There is a deep history of archaeological investigation focusing on the Bronze Age El Argar, or Argaric, cultural phenomenon from southeastern Spain. Argaric archaeology is probably most famous for the elaborate settlement structures, well-preserved burials, and evidence for sophisticated metallurgy and material culture. The rich archaeological record and excellent preservation of human remains have provided archaeologists with incredible resources for reconstructing the lifeways of these Bronze Age peoples. Above Left: view of the site of Castellón Alto. By Rafael Jiménez from Córdoba, España - Castellon Alto 2, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21664792. Above Right: examples of grave goods recovered from an Argaric context. By Luis Siret - Siret, H., and Louis Siret (1887). «Les premiers âges du métal dans le sud-est de l'Espagne». Anvers., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1294319 I was recently involved in a collaborative research project on the human remains from the site of Castellón Alto that focused on the dental remains of the individuals buried at the site. As part of his Ph.D. research on the human remains from the site, Àngel Rubio discovered an interesting trend at the site: of the 106 burials examined, the teeth of 5 individuals showed atypical patterns of dental wear (see below). What was even more astounding was that each of those individuals was female. No males had these interesting patterns of wear. Further microscopic analysis conducted by Dr. Marina Lozano provided clues as to what behaviors may have contributed to the unique wear patterns identified on the teeth of these 5 individuals. Above: The 5 female individuals with atypical patterns of dental wear. Red arrows and circles indicate the location of the wear in the photos. Image from the article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2020.105239. The remarkable preservation of organic remains (textiles, wool, plant fibers, etc.) in addition to extensive durable material culture (awls, loom weights, spindle whorl, needles) found at Argaric archaeological sites provided additional clues as to what tasks may have contributed to the unique patterns of dental wear on the 5 women from Castellón Alto. A probable explanation is that at least some of the women at the site were involved in specialized craft production such as textile production, processing of fiber or cordage, basketry, and similar tasks (see illustration below). Ethnohistoric documentation of the use of the teeth for craft production adds additional support that the formation of atypical dental wear in the subset of the women from Castellón Alto was related to craft production. Above: A scene of Argaric life featuring the many of the tasks related to food preparation and craft-production in the foreground. Ilustración: Miguel Salvatierra "Cultura argárica". The rich archaeological record from the Argaric contexts of southeasten Spain is bound to reveal more insights into human social lives and identities of Bronze Age peoples. In this case, analyses have revealed a unique role for at least some of the women buried at the site engaged in. References and further readingThis study:
Lozano M, Jiménez-Brobeil SA, Willman JC, Sánchez-Barba LP, Molina F, and Rubio Á. 2020. Argaric craftswomen: Sex-based division of labor in the Bronze Age southeastern Iberia. Journal of Archaeological Science:105239. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2020.105239. Additional references: I must emphasize the great resources at http://www.pastwomen.net/ and the resources on the Argaric culture in particular (http://www.pastwomen.net/objetos/cultura-argarica) for the preparation of this post. The website offers incredible, multi-language resources for the instructors, scholars, and anyone that is curious about the social lives of women in the past. The researchers, artists, and other contributors have really created an incredible resource.
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Ohalo 2 is a 23,000 year old hunter-fisher-gatherer that was recovered from a burial at a spectacularly well-preserved archaeological site on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. In 2013, I visited Tel Aviv University to collect data on the human fossils curated in the Department of Anatomy and Anthropology for my doctoral dissertation. While examining the Ohalo 2 skeletal material, I noticed, the missing upper central incisor and a fully healed socket. The teeth immediately surrounding this incisor were present - although a few neighboring teeth were broken postmortem (not surprising for a fossil of this antiquity). The dental wear in the upper jaw was fairly typical of a Late Pleistocene hunter-fisher-gatherer; but when I picked up the mandible, I noticed that the lower incisors had an interesting curvature to their wear plane. This modest "arch-like" pattern of dental wear perfectly matched the position of the missing upper incisor. The overall pattern of dental wear and healed socket was starting to look a lot like the intentional tooth removal - or "ablation" - something that had not been suggested in previous analyses of Ohalo 2. Interestingly, the Natufians - the archaeologically-defined culture that existed some 10,000 years after Ohalo 2 - practiced dental ablation. Could there be a biocultural connection between this Early Epipaleolithic forager and the Late Epipaleolithic Natufians? Ten-thousand years is quite a leap in time, but long-term continuity in some aspects of Epipaleolithic human behavior in southwest Asia had been suggested based on other aspects of the archaeological record. Above: The white arrow points to the tooth that was lost antemortem (in life) as indicated by the healed bone and resorbed socket. The dotted white line shows the uneven plane of wear that indicates that the individual was alive long after the tooth was removed, since dental wear continued to progress - albeit unevenly due to the lack of an occluding upper right central incisor. Red arrows show teeth that are broken and missing postmortem. My colleague, Dr. Sarah A. Lacy, also had the opportunity to study the Ohalo 2 skeletal material in Tel Aviv a few years before me, so we decided to collaborate on an assessment of the Ohalo 2 oral pathological conditions. Our thinking was that a differential diagnosis of the tooth loss may help us understand whether the incisor was lost through the intentional cultural practice of dental ablation or by some other cause. Given the small number of fossils from the Eastern Mediterranean that date to this time period, we also thought it would be an important source of comparative data for researchers interested in Late Pleistocene human paleobiology and behavioral reconstructions. Above: The burial of Ohalo 2 during excavation, a close-up of cast of individual's cranium, and an drawing of the skeletal elements after excavation in laboratory. Image modified from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41492570. In addition to the loss of the upper central incisor, we found a number of other pathological conditions: two carious lesions ("cavities"), pulp exposure, and mild to moderate bone loss around the front teeth. Another cool finding is the probable agenesis of the left upper third molar - "agenesis" means that the tooth never developed at all. We noted that these conditions are not really abnormal for a Late Pleistocene human, but the general state of oral health did not seem to contribute to the loss of the upper incisor. So, if the other oral pathological conditions were unlikely contributors to the loss of the incisor, what about loss through a traumatic event? A bad fall, interpersonal violence, or some other kind of accident could have knocked out Ohalo 2's front tooth. At first, we thought trauma was a good candidate since Ohalo 2 has an absolutely astonishing bony growth in their chest. The growth was due to infection (chronic osteomyelitis) caused by localized trauma to the lower thorax. Could the incisor have also been knocked out at the same time? Possibly, but unlikely. We determined that the tooth was more likely lost in early in life (childhood or early adolescence) by examining factors related to the timing of tooth eruption and expectations regarding progressive dental wear in hunter-gatherers. In contrast, the major thoracic injury was more likely a later life occurrence - and a rather debilitating one for Ohalo 2. Intentional tooth removal - "ablation" - seems to be the best candidate for Ohalo 2's lost incisor. The tooth was probably lost around late childhood/early adolescence - an important period of physical and social maturation for a young person. Indeed, it is around this age that body modification practices often occur, as shown by numerous other examples documented from bioarchaeological and ethnohistoric contexts. Above Left: The occlusal view of the maxillary (upper) teeth of Ohalo 2. The white arrow is pointing to the tooth that was lost antemortem (before death). The bone is resorbed/healed. The red arrows point to teeth that were lost postmortem. Above Right: A line drawing of a Natufian individual from Shukbah showing the empty space (white arrow) where a tooth was lost before death in the exact location that is seen in Ohalo 2. Photograph by JC Willman. Line drawing modified from Keith 1931. Since the Natufians also practiced incisor ablation, and many behavioral trends among the Natufians seem to have deep antiquity within the Epipaleolithic of the region, we thought it was interesting to also see this biocultural practice portrayed by Ohalo 2 as well. With so few fossils dated to this time period in southwest Asia, it is hard to say whether or not this is truly a biocultural trend spanning the Early and Late phases of the Epipaleolithic, but it is an exciting possibility. Hopefully, future discoveries will shed more light on the antiquity and patterning of Epipaleolithic body modification practices in southwest Asia. Until then, Ohalo 2 represents one of the earliest probable cases of dental ablation in western Eurasia, and more evidence for the embodiment of human social identities through intentional body modification practices among Late Pleistocene peoples. References and further reading:This study:
Access the paper for free until 19 July 2020 here: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1b98C6hTLQdsfi Willman JC, and Lacy SA. 2020. Oral pathological conditions of an Early Epipaleolithic human from Southwest Asia: Ohalo II H2 as a probable case of intentional dental ablation. International Journal of Paleopathology 30:68-76, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpp.2020.04.001. Additional references: Bocquentin F. 2011. Avulsions dentaires et identité régionale chez les Natoufiens. Tüba-Ar (Turkish Academy of Sciences Journal of Archaeology) 14:261-270. Link Bocquentin F, Crevecoeur I, and Semal P. 2013. Artificial modification of the central upper incisors of Homo 4 (Plot XX J burial). In: Edwards PC, editor. Wadi Hammeh 27, an Early Natufian Settlement at Pella in Jordan. Leiden: Brill. p 383-387. Link Edwards PC. 2015. Natufian interactions along the Jordan Valley. Palestine Exploration Quarterly 147(4):272-282, doi.org/10.1179/1743130115Y.0000000001. Hershkovitz I, Edelson G, Spiers M, Arensburg B, Nadel D, and Levi B. 1993. Ohalo II man—unusual findings in the anterior rib cage and shoulder girdle of a 19000‐year‐old specimen. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 3(3):177-188, https://doi.org/10.1002/oa.1390030304. Hershkovitz I, Speirs MS, Frayer D, Nadel D, Wish-Baratz S, and Arensburg B. 1995. Ohalo II H2: A 19,000-year-old skeleton from a water-logged site at the Sea of Galilee, Israel. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 96(3):215-234, http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.1330960302. Keith A. 1931. New discoveries relating to the antiquity of man. London: Williams & Norgate. Link Maher LA, Richter T, and Stock JT. 2012. The pre-Natufian Epipaleolithic: long-term behavioral trends in the Levant. Evolutionary Anthropology 21(2):69-81, https://doi.org/10.1002/evan.21307. Nadel D. 1994. Levantine Upper Palaeolithic–Early Epipalaeolithic burial customs: Ohalo II as a case study. Paléorient 20(1):113-121, www.jstor.org/stable/41492570. Snir A, Nadel D, Groman-Yaroslavski I, Melamed Y, Sternberg M, Bar-Yosef O, and Weiss E. 2015. The Origin of Cultivation and Proto-Weeds, Long Before Neolithic Farming. PloS one 10(7):e0131422, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0131422. Trinkaus E. 2018. The palaeopathology of the Ohalo 2 Upper Paleolithic human remains: A reassessment of its appendicular robusticity, humeral asymmetry, shoulder degenerations, and costal lesion. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 28(2):143-152, https://doi.org/10.1002/oa.2640. In 2013, I had the opportunity to study human fossils from the site of Riparo Fredian in Tuscany as part of my dissertation fieldwork funded by the Leakey Foundation. The human remains were being re-analyzed at the time by researchers at the University of Florence under the direction of Jacopo Moggi-Cecchi. At the end of 2018, a revision of the human skeletal series from Riparo Fredian was published in the open access journal Alpine and Mediterranean Quaternary that followed-up on an earlier paper describing the a probable case of “early dentistry” for one of these Late Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers (Fredian 5) in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Location of Riparo Fredian in Northern Tuscany. The original assessment of the Fredian fossils described 39 isolated teeth and 3 postcranial remains. However, the new paper notes that 18 of the teeth were anatomically misidentified, 2 teeth were not human, and only 2 of 3 of the postcranial remains could be securely attributed to humans. Furthermore, the new analysis identified 2 new human teeth among the remains. Among the fossils, there are at least 2 infants, 2 young adults, and 1-2 mature adults. We cannot be certain about the mature adults because the very worn anterior (incisor and canine) teeth of Fredian 5 and three lesser-worn molars (Fredian 4) could belong to the same individual. The very worn upper incisors and canines from Fredian 5. Not that the pulp chambers of the central incisors are exposed. An earlier paper (Oxilia et al., 2017) describes the evidence for prehistoric dentistry associated with this pathology. This short manuscript is another example of the useful information that can be obtained when we re-examine old archaeological and skeletal collections. I have a feeling there are many more exciting papers to come out on Italian Late Upper Paleolithic human paleobiology as more of these skeletal collections from older excavations are re-assessed in the future. References:
Boschian G, Mallegni F, Tozzi C. 1995. The Epigravettian and Mesolithic site of Fredian Shelter (N Tuscany). Quaternaria Nova, 5, 45-80. Oxilia G, Fiorillo F, Boschin F, Boaretto E, Apicella SA, Matteucci C, Panetta D, Pistocchi R, Guerrini F, Margherita C, Andretta M, Sorrentino R, Arrighi S, Dori I, Mancuso G, Crezzini J, Riga A, Serrangeli MC, Vazzana A, Salvadori P, Vandini M, Tozzi C, Moroni A, Feeney RNM, Willman JC, Benazzi S, Moggi-Cecchi J. 2017. The dawn of dentistry in the Late Upper Paleolithic: An early case of pathological intervention at Riparo Fredian. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 163(3):446-461, doi:doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.23216. OPEN ACCESS! Riga A, Dori I, Vierin S, Boschian G, Tozzi C, Willman JC, Moggi-Cecchi J. 2018. At the Upper Paleolithic – Mesolithic boundary: revision of the human remains from Riparo Fredian (Molazzana, Lucca, Italy). Alpine and Mediterranean Quaternary 31(1):49-57, doi:https://doi.org/10.26382/AMQ.2018.04. |
John C. Willman
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