The role of cryptotephra in refining the chronology of Late Pleistocene human evolution and cultural change in North Africa

© 2014.Sites in North Africa hold key information for dating the presence of Homo sapiens and the distribution of Middle Stone Age (MSA), Middle Palaeolithic (MP) and Later Stone Age (LSA) cultural activity in the Late Pleistocene. Here we present new and review recently published tephrochronological evidence for five cave sites in North Africa with long MSA/MP and LSA cultural sequences. Four tephra horizons have been identified at the Haua Fteah (Cyrenaica, Libya). They include cryptotephra evidence for the Campanian Ignimbrite (CI) eruption dating to ~39 ka that allows correlation with other Palaeolithic sequences in the eastern Mediterranean and as far north as Russia. Cryptotephra have also been recorded from the Moroccan sites of Taforalt, Rhafas and Dar es-Soltane 1. At Taforalt the geochemical composition suggests a provenance in the Azores, while examples from Sodmein (Egypt) appear to derive from central Anatolia and another unknown source. In these latter examples chemical compositional data from relevant proximal volcanic centres is currently lacking so the identification of tephra in layers of known age and cultural association provides the first reliable age determinations for distal volcanic events and their geographical extent. The future potential for tephrochronological research in North Africa is also discussed

Shape Variation in Aterian Tanged Tools and the Origins of Projectile Technology: A Morphometric Perspective on Stone Tool Function

BACKGROUND: Recent findings suggest that the North African Middle Stone Age technocomplex known as the Aterian is both much older than previously assumed, and certainly associated with fossils exhibiting anatomically modern human morphology and behavior. The Aterian is defined by the presence of 'tanged' or 'stemmed' tools, which have been widely assumed to be among the earliest projectile weapon tips. The present study systematically investigates morphological variation in a large sample of Aterian tools to test the hypothesis that these tools were hafted and/or used as projectile weapons. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Both classical morphometrics and Elliptical Fourier Analysis of tool outlines are used to show that the shape variation in the sample exhibits size-dependent patterns consistent with a reduction of the tools from the tip down, with the tang remaining intact. Additionally, the process of reduction led to increasing side-to-side asymmetries as the tools got smaller. Finally, a comparison of shape-change trajectories between Aterian tools and Late Paleolithic arrowheads from the North German site of Stellmoor reveal significant differences in terms of the amount and location of the variation. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The patterns of size-dependent shape variation strongly support the functional hypothesis of Aterian tools as hafted knives or scrapers with alternating active edges, rather than as weapon tips. Nevertheless, the same morphological patterns are interpreted as one of the earliest evidences for a hafting modification, and for the successful combination of different raw materials (haft and stone tip) into one implement, in itself an important achievement in the evolution of hominin technologies

Great Britain: the intertidal and underwater archaeology of Britain’s submerged landscapes

The submerged landscapes around Great Britain are extensive and would have offered productive territory for hunting, gathering, exploitation of aquatic and marine resources, and—in the final stages of postglacial sea-level rise—opportunities for agriculture. They would also have provided land connections to continental Europe and opportunities for communication by sea travel along now-submerged palaeocoastlines and river estuaries. Most of the archaeological material has been discovered in intertidal or shallow water conditions, but there are also discoveries in deeper water, with dates ranging from earliest human presence nearly one million years ago up to the establishment of modern sea level. Some later material is present where coastlines have continued to sink in more recent millennia. Intertidal sites are especially well represented because of relatively large tidal ranges and shallow offshore gradients on many coastlines. These are often associated with remains of submerged forests, which are periodically exposed at low tide and then covered up again by movements of sand. Some of the most distinctive intertidal finds are the human and animal footprints preserved in intertidal sediments in many locations, especially at Goldcliff East. The earliest, at Happisburgh, are dated between 0.78 and 1 Ma. Fully submerged sites include the Mesolithic site of Bouldnor Cliff with its worked timbers, and the Middle Stone Age artefacts from offshore aggregate Area 240 along with well-preserved ice age fauna and environmental indicators. Pioneering work using oil industry seismic records has produced detailed reconstructions of the submerged landscape, and this is being followed up by new work involving targeted acoustic survey and coring of sediments

A study of selected British and European flint assemblages of Late Devensian and Early Flandrian Age

This dissertation is concerned with the analysis of selected blade assemblages from Late Devensian and Early Flandrian contexts in Southern Britain (c. 12,500 - 9,000 BP). The British sites studied are divided into three main groupings: Upper Palaeolithic, Long Blade, and Mesolithic, each of which contains material of a typologically and technologically distinct nature. Despite previous important studies in the British Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic, no major work until now has been undertaken on the third technology, that of the Long Blade sites, which seems to occupy a chronological position intermediate between the other two. The dissertation incorporates the first comprehensive description of material from Long Blade sites and contrasts it with the sets of artefacts from the other two groups. Comparative data from the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic derive mainly from primary information recovered in two excavations directed by myself at Hengistbury Head between 1980-4. The chapters consider the archaeological material in chronological order beginning in Chapter 1 with the Late Upper Palaeolithic assemblage from Hengistbury Head. Chapters 2 and 3 are devoted to the Long Blade assemblages from Britain and Northwestern Europe, whilst in the fourth chapter the Early Mesolithic material from Hengistbury and related sites in Southern Britain is considered. The fifth and last chapter is given over to discussion and final conclusions. Appended to the last chapter is a gazetteer of 159 specified Long Blade findspots in Southern Britain, the first time this material has ever been gathered together. Explanatory notes and a key are provided at the front of the Gazetteer. In studying the artefacts I have laid particular emphasis on technology as well as typology, and in studying technology I have been particularly influenced by my own work on the experimental manufacture and use of implements. Given that my two excavated sites were very little disturbed, I have also been able to make major use of conjoining artefacts, not only as an aid to understanding the differing techniques of artefact manufacture, but also in interpreting the archaeology of the sites. Some use was also made of experimental taphonomy. These aspects of my work are referred to in the text, notably in Chapters 1 and 4.</p

The transition from the Younger Dryas to the Pre-Boreal in southern Britain: some new perspectives on the spatial patterning and chronology of long blade sites

In this paper we review evidence for long blade technology in southern Britain. In particular we consider the distinctive patterns of distribution of these sites, which are often preferentially located in the floodplains of river valleys and near good flint sources. As these lithic assemblages typically contain relatively few tools it has been hypothesised that they represent only a partial picture of human uses of the Late Glacial landscape. Amongst the present suggestions are that such localities were principally workshop sites where blades were manufactured for later use, and/or that they served a special function related to horse and reindeer butchery. To test these ideas further we re-examine the question of variability in long blade assemblages and how this might be reflected in their topographic positioning. We consider such questions as: Were the floodplain sites as technologically and typologically homogeneous as has often been assumed? And, as has been suggested recently, were there any differences in the composition of assemblages in more elevated terrace locations

The late-glacial reoccupation of the British Isles and the Creswellian

This paper presents a review of AMS radiocarbon dating evidence for human occupation of Britain during the Late-glacial Interstadial. The dates are all on humanly modified materials, including artefacts, and on human bone. The CalPal program is used to test whether the earliest evidence of human presence shows any correlation with more widespread climatic events, and if the British chronology differs significantly from that of neighbouring regions of northwest Europe. In the second part of the paper a number of well-dated sites with British Late Upper Palaeolithic 'Creswellian' technology are examined and compared with lithic assemblages from The Netherlands and Belgium. The main conclusions of this work are that expansion of human populations into the northern edge of the upland zone just before or at the beginning of GI-1 was followed by repopulation of the British Isles possibly with very little time-lag. The British Creswellian sites offer evidence of this earliest resettlement, which is mainly focused on the upland margins of western and central Britain. © 2003 John Wiley and Sons, Ltd