Building upon the idea of Douglass Bailey (1994) that prehistoric figurines represent actual individuals, it is suggested here their makers represented people in manner they perceived them, following role models familiar from own society. This further implies that, on grounds certain indicators, may be possible to identify social differences depending age, sex/gender, and possibly other modes i...

In a methodologically exemplary study area in northern Westphalia, it has been possible to identify cultural landscape that existed since the Late Neolithic. this diachronic synopsis, is evident was constituted around geological phenomenon into sacred from Neolithic onwards, then persisted for at least three millennia and became more secular Middle Ages. New absolute dating made synchronise cha...

In the middle-to-late Holocene, Earth's monsoonal regions experienced catastrophic precipitation decreases that produced green to desert state shifts. Resulting hydrologic regime change negatively impacted water availability and Neolithic cultures. Whereas mid-Holocene drying is commonly attributed to slow insolation reduction and subsequent nonlinear vegetation-atmosphere feedbacks that produc...

Anatolia and the Near East have long been recognized as the epicenter of the Neolithic expansion through archaeological evidence. Recent archaeogenetic studies on Neolithic European human remains have shown that the Neolithic expansion in Europe was driven westward and northward by migration from a supposed Near Eastern origin [1-5]. However, this expansion and the establishment of numerous cul...

The accumulated archaeological material and its interpretation demonstrate serious problems in the central segment of Three Age System (the Mesolithic-Neolithic). combination classifications built on different bases has caused a discord modern some regional periodisations. Moreover, concept Neolithic not only become more complex, but also bifurcated. From an point view, epochal changes take pla...

Feasting is one of humanity's most universal and unique social behaviors. Although evidence for feasting is common in the early agricultural societies of the Neolithic, evidence in pre-Neolithic contexts is more elusive. We found clear evidence for feasting on wild cattle and tortoises at Hilazon Tachtit cave, a Late Epipaleolithic (12,000 calibrated years B.P.) burial site in Israel. This incl...

It is well known that the Neolithic transition spread across Europe at a speed of about 1 km/yr. This result has been previously interpreted as a range expansion of the Neolithic driven mainly by demic diffusion (whereas cultural diffusion played a secondary role). However, a long-standing problem is whether this value (1 km/yr) and its interpretation (mainly demic diffusion) are characteristic...

Newly available information on the excavation of the Portuguese Mesolithic shell middens, Cabeço da Arruda and Moita do Sebastião, has allowed reassessment of the paleodemography of the sites. Following the restudy of Arruda and an examination of Moita site structure, we now discuss the problem of arriving at a minimum number of individuals (MNI) for Moita and use the age distribution of the de...

Farming domesticated millets, tending pigs, and hunting constituted the core of human subsistence strategies during Neolithic Yangshao (5000-2900 BC). Introduction of wheat and barley as well as the addition of domesticated herbivores during the Late Neolithic (∼2600-1900 BC) led to restructuring of ancient Chinese subsistence strategies. This study documents a dietary shift from indigenous mil...