffiti project INDIGO to enable a faster and more robust exterior orientation (via incremental SfM) of the hundreds of weekly acquired graffiti photographs. The device relies solely on commercially available open-source development components that require only minimal knowledge of electronics. Moreover, it is small enough not to disturb the photographer but still provide constant visual feedback about the device's overall and positional solution status. To realistically test the achievable positional and rotational accuracy, we acquired a dense network of graffiti photos in INDIGO's test area. This test showed that the device provides centimetre-accurate photo positions and one-degree accurate pitch and roll values. The heading or yaw is probably only usable to some extent since it primarily relies on magnetometer measurements, which get quickly disturbed in an urban environment. In addition, the test revealed that the camera's internal IMU can provide roll and pitch values with sub-degree accuracy.
Francisco Javier Molina Hernández, Virginia Barciela González, Juan F. Ruiz López
et al.
The significant advancement in drone technology has led to increased usage across different scientific domains. In the field of archaeology, drones became increasingly popular a decade ago, primarily for photogrammetric documentation or aerial photography. Since then, researchers have experimented with new applications, notably utilizing LiDAR imagery to enhance archaeological surveying. In this context, one of the latest applications involves surveying open-air rock art shelters in inaccessible locations to search for prehistoric rock art imagery. The current study involves refining the methodology used for this purpose in the territory of UNESCO’s World Heritage List property Rock Art of the Mediterranean Basin of the Iberian Peninsula, utilizing a DJI Mavic 3 drone, which represents a significant improvement over previous models. On the other hand, it highlights the potential for its utilization in conservation studies and managing human activity in their environments, considering the threats to which these sites are currently exposed.
Valéry Zeitoun, Antonio Pérez-Balarezo, Heng Sophady
et al.
Although the Hoabinhian culture is renowned for its unifacial pebble tools and its discovery dates back more than a century, only a handful of sites provide complete information on this period. The site of Laang Spean, in Cambodia, has recently been described as a burial cave for the Neolithic period, but it was previously known as an emblematic Hoabinhian site for Cambodia. More comprehensive studies indicate that it offers a wide window onto the settlement of the Hoabinhian between 12900 and 5000 cal BP. The archaeological layer of the Hoabinhian culture at Laang Spean include faunal, human and lithic remains that enrich our understanding of the environment and way of life of this ancient culture. The faunal assemblage, dominated by bovines, tortoises, molluscs, and cervids, reflects a diverse ecosystem and the adaptability of the Hoabinhian people. The presence of both humid and dry forest indicators, alongside significant wetland areas, suggests their ability to exploit a variety of habitats. The lithic assemblage, characterized by a lower representation of unifaces and greater use of split cobbles, reflects a continuity in basic lithic reduction strategies with minor diachronic changes in raw material selection and tool production, possibly reflecting technological adaptations and increased intensity of occupation. The discovery of human remains, though challenging to contextualize precisely, contributes to understanding settlement patterns and cultural links in prehistoric Southeast Asia. The new data allow for a deeper interpretation of the environmental adaptations and hunting strategies of the Hoabinhian people, including their responses to climatic changes, such as the end of the Younger Dryas. This enhanced knowledge significantly contributes to our comprehension of the environmental dynamics and subsistence practices in prehistoric Southeast Asia and underscores the necessity of reassessing key Hoabinhian sites with modern excavation and dating techniques.
Babak Shaikh Baikloo Islam, Ahmad Chaychi Amirkhiz, Farshid Mosadeghi Amini
Natural hazards in ancient times were among the factors central to the decline of human cultures and civilizations.Climate change periods are associated with increased extreme weather events such as torrential rains and prolongeddroughts, thus posing severe challenges to human societies. In the fourth millennium BCE, variable climaticconditions in the Tehran plain caused cultural dynamics to be disrupted. Through an environmental archaeologicalapproach, the present study discusses the possible causes of cultural decline and collapse in this plain in two stagesof climate change during the fourth millennium BCE. The data derives from the archaeological site of MafinAbad, where occurs a situation similar to a series of sites in North Central and Southwest Iran. High-resolutionpaleoclimate research has been used to reconstruct the climatic conditions of the fourth millennium BCE. Thisresearch reflects the importance of environmental sedimentology studies in archaeological sites to identify possibleenvironmental reasons for cultural prosperity and disintegration of prehistoric rural communities.
The spread of innovations is an important driver for transformation processes in human societies. It is carried by two crucial conditions – the flow of information and the adoption/appropriation of the innovation. While the latter is a social and cultural process, the first is among others carried by mobility. Mobility in this context can take on different forms and range from migration events up to small-scale everyday mobility between neighbours. In this article, the transmission of ideas and technology without major migration events will be treated. This is based on two case studies – the spread of agriculture from Central Europe to South Scandinavia and the spread of copper metallurgy from Southeast to Central Europe. For both, the spatio-temporal spread of the innovation will be described and factors influencing the information flow and the process of adoption will be taken into account. This will help to develop a more detailed understanding concerning the transmission of ideas and technology without major migration events and allows us to follow the question of what roles did mobility and other factors play in it.
Huw S. Groucutt, Huw S. Groucutt, Huw S. Groucutt
et al.
The small size and relatively challenging environmental conditions of the semi-isolated Maltese archipelago mean that the area offers an important case study of societal change and human-environment interactions. Following an initial phase of Neolithic settlement, the “Temple Period” in Malta began ∼5.8 thousand years ago (ka), and came to a seemingly abrupt end ∼4.3 ka, and was followed by Bronze Age societies with radically different material culture. Various ideas concerning the reasons for the end of the Temple Period have been expressed. These range from climate change, to invasion, to social conflict resulting from the development of a powerful “priesthood.” Here, we explore the idea that the end of the Temple Period relates to the 4.2 ka event. The 4.2 ka event has been linked with several examples of significant societal change around the Mediterranean, such as the end of the Old Kingdom in Egypt, yet its character and relevance have been debated. The Maltese example offers a fascinating case study for understanding issues such as chronological uncertainty, disentangling cause and effect when several different processes are involved, and the role of abrupt environmental change in impacting human societies. Ultimately, it is suggested that the 4.2 ka event may have played a role in the end of the Temple Period, but that other factors seemingly played a large, and possibly predominant, role. As well as our chronological modelling indicating the decline of Temple Period society in the centuries before the 4.2 ka event, we highlight the possible significance of other factors such as a plague epidemic.
In this article I inquire the way in which neuroscientists discuss the production, circulation and appropriation of arguments that link child poverty and cognitive development. In the ethnographic research, the relational nature of the production of knowledge was evidenced as well as the persistent politicity of expert knowledge about childhood. In these dialogues, the uses of brain-based knowledge that abound in early childhood policy today were largely nuanced, if not openly discussed. Child development seems to have become a minefield, in which doing neuroscientific research requires getting involved in a public controversy about the scope of
the evidence and its ethical-political implications.
L’articolo costituisce una riflessione sulla segretezza del voto nel mondo greco, espressa attraverso la procedura della psephophoria che prevedeva l’utilizzo di pietruzze come strumenti di voto. Si propone un’analisi di alcune testimonianze letterarie, epigrafiche e iconografiche che, in qualche modo, registrano la presenza del voto segreto o fanno a esso riferimento. L’analisi rivela che la segretezza non era una caratteristica connaturata alla procedura, e conferma ancora una volta l’idea già espressa e comunemente accolta, secondo cui l’esigenza di occultare il proprio voto era sentita come una necessità solo in contesti di natura giudiziaria e in quelle circostanze in cui erano coinvolti i diritti di un privato cittadino.
The archaeology of coastal societies raises fundamental research issues to unlock some of the questions posed to prehistoric and protohistoric archaeology. Thus, the use of coastlines in the Paleolithic period would be a source of cognitive and behavioural developments for our species. The ocean as a vector of demic diffusion is also mentioned. Moreover, do seaside lifestyles allow for particular social organization? In France, Spain or Portugal, traces of storage, specialized predation economies or social hierarchies are slow to be discovered. The robustness of the land-sea predation system is probably at stake in the resistance to neolithisation observed during the 6th millennium in maritime enclaves from Portugal to Denmark: more than an alleged "social complexity", it is this research theme that must attract the attention of researchers working around foreshores. The use of foreshores on the Channel and Atlantic coasts reached a peak of visibility in the Mesolithic period, but it is necessary to extend the analyses to the first agro-pastoral societies to better understand the intertwining of predation and production rates. These complex study objects require particular modes of intervention, which combine scientific disciplines to reconstruct the land-sea continuum.
Interdisciplinary archaeological research in southern Scandinavia has a very long history of practice, starting in the mid-19th Century and continuing to the present. In particular, research concerning the late Mesolithic hunter-gatherer-fisher Ertebølle culture (5400-3950 cal BC) has resulted in a large zooarchaeological dataset potentially useable in large-scale comparative, or meta-analyses. In this paper, we review this dataset, and the quantity and character of the data is described. We then address particularities of the published data that may affect comparative analyses. By focusing on fragmentation and bone condition as major influencing factors on published quantitative statistics, we demonstrate that caution is warranted in comparisons between these types of data deriving from Ertebølle assemblages. Nevertheless, we focus on the dataset as a valuable resource for understanding variability in hunter-gatherer-fisher food economies and how to best mitigate potential issues in selection and use of the data in comparative studies. We do so by discussing types of comparative analyses that are most likely to provide valuable information about the human past. Lastly, we propose a series of recommendations that should inform and ensure the comparability of future Ertebølle research, and present our review as a case study in zooarchaeological meta-analyses.
Este trabajo se centra en la ciudad de Barcino durante la Antigüedad Tardía, entre los siglos IV y VI d. C. Su objetivo es hacer una síntesis actualizada de los procesos de transformación que vive la ciudad en este marco temporal, así como ofrecer un nuevo aparato gráfico con el fin de ayudar en la comprensión de estas dinámicas. A nivel metodológico se ha recopilado y analizado la documentación más reciente y se ha tratado digitalmente la información gráfica en una propuesta de conjunto. Los resultados que se extraen son los de una ciudad que progresivamente irá aumentando su poder político y económico en el nordeste de la provincia Tarraconensis según avancemos en el período tardoantiguo. Por lo tanto, lejos de decaer es una ciudad poderosa en a antigüedad tardía, hasta llegar, en ciertos aspectos, a pasar por delante de Tarraco, la capital histórica de la provincia.
This paper is focused in late antique Barcino(Barcelona), between 4th to 6th centuries AD. Its aim is to update and summarize our knowledge about the city’s transformation processes in this temporal frame, as well as to offer a new graphical set in order to help to understand these dynamics. As concerns the method used, we have compiled and analyzed the latest information we have and digitally processed the graphical information in an overall approach. The acquired results concern a city that will gradually increase its political and economical power in the northeastern region of the Tarraconensis province as we go forward the late antique period. Accordingly, far from decay, it is a powerful city during Late Antiquity and, in some aspects, it will surpass Tarraco, the historical capital of the province.
Prehistoric archaeology, Auxiliary sciences of history
Concepción Torres Navas, Javier Baena Preysler, Antonio Morgado Rodríguez
et al.
En el verano de 2011 se iniciaron trabajos de sondeo en la cueva del Higueral-Guardia (Málaga, España). Los sondeos han determinado la existencia de una importante secuencia con niveles del Paleolítico Superior y Medio todavía en estudio. No obstante, la actividad perpetrada por los clandestinos en la cueva, ha limitado significativamente las posibilidades de interpretación de los niveles solutrenses. En este trabajo pretendemos, además de realizar una presentación preliminar de los datos obtenidos, establecer una discusión sobre el valor que este tipo de registros puede tener de cara a establecer interpretaciones de rango mayor. Aspectos como la intensidad de la ocupación, la diacronía del registro, o la funcionalidad del sitio son discutidos en este sentido.
In the summer of 2011 several test pits were made in the Higueral-Guardia Cave (Málaga, Spain). The sondages have determined the existence of an important Upper and Middle Paleolithic archaeological sequence, still under study. However, the illegal digging activity in the cave have significantly limited the possibilities of interpretation of the Solutrean levels. In this paper we present some preliminary results of the field work, and at the same time, establish a discussion about the value of such records in order to establish deeper anthropological interpretations. Aspects such as the intensity of the occupation, the diachronic value of the archaeological record, or the functionality of the site are discussed.
Prehistoric archaeology, Auxiliary sciences of history
Se presentan en este artículo dos sepulturas de la Edad del Bronce de Navarra (España) caracterizadas por su cámara de pequeño tamaño y su túmulo plano. Se ponen en relación con otros ejemplos del valle del Ebro, indicando su conexión regional entre la arquitectura de los sepulcros megalíticos y los crómlechs, tumbas de incineración de la Edad del Hierro.
The future demands on professional archaeological prospection will be its ability to cover large areas in a time and cost efficient
manner with very high spatial resolution and accuracy. The objective of the 2010 in Vienna established <i>Ludwig Boltzmann Institute
for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology</i>, in collaboration with its nine European partner organisations, is the
advancement of the state-of-the-art. This goal will be achieved by focusing on the development of remote sensing, geophysical
prospection and virtual reality applications. Main focus will be placed on novel integrated interpretation approaches combining
cutting-edge near-surface prospection methods with advanced computer science.
SummaryThere has been little attempt within archaeology to understand the social meanings specifically attached to old age, or the implications of the social construction of old age for the reconstruction of prehistoric social formations. This stems partly from the low social value placed upon the elderly in modern societies, which makes us tend to view them as irrelevant, and partly from the difficulty of accurately ageing the skeletons of older individuals, which can make them appear invisible in the archaeological record.A case study from the Traisental of Lower Austria is used to illustrate how the changing meanings of old age are recoverable from archaeological cemetery assemblages. Analysis of material culture patterning is combined with assessment of different forms of bodily degeneration to identify changes over time in the way that old age was socially recognized and the possibility that different kinds of bodily infirmity had very different social implications.