Shallow Lake Environments in the Hunter-Gatherer's Way of Life (Tierra del Fuego, Argentina)

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jimena Oría ◽  
Mónica Salemme
Keyword(s):  
Shallow Lakes ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Tierra Del Fuego ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Semiarid Environment ◽  
Use Patterns ◽  
Lithic Reduction ◽  
Study Case ◽  
Transported Material

In the semiarid environment of the Fuegian steppe (Argentina), shallow lakes were intensively exploited by hunter-gatherers throughout the Holocene. The archaeological record concentrated along their shoreline frequently reports the first stages of the lithic reduction sequence. In this article, we consider rock availability at different coastal sectors in Lake Amalia. The data focus on the size and weight of the cobbles used as raw material (in Lake Amalia and nearby locations), aiming to compare transported material and that which is spatially located. We analyze information regarding the role played by shallow lakes in the exploitation of steppe environments and their importance in hunter-gatherers’ mobility. We suggest that raw material frequency, size, and spatial distribution have conditioned space-use patterns in the Fuegian steppe. The Amalia locality study case sheds light on recurrent visits to specific places in these landscapes.

Tamils and the Haunting of Justice

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew C. Willford
Keyword(s):  
Migrant Workers ◽  
Race And Ethnicity ◽  
Kuala Lumpur ◽  
Labor Costs ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Land Use Patterns ◽  
Use Patterns ◽  
Critical Issues ◽  
The Law ◽  
Law And Justice

In 2006, dejected members of the Bukit Jalil Estate community faced eviction from their homes in Kuala Lumpur where they had lived for generations. City officials classified plantation residents as squatters and questioned any right they might have to stay. This story epitomizes the dilemma faced by Malaysian Tamils in recent years as they confront the collapse of the plantation system where they have lived and worked for generations. Foreign workers have been brought in to replace Tamil workers to cut labor costs. As the new migrant workers do not bring their whole families with them, the community structures need no longer be sustained, allowing more land to be converted to mechanized palm oil production or lucrative housing developments. Tamils find themselves increasingly resentful of the fact that lands that were developed and populated by their ancestors are now claimed by Malays as their own; and that the land use patterns in these new townships, are increasingly hostile to the most symbolic vestiges of the Tamil and Hindu presence, the temples. This book is about the fast-approaching end to a way of life, and addresses critical issues in the study of race and ethnicity. It demonstrates which strategies have been most “successful” in navigating the legal and political system of ethnic entitlement and compensation. It shows how, through a variety of strategies, Tamils try to access justice beyond the law-sometimes by using the law, and sometimes by turning to religious symbols and rituals in the murky space between law and justice.

Use of plants by hunter-gatherers at coastal sites: The case of Cabo San Pablo 2017 (Tierra Del Fuego, Argentina)

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Anna Franch Bach ◽  
Marian Berihuete-Azorín ◽  
Aylen Capparelli ◽  
M. Estela Mansur
Keyword(s):  
Tierra Del Fuego ◽  
Hunter Gatherers

scholarly journals Procurement and mobility during the Late Pleistocene: Characterising the stone-tool assemblage of the Picamoixons site (Tarragona, NE Iberian Peninsula)

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
María Soto
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Raw Materials ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Petrographic Analysis ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Ne Iberian Peninsula

The Picamoixons site is a rockshelter located in the province of Tarragona (NE Iberian Peninsula). It was object of two rescue campaigns during 1988 and 1993, which led to the recovery of a complete archaeological assemblage, including stone tools as well as faunal and portable art remains that date the occupation to the 14th to 11th millennium BP (calibrated). This study involves a petrographic characterisation of the stone-tool assemblage in order to establish: 1) the procurement areas, 2) the raw materials management strategies and 3) the mobility radius and territorial sizes of the hunter-gatherers groups that occupied the site. The method applied comprises in a multiscale analysis that includes systematic prospection, the petrographic characterisation of geological and archaeological samples, an analysis of the chert types represented in the knapping sequence, and the definition of the mobility axes and areas frequented according to lithic procurement.A petrographic analysis of the chert in the prospected area led to the definition of nine macroscopic varieties related to five types (Vilaplana, Morera, Maset, Vilella and Tossa cherts), related to Lower and Upper Muschelkalk (Triassic), Lutetian, Bartonian (Palaeocene) and Sannonian (Oligocene) deposits.The study of the knapping sequences indicates the main exploitation of Bartonian cherts (Tossa type), and the use of Lutetian cherts (Maset and Morera types) for configuring retouched tools. The exploitation of the remaining raw material types identified is considered sporadic and opportunistic.Defining the procurement areas enabled the mobility radius to be assessed as between 3 and 30 km, highlighting the importance of the fluvial basins as natural movement pathways. The results indicate that the main procurement territory was 16 km2 in area, associable with a forager radius. The most remote procurement distances suggest a maximum exploitation area of 260 km2, defining an intra-regional range. This range presents parallelisms with various contemporaneous hunter-gatherers groups in Western Europe, suggesting a progressive mobility reduction dynamic during the Late Pleistocene-Initial Holocene.

Marginalisation of the Waata Oromo Hunter–Gatherers of Kenya: Insider and Outsider Perspectives

Africa ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aneesa Kassam ◽  
Ali Balla Bashuna
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Identity ◽  
National Parks ◽  
Wildlife Conservation ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Social Activist ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Northern Kenya ◽  
British Colonial

AbstractThis paper examines how the way of life of a little known group of hunter–gatherers, the Waata Oromo, was brought to an end through British colonial wildlife conservation laws and the creation of national parks in Kenya. Through this policy and that of the containment of ethnic groups to ‘tribal reserves’, the Waata lost their place in the regional economic system and suffered loss of cultural identity. It also meant that when Kenya gained independence, the Waata were not recognised as a distinct entity with rights to their own political representation. Instead, they became appendages of the dominant pastoral groups with which they had been associated. They were thus doubly marginalised, in both economic and political terms. The paper describes how this situation has led some Waata in northern Kenya to claim separate ethnic status. It discusses the problem from the point of view of a Waata social activist and of an anthropologist. These two perspectives raise further issues for the etic/emic debate in anthropology.

The Bantu Expansion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Koen Bostoen
Keyword(s):  
Late Holocene ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Technological Innovations ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Bantu Languages ◽  
Speech Communities ◽  
Eastern And Southern Africa

The Bantu Expansion stands for the concurrent dispersal of Bantu languages and Bantu-speaking people from an ancestral homeland situated in the Grassfields region in the borderland between current-day Nigeria and Cameroon. During their initial migration across most of Central, Eastern, and Southern Africa, which took place between approximately 5,000 and 1,500 years ago, Bantu speech communities not only introduced new languages in the areas where they immigrated but also new lifestyles, in which initially technological innovations such as pottery making and the use of large stone tools played an important role as did subsequently also farming and metallurgy. Wherever early Bantu speakers started to develop a sedentary way of life, they left an archaeologically visible culture. Once settled, Bantu-speaking newcomers strongly interacted with autochthonous hunter-gatherers, as is still visible in the gene pool and/or the languages of certain present-day Bantu speech communities. The driving forces behind what is the principal linguistic, cultural, and demographic process in Late Holocene Africa are still a matter of debate, but it is increasingly accepted that the climate-induced destruction of the rainforest in West Central Africa around 2,500 years ago gave a boost to the Bantu Expansion.

Context, Provenance and Technology of a Western Stemmed Tradition Artifact Cache from the Cooper’s Ferry Site, Idaho

2014 ◽  
Vol 79 (4) ◽  
pp. 596-615 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loren G. Davis ◽  
Alex J. Nyers ◽  
Samuel C. Willis
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Western North America ◽  
Before Present ◽  
Projectile Points ◽  
Salmon River ◽  
Material Sources ◽  
Lithic Reduction ◽  
Age Estimates ◽  
Western Stemmed Tradition

AbstractThe discovery of an artifact cache containing Western Stemmed Tradition (WST) projectile points in a clearly defined pit feature at the Cooper’s Ferry site offers a unique perspective on early lithic technology and logistical organization in western North America. A description and analysis of the cache feature reveals several new insights, including: a rocky cairn capped the surface of the pit feature; some of the artifacts were made from cryptocrystalline silicates found 16 km away; debitage analysis, including aggregate and attribute based measures, identified two distinct lithic reduction stages present in the cache; new radiocarbon assays suggest that the cache is probably not early Holocene in age and may date to associated age estimates of 11,410–11,370 radiocarbon years before present (B.P.). Unlike Clovis caches, the Pit Feature A2 cache at Cooper’s Ferry appears to be a generalized toolkit that was probably placed at the site for future use. If the 11,410–11,370 radiocarbon years B.P. assays date the creation of the Pit Feature A2 cache, then its creators were probably not pioneers in the lower Salmon River canyon but possessed local knowledge about the landscape and raw material sources; these patterns suggest greater time depth for WST foragers.

Going Over: The Mesolithic-Neolithic Transition in North-West Europe

2007 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Northern Spain ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Data Set ◽  
North West ◽  
Southern Scandinavia ◽  
The One ◽  
Early Farmers ◽  
Rich Data

The processes involved in the transformation of society from Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to Neolithic farmers were complex. They involved changes not only in subsistence but also in how people thought about themselves and their worlds, from their pasts to their animals. Two sets of protagonists have often been lined up in the long-running debates about these processes: on the one hand incoming farmers and on the other indigenous hunter-gatherers. Both have found advocates as the dominant force in the transitions to a new way of life. North-west Europe presents a very rich data set for this fundamental change, and research has both extended and deepened our knowledge of regional sequences, from the sixth to the fourth millennia bc. One of the most striking results is the evident diversity from northern Spain to southern Scandinavia. No one region is quite like another; hunter-gatherers and early farmers alike were also varied and the old labels of Mesolithic and Neolithic are increasingly inadequate to capture the diversity of human agency and belief. Surveys of the most recent evidence presented here also strongly suggest a diversity of transformations. Some cases of colonization on the one hand and indigenous adoption on the other can still be argued, but many situations now seem to involve complex fusions and mixtures. This wide-ranging set of papers offers an overview of this fundamental transition.

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