Responses of Upper Palaeolithic humans to spatio-temporal variations in resources: inequality, storage and mobility
Responses of Upper Palaeolithic humans to spatio-temporal variations in resources: inequality, storage and mobility
Predictability and abundance of resources is key to the spatio-temporal and social organisation of hunter-gatherer groups. In this paper I test the hypothesis that socio-economic inequalities were difficult to sustain in the European Upper Palaeolithic (~45.0-11.5 thousand years ago), with its often unreliable food resource availability. The general lack of modern analogues for Upper Palaeolithic environments forces exploration of alternative explanations for any apparent inequalities. Upper Palaeolithic palaeo-demographic estimates and technological strategies are evaluated in the light of environmental fluctuations, and the creation and control of knowledge is tested as the “resource” that might best explain evidence of inequalities.
131-165, 321-334
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research
Davies, William
5042ec27-3fcd-4ddb-bc0c-8c5578a0e50b
1 December 2020
Davies, William
5042ec27-3fcd-4ddb-bc0c-8c5578a0e50b
Davies, William
(2020)
Responses of Upper Palaeolithic humans to spatio-temporal variations in resources: inequality, storage and mobility.
In,
Moreau, Luc
(ed.)
Social Inequality Before Farming? Multidisciplinary approaches to the study of social organization in prehistoric and ethnographic hunter-gatherer-fisher societies.
(McDonald Institute Conversations)
Cambridge.
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, .
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Abstract
Predictability and abundance of resources is key to the spatio-temporal and social organisation of hunter-gatherer groups. In this paper I test the hypothesis that socio-economic inequalities were difficult to sustain in the European Upper Palaeolithic (~45.0-11.5 thousand years ago), with its often unreliable food resource availability. The general lack of modern analogues for Upper Palaeolithic environments forces exploration of alternative explanations for any apparent inequalities. Upper Palaeolithic palaeo-demographic estimates and technological strategies are evaluated in the light of environmental fluctuations, and the creation and control of knowledge is tested as the “resource” that might best explain evidence of inequalities.
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Accepted/In Press date: 2 February 2020
Published date: 1 December 2020
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This will be an open-access (Gold Access) volume, published in the new McDonald Institute Monograph Conversations series.
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Local EPrints ID: 438326
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/438326
PURE UUID: 0e829c7b-7280-4fb5-8a71-3bb009150ec3
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Date deposited: 05 Mar 2020 17:30
Last modified: 17 Mar 2024 02:56
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Luc Moreau
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