John Shea' Major & Recent Publications

A list of John Shea's publications (including pdf downloads) can be found at http://sbsuny.academia.edu/JohnShea.  If you want something that is not there, email me and I'll send it to you.  Can't send copies of books, though.

• John J. Shea (2024) A Generic MSA: What problems will it solve, and what problems will it create? Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa: Special Issue -Generic MSA: Fact or Fiction? 59 (1): 160-172.

• Clive Finlayson, Christoph Zollikofer, Marcia Ponce de León, Geraldine Finlayson, José Carrión, Stewart Finlayson, Francisco Giles Guzmán, and John Shea (2023) Close Encounters vs. Missed Connections?  A critical review of the Evidence for Later Pleistocene Hominin Interactions in Western Eurasia.  Quaternary Science Reviews 317: 108307.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2023.108307

• John J. Shea (2023) John J. Shea in HUMANS: Perspectives on Our Evolution from World Experts, Edited by Sergio Almécija.  New York: Columbia University Press.

• *John J. Shea, (2022),  Chasing mirages: Seeking standardization among prehistoric stone tools. (Submitted to Lithic Technology on January 17, 2022, Accepted October 10, 2022, published online October 20.).

• Otarola-Castillo, Erik R., Torquato, Melissa G., Keevil, Trevor L., May, Alejandra L., Coon, Sarah N., Stow, Evalyn, Harris, Jacob A., Marean, Curtis W., Erin, Metin I., Shea, John J. (2022) A New Approach To The Quantitative Analysis Of Bone Surface Modifications: The Bowser Road Mastodon And Implications Of The Data For Understanding Human-Megafauna Interactions In North America. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory. DOI: 10.1007/s10816-022-09583-5.

• Marlize Lombard and John J. Shea (2021) "Did Pleistocene Africans use the spearthrower-and-dart?" Evolutionary Anthropology 30 (5): 307-315.  (August 2021)

• John J. Shea 2020  Survival Archaeology: A New Agenda for Prehistory’s Future.  The Society for American Archaeology Record.

• Pargeter, J., N. Kreisheh, J. J. Shea and D. Stout (2020). "Knowledge vs. know-how? Dissecting the foundations of stone knapping skill." Journal of Human Evolution 145: 102807.  

• John J. Shea (2019) European Upper Paleolithic cultural taxa: Better off without them?  Antiquity 93 (371): 1359-1361.Shea, J. J. in press/2020. Prehistoric Stone Tools of Eastern Africa: A Guide. New York: Cambridge University Press.

• Shea, J. J., A. J. Stutz, and L. Nilsson-Stutz. 2019. An Early Upper Palaeolithic Stone Tool Assemblage from Mughr El-Hamamah, Jordan: An Interim Report. Journal of Field Archaeology 44 (7):420-439. 

• Hildebrand, E. A., K. M. Grillo, E. A. Sawchuk, S. K. Pfeiffer, L. B. Conyers, S. T. Goldstein, A. C. Hill, A. Janzen, C. E. Klehm, M. Helper, P. Kiura, E. Ndiema, C. Ngugi, J. J. Shea, and H. Wang. 2018. A monumental cemetery built by eastern Africa’s first herders near Lake Turkana, Kenya. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115:8942.

• Pargeter, Justin A., and John J. Shea. (2019) Going big vs. going small: Lithic miniaturization in hominin lithic technology. Evolutionary Anthropology 28:1-14.

• Shea, J. J. 2017. Occasional, obligatory, and habitual stone tool use in hominin evolution. Evolutionary Anthropology 26:200-217.

• Shea, J. J. 2017. Stone Tools in Human Evolution: Behavioral Differences among Technological Primates. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Justin H. Pargeter, John J. Shea, Benjamin Utting (2016) Quartz backed tools as arrowheads and hand-cast spearheads: Hunting experiments and macrofracture analysis. Journal of Archaeological Science 73: 145-157.

• Justin Pargeter, Alex Mackay, Peter Mitchell, John Shea, Brian A. Stewart (2016) Primordialism and the ‘Pleistocene San’ of southern Africa. Antiquity 90 (352): 1072-1079.

• John J. Shea. 2015. Making and Using Stone Tools: Advice for Learners and Teachers and Insights for Archaeologists. Lithic Technology 40:231-248.

• Stutz, A. J., J. J. Shea, J. A. Rech, J. S. Pigati, J. Wilson, M. Belmaker, R. M. Albert, T. Arpin, D. Cabanes, J. L. Clark, G. Hartman, F. Hourani, C. E. White, and L. Nilsson Stutz. (2015) Early Upper Paleolithic chronology in the Levant: new ABOx-SC accelerator mass spectrometry results from the Mughr el-Hamamah Site, Jordan. Journal of Human Evolution  85 (8): 153-173.

• John J. Shea (2015) Timescales and Variability in Hominin Technological Strategies in the Jordan Rift Valley: What Difference Does 1.3 Million Years Make? In Michael Shott (ed.) Works in Stone: Contemporary Perspectives on Lithic Analysis, pp.33-45.  Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

• John J. Shea (2014) Sink the Mousterian: Named stone tool industries (NASTIES) as obstacles to investigating hominin evolutionary relationships in the Later Middle Paleolithic Levant.  In Huw Groucutt and Eleanor Scerri (Eds.) Lithics of the Late Middle Palaeolithic: post MIS-5 technological variability and its implications.  Special Issue of Quaternary International 350: 169-179. 

• John J. Shea (2013) Stone Tools in the Paleolithic and Neolithic of the Near East: A Guide.  New York: Cambridge University Press.  View at Cambridge University Press website. For a up-to-date list of Errata, see the file at the bottom of this page.  NOTE (August 27, 2015): Cambridge Univ. Press has published  a paperbound version of this book.  All the corrections listed in Errata have been fixed in this edition.

• John J. Shea (2013) Lithic Modes A-I: A New Framework for Describing Global-Scale Variation in Stone Tool Technology Illustrated with Evidence from the East Mediterranean Levant. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 20 (1): 151-186.

• John J. Shea  (2011) Stone Tool Analysis and Human Origins Research: Some Advice from Uncle Screwtape. Evolutionary Anthropology 20:48-53.

• John J. Shea (2011) Homo sapiens Is as Homo sapiens Was: Behavioral Variability vs. ‘Behavioral Modernity’ in Paleolithic Archaeology. Current Anthropology 52 (1): 1-35. 

• John J. Shea (2011) Refuting a Myth About Human Origins. American Scientist 99 (3): 128-135.

• Elisabeth A Hildebrand, John J. Shea, and Katherine M. Grillo (2011) Four Pillar Sites in West Turkana, Kenya, Journal of Field Archaeology 36 (3) 188-200.

• John J. Shea and Elisabeth A. Hildebrand (2010) The Middle Stone Age of West Turkana, Kenya.  Journal of Field Archaeology 35 (4): 355-364.

• John J. Shea and Matthew L. Sisk (2010) Complex Projectile Technology and Homo sapiens Dispersal from Africa to Western Eurasia.  Paleoanthropology 2010: 100-122. 

• John G. Fleagle, John J. Shea, Frederick E. Grine, Andrea L. Baden and Richard E. Leakey (Eds.)(2010) Out of Africa 1: The First Hominin Colonization of Eurasia.  New York: Springer.

• John J. Shea (2010) Stone Age Visiting Cards Revisited: A Strategic Perspective on the Lithic Technology of Early Hominin Dispersal. In: Fleagle JG, Shea JJ, Grine FE, Baden AL, Leakey R, editors. Out of Africa 1: The First Hominin Colonization of Eurasia. New York: Springer. pp.  47-64.

• Ghufran Sabri Ahmad and John J. Shea (2009) Reconstructing Late Pleistocene Human Behavior in the Jordan Valley: The Middle Paleolithic Stone Tool Assemblage from Ar Rasfa.  Oxford, UK: Archaeopress (British Archaeological Reports International Series, S2042).

• John J. Shea and Daniel E. Lieberman, (Eds.)(2009) Transitions in Prehistory: Essays in Honor of Ofer Bar-Yosef.  Oakville, CT: David Brown/Oxbow.

• John J. Shea (2008) The Middle Stone Age Archaeology of the Lower Omo Valley Kibish Formation: Excavations, Lithic Assemblages, and Inferred Patterns of early Homo sapiens Behavior.  Journal of Human Evolution 55: 448-485.

• John J. Shea (2007) Behavioral Differences between Middle and Upper Paleolithic Homo sapiens in the East Mediterranean Levant: The Roles of Intra-Specific Competition and Dispersal from Africa. Journal of Anthropological Research 63(4): 449-488.

• Amanuel Beyin and John J. Shea. (2007) Reconnaissance of Prehistoric Sites on the Red Sea Coast of Eritrea, NE Africa.  Journal of Field Archaeology 32 (1): 1-16.

• John J. Shea (2006) Child's Play: Reflections on the Invisibility of Children in the Paleolithic Record. Evolutionary Anthropology 15 (6): 212-216.

• John J. Shea (2006) The Origins of Lithic Projectile Point Technology: Evidence from Africa, the Levant, and Europe, Journal of Archaeological Science 33(6): 823-846.

• Ian J. Wallace and John J. Shea. (2006) Mobility Patterns and Core Technologies in the Middle Paleolithic of the Levant. Journal of Archaeological Science 33 (9): 1293-1309.

• John J. Shea (2003) The Middle Paleolithic of the East Mediterranean Levant. Journal of World Prehistory 17(4): 313-394.

• John J. Shea and Ofer Bar-Yosef (2005) Who Were the Skhul/Qafzeh People?  An Archaeological Perspective on Eurasia’s Oldest Modern Humans. Journal of the Israel Prehistoric Society 35: 451-468.

• John J. Shea, Zachary Davis, and Kyle Brown (2001) Experimental Tests of Middle Paleolithic Spear Points Using a Calibrated Crossbow. Journal of Archaeological Science 28 (8): 807-816.