Loukas Barton
Biographic Data
| ID | 143618 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Loukas Barton |
| GIVEN NAMES | Loukas |
| FAMILY NAME | Barton |
| SIGNATURE | BARTON L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Pittsburgh |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1519-4226 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 142 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 22 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Low-level Food Production in Neolithic North China
Wetlands and grasslands
Early herders prioritized areas with productive winter vegetation over wetland resources. • Land use change was accompanied by constrained residential mobility and population consolidation. • Intensified local interaction fostered adaptations that came to define Eurasian pastoralism. This paper presents the results of a study that investigates the settlement history of Mongolia’s desert-steppe to understand the role of foragers in the evolution o…
Land-use and ceramics in the Andean highlands of Patagonia, Argentina
The aim of this paper is to study the use of ceramics of small-scale societies during the late Holocene in northern Patagonia. The technological investment model predicts that use-time and utility will determine the investment spent in ceramics. We explore how ceramics were used in short-term camps and aggregation sites during summer at high elevations, and residential camps during winter at lower elevations. To test the investment in ceramics we…
Paleolakes, archaeology, and late Quaternary paleoenvironments in northwestern Mongolia
The climatic, hydrographic, and environmental regimes of terminal Pleistocene and Holocene northwestern Mongolia are reconstructed using archaeological and pedological data sets at Bayan Nuur, a lake on the northwestern perimeter of the Altan Els dune field in eastern Uvs Province, Mongolia. The archaeological data consist of land-use patterns controlled for time via time-sensitive, diagnostic artifacts. The pedological data consist of soil class…
How ancestral subsistence strategies solve salmon starvation and the “protein problem” of Pacific Rim resources
This article provides a theoretical treatment of hunter–gatherer diet and physiology. Through a synthesis of nutritional studies, informed by ethno‐archaeological data, we examine the risk of protein‐rich diets for human survival, and how societies circumvent "salmon starvation" in the northeastern Pacific Rim. Fundamental nutritional constraints associated with salmon storage and consumption counter long‐standing assumptions about the engine of …
Human adaptation to Holocene environments
Bettinger, Robert L.
Holocene Human Occupation of the Central Alaska Peninsula
The Alaska Peninsula is a landscape defined by volcanic, tectonic, and glacial processes, and life throughout is conditioned on the interactions among them. During the middle Holocene (ca. 4100–3600 yr ago), intense caldera-forming eruptions of the Aniakchak and Veniaminof volcanoes changed the shape of the central portion of the Peninsula dramatically, and had significant and perhaps devastating impacts on both terrestrial and marine biota. Here…
Looking for behavioral modernity in Pleistocene northwestern China
The cultural context of biological adaptation to high elevation Tibet
The Logic of Ceramic Technology in Marginal Environments
Explanations for the use of pots as practical domestic tools permeate the literature of technological adoption and change. While many arguments focus on the economic merits of pots, few have attempted to trace the conditions that promote or deter the adoption of pottery. This is especially true for the use of pottery by mobile peoples. We adapt an established model of technological investment to draw attention to three key variables affecting pot…
Current perspectives and the future of domestication studies
It is difficult to overstate the cultural and biological impacts that the domestication of plants and animals has had on our species. Fundamental questions regarding where, when, and how many times domestication took place have been of primary interest within a wide range of academic disciplines. Within the last two decades, the advent of new archaeological and genetic techniques has revolutionized our understanding of the pattern and process of …
First Farmers
Reviewed by: First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies by P. S. Bellwood, and: The Peopling of East Asia: Putting Together Archaeology, Linguistics and Genetics ed. by L. Sagart, R. Blench, and A. Sanchez-Mazas, and: The Origins of Pottery and Agriculture ed. by Y. Yasuda Loukas Barton Bellwood, P. S. 2004. First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. 384pp. ISBN: 978-0-631-20566-1. Paperback: $46.…
Redating Shuidonggou Locality 1 and Implications for the Initial Upper Paleolithic in East Asia
A review of recently published temporal data from Shuidonggou Locality 1 indicates that a 40–43 cal ka date for the inception of Initial Upper Paleolithic (IUP) blade-oriented technologies in East Asia is warranted. Comparison of the dates from Shuidonggou to other Asian IUP dates in Korea, Siberia, and Mongolia supports this assertion, indicating that the initial appearance of the IUP in East Asia generally corresponds in time to the fluorescenc…
An evaluation of competing hypotheses for the early adoption of wheat in East Asia
Recent emphasis on the recovery of plant remains from archaeological sites in East Asia permits an analysis of prehistoric cultural contact between East and West. Here we evaluate three prominent hypotheses for the introduction of wheat, a Near Eastern domesticate, to East Asia, specifically northern China. Existing evidence points to a nearly synchronous appearance of the plant, from the Inner Asian Mountains to the Yellow Sea, c. 4600-4200 year…
Microblade technology and the rise of serial specialists in north-central China
Glacial cycles and Palaeolithic adaptive variability on China's Western Loess Plateau
Intensive research on China's Western Loess Plateau has located 63 Palaeolithic deposits, which together allow the authors to present a general model of hominin occupation from 80 000 to 18 000 years ago. Tools, subsistence and settlement correlate nicely with the climate: the warm wet MIS3 seeing expansion and more organised acquisition of quartz, and the Late Glacial Maximum that followed, a reduction in human presence but possibly an increase …
The origins of food production in north China
By roughly 8,000 calendar years before the present (calBP), hunter-gatherers across a broad swath of north China had begun small-scale farming of broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) and foxtail millet (Setaria italica).1-6 According to traditional wisdom, this early millet farming evolved from the intensive hunter-gatherer adaptation represented by the late Pleistocene microblade tradition of northern China,2, 7 termed here the North China Micro…
The Transition to Agriculture at Dadiwan, People's Republic of China
Recent excavations at the Dadiwan site in the western Loess Plateau, Gansu Province, People's Republic of China (PRC), document the first continuous foraging-to-farming sequence in North China. The Dadiwan occupation began at about 80,000 BP and became regular by about 60,000 BP, probably before the arrival or evolution of modern Homo sapiens in North China. This record spans the transitions from nonintensive to intensive hunting and gathering an…
Agricultural origins and the isotopic identity of domestication in northern China
Stable isotope biochemistry (δ 13 C and δ 15 N) and radiocarbon dating of ancient human and animal bone document 2 distinct phases of plant and animal domestication at the Dadiwan site in northwest China. The first was brief and nonintensive: at various times between 7900 and 7200 calendar years before present (calBP) people harvested and stored enough broomcorn millet ( Panicum miliaceum ) to provision themselves and their hunting dogs ( Canis s…
The transition to agriculture in northwestern China
Late Pleistocene climate change and Paleolithic cultural evolution in northern China
An evaluation of competing hypotheses for the early adoption of wheat in East Asia
Recent emphasis on the recovery of plant remains from archaeological sites in East Asia permits an analysis of prehistoric cultural contact between East and West. Here we evaluate three prominent hypotheses for the introduction of wheat, a Near Eastern domesticate, to East Asia, specifically northern China. Existing evidence points to a nearly synchronous appearance of the plant, from the Inner Asian Mountains to the Yellow Sea, c. 4600-4200 year…
The Transition to Agriculture at Dadiwan, People's Republic of China
Recent excavations at the Dadiwan site in the western Loess Plateau, Gansu Province, People's Republic of China (PRC), document the first continuous foraging-to-farming sequence in North China. The Dadiwan occupation began at about 80,000 BP and became regular by about 60,000 BP, probably before the arrival or evolution of modern Homo sapiens in North China. This record spans the transitions from nonintensive to intensive hunting and gathering an…
Redating Shuidonggou Locality 1 and Implications for the Initial Upper Paleolithic in East Asia
A review of recently published temporal data from Shuidonggou Locality 1 indicates that a 40–43 cal ka date for the inception of Initial Upper Paleolithic (IUP) blade-oriented technologies in East Asia is warranted. Comparison of the dates from Shuidonggou to other Asian IUP dates in Korea, Siberia, and Mongolia supports this assertion, indicating that the initial appearance of the IUP in East Asia generally corresponds in time to the fluorescenc…
Glacial cycles and Palaeolithic adaptive variability on China's Western Loess Plateau
Intensive research on China's Western Loess Plateau has located 63 Palaeolithic deposits, which together allow the authors to present a general model of hominin occupation from 80 000 to 18 000 years ago. Tools, subsistence and settlement correlate nicely with the climate: the warm wet MIS3 seeing expansion and more organised acquisition of quartz, and the Late Glacial Maximum that followed, a reduction in human presence but possibly an increase …
The Logic of Ceramic Technology in Marginal Environments
Explanations for the use of pots as practical domestic tools permeate the literature of technological adoption and change. While many arguments focus on the economic merits of pots, few have attempted to trace the conditions that promote or deter the adoption of pottery. This is especially true for the use of pottery by mobile peoples. We adapt an established model of technological investment to draw attention to three key variables affecting pot…
Looking for behavioral modernity in Pleistocene northwestern China
Human adaptation to Holocene environments
The cultural context of biological adaptation to high elevation Tibet
How ancestral subsistence strategies solve salmon starvation and the “protein problem” of Pacific Rim resources
This article provides a theoretical treatment of hunter–gatherer diet and physiology. Through a synthesis of nutritional studies, informed by ethno‐archaeological data, we examine the risk of protein‐rich diets for human survival, and how societies circumvent "salmon starvation" in the northeastern Pacific Rim. Fundamental nutritional constraints associated with salmon storage and consumption counter long‐standing assumptions about the engine of …
Holocene Human Occupation of the Central Alaska Peninsula
The Alaska Peninsula is a landscape defined by volcanic, tectonic, and glacial processes, and life throughout is conditioned on the interactions among them. During the middle Holocene (ca. 4100–3600 yr ago), intense caldera-forming eruptions of the Aniakchak and Veniaminof volcanoes changed the shape of the central portion of the Peninsula dramatically, and had significant and perhaps devastating impacts on both terrestrial and marine biota. Here…
The transition to agriculture in northwestern China
Late Pleistocene climate change and Paleolithic cultural evolution in northern China
Agricultural origins and the isotopic identity of domestication in northern China
Stable isotope biochemistry (δ 13 C and δ 15 N) and radiocarbon dating of ancient human and animal bone document 2 distinct phases of plant and animal domestication at the Dadiwan site in northwest China. The first was brief and nonintensive: at various times between 7900 and 7200 calendar years before present (calBP) people harvested and stored enough broomcorn millet ( Panicum miliaceum ) to provision themselves and their hunting dogs ( Canis s…
The origins of food production in north China
By roughly 8,000 calendar years before the present (calBP), hunter-gatherers across a broad swath of north China had begun small-scale farming of broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) and foxtail millet (Setaria italica).1-6 According to traditional wisdom, this early millet farming evolved from the intensive hunter-gatherer adaptation represented by the late Pleistocene microblade tradition of northern China,2, 7 termed here the North China Micro…
The Transition to Agriculture at Dadiwan, People's Republic of China
Recent excavations at the Dadiwan site in the western Loess Plateau, Gansu Province, People's Republic of China (PRC), document the first continuous foraging-to-farming sequence in North China. The Dadiwan occupation began at about 80,000 BP and became regular by about 60,000 BP, probably before the arrival or evolution of modern Homo sapiens in North China. This record spans the transitions from nonintensive to intensive hunting and gathering an…
Glacial cycles and Palaeolithic adaptive variability on China's Western Loess Plateau
Intensive research on China's Western Loess Plateau has located 63 Palaeolithic deposits, which together allow the authors to present a general model of hominin occupation from 80 000 to 18 000 years ago. Tools, subsistence and settlement correlate nicely with the climate: the warm wet MIS3 seeing expansion and more organised acquisition of quartz, and the Late Glacial Maximum that followed, a reduction in human presence but possibly an increase …
Microblade technology and the rise of serial specialists in north-central China
Current perspectives and the future of domestication studies
It is difficult to overstate the cultural and biological impacts that the domestication of plants and animals has had on our species. Fundamental questions regarding where, when, and how many times domestication took place have been of primary interest within a wide range of academic disciplines. Within the last two decades, the advent of new archaeological and genetic techniques has revolutionized our understanding of the pattern and process of …
First Farmers
Reviewed by: First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies by P. S. Bellwood, and: The Peopling of East Asia: Putting Together Archaeology, Linguistics and Genetics ed. by L. Sagart, R. Blench, and A. Sanchez-Mazas, and: The Origins of Pottery and Agriculture ed. by Y. Yasuda Loukas Barton Bellwood, P. S. 2004. First Farmers: The Origins of Agricultural Societies. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. 384pp. ISBN: 978-0-631-20566-1. Paperback: $46.…
Redating Shuidonggou Locality 1 and Implications for the Initial Upper Paleolithic in East Asia
A review of recently published temporal data from Shuidonggou Locality 1 indicates that a 40–43 cal ka date for the inception of Initial Upper Paleolithic (IUP) blade-oriented technologies in East Asia is warranted. Comparison of the dates from Shuidonggou to other Asian IUP dates in Korea, Siberia, and Mongolia supports this assertion, indicating that the initial appearance of the IUP in East Asia generally corresponds in time to the fluorescenc…
An evaluation of competing hypotheses for the early adoption of wheat in East Asia
Recent emphasis on the recovery of plant remains from archaeological sites in East Asia permits an analysis of prehistoric cultural contact between East and West. Here we evaluate three prominent hypotheses for the introduction of wheat, a Near Eastern domesticate, to East Asia, specifically northern China. Existing evidence points to a nearly synchronous appearance of the plant, from the Inner Asian Mountains to the Yellow Sea, c. 4600-4200 year…
The cultural context of biological adaptation to high elevation Tibet
The Logic of Ceramic Technology in Marginal Environments
Explanations for the use of pots as practical domestic tools permeate the literature of technological adoption and change. While many arguments focus on the economic merits of pots, few have attempted to trace the conditions that promote or deter the adoption of pottery. This is especially true for the use of pottery by mobile peoples. We adapt an established model of technological investment to draw attention to three key variables affecting pot…
Looking for behavioral modernity in Pleistocene northwestern China
Holocene Human Occupation of the Central Alaska Peninsula
The Alaska Peninsula is a landscape defined by volcanic, tectonic, and glacial processes, and life throughout is conditioned on the interactions among them. During the middle Holocene (ca. 4100–3600 yr ago), intense caldera-forming eruptions of the Aniakchak and Veniaminof volcanoes changed the shape of the central portion of the Peninsula dramatically, and had significant and perhaps devastating impacts on both terrestrial and marine biota. Here…
Bettinger, Robert L.
How ancestral subsistence strategies solve salmon starvation and the “protein problem” of Pacific Rim resources
This article provides a theoretical treatment of hunter–gatherer diet and physiology. Through a synthesis of nutritional studies, informed by ethno‐archaeological data, we examine the risk of protein‐rich diets for human survival, and how societies circumvent "salmon starvation" in the northeastern Pacific Rim. Fundamental nutritional constraints associated with salmon storage and consumption counter long‐standing assumptions about the engine of …
Human adaptation to Holocene environments
Paleolakes, archaeology, and late Quaternary paleoenvironments in northwestern Mongolia
The climatic, hydrographic, and environmental regimes of terminal Pleistocene and Holocene northwestern Mongolia are reconstructed using archaeological and pedological data sets at Bayan Nuur, a lake on the northwestern perimeter of the Altan Els dune field in eastern Uvs Province, Mongolia. The archaeological data consist of land-use patterns controlled for time via time-sensitive, diagnostic artifacts. The pedological data consist of soil class…
Land-use and ceramics in the Andean highlands of Patagonia, Argentina
The aim of this paper is to study the use of ceramics of small-scale societies during the late Holocene in northern Patagonia. The technological investment model predicts that use-time and utility will determine the investment spent in ceramics. We explore how ceramics were used in short-term camps and aggregation sites during summer at high elevations, and residential camps during winter at lower elevations. To test the investment in ceramics we…
Wetlands and grasslands
Early herders prioritized areas with productive winter vegetation over wetland resources. • Land use change was accompanied by constrained residential mobility and population consolidation. • Intensified local interaction fostered adaptations that came to define Eurasian pastoralism. This paper presents the results of a study that investigates the settlement history of Mongolia’s desert-steppe to understand the role of foragers in the evolution o…
Low-level Food Production in Neolithic North China
Geography (18 works) · Archaeology (17 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (17 works) · Biology (11 works) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (11 works) · China (10 works) · Holocene (8 works) · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies (8 works) · Agriculture (7 works) · Ecology (7 works)