Bones of recent mammals in the Amboseli Basin, southern Kenya, exhibit distinctive weathering characteristics that can be related to the time since death and to the local conditions of temperature, humidity and soil chemistry. A categorization of weathering characteristics into six stages, recognizable on descriptive criteria, provides a basis for investigation of weathering rates and processes. The time necessary to achieve each successive weathering stage has been calibrated using known-age carcasses. Most bones decompose beyond recognition in 10 to 15 yr. Bones of animals under 100 kg and juveniles appear to weather more rapidly than bones of large animals or adults. Small-scale rather than widespread environmental factors seem to have greatest influence on weathering characteristics and rates. Bone weathering is potentially valuable as evidence for the period of time represented in recent or fossil bone assemblages, in- cluding those on archeological sites, and may also be an important tool in censusing populations of animals in modern ecosystems.

Taphonomic and Ecologic Information Form Bone Weathering

Nassarius kraussianus shell beads from Blombos Cave: evidence for symbolic behaviour in the Middle Stone Age

The oldest direct evidence of stone tool manufacture comes from Gona (Ethiopia) and dates to between 2.6 and 2.5 million years (Myr) ago. At the nearby Bouri site several cut-marked bones also show stone tool use approximately 2.5 Myr ago. Here we report stone-tool-inflicted marks on bones found during recent survey work in Dikika, Ethiopia, a research area close to Gona and Bouri. On the basis of low-power microscopic and environmental scanning electron microscope observations, these bones show unambiguous stone-tool cut marks for flesh removal and percussion marks for marrow access. The bones derive from the Sidi Hakoma Member of the Hadar Formation. Established (40)Ar-(39)Ar dates on the tuffs that bracket this member constrain the finds to between 3.42 and 3.24 Myr ago, and stratigraphic scaling between these units and other geological evidence indicate that they are older than 3.39 Myr ago. Our discovery extends by approximately 800,000 years the antiquity of stone tools and of stone-tool-assisted consumption of ungulates by hominins; furthermore, this behaviour can now be attributed to Australopithecus afarensis.

Evidence for stone-tool-assisted consumption of animal tissues before 3.39 million years ago at Dikika, Ethiopia

Cutmarks made by stone tools, conchoidal flake scars from hammerstone percussion, carnivore tooth marks, striations from sedimentary abrasion, and other surface modifications on bones from archaeological sites constitute a crucial body of evidence for investigating the role of human behaviors and of nonhuman taphonomic processes in site formation. This paper describes the various kinds of bone surface modifications produced by humans and by nonhuman processes and assesses the current status of bone surface modification studies with regard to such issues as the need for greater analytical standardization, the selection of instruments for examining bone specimens, tactics for identifying the origins of marks on bones, and strategies for inferring human behaviors.

Bone surface modifications in zooarchaeology

Engraved ochres from the Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa

Skeletal Biology in the Great Plains: Migration, Warfare, Health, and Subsistence@@@Plains Indians, A. D. 500-1500: The Archaeological past of Historic Groups

This paper examines the physical structure of present-day Efe Pygmy campsites through study of the relationships between behavior patterns and their material residues. Campsites consist of five main components: the perimeter, huts, fireplaces, trash heaps, and the central open area enclosed within the arrangement of huts. Most campsite activities are performed within the perimeter, and exterior fireplaces associated with huts are the focus of a variety of daily activities. Refuse is regularly discarded onto trash heaps. Hut size does not correlate with either the number of occupants or their stature. Site population can be estimated using a count of huts, although reoccupation of a recently abandoned camp or a family's moving from one hut to a new one during a single occupation can inflate the count of huts relative to the number of families that lived at the camp at any one time. The spatial organization of campsites is influenced by environment, physical factors (such as human body size), and sociocultural phenomena.

Ethnoarchaeology among the Efe pygmies, Zaire: Spatial organization of campsites

Past archaeological investigations into the impact of shellfish gathering by hunter-gatherers on shellfish stocks, particularly on shellfish size, generally have emphasized long-term change visible in stratigraphic sequences. We propose that short-term exploitation of shellfish by Later Stone Age hunter-gatherers who briefly inhabited the Dunefield Midden (DFM) campsite on the Atlantic Coast of South Africa had impacts, at time scales measured likely in days or weeks, that are expressed by spatial variability in the size and relative proportions of two species of limpet across a horizontally large excavated area encompassing a refuse dump and a likely domestic area. We link variability to choices by the site occupants to collect the largest limpets first and gather the smallest individuals late in an occupation event when only small shellfish remained available. Environmentally driven change in shellfish size or species proportions is unlikely at DFM given the short occupation span of the site. B...

John W. Fisher

Papers

Bone surface modifications in zooarchaeology

Skeletal Biology in the Great Plains: Migration, Warfare, Health, and Subsistence@@@Plains Indians, A. D. 500-1500: The Archaeological past of Historic Groups

Ethnoarchaeology among the Efe pygmies, Zaire: Spatial organization of campsites

Limpet Gathering Strategies in the Later Stone Age Along the Cape West Coast, South Africa

A Late Prehistoric Model for Communal Utilization of Pronghorn Antelope in the Northwestern Plains Region, North America