Lithic Technological Organization and Paleoenvironmental Change

Lithic Technological Organization and Paleoenvironmental Change PDF Author: Erick Robinson
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319644076
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
The objective of this edited volume is to bring together a diverse set of analyses to document how small-scale societies responded to paleoenvironmental change based on the evidence of their lithic technologies. The contributions bring together an international forum for interpreting changes in technological organization - embracing a wide range of time periods, geographic regions and methodological approaches.​ ​As technology brings more refined information on ancient climates, the research on spatial and temporal variability of paleoenvironmental changes. In turn, this has also broadened considerations of the many ways that prehistoric hunter-gatherers may have responded to fluctuations in resource bases. From an archaeological perspective, stone tools and their associated debitage provide clues to understanding these past choices and decisions, and help to further the investigation into how variable human responses may have been. Despite significant advances in the theory and methodology of lithic technological analysis, there have been few attempts to link these developments to paleoenvironmental research on a global scale.

Lithic Technological Organization and Paleoenvironmental Change

Lithic Technological Organization and Paleoenvironmental Change PDF Author: Erick Robinson
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319644076
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 344

Get Book Here

Book Description
The objective of this edited volume is to bring together a diverse set of analyses to document how small-scale societies responded to paleoenvironmental change based on the evidence of their lithic technologies. The contributions bring together an international forum for interpreting changes in technological organization - embracing a wide range of time periods, geographic regions and methodological approaches.​ ​As technology brings more refined information on ancient climates, the research on spatial and temporal variability of paleoenvironmental changes. In turn, this has also broadened considerations of the many ways that prehistoric hunter-gatherers may have responded to fluctuations in resource bases. From an archaeological perspective, stone tools and their associated debitage provide clues to understanding these past choices and decisions, and help to further the investigation into how variable human responses may have been. Despite significant advances in the theory and methodology of lithic technological analysis, there have been few attempts to link these developments to paleoenvironmental research on a global scale.

Convergent Evolution in Stone-Tool Technology

Convergent Evolution in Stone-Tool Technology PDF Author: Michael J. O'Brien
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262552086
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Scholars from a variety of disciplines consider cases of convergence in lithic technology, when functional or developmental constraints result in similar forms in independent lineages. Hominins began using stone tools at least 2.6 million years ago, perhaps even 3.4 million years ago. Given the nearly ubiquitous use of stone tools by humans and their ancestors, the study of lithic technology offers an important line of inquiry into questions of evolution and behavior. This book examines convergence in stone tool-making, cases in which functional or developmental constraints result in similar forms in independent lineages. Identifying examples of convergence, and distinguishing convergence from divergence, refutes hypotheses that suggest physical or cultural connection between far-flung prehistoric toolmakers. Employing phylogenetic analysis and stone-tool replication, the contributors show that similarity of tools can be caused by such common constraints as the fracture properties of stone or adaptive challenges rather than such unlikely phenomena as migration of toolmakers over an Arctic ice shelf. Contributors R. Alexander Bentley, Briggs Buchanan, Marcelo Cardillo, Mathieu Charbonneau, Judith Charlin, Chris Clarkson, Loren G. Davis, Metin I. Eren, Peter Hiscock, Thomas A. Jennings, Steven L. Kuhn, Daniel E. Lieberman, George R. McGhee, Alex Mackay, Michael J. O'Brien, Charlotte D. Pevny, Ceri Shipton, Ashley M. Smallwood, Heather Smith, Jayne Wilkins, Samuel C. Willis, Nicolas Zayns

Africa from MIS 6-2

Africa from MIS 6-2 PDF Author: Sacha C. Jones
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9401775206
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 419

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Book Description
Bringing together archaeological, paleoenvironmental, paleontological and genetic data, this book makes a first attempt to reconstruct African population histories from out species' evolution to the Holocene. Africa during Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 6 to 2 (~190-12,000 years ago) witnessed the biological development and behavioral florescence of our species. Modern human population dynamics, which involved multiple population expansions, dispersals, contractions and extinctions, played a central role in our species’ evolutionary trajectory. So far, the demographic processes – modern human population sizes, distributions and movements – that occurred within Africa during this critical period have been consistently under-addressed. The authors of this volume aim at (1) examining the impact of this glacial-interglacial- glacial cycle on human group sizes, movements and distributions throughout Africa; (2) investigating the macro- and micro-evolutionary processes underpinning our species’ anatomical and behavioral evolution; and (3) setting an agenda whereby Africa can benefit from, and eventually contribute to, the increasingly sophisticated theoretical and methodological palaeodemographic frameworks developed on other continents.

The Evolution of Paleolithic Technologies

The Evolution of Paleolithic Technologies PDF Author: Steven L. Kuhn
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317281764
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 587

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Book Description
The Evolution of Paleolithic Technologies provides a novel perspective on long-term trajectories of evolutionary change in Paleolithic tools and tool-makers. Members of the human lineage have been producing stone tools for more than 3 million years. These artefacts provide key evidence for important evolutionary developments in hominin behaviour and cognition. Avoiding conventional approaches based on progressive stages of development, this book instead examines global trends in six separate dimensions of technological behaviour between 2.6 million and 10,000 years ago. Combining these independent trends results in both a broader and a more finely punctuated perspective on key intervals of change in hominin behaviour. To draw this picture together, the concluding section explores behavioural, cognitive, and demographic implications of developments in material culture and technological procedures at seven key intervals during the Pleistocene. Researchers interested in Paleolithic archaeology will find this book invaluable. It will also be of interest to archaeologists researching stone tool technology and to students of human evolution and behavioural change in prehistory.

Handbook of Paleoanthropology

Handbook of Paleoanthropology PDF Author: Winfried Henke
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3540324747
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 2057

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Book Description
This 3-volume handbook brings together contributions by the world ́s leading specialists that reflect the broad spectrum of modern palaeoanthropology, thus presenting an indispensable resource for professionals and students alike. Vol. 1 reviews principles, methods, and approaches, recounting recent advances and state-of-the-art knowledge in phylogenetic analysis, palaeoecology and evolutionary theory and philosophy. Vol. 2 examines primate origins, evolution, behaviour, and adaptive variety, emphasizing integration of fossil data with contemporary knowledge of the behaviour and ecology of living primates in natural environments. Vol. 3 deals with fossil and molecular evidence for the evolution of Homo sapiens and its fossil relatives.

Hofmeyr

Hofmeyr PDF Author: Frederick E. Grine
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031074262
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
This edited volume provides the historical and geological background, as well as the details pertaining to the morphology and morphometric assessments, of a singular human cranial specimen from the Late Pleistocene discovered in Hofmeyr, South Africa. The chapters are divided into 4 main sections. Section 1 discusses the discovery and historical context of the skull, while section 2 addresses its geological and geochronological contexts through dating and stable isotope analyses. Section 3 details the general morphological and morphometric analyses (description, 3-D reconstruction, morphological comparisons), and section 4 details the specific morphological analyses performed (inner ear, dentition, endocranial morphology and size). The volume will be of interest to professional and student paleoanthropologists interested in the later phases of human evolution.

Calcretes

Calcretes PDF Author: V. Paul Wright
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 144430450X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
Calcretes are an important component of many ancient fluvial, lacustrine and shallow-marine carbonate sequences, and they are widely developed in many parts of the world at the present time. Calcretes are useful to the earth scientist involved in reconstructing ancient environments, palaeoclimates and palaeographics, and they may also reveal details of soil biota and chemistry. Over the last two decades the journal Sedimentology has published a number of articles on this subject and a compilation of them is presented here. In addition to the five main sections, this volume also includes an introduction to the subject that offers a review of recent work on calcretes. The collection of papers illustrates the range of calcrete occurrences and the great variety of textures and fabrics. This volume is authored and edited by experts and will serve as more than an introduction to the subject for geologists, soil scientists and geographers. If you are a member of the International Association of Sedimentologists, for purchasing details, please see: http://www.iasnet.org/publications/details.asp?code=RP2

The Oxford Handbook of African Archaeology

The Oxford Handbook of African Archaeology PDF Author: Peter Mitchell
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191626147
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1077

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Book Description
Africa has the longest and arguably the most diverse archaeological record of any of the continents. It is where the human lineage first evolved and from where Homo sapiens spread across the rest of the world. Later, it witnessed novel experiments in food-production and unique trajectories to urbanism and the organisation of large communities that were not always structured along strictly hierarchical lines. Millennia of engagement with societies in other parts of the world confirm Africa's active participation in the construction of the modern world, while the richness of its history, ethnography, and linguistics provide unusually powerful opportunities for constructing interdisciplinary narratives of Africa's past. This Handbook provides a comprehensive and up-to-date synthesis of African archaeology, covering the entirety of the continent's past from the beginnings of human evolution to the archaeological legacy of European colonialism. As well as covering almost all periods and regions of the continent, it includes a mixture of key methodological and theoretical issues and debates, and situates the subject's contemporary practice within the discipline's history and the infrastructural challenges now facing its practitioners. Bringing together essays on all these themes from over seventy contributors, many of them living and working in Africa, it offers a highly accessible, contemporary account of the subject for use by scholars and students of not only archaeology, but also history, anthropology, and other disciplines.

The Archaeology of Southern Africa

The Archaeology of Southern Africa PDF Author: Peter Mitchell
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521633895
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 536

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Book Description
This book provides an archaeological synthesis of Southern Africa.

Human Beginnings in South Africa

Human Beginnings in South Africa PDF Author: H. J. Deacon
Publisher: New Africa Books
ISBN: 9780864864178
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
The Stone Age is now beginning to be recognised as vital in establishing who we are and where we have come from. This period has long been neglected.