Clovis,Folsom, and Midland components at the Debra L. Friedkin site,Texas: context,chronology, and assemblages

The archaeological transition from Clovis to Folsom and Midland in the North American Great Plains coincides with the end of the Pleistocene and onset of the Younger Dryas. Comparisons exploring the adaptive changes that took place during this period frequently employ regional-scale approaches. The focus on regional-scale analyses largely results from the dearth of sites repeatedly visited by multiple early Paleoindian groups. However, regional-scale comparisons have the potential to overlook smaller-scale differences. The Debra L. Friedkin site, Texas offers an opportunity to study Midland, Folsom, and Clovis technology and site-use at a single site. This paper presents the context and chronology of the Midland, Folsom, and Clovis assemblages and a site-scale analysis of lithics from the Friedkin site. It is argued that point production and late-stage reduction were primary activities, and the use of bifacial cores for flake tools was important throughout these occupation periods. Site use at Friedkin differs from early Paleoindian occupation at the nearby Gault site and expands our understanding of settlement and technological organization in the region.     

Innovations,food storage and the origins of agriculture

Abstract

The global phenomenon of the birth of agriculture remains an enigma and challenges the role of food storage. Much has been written about their invention. A general explanation is needed for its progression in various parts of the world, which is both sociologically based and founded on the archaeological data. This task led Alain Testart to claim that it was by developing their existing skill sets (foraging, pottery, food storage and small-scale agriculture) that nomadic hunter-gatherers, burdened by an increasingly diverse set of tools and equipment, became sedentary. This sedentarism in turn allowed them to specialise in those activities, which had (literally) weighed them down: notably, breeding the first plant cultivars and, often, storing food.     

Hunter-gatherer burials and the creation of persistent places in southeastern Australia

One of the difficulties in interpreting hunter-gatherer mortuary practices is that many mortuary theories are derived from sedentary societies and rely upon an excavated record. This paper is an analysis of both historical and archaeological evidence of Aboriginal burial practices in the Murray River region of southeastern Australia. The archaeological data relies primarily upon analysis of burials exposed through erosion rather than systematic excavations which limits the range of burial characteristics that may be recorded and interpreted. The mortuary practices identified are highly patterned but regionally and locally variable. It is argued that the evidence demonstrates the persistence of place for Aboriginal people. The existence of persistent places is further related to a potentially fluid but structured connection between people and land.     

Insights into early Holocene hunter-gatherer mobility on the Peruvian Southern Coast from mollusk gathering seasonality

Quebrada de los Burros (QLB) is an early Archaic coastal archaeological site in southern Peru (∼18.1°S) and the most extensively studied in the area for this period. It was occupied from 10 to 6.5 ka by fishermen also practicing hunting and mollusk gathering. Shell growth lines in 116 individuals of the surf clam Mesodesma donacium were studied to determine the month of their death (±2 months). Our results show that, for the whole occupation period, mollusk gathering was a seasonal activity mainly practiced during austral spring and summer. A change occurred between the early and the middle Holocene: the mollusk gathering season in the middle Holocene occurred ∼3 months earlier in the year than in the older levels. This behavior change could have a cultural origin, rather than dictated by the environment for it is associated with changes in the lithic industry. QLB occupants also hunted herbivores in the nearby lomas ecosystems. These plant communities only grow during the fog season from June to December, suggesting that the site was occupied during this season. A comparison of the span of the mollusk gathering season and the lomas season suggests that, at least during the early Holocene, QLB was occupied all the year round. A permanent freshwater source and the proximity of the sea, the lomas, and raw lithic materials, provided ideal conditions for a permanent occupation. This result reveals a strategy based on a seasonal alternation between marine and terrestrial resources exploitation.     

Assessing diet and seasonality in the Lower Pecos canyonlands: an evaluation of coprolite specimens as records of individual dietary decisions

This article presents an evaluation of coprolite specimens from the Lower Pecos canyonlands as records of individual dietary decisions. Prior studies of coprolites from this region have greatly expanded our knowledge of Archaic subsistence patterns, but have not taken full advantage of the record of individual dietary decisions recorded in each coprolite specimen. The menu, or dietary combinations, reflected in individual coprolite specimens are assessed through the identification of several congruent botanical components derived from the same food resource, phytoliths, fiber ultimates, and epidermal sheets. The data is analyzed with hierarchical cluster analysis, an exploratory statistical technique. The resultant menus reflected in these clusters are evaluated with reference to a diet-breadth model developed for the known staple resources of the canyonlands.Three main menus are apparent in the specimens. The first menu consists of prickly pear (Opuntia sp.) cladodes, or nopales, and was principally, although not exclusively, consumed in the late spring. This menu is primarily consumed when other resources were not readily available and may be considered a dependable but undesirable meal. The second menu consists of pit-baked lechuguilla (Agave lechuguilla) and sotol (Dasylirion sp.) caudices, or hearts, common throughout the cool season. This menu entails high processing costs, but would provide a reliable caloric return. The third menu exhibits a monolithic reliance on prickly pear fruits, or tunas, during the summer. The ease of harvest and consumption is reflected in the seasonal dominance of this resource, which was assuredly a highly desirable meal. The dietary patterns recorded in the coprolite specimens from the Lower Pecos canyonlands demonstrate a seasonally variable diet-breadth that incorporated low-ranked resources during times of seasonal scarcity as well as a monolithic dependence on high-ranked resources when they were available in the local landscape.     

Modelling the Neolithic transition in a heterogeneous environment

The Neolithic transition, involving the change of subsistence from foraging to agriculture, can fruitfully be modelled mathematically, as, e.g., in the three-population model of Aoki et al. (1996). Here that model is modified to include some features of population dynamics in a realistic, two-dimensional environment, and including population pressure, competition for resources between farmers and foragers, and the dependence of the population carrying capacities and diffusivities on the environmental conditions. This modified model allows for the survival of foragers in regions where environmental conditions do not favour farming. The model is tentatively applied to the Indian subcontinent, which is a complicated example of this transition involving multiple domestication centres. The results are briefly compared with published archaeological data.     

Late Holocene fishing strategies in southern Africa as seen from Likoaeng,highland Lesotho

The open-air campsite of Likoaeng in the eastern highlands of Lesotho, southern Africa, preserves an extensive record of fishing activity by late Holocene hunter-gatherers. This paper reports the results of the analysis of the enormous fish assemblage recovered from its excavation. Fishing appears to have become more important from the start of the late Holocene neoglacial, c. 1000 cal. BC, with people camping at Likoaeng to intercept seasonal spawning runs of two species, Labeo capensis (the Orange River mudfish) and Labeobarbus aeneus (the smallmouth yellowfish). The latter dominates in the lower part of the sequence, with the former becoming dominant after 560 cal. BC. As a result, the focus of occupation probably shifted from high summer to spring. Estimates of Standard Length show that some fish were significantly larger than historically recorded maxima, but there is no sign that human predation affected fish size. The massive quantities of fish taken suggest that people may have used seasonally predictable spawning events as a focus for social aggregation. While there is no evidence for fish being preserved or removed off-site, the strong focus on fishing at Likoaeng strengthens the case for intensified hunter-gatherer interest in freshwater resources in southern Africa during the late Holocene.