Paleolithic (Other Keyword)
1-25 (499 Records)
In 2013 our team began a 3-year testing project to assess the research potential of the recently-discovered McDonald Creek archaeological site (FAI-2043). The site is located in the Tanana Flats of Central Alaska south of Fairbanks. Site testing indicated a well-stratified and reasonably preserved multicomponent site situated in unconsolidated eolian sand and silt deposits atop an ancient alluvial landform. Three cultural components have been identified so far, dating to the early Allerød,...
A 3D Interactive Model of Spitzkloof D Rockshelter, Namaqualand, South Africa (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeology is of great public interest, but a lack of approachable academic and popular materials may deter public engagement with our field and our research, meaning archaeologists must develop innovative means of communication. It is also vital that we make our work more accessible to local community members, whose history we are often excavating. Digital...
Acculturation and Its Discontents: Rethinking Models of Interpopulation Interaction during the Middle-Upper Paleolithic Transition (2018)
Given how large the topic of acculturation looms in discussions of the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition, it is surprising how little attention has been paid to defining it in order to develop operational concepts that can be tested against the archaeological record. In the specific context of the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition, the notion of acculturation has usually been considered as a unidirectional, one-size-fits-all social mechanism to explain both the appearance of transitional...
Acheulean Hominins and Out of Africa Dispersals: Challenges and Advances (2018)
The dispersal of Acheulean hominins outside of Africa is one of the most important research areas in human evolutionary studies, having been the topic of paleoanthropologists and archaeologists for many decades. Yet, precise knowledge about the timing and geographic movement of archaic hominins across Eurasia is still in its infancy. The aim of this presentation is to discuss what we currently know about the distribution of Acheulean hominins, and to report on new field work findings in southern...
Across and beyond Site Boundaries: Maximizing the Legacy of Submerged Landscape Assessments (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Advances in Global Submerged Paleolandscapes Research" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The last 20 years have seen a massive increase in offshore development around the UK that has provided archaeologists the opportunity to find and examine new sites from areas of seafloor, in deeper waters and further from the coastline than was previously possible. Through the interpretation of geophysical and geotechnical data...
Across Boundaries: Origin of Microblade Technology in NE Asia under a Macroecological Approach (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeology on the Edge(s): Transitions, Boundaries, Changes, and Causes" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The spread of microblade technology has been explained using human migration and cultural transmission under the culture-historical paradigm of a "refugium model" that illustrates movements of foraging societies from Transbaikal eastward to the Paleo-Sakhalin-Hokkaido-Kurile (PSHK) Peninsula and to North China in...
aDNA analysis of prehistoric salmon remains at Housepit54 (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Salmon were a critical resource in the Indigenous economies of the Pacific Northwest. There are five Pacific Salmon species that spawn within the Fraser River and its tributaries: sockeye (Oncorhynchus nerka), Chinook (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), coho (Oncorhynchus kisutch), pink (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) and chum (Oncorhynchus keta). Since each species...
An Agent-Based Model to Explore the Relationship between Archaeological Assemblages, Past Social Networks, and Cultural Dynamics (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The need to relate static archaeological sites to the dynamic processes responsible for their formation is central to the utility of archaeological data for testing hypotheses about the lives of prehistoric humans, and how ecological and social changes affected them. Here we use an agent-based simulation to investigate how different factors influence the...
Analysis of Settlement Patterns Near the Big Burro Mountains (2018)
This poster presents the results of an archaeological survey of Pitchfork Ranch, located near the Big Burro Mountains in southeastern New Mexico. The survey was conducted by staff and students of the Archaeology Southwest Upper Gila Preservation Archaeology (UGPA) field school from 2015 to 2017. There is evidence on the ranch of human activity ranging from possible Paleolithic and early Archaic sites up to 20th century sites. Using GIS and geospatial data collected during this survey it is...
Anatomical Characteristics of the Pedal Skeleton Provide Insights into the History of Human Footwear (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Approaches to Archaeological Footwear" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. There is no footwear in nature—only hooves and soles. Protecting feet through artificial means is a human invention of relatively recent origin. The oldest direct evidence for footwear includes woven sandals and moccasins dating to the early Holocene. Inferences from footprints, decorative beads, and morphological analysis of phalanges suggest an...
Ancient DNA Analyses and the Human Population of Western Europe during and after the Last Glacial Maximum: Major Contributions from El Mirón Cave (Cantabria, Spain) (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Interdisciplinary Research into the Late Pleistocene of Europe" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pioneering genomic analyses of bone and dental calculus from the 19,000-year-old Magdalenian “Red Lady” skeleton in El Mirón Cave, along with DNA from other Late Upper Paleolithic human remains provide critical information supporting the archeologically based theory of human range southward contraction and northward...
Ancient DNA Analysis of Microbes Preserved in Dental Calculus: Challenges And Opportunities (2018)
Sequencing ancient microorganisms using next generation sequencing approaches have truly revolutionized our view of the past. While past paleomicrobiological research was largely restricted to coprolites and sediments, the recent analyses of ancient calcified dental plaque has provided novel insights into ancient human diets, disease, behaviors, and lifestyles. Despite the benefits, obtaining DNA from diverse microbial communities is difficult and is fraught with issues for first time...
Ancient Dog Genome Preserved in Tumor Provides Novel Insights into the Domestication of Dogs (2018)
Transmissible cancers are mostly known from Tasmanian devils, soft shell clams and dogs. In dogs, the Canine Transmissible Venereal Tumors (CTVT) manifests as genital tumors and spreads between dogs (usually during mating) by the transfer of living cancer cells. This tumour first originated in the cells of an individual dog, up to 11,000 years ago, and possesses the genome of that founder dog. As such, CTVT cells contain an ancient living genome (the founder’s dog genome) that was passed along...
The Antiquity of Hunter-Gatherers Revisited (2015)
One of the challenges of Paleoanthropology is developing coherent models for ancient social and economic systems that have no close analogues in the recent archaeological and historical records. Systematic observations of variability among recent foragers produced by Binford, Kelly and others, are vital tools for understanding early humans. They provide necessary frames of reference for predicting variation, and for understanding why observations may not fit predictions. In a 2001 paper we...
An Application of Hierarchical Bayesian Modeling to Upper Paleolithic Archaeological Cultures in France between 32 and 21 cal ka BP (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Constructing Chronologies I: Stratification and Correlation" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Investigations of chronology play a key role in the majority of archaeological research endeavors and are particularly pertinent to examinations of culture-environment relationships, especially during periods marked by pronounced climatic variability. Rigorous evaluations of data and robust methods are necessary to reconstruct...
Application of Plant Wax n-alkane and GDGT-based Paleoenvironmental Proxies Derived from Archaeological Cave Sediments: A Case Study from the Middle Stone Age site of Bizmoune, Morocco (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Lipid biomarkers derived from plant waxes (n-alkanes) and the cell membranes of bacteria and archaea (GDGTs) are potentially powerful paleoenvironmental proxies in the field of archaeology given their durability and ubiquity in terrestrial sediments. We use the distributions of glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraether (GDGT) and plant wax n-alkane structural...
Approaches to Lithic Technology: How Archaeological Practice Influences Interpretation of Past Lifeways through the Lens of Kharaneh IV (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Debitage Analysis: Case Studies, Successes, and Cautionary Tales" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cultural affiliation and change in the Epipaleolithic (EP) period of Southwest Asia has historically been marked through microlithic stone tool technologies, where stone tool manufacturing is focused on the production of a large number of small bladelets then retouched into various microlith types. While researchers...
Aquatic Neanderthals and Paleolithic Seafaring: Myth or Reality? Examples from the Mediterranean (2018)
It long has been assumed that most of the world’s islands, especially remote ones, were first visited or colonized by fully modern humans. With few exceptions, these events occurred late, during the Neolithic or later, with an implied assumption that most islands could not support hunters and gatherers. We know that this scenario is no longer viable, with examples from Australia and southeastern Asia, such as Flores and Sulawesi, suggesting considerable antiquity extending prior to the...
Archaeological Science or Scientific Archaeology: Where Does "Science" Lie in Stone Artefact Research? (2018)
Archaeological science is defined as the use of scientific techniques, typically derived from the natural sciences, in archaeology. In lithic research, archaeological science studies have investigated topics ranging from identifying raw material sources, assessing artefact function and technology, to modelling socio-cultural and evolutionary changes. However, this method-centred definition of archaeological science has also led to a focus on the "sciency" appeal of techniques over basic...
Archaeological Survey in the Lower Save River Valley, Southern Mozambique (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Southern Mozambique, with extensive Quaternary-aged deposits, shows great potential to inform on early modern human behavior. Despite its geographic proximity to well-known southern African hotspots of Stone Age archaeology, the area represents a major gap in our knowledge due to civil war and political instability in the late 20th century. In 2023, we...
Archaeology in the Age of the Anthropocene: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (2018)
The 2016 decision by the Working Group on the Anthropocene of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) to designate an Epoch based on a Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP) fixed at AD1950 is significant for managing global ecological systems moving forward. There is no serious scientific debate on whether humans have impacted the global ecology, but regardless of the ICS decision to anchor the so-called "Golden Spike" to the advent of the nuclear age, humans are known...
Arene Candide to Anzick: Ritual Use of Red Ochre (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Paleo Lithics to Legacy Management: Ruthann Knudson—Inawa’sioskitsipaki" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Use of ochre occurs from Paleolithic times to the present. I am interested in when and how humans first used it symbolically. The color red has symbolic importance that crosscuts cultural boundaries in African, Australian, and Native North American societies. Ochre lumps, particularly red ochre, and powder indicate...
Artistic Currents in Late Paleolithic Times: An Approach from the Northwest of Iberia (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Local and/or Exotic Interactions: Symbols, Materials, and Societies" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Traditionally, the distribution of Paleolithic art was limited to the so-called “Franco-Cantabrian area,” but the distribution of this graphic phenomenon has enlarged with the identification of new sites in different parts of the Iberian Peninsula. Previously, the northwest of Iberia, roughly delimited by the valleys of...
An Assemblage-Level Comparison of Silcrete Flake Attributes across Three Methods of Heat Treatment: Preliminary Results from Actualistic Experiments (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Lithic heat treatment technology was utilized as early as ~162,000 years ago at Pinnacle Point in South Africa to improve the quality of silcrete raw material for flaking. Despite its antiquity, we have little understanding of how these early Middle Stone Age humans heat-treated silcrete and why. A primary reason for this is a general lack of proxies for...
Assemblages of Stone Artifacts in the Region of Shuiyang River, South China: LCTs and Model 2 (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Most scholars supported that there were only choppers or chopping tools in East Asia among Paleolithic time, while in the west side of the old continent the innovation of technology is obvious. In China, archaeologists have already found some important regions which are characterized with large cutting tools such as handaxes, cleavers, picks, and knives during...