Neanderthal settlement patterns in Crimea: A landscape approach

doi:10.1016/j.jaa.2006.03.003

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

Volume 25, Issue 4, December 2006, Pages 510-523

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2006.03.003 Get rights and content

Abstract

Traditional settlement pattern analysis involves classifying sites within a region using previously established functional categories. Faunal and lithic data are frequently combined as archaeological indicators of site function. The results are interpreted in terms of a settlement system from which inferences about mobility patterns and social organization are drawn. The previously published site of Karabi Tamchin is used here as a spring-point for a discussion of the problems inherent with established site typologies and some of the settlement models that have been proposed in the past. The rich Middle Paleolithic archaeological record of Crimea is used to demonstrate the usefulness of the landscape approach as a means of supplementing existing information about Middle Paleolithic settlement patterns.

Section snippets

The Crimean peninsula

The Crimea forms a peninsula about 27,000 km² in area on the north coast of the Black Sea (for a full description see Ferring, 1998). The northern half of the peninsula marks the beginning of a broad expanse of steppe; the south is mountainous. A coastal mountain chain about 160 km wide (the First, or Main Crimean mountains) rises to 1500 m above sea level (asl); two lesser limestone ridges form the Second and Third mountain chains. The Sea of Azov, to the east, is actually a gulf that

Conclusions

What we can know of the social organization of Middle Palaeolithic populations in Crimea rests primarily upon the quality of the field research being done there, as well as on traditional archaeological analyses—including site function and settlement patterning. However, I hope to have demonstrated that our understanding of Neanderthal society can be expanded through the use of a landscape perspective, coupled with a humanist perspective on human social organization. Understanding the structure

Acknowledgments

The author thank A.E. Marks for his initial invitation to join the team of archaeologists working in Western Crimea as well as the many Ukrainian colleagues with whom it was a pleasure to work. Thanks are due V.P. Chabai and A.I. Yevtushenko, in particular, for nine years of fruitful collaboration. Fieldwork in Ukraine would not have been possible without the generous support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Finally, a heartfelt thanks to the many students from

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Neanderthal settlement patterns in Crimea: A landscape approach

Abstract

Section snippets

The Crimean peninsula

Conclusions

Acknowledgments

Comptes Rendus Academie Sciences Paris Sciences de la terre et des planetes

Marine Geology

Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

L’Anthropologie

Journal of Archaeological Science

Neocortex size, group size and the evolution of language

Current Anthropology

Seismic stratigraphy of Late Quaternary deposits from the southwestern Black Sea shelf: evidence for non-catastrophic variations in sea-level during the last 10,000 year

Marine Geology

An archaeology of landscapes: perspectives and directions

Journal of Archaeological

The archaeology of place

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

Willow smoke and dogs’ tails: hunter–gatherer settlement systems and archaeological site formation

American Antiquity

Isolating the transition to cultural adaptations: an organizational approach

Early man in Crimea

American Journal of Physical Anthropology

Des buts, problemes et limites de l’archaeologie paleolithique

Quaternaria

Butchering and scavenging at the Middle Paleolithic site of Starosele

Kabazi V: faunal exploitation at a Middle Paleolithic rockshelter in Western Crimea

The view from Starosele

International Journal of Osteoarchaeology

Alternative models of spatial organization for Pleistocene hunter–gatherers

Karabi Tamchin: faunal remains

Environmental reconstructions from three late Mousterian sites in Western Crimea

Views of the Crimean middle paleolithic: past and present

European Prehistory

The history of Crimean middle paleolithic studies

Preliminary synthesis: middle paleolithic assemblage variability in Western Crimea

Crimea in the context of the eastern European middle paleolithic and early upper paleolithic

Inland sea basins

Mobility strategies in the late middle Paleolithic of central Europe and Western Europe: elements of stability and variability

Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

The geologic setting of Mousterian sites in Western Crimea

Paleolithic society and the release from proximity: a network approach to intimate relations (Human social evolution)

World Archaeology

The Paleolithic Settlement of Europe

Human wayfinding and cognitive maps

The Middle Paleolithic of the Caucasus

Journal of World Prehistory

Desolate Landscapes: Ice-Age Settlement of Eastern Europe

The temporality of the landscape

World Archaeology

The Perception of the Environment

The diet of early man: aspects of archaeological evidence from Lower and Middle Pleistocene sites in Africa

World Archaeology