Institute of Archaeology

Iron production at the Zhujiazui site of the late Tang dynasty in Ezhou, South China

This study investigates iron production at the Zhujiazui site in Ezhou, Hubei Province, dating to the late 8th to the early 10th century AD. Macroscopic classification, metallographic analysis, and SEM-EDS examination of slags and iron artifacts were combined with reassessment of...

Beyond replication: Technological transmission and adaptive organization of modern human populations during the terminal Pleistocene at Fenghuangling, North China

How technological knowledge is transmitted and transformed remains a central topic in human evolution and behavioral ecology. During the Last Glacial Maximum and the subsequent deglaciation, climatic instability and associated demographic shifts provide an ideal window for unders...

In Situ Cellulose Removal from Wood: A Novel Strategy for Preparing Simulated 80,000-Year-Old Waterlogged Archaeological Wood

Abstract Waterlogged archaeological wood (WAW), characterized by extensive degradation of cellulose and hemicellulose with concomitant relative lignin enrichment, represents a vital yet vulnerable class of cultural heritage materials. Due to the scarcity of archaeological wood sp...

Dietary shift from marine to agriculture in coastal Lower Yangtze Delta during Neolithic revealed by isotopic evidence from Jingtoushan

Neolithic agriculture is considered to have reduced marine food reliance among coastal populations, yet whether this dietary transition occurred in Neolithic China remains unclear. The lower Yangtze River Delta, central to both marine adaptation and rice agriculture origins, prov...

Redefining Last Glacial Maximum environmental conditions in northeastern Brazil: pollen-based evidence of open and moist-adapted vegetation cover

Limited continuous continental records and complex climatic interactions hinder a comprehensive understanding of paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental conditions during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) in the tropics. Adjacent to the currently semi-arid northeastern Brazil (NEB), a...

Meta-learning based on Hypernetworks for State of Health prediction of lithium-ion batteries under data scarcity

Accurate prediction of the State of Health (SOH) of lithium-ion batteries is crucial for ensuring their safe and reliable operation. However, existing data-driven methods rely on large amounts of data for training, resulting in limited generalization ability under data-scarce con...

Ancient mitochondrial genomes of Erlitou dogs reveal diverse population dynamics during early state formation in China

The Erlitou site (c. 1750 to 1520 cal BC) in the Central Plains of China is widely regarded as the earliest state-level society in East Asia, yet the population history of domestic dogs within this key archaeological context remains poorly understood. Here, we analyze 21 ancient...

Ancient proteins identify various Denisovan remains from Southwest China

More than a decade of multidisciplinary research has identified a collection of cranial, facial and dental remains of Denisovans from across Asia, providing insight into their cranial capacity, appearance, diet and evolutionary history. However, our understanding of their spatiot...

Tradition of wrapping grains in funerary rituals 2200 years ago

Fan Yang, Yong Ge, Ling Fang, Haiyan Wang, Shuzhi Wang, Jiajun Wang, Zhiguo Zhang; Tradition of wrapping grains in funerary rituals 2200 years ago, Nationa

Three millennia of lizard and snake consumption by Natufian foragers

Squamate (lizard and snake) exploitation provides a rarely documented window into human dietary flexibility at the end of the Pleistocene. This study analyzes over three millennia of squamate remains from el-Wad Terrace (Israel), revealing that large-bodied snakes and lizards for...

Grinding en route to sedentism: Plant processing in the 8 ka-BP southern Mongolian Plateau, China

Plant food exploitation has long been considered one of the most significant windows to understanding the process of sedentism. Two early Neolithic sites, Yumin (ca. 8,400-7,600 cal BP) and Simagou (ca. 7,500-7,000 cal BP), witnessed the earliest onset of a sedentary lifeway in t...

New insights into the diet and economy of the central and northern Transjordan during the Iron Age: Zooarchaeology and stable isotopes analysis of recent excavations (Amman Citadel, Tell Zira’a, Tell Bleibil, and Tell Ushayer)

We investigate the diet and economy of the central and northern Transjordan during the Iron Age (c. 1,200 – 332 BCE). We present four new datasets from recent excavations providing results from zooarchaeology and stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis on animal remains: Amma...

Recommendations for Low-Noise Data Acquisition with UAV-Mounted Multi-Channel Magnetometer Systems

We present the results of tests conducted with a state-of-the-art drone-based multi-channel magnetometer system (SENSYS MagDrone R4) developed for efficient high-resolution near-surface surveys. The primary aim is to advance the application of this technology in proximal sensing...