Research project: Seasonality, mobility and storage in Palaeolithic hunting societies (Funded by the Leverhulme Trust) 2014-2017

In collaboration with colleagues from Cambridge we will advance the science to test a model that food storage first occurred in Europe 30,000 years ago. This will be done by applying powerful isotopic techniques to the evidence for climatic and seasonal variation that is contained in animal teeth and independently compare this to the growth ring data from charcoal. Second, we will assess the significance of these data in terms of the changes stored foods allowed in settlement size and the expression of complex cultural behaviour. We will be analysing samples from the Czech Republic, Southern Russia and the Ukraine. The spectacular art from these sites featured prominently in the Ice Age Art exhibition at the British Museum earlier this year. The ceramic figurines that were on display form the subject of another Leverhulme Grant awarded to William Davies, also at the Centre for the Archaeology of Human Origins, and where Dr Becky Farbstein is the Postdoctoral Fellow.

Dr Alex Pryor joins the project as its principal researcher. Alex obtained his PhD from Cambridge and has specialised in the palaeoenvironments of the Upper Palaeolithic. In particular he has pioneered the application of stable isotopes to archaeological questions and has published on the role of plant foods in Ice Age Europe.