Stephen Shennan
Biographic Data
| ID | 3623329 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Stephen Shennan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Stephen |
| FAMILY NAME | Shennan |
| SIGNATURE | SHENNAN S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University College London |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 79 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 897 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 73 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 7 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1981 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 15 |
Population, culture history, and the dynamics of change in European prehistory★
Despite many attacks on its shortcomings, culture history has remained in practice the dominant framework for describing and interpreting European prehistory. It has gained even more salience in recent years because the new information coming from ancient DNA about the genetic ancestry of individuals in prehistory seems to show that this correlates closely with the cultural affiliation of the archaeological material with which they are found, rai…
Chapter 12 Lineages of Cultural Transmission
A Neolithic population model based on new radiocarbon dates from mining, funerary and population scaled activity in the Saint-Gond Marshes region of North East France
Style, Function and Cultural Transmission
New Radiocarbon Dates Show Early Neolithic Date of Flint-Mining and Stone Quarrying in Britain
New radiocarbon ( 14 C) dates suggest a simultaneous appearance of two technologically and geographically distinct axe production practices in Neolithic Britain; igneous open-air quarries in Great Langdale, Cumbria, and from flint mines in southern England at ~4000–3700 cal BC. In light of the recent evidence that farming was introduced at this time by large-scale immigration from northwest Europe, and that expansion within Britain was extremely …
Neolithic population crash in northwest Europe associated with agricultural crisis
The focus of this paper is the Neolithic of northwest Europe, where a rapid growth in population between ~5950 and ~5550 cal yr BP is followed by a decline that lasted until ~4950 cal yr BP. The timing of the increase in population density correlates with the local appearance of farming and is attributed to the advantageous effects of agriculture. However, the subsequent population decline has yet to be satisfactorily explained. One possible expl…
Pattern and Process in Cultural Evolution
This volume offers an integrative approach to the application of evolutionary theory in studies of cultural transmission and social evolution and reveals the enormous range of ways in which Darwinian ideas can lead to productive empirical research, the touchstone of any worthwhile theoretical perspective. While many recent works on cultural evolution adopt a specific theoretical framework, such as dual inheritance theory or human behavioral ecolo…
Supply and demand in prehistory? Economics of Neolithic mining in northwest Europe
Regional Demographic Trends and Settlement Patterns in Central Italy
To our knowledge, the dataset described in this paper represents the largest existing repository of archaeological settlement (7,383 sites) and radiocarbon data (816 samples) for central Italy, spanning the period from the Late Mesolithic (ca. 8,000 BC) to the fall of the Roman Empire (500 AD). This dataset is also one of the six case studies in a Leverhulme Trust funded project called Changing the Face of the Mediterranean: Land Cover and Popula…
The First Farmers of Europe
Knowledge of the origin and spread of farming has been revolutionised in recent years by the application of new scientific techniques, especially the analysis of ancient DNA from human genomes. In this book, Stephen Shennan presents the latest research on the spread of farming by archaeologists, geneticists and other archaeological scientists. He shows that it resulted from a population expansion from present-day Turkey. Using ideas from the disc…
Holocene fluctuations in human population demonstrate repeated links to food production and climate
Significance The relationship between human population, food production, and climate change is a pressing concern in need of high-resolution, long-term perspectives. Archaeological radiocarbon dates have increasingly been used to reconstruct past population dynamics, and Britain and Ireland provide both radiocarbon sampling densities and species-level sample identifications that are globally unrivalled. We use this evidence to demonstrate multipl…
The Evolution of Cultural Diversity
Book description: Virtually all aspects of human behaviour show enormous variation both within and between cultural groups, including material culture, social organisation and language. Thousands of distinct cultural groups exist: about 6,000 languages are spoken today, and it is thought that a far greater number of languages existed in the past but became extinct. Using a Darwinian approach, this book seeks to explain this rich cultural variatio…
Prehistoric Europe
The study of European prehistory has been revolutionized in recent years by the rapid growth rate of archeological discovery, advances in dating methods and the application of scientific techniques to archaeological material and new archaeological aims and frameworks of interpretation. Whereas previous work concentrated on the recovery and description of material remains, the main focus is now on the reconstruction of prehistoric societies and th…
Multilevel processes and cultural adaptation
Cultural adaptation has become central in the context of accelerated global change with authors increasingly acknowledging the importance of understanding multilevel processes that operate as adaptation takes place. We explore the importance of multilevel processes in explaining cultural adaptation by describing how processes leading to cultural (mis)adaptation are linked through a complex nested hierarchy, where the lower levels combine into new…
Connecting Networks: Characterising Contact by Measuring Lithic Exchange in the European Neolithic
Demography and Cultural Evolution
Trying to explain the increase in cultural complexity over the long term of human history has long been an interest of anthropology and of historical social sciences more generally. In recent years, interest has grown rapidly in the idea that a key factor in accounting for it might be the size of the human population itself and the extent of interaction between people, because of the effect these have on the innovation rates in populations and on…
Simulating Geographical Variation in Material Culture
Technology, Evolution of
Comment on Sterelny and Watkins
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Connecting Networks
A radiocarbon chronology of European flint mines suggests a link to population patterns
On the relevance of the European Neolithic
Sustainability, culture change, inequality and global health are among the much-discussed challenges of our time, and rightly so, given the drastic effects such variables can have on modern populations. Yet with many populations today living in tightly connected geographic communities—cities, for example—or in highly networked electronic communities, can we still learn anything about societal challenges by studying simple farming communities from…
Data Sharing Reveals Complexity in the Westward Spread of Domestic Animals across Neolithic Turkey
This study presents the results of a major data integration project bringing together primary archaeozoological data for over 200,000 faunal specimens excavated from seventeen sites in Turkey spanning the Epipaleolithic through Chalcolithic periods, c. 18,000-4,000 cal BC, in order to document the initial westward spread of domestic livestock across Neolithic central and western Turkey. From these shared datasets we demonstrate that the westward …
The Pre-History of Urban Scaling
Cities are increasingly the fundamental socio-economic units of human societies worldwide, but we still lack a unified characterization of urbanization that captures the social processes realized by cities across time and space. This is especially important for understanding the role of cities in the history of human civilization and for determining whether studies of ancient cities are relevant for contemporary science and policy. As a step in t…
Director’s Report 2013–14
The Director of the UCL Institute of Archaeology reports on events since the publication of the last issue of Archaeology International (No. 16), for 2012–13, and comments on current developments
Reconstructing regional population fluctuations in the European Neolithic using radiocarbon dates
In a previous study we presented a new method that used summed probability distributions (SPD) of radiocarbon dates as a proxy for population levels, and Monte-Carlo simulation to test the significance of the observed fluctuations in the context of uncertainty in the calibration curve and archaeological sampling. The method allowed us to identify periods of significant short-term population change, caveated with the fact that around 5% of these p…
Demography and Cultural Innovation
In recent years there has been a major growth of interest in exploring the analogies between the genetic transmission of information from one generation to the next and the processes of cultural transmission, in an attempt to obtain a greater understanding of how culture change occurs. This article uses computer simulation to explore the implications of a specific model of the relationship between demography and innovation within an evolutionary …
Prehistoric population history
Archaeobotanical Evidence for the Spread of Farming in the Eastern Mediterranean
A major topic of debate in Old World prehistory is the relative importance of population movement versus cultural diffusion in explaining the spread of agriculture into and across Europe following its inception in southwestern Asia. An important set of data that has surprisingly been largely absent from this debate is the preserved crops and associated weeds of the earliest farmers. An analysis of archaeobotanical data from 40 aceramic Neolithic …
The First Farmers of Europe
Knowledge of the origin and spread of farming has been revolutionised in recent years by the application of new scientific techniques, especially the analysis of ancient DNA from human genomes. In this book, Stephen Shennan presents the latest research on the spread of farming by archaeologists, geneticists and other archaeological scientists. He shows that it resulted from a population expansion from present-day Turkey. Using ideas from the disc…
Radiocarbon evidence indicates that migrants introduced farming to Britain
The Evolution of Cultural Diversity
Book description: Virtually all aspects of human behaviour show enormous variation both within and between cultural groups, including material culture, social organisation and language. Thousands of distinct cultural groups exist: about 6,000 languages are spoken today, and it is thought that a far greater number of languages existed in the past but became extinct. Using a Darwinian approach, this book seeks to explain this rich cultural variatio…
Meta-analysis of zooarchaeological data from SW Asia and SE Europe provides insight into the origins and spread of animal husbandry
Evolutionary Demography and the Population History of the European Early Neolithic
In this paper I propose that evolutionary demography and associated theory from human behavioral ecology provide a strong basis for explaining the available evidence for the patterns observed in the first agricultural settlement of Europe in the 7th-5th millennium cal. BC, linking together a variety of what have previously been disconnected observations and casting doubt on some long-standing existing models. An outline of relevant aspects of lif…
The Archaeology of Human Ancestry
Human social life is constrained and defined by our cognitive and emotional dispositions, which are the legacy of our foraging ancestors. But how difficult is it to reconstruct the social systems and cultural traditions of those ancestors? The Archaeology of Human Ancestry provides a stimulating and provocative answer, in which archaeologists and biological anthropologists set out and demonstrate their reconstructive methods. Contributors use obs…
The spread of Neolithic plant economies from the Near East to northwest Europe
Neolithic transition in Europe
Understanding the introduction of farming and the adoption of Neolithic culture continues to be a major research objective in Europe. The authors make use of a new database of radiocarbon dates from Mesolithic and Neolithic sites to map the transition. While the overall effect is still a diffusion into Europe from the south-east, detailed spatial analysis reveals fascinating local variations: in some places change was rapid, and one population re…
Towards a Critical Archaeology
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Central Europe in the third millennium B.C
Archaeology and evolutionary ecology
The evolutionary anthropologist Eric Smith has recently suggested that there are three styles in the evolutionary analysis of human behaviour (Smith 2000): evolutionary psychology, behavioural ecology and dual inheritance theory. The second style represents what we might call the classical Darwinian view, drawing its inspiration from the assumption that in evolutionary terms humans are little different from any other animal, simply another unique…
Ranking, Resource and Exchange
1. Socio-economic change in ranked societies Colin Renfrew Part I. The emergence of hierarchical structure : 2. Mobile resources: settlement and exchange in early agricultural Europe Andrew Sherratt 3. From minimal to moderate ranking Susan Shennan 4. Exchange and ranking: the role of amber in the earlier bronze age of Europe Stephen Shennan 5. Autonomy, ranking and resources in Iberian prehistory Robert Chapman 6. Social boundaries and land boun…
The origins and spread of stock-keeping
It has long been recognised that the proportions of Neolithic domestic animal species—cattle, pig and sheep/goat—vary from region to region, but it has hitherto been unclear how much this variability is related to cultural practices or to environmental constraints. This study uses hundreds of faunal assemblages from across Neolithic Europe to reveal the distribution of animal use between north and south, east and west. The remarkable results pres…
New Radiocarbon Dates Show Early Neolithic Date of Flint-Mining and Stone Quarrying in Britain
New radiocarbon ( 14 C) dates suggest a simultaneous appearance of two technologically and geographically distinct axe production practices in Neolithic Britain; igneous open-air quarries in Great Langdale, Cumbria, and from flint mines in southern England at ~4000–3700 cal BC. In light of the recent evidence that farming was introduced at this time by large-scale immigration from northwest Europe, and that expansion within Britain was extremely …
Cost, benefit and value in the organization of early European copper production
How can archaeologists evaluate the ‘cost of production’ in prehistory? Stephen Shennan explores ethnographic examples, Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage and archaeological evidence from the eastern Alps in a stimulating discussion of Bronze Age production and exchange
Archaeology as archaeology or as anthropology? Clarke's Analytical archaeology and the Binfords'New perspectives in archaeology 21 years on
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Supply and demand in prehistory? Economics of Neolithic mining in northwest Europe
The chronology of culture
Archaeologists have long sought appropriate ways to describe the duration and floruit of archaeological cultures in statistical terms. Thus far, chronological reasoning has been largely reliant on typological sequences. Using summed probability distributions, the authors here compare radiocarbon dates for a series of European Neolithic cultures with their generally accepted ‘standard’ date ranges and with the greater precision afforded by dendroc…
Population, culture history, and the dynamics of change in European prehistory★
Despite many attacks on its shortcomings, culture history has remained in practice the dominant framework for describing and interpreting European prehistory. It has gained even more salience in recent years because the new information coming from ancient DNA about the genetic ancestry of individuals in prehistory seems to show that this correlates closely with the cultural affiliation of the archaeological material with which they are found, rai…
Archaeology evolving
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Prehistoric Europe
The study of European prehistory has been revolutionized in recent years by the rapid growth rate of archeological discovery, advances in dating methods and the application of scientific techniques to archaeological material and new archaeological aims and frameworks of interpretation. Whereas previous work concentrated on the recovery and description of material remains, the main focus is now on the reconstruction of prehistoric societies and th…
Northamptonshire
The Beaker Folk
Malé Kosihy
Malé Kosihy: Osada Zo Staršej Doby Bronzovej. By A. Točík. Materialia Archaeologica Slovaca Volume 4. Slovak Academy of Sciences, Nitra, 1981. In Slovak with German and Russian summaries. - Volume 49 Issue 1
Ranking, Resource and Exchange
1. Socio-economic change in ranked societies Colin Renfrew Part I. The emergence of hierarchical structure : 2. Mobile resources: settlement and exchange in early agricultural Europe Andrew Sherratt 3. From minimal to moderate ranking Susan Shennan 4. Exchange and ranking: the role of amber in the earlier bronze age of Europe Stephen Shennan 5. Autonomy, ranking and resources in Iberian prehistory Robert Chapman 6. Social boundaries and land boun…
Monuments
Central Europe in the third millennium B.C
Towards a Critical Archaeology
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Archaeology as archaeology or as anthropology? Clarke's Analytical archaeology and the Binfords'New perspectives in archaeology 21 years on
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
The nature of archaeological arguments
We try (most of us) to be logical in our work. We listen to arguments (most of us) and try to be persuaded by that argument which is better - because it is more logical, because it is more reasonable, because it fits the facts better. But how reliably does one tell which is better - except by illogical intuition? Computer-aided study of the structure of arguments may help
Qualifying Diversity in Archaeology
Quantifying Archaeology
Commodities, Transactions, and Growth in the Central-European Early Bronze Age
This paper suggests that recent studies of the beginning of the Bronze Age and the growth of a bronze 'industry' have placed too much emphasis on the importance of social ranking and the control of resources by elites. Copper had been in demand for over 2000 years before the beginning of the Bronze Age. What changed at this time was the emergence of a technology that gave access to virtually unlimited copper supplies and contributed to a process …
Chiefdoms
l. The evolution of chiefdoms Timothy Earle 2. Chiefdoms, states, and systems of social evolution Kristian Kristiansen 3. The pattern of change in British prehistory Richard Bradley 4. Property rights and the evolution of chiefdoms Timothy Earle 5. Lords of the waste: predation, pastoral production, and the process of stratification among the Eastern Tuaregs Candelario Saenz 6. Chiefship and competitive involution: the Marquesas Islands of easter…
Grounding arguments about burials
Lohof's paper represents an interesting and important attempt to analyse and interpret Late Neolithic and earlier Bronze Age burial practices in the Netherlands. His suggestions are of wide relevance, not least because the phenomena he discusses were widely distributed over much of Europe. In what follows I wish to raise a number of issues which I think need clarifying, in order to elicit his response
Mind over matter
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Villagers of the Maros
Cost, benefit and value in the organization of early European copper production
How can archaeologists evaluate the ‘cost of production’ in prehistory? Stephen Shennan explores ethnographic examples, Ricardo's Law of Comparative Advantage and archaeological evidence from the eastern Alps in a stimulating discussion of Bronze Age production and exchange
Population, Culture History, and the Dynamics of Culture Change
If archaeology is to succeed in explaining culture change, it must view the archaeological record from the perspective of cultural “descent with modification,” in so doing returning to many of the issues addressed by the culture‐history agenda rejected 30–40 years ago. This involves a consideration of the processes affecting cultural transmission. Many of these are strongly affected by the history of the biological populations in which cultural t…
The evolutionary analysis of cultural behaviour
Demography and Cultural Innovation
In recent years there has been a major growth of interest in exploring the analogies between the genetic transmission of information from one generation to the next and the processes of cultural transmission, in an attempt to obtain a greater understanding of how culture change occurs. This article uses computer simulation to explore the implications of a specific model of the relationship between demography and innovation within an evolutionary …
Archaeology and evolutionary ecology
The evolutionary anthropologist Eric Smith has recently suggested that there are three styles in the evolutionary analysis of human behaviour (Smith 2000): evolutionary psychology, behavioural ecology and dual inheritance theory. The second style represents what we might call the classical Darwinian view, drawing its inspiration from the assumption that in evolutionary terms humans are little different from any other animal, simply another unique…
Archaeology evolving
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Cultural transmission, language, and basketry traditions amongst the California Indians
Style and Function
Neolithic transition in Europe
Understanding the introduction of farming and the adoption of Neolithic culture continues to be a major research objective in Europe. The authors make use of a new database of radiocarbon dates from Mesolithic and Neolithic sites to map the transition. While the overall effect is still a diffusion into Europe from the south-east, detailed spatial analysis reveals fascinating local variations: in some places change was rapid, and one population re…
Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (47 works) · Archaeology (45 works) · Geography (45 works) · History (35 works) · Sociology (29 works) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (26 works) · Biology (24 works) · Demography (20 works) · Population (20 works) · Anthropology (18 works)