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Excavations at Hacımusalar Höyük in southwestern Turkey have uncovered thousands of years of occupation history, from the Early Bronze Age through the Late Byzantine era. This article offers a general survey of the Bronze Age occupation levels so far explored on the northern and western slopes of the mound, with particular focus on two well-preserved Early Bronze II destruction levels, closely superimposed. We present selected finds and architectural features from each stratigraphic level in sequence and discuss their significance for current theories of cultural interaction and social organization in West Anatolia in the Early Bronze Age. This new evidence indicates that Hacımusalar Höyük and the Elmalı plain were more connected with other parts of Anatolia than recent studies of Early Bronze Age cultural zones suggest but still maintained a distinctive regional character.

We report additional fossil evidence for pygoscelid penguins breeding on King George (25 de Mayo) Island, South Shetland Islands, in the Holocene beginning at ~7000 cal. yr BP. This evidence comes from a raised marine beach deposit formerly studied and described as Pingfo I at Stranger Point, Potter Peninsula. We relocated and exposed deposits at this site and recovered additional samples of penguin bones from five stratigraphic beds that are redescribed here. Most of these bones are from juvenile penguins and exhibit little or no wear indicating minimal transport to the beach deposits. Some of the bones are developed enough to be identifiable to Adélie ( Pygoscelis adeliae), Gentoo ( Pygoscelis papua), and Chinstrap ( Pygoscelis antarctica) penguins, indicating that all three species were breeding at Stranger Point from ~7320 to 4865 cal. yr BP. This breeding occupation corresponds with the first warming and deglaciation that occurred in the northern Antarctic Peninsula by this time and ends with the onset of reglaciation of the Peninsula. At least 31 abandoned penguin mounds and ornithogenic soils also were located and sampled at Stranger Point and indicate that the current occupation of this area by all three pygoscelid penguins dates no older than ~535 cal. yr BP. The absence of ornithogenic soils from earlier Holocene breeding was probably due to glacial activity and soil solifluction during periods of warming in the mid to late Holocene.

Umhlatuzana rockshelter has an occupation sequence spanning the last 70,000 years. It is one of the few sites with deposits covering the Middle to Later Stone Age transition (~40,000–30,000 years BP) in southern Africa. Comprehending the site’s depositional history and occupation sequence is thus important for the broader understanding of the development of Homo sapiens’ behavior. The rockshelter was first excavated in the 1980s by Jonathan Kaplan. He suggested that the integrity of the late Middle Stone Age and Later Stone Age sediments was compromised by large-scale sediment movement. In 2018, we initiated a high-resolution geoarchaeological study of the site to clarify the site formation processes. Here, we present the results of the excavation and propose a revised stratigraphic division of the Pleistocene sequence based on field observations, sedimentological (particle size) analyses, and cluster analysis. The taphonomy of the site is assessed through phytolith and geochemical (pH, loss on ignition, stable carbon isotope) analyses. The results indicate a consistent sedimentological environment characterized by in situ weathering. The analysis of the piece-plotted finds demonstrates semihorizontal layering of archaeologically dense zones and more sterile ones. There was no indication of large-scale postdepositional sediment movement. We show that the low-density archaeological horizons in the upper part of the Pleistocene sequence are best explained by the changing patterns of sedimentation rate.

This paper presents a series of 25 previously unpublished radiocarbon dates from the oppidum of San Cibran de Las, one of the most important and thoroughly excavated Iron Age sites in the NW Iberian Peninsula. These 14C dates are discussed on the basis of a Bayesian analysis. The results reveal a much longer occupation history of the site than previously thought. Moreover, the data offer new light into the much-debated question of the origin of the large fortified sites known as oppida in the region. The evidence from San Cibran de Las clearly suggests a pre-Roman origin for at least some of the oppida, thus challenging traditional interpretations about the origins of urbanism in northern Iberia.

Recently a cremation cemetery was excavated at the site of Wijnegem where 29 cremation graves and 9 funerary monuments were uncovered. Thirty radiocarbon (14C) dates were carried out, mostly on cremated bone but also 10 charcoal samples were dated. Twenty-four cremations were studied. Four ring ditches were dated by charcoal samples from the infill of the ditch. The 14C dates showed an interesting long-term occupation of the cemetery. Different phases were ascertained. The history of the cemetery starts in the northern part of the site around a circular funerary monument. Two cremations were dated at the transition of the Early to Middle Bronze Ages. Two other graves represent the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Ages. The main occupation period dates between the end of the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. Finally, an isolated cremation grave marks the definite abandonment of the site during the Late Iron Age.

This paper reports on the typological and archaeometallurgical studies of an assemblage of long forgotten but often misidentified metallurgical crucibles and moulds from Great Zimbabwe's century old archive. It exposes that specialised crucibles, non-specialised crucibles (common pottery), as well as an eclectic assortment of moulds, were primarily used to hold the melt and to form ingots during non-ferrous metallurgical operations, throughout the site's occupation history (1000–1700 CE). The moulds appear in different types, some elongated but others more circular as if they were used to produce small gold ‘buttons’. Available records indicate that the various types of metallurgical ceramics were often found in the same stratigraphic contexts as domestic debris. The characterisation of the crucible fabrics and attached slags suggest that while the two types of crucibles were made using local granitic clays, they were also used to process similar metals and alloys, but sometimes representing different stages in the chaine operatoire . This raises significant questions relating to the techno-cultural choices behind the typological variation, if the intention of their producers and users, was to work the same metals and alloys.

Recent excavations at the site of Barcın Höyük provide a detailed view of a settlement founded and inhabited during the early stages of the Neolithic of the Marmara Region of northwestern Anatolia. The occupation history of the site complements and extends further back in time the regional sequence as it had been established for the eastern Marmara Region on the basis of excavations at nearby Mentese, Aktopraklık and Ilıpınar, and Fikirtepe and Pendik in the Istanbul environs. The site of Barcın Höyük is therefore of critical importance for our understanding of the initial neolithisation of northwestern Anatolia. This paper summarizes some of the main findings of the Barcın Höyük excavations with regard to the Neolithic occupation phases.

Palaeoecological and geoarchaeological investigations which cover the Anglo-Saxon period are rare, particularly in chalk downland landscapes which are considered to have limited palaeoenvironmental potential. The present study explores a sequence which can be directly related to the occupation history of the major Anglo-Saxon settlement at Lyminge, Kent. This work demonstrated a sequence of palaeochannels and organic deposits associated with the latter part of an archaeological sequence which spans the 5th to the 11th centuries AD. A range of evidence for the environment and economic activity is presented which suggests landscape continuity, possibly stretching back as far as the Romano-British period. The sequence revealed worked wood and evidence for livestock management and cereal cultivation, some of which is contemporary with the final phases of occupation of a 7th century ‘great hall complex’ and its subsequent transformation into a royal monastery. Agricultural activity following the abando...

The settlement of high-altitude uplands by early agropastoralists demanded specific kinds of social and economic adaptation. Upland valley systems in north-west Argentina were used extensively during the Formative period (200 BC to AD 850). New investigations of the alluvial fans of the Tafi Valley show how the occupation history of the region developed across time and space, demonstrating remarkable stability over 1000 years of agropastoral exploitation. The dense but scattered distribution of early farmers across this landscape highlights household continuity through a period of regional population growth.

This paper presents the first detailed record of Paleoeskimo occupation history of Foxe Basin, Nunavut, Arctic Canada, the traditional Paleoeskimo “core area.” Rather than continuous, stable occupations from approximately 4000–1000 B.P. traditionally assumed for the core area, the region has undergone a series of demographic oscillations, including several instances of abandonment of key areas, most notably Igloolik. The Foxe Basin demographic trends are reminiscent of Paleoeskimo “boom and bust” cycles recognized elsewhere, but show no consistent chronological pattern either within Foxe Basin or inter-regionally. Equally important, our results bear on the critical question of the Pre-Dorset to Dorset transition. Rather than having been a gradual in situ process centered within the core area, the demographic patterns, including the abrupt and widespread appearance of semi-subterranean dwellings during earliest Dorset, are consistent with newly arrived populations from outside of Foxe Basin. While there is no obvious “parent” culture to Dorset within the Eastern Arctic, it is suggested that a Western Arctic origin, specifically Norton Culture, invoking to some extent Jorgen Meldgaard’s “smell of the forest”, may have played a significant role.

The University of Pennsylvania Museum's Tikal Project of 1958–1968 was one of the great Maya investigations of the twentieth century. It was the most ambitious study of a Maya city so far undertaken, with scores of staff, graduate students and local workers engaged in a range of activities from mapping the site core and its surrounding settlement, to stripping the tropical forest from the colossal temple-pyramids and restoring them, to establishing an occupation history that eventually showed an origin for Tikal in the mid-first millennium BC and abandonment more than sixteen centuries later at the end of the Classic period. The impact of the project's results, publications and cadre of trained Mayanists moving out into the academic world was substantial and led to several decades of a Tikal-centric view of ancient Maya civilisation.

Data from sites in the San Simon Valley of southeastern Arizona are used to explore the interconnections among mobility, land tenure, and social identity at the household and community levels. Through an examination of occupation history at three San Simon villages, I argue that these persistent sites represent heritable land tenure invested in the corporate group or community. Within these villages, the spatial and temporal patterns of dated structures and ceramics indicate that heritable land tenure was also operating at the household level. One site, Timber Draw, exhibits both usufruct and heritable land tenure operating contemporaneously, suggesting that differences may have existed between households in rights to resource access. However, the distributions of different kinds of ceramics, potential markers of social identity, do not suggest that the differences in household land tenure were ethnically meaningful. Rather, the ceramic patterns suggest that households maintained access to broad s...

Preliminary soil micromorphology study of cultural sediments at Tabon Cave, Philippines, supports interpretations of sporadic occupation in the Paleolithic. The presence in some deposits of authigenic minerals potentially related to altered cultural materials, such as ash, needs further investigation. Later in the sequence there is a marked change in local depositional processes, with the onset of significant quartz sand deposition in layers dating from the Middle to Late Holocene. This could relate to beach development in the area. Future sedimentological study and dating would confirm this interpretation, which suggests that in appropriate settings, stratified cave sediments could be useful for the study of regional sea level rise. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The orthodox archaeological sequence at the Sigatoka Dunes site (VL 16/1) in Fiji proposes three phases of occupation spanning Fijian prehistory, each associated with a period of dune stability. It has been taken as the standard model of Fijian prehistory for more than 30 years. Recently, however, it has been argued that there is no stratigraphic support for three discrete levels and that the occupation history was fragmented, complex, and continuous within a volatile dune system. We present new data, from optical and radiocarbon dating, to argue that a three-phase model, although somewhat more complex in detail, remains the most robust interpretation of site history. The longest stable phase (Level 2) began 2500–2300 cal yr B.P. and is possibly associated with relatively low ENSO frequency. Substantial sand dune accumulation began after ˜1300 cal yr B.P. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

We show how 14C dating may be combined with palynological and paleogeographical research to correlate human occupation history with environmental change, focusing on archaeological sites in the Dvina–Lovat River region of Russia. Cultures in this region range from Early Neolithic to the Middle Ages, ca. 5500 bc–ad 100, based on calibrated 14C ages. The dynamics of water basins in the region, related to climatic change, are one cause of population migration.

The excavations were sponsored by the then Inspectorate of Ancient Monuments (Wales) – now CADW: Welsh Historic Monuments – when permission was given to erect a new dwelling on land formerly occupied by an orchard attached to Alstone Cottage. The cottage dated from the seventeenth century and it was anticipated that no serious disturbance had occurred to the Roman deposits on the site since that date. The cottage grounds were known to overlie Barrack XII of the Prysg Field series, which flanked the western side of the via decumana . No previous excavation of the barrack had been undertaken. Thus the opportunity arose to check the validity of the conclusions arrived at by V.E. Nash-Williams, who had wholly or partly excavated ten of the twelve barracks in this area, as to the structural and occupation history of this quarter of the fortress. At the same time the opportunity was given to investigate the history of the via decumana itself.