Braden Cordivari

24 April 2026

In the spirit of SAS’s upcoming 50^th anniversary, we will be looking back at the achievements of our past award winners, sharing spotlights on papers produced from research supported by the SAS Student and ECR Research Support Award. First up is 2021 recipient Petra Vaiglova, Senior Lecturer in Archaeological Science at the School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University. Petra recently published a paper titled “Transport of animals underpinned ritual feasting at the onset of the Neolithic in southwestern Asia” in Nature Springer: Communications in Earth & Environment as the first author of a team of biologists, archaeologists, and geochemists.

Their study examined seasonal mobility of five wild boar from the Early Neolithic site of Asiab in western Iran using sequential analyses of tooth enamel for oxygen and strontium isotopes and barium concentrations. The team sampled based on microscopic growth patterns identified in the teeth rather than the typical standardized interval (e.g., 1 mm). This method allowed the authors to pinpoint more accurate seasonal patterns of isotopic inputs from changes in eating and drinking. They found that ritual feasting at Asiab relied on the consumption of animals from beyond the immediate catchment of the site, around 70 km away. This result was somewhat surprising, since Asiab is located in an environment where wild boars could have lived locally. These findings shed light on the organization and social connections behind ceremonial feasting during the Neolithic, in particular the investment in bringing animals from beyond the site.

In addition to the main publication, Petra also wrote a 'behind-the-paper' blog post on the Springer Nature Research Communities, a non-technical Perspective for the latest issue of The European Archaeologist, and a public-facing article for The Conversation about this project.

Congratulations to Petra! We hope you enjoy reading her work. Find out more about how to share your work with a Spotlight.

Vaiglova, P., Kierdorf, H., Witzel, C., Falster, G., Joannes-Boyau, R., Wang, Y., Wu, J., Williams, I., Knowles, B., Wu, Y., Bangsgaard, P., Yeomans, L., Richter, T., Darabi, H., 2025. Transport of animals underpinned ritual feasting at the onset of the Neolithic in southwestern Asia. Commun Earth Environ 6, 519. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02501-z

Artist’s representation of the hunting and transport of boars at Asiab. Illustration by Kathryn Killackey

Braden Cordivari

22 April 2026

Congratulations to Alice Rose, winner of the Early Career Research Poster Presentation Prize at the United Kingdom Archaeological Sciences Conference (UKAS) 2026, which was held in Bristol this year (March 30-April 2). Alice’s project "From cesspits to castles: isotopic insights into rat dietary ecology and human-rat interactions in Medieval and Post-Medieval Europe" outlined the ongoing carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis being carried out on archaeological rat bones as part of the project "RATTUS: Rats and the Archaeology of Trade, Urbanism, and Disease in Past European Societies” at the University of York, where Alice is currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate.

Alice is a bioarchaeologist specializing in the isotopic analysis of archaeological skeletal remains. As part of this, she is undertaking stable isotope analysis of brown and black rats sourced from archaeological sites from across Europe to help understand the commensal niches of rats and their population dynamics, as well as investigating their role as a novel proxy for key debates in European historical archaeology. As part of the award, Alice receives a £150 prize and complimentary SAS membership. Well done!

Braden Cordivari

07 April 2026

Congratulations to Simone Dilaria, this year’s winner of the SGS Beta-SAS Radiocarbon Dating Award! This annual award is designed to facilitate creative uses of radiocarbon dating, including into geographically and thematically underrepresented areas of research.

Simone’s project is titled “Burning the Sea: Radiocarbon Dating the First Coral Calcination in the Ancient Mediterranean.”  In the Phoenician-Punic necropolis of Nora (Sardinia), a unique lime pit produced by calcining murex shells and coral was discovered among Phoenician cremation tombs dating back to the late 9th century BCE. Supported by the SAS Beta-SGS Award, absolute 14C dating of an uncalcined coral residue embedded within the lime will establish a definitive chronology for this pyrotechnological milestone of antiquity. Originating from a marine context, this Early Phoenician feature is calibrated against the more linear Marine20 curve, potentially circumventing the well-known IntCal20 calibration issues of the Hallstatt plateau. Simone explains that this analysis will not only date what appears to be the first instance of coral calcination in the ancient world, but also demonstrate the early introduction of lime technology to the Central-Western Mediterranean, likely facilitated by the Phoenician diaspora.

Simone Dilaria is currently a Researcher in Mineral Resources and Mineralogical-Petrographic Applications for the Environment and Cultural Heritage at the Department of Cultural Heritage, University of Padua. Since September 2025, he also serves as Adjunct Professor at the same institution and at Ca' Foscari University of Venice (School of International Education).

We look forward to following the results of Simone’s research!

Braden Cordivari

31 March 2026

This month’s Reading Recommendation comes from SAS VP for Social Media Vana Orfanou and VP for Member Communications Braden Cordivari, who recommend an interesting new paper on lead isotope analysis recently published in the Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry, titled “Observations on sample size for lead isotopic analysis of ancient copper alloys.” In this paper, Frederik Rademakers, Patrick Degryse, Elvira Vassileva, and Frank Vanhaecke analyze certified reference materials using multi-collector inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (MC-ICP-MS) to assess the effect of different sample masses on lead isotope ratios. They find that there is variability in the results, which they show primarily derives from low sample masses, particularly those less than 20 mg and particularly for samples with low lead concentrations. The authors recommend a minimum sample mass of 20-30 mg in order to avoid these issues. They also note that their findings suggest it is better to run a single analysis of larger sample mass than to subdivide into multiple samples of less optimal mass, which may lead to unrepresentative results. Archaeometallurgists are always balancing being as minimally invasive as possible while still obtaining accurate and reliable data, and this paper helps establish a benchmark for guiding responsible sampling.

Rademakers, F.W., Degryse, P., Vassilieva, E., Vanhaecke, F., 2026. Observations on sample size for lead isotopic analysis of ancient copper alloys. Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry. https://doi.org/10.1039/D5JA00416K

Braden Cordivari

16 March 2026

SAS member Andrew Millard has shared a paper recently published in Quaternary Science Reviews (February 2026), co-authored with colleagues Meng Zhang and Dan Lawrence from Durham University, on diet and agriculture in China: “Isotopic evidence for changing diet and agriculture in China from the Neolithic to the Early Han period (10-2 ka BP).”

Highlights

• Compiled a large C–N isotopic dataset (N_human=3,492; N_animal=2,919) to reconstruct prehistoric subsistence in China 10–2 ka BP
• Reveals early, persistent millet farming in the Middle Yellow River with millet-fed pig husbandry dominant from Early Neolithic
• After ∼5 ka BP, farming split: millet–pig systems in Middle Yellow River and wheat and barley pastoral economies in northwest China

Summary

Carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses for ca. 3000 animals and 3500 humans shed light on the changing farming practices from the Neolithic to the Early Han Dynasty across China. Feeding pigs with the C4-crop millet started in the Early Neolithic in the Middle Yellow River region, and later spread, but in marginal zones pig husbandry diets varied widely. The introduction of western domesticates after 5 ka BP led to two distinct farming regimes. Subsistence based on millet and pigs persisted in the Middle Yellow River region, integrating cattle and sheep into existing millet-based fodder regimes. Conversely, the arid northwestern regions shifted to farming centered on sheep/goat and the C3-crops wheat and barley. In all periods we found deer a useful indicator of wild animal access to crops. The regional differences highlight how local ecologies and resource availability shaped regionally distinct trajectories of farming in prehistoric China.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2025.109725

Congratulations to Meng, Dan, and Andrew! We hope you enjoy reading their work. Find out more about how to share your work with a Spotlight.

Spatiotemporal distribution of C₃ and C₄ consumption of human and pig across China. Zhang et al. 2026, Fig. 9 (licensed under CC BY 4.0)

Braden Cordivari

25 February 2026

SAS welcomes the latest Student Ambassador, Maren von Mallinckrodt, a PhD candidate in Biological Anthropology at the University of Iceland! Maren’s research focuses on non-adult skeletal remains from the medieval period in Iceland, exploring questions of health, mortality, and social identity. Maren is looking forward to using the ambassador program as a platform to represent Northern Europe and connect early-career researchers in archaeological sciences, both within the region and beyond. She is currently one of the main organizers of the 9th Workshop Young Researchers in Archaeometry, supported by SAS and taking place in Reykjavík in October 2026, is excited to continue building networks and strengthening collaboration across the community in this role.