LATE HOLOCENE SETTLEMENT ALONG THE ATLANTIC COAST OF THE CAPE: MEGAMIDDENS AND THE CASE FOR AND AGAINST HUMAN POPULATION INCREASE

摘要

Archaeologists often resort to using indirect means to achieve their ends, as they are almost never able to observe directly the actions and behaviours they try to narrate. Proxies abound in these circumstances. Two alternative models currently seek to explain the later Holocene prehistory of the coastline of the western Cape (Jerardino et al. 2008, 2013; Jerardino 2010a,b, 2012, 2013 versus Parkington 2006, 2012; Parkington et al. 2013, 2014). Here we examine the former, review the proxies, analogues and interpretations and suggest that the latter is a 'more plausible' version. The proxies are numerical formulations claimed to reflect social phenomena not directly observable in the archaeological record; the analogues come mostly from southern African ethnography and the models from behavioural or evolutionary ecology; the narratives are attempts at explanatory reconstructions of settlement patterns manifested in changing assemblage compositions and site distributions through the Holocene.