Anthropology.net

Yuchanyan Cave

I’ve admitted that cultural anthropology rarely gets its fair share on this blog, but I must also confess I don’t spread the love with archaeological news. Hopefully you’ll forgive me a bit today, because thanks to Luis, there’s news of the discovery of the oldest known pottery  — 17,500-18,300 years old from the Yuchanyan Cave in the Hunan province of China that I wanna share with you.

Let me remind you that the Yuchanyan cave also yielded the oldest kernels of rice in 2005 so it’s not too surprising to find old vessels to store the rice. The big shake up here is that previously, the Jōmon of Japan were considered to be the inventors of ancient pot making, with vessels dated to an age between 16,000 and 17,000 years ago.

Yuchanyan Pot

One thing that isn’t properly clarified in news media buzz is that that act of firing clay and making figurines has twice as long as vessel making. In fact, ceramic objects, such as Gravettian figurines likes the Venus of Dolní Věstonice those from Dolni Vestonice, Czech Republic, a clay statuette of a female figure, is dated to 29,000–25,000 BCE. The distinction here is that the Yuchanyan pot is oldest known clay vessel.

You can read the full text of the study, published as an open access paper in the journal PNAS.

Boaretto, E., Wu, X., Yuan, J., Bar-Yosef, O., Chu, V., Pan, Y., Liu, K., Cohen, D., Jiao, T., Li, S., Gu, H., Goldberg, P., & Weiner, S. (2009). Radiocarbon dating of charcoal and bone collagen associated with early pottery at Yuchanyan Cave, Hunan Province, China Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0900539106

I’ve successfully completed my first term of medical school, and realized I have a lot of free time so I’ve decided to pick up blogging during my short summer break in order to prevent brain rot. Today, I noticed an interesting anthropology-medicine news bit pass by my RSS reader and wanted to share it with y’all. The paper behind the news announces the finding of the oldest evidence of leprosy in India, specifically the Balathal site nearby Udaipur in the state of Rajasthan, India. It has been published in the open access journal, PLoS ONE, under this title, “Ancient Skeletal Evidence for Leprosy in India (2000 B.C.).”

The significance of this finding is that it pushes the existence of leprosy back by 2,000 years, from biblical times, with physical evidence.

Balathal, Indus/Harappan Site in Rajasthan, India

The skeleton of this middle aged (37 or so years old) adult male was buried about 4,000 years ago during a time which Balathal was a large agrarian settlement at the margins of the Indus (or Harappan) Civilization. He displays:

• Erosive lesions at the supraorbital region and glabella
• Remodeling of the margin of the nasal aperture, including the anterior nasal spine,
• Bilateral necrosis of the infraorbital region of the maxilla
• Resorption of the alveolar region of the maxilla with associated antemortem tooth loss
• Pitting near the midline and in the alveolar region of the palatine process
• Root exposure, alveolar resorption, antemortem tooth loss to the mandible and a small apical abscess at the left lower third premolar
• Ventral wedging, osteophytosis, and ankylosis to the cervical vertebrae
• Periostosis to the left tibia

These are all characteristics of leprosy, treponemal infection, leishmaniasis, sinus and oral infections, tuberculosis, osteomyelitis and non-specific infection in the post-crania. But differential diagnosis ruled out all of the other pathologies other than leprosy.

The individual was excavated between 1994–1997. Lots of hallmarks in human existence occurred during this time period, some being inventions in system of writing, standardized weights and measures, monumental architecture, and trade networks that stretched to Mesopotamia and beyond. While the pathophysiology of leprosy is up in the air, it is not surprising that communicable diseases, even not very contagious ones like leprosy, also blossomed during the rapid sedentarisation of human populations.

The cranium of individual 1997-1

Leprosy is a granulomatous (nodule) disease of the peripheral nerves and upper respiratory tract mucosa, caused by immune system unsuccessfully trying to sequester the infectious bacterium Mycobacterium leprae and Mycobacterium lepromatosis. Unlike popular belief, body parts falling off is not the primary symptom of leprosy, but rather skin lesions are the main external manifestation of the disease. The damage to the nerves affects blood flow and ultimately causes necrosis of tissue, which happens in during the advanced lepromatous stages.

Anterior view of the mandible from individual 1997-1

What is curious is that descriptions of leprosy have been noted in Ebers papyrus, an Egyptian medical document and the Atharva Veda, a Sanskrit holy text, which both refer to the disease as early as 1,550 B.C., a few hundred years after this individual died. I wonder if this guy was one of the first Lepers then? Gwen Robbins, first author of the publication, expressed interest in recovering DNA from the Mycobacterium leprae and comparing it to strains common in Africa, Asia and Europe today in order to shed additional light on the origin and transmission routes of this disease, in fact she hypothesized that the disease migrated to the subcontinent from Africa, at a time when substantial interaction among populations throughout Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

Elements demonstrating pathological conditions in the postcranial skeleton of individual 1997-1.

Robbins, G., Tripathy, V., Misra, V., Mohanty, R., Shinde, V., Gray, K., & Schug, M. (2009). Ancient Skeletal Evidence for Leprosy in India (2000 B.C.) PLoS ONE, 4 (5) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0005669

Joyce Marcus has published a bold review in the Annual Review of Anthropology where she argues that anthropology must be willing to generalize — cultures must be compared and contrasted in order identify similarities in the ways cultures have responded to challenges. In other words, relativism has no place in trying to understand the evolutionary pattern to human social structure.

She further argues that such a comprehensive and comparative analysis of cultural evolution must be done with collaboration between ethnologists and archaeologists. She stresses the impact of archaeology has in investigating cultural evolution, using the transition to agriculture and animal domestication as a critical moment when we can see the emergence of institutions not seen in previous lifestyles. She further relates the relationship between ethnology and archaeology is analogous to that,

“… between zoology and vertebrate paleontology. Zoologists are able to study both muscle tissue and behavior at a level of detail unavailable to paleontologists. Paleontologists, however, can find the muscle attachments on fossil bones that provide evidence for specific muscles; they can then draw on the zoological literature both on those muscles and on the behavior they reflect. Paleontologists can also elucidate long-term trends and recover the skeletons of transitional species unknown to zoology; such fossils show us the order in which certain structures (and hence behaviors) arose. In an important sense, the fossil record is the proving ground for any theory of change based on comparisons of living species.”

In order for us to understand how cultures evolve, she’s very right, cultural anthropologists and archaeologists do need to collaborate. Hell, archaeologists even need to understand that they’re not just digging up cultural noise. Both disciplines need to agree upon a common terminology and see that cultures can be compared. But I don’t know if many cultural anthropologists are ready to hang up their relativist coats on the hanger just yet.

Joyce Marcus (2008). The Archaeological Evidence for Social Evolution Annual Review of Anthropology, 37 (1), 251-266 DOI: 10.1146/annurev.anthro.37.081407.085246

A new paper in PNAS reports on an interesting find from a 12,000-year-old Natufian burial complex in the Hilazon Tachtit cave site in Israel — a shaman, which is unlike any other Natufian burial known to date. Before I get into the details of the paper, let me first introduce the Natufian culture and the ecological context members of this culture lived in.

Map of the Hilazon Tachtit Cave Site, Israel

The Natufian culture existed in the Levant from 14,500 to 11,500 years before the present. They were hunter gatherers at first and had a microlithic industry, perfecting short blades and bladelets. Two different human burials at the Ein Mallaha and Hayonim sites include dogs, suggesting they domesticated dogs around 12,000 years ago. The spread of the culture can be estimated by the presence of Anatolian obsidian and shellfish from the Nile-valley being found at Ein Mallaha.

Around 12,800 to 11,500 years ago a climate shift occurred. There are many names for this climate change, I’ll call it the Younger Dryas event. During this period, there was a rapid return to glacial conditions caused by a significant reduction of the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation. And by rapid I mean it happened within 10 years. The cold and dry Younger Dryas climate lowered the biological carrying capacity of the Levant. This ecological change from the Younger Dryas forced cultures into planting seeds obtained from elsewhere, and practicing agriculture.

Illustration of the Shaman Grave from Hilazon, Tachtit, Israel

Okay going back to the paper, archaeologists have recently excavated the Hilazon Tachtit cave site. Hilazon Tachtit is located about 15 km west of the Sea of Galilee in Israel. The site is dated to be 12,400 – 12,000 years old, right at this ecological and cultural transitional period. The site is primarily a burial ground of at least 28 Natufian individuals. Most of the remains are buried in one collective pit, but one burial was special. The remains of a 45 year old woman was separate and accompanied by lots of animal remains. She had bone spurs on her pelvis and spine, indicating she suffered physical ailments. Accompanying her burial are the remains of the tail bones from a cow, a wing bone from a golden eagle, a forearm of a boar, 50 tortoise carapace pieces, two marten skulls and a large foot from another person. She’s intricately buried in a certain position with a stones arranged in a certain fashion and unlike the other individuals.

Some Animal Remains From the Shaman Burial in Hilazon Tachtit, Israel

The authors argue that she was a shaman. Although the term shaman originally comes from the Tungisic speaking people from Siberia, many gatherer groups and small-scale agricultural cultures have had a shamanistic role — a member of the community who functioned as an intermediate between the human and spirit world. They were healer-magician hybrids. The elaborate burial of this physically disabled woman accompanied with tortoises, cow tails, eagle wings, and fur-bearing animals fall in line with our observation of other shaman burials found throughout the world.

The presence of a shaman in this critical transitional period of human cultural evolution suggest that the seeds of organized religion were already planted. Now, there are controversial depictions of shamans in cave art from 15,000 years ago, but this 12,000 year old burial is the first physical evidence of the ideological and socioeconomic changes that accompanied the forager-to-farmer Neolithic transformation. The development of spiritual ideas and religion are a big part of human cultural evolution. We don’t know exactly when human ancestors developed such thoughts, it could certainly be earlier than 12,000 years ago, but at least we now know that early Neolithic peoples, like the Natufians had at least one shaman.

When do you think religious thoughts emerged during human evolution. Oh yeah, I have to ask, does anyone roll shaman in WoW?

L. Grosman, N. D. Munro, A. Belfer-Cohen (2008). A 12,000-year-old shaman burial from the southern Levant (Israel) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0806030105

Both Dienkes and John Hawks have shared news about the latest research on the domestication of dogs. The researchers analyze 117 skulls of prehistoric canids from sites in Belgium, Ukraine and Russia. They conclude that a 31,700 year old canid from Belgium is ‘clearly different from the recent wolves, resembling most closely the prehistoric dogs.’

The draft can be found in the Journal of Archaeological Science under the title, “Fossil dogs and wolves from Palaeolithic sites in Belgium, the Ukraine and Russia: osteometry, ancient DNA and stable isotopes.” If the dating, and phylogenetic analysis is correct, these remains makes them the oldest known remains of domesticated dog, pushing back domestication time by 17,700 years, since the second oldest known dog, found in Russia, dates to 14,000 years ago as explained by Carl Feagans.

Doral View of the Goyet Cave Dog (a) and wolf skulls (b & c)

Prehistoric dogs are distinguished from both prehistoric and extant wolves in having a shorter and broader snout, relatively wider brain cases, and a general reduction in skull size. Palaeolithic dogs in the study conform to this pattern. The researchers extended their anatomical analysis to mtDNA and stable isotopes on the Belgian samples. All fossil samples yielded unique DNA sequences, Dienekes pointed out the results:

“when compared to extant wolf and dog sequences available from GenBank, all seven haplotypes found in the Pleistocene samples were found to be unique and not described to date. This result is remarkable when considering the large number of wolf (~160) and particularly dog sequences (> 1,000 from almost all breeds known today) available in Genbank.”

What this indicates is that prehistoric canid diversity was much larger than it is now. That makes sense, part of the domestication process, i.e. selection for desirable traits, weeds out diversity. It is certainly possible that these dogs were one of the first domesticated canids. The isotopic analysis of the dog remains indicate that they ate large game like horse, musk ox and reindeer, but not fish or seafood.

The dog remains come from an adjacent horizon in the Goyet cave, Belgium where Middle and Upper Paleolithic artifacts were discovered along with numerous remains of ice age mammals. Some of the remains show percussion fractions, have cut marks, or display traces of ochre. Aurignacian ivory beads were also discovered. The ancient Belgian canids are considered to be domesticated dogs because of their anatomy, unique isotope profile (they were eating large game, presumably hunted by humans), and since the remains came from a cave with recurrent human occupations from the Pleniglacial until the Late Glacial. This is exciting, but the authors caution that it is not very clear from which horizon the artifacts and bones originate from, if the same horizon at all. I consider the association rather loose.

Also, as John Hawks wonders, why’s there almost a 20,000 year gap in the fossil record of the domesticated dog? Most people share Dienekes opinion that dogs are extremely advantageous, one would expect a consistent representation in the fossil record — not a massive intermission.

M GERMONPRE, M SABLIN, R STEVENS, R HEDGES, M HOFREITER, M STILLER, V JAENICKEDESPRESE (2008). Fossil dogs and wolves from Palaeolithic sites in Belgium, the Ukraine and Russia: osteometry, ancient DNA and stable isotopes Journal of Archaeological Science DOI: 10.1016/j.jas.2008.09.033

Dienekes pointed out another interesting paper that I want to share with you, this time on Neandertals and evidence of the Uluzzian Industry as seen from the Fumane Cave in Italy. The paper was published by Marco Peresani in the journal Current Anthropology, under the title, “A New Cultural Frontier for the Last Neanderthals: The Uluzzian in Northern Italy.” Persani describes the archaeological assemblage of the 11 layers of Fumane Cave, of which the oldest layers, 11 through 5 are Mousterian typology and the latest, 2-1 are Aurignacian. Layers 4-3 are Uluzzian, and date right at a critical transition period during human evolution — the time at which Neandertals are thought to have gone extinct in Europe (around 30,000 years ago).

The term Uluzzian was coined by Palma di Cesnola in 1988 after the observed assemblages from sites around the Bay of Uluzzo, found on the Ionian Coast. Julien Riel-Salvatore, the blogger behind A Very Remote Period Indeed, studied the Uluzzian technology and has in fact published or presented several pieces on the emergence of the Uluzzian during the transitional period of the Middle to Upper Paleolithic.

The Uluzzian is characterized from the Mousterian by larger stone tools, some bone items others splintered cores (perhaps bidirectional cores), lots of unidirectional or bidirectional cores, few burins, end scrapers, side scrapers, etc. In general, a modest modernization of the Mousterian. Some of the most famous Uluzzian sites are La Fabbrica, Castelcivita, La Cala, Grotta Brenardini, Grotta di Uluzzo (the namesake site), Grotta del Cavallo all of which are found in Italy. The Vindija cave in Croatia and the Klisoura cave in Greeze are also considered Uluzzian sites. Fumane Cave is the northernmost, now-understood-to-be Uluzzian site.

Figure 3 from the paper. Uluzzian implements found in units 3 and 4: splintered piece (1), backed knives (2, 3, 6), implement with curved back (5), bladelet core (4) (drawings by S. Muratori and G. Almerigogna).

The animal remains found in the older, deeper Mousterian levels, such as ungulates and macromammals suggest that the inhabitants regularly hunted animals found in moist/cool ecosystems… perhaps an alpine environment. Like I mentioned, layers 4-3 represent a different tool set, as if the inhabitants were (desperately?) experimenting with different technology which was replaced with the distinctly different Aurignacian formal blades and retouched tools soon after. The authors also suggest that Fumane wasn’t persistently occupied during the layer 4-3 period. All of which suggests that these last Neandertals were trying very different cultural items. Why? They had perfectly find tools… or did they?

Marco Peresani (2008). A New Cultural Frontier for the Last Neanderthals: The Uluzzian in Northern Italy Current Anthropology, 49 (4), 725-731 DOI: 10.1086/588540

Dienekes briefly introduced a new paper which attempted to reassess the age of the earliest human settlements in southern Chile and Argentina through radiocarbon dating. This is an important anthropological paper since the dates on peopling of Americas are being pushed back further and further. You may remember the seaweed analysis from Monte Verde, Chile from May, which confirmed the older, contested radiocarbon dates of the site.

This new paper, “AMS ¹⁴C dating of early human occupation of southern South America,” is similar in that the authors reanalyze carbon bearing material (charcoal or animal remains) from the Arroyo Seco 2, Paso Otero 5, Piedra Museo, and Cueva Tres Tetas sites in Argentina and the Cueva de Lago Sofia 1 and Tres Arroyos sites in Chile.

For all but one of the sites, the re-dating yielded consistent results to the previously published dates. But Arroyo Seco 2 had older dates, calibrated to as old as 14,000 years ago. And in fact show three different occupation periods, one around 14,170 to 13,840 years ago, another around 13,710 to 13-350 years ago, and a final one around 13,210 to 12,950 years ago. If you had any doubt on whether or not the material indicate human occuptation, the bones from Arroyo Seco 2 clearly show signs of human modification and were found associated with a lithic assemblage. An example of megafauna taphonomy from Arroyo Seco 2 can be found at this link. Also there, you’ll see some of the stone tools and artifacts recovered.

The authors challenge the Monte Verde site, stating their analysis has pinpointed the earliest known occupation in South America, but the difference is only in 50 radiocarbon years. Somewhat negligible given that level of atmospheric ¹⁴C haven’t been strictly constant…. even over 50 years they can vary. Regardless, this study reconfirms what many recent studies have been telling us, that there were pre-Clovis cultures in the Americas existing for several thousand years.

Just who those people were and how they got there is still rather unresolved. Craniofacial analysis of human burials from the site dating to 8,500 years ago (I know, no where close to 14,000 years ago) indicates that those Arroyo Seco 2 people differ considerably from the more or less contemporaneous Lagoa Santa people. But, mitochondrial analysis suggests that extant populations are related to those that made the migrations over Beringia. It is certainly possible that other people traveled by boat and did not contribute a significant impact to the current genetic makeup of south American populations. Either way, the Americas was peopled much earlier than what I was personally taught, and that is exciting.

J STEELE, G POLITIS (2008). AMS 14C dating of early human occupation of southern South America Journal of Archaeological Science DOI: 10.1016/j.jas.2008.09.024

Zooarchaeology is an anthropological sub-discipline which focuses on studying animal remains from archaeological sites. Animal remains can tell us a lot of about prehistoric peoples’ diets and behavioral tendencies as well as the ecological makeup of the area. A new PNAS paper investigates the zooarchaeological record of two Neandertal sites in Gibraltar, Vanguard and Gorham‘s Caves.

The paper, “Neanderthal exploitation of marine mammals in Gibraltar,” is authored by some familiar names such as Chris Stinger and J.C. Finalyson and Nick Barton, and the major conclusion is that the presence of mollusks, seal, dolphin, and fish from such sites suggests that Neandertals exploited a wide variety of foods — hammering yet another nail in the coffin of the Neandertals were dumb cavemen train of thought. John Hawks and Dienekes have both written that this research is yet another line of evidence in the modernization of Neandertal behavior.

The cave sites are part of the Gibraltar Caves Project, which began in 1994. Annual excavations followed the year after. The sites are located on the southeast side of the Rock, on Governor’s Beach. As far as I can tell, GPS coordinates were not provided. I’ve tried to track down the exact location of the sites but have found conflicting information. But the BBC has provided an image of the sites, by way of the Gibraltar Museum. The two sites are adjacent to each other and the Gibraltar Museum has dutifully also provided a prehistoric view of the sites when sea levels were much lower:

Gorham's & Vanguard Caves on Governor's Beach, Gibraltar.

Gorham’s Cave site indicates three distinct occupations. There’s an Upper Palaeolithic occupation with dates spanning 26-30,000 years before the present (BP). There’s another distinct layer containing the youngest Middle Palaeolithic and dated at around 31-32,000 BP, and a third, older Middle Palaeolithic layer which is underneath. This older layer is dated to 45,300 ± 1,700 years BP. Vanguard Cave shows similar patterns with radiocarbon dates of 45,000 years BP and similar lithic assemblages.

Cut marks from a Mediterranean Monk Seal finger bone found in Vanguard Cave

Vangaurd Cave has yielded evidence of Mediterranean monk seal (Monachus monachus) phalanxes with cut marks and lots of mollusk shells. The minimum number of mollusks found isn’t provided but the authors do say that a particular layer was dominated by mollusk shells. Additionally the concentration of knapping debris and Mousterian stone tools, along with a hearth, from this layer suggest that Neandertals were having a prehistoric cioppino feast.

Additional remains of ibex, red deer, boar, bear, along with dolphins birds, tortoises indicate that these prehistoric people were exploiting a wide variety of food sources. Roughly 50% of the animal remains were cut or burned, and a lot of the rest show percussion marks and fractures. Compared to Neandertals from Northern Europe, who sustained a diet of big game meat such as mammoth, deer and horse, these guys from Governor’s Beach had a different diet. Stringer told the BBC that these caves tell us that we can’t generalize Neandertals.

C. B. Stringer, J. C. Finlayson, R. N. E. Barton, Y. Fernandez-Jalvo, I. Caceres, R. C. Sabin, E. J. Rhodes, A. P. Currant, J. Rodriguez-Vidal, F. Giles-Pacheco, J. A. Riquelme-Cantal (2008). From the Cover: Neanderthal exploitation of marine mammals in Gibraltar Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105 (38), 14319-14324 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0805474105

The Sahul is the Australia-New Guinea continent, which is exposed during glacial maximums. If one were to take a satellite photograph of the Sahul during an ice age, you’d see more or less a complete island in the picture, one that spans from New Guinea to Australia and Tasmania. Kind of like the one to your right. Understanding the peopling of the Sahul is critical to understand human migrations and the peopling of Australia.

In the late ’70′s to the late ’80′s, most archaeologists thought that the Sahul was occupied by Late Pleistocene humans, somewhere around 45,000 years ago. A bit of a shake-up spurred about the exact timing of the occupation when older sites like the Devil’s Lair, Lake Mungo, Nauwalabila, Malakunanja, and Huon Peninsula were discovered.

Predictably, two camps emerged. One camp asserted that the Sahul was peopled around 60,000 years ago. The other camp held on the later date, contesting that their dates are based upon more reliable dating techniques, such as radiocarbon, luminescence, and uranium-thorium dating methods. They also contest that 45,000 year old artifacts better resemble the Out of Africa “package” that is represented elsewhere.

A new paper in the Journal of Human Evolution looks at the archaeological “package” from the earlier sites. The authors of the paper compare this archaeological record to the record of other Middle Stone Age sites in Africa, Europe, and Asia. Similar to genes, the displacement of artifacts occurs when new technologies and cultures influence existing ones. It can happen under different tempos — there can be a slow, gradual change of material culture or there can be rapid and punctual changes. There can even a mix of the two. In places like Europe, we see rather fast changes, as pre-existing populations like Neandertals were replaced by humans during the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition.

To see whether or not the Sahul represents a slower change, Phillip Habgooda and Natalie Franklin have looked at the archaeological record of the Sahul. They’ve published their findings under the title, “The revolution that didn’t arrive: A review of Pleistocene Sahul.” I figure you can extract the main conclusion from this concise title. But I won’t stop there because Habgooda and Franklin have written up a rather thorough study. They specifically timed the rate of change in exchange networks, mining & quarrying, beads, ochre, art, burials, shellfish middens, grindstones, modified bone, and new lithic techniques.

For the section on exchange networks, they review the archaeological record of 20 sites. The trade of exotic materials for symbolic reasons, especially over long-distances, is understood to be a relatively modern behavioral trait. 40,000 years ago, the people who occupied the Sahul were moving shells and other materials long distances — in some cases 300 kilometers and in other cases to places like the little islands in the Bismarck Sea, which is north of Papau New Guinea.

Related to trade networks, mining and quarrying, also represents a modern trait as people specifically sought out certain rocks to fashion into tools and adornments. The record for mining emerges at a much more recent date: around 24,000 years ago. Take note of the discontinuity between these dates, because a rapid displacement of the Sahul should share similar dates among the different parts of the package looked at.

I shouldn’t really need to define why we consider personal adornments like beads, as modern. And in the Sahul, they are seen as 42,000 years ago. But other pieces of adornments, such as this limestone plaque from the Devil’s Lair appear only as early as 25,000 years ago. The role of ochre in art, rituals, and personal hygiene is also looked at. Similar to bead usage, ochre usage is seen as early as 42,000 years ago but not in an artistic and elaborate burial context until 2,000 years later. Complex rock art and symbolic burials are traits of modern humans and for them to not sync up with ochre usage and adornments make me wonder what was going on?

In general, resource exploitation is a modern human trait and by looking at the composition of middens and the number and specialization of grindstones, we can get an idea about when people started to change their lifestyles. In the Sahul, this didn’t start happening until around 30,000 years ago. Again, remember some other modern human traits are seen as early as 42,000 years ago but economic intensification didn’t happen until much later. Furthermore, modified bone tools, a hallmark of modern human behavior, is seen around 22,000 years ago but compound stone tools like adzes are seen as early as 40,000 years ago!

Clearly, this paper shows that the Sahul was gradually influenced by the modern human expansions out of Africa. Parts of the modern human package appear at different sites, separated spatially and temporally. The authors provide us with this poignant summary as well as an image depicting their results,

“Following initial colonization of the continent, terrestrial fauna are the dominant resources exploited, but freshwater shell middens are apparent around the palaeoriver and lake systems of southeast Australia. Long-distance transport and/or exchange networks are evident, as is collection and use of ochre for ritual behaviour (burial) and rock painting. Stone assemblages are dominated by retouched and unretouched flakes, but waisted hatchets are found in Papua New Guinea at this time. By 30,000 years BP, an expansion in resource exploitation may be signified by evidence of marine exploitation on islands off the northern coast of Sahul, the (possible) appearance of grindstones, and the intensive exploitation of macropods in southwest Tasmania. Flake-based stone tool assemblages are augmented by the introduction of ground stone hatchets in northern Australia and small thumbnail scrapers in southwest Tasmania. Personal ornaments in the form of shell beads are also present in northwestern Australia at this time. By 20–18,000 years BP the variety of personal ornaments has expanded to include bone beads, pendants, and notational pieces. Although there is evidence of painting of some form by 40,000 years BP, identifiable art does not appear until around 20,000 years BP. Flint mining is evident at this time, and the flake-based stone tool assemblages are supplemented with bone points made on macropod long bones in the southeast of the continent.”

Modern human behavioral traits in the archaeological record of the Sahul, emerged over a 30,000 year period, even though modern humans clearly had an early influence. The authors consider one possibility may have been that there was not a rapid colonization of the Sahul. I’ve thought about this some and think that differences in population densities and impact of new technologies, i.e. adoption rates amongst ‘stubborn’ populations affect rates of cultural change. Hell, look how long it has taken people to switch from Windows to Macs. ;-) Somethings may not have been useful to early peoples and may have not been taken up as readily, and adopted later under different pressures and considerations. What we can figure out is that what we consider the “package” is not necessarily and all or none indicator of modern human existance.

If you’re interested in understanding the peopling of the Greater Australia area, and wanna know more about Sahul sites, I recommend reading this paper. I got a bit annoyed by the over-usage of “package.” I know even though I used the phrase in similar manner — without directly defining it. But if you mentally replace it with other synonyms that work for you, the paper is much more digestible and chock full of information about the archaeology of early Austrialia, Papau New Guinea and adjacent areas.

P HABGOOD, N FRANKLIN (2008). The revolution that didn’t arrive: A review of Pleistocene Sahul Journal of Human Evolution, 55 (2), 187-222 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2007.11.006

Razib points me to this press release announcing a study estimating Neandertal intelligence by way of their stone tool set. The press is running wild with this news. The Independent put out a piece on it. So has the Guardian. Even the BBC has got something to say about it. And the story has made it to front pages of Slashdot, Digg, and Wired. Unfortunately, the research paper has not yet been published, but it will be appearing in the Journal of Human Evolution under this title, “Are Upper Paleolithic blade cores more productive than Middle Paleolithic discoidal cores? A replication experiment.”

In lieu of the primary source, I have extracted some information from the news I’ve read. The lead author of the paper is Metin Eren. He and the archaeologists on his team did some experimental archaeology. In other words, they recreated the Neandertal tool set as well as the more modern human tool set. The summary that Brandon Keim, of Wired, provided is rather misleading. Keim says that they analyzed tools used by Neandertals — not really. From what I can tell, Eren and crew made some wide flakes (from discoidal cores) that resembled Neandertal and human tools from the Middle Paleolithic tools and compared them to more specialized narrow blades made by modern humans, from the Upper Paleolithic, who came from a more recent expansion out of Africa.

Flakes were made by archaic Homo somewhere around 250,000 years ago. It involved taking rock like flint and subjecting it to percussion flaking. This created fragments where one side resembles a bi-convex, shell-like shape. Another heavy percussion blow to the bottom of the piece resulted in a convex lens-like shape. This methodology, often called the Levallois technique, was perfected by Neandertals into what is now known as the Mousterian culture.

Aside from being narrow, blades are more or less parallel flakes of brittle rock, like flint, chert and obsidian. They are most often twice as long as wide and the cross section of a blade is triangular or trapezoidal. Blades functioned in many different tools from knives to scrapers, spear tips, drills, awls, bruins, etc.

The authors next measured circumference of these stone tools using a method developed by Adobe and Think Computer corporations. With this, they were able to calculate how much cutting-edge was created and estimate the production efficiency as well as the life time of the tool. Their results indicate that there was no technical advantage to blades from the Upper Paleolithic. And, they conclude that Homo sapiens were not more advanced than Neandertals. Eren comments, saying,

“It’s not a better technology, it’s just a different technology.”

This is not a very surprising result. And I agree with Eren that we need to stop thinking Neandertals as clumbering cavemen. Razib has already outlined some of the basic facts, i.e. Neandertals had big brains and other conquest during human history were not won by ‘great technological imbalances.’ In 1997, people recovered mammalian DNA from the surfaces of Neandertal stone tools, which showed they were able to take down large game like rhinos and mammoths. Clearly, a sign of an intelligent being.

All this ‘let’s rethink Neandertals as intelligent beings’ reminds me of February’s isotopic study on a Neandertal tooth. There was so much press buzzing around, stating that, “Ohhh new fancy research shows Neandertals were mobile.” When in fact, any logical person would have never questioned Neandertal mobility.

One last point. This study challenges the notion that modern Homo sapiens technology gave them an evolutionary upper hand — a better tool set of narrow blades helped modern humans outcompete Neandertals in hunting of big game, and thus survived more effectively. Though Neandertals had different tools, this analysis showed that their tools didn’t have much of a difference in cutting effectiveness and were just as costly as Upper Paleolithic blades. While I haven’t had a chance to read the original paper — it isn’t online yet — I wonder if the authors discuss the differences in the applications of blades versus flakes? Both may have been just as effective in cutting surface but blades functioned as more diverse compound tools, i.e. they could be interchanged between harpoons and spears, knives and scrapers. A compound tool’s advantage over less versatile Mousterian tools, is that they can be repaired — costing the toolmaker and culture less resources spent in fashioning new tools.

And if you want to see the data that Eren and team produced, you know to do your own number crunching, they’ve made it available on Think Computer corp’s website.