Paleolithic (Other Keyword)
426-450 (499 Records)
This is an abstract from the "The Late Middle Paleolithic in the Western Balkans: Results from Recent Excavations at Crvena Stijena, Montenegro" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The excavations at Crvena Stijena from 2017–2022 have had two main objectives. The first is to test the Sandgathe/Dibble hypothesis that Neanderthals did not have the ability to make fire; rather, they were dependent on natural occurrences of fire. The testable implication...
Systematic Data Recovery at Archaeological Sites in the McIntyre Creek Valley, Whitehorse, Yukon (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Posters on the Archaeology of the Southern Yukon-Alaska Borderlands" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This poster presents on the preliminary findings of systematic data recovery excavations at several archaeological sites within the city of Whitehorse, Yukon. These sites tentatively include JeUs-42, JeUs-43, and JeUs-96. Excavations were undertaken by Stantec during the 2023 field season; one site was partially...
A Tale of Three Substrates: Effects of Trampling on Ostrich Eggshell and Applicability to the Archaeological Record (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Few taphonomic experiments have considered Ostrich eggshell, despite its ubiquity at archaeological sites in Africa and Asia. This experiment seeks to fill some of the gaps in taphonomic knowledge by determining the effect of trampling on ostrich eggshell. Ostrich eggshell fragments were photographed, distributed across the surface of sand, soil, or gravel,...
A Taphonomic Comparison of Two Late Pleistocene Zooarchaeological Assemblages in Northwest Italy and South Africa (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Human Origins Migration and Evolution Research Consortium Poster Symposium" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A driving question in paleoanthropology is the extent of behavioral divergence in hominin species, particularly Anatomically Modern Homo sapiens (AMH) and Neanderthals. Generally, direct comparisons are restricted to Europe, where both hominin species were interacting within the same environmental constraints....
Taphonomic Comparisons of Stone Tool Transport: Surface vs. Excavated Collections (2018)
It has been argued that surface assemblages may provide insights into questions regarding large scale patterns of human behavior such as mobility and stone tool transport. However, excavated material is often preferred over surface assemblages due to concerns of potential biases introduced by the process of exposure. Here, we examine this claim by comparing measures of stone tool transport between surface and excavated assemblages. Surface and excavated lithic assemblages were collected from the...
The Taphonomic Study of Small Fauna Gruta da Nova Columbeira (Portugal) (2015)
This poster presents the results of a taphonomic study of Gruta Nova da Columbeira, a cave site containing at least six separate Middle Paleolithic occupation levels in Vale do Roto, Portugal. The valley contains at least five other caves that have been occupied at different times. Gruta da Nova Columbeira, excavated in 1963, has well-preserved faunal remains rendering it a good site for studying Neanderthal subsistence behaviors. The excavation yielded larger fauna such as red deer, ibex,...
Taste for Color in Basque Land during the Paleolithic: New Approach for Description of Social Organization during the Gravettian (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Gravettian is a slice of human history that takes place during prehistory from 32 to 22 ka BP in Europe (from the Urals to the south of the Iberian Peninsula). This long period of our history was mostly built on lithic industries models with limited consideration for evidence of other technical and cultural practices, like coloring materials. Based on the...
Taught or Copied? Using 2-Mode Network Visualization to Distinguish between the Two (2018)
Traditional research on European Upper Paleolithic social networks rely on raw material sourcing as well as the distribution of similar "artistic" styles. This project aims to improve the methods of the latter. While similar representations found in different sites have often been assumed to represent the presence of social contacts between those sites, the possibility that such representations were exchanged or even simply copied without direct contact has always loomed over researchers’ head....
A Techno-morphological Analysis of Gravettian Stone Tools from Four Sites, Dordogne, France (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. We examine techno-morphological attributes of Gravettian tools from four sites in the Dordogne region of France to argue truncated elements were not recycled broken Gravette points. Truncated elements were the focus of a specific chaîne opératoire to produce tools for composite hunting technology.Our previous work at La Grotte Seize and La Ferrassie support...
A Techno-morphological Analysis of Gravettian Stone Tools from La Grotte Seize and La Ferrassie, Dordogne, France (2016)
The Gravettian cultural sequence has become of greater interest to Paleolithic scholars now that the relationships of previous industries have been sorted out. Our focus here is on Gravettian truncated elements. Morpho-typology suggests that this tool type is a recycled, broken Gravette point. We suggest that truncated elements were deliberately produced tools used as different armatures than Gravette points based on techno-morphological differences. We suggest that truncated elements were part...
Technological and Methodological Developments in Approaches to Species Identification: Advancements in Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Zooarchaeology and Technology: Case Studies and Applications" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. ZooMS, or ‘Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry’, is a relatively recently developed method in the field of archaeology, with the ability to identify large numbers of fragmentary animal bone to genus or species level. Most importantly, its advantages over ancient DNA-based approaches of identification are that it can be...
Technological Organization on the Paleo-Agulhas Plain: Robberg Lithic Technology from Knysna Eastern Heads Cave 1 (2021)
This is an abstract from the "From Veld to Coast: Diverse Landscape Use by Hunter-Gatherers in Southern Africa from the Late Pleistocene to the Holocene" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Lithic technological organization is based on the landscape-scale distribution and availability of resources. During the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), the landscape off the southern coast of South Africa was a different world than it is today. At its most extreme, the...
The Technological Sequence of Heuningneskrans (Limpopo, South Africa) around the Time of the Last Glacial Maximum (2021)
This is an abstract from the "From Veld to Coast: Diverse Landscape Use by Hunter-Gatherers in Southern Africa from the Late Pleistocene to the Holocene" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The southern African region comprises a mosaic of biomes influenced by various physical and atmospheric parameters. Pleistocene hunter-gatherer societies would have exploited those biomes differently, which would have contributed to generate different lithic...
Technological Studies of Blade and Bladelet Production in the Aurignacian at Geißenklösterle Cave (SW Germany) (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Examining Spatial-Temporal Variation in the Lithic Technology of the Early Upper Paleolithic" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Geißenklösterle Cave has played a central role in assessing the timing of the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic in Central Europe and in contextualizing the origins of Aurignacian technological innovations. The Aurignacian of Geißenklösterle is comprised of archaeological horizons II and III...
Technological, Typological and Forensic Analysis of the Small Finds from the Early Middle Paleolithic Beds at Tabun Cave, Israel. (2015)
Tabun Cave, Israel, has provided the reference sequence for the Late Lower and Middle Paleolithic in the Levant. Re-excavation by Jelinek (1968-73) recovered a large sample of lithics including over 23,000 small finds. This paper reports the first detailed typological, technological and forensic analysis of the small lithics from beds 60 to 68, the Early Middle Paleolithic (EMP) "D-Type" Levallois Mousterian. These pieces provide clues to lithic reduction sequences, as well as examples of...
Temporal Changes in Obsidian Procurement Strategy during the Upper Paleolithic on Hokkaido (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Advances in Obsidian Studies of the Old and New Worlds" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Reconstruction of obsidian procurement strategies based on systematic obsidian sourcing analysis in the Upper Paleolithic on Hokkaido will provides an important basis for examining several key issues of human evolutionary history, including how modern humans adapted to the cold, harsh environment of the north, and how these...
Testing the Danube-Corridor-Hypothesis—New Results from Chonometric Modelling of the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic Biocultural Shift (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Middle to Upper Palaeolithic biocultural shift is an important turning point for Human Evolution. As Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH) enter Europe, Neanderthals disappear, eventually leaving AMH as the only representative of their species. To understand the trajectory of AMH dispersal, and the processes underlying this biocultural shift, a robust...
Testing Theoretical Approaches for Inferring Hominin Behavior at Liang Bua (Flores, Indonesia) (2019)
This is an abstract from the "The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis and Human Origins: Archaeological Perspectives" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent debates in anthropology surround the utility of human behavioral ecological (HBE) approaches for inferring archaeological phenomena. Criticisms of popular HBE approaches, including optimal foraging theory (OFT), challenge the assumption that humans will always maximize their behavior. Thus, these...
That High Lonesome Sound: The MIS 5a (~80 ka) Middle Stone Age Lithic Assemblages from Melikane Rockshelter, Highland Lesotho (2021)
This is an abstract from the "From Veld to Coast: Diverse Landscape Use by Hunter-Gatherers in Southern Africa from the Late Pleistocene to the Holocene" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Multidisciplinary research suggests Marine Isotope Stage 5 (~130–74 ka) was an important evolutionary stage in African deep history. Population expansion and growth spurred changes in material culture and the exploration of previously unoccupied regions and...
The “Three Sides” of the Emblematic Early Azilian Blades with Flat Retouch along the Atlantic Façade (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Three Sides of a Career: Papers in Honor of Robert L. Kelly" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent research allowed us to draw a better picture of the period around 14,000 cal BP, the theatre of a shift between Magdalenian and Azilian technical concepts. The rhythm of this changing is still difficult to describe precisely because of a radiocarbon plateau and the scarcity of Early Azilian (EA) sites excavated in good...
To What Extent Is the Concept of Convergence Applicable to Lithic Technology: An Overview (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Establishing the Science of Paleolithic Archaeology: The Legacy of Harold Dibble (1951–2018) Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For many Paleolithic archaeologists, it is important to determine whether similar characteristics of lithic artifacts and/or assemblages resulted from convergent evolution because this may help us better understand the evolutionary developments of stone artifact technologies from H....
Tool Fragments from the Late Lower Paleolithic of Tabun Cave, Israel (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Acheulo-Yabrudian (A-Y) is the final manifestation of the Lower Paleolithic of the Levant. This paper reports on numerous A-Y tool fragments discovered among the small finds collected during the Jelinek excavation of Tabun Cave, Israel. Tabun is the longest stratified Paleolithic sequence in the Eastern Mediterranean and includes all three facies of the...
Total Station Archaeology: Digging the Dibble Way (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Establishing the Science of Paleolithic Archaeology: The Legacy of Harold Dibble (1951–2018) Part II" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The methods that we use to excavate archaeological sites shape the resulting data in an unchangeable manner and have significant downstream impacts on our ability to study and interpret our data. In 1987 Harold Dibble published “Measurement of Artifact Provenience with an Electronic...
Touching the Colors of the Past: Ochre Painting Workshops at the Origins Centre Museum, South Africa (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ochre is a colorful thread that meanders through our human story. This iron-rich pigmentous rock became habitually used by Homo sapiens during the Late Pleistocene in Africa. It was later used in the creation of rock art paints, and is still used around the world in various ways. Ochre painting workshops are offered at Origins Centre Museum in...
Toward standardization of lithic use-wear identification in conjunction with technological organization and raw material variability (2017)
The paper examines theoretical problems concerning characteristics of lithic micro-wear traces in the Paleolithic. Use-wear studies already experienced 40 years of research since the discovery of micro-polish varieties which reflect worked materials with wide applications to site structure analysis. However, global standardization of identification criteria still needs comparative efforts, especially on raw material variability and behavioral diversity among regional settlement and subsistence...