J C French
Biographic Data
| ID | 39754 |
|---|---|
| NAME | J C French |
| GIVEN NAMES | J C |
| FAMILY NAME | French |
| SIGNATURE | FRENCH J C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Liverpool |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5947-6669 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 133 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1935 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
The origins and development of mobile containers: Biocultural perspectives on Pleistocene containment
The first comprehensive assessment of the evidence for Pleistocene mobile containers. • Presents a new database of Pleistocene containment technology. • Identifies a ‘container transition’ in human evolution from a primate-to-hominin engagement with containment technology. • Proposes a biocultural perspective viewing container use and manufacture as a process of niche construction. Containers are ubiquitous and universal across all present-day so…
The edge is already there: Experimental insights into the origins of stone tool technology
Natural edges may have served as precursors to manufactured sharp edges. • Free-hand percussion required incremental technical advancements to emerge. • Early stone tool making may have required instruction or guidance. The origins of stone tool technology remain a subject of ongoing debate. To investigate the early stages of this technological evolution, we conducted an experiment examining how naïve contemporary humans approached the task of cu…
An experimental investigation into the oxygen consumption of upper palaeolithic illumination technology: A response to Kedar, Kedar, & Barkai
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, …
Social and emotional cognition in Pleistocene hominin evolution: The role of biocultural processes
Paleodemography of the Upper Paleolithic in Europe, Latest Perspectives on
Recent research on the paleodemography of the European Upper Paleolithic reveals the dynamic population history of the first Homo sapiens on the continent. Between ∼45,000 and 12,000 years ago, both the size and the distribution of the European metapopulation fluctuated, often in direct response to climatic and environmental shifts. Absolute estimates of population size throughout this period vary widely, although it is clear that more people inh…
Moving far or moving often? A neglected axis of variation in hunter-gatherer mobility
As one of the hallmarks of a hunting and gathering lifestyle, mobility is a primary concern for both archaeologists and ethnographers studying hunter-gatherer settlement systems. Most research considering hunter-gatherer mobility, however, concentrates primarily on the total distance moved by a group per annum. This paper develops a novel metric, the Distance/Frequency Index (DFI), which describes a continuum between relatively frequent, short mo…
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…
Palaeolithic Europe: A Demographic and Social Prehistory
In this book, Jennifer French presents a new synthesis of the archaeological, palaeoanthropological, and palaeogenetic records of the European Palaeolithic, adopting a unique demographic perspective on these first two-million years of European prehistory. Unlike prevailing narratives of demographic stasis, she emphasises the dynamism of Palaeolithic populations of both our evolutionary ancestors and members of our own species across four demograp…
Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to Ecological Changes, Social Behaviour and Human Intergroup Tolerance 300,000 to 30,000 BP
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10816-020-09503-5
Studying at UCL Institute of Archaeology: Past and Present
Ranked in the top five in the UK for archaeology (no. 2 in 2019), for the 13 th year in a row, in The Guardian University Guide League Tables. Ranked in the top ten for student satisfaction in The Complete University Guide 2019 League Table of UK archaeology departments (published in May 2019). Twitter: @UCLarchaeology Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UCLArchaeology Instagram: uclarchaeology
Reconstructing prehistoric demography: What role for extant hunter‐gatherers
Demography is central to biological, behavioral, and cultural evolution. Knowledge of the demography of prehistoric populations of both Homo sapiens and earlier members of the genus Homo is, therefore, key to the study of human evolution. Unfortunately, demographic processes (fertility, mortality, migration) leave little mark on the archeological and paleoanthropological records. One common solution to this issue is the application of demographic…
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…
Archaeological Demography as a Tool for the Study of Women and Gender in the Past
In the last 20 years, demography has re-emerged as a key research area within archaeology. This research has refined archaeological demographic methods and examined the relationships between demographic, cultural and environmental change. Here, I discuss how the results of the growing corpus of archaeological demographic studies can contribute to gender archaeology, aiding the incorporation of women into narratives of the past. By considering the…
Studying at UCL Institute of Archaeology: Past and Present
The use of ethnographic data in Neanderthal archaeological research: Recent trends and their interpretative implications
Archaeologists frequently use ethnographic data on recent hunter-gatherers to interpret and analyse data from prehistoric groups. This use of ethnographic data is not limited to the archaeology of Homo sapiens, but also to that of archaic hominins. In this article, I examine how archaeologists use ethnographic data in their research on Neanderthals. An analysis of articles published in five international journals in the ‘genomic era’ of Neanderth…
Studying at UCL Institute of Archaeology: Past and Present
Ranked in the top 5 in the UK for archaeology, for the 11th year in a row, in The Guardian University Guide League Tables. Ranked in the top five for student satisfaction in The Complete University Guide 2018 League Table of UK archaeology departments (published in May 2017). Twitter: @UCLarchaeology Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UCLArchaeology_ Instagram: ucl_archaeology
Upper Palaeolithic population histories of Southwestern France: A comparison of the demographic signatures of 14C date distributions and archaeological site counts
Radiocarbon date frequency distributions and archaeological site counts are two popular proxies used to investigate prehistoric demography, following the assumption that variations in these data reflect fluctuations in the relative size and distribution of past populations. However, the two approaches are rarely applied to the same data-set and their applicability is heavily conditioned by the archaeological record in question, particularly resea…
Demography and the Palaeolithic Archaeological Record
The demography of the Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers of Southwestern France: A multi-proxy approach using archaeological data
Demographic change is increasingly cited as an explanation for many of the patterns seen in the Palaeolithic archaeological record, following the assumption of a relationship between population size and material culture espoused by dual inheritance theory. However, the empirical testing of this relationship relies on the ability to extract information about past population patterns from the archaeological record. Using the extensive and well-stud…
Population changes across the Neanderthal-to-modern-human transition in western France: A reply to Dogandžić and McPherron (2013)
Tenfold Population Increase in Western Europe at the Neandertal–to–Modern Human Transition
The ability of modern humans to sustain larger populations contributed to the decline of Neandertals in Western Europe.
Himalayan Art
Demography and the Palaeolithic Archaeological Record
Upper Palaeolithic population histories of Southwestern France: A comparison of the demographic signatures of 14C date distributions and archaeological site counts
Radiocarbon date frequency distributions and archaeological site counts are two popular proxies used to investigate prehistoric demography, following the assumption that variations in these data reflect fluctuations in the relative size and distribution of past populations. However, the two approaches are rarely applied to the same data-set and their applicability is heavily conditioned by the archaeological record in question, particularly resea…
The demography of the Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers of Southwestern France: A multi-proxy approach using archaeological data
Demographic change is increasingly cited as an explanation for many of the patterns seen in the Palaeolithic archaeological record, following the assumption of a relationship between population size and material culture espoused by dual inheritance theory. However, the empirical testing of this relationship relies on the ability to extract information about past population patterns from the archaeological record. Using the extensive and well-stud…
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…
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…
Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to Ecological Changes, Social Behaviour and Human Intergroup Tolerance 300,000 to 30,000 BP
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10816-020-09503-5
Archaeological Demography as a Tool for the Study of Women and Gender in the Past
In the last 20 years, demography has re-emerged as a key research area within archaeology. This research has refined archaeological demographic methods and examined the relationships between demographic, cultural and environmental change. Here, I discuss how the results of the growing corpus of archaeological demographic studies can contribute to gender archaeology, aiding the incorporation of women into narratives of the past. By considering the…
Population changes across the Neanderthal-to-modern-human transition in western France: A reply to Dogandžić and McPherron (2013)
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, …
Moving far or moving often? A neglected axis of variation in hunter-gatherer mobility
As one of the hallmarks of a hunting and gathering lifestyle, mobility is a primary concern for both archaeologists and ethnographers studying hunter-gatherer settlement systems. Most research considering hunter-gatherer mobility, however, concentrates primarily on the total distance moved by a group per annum. This paper develops a novel metric, the Distance/Frequency Index (DFI), which describes a continuum between relatively frequent, short mo…
Himalayan Art
Tenfold Population Increase in Western Europe at the Neandertal–to–Modern Human Transition
The ability of modern humans to sustain larger populations contributed to the decline of Neandertals in Western Europe.
Population changes across the Neanderthal-to-modern-human transition in western France: A reply to Dogandžić and McPherron (2013)
Upper Palaeolithic population histories of Southwestern France: A comparison of the demographic signatures of 14C date distributions and archaeological site counts
Radiocarbon date frequency distributions and archaeological site counts are two popular proxies used to investigate prehistoric demography, following the assumption that variations in these data reflect fluctuations in the relative size and distribution of past populations. However, the two approaches are rarely applied to the same data-set and their applicability is heavily conditioned by the archaeological record in question, particularly resea…
Demography and the Palaeolithic Archaeological Record
The demography of the Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers of Southwestern France: A multi-proxy approach using archaeological data
Demographic change is increasingly cited as an explanation for many of the patterns seen in the Palaeolithic archaeological record, following the assumption of a relationship between population size and material culture espoused by dual inheritance theory. However, the empirical testing of this relationship relies on the ability to extract information about past population patterns from the archaeological record. Using the extensive and well-stud…
Studying at UCL Institute of Archaeology: Past and Present
Ranked in the top 5 in the UK for archaeology, for the 11th year in a row, in The Guardian University Guide League Tables. Ranked in the top five for student satisfaction in The Complete University Guide 2018 League Table of UK archaeology departments (published in May 2017). Twitter: @UCLarchaeology Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UCLArchaeology_ Instagram: ucl_archaeology
Studying at UCL Institute of Archaeology: Past and Present
The use of ethnographic data in Neanderthal archaeological research: Recent trends and their interpretative implications
Archaeologists frequently use ethnographic data on recent hunter-gatherers to interpret and analyse data from prehistoric groups. This use of ethnographic data is not limited to the archaeology of Homo sapiens, but also to that of archaic hominins. In this article, I examine how archaeologists use ethnographic data in their research on Neanderthals. An analysis of articles published in five international journals in the ‘genomic era’ of Neanderth…
Archaeological Demography as a Tool for the Study of Women and Gender in the Past
In the last 20 years, demography has re-emerged as a key research area within archaeology. This research has refined archaeological demographic methods and examined the relationships between demographic, cultural and environmental change. Here, I discuss how the results of the growing corpus of archaeological demographic studies can contribute to gender archaeology, aiding the incorporation of women into narratives of the past. By considering the…
Studying at UCL Institute of Archaeology: Past and Present
Ranked in the top five in the UK for archaeology (no. 2 in 2019), for the 13 th year in a row, in The Guardian University Guide League Tables. Ranked in the top ten for student satisfaction in The Complete University Guide 2019 League Table of UK archaeology departments (published in May 2019). Twitter: @UCLarchaeology Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UCLArchaeology Instagram: uclarchaeology
Reconstructing prehistoric demography: What role for extant hunter‐gatherers
Demography is central to biological, behavioral, and cultural evolution. Knowledge of the demography of prehistoric populations of both Homo sapiens and earlier members of the genus Homo is, therefore, key to the study of human evolution. Unfortunately, demographic processes (fertility, mortality, migration) leave little mark on the archeological and paleoanthropological records. One common solution to this issue is the application of demographic…
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…
Palaeolithic Europe: A Demographic and Social Prehistory
In this book, Jennifer French presents a new synthesis of the archaeological, palaeoanthropological, and palaeogenetic records of the European Palaeolithic, adopting a unique demographic perspective on these first two-million years of European prehistory. Unlike prevailing narratives of demographic stasis, she emphasises the dynamism of Palaeolithic populations of both our evolutionary ancestors and members of our own species across four demograp…
Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to Ecological Changes, Social Behaviour and Human Intergroup Tolerance 300,000 to 30,000 BP
The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10816-020-09503-5
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…
Moving far or moving often? A neglected axis of variation in hunter-gatherer mobility
As one of the hallmarks of a hunting and gathering lifestyle, mobility is a primary concern for both archaeologists and ethnographers studying hunter-gatherer settlement systems. Most research considering hunter-gatherer mobility, however, concentrates primarily on the total distance moved by a group per annum. This paper develops a novel metric, the Distance/Frequency Index (DFI), which describes a continuum between relatively frequent, short mo…
Paleodemography of the Upper Paleolithic in Europe, Latest Perspectives on
Recent research on the paleodemography of the European Upper Paleolithic reveals the dynamic population history of the first Homo sapiens on the continent. Between ∼45,000 and 12,000 years ago, both the size and the distribution of the European metapopulation fluctuated, often in direct response to climatic and environmental shifts. Absolute estimates of population size throughout this period vary widely, although it is clear that more people inh…
An experimental investigation into the oxygen consumption of upper palaeolithic illumination technology: A response to Kedar, Kedar, & Barkai
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, …
Social and emotional cognition in Pleistocene hominin evolution: The role of biocultural processes
The origins and development of mobile containers: Biocultural perspectives on Pleistocene containment
The first comprehensive assessment of the evidence for Pleistocene mobile containers. • Presents a new database of Pleistocene containment technology. • Identifies a ‘container transition’ in human evolution from a primate-to-hominin engagement with containment technology. • Proposes a biocultural perspective viewing container use and manufacture as a process of niche construction. Containers are ubiquitous and universal across all present-day so…
The edge is already there: Experimental insights into the origins of stone tool technology
Natural edges may have served as precursors to manufactured sharp edges. • Free-hand percussion required incremental technical advancements to emerge. • Early stone tool making may have required instruction or guidance. The origins of stone tool technology remain a subject of ongoing debate. To investigate the early stages of this technological evolution, we conducted an experiment examining how naïve contemporary humans approached the task of cu…
Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (17 works) · Archaeology (16 works) · Geography (15 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (14 works) · Demography (11 works) · Population (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · History (9 works) · Biology (7 works) · Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies (7 works)