Mid-Holocene Vegetation History, Climate Change and Neolithic Landscape Transformation
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Persistence of Middle Stone Age Technology to the Pleistocene/Holocene Transition Supports a Complex Hominin Evolutionary Scenario in West Africa
This is a repository copy of Persistence of Middle Stone Age technology to the Pleistocene/Holocene transition supports a complex hominin evolutionary scenario in West Africa. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/129212/ Version: Accepted Version Article: Scerri, E.M.L., Blinkhorn, J., Niang, K. et al. (2 more authors) (2017) Persistence of Middle Stone Age technology to the Pleistocene/Holocene transition supports a complex hominin evolutionary scenario in West Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 11. pp. 639-646. ISSN 2352-409X https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2017.01.003 Reuse This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND) licence. This licence only allows you to download this work and share it with others as long as you credit the authors, but you can’t change the article in any way or use it commercially. More information and the full terms of the licence here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing [email protected] including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. [email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ Persistence of Middle Stone Age technology to the Pleistocene/Holocene transition supports a complex hominin evolutionary scenario in West Africa Eleanor M.L. Scerria*, James Blinkhornb, Khady Niangc, Mark D. Batemand, Huw S. Groucutta a Research -
Climate Reversals and the Transition to Agriculture
CLIMATE REVERSALS AND THE TRANSITION TO AGRICULTURE Gregory K. Dow, Clyde G. Reed, and Nancy Olewiler Department of Economics Simon Fraser University July 2008 Abstract. Until about 13,000 years ago all humans obtained their food through hunting and gathering, but thereafter people in some parts of the world began a transition to agriculture. Recent data strongly implicate climate change as the driving force behind the transition in southwest Asia. We propose a model of this process in which population and technology respond endogenously to climate. After a period of favorable environmental conditions during which regional population grew, an abrupt climate reversal forced people to take refuge at a few favored sites. The resulting spike in local population density reduced the marginal product of labor in foraging and made cultivation attractive. Once cultivation began, technological progress, including artificial selection, eventually led to domesticated plants. Farming became a permanent part of the regional economy when productivity growth was combined with climate recovery. The available data on cases of transition and non-transition are consistent with this model but often inconsistent with rival explanations. Acknowledgment. Doug Allen, Matthew Baker, Ofer Bar-Yosef, Cliff Bekar, Sam Bowles, Sue Colledge, Patrick Francois, Brian Hayden, Hillard Kaplan, Gordon Myers, Arthur Robson, and four anonymous referees for the Journal of Economic Growth commented on earlier drafts. We are grateful to audiences at Simon Fraser University, the University of British Columbia, the 2005 SSHA meeting, the 2006 AEA meeting, the 2006 SFU workshop on the Neolithic transition, and the 2006 Conference on Early Economic Developments at the University of Copenhagen. -
Holocene and Pleistocene Pluvial Periods in Yemen, Southern Arabia
Quaternary Science Reviews 30 (2011) 783e787 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Quaternary Science Reviews journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/quascirev Rapid Communication Holocene and Pleistocene pluvial periods in Yemen, southern Arabia Dominik Fleitmann a,b,*, Stephen J. Burns c, Marek Pekala b, Augusto Mangini d, Abdulkarim Al-Subbary e, Mohammad Al-Aowah e, Jan Kramers a, Albert Matter b a Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Zähringerstrasse 25, 3012 Bern, Switzerland b Institute of Geological Sciences, University of Bern, Switzerland c Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts, USA d Heidelberger Akademie of Sciences, Heidelberg, Germany e Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Sana’a, Republic of Yemen article info abstract Article history: Arabia is an important potential pathway for the dispersal of Homo sapiens (“out of Africa”). Yet, because Received 5 October 2010 of its arid to hyper-arid climate humans could only migrate across southern Arabia during pluvial periods Received in revised form when environmental conditions were favorable. However, knowledge on the timing of Arabian pluvial 12 January 2011 periods prior to the Holocene is mainly based on a single and possibly incomplete speleothem record Accepted 16 January 2011 from Hoti Cave in Northern Oman. Additional terrestrial records from the Arabian Peninsula are needed Available online 5 February 2011 to confirm the Hoti Cave record. Here we present a new speleothem record from Mukalla Cave in southern Yemen. The Mukalla Cave and Hoti Cave records clearly reveal that speleothems growth Keywords: Southern Arabia occurred solely during peak interglacial periods, corresponding to Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 1 (early to Holocene mid-Holocene), 5.1, 5.3, 5.5 (Eemian), 7.1, 7.5 and 9. -
A Critical Review of “The Mesolithic” in Relation to Siberian Archaeology ALEXANDER B
ARCTIC VOL. 38, NO. 3 (SEPTEMBER 1985) P. 178-187 A Critical Review of “the Mesolithic” in Relation to Siberian Archaeology ALEXANDER B. DOLITSKY’ ABSTRACT. This paperexplores the potentialof the economic-ecqlogical method basedon the exploitation of fishresources for Mesolithic site iden- tification, as compared to the recently popular yet indecisive technological-typologicalmethod, to predict the existence of “Mesolithic-like” sub- sistence activities in Siberia during the Sartan-Holocene“transition” period. The article is an attempt toestablish, or at least topropose, new criteria that can lead toa higher level of understandingof Mesolithic economies insubarctic and arctic regions. Also, decision-making processes that operate to achieve behavioralgoals based on efficiency of human beingsare suggested. The model, designed with respectto geographical regions identified as interbiotic zones, has the advantage of offering specific alternative hypotheses enabling the definition of both environmental properties and predicted human behavior. Key words: Mesolithic, Siberia, interbiotic zone RÉSUMÉ. L’article &die le potentiel de la méthode économique-écologique fondte sur l’exploitation de poissons en guise de ressources pour l’identification desites mtsolithiques, en comparison avecla mdthode technologique-typologique populaire maisindécise, afin de prddire l’existence d’activitds de subsistencede genre mésolithique en Sibdrie durant la périodede transition Sartan-Holoctne. On tente d’établir ou au moins de pro- poser de nouveaux crittres qui pourraient permettre une meilleure comprdhension des économies mdsolithiques dans les rdgions arctiques et sub- arctiques. De plus, on suggkre des processus de prise de ddcisions qui visent21 établir des buts de comportement fondéssur l’efficacité de I’être hu- main.Conçu par rapport 21 des rdgionsgéographiques nommées zones interbiotiques, le modele a l’avantage d’offrir des choix particuliers d’hypothtses permettant la ddfinition des propridtés environnementales et du comportement humain prévu. -
Holocene Glacier Fluctuations
Quaternary Science Reviews 111 (2015) 9e34 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Quaternary Science Reviews journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/quascirev Invited review Holocene glacier fluctuations * Olga N. Solomina a, b, , Raymond S. Bradley c, Dominic A. Hodgson d, Susan Ivy-Ochs e, f, Vincent Jomelli g, Andrew N. Mackintosh h, Atle Nesje i, j, Lewis A. Owen k, Heinz Wanner l, Gregory C. Wiles m, Nicolas E. Young n a Institute of Geography RAS, Staromonetny-29, 119017, Staromonetny, Moscow, Russia b Tomsk State University, Tomsk, Russia c Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 012003, USA d British Antarctic Survey, High Cross, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0ET, UK e Institute of Particle Physics, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland f Institute of Geography, University of Zurich, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland g Universite Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne, CNRS Laboratoire de Geographie Physique, 92195 Meudon, France h Antarctic Research Centre, Victoria University Wellington, New Zealand i Department of Earth Science, University of Bergen, N-5020 Bergen, Norway j Uni Research Klima, Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, N-5020 Bergen Norway k Department of Geology, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45225, USA l Institute of Geography and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern, Switzerland m Department of Geology, The College of Wooster, Wooster, OH 44691, USA n Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, Palisades, NY, USA article info abstract Article history: A global overview of glacier advances and retreats (grouped by regions and by millennia) for the Received 15 July 2014 Holocene is compiled from previous studies. The reconstructions of glacier fluctuations are based on Received in revised form 1) mapping and dating moraines defined by 14C, TCN, OSL, lichenometry and tree rings (discontinuous 22 November 2014 records/time series), and 2) sediments from proglacial lakes and speleothems (continuous records/ Accepted 27 November 2014 time series). -
A Study of the Bronze Age Metalwork from the Iberian Peninsula in the British Museum
A M P U R I A S (Barcelona) t. 43, 1981, pagines 113- 170 A Study of the Bronze Age Metalwork from the Iberian Peninsula in the British Museum By RICHARDJ. HARRISONand PAULT. CRADDOCK with an appendix by MICHAELJ. HUGHES" The collections of prehistoric bronze the Very Reverend Canon Greenwell of metalwork discussed here have accumula- Durham Cathedral. He was actively co- ted in a fortuitous manner for over llecting bronzes in the latter part o£ 125 years, with a succession of gifts large the nineteenth century, and through his aild small, purchases, and transfers from friendly contacts with Horace Sandars, he other collections. The opportunity arose to was able to acquire type-specimens from catalogue and examine the entire collec- the Iberian Peninsula. The part of his tion, and to make it available for inclu- collection containing these items was sion into the synthetic works that are now bought by the American financier James actively in progress. Pierpont Morgan, and presented outright The year 1849 marks the acquisition of to the Museum as a gift in 1909. the first prehistoric bronze implement Other important pieces were acquired from Spain, donated by Mr. S. P. Pratt, in 1964 when the Wellcome Collection was F. R. S., and published the same year by presented to the Museum. The included Mr. James Yates. For a long time this a dozen Early Bronze Age pieces from double-looped palstave was one of the George Bonsor's old excavations around Few published prehistoric bronzes known Carmona (Prov. Sevilla) in the period Erom the Peninsula, and it has been illus- 1890-1910, and which seem to have come trated many times since then. -
Editor's Note
Volume 8: Issue 1 (2021) Editor’s Note CONTENTS Dear ICA Members, Editor’s Note .................. 1 Welcome to 2021! We are now a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, and with vaccines on the market, we are seeing the light at the end Meetings, of the tunnel. Announcements, and Calls for Papers .............. 3 The ICA Interest group will be meeting at this year’s virtual SAA Research Highlights ....... 4 meeting on April 16 from 12-1 PM EDT. Please join us to learn more about the group, get involved, and network with colleagues. All are Lapidary artwork in the welcome! Amerindian Caribbean, a regional, open, online Over the past year, there have been over 1000 new publications in database and GIS ....... 4 81 different journals in our field. In addition, several new books have The La Sagesse been published, four of which are featured in our “Recent Community Publications” section. The quantity and quality of new literature attests to the fact that, despite the pandemic, island and coastal Archaeology Project research is thriving. (LCAP) in Grenada, West Indies ................ 6 As always, please continue to send us your new publications. While Recent Publications ....... 7 we do not rely exclusively on sources sent to us by our members, we usually receive at least one member submission from a journal that Featured New Books: 7 we missed in our biannual literature review. Your submissions help Journals Featuring to provide publicity for your work and assists us in putting together a Recent Island and more thorough bibliography each cycle. Coastal Archaeology Papers: ....................... 8 The last issue of the Current appeared when wildfires and political scandal dominated news headlines, and coastal archaeologists faced New Papers in the reports of accelerating sea level rise. -
Conflicting Evidence? Weapons and Skeletons in the Bronze Age Of
Conflicting evidence? Weapons and skeletons in the Bronze Age of south-east Iberia Gonzalo Aranda-Jimenez´ 1∗, Sandra Monton-Sub´ ´ıas2∗ & Silvia Jimenez-Brobeil´ 3 With its forts, swords, halberds and daggers the Argaric people of south-east Spain has long been seen as a warrior society. The authors dismantle this model, showing that defences around settlements and weapons and knives in tombs have quite different social roles. An analysis of skeletons showed that while these Bronze Age people might have been periodically clubbing each other on the head, they were not doing a lot of lethal stabbing. Keywords: Iberia, Bronze Age, warfare, violence, halberds, swords Introduction According to an important body of social theory, the emergence and institutionalisation of violence and warfare are inherent to processes of increasing social complexity. Prehistoric Europe – and most specifically its Bronze Age – has provided a suitable scenario to fuel this belief. The warrior as a new social character appears during this period, progressively expanding across the different landscapes of the European continent. The Argaric societies in south-east Iberia (corresponding to the Bronze Age in south- eastern Spain and spanning from c. 2250 to 1450 cal BC) have traditionally been interpreted as conforming to this general principle. Specialised weaponry such as halberds and swords have been correlated with evidence of the existence of warriors and – more or less implicitly – warfare. But, in common with similar examples throughout Europe, the emergence of warriors and warfare has been pronounced rather than explained. Despite the leading role accorded to the warrior as a new figure, it seems to us that the necessary connections between the rise of warriors and their social practice and context have remained largely unexplored. -
Food, Economy and Social Complexity in the Bronze Age World
22 Dalia A. Pokutta Food, Economy and Social Complexity in the Bronze Age World FOOD, ECONOMY AND SOCIAL COMPLEXITY IN THE BRONZE AGE WORLD: A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY Dalia A. Pokutta1 __________________ 1Archaeological Research Laboratory University of Stockholm, Wallenberglaboratoriet, Lilla Frescativägen 7, 114 18 Stockholm, Sweden, [email protected] Abstract: Despite the fact that greater part of ingredients, such as dairy products or alcoholic drinks, were known al- ready in the Neolithic, food technology of the Bronze Age changed significantly. This paper aims to investigate prehistoric dietary habits and comment on the stable isotope values (13C/15N) of human/faunal remains from several large Bronze Age cemeteries in Europe and beyond. The human skeletal material derives from Early Bronze Age Iberia (2300–2000 BC), mainland Greece (Late Helladic Period III), Bronze Age Transcaucasia (the Kura-Araxes culture 3400–2000 BC), steppes of Kazakhstan (1800 BC), and Early Bronze Age China in Shang period (1523–1046 BC). The aim of this study is to determine distinctive features of food practice in the Bronze Age with an overview of economy and consumer be- haviours in relation to religion and state formation processes. Keywords: Bronze Age, prehistoric diet, isotopic analyses, Spain, Greece, Caucasus, Kazakhstan, China. Abstrakt: Jedlo, hospodárstvo a spoločenská komplexita v svete doby bronzovej. Napriek skutočnosti, že väčšia časť potravín, ako napríklad mliečne výrobky či alkoholické nápoje, bola známa už v závere neolitu, potravinová techno- lógia doby bronzovej sa výrazne zmenila. Táto štúdia skúma praveké stravovacie návyky a vyjadruje sa k hodnotám stabil- ných izotopov (13C/15N) v ľudských/zvieracích pozostatkoch z niekoľkých veľkých pohrebísk z doby bronzovej v Európe aj mimo nej. -
Pleistocene-Holocene Permafrost of the East Siberian Eurasian Arctic Shelf
PLEISTOCENE-HOLOCENE PERMAFROST OF THE EAST SIBERIAN EURASIAN ARCTIC SHELF I.D. Danilov, I.A. Komarov, A.Yu. Vlasenko Department of Geology, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia, 119899 e-mail: [email protected] Abstract Cryolithosphere dynamics in the East Siberian Eurasian Arctic shelf during the last 50,000 years were recon- structed on the basis of paleogeographic events including transgressions and regressions of the Arctic Ocean, and changes of paleoclimatic environmental conditions within subaerially exposed shelf areas after their flood- ing by sea water. Mathematical models and calculations were developed in accordance with these events. Three transgressive and three regressive stages in the evolution of the Arctic shelf were established for the last 50,000 years. Air and permafrost temperatures and their spatial and temporal variations were reconstructed for regres- sive epochs, while sea bottom temperatures, salinity and "overburden pressure" were reconstructed for trans- gressive periods. The possible thickness of permafrost in coastal areas is 345-455 m. The possible thickness of ice-bonded permafrost and non ice-bonded saline permafrost ranges from 240-350 and 20-25 m respectively in the central shelf, to 140-175 and 10 m in the outer shelf. Introduction Therefore, in order to solve this contradiction it is ne- cessary to estimate the extent of the Sartan regression. The formation of the modern subaquatic cryolithos- In the eastern sector of the Eurasian Arctic shelf, the sea phere (offshore permafrost) on the Eurasian Arctic shelf level fall is estimated variously at 110-120 m (Aksenov is usually assigned to the Pre-Holocene (Sartan) regres- et al., 1987), 100 m (Fartyshev, 1993), 90-100 m sion, and complete or partial degradation of the per- (Hopkins, 1976), 50 m (Zhigarev et al., 1982), and (mini- mafrost, to the subsequent (Flandrian) transgression. -
Argaric Sociology: Sex and Death
Argaric Sociology: Sex and Death Sociología argárica: sexo y muerte Vicente Lull*, Rafael Micó**, Cristina Rihuete Herrada***, Roberto Risch**** * Department of Prehistory, Autonomous University of Barcelona [email protected] ** Department of Prehistory, Autonomous University of Barcelona [email protected] *** Department of Prehistory, Autonomous University of Barcelona [email protected] **** Department of Prehistory, Autonomous University of Barcelona [email protected] Recibido: 11-04-2016 Aceptado: 14-07-2016 Abstract The detailed, rich and diverse Argaric funerary record offers an opportunity to explore social dimensions that usually remain elusive for prehistoric research, such us social rules on kinship rights and obligations, sexual tolerance and the role of funerary practices in preserving the economic and political organization. This paper addresses these topics through an analysis of the social meaning of Argaric double tombs by looking at body treatment and composition of grave goods assemblages according to gender and class affiliation. The Argaric seems to have been a conservative society, scarcely tolerant regarding homosexuality, and willing to celebrate ancestry associated to certain places as a means of asserting residence and property rights. Keywords: Burial, El Argar, Double Tombs, Social Organization. Resumen La variedad, abundancia y detalle del registro funerario argárico permite explorar aspectos por lo general vedados a la investigación de las sociedades prehistóricas. Las normas sociales sobre la distribución de obligaciones y derechos según el parentesco, la permisividad respecto a las relaciones sexuales y el papel de las prácticas funerarias en el man- tenimiento de la organización económico-política son algunos de dichos aspectos. En este artículo se propone un acer- camiento a los mismos mediante un análisis del significado social de las tumbas dobles argáricas, la composición de los ajuares según el sexo y la clase social del individuo inhumado, así como el tratamiento y disposición de los cadáveres. -
Was Agriculture Impossible During the Pleistocene but Mandatory During the Holocene? a Climate Change Hypothesis Author(S): Peter J
Society for American Archaeology Was Agriculture Impossible during the Pleistocene but Mandatory during the Holocene? A Climate Change Hypothesis Author(s): Peter J. Richerson, Robert Boyd, Robert L. Bettinger Source: American Antiquity, Vol. 66, No. 3 (Jul., 2001), pp. 387-411 Published by: Society for American Archaeology Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2694241 Accessed: 28/11/2010 19:40 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=sam. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Society for American Archaeology is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Antiquity.