Sourcebook of Transitions Marta Camps l Parth Chauhan Editors

Sourcebook of Paleolithic Transitions

Methods, Theories, and Interpretations

13 Editors Marta Camps Parth Chauhan Department of CRAFT Institute George Washington University Indiana University 2110 G Street NW. 1392 W. Dittemore Road Washington DC 20052 Gosport IN 47433-9531 USA USA [email protected] [email protected]

ISBN 978-0-387-76478-8 e-ISBN 978-0-387-76487-0 DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-76487-0 Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London

Library of Congress Control : 2009921899

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Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) Thoughts on ‘‘Transitions’’: A Foreword

A visitor to the Dordogne region of in the 1960s once asked me if I could show him the place where the Cro-Magnons had wiped out the . I was amused, but he was quite serious. The Cro-Magnons must have had superior military capability, otherwise how did they come to dominate and replace the Neanderthals? As this volume suggests, the study of has come a long way toward a more complex understanding of this and other transitions. This is a book about Transitions in Prehistory. In other words, the focus is not on prehistoric entities in space and time, but rather about the spaces between those entities and how moved through those spaces from one entity to another. The book also heralds the establishment within the International Union of Pre- and Protohistoric Sciences of a ‘‘section’’ or interest group, which, for the first time, will focus on process in general, rather than on specific periods and sequences. Both the book and the ongoing work of the section represent a welcome shift in the research orientation of Paleolithic , and force a reexamination of our most basic concepts and assumptions. What is a transition? The usual connotation of this term is a brief period of change between one steady and another—for example, the existence of a ‘‘transition team’’ in the case of a peaceful handover of power. A transition may thus include elements of both states or be entirely independent of either. Transi- tion also suggests that one entity morphs into or at least accommodates and responds to another. One does not speak of transitions in the case of military conquests or the French revolution, for example. This might suggest that the use of the term ‘‘transition’’ for any historic or prehistoric period is inconsistent with an abrupt replacement. A transition is a ‘‘frontier’’ in time—a zone of accom- modation between two different adaptive strategies. Like a frontier, this transi- tion zone can be of variable dimensions (width in space, length in time) and character, in which new relationships form, exchanges may take place, and either hostilities or hybrids develop. Some frontier relationships may last more than a millenium, as in the example of the ‘‘encapsulated bushmen’’ proposed by Sadr (2002), or the pastoralist-agriculturalist relationships of the Eurasian steppes. For the first 100 of European palaeolithic archaeology, the nature and causes of transitions received little consideration. Because the initial framework of palaeolithic study was the succession of epochs, defined as much by unrelated extinct (, , and ) as by artifactual index

v vi Thoughts on ‘‘Transitions’’: A Foreword (Lartet and Christy, 1865–1875), relationships between successive entities were not emphasized. A brief excursion into grouping the industries according to their presumed relationships based on the index fossils had disastrous results, as similarity superseded stratigraphy in the ordering of industries (de Mortillet, 1869; de Mortillet and de Mortillet, 1910). Where change was considered, 19th- century evolutionary frameworks assumed a natural progression towards more complex forms of artifacts and ; the problem was not to explain this tendency but instead to understand why some regions appeared not to have followed the same evolutionary progression (e.g., Morgan, 1877). By the early years of the (e.g., Breuil, 1913), the importance of stratigraphic succession had been re-established, and three subdivisions of the Palaeolithic period were recognized: Lower, Middle, and Upper. Variations within these entities, and the advent of successive stages, were often attributed to different peoples or even species, as Burkitt (1933) and later (1971) suggested for the appearance of the Acheulian in their respective regions. Two different industrial ‘‘phyla’’ within the same region could then evolve in parallel, as Peyrony (1933) posited for the and Perigordian. Where these new entities came from or how, and why they displaced or interacted with the long-standing industries of the existing residents, could not be addressed, given limited knowledge and chronological controls. By the 1950s, with the advent of chronometric dating and more detailed sequences, the tripartite division of the Palaeolithic was becoming problematic, especially in , where continuous and interregional migra- tion blurred the subdivisions between these entities or their local equivalents— leading initially to the creation of two ‘‘intermediates’’ (Clark, 1957) or transition zones in time. A similar problem in the Lower-to- transition in Europe resulted in the designation of an Acheuleo–Levalloisian period, although this entity was thought by Breuil (1931–1934) to be reflex hybridization of two separate ‘‘phyla’’—represented respectively by flake-dominated (, Tayacian) and core industries (Chellean, Abbevillean, ). Adding extra divisions, however, did not solve the problem. Many of the papers in this volume (e.g., Harrold, Soffer, Strauss, Gowlett, Clark, and others) explicitly address the problem of the tripartite divisions and named industries and stages inherited from the 19th century. Whether one describes industries in terms of modes, , reduction intensities, chaˆines ope´ratoires, or or attribute frequencies, it is clear that these outdated divisions encompass more variability within, than between each and its immediate successor. Furthermore, it is far from clear that relatively brief and -defined ‘‘transitions’’ occurred between the major divisions or their indus- trial counterparts, or that the divisions themselves represent stages of implied stability. From the mid-20th century onward, two alternative approaches to under- standing the pattern and process of change in the Paleolithic came to dominate the literature. One was rooted in the evolving mind and the relationship of the mind to both social and the evolutionary process, incorporating both evolu- tionary psychology (Tooby and Cosmides, 1989) and the more nuanced philo- sophical approaches to cognition underlying the concept of chaˆine ope´ratoire. (e.g., Leroi Gourhan, 1964–1965; Boe¨da, 1994). The other perspective focuses more directly on the role of environments and includes both evolutionary and Thoughts on ‘‘Transitions’’: A Foreword vii

(Winterhalder and Smith, 1981; Binford, 1989; Potts, 1996) in an explicitly evolutionary and adaptational framework. Increasing organizational complexity, mediated in later prehistory by symbols, was no longer seen as an inherent property of human life, or an epigenetic artifact of the evolving brain, but instead was attributed to evolutionary processes operating in response to specific conditions. Both studies of process were informed by ethno-archaeological studies of hunter-gatherer lifeways: their economic choices (Lee, 1979; Hawkes et al., 1997; O’Connell et al., 2002), their use of networks (Wiessner, 1982, 1983, 1986), the relationship between settlement patterns and archaeological sites (e.g., Yellen, 1977, 1986, 1991; Brooks and Yellen, 1987; Binford , 1978), the intensification of symbolic behavior on hostile frontiers (Hodder, 1985), and the symbolic and psychological aspects of the shamanic experience (e.g., Lewis-Williams, 2002). Despite the problems of applying studies of these modern societies to the Paleo- lithic past, many models continue to be informed by them. Transition models were also influenced more recently by studies of hybrid zones among nonhuman pri- mates (e.g., Jolly, 2001), which suggest that such zones are inherently unstable, making discovery of short-span interaction zones in prehistory unlikely. Revolutions are a special type of transition—implying a major shift in lifeways in a short period of time, usually one to three human generations, as indicated in the following table:

Revolution Number of Human Generations Communications (1990s) 0.5 Political (French, Russian, American) 1 Industrial 3–5 Writing 15–50 50–250 ‘‘Human’’ () 250–15,000

In our emerging understanding of the long period of experimentation that preceded the end of the , even the may not qualify for this term, much less the ‘‘Human Revolution’’ often posited for the Paleolithic (McBrearty and Brooks, 2000). Just as greater knowledge of late glacial and early post-glacial lifeways suggests a slow long-term increase in human domination of environments rather than a sudden transformation, increased knowledge of the African record as well as the European one suggests that apparent discontinuity in the European record was due largely to a migra- tion event. In Africa—especially in eastern Africa, the likely modern human area of origin—the distinction between ‘‘Middle’’ and ‘‘Later’’ Stone Age is difficult to define (Mehlman, 1979, 1989, 1991; Prendergast et al., 2007; Ambrose, 2002). The southern African ‘‘’’ , if found in Europe, could well have been termed ‘‘Upper Paleolithic.’’ Within Africa, apparent dis- continuities or revolutions, such as the Howiesons Poort may also relate to interregional migration. On the other hand, European industries dating to between 40 and 30 kyr, but associated with remains, suggest that our sister species may have possessed some of the same capabilities as ourselves for complex symbolic and technological behavior (d‘Errico, 2003). In the viii Thoughts on ‘‘Transitions’’: A Foreword

European Middle Pleistocene, the distinction between ‘‘Lower’’ and ‘‘Middle’’ Paleolithic is equally problematic (e.g., Monnier, 2006). To what, then, may we attribute the apparent record of changing lifeways during the Paleolithic? The papers here and the general topic of the section suggest several fruitful avenues for research and discussion by this section. 1. A central goal expressed by many papers in this volume seeks to refine and sequences not only for Western Europe and the , but also for Africa, the , and other parts of . Part of this effort must be to refine and discover new ways of increasing the precision of our chronometric rulers. 2. A second goal, related to the first, should be to explore new ways of describing sequences that do not depend on attribution to one of the three 19th-century stages, or on use of a restrictive typology developed for western European industries (see Clark, this volume). One should even question whether the term ‘‘Acheulean’’, used by de Mortillet (de Mortillet and de Mortillet, 1910) at one point to denote the transition between the Chellean and the , should be applied as it is today to all industries with bifaces that predate the ‘‘Mousterian.’’ Indeed, this term is the last vestige of a Eurocentric terminol- ogy that has largely fallen from favor. The alternative suggested for Africa, however, of giving every site or limited region its own sequence of named industries (Kleindienst, 1967; Clark and Kleindienst, 1974), has proven far too confusing. One possibility might be to adopt the universal typology suggested by Conard et al. (2004), and to use time instead of typology to set up the entity under discussion, as the OIS3 project has done for the ‘‘Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition.’’ 3. A third goal should be to work more closely with environmental scientists to refine and expand our understanding of the environments and landscapes in which prehistoric humans lived. Efforts to meld local and continental scale proxies of environmental change, and to understand why these do not always agree, would be important in reconstructing not only human economic beha- vior but also the potential for migration, the need for networks, and other aspects of social life. 4. Rather than assuming that inter-regional migration was a rare event and happened only twice in human prehistory, we need to follow on the implica- tions of sites such as Gesher Benot Ya’acov in (Goren-Inbar et al., 2000) and Bose in China (Hou et al., 2000), as well as on the emerging of Levallois technologies, to consider whether migration may have been a more frequent event in the past—whether out-of or into Africa. Are there other proxies such as faunal migrations or environmental shifts that might indicate such migrations were more likely at certain times than at others? 5. Finally, we need to explore the potential of complex models based on better chronologies, better environmental and demographic reconstructions, inno- vation models based on cybernetics, and an enhanced understanding of evolu- tionary ecology. The study of evolutionary neuroscience may also play a role. Can these models provide testable scenarios for understanding the capacities of early humans, how innovations arise and spread through populations, or how and why human populations expand and migrate? Thoughts on ‘‘Transitions’’: A Foreword ix

It is hoped that this volume and the study section it inaugurates may lead the study of transitions in prehistory in new and fruitful directions. We need to understand human change and migration as complementary processes involving factors such as cognitive capacities and their evolutionary basis, environmental stresses and opportunities for migration and expansion, demographic factors, raw material procurement, and social and symbolic networks—each of which is invoked by one or more papers in this volume.

Washington, DC Alison S. Brooks

References

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Kleindienst, M. R., 1967, Questions of terminology in regard to the study of stone age industries in Eastern Africa: cultural stratigraphic units. In Background to Evolution in Africa, edited by W. W. Bishop and J. D. Clark, pp. 821–859. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Lartet, E., and Christy, H., 1865–1875, Reliquiae Aquitanicae, Being Contributions to the Archaeology and of Pe´rigord and the Adjoining Provinces of Southern France. Williams and Norgate, London. Leakey, M. D., 1971, , Volume 3: Excavations in Beds I and II, 1960–1963. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Lee, R. B., 1979, The !Kung San: Men, Women and Work in a Foraging . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Leroi Gourhan, A., 1964–1965, Le Geste et la Parole. Vols 1 et 2. A. Michel, Paris. Lewis-Williams, D., 2002, The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of . Thames & Hudson, London. McBrearty, S., and Brooks, A. S., 2000, The revolution that wasn’t: a new interpretation of the origin of modern human behavior. Journal of Human Evolution 39: 453–563. Mehlman, M. J., 1979, Mumba-Hohle¨ revisited: the relevance of a forgotten excavation to some current issues in East African prehistory. World Archaeology 11: 80–94. Mehlman, M. J., 1989, Late Quaternary archaeological sequences in northern . Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Illinois, Urbana. Mehlman, M. J., 1991, Context for the emergence of modern man in Eastern Africa: some new Tanzanian evidence. In Cultural Beginnings: Approaches to Understanding Early Lifeways in the African Savanna, edited by J.D Clark, pp. 177–196. Forschunginstitut fur Vor- und Fruhgeschichte, Romisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Monographien 19, Bonn. Monnier, G., 2006, The Lower/Middle Paleolithic in western Europe: an evalua- tion. Current Anthropology 47: 709–744. Morgan, L. H., 1877, Ancient Society. World, New York. Mortillet, G. de, 1869, Essai d’une classification des caverns et des stations sous abri, fonde´e sur les produits de l’industrie humaine. Comptes Rendues de l’Academie des Sciences,t.68, published also as MateriauxpourServira` l’Histoire Primitive de l’Homme 5: 172–179. Mortillet, G. de and Mortillet, A. de, 1910, Le Pre´historique: Origine et Antiquite´ de l’Homme. Paris. O’Connell, J. F., Hawkes, K., Lupo, K. D., and Blurton Jones, N. G., 2002, Male straegies and Plio-Pleistocene archaeology. Journal of Human Evolution 43: 831–872. Peyrony, D., 1933, Les industries aurignaciennes dans le basin de la Ve´ze` re, Aurignacien et Pe´rigordien. Bulletin de la Socie´te´ Pre´historique Franc¸ aise 30: 543–559. Potts, R., 1996, Humanity’s Descent: The Consequences of Ecological Instability. Morrow, New York. Prendergast, M. E., Luque, L., Domı´nguez-Rodrigo, M., Diez-Martin, F., Mabulla, A. Z. P., and Barba, R., 2007, New excavations at Mumba Rockshelter, Tanzania. Journal of 5: 217–243. Sadr, K., 2002, Encapsulated bushmen in the archaeology of Thamaga. In Ethnicity, Hunter- Gatherers and the ‘Other’: Association or Assimilation in Africa, edited by S. Kent, pp. 28–47. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington. Tooby, J., and Cosmides, L., 1989, Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture. 1. Theoretical considerations, and 2; Case study – a computational theory of social exchange. Ethology and Sociobiology 10: 21–49 and 51–97. Wiessner, P., 1982, Risk, reciprocity and social influences on !Kung San economics. In Politics and in Band Societies, edited by E. Leacock and R. Lee, pp. 61–84. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Wiessner, P., 1983, and social information in Kalahari San projectile points. American Antiquity 48: 253–276. Wiessner, P., 1986, !Kung San networks in a generational perspective. In The Past and Future of !Kung San , edited by M. Biesele, R. Gordon and R. Lee, pp. 103–136. Helmut Buske Verlag Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung, Band 4., Hamburg. Winterhalder, B., and Smith, E. A., 1981, Hunter-gatherer Foraging Strategies: Ethnographic and Archeological Analyses. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Yellen, J. E., 1977, Archaeological Approaches to the Present: Models for Interpreting the Past. Academic Press, New York. Thoughts on ‘‘Transitions’’: A Foreword xi

Yellen, J. E., 1986, Optimization and risk in human foraging strategies. Journal of Human Evolution 15: 733–750. Yellen, J. E., 1991, Small mammals: post-discard patterning of !Kung San faunal remains. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 10: 152–192. Acknowledgements

This volume would not have been published without the contributions, encour- agement, and professional cooperation from a large number of people. First and foremost, we would like to thank the participants in our Transitions in the Paleolithic session in Lisbon, Portugal (September 2006), which started it all. At that time, we had approached a large number of scholars to participate and got an overwhelming response, not only from young professionals but also well- experienced and well-known researchers. Without their participation in the session and without their subsequent contributions, this volume would not have seen the light of day. Following the session in Lisbon, we solicited additional papers from many colleagues to fill geographic, thematic, and temporal gaps in the planned volume and, again, received positive replies from many. Therefore, we thank all of the authors in this book for submitting very interesting and thought- provoking papers covering a range of diverse topics and themes within the Paleolithic realm. Each paper was carefully peer-reviewed by colleagues who are experts in the area/topic discussed, and therefore, special thanks go to all of them for their careful and constructive reviews, as well as for their patience, insightful comments, and suggestions, and most of all for their professional cooperation and help despite their busy teaching or fieldwork schedules. This process was done on a double anonymous basis, to avoid biases from both sides, and was determinant in the final acceptance of the papers that are included in this volume. We are very grateful to Teresa Krauss (Archaeology Senior Editor) and Katie Chabalko (Assistant Editor) for the correspondence and assistance in shaping the volume overall and making many prudent suggestions along the way. We also thank the entire staff of Springer for their patience and hard work along the way and physically rendering the original manuscript into its current form, especially Sathia Hariharan, at Integra. We would also liketothankElmoLeon(SecretaryandTreasurerofthisUISPPCommission) for generously providing one of his skillful illustrations as the Commission logo in this book, which introduces each of the sections into which this volume is divided. S.J. Lycett kindly helped the editors with the final stage of corrections, and his assistance, at short notice, is greatly appreciated. Last but not least, both of us are very obliged to our respective families. Occasional

xiii xiv Acknowledgements but unintentional reminders from them were in the form of: ‘‘How is the book going?’’ or ‘‘When is the volume going to be published?’’ and thus, we appreci- ate their patience, support, and encouragement over the years. This volume is dedicated to them for helping us in our own transitions from childhood to adulthood. Contents

Part I Methodological and Theoretical Perspectives Has the Notion of ‘‘Transitions’’ in Paleolithic Prehistory Outlived Its Usefulness? The European Record in Wider Context ...... 3 Lawrence Guy Straus Accidents of History: Conceptual Frameworks in Paleoarchaeology ... 19 Geoffrey A. Clark Defining Modernity, Establishing Rubicons, Imagining the Other—and the Neanderthal Enigma...... 43 Olga Soffer The Longest Transition or Multiple Revolutions? ...... 65 John A.J. Gowlett Quantifying Transitions: Morphometric Approaches to Palaeolithic Variability and Technological Change ...... 79 Stephen J. Lycett ESR Dating at Hominid and Archaeological Sites During the Pleistocene ...... 93 Bonnie A.B. Blackwell, Anne R. Skinner, Joel I.B. Blickstein, L.V. Golovanova, V.B. Doronichev, and M.R. Se´ronie-Vivien The South Asian Paleolithic Record and Its Potential for Transitions Studies...... 121 Parth R. Chauhan DISCUSSION 1: An Overview of Matters Transitional, From the Outside Looking In ...... 141 Angela E. Close

Part II Changes Within the From Nothing to Something: The Appearance and Context of the Earliest Archaeological Record ...... 155 Michael J. Rogers and Sileshi Semaw

xv xvi Contents

The -Acheulian Transition: Is there a ‘‘Developed Oldowan’’ Artifact ? ...... 173 Sileshi Semaw, Michael Rogers, and Dietrich Stout Lower Palaeolithic Transitions in the Northern Latitudes of Eurasia ...... 195 Jan Michal Burdukiewicz Hominin Adaptability and Patterns of Faunal Turnover in the Early to Middle Pleistocene Transition in the Levant...... 211 Miriam Belmaker DISCUSSION 2: Transitions: Behavioral Change in the ...... 229 Robin Dennell

Part III Lower to Middle Paleolithic Transitions Assessing the Lower to Middle Paleolithic Transition ...... 237 Michael Chazan The East Asian Middle Paleolithic Reexamined ...... 245 Christopher J. Norton, Xing Gao, and Xingwu Feng The Lower to Middle Paleolithic Transition in South and Its Implications for Hominin Cognition and Dispersals ...... 255 H. James and M.D. Petraglia DISCUSSION 3: The Lower to Middle Paleolithic Transition ...... 265 Paola Villa

Part IV Middle to Upper Palaeolithic Transitions The Middle-Upper Paleolithic Transition Revisited ...... 273 Robert G. Bednarik Historical Perspectives on the European Transition from Middle to Upper Paleolithic...... 283 Francis B. Harrold From the Middle to the Later Stone Age in Eastern Africa ...... 301 Pamela R. Willoughby Comparing Middle to Upper Paleolithic Transitions in the Middle East and ...... 315 Deborah I. Olszewski Through the Looking-Glass. The Most Recent Years of Cantabrian Research in the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic Transition...... 333 Alvaro Arrizabalaga and Maria Jose´Iriarte The Transitional Aurignacian and the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic Transition Model in Cantabrian Iberia ...... 341 Federico Bernaldo de Quiros,´ and Jose´Manuel Maı´llo-Ferna´ndez Contents xvii

Hard Work Never Goes to Waste: The Role of Iberia in the Mid-Upper Paleolithic Transition ...... 361 Marta Camps What Is a ‘Transitional’ ? The of Southern Italy as a Case Study ...... 377 Julien Riel-Salvatore Middle/Upper Paleolithic Interface in Vindija Cave (): New Results and Interpretations ...... 397 Ivor Karavanic´and Maryle` ne Patou-Mathis , Not Aurignacian: A Review of the Chronology and Cultural Associations of the Vindija G1 Neandertals ...... 407 Joa˜o Zilha˜o The Bu¨kk Mountain Szeletian: Old and New Views on ‘‘Transitional’’ Material from the Eponymous Site of the Szeletian...... 427 Brian Adams The Subsistence Behaviours of the Last Crimean Neanderthals ...... 441 Maryle` ne Patou-Mathis DISCUSSION 4: The Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic Transition: What News?...... 455 Erella Hovers

Part V The Later Paleolithic Investigating the Aurignacian/ Transition in the Bistrit¸a (NE-) ...... 465 Leif Steguweit Modern Human Colonization of the Siberian Mammoth Steppe: A View from South-Central ...... 479 Kelly E. Graf Shades of Gray: The Paleoindian–Early Archaic ‘‘Transition’’ in the Northeast ...... 503 J.M. Adovasio and Kurt W. Carr Central Andean Lithic Techno-Typology at the Terminal Pleistocene-Early Transition ...... 527 Elmo Leon Canales The Paleolithic- Transition ...... 537 Marcel Otte DISCUSSION 5: Transitions in the Later Palaeolithic...... 555 Rupert A. Housley Afterword ...... 561 Luiz Oosterbeek Index ...... 563 Contributors

Adams, Brian Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL, USA Adovasio, James Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute, Mercyhurst College, Erie, PA, USA Arrizabalaga, Alvaro A´rea de Prehistoria, Departamento de Geografı´a, Prehistoria y Arqueologı´a, Universidad del Paı´s Vasco-Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, Vitoria, Spain Bednarik, Robert International Federation of Art Organisations (IFRAO), Caulfield South, Australia Belmaker, Miriam Department of Anthropology, Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA Bernaldo de Quiros,´ Federico Departamento de Estudios Cla´sicos, Universidad de Leon, Leon, Spain Blackwell, Bonnie Department of Chemistry, Williams College, Williamstown, MA, USA Blickstein, Joel I.B. Department of Chemistry, Williams College, Williamstown, MA, USA Brooks, Alison Department of Anthropology, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA Burdukiewicz, Jan Michal Institute of Archaeology, University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw, Poland Camps, Marta Department of Anthropology, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA Carr, Kurt W. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Bureau for Historic Preservation, Harrisburg, PA, USA Chauhan, Parth R. Stone Age Institute & CRAFT Research Center, Indiana University, Gosport, IN, USA

xix xx Contributors

Chazan, Michael Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Clark, Geoffrey School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA Close, Angela Department of Anthropology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA Dennell, Robin W. Department of Archaeology, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK Doronichev, V.B. Laboratory of Prehistory, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation Feng, Xingwu Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and , Chinese Academy of Sciences, , China Gao, Xing Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China Golovanova, L.V. Laboratory of Prehistory, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation Gowlett, John British Academy Centenary Project, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK Graf, Kelly Center for the Study of the First Americans, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA Harrold, Francis St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, MN, USA Housley, Rupert Department of Geography, Royal Holloway College, University of London, London, UK Hovers, Erella The Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem, Israel Iriarte, Maria Jose´Departamento de Geografı´a, Prehistoria y Arqueologı´a, Universidad del Paı´s Vasco-Euskal, Vitoria, Spain James, Hannah Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK Karavanic´, Ivor Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia Canales Leon, Elmo Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Institute for Ancient America and , University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany Lycett, Stephen Department of Anthropology, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, UK Maı´llo-Ferna´ndez, Jose´Manuel Departamento de Prehistoria y Arqueologı´a, Universidad Nacional de Educacion a Distancia (UNED), , Spain Norton, Christopher J. Department of Anthropology, University of Hawai’i, Honolulu, HI, USA Olszewski, Deborah Penn Museum & Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA Contributors xxi

Oosterbeek, Luiz Instituto Polite´cnico de Tomar, International Union of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences (UISPP), Portugal Otte, Marcel Service de Pre´histoire, Universite´de Lie` ge, Lie` ge, Belgium Patou-Mathis, Maryle` ne Institut de Pale´ontologie Humaine, Paris, France Petraglia, Michael D. Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK Riel-Salvatore, Julien Department of Anthropology, Leacock Building, Montreal, Quebec, Canada Rogers, Michael Department of Anthropology, Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven, CT, USA Semaw, Sileshi Stone Age Institute and CRAFT Research Center, Indiana University, Gosport, IN, USA Se´ronie-Vivien, M.R. Le Bouscat, France Skinner, Anne R. Department of Chemistry, Williams College, Williamstown, MA, USA Soffer, Olga Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, USA Steguweit, Leif Universita¨t Erlangen-Nu¨rnberg, Institut fu¨r Ur- und Fru¨hgeschichte, Erlangen, Germany Stout, Dietrich Institute of Archaeology, University College London, London, UK Straus, Lawrence Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, N.M., USA Villa, Paola University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, Boulder, Colorado, USA Willoughby, Pamela Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Zilha˜o, Joao Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK Introduction

Marta Camps and Parth R. Chauhan

This volume addresses the different transitional processes that separate the three classical periods in which the Paleolithic period (broadly understood) is divided, through the examination of the nature and extent of behavioral changes, cultural patterns, and differences that have been attributed to them. It brings together research from many regions of the world and from differing theoretical perspec- tives on the aforementioned transitions, not only to compare and discuss results from the various areas, but also to evaluate the contrasts between the different processes. This book is comprised of contributions by top researchers on this topic: some of them are actively involved in field research in different geographical regions, while others are more concerned with the theoretical aspects of these events in human prehistory. Overall, the book contains the contributions of the speakers in the International Union for Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences 2006 collo- quium, Transitions in the Paleolithic, and numerous others from scholars who were unable to attend this session as participants due to the time constraints of the session. Twenty of them presented their papers at the International Union for Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences (UISPP) meeting in Lisbon, Portugal (September 4–9, 2006). This book not only summarizes past work, but also assesses current research strategies and the latest results, and discusses guidelines for future research, since there is no doubt that this topic will continue to engage the attention of archae- ologists and researchers in several related disciplines for many decades to come. The Paleolithic period has a strikingly varied archaeological record, and the different transitional processes that took place within it contribute to create this variation in their role as the origin of the vast array of changes that characterize the end of one phase and the beginning of another—thus meriting a much closer examination and treatment than they have hitherto received. The importance of this topic was clearly seen during the aforementioned colloquium, when presenting researchers and several members of the public engaged in several lengthy and intense discussions. During the UISPP symposium, several perspectives were addressed, such as the differences between the divisions in different parts of the world, especially in those cases when geographical areas (sometimes regions, sometimes entire con- tinents) that have not been thoroughly studied have seen formulae used for other regions attempting to make sense of a record that does not usually fit such

xxiii xxiv Introduction parameters. The question of the classic divisions into which the period is orga- nized, established soon after this research started, and their validity at present, were two topics also discussed. Questions such as what were the crucial aspects of hominid behavior during these periods, and how they can be detected and analyzed, were weighted against the traditional interest on the typological classi- fication of assemblages, which have turned a system to aid research on the above questions into a widely accepted end-product. Transitional periods open to discussion in the colloquium ranged from the ‘‘gaps’’ in between the three major ages, to concepts as broad as the Middle Paleolithic, understood as the nexus between the Lower/Upper Paleolithic, Early/Late innovation, and ‘‘revolution’’-related moments, and usually dis- missed as a period characterized by technological stasis. Is such portrayal sus- tained by current research? Now our aim is to offer a world-wide and varied analysis of these issues, discussed in rich-data papers providing viewpoints from as many sites and regions as possible. To help keep the debate focused, presenters and new contributors were requested to address several specific questions in their papers: What constitutes a ‘‘transition’’ and how might we recognize it? Are the Lower-to-Middle and Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transitions clearly defined in all regions? Does the Middle Paleolithic always represent a techno- chronological link between the Lower and Upper Paleolithic (e.g., the Leval- lois is not prominent in Asia)? What, if any, technological changes took place over the concerned regions and were they abrupt or gradual in nature? What are the precise timings of these regional transitions? How might these transitional events relate to social, demographic, ecological, or other factors? What were prime factors that invoked technological changes and/or stasis (archaeological gaps between technological stages)? Were many of these transitions a result of human migrations/social interac- tions or were they indigenous developments? If the latter, then to what degree? How do the transitions signify key behavioral and cognitive changes and how are they related to the dispersal of the genus throughout the ? What current research biases exist in these studies, and in what direction should such research be heading (e.g., current marginal attention in Asia and North America)? A key purpose of the book is to contribute to Paleolithic research, by provid- ing the scientific community with an up-to-date publication which: (a) encom- passes instrumental classic views crucial to understanding how the phenomena of transitions, in all their forms (gradual changes, abrupt changes, and crises, etc.) have been studied; (b) includes current research and the newest developments that have only been partially presented in specialized journals, usually con- strained by tight word limits; and (c) incorporates a joint and debated look to the future of this research, highlighting the outcome of the balance of many years of studies, and the most promising research leads for the coming years. The different papers achieve these goals by examining the Paleolithic record in detail Introduction xxv

in a long list of regions and sites, spread throughout most regions of the world. The multidisciplinary perspective of this volume, combined with the latest infor- mation on research regarding these processes, brings a much needed modern compendium in this field to the wider scientific community involved in the study of these topics. Transitions in the Paleolithic, as a colloquium, made one more thing very clear, and it is that this topic cannot get ‘‘final’’ answers in just one meeting or a volume, as thorough as they may be. This was the reason why the present book is also the first product of the newly created UISPP scientific commission, which the same name. Our aim is to make progress in a continued manner over a longer period of time of focused discussions at international workshops, and resulting goal-oriented and multidisciplinary research projects. The purposes and duties of the ‘‘Transitions in the Paleolithic’’ scientific commission are several. First of all is the stimulation and coordination of research related to Paleolithic transitions—whether they are seen as slow and progressive, even smooth periods of change, or dramatic and abrupt episodes and even crises—within four particular themes: Thematic – ‘‘transitions’’ as broadly understood (between periods, between cultures, between lithic industries, between hominin species, to name but a few examples). Regional and interregional – the whole world (potential comparisons between areas far apart, as well as observation of application of typological and related terminology created for one region, and the implications of this practice). Chronological – The entire Paleolithic (Lower, Middle, and Upper, as well as Early, Middle, and for Africa, and Paleoindian for America), including the transition into the Paleolithic period and that which closes it. Interdisciplinary – views and perspectives from all empirical sciences and related techniques utilized in archaeological research and field/laboratory work are considered crucial and great effort will be made to involve profes- sionals who specialize in such disciplines. Secondly, as a commission, the Transitions in the Paleolithic commission also plans to undertake the following activities: the organization of colloquia on the subject within the framework of the UISPP Congress meetings every five years, as well as intercongress symposia and meetings in different parts of the world, thus making it easier (logistically and financially) for members and interested scholars from that continent and adjacent areas to participate. Thirdly, the commission will also work on the regular publication of the proceedings of these gatherings. This volume represents the first in an anticipated series on Paleolithic transitions. All efforts will be made to complement future session papers by also including papers from other scholars who may be unable to attend but are working on the topics chosen for the meetings—as was done in this volume—and to have not only as many perspectives, but as many geogra- phical regions represented as possible. We think that it is crucial to bring these phenomena into the spotlight in their own right, and not as topics that used to be treated as the end of something or the beginning of something else. To understand any given chronological period, it is imperative that we start by knowing exactly what happened right before it, and right after. xxvi Introduction

We understand this endeavor as an effort to create a strong research network in which scholars working on the Paleolithic period, broadly understood, in all regions of the globe can share their views and the results of their hard work, with the aim of working together towards solving some of the most intriguing ques- tions and challenging topics ever. But for now, back to the present volume, let all the contributors to this volume tell you about the Transitions in the Paleolithic through their own eyes and in their own words...