Early Attention
Towards an archaeology of attention: A neuro-genetic exploration
Marlize Lombard
Journal of Archaeological Science, October 2025
Abstract:
Late, large-brained humans such as Homo sapiens, Denisovans and Neanderthals are/were obligatory tool users. Making and using technology requires attention. The archaeological record may thus contain aspects of how people were able to allocate and regulate attention, but few technologies have been studied in this context. Here I use a neuro-genetic triangulation approach consisting of: a) An overlap between genes associated with attention network theory, genes with non-synonymous changes at high frequency in current humans compared to Neanderthal-Denisovan genomes, and genes classified as brain-elevated; b) the transcripts per million expression throughout the human brain detected for the resulting gene-overlap list; c) attention-related phenotypes and/or conditions associated with both the resulting genes and brain regions. This approach led to a list of 18 genes, seven brain regions, and white matter pathways as probably representing variation in the development of attentional ranges in Homo sapiens, Denisovans and Neanderthals. Interestingly, most of the brain regions highlighted by this study reflect selection for sub-cortical interconnectivity hubs, as opposed to cortical regions associated with traditional attention network theory areas. I therefore propose the following working hypothesis: The separate brain regions associated with alerting, orienting/selective and executive/controlling attention were already in place in a common ancestor, but after the H. sapiens-Denisovan-Neanderthal split, human ways of paying attention developed differently in degrees of interconnective robusticity, speed and efficacy.
Aššur’s Newcomers: Evidence for the Maintenance of Population in Imperial Assyrian Capitals Through Resettlement Events
Petra Creamer
American Journal of Archaeology, October 2025, Pages 491-509
Abstract:
Assyrian urban centers in northern Mesopotamia experienced massive growth during the Neo-Assyrian period (950–612 BCE) of the Iron Age. Aššur was the original seat of the Assyrian empire, acting as the center of Assyria’s religion and culture even after the capital was shifted elsewhere in the ninth century BCE. During the height of the empire in the eighth and seventh centuries, the occupied area of Aššur expanded to almost double that of the preceding centuries. Historically, it is known that deported populations from across the empire were resettled in the Assyrian heartland, with Aššur being one of the most common destinations. That many of the newcomers to Aššur were foreign-born is indicated in the evidence from archival records of several houses in the Outer Town. Furthermore, nonlocal mortuary practices are present in these newly occupied areas moreso than anywhere else in the city. I propose that the significant increase in urban density at Aššur -- and the subsequent expansion and restructuring of its urban area -- resulted from the purposeful resettlement strategies of the Assyrian kings in the first millennium BCE. Such sudden, enforced population increases radically changed the urban fabric of all central Assyrian urban centers, not just Aššur.
The effects of resources and population expansion on female-male protein consumption among hunter-gatherers
Jacob Freeman et al.
Journal of Archaeological Science, September 2025
Abstract:
This paper investigates the effects of terrestrial vs. marine resources and population expansion on sex differences in the consumption of protein among hunter-gatherers. We propose that differences in protein consumption emerge under conditions of greater specialization on terrestrial resources and population expansion. Consistent with this hypothesis, hunter-gatherers in pre-contact Texas display more pronounced sex differences in N isotope values when they exploit terrestrial and riverine resources rather than coastal and estuary resources. Further, where foragers harvest terrestrial and riverine resources, sex differences in N isotope values first decline and then increase coincident with population expansion on the Texas Coastal Plain. In coastal ecosystems, sex differences in N isotope values remain minimal as population expands. These patterns support the hypothesis that population expansion and associated changes in the production of resources may create incentives for more or less overlap in the dietary niches of males and females. The direction of change depends on the resource options that foragers select to scale-up their production of food.
Classic Maya Landscape Adaptation, Agricultural Productivity, and Political Dynamics in the Upper Belize River Valley
John Walden et al.
Quaternary Science Advances, December 2025
Abstract:
The upper Belize River Valley of west-central Belize is a complex ecotone where multiple environmental zones converge around the Mopan, Macal, and Belize Rivers. The valley’s natural fecundity attracted Preclassic Maya (1200/1100 BCE – CE 300) farmers to the region, fostering population growth and the formation of several Classic (CE 300-900) polities. By the Late Classic (CE 600-900) the valley represented a dense conurbation of settlement focused around four major centers, each of these polities contained numerous intermediate elite headed districts of commoners. Evidence for political disintegration and demographic decline appeared around CE 750, coinciding with increasing drought, culminating in the complete collapse of these polities and a regional demographic crash around CE 1000. In this study, we combine environmental data and agricultural modeling to assess polity- and district-level agrarian productivity in the polities of Baking Pot, Cahal Pech, Lower Dover, and Yaxox. Our agricultural modeling indicates these polities could have generated significant agricultural surpluses under stable climatic conditions and low population density. Increasingly variable climate during the ninth to the eleventh century CE, however, impacted traditional rain fed milpa cultivation on the upland hillslopes in the south of the region, prompting out migration. In contrast, households situated on riverine alluvium appeared to thrive during this period. The case study highlights the importance of understanding environmental factors and agricultural strategies when reconstructing past political dynamics.
Traceological analyses of tool marks on western Iberian stelae and their replications: Stones and steel at the end of the Bronze Age
Ralph Araque Gonzalez et al.
Journal of Archaeological Science, September 2025
Abstract:
For the study of carved rock art, particular tool materials can only be meaningfully hypothesized, identified, or excluded by combining traceological analyses with an accurate understanding of the physical-mechanical properties of the carved rock as well as knowledge of the available tool materials from an archaeological, material analytical, and experimental point of view. The aim of this study was to identify the tools that were used during the Final Bronze Age-Early Iron Age transition (c. 1200-550 BC) for the carving of western Iberian stelae by comparing the work traces on originals and replications with the same rock supports and the archaeologically identified tool-set. This was achieved by the traceological-technological study and categorisation of the carved lines and motifs, based on the profile sections of the engravings, on a sample of four western Iberian stelae made from granite-aplite, meta-arkoses, and silicate quartz-arenite. All components were replicated according to petrological and metallurgical analyses. This approach, which is based on 3D-scans in combination with GIS and a thorough evaluation of digital data, material analyses, and archaeological data, will be presented here for the first time. The application of GIS and DEM for the analysis of the profile sections of carved ornaments provided analytical and graphical results from 444 profiles, allowing the classification in six different profile typologies. The most striking result is that silicate quartz-arenites cannot be carved with bronze tools and that lithic tools only left superficial traces that are very different from the original stelae from this lithology. Therefore, this particular material, which represents over 20% of all stelae, could only be carved with hardened steel chisels, while many granitoid and sedimentary rocks could also be carved with lithic tools.
Turning-the-edge, Tranchet, and Social Signalling at Boxgrove
Ceri Shipton et al.
Cambridge Archaeological Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
The capacity to relate a signal to an arbitrary, specific and generally understood meaning -- symbolism -- is an integral feature of human language. Here, we explore two aspects of knapping technology at the Acheulean site of Boxgrove that may suggest symbolic communication. Tranchet tips are a difficult handaxe form to create, but are unusually prevalent at Boxgrove. We use geometric morphometrics to show that despite tranchet flaking increasing planform irregularity, handaxes with tranchet tips have more standardized 3D shapes than those without. This challenging standardization suggests tranchet tips at Boxgrove were part of a normative prescription for a particular handaxe form. Boxgrove presents some of the thinnest handaxes in the Acheulean world. To replicate such thin bifaces involves the technique of turning-the-edge. Since this technique is visually and causally opaque it may not be possible to learn through observation or even pointing, instead requiring arbitrary referents to teach naïve knappers. We use scar ordering on handaxes to show a variety of instances of turning-the-edge in different depositional units at Boxgrove, indicating it was socially transmitted to multiple knappers. The presence of societally understood norms, coupled with a technique that requires specific referents to teach its salient features, suggests symbolism was a feature of hominin communication at Boxgrove 480,000 years ago.
Horns, Crenellations, and Snakes: The Significance of Egyptian Censers in the Houses of Pompeii and Herculaneum
Johannes Eber
American Journal of Archaeology, October 2025, Pages 539-571
Abstract:
This article explores the significance of censers with Egyptian forms or featuring Egyptian-looking motifs found in the houses of Pompeii and Herculaneum. I offer the first full publication of seven unstudied bronze censers, many with known archaeological contexts. The typological analyses reveal that five artifacts featuring altar horns or crenellations originated in Egypt and the Levant, while two others, decorated with Egyptian uraeus snakes, are typical Roman tripods. From a modern perspective, these censers seem to reflect the influence of Egyptian culture in Early Imperial Italy. Comparable artifacts and images from the archaeological sites around Vesuvius, however, indicate that, despite their Egyptian origin, not all censers were likely to have been recognized as such. The horned altars can be linked conceptually to Isiac cults, but, like the other censers, they come from houses without any evidence of veneration of Egyptian deities, as would be attested by Egyptian motifs decorating walls or shrines. Being luxurious cult instruments without a demonstratable connection to cult practices, the censers reveal the versatile, often ambiguous ways in which Egyptian artifacts were perceived and used in Roman society. In doing so, they highlight the complex blend of cultural exchange, domestic and public religion, and Roman interpretation of Egyptian motifs.
Multiproxy study reveals equality in the deposition of flaked lithic grave goods from the Baltic Stone Age cemetery Zvejnieki (Latvia)
Anđa Petrović et al.
PLoS ONE, September 2025
Abstract:
The Stone Dead Project carried out analysis of the flaked lithic assemblages from burial contexts at Zvejnieki cemetery, Latvia. Zvejnieki (c. 7500−2500 cal. BC) represents one of the largest Stone Age burial grounds in Europe, consisting of over 330 burials containing 350 individuals. Using a multiproxy approach, combining geological, technological, functional, spatial and depositional context information, we compare the biographies of lithic grave goods with biographical information (age, sex) of the humans they accompany. Results show gender equality in lithic offerings whilst children are the age group most frequently given lithic grave goods. Certain typologies appear to have carried particular significance and were possibly made, and sometimes broken, as part of funerary rituals. The implications of these and other findings are discussed and placed within their broader archaeological context.