From Taphonomy to Human Ecology: Papers in Honor of Gary Haynes

DOCUMENT Citation Only Jarod Hutson.

The transition from the Early Stone Age (ESA) to the Middle Stone Age (MSA) represents an important technological shift in hominin behavioral evolution in southern Africa. Subsistence behaviors during this transition, however, are relatively unknown due to a lack of faunal preservation or insecure associations between lithic and faunal accumulations. Often, these sites originate from riverine, lakeshore, and spring deposits, locations that likely attracted hominin hunters and other carnivores in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chrissina Burke.

Zooarchaeologists have commonly employed analyses concerning only site formation processes when studying carnivore modification and utilization to North American faunal assemblages. Yet, such processes are rarely discussed beyond descriptions of the presence of tooth marks or overall percentages of elements with modifications. Additionally, limited discussion has occurred with regards to the implications of these data on how humans and carnivores interacted in the past. In this paper, I address...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Teresa Wriston. Gary Haynes.

Hunting-and-gathering in northwestern Zimbabwe was largely replaced by pastoralism and farming between ca. 2,000 and 1,200 years ago. In order to understand whether climate change influenced this transition, we collected environmental and archaeological data during a multi-year research program that included: rockshelter excavation, salvage excavation along eroding stream cuts, and geomorphological and soils analyses of various locales in Hwange National Park. The strontium, carbon, and oxygen...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Luis Borrero. Fabiana María Martin. Francisco J. Prevosti.

A regional study of Late Pleistocene bone assemblages is used for the study of Patagonian extinct carnivore niches. The excavation of dens, distributional patterns, habitat and prey selection and the study of living analogs are some of the main research lines. This study offers information about the conditions of the environment immediately before the arrival of humans, and indicates the conditions under which Patagonian archaeological bone assemblages are destroyed or contaminated with bones...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Daron Duke.

Recent Haskett projectile point finds from western Utah’s Great Salt Lake Desert provide a compelling case for megafaunal hunting in the Great Basin, a region that stands out in North America for its lack of direct evidence. The Haskett style is likely the oldest representative of the Western Stemmed series of projectile points, and radiocarbon age estimates on black mat organics at the locality suggest a date range between ca. 12,000 and 13,000 cal BP. In this paper, an argument for megafaunal...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kelly Graf.

The Siberian Upper Paleolithic is divided into three phases: early, middle and late. Middle Upper Paleolithic (MUP) archaeological assemblages are both lithic and osseous in nature. Most processing tools were made on blade and flake tool blanks, whereas projectile and sewing tools were manufactured from osseous materials and an astonishing array of portable art and personal adornment pieces were also made on ivory and bone. Procurement and use of faunal resources centered on a wide array of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ted Goebel.

The early archaeological record of Beringia continues to be left out of most discussions of the peopling of the Americas, partly because of repeated discoveries of older-than-Clovis sites in temperate North America and Beringian archaeologists’ own admission that the early northern record looks very different from Clovis technologically. In this paper, I attempt to recast Beringia in a leading role by (1) reviewing new genetic studies of humans and their prey species positing that late-glacial...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Geoff Smith.

The recurrent presence of mammoth, elephant and rhinoceros at Middle Palaeolithic sites, together with Neanderthal isotopes signalling meat as a prominent protein source, have been used to argue for a central role of these species in Neanderthal subsistence. Key to this model are the bone heap horizons from La Cotte de St Brelade (CSB, Jersey), previously interpreted as game drive debris resulting from systematic Neanderthal hunting. However, this hypothesis has never been rigorously tested....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Piotr Wojtal. Jaroslaw Wilczynski.

The Gravettian technocomplex arose about 30,000 years ago and expanded into nearly all of Europe during the next millennia. The most distinctive features of the individual stages of Gravettian cultures are backed bladelets, shouldered points, and zoomorphic and anthropomorphic art objects. Complex early Gravettian sites are found in South Moravia (Czech Republic), dated about 27-25,000 BP. Pavlov I and Dolní Vĕstonice I and II are long-term open-air campsites. Gravettian sites of a later phase...

DOCUMENT Citation Only George Scott. Roman Schomberg.

Starting with a single root trait, C.G. Turner II developed a model for the peopling of the Americas that involved three migratory waves: (1) Amerind; (2) Na-Dene/Northwest Coast; and (3) Eskimo-Aleut. After expanding to 29 variables, he found the same general pattern and contended that all New World populations were derived from Sinodont groups in Northeast Asia. Recently, researchers have challenged the three-wave model on genetic, archaeological, and dental grounds, including the notion...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Stuart Fiedel.

In pond sediments in Ohio, Indiana, and New York, Sporormiella (dung-fungus) spore declines at ca. 14,000 cal BP are followed first by charcoal particle peaks, and then dramatic shifts in tree pollen percentages. This sequence has been interpreted as the outcome of initial human predation on megafauna. New dates push "classic" Clovis back to ca. 13,500 cal BP, but this still leaves a 500-yr gap between the ecological signals and the earliest Paleoindian artifacts. How can this gap be...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nohemi Sala. Juan Luis Arsuaga.

The study of carnivore activity on bones is crucial to understand the role of the carnivores in the site formation since some carnivores are able to accumulate bones in cave dens. The studies of the Professor Haynes reveal that actualism is a very useful tool for taphonomic studies, as it allows understanding the behavior of the fauna in the past. In Spain there are several Pleistocene sites with evidences of carnivore activity. The Sima de los Huesos (SH) is site is the largest accumulation of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Brian Wygal.

Once heavily glaciated during the Late Pleistocene, southern Alaska became ice-free just as the First Americans were entering the Bering Land Bridge. This makes the Susitna River in Southcentral Alaska a perfect laboratory for understanding how and why small-scale foraging societies spread throughout Beringia and ultimately the New World. While first explorers undoubtedly made decisions based on previous experience, initial occupants probably had different cultural expectations of their...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kathryn Krasinski.

The identification of cutmarks has been integral to expanding the understanding of hominin behavior ranging from the origins of meat eating to megafaunal extinctions and the peopling of Australia and the Americas. However, paleoanthropological and archaeological research has demonstrated that while cutmark placement may be indicative of activity, cutmark morphology is more complex and influenced by multiple variables such as raw material, tool shape, and bone density. Further, significant...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Anna Camp.

This presentation is a first attempt to trace the taphonomic trajectory of specimens of Catlow Twine, an important kind of basketry technology. Catlow Twine basketry spans over ~9,000 cal B.P. years in the archaeological record of the Great Basin. The longevity of this artifact class and its appearance throughout the Northern and Western Great Basin allows for a thorough investigation of how it has been used. Catlow Twine is simple close twine technology; one of the oldest techniques in the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Nicole Waguespack.

Archaeologists have a unique relationship with the faunal record of proboscideans. The interpretative histories associated with mammoths and mastodons, particularly in North America, are wholly unlike those of other zooarchaeological species both extinct and extant. Distinctively divisive, consequential, and enduring, the interpretive attention and rhetoric focused on proboscideans has proceeded largely independent of the known inventory of sites and assemblages in Pleistocene North America....