Abstract: A growing body of archeological evidence suggests that the dramatic climatic events of the Last Glacial Maximum in Europe triggered important changes in foraging behavior, involving a significant decrease in mobility. In general, changes in mobility alter patterns of bending of the midshaft femur and tibia, resulting in changes in diaphyseal robusticity and shape. This relationship between levels of mobility and lower limb diaphyseal structure was used to test the hypothesized decrease in mobility. Cross-sectional geometric data were obtained for 81 Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic European femora and tibiae. The sample was divided into three time periods: Early Upper Paleolithic (EUP), Late Upper Paleolithic (LUP), and Mesolithic (Meso). In addition, because decreased mobility often results in changes in sex roles, males and females were analyzed separately. All indicators of bending strength decrease steadily through time, although few of the changes reach statistical significance. There is, however, a highly significant change in midshaft femur shape, with LUP and Meso groups more circular in cross-section than the EUP sample, supporting archeologically based predictions of decreased mobility. Sexual dimorphism levels in diaphyseal strength remain low throughout the three time periods, suggesting a departure in Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic foragers away from the pattern of division of labor by sex observed in modern hunter-gatherers. Results confirm that the onset of the Last Glacial Maximum represents a crucial stage in Late Pleistocene human evolution, and signals the appearance of some of the behavioral adaptations that are usually associated with the Neolithic, such as sedentism.

Abstract: Focusing on central Eurasian archaeology: east meets west (Marsha Levine) Steppe and forest-steppe belt of Eurasia: Holocene environmental history (Konstantin V Kremenetski) Green grows the steppe: how can grassland ecology increase our understanding of human-plant interactions and the origins of agriculture (Mim A Bower) Organic residue analysis of lipids in potsherds from the Early Neolithic settlement of Bptai, Kazakhstan (Stephanie N Dudd, Richard P Evershed and Marsha Levine) Eneolithic horse rituals and riding in the steppes: new evidence (David W Anthony and Dorcus R Brown) Horse exploitation in the Kazakh steppes during the Eneolithic and Bronze Age (Norbert Benecke and Angela von den Driesch) The exploitation of horses at Botai, Kazakhstan (Sandra L Olsen) Geomorphological and micromorphological investigations of palaeosols, valley sediments and a sunken-floored dwelling at Botai, Kazakhstan (Charly French and Maria Kousoulakou) A note on the early evidence for horse in western Asia (Joan Oates) Were the donkeys at Tell Brak (Syria) harnessed with a bit? (Juliet Clutton-Brock) Equids in the northern part of the Iranian Central Plateau from the Neolithic to Iron Age: new zoogeographic evidence (Marjan Mashkour) A walk on the wild side: Late Shang appropriation of horses in China (Kathryn M Linduff) The horse in Late Prehistoric China: wresting culture and control from the 'Barbarians' (Victor H Mair) Horseback riding: man's access to speed? (Ute Luise Dietz) Origins of pastoralism in the Eurasian steppes (Elena E Kuzmina) The horse and the wheel: the dialectics of change in Circum-Pontic region and the adjacent areas, 4500-1500BC (Andrew Sherratt) The importance of fish in the diet of central Eurasian peoples from the Mesolithic to the Early Iron Age (Tamsin O'Connell, Marsha Levine and Robert Hedges) Correlations between agriculture and pastoralism in the northern Pontic steppe area during the Bronze Age (Kateryna P Bunyatyan) Palaeoethnobotanical evidence of agriculture in the steppe and the forest-steppe of east Europe in the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age (Galina Pashkevich) First cattle-breeders of the Azov-Pontic steppes (Volodymyr N Stanko) Farmers and pastoralists of the Pontic Lowland during the Late Bronze Age (Yakov P Gershkovich) The economic peculiarities of the Srubnaya cultural-historical entity (Vitality V Otroshchenko) Srubnaya fauna and beyond: a critical assessment of the archaeozoological information from the east European steppe (Arturo Morales Muoiz and Ekaterina Antipina) Yamnaya culture pastoral exploitation: a local sequence (Natalia I Shishlina) Problems of inhabiting central Eurasia: Mesolithic-Eneolithic exploitation of the central Eurasian steppes (Gerald Matyushin) The steppes of the Urals and Kazakhstan during the Late Bronze Age (Svetlana Zdanovich).

Abstract: The change in subsistence at the Mesolithic/Neolithic transition in Denmark is often characterized as rapid, with a dramatic shift from a marine diet in the Mesolithic to a terrestrial-based diet in the Neolithic. This view has been largely based on the work of Tauber (1981), who observed this dietary shift in stable carbon isotope values for human bone from various coastal sites. Crucial to Tauber's argument are the radiocarbon dates he obtained for each of the isotope samples, for the ages are used to categorize samples as Mesolithic or Neolithic. In this reassessment of his pioneering work, we report on new carbon and nitrogen stable isotope values and radiocarbon dates for Danish Mesolithic and Neolithic humans, including some obtained by remeasuring a number of Tauber's samples. We first briefly describe the Late Mesolithic and Early Neolithic in Denmark and the major characteristics of the transition. We next consider the work by Tauber that has been seminal in studies of the transition. In subsequent sections we present new radiocarbon dates and stable isotope measurements from human skeletal material from the Mesolithic and Neolithic. The concluding discussion summarizes our results and emphasizes the need for more analyses of radio- and stable isotopes from this important transition period.

Abstract: The Zvejnieki Stone Age1 complex in northern Latvia includes one of the most significant hunter–fisher–gatherer cemeteries in northern Europe in terms of both the exceptional number of individuals buried there and the extremely long period of use: more than 300 individuals interred over a period of at least four millennia. New results of archaeozoological studies and palaeodiet investigations performed on the Zvejnieki human remains are presented here, together with 18 new radiocarbon dates. It is clear from the stable isotope analyses that the Zvejnieki people were heavily reliant on freshwater fish until the end of the Early Neolithic, when the consumption of fish declined somewhat, although it still made an important contribution to the diet. The Late Neolithic individuals in Corded Ware flexed burials at Zvejnieki and elsewhere in Latvia show a distinct dietary pattern, pointing towards animal husbandry. The faunal remains found in settlement layers confirm the trends revealed by bone chemistry, where...

Abstract: Stone Age research on Northern Europe frequently makes gross generalizations about the Mesolithic and Neolithic, although we still lack much basic knowledge on how the people lived. The transition ...

Abstract: New research on shell middens in the Algarve region of southern Portugal shows continuity of marine exploitation from the Mesolithic into the early Neolithic periods, where the Neolithic period is defined by the appearance of pottery in c 5500BC. The authors propose that either shellfish remained important to Neolithic people in Portugal or that Mesolithic and Neolithic subsistence strategies co-existed in this area for a relatively long time.

Abstract: In this paper the author assembles the evidence for Mesolithic dwelling places surviving as posts, floors and assemblages. This evidence can be used to show how space was organised, where men and women slept, and how some of the implied family relationships anticipated Neolithic practice.

Abstract: This paper presents the results of the first investigation of vegetation change and human activity from a river valley west of the Somerset Levels. The record is contrasted with the pollen and archaeological record from south-west uplands (Dartmoor and Exmoor) and the Somerset Levels. Vegetation change and archaeological evidence are shown to be generally consistent, with evidence from the middle valley of Mesolithic vegetation disturbance (with nearby lithics), Neolithic clearance of terraces and slopes in the lower valley and Neolithic–Bronze Age ceremonial and domestic activity, but in the upper reach the maintenance of wooded valley floor conditions probably with management until historic times. The valley floor and surrounding slope vegetation history is found to be significantly different to that of the uplands with lime and elm being significant components of the prehistoric woodland record. The data suggest that lime is restricted to terraces and lowlands below 200 m OD throughout the prehistoric period. The pollen data from the valley suggest the lowlands had a rich and mixed ecology providing a wide range of resources and that, despite less visible archaeological remains, human activity is manifest through palynological evidence from the Mesolithic to the Bronze Age. The largest expanse of valley-floor terrace, the Nether Exe Basin, which was at least partially deforested in the early Neolithic contains a rich assemblage of Neolithic–Bronze Age ceremonial, funerary and domestic archaeology associated with an early and clear palynological record of woodland clearance, arable and pastoral activity.

Abstract: The adoption of cereal cultivation is a key benchmark in the transition from Mesolithic hunter–gatherer foraging to Neolithic farming economies, but the nature, timing and ecological–cultural context of the earliest cereal use in the British Isles and northwest Europe is still uncertain. We present AMS radiocarbon dating and fine-resolution pollen evidence from the Isle of Man for cereal growing in the latter stages of a distinct episode of forest disturbance at almost 6000 yr BP (uncalibrated). The coherent ecological structure of this phase at the fine resolution level suggests that it records cereal cultivation well before the Ulmus decline, rather than wild grass pollen grains. This example is one of a cluster of early dates for cereal-type pollen near the start of the sixth millenium BP, including several around the Irish Sea, which indicate that the introduction of cereal agriculture probably occurred as early in the central British Isles as in the northern European plain. This early cereal phase is followed later by a probable phase of pre-Ulmus decline pastoral activity. We also report Mesolithic age woodland disturbance around 7000 yr BP (uncalibrated) and the first radiocarbon dates for mid-Holocene forest history of the Isle of Man. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract: The authors use their revised chronology for the Mariupol-type cemeteries (presented in Antiquity 76: 356-63 (2002)) to offer a new sequence for Neolithic settlement and economy in Ukraine. They find that the transition to the Neolithic began about 6500 cal BC, but co-existed with Mesolithic communities for a further millennium. In about 4500 cal BC early copper age cultures appeared, which in turn coexisted with the Neolithic in neighbouring areas. Co-existent cultures are defined in terms of their artefacts, subsistence strategies, burial practice and physical types. The Mariupol-type cemeteries seem to have had their origins in the late Mesolithic and endured into the Copper Age, a period of more than two thousand years (c. 6500–4000 cal BC).

Abstract: A small-scale excavation, undertaken in advance of building works at Faraday Road, Newbury, Berkshire, encountered an apparently intact Early Mesolithic layer containing abundant worked flint directly associated with animal bones. The site lay on the floodplain of the River Kennet in an area already well-known for Mesolithic remains and certainly represents an extension of the site found at nearby Greenham Dairy Farm in 1963. The flint assemblage was dominated by obliquely-blunted microlithic forms accompanied by a restricted range of other items. The animal bones were, unusually, dominated by wild pig with clear evidence of both primary butchery and food waste. Spatial analysis of the bone and flint assemblages indicated discrete activity areas, possibly associated with hearths. Both pollen and molluscan data were recovered which, together with the results of soil micromorphological examination, confirmed an Early Holocene date for the formation of the Mesolithic layer. Radiocarbon dates place the site in the late 10th–early 9th millennium BP. The paper re-examines the nature of known Early Mesolithic activity in this part of the Kennet valley, with particular reference to the specific environmental conditions that seem to have prevailed. It is concluded that the Faraday Road site represents one part of a continuum of Early Mesolithic occupation that stretches along a considerable length of the floodplain, with each focus of activity witnessing repeated, but intermittent, occupation spanning a period of more than a millennium.

Abstract: Setting the scene the formation and analysis of sites locating, excavating and interpreting the evidence the early human settlement of Britain the Ice Age and after the envirorunent of the early mesolithic settlers settlement evidence: the lithic scatter sites settlement evidence: island excavations the artifact evidence the end of an era life in the mesolithic: the material world life in the mesolithic: life and universe.

Abstract: The paper discusses the evidence for the presence of sheep and goats on east Adriatic coast during the Mesolithic and Neolithic, and possible routes of transformation from hunter-gathering to pastoral societies.

Abstract: The cultural transition from the Mesolithic to Neolithic in the Rhone valley has been radically illuminated by excavation in the Grotte du Gardon (Ain). Examination of the well-stratified assemblages shows that flint and pottery associated with early Neolithic cultures in the Mediterranean occurred with lithics of local Mesolithic traditions. The author proposes that during the transitional period in this region in the sixth millennium BC, peoples of the two cultures lived side by side.

Abstract: A combination of on- and off-site palaeo-environmental and archaeological investigations of the upper Allen valley of Dorset conducted in 1998–2000 has begun to reveal a different model of landscape development than those previously put forward. A combination of off-site geoarchaeological and aerial photographic survey and palynological analyses of two relict palaeochannel systems, and sample investigations of four Bronze Age round barrows and a Neolithic enclosure, have been combined with inter-regional summaries of the archaeological and molluscan records to re-examine the prehistoric landscape dynamics in the study area. Preliminary results suggest that woodland development in the earlier Holocene appears to have been more patchy than the presumed model of full climax deciduous woodland. With open areas still present in the Mesolithic, the area witnessed its first exploitation of the chalk downs, thus slowing and altering soil development of the downlands. Consequently, many areas perhaps never developed thick, well structured, clay-enriched soils (or argillic brown earths), but rather thin brown earths. By the later Neolithic these under-developed soils had become thin rendzinas, largely as a consequence of human exploitation. The presence of thinner and less well-developed soils over large areas of downland removes the necessity for envisaging extensive soil erosion and thick aggraded deposits in the valley bottom in later prehistory. The investigations have suggested that, if there were major changes in vegetation and soil complexes, these had already occurred by the Neolithic rather than in the Bronze Age as suggested by previous researchers, and the area has remained relatively stable since.

Abstract: This dissertation deals with Early and Middle Neolithic societies in a valley landscape in western Scania, in the southern part of Sweden. Several archaeological excavations conducted by the National Heritage Board have revealed a great number of Neolithic remains in this region. The sites constitute a substantial continuous sequence from the earliest to the latest phase of the Funnel Beaker Culture and from the Battle Axe Culture – including wetland depositions, settlements, graves and central places. The various sites constitute separate elements of a society, but taken together they give us a more complete picture of the social, economic and ideological processes in a community. Through arrangements on different sites and their locations in the landscape I try to understand the character of the social organisation. Any area of landscape will have a long evolution, and many successive episodes or chronological horizons are likely to leave their mark on it. The historical landscape therefore should be read, interpreted and perceived in terms of two dimensions: space and time. Time and space together relate to the third element, social action, and work as underlying structures which are important forces creating the social organisation. Social and economic development during the earliest Neolithic carried on in the same manner as during the late Mesolithic. Several of the settlements dated to EN I in west Scania were located in places that had been occupied during Mesolithic times. A part of the population moved to the inland along the waterways during a later phase of the Early Neolithic. The conception of the landscape changed. When new areas were settled it became necessary to socialise the new and unknown landscape and create landscape spaces. This could been done by moving out different activities which previously were tied to the settlement. Offerings in wetlands outside settlements increased enormously during this phase. It is also during this period that the first megalithic graves were built. The new landscape spaces could been seen as macro-settlements, including dwelling, offering and funeral. There are indications of breakdowns on several levels during late Funnel Beaker Culture. It seems as if the landscape spaces created during EN II dissolved and that the population did not live in a coherent society at the end of MNA. The development towards increasing social differentiation during the Middle Neolithic had led a part of the population to break with the old manner of life and join new groups of people living on the coast. These groups originally belong to the Pitted Ware Culture and probably had a more egalitarian way of life. Another part of the population somewhat later, at the beginning of MNB, totally broke with the old traditions and received continental currents from the Corded Ware Culture. The base for power apparently switched from control of sacred knowledge and ritual practice to control of production, consumption and distribution of goods.

Abstract: The aim of the thesis is to cast light on the earliest settlement of northern Sweden. The starting point is lithic artifacts, which have been studied from a technological as well as a more conventi ...

Abstract: This program deals with hunter-gatherer cultural change and continuity in the Middle Holocene of the Cis-Baikal, Siberia. From about 9000 to 3000 BP, the Baikal area was successively inhabited by two major groups-the Kitoi, who date to the Late Mesolithic and Early Neolithic, and the Serovo-Glazkovo, who date from the Middle through Late Neolithic to Bronze Age. A distinct feature is a discontinuity separating the groups. Eleven papers highlight the interdisciplinary and international nature of the project and an important introduction to Russian perspectives.