Download or read book Quaternary Environmental Change in Southern Africa written by Jasper Knight and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-06-23 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a benchmark study of southern African landscape evolution during the Quaternary, for researchers, professionals and policymakers.
Download or read book The Oldowan written by Kathy Diane Schick and published by Stone Age Institute Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The earliest traces of proto-human technology emerged over 2.5 million years ago on the African continent. Called the Oldowan after the famous site of Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania, these technologies herald a major evolutionary shift in the human lineage. The Oldowan: Case Studies into the Earliest Stone Age provides a critical look at early archaeological sites and their evidence. This volume also shows how a range of probing, multidisciplinary, experimental investigations - including experimental tool-making, comparative studies of ape technologies, biomechanical analysis, and PET studies of brain activity - help us evaluate this tantalizing prehistoric evidence and appreciate its relevance to human evolution.
Download or read book Origins of Human Innovation and Creativity written by Scott A. Elias and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2012-12-31 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Innovation and creativity are two of the key characteristics that distinguish cultural transmission from biological transmission. This book explores a number of questions concerning the nature and timing of the origins of human creativity. What were the driving factors in the development of new technologies? What caused the stasis in stone tool technological innovation in the Early Pleistocene? Were there specific regions and episodes of enhanced technological development, or did it occur at a steady pace where ancestral humans lived? The authors are archaeologists who address these questions, armed with data from ancient artefacts such as shell beads used as jewelry, primitive musical instruments, and sophisticated techniques required to fashion certain kinds of stone into tools. Providing 'state of art' discussions that step back from the usual archaeological publications that focus mainly on individual site discoveries, this book presents the full picture on how and why creativity in Middle to Late Pleistocene archeology/anthropology evolved. - Gives a full, original and multidisciplinary perspective on how and why creativity evolved in the Middle to Late Pleistocene - Enhances our understanding of the big leaps forward in creativity at certain times - Assesses the intellectual creativity of Homo erectus, H. neanderthalensis, and H. sapiens via their artefacts
Download or read book Stone Tools and Fossil Bones written by Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-26 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: International archaeologists examine early Stone Age tools and bones to present the most holistic view to date of the archaeology of human origins.
Download or read book Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Oldowan written by Erella Hovers and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2009-03-08 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An understanding of the uniquely human behavior of stone tool making tackles questions about hominins’ ability to culturally transmit and expand their base of social and practical knowledge and their cognitive capacities for advanced planning. The appearance of stone tools has often been viewed as a threshold event, impacting directly and profoundly the later course of cultural and social evolution. Alternatively, it has been understood as a prelude to significant succeeding changes in behavioral, social and biological evolution of hominins. This book presents a series of recent enquiries into the technological and adaptive significance of Oldowan stone tools. While anchored in a long research tradition, these studies rely on recent discoveries and innovative analyses of the archaeological record of ca. 2.6–1.0 million years ago in Africa and Eurasia, dealing with the earliest lithic industries as manifestations of hominin adaptations and as expressions of hominin cognitive abilities.
Download or read book The Paleoanthropology and Archaeology of Big Game Hunting written by John D. Speth and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-09-08 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since its inception, paleoanthropology has been closely wedded to the idea that big-game hunting by our hominin ancestors arose, first and foremost, as a means for acquiring energy and vital nutrients. This assumption has rarely been questioned, and seems intuitively obvious—meat is a nutrient-rich food with the ideal array of amino acids, and big animals provide meat in large, convenient packages. Through new research, the author of this volume provides a strong argument that the primary goals of big-game hunting were actually social and political—increasing hunter’s prestige and standing—and that the nutritional component was just an added bonus. Through a comprehensive, interdisciplinary research approach, the author examines the historical and current perceptions of protein as an important nutrient source, the biological impact of a high-protein diet and the evidence of this in the archaeological record, and provides a compelling reexamination of this long-held conclusion. This volume will be of interest to researchers in Archaeology, Evolutionary Biology, and Paleoanthropology, particularly those studying diet and nutrition.
Download or read book Archaeology at the Millennium written by Gary M. Feinman and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-10-17 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book an internationally distinguished roster of contributors considers the state of the art of the discipline of archaeology at the turn of the 21st century and charts an ambitious agenda for the future. The chapters address a wide range of topics including, paradigms, practice, and relevance of the discipline; paleoanthropology; fully modern humans; holocene hunter-gatherers; the transition to food and craft production; social inequality; warfare; state and empire formation; and the uneasy relationship between classical and anthropological archaeology.
Download or read book Paleoanthropology written by Milford H. Wolpoff and published by McGraw-Hill Humanities, Social Sciences & World Languages. This book was released on 1999 with total page 944 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second edition of Paleoanthropology has been substantially revised, rewritten and expanded to include the most recent research, theories and developments in the field.
Download or read book Africa the Cradle of Human Diversity written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-11-22 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores important chapters of past and recent African history from a multidisciplinary perspective. It covers an extensive time range from the evolution of early humans to the complex cultural and genetic diversity of modern-day populations in Africa. Through a comprehensive list of chapters, the book focuses on different time-periods, geographic regions and cultural and biological aspects of human diversity across the continent. Each chapter summarises current knowledge with perspectives from a varied set of international researchers from diverse areas of expertise. The book provides a valuable resource for scholars interested in evolutionary history and human diversity in Africa. Contributors are Shaun Aron, Ananyo Choudhury, Bernard Clist, Cesar Fortes-Lima, Rosa Fregel, Jackson S. Kimambo, Faye Lander , Marlize Lombard, Fidelis T. Masao, Ezekia Mtetwa, Gilbert Pwiti, Michèle Ramsay, Thembi Russell, Carina Schlebusch, Dhriti Sengupta, Plan Shenjere-Nyabezi, Mário Vicente.
Download or read book The First Peoples of Oman Palaeolithic Archaeology of the Nejd Plateau written by Jeffrey I. Rose and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2019-07-31 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The archaeological evidence presented in this work encompasses the cultural remains of over a million years of successive human occupation of Nejd Plateau, Dhofar, from the Lower Palaeolithic to the Late Palaeolithic. This volumes suggests a fundamental reconsideration of the role of Southern Arabia in the origin and dispersal of our species.
Download or read book An Introduction to Archaeological Chemistry written by T. Douglas Price and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-10-17 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Archaeological chemistry is a subject of great importance to the study and methodology of archaeology. This comprehensive text covers the subject with a full range of case studies, materials, and research methods. With twenty years of experience teaching the subject, the authors offer straightforward coverage of archaeological chemistry, a subject that can be intimidating for many archaeologists who do not already have a background in the hard sciences. With clear explanations and informative illustrations, the authors have created a highly approachable text, which will help readers overcome that intimidation. Topics covered included: Materials (rock, pottery, bone, charcoal, soils, metals, and others), Instruments (microscopes, NAA, spectrometers, mass spectrometers, GC/MS, XRF & XRD, Case Studies (Provinience, Sediments, Diet Reconstruction, Past Human Movement, Organic Residues). The detailed coverage and clear language will make this useful as an introduction to the study of archaeological chemistry, as well as a useful resource for years after that introduction.
Download or read book Mahale Chimpanzees written by Michio Nakamura and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-09-10 with total page 797 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A major contribution to great-ape research, covering every aspect of the Mahale Mountain Chimpanzee Project to offer new, unique insights.
Download or read book Encyclopedia of Caves and Karst Science written by John Gunn and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-08-02 with total page 1971 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Encyclopedia of Caves and Karst Science contains 350 alphabetically arranged entries. The topics include cave and karst geoscience, cave archaeology and human use of caves, art in caves, hydrology and groundwater, cave and karst history, and conservation and management. The Encyclopedia is extensively illustrated with photographs, maps, diagrams, and tables, and has thematic content lists and a comprehensive index to facilitate searching and browsing.
Download or read book Breathing Life Into Fossils written by Travis Rayne Pickering and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taphonomy, the study of the processes leading to the fossilization of organic remains, is one of the most important avenues of inquiry in human origins research. Breathing Life into Fossils is a major contribution to taphonomic studies in paleoanthropology and natural history. This book emanates from a Stone Age Institute conference celebrating the life and career of naturalist Bob Brain, a pioneer in bringing taphonomic perspectives to human evolutionary studies. Contributions by leading researchers provide a state-of-the art look at the maturing field of taphonomy and the unique perspectives it provides to research into human origins. This important volume reveals approaches taken to the study of bone accumulations at prehistoric sites in Africa, Eurasia, and America, and provides fascinating insights into patterns produced by carnivores, by hunter-gatherers, and by our human ancestors.
Download or read book Swartkrans written by Charles Kimberlin Brain and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Reimagining Regional Analyses written by Tina L. Thurston and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2009 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reimagining Regional Analysis explores the interplay between different methodological and theoretical approaches to regional analysis in archaeology. The past decades have seen significant advances in methods and instrumental techniques, including geographic information systems, the new availability of aerial and satellite images, and greater emphasis on non-traditional data, such as pollen, soil chemistry and botanical remains. At the same time, there are new insights into human impacts on ancient environments and increased recognition of the importance of micro-scale changes in human society. These factors combine to compel a reimagining of regional archaeology. The authors in this volume focus on understanding individual trajectories and the historically contingent relationships between the social, the economic, the political and the sacred as reflected regionally. Among topics considered are the social construction of landscape; use of spatial patterning to interpret social variability; paleoenvironmental reconstruction and human impacts; and social memory and social practice. This book opens a discourse around the spatial patterning of the contingent, recursive relationships between people, their social activities and the environment.
Download or read book The Definition and Interpretation of Levallois Technology written by Harold Lewis Dibble and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
