scholarly journals CHRONOLOGY OF THE BURIAL ACTIVITY OF THE LAST HUNTER-GATHERERS IN THE SOUTHWESTERN IBERIAN PENINSULA, PORTUGAL

Radiocarbon ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-35
Author(s):  
R Peyroteo-Stjerna
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Human Bone ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Human History ◽  
Funerary Practices ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Bayesian Mixing Model ◽  
Burial Grounds ◽  
Late Mesolithic

ABSTRACT For most of human history, funerary burial has been unusual. Archaeology shows a shift in funerary practices in postglacial hunter-gatherers, in parts of Europe during the Late Mesolithic. This is documented by the burial grounds in the Tagus and Sado valleys in the southwestern Iberian Peninsula, Portugal, where ca. 376 burials were excavated. This study presents a chronology for the burial activity in these sites and contextualizes the start and end activity phases within regional environmental changes and cultural developments. The dataset consists of 76 14C dates on human bone (19 new, 57 published) including new dates from contexts in Portugal outside these valleys. Bayesian chronological models were defined in OxCal, and protein carbon contributions of marine foods were estimated by the Bayesian mixing model FRUITS. The results indicate a broader timeframe for the Late Mesolithic in Portugal, than previously suggested, starting during a period of significant environmental changes, ca. 8500–8300 cal BP, and ending ca. 7000 cal BP. The burial activity decreased during the establishment of Neolithic farmers in southwestern Iberia from ca. 7450 cal BP, however, these burial grounds continued to be used by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, showing that diverse social structures and worldviews coexisted for several generations.

The evolved developmental niche and children’s developing morality

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela M. Kurth ◽  
Darcia Narvaez
Keyword(s):  
Young Child ◽  
Human Evolution ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Human History ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Supportive Environment ◽  
Developmental Niche ◽  
Small Band ◽  
Prosocial Behaviours

Like every animal, human offspring evolved to fit into their communities, but social fittedness for mammals requires a supportive early nest that fosters socio-emotional intelligence, self-regulation, and sympathy. Within a supportive environment, children naturally develop orientations that facilitate prosocial behaviours within the community. We use the evolved developmental niche (EDN), apparent in 95% of human history as small-band hunter-gatherers, for a baseline representative of human evolution. In these societies, children grow into cooperative, agile moral actors. We compare the EDN with five modern approaches to young child group care and make suggestions to early caregivers on how to provide, in the modern world, what children evolved to need.

Small Sambaquis and Big Chronologies: Shellmound Building and Hunter-Gatherers in Neotropical Highlands

Radiocarbon ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 1215-1221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Levy Figuti ◽  
Cláudia R Plens ◽  
Paulo DeBlasis
Keyword(s):  
Human Bone ◽  
Cultural Continuity ◽  
Cultural Tradition ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Faunal Remains ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
C Distribution ◽  
Bone Remains

Sambaquis, famous Brazilian coastal shellmounds, represent a successful and long archaeological cultural tradition, with hundreds of sites spread over 2000 km of the Brazilian south-southeast coastline. These sites have many burials within a sequence of layers comprising a mix of faunal remains, charcoal, ashes, and sand, thus resulting in very complex stratigraphic structures. Several radiocarbon samples exhibit ages between 8000 and 1000 cal yr BP. In the Brazilian southeastern coastal hinterland, at the Ribeira de Iguape basin, 36 small mounds similar to the sambaquis were found, composed mostly of landsnail shells, bone remains of terrestrial fauna, lithic and osteodontological artifacts, and quite a few burials. Through the last decade an archaeological research project has accomplished extensive surveys and systematic 14C sampling, together with excavations in selected sites. A sequence of ages has been obtained from different samples (16 on shell, 10 on human bone, and 6 on charcoal) representing 19 sites. These dates range from 10,000 to 1000 cal yr BP, highlighting around 9000 yr of cultural continuity, contemporary to both the Paleoindian record over the hinterland plateau, and older than their coastal counterparts, the sambaquis. By presenting the 14C distribution and an overview of the archaeological features of these sites, we discuss briefly the dispersion and settlement processes of early peopling in this area of Brazil.

scholarly journals Human social organization during the Late Pleistocene: Beyond the nomadic-egalitarian model

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manvir Singh ◽  
Luke Glowacki
Keyword(s):  
Resource Management ◽  
Social Organization ◽  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Human History ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Social Variation

Many researchers assume that until 10-12,000 years ago, humans lived in small, mobile, relatively egalitarian bands composed mostly of kin. This “nomadic-egalitarian model” informs evolutionary explanations of behavior and our understanding of how contemporary societies differ from those of our evolutionary past. Here, we synthesize research challenging this model and propose an alternative, the diverse histories model, to replace it. We outline the limitations of using recent foragers as models of Late Pleistocene societies and the considerable social variation among foragers commonly considered small-scale, mobile, and egalitarian. We review ethnographic and archaeological findings covering 34 world regions showing that non-agricultural peoples often live in groups that are more sedentary, unequal, large, politically stratified, and capable of large-scale cooperation and resource management than is normally assumed. These characteristics are not restricted to extant Holocene hunter-gatherers but, as suggested by archaeological findings from 27 Middle Stone Age sites, likely characterized societies throughout the Late Pleistocene (until c. 130 ka), if not earlier. These findings have implications for how we understand human psychological adaptations and the broad trajectory of human history.

Holocene highstand deposits in the Gulf of Cadiz, SW Iberian Peninsula: A high-resolution record of hierarchical environmental changes

2005 ◽  
Vol 219 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 109-131 ◽  
Author(s):  
F.J. Lobo ◽  
L.M. Fernández-Salas ◽  
F.J. Hernández-Molina ◽  
R. González ◽  
J.M.A. Dias ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
High Resolution ◽  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Gulf Of Cadiz ◽  
Gulf Of Cádiz

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.

scholarly journals Climatic changes cause synchronous population dynamics and adaptive strategies among coastal hunter-gatherers in Holocene northern Europe

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erlend Kirkeng Jørgensen ◽  
Petro Pesonen ◽  
Miikka Tallavaara
Keyword(s):  
Population Dynamics ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Environmental Variability ◽  
Temporal Frequency ◽  
Environmental Drivers ◽  
Natural Phenomenon ◽  
Northern Europe ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Human Ecodynamics

Abstract Synchronized demographic and behavioral patterns among distinct populations is a well-known, natural phenomenon. Intriguingly, similar patterns of synchrony occur among prehistoric human populations. However, the drivers of synchronous human ecodynamics are not well understood. Addressing this issue, we review the role of environmental variability in causing human demographic and adaptive responses. As a case study, we explore human ecodynamics of coastal hunter-gatherers in Holocene northern Europe, comparing population, economic, and environmental dynamics in two separate areas (northern Norway and western Finland). Population trends are reconstructed using temporal frequency distributions of radiocarbon-dated and shoreline-dated archaeological sites. These are correlated to regional environmental proxies and proxies for maritime resource use. The results demonstrate remarkably synchronous patterns across population trajectories, marine resource exploitation, settlement pattern, and technological responses. Crucially, the population dynamics strongly correspond to significant environmental changes. We evaluate competing hypotheses and suggest that the synchrony stems from similar responses to shared environmental variability. We take this to be a prehistoric human example of the “Moran effect,” positing similar responses of geographically distinct populations to shared environmental drivers. The results imply that intensified economies and social interaction networks have limited impact on long-term hunter-gatherer population trajectories beyond what is already proscribed by environmental drivers.

History and evolution of Mesolithic landscapes in the Haut-Quercy (Lot, France): New charcoal data from archaeological contexts

The Holocene ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Auréade Henry ◽  
Nicolas Valdeyron ◽  
Laurent Bouby ◽  
Isabelle Théry-Parisot
Keyword(s):  
Correspondence Analysis ◽  
Vegetation Dynamics ◽  
Local Environment ◽  
Charcoal Analysis ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Palynological Data ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Late Mesolithic ◽  
Charred Wood ◽  
Original Type

Charred wood analyses have been performed on three Mesolithic sites located on the Causse de Gramat, a karstic plateau in southwestern France (Lot department): Les Fieux, les Escabasses and le Cuzoul de Gramat. The sites yielded occupations dating from the early to the late Mesolithic (9th to the 6th millennia cal. bc). In the absence of palynological data, charcoal analysis allowed us to characterise the woody environment exploited by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. Our results point at the minor place of softwoods in the landscape and the local importance of Rosaceae prunoideae, marking an original type of pre-forest vegetation. In order to retrace the local vegetation dynamics, these results are synthesized and discussed thanks to a correspondence analysis, which includes previous anthracological data from Azilian and middle Mesolithic levels of two other sites of the Causse. The homogeneity of the results speaks in favour of the stability of the local environment and confirms the specific vegetation features of the area.

scholarly journals The genomic history of the Iberian Peninsula over the past 8000 years

Science ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 363 (6432) ◽  
pp. 1230-1234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iñigo Olalde ◽  
Swapan Mallick ◽  
Nick Patterson ◽  
Nadin Rohland ◽  
Vanessa Villalba-Mouco ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
North Africa ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Hunter Gatherers ◽  
Y Chromosomes ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
Genome Wide Data ◽  
History Of ◽  
Genetic Substructure

We assembled genome-wide data from 271 ancient Iberians, of whom 176 are from the largely unsampled period after 2000 BCE, thereby providing a high-resolution time transect of the Iberian Peninsula. We document high genetic substructure between northwestern and southeastern hunter-gatherers before the spread of farming. We reveal sporadic contacts between Iberia and North Africa by ~2500 BCE and, by ~2000 BCE, the replacement of 40% of Iberia’s ancestry and nearly 100% of its Y-chromosomes by people with Steppe ancestry. We show that, in the Iron Age, Steppe ancestry had spread not only into Indo-European–speaking regions but also into non-Indo-European–speaking ones, and we reveal that present-day Basques are best described as a typical Iron Age population without the admixture events that later affected the rest of Iberia. Additionally, we document how, beginning at least in the Roman period, the ancestry of the peninsula was transformed by gene flow from North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean.

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