This month’s Executive Board Reading Recommendation comes from VP for Website Administration AJ White. These informal selections are a way to highlight what we are reading and finding interesting. Here is what AJ has to say about his selection:

The paper, "Hanging around or moving on up? Multi-proxy perspectives on Bronze Age sheep/goats herding practices in the north-eastern Po Plain," published in Quaternary Science Reviews by Manfrin et al., came to my attention through its punny title. But I particularly appreciate how it uses archaeological science to clarify an ambiguity of the archaeological record. The paper notes that transhumance, the seasonal movement of livestock, is thought to have developed in Northern Italy during the Bronze Age, but little traditional archaeological evidence exists to support this hypothesis. The authors use a multiproxy approach, employing C, N, O, and Sr faunal isotopic data, to determine if Bronze Age livestock ate a local or migratory diet. The results suggest that herds were fed locally and the paper challenges the notion that transhumance emerged at this time, showing that archaeological science brings nuance to our understanding of the past.

Manfrin, M.S., Gillis, R.E., Polisca, F., Holt, E., Breglia, F., D’Aquino, S., Lamb, A.L., Madgwick, R., Millet, M.-A., Nederbragt, A.J., Nicosia, C., Piazzalunga, G., Shaw-Eleazar, K., Dal Corso, M., 2026. Hanging around or moving on up? Multi-proxy perspectives on Bronze Age sheep/goats herding practices in the north-eastern Po Plain (northern Italy). Quaternary Science Reviews 382, 109961. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2026.109961

Reconstruction of the landscape with possible land use indicated (Manfrin et al., 2026, Fig. 10)