Even though lithics in the Maya region have traditionally been relegated to appendices and tool-type lists, much has been done to move beyond this descriptive approach in the last decade. In this article we highlight general themes of lithic studies in the Maya region since 2011, including economic production and exchange, the role of lithics in ritual practice, and the use of previously understudied raw materials and lithic forms, such as ground stone. Employing a temporal scope that encompasses the Maya and their preceramic predecessors, we explore gendered patterns of research within lithic studies from a feminist perspective and discuss the impacts that gender disparities have on academic thought.

The morphological characteristics of starch granules preserved on ancient ground stone tools can reveal which plant species were processed and consumed and even infer tool function. Bedrock metates are commonly associated with the processing of localized seasonal resources, providing potential evidence for past human lifeways, including foods collected and processed, social gatherings, settlement patterns, land investment, and territorial behavior. In contrast to ground stone artifacts preserved in a buried context that have been studied extensively, limited starch research has been conducted on the potential for environmental contamination of open-air bedrock mortars and metates exposed to natural erosional elements. This project examines the residue samples of bedrock metates from three archaeological sites in southern Oregon in the United States to compare the starch yields of extraneous material cleaned from the grinding surface to those extracted from interstitial matrices deeper within the bedrock. Significantly greater number of starch granules were recovered from deep within the cracks and crevices than from the surface. Our study suggests that environmental contamination can be managed if separate surface and control samples are collected and analyzed in conjunction with the interstitial samples. Examining the potential for environmental contamination on exposed grinding surfaces is crucial for confidence in starch granule results and improving our understanding of human dietary behavior.

En este trabajo se presenta el estudio de los sitios con arte rupestre del faldeo oriental de la Sierra de Velasco y occidental de la Sierra de La Punta (norte de la provincia de La Rioja, Argentina). Los objetivos son definir la diversidad de representaciones a nivel local, evaluar la circulación de información a escala regional y examinar su rol en la conformación de paisajes sociales, durante los últimos 2.000 años. Para ello se realiza un análisis de los repertorios iconográficos y de los vínculos entre imágenes y contextos de emplazamiento. Los resultados sugieren que los sitios rupestres distribuidos en altitudes contrastantes implicaron diferentes prácticas sociales. Los emplazamientos pedemontanos, integrados a los espacios residenciales y productivos, se habrían conformado en torno a prácticas domésticas y simbólicas recurrentes, mientras que aquellos situados en las serranías de La Punta estarían vinculados con el uso de vías naturales de circulación. Esta segregación espacial involucra, a su vez, distintas temporalidades para la producción y el consumo de arte rupestre.

The aim of the article is to reframe speculation from being seen as synonymous with unacademic conjecture, or as a means for questioning consensus and established narratives, to becoming a productive practical engagement with the archaeological and responding to its intrinsic uncertainties. In the first part of the article, we offer a review of speculation in the history of archaeological reasoning. In the second part, we proceed to discussing ways of embracing the speculative mandate, referring back to our engagements with the art/archaeology project Ineligible and reflections on how to work with the unknowns and uncertainties of archaeology. In the third and last part, we conclude by making the case for fertilizing the archaeological potential nested in the empirical encounter, creating more inceptions than conclusions, fostering ambiguities, contradictions and new spaces of experiential inquiry. This leads us to suggest that—when working with the archaeological—speculation should be seen not only as a privilege, but also as an obligation, due to the inherent and inescapable uncertainties of the discipline. In other words, archaeology has been given a mandate for speculation through its material engagements.

In the Salish Sea region, labret adornment with lip plugs signify particular identities, and they are interpreted as emblematic of both membership in horizontal relationships and achieved status for traditional cultures associated with labret wearing on the Northwest Coast (NWC) of North America. Labrets are part of a shared symbolic language in the region, one that we argue facilitated access to beneficial horizontal relationships (e.g., Angelbeck and Grier 2012; Rorabaugh and Shantry 2017). We employ social network analysis (SNA) to examine labrets from 31 dated site components in the Salish Sea region spanning between 3500 and 1500 cal BP. Following this period, the more widely distributed practice of cranial modification as a social marker of status developed in the region. The SNA of labret data shows an elaboration and expansion of antecedent social networks prior to the practice of cranial modification. Understandings of status on the NWC work backward from direct contact with Indigenous societies. Labret wearing begins at the Middle-Late Holocene transition, setting an earlier stage for the horizontal social relationships seen in the ethnohistoric period. These findings are consistent with the practice as signifying restricted group membership based on affinal ties and achieved social status.

The Brazil Nut tree (Bertholletia excelsa, Lecythidaceae) is a species of considerable historical, economic and ecological importance in South America. Radiocarbon dating indicates some individuals can live from hundreds to more than 1000 years, which means they have the potential to reconstruct deep time growth patterns and their relationship to anthropogenic management or climate change from pre-colonial to present times. However, age estimates vary considerably amongst trees dated with different methods (i.e. tree-ring analysis, radiocarbon-dating, and repeated diameter measurements). Here we analyze living Brazil Nut trees growing in four distinct regions across the Brazilian Amazon using two dating methods: tree-ring counting and radiocarbon dating. Our results show that the congruence between the two methods varies amongst regions, and the highest congruence is found at the site of Tefé, Amazonas. This region features archaeological sites with anthropogenic Terra Preta soils, and is known for its long-term human forest management. This management likely enhanced light and nutrient availability, which possibly enabled the trees to grow at higher rates and form annual rings. Our findings highlight the need for better understanding of the growth of Brazil Nut trees for ecological research, but also the potential of dendrochronology for exploring climate change and human-forest interactions in the Amazon Basin.

Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona, USA, recently installed a MIni CArbon DAting System (MICADAS) with a gas interface system (GIS) for determining the 14C content of CO2 gas released by the acid dissolution of biogenic carbonates. We compare 48 paired graphite, GIS, and direct carbonate 14C determinations of individual mollusk shells and echinoid tests. GIS sample sizes ranged between 0.5 and 1.5 mg and span 0.1 to 45.1 ka BP (n = 42). A reduced major axis regression shows a strong relationship between GIS and graphite percent Modern Carbon (pMC) values (m = 1.011; 95% CI [0.997–1.023], R2 = 0.999) that is superior to the relationship between the direct carbonate and graphite values (m = 0.978; 95% CI [0.959-0.999], R2 = 0.997). Sixty percent of GIS pMC values are within ±0.5 pMC of their graphite counterparts, compared to 26% of direct carbonate pMC values. The precision of GIS analyses is approximately ±70 14C yrs to 6.5 ka BP and decreases to approximately ±130 14C yrs at 12.5 ka BP. This precision is on par with direct carbonate and is approximately five times larger than for graphite. Six Plio-Pleistocene mollusk and echinoid samples yield finite ages when analyzed as direct carbonate but yield non-finite ages when analyzed as graphite or as GIS. Our results show that GIS 14C dating of biogenic carbonates is preferable to direct carbonate 14C dating and is an efficient alternative to standard graphite 14C dating when the precision of graphite 14C dating is not required.

In 2013, 36 Ancestors of African descent were identified in an unmarked eighteenth-century burial ground during construction in Charleston, South Carolina. The site, later referred to as the Anson Street African Burial Ground, was buried beneath the growing city and forgotten in the centuries that followed. The ethical treatment of these ancestral remains was of paramount importance to our community. Historically, narratives relating to the lives of African descendant people in Charleston have been inadequately documented and shared. For these reasons, we engaged the local African American community in a multifaceted memorialization process. Together, we sought to sensitively ensure that the Ancestors’ identities and lives were fully explored according to the collective descendant community's wishes. To this end, we involved the community in researching and celebrating the Ancestors’ lives through arts and education programs and analyzed their and community members’ DNA to elucidate their ancestry. Our engagement initiatives increased access for all ages to archaeological, historical, and genetic research and encouraged active participation in the design of a permanent memorial. The Anson Street African Burial Ground Project provides a successful example of community-engaged activist archaeology focused on honoring the Ancestors and their descendants.

Determining calendar ages for radiocarbon dates, or ordered sequences of radiocarbon dates, that intersect with a plateau on the radiocarbon calibration curve can be problematic since, without additional prior constraints, the calendar age ranges determined will tend to spread across the plateau, yielding wide and less than useful calendar age probability densities and age ranges. Where possible, modeling analysis should seek to identify informative priors that act to restrict the otherwise poorly controlled spread of probability across plateaus. Such additional information may be available, among other sources, from the stratigraphy, the context, or the samples themselves. The recent dating of ordered sequences of radiocarbon dates on sections of branches of the same olive (Olea europaea) shrub from Therasia (southern Aegean) associated with the Minoan eruption of the Thera (Santorini) volcano (Pearson et al. 2023), which intersect with the plateau in the radiocarbon calibration curve ca. 1620–1540 BC, offers an example of the problem. A re-analysis adding some plausible informative priors offers a substantially better defined likely dating range and different conclusions. Instead of finding an inconclusive probability range “encompassing the late 17th and entire 16th century BC” followed by arguments for “indications of increased probabilities for a mid-16th century BC date for the eruption,” a re-analysis incorporating appropriate informative priors identifies the likely date range as falling between the late 17th to early 16th centuries BC.

This article discusses the absolute chronology of burials from the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC discovered under the mounds of three barrows in the Kordyshiv cemetery in western Ukraine. Its aim is to create a chronological model of the burials by modeling 27 AMS 14C dates obtained from 21 individuals buried in single and collective graves. Dietary analysis of stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotope values are presented. The Bayesian modeling of the 14C dates from the three Kordyshiv barrows revealed the extremely important role of these monuments as long-term objects used for ritual purposes. At the end of the 3rd millennium BC, the epi-Corded Ware Culture (epi-CWC) community erected a mound over the central burial in Barrow 2, then interred the graves of three additional deceased. After several hundred years Barrow 2 was reused by Komarów Culture (KC) communities from the Middle Bronze Age (MBA) who interred their deceased in the existing mound. The oldest monument with MBA burials was Barrow 3, in which the dead were buried in a two-stage sequence before and after the mid-2nd millennium BC. The youngest dated grave was Burial 1 in Barrow 1, comprising a collective burial that was interred between 1400 and 1200 BC. The additional analyses of carbon and nitrogen isotopes show significant differences in the diet of epi-CWC individuals buried in Barrow 2 from the individuals representing the KC.

Dates from recently excavated Gangetic site of Sakas in Bihar, India, place it at ca.1800–1100 BC. The ceramic and lithic chronologies have been interpreted as Early Farming, Transitional and Chalcolithic/Developed Farming in date. However, depending on where in the Ganges Plains is studied, the time frame of Early, Developed and Advanced Farming periods varies widely, from 7th millennium to 2nd millennium BC and beyond, making the chronological framing of absolute dates within a regional scheme highly complex. In this paper we report the new radiocarbon results from Sakas and note how while these are critical for cementing the absolute dating of the site, until such time as a more stable periodization linked not only to relative and absolute dates but also human lifeways within the different zones of the Ganges plains is created, there remains difficulties in understanding how Sakas and other sites of similar date fit into the changing social, cultural and economic systems in this region.

This article describes a bison rib bone foreshaft from the Blackwater Draw site, New Mexico. The object was recovered by James Hester in 1963, during the excavation of locality 4, and it was subsequently cataloged as a modified bone tool but not recognized as a hafting element. It is currently held in the Blackwater Draw Museum collections. This analysis provides a detailed description of the artifact's features and establishes its provenience from a Folsom context. A survey of known Paleoindigenous hafting implements and a discussion of theoretical Folsom foreshaft designs serve to reinforce the classification of the tool as a component of the Folsom weapon delivery system. The tool was likely broken during use and later recycled as a pressure flaker or as a polishing instrument. With the help of 3D imagery, a reconstructed model was printed and fitted with large and small Folsom points to test ideas borrowed from the theoretical literature on Folsom foreshaft design.

This article presents a systematic literature review of publications from 2014 to 2021 using “archaeological site” and “climate change” as keywords, in addition to several terms representing forms of stakeholder engagement. Articles were thematically coded to explore trends at the intersection of climate change, archaeology, and local and Traditional stakeholders. Results show that nearly half of the selected publications did not include local and Traditional stakeholder engagement in studies related to climate adaptation planning for archaeological sites. Synthesis of the results with insights gained from other literature on decolonizing archaeology showed that potential reasons for this gap include (1) the academic publishing culture, (2) archaeology as a predominantly Western discipline, and (3) increasingly available tools for climate change adaptation planning for archaeological sites. This article calls on the academic community to consider holistic stewardship using a landscape approach and to use climate change adaptation planning to elevate local and Traditional stakeholder input and values.