The increasing use of three-dimensional modeling and digitization techniques in archaeology has raised questions about the digital rights management of the resulting 3D models. Curators of valuable artifacts and creators of 3D models may be reluctant to openly share the digital 3D representations due to fear of misuse or theft of their data and intellectual property. In order to address these c...

Acrylic polymers have been widely used in the field of conservation since the 1930’s. However, it is becoming increasingly apparent that under certain conditions, these synthetic polymers are subject to degradation through the activities of microbiological organisms. The biodeterioration of synthetic polymers is of particular concern to conservators when used for the long-term protection of arc...

The potential contamination of ancient residues from both modern plant sources and sediments adjacent to archaeological contexts can complicate interpretation in the field of starch grain analysis, thus affecting the sustainable use of the method in archaeobotany. In this study, we examined two potential sources of contamination at a wheat field in Shandong Province and a maize field in Beijing...

Plant remains from archaeological sites can provide information about the ancient environment. However, these remains should be considered archaeological artifacts, "filtered" through human culture. Adequate interpretation is only possible, and is indeed enriched, by taking the cultural practices of human populations into account. This approach is applied to archaeobotanical materials from Maly...

Archaeologists wishing to interpret the meanings of artifacts, both symbolic and functional, have increasingly drawn from Saussureinspired linguistic models as a way to ‘read’ the archaeological record. Such models, however, may not be appropriate for a number of reasons, and should be discarded in favor of a discourse-centered approach, which investigates meaning through practice, currently ga...

Stone tool use by wild chimpanzees of West Africa offers a unique opportunity to explore the evolutionary roots of technology during human evolution. However, detailed analyses of chimpanzee stone artifacts are still lacking, thus precluding a comparison with the earliest archaeological record. This paper presents the first systematic study of stone tools used by wild chimpanzees to crack open ...

This paper studies both the spread of Celtic Christianity into Britain and the way in which the Celtic peoples reacted to the new religion. The study examines possible reasons for the Celts’ acceptance of Christianity and examines the effect Christianity had on the beliefs of the Celts as well as on their daily lives. This paper looks at how Celtic Christianity manifests itself in the archaeolo...

The classification of pottery as found in many archaeological sites around the world is a time consuming and often tedious task which can take months and even years for a single site. Many of the seemingly less interesting artifacts simply disappear into storage unclassified. Automating the classification of pottery would hence be a welcome help for many archaeologists, freeing them from routin...

Animal fats are preserved at archaeological sites in association with unglazed pottery, human and animal remains, and other deposits or hoards. High-temperature gas chromatography (HT-GC) and combined HT-GC/mass spectrometry (HT-GC/MS) has confirmed the presence of animal fats in lipid extracts of artifacts. Degradation products and pathways have been discerned through the analyses of archaeolo...