INTRODUCTION TO ARCHAEOLOGY Nancy White - Touro Institute

How far did people go during the Upper Paleolithic? The earliest people in Australia and in the
“New World,” North and South America, arrived during the Upper Paleolithic. How did they get
there? Walk or take the boat.
Australia has archaeological evidence dating back at least 40,000 years, and it was an island
then, so it required knowledge of boats to cross some 100 km of water. Coastal and inland
forager sites and rock art are common here as well. People were still hunting and gathering, with
no development of agriculture, when Western culture “discovered” Australia (in the person of
Captain Cook). Does this mean that there was no culture change since the Pleistocene? No, of
course not. There is always culture change. The direction, speed, and characteristics of change
are different from place to place, however.
People reached North America at least 13,000 years ago and maybe much earlier; we will discuss
this when we return to the North and South American archaeology sections later in the class.
What does the archaeology of the Mesolithic look like? What environmental changes might be
tied to culture change? The end of the Ice Age began around 10,000 years ago, or 8000 B.C.
(“before Christ,” which can also be written B.C.E., before the common era, or 10,000 B.P.,
before the present; what values are expressed in different ways of writing dates?). Was the
extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna at this time due only to climate change? Probably
humans helped along the extinctions of various species, as we do today. Archaeological evidence
from Pacific islands shows clearly that shortly after humans arrive, just a couple centuries, the
largest game animals, whatever they are (usually large terrestrial birds) disappear from the
middens because they have already been hunted to extinction. Is there some lesson here for us
today?
So what did people eat during the Mesolithic? Modern fauna were hunted after about 8000 B.C.,
the spectacular cave art apparently disappears, and different distinctive regional traditions
emerge around the world. The New World time period equivalent to the Mesolithic is the
Archaic. During this time it appears that hunter-gatherer peoples expanded the diversity of
species that they used and exploited smaller regions more intensively. There are more plant
remains in general, but that may just be from better preservation, not necessarily an indication
that Paleolithic meat-eaters were now getting a different diet with more fruits and vegetables!
Similarly, the higher number of coastal sites does not necessarily mean a sudden change toward
favoring saltwater fish and clams, but results from the elimination of earlier coastal evidence
under rising postglacial sea levels. In addition, the rising water backed up river mouths to create
estuaries and bays, much like we have in the Tampa area, with more environmental niches and
thus more diverse species available to collect. Many shell midden sites appear during this time
period. These are ancient trash piles with animal bone and plant remains and shells left from
harvesting various molluscs or gastropods; the shell makes the sites more visible and easier to
find.
What is the evidence for postglacial foragers in the Old World? In Ireland, for example, there
was no Paleolithic occupation because it was under or too near the ice (go back to map, p. 76).
By 7,000 years ago, people had arrived. The Mount Sandel site shows
posthole patterns of round, possibly sod-covered huts, with animal bone and seeds and other