The Cyrenaican Prehistory Project 2012: the fifth season of investigations of the Haua Fteah cave

2012 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
pp. 115-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graeme Barker ◽  
Paul Bennett ◽  
Lucy Farr ◽  
Evan Hill ◽  
Chris Hunt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Last Interglacial ◽  
Human Occupation ◽  
South Wall ◽  
Southern Side ◽  
Worked Bone ◽  
Primary Focus ◽  
Deep Sounding

AbstractThe paper reports on the fifth (2012) season of fieldwork of the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project. The primary focus of the season was the continuation of the excavation of the prehistoric occupation layers in the Haua Fteah cave. A small trench (Trench U) was cut into Holocene (Neolithic) sediments exposed on the south wall of Charles McBurney's Upper Trench. Below this, the excavation of Trench M was continued, on the southern side of McBurney's Middle Trench. In previous seasons we had excavated Oranian ‘Epipalaeolithic’ layers dating toc.18,000–10,000 BP (years before the present). In 2012 the excavation continued downwards through Dabban ‘Upper Palaeolithic’ occupation layers, one of which was associated with a post-built structure and likely hearths. There are indications of an occupational hiatus separating the oldest Dabban from the youngest Levallois-Mousterian (Middle Palaeolithic or Middle Stone Age) lithic material. The Deep Sounding excavated by Charles McBurney in 1955 was cleared of backfill to its base, and its south-facing wall was recorded in detail and sampled extensively for materials for dating and palaeoenvironmental reconstruction. McBurney believed that he had reached bedrock at the base of the Deep Sounding, but a small sounding (Trench S) cut into the sediments below this level found further, albeit sparse, evidence for human occupation. Whilst the antiquity of ‘Pre-Aurignacian’ human occupation at the site still needs to be resolved, it seems likely to reach back at least to Marine Isotope Stage 5e, the beginning of the last interglacial (c.130,000–115,000 BP). Important finds from the 2012 excavations in terms of the behavioural complexity of the human groups using the cave include a possible worked bone point from a Pre-Aurignacian layer and a granite rubbing stone in a Dabban layer from a source over 600 km from the cave.

The Cyrenaican Prehistory Project 2009: the third season of investigations of the Haua Fteah cave and its landscape, and further results from the 2007–2008 fieldwork

2009 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 55-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graeme Barker ◽  
Annita Antoniadou ◽  
Huw Barton ◽  
Ian Brooks ◽  
Ian Candy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Glacial Cycle ◽  
Last Interglacial ◽  
Stratigraphic Sequence ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
The Third ◽  
Late Stone Age ◽  
Southern Side ◽  
Deep Sounding

AbstractThe paper reports on the third (2009) season of fieldwork of the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project, and on further results from the analysis of materials collected in the previous (2007 and 2008) fieldwork. Sediments in a 14 m-deep core drilled beside the McBurney trench provide an invaluable overview of the overall stratigraphic sequence, including at depths reached by the 1950s Deep Sounding but not yet investigated by the present project. Sampling of newly-exposed faces of the original excavation trench for dating (14C, ESR, OSL, U-series) and palaeoenvirommental indicators continued. Excavation was begun of sediments assigned to the early Holocene Libyco-Capsian (McBurney's Layer X), and of Pre-Aurignacian layers beside the top of the Deep Sounding. The Libyco-Capsian layers are particularly prolific in lithic debris, shells, and animal bones; preliminary analysis of the lithics suggests a development from Typical to Upper Capsian within the layers excavated in 2009. Geoarchaeological survey along the littoral to the west and east of the Haua Fteah identified complex sequences spanning most of the last interglacial-glacial cycle. Geoarchaeological survey south of the Haua Fteah characterized the major landforms of the Gebel Akhdar mountain and of the pre-desert and desert-edge zones further south, with Late Stone Age (Upper Palaeolithic and Epipalaeolithic) material being found especially on the southern side of the Gebel Akhdar, and Middle Stone Age (Middle Palaeolithic) material in the pre-desert and desert regions. The first suite of 14C dates (from charcoal samples taken in 2007) indicates the use of the Haua Fteah by Oranian hunter-gatherers during the Last Glacial Maximum and in the succeeding millennia, but not in the Younger Dryas cold/dry phase (c. 11,000–10,000 cal. BC), with Libyco-Capsian occupation resuming soon after the beginning of the Holocene c. 9000 cal. BC, suggesting that the cave, and perhaps the Gebel Akhdar in general, have a complex history as refugia for human settlement during the Pleistocene.

The Cyrenaican Prehistory Project 2010: the fourth season of investigations of the Haua Fteah cave and its landscape, and further results from the 2007–2009 fieldwork

2010 ◽  
Vol 41 ◽  
pp. 63-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graeme Barker ◽  
Annita Antoniadou ◽  
Simon Armitage ◽  
Ian Brooks ◽  
Ian Candy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Macrobotanical Remains ◽  
Animal Bones ◽  
Plant Remains ◽  
Ground Based Lidar ◽  
Deep Sounding

AbstractThe paper reports on the fourth (2010) season of fieldwork of the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project, and on further results of analyses of artefacts and organic materials collected in the 2009 season. Ground-based LiDar has provided both an accurate 3D scan of the Haua Fteah cave and information on the cave's morphometry or origins. The excavations in the cave focussed on Middle Palaeolithic or Middle Stone Age ‘Pre-Aurignacian’ layers below the base of the Middle Trench beside the McBurney Deep Sounding (Trench D) and on Final Palaeolithic ‘Oranian’ layers beside the upper part of the Middle Trench (Trench M). Although McBurney referred to the upper part of the Deep Sounding as more or less sterile, the 2010 excavations found evidence for small-scale but regular human presence in the form of stone artefacts and debitage, though given the sedimentary context the latter are unlikely to represent in situ knapping. The excavations of Trench M extended from the basal Capsian layers investigated in 2009 through Oranian layers to the transition with the Dabban Upper Palaeolithic. Some 17,000 lithic pieces have been studied from the Capsian and Oranian layers excavated in Trench M, in an area measuring less than 2 m by 1 m by 1.1 m deep, along with numerous animal bones, molluscs, and macrobotanical remains, as well as occasional shell beads. Preliminary studies of the lithics, bones, molluscs, and plant remains are revealing the changing character of late Pleistocene (Oranian) and early Holocene (Capsian) occupation in the Haua Fteah. Alongside the work in the Haua Fteah, the project continued its assessment of the Quaternary and archaeological sequences of the Cyrenaican coastland and completed a transect survey of surface lithic materials and their landform contexts from the pre-desert across the Gebel Akhdar to the coast, with a new focus on the al-Marj basin. Significant differences are emerging in patterns of Middle Palaeolithic and later hominin occupation and palaeodemography.

The Cyrenaican Prehistory Project 2013: the seventh season of excavations in the Haua Fteah cave

2014 ◽  
Vol 45 ◽  
pp. 163-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy Farr ◽  
Ross Lane ◽  
Fadl Abdulazeez ◽  
Paul Bennett ◽  
James Holman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Marine Isotope Stage ◽  
Human Occupation ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Preliminary Results ◽  
Southern Side ◽  
Short Season ◽  
Objective Being ◽  
Mis 5 ◽  
Deep Sounding ◽  
Cultural Data

AbstractThe paper reports the preliminary results from the short season of fieldwork that the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project was able to undertake with a small Anglo-Libyan team in September 2013. The work concentrated on continuing the excavation of Trench M down the southern side of the Middle Trench and of Trench D on the southern side of the Deep Sounding below it, the eventual objective being to link these so as to provide a high quality dataset of sedimentary and cultural data from the top to the bottom of the Pleistocene occupation deposit (some 12 m). The ~1 m of sediments investigated in Trench M in the 2013 fieldwork includes carbonate crusts possibly formed in oscillating sub-humid to arid climatic pulses, perhaps likely during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 4, around 60,000–70,000 years ago. One of these crusts formed the base on which a hearth-like structure had been built. In Trench D evidence for human occupation appears to decline moving up the profile, coinciding with sedimentary evidence of more frequent disruptive climatic events possibly associated with latter stages of MIS 5.

The Balkans in the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic: The Gate to Europe or a Cul-de-sac?

1992 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. K. KozŁowski
Keyword(s):  
Central Europe ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Early Stage ◽  
Western Anatolia ◽  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Western Balkans ◽  
Last Interglacial ◽  
Danube Basin ◽  
The Balkans

During the Last Interglacial Middle Palaeolithic industries of Crvena Stijena-type rich in side-scrapers with Levallois technique of recurrent type are specific to the Balkans. These industries have analogies in Anatolia and the northern part of the Middle East (Zagros-Group), but are different from industries typical of the middle Danube basin (Taubachian) and northern Central Europe (Moustero-Levalloisian). In the period preceding and immediately following the Lower Pleniglacial the Balkans were dominated by typical Mousterian and Moustero-Levalloisian, frequently with leaf points, similar to the industries of the lower Danube and Dniester basins, but unknown in western Anatolia. During the same period Eastern Micoquian developed in the middle Danube basin and northern Central Europe. Moustero-Levalloisian with leaf points persisted until the Early Interpleniglacial, but only in exceptional cases developed some Upper Palaeolithic features, and always without typical Aurignacian forms. The Aurignacian, unless it appears as a first Upper Palaeolithic culture in the Balkans with earliest dates in Europe (>40,000 years BP), seems to be an intrusive unit without any roots in the local Middle Palaeolithic. After 30,000 years BP, parallel to the Late Aurignacian, the first industries with backed blades appear. In the early stage these developed independently from those of Central Europe. Only after 26,000/24,000 BP were they followed in the eastern Balkans by assemblages strongly linked both morphologically and by raw materials to the Gravettian of the middle Danube basin. In the western Balkans, after 20,000 years BP, assemblages with shouldered points appeared, also probably of middle Danube origin. During the Last Interglacial and Interpleniglacial the territory of Balkans played an important transitional role between Anatolia and Central Europe; in the two Pleniglacials of the Würm this territory became some kind of cul-de-sac as the refugium for population groups from the middle Danube and northern Central Europe.

Last Interglacial peopling of Siberia: the Middle Palaeolithic site Ust'-Izhul', the upper Yenisei area

Boreas ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 506-520 ◽  
Author(s):  
JIRI CHLACHULA ◽  
NIKOLAI I. DROZDOV ◽  
NIKOLAI D. OVODOV
Keyword(s):  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Last Interglacial

scholarly journals Pleistocene sediment DNA reveals hominin and faunal turnovers at Denisova Cave

Nature ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena I. Zavala ◽  
Zenobia Jacobs ◽  
Benjamin Vernot ◽  
Michael V. Shunkov ◽  
Maxim B. Kozlikin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Contact Zone ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Environmental Context ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Mt Dna ◽  
Southern Siberia ◽  
Sediment Samples ◽  
Pleistocene Sediment

AbstractDenisova Cave in southern Siberia is the type locality of the Denisovans, an archaic hominin group who were related to Neanderthals1–4. The dozen hominin remains recovered from the deposits also include Neanderthals5,6 and the child of a Neanderthal and a Denisovan7, which suggests that Denisova Cave was a contact zone between these archaic hominins. However, uncertainties persist about the order in which these groups appeared at the site, the timing and environmental context of hominin occupation, and the association of particular hominin groups with archaeological assemblages5,8–11. Here we report the analysis of DNA from 728 sediment samples that were collected in a grid-like manner from layers dating to the Pleistocene epoch. We retrieved ancient faunal and hominin mitochondrial (mt)DNA from 685 and 175 samples, respectively. The earliest evidence for hominin mtDNA is of Denisovans, and is associated with early Middle Palaeolithic stone tools that were deposited approximately 250,000 to 170,000 years ago; Neanderthal mtDNA first appears towards the end of this period. We detect a turnover in the mtDNA of Denisovans that coincides with changes in the composition of faunal mtDNA, and evidence that Denisovans and Neanderthals occupied the site repeatedly—possibly until, or after, the onset of the Initial Upper Palaeolithic at least 45,000 years ago, when modern human mtDNA is first recorded in the sediments.

scholarly journals Identifying Heated Rocks Through Feldspar Luminescence Analysis (pIRIR290) and a Critical Evaluation of Macroscopic Assessment

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Pop ◽  
F. H. Reidsma ◽  
T. Reimann ◽  
M. J. Sier ◽  
C. E. S. Arps ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Method ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
Middle Palaeolithic ◽  
Proof Of Concept ◽  
Last Interglacial ◽  
Luminescence Analysis ◽  
Thermal Alteration ◽  
Concept Study ◽  
Visual Identification ◽  
Visual Assessments

AbstractThroughout (pre)history, non-flint rocks have been used to structure fireplaces, to retain heat, to boil liquids, and to cook food. Thus far, the identification of heated non-flint rocks in archaeological contexts largely depends on a visual (macroscopic) assessment using criteria thought to be diagnostic for thermal alteration. However, visual identification can be subject to observer bias, and some heat-induced traces can be quite difficult to distinguish from other types of weathering or discolouration. In this paper, we present feldspar luminescence analysis as an independent, objective way to identify heated non-flint rocks and to evaluate the results against the established visual macroscopic method for the identification of such pieces. This is done by submitting manuported rocks with and without inferred macroscopic characteristics of heating, originating from the Last Interglacial, Middle Palaeolithic site Neumark-Nord 2/2 (Germany), to feldspar luminescence analysis (pIRIR290). Results of the feldspar luminescence analysis are compared with the visual assessments. This proof of concept study demonstrates the potential of luminescence analyses as an independent, quantitative method for the identification of heated rocks—and their prehistoric applications like hot-stone cooking, specifically for cases where macroscopic assessment cannot provide reliable determinations.

The Cyrenaican Prehistory Project 2012: the sixth season of excavations in the Haua Fteah cave

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 113-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Rabett ◽  
Lucy Farr ◽  
Evan Hill ◽  
Chris Hunt ◽  
Ross Lane ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Seismic Event ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Arid Environments ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Late Stone Age ◽  
Climatic Regime ◽  
Molluscan Fauna ◽  
Trench Area ◽  
Mis 5 ◽  
Deep Sounding

AbstractThe paper reports on the sixth season of fieldwork of the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project (CPP) undertaken in September 2012. As in the spring 2012 season, work focussed on the Haua Fteah cave and on studies of materials excavated in previous seasons, with no fieldwork undertaken elsewhere in the Gebel Akhdar. An important discovery, in a sounding excavated below the base of McBurney's 1955 Deep Sounding (Trench S), is of a rockfall or roof collapse conceivably dating to the cold climatic regime of Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 6 (globally dated to c. 190–130 ka) but more likely the result of a seismic event within MIS 5 (globally dated to c. 130–80 ka). The sediments and associated molluscan fauna in Trench S and in Trench D, a trench being cut down the side of the Deep Sounding, indicate that this part of the cave was at least seasonally waterlogged during the accumulation, probably during MIS 5, of the ~6.5 m of sediment cut through by the Deep Sounding. Evidence for human frequentation of the cave in this period is more or less visible depending on how close the trench area was to standing water as it fluctuated through time. Trench M, the trench being cut down the side of McBurney's Middle Trench, has now reached the depth of the latest Middle Stone Age or Middle Palaeolithic (Levalloiso-Mousterian) industries. The preliminary indications from its excavation are that the transition from the Levalloiso-Mousterian to the blade-based Upper Palaeolithic or Late Stone Age Dabban industry was complex and perhaps protracted, at a time when the climate was oscillating between warm-stage stable environmental conditions and colder and more arid environments. The estimated age of the sediments, c. 50–40 ka, places these oscillations within the earlier part of MIS 3 (globally dated to 60–24 ka), when global climates experienced rapid fluctuations as part of an overall trend to increasing aridity and cold.

Excavations at Gough's Cave, Somerset 1986–7

Antiquity ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 63 (238) ◽  
pp. 131-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. P. Currant ◽  
R. M. Jacobi ◽  
C. B. Stringer
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
British Isles ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Human Occupation ◽  
The 19Th Century

The British Isles, at the northern fringes of human occupation in Pleistocene Europe, offer a collection of Upper Palaeolithic sites which cannot match the riches of the continental mainland. And many of its sites, studied in the 19th century, have been much quarried or even quarried out. New finds from Gough's Cave — one of the classic sites that was almost emptied in the work that made it classic-show, nevertheless, that important new discoveries are still being made from such deposits as remain.

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