The bashful and the boastful : prestigious leaders and social change in Mesolithic Societies

The creation and maintenance of influential leaders and authorities is one of the key themes of archaeological and historical enquiry. However the social dynamics of authorities and leaders in the Mesolithic remains a largely unexplored area of study. The role and influence of authorities can be remarkably different in different situations yet they exist in all societies and in almost all social contexts from playgrounds to parliaments. Here we explore the literature on the dynamics of authority creation, maintenance and contestation in egalitarian societies, and discuss the implications for our interpretation and understanding of the formation of authorities and leaders and changing social relationships within the Mesolithic

Mesolithic Northern England Environment, population and settlement

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:1863.1856(283) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

GIS based interpolation applied to distinguishing occupation phases of early prehistoric sites

Traditionally sites occupied by mobile groups, without clearly identifiable contexts or phases, have been excavated according to arbitrarily defined vertical spits. The disadvantages of this approach are obvious—where occupation occurred on an undulating or sloped surface, stratigraphic levels or activity horizons, if they existed, are often unlikely to be identified and it becomes almost impossible to differentiate different phases of occupation within any period. Recently, three-dimensional recording of artefact locations with survey equipment with a memory store, such as total stations, has become more common on these types of sites. However, the excavation methods and means of interpretation needed to link this type of three-dimensional resolution with stratigraphic levels has been lacking, particularly as “true” 3 programs are not widely available to deal with this type of information. In this paper, a possible method for recording and modelling stratigraphic relationships using typical “almost 3 ” GIS programs is described

Pollen from Late Pleistocene hyena (Crocuta crocuta spelaea) coprolites: An interdisciplinary approach from two Italian sites

Palynology of fossil faeces is still extremely rare and its contribution to the interpretation of the environment undervalued. In this paper we present the results of pollen analysis performed on cave hyena coprolites [Crocuta crocuta spelaea (Goldfuss, 1832)] from Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS 3) sites of Cava Muracci (Cisterna di Latina, central Italy) and Tana delle Iene (Ceglie Messapica, southern Italy). This study provides new insights into the vegetation of the Late Pleistocene of peninsular Italy, until now known only through long pollen records. It also shows how the content of coprolites, combined with faunal data and geochronological investigations, can represent a potential integrative source of palaeoclimatic proxy data. Our results indicate that the surroundings of both of the hyena dens were characterised by a patchy landscape with open lowlands dominated by steppe and grassland vegetation, while a few mesophilous and thermophilous trees were present in more humid areas, probably along the marine coast and inland. The harsh glacial climate appears to have been milder at Cava Muracci than at Tana delle Iene. This could be due either to the different environmental features of the two sites or to the high climatic variability that occurred during MIS3