Small bone fragments have often been interpreted as the residues of stews or grease extraction. In international historical archaeological research, stew interpretations have often focused on enslaved or underclass groups or on those who had limited access to sufficient amounts of food or faced nutritional deficiencies. These analyses have widely been uncritical, and the small fragment sizes can be better explained as the products of taphonomic processes such as weathering, trampling, and carnivore scavenging. This work presents results from experimentally chopped long bones from cows, sheep, goats, and pigs that identify butchery and fracture patterns that can be used to evaluate past stew interpretations and provide comparative models for future analyses.

Data collection takes up much of the already limited time archaeologists have to excavate and often requires additional time to digitize. Moreover, despite efforts to standardize data, archaeologists often find errors such as blank or incorrectly recorded fields. To avoid these issues, several projects have made use of tablet computers to streamline and digitize data, but this process can be opaque, specialized, and expensive. Previous research has addressed neither the general feasibility of developing and utilizing mobile devices for data collection nor the quality and quantity of these data. In this article, I review existing methods and practices for integrating data collection on mobile devices in order to evaluate the costs and feasibility of transitioning to a mobile-based data collection system. Through a case study using OsteoSurvey, a series of bioarchaeological data collection forms for Android tablets, I assess the efficacy of data collection on mobile devices. An experiment comparing OsteoSurvey to traditional paper forms demonstrates that participants saved time and made fewer mistakes using the OsteoSurvey forms, resulting in the collection of 21–32 percent more data. Consequently, data collection with mobile devices can significantly increase the overall productivity and quality of archaeological research

The orientations of European prehistoric structures have been studied independently by landscape archaeologists and archaeoastronomers. Despite their similar interests, the two fields have failed to converge primarily because of their differing epistemologies. This paper argues that archaeology has much to gain by integrating the two fields to provide a fuller and more balanced exploration and understanding of the location and orientation of the European megaliths. It is suggested that prehistoric archaeoastronomy needs to become more grounded on the archaeological record and context of the prehistoric structures it studies. If it is to generate knowledge of value to archaeology it needs to become a “skyscape archaeology.” This paper looks at current archaeoastronomical approaches through the lens of archaeological practice. It identifies some limitations and discusses how landscape archaeology can inform archaeoastronomy on overcoming them. A methodology that attempts this necessary cross-fertilization, by shedding unfounded assumptions and developing a more phenomenological approach to pattern-recognition, is proposed. This methodology is applied to a case study in central Portugal. The emergent narrative, linking a cluster of dolmens to a local mountain range and the star Aldebaran, not only fits the archaeological record, but is mirrored by local folklore, lending further support to the validity of this methodology.

While digital games are used for health intervention, language training, and science learning, there are few instances of games being used to teach archaeology. This is a missed opportunity, as narratives of exploration and discovery make archaeology well suited to digital games. This article discusses Red Land/Black Land, a prototype Civilization V mod (modification of an existing game) that allows players to explore both the process of cultural change in ancient Egypt and the construction of archaeological knowledge about ancient Egypt. As a case study of scholarly game design, the article explores the project’s development. Included is a discussion of play mechanics, the merits and process of modding, and the resources required to build games in academic environments. The article also discusses preliminary efforts to test the game in an undergraduate classroom. Ultimately, the article argues that digital games are powerful tools for communicating archaeology. Instead of falling under the glamour of commercial games, however, scholars should adopt cost effective approaches to game design, looking to mobile play, alternate reality games, modding, and browser based games to realize their vision. The article also argues that the actual process of designing a game is an excellent tool to teach archaeology.

Different types of artifacts and building materials react in varying manners to heat exposure, and the analysis of their degrees and patterns of thermal alterations provide important clues to the intensity of fire to which they were subjected. Such data allow researchers to examine the presence or absence of a building fire, the quantity of fuel, and the intentional or accidental nature of the fire. This approach is particularly important in the tropical lowlands, where evidence of fire in the forms of charcoal and ash may not be well preserved. At the rapidly abandoned site of Aguateca, Guatemala, the amount of charcoal and ash was small, but the examination of numerous artifacts left in situ and of building materials identified clear evidence that many buildings were burned at the time of abandonment. Similar lines of evidence were also found in artifact-poor, gradually abandoned structures at Ceibal, Guatemala. These results suggest the possibility that the burning of structures at the time of abandonment may have been more common in the Maya Lowlands than generally thought.