Randolph E. Donahue

Radiocarbon calibration and Late Glacial occupation in northwest Europe

Various methods of analysing the dating of the late Glacial suggest various interpretations. Here, in answer to a paper from 1997, radiocarbon dates are calibrated and used to reconsider the dating of this contentious period.

Long-distance logistic mobility as an organizing principle among northern hunter-gatherers : A great lakes middle holocene settlement system

Concepts of residential and logistic mobility are applied to survey assemblages from multiple decades of research along the interior drainages of central lower Michigan. Drawing on the ethnographic record of boreal hunter-gatherers and archaeological interpretations of long-distance logistic mobility from the Mesolithic of northern England and continental Europe, it is argued that the importance of logistic mobility is underrepresented in summaries of northern hemisphere hunter-gatherers. Reconstruction of Middle Holocene environments suggests that the resource structure of the central Michigan uplands was one that fostered use of logistic mobility, and that interior Middle Archaic assemblages and site structures reveal special function activities systemically tied to residential and other special function sites at lower coastal elevations, as well as currently submerged under Lake Huron. We conclude that rising levels of Lake Huron ca. 4500 B.P. resulted in decreased land area, population packing, and a consequent shift to residential mobility by the Late Archaic. Further, the results of this analysis can serve as a comparative framework for recognizing the role of logistic mobility in the evolution of hunter-gatherer adaptive strategies in other regions.

Lithic raw material sourcing and the assessment of Mesolithic landscape organization and mobility strategies in northern England

Analysis of the early evolution of cultural landscapes, particularly the regional organization of space by mobile hunter-gatherers, is often hampered by a lack of overt landscape marking and modification and/or a lack of sufficient biological material with which to assess regional affinity. This situation places a premium on the accurate sourcing of durable materials, such as stone for tool manufacture (commonly employed as proxy measures of space utilization), and including resource procurement, control, and movement. In an effort to understand the Mesolithic (10 000—5500 BP) organization of space in northern England, we undertake studies on black cherts, employing LA-ICP-MS, an efficient and minimally destructive geochemical technique. Comparisons between primary sources of black cherts, and archaeologically derived chert artefacts, from the site of Lismore Fields in Derbyshire, reveals that systematic application of this approach allows both the chemical differentiation of sources and an understanding of the chemical relationship between archaeological samples and specific analysed sources. These results are consistent with results of earlier studies employing different analytic methods and allow the partial testing of two alternative models of Mesolithic landscape organization in the region. We conclude that the use of LA-ICP-MS is a useful method to employ for chemical characterization of sources and results reinforce an interpretation of regional Mesolithic landscape organization being framed around east—west trending, upland-coastal transects consistent with natural drainage features.

Hunter-gatherer subsistence and settlement in northwest Europe

RUTH CHARLES. Late Magdelenian chronology and faunal exploitation in the north-western Ardennes (BAR International Series 737). iv+246 pages, figures, tables. 1998. Oxford: Archaeopress; 0-86054-930-5 paperback £33. PENNY SPIKINS. Mesolithic northern England: environment, population and settlement (British Archaeological Reports British Series 283). xii+150 pages, 63 figures, 5 tables. 1999. Oxford: Archaeopress; 1-84171-006-7 paperback £24. MARC DE BIE & JEAN-PAUL CASPAR. Rekem: a Federmesser camp on the Meuse river bank (Archeologie in Vlaandered Monograph 3, Acta Archaeologica Lovaniensia Monograph 10; 2 volumes). 592 pages, 123 figures, 154 maps, 115 plates. 2000. AsseZellik: Instituut voor het Archeologisch Patrimonium; 907523-013-4 (ISSN 1370-5768) hardback €122.71.