European Neanderthal stone hunting weapons reveal complex behaviour long before the appearance of modern humans

Stone weapon points constitute a major innovation appearing at the end of the Middle Pleistocene in Europe, Africa and the Near East; that is, among both sapiens and Neanderthal populations. The microscopic analysis of the stone weapons used by Neanderthal groups in Atlantic southern Europe suggests that this technology was widespread and became a recurrent behaviour within organised strategies developed by these societies. In this southern region of Europe, stone weapon hunting technology appears at an early time (about 150 ka, OIS 6) and is associated with the hunting of large mammals. This behaviour can be recognised in a geomorphologically complex region and at a time of great environmental change (OIS 6–5–4). The fact that these innovations were used by European Neanderthals long before the spread of anatomically modern humans in the area is of great evolutionary significance.     

The emergence of status inequality in intermediate scale societies: A demographic and socio-economic history of the Keatley Creek site,British Columbia

Explaining the emergence of status inequality in human societies is an important priority for many anthropological archaeologists, particularly those whose research includes intermediate scale societies (complex hunter–gatherers and early agriculturalists). Yet, fine grained records of emergent inequality are still exceedingly rare. This paper outlines a fine-grained record of cultural change from the Keatley Creek site, a complex hunter–gatherer village in British Columbia, in which it is possible to recognize the emergence of inequality and its demographic and economic correlates. Results of the study suggest that status inequality emerged abruptly after an extended period of socio-economic stability in the village under conditions of adversely altered resource conditions, demographic packing, and subsistence resource diversification and extensification.     

Reconstructing prehistoric hunter–gatherer foraging radii: a case study from California's southern Sierra Nevada

The concept of the foraging radius is essential to understanding hunter–gatherer settlement, subsistence, and sociocultural complexity yet is notoriously difficult to reconstruct archaeologically. Late prehistoric Western Mono foraging radii in the southern Sierra Nevada were reconstructed using GIS analysis of least-cost path distances between dispersed caching features and centralized residential features. Mean distances from settlements to caches exhibit a bimodal distribution, with peaks between 0.5 and 5.0 km, and 6.0 and 8.5 km, the former representing a caching limit and the latter a foraging limit around major settlements. Combined, these data demarcate a two-part foraging radius predicated not only on sustaining winter group aggregations but also on facilitating spring and summer residential moves. These results show the efficacy of using features and simple GIS-based spatial analyses to reconstruct prehistoric foraging radii and provide the means to model the energetics of different foraging behaviors, these speaking strongly to the social and economic factors conditioning the development of complex hunter–gatherer societies.     

Craniometric evidence for South African Later Stone Age herders and hunter–gatherers being a single biological population

Later Stone Age (LSA) hunter–gatherers and herders co-existed in South Africa during the last 2000 years. In spite of being the focus of intensive research over the years, the biological status and origins of the herders are still unclear. Did they represent a genetically distinct immigrant population who remained separate from the indigenous hunter–gatherers, or where they indigenous hunter–gatherers who took up herding after contact with herders, probably in northern Botswana? Here, this issue is investigated using craniometric data collected on a large sample of individually dated human crania from coastal LSA context. Mahalanobis distances (D), calculated from the raw metric data, show that there was a small increase in inter-individual craniofacial variation after the introduction of herding at ca. 2000 BP. Here it is argued that this small increase in variation is neither consistent with a large-scale immigration of genetically distinct herders into South Africa, or the long-term co-existence of two genetically distinct populations. Two alternative explanations fit the data better: (1) herding entered South Africa via the small-scale immigration of genetically distinct herders; and (2) local hunter–gatherer populations adopted herding after coming in contact with herders in northern Botswana. While small-scale immigration would not have had a major influence on the local gene pool, it would have increased variation to some extent as immigrants mixed with local populations. If small-scale external gene flow was not a factor in the introduction of herding, secular issues related to the introduction of herding could explain the increased variation in post-2000 BP populations.     

Hunter–gatherer responses to environmental change during the Pleistocene–Holocene transition in the southern North Sea basin: Final Palaeolithic–Final Mesolithic land use in northwest Belgium

Situated along the southern fringe of the North Sea basin, northwest Belgium holds great potential for understanding hunter–gatherer responses to environmental change at the Pleistocene–Holocene transition. Recent intensive fieldwork has yielded valuable data on the palaeoenvironment, chronology, and hunter–gatherer mobility and land use in this region. At the Late Glacial/Early Holocene transition this region was comprised of a landscape of coversand ridges and lakes that flanked the northern part of the Scheldt river basin. This landscape was highly productive for hunter–gatherer populations. As the landscape developed in response to the increasing water table caused by the inundation of the North Sea populations responded by changing their forms of mobility and land use. These changes are indicated by the reduction in the number and density of sites, as well as their geographical settings, from the Late Glacial (Federmesser) and Early Mesolithic to the Middle-Final Mesolithic. Late Glacial/Early Mesolithic sites indicate much higher mobility comprised of rapid displacements of camps and re-occupation of the same coversand ridges over long time-spans. Middle/Late Mesolithic sites indicate a reduction in mobility, increasing focus on prolonged riverside settlement, and a more rigid organization of residential sites.     

Forager–farmer connections in an ‘unoccupied’ land: First contact on the western edge of LBK territory

The interaction between local foragers and incoming farmers is one of the hot topics in the study of Europe’s recent prehistory. In Central and Western Europe’s loam region, occupied by the first farmers of the Linearbandkeramik (LBK), hunter–gatherer remains are scarce and consist mostly of surface finds. Hence, the hunter–gatherer occupation and activity on the loess has never been studied in detail. This paper tackles the problem of the visibility of hunter–gatherer activity on the loess belt. An interregional comparison of microlith datasets allows identifying behavioural changes and differences in exploitation intensity. With regard to forager–farmer interaction, a mutual influence in the spatial patterning of activity or settlement is demonstrated.     

GIS-based methodology for Palaeolithic site location preferences analysis. A case study from Late Palaeolithic Cantabria (Northern Iberian Peninsula)

Factors involved in the selection of a settlement location are key issues in the understanding of hunter–gatherer subsistence strategies and social organization. Site location preferences are the result of a complex decision-making process, in which both economic and cultural needs are involved. This paper presents a specific methodology for site location analysis, based on the definition and calculation of a series of variables. This methodology, applied to Late Palaeolithic sites from the Cantabrian coast, enables an objective comparison between archaeological sites, and consequently the analysis of settlement patterns of Palaeolithic societies.     

The existence of open areas during the Mesolithic: evidence from aeolian sediments in the Elbe–Jeetzel area,northern Germany

Traditionally Mesolithic hunter–gatherer cultures are supposed to have lived in a primeval forest environment with a closed vegetation cover during the Early and Mid-Holocene. It is not until the onset of subsequent Neolithic agricultural societies that the development of more expansive open areas is assumed. Therefore our perception of the Mesolithic economy in the European lowlands is highly affected by the idaea of adaptation to dense forest environments and a very stable system of resource exploitation. However, recent palaeoenvironmental studies provide evidence that areas of open landscapes must have existed at least temporarily during the Mesolithic and evoke the question whether human impact may be accountable for this.     

Mapungubwe and Great Zimbabwe: The origin and spread of social complexity in southern Africa

Stratified societies in southern Africa first developed in the Shashe–Limpopo Basin. As is well known, rank-based society at K2 developed into class distinction at Mapungubwe. The transfer of this new social organisation to Great Zimbabwe has received less attention. New research on rainmaking practices suggests that a Mapungubwe dynasty introduced class structures at Great Zimbabwe. Poor climatic conditions at the end of the 13th century undermined sacred leaders at Mapungubwe itself, and while vulnerable, the elite at Great Zimbabwe took over the important gold and ivory trade. Among other things, the new elite used the unique Zimbabwe birdstones to establish their legitimacy.     

Hunter–gatherer movement patterns: Causes and constraints

The study of hunter–gatherer mobility patterns is of vital importance to our understanding of the paleolithic archeological record. Such patterns necessarily comprise many interacting locales, and it is at the landscape scale that we should attempt to understand the relationship between ethnographic and archeological data. This paper derives, quantifies and tests a series of basic predictions about the effects of group size, occupation duration and habitat quality on mobility strategies using a substantial ethnographic dataset. The results demonstrate that habitat quality is the best determinant of move distances among hunter–gatherers, but that occupation duration also has an effect among those foragers who rely principally on hunting. It is suggested that three roughly concentric zones, the limit of scatter, the foraging radius, and the logistic radius, are predicted by group size and occupation duration, habitat quality, and proportions of hunting and logistical mobility, respectively. The relevance of these conclusions to more generic ecological theory is discussed in the context of evolutionary forces acting on hunter–gatherer mobility in prehistory.     

Plant exploitation and ethnopalynological evidence from the Wadi Teshuinat area (Tadrart Acacus,Libyan Sahara)

Pollen analyses of 13 archaeological sites in the Wadi Teshuinat area, in southwestern Fezzan, Libya, were synthesised to explore the potential contribution of palynological investigation to archaeological research in this area. During the Holocene, the sites were occupied by pre-Pastoral (hunter–gatherers) and Pastoral (pastoralists) cultures. Different pollen stratigraphies and floras characterised the diverse sites and the relevant cultural phases. Pollen data were reported by discussing the sites separately, and by combining them to interpret the regional data set. Emphasis was made on the anthropogenic pollen indicators and grasses, including large grass pollen grains (>40 μm), which were considered evidence of plant transport into the site. These were ethnobotanical markers, human-made evidence of plant harvesting by hunter–gatherers, or of animal breeding by pastoralists. The disappearance of some wild cereals was also observed, consistent with increasing climate dryness and land exploitation. Macroremains were used as a parallel tool to better understand plant exploitation in the region.     

The Archaeology of the Plateau of Northwestern North America During the Late Prehistoric Period (3500–200 <Emphasis Type="SmallCaps">B.P.</Emphasis>): Evolution of Hunting and Gathering Societies

The Plateau of northwestern North America offers one of the world's most important records of hunter–gatherer cultural diversity and evolutionary process. During the late prehistoric period, Plateau hunter–gatherers participated in a wide variety of mobile and sedentary mobility regimes, maintained diets emphasizing anadromous fish, roots, and larger game animals, and held patterns of social organization spanning egalitarian through ranked societies. In this paper, we provide a broad overview of the final 3500 years of human occupation on the Plateau that includes two primary goals. First, we provide a new chronology of late prehistoric cultural change and stability that integrates data from the Northern or Canadian Plateau and the Southern or Columbia Plateau. Second, we offer new ideas concerning the emergence, dispersal, and diversification of Plateau hunting and gathering societies. We close with recommendations for Plateau archaeology in the 21st century.     

Retention of hunter–gatherer economies among maritime foragers from Caleta Vitor,northern Chile,during the late Holocene: evidence from stable carbon and nitrogen isotopic analysis of skeletal remains

On the basis of stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of human remains, this paper provides evidence for the retention of hunter–gatherer economies among coastal inhabitants in northern Chile during the late Holocene – at the same time that inland populations were adopting agricultural economies. Coastal diets from the Caleta Vitor region of the Atacama Desert were dominated by marine-based foods, predominantly from upper trophic levels. The focus on reliable marine food resources is interpreted as a risk minimisation strategy in this marginal arid environment. Although these coastal hunter–gatherers adopted other goods and traditions from agricultural populations, their participation in this larger interregional exchange network did not affect their basic subsistence economies.     

Cairo to Cape: The Spread of Metallurgy Through Eastern and Southern Africa

This article traces the beginnings of metallurgy in the eastern half of the African continent, focusing on three regions: (1) Egypt and Nubia; (2) the Great Lakes region of Central and East Africa; and (3) southern Africa. Metallurgy was not practiced much beyond the Nile valley until the first millennium BC, when copper, bronze and iron metallurgy began in Ethiopia and Eritrea, and iron metallurgy in the Great Lakes region. The expansion of agricultural societies carried iron metallurgy south, reaching its southern limit in South Africa by c. 300 cal AD. Copper was also smelted in southern Africa, but its use was restricted to pendants, bracelets, wire and other items of jewelry. In stark contrast to the metallurgical sequence in the Nile Valley, there was no production of tin, lead, gold or silver in central or southern Africa before these regions were linked to the Islamic world system after c. 800 AD.     

Complex Hunter–Gatherers in Evolution and History: A North American Perspective

A review of recent research on complex hunter–gatherers in North America suggests that age-old tensions between evolutionary and historical epistemologies continue to cultivate progress in anthropological understanding of sociocultural variation. Coupled with criticism of the evolutionary status of ethnographic foragers, archaeological documentation of variation among hunter–gatherer societies of the ancient past makes it difficult to generalize about causal relationships among environment, subsistence economy, and sociopolitical organization. Explanations for emergent complexity on the Pacific Coast that privilege environmental triggers for economic change have been challenged by new paleoenvironmental findings, while hypotheses suggesting that economic changes were preceded by, indeed caused by, transformations of existing structures of social inequality have gained empirical support. In its emergent data on mound construction apart from significant subsistence change, the southeastern United States gives pause to materialist explanations for complexity, turning the focus on symbolic and structural dimensions of practice that cannot be understood apart from particular histories of group interaction and tradition. Taken together, recent research on complex hunter–gatherers in North America has not only expanded the empirical record of sociocultural formations once deemed anomalous and/or derivative of European contact but also has contributed to the ongoing process of clarifying concepts of cultural complexity and how this process ultimately restructures anthropological theory.     

Radiocarbon chronology and the correlation of hunter–gatherer sociocultural change with abrupt palaeoclimate change: the Middle Mesolithic in the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt area of northwest Europe

Recent refinements in radiocarbon sampling procedures have enabled a more robust absolute chronology for the Mesolithic in the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt area of northwest Europe. These refinements have allowed for a new chronological sub-division of the Early and Middle Mesolithic periods. Results of this research have indicated that the Middle Mesolithic period was bound by two Early Holocene cooling events, one at 9300 cal. BP and the other at 8200 cal. BP. These results enable a critical evaluation of the role of chronological precision in the investigation of contemporaneity between abrupt climate change and hunter–gatherer sociocultural change. In this paper we focus on the variable chronological resolution of the Early to Middle and Middle to Late Mesolithic transitions in the RMS area, and the role of this variable resolution in our ability to investigate the contemporaneity of these two transitions with different Early Holocene abrupt cooling events. This paper highlights two central challenges facing archaeological investigations of the relationships between climate and culture change: first, the requirement of tight chronological overlap between climate and culture change events and consideration of leads and lags in ecosystem and subsequent human responses to climate change; second, the equifinality problem and the separation of the impact of gradual from punctuated environmental change on human societies.     

Oxygen isotopic composition of limpet shells from the Beagle Channel: implications for seasonal studies in shell middens of Tierra del Fuego

Shell middens distributed along the coastal areas of the Beagle Channel (Tierra del Fuego) testify the primary role of marine resources in the successful social dynamic of hunter–gatherer–fisher societies (HGF) in extreme high latitude environmental conditions. Intertidal and subtidal limpet species are frequently identified taxa of these archaeological deposits. We investigated whether shell δ¹⁸O of the limpet species Nacella deaurata is a valuable record of local sea surface temperature (SST) and ambient water δ¹⁸O (δ¹⁸Ow) fluctuations, and in turn can be used to estimate the season of its exploitation by Holocene HGF. Sequential shell δ¹⁸O of modern species track seasonal changes of SST and δ¹⁸Ow. The comparison of shell δ¹⁸O profiles of N. deaurata and Nacella magellanica (a coexisting species) suggests the occurrence of distinct growth rate and physiological adaptations between species. Shell δ¹⁸O of zooarchaeological specimens of N. deaurata from Lanashuaia II suggests that animals were exploited predominantly in winter and that experienced similar environmental conditions of present day at ∼1320 years BP. Results also indicate that N. deaurata is a valuable candidate for studying past seasonal changes in SST and δ¹⁸Ow in this southernmost part of South America.     

Political economic reorganization among non-state societies: A case study using Middle Holocene mortuary data from the Cis-Baikal,Russia

The extraordinary record of prehistoric funeral activities in Russia’s Cis-Baikal region provides an opportunity to study changes in political strategies that boreal forest hunter–gatherers employed at these events in the Middle Holocene. I use published data on burial treatments (quantities of grave goods, presence of exotic materials, burial layouts) from 10 Late Neolithic (henceforth referred to as “LN,” 4000–3000 BC) and 11 Early Bronze Age (“EBA,” 3000–2000 BC) cemeteries to explore important and previously undetected shifts in the ways that funerals during these periods articulated with political life. LN groups used funerals to emphasize affiliation with corporate institutions, while EBA funeral participants employed political strategies focused on displaying wealth. Current evidence indicates that groups on the western peripheries of the Cis-Baikal started employing semi-nomadic pastoral subsistence practices at the time of the LN-EBA transition, and I suggest that these groups presented new opportunities for Cis-Baikal inhabitants. Interactions with mobile, food-producing groups may have indirectly stimulated indigenous populations to redefine funeral gatherings as venues appropriate for cultivating long-distance economic and political support through competitive displays of wealth.     

Subsistence economics,family size,and the emergence of social complexity in hunter–gatherer systems in eastern North America

A consideration of ethnographic data, computational model results, and archaeological data suggest that changes in family-level economics coincident with subsistence intensification contributed to the emergence of social complexity among prehistoric hunter–gatherers in eastern North America by creating the conditions for a “rich get richer” scenario. Ethnographic data are used to construct a general computational model representing key person- and family-level behaviors, constraints, and decisions affecting the size and composition of hunter–gatherer families. Results from model experiments suggest that lowering the age at which children make a significant contribution to subsistence (e.g., through the broadening of the diet to include the kinds of mass-harvested, “low quality” foods that were increasingly exploited during the Archaic and Woodland periods) relaxes constraints on family size and makes large, polygynous families economically viable. Positive feedbacks between the productive and reproductive potentials of larger families produce right-tailed distributions of family size and “wealth” when the productive age of children is low and polygyny is incentivized. Size data from over 800 prehistoric residential structures suggest right-tailed distributions of family size were present during the Late Archaic through Middle Woodland periods. These distributions would have provided variability in family-based status that permitted the emergence of hereditary social distinctions.     

Storage adaptations among hunter–gatherers: A quantitative approach to the Jomon period

Food storage economies among hunter–gatherers have been fundamentally important in research within anthropological archeology. It is well recognized that food storage was a key element in the evolution of hunter–gatherer societies. This paper examines storage facilities utilizing a digital planimeter to evaluate the volume and morphology of storage pits in the Jomon period (ca. 13,750–500 cal. BC). Quantitative analysis of Jomon storage pits shows temporal and spatial variability in terms of size. This research demonstrates that the quantitative analysis of storage pits is an effective way to improve our understanding of storage and its role in the Jomon economy in particular and subsistence adaptations in general. Thus, this approach has potential applications to other storage economies worldwide.