The spatial arrangements of artifacts and features within archaeological sites have often been used to isolate activity areas and draw inferences about site function. This approach assumes that objects found in close proximity were used for the same task, and that artifacts are usually discarded where they were used. However, the location of artifact abandonment often has more to do with patterns of discard and use/reuse of the site throughout time than with the function or location of activities. This dissertation uses a comparative framework to address how the observed spatial structure of Middle Paleolithic sites in France sites was formed through centrifugal dispersion of lithic artifacts, i.e. the displacement of artifacts between their creation and the final location of their abandonments. Seven Middle Paleolithic sites were included in this study. The sites were excavated over large areas, from 200 to more than 2000 m². They range from small single component occupation sites to lithic raw material workshops with assemblages of more than 15,000 artifacts. The movement of artifacts is tracked through an analysis of sets of refitted lithics and through comparisons of the distributions of multiple classes of artifact across areas of the sites with differing artifact densities. Studying the distribution of lithic technological classes and tracking their movement through refitting sets provides new perspectives on the ways Paleolithic archaeological assemblages and sites were formed. The temporality of site use had a much greater impact on site structure than did activities that took place at any one point during a site's occupation. These data enabled me to assess the relative lengths and numbers of occupations for the seven sites in this study. The approach taken in this study not only provides a clearer understanding of site formation and structure than do studies that strive to isolate "activity areas," but it also provides information about the sizes of past human groups and the ways they moved among different localities on the landscape. Such insights are integral to the study of land use, mobility and economic adaptations among Paleolithic hunter-gatherers.

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Formal models, those which explicitly specify the postulates on which they are based, the development of their 'predictions' from those postulates, and the boundary conditions under which they apply, have the potential to be useful tools in archaeological inference and explanation. Detailed examination of one such model, the mathematical model commonly referred to as the diet breadth or prey choice model, shows that its archaeological application is severely complicated by two factors that are difficult or impossible to specify for prehistoric cases: 1) limits on the amount of meat consumable by a food-sharing group before spoilage or loss to scavengers and 2) hunting failure rates. The former introduce significant uncertainties into the food yield or energetic return term of resource rankings, while the latter affect both resource rankings and the resouce encounter rates leading to prey inclusion or exclusion from the diet. Together, these factors make rigorous diet breadth / prey choice model-based inferences from ungulate archaeofaunas impractical, especially in Paleolithic cases. Following success in recent years in making diet breadth model-based inferences about Paleolithic demography from small game analyses that involved computer simulation modeling of prey species' resilience to hunting pressure, the development and employment of a similar model applied to ungulate species reveals that, in general, the differences in the abilty of populations of different ungulate species to sustain harvest rates are not sufficient to allow the relative representation of ungulate remains in archaeological sites to be a viable basis for human demographic inferences. However, in cases where ungulate remains allow the determination of both prey age structure and sex ratio, it is possible to distinguish low exploitation rates, high exploitation rates, and overhunting. In some cases, the sex ratio data may also alter relative hunting resilience levels in such a way that it may be possible to infer that one species was capable of supporting a larger human population than another.

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This thesis focuses on the Mid/Upper Palaeolithic Transition in the Iberian Peninsula, and questions whether this process took place as hitherto widely claimed, by testing the validity of the traditional characteristics said to portray this event throughout Europe. Research was carried out at different levels: old archaeological collections from two transitional sites (Abric Romani and Reclau Viver), previously unstudied, were systematically analysed and specific organic components (perforated shells) were radiocarbon dated. A thorough bibliographic database including information on these and all other Iberian sites was complied, in order to extend the study. The theoretical perspective of the topic was also investigated, to assess epistemological factors which are so often overlooked in this field of study. The socio-political events that have marked Spain and Portugal's contemporary histories, were also studied, since they played a crucial role in shaping Palaeolithic Research in both countries. The so-called '40,000 BP Crisis', specifically located in northern Iberia, was revisited by studying not only the traditional sites which have produced chronometric readings around that date, but also others in the same region whose transitional layers have yielded much younger dates, to see if that phenomenon really existed or has been created by generalisations that have masked vital - but ultimately uncomfortable - information. The study of this event is also placed into the peninsular and the wider European contexts, an exercise that has disclosed the vast complexity of the Transition, in terms of both the actual archaeological record and the theoretical interpretations that have been presented so far. Ultimately, this research calls for a revision of some of the theoretical perspectives of Palaeolithic archaeologists, as well as far more careful site and regional-level research, in order to redress the abundant misconceptions that distort our understanding of the Transition process.

Thesis (PhDEducation)--University of South Australia, 2002.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1999. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 162-179). Also available on the Internet.

Finger flutings are lines and markings drawn with the human hand in soft cave sediment in caves and rock shelters throughout southern Australia, New Guinea and southwestern Europe, dating back to the Late Pleistocene. Analysis of these markings can reveal characteristics of the creators, such as age, sex and group sizes. However, despite a comprehensive method of study, data collection is still reliant on in field measurements and is often constrained by physical challenges within the caves. Advances in technology allow us to record archaeological data in three dimensions. Creating 3D models of finger fluting panels would allow for off-site measurements and other forms of detailed analysis. In this thesis, I test three different 3D scanning techniques, photogrammetry, tripod structured light scanning, and handheld structured light scanning, to determine the most appropriate method for the documentation of finger flutings based on factors such as portability, cost, efficiency, accuracy, as well as other challenges present in cave and rock shelter settings. I created replica fluting panels in three different media and created 3D models of them. I then compared measurements taken from the panels in person to measurements taken from the 3D-scanned models to see if there is statistically significant difference between the models and the panel. The results of my experiment show that 3D models of finger fluting panels are accurate representations of the experimental panels and that photogrammetry is the technique that best meets the requirements of finger fluting research. / Graduate

abstract: The ability of Neandertals to cope with the oscillating climate of the late Pleistocene and the extent to which these climate changes affected local Neandertal habitats remain unanswered anthropological topics of considerable scientific interest. Understanding the impact of climatic instability on Neandertals is critical for reconstructing the behaviors of our closest fossil relatives and possibly identifying factors that contributed to their extinction. My work aimed to test the hypotheses that 1) cold climates stressed Neandertal populations, and 2) that global climate changes affected local Neandertal habitats. An analysis of Neandertal butchering on Cervus elaphus, Rangifer tarandus, and Capreolus capreolus skeletal material deposited during global warm and cold phases from two French sites - Pech de l'Az&eacute; IV and Roc de Marsal - was conducted to assess the impact of climate change on butchering strategies and resource extraction. Results from a statistical analysis of surface modification on all marrow yielding long bones, including the 1st phalanx, demonstrated that specimens excavated from the cold levels at each cave have more cut marks (Wald &chi;2= 51.33, p= <0.001) and percussion marks (Wald &chi;2= 4.92, p= 0.02) than specimens from the warm levels after controlling for fragment size. These results support the hypothesis that Neandertals were nutritionally stressed during glacial cycles. The hypothesis that global climates affected local habitats was tested through radiogenic strontium isotopic reconstruction of large herbivore mobility patterns (e.g., Bison, Equus, Cervus and Rangifer), because it is known that in the northern hemisphere, mammals migrate less in warm, well-vegetated environments, but more in cold, open environments. Identifying isotopic variation in mammalian fossils enables mobility patterns to be inferred, providing an indication of whether environments at Pech de l'Az&eacute; IV and Roc de Marsal tracked global climates. Results from this study indicate that Neandertal prey species within the Dordogne Valley of France did not undertake long distance round-trip migrations in glacial or interglacial cycles, maintaining the possibility that local habitats did not change in differing climatic cycles. However, because Neandertals were nutritionally stressed the most likely conclusion is that glacial cycles decreased herbivore populations, thus stressing Neandertals. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Anthropology 2012