Browse
Recent Submissions
Item Cosmology intertwined: a review of the particle physics, astrophysics, and cosmology associated with the cosmological tensions and anomalies(Elsevier BV, 2022-06) Abdalla, Elcio; Abellán, Guillermo Franco; Aboubrahim, Amin; Agnello, Adriano; Akarsu, Özgür; Akrami, Yashar; Alestas, George; Aloni, Daniel; Amendola, Luca; Anchordoqui, Luis A.; Anderson, Richard I.; Arendse, Nikki; Asgari, Marika; Ballardini, Mario; Barger, Vernon; Basilakos, Spyros; Batista, Ronaldo C.; Battistelli, Elia S.; Battye, Richard; Benetti, Micol; Benisty, David; Berlin, Asher; de Bernardis, Paolo; Berti, Emanuele; Bidenko, Bohdan; Birrer, Simon; Blakeslee, John P.; Boddy, Kimberly K.; Bom, Clecio R.; Bonilla, Alexander; Borghi, Nicola; Bouchet, François R.; Braglia, Matteo; Buchert, Thomas; Buckley-Geer, Elizabeth; Calabrese, Erminia; Caldwell, Robert R.; Camarena, David; Capozziello, Salvatore; Casertano, Stefano; Chen, Geoff C.-F.; Chluba, Jens; Chen, Angela; Chen, Hsin-Yu; Chudaykin, Anton; Cicoli, Michele; Copi, Craig J.; Courbin, Fred; Cyr-Racine, Francis-Yan; Czerny, Bożena; Dainotti, Maria; D'Amico, Guido; Davis, Anne-Christine; de Cruz Pérez, Javier; de Haro, Jaume; Delabrouille, Jacques; Denton, Peter B.; Dhawan, Suhail; Dienes, Keith R.; Di Valentino, Eleonora; Du, Pu; Eckert, Dominique; Escamilla-Rivera, Celia; Ferté, Agnès; Finelli, Fabio; Fosalba, Pablo; Freedman, Wendy L.; Frusciante, Noemi; Gaztañaga, Enrique; Giarè, William; Giusarma, Elena; Gómez-Valent, Adrià; Handley, Will; Harrison, Ian; Hart, Luke; Hazra, Dhiraj Kumar; Heavens, Alan; Heinesen, Asta; Hildebrandt, Hendrik; Hill, J. Colin; Hogg, Natalie B.; Holz, Daniel E.; Hooper, Deanna C.; Hosseininejad, Nikoo; Huterer, Dragan; Ishak, Mustapha; Ivanov, Mikhail M.; Jaffe, Andrew H.; Jang, In Sung; Jedamzik, Karsten; Jimenez, Raul; Joseph, Melissa; Joudaki, Shahab; Kamionkowski, Marc; Karwal, Tanvi; Kazantzidis, Lavrentios; Keeley, Ryan E.; Klasen, Michael; Komatsu, Eiichiro; Koopmans, Léon V.E.; Kumar, Suresh; Lamagna, Luca; Lazkoz, Ruth; Lee, Chung-Chi; Lesgourgues, Julien; Levi Said, Jackson; Lewis, Tiffany R.; L'Huillier, Benjamin; Lucca, Matteo; Maartens, Roy; Macri, Lucas M.; Marfatia, Danny; Marra, Valerio; Martins, Carlos JAP; Masi, Silvia; Matarrese, Sabino; Mazumdar, Arindam; Melchiorri, Alessandro; Mena, Olga; Mersini-Houghton, Laura; Mertens, James; Milaković, Dinko; Minami, Yuto; Miranda, Vivian; Moreno-Pulido, Cristian; Moresco, Michele; Mota, David F.; Mottola, Emil; Mozzon, Simone; Muir, Jessica; Mukherjee, Ankan; Mukherjee, Suvodip; Naselsky, Pavel; Nath, Pran; Nesseris, Savvas; Niedermann, Florian; Notari, Alessio; Nunes, Rafael C.; Ó Colgáin, Eoin; Owens, Kayla A.; Özülker, Emre; Pace, Francesco; Paliathanasis, Andronikos; Palmese, Antonella; Pan, Supriya; Paoletti, Daniela; Perez Bergliaffa, Santiago E.; Perivolaropoulos, Leandros; Pesce, Dominic W.; Pettorino, Valeria; Philcox, Oliver H.E.; Pogosian, Levon; Poulin, Vivian; Poulot, Gaspard; Raveri, Marco; Reid, Mark J.; Renzi, Fabrizio; Riess, Adam G.; Sabla, Vivian I.; Salucci, Paolo; Salzano, Vincenzo; Saridakis, Emmanuel N.; Sathyaprakash, Bangalore S.; Schmaltz, Martin; Schöneberg, Nils; Scolnic, Dan; Sen, Anjan A.; Sehgal, Neelima; Shafieloo, Arman; Sheikh-Jabbari, M.M.; Silk, Joseph; Silvestri, Alessandra; Skara, Foteini; Sloth, Martin S.; Soares-Santos, Marcelle; Solà Peracaula, Joan; Songsheng, Yu-Yang; Soriano, Jorge F.; Staicova, Denitsa; Starkman, Glenn D.; Szapudi, István; Teixeira, Elsa M.; Thomas, Brooks; Treu, Tommaso; Trott, Emery; van de Bruck, Carsten; Vazquez, J. Alberto; Verde, Licia; Visinelli, Luca; Wang, Deng; Wang, Jian-Min; Wang, Shao-Jiang; Watkins, Richard; Watson, Scott; Webb, John K.; Weiner, Neal; Weltman, Amanda; Witte, Samuel J.; Wojtak, Radosław; Yadav, Anil Kumar; Yang, Weiqiang; Zhao, Gong-Bo; Zumalacárregui, MiguelItem Burned by the fire: isotopic effects of experimental combustion of faunal tooth enamel(Elsevier BV, 2020-12) Robinson, Joshua R.; Kingston, John D.Paleoenvironmental reconstructions of hominin fossil localities and archaeological sites are a critical component of understanding the selective pressures involved in the biological and behavioral evolution of our ancestors. Increasingly, these reconstructions are based on the carbon and oxygen stable isotope (δ13Cenamel and δ18Oenamel) composition of herbivore tooth enamel from these sites. Although tooth enamel is subject to diagenetic processes, it is generally assumed to be a refractory substrate that retains the in vivo isotopic signal during fossilization. However, the effects of burning, for which there is extensive evidence, on the isotopic composition of herbivore tooth enamel is often overlooked. Here, the consequences of burning on δ13Cenamel and δ18Oenamel values of five African herbivore taxa are directly tested in a series of controlled combustion experiments up to 1100 °C. Results suggest that δ13Cenamel values are minimally affected by burning up to 700 °C for all taxa, and up to 1100 °C for all but the thin-enameled Madoqua (dik-dik). δ18Oenamel values, on the other hand, are significantly altered at temperatures beyond 300 °C for all taxa, with enamel becoming increasingly and systematically 18O depleted at higher temperatures. This is suggestive of a temperature-dependent biochemical process of exchange with atmospheric oxygen. These results suggest that while δ13Cenamel values from burned teeth are potentially reliable for typical hearth temperatures, strong caution is needed when interpreting δ18Oenamel values from context with evidence of extensive burning.Item Neanderthal plant use and pyrotechnology: phytolith analysis from Roc de Marsal, France(Springer Nature Switzerland AG, 2019-08) Wroth, Kristen; Cabanes, Dan; Marston, John M.; Aldeias, Vera; Sandgathe, Dennis; Turq, Alain; Goldberg, Paul; Dibble, Harold L.The plant component of Neanderthal subsistence and technology is not well documented, partially due to the preservation constraints of macrobotanical components. Phytoliths, however, are preserved even when other plant remains have decayed and so provide evidence for Neanderthal plant use and the environmental context of archaeological sites. Phytolith assemblages from Roc de Marsal, a Middle Paleolithic cave site in SW France, provide new insight into the relationship between Neanderthals and plant resources. Ninety-seven samples from all archaeological units and 18 control samples are analyzed. Phytoliths from the wood and bark of dicotyledonous plants are the most prevalent, but there is also a significant proportion of grass phytoliths in many samples. Phytolith densities are much greater in earlier layers, which is likely related to the presence of combustion features in those layers. These phytoliths indicate a warmer, wetter climate, whereas phytoliths from upper layers indicate a cooler, drier environment. Phytoliths recovered from combustion features indicate that wood was the primary plant fuel source, while grasses may have been used as surface preparations.Item Zenon’s flour: grains of truth from Tel Kedesh(Biblical Archaeology Society, 2019-11-01) Berlin, AndreaAccording to one of the Zenon papyri, In 259 BCE the Ptolemaic courier Zenon stopped at the site of Kedesh, located today in northern Israel, to pick up some flour. In our excavations at this site from 1999-2011, we uncovered an enormous public administrative building with several storerooms filled with large jars. In one room fourteen locally made storage jars lined the walls. Phytoliths taken from the jars turned out to be identifiable as Triticum aestivum, commonly known as bread wheat. This may allow a scientific identification of “Syrian wheat,” a strain first mentioned in third century BCE Egyptian papyri as part of a package of agricultural innovations introduced by Ptolemy II Philadelphus.Item Multiple ways of understanding Peru's changing climate(University of Minnesota, 2019) Bria, Rebecca; Walter, DorisItem A Holocene paleoenvironmental record based on ungulate stable isotopes from Lukenya Hill, Kenya(Elsevier BV, 2019-12) Robinson, Joshua R.Investigating the development of Holocene behavioral adaptations requires knowing how and why different human groups are distributed on the landscape. An expanded dataset of site-specific environmental and habitat reconstructions from eastern Africa are crucial contextual components necessary for pushing this line of inquiry forward. This paper provides localized paleoenvironmental data from Holocene deposits at the multi-site Lukenya Hill archaeological complex on the Athi-Kapiti Plains of Kenya. Lukenya Hill preserves two temporal units, an early-mid Holocene (~9.0–4.6 ka) and a late Holocene (~2.3–1.2 ka), which span the end of the African Humid Period and the onset of late Holocene aridification. Carbon isotope analysis of herbivore tooth enamel (n = 22) indicates an increase in open grasslands over time with the early-mid Holocene having a woodier signal than the late Holocene and Recent populations in the Athi ecosystem. This pattern deviates from local environmental sequences in the Lake Victoria and Lake Turkana basins, providing additional evidence of heterogeneous habitat conditions during the Holocene of eastern Africa. The expansion of locally specific paleoecological datasets in eastern Africa allows for an examination of the role climate and ecology played in human economic and behavioral development during the Holocene.Item Glass vessels from the Persian and Hellenistic Administrative Building at Tel Kedesh, Israel(Association International pour l'Histoire du Verre, 2017) Larson, Katherine A.; Berlin, Andrea; Herbert, SharonItem James C. R. Gill, Dakhleh Oasis and the Western Desert of Egypt under the Ptolemies(2017) Berlin, AndreaItem Digging up dinner: gastronomical archaeology(2017-02-24) Beaudry, Mary C.Global Food+ 2017 is an event open to all that will feature an afternoon of “speed talk” presentations by two dozen top scholars in the Boston area. This event will highlight current research findings at the important nexus between food, agriculture, health, society, and the environment. The twenty-four presenters include scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including anthropology, economics, political science, history, sociology, engineering, biology, and environmental sciences. Each will deliver a seven-minute summary of his or her most recent research findings. The topics covered will include cultural practices and veganism, irrigation and food security, farm subsidies, GMOs, cropland productivity and climate change, food contamination, food waste, the environmental consequences of meat consumption, and rural poverty in Africa.Item Ends and beginnings: political change and daily life at Sardis in Late Classical and Early Hellenistic times(Peeters) Berlin, AndreaThe fame of Sardis is tied to its history as a royal city, beginning in the 7th century BC and continuing down into the 3rd century BC, when the city was made the capital of the Seleucid province of Cis-Tauric Asia. This glittering resume highlights political eras and focuses attention on the lives of well-connected elites – but at the same time obscures the lives of regular people. This dichotomy inspires a question: can we identify a connection between changing political regimes and everyday life? Three assemblages of household pottery from Sardis provide evidence to answer this question. The first dates to ca. 350 BC, the second to the late 4th/early 3rd century BC and the third to the mid-3rd century BC. A close look allows us to see that it was not until the mid-3rd century BC that those two spheres – politics and daily life – meshed for everyday Sardians.Item Collaborative and competitive strategies in the variability and resiliency of large-scale societies in Mesoamerica(Wiley, 2018-01-05) Carballo, David M.; Feinman, Gary M.Examinations of the variation and duration of past large-scale societies have long involved a conceptual struggle between efforts at generalization and the unraveling of specific trajectories. Although historical particulars are critical to understanding individual cases, there exist both scientific and policy rationales for drawing broader implications regarding the growing corpus of cross-cultural data germane to understanding variability in the constitution of human societies, past and present. Archaeologists have recently paid increased attention to successes and failures in communal-resource management over the long term, as articulated by the transdisciplinary theory on cooperation and collective action. In this article, we consider frameworks that have been traditionally employed in studies of the rise, diversity, and fall of large-scale preindustrial aggregations. We suggest that a comparative theoretical perspective that foregrounds collective-action problems, unaligned individual and group interests, and the social mechanisms that promote or hamper cooperation advances our understanding of variability in these early cooperative arrangements. We apply such a perspective to an examination of cities from pre-Columbian Mesoamerica to demonstrate tendencies for more collective systems to be larger and longer lasting than less collective ones, likely reflecting greater resiliency in the face of the ecological and cultural perturbations specific to the region and era.Item Aztec obsidian industries(Oxford University Press, 2016) Pastrana, Alejandro; Carballo, David M.Obsidian was the primary lithic or stone material used for cutting activities in Aztec society, including domestic food production, craft production, hunting, warfare, and ritual. The demands of millions of consumers within and outside of the Aztec Empire shaped a diversity of industries and distribution networks that operated through merchants, markets, and state taxes in goods and labor. This chapter provides an overview of the primary obsidian sources, quarry activities, artifact types, use contexts, and innovations in lithic technology during the Aztec (Middle and Late Postclassic) period. A particular focus is the Sierra de Las Navajas (or Pachuca) mine and the detailed history of quarrying and manufacturing activities that have been documented there.Item Los juegos de pelota en el Altiplano Central de México(Editorial Raices, 2017) Carballo, David M.Los juegos de pelota más antiguos de Mesoamérica se encuentran en las Tierras Bajas; sin embargo, los habitantes del Altiplano Central adoptaron y construyeron canchas formales desde principios del Preclásico Medio. En periodos posteriores, el predominio de canchas varió según el sitio, los contactos regionales y las tendencias sociopolíticas más generales. Las canchas de juegos de pelota fueron particularmente numerosas en Puebla y Tlaxcala hacia finales del periodo Preclásico, y abundantes durante el Epiclásico en todo el Altiplano Central de México. Las mejores descripciones de cómo se jugó pelota en toda Mesoamérica durante los tiempos prehispánicos provienen de documentos del siglo xvi, del Altiplano; incluso el juego fue llevado a España por Cortés.Item The Mixtecs of Oaxaca: Ancient Times to the Present(2015-12) Carballo, David M.Item Del preclásico al epiclásico en Tlaxcala(Raíces, 2016) Carballo, David M.En los dos milenios que abarcan los periodos Preclásico (o Formativo), Clásico y Epiclásico en Tlaxcala (1600 a.C.-900 d.C.) se dieron significativos desarrollos que incluyen la transición a la agricultura, la formalización de tradiciones religiosas, la urbanización, el auge y el colapso de estados, y la migración. Visto desde la perspectiva de Tlaxcala, ese periodo incluyó el florecimiento de centros regionales durante el Preclásico, un estancamiento durante el Clásico y un segundo florecimiento durante el Epiclásico.Item La casa en Mesoamerica(Editorial Raices, 2016) Carballo, David M.Tanto en la Mesoamérica prehispánica como en los pueblos indígenas actuales, las familias se definen por medio de sus casas físicas –animadas por rituales de consagración y comunión. Se definen también por sus actividades laborales dentro del grupo doméstico y por las relaciones cooperativas y comunitarias entre tales grupos. Por lo tanto, la arqueología de la casa y de la vida cotidiana ayuda a comprender la variabilidad entre familias e individuos respecto a su género, edad, subsistencia, ocupación, estatus, redes sociales y creencias fundamentales, en fin, la base de la sociedad y de la historia. Los pueblos prehispánicos de Mesoamérica se organizaron en una amplia gama de unidades domésticas; los textos que conforman esta edición proporcionan una visión actualizada de la casa y la cotidianidad mesoamericana.Item Cooperation, collective action, and the archeology of large-scale societies(2016-11) Carballo, David M.; Feinman, Gary M.Archeologists investigating the emergence of large-scale societies in the past have renewed interest in examining the dynamics of cooperation as a means of understanding societal change and organizational variability within human groups over time. Unlike earlier approaches to these issues, which used models designated voluntaristic or managerial, contemporary research articulates more explicitly with frameworks for cooperation and collective action used in other fields, thereby facilitating empirical testing through better definition of the costs, benefits, and social mechanisms associated with success or failure in coordinated group action. Current scholarship is nevertheless bifurcated along lines of epistemology and scale, which is understandable but problematic for forging a broader, more transdisciplinary field of cooperation studies. Here, we point to some areas of potential overlap by reviewing archeological research that places the dynamics of social cooperation and competition in the foreground of the emergence of large-scale societies, which we define as those having larger populations, greater concentrations of political power, and higher degrees of social inequality. We focus on key issues involving the communal-resource management of subsistence and other economic goods, as well as the revenue flows that undergird political institutions. Drawing on archeological cases from across the globe, with greater detail from our area of expertise in Mesoamerica, we offer suggestions for strengthening analytical methods and generating more transdisciplinary research programs that address human societies across scalar and temporal spectra.Item Lithic economies and community organization at La Laguna, Tlaxcala(2016) Walton, David P.; Carballo, David M.Site-wide, assemblage-based lithic analyses help to elucidate community dynamics including variability in domestic economies, technological skill and decision making, exchange networks, and ritual practices. In this study we present the results of an analysis of over 36,000 lithic artifacts from the site of La Laguna, Tlaxcala. We compare Middle to Late Formative period (ca. 600–400 b.c.) and Terminal Formative period (ca. 100 b.c.–a.d. 150) deposits to examine transformations associated with urbanization and state formation during this interval. The residents of La Laguna had relatively equal and ample access to obsidian, and most production was organized independently by households. We identify blade production zones and variability in consumption patterns suggestive of different domestic, communal, and ceremonial activities. The introduction of bloodletters, elaborate large bifacial knives, and zoomorphic eccentrics to the Terminal Formative assemblage may indicate the emergence of higher statuses, new social roles, and militaristic symbolism during this period.Item Rural agricultural economies and military provisioning at Roman Gordion (Central Turkey)(Routledge, 2017-10-11) Çakırlar, Canan; Marston, John M.Roman Gordion, on the Anatolian plateau, is the only excavated rural military settlement in a pacified territory in the Roman East, providing a unique opportunity to investigate the agricultural economy of a permanent Roman garrison. We present combined results of archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological analyses, assessing several hypotheses regarding Roman military provisioning. The garrison adapted its dietary preferences to local agricultural systems, but maintained its traditional meat supply of pork, beef, and chickens as well. There is evidence for economic interdependence with local farmers and cattle herders, self- sufficiency in pork and chicken production, and complex relationships with autonomous sheep and goat herders who pursued their own economic goals. If the Roman military in Gordion exercised a command economy, they were able to implement that control only on specific components of the agricultural sector, especially cereal farming. The sheep and goat herding system remained unaltered, targeting secondary products for a market economy and/or broader provincial taxation authorities. The garrison introduced new elements to the animal economy of the Gordion region, including a new pig husbandry system. Comparison with contemporary non-military settlements suggests both similarities and differences with urban meat economies of Roman Anatolia.Item Bridging prehistory and history in the archaeology of cities(Many Publishing, 2015-10) Carballo, David M.; Fortenberry, BrentArchaeology is ideally suited for examining the deep roots of urbanism, its materialization and physicality, and the commonalities and variability in urban experiences cross-culturally and temporally. We propose that the significant advances archaeologists have made in situating the discipline within broader urban studies could be furthered through increased dialog between scholars working on urbanism during prehistoric and historical periods, as a means of bridging concerns in the study of the past and present. We review some major themes in urban studies by presenting archaeological cases from two areas of the Americas: central Mexico and Atlantic North America. Our cases span premodern and early modern periods, and three of the four covered in greatest depth live on as cities of today. Comparison of the cases highlights the complementarity of their primary datasets: the long developmental trajectories and relatively intact urban plans offered by many prehistoric cities, and the rich documentary sources offered by historic cities.