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How often, and in what contexts, have archaeologists discussed racism over the last four decades? Do societal events lead to sustained discussions of racism among the academic community? Here, the authors seek to answer these questions by applying computational text analysis methods to 68 176 abstracts from 41 meetings of the Society for American Archaeology. Discussions of racism are found to be rare--usually a passing mention in the context of broader social issues. Historical archaeologists have addressed racism more frequently than other archaeologists. The results form a baseline against which the discipline's engagement with racism as a research theme and with anti-racist strategies might be tracked. Keywords: computational text analysis, racism, academic discourse, Society for American Archaeology, history of archaeology, Introduction On 25 May 2020, George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Scenes of a White police officer kneeling on a Black man's neck ignited widespread protests, not [...]

Established chronologies indicate a long-term 'Hoabinhian' hunter-gatherer occupation of Mainland Southeast Asia during the Terminal Pleistocene to Mid-Holocene (45 000-3000 years ago). Here, the authors re-examine the 'Hoabinhian' sequence from north-west Thailand using new radiocarbon and luminescence data from Spirit Cave, Steep Cliff Cave and Banyan Valley Cave. The results indicate that hunter-gatherers exploited this ecologically diverse region throughout the Terminal Pleistocene and the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, and into the period during which agricultural lifeways emerged in the Holocene. Hunter-gatherers did not abandon this highland region of Thailand during periods of environmental and socioeconomic change. Keywords: Mainland Southeast Asia, Thailand, Pleistocene-Holocene transition, hunter-gatherer, radiocarbon offset, Introduction The highland regions of Mainland Southeast Asia are home to some of the earliest and longest records of hunter-gatherer activity. Recent studies from southern China indicate that hunter-gatherers had [...]

This article discusses the importance of incorporating ethics and societal impact considerations into data science research. It outlines 10 rules for building and maintaining a responsible data science workflow, including considering potential harms, questioning data inputs for biases and privacy concerns, and maintaining transparency and diversity in research teams. The article emphasizes the need for transparency, reproducibility, and documentation in data science research, as well as the use of open-source tools for detecting biases and unfairness. It acknowledges the challenges involved in implementing a responsible workflow but highlights the benefits for both the research team and the wider community. [Extracted from the article]

Excavations of pre-pottery levels at Gua Talimbue and Gua Sambagowala in Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia, have yielded nearly 4kg of baked-clay fragments, half of which exhibit intentional patterning. The fragments appear to derive from clay hearths. Here, the authors link the patterning on Early Holocene (c. 9900-8800 cal BP) fragments with the intention to enhance the appearance of the hearths ' rims. During the Mid/Late Holocene (c. 4500-2000 cal BP), patterning shifts to the interior surfaces. The effort and specialised skills required to impress patterns on these hearths is, to date, unique in the archaeology of 'pre-Neolithic Island Southeast Asia. Keywords: Island Southeast Asia, Sulawesi, Holocene, baked clay, hearths, Introduction The Neolithic of Island Southeast Asia was a transitional period between the c. 4000 BP (and earlier) forager societies associated with flaked-stone tools, and the c. 2000-1000 BP societies [...]

Levallois approaches are one of the best known variants of prepared-core technologies, and are an important hallmark of stone technologies developed around 300,000 years ago in Africa and west Eurasia.sup.1,2. Existing archaeological evidence suggests that the stone technology of east Asian hominins lacked a Levallois component during the late Middle Pleistocene epoch and it is not until the Late Pleistocene (around 40,000-30,000 years ago) that this technology spread into east Asia in association with a dispersal of modern humans. Here we present evidence of Levallois technology from the lithic assemblage of the Guanyindong Cave site in southwest China, dated to approximately 170,000-80,000 years ago. To our knowledge, this is the earliest evidence of Levallois technology in east Asia. Our findings thus challenge the existing model of the origin and spread of Levallois technologies in east Asia and its links to a Late Pleistocene dispersal of modern humans.Levallois stone-tool technology found at the Guanyindong Cave site in southwest China was dated to approximately 170,000-80,000 years ago, which is much earlier than previously thought., Author(s): Yue Hu [sup.1] , Ben Marwick [sup.1] [sup.2] , Jia-Fu Zhang [sup.3] , Xue Rui [sup.1] , Ya-Mei Hou [sup.4] [sup.5] , Jian-Ping Yue [sup.4] [sup.5] , Wen-Rong Chen [...]

Reynolds and Riede's (2019) call for caution in the use of cultural taxonomies in the study of stone artefact assemblages is welcome. In my contribution to this debate, I draw [...]

The time of arrival of people in Australia is an unresolved question. It is relevant to debates about when modern humans first dispersed out of Africa and when their descendants incorporated genetic material from Neanderthals, Denisovans and possibly other hominins. Humans have also been implicated in the extinction of Australias megafauna. Here we report the results of new excavations conducted at Madjedbebe, a rock shelter in northern Australia. Artefacts in primary depositional context are concentrated in three dense bands, with the stratigraphic integrity of the deposit demonstrated by artefact refits and by optical dating and other analyses of the sediments. Human occupation began around 65,000 years ago, with a distinctive stone tool assemblage including grinding stones, ground ochres, reflective additives and ground-edge hatchet heads. This evidence sets a new minimum age for the arrival of humans in Australia, the dispersal of modern humans out of Africa, and the subsequent interactions of modern humans with Neanderthals and Denisovans., Author(s): Chris Clarkson (corresponding author) [1]; Zenobia Jacobs (corresponding author) [2, 3]; Ben Marwick [3, 4]; Richard Fullagar [3]; Lynley Wallis [5]; Mike Smith [6]; Richard G. Roberts [2, 3]; [...]