Amy E. Clark, Sarah Ranlett, and Mary C. Stiner. 2022. “
Domestic spaces as crucibles of Paleolithic culture: An archaeological perspective.” Journal of Human Evolution, 172, Pp. 103266.
Publisher's VersionAbstractThe places in which people live, sleep, prepare food, and undertake other activities known variably as homes, residential sites, living sites, and domestic spacesdplay a key role in the emergence and evolution of modern human culture. The dynamic influence of domestic spaces began early in human evolutionary history, during the Paleolithic/Stone Age. Drawing on examples from Africa and western Eurasia, this article explores aspects of the changing social and cultural significance of domestic spaces throughout this time using several lines of evidence: repeated site visitation, behavioral structuring of living spaces, and information gained by dissecting palimpsest records. With the development of pyrotechnology, living sites become hearth-centered domestic spaces that provided a common hub for activities. Through time the activities around hearths increased in their complexity and diversity. The parsing of palimpsest records by archaeologists also reveals changes in the nature, variety, and intensity of on-site activities through time, indicating shifts in site function and the spatial expression of cultural norms. Archaeological evidence shows that the entwined development of domestic spaces and human cultural activities was gradual, albeit nonlinear from the Lower Paleolithic through the Upper Paleolithic/later Middle Stone Age. In this process, domestic spaces emerged as common arenas of opportunity for social interaction and knowledge transmission, qualities that may have contributed to and enhanced the development of cumulative culture in Paleolithic society.
Clark et al. 2022 2022.
Intrasite Spatial Analysis of Mobile and Semisedentary Peoples: Analytical Approaches to Reconstructing Occupation History, Pp. 240. University of Utah Press.
Publisher's VersionAbstract
Describing the nature and meaning of artifact spatial patterning can be highly subjective, yet many patterns can be quantified to create general models that are comparable across time periods and geographic space. The authors employ various techniques in this endeavor, including large sample sizes, model-driven analyses of the ethnographic record, bone and lithic refitting, and a careful consideration of artifact attributes that elucidate spatial patterning. Such detailed analyses allow archaeologists to better interpret site formation processes and address large-scale anthropological questions.
This volume includes studies that span archaeological and ethnographic contexts, from highly mobile Paleoindian foragers to semi-sedentary preagriculturalists of the Epipaleolithic and modern pastoralists in Mongolia. The authors hold that commonalities in human behavior lead to similar patterns in the organization and maintenance of space by people. They present a series of ideas and approaches to make it easier to recognize universals in human behaviors, which allow archaeologists to better compare intrasite spatial patterns. The book creates a baseline for new intrasite spatial analyses in the twenty-first century.
Amy E. Clark and Sarah Ranlett. 2022. “
The origins of a built environment: Place-making and the spatial signatures of Neanderthals and Modern Humans.” In More Than Shelter from the Storm: Hunter-Gatherer Houses and the Built Environment,
edited by Danielle Macdonald and Brian Andrews, Pp. 13-39. The University of Florida Press.
Clark_and_Ranlett_2022.pdf