scholarly journals Material Scaffolds in Numbers and Time

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karenleigh A. Overmann
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Conceptual Development ◽  
Upper Paleolithic ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
Cognitive Technology ◽  
Number Concepts ◽  
Numeration Systems ◽  
Blombos Cave

The present paper develops a framework for interpreting Upper Paleolithic artifacts from an analysis of material complexity, numeration systems, and timekeeping using cultural categorizations (Hayden & Villeneuve, 2011), insights on the emergence of number terms in language (Menninger, 1992), and the astronomy practices of 33 contemporary hunter–gatherer societies (Yale’s Electronic Human Relations Area Files World Cultures database). Key findings: (1) an absence of societies with minimal material complexity and later-stage numeration systems, suggesting that material scaffolding may be important to realizing explicit number concepts, (2) the consistency of material complexity with both early- and later-stage numeration systems, emphasizing that material complexity may precede and inform the development of complexity in numeration systems, (3) the compatibility of astronomical practices with the spectrum of complexity in material culture and numeration systems, suggesting that the awareness of time may precede both, and (4) the increasing quantification of time consistent with greater material and numeration complexity, suggesting the availability of numbers as a cognitive technology may enable the structuring of time. These findings suggest that astronomy originates in the ability to estimate and infer contextual relations among natural phenomena and transitions from these natural associations to material representations and cognitive technologies that mediate conceptual apprehensions of time as a substance that can be quantified. Given that artifacts may act as scaffolds for explicit concepts of numbers and numbers scaffold explicit concepts of time, prehistoric artifacts such as the Blombos Cave beads (ca. 75,000), Abri Blanchard and Cellier artifacts (ca. 28,000), and Taï plaque (ca. 14,000) may represent similar scaffolding and conceptual development in numbers and time. It is proposed that the prehistoric societies making these artifacts possessed, in addition to material complexity, the abilities to express quantities in language and to use material externalization and cognitive technologies. Further, the Abri Blanchard artifact is proposed to represent externalized working memory, a very modern interaction between mind and material culture.

scholarly journals Material Scaffolds in Numbers and Time

2013 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karenleigh A. Overmann
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Conceptual Development ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Numeration Systems ◽  
Blombos Cave

The present article develops a framework for interpreting Upper Palaeolithic artefacts from an analysis of material complexity, numeration systems and timekeeping using cultural categorizations, insights on the emergence of number terms in language, and the astronomy practices of 33 contemporary hunter-gatherer societies. Our key findings suggest that astronomy originates in the ability to estimate and infer contextual relations among natural phenomena and transitions from these natural associations to material representations and cognitive technologies that mediate conceptual apprehensions of time as a substance that can be quantified. Given that artefacts may act as scaffolds for explicit concepts of numbers, and numbers scaffold explicit concepts of time, prehistoric artefacts such as the Blombos Cave beads (c. 75,000 bp), Abri Blanchard and Cellier artefacts (c. 28,000 bp), and plaque from Grotte du Taï (c. 14,000 bp) may represent similar scaffolding and conceptual development in numbers and time. It is proposed that the prehistoric societies making these artefacts possessed, in addition to material complexity, the abilities to express quantities in language and to use material externalization and cognitive technologies. Furthermore, the Abri Blanchard artefact is proposed to represent externalized working memory, a very modern interaction between mind and material culture.

Modernity, Enhanced Working Memory, and the Middle to Upper Paleolithic Record in the Levant

2010 ◽  
Vol 51 (S1) ◽  
pp. S167-S175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Belfer-Cohen ◽  
Erella Hovers
Keyword(s):  
Working Memory ◽  
Upper Paleolithic

scholarly journals The absolute chronology of Boker Tachtit (Israel) and implications for the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition in the Levant

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (25) ◽  
pp. e2014657118
Author(s):  
Elisabetta Boaretto ◽  
Marion Hernandez ◽  
Mae Goder-Goldberger ◽  
Vera Aldeias ◽  
Lior Regev ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Late Phase ◽  
Optically Stimulated Luminescence ◽  
Upper Paleolithic ◽  
Middle Paleolithic ◽  
Lithic Assemblage ◽  
Early Upper Paleolithic ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Dramatic Shift ◽  
Early Upper

The Initial Upper Paleolithic (IUP) is a crucial lithic assemblage type in the archaeology of southwest Asia because it marks a dramatic shift in hominin populations accompanied by technological changes in material culture. This phase is conventionally divided into two chronocultural phases based on the Boker Tachtit site, central Negev, Israel. While lithic technologies at Boker Tachtit are well defined, showing continuity from one phase to another, the absolute chronology is poorly resolved because the radiocarbon method used had a large uncertainty. Nevertheless, Boker Tachtit is considered to be the origin of the succeeding Early Upper Paleolithic Ahmarian tradition that dates in the Negev to ∼42,000 y ago (42 ka). Here, we provide 14C and optically stimulated luminescence dates obtained from a recent excavation of Boker Tachtit. The new dates show that the early phase at Boker Tachtit, the Emirian, dates to 50 through 49 ka, while the late phase dates to 47.3 ka and ends by 44.3 ka. These results show that the IUP started in the Levant during the final stages of the Late Middle Paleolithic some 50,000 y ago. The later IUP phase in the Negev chronologically overlaps with the Early Upper Paleolithic Ahmarian of the Mediterranean woodland region between 47 and 44 ka. We conclude that Boker Tachtit is the earliest manifestation of the IUP in Eurasia. The study shows that distinguishing the chronology of the IUP from the Late Middle Paleolithic, as well as from the Early Upper Paleolithic, is much more complex than previously thought.

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 Genetics and material culture support repeated expansions into Paleolithic Eurasia from a population hub out of Africa

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonardo Vallini ◽  
Giulia Marciani ◽  
Serena Aneli ◽  
Eugenio Bortolini ◽  
Stefano Benazzi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Population Dynamics ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Population Expansion ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Upper Paleolithic ◽  
Additional Question ◽  
Out Of Africa ◽  
East West

The population dynamics that followed the out of Africa expansion (OoA) and ultimately led to the formation of Oceanian, West and East Eurasian macro populations have long been debated. Furthermore, with the OoA being dated between 70 kya and 65 kya and the earliest splits between West and East Eurasian populations being inferred not earlier than 43 kya from modern DNA data, an additional question concerns the whereabouts of the early migrants out of Africa before those differentiations. Shedding light on these population dynamics may, in turn, provide clues to better understand cultural evolution in Eurasia between 50 kya and 35 kya, where the development of new technologies may be correlated to parallel independent evolution paths, to the arrival of new populations, or to long-term processes of cultural and biological exchanges. Here we jointly re-analyze Eurasian Paleolithic DNA available to date in light of material culture, and provide a comprehensive population model with minimal admixture events. Our integrated approach i) maintains Zlaty Kůň genetically as the most basal out of Africa human lineage sequenced to date, also in comparison to Oceanians and putatively links it with non-Mousterian material cultures documented in Europe 48-43 kya; ii) infers the presence of an OoA population Hub from which a major wave broadly associated with Initial Upper Paleolithic lithic industries emanated to populate West and East Eurasia before or around 45 kya, and of which Ust′Ishim, Bacho Kiro and Tianyuan were unadmixed descendants; iii) proposes a parsimonious placement of Oase1 as an individual related to Bacho Kiro who experienced additional Neanderthal introgression; and iv) explains the East/West Eurasian population split as a longer permanence of the latter in the OoA Hub, followed by a second population expansion (before 37 kya), broadly associated with Upper Paleolithic industries, that largely replaced pre-existing humans in Europe, and admixed with the previous wave to form Yana and Mal′ta in Siberia and, to a greater extent, GoyetQ116-1 in Belgium.

scholarly journals Skulls, Tree Bark, Fossils

Qui Parle ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-291
Author(s):  
Magdalena Zolkos
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Tree Bark ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
Critical Scholarship ◽  
Culture Surface ◽  
Philosophical Project ◽  
Western Historiography ◽  
Shared Characteristic

Abstract Studies of material objects in the field of memory studies have followed diverse epistemological and disciplinary trajectories, but their shared characteristic has been the questioning of philosophical assumptions concerning human relations with inanimate things and lower-level organic objects, such as plants, within the Aristotelian hierarchy of beings. Rather than accept at face value their categorizations as passive or deficient in comparison to the human subject, critical scholarship has reformulated the place and role of nonhuman entities in culture. This essay examines the nexus of materiality and memory in the work of the French philosopher and art historian Georges Didi-Huberman, with the focus on the questions of mnemonic affordance of things and plants. The essay proposes that Didi-Huberman’s project can be approached from the perspective of “undoing” the key binaries of Western historiography of art and material culture: surface/depth, exteriority/interiority, visibility/invisibility, and malleability/rigidity. Focusing on imaginal representations of memory objects in Didi-Huberman’s two essays Bark and Being a Skull, the essay situates these texts within the context of his philosophical reading of Aby Warburg’s iconology, and argues that Didi-Huberman’s undoing of the binaries that have traditionally structured thinking about materiality and memory could be productively approached as a philosophical project of transvaluating surface.

scholarly journals The Material Origin of Numbers (front matter and introduction)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karenleigh A. Overmann
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Upper Paleolithic ◽  
Number Concepts ◽  
Horizon 2020 ◽  
Engagement Theory ◽  
University Of Oxford ◽  
Research And Innovation ◽  
The University ◽  
Late Upper Paleolithic

The Material Origin of Numbers examines how number concepts are realized, represented, manipulated, and elaborated. Utilizing the cognitive archaeological framework of Material Engagement Theory and culling data from disciplines including neuroscience, ethnography, linguistics, and archaeology, Overmann offers a methodologically rich study of numbers and number concepts in the ancient Near East from the late Upper Paleolithic Period through the Bronze Age. This project has received funding from the Clarendon Fund at the University of Oxford, as well as the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 785793.

scholarly journals The Architecture of Construction

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosamund Diamond
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Conceptual Development ◽  
Construction Technique ◽  
Local Conditions ◽  
Construction Methods ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Technical Advances ◽  
Primary Location ◽  
Construction Knowledge ◽  
Student Projects

The place of technical discourse in studio projects has been much debated.  The studio is the primary location to engage requisite construction knowledge creatively, in which assumptions about materials  could be transformed into tangible investigations with the skill and freedom to reinvent and invent. The paper will investigate the relationship of the craftsmanship of familiar construction methods to a broader context of fabrication and new material possibilities, in order to discuss how construction technique could be drawn into the conceptual centre of design studio projects. How the action of challenging construction conventions with the wide range of available technical advances could converse with the specificity of construction to its local conditions of building and place. Using some case studies, it will propose the value of construction to explore the broader conditions of architecture including its physical and critical topographies.Construction teaching in the studio will be considered in terms of its interrogation and description, as the basis for a discourse, using previous studio experiments.How can construction be developed in the studio so that it is embedded in the conceptual  development of student projects?How can studio construction investigations develop connections to place?In what ways can construction knowledge enable innovation without resisting the value of traditional material culture?

scholarly journals The Age of Upper Paleolithic Sites in the Middle Dnieper River Basin of Eastern Europe

Radiocarbon ◽  
2001 ◽  
Vol 43 (2B) ◽  
pp. 1077-1084 ◽  
Author(s):  
Z A Abramova ◽  
G V Grigorieva ◽  
G I Zaitseva
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
River Basin ◽  
Upper Paleolithic ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Subsistence Economy ◽  
Deep Impact ◽  
The Third ◽  
Dnieper River Basin

This paper discusses the comparative chronology of Upper Paleolithic sites in the Middle Dnieper River basin, based on archaeological and radiocarbon evidence. Three chronological periods of the development of the Upper Paleolithic are distinguished in this area. According to the data obtained, the third period is similar to the European Magdalenian, yet its economies were different. The base of the subsistence economy for Dnieperian hunters was the procurement of mammoth, while reindeer was the most important for the subsistence of European Magdalenian. The abundance of mammoths and the raw material in the form of mammoth tusks made a deep impact on both the economy and material culture of the hunters in the Dnieper River basin. The 14C dates confirm the chronological subdivision.

On the Soundness of Inferring Modern Language from Symbolic Behaviour

2010 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-356 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rudolf Botha
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Expressive Power ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Modern Language ◽  
Blombos Cave ◽  
Linguistic Means

At issue in this article is the soundness of archaeological inferences which proceed stepwise from data about the material culture of Middle Stone Age humans, via assumptions about their symbolic behaviour, to the conclusion that they had modern language. Taking as paradigmatic the inference that the humans who inhabited Blombos Cave in South Africa some 75,000 years ago had fully syntactical language, the article argues that the inferential step from symbolic behaviour to modern language lacks the required warrant. This step, it is shown, is not underpinned by an adequate bridge theory of the putative links between symbolic behaviour and modern language. The bridge theories invoked to date to shore up the Blombos inference are flawed, for instance, in that they incorporate untenable assumptions about language, including an incorrect view of the expressive power of relatively simple linguistic means.

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