Abstract Excavations ahead of construction of a new fire station at Guildford in 2013 revealed a large, homogeneous flint scatter of over 15,000 artefacts, including 235 retouched tools, from an area of c. 36 m 2 , making it one of the densest Late Upper Palaeolithic scatters yet found in southern Britain. Spatial and refitting analyses enabled the identification of two discrete knapping concentrations (C1 and C2) separated by an area where tools were made, used, and discarded. They also revealed the presence of at least three flintknappers on site, including a novice. A chaîne opératoire approach provided further insight into blade production and tool lifecycles, while trace-wear analysis identified damaged projectiles and the processing of both animal and plant materials. Techno-typological analysis of the flint assemblage and Optically Stimulated Luminescence ages place the site in the first half of the Late Glacial (Windermere) Interstadial ( c . 15–14,000 BP). Guildford Fire Station shares affinities with other British Creswellian assemblages, showing variation from the classic Late Magdalenian. The potential importance of river networks is signalled in connection with Late Upper Palaeolithic mobility.
Abstract This article continues the examination of eastern European chapes ( bouterolles ), uniting the artefacts of the Cimmerian and Scythian eras into a single discussion. This continuation provides a new perspective on previously known finds, claiming that Scythian bouterolles descended from Cimmerian ones. Among the five known types of Scythian chapes, at least three seem to have a Cimmerian origin; the fourth type appears to have developed from a Scythian tradition, and the fifth type is too difficult to determine, because of the small number of finds. The chronology of the chapes found at archaeological sites suggests that the evolution of Scythian bouterolles was fast, and the early and later variants and types seem to have co-existed. This study covers finds from Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Hungary, Russia, and the Middle East. New and previously published bouterolles are included and a suggested scheme of typological development from Cimmerian to Scythian eras is provided.
Abstract This paper sets out to see an aspect of the Neolithic of south-west Asia in the context of its cultural evolutionary history: essential components of the architecture of Neolithic communities – hearth and home, and intramural burial – were present as architectural components of social life tens and hundreds of thousands of years before they were accommodated within Neolithic houses. There are two bases that underpin the paper. One is the general view of cultural evolution and cultural niche construction theory that has emerged over recent decades, emphasising human ultra-sociality and capacity for altruism and cooperation; the other is the understanding of architecture as more than built structures, encompassing objects in, on and around buildings, associated meanings and values, and behaviours. We may trace the development of the architecture of social life as it fostered the intensity of social relations, effectively the roots of Neolithic social life. The process begins at least three quarters of a million years ago with the control of fire, cooking, and eating together around the hearth. The evolution of the human cultural niche continues with the emergence around half a million years ago of the idea of the base camp. That is followed about one hundred thousand years ago by the burying of the body of a member of the group below the base camp floor, binding place and belonging into social memory. The Epipalaeolithic–Neolithic transformation represents a quickening of the pace of cultural cumulation in the specific environment of the hilly flanks of the Fertile Crescent in south-west Asia, with the extension of the group’s stay for at least a season, and the growth in size of the group. The first large, co-resident communities designed and built permanent settlements, houses with hearths, communal buildings, and ritualised intramural burials, forming a new and meaningful architecture of social life embedded in social memory.
Abstract This text concerns tangible and sensory aspects of petroglyph production with a primary focus on south Scandinavian Bronze Age rock art. The core of the study is based on an experimental trial of making a cupmark, a circle motif, and a shallow boat motif on a small granite outcrop. The aims were to measure time expenditure, the impact of water on the process, evaluate sensory aspects (e.g. colour, sound, and smell), and measure the visibility of the petroglyphs over time. The direct results of the experiment show that a cupmark can be produced within 12 minutes and a circle within an hour, using a direct technique with a small pointed hammerstone. The shallow boat motif took only seven minutes to make and was almost as visible (white) as the deeper circle motif, even without leaving any measurable depressions in the rock. The results of the present study are related to other published trials concerning Bronze Age rock art. This paper concludes that petroglyphs are probably less about making illustrative or communicative imagery but more about producing petrofacts: ritual devices with physical abilities, such as producing mineral dust or gathering and channelling water or other liquids.
Abstract Models of how the European Neolithic transitioned to the Copper or Bronze Age have often emphasised changes in burial practices, and these changes have traditionally been seen as simple, decisive shifts. In peninsular Italy, this transition is often described in terms of a straightforward shift from single burial to multiple burial in collective tombs. This paper questions that view, presenting a systematic statistical analysis of all known Neolithic (6000–3800 BCE) burials from across southern Italy. Tracking changes in aspects of funerary practices across these millennia from over 100 sites and almost 700 individuals, we show that neither abrupt stadial change nor a model of continuous gradual change describes the evidence well. Instead, all periods of the Neolithic featured multiple depositional practices, many of which continued throughout the entire timespan; what changed was their relative frequencies and the ways they were combined. This suggests, in turn, that change originated mostly in a process of local bricolage, not from large or external causal factors.
