ABSTRACT

This book explores new approaches to the remarkably detailed information that archaeologists now have for the study of our early ancestors. Rather than explaining the archaeology of stones and bones as the product of group decisions, the contributors investigate how individual action created social life. This challenge to the accepted standpoint of the Palaeolithic brings new models and theories into the period; innovations that are matched by the resolution of data preserving individual action among the stones and bones. The volume brings together examples from recent excavations such as Boxgrove, Schöningen and Blombos Cave and the analyses of artefacts from Middle and Early Upper Pleistocene excavations in Europe, Africa and Asia.

chapter |12 pages

From Empty Spaces to Lived Lives

Exploring the Individual in the Palaeolithic

chapter |16 pages

The Acheulean and the Handaxe

Structure and Agency in the Palaeolithic

chapter |21 pages

Transformations in Dividuality

Personhood and Palaeoliths in the Middle Pleistocene

chapter |18 pages

The Lower Palaeolithic Art of Hunting

The Case of Schöningen 13 II-4, Lower Saxony, Germany

chapter |22 pages

Bones and Powerful Individuals

Faunal Case Studies From the Arctic and the European Middle Palaeolithic

chapter |21 pages

All in a Day's Work

Middle Pleistocene Individuals, Materiality and the Lifespace at Makapansgat, South Africa

chapter |23 pages

Life and Mind in the Acheulean

A Case Study from India

chapter |24 pages

Individuals Among Palimpsest Data

Fluvial Landscapes in Southern England

chapter |21 pages

Being Modern in the Middle Stone Age

Individuals and Innovation

chapter |6 pages

Concluding Remarks

Context and the Individual