Settlement Dynamics of the Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age, Volume I

Description

Table of Contents as PDF

In 1999 fifty leading scholars of early prehistory gathered in Tübingen for the second international conference on Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age Settlement Systems. They presented results from recent excavations and developed new hypotheses and theoretical models for the settlement dynamics of this period in which anatomically and culturally modern people evolved. This volume includes 27 of the papers delivered at the Tübingen conference and summarizes the state of our knowledge about the settlement dynamics of this period.

The authors

Stanley H. Ambrose, Sébastien Bernard-Guelle, Dominique Bonjean, Katherine V. Boyle, James S. Brink, Jean-Philip Brugal, Berrin Çep, Victor P. Chabai, J. Desmond Clark, Nicholas J. Conard, Pascal Depaepe, Zoë L. Henderson, Erella Hovers, Susan G. Keates, Jean-Marie Le Tensorer, Jean-Luc Locht, Anthony E. Marks, Liliane Meignen, Margherita Mussi, Marcel Otte, Marco Peresani, Jürgen Richter, Nicolas Rolland, Colette Swinnen, Thierry Tillet, Alain Tuffreau, Philip Van Peer, Manuel Vaquero, Pierre M. Vermeersch, Jürgen Waiblinger, Luc Wengler, João Zilhão.

Reviews

As Conard points out in his introduction, “While researchers are still far from the goal of establishing reliable interpretations for Middle Paleolithic settlement systems, the significant advances in recent years provide some basis for optimism and point to new advances in research.” Through documentation and discussion of many of these significant new advances, the authors of these chapters have created a useful “state of the art” research statement that does indeed suggest new directions for expanded research.
– B. R. Barton, Quaternary Research

… I highly recommend this book to all Paleolithic archaeologists…
– Richard G. Klein, Journal of Human Evolution

Donc toutes les synthéses de ce genre ne peuvent que nous aider à faire le point, à capitaliser, patiemment, les changements importants de ces dernières années, encore trop peu lisibles dans nos imaginaires respectifs cantonnant toujours Néandertal dans le rôle du mauvais élève de la classe. Comme si son extinction programmée lui tenait immanquablement lieu de tare ad vitam eternam quant à son rôle dans le progrès des acquis techniques, sociaux ou économiques de l’humanité. Pour toutes ces raisons, et bien d’autres, la lecture de cet ouvrage, du moins sa consultation et sa commande par nos bibliothèques institutionnelles, ne peut être que vivement recommandée.
– Jacques Jaubert, Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française