Shumon T Hussain
Biographic Data
| ID | 134105 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Shumon T Hussain |
| GIVEN NAMES | Shumon T |
| FAMILY NAME | Hussain |
| SIGNATURE | HUSSAIN S T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cologne |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6215-393X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 34 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 135 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 34 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Author response of
Replication as Salvation
There is a nascent body of literature in deep-time lithic studies that has declared replication as a primary, perhaps an overriding, aim of research, diagnosing the field to be affected by the so-called replication crisis across the sciences, and positioning reproducibility and replicability at the core of what (lithic) science ought to be. This paper examines this emerging debate, its rhetorics, and its underlying normative and epistemological c…
The Perks and Perils of Replicability
Following a trend across the sciences, recent studies in lithic analysis have embraced the ideal of replicability. Recent large-scale studies have demonstrated that high replicability is achievable under controlled conditions and have proposed strategies to improve it in lithic data recording. Although this focus has yielded important methodological advances, we argue that an overemphasis on replicability risks narrowing the scope of archaeologic…
Did Intermediate Aurignacian foxes at Isturitz develop human-oriented dietary preferences
Convivial Heritage
This paper explores the utility of conviviality thinking for archaeological theory and practice. It first situates calls for convivial analysis as a response to the excesses of late capitalism and the existential challenges of the global Anthropocene polycrisis. The paper then highlights the critical, ethical and interpretive potentials of the concept to re-think human-animal coexistence, to frame new approaches to ecological conservation and to …
The “Beast Within” – Querying the (Cultural Evolutionary) Status of Types in Archaeology
is a welcome contribution to our upcoming edited volume on type-thinking and the uses and misuses of archaeological typologies.Questions of type-delineation and classification of archaeological materials have recently re-emerged as key arenas of scholarly attention and interrogation (2-4), as many researchers have turned to a matured field of cultural evolutionary studies (5-7) and as fine-grained archaeological data and novel computational-quant…
Author response of
Abstract and Concrete – Querying the Metaphysics and Geometry of Pottery Classification
International audience
Humans, machines, and the classification of Celtic coinage – the ClaReNet project
A recommendation of: Chrisowalandis Deligio, Caroline von Nicolai, Markus Möller, Katja Rösler, Julia Tietz, Robin Krause, Kerstin P. Hofmann, Karsten Tolle, David Wigg-Wolf IT- and machine learning-based methods of classification: The cooperative project ClaReNet – Classification and Representation for Networks https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7341342
Using insights from psychology and primatology to reconsider function in lithic typologies
International audience
The Postmodern Predicament of Type-Thinking in Archaeology
Hypercultural types: archaeological objects in fast times
Roster and Lexicon – A Radical Digital-Dialogical Approach to Questions of Typology and Categorization in Archaeology
A recommendation of: Giorgio Buccellati and Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati The Density of Types and the Dignity of the Fragment. A Website Approach to Archaeological Typology. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7743834
Was the Late Glacial human occupation of northernmost Europe facilitated by whales? New data and perspectives on lithic technology and the paleoecology of the Vendsyssel area, Northern Jutland, Denmar…
The archaeology of the Vendsyssel area in Northern Jutland suggests that early human foragers reached the northernmost tip of continental Europe during the middle part of the Late Glacial Period. This occupation presents a paleoecological conundrum, however, as Vendsyssel was likely characterized by low terrestrial productivity and mammalian biodiversity. Why did human foragers disperse so far north, and what sustained them there? We here report …
Feral ecologies of the human deep past
This article articulates recent advances in palaeo-ecology with the goals and ambitions of multispecies archaeology. It centres the synanthropic nexus as a key context for the study of early human-animal relationships and argues that its evolution yields important yet currently overlooked dynamics shaping the structure of the archaeological record. I first show how the dominant heuristic of wild versus domesticated nonhuman animals obfuscates the…
Automation and Novelty –Archaeocomputational Typo-Praxis in the Wake of the Third Science Revolution
Reveiwer #1 (Rachel Crellin
Revitalising archaeological corpus publications through digitisation – the Corpus der römischen Funde im europäischen Barbaricum and the Conspectus Formarum Terrae Sigillatae Modo Confectae as exempla…
A recommendation of: Auth. Frederic; Rösler, Katja; Domscheit, Wenke; Hofmann, Kerstin P. From paper to byte: An interim report on the digital transformation of two thing editions https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7304578
Cultural taxonomic systems and the Late Palaeolithic/Later Stone Age prehistory of the Nile Valley – a critical review
This paper offers a detailed reconstruction of the history of research about the Late Palaeolithic in the Nile Valley, emphasizing the limitations of the approaches that have been used in the past while highlighting the research potential on the topic.The focus is on the Late Paleolithic studies, beginning from the end of '800 to the present day.One of the main biases identified is that the study of the Late Palaeolithic of the Nile Valley was ba…
Complexity and Purpose – A Pragmatic Approach to the Diversity of Archaeological Classificatory Practice and Typology
International audience
Human-beaver cohabitation in the Early and Mid-Holocene of Northern Europe
The Eurasian beaver ( Castor fiber) was an important member of Early and Mid-Holocene landscapes and animal communities in Northern Europe. Previous zooarchaeological research has established the alimentary roles of beavers for Mesolithic societies and their importance for fur procurement. In this paper, we develop an integrated biocultural approach to human-beaver interactions, examining the position of humans and beavers in Mesolithic and Early…
Being-with other predators
Late Pleistocene hominins co-evolved with non-analogue assemblages of carnivores and carnivorous omnivores. Although previous work has carefully examined the ecological and adaptive significance of living in such carnivore-saturated environments, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the social and cultural consequences of being-with, and adapting to, other charismatic predators and keystone carnivores. Focusing on Neanderthal population…
The Technological Condition of Human Evolution
The recent elaboration and rapid expansion of aDNA, paleoproteomics, and related fields have propelled a profound “biomolecular turn” in archaeology and fundamentally changed the topology of archaeological knowledge production. Such a transformation of the archaeological research landscape is not without consequence for long-standing research practices in the field, such as lithic analysis. This special issue derives from the session Old Stones, …
Early Ahmarian Lithic Techno-Economy and Mobility at Al-Ansab 1, Wadi Sabra, Southern Jordan
Hannah Parow-Souchon, חנה פרו-סושון, Shumon T. Hussain, שומון ט. חוסיין, Jürgen Richter, יורגן ריכטר, Early Ahmarian Lithic Techno-Economy and Mobility at Al-Ansab 1, Wadi Sabra, Southern Jordan - טכנו-כלכלה ליתית וניידות באתר האחמרי הקדום אל-אנסב 1, ואדי סברה, ירדן, Mitekufat Haeven: Journal of the Israel Prehistoric Society / מתקופת האבן, כרך נ"א (2021), pp. 6-64
Design Space Constraints and the Cultural Taxonomy of European Final Palaeolithic Large Tanged Points
The identification of material culture variability remains an important goal in archaeology, as such variability is commonly coupled with interpretations of cultural transmission and adaptation. While most archaeological cultures are defined on the basis of typology and research tradition, cultural evolutionary reasoning combined with computer-aided methods such as geometric morphometrics (GMM) can shed new light on the validity of many such entr…
The hooting past. Re-evaluating the role of owls in shaping human-place relations throughout the Pleistocene
Previous research concerned with the significance of animals in early human evolution has overwhelmingly focused on large mammals – especially the iconic suite of herbivores and carnivores once inhabiting the Eurasian Mammoth steppes. Building on earlier work of the author, this paper addresses the underrated importance of owls for human life throughout the Pleistocene – predatory birds which only occasionally feature in Palaeolithic visual cultu…
Paleoenvironmental humanities
Environmental uncertainty, climate change, and ecological crisis loom large in the present and permeate scenarios of potential futures. To understand these predicaments and prepare for potentially catastrophic scenarios, there have been repeated calls to explore the diverse human–climate relations of human societies in the past. The archeological record offers rich datasets on human–environment articulations reflected in artifacts, ecofacts, and …
Design Space Constraints and the Cultural Taxonomy of European Final Palaeolithic Large Tanged Points
The identification of material culture variability remains an important goal in archaeology, as such variability is commonly coupled with interpretations of cultural transmission and adaptation. While most archaeological cultures are defined on the basis of typology and research tradition, cultural evolutionary reasoning combined with computer-aided methods such as geometric morphometrics (GMM) can shed new light on the validity of many such entr…
Being-with other predators
Late Pleistocene hominins co-evolved with non-analogue assemblages of carnivores and carnivorous omnivores. Although previous work has carefully examined the ecological and adaptive significance of living in such carnivore-saturated environments, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the social and cultural consequences of being-with, and adapting to, other charismatic predators and keystone carnivores. Focusing on Neanderthal population…
Streams as Entanglement of Nature and Culture
Large river valleys have long been seen as important factors to shape the mobility, communication, and exchange of Pleistocene hunter-gatherers. However, rivers have been debated as either natural entities people adapt and react to or as cultural and meaningful entities people experience and interpret in different ways. Here, we attempt to integrate both perspectives. Building on theoretical work from various disciplines, we discuss the relations…
Cultural taxonomies in the Paleolithic-Old questions, novel perspectives
The bond mechanism between steel and concrete can be compromised during a fire and is one of the least investigated phenomena in concrete research. In this work we present a thorough review of the experimental data available on this topic. The results from the tests reported by a number of researchers have been systematically collected in a database. This work also reports the results obtained in the bond strength tests carried out on four batche…
Archaeo-Ornithology
This editorial introduces Archaeo-Ornithology as a distinct field of inquiry and discusses its multidisciplinary background and potential contribution to a more nuanced characterisation of changing human-animal interfaces through time and space. We propose a new conceptual model – grounded in the analysis of ‘triangles of interaction’ – to elucidate the interactional dynamics which underpin varying human-animal relationships. The utility of this …
Materiality, Agency and Evolution of Lithic Technology
Considerations of materiality and object-oriented approaches have greatly influenced the development of archaeological theory in recent years. Yet, Palaeolithic archaeology has been slow in incorporating this emerging body of scholarship and exploring its bearing on the human deep past. This paper probes into the potential of materiality theory to clarify the material dynamics of the Plio-Pleistocene and seeks to re-articulate the debate on the e…
Gazing at Owls? Human-strigiform Interfaces and their Role in the Construction of Gravettian Lifeworlds in East-Central Europe
This paper develops a new perspective on human-owl relations in the Pavlovian, a regional group of the early Gravettian of East-Central Europe. It argues that the regular representation of owls in figurative art and ornamentation in this context must be understood as a result of unique conditions of encounter and interaction emerging at the intersection of Southern Moravian early MIS 2-environments, Pavlovian sociocultural practice, and owl prese…
Kammern-Grubgraben. Neue Erkenntnisse zu den Grabungen 1985−1994
The open-air site of Kammern-Grubgraben is a rare example of a detailed glimpse of Ice-Age hunter-gatherer lifestyles during the latter part of the last glaciation of the northern hemisphere. Archaeological excavations were initially conducted between 1985 and 1990 (A. Montet-White/F. Brandtner) and from 1993 to 1994 (F. Brandtner/ B. Klíma). After the death of F. Brandtner, however, the inventory of the more recent excavations in the collection …
Feral ecologies of the human deep past
This article articulates recent advances in palaeo-ecology with the goals and ambitions of multispecies archaeology. It centres the synanthropic nexus as a key context for the study of early human-animal relationships and argues that its evolution yields important yet currently overlooked dynamics shaping the structure of the archaeological record. I first show how the dominant heuristic of wild versus domesticated nonhuman animals obfuscates the…
Human-beaver cohabitation in the Early and Mid-Holocene of Northern Europe
The Eurasian beaver ( Castor fiber) was an important member of Early and Mid-Holocene landscapes and animal communities in Northern Europe. Previous zooarchaeological research has established the alimentary roles of beavers for Mesolithic societies and their importance for fur procurement. In this paper, we develop an integrated biocultural approach to human-beaver interactions, examining the position of humans and beavers in Mesolithic and Early…
Paleoenvironmental humanities
Environmental uncertainty, climate change, and ecological crisis loom large in the present and permeate scenarios of potential futures. To understand these predicaments and prepare for potentially catastrophic scenarios, there have been repeated calls to explore the diverse human–climate relations of human societies in the past. The archeological record offers rich datasets on human–environment articulations reflected in artifacts, ecofacts, and …
The hooting past. Re-evaluating the role of owls in shaping human-place relations throughout the Pleistocene
Previous research concerned with the significance of animals in early human evolution has overwhelmingly focused on large mammals – especially the iconic suite of herbivores and carnivores once inhabiting the Eurasian Mammoth steppes. Building on earlier work of the author, this paper addresses the underrated importance of owls for human life throughout the Pleistocene – predatory birds which only occasionally feature in Palaeolithic visual cultu…
Kreativität, Technizität und Autopoiesis. Zur Bedeutung des Homo faber für das Verständnis der frühesten Menschheitsgeschichte
Article Kreativität, Technizität und Autopoiesis. Zur Bedeutung des Homo faber für das Verständnis der frühesten Menschheitsgeschichte was published on December 1, 2018 in the journal Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften (volume 12, issue 2)
Convivial Heritage
This paper explores the utility of conviviality thinking for archaeological theory and practice. It first situates calls for convivial analysis as a response to the excesses of late capitalism and the existential challenges of the global Anthropocene polycrisis. The paper then highlights the critical, ethical and interpretive potentials of the concept to re-think human-animal coexistence, to frame new approaches to ecological conservation and to …
Was the Late Glacial human occupation of northernmost Europe facilitated by whales? New data and perspectives on lithic technology and the paleoecology of the Vendsyssel area, Northern Jutland, Denmar…
The archaeology of the Vendsyssel area in Northern Jutland suggests that early human foragers reached the northernmost tip of continental Europe during the middle part of the Late Glacial Period. This occupation presents a paleoecological conundrum, however, as Vendsyssel was likely characterized by low terrestrial productivity and mammalian biodiversity. Why did human foragers disperse so far north, and what sustained them there? We here report …
CLIOdynamic ARCHaeology
It is often claimed that changes in material culture signify adaptations to changing environments. Deploying novel conceptual models and computational techniques, research funded by the European Research Council seeks to reconstruct the patterns and processes of cultural transmission and adaptation at the turbulent transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene
Regional ontologies in the Early Upper Palaeolithic
Streams as Entanglement of Nature and Culture
Large river valleys have long been seen as important factors to shape the mobility, communication, and exchange of Pleistocene hunter-gatherers. However, rivers have been debated as either natural entities people adapt and react to or as cultural and meaningful entities people experience and interpret in different ways. Here, we attempt to integrate both perspectives. Building on theoretical work from various disciplines, we discuss the relations…
Kammern-Grubgraben. Neue Erkenntnisse zu den Grabungen 1985−1994
The open-air site of Kammern-Grubgraben is a rare example of a detailed glimpse of Ice-Age hunter-gatherer lifestyles during the latter part of the last glaciation of the northern hemisphere. Archaeological excavations were initially conducted between 1985 and 1990 (A. Montet-White/F. Brandtner) and from 1993 to 1994 (F. Brandtner/ B. Klíma). After the death of F. Brandtner, however, the inventory of the more recent excavations in the collection …
Gazing at Owls? Human-strigiform Interfaces and their Role in the Construction of Gravettian Lifeworlds in East-Central Europe
This paper develops a new perspective on human-owl relations in the Pavlovian, a regional group of the early Gravettian of East-Central Europe. It argues that the regular representation of owls in figurative art and ornamentation in this context must be understood as a result of unique conditions of encounter and interaction emerging at the intersection of Southern Moravian early MIS 2-environments, Pavlovian sociocultural practice, and owl prese…
Kreativität, Technizität und Autopoiesis. Zur Bedeutung des Homo faber für das Verständnis der frühesten Menschheitsgeschichte
Article Kreativität, Technizität und Autopoiesis. Zur Bedeutung des Homo faber für das Verständnis der frühesten Menschheitsgeschichte was published on December 1, 2018 in the journal Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften (volume 12, issue 2)
Archaeo-Ornithology
This editorial introduces Archaeo-Ornithology as a distinct field of inquiry and discusses its multidisciplinary background and potential contribution to a more nuanced characterisation of changing human-animal interfaces through time and space. We propose a new conceptual model – grounded in the analysis of ‘triangles of interaction’ – to elucidate the interactional dynamics which underpin varying human-animal relationships. The utility of this …
Paleoenvironmental humanities
Environmental uncertainty, climate change, and ecological crisis loom large in the present and permeate scenarios of potential futures. To understand these predicaments and prepare for potentially catastrophic scenarios, there have been repeated calls to explore the diverse human–climate relations of human societies in the past. The archeological record offers rich datasets on human–environment articulations reflected in artifacts, ecofacts, and …
Materiality, Agency and Evolution of Lithic Technology
Considerations of materiality and object-oriented approaches have greatly influenced the development of archaeological theory in recent years. Yet, Palaeolithic archaeology has been slow in incorporating this emerging body of scholarship and exploring its bearing on the human deep past. This paper probes into the potential of materiality theory to clarify the material dynamics of the Plio-Pleistocene and seeks to re-articulate the debate on the e…
CLIOdynamic ARCHaeology
It is often claimed that changes in material culture signify adaptations to changing environments. Deploying novel conceptual models and computational techniques, research funded by the European Research Council seeks to reconstruct the patterns and processes of cultural transmission and adaptation at the turbulent transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene
Cultural taxonomies in the Paleolithic-Old questions, novel perspectives
The bond mechanism between steel and concrete can be compromised during a fire and is one of the least investigated phenomena in concrete research. In this work we present a thorough review of the experimental data available on this topic. The results from the tests reported by a number of researchers have been systematically collected in a database. This work also reports the results obtained in the bond strength tests carried out on four batche…
The Technological Condition of Human Evolution
The recent elaboration and rapid expansion of aDNA, paleoproteomics, and related fields have propelled a profound “biomolecular turn” in archaeology and fundamentally changed the topology of archaeological knowledge production. Such a transformation of the archaeological research landscape is not without consequence for long-standing research practices in the field, such as lithic analysis. This special issue derives from the session Old Stones, …
Early Ahmarian Lithic Techno-Economy and Mobility at Al-Ansab 1, Wadi Sabra, Southern Jordan
Hannah Parow-Souchon, חנה פרו-סושון, Shumon T. Hussain, שומון ט. חוסיין, Jürgen Richter, יורגן ריכטר, Early Ahmarian Lithic Techno-Economy and Mobility at Al-Ansab 1, Wadi Sabra, Southern Jordan - טכנו-כלכלה ליתית וניידות באתר האחמרי הקדום אל-אנסב 1, ואדי סברה, ירדן, Mitekufat Haeven: Journal of the Israel Prehistoric Society / מתקופת האבן, כרך נ"א (2021), pp. 6-64
Design Space Constraints and the Cultural Taxonomy of European Final Palaeolithic Large Tanged Points
The identification of material culture variability remains an important goal in archaeology, as such variability is commonly coupled with interpretations of cultural transmission and adaptation. While most archaeological cultures are defined on the basis of typology and research tradition, cultural evolutionary reasoning combined with computer-aided methods such as geometric morphometrics (GMM) can shed new light on the validity of many such entr…
The hooting past. Re-evaluating the role of owls in shaping human-place relations throughout the Pleistocene
Previous research concerned with the significance of animals in early human evolution has overwhelmingly focused on large mammals – especially the iconic suite of herbivores and carnivores once inhabiting the Eurasian Mammoth steppes. Building on earlier work of the author, this paper addresses the underrated importance of owls for human life throughout the Pleistocene – predatory birds which only occasionally feature in Palaeolithic visual cultu…
Being-with other predators
Late Pleistocene hominins co-evolved with non-analogue assemblages of carnivores and carnivorous omnivores. Although previous work has carefully examined the ecological and adaptive significance of living in such carnivore-saturated environments, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the social and cultural consequences of being-with, and adapting to, other charismatic predators and keystone carnivores. Focusing on Neanderthal population…
Automation and Novelty –Archaeocomputational Typo-Praxis in the Wake of the Third Science Revolution
Reveiwer #1 (Rachel Crellin
Revitalising archaeological corpus publications through digitisation – the Corpus der römischen Funde im europäischen Barbaricum and the Conspectus Formarum Terrae Sigillatae Modo Confectae as exempla…
A recommendation of: Auth. Frederic; Rösler, Katja; Domscheit, Wenke; Hofmann, Kerstin P. From paper to byte: An interim report on the digital transformation of two thing editions https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7304578
Cultural taxonomic systems and the Late Palaeolithic/Later Stone Age prehistory of the Nile Valley – a critical review
This paper offers a detailed reconstruction of the history of research about the Late Palaeolithic in the Nile Valley, emphasizing the limitations of the approaches that have been used in the past while highlighting the research potential on the topic.The focus is on the Late Paleolithic studies, beginning from the end of '800 to the present day.One of the main biases identified is that the study of the Late Palaeolithic of the Nile Valley was ba…
Complexity and Purpose – A Pragmatic Approach to the Diversity of Archaeological Classificatory Practice and Typology
International audience
Human-beaver cohabitation in the Early and Mid-Holocene of Northern Europe
The Eurasian beaver ( Castor fiber) was an important member of Early and Mid-Holocene landscapes and animal communities in Northern Europe. Previous zooarchaeological research has established the alimentary roles of beavers for Mesolithic societies and their importance for fur procurement. In this paper, we develop an integrated biocultural approach to human-beaver interactions, examining the position of humans and beavers in Mesolithic and Early…
The “Beast Within” – Querying the (Cultural Evolutionary) Status of Types in Archaeology
is a welcome contribution to our upcoming edited volume on type-thinking and the uses and misuses of archaeological typologies.Questions of type-delineation and classification of archaeological materials have recently re-emerged as key arenas of scholarly attention and interrogation (2-4), as many researchers have turned to a matured field of cultural evolutionary studies (5-7) and as fine-grained archaeological data and novel computational-quant…
Author response of
Abstract and Concrete – Querying the Metaphysics and Geometry of Pottery Classification
International audience
Humans, machines, and the classification of Celtic coinage – the ClaReNet project
A recommendation of: Chrisowalandis Deligio, Caroline von Nicolai, Markus Möller, Katja Rösler, Julia Tietz, Robin Krause, Kerstin P. Hofmann, Karsten Tolle, David Wigg-Wolf IT- and machine learning-based methods of classification: The cooperative project ClaReNet – Classification and Representation for Networks https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7341342
Using insights from psychology and primatology to reconsider function in lithic typologies
International audience
Archaeology (22 works) · Geography (20 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (19 works) · History (17 works) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (16 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Biology (10 works) · Ecology (9 works) · History (9 works) · Anthropology (8 works)