January 29, 2010

The Great Southern Migration Theory: Some Thoughts on Y-hap T and Boating Technology – by Terry Toohill

The Wikipedia entry for Y-chromosome haplogroup T claims:

“The distribution of haplogroup T in most parts of Europe is spotty or regionalized”. As it is through much of the rest of the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_T_(Y-DNA)

However from the map at Wiki we can see that Y-hap T is largely distributed along coastlines and up major river systems.

Y Hap T wiki

Haplogroup T
Time of origin 25,000-30,000 years BP
Place of origin Asia[1]
Ancestor K
Defining mutations USP9Y+3178=M184, M70, M193, M272
Highest frequencies Saccensi/Sicilians, Fulbe, Eivissencs, Stilfser/Tyroleans, Xibe, Egyptians, Gaditanos

I realise it’s risky to draw conclusions about ancient migrations from modern haplogroup distribution, but I believe that if we consider the possibility that Y-hap T was originally associated with some sort of a boating expansion we are easily able to explain the spotty distribution.

Perhaps we should start at the ‘beginning’ and examine the (doubtful) possibility that T, and boating, originated in Africa. So we’ll first visit the ‘easily crossed’ Bab al Mandab.

Y-hap T is well established to the south, on the African side. For some reason it was able to spread easily through the whole Horn, and even into the Ethiopian Highlands, probably by moving up the rivers flowing down from them. And perhaps then on down the Nile. Note that Y-hap T is not found through the Red Sea though. This suggests that the Bab al Mandab is not so easily crossed, or entered, after all. And T is virtually absent from the ‘inviting’ Yemeni coastline, for some reason or other. It’s not until we reach the actually much more benign Oman coast that we find T well established again. So T probably crossed the Gulf of Aden east of the Bab al Mandab. Is T, as well as Y-hap J, found on Socotra?

Y-hap T makes a substantial contribution to populations right around both the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf. And way upstream through Mesopotamia, the region that later developed into a major urban culture. This later development was probably related to Eurologist’s comment at Dienekes blog about transporting commodities efficiently: “Another big problem with large-scale shepherding is the transport of final products and exchange for foodstuff like cereals”.

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2010/01/migrants-introduced-farming-to-britain.html

Anyway the urban culture that developed in Mesopotamia was based on controlling the water that flowed through the region from the Anatolian highlands. So the place was wet. Ideal for boats.

In keeping with the boating connection there is, naturally, a hiatus between the Mesopotamian and Mediterranean Y-hap Ts. We would expect a boat-adapted population to find little of interest as they crossed what has become known as ‘the Fertile Crescent’. However the technology would be easily transported to the Mediterranean without necessarily transporting the actual boats. And Y-hap T and the technology could have entered the Mediterranean from the Nile. Or from both places. Technological hybrid vigour? A similar hiatus in Y-hap T’s distribution also occurs to the north, between Mesopotamia and the Caspian Sea. But a similar explanation suffices, as it does for the more distant T around lakes in Central Asia.

So Y-hap T entered the Mediterranean. It’s found in Crete and Greece, which makes sense. The islands through the Aegean would have been chickenfeed for any substantial boating technology. T also entered the Adriatic, but didn’t establish a foothold in the Dalmatian islands. Perhaps they were already occupied? T got a better reception across the Adriatic in Italy. Y-hap T and boating also set up home on the Tunisian coast, around the Ebro and on many Mediterranean islands, ultimately reaching the Atlantic coast of Spain/Portugal.

But did Y-hap T originate in Africa? I doubt it. It’s also found in India. As is its closest relation L. This particular haplogroup is spread along the Indus valley as well as south right along the west coast:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_L_(Y-DNA)

Hap group L

Haplogroup L
Time of origin 25,000-30,000 years BP
Place of origin South Asia[1]
Ancestor K
Defining mutations M20
Highest frequencies Indians, Pakistanis

But we find another Y-hap T hiatus along the ‘easily navigated’ Makran coast. T reappears in the Indus Delta and a little way down the west coast of India from there. But T’s distribution in India looks much more likely to be the product of a first arrival on the east coast and subsequent movement up the rivers flowing into the Bay of Bengal.

What is the possibility that L and T originate even further east? Y-haps N/O and P have become so widespread it’s possible to come up with almost any theory concerning their place of origin. But among L and T’s other close relations are S and M. Found in New Guinea, Melanesia and Australia, a region we know people must have reached using boats of some sort a very long time ago.

So we have evidence for a southern coastal migration. But not from Africa. The migration is into that continent. The fact that Y-hap T, along with L to some extent, appears to have effortlessly established itself in all the desirable coastal and riverine ecosystems along the southern Eurasian margin suggests that this habitat was actually unoccupied until T’s expansion. And that argues against any other more ancient great southern coastal migration.

2 Comments

Filed under Blog

Tags: , ,

January 28, 2010

Reduced Brain Size of Homo floresiensis Hints at Her Likely Ancestors

See also: Is Homo floresiensis really that strange? – Zinjanthropus@ A Primate of Modern Aspect

A new, detailed and freely accessible paper, Reconstructing the Ups and Downs of Primate Brain Evolution: Implications for Adaptive Hypotheses and Homo floresiensis (provisional PDF) has just come online at BMC Biology, in which Stephen H. Montgomery et al discuss the reduced brain-size of Homo floresiensis, and suggest she is unlikely to have descended from Homo erectus, for which this is the abstract:

Background

Brain size is a key adaptive trait. It is often assumed that increasing brain size was a general evolutionary trend in primates, yet recent fossil discoveries have documented brain size decreases in some lineages, raising the question of how general a trend there was for brains to increase in mass over evolutionary time. We present the first systematic phylogenetic analysis designed to answer this question.

Results

We performed ancestral state reconstructions of three traits (absolute brain mass, absolute body mass, relative brain mass) using 37 extant and 23 extinct primate species and three approaches to ancestral state reconstruction: parsimony, maximum likelihood and Bayesian Markov-chain Monte Carlo. Both absolute and relative brain mass generally increased over evolutionary time, but body mass did not. Nevertheless both absolute and relative brain mass decreased along several branches. Applying these results to the contentious case of Homo floresiensis, we find a number of scenarios under which the proposed evolution of the Homo floresiensis brain appears to be plausible, dependent on body mass and phylogenetic position.

Conclusions

Our results confirm that brain expansion began early in primate evolution and show that increases occurred in all major clades. Only in terms of an increase in absolute mass does the human lineage appear particularly striking, with both the rate of proportional change in mass and relative brain size having episodes of greater expansion elsewhere on the primate phylogeny. However, decreases in brain mass also occurred along branches in all major clades, and we conclude that, while selection has acted to enlarge primate brains, in some lineages this trend has been reversed.

Further analyses of the phylogenetic position of Homo floresiensis and better body mass estimates are required to confirm the plausibility of the evolution of its small brain mass. We find that for our dataset the Bayesian analysis for ancestral state reconstruction is least affected by inclusion of fossil data suggesting that this approach might be preferable for future studies on other taxa with a poor fossil record.

There’s a pretty good write-up over at A Primate of Modern Aspect, from which this is excerpted:

It’s extremely important for most of your organs to increase with body size.  For example, a bigger animal needs to pump more blood, so it needs a bigger heart.  A bigger animal eats more food and needs a bigger liver.  There are certain areas of the brain that increase allometrically with body size- usually areas that are in charge of motor skills.  If you’ve got bigger legs, you’ve got bigger muscles, and you need more neural projections in order to control them.  But does a larger animal need to think more?  Will it benefit from an extra few cubic centimeters of neocortex?  Probably not, so it’s not worth the extra time and energy it takes to develop that neocortex.

And that sort of brings us to an important question in evolutionary neurobiology: Does absolute brain size matter, or is it solely brain size relative to body size?  Brains that are absolutely larger have more neurons, which could have important cognitive implications.  But how many of those extra neurons are just being used to control the physiological functions of the body?

Does size even tell us anything at all?  Any way you look at it, brain size is a crude measurement of cognitive ability.  In an ideal world, we would know the proportion of each of the different regions of the brain in each species and go from there.  But, those kinds of measurements are hard to obtain in living species, and impossible in fossils.  Ralph Holloway has been saying since 1967 that there has got to be a better way than just plain ol’ cranial capacity… but other than noting the relative position of different sulci and gyri on endocasts, there isn’t too much else to be done.

The diminished brain size of LB1 has been remarked upon ever since the initial discovery, at is generally supposed that the stone tools found in context would have required a hominid with a larger brain in order to deploy the cognitive capacity needed for such behaviours, leading some to suggest that they were copies of others made by unknown AMH others present on the island of Flores. This in turn raised the question of from what or whom Liang Bua 1 had descended – according to the interpretation by zinjanthropus, if LB1 is descended from either H.georgicus found at Dmanisi, or H.habilis, the size of her brain is much more in accordance than had the descent been from the H.erectus from Ngangdong. Here’s a related note from the paper, which I’m sure will be the subject of extended discussion in the near future:

From our analyses  of evolution of H. floresiensis brain size under different phylogenetic  hypotheses, we conclude that the evolution of H. floresiensis is consistent with  our results across the primate phylogeny if it either evolved from populations  of H. habilis or Dmanisi hominin by insular dwarfism, or under Argue et al.’s  [43] proposed phylogenetic scenarios, and if H. floresiensis had a body mass  towards the lower end of the range of estimates obtained from skeletal  remains. In this respect we note that Brown et al. [26] suggested the lower  body mass estimates are probably most appropriate, assuming H. floresiensis  shared the lean body shape typical of Old World tropical modern humans.

If  this were true we estimate the evolution of H. floresiensis involved a  reasonable decrease in absolute brain mass, but an increase in relative brain  size.  Our analysis, together with studies of brain size in island populations of living primates[41, 42], therefore suggests we should perhaps not be  surprised by the evolution of a small brained, small bodied hominin, although  further clarification of the relationships between H. floresiensis and other  hominins are required to confirm this observation. Finally, our analyses add to  the growing number of studies that conclude that the evolution of the human  brain size has not been anomalous when compared to general primate brain  evolution [59, 61 91-94].

Reference:

Reconstructing the Ups and Downs of Primate Brain Evolution: Implications for Adaptive Hypotheses and Homo floresiensis

Abstract – Provisional PDF

Stephen H Montgomery email, Isabella Capellini email, Robert A Barton email and Nicholas I Mundy email

BMC Biology 2010, 8:9doi:10.1186/1741-7007-8-9

Published: 27 January 2010

2 Comments

Filed under Archaeology, Blog, Cultural Anthropology, Physical Anthropology

January 27, 2010

Four Stone Hearth #85: Cold Wind Edition at A Very Remote Period Indeed

Julien has posted the current edition of Four Stone Hearth over at his blog, marking the 85th occasion on which this anthropology blog carnival has appeared online. There’s a distinct archaeological feel to the opening section, including mention of the Silk Road, something I’ve been mulling over of late, but I certainly hadn’t heard of someone cutting themselves a pair of trousers from a tapestry – it’s good to know that people were ignoring basic rules of fashion back then as we do today.

Also mentioned is Second Life, and a consideration of how people may have dressed in the past, a look inside a Mediaeval museum in Stockholm, plus a number of contributions from the other fields of anthropology.

In keeping with the meteorological theme of this edition, I’m a little under the weather as I write this, so I’ll have to cut this post here and simply encourage readers to head over to A Very Remote Period Indeed, to check out these and other posts.

Leave a Comment

Filed under Blog

January 27, 2010

The Archaeology Channel – “Timeless India” by Zafar Hai

The Archaeology Channel – Timeless India

TAC have made available a 25-minute promotional film produced and directed by Zafar Hai on behalf of the Ministry of Tourism in India, and narrated by no less a luminary than Michael York.

Featuring many historic locations and exotic sights such as temples, this film is aimed more at the visitor to India keen on exploring her multi-faceted past, much of which has survived intact to the present day, and which can often be found resting gracefully amongst the modern cities that have sprung up in what has become one of the world’s largest and fastest growing economies. India has long been attracting traders and merchants from afar, from the Romans, the Chinese and Europeans and many more, bringing back a cornucopia of spices and luxury goods with them, further relating tales of the incredible lands and peoples that had greeted them.

Major religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism, plus a host of others, have long roots in India, aspects of which are celebrated in one of the world’s richest traditions in architecture, statuary, sculpture and art, conceived and executed by some of the most skilled, innovative and adept craftsmen of their day.

The film itself presents India in a subtle and serene focus, rather than going for a glitzy all-singing-all-dancing shindig, which at once emphasises the spiritual character of its heritage from a meditative perspective, whilst allowing the eyes to feast on a sumptuous riot of colours, shapes and forms, accompanied to a soundtrack of the diverse music, dance and resplendent costumery we have come to associate with these oriental lands, boasting a civilisation going back over 5,000 years.

Of course, India’s past hasn’t always been bathed in peaceful solitude, riven like most major nations of the present day, by conflicts down through the ages, and in her case, more recently subject to the predations of British imperial rule, artifacts of which are still in evidence today, not the least of which is the influence of the English language on millions of people alive today, which indirectly has led to the birth of one of the greatest cricketing nations on Earth.

As we hear later in the presentation, the recent history of India might have been entirely different had Nelson not stopped Napoleon Bonaparte in his tracks in Egypt – we can only wonder for instance, how French cuisine would have coped with the influx of what has in effect become Britain’s national dish of late, the ubiquitous curry, or whether the French population today would be a nation of tea-drinkers. Perhaps too, Calcutta would have become a second Paris instead of a proxy London.

But even where conflict ruled in the past, as visited upon India by the Moguls, who conquered far and wide, ( at about 14 minutes in) a flowering of creativity mixed with a liberal mix of religions and cultures sprang up thereafter, and as we see from the film, some of the surviving architecture would alone make for a worthwhile trip. In any case, if you want a whistle-stop tour round scenic India, this is an ideal film to watch, but for the full experience of course, you’ll need to visit India in person, and preferably for an extended tour.

‘Timeless India’ is here brought to us by the Archaeology Channel, who have over the past 10 years provided we the online viewing public with a fantastic archive of footage from all over the world, delving here into the past, stopping too in the present as efforts to rescue and preserve crumbling and damaged sites are documented. All these films are freely accessible at the TAC website.

To continue their outstanding project, the Archaeology Channel relies heavily on the kindness of strangers – or more specifically, paid-up members  – for financial support, so if you’d like to help out you can do so either by becoming a member, or ensuring that you renew your membership on an annual basis. Details of how to participate in the Membership programme can be found here.

image of Varanasi from here.

Web links:

Archaeological Survey of India

Archaeology of India, Sources of History of India (Indianetzone.com)

History of India (Wikipedia)

Incredible India (India Ministry of Tourism)

Indian History (WebIndia123.com)

Leave a Comment

Filed under Blog

January 27, 2010

Wednesday Round-up at Neuroanthropology – Videogaming/ 100th Edition

As readers here may be aware, recent reports from the world of neuroscience with an anthropological slant are assembled every Wednesday over at Neuroanthropology, and this week’s edition includes, amongst many others:

Chris Kelty et al., Outlaw Biology? Public Participation in the Age of Big Bio
Looks like a fascinating symposium this coming Friday and Saturday (Jan 20th & 30th) at UCLA. Plus just a fun site to explore.

Mary Hrovat, Civilization Founded on Beer?
“Patrick McGovern, an archaeologist who studies human exploration of fermented beverages, believes that it might have been the desire for reliable access to alcohol, not food, that spurred the farming revolution that swept Neolithic culture…”

Eugene Raikhel, More on Exporting American Madness
Somatosphere rounds up the latest reactions to Ethan Watters’ book on the globalization of American models of mental illness, including a useful summary of Watters’ latest piece in New Scientist.

To read the rest of the linked stories, just head over to Neuroanthropology, where you’ll also be able to catch this:

Bill Yates, The Uniqueness of Humans: TED Talk by Robert Sapolsky
What makes humans unique. Includes a video with the neuroendocrinologist who’s really an anthropologist in disguise.

I’ll add some comment on that last one in due course, but also of note is a spate of posts towards the end, featuring video-gaming and its mooted effects on the brain, as well as a look inside some of those cyber-scapes. Build Me A World is definitely worth checking, for example.

image: Belly of the Beast by  Ben Mauro via  Fan Made Bioshock 2 Artwork

Leave a Comment

Filed under Blog, Cultural Anthropology

Tags:

January 27, 2010

Pego do Diabo (Loures, Portugal): Tracing the Final Days of Iberian Neanderthals

Such is the frequency these days of research into Neanderthals published by Professor João Zilhão, I’m beginning to wonder whether heFigure 2. Pego do Diabo: the site hasn’t created multiple copies of himself, rather in the manner of a kinder, more constructive Dr. Manhattan, in a bid to leave no cave unexplored, no Neanderthal left behind etc. Anyway, today he appears courtesy of a freely accessible paper at PLoS ONE, in which we hear news from a cave in Portugal, Pego do Diabo (The Devil’s Cave).

The gist of his latest paper, as reported at Science Daily and Physorg is that Neanderthals in west and southern Iberia survived no later that 37,000 calendar years ago, (as opposed to much later estimates indicating they could have survived up until the Last Glacial Maximum), which in the opinion of the authors means that AMH and Neanderthals co-existed in Europe for no more than 5,000 years, and furthermore, that the case for Lagar Velho I being an AMH/Neanderthal artefacts of admixture, is thus strengthened. Moreover, the authors conclude that climate change caused disruption to interactive networks, and brought AMH and Neanderthals into direct contact south of the so-called Ebro Frontier system, ultimately causing the demise of the latter.

Here’s the abstract from the paper itself:

Background

Neandertals and the Middle Paleolithic persisted in the Iberian Peninsula south of the Ebro drainage system for several millennia beyond their assimilation/replacement elsewhere in Europe. As only modern humans are associated with the later stages of the Aurignacian, the duration of this persistence pattern can be assessed via the dating of diagnostic occurrences of such stages.

Methodology/Principal Findings

Using AMS radiocarbon and advanced pretreatment techniques, we dated a set of stratigraphically associated faunal samples from an Aurignacian III–IV context excavated at the Portuguese cave site of Pego do Diabo. Our results establish a secure terminus ante quem of ca.34,500 calendar years ago for the assimilation/replacement process in westernmost Eurasia. Combined with the chronology of the regional Late Mousterian and with less precise dating evidence for the Aurignacian II, they place the denouement of that process in the 37th millennium before present.

Conclusions/Significance

These findings have implications for the understanding of the emergence of anatomical modernity in the Old World as a whole, support explanations of the archaic features of the Lagar Velho child’s anatomy that invoke evolutionarily significant Neandertal/modern admixture at the time of contact, and counter suggestions that Neandertals could have survived in southwest Iberia until as late as the Last Glacial Maximum.

The Ebro Frontier is mentioned at Physorg:

Although the reality of this ‘Ebro Frontier’ pattern has gained wide acceptance since it was first proposed by Professor Zilhão some twenty years ago, two important aspects of the model have remained the object of unresolved controversy: the exact duration of the frontier; and the causes underlying the eventual disappearance of those refugial Neanderthal populations (ecology and climate, or competition with modern human immigrants)…

…Professor Zilhão said: “I believe the ‘Ebro frontier’ pattern was generated by both climatic and demographic factors, as it coincides with a period of globally milder climate during which oak and pine woodlands expanded significantly along the west façade of Iberia.

“Population decrease and a break-up of interaction networks probably occurred as a result of the expansion of such tree-covered landscapes, favouring the creation and persistence of population refugia.

“Then, as environments opened up again for large herbivore herds and their hunters as a result of the return to colder conditions, interaction and movement across the previous boundary must have ensued, and the last of the Neanderthals underwent the same processes of assimilation or replacement that underpin their demise elsewhere in Europe five millennia earlier.”

Clearly this will come as disconcerting news to those who contend that in fact Neanderthals survived a good few millennia later than 37 cal kya, and might well argue that a single cave – or data point – can’t be construed to represent the latest appearance date of Neanderthals across the entire Iberian peninsular, and it remains to be seen whether other sites in southern and northern Iberia, such as Carihuela and Esquilleu will refute the conclusions of this paper.

Much of content of the paper itself is given over to an exhaustive description of how the cave was re-examined and some of the contents re-dated, along with brief reference to an Aurignacian lithic assemblage, the Dufour bladelets, as described here:

Bearing in mind the palimpsest nature of cave deposits, the dating of layer 2 to the time range of the Aurignacian III–IV Figure 11. Fig 2 “Dufour bladelets”: Pego do Diabo compared with the Protoaurignaciandoes not completely reject the possibility that the artifacts contained therein entered the site at some point in time during the hiatus between the deposition of layers 2 and 3, i.e., in the ca.35–43 ka cal BP interval. Confirmation that the Pego do Diabo Dufour bladelets are indeed Aurignacian III–IV therefore requires assessment of whether their metrical and formal attributes are consistent with alternative assignments to earlier stages of the technocomplex.

A persistent source of confusion in the study of the Aurignacian is the vague, catch-all original definition of the “Dufour bladelet” type: “bladelet with a curved profile, presenting a fine, marginal, semi-abrupt retouch, along one of the edges only (in which case it can be either ventral or dorsal) or along both edges (in which case it is always alternate)” [57]. As a result, over the years, practitioners have subsumed under this category an extremely varied range of microliths with very little in common in terms of blank technology, mode of retouch, and overall shape.

A case in point is the putative presence of Dufour bladelets in Châtelperronian level X of the Grotte du Renne, at Arcy-sur-Cure [77], which some have used to support the twin notions that the site is heavily disturbed and that the numerous ornaments found in level X originated in Aurignacian level VII, where Dufour bladelets are abundant [78]–[79]. In fact, the few level X items in question represent one end of the variation of the “retouched blade” tool type. They are not bladelets but blades (their average width is 13.5 mm), and they display a technology of blank production that is distinctively Châtelperronian [80].

The authors note that very little is known about the Aurigncian/Gravettian transition in Europe, and that this research tallies with other sites regarding the onset of the Gravettian in Europe:

Keep reading →

1 Comment

Filed under Archaeology, Blog, Cultural Anthropology, Physical Anthropology

Tags: , , ,

January 26, 2010

Spatial Organization of Fisher-hunter-gatherers at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Israel, 790 kya

Science/AAAS

Updated – please see end of this post.

The archaeological site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov has been in the news again recently, following the publication of a paper in Science, namely Spatial Organization of Hominin Activities at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Israel, authored by Nira Alperson-Afil et al, in which they reflect upon the organisational abilities of archaic humans in the Lower Palaeolithic of the Middle Pleistocene, who at GBY, represent the oldest known fisher-hunter-gatherers so far discovered in the archaeological record. It’s fair to say this paper has made something of an impact, with the general consensus being that archaic humans of this era were capable of organisational behaviours similar to that of anatomically modern humans, with one or two voices arguing that the evidence at Gesher Benot Ya’akov (GBY) is suggestive rather than conclusive.

This site of GBY offers us what appears to be a marked contrast to another site of around the same age, c. 780 kya, in the Aurora stratum, also known as the TD6 level at Gran Dolina, Atpauerca in modern-day central north Spain – I’ll add a brief word on that site later in this post, because apart from anything else, the fossils of 6 humans (suggested to have been cannibalised) have been found there, whereas there are no fossil remains of humans described at GBY. Labelled as H. antecessor, it may be that similar people dwelt by the shores of Lake Hula at GBY.

Apart from organisational behaviours, this site also documents a very early use and control of fire, which at c.800 kya, again appears to bridge a cognitive gap, while at the same time posing the question of why there appears to be a cognitive, or at least technological stasis from that point almost to the present day.

Briefly, the site in question GBY Level 2 was found to have been split into two main areas about 25 ft apart, one for the preparation of food such as fish, whilst the other was a hearth around which other activities such as stone tool manufacture, smashing nuts and eating are thought to have taken place. Moreover, because the site was sealed rapidly and very well preserved, numerous faunal and floral remains indicate that a wide range of foods and resources were regularly exploited by these people, from which it seems clear that they had long mastered the art of survival beyond the raw essentials.

Abstract:

The spatial designation of discrete areas for different activities reflects formalized conceptualization of a living space. The results of spatial analyses of a Middle Pleistocene Acheulean archaeological horizon (about 750,000 years ago) at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Israel, indicate that hominins differentiated their activities (stone knapping, tool use, floral and faunal processing and consumption) across space. These were organized in two main areas, including multiple activities around a hearth. The diversity of human activities and the distinctive patterning with which they are organized implies advanced organizational skills of the Gesher Benot Ya’aqov hominins.

Although the authors concern themselves primarily with implying that archaic humans at the site were showing organisational abilities on a par with modern hunter-gatherers, or foragers, the sheer range of foodstuffs and other materials found there also indicate a fairly complex diet – as opposed to one that mostly involved hurling spears at large mammals as a means of obtaining food – was not only available but fully exploited, with the possibility that certain sites were visited in line with their seasonal resources. There are differing opinions regarding the exact implications for the cognitive and organisational abilities of these early humans, with Vaughan Bell at Mind Hacks supportive of the authors, whereas John Hawks was less impressed.

Moreover, as has been mentioned in previous papers, there is clear evidence of the use of controlled fire on a continual basis, and what might be most surprising, is not that fish were also consumed, but that the lakeside dwellers were able to catch carp and other fish in the first place. It has often been stated that an advantageous trait of early modern humans in the Upper Palaeolithic was their more diverse diet which included fish, giving them a putative survival advantage over the Neanderthals (who are in fact documented as having eaten dolphin, seal and mussels on Gibraltar) – plus of course the cognitive ability to manufacture equipment such as barbed bone and ivory points, with which to acquire their prey.

I’m very grateful to have been sent a copy of a paper that would otherwise be inaccessible to me, on this occasion by Professor Naama Goren-Inbar, one of the authors, so as ever, I’ll add some detail from the text as well as adding some comment of my own. First up, a look at the site itself, its geologic past and the way in which it has fortuitously been preserved over such a vast expanse of time.

Gesher Benot Ya’aqov is located on the shores of the paleo–Lake Hula in the northern Jordan Valley in the Dead Sea Rift (7). The Early to Middle Pleistocene sediments document an oscillating freshwater lake and represent some 100,000 years of hominin occupation (Oxygen Isotope Stages 18–20) dating to 790,000 years ago (8, 9). Fourteen archaeological horizons indicate that Acheulian hominins repeatedly occupied the lake margins, where they skilfully produced stone tools, systematically butchered and exploited animals, gathered plant food, and controlled fire.

We focus on a hearth area and the lithic, botanical, and paleontological assemblages of Layer II-6 Level 2 (henceforth Level 2), one of eight superimposed occupational levels in Layer II-6. This sedimentary sequence was rapidly sealed, preserving the original location of different artifacts (evidenced by the fresh preservation state of the lithics, the preservation of mollusk embryos, the presence of conjoinable bones, and a lack of winnowing) (8, 10, 15, 16). Level 2 is 0.12 m thick, and we excavated across an area of 25.6m2 (3 m3). It yielded numerous stone artifacts made of different raw materials; a large assemblage of wood, bark, fruits, seeds, and nuts; and highly diverse lacustrine and terrestrial animal remains.

The immediate impression given is the sheer variety of activities and behaviours exhibited by an as yet unidentified species of archaic human, as they went about their daily lives. Although these were temporary occupations, it’s clear that a great deal of time and effort was needed to keep the camp supplied with resources required for the diverse food items to be sourced, acquired and prepared for eating. The presence of many species of wood remains offer further clues to an invisible part of the archaeology, with the likelihood that specific wood types were selected for various purposes – fire-wood, spears and fishing equipment come to mind, but before getting to those details, a quick word about how Level 2 at GBY was originally configured.

Keep reading →

13 Comments

Filed under Archaeology, Blog, Cultural Anthropology

Tags: , ,

January 22, 2010

Neanderthal Notes for the Weekend

I recently posted a brief article regarding the latest themed edition of Current Anthropology, but at the time of writing I hadn’t noticed another paper in the same issue, namely Sleeping Activity Area within the Site Structure of Archaic Human Groups – Evidence from Abric Romaní Level N Combustion Activity Areas, which begins with this:

Abstract:

The identification of different prehistoric activity areas and Neanderthal behavior is one of the main research goals at the Abric Romaní site, which is a well‐preserved and microstratified Mousterian archaeological site. A conspicuous occupation surface excavated in level N yielded a remarkably preserved set of aligned combustion activity areas in the inner zone of the living surface.

This set of combustion activity areas suggests analogy with sleeping‐and‐resting activity areas of modern foragers. Multidisciplinary analyses suggest (1) diachronic occupation and (2) similar use of the inner zone of the living floor. The sleeping area comprises five combustion activity areas, spaced at approximately 1 m distance from each other.

A large wood imprint of travertine was found near the inner zone, suggesting an architectural remain of a prehistoric dwelling. Descriptions of archaic human sleeping activity areas are very few in Paleolithic archaeology. This identification is a proxy for estimating the number of individuals of Mousterian groups that occupied the Abric Romaní rock shelter around 55 kyr BP.

There’s an excellent review of the paper by Julien Riel-Salvatore over at his blog; I’d intended to write the paper up here, especially as it makes for a nice contextual introduction to another paper I’ve (still) yet to finish covering, on spatial organisation in archaic humans at Gesher Benot, going back 790, 000 years. Spatial organisation is yet another behavioural facet that offers the potential for clearer insights into the past than merely interpreting human evolution through lithic assemblages, morphological analyses and the remains of ancient meals around extinguished hearths.

As his report on Abric Romaní is online already and covers all the salient points with great clarity, I’d suggest heading over Julien’s blog, for a rare insight into how Neanderthals organised themselves for sleep, some 50kya. I’ll refer to this further in another post, but moving slightly further forward in time to around 47,600 kya, comes more news of Neanderthal activities in Europe before the arrival of AMH.

At Common Sense Atheism there’s podcast #14, ‘Prehistoric Religion’ featuring archaeologist Brian Hayden – rather than review the entire interview just now, I’d like to point readers to an especially interesting section about 40 minutes in, where we hear Hayden describe his explorations within Bruniquel Cave.

Here’s a quote from an essay ‘Palaeolithic Art and Religion’ by Jean Clottes and David Lewis-Williams, from within a post I wrote back in 2007:

“In the depths of the Bruniquel Cave, in the Tarn-et-Garonne, broken stalactites and stalagmites were piled and arranged in a kind of oval roughly 5 metres by 4 metres, with a much smaller round structure next to it. The structures themselves cannot, of course, be directly dated, but a fire was made nearby, and a burnt bone from it was dated to more than 47,600 bp.

If this date also applies to the arrangement of stalagmites, it, puts the structures well within the Mousterian, the local Neanderthal cultural period (Rouzard et al. 1996). No practical purpose can be suggested for these constructions: the people who made them did not live that far inside the cave, as the absence of the kind of remains so common on habitation sites testifies. The only hypothesis that makes sense is the delimitation of a symbolic or ritual space well inside the subterranean world.”

Again, fascinating stuff, and once I’ve had a chance to address the remainder of the hour-long podcast, I’ll try and add a few thoughts on that as well.

Abric Romaní – site description.

Image: Abric Romaní from cited paper: Figure 2.  a, Imprint of the wooden trunk of the Abric Romaní level N. b, Detailed view of the travertinic wood imprint. c, General view of the archaeological level N with the travertinic wood imprint, hearths, and the travertine dripping dome (down to the right). © 2010 by The Wenner‐Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved.

Reference:

Sleeping Activity Area within the Site Structure of Archaic Human Groups  – Evidence from Abric Romaní Level N Combustion Activity Areas (Abstract)

Josep Vallverdú,  Manuel Vaquero,  Isabel Cáceres,  Ethel Allué,  Jordi Rosell,  Palmira Saladié,  Gema Chacón,  Andreu Ollé,  Antoni Canals,  Robert Sala,  M. A. Courty, and  Eudald Carbonell  IPHES (Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social), Plaça Imperial Tarraco, 1, 43005 Tarragona, Spain (josep@prehistoria.urv.cat). 5 II 09

Current Anthropology Volume 51, Number 1, February 2010 © 2010 by The Wenner‐Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2010/5101-0021$10.00 DOI: 10.1086/649499

Leave a Comment

Filed under Archaeology, Blog, Cultural Anthropology

Tags: ,

January 21, 2010

MESO 2010 – The Eighth International Conference on the Mesolithic in Europe, Santander, Spain

A quick heads-up to anyone planning to be in vicinity of Santander, Cantabria this autumn, where a very interesting conference, MESO 2010, (programme) is due to be held this coming September 13th-17th, plus post-Conference excursions the following weekend, September 18th and 19th, in addition to the field trip slated for Wednesday 15th.

I would strongly recommend this event to anyone with an interest in the archaeology and palaeoanthropology pertaining both to the Mesolithic and Palaeolithic of the northern Iberian peninsular, and Europe in general; here’s a welcoming word from the organisers:

The Eighth International Conference on the Mesolithic in Europe will be held in Santander from 13th to 17th September 2010, organised by the Cantabrian International Institute for Prehistoric Research with the support of the Department of Culture, Tourism and Sport of the Cantabrian Government and the University of Cantabria.

This is the first time this prestigious series of conferences is held in southern Europe; furthermore, in a region with a long tradition in prehistoric studies, particularly on the Mesolithic. Santander is situated in the centre of the north coast of Spain and is one of the classic areas for the study of hunter-gatherers in southwest Europe, not only because of its famous Palaeolithic sites and its outstanding collections of cave art, but also because of its concentration of Mesolithic sites. The study of these sites has been decisive in shaping  current ideas about the Mesolithic in the south of Europe. Since 1910, when the Count of Vega del Sella began his exploration of shell middens in the east of Asturias, Cantabria’s Mesolithic remains have been the object of sustained research which, in recent years, has culminated in the intense activity of a young, dynamic community of researchers. We are sure that the Santander Conference will be an excellent opportunity for colleagues from other parts of Europe to get to know at first hand the research and sites of this corner of Atlantic Europe.

The Santander Conference will attempt to reconcile the challenge set by increasing research specialisation, with the tradition of this series of conferences. It will try, therefore, to maintain the ethos set by the previous seven successful conferences. The Santander Conference has, therefore, been deliberately designed to be open and non-specialised. The conference aims to act as a forum for delegates from many different places and at different stages in their careers to meet and discuss any topic related to the Mesolithic on our continent. Delegates will also have the chance to attend as many lectures and debates as possible. Parallel sessions will, therefore, be kept to a minimum and an effort will be made to ensure that timetables are respected as strictly as possible.

There is, however, a growing interest in using this type of meeting in the discussion of highly specialized topics. Consequently, the Santander programme includes a new aspect: two sessions set aside for workshops and round tables based on topics proposed by delegates.

An important aspect of these conferences is the direct contact with the archaeology of the host region and, of course, the possibility to meet colleagues in a more informal setting. The Santander Conference will try to maintain this tradition by including a day trip to Mesolithic sites in the region and a full social programme. Those who would like to get to know the archaeology of Cantabria even better can join the post-conference fieldtrip to be held the weekend after the conference.

The Organising Committee and supporting institutions are honoured to invite the community of researchers to the Eighth International Conference on the Mesolithic in Europe.

Not only are there presentations, posters and lectures, but field trips also comprise a significant part of MESO 2010 – the weekend following the conference features excursions to various sites, including the Altamira museum.

N.B. The weekend excursions aren’t included within the registration fees, whereas the field-trip on Wednesday the 15th is covered by those fees. I’m advised that further details, including sites to be visited,  will appear on the MESO 2010 website in the near future, so be sure to check back.

If you’re planning on submitting material or otherwise participating, please check the Call for Papers section.

Assuming I can muster the required registration fees and accommodation costs, I fully intend to be there and cover various aspects of the MESO 2010 conference on this blog – it might be a bit of a long (but doubtless rewarding) trek for readers outside Europe to attend, but should be easily accessible for residents within the EU. Santander itself is a pretty nice town, and Cantabria in general contains much in the way of spectacular scenery, plus of course, a plethora of outstanding sites to visit.

I’m informed that all the presentations will be given in English, and it sounds like an excellent opportunity for attendees to meet up in person with fellow researchers in their chosen fields of interest.

For full details, just visit the website and follow the various links, describing the venue, details of accommodation options and more.

image: Vistas Los Canes from MESO 2010

Leave a Comment

Filed under Blog

Tags:

January 21, 2010

Current Anthropology – Volume 51, Number 1, Feb 2010 – Intergenerational Wealth Transmission and Inequality in Premodern Societies Edition

The latest edition of Current Anthropology has just been published, and included within is a special section referred to in the headline above – I haven’t had time to read it yet, so for now here’s a table of contents and a snippet from the introduction by editor Mark Aldenderfer, commenting on the themed papers, which reads thus:

Deng Xiaopeng has been reported to have said, “To get rich is glorious.” He is also reported to have said, “Let some people get rich first.” The papers in this special issue of Current Anthropology can be said to focus on the consequences of Deng’s aphorism—how some people get rich and how they manage to transfer that wealth, variously defined, to subsequent generations.

As the papers in this issue argue, wealth comes in various forms, and there are different modalities by which these forms are transferred to offspring and kin. What I found particularly compelling, however, was the simplicity of the model Smith and his cast of characters developed: two parameters do the heavy lifting—shocks, which are windfalls or losses, and the degree to which those shocks are transferred to offspring.

As both the authors and the commentators note, these models do not explain all that we want to know about wealth transfer; nevertheless, they offer a firm empirical basis for exploring this topic in greater depth and breadth. One outstanding question I would like to see explored is how wealth disparities are eventually transformed into persistent political inequalities that are maintained over the generations. Smith and his coauthors have outlined some of the directions this research may take, and I look forward to seeing it, perhaps in the pages of CA.

This looks like a pretty interesting issue, as we can see from the listed papers:

Special Section: Intergenerational Wealth Transmission and Inequality in Premodern Societies

The Emergence and Persistence of Inequality in Premodern Societies: Introduction to the Special Section

Samuel Bowles, Eric Alden Smith, and Monique Borgerhoff Mulder
Wealth Transmission and Inequality among Hunter‐Gatherers

Eric Alden Smith, Kim Hill, Frank W. Marlowe, David Nolin, Polly Wiessner, Michael Gurven, Samuel Bowles, Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, Tom Hertz, and Adrian Bell
Pastoralism and Wealth Inequality: Revisiting an Old Question

Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, Ila Fazzio, William Irons, Richard L. McElreath, Samuel Bowles, Adrian Bell, Tom Hertz, and Leela Hazzah
Domestication Alone Does Not Lead to Inequality: Intergenerational Wealth Transmission among Horticulturalists

Michael Gurven, Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, Paul L. Hooper, Hillard Kaplan, Robert Quinlan, Rebecca Sear, Eric Schniter, Christopher von Rueden, Samuel Bowles, Tom Hertz, and Adrian Bell
Intergenerational Wealth Transmission among Agriculturalists: Foundations of Agrarian Inequality

Mary K. Shenk, Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, Jan Beise, Gregory Clark, William Irons, Donna Leonetti, Bobbi S. Low, Samuel Bowles, Tom Hertz, Adrian Bell, and Patrizio Piraino
Production Systems, Inheritance, and Inequality in Premodern Societies: Conclusions

Eric Alden Smith, Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, Samuel Bowles, Michael Gurven, Tom Hertz, and Mary K. Shenk
All of which is followed by a comments and reply section – to gain full access you’ll need a paid subscription, which for an individual requiring just the online version, runs to $38  for half a dozen issues over the course of a year, representing, in my opinion, outstanding value.

3 Comments

Filed under Announcement, Blog, Cultural Anthropology

Tags:

Older Entries