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Presented is the one page abstract from my Masters thesis of the above title, 2016.
Quaternary Science Reviews
Middle Stone Age (MSA) site distributions in eastern Africa and their relationship to Quaternary environmental change, refugia and the evolution of Homo sapiens2008 •
The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) peaked in Australia around 18,000 BP. At this time, many previously-occupied archaeological sites in the northwest quarter of the Australian continent show signs of abandonment or reduced occupation. Previously-reported evidence from the inland Pilbara on LGM activity is ambiguous and has been interpreted to mean both abandonment and continuous occupation. Excavations at Millys Cave have revealed the first unambiguous evidence for human occupation in the inland Pilbara during the LGM. Stone artefact data from Millys Cave indicate that the occupants exploited a smaller territorial area during the LGM compared with later periods, but did not substantially alter their land-use system. Population size probably changed very little but social networks and aggregation activities were reduced during the LGM.
Abstract The prehistoric archaeology of Sri Lanka is of considerable significance for investigations of the evolution, dispersal and adaptation of our species within a variety of environments beyond Africa during the Late Pleistocene. In particular, the archaeological and fossil sequences of Sri Lanka’s ‘Microlithic tradition’, c. 38,000–3,000 cal. years BP, have yielded some of the earliest Homo sapiens fossils, microlithic technologies, osseous toolkits, and evidence for symbolic ornamentation and long-distance contacts anywhere in South Asia. The further association of the Late Pleistocene portion of these records with the tropical rainforest of Sri Lanka’s Wet Zone also makes Sri Lanka of particular interest for debates regarding the viability of tropical rainforest for early human foraging and specialization. Yet beyond mentions of its fossil evidence, the archaeology and palaeoenvironmental contexts of the ‘Microlithic tradition’ have remained little-explored in the international literature. Here we present the first critical review of this period of Sri Lankan prehistory, examining its local chronologies, the spatial and diachronic patterns of its material cultural sequence, and relating its technological and fossil record to broader international archaeological, anthropological and genetic debates.
Climate change is frequently highlighted as a key driver of biological evolution and cultural innovation in our species. It is often seen as influencing behavioural plasticity and the development of buffering mechanisms, for example in the form of more efficient technology and subsistence strategies. However, such hypotheses are yet to be studied in detail in South Asia, despite improving Late Pleistocene palaeoenvironmental records in this region and its crucial position in human dispersals beyond Africa. Here, we review evidence for technological and behavioural innovation across three regions of South Asia: the Thar Desert (northwest India), the Jurreru River Valley (southeast India), and the lowland Wet Zone of Sri Lanka. Together these areas form an ecotone from hyper-arid desert to humid rainforest that show different dynamics in the Late Pleistocene, and particularly during the Last Glacial Maximum. The archaeological records from each of these areas demonstrate a distinct nature and tempo of cultural change, probably reflecting, to some extent, the influence of climate change on forming heterogeneous local environments. Overall, however, the mosaic environments of South Asia made it an attractive region for the persistence of our species and their gradual uptake of cultural innovations during the Late Pleistocene.
This monograph reports on 15,000 years of technological and social change in a region of northern Australia located on the edge of the semi-arid zone amidst mesas, deep gorges and dry basalt plains. It is a region best known for its spectacular rock art, and more particularly the striped anthropomorphic figures known as the ‘Lightning Brothers’ which decorate the walls of some rockshelters in the south of the traditional lands of the Wardaman people. The region is also known for its rich archaeological record, and has been the subject of intensive archaeological study since Davidson’s research there in the 1930s. This monograph employs foraging theory and recent thinking about the strategic organisation of lithic technology to explore changing settlement and subsistence practices in this region since the end of the Last Glacial Maximum. Applying this approach to the explanation of assemblage variability in Wardaman Country offers new insights into the possible reasons for technological and social change in this region over the last 15,000 years. The ideas about technological responses to different foraging practices developed in this monograph are tested against assemblage data from four rockshelters located in different parts of Wardaman Country. The results suggest that major changes in lithic technology and land use took place in reaction to increased subsistence risk brought on by declines in the abundance and predictability of resources. These declines may have been triggered by the onset of ENSO-driven climatic variability after 5,000 BP, which appears to have reached its greatest severity in northern Australia between c. 3,500 and 2,000 BP. This study has important implications for our understanding of northern Australian prehistory, including the potential causes of broadly similar technological changes across large parts of the top end and the timing of increased inter-regional contact and the spread of new technologies. It also illustrates the importance of tracking continuity in manufacturing traditions as a means of understanding the kinds of social processes that underlie regional technological changes.
Here we present the first detailed analysis of the archaeological finds from Carpenters Gap 1 rockshelter, one of the oldest radiocarbon dated sites in Australia and one of the few sites in the Sahul region to preserve both plant and animal remains down to the lowest Pleistocene aged deposits. Occupation at the site began between 51,000 and 45,000 cal BP and continued into the Last Glacial Maximum, and throughout the Holocene. While CG1 has featured in several studies, the full complement of 100 radiocarbon dates is presented here for the first time in stratigraphic context, and a Bayesian model is used to evaluate the age sequence. We present analyses of the stone artefact and faunal assemblages from Square A2, the oldest and deepest square excavated. These data depict a remarkable record of adaptation in technology, mobility, and diet breadth spanning 47,000 years. We discuss the dating and settlement record from CG1 and other northern Australian sites within the context of the new dates for occupation of Madjedbebe in Arnhem Land at 65,000 years (±5700), and implications for colonisation and dispersal within Sahul.
Australian Archaeology
Perspectives on ecological approaches in Australian archaeology2000 •
2004 •
Journal of Human Evolution
People of the ancient rainforest: Late Pleistocene foragers at the Batadomba-lena rockshelter, Sri LankaArchaeology in Oceania
Watura Jurnti: A 42000-45000-year-long occupation sequence from the north-eastern Pilbara2018 •
2012 •
Journal of Indo-Pacific Archaeology
Clothing and modern human behaviour in Australia2010 •
Archaeology in Oceania
Aboriginal Settlement during the LGM at Brockman, Pilbara Region, Western Australia2009 •
2011 •
2005 •
Current Anthropology
Neolithization Processes in the Levant: The Outer Envelope2011 •
Quaternary International
Early MIS 3 occupation of Mochena Borago Rockshelter, Southwest Ethiopian Highlands: Implications for Late Pleistocene archaeology, paleoenvironments and modern human dispersals2012 •
Quaternary Science Reviews
Symbolic expression in Pleistocene Sahul, Sunda, and Wallacea2019 •
2006 •
2005 •
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
Late Pleistocene human occupation in the Maloti-Drakensberg region of southern Africa: New radiocarbon dates from Rose Cottage Cave and inter- site comparisons2019 •