The Afanasievo world reportedly overlaps the borders of five nations including two countries of East Asia: Mongolia and China. Across these several regions, the first appearance of domestic herd animals (sheep, goat, cattle) and the initial practice of copper and bronze metallurgy are associated with Afanasievo communities. Since mobile pastoralism has long been a significant part of the Mongolian cultural tradition the question of when, where, and how Afanasievo groups entered Mongolia is of extreme interest to archaeologists. Over the past 50 years several important sites have been reported and analyzed but these are still little known among Western scholars. In this study we provide a brief overview of Afanasievo archaeology, its peripheries, and its recent analytical breakthroughs and then develop a unique perspective on the Afanasievo world from its farthest eastern edge in central Mongolia. We assess the different roles of migration and diffusion in the process of herd animal introduction and present two current hypotheses explaining the intensification of pastoralism in this region during the late 3rd and early 2nd millennium BC. We argue that the impact of Afanasievo entry into East Asia was a transformative process but must be understood in the context of significant innovations made by East Asian indigenous communities, eventually leading to a unique form of eastern steppe pastoralism in Mongolia.

The Upper and Lower Quinn River subbasins (HUC-8 16040201,16040202) comprise one of the largest single drainages in northwest Nevada. The sub-basins cover approximately 1.7 million hectares. The Qu...

Kettle Falls, located 1125 km from the mouth of the Columbia River in present-day Washington State (USA), was the second-most important salmon fishing and trading locus on that river in the early historic era. We encapsulate the late Holocene history of the fishery by deriving a summed probability distribution function (SPDF) from 50 radiocarbon ages from 13 archaeological sites within 2 km of the falls. When compared to an SPDF from 307 sites from elsewhere on the Columbia Plateau, and a null model, the Kettle Falls SPDF exhibits two phases of elevated activity at 1700-1300 cal BP and 800-500 cal BP, and an intervening lull. These phases are not related to the excavation history or differential exposure of sites to taphonomic processes, but they are concordant with episodes of glacial advance in the local mountains, which reflect hemispheric-scale changes in climate. Modern returns of summer-run Chinook salmon to the Columbia River are inversely correlated with sea-surface temperature regimes in the northeast Pacific Ocean, and we propose that the occupational history of the Kettle Falls fishery echoes long-term variations in the returns of salmon to the upper Columbia River linked to climate change.

"Trees in the Religions of Early Medieval England, by Michael D. J. Bintley." Archaeological Journal, 173(2), pp. 376–377

This chapter reviews the physics and engineering behind X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometry. Explained are the two different types of XRF spectrometry, their similarities and differences, and their limitations. Sample preparation for each type of XRF spectrometry is discussed. Since both methods of XRF spectrometry produce quantitative data, a short discussion of data processing and multivariate statistical methods is presented. After reviewing some of the theoretical approaches towards material culture and chemical characterization, the utility of XRF spectrometry to provenance studies of ceramics is illustrated. Some case studies are briefly reviewed that illustrate the utility of the data obtained from XRF spectrometry, answering broader anthropological and archaeological questions.

The appearance of this report on the late 1970s and early 1980s excavations at The Hirsel has long been anticipated. A conventional report on a major excavation, its delayed appearance has enabled ...

Atamadai style pottery was a mica-tempered ware in use throughout the Kanto and Chubu regions of Japan during the first half of the Middle Jomon sub-period. Since mica has only a limited distribution in the Kanto and Chubu Regions, the question exists whether mica was redistributed throughout this region, or if Atamadai pottery was produced in a limited area and then redistributed throughout the Chubu and Kanto Regions. Energy dispersive x-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) was used to determine the minor and trace element composition of 101 sherds of Atamadai style pottery from modern Chiba and Gunma Prefectures. Model-based cluster analysis of the principal component scores indicates that there is one group in the dataset. The results indicate that one regional source of clay was used to manufacture Atamadai pottery; this would support the archaeologists who have suggested that Atamadai pottery was produced in the Eastern Kanto Region and redistributed throughout the rest of Kanto and into the Chubu Region.

Hockett's (2005) examination of the faunal deposition rates at three sites in the Great Basin contains two fundamental errors. The rates are calculated using uncalibrated radiocarbon determinations, and ignores the fact that atmospheric radiocarbon has fluctuated through the millennia. Second, despite pronouncements on significant differences, no formal significance tests were done. This comment re-analyzes two of the sites discussed by Hockett using calibrated radiocarbon determinations and formal statistical significance tests.

Introduction The early production of cast iron in China from the mid-1st millennium BC, and the subsequent rise of the Han Empire, led to the development of steel making technologies based on cast irons in many parts of East Asia. In Korea, iron artefacts appear as early as 400 BC, but they are considered by most to be imported from China (Barnes 1999: 215). The formation of the Han colony, Lelang, in the northern part of the Korean peninsula in 108 BC is considered as being influential on the development of iron smelting on the peninsula (Kim & Nishitani 1984: 141). Shortly after the installation of Lelang, the peninsula saw the rise, from among the many small polities, of the predecessors of the three influential states--Koguryo, Paekche and Silla. With the appearance of these three states, the Korean Three Kingdoms Period (ca. 300-668 AD) commenced. While metallurgical studies have been conducted on numerous iron artefacts from China (Wagner 1996), studies of this nature are only beginning in Korea (Choi et al. 2001, Yun 1984). From a limited number of samples, Yun (1984) suggested that both bloomery and cast iron were produced in early Korea. Yun suggested that by the time of the Three Kingdoms Period, iron and steel of varying carbon content was produced from cast iron, but with little material evidence of cast iron being directly involved in the steel making. The study by Choi et al. (2001), examining 87 artefacts, found evidence of not only cast iron being converted to steel, but also low-carbon iron being converted to steel by carburization. One of the purposes of this paper is to present the microstructure of four iron artefacts made on the Korean peninsula during the Th ree Kingdoms Period. Three were from sites in the former Koguryo state, and one from the former Paekche site. The Koguryo state covered the northern part of the Korean peninsula and extended into Manchuria. The Paekche state was located in the southwestern part of the peninsula (Figure 1), and both date from the 1st century BC to the 7th century AD. The two kingdoms were conquered by the allied forces of Silla, a kingdom located in the southeastern part of the peninsula, and the Chinese Tang dynasty. Paekche fell in 660 AD and Koguryo in 668 AD. Their collapse marked the end of the Korean Three Kingdoms Period and the beginning of the Unified Silla, the first unified kingdom in the Korean history (Eckert et al. 1990: 42). Materials and Microstructures Figure 2a shows an iron artefact, probably an arrowhead (KP:001), from the former Koguryo military fortress located in the modern city of Moosoon. The item was one of many excavated by Japanese archaeologists during the Japanese occupation of the Korean peninsula; a report on the excavations is in preparation. The artefact has been stored in the Seoul National University Museum of Korea (Choi et al. 2001: 279). A metallographic sample was taken from the region noted in Figure 2a.1 The microstructures are shown in Figure 2b and c. The interior region consists of white cast iron, and is surrounded by a layer of pearlite. The steel layer corresponds to the exterior of the artefact. Figure 2c shows the Vickers indentations at 500 g load. The hardness values (see Table 1, page 12) increase as one goes from the exterior to the interior of the steel layer. The hardness increases due to the increasing carbon content. Additional evidence for an increasing carbon content is the decreasing amount of ferrite in the steel layer. The hardness shows a sharp increase upon crossing the boundary from the steel layer to the white cast iron region, and keeps increasing into the core before it levels off. It is interesting to see that the steel layer has no hint of graphitization, another reaction that may occur during such a thermal treatment. The absence of graphitization may be because of the negligible silicon content in this sample. No silicon was detected in the energy dispersive X-ray spectrum (EDS) of the steel layer as shown in Figure 2d.2 The spec-

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether Jomon pottery from two neighboring sites can be chemically distinguished from each other. For this purpose, minor and trace element composition of Jomon potsherds from the Honmura-cho and Isarago sites was determined using energy dispersive x-ray fluores cence(EDXRF). The results supported the hypothesis that the majority of the Ear lyJomon pottery from each of these two sites was produced locally using different raw materials. The paper also demonstrates the utility of multi-element, multivari ateanalyses for distinguishing pottery made in different locations.

Reactions to near earth objects (NEOs) in the past decade have run the gamut from expectations of Armageddon-type scenarios to Eureka moments of revolutionary scientific ideas. Concerns over the potentially devastating effects of an unmitigated collision jostle with forecasts of untold economic returns from the utilisation of NEO resources. Drawing from recent analogies and examples from the field of international environmental law, this paper proposes the development of a legal framework for the regulation of NEO resource utilisation. The proposed legal framework also includes a mechanism to ensure the political will and economic investment necessary for technological advances in planetary defence. By twinning the threats and opportunities presented by NEOs, this paper also analyses the position of theme-specific space law development in the overall legal framework of space exploration and traffic management.

The AA. examine issues concerning the production and circulation of Early and Middle Jomon pottery in the Tohoku region of northern Japan. An attempt is made to determine whether the copious amounts of pottery found at the Sannai Maruyama site were produced locally, or were brought in from other areas. Using energy-dispersive x-ray fluorescence (EDXRF), they measure minor and trace element composition of 58 pottery samples from Sannai Maruyama and three other Early and Middle Jomon sites (Futatsumori, Korekawa Ichioji and Hatanai) in the Tohoku region. Clay samples from the Sannai Maruyama site are also analysed. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), linear discriminant analysis (LDA) with cross-validation, and step-wise discriminant analysis (SDA) with cross-validation are the statistical techniques used to analyse the chemical data. The results support the hypothesis that the majority of the pots examined, including those excavated from Sannai Maruyama, were produced locally, and not imported from other areas. This study also highlight the importance of minor and trace element analysis for the geochemical differentiation of pottery.

Energy‐dispersive X‐ray fluorescence (EDXRF) was used to determine the minor and trace element composition of 54 sherds of pottery dating from the Final Jomon to Okhotsk periods. The majority of the sherds came from Rishiri Island, Japan. Principal component (PC) scores were calculated using the log transformed concentration values, and groups were sought in the PC scores using kernel density estimates (KDEs). Two main groups were found in the data; linear and quadratic discriminant analysis classified both groups successfully. Significant differences in the concentrations of Cu, Fe, K, Nb, Pb, Rb, Th and Zr were found to exist between the two groups. The lack of correspondence between chronological ware types and geochemical groups implies that the same raw materials and paste recipes were in use during the Epi‐Jomon and Okhotsk eras on Rishiri Island. One possiblity is that the Epi‐Jomon and Okhotsk potters used the same clays and tempers, since no other alternatives were available. Alternatively, the Okhotsk potters could have adopted the same paste recipes as the Epi‐Jomon potters, or the Okhotsk pottery tradition could be descended from the Epi‐Jomon pottery tradition.