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The purpose of this paper is to discuss the archaeological transitions among microblade industries in Hokkaido and to propose some possible relations between human activities and natural environment. Hokkaido is situated in the north of the Japanese archipelago, and the microblade industries in this region lasted approximately from 24,000 to 13,000 cal BP, corresponding to the climatic changes of the MIS2 Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) Cold2 and MIS2 Late Glacial Warm (LG Warm). The primary purpose of this paper is to describe the whole picture of transitions observed in microblade industries through a series of examinations on the size of microblades, maintenance of burins, and the stone tool classes. Results suggest that the following changes in hunting-related stone tools were occurred during the LG Warm: 1) miniaturization in the part of spears (microblades), 2) high frequency in burin maintenance, and 3) appearance of the new hunting weapon (i.e., projectile points), and axes. Then, a preliminary discussion on the possible relations between human activities and the natural environment including some significant climate changes is made referring to the recent studies on the analyses of charred deposits on pottery from the Taisho 3 site which belongs to LG Warm. Given the fact that the alterations in the environment and human activities were coincident, I propose the hypothesis that the transitions in microblade industries in Hokkaido was an outcome of human adaptation to the fluctuation in accessible natural resources caused by the globally occurred warming trend.

In this review volume, we bring together researchers and institutions involved in Australian island research to provide a contemporary synthesis and benchmark on archaeological and palaeoenvironmental research of Australian island environments. The last major overview of Australian islands archaeological research appeared 16 years ago in the volume Australian Coastal Archaeology (Hall and McNiven, 1999). At that time, the main geographical areas of dynamic islands research in Australia were northwest Western Australia, and central and southeast Queensland. Since 1999, Torres Strait has developed as the most dynamic region of islands research in Australia, and this new volume showcases the range of recent research from Torres Strait and the adjacent region of southern Papua New Guinea. All five INQUA Commissions (Coastal and Marine Processes; Humans and the Biosphere; Palaeoclimates; Stratigraphy and Chronology; Terrestrial Processes, Deposits and History) are represented in the papers in the volume. Key environmental themes explored through the volume are geoarchaeology, taphonomy, impacts of sea-level rise and climate change, chronology of island formation and colonisation, anthropogenic environmental modifications, island terrestrial and marine resource management, and intra- and inter-island occupation, mobility, and exchange relationships. Key socio-cultural themes explored include ritual and ceremonial sites, mortuary practices, canoe voyaging, and responses to colonial impact. Site types discussed include shell deposits (cultural and natural), villages, long-houses, gardens, rock art, ritual shrines, artificial reefs, and ceremonial stone arrangements. The contributions represent diverse multidisciplinary approaches adopting coordinated methodologies to the task of understanding the diversity of human use and modification of islands in the Australian context. Culturally and chronologically, the volume surveys the depth and breadth of Australian island societies, including studies of late Pleistocene island use in northwest Australia, late Holocene deltaic island societies of Papuan lowland rainforests, early-to-mid-Holocene tropical island use of Torres Strait and the Great Barrier Reef, and Holocene selective occupation and abandonment of Bass Strait and other Southern Ocean islands. The volume's geographic coverage is thus broadscale, spread from the hot and humid tropical north to the cold temperate waters of the Southern Ocean. Uniquely, the papers in this volume reveal the diversity and complexity of cultural practices (e.g. subsistence, mobility, technology, socio-religious institutions, cosmology, resource manipulation and management) and historical contingencies that structure and mediate long-term human use, engagement, and modification of islands.

We introduce the papers of the QI Special Issue: Climate Change and Archaeology which were presented at the Second Frison Institute Symposium at the 2014 Society for American Archaeology annual meeting. Papers here examine the links between climate and cultural change, calling attention to the difficulty of determining the role played by climate in cultural change. Issues include whether chronological resolution of climate and cultural change is sufficient to determine that the former “caused” the latter. An additional issue is, assuming the chronological correlation is resolved, whether an observed behavioral or technological change can be attributed to climate change, or if the correlation is spurious.

The paper is devoted to the role of hares in the composition of hunter's prey in the Upper Palaeolithic of the Russian (East European) Plain. Mammoths and hoofed mammals are traditionally considered as main hunting species for these sites. However, sometimes completely different species come to the fore, while the bones of the “main hunting animals” are presented only in small amounts. We have analyzed the faunistic materials of the sites confined to the basins of the main rivers of the Russian Plain (Dnieper, Desna, Seym, Oka, Don), the chronostratigraphic position of which is justified by radiocarbon dates. As a result of quantitative analysis, the sites were divided into 4 groups, where group 1 comprises the sites with the content of hare bones in relation to all definable bone residues of more than 50%, and group 4 - which does not contain them at all. A set of skeletal elements was also studied and their percentage in the collection was determined. Correlation of the data with the Late Pleistocene event scale showed the absence of a direct relationship between the number of hare bones in sites with climate changes. Throughout the entire Upper Palaeolithic, hares were part of the environment of the ancient population, spreading widely in forest landscapes and decreasing in the tundra-steppes. Hares served as universal game, especially when other types of hunting were limited (for example, during seasonal migrations of other species).

Close examination of the geographic position of Early Neolithic settlements in SE-Europe shows that the oldest sites are almost exclusively situated in some very specific biogeographic areas. These earliest Neolithic settlements are all concentrated in a region that Pavle Cikovac calls the Sub-Mediterranean-Aegean biogeographic region. It covers the northern and north-western edge of the Aegean, including Thessaly, Greek Macedonia and Greek Thrace, and extends further into the Balkans, but only along the valleys of the Vardar (Axios), Struma (Strymon) and Mesta (Nestos) rivers. Surprisingly, although Thrace is the closest landscape to Anatolia, it does not contain any sites of the earliest phase of the Neolithic at all beyond the narrow zone of the northern Marmara. In the present paper we explain this remarkable situation in terms of the natural environment in this particular region of the southern Balkans. To begin, we propose that the lack of oldest Early Neolithic settlements in Thrace is related to the extreme microclimate of this region. As shown by modern vegetation analogues, Thracian oriental hornbeam-downy oak forests are exposed to stronger continental influence with frosts in the winter and average temperatures during the coldest months that are ca. 2–3 °C lower than those in the Central Balkans that have Sub-Mediterranean vegetation. In general terms, what we may expect is that the earliest Neolithic groups would first appear in regions with similarly mild conditions, on a yearly average, to those in the Mediterranean. Such mild conditions are indeed present in the Sub-Mediterranean biogeographic region. On the other hand, before moving further to the north along the north-south oriented river systems of the Central Balkans, the Neolithic economy based on agriculture and stockbreeding would first have to be adapted to the relatively harsh winters in the Balkans. In consequence, it would have been possible to apply the new Neolithic lifestyle in the neighbouring areas of Thrace, Walachia, Dobrudža and the Carpathian Basin only after a certain period of adaptation. Available 14C-data show that the adaptation period is identical to the time-span of Rapid Climate Change (RCC: 6550-6050 calBC) as defined in previous studies. ispartof: Quaternary International vol:496 pages:24-41 ispartof: location:GREECE, Thessaloniki status: published

During the late Pleistocene and early Holocene, climatic, faunistic, and ecological changes could produce social readjustments and technological innovations in human populations that were exploring and colonizing the low southeastern plains of South America. In this paper, paleoecological and archaeological data are integrated to systematize and discuss different aspects of early human settlement in Uruguay and the south of Brazil. It is possible to recognize evidence of initial human dispersion by the region between ∼14,000 and 13,100 cal BP (12,000 to 11,320 14C BP) during the late Pleistocene, when dry and cold climatic conditions prevailed in the region. Later, between 12,800 and 10,065 cal BP, a low plains Paleoamerican stemmed bifacial tradition emerged with three different techno-complexes, represented by Fishtail, Tigre, and Pay Paso projectile points. These groups were adapted to the grassland plains and characterized by the presence of wide-stemmed projectile points. The Fishtail point had been supplanted by the Tigre point, showing diversification in design of projectile points during the Pleistocene–Holocene transition. Approximately 12,000 to 11,200 cal BP in the middle Uruguay River, a social and technological reorganization occurred, along with the emergence of the Tigre techno-complex during post-Fishtail times. The advent of Tigre groups coincided with warmer and wetter climatic conditions, indicating the beginning of the Holocene. By 11,080–10,928 cal BP, new weaponry changes occurred in the region, including the production of the Pay Paso points, a regionally distinctive projectile-point style for the early Holocene. These aspects allow start discussions of cultural transmission, technological innovations and morphological variation in projectile point styles over the time and space. The field research developed over the past 15 years, in conjunction with the previous research conducted in southern Brazil, the relative high density of early sites with radiocarbon ages (n = 22), and the chronological base (67 radiocarbon ages), allow to formulate an archaeological and behavioral model about the initial peopling of the Uruguayan and southern Brazil plains.

In the Northern Hemisphere, the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) is recognized as a cold and dry period that marks the maximum southward extension of the Scandinavian Inlands in Europe. In Asia, the ice sheet did not expand from the Arctic into Siberia, yet the LGM had a significant impact at high latitudes and elevations, as well as in regions with a continental climate. How much these changes affected the human occupation of Siberia and Mongolia is still a matter of debate and various models dealing with continuity, discontinuity, demographic movement and adaptation have been put forth. The present paper is a critical review of available empirical data regarding the impact of the LGM on landscapes and human settlements in Mongolia. This review underscores the caveats in the data collected and further analyses are proposed to test several basic hypotheses. The results obtained suggest that during Marine Isotope Stages (MIS) 3 and MIS 2, there were hiatuses in the human occupation of Mongolia. These gaps are potentially linked with significant changes in climate. It is recognized that one of the main breaks in the cultural sequence is associated with the LGM, suggesting that Mongolia experienced periods of depopulation associated with this dramatic climatic change.

The paper focuses on changes in settlement patterns on the frontier zones of wetlands and areas suitable for settling in the Great Hungarian Plain, Central Europe. Based on the statistical analysis of archaeological site elevations in a 4.128 km² lowland landscape, it is demonstrated that archaeological sites of the Arpad Period (AD 970–1300) were situated significantly (p = 0.01; n = 427) lower than those of the late medieval period (AD 1300–1540). Statistical results suggest that rising water levels are likely to have influenced the migration and transformation in settlement patterns from the Medieval Warm Epoch (mid-10th – mid-13th century) to the first part of the Little Ice Age (mid-13th century – mid-16th century). Zonal analysis also revealed close connections between flood-prone geomorphological features and spatiotemporal variations of settlement patterns during the medieval climate change. With regard to the lowland character of the extensive study area, its relatively high flood vulnerability and the numerous analogies from Europe and the Carpathian Basin, only one out of the multitude of factors influencing site selection, water level changes can be interpreted as a rational explanation for the vertical displacement of the settlement pattern.

Throughout the Quaternary, episodes of glaciation and associated low sea level have resulted in the connection of the terrestrial landmasses of Britain and mainland Europe. The river systems that established themselves across these newly emergent land surfaces of the coastal plain would have created important migration corridors for both animals and humans, a point corroborated by the affinity of Palaeolithic remains across Britain and Europe. Technological developments within the last decade have allowed these now submerged valley floors and adjacent terrestrial landscapes associated with the last cold stage and early and middle parts of the current (Holocene) interglacial to be explored and their archaeological legacies unravelled, providing geoarchaeologists with an opportunity to contribute to major cultural debates. However, in order to maximize knowledge, it is essential that geoarchaeologists working within river valleys across both Britain and the European continent are addressing similar research questions by collecting data using comparable methodologies. This paper reviews the approach taken in different regions and provides a baseline assessment to allow the development of a coherent European-wide framework for alluvial geoarchaeology and geoprospection, particularly with respect to the Holocene record.