Paleolithic (Other Keyword)
376-400 (409 Records)
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. Excavations at Waterfall Bluff, South Africa, document evidence of occupation in a persistent coastal context from MIS3 to the Middle Holocene. Remains of marine mollusks and fish show for the first time that coastal foraging was a component of some hunter-gatherer...
Updating and Reevaluating Faunal Datasets from Quina Mousterian Levels at Jonzac and Pech de l'Azé IV by Incorporating Screened Materials (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Current Zooarchaeology: New and Ongoing Approaches" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Logistical challenges of managing large zooarchaeological projects mean that researchers must often conduct faunal analyses in phases and implement sampling strategies, including studying subsamples that do not fully incorporate screened materials. However, screened portions may contain specimens that can provide depth to studies of...
The UpNorth Project: Environment Context of Late and Final Palaeolithic Dispersals (2018)
Human mobility and environmental interactions at the end of the Palaeolithic were undoubtedly influenced by large-scale and rapid climate change. With the melting of ice sheets and expansion/contraction of ecosystems, new landscapes and resources became available to late and final Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers. The UP-NORTH project is examining the dispersal of people and animals into Northern Europe after the Last Glacial Maximum. Using a range of techniques, including stable isotopes,...
Upper Paleolithic Cultural Landscapes of the Selenge Tributaries, Northern Mongolia (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The distribution of Upper Paleolithic sites in northern Mongolia indicate that maintaining social networks, subsistence and shelter were all significant factors in the cultural landscapes of these ancient hunter-gatherers. In 2018, 12 new Upper Paleolithic sites were documented in the Naryn Tolberiin Gol (Narrow Tolbor River, n=21) valley of the greater...
Upper Paleolithic Handprints with Missing Fingers: An Ethnological Perspective (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Handprints with missing fingers occur at a number of Upper Palaeolithic rock art sites in Europe. It has been argued that they represent hand signals or a counting system, but there are reasons to believe that they were actually produced by individuals whose fingers had been amputated. Here, we report a cross-cultural study that was designed to shed light on...
Upper Paleolithic Movement and Trade as Represented at the Abri Kontija 002 Rockshelter Site (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Recent Research on the Paleolithic in the Mediterranean Region" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Abri Kontija 002 rockshelter and cave located in the Istria Peninsula of Croatia provides a wealth of archaeological material dating to the Upper Paleolithic. Excavations beginning in 2014 produced several thousand artifacts, some of which can be traced to distant sources. This paper presents recently identified evidence...
Upper Paleolithic Use of Space at Riparo Bombrini (Balzi Rossi, Italy) (2015)
We present an analysis of the spatial distribution of various features (hearths, dripline, etc.) and of four broad artifact classes (lithics, fauna, ochre, shell) in the proto-Aurignacian levels of Riparo Bombrini. The site is a collapsed rockshelter in the Balzi Rossi site complex and is interesting in part for having yielded very late Mousterian and very early proto-Aurignacian levels. The site thus offers an ideal setting in which to study behavioral differences between late Neanderthals and...
Uses and Limitations of the "Sangoan" for Understanding Hominin Mobility and Dispersals: An Example from Northeastern Zambia (2018)
The Sangoan, a late Middle Pleistocene technological tradition widely distributed in Sub-Saharan Africa, follows the Acheulean and is considered by some to represent the earliest manifestation of the Middle Stone Age. It may coincide with the evolution of Homo sapiens and the initial appearance of evidence for complex cognition. Unfortunately, this archaeological construct has fallen in and out of favor and remains poorly defined. It has uncertain dates and environmental associations, and...
Using Agent-Based Modeling to Study Constraints on the Social Learning of Lithic Technology (2018)
Social learning is universally believed to be critical to the hominin adaptation. Yet when this becomes evident in our oldest cultural proxy, lithic artifacts, is hotly debated. Much of the variation in how archaeologists study this question is caused by differing assumptions related to the constraints on the performance, and thus the learning, of the flintknapping process. This paper explores the consequences of the physical constraints within lithic technology on its cultural transmission,...
Using Cryptotephra in Archaeology: Precise Correlations and Improved Age Estimates (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Establishing robust and reliable chronologies at archaeological sites is essential for understanding the sequence and timing of past events. At the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic site Arma Veirana (AV, Liguria, Italy), robust chronologies are especially important for answering questions regarding the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition in Europe. Because the...
Using Modern Ostrich Eggshell to Establish a Color Alteration Index and Determine the Physical and Chemical Effects of Heat Exposure (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Animal Resources in Experimental Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ostrich eggshell (OES) is common in archaeological sites throughout Africa and Asia and is often recovered with evidence of pre- and postdepositional burning. The physical nature of OES protects some isotopic data that remain locked away in the crystalline shell matrix, allowing researchers to use these data thousands of years later to...
Using Surface Roughness to Identify Heat Treatment in Lithic Technology (2018)
The heat treatment of stone to enhance flaking attributes was an important advancement in the adaptive toolkit of early humans. The earliest evidence for this is the heat treatment of silcrete 164 ka at the Middle Stone Age site Pinnacle Point 13B in South Africa. Heating stone prior to knapping alters the physical and chemical composition of the stone, and it has long been recognized that flaked heat-treated stone has a glossier surface. We expect this glossiness to result from a smoother...
Using Ungulate Bones to Retouch and (Re)Sharpen Middle Stone Age End-Scrapers at Bushman Rock Shelter, South Africa (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Animal Resources in Experimental Archaeology" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bone retouchers were first recognized in European Paleolithic assemblages at the turn of the nineteenth century. They have since been documented from sites across Eurasia, from Lower Paleolithic to Neolithic contexts. Notwithstanding their abundance in the archaeological record, the association between the characteristics of the retouch on...
Using ZooMS to Reconstruct Neanderthal Faunal Exploitation in the Early Sequence of Crvena Stijena, Montenegro (2023)
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. Crvena Stijena is one of the most significant Paleolithic sites in southeastern Europe. Although scientific excavations conducted here in the 1950s, 1960s, and since 2004 have uncovered several Middle Paleolithic faunal assemblages, the results of the early excavations were...
Was Acheulean Technology Genetically Transmitted? Comparing Variation in Acheulean Tools to Variation in North American Bird Nests (2018)
Acheulean large cutting tools were made across Africa and Eurasia for ~1.5 million years, and show surprisingly little variation for a technology so spatiotemporally vast. One explanation for this puzzling degree of conservatism is that Acheulean tools were not culturally transmitted but rather genetically determined. If this hypothesis is true, then Acheulean tools are more akin to animal technologies such as bird nests than to modern human tools. Here we examine the extent to which the...
Weichselian Climatic Fluctuations and Neanderthals’ Technical Behaviors in Central Europe (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During the Weichselian (MIS 5d–MIS 3), the climatic deteriorations and the rapid decrease of the temperatures caused significant difficulties for Neanderthal groups that had to cope with an increased seasonality of resources and faunal turnover. Central European Neanderthals reacted to these new ecological conditions by designing a toolkit composed of...
Were Neandertals the Original Snowbirds? Zooarchaeological Evidence from Greece (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. Compared to other parts of Eurasia, the southern Balkan Peninsula had a relatively stable climate during the Late Pleistocene. Zooarchaeological materials from the Asprochaliko Rockshelter in northwestern Greece provide evidence for hominin subsistence strategies in the Middle and Upper Paleolithic. In this study, we...
What Drives the Variability in MSA Lithic Assemblages from Sibhudu Cave, South Africa (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. After over a decade of excavation and analysis at the Middle Stone Age site of Sibhudu in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, the team from the University of Tübingen has established a uniquely complete and well-documented record of cultural change from the end or the Middle Pleistocene until...
What Makes a Forager Turn Coastal? An Agent-Based Approach to Coastal Foraging on the Dynamic South African Paleoscape (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Human Behavioral Ecology at the Coastal Margins: Global Perspectives on Coastal & Maritime Adaptations" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Gram for gram, coastal shellfish have significant benefits over many terrestrial resources. They are higher in calories, fats, and proteins than most plants and are available in denser and more predictable patches than mammals. However, there are costs to foraging coastal shellfish....
What’s Shape Got to Do With It? Evaluating the Degree to Which Motion and Material Type Influence Edge Outline of Obsidian Flakes (2018)
Often in the study of stone tools, without the application of microarchaeological studies and the presence of microwear, little is left to distinguish how the tool was used originally and what the tool may have been processing. Was it used for scraping? Sawing? Slicing? Was it slicing bone? Scraping animal hide? Is it even possible for archaeologists to discern such behaviors from the tool without having access to definitive microwear traces and/or residues? In this study, we test whether the...
When Dogs and People Were Buried Together (2018)
Throughout prehistory, dogs and humans have sometimes been interred together in the same grave, in different locations in the world. This practice raises the question of why this practice was so prevalent. Circumstances leading to this practice were variable, but its consistency suggests an underlying factor in common. Using one of the earliest known cases as a point of departure, Bonn-Oberkassel from Germany, we suggest that this underlying factor in common is that dogs and people were regarded...
Where Do We Go from Here? A Review of Prehistoric Forager Mobility in Liguria (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Hunter-Gatherer Archaeology of Liguria: Recent Research and Insights" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Due to a suite of topographical and geomorphological factors, Liguria, and the Liguro-Provencal arc more generally, is an interesting natural laboratory in which to revisit some of the debates about forager mobility and its analysis that have unfolded over the past several decades. This paper presents an overview of...
Which Way Did They Go? Using Individual-Based Models to Identify Out of Africa Hominin Dispersal Routes (2018)
There is a broad paleoanthropological consensus that hominins left Africa multiple times during the Pleistocene, but the geographic routes through which they exited the continent remains unclear. Although the Sinai Land Bridge and the Strait of Bab-al-Mandab on the southern end of the Red Sea are commonly implicated as the likely pathways used by early humans during their expansion out of Africa, the evidence supporting each route is still much debated. Here, we identify viable pathways for...
Who Let the Beads Out? The Importance of Bead Manufacture and Exchange at Grassridge Rockshelter, South Africa, and Implications for Understanding Holocene Social Networks in Southern Africa (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Culturing the Body: Prehistoric Perspectives on Identity and Sociality" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ostrich eggshell and marine shell beads have been linked to the establishment and maintenance of hunter-gatherer social networks in southern Africa, but studies focusing on the methods of their manufacture and especially the social contexts surrounding their manufacture are often overlooked. This research presents a...
Whole Assemblage Behavioral Indicators: Examining Pattern in the Late Pleistocene of the Wadi al-Hasa, Jordan (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since the 1980s, surveys in Jordan’s Wadi al-Hasa document dozens of Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherer sites, some of them tested or partly excavated. To track landscape-scale forager mobility and settlement patterns over time, we examine 26 levels from 13 sites dated to the Middle, Upper and Epipaleolithic using aspects of Barton’s WABI research protocol,...