The Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber) was an important member of Early and Mid-Holocene landscapes and animal communities in Northern Europe. Previous zooarchaeological research has established the... Show moreThe Eurasian beaver (Castor fiber) was an important member of Early and Mid-Holocene landscapes and animal communities in Northern Europe. Previous zooarchaeological research has established the alimentary roles of beavers for Mesolithic societies and their importance for fur procurement. In this paper, we develop an integrated biocultural approach to human-beaver interactions, examining the position of humans and beavers in Mesolithic and Early Neolithic multispecies systems. We contextualize beaver landscape agency in hydroactive environments with human behaviour, synthesizing currently available data on mammalian assemblages, ichtyofauna and beaver-related material culture across Northern Europe. This cross-cultural, diachronic analysis reveals previously overlooked facilitations of human behaviour by beaver practices and ecological legacies. We show that long-term trajectories of human-beaver cohabitation differed between northern European regions. While in Southern Scandinavia, human-beaver intersections witnessed major re-organizations during the Mid-Holocene, beavers retained a key role for human societies across Northeastern Europe throughout much of the Holocene and played an important part at the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in the Dutch wetlands. Divergent pathways are also evidenced by Mesolithic beaver-related material culture, highlighting the cultural keystone status of Castor fiber in higher latitude European landscapes. We argue that this keystone status is grounded in the supply of human hunting, fishing, and gathering affordances by the animals, pointing to the generative commensality between Mesolithic foragers and their beaver neighbours. Taken together, our findings demonstrate the importance of the beaver in the making of Early and Mid-Holocene forager societies in Northern Europe and illustrate the fruitfulness of deploying an integrated multispecies approach. Show less
The recent elaboration and rapid expansion of aDNA, paleoproteomics, and related fields have propelled a profound "biomolecular turn" in archaeology and fundamentally changed the topology of... Show moreThe recent elaboration and rapid expansion of aDNA, paleoproteomics, and related fields have propelled a profound "biomolecular turn" in archaeology and fundamentally changed the topology of archaeological knowledge production. Such a transformation of the archaeological research landscape is not without consequence for long-standing research practices in the field, such as lithic analysis. This special issue derives from the session Old Stones, New Eyes? organized by the authors at the UISPP World Congress in Paris in 2018, which aimed to explore the future of lithic studies. An underlying theme of our session was the felt need to respond to the increasing marginalization of lithic research in terms of its capacity to (1) contribute to the grand narratives of early human evolution and (2) better articulate the role and significance of lithic studies in interdisciplinary human origins research. In this editorial, we briefly outline some of the questions and challenges raised by the biomolecular turn and advocate for a more self-conscious and reflexive stance among lithic experts. We argue that lithic studies fulfill all necessary requirements to act as a basic science for human origins research and that its role and status depends less on technological advances, such as, e.g., improved computing facilities, novel analytical software, or automated shape capture technologies, than on continuous work on the conceptual and methodological foundations of inquiry. We finally draw attention to the unique capability of lithic studies to shed light on the human technological condition and illustrate this potential by introducing and briefly discussing the papers included in this issue. Show less
The recent elaboration and rapid expansion of aDNA, paleoproteomics, and related fields have propelled a profound "biomolecular turn" in archaeology and fundamentally changed the topology of... Show moreThe recent elaboration and rapid expansion of aDNA, paleoproteomics, and related fields have propelled a profound "biomolecular turn" in archaeology and fundamentally changed the topology of archaeological knowledge production. Such a transformation of the archaeological research landscape is not without consequence for long-standing research practices in the field, such as lithic analysis. This special issue derives from the session Old Stones, New Eyes? organized by the authors at the UISPP World Congress in Paris in 2018, which aimed to explore the future of lithic studies. An underlying theme of our session was the felt need to respond to the increasing marginalization of lithic research in terms of its capacity to (1) contribute to the grand narratives of early human evolution and (2) better articulate the role and significance of lithic studies in interdisciplinary human origins research. In this editorial, we briefly outline some of the questions and challenges raised by the biomolecular turn and advocate for a more self-conscious and reflexive stance among lithic experts. We argue that lithic studies fulfill all necessary requirements to act as a basic science for human origins research and that its role and status depends less on technological advances, such as, e.g., improved computing facilities, novel analytical software, or automated shape capture technologies, than on continuous work on the conceptual and methodological foundations of inquiry. We finally draw attention to the unique capability of lithic studies to shed light on the human technological condition and illustrate this potential by introducing and briefly discussing the papers included in this issue. Show less
This editorial introduces Archaeo-Ornithology as a distinct field of inquiry and discusses its multidisciplinary background and potential contribution to a more nuanced characterisation of changing... Show moreThis editorial introduces Archaeo-Ornithology as a distinct field of inquiry and discusses its multidisciplinary background and potential contribution to a more nuanced characterisation of changing human-animal interfaces through time and space. We propose a new conceptual model – grounded in the analysis of ‘triangles of interaction’ – to elucidate the interactional dynamics which underpin varying human-animal relationships. The utility of this approach is demonstrated by exploring the example of anthropogenic space as a key context of human-bird figurations. Each contributing paper of the special issue, which will be introduced in more detail below, foregrounds different aspects and emphasises varying dimensions of the triangle, thus contributing in different ways to archaeo-ornithological research. As highlighted throughout the introduction, however, archaeo-ornithological approaches are not only capable of shedding new light on old questions about the past, they also have the potential of addressing some pressing contemporary quandaries, including continuing debates on the Anthropocene. Show less
In this provocative study, Shumon T. Hussain engages with the long-standing issue of French-Anglophone research conflicts in Palaeolithic archaeology. By examining a range of well-selected case... Show moreIn this provocative study, Shumon T. Hussain engages with the long-standing issue of French-Anglophone research conflicts in Palaeolithic archaeology. By examining a range of well-selected case studies and discursive contexts, the author shows that French and Anglophone approaches in lithic analysis are anchored in opposing cognitive frameworks. He argues that the mainstays of this division can be elucidated by calling upon the marginalised work of American philosopher Stephen C. Pepper, who captured the totality of credible Western thought in terms of four equitable world hypotheses. Based upon his insights, the dissertation demonstrates that French lithic research gravitates towards ‘contextualistic’ and ‘organicistic’ modes of inquiry, while Anglophone approaches tend to rely on ‘formistic’ and ‘mechanistic’ styles of reasoning. Hussain carefully lays out the implications of this condition for mutual understanding and critical practice. He contends that the French-Anglophone divide can only be overcome if scholars endorse scientific pluralism and begin to seriously take into consideration both the strengths and shortcomings of different cognitive frameworks, including their own. Show less
This paper develops a new perspective on human-owl relations in the Pavlovian, a regional group of the early Gravettian of East-Central Europe. It argues that the regular representation of owls in... Show moreThis paper develops a new perspective on human-owl relations in the Pavlovian, a regional group of the early Gravettian of East-Central Europe. It argues that the regular representation of owls in figurative art and ornamentation in this context must be understood as a result of unique conditions of encounter and interaction emerging at the intersection of Southern Moravian early MIS 2-environments, Pavlovian sociocultural practice, and owl presence and behaviour. It is shown that the diverse and tree-rich environments of East-Central Europe, and the Pavlovian Hill region in particular, provided highly favourable living conditions for a rich owl community. In conjunction with Pavlovian settlement behaviour which produced large-scale aggregation sites and seems to have been associated with a more sedentary mode of life, humans were thus particularly exposed to owls that likely dominated the nightly soundscapes of the region. This coincides with the fact that many of the present owl species are resident birds and aligns with compelling evidence for a pronounced ‘sense of place’ in the region's early Gravettian. The paper therefore suggests considering the saliency of negotiating the owl theme in the Pavlovian as an expression of the general eco-cultural entanglement of humans and owls in this setting. I argue that human-owl relations in the Pavlovian might have ultimately been fashioned by a shared sense of place. Show less
