Guide in PDF format

Archaeology of Hunting and Gathering Societies

Code: 106876
Credits: 6

2026/2027

Degree programme	Type	Course
Archaeology	OP	3
Archaeology	OP	4

Contact lecturer

Name :: Carlos Tornero Dacasa
Email :: carlos.tornero@uab.cat

Group languages

You can consult this information at the end of the document.

Prerequisites

Those specified in the Degree programme regulations; additionally, students are advised to have previously taken the course Introduction to Archaeology.

Objectives

Introduce students to the archaeological study of hunter-gatherer societies, emphasizing the complexity of their interpretation based on the archaeological record.
Provide the theoretical and methodological foundations necessary for the analysis and interpretation of Palaeolithic societies.
Understand the main criteria used to characterize prehistoric human groups and analyse their diverse forms of social, economic, and territorial organization.
Develop a critical understanding of the current state of scientific knowledge by evaluating the debates, limitations, and biases that have shaped its development.
Foster the ability to interpret and critically assess archaeological evidence by integrating different research perspectives and approaches.

Learning outcomes

CM18 (Identify social, economic and environmental impact in the past and present of the different processes of change that occurred in prehistory based on a critical evaluation of the archaeological evidence from different periods and geographical areas.) Identify social, economic and environmental impact in the past and present of the different processes of change that occurred in prehistory based on a critical evaluation of the archaeological evidence from different periods and geographical areas.
CM19 (Expose the participation of women in the prehistoric societies of Africa, Eurasia and America and the social construction of gender relations and the sexual division of labour.) Expose the participation of women in the prehistoric societies of Africa, Eurasia and America and the social construction of gender relations and the sexual division of labour.
KM29 (Chronologically arrange the appearance of different architectural types, the main complexes of lithic industry, and the most relevant ceramic, archaeozoological and archaeobotanical assemblages of European prehistory.) Chronologically arrange the appearance of different architectural types, the main complexes of lithic industry, and the most relevant ceramic, archaeozoological and archaeobotanical assemblages of European prehistory.
KM30 (Characterise the main historical processes of prehistoric societies in relation to paleoenvironmental and social effects, identifying the contributions of recent archaeological research to previous knowledge.) Characterise the main historical processes of prehistoric societies in relation to paleoenvironmental and social effects, identifying the contributions of recent archaeological research to previous knowledge.
SM30 (Critically analyse prehistoric societies to identify inference processes, the biases of the different theoretical models and the potential and limitations of existing records.) Critically analyse prehistoric societies to identify inference processes, the biases of the different theoretical models and the potential and limitations of existing records.
SM31 (Synthesise the contribution of different factors to the processes of social change and environmental impact in the different periods of prehistory, especially European.) Synthesise the contribution of different factors to the processes of social change and environmental impact in the different periods of prehistory, especially European.
SM32 (Produce hypotheses about periods of the prehistory of Africa, Eurasia and America from the recognition, critical interpretation and synthesis of records from archaeological projects.) Produce hypotheses about periods of the prehistory of Africa, Eurasia and America from the recognition, critical interpretation and synthesis of records from archaeological projects.

Introduction to the Archaeology of Hunter-Gatherer Societies. The concept of hunter-gatherers, the history of the discipline, and the main interpretative debates and paradigms.
Sources and Methods for the Study of Palaeolithic Societies. The archaeological record, taphonomy, experimental archaeology, ethnoarchaeology, and other analytical approaches.
Early Hominins and the Origins of Human Behaviour. Biological evolution, palaeoenvironmental context, and the earliest evidence of material culture.
The Expansion of the First Human Populations across Eurasia. Ecological adaptations, technology, and subsistence strategies during the Lower Palaeolithic.
Neanderthal Societies. Social organisation, economy, technology, landscape use, and the cognitive capacities of Middle Palaeolithic groups.
The Origin and Dispersal of Homo sapiens. The replacement of Neanderthals and the main explanatory models for the Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition.
Upper Palaeolithic Societies. Mobility, economy, technology, social networks, and environmental adaptations of Homo sapiens groups.
Symbolic Expression and Social Behaviour. Palaeolithic art, personal ornaments, funerary practices, and other forms of symbolic behaviour.
Archaeological Reconstruction of Hunter-Gatherer Lifeways. Settlement organisation, landscape exploitation, diet, demography, and social relationships.
Current Debates on Hunter-Gatherer Societies. New methodologies (archaeogenetics, isotopic analyses, modelling, and GIS), current research trends, and future perspectives.

Learning activities and methodology

Title	Hours	ECTS	Learning outcomes
work in group and of the individual workswritings tutorials	13	0.52	CM18, CM19, KM29, KM30, SM30, SM31, SM32
Writting texts and coments	17.5	0.7	CM18, CM19, KM29, KM30, SM30, SM31, SM32
Research seminars	10	0.4	CM18, CM19, KM29, KM30, SM30, SM31, SM32
Bibliographic research	10	0.4	CM18, CM19, KM29, KM30, SM30, SM31, SM32
individual studies	62.5	2.5	CM18, CM19, KM29, KM30, SM30, SM31, SM32
Theoretical classes led by the teacher	30	1.2	CM18, CM19, KM29, KM30, SM30, SM31, SM32
Moodle on Document Tools. Modules 1, 2, 3 and 4	4	0.16	CM18, CM19, KM29, KM30, SM30, SM31, SM32

Guided activities: 40 hours

Attendance to theoretical classes
Attendance at seminar and internship sessions

Autonomous activities: : 90 hours

Self-study:
Preparation of oral presentations
Search of bibliography and reading of texts
Making reviews work and comments.

Supervision of Works: : 15 hours
Monitoring of individual and group work

Evaluation: 5 hours
Written and oral tests
Review of the results

Assessment
Students have to actively participate in the discussions that arise in class and in theseminars (5%)
Students will have to submit a group work and present it for class discussion (40%)
To deliver abstracts, reviews, comments on the texts and documents related to the subjecttopics (55%)

15 minutes of a class of the academic calendar established by the center/title, will bereserved for students to complete the surveys of the teacher's performance and the evaluation of the subject.

Annotation: within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.

Assessment

Continuous assessment activities

Title	Weight	Hours	ECTS	Learning outcomes
Exam	40%	1	0.04	CM18, CM19, KM29, KM30, SM30, SM31, SM32
Research study	50 %	1	0.04	CM18, CM19, KM29, KM30, SM30, SM31, SM32
Attendance and in-class coursework	10%	1	0.04	CM18, CM19, KM29, KM30, SM30, SM31, SM32

Assessment

The assessment system is organised into three components, each contributing a specific percentage to the final grade:

Directed activities (lectures and seminars) account for 40% of the final mark. Theoretical knowledge will be assessed through one or two written examinations.
Attendance, participation in in-class activities, and supervised activities (tutorials) account for 10% of the final mark.
Independent learning activities (study and coursework) account for the remaining 50%.

Assessment Schedule

At the beginning of the semester, students will be informed of the deadlines for completing and submitting all assessment activities.

Requirements for Passing the Course

Complete and submit all assessment activities within the established deadlines.
Obtain an overall average mark of at least 5.0 out of 10.

Review of Marks

When each assessment activity is assigned or submitted, the lecturer will inform students (via Moodle or the Academic Information System, SIA) of the procedure and timetable for reviewing marks.

Resit Assessment

Students who have completed the required assessment activities and have obtained a minimum overall mark of 3.5 will be eligible to take the resit assessment.

Conditions for a "Not Assessed" Grade

Students will receive a "Not Assessed" (NA) grade if they have submitted 30% or less of the assessment activities.

Resit Examination Schedule

The dates for the resit assessments are established by the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. These dates are published on the Faculty website during July of the preceding academic year. It is the student's responsibility to know the date scheduled for the resit examination. The final continuous assessment activity will be scheduled at least one week before the resit examination.

Plagiarism and Academic Misconduct

Any irregularity committed by a student that may significantly affect the assessment of an activity will result in a mark of 0 for that activity, regardless of any disciplinary procedures that may also apply. If several instances of academic misconduct occur within the same course, the final grade for the course will be 0.

Use of Artificial Intelligence:

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies is permitted only for bibliographic or information searches, text revision, and other purposes explicitly authorised by the lecturer. Students must:

identify any sections generated using AI;
specify the AI tools used; and
include a critical reflection on how these tools influenced both the process and the final outcome of the assignment.

Failure to disclose the use of AI in an assessed activity will be considered a breach of academic integrity and will result in a mark of 0 for that activity, with no possibility of resit, in addition to any further disciplinary sanctions that may apply.

Single Assessment

This course offers a single-assessment option. Under this assessment mode, students will complete a written examination at the end of the course (50% of the final grade) and submit a written assignment (the remaining 50%). The same resit procedure as that established for continuous assessment will apply.

Bibliography

Bailey, G. 1983: Hunter-Gatherer Economy in Prehistory: A European Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bettinger, R. L. 1991. Hunter-Gatherer. Archaeological and Evolutionary Theory. Plenum Press, New York.

Binford, L. R. 1967. Smudge Pits and Hide Smoking: The Use of Analogy in Archaeological Reasoning. American Antiquity, 32 (1): 1-12.

Binford, L.R.: En busca del pasado. Ed. Crítica, Barcelona 1988

Campbell, B.G.: Humankind emerging. Ed. Harper Collins Publishers. London 1992. 6a edició.

Carbonell, E., Arsuaga, J. L. y Bermúdez de Castro, J. M. (1999). "Monográfico Atapuerca." Journal of Human Evolution 37(3/4).

Cela, J. y Ayala, F. J. (2013). Evolución Humana. El camino de nuestra especie. Madrid, Alianza.

Dennell, R. R., W. (1996). "The earliest colonization of Europe: the short chronology revisited." Antiquity 70(269): 535-542.

Dennell, R. W. (2003). Dispersal and colonisation, long and short chronologies: how continuous is the Early Pleistocene record for hominids outside East Africa? Journal of Human Evolution, 45: 421-440.

Fleagle, J., Shea, J., Grine, F. E., Baden, A. L. y Leakey, R., Eds. (2010). Out of Africa I. The First Hominin Colonization of Eurasia. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology.

Foley, R. 2001. In the Shadow of the Modern Synthesis? Alternative Perspectives on the Last Fifty Years of Paleoanthropology. Evolutionary Anthropology, 10: 5-14.

Gamble, C. (2001). Las Sociedades Paleolíticas de Europa. Barcelona, Ariel.

Gamble, C. (1993) Timewalkers. The prehistory of global colonisation. Stroud: Alan Sutton (Chapter 7). (BB 1 GAM)

Gould, R. A. 1980. Living Archaeology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Gowlett, J. A. J. y Wrangham, R. W. (2013). "Earliest fire in Africa: towards the convergence of archaeological evidence and the cooking hypothesis." Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa 48(1): 5-30.

Isaac, G. Y Isaac, B., Eds. (1997). Koobi Fora: Research project. Plio-Pleistocene Archaeology.

Isaac, G. y Isaac, B., Eds. (1997). Koobi Fora: Research project. Plio-Pleistocene Archaeology.

Jones, S.; Martin R.; Pilbeam, D. (Eds.):Human Evolution. Cambridge Univ. Press. 1992.

Kelly, R. L. 1995. The foraging spectrum: diversity in hunter-gatherer lifeways. Smithsonian Institution, Washington.

Larsen, C. S. (2023). A Companion to Biological Anthropology Second Edition.

Lee R.B. & DeVore I., Eds. (1968) Man the hunter. Chicago, Aldine. (chapters by: Lee, Woodburn, Suttles, Balikci). (HB LEE)

Klein, R. G.: The Human Career. Chicago,University of Chicago Press. 1999.

Leakey, M. D. & Clark, J. D. (1971). Olduvai Gorge. Excavations in beds II, 1960-1963 and I. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Lee R.B. & Daly, R. (eds.) (1999) the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers. Cambridge Univ.

Leroi-Gourhan, A (1971). El gesto y la palabra. Publicaciones de la Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas.

Lewin, R. & Foley. R.: Principles of Human Evolution. Oxford Blackwell. 2004.

Mcgrew, W. C. 1998. Culture in Nonhuman Primates? Annu. Rev. Anthropol., 27: 301-328. Anthro Pers and also available online

Mithen, S. (1996). The Prehistory of the Mind. London, Thames & Hudson. (BB 1 MIT) (chapters 7-10)

Morgan, T. J. H., Uomini, N. T., Rendell, L. E., Chouinard-Thuly, L., Street, S. E., Lewis, H. M., Cross, C. P., Evans, C., Kearney, R., de la Torre, I., Whiten, A. y Laland, K. N. (2015). "Experimental evidence for the co-evolution of hominin tool-making teaching and language." Nat Commun 6.

Morwood, M. J. 1975. Analogy and the Acceptance of Theory in Archaeology. American Antiquity, 40 (1): 111-116. Inst Arch Pers and also available online

Plummer, T. W., J. S. Oliver, E. M. Finestone, P. W. Ditchfield, L. C. Bishop, S. A. Blumenthal, C. Lemorini, I. Caricola, S. E. Bailey, A. I. R. Herries, J. A. Parkinson, E. Whitfield, F. Hertel, R. N. Kinyanjui, T. H. Vincent, Y. Li, J. Louys, S. R. Frost, D. R. Braun,J. S. Reeves, E. D. G. Early, B. Onyango, R. Lamela-Lopez, F. L. Forrest, H. He, T. P. Lane, M. Frouin, S. Nomade, E. P. Wilson, S. K. Bartilol, N. K. Rotich and R. Potts (2023). "Expanded geographic distribution and dietary strategies of the earliest Oldowan hominins and Paranthropus." Science 379(6632): 561-566.

Roebroeks, W. (2006). "The human colonisation of Europe: where are we?" Journal of Quaternary Science 21(5): 425-435.

Sackett, J. 2000. Human antiquity and the Old Stone Age: the nineteenth century background to palaeoanthropology. Evolutionary Anthropology, 9: 37-49. (Anth-Per and also available online)

Schick, K. & Toth, N.: Making silent stones speak. Human evolution and the dawn of technology. Ed. Touchstone. 1994

Schiffer, M. B. (1987). Formation processes of the archaeological record. Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press.

Slimak, L. (2024). El neandertal desnudo: Comprender a la criatura humana, Debate.

Smith, A. R., Carmody, R. N., Dutton, R. J. y Wrangham, R. W. (2015). "The significance of cooking for early hominin scavenging." Journal of Human Evolution 84(0): 62-70.

Stringer, C. & Andrews, P. (2005). The Complete World of Human Evolution. Thames & Hudson, London

Stringer, CH.; Gamble, CL.: En busca de los Neandertales. Ed. Crítica. Barcelona 1996.

Stringer, C. & Andrews, P. (2005). La evolución humana. Akal

Torre, I. de la: La Arqueología de los Orígenes humanos en África. Madrid, Akal. 2008.

Trigger, B. G. (1992). Historia del pensamiento arqueologico. Barcelona, Critica.

Tattersall, I. 2000. Paleoanthropology: The Last Half-Century. Evolutionary Anthropology, 7: 2-16.

Whiten, A., Boesch, C. (2001). "The Culture of Chimpanzees." Scientific American 61.

Whiten, A. (2015). "Experimental studies illuminate the cultural transmission of percussive technologies in Homo and Pan." Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 370(1682).

Wrangham, R. W., McGrew, W. C., Waal, F. D. y Heltne, P. (1996). Chimpazee cultures, Harvard University Press.

Software

Not necessary

Course groups and languages

The information provided is provisional until November 30. After this date, you will be able to consult the language of each group through this link. To access the information, you will need to enter the course CODE

Type of teaching	Group	Language	Semester	Shift
(TE) Theory	1	Spanish	second semester	morning-mixed
(PAUL) Classroom practices	1	Spanish	second semester	morning-mixed