Preserving the impossible: conservation of soft-sediment hominin footprint sites and strategies for three-dimensional digital data capture.

Human footprints provide some of the most publically emotive and tangible evidence of our ancestors. To the scientific community they provide evidence of stature, presence, behaviour and in the case of early hominins potential evidence with respect to the evolution of gait. While rare in the geological record the number of footprint sites has increased in recent years along with the analytical tools available for their study. Many of these sites are at risk from rapid erosion, including the Ileret footprints in northern Kenya which are second only in age to those at Laetoli (Tanzania). Unlithified, soft-sediment footprint sites such these pose a significant geoconservation challenge. In the first part of this paper conservation and preservation options are explored leading to the conclusion that to 'record and digitally rescue' provides the only viable approach. Key to such strategies is the increasing availability of three-dimensional data capture either via optical laser scanning and/or digital photogrammetry. Within the discipline there is a developing schism between those that favour one approach over the other and a requirement from geoconservationists and the scientific community for some form of objective appraisal of these alternatives is necessary. Consequently in the second part of this paper we evaluate these alternative approaches and the role they can play in a 'record and digitally rescue' conservation strategy. Using modern footprint data, digital models created via optical laser scanning are compared to those generated by state-of-the-art photogrammetry. Both methods give comparable although subtly different results. This data is evaluated alongside a review of field deployment issues to provide guidance to the community with respect to the factors which need to be considered in digital conservation of human/hominin footprints

Socio-semiotics and the symbiosis of humans, horses, and objects in later Iron Age Britain

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Archaeological Journal on 14/03/2018, available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00665983.2018.1441105Using an approach derived from material culture studies and semiotics, this paper addresses possible relationships between humans and horses in the British Iron Age.Through a study of the dominance of horse imagery found on Iron Age British coinage, specifically the Western coinage traditionally attributed to the 'Dobunni', the author explores how it may reflect possible relationships between humans and horses and their personhood therein. Drawing on wider faunal and metalwork evidence it is argued that these coins could be interpreted as a manifestation of the complex perspectives surrounding a symbiotic relationship between humans and horses

Do Caves Have Agency?

Recent studies of later prehistoric cave use have stressed the affective qualities of these natural spaces. Certain properties of caves, darkness, constriction and their active geomorphology for example, can lead to caves be characterised as active agents, natural places with profound powers. However, is it really plausible to interpret caves, inanimate geological formations, as active agents? This paper will review arguments on social, environmental and material agency. This will include Structuration theory, with its emphasis on human consciousness as a key aspect of agency, Ingold's 'Dwelling perspective', which allows the possibility of non-human agents, the work of Alfred Gell and Actor Network Theory. Two common threads are drawn from these approaches to describe the way that things act. Things act in accordance with the properties they have and in a way that is structured and enabled by their past history. From this perspective caves can be shown to act and therefore caves would have been perceived as having agency

Hominin footprints from Early Pleistocene deposits at Happisburgh, UK

The research was funded by the Calleva Foundation as part of the Pathways to Ancient Britain Project. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Investigations at Happisburgh, UK, have revealed the oldest known hominin footprint surface outside Africa at between ca. 1 million and 0.78 million years ago. The site has long been recognised for the preservation of sediments containing Early Pleistocene fauna and flora, but since 2005 has also yielded humanly made flint artefacts, extending the record of human occupation of northern Europe by at least 350,000 years. The sediments consist of sands, gravels and laminated silts laid down by a large river within the upper reaches of its estuary. In May 2013 extensive areas of the laminated sediments were exposed on the foreshore. On the surface of one of the laminated silt horizons a series of hollows was revealed in an area of ca. 12 m2. The surface was recorded using multi-image photogrammetry which showed that the hollows are distinctly elongated and the majority fall within the range of juvenile to adult hominin foot sizes. In many cases the arch and front/back of the foot can be identified and in one case the impression of toes can be seen. Using foot length to stature ratios, the hominins are estimated to have been between ca. 0.93 and 1.73 m in height, suggestive of a group of mixed ages. The orientation of the prints indicates movement in a southerly direction on mud-flats along the river edge. Early Pleistocene human fossils are extremely rare in Europe, with no evidence from the UK. The only known species in western Europe of a similar age is Homo antecessor, whose fossil remains have been found at Atapuerca, Spain. The foot sizes and estimated stature of the hominins from Happisburgh fall within the range derived from the fossil evidence of Homo antecessor.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Social Memory and Ritual Performance

This paper is concerned with archaeological evidence for the mechanisms by which group memory is transmitted. How do natural places such as caves and rock shelters retain their status as foci for ritual activity? It draws upon recent social and archaeological theory around embodied memory; especially Connerton’s (1989) division of memory claims into three kinds. These are: personal memory claims; cognitive memory claims and habit-memory. It is argued that cognitive memory claims and habit-memory should be regarded as aspects of the same process of remembering: following Gell (1998) and Jones (2007) physical traces of past action are regarded as central to this act of memory. Three encounters with memory are analysed: managing memory around death; remembering how to do activities and formal ritual performances which reinforce group memories. It is argued that all three cases share some of the attributes of a formal ritual performance. An analysis of biographies of practice is proposed to draw out these links between small scale habit-memory and long term group memory