The site Hein 33: Typological and chronological problems of the New Stone Age of Southern Norway

In this issue of Norwegian Archaeological Review the article Hein 33 ‐ En steinalderboplass på Hardangervidda. Fors?k på kronologisk og kulturell analyse by Svein Indrelid (1973) has been chosen for discussion. The research into the Norwegian Stone Age has always been dependent on the results obtained by studies of the South Scandinavian material. Indrelid's main goal has been to free himself from this dependence when trying to establish local southwest Norwegian chronology. This new approach has given important results also for the understanding of the South Scandinavian Stone Age.

Comments by Egil Bakka, Carl Cullberg, Arne B. Johansen, and Egil Mikkelsen are followed by a reply from Svein Indrelid.     

Excavations at Mlambalasi Rockshelter: a Terminal Pleistocene to Recent Iron Age Record in Southern Tanzania

The Mlambalasi rockshelter in the Iringa Region of southern Tanzania has rich artifactual deposits spanning the Later Stone Age (LSA), Iron Age, and historic periods. Middle Stone Age (MSA) artifacts are also present on the slope in front of the rockshelter. Extensive, systematic excavations in 2006 and 2010 by members of the Iringa Region Archaeological Project (IRAP) illustrate a complex picture of repeated occupations and reuse of the rockshelter during an important time in human history. Direct dates on Achatina shell and ostrich eggshell (OES) beads suggest that the earliest occupation levels excavated at Mlambalasi, which are associated with human burials, are terminal Pleistocene in age. This is exceptional given the rarity of archaeological sites, particularly those with human remains and other preserved organic material, from subtropical Africa between 200,000 and 10,000 years before present. This paper reports on the excavations to date and analysis of artifactual finds from the site. The emerging picture is one of varied, ephemeral use over millennia as diverse human groups were repeatedly attracted to this fixed feature on the landscape.     

London Stone: Stone of Brutus or Fetish Stone—Making the Myth

The remnant of once-famous “London Stone” stands almost unnoticed today in Cannon Street, in the City of London. Speculation about its origin began as early as the sixteenth century. This paper considers in particular the identification of the Stone as London's talisman (a view embodied in an invented “ancient saying” that linked it to the city's legendary Trojan foundation), or as a prehistoric “fetish stone” set up when London was first settled. The mythologising of London Stone continues, and at the turn of the twenty-first century it is regarded by some as an essential element in London's indefinable “sacred geometry.”     

The use of OSL dating in unstructured sands: the archaeology and chronology of the Hutton Sands at Canteen Kopje (Northern Cape Province, South Africa)

Archaeological research at the site of Canteen Kopje, Northern Cape Province, South Africa, has focused on the rich Earlier Stone Age assemblages recovered from the Younger Vaal Gravels. This paper presents the results of excavation and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of the overlying Hutton Sands. We discuss the evidence for colonial period interaction between diamond miners and indigenous groups at the site, as well as the presence of an earlier phase of terminal Middle Stone Age/early Later Stone Age occupation. The OSL analyses demonstrate the potential distortion of OSL ages due to substantial bioturbation and its effect on the dating of archaeological sites situated in unconsolidated sands.     

Written in Stone: subverting the authoritative (auto)biographical voice—Carol Shields’s The Stone Diaries and Margaret Laurence’s The Stone Angel

Diaries imply true confessions, and readers wish to believe Daisy Flett’s life story in Carol Shields’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Stone Diaries (1994), but her layered narration, alternating first- and third-person narrative, proves problematic. “Death,” the final chapter, is particularly puzzling, as third-person accounts of Daisy’s demise are punctuated by her comments, such as, “I’m still in here” (320). But how does a first-person narrator relate her own death? The secret to Daisy’s death narrative, as David Williams observes, is the correspondence between Shields’s postmodernist gem, The Stone Diaries, and Laurence’s modernist masterpiece, The Stone Angel (1964), published three decades earlier, as Shields’s title clearly references Laurence’s. Two decades after Williams’s insightful essay, we can extend the parallels (and delineate the differences) between the two—and explore their implications. Such intertextual resonance illustrates Shields challenging the borders between fiction and biography and parodying canonical texts.     

The Middle Stone Age of West Turkana,Kenya

Abstract

Research on the origins of Homo sapiens and the development of our species’ unique behavior is focused on the Middle Stone Age (MSA) period in Africa (in comparison with the European Upper Palaeolithic). Although archaeological and paleontological fieldwork in the Turkana Basin in northwestern Kenya has contributed greatly to our understanding of human evolution in Africa, the Basin's MSA archaeological record remains poorly known. We report on a reconnaissance of MSA sites in West Turkana, Kenya, which included known archaeological/paleoanthropological localities at Eliye Springs and Kabua Waterhole (Kadokorinyang). A newly-discovered site, Nakechichok 1 (GdJh 5), preserves MSA tools stratified beneath Late Stone Age assemblages. The MSA lithic artifacts from Nakechichok 1 differ from those known from other MSA localities in nearby regions, and, they expand the known scope of MSA variability in the Turkana Basin, demonstrating that the MSA is not “missing” in this region, but just hard to find.     

Birds and burials at Ajvide (Gotland,Sweden) and Zvejnieki (Latvia) about 8000–3900 BP

Animal bones in human burials may reveal aspects of the relationship between animals and humans. This article describes the roles of birds in mortuary practices and in the ideology of Stone Age northern Europe. Bird bones from two large burial sites, Middle Neolithic Ajvide (Gotland, Sweden) and Mesolithic and Neolithic Zvejnieki (Latvia) are investigated with osteological methods. Beads and pendants were fashioned from the wing bones of waterbirds, and used in the decoration of the body or the burial dress. The jay was found in three Neolithic burials at Zvejnieki, and it may have been a totem animal for the Middle Neolithic people at Zvejnieki, and its wings or feathers were presumably attached to dresses and costumes for the dead. Bird remains in burials at Ajvide, Zvejnieki and some other Stone Age cemeteries may indicate similar features in the way of perceiving birds, especially the possible symbolic roles of waterbirds and wings. The findings are discussed from the perspective of the cosmology of historical hunter–gatherer (and herding) groups in modern Russia.     

Imperial Britain at War

An Imperial State at War: Britain from 1689 to 1815. Edited by Lawrence Stone (London: Routledge, 1994), 374 pp., £40.00 cloth.     

An empirical test of the relative frequency of bipolar reduction in Beds VI,V, and III at Mumba Rockshelter,Tanzania: implications for the East African Middle to Late Stone Age transition

Mumba Rockshelter, Tanzania, is the only East African site spanning a continuous record of more than 100,000 years, including the Middle Stone Age (MSA) to Late Stone Age (LSA) Transition. Rather than examine the presence or absence of traditional markers of “behavioral modernity”, we have endeavored here to respond to the calls of Shea (2011) and Basell (2008) by examining the proportional similarity of a trait present throughout the MSA–LSA sequence at Mumba Rockshelter: the bipolar technique of lithic reduction. We use a quantified, experimentally derived proxy to track the relative amount of bipolar percussion among Mumba's Beds VI, V, and III, namely, waste shatter. Our examination of Mehlman's previously unanalyzed collections from Mumba demonstrates that in terms of bipolar production Bed V is statistically indistinguishable from the Late Stone Age (LSA) Bed III, but significantly different from the Middle Stone Age (MSA) Bed VI. Given that Bed V dates to 56.9 ± 4.8 − 49.1 ± 4.3 ka cal BP, this result is consistent with other evidence that the origins of the LSA in East Africa began well before 40 kya, and that Mumba Bed V represents one of the earliest manifestations of the LSA in East Africa. We conclude with a discussion of factors that may have influenced the increased dependence of bipolar production at the site.     

Experimental determination of use wear on stone adzes from Boomplaas Cave,South Africa

To test the assumption that Later Stone Age adzes were used primarily for woodworking, replicas of adzes were made and used to chisel and to plane wood. The use wear on these replicas was then compared with that on 51 prehistoric examples from Boomplaas Cave in the southern Cape Province, South Africa. The results show that all the prehistoric adzes examined have wood polish, and that charcoaling was part of the technique of Later Stone Age woodworking at least as early as 14,200 bp.     

MEMORY,LANDSCAPE & MORTUARY PRACTICE

Stone Age people handled their dead in various ways. From the Late Mesolithic period onwards, the deceased were also buried in formal cemeteries, and according to radiocarbon dates, the cemeteries were used for long periods and occasionally reused after a hiatus of several hundred years. The tradition of continuous burials indicates that the cemeteries were not only static containers of the dead but also important places for Stone Age communities, which were often established in potent places and marked by landscape features that might have had a strong association with death. The paper explores the tradition of burials in cemeteries exemplified through Jönsas Stone Age cemetery in southern Finland. Here the natural topography, along with memories of practices conducted at the site in the past, played a significant role in the Stone Age mortuary practices, also resulting in the ritual reuse of the cemetery by the Neolithic Corded Ware Culture.     

Integrating Human-Animal Relationships into New Data on Aterian Complexity: a Paradigm Shift for the North African Middle Stone Age

In the last decade, research conducted in North Africa, particularly in northwestern Africa, has shed light on the key role that the region has played in improving our understanding of human evolution. Specifically, (1) the increased number of direct dates obtained with new methods has pushed back the age of the Aterian (~ 150,000 to 40,000 BP); (2) analyses of Aterian lithic assemblages have placed them within the range of variation of the Middle Stone Age; (3) analyses of associated human remains suggest that the makers of the Aterian are within the range of variation common among early modern human and present affinities with contemporary remains from the Levant (Qafzeh, Skhul); (4) zones of settlement, such as those in the present-day Sahara and coastal areas, and even the composition and demography of populations could have been influenced by specific climatic changes of the Late Pleistocene; and (5) the presence of blocks of pigment showing use-wear facets on their surfaces, the presence of pigments on artifacts, as well as osseous industry and earliest ornaments suggest complex behaviors among these populations. In this renewed approach to the Aterian, data from faunal analyses provide information on human-carnivore competition and the subsistence practices of hunter-gatherer groups. Taphonomic and zooarchaeological analyses suggest that humans were not the only large predators occupying caves, and that the hunter-gatherers of the Middle Stone Age exploited a wide range of environments, consuming terrestrial and coastal resources alike. Interdisciplinary confrontations highlight the apparent complexity of socioeconomic organization and the strategies of high levels of mobility that characterized Aterian groups.     

Sourcing of sanukite implements by X-ray fluorescence analysis II

Non-destructive analysis of sanukite stones of known source and sanukite implements was carried out by means of energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence spectrometry. Attention was focussed on areas in middle-western Japan. Stone taken from four source districts was classified into nine different groups. More than a hundred implements obtained from thirty-six archaeological sites were allocated to their sources by means of Hotelling's T² test.     

Digital imaging technology and experimental archeology: a methodological framework for the identification and interpretation of fire modified rock (FMR)

This paper presents the results of a series of experiments for the identification and analysis of fire modified rock (FMR). FMR is a common but frequently overlooked artifact type. Experiments were conducted simulating the effects of different hypothetical burning scenarios on rocks similar to those found in a South African Middle Stone Age site. A digital imaging method was then used to quantify FMR color values, designed to limit intra-analyst bias. Statistical tests and a blind test suggest that unburned rocks and experimental FMR can be separated statistically based on physical appearance. Two burning scenario models, based on measured experimental data were applied to archaeological FMR from a South African Middle Stone Age site named Pinnacle Point 5-6 (PP5-6) and show that the archaeological samples are not statistically different from a simulated campfire and possibly a lithic raw material heat-treatment fire.     

The context,form and significance of the MSA engraved ostrich eggshell collection from Diepkloof Rock Shelter,Western Cape,South Africa

Broken ostrich eggshells are commonly found in Middle Stone Age sites of southern Africa, presumably collected for food consumption, and later used as artefacts. At Diepkloof Rock Shelter, Middle Stone Age inhabitants used ostrich eggshells as a medium to convey abstract depictions. Since 1998, excavations at Diepkloof have recovered 408 engraved pieces of ostrich eggshells. The study of these shows that Diepkloof inhabitants applied a restricted set of geometric engraving patterns, with the dominance of 2 main motifs, one using a hatched band and the other sub-parallel to converging lines. These motifs coexisted, but shifted in frequency toward the latter through time. Together with evidence that ostrich eggshells were used as containers, these patterns support the hypothesis that engravings were made with respect to clear but flexible social conventions and were part of a complex system of visual and symbolic communication. Since our last report (Texier et al., 2010), a few engraved pieces have been found in lower stratigraphic units, expanding substantially the time-range of the engraving practice on ostrich eggshells at Diepkloof. The earliest engravings appear at the end of the Early Howiesons Poort phase, but become numerous only during the Intermediate and Late phases of the Howiesons Poort. The collection from Diepkloof is presently unique and likely underlines the existence of regional traditions within the Howiesons Poort. Interestingly, and significantly in our view, the engraving disappears at the same time as the Howiesons Poort technology. We argue that this disappearance may reflect a modification in the way late Middle Stone Age inhabitants interacted with one another.     

The Amarna Stone Village Survey and life on the urban periphery in New Kingdom Egypt

Abstract

Recent fieldwork at Amarna, the short-lived capital city of Egypt in the late 2nd millennium B.C., added a second area of peripheral settlement, the Stone Village, to the well-known Workmen’s Village, the subject of an intensive excavation campaign in the 1970s and 1980s. Both villages were evidently involved in tomb cutting and/or stone quarrying, but the Stone Village is smaller, conveys a particularly vernacular style of architecture, and seems to have had less state support than the Workmen’s Village. This paper describes the Stone Village as a source for the study of urban life in ancient Egypt. The two village sites offer a case study of the tensions that arose from controlling human populations in a border zone and from longestablished belief frameworks concerning desert landscapes and sacred space.     

The ‘Ungallant Silence of the Historian’: Elizabeth Stone,Esther Owen and the Art of Needlework

This essay explores the challenges of authorship for two women authors of important needlework books during the 1840s. Elizabeth Stone authored the first British history of needlework, the Art of Needlework (1840), and Esther Owen wrote an influential pattern book, the Illuminated Ladies' Book of Useful and Ornamental Needlework (1844), but both women were powerless over their work when authorial mis-attribution and financial mismanagement hindered their efforts to engage in professional careers. Countless anonymous writers of needlework articles and guidebooks provided scholars with a treasure of textual artifacts that contain valuable cultural and historical information about women's lives, whether the women were readers, editors or writers. Yet the lack of specific bibliographical and biographical details about needlework books and their authors often frustrate adequate scholarly reappraisal. The tradition of anonymity and a general lack of respect for domestic women's art from publishers and contemporaries outside the woman's sphere created a dearth of archival material, and careless reviewers spurred mistakes and omissions that sometimes began as early as the first printing and continue from that moment until now. The careers of Stone and Owen serve as case studies of complications for women working in the writer's trade, and of problems encountered by scholars writing nineteenth-century women's history.     

First excavation of intact Middle Stone Age layers at Ysterfontein,Western Cape Province,South Africa: implications for Middle Stone Age ecology

Excavations into a coastal cliff at Ysterfontein (YFT) 1, South Africa, have revealed 2.5–3 m of stratified sands containing classic Middle Stone Age (MSA) stone artifacts, abundant mussel and limpet shells, numerous fragments of ostrich eggshell, and somewhat rarer bones from mammals, birds, tortoises, and snakes. The sands apparently filled a crevice-like, calcrete shelter, where the artifacts and animal remains accumulated partly in place and perhaps partly through slippage down the face of a dune that once stood between the site and the sea. Accelerator radiocarbon dating of ostrich eggshell places the sequence before 33,400 years ago. Artifact typology provisionally suggests that it formed after 70,000 years ago. The fauna resembles faunas from the handful of other known coastal MSA sites and contrasts with faunas from regional Later Stone Age (LSA) sites in its low diversity of coastal marine species and in the large size of its limpets and tortoises. The difference suggests that MSA people exploited local resources less intensively, probably because their populations were less dense.     

Using Pyrotechnology: Fire-related Features and Activities with a Focus on the African Middle Stone Age

Pyrotechnology was important in prehistory and has been a research topic for decades, in particular, the origins of controlled and habitual use of fire. The earliest putative evidence of fire use is from the African sites of Swartkrans (1,500,000–1,000,000 years ago) and Koobi Fora (1,500,000 years ago). In contrast, researchers working with European sites debate whether habitual use of fire occurred before 400,000 years ago. This paper provides a brief introduction to early fire use and then focuses on the African Middle Stone Age. Published evidence on fire use is available for 34 sites in southern Africa. Combustion features yield much evidence about human behavior, not only in regard to technical skills but also concerning social activities. Several activities using fire, symbolic behavior, spatial structuring, and group size in the Middle Stone Age are inferred from bone and lithic data, ash discard, site maintenance, and hearth size. The current status of knowledge on Middle Stone Age pyrotechnology demonstrates the benefits of applying new methodological approaches, facilitates comparisons with earlier and later archaeological periods, and is an important reminder of the benefits of a multidisciplinary approach.     

The Pleistocene Later Stone Age south of the Limpopo River

The earliest Later Stone Age (LSA) industries from southern Africa are microlithic and unstandardized and include the bipolar technique. The dating of these industries is controversial and the earliest microlithic industry is said to occur at Border Cave at about 39,000 B.P. By 18,000 B.P. a bladelet tradition was established and this was replaced in many parts of southern Africa, at about 12,000 B.P., by a widespread and prolific nonmicrolithic industry, characterized by side-struck flakes. The late Pleistocene environment was colder than present, with particularly harsh conditions during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), between about 20,000 and 18,000 B.P. Populations may have been isolated because archaeological visibility is low during the LGM and decreases further after the LGM. After 13,000 B.P. there is a dramatic increase in sites and this implies that there may have been widespread colonization of territory previously unoccupied for tens of thousands of years. By the end of the late Pleistocene there was a change in hunting patterns, in parts of southern Africa, from an emphasis on the capture of large, gregarious grazers to an emphasis on small, solitary browsers. Social complexity increased during the late Pleistocene, and by 12,000 B.P. it seems possible that Stone Age people were observing some social practices recorded historically among Bushmen (San).