scholarly journals Acquisition of Stone Raw Material and Pecularities of the Lithic Technology in the Initial Upper Paleolithic of Mongolia: the «Horizon of Hearths» at the Tolbor 21 Site

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (33) ◽  
pp. 27-41
Author(s):  
Evgeniy P. Rybin ◽  
◽  
Daria V. Marchenko ◽  
Arina M. Khatsenovich ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Lithic Technology ◽  
Upper Paleolithic ◽  
Raw Material

scholarly journals Elephant bones for the Middle Pleistocene toolmaker

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (8) ◽  
pp. e0256090
Author(s):  
Paola Villa ◽  
Giovanni Boschian ◽  
Luca Pollarolo ◽  
Daniela Saccà ◽  
Fabrizio Marra ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Upper Paleolithic ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
General Idea ◽  
Early Pleistocene ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Middle Pleistocene ◽  
Medium Size ◽  
Bone Tools ◽  
Lithic Industry ◽  
Taphonomic Analysis

The use of bone as raw material for implements is documented since the Early Pleistocene. Throughout the Early and Middle Pleistocene bone tool shaping was done by percussion flaking, the same technique used for knapping stone artifacts, although bone shaping was rare compared to stone tool flaking. Until recently the generally accepted idea was that early bone technology was essentially immediate and expedient, based on single-stage operations, using available bone fragments of large to medium size animals. Only Upper Paleolithic bone tools would involve several stages of manufacture with clear evidence of primary flaking or breaking of bone to produce the kind of fragments required for different kinds of tools. Our technological and taphonomic analysis of the bone assemblage of Castel di Guido, a Middle Pleistocene site in Italy, now dated by 40Ar/39Ar to about 400 ka, shows that this general idea is inexact. In spite of the fact that the number of bone bifaces at the site had been largely overestimated in previous publications, the number of verified, human-made bone tools is 98. This is the highest number of flaked bone tools made by pre-modern hominids published so far. Moreover the Castel di Guido bone assemblage is characterized by systematic production of standardized blanks (elephant diaphysis fragments) and clear diversity of tool types. Bone smoothers and intermediate pieces prove that some features of Aurignacian technology have roots that go beyond the late Mousterian, back to the Middle Pleistocene. Clearly the Castel di Guido hominids had done the first step in the process of increasing complexity of bone technology. We discuss the reasons why this innovation was not developed. The analysis of the lithic industry is done for comparison with the bone industry.

Paleolithic Personal Ornaments from Xiaogushan Cave: The Formation of Early Symbolism and Its Regional Features in Northeast China

2022 ◽  
Vol 49 (4) ◽  
pp. 15-23
Author(s):  
A. P. Zabiyako ◽  
Junzheng Wang
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Northeast China ◽  
Lithic Technology ◽  
Northern China ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Transitional Period ◽  
Upper Paleolithic ◽  
Regional Context ◽  
Regional Features ◽  
Important Marker

This article presents the results of a comparative study of personal ornaments from Xiaogushan Cave in the interregional and regional context of the formation of modern behavior. Xiaogushan is a Paleolithic and Neolithic site in Northeast China. In the Upper Paleolithic layers of the site, apart from tools, personal ornaments were found— pendants made from animal teeth, and a decorated bone disc. The date of the site is a matter of debate; ornaments from layers 2 and 3 date to ~30 ka BP. Like other bone artifacts (harpoon, needles, point), and together with types of stone tools and lithic technology, they mirror the local process of Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition. We focus on similarities between the Xiaogushan ornaments and Upper Paleolithic pendants from northern China and Eurasia in general, attesting to modern behavior during the transitional period and being an important marker of the spread of Upper Paleolithic innovations from the centers to the periphery. Xiaogushan is the fi rst Upper Paleolithic industry in Northeast China known to date, and demonstrates skills and symbolic behavior typical of the initial Upper Paleolithic. The Xiaogushan pendants follow the general tendencies, while being specifi c markers of the evolution of symbolic behavior in Eastern Eurasia.

Dietary Inferences for the Sunghir Humans

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Trinkaus ◽  
Alexandra P. Buzhilova ◽  
Maria B. Mednikova ◽  
Maria V. Dobrovolskaya
Keyword(s):  
Upper Paleolithic ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Bone Collagen ◽  
Human Consumption ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Cultural Layer ◽  
Carbon And Nitrogen ◽  
Mineral Compositions ◽  
Taphonomic Analysis ◽  
And Behavior

In addition to the functional, anatomical, and paleopathological reflections of the biology and behavior of the Sunghir humans, it has been possible to make indirect inferences regarding their average dietary profiles. These considerations derive from the mineral compositions of bone samples from Sunghir 1 to 4 (Kozlovskaya 2000d), carbon and nitrogen stable isotope data from the bone collagen of Sunghir 1 to 3 (Richards et al. 2001; Dobrovolskaya et al. 2012), and postcanine buccal microwear for Sunghir 1 to 3 (Pinilla 2012; Pinilla and Trinkaus in press). As noted in chapter 2, the site contained an abundance of large mammal remains, of which the bison, horse, saiga, and especially reindeer remains were undoubtedly brought to the site for human consumption. There was also an abundance of mammoth remains. There has been an ongoing debate as to the extent to which the mammoth remains, found at a number of central and eastern European and Siberian Mid Upper Paleolithic (MUP) sites, reflect human consumption, are largely incidental to the human presence having accumulating along the banks of gullies and streams, and/or were gathered from the landscape for use as raw material and even fuel (e.g., Soffer 1985; Derevianko et al. 2000; Svoboda et al. 2005; Wojtal and Wilczyński 2013). Systematic taphonomic analysis of the Sunghir faunal assemblage has not been undertaken, but Bader (1978) did notice the differential presence of mammoth skeletal elements at Sunghir, suggesting differential transport of body portions presumably for human consumption. Moreover, the mammoth bones were distributed through the cultural layer and apparently did not exist as a bone accumulation on the periphery of the site. At the same time, the faunal profile of the cultural layer contained a diversity of carnivores, of which the cave lions, wolves, and possibly brown bears could have been partially responsible for some of the herbivore remains at the site. It is possible that humans were hunting and eating the bears, given occasional cutmarks on bear bones at other MUP sites (Wojtal 2000; Münzel and Conard 2004).

Energetic Efficiency and Lithic Technology: An Upper Mississippian Example

1992 ◽  
Vol 57 (3) ◽  
pp. 467-481 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert J. Jeske
Keyword(s):  
Lithic Technology ◽  
Optimal Foraging Theory ◽  
Poor Quality ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Energy Budgets ◽  
Energetic Efficiency ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Projectile Points ◽  
Formal Tool

Optimal-foraging theory and the concept of energetic efficiency have been used in archaeology for over a decade, usually to explore subsistence behavior. People, however, made choices for energy expenditure in other areas of culture, including lithic technology. It is suggested that a shift in the allocation of energy as an adaptive response to changes in social organization caused the widely noted decline in formal tool types and stone-tool refinement in the late prehistoric periods in eastern North America. Data from an Upper Mississippian village are used to demonstrate the economic use of poor-quality lithic raw material. A bipolar technique was used to produce flake blanks for triangular projectile points as well as a peculiar but common Upper Mississippian tool, the humpback biface. It is suggested that bipolar reduction and other lithic efficiency and economizing strategies are indicators of stress on the energy budgets of human populations.

scholarly journals Intentional fragmentation as a specific initial Upper Paleolithic technology at the Kara-Bom site (Mountain Altai, Russia)

2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 72-86
Author(s):  
E. P. Rybin ◽  
V. S. Slavinsky ◽  
A. M. Khatsenovich ◽  
N. E. Belousova
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Significant Proportion ◽  
Upper Paleolithic ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Southern Siberia ◽  
Archaeological Collections ◽  
Core Reduction ◽  
Significant Size ◽  
Large Primary

Purpose. Recent investigations have highlighted an Asian variant of the so-called Initial Upper Paleolithic (IUP) broadly comparable in age and material culture to techno-complexes further to the west, but also showing distinct derived features. Several principal common technological features characterize the IUP in East Asia. The main targeted products of flaking were medium or large blades, the latter sometimes of very significant size, and the number of bladelets is also large. Primary flaking is characterized by alternate bidirectional reduction of cores in which spalls, alternately detached from opposing platforms along the long axis of the core, determined the shape of targeted blank: pointed blades. Reduced cores were prismatic, sub-prismatic and flat. Burin-core reduction for bladelet and small blade production was the specific knapping technology employed in the IUP of southern Siberia and Central Asia. Here, we describe and provide corroborating evidence for another distinct technological method employed in the Initial Upper Paleolithic – intentional fragmentation (IF). The most effective means of understanding knapping technology are refitting studies of archaeological collections. This article examines several examples of refitted fragmented cores and blades, as well as debitage as the by-product of blank breakage. Results. Our refitting study includes assemblages from all excavation units and partially divided, relatively homogenous raw material types, representing a diachronic assemblage of Middle and Upper Paleolithic materials, even in very disturbed excavation areas. The present study illustrates the best examples of directional reduction associated with core preparation and tool blank production because of the lack of statistical information for some Upper Paleolithic assemblages from this site. We reconstructed the process of intentional fragmentation for burin-cores and a few large and medium blades. Often, blank breakage produced butterfly-like debitage. Pieces of fragmented blades could have been used as tools. Typical attributes of IF consistently appearing on two transverse edges of blanks and present in the assemblage of artifacts prove the anthropogenic character of these flaking traces. Conclusions. It is probable that intentional fragmentation was used in the Initial Upper Paleolithic assemblage at Kara-Bom because of the influences of mobility and transportation of stone raw material by local settlers. They transported a significant proportion of raw material from primary chert outcrops situated 4–5 km from the Kara-Bom site.

scholarly journals Between two worlds: Cova Eirós and the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic transition in NW Iberia

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arturo de LOMBERA-HERMIDA ◽  
Xose-Pedro RODRÍGUEZ-ÁLVAREZ ◽  
Alicia AMEIJENDA IGLESIAS ◽  
Mikel DÍAZ RODRÍGUEZ ◽  
undefined Iván REY-RODRÍGUEZ ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Upper Paleolithic ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Subsistence Strategies ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Nw Iberia ◽  
Early Upper Paleolithic ◽  
Anatomically Modern Humans ◽  
Late Survival ◽  
Early Upper

Iberia, a natural cul-de-sac peninsula, plays a major role in the study of the Neanderthals demise and its eventual relationship with the spread of Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH) in Europe. The site of Cova Eirós (Galicia, Spain), located in NW Iberia, contains Middle and Upper Palaeolithic levels, based on the cultural remains recovered at the site. No human remains directly associated with those levels were discovered yet. The available radiocarbon dates from the levels 2 (c. 35 ka cal BP, Early Upper Paleolithic) and 3 (c. 41 ka cal BP, Late Middle Paleolithic), point to a late survival of Neanderthal groups in North Iberia and to a relative quick arrival of the AMH, c. 35-36 ka cal BP, with respect to other territories of the Iberian Peninsula. The archaeological record shows clear differences between the Middle and the Upper Palaeolithic occupations, regarding raw-material acquisition, lithic technology and subsistence strategies. The location of Cova Eirós in the westernmost margin of the Cantabrian Rim and in the Atlantic Façade, makes this site a key place to understand the spread of the first AMH and the progressive demise of Neanderthal populations.

scholarly journals Maltese chert: An archaeological perspective on raw material and lithic technology in the central Mediterranean

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huw Groucutt
Keyword(s):  
Lithic Technology ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Distribution Characteristics ◽  
Central Mediterranean ◽  
The West ◽  
High Quality ◽  
High Frequencies ◽  
Maltese Islands ◽  
Megalithic Temples

The Maltese islands are renowned for their prehistoric archaeological record, particularly thefamous megalithic ‘temples’ and associated ceramics and artwork. The temples were built bya society lacking metal technology, who relied on stone and organic materials. Knapped stonetool (lithic) technology, to produce sharp edged tools for tasks like cutting, hide working, andwood shaping involved the use of both imported obsidian and high-quality chert – offeringinsights into themes of exchange and connectivity – and local chert. The local chert hasgenerally been described as low-quality, yet relatively little research has been conducted on its distribution, characteristics, and use. In this paper I report a survey of chert sources, identifying a wider distribution of chert outcrops along the west coast of Malta than previously discussed. Some general macroscopic properties are outlined, while there are also aspects of variability in the chert sources. Knapping experiments were then conducted on samples of chert collected, allowing clarification of its characteristics. These observations are used to offer some insightsinto lithic technology in Neolithic and Temple Period Malta, such as the hypothesis that the high frequencies of multidirectional flake production and subsequent ‘scraper retouch’ reflect adaptations to the characteristics of local chert.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document