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Archaeologists are often tempted to make their own contributions to the study of the evolution of cognition and language. At the same time many more researchers in other fields try to find in the archaeological literature the evidence that would disclose the steps in the evolution of these aspects of human nature. On one issue all scholars agree: The so-called Upper Paleolithic Revolution, since some 45,000 years ago, commonly characterized on the basis of Western European archaeological records, fossils and genetic evidence, is the expression of hominins like us. It is generally agreed, although not accepted by all, that due to gene flow and cultural transmissions modern humans came out of Africa and dispersed around the world. The question, however, is how much earlier were the origins of languages and cognition, and can we identify the material remains that reflect the phases that led to today's expressions, within the sequence from 3.3 or 2.6 Myr ago. This paper examines briefly the common stone tool making techniques that are still considered in the literature as a source for providing information about the evolution of cognition, along with very few comments on the pattern of seasonal/annual mobility of past groups of foragers. It reaches the conclusion that when we study not only the records of Europe, western Asia and Africa from a Western view point but also take into consideration the information from East Asia, we are forced to adopt a cautious attitude to the interpretations concerning the emergence of cognition and languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The earliest pottery in East Asia, as is found in several cave sites in southern China, emerges in Upper Paleolithic contexts dating from the Last Glacial Maximum, ∼20 Ka cal BP. The making of simple pottery vessels in Late Pleistocene East Asia also has been noted in eastern Siberia and Japan but not yet in the Central Plains of China. This paper summarizes the better-reported evidence for early pottery sites across the vast region of China south of the Yangtze River, providing details on two dating projects conducted in the cave sites of Xianrendong (Jiangxi Province) and Yuchanyan (Hunan Province). The excavated contexts in these two caves and a few others clearly indicate that this early pottery was the creation of hunter-gatherers who hunted available game and foraged a variety of plant foods. The nature of the cave occupations is ephemeral, and where the published animal and plant remains allow, we suggest that there were repeated, seasonal occupations. In sum, there is no basis yet to suggest that the making of early pottery in South China marked sedentary or plant-cultivating communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food security intertwined with the need to maintain biological survival of a demographically viable population is the basic long-term policy for all societies. This paper compares selected cases of successful and failed Paleolithic groups of hunter-gatherers, as recorded archaeologically across Eurasia and Africa, in responding to the impacts of abrupt climatic changes. The complex prehistory of Pleistocene foragers is briefly compared to strategies adopted by Neolithic farmers. The major difference between forager and farmer economies is not their social organization as much as the access options to alternative territories and food resources. Open Pleistocene landscapes across Eurasia and Africa allowed for movements of Paleolithic groups over large distances with or without adopting new exploitation techniques. Successes and failures that we measure in a chronological macro-scale left archaeological evidence (lithic assemblages, faunal remains, occasional flimsy dwellings, etc.) in various regions, recorded by systematic and comprehensive surveys and excavations. However, we miss the chronological micro-scale of most of the Paleolithic period that could inform us about extinctions. We can identify only survival stories explained as successful adaptations. When farming communities were established during the course of the Holocene, variable modes of social and economic interactions and group resilience evolved in order to secure survival in years of bad harvests. Interactions with foragers and herders, competition, raids, village abandonment, migration into others' territories, were among the optional strategies. Due to the difference in chronological scales between 2.6 Ma of the Paleolithic period and the 12 Ka of the Holocene (or Anthropocene), we can more easily recognize the role of abrupt climatic changes among prehistoric societies during the Terminal Pleistocene and the Holocene and evaluate the success and failure of both, hunter-gatherers and farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The MIS 3/2 transition (Denekamp interstadial and beginning of the LGM) is a crucial point in time for understanding adaptation of modern humans to climate. The Southern Caucasus is a unique place to study human ecology within this time period because it served as a refugium during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and thus allows us to study how human populations responded to the climatic shifts during the Last Glacial. This study presents the results of the paleoecological analysis of Dzudzuana cave during the MIS 3/2 transition using small mammal community structure as a proxy for paleoenvironment. Of the four units in Dzudzuana (Units A through D), Unit C, divided into subunits C5 to C1, has been dated to 27–24 ka cal BP and the MIS 3/2 transition. Thus, Unit C allows for a diachronic analysis throughout this important time period. Small mammals were found primarily in subunit C2 and C1. Analysis of the small mammal assemblages of Dzudzuana subunits C2 and C1 confirm the paleoecological reconstruction obtained from macrobotanical remains, and suggest a refugium habitat during the last phase of MIS 3 and the onset of the LGM. Comparison with a contemporaneous site in the region (Satsurblia) suggests a high spatial-temporal mosaic habitat in the region. Small refugium areas within the Rioni River valley and its tributaries that enjoyed ameliorated climatic conditions and proximity to water resources may have promoted local human habitation. Furthermore, results suggest that the small mammal assemblages of Dzudzuana are non-analogue communities typical of European Denekamp assemblages, and provide a new datum point for the faunal remains during this time period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The use of bamboo by hominins in Southeast Asia has long been used as an explanation for the lack of stone tool innovation and diversity in that region during the Pleistocene. The paleoenvironmental and ethnographic basis of “Bamboo hypothesis” has been critiqued recently, but those factors are not directly relevant to the question of whether prehistoric hominins actually used bamboo. There is an even more rudimentary question that should be answered first: is it even possible to make complex bamboo tools with simple flaked cobble tool industries? This paper shows that it is indeed possible to procure and manipulate bamboo in a variety of ways with replicated stone tools. Not all bamboo stems are of equal quality, which should add a layer of intricacy in need of consideration by any future advocate of the Bamboo Hypothesis. Pilot knapping studies are also discussed, and suggest that the raw material constraints presented by local raw materials may generally be given undue weight in the morphological appearance of Southeast Asian Pleistocene stone tools. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This review summarizes the paleoecology of the Early and Middle Pleistocene of southwestern Asia, based on both flora and fauna, retrieved from a series of ‘windows’ provided by the excavated sites. The incomplete chrono-stratigraphy of this vast region does not allow to accept the direct chronological correlation between the available sites and events of faunal and hominin dispersals from Africa. It also demonstrates that hominins survived in a mixed landscape of open parkland with forested surrounding hills. In addition, the prevailing environmental conditions are not sufficient to explain successful adaptations to new ecological niches away from the African savanna of the bearers of ‘core and flake’ and the Acheulian industries, The differences in knapping and secondary shaping of stone artifacts probably reflect the learned traditions of different groups of hominins. The current distribution of lithic industries across Eurasia is undoubtedly incomplete due to lack of cultural continuities as well as paucity of field research in several sub-regions. This observation supports the contention that what we view as a constant stream of migrants was actually interrupted many times. The continuous occupation of southwestern Asia by the makers of the Acheulian is in contrast with neighboring regions such as the Iranian plateau and Eastern Europe. A more complex model is required to explain the recorded Eurasian archaeological–cultural mosaic. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This paper summarizes the social evolution of the Pleistocene Palaeolithic sequence of the Levant. It examines the available cultural records as reflecting a non-continuous record that was created by the impacts of mainly human inward migrations followed by the development of local cultures and mixing with foreigners. Outward migrations are yet poorly known due to the paucity of solid information from neighboring geographic territories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since its discovery in the 1980s, Nahal Hemar Cave has been interpreted as a cult site where ceremonies were performed, as indicated by the extremely selected and highly symbolic repertoire of objects found in the cave (e.g., stone masks, modelled skulls, bone figurines, etc.). The finds, dated to the 8th millennium cal. BC and assigned to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) period, also consisted of other artefacts often found in contemporaneous sites, such as flint tools or stone beads. In this paper, the status and use of the unique lithic assemblage found in the cave is assessed through a comprehensive approach integrating techno-typological and use-wear analyses and, secondly, contextualized within current lithic research and in the broader context of the Middle/Late PPNB in the southern Levant. The study resolves some of the major questions concerning the production, use and meaning of the flint tools, also bringing some light to the ritual, spiritual or unconventional activities associated with the use of the cave. It concludes that the flint assemblage found in the cave was the result of a series of episodes of deposition of objects over a relatively lengthy period of time, that a varied group of social agents was involved in the production of the said tools and, finally, that the tool producers, and likely, the cave users, were farmers from the agricultural villages in the Mediterranean woodland region. In addition, use-wear analysis indicates that the flint tools found at the cave had a previous history of use before being abandoned/deposited in the cave and some of them may have participated in the ritual activities. Finally, we propose that, in the particular case of the Nahal Hemar knives, they could be related to the processing/dismembering of human bodies, a hypothesis further supported by the remains of 23 individuals (mostly cranial) found in the cave. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The site of ’Ubeidiya provides a unique paleontological record in the Early Pleistocene of the Levantine Corridor, with a rich faunal assemblage, as well as evidence for the presence of early hominins. This research presents a revision of the bovid record of the site found in the last seasons of excavations (1989–1999) as well as the previously published material. Five species of bovids have been identified [Bos oldowayensis, Bovini gen. et sp. indet. (cf. Bison sp.), Oryx sp., Antelopini gen. et sp. indet (cf. Pontoceros ambiguus/Spirocerus sp.), and Gazella sp. cf. Gazella gazella]. The paleoecological reconstruction of the site based on the bovid assemblages supported a non-homologous ecology not similar to any African environment today. This bovid assemblage is biochronologically compatible with previous ages proposed for the site based on the paleomagnetism and the carnivore guild, around 1.6–1.2 Ma. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper examines the spatial distribution of faunal remains on the floor of Kebara Cave (Israel) during unit X (60,000 ± 3500 years), one of the densest occupation layers in the site’s late Middle Paleolithic sequence. During unit X, the central floor area of the cave contained numerous hearths and associated ash lenses, surrounded by an area that was nearly devoid of macroscopic faunal remains, except for three densely packed oval to circular concentrations of bones (structures 1, 2, and 3), each of which was surrounded by a dark organic-rich aureole or ring, and whose shape, size, and spatial location remain virtually unchanged during the accumulation of over 60 cm of unit X deposits. Mineralogical analyses of the sediments from the décapage surface using "on-site Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometry" showed that the absence of visible bones outside of the three dense concentrations is not an artifact of differential preservation. Bones were also densely concentrated in a midden along the north wall of the cave adjacent to the occupation area. The composition of the faunal assemblage from structure 1, the best preserved of the three structures, is compared with the remains found in the midden, and the results of these comparisons used as a basis for hypothesizing how these curious bone concentrations may have formed. While no explanation can be offered with any degree of certainty, one viable possibility is that these structures are the remains of trash-filled pits. Further studies are suggested that may help clarify the nature of these unusual bone concentrations. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

An eyed bone needle fragment found in Shizitan 29 site, Shanxi Province, dated to ca . 23–26 ka cal BP, is one of the early needles with a precise stratigraphic context and date among the open-air Palaeolithic sites in North China. Although the needle was found broken, based on microwear observation and experiments in making and using bone needles, we conclude that it had been used for sewing. Further archaeological evidence, including a sandstone needle-shaping stone, drilling tools, perforated ornaments, and microscopic evidence of thread, support the presence of a bone needle at the Shizitan 29 site. It was the same type as the bone needles used in Siberia during the Late Pleistocene, and the use of needles at Shizitan was one of the strategies for making warm clothes to adapt to the coming of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM, 24,000–18,000 cal BP). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]