Bottling Paradise: The Future of Glass Bottle Archaeology in Hawai‘i

As common-place consumables bearing the marks of datable production techniques and often durable labeling, glass bottles are a goldmine for any archaeologist equipped with the right analytical toolkit. By learning to decipher the age, sources, and uses of glass bottles, archaeologists not only gain a valuable tool for dating historic sites, they open a window into the trade networks and consumption patterns of the past, topics that are perennial favorites of the discipline. In analyzing glass bottle assemblages, certain aspects of a bottle’s life can be determined from close inspection of the bottle itself. These include: date of manufacture, place of manufacture, intended function, particular lip shape (i.e., bottle type), intended content, and place of bottling

High-throughput microCT and ZooMS collagen fingerprinting of Scombrid bone from the Marquesas Islands

Collagen peptide mass fingerprinting of archaeofaunal remains, or Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS), has increasingly established itself as a valuable tool for improving our understanding of highly-fragmented faunal assemblages. Although there have been developments in sampling strategies that have attempted to reduce damage to precious archaeological specimens, these tend to yield spectra inferior in quality to those yielded by destructive approaches. Also, in an effort to mitigate the impacts on faunal assemblages, researchers are beginning to turn to microCT for the digital preservation of specimens, as this enhances their value for further studies. Here we combine ZooMS and microCT, in application to over one hundred scombrid remains from the Hanamiai site in the Marquesas, which spans the time period from initial human colonization by Polynesians at ca. AD 1250 until around 1900. Almost all of the hypurals that yielded collagen fingerprints (71 of 73) were confirmed as skipjack. The results suggest striking continuity over time in fishing practices with an inferred emphasis on fishing strategies involving sailing canoes being present from the time of initial settlement. The focus appears to be on daytime fishing for skipjack rather than on night fishing for yellowfin, kawakawa and dogtooth tuna as might otherwise have been expected