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Lascaux, Le Geste, L'Espace, et Le Temps. NORBERT AUJOULAT. 2004. Seuil, Paris. 273 pp., 194 figs. 45 Euros (cloth), ISBN 2-02-025726-2. Chauvet Cave: The Art of Earliest Times. JEAN CLOTTES, [...]

Prentiss et al. (2003) have argued for a relatively recent, short (1600-1100 B.P.), and noncontinuous occupation of large villages and large housepits on the British Columbian Plateau. They argue that these developments resulted from climatically induced resource impoverishment in the region. I maintain that their database is inadequate for such conclusions and that their interpretations are in conflict with dates that 1 obtained from large housepits as well as with the distribution of early point styles (dating from 1200-4800 B.P.) that concentrate in the rim middens of large and medium-sized housepits. These data indicate that large villages and housepits that emerged by 2600 B.P, or earlier, were continuously occupied and corresponded more to the development of collector-based technologies rather than any climatic deteriorations or the introduction of the bow and arrow. Prentiss et al. (2003) han argumentado que la ocupacion de grandes aldeas y grandes estructuras semi-subterraneas en el altiplano de la Columbia Britanica es relativamente reciente y corta (1600-1100 a. de P.). Arguyen que estos desarrollos fueron el resultado de un empobrecimiento climdticamente inducido de recursos en la region. Yo sostengo que su base de datos es inadecuada para llegar a tales conclusiones y que sus interpretaciones entran en conflicto con las fechas que he obtenido de grandes estructuras semi-subterraneas, y tambien con la distribucion de estilos de puntas tempranos (que datan de 1200-4800 a.de.P.), los cuales se concentran en las depositos de basura de las estructuras semi-subterraneas grandes y medianas. Estos datos indican que las grandes aldeas y estructuras semi-subterrdneas que surgieron hacia 2600 a.de.P o mas temprano, fueron usadas continuamente, y corresponden rods bien al desarrollo de tecnologias basadas en la recoleccion que a cualquier deterioro climatico o a la introduccion del arco y la flecha., Recently, William Prentiss et al. (2003) reported a series of radiocarbon dates that call into question a relatively early and long-lasting chronology for the large-scale village aggregations and residential corporate [...]

We previously suggested that the abandonment of large housepit villages along the Mid-Fraser River ca. 1200 B.P. was due to landslides that decimated salmon stocks and the main subsistence staples of the villages. Kuijt has questioned the plausibility of such a scenario. However, he confuses the two landslide episodes we discuss and raises unrealistic expectations about lake formation, migration behavior, and residual populations. He also confuses the lacustrine vs. fluvial effects of landslide blockages. While he attributes to us specific interpretations to which we are not tied and which are not critical for our basic argument, he offers no real alternative explanation for why the large Mid-Fraser villages were abandoned., Ian Kuijt (2001) recently criticized our interpretation of the abandonment of large pithouse villages in the Lillooet area as due to massive landslides that decimated the salmon runs that were [...]

The Plateau culture area of northwestern North America fits the criteria of an interaction sphere. Understanding the general cultural dynamics responsible for the creation of interaction spheres has been poorly developed in archaeological and ethnological theory. Data from the Plateau Interaction Sphere are used to argue that the main factor responsible for the emergence of interaction spheres in transegalitarian societies is the development of an elite class. Elites who seek to maximize their power and wealth at the tribal level do so in part by establishing trading, marriage, ideological, military, and other ties to elites in other communities and regions. They use these ties to monopolize access to desirable regional prestige goods and to enhance their own socioeconomic positions. In conformity with expectations derived from this model, the data from the Plateau demonstrate that interaction sphere goods are predominantly prestige items and that these concentrate in communities that have the greatest potential to produce surplus and to develop socioeconomic inequalities. These same features also seem to characterize well-known interaction spheres elsewhere in the world., The northwestern Plateau of North America has long been recognized as a coherent and relatively homogeneous culture area with a distinctive hunting and salmon-based economy including significant food-storage capabilities, logistical [...]

The ability to identify distinct types of cherts and chalcedonies at the large prehistoric housepit site of Keatley Creek on the British Columbia plateau has made it possible to infer important aspects of socioeconomic organization from ca. 2400 to 1100 B.P. Each large housepit tested at the site appears to have a distinctive and characteristic composition of chert and chalcedony debitage which remains coherent over time (for at least 1,000 years). Three inferences concerning socioeconomic organization are derived from these observations: (1) residents of each large housepit probably foraged in distinctly different ranges during nonwinter months where they procured their raw stone materials; (2) residents of each large pithouse formed 'residential corporate groups' that differed in their access to stone resources; and (3) the 'residential corporate groups' that occupied large pithouses retained economic rights, corporate identity, and ownership of specific pithouse premises for unusually long time periods spanning more than a millennium. Differences between lithic assemblages of housepits were confirmed by three separate and independent analyses employing successively more sophisticated techniques., This article presents a brief summary of the analyses from the excavation program at the Keatley Creek site in British Columbia. We use lithic raw material data to confirm the [...]

Cave Art. JEAN CLOTTES. 2008. Phaidon Press, London. 327 pp. $90.00 (cloth), ISBN-13 978-0-7148-4592-0. This is a magnificent corpus of art (rock art and sculptures) primarily from the European Upper [...]

Analyzes the interaction spheres of the Plateau culture of North America. Effects of the development of elite class in interaction spheres; Reasons for the similarities among Plateau groups; Usage of carved bone drinking tubes by adolescent girls; Plateau ideology.

Highlights inferences about the socioeconomic organization from circa 2400 to 1100 B.P., derived from observing distinct types of cherts and chalcedonies at a prehistoric Keatley Creek site near Lillooet, British Columbia. Analyses from the excavation program at the site; Differences between lithic assemblages of housepits; Residential corporate groups.