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New York CONTENTS Prefacevii Chapter 1Natural and Cultural Formation Processes on theArchaeological Record: A Case Study RegardingSkeletal Remains from a Brazilian Shellmound1 Maria Mercedes M. Okumura and Sabine Eggers Chapter 2The Archaeology of Human-EnvironmentInteractions: History and Current Trends41 Emily Lena Jones Chapter 3When It Rains It Pours: Multiple CongenitalPathologies In Single Individuals65 E. Weiss Chapter 4Archaeology and Ancient DNA: Assessing Domestication79 Joana Seco-Morais and Carney D. Matheson Chapter 5Metric and Geometric Methods Applied to the Analysisof Architectural Design. Urbanism Changes and the Emergence of Mathematical Thinking101 Jos Antonio Esquivel Chapter 6Stress Diagrams as a Structural Documentationof an Architectural Heritage121 Iqbal Marie Chapter 7Tracing Minimal Cultural Signatures:Combining Non-Linear and Linear Micro-ArtefactPatterning for Investigating CulturalSite Formation Processes 133 Dimitris Kontogiorgos Contentsvi Chapter 8A Peculiar Funerary Rite in the Phoenician-PunicNecropolis of Monte Sirai (Carbonia-Sardinia-Italy)Studied by XRD and FT-IR Techniques145 Giampaolo Piga, Michele Guirguis,Piero Bartoloni, Assumpcio Malgosa,Sergio Scognamillo, Maria Luisa Ganadu and Stefano Enzo Chapter 9Using Multivariate Statistics for PatternRecognition in Archaeology165 Grant S. McCall Index189 PREFACE Archaeology studies human cultures through the recovery, documentation, analysis and interpretation ofmaterial remains and environmental data, including architecture, artifacts, features, biofacts, and landscapes. Because archaeology's aim is to understand mankind, it is a humanistic endeavor. The goals of archaelogy vary, and there is debate as to what its aims and responsibilities are. Some goals include the documentation and explanation of the origins anddevelopmentofhumancultures,understandingculturehistory,chroniclingcultural evolution,andstudyinghumanbehaviorandecology,forbothprehistoricandhistoric societies. This new book presents important research in the field. Chapter 1 Formation processes are the natural and cultural processes that make up the archaeological record. Whereas natural formation processes are the environmental factors that influence the survival of the archaeological evidences, cultural formation processes include the accidental or deliberate human activities that can affect in a positive or negative way the archaeologicalrecord.Specialattentionshouldbegiventothearchaeologicalcontexts associatedwithhumanskeletalremains,oncenatural phenomenacandisguiseorevenbe confused with cultural aspects, leading to misinterpretations of burial and activity patterns, as wellashealth,dietand nutritionalstatusof humansinthepast.The excavationof burial grounds lays down the basis on which to infer past funerary customs, and sometimes they represent the only evidence on which to reconstruct an extinct peoples origin, way of life and decline. The combination of the social position (burial structure, grave goods, position of the deceased) and the ritual (what happens before, during and after burial according to tradition) makeupthefunerarycustomsofahumangroup.Thesecustoms,togetherwith bioarchaeologicaldatasuchassex,age,healthandnutritionalstatusservesasabasisto understandthedemographicandsocialstructureofpastpopulations.Suchanintegrative research strategy requires close collaboration between human biologists and archaeologists and is totally different from the still prevailing tradition to relegate osteological data to the appendix of archaeological papers interpreting the significance of mortuary rituals. Theaimofthisworkistoalertarchaeologistsabouttheimportanceofclearly documenting and distinguishing natural and cultural factors to better understand formation processes not only related to human burials, but archaeological sites in general. In order to illustrate this, the authors identify and discuss these processes influencing the interpretation of burial patterns in a prehistoric Brazilian shellmound, named J abuticabeira II, dated between 2890 55 and 2186 60 BP. This site is especially informative to illustrate the application of this approach since it contains many burials and is classified as a cemetery shellmound. This Alex R. Surez and Marc N. Vsquezviii workalsoarguesinfavouroftruemultidisciplinaryresearchwherespecialistssuchas bioarchaeologists participate in the decision processes of the exact location and strategy of excavation, coordinate sample collection of and documentation on burials, and, as usually already routine, carry out their specialized work in the laboratory. Chapter 2 - The last 25 years have seen the development of a thriving literature on the archaeologyofhuman-environmentinteractions.Areviewoftheliteratureshowsthree distinct histories of work on human-environment interactions: environmental archaeology asrepresentedbytheAssociationforEnvironmentalArchaeology;humanpaleoecology, which looks at human impacts on the environment from an anthropological viewpoint; and environmentalstudies,whichusesarchaeologicaldatawithintheconservationbiology literature. These bodies of work have explored different data sets, used different methods, and, by and large, come to very different conclusions about the nature of human-environment interactionsboth pastand present.Despite thefact thattheirconclusionsare oftenhighly relevant to each other, there is very little cross-fertilization of theoretical or methodological approaches. This chapter critically reviews these bodies of work, assesses the current state of research,anddiscussesemergingtrendsinthearchaeologyofhuman-environment interactions. Chapter3-Thisstudyexaminedcongenitalpathologiesof284prehistoricCalifornia Amerindstodeterminewhetherskeletalindividualsexhibitmultiplepathologiesincluding excessive limb length asymmetries (i.e., greater than average asymmetries calculated from prehistoricpopulations)asreportedinmedicalliterature.Skeletalconditionvariedfrom fragmentarytocomplete(i.e.,allmajorbonespresent).Pathologicalindividualswere examinedtwicetoensurepathologieswerecongenitalandavoidincludingasymmetries related to trauma.Using conservative diagnoses, sixty individuals (21%) have congenital pathologies; half ofthemexhibitmultiplepathologies(29/60).Excludingfragmentaryindividuals,60% (28/47)ofindividualshavemultiplepathologies;incompleteskeletons,79%(19/24)of individuals have multiple pathologies. Differences in pathology frequency within individuals comparedtoskeletalconditionaresignificant(Chi-Square=19.33;P