The majority of Lower Palaeolithic assemblages are recovered from lowland fluvial locations, and hence most interpretation is based around these. It is clear, however, that these represent only a small fraction of the hominin landscape and this bias is potentially limiting our understanding of hominin organisation to only a single facet of behaviour. While recent authors have recognised the importance of upland sites, and other non-fluvial contexts, research is currently limited to highly specific studies (such as Boxgrove), and often fail to extend the purview to incorporate the wider landscape. Consequently we are still a long way from answering basic questions such as: how and why were hominids utilising particular locations? How, if at all, does behaviour respond to landscape context? Is the same pattern seen in continental Europe? This research applies a landscape approach to the British Palaeolithic, combining a technological, typological and chaîne opératoire methodology to determine assemblage signatures for a variety of landscape types (lowland riverine, lacustrine, grassland plains and uplands). An exploratory Geographical Information Systems (GIS)approach is applied to the upland study areas to gain a better understanding of settlement structuring and how behaviour responds to landscape context. The results are then considered in terms of behavioural variation, site choice, specialisation and provisioning across the landscape.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:614427 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Drinkall, Helen Clare |
| Publisher | Durham University |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/10660/ |
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