This book explores new approaches to the remarkably detailed information that archaeologists now have for the study of our early ancestors. Rather than explaining the archaeology of stones and bones as the product of group decisions, the contributors investigate how individual action created social life. This challenge to the accepted standpoint of the Palaeolithic brings new models and theories into the period; innovations that are matched by the resolution of data preserving individual action among the stones and bones. The volume brings together examples from recent excavations such as Boxgrove, Schöningen and Blombos Cave and the analyses of artefacts from Middle and Early Upper Pleistocene excavations in Europe, Africa and Asia.
|
|
|
vii | |
|
|
|
xi | |
|
|
|
xiii | |
| Preface |
|
xix | |
|
From empty spaces to lived lives: exploring the individual in the Palaeolithic |
|
|
1 | (12) |
|
|
|
|
|
The Acheulean and the handaxe: structure and agency in the Palaeolithic |
|
|
13 | (16) |
|
|
|
|
|
Transformations in dividuality: personhood and palaeoliths in the Middle Pleistocene |
|
|
29 | (21) |
|
|
|
Seeking the Palaeolithic individual in East Africa and Europe during the Lower-Middle Pleistocene |
|
|
50 | (18) |
|
|
|
The making of the biface and the making of the individual |
|
|
68 | (13) |
|
|
|
Observations on the relationship between Palaeolithic individuals and artefact scatters at the Middle Pleistocene site of Boxgrove, UK |
|
|
81 | (17) |
|
|
|
|
|
The natural and socio-cultural environment of Homo erectus at Bilzingsleben, Germany |
|
|
98 | (17) |
|
|
|
|
|
The Lower Palaeolithic art of hunting: the case of Schoningen 13 II-4, Lower Saxony, Germany |
|
|
115 | (18) |
|
|
|
Tracking hominins during the last interglacial complex in the Rhineland |
|
|
133 | (21) |
|
|
|
|
|
Bones and powerful individuals: faunal case studies from the Arctic and the European Middle Palaeolithic |
|
|
154 | (22) |
|
|
|
|
|
All in a day's work: Middle Pleistocene individuals, materiality and the lifespace at Makapansgat, South Africa |
|
|
176 | (21) |
|
|
|
|
|
Life and mind in the Acheulean: a case study from India |
|
|
197 | (23) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Individuals among palimpsest data: fluvial landscapes in Southern England |
|
|
220 | (24) |
|
|
|
Being modern in the Middle Stone Age: individuals and innovation |
|
|
244 | (21) |
|
|
|
|
|
Concluding remarks: context and the individual |
|
|
265 | (6) |
|
|
| Bibliography |
|
271 | (39) |
| Index |
|
310 | |
Clive Gamble is Professor of Geography in the Centre for Quaternary Research at Royal Holloway, University of London. He spent many years at the University of Southampton, where he founded the Centre for the Archaeology of Human Origins. He is the author of many books, including Archaeology, The Basics (Routledge, 2001), and The Palaeolithic Societies of Europe (1999). Martin Porr is based at the Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte in Halle, Germany. There he has been involved as a project manager for the high-profile exhibition of the Bronze Age Sky Disc of Nebra, in co-operation with the National Museum of Denmark.
