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Taphonomic Analysis (taphonomic + analysis)
Selected AbstractsMemory, Identity, and NAGPRA in the Northeastern United StatesAMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 2 2010April M. Beisaw ABSTRACT, Determinations of cultural affiliation in compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) often rely on culture history and the direct-historical approach. Both methods ignore important developments in our understanding of identity. A recent NAGPRA claim illustrates an alternative. Using culture history and the direct-historical approach, it was difficult to ascribe the Engelbert Site of New York State to a federally recognized tribe because it contained material from multiple culture-historic taxa, often in the same feature. Taphonomic analyses of selected mixed deposits revealed a previously undocumented mortuary ritual that has since been found at other sites. Using memory as a framework for interpretation, this ritual appears reflective of a kinship-based shared identity between culture-historic taxa. The multivocality of this ritual provided an additional means for evaluating cultural affiliation by ascribing a consciousness of history to the subjects of this repatriation claim. [source] Taphonomic analysis, associational integrity, and depositional history of the Fetterman Mammoth, eastern Wyoming, U.S.A.GEOARCHAEOLOGY: AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL, Issue 5 2002David A. Byers The Fetterman Mammoth locality, eastern Wyoming, U.S.A., produced the remains of a single subadult mammoth and a small lithic assemblage. This paper employs a fine-grained taphonomic approach to investigate the events responsible for the deposit's creation. No cultural modifications were noted on any of the specimens. Long axis orientations plotted against a reconstruction of the depositional surface suggest limited postdepositional movement of individual disarticulated elements. Weathering patterns based on in situ upside and downside positioning document two discrete episodes of sedimentation. These results suggest that the mammoth remains and the cultural assemblage may be separated by at least one depositional event and, as such, their association is considered equivocal. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source] Taphonomy and palaeoecology of plant remains from the oldest African Early Cretaceous amber localityLETHAIA, Issue 4 2002BERNARD GOMEZ The first Mesozoic amber for Africa was recently reported from the Middle-Upper Valanginian of the Kirkwood Formation (Algoa Basin, Republic of South Africa). A palaeobotanical and taphonomical study is performed here on the amber-bearing strata. Palaeobotanical remains indicate a warm to hot, semi-arid climate. Taphonomic analysis of the plant debris shows that the assemblage is allochthonous and was the result of transport by high energy flooding events and subsequent deposition in crevasse splay or over bank deposit. However, the plant fragmentation was probably previously initiated in the leaf litter, whose decay was probably slowed down by a combination of biological and climatic factors. The different oxidation degrees of amber also support a certain residence time in contact with the atmosphere and possible reworking. [source] Late Mousterian subsistence and cave use in Dalmatia: the zooarchaeology of Mujina Pe,ina, CroatiaINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OSTEOARCHAEOLOGY, Issue 2 2005P. Miracle Abstract The faunal assemblage from Mujina Pe,ina provides an initial glimpse of Late Middle Palaeolithic food procurement, management, and site use, in Dalmatia, Croatia. Radiometric dates place the entire sequence at about 42,kyr in the middle of OIS 3 (Oxygen Isotope Stage 3) (Rink et al., 2002). Mujina Pe,ina is located along a potential migration corridor for hominin populations moving into Europe from western Asia. The faunal composition shifts from a co-dominance of red deer and chamois,+,ibex in Layer D1,+,D2 that formed during relatively cold conditions to a clear dominance of wild caprids followed by large bovids and equids in Layer B,+,C that formed during relatively warm conditions. Although non-hominin carnivores played a significant role in the modification of the faunal assemblages throughout the stratigraphic sequence, the Late Mousterian faunal assemblage from Mujina Pe,ina shows the hominins to be competent hunters within a context of considerable competition from non-hominin carnivores. These ,mixed' hominin-carnivore signatures are pulled apart through a detailed taphonomic analysis of this well-excavated assemblage. The Mujina Pe,ina assemblage thus provides a significant point of reference for a broader-scale study of variability in Mousterian subsistence practices in their own right as well as within the context of the Initial Upper Palaeolithic in southeastern Europe. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Precambrian animal life: Taphonomy of phosphatized metazoan embryos from southwest ChinaLETHAIA, Issue 2 2005DORNBOS STEPHEN Phosphatized fossils from the Neoproterozoic Doushantuo Formation have provided valuable insight into the early evolution of metazoans, but the preservation of these spectacular fossils is not yet fully understood. This research begins to address this issue by performing a detailed specimen-based taphonomic analysis of the Doushantuo Formation phosphatized metazoan embryos. A total of 206 embryos in 65 thin sections from the Weng'an Phosphorite Member of the Doushantuo Formation were examined and their levels of pre-phosphatization decay estimated. The data produced from this examination reveal a strong taphonomic bias toward earlier (2-cell and 4-cell) cleavage stages, which tend to be well-preserved, and away from later (8-cell and 16-cell) cleavage stages, which tend to exhibit evidence for slight to intense levels of organic decay. In addition, the natural abundances of these embryos tend to decrease with advancement in cleavage stage, and no evidence of more advanced (beyond 16-cell) cleavage stages or eventual adult forms were found in this study. One possible explanation for this taphonomic bias toward early cleavage stages is that later cleavage stages and adult forms were more physically delicate, allowing them to be more easily damaged during burial and reworking, allowing for more rapid decay. The spectacular preservation of these embryos was probably aided by their likely internal enrichment in phosphate-rich yolk, which would have caused their internal dissolved phosphate levels to reach critical levels with only miniscule organic decay, thereby hastening phosphatization. If internal sources of phosphate did indeed play a role in the phosphatization of these embryos, it may explain their prolific abundance in these rocks compared to other phosphatized fossils as well as indicating that metazoans lacking such internal phosphate sources were likely much more difficult to preserve. The phosphatic fossils of the Doushantuo Formation, therefore, provide an indispensable, yet restricted, window into Neoproterozoic life and metazoan origins. [source] | ||||||||||