Theme:
6. Embedded in European archaeology: the Carpathian Basin
Session format:
Regular session
Title:
From the Final Paleolithic to the Early Mesolithic in Europe – Comparing Regional Records [PaM]
Content:
The transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene is often believed to mark a caesura in human prehistory. The specific patterns and processes as well as the tempo and mode of the passage from Final Paleolithic to Mesolithic lifestyles in different European regions remain challenging to understand, however. In recent years, our knowledge of the magnitude and frequency of climate change across this period has increased dramatically, as has our awareness of leads and lags in how climate change translates into environmental change both at the regional and local scale. Yet, the degree to which technological developments parallel such climatic and attendant environmental transformations remain highly problematic. At the same time, conducting inter-regional comparative analyses is frequently hindered by the inherent complexities which characterize regional records as well as the lack of transparency in relation to the traditionally employed cultural taxonomic units. Although it is typically argued that the heterogeneous cultural topography seemingly diagnostic of the Pleistocene-Holocene transition signifies increasing regional differentiation and more and more localized forms of human behavior and adaptation, most of these claims hinge on the issue of robust systematics and comparable taxonomies. In response, this session aims (1) to collate, compare and contrast the various cultural taxonomies (e.g. techno-complexes, industries, facies and regional groups) currently deployed in European Final Paleolithic and early Mesolithic research and (2) to work towards a more source-critical and epistemologically informed synthesis of the socio-technical dynamics observable at this critical juncture in the evolution of early human societies.
We invite scholars from different backgrounds and specializations to present up-to-date, critical reviews of regional developmental sequences of culture change across the Final Paleolithic-early Mesolithic boundary, ideally including lists of key sites, diagnostic artifact classes, revised chronologies, numerical dates and paleoenvironmental proxy records.
Keywords:
Pleistocene-Holocene transition, Final Paleolithic, Early Mesolithic, Cultural taxonomies, Climate change, Lithic technology
Session associated with MERC:
no
Session associated with CIfA:
no
Session associated with SAfA:
no
Session associated with CAA:
no
Session associated with DGUF:
no
Session associated with other:
PAM
Main organiser:
Shumon Hussain (Germany) 1
Co-organisers:
Damian Stefański (Poland) 2
Felix Riede (Denmark) 1
Affiliations:
1. Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies, Aarhus University, Denmark
2. Archaeological Museum Krakow
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