The Northern Iranian Central Plateau at the End of the Pleistocene and Early Holocene: The Emergence of Domestication Abstract Until recently, the Iranian Central Plateau (ICP) was considered to have been unoccupied at the end of the Pleistocene (Marshall 2012 in ‘Missing Links: Demic Diffusion and the Development of Agriculture on the Central Iranian Plateau’. Durham University e-Theses. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/3547/), raising questions about the mechanisms that drove Neolithic diffusion in this area. However, recent field data has provided new insights into the rise of domestication here. Reassessment of the local chronology during the Early Holocene reveals consistent occupation of the ICP throughout the Epipaleolithic/Mesolithic. Plant and animal remains indicate that Mesolithic communities preserved a purely foraging lifestyle, yet data for the Early Neolithic shows that communities produced fully domesticated resources. This clear economic rupture suggests the introduction of farming technologies from other regions. Additionally, the central geographic position of the ICP between the Zagros and western Central Asia, and the correspondence in material culture between the eastern sites of the ICP and the Zagros suggest that the region was a hot spot of connections favourable to the eastward diffusion of the Neolithic.

The ‘Copper Age’—A History of the Concept Abstract The idea that there was a Copper Age between the Neolithic and Bronze Age was inspired by the discovery of the use of native copper in prehistoric North America. Its currency in European prehistory owes much to the 1861 observations by William Wilde that copper tools preceded the use of bronze in Ireland, though Wilde did not postulate a Copper Age per se. Acceptance of the existence of a Copper Age was a long process, not least as it seemed to contradict the premises of the Three Age System and was conflated with arguments for the local development of copper metallurgy, but the 1876 and 1880 international prehistoric archaeology congresses were key moments in its recognition. By the mid 1880s its validity was widely accepted in Europe. In contemporary dating schemes, the definition of the Copper Age varies according to regional and national traditions. This paper touches on the debate concerning the use of technological stages as chronological periods and examines the history of alternative conceptualisations of the early periods of metallurgy in Europe, including those that posit socio-economic phases of development.

The Neolithic and ‘Pastoralism’ Along the Nile: A Dissenting View Abstract A largely accepted paradigm in African recent prehistory considers pastoralism to be the main subsistence source of food-producing communities along the Sudanese Nile valley from the 6th millennium cal BC onwards. This paradigm is constraining the development of a wider theoretical perspective that assumes, instead, a regionally differentiated picture of the economic and social organisation of local communities in northeastern Africa. This paradigm is thus the strongest impediment to achieving reliable and convincing syntheses of the transition from food collection to food production in this area. New data from Upper Nubia and central Sudan open the way for different and more complex scenarios and a new understanding of the local transition from agro-pastoral to agricultural practices. A more systematic data-based approach helps to change radically our perception of different Neolithic trajectories. Moreover, it helps to place in a different perspective—based on various levels of identity formation processes—change and continuity along the chrono-cultural sequence, as well as the different meanings that each local group confers on apparently similar acts in the context of the funerary ideology.

Luobi Cave, South China: A Comparative Perspective on a Novel Cobble-Tool Industry Associated with Bone Tool Technology during the Pleistocene–Holocene Transition Abstract The nature of Paleolithic cultures in South China and their relationship with mainland Southeast Asia remains ill-defined. The lithic industry of South China has been characterized as a simple ‘cobble-tool’ industry, persisting from the early Pleistocene to the Holocene, while the most representative Southeast Asian industry was also marked by a pebble-tool techno-complex, the Hoabinhian, during the Late Pleistocene–Early Holocene. A possible cultural link between the two regions has been proposed by some scholars but the technological characteristics of the two industries remained elusive, as did the variability within them. In this paper we conduct technological analysis of a ‘cobble-tool’ industry associated with a bone tool technology from Luobi Cave, Hainan Island, dated to c. 11–10 ka, and compare it with the well-studied typical Hoabinhian site of Laang Spean in Cambodia. While there is a slight similarity in operational sequence (chaîne opératoire), a major difference is that the Luobi Cave site can be rejected as a potential Hoabinhian site. The excavated material indicates a high degree of innovation and demonstrates a new sort of variability in the tool-kit of modern human groups during the Late Pleistocene–Early Holocene transition in South China and Southeast Asia. This study represents an initial attempt to decipher the technological cultural variability in this region. We suggest that the emergence of behavioral modernity and cultural variability should be evaluated at both regional and sub-regional scales, instead of defining them as uniform, progressive and incremental, processes. Here we present, firstly, the variability of operational sequences (chaînes opératoires) within the lithic production of Luobi Cave, and then compare this assemblage with typical and well-studied Hoabinhian assemblages from Laang Spean Cave in Cambodia to make clear the regional variability or complexity of human technological behaviors. Secondly, we then discuss the role of these technological behaviors as strategies for adapting to diverse ecology and environments from the Late Pleistocene to the Holocene.

History, Chronology and Techno-Typology of the Upper Paleolithic Sequence in the Shuidonggou Area, Northern China Abstract The timing and behavioral markers of the Upper Paleolithic in different parts of the world are of great importance to research on modern human dispersals. The pattern of behavioral developments in the Upper Paleolithic in northern China differs in important ways from the patterns observed in West Eurasia, Africa, and South Asia. Shuidonggou (SDG), a cluster of Paleolithic sites in northern China, contains several of the most important Upper Paleolithic sites in the region. Various localities yield evidence of three major cultural components dated by 14C, uranium-series, and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) methods to between roughly 46 ka and 10 ka. The oldest component, blade assemblages with western Eurasian early Upper Paleolithic characteristics, appears to be intrusive from Siberia and/or Mongolia, beginning at least 41 ka (e.g., SDG 1 and SDG 9). Advanced core and flake assemblages may mark the appearance of an indigenous Late Paleolithic of North China beginning at around 33 ka (e.g., SDG 2 and SDG 8). Finally, around 10.5 ka, microblade technology arrived in the area (SDG 12), although we are not sure of its origins at present. Other typical Upper Paleolithic cultural remains, such as bone tools and body decorations, have been found at various localities in the SDG area as well (e.g., ostrich eggshell beads from SDG 2, 7, and 8). Information from this cluster of occupations increases our understanding of cultural variability, adaptation, and demographic dynamics of modern humans in Late Pleistocene northern Asia.

Diversification, Intensification and Specialization: Changing Land Use in Western Africa from 1800 BC to AD 1500 Abstract Many societal and environmental changes occurred between the 2nd millennium BC and the middle of the 2nd millennium AD in western Africa. Key amongst these were changes in land use due to the spread and development of agricultural strategies, which may have had widespread consequences for the climate, hydrology, biodiversity, and ecosystem services of the region. Quantification of these land-use influences and potential feedbacks between human and natural systems is controversial, however, in part because the archaeological and historical record is highly fragmented in time and space. To improve our understanding of how humans contributed to the development of African landscapes, we developed an atlas of land-use practices in western Africa for nine time-windows over the period 1800 BC–AD 1500. The maps are based on a broad synthesis of archaeological, archaeobotanical, archaeozoological, historical, linguistic, genetic, and ethnographic data, and present land use in 12 basic categories. The main differences between categories is the relative reliance on, and variety of, domesticated plant and animal species utilized, and the energy invested in cultivating or keeping them. The maps highlight the irregular and frequently non-linear trajectory of land-use change in the prehistory of western Africa. Representing an original attempt to produce rigorous spatial synthesis from diverse sources, the atlas will be useful for a range of studies of human–environment interactions in the past, and highlight major spatial and temporal gaps in data that may guide future field studies.

The Emergence of Early Pottery in East Asia: New Discoveries and Perspectives Abstract The appearance of the oldest pottery in the world is a major focus of Early Neolithic archaeology. So far, most discoveries of early pottery have occurred in South China, North China, the Russian Far East, Japan and Korea. The discovery of very thick, low-fired, fibre-tempered pottery dated from around 10,000 BP at the Houtaomuga Site, in Jilin Province, fills an important gap in the distribution of early pottery in northeast China. Based on multi-disciplinary research and an important series of dates, this article establishes the chronology of the early pottery remains discovered at the Houtaomuga Site and their morphological and technical characteristics, and sheds light on their function. Finally, the authors compare them to the other early pottery sherds discovered in the surrounding region, and throughout East Asia, in order to discuss the significance of this discovery and its implications for the subsistence mode developed in the northwest of the Jilin Province at the very beginning of the Neolithic.

From Iberia to the Southern Levant: The Movement of Silver Across the Mediterranean in the Early Iron Age Abstract The origins of the silver trade across the Mediterranean, and the role of the Phoenicians in this phenomenon, remain contentious. This is partly because of difficulties encountered when trying to assign archaeological silver to its geological sources. Here we present a reanalysis of Iron Age silver hoards in the southern Levant, which demonstrates not only that recycling of silver was widespread in the Early and Late Iron Age, but that the components of this mixed silver originated from the Aegean, Anatolia and the western Mediterranean. An assessment of lead isotope analyses combined with compositional data allows the identification of mixing lines based on gold levels in the silver and the Pb crustal age (or, more loosely, geological age) of the ore from which the silver originated. It is shown that, from as early as the 11th century BC, these mixed silver signatures derive from the Taurus mountains in Anatolia, from Iberia and an unknown source—with Sardinia as an additional possibility—and Laurion in Greece in the Late Iron Age. In contrast to copper, which was deliberately alloyed with silver, gold appears to have been mixed unintentionally, through the melting down of silver objects with gold parts. It is suggested that vertical mixing lines (with constant Pb crustal age but variable Au), may indicate the melting down and mixing of silver in times of unrest, both here and in other contexts. Gold and lead concentrations in the silver indicate that native silver from Iberia was most likely used in the Early Iron Age, suggesting that the first people to convey silver to the southern Levant were not miners but traders who had acquired silver directly from the indigenous Bronze Age inhabitants of Iberia. However, evidence of the exploitation of jarosite also supports that silver ore mining and cupellation was ongoing in Iberia at a similar time, and continued in the Late Iron Age—potentially a result of technological transfer from the East. In essence, the western Mediterranean origin of the silver in these Early Iron Age southern Levantine hoards supports an emerging picture of Mediterranean interactions and trade relations in the increasingly bright Dark Ages (c. 1200–800 BC).

Midden or Molehill: The Role of Coastal Adaptations in Human Evolution and Dispersal Abstract Coastal adaptations have become an important topic in discussions about the evolution and dispersal of Homo sapiens. However, the actual distribution and potential relevance of coastal adaptations (broadly, the use of coastal resources and settlement along shorelines) in these processes remains debated, as is the claim that Neanderthals exhibited similar behaviors. To assess both questions, we performed a systematic review comparing coastal adaptations of H. sapiens during the African Middle Stone Age (MSA) with those of contemporaneous Neanderthals during the European Middle Paleolithic. In both species, systematic use of marine resources and coastal landscapes constitutes a consistent behavioral signature over ~ 100,000 years (MIS 6–3) in several regions of Africa and Europe. We found more similarities than differences between Neanderthals and modern humans, with remaining disparities all in degree rather than kind. H. sapiens exploited a wider range of marine resources—particularly shellfish—more intensively. MSA shellfish-bearing sites are also more often associated with intense occupations on coastal landscapes, and more evidence of complex material culture such as shell beads. In terms of broader ramifications, Pleistocene coastal adaptations are best conceived of as an ‘add-on’ to previous adaptive strategies, complementing more frequently exploited inland resources and landscapes. Still, Neanderthals and modern humans increased their dietary breadth and quality, and added options for occupation and range expansion along coastlines. Potential evolutionary implications of these multi-generational behaviors include higher intakes of brain-selective nutrients as a basis for neurobiological changes connected to increased cognitive capacities, but also greater reproductive success, dispersal abilities and behavioral flexibility. Whether gradual differences between modern humans and Neanderthals stimulated different evolutionary trajectories is a question for future research.

Eurasian Steppe Chariots and Social Complexity During the Bronze Age Abstract This paper aims to examine some societal principles that underlie the development of horse-drawn chariots in Inner Eurasia during the Middle and Late Bronze Age (cal. 2050–1750 BC). Analysis is based on an evaluation and re-examination of the archaeological evidence for horse-drawn chariots, and the social constructs they entail. Chariots were developed in the zone of the Northern Eurasian steppes before c. 2000 BC in the context of complex but stateless societies. Because chariots depend on a set of developed skills, valuable resources, and complicated technologies, which involve several outstanding improvements to previously known solutions, they require specific conditions for their development and maintenance in social life. Most fundamentally, they require a group of people with an interest in this complex technology: a class of military elites characterized by aggrandizing behavior. The competition between collectives of military elites for resources, power and prestige brought into life the earliest chariot complex in the world.