National Museum of Antiquities

The Uden–Slabroek cemetery yielded one of the richest Early Iron Age burials found in the Netherlands: an inhumation grave of a person wearing elaborate bronze and iron ornaments (ca. 8th century BC). Exceptionally mineralised fragments of wool textiles were found inside the corrosion layer of the bronze anklets and bracelets. Advanced multidisciplinary analysis of these textiles identified them as the remains of the oldest garment of the Netherlands, made from a bright red and blue wool twill fabric woven in a shepherd’s check pattern. Advanced mass spectrometry analysis provided direct identification of dyes, including cochineal — the earliest evidence of a red dye for the entire region (especially the precious insect dye variant). Virtual synchrotron-based 3D analysis of the fragments documented the textile weave types and the morphometry of surface and buried layers. The correlation of the two approaches makes it possible to recover an entire, now-vanished, colour pattern from highly altered fabrics.

In European and many African, Middle Eastern and southern Asian populations, lactase persistence (LP) is the most strongly selected monogenic trait to have evolved over the past 10,000 years1. Although the selection ofLP and the consumption ofprehistoric milk must be linked, considerable uncertainty remains concerning their spatiotemporal configuration and specific interactions2,3. Here we provide detailed distributions of milk exploitation across Europe over the past 9,000 years using around7,000 pottery fat residues from more than 550 archaeological sites. European milk use was widespread from the Neolithic period onwards but varied spatially and temporally in intensity. Notably,LP selection varying with levels of prehistoric milk exploitation is no better at explaining LP allele frequency trajectories than uniform selection since the Neolithic period. In the UK Biobank4,5 cohort of 500,000 contemporary Europeans, LP genotype was only weakly associated with milk consumption and did not show consistent associations with improved fitness or health indicators. This suggests that other reasons for the beneficial effects of LP should be considered for its rapid frequency increase. We propose that lactasenon-persistent individuals consumed milk when it became available but, under conditions of famine and/or increased pathogen exposure, this was disadvantageous, driving LP selection in prehistoric Europe. Comparison of model likelihoods indicates that population fluctuations, settlement density and wild animal exploitation-proxies for these drivers-provide better explanations of LP selection than the extent of milk exploitation. These findings offer new perspectives on prehistoric milk exploitation and LP evolution.

The ‘Walking Dead’ approach presented here provides a methodologically interesting lens into ancient religious agency. Inspired by theories by Andreas Reckwitz, Jörg Rüpke and others, this new praxeological methodology seeks to add historical depth to the question of the formation of religious traditions and how these are negotiated between individuals and groups in an ancient context. The claim of the Walking Dead approach is that these processes become tangible in ancient cultures by three vectors of religious agency which are looking into religious practices, transmission of text and images and the use-life of the landscape. Five case studies from (ancient) Egypt will demonstrate how the ‘Walking Dead’ approach is helpful to detect how traditions as well are shaped by these vectors and how this is visible in a site’s dynamic cultural geography.

We report the discovery of a 50,000-y-old birch tar-hafted flint tool found off the present-day coastline of The Netherlands. The production of adhesives and multicomponent tools is considered complex technology and has a prominent place in discussions about the evolution of human behavior. This find provides evidence on the technological capabilities of Neandertals and illuminates the currently debated conditions under which these technologies could be maintained. 14C-accelerator mass spectrometry dating and the geological provenance of the artifact firmly associates it with a host of Middle Paleolithic stone tools and a Neandertal fossil. The find was analyzed using pyrolysis-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, X-ray micro-computed tomography, and optical light microscopy. The object is a piece of birch tar, encompassing one-third of a flint flake. This find is from northwestern Europe and complements a small set of well-dated and chemically identified adhesives from Middle Paleolithic/Middle Stone Age contexts. Together with data from experiments and other Middle Paleolithic adhesives, it demonstrates that Neandertals mastered complex adhesive production strategies and composite tool use at the northern edge of their range. Thus, a large population size is not a necessary condition for complex behavior and technology. The mitigation of ecological risk, as demonstrated by the challenging conditions during Marine Isotope Stage 4 and 3, provides a better explanation for the transmission and maintenance of technological complexity.

À la suite de l’organisation du premier concours de restaurateurs de couche picturale pour les musées nationaux en 1935, une vaste campagne de restauration de peintures dont une majorité appartient au musée du Louvre, est lancée. Plus de 600 tableaux sont restaurés entre 1936 et 1950 au sein du nouvel atelier établi au Louvre pour lequel travaillent les restaurateurs Lucien Aubert, Pierre Michel, Pierre Paulet, René Longa, Edgard Aillet et Georges Zezzos, sous la direction de Jean-Gabriel Goulinat.Le présent article propose d’analyser l’activité développée durant cette période en revenant sur ses origines qui remontent à la fin des années 1920. Les besoins des musées nationaux en termes d’organisation et de pratique de la restauration auxquels cet atelier répond sont ainsi illustrés par les initiatives mises en œuvre par une administration qui s’attache au renforcement des modalités de contrôle des restaurateurs auxquels elle fait appel.

Neue Studien betonen hinsichtlich der Neolithisierung Nordwesteuropas ein Mosaik verschiedener Prozesse. Dennoch scheint es möglich, einheitliche Merkmale zu identifizieren, die die Entwicklung der Landwirtschaft überregional beeinflussten. Der folgende Beitrag hebt die Bedeutung evolutionärer Prozesse für die Neolithisierung hervor, dies mit einem Fokus auf die südlichen Niederlande. Jene Regionen zeichnen sich durch vielfältige Biome aus, in denen die Übernahme der Landwirtschaft auf unterschiedlichem Wege erfolgte. Analysiert werden dabei sich jeweils ergebende Vorteile für die körperliche Verfasstheit der beteiligten Akteure durch die Kombination von Nahrungssuche und Landwirtschaft.Die Autoren vermuten, dass die Ernährungsstrategien der Menschen von den vielfältigen Substraten unterschiedlich beeinflußt wurden, und dies sich darüber hinaus auch zwischen den Geschlechtern erkennen läßt. Bezüglich der Frage, ob und wie neolithische Innovationen übernommen wurden, werden daher für Männer und Frauen unterschiedliche Strategien sichtbar, die verfügbaren Resourcen jeweils „optimal“ zu nutzen.Les études récentes ont souligné le caractère en mosaïque du processus de néolithisation dans le nordouest de l’Europe. Il est cependant possible d’identifier à travers les différentes régions certains objectifs majeurs qui ont influencé l’adoption de l’agriculture. Nous modélisons l’importance des processus évolutionnaires à la base de la néolithisation. Nous nous concentrons sur la partie méridionale des Pays-Bas, où l’agriculture a été adoptée suivant des trajectoires bien distincts dans différents biomes. Nous analysons cette transition selon les avantages physiques que la cueillette et l’agriculture ont pu apporter aux acteurs concernés. Nous proposons que divers substrats offrent différents avantages concernant l’adoption de l’agriculture et suggérons que ces avantages variaient selon les sexes, c’est-à-dire que les stratégies « optimales » par rapport à l’adoption et du mode d’adoption des innovations néolithiques différaient entre hommes et femmes.Recent studies emphasise the mosaic character of the process of neolithisation in north-western Europe. However, some overarching motives influencing the uptake of farming can be identified across regions. We model the importance of evolutionary processes underlying neolithisation. We focus on the southern part of the Low Countries, where the uptake of agriculture follows distinct trajectories in different biomes. We analyse the transition in terms of fitness benefits that foraging and agriculture bestow on the actors involved. We suggest that different substrates offer different fitness benefits with regard to the uptake of farming and that these benefits differed between the sexes, leading to differing “optimal” strategies for males and females regarding whether and how to adopt Neolithic innovations.

Sedentism has long been regarded as one of the key elements of the Neolithic. The built environment—especially houses—and their societal connotations, most characteristically typified in Hodder’s (1990) concept of the ‘domus’, serve as its main antecedents. In the western part of the north European plain, the arrival of the LBK around 5300 cal bc does confirm this seemingly fixed pairing. Further north and west, in the wetlands and wet margins of the Lower Rhine Area (LRA), the situation is markedly different. Over approximately two millennia domesticates and cultigens become an increasingly regular component of the local economy and diet, yet houses do not follow suit. The little evidence available suggests the existence of rather diverse and relatively small structures, frequent phases of rebuilding and a continuation of mobility. This seemingly ‘unstructured’ vernacular character of house building points to long-term memory, practices of ‘citation’ and the creation of persistent places. It provides an interesting perspective on the meaning of home and its place in the Neolithic of this area and the way it interacts with the wetland landscape and environment.

The probability of nuclei capturing neutrons reveals sharp peaks, so‐called ‘resonances’, which occur at neutron energies that are specific for each element. These resonances are very suitable for analysing the elemental composition of objects. They are the basis of a new analytical method, ‘neutron resonance capture analysis’ (NRCA). This is a fully non‐destructive method, which is applicable to almost all stable isotopes, determines the bulk elemental composition, does not require any sample preparation and results in a negligible residual activity. Recently, NRCA has been applied in a study of a series of bronze statuettes, obtained from the National Museum of Antiquity in Leiden (NL).

This study of Medieval Archaeology presents a quantitative survey of publications as they appear in NAA 1986 to 1990.The survey indicates a shift of interest in those years from urban archaeology to other areas, i. e. castles, iron production and in some sense rural activities. A significant growth of interest in theory and methods can be detected which could be considered as a sign of maturity of Medieval Archaeology in Sweden. The status of Medieval Archaeology in the research society is discussed and is considered to be quite low. It is suggested that the reason for this is the fact that the subject has a rather vague identity.