The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic,also called the Old Stone Age,is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools,and which represents almost the entire period of human prehistoric technology. It extends from the earliest known use of stone tools by hominins,c. 3.3 million years ago,to the end of the Pleistocene,c. 11,650 cal BP.
Isotope analysis is the identification of isotopic signature,abundance of certain stable isotopes of chemical elements within organic and inorganic compounds. Isotopic analysis can be used to understand the flow of energy through a food web,to reconstruct past environmental and climatic conditions,to investigate human and animal diets,for food authentification,and a variety of other physical,geological,palaeontological and chemical processes. Stable isotope ratios are measured using mass spectrometry,which separates the different isotopes of an element on the basis of their mass-to-charge ratio.
The cave bear is a prehistoric species of bear that lived in Europe and Asia during the Pleistocene and became extinct about 24,000 years ago during the Last Glacial Maximum.
Neanderthals became extinct around 40,000 years ago. Hypotheses on the causes of the extinction include violence,transmission of diseases from modern humans which Neanderthals had no immunity to,competitive replacement,extinction by interbreeding with early modern human populations,natural catastrophes,climate change and inbreeding depression. It is likely that multiple factors caused the demise of an already low population.
Bioarchaeology in Europe describes the study of biological remains from archaeological sites. In the United States it is the scientific study of human remains from archaeological sites.
The Wezmeh Cave is an archaeological site near Islamabad Gharb,western Iran,around 470 km (290 mi) southwest of the capital Tehran. The site was discovered in 1999 and excavated in 2001 by a team of Iranian archaeologists under the leadership of Dr. Kamyar Abdi. Wezmeh cave was re-excavated by a team under direction of Fereidoun Biglari in 2019.
Neanderthals are an extinct group of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. The type specimen,Neanderthal 1,was found in 1856 in the Neander Valley in present-day Germany.
Almost everything about Neanderthal behaviour remains controversial. From their physiology,Neanderthals are presumed to have been omnivores,but animal protein formed the majority of their dietary protein,showing them to have been carnivorous apex predators and not scavengers. Although very little is known of their social organization,it appears patrilines would make up the nucleus of the tribe,and women would seek out partners in neighbouring tribes once reaching adolescence,presumably to avoid inbreeding. An analysis based on finger-length ratios suggests that Neanderthals were more sexually competitive and promiscuous than modern-day humans.
Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser is a German archaeologist. She is a professor at the Johannes Gutenberg-University,Mainz and Director of the Monrepos Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for human behavioural Evolution of the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum at Monrepos Castle in Neuwied,Germany.
Scladina,or Sclayn Cave,is an archaeological site located in Wallonia in the town of Sclayn,in the Andenne hills in Belgium,where excavations since 1978 have provided the material for an exhaustive collection of over thirteen thousand Mousterian stone artifacts and the fossilized remains of an especially ancient Neanderthal,called the Scladina child were discovered in 1993.
Judith Sealy is a Professor and South Africa Research Chairs Initiative Research Chair in Archaeology and Paleoenvironmental Studies and director of the Stable Light Isotope Lab in the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cape Town.
Medieval Bioarchaeology is the study of human remains recovered from medieval archaeological sites. Bioarchaeology aims to understand populations through the analysis of human skeletal remains and this application of bioarchaeology specifically aims to understand medieval populations. There is an interest in the Medieval Period when it comes to bioarchaeology,because of how differently people lived back then as opposed to now,in regards to not only their everyday life,but during times of war and famine as well. The biology and behavior of those that lived in the Medieval Period can be analyzed by understanding their health and lifestyle choices.
Okladnikov Cave is a paleoanthropological site located in the foothills of the Altai Mountains in Soloneshensky District,Altai Krai in southern Siberia,Russia. The cave faces south and is located on a Devonian karst escarpment,lying about 14 metres (46 ft) above the left bank of the Sibiryachikha River valley below;the river itself is a tributary of the Anuy River.
The diet of known human ancestors varies dramatically over time. Strictly speaking,according to evolutionary anthropologists and archaeologists,there is not a single hominin Paleolithic diet. The Paleolithic covers roughly 2.8 million years,concurrent with the Pleistocene,and includes multiple human ancestors with their own evolutionary and technological adaptations living in a wide variety of environments. This fact with the difficulty of finding conclusive evidence often makes broad generalizations of the earlier human diets very difficult. Humans' pre-hominin primate ancestors were broadly herbivorous,relying on either foliage or fruits and nuts and the shift in dietary breadth during the Paleolithic is often considered a critical point in hominin evolution. A generalization between Paleolithic diets of the various human ancestors that many anthropologists do make is that they are all to one degree or another omnivorous and are inextricably linked with tool use and new technologies.
Julia Anne Lee-Thorp,is a South African archaeologist and academic. She is Head of the Stable Light Isotope Laboratory and Professor of Archaeological Science and Bioarchaeology at the University of Oxford. Lee-Thorp is most well known for her work on dietary ecology and human origins,using stable isotope chemistry to study fossil bones and teeth.
Janet Montgomery is a British archaeological scientist and academic. Having studied at the University of Bradford,she is now Professor of Bioarchaeology at Durham University. She specialises in the study of diet and migration via tooth enamel biomineralization and isotope analysis.
Margaret J. Schoeninger is an American anthropologist. She is Professor Emerita of Anthropology at The University of California San Diego,and until recently she was a Co-Director for the Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropology,or CARTA. Her research is primarily focused on the evolution of the human diet and what this information can tell us about other aspects of human evolution.
Tamsin O'Connell is an archaeological scientist based at the University of Cambridge. Her work has pioneered the use of isotope analysis in archaeology,specifically diet and climate in human and animal tissues.
Michelle Alexander is a bioarchaeologist with an interest in multi-faith societies and is Senior Lecturer in Bioarchaeology at the University of York.
Isotope analysis has many applications in archaeology,from dating sites and artefacts,determination of past diets and migration patterns and for environmental reconstruction.
