Alfred Pawlik - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Alfred Pawlik
IntechOpen eBooks, May 9, 2024
Animals
Representatives of the Diodontidae family (porcupinefish) are known to have been fished by prehis... more Representatives of the Diodontidae family (porcupinefish) are known to have been fished by prehistoric Indo-Pacific populations; however, the antiquity of the use of this family is thus far unknown. We report here on the presence of Diodontidae in the archaeological sites of Bubog I, II, and Bilat in Mindoro, Philippines, dating back to c. 13,000 BP (Before Present). This evidence demonstrates the early exploitation by islanders of poisonous fish. Every part of porcupinefish can be toxic, but the toxicity is mostly concentrated in some organs, while other parts are edible. The continuous presence of Diodontidae remains throughout the stratigraphic record of these Philippines shell middens suggests that porcupinefish were prepared by human inhabitants of the sites to render them safe for consumption, indicating an advanced cultural knowledge of the preparation needed to separate the toxic principle from the edible parts. This constitutes one of the rare examples of poison processing ...
ABSTRACT des LVR-Landesmuseums Bonn und des LVR-Amtes für Bodendenkmalpflege im Rheinland sowie d... more ABSTRACT des LVR-Landesmuseums Bonn und des LVR-Amtes für Bodendenkmalpflege im Rheinland sowie des Vereins von Altertumsfreunden im Rheinlande
Crossing Borders
A number of observations suggest that plants have played a major role in the economy of Southeast... more A number of observations suggest that plants have played a major role in the economy of Southeast Asian hunters-gatherers during the Pleistocene. The use of plants and the production of complex and specialized implements made of wood or bamboo has actually been suggested by some archaeologists as a means to explain the apparently simple lithic technology and paucity of formal stone tools in Southeast Asia’s prehistory. The absence of vegetal artifacts in the archaeological record and the present lack of a detailed and widespread reference collection of related use traces from lithic assemblages in the region limit the possibility to detect and characterize plant use and prevent the suggested models of prehistoric plant use to be put to the test. We propose a multi-disciplinary approach for the identification of wear traces resulting from the plants working and for establishing such a reference collection. The method involves ethnoarchaeological fieldwork and experimental archaeology.
Antiquity, 2018
Many thanks to the Bubog excavation team, to Vida Kusmartono for translating Indonesian reports, ... more Many thanks to the Bubog excavation team, to Vida Kusmartono for translating Indonesian reports, and Annie Valera for the Bubog burial illustrations. Fieldwork in 2013-2015 was supported by the National Geographic Global Exploration Fund (GEFNE 62-12 and 129-14) and University of the Philippines, OVPAA, EIDR-Grant 2-002-1111212. Research in 2016 and 2017 was funded by the University of the Philippines Diliman, OVCRD Outright Research Grant 151513 PNSE, and UP System Enhanced Creative Work and Research Grant (ECWRG 2016-2-032). OVCRD Grant HJR-10-206 (080804) to Piper and Pawlik funded the dating of shell artefacts from Ille burials 874 and 727. Philip Piper was funded through the Australian Research Council Grant DP140100384. Rebecca Crozier was funded through University of the Philippines OVPAA Balik Research Grant OVPAA-BPhD2012-10. We thank Victor Paz for permission to date the Ille Cave samples. We thank the National Museum of the Philippines for permission to excavate in Ilin I...
The early Mesolithic site at Ullafelsen is at the centre of a landscape-archaeological project on... more The early Mesolithic site at Ullafelsen is at the centre of a landscape-archaeological project on the Mesolithic in Tyrol (Austria). In this project, for the first time in a subalpine open air site in Austria, mesolithic living floors were identified and explored in great detail. The analysis of the natural sedimentation and soil-scientific processes confirmed that Mesolithic people had manipulated the surface of the living floor, for instance to produce organic tar from birch bark through controlled, oxygen- reduced burning processes. Our C14 dating indicates that the use of subalpine sites in the Austrian Alps started as early as the early Preboreal. Analyses of the introduced cherts revealed that they originated from sometimes quite distant geological sources in Bavaria and in northern Italy. This is proof of people crossing the Alps even in the early Holocene and makes contacts between the southern alpine Sauveterrian and the southern German Beuronian technocomplexes highly likely.
Tabon Cave yielded occupation layers spanning from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Neolithic. Our i... more Tabon Cave yielded occupation layers spanning from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Neolithic. Our interest focused on the stone artefacts: What can they tell us about the activities that took place in the cave many thousands of years ago? To identify and understand the use damages on archaeological pieces, a series of experiments was conducted, adapted to the tropical environment and to the raw material of many of the artefacts from Tabon. The archaeological material analysis emphasizes the vegetal resources exploitation by prehistoric groups who stayed at Tabon Cave and a short-term use of the tools. Resume
![Research paper thumbnail of Pleistocene Archaeology - Migration, Technology, and Adaptation [Working Title]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/120611314/thumbnails/1.jpg)
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Australian Archaeology, 2012
Lithic Technology, 2003
Abstract This report presents an overview of the state of Palaeolithic archaeology in the Philipp... more Abstract This report presents an overview of the state of Palaeolithic archaeology in the Philippines, a type of study that began about 80 years ago. A number of Palaeolithic sites have been investigated, mainly on the islands of Palawan and Luzon. Indications for the presence of early human occupation can be found in the Middle Pleistocene, while the oldest human fossils associated with Palaeolithic stone tools are about 50,000 years old. Morphological, technological and functional analyses have been undertaken for a number of Palaeolithic and Epipalaeolithic assemblages.
Behavioral modernity has been a neglected topic in the prehistory of Southeast Asia. Such evidenc... more Behavioral modernity has been a neglected topic in the prehistory of Southeast Asia. Such evidence remains largely undocumented in the Paleolithic archaeological records of the region. Here, I report on the technological and microwear analysis of stone artifacts from the terminal Pleistocene contexts at the Ille Cave, Palawan Island. The results show that unretouched and morphologically less formalized lithic artifacts, often considered merely expedient tools, could have served as hafted armatures of multicomponent tools. Microtraces of wear suggested that these tools were used for various activities, some of which are considered modern behaviors. For the ongoing discussion on the development and expansion of modern behavior, methods such as microwear analysis can exceed the limitations of traditional technological and morphological analysis of lithic assemblages.
Ongoing research in the Philippines is producing important new insights into the Palaeolithic of ... more Ongoing research in the Philippines is producing important new insights into the Palaeolithic of Island Southeast Asia. The recent discovery of the Callao 3rd metatarsal in northern Luzon, which has been provisionally identified as a small bodied Homo sapiens and dated to 67 ka, suggests an earlier colonization of Island Southeast Asia by our species than previously considered. Landscape reconstructions are aiding in building a better understanding of how people adapted to the new and varied environments they encountered across the region, and recent lithic use wear analyses are demonstrating that tool technologies and hence human behaviour was more complex than had been previously envisaged. Wear traces and residues on unretouched and morphologically less characteristic flaked artefacts provided evidence for hafting and the use of adhesives showing that they could have served as hafted armatures of multicomponent tools.
The Ullafelsen (loc. Sellrain) is the oldest Mesolithic site in Austria. Since many years a broad... more The Ullafelsen (loc. Sellrain) is the oldest Mesolithic site in Austria. Since many years a broad interdisziplinary research includes aspects like climatology, geology, glaciology, (palaeo-)botany, sedimentology, soil science and prehistory. Between the middle Preboreal and the middle Boreal gatherer-hunters used the site and produced stone artefacts from serveral foreign raw material sources. Among other they give evidence for supra-regional subsistence strategies. For some subareas of the excavation we could observe strong anthropogenice manipulations at the former living floor - including levelling the surface and covering a neighbored fire place to produce oxygene reduced fire conditions for birchbark. The result was a tar product for hafting and retooling purposes of hunting weapons and other tools. Many of those tar particles were found on the surface of several stone artefacts and even in the surrounding sediments. The mesolithic living floor ( a grey light layer, LL) gives e...
AMS radiocarbon dating of archaeological residues on a carbon microgram scale is a relatively new... more AMS radiocarbon dating of archaeological residues on a carbon microgram scale is a relatively new field in archaeological chronometric research. Successful applications of the method demonstrate its feasibility when working with such small sample sizes, but also reveal challenges and problems arising around contamination. In this paper we present a case study on testing the feasibility of radiocarbon-dating putative adhesive and wooden residues from archaeological stone tools which contain also contaminants. Methods applied include: (1) optical residue interpretation; and (2) experimental designs in which we address contamination by testing the affectivity of removal techniques. Furthermore, we examine how SEM -EDX analyses assists in residue interpretation, conducted as the final step to avoid sample contamination during analyses. Even though this methodological sequence was in general successful in dating some lithic residues within the anticipated age range, difficulties were enc...
IntechOpen eBooks, May 9, 2024
Animals
Representatives of the Diodontidae family (porcupinefish) are known to have been fished by prehis... more Representatives of the Diodontidae family (porcupinefish) are known to have been fished by prehistoric Indo-Pacific populations; however, the antiquity of the use of this family is thus far unknown. We report here on the presence of Diodontidae in the archaeological sites of Bubog I, II, and Bilat in Mindoro, Philippines, dating back to c. 13,000 BP (Before Present). This evidence demonstrates the early exploitation by islanders of poisonous fish. Every part of porcupinefish can be toxic, but the toxicity is mostly concentrated in some organs, while other parts are edible. The continuous presence of Diodontidae remains throughout the stratigraphic record of these Philippines shell middens suggests that porcupinefish were prepared by human inhabitants of the sites to render them safe for consumption, indicating an advanced cultural knowledge of the preparation needed to separate the toxic principle from the edible parts. This constitutes one of the rare examples of poison processing ...
ABSTRACT des LVR-Landesmuseums Bonn und des LVR-Amtes für Bodendenkmalpflege im Rheinland sowie d... more ABSTRACT des LVR-Landesmuseums Bonn und des LVR-Amtes für Bodendenkmalpflege im Rheinland sowie des Vereins von Altertumsfreunden im Rheinlande
Crossing Borders
A number of observations suggest that plants have played a major role in the economy of Southeast... more A number of observations suggest that plants have played a major role in the economy of Southeast Asian hunters-gatherers during the Pleistocene. The use of plants and the production of complex and specialized implements made of wood or bamboo has actually been suggested by some archaeologists as a means to explain the apparently simple lithic technology and paucity of formal stone tools in Southeast Asia’s prehistory. The absence of vegetal artifacts in the archaeological record and the present lack of a detailed and widespread reference collection of related use traces from lithic assemblages in the region limit the possibility to detect and characterize plant use and prevent the suggested models of prehistoric plant use to be put to the test. We propose a multi-disciplinary approach for the identification of wear traces resulting from the plants working and for establishing such a reference collection. The method involves ethnoarchaeological fieldwork and experimental archaeology.
Antiquity, 2018
Many thanks to the Bubog excavation team, to Vida Kusmartono for translating Indonesian reports, ... more Many thanks to the Bubog excavation team, to Vida Kusmartono for translating Indonesian reports, and Annie Valera for the Bubog burial illustrations. Fieldwork in 2013-2015 was supported by the National Geographic Global Exploration Fund (GEFNE 62-12 and 129-14) and University of the Philippines, OVPAA, EIDR-Grant 2-002-1111212. Research in 2016 and 2017 was funded by the University of the Philippines Diliman, OVCRD Outright Research Grant 151513 PNSE, and UP System Enhanced Creative Work and Research Grant (ECWRG 2016-2-032). OVCRD Grant HJR-10-206 (080804) to Piper and Pawlik funded the dating of shell artefacts from Ille burials 874 and 727. Philip Piper was funded through the Australian Research Council Grant DP140100384. Rebecca Crozier was funded through University of the Philippines OVPAA Balik Research Grant OVPAA-BPhD2012-10. We thank Victor Paz for permission to date the Ille Cave samples. We thank the National Museum of the Philippines for permission to excavate in Ilin I...
The early Mesolithic site at Ullafelsen is at the centre of a landscape-archaeological project on... more The early Mesolithic site at Ullafelsen is at the centre of a landscape-archaeological project on the Mesolithic in Tyrol (Austria). In this project, for the first time in a subalpine open air site in Austria, mesolithic living floors were identified and explored in great detail. The analysis of the natural sedimentation and soil-scientific processes confirmed that Mesolithic people had manipulated the surface of the living floor, for instance to produce organic tar from birch bark through controlled, oxygen- reduced burning processes. Our C14 dating indicates that the use of subalpine sites in the Austrian Alps started as early as the early Preboreal. Analyses of the introduced cherts revealed that they originated from sometimes quite distant geological sources in Bavaria and in northern Italy. This is proof of people crossing the Alps even in the early Holocene and makes contacts between the southern alpine Sauveterrian and the southern German Beuronian technocomplexes highly likely.
Tabon Cave yielded occupation layers spanning from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Neolithic. Our i... more Tabon Cave yielded occupation layers spanning from the Upper Palaeolithic to the Neolithic. Our interest focused on the stone artefacts: What can they tell us about the activities that took place in the cave many thousands of years ago? To identify and understand the use damages on archaeological pieces, a series of experiments was conducted, adapted to the tropical environment and to the raw material of many of the artefacts from Tabon. The archaeological material analysis emphasizes the vegetal resources exploitation by prehistoric groups who stayed at Tabon Cave and a short-term use of the tools. Resume
Australian Archaeology, 2012
Lithic Technology, 2003
Abstract This report presents an overview of the state of Palaeolithic archaeology in the Philipp... more Abstract This report presents an overview of the state of Palaeolithic archaeology in the Philippines, a type of study that began about 80 years ago. A number of Palaeolithic sites have been investigated, mainly on the islands of Palawan and Luzon. Indications for the presence of early human occupation can be found in the Middle Pleistocene, while the oldest human fossils associated with Palaeolithic stone tools are about 50,000 years old. Morphological, technological and functional analyses have been undertaken for a number of Palaeolithic and Epipalaeolithic assemblages.
Behavioral modernity has been a neglected topic in the prehistory of Southeast Asia. Such evidenc... more Behavioral modernity has been a neglected topic in the prehistory of Southeast Asia. Such evidence remains largely undocumented in the Paleolithic archaeological records of the region. Here, I report on the technological and microwear analysis of stone artifacts from the terminal Pleistocene contexts at the Ille Cave, Palawan Island. The results show that unretouched and morphologically less formalized lithic artifacts, often considered merely expedient tools, could have served as hafted armatures of multicomponent tools. Microtraces of wear suggested that these tools were used for various activities, some of which are considered modern behaviors. For the ongoing discussion on the development and expansion of modern behavior, methods such as microwear analysis can exceed the limitations of traditional technological and morphological analysis of lithic assemblages.
Ongoing research in the Philippines is producing important new insights into the Palaeolithic of ... more Ongoing research in the Philippines is producing important new insights into the Palaeolithic of Island Southeast Asia. The recent discovery of the Callao 3rd metatarsal in northern Luzon, which has been provisionally identified as a small bodied Homo sapiens and dated to 67 ka, suggests an earlier colonization of Island Southeast Asia by our species than previously considered. Landscape reconstructions are aiding in building a better understanding of how people adapted to the new and varied environments they encountered across the region, and recent lithic use wear analyses are demonstrating that tool technologies and hence human behaviour was more complex than had been previously envisaged. Wear traces and residues on unretouched and morphologically less characteristic flaked artefacts provided evidence for hafting and the use of adhesives showing that they could have served as hafted armatures of multicomponent tools.
The Ullafelsen (loc. Sellrain) is the oldest Mesolithic site in Austria. Since many years a broad... more The Ullafelsen (loc. Sellrain) is the oldest Mesolithic site in Austria. Since many years a broad interdisziplinary research includes aspects like climatology, geology, glaciology, (palaeo-)botany, sedimentology, soil science and prehistory. Between the middle Preboreal and the middle Boreal gatherer-hunters used the site and produced stone artefacts from serveral foreign raw material sources. Among other they give evidence for supra-regional subsistence strategies. For some subareas of the excavation we could observe strong anthropogenice manipulations at the former living floor - including levelling the surface and covering a neighbored fire place to produce oxygene reduced fire conditions for birchbark. The result was a tar product for hafting and retooling purposes of hunting weapons and other tools. Many of those tar particles were found on the surface of several stone artefacts and even in the surrounding sediments. The mesolithic living floor ( a grey light layer, LL) gives e...
AMS radiocarbon dating of archaeological residues on a carbon microgram scale is a relatively new... more AMS radiocarbon dating of archaeological residues on a carbon microgram scale is a relatively new field in archaeological chronometric research. Successful applications of the method demonstrate its feasibility when working with such small sample sizes, but also reveal challenges and problems arising around contamination. In this paper we present a case study on testing the feasibility of radiocarbon-dating putative adhesive and wooden residues from archaeological stone tools which contain also contaminants. Methods applied include: (1) optical residue interpretation; and (2) experimental designs in which we address contamination by testing the affectivity of removal techniques. Furthermore, we examine how SEM -EDX analyses assists in residue interpretation, conducted as the final step to avoid sample contamination during analyses. Even though this methodological sequence was in general successful in dating some lithic residues within the anticipated age range, difficulties were enc...