Anthropology.net

Although this is currently being billed as the oldest evidence yet of archaic mankind in Europe, there are other finds, especially from Murcia in the south of Spain which date back to 1.3 million years, and possibly (a disputed) 1.7 million years. Nevertheless, the find at Atapuerca is still remarkable, and is vivid testament to the extraordinary length of time that humans have been visiting or occupying this site…

Jose Maria Bermudez de Castro, co-director of research at the Atapuerca site said the molar, discovered on Wednesday in the Atapuerca Sierra in the northern province of Burgos, could be as much as 1.2-million years old.

“The tooth represents the oldest human fossil remain of western Europe. Now we finally have the anatomical evidence of the hominids that fabricated tools more than one million years ago,” the Atapuerca Foundation said in a statement.

“Since it is an isolated fossil remain, it is not possible at this point to confirm which Homo species this tooth belongs to,” the foundation added, but said first analyses “allow us to suppose it is an ancestor of Homo antecessor (pioneer).”

In 1994 at the nearby Gran Dolina site several Homo antecessor fossils were uncovered, suggesting human occupation of Europe around 800 000 years ago, whereas scientists had previously believed the continent had only been inhabited for around half a million years.

Although they’re still waiting for conclusive dating analysis to be carried out, they seem fairly confident of their dates from the geological context in which the tooth was found. It’s reported that the ‘well worn‘ molar probably belonged to an individual aged between 20 and 25 years, and was found in the Sima del Elefante along with the fossilised remains of ‘bison, deer and bear as well as birds and a mouse.‘

The date of 1.2 million years fits within the time-frame of the Orce and Cueva Victoria finds in Murcia, and the only species of archaic human around at the time was Homo erectus, who was in fact the true pioneer of the Lower Palaeolithic. Read the rest of this entry »

Before I forget, as I did last time round, Alun at Clioaudio (mentioned in the previous post regarding his podcast) is hosting the next edition of 4SH, and is calling for contributions – I quote from his site,

The Anthropology blog carnival Four Stone Hearth comes to Clioaudio on the 4th of July. I’ll be attempting to collect best archaeology, biological anthropology, linguistics and social anthropology posts of the fortnight from the 20th of June to the 3rd of July. If you’ve read or written something you’d like to see included then send me an email to the address above. i.e alun.m.salt@gmail.com

You can see the most recent editions of the Four Stone Hearth at Hominin Dental Anthro and Testimony of the Spade

If you want to be sure I get to read your email before I compile the carnival, it needs to arrive before 17:00 GMT on the 3rd of July.

So if you have the time and inclination, please feel free to contribute something of your own, or even from something else.

Amalgamated Friday #17

Whilst I’m in compilatory? mode, I thought I’d mention Amalgamated Friday, written each week by Kris Hirst at About.com: archaeology, comprising a weekly collection of some of the best stories and articles from Web and blogosphere, and is published at her site every Friday – she invariably has plenty of good links which are worth checking out. (TJ)

Podcasting has arrived in a big way, as a cursory glance at the iTunes directory will confirm – if you can think of a science related topic, the chances are that someone somewhere will probably be talking about it. On that note, here’s a quick look at some which may be of interest to readers here – some are those I listen to, others were recommended to me by Carl at Hot Cup of Joe, (and who also contributes to Anthropology.net), so many thanks to him for his suggestions. All shows listed below are available for free via iTunes, but if you don’t use that application, I’ve provided a link to each of the sites, from where you can either listen or download direct.

All In The Mind – ABC

This show from Australia looks at issues involving psychology, with their two most recent shows looking at ‘mental surveillance’, discussing the unregulated domain of brain scanning in courts, our understanding of criminality, our susceptibility to becoming smokers or alcoholics based on our brain patterns, and a whole lot more – very well presented, and plenty to ponder over exactly how much free will we actually have.

Archaeology Channel

Here we have the weekly news from Archaeologica, who also run an excellent daily news service from their site.

n.b. The Archaeology Channel have an excellent range of video material on their site, the latest edition of which features an interview with Dr. Louise Leakey, yet another member of that famous family, discussing her work at Lake Turkana – also, be sure to check through their extensive archives for some very good presentations.

ClioaudioThis is produced by Alun Salt, formerly of Archaeoastronomy, and although still in its early days, has already covered some very interesting topics, including the debate between archaeologists and pagans, regarding how we should treat the ancient remains of individuals who are discovered during the course of digs or other excavations.

Dogma Free America

One of Carl Feagan’s recommendations, a show which evidently looks at the ongoing debate between science and religion – at the time of writing I haven’t had time to listen, but looking through their past show summaries, it looks as though there is a wealth of good material to catch up on.

From Our Own Correspondent

One of many from the BBC, this comes out quite often, sometimes twice in the same week. Each show features 3 separate reporters submitting a 10-minute piece from around the world, taking a look at people and places who wouldn’t necessarily make it into the headline news, but who nevertheless provide us with fascinating insights into any number of topics. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a link to the news from Craig Venter that he has succeeded in changing one species of bacteria into another, as described here…

Researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) today announced the results of work on genome transplantation methods allowing them to transform one type of bacteria into another type dictated by the transplanted chromosome. The work, published online in the journal Science, by JCVI’s Carole Lartigue, Ph.D. and colleagues, outlines the methods and techniques used to change one bacterial species, Mycoplasma capricolum into another, Mycoplasma mycoides Large Colony (LC), by replacing one organism’s genome with the other one’s genome.

“The successful completion of this research is important because it is one of the key proof of principles in synthetic genomics that will allow us to realize the ultimate goal of creating a synthetic organism,” said J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., president and chairman, JCVI. “We are committed to this research as we believe that synthetic genomics holds great promise in helping to solve issues like climate change and in developing new sources of energy.” Read the rest of this entry »

NYT has this story, documenting the unstoppable rise and rise of the domesticated cat, whose only serious rival is the domesticated dog; both these creatures have become part and parcel of the human domestic experience over the last 10 to 15 millennia, although the reasons for their respective acceptance into the welcoming arms of mankind were quite different. Here’s a look at how one theory envisages the first encounters between cat and human…

Some 10,000 years ago, somewhere in the Near East, an audacious wildcat crept into one of the crude villages of early human settlers, the first to domesticate wheat and barley. There she felt safe from her many predators in the region, such as hyenas and larger cats.

The rodents that infested the settlers’ homes and granaries were sufficient prey. Seeing that she was earning her keep, the settlers tolerated her, and their children greeted her kittens with delight.

At least five females of the wildcat subspecies known as Felis silvestris lybica accomplished this delicate transition from forest to village. And from these five matriarchs all the world’s 600 million house cats are descended.

By studying the mitochondrial DNA of various wildcats, house-cats and ‘fancy cats’, Carlos Driscoll and colleagues from the National Cancer Institute, spent six years travelling to various parts of the world in order to track down the closest relatives of today’s house cat community. Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Behe has recently published ‘The Edge Of Evolution: The Search For The Limits Of Darwinism‘, a descendant to his ‘Darwin’s Black Box‘, and as can be expected, there has been a fairly robust response to it from his many detractors within the scientific community, notably from Jerry Coyne, Sean Carroll, Michael Ruse and particularly Richard Dawkins, from whose review I’ve quoted various comments below. For his part, Michael Behe, of the Discovery Institute has addressed some of these reviews, excluding so far, Dawkins’, on his Amazon blog, and appears to be as convinced as ever that his ideas are correct, based as they are on his perceived inadequacies of scientific explanations as to how evolution works at the macro level. One of his earlier theories concerned irreducible complexity, which he describes thus in the afforementioned ‘Darwin’s Black Box…

By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning. An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced directly (that is, by continuously improving the initial function, which continues to work by the same mechanism) by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional. An irreducibly complex biological system, if there is such a thing, would be a powerful challenge to Darwinian evolution. (p. 39) Read the rest of this entry »

Just a quick post to report on developments in the ongoing saga of the Hadza tribe in Tanzania, and their struggle to hang on to their lands, which look set to be handed over to the Abu Dhabi royal family, in a lease agreement with the Tanzanian government – the royals already use another area in Tanzania for this purpose, but their fondness for hunting has meant that the area they currently lease is no longer sufficient to cater for their recreational needs.

Foremost to their defence in the blogosphere is Chris O’Brien at Northstate Science, who not only has written several pieces on this subject, but has also worked with the Hadza in the past – check his site for earlier posts, and for the time being, here’s an update on the situation from him,

Well, once again, thanks to all who took the time to spread the word about the current plight of the Hadzabe. Duane at Abnormal Interests actually took the time to call the US State Department and was successful in reaching two individuals in the Bureau of African Affairs. You can read more about it at Duane’s blog. I received an email from the State Department in response to my email inquiries, but it was the usual bureaucratic form letter along the lines of “thank you very much for your concern…the State Department values all feedback…should you require further assistance…yada, yada, yada…” – so, altogether not very helpful. Duane’s efforts I’m sure made more inroads. I have heard nothing from Cultural Survival nor Survival International.

A visit to Abnormal Interests revealed the following from Duane,

I decided to go to the website for the US Embassy in Tanzania to see if they have a public position on the attempt to displace the Hadza. They don’t. An Embassy will seldom react to a local issue without direction from Washington. Assistant Secretary Dr. Jendayi Frazer leads the Bureau of African Affairs and Barbara Yoder is the Country Officer in the Bureau of African Affairs for Tanzania and Uganda.

I decided to call Yoder. She indicated that she was unaware of the issue. She said that our conversation was the first she heard of it. As far as she knew, and she would know, there is no US Government position with regard to the possible displacement of the Hadza. She directed me to Joseph Sokoine, Political Counselor for Tanzania in the United States. He was aware of the issue and seeking a position from his government. He hoped that that position would be available within the next few days. He plans to make it public. Both Yoder and Sokoine where extremely polite and neither seemed at all defensive. But of course, those qualities are part of their job. Read the rest of this entry »

In a paper due to be published in the June 29th edition of ‘Science’, Tom Dillehay, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at Vanderbilt University, claims to have found the oldest evidence yet of preceramic horticulture, specifically from the Ñanchoc Valley; here are some details of the discoveries from EurekAlert!

Anthropologists working on the slopes of the Andes in northern Peru have discovered the earliest-known evidence of peanut, cotton and squash farming dating back 5,000 to 9,000 years. Their findings provide long-sought-after evidence that some of the early development of agriculture in the New World took place at farming settlements in the Andes.

Although this early form of agriculture has long been suspected to have existed, it is the implied complexity and intricacy of these preceramic societies which mark them out as especially noteworthy .

Dillehay and his colleagues found wild-type peanuts, squash and cotton as well as a quinoa-like grain, manioc and other tubers and fruits in the floors and hearths of buried preceramic sites, garden plots, irrigation canals, storage structures and on hoes. The researchers used a technique called accelerator mass spectrometry to determine the radiocarbon dates of the materials. Data gleaned from botanists, other archaeological findings and a review of the current plant community in the area suggest the specific strains of the discovered plant remains did not naturally grow in the immediate area.

“The use of these domesticated plants goes along with broader cultural changes we believe existed at that time in this area, such as people staying in one place, developing irrigation and other water management techniques, creating public ceremonials, building mounds and obtaining and saving exotic artifacts.” Read the rest of this entry »

This from BBC News, which details the discovery and subsequent archaeological excavation of two ‘Iron Age round houses’ dating back 2,000 years at Baile Sear, revealed by the erosional effects of a particularly heavy storm back in 2005, on the Hebridean island of North Uist. Other finds include what are thought to be salt pans on the beaches of Brora in Sutherland, and in both cases archaeologists are keen to record as much data as possible before the remains are swept away in subsequent storms.

These two locations form part of a larger project across the whole of Scotland, where similar sites are in danger of disappearing – many sites lie in the paths of violent storms coming in off the Atlantic in the west, and the North Sea over to the east. Low coastlines comprising mostly sand and associated dunes in the west, offer little in the way of resistance to the ravages of weather, which some believe will continue to worsen as local and global climate de-stabilise in unison.

The Council For Scottish Archaeology have instigated an initiative called ‘Adopt A Monument‘, in a bid to focus attention on these and other sites considered vulnerable, as well as providing help and advice to volunteer groups keen on improving the maintenance of and access to sites that may not have high profiles, but are nevertheless integral parts of the archaeology of Scotland as a whole.

The Iron Age in Britain corresponds with the early years of the Roman occupation, and although Scotland was never fully occupied by the imperial armies of Rome, the Caledonian armies in particular took something of a battering at the hands of Gnaeus Julius Agricola, following previous skirmishes which resulted in almost the entire 9th Legion being wiped out in a surprise attack.

However, the Roman army forced the Caledonian army into a set-piece fight at the battle of Mons Graupius in AD 84, and despite being outnumbered, Agricola inflicted a heavy defeat on Caledonian arms that was similar to that inflicted on Boudica and her armies at an unknown location in England, circa AD 60. Although Rome claimed to have quelled resistance in Scotland, the fact that the Hadrian and Antonine walls were constructed, is indicative that a potent threat was still perceived to exist in the far north of the British Isles, and that no further major military incursions were made by Rome into those lands. (TJ)

more images here

SCAPE Trust

see also: Discovery Of Bronze Age Stone Circle On Foula, Shetland Islands

Here’s a report on a paper published recently in PLoS Biology, namely Spontaneous Altruism By Chimpanzees And Young Children, in which it is shown that human children and chimpanzees display similar levels of altruism, a study which has raised questions once more about what makes humans different from all other animals, particularly those to whom were are apparently most genetically related, specifically the chimpanzee.

Felix Warneken and colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology present experimental evidence that chimpanzees act altruistically toward genetically unrelated conspecifics.

In addition, in two comparative experiments, they found that both chimpanzees and human infants helped altruistically regardless of any expectation of reward, even when some effort was required, and even when the recipient was an unfamiliar individual–all features previously thought to be unique to humans.

This has led to conjecture that altruism may go back beyond the implied human/chimp divide, to a common ancestor (not a single trace of which has ever been found). I’m not convinced that altruism, whatever exactly that may be, is the only element at work here; maybe some primates are more geared towards problem solving, with their brains wired for resolving situations, rather than necessarily acting out of kindness to their fellow creatures.

If altruism can be said to exist, it would be interesting to see which, if any other, primates can be prompted into similar behaviours – for example, according to Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz et al, the orangutan shares many more unique features with a human than a chimp, and if this is indeed the case, maybe we should be testing for altruistic behaviour expressed at a similar level to the experiments described above, within that species as well. (TJ)

see also: Reciprocal Altruism