The Band Model: contextualising Middle and Upper Palaeolithic sociality within a fission-fusion framework

Abstract

Since William King’s first description of the species Homo neanderthalensis (1864), assessments of Neanderthal social behaviour have been biased by the assumption that this was a species of simian brutes. However, in recent years, genetic, palaeoanthropological, and archaeological findings have significantly undermined the assumption of specific biological and behavioural differences between Neanderthals and AMHs (Green et al. 2010; Reich et al. 2010; Hammer et al 2011; Mendez et al. 2013; Trinkaus 2011; Zilhão et al. 2010; Henry et al. 2011; Pike et al. 2012; Peresani et al. 2013; Rodriguez-Vidal et al. 2014). Despite these findings, trait-list arguments still dominate research paradigms concerning the sociobehavioural capacities of Neanderthals and AMHs.

The current state of the human material, paleontological, and paleogenetic records necessitate a more robust theoretical foundation than the one that trait-list models provide (Barton et al. 2011). A socio-ecological approach based within fission-fusion studies can provide robust test hypotheses with the potential to elucidate the evolution of modern social complexity. Following this direction, this thesis adapts the band model of hunter-gatherer sociality (Layton and O’Hara 2010; Layton et al. 2012) to archaeological investigation. The results of this approach both demonstrate the applicability of the band model to Palaeolithic research and highly suggest that Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans shared a comparable fission-fusion sociality.