Although prehistoric periods (especially Chalcolithic) on the western side of the Central Zagros Mountain are fairly known, the Songhor and Koliyaei Plains have not been sufficiently investigated by western  or  Iranian archaeologists. In the course of the recent investigationsduring the 2002 and 2009 field seasons, thirty three chalcolithic sites, of which nine sites  contain Dalma sherds, wer...

From prehistoric times, man has felt the urge to depict the surrounding world on various substrates by using coloured materials. Historical paintings, such as prehistoric cave paintings, are often called ‘windows on the past’ and have allowed later generations to imagine how former human societies looked and/or functioned. Historical paintings are, therefore, considered to be a very valuable pa...

The Bronze Age in Britain is now a term often used to include both the first use of copper c . 2400 bc and also tin-bronze from 2100 , all which required extensive copper. Prehistoric mining for this metal has been identified surface underground workings Parys Mine, Mynydd Parys, Anglesey, although almost are obscured by deep spoil more recent industrial period. These copper-bearing ores bedded...

The pristine island ecosystems of East Polynesia were among the last places on Earth settled by prehistoric people, and their colonization triggered a devastating transformation. Overhunting contributed to widespread faunal extinctions and the decline of marine megafauna, fires destroyed lowland forests, and the introduction of the omnivorous Pacific rat (Rattus exulans) led to a new wave of pr...

Prehistoric environmental change in Hawai'i is evaluated through the analysis of sedi-ment and pollen samples from dated cores and excavation profiles in the coastal low-lands of O'ahu. It is suggested that a lowland Pritchardia palm forest and associatedspecies underwent rapid decline starting between about A.D. 1000 to 1200. This de-cline seems to have occurred earlier in coas...

Understanding extinction drivers in a human-dominated world is necessary to preserve biodiversity. We provide an overview of Quaternary extinctions and compare mammalian extinction events on continents and islands after human arrival in system-specific prehistoric and historic contexts. We highlight the role of body size and life-history traits in these extinctions. We find a significant size-b...

Although previous paleopathological studies have used disturbances in enamel formation as indicators of childhood stress, the full potential of this technique has not been realized. This paper presents a test case which demonstrates that the frequency of disturbed enamel formation (i.e., Wilson bands) is associated with other stress indicators (i.e., probability of dying and infectious lesions)...

Holocene fossils document the extinction of hundreds of bird species on Pacific islands during prehistoric human occupation. Human hunting is implicated in these extinctions, but the impact of hunting is difficult to disentangle from the effects of other changes induced by humans, including habitat destruction and the introduction of other mammalian predators. Here, we use data from bones colle...

Historically, interpretations of both biological and cultural change within the prehistoric Azapa Valley, northern Chile, have cited large-scale population movements, with replacement from complex societies located in the adjacent highlands to the east. Biological estimates of this change have traditionally relied upon biodistance estimates, using craniofacial measures of both deformed and nond...

The attempt has been made in the foregoing paragraphs to outline the whole history of prehistoric archeology: its crude beginnings in ancient times, its steadily accelerating progress during the past two hundred years, and its present achievements. Special emphasis has been placed on the rôle played by the discovery of surviving primitive industries in America and elsewhere in bringing about a ...