Data for: Illuminating High Elevation Seasonal Occupational Duration Using Diversity in Lithic Raw Materials and Tool Types in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, USA

This file includes raw numbers of lithic artifacts from datasets from the Absaroka Mountains and the Beartooth Mountains. They are organized by tool type (bifaces, scrapers and drills/awls), raw materials (chert, chalcedony, obsidian, petrified wood, quartzite, silicified siltstone and volcanic) and time period. The time periods are as follows: Late Prehistoric (200-1,500 cal BP), Late Archaic (1,500-3,200 cal BP), Middle Archaic (3,200-5,700 cal BP), Early Archaic (5,700-8,500 cal BP) and Paleoindian (8,500-12,000 cal BP). In addition, this file includes calculations for the Shannon and Weaver and Simpson diversity indices using these data. Finally, the file includes a comparison of the Shannon Diversity Index and sample size.THIS DATASET IS ARCHIVED AT DANS/EASY, BUT NOT ACCESSIBLE HERE. TO VIEW A LIST OF FILES AND ACCESS THE FILES IN THIS DATASET CLICK ON THE DOI-LINK ABOV

Hunter-gatherer children in the past: An archaeological review

Theoretical engagement and methodological innovations geared towards identifying the presence and activities of children in archaeological contexts has increased in pace over the last decade. This paper presents a systematic review of the literature pertaining to the archaeology of hunter-gatherer children (H. sapiens). The review summarises methods and results from 86 archaeological publications, and finds a number of research areas that show material culture relating to hunter-gatherer childhood, including children's playthings and tools, learning to flintknap, and their involvement in the making of marks, art and footprints. The results demonstrate a diversity of evidence from all inhabited continents covering an extensive time frame. Following a thematic synthesis, we further explore the implications of these data for our understanding of the cultural variability and patterning of hunter-gatherer children in the deep past. We discuss possible interpretative pathways that can shed light on children's learning processes, agency, minds and bodies, use of space, and how they were embedded in social worlds. The paper closes by proposing potential improvements to archaeological and anthropological research that will further progress our understanding of children as active and engaged members of their societies

Terra Preta sanitation: re-discovered from an ancient Amazonian civilisation – integrating sanitation, bio-waste management and agriculture

The recent discovery of the bio-waste and excreta treatment of a former civilisation in the Amazon reveals the possibility of a highly efficient and simple sanitation system. With the end product that was black soil they converted 10% of former infertile soil of the region: Terra Preta do Indio (black soil of the Indians). These soils are still very fertile 500 years after this civilisation had disappeared. Deriving from these concepts, Terra Preta Sanitation (TPS) has been re-developed and adopted. TPS includes urine diversion, addition of a charcoal mixture and is based on lactic-acid-fermentation with subsequent vermicomposting. No water, ventilation or external energy is required. Natural formation processes are employed to transform excreta into lasting fertile soil that can be utilised in urban agriculture. The authors studied the lacto-fermentation of faecal matter with a minimum of 4 weeks followed by vermicomposting. The results showed that lactic-acid fermentation with addition of a charcoal mixture is a suitable option for dry toilets as the container can be closed after usage. Hardly any odour occured even after periods of several weeks. Lactic-acid fermentation alone without addition of bulking agents such as paper and sliced-cut wood to raise the C/N ratio is creating a substrate that is not accepted by worms.</jats:p

How Do Hunter-Gatherer Children Learn Subsistence Skills? A meta-ethnographic review

$\textbf{Purpose:}$ Hunting and gathering is, evolutionarily, the defining subsistence strategy of our species. Studying how children learn foraging skills can, therefore, provide us with key data to test theories about the evolution of human life history, cognition, and social behaviour. Modern foragers, with their vast cultural and environmental diversity, have mostly been studied individually. However, cross-cultural studies allow us to extrapolate forager-wide trends in how, when, and from whom hunter-gatherer children learn their subsistence skills. $\textbf{Method:}$ We perform a meta-ethnography, which allows us to systematically extract, summarize and compare both quantitative and qualitative literature. $\textbf{Results:}$ We found 58 publications focusing on learning subsistence skills. Learning subsistence skills begins early in infancy, when parents take children on foraging expeditions and give them toy versions of tools. In early and middle childhood, children transition into the multi-age playgroup, where they learn skills through play, observation, and participation. By the end of middle childhood, most children are proficient food collectors. However, it is not until adolescence that adults (not necessarily parents) begin directly teaching children complex skills like hunting and complex tool manufacture. Adolescents seek to learn innovations from adults, but do not innovate themselves. $\textbf{Conclusion:}$ These findings support predictive models that find social learning should occur before individual learning. Furthermore, these results show that teaching does indeed exist in hunter-gatherer societies. And, finally, though children are competent foragers by late childhood, learning to extract more complex resources, such as hunting large game, takes a lifetime.Cambridge International Trust, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (award number: 752-2016-0555), Gates Cambridge Trus