Mesolithic (Other Keyword)
1-25 (47 Records)
This is an abstract from the "HumAnE Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Mountain hares today can be found from Scandinavia to Eastern Russia with isolated populations in Ireland, Scotland and the Alps. While their modern distribution is well understood, the extent of their past range and interactions with humans remains unknown. The primary aim of my research is to assess the natural and human-aided distribution of mountain hares across...
By the seaside: The role of marine resources in northern Spain from the late Palaeolithic to the Neolithic (2015)
Cantabrian Spain is a privileged area for a diachronic study of the relationship between human societies and the marine resources. The region can boast one of the highest densities of Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic sites in Europe, and a long and dense tradition of archaeological research, especially in the coastal areas. Moreover, its continental shelf is very narrow, so the preserved sites are closer to the late Pleistocene shoreline than in other parts of the Continent. This paper...
Central Place Foraging Models and Early Holocene Coastal Adaptations in the Western Mediterranean (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. In this paper we use a Central Place Foraging Model to evaluate the impact of environmental changes on subsistence and mobility strategies in the Mesolithic period in the Western Mediterranean. We focus on the analysis of the of El Collado site because of its position in the interface...
Certainty about Uncertainty: Lessons Learned from Modeling Human Land Use and Decision Making (2018)
A cornerstone of William Lovis’ career has been the investigation of human land use dynamics, with strong emphasis on methodological rigor and statistical analysis. He has led a generation of students to consider these issues in the Great Lakes and beyond. The modeling of past human decision making is useful as a heuristic for exploring goals and motivations, about which there is certainly a tremendous amount of uncertainty. Instead, modeling past behavior is inherently an exercise in balancing...
Charcoal analyses unraveling Cabeço da Amoreira Muge shell midden (Portugal) (2016)
Cabeço da Amoreira is a Mesolithic shell midden located near the Tagus river, 60 km from Lisbon, central Portugal. Charcoal analyses are an important tool to identify the wood used for fuel and therefore, understand the relationships between human societies and their landscape. Charcoal is abundant in the Cabeço da Amoreira shell midden. It is present in every context of the site, being part of its occupation horizons and formation processes. Here we present the results from charcoal analyses...
Clarifying Perceptions of Rock: Prehistoric Use of Common Toolstone in Tangle Lakes, Alaska (2018)
Archaeologists have had difficulty agreeing upon uniform designations of certain kinds of toolstone that are not easily distinguishable visually. There are occasions when the archaeological definition of toolstone material and the geological definition of the same toolstone material do not match. A situation where this discrepancy might arise is when archaeologists give a more specific name to a cryptocrystalline silicate that is difficult to identify based on visual analysis. An understanding...
A Comparison of Mesolithic Danish Logboats and Pacific Northwest Canoes (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Background: Pacific Northwest ethnographic information about canoe usage and building techniques can be compared to the many Danish mesolithic logboats currently in the archaeological record. Both maritime cultures created watercraft from single tree trunks. There are no surviving precontact Pacific Northwest canoes, and many Danish mesolithic logboats....
Contributions of Experimental Archaeology and Use-Wear Analysis to the Study of Limpets (Patella Sp.) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Shells have great potentials to inform about the past both from cultural and environmental perspectives. However, despite their importance for ancient people and vast occurrence in prehistoric archaeological sites, Pleistocene shells have gotten less attention. Limpets (Patella sp.) rarely occur in Mediterranean Pleistocene and Holocene assemblages,...
Cortical bone loss in the human skeletons recovered from the 21st century excavations of Cabeço da Amoreira shell midden (2016)
Bone loss has been extensively evaluated in archaeological samples, adding diachronic complexity to the biomedical knowledge about skeletal changes associated with gender, age, genetics, menopausal status or lifestyle. In this paper, the first results of Portuguese Mesolithic cortical bone loss are presented. Radiogrammetry of the second metacarpal was used to assess cortical parameters (diaphysis total width, medullary width and cortical index). The classical osteoporotic fractures (vertebral...
Cranial and Dental Pathologies in Mesolithic-Neolithic Inhabitants of the Danube Gorges, Serbia (2018)
We use anthropological data and a new statistical method to determine if there is a significant change to the health of people found in the Danube Gorges, Serbia (c. 9500–5500 BC), following the arrival of the Neolithic. A gross anatomical study of porotic hyperostosis and cribra orbitalia was undertaken on 113 individuals. The results show a high prevalence of porotic hyperostosis (89%) and a lower prevalence of cribra orbitalia (13%). 1308 teeth deriving from 89 individuals were examined for...
A Critical Review of the Meaning of Short-term Occupation in Early Prehistory (2017)
One of the main elements in prehistoric research is the study of settlement patterns. In the last five decades, stemming partially from Binford’s research on the topic, the idea of settlement is based on site typology, including the traditional residential and logistic concepts. The latter is certainly marked by the notion of short-term occupation. This concept, used freely by many archaeologists, tends to rely on two main ideas— that of an occupation lasting a short span of time, and...
Cultural Biographies of Japanese Jades: Temporal and Spatial Variability during the Jomon Period (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Two Approaches to Archaeological Jades: Source Characterization and Social Valuation" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Jadeitite from the Itoigawa source was highly valued among hunter-gatherers inhabiting the Japanese archipelago during the Jomon period, circulating widely from its discovery during the late Early Jomon (c. 4000 BCE) until the end of the period (c. 400 BCE). While there is some indication that raw...
Dog-Assisted Hunting Strategies in the Early Holocene Rock Art of Saudi Arabia (2018)
The UNESCO world heritage sites of Shuwaymis and Jubbah, in northwestern Saudi Arabia, are extremely rich in early Holocene rock art. Hunting scenes illustrate dog-assisted hunting strategies from the 7th and possibly the 8th millennium BC, predating the spread of pastoralism. The engravings represent the earliest evidence for dogs on the Arabian Peninsula. Though the depicted dogs are reminiscent of the modern Canaan dog, it is unclear if they were brought to the Arabian Peninsula from the...
Every Block of Stone Has a Statue Inside: Epipalaeolithic Engraved Plaquettes and Art at Kharaneh IV (2018)
Artistic objects are thought to be one of the hallmarks of the Natufian period, marking a florescence of artistic behavior appearing prior to the origins of agriculture. However, with continuing research into Early and Middle Epipalaeolithic sites in the Levant, new discoveries of ‘symbolic’ artifacts are increasing our understanding of even earlier artistic and symbolic pursuits. In this paper we present an engraved plaquette from the Middle Epipalaeolithic context of Kharaneh IV, eastern...
Evidence of Coastal Use by Foragers: Inferences from Pottery Petrography from Two Pleistocene Sites, Tanegashima Island, Japan (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tanegashima Island in the southernmost region of Japan has the earliest evidence of a large quantity of ceramic production by late Pleistocene foragers of eastern Eurasia. The island is also part of the southern Kyushu region, where the pottery-bearing occupation is found under well-dated tephra dated to ca. 12,800 cal BP, termed the Incipient Jomon. In...
Fire-Cracked Rock in the Mesolithic Shell Midden of Cabeço da Amoreira (Muge, Central Portugal) (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Fire-Cracked Rock: Research in Cooking and Noncooking Contexts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Muge Mesolithic shell mounds (Central Portugal) are known worldwide for their monumentality and extremely rich archaeological and paleoanthropological records. Although these sites have been studied for over 150 years, one (particularly numerous) category of artifacts has been repeatedly ignored: fire-cracked rock (FCR)....
From Individual to Collective Burial in the Mesolithic of Iberia (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 transition from individual to collective burial underscores implicit, but poorly understood, changes in social organization within the Mesolithic and between the Mesolithic and the Neolithic. Mosaic in character, this transition is well marked in Cantabria and Portugal, less so in other regions of Iberia. Mortuary...
Functional and Organizational Variation Among Late Mesolithic Sites in Southwestern Germany (2017)
Because sites of the Late Mesolithic are relatively rare in southern Germany, and are mostly represented by caves, three open-air sites of this period provide unique insights into this period. Two of the sites are located on a lakeshore and the third is in a river valley. All three possess excellent preservation of organic materials that facilitate analysis. The contents and spatial organization of these sites will be examined in the context of their functional role and their implications for...
Further Understanding of Subsistence and Settlement in the Later Mesolithic of Northern England (2018)
We present the results of an integrated study of lithic microwear analysis and lithic sourcing at the large Mesolithic site of Stainton West. Microwear analysis helped to understand why the site was so large and how the occupants supported themselves while at the site. Microwear analysis of 700 artifacts led to 49% identification of use. There is much diversity in tool use: hide working, butchery (meat/fish), impact, antler/bone working, wood working, and plant working. Various patterns were...
A Geometric Morphometrics Approach to Test Microlith Variability at Cabeço da Amoreira Shellmidden (Muge, Portugal) (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Geometric microliths are one of the most important lithic technological adaptations of the Mesolithic in Westernmost Europe. At Muge shellmiddens, previous studies have revealed great variability in the morphology of these implements, especially the triangles, although the reason for such variability is still unclear. Three hypotheses have been suggested to...
GIS Tools for Intra-spatial Analyses: The Portuguese Mesolithic Cabeço da Amoreira Case Study (2018)
The case of the Portuguese Muge shellmounds (Tagus valley, central Portugal), and specifically the case of the Cabeço da Amoreira site, is one of the most interesting regions to study the last hunter-gatherers in Western Europe. However, these sites, are very large with long and complicated sequences and, until recently, had very little excavation control and thus data were not appropriate for spatial analyses. During the last decade, our team used new and precise excavation techniques resulting...
Integrating Lithic Microwear and sourcing to improve understanding of socioeconomic behaviour in the British Mesolithic (2017)
We present the results of an integrated study of lithic microwear analysis and lithic sourcing at the large Mesolithic site of Stainton West. Microwear analysis helped to understand why the site was so large and how the occupants supported themselves while at the site. Microwear analysis of 700 artefacts led to 49% identification of use. There is much diversity in tool use: hide working, butchery (meat/fish), impact, antler/bone working, wood working, and plant working. Various patterns were...
Investigations of a Submerged Prehistoric Midden on Hjarnø, Denmark: Climate, Sea Level and Culture (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Palaeoeconomic and Environmental Reconstructions in Island and Coastal Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Shell middens, or shell-matrix deposits, occur in large numbers across the coastlines of the world from the mid- Holocene onwards, often forming substantial mounds, but they become smaller, rarer or absent as one goes back into earlier periods, suggesting a world-wide process of economic intensification....
Late Mesolithic Foodways in Arctic and Subarctic Zones: An Ethnoarchaeological Approach (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Through collaboration with modern populations practicing traditional hunting and foraging approaches in Norwegian coastal landscapes of archaeological significance, I present an ethnoarchaeological analogy for Arctic and subarctic Late Mesolithic coastal exploitation. As part of this analogy, I introduce the Accessibility Zones Model, which delineates the...
Linking Life and Death at the Early–Mid-Holocene Hunter-Gatherer Cemetery of Zvejnieki, Lativa, Northern Europe (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Northeast Asian Prehistoric Hunter-Gather Lifeways: Multidisciplinary, Individual Life History Approach" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The nature of the relationship between the living and the dead as seen through funerary rites is central to many aspects of archaeological interpretation. Indeed, this was the focus of early processual/postprocessual debates, with the former seeing a “real,” if distorted, connection...