The Faunas of Hayonim Cave, Israel: A 200,000-Year Record of Paleolithic Diet, Demography, and Society

by Mary C. Stiner

Overview

A decade of zooarchaeological fieldwork (1992-2001) went into Mary Stiner's pathbreaking analysis of changes in human ecology from the early Mousterian period through the end of Paleolithic cultures in the Levant. Stiner employs a comparative approach to understanding early human behavioral and environmental change, based on a detailed study of fourteen bone assemblages from Hayonim Cave and Meged Rockshelter in Israel's Galilee. Principally anthropological in outlook, Stiner's analysis also integrates chemistry, foraging and population ecology, vertebrate paleontology, and biogeography. Her research focuses first on the formation history, or taphonomy, of bone accumulations, and second on questions about the economic behaviors of early humans, including the early development of human adaptations for hunting large prey and the relative "footprint" of humans in Pleistocene ecosystems of the Levant.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780873655521
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	02/28/2006
Series:	American School of Prehistoric Research Bulletins , #48
Pages:	330
Product dimensions:	(w) x (h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Mary C. Stiner is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Arizona, Tucson.

What People are Saying About This

Superb...Stiner's work raises exciting new possibilities for monitoring Late Pleistocene changes in human population size, and particularly for identifying population bottlenecks that may have shaped the genetic makeup of modern humans.

John D. Speth

Superb...Stiner's work raises exciting new possibilities for monitoring Late Pleistocene changes in human population size, and particularly for identifying population bottlenecks that may have shaped the genetic makeup of modern humans.
— John D. Speth, Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Editorial Reviews

Superb...Stiner's work raises exciting new possibilities for monitoring Late Pleistocene changes in human population size, and particularly for identifying population bottlenecks that may have shaped the genetic makeup of modern humans.

John D. Speth