Late Pleistocene Technology, Economic Behavior, and Land-Use Dynamics in Southern Italy

Abstract

This paper proposes a new methodology to study prehistoric lithic assemblages in an attempt to derive from that facet of prehistoric behavior the greater technoeconomic system in which it was embedded. By using volumetric artifact density and the frequency of retouched pieces within a given lithic assemblage, it becomes possible to identify whether these stone tools were created by residentially mobile or logistically organized foragers. The linking factor between assemblage composition and land-use strategy is that of curation within lithic assemblages as an expression of economizing behavior. This method is used to study eight sites from southeastern Italy to detect changes in adaptation during the Late Pleistocene. We compare and contrast Mousterian, Uluzzian, proto-Aurignacian and Epigravettian assemblages, and argue that the first three industries overlap considerably in terms of their technoeconomic flexibility. Epigravettian assemblages, on the other hand, display a different kind of land-use exploitation pattern than those seen in the earlier assemblages, perhaps as a response to deteriorating climatic conditions at the Last Glacial Maximum. While we discuss the implications of these patterns in the context of modern human origins, we argue that the methodology can help identify land-use patterns in other locales and periods.

A demographic perspective on the Middle to Later Stone Age transition from Nasera rockshelter, Tanzania

“…Plot of the first two axes of a correspondence analysis of the Nasera fauna. [52,53]. The tool abundance : artefact volumetric density ratio decreases up the stratigraphic sequence (r s ¼ 20.881, p ¼ 0.007) indicating a general decrease in the relative frequency of formal (retouched) tools, and thus increased occupation duration over time.…”

“…The first is the ratio of the number of retouched tools to artefact volumetric density for each assemblage. As shown through extensive modelling and application to sites in Eurasia and North America, as the time spent at a residential site increases, the relative abundance of retouched tools, some of which are presumably transported from the previous residential sites [50], declines as their numbers become swamped by the large amounts of debris produced during on-site flaking episodes [51][52][53]. This results in a strong, significant negative relationship between retouched tool count and artefact volumetric density.…”

In glacial environments beyond glacial terrains: Human eco-dynamics in late Pleistocene Mediterranean Iberia

“…We use retouch frequency, indicating the importance of curation of lithic utility through reuse and resharpening, as a proxy index for these land-use strategies (Barton, 1998;Riel-Salvatore and Barton, 2004;Riel-Salvatore et al, 2008;Barton et al, 2011). A key test of the relationship between lithic artifact curation and land-use strategies is a strong negative correlation between retouch frequencies and total artifact density per unit volume of sediment for assemblages accumulating in stratified deposits (Riel-Salvatore and Barton, , 2007Riel-Salvatore et al, 2008).…”

Landscape variability in tool-use and edge damage formation in South African Middle Stone Age lithic assemblages

“…When raw-material is abundant and transport costs are low, it may be more adaptive to have low curation and high frequencies of unretouched flakes and tools. Barton (1990), Holdaway and Douglass (2011) and others have shown that the reductive nature of tool resharpening means that highly retouched tools are more likely the unintended result of tool "life history" extension (Dibble, 1995;Riel-Salvatore and Barton, 2004). In other words, many retouched tool categories are more parsimoniously linked to flakes that have undergone varying numbers of sharpening events.…”