The Material Origin of Numbers (front matter and introduction)

The Material Origin of Numbers examines how number concepts are realized, represented, manipulated, and elaborated. Utilizing the cognitive archaeological framework of Material Engagement Theory and culling data from disciplines including neuroscience, ethnography, linguistics, and archaeology, Overmann offers a methodologically rich study of numbers and number concepts in the ancient Near East from the late Upper Paleolithic Period through the Bronze Age. This project has received funding from the Clarendon Fund at the University of Oxford, as well as the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 785793.

The Pre-Clovis Peoples

Scholars have long debated the timing and route by which humans first arrived in the New World. In “Late Upper Paleolithic Occupation at Cooper’s Ferry, Idaho, USA, ~16,000 Years Ago,” published in Science, Loren Davis et al. used radiocarbon dating to establish a chronology for artifacts, and evidence of human activity, that has pushed migration 2,800 years earlier than previously thought.

Comment on “Late Upper Paleolithic occupation at Cooper’s Ferry, Idaho, USA, ~16,000 years ago”

Davis et al. (Research Articles, 30 August 2019, p. 891) report human occupation at Cooper’s Ferry, Idaho, USA, ~16,000 years ago, well before Greenland Interstadial 1 (GI-1). Critical review suggests that this early date is not supported by the evidence. Human occupation might have begun in the mid-16th millennium before the present, but would have been more likely after ~15,000 years ago, coeval with GI-1.

Response to Comment on “Late Upper Paleolithic occupation at Cooper’s Ferry, Idaho, USA, ~16,000 years ago”

Manning builds an inappropriate Bayesian age model to assert that the initial occupation at Cooper’s Ferry began only ~15,935 ± 75 to 15,130 ± 20 cal yr B.P., suggesting that our estimation of ~16,560 to 15,280 cal yr B.P. is unsupported. However, this analysis both ignores evidence of human occupation from the earliest undated cultural deposits and reflects a misapplication of Bayesian age-modeling techniques. Consequently, his results are unreliable.

Changes in Core Reduction Models on Upper Paleolithic Sites in the Northwest Caucasus

The article presents an analysis of the changes in core reduction models at different stages of the Upper Paleolithic in the Northwest Caucasus. The broad chronological framework of this study (40 thousand - 12 thousand years ago) makes it possible to trace the changes in the preferred models for the use of cores. The correlation of the change dynamics in the main core reduction models along with a change in the metric and morphological features of the chips allowed the author to trace the development of stone knepping technology throughout the entire Upper Paleolithic era in the Northwest Caucasus. Methods. The work is based on an analysis of core morphology. All the cores from the collections were divided into several categories: core-shaped pieces, prismatic cores, edge-faceted cores, karenoid cores, and residual core fragments. Upon analyzing the morphology, the author takes into account the number of cleavage systems and their relative position. Based on the analysis of core morphology, the author determined the main reduction models. The identification of core reduction models is correlated with a change in the metric features of preformed chips. The author's analysis of core morphology revealed a number of trends. 1. There was a shift from the knepping technology, which includes two reduction models (knepping from prismatic and edge-faceted cores in the Early Upper Paleolithic (layer 1C of the Mezmay Cave), and in the first stage of the Late Upper Paleolithic) to primary splitting of prismatic cores in the late period of the Late Upper Paleolithic and in the Epipaleolithic. 2. The change in core reduction models was accompanied by a change in the metric features of the plate chips (an increase in the average value of the chip width and a decrease in the average value of the relative chip thickness).

Late Upper Paleolithic occupation at Cooper’s Ferry, Idaho, USA, ~16,000 years ago

Radiocarbon dating of the earliest occupational phases at the Cooper’s Ferry site in western Idaho indicates that people repeatedly occupied the Columbia River basin, starting between 16,560 and 15,280 calibrated years before the present (cal yr B.P.). Artifacts from these early occupations indicate the use of unfluted stemmed projectile point technologies before the appearance of the Clovis Paleoindian tradition and support early cultural connections with northeastern Asian Upper Paleolithic archaeological traditions. The Cooper’s Ferry site was initially occupied during a time that predates the opening of an ice-free corridor (≤14,800 cal yr B.P.), which supports the hypothesis that initial human migration into the Americas occurred via a Pacific coastal route.

THE TRACEWEAR STUDY OF STONE HUNTING WEAPONS AT THE BYKI UPPER PALEOLITHIC SITE

Определенная уникальность стоянок Пены, Быки 1, Быки 2, 3 и Быки 7 (слои I, Ib, Ia, Ic) заключается в присутствии серий геометрических микролитов (треугольников) в составе их кремневых коллекций 18 16 тыс. л. н. и фауне бореального подкомплекса мамонтового териокомплекса. В статье рассмотрены кремневые треугольники стоянок Быки как свидетельство древнейшего использования треугольников как наконечников стрел в Европе, представляющие собой отдельный тип треугольников поздней поры верхнего палеолита. Отмечена зависимость их формы от их конкретного использования и положения относительно древка или иной основы, что и является основным объяснением их отличия от других треугольных микролитов рассматриваемой эпохи. A certain uniqueness of the Peny, Byki 1, Byki 2, 3 and Byki 7 sites (layers I, Ib, Ia, Ic) is manifested in the presence of a series of geometric triangles in sets of flint artifacts in the period of 19,000 16,000 B.P. (uncalibrated) and the fauna of the boreal subcomplex of the mammoth theriocomplex referred to the late Upper Paleolithic. The paper suggests that the flint triangles from the Byki sites should be viewed as an evidence of the earliest use of triangles as arrowheads in Europe around 18,000 16,000 B.P. (uncalibrated), making these Byki triangles a special type of artifacts of the early late Upper Paleolithic. There is correlation between the shape of the Byki triangles and their specific function and the way they were inserted into the shaft such specific features set these triangles apart from other triangular microliths of the period in question.