J Pargeter
Biographic Data
| ID | 24845 |
|---|---|
| NAME | J Pargeter |
| GIVEN NAMES | J |
| FAMILY NAME | Pargeter |
| SIGNATURE | PARGETER J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Johannesburg |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6536-8568 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 53 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 794 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 53 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 16 |
Energetic yields of springbok ( Antidorcas marsupialis ) marrow from long bones: A co-produced experimental study from the Boomplaas Cave field school
Understanding the nutritional value of past hunter-gatherer prey is highly informative for archaeologists seeking to interpret human decision-making regarding hunting, processing, and meat consumption. Much zooarchaeological theory and methodology is devoted to this work, including applications of human behavioural ecology, utility indices, considerations of skeletal element representation, and discussions of transport decisions. However, there r…
Signaling Shifts and Economic Defensibility at Boomplaas Cave, South Africa
This study tests predictions of the Economic Defensibility Model (EDM) regarding the relationship between resource density and distribution, as well as signaling behavior among Late Pleistocene foragers. The EDM proposes that territorial signaling intensifies when resources are dense and predictable, as the benefits of broadcasting group membership and maintaining alliances outweigh signaling costs. We evaluate this model using data from Boomplaa…
What can lithics tell us about hominin technology's ‘primordial soup’? An origin of stone knapping via the emulation of Mother Nature
The use of stone hammers to produce sharp stone flakes—knapping—is thought to represent a significant stage in hominin technological evolution because it facilitated the exploitation of novel resources, including meat obtained from medium‐to‐large‐sized vertebrates. The invention of knapping may have occurred via an additive (i.e., cumulative) process that combined several innovative stages. Here, we propose that one of these stages was the homin…
Lithic analysis in African archaeology: Advances and key themes
Stone artifacts (lithics) preserve for extended periods; thus they are key evidence for probing the evolution of human technological behaviors. Africa boasts the oldest record of stone artifacts, spanning 3.3 Ma, rare instances of ethnographic stone tool‐making, and stone tool archives from diverse ecological settings, making it an anchor for research on the long‐term temporal and spatial trends in human evolution. This paper reviews the applicat…
Controlled comparative tensile tests of backed versus non‐backed edges’ adhesion: Inferences into stone tool functional properties
Backing is a procedure for retouching a stone tool edge to an angle of or near 90°. Archaeologists have recorded backed lithic specimens in the Pleistocene and Holocene around the world. One prominent hypothesis for the occurrence of backing is that it increases a stone tool's adhesion relative to what it would have otherwise been with unmodified, sharp edges. We conducted a highly controlled semi‐static tensile test in which we assessed lithic s…
Revisiting the current phyto-scape of Boomplaas Cave (South Africa) and the possible implications of this for past day-range foraging
Boomplaas Cave in the Western Cape Province of South Africa is one of only a few African sites with inland archaeological deposits spanning Marine Isotope Stages 4–1. Work conducted half a century ago predicted Boomplaas to be a meagre plant-food location. We reassess this interpretation here by presenting updated lists of the current vegetation and foodplants growing within roughly a day’s foraging distance from the cave. By doing so, we increas…
The Pleistocene Stone Artifact Record of Africa: Technologies, Typologies, and Analytic Approaches
Flaked stone (lithic) artifacts are a ubiquitous cultural material at Pleistocene sites and first appear in the archaeological record 3.3 million years ago (Ma) in East Africa. The African stone artifact record thus covers the longest time span of human prehistory compared to other regions. Lithic artifacts preserve well, and they are often the only cultural materials remaining at a site. Archaeologists have therefore dedicated considerable effor…
Raw Material Surveys and Their Behavioral Implications in Highland Lesotho
Archaeologists have long considered climate change a primary mechanism behind human behavioral adaptations. The Lesotho highlands’ Afromontane and climatically extreme environments offer a unique opportunity to examine proposed correlations between topography, climate, and human behavior. Previous studies suggest that warmer temperatures allowed humans to expand their diet breadth and foraging range, whereas colder temperatures restricted humans …
Variable Perspectives on “ Standardization in the Stone Age ”
Differential effects of knapping skill acquisition on the cultural reproduction of Late Acheulean handaxe morphology: Archaeological and experimental insights
Skill and Core Uniformity: An Experiment with Oldowan-like Flaking Systems
The Oldowan is the archaeological record’s oldest consistent evidence of hominin technical behavior. First appearing ∼2.6 Ma in East Africa, the Oldowan is characterized by simple core and flake technology using direct hard hammer percussion. Archaeologists debate whether Oldowan assemblages are uniform and what role hominin cultural abilities played in generating these assemblages. To improve existing methods for studying Oldowan technical unifo…
Replicability in Lithic Analysis
The ubiquity and durability of lithic artifacts inform archaeologists about important dimensions of human behavioral variability. Despite their importance, lithic artifacts can be problematic to study because lithic analysts differ widely in their theoretical approaches and the data they collect. The extent to which differences in lithic data relate to prehistoric behavioral variability or differences between archaeologists today remains incomple…
Testing the Effect of Learning Conditions and Individual Motor/Cognitive Differences on Knapping Skill Acquisition
Peering into the unseen: Novel methods in identifying shell taxa from archaeological micro-fragments
Stone tool backing and adhesion in hunting weaponry: First results of an experimental program
Heat treatment significantly increases the sharpness of silcrete stone tools
Humans were regularly heat‐treating stone tool raw materials as early as 130,000 years ago. The late Middle Stone Age (MSA) and Late Stone Age (LSA) of South Africa's Western Cape region provides some of the earliest and most pervasive archaeological evidence for this behaviour. While archaeologists are beginning to understand the flaking implications of raw material heat treatment, its potential functional benefits remain unanswered. Using silcr…
Coastal occupation and foraging during the last glacial maximum and early Holocene at Waterfall Bluff, eastern Pondoland, South Africa
Waterfall Bluff is a rock shelter in eastern Pondoland, South Africa, adjacent to a narrow continental shelf that limited coastline movements across glacial/interglacial cycles. The archaeological deposits are characterized by well-preserved stratigraphy, faunal, and botanical remains alongside abundant stone artifacts and other materials. A comprehensive dating protocol consisting of 5 optically stimulated luminescence ages and 51 accelerator ma…
Regional Variability in Lithic Miniaturization and the Organization of Technology in Late Glacial Southern Africa (~18-11 kcal BP)
Miniaturized stone tools made by controlled fracture are reported from nearly every continent where archaeologists have systematically looked for them. While similarities in technology are acknowledged between regions, few detailed inter-regional comparative studies have been conducted. Our paper addresses this gap, presenting results of a comparative lithic technological study between Klipfonteinrand and Sehonghong – two large rock shelters in s…
The technology and ecology of Lesotho's highland hunter-gatherers: A case study at Sehonghong rock shelter
Simple’ surface-fire heat treatment significantly improves silcrete flake quality and flaking efficiency
Lithic miniaturization as adaptive strategy: A case study from Boomplaas Cave, South Africa
Knowledge vs. know-how? Dissecting the foundations of stone knapping skill
Investigating the evolution of human social learning through collaborative experimental archaeology
Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study
Going big versus going small: Lithic miniaturization in hominin lithic technology
Lithic miniaturization was one of our Pleistocene ancestors' more pervasive stone tool production strategies and it marks a key difference between human and non‐human tool use. Frequently equated with “microlith” production, lithic miniaturization is a more complex, variable, and evolutionarily consequential phenomenon involving small backed tools, bladelets, small retouched tools, flakes, and small cores. In this review, we evaluate lithic minia…
Comparative analysis of Middle Stone Age artifacts in Africa (CoMSAfrica)
Hunting with Howiesons Poort segments: Pilot experimental study and the functional interpretation of archaeological tools
Assessing the macrofracture method for identifying Stone Age hunting weaponry
The effects of Class I and II sized bovids on macrofracture formation and tool displacement: Results of a trampling experiment in a southern African Stone Age context
In this paper we follow from previous experiments that assessed the formation of macrofractures on hunting weapons and trampled tools, and present the results of a new trampling experiment. This new experiment examined the relationship between small bovid trampling and the formation of macrofracture types on replicated stone and bone tools. We also recorded the resulting displacement of the tools in order to assess the relationship between tool m…
Lithic miniaturization in Late Pleistocene southern Africa
Quantifying and Comparing Bipolar Versus Freehand Flake Morphologies, Production Currencies, and Reduction Energetics During Lithic Miniaturization
Recognized by archaeologists for over a century, and practiced by hominins in nearly every archaeological context in which flaked stone is used, bipolar technology involves the coordination of at least three components (hammer, anvil, and core). Archaeologists are increasingly aware of the variability within bipolar reduction, such that it can hardly be considered a single unified reduction strategy. Our experiments investigate the role of axial …
Milky Quartz Bipolar Reduction and Lithic Miniaturization: Experimental Results and Archaeological Implications
We present experimental data examining the energetics and identification of axial bipolar reduction in contexts of lithic miniaturization on milky quartz. These experiments answer two specific questions. First, does bipolar reduction provide any benefits over freehand reduction? Second, can axial bipolar reduction be distinguished from freehand reduction? Our data show that bipolar reduction requires significantly less time to reduce a percentage…
New ages from Sehonghong rock shelter: Implications for the late Pleistocene occupation of highland Lesotho
Understanding stone tool-making skill acquisition: Experimental methods and evolutionary implications
New ages from Boomplaas Cave, South Africa, provide increased resolution on late/terminal Pleistocene human behavioural variability
Boomplaas Cave, South Africa, contains a rich archaeological record, with evidence of human occupation from >66,000 years ago until the protohistoric period. Notwithstanding a long history of research at the site, its existing chronology can benefit from revision. Many of the site’s members are currently delimited by only a single conventional radiocarbon date and some of the existing dates were measured on materials now known to be unsuitable fo…
Quartz backed tools as arrowheads and hand-cast spearheads: Hunting experiments and macro-fracture analysis
Replicability in Lithic Analysis
The ubiquity and durability of lithic artifacts inform archaeologists about important dimensions of human behavioral variability. Despite their importance, lithic artifacts can be problematic to study because lithic analysts differ widely in their theoretical approaches and the data they collect. The extent to which differences in lithic data relate to prehistoric behavioral variability or differences between archaeologists today remains incomple…
Experimental assessment of proximal-lateral edge grinding on haft damage using replicated Late Pleistocene (Clovis) stone projectile points
Weaving Simple Solutions to Complex Problems: An Experimental Study of Skill in Bipolar Cobble-Splitting
Bipolar technology has a complicated history in lithics research. Ethnography shows that this method comprises many different techniques, is multi-purpose and skill dependent. However, archaeological interpretations oscillate between bipolar technology being simple, inefficient, and independent of skill to it being a purposeful strategy deployed by experienced knappers. Here we test the role of skill in quartz cobble collection and bipolar cobble…
Knowledge vs. know-how? Dissecting the foundations of stone knapping skill
Late Pleistocene human occupation in the Maloti-Drakensberg region of southern Africa: New radiocarbon dates from Rose Cottage Cave and inter-site comparisons
Primordialism and the 'Pleistocene San' of southern Africa
Lithic miniaturization as adaptive strategy: A case study from Boomplaas Cave, South Africa
Assessing raw material's role in bipolar and freehand miniaturized flake shape, technological structure, and fragmentation rates
Rock type variability and impact fracture formation: Working towards a more robust macrofracture method
Open-air preservation of miniaturised lithics: Experimental research in the Cederberg Mountains, southern Africa
Contextual approaches to studying unretouched bladelets: A late Pleistocene case study at Sehonghong Rockshelter, Lesotho
Heat treatment significantly increases the sharpness of silcrete stone tools
Humans were regularly heat‐treating stone tool raw materials as early as 130,000 years ago. The late Middle Stone Age (MSA) and Late Stone Age (LSA) of South Africa's Western Cape region provides some of the earliest and most pervasive archaeological evidence for this behaviour. While archaeologists are beginning to understand the flaking implications of raw material heat treatment, its potential functional benefits remain unanswered. Using silcr…
Quartz crystal materiality in Terminal Pleistocene Lesotho
Simple’ surface-fire heat treatment significantly improves silcrete flake quality and flaking efficiency
Lithic miniaturization in late Pleistocene southern Africa
Miniaturisation, the systematic production and use of small technologies, is a widespread and pervasive phenomenon in contemporary technology. Only three decades ago, launching a satellite into spa
Hunting with Howiesons Poort segments: Pilot experimental study and the functional interpretation of archaeological tools
Assessing the macrofracture method for identifying Stone Age hunting weaponry
The effects of Class I and II sized bovids on macrofracture formation and tool displacement: Results of a trampling experiment in a southern African Stone Age context
In this paper we follow from previous experiments that assessed the formation of macrofractures on hunting weapons and trampled tools, and present the results of a new trampling experiment. This new experiment examined the relationship between small bovid trampling and the formation of macrofracture types on replicated stone and bone tools. We also recorded the resulting displacement of the tools in order to assess the relationship between tool m…
Rock type variability and impact fracture formation: Working towards a more robust macrofracture method
Redefining boundaries at the 2015 paleoanthropology society and society for american archaeology (SAA) meeting in san francisco
Lithic Technological Approaches to the African Late Pleistocene Later Stone Age
Contextual approaches to studying unretouched bladelets: A late Pleistocene case study at Sehonghong Rockshelter, Lesotho
Weaving Simple Solutions to Complex Problems: An Experimental Study of Skill in Bipolar Cobble-Splitting
Bipolar technology has a complicated history in lithics research. Ethnography shows that this method comprises many different techniques, is multi-purpose and skill dependent. However, archaeological interpretations oscillate between bipolar technology being simple, inefficient, and independent of skill to it being a purposeful strategy deployed by experienced knappers. Here we test the role of skill in quartz cobble collection and bipolar cobble…
Evolutionary Perspectives on Bipolar Technology
Our introduction to this special edition of Lithic Technology Exploring Variability in Bipolar Technology does not attempt to summarize the papers found in the volume. This is done succinctly and accurately by Tostevin and Shott in this volume’s concluding section (Tostevin & Shott ). Here we briefly discuss a theme recurring in most of the volume’s papers, the importance of simple technologies for exploring the evolution of human behavioral …
Test, Model, and Method Validation: The Role of Experimental Stone Artifact Replication in Hypothesis-driven Archaeology
For many years, intuition and common sense often guided the transference of patterning ostensibly evident in experimental flintknapping results to interpretations of the archaeological record, with little emphasis placed on hypothesis testing, experimental variables, experimental design, or statistical analysis of data. Today, archaeologists routinely take steps to address these issues. We build on these modern efforts by reviewing several import…
Lithic miniaturization in Late Pleistocene southern Africa
Quartz backed tools as arrowheads and hand-cast spearheads: Hunting experiments and macro-fracture analysis
Primordialism and the ‘Pleistocene San’ of southern Africa: Final Reply
We thank our colleagues for their insightful comments. The weight of modern evidence is against the notion that contemporary human cultures can be tracked backwards into the Pleistocene (e.g. Lee & DeVore 1976; Kuper 1988; Wilmsen 1989; Solway & Lee 1990; MacEachern 2000). Modern-day hunter-gatherers are not our Stone Age ancestors. Current protestations notwithstanding, the provocative title that d'Errico and colleagues (2012) chose for their pa…
Primordialism and the 'Pleistocene San' of southern Africa
Quantifying and Comparing Bipolar Versus Freehand Flake Morphologies, Production Currencies, and Reduction Energetics During Lithic Miniaturization
Recognized by archaeologists for over a century, and practiced by hominins in nearly every archaeological context in which flaked stone is used, bipolar technology involves the coordination of at least three components (hammer, anvil, and core). Archaeologists are increasingly aware of the variability within bipolar reduction, such that it can hardly be considered a single unified reduction strategy. Our experiments investigate the role of axial …
New ages from Sehonghong rock shelter: Implications for the late Pleistocene occupation of highland Lesotho
Milky Quartz Bipolar Reduction and Lithic Miniaturization: Experimental Results and Archaeological Implications
We present experimental data examining the energetics and identification of axial bipolar reduction in contexts of lithic miniaturization on milky quartz. These experiments answer two specific questions. First, does bipolar reduction provide any benefits over freehand reduction? Second, can axial bipolar reduction be distinguished from freehand reduction? Our data show that bipolar reduction requires significantly less time to reduce a percentage…
Small things and big news at the 2016 SAfA meetings in Toulouse, France
Early microlithic technologies and behavioural variability in Southern Africa and South Asia
Lithic miniaturisation, the systematic production of small tools from small cores, is a pervasive trend in Pleistocene lithic technology. Miniaturised stone tools are reported from nearly every con
Lithic miniaturization in late Pleistocene southern Africa
Miniaturisation, the systematic production and use of small technologies, is a widespread and pervasive phenomenon in contemporary technology. Only three decades ago, launching a satellite into spa
Bipolar Reduction and Behavioral Variability During the Mid-Late Holocene at Eagle's Nest, Mount Sinai Harbor, New York
Recent syntheses for the Long Island Sound region argue for long-term cultural continuity amongst Holocene coastal hunter-gatherers. These notions derive primarily from studies of quartz lithic assemblages, which archaeologists argue show structural stasis over time. The remaining variability is explained with a ‘distance to source' model in which near-coastal sites tend to show a lack of quartz conservation while interior sites show quartz recyc…
New ages from Boomplaas Cave, South Africa, provide increased resolution on late/terminal Pleistocene human behavioural variability
Boomplaas Cave, South Africa, contains a rich archaeological record, with evidence of human occupation from >66,000 years ago until the protohistoric period. Notwithstanding a long history of research at the site, its existing chronology can benefit from revision. Many of the site’s members are currently delimited by only a single conventional radiocarbon date and some of the existing dates were measured on materials now known to be unsuitable fo…
Going big versus going small: Lithic miniaturization in hominin lithic technology
Lithic miniaturization was one of our Pleistocene ancestors' more pervasive stone tool production strategies and it marks a key difference between human and non‐human tool use. Frequently equated with “microlith” production, lithic miniaturization is a more complex, variable, and evolutionarily consequential phenomenon involving small backed tools, bladelets, small retouched tools, flakes, and small cores. In this review, we evaluate lithic minia…
Comparative analysis of Middle Stone Age artifacts in Africa (CoMSAfrica)
Understanding stone tool-making skill acquisition: Experimental methods and evolutionary implications
Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (47 works) · Archaeology (42 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (38 works) · Geography (38 works) · Geology (30 works) · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies (19 works) · Paleontology (19 works) · Pleistocene (14 works) · Geology (13 works) · History (13 works)