The Magdalenian Household

What was home and family like in Paleolithic Europe? How did mobile hunter-gatherer families live, work, and play together in the fourteenth millennium BP? What were the functional and spatial constraints and markers of their domesticity—the processes that create and sustain a household? Despite the long recognized absence of comprehensive archaeological data on such ancient homes and hearths, the archaeologists in this volume begin unraveling the domesticity of the Upper Paleolithic by drawing on both an immense trove of new material evidence and comparative site data, and a range of incisive and illuminating ethnographic analogies, theoretical models, and simulations. Five Late Magdalenian sites from the Paris Basin and one later Azilian site provide striking evidence of well preserved camps of short duration, situated on valley bottoms and buried by gentle floods. Of particular interest and value is the site of Verberie, rich in lithic tools, faunal remains, hearts, and other indicators of spatial organization, which has been excavated continuously for twenty-six years by the same director and provides an unparalleled source of information on Paleolithic domesticity. The first group of essays and reports look at the technology and demographic evidences of domesticity; the second set seeks clues to the spatial patterning of Paleolithic households; while the final essays draw on ethnographic analogies to reconstruct and interpret gendered divisions of labor, perishable technologies, and other activities not directly recognizable from archaeological remains.

A comprehensive investigation of household life during the Upper Paleolithic era. What was home and family like in Paleolithic Europe? How did mobile hunter-gatherer families live, work, and play together in the fourteenth millennium BP? What were the functional and spatial constraints and markers of their domesticity—the processes that create and sustain a household? Despite the long recognized absence of comprehensive archaeological data on such ancient homes and hearths, the archaeologists in this volume begin unraveling the domesticity of the Upper Paleolithic by drawing on both an immense trove of new material evidence and comparative site data, and a range of incisive and illuminating ethnographic analogies, theoretical models, and simulations. Five Late Magdalenian sites from the Paris Basin and one later Azilian site provide striking evidence of well-preserved camps of short duration, situated on valley bottoms and buried by gentle floods. Of particular interest and value is the site of Verberie, rich in lithic tools, faunal remains, hearths, and other indicators of spatial organization, which has been excavated continuously for twenty-six years by the same director and provides an unparalleled source of information on Paleolithic domesticity. The first group of essays and reports look at the technology and demographic evidences of domesticity; the second set seeks clues to the spatial patterning of Paleolithic households; while the final essays draw on ethnographic analogies to reconstruct and interpret gendered divisions of labor, perishable technologies, and other activities not directly recognizable from archaeological remains. “[The Magdalenian Household] should be required reading for anyone with an interest in Upper Palaeolithic behaviour and the evolution of the use of space.” — Antiquity “ because of the excellent syntheses of especially the long-term, high-quality research at Verberie, this book should be in the collections of all institutions with serious interests in Upper Paleolithic prehistory.” — Journal of Anthropological Research

This volume is the first text to focus specifically on the archaeology of domestic architecture. Covering major theoretical and methodological developments over recent decades in areas like social institutions, settlement types, gender, status, and power, this book addresses the developing understanding of where and how people in the past created and used domestic space. It will be a useful synthesis for scholars and an ideal text for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses in archaeology and architecture. The book-covers the relationship of architectural decisions of ancient peoples with our understanding of social and cultural institutions;-includes cases from every continent and all time periods-- from the Paleolithic of Europe to present-day African villages;-is ideal for the growing number of courses on household archaeology, social archaeology, and historical and vernacular architecture.

Recent archaeological scholarship along with technical and technological advances in near-surface geophysics has brought exciting new possibilities to a growing body of archaeological thought. Yet, few explicitly theoretical attempts have been made to provide archaeological geophysics with anthropological premises. Anthropological Research Framing for Archaeological Geophysics: Material Signatures of Past Human Behavior initiates a dialogue with other archaeological and geophysical professionals to do so. Most archaeological applications of geophysics remain methodological and technical, devoted to gaining awareness of buried anthropogenic materials but not human behavior. By proposing the amelioration of communication gaps between traditional and geophysical archaeologists, Jason Randall Thompson foments dialogue and participates in bringing about new ways of thinking anthropologically about archaeological geophysics.

This is the first attempt to present a truly complete, balanced and realistic picture of life during the last Ice Age, while dispelling many of the myths and inaccuracies about our early ancestors. This highly illustrated and accessible book is aimed not only at students and specialists, but also and especially the interested public.

This volume comprises papers presented to Dick Stapert on the occasion of his retirement from the Groningen Institute of Archaeology (University of Groningen) in 2011 and celebrates his scientific career. The contributions cover nearly 300,000 years of Human History and were written by colleagues, former students and friends. Topics include the making and use of fire, children in the Stone Age, spatial analysis, and other themes related to the study of the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and beyond.

Calculating the diversity of biological or cultural classes is a fundamental way of describing, analyzing, and understanding the world around us. Understanding archaeological diversity is key to understanding human culture in the past. Archaeologists have long experienced a tenuous relationship with statistics; however, the regular integration of diversity measures and concepts into archaeological practice is becoming increasingly important. This volume includes chapters that cover a wide range of archaeological applications of diversity measures. Featuring studies of archaeological diversity ranging from the data-driven to the theoretical, from the Paleolithic to the Historic periods, authors illustrate the range of data sets to which diversity measures can be applied, as well as offer new methods to examine archaeological diversity.

For more than a century, the study of hunting and gathering societies has been central to the development of both archaeology and anthropology as academic disciplines, and has also generated widespread public interest and debate. The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology and Anthropology of Hunter-Gatherers provides a comprehensive review of hunter-gatherer studies to date, including critical engagements with older debates, new theoretical perspectives, and renewed obligations for greater engagement between researchers and indigenous communities. Chapters provide in-depth archaeological, historical, and anthropological case-studies, and examine far-reaching questions about human social relations, attitudes to technology, ecology, and management of resources and the environment, as well as issues of diet, health, and gender relations - all central topics in hunter-gatherer research, but also themes that have great relevance for modern global society and its future challenges. The Handbook also provides a strategic vision for how the integration of new methods, approaches, and study regions can ensure that future research into the archaeology and anthropology of hunter-gatherers will continue to deliver penetrating insights into the factors that underlie all human diversity.