R. Ono, C. Boulanger, Y. Najima, K. Oohori, C. Katagiri
In the Southern Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa, Japan), the most important and well-known site with Neolithic pottery is the Shimotabaru shell-mound, located on the south coast of Hateruma Island, approximately 200 km east of Taiwan. The site has yielded a large assemblage of ceramic sherds that are distinct from earlier Jomon pottery, which dates to between 10,000 and 6,000 years Before Present (BP) and was possibly introduced by Jomon hunter-gatherer populations from northern Japan (e.g., Kyushu Island). The site is dated to approximately 3,700–3,200 BP and has also produced numerous artefacts and faunal remains, including fish bones. This study presents a short zooarchaeological analysis of the excavated fish remains from the Shimotabaru site, recovered during the 1980s, to reconstruct maritime adaptation and marine resource use during the Neolithic. The results indicate a strong reliance on nearshore reef-associated fish, particularly large parrotfish and sharks, with no evidence of pelagic species, suggesting that fishing efforts were concentrated in shallow coastal waters. These findings contribute to broader discussions on subsistence strategies in early Austronesian migration contexts, providing insights into how prehistoric communities in the Ryukyu Islands exploited marine resources in comparison to contemporaneous sites in Island Southeast Asia and Oceania.
Despite the wealth of preserved human remains from ancient Egypt and Nubia, archaeologists have traditionally focused heavily on burial goods and context in the interpretation of interments, and many historical excavations did not include experts in human anatomy as part of their permanent team. Even today, many interpretations rely on the opinions of previous excavators with questionable or outdated expertise in the analysis of human remains rather than updated analyses. One example of just such a scenario is that of the subsidiary burials around the First Dynasty (c.3078–2900 BCE) royal funerary complexes at Umm el-Qaab in Abydos, where hundreds of court officials and craftspeople were interred around the burials of the early kings. When these burials were first excavated early in the 20th century, excavators believed that these subsidiary burials were the remains of sacrificed officials, but also noted that evidence of physical trauma was lacking, spawning decades of debate over whether human sacrifice, and specifically retainer sacrifice, was actually practiced in ancient Egypt. Using the Abydos example as a case study, this article will consider how important advances in forensic and bioarchaeological research, as well as the holistic examination that characterizes bioarchaeology as a field, allow us to not only reinterpret many of the legacy collections excavated in the past few centuries, but also fundamentally reshape the way we interpret ancient Egyptian and Nubian society. Modern analysis has indicated that not only is perimortem trauma present on the remains of many individuals from the subsidiary burials at Abydos, but that the original excavators probably observed these injuries and simply misinterpreted them as postmortem damage. Advances in our knowledge of trauma etiology, taphonomy, and the nuances of socioeconomic status as represented in burials allow us to reassess the original conclusions drawn by excavators from their analyses a century ago. The goal of this study is to promote the reassessment of legacy data collections and consider how our understanding of the past may be reshaped by updated methods of analysis.
The Arenal region of Costa Rica experiences catastrophic eruptions on average every 336 years. Although deposits of volcanic ash can be initially detrimental to fauna and flora, after the tephra has weathered it can become a very fertile, mineral-rich soil that is suitable for cultivation of food and other resources. Paleoethnobotanical data collected from the ancient domestic structures at La Chiripa (c. 1500 BCE) and the Sitio Bolívar village (c. 500 CE) provides a diachronic perspective of human-plant engagement in the region. The macrobotanical dataset (seeds, fruits, geophytes, and wood charcoal) reveal a subsistence strategy that was dominated by a diverse assemblage of forest-based products and root crops supplemented by minimal agricultural foods such as maize, beans, and squash. Larger flora, such as fruit trees, and underground root crops would have been reliable sources of food that could withstand most volcanic episodes that occurred every few centuries. Such a subsistence regime focused on forest products and root crops provided these ancient peoples with a storage bank of food either within their local surroundings or neighboring regions, as well as the ability to maintain their daily routines with a sense of resilience to their environmental setting that often experienced sudden extreme conditions.
Nicolás Batalla, Kelly Brandão, Mayara Mariano, Ximena S. Villagran
Micromorphology helps to reveal fundamental aspects of archaeological sites and landscapes that are invisible to the naked eye. Apart from discerning human contributions from patterns of natural sediment/soil formation, deposition, and alteration, this technique, coupled with others, has been able to showcase specific human activities hidden in the archaeological record. Over the last couple of decades, micromorphology has slowly entered the realm of archaeological techniques in Latin America and neighboring regions. From a late start in the mid-1990s, micromorphological studies have begun to occupy a central role in geoarchaeological research in the region. In this paper, we review 166 scientific papers published until July 2026. Our goal is to summarize the archaeological contexts and problems that led to the introduction of micromorphology in the geoarchaeology of Latin America and related regions (e.g., the Caribbean), from human-environment interactions, through others such as caves and rockshelters and coastal shell-matrix sites, to activity areas, offering an overview of the state of the art and future directions.
