Hunter Gatherer

Dr. Hugh Brody (29th October, 2013) - The other side of Eden. The Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness Salon, The Institute of Ecotechnics, October Gallery, Bloomsbury, London. (Host)

For tens of thousands of years, over 90% of our life as humans, we lived as hunter-gatherers. Since the rise of agriculture and city-dwelling, this way of life has been devastated and marginalized. As our own way of life faces mounting challenges, studying foraging cultures provides precious perspective - and further highlights the importance of helping living foragers reclaim and defend their land and culture. Tonight, renowned anthropologist and filmmaker Hugh Brody will discuss his 40-year career studying, living with, and fighting for hunter-gatherer peoples, and how these cultures raise huge issues relevant to us all.

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Archaeological research in the Australia's northeast Queensland rainforest and margins has revealed a human antiquity of at least 8000 cal year BP within the rainforest and at least 30,000 years on the western edge. Rainforest occupation before 2000 cal year BP was at generally very low levels, after which time settlement of this environment became intensive and probably permanent. Exploitation of toxic varieties of nuts began about 2500 cal year BP, peaking after 1500 cal year BP. This economic development appears crucial to successful human adaptation to rainforests in the area and was pivotal in facilitating the long-term permanent human settlement of the wet tropics. The role of fire, El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) activity and shifting vegetation regimes were important catalysts in providing opportunities for permanent Australian rainforest Aboriginal occupation. The results have implications for global understandings of rainforest occupation by modern people. It demonstrates the wide temporal and spatial variability of human rainforest colonization processes worldwide.

despite extensive interest of both scholars and the wider public in the Kalahari San healing dance, there has been little analysis of the dance that begins with the biological human body. In this paper I explore the role of the body in the dance by drawing on my own KhoeSan healing experience, professional knowledge as an osteopath and acupuncturist, wider anthropological work on possession dance and a tentative neurophysiological interpretation. My starting point is Bradford Keeney's identification of shaking as a critical mechanism for 'opening the body up to spirit' (Keeney 2008). By contextualising San shaking in osteopathic and neurophysiological terms I develop the idea that San healers are applying the same sensory disposition that serves them so well as hunters and gatherers to their shamanic healing strategies. Using habits of 'body listening' San healers apply sophisticated techniques of manipulating the body and mind towards defined goals including the ability to heal, experience of extreme empathy, feelings of transcendence and the experience of transforming into animals. I suggest that the remarkable similarities between San healing and treatments found in osteopathy and acupuncture are not so surprising if we recognise that the human body provides not only the foundation of our experiences and definitions of sickness but our modes of therapeutic intervention.

This article describes a study of soil micromorphological thin sections from the archaeological sites of Eme and Dalan Serkot Caves in the Cagayan Valley, northern Luzon, Philippines, in the context of their local and regional significance. The samples were taken as part of the first author's Ph.D. research, investigating Palaeolithic-Neolithic transitions in the northern Philippine region (Mijares 2005a, 2006), but also form a comparative collection for cultural cave sediments from the southern Philippines and Borneo, which are being investigated by the second author (Lewis 2003, 2007). Both of these projects focus on understanding the prehistory of cave occupation and how changes in this reflect larger-scale movements of people, cultural materials, and ideas in the Island Southeast Asian region, with an aim to relate cave sites to the wider landscape through a variety of approaches, including geoarchaeology and the location and excavation of contemporaneous open-air sites. background to the study Northeastern Luzon is composed of a large basin called the Cagayan Valley, which is circumscribed by the mountains of the Sierra Madre in the east, the Cordillera Central in the west, and the Caraballo range in the south (Fig. 1). The Sierra Madre is an inactive volcanic arc with peaks up to 1800 m, while the active Cordillera Central has peaks up to 3000 m. The Cagayan Valley, which is dissected by the northward flowing Cagayan River, is composed of marine, transitional marine, and non-marine volcaniclastic sediments (Mathisen and Vondra 1983). The cave sites discussed here are found in the Callao limestone formation, which runs along the western foothills of the Sierra Madre. This formation consists of a 540 m thickness of reef carbonates formed during the late Miocene

This paper aims to present an overview of recent research on the Mesolithic lithic scatters in the Central Pennine area. In particular, it aims to exemplify a new analytical and interpretive approach to these lithic scatters by outlining—on a broad level—the new methodology, themes and conceptual links between the artefactual evidence (including the chaînes opératoire model), and hunter-gatherer behaviour. The main conclusions are summarised including—a radically new narrative that intimately links prehistoric lithic consumption and tool use with Mesolithic mobility strategies, and settlement patterns in Northern England. In doing so, the author also hopes to highlight the need for a radically different methodological and paradigmatic approach to the recovery, study and recording of the lithic heritage of the Pennines and beyond.

This paper investigates seasonal mobility practices on Grand Island on Michigan's Upper Peninsula during the Late Archaic period (c. 5000–2000 B.P.). Evidence for seasonality and food production are drawn from lithic, faunal, and floral data, as well as lipid residue analysis. Comparisons are made with seasonal mobility models for the Late Archaic occupants of the Saginaw Valley, the Terminal Woodland peoples of the Mackinac phase (c. A.D. 750–1000), and the Ojibwa of the subsequent Historic period (c. A.D. 1600s–1900s) living in the Mackinac region. These models propose that people aggregated seasonally during the fall to process foods communally on a relatively large scale, in order to produce food surpluses for winter consumption. I have identified archaeological signatures for the Grand Island sites that are argued to have resulted from fall seasonal aggregation, indicating that food gathering, hunting , fishing, and their subsequent laborious processing and cooking were recurring socioeconomic activities. Therefore, I suggest that Grand Island represented an important place on the landscape for the Late Archaic peoples who repeatedly utilized the island for these fall social and food-processing aggregations. Other seasons were characterized by the dispersal of smaller groups throughout the landscape.

The Upper Paleolithic represents both the phase during which anatomically modern humans appeared and the climax of hunter-gatherer cultures. Demographic expansion into new areas that took place during this period and the diffusion of burial practices resulted in an unprecedented number of well-preserved human remains. This skeletal record, dovetailed with archeological, environmental, and chronological contexts, allows testing of hypotheses regarding biological processes at the population level. In this article, we review key studies about the biology of Upper Paleolithic populations based primarily on European samples, but integrating information from other areas of the Old World whenever possible. Data about cranial morphology, skeletal robusticity, stature, body proportions, health status, diet, physical activity, and genetics are evaluated in Late B.M. Holt dedicates this paper to the memory of her mother, Janine Mü ller, who passed away before its completion.

Sexual imagery in the earliest Central Saharan rock art is extremely rare. Except for a few scenes of a probable sexual intercourse, the art focused on rituals , masked figures, body decoration and representation of wild animals. Only in the oldest phase of the art, the engraved and painted male figures are abundantly depicted with penis. This feature disappeared completely in the later stages of the art, where the penis became a prerogative of privileged individuals.

"One of the more spectacular expressions of prehistoric rock art in all of North America is the petroglyph concentration in the Coso Range of eastern California. These glyphs have played a prominent role in attempts to understand forager religious iconography. Four decades ago, Heizer and Baumhoff (1962) concluded that Great Basin petroglyphs were associated with hunting large game and were intended to supernaturally increase success in the hunt. Similarly, in their seminal work Grant et al. (1968) concluded that the mountain sheep drawings of the Coso region bolstered the “hunting magic” hypothesis. However, this hypothesis has become increasingly marginalized by a prevailing view that considers most rock art as an expression of individual shamanistic endeavor (cf. Lewis-Williams and Dowson, 1988; Whitley, 1994; Whitley and Loendorf, 1994). This article explores comparative ethnologic and archaeological evidence supporting the hunting magic hypothesis. I place this explanatory framework in a larger context based on a contemporary understanding of comparative religion and the complexity of forager symbolism. The article argues that the preponderance of Coso images are conventionalized iconography associated with a sheep cult ceremonial complex. This is inconsistent with models interpreting the Coso drawings as metaphoric images correlated with individual shamanic vision quests.
"

A large proportion of the health woes beleaguering modern cultures are because of daily physical activity patterns that are profoundly different from those for which we are genetically adapted. The ancestral natural environment in which our current genome was forged via natural selection called for a large amount of daily energy expenditure on a variety of physical movements. Our genes that were selected for in this arduous and demanding natural milieu enabled our ancestors to survive and thrive, leading to a very vigorous lifestyle. This abrupt (by evolutionary time frames) change from a very physically demanding lifestyle in natural outdoor settings to an inactive indoor lifestyle is at the origin of many of the widespread chronic diseases that are endemic in our modern society. The logical answer is to replicate the native human activity pattern to the extent that this is achievable and practical. Recommendations for exercise mode, duration, intensity, and frequency are outlined with a focus on simulating the routine physical activities of our ancient hunter-gatherer ancestors whose genome we still largely share today. In a typical inactive person, this type of daily physical activity will optimize gene expression and help to confer the robust health that was enjoyed by hunter-gatherers in the wild. (Prog Cardiovasc Dis 2011;53:471-479)

La distribución espacial de objetos, prácticas y sujetos sociales es una categoría básica para comprender la dinámica de la vida social y el sentido de la cultura material en cualquier comunidad humana. En arqueología, esta variabilidad, que se expresa tanto a nivel intrasitio como intersitio, se ha constituido en un recurso básico para la decodificación del registro material de las sociedades prehispánicas y el entendimiento de sus formas de uso y conceptualización del espacio. Estas diferentes escalas de distribución y variabilidad espacial materializan y establecen una red de relaciones en las que articulan de manera significativa objetos, sujetos, prácticas, cuerpos y lugares. A través de este entramado se construye y reproduce un paisaje en el que se articulan y segregan espacialmente y fenomenológicamente prácticas, materialidades y ámbitos sociales (Pauketat 2001a, 2001b, 2008; Yaeger y Canuto 2000). Son estas articulaciones, con sus inclusiones y exclusiones, las que conforman y estructuran la vida social, así como las dinámicas de (re)producción social y desarrollo histórico de las comunidades humanas (Pauketat 2001a, 2001b, 2008).

Es a la luz de lo anterior que este trabajo tiene como objetivo evaluar y discutir las formas en que se establece la (re)producción de las comunidades prehispánicas del centro norte de Chile tomando como punto de partida la espacialidad del arte rupestre. A partir del estudio de la articulación entre la distribución de esta materialidad, los lugares donde se despliega la acción social y las prácticas ahí acaecidas se discute el papel jugado por el arte rupestre en los procesos de construcción del paisaje y de las comunidades prehispánicas en un lapso de tiempo cercano a los 3.500 años.

Nuestra investigación, que se desarrolla en la cuenca hidrográfica del río Limarí (Lat 30° S.), muestra diferentes estrategias de integración del arte rupestre con otras prácticas sociales y contextos fenomenológicos particulares. Una primera estrategia, de larga duración y asociada a comunidades móviles se extiende desde aproximadamente el año 2.000 a.C. hasta el 1.000 d.C.; mientras que la segunda es más propia a comunidades agrícolas que ocupan estos espacios entre el 1.000 y 1530 d.C. Las transformaciones observables en estas redes de relaciones muestran un proceso de segregación espacial de diferentes ámbitos de la vida social que se relaciona con distintas estrategias de reproducción social de las comunidades prehispánicas. Estos cambios muestran formas divergentes de habitar, remiten a un proceso de complejización social y a una mayor centralidad del arte rupestre en los contextos tardíos para la promoción de los conjuntos sociales.

"The main stream of dwelling architecture in Indonesia is clearly rooted in vernacular forms. In large
parts of Indonesia, especially in the rural but by no means absent in some urban areas, these have been and
still are predominant, although a marked decline has set in since at least the beginnings of this century.
Nowadays these vernacular forms are often found in the midst of other buildings ranging from simple wooden
structures to modern brick dwellings, and even high rise condominiums in cities. Where they are found, they
often still have a function in the maintenance of the traditional culture.
In this paper, between globalization and localization so reading about build and defense to
challenge about Asmat dwelling architecture and culture to future. They still have strength culture and a
unique locally house “YEW” with simple wooden structures until now in the second millennium. Uses the
“YEW” as so called rumah panjang (long house) or rumah adat also a part of cultural activity, as ritual and
tradition one’s innitation process. The “YEW” size about 8 x 12 meters and uses 6 to 8 families in one clan
for the ritual and tradition activities. The concept of “YEW”, wooden material between coloum and beam, joint
structures strengthen by rattan rope. For the maintenance “YEW” is easily, they still teamwork to build and
maintenance with spirit of gotong-royong.
Globalization is not just a recent phenomenon and often has strong regional connotations.
Moreover, the so called third culture should not be seen through Western eyes only, because Asian variants
abound. In this case, the localization effects of this intensification of globalization as well as the phenomenon
of hybridization are also taken into account.

Keyword: YEW, Asmat, dwelling architecture, globalization, and localization.
"

En la actualidad se ha dejado de pensar en los grupos de cazadores recolectores como bandas desorganizadas que se encuentran en continuo movimiento en búsqueda de alimento. En este trabajo, se presenta un análisis osteológico de los restos óseos de tres cuevas ubicadas en la región costera del Golfo de Baja California Sur, en donde se observa que los antiguos "californios" parecen haber logrado un cierto equilibrio con el medio ambiente mediante de diversas estrategias adaptativas biológicas y culturales, permitiéndoles sobrevivir adecuadamente en un medio ambiente considerado extremoso, como lo es el desierto subcaliforniano. Palabras clave: Adaptación, Salud, Cazadores-recolectores, Baja California Sur, México. Agradecimientos A la Dirección de Antropología Física, en especial al Antrop. Físico Concepción Jiménez por el apoyo brindado para poder llevar acabo el análisis de los entierros de la colección Massey; a los investigadores de la ENAH Dr. Ernesto González Licón, Dra. Patricia Hernández, Dra. Lourdes Márquez por los valiosos comentarios y observaciones que hicieron a este trabajo; Mtro. Edgar Nebot García por el apoyo en la toma de fotografías.

This article presents a historiographical synthesis of the archaeomalacology artifacts mentioned in continental Patagonia of Argentina, since the beginning of archaeological studies in late XIX century to the early XXI century. Special emphasis is made on the description of the publications and type of information provided, from simple references to detailed analysis. Trends in trajectories that guided the investigations and future expectations about the study of archaeomalacological artifacts in continental Patagonia of Argentina are identified.

En este artículo se presenta una síntesis historiográfica del tratamiento que han recibido los artefactos arqueomalacológicos documentados en la Patagonia continental argentina, desde los inicios de las investigaciones, a fines del
siglo XIX, hasta los comienzos del siglo XXI. Se pone especial énfasis en la descripción de las publicaciones y se señala el tipo de información que proporcionan, desde la simple mención hasta el análisis detallado. Se identifican tendencias en las trayectorias que han guiado las investigaciones de los artefactos arqueomalacológicos y se plantean expectativas sobre su estudio futuro.

Stone boiling is one of the principal cooking methods used by hunter-gatherer societies. The present paper proposes behavioral and organizational inferences as to how stone boiling was incorporated into hunter-gatherer subsistence practices through an examination of a shallow-basin hearth in an Early Magdalenian level (c. 15,500 14 C B.P.) of El Miró n Cave, Cantabria (northern Spain). Exploratory analysis of spatial patterns of archaeological remains (bones, lithic artifacts, and fire-cracked rocks) and use-life analysis of fire-cracked rocks demonstrate that the hearth was used and maintained during visits of humans who preyed mainly on ibex and red deer near the site. The relative accessibility of these ungulates and cost-induced technology of stone boiling suggest the implication that stone boiling was employed to maximize the energy and nutrition obtained from carcasses of these game taxa under the circumstance of resource intensification.

This article concerns Hadza cosmology examined through objects, rituals and the Hadza concept of epeme. A brief background to the Hadza and the fieldwork that informs this study is followed by a close analysis of three key objects that are central to the argument presented. The objects are intimately linked to women and to aspects of the social and cosmological identity of the individual makers. one object is a materialisation of the woman's name and it leads to an examination by interview of naming practices more generally. Naming a child gives it a spirit and places the child in a strong family matrix, and since it receives two names the child has two spirits and two families. Calling a person's name is thus calling out to one of the spirits within the person. This practice of calling a name occurs during the epeme night dance ritual. Dancers call a name of a relative and turn into the spirit-beings of the named. In this ritual we find that dancers when calling names of women do so through the mediating power objects. The article concludes by considering death, the dead body and the role of the objects in death. The approach taken is not intended to be holistic, but rather a presentation of ethnographic research indicating the potential and need for further examination of the power and role of objects in Hadza society.

Obsidian is the third most-common toolstone used in the Diamante Valley after basalts and local cryptocrystallines. Obsidian artifacts are predominantly projectile points and bifaces, with few cores and early-stage reduction debris. To explain these patterns, we conducted XRF sourcing and technological analysis of 177 obsidian artifacts collected there. We also conducted a GIS-based least cost path analysis to assess the costs of conveying obsidian from sources to sites in the Diamante watershed. We found that hunter-gatherers used Las Cargas as the principal obsidian source, followed by Maule 1 and 2, El Peceño, and Coche Quemado. The nearest source, Laguna del Diamante, was the least used. These data, combined with an analysis of the ways cores, formed tools, and debitage types were conveyed and ultimately deposited at sites in the Diamante watershed, suggest a late Holocene pattern of highland-oriented indirect access, implying highland village sites likely served as nodes in a regional and extraregional exchange network focused not only on obsidian but also on other goods, information, and social obligations.

Late Pleistocene Siberia was characterized by a unique mammoth-steppe biome. Two prevailing hypotheses exist to explain modern human dispersals in the Siberian mammoth-steppe. Upper Paleolithic human populations were either maintained continuously throughout the late Pleistocene or the peopling of this region resulted from multiple dispersal events. Past attempts at explaining the colonization process have resulted in culture-historical interpretations. This article uses lithic technological data from middle and late Upper Paleolithic sites in the Enisei River valley of south-central Siberia to explain human dispersals from a behavioral perspective. Technological provisioning and land-use strategies are reconstructed to help explain dispersal processes. Results of the study demonstrate that hunter-gatherers were using different adaptive strategies before and after the Last Glacial Maximum, indicating that multiple dispersal events shaped the peopling of Siberia.

In the Pacific Northwest of North America, researchers routinely suggest changes in human use of animals explain hunter-gatherer organizational changes and development of cultural complexity. For example, most models developed to explain developing cultural complexity invoke salmon in some fashion. Yet until recently, fish remains were not carefully studied and more generally, zooarchaeological evidence has not been systematically used to test models of culture change. This study reviews the 10,000-year-old faunal record in the Pacific Northwest to test predictions drawn from models of resource intensification, resource depression and hunter-gatherer organizational strategies. The records from two subareas, the South-Central Northwest Coast (Puget Sound/Gulf of Georgia) and the Northern Columbia Plateau, are examined in detail, representing 63 archaeological sites. While minor changes in animal use are evident, the overall record is characterized by stability rather than change.

La muerte es uno de los fenómenos sociales más importantes para el ser humano, es más que un evento meramente físico alrededor del cual se han desarrollado una serie de prácticas y rituales que expresan en diferentes niveles diversos aspectos de la vida social y religiosa de un grupo. En este trabajo se presenta un análisis del ritual funerario registrado en tres cuevas de la denominada "Tradición Funeraria Las Palmas" atribuidas a grupos de cazadores recolectores pescadores que habitaron la región austral de la península de Baja California Sur entre 1200 y 1700 d.C.

A large proportion of the health woes beleaguering modern cultures are because of daily physical activity patterns that are profoundly different from those for which we are genetically adapted. The ancestral natural environment in which our current genome was forged via natural selection called for a large amount of daily energy expenditure on a variety of physical movements. Our genes

This study addresses changes in health which were consequential to the Neolithic transition in the southern Levant, judged on the basis of the study of specific and nonspecific stress indicators, trauma, and degenerative joint disease in 200 Natufian (hunter-gatherer) skeletons (10,500–8300 BC) and 205 Neolithic (agricultural) skeletons (8300–5500 BC) from the southern Levant. The comparison of the health profiles of pre-Neolithic (Natufian) and Neolithic populations reveals a higher prevalence of lesions indicative of infectious diseases among the Neolithic population, and an overall reduction in the prevalence of skull trauma among males. No change over time was observed in the prevalence of degenerative joint disease. These results indicate that in the southern Levant the Neolithic transition did not simply lead to an overall deterioration in health but rather resulted in a complex health profile which was shaped by 1) an increase exposure to disease agents, 2) changes in diet, 3) population aggregation in larger and denser settlements, 4) changes in activity patterns and the division of labor, and possibly 5) a higher resistant immunological system and response capacity to environmental aggressions (mainly infections)

The fuel used in hearths in the Upper Palaeolithic period and the management of this fuel have long given rise to questions on intentional or opportunistic human comportment. To understand how fuel was managed during the Aurignacian and Gravettian cultures, hearth samples from the French site of Abri Pataud (ca. 34–20 kyr BP) were collected. An image analysis method for the automated quantification of burnt particles from macroscopic-to-microscopic sediment fractions was developed, and the results obtained using this method were compared with the palaeoenvironmental data available close to the site. At Abri Pataud, the use of bones was dominant during the Pleniglacial, suggesting an intentional practice. However, environmental pressures could have influenced the fuel management practices of the hunter-gatherers, even if the dualistic relationship between the availability of firewood and the use of bone in hearths must be considered. Thus, burnt particle quantification provides more than just an observation of burnt macroremains in hearths: it relates to fundamental information on human behavior.

The time of appearance of a persistent and demographically-viable hunter-gatherer population in late Pleistocene southern South America must be determined by evaluating evidence from as large as possible a sample of candidate archaeological sites in the region. We co-ordinated the AMS dating of multiple bone and charcoal samples from previously-excavated strata at the following sites: Arroyo Seco 2, Paso Otero 5, Piedra Museo, and Cueva Tres Tetas (all in Argentina), and Cueva del Lago Sofia 1 and Tres Arroyos (both in Chile). With one possible exception, we did not obtain new results to confirm earlier observations of pre-Clovis-age cultural activity at any of the sites considered in this study. The possible exception, Arroyo Seco 2, is considered in detail elsewhere [Politis G., Gutierrez M.A., Scabuzzo, C. (Eds), in press. Estado actual de las Investigaciones en el sitio 2 de Arroyo Seco (regió n pampeana, Argentina). Serie Monográ fica INCUAPA 5. Olavarría]. However, our results for the samples which were the most preferred indicators of cultural events (hearth charcoal and cut-marked bone) confirm that people were in the southern cone of South America at or soon after 11,000 BP (13,000 cal BP). Considered alongside recent age estimates for the Clovis culture in North America, these results imply the contemporaneous emergence of a consistent and archaeologically-robust human occupation signal at widely-separated locations across the Western Hemisphere. Such findings suggest that Palaeoindian demic expansion may have involved more than one terminal Pleistocene dispersal episode. .ar (G. Politis). 1 We will not give further consideration to the Monte Verde site in this paper. At the time of publication of the second volume of the Monte Verde monograph (Dillehay, 1997) the repeatability of the observations and interpretations was assessed both through lab and site visits by an invited panel of external evaluators , and through public discussion of the completeness and accuracy of the published excavation records (Dillehay et al.

Archaeological models of hunter-gatherer subsistence often imply that the influence of menÕs or womenÕs foraging effort on settlement patterns varied over time, but fail to consider how central place foraging may reflect conflicting subsistence interests between men and women. For example, earlier studies of Carson Desert prehistory suggest a semisedentary, gathering strategy replaced a mobile, hunting-oriented strategy in response to diminishing densities of large game. This implies that the influence of menÕs and womenÕs work effort on residential location and mobility changed, but assumes both genders foraged for the common good rather than striving for different goals. A new central place foraging model based on a human behavioral ecology perspective of sexual division of labor considers how men and women might reconcile conflicting foraging interests given likely resource abundance, return rates, and transport costs. MenÕs hunting returns must be high enough to reliably provision children for a hunting-oriented settlement pattern to occur. Otherwise, men should logistically hunt out of bases positioned to facilitate womenÕs foraging. Therefore, a hunting-oriented strategy seems unlikely in the Late Holocene Carson Desert.

Durante 20 años se han llevado a cabo en Tierra del Fuego investigaciones dirigidas a contrastar etnográficamente el registro arqueológico de sociedades cazadoras recolectoras. Se trataba de elaborar una metodología específica de abordaje arqueológico para estas sociedades que pudiera aplicarse a otros contextos arqueológicos. Aquí se exponen los diferentes proyectos y sus conclusiones más importantes haciendo especial hincapié en dos aspectos fundamentales, por un lado el técnico-metodológico, de recuperación y tratamiento de la información; y por otro la reconstrucción de las relaciones sociales de producción y reproducción en grupos cazadores recolectores.

Newberry Cave most likely represents a particular striking and persuasive example of what Coulam and Schroedl suggest are  sites of ritual and ceremonial “increase totemism”.  A men’s bighorn sheep totemic hunting society camped here and conducted  rituals to promote the life and health of a key supernatural ancestor animal person - the desert bighorn sheep.  Their ceremonies ensured the propagation of this key game animal and the perpetuation of their society.

We report quantitative estimates of intergenerational transmission and population-wide inequality for wealth measures in a set of hunter-gatherer populations. Wealth is defined broadly as factors that contribute to individual or household well-being, ranging from embodied forms such as weight and hunting success to material forms such household goods, as well as relational wealth in exchange partners. Intergenerational wealth transmission is low to moderate in these populations, but is still expected to have measurable influence on an individual's life chances. Wealth inequality (measured with Gini coefficients) is moderate for most wealth types, matching what qualitative ethnographic research has generally indicated (if not the stereotype of hunter-gatherers as extreme egalitarians). We discuss some plausible mechanisms for these patterns, and suggest ways in which future research could resolve questions about the role of wealth in hunter-gatherer social and economic life.

The mortuary behavior of hunter-gatherers associated with a San Francisco Bay area shell mound is analyzed. Mortuary analyses in the region are reviewed and critiqued, highlighting the general difficulties associated with investigating the mortuary behavior of hunter-gatherers. Using the concept of inequality and its link to surplus, a mortuary analysis of an example of a shell mound in the area, CA-ALA-328, is then conducted. A formal cemetery located beneath the shell mound is identified, followed by a burial setting involving inhumation into the matrix of the shell mound. A decrease in the level of inequality is observed in the burials as the site transitions from a cemetery to a shell mound. The implications of this change in inequality are explored, and a new interpretation of mortuary behavior at shell mounds is presented. Finally, several areas where the analysis contributes to the development of archaeological theory are outlined.

The existence of low-level food producers, neither wholly hunter-gatherers nor wholly agriculturalists, is predicted but hard to prove. Here the authors use lithics, the one ubiquitous common indicator, to show how the detection of missing flakes can indicate degrees of mobility, while mobility in turn shows how people coped with the unpredictable appearance of food resources. In Australia, they were opportunists, armed with a ready cutting edge. In the Fayum, they had less far to go, but still roamed.

Pollen analyses of 13 archaeological sites in the Wadi Teshuinat area, in southwestern Fezzan, Libya, were synthesised to explore the potential contribution of palynological investigation to archaeological research in this area. During the Holocene, the sites were occupied by pre-Pastoral (hunteregatherers) and Pastoral (pastoralists) cultures. Different pollen stratigraphies and floras characterised the diverse sites and the relevant cultural phases. Pollen data were reported by discussing the sites separately, and by combining them to interpret the regional data set. Emphasis was made on the anthropogenic pollen indicators and grasses, including large grass pollen grains (>40 mm), which were considered evidence of plant transport into the site. These were ethnobotanical markers, human-made evidence of plant harvesting by hunteregatherers, or of animal breeding by pastoralists. The disappearance of some wild cereals was also observed, consistent with increasing climate dryness and land exploitation. Macroremains were used as a parallel tool to better understand plant exploitation in the region.

This paper presents the theoretical basis and first results of an agent-based model (ABM) computer simulation that is being developed to explore cooperation in hunter-gatherer societies. Specifically, we focus here on Yamana, a hunter-fisher-gatherer society that inhabited the islands of southernmost portion of Tierra del Fuego (Argentina-Chile). Ethnographical and archaeological evidences provide arguments that point to the existence of sporadic aggregation events, triggered by a public call through smoke signals of an extraordinary confluence of resources under unforeseeable circumstances in time and space (a beached whale or an exceptional accumulation of fish after a low tide). During such aggregations, the different social units involved used to develop and improve production, distribution and consumption processes in a collective way. We try to analyse the social dynamics that explain cooperative behaviour and resource sharing during aggregations based on an agent based model of indirect reciprocity. Agents decide based on the success of public strategies of other agents. Fitness depends on the resource captured and the social capital exchanged in aggregation events, modulated by agent's reputation. Our computational results identify the relative importance of the resource with respect to social benefits, and the easiness to detect, and hence punish, a defector as key factors to promote and sustain cooperative behaviour among population.

Variation in subsistence-related material culture is an important aspect of the archaeological and ethnographic records, but the factors that are responsible for it remain unclear. Here, we examine this issue by evaluating four factors that may affect the diversity and complexity of the food-getting tools employed by hunter-gatherer populations: 1) the nature of the food resources; 2) risk of resource failure; 3) residential mobility; and 4) population size. We apply step-wise multiple regression analysis to technological and ecological data for 20 hunter-gatherer populations from several regions of the world. The analyses support the hypothesis that risk of resource failure has a significant impact on toolkit diversity and complexity. The results do not support the hypothesis that the characteristics of the resources exploited for food influence toolkit structure, or that residential mobility affects toolkit diversity and complexity. They are also not in line with the hypothesis that population size has an impact on toolkit structure. While our analyses appear to strongly support the suggestion that resource failure risk is the primary influence on hunter-gatherer toolkit structure, we argue that it would be premature to discount the other factors at this stage, and outline the steps that we believe need to be taken next. M any significant events in prehistory were accompanied by changes in hunting and gathering technology (Bar-Yosef 2002; Dillehay 1999; Meltzer 1995; Schick and Toth 2001), and differences in the number and intricacy of tools used to obtain food are also involved in several of the geographic contrasts that have been recorded among historically documented hunter

The evolutionary history of modern humans is characterized by numerous migrations driven by environmental change, population pressures, and cultural innovations. In Europe, the events most widely considered to have had a major impact on patterns of genetic diversity are the initial colonization of the continent by anatomically modern humans (AMH), the last glacial maximum, and the Neolithic transition. For some decades it was assumed that the geographical structuring of genetic diversity within Europe was mainly the result of gene flow during and soon after the Neolithic transition, but recent advances in next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies, computer simulation modeling, and ancient DNA (aDNA) analyses are challenging this simplistic view. Here we review the current knowledge on the evolutionary history of humans in Europe based on archaeological and genetic data.

I use Later Stone Age artifacts and faunal remains from Blydefontein Rock Shelter in the eastern Karoo, South Africa to investigate the interaction between risk and hunter-gatherer technological organization. ModiWcations in stone-tool repair and replacement are inXuenced by changes in past environments, resources, and the economic and settlement strategies of these Later Stone Age hunter-gatherers. The technological approaches range from time-minimization tactics to resource-maximization tactics. Time-minimization tactics favor the intense curation of extractive tools and the expedient use of maintenance tools, while resource-maximization tactics employ a more rapid replacement of extractive tools coupled with intense curation of maintenance tools. Time-minimization tactics occur with lower risk wetter conditions and the selection of larger animals for prey, while resource-maximization tactics correspond to higher risk conditions during drier periods and the more intensive exploitation of smaller animals. EYcient technologies were also employed for the rapid production of backed microlithic tools, but this does not appear to be in response to economic or environmental factors. 