The ecological context of the Acheulean to Middle Stone Age transition in Africa

The ecological context of the Acheulean to Middle Stone Age transition in Africa PDF Author: Catherine Marie Haradon
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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The ecological context of the Acheulean to Middle Stone Age transition in Africa

The ecological context of the Acheulean to Middle Stone Age transition in Africa PDF Author: Catherine Marie Haradon
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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The Middle Stone Age of Nigeria in its West African Context

The Middle Stone Age of Nigeria in its West African Context PDF Author: Philip Allsworth-Jones
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1789691397
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
A fully up-to-date account of the evidence relating to the Middle Stone Age in Nigeria and the other countries of West Africa, based upon the author’s own fieldwork and extensive personal knowledge of the region and its archaeology.

Before Modern Humans

Before Modern Humans PDF Author: Grant S. McCall
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000158012
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 587

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Book Description
This fascinating volume, assessing Lower and Middle Pleistocene African prehistory, argues that the onset of the Middle Stone Age marks the origins of landscape use patterns resembling those of modern human foragers. Inaugurating a paradigm shift in our understanding of modern human behavior, Grant McCall argues that this transition—related to the origins of “home base” residential site use—occurred in mosaic fashion over the course of hundreds of thousands of years. He concludes by proposing a model of brain evolution driven by increasing subsistence diversity and intensity against the backdrop of larger populations and Pleistocene environmental unpredictability. McCall argues that human brain size did not arise to support the complex patterns of social behavior that pervade our lives today, but instead large human brains were co-opted for these purposes relatively late in prehistory, accounting for the striking archaeological record of the Upper Pleistocene.

The Acheulian to Middle Stone Age Transition

The Acheulian to Middle Stone Age Transition PDF Author: Christian Alexander Tryon
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Acheulian culture
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Understanding Climate's Influence on Human Evolution

Understanding Climate's Influence on Human Evolution PDF Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309148383
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
The hominin fossil record documents a history of critical evolutionary events that have ultimately shaped and defined what it means to be human, including the origins of bipedalism; the emergence of our genus Homo; the first use of stone tools; increases in brain size; and the emergence of Homo sapiens, tools, and culture. The Earth's geological record suggests that some evolutionary events were coincident with substantial changes in African and Eurasian climate, raising the possibility that critical junctures in human evolution and behavioral development may have been affected by the environmental characteristics of the areas where hominins evolved. Understanding Climate's Change on Human Evolution explores the opportunities of using scientific research to improve our understanding of how climate may have helped shape our species. Improved climate records for specific regions will be required before it is possible to evaluate how critical resources for hominins, especially water and vegetation, would have been distributed on the landscape during key intervals of hominin history. Existing records contain substantial temporal gaps. The book's initiatives are presented in two major research themes: first, determining the impacts of climate change and climate variability on human evolution and dispersal; and second, integrating climate modeling, environmental records, and biotic responses. Understanding Climate's Change on Human Evolution suggests a new scientific program for international climate and human evolution studies that involve an exploration initiative to locate new fossil sites and to broaden the geographic and temporal sampling of the fossil and archeological record; a comprehensive and integrative scientific drilling program in lakes, lake bed outcrops, and ocean basins surrounding the regions where hominins evolved and a major investment in climate modeling experiments for key time intervals and regions that are critical to understanding human evolution.

Transitions Before the Transition

Transitions Before the Transition PDF Author: Erella Hovers
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387246614
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
Modern human origins and the fate of the Neanderthals are arguably the most compelling and contentious arenas in paleoanthropology. The much-discussed split between advocates of a single, early emergence of anatomically modern humans in sub-Saharan Africa and supporters of various regional continuity positions is only part of the picture. Equally if not more important are questions surrounding the origins of modern behavior, and the relationships between anatomical and behavioral changes that occurred during the past 200,000 years. Although modern humans as a species may be defined in terms of their skeletal anatomy, it is their behavior, and the social and cognitive structures that support that behavior, which most clearly distinguish Homo sapiens from earlier forms of humans. This book assembles researchers working in Eurasia and Africa to discuss the archaeological record of the Middle Paleolithic and the Middle Stone Age. This is a time period when Homo sapiens last shared the world with other species, and during which patterns of behavior characteristic of modern humans developed and coalesced. Contributions to this volume query and challenge some current notions about the tempo and mode of cultural evolution, and about the processes that underlie the emergence of modern behavior. The papers focus on several fundamental questions. Do typical elements of "modern human behavior" appear suddenly, or are there earlier archaeological precursors of them? Are the archaeological records of the Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age unchanging and monotonous, or are there detectable evolutionary trends within these periods? Coming to diverse conclusions, the papers in this volume open up new avenues to thinking about this crucial interval in human evolutionary history.

Stone Tools and Fossil Bones

Stone Tools and Fossil Bones PDF Author: Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107022924
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 377

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Book Description
International archaeologists examine early Stone Age tools and bones to present the most holistic view to date of the archaeology of human origins.

The Emergence of the Acheulean in East Africa and Beyond

The Emergence of the Acheulean in East Africa and Beyond PDF Author: Rosalia Gallotti
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 331975985X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
This edited volume presents current archaeological research and data from the major early Acheulean sites in East Africa, and addresses three main areas of focus; 1) the tempo and mode of technological changes that led to the emergence of the Acheulean in East Africa; 2) new approaches to lithic collections, including lithic technology analyses; and 3) the debated coexistence of the Developed Oldowan and the early Acheulean. The chapters are the proceedings from the workshop titled “The Emergence of the Acheulean in East Africa”, held at University of Rome “La Sapienza” on September 12–13, 2013. The aim of the workshop was to bring together researchers currently working in this field in East Africa, in order to define the characteristics and the evolution of the early Acheulean. The volume was expanded with some chapters on the preceding Oldowan, on the African fauna and on paleovegetation, on the Acheulean in Asia and, eventually, on the Acheulean in Europe. The book is addressed to the scientific community, and will be of interest to researchers, graduate students, archaeologists, paleontologists, and paleoanthropologists. This volume is dedicated to the memory of Jean Chavaillon (March 25, 1925 - December 21, 2013), the leading archaeologist and Quaternary geologist who researched with unfailing enthusiasm the earliest human cultures and directed from 1965 to 1995 the French Archaeological Mission at Melka Kunture.

African Paleoecology and Human Evolution

African Paleoecology and Human Evolution PDF Author: Sally C. Reynolds
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107074037
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 597

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Book Description
A comprehensive account of hominin fossil sites across Africa, including the environmental and ecological evidence central to our understanding of human evolution.

The Middle Stone Age of Zambia, South Central Africa

The Middle Stone Age of Zambia, South Central Africa PDF Author: Lawrence Barham
Publisher: Western Acad & Specialist PressLtd
ISBN: 9780953541867
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 303

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Book Description
A detailed study of prehistoric sequences in south central Africa, largely based around the results of investigations at the sites of Mumbwa and Twin Rivers, excavated in 1993-96 and 1999. An introductory chapter provides the background context to the prehistory of Zambia followed by studies of the Mumbwa Caves and their chronology, faunal, micro-fauna and human remains, ecological and environmental evidence. These sites are seen as representative of the wider region and attest to a long sequence of prehistoric cultural deposits.