A paleodemographic analysis was conducted using skeletal data from Jōmon period sites in Japan. 15P5 ratios were produced as proxy birth rate values for sites throughout the Jōmon period. Previous studies based on numbers of residential sites indicated a substantial population increase in the Kantō and Chūbu regions in central Japan, climaxing during the Middle Jōmon period, followed by an equally dramatic population decrease, somewhat resembling changes that occurred during a Neolithic Demographic Transition (NDT). The Jōmon are viewed as a relatively sedentary, non-agricultural group, and provided an opportunity to attempt to separate the factors of sedentism and agriculture as they relate to the NDT. Skeletal data showed fairly stable trends in birth rates, instead of the expected increase and decrease in values. This discrepancy calls into question the validity of previous studies. The stable population levels suggest that sedentism alone was not the primary driver of the NDT. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

La thématique de l'expansion du système agricole depuis l'Anatolie vers les Balkans est depuis longtemps un important sujet de recherche. Les approches archéologiques classiques ont permis de mieux comprendre le parcours et le temps de cette expansion, mais ils n'expliquent rien de ce qui n'est pas observable dans les traces archéologiques : notamment, la structure socio-économique d'une société agricole préhistorique. Dans cette thèse, un modèle de type multi-agents a été utilisé pour explorer ces éléments qui sont invisibles en archéologie. Ce modèle, appelé BEAN (Bridging European and Anatolian Neolithic), consiste en une adaptation du modèle OBRESOC (Un OBservatoire REtrospectif d'une SOCiété archéologique). OBRESOC avait été crée pour simuler l'expansion des agriculteurs rubanées en Europe Centrale, et a été modifié pour s'adapter au contexte archéologique balkanique. L'expansion des premiers agriculteurs Balkaniques est simulée en combinant des données archéologiques avec des inférences ethnohistoriques et paléodémographiques. Un environnement réaliste a été modélisé, où les zones d'optimum agricole sont déterminées par des estimations de la météorologie et de la fertilité des sols. Chaque agent correspond à un foyer domestique ; les agents interagissent dans cet environnement en suivant des modèles partiaux intermédiaires socioéconomiques qui déterminent les règles de leur comportement. Par exemple : maisons avec des familles nucléaires ; système agricole intensif sur des petits champs avec chasse et cueillette complémentaires ; expansion déterminée par le scalar stress villageois ; réseaux de solidarité entre apparentés ; disettes et famines causées par des événements météorologiques. De cette façon, le modèle simule le fonctionnement et l'expansion géographique d'une société agricole Néolithique. De nombreuses simulations ont été effectuées, en faisant varier les paramètres les plus importants, identifiés grâce à une analyse de sensibilité. L'adhérence entre les données archéologiques et les données simulées a été mesurée principalement avec des critères géographiques : la simulation qui produit le patron d'expansion simulé qui coïncide le mieux avec l'expansion archéologique est considérée la meilleure. De procédures spécifiques ont été crées pour manipuler la grande quantité de données simulées produites par le modèle. L'observation de ces données a permis l'exploration de certains aspects qui sont invisibles en archéologie ; par exemple, le modèle a aidé à questionner des croyances archéologiques basées sur des hypothèses qui n'étaient pas vérifiables autrement. Le modèle a permis aussi l'exploration d'autres sujets, comme la comparaison entre le front pionner de colonisation et les zones d'ancienne occupation, ainsi que l'influence de la météorologie sur l'expansion du système agricole. Le modèle a produit des patrons d'expansion qui adhèrent, géographiquement et chronologiquement, à l'expansion suggérée par les traces archéologiques. L'exploration des sorties socio-économiques a permis la formulation de nouvelles hypothèses qui ne pourraient pas être faites simplement sur la base de ce qui est trouvé dans les vestiges archéologiques. Même quand il y a un large écart entre ce qui est observé en archéologie et ce qui est produit par le modèle, cette approche de modélisation multi-agents ouvre à des nouvelles questions, en ajoutant de nouvelles idées et perspectives à la recherche actuelle. / A topic of great importance in archaeological research throughout the last decades concerns the expansion of the first farmers from Anatolia through the Balkans. The standard archaeological approaches allowed the understanding of the path and timing of this expansion; however, they lack explanation of what is unobservable in the archaeological record: in particular, the socio-economic structure of a prehistoric farming society. Throughout this thesis, an agent-based model was built in order to explore those elements which are hidden in archaeology. This model, called BEAN (Bridging European and Anatolian Neolithic), is an adaptation of the OBRESOC model (Un OBservatoire REtrospectif d'une SOCiété archéologique). OBRESOC was created to simulate the expansion of the LBK farmers in central Europe, and was adapted to the Balkan archaeological context. The expansion of the first Neolithic farmers in the Balkans was simulated by combining the archaeological records to ethnohistoric and paleodemographic inferences. A realistic environment has been modelled where the areas of optimum farming are determined by meteorology and soil fertility estimates. An agent corresponds to a household; agents interact on this landscape, following socioeconomic partial intermediate models. For instance: households composed of a nuclear family; intensive farming system on small plot completed by hunting-gathering; expansion determined by scalar stress at the hamlet scale; family clan solidarity; shortages and famines caused by meteorological events). Thus, the model simulates the functioning of the Neolithic farming society and its geographic expansion. Several simulations have been executed, testing different combinations of the key parameters, identified through a sensitivity analysis. The goodness of fit of simulated data to the archaeological data is measured mostly on geographic criteria : the best simulation is the one that produces the expansion pattern that better fits to the archaeological data. Specific procedures have been developed in order to process the large amount of data produced by the model. The observation of this data permitted to explore some aspects that are invisible in archaeological record : for example, the model helped to investigate some archaeological beliefs, based on assumptions that could not be verified. The model also permitted the exploration of other topics, such as the comparison between the pioneer front of colonization and the zones of previous occupation, as well as the effect of meteorology on the expansion of the farming system. The model produced an expansion pattern that corresponds geographically and chronologically to the expansion suggested by the archaeological evidence. The exploration of socio-economic outputs permitted the formulation of new hypothesis that could not be made using purely archaeological record. Even when there's a large gap between what is found in archaeology and what is produced by the model, this agent-based modelling approach helps to raise new questions, adding new ideas and perspective to the actual state of research.

En Languedoc oriental, durant la fin du Néolithique final, on assiste à un accroissement important des occupations préhistoriques, en particulier au Néolithique final 3 (culture de Fontbouisse). Ce territoire a fait l’objet d’un découpage en faciès culturels, essentiellement sur la base des productions céramiques (Gutherz, 1975 ; 1990). La recherche s’est majoritairement concentrée sur les villages en pierre sèche des garrigues depuis les années 1950 jusqu’au début des années 1990. En effet, à partir de ces années-là, les investigations archéologiques se concentrèrent en plaine, sur des occupations à systèmes de fossés s’étendant sur plusieurs hectares. Le mobilier céramique, abondant, méritait une analyse plus poussée. Le travail présenté se penchera sur plusieurs séries céramiques des plaines datées du Néolithique final 3. La quantité massive de mobilier servira à vérifier si des régularités dans les productions céramiques peuvent être observées ou non. L’intérêt de ce travail est double : préciser les tendances stylistiques se dégageant des ensembles étudiés ; utiliser le contexte des successions de comblements stratigraphiques en vue d’affiner la chronologie de la production céramique et son évolution durant le Néolithique final 3. / In eastern Languedoc, during the late Neolithic, there has been a significant increase in prehistoric settlements, especially in the late Neolithic 3 (Fontbouisse culture). This area has been divided in cultural facies, mainly on the basis of ceramic production (Gutherz, 1975; 1990). Research has mostly focused on the garrigue’s dry stone villages from the 1950s to the early 1990s. Indeed, from those years, archaeological surveys have focused in plain, on ditch system settlements over several hectares. The abundant ceramicware deserved further analysis. This work will focus on several plain ceramic series dated to late Neolithic 3. The massive amount of ceramicware will make it possible to assess whether patterns in ceramic production can be observed. The value of this work is twofold: outline stylistic trends emerging from the sets studied, use the context of stratigraphic successions of fillings to refine the chronology of ceramic production and its evolution during late Neolithic 3.

This thesis deals with meetings between peoples during prehistoric times in the northern part of Norrland, Sweden. Particular attention is paid to the possible occurrence of more temporary meetings between people in larger groups at aggregation camps during the period ca 7000 – 0 BC. The study has had the aim of increasing our understanding of how peoples’ meetings and contact networks may have been framed. Thirteen sites that previous research has interpreted to be aggregation camps within our field of study have been analysed and interpreted. These are: Jokkmokk, Purkijaur, Nelkerim, Porsi, Lundfors, Norrfors, Överveda, Rappasundet, Hälla, Lillberget, Glösa, Sörånäset and Ställverksboplatsen (the Ställverket site). The Ställverket site at Näsåker (Nämforsen) has been the object of particular study. It has also been viewed in a broader context by analysis and interpretation of other ancient remains in the neighbouring area. I have argued that some interpretations arrived at in earlier research are problematical and that none of the thirteen sites can be said with certainty to have been an aggregation camp. Thus aggregation camps seem not usually to have been a part of the contact network in the area of study. Instead of using aggregation camps as meeting-places, the people involved seem, at certain times and places, to have maintained contact with each other by means of meetings at the base camps, notably the winter sites. These sites seem to have been rather sedentary and are positioned at fairly even distances from one another. I call this model the base camp model. Some grounds for applying the base camp model seem to exist at certain places in the inland region from the end of the Mesolithic era up to 0 BC. After that contact networks seem to change. In the coastal district it seems possible to apply it to some places from the transition between the Mesolithic – Neolithic Age up to about 2500 BC. Thereafter the picture is unclear. The study does also emphasise however that more in-depth studies are needed to strengthen the viability of the base camp model’s applicability, that there are still big gaps in the material and that much work still remains to be done in order to solve the problems of how aggregation camps can best be defined and how they can be identified archaeologically.

The Pitted Ware Culture site Korsnäs in Södermanland, Sweden presents a, for the region, unique amount of preserved organic material suitable for chemical analyses. Human and faunal skeletal material has been subjected to stable isotope analysis with the aim of examining whether the diet of the Korsnäs people correlates with the seal-based subsistence of Pitted Ware Culture groups on the Baltic islands. Further, the relationship between the faunal assemblage and the human diet has been studied, and the debated question of whether the Pitted Ware people kept domestic pigs has been addressed. Ten new radiocarbon dates are presented, which place the excavated area of the site in Middle Neolithic A, with a continuity of several hundred years. The results show that the diet of the Korsnäs people was predominantly based on seal, and seal hunting was probably an essential part of the Pitted Ware Culture identity. Based on the dietary pattern of the species, it is argued that the pigs were not domestic. The faunal assemblage, dominated by seal and pig bones, does not correlate with the dietary pattern, and it is suggested that wild boar might have been hunted and sacrificed and/or ritually eaten on certain occasions.

第22回名古屋大学年代測定総合研究センターシンポジウム平成21(2009)年度報告

Den här uppsatsen undersöker på sociologiskt vis möjligheterna att spåra möten mellan tidigamänniskor och jätteprimaten Gigantopithecus från östra Asien i myter som överlevt fram till idag,detta för att försöka peka på ett gemensamt ursprung till den ofta förekommande figurtypen jätten imyter och folksagor i världen. Teoretikerna som uppbådas till hjälp är Emile Durkheim, MartinCortazzi, Josef Ludvik Fisher samt Forrester Sibelan, vilka visar på dels hur myter fungerar och kanuppstå och hur de fungerar i relation till människor.Till metod har arbetet utgått ifrån diskursteori då denna lämpar sig väl för att förstå relationenmellan den sociala verklighet en text rör sig inom och den text sagda verklighet bidrar till att skapa.Arbetet börjar med att försöka motivera sin hypotes genom att påvisa dels belägg för att primatenoch människan i urtiden mötts och dels genom att visa på att myter och berättelser i muntlig formkan överleva länge nog för att det ska vara rimligt. Den fortsätter med att presentera och beskrivamytbildningar från olika delar av världen; Nordiska, Grekiska, Babyloniska, Indiska Afrikanska,Nord- och Sydamerikanska samt Kinesiska där fokus ligger på att jämföra och sammanföra myterför att försöka peka på samband som andra forskare redan upptäckt eller sådana som pekar mot denöstasiatiska primaten.Det visar sig snabbt att några sådana belägg inte finns att finna under de förhållanden den härundersökningen utgår ifrån när den går in på ämnet. Istället försöker den fokusera på att visa på debevisliga ursprungen från de jätterelaterade myter som i världen förekommer. Till stor del härrör de,enligt forskarna uppsatsen använder som källor, från Mesopotamien och rent sociologiskt så kanuppsatsen peka på ett samband mellan ett behov av politisk kontroll och den roll jättar i mytbildningbrukar få. Platser som Grekland, Inkariket och Kina har oberoende av varandra utvecklat deursprungliga mytbildningarna på ett sätt som underbygger auktoritära figurer både inom och utanförmyterna så att berättelserna passar den grupp som styr området, något som i viss utsträckning gällerför alla mytbildningar som undersöktes. Jättarna får ofta roller såsom förfäder eller fientliga folksom människor och deras gudar obrydda kan avsky eller diskreditera. Genomgående så stämmer dei teoridelen presenterade forskarnas teorier med det sätt som myterna som undersöks visas fungerapå. / This paper tries to explore the sociological possibilities of finding a link between interactionsbetween the giant primate Gigantopithecus and early humans of eastern Asia and surviving mythsfrom around the world that have survived up until today. Theorists that have been drafted to attemptto prove this are Emile Durkheim, Martin Cortazzi, Josef Ludvik Fischer and Forrester Sibelan,who's work revolve around the area of the inner workings of myth and its relation to the peoplesustaining them.As Method the paper operates on the basis of discourse theory as it is well suited to explain theways in which reality and text co-opt in the creation of the other.To begin with the paper puts out hypothesis strengthening research to try to show ways that theprimate in theory could have acted as a forefather to the giant, due to prehistoric humans havinginteracted with Gigantopithecus and the way oral myth is able to survive for very long stretches oftime. It continues by presenting and describing various myths from around the world; Nordic,Greek, Babylonian, Indian, African, North and South American as well as Chinese. The focus lieson showing the many themes the myths share between themselves, with an initial focus on pinningits origins to Gigantopithecus.Early on any such connections prove to be without credible proof, and as it is the paper is illequipped to attempt to claim any connections between the myths and the primate. To stay relevant,the paper tries to present other more substantiated potential origins of the concept of giants andfinds other researchers pointing towards old Mesopotamia. Sociologically however the paper canpoint towards connections between political control and the role of the giants of myths in the storiesof many of the stories it presents. Places such as Greece, the Inca empire and China all, apparentlyindependently of one another created and developed myths wherein giants assist in reinforcing theauthoritarian positions of leader characters both within and outside of the stories. Giants in mythoften played the role of ancient ancestors or non human or non tribe people that gods and peoplebereft of conscience could paint as enemies or buffoons.

Isotope analyses on human and faunal skeletal remains from different Swedish Neolithic archaeological contexts are here applied as a means to reconstruct dietary strategies and mobility patterns. The chronological emphasis is on the Middle Neolithic period, and radiocarbon dating constitutes another central focus. The results reveal a food cultural diversity throughout the period in question, where dietary differences in part correspond to, but also transcend, the traditionally defined archaeological cultures in the Swedish Early to Middle Neolithic. Further, these differences, and the apparent continued utilisation of marine resources in several regions and cultural contexts, can only in part be explained by chronology or availability of resources depending on geographic location. Thus, the sometimes suggested sharp economic shift towards an agricultural way of life at the onset of the Neolithic is refuted. Taking the potential of isotope analyses a step further, aspects of Neolithic social relations and identities are discussed, partly from a food cultural perspective embarking from the obtained results. Relations between people and places, as well as to the past, are discussed. The apparent tenacity in the dietary strategies observed is understood in terms of their rootedness in the practices and social memory of the Neolithic societies in question. Food cultural practices are further argued to have given rise to different notions of identity, some of which can be related to the different archaeological cultures, although these cultures are not to be perceived as bounded entities or the sole basis of self-conceptualisation. Some of these identities have been focused around the dietary strategies of everyday life, whereas others emanate from practices, e.g. of ritualised character, whose dietary importance has been more marginal. Isotope analyses, when combined with other archaeological indices, have the potential to elucidate both these food cultural aspects. / At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 3: Submitted. Paper 4: Submitted. Paper 5: In press. Paper 6: Accepted.

In this thesis we have addressed three different although related topics. First, we studied the post-mortem mutation damage rate of contaminated DNA sequences in ancient human remains focusing on the development of strategies to avoid pre-laboratory derived contaminations. We proposed a guideline to control them consisting in typing every single person involved on the manipulation of the remains, especially when they have not been excavated and washed under controlled conditions. Second, we successfully develop a non-invasive technique to sequence ancient remains but preserving it from the destruction. And third, we sequenced ancient human remains from different evolutionary times (from Paleolithic to post-Neolithic) to make inferences about the peopling of Western Europe focusing mainly in the Iberia peninsula. We found that there is a long term genetic continuity at least since the Neolithic. The only clear genetic discontinuity found is that involving two different human species, H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis. / En la presente tesis hemos tratado tres temas diferentes aunque muy relacionados. Primero, hemos estudiado la tasa de mutación post-mortem de secuencias de ADN contaminante en restos humanos antiguos centrándonos en el desarrollo de estrategias para evitar que las muestras se contaminen antes de llegar al laboratorio. Proponemos una guía que consiste en el tipado genético de cada persona implicada en la manipulación de los restos, especialmente cuando estos han sido excavados y lavados bajo condiciones no controladas. Segundo, hemos desarrollado una técnica no invasiva para secuenciar DNA de restos humanos antiguos pero sin destruirlos. Y por ultimo, hemos secuenciado restos humanos antiguos pertenecientes a diferentes periodos evolutivos (desde el Paleolitico hasta el post-Neolitico) que nos han permitido hacer inferencias sobre el poblamiento Europeo centrándonos básicamente en la Península Ibérica. Hemos encontrado que ha habido una continuidad genética desde el Neolítico. La única clara discontinuidad genética encontrada es entre dos especies distintas: H. Sapiens y H.neanderthalensis.

Thesis (doctoral)--Lunds universitet, 1984. / Extra t.p. with thesis statement and English abstract inserted. Summary in English. Includes bibliographical references (p. 212-232).