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Tempi of Change: When Soloists don’t play Together. Arrhythmia in ‘Continuous’ Change
Abstract
This contribution is centered on the question of tempi of change and the possibility of defining ternary scales of changes in a long archaeological sequence, which could match F. Braudel’s interpretative framework. Although I had recently considered a ternary scale of change to be a satisfactory framework even for a single category of artifacts, further analyses for this volume, on a longer time scale, revealed it as an intellectual construct that entirely depends on the choice of criteria. In addition, observed arrhythmia in change between two sets of data from the Franchthi Cave (Greece), chipped stone assemblages and ornaments, demonstrate the difficulty of defining global phases of change within a continuous sequence. In turn, this raises the fundamental problem of the choice of proxies used to define the prehistoric cultural entities whose transformations we seek to understand.
... Davies, 2007;Schmidt et al., 2012;Bernaldo de Quirós et al., 2015;Tripp, 2016). Some times it is a "macroregional technocomplex" (Perlès, 2013) or "macro technocomplex" (Talamo et al., 2014) or "archaeological industry" (Reynolds et al., 2015). More rarely in modern usage it is an "archaeo logical culture" (e.g. ...
... Often "the Gravettians" appear to be understood as being dis tinct from the populations that preceded and suc ceeded it. This is despite the fact that, although it is often held that there was a population turnover asso ciated with the Aurignacian-Gravettian transition (Otte and Keeley, 1990;Conard and Bolus, 2003;Finlayson and Carrión, 2007;Bradtmöller et al., 2012), it is not generally assumed that there was a population turnover associated with the Gravettian-postGravettian transition (Finlayson and Carrión, 2007;Perlès, 2013). In fact, recent evidence from the study of ancient genomes suggests that there was no complete population turnover at either the beginning or end of the Mid Upper Palaeolithic (Fu et al., 2016;Posth et al., 2016). ...
The word “Gravettian” is used in many different senses: as a noun (“the Gravettian”) to describe a technocomplex, culture, time period, tradition, etc.; as a collective noun (“the Gravettians”) to describe a population; and as an adjective (“Gravettian”) applied to sites, assemblages, lithics, burials, art, and many other aspects of the archaeological record. Within our discipline, there is extraordinarily little explicit discussion of the definition of this term, and how it should be used. What is clear, however, is that this term is not used consistently. This causes significant problems for constructing robust arguments and for communication. Here, I review the usage of this term in the present day and briefly consider the distinction between its materialist and idealist conceptualisations. I suggest a formal definition for Gravettian as an adjective, which is deliberately minimal and monothetic, and give some examples of how the usage of such a definition may help to improve archaeological research questions. Finally, I suggest that the usage of “the Gravettian” and “the Gravettians” as nouns should be abandoned.
... In archaeology, the effects of these various approaches are evidenced in the proxies that have been chosen among items of prehistoric portable material culture as representative of both life in the past and processes of change -usually ceramics or chipped stone. However, at Franchthi Cave (Perlès, 2013), stone tools and beads tell very different stories. While the former would typically be given precedence based on economic importance, analyses indicate it was beads that were driving production activity and engagement with the site. ...
... While the former would typically be given precedence based on economic importance, analyses indicate it was beads that were driving production activity and engagement with the site. As this example shows, economic models for efficiency and evolutionary progress are not easily applicable to artefacts with layers of meaning, value and continuities that stretch for millennia, do not conform to modern value expectations and rarely conform to change as traced in other contemporary materials (Bar-Yosef Mayer, 2005;Perlès, 2013). Such examples illustrate that craft was not a product either of elite control or of poor egalitarian communities eking out what they could with meagre resources (Costin, 1998). ...
Research on prehistoric personal ornaments has focused on patterns in materials, technology and processes of change but struggles to place human thought and action at the centre of interpretation. However, striking examples of variations in production, altered and mended ornaments and different levels of skill visible in the quality of finished products, and subsequent adjustments made to them are a recurring feature of archaeological ornament assemblages. In addition to regional data on preferences for types and materials, the movement of ornaments between locations and interregional influences, this evidence provides crucial clues about choices, individual makers, and perceptions of the learning process. This article asks to what extent decision-making, individual levels of skill and the expectations surrounding learning or knowledge transmission can be successfully identified and interpreted using the often-limited information available from prehistoric assemblages. Examples taken from Neolithic assemblages in Turkey are used to explore the mutually shaping human-ornament relationship, intention, expectations of normality and divergence from expectation in the production of ornament assemblages. Ornaments are found to be subject to structured and unstructured adjustments within complex biographies and an active area of individual interpretation of shared concepts.
... Other authors focused on diverse material culture trajectories over the long term, in particular, archaeological sequences in order to compare continuities and changes in different material culture assemblages of the same site. The latter approach has been taken up by Catherine Perlès (2013;see also 2018) in her thought-provoking discussion of whether lithics or ornaments could be taken as better indices of stability/change when discerning group identities in the long sequence at Franchthi cave in Greece. We affirm that all of the mentioned archaeological approaches are useful and complementary with much merit. ...
... A large assemblage of personal ornaments (over 14,000 specimens) comes from the deep stratigraphy of the cave of Franchthi in Argolid that spans the period from the beginnings of the Upper Paleolithic through to the Neolithic (Perlès 2013(Perlès , 2018Perlès and Vanhaeren 2010;Shackleton 1988). Some of these shells have directly been AMS-dated (Douka et al. 2011). ...
Ornaments are polysemic objects due to different meanings they convey in human societies-self-embellishment, means of exchange, markers of age and gender, indicators of social status, signs of power, non-verbal means of expression and communication. Beads have a privileged place in shedding light on the origins of modern cognition in human societies. While archaeological approaches to ancient symbolism have often been concerned with behavioral modernity of our species, anthropological studies have underlined the role of ornaments in the construction of personhood, identity, and social networks in traditional societies. Exploring an approach informed by anthropological and ethnographic theory, we discuss Paleolithic and Mesolithic bodily adornments found across southeastern Europe. We present a review of the evidence for long-term regional and diachronic differences and similarities in types of body adornment among prehistoric foragers of the region. Here we look at aspects of cultural transmission and transferability over time. This enables us to reconstruct a series of gestures involved in ornament manufacture and use, and to examine transmissions of technological know-hows, shifting aesthetic values, and demands for specific local and non-local materials, including marine shells transferred across this region over long distances (>400km). This evidence is further discussed by, on the one hand, taking a perspective that draws on emic understandings of ornaments in certain ethnographic contexts and, on the other hand, through a rethinking of the relevance of the structural anthropological mode of analysis championed by Lévi-Strauss.
... Firstly, the degree to which different material culture domains are amenable to coherent taxonomic assessments across data domains may inherently be limited. For instance, Roux and colleagues [179,180], Kuhn [181], and Perlès [182,183] have shown using a range of approaches that different aspects of material culture often do not change in lock-step, even when assigned to the same overarching cultural groups or taxa. Specifically for the Final Palaeolithic of Europe, similar arguments have been put forward for understanding the interrelationship between osseous projectiles and lithic technology [184,185], and between artistic practices and lithic technology [186]. ...
Archaeological systematics, together with spatial and chronological information, are commonly used to infer cultural evolutionary dynamics in the past. For the study of the Palaeolithic, and particularly the European Final Palaeolithic and earliest Mesolithic, proposed changes in material culture are often interpreted as reflecting historical processes, migration, or cultural adaptation to climate change and resource availability. Yet, cultural taxonomic practice is known to be variable across research history and academic traditions, and few large-scale replicable analyses across such traditions have been undertaken. Drawing on recent developments in computational archaeology, we here present a data-driven assessment of the existing Final Palaeolithic/earliest Mesolithic cultural taxonomy in Europe. Our dataset consists of a large expert-sourced compendium of key sites, lithic toolkit composition, blade and bladelet production technology, as well as lithic armatures. The dataset comprises 16 regions and 86 individually named archaeological taxa (‘cultures’), covering the period between ca. 15,000 and 11,000 years ago (cal BP). Using these data, we use geometric morphometric and multivariate statistical techniques to explore to what extent the dynamics observed in different lithic data domains (toolkits, technologies, armature shapes) correspond to each other and to the culture-historical relations of taxonomic units implied by traditional naming practice. Our analyses support the widespread conception that some dimensions of material culture became more diverse towards the end of the Pleistocene and the very beginning of the Holocene. At the same time, cultural taxonomic unit coherence and efficacy appear variable, leading us to explore potential biases introduced by regional research traditions, inter-analyst variation, and the role of disjunct macroevolutionary processes. In discussing the implications of these findings for narratives of cultural change and diversification across the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, we emphasize the increasing need for cooperative research and systematic archaeological analyses that reach across research traditions.
... Based on the example of the almost permanently inhabited Southern European sites, such as Riparo Mochi, it is assumed that the ornament-making traditions of a given community hardly change over several millennia. C. Perlès also emphasizes, drawing on Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic material, that personal ornaments are items that are most resilient to change on a long-term scale (Perlès, 2012). As a result, the reason for differences within a geographical area may be the presence of communities with different customs. ...
... Note: n/a means not identified. n/a n/a 0.05 n/a n/a 0.10 n/a n/a red & black colored 2.35 n/a n/a 0.12 0.08 0.06 0.15 n/a n/a ornaments indicates that throughout the Upper Palaeolithic of Europe, like in the Levant (Bar-Yosef Mayer, 2005), there was a general preference for "natural" colors, and UP humans invested relatively little effort in the transformation of the original raw material into personal ornamets (Perlès, 2013). Currently, the majority of research concerning spectroscopic and spectrometry analyses of pigments used for coloration of personal ornaments and mobile art from UP contexts in Eurasia is restricted to the Siberia (Lbova and Volkov, 2017;Lbova, 2019;Ponkratova et al., 2019). ...
Research of coloring pigments and binding compounds from the Upper Palaeolithic (UP), including on portable art objects such as personal ornaments, provides new insights into social and cultural aspects of human history. However, we lack a comprehensive study of the composite pigment mixtures and binding materials that were produced intentionally and used for coloration. The study of several personal ornaments from the UP layers dated 31-23 ka calBP in Mezmaiskaya Cave, North Caucasus (Russia), shows that UP paints have a complex chemical composition. Using ATR-FTIR and SEM-EDS, we have identified that for coloring organic personal decorations UP humans used composite paint mixtures produced from organic (bitumen) and inorganic (red bolus/kaolin) natural pigments. Also, we firstly identified that UP humans applied a proteinaceous binder, likely representing a kind of the gelatine type animal glue, which they intentionally produced from animal origin materials using boiling. This is the oldest evidence of boiling placing its origin at about 30 ka within the late UP and linking this innovation to the need of producing organic binding material for dyeing rather than with the food preparation.
... Makriyalos (Pappa and Veropoulidou 2011); Frachthi Cave (Perlès 2010(Perlès , 2012, etc. ...
The 101 recorded Neolithic polished stone tools from the Sarakenos Cave, include 71 axes, 13 adzes, 7 chisels, 5 grinders and 5 fragments (Diagram 1, Tables 1-5; Figs.1-12 and 14-19), and most of them are small in size, with a few, or no marks of labour. On the other hand, the majority of the larger tools are characterized by high alteration, fragmentation and usage marks.
... Makriyalos (Pappa and Veropoulidou 2011); Frachthi Cave (Perlès 2010(Perlès , 2012, etc. ...
The recorded ornaments found in the Sarakenos Cave’s excavation, from 1994 to 2016, include 10.719 lithic beads, 177 made of shell, 5 made of clay and 13 made of an unidentified raw material (possibly marble), 9 shell and bone pendants, 3 shell bracelet’s fragments, 1 semi formed Spondylus bracelet and 2 rings (1 made of bone and 1 made of shell). Also, 12 shell valves of Spondylus have been found at Trench F.
... The multi-domain and multi-scale structure of the dataset 19 supports the systemic analysis of long-term dynamics of lithic change. By quantifying the amplitude and rate of change in varying data domains, researchers can examine patterns of synchronicity or lack thereof in the evolution of stone artefact technologies on a pan-European scale, and in this way contribute to debates on the temporality of material culture change [48][49][50][51][52] as well as broader discussions on the evolution of cultural systems 53,54 . Confronting the dynamics of change across data domains thereby contributes to the identification, quantification, and hence qualification of different tempi and modes of change, possibly revealing that technological choices, toolkit compositions, and artefact shapes are subjected to differential dynamics of long-term technological evolution. ...
Comparative macro-archaeological investigations of the human deep past rely on the availability of unified, quality-checked datasets integrating different layers of observation. Information on the durable and ubiquitous record of Paleolithic stone artefacts and technological choices are especially pertinent to this endeavour. We here present a large expert-sourced collaborative dataset for the study of stone tool technology and artefact shape evolution across Europe between ~15.000 and 11.000 years before present. the dataset contains a compendium of key sites from the study period, and data on lithic technology and toolkit composition at the level of the cultural taxa represented by those sites. The dataset further encompasses 2D shapes of selected lithic artefact groups (armatures, endscrapers, and borers/perforators) shared between cultural taxa. These data offer novel possibilities to explore between-regional patterns of material culture change to reveal scale-dependent processes of long-term technological evolution in mobile hunter-gatherer societies at the end of the Pleistocene. Our dataset facilitates state-of-the-art quantitative analyses and showcases the benefits of collaborative data collation and synthesis.
... 47 When they are subjected to detailed analyses, they seem to dissolve amid different rhythms of the experience, disappearance, and reappearance of materials and artefacts, which can often hardly be separated spatially and even less temporally. 48 In light of these considerations, it becomes clear that the treatment of time in archaeology depends entirely on decisions that are made in the present. As mentioned, it is often forgotten or not appreciated enough that the archaeological record does not belong to the past. ...
This paper presents a general engagement with notions of time and temporality in archaeology.
The development of archaeology as an academic endeavour was a key element in the great intellectual shifts of the 19th century. The focus of these was Europe, but the impact was felt in all parts of the world, which were linked to each other through political relationships, the flow of goods and materials, as well as the exchange of ideas, projections, and imaginations. Within this period of dramatic changes, archaeology was connected to other emerging fields in complex ways. Most important among these disciplines were the historical and geological sciences, which were undergoing dramatic developments of their own. Perhaps more than most other fields of inquiry, archaeology has influenced and shifted the public imagination in dramatic ways. It has changed the global understanding of the human past and even the understanding of humanity itself. The fascination with archaeology continues into the present and the practice of archaeology is continuously imagined and described with reference to a recurring set of metaphors.
... Porque la transformación simbólica y material del mundo, por medio d e l a t é c n i c a y d e l l e n g u a j e , s o n consubstanciales a la especie humana. Y aunque la prehistoria exhibe múltiples trayectorias históricas, con muchas rupturas, 50 interrupciones y arritmias, el desarrollo de los sistemas tecno-simbólicos ha sido en general un factor de liberación y de creación de nuevos equilibrios dinámicos. De modo que es solamente el capitalismo el que ha convertido estos progresos técnicos y simbólicos en instrumentos de verdadera destrucción y sometimiento masivos de las grandes mayorías sociales. ...
... The stability of personal ornament practices compared to other cultural markers (i.e. lithic industries) has been documented by previous research works in other Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic contexts in Eurasia (Vanhaeren and d'Errico 2006;Perlés 2013Perlés , 2019Stiner 2014;Rigaud et al. 2015Rigaud et al. , 2018. From an Iberian Peninsula perspective, the continuity observed between the Early and Late Mesolithic ornament assemblage networks has also been recognised in other cultural domains such as settlement patterns, funerary practices based on individual burials (Gibaja et al. 2015) and from a circulation network perspective (Álvarez Fernández 2001). ...
Archaeologists have been reconstructing interactions amongst hunter-gatherer populations for a long time. These exchangesare materialised in the movements of raw materials and symbolic objects which are found far from their original sources.
Social network, i.e. the structure constituted by these interactions, is a well-established concept in archaeology that is used to address the connectivity of hunter-gatherer populations. The heuristic potential of formal network analysis, however, has been scarcely exploited in prehistoric hunter-gatherer archaeology. Here, social network analysis is used to analyse the interactions amongst hunter-gatherers on the Iberian Peninsula in the Early and Late Mesolithic (10,200 to 7600 cal BP). We used ornaments to explore social interaction and constructed one network per phase of the Iberian Mesolithic. We applied a three-steps analysis: First, we characterised the overall structure of the networks. Second, we performed centrality analysis to uncover the most relevant nodes. Finally, we conducted an exploratory analysis of the networks’ spatial characteristics. No significant differences were found between the overall network topology of the Early and Late Mesolithic. This suggests that the interaction patterns amongst human groups did not change significantly at a peninsular scale. Moreover, the spatial analysis showed that most interactions between human groups took place over distances under 300 km, but that specific ornament types like Columbella rustica were distributed over more extensive distances. Our findings suggest that Iberian Mesolithic social networks were maintained through a period of environmental, demographic and cultural transformation and that interactions took place at different scales of social integration.
... En segundo lugar, creo que debemos recalcar el carácter abierto -es decir no lineal-múltiple y arrítmico de los procesos de transformación cultural [Perlès 2013]; así como una revaloración de la riqueza y el potencial creativo de los grupos de cazadores-recolectores del Paleolítico, pues los aspectos que discutimos de la filiación y la relación compleja entre las tradiciones magdalenienses y azilienses del final del Pleistoceno en Europa occidental, nos sugieren fuertemente que es insostenible la interpretación de un inevitable proceso de crisis y decadencia civilizatoria ante el avance imparable del calentamiento global, que habría conducido a un callejón sin salida de "degeneración" espiritual y material superado únicamente hasta la difusión tardía de la Revolución neolítica hacia la "atrasada Europa" desde el foco civilizatorio del Levante. ...
Through the revision of certain reinterpretations regarding the organization of living spaces and regional mobility systems of some hunter-gatherers, throughout the late Pleistocene in western Europe, as well as of specific new discoveries of movable art —which suggest the continuity of the classical canons of Magdalenian art— it is argued that: 1) these “transitional” traditions —especially the Azilian— do not represent the decline of the great Paleolithic civilizations, faced with the environmental crisis that gave rise to the Holocene, but rather that 2 ) they should be understood as the techno-cultural innovations created to confront it and adapt, which was carried out by 3) preserving an appropriation economy, thus avoiding the need to invent production economies, nor utilizing predatory logic, which exacerbates the negative consequences of climate change. In fine, this example of techno-cultural innovation could provide a source of inspiration for the design of actions to be taken in the face of the environmental crisis of the 21st Century.
... Ce motif pourrait impliquer un changement moins radical qu'entre les unités archéologiques du Gravettien moyen.Cette plus grande « latence » des comportements techniques concernant le travail des matières dures animales, ainsi que la persistance du renne dans les spectres de chasse est en net contraste avec la rupture observée dans le registre lithique. Ces arythmies sont en réalité fréquemment observées dans le registre archéologique (e.g.,Guilaine, 2011 ;Perlès, 2013 ;Michel, 2010 ;Doyon, 2020). Ces cas de figure peuvent d'ailleurs s'observer dans des contextes historiques plus récents, au sein desquels des changements majeurs dans les adaptations techniques sont à l'origine de réorganisations radicales des modes de vies, mais où certains aspects demeurent intacts. ...
L’un des enjeux majeurs de l’archéologie préhistorique est la définition des processus culturels à l’origine de la variabilité dans la culture matérielle des chasseurs-cueilleurs du passé. Dans cette thèse, nous proposons d’identifier certains des mécanismes à l’origine des trajectoires technologiques lithiques observées au Gravettien moyen – caractérisé par le Noaillien et le Rayssien (32-28.75 ka cal. BP) – et au Gravettien récent (28.75-26.5 ka cal. BP) en France et dans ses marges. Les unités archéologiques caractéristiques de ces périodes présentent une répartition géographique différente. Des changements technologiques majeurs sont chronologiquement associés à des périodes de forte instabilité climatique – telles que l’événement de Heinrich 3 (HE3) au Gravettien moyen, ou l’adoucissement climatique lié à l’interstade du Groënland 4 (GI 4) au Gravettien récent. Toutefois, la réalité d’une éventuelle relation causale entre variabilité technologique et écologique nécessite d’être testée plus précisément par le biais d’une approche quantitative et interdisciplinaire, visant à mieux mettre en relation des données archéologiques et environnementales.Dans cette optique, nous avons mis en place une approche intégrant l’étude typo-technologique de trois collections archéologiques – le niveau 10/11 de l’Abri du Facteur à Tursac, le gisement archéologique des Jambes à Périgueux et la séquence gravettienne du Flageolet I à Bézénac – et la modélisation de niches éco-culturelles, pour explorer les relations culture-environnement à différentes échelles. Nos résultats indiquent que les ruptures typo-technologiques observées sont concomitantes du changement des niches éco-culturelles dans des dimensions tant environnementales que géographiques. À partir de ces résultats, nous proposons l’action de trois mécanismes ayant pu influer sur ces trajectoires culturelles.• Au Gravettien moyen, la différenciation typo-technologique entre l’aire pyrénéo-cantabrique (Noaillien) et les territoires au nord de la Garonne (Noaillien et Rayssien) pourrait s’expliquer par les spécificités environnementales de chaque territoire, ainsi que par une probable spécialisation de la chasse au nord de la Garonne.• La généralisation de la méthode du Raysse au nord de la Garonne semble liée à un isolement démographique à mettre en relation avec des conditions inhospitalières dans le couloir de la Garonne et le désert périglaciaire des Landes. Dans ce contexte, des changements dans les modes de transmission ont pu favoriser la sélection de cette méthode au dépend d’autres pour la fabrication d’éléments d’armatures.• La disparition de la méthode du Raysse et le retour à des schémas de production de pointes à dos plus souples durant le Gravettien récent suggère un changement dans les normes entourant la fabrication d’éléments d’armatures, en lien avec une réorganisation territoriale des ressources liée à l’adoucissement du climat du GI 4.Ce scénario interprétatif met en évidence le rôle certes prépondérant de facteurs environnementaux, mais surtout leurs interactions avec des facteurs sociaux (e.g., stratégies de subsistance, organisation territoriale et technologique) dans la définition des mécanismes à l’origine des trajectoires technologiques et culturelles au Gravettien moyen et récent.
... This change would then no longer have the same status. This status can be analysed according to a temporal conception of continuity or discontinuity (Perlès, 2013). We could thus consider that a modified percussion technique constitutes a continuous choice within lithic production, but that it is not a proxy for a major change within an Acheulean culture (Fig. 16). ...
Lithic productions are the main source of information on human groups from early periods of the Palaeolithic. From the time of the first discoveries, prehistorians have probed these remains to try to understand how and why they were made. Percussion techniques have also been a central preoccupation, despite tenuous archaeological references. With the help of experimentation, several chaînes opératoires have been reconstructed, sketching the outlines of the technical evolution of the first human groups. Our work focuses on a major change in lithic technology, the invention of organic soft-hammer percussion. This is attested on the Isenya site (Kenya) around -960 ka, based on an experimental work. This invention represents an innovation and indicates a rupture with the technical environment known until then in which lithic technology and percussion techniques were confined solely to the mineral world. We propose to examine this rupture from another point of view, also using experimental work, based on the principle that the mineral domain offers a wide range of hardness for hammers and that the gesture plays at least an equivalent role to that of the raw material of the hammer. Without supplanting the use of soft organic hammers in bifacial shaping, we demonstrate the possibility of the use of not very tough mineral hammers with tangential motions. These results imply that the technical change that took place during the Acheulean was probably less abrupt than previously thought, and more consistent with previously mastered know-how.
... However, few of them seem to be closely coordinated and correlate strictly with the identified cultural shift (beginning of the Ahmarian; Kuhn 2013; see also Kuhn et al. 2009). Changes in different aspects of behavior (artifact forms, ornaments, prey choices) are gradual and not synchronous with the widespread and main change in methods of blade manufacture in the Levant (shift from blade manufacture utilizing hard hammer percussion and unidirectional cores to one utilizing soft hammer percussion and bidirectional cores), indicating that the factors of change operated at different temporal scales (Kuhn 2013:205; "arrhythmia" in Perlès 2013). These observations imply that the transition from Initial Upper Paleolithic to Ahmarian "did not involve wholesale replacement of culture or population " (Kuhn 2013:206). ...
... stone artefacts, personal ornaments and mobile art-frequently yield asynchronic evolutionary trajectories (e.g. Audouze and Valentin 2010;Perlès 2013;Stiner 2014;Naudinot et al. 2017a, b), suggesting that varying object domains are prone to divergent temporal behaviours and that object evolution can be strongly dependent on concomitant transformations in wider object ecology, problematising correlational readings of these long-term changes simply ignoring object agency. Novel objects, especially those conveying, translating and hinting at formal content, provide cognitive affordances-material things are 'good to think with' (e.g. ...
Considerations of materiality and object-oriented approaches have greatly influenced the development of archaeological theory in recent years. Yet, Palaeolithic archaeology has been slow in incorporating this emerging body of scholarship and exploring its bearing on the human deep past. This paper probes into the potential of materiality theory to clarify the material dynamics of the Plio-Pleistocene and seeks to re-articulate the debate on the evolution of our species with materiality discourses in archaeology and the humanities more broadly. We argue that the signature temporalities and geospatial scales of observation provided by the Palaeolithic record offer unique opportunities to examine the active role of material things, objects, artefacts and technologies in the emergence, stabilisation and transformation of hominin lifeworlds and the accretion of long-term trajectories of material culture change. We map three axes of human-thing relations-ecological, technical and evolutionary-and deploy a range of case studies from the literature to show that a critical re-assessment of material agency not only discloses novel insights and questions, but can also refine what we already know about the human deep past. Our exploration underscores the benefits of de-centring human behaviour and intentionality and demonstrates that materiality lends itself as a productive nexus of exchange and mutual inspiration for diverging schools and research interests in Palaeolithic archaeology. An integrated object-oriented perspective calls attention to the human condition as a product of millennial-scale human-thing co-adaptation, in the course of which hominins, artefacts and technologies continuously influenced and co-created each other.
... The spread and adoption of harvesting technology can therefore be viewed within a larger process of change. Harvesting tools are only one component of a larger material culture, the Neolithic package [116], whose components change at different rates and time frames [117,118]. For example, the analysis of the stylistic variation in pottery decorative techniques has allowed the expansion of groups bearing different traditions to be traced across the Mediterranean Basin and their fragmentation in regional entities [119]. ...
This article explores the changes that occurred in harvesting technology during the dispersal of the Neolithic in the Mediterranean basin. It does so through technological and use-wear analysis of flaked stone tools from archaeological sites dated between ca. 7000 and 5000 cal BCE, from the Aegean Sea to the westernmost coasts of Portugal. The main goal is to analyse the transformations that occurred in the harvesting toolkit. Our study reveals dynamics of continuity and change in sickles at a Mediterranean scale, resulting from adaptations of the migrant groups to the newly occupied territories and from processes of technological innovation. Adaptations in the production system of the inserts and in their use-pattern occurred in relation to lithic raw material availability and knappers’ skills, but also in relation to the scale of production and farming techniques. A major shift took place in the north-western Mediterranean arc with the diffusion of parallel-hafted inserts, probably as a result of heterogeneous phenomena including the diffusion of new groups, technical transfers, establishment of new interaction networks and new systems of lithic production.
... Furthermore, as suggested by the term 'Epigravettian', there is typically held to be far more similarity between Gravettian and Epigravettian assemblages than between Aurignacian and Gravettian assemblages. This is often interpreted as reflecting population continuity (Anghelinu et al. 2012;Perlès 2013;Kaminská 2016). The robustness of the multiplicity of units describing the Final Palaeolithic record is also debatable. ...
A fundamental element of Upper Palaeolithic archaeological practice is cultural taxonomy—the definition and description of taxonomic units that group assemblages according to their material culture and geographic and chronological distributions. The derived taxonomies, such as Aurignacian, Gravettian and Magdalenian, are used as units of analysis in many research questions and interpretations. The evidential and theoretical bases defining these taxonomic units, however, are generally lacking. Here, the authors review the current state of Upper Palaeolithic cultural taxonomy and make recommendations for the long-term improvement of the situation.
... This is partly due to difficulties in finding relevant proxies for inferring social relationships between sites. The same issue applies when investigating cultural groups or phylogenetic links (Perlès 2013;Shennan et al. 2015). ...
In this paper, I focus on two issues: (1) the variables for modeling the relational structure of a society and (2) the use of models for explaining evolutionary processes. I argue first that, contrary to stylistic traits which are the main attributes analyzed by models exploring changes in material culture through time, technological traditions are meaningful variables for linking sites over space and time and therefore for bringing to light the relational structures of societies. Indeed, at the difference to stylistic traits, their transmission requires social learning with a tutor usually selected within one’s social group, signaling thereby individuals belonging to the same social group and local network. Once the relational structure of a society is highlighted, I argue that explanation of evolution processes requires reference sociological models. The validation of the archeological interpretation lies in both the analogical operation and the founding of the reference model. These points are illustrated with a case study, the Late Chalcolithic of the southern Levant (4500–3900 cal. BC).
... Archaeological cultural units are determined as "stable association of shared, learnt behaviours" in a given time and space, translated through mainly techno-economical material evidence, and ideological glimpse through artistic and funerary practices (Vialou 2004, Peelo 2011, Perlès 2013. Theoretically, regularities are expected concerning the expression and communication of identities through material culture, and its ornamentations, and reachable with the analysis of structural (localisation, patterns, proportions, etc.) and descriptive aspects of its styles (themes, outlines and details, etc.) (Delporte 1990, Petrognani 2013. ...
Defining one’s culture and identity seems tricky from the ethnologist and ethnoarcheologist’s point of view, even though whole of its material and immaterial aspects are known (Gallay 1986, Mac Eachern 1998, Izard 2000, Amselle 2010). In the case of archaeological societies, hoping to interpret such a minimal part of a culture’s remains seems even more unreachable and utopian, from which results an archaeological simplification of anthropological concerns. According to some studies, what archaeologists are most likely to figure out concerns interactions, exchange and influences networks between human groups (Mac Eachern 1998). One would argue that culture is no more than the result of a long and complex history of influencing, sharing innovations and cultural features, besides maintaining some singularity between each. Another issue arises: it gets rather difficult to distinguish a relative stable cultural identity – resulting from a long history of networks, from networks in itself being maintained by the same populations at a specific period in time (Mac Eachern 1998, Izard 2000, Descola 2005, Cuche 2010).
The keystone of this study relies on the anthropological fact that material culture is “an active constitutive dimension of social practice in that it both structures human agency and is a product of that agency” (Jones 1997: 117). Its styles consequently depend on interaction modalities and evolution in relation to the natural (resources) and social environment (mainly resources specificities and human demography). Therefore, this research focus on the characterization of the contexts and social dynamics usually responsible for stylistic distribution and evolution, in order to build an anthropological understanding of Palaeolithic remains. Various studies have suggested certain characteristics which could be relied on (Wobst, 1977, Macdonald 1990, Wiessner 1990, 1997, Gosselain 2000, 2011) which are here tested on bone portable art from Early Middle Magdalenian western central France archaeological sites. Two plausible human densities are considered and associated with anthropologic magic numbers, and will allow to draw maps of repartition of prehistoric social units. For each human density version, it will be possible to deduce a cultural and sociological understanding of the distribution of artistic features. Afterwards, the plausibility of the territorial areas and social dynamics hereby defined is confronted to other archaeological data. At the end, several cultural territories and network areas may be worth considering as plausible, but eventually data shows a better match with one of these interpretative hypothesis. A diachronic approach of bone art would here suggest at least two main subdivisions during the Early Middle Magdalenian, with a progressive densification of human populations.
This methodological essay allows us to question the social realities actually approached through Palaeolithic art, and to broaden our hypothesis and expectations of Magdalenian populations’ social and cultural behaviours. This research represents an extract from a Ph-D dissertation (Gaussein 2017a), therefore the interpretations and discussions herein presented are heavily summarized.
... The difficulty of interpreting variability in cultural and sociological terms is greater still when it is observed on both an intra-and inter-site scale, and when it affects the various cultural domains differentially (Perlès 2013). In order to understand these transition periods better and improve their anthropological interpretation, one of the questions that should be answered is what process creates a variability that succeeds in destabilising a previous form of uniformity and stability. ...
... The first to suffer were agro-pastoral societies in the steppic belt and later villages on the banks of the rivers. The current information is based on large data sets of radiocarbon dates (e.g., Weninger et al., 2009;Perl es, 2013;Borrell et al., 2015). However, also concerning Levantine farmers we ask for the information that supports continuity rather than population replacement. ...
Food security intertwined with the need to maintain biological survival of a demographically viable population is the basic long-term policy for all societies. This paper compares selected cases of successful and failed Paleolithic groups of hunter-gatherers, as recorded archaeologically across Eurasia and Africa, in responding to the impacts of abrupt climatic changes. The complex prehistory of Pleistocene foragers is briefly compared to strategies adopted by Neolithic farmers. The major difference between forager and farmer economies is not their social organization as much as the access options to alternative territories and food resources. Open Pleistocene landscapes across Eurasia and Africa allowed for movements of Paleolithic groups over large distances with or without adopting new exploitation techniques. Successes and failures that we measure in a chronological macro-scale left archaeological evidence (lithic assemblages, faunal remains, occasional flimsy dwellings, etc.) in various regions, recorded by systematic and comprehensive surveys and excavations. However, we miss the chronological micro-scale of most of the Paleolithic period that could inform us about extinctions. We can identify only survival stories explained as successful adaptations. When farming communities were established during the course of the Holocene, variable modes of social and economic interactions and group resilience evolved in order to secure survival in years of bad harvests. Interactions with foragers and herders, competition, raids, village abandonment, migration into others' territories, were among the optional strategies. Due to the difference in chronological scales between 2.6 Ma of the Paleolithic period and the 12 Ka of the Holocene (or Anthropocene), we can more easily recognize the role of abrupt climatic changes among prehistoric societies during the Terminal Pleistocene and the Holocene and evaluate the success and failure of both, hunter-gatherers and farmers.
... This individual was interred with the Spondylus and red and white limestone beads that resemble the Early Neolithic tradition of ornamentation (e.g. Lichter 2007;Perlès 2013), while at the same time decorated with cyprinid teeth ornamental beads that are the hallmark of the Danube Gorges Late Mesolithic tradition (BoricétBoricét al. 2014;Boric´2012Boric´Boric´2012;Cristiani et al. 2014). The change from the use of Mesolithic types of ornaments to the first appearance of Neolithic material cultural traditions must have occurred after 6610-6190 cal BC (95% probability) or 6580-6410 (68% probability; EarlyBurial _SpondylusBurial; Fig. 7). ...
The paper applies Bayesian statistical modelling to radiocarbon dates obtained for a stratigraphic sequence comprising occupation features and superimposed burials from the Late Mesolithic (c.7400–6200 cal BC) to the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition (c.6200–5900 cal BC), from Vlasac in the Danube Gorges region of the north-central Balkans. This sequence, investigated in the course of excavations at the site in 2006–9, yielded stratigraphic evidence of the transformation of local forager populations as a result of contact with Neolithic communities. Our paper provides a reliable chronological framework for changes from Late Mesolithic burial rites to new, Neolithic types of ornamental beads at the top of the sequence. The use of the same burial location and continuities in burial rites over a considerable period of time raise significant questions about the role of tradition and the potential for enduring practices in prehistoric societies.
... In contrast to the previous categories of remains, the numerous Palaeolithic and Mesolithic shell ornaments had been mostly unrecognised and unpublished until a new study program was initiated under the direction of the present author in 2006, with the collaboration of M. Vanhaeren, S. Bonnardin, A. Colonese, P. Pion and J. Beck (see Perl es and Vanhaeren, 2010; Douka et al., 2011;Perl es, 2013). All shell bags from FAS and H1B have been resorted for ornamental species (sensu Stiner et al., 2013: 383) and counts are given in NISP. ...
The long Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic sequence of Franchthi Cave is often quoted for the importance of its marine resources. The first coastal resources to be exploited, from the very beginning of the Upper Palaeolithic, were ornamental shell species. Fish was captured since at least the 13th millennium cal BC, and Franchthi is well known for the episode of intense tuna fishing in the Upper Mesolithic (8th millennium cal BC). Shellfish, which include mostly gastropods, were introduced in the diet a millennium after fish, but were most intensely exploited during the Final Mesolithic (ca 7000cal BC). With abundant marine remains and a distance to the coast that never exceeded 4km, less than 2km in the Mesolithic, Franchthi is thus an ideal site to study the patterns of littoral exploitation and their variations throughout the Upper Palaeolithic and the Mesolithic.The successive introduction of the various marine resources was not correlated to sea level variations and the distance from the cave to the sea. The number of remains for each category varies importantly from phase to phase. To compensate for differences in the duration of each phase and frequency of occupation, I have standardized the numbers of remains for each category of coastal resource by the volume of sediment. This reveals that fish, shellfish and ornamental species were exploited independently, with important variations in intensity of deposition along the sequence. Except for two phases of more intense fishing, the exploitation of edible marine resources remained, however, rather modest. Terrestrial resources, game and plants, appear to have been predominant in most phases of occupation and terrestrial gastropods largely supersede marine gastropods in all phases from the Late Upper Palaeolithic to the Upper Mesolithic.
... For example, the manufacture of culinary pots may be the responsibility of women at the household level of production, whereas storage jars may be the responsibility of a few specialized men at the regional level of production. As a result, the historical dynamics at work will vary depending on types of objects, creating phenomena of arrhythmia (Perlès, 2013 But whatever the social boundaries, learning and transmission processes explain that technical traditions overlap with them: technology is always transmitted through tutors selected within one's social group. The immediate archaeological implications are: (a) the chaînes opératoires are inherited ways of doing, that is technical traditions transmitted through successive generations; (b) the distribution of technical traditions indicate the social perimeters into which they have been learned and transmitted; (c) changes within technical traditions are the expression of culture histories and the factors affecting them (Shennan, 2013); (d) technical traditions situated in space and time can be powerful chrono-cultural markers, in particular when stylistic features are not significant (Roux et al., 2011;Ard, 2013); and (e) the combined study of technical processes and objects is necessary for an anthropological understanding of archaeological assemblages. ...
This chapter presents an overview of the chaîne opératoire approach and recalls its relevance as a social and transmission signal. It describes the main components of the ceramic chaînes opératoires and the principles for identifying them on the archaeological material through diagnostic attributes including both surface features and microfabrics. Next, it takes a forward look at the classification of ceramic assemblages according to the chaîne opératoire approach in order to unravel the sociological complexity behind their variability. Finally, this chapter highlights the heuristic character of the chaîne opératoire approach when studying, on the synchronic axis, the techno-economic systems, and on the diachronic axis, changes in technical traditions considered as the expression of culture histories and the factors affecting them.
... The chaîne opératoire, which identifies the technologies of making, ways of using, and ultimate contexts and means of discarding or depositing ornaments, is the primary methodology most scholars use to study individual or group identities and traditions (e.g., Newell et al., 1990; Rigaud, 2011; Taborin, 1993; Vanhaeren and d'Errico, 2006). Yet, Perlès has underlined how ornaments may be better indicators of cultural continuities and stable worldviews than of social boundaries and variability, and she has cautioned that ornaments may operate on a different scale of change than other categories of material culture in specific regional sequences over time (Perlès, 2013: 296). Despite their promising potential, interpreting early prehistoric beads and ornaments remains a challenge. ...
RÉSUMÉ : L'organisation sociale des groupes de chasseurs-cueilleurs de la Puna de l’Atacama est encore peu étudiée. Cela n'est pas dû à un manque de recherches, mais plutôt au poids discutable d'approches environnementales et paléoclimatiques qui ont conduit à une vision réductionniste des sociétés nomades. Tout au long des 10 000 ans de la période archaïque (12 800 à 3 500 cal BP), du peuplement des populations à l'émergence des sociétés agro-pastorales, les sociétés de chasseurs-cueilleurs ont souvent été perçues comme des acteurs passifs, subissant les contraintes de l'environnement et les variations climatiques. Dans ce travail, nous explorons les réseaux d'interaction des groupes archaïques du bassin du Salar de l’Atacama (21-22°S/68°W, 2200 mètres d'altitude), au nord du Chili (Amérique du Sud). Nous nous concentrons sur le contexte et l'organisation de la production et de la circulation des matières premières lithiques dans le paysage. Des études pétrographiques et géochimiques sont combinées avec la lecture techno-économique des industries lithiques.
La recherche est structurée en quatre parties fondamentales. La Partie 1 "Le contexte de l'étude" présente le cadre archéologique et environnemental, suivi par la problématique de l'étude et la méthodologie. La partie 2 intitulée "Les matières premières lithiques" fournit une caractérisation des matières premières exploitées sur les sites archéologiques et les sources d'approvisionnement dans la zone d'étude. Ensuite, les résultats des analyses de composition chimique des obsidiennes sont détaillés. La Partie 3 "Les industries lithiques Archaïques" constitue l'essentiel de la thèse. Tout au long des différents chapitres, les résultats de l'étude technologique de chaque site et de ses différentes couches stratigraphiques sont présentés. Enfin, dans la Partie 4, "Des pierres statiques à l'interprétation sociale", nous faisons appel à l'ethnographie et à d'autres arguments complémentaires pour explorer les réseaux d'interaction et de mobilité des sociétés nomades de l'Atacama.
People tend to belong to multiple social circles, which construct and reflect a person’s social identity. Group affiliation is embodied and may be expressed by personal adornment. Personal adornment in general has multiple functions in human societies, among them the assimilation and transmission of different aspects of personal and collective, social and cultural identity. Beads in general, including shell beads, often constitute parcels of composite adornment, and as such are used in different configurations to portray these messages. The shared use of similar bead types by different individuals and communities indicates the mutual affiliation of the sharing parties to the same cultural circles and reflects social ties and relationships. The Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) period in the Levant is a time of pivotal changes to human lifeways necessitating profound adjustments in all aspects of life, including social relations and networks. Here we use the shell bead assemblage from the cultic-mortuary aggregation site of Kfar HaHoresh, in comparison to shell bead assemblages from multiple other sites in the Levant, as a proxy for the exploration of local and regional networks and connections between PPNB communities. Multivariate analyses of shell bead type distribution patterns across the Levant demonstrate that some types were widely shared among different communities, characterising different geographic regions, while others were rare or unique, highlighting relationships between sites and regions, which are occasionally independent of geographic proximity. Specific occurrences of shared shell bead types between Kfar HaHoresh and compared sites further illuminate the web of connections between PPNB communities in the Levant and the varying breadths of sharing-patterns reflect the hierarchical nature of the underlying social circles. Outlining these widening social affiliations sheds light on the complex structure of Neolithic social identity.
Although lithic raw material provenience studies in Hungarian archaeology have started in the late 1970s, little attention has been paid to the methods prehistoric people with which acquired these raw materials for tool production. With our palaeoethnological approach, we investigate the relationship between human groups and the world surrounding them, aiming to recognize which environmental factors played a role in their lithic raw material economy and tool production. Prehistoric people weighed a range of such factors against each other when deciding about the utilization of a lithic raw material source. The occurrence-source-archaeological site (OSA) model presented in our article helps to describe the interaction between siliceous rock resources and humans. Any place where stone suitable for knapping can be found is considered to be an occurrence. If the lithic raw material from an occurrence is found in the archaeological material, we call it a source, as it was utilized by humans. All places where remains of human activity are found are usually considered archaeological sites. Siliceous rock occurrences are considered raw material sources with a long history prior to human interaction, travelling from the original bedrock to alluvial deposits, due to the geologic-geomorphologic processes of formation, transformation, and transport. The characteristics, of these occurrences, including location, determine not only the distance of transportation but also the quality and condition of the blocks available. Based on these assumptions our research has two aims: to locate lithic raw material occurrences available for prehistoric people and to recognize their decisions about extraction. For the first one, we mapped occurrences of several siliceous rocks in the region. To reconstruct lithic raw material utilization and preferences, we conducted a techno-economic analysis. We studied two areas and their characteristic lithic raw materials in northern Hungary: limnosilicite from the foothills of the Mátra mountain range (Mátraalja), and Buda hornstone or chert from the Buda Hills. The utilization of both materials is documented at archaeological sites of several prehistoric periods. Both rocks occur in the study areas at several locations that can be considered prehistoric extraction sites. According to Turq’s source area typology, allochthonous sources are not present, but primary and secondary autochthonous as well as sub-allochthonous types have been identified in both areas. However, the exploitation of primary autochthonous limnosilicites could not be demonstrated in the Mátraalja. At the moment, the exploitation of secondary autochthonous and sub-allochthonous sources can be hypothesized for all concerned prehistoric periods.
This is the first book to present a comprehensive, up to date overview of archaeological and environmental data from the eastern Mediterranean world around 6000 BC. It brings together the research of an international team of scholars who have excavated at key Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites in Syria, Anatolia, Greece, and the Balkans. Collectively, their essays conceptualize and enable a deeper understanding of times of transition and changes in the archaeological record. Overcoming the terminological and chronological differences between the Near East and Europe, the volume expands from studies of individual societies into regional views and diachronic analyses. It enables researchers to compare archaeological data and analysis from across the region, and offers a new understanding of the importance of this archaeological story to broader, high-impact questions pertinent to climate and culture change.
This is the first book to present a comprehensive, up to date overview of archaeological and environmental data from the eastern Mediterranean world around 6000 BC. It brings together the research of an international team of scholars who have excavated at key Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites in Syria, Anatolia, Greece, and the Balkans. Collectively, their essays conceptualize and enable a deeper understanding of times of transition and changes in the archaeological record. Overcoming the terminological and chronological differences between the Near East and Europe, the volume expands from studies of individual societies into regional views and diachronic analyses. It enables researchers to compare archaeological data and analysis from across the region, and offers a new understanding of the importance of this archaeological story to broader, high-impact questions pertinent to climate and culture change.
Observé sur un vaste territoire (de l'Oural au Portugal) et une longue période chronologique (de 34 000 à 25 000 cal BP), l'entité chrono-culturelle gravettienne est pourtant la dernière a avoir été définie pour le Paléolithique supérieur et reste probablement la plus débattue. Tantôt qualifiée de "mosaïque culturelle" ou de "techno-complexe", elle se caractérise par une multitude de systèmes techniques, des économies variées ou encore par la diversité de ses fossiles directeurs. Si une chronologie d'attente, constituée de cinq faciès, a été proposée pour l'ouest de l'Europe, la signification de ces faciès et leur articulation reste questionnée. Ce travail, au moyen d'une analyse typo-technologique des armatures lithiques et plus généralement des systèmes de production lithique dont elles sont issues, interroge la cohérence du Gravettien récent qui n'a pas bénéficié d'études synthétiques récentes. Il s'articule autour de quatre sites archéologiques majeurs pour la période (l'abri Pataud, Les-Eyzies-de-Tayac, Dordogne; l'abri des Peyrugues, Orniac, Lot; l'abri du Blot, Cerzat, Haute-Loire ;Taillis-des-Coteaux, Antigny, Vienne) permettant de discuter du poids de différentes contraintes qui sont susceptibles de modifier les comportements humains telles que les paléoenvironnements, paléoclimats ou encore la disponibilité en matières premières. Les séquences stratigraphiques de ces quatre sites amènent par ailleurs à examiner leur contribution au phasage chronologique du Gravettien récent.
Interpretations of the European Upper Paleolithic archaeological record have long relied on concepts of past populations. In particular, cultural taxonomic units—which are used as a framework for describing the archaeological record—are commonly equated with past populations. However, our cultural taxonomy is highly historically contingent, and does not necessarily accurately reflect variation in the archaeological record. Furthermore, we lack a secure theoretical basis for the description of past human populations based on taxonomic units. In order to move past these problems and satisfactorily address questions of Upper Paleolithic populations, we need to entirely revise our approach to chronocultural framework building. Here, I outline a specific way of describing the archaeological record that deliberately avoids the use of cultural taxonomic units and instead concentrates on individual features of material culture. This approach may provide a more appropriate basis for the archaeological study of Upper Paleolithic populations and for comparisons with genetic data.
The causes of major archaeological transitions during the Upper Palaeolithic, such as the Aurignacian-Gravettian transition, remain poorly understood. In an effort to distinguish between demic and cultural diffusionary explanations for such transitions, analyses of radiocarbon and spatial data are sometimes employed. Here, we attempt to replicate a recent spatiotemporal study of the first appearance of Gravettian assemblages in Europe using linear regression analyses of radiocarbon dates and least-cost-path measurements of the distances between sites. We find that there are problems with the corpus of radiocarbon dates used and assemble two more appropriate sets of dates. We also find problems with the least-cost-path calculations and repeat these using a more appropriate method. We then repeat the regression analyses and use these as a case study to explore some of the problems with using linear regression analyses of radiocarbon and distance data for hypothesis testing where the total number of sites is very low. We conclude that this method is not capable of distinguishing the geographical origin of Gravettian traditions. We also find that this method frequently obtains false positive results, and that binning of sites may have a significant effect on the ease of obtaining positive results. Finally, we find that there is a negligible difference between the results of linear regression analyses obtained using least-cost-path measurements and those obtained using simple Euclidean distances, suggesting that the former adds little analytical value here despite its computational complexity.
During Acheulean period, thousands of bifacial tools have been shaped from a vast range of raw materials like flint, volcanic stones (e.g. Basalt, phonolite), bone or limestone. Technical and morphological variability of these emblematic tools can’t be denied and led to diverse interpretations regarding the means adopted to produce them. The percussion techniques often got presented as having an impact on the quality of execution or the degree of completion. This PhD aimed at understanding the link between percussion techniques and technical changes through the prism of grained and resistant raw materials by renewing the methodological approach. An experimentation completed only with African raw materials including knapped stones and percussive tools, in addition with a specific evaluation grid, entitles us to observe physical reactions and to talk about scar recognition. Structural analysis of bifacial tools related to percussion techniques helps to define the link between those techniques and the morphological shapes of the tools and therefore understanding the resulting hierarchy. More analysis of archaeological lithic assemblage from sites in southern France and another experimentation on quartzite underline the importance of the original (or initial) concept and of the tool’s structure. These perspectives entitle us to propose a new reflection about the importance of those percussion techniques during Acheulean period.
Chapter 1 is an introduction to the book whose aim is to provide a cutting-edge theoretical and methodological framework, as well as a practical guide, for archaeologists, students, and researchers to study ceramic assemblages and their diachronic and synchronic variability. As opposed to the conventional typological approach, the proposed framework is based on a technological approach. Founding works in the domain of ceramic technology emphasize the anthropological dimension of techniques and the relevant features to identify them. However, up until now, no methodology for classifying archaeological assemblages in a systematic order has been developed to enable their sociological interpretation. The implementation of this methodology, based on the concept of chaîne opératoire, is at the heart of this book and governs the organization of the different chapters of this book. Their sequencing is ruled by the didactic need not only to explain how to study archaeological series but also why the study methods presented here are essential for approaching ambitious interpretations in a well-founded way.
Chapter 6 summarizes the scope of the technological approach for interpreting the synchronic and diachronic variability of technical traditions and is a culmination of the analyses presented in the previous chapters. It shows how the chaîne opératoire concept is powerful for modeling techno- and socioeconomic systems and for analyzing cultural lineages and their evolution through the elementary and universal mechanism of transmission. In the same way, it shows how this concept is essential for appraising the history of techniques and the underlying evolutionary forces using theoretical frameworks combining the singularity of historical scenarios and anthropological regularities, Francophone and Anglophone approaches.
L’archéologie est communément distinguée des autres sciences humaines, en particulier des sciences du passé, par son objet d’étude qui est, par essence, l’homme à travers les vestiges matériels, de l’objet jusqu’au site archéologique et son environnement. Mais alors que ces restes tangibles des sociétés passées sont descriptibles, caractérisables, classables dans des typologies, comment aborder et interpréter les vides et les silences documentaires qui n’ont pas laissé de traces manifestes ? La problématique de l’absence est commune à toutes les approches archéologiques et à toutes les aires chronoculturelles. Dans les articles de ce volume, issus de communications présentées lors de la 12e Journée Doctorale d’archéologie de l’université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (ED 112), les doctorants tentent, à travers des indices indirects, de définir, de mesurer, d’expliquer ces vides et ces silences, voire de les combler. Face à la nature incomplète ou biaisée des sources archéologiques, des solutions méthodologiques sont proposées et appliquées à des problématiques et à des contextes variés, à la faveur d’approches croisées, multidimensionnelles et multiscalaires.
To αρχαιολογικό έργοσ τα νησιά του Αιγαίου, Διεθνές Επιστημονικό Συνέδριο, Ρόδος 27 Νοεμβρίου-1 Δεκεμβρίου 2013, Τόμος Β ΥΠΟΥΡΓΕΙΟ ΠΟΛΙΤΙΣΜΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΑΘΛΗΤΙΣΜΟΥ ΕΦΟΡΕΙΑ ΑΡΧΑΙΟΤΗΤΩΝ ΛΕΣΒΟΥ ΓΕΝΙΚΗ ΓΡΑΜΜΑΤΕΙΑ ΑΙΓΑΙΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΝΗΣΙΩΤΙΚΗΣ ΠΟΛΙΤΙΚΗΣ ΜΥΤΙΛΗΝΗ 2017
Les préhistoriens travaillent sur des données partielles pour toute archive, et les différents vestiges analysés (outils et armes, parure, matières premières, art) se répartissent sur des espaces géographiques qui ne se recoupent qu’en partie. Dans ces conditions, comment comprendre les dynamiques culturelles et sociales qui animaient les populations préhistoriques ? Les processus d’identification et d’interactions peuvent-ils être retrouvés ? Nous proposons une relecture des cultures matérielles des populations occupant le Centre et l’Ouest de la France il y a 14 000 à 15 500 ans. Nous nous concentrons notamment sur les objets d’art, biens identificateurs privilégiés. Dans cette optique, nous mettons un point d’honneur à réviser nos outils conceptuels et à appréhender les données archéologiques avec recul. Notre objectif, in fine, est de mettre en lumière la complexité des sociétés de CroMagnon.
This volume provides an insight into the current state of archaeological research
in Southeast Europe and its adjacent regions, spanning chronologically from the
Aurignacian to the beginning of the Neolithic period. In ten contributions by leading
experts in this field, specific topics in regions ranging from the Aegean Sea, the
Carpathians, and Western Anatolia to the Apennine Peninsula and Central Europe are
presented. This book represents the proceedings of an international workshop, held in
May 2014 in Tübingen as a part of the work of the Collaborative Research Centre 1070
ResourceCultures.
The increasing use of Bayesian-modelled absolute chronologies has met with calls for more sophisticated accounts of not just our perception of archaeological time, but also of past temporal experience. Using a case study of fourth-millennium bc Egypt this article seeks to address this. It is a period that has long been perceived through a detailed relative framework, a legacy of Flinders Petrie's development of seriation. Yet this legacy imparted more than a framework, for its origins within nineteenth-century cultural evolutionism veiled an explanatory apparatus that encourages linear and gradualist narratives of Predynastic development. By setting a new series of absolute dates within a historically informed critique of relative dating it is possible to question previous assumptions concerning tempos of change. This does not obviate relative typologies, however. Rather it encourages us to ask new questions as to what they might represent. It is argued that in evaluating new absolute measurements of time with reference to ritual activity that distinctive temporalities in the transformation of society can be discerned, ones in which world's first territorial state became a social reality for past communities.
When, and by what route, did farming first reach Europe? A terrestrial model might envisage a gradual advance around the northern fringes of the Aegean, reaching Thrace and Macedonia before continuing southwards to Thessaly and the Peloponnese. New dates from Franchthi Cave in southern Greece, reported here, cast doubt on such a model, indicating that cereal cultivation, involving newly introduced crop species, began during the first half of the seventh millennium BC. This is earlier than in northern Greece and several centuries earlier than in Bulgaria, and suggests that farming spread to south-eastern Europe by a number of different routes, including potentially a maritime, island-hopping connection across the Aegean Sea. The results also illustrate the continuing importance of key sites such as Franchthi to our understanding of the European Neolithic transition, and the additional insights that can emerge from the application of new dating projects to these sites.
This study considers exploitation of marine molluscs at Riparo Mochi (Italy) in cultural and ecological context. Five shell assemblages from this site represent the early Upper Palaeolithic (c. 36,000 BP) through Late Epigravettian (c. 9000 BP) periods. Taphonomic analysis reveals four kinds of shell debris: ornaments, food refuse, marine sponge inclusions, and land snails. While human foraging agendas at Riparo Mochi shifted over the five Palaeolithic phases, the kinds of marine shells favoured as ornaments remained nearly constant.
The Aurignacian, traditionally regarded as marking the beginnings of
Sapiens
in Europe, is notoriously hard to date, being almost out of reach of radiocarbon. Here the authors return to the stratified sequence in the Franchthi Cave, chronicle its lithic and shell ornament industries and, by dating humanly-modified material, show that Franchthi was occupied either side of the Campagnian Ignimbrite super-eruption around 40000 years ago. Along with other results, this means that groups of Early Upper Palaeolithic people were active outside the Danube corridor and Western Europe, and probably in contact with each other over long distances.
Resume Pour tenter de clarifier certains rapports d'equilibre dans une societe donnee (les Danis d'Irian Jaya) entre l'etat du milieu transforme par l'homme (forets primaires et secondaires, terroirs agricoles), la densite de population, l'organisation sociale (societe egalitaire a leaders de guerre), les donnees economiques (echanges, elevage, chasse) et un type d'arme (l'arc et les fleches), on a etudie globalement les pointes de fleche de deux echantillons en contexte actuel connu. A partir de ces resultats ethnologiques, il est propose des hypotheses de recherche pour tenter d'expliquer certaines situations archeologiques, en particulier l'evolution chronologique des armatures de fleche a la fin du Neolithique dans l'est de la France. Tres tot, le prehistorien a reconnu et s'est interesse aux pointes de fleches en silex et en os : ces pointes geometriques etaient aisees a reconnaitre, car elles avaient valeur de signe dans notre imaginaire collectif. Parlant des differents modeles de fleches, il s'est alors attache a en montrer la complexite croissante au fur et a mesure de l'ecoulement du temps, allant donc, bien logiquement, dans le sens d'une amelioration des techniques et de l'efficacite, synonyme de progres au sens ou notre appreciation culturelle le suggere. Enfin, pour mettre en evidence des aires culturelles differentes, ou des phases chronologiques tranchees, il a souvent fait appel a la seule notion de presence ou absence de telle ou telle forme typologique d'armature, en utilisant un artifice traditionnel du raisonnement. L'ensemble de ces concepts sous-jacents a l'interpretation archeologique pourrait etre place sous le terme vieilli de « bon sens », mais nous savons que cette logique du bon sens peut etre differente d'une culture a l'autre. Pour notre part, nous tenterons une autre approche. Il s'agira de comparer des situations presentes (domaine de l'ethnologie) — ou la place et le role des fleches sont connus et verifiables — , avec des situations passees (domaine de l'archeologie) — ou l'on cherche justement a connaitre la valeur et la signification des fleches — . En schematisant, la procedure suivie comportera donc trois volets successifs ; d'abord la description d'exemples actuels et leur necessaire interpretation, puis la construction d'un modele ethno-archeologique, enfin la projection de ce (ou ces) modele(s) (pris comme hypotheses de travail et non pas comme procedures comparatistes strictes) dans une situation archeologique quasi-ideale (le domaine du Neolithique lacustre).
Les données des fouilles récentes de l'Éphorie de Larissa (Plateia Magoula Zarkoit, Makrychori 2) ainsi qu'un réexamen statistique des fouilles de V. Milojcic (Arapi, Otzaki, entre autres) ont permis de préciser la transition entre la culture néolithique thessalienne de Sesklo et celle de Dimini. Il s'agit, à l'échelle de l'ensemble de la péninsule balkanique, d'un moment de transformation historique majeure. Les analyses montrent en fait que seule l'apparition d'une céramique noire polie est un élément réellement nouveau. Pour les autres catégories de céramique, on peut montrer, tant dans les formes que dans les décors ou le· techniques, qu'elles résultent d'expérimentations et d'évolutions technologiques progressive·, issues de la culture de Sesklo. On pourrait ainsi distinguer successivement une phase Sesklo tardive, une phase de transition dite «de Zarko», une première phase Dimini dite «Larissa» (au sens redéfini ici) et une seconde phase dite « Tsangli ». Ce moment de transition se caractéri»· néanmoins par une baisse quantitative de la céramique fine, monochrome ou décorée.
Time concepts in archaeology can be considered from the viewpoint of their influence on the thinking of archaeologists, and on the thinking and behaviour of prehistoric people, and hence on the patterns which contribute to the archaeological record. An understanding of the latter is closely related to the time structure of prehistoric peoples, namely their mental capacity to simulate events remote in time from immediate experience, and the temporal horizons incorporated in their social relationships and economic activities. -J.Sheail
The prehistoric site of Franchthi Cave yielded an exceptionally rich collection of personal ornaments. A reassessment of the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic ornaments from the site led to the hypothesis that a variable fraction of at least one type of personal ornaments, i.e. marine shell beads belonging to the species Cyclope neritea, may have been intentionally heated to change their natural whitish color to black. The limited conditions in which blackening can occur through heating, as well as comparison with the percentage of burnt land snails, animal bones, fish bones, and marine molluscan food remains in the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic sequence, supports a special heat treatment for Cyclope neritea shells at Franchthi Cave.
The Greek Neolithic, here divided into five phases, is the oldest in Europe. Geographically, it is the closest to the Near East and has thus long been seen as an impoverished derivative of the latter. However, recent research has tended to emphasize the autochthonous nature of Neolithic development in Europe, including Greece. The Greek Neolithic economy, which was based almost entirely on domesticates, and its densely packed, long-lived villages strongly recall the Near East, as do also the early emphasis on fine, decorated, nonculinary pottery and the wealth of figurines. On the other hand, the evolution of stylistic patterns is specifically Greek, although generally related to trends in the Balkans. Originality in the development of the Greek Neolithic is also seen in its latest phase, with apparent decreases, rather than increases, in site density, social differentiation, and, to some extent, long-distance trade. At the same time, however, the dichotomy became much sharper between the rich agricultural plains of northern Greece and the more pastoral(?) regions of the Peloponnese and Cycladic Islands; this presages similar contrasts during the Bronze Age.
This paper explores the meaning of time perspectivism, its relationship to other theories of time used in archaeological interpretation, and the ways in which it can be implemented through an analysis of the palimpsest nature of the material world we inhabit. Palimpsests are shown to be a universal phenomenon of the material world, and to form a series of overlapping categories, which vary according to their geographical scale, temporal resolution and completeness of preservation. Archaeological examples are used to show how different types of palimpsest can be analyzed to address different sorts of questions about the time dimension of human experience, and the relationship between different types of processes and different scales of phenomena. Objections to the apparently deterministic and asocial character of time perspectivism, and its apparent neglect of subjective experience and individual action and perception, are dealt with. The line of thinking developed here is used, in its turn, to critique other approaches to the archaeology of time, and conventional understandings of the relationship between past, present and future.
This collection considers the relevance of the Annales 'school' for archaeology. The Annales movement regarded orthodox history as too much concerned with events, too narrowly political, too narrative in form and too isolated from neighbouring disciplines. Annalistes attempted to construct a 'total' history, dealing with a wide range of human activity, and combining divergent material, documentary, and theoretical approaches to the past. Annales-oriented research utilizes the techniques and tools of various ancillary fields, and integrates temporal, spatial, material and behavioural analyses. Such an approach is obviously attractive to archaeologists, for even though they deal with material data rather than social facts, they are just as much as historians interested in understanding social, economic and political factors such as power and dominance, conflict, exchange and other human activities. Three introductory essays consider the relationship between Annales methodology and current archaeological theory. Case studies draw upon methodological variations of the multifaceted Annales approach. The volume concludes with two overviews, one historical and the other archaeological.
Farmers made a sudden and dramatic appearance in Greece around 7000 BC, bringing with them new ceramics and crafts, and establishing settled villages. They were Europe's first farmers, and their settlements provide the link between the first agricultural communities in the Near East and the subsequent spread of the new technologies to the Balkans and on to Western Europe. In this 2001 book, Catherine Perlès argues that the stimulus for the spread of agriculture to Europe was a colonisation movement involving small groups of maritime peoples. Drawing evidence from a wide range of archaeological sources, including often neglected 'small finds', and introducing daring new perspectives on funerary rituals and the distribution of figurines, she constructs a complex and subtle picture of early Neolithic societies, overturning the traditional view that these societies were simple and self-sufficient.
We believe that punctuational change dominates the history of life: evolution is concentrated in very rapid events of speciation (geologically instantaneous, even if tolerably continuous in ecological time). Most species, during their geological history, either do not change in any appreciable way, or else they fluctuate mildly in morphology, with no apparent direction. Phyletic gradualism is very rare and too slow, in any case, to produce the major events of evolution. Evolutionary trends are not the product of slow, directional transformation within lineages; they represent the differential success of certain species within a clade—speciation may be random with respect to the direction of a trend (Wright's rule).
As an a priori bias, phyletic gradualism has precluded any fair assessment of evolutionary tempos and modes. It could not be refuted by empirical catalogues constructed in its light because it excluded contrary information as the artificial result of an imperfect fossil record. With the model of punctuated equilibria, an unbiased distribution of evolutionary tempos can be established by treating stasis as data and by recording the pattern of change for all species in an assemblage. This distribution of tempos can lead to strong inferences about modes. If, as we predict, the punctuational tempo is prevalent, then speciation—not phyletic evolution—must be the dominant mode of evolution.
We argue that virtually none of the examples brought forward to refute our model can stand as support for phyletic gradualism; many are so weak and ambiguous that they only reflect the persistent bias for gradualism still deeply embedded in paleontological thought. Of the few stronger cases, we concentrate on Gingerich's data for
Hyopsodus
and argue that it provides an excellent example of species selection under our model. We then review the data of several studies that have supported our model since we published it five years ago. The record of human evolution seems to provide a particularly good example: no gradualism has been detected within any hominid taxon, and many are long-ranging; the trend to larger brains arises from differential success of essentially static taxa. The data of molecular genetics support our assumption that large genetic changes often accompany the process of speciation.
Phyletic gradualism was an a priori assertion from the start—it was never “seen” in the rocks; it expressed the cultural and political biases of 19th century liberalism. Huxley advised Darwin to eschew it as an “unnecessary difficulty.” We think that it has now become an empirical fallacy. A punctuational view of change may have wide validity at all levels of evolutionary processes. At the very least, it deserves consideration as an alternate way of interpreting the history of life.
This article discusses two major revolutions in the history of humankind, namely, the Neolithic and the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic revolutions. The course of the first one is used as a general analogy to study the second, and the older one. This approach puts aside the issue of biological differences among the human fossils, and concentrates solely on the cultural and technological innovations. It also demonstrates the issues that are common-place to the study of the transition from foraging to cultivation and animal husbandry can be employed as an overarching model for the study of the transition from the Middle to the Upper Palaeolithic. The advantage of this approach is that it focuses on the core areas where each of these revolutions began, the ensuing dispersals and their geographic contexts.
Histoire et problemes de la recherhe archeologique sur la prehistoire de la Grece, depuis les premieres etudes des annees 60 aux plus recentes investigations, et rapide presentation des sites et des cultures du Paleolithique, du Mesolithique et du Neolithique
Analogy is fundamentally important to archaeological inquiry, yet archaeologists remain profoundly ambivalent about its use. In this paper I address issues of how we develop and subsequently apply analogical models. Selecting an analogue requires that we have some implicit or explicit sense of its relevance to the case at hand. In the past, archaeologists often assumed that principles of relevance implied extensive similarities between the ethnographic and archaeological contexts and diverted attention away from the need to compare the analogical model with the archaeological context. In the first part of the paper, which is historically oriented, I examine the role that concepts of time (e.g., stone age, traditional, modern) have played in selecting relevant analogues. Fabian's critique of how anthropologists have used time to distance contemporary peoples guides this inquiry. In the remainder of the paper I explore the implications of recent historical-anthropological studies that document tremendous changes that resulted from European contact; this literature challenges archaeologists to develop more critical approaches to the use of so-called traditional societies as analogical models. In the final sections of the paper I explore the need for enhanced source-side criticism in developing relevant analogues, and advocate a comparative approach to the application of analogical models.
This article is a review of the book by Bernie Knapp. I did not write this book.
This study, based on evidence from archaeological surveys and excavations in southern Greece, demonstrates two major shifts in the subsistence economy during the Neolithic. In the EN and MN periods the presence of large villages in locations near reliable water-sources and permanently moist or seasonally flooded soils of high and sustained productivity illustrates a village farming economy concentrating on arable agriculture. The first economic shift occurred in the late MN-LN with occupation of highland caves and islands, indicating increased sheep/goat pastoralism, fishing, and perhaps hunting, with a reduced number of farming villages present in the plains. The second shift took place in the FN-EBA, when a dispersal of agricultural settlements into dry upland regions indicates expanding plough agriculture and pastoralism, important factors contributing to the development of the flourishing EBA economy. The expansion of settlement was most marked in southeastern Greece, and it is suggested here that the extensive grazing areas provided by the open vegetation and mountainous terrain of this dry region, and its relative scarcity of well-watered fertile lowlands, may have stimulated the LN-FN expansion of pastoralism.
Until recently the reflexive archaeological literature on concepts of time has been sparse. As a result, chronologies have been treated as a conceptual black box, tools about which nothing need be known except their input and output. Recent theoretical discussions have begun to pry open the lid of this black box, revealing the complexities that lie within. The historical analysis presented here highlights the importance of chronologies to the archaeological treatment of time. The 19th-century Paleolithic chronologies of Lartet, de Mortillet, and Breuil are not simply lists of periods but rather the expression of differing conceptions of the relations between people, the archaeological record, and time.
Our knowledge of the migration routes of the first anatomically modern populations colonising the European territory at the beginning of the Upper Palaeolithic, of their degree of biological, linguistic, and cultural diversity, and of the nature of their contacts with local Neanderthals, is still vague. Ethnographic studies indicate that of the different components of the material culture that survive in the archaeological record, personal ornaments are among those that best reflect the ethno-linguistic diversity of human groups. The ethnic dimension of beadwork is conveyed through the use of distinct bead types as well as by particular combinations and arrangements on the body of bead types shared with one or more neighbouring groups. One would expect these variants to leave detectable traces in the archaeological record. To explore the potential of this approach, we recorded the occurrence of 157 bead types at 98 European Aurignacian sites. Seriation, correspondence, and GIS analyses of this database identify a definite cline sweeping counter-clockwise from the Northern Plains to the Eastern Alps via Western and Southern Europe through fourteen geographically cohesive sets of sites. The sets most distant from each other include Aurignacian sites from the Rhône valley, Italy, Greece and Austria on the one hand, and sites from Northern Europe, on the other. These two macro-sets do not share any bead types. Both are characterised by particular bead types and share personal ornaments with the intermediate macro-set, composed of sites from Western France, Spain, and Southern France. We argue that this pattern, which is not explained by chronological differences between sites or by differences in raw material availability, reflects the ethnolinguistic diversity of the earliest Upper Palaeolithic populations of Europe.
... Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge Abstract.-We believe that punctuational change dominates the history of life: evolution is concentrated in very rapid events of speciation (geologically instantaneous, even if tolerably continuous in ecological time). ... Stephen Jay Gould . ...