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This volume brings together diverse contributions from leading archaeologists and paleoanthropologists, covering various spatial and temporal periods to distinguish convergent evolution from cultural transmission in order to see if we can discover ancient human populations. With a focus on lithic technology, the book analyzes ancient materials and cultures to systematically explore the theoretical and physical aspects of culture, convergence, and populations in human evolution and prehistory. The book will be of interest to academics, students and researchers in archaeology, paleoanthropology, genetics, and paleontology. The book begins by addressing early prehistory, discussing the convergent evolution of behaviors and the diverse ecological conditions driving the success of different evolutionary paths. Chapters discuss these topics and technology in the context of the Lower Paleolithic/Earlier Stone age and Middle Paleolithic/Middle Stone Age. The book then moves towards a focuson the prehistory of our species over the last 40,000 years. Topics covered include the human evolutionary and dispersal consequences of the Middle-Upper Paleolithic Transition in Western Eurasia. Readers will also learn about the cultural convergences, and divergences, that occurred during the Terminal Pleistocene and Holocene, such as the budding of human societies in the Americas. The book concludes by integrating these various perspectives and theories, and explores different methods of analysis to link technological developments and cultural convergence.
List of contents
Chapter 1-Introduction: Into the tangled web of culture-history and convergent evolution.- Chapter 2-The unity of Acheulean culture. Chapter 3-Problems and pitfalls in understanding the Clactonian.- Chapter 4-Culture and convergence: The curious case of the Nubian Complex.- Chapter 5-Lithic variability and cultures in the East African Middle Stone Age.- Chapter 6-A matter of space and time: How frequent is convergence in lithic technology in the African archaeological record over the last 300 kyr?.- Chapter 7-Technology and function of Middle Stone Age points. Insights from a combined approach at Bushman Rock Shelter, South Africa.- Chapter 8-Raw material and regionalization in Stone Age East Africa.- Chapter 9-The Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition: A long-term biocultural effect of anatomically modern human dispersal.- Chapter 10-Threading the weft, testing the warp: Population concepts and the European Upper Palaeolithic chronocultural framework.- Chapter 11-Communities of interaction: Tradition and learning in stone tool production through the lens of the Epipaleolithic of Kharaneh IV, Jordan.- Chapter 12-Toward a theory of the point.- Chapter 13-Learning strategies and population dynamics during the Pleistocene colonization of North America.- Chapter 14-Culture, environmental adaptation or specific problem solving? On convergence and innovation dynamics related to techniques used for stone heat treatment.- Chapter 15-Style, function and cultural transmission.
About the author
Dr. Huw S. Groucutt is group leader of the Max Planck `Extreme Events Research Group¿ in Jena, Germany. He received his Bachelors in Archaeology and Masters in Paleoanthropology at the University of Sheffield in 2007 and 2008 respectively, and his PhD in Archaeological Science at the University of Oxford in 2013. He was then a postdoctoral researcher on the ERC funded Palaeodeserts project (2013-2016) and then a British Academy postdoctoral fellow (2016-2019), both at the University of Oxford. He has co-written over 50 journal articles, and co-edited four books and journal special issues. Dr Groucutt's research interests include human evolution and prehistory, stone tool technologies, human demographic changes in the Saharo-Arabian belt, and the relationship between hominin demography and environmental change.
