Neolithic Craftsmanship In Central Europe

A recent paper by Tegel et al. (2012) demonstrates the intricate wood crafting abilities of the Neolithic Linearbandkeramik culture, known as the LBK, in the construction of water wells from planks of wood dated from 5500 BC to 5098 BC.  From the analysis of four wooden wells, and a total of 151 oak timbers from the wells, the precise history of their construction can be confirmed.  This is exciting news as it is firsthand evidence from a range of LBK sites of the carpentry skills, as practiced by the builders, that were apparent during the culture’s existence.  The LBK are typically known as one of the first major European cultures that helped spread agriculture via a number of different mechanisms (Bogaard et al. 2011), and are noted for their use of  cemeteries (Zvelebil & Pettit 2012), differential deposits of shoe last adzes in graves, and uniformity of small settlements and clustered long houses throughout Central Europe, although tantalizingly little remains of their famous long houses.

Bentley et al. (2012) have recently delved into extensive strontium isotope testing of cemetery populations and have released a slew of papers suggesting that, due to different ratios in the presence of male and female adult individuals, the LBK culture practiced patrilocality, i.e. that women moved around to other sites to start families or join different villages, whilst the fathers and sons largely stayed within their birthplace landscape.  Although it should be noted that there are some regional differences, with certain populations practicing transhumance with cattle, possibly moving with them throughout a varied landscape (Rasteiro et al. 2012).  Furtheer to this, there has been little coverage or investigation of infant or juvenile remains in the LBK culture, and this is a research bias that is similar to the under-consideration of of such populations in the wider Neolithic archaeological record (Lillie 2008).

A detail from some from some of the water wells excavated from sites in Eastern Germany that were used in the dendro-chronological analysis and reconstruction (Tegel et al. 2012: 2). The majority of the wells were block lifted from their Neolithic period excavation sites and micro-excavated in wet lab conditions to allow preservation, greater photographic resolution, laser recording and stratigraphic recording. A reconstruction of their wooden joints was possible, because of this technique and the care taken to preserve the wood in-situ.

Article Abstract:

“The European Neolithization ~6000−4000 BC represents a pivotal change in human history when farming spread and the mobile style of life of the hunter-foragers was superseded by the agrarian culture. Permanent settlement structures and agricultural production systems required fundamental innovations in technology, subsistence, and resource utilization. Motivation, course, and timing of this transformation, however, remain debatable. Here we present annually resolved and absolutely dated dendroarchaeological information from four wooden water wells of the early Neolithic period that were excavated in Eastern Germany. A total of 151 oak timbers preserved in a waterlogged environment were dated between 5469 and 5098 BC and reveal unexpectedly refined carpentry skills. The recently discovered water wells enable for the first time a detailed insight into the earliest wood architecture and display the technological capabilities of humans ~7000 years ago. The timbered well constructions made of old oak trees feature an unopened tree-ring archive from which annually resolved and absolutely dated environmental data can be culled. Our results question the principle of continuous evolutionary development in prehistoric technology, and contradict the common belief that metal was necessary for complex timber constructions. Early Neolithic craftsmanship now suggests that the first farmers were also the first carpenters.”

Read more here.

Below are further sources to delve into the intriguing LBK culture.

Bibliography and Further Sources:

Bentley, R. A., Bickle, P., Fibiger, L., Nowell, G. M., Dale C. W., Hedges, R. E. M., Hamiliton,. J., Wahl, J., Francken, M., Grupe, G., Lenneis, E., Teschler-Nicola, M., Arbogast, R-M., Hofmann, D. & Whittle, A. 2012. Community Differentiation and Kinship Among Europe’s First Farmers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition. doi:10.1073/pnas.1113710109. 1-5.

Bogaard, A., Krause, R. & Strien, H.-C. 2011. Towards a Social Geography of Cultivation and Plant Use in an early Farming Community: Vaihingen an der Enz, South-West Germany. Antiquity. 85: 395-416.

Bramanti, B., Thomas, M. G., Haak, W., Unterlaender, M., Jores, P., Tambets, K., Antanaitis-Jacobs, I., Haidle, M. N., Jankauskas, R., Kind, C.-J., Lueth, F., Terberger, T., Hiller, J., Matsumura, S., Forster, P & Burger, J. 2009. Genetic Discontinuity Between Local Hunter-Gatherers and Central Europe’s First Farmers. Science. 326 (5949): 137-140.

Lillie, M. C. 2008. Suffer the Children: ‘Visualising’ Children in the Archaeological Record. In: C. Barcvarov (ed.) Babies Reborn: Infant/Child Burials in Pre- and Protohistory. Conference Proceedings, UISPP, Lisbon. BAR International Series. 1832. Oxford: Archaeopress. pp. 33-43.

Rasteiro, R., Bouttier, P., Sousa, C. C & Chikhi. 2012. Investigating Sex-biased Migration During the Neolithic Transition in Europe, Using an Explicit Spatial Simulation Framework. Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences. Doi:10.1098/rspb.2011.2323 accessed on the 20^th of May 2012.

Tegel W., Elburg R., Hakelberg D., Stäuble H. & Büntgen U. 2012. Early Neolithic Water Wells Reveal the World’s Oldest Wood Architecture. PLoS ONE. 7 (12): 1-8. e51374. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0051374

Vanmontfort, B. 2008. Forager-Farmer Connections in an ‘Unoccupied’ Land: First Contact on the Western Edge of LBKTerritory. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. 27 (2): 149-160.

Zvelebil, M. & Pettitt, P. 2012.  Biosocial Archaeology of the Early Neolithic: Synthetic Analyses of a Human Skeletal Population from the LBK Cemetery of Vedrovice, Czech Republic. Journal of Archaeological Science. In Press.

Lascaux Cave Art & Immersive Website

Whilst reading the wonderful archaeological themed advent calendar series over at the ‘Musings of an Unemployed Archaeologist‘ blog site, I came across the Lascaux entry, featured in the most recent blog update (18th December 2012).  The website of the famous Palaeolithic cave site (estimated to be around 17,300 years old), which is located in the Dordogne area in France, features an extraordinary immersive visit to the cave system itself, allowing the internet accessible audience to visit and see each famous painting up close and in detail.  It is a thoroughly entrancing sight, and it is a delight to explore the various cave routes.  I heartily recommend the interested lay person and professional alike to visit this website, to capture a feeling of how this magnificent cave once looked like (the original cave site, discovered in France in 1940, is currently off-limits due to extensive damage from the horde of visitors, although an exact replica site is available to visit nearby).

This blog entry by ‘Musings…’ comes hot on the heels of news of the comparison of animals and their representations in art through the ages.  A study in the journal PLoS by Horvath et al. (2012) found that compared to modern artwork, Upper Palaeolithic artists were more realistic in their representations of animals, in the fact of their depictions of quadrupeds walking and proportion sizes, than many modern artists are.  It is a thoroughly interesting article, and one well worth a read.  The Lascaux cave system depicts nearly 2000 figures which have been categorised into animals (including aurochs, a bird, a rhinoceros, stags, felines, and equines, who predominate), human figures and abstract signs.  Perhaps most noticeably is that there is no depiction of landscape scenes or of vegetation throughout the cave complex.  It has been stated by some (Bahn & Lewis-Williams amongst others) that when viewed with tallow, or fat, candles, as they would have originally have been the images themselves would shimmer in the candle light due to the uneven surface that they were painted on.  The implication being that the images of the animals would flicker almost as if they were alive; it is certainly an interesting theory and experiments have helped to provide evidence that this effect does occur.

An stunningly realised example of aurochs depicted at the Lascaux cave complex, from the Upper Palaeolithic, in France (Source).

Upper Palaeolithic cave art, both portable and stable, is a fascinating and deeply emotive subject, full of differing theories from various sources, anthropologists and authorities.  It continues to be a source of fascination with a wide variety of people throughout the world, including the German director Werner Herzog who released the 3D film ‘Cave of Forgotten Dreams‘ about the Lascaux complex which involved interviews with scientists, footage of the cave itself, and voice overs from the great man himself.  Ultimately the cave art itself has become a testament to the placing of man and beast together, and it continues to echo down the ages as a source of inspiration and artistic expression of humanity and early man.

Updates…

Apologies for the lack of updates; please bear with me.  I’ve had a busy past few weeks & the future doesn’t look any less busy! Preparation for moving down to start the Msc Human Osteology & Funerary Archaeology program at the University Sheffield have begun, but I’m still on the look out for a lab coat!  I move to the city shortly, but I’m still enjoying the time I have left in my hometown.  This year has flown by a bit too quickly!

The next Skeletal Series update will concern the human hip bones, and their form and function.  They are particularly key in both age and sex diagnosis of the individual.  I’ll also shortly start a brief write-up of the German Grampus placement & the activities we got up to, since I’ve finally just got round to finishing their report for the program online.

I did manage to read my way through Waldron’s (2009) ‘Palaeopathology’  manual whilst I was in Germany, and what a delight it was too! I’d highly recommend reading it, especially if you are going to be working with human bones from archaeological sites.  I have a feeling that this book, and the Human Bone Manual, will not be far from my side in the next few months.  ‘Palaeopathlogy’ offers ‘Operational Definitions’ which help to improve the diagnosis of disease in ancient human remains via clinical definitions and backgrounds. I would say this is a must have, especially since a lot of the palaeopathogical literature cannot be cross examined due to the differences in rational & criteria used.

A quick scan of BBC’s online news website reveals that a late stone age skull discovered from Iwo Eleru in Nigeria has some interesting ‘primative’ features associated with human evolution.  The online article can be found here at PLoS online.  The article deals with the chronology and morphology of the Iwo Eleru calvaria.  This is a very interesting article as it deals with a skull that shows similar morphological features present in archaic homo sapiens humans around 100,000 years ago but its found in a  context that is dated to around 15,000BP.  It is also rare that human remains are found during this date in West Africa.  The article states that this cranium fragment represents ‘evidence of deep population substructure in Africa and complex evolutionary processes for the origin of modern humans’, that the archaic homo sapiens didn’t just cut off after Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH) appeared.  Frankly, I think this also highlights what is often forgotten in the prehistoric & palaeolithic archaeological record.  It is not just migration out of Africa and the dispersal of AMH that is fascinating and interesting, but also to still keep looking and researching inside Africa to see the evolutionary and populational changes still concurrent with human expansion elsewhere.

I also noticed the other that over at John Hawks’s weblog he has announced the Malapa Soft Tissue project.  This project aims to discover if soft tissues from an ancient hominid has been preserved from the Malapa site cave site, just outside Johannesburg in South Africa.  Recently discussed in the National Geographic magazine, the hominids discovered at this site are believe do to be Australopithecus Sediba, a possible intermediate form between the Australopithecus & Homo genus.  Much information remains to be gleamed from these exciting and relatively complete finds.  Up to date information on the MST project can be found on the John Hawks link.  Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of this project is that is it open access science; you are encouraged to take a part and offer your expertise!  Keep an eye on it and see where it leads…

I’ll be back shortly.

Further news on A. Sediba…

News: Amazonian Archaeology & Oldest AMH In SE Europe (Ukraine)

Amazonian Archaeology

Recently there has been a fantastic series on British Television called Unnatural Histories.  One episode in particular focuses on the Amazon rainforest and its past.  If you live inside Britain you can watch it here on BBC Iplayer.  If not, its called Unnatural Histories Episode 3: Amazon, please let me know if you find it elsewhere.

It details the history of the Amazon rainforest from 3 particular angles; the modern environmentalist perspective, the modern day people who live there and it also includes recent Pre-Columbian archaeological findings from ancient sites situated along the Amazon river.  Of particular interest are the massive amounts of earthenwork Geoglyphs being found alongside the Amazon river, and beyond in the forest.  Roughly dating from around AD 100 up until AD 1300, these monuments range in size, from the small to the sublime.  Sadly, these are often uncovered after the effects of deforestation.  The geogylphs are often found without many clues as to their function with little material remains associated with the sites, although they are most likely socio-religious meeting points.  Very interestingly, archaeologists have found numerous ‘roads’ which link up various sites.  At other sites alongside the river, mounds had been built up in which Pre-Columbian peoples lived atop of during the flooding seasons.

Brazilian Geoglyphs In The Amazon Rainforest

This is particularly exciting to me, as during my undergraduate degree course, very little archaeologically was said on the vast expanse of land that the Amazon extends over in South America.  This was in direct contrast to the vast tracts of archaeology that litter the dry, mountainous western side of that continent (Tinwanaku, Huari, & Inca civilizations etc).  The last 15 minutes of the show are fascinating as the sites found recently keep piling up, and as it also juxtapositions the past populations onto a map of the modern populations.  It is well worth a watch.

Oldest SE European Anatomically Modern Humans Found In The Ukraine

In other news, a recent PLoS ONE article discusses human and faunal remains from a Middle and Upper Palaeolithic site located in the Crimea, Ukraine.  This site has the earliest evidence of AMS dated modern Homo Sapiens, and also includes some very interesting mortuary practices.  The site is perfect as it has securely dated stratigraphy, distinct geological boundaries, alongside an impressive use of the multidisciplinary approach in its investigations and conclusions.

I will shortly write up a proper review on this entry.  In the meantime, the article can be found here:

Prat et al. 2011. The Oldest Anatomically Modern Humans from Far Southeast Europe: Direct Dating, Culture and Behavior’

Gough’s Cave Skull Cups

The surgery went very well, and I’m glad to be out of hospital so soon.  As I entered the house again, my eyes fell greedily upon the latest edition of the British Archaeology magazine.  An article that caught my eye in particular was the latest developments concerning the various excavations, and new modern scientific investigations analysis at the Upper Palaeolithic site of Gough’s Cave located in the Mendip Hills, Somerset, southern England.

It has turned out that the cave has the earliest directly dated human skull cups.  This was reported in the media a few months ago, but now an in-depth article has come out on the online PLoS ONE journal.  The 2011 article, written by Silvia M. Bello, Simon A. Parfitt and Chris Stringer, can be found here and it is open access.

Palaeogeography At The Time of use of Goughs Cave (Figure 1, Bello et al. 2011).

The Upper Palaeolithic Site of Gough’s Cave

Now, this is big news.  The site of the butchered animal and human remains is dated to the Magdalenian period of the Upper Palaeolithic, around 14,700 BP (BP simply stands for Before Present) during the end last of the glacial period (Last Glacial Maximum).  The artefacts that have been found in this particular period at Gough’s Cave include flint tools, carved reindeer antler and mammoth ivory; a particular key find is the reindeer antler baton, a fine example of the craftmanship of the humans that used to live and roam this area.

Now the finds we are most concerned with are the evidence of the defleshing of the human remains, and the very probably use of human skulls as drinking vessels.  According to the articles stated above, the human remains were found with fauna including (in descending commonest order) wild horse, red deer, wolf, brown bear, lynx, saiga antelope, arctic fox and arctic hare (Stringer Et al, in BA magazine 2011:16).  The animal remains showed evidence of butchery, in accordance with using the flesh for food.  The co-mingled human remains, mostly cranial elements with post cranial elements also showed butchery marks, and do not seem to be deliberately buried.

A selection of the human cranial elements found, highlighting the breaking and fracturing of the cranial elements during reshaping (Source: Natural History Museum).

Human Cranial Remains and Modifications

The remains subjected to new scientific analysis included 41 elements, 37 from skulls and the rest from mandibles (lower jaw).  From the study of remains it has been suggested that they represent at least 5 individuals, including a young child, two adolescents, a young adult and an older adult (Stringer et al 2011: 19).  There were three complete mandibles alongside three skulls caps present (see above).

Although it had been suggested from earlier excavations, it is now thought that the bones did not suffer much from post-depositional effects (ie weathering or trampling).  Many of the elements have evidence of stone cut marks; most were done by slicing, some chopping but signs of scraping were seen as rare.  The skulls had less evidence of percussion marks whilst cut marks were particularly evident.  Importantly they showed no sign of fire damage (such as colour changes or flaking) and all cuts are ectocranial (Bello et al 2011).

Highlighting the main points of reshaping of the human crania (Figure 8 in Bello et al. 2011).

Carefully placed ectocranial percussion marks on the vault of the crania (Source: Natural History Museum).

The processing of the head can be clearly discerned:

A) The head was detached from the body, probably whilst the body was either frozen or in the grip of rigor mortis.  Cuts at the base of the skulls and on the cervical vertebrae indicate this took place shortly after death.

B) The mandible was removed next, evidence is seen by post-mortem scratches on teeth of both mandible and maxilla alongside percussion fractures (Bello et al 2011).

C) The major muscles of the skull were removed next (Temporalis & Masseter muscles in anatomical position) alongside the removal of the lips, ears, tongue, and the possible extraction of eyes and cheeks.

D) Cut marks along the parietal and occipital elements indicate scalping as well.

E) Finally, ‘the face and base of the skull was struck off with minimum damage to the vault, and the broken edges were chipped away to make the more regular’ (Stringer et al 2011).

Key Points

Evidence for cut marks on human bones in the Magdalenian period have also been found in the Rhine Valley in Germany, Dordogne area in France.  Sites such as Le Placard in Charente & Isturitz in Oyrenees-Atlantiques (see above location map), both in France have evidence for similar skull modification and processing.  Strikingly at Isturitz, one example even has carvings of animals in the skull elements.

However, as pointed out in an earlier article on cannibalism, post cranial elements found (including metatarsals with evidence of being chewed by humans) are thought to be an example of ‘nutritional cannibalism’, even with the large amount of faunal remains co-mingled with the human remains.  The slicing marks present on these post cranial elements are consistent with the striking of ‘green’ (fresh) bone.  An interesting experimental archaeological test involved two researchers having their students chew fresh sheep and  pig bones.

This was carried out in order to test if the bite marks found were similar to bite marks on human metatarsal and radius elements found, amongst other bones (Fernandez-Javlo & Andrews 2011).  The results helped to provide evidence that the chewing marks on the human bones (including a distal rib fragment) were probably caused by human teeth themselves.

Rib chewing-archaeology style.  In experimental tests archaeologists found that volunteers chewing ribs replicated the marks made on archaeological material human rib samples at Upper Palaeolithic sites (Fernandez- Jalvo & Peters 2011).

As stated above, the skull elements was treated remarkably different with careful processes present.  There was a distinctly high number of cut marks on the cranial elements present.  Alongside this, a lack of trauma indicates that this is not for mutilation purposes, as seen at some American sites (Stringer et al 2011: 20/Larsen 1997).  At sites where nutritional cannibalism has been documented, the skull is often fractured and broken in aiding access to the brain tissues within.  At Gough’s cave, the skulls have been carefully prepared with flints and carefully processed.

This hints at possible uses of the skull-caps as containers for liquids or holders for other objects.  Ethnographic and historical sources have pointed to various cultures preparing and using human skulls as containers, war trophies or as libation instruments.  Classically, Herodotus portrayed the Scythians as people who drank from the skulls of their enemies, whilst in ‘Buddhism human skull bowls have been used as libation vessels.  In India, the use of skull cups seems to be still practiced by the Agori sub-sect’ (Stringer et all 2011: 20).  Very interestingly, the article by Bello et al (2011) remarks that there are few archaeological finds for skull-caps, in consideration of the wide temporal and geographical spread of ethnographic and historical evidence.  One example is the Neolithic site at Herxheim in Germany, previously discussed in a blog post by Kate Brown.

In conclusion, the Gough’s Cave skulls-cups have been securely dated, and are the only ones found so far in the British Isles.  The mystery still remains why they took part in this painstaking process.

Bibliography

Bello, S. M. Parfitt, S. A. & Stringer, C. B. 2011. ‘Earliest Directly Dated Skull-Cups‘. PLoS ONE. (Open Access Article).

Bones Don’t Lie. 2011. Cheddar’s Cranial Cups.  Blog Site.

Fernandez-Jalvo, Y. & Andrews, P. 2011. When Humans Chew Bones. Journal of Human Evolution. 60 (1): 117-123.

Larsen, C. 1997. Bioarchaeology: Interpreting Behaviour From The Human Skeleton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Stringer, C. B. et al. 2011. Gough’s Cave, Somerset. British Archaeology. May-June.