Ethno-geochemical and Phytolith Studies of Activity Related Patterns: A Case Study from Al Ma’tan, Jordan

Abstract

Understanding Neolithic sites in southwest Asia is often difficult because of the lack of preservation of organic remains and the effects of various taphonomic processes that alter the original record. Here, we use an ethnographic approach to test the potential of using plant phytoliths and geochemistry to aid our interpretation of southwest Asian Neolithic sites. Our study of a recently abandoned stone and mud constructed village in Jordan, shows that for certain activity types, phytoliths and geochemistry can help distinguish different construction methods and functions, particularly for burnt areas, animal use areas and where there has been the addition of a specific construction material. For features constructed from the same source materials distinctions are more problematic. Geochemical and phytolith proxies were individually effective in distinguishing activity areas and construction materials, but signals were diminished when the statistical analysis was run on both forms of evidence combined. It is therefore recommended that the data from plant phytolith and geochemical analyses are subject to separate statistical tests and that the two sets of results are used in combination to interpret archaeological sites and their uses. ARTICLE HISTORY

Challenges and prospects for building radiocarbon chronologies of the earlier Holocene of the Levant

“…Several ethnoarchaeological projects (eg. Gur-Arieh et al 2013;Jenkins et al 2017) succeeded in developing a fundamental understanding of how organic materials circulate in traditional communities using building materials analogous to those found in earlier Holocene contexts in the Levant. If quantified, such observations might provide a basis for a more refined approach to dealing with samples that may suffer old wood effects, or come from material that was recycled throughout the history of the site.…”

Late Pleistocene humans in Sri Lanka used plant resources: A phytolith record from Fahien rock shelter

“…Panicum sp. ), and sedge (Cyperaceae), taxa which are recurrent weeds in dry rice fields with O. nivara (Table S1, S3; Weisskopf, et al, 2014;Huan et al, 2015;Jenkins et al, 2017) suggest that dry wild rice stands located near to the Rock Shelter were exploited. The samples analyzed yielded low aumbers of phytoliths of dicotyledons and relatively high numbers of burnt phytoliths.…”

“…These Rock Shelter phytolith records appear to be indicative of the conditions associated with anthropogenic activity, perhaps removal of competing vegetation and burning (cf. Jenkins et al, 2017).…”

“…The presence of some bulliform type B, elongate psilate, elongate echinate, pooid, chloridoid and panicoid phytoliths in these assemblages indicates that wild grasses were also brought into the Rock Shelter. It is possible that wild rice and contaminant grassy plants were imported for threshing, but these may alternatively have been gathered for bedding, flooring, mat-making, thatching, ritual or other purposes (Tsartsidou et al, 2007;Jenkins et al, 2017).…”

A model based on Bayesian confirmation and machine learning algorithms to aid archaeological interpretation by integrating incompatible data

“…Inconsistencies in the type of results produced by different techniques and their resulting data structure, however, often do not favour their incorporation within a single comprehensive statistical model [ 10 , 11 ]. For example, while phytolith data is recorded in count form and may be further aggregated into several categories representing plant genus, plant parts or weight of phytolith material per gram, measurements of geochemical elements are often recorded in parts per million, producing continuous data.…”