CUSP · Cementochronology Unravels Seasonality in Prehistory

Cementochronology Unravels Seasonality in Prehistory

Archaeological sites are by and large palimpsests of coarse-grained chronological resolution, with many episodes of (re-)occupation where often undifferentiated blocks of time are used as units for temporal reckoning. Ancient teeth preserve important information about past lives and deaths. One of the possible avenues for utilizing this plethora of information harbored in teeth tissues is by studying the phenomenon known as Tooth Cementum Annulation (TCA)—formation of alternating translucent and opaque bands observed in the cementum, the outer layer covering roots in teeth. Like with growth lines observed in trees that can serve to determine their ages, counting alternating increments in cementum that represent growth (summer) and dormant (winter) seasons can provide accurate estimates of age- and season-at-death in animals and humans. The methodological advances provided by cementochronological approaches can provide powerful means of temporalizing and refining our understanding of annual scheduling of site occupation. Cementochronology examines alternating incremental translucent and opaque bands that are laid down throughout life in tooth cementum as physiological responses to seasonal rhythms. Counting pairs of bands on thin sections under polarized transmitted light provides accurate age estimates. The outermost band represents the season-at-death, which is used to infer seasonality of site occupation. This method is particularly relevant for prehistoric periods when seasonal scheduling of lifeways was of paramount importance. Moreover, in the most recent anthropological scholarship, understanding the seasonal nature of many social institutions and social groups in the past goes beyond the concerns about the scheduling of subsistence activities in relation to the availability of resources and economic aspects of past societies’ lifeways. Seasonality has been stressed out as an important capacity of early human groups to switch (seasonally) from one form of social contract to another, thus providing a flexible social arrangement regarding aspects of social domination, hierarchy, and inequality among various societies around the world (cf. Graeber and Wengrow 2020). Understanding seasonality in the deep past helps us study the development of human social institutions and provides a way to challenge the social evolutionary understanding of inevitable move from egalitarian to socially stratified and class societies. The overall objectives of the project are as follows: (1) to establish a robust protocol for the study of TCA in red deer, which is often found at prehistoric sites as hunted game, as well as in human dental remains; (2) infer seasonality of occupation of archaeological sites in the chosen case study by determining season-at-death in both red deer and humans; and (3) integrate these seasonality indicators with other types of archaeological data that can disclose key aspects of seasonal scheduling of everyday activities on archaeological sites.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union