Margie M. Burton

University of California, San Diego | UCSD · Department of Anthropology

This chapter describes the digital workflow from archaeological data collection in the field to permanent storage in the UCSD Library and dissemination via VR environments that UCSD, as the lead campus for the Catalyst project, designed and field-tested at sites in the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean. This contribution has a particular emphas...

In late August 2015, international media outlets and cultural institutions reported that the Islamic State beheaded the Syrian scholar Khaled al-Asaad and destroyed the 1st-century CE Temple of Bel in Palmyra, Syria. The world was horrorstruck. Apart from the human tragedy, archaeologists and the international communities were shocked by the wanton...

The Faynan region of southern Jordan became a center of industrial-scale metallurgical production during the Bronze and Iron Ages. However, socioeconomic developments of the Pottery Neolithic period (ca. 6500-5500 B. C.E.) that helped set the stage for the rise of complex copper-producing societies are not well-understood. In this paper, we focus o...

Technological innovations in ceramic production and other crafts are hallmarks of the Chalcolithic period (4500–3600 BCE) in the southern Levant, but details of manufacturing traditions have not been fully investigated using the range of analytical methods currently available. This paper presents results of a compositional study of 51 sherds of cer...

Sharing digital archaeological data via a web-based analytical interface has the potential to engage joint expertise of archaeologists as well as researchers from other disciplines who can explore imagery datasets online and share their findings. These tasks can now be accomplished with a new general-purpose survey data analysis tool called Survey...

Cultural features such as mortars, basins, and slicks on rock outcrops, boulders, and cave floors have been identified in many parts of the world. They clearly evidence the long history of human use of landscape features; at the same time, they are under-investigated and not well incorporated into archaeological interpretation. Indeed, even accurat...

The first industrial revolution in the southern Levant crystallized during the Iron Age when copper production reached scales never before seen in this part of the Middle East. Ever since copper ore was first smelted during the Chalcolithic period, the Arabah valley, and its widespread distribution of copper mineralization, was the main source for...

Recent current events have dramatically highlighted the vulnerability of the world's material cultural heritage. The 3-D Digital Preservation of At-Risk Global Cultural Heritage project, led by Thomas Levy at UC San Diego, catalyzes a collabora-tive research effort by four University of California campuses (San Diego, Berkeley, Los Angeles and Merc...

a b s t r a c t Procurement strategies for grinding tool lithic material among mobile societies are thought to rely on opportunistic selection of resources locally available at habitation sites and along migratory routes. In San Diego County, California, non-local appearing quartzarenite cobble handstones were identified in the ground stone assembl...

This article describes macroscopic and microscopic analyses of archaeological ceramics recovered from El Vallecito in 2012 by the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH) during the seventh field season of the Archaeological Site Registry and Rescue Project of Baja California, Phase of the Municipality of Mexicali. The three El Vallecit...

We report on thin section petrographic analysis of plainware ceramic sherds from two Late Prehistoric hunter-gatherer sites in the Peninsular Ranges of San Diego County, California. We describe several distinctive compositional groups and compare these with previously analyzed ceramics and geological field samples to infer probable raw materials an...

Investigations by Malcolm J. Rogers of archaeological ceramics from southern California and the broader “Yuman” area beginning in the 1920s provide the foundation for all subsequent ceramic studies in the region. Although much information about his methods and analyses remains unpublished, his type collections and notes curated at the San Diego Mus...

El presente análisis se trata de la cerámica encontrada por el Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia durante la séptima temporada de campo (2012) del Proyecto Registro y Rescate de Sitios Arqueológicos de Baja California – Fase del Municipio de Mexicali, en El Vallecito. Se excavaron tres sitios (El Corral, La Explanada y La Cueva del Indio...

The San Diego Archaeological Center curates archaeological collections and promotes their educational, scientific, and cultural use for a diverse public. Consistent with this mission, the Center has initiated several science-based research projects aimed at demonstrating the value of curated collections. Sponsored projects to date include compositi...

Primary data, though an essential resource for supporting authoritative archaeological narratives, rarely enters the public record. Lack of primary data publication is also a major obstacle to cultural heritage preservation and the goals of cultural resource management (CRM). Moreover, access to primary data is key to contesting claims about the pa...

Pottery collections from defined geographic regions can be used to explore questions related to pre-contact ceramic traditions even without site-specific provenience. As an example, this paper presents the results of typological analysis of a surface collection of pottery sherds from the Anza-Borrego desert. Type frequencies are compared to a publi...

The domestication of cattle, sheep and goats had already taken place in the Near East by the eighth millennium BC. Although there would have been considerable economic and nutritional gains from using these animals for their milk and other products from living animals-that is, traction and wool-the first clear evidence for these appears much later,...

This essay explores 5th-4th millennium foodways in Israel's northern Negev desert through the intersection of three independent data sets: (1) faunal and botanical assemblages from archaeological sites, (2) biomolecular analyses of 5th-4th millennium ceramic vessel residues, and (3) biblical references to foods combined with 19th-20th century ethno...

We explore the nature of three small villages or “hamlets” situated in close proximity to Shiqmim—one of the largest Chalcolithic (ca. 4500–3600 CAL B.C.) settlements in the southern Levant. Located in the northern Negev Desert of Israel, Shiqmim and other large sites in the Beersheva valley have yielded data suggesting the emergence of a regional...

Since their initial discovery and publication in the late 1980s, the size, unique form, and restricted spatial distribution of the Gilat torpedo jars have stimulated interest in their possible function within southern Levantine Chalcolithic society. Based on morphological analogy, archaeological context, petrographic analyses, and ethnohistoric evi...

Six of the eight 14C determinations for Gilat (Israel) indicate activity within three or four centuries centered around 4500 BCE. This time frame appears to correspond with the initial settlement of Shiqmim. Substantial growth of the planned rectilinear village at Shiqmim onto the floodplain terrace may have occurred some time later, between about...

Archaeological evidence suggests that the Chalcolithic period (5th–4th millennium BCE) in the southern Levant was a time of significant settlement expansion and increasing social complexity. Important technological and social developments during this era set the stage for the later rise of fortified sites and nascence of urbanization in the Early B...