Aaron Stutz | Bohusläns museum (original) (raw)
Papers by Aaron Stutz
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2024
This article revisits the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic (MP-UP) transition in the Levant (ca. 50–40 k... more This article revisits the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic (MP-UP) transition in the Levant (ca. 50–40 kiloanni calibrated before present, hereafter ka), explored here as a key case of spatially and temporally multiscalar niche construction and biocultural adaptation in recent human evolution. New chronometric and palaeogenomic data provide an opportunity to reconsider what actually changed in the MP-UP transition, not only in terms of Neanderthal-anatomically modern human (AMH) population turnover and biological adaptation, but also culturally transmitted technologies and cultural institutions that mediated interrelated changes in mobility and social-network connectivity. High-resolution satellite data on environmental variability, simulation studies of hunter-gatherer demographic fluctuations, and cross-cultural data on hunter-gatherer population density and social organization are evaluated to model baseline constraints and possibilities for long-term biocultural adaptation and niche construction in the region, across the Middle and Late Pleistocene more broadly (ca. 780–12 ka). This exploration adds theoretical support to a view of the MP-UP transition as evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, offering new avenues of inquiry about how shorter-term, local behavioural responses were affected by and—in turn—had ripple effects on geographically more widespread, longer-term trends involving intergenerational demographic dynamics, centennial or millennial-scale population turnovers, and major longterm technological shifts.
Journal of Archaeological Science, 2004
Archaeologists seek to analyze patterns of similarity and difference among diverse kinds of assem... more Archaeologists seek to analyze patterns of similarity and difference among diverse kinds of assemblages that (1) vary in the number of specimens and (2) have been characterized by standard multi-category frequency distributions. Recent developments in computer simulation methods offer marked improvements in our ability to test statistical hypotheses about variation in relative taxonomic or typological abundance data, drawn from assemblages
Hunter-gatherer cross-cultural data and global human population data for Stutz, Aaron Jonas (acce... more Hunter-gatherer cross-cultural data and global human population data for Stutz, Aaron Jonas (accepted) "A Niche of Their Own: Population Dynamics, Niche Diversification, and Biopolitics in the Recent Biocultural Evolution of Hunter-Gatherers." Journal of Anthropological Archaeology.
The International Encyclopedia of Biological Anthropology
Inhumation—more commonly referred to as burial—is one of the most common mortuary ritual treatmen... more Inhumation—more commonly referred to as burial—is one of the most common mortuary ritual treatments, viewed across the diversity of human cultures and throughout recent prehistoric and historical p ...
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
Abstract Three decades have passed since Keeley published his comprehensive exploration of cross-... more Abstract Three decades have passed since Keeley published his comprehensive exploration of cross-cultural variation in hunter-gatherer social complexity, sedentism, and storage across diverse environmental and demographic conditions (Keeley, L.H., 1988. Hunter-gatherer economic complexity and “population pressure”: A cross-cultural analysis. J. Anthropol. Archaeol. 7, 373–411. https://doi.org/10.1016/0278-4165(88)90003-7). This article reconsiders Keeley’s work, shifting theoretical focus to niche construction, biocultural adaptation, and the biopolitics of inclusion and exclusion. In recent millennia, human niche construction has become defined by intense matter and energy extraction at or across key hydrospheric, atmospheric, and lithospheric regime boundaries. Associated global population growth has depended on the biocultural evolution of positive elasticity in energy extraction rates, with respect to labor inputs. This article presents a statistical reanalysis of Keeley’s cross-cultural data, documenting the niche-divergence between immediate-returns hunter-gatherers and delayed-returns, storage-dependent foragers. It is argued that the intricate relationships among niche elasticity, population-growth elasticity, niche diversification, and the biopolitics of inclusion and exclusion have dynamically shaped ecological enrichment—in the form of patch engineering—and demographic disruption—mainly in the form of dispersal, migration, raiding, and warfare. This article aims to offer new perspectives on the systemic coupling among political complexity, economic development, inequality, and environmental impacts in post-Pleistocene human systems.
Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, 2014
The Near East is situated at the crossroads between the genus Homo’s African evolutionary core an... more The Near East is situated at the crossroads between the genus Homo’s African evolutionary core and the Eurasian periphery . The Paleolithic and Neolithic prehistory of the Near East is literally central for understanding the genus Homo as a globally distributed lineage, whose single surviving species – Homo sapiens – continues to shape and be shaped by the terrestrial, omnivorous, and extractive niche with which it has coevolved. This entry examines the general theoretical issue of biocultural evolution in the context of Near Eastern geography, climate, ecology, and Stone Age prehistory. In doing so, it offers an overview of Paleolithic and Neolithic paleoanthropology and archaeology, with basic introductory information about industries, technocomplexes, fossils, and key sites in chronological context.
Frontiers in psychology, 2014
Human evolution unfolded through a rather distinctive, dynamically constructed ecological niche. ... more Human evolution unfolded through a rather distinctive, dynamically constructed ecological niche. The human niche is not only generally terrestrial in habitat, while being flexibly and extensively heterotrophic in food-web connections. It is also defined by semiotically structured and structuring embodied cognitive interfaces, connecting the individual organism with the wider environment. The embodied dimensions of niche-population co-evolution have long involved semiotic system construction, which I hypothesize to be an evolutionarily primitive aspect of learning and higher-level cognitive integration and attention in the great apes and humans alike. A clearly pre-linguistic form of semiotic cognitive structuration is suggested to involve recursively learned and constructed object icons. Higher-level cognitive iconic representation of visually, auditorily, or haptically perceived extrasomatic objects would be learned and evoked through indexical connections to proprioceptive and aff...
PloS one, 2014
To Malthus, rapid human population growth-so evident in 18th Century Europe-was obviously unsusta... more To Malthus, rapid human population growth-so evident in 18th Century Europe-was obviously unsustainable. In his Essay on the Principle of Population, Malthus cogently argued that environmental and socioeconomic constraints on population rise were inevitable. Yet, he penned his essay on the eve of the global census size reaching one billion, as nearly two centuries of super-exponential increase were taking off. Introducing a novel extension of J. E. Cohen's hallmark coupled difference equation model of human population dynamics and carrying capacity, this article examines just how elastic population growth limits may be in response to demographic change. The revised model involves a simple formalization of how consumption costs influence carrying capacity elasticity over time. Recognizing that complex social resource-extraction networks support ongoing consumption-based investment in family formation and intergenerational resource transfers, it is important to consider how consum...
Reviews in Anthropology, 2012
This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the a... more This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues. Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier’s archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit:
Hunter-gatherers define humanity's Pleistocene evolutionary past. Yet, hunter-gatherer socie... more Hunter-gatherers define humanity's Pleistocene evolutionary past. Yet, hunter-gatherer societies in the 20th–21st centuries are examples par excellence of cultural marginalization, domination, and resilience. This review of six recent works on hunter-gatherers—spanning Paleolithic archaeology, bioarchaeology, behavioral ecology, and cultural anthropology—underscores that human forager diversity can be explained neither by culturally embedded political processes nor by ecologically situated evolutionary factors alone. Yet, theoretical bridging frameworks remain elusive, with a narrowing but persistent culture-biology divide. Recent developments in evolutionary life-history theory provide a robust biocultural foundation for understanding human sociality and the symbolic constitution of embodied cultural practice.
Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans made the Middle-Upper Paleolithic technological trans... more Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans made the Middle-Upper Paleolithic technological transition together. Perhaps more accurately stated, the technological innovations reflected in Early Upper Paleolithic archaeological assemblages were developed, adopted, and spread by a western Eurasian metapopulation that encompassed variable admixture histories. This is the unavoidable implication of robust analyses of ancient human, omnivorous prey, and microbial genomes, which document long-term—if sporadic—interaction and successful family formation between geographically expanding anatomically modern humans and indigenous Neanderthals. This social and population interaction occurred within a broad time-frame, likely ca. 120–40 ka, involving complex, multi-scalar niche construction and biocultural evolutionary dynamics. This chapter reconsiders theoretical, methodological, and empirical issues surrounding the study of lithic assemblages that define the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transiti...
Journal of Field Archaeology
ABSTRACT Mughr el-Hamamah (Jordan) Layer B contains an Early Upper Palaeolithic stone tool assemb... more ABSTRACT Mughr el-Hamamah (Jordan) Layer B contains an Early Upper Palaeolithic stone tool assemblage dating to around 39–45 kya CAL B.P. This assemblage is unusual in that it samples human forager activities around the ecotone between the Transjordanian Plateau and the palaeo-lake (Lake Lisan) that filled much of the Jordan Valley during Late Pleistocene times. This paper describes that assemblage, comparing it to other Levantine Upper Palaeolithic assemblages of equivalent antiquity. The Mughr el-Hamamah Layer B assemblage appears most similar to Early Ahmarian assemblages, but it departs from typical such assemblages in ways that may reflect local conditions’ influence on human activities carried out in and near the cave. Mughr el-Hamamah raises new questions about changes in residential mobility, off-site provisioning and foraging activity, and on-site task diversity in the Early Upper Palaeolithic period.
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2024
This article revisits the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic (MP-UP) transition in the Levant (ca. 50–40 k... more This article revisits the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic (MP-UP) transition in the Levant (ca. 50–40 kiloanni calibrated before present, hereafter ka), explored here as a key case of spatially and temporally multiscalar niche construction and biocultural adaptation in recent human evolution. New chronometric and palaeogenomic data provide an opportunity to reconsider what actually changed in the MP-UP transition, not only in terms of Neanderthal-anatomically modern human (AMH) population turnover and biological adaptation, but also culturally transmitted technologies and cultural institutions that mediated interrelated changes in mobility and social-network connectivity. High-resolution satellite data on environmental variability, simulation studies of hunter-gatherer demographic fluctuations, and cross-cultural data on hunter-gatherer population density and social organization are evaluated to model baseline constraints and possibilities for long-term biocultural adaptation and niche construction in the region, across the Middle and Late Pleistocene more broadly (ca. 780–12 ka). This exploration adds theoretical support to a view of the MP-UP transition as evolutionary, rather than revolutionary, offering new avenues of inquiry about how shorter-term, local behavioural responses were affected by and—in turn—had ripple effects on geographically more widespread, longer-term trends involving intergenerational demographic dynamics, centennial or millennial-scale population turnovers, and major longterm technological shifts.
Journal of Archaeological Science, 2004
Archaeologists seek to analyze patterns of similarity and difference among diverse kinds of assem... more Archaeologists seek to analyze patterns of similarity and difference among diverse kinds of assemblages that (1) vary in the number of specimens and (2) have been characterized by standard multi-category frequency distributions. Recent developments in computer simulation methods offer marked improvements in our ability to test statistical hypotheses about variation in relative taxonomic or typological abundance data, drawn from assemblages
Hunter-gatherer cross-cultural data and global human population data for Stutz, Aaron Jonas (acce... more Hunter-gatherer cross-cultural data and global human population data for Stutz, Aaron Jonas (accepted) "A Niche of Their Own: Population Dynamics, Niche Diversification, and Biopolitics in the Recent Biocultural Evolution of Hunter-Gatherers." Journal of Anthropological Archaeology.
The International Encyclopedia of Biological Anthropology
Inhumation—more commonly referred to as burial—is one of the most common mortuary ritual treatmen... more Inhumation—more commonly referred to as burial—is one of the most common mortuary ritual treatments, viewed across the diversity of human cultures and throughout recent prehistoric and historical p ...
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
Abstract Three decades have passed since Keeley published his comprehensive exploration of cross-... more Abstract Three decades have passed since Keeley published his comprehensive exploration of cross-cultural variation in hunter-gatherer social complexity, sedentism, and storage across diverse environmental and demographic conditions (Keeley, L.H., 1988. Hunter-gatherer economic complexity and “population pressure”: A cross-cultural analysis. J. Anthropol. Archaeol. 7, 373–411. https://doi.org/10.1016/0278-4165(88)90003-7). This article reconsiders Keeley’s work, shifting theoretical focus to niche construction, biocultural adaptation, and the biopolitics of inclusion and exclusion. In recent millennia, human niche construction has become defined by intense matter and energy extraction at or across key hydrospheric, atmospheric, and lithospheric regime boundaries. Associated global population growth has depended on the biocultural evolution of positive elasticity in energy extraction rates, with respect to labor inputs. This article presents a statistical reanalysis of Keeley’s cross-cultural data, documenting the niche-divergence between immediate-returns hunter-gatherers and delayed-returns, storage-dependent foragers. It is argued that the intricate relationships among niche elasticity, population-growth elasticity, niche diversification, and the biopolitics of inclusion and exclusion have dynamically shaped ecological enrichment—in the form of patch engineering—and demographic disruption—mainly in the form of dispersal, migration, raiding, and warfare. This article aims to offer new perspectives on the systemic coupling among political complexity, economic development, inequality, and environmental impacts in post-Pleistocene human systems.
Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, 2014
The Near East is situated at the crossroads between the genus Homo’s African evolutionary core an... more The Near East is situated at the crossroads between the genus Homo’s African evolutionary core and the Eurasian periphery . The Paleolithic and Neolithic prehistory of the Near East is literally central for understanding the genus Homo as a globally distributed lineage, whose single surviving species – Homo sapiens – continues to shape and be shaped by the terrestrial, omnivorous, and extractive niche with which it has coevolved. This entry examines the general theoretical issue of biocultural evolution in the context of Near Eastern geography, climate, ecology, and Stone Age prehistory. In doing so, it offers an overview of Paleolithic and Neolithic paleoanthropology and archaeology, with basic introductory information about industries, technocomplexes, fossils, and key sites in chronological context.
Frontiers in psychology, 2014
Human evolution unfolded through a rather distinctive, dynamically constructed ecological niche. ... more Human evolution unfolded through a rather distinctive, dynamically constructed ecological niche. The human niche is not only generally terrestrial in habitat, while being flexibly and extensively heterotrophic in food-web connections. It is also defined by semiotically structured and structuring embodied cognitive interfaces, connecting the individual organism with the wider environment. The embodied dimensions of niche-population co-evolution have long involved semiotic system construction, which I hypothesize to be an evolutionarily primitive aspect of learning and higher-level cognitive integration and attention in the great apes and humans alike. A clearly pre-linguistic form of semiotic cognitive structuration is suggested to involve recursively learned and constructed object icons. Higher-level cognitive iconic representation of visually, auditorily, or haptically perceived extrasomatic objects would be learned and evoked through indexical connections to proprioceptive and aff...
PloS one, 2014
To Malthus, rapid human population growth-so evident in 18th Century Europe-was obviously unsusta... more To Malthus, rapid human population growth-so evident in 18th Century Europe-was obviously unsustainable. In his Essay on the Principle of Population, Malthus cogently argued that environmental and socioeconomic constraints on population rise were inevitable. Yet, he penned his essay on the eve of the global census size reaching one billion, as nearly two centuries of super-exponential increase were taking off. Introducing a novel extension of J. E. Cohen's hallmark coupled difference equation model of human population dynamics and carrying capacity, this article examines just how elastic population growth limits may be in response to demographic change. The revised model involves a simple formalization of how consumption costs influence carrying capacity elasticity over time. Recognizing that complex social resource-extraction networks support ongoing consumption-based investment in family formation and intergenerational resource transfers, it is important to consider how consum...
Reviews in Anthropology, 2012
This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the a... more This article appeared in a journal published by Elsevier. The attached copy is furnished to the author for internal non-commercial research and education use, including for instruction at the authors institution and sharing with colleagues. Other uses, including reproduction and distribution, or selling or licensing copies, or posting to personal, institutional or third party websites are prohibited. In most cases authors are permitted to post their version of the article (e.g. in Word or Tex form) to their personal website or institutional repository. Authors requiring further information regarding Elsevier’s archiving and manuscript policies are encouraged to visit:
Hunter-gatherers define humanity's Pleistocene evolutionary past. Yet, hunter-gatherer socie... more Hunter-gatherers define humanity's Pleistocene evolutionary past. Yet, hunter-gatherer societies in the 20th–21st centuries are examples par excellence of cultural marginalization, domination, and resilience. This review of six recent works on hunter-gatherers—spanning Paleolithic archaeology, bioarchaeology, behavioral ecology, and cultural anthropology—underscores that human forager diversity can be explained neither by culturally embedded political processes nor by ecologically situated evolutionary factors alone. Yet, theoretical bridging frameworks remain elusive, with a narrowing but persistent culture-biology divide. Recent developments in evolutionary life-history theory provide a robust biocultural foundation for understanding human sociality and the symbolic constitution of embodied cultural practice.
Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans made the Middle-Upper Paleolithic technological trans... more Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans made the Middle-Upper Paleolithic technological transition together. Perhaps more accurately stated, the technological innovations reflected in Early Upper Paleolithic archaeological assemblages were developed, adopted, and spread by a western Eurasian metapopulation that encompassed variable admixture histories. This is the unavoidable implication of robust analyses of ancient human, omnivorous prey, and microbial genomes, which document long-term—if sporadic—interaction and successful family formation between geographically expanding anatomically modern humans and indigenous Neanderthals. This social and population interaction occurred within a broad time-frame, likely ca. 120–40 ka, involving complex, multi-scalar niche construction and biocultural evolutionary dynamics. This chapter reconsiders theoretical, methodological, and empirical issues surrounding the study of lithic assemblages that define the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transiti...
Journal of Field Archaeology
ABSTRACT Mughr el-Hamamah (Jordan) Layer B contains an Early Upper Palaeolithic stone tool assemb... more ABSTRACT Mughr el-Hamamah (Jordan) Layer B contains an Early Upper Palaeolithic stone tool assemblage dating to around 39–45 kya CAL B.P. This assemblage is unusual in that it samples human forager activities around the ecotone between the Transjordanian Plateau and the palaeo-lake (Lake Lisan) that filled much of the Jordan Valley during Late Pleistocene times. This paper describes that assemblage, comparing it to other Levantine Upper Palaeolithic assemblages of equivalent antiquity. The Mughr el-Hamamah Layer B assemblage appears most similar to Early Ahmarian assemblages, but it departs from typical such assemblages in ways that may reflect local conditions’ influence on human activities carried out in and near the cave. Mughr el-Hamamah raises new questions about changes in residential mobility, off-site provisioning and foraging activity, and on-site task diversity in the Early Upper Palaeolithic period.
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2024
With a rich, well-dated Early Upper Palaeolithic layer, the Mughr el-Hamamah cave site is key for... more With a rich, well-dated Early Upper Palaeolithic layer, the Mughr el-Hamamah cave site is key for understanding the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic transition in the Levant. The archaeological deposit consists of two units. Layer A resulted from pastoral activities during the 20th century and Layer B dated between 44.5 and 40.0 ky BP. During Layer A’s formation, shepherds disturbed Layer B, redepositing Early Upper Palaeolithic sediments and lithic artefacts in Layer A matrix. Activity from Layer A’s formation also resulted in spatially patchy percolation and bioturbation, leaving microarchaeological traces such as dung spherulites in some areas in Layer B. In contrast, contemporaneous chemical diagenetic processes from Layer B’s primary formation caused spatially uneven postdepositional dissolution of animal bone. In this article we present a multi-proxy microarchaeological approach to investigate the post-depositional processes in Layer B, focussing on possible impacts on the plant archaeological record. The identification of intrusive spherulites from shepherds’ activities define the limits of disturbance in Layer B. Micromorphological analyses have identified four intact micro-facies in Layer B, representing an interplay of natural and anthropogenic factors. Micromorphological details in bedded combustion features favour the interpretation that associated phytoliths represent fuel traces. Dicot fruit phytoliths occur in the western area of the cave, where well-preserved charred wood and seeds were also found. Grass-diagnostic phytoliths correspond to C3 and C4 taxa, indicating an overall humid environment with dry spells. Microarchaeological analysis identifies traces of both bedded and dispersed hearth materials, mixed with variable plant resources for food, fuel, and possibly other uses. This strengthens the interpretation of Mughr el-Hamamah Layer B as a dense, complicated palimpsest of recurring activities, formed over many millennia.