Amanzi Springs is a series of inactive thermal springs located near Kariega in the Eastern Cape o... more Amanzi Springs is a series of inactive thermal springs located near Kariega in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Excavations in the 1960s exposed rare, stratified Acheulian-bearing deposits that were not further investigated over the next 50 years. Reanalysis of the site and its legacy collection has led to a redefined stratigraphic context for the archaeology, a confirmed direct association between Acheulian artefacts and wood, as well as the first reliable age estimates for the site. Thermally transferred optically stimulated luminescence and post-infrared infrared stimulated luminescence dating indicates that the Acheulian deposits from the Amanzi Springs Area 1 spring eye formed during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 11 at ~ 404–390 ka. At this time, higher sea levels of ~13-14m would have placed Amanzi Springs around 7 km from a ria that would have formed along what is today the Swartkops River, and which likely led to spring reactivation. This makes the Amanzi Springs Area 1 assemb...
Strategies for investigating human responses to changes in landscape and climate at lake mungo in the Willandra Lakes, Southeast Australia
1. Complex Relations: Intersections in Time and Space David Frankel, Jennifer Webb, and Susan Law... more 1. Complex Relations: Intersections in Time and Space David Frankel, Jennifer Webb, and Susan Lawrence Part 1: Responses to Environments 2. Perspectives on Global Comparative Hunter-Gatherer Archaeology: Glacial Southwest Tasmania and Southwest France Richard Cosgrove, Jean-Michel Geneste, Jean-Pierre Chadelle, and Jean-Christophe Castel 3. Strategies for Investigating Human Responses to Changes in Landscape and Climate at Lake Mungo in the Willandra Lakes, Southeast Australia Nicola Stern, Jacqueline Tumney, Kathryn E. Fitzsimmons, and Paul Kajewski 4. A New Ecological Framework for Understanding Human-Environment Interactions in Arid Australia Simon J. Holdaway, Matthew Douglass, and Patricia C. Fanning 5. Integrating Hunter-Gatherer Sites, Environments, Technology, and Art in Western Victoria David Frankel & Caroline Bird 6. Pushing the Boundaries: Imperial Responses to Environmental Constraints in Early Islamic Afghanistan David C. Thomas Part 2: Technology and the Environment 7...
Revisiting the “Quartz Problem” in Lithic Studies: A Review and New, Open-access, Experimental Dataset
Lithic Technology, 2021
Quartz artefacts are common components of flaked stone assemblages worldwide. However, flaked qua... more Quartz artefacts are common components of flaked stone assemblages worldwide. However, flaked quartz can appear similar to quartz fractured by natural and other (non-flaking) cultural processes. Despite attempts to address this “quartz problem”, the analysis and interpretation of flaked quartz assemblages remain problematic. Here we present a review of literature investigating the quartz problem, and a case study that examines an experimentally flaked assemblage – including the presence of “markers” widely reported to be diagnostic of knapped quartz. The results suggest that freehand knapping of a vein quartz block will produce mostly shatter and small, undiagnostic pieces with few artifacts exhibiting previously suggested markers. An integrated approach, considering physical features of individual quartz pieces, along with assemblage composition, characteristics and context more broadly, is therefore crucial. The dataset created for this study is freely available, providing the first example of an open-access dataset to aid study of flaked quartz assemblages worldwide.
Harta dalam perkawinan terdiri dari harta pribadi suami istri dan harta bersama. Penggunaan terha... more Harta dalam perkawinan terdiri dari harta pribadi suami istri dan harta bersama. Penggunaan terhadap harta pribadi tidak ada akibat hukumnya terhadap orang lain, namun penggunaan harta istri oleh suami atau harta suami oleh itu ada akibat hukumnya dan harus ada hak dan kewenangan dalam penggunaan tersebut. Berdasarkan hal tersebut, penulis tertarik untuk membahas kedudukan harta suami istri dan kewenangan dalam penggunaan istri terhadap harta suami menurut fiqh al-Syāfi'iyyah. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian pustaka (library research) dengan jenis penelitian kualitatif yang bersifat deskriptif melalui pendekatan yuridis-normatif, menggunakan teknik pengumpulan data dokumentasi. Hasil penelitiannya kedudukan harta suami istri menurut fiqh al-Syāfi'iyyah dapat dikategorikan sebagai harta perkongsian antara suami istri yang tergolong dalam konsep syirkah abdān atau syirkah muwafadlah. Kewenangan istri dalam mempergunakan harta suami menurut fiqh al-Syāfi'iyyah sebenarnya tidak kewenangan bila tanpa izin dari suami. Namun bila suami memberikan izin atau istri mengetahui bahwa suami mengizinkan istrinya mengambil sekadar haknya, maka istri mempunyai kewenangan dan boleh mengambil dan mempergunakannya. Hal ini dikarenakan harta milik pribadi suami sepernuhnya milik suami, meski di dalam harta itu ada sebagian yang menjadi hak istri. Berbeda halnya dengan harta syirkah suami istri, di mana mereka dapat mempergunakannya sebesar hak masing-masing dalam harta tersebut.
Understanding the extinction of Australopithecus and origins of Paranthropus and Homo in South Af... more Understanding the extinction of Australopithecus and origins of Paranthropus and Homo in South Africa has been hampered by the perceived complex geological context of hominin fossils, poor chronological resolution, and a lack of well-preserved early Homo specimens. We describe, date, and contextualize the discovery of two hominin crania from Drimolen Main Quarry in South Africa. At ~2.04 million to 1.95 million years old, DNH 152 represents the earliest definitive occurrence of Paranthropus robustus, and DNH 134 represents the earliest occurrence of a cranium with clear affinities to Homo erectus. These crania also show that Homo, Paranthropus, and Australopithecus were contemporaneous at ~2 million years ago. This high taxonomic diversity is also reflected in non-hominin species and provides evidence of endemic evolution and dispersal during a period of climatic variability.
Bolt’s Farm is a Plio-Pleistocene fossil site located within the southwestern corner of the UNESC... more Bolt’s Farm is a Plio-Pleistocene fossil site located within the southwestern corner of the UNESCO Hominid Fossil Sites of South Africa World Heritage Site. The site is a complex of active caves and more than 20 palaeokarst deposits or pits, many of which were exposed through the action of lime mining in the early 20th century. The pits represent heavily eroded cave systems, and as such associating the palaeocave sediments within and between the pits is difficult, especially as little geochronological data exists. These pits and the associated lime miner’s rubble were first explored by palaeoanthropologists in the late 1930s, but as yet no hominin material has been recovered. The first systematic mapping was undertaken by Frank Peabody as part of the University of California Africa Expedition (UCAE) in 1947–1948. A redrawn version of the map was not published until 1991 by Basil Cooke and this has subsequently been used and modified by recent researchers. Renewed work in the 2000s u...
We consider a continuous-time random walk which is defined as an interpolation of a random walk o... more We consider a continuous-time random walk which is defined as an interpolation of a random walk on a point process on the real line. The distances between neighboring points of the point process are i.i.d. random variables in the normal domain of attraction of an α-stable distribution with 0 < α < 1. This is therefore an example of a random walk in a Lévy random medium. Specifically, it is a generalization of a process known in the physical literature as Lévy-Lorentz gas. We prove that the annealed version of the process is superdiffusive with scaling exponent 1/(α + 1) and identify the limiting process, which is not càdlàg. The proofs are based on the technique of Kesten and Spitzer for random walks in random scenery.
Wala-gaay Guwingal: A twentieth century Aboriginal culturally modified tree with an embedded stone tool
Australian Archaeology, 2020
Abstract Aboriginal culturally modified trees are a distinctive feature of the Australian archaeo... more Abstract Aboriginal culturally modified trees are a distinctive feature of the Australian archaeological record, generating insights into Aboriginal interactions with wood and bark, which rarely survive in archaeological contexts. However, they are under-studied, in decline and typically presumed to pre-date the 20th century. Here we investigate the origin of a scar with a stone tool embedded in the scar overgrowth, located in the Central Tablelands, New South Wales, on Wiradjuri Country. We consider three datasets for this purpose: the tree and scar features; macroscopic and microscopic characteristics of the embedded stone; and chronology and age of the tree and scar. The origin of the scar and its relationship with the stone tool are unclear. However, the results, together with documentary and oral evidence, suggest that Aboriginal people quarried the stone and probably used it as a wedge to lever bark from the tree, or to make a sign. The results provide a rare glimpse into the continuation of Aboriginal cultural practices and knowledge transmission in the second half of the 20th century.
Murrup Tamboore: community-led archaeological investigations at the former Keilor Archaeological Area
This paper was included in the ninth issue of Excavations, Surveys and Heritage Management in Vic... more This paper was included in the ninth issue of Excavations, Surveys and Heritage Management in Victoria and was presented at the annual Victorian Archaeology Colloquium held at La Trobe University on 1 February 2020.
Integrating palaeocaves into palaeolandscapes: Age estimates for the Drimolen hominin bearing palaeocave system and an analysis of cave levels and karstification history across the Gauteng Malmani dolomite, South Africa
Disentangling activity traces on Australian goldfields: An experimental study of quartz assemblages derived from knapping and gold prospecting
Australian Archaeology, 2021
Archaeologists have long grappled with identifying quartz artefacts in the archaeological record.... more Archaeologists have long grappled with identifying quartz artefacts in the archaeological record. The particular fracture mechanics of quartz can complicate the distinction between knapped quartz, other types of deliberately broken quartz, and natural occurrences of this mineral. In Australia, the quartz 'problem' is compounded on goldfields, where quartz debris from knapping, gold mining and other processes has the potential to co-occur. This paper investigates whether quartz assemblages produced by Aboriginal knappers and post-contact gold prospectors each possess a unique 'signature'. It compares two quartz assemblages made experimentally using different but commonly used techniques with potential for creating artefacts with similar features: knapping with a hammerstone, and gold prospecting with a pick-axe. The results indicate that most artefacts in each 1
Contemporaneity of Australopithecus, Paranthropus, and early Homo erectus in South Africa
Science, 2020
Understanding the extinction of Australopithecus and origins of Paranthropus and Homo in South Af... more Understanding the extinction of Australopithecus and origins of Paranthropus and Homo in South Africa has been hampered by the perceived complex geological context of hominin fossils, poor chronological resolution, and a lack of well-preserved early Homo specimens. We describe, date, and contextualize the discovery of two hominin crania from Drimolen Main Quarry in South Africa. At ~2.04 million to 1.95 million years old, DNH 152 represents the earliest definitive occurrence of Paranthropus robustus, and DNH 134 represents the earliest occurrence of a cranium with clear affinities to Homo erectus. These crania also show that Homo, Paranthropus, and Australopithecus were contemporaneous at ~2 million years ago. This high taxonomic diversity is also reflected in non-hominin species and provides evidence of endemic evolution and dispersal during a period of climatic variability.
Quartz artefacts are common components of flaked stone assemblages worldwide. However, flaked qua... more Quartz artefacts are common components of flaked stone assemblages worldwide. However, flaked quartz can appear similar to quartz fractured by natural and other (non-flaking) cultural processes. Despite attempts to address this “quartz problem”, the analysis and interpretation of flaked quartz assemblages remain problematic. Here we present a review of literature investigating the quartz problem, and a case study that examines an experimentally flaked assemblage – including the presence of “markers” widely reported to be diagnostic of knapped quartz. The results suggest that freehand knapping of a vein quartz block will produce mostly shatter and small, undiagnostic pieces with few artifacts exhibiting previously suggested markers. An integrated approach, considering physical features of individual quartz pieces, along with assemblage composition, characteristics and context more broadly, is therefore crucial. The dataset created for this study is freely available, providing the first example of an open-access dataset to aid study of flaked quartz assemblages worldwide.
Terrestrial laser scanning and photogrammetry techniques for documenting fossil-bearing palaeokarst with an example from the Drimolen Palaeocave System, South Africa
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Papers by Paul Kajewski