Anthropology.net

I’m happy to introduce another guest blogger to the Anthropology.net family, Jay Fancher. Jay is a recent graduate of Washington State University’s Ph.D. program in anthropology. His doctoral dissertation is an ethnoarchaeological analysis of animal bone assemblages produced by modern Aka and Bofi foragers of the Central African Republic. This research explores how observing hunting and butchering behaviors of modern African pygmies can help us better interpret animal bones discarded by prehistoric hunter-gatherers.

He also holds B.A. degrees in Theatre Arts (Film) and Anthropology at Humboldt State University and an M.A. in Anthropology at Washington State University. Jay’s professional interests include: hunter-gatherer studies, evolutionary ecology, zooarchaeology, vertebrate taphonomy, and sharing anthropological perspectives with non-specialists and the general public. In addition to academic writing, he is also currently interested in the popularization and politicization of science.

My undergraduate focus was in zooarchaeology, and I knew of the doctorate program at WSU back when I was exploring future options. I know it is an excellent program. Suffice to say, I’m very enthusiastic about having Jay on board. I believe he’ll offer a great mix of topics and look forward to reading his posts.

Well, I feel somewhat vindicated. Remember the post where I criticized hominin cut marks from over 3 million years ago? Others have also had an eye of suspicion and have published their concerns in PNAS this week.

I was wrong in considering the croc marking differential to the cut marks. But I was not wrong in thinking they author of the original paper made the wrong conclusions. The authors of this new paper raise up an even more logical explanation, and carried out a more thorough analysis. Here’s part of their argument from the abstract,

“The Dikika research group focused its analysis on the morphology of the marks in question but failed to demonstrate, through recovery of similarly marked in situ fossils, the exact provenience of the published fossils, and failed to note occurrences of random striae on the cortices of the published fossils (incurred through incidental movement of the defleshed specimens across and/or within their abrasive encasing sediments). The occurrence of such random striae (sometimes called collectively “trampling” damage) on the two fossils provide the configurational context for rejection of the claimed butchery marks. The earliest best evidence for hominin butchery thus remains at 2.6 to 2.5 Ma, presumably associated with more derived species than A. afarensis.”

Trampling vs. Cut Marks (The image in A is courtesy of R. Blasco and J. Rosell. The images in B, D, and F are modified from McPherron et al.)

Looking back at the comment thread, I got a lot of flak. Aside from being wrong about the croc markings, I won’t deny that my post was inflammatory and incited a lot of the response. But many who know just a bit about the fossil and archaeological record, may find it extraordinary to believe australopithecines were using stone tools to extract food from flesh and bone from ‘indirect’ evidence. Of more concern was the lack of exhaustive exploration into other possibilities.

I remember as an anthropology undergrad one of my professors designed a hands-on experiment for us. If memory serves me correctly, this was for a zooarchaeology class. She acquired some beef bones from the local butcher and gave us stone tools. We were instructed to extract the marrow from the bones. We hammered the afternoon away.

Part of our assignment was to use different techniques and tools. We could cut, saw, abrade, chisel, etc. After the mess was done we compared our extractions from prehistoric samples. This comparative approach allowed use to systematically compare how we modified the bone to how possibly prehistoric individuals modified bone.

The authors of the current PNAS paper did something similar. The hypothesized that trampling could have created similar modifications as seen on the 3.39 million year old Dikika bones. And what did they do? Well they got some bone and experimentally setup some trampling experiments. As one would expect, cut marks would have a \/ shaped incision. Incidentally, the bones from Dikika show a \_/ flat bottom morphology. The authors write,

“Ninety-six percent of experimental trampling grooves display a broad-based, open cross-section with the aforementioned shape, versus just 4% of experimental grooves inflicted by simple (i.e., unmodified) stone flakes used to cut meat from bones. In addition, curvy and sinuous groove trajectories characterize nearly 70% of experimental trampling marks,compared with just 10% of experimental cut marks created with simple flakes (11). Together, these experimental results provide a robust actualistic context to evaluate illustrated marks F, G, H2,and I on DK-55–3 as high-probability trampling damage and not stone tool cut or percussion marks…”

I wonder what happened to good science?

What happened to the scientific method?

Did we not learn how to set up experiments and carry out analysis?

How can a paper make all the way into Nature and not exhaust all the possibilities?

These are not rhetorical questions. I am seriously asking it. I honestly feel that there is something rife in paleoanthropological studies lately. I must sound like a broken record to say yet again, too often are papers published in haste and for fortune and glory… All which compromise the validity & ethical responsibility of the science.

Domínguez-Rodrigo M, Pickering TR, & Bunn HT (2010). Configurational approach to identifying the earliest hominin butchers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America PMID: 21078985

Thanksgiving is now well and truly over, as are the lives of numerous birds, in this case turkeys, that were consumed as part of the tradition, whilst even larger quantities of this particular bird are slated for slaughter and consumption as Christmas once more raises its ominous spectre on the festive horizon. I’m not sure for how long the consumption of birds has been a main feature of human feasting occasions, but as we see from the linked paper, humans have been eating various species of bird for hundreds of thousands of years, which is surprising in the context of how difficult it must have been for our ancestors to acquire this food item with what we might consider to be comparatively limited technological prowess. Two aspects of this study particularly interested me, the first that archaic humans were able to acquire avian prey, and second that on many occasions, it appears that the acquired meat may have been eaten in its raw state. Whether it was eaten by humans or given to other animals such as tamed hunting birds is something I’ll address in due course.

As we have seen in previous posts, there are numerous caves and rock-shelters across Spain which offer a wealth of finds and associated data, affording us invaluable insights into the life-styles of ancient humans, particularly when it comes to trying to ascertain which prey animals were hunted and consumed in the Middle Pleistocene.

As the authors Blasco and Fernández Peris note in their paper, much attention on this subject is paid to larger prey animals and the ways in which they were hunted, butchered and consumed, whilst the data from smaller prey comes under less scrutiny. In this paper they show how that around 150k years ago, archaic humans such as Homo heidelbergensis or possibly Homo neanderthalensis consumed, Aythya sp. a type of marsh-dwelling duck, although the birds themselves may on occasion have been eaten raw. How these birds were actually caught remains for now an open question, but we can be fairly sure that advanced hunting skills would have been necessary in order for this prey to have been a regular feature on the menu, assuming the birds weren’t opportunistically scavenged.

Here’s the abstract of the paper that’s behind a paywall, but because author Ruth Blasco has very kindly forwarded me a copy, I’m pleased to be able to offer more comment than might otherwise have been the case:

Abstract:

The consumption of small prey dates back to the Plio-Pleistocene chronologies in some African sites. However, the systematic acquisition and consumption of small prey in the pre-Upper Palaeolithic times is still a highly debated topic in Europe. Although the utilization of leporids has been recorded in several pre-Late Pleistocene European sites, the evidence of bird consumption is not as common for these periods. Nevertheless, Level XI (MIS 6) of Bolomor Cave has clear diagnostic elements to document the acquisition and use of birds (Aythya sp.) for food in the form of: (1) cutmarks on bones of both the front and hind limb; (2) presence of burning patterns on the extremities of the bones (areas of the skeleton with less meat); and (3) human toothmarks on limb bones.

The capture of birds is classified as quick-flying game in the archaeological sites. The acquiring of fast-running (mostly lagomorphs) and quick-flying small prey requires a sophisticated technology and involves obtaining and processing ways different from those used for large- and medium-sized animals. From this perspective, the aim of this paper is to examine possible patterns in the processing sequence of birds from Level XI of Bolomor Cave and to improve the data on their butchery and human consumption in the Middle Pleistocene of Iberian Peninsula.

The introduction goes on to discuss how avian prey may have been overlooked as a contributory factor to ancient humans as the amount of energy derived from their consumption is obviously much less than sources of meat on the hoof. Moreover, because the processing and consumption of smaller prey require little or no use of stone tools, as hands and teeth can be effectively deployed, less evidence of lithic activity appears on the bones of those birds that were eaten. However, as the authors note, other evidence in the guise of tooth-marks, breakages and alteration by fire of bird bones can serve equally well as clues that such remains found at ancient sites were there as a result of human activity rather than from the activities of other scavenging animals, birds of prey, or death by natural causes at the site in question.

Details of previous research at other sites is given here:

So far, the older evidences on avian remains were identified in the Early Pleistocene of Sima del Elefante (Spain) (Huguet, 2007) and of Dursunlu (Turkey) (Gu¨ leç et al., 2009). At the Sima del Elefante site, one cutmark on a proximal metaphysis of a large sized-bird radius was observed at Level TE9a. In Dursunlu, several incisions on distal metatarsus of a large bird were also documented. In more recent chronologies, an anthropogenic use on Pyrrhocorax graculus bones was suggested in the ‘‘acheulean cabin’’ of the Lazaret in France (Bouchud, 1969).

This study was based on the spatial distribution of the bird remains, which are more abundant inside the cabin. Nevertheless, this distribution has been the subject of debate. According to Villa (1983), this phenomenon is due to the natural formation process at Level V of the site. Some species, such as crows and pigeons, are known to nest on the wall of the caves and their bones are frequently found in karstic contexts. It is possible that some of these birds died from natural causes and others may have been brought by birds of prey (Bubo bubo) in form of pellet or by carnivores (Vulpes vulpes, Felis silvestris or Lynx spelaea) that occasionally inhabited the cavity (Lumley et al., 2004).

However, cutmarks on one Columba livia right humerus have been identified at UA 25 of Lazaret cave (Lumley et al., 2004; Roger, 2004). On the other hand, the bird accumulations in the Middle Pleistocene of the A´ ridos site (Spain) were interpreted by Mourer-Chauvire´ (1980) as the result of human hunting. However, the avian skeletal representation of this site is not biased (Mourer-Chauvire´ , 1980) and therefore, the interpretation of bird accumulation by hominids could be problematic. In these cases, the identification of other diagnostic elements of anthropogenic processing on skeletal remains should be considered….

…In Bolomor Cave, the consumption of small prey is common throughout the entire stratigraphic sequence. At this site, cutmarks on leporid bones (Oryctolagus cuniculus) are documented repeatedly from MIS 9 to MIS 5e (Blasco, 2006; Sanchis Serra and Ferna´ndez Peris, 2008). Anthropogenic processing marks are also observed on tortoise remains (Testudo hermanni) at Level IV (Blasco, 2008) and on one swan humerus (Cygnus olor) at Level XII (Blasco, 2006). This paper aims to add available data on the consumption and butchery of birds at Level XI in Bolomor Cave. Level XI is one of the levels, within the stratigraphic sequence of the site, which presents the highest percentage of very small sized animals in relation to ungulates and allows us to examine possible patterns of bird consumption.

As Cova de Bolomor might not be familiar to all, a brief word on its location and archaeological history is in order. The cave itself is faces north east, and is located on Monduver Mountain in the Valldigna Valley, near the town of Tavernes, Valencia in eastern Spain. Described as a karstic rock shelter, the site opened up around 500k years ago, and thus far, 17 archaeological levels have been identified, indicating numerous human occupations, where fossil remains, stone tools and hearths testify to activities that took place there.

As we see from an article in El Pais back in 2007, Neanderthal remains dating to 130k years ago have been found in the levels above XI, and comprise a milk tooth, an adult tooth and a partial skull, whilst other faunal remains indicate that animals such as macaque monkeys, rhinoceros and hippopotamus shared the immediate neighbourhood. The Neanderthal remains had been in the local museum since 1982, encased in a chunk of rock. As far as I can tell,  Bolomor was known to be of archaeological interest since the 19th century, but nevertheless the site suffered considerable damage in the 1930s, when explosions from nearby quarrying activities caused lumps of rock from the shelter to be scattered in the vicinity, which in turn were collected and taken to the museum for study and research.

Read the rest of this entry »

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

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

In late May, Paul Sereno was in town to talk at the 2008 conference titled, ‘Integrating Evolution, Development, & Genomics.’ He was invited to also give a talk titled, “Living Lakeside in the Sahara: A Chronicle of Holocene Adaptation,” to the Primate Biology Group. I eagerly attended. Paul Sereno, if you don’t know, is primarily a dinosaur paleontologist and geologist. And a really well known one at that. He’s discovered around 10 or so new dinosaur species.

But, in 2000 while on a excavation for dinosaurs and giant crocodiles in Niger, National Geographic photographer, Mike Hettwer, stumbled upon a Neolithic graveyard. Sereno shifted his search for dinos to studying these bodies and the artifacts associated with them. He discussed his finds in his talk.

It was so inspiring to be there, and I’m not alone in sharing this sentiment. I was attending the talk with a couple of friends, and they also felt the same way. The clarity and enthusiasm with which Sereno explained the site and his work was impressive — I’ve rarely seen someone so excited to explain so much material. Sereno’s definitely got a reason to be enthusiastic — he has what is now most likely the largest collection of Early to Mid-Holocene bones ever discovered at a single site in Africa.

Gobero, a Neolithic Site in Niger.

After the talk, I got a chance to have a one and one with Sereno. He let me know about his time frame and publication plans. I’m happy to see that everything has come to fruition. Published today, in the open access journal PLoS One is Sereno et al.’s analysis of the site, “Lakeside Cemeteries in the Sahara: 5000 Years of Holocene Population and Environmental Change.”

In the paper, Sereno and team describe the paleoecology of the site and climatic change. They include their interpretation of the burials and associated artifacts. I’ll do my best summarizing the piece in this blog post, but I really recommend you read this gem for yourself. It is open access and well written — you don’t have really any excuse not too.

This site has been called Gobero, after the local Tuareg name for the area. About 10,000 years ago (7700–6200 B.C.E.), Gobero was a much less arid environment than it is now. In fact, it was actually a rather humid lake side hometown of sorts for a group of hunter-fisher-gatherers who not only lived their but also buried their dead there. How do we know they were fishing? Well, remains of large nile perch and harpoons were found dating to this time period.

Of the 67 burials excavated, five of them date to an occupation span from 9,750 to 9,500 years ago. That’s 250 years or so. Looking at photos of the field site, it is hard to believe these prehistoric people got comfortable in Gobero. They began making pottery and ritually burying their dead. One of these guys, G3B8, is a 2 meter tall dude (that’s like 6 feet 6 inches!). He’s pictured below, buried rather utilitarian, with hands covering his mouth and crossed feet, just as he was found:

G3B8, a 6 foot 6 individual from Gobero, Nigeria. Photo (c) Mike Hettwer, courtesy Project Exploration.

G3B8 is not alone in his stature and robustness. There other burials, both male and female, from this time frame are of similar height. These Early Holocene hunter-gathering fishermen also have characteristic skulls — long and low, with a unique occipital bun and broad nasals. These features aren’t restricted to only adults, in fact, juveniles as young as 4 years exhibit similar traits which are not shared by the later inhabitants of Gobero. These bodies were tightly bound when buried.

Around 6200 B.C.E (8,200 years ago) Gobero began to resemble what we see today. The paleolake dried up, and these tall, robust inhabitants hauled out. The youngest early-Holoecene burial dated to 6210 B.C.E. This regional climate change persisted for about 1,000 years, correlating to climatic deterioration across the Chad Basin and linked to the chilling of the North Atlantic.

The return of humid conditions came about immediately after this arid interruption. The lake refilled, and plants, animals and people moved back to Gobero. These favorable conditions persisted for much longer than the early Holocene occupation, roughly 2,700 years. The new settlers were anatomically much different from their predecessors. For starters, they are shorter. They’ve got tall, narrow skulls, with long faces. This guy, dubbed G1B11, is a mid-Holocene adult male dating to around 4,645 B.C.E. is a good example of the different morphology:

G1B11, an adult male from Gobero, Niger. Photo (c) Mike Hettwer, courtesy Project Exploration.

To better illustrate the differences between the robust, early occupants and the latter, gracile ones. Check out this comparison. On the left is a 9,500 years old skull of this mature male. The eye sockets are square, the cranium is low and check out those nasals! On the right is a 5,800 years old skull of a young adult. While not as mature as his 3,700 counter part, you can see the anatomical differences for yourself — a much taller cranium, look at the forehead.

Kiffian (9,500 year old) Skull vs Tenereian (5,800 year old) Skull from Gobero, Niger. Photo (c) Mike Hettwer, courtesy Project Exploration.

Tenerean Bracelet Girl. Photo (c) Mike Hettwer, courtesy Project Exploration.

7 of 35 burials excavated from the mid-Holocene occupation were buried with artifacts. I remember Sereno showing us a photograph of an individual buried with a turtle shell underneath him. I didn’t catch the specimen number at the time, and now found out that guy is G1B11 — pictured above. You can see in the middle image the carapace functioning as an eternal bed. The mid-Holocene occupants were much more symbolic than the early Holocene individuals. They buried their dead with more elaborate artifacts, such as this 11 year old girl (G1B2) who is wearing an upper-arm bracelet carved from the tusk of a hippo. She’s believed to have died around 4,835 years ago.

Why were these people burying their dead with beads, bracelets, and on turtle shells? Sereno et al. suggest that the latter occupants were more pastoralists and agriculturalists — because archaeological evidence for grain and remains of domesticated cattle are present in the midden from this time period. Their gracile frames support this lifestyle, as well. Additionally, curious looking fine-grained green rocks were used to make points, scrapers and adzes from this time period. This rock isn’t found in Gobero. Actually, this feldspar rock came from Alallaka — a prehistoric rock quarry about 160km north of Gobero. The relaxation from gathering and hunting for food allowed for people to develop new skills, such as jewelry making and symbolic burials — even trade their skills for green rocks from the north.

So who were these people?

Sereno et al. did a principal components analysis of craniofacial dimensions of the skulls from both periods and compared them to Late Pleistocene to mid-Holocene populations from the Maghreb and southern Sahara. The early Holocene occupants are similar to remains from Maghreb Capsian, Maghreb Iberomaurusian, Mali, Mauritania. The mid-Holocene occupants are unlike any other population tested. That doesn’t tell us much about who they were.

Kiffian Wavy Pottery. Photo (c) Mike Hettwer, courtesy Project Exploration.

So Elena Garcea, a specialist in African archaeology from this period, analyzed the material culture. She believes that the bone harpoon points and hooks, as well was the dotted wavy-line, zigzag ceramic exhibit attributes of the Kiffian people. Kevin MacDonald described the Kiffian technology, one that specialized in harpoons and microliths, in the text “Archaeology and Language.” Several other publication also support this claim. On Sereno’s website, there are more photos of the bone harpoons and pottery. I don’t have any examples of Kiffian artifacts to compare, so I’ll just trust that Garcea and Sereno got this identification.

The mid-Holocene occupants are believed to be Tenereans. Their affinity for green feldspar and the small projectile points as well as the disc knives characterize the Tenerean material culture. An example of Tenerean style projectile points from Gobero is below: IMAGE REMOVED AS PER MIKE HETTWER’S REQUEST.

Tenerean Triple Burial, from Gobero, Niger. Photo (c) Mike Hettwer, courtesy Project Exploration.

If you’re not completely floored by the wealth of archaeological and anatomical material from Gobero, let me share with you the Tenerean triple burial. The triple burial includes a female, presumably the mother, laid to rest on her right side who died somewhere around 5,300 years ago. Facing her are two children (ages 8 & 5 years old) and buried on their left side, interpreted as her children. These people were buried with their arms and legs around each other and holding hands. Abundance of pollen residues underneath them suggest they were buried on a bed of flowers. Multiple burials like this, and in this condition are rare. Furthermore, this is first triple burial ever discovered on Africa.

Sereno did not excavate these individuals like a normal archaeologist would. Instead, being a dinosaur specialist, he jacketed the remains.

Gasp!

You’re probably thinking, “Sacrilegious technique! He shoulda used brushes and dental picks, removing each bone and shipping them off for study in the lab.” But had he not done so, burials like the triple burial would have not survived excavation — the extreme heat of the Sahara has made the bones exceptionally fragile. That’s why having a multidisciplinary approach to doing this sorta fieldwork works. And I commend Sereno for taking these measures to preserve the bodies and site.

This publication has shown us very eloquently how important Gobero is to our understanding of climate change and prehistoric peoples and archaeology of the Sahara. As more and more of Gobero becomes exposed and weathered, more and more of it will be lost to time if we do not support Sereno’s research. Hettwer has documented the impact 5 years has made on one such exposed skeleton:

Weathering of an exposed skeleton at Gobero, Niger. Photo (c) Mike Hettwer, courtesy Project Exploration.

I’ve mentioned before only 67 burials were excavated. There are at least 182. Gobero needs to be preserved, for its wealth of evidence and the cultural heritage it provides Niger.

Sereno, P.C., Garcea, E.A., Jousse, H., Stojanowski, C.M., Saliège, J., Maga, A., Ide, O.A., Knudson, K.J., Mercuri, A.M., Stafford, T.W., Kaye, T.G., Giraudi, C., N’siala, I.M., Cocca, E., Moots, H.M., Dutheil, D.B., Stivers, J.P., Harpending, H. (2008). Lakeside Cemeteries in the Sahara: 5000 Years of Holocene Population and Environmental Change. PLoS ONE, 3(8), e2995. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0002995

Afarensis has just blogged on this new PNAS paper, “Dating the late prehistoric dispersal of Polynesians to New Zealand using the commensal Pacific rat.” The goal of this paper is to clarify when New Zealand was peopled. There are several hypotheses floating out there, two of which indicate New Zealand was either peopled 1,200 years ago or 800 years ago.

One hypothesis, suggested in this 1996 Nature article, “Arrival of rats in New Zealand,” indicates people arrived with rats roughly 2,800 years ago. This was established using carbon dating of rat bones. Rats, as explained by Afarensis, are often used as a proxy to understand human migratory patterns, because rats and humans have a longstanding commensal relationship. In February, I shared some news on how rats have been used to understand migrations of humans in the Neolithic.

I’m not a rat biologist, and I don’t fully know their ecological independence. Through my personal experiences, I understand rats have been pretty dependent on humans but because these rat bones were dated to be 2,000 years older than the first human remains in New Zealand and were excavated with no supporting ecological or archaeological context, the dates have been hotly contested.

The authors of this new PNAS revisit this study and included carbon dating of rat gnawed seeds from two caves in New Zealand. The authors hope to re-clarify the presence of human occupation of New Zealand because it just doesn’t seem feasible that rats could live for so many thousands of years without humans.

Here’s a summary of the results, from Afarensis’ blog post,

“The research specifically focussed on plant seeds from plants that had been driven to extinction by the Pacific rat (or the rats have been implicated as a possible cause). All the rat bones date to 1280 AD or younger. The un-gnawed seeds are the oldest, whereas, none of the gnawed seeds date to before approximately 700 years BP. This current research dovetails with dates on rat gnawed snails.”

The new dates all confer with the time humans are understood to be present in New Zealand, but one thing that wasn’t discussed in the PNAS paper is other sources of the ratting of New Zealands. Like I said, I’m not well versed in rat ecology. I know they live in close association with humans but that doesn’t mean rats are dependent solely on humans… they just benefit from living next to humans.

See the genus Rattus is thought to have emerged from the Murid family about 3.5 million years ago in Asia. This is well before human ancestors ventured into Asia. They did fine for a couple millions of years there, living in colonies independent from humans. It is possible that rats can live in areas without a human presence.

So if we agree that rats can live by themselves, how did they get to New Zealand? 3,000 years ago, sea levels were about the same level as they are now. Janet Wilmshurst, pictured above, and one of the authors of this paper, told the press that this particular species of rat, the kiore, “cannot swim very far, it can only have arrived in New Zealand with people on board their canoes, either as cargo or stowaway. “

I feel that Wilmshurt is treading on very fine line, speaking with such vindication that these rats had to have come to New Zealand along with humans. Many of the non-marsupial mammals of Australia came by island hopping and rafted from the north, it is possible these rats did the same.

Wilmshurst, J.M., Anderson, A.J., Higham, T.F., Worthy, T.H. (2008). Dating the late prehistoric dispersal of Polynesians to New Zealand using the commensal Pacific rat. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 105(22), 7676-7680. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0801507105

Eugène Morin of Trent University has just published this paper in PNAS, “Evidence for declines in human population densities during the early Upper Paleolithic in western Europe.”

He studied the fluctuations in the zooarchaeological record from the Saint-Césaire site in France. And he found remains of rodents that live in the tundra species which indicate colder conditions. To coincide with the presence of rodents, there was a dramatic decrease in large mammal diversity, except for reindeer. Reindeer populations jumped up from 35 to 87% during this climate change.

An increase in reindeer population inversely relates to human population densities because the diversity of animals that could be hunted shrank severely, and that would have impacted human populations. He concludes, Neandertal populations reduced as Europe’s environment became harsher, with some groups going extinct by 40,000 to 35,000 years ago.

Since 2006, I’ve read several studies going back and forth on climate change as the nail in the coffin for Neandertals. Do you remember the ‘last stand in Gilbraltar‘? That study relied on archaeological remains of a sheltered site in Gibraltar. It also suggested extreme climates affected the extinction of Neandertals. But in September 2007 a study from Max Planck’s Katerina Harvati concluded that catastrophic climate change was not a cause for extinction. Here’s the link to that paper, “Placing late Neanderthals in a climatic context.”

Morin is taking a different angle. He’s saying climate change was a cause for the reduction on Neandertal populations but also that Neandertals gave rise to the first modern humans in Europe! Morin says to National Geographic News that climate stresses may have wrought evolutionary adaptations in surviving Neandertals, leading them to develop characteristics like those of modern humans. And in his the abstract, Morin writes,

“These data suggest that the EUP represented for humans a period of significant niche contraction in western Europe. In this context, the possibility that a modern human expansion occurred in this region seems low. Instead, it is suggested that population bottlenecks, genetic drift, and gene flow prevailed over human population replacement as mechanisms of evolution in humans during the EUP.”

So he’s suggesting that climate change influenced the rise of the first modern humans in Europe from Neandertals. How do you feel about this conclusion?