scholarly journals Settlement patterns of prehistoric hunter-gatherers in the Kyushu region during the terminal Pleistocene

2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (5) ◽  
pp. 257-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kazuki Morisaki
Keyword(s):  
Settlement Patterns ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Terminal Pleistocene

The Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in western Scotland: a review and new evidence from Tiree

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Mithen ◽  
Anne Pirie ◽  
Sam Smith ◽  
Karen Wicks
Keyword(s):  
Settlement Patterns ◽  
Skeletal Remains ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Population Replacement ◽  
Dietary Analysis ◽  
Neolithic Transition ◽  
Contradictory Evidence ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Existing Data

Although both the Mesolithic and Neolithic of western Scotland have been studied since the early 20th century, our knowledge of both periods remains limited, as does our understanding of the transition between them – whether this is entirely cultural in nature or involves the arrival of new Neolithic populations and the demise of the indigenous Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. The existing data provide seemingly contradictory evidence, with that from dietary analysis of skeletal remains suggesting population replacement and that from settlement and technology indicating continuity. After reviewing this evidence, this chapter briefly describes ongoing fieldwork in the Inner Hebrides that aims to gain a more complete understanding of Mesolithic settlement patterns, without which there can only be limited progress on understanding the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition.

A spatially explicit agent-based model of central place foraging theory and its explanatory power for hunter-gatherers settlement patterns formation processes

2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (5) ◽  
pp. 377-397 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaarel Sikk ◽  
Geoffrey Caruso
Keyword(s):  
Settlement Patterns ◽  
Spatial Configuration ◽  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Spatially Explicit ◽  
Formation Processes ◽  
Central Place Foraging ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Settlement Location

The behavioural ecological approach to anthropology states that the density and distribution of resources determines optimal patterns of resource use and also sets its constraints to grouping, mobility and settlement choice. Central place foraging (CPF) models have been used for analyzing foraging behaviours of hunter-gatherers and drawing a causal link from the volume of available resources in the environment to the mobility decisions of hunter-gatherers. In this study, we propose a spatially explicit agent-based CPF model. We explore its potential for explaining the formation of settlement patterns and test its robustness to the configuration of space. Building on a model assuming homogeneous energy distributions, we had to add several new parameters and an adaptation mechanism for foragers to predict the length of their stay, together with a heterogeneous environment configuration. The validation of the model shows that the spatially explicit CPF is generally robust to spatial configuration of energy resources. The total volume of energy has a significant effect on constraining sedentism as predicted by aspatial model and thus can be used on different environmental conditions. Still the spatial autocorrelation of resource distribution has a linear effect on optimal mobility decisions and needs to be considered in predictive models. The effect on settlement location choice is not substantial and is more determined by other characteristics of settlement location. This limits the CPF models in analyzing settlement pattern formation processes.

scholarly journals Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene sites in the montane forests of New Guinea yield early record of cassowary hunting and egg harvesting

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (40) ◽  
pp. e2100117118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina Douglass ◽  
Dylan Gaffney ◽  
Teresa J. Feo ◽  
Priyangi Bulathsinhala ◽  
Andrew L. Mack ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Distinct Pattern ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
Early Holocene ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Dietary Preferences ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Terminal Pleistocene ◽  
Landscape Transformations

How early human foragers impacted insular forests is a topic with implications across multiple disciplines, including resource management. Paradoxically, terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene impacts of foraging communities have been characterized as both extreme—as in debates over human-driven faunal extinctions—and minimal compared to later landscape transformations by farmers and herders. We investigated how rainforest hunter-gatherers managed resources in montane New Guinea and present some of the earliest documentation of Late Pleistocene through mid-Holocene exploitation of cassowaries (Aves: Casuariidae). Worldwide, most insular ratites were extirpated by the Late Holocene, following human arrivals, including elephant birds of Madagascar (Aepyornithidae) and moa of Aotearoa/New Zealand (Dinornithiformes)—icons of anthropogenic island devastation. Cassowaries are exceptional, however, with populations persisting in New Guinea and Australia. Little is known of past human exploitation and what factors contributed to their survival. We present a method for inferring past human interaction with mega-avifauna via analysis of microstructural features of archaeological eggshell. We then contextualize cassowary hunting and egg harvesting by montane foragers and discuss the implications of human exploitation. Our data suggest cassowary egg harvesting may have been more common than the harvesting of adults. Furthermore, our analysis of cassowary eggshell microstructural variation reveals a distinct pattern of harvesting eggs in late ontogenetic stages. Harvesting eggs in later stages of embryonic growth may reflect human dietary preferences and foraging seasonality, but the observed pattern also supports the possibility that—as early as the Late Pleistocene—people were collecting eggs in order to hatch and rear cassowary chicks.

Developing Models of a Band Society

Harney Flats ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Randolph Daniel ◽  
Michael Wisenbaker
Keyword(s):  
Settlement Patterns ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Tampa Bay ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Exclusive Territories ◽  
Work Camps ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Site Types

Beginning with the assumption that Paleoindian peoples were organized into hunter-gatherers bands, archaeologists have developed prehistoric settlement models based upon ethnographically known hunter-gather groups. One such model created by Lewis Binford identified two general site types called base camps and work camps. Archaeologists have concluded that prehistoric hunter-gatherers exhibited a settlement mobility organized around resource zones such as rivers, waterholes, lakes, diverse ecotones (which provided a greater variety of plants and animals), and stone quarries from which they could obtain raw materials to fashion tools. We presume that the early prehistoric bands around Tampa Bay were territorial or at least occupied exclusive territories. Traditionally, the difference between Paleoindian and Archaic settlement patterns focused on the alleged readaptation that occurred between the Pleistocene and Holocene. More recently, though, Cleland’s focal/diffuse model notes a change from specialized adaptations geared toward similar resources to an economy focused on varied or scattered resources.

Paleocoastal Landscapes, Marginality, and Early Human Settlement of the California Islands

2019 ◽  
pp. 59-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy E. Gusick ◽  
Jon M. Erlandson
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Early Holocene ◽  
Human Settlement ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Northern Channel Islands ◽  
Permanent Settlement ◽  
History Of ◽  
Terminal Pleistocene ◽  
Research Intensity

If the California Islands were marginal for human settlement, why were several of them occupied more or less continuously since Terminal Pleistocene or Early Holocene times? The earliest human history of California's Islands is clouded by sea level rise, coastal erosion, dune building, and differential research intensity. Nonetheless, Paleocoastal sites are abundant on the Northern Channel Islands and Cedros Island, suggesting that they were optimal habitat for early hunter-gatherers, with ample food, freshwater, mineral, and other resources to sustain permanent settlement. Worldwide on islands where late Pleistocene or early Holocene human colonization occurred, climate shifts and massive landscape changes caused by postglacial sea level rise require detailed reconstructions of paleogeography and paleoecology to assess the potential productivity or marginality of islands or archipelagos.

scholarly journals Re-evaluating Pleistocene–Holocene occupation of cave sites in north-west Thailand: new radiocarbon and luminescence dating

Antiquity ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Cyler Conrad ◽  
Rasmi Shoocongdej ◽  
Ben Marwick ◽  
Joyce C. White ◽  
Cholawit Thongcharoenchaikit ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Luminescence Dating ◽  
Socioeconomic Change ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
The Holocene ◽  
North West ◽  
Highland Region ◽  
Terminal Pleistocene ◽  
Mainland Southeast Asia

Established chronologies indicate a long-term ‘Hoabinhian’ hunter-gatherer occupation of Mainland Southeast Asia during the Terminal Pleistocene to Mid-Holocene (45 000–3000 years ago). Here, the authors re-examine the ‘Hoabinhian’ sequence from north-west Thailand using new radiocarbon and luminescence data from Spirit Cave, Steep Cliff Cave and Banyan Valley Cave. The results indicate that hunter-gatherers exploited this ecologically diverse region throughout the Terminal Pleistocene and the Pleistocene–Holocene transition, and into the period during which agricultural lifeways emerged in the Holocene. Hunter-gatherers did not abandon this highland region of Thailand during periods of environmental and socioeconomic change.

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