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Steven L Kuhn - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Paleolithic Diet and the Division of Labor in Mediterranean Eurasia
The Evolution of Hominin Diets, 2020Co-Authors: Mary C. Stiner, Steven L KuhnAbstract:Hunter-gatherers of the recent era vary in many aspects of culture, yet they display great uniformity in their tendency to divide labor along the lines of gender and age. We argue on the basis of zooarchaeological, technological, and demographic evidence that the complementary economic roles of men and women so typical of ethnographically docu- mented hunter-gatherers did not appear in Eurasia until the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic. The rich archaeological record of Middle Paleolithic cultures in Eurasia suggests, by contrast, that earlier hominins (Neandertals, among others) pursued narrowly focused economies, with women's activities more closely aligned to those of men with respect to schedules and territory use patterns. Hoofed animals were the principal source of meat for virtually all Middle and Upper Paleolithic foragers, but Upper Paleolithic people supplemented diets from large game with a broader spectrum of small animals, leading to considerable expansion in dietary breadth. Parallel trends are apparent in the technological record. Evidence of skill-intensive, time-consuming craft work that normally sup- ports the food quest among recent forager economies also emerged in the early Upper Paleolithic, including indications of dry hide scraping based on lithic micro-wear evidence and widespread use of bone tools suitable for working hide, plant fibers or both. The comparatively narrow reliance on large game animals during the Middle Paleolithic for meat would have constrained the demographic potential of these endemic populations. More broadly based economies, as indicated both by the faunal record and the increasing complexity of foraging and related technologies, appeared earliest in the eastern Mediterranean region and spread (with modification) to the north and west. The behavioral changes associated with the Upper Paleolithic record signal a wider range of economic and technological roles in forager societies, and these changes in adaptation may have provided the expanding Homo sapi- ens populations with a demographic advantage over other hominins in Eurasia. Middle Paleolithic human reproductive units probably were not robust at the micropopulation scale, and localized extinctions were likely to have been common. The demographic robustness of the Upper Paleolithic systems may be explained by the rise of new, diversified strategies for evening-out or sharing risk. When and where Middle and Upper Paleolithic populations first came into contact, the marginal advantages provided by collaborative economies meant that replacement of the Middle Paleolithic groups was only a matter of time.
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history chronology and techno typology of the upper Paleolithic sequence in the shuidonggou area northern china
Journal of World Prehistory, 2019Co-Authors: Steven L Kuhn, Feng Li, Ofer Baryosef, Fuyou Chen, Fei PengAbstract:The timing and behavioral markers of the Upper Paleolithic in different parts of the world are of great importance to research on modern human dispersals. The pattern of behavioral developments in the Upper Paleolithic in northern China differs in important ways from the patterns observed in West Eurasia, Africa, and South Asia. Shuidonggou (SDG), a cluster of Paleolithic sites in northern China, contains several of the most important Upper Paleolithic sites in the region. Various localities yield evidence of three major cultural components dated by 14C, uranium-series, and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) methods to between roughly 46 ka and 10 ka. The oldest component, blade assemblages with western Eurasian early Upper Paleolithic characteristics, appears to be intrusive from Siberia and/or Mongolia, beginning at least 41 ka (e.g., SDG 1 and SDG 9). Advanced core and flake assemblages may mark the appearance of an indigenous Late Paleolithic of North China beginning at around 33 ka (e.g., SDG 2 and SDG 8). Finally, around 10.5 ka, microblade technology arrived in the area (SDG 12), although we are not sure of its origins at present. Other typical Upper Paleolithic cultural remains, such as bone tools and body decorations, have been found at various localities in the SDG area as well (e.g., ostrich eggshell beads from SDG 2, 7, and 8). Information from this cluster of occupations increases our understanding of cultural variability, adaptation, and demographic dynamics of modern humans in Late Pleistocene northern Asia.
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Paleolithic occupations of the Göllü Dağ, Central Anatolia, Turkey
Journal of Field Archaeology, 2015Co-Authors: Steven L Kuhn, Berkay Dinçer, Nur Balkan-atlı, Mehmet Korhan ErturaçAbstract:Systematic archaeological surface reconnaissance of the GolluD agu volcanic complex from 2007 to 2012 documented more than 230 findspots with Paleolithic artifacts, ranging from isolated finds to extensive and dense scatters of artifacts. Most of the activities represented relate to exploitation of the rich obsidian resources in the region. Paleolithic artifacts are attributed mainly to the Middle Paleolithic based on the presence of Levallois technology but there is a substantial Lower Paleolithic component represented by handaxes and other large bifacial tools. Upper and EpiPaleolithic sites and artifacts are scarce or absent in the survey sample. The distributions of handaxes and Levallois elements differ substantially, reflecting differences in site preservation and exposure as well as organ- ization of prehistoric activities. Multiple variants of Levallois are represented but centripetal preferential and unipolar flake production dominate. The frequent co-occurrence of different Levallois forms suggests flexible reduction strategies. Distributions of different classes of artifact across the survey area indicate that the Middle Paleolithic occupations of GolluD agu were not entirely oriented toward workshop activities.
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the early upper Paleolithic occupations at ucagizli cave hatay turkey
Journal of Human Evolution, 2009Co-Authors: Steven L Kuhn, Mary C. Stiner, Erksin Gulec, Ismail Ozer, Hakan Yilmaz, Ismail Baykara, Aysen Acikkol, Paul Goldberg, Kenneth Martinez Molina, Engin UnayAbstract:This paper summarizes results from excavations at Ucagizli Cave (Hatay, Turkey) between 1999 and 2002 and 2005. This collapsed karstic chamber contains a sequence of early Upper Paleolithic deposits that span an interval between roughly 29,000 and 41,000 (uncalibrated) radiocarbon years BP. Lithic assemblages can be assigned to two major chronostratigraphic units. The earliest assemblages correspond with the Initial Upper Paleolithic, whereas the most recent ones fit within the definition of the Ahmarian. Substantial assemblages of stone tools, vertebrate faunal remains, ornaments, osseous artifacts, and other cultural materials provide an unusually varied picture of human behavior during the earliest phases of the Upper Paleolithic in the northern Levant. The sequence at Ucagizli Cave documents the technological transition between Initial Upper Paleolithic and Ahmarian, with a high degree of continuity in foraging and technological activities. The sequence also documents major shifts in occupational intensity and mobility.
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Changes in the ‘Connectedness’ and Resilience of Paleolithic Societies in Mediterranean Ecosystems
Human Ecology, 2006Co-Authors: Mary C. Stiner, Steven L KuhnAbstract:Human predator‐prey relationships changed dramatically in the Mediterranean Basin between 250,000 and 9,000 years ago. Many of these changes can be linked to increases in Paleolithic human population densities. Small game species are particularly diagnostic of increases in human hunting pressure and are a major source of evidence for demographic change after 40–45,000 years ago. Biomass-corrected data on prey choice also indicate increasing use of those species that possess higher reproductive efficiencies. Step-wise, apparently irreversible shifts in human predatory niche are apparent in the Mediterranean Basin, beginning with the earliest Upper Paleolithic in the east and spreading westward. Evidence of demographic pressure and greater use of resilient prey populations is followed by technological innovations to exploit these animals more efficiently. The zooarchaeological findings suggest that Middle and Lower Paleolithic reproductive units probably were not robust at the micropopulation scale, due to the rather narrow set of behavioral responses that characterized social groups at the time, and thus localized extinctions at the micropopulation level were likely to have been common. Upper Paleolithic groups were the quintessential colonizers and, in addition, uniquely good at holding on to habitat gained. Upper Paleolithic archaeological “cultures” had shorter histories of existence than those of earlier periods, but they were even more widespread geographically. The demographic robustness of the Upper Paleolithic systems may stem from wholesale strategies for evening-out or sharing risk and volatility in technology. Micropopulations were larger and often denser on landscapes, more connected via cooperative ties, and thus more robust.
Anne Pike-tay - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Seasonal variations of the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition at El Castillo, Cueva Morin and El Pendo (Cantabria, Spain)
Journal of Human Evolution, 1999Co-Authors: Anne Pike-tay, Victoria Cabrera-valdés, Federico Bernaldo De QuirósAbstract:With debate escalating in regard to the prolonged contemporaneity of neandertal and modern human groups in the Franco-Cantabrian region on the one hand, and the late persistence of neandertals (until ca. 28-30,000 B.P.) and Mousterian industries in southern Iberia on the other; sites with Mousterian-Upper Paleolithic sequences from northern Spain play a pivotal role in the ongoing investigation of the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition in western Europe. An important line of inquiry into the nature of social and economic change from the Middle to Upper Paleolithic is the monitoring of shifts in land use and resource procurement patterns. The recognition of short-term, seasonal patterning in settlement and resource provisioning may provide insights into changes in mobility, territoriality, and social organization that might otherwise be missed. This paper presents results of a seasonality study of fauna from archaeological levels spanning the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition from the sites of El Castillo, El Pendo, and Cueva Morin in Cantabrian Spain. Data concerning season of death and age at death of prey animals presented here are derived from dental growth mark (increment, annuli) analysis. These data, along with other artifactual and faunal evidence suggest to us that: (1) economic strategies and technologies pervasive in the Upper Paleolithic are rooted in the Cantabrian Middle Paleolithic; and, (2) the apparent increase in deposits from the Middle through Upper Paleolithic may be the signature of a gradual increase in logistical economic strategies including the heightened level of social organization required for their implementation.
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Seasonal variations of the Middle – Upper Paleolithic transition at El Castillo , Cueva Morín and El Pendo ( Cantabria , Spain )
Journal of Human Evolution, 1999Co-Authors: Anne Pike-tay, Victoria Cabrere Valdes, Federico Bernaldo De QuirósAbstract:With debate escalating in regard to the prolonged contemporaneity of neandertal and modern human groups in the Franco-Cantabrian region on the one hand, and the late persistence of neandertals (until ca. 28–30,000 B.P.) and Mousterian industries in southern Iberia on the other; sites with Mousterian–Upper Paleolithic sequences from northern Spain play a pivotal role in the ongoing investigation of the Middle–Upper Paleolithic transition in western Europe. An import- ant line of inquiry into the nature of social and economic change from the Middle to Upper Paleolithic is the monitoring of shifts in land use and resource procurement patterns. The recognition of short-term, seasonal patterning in settlement and resource provisioning may provide insights into changes in mobility, territoriality, and social organization that might otherwise be missed. This paper presents results of a seasonality study of fauna from archaeological levels spanning the Middle–Upper Paleolithic transition from the sites of El Castillo, El Pendo, and Cueva Morín in Cantabrian Spain. Data concerning season of death and age at death of prey animals pre- sented here are derived from dental growth mark (increment, annuli) analysis. These data, along with other artifactual and faunal evidence suggest to us that: (1) economic strategies and technologies pervasive in the Upper Paleolithic are rooted in the Cantabrian Middle Paleo- lithic; and, (2) the apparent increase in deposits from the Middle through Upper Paleolithic may be the signature of a gradual increase in logistical economic strategies including the heightened level of social organization required for their implementation.
Mary C. Stiner - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Paleolithic Diet and the Division of Labor in Mediterranean Eurasia
The Evolution of Hominin Diets, 2020Co-Authors: Mary C. Stiner, Steven L KuhnAbstract:Hunter-gatherers of the recent era vary in many aspects of culture, yet they display great uniformity in their tendency to divide labor along the lines of gender and age. We argue on the basis of zooarchaeological, technological, and demographic evidence that the complementary economic roles of men and women so typical of ethnographically docu- mented hunter-gatherers did not appear in Eurasia until the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic. The rich archaeological record of Middle Paleolithic cultures in Eurasia suggests, by contrast, that earlier hominins (Neandertals, among others) pursued narrowly focused economies, with women's activities more closely aligned to those of men with respect to schedules and territory use patterns. Hoofed animals were the principal source of meat for virtually all Middle and Upper Paleolithic foragers, but Upper Paleolithic people supplemented diets from large game with a broader spectrum of small animals, leading to considerable expansion in dietary breadth. Parallel trends are apparent in the technological record. Evidence of skill-intensive, time-consuming craft work that normally sup- ports the food quest among recent forager economies also emerged in the early Upper Paleolithic, including indications of dry hide scraping based on lithic micro-wear evidence and widespread use of bone tools suitable for working hide, plant fibers or both. The comparatively narrow reliance on large game animals during the Middle Paleolithic for meat would have constrained the demographic potential of these endemic populations. More broadly based economies, as indicated both by the faunal record and the increasing complexity of foraging and related technologies, appeared earliest in the eastern Mediterranean region and spread (with modification) to the north and west. The behavioral changes associated with the Upper Paleolithic record signal a wider range of economic and technological roles in forager societies, and these changes in adaptation may have provided the expanding Homo sapi- ens populations with a demographic advantage over other hominins in Eurasia. Middle Paleolithic human reproductive units probably were not robust at the micropopulation scale, and localized extinctions were likely to have been common. The demographic robustness of the Upper Paleolithic systems may be explained by the rise of new, diversified strategies for evening-out or sharing risk. When and where Middle and Upper Paleolithic populations first came into contact, the marginal advantages provided by collaborative economies meant that replacement of the Middle Paleolithic groups was only a matter of time.
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hearth side socioeconomics hunting and paleoecology during the late lower Paleolithic at qesem cave israel
Journal of Human Evolution, 2011Co-Authors: Mary C. Stiner, Avi Gopher, Ran BarkaiAbstract:Abstract The late Lower Paleolithic archaeofaunas of Qesem Cave in the southern Levant span 400–200 ka and associate with Acheulo-Yabrudian (mainly Amudian) industries. The large mammals are exclusively Eurasian in origin and formed under relatively cool, moist conditions. The zooarchaeological findings testify to large game hunting, hearth-centered carcass processing and meat sharing during the late Lower Paleolithic, not unlike the patterns known from Middle and Upper Paleolithic caves in the region. Well-defined hearth features are rarely preserved in Qesem Cave, but the heterogeneous distributions of burned bones indicate areas of frequent hearth rebuilding throughout the occupation sequence. The hominins delayed consumption of high quality body parts until they could be moved to the cave, where hearths were hubs of processing activities and social interaction. Paradoxically, the cut marks on the Qesem bones are both more abundant and more randomly oriented than those observed in Middle and Upper Paleolithic cases in the Levant. These results suggest that several individuals were directly involved in cutting meat from the bones and that the social mechanics of meat sharing during the late Lower Paleolithic at Qesem Cave differed from those typical of both the Middle and Upper Paleolithic in the region.
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the early upper Paleolithic occupations at ucagizli cave hatay turkey
Journal of Human Evolution, 2009Co-Authors: Steven L Kuhn, Mary C. Stiner, Erksin Gulec, Ismail Ozer, Hakan Yilmaz, Ismail Baykara, Aysen Acikkol, Paul Goldberg, Kenneth Martinez Molina, Engin UnayAbstract:This paper summarizes results from excavations at Ucagizli Cave (Hatay, Turkey) between 1999 and 2002 and 2005. This collapsed karstic chamber contains a sequence of early Upper Paleolithic deposits that span an interval between roughly 29,000 and 41,000 (uncalibrated) radiocarbon years BP. Lithic assemblages can be assigned to two major chronostratigraphic units. The earliest assemblages correspond with the Initial Upper Paleolithic, whereas the most recent ones fit within the definition of the Ahmarian. Substantial assemblages of stone tools, vertebrate faunal remains, ornaments, osseous artifacts, and other cultural materials provide an unusually varied picture of human behavior during the earliest phases of the Upper Paleolithic in the northern Levant. The sequence at Ucagizli Cave documents the technological transition between Initial Upper Paleolithic and Ahmarian, with a high degree of continuity in foraging and technological activities. The sequence also documents major shifts in occupational intensity and mobility.
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Changes in the ‘Connectedness’ and Resilience of Paleolithic Societies in Mediterranean Ecosystems
Human Ecology, 2006Co-Authors: Mary C. Stiner, Steven L KuhnAbstract:Human predator‐prey relationships changed dramatically in the Mediterranean Basin between 250,000 and 9,000 years ago. Many of these changes can be linked to increases in Paleolithic human population densities. Small game species are particularly diagnostic of increases in human hunting pressure and are a major source of evidence for demographic change after 40–45,000 years ago. Biomass-corrected data on prey choice also indicate increasing use of those species that possess higher reproductive efficiencies. Step-wise, apparently irreversible shifts in human predatory niche are apparent in the Mediterranean Basin, beginning with the earliest Upper Paleolithic in the east and spreading westward. Evidence of demographic pressure and greater use of resilient prey populations is followed by technological innovations to exploit these animals more efficiently. The zooarchaeological findings suggest that Middle and Lower Paleolithic reproductive units probably were not robust at the micropopulation scale, due to the rather narrow set of behavioral responses that characterized social groups at the time, and thus localized extinctions at the micropopulation level were likely to have been common. Upper Paleolithic groups were the quintessential colonizers and, in addition, uniquely good at holding on to habitat gained. Upper Paleolithic archaeological “cultures” had shorter histories of existence than those of earlier periods, but they were even more widespread geographically. The demographic robustness of the Upper Paleolithic systems may stem from wholesale strategies for evening-out or sharing risk and volatility in technology. Micropopulations were larger and often denser on landscapes, more connected via cooperative ties, and thus more robust.
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the tortoise and the hare small game use the broad spectrum revolution and Paleolithic demography
Current Anthropology, 2000Co-Authors: Mary C. Stiner, Natalie D Munro, Todd A SurovellAbstract:: This study illustrates the potential of small-game data for identifying and dating Paleolithic demographic pulses such as those associated with modern human origins and the later evolution of food-producing economies. Archaeofaunal series from Israel and Italy serve as our examples. Three important implications of this study are that (1) early Middle Paleolithic populations were exceptionally small and highly dispersed, (2) the first major population growth pulse in the eastern Mediterranean probably occurred before the end of the Middle Paleolithic, and (3) subsequent demographic pulses in the Upper and Epi-Paleolithic greatly reshaped the conditions of selection that operated on human subsistence ecology, technology, and society. The findings of this study are consistent with the main premise of Flannery's broad-spectrum-revolution hypothesis. However, ranking small prey in terms of work of capture (in the absence of special harvesting tools) proved far more effective in this investigation of human diet breadth than have the taxonomic-diversity analyses published previously.
Federico Bernaldo De Quirós - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Seasonal variations of the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition at El Castillo, Cueva Morin and El Pendo (Cantabria, Spain)
Journal of Human Evolution, 1999Co-Authors: Anne Pike-tay, Victoria Cabrera-valdés, Federico Bernaldo De QuirósAbstract:With debate escalating in regard to the prolonged contemporaneity of neandertal and modern human groups in the Franco-Cantabrian region on the one hand, and the late persistence of neandertals (until ca. 28-30,000 B.P.) and Mousterian industries in southern Iberia on the other; sites with Mousterian-Upper Paleolithic sequences from northern Spain play a pivotal role in the ongoing investigation of the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition in western Europe. An important line of inquiry into the nature of social and economic change from the Middle to Upper Paleolithic is the monitoring of shifts in land use and resource procurement patterns. The recognition of short-term, seasonal patterning in settlement and resource provisioning may provide insights into changes in mobility, territoriality, and social organization that might otherwise be missed. This paper presents results of a seasonality study of fauna from archaeological levels spanning the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition from the sites of El Castillo, El Pendo, and Cueva Morin in Cantabrian Spain. Data concerning season of death and age at death of prey animals presented here are derived from dental growth mark (increment, annuli) analysis. These data, along with other artifactual and faunal evidence suggest to us that: (1) economic strategies and technologies pervasive in the Upper Paleolithic are rooted in the Cantabrian Middle Paleolithic; and, (2) the apparent increase in deposits from the Middle through Upper Paleolithic may be the signature of a gradual increase in logistical economic strategies including the heightened level of social organization required for their implementation.
Federico Bernaldo De Quirós - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Seasonal variations of the Middle – Upper Paleolithic transition at El Castillo , Cueva Morín and El Pendo ( Cantabria , Spain )
Journal of Human Evolution, 1999Co-Authors: Anne Pike-tay, Victoria Cabrere Valdes, Federico Bernaldo De QuirósAbstract:With debate escalating in regard to the prolonged contemporaneity of neandertal and modern human groups in the Franco-Cantabrian region on the one hand, and the late persistence of neandertals (until ca. 28–30,000 B.P.) and Mousterian industries in southern Iberia on the other; sites with Mousterian–Upper Paleolithic sequences from northern Spain play a pivotal role in the ongoing investigation of the Middle–Upper Paleolithic transition in western Europe. An import- ant line of inquiry into the nature of social and economic change from the Middle to Upper Paleolithic is the monitoring of shifts in land use and resource procurement patterns. The recognition of short-term, seasonal patterning in settlement and resource provisioning may provide insights into changes in mobility, territoriality, and social organization that might otherwise be missed. This paper presents results of a seasonality study of fauna from archaeological levels spanning the Middle–Upper Paleolithic transition from the sites of El Castillo, El Pendo, and Cueva Morín in Cantabrian Spain. Data concerning season of death and age at death of prey animals pre- sented here are derived from dental growth mark (increment, annuli) analysis. These data, along with other artifactual and faunal evidence suggest to us that: (1) economic strategies and technologies pervasive in the Upper Paleolithic are rooted in the Cantabrian Middle Paleo- lithic; and, (2) the apparent increase in deposits from the Middle through Upper Paleolithic may be the signature of a gradual increase in logistical economic strategies including the heightened level of social organization required for their implementation.
