Gentelles-Le Mont de l’Evangile (département de la Somme,France) : un site de plateau occupé de l’Acheuléen au Micoquien

The palaeolithic site of Gentelles (Somme, France) is situated on a chalky plateau unlike most Lower and Middle Palaeolithic sites of the Somme basin, which are related to fluvial environments (alluvial and slope deposits). The archaeological material of the site excavated at Gentelles on several thousand square meters is recovered from the infilling of a dolina. The archaeological sequence is attributed to Late Middle and Upper Pleistocene (MIS 10 to MIS 5). The assignment of the loess infilling the dolina to MIS 6 is supported by ESR/U-Th dates obtained on teeth and the IRSL age of the sediment. All lithic assemblages include bifacial production and debitage with cores showing one or several surfaces of debitage. There is no evidence of Levallois flaking methods, which are very common in many Middle Palaeolithic industries of Northern France. The first steps of the reducing sequences are not present in most lithic assemblages. Some faunal remains (equids, bovids) have been discovered in the loess deposits. In most cases, the function of the site corresponds to short occupations of hunters moving on the plateau. In contrast, the CLG assemblage (MIS 8) which shows many phases of the reducing sequence suggests longer occupations.     

A Preliminary Shoreline Survey of Lima Reservoir: Archaeology in the Centennial Valley of Southwestern Montana

Abstract

During the summer of 1974 an archaeological reconnaissance of the Centennial Valley, located in Southwestern Montana, resulted in the location of 35 archaeological sites. These sites include occupation sites, tipi rings, and three obsidian quarries—the first verified obsidian sources in Montana. Numerous artifacts were recovered from these sites. Projectile points of the Cody Complex, McKean Complex and numerous corner-notched varieties indicate a long period of occupation of the Centennial Valley. Preliminary analysis of the obsidian, recovered as artifacts or debitage from sites in the valley, indicates extensive use of the Centennial quarries as well as a heavy reliance on sources outside the valley.     

Les industries lithiques moustériennes de la Baume Moula-Guercy (Soyons,Ardèche). Fouilles 1993–1999

The Moula-Guercy cave is located in southeastern France in the middle part and on the west bank of the Rhone valley, 80 meters above the Pleistocene Rhone River between the Ardeche Mountains and the western part of the Alps. Excavations spanning from 1993–1999 have yielded 2595 lithic artefacts out of which over 92% are coming from the four main layers (lV, VIII, XIV and XV) corresponding to the seasonal hunting site. The stratigraphic sequence is exclusively Middle Paleolithic. Paleontological and geological analysis led to the division of the sequence into 19 layers grouped into three climatic phases corresponding to isotope stages 4 to 6. The layer XV unearthed the remains of 6 cannibalized Neanderthals: children, adolescents, and adults. The study of the lithic assemblages highlights two distinct sets corresponding to layers IV–VIII and XIV–XV. This probably indicates that the same territory was travelled by two human groups with different technical traditions ten thousands years apart in very different climatic and ecological contexts. This study is also questioning whether the discoid debitage (sensu Bordes) should be part of the Levallois philosophy.     

Techno-Cultural Characterization of the MIS 5 (c. 105 – 90 Ka) Lithic Industries at Blombos Cave,Southern Cape,South Africa

Blombos Cave is well known as an important site for understanding the evolution of symbolically mediated behaviours among Homo sapiens during the Middle Stone Age, and during the Still Bay in particular. The lower part of the archaeological sequence (M3 phase) contains 12 layers dating to MIS 5 with ages ranging from 105 to 90 ka ago (MIS 5c to 5b) that provide new perspectives on the technological behaviour of these early humans. The new data obtained from our extensive technological analysis of the lithic material enriches our currently limited knowledge of this time period in the Cape region. By comparing our results with previously described lithic assemblages from sites south of the Orange River, we draw new insights on the extent of the techno-cultural ties between these sites and the M3 phase at Blombos Cave and highlight the importance of this phase within the Middle Stone Age cultural stratigraphy.     

Early Evidence of Acheulean Settlement in Northwestern Europe - La Noira Site,a 700 000 Year-Old Occupation in the Center of France

The human settlement of Europe during Pleistocene times was sporadic and several stages have been recognized, both from paleaoanthropological and archaeological records. If the first phase of hominin occupation (as early as 1.4 Ma) seems mainly restricted to the southern part of the continent, the second phase, characterized by specific lithic tools (handaxes), is linked to Acheulean settlements and to the emergence of Homo heidelbergensis, the ancestor of Neanderthals. This phase reached northwestern Europe and is documented in numerous sites in Germany, Great Britain and northern France, generally after 600 ka.At la Noira (Brinay, Central France), the Middle Pleistocene alluvial formation of the Cher River covers an archaeological level associated with a slope deposit (diamicton). The lithic assemblage from this level includes Large Cutting Tools (LCTs), flakes and cores, associated with numerous millstone slabs. The lithic series is classified as Acheulean on the basis of both technological and typological analyses. Cryoturbation features indicate that the slope deposits and associated archaeological level were strongly frozen and disturbed after hominin occupation and before fluvial deposition. Eight sediment samples were dated by the electron spin resonance (ESR) method and the weighted average age obtained for the fluvial sands overlying the slope deposits is 665±55 ka. This age is older than previous chronological data placing the first European Acheulean assemblages north of 45^th parallel north at around 500 ka and modifies our current vision of the initial peopling of northern Europe. Acheulean settlements are older than previously assumed and the oldest evidences are not only located in southern Europe. La Noira is the oldest evidence of Acheulean presence in north-western Europe and attests to the possibility of pioneering phases of Acheulean settlement which would have taken place on a Mode 1-type substratum as early as 700 ka. The lithic assemblage from la Noira thus provides behavioral and technological data on early Acheulean occupation in Europe and contributes to our understanding of the diffusion of this tradition.     

Late Quaternary Bison Population Changes On The Southern Plains

Abstract

An analysis of faunal lists from 160 archaeological and paleontological sites in the Southern Plains reveals a success of long-term periods of presence and absence of the genus Bison in the region. Two absence periods are from about 6000-5000 B.C. to 2500 B.C. and A.D. 500 to A.D. 1200-1300. These long-term changes seem to indicate a combination of fluctuating bison population densities and range shifts. Certain previously documented prehistoric cultural events in particular subareas ofthe Southern Plains vicinity are examined in light of these data.     

泥河湾盆地麻地沟E6和E7旧石器地点发掘简报

泥河湾盆地是早期人类扩散至东北亚最早证据所在地,越来越多的早更新世遗址的发现使得该地区在研究中国北方早更新世人类演化与生存行为领域备受学术界关注。麻地沟遗址群(MDG)是近年来新发现的早更新世遗址群,它位于泥河湾盆地岑家湾台地古人类活动集中区域,由包括E6和E7在内的9个地点组成。MDG-E6与MDG-E7地点发现于2007年,2012-2013年正式发掘,揭露面积分别为30m2和20m2,出土遗物分别有184件和174件。石制品原料主要取自遗址周边的燧石、白云岩和火山岩,类型包括石核、石片和石器等,剥片和修理技术为硬锤直接打击法且简单随意,组合特征与非洲奥杜威工业(Oldowan)相似。动物化石均很破碎,难以鉴定动物种属。根据地层和初步古地磁测年资料,推测古人类在遗址活动的年龄大致为1.07 Ma BP。     

Fire-Cracked Rock As Tools: Wear-Pattern Analysis

Abstract

Within the last ten years, lithic studies have focused intensively on chipped stone tool technology, particularly biface reduction procedures. Recent analysis of lithic materials from a multi-component Middle Missouri Village site (32ME7) in North Dakota revealed the necessity for intensively examining another artifact class, fire-cracked rock. A considerable quantity of fire-cracked granitic stones exhibited one or more wear patterns assumed to represent wear suggesting recycled procurement and utilization of a common resource. Supplemented by archaeological analogs and analysis of secondary attributes (i.e., archaeological context and systemic context), the wear pattern study resulted in the identification of five functional classes of fire-cracked rock tools.     

Rethinking the Hummalian industry

Recent research reveals that the production of elongated blanks using different flaking techniques is an important part of the Early Middle Palaeolithic (EMP) industries in Near Eastern sites dated between 250 and 160 ka ago. The excavation at Hummal located in the arid steppe of Central Syria produced blade industries located in the stratigraphy between the Yabrudian and Levalloiso-Mousterian and this sequence is dated to about 200 ky. This paper presents data on the Hummalian culture from its discovery in 1980 to the systematic excavation of in situ archaeological layers between 1997 and 2010. Today the Hummalian industry is seen as a single, but very complex reduction strategy related to both the Laminar and the Levallois-like system of debitage. It is a unique reduction system containing diverse types of core volume management within which blanks of different morphologies have been produced from a single core using a direct, hammer percussion. Though, the Hummalian still shares many techno-typological similarities with the others laminar, lithic assemblages found on the Early Middle Palaeolithic sites in Levant, the same chronological and stratigraphical position and similar land-use strategies. As the EMP blade industries in Levant are preceded by the Acheulo-Yabrudian techno-complexes, the shift between both these lithic complexes, already seen in their chronological boundary, may also imply a technological discontinuity and possibly differing human populations.     

Some Aspects Of Diet And Butchering Techniques Among Prehistoric Indians In South Dakota

Abstract

Faunal remains from ten South Dakota archaeological sites, ranging temporally from ca. 600 B.C. - A.D. 1600, are identified and analyzed by the method of White (1952). This analysis shows what species were used, and in what numbers, in sites of the three major temporal divisions; Woodland, Middle Missouri and Coalescent. Bison are the preferred animals in all time periods. Group related butchering techniques are discussed.     

Lithic Resource Utilization Patterns in the Middle Missouri Subarea

Abstract

Some years ago Donald Lehmer (1954) suggested, on the basis of data from sites near the Oahe Dam, that Middle Missouri Tradition and Coalescent Tradition populations practiced distinctly different lithic resource exploitation patterns. This study attempts to evaluate and expand upon Lehmer’s observations using data from four archaeological sites near Mobridge, South Dakota. An underlying premise is that studies of lithic resource exploitation must be grounded in a firm understanding of the geologic and geographic parameters of the natural resource base. Toward this end, field reconnaissanceand geologic information are used to define 12 stone types which occur in high frequency in the chipped stone artifact assemblages and which have reasonably well defined natural source locations and conditions. Comparisons of the four site assemblages according to the frequency of occurrence of these stone types supports Lehmer’s observations, and illustratescontrastive patterns of resource exploitation associated with the two cultural traditions. Coalescent populations relied heavily on several stone types occurring naturally in the Big Badlands and Black Hills of South Dakota, while Middle Missouri populations generally ignored these sources and relied heavily on Knife River Flint as a major lithic resource. These contrastive exploitation patterns appear to have remained relatively constant through time and across considerable space.     

东秦岭卢氏盆地新发现的旧石器

2019年6-8月,在秦岭东部南洛河流域河南卢氏盆地开展古人类和旧石器考古遗址调查,在南洛河不同阶地之上的黄土堆积地层中新发现旧石器地点27处,采集石制品123件。部分石制品采自于阶地顶部暴露的黄土地层剖面上。石制品包括石核、石片、断块、碎屑、石器等类型,整体属于简单的石核-石片工业。原料为取自河滩砾石堆积的石英、砂岩和石英岩等。石核为简单剥片的单台面石核和转向剥片石核。石器组合中既有手镐、砍砸器等重型类型,也有以石片为毛坯的中小型刮削器等。根据黄土-古土壤地层序列初步判断,多数地点的石制品出自黄土L1-S2地层堆积,年代范围涵盖中更新世晚期至晚更新世;西庄村南（19LS35）和九寨山（19LS27）两个地点的2件石制品则出自更早的S9和S13古土壤地层堆积中,它们的发现为进一步探寻南洛河流域最早的古人类活动提供了关键性的考古学证据。本次调查扩大了卢氏盆地旧石器时代遗存的时空分布范围,为本区域旧石器遗址的保护和制订研究计划提供了更为全面的依据。     

泥河湾盆地板井子旧石器时代遗址的形成过程

板井子遗址是泥河湾盆地晚更新世早期的一处重要遗址,光释光年代为距今8～9万年.本文以2015年出土的考古材料为研究对象,从地层的沉积环境、考古材料本体的埋藏特点两个角度,对板井子遗址的形成过程进行分析.分析表明,主文化层第5层为近原地埋藏类型,水流作用对小尺寸标本的保存及标本的空间集聚特征影响较大,但石制品技术类型组合...     

Systemic Change and Lithic Debris: The Nine Mile Creek Survey

Abstract

Data from 55 archaeological sites located during the course of a survey of a portion of Nine Mile Creek northeast of Lawrence, Kansas were analyzed as the focus of a seminar at the University of Kansas in 1969. The recognition of significant variation in lithic debris samples from the Nine Mile Creek sites resulted in the development of a seriational procedure and an explanatory model in terms of temporally changing subsistence patterns.     

Fort Union Porcellanite And Fused Glass: Distinctive Lithic Materials Of Coal Burn Origin On The Northern Plains

Abstract

Among the most common surface indicators of archaeological sites in south central Montana and northern Wyoming are the grey and red porcellanite flakes resulting from tool making activities. Although one of the major lithic materials used by prehistoric inhabitants of the northern plains region, porcellanite’s identity has remained relatively unknown. Amateur and professional archaeologist alike have loosely referred to this material as “metamorphosed siltstone”, “baked shale”, “Powder River chert”, “grey chert”, “fired brick”, “jasper”, etc. Similarly, fused glass is often misrepresented as obsidian. Because of its unique origin, definablearea of occurrence (the western coal region, the European coal fields, and perhaps other coalbearing areas), and its extensive utilization by the prehistoric populations of the region, porcellanite and fused glass deserve additional attention from archaeologists.     

Les premières occupations humaines dans le Sud du Brésil : une vision géoarchéologique intégrée

Between ≈13,000 and 7000 BP, the territory of southern Brazil was occupied in a stable and diverse manner, with the main anthropic trace being in lithic material. Archaeological research has provided more consistent evidence of occupation in different environments and associated with different stratigraphic formation processes since the Late Pleistocene. Therefore, this paper proposes to analyse the history of the earliest evidence of pre-colonial occupation in southern Brazil from a geoarchaeological point of view, focusing on stratigraphic and chronological data and the process of formation of archaeological layers. Thirty-three stratigraphic sections were analysed from 31 archaeological sites distributed along the Paraná, Uruguay and Atlantic basins. Evidence of archaeological levels was found in different geomorphological contexts: plateau, slopes, valley bottom, alluvial plains and rockshelters. The results indicate that the oldest archaeological levels in the region were formed in the Late Pleistocene, associated with periods of fluvial incision that signal important changes in the southern river systems, characterized by the formation of alluvial and colluvial-alluvial terraces in the valley bottoms. This is followed in the Lower Holocene by widespread colluvial processes in the incised valleys, alluvium in the middle river courses and anthropogenic deposits in the rockshelters that formed the main ancient levels. In the early Middle Holocene, sedimentary deposits containing archaeological material decrease significantly, marking regional changes in lithic industries. The data indicate that there appears to be a threshold between deposition and archaeology in the Early Holocene, characterized by high stratigraphic resolution, where stratigraphic sequences show greater thickness and density of archaeological levels. Finally, the diversity of inter-regional lithic assemblages is clearly highlighted, marked by the predominance of industries on pebbles and blocks, the debitage of flakes and blades as a support for various tools in the interior basins and the shaping of small projectile points on the Atlantic slope.     

Cranial Variation and Microevolution in Arikara Skeletal Populations

Abstract

Crania from six archaeological sites in South Dakota are analyzed. Chronologically the sites fall into two groups, an early group and a late group, with A.D. 1750 as the approximate boundary between them. It is shown that the late group is morphologically diverse, while the early group is relatively homogeneous. The morphological pattern is related to the increasing intensity of evolutionary processes as the contact period progressed.     

An Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Investigation of Selected Areas in Kootenai National Forest,Northwestern Montana

Abstract

During a preliminary archaeological survey of selected areas in Kootenai National Forest, located in northwestern Montana, ten archaeological sites were recorded. The majority of these sites were located on the terraces of the Kootenai River. These sites vary from surface and buried occupations, to numerous buried firehearth sites, a rockpile site and a vision quest site. Data from this survey were utilized in conjunction with ethnohistorical data to determine significant aboriginal use of river bank areas in extreme northwestern Montana.     

黑龙江海林小龙头山旧石器遗址发掘简报

小龙头山遗址位于黑龙江省海林市海浪河岸边,地理坐标44°25’36.2"N,129°10’43.1"E。该遗址发现于2012年,2014年发掘10 m²,获得石制品82件。原料以玄武岩为主,还有黑曜岩、凝灰岩、安山岩和英安岩等。剥片技术以石叶、细石叶技术为特点,石器类型有雕刻器、尖状器、两面器和大型的斧形器。个别石制品可以拼合,说明属于原地埋藏,在文化层中的炭粒测得的¹⁴C数据为距今13185±40年,为末次盛冰期后的转暖阶段。     

Palaeoloxodon and Human Interaction: Depositional Setting,Chronology and Archaeology at the Middle Pleistocene Ficoncella Site (Tarquinia,Italy)

The Ficoncella site in northern Latium (Italy) represents a unique opportunity to investigate the modalities of a short occupation in an alluvial setting during the Lower Palaeolithic. The small excavation area yielded a lithic assemblage, a carcass of Palaeoloxodon antiquus, and some other faunal remains. The main objectives of the study are to better characterize the depositional context where the Palaeoloxodon and the lithic assemblage occur, and to evaluate with greater precision the occupation dynamics. A 25 m-long well was drilled just above the top of the terrace of the Ficoncella site and faunal and lithic remains were analyzed with current and innovative techniques. The archaeological site contains floodplain deposits as it is located next to a small incised valley that feeds into a larger valley of the Mignone River. A tephra layer capping the site is ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar dated to 441± 8 ka. Collectively, the geochronologic, tephrochronologic and geologic data, suggest the site was occupied during MIS 13. The new results should prompt further research at Ficoncella in order to improve our understanding of the dynamics of human settlement in Europe during the Early to Middle Pleistocene.