Palaeolithic (Other Keyword)
1-20 (20 Records)
This paper details the methodology used by the Stélida Naxos Archaeological Project (SNAP) to distinguish primary activity areas within a Palaeolithic chert quarry. This work is undertaken in a challenging artifact-rich landscape that has undergone significant post-depositional modification through various environmental factors and anthropogenic disturbance. The two-year non-invasive survey involved walking numerous transect lines to produce a broad-stroke impression of artifact density, which...
Aspects of Site Formation Processes at the Paleolithic site of La Ferrassie (Dordogne), France (2015)
La Ferrassie is one of the best-known Middle and Upper Paleolithic sequences in Europe, playing a key role in the question of Neandertal mortuary behavior. Until now, geoarchaeologically-oriented research has focused on the long sequence exposed during the original excavations of Capitan/Peyrony and Delporte (early 20th century and 1968-1973, respectively) in the easternmost part of the site. Our research has exposed intact layers several meters away in the extreme western area of the site, next...
Below sea-level. Combining Palaeolithic and Underwater Archaeology in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. (2013)
The area of the eastern Mediterranean is a focal point for the study of the earliest acts of globalisation. Palaeolithic archaeology provides the tools for the analysis and interpretation of the material record of the early hominins who passed through and occupied this part of the world. However, since the early pleistocene, the constant environmental fluctuations between glacials and interglacials have caused major alterations in the ice sheets resulting in sea-level fluctuations. Consequently,...
Bioarchaeologocal approaches to reconstructing Upper Palaeolithic environments in the Cantabrian Region, Northern Spain. (2017)
The Cantabrian Region of Northern Spain was an important refugium during the harsh conditions of the Last Glacial Maximum, when ice sheets covered much of Northern Europe and populations were pushed further south. Late Upper populations in the Cantabrian region thrived at this time, and there is an increase in the density of archaeological sites is seen, in addition to cultural changes such as the creation of rich cave art assemblages. Understanding the climatic and environmental conditions...
Building a better eggtimer: Amino acid dating of ostrich eggshell from South Africa (2015)
Chronology underpins our understanding of the past, but beyond the limit of radiocarbon dating (~50 ka), sites become more difficult to date. Amino acid geochronology, which uses the time-dependent breakdown of proteins in biominerals, has the potential to date the whole of the Quaternary. Ostrich eggshell (OES) is often associated with archaeological sites in Africa, as early humans utilised them as a food source, water carriers and for artistic purposes. OES’s calcitic structure potentially...
Current Methodological Considerations in the Application of Two-Dimensional Geometric Morphometrics within Handaxe Assemblages (2017)
In the construction of past hominin behaviour, frameworks emphasise the role of morphological variation within a particular artefact class, as deviations and commonalities in shape exemplify conscious/unconscious decisions by past populations and individuals. For early prehistory this is best illustrated through discussions of shape variance, and its role in understanding cognition and aspects of cultural transmission. In the formal categorisation of handaxe shape variance, within a statistical...
Exploring Hominin Cognition via Palaeolithic Obsidian Provisioning, Transport, and Technology (2015)
A central issue in palaeoanthropological research is understanding the cognitive and behavioral variability of Lower and Middle Palaeolithic hominins, including differences with respect to the modern humans who replaced them. Some scholars argue that these hominins had fundamentally different cognition and behavior than Homo sapiens, whereas others hold that their capabilities are essentially indistinguishable from those of modern humans. In obsidian-rich landscapes, artifact sourcing and lithic...
The first cultural landscapes of Europe - and before... (2017)
Cultural landscapes appear relatively late in the human history. In Europe, between c. 40-20.000 BP, people for the first time seem to have transformed (parts of) their environment intentionally on a significant spatial scale in order to make places and areas "fit" for future activities. Already between 40.000 and 30.000 BP, prominent natural formations and hidden places were marked with signs and symbols to enable distant communication. From c. 25.000 BP onwards, on-site constructions, such as...
The Forgotten King (2015)
One hundred and fifty years ago, a letter of correspondence was read aloud at a meeting of scientists in Newcastle, UK, boldly claiming for the first time that humans had not always been alone in their genus. William King, the Anglo-Irish geologist, was the first person to recognize Neanderthals as a separate species of Homo, and one of the first people to substantiate claims regarding the antiquity of man. He did not live long enough to see his proposition or name (Homo neanderthalensis)...
Human responses to Late Pleistocene environmental change in South-Western France (2015)
A key question for archaeologists studying the late Pleistocene is how human populations responded and adapted to the dramatic, and often rapid, global climatic changes which characterised this glacial period. Using a range of archaeological data attributed to the Upper/Final Magdalenian and Azilian techno-complexes (15 000-10 000 uncal BP), this paper assesses the evidence for changes in settlement patterns and human demography during the Late Pleistocene in South-Western France. Data on...
The lithic assemblage of Guanyindong: Implications of technological cognition of Hominids in Southwest China in Middle-Late Pleistocene (2017)
The Guanyindong site, discovered in 1964, is located in Guizhou Province, Southwest China, dated back to 80―115 ka and 40―190 ka based on two U-series dating (fossil and carbonate samples) results. The 2323 stone artifacts and numerous fauna fossils were yielded during 3 main excavation seasons. Here we present the study of 2272 stone artifacts, which consist of untouched flakes (N=161）and retouched flakes (N=1077), cores (N= 176), chunks and debris (N=804). The principle raw materials are...
A Middle and Later Stone Age sequence from Iringa, southern Tanzania (2017)
Magubike rockshelter in the southern Highlands of Tanzania contains a long archaeological sequence ranging from the Middle Stone Age (MSA) through historic times. This paper describes the lithic sequence from test pit 5, which contains a 2.5 m thick cultural deposit composed of recent / historic remains, an Iron Age, a microlithic Later Stone Age (LSA), a macrolithic LSA, a transitional sequence from the MSA to the LSA and 90 cm of MSA artifacts. The later part of the sequence replicates the...
The Middle Pleistocene at La Cotte de St. Brelade, Jersey (2016)
The important archaeological sequence of La Cotte de St. Brelade, known for both abundant lithic and faunal material recording human activity and environmental conditions over the last 200,000 years, is an exception in this key region making the site unique. La Cotte is also famous for the discovery of late Middle Pleistocene concentrations of mammoth and rhinoceros bone remains, known as ’bone-heaps’ (Scott 1986). Different hypotheses have been proposed to explain the formation of these bone...
Palaeolithic dogs in Europe and Siberia (2015)
Our group has demonstrated, on the basis of detailed morphometric analyses, the antiquity of the domestication of the wolf. The dog is the first domesticated animal and its origin can be traced to the Upper Palaeolithic. Two canid morphotypes can be distinguished in Pleistocene Eurasian sites dating from before and after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM): a morphotype that is similar to extant wolves, described by us as Pleistocene wolves, and a morphotype distinct from wolves; relative to wolves,...
Plant niche construction; from forager to planter in the Zagros Mountains, Iran (2015)
In terms of niche construction, the development of agriculture at the end of the Palaeolithic was a realignment and expansion of existing hunter-gatherer plant ecology modifications to a transforming human and natural setting. This paper suggests that people's engagement with their surroundings altered under pressure of changes in the environment and their subsistence, residence and mobility strategies. Increased foraging efficiency and stability were sought. These relied on a suite of...
Pleistocene Occupation of the Greek Islands: The Perspective from Crete (2017)
Palaeolithic stone tools have been identified on a number of Greek islands recently. These include the oceanic island of Crete, where lithic artifacts on the southern coast at Plakias occur in association with raised marine beaches and paleosols in karstic depressions dated to > 130 kyr, and on the northern coast at Mochlos Bay associated with as-yet undated Pleistocene alluvial fans. Other islands, including Ayios Efstratios, Alonissos, Gavdos, Kephalonia, Lesvos, Melos, and Naxos, have also...
Stones, shapes and speech: interpreting the origins of language from lithic variation with geometric morphometrics (2017)
Results from a recent experiment demonstrate that morphological standardization is an indicator of complex cultural transmission and cognition. A novel methodology integrating geometric morphometrics and Multiple Factor Analysis was employed to assess global shape variance in four experimental handaxe assemblages made by novice knappers trained under four different simulated social learning environments (emulation, imitation, silent teaching and verbal teaching). The higher the fidelity of their...
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...
Transformations in the Palaeolithic: Searching for the social and cultural role of Neanderthal children (2016)
Early prehistory presents a particular challenge for investigating children, and consequently previous work has almost exclusively consisted of biological accounts of health and growth. However, as traditional views of Neanderthals are becoming increasingly overturned, it has become clear that the social and cultural role of children could be crucial in furthering our understanding of Neanderthal society, and in turn the interactions and differences with modern humans. Through investigating...
When Lithics Hit Bones: Evaluating the Potential of a Multifaceted Experimental Protocol to Illuminate Middle Palaeolithic Weapon Technology (2017)
Recent zooarchaeological and isotope analyses have largely settled the debate surrounding Neanderthal hunting capacity. The vast numbers of Middle Palaeolithic sites containing the butchered remains of large ungulates demonstrates the ability to obtain and, often, highly process these carcasses. Nevertheless, evidence for the effectiveness and ubiquity of Neanderthal hunting technology, specifically composite hafted tools, has not been illustrated across either their entire spatial or temporal...