Life on the watershed : reconstructing subsistence in a steppe region using archaeological survey: a diachronic perspective on habitation in the Jordan Valley.

Scarcity of water is a major problem in many parts of the Near East today and in the past. In order to survive in such a region people have to be able to structurally procure more water than rainfall alone can supply. The archaeology of this area should not only identify when people inhabited such a region and what the character of this habitation was, but also how people were able to survive in such a region and why they chose it in the first place. In this book these questions have been posed of the Zerqa Triangle: a region in the middle Jordan Valley around Tell Deir ‘All? (Jordan). The intensity of habitation of the region from the Neolithic to early modern periods was investigated by means of a detailed pedestrian archaeological survey. Efforts have been undertaken to reconstruct the agricultural practices in the various periods and simultaneously the means by which the different communities were able to practise agriculture; in other words, how did they irrigate the land? By focussing on the varying social responses of communities, conclusions have been drawn on how and why people created a living in this arid, but potentially very fertile region.LEI Universiteit LeidenNWOClassical & Mediterranean Archaeolog

Field systems and later prehistoric land use:: new insights into land use detectability and palaeodemography in the Netherlands through LiDAR, automatic detection and traditional field data

This paper discusses how the use of AI (artificial intelligence) detected later prehistoric field systems provides a more reliable base for reconstructing palaeodemographic trends, using the Netherlands as a case study. Despite its long tradition of settlement excavations, models that could be used to reconstruct (changes in) prehistoric land use have been few and often relied on (insufficiently mapped) nodal data points such as settlements and barrows. We argue that prehistoric field systems of field plots beset on all sides by earthen banks—known as Celtic fields—are a more suitable (i.e. less nodal) proxy for reconstructing later prehistoric land use.For four 32.25 km2 case study areas in different geogenetic regions of the Netherlands, prehistoric land use surface areas are modelled based on conventional methods and the results are compared to the results we obtained by using AI-assisted detection of prehistoric field systems. The nationally available LiDAR data were used for automated detection. Geotiff DTM images were fed into an object detection algorithm (based on the YOLOv4 framework and trained with known Dutch sites), and resultant geospatial vectors were imported into GIS.Our analysis shows that AI-assisted detection of prehistoric embanked field systems on average leads to a factor 1.84 increase in known surface areas of Celtic fields. Modelling the numbers of occupants from this spatial coverage, yields population sizes of 37–135 persons for the case study regions (i.e. 1.15 to 4.19 p/km2). This range aligns well with previous estimates and offers a more robust and representative proxy for palaeodemographic reconstructions. Variations in land use coverage between the regions could be explained by differences in present-day land use and research intensity. Particularly the regionally different extent of forestlands and heathlands (ideal for the (a) preservation and (b) automated LiDAR detection of embanked field systems) explains minor variations between the four case study regions.Digital ArchaeologyEuropean Prehistor

Dietary choices and environmental impact in four European countries

Effective food policies in Europe require insight into the environmental impact of consumers’ diet to contribute to global nutrition security in an environmentally sustainable way. The present study therefore aimed to assess the environmental impact associated with dietary intake across four European countries, and to explain sources of variations in environmental impact by energy intake, demographics and diet composition. Individual-level dietary intake data were obtained from nationally-representative dietary surveys, by using two non-consecutive days of a 24-h recall or a diet record, from Denmark (DK, n = 1710), Czech Republic (CZ, n = 1666), Italy (IT, n = 2184), and France (FR, n = 2246). Dietary intake data were linked to a newly developed pan-European environmental sustainability indicator database that contains greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) and land use (LU) values for ∼900 foods. To explain the variation in environmental impact of diets, multilevel regression models with random intercept and random slopes were fitted according to two levels: adults (level 1, n = 7806) and country (level 2, n = 4). In the models, diet-related GHGE or LU was the dependent variable, and the parameter of interest, i.e. either total energy intake or demographics or food groups, the exploratory variables. A 200-kcal higher total energy intake was associated with a 9% and a 10% higher daily GHGE and LU. Expressed per 2000 kcal, mean GHGE ranged from 4.4 (CZ) to 6.3 kgCO2eq/2000 kcal (FR), and LU ranged from 5.7 (CZ) to 8.0 m2*year/2000 kcal (FR). Dietary choices explained most of the variation between countries. A 5 energy percent (50 g/2000 kcal) higher meat intake was associated with a 10% and a 14% higher GHGE and LU density, with ruminant meat being the main contributor to environmental footprints. In conclusion, intake of energy, total meat and the proportion of ruminant meat explained most of the variation in GHGE and LU of European diets. Contributions of food groups to environmental footprints however varied between countries, suggesting that cultural preferences play an important role in environmental footprints of consumers. In particular, Findings from the present study will be relevant for national-specific food policy measures towards a more environmentally-friendly diet.</p

Carbon stable isotope analysis of cereal remains as a way to reconstruct water availability: preliminary results

Reconstructing past water availability, both as rainfall and irrigation, is important to answer questions about the way society reacts to climate and its changes and the role of irrigation in the development of social complexity. Carbon stable isotope analysis of archaeobotanical remains is a potentially valuable method for reconstructing water availability. To further define the relationship between water availability and plant carbon isotope composition and to set up baseline values for the Southern Levant, grains of experimentally grown barley and sorghum were studied. The cereal crops were grown at three stations under five different irrigation regimes in Jordan. Results indicate that a positive but weak relationship exists between irrigation regime and total water input of barley grains, but no relationship was found for sorghum. The relationship for barley is site-specific and inter-annual variation was present at Deir ‘Alla, but not at Ramtha and Khirbet as-Samra

How Grandparents Matter: Support for the Cooperative Breeding Hypothesis in a Contemporary Dutch Population

Low birth rates in developed societies reflect women’s difficulties in combining work and motherhood. While demographic research has focused on the role of formal childcare in easing this dilemma, evolutionary theory points to the importance of kin. The cooperative breeding hypothesis states that the wider kin group has facilitated women’s reproduction during our evolutionary history. This mechanism has been demonstrated in pre-industrial societies, but there is no direct evidence of beneficial effects of kin’s support on parents’ reproduction in modern societies. Using three-generation longitudinal data anchored in a sample of grandparents aged 55 and over in 1992 in the Netherlands, we show that childcare support from grandparents increases the probability that parents have additional children in the next 8 to 10 years. Grandparental childcare provided to a nephew or niece of childless children did not significantly increase the probability that those children started a family. These results suggest that childcare support by grandparents can enhance their children’s reproductive success in modern societies and is an important factor in people’s fertility decisions, along with the availability of formal childcare

Verkennend archeologisch onderzoek aan de Torenstraat 2-28 te Hazerswoude-Dorp

Concept

Bureauonderzoek en inventariserend veldonderzoek, verkennende fase, aansluiting op leidingtracé te Andel (Noord-Brabant)

Lit. opg., bijl

Verkennend archeologisch onderzoek Verbindingsstraat te Philippine

Lit.opg

Bureauonderzoek en inventariserend veldonderzoek, verkennende fase, aansluiting op leidingtracé te Brakel (Gelderland)

Met lit. op