Human Paleoecology in the Levantine Corridor

Human Paleoecology in the Levantine Corridor
Author: N. Goren-Inbar
Publisher: Oxbow Books Limited
Total Pages: 248
Release: 2004
Genre: Nature
ISBN:

Few areas of the world have played as prominent a role in human evolution as the Levantine Corridor, a comparatively narrow strip of land sandwiched between the Mediterranean Sea on the west and the expanse of inhospitable desert to the east. The first hominids to leave Africa, over 1.5 million years ago, first entered the Levant before spreading into what is now Europe and Asia. About 100,000 years ago another African exodus, this time of anatomically modern humans, colonised the Levant before expanding into Eurasia. Toward the end of the Pleistocene, this Corridor also witnessed some of the earliest steps toward economic and social intensification, perhaps the most radical change in hominid lifestyle that ultimately paved the way for sedentary communities wholly dependent on domestic animals and cultivated plants.

Human Paleoecology in the Levantine Corridor

Human Paleoecology in the Levantine Corridor
Author: N. Goren-Inbar
Publisher: Oxbow Books Limited
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2004
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 9781842171554

Few areas of the world have played as prominent a role in human evolution as the Levantine Corridor, a comparatively narrow strip of land sandwiched between the Mediterranean Sea on the west and the expanse of inhospitable desert to the east. The first hominids to leave Africa, over 1.5 million years ago, first entered the Levant before spreading into what is now Europe and Asia. About 100,000 years ago another African exodus, this time of anatomically modern humans, colonised the Levant before expanding into Eurasia. Toward the end of the Pleistocene, this Corridor also witnessed some of the earliest steps toward economic and social intensification, perhaps the most radical change in hominid lifestyle that ultimately paved the way for sedentary communities wholly dependent on domestic animals and cultivated plants.

Quaternary of the Levant

Quaternary of the Levant
Author: Yehouda Enzel
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 789
Release: 2017-04-27
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1316841847

Quaternary of the Levant presents up-to-date research achievements from a region that displays unique interactions between the climate, the environment and human evolution. Focusing on southeast Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel, it brings together over eighty contributions from leading researchers to review 2.5 million years of environmental change and human cultural evolution. Information from prehistoric sites and palaeoanthropological studies contributing to our understanding of 'out of Africa' migrations, Neanderthals, cultures of modern humans, and the origins of agriculture are assessed within the context of glacial-interglacial cycles, marine isotope cycles, plate tectonics, geochronology, geomorphology, palaeoecology and genetics. Complemented by overview summaries that draw together the findings of each chapter, the resulting coverage is wide-ranging and cohesive. The cross-disciplinary nature of the volume makes it an invaluable resource for academics and advanced students of Quaternary science and human prehistory, as well as being an important reference for archaeologists working in the region.

The Evolution and History of Human Populations in South Asia

The Evolution and History of Human Populations in South Asia
Author: Michael D. Petraglia
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 463
Release: 2007-05-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1402055625

This is the first volume of its kind on prehistoric cultures of South Asia. The book brings together archaeologists, biological anthropologists, geneticists and linguists in order to provide a comprehensive account of the history and evolution of human populations residing in the subcontinent. New theories and methodologies presented provide new interpretations about the cultural history and evolution of populations in South Asia.

Quaternary of the Levant

Quaternary of the Levant
Author: Yehouda Enzel
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 789
Release: 2017-04-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107090466

Over eighty contributions from leading researchers review 2.5 million years of environmental change and human cultural evolution in the Levant.

Crossing the Human Threshold

Crossing the Human Threshold
Author: Matt Pope
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2017-11-22
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1315439301

When was the human threshold crossed? What is the evidence for evolving humans and their emerging humanity? This volume explores in a global overview the archaeology of the Middle Pleistocene, 800,000 to 130,000 years ago when evidence for innovative cultural behaviour appeared. The evidence shows that the threshold was crossed slowly, by a variety of human ancestors, and was not confined to one part of the Old World. Crossing the Human Threshold examines the changing evidence during this period for the use of place, landscape and technology. It focuses on the emergence of persistent places, and associated developments in tool use, hunting strategies and the control of fire, represented across the Old World by deeply stratified cave sites. These include the most important sites for the archaeology of human origins in the Levant, South Africa, Asia and Europe, presented here as evidence for innovation in landscape-thinking during the Middle Pleistocene. The volume also examines persistence at open locales through a cutting-edge review of the archaeology of Northern France and England. Crossing the Human Threshold is for the worldwide community of students and researchers studying early hominins and human evolution. It presents new archaeological data. It frames the evidence within current debates to understand the differences and similarities between ourselves and our ancient ancestors.

Early Hominin Paleoecology

Early Hominin Paleoecology
Author: Matt Sponheimer
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
Total Pages: 485
Release: 2013-05-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1457181339

An introduction to the multidisciplinary field of hominin paleoecology for advanced undergraduate students and beginning graduate students, Early Hominin Paleoecology offers an up?to?date review of the relevant literature, exploring new research and synthesizing old and new ideas. Recent advances in the field and the laboratory are not only improving our understanding of human evolution but are also transforming it. Given the increasing specialization of the individual fields of study in hominin paleontology, communicating research results and data is difficult, especially to a broad audience of graduate students, advanced undergraduates, and the interested public. Early Hominin Paleoecology provides a good working knowledge of the subject while also presenting a solid grounding in the sundry ways this knowledge has been constructed. The book is divided into three sections—climate and environment (with a particular focus on the latter), adaptation and behavior, and modern analogs and models—and features contributors from various fields of study, including archaeology, primatology, paleoclimatology, sedimentology, and geochemistry. Early Hominin Paleoecology is an accessible entrée into this fascinating and ever-evolving field and will be essential to any student interested in pursuing research in human paleoecology.

The Unstoppable Human Species

The Unstoppable Human Species
Author: John J. Shea
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 365
Release: 2023-04-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1108429084

"The Unstoppable Human Species In The Unstoppable Species John J. Shea explains how the earliest humans achieved mastery over all but the most severe, biosphere-level, extinction threats. He explores how and why we humans owe our survival skills to our global geographic range, a diaspora that was achieved during prehistoric times. By developing and integrating a suite of Ancestral Survival Skills, humans overcame survival challenges better than other hominins, and settled in previously unoccupied habitats. But how did they do it? How did early humans endure long enough to become our ancestors? Shea places "how did they survive?" questions front and center in prehistory. Using an explicitly scientific, comparative, and hypothesis-testing approach, The Unstoppable Human Species critically examines much "archaeological mythology" about prehistoric humans. Written in clear and engaging language, Shea's volume offers an original and thought-provoking perspective on human evolution. Moving beyond unproductive archaeological debates about prehistoric population movements, The Unstoppable Human Species generates new and interesting questions about human evolution. John J. Shea is Professor of Anthropology at Stony Brook University, New York. He is the author of Stone Tools in the Paleolithic and Neolithic Near East: A Guide (Cambridge University Press, 2013), Stone Tools in Human Evolution: Behavioral Differences Among Technological Primates (Cambridge University Press, 2019), and Prehistoric Stone Tools of Eastern Africa: A Guide (Cambridge University Press, 2020). A paleoanthropologist, archaeologist, and an experienced practitioner of ancestral survival skills, Shea's demonstrations of stoneworking appear in numerous television documentaries and in the United States National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC"--

Settlement, Society and Cognition in Human Evolution

Settlement, Society and Cognition in Human Evolution
Author: Fiona Coward
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 443
Release: 2015-01-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 131621396X

This volume provides a landscape narrative of early hominin evolution, linking conventional material and geographic aspects of the early archaeological record with wider and more elusive social, cognitive and symbolic landscapes. It seeks to move beyond a limiting notion of early hominin culture and behaviour as dictated solely by the environment to present the early hominin world as the outcome of a dynamic dialogue between the physical environment and its perception and habitation by active agents. This international group of contributors presents theoretically informed yet empirically based perspectives on hominin and human landscapes.

The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter-gatherers

The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter-gatherers
Author: Vicki Cummings
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 1361
Release: 2014
Genre: History
ISBN: 0199551227

This book provides a comprehensive review of hunter-gatherer studies, undertaking detailed regional and thematic case-studies that span the archaeology, history and anthropology of hunter gatherers, concluding with an in-depth review of the main opportunities, research questions, and moral obligations that lie ahead.