John Meadows

Zentrum für Baltische und Skandinavische Archäologie | ZBSA

I was asked by the journal editor to publish a "corrigendum" to our 2018 paper, because 3 dates that we had excluded in 2018 had been withdrawn by the laboratory concerned, and the samples redated, during the 2018 publication process. Another previously unpublished date came to light while I updated the 2018 model. These new dates do not affect our...

OPEN-ACCESS, SEE https://rdcu.be/b6e3t FOR FULL LIST OF AUTHORS Broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) is not one of the founder crops domesticated in Southwest Asia in the early Holocene, but was domesticated in northeast China by 6000 BC. In Europe, millet was reported in Early Neolithic contexts formed by 6000 BC, but recent radiocarbon dating...

We combine the results of a radiocarbon ( ¹⁴ C) dating program with archaeogenetic, osteological and sparse stratigraphic data, to construct a Bayesian chronological model for a multi-generational sequence situated entirely on a plateau in the ¹⁴ C calibration curve. Calibrated dates of individual human bones from the Late Neolithic gallery grave a...

Only 21 human remains have been identified at Zamostje 2, despite extraordinarily good conditions for organic preservation, and the recovery of thousands of animal bones from layers dating from the Late Mesolithic to the Middle Neolithic (c.6500–4000 cal BC). Almost all the human remains are fragments of the cranium, maxilla, mandible, which are po...

Bone points were one of the major hunting implements in northern European hunter-gatherer societies. They differ in shapes, types, and manufacturing techniques. In this paper, we investigate 22 bone points from the territory of Lithuania, by studying their morpho-technological characteristics, direct dates, and adhesive residues. The majority are i...

To investigate changes in culinary practices associated with the arrival of farming, we analysed the organic residues of over 1,000 pottery vessels from hunter-gatherer-fisher and early agricultural sites across Northern Europe from the Lower Rhine Basin to the Northeastern Baltic. Here, pottery was widely used by hunter-gatherer-fishers prior to t...

We present the first robust radiocarbon (14C) chronology for prehistoric burial activity at Sakhtysh, in European Russia, where nearly 180 inhumations attributed to Lyalovo and Volosovo pottery-using hunter-gatherer-fishers represent the largest known mortuary populations of these groups. Past attempts at 14C dating were restricted by poor preserva...

Single-year ¹⁴ C sampling of a spruce log from the timber platform on which the Āraiši lake-fortress was built dates this timber exactly, by synchronization with AD 774/5 Miyake event. Dendrochronological synchronisms between the dated log and other timbers provide annual precision for the construction of the site. The felling date obtained, AD 835...

Human history has been shaped by global dispersals of technologies, although understanding of what enabled these processes is limited. Here, we explore the behavioural mechanisms that led to the emergence of pottery among hunter-gatherer communities in Europe during the mid-Holocene. Through radiocarbon dating, we propose this dispersal occurred at...

THE LATE VIKING-AGE CEMETERY OF OSTRIV, located approximately 80 km south of Kyiv in the region along the Ros’ River, was discovered by the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine team in 2017. By 2020, 67 inhumation graves had been excavated in an area of 1400 sq m. Most of the artefacts from Ostriv are uncommon in...

Artificial illumination is a fundamental human need. Burning wood and other materials usually in hearths and fireplaces extended daylight hours, whilst the use of flammable substances in torches offered light on the move. It is increasingly understood that pottery played a role in light production. In this study, we focus on ceramic oval bowls, mad...

This study is first attempt to refine Early Iron Age absolute chronology, specifically the timing of the Hallstatt C-D transition in southern Germany, using Bayesian chronological modelling of radiocarbon (14C) dates. The Hallstatt period (c.800–450 BC) marks the transition from prehistory to proto-history in Central Europe. The relative chronologi...

In Prague-Miškovice, a cemetery of the Únětice culture (UC) with a total of 44 graves was excavated between 1999 und 2001. The C14 dates range across the entire course of Central Europe’s Early Bronze Age – from the proto-Únětice phase to the “post-classical” phase of the UC. The high point of the mortuary activities occurred between 2000 and 1750...

The Eastern European steppe and forest-steppe is a key region for understanding the emergence of pottery in Europe. The vast region encompasses the basins of two major waterways, the Don and the Volga rivers, and was occupied by hunter-gatherer-fisher communities attracted to highly productive forest/aquatic ecotones. The precise dates for the ince...

The Rødhals kitchen midden was located on a tiny stretch of land 18 km from the nearest major landmass in present-day Denmark. It dates to the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition, roughly 4300 to 3700 cal BC. Its inhabitants practiced a remarkably broad-scale exploitation of marine resources spanning from the collecting of mollusks on the seashore , ov...

Archaeological research at ancient Lake Duvensee began almost 100 years ago and has recently revealed another early Holocene site, Duvensee WP 10, which was excavated from 2016 to 2020. Here, we will present the first results of the investigations. The site shows several characteristics known from other sites within the area. However, it is notewor...

The emergence of pottery in Europe is associated with two distinct traditions: hunter-gatherers in the east of the continent during the early 6th millennium BC and early agricultural communities in the south-west in the late 7th millennium BC. Here we investigate the function of pottery from the site of Rakushechny Yar, located at the Southern frin...

A 5,000-year-old Yersinia pestis genome (RV 2039) is reconstructed from a hunter-fisher-gatherer (5300–5050 cal BP) buried at Riņņukalns, Latvia. RV 2039 is the first in a series of ancient strains that evolved shortly after the split of Y. Pestis from its antecessor Y. pseudotuberculosis ~7,000 years ago. The genomic and phylogenetic characteristi...

PhD thesis written between 1998 and 2004 when I was a student at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.

Ceramic containers, intentionally deposited into wetlands, offer detailed insights into Early Neolithic culinary practices. Additionally, they are key for ascertaining the Neolithisation process in Denmark since they appear to form a typo-chronological sequence. Here, we use a combination of organic residue analysis (ORA) of pottery alongside Bayes...

A collection of 141 bone and antler tools and debitage pieces recovered from the River Užava at the village of Sise constitutes the largest Mesolithic osseous assemblage in western Latvia. Radiocarbon dating of 12 pieces suggests that most of this collection dates from the 6 th millennium calBC. We present a general analysis, highlighting typical a...

The Wartberg culture (WBC, 3500-2800 BCE) dates to the Late Neolithic period, a time of important demographic and cultural transformations in western Europe. We performed genome-wide analyses of 42 individuals who were interred in a WBC collective burial in Niedertiefenbach, Germany (3300-3200 cal. BCE). The results showed that the farming populati...

The multilayer settlement Rakushechny Yar, situated in the lower Don River, is one of the sites with the most ancient pottery known in Eastern Europe. The subsistence strategies and the life cycle of these communities describe a particular system of resource management determined by specific economic, environmental and cultural conditions. Rich fis...

Broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) is native to East Asia, but has been widely reported in European archaeobotanical assemblages from the Neolithic onwards. Direct AMS 14C dating of some of these apparently early specimens showed them to be intrusive, however, and instead suggested that millet cultivation only reached Europe during the Bronze Age...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-70495-z

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1098/rsos.192016.].

The multilayer settlement Rakushechny Yar situated in the lower Don River (Rostov region, Russia) is one of the oldest early Neolithic sites in this region, dated to the 7th and 6th millennia BC. Recent investigations have shown a particular importance of this site in the study of the spread of the Near Eastern "Neolithic package" and the neolithis...

The introduction of pottery vessels to Europe has long been seen as closely linked with the spread of agriculture and pastoralism from the Near East. The adoption of pottery technology by hunter-gatherers in Northern and Eastern Europe does not fit this paradigm, and its role within these communities is so far unresolved. To investigate the motivat...

The Stone Age site Riņņukalns, Latvia, is the only well-stratified shell midden in the Eastern Baltic. In this paper, we present new interdisciplinary results concerning its dating, stratigraphy, features, and finds to shed light on the daily life of a fisher population prior to the introduction of domesticated animals. The undisturbed part of the...

Based on an internal workshop: ZBSA Schleswig March 14th–16th 2016, concerning the project: »Neubewertung von Chronologie und Stratigraphie des frühholozänen Fundplatzes Hohen Viecheln (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der diagnostischen Knochenartefakte« (»Re-evaluation of the chronology and stratigraphy of the early Holoc...

Experimental studies have shown that significant carbon exchange occurs between bone-apatite and the pyre atmosphere during cremation, which can cause a calendar date offset between the radiocarbon ( ¹⁴ C) event and the date of cremation. There are limited empirical data available to assess the magnitude of such wood-age offsets, but the aim of thi...

Археологическая хронология для некоторых археологических памятников Восточной Европы основана в основ- ном на прямом керамики. Даты по пищевому нагару на сосудах также были получены, если это было возможно, но гораздо больше 14C датировок было получено по общего содержания органического углерода (TOCC) в че- репках. В статье обсуждается, как интерп...

Rakushechny Yar site is a floodplain multi-layer archaeological site encompassing strata dated to Early Neolithic – Bronze Age. It is characterized by complex stratigraphy, presence of different deposits, buried soils and cultural layers. Fluvial deposits interlay different settlement strata, which provide an opportunity to elaborate precise chrono...

This chapter describes the dating programme and Bayesian modelling developed for the settlement complex of Vráble ‘Veľké Lehemby’/‘Farské’ (Nitriansky kraj, Slovakia), including the sampling of archaeological features, the selection of 14C samples, the methodology behind the dating programme, and an outline of the developed models. For a detailed o...

Finds from Ewald Schuldt’s 1952–54 excavations at Hohen Viecheln, on the shore of Lake Schwerin, form one of the most important assemblages of Mesolithic bone/antler tools in Germany, including over 300 projectile points. Re-evaluation of Schuldt’s excavation records has created doubts about the published stratigraphic sequence. For reliable chrono...

Hohen Viecheln is one of the key sites for Early Mesolithic research in Northern Europe. Due to a large number of osseous tools the site became a reference site already shortly after excavation. However, because of a difficult stratigraphy the chronological depths of the site and its inventory have been discussed ever since. Due to the importance o...

We combine the results of a 14C dating programme with archaeogenetic, osteological and sparse stratigraphic data, to construct a Bayesian chronological model for a multi-generational sequence situated entirely on a plateau in the 14C calibration curve. Calibrated dates of individual human bones from the Late Neolithic gallery grave at Niedertiefenb...

The Wartberg culture (WBC, 3,500-2,800 BCE) dates to the Late Neolithic period, a time of important demographic and cultural transformations in western Europe. We perform a genome-wide analysis of 42 individuals who were interred in a WBC collective burial in Niedertiefenbach, Germany (3,300-3,200 cal. BCE). Our results highlight that the Niedertie...

Radiocarbon (14 C) results on cremated bone are frequently published in high-ranking journals, but 14 C laboratories employ different pretreatment methods as they have divergent perceptions of what sources of contaminants might be present. We found pretreatment protocols to vary significantly between three laboratories (Brussels [RICH], Kiel [KIA],...

Long-held ideas concerning early Neolithic Linearbandkeramik (LBK) settlements in central Europe have been thoroughly challenged in recent years, for example, regarding their internal organisation or the use-life of individual houses. These topics have now also been addressed with the help of large radiocarbon ( ¹⁴ C) datasets. In the light of this...

Cultivation of broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum L.) was a widespread practice in later European prehistory. When and how this ‘crop from the East’ was introduced to the continent and spread across it has not been determined. So far, based on the relative chronology of millet finds and a small set of radiocarbon-dated caryopses, it has been sugge...

The present contribution shows the results of newly radiocarbon-dated charred broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) grains from different sites in Ukraine. Based on macro-remain record compared to isotopic evidence known from literature, this study aims at identifying the moments of first known adoption and widespread use of this C4 cereal in an are...

The multilayer settlement Rakushechny Yar situated in the lower Don River (Rostov region, Russia) is one of the oldest early Neolithic sites in this region, dated to the 7th and 6th millennia BC. Recent investigations have shown a particular importance of this site in the study of the spread of the Near Eastern “Neolithic package” and the neolithis...

The Neolithization of Northern Eurasia is marked by the emergence of pottery among hunter-gatherer societies. The driving forces behind the adoption of ceramic cooking vessels among non-agricultural societies remain unclear, although previous research, mainly in North East Asia (e.g. Japan, Korea and the Russian Far East), suggests that it was adop...

Radiocarbon ( ¹⁴ C) ages were determined for 10 iron samples from the war booty offering site in the Nydam peat bog (SE Denmark), and compared to archaeologically inferred periods of deposition. Additional ¹⁴ C measurements were carried out for modern iron standards made with charcoal of known isotopic composition to evaluate possible effects of ha...

In a recent Antiquity article, Ammerman et al. (2017) suggest that three radiocarbon dates on seventh- or eighth-century AD samples obtained by coring beneath St Mark's Basilica - including two peach stones - illuminate the earliest settlement of the historic centre of Venice. Excavations at several other locations, however, have yielded in situ se...

Recent studies have shown that faunal assemblages from Mesolithic sites in inland Northern Europe contain more fish remains than previously thought, but the archaeological and archaeozoological record does not reveal the dietary importance of aquatic species to hunter-gatherer-fishers, even at a societal level. For example, the function of bone poi...

A programme of radiocarbon dating aims to correlate the onset of millet cultivation in northern Germany with cultural and technological changes during the Bronze Age.

In Northern Eurasia, the Neolithic is marked by the adoption of pottery by hunter-gatherer communities. The degree to which this is related to wider social and lifestyle changes is subject to ongoing debate and the focus of a new research programme. The use and function of early pottery by pre-agricultural societies during the 7th-5th millennia BC...

There were many changes and innovations in different aspects of life in Bronze Age Europe. They were so profound and extensive, that they led to transformation of economy, sociality, communications, built space, symbolism. Agrarian novelties, such as new crops, tools, practices, may have transformed crop production and, in turn, social relations. I...

Radiocarbon dating of selected objects such as swords and nails from the Nydam peat bog sacrifices.

Multiple burial in medieval burial grounds are often interpreted as a result of disease, but it is difficult to test such hypotheses, as most acute infectious diseases leave no visible evidence on skeletal material. Scientific dating can potentially associate multiple burials with historically documented epidemics, but the precision required to exc...

In north-eastern Europe, resource-rich aquatic and boreal ecotopes were created with the stabilization of climate during the early Holocene, with a climatic optimum from ca, 8ka cal BP. During this period, pottery technology also dispersed across the continent and was taken up by a broad range of hunter-gatherer societies. We aim to explore how ear...