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1. Coastal occupation and foraging during the last glacial maximum and early Holocene at Waterfall Bluff, eastern Pondoland, South Africa

   https://doi.org/10.1017/qua.2020.26  

   Fisher, Erich C.; Cawthra, Hayley C.; Esteban, Irene; Jerardino, Antonieta; Neumann, Frank H.; Oertle, Annette; Pargeter, Justin; Saktura, Rosaria B.; Szabó, Katherine; Winkler, Stephan; et al (September 2020, 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. 

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2. Female hunters of the early Americas

   https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abd0310  

   Haas, Randall; Watson, James; Buonasera, Tammy; Southon, John; Chen, Jennifer C.; Noe, Sarah; Smith, Kevin; Llave, Carlos Viviano; Eerkens, Jelmer; Parker, Glendon (November 2020, Science Advances)

   null (Ed.)

   Sexual division of labor with females as gatherers and males as hunters is a major empirical regularity of hunter-gatherer ethnography, suggesting an ancestral behavioral pattern. We present an archeological discovery and meta-analysis that challenge the man-the-hunter hypothesis. Excavations at the Andean highland site of Wilamaya Patjxa reveal a 9000-year-old human burial (WMP6) associated with a hunting toolkit of stone projectile points and animal processing tools. Osteological, proteomic, and isotopic analyses indicate that this early hunter was a young adult female who subsisted on terrestrial plants and animals. Analysis of Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene burial practices throughout the Americas situate WMP6 as the earliest and most secure hunter burial in a sample that includes 10 other females in statistical parity with early male hunter burials. The findings are consistent with nongendered labor practices in which early hunter-gatherer females were big-game hunters. 

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3. Re-evaluating Pleistocene–Holocene occupation of cave sites in north-west Thailand: new radiocarbon and luminescence dating

   https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2021.44  

   Conrad, Cyler; Shoocongdej, Rasmi; Marwick, Ben; White, Joyce C.; Thongcharoenchaikit, Cholawit; Higham, Charles; Feathers, James K.; Tumpeesuwan, Sakboworn; Castillo, Cristina C.; Fuller, Dorian Q.; et al (April 2022, Antiquity)

   Established chronologies indicate a long-term ‘Hoabinhian’ hunter-gatherer occupation of Mainland Southeast Asia during the Terminal Pleistocene to Mid-Holocene (45 000–3000 years ago). Here, the authors re-examine the ‘Hoabinhian’ sequence from north-west Thailand using new radiocarbon and luminescence data from Spirit Cave, Steep Cliff Cave and Banyan Valley Cave. The results indicate that hunter-gatherers exploited this ecologically diverse region throughout the Terminal Pleistocene and the Pleistocene–Holocene transition, and into the period during which agricultural lifeways emerged in the Holocene. Hunter-gatherers did not abandon this highland region of Thailand during periods of environmental and socioeconomic change. 

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4. Landscapes of the past: Creation of persistent places in hunter-gatherer landscapes of Southwest Asia and Japan

   Maher, Lisa A. (March 2021, Japanese journal of archaeology)

   null (Ed.)

   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. 

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5. More on mobility and sedentism: Changes in adaptation from Upper Paleolithic to Incipient Jomon, Tanegashima Island, southern Japan

   https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0314311  

   Morisaki, Kazuki; Iizuka, Fumie; Izuho, Masami; Aldenderfer, Mark (January 2025, PLOS ONE)

   Spinapolice, Enza Elena (Ed.)

   Sedentism is an adaptive alternative in human societies which is often associated with the emergence of complex societies in the Holocene. To elucidate the factors and processes of the emergence of sedentary societies, continuous accumulation of case studies based on robust evidence from across the world is required. Given abundant archaeological and geological evidence from the late Pleistocene to early Holocene, Tanegashima Island, situated in the southern Japanese Archipelago of the northwestern Pacific Rim, has significant potential to unravel factors and processes of sedentism. Our study evaluates long-term change in hunter-gatherer mobility on Tanegashima Island from the Upper Paleolithic to Incipient Jomon (ca.36,000–12,800 cal BP). Based on Bayesian age modelling, we performed diachronic analyses on lithic toolkit structure, lithic reduction technology, lithic raw material composition, and occupation intensity. The results illustrate that settlement-subsistence strategies on Tanegashima primarily correspond to the change in environmental conditions, mainly food resources, and foragers increased their degrees of sedentism when abundant forest existed. More important is that highly stable sedentism, which is not observed until the Incipient Jomon, depends not only on such a productive environment, but also on the increase in population size. High occupation intensity during the Incipient Jomon on the island is likely attributed to an influx of people from Kyushu proper. Although the relationship between cause and effect of these factors is still to be clarified in future work, our study provides insights on the fundamental causes of sedentism in the temperate forest of the late Pleistocene. 

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