Upper Paleolithic, Peopling the Globe, New World (Chapter 9)

Upper Paleolithic

• a series of industries post 40kya

• Ice age (cold climate)

• ends 10 thousand years ago

•  explosion of culture

  • cave art, portable art

  • shift of settlement types towards the end of upper paleolithic

  • cave art predates the upper paleolithic

  • cave art is associated with neanderthal

  • blade tool technology

  •  music

  • more individualized art

• more fishing, but not seen in cave art

•  cave art was associated with hunting

• tools become more complex

•  staying at places rather than moving from place to place

• domestication shown at the end of upper paleolithic

Chatelperronian/Aurignacian culture

characterized by the presence of blades struck from cylindrical cores

Gravettian culture

characterized by narrow blades often pointed and backed; bone artifacts (awls, punches, needles)

Solutrean culture

characterized by finely ovate worked laurel-leaf blades

Magdalenian culture

characterized by sophisticate working of bone, antler and stone (presence of microliths)

Sulawesi, Indonesia

evidence of earliest cave art by Homo sapiens 45kya

Neanderthal cave art

• Altamira, Spain (65kya); art of bulls,Chauvet, France (32kya); dated by using C14; handprints

• Cosquer, France (18.5kya); entrance is 40 meters below sea level

• Lascaux, France (art of animals, horses, bulls)

Dolni Vestonice

• carved ivory head

• possible representation of an individual buried in one of the graves at Dolni Vestonice

• was brought from one place to another

Purpose of cave art

hunting scenes/rituals/ storytelling, etc

Fray Jose de Acosta

theorized that Native Americans originated from Asia; came over a bridge and took that route by foot (beringia)

What major/environmental conditions would have effected the movement of people into the New World?

• glaciers

• sea level drops 135 meter

• coast line is extended

Beringia

landmass between Northeast Asia, Siberia, and America which was used as a land bridge entrance; it is now submerged under the Bering Strait

• 60,000 years ago - bridge is fully open

• in North America by 25,000 years ago

How did humans enter the Americas?

land bridge entrance, costal entrance (boat, foot), trans-pacific, transatlantic

Pre-clovis hypothesis

suggests that indigenous people did not get to the Americas until aborter 12,000 years ago

• it is not supported; people were here before 12k years ago

Evidence that shows people were her before 12k years ago

• Blue fish Cave, Canada (24kya)

• Meadowcroft, Pennsylvania (17kya)

• Buttermilk Creek, Texas (15.5 kya)

• Cactus Hill, Virginia (15kya)

Sinodonty

Native Americans and northeastern asian share a dental pattern which can be described as a shoveling of the incisors as well as distinctive root patterns of the lower 1st molar and premolars