The Far-Reaching Influence of Steven L. Kuhn

DOCUMENT Citation Only D. Shane Miller.

This is an abstract from the "The Far-Reaching Influence of Steven L. Kuhn" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Kuhn and Stiner (2006) argued that an overlooked, but salient difference between Neanderthals and modern humans was their approaches to dividing labor. Kuhn and Stiner contend that modern humans were “diverse specialists” that may have aided in their ability to adapt to novel and changing environments and outcompete generalists. Here, we...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amy Margaris.

This is an abstract from the "The Far-Reaching Influence of Steven L. Kuhn" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. When hired into the Oberlin College Department of Anthropology in 2008 I learned I was also de facto steward of two thousand cultural objects that were warehoused in a pair of campus custodial closets. The antiquated collection, with its objects hailing from around the world and uneven documentation, represented an intellectual conundrum and...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Randy Haas.

This is an abstract from the "The Far-Reaching Influence of Steven L. Kuhn" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Human societies vary considerably in their internal diversity. The drivers of cultural diversity--why greater or lesser diversity occurs in different times and places--remain poorly understood. This study first examines projectile point diversity in North America over 13 millennia in order to characterize spatiotemporal variation in cultural...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Todd Surovell.

This is an abstract from the "The Far-Reaching Influence of Steven L. Kuhn" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This paper explores a key difference between modern and prehistoric flintknapping evident in the archaeological record. Modern knappers generate dense concentrations of flakes, while such clusters are rare in prehistoric sites, suggesting shorter reduction episodes in the past. One likely reason for this difference is that modern...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Daniel Adler.

This is an abstract from the "The Far-Reaching Influence of Steven L. Kuhn" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The South Caucasus and Armenian Highlands preserve a rich and diverse record of Pleistocene hominin behavior spanning all major technologies, ecologies, and environments. After 30 years of interdisciplinary research by various international teams, the nature and scope of these behaviors are coming into focus. In this talk I provide a summary...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dušan Mihailovic.

This is an abstract from the "The Far-Reaching Influence of Steven L. Kuhn" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Over the last 15 years, the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, in cooperation with the University of Arizona in Tucson, has conducted systematic survey and excavations of Paleolithic sites in eastern Serbia. This geographic region includes all the main corridors that connected Southwest Asia and Central Europe in the Pleistocene. A hotspot...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Feng Li.

This is an abstract from the "The Far-Reaching Influence of Steven L. Kuhn" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dispersal of early modern humans (Homo sapiens) into eastern Eurasia has been hotly discussed, especially in terms of their routes. Southern and northern routes have been both proposed based on different lines of evidence. For many years, scholars have focused more on the research of southern route instead of northern route. With the new...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ron Shimelmitz.

This is an abstract from the "The Far-Reaching Influence of Steven L. Kuhn" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Logistic mobility and basecamps crystallized in the Middle Pleistocene and became habitual, focusing mainly on caves. Among the basecamp’s characteristics are the abundant resources consumed and accumulated, brought by its partners, including lithics. Reusing accumulated chert enables reducing efforts on its further procurement while...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Abdeljalil Bouzouggar.

This is an abstract from the "The Far-Reaching Influence of Steven L. Kuhn" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A long standing debate in Africa concerns the precise chronological and cultural relationship of the MSA (Middle Stone Age) to the LSA (Later Stone Age). In broad terms, the Northwest African MSA is represented by Levallois flake and blade industries that sometimes contain small cores and a range of potential projectile forms such as...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Ames.

This is an abstract from the "The Far-Reaching Influence of Steven L. Kuhn" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Open-air archaeological records provide an important contribution to our understanding of the range of environments exploited by hominins and how changes in technology and mobility might relate to local and regional environmental fluctuations. The challenge, however, is that the distribution of buried and surface archaeological remains in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only P. Jeffrey Brantingham.

This is an abstract from the "The Far-Reaching Influence of Steven L. Kuhn" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Steve Kuhn has long pushed us to consider the decisions that go into the design and maintenance of mobile toolkits. Foragers must contend with variable raw material distributions, the economics of stone transport, the limits of lithic technological design, and the uncertainties inherent to foraging. Inspired by Kuhn’s work, I use a neutral...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Amy Clark.

This is an abstract from the "The Far-Reaching Influence of Steven L. Kuhn" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. One of Kuhn’s most notable contributions to archaeological theory is on the subject of lithic provisioning. Though decisions regarding provisioning might seem simplistic and obvious to us today, as a species completely enmeshed in a world mediated by technology and material culture, equipping oneself with the tools and the raw materials to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Gilbert Tostevin.

This is an abstract from the "The Far-Reaching Influence of Steven L. Kuhn" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Steve Kuhn’s contributions to anthropological archaeology run the gamut of scale, from discipline-changing research that has put theoretical and analytical tools into the hands of thousands of archaeologists around the world, to his profound influence on the careers of individuals who were inspired by his kindness. I certainly count myself...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Ismael Sánchez-Morales.

This is an abstract from the "The Far-Reaching Influence of Steven L. Kuhn" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Steve Kuhn’s contributions to the study of hunter-gatherer lithic technologies are far-reaching and include innovative analytical methods and theoretical approaches to understanding early human economic behaviors. Steve’s methods and theories have greatly influenced the interpretations of data from diverse regions and time periods. The...