My research focuses on human biocultural evolution tracked by the relationships between technology, cognition, and environmental change in the archaeological record. I ask the question, to what extent differences in human behaviour can be explained as adaptive responses to specific habitats. My career focus has been on investigations of the later Pleistocene evolution of hunter-gatherer behaviour in sub-Saharan Africa, through experimental archaeology, lithic analysis and the recovery of new field data. My current research and teaching targets two key themes within archaeology: 1) Understanding the role of technology in human behavioural and cognitive evolution; and 2) Unravelling the relative contributions of different habitats to human evolution.
Justin Pargeter
Assistant Professor
Pleistocene archaeology, hominin bio-cultural evolution, stone tool technology, experimental archaeology, field archaeology, sub-Saharan Africa, science communication and public engagement
Senior Research Fellow, Palaeo-Research Institute, University of Johannesburg, South Africa
Honorary Research Fellow, Rock Art Research Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
- 2023 Gregory, A., Mitchell, P.J., Pargeter, J. Raw material surveys and their behavioral implications in highland Lesotho. Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology.
- 2023 Cheng, L., Kreisheh, N., Stout, D., Pargeter, J. Detecting skill level and mental templates in Late Acheulean biface morphology: Archaeological and experimental insights. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 49: 103974.
- 2023 Hecht, E.I., Pargeter, J., Kreisheh, N., & Stout, D. Individual variation and prior experience shape neuroplasticity during Paleolithic stone toolmaking skill acquisition. Scientific Reports 13: 2877.
- 2023 Pargeter, J., Brooks, A., Douze, K., Eren, M.I., Groucutt, H.S., McNeil, J., Mackay, A., Ranhorn, K., Scerri, E., Shaw, M., Tryon, C., Will, M., Leplongeon, A. Replicability in Lithic Analysis. American Antiquity 88: 163-186.
- 2023 Wilson, E.P., Stout, D., Cheng, L., Beney Kilgore, M., Pargeter, J. Skill and core uniformity: An experiment with Oldowan-like flaking systems. Lithic Technology.
- 2022 Pargeter, J., Majoe, A., Beney, M., Cheng, L., Stout, D. Testing the Effect of Learning Conditions and Individual Motor/Cognitive Differences on Knapping Skill Acquisition. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 30: 121-171.
- 2022 Pargeter, J., Chen, C., Buchanan, B., Fisch, M., Bebber, M., Eren, M.I. Stone tool backing and adhesion in hunting weaponry: first results of an experimental program. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 45: 103639.
- 2022 Oertle, A., Szabó, K., Gaqa, S., Cawthra, H., Esteban, I., Pargeter, J., Fisher, E.C. Peering into the unseen: novel methods in identifying shell taxa from archaeological micro-fragments. Journal of Archaeological Science 147: 105667.
- 2021 Pargeter, J. & Dusseldorp, G. The technology and ecology of Lesotho’s highland hunter-gatherers: A case study at Sehonghong rock shelter. Quaternary International 611-612: 138-149.
- 2021 Kristel Yu Tiamco, B., Nikhilesh, N., Khresdish, N., Pargeter, J., Stout, D., Wheaton, L. Emergence of perceptuomotor relationships during paleolithic stone toolmaking learning: intersections of observation and practice. Communications Biology 4: 1278.
- 2020 Pargeter, J., & Faith, T.J. Lithic miniaturization as adaptive strategy: a case study from Boomplaas Cave, South Africa. Journal of Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 12: 225. https://tinyurl.com/yydsp4x9
- 2020 Fisher, E.C., Cawthra, H.C., Esteban, I., Jerardino, A., Neumann, F.H., Oertle, A., Pargeterg, J., Saktura, R.B., Szabó, K., Winkler, S. and Zohar, I., Coastal occupation and foraging during the last glacial maximum and early Holocene at Waterfall Bluff, eastern Pondoland, South Africa. Quaternary Research 97 pp.1-41. https://tinyurl.com/yxmgjzu7
- 2020 Pargeter, J., Kreisheh, N., Shea, J.J. and Stout, D., 2020. Knowledge vs. know-how? Dissecting the foundations of stone knapping skill. Journal of Human Evolution 145. https://tinyurl.com/yxatpq4z
- 2020 Mika, A., Flood, K., Norris, J.D., Wilson, M., Key, A., Buchanan, B., Redmond, B., Pargeter, J., Bebber, M.R. and Eren, M.I., 2020. Miniaturization optimized weapon killing power during the social stress of late pre-contact North America (AD 600-1600). Plos one 15. https://tinyurl.com/y6l47vpz
- 2020 Pargeter, J. and Schmidt, P., 2020. ‘Simple’surface-fire heat treatment significantly improves silcrete flake quality and flaking efficiency. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 30. https://tinyurl.com/y6rfq68o
- 2020 Loftus, E., Pargeter, J., Mackay, A., Stewart, B.A. and Mitchell, P., 2019. Late Pleistocene human occupation in the Maloti-Drakensberg region of southern Africa: New radiocarbon dates from Rose Cottage Cave and inter-site comparisons. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 56. https://tinyurl.com/y33ptyc7
- 2020 Pargeter, J., Khreisheh, N. and Stout, D., 2019. Understanding stone tool-making skill acquisition: experimental methods and evolutionary implications. Journal of human evolution 133, pp.146-166. https://tinyurl.com/y2sc834n
- 2019 Pargeter, J., & Shea, J.J. Going big vs. going small: Lithic miniaturization in hominin evolution. Evolutionary Anthropology 28: 72-85. http://tiny.cc/dzu65y
- 2019 Pargeter, J., & Hampson, J. Crystal quartz materiality in Terminal Pleistocene Lesotho. Antiquity 93: 11-27. http://tiny.cc/62u65y
- 2018 Pargeter, J. Loftus, E., Mackay, A., Mitchell, P., Stewart, B. New ages from Boomplaas Cave, South Africa, provide increased resolution on late/terminal Pleistocene human behavioural variability. AZANIA 53: 156-184. http://tiny.cc/dzu65y
- 2017 Pargeter, J. de la Peña, P. Quartz bipolar reduction and lithic miniaturization: Experimental results and archaeological implications. Journal of Field Archaeology 42: 551-566. http://tiny.cc/i4u65y
- 2016 Pargeter, J., Mackay, A., Mitchell, P.J., Stewart, B.A., Shea, J.J. Primordealism and the ‘Pleistocene San’ of southern Africa (with comments and reply). Antiquity 90: 1072-1103. http://tiny.cc/v6u65y
- 2016 Eren, M.I., Lycett, S.J., Patten, R.J., Buchanan, B., Pargeter, J. O’Brien, M.J. Test, model, and method validation: The role of experimental stone-tool replication in hypothesis-driven archaeology. Ethnoarchaeology 8: 103-136. http://tiny.cc/08u65y
Fieldwork projects (South Africa)
- P5 Pondoland Coastal Foraging and Lifeways project
This project explores the origins and development of coastal foraging practices along South Africa’s Wild Coast. The project involves excavation, lithic analyses, landscape/raw material surveys, GIS predictive modelling, and paleoenvironmental modelling.
Project directors: Erich Fisher (Arizona State University), Justin Pargeter, Hayley Cawthra (Council for Geosciences, South Africa) and Irene Esteban (University of Witwatersrand).
Project Funders: National Science Foundation, National Geographic Society, Templeton Foundation.
Links: @P5Project; https://www.facebook.com/pfiveproject/
- Cango Valley Archaeology and Paleoscape Project:
This project explores human-environment interactions through the late Pleistocene and Holocene at Boomplaas Cave in South Africa’s Cango Valley. The research brings high-resolution excavations, paleoenvironmental analyses, new dates, and lithic data to bear on long-standing questions about the connection between coastal and inland foraging communities and their evolving social and ecological landscapes.
Project co-directors: Justin Pargeter, Tyler Faith, and Bryan Chase.
Project Funders: National Science Foundation and Leakey Foundation
- Studying the palaeophysiological constraints of paleolithic stone tool-making skill acquisition:
This research examines individual variability in energy expenditure during stone tool making motor-skill acquisition to determine the effect of teaching on novice tool-maker energy budgets.The project tracks individual differences in biometrics and strength on tool-making performance and investigates differences in stone tools made by taught vs. untaught novices. The project's results help test the hypothetical co-evolution of teaching and tool-making and whether the presence/absence of instruction can significantly alter the energetic requirements of complex motor skill acquisition in human evolution.
Project Funders: NYU
Project co-director: Dr Stephanie Levy (Hunter)
- Cultural and environmental drivers of biological regionalization in the Late Pleistocene and Holocene Zambezian Biome:
This project aims to study the conditions under which people establish and maintain cultural boundaries. The research team will conduct research in two regions, where ancient DNA analysis has revealed that forager populations began to maintain separate biological groupings near the end of the last Ice Age cycle. The investigators will develop well-dated cultural and environmental records from sites around and including where ancient DNA has been discovered. The team will conduct new, high-resolution excavations and analyze the remains they recover alongside existing materials excavated using lower-resolution methods in the 1970s. This increased detail will enable both datasets to be aligned and maximize their information value to show if cultural remains such as stone artifacts, pigments, bone tools, and beads show evidence of emerging cultural differences between groups known from ancient DNA to have had little biological interaction. Using environmental data, the team will build simulation models of forager resource use to understand how often people would have encountered one another. They will use these models to test if interaction rates or cultural barriers better explain the lack of genetic exchange.
Project Funders: National Science Foundation
Project co-director: Dr. Jessica Thompson (Yale)
Experimental archaeology projects (North America)
- Experimental Approaches to Understanding Stone Tool Technological Variability and Prehistoric Hunting Technologies
This project uses state of the art experimental approaches to understand variations in stone tool production strategies and the efficacy of various prehistoric hunting technologies. It combines functional experimentation with use-wear analyses to generate more holistic understandings for why prehistoric technologies vary and their evolutionary implications.
Project collaborators: Metin Eren (Kent State University), Paloma de la Peña (University of the Witwatersrand), Patrick Schmidt (Tuebingen University)
Project Funders: National Science Foundation
- Palaeolithic Social Transmission and Lithic Technologies
This project's objective is to foster continued collaborations devoted to addressing current limitations in the study of social learning and technology in hominin evolution. Working through the Palaeolithic Social Transmission (PaST) research network, the project brings together an interdisciplinary group of researchers working on different periods and at different sites with the purpose of developing a multi-site experimental collaboration with standardized methods of experimental research design, data collection, and analysis.
Project collaborators: Kathryn Ranhorn (Arizona State University), Samantha Porter (University of Minnesota), Annie Melton (University of Minnesota), Dietrich Stout (Emory University), Gil Tostevin (University of Minnesota), John Shea (Stony Brook University), Luke Premo (Washington State University), Jayne Wilkins (Griffith University, Australia), David Braun (George Washington University), Mark Moore (University of New England, Australia),
Project Funders: Cultural Evolution Society
- Individual Variation, Plasticity, and Learning in Human Brain Evolution
Ongoing research examining the hypothesis that technological learning is enabled by increased plasticity in prefrontal-parietal-temporal association networks. We test this model using a multidisciplinary approach, integrating expertise in neuroscience, informatics, lithic technology, and educational psychology
Project directors and collaborators: Dietrich Stout (Emory University), Erin Hecht (Harvard University), Katherine Bryant (Radboud University, Netherlands), Todd Preuss (Emory University), Justin Pargeter, David Gutman (Emory University)
Project Funders: National Science Foundation
Links: https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/stoutlab/research/
Community outreach and science communication projects
- Archaeology in Action comics project
In South Africa, most approaches to archaeological community engagement and outreach focus on changes to museum programs and university curricula. These programs have limited impact on South Africa’s rural populations living far from museums and with limited funds to attend universities. To address these issues, the Archaeology in Action comics project works with science communication specialists Jive Media Africa to produce and disseminate bilingual (English and isiXhosa) archaeology comic materials (comic books, activity worksheets, and animations). The comics communicate information about archaeology to South African primary and high school students. All materials are freely available online and through a pilot distribution program at our research project’s base in rural parts of Pondoland, South Africa. Our project speaks to South Africa’s rapidly changing social landscape allowing primary and secondary level students to instrumentalize archaeology to explore and debate their pasts.
- My So-Called Lab
My So-Called Lab is a collaborative multi-media space for women scientists to talk to other women scientists about their work. The platform provides a space to share interviews, lab selfies, and news and information about women scientists. Funded by @US.NSF.
Project collaborators: Erin Hecht (Harvard University), Katherine Bryant (Radboud University, Netherlands)
Links: https://www.mysocalledlab.com/; https://www.facebook.com/mysocalledlab/; @MySoCalledLab
- Stone Tool Training and Analysis Website Project
This is a project aims to provide online stone tool training in indigenous languages to students from developing nations. The goal is to translate the website's content (3D lithic models, interactive tutorials, and in-depth content) into Swahili, Chichewa, and Zulu with a potential audience of > 100 million.
Project collaborators: John Shea (Stony Brook University), the project started in collaboration with the Stony Brook University Center for Teaching and Learning Technologies.
- Experimental Archaeology Blog
This blog is dedicated to experimental archaeology and is meant as a resource to all who study it. The site, although new, aims to bring together diverse resources of all forms (papers, audio, visual, results etc) on experimental archaeology for easy and free access for researchers, students, and interested members of the public from around the world.