​​This paper [1] covers an interesting topic in that it presents through ethnography an insight into a traditional method of food production which is gradually declining in use. In addition to preserving traditional knowledge, the ethnographic study of grinding stones has the potential for showing how similar tools may have been used by people in the past, particularly from the same geographic region.

[1] Thongdok Norbu J., Nimasow Gibji, Nimasow Oyi D. (2021) Ran-thok and Ling-chhom: indigenous grinding stones of Shertukpen tribes of Arunachal Pradesh, India. Zenodo, 5118675, ver. 4 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Archaeo. doi: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5118675

The advent of biomolecular methods has certainly increased our overall comprehension of archaeological societies. One of the materials of choice to perform ancient DNA or proteomics analyses is dental calculus[1,2], a mineralised biofilm formed during the life of one individual. Research conducted in the past few decades has demonstrated the potential of dental calculus to retrieve information about past societies health[3–6], diet[7–11], and more recently, as a putative proxy for isotopic analyses[12]. 

Based on a proof-of-concept previously published by their team[13], Bartholdy and collaborators’ paper presents the identification of compounds and their secondary metabolites derived from consumed plants in individuals from a XIXth century rural Dutch archaeological deposit[14]. Sørensen indeed demonstrated that drug intake is recorded in dental calculus, which are mineralised biofilms that can encapsulate drug compounds long after the latter are no longer detectable in blood. The liquid-chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS)-based method developed showed the potential for archaeological applications[13]. 

Bartholdy et al. utilised the developed LC-MS/MS method to 41 buried individuals, most of them bearing pipe notches on their teeth, from the cemetery of the 19th rural settlement of Middenbeemster, the Netherlands. Along with dental calculus sampling and analysis, they undertook the skeletal and dental examination of all of the specimens in order to assess sex, age-at-death, and pathology on the two tissues. The results obtained on the dental calculus of the sampled individuals show probable consumption of tea, coffee and tobacco indicated by the detection of the various plant compounds and associated metabolites (caffeine, nicotine and salicylic acid, amongst others). 

The authors were able to place their results in perspective and propose several interpretations concerning the ingestion of plant-derived products, their survival in dental calculus and the importance of their findings for our overall comprehension of health and habits of the XIXth c. Dutch population. The paper is well-written and accessible to a non-specialist audience, maximising the impact of their study. I personally really enjoyed handling this manuscript that is not only a good piece of scientific literature but also a pleasant read, the reason why I warmly recommend this paper to be accessible through PCI Archaeology.

References

1.      Fagernäs, Z. and Warinner, C. (2023) Dental Calculus. in Handbook of Archaeological Sciences 575–590. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119592112.ch28

2.      Wright, S. L., Dobney, K. & Weyrich, L. S. (2021) Advancing and refining archaeological dental calculus research using multiomic frameworks. STAR: Science & Technology of Archaeological Research 7, 13–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/20548923.2021.1882122

3.      Fotakis, A. K. et al. (2020) Multi-omic detection of Mycobacterium leprae in archaeological human dental calculus. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B Biol. Sci. 375, 20190584. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0584

4.      Warinner, C. et al. (2014) Pathogens and host immunity in the ancient human oral cavity. Nat. Genet. 46, 336–344. https://doi.org/10.1038/ng.2906

5.      Weyrich, L. S. et al. (2017) Neanderthal behaviour, diet, and disease inferred from ancient DNA in dental calculus. Nature 544, 357–361. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature21674

6.      Jersie-Christensen, R. R. et al. (2018) Quantitative metaproteomics of medieval dental calculus reveals individual oral health status. Nat. Commun. 9, 4744. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-07148-3

7.      Hendy, J. et al. (2018) Proteomic evidence of dietary sources in ancient dental calculus. Proc. Biol. Sci. 285. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.0977

8.      Wilkin, S. et al. (2020) Dairy pastoralism sustained eastern Eurasian steppe populations for 5,000 years. Nat Ecol Evol 4, 346–355. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-1120-y

9.      Bleasdale, M. et al. (2021) Ancient proteins provide evidence of dairy consumption in eastern Africa. Nat. Commun. 12, 632. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20682-3

10.   Warinner, C. et al. (2014) Direct evidence of milk consumption from ancient human dental calculus. Sci. Rep. 4, 7104. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep07104

11.   Buckley, S., Usai, D., Jakob, T., Radini, A. and Hardy, K. (2014) Dental Calculus Reveals Unique Insights into Food Items, Cooking and Plant Processing in Prehistoric Central Sudan. PLoS One 9, e100808. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0100808

12.   Salazar-García, D. C., Warinner, C., Eerkens, J. W. and Henry, A. G. (2023) The Potential of Dental Calculus as a Novel Source of Biological Isotopic Data. in Exploring Human Behavior Through Isotope Analysis: Applications in Archaeological Research (eds. Beasley, M. M. & Somerville, A. D.) 125–152. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32268-6_6

13.   Sørensen, L. K., Hasselstrøm, J. B., Larsen, L. S. and Bindslev, D. A. (2021) Entrapment of drugs in dental calculus - Detection validation based on test results from post-mortem investigations. Forensic Sci. Int. 319, 110647. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forsciint.2020.110647

14.   Bartholdy, Bjørn Peare, Hasselstrøm, Jørgen B., Sørensen, Lambert K., Casna, Maia, Hoogland, Menno, Historisch Genootschap Beemster and Henry, Amanda G. (2023) Multiproxy analysis exploring patterns of diet and disease in dental calculus and skeletal remains from a 19th century Dutch population, Zenodo, 7649150, ver. 5 peer-reviewed and recommended by Peer Community in Archaeology. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7649150

The paper “A return to function as the basis of lithic classification” by Radu Iovita (2024) is a contribution to an upcoming volume on the role of typology and type-thinking in current archaeological theory and praxis edited by the PCI recommenders. In this context, the paper offers an in-depth discussion of several crucial dimensions of typological thinking in past and current lithic studies, namely:

• “common sense” in archaeology, discussed based on earlier proposals by influential anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1975),
• “function”, argued by the author to be the “fundamental property of tools”,
• “cognitive” aspects, said to be reflected in the “property we naturally use to classify” stone tools and then argued to be grounded in function,
• “traceology” as an archaeological bundle of methods and practices to determine (tool) function, discussing the current status of this research perspective in archaeology and its future.

Discussing and importantly re-articulating these concepts, Iovita ultimately aims at “establishing unified guiding principles for studying a technology that spans several million years and several different species whose brain capacities range from ca. 300–1400 cm³”.

The notion that tool function should dictate classification is not new (e.g. Gebauer 1987). It is particularly noteworthy, however, that the paper engages carefully with various relevant contributions on the topic from non-Anglophone research traditions. First, its considering works on lithic typologies published in other languages, such as Russian (Sergei Semenov), French (Georges Laplace), and German (Joachim Hahn). Second, it takes up the ideas of two French techno-anthropologists, in particular: 

• Anthropologist of technics François Sigaut's (1940-2012) distinction of form, function, and “fonctionnement” (Sigaut 1991). Iovita proposes to draw and recast this tripartition, splitting the notion of function into “structural function” (a concept encompassing biological function as well as the “interface between the tool and its environment”), “operation” (which “relates to learning the function of artifacts from others and representing them through their motor associations”), and "designer-intended function” (DIF). Iovita shows how these distinctions can be used to clarify the ways and the grounds on which we build lithic typologies.
• Structural anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss' (1908-2009) concept of “bricolage”, influentially proposed and developed in his La pensée sauvage (Lévi-Strauss 1962); this concept was also much discussed by North American anthropologist Clifford Geertz and more recently critically re-considered in the English-speaking literature thanks to a new translation of Lévi-Strauss' original text (Lévi-Strauss 2021).

Interestingly, Iovita grounds his argumentation on insights from primatology, psychology and the cognitive sciences, to the extent that they fuel discussion on archaeological concepts and methods. Results regarding the so-called “design stance” for example play a crucial role: coined by philosopher and cognitive scientist and philosopher Daniel Dennett (1942-2024), this notion encompasses the possible discrepancies between the designer’s intended purpose and the object's current functions. DIF, as discussed by Iovita, directly relates to this idea, illustrating how concepts from other sciences can fruitfully be injected into archaeological thinking.

Lastly, readers should note the intellectual contents generated on PCI as part of the reviewing process of the paper itself: both the reviewers and the author have engaged in in-depth discussions on the idea of (tool) “function” and its contested relationship with form or typology, delineating and mapping different views on these key issues in lithic study which are worth reading on their own.

References

Gebauer, A. B. (1987). Stylistic Analysis. A Critical Review of Concepts, Models, and Interpretations, Journal of Danish Archaeology, 6, p. 223–229.

Geertz, C. (1975). Common Sense as a Cultural System, The Antioch Review, 33 (1), p. 5–26.

Iovita, R. (2024). A return to function as the basis of lithic classification. Zenodo, 7734147, ver. 5 peer-reviewed and recommended by Peer Community in Archaeology. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7734147

Lévi-Strauss, C. (1962). La pensée sauvage. Paris: Plon.

Lévi-Strauss, C. (2021). Wild Thought: A New Translation of “La Pensée sauvage”. Translated by Jeffrey Mehlman & John Leavitt. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press.

Sigaut, F. (1991). “Un couteau ne sert pas à couper, mais en coupant. Structure, fonctionnement et fonction dans l'analyse des objets” in 25 Ans d'études technologiques en préhistoire : Bilan et perspectives, Juan-les-Pins: Éditions de l'association pour la promotion et la diffusion des connaissances archéologiques, p. 21-34.

The paper “A closer look at an eroded dune landscape: first functional insights into the Federmessergruppen site of Lommel-Maatheide” [1] focuses on the final Palaeolithic (Federmesser) site of Lommel-Maatheide. Federmesser sites from northern Belgium such as Lommel-Maatheide, Meer and Rekem, show evidence for dense human occupation of specific areas located on top of Tardiglacial dunes nearby water bodies [2]. Preserved spatial distribution of finds at the sites suggest different activity areas and the presence of habitat structures [2]. However, because of the low organic preservation at the sites, functional analyses of lithic assemblages have the potential to significantly contribute to the spatial organisation of activities at these sites. This study by Tomasso et al. [1], represents an excellent example of a large-scale integrated approach to the study of lithic industries. The article undoubtedly demonstrates the potential of the proposed methodology and the reliability of the results obtained.

The article explores two different aspects (linked and excellently interconnected here): the possibility to apply use wear, residue and fracture analyses, on lithic assemblages affected by taphonomical alterations and to study lithic assemblages from dune landscapes. 

The study allows to answer differentiated questions: what is the influence of taphonomical alterations on use wear analysis? How do excavation methods impact the formation of use wear and the preservation of residues? Can we recognize distinct domestic activities? The article also provides an interesting hypothesis about hunting activities and propulsion methods.

The applied methodology is effectively interdisciplinary and innovative. It demonstrates how a truly integrated and articulated approach can represent the turning point for going beyond a mainly descriptive dimension to move towards a real understanding of the sites.

Studies dedicated to the analysis of the propulsion mode are not very frequent, but they are surely very important to better understand human behaviour [3]. Here, the methodology developed for the evaluation of the propulsion mode represent an important starting point for the definition of a new approach. Morphological and morphometrical analysis are integrated to the evaluation of the mechanical stress, to fracture delineations and to the hafting system (the latter defined on experimental basis).

This article therefore underlines the potential of combining different approaches to functional analysis associated with a ‘tailored’ reference collection and applying them to a high number of artefacts for reconstructing past human activities involving materials that are otherwise not preserved in these contexts. 

[1] Tomasso, S., Cnuts, D., Coppe, J., Geerts, F., Gils, M.V., Bie, M.D., Rots, V. (2021). A closer look at an eroded dune landscape: first functional insights into the Federmessergruppen site of Lommel-Maatheide. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/pf3sm, ver 3 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Archaeology.

[2] De Bie, M., Van Gils, M. (2006). Les habitats des groupes à Federmesser (aziliens) dans le Nord de la Belgique. Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française, 103, 781–790.

[3] Coppe, J., Lepers, C., Clarenne, V., Delaunois, E., Pirlot, M. and Rots V. (2019). Ballistic Study Tackles Kinetic Energy Values of Palaeolithic Weaponry. Archaeometry, (61)4, 933-956. https://doi.org/10.1111/arcm.12452

The Middle Palaeolithic period represents a crucial phase in the Prehistory of Europe, marked by the dominance of Neanderthal populations and their adaptive strategies. In Portugal, this period is characterized by a wealth of archaeological sites that provide valuable insights into the lifeways, technology, and environmental adaptations of its inhabitants (Aubry et al., 2011; J. L. Cardoso & Cascalheira, 2024; Cascalheira et al., 2022; Zilhão, 2001; Zilhão et al., 2021). One of the most significant is Gruta da Figueira Brava, located near the modern coastline: recent research has highlighted its role as a key site for understanding coastal adaptation by Neanderthals (Zilhão et al., 2020). Almonda Cave System is another pivotal area (Marks et al., 2001; Marks et al., 1994), offering a long stratigraphic sequence that includes Middle Palaeolithic layers . A prominent site is also and Foz do Enxarrique (Cunha et al., 2019), rich in lithic artifacts indicating a reliance on local hunting and foraging . The lithic technology of the Middle Palaeolithic in Portugal is largely characterized by the widespread use of the Levallois method, with variations reflecting local adaptations and raw material availability. Quartz, quartzite and flint were commonly used, indicating a strategic selection of materials based on functionality and proximity.

The Côa Valley, located in northern Portugal, is renowned for its rich archaeological record spanning from the Middle Palaeolithic to the Upper Palaeolithic (Aubry et al., 2012, 2016). The region’s significance lies not only in its rock art but also in its evidence of human occupation and technological development during the Pleistocene. Middle Palaeolithic sites in the Côa Valley are characterized by lithic assemblages associated with Neanderthal populations. These sites reveal a predominance of quartzite and flint tools, typical of Middle Palaeolithic technology. Excavations at sites like Cardina-Salto do Boi have uncovered stratified deposits with stone tools and faunal remains, shedding light on subsistence strategies and mobility patterns. As shown by the work presented by Patricia Ramos & Thierry Aubry, the tools from these layers exhibit a range of core reduction techniques, including Levallois flaking. The chosen approach for studying the lithic assemblage emphasizes the significance of raw materials in defining the technological behaviours employed by Neanderthal groups. Specifically, the study highlights the intensive use of quartz as a primary resource. The classification of different types of quartz, based on defined criteria and categories, reveals variations in material selection and technological practices across the analysed layers. This detailed analysis allows for a deeper interpretation of the technological strategies adopted by Neanderthal groups at the Cardina-Salto do Boi site. The work of Patricia Ramose and Thierry Aubry demonstrates how the Middle Palaeolithic record of the Côa Valley continues to provide interesting insights into Neanderthal life in the Iberian Peninsula. 

References

Aubry, T., Barbosa, A. F., Luís, L., Santos, A. T., and Silvestre, M. (2016). Quartz use in the absence of flint: Middle and Upper Palaeolithic raw material economy in the Côa Valley (North-eastern Portugal). Quaternary International, 424, 113–129. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2015.11.067

Aubry, T., Dimuccio, L. A., Almeida, M., Neves, M. J., Angelucci, D. E., and Cunha, L. (2011). Palaeoenvironmental forcing during the Middle–Upper Palaeolithic transition in central-western Portugal. Quaternary Research, 75, 66–79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yqres.2010.11.002

Aubry, T., Luís, L., Llach, J. M., and Matias, H. (2012). We will be known by the tracks we leave behind: Exotic lithic raw materials, mobility and social networking among the Côa Valley foragers (Portugal). Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 31(4), 528–550. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2012.05.003

Cardoso, J. L., and Cascalheira, J. (2024). 40,000 years later: what we know about the presence of Neanderthals in Portuguese territory and their extinction. Academia das Ciências de Lisboa. https://doi.org/10.58164/qhdw-y588

Cascalheira, J., Gonçalves, C., and Maio, D. (2022). The spatial patterning of Middle Palaeolithic human settlement in westernmost Iberia. Journal of Quaternary Science, 37(2), 291–299. https://doi.org/10.1002/JQS.3286

Cunha, P. P., Martins, A. A., Buylaert, J. P., Murray, A. S., Gouveia, M. P., Font, E., Pereira, T., Figueiredo, S., Ferreira, C., Bridgland, D. R., Yang, P., Stevaux, J. C., and Mota, R. (2019). The lowermost Tejo River terrace at Foz do Enxarrique, Portugal: A palaeoenvironmental archive from c. 60–35 ka and its implications for the last Neanderthals in westernmost Iberia. Quaternary, 2(3). https://doi.org/10.3390/quat2010003

Marks, A. E., Bich, N., Ferring, C. R., and Zilhão, J. (1994). Upper pleistocene prehistory in portuguese estremadura: Results of preliminary research. Journal of Field Archaeology, 21(1), 53–68. https://doi.org/10.1179/JFA.1994.21.1.53

Marks, A., Monigal, K., and Zilhão, J. (2001). The lithic assemblages of the Late Mousterian at Gruta de Oliveira, Almonda, Portugal. Trabalhos de Arquelogia, 17, 145–154.

Patrícia O. S. Ramos, and Thierry J. Aubry (2024) Latest updates on the study of the Middle Palaeolithic Lithic assemblages of Cardina- Salto do Boi site (Côa Valley, Portugal) . OSF preprints, ver. 11 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Archaeology https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/s3jd2

Zilhão, J. (2001). Middle Paleolithic settlement patterns in Portugal. In N. Conard (Ed.), Settlement dynamics of the Middle Palaeolithic and Middle Stone Age (pp. 597–608). Kerns Verlag.

Zilhão, J., Angelucci, D. E., Araújo Igreja, M., Arnold, L. J., Badal, E., Callapez, P., Cardoso, J. L., d’Errico, F., Daura, J., Demuro, M., Deschamps, M., Dupont, C., Gabriel, S., Hoffmann, D. L., Legoinha, P., Matias, H., Monge Soares, A. M., Nabais, M., Portela, P., … Souto, P. (2020). Last Interglacial Iberian Neandertals as fisher-hunter-gatherers. Science, 367(6485). https://doi.org/10.1126/SCIENCE.AAZ7943

Zilhão, J., Angelucci, D. E., Arnold, L. J., d’Errico, F., Dayet, L., Demuro, M., Deschamps, M., Fewlass, H., Gomes, L., Linscott, B., Matias, H., Pike, A. W. G., Steier, P., Talamo, S., and Wild, E. M. (2021). Revisiting the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic archaeology of Gruta do Caldeirão (Tomar, Portugal). PLoS ONE, 16(10 October). https://doi.org/10.1371/JOURNAL.PONE.0259089