Expanding Paleoindian Diet Breadth: Paleoethnobotany of Connley Cave 5, Oregon, USA

Paleoethnobotanical perspectives are essential for understanding past lifeways yet continue to be underrepresented in Paleoindian research. We present new archaeobotanical and radiocarbon data from combustion features within stratified cultural components at Connley Caves, Oregon, that reaffirm the inclusion of plants in the diet of Paleoindian groups. Botanical remains from three features in Connley Cave 5 show that people foraged for diverse dryland taxa and a narrow range of wetland plants during the summer and fall months. These data add new taxa to the known Pleistocene food economy and support the idea that groups equipped with Western Stemmed Tradition toolkits had broad, flexible diets. When viewed continentally, this work contributes to a growing body of research indicating that regionally adapted subsistence strategies were in place by at least the Younger Dryas and that some foragers in the Far West may have incorporated a wider range of plants including small seeds, leafy greens, fruits, cacti, and geophytes into their diet earlier than did Paleoindian groups elsewhere in North America. The increasing appearance of diverse and seemingly low-ranked resources in the emerging Paleoindian plant-food economy suggests the need to explore a variety of nutritional variables to explain certain aspects of early foraging behavior.

Complex Pathways Towards Emergent Pastoral Settlements: New Research on the Bronze Age Xindian Culture of Northwest China

The Xindian culture of northwest China has been seen as a prototypical example of a transition toward pastoralism, resulting in part from environmental changes that started around 4000 years ago. To date, there has been little available residential data to document how and whether subsistence strategies and community organization in northwest China changed following or in association with documented environmental changes. The Tao River Archaeology Project is a collaborative effort aimed at gathering robust archaeological information to solidify our baseline understanding of economic, technological, and social practices in the third through early first millennia BC. Here we present data from two Xindian culture residential sites, and propose that rather than a total transition to nomadic pastoralism—as it is often reconstructed—the Xindian culture reflects a prolonged period of complex transition in cultural traditions and subsistence practices. In fact, communities maintained elements of earlier cultivation and animal-foddering systems, selectively incorporating new plants and animals into their repertoire. These locally-specific strategies were employed to negotiate ever-changing environmental and social conditions in the region of developing ‘proto-Silk Road’ interregional interactions.

DAYA DUKUNG LINGKUNGAN UNTUK FUNGSI LINDUNG SITUS GUA BERINGIN DAN GUA CARANO DANAU SINGKARAK, SUMATERA BARAT [THE ENVIRONMENTAL SUPPORTING FUNCTIONS FOR PROTECTION OF BARINGIN AND CARANO CAVE SITES IN THE SINGKARAK LAKE, WEST SUMATERA]

Lingkungan merupakan faktor penting bagi kehidupan di masa lalu hingga kini yang memiliki potensi sebagai sumber penghidupan manusia, seperti sumber air dan makanan. Manusia memiliki kemampuan adaptasi yang baik terhadap lingkungannya, dengan mengeksploitasi lingkungan dan menciptakan teknologi yang selaras dengan kebudayaannya. Adapun permasalahan yang akan dibahas pertama, bagaimana gambaran daya dukung lingkungan untuk fungsi lindung bagi keberlangsungan situs Gua Carano dan Gua Beringin di sekitar Danau Singkarak. Kedua, bagaimana nilai penting situs bagi penelitian dan pelestarian. Kemudian tujuannya adalah mengetahui daya dukung lingkungan untuk fungsi lindung bagi keberlangsungan situs Gua Carano dan Gua Beringin di sekitar Danau Singkarak. Selain itu bertujuan untuk mengetahui nilai penting situs bagi penelitian dan pelestarian. Metode yang diterapkan adalah kualitatif menggunakan alur penalaran induktif. Hipotesisnya adalah lingkungan mempengaruhi budaya yang berkembang pada situs tersebut di masa lalu,dan perubahan yang terjadi di sekitarnya akan mempengaruhi situsnya. Kemudian guna mempertajam analisis daya dukung lingkungan untuk fungsi lindung dilakukan analisa terhadap data primer dan data sekunder melalui peta. Keberadaan Gua Beringin dan Gua Carano di tepian Danau Singkarak memiliki nilai sejarah yang cukup tinggi sejak masa prasejarah. Nilai penting dari sisi pendidikan dan ilmu pengetahuan meliputi teknologi pembuatan gerabah dan aktivitas kemaritiman di lingkungan danau sebagai bagian dari pelajaran muatan lokal, maupun menjadi objek penelitian bagi disiplin ilmu lain selain arkeologi. Nilai penting bagi kebudayaan berkaitan dengan strategi adaptasi dan subsistensi terhadap sumber daya alam di lingkungan danau. Environment is important for human livelihood, such as a source of water and food. Humans have a good ability to adapt by exploiting the environment and creating technology which is in harmony with their culture. The problems in this study are how is environment carrying capacity for protection the sustainability of Carano and Beringin Caves around Singkarak Lake, and how important are the caves. The method applied was qualitative using inductive reasoning flow. The analysis of both primary and secondary data was carried out through maps. The result showed that these caves have a fairly high historical value since prehistoric times. The important values in terms of education and science include technology for making pottery and maritime activities as part of local content lessons, as well as being an object of research for disciplines other than archeology. The Important values of culture are related to adaptation and subsistence strategies for natural resources.

Gledswood Shelter 1: Initial radiocarbon dates from a Pleistocene aged rockshelter site in northwest Queensland

Like elsewhere in Australia, the archaeology of northwest Queensland has focused on the antiquity of occupation and the continuity of that occupation through the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), in an attempt to better understand the adaptive capabilities and strategies of early humans. Veth (1989, 1993) has hypothesised that the northwest Queensland savannah, as an important ‘corridor’ for the colonisation of Australia (e.g. Bird et al. 2005; Horton 1981), should contain ‘early’ sites; and furthermore that with the climatic deterioration associated with the LGM, such sites should fit one of two patterns: (1) they will be abandoned and display a cultural hiatus; or, (2) if located in resource-rich zones within catchments (‘local refuges’), they will continue to be utilised, though subsistence strategies will be modified to rely more heavily on locally available resources. The northwest Queensland sites of Colless Creek at Lawn Hill (Hiscock 1984, 1988), and GRE8 near Riversleigh (Slack 2007:218-251; Slack et al. 2004), both fit the second pattern, i.e. persistent occupation through the LGM with altered strategies to cope with increased aridity. However, outside these local refugia, sites pre-dating the LGM have not yet been located in the northwest Queensland savannah. For example, Mickey Springs 34 (Porcupine Gorge) provides evidence for human occupation from c.10,000 BP (Morwood 1990, 1992, 2002) and Cuckadoo Shelter in the Selwyn Ranges (Davidson et al. 1993) provides a near basal date of 15,270}210 BP; Veth (1989:87) argued that such sites reflect the post-LGM expansion of groups from refuges. The evidence available to date raises the question as to whether the wider northwest Queensland savannah corridor was indeed occupied in the pre-LGM period, when rainfall levels were higher and there was greater availability of surface water and food resources (cf. Hiscock and Wallis 2005).

Egalitarianism to gender inequality: Cross-cultural exploration of gender relations, in economic systems

Gender inequality has generated a lot of debates among scholars across disciplines. Much of these studies have not explored a robust scholarship on the historical development of gender inequality by comparing different human societies and their subsistence strategies. This review study is designed to fill this gap, thereby contributing to corpus of literature on gender inequality in economic relations. As a historical research, the study uses secondary materials. These materials are mainly ethnographies of the societies under comparison. The study compares the roles of each of the gender categories in subsistence activities, in economic systems, to trace the sources of gender inequality in economic relations. Data available suggest egalitarian gender and economic relations. However, as societies evolved, there became a gradual decline in egalitarianism, leading to marked inequality. The inequality is relative to the complexity of social structure peculiar to the societies under review.

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

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.

Three-dimensional surface morphometry differentiates behaviour on primate percussive stone tools

The Early Stone Age record preserves a rich behavioural signature of hominin stone tool making and use. The role of percussive technology in the daily subsistence strategies of our earliest ancestors has seen renewed focus recently. Studies of modern primate tool use highlight the diverse range of behaviours potentially associated with percussive technology. This has prompted significant methodological developments to characterize the associated damage marks (use-wear) on hammerstones and anvils. Little focus has, however, been paid to identifying whether these techniques can successfully differentiate between the damage patterns produced by specific and differing percussive behaviours. Here, we present a novel workflow drawing on the strengths of visual identification and three-dimensional (3D) surface quantification of use-wear. We apply this methodology firstly to characterize macaque percussive use-wear and test the efficacy of 3D surface quantification techniques in differentiating between percussive damage and natural surface topography. Secondly, we use this method to differentiate between use-wear associated with various wild macaque percussive behaviours. By combining analyst-directed, 3D surface analysis and use-wear dimensional analysis, we show that macaque percussive behaviours create specific diagnostic signatures and highlight a means of quantifiably recording such behavioural signatures in both primate and hominin contexts.

Quantitative Analysis of Drought Management Strategies across Ethnographically-Researched African Societies: A Pilot Study

In this paper, we present a pilot study aimed at investigating the impact of subsistence strategies and environmental pressure on the distribution of ethnographically documented strategies to cope with drought and its effects across 35 current societies in Africa. We use freely accessible ethnographic databases to retrieve data on how a number of African societies deal with the circumstances of drought, and ascertain the impact of geography on their distribution in order to measure possible relationships between them, a set of subsistence choices, and proxies of environmental constraints. We use Canonical Correspondence Analysis to explore the emerging patterns and find that subsistence strategy strongly impacts the choice of drought management strategies, especially if considered with a proxy of local environmental condition. Spatial proximity and aridity per se have only marginal impact, highlighting other relevant processes of cultural transmission that at least partly transcend (a) the intensity of human interaction over geographic gradients and (b) local adaptation primarily dependent on water availability. This study supports the wide applicability of quantitative and replicable methods to cross-cultural evidence on a variety of adaptive strategies and uses ethnographic data to propose new hypotheses that can inform future archaeological research by showing recurrent and non-case-specific choices highlighting resilient practices and adaptive behaviour in Africa.