Rebecca Wragg Sykes
ABOUT ME
I was trained as an archaeologist, specialising in the Neanderthals, the Palaeolithic period more generally and lithic analysis. I am now working as an author and public scholar, including writing popular books, other articles, reviews etc, working as a consultant with diverse organisations (museums, film/TV, individuals), but I retain an Honorary Fellowship at the University of Liverpool. I am also a co-founder of TrowelBlazers (trowelblazers.com).
My last academic post was as a Marie Curie Intra European Fellow (funded by the European Framework 7) at the PACEA laboratory, Universite Bordeaux, on the TRACETERRE project (Tracing Neanderthal Territories: Landscape Organization and Stone Resource Management in South East France).
My PhD research 2004-2009 was on the British Late Middle Palaeolithic, which aimed to understand the re-occupation by Neanderthals around 60,000 years BP. It focused on the lithic assemblages from early-mid MIS 3 (60-45,000 years BP), looking at the typology and technology from a chaine operatoire perspective, moving between two scales: individual site examination focused on situational responses, while inter-site comparisons explored the wider patterning of raw material nature and availability on technological organisation in the landscape.
I was trained as an archaeologist, specialising in the Neanderthals, the Palaeolithic period more generally and lithic analysis. I am now working as an author and public scholar, including writing popular books, other articles, reviews etc, working as a consultant with diverse organisations (museums, film/TV, individuals), but I retain an Honorary Fellowship at the University of Liverpool. I am also a co-founder of TrowelBlazers (trowelblazers.com).
My last academic post was as a Marie Curie Intra European Fellow (funded by the European Framework 7) at the PACEA laboratory, Universite Bordeaux, on the TRACETERRE project (Tracing Neanderthal Territories: Landscape Organization and Stone Resource Management in South East France).
My PhD research 2004-2009 was on the British Late Middle Palaeolithic, which aimed to understand the re-occupation by Neanderthals around 60,000 years BP. It focused on the lithic assemblages from early-mid MIS 3 (60-45,000 years BP), looking at the typology and technology from a chaine operatoire perspective, moving between two scales: individual site examination focused on situational responses, while inter-site comparisons explored the wider patterning of raw material nature and availability on technological organisation in the landscape.
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Papers by Rebecca Wragg Sykes
advances in palaeogenetics. New evidence from varied elements of the Late Middle Palaeolithic (lithic raw material transport and
symbolic artefacts/practices) compel reconsideration of other aspects of material culture, and prevailing models of social networks built
upon them. It is suggested that Neanderthals were operating on larger social scales than previously acknowledged, and that regionallydistinctive
lithic traditions found around 60-40,000 BP acted as cultural/ethic markers. They provided a mechanism for individuals to
manage social relations with other groups, facilitating biological reproduction and maintaining relations during times of population
fragmentation and expansion. Reconsidering the Late Middle Palaeolithic record in this way transforms our view of how Neanderthals
perceived their own material record, and sets a stage for the extensive and intimate social contact that we now know was occurring
between late Neanderthals and incoming anatomically modern humans, the vestiges of which we still carry today (Burbano et al. 2010;
Green et al. 2010)."
Archaeology and Environments of Jersey Project. The principle aim of the project is to provide a reassessment of the early prehistoric
record of Jersey, through targeted sampling and key-hole excavation of poorly understood find spots, as well as a major reassessment of
La Cotte de St Brelade. This paper presents the successful results of two weeks of intensive fieldwork at three localities, demonstrating
the rich potential for early prehistoric archaeology on the island. Furthermore, the value of the island’s record in further understanding
the long term record of human occupation in the English Channel region is discussed."
The SPE silcrete (a silicified material formed within Tertiary palustral context) represents a high quality lithic resource within in a region of predominantly volcanic geology and sparse flint sources. It had previously been identified in both Middle and Upper Palaeolithic cave sites up to 40 km distant from the site, and local collectors had found lithic artefacts in the surroundings of SPE. However the actual focus of Palaeolithic activity, and the location of silcrete outcrops exploited, were not known until fieldwork in 2014. This work determied that there is a large open-air extraction locale at the very summit of the hill, with rich spreads of knapping waste. Following test excavations, results are reported here on the lithic material. This research therefore represents new data on Palaeolithic use of an unusual raw material, as well as examining the archaeology at the source itself, something often impossible where there is uncertainty about precise locations that stone was extracted.
This poster presents early results from a study of the Saint-Pierre-Eynac silcrete, Haute-Loire, France. In a region of mainly granitic/volcanic geology with sparse flint, this silcrete (silicified material from pedological processes) represents an accessible, abundant and technologically flexible resource. Lithic artefacts have been found at Saint-Pierre-Eynac itself, and the silcrete is present in Middle-Upper Palaeolithic sites at least 40 km away. This project therefore has two aims:
1) The first detailed study of Palaeolithic behaviour within this type of geological context, through aerial survey, large-scale surface collection, excavation and petro-archaeology.
2) Build a robust picture of Palaeolithic techno-economic exploitation of a siliceous stone within the Massif Central landscape by clarifying where the stone was transported, and how it was utilised.
Yet, although Neanderthal groups and non-kin individuals must have met in order to sexually reproduce and maintain a viable population over more than two hundred thousand years, the circumstances of and mechanisms for inter-group contact are rarely considered. A possible key to bridging this problem arises if we reconsider what constitutes a social landscape. Ethnography reveals that hunter-gatherers do not perceive their landscapes to be empty, whether they are highly populated or not. Rather, landscapes are crowded with the presence of people, if one knows how to look. Skills developed over more than half a million years of hunting endowed Neanderthals with exceptional sensitivity to human presences in the form of butchery sites, camps, and the ‘veil of stones’ (Roebroeks et al 1992) speckling the broader landscape. This appreciation of lithic traces formed the basis for the first cultural landscapes, and offers a model for more extended Neanderthal social capacities than is usually acknowledged.
A holistic methodology using metrical data, raw material type, and techno-typology enables a chaîne opératoire approach focusing on the spatio-temporal location of stages of production, use and discard. These data permit analysis and interpretation to move between two scales: individual site examination concentrating on situational responses, and inter-site comparisons investigating technological organisation within the landscape. Results indicate that Neanderthals were consistently making knowledgeable choices in their utilization of raw materials, as part of a discoidal-based technological system focused on flexibility, reliability and maintainability, as a response to the challenges of an extremely mobile, high-risk lifestyle, where resources could be unpredictable.
Two examples of the use of a socially-based theoretical framework are presented: structured patterning in biface discard at the Lower Palaeolithic site of Boxgrove, and the extended biographies of bifaces in the British Mousterian. Both demonstrate that using theory permits interpretations to move between different scales of lithic data, providing new ideas about how material culture in the earlier Palaeolithic played an active role in creating place and history.
The MIS7 site of Pontnewydd shows intriguing evidence of early Neanderthals occupying the very western fringes of Europe, making clear technological choices regarding lithic raw material exploitation, and possible evidence for deposition of human remains.
The much richer Mousterian record demonstrates that caves were consistently attractive to Neanderthals after they re-occupied the British landscape in MIS3. This is probably related to the fact that they are static locations, and can therefore develop as places with history, perhaps a rare thing in a fluctuating climate and environment for very mobile peoples. Furthermore, the nature of the caves themselves, providing variable spaces and situations, could have played a role in social differentiation. Recent analysis of material from Robin Hood Cave and Pin Hole at Creswell Crags shows clear differences in the lithic assemblages that suggest different uses of these two adjacent caves.
This paper presents some results from a comprehensive lithic analysis of the well-dated sites from the apparent Neanderthal re-occupation of Britain in MIS 3 (65-40 kyr BP). The study focuses on the ways in which Neanderthals were choosing to organise themselves within their landscapes, by looking at how they created, used and discarded their tools. Aspects underlying the lithic patterning include raw materials, landscape resourcing and mobility, as well as the nature of the sites themselves and the groups using them.
However, there is in fact a significant body of data from the rare sites where circumstances permitted the survival of non-lithic artefacts.
This paper focuses on examining the technology and social significance of composite tools from the Middle Palaeolithic, and specifically the use of birch bark pitch, as an example of organic material culture and practice.
I will explore how studying this technology has potential for extending our understanding of the situated construction of identity, through the distribution and accumulation within the landscape of materials with memories and associations, which create social meaning and place.
Examples from such sites, as well as other evidence, are used to explore the range of plant-use by Neanderthals, with a focus on the technology and social significance of composite tools.
This paper explores familiar features of the Palaeolithic such as hearths, caves and flint scatters from the perspective of architectural space and building, and discusses how they might be interpreted as materially and socially constructed places.
This thesis aims to undertake a comprehensive analysis of the most informative Mousterian lithic assemblages available from cave and open sites in Britain, using current methodologies involving quantitative and qualitative approaches. Specifically, metrical data, raw material type, and detailed information on typology and technology enable a chaîne opératoire approach focusing on the spatio-temporal location of stages of production, use and discard. Analysis and interpretation use these data to move between two scales: individual site examination concentrates on situational responses, while inter-site comparisons investigate technological organisation within the landscape by exploring the influence of raw material nature and availability.
Results indicate that Neanderthals were consistently making knowledgeable choices in their utilization of raw materials. This can be understood within a wider technological system focused on flexibility, reliability and maintainability, as a response to the challenges of an extremely mobile, high-risk lifestyle, where resources could be unpredictable. In the wider context of how Neanderthals adapted to the intense climatic fluctuations of MIS 3, and whether this could have affected their competitiveness in relation to modern humans, the British Mousterian demonstrates that while occupations may have been brief and interrupted, Neanderthals were capable of an organisational complexity that allowed them to exploit these landscapes successfully."