The Still Bay (SB) and Howiesons Poort (HP) industries, endemic to southern Africa and dating to approximately 72-59 ka, have received a great deal of archaeological attention by virtue of their striking patterns of technology and their close association with some of the earliest unambiguously symbolic objects found in southern Africa. This paper reviews recent literature concerning SB and HP lithic assemblages, faunal remains, paleoenvironmental contexts, and chronological information. It argues that SB biface-dominated technology was designed to be multifunctional and to economize lithic raw material, a strategy well-suited to foragers moving frequently across a wide range of ecological zones in which access to resources and prey encounters were unpredictable. In contrast, HP blade-based tools, using backed blades as modular components in compound weapons, were efficient and reliable hunting weapons designed for specific tasks. More costly and difficult to maintain, HP technology resulted from the targeting of known, localized, and seasonal resources through planned logistical forays. We argue that these complicated patterns of innovation represent separate cultural responses to environmental instability during Marine Isotope Stage 4 and demographic pressures in southern Africa at this time. Against the backdrop of environmental and demographic shifts, the emergence of these innovative tools and associated symbolic objects reflects distinct but quintessentially modern cultural behaviors ethnographically associated with risk reduction, reciprocity, and information sharing.Résumé Les industries lithiques de Still Bay (SB) et de Howiesons Poort (HP), omniprésentes en Afrique australe et datant approximativement de 75-59 ka, ont reçu beaucoup d'attention de la part des archéologues en raison de leurs patterns technologiques frappant, ainsi qu'à leur association aux plus anciens objets symboliques trouvés dans cette région africaine. Cet article révise la littérature récente portant sur Afr Archaeol Rev (2012) 29:7-50 les assemblages lithiques et fauniques, les contextes paléoenvironnementaux, ainsi que les données chronologiques des industries SB et HP. L'article soutient que la technologie SB, dominée par les bifaces, fut créé pour être multifonctionnelle et pour économiser du matériel lithique brut; une stratégie bien adaptée à des groupes de chasseurs-cueilleurs se déplaçant fréquemment à travers différentes zones écologiques, où l'accès aux ressources et au gibier était imprévisible. Inversement, les outils laminaires HP, utilisant des lames supportées comme composants modulaires dans la fabrication d'armes composites, étaient spécifiquement fabriquées pour être des armes de chasse efficaces et fiables. Étant plus coûteuse et difficile à entretenir, la technologie HP fut le résultat d'une adaptation à des ressources bien connues, localisées et saisonnières, procurées le biais d'incursions logistiques planifiées. Nous soutenons que ces innovations technologiques complexes représentent des adaptations culturelles...
Summary Towards the end of the fifth millennium BC, a new funerary tradition developed in Iberia and elsewhere in Atlantic Europe involving the use of megalithic tombs and natural or artificially constructed caves for the collective burial of the dead. Ancestor worship has been the most common theoretical framework used to explain this Neolithic burial tradition, despite demographic information which indicates that these burials house the remains of a significant percentage of children and adolescents. Using data from Late Neolithic (3500–2500 BC) tombs in south‐western Iberia as a departure point, in this paper we suggest that by reconsidering the impact that childhood mortality had upon burial and grave visitation practices in Neolithic communities, archaeologists can gain valuable phenomenological information which will allow for a more robust, multivocal interpretative approach.
a b s t r a c tThis study uses strontium isotopes ( 87 Sr/ 86 Sr) in dental enamel from burial populations related to the fortified Chalcolithic settlement site of Zambujal (c. 2800e1800 BC) to distinguish the presence of nonlocal individuals. Zambujal is located in the Estremadura region of Portugal near the Atlantic coast and has long been considered a central location of population aggregation, craft production, and trade during a time of increasing political centralization and social stratification until its eventually abandonment during the Bronze Age. While it is assumed that population migration and long distance trade played an important role in the region's development, little is known about the migration patterns of individuals or groups. The results of this study find that nine percent (5 out of 55) of the total surveyed individuals can be classified as non-local (based on 87 Sr/ 86 Sr values distinct from the local bioavailable range of 0.7090e0.7115 as defined by 2sd of the sampled human mean), the majority of which come from one burial site, Cova da Moura. Comparisons with other regional data suggest the possibility that some of these non-locals come from the Alentejo region of the Portuguese interior, corresponding with known exchange patterns.
From an analysis of over 3,000 beads and pendants from seven contemporary Late Neolithic/Copper Age (3500–2500 BC) sites in the Portuguese Estremadura, two dominant patterns emerge: (1) most beads show a high degree of standardization in terms of size and shape and are made from local materials; and (2) a minority are made from non-local, rare, and visually distinctive materials (e.g.variscite, ivory), and are less standardized and more labour-intensive. The emphasis on a wide-range of materials suggests that uncommon ornaments may have functioned as ‘value added' materials with special significance, enhancing potential design combinations. Material preferences for beads, bracelets, pendants, plaques, and ground stone tools (da Veiga Ferreira 1951; Lillios 1997, 2008) appear to mirror other Western Mediterranean raw material preferences for ornaments and other polished stone objects (Goñi Quinteiro et al. 1999; Harrison and Orozco Köhler 2001; Pascual Benito 1998; Skeates 2010; Teruel Berbell 1986) suggesting that the Estremadura participated in aspects of a wider system of shared symbolic values.
Experiments in replicating facsimiles of Late Neolithic engraved slate plaques from southwestern Iberia suggest that variation related to fine-motor skills is greater between individual engravers than within the work of a single engraver. This implies that the work of different individuals producing certain classes of material culture may be distinguishable on the basis of repetitive, idiosyncratic traits. These studies also generate otherwise unobtainable information about the experience of plaque making. We examine past and present methodological attempts to differentiate unconscious, individual styles from intentional, culturally mediated styles, and discuss why in some cases it is extremely difficult to separate such variation. We explore the link between individual variation and theoretical notions of the individual, and its implications for understanding the organization, transmission, and shared expression of ancient social practices.
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