Villaluenga, Aritza
The origins of bone tool technologies: "Retouching the Palaeolithic: Becoming Human and the Origins of Bone Tool Technology" Conference at Schloss Herrenhausen in Hannover, Germany, 21.- 23. October 2015
This volume is a collection of papers from the conference titled “Retouching the Palaeolithic: Becoming Human and the Origins of Bone Tool Technology” held in October 2015 at Schloss Herrenhausen in Hannover, Germany. With major funding from the Volkswagen Foundation’s Symposia and Summer School initiative, the conference brought together an international group of scientists from an array of research backgrounds to explore the origins and development of bone tool technologies in prehistory, specifically retouchers, compressors and percussors used in various lithic knapping activities. The diverse conference attendance generated an assortment of perspectives on bone tool use covering western Europe to the Levant, from the Lower Palaeolithic to Neolithic times. Collectively, these papers provide an overview on how the integration of bone tools with other Palaeolithic technologies influenced human subsistence and other socio-economic behaviours over time and space. In the end, this volume is not just about bone tools. Rather, this compilation is intended to stimulate broader ideas on technology and innovation, for the ability and desire to create new tools truly lies at the core of what makes us human.
Human behavioural adaptations to interglacial lakeshore environments
During the course of human evolution, we have successfully adapted to various climates and habitats. Interglacial environments, in particular, offer an excellent opportunity to study these adaptations. On the north European plain, interglacials often correlate with the flooding of basins, resulting in the appearance of lacustrine landscapes. These environments exhibit remarkable ecological diversity with highly concentrated and predictable resources. Numerous archaeological sites from the Palaeolithic to the Mesolithic are preserved in these lacustrine landscapes, providing rich sources of potential data. Many of these archaeological sites are well-known as locations for the procurement and butchering of animals, lithic provisioning, gathering vegetal and collecting aquatic resources by humans. These sites are embedded in wetland deposits with favourable conditions for the preservation of organic and botanical remains and are thus exceptional archives for detailed analyses of human adaptations to changing, dynamic environments. In a diachronous perspective from the Middle Pleistocene to the Holocene, the current anthology collates studies on differing aspects of interglacial archaeological lakeland sites, illustrating human survival strategies under similar environmental conditions through the ages. This volume contributes to a core research theme “Human behavioural strategies in interglacial environments” of the MONREPOS Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioural Evolution (RGZM) (Neuwied, Germany). The aim of the research is to undertake a holistic and diachronic analysis of survival strategies under similar environmental parameters, in order to document the evolution of hominin subsistence behaviour and to gauge whether certain subsistence adaptations arose in direct response to distinct environmental conditions.
The Beef behind all Possible Pasts: The Tandem Festschrift in Honour of Elaine Turner and Martin Street
This Tandem-Festschrift pays tribute to Elaine Turner and Martin Street, to celebrate all you have both contributed to the MONREPOS Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioural Evolution of the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, in ensuring high research standards, and for your contributions to Palaeolithic Archaeology in Germany and beyond. It should be understood as a big “CHEERS” from the MONREPOS staff and many other friends and colleagues from all over the world, who contributed to this Festschrift.
The double volume comprises a broad spectrum of topics from the Lower Palaeolithic to the early Holocene and even to the Medieval period – touching upon the vast array of topics Elaine and Martin have dealt with over the last more than 30 years. It starts with the discussion of the oldest evidence for fire and addresses many other key-topics of scientific debate at fascinating levels of detail.
s. Volume 2
The Homotherium Finds from Schöningen 13II-4: Man and Big Cats of the Ice Age. Contributions of the scientific workshop at the paläon (Schöningen) from 05.06 to 07.06.2015
Big cats, including sabre-toothed cats, are for many people the symbol of a dangerous predator. In 2012, the first remains of the European sabre-toothed cats were discovered at the approximately 300,000 year old site of Schöningen, famous for mankind’s oldest wooden weapons. As a result of this discovery, a two-day scientific workshop was held in Schöningen in 2015 titled »The Homotherium finds from Schöningen 13II-4 and big cats of the Ice Age«. This volume is based on the lectures of this workshop and presents an overview of a topic that is crucial for human development, our coexistence with big cats. The aim of this volume is to address the various topics surrounding the European sabre-toothed cat. This includes the circumstances of their extinction, comparisons to extant big cats and their relationship to past humans.
