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1. TERMINAL PLEISTOCENE THROUGH MIDDLE HOLOCENE OCCUPATIONS IN SOUTHEASTERN MESOAMERICA: LINKING ECOLOGY AND CULTURE IN THE CONTEXT OF NEOTROPICAL FORAGERS AND EARLY FARMERS

   https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536121000195  

   Prufer, Keith M.; Robinson, Mark; Kennett, Douglas J. (January 2021, Ancient Mesoamerica)

   Abstract Data from rock shelters in southern Belize show evidence of tool making, hunting, and aquatic resource exploitation by 10,500 cal b.c. ; the shelters functioned as mortuary sites between 7600 and 2000 cal b.c. Early Holocene contexts contain stemmed and barbed bifaces as part of a tradition found broadly throughout the neotropics. After around 6000 cal b.c. , bifacial tools largely disappear from the record, likely reflecting a shift to increasing reliance on plant foods, around the same time that the earliest domesticates appear in the archaeological record in the neotropics. We suggest that people living in southern Belize maintained close ties with neighbors to the south during the Early Holocene, but lagged behind in innovating new crops and farming technologies during the Middle Holocene. Maize farming in Belize intensified between 2750–2050 cal b.c. as maize became a dietary staple, 1000–1300 years later than in South America. Overall, we argue from multiple lines of data that the Neotropics of Central and South America were an area of shared information and technologies that heavily influenced cultural developments in southeastern Mesoamerica during the Early and Middle Holocene. 

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2. South-to-north migration preceded the advent of intensive farming in the Maya region

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-29158-y  

   Kennett, Douglas J.; Lipson, Mark; Prufer, Keith M.; Mora-Marín, David; George, Richard J.; Rohland, Nadin; Robinson, Mark; Trask, Willa R.; Edgar, Heather H.; Hill, Ethan C.; et al (December 2022, Nature Communications)

   Abstract The genetic prehistory of human populations in Central America is largely unexplored leaving an important gap in our knowledge of the global expansion of humans. We report genome-wide ancient DNA data for a transect of twenty individuals from two Belize rock-shelters dating between 9,600-3,700 calibrated radiocarbon years before present (cal. BP). The oldest individuals (9,600-7,300 cal. BP) descend from an Early Holocene Native American lineage with only distant relatedness to present-day Mesoamericans, including Mayan-speaking populations. After ~5,600 cal. BP a previously unknown human dispersal from the south made a major demographic impact on the region, contributing more than 50% of the ancestry of all later individuals. This new ancestry derived from a source related to present-day Chibchan speakers living from Costa Rica to Colombia. Its arrival corresponds to the first clear evidence for forest clearing and maize horticulture in what later became the Maya region. 

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3. Glacial kettles as archives of early human settlement along the Northern Rocky Mountain Front

   https://doi.org/10.1017/qua.2021.40  

   Lanoë, François B.; Zedeño, M. Nieves; Jansson, Anna M.; Holliday, Vance T.; Reuther, Joshua D. (January 2022, Quaternary Research)

   Abstract The Northern Rocky Mountain Front (hereafter Northern Front) is a prominent geographic feature in archaeological models of human dispersal in the terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene of North America. Testing those models has been arduous because of local geomorphological factors that tend to obliterate or otherwise limit access to archaeological finds of relevant age. In this paper, we present well-stratified archaeological and environmental records dating back to 14,000–13,000 cal yr BP from the site of Billy Big Spring (Blackfeet Indian Reservation, Montana), located on a glacial kettle, a type of landform that has been largely ignored by regional archaeological research to date. Findings from Billy Big Spring show the continuous use of the Northern Front foothills throughout the major climatic and environmental disturbances of the Early Holocene, and possibly the terminal Pleistocene as well. As such, Billy Big Spring contributes to refining several archaeological models of early settlement of the Northern Front, particularly those that posit differential use of foothills versus plains settings during the midst of the Holocene Thermal Maximum. The record at Billy Big Spring also suggests that kettles, regardless of physiographic setting, provide a yet unsuspected and unsampled potential for preserving high-quality and easily accessible early archaeological and paleoenvironmental records. 

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4. IDENTIFYING LOCAL AND NON-LOCAL POTTERY IN THREE TOMBS AT UXBENKÁ, TOLEDO DISTRICT: RESULTS OF THIN SECTION ANALYSIS

   Jordan, Jillian; Prufer, Keith (January 2020, Research reports in Belizean archaeology)

   Southern Belize has received less archaeological attention than other areas due in large part to its remote location. However, the difficulty in accessing the area in recent times does not necessarily equate to isolation for the Classic Period Maya who lived in what is now the Toledo District. This paper discusses petrographic data collected on ceramic vessels recovered from burial contexts at Uxbenká, Belize. The partial and reconstructed whole vessels from these primary contexts include locally produced vessels that are stylistically and technologically unique to the southern Belize region and vessels produced elsewhere. We use these data to evaluate how local Uxbenká potters produced ceramic vessels for local consumption and to identify long-distance interaction networks between Uxbenká and other regions of the Maya Lowlands. Our data indicate that most of the pottery at Uxbenká was produced locally. However, elite tombs often include both local and non-local vessels. The elites of Uxbenká engaged in interaction with people living much farther afield in regions like the Belize River Valley and possibly Guatemala. 

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5. Discovery of the Youngest Toba Tuff in South Africa; Challenges of Extremely Low Abundance Cryptotephra

   Smith, E; Johnsen, R; Ren, M; Hirniak, J; Fisher, E; Campisano, C; Marean, C. (July 2021, Annual VM Goldschmidt Conference)

   null (Ed.)

   The 74 ka Youngest Toba Tuff (YTT) was discovered as cryptotephra in South African archaeological sites at Pinnacle Point (PP) 5-6N, Vleesbaai [1] and Klasies River on the Indian Ocean, and the Diepkloof Rock Shelter on the Atlantic coast nearly 750 km west of PP. The YTT eruption distributed tephra across eastern and southern Africa and provides a widespread isochron useful for dating archaeological deposits, testing age models, and precisely determining the timing of changes in human behavior. At PP, we demonstrated that the MIS 4-5 transition began just before the YTT eruption. Humans thrived both through the YTT event and the changing climate, and important changes in technology occurred just after the Toba eruption [1]. Controversy related to trapped charge age models at the Diepkloof rock shelter [2,3] were resolved by identifying YTT at a location in the stratigraphic section that confirmed the Jacobs et al. [2] model for the site, confirming that technological changes similar to those observed at PP occurred synchronously to those at Diepkloof, not substantially before as suggested by a prior published age model [3]. Processing samples with very low abundance cryptotephra, such as that found in South Africa, is a challenge and requires revision of standard laboratory techniques. Samples with high organic or clay content benefit by being treated with 10% HCl and 3% hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). This step does not degrade shard integrity or affect chemistry and is useful in separating shards from clay and organic particles allowing better recovery in heavy liquids. We also modified the heavy liquid density range from 1.95 - 2.55 to 2.2 - 2.5 g/cm3 to more effectively remove quartz and feldspar as well as biogenic silica. This density range captures shards ranging from rhyolite to dacite in composition. [1] Smith, E. I. et al. Nature 555, 511, 2018 [2] Jacobs, Z. & Roberts, R. G. Journal of Archaeological Science 63, 175-192, 2015. [3] Tribolo, C. et al. Journal of Archaeological Science 40, 3401-3411 2013. 

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