Discriminating between the end products of the earlier Middle Stone Age sub-stages at Klasies River using biplot methodology

Wurz, Sarah; Roux, Niël le; Gardner, Sugnet; Deacon, H. J.

doi:10.1016/s0305-4403(03)00009-8

Cited by 35 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 22 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Ocher processing and shellfishing continue to play a major role at sites dating to early MIS 5, such as Hoedjiespunt 1 (Volman 1978;Parkington 2003;Will et al 2013), Sea Harvest (Volman 1978), Ysterfontein 1 (Steele and Klein 2005;Avery et al 2008), Blombos Cave Langejans et al 2012), and Klasies River Mouth (Thackeray 1988;d'Errico et al 2012c;Langejans et al 2012). By the middle of MIS 5, shifts in lithic technology can be observed, for example, at Diepkloof Rock Shelter (Porraz et al 2008Texier et al 2010) and Klasies (Wurz 2002;Wurz et al 2003;Villa et al 2010).…”

Section: Can We Link Cultural Innovations To Increases In Behavioral mentioning

confidence: 99%

Increasing Behavioral Flexibility? An Integrative Macro-Scale Approach to Understanding the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa

Kandel

Bolus

Bretzke

et al. 2015

J Archaeol Method Theory

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Middle Stone Age (MSA) of southern Africa represents a period during which anatomically modern humans adopted a series of diverse cultural innovations. Researchers generally attribute these behavioral changes to environmental, neurological, or demographic causes, but none of these alone offers a satisfactory explanation. Even as patterns at site level come into focus, large-scale trends in cultural expansions remain poorly understood. This paper presents different ways to view diachronic datasets from localities in southern Africa and specifically tests hypotheses of environmental and cultural causality. We employ an array of analyses in an attempt to understand large-scale variability observed during the MSA. We evaluated the diversity of stone tool assemblages to model site use, examined transport distances of lithic raw materials to understand patterns of movement, assessed the cultural capacities required to manufacture and use different sets of tools, applied stochastic models to examine the geographic distribution of sites, and reconstructed biome classes and climatic constraints. Our large-scale analysis allowed the research team to integrate different types of information and examine diachronic trends during the MSA. Based on our results, the range of cultural capacity expanded during the MSA. We define cultural capacity as the behavioral potential of a group expressed through the problemsolution distance required to manufacture and use tools. Our dataset also indicates that the actual behavior exhibited by MSA people, their cultural performance as expressed in the archaeological record, is not equivalent to their cultural capacity. Instead we observe that the J Archaeol Method Theory

show abstract

Section: Can We Link Cultural Innovations To Increases In Behavioral mentioning

confidence: 99%

Increasing Behavioral Flexibility? An Integrative Macro-Scale Approach to Understanding the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa

Kandel

Bolus

Bretzke

et al. 2015

J Archaeol Method Theory

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Therefore, the extent to which the reduction sequence vs. chaîne opératoire debate will be changed by recent innovations in chaîne opératoire methods will depend on how the issues raised by the Ford-Spaulding debate are addressed. I am thinking here specifically of Wurz et al's (2003) use of novel multivariate statistics to document desired end-products in a way reminiscent as much of Spaulding as it is of the chaîne opératoire approach. Bleed (2001: 120-121) describes the emic approach to characterizing archaeological assemblages through the discovery of a predetermined process as the teleological model of sequence studies.…”

Section: The Tyranny Of the Emic Goalmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While individuals trained in both theoretical literatures may not be able to act as culture brokers in Geertz's sense (1960), their ability to contextualize the theoretical differences in relation to the methodological differences may allow useful aspects of both disciplinary inheritances to be reworked in order to move the debate in a new direction. In fact, many examples can be cited that blur the lines between the approaches (Adler et al 2004;Baumler 1988;Henry 1995;Hovers 1998Hovers , 2009Hovers and Raveh 2000;Tostevin 2003b Tostevin andŠkrdla 2006;Van Peer 1992;Wurz 2002;Wurz et al 2003). Providing a venue for such studies to be read by proponents of each approach is one of the goals of this special issue.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Untitled

2011

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

There are more areas of overlap as well as distinction between the Reduction Sequence and Chaîne Opératoire methods of archaeological analysis than the current debate recognizes. While methodological differences have been acknowledged, high-level theory differs to a greater degree than is currently appreciated, partly due to the social practice of archaeology in different contexts. This paper compares and evaluates examples of reduction sequence and chaîne opératoire research to demonstrate how high-level theory goals impact middle-range theory and even low-level theory practices (i.e., how data are constructed and published). The paper then utilizes the distinction between an emic decision hierarchy and an etic production hierarchy to elucidate how the practitioners of both methods can more successfully integrate their approaches. An alternative to both methods is offered to demonstrate how common epistemological problems can be resolved. As an example of this alternative approach, the paper compares blank production behaviors and tool kit morphologies among Levantine Ahmarian, as well as among Levantine Aurignacian assemblages, from Kebara Cave, Israel. This case study demonstrates that the two Ahmarian assemblages are more different, rather than more similar to each other, in comparison to the Levantine Aurignacian assemblages. This suggests that a typological approach to these assemblages conceals significant behavioral data.

show abstract

“…Assays for the MSA 11 upper in cave one are between 85 and 100 ka (Vogel, 2001;Feathers, 2002) and in cave 1A approximately 80 ka (Grün et al, 1990;Vogel, 2001). The sample studied here is the same as that described in Wurz (2002) and Wurz et al (2003) where details on the stratigraphy and dates are given.…”

Section: Klasies Rivermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An advantage of these plots is that information is provided for the multidimensional data points together with all the variables in the form of calibrated axes. A discussion on the details of CVA biplots and alpha-bags is in Wurz et al, (2003). …”

Section: Statistical Comparison Of the Points And Blades From Klasiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Continental Patterns in Stone Tools: A Technological and Biplot-Based Comparison of Early Late Pleistocene Assemblages from Northern and Southern Africa

et al. 2005

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Discriminating between the end products of the earlier Middle Stone Age sub-stages at Klasies River using biplot methodology

Cited by 35 publications

References 22 publications

Increasing Behavioral Flexibility? An Integrative Macro-Scale Approach to Understanding the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa

Increasing Behavioral Flexibility? An Integrative Macro-Scale Approach to Understanding the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa

Untitled

Continental Patterns in Stone Tools: A Technological and Biplot-Based Comparison of Early Late Pleistocene Assemblages from Northern and Southern Africa

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About