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. The practice of body modification - often related to the expression of individual or group-level social identity - is not uncommon in prehistory. However, body modification can be difficult to identify since so much of it is ephemeral or not likely to preserve in such a way that we can identity it as related to adorning or modifying the body. For instance, many forms of body modification lack archaeologically-visibility because they only affected soft tissues (body painting, hair style, ear and nose piercings, tattoos, scarification, etc.) which are only preserved in very specific cases (e.g., bog bodies, mummies). However, body modification that affects the human bone and/or teeth of once living people is more likely to preserve in the archaeological record. Examples include cranial shaping/modification, dental ablation (the removal of teeth for cultural/aesthetic reasons), intentional tooth filing or chipping, and facial piercings (labrets) that abrade the teeth. As a biological anthropologist specializing in dental wear, I have come across a lot of very interesting cases of intentional dental modification (e.g., ablation, chipping, filing) and some cases of unintentional dental wear - my favorite being that caused by the prolonged wearing of labrets. These cases always peak my interest because they are great opportunities to discuss aspects of human identity and lived experience in prehistoric contexts - something that is often quite difficult to elaborate on in Pleistocene contexts.
I enlisted the help of my colleague Raquel Hernando to analyze the dental wear, and together with Isabelle and Marie, we wrote up a manuscript for the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. An initial difficulty we faced was context. There is no reliable direct date for OH1 and many doubt an earlier date of 16,920 ± 920 BP. We got around this issue with a morphological assessment of biological affinity using the relatively complete OH1 mandible. We showed that OH1 mandible more closely matches the morphology of other Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene fossils from Africa, but is outside of the variation seen in recent humans. Earlier analyses of Late Pleistocene fossils (e.g., Ishango, Lukenya Hill) also show that aspects of cranial and postcranial morphology of OH1 follow a Late Pleistocene rather than recent human morphological pattern as well. So, the various morphological assessments provide good support for a Late Pleistocene age for the OH1 skeleton. While an exact date isn't possible, the morphological similarity to other Pan-African fossils from the Late Pleistocene suggests that OH1 dates to somewhere in the ballpark of 20,000-12,000 year ago. We then described the pattern of wear on the mandibular front teeth and the cheek teeth. We showed that the front teeth exhibit a pattern of wear that resembles the use of an large facial piercing, or labret, in the lower lip. We suggest that the more surprising facets on the cheek teeth correspond to labrets being worn through piercings in the cheeks. We concluded that OH1 likely wore three different facial piercings - one through the lower lip and one in each cheek. So far, this has never been described paleoanthropological or bioarchaeological contexts in Africa. This is exciting because it adds to the known diversity of body modification practices already documented in Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene Africa. The dominate pattern in the Terminal Pleistocene (20-12,000 years ago) is the ablation of teeth - especially in northeast and northwest Africa; but by the Early Holocene (10-7,000 years ago) some evidence for labret-use, in addition to ablation, begins to show up in the African archaeological record. By the Middle Holocene (7-3,000 years ago) we begin to see ablation, labret-use, and chipping/filing throughout Africa. This diversity of body modification practices is interesting because it may reflect the movements and interactions of prehistoric peoples through time and space. Above left: An artistic reconstruction (by Lou-Octavia Mørch) of the proposed pattern of labret piercings worn by OH1. Above rigt: the front and side view of the incisors and canines. The darker areas of enamel on the teeth is the exposed dentin that we propose was caused by a lower lip labret. Body modification often marks specific events related to social maturation (e.g., puberty, marriage, adult status, etc.) during an individual's life. This all means that labret wear on teeth of OH1 provides indirect evidence for personal adornment that is probably tied to social practices and individual or group identity. We hope that this research stimulates new research on human body modification and social identities in the Pleistocene as it has the opportunity to reveal a greater depth of understanding about the social lives of past peoples as more case studies are available for intra- and inter-regional comparisons. Further reading and references:This study:
Willman JC, Hernando R, Matu M, Crevecoeur I. 2020. Biocultural diversity in Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene Africa: Olduvai Hominid 1 (Tanzania) biological affinity and intentional body modification. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.24007. Additional references: Crevecoeur I, Brooks A, Ribot I, Cornelissen E, and Semal P. 2016. Late Stone Age human remains from Ishango (Democratic Republic of Congo): New insights on Late Pleistocene modern human diversity in Africa. Journal of Human Evolution 96:35-57, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2016.04.003. Matu M, Crevecoeur I, and Huchet JB. 2017. Taphonomy and Paleoichnology of Olduvai Hominid 1 (OH1), Tanzania. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 27(5):785-800, http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/oa.2593. Parsche F. 1993. Peculiarities on the incisors in the mandible of the skull Olduvai I. HOMO 44(1):30-36. Tryon CA, Crevecoeur I, Faith JT, Ekshtain R, Nivens J, Patterson D, Mbua EN, and Spoor F. 2015. Late Pleistocene age and archaeological context for the hominin calvaria from GvJm-22 (Lukenya Hill, Kenya). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1417909112. |
John C. Willman
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