J A J Gowlett
Biographic Data
| ID | 48895 |
|---|---|
| NAME | J A J Gowlett |
| GIVEN NAMES | J A J |
| FAMILY NAME | Gowlett |
| SIGNATURE | GOWLETT J A J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Liverpool |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9064-973X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 70 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1001 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 69 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1981 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 19 |
What is a ‘Giant’ Handaxe? Ergonomic Thresholds, Functional Impacts and Acheulean Social Signalling Potential
Giant’ handaxes are a widely recognized but infrequently investigated phenomenon of the Acheulean period. The scale of their distribution and the selective pressures underpinning their production are not well explored. Here, we report new data from a large-scale experimental study that identifies the point at which handaxes become too large to use with a single hand, alongside a review of known Acheulean assemblages displaying ‘giant’ handaxes. O…
Kilombe Volcano, Kenya
Cornelia-Uitzoek, South Africa
Intercomparison of Form, Size and Allometry in a Million-year-old and Modern Replicated Handaxe Set
We report here on an intercomparison between two large handaxe sets – one from a million-year-old site in Africa, the other a modern set made for experimental purposes. Our investigation was designed primarily to determine whether ancient handaxe series have measurable characteristics which tend not to appear in replica sets (and vice versa). We also wished to compare the fields of form variation in the two sets. The particular comparison was cho…
Cornelia-Uitzoek
The fossil locality is situated on the farm “Uitzoek” in the Schoonspruit valley, near the town of Cornelia in the northeastern Free State Province of South Africa (Figures 12.1 and 12.2). The site consists of fossil-bearing valley-fill deposits within the Schoonspruit Valley. The hominin fossil and bulk of the fossil and artifact-bearing deposits of the site are dated by paleomagnetism to between 1.07 and 1.01 Ma (ages updated with respect to re…
New Oldowan localities at high level within Kilombe Caldera, Kenya
Human Evolution
Geochronology of a long Pleistocene sequence at Kilombe volcano, Kenya
Human adaptation and long-term climatic change in northeast Africa
This chapter is concerned with evaluating the antiquity of the domestication changes in northern Africa, considering the nature of the environments in which they arose, their social implications and the influence of climatic change on their later progress. The development of agricultural and livestock economies has taken place once in the Middle East and northern Africa, through a sequence of climatic changes which are not unique in themselves. T…
Archaeological Approaches in Anthropology
Archaeology can be seen as part of anthropology or as a sister discipline. In anthropological studies, archaeology can provide a time dimension beyond that available from oral tradition, and usually from history. Archaeology is based primarily on the evidence of material culture, related in a contextual framework. Its theory overlaps with that of anthropology, often showing similar developments, but archaeology cannot usually study individual hum…
Kinship (Early Human), the Archaeological Evidence for
Kinship is likely to have been an important factor in human groups and their survival throughout most of the course of human evolution. Although evidence of kinship is far harder to recognize in the past than in the present, and information about individual relationships is usually lacking, in total a great deal can be established using several lines of approach. Historical records provide specific evidence, sometimes through several thousand yea…
Fire, Early Human Use of
Fire has had an important role in the evolution of the biosphere over many millions of years, and more recently has also been controlled by human beings. No other species has control of fire, although numbers of animals make opportunistic use of natural fire during foraging. In anthropology, fire is sometimes neglected but is sometimes regarded as of major importance. For Darwin it was second only to language as a human invention or acquisition. …
Dating, Archaeological
Events in the past beyond (and within) the realms of oral tradition and history can often be placed by the application of science‐based archaeological dating techniques, sometimes with exactitude. Tree‐ring dating, where available, can place activity to a year. Radiocarbon dating, the best known of techniques, can date organic remains to within about fifteen years in some cases. Beyond radiocarbon dating, a series of techniques is available that …
The handaxe reconsidered
The Acheulean handaxe is one of the longest‐known and longest‐surviving artifacts of the Palaeolithic and, despite its experimentally tested functionality, is often regarded as puzzling. It is unnecessary to invoke a unique‐for‐mammals genetic mechanism to explain the handaxe phenomenon. Instead, we propose that two nongenetic processes are sufficient. The first is a set of ergonomic design principles linked to the production of sturdy, hand‐held…
Evidence of Burning from Bushfires in Southern and East Africa and Its Relevance to Hominin Evolution
Early human fire use is of great scientific interest, but little comparative work has been undertaken across the ecological settings in which natural fire occurs or on the taphonomy of fire and circumstances in which natural and human-controlled fire could be confused. We present here results of experiments carried out with fire fronts from grass- and bushland in South and East Africa. Our work illustrates that in these circumstances hominins wou…
The discovery of fire by humans
Numbers of animal species react to the natural phenomenon of fire, but only humans have learnt to control it and to make it at will. Natural fires caused overwhelmingly by lightning are highly evident on many landscapes. Birds such as hawks, and some other predators, are alert to opportunities to catch animals including invertebrates disturbed by such fires and similar benefits are likely to underlie the first human involvements with fires. Early…
Evolution, Denken, Kultur
Before modern humans
"Before modern humans: new perspectives on the African Stone Age." Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa, 51(1), pp. 152–153
At the Heart of the AfricanAcheulean
The Kilombe sites and their place in the Acheulean. Kilombe is one of a series of great Acheulean site complexes in eastern Africa. In this paper we use new evidence to reflect on how studies of its landscapes – geographical, ecological and sociocultural – have developed through a generation of studies.
Settlement, Society and Cognition in Human Evolution
This volume provides a landscape narrative of early hominin evolution, linking conventional material and geographic aspects of the early archaeological record with wider and more elusive social, cognitive and symbolic landscapes. It seeks to move beyond a limiting notion of early hominin culture and behaviour as dictated solely by the environment to present the early hominin world as the outcome of a dynamic dialogue between the physical environm…
The Road to Modern Humans
This chapter explores the role of time budgets, fission-fusion sociality, kinship, and division of labour in the evolution of hominins. More specifically, it considers whether human anatomical and behavioural traits, such as bipedalism and life history traits, appeared simultaneously or, if not, in what order they appeared and how they relate to each other. Drawing on the social brain hypothesis, the chapter examines the timing of social change a…
Lucy to Language
The concept of the social brain has become a popular topic in the last decade and has generated interest within the research community and contributed to a wide public examination of human culture, nature, mind, and instinct, as well as aspects of social and business organisation. At its core, the hypothesis that our social life drove the dramatic enlargement of our brain, bridges the dimensions of our evolutionary history and our contemporary ex…
The place of the Neanderthals in hominin phylogeny
Earliest fire in Africa
Issues of early fire use have become topical in human evolution, after a long period in which fire scarcely featured in general texts. Interest has been stimulated by new archaeological finds in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and also by major inputs from other disciplines, including primatology and evolutionary psychology. Evidence for fire is, however, often disputed, especially with regard to the early cases in Africa. Interpretations oft…
First hominine remains from a ∼1.0 million year old bone bed at Cornelia-Uitzoek, Free State Province, South Africa
On questions surrounding the Acheulean 'tradition
The Acheulean, sometimes known as 'the great handaxe tradition', is the longest-lasting entity in the human cultural record. The oldest sites are in Africa at around 1.6 million years ago and the most recent approach the last 100,000 years. The geographical extent is also enormous, ranging across Africa, the Middle East, most of Europe and large parts of Asia. Is it however a real tradition? The Acheulean represents a set of stone-working ideas t…
Allometry and multidimensional form in Acheulean bifaces from Kilombe, Kenya
A comparative 3D geometric morphometric analysis of Victoria West cores
Kariandusi
Earliest fire in Africa
Issues of early fire use have become topical in human evolution, after a long period in which fire scarcely featured in general texts. Interest has been stimulated by new archaeological finds in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and also by major inputs from other disciplines, including primatology and evolutionary psychology. Evidence for fire is, however, often disputed, especially with regard to the early cases in Africa. Interpretations oft…
Human Evolution and the Archaeology of the Social Brain
The picture of human evolution has been transformed by new evidence in recent years, but contributing disciplines seem to have difficulty in sharing knowledge on a common basis. The disciplines producing primary data in paleoanthropology scarcely reach out to a broader picture and are often bypassed by writers in other disciplines. Archaeology is encouraged by its material evidence to project a view that "what you see is what there was": by defin…
Radiocarbon Dates From the Oxford Ams System
The fifth list of dates from the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator
First hominine remains from a ∼1.0 million year old bone bed at Cornelia-Uitzoek, Free State Province, South Africa
Radiocarbon Dates From the Oxford Ams System
This third list of accelerator dates includes material dated in the same period as datelist 2 (Gillespię et al. 1985) and subsequently. The dates have been achieved by the same methods as described there
A case of Developed Oldowan in the Acheulean
At Olduvai Gorge, contemporary tool assemblages from Middle and Upper Bed II have been assigned to two categories, Developed Oldowan B and Acheulean. Stiles has argued that both of these are variants of the Acheulean, whereas Mary Leakey sees them as two separate traditions. The Acheulean site complex at Kilombe in Kenya combines elements resembling both the Acheulean and Developed Oldowan B, suggesting strongly that at this site the two belong t…
Radiocarbon Dates From the Oxford Ams System
In an effort to make measurements readily available as soon as possible, dates from the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator will now be published regularly in Archaeometry . These datelists will not be a substitute for final publication in Radiocarbon , which is desirable for all dates, but are intended to serve as a formal interim publication of dates, so that they can be cited
Radiocarbon Accelerator Dating of French Upper Palaeolithic Sites
Thermoluminescence Dates and a New Analysis of the Early Mousterian From Asprochaliko
Radiocarbon Dates From the Oxford Ams System
The sixth list of dates from the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator
Radiocarbon Measurement by Accelerator Mass Spectrometry
Dates from the first runs of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit span the range from present to c. 17,000 bp, with errors (1 s.d.) from ± 100 to ± 300 years. Material dated comprises bone, wood, charcoal, seeds, organic residues in pottery, and charcoal inclusions in slag
Evidence of Burning from Bushfires in Southern and East Africa and Its Relevance to Hominin Evolution
Early human fire use is of great scientific interest, but little comparative work has been undertaken across the ecological settings in which natural fire occurs or on the taphonomy of fire and circumstances in which natural and human-controlled fire could be confused. We present here results of experiments carried out with fire fronts from grass- and bushland in South and East Africa. Our work illustrates that in these circumstances hominins wou…
The Social Brain and the Shape of the Palaeolithic
It is often the case in interdisciplinary accounts of human evolution that archaeological data are either ignored or treated superficially. This article sets out to redress this position by using archaeological evidence from the last 2.5 million years to test the social brain hypothesis (SBH) – that our social lives drove encephalization. To do this we construct a map of our evolving social complexity that concentrates on two resources – material…
Radiocarbon Dates From the Oxford Ams System
The fourth list of dates from the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator
Major Revisions in the Pleistocene Age Assignments for North American Human Skeletons by C-14 Accelerator Mass Spectrometry
Radiocarbon analyses by accelerator mass spectrometric (AMS) techniques on organic fractions of human bone from various North American localities previously assigned ages ranging from about 70,000 to 15,000 years B.P. now suggest that none of these skeletons is older than 11,000 C-14 years B.P
High definition archaeology
L'A propose une approche archeologique methodologique de terrain applicable a des ensembles de tailles differentes, dans le but de comprendre le fonctionnement des societes passees dans la plus grade objectivite. Apres une analyse critique de la situation, l'A propose un historique des recherches, montre la contribution des methodes de la nouvelle geographie, de l'ethnologie, de l'analyse spatiale
The AMS Dating of Separate Fractions in Archaeology
The usefulness of radiocarbon dates in archaeology greatly depends on both the stratigraphic relationship of the sample submitted and on the origin and homogeneity of the measured carbon. For very small samples, stratigraphic relationships can raise additional problems of movement. In chemically well-characterized materials, the best example being collagen, the carbon source can be reasonably well purified. Many samples, however, survive as a com…
The archaeology of radiocarbon accelerator dating
Geochronology of a long Pleistocene sequence at Kilombe volcano, Kenya
Radiocarbon dates from the chambered tomb at Hazleton (Glos.)
The social organization of prehistoric British societies has been a busy interest recently, with the hypothesis that the Neolithic was characterized by lineage societies, very likely egalitarian in character, whose dead were placed into communal ‘tombs for the ancestors’. But how secure is the evidence for burial in chambered or unchambered long barrows over many generations? Hazleton provides the key example, for it is the first neolithic burial…
Artefacts of apes, humans, and others
Early archaeological sites, hominid remains and traces of fire from Chesowanja, Kenya
Archaeological Sampling for the New Generation of Radiocarbon Techniques
Radiocarbon Measurement by Accelerator Mass Spectrometry
Dates from the first runs of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit span the range from present to c. 17,000 bp, with errors (1 s.d.) from ± 100 to ± 300 years. Material dated comprises bone, wood, charcoal, seeds, organic residues in pottery, and charcoal inclusions in slag
Radiocarbon Dates From the Oxford Ams System
In an effort to make measurements readily available as soon as possible, dates from the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator will now be published regularly in Archaeometry . These datelists will not be a substitute for final publication in Radiocarbon , which is desirable for all dates, but are intended to serve as a formal interim publication of dates, so that they can be cited
Major Revisions in the Pleistocene Age Assignments for North American Human Skeletons by C-14 Accelerator Mass Spectrometry
Radiocarbon analyses by accelerator mass spectrometric (AMS) techniques on organic fractions of human bone from various North American localities previously assigned ages ranging from about 70,000 to 15,000 years B.P. now suggest that none of these skeletons is older than 11,000 C-14 years B.P
A Review of the Operation of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit
We describe here the general operation of the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Laboratory which has now been dating routinely for 18 months
The AMS Dating of Separate Fractions in Archaeology
The usefulness of radiocarbon dates in archaeology greatly depends on both the stratigraphic relationship of the sample submitted and on the origin and homogeneity of the measured carbon. For very small samples, stratigraphic relationships can raise additional problems of movement. In chemically well-characterized materials, the best example being collagen, the carbon source can be reasonably well purified. Many samples, however, survive as a com…
Radiocarbon Accelerator (AMS) Dates for the Epipaleolithic Settlement At Abu Hureyra, Syria
The prehistoric settlement of Abu Hureyra in Syria was occupied in both the Epipaleolithic and Neolithic periods. It has provided significant evidence for changes in economy at the time of the inception of agriculture in southwest Asia. Twenty accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dates have been obtained to determine the duration of occupation of the Epipaleolithic settlement there and the precise age of samples of cereal grains and animal bones f…
Radiocarbon Dates From the Oxford Ams System
The fourth list of dates from the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator
Radiocarbon Dates From the Oxford Ams System
This third list of accelerator dates includes material dated in the same period as datelist 2 (Gillespię et al. 1985) and subsequently. The dates have been achieved by the same methods as described there
Radiocarbon dates from the chambered tomb at Hazleton (Glos.)
The social organization of prehistoric British societies has been a busy interest recently, with the hypothesis that the Neolithic was characterized by lineage societies, very likely egalitarian in character, whose dead were placed into communal ‘tombs for the ancestors’. But how secure is the evidence for burial in chambered or unchambered long barrows over many generations? Hazleton provides the key example, for it is the first neolithic burial…
Radiocarbon Dates From the Oxford Ams System
The sixth list of dates from the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator
Radiocarbon Dates From the Oxford Ams System
The fifth list of dates from the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator
The archaeology of radiocarbon accelerator dating
The coming of modern man
In March 1987, Paul Mellars and Chris Stringer organized a conference in Cambridge on 'The Origins and Dispersal of Modern Man'. This review, prompted by the conference, gives a viewpoint on the body of ideas currently circulating, based mainly on recent publications by the participants, and some others whose work is too significant to ignore
Radiocarbon Accelerator Dating of French Upper Palaeolithic Sites
Le Bas-Sahara dans la préhistoire
A case of Developed Oldowan in the Acheulean
At Olduvai Gorge, contemporary tool assemblages from Middle and Upper Bed II have been assigned to two categories, Developed Oldowan B and Acheulean. Stiles has argued that both of these are variants of the Acheulean, whereas Mary Leakey sees them as two separate traditions. The Acheulean site complex at Kilombe in Kenya combines elements resembling both the Acheulean and Developed Oldowan B, suggesting strongly that at this site the two belong t…
Hominid Use of Fire in the Lower and Middle Pleistocene
The Camel in Arabia—A direct radiocarbon date, calibrated to about 7000 BC
Radiocarbon accelerator (AMS) dating of Lindow Man
Pete Marsh', the bog body from Lindow Moss in Cheshire that is properly called 'Lindow 2', has given remarkable research opportunities. One of these-perhaps less expected-has been the study of the considerable discrepancies in the suites of dates for the body obtained by two radiocarbon laboratories. The laboratories think this is a specific anomaly which has no implications for any other dates, but one may wonder how many other anomalies would d…
Encyclopedia of human evolution and prehistory
Indiana Jones
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Introduction
1991). Introduction: Uncertain time. World Archaeology: Vol. 23, Chronologies, pp. 135-136
The Human Career
Archaeology (57 works) · Geography (44 works) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (44 works) · History (40 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (27 works) · Geology (22 works) · Biology (20 works) · Radiocarbon dating (18 works) · History (17 works) · Paleontology (16 works)