The Shuidonggou site complex: new excavations and implications for the earliest Late Paleolithic in North China

The initial Late Paleolithic, said to appear between 40 and 30 kya in eastern Asia, is defined by the appearance of many innovations. These archaeological indicators include the appearance of more refined stone tool making techniques (e.g., include the appearance of blade and microblade technology), complex hearth construction, use of pigments and personal ornamentation, as well as worked faunal implements such as bone and antler tools. We report here new findings from a multidisciplinary research project conducted at the Shuidonggou (Choei-tong-keou) site complex in northern China, a series of localities that date from the initial Late Paleolithic to the Neolithic.     

From riches to rags: organic deterioration at Star Carr

The 11,000-year old lake edge archaeological site of Star Carr in the Vale of Pickering of North Yorkshire is one of the most famous Mesolithic sites in Europe, and one of the earliest, dated to the period of climatic warming that immediately followed the final termination of the last ice age. One of the main reasons for this international importance is the richness of its organic artefacts, faunal assemblage and environmental data. However, recent investigations have demonstrated that these organic remains have severely deteriorated over the last 60 years due to the decay and acidification of the surrounding peat. This paper presents research into the effects on the bone (histological analysis using light and polarising microscopy, and Transmission Electron Microscopy, bulk collagen analysis, and amino acid analysis), antler (visual and metrical analysis, loss on ignition and Scanning Electron Microscopy) and wood (visual analysis, decay assessment tests and Scanning Electron Microscopy).     

A Palaeolithic fishhook made of ivory and the earliest fishhook tradition in Europe

Prehistoric fishhooks have previously been described in northern Europe as being common since the Mesolithic. Here we present a Final Palaeolithic ivory fishhook from the site Wustermark 22 (north-eastern Germany), the raw material of which is about 19,000 years old. Five further fishhooks were discovered in situ at the same site one of which has a calibrated radiocarbon age of about 12,300 years. The tool industries of flint artefacts and bone/antler tools are associated with descendants of the Federmesser-culture and the palynological context indicates a Younger Dryas environment. Wustermark 22 represents the largest collection of Palaeolithic fishhooks so far found at a single European site. A comparison with other sites in Europe, containing Palaeolithic fishhooks suggests that the appearance and development of fishhooks may be associated with a general change in resource availability during the Greenland Interstadial 1 (Bølling/Allerød warming), which is also connected with a change from late Upper Palaeolithic to Final Palaeolithic industries in Northern Central Europe. We conclude that Mesolithic fishhook tradition has its roots in the Final Palaeolithic.     

The Ethnoarchaeology of Reptile Remains at a Lake Turkana Occupation Site, Kenya

The role of reptiles in hominid hunter–gatherer subsistence in Pleistocene Africa has been largely overlooked. This study examines the reptile component of a modern lake shore camp (site 20) assemblage of low archaeological visibility. Site 20, located on the eastern shore of Lake Turkana, has been observed from its creation to burial. The site is an ideal modern analogue for the interpretation of African prehistoric archaeological sites. Patterns of element loss, and patterns of bone modifications, namely burn, cut and slice marks, are examined. From this baseline data, three conclusions are drawn regarding the interpretability of reptile remains found at archaeological lakeside sites: (1) the MNI of crocodile remains at a site is likely to be similar to the original number of individuals which contributed to the deposited assemblage; (2) the MNI estimates of the turtle component will be much less than the original number of individuals in the deposited assemblage; and (3) patterns of bone modifications can be related to hominid food procurement and processing activities.     

Stone Age exploitation of birds on the island of Gotland,Baltic Sea: a taphonomic study of the avifauna on the Neolithic site of Ajvide

We have conducted a detailed taphonomic study of the avifauna of the Pitted Ware culture site of Ajvide on the Island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea, in order to investigate the fowling patterns and the taphonomic history of the bird remains. We have investigated cultural as well as natural modifications on the bird bones, fragmentation and fracture patterns, and performed a systematic surface modification study. No specific area for the deposition of bird remains or specific bird species was identified. All major anatomical parts of birds are present in the assemblage, but there is a dominance of specimens from the wing elements. Traces of cultural modification were observed on the bones, including cut marks, burning, modification (implements, beads, raw material), and gnawing marks. The bone surface modifications and fracture analysis indicate that the majority of the bird bones at Ajvide did not lie on the soil surface for an extended period of time before being deposited in the soil. Dry fractures increase while fresh fractures decrease towards the upper levels of the stratigraphy, indicating more extensive post‐depositional destruction. This may partly be connected to modern agriculture, but also to later use of the settlement area as a burial ground. The Ajvide assemblage contains a variety of birds living in different biotopes. However, bird hunting was mainly focused on sea birds. Auks and ducks are the most common families in the assemblage. We find it likely that the Ajvide hunters conducted organised hunting expeditions to two nearby islands for the hunting of auks, while it was possible to hunt other birds such as ducks closer to the site. The presence of medullary bone and bones from subadult birds indicates a main hunting season in late spring and early summer. However, comparisons with modern migration patterns indicate that hunting may have occurred throughout the year. Of special palaeozoological interest is the find of gannet (Morus bassanus), which apparently in Neolithic times visited the Baltic area more regularly than today. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Were Olduvai Hominins making butchering tools or battering tools? Analysis of a recently excavated lithic assemblage from BK (Bed II,Olduvai Gorge,Tanzania)

A new interpretation of early stone-tool use by hominins at Olduvai depicts them as involved in battering activities (using pounding tools) rather than making cutting butchering tools as is commonly inferred in most other Plio-Pleistocene sites where lithics appear associated to faunal remains. The bulk of this interpretation is based on the recognition of the stigma of percussion activities in anvils and detached by-products. Renewed excavations at BK after more than half a century of the beginning of the digging at the site by M. Leakey have produced a new and unbiased lithic assemblage. The taphonomic study of the faunal assemblage has shown that BK is an anthropogenic site where carcass butchery practices were repeatedly performed over a vast amount of time. The present analysis of the lithic artefacts supports this interpretation by showing that the obtainment of flakes was the principal aim in stone knapping. We argue that a number of technical traits observed in the lithic collection of BK can be best interpreted as the result of bipolar loading rather than the by-products of battering activities. Since BK has provided the second largest collection of hominid-modified bones from Olduvai, it is concluded that detached pieces produced in the course of bipolar reduction might have played an active role in bone modification and that active rather than passive percussion behaviors might have been responsible for the formation of the lithic assemblage. The functionality of the Oldowan stone tools are discussed under the light of the new study.     

AN INTERIM REPORT OF THE STAR CARR MICROWEAR STUDY

Summary. This paper presents some preliminary observations based on the microwear analysis of 173 artefacts from the mesolithic site of Star Carr, near Scarborough, Yorkshire. One hundred discrete and utilized edges were identified by the presence of various microwear traces on 79 of the artefacts belonging to the following general types: scrapers, edge-damaged or marginally retouched blades and flakes, bilaterally backed blades (awls), burins, backed blades, axe resharpening flakes, denticulated or truncated blades and flakes, microliths, and cores. The microwear traces identified on the tools indicates that they were used in a variety of ways in the processing of hide, bone, wood, antler and meat. A comparison of wear-traces and tool shape has shown that there are morphological differences between scrapers used on hide and those used on bone, and also, that edge-damaged or marginally retouched blades were selected for use on the basis of their cross-sectional configuration.     

Assessing the function of early hominin bone tools

Bone tools from early hominin sites in southern Africa continue to intrigue researchers interested in the development of early human technology and cognition. Sterkfontein, Swartkrans and Drimolen have all yielded bone tools dated to between 1 and 2 Mya associated with numerous Paranthropus robustus and few early Homo remains. The bone tools are described by different authors as implements used to excavate tubers from the ground and termites from their nests, work hides and strip bark from trees. The purpose of this research was to develop a more powerful analytical tool for the study and interpretation of bone surface modifications in general, and early hominin bone tool function(s) in particular. We used an optical interferometer to scan the worn areas of a sample of bone tools from Swartkrans and Drimolen, an ethnographic collection of implements used for defleshing marula fruits, and a set used experimentally to excavate in the ground and in termite mounds. The 3D rendering of archaeological and experimental wear patterns better highlights previously described differences between these patterns, and demonstrates the pertinence of this analytical tool to visually discriminating between different bone modifications. Analysis of selected 2D and 3D roughness variables indicates that the wear pattern on the early hominin bone tools from Drimolen is significantly different from that of tuber digging, very similar to termite foraging, and not unlike marula fruit processing. Marked differences are detected between the Swartkrans and Drimolen wear patterns, which suggests that the tools from these sites may have been used with different motions, in contact with abrasive particles of different size, or in different tasks. Principal component analyses conducted on 2D and 3D variables suggest that early hominin bone tools from southern Africa may have been used to forage for termites, extract tubers in a motion parallel to the tool main axis, process fruits and conduct other, as yet unidentified, tasks.     

The Early Middle Pleistocene Site of Gombore II (Melka Kunture,Upper Awash,Ethiopia) and the Issue of Acheulean Bifacial Shaping Strategies

The Gombore II site dates to circa the Brunhes Matuyama Reversal and is one of the Acheulean localities of the Melka Kunture (Upper Awash, Ethiopia) archaeological complex, known since the 1970s. In 2001, this locality was selected as the site for an Open Air Museum and thus excavated. The excavation area has yielded an abundant Acheulean lithic assemblage manufactured on volcanic raw materials in close association with numerous paleontological remains. A technological analysis was carried out on a fraction of the bifacial tools (bifaces and cleavers) which could be temporarily removed from the displayed surface in the museum. This set of artefacts reveals new data about the bifacial shaping strategies adopted at the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene in Ethiopia. The use of obsidian and the systematic manufacturing of twisted bifaces are original features of the assemblage. These data are discussed in the framework of penecontemporaneous East African sites.     

Akhalkalaki: The Taphonomy of An Early Pleistocene Locality in the Republic of Georgia

As part of our investigations into the potential of the Republic of Georgia for providing information on early hominin occupation of Eurasia, we report here on Akhalkalaki, a large late Early Pleistocene locality located along the lower slopes of a Miocene andesitic cone. Originally excavated in the 1950s as a palaeontological site, it was re-opened in the 1990s and stone tools were found associated with the fauna, suggesting that it is also an archaeological occurrence. Excavations in the 1950s and 1990s uncovered thousands of bones of an early Galerian fauna, including the remains of new species of Hippopotamus,Equus , and Canis (Vekua, 1962, 1987) and dominated by the remains of Equus süssenbornensis. We present the stratigraphy of the site, which together with faunal correlations and reversed paleomagnetics indicates an age most likely in the late Matuyama Chron, probably between 980,000 and 780,000 years ago. Taphonomic analysis suggests that the fauna was deposited and buried over a short time period, and was heavily modified by carnivores, but we cannot demonstrate involvement by hominins. Based on evidence of abundant krotovina (animal burrows filled with sediment) and the lack of definitive evidence for hominin modification to the bones, the stone tools at the site may have been mixed in with the older fauna. The taphonomic characteristics of the Akhalkalaki bone assemblage are not readily explained with reference to assemblage formation processes developed with actualistic studies that have been mostly conducted in Africa, including carnivore dens, predator arenas, human hunting and scavenging, mass deaths, or attritional bone deposition. Because of extreme anthropogenic modification of the present environments, the temperate setting, and the presence of mainly extinct taxa, local models based on actualistic studies cannot approximate the mammalian ecology reflected in the Akhalkalaki bone assemblage. A few comparisons are made with preliminary taphonomic observations from Dmanisi, an Early Pleistocene Homo ergaster site not far away.     

Changing patterns of carnivore modification in a landscape bone assemblage, Amboseli Park, Kenya

This study compares the landscape-scale taphonomic signal of carnivore modification to the surficial bone assemblage in Amboseli Park, Kenya as it was in 1975 and 2002–2004. Change in predator abundances over time provides a means of assessing the taphonomic signal of carnivore-mediated bone consumption and destruction under differing ecological conditions and varying levels of conspecific competition for resources. The landscape assemblage indicates taxonomic variation in the patterning of carnivore modification to ungulates of different size classes as well as within equivalent size classes. Analyses of long bone elements indicate that the differential destruction of limb ends and the strength of the correlation between limb end abundance and bone mineral density provide an indication of the intensity of carnivore modification to a faunal assemblage. The ability to infer levels of carnivore modification based on limb elements can provide faunal analysts with the tools to determine whether the taphonomic signals in the fossil record relate to carnivore modification, hominin transport of appendicular elements, or both.     

Middle Stone Age bone tools from the Howiesons Poort layers,Sibudu Cave,South Africa

Recently discovered bone implements from Middle Stone Age (MSA) deposits at Sibudu Cave, South Africa, confirm the existence of a bone tool industry for the Howiesons Poort (HP) technocomplex. Previously, an isolated bone point from Klasies River provided inconclusive evidence. This paper describes three bone tools: two points and the end of a polished spatula-shaped piece, from unequivocal HP layers at Sibudu Cave (with ages greater than ∼61 ka). Comparative microscopic and morphometric analysis of the Sibudu specimens together with bone tools from southern African Middle and Later Stone Age (LSA) deposits, an Iron Age occupation, nineteenth century Bushman hunter-gatherer toolkits, and bone tools used experimentally in a variety of tasks, reveals that the Sibudu polished piece has use-wear reminiscent of that on bones experimentally used to work animal hides. A slender point is consistent with a pin or needle-like implement, while a larger point, reminiscent of the single specimen from Peers Cave, parallels large un-poisoned bone arrow points from LSA, Iron Age and historical Bushman sites. Additional support for the Sibudu point having served as an arrow tip comes from backed lithics in the HP compatible with this use, and the recovery of older, larger bone and lithic points from Blombos Cave, interpreted as spear heads. If the bone point from the HP layers at Sibudu Cave is substantiated by future discoveries, this will push back the origin of bow and bone arrow technology by at least 20,000 years, and corroborate arguments in favour of the hypothesis that crucial technological innovations took place during the MSA in Africa.     

Investigating experimental knapping damage on an antler hammer: a pilot-study using high-resolution imaging and analytical techniques

Organic (bone, antler, wood) knapping tools were undoubtedly a component of early human tool kits since the Lower Palaeolithic. Previous studies have identified pitting and the occasional presence of embedded flint flakes as important features for recognizing archaeological bone and antler percussors. However, no systematic protocol of analysis has been suggested for the study of this rare archaeological material. Here we present qualitative and quantitative results of a preliminary analysis of an experimental knapping hammer, using a novel combination of microscopy (focus variation optical microscope and scanning electron microscope), micro-CT scanning and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. These imaging and analytical techniques are used to characterize use-damage from the manufacture of handaxes. This paper highlights the strengths and weakness of each technique. Use-wear on the working area included attritional bone loss, micro-striations and compaction of the outer layer of the antler matrix from repeated hitting of the beam against the sharp edge of the handaxe during knapping. Embedded flint flakes were also identified in the pits and grooves. This combination of high-resolution imaging techniques is applicable to fragile archaeological specimens, including those encrusted by sediment or encased in matrix.     

Functionality and Morphology: Identifying <Emphasis Type="Italic">Si</Emphasis> Agricultural Tools from Among Hemudu Scapular Implements in Eastern China

Most Chinese archaeologists assume that the scapular implements used in the Hemudu culture in eastern China (7000–5000 BP) were the si agricultural implements (tools for breaking ground and turning soils over to assist in seeding) recorded in ancient Chinese literatures and, accordingly, assume the Hemudu culture was a farming society. However, ethnographic and historical literatures worldwide have suggested inconclusive functions for similar implements. We conducted a range of experiments under realistic conditions, including hide and plant processing and earth-working, followed by use-wear analysis, to identify the functions of the Hemudu scapular implements. The results suggest that no more than half of the implements were employed as si and that their penetrability and durability were rather limited. These findings help explain why Hemudu should not be labeled as a farming society. Through experimentation and use-wear analysis, we produced relatively large datasets that make a significant contribution to the identification of soil-derived wear patterns on bone tools. We also included quantitative measurements of soil properties to ensure similarities in use contexts between our experimental and archaeological analogies in order to reach reliable functional identifications. Our approaches and results, therefore, provided a solid base for re-evaluating previous research as well as building a standardized database of scientific value for future evaluation and adjustment, even if that future research is done in isolation and in different soil contexts.     

Reconsidering Raw Material Selection

Raw material selection is an essential facet of technological decision making. This analysis moves beyond more typical lithic studies, investigating links between raw material selection and practical tool function by integrating data from materials science and ethnohistory with an analysis of bone and antler tools. A case study of skeletal technologies from the Alaskan subarctic offers a fresh perspective on technological strategies, especially the selection of highly durable (fracture resistant) skeletal materials to create reliable tools for use in high-risk foraging contexts.     

Microwear study of quartzite artefacts: preliminary results from the Middle Pleistocene site of Payre (South-eastern France)

Preliminary functional results obtained from the quartzite assemblage of the Early Middle Palaeolithic site of Payre (South-eastern France) are presented. In an area rich in flint, hominins at Payre also collected quartzite in their local environment, specifically along the Rhône River banks. Although the Payre lithic assemblage is largely composed of flint, quartzite was introduced in the site mainly as large cutting tools knapped outside. This fact pointed out an apparently highly differential treatment of the raw material types available in the region. A major concern is to understand the reason why. Is there any functional reason for the introduction of those artefacts, perhaps to perform specific activities related to the toughness of quartzite? Or is there any functional differentiation among the various raw materials? Use-wear analysis is a useful tool for better understanding human technological choices and strategies of lithic raw material management. Before attempting to extensively apply use-wear analysis on the quartzite assemblage, we analysed a limited sample to evaluate the general surface preservation. A specific experimental programme with the same local quartzite was carried out in order to provide a reliable comparative reference for interpreting use-wear evidence on archaeological implements. Methodological difficulties related to use-wear analysis applied to quartzite artefacts are also discussed. Both Optical light microscopy (OLM) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) were employed in this study; however, interpretations were elaborated considering principally SEM micro-graphs.The analysis of the archaeological material showed a good state of preservation of the surfaces with a low incidence of post-depositional alterations. The documented use-wear allowed us to identify the active edges, the kinematics and, more rarely, the worked material. Chopping activities were documented on two large artefacts suggesting a specific utility of those tools.     

Early Specialized Production? A Chalcolithic Stone Bracelet Workshop at Kanlitaş, Turkey

An assemblage of marble bracelets, at various stages of manufacture, recovered during surface survey of the site of Kanl?ta? in Turkey, indicates that there was specialized production activity at the site during the Chalcolithic period. In this article we present the assemblage, evidence about material procurement, technology and manufacturing processes. We discuss the significance of the assemblage in relation to other sites in the area and as an example of production intended for inter‐site trade or exchange. We also address the wider issues of both the production of stone bracelets as a widespread practice in Anatolia from the Neolithic onwards, and the phenomenon of early specialized production.     

Taphonomy and contextual zooarchaeology in urban deposits at York,UK

Zooarchaeological research on assemblages from deeply stratified sites in historic towns is complicated by the reworking of bones through intercutting and disturbance. Conversely, structural association with buildings and property boundaries may allow detailed spatial analysis, and interpretation at a close contextual level that reveal small details of people’s lives. Five years of excavation at the Hungate site in York has yielded a very large animal bone assemblage ranging from Roman to early modern times. Assessment of this assemblage has focussed on identifying context groups of good integrity and high research value. In this paper, we present preliminary results from Hungate to show the potential of contextual analysis in urban deposits, and the challenge presented by redeposition and time-averaging.