Search results for "burial"
showing 10 items of 70 documents
Earliest evidence of Neolithic collective burials from Eastern Iberia: Radiocarbon dating at the archaeolgoical site of Les Llometes (Alicante, Spain)
2016
AbstractIn the Valencia region of Spain, the dominant use of natural caves for collective burials during the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods has been documented. Collective burials are central to the hypothesis about social relationships in Copper Age societies from Iberia, and key to interpreting kinship-based societies. Les Llometes (Alcoi, Alicante) is one of the biggest collective burial sites existing in eastern Iberia. This article presents the direct14C dates on 25 skeletal remains at the site. The results indicate that the site was used as a burial place from the end of the 5th millennium cal BC until the end of the 4th millennium cal BC, and is a first milestone for future …
Carbon isotope stratigraphy, magnetostratigraphy, and 40Ar/39Ar age of the Cretaceous South Atlantic coast, Namibe Basin, Angola
2014
This publication results from Projecto PaleoAngola, an international cooperative research effort among the contributing authors and their institutions, funded by the National Geographic Society, the Petroleum Research Fund of the American Chemical Society, Sonangol E.P., Esso Angola, Fundacao Vida of Angola, LS Films, Maersk, Damco, Safmarine, ISEM at SMU, The Royal Dutch Embassy in Luanda, TAP Airlines, Royal Dutch Airlines, The Saurus Institute, and the Perot Museum of Nature and Science. JS was additionally funded by Yale University and the Alfred Kordelin Foundation. We dedicate this contribution to the late Kalunga Lima, our friend and colleague in Projecto PaleoAngola. We thank Margar…
The Postmedieval Latvian Oral Microbiome in the Context of Modern Dental Calculus and Modern Dental Plaque Microbial Profiles
2021
Recent advantages in paleomicrobiology have provided an opportunity to investigate the composition of ancient microbial ecologies. Here, using metagenome analysis, we investigated the microbial profiles of historic dental calculus retrieved from archaeological human remains from postmedieval Latvia dated 16–17th century AD and examined the associations of oral taxa and microbial diversity with specific characteristics. We evaluated the preservation of human oral microbiome patterns in historic samples and compared the microbial composition of historic dental calculus, modern human dental plaque, modern human dental calculus samples and burial soil microbiota. Overall, the results showed tha…
L’area ad Est dell’ipogeo L. Il saggio D. Le olle. I sostegni. Gli oggetti vari.
2007
The essay concerns the results of the archaeological excavation carried out in the area East of the s.c. "hypogeum L" in the Early Christian cemetery of Agrigentum in the year 1999; it contains, also, the catalogue of the Medieval coarse and cooking wares (ollae) found in the area, and the different types of supports used in the ceramic workshop established in the Late Antique cemetery during the Middle Ages.
Machine learning for rapid mapping of archaeological structures made of dry stones – Example of burial monuments from the Khirgisuur culture, Mongoli…
2020
11 pages; International audience; The present study proposes a workflow to extract from orthomosaics the enormous amount of dry stones used by past societies to construct funeral complexes in the Mongolian steppes. Several different machine learning algorithms for binary pixel classification (i.e. stone vs non-stone) were evaluated. Input features were extracted from high-resolution orthomosaics and digital elevation models (both derived from aerial imaging). Comparative analysis used two colour spaces (RGB and HSV), texture features (contrast, homogeneity and entropy raster maps), and the topographic position index, combined with nine supervised learning algorithms (nearest centroid, naive…
The role of fire within Neolithic collective burials: Spatial analyses of cremains from the site of La Truie Pendue, France
2016
International audience; The use of collective graves is one of the main features of the western European Late Neolithic. A single gravesite received the successive deposition of dozens or sometimes hundreds of individuals. While cremations or even full-fired inhumation layers are often found within these funerary deposits, the actual role of fire is still poorly understood. Recently discovered within the important archaeological complex of Passy (Yonne, France), the burned collective grave of La Truie-Pendue provides an outstanding case study to examine the use of fire within Neolithic funerary rites. In this study, we develop a new contextual approach to bone alterations in order to recons…
The ‘grave of the Court Pit’, A rediscovered Bronze Age tomb from Carchemish
2014
This paper examines the British Museum unpublished records related to an Early Bronze (EB) Age pithos burial uncovered a century ago in the Inner Town at Carchemish. The grave, cursorily cited and variously dated (Chalcolithic, EB or even LBA) in the final reports, was described in some detail by Hogarth and Thompson; a precise dating is, however, possible today thanks to the information of paramount importance given by T. E. Lawrence who identified and took a picture of the associated finds, which was recently rediscovered in the Carchemish Archives. The pithos can be now ascribed to the third quarter of the third millennium BC and helps to confirm the recent theory according to which the …
An execution in medieval Sicily: Computerised tomography scan analysis and 3D reconstruction of an ancient forensic context
2019
The bioarchaeological and forensic approach is increasingly applied in the study of funerary contexts in archaeology. Here, we present a case of an atypical medieval burial recently discovered in Piazza Armerina (Sicily), in which the integrated use of traditional bioarchaeological and forensic anthropology methods was crucial. The skeleton was lying in a prone position and was characterised by a peculiar injury pattern. We recorded six clear stab wound marks on the posterior surface of the sternum. The use of computerised tomography scan and 3D modelling techniques has made it possible to obtain a reliable reconstruction of the cause and modality of death, pointing to the execution of the …
Exploring prenatal and neonatal life history through dental histology in infants from the Phoenician necropolis of Motya (7th–6th century BCE)
2023
The biological life history of infants from archaeological contexts can provide a unique insight into past human populations. Dental mineralized tissues contain a permanent record of their growth that can provide access to the prenatal and early infant life, and mortality, of human skeletons. This study focuses on the histomorphometric analysis of deciduous teeth from the ‘Archaic Necropolis’ of Motya (7th–6th century BCE, Sicily–Italy). The histomorphometric analysis is conducted on prenatal and postnatal enamel of eight anterior deciduous teeth from seven individuals from this Phoenician population to estimate their chronological age-at-death, health, and enamel growth parameters. Proteom…
Enterramientos prehistóricos en fosa en el entorno megalítico de Los Molares (margen izquierda de la cuenca del Bajo Guadalquivir)
2020
El artículo presenta nuevos datos procedentes de excavaciones recientes en Los Molares (provincia de Sevilla), en el entorno próximo de los dólmenes de El Palomar y Cañada Real. Los datos fueron obtenidos durante los trabajos arqueológicos previos a la urbanización de la finca de El Palomar, localizándose varias fosas rellenas con materiales prehistóricos, tres de ellas con restos humanos. Se presentan sus contextos arqueológicos y restos recuperados, así como los resultados de los análisis radiocarbónicos efectuados. Se realiza una discusión sobre las implicaciones de estos nuevos hallazgos en relación con el entorno megalítico conocido y con el registro funerario del IV milenio cal BC en …