Behavioural Archaeology

The book entitled 'Hill Kharia and Health Care Practices: Perspectives and Problems'disseminates the health care practices as well as disease aetiology prevalent among the Hill Kharia population in the Indian state of West Bengal. The Hill Kharia is classified as the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) in some of the Indian states and also identified as a vulnerable population in the present context, although the community does not hold the said designation in the state of West Bengal. The present study highlights the habitat, ecology and traditional health care practices in their cultural milieu along with the accessibility and availability of modern health care facilities and programmes in the close vicinity. The field work has been carried out during 2014-2019 in different phases and continued in the southwestern part of West Bengal of the districts Purulia and Bankura. The topic covered indigenous notions of health care, healer and healing practices; ethnomedicinal practices, ethno-botanical knowledge; child rearing and pregnancy care practices etc. prevailing among the Hill Kharia community.

New evidence from the Moravian Bohunician site Ořechov IV demonstrates that the Early Upper Palaeolithic (EUP) is more heterogeneous than previously thought. While Ořechov IV exhibits overarching technological similarities with key Bohunician sites, this assemblage contains several unprecedented elements. These include a significant microblade element, miniaturization in the Levallois blanks and a new intensity of offquarry reduction. These differences are supplemented by differences in raw material composition, specifically an absence of exotic material, decreased implement manufacture and high rates of artefact removal. It is tentatively suggested that these differences indicate the presence of diverse technological traditions and/or cultural groups in the Brno Basin during the EUP.

New evidence from the Moravian Bohunician site Ořechov IV demonstrates that the Early Upper Palaeolithic (EUP) is more heterogeneous than previously thought. While Ořechov IV exhibits overarching technological similarities with key Bohunician sites, this assemblage contains several unprecedented elements. These include a significant microblade element, miniaturization in the Levallois blanks and a new intensity of offquarry reduction. These differences are supplemented by differences in raw material composition, specifically an absence of exotic material, decreased implement manufacture and high rates of artefact removal. It is tentatively suggested that these differences indicate the presence of diverse technological traditions and/or cultural groups in the Brno Basin during the EUP.

New evidence from the Moravian Bohunician site Ořechov IV demonstrates that the Early Upper Palaeolithic (EUP) is more heterogeneous than previously thought. While Ořechov IV exhibits overarching technological similarities with key Bohunician sites, this assemblage contains several unprecedented elements. These include a significant microblade element, miniaturization in the Levallois blanks and a new intensity of offquarry reduction. These differences are supplemented by differences in raw material composition, specifically an absence of exotic material, decreased implement manufacture and high rates of artefact removal. It is tentatively suggested that these differences indicate the presence of diverse technological traditions and/or cultural groups in the Brno Basin during the EUP.

Rangitoto Island, Aotearoa/New Zealand, is the location of a graveyard of abandoned vessels and three communities of baches (circa 1910s–1930s)—small and modest holiday homes. In 2014, an archival and archaeological investigation of 11 discarded watercraft located at Boulder Bay and the bach communities of Beacon End, Rangitoto Wharf and Islington Bay revealed evidence of salvage and reuse of abandoned vessel materials in the construction, modification and use of the island’s baches. This evidence in turn provides insight into opportunistic behaviours of communities unassociated with the maritime industries that created ships’ graveyards, and consequently affords a more well-rounded understanding of post-depositional site formation processes. Influenced by social and economic impacts, the Rangitoto Island bach communities’ resourcefulness enhances our knowledge of behaviours towards ships as sources of material.

This paper presents results from a study of Solutrean points from Upper Solutrean assemblages on the Iberian Peninsula. This supraregional, comparative approach-using a standardized and consistent set of attributes and analytical methods-focuses on the technological organization and strategies involved in the design, production, and use of these tools to shed light on possible reasons for synchronic variability beyond that of the fi nal tool types. The data suggest that regional patterning is deeply rooted in distinct tool manufacture and use behaviors, refl ecting adaptations of technological strategies to the different subsistence and mobility patterns of hunter-gatherer groups living in rather different environments.