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A dissertation submitted to the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, Faculty of Science University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg for the degree of Master of Science. Johannesburg 2013. / Tool manufacturing played a major role in the development and evolution of our species, and by studying the tools left behind by our ancestors we gain valuable insight into their development and behaviours through time. This study was conducted on the Swartkrans Oldowan (2.2 - 1.7 Ma), early Acheulean (1.5 - 1 Ma), and Middle Stone Age (<110 ka) assemblages to determine the degree of lithic raw material selectivity for making stone tools, and if they practiced ever increasing selection towards better quality stone over time. The presence of quality selection was determined by comparing the various Swartkrans assemblages with experimentally created lithic tools from rock types found in the study area. Three main characteristics that determine selection of rock types were isolated: flaking predictability, durability and sharpness. Analysis of the data provided further evidence that our early stone tool making ancestors had the ability to understand how different rock types behave when knapped and tended to select rocks that had a high flaking predictability, high durability and could produce fairly sharp edges. It was also apparent that they could identify features that diminish the above mentioned characteristics. Variables such as the impurity encounter rate, fracture encounter rate, weathering, grain size and homogeneity were semiquantitatively recorded for the three techno-complexes at Swartkrans and compared to each other to help identify the degree of selectivity that was practiced over time. The data revealed that selection for quality of lithic raw materials was practiced to some extent during the Oldowan and improved slightly in the early Acheulean. The most marked selection for quality was seen for the Middle Stone Age when modern humans used the site. These results indicate that as time progressed in the Sterkfontein valley, and the stone tool technologies became more complex, so too did the selective pressures and thus an increase in selection for quality lithic raw materials over the course of time.

This project focuses on the early Mesolithic in the Kennet Valley, Berkshire in southern England. Through an extensive analysis of the lithic assemblages from six prominent early Mesolithic sites (i.e. Thatcham 1958-1961 Sites I, II, and III, Thatcham Sewage Works 1989, Greenham Dairy Farm, and Faraday Road), this thesis explores the social and practical processes which hunter-gatherers engaged in during lithic activities. It investigates the very notion of process and how we as archaeologists, often negate such phenomena in favour of strict technical and functional aspects associated with lithic assemblages from this period. Drawing upon this argument, this study explores and critiques the traditional theory that Mesolithic inhabitations were nothing more than functional type sites (e.g. hunting and base camps). Instead, it advocates an approach which seeks to illuminate that these occupations were derived from many historical and contemporary social and practical processes, which were embedded within lithic activities that were largely responsible for the continual production of the early Mesolithic landscape in the Kennet Valley.

In order to understand past human behavior, it is necessary to identify and explain variability in the cultural materials resulting from this behavior. Chipped stone artifacts are the most ubiquitous cultural materials from the Middle Paleolithic. However, the interpretation of variability in these artifacts has been difficult. To address this problem, morphological variability in 1,146 Middle Paleolithic chipped stone tools, from four sites in the Iberian Peninsula, is examined in detail. This study differs from other analyses of Middle Paleolithic artifacts in emphasizing a quantitative investigation of both continuous and discrete morphological variability at the level of tool edges. These data permit analyses of the distribution of variability at the levels of individual edges, whole pieces, and assemblages. Patterns of lithic variability are also examined in the context of early Upper Pleistocene chronology and environment and compared with a larger population of Middle Paleolithic sites in Spain and the northwestern Mediterranean as a whole. For the assemblages studied, variability in edge morphology is predominantly continuous and normally distributed. Signficantly patterned relationships between edge attributes are restricted to cases in which one attribute limits, rather than determines, the range of variability in the other. These seem primarily based in the degree to which use, resharpening, and consequent edge reduction has taken place. Additionally, a dichotomy in patterns of edge use is suggested, associated with the extensiveness of use and modification. For whole pieces, most variability mirrors that of edges, suggesting that retouched artifacts are more the result of the extent and nature of the use of their edges than planned tools for which the maker had some form of "mental template." At the level of assemblages, temporal variability is minimal, while spatial and environmental associated variability is more apparent. These results are examined in light of the three most often proposed explanations for variability in Middle Paleolithic assemblages--style, function, and diachronic change. Subsequently, other aspects of Middle Paleolithic behavior--ranging from raw material usage to settlement patterns--are examined as potential sources for the patterns of lithic variability in the assemblages studied.

The influence of anthropogenic activity on the natural environment is constantly changing. A series of major developments in human culture have resulted in a shifting nature of impact. Separating change attributable to humans and the change resulting from natural forcing is complex. This study investigates the degree of human impact during the onset of agriculture when humans were shifting from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to herding livestock and the cultivation of plants. This cultural development is known as the Mesolithic-Neolithic Transition within Europe. In particular, this project focuses on the nature of environmental change in Cumbria in the British Isles during the mid-Holocene. This region exhibits strong contrasts in landscape from coastal lowlands to mountainous uplands. Cumbria also has a rich record of archaeological sites and environmental reconstructions, but existing datasets have not allowed for detailed comparisons of the different landscapes. Two contrasting sites (one upland, one lowland) were investigated to produce a high-resolution environmental reconstruction including: vegetation change, burning patterns, catchment erosion and climatic changes. A radiocarbon chronology was produced for each site investigated. This was used to re-address the archaeological record and in particular, determine the details of the impact of humans on the landscape. Key differences are highlighted in the nature of human impact during the late-Mesolithic and early-Neolithic in contrasting landscapes with different types of land-use. There is an estimated temporal offset of around 200 years between similar events occurring in lowland and upland landscapes. Climatic variability indicates only small fluctuations and is unlikely to account for the extent of vegetation modification on its own. It is clear Neolithic activity is far more intensive than Mesolithic activity, but importantly the scale of impact in the upland landscape is far more extensive than the archaeological evidence would suggest. Furthermore, the upland landscape appears to recover relatively quickly after clearance events, whilst in the lowland environment, the open vegetation landscape remains far more dominant.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2013 / Cyperaceae (sedge) nutlets dominate the archaeobotanical assemblage of fruits and seeds recovered from the Middle Stone Age deposits at the rock shelter Sibudu, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa (Sievers 2006). My aim is to investigate the implications of the nutlet presence in terms of human behaviour and to demonstrate that the nutlets were likely brought into the shelter on sedge culms (stems) deliberately harvested by people and informally placed on the shelter floor to provide “bedding”, a surface for working, resting or sleeping. I use various empirical and experimental approaches to confirm the use of sedges for bedding at Sibudu as early as ~77 000 years ago, almost 50 000 years earlier than any previously identified archaeological bedding. The bedding consists of the sedges Cladium mariscus subsp. jamaicense, Scleria natalensis, S. melanomphala, Cyperus sp. and a panicoid grass, identified through Scanning Electron Microscopy To investigate repeated and deliberate burning of bedding at Sibudu, I use experimental micromorphology and I compare the signatures of the Sibudu sediments with burned fresh sedge and grass bedding. I undertake further fire experiments, also in open air situations, to answer questions about burning sedge beds and the taphonomic implications. Experimental sedge bedding fires are hot and brief. The matrix beneath the fires affects the temperatures achieved both on the surface directly under the fire, and at depths of 2 cm and 5 cm below the surface; an ash matrix conducts heat more effectively than a matrix of 1–2 mm sized particles and allows for carbonisation of buried nutlets. The burning of dry and green bedding indicates that once the bedding is burning, the temperatures are sufficient to carbonise sedge nutlets below both dry and moist bedding. The methodological innovations I introduce are the use of experimental micromorphology to address an archaeobotanical question and the use of GIS-based coexistence analysis of southern African archaeobotanical data to make interpretations about past climate. The analysis develops previous palaeovegetation research in the area (Sievers 2006; Wadley et al. 2008) and provides an environmental context for people/plant activities at Sibudu.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate the environmental changes across the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition (c.7000-5000 cal BP) at two sites in north-west Europe. Specific research questions focus on the role of fire, the interaction of climate and environmental change and human impacts, and the degree of continuity across the transition. Previous work has led to hypotheses of human impacts in the late Mesolithic, usually through the use of fire, increasing the abundance of food. Detection of these practices and the change to farming in the Neolithic has long been the study of pollen analysts, but in this project additional techniques of NPPs, size-class differentiated charcoal, and silicon and titanium were added at high resolution in order to determine the relationships between the different forcing factors on mid-Holocene environments. Sites were selected close to locations where known later Mesolithic artefacts have been found, with dated archaeological excavations. An upland UK bog site (Dan Clough Moss, near March Hill, West Yorkshire) and a lowland Swedish lake (Bökeberg, Skåne) provided contrasting environments, and enabled a range of proxies to be used from terrestrial peat and limnic sediments. 14C dates from selected macrofossils enabled an age-depth curve to be produced from each profile, with a Bayesian model applied to estimate the age of each sample. Results show a detailed record of woodland change from both areas. At Dan Clough Moss, disturbance phases with evidence of local fires occur frequently (typically every 20-30 years) in the late Mesolithic, and have low magnitude but consistent records of coprophilous fungi. Some phases of disturbance are different however, without the fungal spore evidence, and with heath plants increasing in representation. Drier phases appear to correlate with more local fire, and increased hazel. The transition is marked by a change to longer duration but distant fires, and longer periods of woodland disturbance, increased ruderal species and more heathland. The dates of occupation phases show a late survival of Mesolithic practices, overlapping with the Neolithic by around 300 years. At Bökeberg, a contrasting pattern is shown, with longer-duration phases of inferred human impact being replaced by shorter episodes of fire-associated disturbance after the date of the transition. Pollen and spore zones of disturbance concur with the dated occupation of late Mesolithic sites at the former lake edge. There is some evidence for markedly wetter, and then significantly drier, climate through the transition, and it could be inferred that this influenced the change in food production economies. However, the overall landscape changed only subtly, with more evidence of potential weeds of cultivation. At Bökeberg, there was no overlap- both radiocarbon and palynology suggest an abrupt transition from Mesolithic to Neolithic. The landscape impact of the transition from Mesolithic to Neolithic at both sites was not a clear and consistent one. While Ulmus decline levels and thereafter had increases in weed species and other herbs the overall balance of trees and shrubs changed less than 20%. At both sites, climate may have been influential, although the evidence is inconclusive. Fires were important at both sites and in both periods, but at different scales and duration. Disturbance phases varied within the Mesolithic as well as between the Mesolithic and the Neolithic.

The essay circulates around the technological analysis of flint material from four localities around the Baltic Sea basin. The analysis was created to investigate the question of where the first Gotlandic settlers originated from and to give clues about the colonization process. The investigated material was collected during the fall of 2011 and a correspondence analysis is used to analyze the collected material. The purpose of using a correspondence analysis is to test the method as a tool for investigating Mesolithic flint technologies. The essay also discusses marine hunter-gatherers, their economy and how their archeological remains differ from terrestrial hunter-gatherers.

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This thesis is concerned with two closely related themes: the inhabitation of the Peak District over the fifth and fourth millennia BC, and the procedures and principles by which we attempt to interpret the durable material traces thereof. A four stage interpretative framework is outlined. Social life is understood through its materiality. The engagement of the self with others is constrained and enabled by that materiality. Archaeologists can represent that process through a textual model. Analogical reasoning mediates each stage and must be made explicit. The Mesolithic and Neolithic, analytical objects constructed through conceptual metaphors, fail to express time and the materiality of practice as mutually constitutive. An integrated theory of landscape and technology is proposed whereby artefacts are understood in terms of relational metaphors, situating them in practice and capturing both their materiality and temporality. Prior research in the study area is critiqued on the basis that the historically specific material conditions therein cannot support models transposed from other regional contexts. A methodology for collection and analysis is developed which privileges those specific conditions in the interpretation of prehistoric technology. Artefact assemblages, it is argued, offer us no unmediated access to prehistoric settlement. No immediate functional equivalence between aggregations similar in composition should be expected. The analysis of stone tools and waste must be integrated with other categories of evidence and interpreted in terms of the potentials offered by their socio-physical context. Original data are analysed in terms of assemblage density, raw material and technological composition, chronological patterning and landscape situation. Integration into the regional corpus, through an explicitly multi-scalar approach, attends to the constitution of social life through practice and developing tradition. The role ascribed to early `monuments' by other archaeologists is particularly brought into question, with respect to the model of relational practice maintained throughout the dissertation.