38651. |
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38652. |
- Shipton, Ceri, et al.
(author)
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78,000-year-old record of Middle and Later stone age innovation in an East African tropical forest
- 2018
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In: Nature Communications. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2041-1723. ; 9:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The Middle to Later Stone Age transition in Africa has been debated as a significant shift in human technological, cultural, and cognitive evolution. However, the majority of research on this transition is currently focused on southern Africa due to a lack of long-term, stratified sites across much of the African continent. Here, we report a 78,000-year-long archeological record from Panga ya Saidi, a cave in the humid coastal forest of Kenya. Following a shift in toolkits ~67,000 years ago, novel symbolic and technological behaviors assemble in a non-unilinear manner. Against a backdrop of a persistent tropical forest-grassland ecotone, localized innovations better characterize the Late Pleistocene of this part of East Africa than alternative emphases on dramatic revolutions or migrations.
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38653. |
- Shoemaker, Anna, 1988-, et al.
(author)
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Grinding-stone implements in the eastern African Pastoral Neolithic
- 2019
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In: Azania. - : ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD. - 0067-270X .- 1945-5534. ; 54:2, s. 203-220
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Grinding-stone tools are a poorly utilised source of archaeological information in eastern Africa. Their presence is noted in multiple contexts, including both domestic and funerary, yet the inferences drawn from them are often limited. This short review paper presents existing information on grinding-stone tools (and stone bowls) from Pastoral Neolithic (PN) contexts in eastern Africa. Data on the diverse grinding-stone tool assemblages of the Pastoral Neolithic have been compiled with a focus on details of morphology and spatial, temporal and contextual distribution. Summarising what is known (and, perhaps more importantly, what is not known) about grinding-stones in the Pastoral Neolithic, this paper serves as a reminder that the function of grinding-stone tools was neither singular nor their significance simplistic.
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38654. |
- Sholts, Sabrina B., et al.
(author)
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Tracing social interactions in Pleistocene North America via 3D model analysis of stone tool asymmetry
- 2017
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In: PLOS ONE. - : Public Library of Science (PLoS). - 1932-6203. ; 12:7
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Stone tools, often the sole remnant of prehistoric hunter-gatherer behavior, are frequently used as evidence of ancient human mobility, resource use, and environmental adaptation. In North America, studies of morphological variation in projectile points have provided important insights into migration and interactions of human groups as early as 12-13 kya. Using new approaches to 3D imaging and morphometric analysis, we here quantify bifacial asymmetry among early North American projectile point styles to better understand changes in knapping technique and cultural transmission. Using a sample of 100 fluted bifaces of Clovis and post-Clovis styles in the eastern United States ca. 13,100-9,000 cal BP (i.e., Clovis, Debert-Vail, Bull Brook, Michaud-Neponset/Barnes, and Crowfield), we employed two different approaches for statistical shape analysis: our previously presented method for analysis of 2D flake scar contours, and a new approach for 3D surface analysis using spherical harmonics (SPHARM). Whereas bifacial asymmetry in point shape does not vary significantly across this stylistic sequence, our measure of asymmetric flake scar patterning shows temporal variation that may signify the beginning of regionalization among early New World colonists.
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38655. |
- Siapkas, Johannes, 1969-
(author)
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Skulls from the Past : Archaeological Negotiations of Scientific Racism
- 2016
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In: Bulletin of the History of Archaeology. - : UBIQUITY PRESS LTD. - 1062-4740 .- 2047-6930. ; 26:1
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper examines the permeation of scientific racism in classical archaeology during the 1920s and 1930s. In particular, it investigates the anthropological studies of graves from the Swedish excavations at Asine and the British excavations at Mycenae and the appropriation of these results in classical archaeology. Terms like archaeological culture, people, race, in general and in precise forms, were used metonymically to signify clear-cut bounded entities with diachronically immutable characteristic traits. I argue that there were epistemological similarities between scientific racism and culture-historical archaeology since both are founded on essentialism. This article has further epistemological implications since it illustrates that foundational analytical practices, like categorizations and constructions of archaeological cultures, have conceptual affinities with discourses that many of us today find troubling. This can serve to foster critical reflection and to illustrate that histories of archaeology can contribute to the advancement of the epistemology of archaeology.
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38656. |
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38657. |
- Sibum, H. Otto, 1956-
(author)
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Experimentalists in the Republic of Letters
- 2003
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In: Science in Context. - 0269-8897 .- 1474-0664. ; 16:1-2, s. 89-120
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Journal article (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Within the Republic of Letters the art of experiment led to immense reorientation and an extensive redrawing of the enlightened map of natural knowledge. This paper will investigate the formative period of the exact sciences from the late eighteenth to the nineteenth century when the persona of the experimentalist as a scientific expert was shaped. The paper focuses on Moritz Hermann Jacobi’s experimental knowledge derived from his modeling of an electro-magnetic self-acting machine and the social and epistemological problems of its integration into traditional academic life. His struggle to achieve academic recognition and credibility for his experimental work reflects not just his individual quandary, but important structural problems of the historical development of experimental knowledge traditions and science in what has been called the “second scientific revolution.”
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38658. |
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38659. |
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38660. |
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