1,721,091 research outputs found
Faces in the stone: Further finds of anthropomorphic engravings suggest a discrete artistic tradition flourished in Timor-Leste in the Terminal Pleistocene
No full textEngraving sites are rare in mainland and Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) where painted art dominates the prehistoric artistic record. Here we report two new engraving sites from the Tutuala region of Timor-Leste comprising mostly humanoid forms carved into speleothem columns in rock-shelters. Engraved face motifs have previously been reported from Lene Hara Cave in this same region, and one was dated to the Pleistocene–Holocene transition using the Uranium–Thorium method. We discuss the engravings in relation to changes in technology and material culture that took place in the terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene archaeological records in this region of Timor as well as neighbouring islands. We suggest that the engravings may have been produced as markers of territorial and social identity within the context of population expansion and greater inter-group contacts at this time
An illustrated prehistory of the Jubbah oasis: reconstructing Holocene occupation patterns in north-western Saudi Arabia from rock art and inscriptions
No full textA systematic survey of rock art and associated archaeological features in the Jubbah oasis provides evidence of Holocene occupation from the early Holocene to the present. In total 1249 panels with rock art and inscriptions, and 159 archaeological sites, were recorded on twelve different jebels. Analyses of rock art content and engraving stratigraphy indicate that the iconic Jubbah style had a long tradition among pre-pastoral hunters and continued to be used by early herders. We also identify a distinct body of rock art that pre-dates the Jubbah style and may be associated with a nearby Epipalaeolithic site. Our systematic dataset identifies a body of Bronze Age rock art that is further supported by the material culture and radiocarbon dates obtained from the remains of disturbed cairns. The rock art in Jubbah appears to have been created throughout the Holocene occupation of the oasis and similarities in the representation of animals, choice of location and content of rock art scenes are evident from the Bronze Age to the early modern period, and perhaps into the twentieth century. Moreover, rock art and epigraphy suggest that occupation phases in Jubbah were sustained long enough for the repeated development of unique local characteristics throughout the Holocene
Was culture cumulative in the Palaeolithic?
Full text linkThis paper assesses the evidence for cumulative culture in the Palaeolithic through the lens of the most widely available line of evidence: knapped stone. Two types of cumulative culture are defined: additive traits in an individual’s repertoire, versus a population wide stock of skills. Complexity may both cumulate within a single realm of expertise such as stone knapping, or may accumulate with multiple realms of expertise, such as the conjunction of stone knapping and bead technology. The Palaeolithic emergence of the social transmission and innovation traits that underpin cumulativity are described and assessed in relation to the evidence for cumulative culture. Examples of local population continuity are assessed for inter-generational increases in complexity as predicted by cumulative culture models. At an individual level, all cultures can be considered cumulative; at a population level cumulative culture may be entirely absent from the Palaeolithic
Biface Knapping Skill in the East African Acheulean: Progressive Trends and Random Walks
No full textOver the 1.5-million-year duration of the Acheulean, there is considerable variation in biface finesse. It is not clear, however, if there is an improvement in biface knapping ability over time, or if variation between sites is largely unrelated to their age. The diversity and duration of the East African Acheulean presents an opportunity to examine this issue. Variables that reflect difficult aspects of biface knapping, and which were likely important goals for Acheulean hominins, were measured in order to assess skill. These variables-refinement (thinness), edge straightness, and symmetrywere compared across four East African Acheulean sites: Olduvai Gorge, Olorgesailie, Kariandusi, and Isinya. The influence of rock type, blank type, reduction intensity, aberrant scar terminations, and invasive flaking on these variables was assessed. Over relatively short timescales, confounding factors, including ones not possible to control for, tend to obscure any temporal signature in biface knapping skill. However, over the vast timespan of the Acheulean at Olduvai Gorge, a temporal trendwas indeed apparent. Possible factors influencing this trend include the invention of new knapping techniques, the addition of adolescence as a life history stage, and evolving hominin cognition.This research was funded by the University of Queenslan
The Unity of Acheulean Culture
No full textThis chapter examines the issue of whether the Acheulean is a genuine homologous cultural entity, descended via a chain of social reproduction from a common ‘ancestor’, or whether it was a technological phase that was repeatedly independently invented. An anecdotal experiment is used to determine the relative ease of inventing biface knapping from scratch, versus transmitting it with one bout of social observation. Handaxe and cleaver elongation is compared between East African and Indian Acheulean assemblages to determine if there are systematic differences that might reflect different lineages of social transmission. The age of the first appearance of the Acheulean in various parts of the world is modelled to determine if spread from a single source or independent inventions best fits the timing of its distribution. The issue of whether Pleistocene bifaces from East Asia are homologous with the Acheulean or were independently invented is examined by comparing the extent of bifacial shaping between East Asian and western Acheulean assemblages. The chapter concludes with the following contentions. Acheulean bifaces are hard to invent, or even emulate, but easy to imitate. Pleistocene East Asian bifaces are an example of parallelism; that is, not de novo independent invention, but invention from the same Oldowan substrate as the Acheulean. The western Acheulean is however a coherent cultural entity that seems to have spread from a single source region, and with regionally consistent variations suggesting it was maintained through social transmission
Miniaturization and Abstraction in the Later Stone Age
Full text linkThis article offers some hypotheses to explain Later Stone Age lithic miniaturization: the systematic creation of small stone flakes on the finest-grained materials. Fundamentally, this phenomenon appears to represent the prioritization of stone tool sharpness over longevity, and a disposable mode of using stone tools. Ethnographic evidence from Australasia, the Andaman Islands, and Africa is used to suggest some specific functions for miniaturized lithics, as well as their relationship to other aspects of Later Stone Age material culture, including ochre crayons, shell beads, and notched bones. Miniaturized lithic functions are hypothesized to have a common basis in the cognitive capacity for abstraction: having ideas about ideas. The technological and social affordances of abstraction may have given later Homo sapiens significant adaptive advantages over other members of our genus
Predetermined Refinement: the Earliest Levallois of the Kapthurin Formation
Full text linkLevallois technology characterizes the Middle Stone Age/Middle Palaeolithic, but one of its earliest manifestations is from the preceding Acheulean of the Kapthurin Formation, in the Rift Valley of east Africa. Here, ~ 400 ka, hominins were creating large flake blank handaxes and cleavers through Levallois knapping. Comparing these tools with other Rift Valley Acheulean assemblages made on large flakes shows those of the Kapthurin Formation are distinguished by their thinness. This was achieved through symmetrical centripetal preparation of gentle upper surface convexities on the Levallois cores, the creation of a protruding facetted platform, and proximal bevelling of the upper surface. A large elongate flake blank was struck from the facetted platform, then finished with marginal trimming to create the symmetrical and regular edge of the handaxe or cleaver. As they were used for the creation of handaxes and cleavers, the Kapthurin Acheulean Levallois cores and flakes are much larger than that of the Middle Stone Age, with overshot flakes from excessive force a more frequent error. The Acheulean Levallois is further distinguished from those of the Middle Stone Age by the lack of recurrent flaking, with cores apparently producing only a single preferential flake without any repreparation of the main flaking surface, despite the cores being big enough for further large blank removals, and even if the preferential removal overshot and was abandoned. The key advantage offered by Levallois in general is large thin elongate flakes. In its Kapthurin Acheulean manifestation, Levallois was used to create an individual tool, but in the Middle Stone Age it was often used to make toolkits
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
- …
