Paleoanthropology Society
2017 Meeting
Vancouver, Canada

First Announcement and Call for Papers


The annual Paleoanthropology Society meeting will be held in Vancouver on Tuesday and Wednesday, March 28 and 29 in conjunction with the Society for American Archaeology. The conference hotel is the Hyatt Regency Vancouver. Additional useful hotel information can be obtained from the SAA web site: www.saa.org. Meeting rooms are yet to be assigned.

Non-concurrent oral and poster sessions will be held with oral presentations limited to 15 minutes. If you wish to have either a poster or oral presentation considered for inclusion, you must submit an abstract via the Society’s online submission system before December 1. (www.paleoanthro.org). Abstracts must not exceed 300 words of text (not counting address, title, acknowledgments, etc.), and those submitted by any other route will be declined. The web system will request the name, title, institutional affiliation, mailing and email address of all authors. Please consider the nature of the material you wish to present and on this basis decide whether a poster or oral presentation will be most effective: then click the appropriate box.

Partial travel support will be available for some individuals such as graduate students and other presenters who do not have "normal" access to travel funds. If you wish to apply for such funding please note this on the web form.

The registration fee is $40 and annual membership in the Society is $20. Both are payable in three ways (We would be grateful if individuals would use options 1 and 2 to the maximum extent possible):

  1. Electronically via Paypal. It allows the establishment of new accounts. We very strongly request you to use this option.
  2. By check, payable in US dollars to "Paleoanthropology Society." Send to:
    John Yellen
    810 E Street SE
    Washington DC 20003
  3. By check or US dollars at registration.

Recall that access to our electronic journal PaleoAnthropology is free to all, paid member or not, but your membership fees defray the cost of publishing the journal, as well as travel by students and international colleagues and other expenses, and they are much appreciated. Please check the Society web site for new and updated information on many topics. You may contact the Society directly by email at jyellen@nsf.gov.

The Member Directory of our web site permits you to check and update your name and address (please advise the Secretary on the site if you find duplicate listings for yourself) and also determine if you have already paid your Society dues and meeting registration for a given year; note that our dues year begins on August 1.

Podium Abstracts

A High Resolution Microtomographic Study of the StW 578 Pliocene Hominid Cranium from Sterkfontein Cave

Amélie Beaudet, Jason Heaton, Travis Pickering, Dominic Stratford, Ron Clarke

A Semiotic Approach to the Evolution of Symboling Capacities with Implications for Claims of ‘Modernity’ in Early Human Groups

Elisabeth Culley

A case for a natural history of the Neanderthals

Mark Collard, Dennis Sandgathe

A chronological framework connecting the early Upper Palaeolithic across the Central Asian piedmont

Kathryn E. Fitzsimmons, Radu Iovita, Tobias Sprafke, Michelle Glantz, Katharine Horton, Tyler Beeton, Saya Alipova, Galymzhan Bekseitov, Yerbolat Ospanov, Jean-Marc Deom, Renato Sala, Zhaken Taimagambetov

A comparative empirical analysis of Uluzzian lunates and coeval backed pieces

Julien Riel-Salvatore

A geometric morphometric and non-metric analysis of the Oase 1 and Muierii 1 mandibles from Romania

Katerina Harvati, Mirjana Roksandic

Animal exploitation strategies during the Early Upper Paleolithic: the EUP fauna from Mughr el-Hamamah, Jordan (45-39 kcal BP)

Jamie Clark

Arma Veirana: a new site in Liguria (northwestern Italy) preserving the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic transition

Jamie Hodgkins, Caley Orr, David Strait, Christopher Miller, Fabio Negrino, Julien Riel-Salvatore, Marco Peresani, Stefano Benazzi, Geneviève Pothier Bouchard, Claudine Gravel-Miguel, Dominique Meyer

Australopithecus anamensis paleoenvironments in the Omo-Turkana basin using stable isotope analysis of tooth enamel from mixed feeding taxa

Laurence Dumouchel, Jonathan Wynn, René Bobe, Michelle Drapeau, Denis Geraads

C and N stable isotopes in Late Pleistocene - Holocene ostrich eggshells reveal distinct local paleoenvironments in East Africa during the MSA-LSA transition

Elizabeth Niespolo, Warren Sharp, Christian Tryon, J. Tyler Faith, Jason Lewis, Todd Dawson

Construction of an ochre source strontium isoscape in the Kenya Rift Valley for provenience studies of archaeological and rock art mineral pigments

Andrew Zipkin, Stanley Ambrose, Craig Lundstrom, Gideon Bartov, Mercy Gakki

Digging for the Past, Present, and Future: Bridging Maasai and Paleoanthropological Practices in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania

Patrick Lee, Robert Bird, Mariam Bundala, Julien Favreau, Makarius Itambu, Samson Koromo, Charles Mather, Robert Patalano, Laura Tucker, Enrique Baquedano, Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo, Audax Mabulla, Julio Mercader

ESR Dating Ungulate Tooth Enamel within the Paleolithic Layers at Velika Balanica, Serbia

Bonnie A.B. Blackwell, Kalyani Gopalkrishna, Dušan Mihailović, Mirjana Roksandic, Joel I.B, Blickstein, Anne R. Skinner

Early and Middle Stone Age Survey in the Upper Reaches of the Fourth Cataract, Sudan

Deborah Olszewski, Sidney Rempel, Bulent Arikan, Brenda Baker

Ethnography of red ochre use by pastoralists and hunters in Kenya

Stanley Ambrose, Andrew Zipkin, Mercy Gakii, David Coulson, Matthew Magnani

Exploring Technological Organization through Geometric Morphometrics: The Case of Aurignacian Projectile Points Made of Antler, Bone and Ivory

Luc Doyon, Ariane Burke, Francesco d'Errico, Heidi Katz Knecht

Fire and the Genus Homo: New evidence from ESA contexts at Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa

Francesco Berna, Robert Jacob, Liora Horowitz, Candice Koopowitz, Michael Chazan

FwJj70 – a butchered bone surface assemblage from the Okote Member of Koobi Fora, Kenya

Stephen Merritt, Eleanor Cordiner, Silindokuhle Mavuso, Kelly Fetchenhier, Elliot Greiner

Lithic miniaturization, bipolar reduction, and late Pleistocene lithic technology at Boomplaas Cave, South Africa

Justin Pargeter

Living and Dying in the Epipalaeolithic: A 20,000-Year-Old Cremation from Eastern Jordan

Lisa Maher, Danielle Macdonald, Jay Stock

Magdalenian images and notations

Andrea Castelli

Manot 1 calvaria and recent modern human evolution: an anthropological perspective

Isarel Hershkovitz, Bruce Latimer, Omry Barzilai, Ofer Marder

Middle Stone Age ochre contexts in Blombos Cave, South-Africa: a macro- and micro-contextual investigation

Magnus M. Haaland, Christopher E. Miller , Ole F. Unhammer, Karen L. Van Niekerk , Christopher S. Henshilwood

Molecular Isotopic Analysis Reveals Details on the Environmental Context of the Earliest Acheulean at Olduvai Gorge

Robert Patalano, Fernando Diez-Martin, Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo, Julien Favreau, Makarius Itambu, Patrick Lee, Audax Mabulla, David Manuel Martín Perea , Laura Tucker, David Uribelarrea, Julio Mercader

Open-air in situ 72-thousand-year old stone tool knapping events at Vleesbaai, Pinnacle Point, South Africa

Simen Oestmo, Jayne Wilkins, Josh Giesken, Jamie Hodgkins, Zenobia Jacobs, Panagiotis Karkanas, Curtis Marean

Paleoenvironmental reconstruction of the Florisbad spring site based on a micro-geoarchaeological approach

Michael Toffolo, James Brink, Cornie van Huyssteen, Francesco Berna

Phytolith Palaeolandscape during Bed II at Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania)

Makarius Itambu, Manuel Domiguez-Rodrigo, Audax Mabulla, Charles Egeland , Fernando Diez-Martin, Alfredo Pérez González, Santonja Gomez Manuel , Julien Favreau, Laura Tucker, Patrick Lee, Robert Patalano, Julio Mercader

Pleistocene Habitat Suitability Correlated with Genetic Variation in the Southern African Baboon (Papio ursinus sensu lato): implications for hominin demography in southern Africa

Benjamin Schoville, Sithaldeen Riashna

Primate stone tool use for paleoanthropologists

Michael Haslam

Settlement dynamics in Eastern Germany during the Middle Paleolithic

Andrea Picin

Site formation and integrity of FxJj20 AB, Koobi Fora, Kenya: implications for interpretation of Oldowan hominin fire use in the Early Pleistocene

Sarah Hlubik, David Braun, Francesco Berna, Craig Feibel, J W K Harris

Synthesizing the Evidence on Middle and Upper Paleolithic Diets in Europe and SW Asia

Eugène Morin, John Speth, Julia Lee-Thorp

Taxonomic distinctions in the 3-D micromorphology of tooth marks with application to feeding traces from Middle Bed II, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania

Matthew Muttart, Michael Pante, Ignacio de la Torre, Jackson Njau

Temporal link established between two Middle Stone Age sites (south coast, South Africa) using the Toba Isochron

Eugene Smith, Simen Oestmo, Jayne Wilkins, Racheal Johnsen, Minghua Ren, Amber Ciravolo, Shelby Fitch, Zenobia Jacobs, Panagiotis Karkanas, Erich Fisher, Curtis Marean

The Symbolic Response: Middle Stone Age ochre use in its social and environmental context at Pinnacle Point 5-6, Western Cape Province, South Africa

James McGrath, Jocelyn Bernatchez

The archaeology of the 1929-1932 excavations at Skhul (Israel)

Christian Tryon, Ravid Ekshtain, Paul Goldberg, Laure Metz

The cultural material from the Lower Palaeolithic site of Marathousa 1, Megalopolis, Greece: preliminary results

Vangelis Tourloukis, Nicholas Thompson , Eleni Panagopoulou, Domenico Giusti, Panagiotis Karkanas, Georgios Konidaris, Katerina Harvati

The feeding behavior and ecology of early Homo at HWK-EE, Bed II, Olduvai Gorge

Michael Pante, Jackson Njau, Ignacio de la Torre, Lindsay McHenry

The siliciclastic deposits of Jacovec Cavern, Sterkfontein: Reconstructing depositional environments in karst systems.

Silindokuhle Mavuso, Dominic Stratford

Through a Volcanic Glass Darkly: Viewing modern human origins with the lens of raw material transport.

Nick Blegen, Frank Brown

Txina Txina: a Later Stone Age site from the Limpopo basin in southern Mozambique

Nuno Bicho, João Cascalheira, Jonathan Haws, Célia Gonçalves, Mussa Raja, Lino André, Michael Benedetti, Ana Gomes, Milena Carvalho, Brandon Zinsious

Using tephrostratigrapy to link cores to outcrops at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania

Lindsay McHenry, Jackson Njau, Ian Stanistreet, Harald Stollhofen, Alan Deino, Kathy Schick, Nick Toth

You know the drill: A New Method of Differentiating Stone Age Bead Making Techniques

Jennifer Miller, Jeffrey Werner

Poster Abstracts

3D fracture patterns in the lumbar vertebra and tibia of A.L. 288-1 (‘Lucy’) are consistent with perimortem trauma

Janet M Mattox , Christopher A. Davis, Brett Nachman , Daniel L. Petersen, Wiley Akins, Mulugeta Feseha, Matthew Hill, Richard A. Ketcham, Lawrence Todd, Adrienne P. Witzel , Fantahun Zelelew, John Kappelman
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?Pre MIS 3 Occupation of Mochena Borago Rockshelter, SW Ethiopia

Steven A Brandt, George A. Brook, Minassie Girma Tekelemariam, Nathan Lawres, Abebe Mengistu Taffere, Ben Smith, Ralf Vogelsang

A promising new and simple estimator of initial mass for retouched flake tools

Cornel M. Pop, Will Archer, Zeljko Rezek, Marcel Weiß, Tamara Dogandžić, Sam Lin, Shannon P. McPherron

A quantitative assessment of trampling-induced modification to bone surfaces

Emily Rebecca Orlikoff, Trevor L. Keevil, Michael C. Pante

Amino acid racemization (AAR) dating of ostrich eggshell (OES): experimental testing of the effect of natural campfire burning on OES values

Serrina Nasrollahi, Chris Florian, Gifford H.Miller, John Kappelman, Lawrence Todd

An Experimental Investigation into the Impact of Point Dimensions, Haft Morphology and Fixing Method on the Effectiveness of Neanderthal Spears

Philippe Aubin

Ancient Middle Stone Age climates at SM-1 in NW Ethiopia as revealed by stable isotopic sclerochronology.

Lani Wyman, Neil Tabor, John Kappelman, Lawrence Todd
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Applying systematic sampling survey to evaluate Stone Age settlement in the Elephant River, Limpopo basin, SW Mozambique

Celia Goncalves, Ana Gomes, Joao Cascalheira, Mussa Raja, Nuno Bicho, Jonathan Haws

Archaeological support for the Beringian standstill hypothesis: human occupation of the Bluefish Caves site (Yukon Territory, Canada) during the Last Glacial Maximum.

Lauriane Bourgeon, Ariane Burke, Thomas Higham

Assessing Likelihood of Convergence in Flake Attributes.

Jonathan Paige, Charles Perreault

Assessing the Effects of Fluvial Abrasion on Bone Surface Modifications Using High-Resolution 3-D Scanning

Merve Gumrukcu, Matthew Muttart, Michael Pante

Bipedalism evolved from knuckle-walking: Evidence from 3D geometric morphometric analyses of thoracic and lumbar vertebral shape of Homo sapiens, Pan troglodytes, Pongo pygmaeus, and Papio hamadryas

Kimberly A. Plomp, Una Strand Vidarsdottir, Darlene Weston, Keith Dobney, Mark Collard

Breakage patterns of long bone articular ends, Hadar, Ethiopia: Implications for assessing cause of death of A.L. 288-1 (‘Lucy’)

Matthew Hill, John Kappelman, Lawrence Todd, Fantahun Zelelew
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Early Acheulean large flake prepared core technology: debating the distinctiveness of The Victoria West method

George M Leader

EcoPlis: Human Occupations in the Pleistocene Ecotones of River Lis (Portugal). The 2015-2016 results

Telmo Pereira, Vania Carvalho, Trenton Holliday, Eduardo Paixao, Patricia Monteiro, Joao Marreiros, Sandra Assis, Marina Evora, Rita Dias, Carlos Duarte, Roxanne , David Nora, Joana Pereira

Effect of wrist extension on human throwing accuracy: a case study with implications for Australopithecus

Angela Pena, Alison Brooks

Evaluating Language-Related Asymmetry in Endocasts using Non-rigid Diffeomorphic Image Registration

Lindsey Kitchell

Foraging Along Blue Highways: Preliminary faunal and taphonomic investigations at SM-1, a late Middle Stone Age site in the Blue Nile Basin of Ethiopia

Christopher A. Davis, John Kappelman, Lawrence Todd
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GaJj17: An MSA Lake Shore Site at East Turkana

Kathryn L. Ranhorn, Tamara Dogandžić, Silindokuhle S. Mavuso, Ssebuyungo Christopher, Logan Van Hagen, Courtney E. Jirsa, Michael J. Ziegler, Shannon L. Warren, J.W.K. Harris, David R. Braun

Hominin, Gorilla, and Chimpanzee Opponens Pollicis Crest Morphological Variation

Wesley Niewoehner

How do we interpret elevated Neanderthal δ15N levels?

Alexander Allan, Jonathan Harding, Dennis Sandgathe, Mark Collard

Human pelvic morphology from an integrative context

Cara Wall-Scheffler, Helen Kurki, Ben Auerbach

Inferring Early Stone Age tool type from cut marks on fossil bones using high-resolution 3-D scanning

Trevor L. Keevil, Michael C. Pante, Jay S. Reti

Insights into the importance of raw material availability for Paleolithic settlement: Survey results from the Resava and Jasenica River Valleys, Serbia

Eric Heffter, Dušan Mihailović

Late Middle Stone Age Lithic Technology in the Eastern Lake Victoria Basin, Kenya

Alison F. Mant-Melville, Nicholas Blegen, J. Tyler Faith, Christian A. Tryon, Kirsten H. Jenkins, Emily J. Beverley, Daniel Peppe

Local raw material utilization at the Upper Paleolithic site of Shuidonggou Locality 2, Ningxia (China)

Sam C. Lin, Fei Peng, Nicolas Zwyns, Jialong Guo, Huimin Wang, Xing Gao

Macroscopic investigation of raw material properties: Comparisons with Mechanical Properties Tests.

Joanne Munga, David Braun

Middle and Upper Paleolithic in Southeastern Europe: Preliminary Results from Excavations at Two Newly Discovered Sites in Serbia

Tamara Dogandžić, Sahra Talamo, Vesna Dimitrijević, Tobias Lauer, Vera Aldeias, Shannon P. McPherron, Dušan Mihailović

Paleoecology across the Pleistocene- Holocene: The small mammal assemblage of Kotias Klde, Georgia

Miriam Belmaker, Geordon Taylor, Nino Jakeli, Tengiz Meshveliani, Anna Belfer-Cohen, Ofer Bar-Yosef

Percussion Technology and the Potential for Residue Analysis at FLK N, Olduvai Gorge

Julien Favreau, Makarius Itambu, Patrick Lee, Robert Patalano, Laura Tucker, Enrique Baquedano, Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo, Audax Mabulla, Julio Mercader

Preliminary Study of Bioavailable Strontium (87Sr/86Sr) and Assessment of Diagenesis at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania: Proposed Research and Methodology

Laura Tucker, Julien Favreau, Makarius Itambu, Patrick Lee, Robert Patalano, Enrique Baquedano, Altmetric: 416More detail Article | OPEN Earliest modern human-like hand bone from a new >1.84-million-year-old site at Olduvai in Tanzania Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo, Audax Mabulla, Julio Mercader

Preliminary findings from Sare River, an early Pleistocene Oldowan site on the Homa Peninsula, Kenya

Emma M. Finestone, Thomas W. Plummer, Peter W. Ditchfield, Elizabeth Whitfield, Thomas Vincent, Scott A. Blumenthal, Laura C. Bishop, James S. Oliver, David R. Braun, Jonathan S. Reeves, Raquel Lamela-Lopez, Jennifer A. Parkinson

Selectivity among Early Pleistocene hominins: New evidence from the Koobi Fora Formation

Kristen Tuosto, Samantha Ascoli, David Braun, Susana Carvalho, Rene Bobe, Mark Sier, Jonathan Wynn, Jack W. K. Harris , Matthew Caruana, David Patterson

Stratigraphy and New ESR Mollusc Dates for Middle and Late Pleistocene Deposits at Bir Tarfawi, Western Desert, Egypt

Christopher L. Hill, Bonnie A.B. Blackwell, Aislinn E. Deely, Jonathan A. Florentin, Andrés C. Montoya, Impreet Singh, Joel L.B. Blickstein, Anne R. Skinner

Technological variability in the Middle Stone Age of Mozambique: preliminary results

Joao Cascalheira, Nuno Bicho, Celia Goncalves, Jonathan Haws, Mussa Raja

That High Lonesome Sound: Last Interglacial lithic technologies from Melikane Rockshelter, Lesotho

Kyra Pazan, Brian A. Stewart

The Evolution of Throwing: The Current State of Knowledge

Gabrielle Jackson, Mark Collard, Dennis Sandgathe

The North of Kuruman Project: Newly discovered Middle and Later Stone Age rockshelter deposits in the Kalahari Basin at Gamohana Hill, Northern Cape, South Africa

Jayne Wilkins, Benjamin J. Schoville, Kyle S. Brown, Robyn Pickering, Andy I. R. Herries, Benjamin Collins

The Pleistocene and early Holocene archaeological record of Barrow Island, northwestern Australia: early and sustained evidence for mixed use of coastal and arid interior settings.

Professor Peter Veth, Dr Tiina Manne, Kane Ditchfield, Fiona Hook, Dr Ingrid Ward, Professor Mark Basgall, Dr David Zeanah, Jane Skippington, Chae Byrne

The depositional context and spatial patterning in the hominin-bearing layers of Block 2 at Dmanisi, Georgia

Reed Coil, Martha Tappen, Reid Ferring, Maia Bukhsianidze, David Lordkipanidze

The implications of faunal abundance for Pleistocene paleoenvironments in the Turkana Basin, Northern Kenya

Lorena Benitez, Catherine Llera, Maryse Biernat, David R. Braun, Ashley S. Hammond, David B. Patterson, W. Andrew Barr

The relevance of ‘precious’ raw material engagements to discussions of group cohesion and interaction in the French Upper Paleolithic

Sarah Ranlett

Time-averaging and the spatial scale of regional cultural differentiation in Paleolithic assemblages

Galen Miller-Atkins, L.S. Premo

U-Th dating of ostrich eggshell: understanding the relationship between eggshell microstructure and diffusion and implications for sample preparation

Jessica Valdes, Staci L. Loewy, Jay L. Banner, John JKappelman, Lawrence Todd
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Volumetric Differences in the Upper Ribcage of Extant Hominoids with Implications for Hominid Evolution

Jeanelle Uy, John Hawks