Shell Middens and Coastal Prehistory Reference library
John Parkington and Ruan Brand
The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Archaeology
... Middens and Coastal Prehistory Introduction Coastal shell middens, that is, archaeological deposits that are visually and materially dominated by discarded marine shells (shell matrix deposits in another terminology; Hausmann et al. 2019 ; Villagran 2019 ), are valuable opportunities for reconstructing relationships between hunter-gatherers, landscapes, and resources ( Claassen 1998 ; Erlandson 2001 ; Parkington 2006 ; Shiner et al. 2013 ; Stein 1992 ; Waselkov 1987 ). Shellfish remains in these middens are easy to sample (there are lots of...
Shell Middens Reference library
Julie K. Stein and Amanda K. Taylor
The Oxford Companion To Archaeology (2 ed.)
...548–561. Ambrose, Wal R. “Archaeology and Shell Middens.” Archaeology and Physical Anthropology in Oceania 2 (1967): 169–187. Bailey, Geoff , and John Parkington . The Archaeology of Prehistoric Coastlines , 1988. Claassen, Cheryl . “Gender, Shellfishing, and the Shell Mound Archaic.” In Engendering Archaeology: Women and Prehistory , edited by Margaret W. Conkey and Joan M. Gero , pp. 276–300, 1991a. Claassen, Cheryl . “Normative Thinking and Shell-Bearing Sites.” In Archaeological Method and Theory , vol. 3, edited by Michael B....
Chinchorro Reference library
Mario A. Rivera
The Oxford Companion To Archaeology (2 ed.)
...to about 3000 BC. However, Chinchorro as a tradition has been dated to between 5000 and 500 BC, based on thirty-five radiocarbon dates from twenty different sites that include cemeteries, middens, and settlement sites. Thus, the mummies themselves could represent the oldest of their kind worldwide. The Chinchorro people, as hunters of sea mammals, were in the process of adapting themselves to the coastal environment. Marine resources allowed them some degree of permanency and economic stability, although they moved seasonally throughout the year, using a...
The Shell Midden Sites of Senegambia Reference library
Alioune Dème and Moustapha Sall
The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Archaeology
...senilis ) and fished. This began the formation of anthropic shell middens that are attested by the presence of shell mounds associated with potsherds, bone tools, and evidence of other subsistence and domestic activities. Sites containing such evidence are known archaeologically as “kitchen middens.” In one of the kitchen middens (located at Khant), a sample of Arca senilis was dated 4,080 bp ( Michel 1973 , 587). This started the exploitation of marine and coastal resources from the Late Stone Age to the historical period, with chronological and regional...
Hoabinhian Reference library
Peter Bellwood
The Oxford Companion To Archaeology (2 ed.)
... 3000 BC . In general, none of the early Holocene Spirit Cave plant remains can be proven to be from domesticated plants, and it seems that they may belong to a stable and broad-spectrum hunter-gatherer adaptation. [ See also Agriculture ; Asia: Prehistory and Early History of Southeast Asia ; Asia, Origins of Food Production in: Origins of Food Production in Southeast Asia ; Shell Middens ; Spirit Cave . ] Bellwood, Peter . Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipelago , rev. ed., 1997. Higham, C. F. W. The Archaeology of Mainland Southeast Asia: From 10...
Jomon Tradition Reference library
Gary W. Crawford
The Oxford Companion To Archaeology (2 ed.)
...on stone, wood and other plant materials, pottery, but no metal. Populations lived in hamlets or villages of pit houses, that is, houses with floors excavated to depths up to 3 feet (1 m) or more below the surface. In some regions, especially along the coast, these communities are associated with shell middens but these shell middens are found at fewer than 5 percent of Jomon sites. Earthworks and stone monuments marking important and potentially sacred spaces are common in later periods. The Jomon economy was neither strictly hunting and gathering nor...
Oman Reference library
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East
...Qurm, Winter 1984–1985. ” East and West 34 (1984): 455–465. Biagi, Paolo , et al.“Excavations at the Aceramic Coastal Settlement of RH5 (Muscat, Sultanate of Oman), 1983–5.” In South Asian Archaeology 1985 , edited by Karen Frifelt and Per Sorensen , pp. 1–8. London, 1989. Biagi, Paolo . “ A Radiocarbon Chronology for the Aceramic Shell Middens of Coastal Oman. ” Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 5 (1994a): 17–31. Biagi, Paolo . “ An Early Palaeolithic Site near Saiwan (Sultanate of Oman). ” Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 5 (1994b): 81–88. Clements,...
Subsistence Reference library
Steven Rosen
The Oxford Companion To Archaeology (2 ed.)
...mortars, pestles, grinders, and sickle blades). Fishing and shellfish collection are reflected in the presence of shell middens (especially in coastal areas of Africa and Europe), fishbones, and harpoon points. Food storage facilities and preservation techniques are also present among some ancient and recent hunter-gatherer groups, such as Native Americans of the northwest coast and the Natufians of the Mediterranean Levant. The increased range of exploitation during the late Upper Paleolithic in the Near East and early Archaic Mexico has been defined by...
United Arab Emirates Reference library
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East
...and Beatrice de Cardi undertook the first of several surveys in Ras al-Khaimah. In 1973–1974 an Iraqi team worked at a number of important sites, and a series of French missions under Serge Cleuziou and Rémy Boucharlat was inaugurated in 1977 to investigate Hili 8, Rumeilah, and Mleiha. Meanwhile, numerous other foreign teams began projects in the mid- and late 1980s at sites ranging from prehistoric shell middens to the medieval port of Julfar. Many of these are still underway. The UAE occupies an important area at the base of the Arabian Gulf and...
North America Reference library
Charlotte Beck, Charlotte Beck, Don E. Dumond, Jean-Luc Pilon, David G. Anderson, Douglas B. Bamforth, Linea Sundstrom, Gregson Schachner, Steven R. Simms, Kenneth M. Ames, Adrian Praetzellis, and Mary C. Beaudry
The Oxford Companion To Archaeology (2 ed.)
...coastal waters in the eighteenth century may have been preceded by Old World epidemic diseases, particularly smallpox, and by trade goods. Despite the profound impact of the last two centuries, Northwest Coast native history is preserved not only in archaeology, but in the oral traditions of the coast’s people. [ See also Shell Middens .] Ames, Kenneth M. , and Herbert D. G. Maschner . Peoples of the Northwest Coast: Their Archaeology and Prehistory , 1999. Fedje, Daryl W. , and Rolf W. Mathewes , eds. Haida Gwaii: Human History and...
The Early Iron Age of Botswana Reference library
Catrien van Waarden
The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Archaeology
...a kraal. A kraal-midden at the front of the site may have been for small stock. Also present were charred seeds of sorghum, millet, a legume, morula nut shells ( Sclerocarya caffra ), and possibly a monkey orange ( Strychnos spinosa ) seed. Red ochre, specularite, and micaceous schist were present. Finely ground mica-schist resembles graphite and with red ochre was used to decorate pottery bowls, similar to Dambwa and Gokomere bowls. There was a specularite mine in the Matsiloje Range ( Kiehn et al. 2007 ), 45 km southeast of Bisoli, and a source of fine...
The African Middle Stone Age Reference library
Alexander F. Blackwood and Jayne Wilkins
The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Archaeology
...J. E. 2006. Shorelines, Strandlopers and Shell Middens . Cape Town: Creda Communications. Parkington, J. E. 2010. “Coastal Diet, Encephalization, and Innovative Behaviors in the Late Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa.” In Human Brain Evolution: The Influence of Freshwater and Marine Food Resources . Edited by S. C. Cunnane and K. M. Stewart , 189–203. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell. Parkington, J. E. , C. Poggenpoel , D. Halkett , and T. Hart . 2004. “Initial Observations on the Middle Stone Age Coastal Settlement in the Western Cape, South...
South America Reference library
Charlotte Beck, Charles Stanish, Tom D. Dillehay, Thomas Pozorski, Shelia Pozorski, Anna Roosevelt, José Proenza Brochado, Francisco S. Noelli, James A. Zeidler, Theresa Lange Topic, Mary Van Buren, and Andrés Zarankin
The Oxford Companion To Archaeology (2 ed.)
...stone points and rock paintings in a rock shelter near Santarém (11,000 BP) and a chopper industry in another rock shelter on the Guaporé River (12,000 BP). The earliest ceramics of the New World (8000 BP), in a shell midden near Santarém, are very simple in form, but complex incised patterns sometimes occur near the rim. Similar ceramics—shell-tempered, red-slipped, and incised—occur in the shell middens at Maranhão (Maiobinha), the mouth of the Amazon (Mina, Areão, Uruá, Tucumã), the lower Trombetas (Castália), Xingu, and even on the Ucayali...
Hunter-Gatherer Women Reference library
Marlize Lombard and Katharine Kyriacou
The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Archaeology
...The Cape Floral Kingdom, Shellfish and Modern Human Origins.” Journal of Human Evolution 59: 425–443. Marean, C. W. 2010b. “When the Sea Saved Humanity.” Scientific American 303: 54–61. Meehan, B. 1982. Shell Bed to Shell Midden . Canberra, Australia: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. Mercader, J. 2009. “Mozambican Grass Seed Consumption during the Middle Stone Age.” Science 326: 1680–1683. Mercader, J. , Y. Asmeromb , T. Bennett , M. Raja , and A. Skinner . 2009. “Initial Excavation and Dating of Ngalue Cave: A Middle Stone...
Pacific, Settlement of Reference library
Atholl ANDERSON
Berkshire Encyclopedia of World History (2 ed.)
...stone adzes and chisels, slate and shell tools, and distinctive ornaments and fishhooks. While at least some of these elements have a long history in the New Guinea region, including shell adzes, shell beads, and simple fishhooks, ceramics were new, and the distinctive red-slipped, dentate-stamped types can be traced to earlier sites in Southeast Asia. In turn, these represent the expansion, after about 2500 bce , of a Neolithic culture that had its origins around 5000 bce in South China. This involved the cultivation of rice and millet and the husbandry...
Faunal Analysis in African Archaeology Reference library
Jessica C. Thompson
The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Archaeology
...intensification on the recursive impacts of population expansion. Shell middens began to grow in size and quantity especially along the southern and northern coasts of Africa, which share a similar Mediterranean-type environment. In South Africa, shells from these middens are on average smaller than shells found in deposits from earlier time periods, suggesting that increased numbers of foragers had been placing more intense predation pressure on these sedentary resources ( Klein and Steele 2013 ). Similarly, tortoise sizes also decreased between the...
Asia, Origins of Food Production in Reference library
Carla M. Sinopoli, Dilip K. Chakrabarti, Charles Higham, and Sarah Milledge Nelson
The Oxford Companion To Archaeology (2 ed.)
...a shell midden that also contains evidence for fishing and pottery manufacture. But again, there is no evidence for agriculture. Five centuries later, the much larger site of Khok Phanom Di has provided undoubted remains of cultivated rice as well as shell-harvesting knives. It is during the period from 2000 BC to 1500 BC that we encounter a major settlement expansion in the valleys of the Red, Mekong, and Chao Phraya rivers that involved agricultural villages. The remains of rice and domestic cattle and pigs reveal a fully developed Neolithic economy, and...
Genetics and Domestic Fauna in Southern Africa Reference library
K. Ann Horsburgh
The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Archaeology
...from KN2005/041, a coastal shell midden near the Swartlinjies River in Namaqualand ( Orton et al. 2013 ). DNA preservation was poor and only ~3 percent of the mitochondrial genome couple was recovered. The data were sufficient to be sure that the specimen derives from a cattle specimen but provided little more phylogenetic information. A direct radiocarbon determination on the specimen provided a date of cal. ad 421 –559 ( Orton et al. 2013 ). The second specimen comes from Sehonghong Rock Shelter in Lesotho ( Horsburgh, Moreno-Mayar, and Gosling 2016 )....
Japan and Korea Reference library
Gina L. Barnes, Gary W. Crawford, and Gyoung-Ah Lee
The Oxford Companion To Archaeology (2 ed.)
...by 3500 BC . The groundstone tools increased in numbers and types, including hoes, axes, adzes, sickles, and semilunar-shaped reaping knives. Active regional interactions probably facilitated homogeneity in material culture and the spread of introduced crops, foxtail millet and broomcorn millet. Neolithic sites have been spotted all over the peninsula at least from the Middle phase, but the majority of them, which are shell middens, are concentrated along the coastal lines and islands. Most shell middens represent limited seasonal camps, but some in the south...
Asia Reference library
George Michaels, Gregory L. Possehl, Charles Higham, Song Nai Rhee, Kidong Bae, and Namita Sugandhi
The Oxford Companion To Archaeology (2 ed.)
...The rich coastal areas of north and central Vietnam were occupied by a variety of groups inhabiting sedentary villages with an economy based on exploiting the rich estuarine resources, and included the manufacture of pottery and polished stone adzes. For example, the site of Nong Nor (4500 BP) contains a shell midden and evidence of fishing and pottery production, but no indication of agricultural activities. It is not until 500 years later, at the site of Khok Phanom Di (4000 BP–3500 BP), that clear evidence appears for rice agriculture and the use of...
