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Pietrele an der Unteren Donau. Bericht über die Ausgrabungen und geomorphologischen Untersuchungen im Sommer 2011
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The excavation campaign in 2011 focussed mainly on investigating the flatland settlement at the foot of the tell ‘‘Magura Gorgana’’. Three trenches respectively were explored in the area northeast and west of the settlement mound. Trenches H, L and P lie ca. 80 northeast of the centre of the tell, and trenches N1, N2 and N3 are located west of that midpoint. They yielded the hitherto oldest excavated material, which has already been radiocarbon dated. Excavations in the outer settlement of Pietrele have brought forth surprising and new perspectives. The oldest settlement attested until now can be dated to the end of the 6th millennium BC, and thus perhaps even to the Middle Neolithic. While a duration of 300 years (4250 to 4550 cal BC) has been confirmed for habitation of the tell, yet without reaching the native soil, find contexts from the end of the 6th and the first half of the 5th and end of the 5th millennium BC have come to light in the flatland settlement. Neolithic and Copper Age settlement remains are present in the immediate vicinity, which is not surprising for a site that was inhabited for a longer time. Hence, in Pietrele the possibility presents itself to research the horizontal stratigraphy of the flatland settlement, link it with the vertical stratigraphy of the tell settlement, and with that to control and render precise the chronological system for the Neolithic. At this point it can already be stated that the boundaries of the flat extended settlement were not reached by geophysical prospection in 2005, neither to the north nor to the west of the tell. Furthermore, geomorphological investigations have already gone far beyond the immediate area of the tell. More than 130 core drillings allow the conclusion that in the course of millennia flowing and standing bodies of water discharged into the Danube meadows. These meadows were covered by a large lake during the time of the tell’s habitation. Initial results of geochemical analyses confirm the existence of this expansive palaeolake before 4600 BC. The basic characteristics of the lake sediments include several massive phases of dark deposits, each a few decimetres in thickness, which are designated as ‘‘dark layers’’ (DL). They mark drastic events in the development of the lake. The lowermost layer, DL I, can be dated by the AMS-14C dating method to the 5th millennium BC, that is, the time of the tell’s habitation. Still to clarify is whether the introduction of organic material through settlement activities and land use had an adverse effect upon the quality of the water.
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Pig Domestication and Human-Mediated Dispersal in Western Eurasia Revealed through Ancient DNA and Geometric Morphometrics
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Zooarcheological evidence suggests that pigs were domesticated in Southwest Asia ∼8,500 BC. They then spread across the Middle and Near East and westward into Europe alongside early agriculturalists. European pigs were either domesticated independently or more likely appeared so as a result of admixture between introduced pigs and European wild boar. As a result, European wild boar mtDNA lineages replaced Near Eastern/Anatolian mtDNA signatures in Europe and subsequently replaced indigenous domestic pig lineages in Anatolia. The specific details of these processes, however, remain unknown. To address questions related to early pig domestication, dispersal, and turnover in the Near East, we analyzed ancient mitochondrial DNA and dental geometric morphometric variation in 393 ancient pig specimens representing 48 archeological sites (from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic to the Medieval period) from Armenia, Cyprus, Georgia, Iran, Syria, and Turkey. Our results reveal the first genetic signatures of early domestic pigs in the Near Eastern Neolithic core zone. We also demonstrate that these early pigs differed genetically from those in western Anatolia that were introduced to Europe during the Neolithic expansion. In addition, we present a significantly more refined chronology for the introduction of European domestic pigs into Asia Minor that took place during the Bronze Age, at least 900 years earlier than previously detected. By the 5th century AD, European signatures completely replaced the endemic lineages possibly coinciding with the widespread demographic and societal changes that occurred during the Anatolian Bronze and Iron Ages.
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Pig husbandry and environmental conditions in Northern Gaul during Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: the contribution of hypoplasia analysis
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Ongoing archaeozoological analyses into the Roman –early medieval transition in the fertile area of the Middle Belgian and Dutch loess region have shown a diachronic shift in the importance of pigs. The present paper examines the linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) of pig teeth from five sites covering the early Roman, late Roman and early medieval periods. The results are confronted with palynological, archaeological and textual data regarding land use and forest cover in an attempt to explain the observed trends in species composition and to document possible changes in pig husbandry and the environment.
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RBINS Staff Publications
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Pilsbrylia, a dextral-shelled door snail from South America (Gastropoda, Clausiliidae)
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RBINS Staff Publications 2023
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Pipeline Design for a Least-cost Router Application for CO2 Transport in the CO2 Sequestration Cycle
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RBINS Staff Publications
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Pisachini planthoppers of Vietnam: new records of Pisacha and a new Goniopsarites species from Central Vietnam (Hemiptera, Fulgoromorpha, Nogodinidae)
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RBINS Staff Publications 2024
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Pitfalls in the characterization of termite assemblages: lessons from neotropical ecosystems.
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RBINS Staff Publications
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Plant economy and vegetation of the Iron Age in Bulgaria: archaeobotanical evidence from pit deposits
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Major social and economical changes occurred in human societies during the Iron Age of Southeastern Europe: increasing structuring of societies, intensifying production and metal technologies and the establishment of a market economy. However, the related plant economy of the region is still poorly studied and understood. The Iron Age `pit field sites' (groups of pits distributed over a certain area) in south-eastern Bulgaria were recently intensively excavated, and their study provides rich archaeobotanical assemblages, which are used for filling this gap in our knowledge. The current study presents the archaeobotanical information from 196 flotation samples from 50 Iron Age pits. The results show a wide range of annual crops, the most important of which seem to be hulled wheats (mainly einkorn), barley and also millet. A variety of pulses and fruits is retrieved, each in small quantities. Some species like Olea europaea and Cucumis melo are an indication for contacts with adjacent regions (especially the Mediterranean area). The archaeobotanical assemblages also documented the environment and land use, revealing the exploitation of a variety of habitats like cropland, open grassland, shrub land and wetland. The archaeobotanical analyses of the Iron Age pit fields show that this type of structures can be an important source of information on the Iron Age plant economy in the region.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2016
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Plant food from the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age hilltop site Kush Kaya, Eastern Rhodope Mountains, Bulgaria: Insights on the cooking practices
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This volume brings together leading specialists in archaeobotany, economic zooarchaeology, and palaeoanthropology to discuss practices of food production and consumption in their social dimensions from the Mesolithic to the Early Iron Age ...
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RBINS Staff Publications 2018
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Plant selection for nest building by western lowland gorillas in Cameroon
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