This article is a statement about prehistory as a construct, how that construct has been built up, and what weaknesses it still demonstrates. In particular, I follow David Clarke’s lead in suggesting that having a proper analytical archaeology is the essential prerequisite for interpretation. Drawing on insights from Mary Douglas, Margaret Masterson, Mary Midgley, and Alison Wylie, I argue that interpretive fashion and what are termed ‘pre-theoretical commitments’ present the major dangers in building inferences to the best explanation (IBE). I have used several examples, focusing on the Palaeolithic period in Europe, to show how background assumptions alter perceptions of significance among professional and amateur practitioners as well as the lay public. In brief worked examples I argue specifically for the possibility of alternative explanations in cases where ‘care’ or ‘compassion’ has been claimed as identifiable from burial evidence. The article contains observations on the problematic of behavioural uniformitarianism, the metaphysics of deep time and human evolution, and the importance of direct material engagement.
The study of infrastructure is becoming a common focus in research across the social sciences. In this endeavor, archaeologists are uniquely situated to assess how societies in the past created, and relied on, infrastructure over time, and the different ways it facilitated or impeded communication, movement, and social interaction through an understanding of the material record. However, most archaeological engagements with the study of infrastructure occur through case studies that closely mirror the modern contexts in which contemporary social scientists study infrastructure: within state-organized sociopolitical contexts or urban places. We use this article as an opportunity to review the literature on infrastructure, contextualize how it has been adopted in archaeology, and then advocate for expanding the study of infrastructure to non-urban small-scale societies. In doing so, we reassociate the notion of infrastructure with connective and cooperative human projects that unfold within and between places situated across social landscapes. This perspective requires one to divorce infrastructure from modernity and early urban projects and to recenter it within the material nature of human interaction. It is our goal to offer themes and perspectives drawn from contemporary notions of infrastructure to better understand the diverse forms and functions of built and natural environments apart from early urban places in the ancient Americas.
This paper argues that the Pleistocene record of humans in Australia is much more puzzling than the literature acknowledges. We begin with population estimates, and the claim that pre-LGM populations were small (under 200,000, perhaps even under 100,000); a claim based on the number and character of sites. We argue (i) the inference from archaeological traces of low population numbers is risky because the proxies are demonstrably unreliable; (ii) if pre-LGM numbers were indeed under 200,000, that requires special explanation, and no obvious one is available; (iii) the Pleistocene record suggests that those foragers used their lands in ways not well represented ethnographically, and in ways not currently well understood; (iv) the LGM record itself is mysterious. Previous readings of paleo-environmental data predict an intense crisis in forager lives, but there is little signal of such a crisis.
This paper examines the temporal dynamics of Linearbandkeramik (LBK) mortuary practices in south-eastern Czechia and western Slovakia, focusing on the emergence and development of funerary traditions. New radiocarbon dating of Moravian sites, including Vedrovice (with the large cemetery Široká u lesa, the settlement graves at Sídliště, and the small cluster of burials at Za dvorem), Brno-Starý/Nový Lískovec, Těšetice-Kyjovice-Sutny, as well as the Slovakian cemeteries of Nitra-Horné Krškany and Nitra-Mlynárce are presented and modelled. Our findings reveal that LBK mortuary practices were largely contemporaneous, beginning with the establishment of cemeteries, closely followed by settlement graves, and culminating in secondary deposition of bones and the transition to later Neolithic mortuary practices. The chronological framework aligns with existing models, indicating continuous LBK funerary practices in the timespan 5315–5035 cal BC, which underscores the influence of cultural exchange and migration from the Balkan–Anatolian area. Additionally, we identified temporal trends among individuals’ lifeways and mortuary treatments, as well as significant patterns concerning the foundational burials of non-adults in settlement graves. This revised chronology provides a more reliable basis for future interpretative work based on accurate chronological attributions.
The earliest systematic depictions of vegetal motifs in prehistoric art appear on painted pottery vessels of the Halafian culture of northern Mesopotamia, c. 6200–5500 BC. The motifs are varied, representing flowers, shrubs, branches and trees. The first part of our analysis deals with four major questions. What was chosen to be depicted? How common were the vegetal motifs? What was the distribution of these motifs? And why were vegetal motifs introduced in this particular era? The second part of the analysis deals with the Halafian skills of symmetry and precise division of space. The depictions of flower petals in the geometric sequence of the numbers 4, 8, 16 and 32, as well as 64 flowers in another type of arrangement, point to arithmetical knowledge. We argue that in the early village communities of the Near East the ability to make precise divisions was relevant to various needs, such as equal sharing of crops from fields that were collectively cultivated by a number of families, or the whole village.
