Wild Things: Recent advances in Palaeolithic and Mesolithic research

by Frederick W. Foulds (Editor), Helen C. Drinkall (Editor), Angela R. Perri (Editor)

Recently, Palaeolithic and Mesolithic archaeology has been breaking boundaries worldwide. Finds such as the Mesolithic house at Howick, the sequencing of the Neanderthal genome, and the recently discovered footprints at Happisburgh all serve to indicate how archaeologists in these fields are truly at the cutting edge of understanding humanity’s past. This volume celebrates this trend by focusing on recent advances in the study of the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic. With contributors from a diverse range of backgrounds, it allows for a greater degree of interdisciplinary discourse than is often the case, as the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic are generally split apart. Wild Things brings together contributions from major researchers and early career specialists, detailing research taking place across the British Isles, France, Portugal, Russia, the Levant and Europe as a whole, providing a cross-section of the exciting range of research being conducted. By combining papers from both these periods, it is hoped that dialogue between practitioners of Palaeolithic and Mesolithic archaeology can be further encouraged. Topics the chronology of the Mid-Upper Palaeolithic of European Russia; territorial use of Alpine high altitude areas by Mesolithic hunter-gatherer; discussing the feasibility of reconstructing Neanderthal demography to examine their extinction; the funerary contexts from the Mesolithic burials at Muge; the discovery of further British Upper Palaeolithic parietal art at Cathole Cave; exploitation of both lithics and fauna in Palaeolithic France; and an analysis of Mesolithic/Neolithic trade in Europe.

Table of Contents

List of Contributors
Preface
1. Chronology of the Mid Upper Palaeolithic of European Problems and prospects
Natasha Reynolds
2. Invisible Individuals, Visible On the evidence for individuals and groups at the Lower Palaeolithic site of Caddington, Bedfordshire, UK
Frederick W.F. Foulds
3. Alpine ‘Hunters’ from the Middle Mesolithic to Early A contribution to the study of lithic industries from two high altitude loci (Gerland and La Mare) in Vercors, Northern French Alps
Alexandre Angelin
4. The Phenomenon of Mesolithic Settlement within the Bohemian Paradise Area, Czech Republic
Petr Šida, Marta Moravcová, Dagmar Vokounová Franzeová and Jan Prostředník
5. Palaeoenvironments and Prehistoric Interactions in Northern France from the Eemian Interglacial to the End of the Weichselian Middle Pleniglacial
Jean-Luc Locht, Emilie Goval, Pierre Antoine, Sylvie Coutard, Patrick Auguste, Clément Paris and David Hérisson
6. The Feasibility of Reconstructing Neanderthal Demography as an Approach to Examining Extinction
Danae Rebecca Dodge
7. Le Cuzoul De Gramat (Lot, France): A key sequence for the early Holocene in southwest France
Nicolas Valdeyron, Aureade Henry, Benjamin Marquebielle, Bruno Bosc-Zanardo, Bernard Gassin, Sylvene Michel and Sylvie Philibert
8. Human Craniometric Variation Supports Discontinuity at the Late Glacial Maximum in Europe
Ciarán Brewster, Ron Pinhasi and Christopher Meiklejohn
9. Funerary The case study of the Mesolithic shellmiddens of Muge (Portugal)
Olívia Figueiredo, João Cascalheira, João Marreiros, Telmo Pereira, Cláudia Umbelino and Nuno Bicho
10. Fire as a Component of Mesolithic Funerary Charcoal analyses from a burial in Cabeço da Amoreira (Muge, Portugal)
Patrícia Diogo Monteiro, João Cascalheira, João Marreiros, Telmo Pereira and Nuno Bicho
11. Animal The discovery of Upper Palaeolithic Parietal art in Cathole Cave, Gower Peninsula, South Wales
George Nash
12. Ideology of the Hunt and the End of the Epi-Palaeolithic
Piotr Jacobsson
13. Animal Exploitation Strategies in Eastern Aquitaine (France) during the Last Glacial Maximum
Jean-Christophe Castel, Myriam Boudadi-Maligne, Sylvain Ducasse, Caroline Renard, François-Xavier Chauvière, Delphine Kuntz and Jean-Baptiste Mallye
14. Locating Potential Mesolithic Fish Sites in Britain using Predicative Applying the ‘fishing site model’ to British conditions
Kris Hall
15. Foragers and Farmers in Mesolithic/Neolithic Europe, 5500-3900 cal. Beyond the anthropological comfort zone
Peter Rowley-Conwy

208 pages, Paperback

First published November 30, 2014

Reviews

[Monty Milne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I am fascinated by the subject, this collection of essays is mostly quite hard going, and would seem to be mainly of interest to professional scholars and archaeologists.

One essay poses the question: can we identify individuals from stone axes? The answer – after a great accumulation of highly technical detail – is no. This was rather underwhelming. Another essay promises an attempt to analyse Neanderthal demography by comparison with the historic populations of spotted hyenas, but this is also shown to be a blind alley – the DNA of both Neanderthals and spotted hyenas is insufficient in quality and quantity, and the link between the two is anyway uncertain. So a promising idea becomes swallowed up in a mass of unrevealing data. And yet the notes to this essay alone list more than one hundred sources in the bibliography together with nine technical charts!

Overall I found this disappointing, but then I am a dilettante and not a professional. The final essay is more general. The author says that assumptions that farmers were culturally superior to hunter-gatherers is a product of much later European colonialism and does not reflect the prehistoric reality. This is interesting and thought provoking. Alas, most of the other essays here – although they are no doubt valuable academic contributions – are not likely to be of great interest to the general reader.