Archaeological site formation in rain forests: Insights from the Ituri rock shelters, Congo

Journal of Archaeological Science

Volumn 30, Issue 1, 2003, Pages 45-65

  Mercader, Julio ^a   Martí, Raquel ^b   González, Ignacio J ^c   Sánchez, Almudena ^d   García, Pilar ^d  

^a GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE EDUCACIÓN A DISTANCIA   (Spain)

^c UNIVERSITY OF SASKATCHEWAN   (Canada)

^d UNIVERSIDAD COMPLUTENSE DE MADRID   (Spain)

Author keywords

Central African rain forest; Congo basin; Geoarchaeology; Ituri; Rock shelters; Site formation processes; Stratigraphic integrity

Indexed keywords

ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE; FORMATION MECHANISM; GRANITE; PEDOLOGY; RAINFOREST; SHELTER; SITE INVESTIGATION;

CONGO;

EID: 0037245747     PISSN: 03054403     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1006/jasc.2002.0810     Document Type: Article

References (67)

1. Bascomb, C. L. (1974). Physical and chemical analyses of <2 mm samples. In (B.W. Avery & C.L. Bascomb, Eds) Soil Survey Laboratory Methods. Harpenden: Rothamsted Experimental Station, pp. 14-41.
2. Behrensmeyer, A., Gordon, K. & Yanagi, G. (1986). Trampling as a cause of bone surface damage and pseudo-cutmarks. Nature 319(n. 6056), 768-771.
3. Behrensmeyer, A., Gordon, K. & Yanagi, G. (1989). Nonhuman bone modification in Miocene fossils from Pakistan. In (R. Bonnichsen & M. Sorg. Eds) Bone Modification. Maine: Orono, pp. 99-120.
4. Beisaw, A. (1998). Differential preservation and recovery: taphonomy of bone preservation at the Thomas/Luckey site. Ashland, NY. Master thesis, Department of Anthropology, Binghamton University, NY.
5. Blackham, M. (2000). Distinguishing bioturbation and trampling using pottery sherd measures. Tell Fendi, Jordan. Geoarchaeology 15, 469-497.
6. Brooks, A. & Yellen, J. (1987). The preservation of activity areas in the archaeological record: ethnoarchaeological and archaeological work in Northwest Ngamiland, Botswana. In (S. Kent, Ed.) Method and Theory for Activity Area Research: An Ethnoarchaeological Approach. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 63-106.
7. Bultot, F. (1971). Atlas climatique du Bassin Congolase. Brussels: Ineac.
8. Butzer, K. (1981). Cave sediments, Upper Pleistocene stratigraphy and Mousterian facies in Cantabrian Spain. Journal of Archaeological Science 8, 133-183.
9. Cahen, D. & Moeyersons, J. (1977). Subsurface movements of stone artefacts and their implications for the prehistory of central Africa. Nature 266, 812-815.
10. Cahen, L. & Snelling, N. (1966). The Geochronology of Equatorial Africa. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company.
11. Cahen, L., Snelling, N., Delhal, J. & Vail, J. (1984). The Geochronology and evolution of Africa. Oxford: Clarendon.
12. Chadwick, O.A. & Graham, R.C. (2000). Pedogenic processes. In (M.E. Sumner, Ed.) Handbook of Soil Science. Boca Raton: CRC Press, pp. E41-E75.
13. Donahue, J. & Adovasio, J. (1990). Evolution of sandstone rockshelters in Eastern North America: a geoarchaeological perspective. In (N. Laska & J. Donahue, Eds) Archaeological Geology of North America. Boulder, Colorado: The Geological Society of America, pp. 231-251.
14. Duchaufour, P. & Souchier, B. (1966). Note sur un methode d'extraction combinee de l'aluminium et du fer libre dans les sols. Science du Sol 1, 17-29.
15. FAO-UNESCO (1974). Soil Map of the World 1:5,000,000. Volume I. Legend. Paris, France: United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.
16. Farrand, W.R. (1985). Rockshelter and cave sediments. In (J.K. Stein & W.R. Farrand, Eds) Archaeological Sediments in Context. Orono, Maine: University of Maine at Orono, pp. 21-39.
17. Fisher, J. (1988). Shadows in the forest: Ethnoarchaeology among the Efe pygmies. Ph.D. Thesis, University of California at Berkeley.
18. Fisher, J. (1993). Foragers and farmers: Material expressions of interaction at elephant processing sites in the Ituri forest, Zaire. In (J. Hudson, Ed.) From Bones to Behavior: Archaeological and Experimental Contributions to the Interpretation of Faunal Remains. Chicago: Southern Illinois University, pp. 247-262.
19. Galanidou, N. (2000). Patterns in caves: foragers, horticulturists, and the use of space. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 19, 243-275.
20. García, A. & Saavedra, J. (1983). Datos analiticos sobre cuatro patrones geoquimicos de Salamanca. Anuario Cebas 9, 321-332.
21. Gillieson, D., Oldfield, F. & Krawiecki, A. (1986). Records of prehistoric soil erosion from rock shelter sites in Papua New Guinea. Mountain Research and Development 6, 315-324.
22. Hart, T. (1985). The Ecology of a Single-Species Dominant Forest and a Mixed Forest in Zaire, Africa. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International.
23. Hart, T., Hart, J. & Murphy, P. (1989). Monodominant and species rich forests of the humid tropics: causes for their co-ocurrence. The American Naturalist 133, 613-633.
24. Hart, T. & Hart, J. (1986). The ecological basis of hunter-gatherer subsistence in African rain forests: the Mbuti of Eastern Zaire. Human Ecology 14, 29-55.
25. Hughes, P. (1977). A geomorphological interpretation of selected archaeological sites in Southern coastal New South Wales. Ph.D. Thesis. New South Wales University. Sydney. Australia.
26. Hughes, P. & Sullivan, M. (1986). Aboriginal landscape. In (J. Russell & R. Isbel, Eds) Australian Soils. The Human Impact. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, pp. 117-133.
27. Kerbis, J., Wrangham, R., Carter, M. & Hauser, M. (1993). A contribution to tropical rain forest taphonomy: retrieval and documentation of chimpanzee remains from Kibale forest, Uganda. Journal of Human Evolution 25, 485-514.
28. Krishna, K. & Weesner, F. (Eds) (1970). Biology of Termites. New York: Academic Press.
29. Laville, H., Rigaud, J.P. & Sackett, J. (1980). Rock Shelters of the Perigord: Geological Stratigraphy and Archaeological Succession. New York: Academic Press.
30. Lavreau, J. (1982). Etude geologique du Haut-Zaire. Genese et evolution dun segment lithospherique archeen. Tervuren: Sciences Geologiques, 88.
31. Lavreau, J. & Ledent, D. (1975). Etablissement du cadre géochronologique du Kibalien (Zaïre). Annuaire de la Societe Geologique Belge 98, 197-212.
32. Lanfranchi, R. & Schwartz, D. (1990). Evolution des paysages de la Sangha (R.P. du Congo) au Pleistocene superieur. Bilan des observations archeologiques, geomorphologiques, pedologiques et palebiologiques. In (R. Lanfranchi & D. Schwartz, Eds) Paysages Quaternaires du l'Afrique centrale Atlantique. Paris: Orstom, pp. 248-259.
33. Lee, K. & Wood, T. (1971). Termites and Soils. London: Academic Press.
34. Lyman, R. (1994). Vertebrate Taphonomy. Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
35. Mandel, R.D. & Simmons, A.H. (1997). Geoarchaeology of the Akrotiri Aetokremnos rockshelter, southern Cyprus. Geoarchaeology 12, 567-605.
36. Mandel, R.D. & Bettis III, E.A. (2001). Use and analysis of soils by archaeologists and geoscientists. In (P. Goldberg, V.T. Holliday & C. Reid Ferring, Eds) Earth Sciences and Archaeology. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, pp. 173-204.
37. McBrearty, S. (1990). Consider the humble termite: Termites as agents of post-depositional disturbance at African archaeological sites. Journal of Archaeological Science 17, 111-143.
38. Mercader, J. (1997). Bajo el techo forestal. La evolución del poblamiento en el bosque ecuatorial del Ituri, Zaire. Ph.D. Thesis, Universidad Complutense, Madrid. Spain.
39. Mercader, J., Garcia-Heras, M. & González-Alvarez, I. (2000a). Ceramic tradition in the African rain forest: Characterisation analysis of ancient and modern pottery from Ituri, D.R. Congo. Journal of Archaeological Science 27, 163-182.
40. Mercader, J., Runge, F., Vrydaghs, L., Doutrelepont, H., Ewango, C.E.N. & Juan-Tresseras, J. (2000b). Phytoliths from Archaeological Sites in the Tropical Forest of Ituri, Democratic Republic of Congo. Quaternary Research 54, 102-112.
41. Mercader, J., Rovira, S. & Gómez-Ramos, P. (2000c). Shared technologies: forager-farmer interaction and ancient iron metallurgy in the Ituri rain forest, Democratic Republic of Congo. Azania 35, 107-122.
42. Mercader, J. & Brooks, A. (2001). Across forests and savannas: Later Stone Age assemblages from Semliki and Ituri, Northeast Democratic Republic of Congo. Journal of Anthropological Research 57, 197-217.
43. Mercader, J., Garralda, M. D., Pearson, O. & Bailey, R. (2001). 800 year old human remains from the Ituri tropical forest, Democratic Republic of Congo: the rock shelter site of Matangai Turu NW. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 115, 24-37.
44. Mercader, J. (2003). Foragers of the Congo: the early settlement of the Ituri forest. In (J. Mercader, Ed.) Under the Canopy: the Archaeology of Tropical Rainforests. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, in press.
45. Moeyersons, J. (1997). Geomorphological processes and their palaeoenvironmental significance at the Shum Laka cave (Bamenda, western Cameroon). Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 133, 103-116.
46. Mountain, M. J. (1990). Taphonomic aspects of faunal analysis from Nombe rockshelter. Highlands of Papua New Guinea. In (S. Solomon, I. Davidson & D. Watson, Eds) Problem Solving in Taphonomy. Archaeological and Paleontological Studies from Europe, Africa and Oceania. Tempus, 2. St Lucia: University of Queensland, pp. 207-218.
47. Nash, D. & Petraglia, M. (1987). Natural formation processes and the archaeological record: present problems and future requisites. In (D. Nash & M. Petraglia, Eds) Natural Formation Processes and the Archaeological Record. B.A.R. International series 352. Oxford: B.A.R., pp. 186-204.
48. Naumann, I. (1983). The biology of mud nesting Hymenoptera (and their associates) and Isoptera in rock shelters of the Kakadu region, Northern Territory. In (D. Gillespie, Ed.) The Rock Art Sites of Kakadu National Park. Canberra: Australian Institute for Aboriginal Studies, pp. 129-189.
49. Powers, M. (1953). A new roundness scale for sedimentary particles. Journal of Sedimentary Petrology 23, 117-119.
50. Roalsdet, E. (1975). Rare Earth Elements distributions in some Precambrian rocks and their phyllosilicates, Numedal, Norway. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta 39, 455-469.
51. Schick, K. (1986). Stone Age Sites in the Making. Experiments in the Formation and Transformation of Archaeological Occurrences. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.
52. Schiffer, M. (1987). Formation Processes of the Archaeological Record. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.
53. Sept, J. (1994). Bone distribution in a semi-arid riverine habitat in eastern Zaire: Implications for the interpretation of faunal assemblages at early archaeological sites. Journal of Archaeological Science 21, 217-235.
54. Stahl, P. (1995). Differential preservation histories affecting the mammalian zooarchaeological record from the forested neotropical lowlands. In (P. Stahl, Ed.) Archaeology in the Lowland American Tropics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 154-183.
55. Streckeisen, A. (1976). To each plutonic rock its proper name. Earth Science Reviews 12, 1-33.
56. Tappen, M. (1994). Bone weathering in the tropical rain forest. Journal of Archaeological Science 21, 667-673.
57. Thomas, M. (1974). Tropical Geomorphology: A Study of Weathering and Landform Development in Warm Climates. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
58. Thomas, M. (1994). Geomorphology in the Tropics. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.
59. Twidale, C. (1982). Granite Landforms. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
60. Walkely, A. & Black, I. (1934). An examination of the Degtjareff method for determining soil organic matter and a proposed modification of the chromic acid titration method. Soil Science 37, 29-38.
61. Wandsnider, L. (1987). Natural formation process experimentation and archaeological analysis. In (D. Nash & M. Petraglia, Eds) Natural Formation Processes and the Archaeological Record. British Archaeological Reports International Series, 352. Oxford: General Editors, pp. 150-185.
62. Waters, M. (1992). Principles of Geoarchaeology. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
63. Watson, J. & Abbey, H. (1986). The effects of termites (Isoptera) on bone: Some, archaeological implications. Sociobiology 11, 245-254.
64. White, F. (Ed.) (1983). Vegetation of Africa: A descriptive Memoir to Accompany the UNESCO/AEFTAT/UNSO Vegetation Map of Africa. Natural resources research, 20. Paris: Unesco.
65. Woodward, J. (1997a). Late Pleistocene rockshelter sedimentation at Klithi. In (G. Bailey, Ed.) Klithi: Palaeolithic Settlement and Quaternary Landscapes in Northwest Greece. Volume 2: Klithi in its local and regional setting. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, pp. 361-376.
66. Woodward, J. (1997b). Late Pleistocene rockshelter sedimentation at Megalakkos. In (G. Bailey, Ed.) Klithi: Palaeolithic Settlement and Quaternary Landscape in Northwest Greece. Volume 2: Klithi in its local and regional setting. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, pp. 377-393.
67. Woodward, J. & Bailey, G. (2000). Sediment sources and terminal Pleistocene geomorphological processes recorded in rockshelter sequences in North-west Greece. In (I. Foster, Ed.) Tracers in Geomorphology. London: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 521-551.