A Nowell
Biographic Data
| ID | 24844 |
|---|---|
| NAME | A Nowell |
| GIVEN NAMES | A |
| FAMILY NAME | Nowell |
| SIGNATURE | NOWELL A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Victoria |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1103-2919 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 62 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 618 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 62 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1998 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 13 |
Phytoliths and Pollen from a Desert Wetland Through the Last Glacial–Interglacial Cycle in Azraq, Jordan
Phytoliths, pollen, and spores in a stratigraphic sequence from the Shishan Wetland (Azraq Basin, Jordan) and supported by modern pollen and phytolith data provide information on vegetation, climatic trends, and the influence of fire through MIS 2 and MIS 1. Additionally, a pilot study introduces an innovative approach that uses shape and morphometric parameters of Bulliform phytoliths to assess hydro-climatic changes. The phytolith terrestrial–a…
An assessment of puberty status in adolescents from the European Upper Paleolithic
Childhood and adolescence are two life-history stages that are either unique to humans, or significantly expanded in the human life course relative to other primates. While recent studies have deepened our knowledge of childhood in the Upper Paleolithic, adolescence in this period remains understudied. Here, we use bioarchaeological maturational markers to estimate puberty status of 13 Upper Paleolithic adolescents from sites in Russia, Czechia, …
Evaluating the Evidence for Lunar Calendars in Upper Palaeolithic Parietal Art
In this paper, we examine the lunar calendar interpretation to evaluate whether it is a viable explanation for the production of Upper Palaeolithic parietal art. We consider in detail the history of this approach, focusing on recently published variations on this interpretation. We then discuss the scientific method and whether these recent studies are designed to address the research questions necessary to test a lunar calendar hypothesis. More …
Rising up: Digital traces and performative Indigenous culture in Australian rock art
Indigenous Australian art relies on motifs and figures to visually symbolise a traditional story, myth and/or ritual, encompassing a narrated performance. In contrast, digital tracings or 'finger flutings' impressed into the soft precipitate covering cave surfaces are not typically considered visually symbolic expressions. Using Koonalda Cave in southern Australia as a case study, the authors argue that digital tracings also operate within a perf…
Culturing the body in the context of the neolithisation of the southern Levant
The neolithisation of the southern Levant is characterized by the growing importance of ancestors. • Through the curation of skulls and bodies the dead continue to have social “lives”. • When curated as heirlooms, personal ornaments carry the memories of owners, wearers and makers. • These ornaments served a complementary role in presencing the dead in the lives of the living. The body is a site of lived experience as people engage their social, …
Finger Fluting in Prehistoric Caves: A Critical Analysis of the Evidence for Children, Sexing and Tracing of Individuals
Finger flutings are channels drawn in soft sediments covering walls, floors and ceilings of some limestone caves in Europe and Australia and in some cases date as far back as 50,000 years ago. Initial research focused on why they were made, but more recently, as part of a growing interest in the individual in the past, researchers began asking questions about who made them. This shift in direction has led to claims that by measuring the width of …
Chiaroscuro Photogrammetry: Revolutionizing 3D Modeling in Low Light Conditions for Archaeological Sites
Archaeologists working in low light conditions have had difficulty producing 3D models that are both scientific and aesthetic. We are presenting chiaroscuro photogrammetry, a technique inspired by Renaissance artists, to solve this problem. The method is portable, inexpensive, low impact, adaptable, fast, and requires no additional expertise beyond photogrammetry. While first trialed on a rock and a tree that produced promising outcomes, the true…
Introduction: The secret lives of forager children: The implications of intangible culture for an archaeology of childhood
Palaeolithic Children Come of Age
Comprising at least half of the population of prehistoric societies, children were ubiquitous on Palaeolithic sites. Despite an extensive record of their lifeways, studying children in the deep past presents archaeologists with unique challenges including differential preservation, the use of children as holotypes, interpretive bias, choice of model for the pace of growth and development, difficulties of defining what is means to be human in the …
Supplemental Material for Field-Specific Ability Beliefs as an Explanation for Gender Differences in Academics’ Career Trajectories: Evidence From Public Profiles on Orcid.org
an aggregated ORCID public data file [2] and also made available on demand to ORCID member institutions.The most recent version of ORCID public data were accessed on February 18, 2021
Abrasive wear in heat-treated ostrich eggshell beads: Implications for the Archaeological Record
Rethinking Neandertals
In this article, I first provide an overview of the Neandertals by recounting their initial discovery and subsequent interpretation by scientists and by discussing our current understanding of the temporal and geographic span of these hominins and their taxonomic affiliation. I then explore what progress we have made in our understanding of Neandertal lifeways and capabilities over the past decade in light of new technologies and changing perspec…
Middle to Late Quaternary palaeolandscapes of the central Azraq Basin, Jordan: Deciphering discontinuous records of human-environment dynamics at the arid margin of the Levant
Oral Storytelling and Knowledge Transmission in Upper Paleolithic Children and Adolescents
Growing up Gravettian: Bioarchaeological perspectives on adolescence in the European Mid-Upper Paleolithic
Adolescence is a stage of development unique to the human life course, during which key social, physical, and cognitive milestones are reached. Nonetheless, both the experience of adolescence and the role(s) of adolescents in the past have received little scholarly attention. Here we combine a broad interpretative framework for adolescence among prehistoric hunter-gatherers with direct bioarchaeological (burial) data to examine the lives of teena…
Radiometric Dating of Wadi Zarqa Ma'in 1, a Limestone Sinkhole Natural Faunal Trap near the Dead Sea, Using Data from Test Pitting and a Portable Coring System
Wadi Zarqa Ma’in 1 (WZM-1) is a natural faunal trap sinkhole ten kilometers southwest of the city of Madaba in Jordan, near the Dead Sea. The limestone karst feature measures over thirty meters in maximum depth and is a significant regional source of faunal, microbotanical, and sedimentological data recording climate change and paleoecology. A new method of sampling was tested during summer 2019 involving the use of a backpacksized Shaw Portable …
Culturing the Paleolithic Body: Archaeological Signatures of Adornment and Body Modification
In this chapter, we present archaeological evidence for practices of adornment of the body by Paleolithic hominins, including painting with ochre, tattoos, personal ornaments, clothing, and hairstyles. These practices served to mark differences such as gender, status, and ethnicity amongst people, to attract or intimidate others, and have been interpreted as indices of a symbolically mediated self and personal identity. We then discuss the possib…
Children and innovation: Play, Play Objects and Object Play in Cultural Evolution
Conceiving of “Them” When Before There Was Only “Us”
Moving Beyond the Obstetrical Dilemma Hypothesis: Birth, Weaning and Infant Care in the Plio-Pleistocene
Entanglements: The Role of Finger Flutings in the Study of the Lived Lives of Upper Paleolithic Peoples
The effects of heating ostrich eggshell on bead manufacturing: An experimental approach
Adolescence and innovation in the European Upper Palaeolithic
Childhood and adolescence are two stages of development that are unique to the human life course. While childhood in the Pleistocene has received considerable attention in recent years, adolescence during the same period remains an understudied area of research. Yet it is during adolescence that key social, physical and cognitive milestones are reached. Thus, through studying adolescents, there is enormous potential for improving our understandin…
Care of Infants in the Past: Bridging evolutionary anthropological and bioarchaeological approaches
Beads and bead residues as windows to past behaviours and taphonomy: A case study from Grassridge Rockshelter, Eastern Cape, South Africa
Archaeological Evidence for the Emergence of Language, Symbolism, and Music–An Alternative Multidisciplinary Perspective
A New Look at the Berekhat Ram Figurine: Implications for the Origins of Symbolism
This article addresses the nature of the evidence for symbolling behaviour among hominids living in the Near East during the Middle and Upper Pleistocene. Traditionally, Palaeolithic art and symbolling have been synonymous with the Upper Palaeolithic of Europe. The Berekhat Ram figurine, a piece of volcanic material from a Lower Palaeolithic site in Israel, described as purposely modified to produce human features, challenges the view of a late e…
Palaeolithic Personal Ornaments: Historical Development and Epistemological Challenges
Interglacial and glacial desert refugia and the Middle Paleolithic of the Azraq Oasis, Jordan
Taphonomy of a Suggested Middle Paleolithic Bone Flute from Slovenia
Children and innovation: Play, Play Objects and Object Play in Cultural Evolution
Middle Pleistocene subsistence in the Azraq Oasis, Jordan: Protein residue and other proxies
Paleoenvironmental change and settlement dynamics in the Druze Marsh: Results of recent excavation at an open-air Paleolithic site
Working Memory and the Speed of Life
Hominin evolution is the result of complex interactions of biology and behavior within particular physical, social, and cultural environments. While evolution takes place at the species level, species are made up of individuals engaging in a social world. Extensive research into topics such as theory of mind and social intelligence have highlighted the importance of sociality and social factors in understanding the evolution of the hominin brain.…
Adolescence and innovation in the European Upper Palaeolithic
Childhood and adolescence are two stages of development that are unique to the human life course. While childhood in the Pleistocene has received considerable attention in recent years, adolescence during the same period remains an understudied area of research. Yet it is during adolescence that key social, physical and cognitive milestones are reached. Thus, through studying adolescents, there is enormous potential for improving our understandin…
Science, the Media, and Interpretations of Upper Paleolithic Figurines: Science, Media, and Upper Paleolithic Figurines
Using the recent discovery of the Hohle Fels figurine as a catalyst, in this article we briefly review the history of scholarship regarding Upper Paleolithic figurines that are often referred to as "Venus" figurines. We integrate this review with a critical examination of the assumptions underlying the "Venus hypothesis"-the perspective that these artifacts are best understood as sexual objects-based on the available data from both inside and out…
Dissecting palimpsests in a Late Lower and Middle Paleolithic flint acquisition site on the Madaba Plateau, Jordan
A question of style: Reconsidering the stylistic approach to dating Palaeolithic parietal art in France
The authors deconstruct the basis for dating the Palaeolithic cave paintings of France and find it wanting. Only five per cent are directly dated and the remainder belong to a stylistic framework that has grown organically, and with much circularity, as new paintings were brought to light. Following a constructive bouleversement, the authors recommend a new chronometric foundation based on chains of evidence anchored by radiocarbon dates. The sto…
Beads and bead residues as windows to past behaviours and taphonomy: A case study from Grassridge Rockshelter, Eastern Cape, South Africa
Care of Infants in the Past: Bridging evolutionary anthropological and bioarchaeological approaches
Learning to See and Seeing to Learn: Children, Communities of Practice and Pleistocene Visual Cultures
During the Late Pleistocene, children in southwest France and northern Spain grew up engaging with the world around them through the lenses of locally and historically situated pictorial cultures. This particular period and region is not the site of the earliest example of symbolic behaviour, nor is it the only example of the production of imagery during the Pleistocene but the rich record of Franco-Cantabrian visual material culture provides a u…
From A Paleolithic Art to Pleistocene Visual Cultures (Introduction to two Special Issues on ‘Advances in the Study of Pleistocene Imagery and Symbol Use’)
Reconsidering the Personhood of Gravettian Infants
There is a widely held belief among archaeologists that the paucity of infant burials in the European Gravettian (ca. 33,000–22,000 cal. bp) can be attributed to societal attitudes toward these young individuals. Specifically, it has been argued that infants were “discriminated” against by members of Gravettian society who did not consider infants as “people” until after weaning. Infants who died before this process was complete were not worthy o…
Growing up Gravettian: Bioarchaeological perspectives on adolescence in the European Mid-Upper Paleolithic
Adolescence is a stage of development unique to the human life course, during which key social, physical, and cognitive milestones are reached. Nonetheless, both the experience of adolescence and the role(s) of adolescents in the past have received little scholarly attention. Here we combine a broad interpretative framework for adolescence among prehistoric hunter-gatherers with direct bioarchaeological (burial) data to examine the lives of teena…
The Art of Taphonomy and the Taphonomy of Art: Layer IV, Molodova I, Ukraine
Entanglements: The Role of Finger Flutings in the Study of the Lived Lives of Upper Paleolithic Peoples
Landforms, sediments, soil development, and prehistoric site settings on the Madaba‐Dhiban Plateau, Jordan
This paper examines recurrent spatial patterns of prehistoric sites in relation to landforms, alluvial fills, and soil development in the uplands and valleys of the Madaba and Dhiban Plateaus of Jordan. Mousterian lithics (Middle Paleolithic) are largely found on high strath terraces plateaus, where they are associated with red Mediterranean soils. In valleys, Upper Paleolithic sites are often associated with reworked loess deposits of the Dalala…
Rethinking Neandertals
In this article, I first provide an overview of the Neandertals by recounting their initial discovery and subsequent interpretation by scientists and by discussing our current understanding of the temporal and geographic span of these hominins and their taxonomic affiliation. I then explore what progress we have made in our understanding of Neandertal lifeways and capabilities over the past decade in light of new technologies and changing perspec…
The effects of heating ostrich eggshell on bead manufacturing: An experimental approach
Visual Cultures in the Upper Palaeolithic
Using examples drawn from the European Upper Palaeolithic, this article advocates a visual cultures approach to studying the art of this period. Visual culture is defined as the biological, cognitive and social underpinnings of how we see, while the term art refers to what we see. A visual cultures approach to these images allows the archaeologist to explore how they were experienced, decoded and innovated upon within historically situated, overl…
Mousterian Notes
Taphonomy of a Suggested Middle Paleolithic Bone Flute from Slovenia
Human evolution, language and mind: A psychological and archaeological inquiry
Human evolution, language and mind: A psychological and archaeological inquiry
A New Look at the Berekhat Ram Figurine: Implications for the Origins of Symbolism
This article addresses the nature of the evidence for symbolling behaviour among hominids living in the Near East during the Middle and Upper Pleistocene. Traditionally, Palaeolithic art and symbolling have been synonymous with the Upper Palaeolithic of Europe. The Berekhat Ram figurine, a piece of volcanic material from a Lower Palaeolithic site in Israel, described as purposely modified to produce human features, challenges the view of a late e…
The Early Neolithic Site of Ayn Abū Nukhayla, Southern Jordan
Three seasons of research at the Middle PPNB site of Ayn Abū Nukhayla indicate that it experienced intermittent, seasonal occupations spanning a period of ca. 200 years, centered on 8500 b. p. Despite being located in a hyperarid setting in southern Jordan, the site displays extensive architecture and other evidence of intensive occupation. Settlement of the site appears to have been triggered by a moist pulse that produced sufficient upland run-…
Archaeological Evidence for the Emergence of Language, Symbolism, and Music–An Alternative Multidisciplinary Perspective
Landforms, sediments, soil development, and prehistoric site settings on the Madaba‐Dhiban Plateau, Jordan
This paper examines recurrent spatial patterns of prehistoric sites in relation to landforms, alluvial fills, and soil development in the uplands and valleys of the Madaba and Dhiban Plateaus of Jordan. Mousterian lithics (Middle Paleolithic) are largely found on high strath terraces plateaus, where they are associated with red Mediterranean soils. In valleys, Upper Paleolithic sites are often associated with reworked loess deposits of the Dalala…
From A Paleolithic Art to Pleistocene Visual Cultures (Introduction to two Special Issues on ‘Advances in the Study of Pleistocene Imagery and Symbol Use’)
Human Evolution at the Crossroads: An Archaeological Survey in Northwest Jordan
The Art of Taphonomy and the Taphonomy of Art: Layer IV, Molodova I, Ukraine
Defining Behavioral Modernity in the Context of Neandertal and Anatomically Modern Human Populations
This review summarizes current thinking about the concept of modern behavior in the context of Neandertals and anatomically modern humans. The decoupling of modern anatomy and modern behavior has prompted researchers to reframe studies of the emergence of modern humans as a debate that explicitly focuses on the origins of behavioral modernity making its intersection with modern anatomy a point of discussion rather than a given. Four questions ari…
Cave Paintings and the Human Spirit: The Origin of Creativity and Belief . David S. Whitley
Working Memory and the Speed of Life
Hominin evolution is the result of complex interactions of biology and behavior within particular physical, social, and cultural environments. While evolution takes place at the species level, species are made up of individuals engaging in a social world. Extensive research into topics such as theory of mind and social intelligence have highlighted the importance of sociality and social factors in understanding the evolution of the hominin brain.…
Geomorphological and Soil Stratigraphic Patterns Associated with The Middle Paleolithic on The Madaba Plateau, Jordan: The case of the Ma'in Site Complex
CARLOS CORDOVA, APRIL NOWELL, MICHAEL BISSON, CHRISTOPHER AMES, REGINA DEWITT, קרול קורדובה, אפריל ניוול, מיכאל ביסון, כריסטופר אימס, רגינה דה-וויט, דפוסים סטרטיגרפיים של גיאומורפולוגיה וקרקע הקשורים לתקופה הפליאוליתית התיכונה ברמת מידבא, ירדן: המקרה של מתחם האתר מאיין / Geomorphological and soil stratigraphic patterns associated with the Middle Paleolithic on the Madaba Plateau, Jordan: The case of the Ma'in Site Complex, Mitekufat Haeven: Journ…
A question of style: Reconsidering the stylistic approach to dating Palaeolithic parietal art in France
The authors deconstruct the basis for dating the Palaeolithic cave paintings of France and find it wanting. Only five per cent are directly dated and the remainder belong to a stylistic framework that has grown organically, and with much circularity, as new paintings were brought to light. Following a constructive bouleversement, the authors recommend a new chronometric foundation based on chains of evidence anchored by radiocarbon dates. The sto…
Michel Lorblanchet. Art pariétal: Grottes ornées du Quercy. 448 pages, numerous colour & b&w illustrations, tables. 2010. Paris: Rouergue; 978-2-8126-0164-4 hardback € 49
Michel Lorblanchet. Art pariétal: grottes ornées du Quercy. 448 pages, numerous colour & b&w illustrations, tables. 2010. Paris: Rouergue; 978-2-8126-0164-4 hardback € 49. - Volume 86 Issue 332
Interglacial and glacial desert refugia and the Middle Paleolithic of the Azraq Oasis, Jordan
Dissecting palimpsests in a Late Lower and Middle Paleolithic flint acquisition site on the Madaba Plateau, Jordan
Paleoenvironmental change and settlement dynamics in the Druze Marsh: Results of recent excavation at an open-air Paleolithic site
Palaeolithic Personal Ornaments: Historical Development and Epistemological Challenges
A place in time: Situating Chauvet within the long chronology of symbolic behavioral development
Science, the Media, and Interpretations of Upper Paleolithic Figurines: Science, Media, and Upper Paleolithic Figurines
Using the recent discovery of the Hohle Fels figurine as a catalyst, in this article we briefly review the history of scholarship regarding Upper Paleolithic figurines that are often referred to as "Venus" figurines. We integrate this review with a critical examination of the assumptions underlying the "Venus hypothesis"-the perspective that these artifacts are best understood as sexual objects-based on the available data from both inside and out…
Children, Metaphorical Thinking and Upper Paleolithic Visual Cultures
Many children growing up during the Upper Paleolithic lived within rich pictorial cultures. This article explores how these children might have employed metaphorical thinking in the production and decoding of this imagery. Metaphors are said to act as a bridge between different realities, different levels of meaning and different realms of experience. Humans use metaphorical thinking to recognize patterns and create relationships between disparat…
Learning to See and Seeing to Learn: Children, Communities of Practice and Pleistocene Visual Cultures
During the Late Pleistocene, children in southwest France and northern Spain grew up engaging with the world around them through the lenses of locally and historically situated pictorial cultures. This particular period and region is not the site of the earliest example of symbolic behaviour, nor is it the only example of the production of imagery during the Pleistocene but the rich record of Franco-Cantabrian visual material culture provides a u…
Archaeology (46 works) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (40 works) · History (32 works) · Geography (29 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (26 works) · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies (18 works) · Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies (17 works) · Geology (17 works) · History (17 works) · Art (16 works)