Before Farming: the archaeology and anthropology of hunter-gatherers

ref: 2003/2 (11)

North and South, past and present

There is a pronounced geographical and thematic pattern underlying this issue:
northern Eurasia and Australia dominate the mix of articles and features, with archaeology and rock art as the respective subject matters. The northern perspective begins with Dolukhanov's overview of the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic archaeological record of Russia. He highlights the contribution made by the emerging high resolution radiocarbon chronology for this vast region on the modelling of human responses to climate change. This review should be of particular value to archaeologists unfamiliar with the area and includes an extensive set of references and a list of radiocarbon dates.

Lillie, in his contribution from the CHAGS 9 session on diet and demography, explores the isotopic evidence for gender differences in diet from the Epipalaeolithic to the Neolithic based on the extensive human skeletal sample from the Dnieper Rapids region of the Ukraine. He finds that no direct correlation can be drawn between access to protein, whether fish or animal based, and differences in health and social status. These results challenge earlier interpretations of the Dnieper data and contribute to the growing awareness of the methodological complexities of isotopic analyses as highlighted in the past two issues of Before Farming.

The northern Eurasian theme is personalised by Soffer's view of the future of Palaeolithic research in the region - look eastwards is the advice given to budding archaeologists or those contemplating a change of career direction. A piece of practical wisdom also emerges from this 'Benefit of foresight' feature: keep pantyhose in your excavation kit. Intrigued? Fittingly in this 300th anniversary year of the founding of St Petersburg, our Departmental review gives an insight into the past and present activities of the Institute for the History of Material Culture, St Petersburg. Current theoretical squabbles pale into insignificance when we consider the fate of FV Kiparisov in 1936. Who said archaeology was not a political act? Dolukhanov's review of Hoffecker's Desolate Landscapes: Ice Age settlement in Eastern Europe rounds off the northern contributions.

The southern hemisphere is represented by four articles linked by the theme of rock-art in the landscape. Montelle makes a compelling functional argument for rock-art as a signal communicating the boundaries of socially defined spaces, especially to outsiders. Mulvaney grounds the abstract in the concrete by linking Dreamtime beliefs about the formation of the landscape with the placement and content of imagery. Contemporary Aboriginal artists working in acrylic on canvas for a western market are separated from the landscape and this disjunction reinforces the importance of place in our analyses of rock-art. Grove draws our attention to the role of women in Dreamtime beliefs and their depiction in the rock-art of western Arnhem Land. Some of the images shown here are published for the first time. Finally, Gunn outlines the results of recent research in a little known area of the Northern Territory, and makes the case that the art here is distinctive in relation to that of neighbouring Arnhem Land and elsewhere in the region. The methods used to develop a stylistic sequence will be of wider interest to rock-art researchers.

Unifying this eclectic offering is a provocative argument by Wynn and Coolidge for the evolution of enhanced working memory (EWM) as a uniquely modern form of cognition that emerged among Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers in Africa and Upper Palaeolithic Europe and which underpinned the development of food production. The apparent lack of correspondence between the earliest evidence of strategic or contingency planning (EWM ) and our divisions of the archaeological record is a salutary reminder of how classification systems can blind us to underlying patterns.

This issue also includes a new feature in the form of commentaries on the contents of previous issues. 'Reaction and interaction' as the feature is called gives you an opportunity to enter into a dialogue with our contributors. You will find them in the 'News' and 'Review' sections in this issue. The subjects under discussion here are hunter-gatherer rights in Botswana (Corry and Suzman) which originally appeared as a news item and in the Philippines (Headland and Gibson) which arises from a book review. To avoid overly prolonged (and personal) debates, this feature is structured to give the primary author the final right of reply.

The broad range of topics covered in this issue strikes the balance between regional, chronological and thematic coverage that we are aiming for with Before Farming - I hope there is something of interest for everyone. If not, then please let us know what you would like to see. This is still very much a young and developing journal and your input is valued.

On a deeply sad note, one of our early and enthusiastic supporters was Sue Kent who died suddenly in April. She leaves a legacy of highly influential work on hunter-gatherer societies that bridged the disciplinary boundaries of ethnography and archaeology. Her obituary appears in the News section along with that of Pat Vinnicombe, who made a similarly significant impact on the field of rock-art research in southern Africa and more recently in Australia.

THE EDITOR