ANT100: Lecture_23

Europe, Asia, Africa Palaeolithic and Neolithic §

March 18

Middle Paleolithic: 200KYA – 40KYA §

• H. neanderthalensis (Europe and Near East); H. denisova (Asia); H. floresiensis (Asia); ==H. sapiens== (start in Africa, but spread throughout the world)
• For H. sapiens: overall, long distance of material suggests interconnectedness of people; shift towards blades and composite tools

Mousterian: §

• Flakes made using Levallois technique; flakes retouched into many tool types: sidescrapers, points, denticulates; associated with Neanderthals
  • Levallois Technique: prepared core; skill and time needed; produces several flakes

Upper Paleolithic: 50-40KYA until approx. 10KYA: §

• Blades: an elongated flake; length 2x its width; elaborate core preparation; mass production of blanks which can be retouched into different tools
• Increase in efficiency and effectiveness of use of raw material over time:
  • Oldowan -> Acheulean -> Mousterian -> Upper Paleolithic
  • Up to 9m of cutting edge from 0.5kg of flint in Upper Paleolithic

Upper Paleolithic objects §

• Deep attachment to objects (heirlooms(传家宝))

  “artifacts take on a significance beyond the here and now” – Gosden

  • Social connections over space and time (materials and objects distributed over a wider area); composite tools, made from multiple materials

Upper Paleolithic in Europe: 40KYA – 10KYA §

• Numerous examples of rock art, particularly cave art

• Earliest evidence for art 77KYA in Southern Africa

• Portable Art: carved bone, antler, ivory; start to appear ca. 40KYA; Venus figurines (25KYA); more often found at larger settlements representing aggregations of hunter-gatherers

  Hohlenstein, Germany: half-lion-half-man figure; 40 000 years old (made of mammoth ivory); animism: attributing a soul to things that we might think of as not having a soul

Upper Paleolithic Settlement §

• Dolni Vestonice; Czech Republic, 25KYA
• Mammoth hunting; bones used for fuel, architecture, tools, ornaments; settlement took place over several seasons
• The Near East: Ohallo II; semi-sedentary hunter-gatherers; 20KYA (Paleolithic)
• The Near East: Natufian: ca. 15 – 11KYA; wild grasses, nut trees, gazelles, goats; like Ohallo II, semi-sedentary hunter-gatherers
• Natufian Settlement: processing grains for storage (without pottery); sedentism; more of a stone element (stone foundations) [支持久坐或半固定的人口]

Roasting culture vs boiling culture peoples §

• Natufians and Near East farmers are roasting culture
  • Natufian Example: Abu Hereyra: 13.5KYA; good gazelle-hunting location; seasonal use of wild plants and animals; semi-sedentary to year-round occupation; storage pits = “delayed return”; sub-floor burial of the dead
    • Abu Hureyra as a farming settlement: re-occupied PPNB (pre-pottery Neolithic B) (10.5 – 8.7KYA); 5000-6000 people
• Göbekli Tepe*: Holocene: current geological epoch; starts ca. 11.7KYA; not the only example of stone architecture from that time period in the Near East; Göbekli Tepe can be interpreted as “Houses” (structures associated with lineages)

How do we know a plant is domesticated? §

• Domesticated plants have: tough rachis; larger seeds; different genetic signature

Farming in Europe: §

• Southeast Europe (8500 years ago); Central and Western Europe (7500 years ago); Britain and North Europe (6000 years ago);
  • DNA evidence suggests migration of people from Middle East; migrants brought grains, animals
• Linear Band Keramik (LBK) 7200 – 6500 years ago: long, rectangular houses; Middle Danube area, central Europe
• Talheim (6900 years ago): massacre site; men, women, and children; farmer-farmer violence, not farmer vs hunter-gatherer, as previously believed
• Talianky: Cucuteni-Trypillia culture; 5850 – 5700 years old (Neolithic); Ukraine (Eurasian Steppe); huge farming town, population around 10 000; 200 such settlements in and around the Ukraine; were able to make two-story houses that were plastered on the inside, and painted; seemed to have been burned to the ground by the inhabitants every 60-80 years

Neolithic in Northern and Western Europe: 6000 – 5000 years ago; §

• Earthen Long Barrows; example: West Kennet Long Barrow, on Salisbury Plain
• Early Neolithic (Orkney): Maeshowe (4800 years old); chambered tomb
• Ring of Brodgar: 5200 years ago: near Maeshowe; one of the earliest stone circles in the UK
• Ness of Brodgar: predates Stonehenge; shows that places that seem isolated today (like the Orkneys) were very important 5000 years ago; at least 10 massive stone structures; places of residence and ritualroduced more art than any other Neolithic site in the UK
• Skara Brae: farming village composed of semi-subterranean houses, with tunnels between houses; fisher-farmers
• Grooved Ware: pottery made in Orkneys; both for everyday and ritual use; mostly used to serve food and drink; this style also found on Salisbury Plain; similar motifs to those found on passage graves in Ireland
• Salisbury Plain (Stonehenge): built between 5000 – 3500 years ago; burial ground (mostly cremations), not everyone could be buried there though

Africa §

• Northeast Africa: tef, millet, coffee
• Central Africa: millet, sorghum (ca. 8000 years ago)
• West Africa: rice

Hunter-Gatherers in North Africa: §

• Sahara was much wetter 14KYA than it is today (late Pleistocene); similar lifestyle to Natufians; evidence of pottery

Hunter-Gatherers in the Sahara: §

Ex. Gobero, Niger; large cemetery (over 200 burials); 9700 – 8200 years ago

• Pastoralism: cattle domestication 9KYA in places; cattle burials (“cattle cult”) 7th millennium

Acorns, Rice Agriculture, and pottery in China §

• First grinding stones 28KYA; first pottery: 20KYA; first wild rice used as temper in pottery: ca. 10KYA; Shangstan: 11.4 – 8.6KYA (evidence for domesticated rice)
• Metallurgy: used after about 5000 years ago; Sintashta culture (Eurasian Steppe); bronze-making; fortified settlements and burial tumuli; chariots, horses, mobility (sometimes lavishly furnished); metallurgy often viewed in connection with social inequality and urban living