Bone Preservation

Lake Ladoga, Europe's largest lake, is situated in northwest Russia east of the Baltic Sea. This article is the first
compilation of all the zooarchaeological material recovered from the Stone Age and Early Metal Period huntergatherer
sites in the area analysed and published up to 2014. All the faunal remains preserved in the acidic
soils are small pieces of calcined bone, except for two sites where anaerobic conditions have also preserved unburnt
bones. An overview of the analysed assemblages, including identified species and carcass treatment is presented,
and the chronological trends briefly summarised. Based on the zooarchaeological material the prehistoric
subsistence base was aquatically oriented throughout the Stone Age and Early Metal Period. Day-to-day subsistence
seems based on fishing near the campsites, supplemented with seasonal food sources. Prehistoric inhabitants
of Lake Ladoga were also committed to invest technology, time, and human resources in the specialised,
risky sealing forays. The abundant lake resources offered a stable, self-renewing resource base for the area's population
and, for example, fishing maintained its importance in subsistence even after the introduction of cultivation
– in places into the 20th century.

This paper presents the experimental design for natural and accelerated ageing of bone and wood samples found in museum conditions that was conceived as part of the INVENVORG (Thales Research Funding Program - NRSF) investigating the effects of the environmental factors on natural organic materials.

Khoekhoe pastoralists living in Gobabeb, in the arid Kuiseb River Valley of central-western Namibia, keep goats (Capra
hircus). Several decades ago, palaeontologist C.K. Brain collected modern skeletal remains of goats from these villages. The
goats were butchered using pocketknives with metal blades. We investigated the frequency of butchery marks on a sub-sample
of this collection, representing 60% of the total assemblage. Most specimens in the collection are weathered. Moreover,
most goat specimens from Gobabeb lack butchery evidence and even the use of magnification only marginally increased this
number. We compared our results with the frequency of butchery marks documented from Early and Middle Iron Age samples
from South Africa, a time when sheep dominated faunal assemblages and were slaughtered using metal knives. The frequency
of specimens with butchery marks in the goat sample from Gobabeb is higher than that recorded for the Early and Middle Iron
Age samples. The higher frequency of butchery marks on the goat remains from Gobabeb may relate to aspects such as the
butchering method and style, as well as the large size of the specimens themselves.

Nous présentons l'étude anthropologique de dix individus provenant d'un cimetière situé sur la colline de Kindoki au Kongo central (RDC). Ils ont été exhumés en 2012 et 2013 dans le cadre du projet KongoKing qui consistait en une approche interdisciplinaire de l'histoire ancienne du royaume Kongo. Ce cimetière contient des inhumations datées du XVII e au XIX e siècle, très probablement celles de nobles de haut rang. Les défunts étaient accompa-gnés d'un mobilier funéraire (perles de verre, sabres, bijoux en or, mousquet). Les restes humains sont malheureusement très mal conservés. Certains ne sont représentés que par quelques fragments osseux ou dentaires. Parmi les dix défunts, on note la présence de deux femmes et de huit hom-mes. Deux individus masculins présentent des usures dentai-res qui résulteraient de l'utilisation d'une pipe. Les deux femmes seraient âgées de plus de 40 ans et se caractérisent par des signes vertébraux évocateurs de DISH (diffuse idio-pathic skeletal hyperostosis). Cette pathologie est actuelle-ment associée à une alimentation riche, à l'obésité et au dia-bète de type II. Il n'est donc pas surprenant qu'elle touche ces individus de statut élevé. Le DISH n'avait encore jamais été décrit dans une population ancienne d'Afrique centrale.

This paper presents an anthropological study of ten individuals from a cemetery situated on Kindoki Hill in the central Kongo region (DRC). They were excavated in 2012 and 2013 as part of the KongoKing project (2012–2016), which applied an interdisciplinary approach to the ancient history of the Kingdom of Kongo. The cemetery contains graves dated to the 17th–19th century, very probably those of high-ranking nobles. The dead were buried with various grave goods (glass beads, swords, gold jewels and muskets). The human remains were unfortunately very badly preserved. Some were represented only by a few bone fragments and/or teeth. Of the ten bodies, two were female and eight were male. Two of the men showed dental wear as a result of pipe-smoking. The two women were probably more than 40 years of age at the time of death. The vertebrae showed signs that evoke diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH), a pathological condition associated today with a rich diet, obesity and type II diabetes. It is therefore not surprising that these conditions might have affected high-status individuals. Until now, DISH had never been described in an ancient Central African population.

En este libro se presentan y discuten resultados de estudios sobre diagénesis ósea en restos humanos y de mamíferos grandes, recuperados en una región subtropical del sur de Sudamérica: el centro-este de Argentina. Tales estudios se llevaron a cabo desde la perspectiva teórico-metodológica de la tafonomía regional, cuyo objetivo es el reconocimiento de espacios dentro de los cuales hay mayores probabilidades de depositación, enterramiento y preservación de huesos. En este marco, un objetivo central fue especificar las condiciones que producen tasas variables de destrucción del registro óseo, así como identificar áreas con potencial de preservación diferencial de huesos. Para ello, se construyeron modelos espaciales predictivos basados en las propiedades de los suelos, mediante el uso de Sistemas de Información Geográfica (SIG). Estos modelos fueron luego contrastados con información empírica obtenida de análisis específicos realizados sobre huesos recuperados en sitios arqueológicos del área.