[PDF] Hominid Individual In Context eBook

Author : Clive Gamble
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 346 pages
File Size : 33,33 MB
Release : 2005-01-14
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0203007697

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This book explores new approaches to the remarkably detailed information that archaeologists now have for the study of our early ancestors. Rather than explaining the archaeology of stones and bones as the product of group decisions, the contributors investigate how individual action created social life. This challenge to the accepted standpoint of the Palaeolithic brings new models and theories into the period; innovations that are matched by the resolution of data preserving individual action among the stones and bones. The volume brings together examples from recent excavations such as Boxgrove, Schöningen and Blombos Cave and the analyses of artefacts from Middle and Early Upper Pleistocene excavations in Europe, Africa and Asia.

Author : Clive Gamble
Publisher : Psychology Press
Page : 360 pages
File Size : 45,53 MB
Release : 2005
Category : Art
ISBN : 9780415284325

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"Rather than explaining the archaeology of stones and bones as the product of group decisions, the contributors investigate how individual action created social life. This challenge to the accepted standpoint of the Palaeolithic brings new models and theories into the period; innovations that are matched by the resolution of the data that preserve individual action among the artefacts. The book brings together examples from recent excavations at Boxgrove, Schoningen and Blombos Cave, and the analyses of findings from Middle and Early Upper Pleistocene excavations in Europe, Africa and Asia. The results will revolutionise the Palaeolithic as archaeologists search for the lived lives among the empty spaces that remain."--BOOK JACKET.

Author : National Research Council
Publisher : National Academies Press
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 38,83 MB
Release : 2010-04-17
Category : Science
ISBN : 0309148383

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The hominin fossil record documents a history of critical evolutionary events that have ultimately shaped and defined what it means to be human, including the origins of bipedalism; the emergence of our genus Homo; the first use of stone tools; increases in brain size; and the emergence of Homo sapiens, tools, and culture. The Earth's geological record suggests that some evolutionary events were coincident with substantial changes in African and Eurasian climate, raising the possibility that critical junctures in human evolution and behavioral development may have been affected by the environmental characteristics of the areas where hominins evolved. Understanding Climate's Change on Human Evolution explores the opportunities of using scientific research to improve our understanding of how climate may have helped shape our species. Improved climate records for specific regions will be required before it is possible to evaluate how critical resources for hominins, especially water and vegetation, would have been distributed on the landscape during key intervals of hominin history. Existing records contain substantial temporal gaps. The book's initiatives are presented in two major research themes: first, determining the impacts of climate change and climate variability on human evolution and dispersal; and second, integrating climate modeling, environmental records, and biotic responses. Understanding Climate's Change on Human Evolution suggests a new scientific program for international climate and human evolution studies that involve an exploration initiative to locate new fossil sites and to broaden the geographic and temporal sampling of the fossil and archeological record; a comprehensive and integrative scientific drilling program in lakes, lake bed outcrops, and ocean basins surrounding the regions where hominins evolved and a major investment in climate modeling experiments for key time intervals and regions that are critical to understanding human evolution.

Author : Stephen Shennan
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 12,68 MB
Release : 2009
Category : Nature
ISBN : 9780520255999

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This volume offers an integrative approach to the application of evolutionary theory in studies of cultural transmission and social evolution and reveals the enormous range of ways in which Darwinian ideas can lead to productive empirical research, the touchstone of any worthwhile theoretical perspective. While many recent works on cultural evolution adopt a specific theoretical framework, such as dual inheritance theory or human behavioral ecology, Pattern and Process in Cultural Evolution emphasizes empirical analysis and includes authors who employ a range of backgrounds and methods to address aspects of culture from an evolutionary perspective. Editor Stephen Shennan has assembled archaeologists, evolutionary theorists, and ethnographers, whose essays cover a broad range of time periods, localities, cultural groups, and artifacts.

Author : Michael J. Manfredo
Publisher : Springer
Page : 278 pages
File Size : 15,17 MB
Release : 2014-06-11
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9401789592

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In this edited open access book leading scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds wrestle with social science integration opportunities and challenges. This book explores the growing concern of how best to achieve effective integration of the social science disciplines as a means for furthering natural resource social science and environmental problem solving. The chapters provide an overview of the history, vision, advances, examples and methods that could lead to integration. The quest for integration among the social sciences is not new. Some argue that the social sciences have lagged in their advancements and contributions to society due to their inability to address integration related issues. Integration merits debate for a number of reasons. First, natural resource issues are complex and are affected by multiple proximate driving social factors. Single disciplinary studies focused at one level are unlikely to provide explanations that represent this complexity and are limited in their ability to inform policy recommendations. Complex problems are best explored across disciplines that examine social-ecological phenomenon from different scales. Second, multi-disciplinary initiatives such as those with physical and biological scientists are necessary to understand the scope of the social sciences. Too frequently there is a belief that one social scientist on a multi-disciplinary team provides adequate social science representation. Third, more complete models of human behavior will be achieved through a synthesis of diverse social science perspectives.

Author : Frederick W. F. Foulds
Publisher : Oxbow Books
Page : 211 pages
File Size : 38,63 MB
Release : 2014-11-30
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1782977465

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Recently, Palaeolithic and Mesolithic archaeology has been breaking boundaries worldwide. Finds such as the Mesolithic house at Howick, the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome, and the recently discovered footprints at Happisburgh all serve to indicate how archaeologists in these fields are truly at the cutting edge of understanding humanityÍs past. This volume celebrates this trend by focusing on recent advances in the study of the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic. With contributors from a diverse range of backgrounds, it allows for a greater degree of interdisciplinary discourse than is often the case, as the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic are generally split apart. Wild Things brings together contributions from major researchers and early career specialists, detailing research taking place across the British Isles, France, Portugal, Russia, the Levant and Europe as a whole, providing a cross-section of the exciting range of research being conducted. By combining papers from both these periods, it is hoped that dialogue between practitioners of Palaeolithic and Mesolithic archaeology can be further encouraged. Topics include: the chronology of the Mid-Upper Palaeolithic of European Russia; territorial use of Alpine high altitude areas by Mesolithic hunter-gatherer; discussing the feasibility of reconstructing Neanderthal demography to examine their extinction; the funerary contexts from the Mesolithic burials at Muge; the discovery of further British Upper Palaeolithic parietal art at Cathole Cave; exploitation of both lithics and fauna in Palaeolithic France; and an analysis of Mesolithic/Neolithic trade in Europe.

Author : Michael D. Petraglia
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 463 pages
File Size : 43,53 MB
Release : 2007-05-22
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1402055625

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This is the first volume of its kind on prehistoric cultures of South Asia. The book brings together archaeologists, biological anthropologists, geneticists and linguists in order to provide a comprehensive account of the history and evolution of human populations residing in the subcontinent. New theories and methodologies presented provide new interpretations about the cultural history and evolution of populations in South Asia.

Author : Robert Hosfield
Publisher : Oxbow Books
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 10,54 MB
Release : 2020-05-31
Category : Science
ISBN : 1785707647

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The Earliest Europeans explores the early origins of man in Europe through the perspective of ‘a year in the life’: how hominins in the Lower Palaeolithic coped with the year-round practical challenges of mid-latitude Europe with its distinctive temperatures, seasonality patterns, and available resources. Current research has provided increasingly robust archaeological and Quaternary Science records, but there are ongoing uncertainties as to both the earliest Europeans’ specific survival strategies and behaviours, and the character of their dispersals into Europe. In short, how sustained and ‘successful’ were the individual phases of European occupation by Lower Palaeolithic hominins and what sorts of ‘human’ where they? Using a season-by-season chapter structure to explore, for example, the contrasting demands and opportunities of winter versus summer survival, Hosfield explores how foods and other resources would vary across the four seasons in quantity and quality, and the resulting implications for hominin behaviours. Text boxes provide the background on key issues, and the book draws on a range of supporting evidence including technology (e.g. the nature of Lower Palaeolithic stone tools; the evidence for organic tools), hominin life history (e.g. the length of infant dependency; the nature of ‘parenting’; the implications of different mating models; the Social Brain Hypothesis), cognitive studies (e.g. brain scanning research into possible planning capabilities) and potential bias in the archaeological record (e.g. in terms of what is and isn’t preserved). By testing the likelihood of different scenarios by comparing short-term, site-based insights with long-term, regional trends, Hosfield is able to out forward ideas on how our earliest European ancestors survived and what their lives were like.

Author : T. Douglas Price
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 432 pages
File Size : 25,59 MB
Release : 2013-01-09
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 0199986827

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Werner Herzog's 2011 film Cave of Forgotten Dreams, about the painted caves at Chauvet, France brought a glimpse of Europe's extraordinary prehistory to a popular audience. But paleolithic cave paintings, stunning as they are, form just a part of a story that begins with the arrival of the first humans to Europe 1.3 million years ago, and culminates in the achievements of Greece and Rome. In Europe before Rome, T. Douglas Price takes readers on a guided tour through dozens of the most important prehistoric sites on the continent, from very recent discoveries to some of the most famous and puzzling places in the world, like Chauvet, Stonehenge, and Knossos. This volume focuses on more than 60 sites, organized chronologically according to their archaeological time period and accompanied by 200 illustrations, including numerous color photographs, maps, and drawings. Our understanding of prehistoric European archaeology has been almost completely rewritten in the last 25 years with a series of major findings from virtually every time period, such as Ötzi the Iceman, the discoveries at Atapuerca, and evidence of a much earlier eruption at Mt. Vesuvius. Many of the sites explored in the book offer the earliest European evidence we have of the typical features of human society--tool making, hunting, cooking, burial practices, agriculture, and warfare. Introductory prologues to each chapter provide context for the wider changes in human behavior and society in the time period, while the author's concluding remarks offer expert reflections on the enduring significance of these places. Tracing the evolution of human society in Europe across more than a million years, Europe before Rome gives readers a vivid portrait of life for prehistoric man and woman.