Cultural taxonomies in the Paleolithic—Old questions, novel perspectives

Riede, Felix; Araujo, Astolfo; Barton, C. Michael; Bergsvik, Knut Andreas; Groucutt, Huw S.; Hussain, Shumon T.; Pablo, Javier Fernández‐López de; Maier, Andreas; Marwick, Ben; Pyne, Lydia; Ranhorn, Kathryn L.; Reynolds, Natasha; Riel‐Salvatore, Julien; Sauer, Florian; Serwatka, Kamil; Zander, Annabell

doi:10.1002/evan.21819

Cited by 16 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…With the goal of better understanding the cultural evolution and adaptation of Final Palaeolithic (ca. 15,000-11,000 cal BP) hunter gatherers in Europe (Riede et al, 2020) and in an effort to move towards a reliable, case-transferrable analytical toolkit for doing so, we here present a multi-step comparative exploration of data capture, outline-based geometric morphometric and clustering techniques. In the following, we re-analyse a series of published case studies using their lithic projectile point outline data in order to first develop and then validate our analytical protocol.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design Space Constraints and the Cultural Taxonomy of European Final Palaeolithic Large Tanged Points: A Comparison of Typological, Landmark-Based and Whole-Outline Geometric Morphometric Approaches

2021

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The identification of material culture variability remains an important goal in archaeology, as such variability is commonly coupled with interpretations of cultural transmission and adaptation. While most archaeological cultures are defined on the basis of typology and research tradition, cultural evolutionary reasoning combined with computer-aided methods such as geometric morphometrics (GMM) can shed new light on the validity of many such entrenched groupings, especially in regard to European Upper Palaeolithic projectile points and their classification. Little methodological consistency, however, makes it difficult to compare the conclusions of such studies. Here, we present an effort towards a benchmarked, case-transferrable toolkit that comparatively explores relevant techniques centred on outline-based GMM. First, we re-analyse two previously conducted landmark-based analyses of stone artefacts using our whole-outline approach, demonstrating that outlines can offer an efficient and reliable alternative. We then show how a careful application of clustering algorithms to GMM outline data is able to successfully discriminate between distinctive tool shapes and suggest that such data can also be used to infer cultural evolutionary histories matching already observed typo-chronological patterns. Building on this baseline work, we apply the same methods to a dataset of large tanged points from the European Final Palaeolithic (ca. 15,000–11,000 cal BP). Exploratively comparing the structure of design space within and between the datasets analysed here, our results indicate that Final Palaeolithic tanged point shapes do not fall into meaningful regional or cultural evolutionary groupings but exhibit an internal outline variance comparable to spatiotemporally much closer confined artefact groups of post-Palaeolithic age. We discuss these contrasting results in relation to the architecture of lithic tool design spaces and technological differences in blank production and tool manufacture.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design Space Constraints and the Cultural Taxonomy of European Final Palaeolithic Large Tanged Points: A Comparison of Typological, Landmark-Based and Whole-Outline Geometric Morphometric Approaches

2021

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“…A renewed interest on issues of taxonomy (Riede et al 2020) and convergence between stone tool assemblages (O'Brien et al 2018;Groucutt 2020) calls for a reappraisal of what we call the IUP at a global scale (Kuhn 2019). Ultimately, this Fig.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Initial Upper Paleolithic in Central and East Asia: Blade Technology, Cultural Transmission, and Implications for Human Dispersals

Zwyns

2021

J Paleo Arch

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Archaeological assemblages labeled as Initial Upper Paleolithic are often seen as possible evidence for dispersals of Homo sapiens populations in Eurasia, ca. 45,000 years ago. While most authors agree that the IUP can be recognized by a set of shared features, there is far less consensus on what these features are, and what they mean. Because of methodological challenges inherent to long distance comparisons, documenting and establishing a firm connection between archaeological assemblages remain difficult and often draw legitimate skepticism. There could be many reasons why Paleolithic hunter-gatherers used comparable technologies, but it usually comes down to two kinds of processes: cultural transmission or convergence. In other words, technological similarities may illustrate a cultural link between regions or may be caused by mechanisms of independent reinvention between more distantly related populations. Here, I focus on three assemblages from the Siberian Altai, Zabaikal region, and North Mongolia to address one main question: is there such thing as a united IUP in Central and East Asia, or are we looking at unrelated yet comparable adaptive processes? First, I describe the common structure of lithic blade production at the sites, with special attention to derived features relative to the regional sequence. After comparing the complexity of the production system with those of other lithic technologies, I suggest that this coherent, intricate, yet unprecedented technological pattern found across contiguous regions in Asia is better explained by transmission processes than by multiple unrelated reinventions, or local developments. The blade production system described in Siberia and Mongolia reoccur as a package, which is consistent with indirect bias and/or conformist cultural transmission processes. Overall, the results point toward close contact between individuals and hunter gatherer populations, and supports the recognition of a broad cultural unit to encapsulate Asian IUP assemblages. Considering other lines of evidence, the geographical and chronological distribution of Asian IUP lithic technology is consistent with a dispersal of Homo sapiens populations in Central and East Asia during the Marine Isotopic Stage 3, although the geographical origin of such movement is less clear.

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“…It also implies a series of limitations, including a methodological heterogeneity underlying the construction and interpretation of cultural taxonomies [ 48 ]. A novel research perspective focused on a population-based rethinking of artefact variability is starting to overcome these shortcomings, and it can significantly contribute to creating more robust archaeological systematics to be reconciled with archaeogenetic and palaeoenvironmental datasets [ 49 , 50 ].…”

Section: The Scope For Assessing Cultural Evolution In Prehistoric Archaeologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconstructing social networks of Late Glacial and Holocene hunter–gatherers to understand cultural evolution

Romano

Lozano

Pablo

2021

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Culture is increasingly being framed as a driver of human phenotypes and behaviour. Yet very little is known about variations in the patterns of past social interactions between humans in cultural evolution. The archaeological record, combined with modern evolutionary and analytical approaches, provides a unique opportunity to investigate broad-scale patterns of cultural change. Prompted by evidence that a population's social connectivity influences cultural variability, in this article, we revisit traditional approaches used to infer cultural evolutionary processes from the archaeological data. We then propose that frameworks considering multi-scalar interactions (from individuals to populations) over time and space have the potential to advance knowledge in cultural evolutionary theory. We describe how social network analysis can be applied to analyse diachronic structural changes and test cultural transmission hypotheses using the archaeological record (here specifically from the Marine Isotope Stage 3 ca 57–29 ka onwards). We argue that the reconstruction of prehistoric networks offers a timely opportunity to test the interplay between social connectivity and culture and ultimately helps to disentangle evolutionary mechanisms in the archaeological record. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘The emergence of collective knowledge and cumulative culture in animals, humans and machines’.

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Cultural taxonomies in the Paleolithic—Old questions, novel perspectives

Cited by 16 publications

References 14 publications

Design Space Constraints and the Cultural Taxonomy of European Final Palaeolithic Large Tanged Points: A Comparison of Typological, Landmark-Based and Whole-Outline Geometric Morphometric Approaches

Design Space Constraints and the Cultural Taxonomy of European Final Palaeolithic Large Tanged Points: A Comparison of Typological, Landmark-Based and Whole-Outline Geometric Morphometric Approaches

The Initial Upper Paleolithic in Central and East Asia: Blade Technology, Cultural Transmission, and Implications for Human Dispersals

Reconstructing social networks of Late Glacial and Holocene hunter–gatherers to understand cultural evolution

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