North African Origins of Symbolically Mediated Behaviour and the Aterian

The appearance of personal ornaments in the Middle Palaeolithic/Middle Stone Age of North Africa has been widely recognised as indicating that archaic modern humans in this region had developed sophisticated ways of sharing, storing and transmitting coded information within and across groups. In thi...

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Main Authors: Barton, N, d'Errico, F
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: 2012
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author Barton, N
d'Errico, F
author_facet Barton, N
d'Errico, F
author_sort Barton, N
collection OXFORD
description The appearance of personal ornaments in the Middle Palaeolithic/Middle Stone Age of North Africa has been widely recognised as indicating that archaic modern humans in this region had developed sophisticated ways of sharing, storing and transmitting coded information within and across groups. In this paper we discuss whether the first appearance of explicitly symbolic objects such as Nassarius shell beads in North Africa reflected a stage of rapid acceleration in cultural change across this region. A related issue concerns the question of what if any external factors may have given rise to innovations in technology and symbolic material culture and, finally, why these developments may have lacked longevity and ended in cultural loss as they probably also did in other parts of Africa. © 2012 Elsevier B.V.
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spelling oxford-uuid:3205bd56-db3e-48a5-8a1d-64c071c10cc22022-03-26T13:11:30ZNorth African Origins of Symbolically Mediated Behaviour and the AterianJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:3205bd56-db3e-48a5-8a1d-64c071c10cc2EnglishSymplectic Elements at Oxford2012Barton, Nd'Errico, FThe appearance of personal ornaments in the Middle Palaeolithic/Middle Stone Age of North Africa has been widely recognised as indicating that archaic modern humans in this region had developed sophisticated ways of sharing, storing and transmitting coded information within and across groups. In this paper we discuss whether the first appearance of explicitly symbolic objects such as Nassarius shell beads in North Africa reflected a stage of rapid acceleration in cultural change across this region. A related issue concerns the question of what if any external factors may have given rise to innovations in technology and symbolic material culture and, finally, why these developments may have lacked longevity and ended in cultural loss as they probably also did in other parts of Africa. © 2012 Elsevier B.V.
spellingShingle Barton, N
d'Errico, F
North African Origins of Symbolically Mediated Behaviour and the Aterian
title North African Origins of Symbolically Mediated Behaviour and the Aterian
title_full North African Origins of Symbolically Mediated Behaviour and the Aterian
title_fullStr North African Origins of Symbolically Mediated Behaviour and the Aterian
title_full_unstemmed North African Origins of Symbolically Mediated Behaviour and the Aterian
title_short North African Origins of Symbolically Mediated Behaviour and the Aterian
title_sort north african origins of symbolically mediated behaviour and the aterian
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