A quantitative analysis of Final Palaeolithic/earliest Mesolithic cultural taxonomy and evolution in Europe
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F61989592%3A15310%2F24%3A73627744" target="_blank" >RIV/61989592:15310/24:73627744 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="https://cnrs.hal.science/CEPAM/hal-04502177v1" target="_blank" >https://cnrs.hal.science/CEPAM/hal-04502177v1</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0299512" target="_blank" >10.1371/journal.pone.0299512</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
A quantitative analysis of Final Palaeolithic/earliest Mesolithic cultural taxonomy and evolution in Europe
Original language description
Archaeological systematics, together with spatial and chronological information, are commonly used to infer cultural evolutionary dynamics in the past. For the study of the Palaeolithic, and particularly the European Final Palaeolithic and earliest Mesolithic, proposed changes in material culture are often interpreted as reflecting historical processes, migration, or cultural adaptation to climate change and resource availability. Yet, cultural taxonomic practice is known to be variable across research history and academic traditions, and few large-scale replicable analyses across such traditions have been undertaken. Drawing on recent developments in computational archaeology, we here present a data-driven assessment of the existing Final Palaeolithic/earliest Mesolithic cultural taxonomy in Europe. Our dataset consists of a large expert-sourced compendium of key sites, lithic toolkit composition, blade and bladelet production technology, as well as lithic armatures. The dataset comprises 16 regions and 86 individually named archaeological taxa ('cultures'), covering the period between ca. 15,000 and 11,000 years ago (cal BP). Using these data, we use geometric morphometric and multivariate statistical techniques to explore to what extent the dynamics observed in different lithic data domains (toolkits, technologies, armature shapes) correspond to each other and to the culture-historical relations of taxonomic units implied by traditional naming practice. Our analyses support the widespread conception that some dimensions of material culture became more diverse towards the end of the Pleistocene and the very beginning of the Holocene. At the same time, cultural taxonomic unit coherence and efficacy appear variable, leading us to explore potential biases introduced by regional research traditions, inter-analyst variation, and the role of disjunct macroevolutionary processes. In discussing the implications of these findings for narratives of cultural change and diversification across the Pleistocene-Holocene transition, we emphasize the increasing need for cooperative research and systematic archaeological analyses that reach across research traditions. © 2024 Riede et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
J<sub>imp</sub> - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
60102 - Archaeology
Result continuities
Project
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Continuities
N - Vyzkumna aktivita podporovana z neverejnych zdroju
Others
Publication year
2024
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Name of the periodical
PLoS One
ISSN
1932-6203
e-ISSN
1932-6203
Volume of the periodical
19
Issue of the periodical within the volume
12
Country of publishing house
US - UNITED STATES
Number of pages
40
Pages from-to
"e0299512-1"-"e0299512-40"
UT code for WoS article
001192136700030
EID of the result in the Scopus database
2-s2.0-85187557687