Randall White

The evolution of human hunting

The idea of human hunting.- Reconstructing how early people exploited animals: problems and prospects.- Were there elephant hunters at Torralba?.- Bodies, brawn, brains and noses: human ancestors and human predation.- Hunting in late Upper Paleolithic Western Europe.- Prehistoric, plains-mountain, large-mammal, communal hunting strategies.- Analysis of kill-butchery bonebeds and interpretation of Paleoindian hunting.- The Pleistocene archaeology of Beringia.- Richard E. Morian Mastodont procurement by Paleoindians of the Great Lakes region: hunting or scavenging?.- Taphonomy and hunting.- Contributors.

Rethinking the Middle/Upper Paleolithic Transition [and Comments and Replies]

This paper critically examines previous statements concerning the nature of the Middle/Upper Paleolithic transition in Western Europe. Mellarss overview of the transition in southwestern France forms the point of departure for discussion. Several of Mellarss contentions are modified in light of methodological weaknesses and recently available data. It is suggested that many observed Middle/Upper Paleolithic differences are best understood with reference to a restructuring of social relations across the boundary. This is seen to be consistent with the suggestions of Sally and Lewis Binford based on mortuary practices and lithic variability.

Symbolism and Modern Human Origins [and Comments and Reply]

Author(s): J. M. Lindly, G. A. Clark, O. Bar-Yosef, D. Lieberman, J. Shea, Harold L. Dibble, Phillip G. Chase, Clive Gamble, Robert H. Gargett, Ken Jacobs, Paul Mellars, Anne Pike-Tay, Yuri Smirnov, Lawrence Guy Straus, C. B. Stringer, Erik Trinkaus and Randall White Reviewed work(s): Source: Current Anthropology, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Jun., 1990), pp. 233-261 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2743625 . Accessed: 15/09/2012 00:27

Context and dating of Aurignacian vulvar representations from Abri Castanet, France

We report here on the 2007 discovery, in perfect archaeological context, of part of the engraved and ocre-stained undersurface of the collapsed rockshelter ceiling from Abri Castanet, Dordogne, France. The decorated surface of the 1.5-t roof-collapse block was in direct contact with the exposed archaeological surface onto which it fell. Because there was no sedimentation between the engraved surface and the archaeological layer upon which it collapsed, it is clear that the Early Aurignacian occupants of the shelter were the authors of the ceiling imagery. This discovery contributes an important dimension to our understanding of the earliest graphic representation in southwestern France, almost all of which was discovered before modern methods of archaeological excavation and analysis. Comparison of the dates for the Castanet ceiling and those directly obtained from the Chauvet paintings reveal that the “vulvar” representations from southwestern France are as old or older than the very different wall images from Chauvet.

Thoughts on Social Relationships and Language in Hominid Evolution

This paper argues that the evolution of language must have been dependent on the development of social relationships. A broad range of ideas pertaining to the evolution of human language is first critically reviewed. Our state of knowledge with regard to neural, psychological, anatomical and sociocultural aspects of language evolution is outlined. It is argued that a number of major transformations between 100,000 and 35,000 years ago are best understood as reflecting the emergence of language-as-we-know-it. The selective advantages of this development are discussed. It is then suggested that this must have been a long, tortuous process, relying importantly upon the development of an appropriate set of social relations. Finally, consideration is given to the likely nature of social organization and relations prior to a modern level of language competence.

Husbandry and Herd Control in the Upper Paleolithic: A Critical Review of the Evidence [and Comments and Reply]

The notion, first advanced by Higgs and Jarman, that the archaeological record of the Upper Paleolithic provides evidence for animal husbandry has been bolstered by the research of several of their former students. Close examination of the evidence from southwestern France indicates, however, that, while plausible, such early forms of husbandry are not supported by the material record. It is proposed here that there is no currently acceptable evidence for animal husbandry in France before the Neolithic. It is also emphasized that the proponents of pre-Neolithic animal control have not developed the theory and method required to deal with this important issue.

Specialization and the Middle/Upper Paleolithic Transition [and Comments and Reply]

Discussions of the differences between the Middle and the Upper Paleolithic usually oppose them as if they differed in essence and resort to lists of features apparently disconnected among themselves. This approach may be questioned; in fact, we are dealing with successive stages of a continuous evolutionary process, and we ought to be seeking, on a broader geographical and chrono-cultural basis, a unifying principle of which the features considered diagnostic are implications. That principle may be the search for greater efficiency in the interaction with the environment that in the Paleolithic produced a tendency toward specialization. Thus the Upper Paleolithic would include archaeological manifestations that are demonstrably specialized, and the Middle Paleolithic would be viewed as a stage in which the first steps in that direction can be distinguished. The article discusses the conditions that characterize specialization, its conceptualization, and its archaeological identification. This approach also allows one to distinguish different levels of accomplishment within a given stage and to compare the degrees of evolution achieved by Paleolithic groups in different areas and continents before the steps were taken that led to food production.

Glimpses of Long-Term Shifts in Late Paleolithic Land Use in the Périgord

The end of the Pleistocene in southwestern France witnessed a rapid succession of climatic oscillations. These have been especially well documented by sedimentological, palynological and paleontological work (Delpech 1975; Delpech et al. 1983; Laville 1964, 1975; Leroi-Gourhan 1977; Paquereau 1976). It is therefore surprising that there have been few if any demonstrations of synchrony between cultural (read technological-typological) and environmental shifts (Laville 1977). It is argued here that this results from focusing on artifacts and assemblages in our analyses of cultural change to the exclusion of shifts in regional settlement systems. However, this is not to say that all settlement shifts must be understood in terms of climatic change. After all, as David (1973:299) clearly recognized, “The motive force for cultural developments need not be supplied by climatic change; the tensions present within a ‘stable’ ecosystem are themselves a sufficient dynamic. ” This chapter examines the evidence for changes in settlement pattern during the Magdalenian in the Perigord. Where possible, it assesses the degree to which such changes (a) correspond to our expectations based upon ethnoarchaeological research among hunter-gatherers and (b) correlate with the environmental dynamics of the late Pelistocene.

Technologies for the Control of Heat and Light in the Vézère Valley Aurignacian

We can trace the beginnings of our knowledge of early Upper Paleolithic (Aurignacian) use of fire to the pioneering 1910–1911 excavations at Abri Blanchard undertaken by Louis Didon and Marcel Castanet. At Blanchard, the excavators recognized and described fire structures that correspond in many ways to features excavated more recently in Western and Central Europe. Here, we address the issue of heat and light management in the early Upper Paleolithic, demonstrating a pattern that builds on these early excavations but that is refined through our recent field operations. Topics to be discussed include (1) recently excavated fire structures that suggest complex fire management and use, (2) the seemingly massive use of bone as fuel in most early Aurignacian sites, and (3) the anchoring of skin structures for purposes of heat retention with fireplaces behind animal-skin walls. Furthermore, new data on activities around fireplaces make it possible to infer social and organizational aspects of fire structures within Aurignacian living spaces. The vast majority of early Aurignacian occupations, most of them now dated to between 33,000 and 32,000 BP (uncalibrated), occurred on a previously unoccupied bedrock platform into which the occupants dug their fire features.

On the Paleolithic/Mesolithic Transition

than broad; concern with ethnographic ontext is subordinated to the problem under investigation so that opportunities for discovering unexpected relationships are reduced. Analytical holistic ethnography is multi-problem-oriented rather than single-problem-oriented. The investigator begins with an awareness of many problems currently of interest, the kinds of data likely to be of use in solving them, and various field techniques that may prove to be appropriate. Flexibility of concept and method is the dominant approach at the beginning and during a good part of the field research; most techniques for gathering standardized quantitative data, such as questionnaires, are used toward the end of the research, when the investigator is generally familiar with the ethnographic facts and in a better position to design such instruments. The formulation of precise hypotheses is partly inductive and generally takes place during the analytical stage rather than before the fieldwork. Ethnographic ontext is of major importance in the analysis. The research develops from a broad general format into a number of more narrowly defined problems. Ethnography is the principal method of data collection appropriate to a multi-problem research effort. Ethnographic reports are often basically descriptive, but ethnographic data do not impose this limitation; they can be intensively analyzed with many variables taken into account. Hence, we speak of analytical holistic ethnography. Srivastava and Malik repeat the familiar assertion that holistic ethnography is feasible in small, generally homogeneous tribes and villages but not in complex industrialized societies. This point of view has been repeated so often that it is now taken for granted. We are by no means persuaded that it is correct. Degree of social complexity, for example, is generally continuous, and there is no obvious point on the continuum at which ethnographic methods such as observation and interviewing become useless or inadvisable. The ethnographic study of Delhi would require a team of fieldworkers and would be generally more complicated than the study of a village, but conceptually and methodologically there would seem to be no obstacle to such a study. The low esteem in which holistic ethnography is currently held has tended to deprive anthropology of a useful technique that has long been its hallmark.