Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology
Journal Data
| Type | JOURNAL |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Frontiers Media SA (CH) |
| ISSN | 2813-432X |
| Scopus | 21101280880 |
| OpenAlex | S4387284015 |
| Website | https://www.scopus.com/source/sourceInfo.url?sourceId=21101280880 |
| Total publications | 153 |
| Coverage period | 2022 - 2026 |
| Country | CH |
| Language | EN |
| Access | Open Access |
| Indexing | DOAJ indexed • Scopus indexed |
| Cited by | 19 |
| Impact factor | 1.109 |
| SJR | 0.666 (Q1) |
| SNIP | 0.778 |
| CiteScore | 1.7 |
| h-index | 2 |
| i10-index | 1 |
| Female authorship share | 49.0% |
Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology is dedicated to environmental archaeology, a subfield of archaeology. As archaeology is a subfield of anthropology, this journal is directly relevant to the broader discipline
Archeology · Archeology (arts and humanities) · Social Sciences (miscellaneous) · Amazonian Archaeology and Ethnohistory · Archaeological and Geological Studies · Archaeological Research and Protection · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Archeology (arts and humanities · Conservation Techniques and Studies
Frontiers of cuisine
Following Haaland's work on “porridge and pot” cuisine and Stahl's “cartographies of taste” as a means of exploring cultural and ecological dynamics, this paper highlights the continuities and important variations of cuisine in South Central Africa. This paper expands archaeobotanical discussions beyond subsistence to consider how cuisine and cookery reflect the broader dynamics of plant materiality, environment, and cultural and social expressio…
Beyond 2,000 meters, first evidence of intense prehistoric occupation in the Pyrenees
Cave 338 is a high-altitude prehistoric site located at 2,235 m a. s.l. in the eastern Pyrenees (Queralbs, Girona, NE Iberian Peninsula). Excavated between 2021 and 2023, the site preserves an exceptional and well-stratified archaeological sequence documenting recurrent episodes of human occupation spanning from at least the early 5th millennium cal BC to the late 1st millennium cal BC. Radiocarbon dates indicate that these occupations occurred d…
A forested form of life
For much of prehistory, the landscapes of southeast Norway were deeply shaped by dense forests. Yet archaeological narratives of the period from around 2350 BCE onward—the Late Neolithic and Nordic Bronze Age—have largely emphasized episodes of forest clearance and agrarian expansion, mirroring human-landscape developments elsewhere in Scandinavia. This focus has left more persistent landscapes and their associated “forms of life”, particularly t…
Human mobility amid emerging sedentism in the Central Zagros
The Neolithic of Southwest Asia (c. 10,000–5,200 BCE) is associated with increasing residential stability alongside resource domestication processes. Yet, the trajectories of sedentism varied widely, with balances between sedentary and mobile behaviors contextually driven by subsistence needs, cultural practices and expanding interaction networks. In the Central Zagros, a key area for early domestication and settled life, the role of human mobili…
Culinary choices, craft technologies, and plant foods
Foodways represent a dynamic tradition in which ingredients, culinary objects, and preparation techniques form an interconnected system shaped by prolonged human–environment interactions. These culinary implements and gastronomic techniques are closely connected to plant foods, whose adaptive nature enables their consumption in diverse forms and nuanced flavor expressions. Considering the intriguing links between plant foods and culinary crafts, …
Studying landscape transformation in the territory of Kazakhstan using the toponymic method
At present, efforts aimed at the conservation and restoration of landscapes require not only an understanding of their current natural characteristics but also an investigation of the transformations they have undergone over centuries. Many studies tend to limit the analysis of landscape change primarily to the last half-century, while the scarcity of sources relating to the medieval period poses significant challenges for identifying earlier tra…
Butchering technology and metal adoption in the Bronze Age southern Levant
Recent zooarchaeological research suggests that the transition from stone to metal butchering tools in the southern Levant occurred during or after the Middle Bronze Age and was accompanied by changes in butchering practices. However, few large and well-dated zooarchaeological assemblages that span the Bronze Ages have been systematically analyzed, limiting our understanding of when and how this technological transition occurred. This study inves…
Tsnungwe stewardship and archaeological geophysics at łe
Collaborative and Indigenous archaeological approaches are becoming more standard in North America, especially in California and the Far West. With the growth of this archaeological subdiscipline has come a shift in archaeological field and laboratory methodologies, specifically in the application of low-impact, remote sensing, and archaeological geophysics. Applying a medical analogy to archaeological practice, these research models work from th…
Neolithic coastal adaptation and resilience in relation to environmental dynamics during the early Holocene in the Eastern Mediterranean
Neolithic coastal societies along the eastern Mediterranean remain underrepresented in archaeological narratives, mainly due to the submergence of early Holocene settlements by sea-level rise starting with the end of the last Ice Age. This article focuses on the submerged Neolithic sites off the Carmel Coast in the southern Levant as a case study for examining human adaptation and resilience in the face of dynamic environmental change. By providi…
From edge to mark. Investigating the relationship between cut marks and lithic raw materials
Understanding the relationship between animal processing practices and stone tool use is essential for interpreting Paleolithic lifeways. These activities leave behind two key forms of archaeological evidence: butchery marks (“cut marks”) and lithic tools. While both faunal and lithic remains are critical to understanding past behaviors, they are rarely studied in an integrated framework. In particular, the characterization of cut marks produced …
The embodied poor
Introduction In our modern world, the Netherlands is known as one of the leading countries in communal health and social support, with health insurance for all, long-term care, disability and unemployment benefits as well as housing assistance. What are the origins of such a support system? And, if said system existed in the past, does this social response to communal health impact bioarchaeological interpretations? Methods This article will addr…
Determining the benefits and limitations of legacy ichthyoarchaeological collections
Legacy faunal collections remain an indispensable yet untested resource for Pacific Island ichthyoarchaeology. We analyse fish remains from nine late pre-contact (AD1400-1795) sites on leeward Moloka‘i, Hawaiian Islands, excavated in 1952, augmented by a controlled 1 m 2 excavation at one rock shelter (Mo1) in 2019 to evaluate benefits and limitations of legacy assemblages. Taxa were quantified by NISP and compared using diversity indices, chord …
Far from shore
The nineteenth and twentieth centuries were a transformative time for ocean ecosystems, marked by overfishing, habitat degradation, and a series of other anthropogenic perturbations. In the northeast Pacific, the creation of canneries from Alaska to Mexico drove commercial fisheries for tuna, salmon, sardines, and other fishes by opening new markets around the world and fishing for or importing fishes from equally distant places. Here, we synthes…
Closer to godliness
Introduction Medieval Danish populations (c. 1050-1536 AD) faced numerous infectious diseases, including leprosy and tuberculosis, that shaped modern perceptions of medieval health crises. While previous studies explored disease spread and mitigating factors like leprosaria, it remains unclear how health status influenced burial treatment and placement within church cemeteries. Cemetery analyses may also clarify whether urban-rural mortality diff…
The subtle divide
Introduction Chop marks provide critical evidence for reconstructing butchery practices, yet their identification criteria are underdeveloped and rely heavily on the presence of sharp force trauma. Sharp force trauma does not occur with every chop, and on long bone shafts in particular, chops can resemble blunt force trauma. Methods This study addresses this issue through controlled experiments comparing chop and bash impacts on Sus scrofa femora…
From biomolecular traces to multisensory experiences
Recent advances in biomolecular archaeology have enabled the detection of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and odor-active metabolites in archaeological materials, revealing the scents and olfactory environments of the ancient world. These developments offer new opportunities to reconstruct the sensory worlds of the past through their molecular signatures, from perfumery, ritual and medicinal practices to aspects of daily life. Yet their integra…
Braided science field schools
This paper presents a replicable model for transforming archaeological field schools into Braided Science programs that center Indigenous self-determination, robust Tribal collaboration, and integrated Cultural Resource Management (CRM) training. Grounded in the Indigenous-led pedagogy of Two-Eyed Seeing, this curriculum intentionally weaves Western scientific methods with oral histories, land-based protocols, and reciprocal stewardship. At its c…
Indigenous women and traditional watercraft in native South America
This article examines the roles of Indigenous women in navigation, watercraft, and aquatic lifeways across South America, challenging the masculine bias that has long shaped maritime archaeology and historical narratives. Drawing from a wide range of documentary, archaeological, and ethnographic sources, we adopt a feminist and decolonial framework to recover women's agency, technical knowledge, and symbolic presence in aquatic contexts. A reflex…
Lab waste as hidden treasure. Early results of phytolith analysis from Iberian prehistoric post-ORA pottery powder
Initially designed to explore cultural interactions between Phoenicians and local communities in the Iberian Peninsula during the 1st millennium BCE, the work presented in our paper expanded beyond traditional Organic Residue Analysis (ORA), by attempting phytoliths extraction from post-ORA pottery powder. The aim was to assess whether such a methodological integration may enhance the understanding of past correlations between environments and ma…
Seasonal and gendered patterns in subsistence fishing and shellfish gathering
The village of Mfumbwi (Jambiani, Zanzibar Island) is home to maritime fishers and shellfish gatherers who use traditional methods to harvest marine fauna for subsistence. This study examines the extent to which seasonality and gendered patterns of behavior affect the marine subsistence record of Mfumbwi using an extensive ethnographic maritime subsistence dataset (MS-1819) collected between June 2018 and June 2019. As we show, seasonality driven…
The role of religious faith in dental pathological lesion patterning and approaches to care in a medieval Portuguese assemblage
The European middle ages (c.500–1500 CE) is often seen as a period of poor oral health and hygiene, as evidenced through artistic, textual, or popular media portrayals. Anthropological analyses have the unique potential to illuminate what medieval mouths were actually like through direct examination of dental and skeletal tissues themselves. In doing so, we can not only document the variability of dental diseases, but also how medieval communitie…
The past at risk
The immovable archaeological heritage of Peru is among the richest in the world, particularly along the Peruvian coast, which boasts numerous examples dating from the Terminal Pleistocene to the Inca times (13000 BP-1532 AD). This cultural heritage is an important source of scientific and historical information, is the source for the construction of national identity(ies) and contributes significantly to the social and economic development of the…
Two pucaras, one community and a territory
The phenomenon of pucaras has been studied from different perspectives in the South-Central Andes. These settlements, developed during the Late Intermediate Period, have mainly been explained as a consequence of the disintegration of Tiwanaku, linked to factors such as conflict and widespread warfare, as well as to climate change, particularly the control of water sources during periods of drought, often overlooking the social dynamics, tensions,…
Integrating indigenous perspectives for the study of the maritime cultural landscapes in the Colombian Caribbean
In recent years, Colombia has implemented new conceptual, theoretical, and interpretive approaches to understanding past and, therefore, contemporary human dynamics in its scientific projects on maritime and underwater archaeology. This discipline is relatively new in the country, having developed over the past three decades. However, significant progress has been made in staff training, capacity building, and applying new methods that enhance th…
Differences in the isotopic composition of individual grains and aggregated seed samples affect interpretation of ancient plant cultivation practices
The stable carbon (δ 13 C) and nitrogen (δ 15 N) isotope analysis of charred archaeological grains provides a remarkably precise scale of information: the growing conditions under which a plant was cultivated in a single field and season. Here we investigate how the measurement of single individual grains or aggregate “bulk” samples for carbon and nitrogen isotopes impacts how we characterize variation and, consequently, our interpretations of an…
The exploitation of crabs by Last Interglacial Iberian Neanderthals
Hominin consumption of small prey has been much discussed over the past decades. Such resources are often considered to be unproductive in the Middle Paleolithic due to their limited meat yield and, hence, low energy return. However, ethnographic studies suggest that small prey—including shellfish—are a reliable, predictable and by no means marginal resource, and there is increasing evidence for their inclusion in hominin diets during the Middle …
Fighting erasure and dispossession in the San Francisco Bay Area
The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe has long been involved in the archaeology and stewardship of their ancestral homelands, both through their own cultural resource management (CRM) firm and though collaborations with academic and CRM archaeologists. In this article, we build on the past 40 years of archaeological collaborations in the southern San Francisco Bay region and offer examples of how archaeologists can support tribal heritage and environmental st…
Neanderthal exploitation of birds in north-western Europe
For a long time, Neanderthals were considered hunters of large mammals, whereas the diversification of the exploited faunal spectrum to include smaller taxa, including birds, was assumed to be specific to anatomically modern humans. In recent decades, archeozoological analyses of faunal remains from layers associated with Middle Paleolithic lithic industries have revealed traces of human manipulation of small taxa, indicating the exploitation of …
Neanderthal resilience and adaptability
The examination of faunal assemblages through zooarchaeological analyses constitutes a fundamental approach for gaining insight into the intricate behaviours of Neanderthals. Previous investigations have primarily focused on periods of relative environmental stability, and this has provided a wealth of relevant archaeological data. However, our understanding of Neanderthal resilience during the MIS 4, a period presumably characterised by harsh en…
Experimental replication of early human behaviour in bird preparation
The origin of complex behaviour amongst early humans is a subject of heated debate within the scientific community, and the study of small prey remains has become a significant aspect when examining such modern behaviour. Nonetheless, the consumption of small prey by human populations poses analytical difficulties due to the often negligible, or entirely absent, traces on bone surfaces. To address this difficulty, an experimental study focusing o…
Alternating carnivore and Neanderthal activities at Escoural Cave
Exploring the varied subsistence strategies and cave occupation patterns of Neanderthals is key to understanding their complex behaviors and ecological adaptations. Small game consumption, in particular, is considered a relevant indicator of their behavioral complexity. Rabbit assemblages from Pleistocene cave sites provide valuable insights into Neanderthal interactions with small prey and potential competition with carnivores. Here, we present …
Is the damage worth it? Testing handheld XRF as a non-destructive analytical tool for determining biogenic bone and tooth chemistry prior to destructive analyses
Isotopic analysis is destructive and requires that a specimen retains its original (biogenic) chemical composition. A specimen's relative abundance of calcium and phosphorous (Ca/P) or carbonate and phosphate (CO 3 /PO 4 ) is often used to assess preservation. If a specimen's Ca/P or CO 3 /PO 4 is similar to modern specimens, a specimen's isotopic composition may be biogenic. However, most methods for measuring these proxies are destructive. More…
Late Pleistocene to late Holocene palaeoecology and human foraging at Kuumbi Cave, Zanzibar Island
Background Climate change played a major role in shaping regional human-environment interactions in Africa during the late Pleistocene-Holocene, but this topic has not been exhaustively studied, particularly in eastern Africa. While there is growing evidence that the coastal and island settings in this region played a critical role in human evolution, combined archaeological and palaeoenvironmental studies have tended to focus on the arid interio…
Horse domestication as a multi-centered, multi-stage process
For over a decade there has been general, but not universal, consensus that the earliest known evidence for horse husbandry was at Eneolithic Botai, Kazakhstan, circa 3,500 BCE. Recent ancient genomic analyses, however, indicate that Botai is not the source of modern domestic horse stock (DOM2 lineage), but is instead related to the Przewalski clade of horses. DOM2 appears to instead to have emerged in early Bronze Age (mid 3rd Mill. BCE) in the …
Climate change and pulse migration
For millennia, Inuit peoples of the Arctic and Subarctic have been challenged by the impacts of climate change on the abundance of key subsistence species. Responses to climate-induced declines in animal populations included switching to alternative food sources and/or migrating to regions of greater availability. We examine these dynamics for the Chugach Inuit (Sugpiat) people of southern coastal Alaska by synthesizing a large body of evidence f…
Integrated approaches to understanding animal exploitation and dairying in the Central European Early Neolithic
Recent genetic studies point towards 6 th millennium BC central Europe as the core region for the emergence of the lactase persistence (LP) gene mutation -13,910 * T, making it important to understand the intensity of milk production and consumption among Linearbandkeramik (or LBK) farming groups. However, it is not known if milking was part of the LBK Neolithic “package” from the start, or if it displayed a discontinuous pattern in time and spac…
Inland fishing by Homo sapiens during early settlement of Wallacea
Homo sapiens were adept at fishing in a range of aquatic habitats by the time they left Africa and reached Southeast Asia ca . 73 kya. In the insular region of Wallacea, humans adapted to a significant maritime environment with sophisticated marine fishing methods and technology by at least 42 kya. However, despite a growing array of evidence suggesting an early inland terrestrial adaptation on large islands in this tropical region, there was pre…
Neolithic settlement and paleopedological changes during the Middle Holocene in northern Sardinia (Italy)
Sardinia is the second biggest island in the Mediterranean region and has been intensely settled since the Middle Holocene (c.7750 BP). Despite a large number of documented Neolithic archaeological sites, very little is known about human-environmental interactions, including land use and domestic activities associated with the emergence and expansion of Neolithic settlements (c. 7750 and 5500 BP). To shed new light on these issues, we carried out…
Migratory behavior in the enigmatic Late Pleistocene bovid Rusingoryx atopocranion
For many animals, migration is an important strategy for navigating seasonal bottlenecks in resource availability. In the savannas of eastern Africa, herds of grazing animals, including blue wildebeest ( Connochaetes taurinus ), Thomson's gazelle ( Eudorcas thomsonii ), and plains zebra ( Equus quagga ), travel hundreds of kilometers annually tracking suitable forage and water. However, we know nearly nothing about migration among the extinct spe…
New zooarchaeological evidence from Pictish sites in Scotland
Our knowledge of the use of livestock in early medieval Scotland is fragmentary and relies on a handful of well-studied faunal assemblages, with few from Pictland (north-east Scotland), an important and enigmatic group and latterly kingdom in Northern Britain that existed between the 3rd and 9th centuries AD. The assemblages that have been recovered and studied mainly occur at the limits of this territory, beyond the heartland of the Picts in the…
“A land whose stones are iron…”—Iron ore sources in the Southern Levant
Recent discoveries of iron production remains in multiple Iron Age sites throughout the Southern Levant indicate the significance of iron production in the region during this time. However, one main question remains unanswered—that is, provenance: Where were the iron resources located? Were they local or brought from afar? Answering these questions would allow great potential for reconstructing iron-ore procurement strategies and exploitation pra…
Farming and feasting during the Bronze Age–Iron Age transition in Britain (ca. 900–500 bce)
The Late Bronze Age saw the rise of a new site type in southern Britain, commonly termed a midden. These vast monumental mounds, some comprising tens of thousands of artefacts/ecofacts dominated by animal bone and ceramics, signal a societal refocus towards agricultural intensification and communal feasting on a grand scale. These sites point to agricultural produce being the mainstay of the economy, with bronze having a reduced social and econom…
Between valleys, plateaus, and mountains
Seasonal altitudinal mobility has been a key practice among pastoral societies in the north-eastern Iberian Peninsula to cope with the unpredictable Mediterranean climate. The existence of a massive and regulated mobile herding system in this area dates back to the 12th century. Nevertheless, early herd connections between the lowlands and the Pyrenees during the Roman period have been documented. The available information regarding the potential…
The use and context of fiber plants during the middle preceramic
Bast fiber artifacts from the Pacific coast of South America are among the earliest evidence of fabric manipulation and the foundation of the millennial Andean textile tradition. Recent examinations of plant macro remains and plant fiber artifacts from La Yerba II (7570–6674 cal BP) and La Yerba III (6485–5893 cal BP) sites provide insight into how plant fabric technologies and pre-loom textile traditions unfolded over the Middle Preceramic (or M…
Potential of paleoecology and paleolandscape modeling to identify pre-Colonial cultural burning in montane forests
Paleoecology and paleolandscape modeling have the potential to differentiate cultural burning from climatic fires, improving interpretations of past fire histories and vegetation resource management practices. People have conducted variations of traditional fire management to increase terrestrial resources for hundreds of millennia, commonly in fire-prone areas where vegetation is adapted to frequent fire events. Over time, these cultural fires i…
Assessing the use of stable isotope values from deer antlers as proxies for seasonal environmental variation
Introduction We assess the feasibility of white-tailed deer ( Odocoileus virginianus ) antlers to serve as archives of information on paleoseasonality by analyzing stable isotope values from four modern white-tailed deer collected in central Iowa, USA. Because antlers develop from early spring to early fall, they may serve as an archive for intra-annual seasonal variations and provide snapshots of past climatic and environmental conditions. Metho…
Fire-human-climate interactions in the Bolivian Amazon rainforest ecotone from the Last Glacial Maximum to late Holocene
The Amazon Rainforest Ecotone (the ARF- Ecotone ) of the southwestern Amazon Basin is a transitional landscape from tropical evergreen rainforests and seasonally flooded savannahs to savannah woodlands and semi-deciduous dry forests. While fire activity plays an integral role in ARF- Ecotones , recent interactions between human activity and increased temperatures and prolonged droughts driven by anthropogenic climate change threaten to accelerate…
Neanderthal resilience and adaptability
The examination of faunal assemblages through zooarchaeological analyses constitutes a fundamental approach for gaining insight into the intricate behaviours of Neanderthals. Previous investigations have primarily focused on periods of relative environmental stability, and this has provided a wealth of relevant archaeological data. However, our understanding of Neanderthal resilience during the MIS 4, a period presumably characterised by harsh en…
Fighting erasure and dispossession in the San Francisco Bay Area
The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe has long been involved in the archaeology and stewardship of their ancestral homelands, both through their own cultural resource management (CRM) firm and though collaborations with academic and CRM archaeologists. In this article, we build on the past 40 years of archaeological collaborations in the southern San Francisco Bay region and offer examples of how archaeologists can support tribal heritage and environmental st…
Lifting the veil
Humans undertake land management and care of landscapes to maintain safe, healthy, productive and predictable environments. Often, this is achieved through creating spatial and temporal heterogeneity in a way that leverages the natural world; both amplifying natural trends and, in some cases, driving shifts counter to natural processes. However, a persistent paradigm governing the understanding of proxy evidence of past human activity on the envi…
Human dynamics in the Southern Puna of Chile (25°-27°s) during the Late Holocene
We discuss the process of human re-occupation of the Southern Puna (25°-27°S) during the Late Holocene through a variety of lines of evidence, such as ceramics, faunal bones, lithic technology, sources of raw materials like obsidian, and rock art, and their integration with spatial analyses using least-cost paths. Our results indicate a process in which niches were formed in the puna, focused on a variety of activities such as vicuña hunting; exp…
Experimental replication of early human behaviour in bird preparation
The origin of complex behaviour amongst early humans is a subject of heated debate within the scientific community, and the study of small prey remains has become a significant aspect when examining such modern behaviour. Nonetheless, the consumption of small prey by human populations poses analytical difficulties due to the often negligible, or entirely absent, traces on bone surfaces. To address this difficulty, an experimental study focusing o…
Neanderthal exploitation of birds in north-western Europe
For a long time, Neanderthals were considered hunters of large mammals, whereas the diversification of the exploited faunal spectrum to include smaller taxa, including birds, was assumed to be specific to anatomically modern humans. In recent decades, archeozoological analyses of faunal remains from layers associated with Middle Paleolithic lithic industries have revealed traces of human manipulation of small taxa, indicating the exploitation of …
Alternating carnivore and Neanderthal activities at Escoural Cave
Exploring the varied subsistence strategies and cave occupation patterns of Neanderthals is key to understanding their complex behaviors and ecological adaptations. Small game consumption, in particular, is considered a relevant indicator of their behavioral complexity. Rabbit assemblages from Pleistocene cave sites provide valuable insights into Neanderthal interactions with small prey and potential competition with carnivores. Here, we present …
Cloggs Cave pollen sequences, GunaiKurnai Country, East Gippsland (SE Australia)
In southeastern Australia, GunaiKurnai caves are known by current Aboriginal Elders and from nineteenth century ethnographic documents as special places used by mulla-mullung (“clever men” and “clever women”) for the practice of magic and medicine. Pollen analysis conducted on sediments from one such cave, Cloggs Cave, reveals an unusually well-preserved and well-stratified pollen sequence extending back >25,000 years, with much of the pollen int…
Spatial palaeoecology of large-herbivore hominin prey-species at Salzgitter-Lebenstedt, Lower Saxony, Germany
The application of high-resolution methods to reconstruct the ecology and behavior of large-herbivores within Late Pleistocene contexts in Europe has revealed increasing evidence for variability in diet, habitat preference, ranges and mobility patterns through time and space. This data has major implications for interpretations of hominin subsistence strategies in terms of prey-species selection, which rest to a large extent, on the spatial ecolo…