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The book's focus is the hominins and how they used the territory in which they lived, along with a glimpse into the experiences of the excavators of the Bau de l'Aubesier.
This edited volume presents current archaeological research and data from the major early Acheulean sites in East Africa, and addresses three main areas of focus; 1) the tempo and mode of technological changes that led to the emergence of the Acheulean in East Africa; 2) new approaches to lithic collections, including lithic technology analyses; and 3) the debated coexistence of the Developed Oldowan and the early Acheulean. The chapters are the proceedings from the workshop titled “The Emergence of the Acheulean in East Africa”, held at University of Rome “La Sapienza” on September 12–13, 2013. The aim of the workshop was to bring together researchers currently working in this fie...
It is estimated that in prehistoric societies children comprised at least forty to sixty-five percent of the population, yet by default, our ancestral landscapes are peopled by adults who hunt, gather, fish, knap tools and make art. But these adults were also parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles (however they would have codified these kin relationships) who had to make space physically, emotionally, intellectually, and cognitively for the infants, children and adolescents around them. The economic, social, and political roles of Paleolithic children are often understudied because they are assumed to be unknowable or negligible. Drawing on the most recent data from the cognitive sciences a...
The 150th anniversary of the discovery of the famous Neanderthal fossils gave reason for an international and interdisciplinary symposium in Bonn/Germany. The present book arose from this congress and focuses on multiple aspects of archaeological investigation on Neanderthal lifeways. In-depth studies of top-ranking scientists provide a detailed and comprehensive survey of contemporary research on our Pleistocene relatives. Examinations and debates are embedded in a variety of regions and time frames. Chronology, subsistence, land use, and cultural adaptations among late Neanderthals form the major trajectories of the book. The wide range of approaches involved, leads to an increasing understanding of the facets of and the variability of Neanderthal behavioural patterns. The present volume is complemented by a paleontologically orientated publication of the same congress (edited by Gerd-Christian Weniger and Silvana Condemi).
A sweeping overview of how and what humans have eaten in their long history as a species The Story of Food in the Human Past: How What We Ate Made Us Who We Are uses case studies from recent archaeological research to tell the story of food in human prehistory. Beginning with the earliest members of our genus, Robyn E. Cutright investigates the role of food in shaping who we are as humans during the emergence of modern Homo sapiens and through major transitions in human prehistory such as the development of agriculture and the emergence of complex societies. This fascinating study begins with a discussion of how food shaped humans in evolutionary terms by examining what makes human eating un...
"This book dives into humanity's preconceived notions of our superiority over animals with whom we share so many common ancestors"--
Reconstructions of diet provide valuable insights into the ecology and evolutionary history of animals and humans in the fossil record, and the history of relationships between animals and humans. Reconstruction of past diets allows tracking numerous ecological and behavioural aspects through time and across diverse geographic areas, such as, but not limited to: trophic position, niche sharing and niche partitioning, past vegetation, migration patterns, ontogenetic and individual diet choices, and adaptations to changing environment. It also is a useful tool to track climatic change. More broadly, these insights are key to reconstructing and understanding the structure, composition, and function of past ecosystems. Multiple approaches have been proposed to infer paleodiets, including the integration of multiple proxy approaches.
The Archaeology of Large-Scale Manipulation of Prey explores the social and functional aspects of large-scale hunting adaptations in the archaeological record. Mass-kill hunting strategies are ubiquitous in human prehistory and exhibit culturally specific economic, social, environmental, and demographic markers. Here, seven case studies—primarily from the Americas and spanning from the Folsom period on the Great Plains to the ethnographic present in Australia—expand the understanding of large-scale hunting methods beyond the customary role of subsistence and survival to include the social and political realms within which large-scale hunting adaptations evolved. Addressing a diverse asso...