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AbstractWhat constraints and conditions are conducive to the innovation of more advanced watercraft technology? This paper explores this question by modeling ancient voyages in the Channel Island region of southern California. The Chumash and Tongva cultures of this region invented an advanced form of boat, the sewn plank canoe, around 500 CE. This new technology led to a rapid increase in maritime travel and transformed the maritime political economy of the region. In this paper we use agent-based ocean voyage modeling to examine the capacities of a range of indigenous boat types to travel important routes in the Channel Region at different times of the year. Our results indicate that while several different boat types would have been conducive for voyaging from the mainland coast to adjacent islands such as Limuw (Santa Cruz) and Pimu (Catalina), voyages to outlying islands, including Tuqan (San Miguel) and especially Haraasnga (San Nicolas), would have been difficult for much of the year in dugout or reed boats. We argue that early mariners plying these routes would have been under strong pressure to innovate faster and more seaworthy craft, possibly leading to the eventual development of the sewn plank canoe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of the analysis of plant macroremains (except wood), primarily seeds and fruits, from Cabo San Pablo 2017 (CSP2017), an archaeological site close to the Atlantic coast of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego. CSP2017 has a great diversity of archaeological materials, including faunal, lithic, carpological, and anthracological remains. The data are especially relevant due to the scarcity of information regarding plant use at coastal sites in the region. At CSP2017 eleven taxa were identified. The results obtained provide data on plant use at the site and, at the same time, enable discussion of the management and use of these types of resources on Isla Grande. By placing these results in context with previously studied coastal and hinterland sites, research at CSP2017 contributes to a better understanding of plant use by hunter-gatherers of the southernmost part of South America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sea catfish (Genidens barbus) and whitemouth croaker (Micropogonias furnieri) were the most marine euryhaline species exploited by hunter-gatherers during the final Late Holocene along the coastal fringe of the eastern Pampa–Patagonia transition (Argentina). In the lower basin of the Colorado River, zooarchaeological evidence recovered from the San Antonio archaeological locality indicates prevalent fish consumption. However, no specific technology related to fishing has been recovered as part of the archaeological assemblages, hence strategies and techniques of fish capture remain unknown. The aim of this paper is to estimate the size of both species through archaeological otolith measurements to evaluate possible fish capture techniques. The analyzed sample is made up of 117 otoliths of whitemouth croaker and 863 of sea catfish. The estimated size of G. barbus individuals is between ca. 240 and 730 mm, which indicates the presence of juveniles and adults. In the case of M. furnieri, the estimated size range of individuals is ca. 350–750 mm, which indicates the representation of adult specimens. Based on the diversity of sizes represented in both species, their ethology, and the geomorphological characteristics of the study area, it is proposed that the fish could have been caught with either nets or bare hands through nonselective mass trapping strategies during the spring–summer season. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Mesolithic and Neolithic, foragers dwelling in the Eastern Baltic, Scandinavia and Fennoscandia regions buried some of their dead on lake islands or other coastal sites. Based on ethnographic accounts, these sites are often understood as liminal places where water separates the lands of the dead and the living. In this paper, we take a more relational view of place and suggest that a particular combination of spatial perception of landscape and the dynamic nature of coastal sites might have contributed to the social agency of these places, resulting in their use as places for ritual activity. By exploring two Mesolithic–Neolithic burial places, Donkalnis and Spiginas (western Lithuania), with sensory archaeological and artistic approaches, we suggest that the ancient foragers of this region buried human bodies in these locations to be part of the place itself. Similar to other depositional acts, this could have been done to mark the location or communicate with the surrounding world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of World Archaeology is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Fish are a prominent source of nutrients, yet in the southern Levant, clear evidence for fishing was scarce before the historic periods. In the current paper, we present the evidence for Natufian (ca. 15,000-11,700 cal BP) fishing with an emphasis on fishhooks, representing one of the best examples of an artefact that reached its morphological optimum thousands of years ago and continued to be widely used today. While fishing using various techniques and implements was probably in use well before the Natufian, this innovation seems to represent a new technique, more restricted and controlled, for obtaining this food source. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The controversy between the DNA and morphological and osteometric identifications of animal remains from Sehonghong in Lesotho is discussed in this paper as a response to Horsburgh et al. (2016a)'s article ‘Bringing the Kalahari debate to the mountains’. Faunal identification procedures are described and base measurements provided. Morphological and osteometric data show that the aDNA result of eland on a morphologically identified sheep must be at fault. Furthermore, the cattle bones identified by aDNA as eland do not fit the morphology and are also too small for eland. New research on dairy lipids present in the potsherds of traditional hunter-gatherer ware strengthens the case for herding practices amongst past hunter-gatherer communities in the Lesotho highlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractAccording to archaeological data, Otaria flavescens and Arctocephalus australis were exploited at the mouth of the Santa Cruz River by hunter-gatherers in the late Holocene. These studies suggest the past existence of reproductive colonies from where individuals of different ages were taken, highlighting the offspring available in the austral summer. This paper presents new information on sex, age, and season of death based on the study of teeth growth layers and rings recorded on canines of both species recovered in three archaeological sites located in Punta Entrada, on the southern bank of Santa Cruz River. The results confirm that otariids were captured in the austral summer and show that winter and spring were also important seasons. Prey included females, pups, and adult males captured according to the abundance of each age group at different seasons of the year. These data are in agreement with those obtained from other lines of evidence, such as osteometry and sclerochronology, which indicate this sector of the Patagonian coast was occupied recurrently to hunt otariids as one of the main resources taken by hunter-gatherers when visiting Punta Entrada at different times of the year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carbohydrate consumption in hunter-gatherer societies has been much debated, with dietary estimates from studies of modern hunter-gatherers used as a reference standard for modern human nutrition. However, relatively little is known about the role of carbohydrates in past hunter-gatherer diets in temperate Europe because farming has been the main mode of subsistence since early prehistory. Plant roots and rhizomes provide a major source of carbohydrates and archaeological evidence indicates that these resources were gathered, perhaps routinely for food by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers in Europe. This paper considers whether roots/rhizomes in Europe contained sufficient carbohydrates and energy to be utilised as staple foods using new food composition data, and considers the suitability of roots/rhizomes for intensive exploitation. The results reveal that the carbohydrate and energy content of wild roots/rhizomes can be higher than in cultivated potatoes, showing that they could have provided a major carbohydrate and energy source for hunter-gatherers in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the archaeological materials from a unique child burial recently discovered in Tierra del Fuego. Preliminary analyses are consistent with the idea that the burial belongs to the Selk'nam culture. Although the Selk'nam archaeological record is abundant, very little is known about their mortuary practices. In this well-preserved burial, the human remains were accompanied by an unusual set of grave goods, which have not been described in the archaeological literature for this region. Radiocarbon dating places this burial at the beginning of the Post-Columbian period in Tierra del Fuego (331–499 cal BP). Analyses presented herein include information on the sex, diet, and genetics of the child, which provided the first genetic evidence for the presence of mitochondrial sub-haplogroup D1g5 in the Selk'nam population in Tierra de Fuego. We also provide a detailed description of the cultural materials, which include mammal and bird bones and lithic material. This is a unique find because it possesses a wealth of archaeological materials that are previously unknown in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Hunter-gatherer studies have often been at the forefront of feminist critiques in archaeology, and have remained a clear front on which feminist issues are still regularly raised. While these approaches have challenged the androcentric stereotypes upon which archaeological interpretations of hunter-gatherers have been based, current accounts continue to construct their interpretations based around modern Western heteronormative concepts of identity. By presenting an alternative interpretation of the construction of hunter-gatherer identity from the west coast of Scotland, this paper will demonstrate that, through the application of queer theory to hunter-gatherer studies, we may finally move away from the pervasive heteronormative stereotypes upon which they have been constructed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Yearly, development-induced displacement affects some 20 million people, a disproportionate share of whom are indigenous. Within the diverse category of indigenous peoples, hunter-gatherers are especially vulnerable to displacement as they form the least powerful sectors of society. While displacement poses a major threat to the few remaining hunter-gatherer peoples, case studies of how this process unfolds are scarce. This ethnographic study details how two decades of indigenous land rights legislation have been ineffective in preventing displacement of indigenous communities in the Philippines, through the case of Agta hunter-gatherers of Dimasalansan. The paper demonstrates how procedural inconsistencies, institutional competition and a development paradigm focused on commodification of land have undermined the legal titling process. We argue that the ensuing land-rush that currently displaces Agta is symptomatic for how the implementation of indigenous land rights legislation is undermined by business interests, thereby creating more uncertainty than certainty for the least powerful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the influence of sedentary and semi-sedentary ‘tribally’ organized Eastern Woodlands and Middle Missouri horticultural villagers on Canadian plains hunter-gatherer social organization during the millennium prior to European contact. So-called tribal organization of Canadian plains bison hunters has been suggested to have been caused by the acquisition of domesticated horses from Europeans, which enabled the ritualized mass killing of bison, large group size and a more complex material culture. That is, the complex culture of plains groups at the time of European contact is held to be the result of that contact. It is clear, however, that the material culture correlates of semi-sedentism, complexity and tribal social organization begin to appear in the archaeological record of the Canadian plains with the development of horticultural villages to the south and east, and the appearance of certain aspects of village material culture (primarily specific types of pottery and lithic raw materials) in Canadian plains archaeological assemblages well prior to any European influence. Expansion of horticulture slowed dramatically upon encountering the plains peoples who, I suggest, adopted certain aspects of the culture of their horticultural neighbours and sometime invaders, including a segmentary tribal social organization, sodalities and limited use of traded horticultural products, primarily maize. By adopting a communal bison-hunting subsistence system that included the construction of gathering facilities such as pounds and jumps, people were able to increase their food production capabilities while reinforcing their tribal social structure. These cultural changes would have occurred as a result of resistance to the expansion of apparently aggressive horticultural neighbours combined with acculturation to a changing world system of food production. The complex culture of Canadian plains peoples appeared well prior to the appearance of Europeans and is an indigenous development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents original information on the mobility and settlement patterns of the Nukak, who live between the Guaviare and Inirida rivers in the Colombian Amazon. The objective of this paper is to provide a better understanding of how egalitarian societies produce spatial arrangements in order to organize their settlements and to exploit the tropical rain forest resources. Traditional Nukak subsistence is based on hunting and the gathering of plants and animal products such as honey, turtle eggs and palm grubs: fishing and small-scale horitculture are also practised. High residential mobility is practised in both the rainy and the dry season; it is estimated that bands make between seventy and eighty residential mares per year. Residential camps comprise two to five domestic units and usually cover under 130 m². The Nukak case shows that forager mobility in tropical rain forests is not exclusively the consequence of avoiding over-exploitation of an easily depleted environment. On the contrary, mobility is partly a complex way of concentrating forest resources in patches: the Nukak 'move to produce'. Sanitation, abandonment due to a death, social/ritual activities, and inter-band marriage also play a role. Therefore we must seek historical and socio-ideological reasons as well as environmental ones [or the high mobility and low population density of tropical hunter-gatherers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeological investigations on sandy, well-drained terraces of the Grand River in southwestern Michigan revealed a large number of shallow surface depressions, marking the locations of former cache pits, i.e., subterranean storage features. Our paper documents these pits, one of the largest arrays of cache pits reported for the Upper Great Lakes. Excavations into 29 cache pits revealed that they had been backfilled with generally artifact-poor sands. Prior to backfilling, the cache pits had been burned, leaving behind a black, charcoal-rich, charred horizon at their base, below the fill. This type of intentional burning has not previously been reported. Intentional re-use of cache pits was rare, if it occurred at all. Subsequently, pedogenesis has formed tongue-like soil horizons below the surface depressions. Radiocarbon dates from the cache pits, along with diagnostic artifacts, place the use of these features to the Late Precontact period, particularly the mid- to late 15th century a.d. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent discovery that iconic depictions in caves on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi are more ancient than those from Upper Palaeolithic Europe raises questions as to when such images first arose and why the graphic outcomes from the two locations are so similar. In this paper, we show that these questions can be addressed by exploiting the extensive research carried out over the recent past on the psychology of perception and the neuroscience of the visual brain that allows the proper place of iconic depictions in understanding cognitive evolution to be determined. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper focuses on the application of geometric morphometrics to the study of the lithic record in southern South America. We review the regional background, discuss methodological issues and summarize research advances. Here a geometric morphometric approach is applied to the case study of Late Holocene stemmed lithic projectile points from Grande Island of Tierra del Fuego (southernmost South America). Our aim is to assess size and shape changes in a broad spatial scale. Projectile point morphometric variations are used to discuss spatial scales of interaction and differentiation among past human populations across the island. Finally, several hypotheses are introduced to explain the patterns observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa is the property of Taylor & Francis Ltd and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

It is likely that ritual activity existed (and even played an important role) in the life of Upper Palaeolithic groups. However, rites are among the aspects of human behaviour most elusive to archaeological research. In this paper, we will analyse the evidence from several Magdalenian cave sites where the existence of 'sanctuaries' or other kinds of ritual activity has been claimed. The available methods for the evaluation of this kind of area will be discussed, and a preliminary assessment of some recently documented sites will be proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of hunter-gatherer activity at lithic raw material sources are relatively rare and largely descriptive, in part because archaeologists have viewed hunter-gatherer lithic procurement as a casual and low-cost activity. This paper presents the results of fieldwork at a hunter-gatherer quartzite quarry along the Continental Divide in the Rocky Mountains of northern Colorado that suggests that this perspective is incorrect. Hunter-gatherer groups at the site quarried stone intensively, although they did not often transport this stone any great distance. This suggests that it is useful to reconsider the way we think about lithic procurement, and particularly that we rethink the concepts of ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ procurement. The data presented here highlight the ability of quarry sites to expand our understanding of how mobile human groups used the landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the question of why certain hunter-gatherers (of the ‘immediate-return’ type in Woodburn's terms) have little interest in visual art. Their lack of interest is striking in comparison with the elaborate traditions of painting and carving in Australia and the circumpolar North, which Ingold (2000) compares, showing that they correspond to totemic and animic ontologies respectively. The ‘immediate-return’ class of hunter-gatherers is examined in relation to Ingold's typology, using the Nayaka of South India as a specific example. It is argued that their lack of interest in depictions corresponds to an ontology which is inseparable from their animistic epistemology (Bird-David 1999). This ontology differs from Ingold's animic and totemic types and can be added to his scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Homo sapiens sapiens had spread into most diverse environments by the end of the Pleistocene, but many islands were not settled until the Holocene. One explanation is that because of space and resource limitations in many island environments, it was difficult for hunter-gatherers to survive there. Although some islands were colonized successfully by hunter-gatherers, agriculture may have been necessary to settle many islands permanently. Islands successfully colonized by hunter-gatherers were large, close to continents or larger islands, or had abundant marine resources (especially large sea mammals), or a combination of these elements. Relatively small and remote, the Ryukyu Islands south of Japan, were not characterized by the conditions mentioned above. The first humans who successfully colonized the Okinawa group of islands were “Late” Jomon people. In this paper, I examine subsistence strategies of prehistoric Okinawans using recent faunal and floral data, demonstrating that they lived on the islands using a foraging-based economy. In the process, I explore the reasons hunter-gatherers were able successfully to colonize Okinawa island environments for several thousand years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper makes a plea for examining New Religious Movements (NRMs), including the New Age Movement, in terms of contrasting modes of social organisation. NRMs share such contrasting modes with other societies well outside the Western industrial-capitalist world, notably hunting and gathering societies. This means that theoretical discussion relating to the social forms of hunter-gatherers can enlighten the social forms of NRMs. The paper demonstrates the ethnographic similarities between NRMS and hunter-gatherers in relation to the social dimensions of egalitarianism and hierarchy. Egalitarianism as a counter-cultural strategy of opposition is then explicated according to Boehm's idea of reverse dominance. Hierarchy, among NRMs organised quite differently from ‘mainstream’ hierarchy, is meanwhile explicated in terms of distinctive space-time circumstances of social aggregation where people are constricted on limited areas of territory. In counter-cultural strategies, it is concluded, egalitarianism amounts to a ‘witnessing’ opposition, while hierarchy amounts to a ‘symbolic’ opposition. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The study of hunter-gatherer settlements in prehistory has been limited by the often ephemeral nature of these sites. The structures identified at Barger Gulch Locality B, an alpine Folsom campsite, are among the oldest ever found in the western hemisphere. While poor preservation conditions produced a highly fragmented faunal site assemblage, even unidentifiable bone fragments reveal interesting patterns of hunter-gatherer life. In this study, we examine patterns of burning, distribution, and fragmentation to identify heterogeneous animal processing activities taking place across the site. Spatial analyses of the site's faunal assemblage reaffirm interpretations made using the site's lithic assemblage regarding the location of structures and the seasonality of the site. These analyses reveal spatial patterns of animal processing and hint at ways in which structures were partitioned for different tasks. These results demonstrate that even poorly preserved faunal assemblages can provide valuable insights into human behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnographers have recently debated two distinct models of hunter-gatherer and agriculturalist interaction in the tropical forests of island Southeast Asia: (1) the 'Isolate' Model, proposing that hunter-gatherers had a social network and stable, tropical forest-based foraging economy largely independent of contact with sedentary farmers until the historic era, and (2) the 'Interdependent' Model, suggesting a lengthy history of symbiotic exchange and economic overlap between the two populations. While these models have been examined and debated from the perspective of ethnohistoric and linguistic data, relevant archaeological evidence has been lacking. This paper uses archaeological data on settlement patterns, lithic assemblage composition and the regional circulation of ceramics, metal, and other trade goods to demonstrate that the types of economic interactions suggested by the 'Interdependent' Model have existed between lowland agriculturalists and upland foragers in the Tan jay Region of the Central Philippines for at least the last 1500 years, [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The archaeological record of the Province of Santa Cruz's north Atlantic coast in Argentine Patagonia is represented mainly by middens. These shell middens are made up of the calcareous exoskeletons of mollusks, as well as skeletal remains of vertebrate fauna, lithic artifacts, and carbonized plant remains, intermixed with a varying quantity of sedimentary soil. Recently, along the Lower Basin of the Deseado River, outcrops have been identified that would have functioned in the past as rock shelters for hunter-gatherers who occupied the area during the Middle and Late Holocene. With the aim of expanding our knowledge concerning the dynamics of use of coastal spaces, we began a stratigraphic study of the shell middens and rock shelters. Here, we present a comparative analysis of the occupation characteristics registered at both types of sites and their possible structuring in terms of mobility and functionality. Rock shelters would have functioned primarily as contexts for short-term activities related to the processing and consumption of fauna, mainly terrestrial and to a lesser extent marine fauna. These probably structured seasonal mobility strategies that linked coastal shell middens, defined as multiple activity contexts, with hinterland areas that might have been related to the specific pursuit of other activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monumental architecture has long been associated with the rise of the State and societal inequality, yet recent studies have shown some small and relatively egalitarian societies also built large-scale architecture. This study posits that some of these groups utilized 'institutional flexibility' – a strategy of creating and then dismantling hierarchical power systems during limited periods of time – as a means of harnessing group labor, establishing ritual cycles, and policing behavior during periods of gathering, but then reverting to more autonomous power relations for the remainder of the year when groups were dispersed. Poverty Point, a complex earthwork site in Louisiana (USA), built by hunter-gatherer-fisher peoples over a 500-year period (ca. 3600–3100 cal B.P.) exemplifies the use of 'institutional flexibility' and demonstrates how this strategy can result in extremely complex activities, while also preserving autonomous power relations by containing elite aspirations to particular temporal, spatial, and social contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

LiDAR datasets, from which high-resolution topographic maps can be generated, are becoming commonplace in archaeological analyses. Like any remote sensing technique, LiDAR records only a limited range of phenomena and the data are a snapshot of ground conditions at the time of collection. The temporally specific nature of LiDAR is problematic at sites with postdepositional destruction. This paper presents a method for identifying and recovering lost landscapes by combining LiDAR, archival aerial photographs, historical observations, and fieldwork. This method was developed to reconstruct the topography of ancient shell mounds constructed by hunter-gatherers on the St. Johns River in northeastern Florida (ca. 7500-500 CAL B.P.) and altered by modern land use. The reconstructions demonstrate the influence of ancient communities on modern landscapes and can be used as a basis for further analyses of hunter-gatherer land use, social interaction, and cosmology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taiwan is known as the homeland of the Austronesian-speaking groups, yet other populations already had lived here since the Pleistocene. Conventional notions have postulated that the Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers were replaced or absorbed into the Neolithic Austronesian farming communities. Yet, some evidence has indicated that sparse numbers of non-Austronesian individuals continued to live in the remote mountains as late as the 1800s. The cranial morphometric study of human skeletal remains unearthed from the Xiaoma Caves in eastern Taiwan, for the first time, validates the prior existence of small stature hunter-gatherers 6000 years ago in the preceramic phase. This female individual shared remarkable cranial affinities and small stature characteristics with the Indigenous Southeast Asians, particularly the Negritos in northern Luzon. This study solves the several-hundred-years-old mysteries of 'little black people' legends in Formosan Austronesian tribes and brings insights into the broader prehistory of Southeast Asia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bruce Pascoe's book Dark Emu, which has been a publishing phenomenon in Australia, argues that Aboriginal people were not 'mere' hunter-gatherers in 1788, but were farming. This article sets the argument of the book within the context of the views of archaeologists and anthropologists, as well as other historians, about Aboriginal agriculture. Some have argued that Aboriginal people were hunter-gatherers and asked why they did not adopt agriculture, while others have suggested that at least some groups were practicing farming. The article finds that while the boundary between foraging and farming is a fuzzy one, Aboriginal people were indeed hunters, gatherers and fishers at the time of the British colonisation of Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined cross-cultural variation in children's learning-through-participation in economic work in two forager societies; the Hadza of Tanzania and the BaYaka of the Republic of Congo. We used observational data from 46 Hadza (41% female) and 65 BaYaka (48% female) children and adolescents between the ages of 3 and 18; interview data from 73 Hadza (49% female) and 52 BaYaka (56% female) adults; and ethnographic observations from both populations. Results showed that by providing tools, assigning chores, and foraging with children, Hadza and BaYaka adults provided opportunities for autonomous learning through facilitating participation. Furthermore, although both Hadza and BaYaka children foraged alongside adults when they could be of help, Hadza children were more likely than BaYaka children to forage independently, and BaYaka children were more likely than Hadza children to participate in domestic tasks. We argue that these strategies provided children with opportunities to learn while contributing economically. Nous avons examiné les variations interculturelles dans l'apprentissage des enfants dans le contexte de leur participation à des travaux économiques dans deux sociétés de chasseurs-cueilleurs; les Hadza de Tanzanie et les BaYaka du Congo. Nous avons utilisé les données d'observation de 46 enfants et adolescents Hadza (41% femmes) et 65 BaYaka (48% femmes) âgés de 3 à 18 ans, celles d'interviews de 73 adultes Hadza (49% femmes) et de 52 adultes BaYaka (56% femmes), ainsi que des observations ethnographiques sur ces deux groupes. Les résultats montrent qu'en leur fournissant des outils, en leur assignant des tâches et en chassant et en cueillant avec les enfants, les adultes Hadza et BaYaka leur offrent des possibilités d'apprentissage autonome tout en facilitant leur participation. En outre, alors que les enfants Hadza et BaYaka chassent et cueillent aux côtés des adultes quand ils peuvent, les enfants Hadza sont plus susceptibles que les enfants BaYaka de recourir à la chasse et à la cueillette. Ces derniers sont aussi plus susceptibles que les enfants Hadza de participer aux tâches domestiques. Nous en concluons que ces stratégies fournissent aux enfants des opportunités d'apprentissage tout en contribuant, parallèlement, aux ressources économiques de leur groupe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Circumpolar North is generally recognized as a challenging environment to inhabit and yet, we know relatively little about how people managed their welfare in these places. Here, we add to the understanding of maritime hunter-gatherers in the subarctic North Pacific through a comparative approach that synthesizes biogeographic and archaeological data from the Kuril Islands. We conclude that our faunal, ceramic and lithic evidence support expectations from biogeography as assemblages from low biodiversity and insular regions show limited diet breadth, more locally produced pottery and a conservation of lithic resources. However, we highlight that these ecological factors did not strictly determine the occupation history of the archipelago as radiocarbon data suggests all regions experienced similar demographic fluctuations regardless of their biogeography. These results imply additional pressures influenced the strategic use and settlement of the Kuril Islands and the need for increased chronological resolution to disentangle these complex historical factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Pleistocene Peopling of North America, the use of stone outcrops for forager gatherings would have provided Clovis colonizing hunter-gatherers with several advantages beyond that of toolstone procurement. Stone outcrops would have been predictable and immovable places on an emerging map of a landscape for a thinly scattered colonizing population needing to find one another, as well as ideal teaching locales where novice flintknappers could learn to make the complex Clovis fluted projectile point without worrying about running out of, or transporting, raw material. For these reasons, several researchers have suggested that stone outcrops were 'hubs' of regional Clovis activity where Clovis people not only made tools, but also assembled in large groups at outcrop-related base camps. Once there, they exchanged information and mates, feasted, lived and explored. Here the authors test, using microwear analysis of stone tools, the hypothesis that the Welling site, located within the Upper Mercer chert source area, was an outcrop-related base camp. Their results – suggesting a variety of stone tool functions including dry- and fresh-hide scraping, hide cutting, meat butchering, sawing and scraping bone/antler, sawing and scraping wood, and plant scraping – were consistent with the idea that Welling represents an outcrop-related basecamp in which Clovis foragers assembled, carried out a variety of activities, and regularly travelled to and from the site. These results, when considered in conjunction with recent morphometric analysis of Clovis fluted projectile points, suggest that Welling was indeed a 'hub' of Clovis regional activity in Northeast Ohio, and permit us to propose a scenario for how the region was colonized during the terminal Pleistocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews four books on hunters and gatherers. It begins with a discussion of the debates over the concept of hunter-gatherers. Theoretical approaches to hunter-gather studies are examined briefly. The view then assesses the four books and the various subjects which they address. These subjects include the issue of ethnographic analogy, diversity, evolution, and archaeological perspectives as well as understanding contemporary hunter-gatherer societies. Additional topics include land use, the assignment of meaning to landscapes, way finding, territoriality, boundary-marking, and networks. Social learning, teaching, and information dissemination are discussed, with emphasis on some of the things that are learned, such as sharing, fair treatment of others, the importance of compassion, and moral values. Hunter-gatherer studies have evolved to the point where both archaeologists and anthropologists are taking into careful consideration the need to consider both past and present in their investigations and to focus also on the non-hunter-gatherer societies with whom they are interacting. As people who defined themselves as indigenous, hunter-gatherers are well aware of the social, economic, environmental and political challenges that they are facing, and they are seeking to address these challenges along with support organizations and researchers in an attempt to ensure their long-term security and well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We welcome Tomasello’s new book on the natural history of human morality as an important confirmation of the evolutionary approach, which sees adaptive behaviors and their psychological underpinnings as linked to a species’ socioecology (the package of subsistence, social, mating, and rearing systems). This perspective automatically leads to the conclusion that the basic set of moral preferences is a straightforward human adaptation to the derived cooperative foraging niche of nomadic foragers, which involves a high degree of interdependence. We provide more background information in support of this evolutionary approach, call for work on defining the contents of the innate core of moral preferences it implies, and urge philosophers to pursue its implications more seriously. Tomasello also offers a historical reconstruction, but his scenario is not compatible with recent comparative data showing a surprising overlap with aspects of human morality, nor does it fit the currently best-supported evolutionary scenario of hominin foraging. We offer a better-fitting alternative, but also call for more behavioral work in child development and on nonhuman primates to improve this reconstruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A unique assemblage of ritual objects is described from Falls Rock Shelter in the Dâures massif of Namibia, a major concentration of rock art sites linked to hunter-gatherer shamanic traditions. Occupation of the sites commenced about five thousand years ago and, although there is no direct dating for the rock art itself, it is thought to have been executed during the same period. The assemblage reported here, and dated to approximately 2750 cal. BC, is associated with the earliest evidence of Holocene occupation. Similarities between objects in the assemblage, their archaeological context and ritual paraphernalia depicted in the rock art provide new insights into the nature of shamanic performance in the Namib Desert. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considerable change occurred in the Late Holocene Later Stone Age of Namaqualand, northwestern South Africa. Focusing on stone artifacts, pottery, and ostrich eggshell beads, the cultural sequence for the area is described. Two additions are identified, complicating the traditional model for the introduction of herding into the country. From the mid-Holocene onward, lithic assemblages are based on milky and/or clear quartz and cryptocrystalline silica and initially contain many backed tools with scrapers more common during the first millennium BC. These are hunter-gatherer assemblages. During the final centuries BC, backed bladelet-rich assemblages based on clear quartz appear, with the earliest examples demonstrating typological continuity with the existing assemblages. About 1,500 years ago, expedient assemblages lacking retouch and based on poorer quality quartz appear. The three types co-occur during the last 1,500 years, occasionally in combination with one another. This contrasts strongly with other parts of South Africa where just two distinct assemblage types are identified, suggesting that the hunter-gatherer-herder dichotomy is not universally valid. The artifact patterns between about 200 cal BC and cal AD 500 and the introduction of livestock suggest considerable cultural and social change, heralding the onset of a local Neolithic, but the exact mechanisms remain unclear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores latitudinal and chronological variations in the exploitation of marine fish by the hunter-gatherers who occupied the Atlantic coast of continental Patagonia, Argentina, since the mid-Holocene. Results indicate a spatial gradient in the importance of fish. A significant reduction in the frequency of fish remains in the archaeological sites occurs at higher latitudes. The chronological trends identified also suggest differences between the assemblages of the northern and southern coasts of this long littoral area. The results obtained are further discussed in relation to identified environmental and cultural variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In this work are presented the results of isotopic analyses made on bone remains of human individuals ( n = 6) from the southern Puna of Argentina dated to the final Early Holocene (ca. 8230-8000 BP). They were found in structures located in Peñas de las Trampas 1.1, a rockshelter at 3582 m.a.s.l. in Antofagasta de la Sierra, in the southern Argentinian Puna. They contain multiple secondary burials. Bone fragments were recovered from at least six individuals, three in each structure. Stable isotopes of Carbon (δ13C) and Nitrogen (δ15N) analysis were aimed at defining aspects related to the palaeodiet of the six individuals within the palaeo-economic subsistence spectrum typical of hunter-gatherers. It is worth noting that these human remains are among the earliest from North-Western Argentina, where funeral practices are related with the transportation of certain anatomical parts. The palaeodietary inference considers, on the one hand, the extreme aridity of this geographical area and its impact on the isotopic ecology. And, on the other, it takes into account the fact that four of the six individuals under study were breastfed infants. The results are in agreement with the expected values of the period, which has been characterized as the beginning of the arid Altithermal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why, when, and how people developed highly specialized marine economies remains the focus of considerable anthropological research. Study of maritime adaptations at high latitudes has potential to contribute to this debate because low biodiversity and increased resource seasonality at high latitudes made reliance on marine resources particularly risky. New research at the Cape Krusenstern site complex, located in northwest Alaska, offers a rare opportunity to study the evolution of maritime adaptations across the environmentally dynamic mid-to-late Holocene Arctic. Large-scale and systematic survey of this important site complex was undertaken to address questions about the timing and character of early Arctic coastal lifeways. Our research yielded direct dates of 4,200 years ago for the oldest occupation of the site complex and identified several new sites dating to between 4,200 and 2,000 years ago. Results support the existing settlement model, pointing to increased sedentism and local population only after 2,000 years ago. New data, however, indicate local population was much higher than previously established and that coastal occupation was sustained over long periods of time despite considerable mid-to-late Holocene paleoenvironmental variability. Together, these findings raise new questions about the evolution of maritime adaptations at high latitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Colonial processes around the world had major impacts on the indigenous populations with whom colonists interacted – this is particularly true for small-scale populations that relied heavily on foraging subsistence practices. Historical sources that document these impacts are in the main highly skewed toward representations made by colonial populations themselves. The dominance of these representations forms a major challenge to attempts to reinterrogate colonial historical accounts of the processes of colonisation, and renders opaque the ways in which indigenous populations themselves understood and manipulated their historical interactions with ‘Others’. The Bleek–Lloyd archive – focusing on the ∣Xam Bushmen of the arid interior Karoo of South Africa – offers the opportunity both to question colonial presentations of ‘Bushman’ identities, and to explore Bushman representations of their 19th-century situation. This article discusses one aspect of these representations, focusing on the way in which ∣Xam individuals constructed ‘alien’ identities, and how these were manipulated in social discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elands Bay and adjacent coastline near the mouth of the Verloren vlei on the South African Atlantic coast offered Later Stone Age foragers a variety of marine, estuarine, and terrestrial food resources. We suggest that strandloping (beachwalking or beachcombing) by latest Holocene foragers as a regular practice constituted an important component in their repertoire of subsistence activities. Washed-up mussels, seals, birds, whales, and other recently dead animals would have been available to such strandlopers. We distinguish strandloping as a subsistence practice from the procurement of living prey, including shellfish, mammals, birds, and other animals. The Holocene archaeological record of the Elands Bay area suggests changes through time in resource use, and these changes appear to be recognizable in patterns of shellfish gathering. During the latest part of the Holocene, between about 1,500 and 300 years ago, subsistence practices display a distinctive character that perhaps conforms more strongly than previously to what we conceive of as strandloping. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Over the past century, the fields of archaeology and anthropology have produced a number of different theoretical approaches and a substantial body of data aimed at ways to understand hunter-gatherer, horticultural, and agropastoral societies. This review considers four recent edited volumes on foraging and food-producing societies. These books deal in innovative ways with a broad array of issues, including transitions in human prehistory and history, mobility, land use, sharing, technology, social leveling strategies, leadership, and the formation of social hierarchies. Small-scale societies include hunter-gatherers or foragers, while middle-range societies may include complex hunter-gatherer (ones with storage and delayed return systems), horticultural, and agropastoral societies, some of them with institutionalized leadership, status hierarchies, and differential access to power and resources. An important set of themes in these books includes diversity in adaptations to complex social and natural environments, the significance of (1) matter, (2) energy, and (3) information in small-scale and middle-range societies on several continents, the persistence of foraging, and the development of inequality. The roles of sharing, exchange, and leadership in small-scale and middle-range societies are explored, as are explanations for social, economic, and political transformations among groups over time and across space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Past archaeological investigations into the impact of shellfish gathering by hunter-gatherers on shellfish stocks, particularly on shellfish size, generally have emphasized long-term change visible in stratigraphic sequences. We propose that short-term exploitation of shellfish by Later Stone Age hunter-gatherers who briefly inhabited the Dunefield Midden (DFM) campsite on the Atlantic Coast of South Africa had impacts, at time scales measured likely in days or weeks, that are expressed by spatial variability in the size and relative proportions of two species of limpet across a horizontally large excavated area encompassing a refuse dump and a likely domestic area. We link variability to choices by the site occupants to collect the largest limpets first and gather the smallest individuals late in an occupation event when only small shellfish remained available. Environmentally driven change in shellfish size or species proportions is unlikely at DFM given the short occupation span of the site. Behavioral factors might be relevant for understanding shellfish variability at other sites where excavation has not uncovered a sufficiently large horizontal area to detect pertinent patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hunter-gatherers define humanity's Pleistocene evolutionary past. Yet, hunter-gatherer societies in the 20th–21st centuries are examples par excellence of cultural marginalization, domination, and resilience. This review of six recent works on hunter-gatherers—spanning Paleolithic archaeology, bioarchaeology, behavioral ecology, and cultural anthropology—underscores that human forager diversity can be explained neither by culturally embedded political processes nor by ecologically situated evolutionary factors alone. Yet, theoretical bridging frameworks remain elusive, with a narrowing but persistent culture-biology divide. Recent developments in evolutionary life-history theory provide a robust biocultural foundation for understanding human sociality and the symbolic constitution of embodied cultural practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]