Prof Christopher Ramsey

Abstract:

Hunter-gatherer archaeology typically focusses on the details of subsistence strategies and material culture and, in the case of cemeteries, on various aspects of mortuary practices, beliefs, and social differentiation. This paper aims to look rather at patterns of change over time and space in how past hunter-gatherer cemeteries were used from Late Mesolithic to Early Bronze Age (~8600–3500 cal BP) in the Cis-Baikal region of Eastern Siberia. The approach is based on a Kernel Density Estimate methodology applied to 560 radiocarbon dates obtained for individual burials from 65 cemeteries and representing 5 distinct mortuary traditions. This enables a number of different types of analysis to be performed at different scales: (1) It is possible to examine the overall tempo of burial events at each cemetery or a group of cemeteries; (2) Within each cemetery the spatial patterns of the sequence of graves and burials can be analyzed further; (3) It is possible to compare the different cemetery-specific chronologies within the microregional or regional context; and (4) Although tentatively at this time, the spatiotemporal pattern of cemetery use over the whole region can be visualised. The spatiotemporal analysis of individual cemeteries shows that each one had its own pattern, some very distinct and clear in their characteristics, which relate to the role the cemetery played for the local group, and within the microregional or regional population. On the regional scale some broader patterns such as shifts in frequency of burial events between microregions within mortuary traditions are visible. However, at this scale the existing sampling biases require caution in assessment of the results and future fieldwork will help improve the analysis and insights. On the other hand, many of the individual cemeteries have been excavated in full and such comprehensive datasets already provide a range of entirely new and important insights into cemetery use by the Middle Holocene hunter-gatherers of Cis-Baikal.

Abstract:

The FeedSax project combined bioarchaeological data with evidence from settlement archaeology to investigate how, when and why the expansion of arable farming occurred between the 8th-13th centuries in England. It has generated and released a vast, multi-faceted archaeological dataset both to underpin its own published findings and to support further research.

Abstract:

Temporal and spatial variation in radiocarbon (¹⁴C) in the atmosphere has been the subject of investigation from the first pioneering work of Libby and Arnold. However, as the precision of measurements has improved, now by almost two orders of magnitude, what constitutes a significant variation has also changed. Furthermore, it has become possible to test degrees of variation over much longer timescales and with ever wider geographic coverage. As knowledge has improved, the interpretation of ¹⁴C measurements has had to be revised. These re-evaluations, and the loss of chronological precision that comes with accurate calibration, have often been seen as an unfortunate drawback in the ¹⁴C dating method. However, these problems have stimulated extensive research in global ¹⁴C records, statistical methods for dealing with complex ¹⁴C data, and measurement methods. This research has provided a wealth of information useful for other scientific challenges, most notably the quantification of the global carbon cycle, but also enabled, in the right circumstances, measurement precision an order of magnitude better than if there had been no variation in atmospheric ¹⁴C. Challenges remain but the research undertaken for ¹⁴C calibration has, through its ingenuity and innovation, provided rich scientific dividends in both chronology and broader geoscience.