Browsing by Author "Matthew Conte"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2

Hoofprints in the yard: The discovery of bovid, caprid and (large) feline/canid tracks in an external courtyard from the early Iron Age of Tokwa, India
(Elsevier Ltd, 2025) Jennifer Bates; Vikas Kumar Singh; Ravindra Nath Singh; Manisha Singh; Brij Mohan; Sudarshan Chakradhari; Matthew Conte; Olzbayar Gankhuyag; Nathaniel James; Rakesh Jollu; Snigdha Konar; S. Dasaratha Kumar; Arun K. Pandey; Kim Pangyu; Abhay P. Singh; Anisha Singh; Sunil K. Singh; Urvashi Singh
Humans and animals have co-existed throughout our evolution, but evidence for this often comes in the form of death assemblages – animal bones. Evidence of the lived experience of animals in human spaces instead often has to come from secondary sources like stress marks on bone, imagery, artefacts and texts. In this paper we report evidence for animals exploring human habitation spaces in the form of hoof and paw prints left in wet plaster floors at the early Iron Age site of Tokwa, India. The tracks come from three separate animal groups – bovid, caprid and large feline/canid – and show presence at different moments in floor use through their presence in different plaster layers. This repeated use of a human habitation space, specifically outside courtyards, shows animals freely roaming through the area, and highlights not only biodiversity hidden from the site's zooarchaeological record, but also the intersection of multi-species lived experiences on a day-to-day basis that would otherwise not be visible over the millennia. © 2025
Radiocarbon Dates from the Archaeological Site of Sakas, Bihar, India
(Cambridge University Press, 2024) J. Bates; V.K. Singh; R.N. Singh; Manisha Singh; Brij Mohan; Sudarshan Chakradhari; Abhay P. Singh; Matthew Conte; Yongje Oh
Dates from recently excavated Gangetic site of Sakas in Bihar, India, place it at ca.1800-1100 BC. The ceramic and lithic chronologies have been interpreted as Early Farming, Transitional and Chalcolithic/Developed Farming in date. However, depending on where in the Ganges Plains is studied, the time frame of Early, Developed and Advanced Farming periods varies widely, from 7th millennium to 2nd millennium BC and beyond, making the chronological framing of absolute dates within a regional scheme highly complex. In this paper we report the new radiocarbon results from Sakas and note how while these are critical for cementing the absolute dating of the site, until such time as a more stable periodization linked not only to relative and absolute dates but also human lifeways within the different zones of the Ganges plains is created, there remains difficulties in understanding how Sakas and other sites of similar date fit into the changing social, cultural and economic systems in this region. © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of University of Arizona.