16th SKAM Lithic Workshop. "Fossil directeur" - A phenomenon over time and space. Abstract book. (original) (raw)
Related papers
Archaeological Investigations in a Northern Albanian Province: Results of the Projekti Arkeologjik i Shkodres (PASH): Volume Two: Artifacts and Artifact Analysis, 2023
This chapter aims to present the lithic assemblages from the PASH survey region. The first lithic artifact from an archaeological context in Albania was discovered in one of the Shtoj tumuli by Theodor Ippen, an Austro-Hungarian diplomat stationed in Shkodra (Ippen 1902:210). This discovery falls within PASH Zone 2. However, focused work on lithic finds from the area did not commence until the 1980s. A significant contribution towards such studies was made by Anton Fistani, who began his scientific career in the field of biochemistry (Fistani 1976, 1977, 1979a, 1979b, 1979c, 1980, 1981a, 1981b, 1983a; Fistani and Ilirjana 1989), and later became a self-taught paleontologist and archaeologist. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Fistani identified, through surveys and excavations, a number of sites, such as Gajtan, Baran, Bleran, Shiroka, and Rragam, which ranged in date from the Lower to the Upper Paleolithic. He was passionately dedicated to his work and published a large number of articles, both for the scientific community and for the wider public (Fistani 1982a, 1982b, 1983b, 1983c, 1984a, 1984b, 1984c, 1985a, 1985b, 1985c, 1985d, 1986a, 1986b, 1986c, 1987b, 1987c, 1987d, 1987e, 1987f, 1988a, 1988b, 1988c, 1988d, 1988e, 1989a, 1989b, 1989c, 1990a, 1990b, 1990c, 1990d, 1993a, 1993b, 1993c, 1994, 1995a, 1995b, 1997; Fistani and Crégut-Bonnoure 1993). In addition, in the early 1980s, Albanian prehistorian Bep Jubani discovered the Shpella e Hudhrës (PASH Site 004), which he dated to the Mesolithic (Jubani 1984:127, 1991:231–232). Despite the great potential of the region for lithic studies, as demonstrated by Fistani’s pioneering work, no further research on lithic artifacts was conducted in the region until PASH.
Fossils explained 56 Fossil – Lagerstätten
2008
Possibly every palaeontologist, before and after Charles Darwin, has been well aware that the fossil record is very incomplete. Only a tiny percentage of the plants and animals alive at any one time in the past get preserved as fossils, both in terms of numbers of individuals and in terms of numbers of species. The palaeontologist attempting to reconstruct ancient ecosystems is therefore, in effect, trying to complete a jigsaw puzzle without the picture on the box lid and for which the majority of pieces are missing. Under normal preservational conditions probably only around 15 per cent of the species composing an ecosystem are preserved. Moreover, the fossil record is biased in favour of those animals and plants with hard, mineralized shells, skeletons or cuticles, and towards those living in marine environments. Thus, the preservational potential of a particular organism depends on two main factors: its constitution (better if it contains hard parts), and its habitat (better if i...
Abstract Book. 19th Conference of the International Workgroup for Palaeoethnobotany
2022
In 2022, the 19th IWGP conference in České Budějovice offered the results of archaeobotanical research on a global scale at a time characterized in our field as a time of integration of many special methods and collaborating disciplines. The Abstract Book offers primary information on topics and results. The scope of archaeobotanical research today is far broader, both geographically and methodologically, than it was at the beginnings of this scientific discipline. The current research builds on a strong foundation laid by decades of previous research, and rich connections with specialists across archaeology, evolutionary ecology, and paleoecology. The 19th IWGP conference will be hosted in České Budějovice, and it will follow a long tradition of focusing on plant macrofossils. Nonetheless, the scientific committee seeks to promote intra-disciplinary archaeobotanical research by including studies that effectively integrate macrobotanical methods with other lines of evidence. For example, we encourage the submission of abstracts for studies that take an ethnoarchaeological approach and lean on ethnobotany for the interpretation of the archaeobotanical record. Archaeobotany is today and has long been a foundational method in the archaeological sciences, and macrobotanical, as well as microbotanical analyses, have proven to be indispensable tools for the reconstruction of past landscapes and subsistence strategies. Broader scope and greater integration between methods will allow for the acquisition of wider archaeobotanical knowledge.
Lithics_and_identity_at_the_Middle_Palae.pdf
Hardcover Edition: ISBN 978-1-78570-291-4 Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-78570-292-1 (epub) Hardcover Edition: ISBN 978-1-78570-291-4 Digital Edition: ISBN 978-1-78570-292-1 (epub)
Lithic artefacts : overview and approach to analysis by
2016
The focus of the analytical approach was not only to make a technological and typological record of the collection that allowed its comparison with the wider British and NW European Lower/Middle Palaeolithic record, but also to investigate the behaviour and cognitive processes behind the lithic remains by analysing the chaîne opératoire and the spatial organisation of production. Complementing these cultural and archaeological goals, and as a necessary prelude to them, site formation and taphonomic processes were also investigated, as it was necessary to consider how these might have affected and/or distorted the lithic remains, disguising (or perhaps falsely presenting) patterns relating to hominin activity. There is a danger in lithic analysis of indiscriminate recording of an over-abundance of superfluous empirical data. This may happen for various reasons. Partly, there is a long history in lithic analysis of untheorised empiricism, whereby the lithic analytical chapter just sta...
Proceedings of the 18th Conference of the International Work Group for Palaeoethnobotany, Lecce 2019
Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 2021
While we are struggling against the COVID-19 pandemic, it is with greater pleasure and nostalgia that we remember the intense and “free to hug” days of the 18th Conference of the International Work Group for Palaeoethnobotany held in Lecce, Italy, between the 3rd and 8th of June, 2019. Thanks to the hosting team of the Laboratorio di Archeobotanica e Paleoecologia and the great efforts of the researchers, students and administrative staff of the Department of Cultural Heritage at the University of Salento, the conference was a great success and pleased all participants. It was the first time that an IWGP meeting had taken place in Italy, where the young Maria Follieri (1932–2012) took the first steps in studying plant remains and who was among the small group of colleagues who met in Prague in 1968 to found the Internationale Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Paläoethnobotanik (IAP), the predecessor of the IWGP. While we were planning the 18th IWGP, we lost another great personality: it was o...
2005_vanHinsbergen_Palaeo3.pdf
Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 2005
This paper aims to provide a straightforward and easily applicable method for estimating the depositional depth evolution of marine basins. Vertical movements of the basin floor can be reconstructed from the sedimentary record, and more accurately constrained when information from the sedimentary history is combined with palaeodepth estimates derived from fauna. To this end we propose to extend an existing method based on the percentage of planktonic foraminifera with respect to the total (planktonic and benthic) foraminiferal association, which is expressed as the percentage planktonics (%P). The ratio between planktonic and benthic foraminifera is related to water depth, and the %P generally increases with increasing distance to shore. However, next to water depth the oxygen level of bottom waters has a profound effect on the abundance of benthic foraminifera, and as such influences the %P. Depending on basin configuration, the oxygen level at the sea floor can vary on Milankovitch time scales and is reflected by the fraction of benthic foraminiferal species that indicate an effect of oxygen stress on the biotic system. These species can be used as stress-markers and their percentage with respect to the total benthic population is here expressed as %S. To assess whether the effect of sea-floor oxygenation impairs depth reconstructions, we studied the percentage of planktonic foraminifera (%P) in five well-dated sedimentary successions from the Lower Pliocene of Crete, Corfu and Milos in Greece. Additionally, we assessed whether different foraminiferal size fractions and counting methods affect the determination of the percentage of planktonic foraminifera. The palaeobathymetric evolution calculated for each basin was confirmed for all successions by an independent check on depth-related occurrences of benthic foraminifera. After correction for bathymetry changes of the basin due to sedimentation, compaction and eustatic sea level variations, thevertical movement history of the basin floor was inferred. We propose a standard methodology for reconstructions of palaeobathymetry of marine sedimentary successions from foraminiferal associations