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Personal ornaments have become a key cultural proxy to investigate cognitive evolution, modern human dispersal, and population dynamics. Here, we reassess personal ornaments found at Zhoukoudian Upper Cave and compare them with those from other Late Paleolithic Northern Chinese sites. We reappraise the information provided by Pei Wen Chung on Upper Cave personal ornaments lost during World War II and analyze casts of 17 of them, along with two unpublished objects displayed at the Zhoukoudian Site Museum and three original perforated teeth rediscovered at the Zhoukoudian Site Museum. We apply archeozoological, technological and use-wear analyses to document variation in ornamental practices and their change throughout the site stratigraphy. Badger, fox, red deer, sika deer, marten, and tiger teeth as well as carp bone, bird bone, Anadara shell, limestone beads, and perforated pebble appear to have been the preferred objects used as ornaments by Upper Cave visitors. Multivariate analysis of technological data highlights a correspondence between cultural layers and perforation techniques, with radial incising being typical of layer L2 and bidirectional incising of L4. The three rediscovered badger canines display features suggesting they were sewed on clothing rather than suspended from necklaces or bracelets. Elemental scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spectromety and mineralogical (μ-Raman) analyses of red residues adhering to the rediscovered teeth indicate these objects were originally coated with ochre and identify variations that match differences in technology. The two ornaments exhibited at the Zhoukoudian Site Museum are ancient teeth that were recently perforated and should be excluded from the Upper Cave assemblage. A seriation of Late Paleolithic ornaments found at Northern Chinese sites identifies a clear-cut difference in preferred ornament types between western and eastern sites, interpreted as reflecting two long-lasting traditions in garment symbolic codes. acceptedVersion

The aqueduct of Les Ferreres is a major element of the Archaeological Ensemble of Tarraco. Although the ashlars of the aqueduct are stacked without mortar, lime was used in some parts and lime was certainly used in later repairs. Worthy of note is a coating mortar used in a well-documented restoration (1854–1856). In this study, a limekiln found near the Roman aqueduct has been archaeomagnetically dated to determine if it was used for the construction of the aqueduct or in later repairs. The mean values for the measured archaeomagnetic direction from the limekiln were compared with two different archaeomagnetic models (SCHA.DIF.3k and GUMF1), and both indicate that the limekiln is modern with ages only slightly older than the well-documented restoration. The extensive use of the coating mortar in that restoration is consistent with the need of onsite lime production. Additional archaeomagnetic intensity has not contributed to constrain further the obtained archaeomagnetic age but the intensity datum can be added to archaeomagnetic intensity datasets to enhance geomagnetic intensity field models. The paper illustrates how archaeomagnetic dating can be useful to characterize secondary structures of major cultural heritage monuments. © 2020, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.

African Middle Stone Age (MSA) populations used pigments, manufactured and wore personal ornaments, made abstract engravings, and produced fully shaped bone tools. However, ongoing research across Africa reveals variability in the emergence of cultural innovations in the MSA and their subsequent development through the Later Stone Age (LSA). When present, it appears that cultural innovations manifest regional variability, suggestive of distinct cultural traditions. In eastern Africa, several Late Pleistocene sites have produced evidence for novel activities, but the chronologies of key behavioral innovations remain unclear. The 3 m deep, well-dated, Panga ya Saidi sequence in eastern Kenya, encompassing 19 layers covering a time span of 78 kyr beginning in late Marine Isotope Stage 5, is the only known African site recording the interplay between cultural and ecological diversity in a coastal forested environment. Excavations have yielded worked and incised bones, ostrich eggshell beads (OES), beads made from seashells, worked and engraved ocher pieces, fragments of coral, and a belemnite fossil. Here, we provide, for the first time, a detailed analysis of this material. This includes a taphonomic, archeozoological, technological, and functional study of bone artifacts; a technological and morphometric analysis of personal ornaments; and a technological and geochemical analysis of ocher pieces. The interpretation of the results stemming from the analysis of OES beads is guided by an ethnoarcheological perspective and field observations. We demonstrate that key cultural innovations on the eastern African coast are evident by 67 ka and exhibit remarkable diversity through the LSA and Iron Age. We suggest the cultural trajectories evident at Panga ya Saidi were shaped by both regional traditions and cultural/demic diffusion. acceptedVersion

Lumps of mineral pigments are the more widespread archaeological remains found at Mousterian sites that may have been used by Neanderthals for symbolic activities. The characterisation of their chemical composition is essential to identify behavioural consistencies in their selection, transformation, and use, reconstruct changes through time in Neanderthals cultural practices, and discuss the emergence of symbolic cultures. In the Dordogne department of France, hundreds of black lumps, often bearing traces of intentional modification, were recovered at Middle (MP) and Upper Palaeolithic (UP) sites. In this paper we apply particle-induced X-ray emission (PIXE) to a representative sample of black lumps recovered at three MP and four UP sites as well as eight geological outcrops from this region with the aim of using major, minor, and trace elements content to identify potential sources and explore intra- and inter-site variability in the use of black colouring matter. Results suggest that MP and UP communities systematically searched for and surveyed Mn-rich formations to collect Mn-rich lumps. Differences in composition indicate that archaeological lumps were collected at a number of different outcrops, not sampled in the present study. A higher compositional variability is observed at UP compared to MP sites with single cultural layers. This suggests that UP modern humans may have, in some cases, exploited a wider range of Mn-rich sources than Mousterian Neanderthals.

Beads are a communication technology used by humans to transmit information on the wearer identity to members of the same or neighbouring groups by means of a shared symbolic language. Here we focus on the earliest evidence from Eastern Asia of a communication technology – the production of artificially coloured beads – that has allowed humans to further complexify the messages conveyed by personal ornaments, and associate, to some extent, the performance characteristics of beads and pigment. We study six ochred ostrich eggshell beads (OESB) from Shuidonggou Locality 2 (SDG2), Cultural Layer (CL) 2, China, dated to c. 31 kyr cal BP. Analysis of the beads manufacturing technique, size, and wear, combined with SEM-EDS and µ-Raman spectroscopy (µ-RS) study of well-preserved red residues sampled on the beads and sediment from CL2 indicate that these beads come from body ornaments and that red residues are the remnant of a pigmented compound coating the beads at the time they were worn by the SDG Palaeolithic visitors. SDG2-CL2 red stained OESBs thus represent, with the red stained bone disk from Xiaogushan, the earliest consistent evidence of pigment use for symbolic activities from China. Results also identify variations in the composition of the pigmental compound used to colour the beads that closely match differences in bead technology, size, and style. We argue that such a hitherto unknown consistency in bead production and decoration may reflect technological, morphological, and pigment coating standardisation at the individual level, standardisation in technology associated with variation in morphology and pigment at the group level, and substantial differences in these three domains at inter-group level.

Ochre is a common feature at Middle Stone Age (MSA) sites and has often been interpreted as a proxy for the origin of modern behaviour. However, few ochre processing tools, ochre containers, and ochre-stained artefacts from MSA contexts have been studied in detail within a theoretical framework aimed at inferring the technical steps involved in the acquisition, production and use of these artefacts. Here we analyse 21 ochre processing tools, i.e. upper and lower grindstones, and two ochre-stained artefacts from the MSA layers of Porc-Epic Cave, Dire Dawa, Ethiopia, dated to ca. 40 cal kyr BP. These tools, and a large proportion of the 4213 ochre fragments found at the site, were concentrated in an area devoted to ochre processing. Lower grindstones are made of a variety of raw materials, some of which are not locally available. Traces of use indicate that different techniques were employed to process ochre. Optical microscopy, XRD, μ-Raman spectroscopy, and SEM-EDS analyses of residues preserved on worn areas of artefacts show that different types of ferruginous rocks were processed in order to produce ochre powder of different coarseness and shades. A round stone bearing no traces of having been used to process ochre is half covered with residues as if it had been dipped in a liquid ochered medium to paint the object or to use it as a stamp to apply pigment to a soft material. We argue that the ochre reduction sequences identified at Porc-Epic Cave reflect a high degree of behavioural complexity, and represent ochre use, which was probably devoted to a variety of functions.

The red disks from El Castillo Cave are among the earliest known cave paintings. Here, we combine the morphometric and technological study of red disks from two areas located at the end of the cave with the microscopic, elemental, and mineralogical analysis of the pigment and compare the results obtained with observations derived from experimental replication. Ergonomic constraints imply that a number of disks were made by adults, and the differences in pigment texture and composition suggest that they correspond to an accumulation through time of panels made by different persons who shared neither the same technical know-how nor, very possibly, the same symbolic system.