Towards an econometrically informed archaeology: the Cologne Tableau (KöTa)

Economic archaeology is currently oriented toward either ecological approaches or aspects of handicraft and exchange. The Cologne Tableau is designed to represent total economies as well as different economic sectors for comparative purposes in order to stress the macroeconomic interdependency of production, exchange, and consumption. The tableau displays every imaginable good or service, and it is based on an open monohierarchichal system that assigns positions in the table. As for the actual production, the surpluses, and the demand for goods may be given in the cells of the Tableau. For econometric analyses all the goods must be valued using the same measure of value necessary for covering the demand, regardless of whether it is an amount of money, an expenditure in kilojoules or the hours of work. The latter are used here. A case study of Early Neolithic Linear Pottery economy shows that the female labour force was most likely the key resource of the analysed economic system

The Global Dynamics of Inequality (GINI) project: analysing archaeological housing data

The GINI project investigates the dynamics of inequality among populations over the long term by synthesising global archaeological housing data. This project brings archaeologists together from around the world to assess hypotheses concerning the causes and consequences of inequality that are of relevance to contemporary societies globally

The Neolithic Demographic Transition in Europe: Correlation with Juvenility Index Supports Interpretation of the Summed Calibrated Radiocarbon Date Probability Distribution (SCDPD) as a Valid Demographic Proxy

Analysis of the proportion of immature skeletons recovered from European prehistoric cemeteries has shown that the transition to agriculture after 9000 BP triggered a long-term increase in human fertility. Here we compare the largest analysis of European cemeteries to date with an independent line of evidence, the summed calibrated date probability distribution of radiocarbon dates (SCDPD) from archaeological sites. Our cemetery reanalysis confirms increased growth rates after the introduction of agriculture; the radiocarbon analysis also shows this pattern, and a significant correlation between both lines of evidence confirms the demographic validity of SCDPDs. We analyze the areal extent of Neolithic enclosures and demographic data from ethnographically known farming and foraging societies and we estimate differences in population levels at individual sites. We find little effect on the overall shape and precision of the SCDPD and we observe a small increase in the correlation with the cemetery trends. The SCDPD analysis supports the hypothesis that the transition to agriculture dramatically increased demographic growth, but it was followed within centuries by a general pattern of collapse even after accounting for higher settlement densities during the Neolithic. The study supports the unique contribution of SCDPDs as a valid demographic proxy for the demographic patterns associated with early agriculture

Reconstructing Economic Landscapes from Networks of Practices: An Example from the Delzian Plain (Soran District, Iraqi Kurdistan)

How are socio-economic practices constituting a space for economic decision making? Can a landscape be described archaeologically through networks of practices? In principle, all finds as well as all reconstructed actions can be situated and related spatially. An artefact made of obsidian, a piece of pottery, a copper dagger, a glass bead - they all stem from their raw material sources. Bread is made from grain growing on certain fields while meat and milk, mutton and fish come from other pla..

The chronology of culture:a comparative assessment of European Neolithic dating approaches

Archaeologists have long sought appropriate ways to describe the duration and floruit of archaeological cultures in statistical terms. Thus far, chronological reasoning has been largely reliant on typological sequences. Using summed probability distributions, the authors here compare radiocarbon dates for a series of European Neolithic cultures with their generally accepted ‘standard’ date ranges and with the greater precision afforded by dendrochronology, where that is available. The resulting analysis gives a new and more accurate description of the duration and intensity of European Neolithic cultures

Results of bootstrap analysis comparing farming communities to foraging communities based on population counts and settlement size.

<p>The distribution is right-skewed therefore the median is the appropriate measurement of central tendency.</p

Example ethnographic and archaeological settlement area and density data from published sources.

<p>* Values within parentheses were reported as “tribute payers,” probably in reference to the male household head. A rough settlement population was estimated at 6 persons per household.</p><p>** Pop levels are unknown for Neolithic enclosures.</p><p>+ Indicates arithmetic mean reported in original publication.</p><p>++ Indicates median.</p

Comparison of Mesolithic SCDPD with scaled and unscaled Neolithic SCDPDs.

<p>The scaled Neolithic curve indicates the likelihood that Neolithic farming settlements had higher populations than Mesolithic foragers.</p