Pachacamac is a major precolumbian site located on Peru’s Central Coast. Covering approximately 6 km2, the site was occupied for over a thousand years before the Spanish conquest in the early sixteenth century. In 2012, the Ychsma Project discovered a unique Late Intermediate period (AD 900–1470) multiple burial (“Cx4”) made of two funerary chambers with a vegetal roof structure, containing over 110 intact and fragmentary deceased together with numerous grave goods. More than 60% of the individuals are subadults whose sex cannot be assigned using osteological observation. Among the adults, 23 females and 20 males were identified, and the sex of the remaining four individuals couldn’t be assigned with certainty. We aim to fully understand the sociobiology of the Cx4 population, including biological sex, using a combined bioarchaeology and molecular archaeology approach. Despite significant human modern contamination and low amounts of endogenous ancient DNA, our results show that sex could be assigned genetically in >70% of the cases, including subadults. Sex identification of infants, children and adolescents is crucial to fully understand this complex context and its funerary recruitment, and to perform an integrated and holistic analysis of all associated data.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2024
After extracting oil from olives a residue is left usually referred to as the olive oil processing residue (OPR). This study explores the way in which ancient societies may have used OPR as fuel for fires to generate heat and the various issues that are related to the residues of this fuel. After drying, the high heating value and structure of OPR makes it an excellent and efficient fuel. Upgrading OPR further, through thermal conversion or charring, provides an even more efficient fuel (COPR), with a hotter and smoke free flame, a higher heating value and which is lighter in mass and thus easier to transport. After a fire is extinguished two types of remains of the fuel are left i.e. char and ash. Analyses on both remains, recovered from archaeological deposits, could be used as a source of information on fuel utilization. Laboratory experiments on charred modern OPR and stones show that by measuring their reflectance and analyzing their structure under reflected light microscopy, OPR and COPR can be distinguished in the charred material recovered from three archaeological sites in Greece and Syria. Based on these investigations it is suggested that on the three sites COPR was used as fuel. Ash, sampled together with the char, provides the possibility of investigating if other types of fuel were used, apart from OPR or COPR. On the investigated sites no ash was collected, but the analysis of the modern OPR showed that the properties of its ash could be used to distinguish it from other types of fuel. Ash from modern OPR and olive stones showed the presence of phytoliths. The often discussed issue related to the sharpness and smoothness of the edges of charred fragmented olive stones was investigated. The results showed that this is not a reliable criterion for recognizing olive oil production. It is recommended that in addition to the identification of the botanical material more properties of the remains of fuels should be analysed. To prevent destroying and losing char and ash as a result of excavation activities such as flotation and sieving, special measures have to be taken. The results show that analysing char and ash may provide valuable information on the (pyro)technology practised in ancient societies.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2016
