Stephen Shennan

Bio: Stephen Shennan is an academic researcher from University College London. The author has contributed to research in topics: Population & Prehistory. The author has an hindex of 52, co-authored 192 publications receiving 10207 citations. Previous affiliations of Stephen Shennan include Massachusetts Institute of Technology & Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Archaeology evolving: history, adaptation and self-organization

Abstract: and received ALAN MORRISON. MICHAEL POPHAM & KAREN WIKANDER. Creating and documcnting electronic texts. vii+63 pages. 2000. Oxford: Oxbow; 1-84217-012-0 (ISSN 1463-5194) paperback El0 & 1JS$18. CATHERINE GROUT, PHILL PURDY, JANINE RYMER, KART,A YOLJNCS, JANE WILLIAMS, ALAN LOCK & DAN BRICKI.EY. Creating digital resources for thc visual arts: stnndords und good practice. vii+152 pagcs, 8 figures. 2000. Oxford: Oxbow; 1-84217-013-9 (ISSN 1463-5194) paperback €15 & US$25. ERIC KJELLGREN with Jo ANNE V14N TILBURG & ADRIENNE L. KAEPPLER. Splendid isolation: art of Easter Island. 80 pages, 51 colour & b&w illustrations. 2002. New York (NY): Metropolitan Museum of Art & Ncw Haven (CT): Yale LJniversity Press; 0300-09078-1 papcrback E14.95. ROBERT COOK (tr. & ed.). Njal’s Saga. xli+378 pages, 4 maps, 4 tables. 2001. London: Penguin; 0-14-0447695 paperback E8.99 & US$14 & CAN$19.99. SLJMIT GLIIIA. Health and population in South Asia from etirliest times to the present. vii+178 pages, 8 figures, 35 tables. 2001. London: Hurst; 1-85065-5782 hardback L25.

Origins and Spread of Domestic Animals in Southwest Asia and Europe

Abstract: This benchmark volume is a valuable synthesis of our current knowledge about the origins and spread of animal domestication in the Near East and Europe.

British Neolithic Axehead Distributions and Their Implications

Abstract: Neolithic stone axeheads from Britain provide an unusually rich, well-provenanced set of evidence with which to consider patterns of prehistoric production and exchange. It is no surprise then that these objects have often been subject to spatial analysis in terms of the relationship between particular stone source areas and the distribution of axeheads made from those stones. At stake in such analysis are important interpretative issues to do with how we view the role of material value, supply, exchange, and demand in prehistoric societies. This paper returns to some of these well-established debates in the light of accumulating British Neolithic evidence and via the greater analytical power and flexibility afforded by recent computational methods. Our analyses make a case that spatial distributions of prehistoric axeheads cannot be explained merely as the result of uneven resource availability in the landscape, but instead reflect the active favouring of particular sources over known alternatives. Above and beyond these patterns, we also demonstrate that more populated parts of Early Neolithic Britain were an increased pull factor affecting the longer-range distribution of these objects.

The Web of Human Sexual Contacts

Abstract: Many ``real-world'' networks are clearly defined while most ``social'' networks are to some extent subjective. Indeed, the accuracy of empirically-determined social networks is a question of some concern because individuals may have distinct perceptions of what constitutes a social link. One unambiguous type of connection is sexual contact. Here we analyze data on the sexual behavior of a random sample of individuals, and find that the cumulative distributions of the number of sexual partners during the twelve months prior to the survey decays as a power law with similar exponents $\alpha \approx 2.4$ for females and males. The scale-free nature of the web of human sexual contacts suggests that strategic interventions aimed at preventing the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases may be the most efficient approach.

Massive migration from the steppe was a source for Indo-European languages in Europe

Abstract: We generated genome-wide data from 69 Europeans who lived between 8,000-3,000 years ago by enriching ancient DNA libraries for a target set of almost 400,000 polymorphisms. Enrichment of these positions decreases the sequencing required for genome-wide ancient DNA analysis by a median of around 250-fold, allowing us to study an order of magnitude more individuals than previous studies and to obtain new insights about the past. We show that the populations of Western and Far Eastern Europe followed opposite trajectories between 8,000-5,000 years ago. At the beginning of the Neolithic period in Europe, ∼8,000-7,000 years ago, closely related groups of early farmers appeared in Germany, Hungary and Spain, different from indigenous hunter-gatherers, whereas Russia was inhabited by a distinctive population of hunter-gatherers with high affinity to a ∼24,000-year-old Siberian. By ∼6,000-5,000 years ago, farmers throughout much of Europe had more hunter-gatherer ancestry than their predecessors, but in Russia, the Yamnaya steppe herders of this time were descended not only from the preceding eastern European hunter-gatherers, but also from a population of Near Eastern ancestry. Western and Eastern Europe came into contact ∼4,500 years ago, as the Late Neolithic Corded Ware people from Germany traced ∼75% of their ancestry to the Yamnaya, documenting a massive migration into the heartland of Europe from its eastern periphery. This steppe ancestry persisted in all sampled central Europeans until at least ∼3,000 years ago, and is ubiquitous in present-day Europeans. These results provide support for a steppe origin of at least some of the Indo-European languages of Europe.

A cross-cultural analysis of the behavior of women and men: implications for the origins of sex differences.

Abstract: This article evaluates theories of the origins of sex differences in human behavior. It reviews the cross-cultural evidence on the behavior of women and men in nonindustrial societies, especially the activities that contribute to the sex-typed division of labor and patriarchy. To explain the cross-cultural findings, the authors consider social constructionism, evolutionary psychology, and their own biosocial theory. Supporting the biosocial analysis, sex differences derive from the interaction between the physical specialization of the sexes, especially female reproductive capacity, and the economic and social structural aspects of societies. This biosocial approach treats the psychological attributes of women and men as emergent given the evolved characteristics of the sexes, their developmental experiences, and their situated activity in society.