Paleolithic (Other Keyword)
126-150 (409 Records)
This is an abstract from the "Developing Paleolithic Excavation Methods for the Twenty-First Century" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For field excavation, it is most important to record and collect as much information as possible due to its non-repeatability. In China, the first formal Paleolithic excavation was in Shuidonggou site on 1923. But the excavation in Zhoukoudian in 1932 attracted more attention not only because the site was located in...
A Geoarchaeological Study of Site Formation Processes at Arma Veirana, A Palaeolithic Cave in Liguria, Italy (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances in the Prehistory of Liguria and Neighboring Regions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Arma Veirana is a cave situated along the steep flanks of the Neva river valley, ca. 14 km from the modern-day Mediterranean coast in the mountainous interior of Liguria. The cave formed tectonically within marble, schist and other metamorphic rocks and presents a large but relatively short cavity. Excavations since...
Geoarchaeological Survey of the Irtysh River Basin, East Kazakhstan (2018)
Evidence for the earliest human occupation of Eastern Kazakhstan is poorly known, despite it being part one of the largest countries in the world and flanked along its borders with important paleoanthropological sites in Russia and China. We sought evidence of prehistoric sites by foot and vehicle survey around the Irtysh Basin. At each major point of interest we took photographs geotagged with geographic coordinates, and collected global positioning system (GPS) data. Although much of the area...
Geoarchaeology, the French Paleolithic, and Harold (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. Geoarchaeology requires the practitioner to be versed in both geology and archaeology. To do it right necessitates active participation of other specialists on the team, starting with the archaeologist(s). Without them, even the best geoarchaeological endeavors can fall flat. Both of us...
Geochemical and Sedimentary-Based Reconstruction of the Palaeoenvironment and Formation of the Late Stone Age Site of Txina-Txina (Massingir, Mozambique) (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This study aimed to reconstruct Txina-Txina site (located between the junction of Machampane and Chifati rivers, Southeastern Mozambique) paleoenvironment and site formation processes to better understand its occupation pattern, preservation of archaeological materials and the impact of palaeoenvironmental changes on human evolution. For this, we collected...
Geometric morphometry versus traditional stone artefact typology in the Hoabinhian of northern Vietnam (2017)
Hoabinhian typologies dominate stone artifact analysis in discussions of late Pleistocene archaeology in mainland Southeast Asia. Although, the objective reality of the types in this system has been questioned, there has been little empirical work to test the usefulness of the commonly used types as discrete entities. We collect 3D scan models of 110 artifacts from Mau A, a recently excavated site in northern Vietnam, where the Hoabinhian was was first described. We derive semi-landmarks along...
GIS-Based Approaches to Obsidian Studies in Eastern Africa (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances in Material Sourcing and Provenience Studies in Africa" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Studies of obsidian transport during the Late Pleistocene of eastern Africa have been largely productive for reconstructing raw material procurement patterns and movement across landscapes. Due to a limited sample, however, these studies are often descriptive of particular sites and related explicitly to material...
Give Me Shelter: Reverse Engineering a Paleolithic Home (2019)
This is an abstract from the "More Than Shelter from the Storm: Hunter-Gatherer Houses and the Built Environment" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Humans today are ubiquitous shelter makers but despite this, relatively little is known about the construction of the earliest shelters built by palaeolithic humans. While there is possible evidence for earlier shelters, archaeological evidence in Europe and Asia indicate shelter construction had become...
Good Things Come in Small Packages: Acheulian Small Tool Assemblages from the Shishan Marsh site (Jordan). (2015)
Over the past century, prehistorians studying Acheulian assemblages have focused their energies largely on the handaxe arguing that its iconic symmetrical, tear drop shape can be a window onto the origins and evolution of modern cognition, sociality, language, teaching, skill acquisition, and even symbolic behavior. This focus on the handaxe, and by extension big game hunting, has largely been at the expense of Acheulian small tool and microlithic assemblages and their associated tasks. These...
Habitat Preferences in Early Hominins and the Origin of the Human Lineage (2018)
Early hominins, such as australopithecines, are characterized by bipedality and enlarged posterior teeth. Originally, these traits were thought to be adaptations to an open environment. However, discoveries of older hominins, such as Ardipithecus that were possibly only occasionally bipedal and did not have enlarged teeth, have refocused the origins of early hominins within a much more closed, wooded setting. Even the later australopithecines are currently cast as inhabitants of mosaic...
Harold Dibble: Skepticism, Null models, and p < 0.05 (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. Harold Dibble thought that one of the most important attributes of a good scientist is deep skepticism. He brought a persistent skepticism to every aspect of his scientific curiosity whether it was in his own field of prehistory or elsewhere. His skepticism also made him argumentative, a...
Harold Dibble’s Approach to Understanding the Middle Paleolithic Archaeological Record: Neanderthals outside the Box (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. Harold Dibble was one of the most prominent Paleolithic archaeologists of the last century researching the Middle Paleolithic of Eurasia. While he made significant contributions in a number of important areas, one of his main contributions was to encourage researchers to try to think...
An HBE Perspective on Niche Construction (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. Decades of research in human behavioral ecology (HBE) demonstrates that questions about human ecological and reproductive adaptations generally lead to questions about cooperation. Partly for this reason, much recent research in HBE has focused on issues such as marriage, cooperative child raising, and...
A High-Resolution Investigation of the Middle-Upper Paleolithic Transition at Riparo Bombrin (Balzi Rossi, Liguria) (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Advances in the Prehistory of Liguria and Neighboring Regions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper presents an overview of the results of the 2015-2018 field seasons at Riparo Bombrini, a collapsed rock shelter part of the storied Balzi Rossi site complex in Liguria, immediately next to the border with France. The excavation has sought to capitalize on the insights of the 2002-05 excavations at the site...
Hilary Duke and Sonia Harmand—A New Approach to the Evolution of Early Pleistocene Hominin Cognition and Technological Change: Examining the Technological Context of LCT Emergence 1.8–1.76 Ma at Kokiselei, West Turkana, Kenya (2018)
The eastern African Early Pleistocene witnessed critical shifts in climate, environment, hominin anatomy and behavior. The lithic record shows change within this broader context. After 1.8 Ma, Large Cutting Tools (LCTs), such as bifaces, entered the hominin lithic repertoire. These artifacts are widely viewed as the first evidence of lithic shaping. Many archaeologists theorize both cognitive and practical differences between "flaking" and "shaping" among knapping strategies. Most of these...
The Hippos Who Would Not Die: Akrotiri Aetokremnos, Cyprus, and a Scientific Dilemma (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Akrotiri Aetokremnos, a collapsed rockshelter in Cyprus, was excavated over 30 years ago. The site caused controversy for two reasons: it was the oldest site on the island, and it was associated with extinct pygmy hippopotami. The first issue has been resolved, with over 70 radiocarbon determinations centered around 10,000 cal BC, placing the site in the...
The History and Practice of European Prehistory through a Black Feminist Lens (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Deepening Archaeology's Engagement with Black Studies" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Classics is undergoing a very public and painful reckoning with its use by white nationalists. Prehistoric archaeologists working in Europe have largely stayed out of the fray, perhaps due to many practitioners seeing our research subjects as “pre-racial” or our work as otherwise unrelated to these discussions. However, if we look at...
Hot Spots of Cobblestone Tool Reduction Incidents and Potential Chronological Staging of the Technology along California's Lower Colorado River Shorelines (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Spatial autocorrelation software for the Moran I statistic in ArcGIS v10.6 was used to combine archaeological site location data with “intensity” or weight defined by the number of artifacts in each of the 280 loci contained within an 80-acre portion of CA-SBr-1456 along the California side of the Lower Colorado River. That data was then processed to...
How to Deal with Homogeneous Stratigraphies: Excavation, Sampling, and Analysis Strategies at Umhlatuzana Rockshelter, Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Developing Paleolithic Excavation Methods for the Twenty-First Century" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. To ensure proper context control for archaeological samples, it is crucial that excavations determine and, where possible, follow the natural stratigraphic subdivisions in a sedimentary sequence. In cases with a single, unchanging source of sedimentary input, this may pose challenges. We present our strategies to...
Human Adaptability to Fauna and Flora Changes during MIS 5-3. Is the Iberian Mediterranean Region a Refuge? (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Peninsular Southern Europe Refugia during the Middle Paleolithic" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Neanderthal and AMH from the Early Upper Palaeolithic have a really good knowledge of their environment and its potential resources. The local landscape and its changes should influence their behavior and the availability of resources. In this sense, the faunal remains have been better documented than flora. But our team...
Human-Material Interactions during the Aurignacian of Europe, 35,000–27,000 BP: An Analysis of Marine Shell Ornament Distribution (2018)
This research explores dynamic relationships between people and materials during the Aurignacian period of Europe, 35,000-27,000 BP. More specifically, a network analysis is used to determine whether there are discernible patterns in the geographic distribution of marine shells used for the creation of beads and pendants. As early inhabitants of Europe moved across the landscape they came into contact with others and left behind material traces of these interactions. Whether these artifacts came...
Hunter-Gatherer Responses to the "Early" African Humid Period ~15-12 ka (2018)
Recent paleoclimate studies indicate rainfall increased dramatically over many parts of northeastern and eastern Africa at the end of MIS 2 and the hyper-arid LGM ~14.7 ka, thereby marking the beginning of MIS 1 and the "African Humid Period" (AHP). These studies also suggest that not only should the "early" AHP be decoupled from the start of the Holocene some 3000 years later, it should also encompass the cooler, more arid Younger Dryas (12.9-11.7 ka). This paper explores two key questions: 1)...
Hunting Activities of Upper Paleolithic Humans in the Japanese Archipelago (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Much of the Japanese archipelago is covered with layers of acidic loam originating from volcanic eruptions. For this reason, there are very few Paleolithic sites that contain well-preserved faunal remains. In fact, there are only six known sites on the four main islands of Japan (Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu Islands) which have seen the excavation of...
“I've been havin' some hard travelin'. . .”: Using the “Evolutionary Chain” Concept in a Dynamical Approach of Silicites (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Case Studies in Toolstone Provenance: Reliable Ascription from the Ground Up" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Studies about characterization and sourcing of the various siliceous materials (flint, chert, silcrete, and hydrothermal silicite) used by prehistoric foragers became progressively routine. However, simply locating the stratigraphic origin of a rock is insufficient as it may have been collected from varied...
Identifying Consumption of Putrefied Meat in the Archaeological Record from δ15N Values (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Speth (2017) proposed that the consumption of putrid meat and fish might be a dietary item that is underexplored in the Upper Paleolithic food menu. In this presentation we explore ways to identify the consumption of putrid foods. We compare the results from our study of Δ15N observed in mammal muscle tissue decomposing during winter with published stable...