Analysis and visualization of brachyuran crab isotopes from the archaeological site of KMA, central Jordan (ca. 1000 BCE)

Table of Contents

1. About The Project
2. Data Description
   • Files
   • Markdown
3. Prerequisites and Use
4. Contributing
5. License
6. Contact
7. Acknowledgments

About The Project

This repository contains the markdown and files needed to reproduce the analyses and visualizations found in Farahani, A., Miller, M.J., Porter, B.W., Dawson, T. and Routledge, B. 2023. Stable isotopes of archaeological and modern semi-terrestrial crabs (Potamon potamios) provide paleoecological insights into brachyuran ecology and human resource acquisition in late Holocene Jordan. Quaternary International 658: 14-23.

In brief, our research sought to identify whether or not stable inorganic isotopes derived from crab carapaces recovered at the archaeological site of Khirbet al-Mudayna al-Aliya, located in south-central Jordan and dated to ca. 1000 BCE, could be used as hyper-local climate proxies. The short answer is: no. But the longer answer is: because of the behavioral ecology of these specific semi-terrestrial freshwater crabs , stable inorganic oxygen and carbon isotopes give us insight into past brachyuran paleoecology and human resource acquisition, especially this past community's foraging behavior.

See the compiled analyses and figures here.

For more about the archaeological site of Khirbet al-Mudayna al-'Aliya (KMA), see:

• Farahani, A., Porter, B.W., Huynh, H. and Routledge, B. 2016. Crop storage and animal husbandry at early Iron Age Khirbat al-Mudayna al-‘Aliya (Jordan): a paleoethnobotanical approach (Vol. 69, pp. 27-89). American Schools of Oriental Research.

• Routledge, B. and Porter, B.,2016. A Place In-Between: Khirbat al-Mudayna al-‘Aliya in the Early Iron Age. In Crossing Jordan (pp. 323-329). Routledge.

• Porter BW, Routledge BE, Simmons EM, Lev-Tov JS. 2014. Extensification in a Mediterranean semi-arid marginal zone: An archaeological case study from Early Iron Age Jordan's Eastern Karak Plateau. Journal of Arid Environments 104:132-48.

• Routledge, B. 2000. Seeing through walls: interpreting Iron Age I architecture at Khirbat al-Mudayna al-ʿAliya. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 319: 37-70.

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Data Description

There are two folders, one for data, and another for the Markdown. See descriptions below:

Files

• KMA Potamon Archaeological Measurements and Isotopes.csv : The physical measurements of archaeological remains of brachyurans from KMA, including the stable inorganic isotope readings derived from those same remains conducted at UC Berkeley's Center for Stable Isotope Biogeochemistry.

• KMA Potamon Archaeological NISP.csv : The counts of the different archaeological brachyuran remains recovered at KMA by archaeological context.

• KMA Potamon Modern Crab Locations.csv : The GPS coordinates of the sampled contemporary Potamon potamios specimens in the wadi system beneath KMA.

• KMA Potamon Modern Measurements and Isotopes.csv : The physical measurements of all contemporary Potamon potamios specimens measured in the wadi system beneath KMA. In addition, this file includes the stable inorganic isotope readings derived from sampled specimens (V_PDB) and the water of the pools from which they were sampled (V_SMOW). These analyses were conducted at UC Berkeley's Center for Stable Isotope Biogeochemistry.

• KMA Potamon Modern Water Locations.csv : The GPS coordinates of the sampled pools that contained the Potamon potamios specimens in the wadi system beneath KMA.

Markdown

• Supplement.Rmd : An (R) Markdown that allows for interactive reproducibility of all of the figures and tables found in the manuscript, plus some additional analyses.

• Supplement.html : A compiled version of the Markdown in the event you just wanted to look at the analyses and figures .

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Prerequisites and Use

You will need:

• Rstudio

• R > v. 4.2.0

The packages needed for markdown compilation are listed at the beginning of the (R) markdown.

Contributing

You can contribute to this repository by identifying coding errors, proposing more elegant syntax, or suggesting additional analyses / visualization. Any contributions you make are very welcome.

If you have a suggestion, first please open an issue with the tag "enhancement". Depending on how much work you've already done, I might recommend that you fork the repo and create a pull request.

If so:

1. Fork the project

2. Create a branch (git checkout -b enhancement/amazinganalysis)

3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Added an incredible new analysis')

4. Push to the branch (git push origin enhancement/amazinganalysis)

5. Open a pull request

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License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE.txt for more information.

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Contact

Alan Farahani - [email protected]

Project Link: https://github.com/alanfarahani/KMA-crabs

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Acknowledgments

• README template
• 🦀🦀🦀

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