Quantifying Stone Age Mobility

Quantifying Stone Age Mobility
Author: Iwona Sobkowiak-Tabaka
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2022-06-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 3030943682

This book focuses on the analysis of different scales of mobility and addresses parameters and proxies of population movement aiming at the formation of a ‘ground’ for the further development of quantitative approaches. In order to do so, the volume explores wide scale mobility (environmental contexts and cross-cultural trends), seasonal mobility of Paleolithic and Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, and migration, niche construction, utilitarian and non- utilitarian factors of mobility. Chapters in the volume include case studies from across Europe and Asia. The editors’ introduction addresses the current state of mobility discourse in archaeology. The chapters address questions related to parameters used to describe different factors of movement and examines correlations between parameters describing environmental diversity, demography, and the values representing spatial movement. This volume is of interest to students and researchers of mobility of human beings in the past.

Homo Migrans

Homo Migrans
Author: Megan J. Daniels
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Total Pages: 377
Release: 2022-04-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1438488025

One of the most significant challenges in archaeology is understanding how (and why) humans migrate. Homo Migrans examines the past, present, and future states of migration and mobility studies in archaeological discourse. Contributors draw on revolutionary twenty-first-century advances in genetics, isotope studies, and data manipulation that have resolved longstanding debates about past human movement and have helped clarify the relationships between archaeological remains and human behavior and identity. These emerging techniques have also pressed archaeologists and historians to develop models that responsibly incorporate method, theory, and data in ways that honor the complexity of human behavior and relationships. This volume articulates the challenges that lie ahead as scholars draw from genomic studies, computational science, social theory, cognitive and evolutionary studies, environmental history, and network analysis to clarify the nature of human migration in world history. With case studies focusing on European and Mediterranean history and prehistory (as well as global history), Homo Migrans presents integrated methodologies and analyses that will interest any scholar researching migration and mobility in the human past.

Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Stone Age Weaponry

Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Stone Age Weaponry
Author: Radu Iovita
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2016-05-28
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9401776024

The objective of this volume is to showcase the contemporary state of research on recognizing and evaluating the performance of stone age weapons from a variety of viewpoints, including investigating their cognitive and evolutionary significance. New archaeological finds and experimental studies have helped to bring this subject back to the forefront of human origins research. In the last few years, investigations have expanded beyond examining the tools themselves to include studies of damage caused by projectile weapons on animal and hominin bones and skeletal asymmetries in ancient hominin populations. Only recently has there been a growing interest in controlled and replicative experiments. Through this book readers will be updated in the state of knowledge through a multidisciplinary scientific reconstruction of prehistoric weapon use and its implications. Contributions from expert authors are organized into three themed parts: recognizing weapon use (experimental and archaeological studies of impact traces), performance of weapon systems (factors influencing penetration depth etc.), and behavioral and evolutionary ramifications (cognitive and ecological effects of using different weapons).

Transitions Before the Transition

Transitions Before the Transition
Author: Erella Hovers
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 344
Release: 2007-01-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0387246614

Modern human origins and the fate of the Neanderthals are arguably the most compelling and contentious arenas in paleoanthropology. The much-discussed split between advocates of a single, early emergence of anatomically modern humans in sub-Saharan Africa and supporters of various regional continuity positions is only part of the picture. Equally if not more important are questions surrounding the origins of modern behavior, and the relationships between anatomical and behavioral changes that occurred during the past 200,000 years. Although modern humans as a species may be defined in terms of their skeletal anatomy, it is their behavior, and the social and cognitive structures that support that behavior, which most clearly distinguish Homo sapiens from earlier forms of humans. This book assembles researchers working in Eurasia and Africa to discuss the archaeological record of the Middle Paleolithic and the Middle Stone Age. This is a time period when Homo sapiens last shared the world with other species, and during which patterns of behavior characteristic of modern humans developed and coalesced. Contributions to this volume query and challenge some current notions about the tempo and mode of cultural evolution, and about the processes that underlie the emergence of modern behavior. The papers focus on several fundamental questions. Do typical elements of "modern human behavior" appear suddenly, or are there earlier archaeological precursors of them? Are the archaeological records of the Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age unchanging and monotonous, or are there detectable evolutionary trends within these periods? Coming to diverse conclusions, the papers in this volume open up new avenues to thinking about this crucial interval in human evolutionary history.

Reconstructing Mobility

Reconstructing Mobility
Author: Kristian J. Carlson
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 299
Release: 2014-08-05
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1489974601

Assembles a collection of experts to provide a current account of different approaches (e.g., traditional, comparative and experimental) being applied to study mobility. Moreover, the book aims to stimulate new theoretical perspectives that adopt a holistic view of the interaction among intrinsic (i.e. skeletal) and extrinsic (i.e. environmental) factors that influence differential expression of mobility. Since the environment undoubtedly impacts mobility of a wide variety of animals, insights into human mobility, as a concept, can be improved by extending approaches to investigating comparable environmental influences on mobility in animals in general. The book teases apart environmental effects that transcend typical categories (e.g., coastal versus inland, mountainous versus level, arboreal versus terrestrial). Such an approach, when coupled with a new emphasis on mobility as types of activities rather than activity levels, offers a fresh, insightful perspective on mobility and how it might affect the musculoskeletal system.

Isotopic Proveniencing and Mobility

Isotopic Proveniencing and Mobility
Author: T. Douglas Price
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2023-03-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3031257227

This volume provides a state-of-the-art presentation and discussion of procedures, especially what works and what doesn’t — on isotopic proveniencing, learned over the last 30 years. The volume focuses on application, not method, to emphasize to the reader the wide range of questions that can be addressed using isotopic proveniencing. Topics covered include samples, baselines, isoscapes, and place of origin. Isotopic proveniencing has become almost standard procedure in the analysis of archaeological burials as a means of distinguishing locals from foreigners. The combination of isotopic proveniencing and DNA has moved archaeological interest in migration and mobility to the fore, but there is very little synthetic work published for either technology.The field has evolved and new procedures and guidelines have emerged that have not been widely heard and this volume seeks to rectify this. The contributors have been selected from among the leaders in the field, those with active research and hands-on experience with the technology. This volume is of relevance to archaeologists.

Occupation and Abandonment of Middle Bronze Age Zahrat Adh-Dhra' 1, Jordan

Occupation and Abandonment of Middle Bronze Age Zahrat Adh-Dhra' 1, Jordan
Author: Ilya Berelov
Publisher: British Archaeological Reports Oxford Limited
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2006
Genre: History
ISBN:

In his study of the inhabitants of Zahrat adh-Dhra' 1 on the Dead Sea Plain of Jordan, the author presents a behavioral study of a Bronze Age community and provides a useful and complimentary addition to the enormous body of archaeological work conducted on chronology, culture history and trade in the southern Levant. This monograph takes as its focus the controversial realm of ancient behavior. The author's detailed approach arises from the specific necessities surrounding investigations into behavior through archaeological materials and the broad range of materials employed in this work includes subsistence, trade, housing, the preparation of food, waste management, as well as attitudes to communal activities and levels of permanence. The study makes full use of all these variables and tries to understand them within a framework of site formation processes - so crucial to interpretations of material evidence. The result is a comprehensive picture of a unique community, isolated from its contemporaries and living out a frugal existence in a harsh and marginal setting - the inhabitants of Zahrat adh-Dhra' 1 on the Dead Sea Plain of Jordan. The author has attempted to portray accurately ongoing behavioral tendencies, thereby contributing to our knowledge of south Levantine Bronze Age society.

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: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 1361
Release: 2014-04-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0191025275

For more than a century, the study of hunting and gathering societies has been central to the development of both archaeology and anthropology as academic disciplines, and has also generated widespread public interest and debate. The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers provides a comprehensive review of hunter-gatherer studies to date, including critical engagements with older debates, new theoretical perspectives, and renewed obligations for greater engagement between researchers and indigenous communities. Chapters provide in-depth archaeological, historical, and anthropological case-studies, and examine far-reaching questions about human social relations, attitudes to technology, ecology, and management of resources and the environment, as well as issues of diet, health, and gender relations - all central topics in hunter-gatherer research, but also themes that have great relevance for modern global society and its future challenges. The Handbook also provides a strategic vision for how the integration of new methods, approaches, and study regions can ensure that future research into the archaeology and anthropology of hunter-gatherers will continue to deliver penetrating insights into the factors that underlie all human diversity.