Use-wear analysis of obsidian artifacts from Later Stone Age shell midden sites on the Red Sea Coast of Eritrea,with experimental results

This paper presents results of use-wear study on lithic artifacts from two Later Stone Age sites (Gelalo and Misse) on the Red Sea Coast of Eritrea. The sites produced large quantities of lithic artifacts in association with mollusk shells and ostrich eggshell beads, but it is unclear if all the stone tools were required for bead and mollusk shell processing. The study involved recording of microfracture damage traces in order to infer the use-material and the manner in which the artifacts were used. A large percentage of the analyzed samples from Gelalo and Misse preserve wear patterns suggestive of human use. The diagnostic wear types include: (1) dense step, snap (crushing) and hinge fractures typically confined on the working edges, and (2) feather scars organized in a scalar manner visible on the ventral and dorsal surfaces of the active parts. The observed damage patterns suggest cutting and engraving medium to hard materials. The evidence is incomplete for more generalization about the specific activities carried out at the sites. A brief experimental study involving ostrich eggshell drilling, oak twig sawing and bark scraping, meat slicing, and mollusk shell sawing and drilling was carried out to aid interpretation of wear features observed on the archaeological specimens. Wear traces produced by sawing mollusk shell and oak wood showed close affinity to those observed on the archaeological specimens. The study contributes important information about early Holocene site use on the Red Sea Coast of Eritrea. The close association of used lithic artifacts, symbolic objects (beads) and broken shell remains indicates that the sites were habitation areas.     

Possible shell beads from the Middle Stone Age layers of Sibudu Cave,South Africa

Recent excavations at Sibudu Cave, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, uncovered an Iron Age horizon below which is a complex 3 m thick Middle Stone Age sequence with post-Howiesons Poort, Howiesons Poort, Still Bay and pre-Still Bay layers. Available OSL ages indicate that the Howiesons Poort occupation is older than 60 ky and the Still Bay older than 70 ky. Here we present the archaeological context and the taphonomic analysis of six Afrolittorina africana, three of which bear perforations, from the Still Bay and Howiesons Poort layers of this site. The single specimen from the latter cultural horizon comes from the lowermost layer attributed to this technocomplex. This and the depositional context of this layer suggest that this shell derives, as do the other five, from the Still Bay occupation layers. Taphonomic analysis of the archaeological specimens based on present day Afrolittorina africana biocoenoses, microscopic examination, morphometry, experimental perforation of modern shells, and a review of the natural agents that may accumulate marine shells at inland sites, indicate probable human involvement in the collection, transport, modification, and abandonment of Afrolittorina africana in Sibudu. If confirmed by future discoveries these shells would corroborate the use of personal ornaments, already attested at Blombos Cave, Western Cape Province, by Still Bay populations. The apparent absence of ornaments at Howiesons Poort sites raises the question of the mechanisms that have led to cultural modernity since it seems to contradict the scenario according to which cultural innovations recorded at Middle Stone Age sites reflect a process of continuous accretion and elaboration interpreted as the behavioural corollary of the emergence of anatomically modern humans.     

A Comparison of Middle Stone Age and Later Stone Age Blades from South Africa

Abstract

The Middle Stone Age (MSA, ca. 250,000 to 25,000 B.P.) and the Later Stone Age (LSA, ca. 25,000 to 2000 B.P.) provide the cultural backdrops for the evolution of modern humans in Africa. The LSA has been long regarded as the period during which modern forms of behavior were widely adopted. Over the last decade evidence of modern behavior in the MSA has grown significantly, however, and some cultural distinctions between the MSA and LSA have become blurred. Perceived differences between MSA and LSA blade technologies warranted closer investigation. The South African site of Rose Cottage Cave (RCC) has a long cultural sequence incorporating several MSA and LSA industries. A controlled comparison of blades from the Howiesons Poort (ca. 65,000 to 55,000 B.P.) and Robberg (ca. 20,000 to 10,000 CAL B.P.) industries of RCC is presented. Robberg blade production appears to involve both a different theoretical approach and greater technical precision than Howiesons Poort production but it does not result in a greater level of dimensional standardization. Robberg blade technology could be described as more advanced, but its economic advantages are problematic. The skills involved may have been fostered within a particular social context, though it remains to be established whether these conditions were peculiar to the environmentally-stressed Robberg phase or to the broader LSA.     

Stone circles and the structure of Bronze Age society

Analyses of modern human societies have consistently demonstrated the presence of recurrent grouping levels forming a nested, hierarchical structure. That this structure exists in both hunter-gatherer and western industrialized societies suggests that it may be a fundamental organizing principle of considerable antiquity. Stone circles are perceived as being foci of aggregation for prehistoric groups and thus provide a proxy for the sizes of those aggregations. Combining an empirical analysis of a sample of 140 stone circles with a Monte Carlo simulation model that derives expectations for a continuous size distribution based on the nested hierarchy concept, the current paper suggests that similar organizing principles were already in place during the Bronze Age. Furthermore, it is suggested that findings traditionally attributed to the operation of the ‘rank-size rule’ may in fact reflect the basic underlying structure of human society.     

Stable isotopic analysis of human and faunal remains from the Incipient Chulmun (Neolithic) shell midden site of Ando Island,Korea

We analyzed stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios of human and animal remains from the Ando shell midden, South Korea. The Ando site is a rare Incipient Chulmun (Neolithic) site (ca. 6000–5000 BC), which contains well-preserved human and animal bones in shell mounds. The stable isotope results for humans (average δ¹³C = −13.5 ± 0.5‰ and δ¹⁵N = 15.2 ± 0.5‰) indicate that Ando people in the Incipient Chulmun period strongly depended on marine resources. There were no isotopic differences between humans of different sex and age at this site. We compared our data with other previous published isotopic data from the Chulmun sites and found that the Ando people had similar isotope values to the southern Chulmun people (Tongsamdong and Daepo), but different isotopic ratios than the western Chulmun people (Daejukri and Konamri). These results indicate that marine foods were the main food resources in the southern coastal regions, but not in the western coastal regions in Chulmun Korea.     

论蒙古鹿石的年代及相关问题

The Deer Stone is an important cultural remain which is scattered a lot in Mongolia, Mainly in the west and northwest areas. It is also found in the Eurasian grasslands but very little in quantity. as for its age, there exist many different views for a long time. Actually the Deer stone displays a way of personification of stone statue, so we usually can find carved weapons and tools on the waist of it. Nevertheless, we can deduce the age according to these carvings. Archaeological discoveries in the northern-grasslands of China show that the carvings on Deer stone are all the typical vessels that were very popular in the late Shang period. Such as the beast-headed or bell-headed short sword with curved handle, the beast-headed sword with upright blade dagger, the ring-headed or double ring-headed short sword, the mushroom-headed short sword, the tub-shaped htchet, the arrow-shaped vessels and etc. Thus lead us to the conclustion that most of the Deer Stones must be of the late Bronze Age(11-7BC).As for the Deer stone culture‘s Similarity in some aspects to that of cultures like Lijiaya, Weiyingzi, third phase of Weifang culture or Xiajiadian culture in the north parts of China, that reflects the northern grasslands bronze culture of China left a strong influence on the cultures of Mongolia.     

Stone Age Detective's Paradise: Investigating the Mysteries of Culture and Mind

Dunbar, Robin, Knight, Chris, & Power, Camilla, eds. The Evolution of Culture: An Interdisciplinary View. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999. ix + 257 pp. including chapter references, index, tables, illustrations. $55.00 cloth; $24.00 paper.     

Oxygen isotope analysis of California mussel shells: seasonality and human sedentism at an 8,200-year-old shell midden on Santa Rosa Island,California

To evaluate coastal settlement and land use strategies among maritime hunter-gatherers, we analyzed oxygen isotope (δ¹⁸O) data from 131 marine carbonate samples from 21 California mussel (Mytilus californianus) shells obtained from a large ～8,200-year-old shell midden (CA-SRI-666) on California’s Santa Rosa Island. Seasonal distributions of the isotopic data were assigned using a paleo-sea surface temperature model created by comparing modern sea surface temperatures (SST) to a fully profiled ～8,200-year-old shell. For 20 additional shells, we used two sampling strategies to compare season-of-harvest inferences and explore whether the Early Holocene site occupants were sedentary. Estimated season-of-harvest differed by 35 % between the two sampling methods, corroborating recent isotope analysis of an 8,800-year-old shell midden on San Miguel Island. Shellfish appear to have been collected year-round at CA-SRI-666 from intertidal or subtidal water temperatures similar to modern SST in the vicinity of eastern Santa Rosa Island. The isotope results are consistent with other evidence from CA-SRI-666 that suggest that the site served as a residential base for relatively sedentary maritime people.     

The Middle Stone Age of East Africa and the beginnings of regional identity

The history of research into the Middle Stone Age of East Africa and the present state of knowledge of this time period is examined for the region as a whole, with special reference to paleoenvironments. The known MSA sites and occurrences are discussed region by region and attempts are made to fit them into a more precise chronological framework and to assess their cultural affinities. The conclusion is reached that the Middle Stone Age lasted for some 150,000 years but considerably more systematic and in-depth research is needed into this time period, which is now perceived as of great significance since it appears to span the time of the evolution of anatomically Modern humans in the continent, perhaps in East Africa.     

石器时代的研究与进展:狩猎采集群的技术转变

更新世向全新世的过渡与农业起源密切相关,因此探索这一阶段人类技术、适应和文化演变是史前考古的战略性课题之一。自丹麦经济学家博塞罗普提出人口增长是农业起源的重要因素后,这一观点被许多学者深入研究和探讨。本文中,海登提出了与人口压力论不同的见解,将资源压力看作是更新世末和全新世初技术演变和农业起源的主要动力。他引入生态学中的K-和r-选择资源的概念,将更新世末开始的各种技术发明乃至动植物驯化与广泛利用r-选择资源的生存方式联系起来。海登认为,旧大陆中石器时代和美洲古代期出现的大量新技术和新工具以及许多专门工具的出现与当时人类普遍转向开拓广谱资源有关,而这种技术和工具的发明主要是用来在资源压力和波动的情况下增强食物供应的稳定性。广谱资源数量大、难以开采和处理加工方式多样的特点决定了这一时期技术和工具多样化和特殊化的发展趋势。而动植物驯化的起源也应当被看作是人类诸多应付资源波动策略和技术中的一种,而不单单取决于人口的密度。他还从"最省力"原则来论述一些工具如磨光石器发明和使用的原因,认为磨光石器制作代价很高,因此这类工具在使用频率不高的情况下不会受青睐,只有当砍树和加工鱼类等劳作非常频繁或数量巨大,人类为了减少工具破损的替换率,才采纳制作代价较高的磨光石器以提高工作效率。因为磨制石器所付出的代价,可以从砍树或加工鱼类等特殊资源的效率提高上得到充分的补偿。然而,资源压力显然相对人口而言,否则就不成其为压力。这里只是在分析问题时着重看待人口因素还是资源因素,其实两者是紧密相关的变量。这篇文章对于技术演变和农业起源这些考古学中十分关注的问题提供了一个十分新颖的视野,有助于我们摆脱文化累进的传统观点,从人类适应和经济发展来分析技术和工具的发展和变化。     

中国旧石器考古学研究的动态与展望

中国旧石器时代考古学实践,在二十世纪取得了举世瞩目的成果,二十一世纪定能取得新的辉煌。     

Diversity in foddering strategy and herd management in late Bronze Age Britain: An isotopic investigation of pigs and other fauna from two midden sites

Abstract

Middens of the southern British late Bronze and Iron Age are vast accumulations of cultural debris that can be explained as refuse dumps linked with large periodic feasting events. A distinctive feature of these sites is that their faunal assemblages invariably comprise a considerably higher proportion of pig remains than contemporaneous settlement sites. This paper presents results from a programme of stable carbon (δ¹³C) and nitrogen (δ¹⁵N) isotope analysis of fauna from two major midden sites, Llanmaes in South Wales and Potterne in Wiltshire. The research aim is to reconstruct husbandry strategies and foddering regimes, particularly concerning pigs, to better understand how the challenges of raising large herds were met. Analysis produced exceptionally wide-ranging results for pigs and other domesticates at both sites, particularly in terms of δ¹⁵N values, demonstrating that diverse foddering strategies were employed. Diversity in the late Bronze Age pig foddering regimes indicates that the Neolithic husbandry practices (focusing on woodland fodder) had not been abandoned, but that new husbandry methods (consumption of household waste) were also being practised, which subsequently became more widely established in the Iron Age. The heterogeneity of signatures suggests that animals may have been husbanded in a piecemeal fashion at a local, household level. This in turn hints that fauna may have been brought to these sites from households across the surrounding landscape, rather than being husbanded by specialist producers in the vicinity of the middens.     

Comparison of Gadeb and other Early Stone Age assemblages from Africa south of the Sahara

An exploratory multivariate analysis is presented of 64 Early Stone Age tool-assemblages from sub-Saharan Africa. The results generally confirm, but contribute significantly to understanding, the conventional division of these assemblages between Oldowan, Karari, Early Acheulian and Acheulian industrial groupings. The distinction between Oldowan and Developed Oldowan is shown to be less clearly defined.

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Resumé L'auteur présente une analyse tentative à plusieurs variables de 64 groupes d'outils de l'Age de la Pierre Ancien en Afrique méridionale. Les résultats confirment en général—mais aussi contribuent considérablement à comprendre—la division conventionnelle de ces ensembles entre les groupements industriels de l'Oldowayen, le Karari, l'Acheuléen ancien et l'Acheuléen. La différence entre l'Oldowayen et l'Oldowayen évolué se montre moins clairement définie.

     

Technological change in the Earlier and Middle Stone Age of Kalambo Falls (Zambia)

This paper reviews data on technological change in the manufacture of stone tools from the Earlier Stone Age (ESA) to Middle Stone Age (MSA including Sangoan) deposits at Site A, Kalambo Falls, Zambia. Data on flake and tool morphology, dimensions, and raw material are discussed It is concluded that there is little change, at this site, in the basic techniques of blank production or the attributes of the blanks produced from the ESA to the MSA. The only marked change to occur is the loss of large cutting tools (hand axes, cleavers) and their replacement by heavy-duty forms (core axes, picks). It is hypothesized that this change marks a decline in portability as a factor in the design of large edge tools.

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Résumé Cet article donne un compte rendu des donnés sur la change technologique dans la fabrication des outils lithiques en les dépôts du Earlier Stone Age (ESA) jusqu'a la Middle Stone Age (MSA, qui comprit la Sangoan) au gisement A, Kalambo Falls, Zambia. Des donnés sur la morphologie, les dimensions et les matériaux des éclats et des outils sont examinées. Il est inféré qu'il y a peu de changement, à ce gisement, dans le techniques élémentaires de la fabrication des supports ou dans les attributs des supports taillés du ESA jusqu'a MSA. Le seule change qui se présent ç'est la perte des gros outils pour couper (bifaces, hachereaux) et leur remplacement par des formes plus substantiels (core axes, pics). On fait l'hypothèse que ce changement indique une déclin de portabilité comme facteur dans le dessein des outils avec des grands tranchants.

     

Palaeoenvironments and Cultural Sequence of the Florisbad Middle Stone Age Hominid Site, South Africa

Florisbad, an open-air spring site with 7 m of strata, has yielded the type assemblage of Middle Stone Age (MSA) fauna, the cranium of an archaic hominid in 1932 and an extensive sequence of MSA artefacts in the 1980s. The cultural assemblages include an early MSA dated broadly to 279,000±47,000 years, a highly retouched form of MSA at 157,000±21,000 years and a minimally retouched, expedient MSA assemblage from a series of occupation horizons at 121,000±6000 years. The latter represents multiple brief visits to a hunting and butchery site on the edge of an active spring pool, where periodic sedimentation gently buried occupation debris in a near-pristine context. Periods of lower spring discharge are represented by organic horizons as swampy vegetation encroached on the springs, while periods of higher spring discharge created pools. Overall the spring sequence indicates low-energy subaqueous environments similar to lakes, ponds or backwater sites. The sequence is characterized by fine sands, silts and clays responsible for the good archaeological preservation.     

Radiocarbon dating of marine shell samples. The marine radiocarbon reservoir effect of coastal waters off Atlantic Iberia during Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic Periods

Radiocarbon dates on marine shells have not been used as extensively as charcoal or bone dates for the setting up of absolute chronologies because interpreting these dates is complicated by the marine radiocarbon reservoir effect. Nevertheless marine shellfish were used widely at least during the Holocene and their shells are abundant and usually well preserved in archaeological deposits located near shorelines. Consequently prior research concerning the oceanographic conditions and the marine radiocarbon reservoir effect of a particular coastal area is needed in order to set up reliable chronologies for that region. Values of regional marine radiocarbon reservoir effect – ΔR – of coastal waters off Atlantic Iberia, some of its variability along the Holocene and its correlation with the upwelling phenomenon were determined during previous research. More data related to the ΔR values for western Portuguese coastal waters during the Late Neolithic and the Chalcolithic, a time interval badly sampled in previous research, were recently obtained. These values can be compared with ΔR values already determined for the Gulf of Cadiz. Besides the importance of these values for a better knowledge of the palaeoceanography and palaeoclimatology of Atlantic Iberia, from now on archaeologists can set up reliable chronologies for Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic contexts using marine shell samples of that origin for radiocarbon dating.     

On the spatial and technological organisation of hafting modifications in the North African Middle Stone Age

Aterian stone tools represent one of the clearest indications of technological regionalisation in the North African Middle Stone Age. Found in association with Homo sapiens skeletal remains and more recently with symbolic material culture, the Aterian is widely thought to reflect modern human identity and cognition. As a lithic industry, the Aterian has been primarily defined by the presence of stemmed or tanged tools, but there has been little quantitative study of the relationship between tangs and other forms of hafting modifications, such as shouldering and basal thinning. Understanding the diversity of these features and their relationships with one another will clarify the organisation and adaptations of North African populations during Marine Isotope Stage 5 (MIS 5, ∼130–70,000 years ago), a critical timespan for modern human dispersal. This paper presents the results of a stepped analysis of fifteen Aterian and other non-Aterian assemblages from the same spatial and temporal bracket in North Africa. Using Correspondence Analyses together with a suite of other statistics, the results indicate that tanging represents a widely applied strategy of hafting a variety of different tools. On the other hand, basal thinning is specifically correlated with lightweight, highly retouched points. The distribution of these features appears to reflect geographical proximity and shared environments, rather than articulating with traditional named industries. This in turn suggests that a continued focus on tangs to differentiate an ‘Aterian’ from other, contemporary North African MSA industries may be obfuscating regional-scale patterns of technological diversity.     

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.     

辽东地区青铜时代石棺墓葬及相关问题研究

本文从石棺墓葬的形制入手,根据墓葬本身的结构特点将石棺墓划分类型,并结合各类型墓葬中出土的随葬品组合特征,探讨了辽东地区青铜时代各类型石构墓葬的发展与演变过程,并对它们之间的相互关系及文化属性做进一步分析与研究.