A hunter-gatherer landscape: Southwest Germany in the Late Paleolithic and Mesolithic
✍ Scribed by Joel Boaz
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1999
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 64 KB
- Volume
- 14
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0883-6353
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
In the study of prehistoric hunter-gatherers it is much easier to propose models of settlement and subsistence than it is to document them. Such documentation requires a long-term commitment to a research area and the collection, analysis, and interpretation of basic data: a commitment that is, unfortunately, all too uncommon. In this volume Michael Jochim presents the results of a long-term commitment to the study of the Late Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic in Southwest Germany. Jochim (1976) presented and tested a model of hunter-gatherer settlement and subsistence for this region. In the intervening 20 years, Jochim has continued research in the same region, and the results are presented in this volume. While these new data are weighed against Jochim's earlier work, this book cannot solely be considered a test of his earlier work. This volume also addresses a number of the new questions that have appeared over the last 20 years.
The appeal of this book is varied. In terms of the strictly geoarchaeological, the relevance of this book is limited, as geological concerns or methodology, other than a review of paleolclimates, are not addressed in this work. For those interested in the study of prehistoric hunter-gatherers, this book is of interest from theoretical, methodological, and cultural historical standpoints. This book is obviously of interest to those specifically interested in the Mesolithic, but the brevity of the presentations of the primary data somewhat limits its utility.
The chapters in this book can be divided into three sections. The first group of chapters (1-6) provide summaries of the background data, the second (Chapters 7-11) document the results of Jochim's research in Southwest Germany, and the third group (Chapters 12-16) presents new syntheses of the Late Palaeolithic and Mesolithic in Southwest Germany.
The introductory chapters all provide concise summaries of the data that are relevant to topics addressed in this volume, as well as its relationship to Jochim's earlier work. In these sections Jochim has chosen clear, concise presentations, rather than detailed descriptions and analysis of research traditions. This is most clearly seen in the extremely brief descriptions of the history of Mesolithic research in Southwestern Germany. German Mesolithic research has long traditions in the development of chronological systematics. The chronological scheme more often reflects the history of research, rather than an objective description of prehistory. As these chronological divisions define the periods and transitions that are the object of study, a more critical analysis of research traditions is necessary in order to evaluate the validity of the chronological divisions.
Jochim's choice of brevity of presentation is clearly evident in Chapter 2, which provides the theoretical background for the study. The stated goal of this section is to discuss what Jochim sees as the "dominant themes" in the study of prehistoric hunter-gatherers. While the themes that are discussed are grouped under the heading of evolutionary ecology, the focus is upon the discussion of the variables used in his original study, but the relationship of these considerations to evolutionary ecology is not explicitly described. As one of the most eloquent of the ecological archaeologists Jochim's assessment of the status of evolutionary ecology would have been a major asset in this section. In the final sections of this chapter Jochim shifts focus away from human-environment relationships and instead attempts to discuss relationships between humans. While it is a positive sign that Jochim acknowledges that there is something "Beyond Ecology," the importance of ideology and social relationships are only cursorily discussed and presented as currently untestable.
Concise presentations of background material are again the order of the day in Chapter 3, which