skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


Title: Landscapes of the past: Creation of persistent places in hunter-gatherer landscapes of Southwest Asia and Japan
The archaeology of hunter-gatherers has much to tell us about how humans engaged with the world around them in complex and knowledgeable ways throughout prehistory. The advent of agriculture, often seen as a monolithic and monumentally new way of life, is used as a cultural and chronological marker for when humans began to have notable and lasting impacts on the environment. Some archaeologists suggest that the far-reaching and widespread effects of farming on local habitats, from landscape clearance to the domestication of plants and animals, should mark the beginning of the Anthropocene. Here, I explore some of the ways that we can approach and detect human-environment dynamics among prehistoric hunter-gatherers, using case studies from Southwest Asia and Japan, to explore the transformation of landscapes into social places that a) represent an early expression of behaviors thought to be novel to or typify a ‘Neolithic way of life’ and b) have remained detectable in the archaeological record for the last 20 000 years. These landscape practices highlight that the focus on ‘Neolithization’ is somewhat misleading as they were enacted within a hunter-gatherer world and worldview.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1727368
PAR ID:
10253298
Author(s) / Creator(s):
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Japanese journal of archaeology
Volume:
8
Issue:
2
ISSN:
2187-9524
Page Range / eLocation ID:
247-283
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; ; ; (, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences)
    Despite agreement that humans have evolved to be unusually fat primates, adipose patterning among hunter–gatherers has received little empirical consideration. Here we consider the development of adiposity among four contemporary groups of hunter–gatherers, the Aka, Savanna Pumé, Ju’/Hoansi and Agta using multi-level generalized additive mixed modelling to characterize the growth of tricep skinfolds from early childhood through adolescence. In contrast to references, hunter–gatherers show several consistent patterns: (i) children are lean with little fat accumulation; (ii) no adiposity rebound at 5 years is evident; (iii) girls on average have built 90% of their body size, and reach menarche when adiposity is at its maximum velocity; and (iv) a metabolic trade-off is evident in young, but not older children, such that both boys and girls prioritize skeletal growth during middle childhood, a trade-off that diminishes during adolescence when height velocity increases in pace with fat accumulation. Consistent results across hunter–gatherers living in diverse environments suggest that these patterns reflect a general forager pattern of development. The findings provide a valuable baseline for adipose development not apparent from reference populations. We emphasize both generalized trends among hunter–gatherers, and that inter-populational differences point to the plasticity with which humans organize growth and development. 
    more » « less
  2. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; (, American Journal of Biological Anthropology)
    Historically, hunter-gatherers living east and west of the Andean foothills of southern South America (Fuego-Patagonia) practiced different subsistence strategies. To the east, the wide open and relatively dry pampas presented a climate ideal for Terrestrial hunter-gatherers who depended on terrestrial animals (e.g., Lama guanicoe). In contrast, Marine hunter-gatherers who lived on islands in the western archipelago, a colder and wetter environment, mainly subsisted on marine resources (e.g., seals and shellfish). Archaeological evidence dates Terrestrial hunter-gatherers’ presence in Fuego-Patagonia to at least ~10,500 BP, whereas Marine hunter-gatherers’ presence dates to ~6,500 BP and is associated with highly specialized tools that have only been observed in the archaeological record after this time. Genetic analyses of some ancient Fuegian-Patagonians have supported the hypothesis that Marine hunter-gatherers migrated into the region after Terrestrial hunter-gatherers, around 6,500 BP (7,500 calBP), while analyses of other individuals suggest that Marine hunter-gatherers descended from the earlier Terrestrial hunter-gatherer groups. Here, we test these hypotheses by analyzing newly collected genome-wide data from n=46 ancient Chilean Fuegian-Patagonian individuals belonging to Marine, Terrestrial, and Mixed-economy archaeological sites dating to 6,895–304 calBP. We explored basic population structure among these hunter-gatherer groups using PCA and ADMIXTURE. We calculated π, pairwise-FST, and f-statistics, and developed demographic simulations to further examine genetic relationships among the groups. The results of this study shed light on local demographic patterns of ancient southern South American groups, which in turn provides more insight into broader population histories of South America. This study was funded by FONDECYT (Chile), National Geographic Society, National Science Foundation, and Wenner-Gren Foundation. C. M. Balentine is supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. 
    more » « less
  3. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; et al (, Quaternary Research)
    null (Ed.)
    Abstract Waterfall Bluff is a rock shelter in eastern Pondoland, South Africa, adjacent to a narrow continental shelf that limited coastline movements across glacial/interglacial cycles. The archaeological deposits are characterized by well-preserved stratigraphy, faunal, and botanical remains alongside abundant stone artifacts and other materials. A comprehensive dating protocol consisting of 5 optically stimulated luminescence ages and 51 accelerator mass spectrometry 14 C ages shows that the record of hunter-gatherer occupations at Waterfall Bluff persisted from the late Pleistocene to the Holocene, spanning the last glacial maximum and the transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene. Here, we provide detailed descriptions about the sedimentary sequence, chronology, and characteristics of the archaeological deposits at Waterfall Bluff. Remains of marine mollusks and marine fish also show, for the first time, that coastal foraging was a component of some hunter-gatherer groups’ subsistence practices during glacial phases in the late Pleistocene. The presence of marine fish and shellfish further demonstrates that hunter-gatherers selectively targeted coastal resources from intertidal and estuarine habitats. Our results therefore underscore the idea that Pondoland's coastline remained a stable and predictable point on the landscape over the last glacial/interglacial transition being well positioned for hunter-gatherers to access resources from the nearby coastline, narrow continental shelf, and inland areas. 
    more » « less
  4. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; (, Science)
    Among mammals, post-reproductive life spans are currently documented only in humans and a few species of toothed whales. Here we show that a post-reproductive life span exists among wild chimpanzees in the Ngogo community of Kibale National Park, Uganda. Post-reproductive representation was 0.195, indicating that a female who reached adulthood could expect to live about one-fifth of her adult life in a post-reproductive state, around half as long as human hunter-gatherers. Post-reproductive females exhibited hormonal signatures of menopause, including sharply increasing gonadotropins after age 50. We discuss whether post-reproductive life spans in wild chimpanzees occur only rarely, as a short-term response to favorable ecological conditions, or instead are an evolved species-typical trait as well as the implications of these alternatives for our understanding of the evolution of post-reproductive life spans. 
    more » « less
  5. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; (, Philosophical transactions B)
    Human evolutionary ecology stands to benefit by integrating theory and methods developed in movement ecology, and in turn, to make contributions to the broader field of movement ecology by leveraging our species' distinct attributes. In this paper, we review data and evolutionary models suggesting that major changes in socio-spatial behavior accompanied the evolution of language. To illustrate and explore these issues, we present a comparison of GPS measures of the socio-spatial behavior of Hadza hunter-gatherers of northern Tanzania to those of olive baboons (Papio anubis), a comparatively small-brained primate that is also savanna-adapted. While standard spatial metrics show modest differences, measures of spatial diversity, landscape exploration, and spatiotemporal displacement between individuals differ markedly. Groups of Hadza foragers rapidly accumulate a vast, diverse knowledge pool about places and things over the horizon, contrasting with the baboon's narrower and more homogeneous pool of ecological information. The larger and more complex socio-spatial world illustrated by the Hadza is one where heightened cognitive abilities for spatial and episodic memory, navigation, perspective taking, and communication about things beyond the here and now all have clear value. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email