Pollen evidence for major shifts in forest composition since the mid‐nineteenth‐century in the vicinity of Sudbury,Ontario

Numerous anthropogenic stressors have impacted the region surrounding Sudbury, Ontario, leading to pronounced vegetation and landscape change. Few long‐term records exist to understand the nature or timing of this change. We use pollen analysis from radiometrically dated sediments of Clearwater Lake to compare pre‐ and post‐settlement vegetation. Beginning ～1850 CE, the record shows major shifts in forest composition, coincident with settlement and the beginnings of lumbering. These changes are unprecedented for the past ～5000 years, and consist of increases in diversity and abundance of deciduous tree taxa and herbaceous disturbance indicators. While evidence of mining appears as early as 1900 CE, little effect is seen in the pollen record until ～1930 CE, when sedimentation rates increased and acidification of the lake also began. At this time, further increases in palynological disturbance indicators and minimum sediment organic matter levels indicate the period of maximum vegetation loss. As a result of reduced emissions since the 1970s, water quality began to improve in Clearwater Lake and there are some decreases in the abundances of shade‐intolerant disturbance indicators in the pollen record. However, the fact that the pollen assemblages do not resemble those prior to 1850 suggests lasting vegetation changes.     

Pits and pitfalls: taxonomic variability and patterning in tooth mark dimensions

Archaeologists use experimentally derived tooth mark frequencies, locations, and size data to infer (a) the extent of carnivore involvement in the formation and modification of faunal assemblages, (b) the size classes of predators marking those assemblages, and (c) whether hominins accessed fleshy or defleshed carcasses (Blumenschine and Pobiner, 2007; Dominguez-Rodrigo et al., 2007). These inferences are often debated in part because frequency counts can vary widely among observers and because the carnivore taxa for which tooth mark dimensional data are available are limited. This study contributes to the body of actualistic/experimental tooth mark data and presents a methodology for collecting these data. We offer a greatly simplified method that may encourage others to collect and quantify tooth mark dimensions. We present dimensional data from feeding experiments with 16 omnivore and carnivore species of known age and mass, ranging in size from skunks to tigers, significantly expanding the taxonomic and size range of carnivores for which we have tooth pit data. Our results demonstrate considerable, but not complete, overlap in tooth pit dimensions among size, class, and taxon. Tooth mark dimensions on epiphyses and metaphyses were relatively strongly correlated with body mass, whereas diaphyseal tooth marks exhibited the weakest correlation. Human consumption of animal tissue produced tooth marks comparable in size to medium felids and small canids, suggesting the possibility that some tooth marks on Early Stone Age (ESA) faunal assemblages could, as suggested by Oliver (1994), result from small carnivore and/or hominin consumption.     

Production sequences of ostrich eggshell beads and settlement dynamics in the Geelbek Dunes of the Western Cape, South Africa

The archaeological record attests to the significance of ostrich eggs as a valuable resource for the people of the Later Stone Age. People over a broad geographic range used ostrich eggs to provide nourishment, storage and ornamentation. This paper focuses on the production, use and discard of ostrich eggshell beads recovered from open-air sites in the Geelbek Dunes of the Western Cape, South Africa. We present a comprehensive production chain for analyzing the manufacture of beads and introduce the concept of a heuristic production value for evaluating the degree of completion reflected by an assemblage. The pattern of fabrication and the distribution in size allow for a detailed analysis of the beads that points to specific behavioral patterns involved in their production. This analysis yields information about the duration and intensity of site use, as well as the individual members and cultural affinities of the groups who made the beads. We document the intentional use of fire to blacken the majority of the beads as an aesthetic choice. Combined with the results from AMS radiocarbon dating, the majority of the beads from Geelbek provide insight into the socio-economic identity of their manufacturers: small groups of hunter–gatherers who inhabited and used specific locations on the strandveld near Langebaan Lagoon.     

The ESR geochronology and geology of the open‐air Palaeolithic deposits in Bollschweil,Germany*

This paper presents ESR (electron spin resonance) ages of rhinoceros and equine tooth enamel from the open‐air Palaeolithic site of Bollschweil on the western edge of the Black Forest near Freiburg, Germany. Bollschweil is one of very few archaeological sites in southern Germany to yield Lower or Middle Palaeolithic faunal and lithic materials from a buried, open‐air context. The geological context of the archaeological remains indicates that the loessic sediments have been reworked. Excavation at this site yielded a cold‐period fauna characterized by bones of mammoth, horse, large bovids and wooly rhinoceros. In the absence of any clear chronostratigraphic marker horizons, the age of the finds could not be determined without the use of a chronometric dating method. Lithic artefacts from the site, including a handaxe and a side scraper, suggest either a Middle Pleistocene or early Late Pleistocene age. The ESR dating results indicate that the deposit enclosing the archaeological finds should be assigned to oxygen isotope stage (OIS) 6, although there exists some possibility that some teeth were deposited later, in OIS 5.