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1. Tracing fineware production in the Neo-Assyrian empire: Neutron activation analysis of common and Palace Ware in the upper Tigris River Valley, Turkey

   https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0315378  

   Hartenberger, Britt E; Davenport, James A; Matney, Timothy (January 2025, PLOS ONE)

   Uziel, Joe (Ed.)

   In the Iron Age, the Neo-Assyrian empire (c. 900–600 BC) conquered territory across southwest Asia and established regional capitals along its borders to secure its gains. Governors at these centers oversaw resource extraction and craft production for shipment to the imperial heartland in modern-day northern Iraq. Metals and textiles were the crafts most carefully managed by the administration. We know less about centralized control over ceramic production but hypothesize that fineware production and distribution would have been of interest to imperial administrators. A fineware type known as Palace Ware has been found throughout the empire and is considered an indicator of elite Assyrian dining traditions. Excavations at one regional capital, Ziyaret Tepe (ancient Tušhan) produced pottery of various skill levels used by residents. In this study neutron activation analysis (NAA) was used to characterize and compare the fabrics used to make Palace Ware vessels with more common wares to see if the former vessels were imported from the imperial heartland. Palace Ware is macroscopically distinct, but this does not always indicate an import. Chemical composition of the samples fell into four main groups, and both Palace and common ware were found to have similar compositions. Comparison of these data with those from contemporary sites showed that the two main Ziyaret groups matched the chemical composition of pottery from the Assyrian capitals of Nimrud and Nineveh. Our conclusions show that there is considerable homogeneity in the clays of the upper Tigris river valley in Turkey and the lower Tigris in northern Iraq. Given this similarity, it is possible that Palace Ware at Tušhan was produced locally, imported, or both. If it was manufactured locally, as has been shown at the urban center of Tell Sheikh Hamad, potters in the imperial peripheries may have produced fineware pottery independent of direct imperial control. 

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2. Extreme climate after massive eruption of Alaska’s Okmok volcano in 43 BCE and effects on the late Roman Republic and Ptolemaic Kingdom

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2002722117  

   McConnell, Joseph R.; Sigl, Michael; Plunkett, Gill; Burke, Andrea; Kim, Woon Mi; Raible, Christoph C.; Wilson, Andrew I.; Manning, Joseph G.; Ludlow, Francis; Chellman, Nathan J.; et al (June 2020, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   The assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE triggered a power struggle that ultimately ended the Roman Republic and, eventually, the Ptolemaic Kingdom, leading to the rise of the Roman Empire. Climate proxies and written documents indicate that this struggle occurred during a period of unusually inclement weather, famine, and disease in the Mediterranean region; historians have previously speculated that a large volcanic eruption of unknown origin was the most likely cause. Here we show using well-dated volcanic fallout records in six Arctic ice cores that one of the largest volcanic eruptions of the past 2,500 y occurred in early 43 BCE, with distinct geochemistry of tephra deposited during the event identifying the Okmok volcano in Alaska as the source. Climate proxy records show that 43 and 42 BCE were among the coldest years of recent millennia in the Northern Hemisphere at the start of one of the coldest decades. Earth system modeling suggests that radiative forcing from this massive, high-latitude eruption led to pronounced changes in hydroclimate, including seasonal temperatures in specific Mediterranean regions as much as 7 °C below normal during the 2 y period following the eruption and unusually wet conditions. While it is difficult to establish direct causal linkages to thinly documented historical events, the wet and very cold conditions from this massive eruption on the opposite side of Earth probably resulted in crop failures, famine, and disease, exacerbating social unrest and contributing to political realignments throughout the Mediterranean region at this critical juncture of Western civilization. 

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3. Technology globalization and technonationalism: a brief introduction

   Lynn, Leonard; Salzman, Hal (September 2022, Salem Press/EBSCO)

   Technology has advanced through global exchanges, with different nations technologically ascendant at different periods. Nations’ perceptions of and policies about achieving and maintaining technological leadership have been based on zero-sum assumptions that ultimately have proved futile and may lead to their decline in the face of emergent technology powers. In the first fifteen or so centuries BCE, China led the world in the development and use of the world’s most consequential technologies, including printing, gunpowder, the compass, and the production of superior iron and steel. These technologies spread as far as Western Europe, especially as the network of trade routes known as “the Silk Roads” were brought under the control of the Mongol empire in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Mongols radically reduced travel and trade barriers over the four thousand miles from the Sea of Japan to the Mediterranean, spanning widely diverse countries and cultures. In effect, they developed the first global technology trade system. The roads were blocked by the Ottoman Empire in the fifteenth century, and China’s technological dynamism stagnated. From the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries, the West became the primary center for the development and use of military and industrial technologies that enabled a substantial Western domination of the world. The Western domination may now be coming to an end as China and other Asia countries have achieved new levels of technological strength and, as emerging economies, are increasingly challenging the Western domination of the rules of intellectual property rights and technology trade. This article describes the China- and Western-centric eras of technology diffusion, noting prevailing zero-sum assumptions about sharing technology and the perceived need for nations to maintain technological “superiority” over other nations. The article concludes with suggestions for the development of a global commons of technology development and sharing. 

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4. Vulkaanuitbarstingen in de Oudheid: Reacties op Plotselinge Klimaatschommelingen in de Eerste Acht Eeuwen voor Christus [Volcanic Eruptions in Antiquity: Responses to Sudden Climatic Variability in the First Eight Centuries BCE]

   Kostick, Conor; Hill, Andrew; McGovern, Rhonda; Medenieks, Selga; Yang, Zhen; Ludlow, Francis (July 2023, Phoenix)

   Major eruptions can deliver climatic ‘shocks’ often linked to famine, disease, and conflict. It is possible indeed to treat historical eruptions that induced sudden climatic changes as potential ‘revelatory crises’ that tested the resilience and vulnerability of societies, exposing political, economic and ideological tensions and fault-lines that might otherwise have remained latent or hidden to us. With advances in ice-core science improving the dating of past eruptions, which are discernible in annual layers of polar ice when elevated sulphate levels are detected, and with advanced Earth System modelling recreating post-volcanic climate effects with ever greater detail, it has become possible to identify and extract insights from previously unrecognized co-occurrences between eruptions and periods of societal stress in the first millennium BCE. 

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5. Quinoa, potatoes, and llamas fueled emergent social complexity in the Lake Titicaca Basin of the Andes

   https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2113395118  

   Miller, Melanie J.; Kendall, Iain; Capriles, José M.; Bruno, Maria C.; Evershed, Richard P.; Hastorf, Christine A. (December 2021, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences)

   The Lake Titicaca basin was one of the major centers for cultural development in the ancient world. This lacustrine environment is unique in the high, dry Andean altiplano , and its aquatic and terrestrial resources are thought to have contributed to the florescence of complex societies in this region. Nevertheless, it remains unclear to what extent local aquatic resources, particularly fish, and the introduced crop, maize, which can be grown in regions along the lakeshores, contributed to facilitating sustained food production and population growth, which underpinned increasing social political complexity starting in the Formative Period (1400 BCE to 500 CE) and culminating with the Tiwanaku state (500 to 1100 CE). Here, we present direct dietary evidence from stable isotope analysis of human skeletal remains spanning over two millennia, together with faunal and floral reference materials, to reconstruct foodways and ecological interactions in southern Lake Titicaca over time. Bulk stable isotope analysis, coupled with compound-specific amino acid stable isotope analysis, allows better discrimination between resources consumed across aquatic and terrestrial environments. Together, this evidence demonstrates that human diets predominantly relied on C 3 plants, particularly quinoa and tubers, along with terrestrial animals, notably domestic camelids. Surprisingly, fish were not a significant source of animal protein, but a slight increase in C 4 plant consumption verifies the increasing importance of maize in the Middle Horizon. These results underscore the primary role of local terrestrial food resources in securing a nutritious diet that allowed for sustained population growth, even in the face of documented climate and political change across these periods. 

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