Ages ago
Agriculture, population growth, and statistical analysis of the radiocarbon record
Jabran Zahid, Erick Robinson & Robert Kelly
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, forthcoming
Abstract:
The human population has grown significantly since the onset of the Holocene about 12,000 y ago. Despite decades of research, the factors determining prehistoric population growth remain uncertain. Here, we examine measurements of the rate of growth of the prehistoric human population based on statistical analysis of the radiocarbon record. We find that, during most of the Holocene, human populations worldwide grew at a long-term annual rate of 0.04%. Statistical analysis of the radiocarbon record shows that transitioning farming societies experienced the same rate of growth as contemporaneous foraging societies. The same rate of growth measured for populations dwelling in a range of environments and practicing a variety of subsistence strategies suggests that the global climate and/or endogenous biological factors, not adaptability to local environment or subsistence practices, regulated the long-term growth of the human population during most of the Holocene. Our results demonstrate that statistical analyses of large ensembles of radiocarbon dates are robust and valuable for quantitatively investigating the demography of prehistoric human populations worldwide.
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Economic Growth in the Roman Mediterranean World: An Early Good-bye to Malthus?
Paul Erdkamp
Explorations in Economic History, forthcoming
Abstract:
Was the Roman world caught in a Malthusian trap? In this survey, I draw on a wide range of evidence - from archaeological data to city size estimates - to argue that Malthusian constraints were not binding over long periods. Market-size effects allowed the Roman economy to grow substantially in per capita terms, despite population growth. I place these observations in the context of recent debates and contributions by both ancient historians and - for the long run - by economists.
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The Earliest Lead Object in the Levant
Naama Yahalom-Mack et al.
PLoS ONE, December 2015
Abstract:
In the deepest section of a large complex cave in the northern Negev desert, Israel, a bi-conical lead object was found logged onto a wooden shaft. Associated material remains and radiocarbon dating of the shaft place the object within the Late Chalcolithic period, at the late 5th millennium BCE. Based on chemical and lead isotope analysis, we show that this unique object was made of almost pure metallic lead, likely smelted from lead ores originating in the Taurus range in Anatolia. Either the finished object, or the raw material, was brought to the southern Levant, adding another major component to the already-rich Late Chalcolithic metallurgical corpus known to-date. The paper also discusses possible uses of the object, suggesting that it may have been used as a spindle whorl, at least towards its deposition.
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Benjamin Luley
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, March 2016, Pages 33-54
Abstract:
This article investigates the ways discernible in the material record by which individuals obtained influence and power in late Iron Age (ca. 425-125 BC) Eastern Languedoc in Mediterranean France. Specifically, the article examines the extent to which the control over agricultural production, the control over the circulation of prestige goods, and a monopoly on the use of violence may have been used by individuals to influence and direct group activity. Although archaeologists have often portrayed Iron Age Mediterranean France, as well as Iron Age Europe more generally, as being dominated by a class of warrior aristocrats, an examination of the material evidence in regard to these three aspects of political power suggests that in fact, late Iron Age society in Eastern Languedoc was fairly egalitarian, with political power diffused and open to a large number of competing adults. A real socio-economic hierarchy based upon classes only emerged under the influence of the Roman colonial state in the first century BC. Far from offering any analytical precision, the overly broad term "elite" in this way actually obscures important changes in political strategies occurring under Roman colonialism.
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Genome-wide patterns of selection in 230 ancient Eurasians
Iain Mathieson et al.
Nature, 24 December 2015, Pages 499-503
Abstract:
Ancient DNA makes it possible to observe natural selection directly by analysing samples from populations before, during and after adaptation events. Here we report a genome-wide scan for selection using ancient DNA, capitalizing on the largest ancient DNA data set yet assembled: 230 West Eurasians who lived between 6500 and 300 BC, including 163 with newly reported data. The new samples include, to our knowledge, the first genome-wide ancient DNA from Anatolian Neolithic farmers, whose genetic material we obtained by extracting from petrous bones, and who we show were members of the population that was the source of Europe's first farmers. We also report a transect of the steppe region in Samara between 5600 and 300 BC, which allows us to identify admixture into the steppe from at least two external sources. We detect selection at loci associated with diet, pigmentation and immunity, and two independent episodes of selection on height.