ALPHA-RECOIL TRACKS IN ARCHAEOLOGICAL CERAMIC DATING

Among the manifestations of radioactive decay which can be etched to optical visibility on the surface of mica are tracks from nuclei recoiling from alpha emission, called ‘alpha-recoil tracks’. If, beforeetching, the mica is heated to temperatures of the order of 600°C, all evidence of these tracks is annealed from muscovite mica in a few minutes. Alpha activity observed on mica from pot sherds, from stones surrounding fire places, from fire pits, and fired daub may constitute an alpha-recoil track clock which started at the moment of the last firing of the artifacts.     

On Modeling the Evolution of Hunter-Gatherer Decision-Making Systems

Models of both primate and hunter-gatherer decision-making systems are developed and their relative abilities potentially to detect certain classes of spatial distributions within a standardized environment are compared. It is demonstrated that in situations where language facilitates the pooling of information between individuals within a hunter-gatherer group, the group minimally need only to pool information with one central decision maker in order potentially to recognize all possible spatial distributions within a limited environment. On this basis alone, we would theoretically expect the presence of one-leader groups to be a fairly ubiquitous phenomenon among hunter-gatherers.