
Andrew M. ZipkinArizona State University | ASU · School of Human Evolution and Social Change
Andrew M. Zipkin
PhD, RPA
About
46
Publications
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Introduction
Dr. Andrew Zipkin is an analytical chemist and archaeological scientist with over a decade of experience in elemental characterization, strontium isotope geochemistry, compositional data analysis, geographic information science, and anthropological and environmental archaeology.
Additional affiliations
August 2021 - present
Eurofins EAG Laboratories
Position
- Senior Scientist
May 2015 - June 2018
May 2015 - June 2017
Education
August 2009 - August 2015
August 2009 - August 2013
August 2005 - May 2009
Publications
Publications (46)
This manuscript seeks to facilitate meta-analysis of cross-disciplinary ochre studies by advocating for a common vocabulary and clarifying the definition of “ochre” as used by archaeological scientists across cultural and geographic specialties. This work reviews the current state of ochre archaeometry, spanning the beginning of its major period of...
Isotope ratio analyses of trace elements are applied to tooth enamel, ostrich eggshell, and other archaeological hard tissues to infer mobility and other aspects of hominin and animal paleoecology. It has been assumed that these highly mineralized tissues are resistant to diagenetic alteration, but this is seldom tested and some studies document di...
Strontium isotope (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) analysis with reference to strontium isotope landscapes (Sr isoscapes) allows reconstructing mobility and migration in archaeology, ecology, and forensics. However, despite the vast potential of research involving ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr analysis particularly in Africa, Sr isoscapes remain unavailable for the largest parts of the co...
Silcrete is widely used for stone tool manufacture throughout various parts of the world and is sometimes heat-treated to improve flaking quality. Properly sourcing this raw material can provide insight into exchange networks and mobility patterns of early human populations, however, we only have a minor understanding of how heat treatment impacts...
The heat treatment of silcrete is an important technological strategy during the Middle Stone Age (MSA) in South Africa. Heat-treating silcrete improves its quality for tool making and use. Although it is found as early as ~162,000 years ago (ka) at Pinnacle Point 13B, heat-treated silcrete does not become common in South African MSA assemblages un...
Heat-treated silcrete was a key technological feature in the toolkit of early humans living on the south coast of South Africa. Some of the earliest evidence for this transformative pyrotechnology is found at Pinnacle Point 13B (PP13B) around 162,000 years ago (ka) (Brown et al., 2009). Researchers have argued that heat treatment technology can hel...
The objective of this study was to determine if visible reflectance spectroscopy and quantitative colorimetry represent viable approaches to classifying the heat treatment state of silcrete. Silcrete is a soil duricrust that has been used as toolstone since at least the Middle Stone Age. The ancient practice of heat treating silcrete prior to knapp...
Multiple lines of genetic and archaeological evidence suggest that there were major demographic changes in the terminal Late Pleistocene epoch and early Holocene epoch of sub-Saharan Africa1,2,3,4. Inferences about this period are challenging to make because demographic shifts in the past 5,000 years have obscured the structures of more ancient pop...
Heat treatment is first recognized by 160 ka in South Africa. The complexity of the technique may have implications for recognizing an advanced cognition, and a debate has arisen as to the complexity of the process. In that context, recent research in lithic heat treatment technology has focused on developing probabilistic, quantitative, and replic...
The objective of this study was to determine if visible reflectance spectroscopy and quantitative colorimetry represent viable approaches to classifying the heat treatment state of silcrete. Silcrete is a soil duricrust that has been used as toolstone since at least the Middle Stone Age. The ancient practice of heat treating silcrete prior to knapp...
See attached PDF file for the conference paper abstract, summary results slides, and acknowledgements.
Recent advances in the study of lithic heat treatment have focused on developing quantitative, non-destructive, and replicable methods to identify this phenomenon in the archaeological record. Improving our ability to distinguish heated stone from unheated permits archaeologists to more accurately determine what lithic technologies relied on this p...
Ochres are a diverse category of naturally occurring iron-enriched earths and rocks, as well as iron oxide minerals, that derive their color from iron-containing chromophores and are suitable for use as pigments. Over the last two decades, provenience studies of archaeological ochres have grown from a rarity largely of interest only to specialists...
The Online First version of this article unfortunately contained an error in the dimensions of LiBo fused bead shards described in the section “Lithium Borate Fusion Methods”.
Mochena Borago Rockshelter, located in the southwestern highlands of Ethiopia, offers a Late Pleistocene lithostratigraphic record of human occupation securely dated by more than 50 radiocarbon dates from 50 through 35 ka. With over 3 meters of deposit beyond radiocarbon dating, this report places the ochre and associated processing tools at Mochen...
The use of radiogenic strontium isotope ratios (87Sr/86Sr) has a long and productive history in archaeological science (Bentley, 2006). Provenance analysis of archaeological hard tissues like enamel, bone, and shell relies upon a reference data set of landscape variation in strontium available for incorporation into the skeleton (bioavailable Sr)....
Some of the earliest evidence for symbolic behaviour in human prehistory comes from personal adornments made from shells. More than 400 opercula from the terrestrial gastropod Revoilia guillainopsis, were found at the Middle Stone Age site of Porc-Epic in southeastern Ethiopia (Rosso et al., 2016). The opercula, unbroken except for a central perfor...
Understanding the environmental circumstances that promote contingent strategies of risk reduction is an enduring area of anthropological investigation with significant implications for the evolution of human adaptability. As part of the Malawi Ancient
Lifeways and Peoples Project (MALAPP), we are using strontium isotope ratio provenance analysis t...
The Middle Stone Age in Africa
The Olorgesailie basin in the southern Kenya rift valley contains sediments dating back to 1.2 million years ago, preserving a long archaeological record of human activity and environmental conditions. Three papers present the oldest East African evidence of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) and elucidate the system of techn...
A large brain is a defining feature of modern humans, yet there is no consensus regarding the patterns, rates and processes involved in hominin brain size evolution. We use a reliable proxy for brain size in fossils, endocranial volume (ECV), to better understand how brain size evolved at both clade- and lineage-level scales. For the hominin clade...
The Kenya Rift Valley contains many ochre sources that are currently used by indigenous peoples for adornment, rituals, and art. Ochre pigments occur in rock art and archaeological sites spanning over 250,000 years. Chemical analysis for provenience of geological sources is the first step in the process of reconstructing provenance of archaeologica...
Twin Rivers Kopje, Zambia is a Middle and Later Stone Age site first excavated by J. Desmond Clark that has yielded extensive evidence of mineral pigment collection and use dating to as old as 300,000 years ago. In this study, we sampled pigment sources within 25 km of Twin Rivers for digital colorimetry and trace element fingerprinting using Laser...
Experimental studies of hafting adhesives and modifications to compound tool components can demonstrate the extent to which human ancestors understood and exploited material properties only formally defined by science within the last century. Discoveries of Stone Age hafting adhesives at archaeological sites in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa h...
Twin Rivers Kopje, located southwest of Lusaka, Zambia, is a Middle Stone Age site containing the oldest Lupemban Industry deposits in Central Africa, dating to approximately 300-140 ka. First excavated by J. Desmond Clark, more recent excavations by Lawrence Barham yielded extensive evidence of mineral pigment collection in Lupemban and younger co...
Twin Rivers Kopje is a Middle and Later Stone Age archaeological site located 24 km southwest of Lusaka, Zambia and contains the oldest Lupemban Industry deposits in Central Africa, dating to approximately 300 – 140 ka during the Middle Pleistocene. The site was first excavated by J. Desmond Clark in 1954-56; more recent excavations by Lawrence Bar...
In this study, we compared the effectiveness of instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) of bulk ochre to laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry of homogenized ochre chips (HOC LA–ICPMS) at distinguishing among three ochre sources in northern Malawi. Both techniques upheld the Provenance Postulate; however, HOC LA–ICPMS...
J. Desmond Clark’s Middle Stone Age excavation at Chaminade 1A, Karonga, Malawi during the 1960s yielded utilized ochre artefacts suggestive of pigment production. Our 2011 survey of regional ochre deposits suggested that many potential sources are difficult-to-characterize, sedimentary rocks containing detrital minerals from diverse parent rocks....