Traditional adhesive production systems in Zambia and their archaeological implications

This study explores traditional adhesives using an ethnobiological approach within a multisocioecological context in Zambia. Through semi-structured interviews, videotaped demonstrations, and herbarium collections, we investigated the traditional adhesives people know and use, the flexibility of production processes, resource usage, and...

Reply to: Problems with two recent Petri net analyses of Neanderthal adhesive technology

Scaling Palaeolithic tar production processes exponentially increases behavioural complexity

Technological processes, reconstructed from the archaeological record, are used to study the evolution of behaviour and cognition of Neanderthals and early modern humans. In comparisons, technologies that are more complex infer more complex behaviour and cognition. The manufacture of birch bark tar adhesives is regarded as particularly...

Measuring ancient technological complexity and its cognitive implications using Petri nets

We implement a method from computer sciences to address a challenge in Paleolithic archaeology: how to infer cognition differences from material culture. Archaeological material culture is linked to cognition, and more complex ancient technologies are assumed to have required complex cognition. We present an application of Petri net analysis...

Archaeological Adhesives

An adhesive is any substance that bonds different materials together. This broad definition includes materials used in everything from hafted stone tools to monumental architecture. In addition, the combination of bonding, plasticity, and insolubility meant that some adhesives were exploited for waterproofing and sealing of materials, as self...

Modelling and measuring complexity of traditional and ancient technologies using Petri nets

Technologies and their production systems are used by archaeologists and anthropologists to study complexity of socio-technical systems. However, there are several issues that hamper agreement about what constitutes complexity and how we can systematically compare the complexity of production systems. In this work, we propose a novel approach to...

Gregarious behavior, human colonization and social differentiation: An agent-based model

Studies of colonization processes in past human societies often use a standard population model in which population is represented as a single quantity. Real populations in these processes, however, are structured with internal classes or stages, and classes are sometimes created based on social differentiation. In this present work,...