Ostrich eggshell beads reveal 10,000 years of cultural interaction across Africa

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on November 27, 2019 / comment : 0 Africa, Archaeology, Early Humans

Ostrich eggshell beads are some of the oldest ornaments made by humankind, and they can be found dating back at least 50,000 years in Africa. Previous research in southern Africa has shown that the beads increase in size about 2,000 years ago, when herding populations first enter the region.

A string of modern ostrich eggshell beads from eastern Africa [Credit: Hans Sell]

In the current study, researchers Jennifer Miller and Elizabeth Sawchuk investigate this idea using increased data and evaluate the hypothesis in a new region where it has never before been tested.

Review of old ideas, analysis of old collections

To conduct their study, the researchers recorded the diameters of 1,200 ostrich eggshell beads unearthed from 30 sites in Africa dating to the last 10,000 years. Many of these bead measurements were taken from decades-old unstudied collections, and so are being reported here for the first time. This new data increases the published bead diameter measurements from less than 100 to over 1,000, and reveals new trends that oppose longstanding beliefs.

The ostrich eggshell beads reflect different responses to the introduction of herding between eastern and southern Africa. In southern Africa, new bead styles appear alongside signs of herding, but do not replace the existing forager bead traditions. On the other hand, beads from the eastern Africa sites showed no change in style with the introduction of herding.

Archaeological ostrich eggshell beads from southern Africa (a,b) and eastern Africa (c,d) [Credit: Jennifer Miller]

Although eastern African bead sizes are consistently larger than those from southern Africa, the larger southern African herder beads fall within the eastern African forager size range, hinting at contact between these regions as herding spread. "These beads are symbols that were made by hunter-gatherers from both regions for more than 40,000 years," says lead author Jennifer Miller, "so changes - or lack thereof - in these symbols tells us how these communities responded to cultural contact and economic change."

Ostrich eggshell beads tell the story of ancient interaction

The story told by ostrich eggshell beads is more nuanced than previously believed. Contact with outside groups of herders likely introduced new bead styles along with domesticated animals, but the archaeological record suggests the incoming influence did not overwhelm existing local traditions. The existing customs were not replaced with new ones; rather they continued and incorporated some of the new elements.

In eastern Africa, studied here for the first time, there was no apparent change in bead style with the arrival of herding groups from the north. This may be because local foragers adopted herding while retaining their bead-making traditions, because migrant herders possessed similar traditions prior to contact, and/or because incoming herders adopted local styles.

The current study reports ostrich eggshell bead data from 11 new sites, including Magubike Rockshelter [Credit: Jennifer Miller]

"In the modern world, migration, cultural contact, and economic change often create tension," says Sawchuk, "ancient peoples experienced these situations too, and the patterns in cultural objects like ostrich eggshell beads give us a chance to study how they navigated these experiences."

The researchers hope that this work inspires a renewed interest into ostrich eggshell beads, and recommend that future studies present individual bead diameters rather than a single average of many. Future research should also investigate questions related to manufacture, chemical identification, and the effects of taphonomic processes and wear on bead diameter.

"This study shows that examining old collections can generate important findings without new excavation," says Miller, "and we hope that future studies will take advantage of the wealth of artifacts that have been excavated but not yet studied."

The study is published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.

Source: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History [November 27, 2019]

Inbreeding and population/demographic shifts could have led to Neanderthal extinction

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on November 27, 2019 / comment : 0 Anthropology, Early Humans, Europe, Genetics, Near East, Ticker

Small populations, inbreeding, and random demographic fluctuations could have been enough to cause Neanderthal extinction, according to a study published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Krist Vaesen from Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands, and colleagues.

Small populations, inbreeding, and random demographic fluctuations could have been enough to cause Neanderthal extinction, according to a new study [Credit: Petr Kratochvil (CC0)]

Paleoanthropologists agree that Neanderthals disappeared around 40,000 years ago--about the same time that anatomically modern humans began migrating into the Near East and Europe. However, the role modern humans played in Neanderthal extinction is disputed. In this study, the authors used population modelling to explore whether Neanderthal populations could have vanished without external factors such as competition from modern humans.

Using data from extant hunter-gatherer populations as parameters, the authors developed population models for simulated Neanderthal populations of various initial sizes (50, 100, 500, 1,000, or 5,000 individuals). They then simulated for their model populations the effects of inbreeding, Allee effects (where reduced population size negatively impacts individuals' fitness), and annual random demographic fluctuations in births, deaths, and the sex ratio, to see if these factors could bring about an extinction event over a 10,000-year period.

The population models show that inbreeding alone was unlikely to have led to extinction (this only occurred in the smallest model population). However, reproduction-related Allee effects where 25 percent or fewer Neanderthal females gave birth within a given year (as is common in extant hunter-gatherers) could have caused extinction in populations of up to 1,000 individuals. In conjunction with demographic fluctuations, Allee effects plus inbreeding could have caused extinction across all population sizes modelled within the 10,000 years allotted.

The population models are limited by their parameters, which are based on modern human hunter-gatherers and exclude the impact of the Allee effect on survival rates. It's also possible that modern humans could have impacted Neanderthal populations in ways which reinforced inbreeding and Allee effects, but are not reflected in the models.

However, by showing demographic issues alone could have led to Neanderthal extinction, the authors note these models may serve as a "null hypothesis" for future competing theories--including the impact of modern humans on Neanderthals.

The authors add: "Did Neanderthals disappear because of us? No, this study suggests. The species' demise might have been due merely to a stroke of bad, demographic luck."

Source: Public Library of Science [November 27, 2019]

Human migration out of Africa may have followed monsoons in the Middle East

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on November 26, 2019 / comment : 0 Archaeology, Early Humans, Earth Science, Israel, Jordan, Middle East, Palaeoclimate, Palestine, Syria

Last year, scientists announced that a human jawbone and prehistoric tools found in 2002 in Misliya Cave, on the western edge of Israel, were between 177,000 and 194,000 years old.

Ian Orland at Soreq Cave, Israel, where some calcite cave formations are 185,000 years old [Credit: Ian Orland]

The finding suggested that modern humans, who originated in Africa, began migrating out of the continent at least 40,000 years earlier than scientists previously thought.

But the story of how and when modern humans originated and spread throughout the world is still in draft form. That's because science hasn't settled how many times modern humans left Africa, or just how many routes they may have taken.

A new study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by American and Israeli geoscientists and climatologists provides evidence that summer monsoons from Asia and Africa may have reached into the Middle East for periods of time going back at least 125,000 years, providing suitable corridors for human migration.

The likely timing of these northward monsoon expansions corresponds with cyclical changes in Earth's orbit that would have brought the Northern Hemisphere closer to the sun and led to increased summer precipitation. With increased summer precipitation there may have been increased vegetation, supporting animal and human migration into the region.

"It could be important context for experts studying how, why, and when early modern humans were migrating out of Africa," says lead author Ian Orland, a University of Wisconsin-Madison geoscientist now at the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey, in the Division of Extension. "The Eastern Mediterranean was a critical bottleneck for that route out of Africa and if our suggestion is right, at 125,000 years ago and potentially at other periods, there may have been more consistent rainfall on a year-round basis that might enhance the ability of humans to migrate."

For as long as humans have kept records, winters have been wet and summers have been hot and dry in the Levant, a region that includes Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine. Before modern times, those hot, dry summers would have presented a significant barrier to people trying to move across the landscape.

Scientists, though, have found it difficult to determine what kinds of precipitation patterns might have existed in the prehistoric Levant. Some studies examining a variety of evidence, including pollen records, ancient lake beds, and Dead Sea sediments, along with some climate modeling studies, indicate summers in the region may have, on occasion, been wet.

To try to better understand this seasonality, Orland and colleagues looked at cave formations called speleothems in Israel's Soreq Cave. Speleothems, such as stalactites and stalagmites, form when water drips into a cave and deposits a hard mineral called calcite. The water contains chemical fingerprints called isotopes that keep a record, like an archive, of the timing and environmental conditions under which speleothems have grown.

Among these isotopes are different forms of oxygen molecules -- a light form called O16 and a heavy form called O18. Today, the water contributing to speleothem growth throughout much of the year has both heavy and light oxygen, with the light oxygen predominantly delivered by rainstorms during the winter wet season.

Orland and his colleagues hypothesized they might be able to discern from speleothems whether two rainy seasons had contributed to their growth at times in the past because they might show a similar signature of light oxygen in both winter and summer growth.

But to make this comparison, the scientists had to make isotope measurements across single growth bands, which are narrower than a human hair. Using a sensitive instrument in the UW-Madison Department of Geoscience called an ion microprobe, the team measured the relative amounts of light and heavy oxygen at seasonal increments across the growth bands of two 125,000-year-old speleothems from Soreq Cave.

This was the first time that seasonal changes were directly measured in a speleothem this old.

At the same time that Orland was in pursuit of geologic answers, his UW-Madison colleague in the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies Center for Climatic Research, Feng He, was independently using climate models to examine how vegetation on the planet has changed with seasonal fluctuations over the last 800,000 years. Colleagues since graduate school, He and Orland teamed up to combine their respective approaches after learning their studies were complementary.

A previous study in 2014 from UW-Madison climatologist and Professor Emeritus John Kutzbach showed that the Middle East may have been warmer and wetter than usual during two periods of time corresponding roughly to 125,000 years ago and 105,000 years ago. Meanwhile, at a point in between, 115,000 years ago, conditions there were more similar to today.

The wetter time periods corresponded to peak summer insolation in the Northern Hemisphere, when Earth passes closer to the sun due to subtle changes in its orbit. The drier time period corresponded to one of its farthest orbits from the sun. Monsoon seasons tend to be stronger during peak insolation.

This provided He an opportunity to study high and low insolation rainfall during summer seasons in the Middle East and to study its isotopic signatures.

The climate model "fueled the summer monsoon hypothesis" because it suggested that "under these conditions, the monsoons could have reached the Middle East and would have a low O18 signature," He, a study co-author, says. "It's a very intriguing period in terms of climate and human evolution."

His model showed that northward expansion of the African and Asian summer monsoons was possible during this time period, would have brought significant rainfall to the Levant in the summer months, would have nearly doubled annual precipitation in the region, and would have left an oxygen isotope signature similar to winter rains.

At the same time, Orland's speleothem isotype analysis also suggested summers were rainier during peak insolation at 125,000 and 105,000 years ago.

For similar reasons, the Middle East may have also been warm and humid around 176,000 years ago, the researchers say -- about when the jawbone made its way to Misliya Cave. And before the jawbone, the previous oldest modern human fossils found outside of Africa were at Israel's Skh?l Cave, dating back between 80,000 and 120,000 years ago.

Overall, the study suggests that during a period of time when humans and their ancestors were exploring beyond the African continent, conditions may have been favorable for them to traverse the Levant.

"Human migration out of Africa occurred in pulses, which is definitely consistent with our idea that every time the Earth is closer to the sun, the summer monsoon is stronger and that's the climatic window that opened and provided opportunities for human migration out of Africa," says He.

Author: Kelly April Tyrrell | Source: University of Wisconsin-Madison [November 26, 2019]

Breakthrough method of identifying sex and species of million-year-old fossils

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on November 19, 2019 / comment : 0 Anthropology, Early Humans, Early Mammals, Fossils, Genetics

Reid Ferring, a professor in the University of North Texas Department of Geography and the Environment, is part of an international team of scientists who have developed a breakthrough method of identifying the sex and species of animal in fossils more than a million years old.

UNT Professor Reid Ferring holds that cast of a skull found at the Dmanisi site [Credit: University of North Texas]

"This is very exciting because our current method for determining sex and species, examination of extracted DNA, was limited to approximately 200,000 years. Through palaeoproteomics, the study of ancient proteins, we can now look back over a million years," said Ferring.

Ferring believes that palaeoproteomics will prove to be the key for establishing the evolutionary line between the earliest hominids and modern man. The reason, according to Ferring, is that proteins like collagen, which is found in tendons, ligaments, skin, bone and teeth, last much longer than DNA in fossilized material.

"We have thousands of hominid fossils in collections and museums around the world from all time periods," he said. "We have five complete skulls from the Dmanisi site in the country of Georgia that I know are almost two million years old. There are so many samples that can now be labeled and differentiated between species of the same line. We are on the edge of learning much more about our ancestors and ourselves than at any point in history."

Ferring added that the breakthrough came when the team was able to sample collagen from 1.7 million-year-old fossilized animal teeth found at the Dmanisi site. Using that protein, the team determined that the animal was a Stephanorhinus, an extinct form of rhinoceros. The team could then fit the Stephanorhinus into the modern rhinoceros' evolutionary line and differentiate it from ones that came before and after.

Palaeoproteomics is a very new field and, as such, scientists are very careful to document and confirm each part of the process. Ferring was one of more than 40 prominent researchers of different specialties, nationalities and backgrounds who participated in the groundbreaking project.

"I was brought in not because I am an expert on ancient proteins, but because I am a geologist and archaeologist who has been working at the Dmanisi site every summer for the last 27 years," Ferring said. "The whole surface of the site is covered with ruins of Bronze Age and medieval structures including a fortress and a seventh century Orthodox Church. All of the materials we excavated were found under 20 feet of volcanic ash containing thousands of animal bones and artifacts."

As the project geologist, Ferring documented and profiled the sediments in the area of the original find to provide context for all the materials that were dated and the fossils recovered. Based on the depth of the find and the type of minerals surrounding it, he was able to place the age of the Stephanorhinus teeth at more than 1.7 million years old.

In September, the journal Nature printed a paper titled "Early Pleistocene Enamel Proteome from Dmanisi Resolves Stephanorhinus Phylogeny" that describes the methods used and data collected by the international Stephanorhinus team. The paper was co-authored by Ferring.

Source: University of North Texas [November 19, 2019]

'Ghost' footprints from Pleistocene era revealed by radar tech

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on November 11, 2019 / comment : 0 Archaeology, Early Humans, Early Mammals, Fossils, North America

Invisible footprints hiding since the end of the last ice age - and what lies beneath them - have been discovered by Cornell University researchers using a special type of radar in a novel way.

The researchers collecting GPR data at White Sands National Monument in New Mexico  [Credit: Cornell University]

The fossilized footprints reveal a wealth of information about how humans and animals moved and interacted with each other 12,000 years ago.

"We never thought to look under footprints," said Thomas Urban, research scientist at Cornell and lead author on the study. "But it turns out that the sediment itself has a memory that records the effects of the animal's weight and momentum in a beautiful way. It gives us a way to understand the biomechanics of extinct fauna that we never had before."

The researchers examined the footprints of humans, mammoths and giant sloths in the White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. Using ground-penetrating radar (GPR), they were able to resolve 96% of the human tracks in the area under investigation, as well as all of the larger vertebrate tracks.

Human footprints from the last Ice Age at White Sands National Monument in New Mexico [Credit: Matthew Robert Bennett]

"But there are bigger implications than just this case study," Urban said. "The technique could possibly be applied to many other fossilized footprint sites around the world, potentially including those of dinosaurs. We have already successfully tested the method more broadly at multiple locations within White Sands."

While these "ghost" footprints can become invisible for a short time after rain and when conditions are just right, "now, using geophysics methods, they can be recorded, traced and investigated in 3D to reveal Pleistocene animal and human interactions, history and mechanics in genuinely exciting new ways," said co-author Sturt Manning, archaeology professor.

GPR is a nondestructive method that allows researchers to access hidden information without the need for excavation. The sensor - a kind of antenna - is dragged over the surface, sending a radio wave into the ground. The signal that bounces back gives a picture of what's under the surface.

The pressure data from the mammoth footprints closely resembled those of modern elephants [Credit: Matthew Robert Bennett]

In addition to this biomechanical treasure trove of data, the GPR technique gives researchers a way to learn about what early humans did when they were not at a campsite or kill site, the two types of archaeological sites best known for this time period.

The study is published in Scientific Reports.

Author: Linda B. Glaser | Source: Cornell University [November 11, 2019]

Mammoth skeletons and 15,000-year-old human-built traps found in Mexico

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on November 07, 2019 / comment : 0 Americas, Archaeology, Central America, Early Humans, Early Mammals, Fossils, Mexico

Archaeologists said Wednesday they have made the largest-ever discovery of mammoth remains: a trove of 800 bones from at least 14 of the extinct giants found in central Mexico.

Mammoth skull and tusks in 15,000-year-old trap  [Credit: INAH]

Moreover, they believe they have made the first-ever find of a mammoth trap set by humans, who would have used it to capture the huge herbivores more than 14,000 years ago, said Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). "This is the largest find of its kind ever made," the institute said in a statement.

The skeletal remains were found in Tultepec, near the site where President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's government is building a new airport for Mexico City.

Archaeologists believe they have made the largest-ever discovery of mammoth remains [Credit: INAH]

Mammoth bones excavated [Credit: INAH]

Luis Cordoba Barradas with mammoth remains [Credit: INAH]

Mammoth pelvis [Credit: INAH]

Excavated Mammoth remains [Credit: Jose Mendez]

Mammoth skull [Credit: INAH]

Some bore signs that the animals had been hunted, leading experts to conclude that they had found "the world's first mammoth trap," it said.

"Mammoths lived here for thousands of years. The herds grew, reproduced, died, were hunted... They lived alongside other species, including horses and camels," archaeologist Luis Cordoba told journalists.


Researchers said at least five mammoth herds lived in the area of the find. Mexico has been the scene of surprising mammoth discoveries before. In the 1970s, workers building the Mexico City subway found a mammoth skeleton while digging on the capital's north side.

Source: AFP [November 07, 2019]

Genetic imprint of Palaeolithic detected in North African populations

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on November 06, 2019 / comment : 0 Anthropology, Early Humans, Genetics, North Africa

An international team of scientists has for the first time performed an analysis of the complete genome of the population of North Africa. They have identified a small genetic imprint of the inhabitants of the region in Palaeolithic times, thus ruling out the theory that recent migrations from other regions completely erased the genetic traces of ancient North Africans. The study was led by David Comas, principal investigator at UPF and at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE: CSIC-UPF) and it has been published in the journal Current Biology.

Representation of the North African samples that have been used for this study [Credit: UPF]

The field of genomics has evolved greatly in recent years. DNA sequencing is increasingly affordable and there are major projects studying genomes at population level. However, some human populations like those of North Africa have been systematically ignored. This is the first genomic study to contextualize this region of the world.

The origin and history of the population of North Africa are different from the rest of the continent and are more similar to the demographic history of regions outside Africa: the Middle East, Europe or Asia. Palaeontological remains exist that prove the existence of humans in the region more than 300,000 years ago. In any case, previous genetic studies had shown that current populations of North Africa originated as a result of a Back to Africa process, that is, recent migrations from the Middle East that populated northern Africa.

Hence, the debate that arises is one of continuity versus replacement. On the one hand, the continuity hypothesis posits that current North African populations descend from Palaeolithic groups, i.e., that such ancient humans are the ancestors of present human populations. Meanwhile, other hypotheses argue that the populations that existed in Palaeolithic times were replaced, and that the humans that currently inhabit North Africa are the result of recent migrations that arrived there as of the Neolithic.

In this study, the researchers compared genetic data from current North African individuals with data recently published on the DNA of fossil remains found at different sites in Morocco. "We see that the current populations of North Africa are the result of this replacement but we detect small traces of this continuity from Palaeolithic times, i.e., total replacement did not take place in the populations of North Africa", reveals David Comas, full professor of Biological Anthropology at the Department of Experimental and Health Sciences (DCEXS) at UPF. "We do not know whether the first settlers 300,000 years ago are their ancestors, but we do detect imprints of this continuity at least since Palaeolithic times, since 15,000 years ago or more", he adds.

"We have seen that the genetic imprint of Palaeolithic populations of North Africa is unique to the current North African populations and is decreasingly distributed from west to east in the region, inversely proportionally to the Neolithic component coming from the Middle East, which had a greater effect on the eastern region, which is geographically closer", says Gerard Serra-Vidal, first author of the article.

"Therefore, our results confirm that migrations from other regions such as Europe, the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa to this area did not completely erase the genetic traces of the ancient North Africans", explains David Comas, head of the Human Genome Diversity research group of the IBE.

These results of the populations of North Africa are in contrast with what is known about the European continent, in whose current populations a strong Palaeolithic component is found, i.e., more continuity and less replacement than in North Africa.

Many genomic data are still missing, both of current populations and of fossil remains, to be able to establish the population history of the human species. "This is or particular concern in populations such as those of North Africa about which we have very little information compared to other populations in the world. In order to have a complete picture of human genome diversity still have to do a considerable amount of research", David Comas concludes.

Source:Universitat Pompeu Fabra - Barcelona [November 06, 2019]

Study reveals that humans migrated from Europe to the Levant 40,000 years ago

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on November 05, 2019 / comment : 0 Archaeology, Early Humans, Europe, Israel, Near East

Who exactly were the Aurignacians, who lived in the Levant 40,000 years ago? Researchers from Tel Aviv University, the Israel Antiquities Authority, and Ben-Gurion University now report that these culturally sophisticated yet mysterious humans migrated from Europe to the Levant some 40,000 years ago, shedding light on a significant era in the region's history.

A view of Manot cave and a close up of the area where some of the teeth were found [Credit: Prof. Israel Hershkovitz/American Friends of Tel Aviv University]

The Aurignacian culture first appeared in Europe some 43,000 years ago and is known for having produced bone tools, artifacts, jewelry, musical instruments, and cave paintings. For years, researchers believed that modern man's entry into Europe led to the rapid decline of the Neanderthals, either through violent confrontation or wresting control of food sources. But recent genetic studies have shown that Neanderthals did not vanish. Instead, they assimilated into modern human immigrant populations. The new study adds further evidence to substantiate this theory.

Through cutting-edge dental research on six human teeth discovered at Manot Cave in the Western Galilee, Dr. Rachel Sarig of TAU's School of Dental Medicine and Dan David Center Center for Human Evolution and Biohistory Research, Sackler Faculty of Medicine in collaboration with Dr. Omry Barzilai of the Israel Antiquities Authority and colleagues in Austria and the United States, have demonstrated that Aurignacians arrived in modern-day Israel from Europe some 40,000 years ago -- and that these Aurignacians comprised Neanderthals and Homo sapiens alike.

Upper and lower molars taken from the Manot cave, dated to 38,000 years ago, showing a mixture of characteristics [Credit: Dr. Rachel Sarig]

"Unlike bones, teeth are preserved well because they're made of enamel, the substance in the human body most resistant to the effects of time," Dr. Sarig explains. "The structure, shape, and topography or surface bumps of the teeth provided important genetic information. We were able to use the external and internal shape of the teeth found in the cave to associate them with typical hominin groups: Neanderthal and Homo sapiens."

The researchers performed in-depth lab tests using micro-CT scans and 3D analyses on four of the teeth. The results surprised the researchers: Two teeth showed a typical morphology for Homo sapiens; one tooth showed features characteristic of Neanderthals; the last tooth showed a combination of Neanderthal and Homo sapiens features.

Findspots of the teeth in Manot Cave [Credit: Sarig et al. 2019]

This combination of Neanderthal and modern human features has, to date, been found only in European populations from the early Paleolithic period, suggesting their common origin.

"Following the migration of European populations into this region, a new culture existed in the Levant for a short time, approximately 2,000-3,000 years. It then disappeared for no apparent reason," adds Dr. Sarig. "Now we know something about their makeup."

"Until now, we hadn't found any human remains with valid dating from this period in Israel," adds Prof. Israel Hershkovitz, head of the Dan David Center, "so the group remains a mystery. This groundbreaking study contributes to the story of the population responsible for some of the world's most important cultural contributions."

A report on the new findings was published in the Journal of Human Evolution.

Source: Tel Aviv University [November 05, 2019]

The last Neanderthal necklace

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on November 01, 2019 / comment : 0 Archaeology, Early Humans, Europe, Southern Europe, Spain

Eagle talons are regarded as the first elements used to make jewellery by Neanderthals, a practice which spread around Southern Europe about 120,000 and 40,000 years ago. Now, for the first time, researchers found evidence of the ornamental uses of eagle talons in the Iberian Peninsula. An article published in the cover of the journal Science Advances talks about the findings, which took place in the site of the cave Foradada in Calafell. The article was led by Antonio Rodriguez-Hidalgo, researcher at the Institute of Evolution in Africa (IDEA) and member of the research team in a project of the Prehistoric Studies and Research Seminar (SERP) of the UB.

A falange of imperial eagle with marks of court from Cave Foradada [Credit: Antonio Rodriguez-Hidalgo]

The interest in these findings lies in the fact that it is the most modern piece of the kind so far regarding the Neanderthal period and the first one found in the Iberian Peninsula. This circumstance widens the temporary and geographical limits that were estimated for this kind of Neanderthal ornaments. This would be "the last necklace made by the Neanderthals", according to Antonio Rodriguez-Hidalgo.

Imperial eagle talons [Credit: Antonio Rodriguez-Hidalgo]

"Neanderthals used eagle talons as symbolic elements, probably as necklace pendants, from the beginnings of the mid Palaeolithic", notes Antonio Rodriguez-Hidalgo. In particular, what researchers found in Cova Foradada are bone remains from Spanish Imperial Eagle (Aquila Adalberti), from more than 39,000 years ago, with some marks that show these were used to take the talons so as to make pendants.

The found remains correspond to the left leg of a big eagle. By the looks of the marks, and analogy regarding remains from different prehistorical sites and ethnographic documentation, researchers determined that the animal was not manipulated for consumption but for symbolic reasons. Eagle talons are the oldest ornamental elements known in Europe, even older than seashells Homo sapiens sapiens perforated in northern Africa.

Experimental butchering of vulture talons to stablish analogies with archaeological cut marks [Credit: Antonio Rodriguez-Hidalgo]

The findings belong to the chatelperronian culture, typical from the last Neanderthals that lived in Europe, and coincided with the moment when this species got in touch with Homo sapiens sapiens, from Africa -and expanding from the Middle East. Actually, Juan Ignacio Morales, researcher in the program Juan de la Cierva affiliated at SERP and signer of the article, presents this use of eagle talons as ornaments could have been a cultural transmission from the Neanderthals to modern humans, who adopted this practice after reaching Europe.

The site of the cave Foradada (Calafell, Tarragona) [Credit: Antonio Rodriguez-Hidalgo]

Cova Foradada covers the most meridional chatelperronian culture site in Europe. The discovery involved a change in the map of the territory where the step from Middle Palaeolithic to Upper Palaeolithic took place 40,000 years ago, and where interaction between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens sapiens probably took place.

First experimental study for traceological interpretation at Olduvai sites

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on October 28, 2019 / comment : 0 Africa, Archaeology, Early Humans, Tanzania

Patricia Bello-Alonso of the Centro Nacional de Investigacion sobre la Evolucion Humana (CENIEH) has reported on experimental results for the traceological interpretation of activities carried out using stone tools made from the most representative raw material at the Olduvai Gorge sites (Tanzania), naibor soit quartzite. The results are published in Quaternary International.

Fossil bones and rocks unearthed from one of the archaeological levels at an Olduvai Gorge site [Credit: Lindsay Mchenry]

This study presents the macro and micro-marks produced on the edges of experimental stone tools during their use on a diversity of types of plants (roots, tubers, herbaceous plants, canes and wood), and bone and carcass processing, with the objective of identifying these kinds of marks in the archaeological record.

"By doing this, we have obtained an extensive reference collection of unretouched flakes made by knapping blocks of naibor quartzite," says Bello-Alonso, whose paper forms part of the traceological studies she is conducting at the Acheulean site of Thiongo Korongo (TK), around 1.3 million years old.

Classic viewpoint of Olduvai Gorge, with the Naibor Soit hills in the distance and the so-called castle’ (made of red sediments belonging to Bed III) to the bottom right [Credit: Lindsay Mchenry]

One of the novelties included in the work is the description and interpretation of the macro and micro-topographical changes in the surface of naibor soit quartzite. Based on the results, the researchers have developed criteria to distinguish the kinds of activities and materials by recording attributes including pitting and micro-polish.

This has made it possible to compile an interpretive database, both macroscopic and microscopic, which could enable and enhance functional interpretation of lithic utensils from the Acheulean site of TK and the majority of the other Olduvai Gorge sites where this same raw material was employed.

Source: CENIEH [October 28, 2019]

The homeland of modern humans

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on October 28, 2019 / comment : 0 Africa, Anthropology, Early Humans, Genetics, Human Evolution

A study has concluded that the earliest ancestors of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) emerged in a southern African 'homeland' and thrived there for 70 thousand years. The breakthrough findings are published in the journal Nature.

Credit: AFP

The authors propose that changes in Africa's climate triggered the first human explorations, which initiated the development of humans' genetic, ethnic and cultural diversity. This study provides a window into the first 100 thousand years of modern humans' history.

DNA as a time capsule

"It has been clear for some time that anatomically modern humans appeared in Africa roughly 200 thousand years ago. What has been long debated is the exact location of this emergence and subsequent dispersal of our earliest ancestors," says study lead Professor Vanessa Hayes from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and University of Sydney, and Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria.

"Mitochondrial DNA acts like a time capsule of our ancestral mothers, accumulating changes slowly over generations. Comparing the complete DNA code, or mitogenome, from different individuals provides information on how closely they are related."

In their study, Professor Hayes and her colleagues collected blood samples to establish a comprehensive catalogue of modern human's earliest mitogenomes from the so-called 'L0' lineage. "Our work would not have been possible without the generous contributions of local communities and study participants in Namibia and South Africa, which allowed us to uncover rare and new L0 sub-branches," says study author and public health Professor Riana Bornman from the University of Pretoria.

"We merged 198 new, rare mitogenomes to the current database of modern human's earliest known population, the L0 lineage. This allowed us to refine the evolutionary tree of our earliest ancestral branches better than ever before," says first author Dr Eva Chan from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, who led the phylogenetic analyses.

By combining the L0 lineage timeline with the linguistic, cultural and geographic distributions of different sub-lineages, the study authors revealed that 200 thousand years ago, the first Homo sapiens sapiens maternal lineage emerged in a 'homeland' south of the Greater Zambezi River Basin region, which includes the entire expanse of northern Botswana into Namibia to the west and Zimbabwe to the east.

A homeland perfect for life to thrive

Investigating existing geological, archeological and fossil evidence, geologist Dr Andy Moore, from Rhodes University, revealed that the homeland region once held Africa's largest ever lake system, Lake Makgadikgadi.

"Prior to modern human emergence, the lake had begun to drain due to shifts in underlying tectonic plates. This would have created, a vast wetland, which is known to be one of the most productive ecosystems for sustaining life," says Dr Moore.

Modern humans' first migrations

The authors' new evolutionary timelines suggest that the ancient wetland ecosystem provided a stable ecological environment for modern humans' first ancestors to thrive for 70 thousand years.

"We observed significant genetic divergence in the modern humans' earliest maternal sub-lineages, that indicates our ancestors migrated out of the homeland between 130 and 110 thousand years ago," explains Professor Hayes. "The first migrants ventured northeast, followed by a second wave of migrants who travelled southwest. A third population remained in the homeland until today."

"In contrast to the northeasterly migrants, the southwesterly explorers appear to flourish, experiencing steady population growth," says Professor Hayes. The authors speculate that the success of this migration was most likely a result of adaptation to marine foraging, which is further supported by extensive archaeological evidence along the southern tip of Africa.

Climate effects

To investigate what may have driven these early human migrations, co-corresponding author Professor Axel Timmermann, Director of the IBS Center for Climate Physics at Pusan National University, analysed climate computer model simulations and geological data, which capture Southern Africa's climate history of the past 250 thousand years.

"Our simulations suggest that the slow wobble of Earth's axis changes summer solar radiation in the Southern Hemisphere, leading to periodic shifts in rainfall across southern Africa," says Professor Timmermann. "These shifts in climate would have opened green, vegetated corridors, first 130 thousand years ago to the northeast, and then around 110 thousand years ago to the southwest, allowing our earliest ancestors to migrate away from the homeland for the first time."

"These first migrants left behind a homeland population," remarks Professor Hayes. "Eventually adapting to the drying lands, maternal descendants of the homeland population can be found in the greater Kalahari region today."

This study uniquely combined the disciplines of genetics, geology and climatic physics to rewrite our earliest human history.

Source: Garvan Institute of Medical Research [October 28, 2019]

New study on early human fire acquisition squelches debate

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on October 25, 2019 / comment : 0 Archaeology, Armenia, Asia, Central Asia, Early Humans

Fire starting is a skill that many modern humans struggle with in the absence of a lighter or matches. The earliest humans likely harvested fire from natural sources, yet when our ancestors learned the skills to set fire at will, they had newfound protection, a means of cooking, light to work by, and warmth at their fingertips.

Credit: Getty Images

Just when this momentous acquisition of knowledge occurred has been a hotly debated topic for archaeologists.

Now, a team of University of Connecticut researchers, working with colleagues from Armenia, the U.K., and Spain, has found compelling evidence that early humans such as Neanderthals not only controlled fire, but also mastered the ability to generate it.

"Fire was presumed to be the domain of Homo sapiens but now we know that other ancient humans like Neanderthals could create it," says co-author Daniel Adler, associate professor in anthropology. "So perhaps we are not so special after all."

Their work, published in Scientific Reports, pairs archaeological, hydrocarbon and isotope evidence of human interactions with fire, with what the climate was like tens of thousands of years ago.

Using specific fire-related molecules deposited in the archaeological record and an analysis of climatological clues, the researchers examined Lusakert Cave 1 in the Armenian Highlands.

"Fire starting is a skill that has to be learned -- I never saw anyone who managed to produce fire without first being taught. So the assumption that someone has the capability to set fire at will is a source of debate," says Gideon Hartman, associate professor of anthropology, and study co-author.

The research team looked at sediment samples to determine the abundance of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are released when organic material is burned.

One type of PAH called light PAHs, disperse widely and are indicative of wildfires while others, called heavy PAHs, disperse narrowly and remain much closer to the source of fire.

"Looking at the markers for fires that are locally made, we start to see other human activity correlating with more evidence of locally-made fire," says lead author Alex Brittingham, a UConn doctoral student in anthropology.

Evidence of increased human occupation at the site, such as concentrations of animal bones from meals and evidence of tool making, correlated with increased fire frequency and the increased frequency of heavy PAHs.

Researchers also needed to rule out the possibility that unsettled weather, which gives rise to lightning, had ignited the fires.

To do so, they analyzed hydrogen and carbon isotope composition of the waxy cuticles of ancient plant tissues preserved in sediments. The distribution of these leaf waxes indicate what kind of climate the plants grew in.

They could not find any evidence of a link between overall paleoclimatic conditions and the geochemical record of fire, says Michael Hren, study author and associate professor of geosciences.

"In order to routinely access naturally caused fires, there would need to have been conditions that would produce lighting strikes at a relative frequency that could have ignited wildfires," says Hren.

By pairing the climate data with the evidence found in the archaeological record, the researchers then determined the cave's inhabitants were not living in drier, wildfire-prone conditions while they were utilizing fires within the cave.

In fact, there were fewer wildfires for these ancient humans to harvest at the time when fire frequency and heavy PAH frequency was high in the cave, says Brittingham.

"It seems they were able to control fire outside of the natural availability of wildfires," says Brittingham.

Brittingham is now applying the same research techniques to analyze other caves occupied by early humans. He is currently working with a team in Georgia, among other locations, to determine whether fire was developed independently by groups in different geographic areas.

"Was it something that people in Armenia could do but people in France could not do? Was it developed independently?," asks Brittingham.

Author: Elaina Hancock | Source: University of Connecticut [October 25, 2019]

Modern Melanesians harbour beneficial DNA from archaic hominins

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on October 17, 2019 / comment : 0 Anthropology, Early Humans, Genetics, Human Evolution, Indigenous Cultures, Melanesia

Modern Melanesians harbour beneficial genetic variants that they inherited from archaic Neanderthal and Denisovan hominins, according to a new study published in Science. These genes are not found in many other human populations, the study adds.

The magnifying glasses highlight structural differences between the archaic (top) and reference (bottom) genomes. Neanderthal (red) and Denisovan (blue) haplotypes encompassing large CNVs occur at high frequencies in Melanesians  (44 and 79%, respectively) but are absent (black) in all non-Melanesians. These CNVs create positively selected genes (TNFRSF10D1, TNFRSF10D2, and NPIPB16) that are absent from the reference genome [Credit: PingHsun Hsieh et al. 2019]

The results suggest that large structural variants introgressed from our archaic ancestors may have played an important role in the adaptation of early modern human populations and that they may represent an under-appreciated source of the genetic variation that remains to be characterized in our modern genomes.

As populations of our ancestors migrated out of Africa and into the vast Eurasian continent, they were required to adapt to the wide range of environments they encountered. They also interbred with the archaic hominin ancestors they encountered.

However, the role of genetic exchange between archaic hominin and anatomically modern human populations in adaption and human evolution remains elusive. Genetic surveys with single-nucleotide variants (SNVs) have suggested their involvement in archaic introgression and adaptation.

However, compared to SNVs, copy number variants (CNVs), a larger form of structural variant, are far more likely to be associated with genotype expression and are subject to stronger selective pressure.

Despite this, the adaptive role of introgressed CNVs in human evolution and the genetic variation of modern humans remains unexplored. PingHsun Hsieh performed a genome-wide search for evidence of selective and archaic introgressed CNVs among Melanesian genomes.

The Islanders of Melanesia harbor some of the greatest amounts of archaic human ancestry known. Hsieh et al. discovered hominin-shared, stratified CNVs associated with positive selection in the modern Melanesian genomes.

Furthermore, the results revealed evidence for adaptive CNVs introgression at chromosomes 16p11.2 and 8p21.3, which were derived from Denisovans and Neanderthals, respectively. The results tentatively suggest that CNV introgression from ancestral hominins may have allowed modern humans to adapt to new environments by providing a source of beneficial genetic variation.

Source: American Association for the Advancement of Science [October 17, 2019]

Early humans travelled to Greek islands tens of thousands of years earlier than believed

By: Thomas Schmitt Attorney on October 16, 2019 / comment : 0 Archaeology, Early Humans, Europe, Greece, Southern Europe

An international research team led by scientists from McMaster University has unearthed new evidence in Greece proving that the island of Naxos was inhabited by Neanderthals and earlier humans at least 200,000 years ago, tens of thousands of years earlier than previously believed.

‘Neanderthals on Naxos!’ [Credit: Kathryn Killackey]

The findings, published in the journal Science Advances, are based on years of excavations and challenge current thinking about human movement in the region--long thought to have been inaccessible and uninhabitable to anyone but modern humans. The new evidence is leading researchers to reconsider the routes our early ancestors took as they moved out of Africa into Europe and demonstrates their ability to adapt to new environmental challenges.

"Until recently, this part of the world was seen as irrelevant to early human studies but the results force us to completely rethink the history of the Mediterranean islands," says Tristan Carter, an associate professor of anthropology at McMaster University and lead author on the study. He conducted the work with Dimitris Athanasoulis, head of archaeology at the Cycladic Ephorate of Antiquities within the Greek Ministry of Culture.

Geological hand sample of Stelida chert [Credit: Nikos Skarpelis]

While Stone Age hunters are known to have been living on mainland Europe for over 1 million years, the Mediterranean islands were previously believed to be settled only 9,000 years ago, by farmers, the idea being that only modern humans - Homo sapiens - were sophisticated enough to build seafaring vessels.

Scholars had believed the Aegean Sea, separating western Anatolia (modern Turkey) from continental Greece, was therefore impassable to the Neanderthals and earlier hominins, with the only obvious route in and out of Europe was across the land bridge of Thrace (southeast Balkans).

Reconstruction of prehistoric spearheads being made at Stelida – of Lower, Middle and Upper Palaeolithic, plus Mesolithic date (L-R) [Credit: Kathryn Killackey]

The authors of this paper suggest that the Aegean basin was in fact accessible much earlier than believed. At certain times of the Ice Age the sea was much lower exposing a land route between the continents that would have allowed early prehistoric populations to walk to Stelida, and an alternative migration route connecting Europe and Africa. Researchers believe the area would have been attractive to early humans because of its abundance of raw materials ideal for toolmaking and for its fresh water.

At the same time however, "in entering this region the pre-Neanderthal populations would have been faced with a new and challenging environment, with different animals, plants and diseases, all requiring new adaptive strategies," says Carter.

A researcher works at a trench at Stelida (Naxos, Greece) [Credit: Evaggelos Tzoumenekas]

In this paper, the team details evidence of human activity spanning almost 200,000 years at Stelida, a prehistoric quarry on the northwest coast of Naxos. Here early Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and earlier humans used the local stone (chert) to make their tools and hunting weapons, of which the team has unearthed hundreds of thousands.

Reams of scientific data collected at the site add to the ongoing debate about the importance of coastal and marine routes to human movement. While present data suggests that the Aegean could be crossed by foot over 200,000 years ago, the authors also raise the possibility that Neanderthals may also have fashioned crude seafaring boats capable of crossing short distances.


This research is part of the Stelida Naxos Archeological Project, a larger collaboration involving scholars from all over the world. They have been working at the site since 2013.

Source: McMaster University [October 16, 2019]