Before Farming: the archaeology and anthropology of hunter-gatherers

ref: Before Farming 2007/4 article 1

Dreaming phenomena and palaeoart

Ben Watson
Centre for Classics and Archaeology, University of Melbourne,
Parkville, Victoria, 3010, Australia
b.watson@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au

Keywords: Dreams, imagery, palaeoart, rock art, hunter-gatherers, altered states of consciousness, shamanism

Abstract

Dreaming phenomena provide an important means of inquiry into several aspects of palaeoart. This article proposes that dreaming phenomena provide a rationale and basis for the selection of certain images for depiction by cognitively modern humans in the past in contexts devoid of ethnographic insight. The relationship between dreaming phenomena and palaeoart is explored, including the significance of transitional states between sleep and wakefulness, pseudohallucinations and subliminal imagery.

ref: Before Farming 2007/4 article 2

Before farming? Cattle kept and painted by the south-eastern San

Pieter Jolly
Department of Archaeology, University of Cape Town
pieter.jolly@uct.ac.za

Keywords: San pastoralists, rock paintings, cattle, hunter-gatherer - farmer interaction

Abstract

Cattle form a distinctive theme in the later rock art of many San groups. In this paper, the symbolism of these animals in the art is explored with particular reference to the cultural influence of Nguni and Sotho cattle-breeders on the San. Evidence is presented for the acquisition of cattle on a permanent basis by some San groups, including some of the San groups who occupied areas where paintings of cattle occur. The influence of neighbouring pastoralists/agropastoralists on the economies and the religious ideologies and rites of southern and east African hunter-gatherers is discussed. It is concluded that some south-eastern San groups, particularly those who had absorbed or inter-married with Bantu-speakers, adopted pastoralism/agropastoralism, and that essentially pastoralist/agropastoralist religious notions concerning cattle, syncretised in some cases with essentially San hunter-gatherer beliefs, are expressed in some of the cattle paintings. It is likely that a ‘gradient of acculturation’ existed, with cattle paintings increasingly coming to symbolise pastoralist/agropastoralist religious beliefs and rites as the process of San acculturation, caused by intensive symbiotic contact with Nguni and Sotho/Tswana groups, progressed.

ref: Before Farming 2007/4 article 3

Hunter-gatherers or herders? Reconsidering the Swartkop & Doornfontein Industries, Northern Cape Province, South Africa

Isabelle Parsons
Cambridge Archaeological Unit, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB2 3DZ, United Kingdom
i.parsons.03@cantab.net

Keywords: Swartkop, Doornfontein, Northern Cape Province

Abstract

Existing descriptions of the so-called Swartkop and Doornfontein industries are briefly summarised, whereafter, based on a comparison with the characteristics of five artefact assemblages from the interior of the Northern Cape Province, South Africa, that yielded radiocarbon dates within the last two millennia, these descriptions are assessed. Variability between the assemblages, attributed to the Swartkop and Doornfontein in the literature, and areas of overlap and uncertainty are demonstrated. Finally, the existence of two signatures and the possibility that they relate to different socio-economies – those of hunter-gatherers and stock-keepers – is considered against current evidence.

ref: Before Farming 2007/4 article 4

The sacred and the mundane: domestic activities at a Late Natufian burial site in the Levant

Leore Grosman
Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University, Mount Scopus,
Jerusalem, 91905, Israel
lgrosman@mscc.huji.ac.il

Natalie D Munro
Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, Unit 2176, 354 Mansfield Road,
Storrs, CT 06269, USA
Natalie.Munro@uconn.edu

Keywords: Natufian, ritual, Levant, fauna, lithic analysis

Abstract

Hilazon Tachtit, a small Natufian cave site in northern Israel, served first and foremost as a ritual location for the burial of the dead. Burials were found in all loci of the 30 m² occupation. At least twenty-eight individuals were buried at the site—two of them in structures that were too small for human habitation. The ritual nature of the site is supported by some aspects of material culture, including the deposition of unusual animal parts and other kinds of ‘special garbage’ in the graves. Nevertheless, the dominant activities attested by the lithic and faunal assemblages are mundane and include hunting, tool manufacture and food processing. The ritual and domestic duality of the site attests to the integration of the sacred and the mundane in everyday Natufian life and to the importance of considering multiple dimensions of material culture in the interpretation of site function.