Reports on Completed Research For 2018 “Supporting worldwide research in all branches of Anthropology” REPORTS ON COMPLETED RESEARCH The following research projects, supported by Foundation grants, were reported as complete during 2018. The reports are listed by subdiscipline, then geographic area (where applicable) and in alphabetical order. A Bibliography of Publications resulting from Foundation- supported research (reported over the same period) follows, along with an Index of Grantees Reporting Completed Research. ARCHAEOLOGY Africa: DR. BENJAMIN R. COLLINS, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa, was awarded a grant in October 2015 to aid research on “Late MIS 3 Behavioral Diversity: The View from Grassridge Rockshelter, Eastern Cape, South Africa.” The Grassridge Archaeological and Palaeoenvironmental Project (GAPP) contributes to understanding how hunter-gatherers adapted to periods of rapid and unpredictable climate change during the past 50,000 years. Specifically, GAPP focuses on excavation and research at Grassridge Rockshelter, located in the understudied interior grasslands of southern Africa, to explore the changing nature of social landscapes during this period through comparative studies of technological strategies, subsistence strategies, and other cultural behaviors. Recent excavations at Grassridge have produced a rich cultural record of hunter-gatherer life at the site ~40,000 to 35,000 years ago, which provides insight into the production of stone tools for hunting, the use of local plants for bedding and matting, and the use of ochre. This research suggests that the hunter-gatherers at Grassridge were well-adapted to their local environment, and that their particular suite of adaptive strategies may have differed from hunter-gatherer groups in other regions of southern Africa. In this respect, and considering the strong evidence for diverse behavioral strategies in southern Africa from ~50,000 to 25,000 years ago, this research offers tentative support for a socially fragmented landscape during this period. ALISON F. MELVILLE, then a graduate student at University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, received a grant in October 2016 to aid research on “Structure and Variability in Lithic Technology in the East African Middle Stone Age,” supervised by Dr. Daniel Adler. Hominin populations during the African Middle Stone Age (MSA) exhibit an unprecedented range of technological and behavioral variability. This period also spans the origin of our species and our dispersals within and out of Africa. The MSA of East Africa, however, appears to lack the distinct, temporally constrained techno-cultural patterning present in South Africa. Spatial and temporal patterns are instead ambiguous or overly generalized, as are explanations of the mechanisms that underlie the observed variability. This dissertation quantitatively tests for patterning in the East African MSA using multivariate analyses of lithic attribute data. Data were collected from fourteen open-air assemblages in Kenya and Ethiopia representing varied raw materials and paleo-environments. Multivariate statistical analysis grounded in robust middle-range theory can identify clusters of knapping decisions that structure lithic variability in the MSA. The project also explores underlying drivers shaping this variability-cultural transmission and drift, environment, raw material, and reduction intensity. Cultural transmission of lithic behaviors can act as a proxy for the degree of social interaction between Pleistocene groups. By incorporating cultural transmission in systematic tests of lithic variability, this dissertation will result in more comprehensive 2 understanding of technological flexibility and the evolutionary relationships of MSA hominins. DR. THOMAS PLUMMER, City University of New York, Queen’s College, New York, New York, received funding in April 2017 to aid research on “Excavation of 2.7-2.5 Million Year Old Oldowan Archaeological Sites at Nyayanga, Kenya.” Research at the ca. 2.6 Ma Oldowan locality of Nyayanga had two primary goals, both of which were met. The first was to expand the excavated sample of stone tools and fauna to elucidate the overall adaptive significance of early Oldowan technology at the locality, by reconstructing the habitats artifacts were deposited in, lithic transport dynamics, and the functions of early stone tools. The second was to work with farmers bordering the gully system to protect the sites from destruction by erosion and human activity. Three excavations (Excavations 3, 5 and 6) recovered well- preserved fossils in direct association with stone tools, including a hippopotamus skeleton in Excavation 3. Bones with stone tool damage have been found on the surface and appear to be present in the unprepared bones in the excavated sample. The repeated association of megafauna and stone tools is striking, and may indicate that hominins were having at least occasional access to large quantities of meat. Nyayanga has provided the only hominin fossils (a surface collected Paranthropus tooth, and a partial hominin tooth found in situ in Excavation 3) from the Homa Peninsula. The latter hominin is the oldest in direct spatial association with stone tools. DR. ANDREW ZIPKIN, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, received funding in April 2016 to aid research on “The Ethno-Archaeometry of Ochre Source Exploitation Practices in Kenya.” Humans have used ochre mineral pigments for symbolic expression for hundreds of thousands of years. This work bridged archaeology, ethnography, and geochemistry to investigate ochre use in Stone Age and present-day Kenya. In 2015 and 2016, Maasai and Samburu guides identified traditionally used ochre deposits, and rock art sites with images painted using ochre from known sources. Previously unrecorded Maa language terms for ochre, and information about criteria for pigment selection, techniques of pigment preparation, and symbolism associated with ochre sources, were collected. This project primarily focused on refining multiple minimally destructive chemical techniques for determining the geologic source of ochre artifacts. Sourcing studies of ochre are a young area of research with great potential for investigating the object biography of pigment artifacts and place biography of rock art sites. An ochre source reference collection of elemental “fingerprints” for over 40 Kenyan deposits was constructed and it was determined that all sources can be divided into two major groups on the basis of just two elements. Case studies of Middle and Later Stone Age, and Neolithic, archaeological ochre from the sites of Olorgesailie, Ol Tepesi Rockshelter, and Njoro River Cave demonstrated the feasibility of regional and local scale ochre sourcing. Asia and the Near East: KELLY WILCOX BLACK, then a graduate student at University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, received funding in April 2017 to aid research on “Excavating the Deep History of Environmental Degradation: Animal Husbandry and the Environmental Impacts of Livestock Grazing throughout Pre and Early Historic South India,” supervised by Dr. Kathleen Morrison. This research provides a long-term perspective on the environmental impacts of livestock grazing through a study of animal husbandry throughout South India’s pre and early history. This research used faunal analysis to reconstruct human-animal relationships and 3 modes of animal-based subsistence practices throughout the Neolithic (3000-1200BCE), Iron Age (1200BCE-500BCE), and Early Historic (500BCE-300CE) periods. Specifically, it explored how pastoral production intensified throughout these periods. Next, this research used dental microwear data to establish if livestock fed on overgrazed pastures. Preliminary results suggest dairy production intensified during the Iron Age and contributed to periods of overgrazing. However, by the Early Historic period, it appears herd animals were brought to more distant pastures, a practice that potentially alleviated problems related to overgrazing. The shift to an increasingly mobile herding strategy appears to have been informed by issues related to animal health, environmental conditions, as well as how to manage other forms of intensified land use. The results of this research highlight the complexities of human-land- animal interactions and ultimately provides a deeper context for examining the specific effects of livestock grazing, providing historical insights into present day environmental concerns. XIMENA LEMOINE, then a graduate student at Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, was awarded funding in April 2017 to aid research on “Pigs in the Neolithic North China: Domestication in the Context of Diversity and Regional Expression,” supervised by Dr. Xinyi Liu. This archaeological research project examines developing human-pig relationships during the early Neolithic in one center for the origins of pig domestication: north China. A notable diversity of pig-human domestic partnerships makes this animal a fitting model to begin to understand the contexts of human behavior out of which domestic partnerships developed. Through age and sex demographic reconstruction and stable isotopic analysis of pig populations from northern Chinese sites, this research identifies the strategies early sedentary communities used to acquire pig resources and evaluates the total range of diversity within those strategies through space and time. The project creates an account of the existing variation of early human-pig relationships