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Research news relevant to early humans in Franco-Iberia
Part 2 addresses new finds of fossils and artifacts and the interpretation of archaeological materials, including reports on the complex cultural activities of Neandertals.
News items are presented in general prehistoric chronological order.
Bare-bones summaries of current research papers. Basic data, graphics and links only. News items to be fleshed out on tour.
Includes links to the original abstracts--the online papers usually lie behind a paywall.
Gradual decline in mobility with the adoption of food production in Europe
Christopher Ruff et al. PNAS, July, 2015 (Vol. 112, pg. 7147)
1,842 European skeletons spanning 33 kyr, Upper Paleolithic to 20th century
Decreased bending strength implies a decline of mobility as agriculture came to dominate how people produced food. The original decline in mobility was more important than subsequent changes in farming technology.
http://www.pnas.org/content/112/23/7147.abstract
Decreased bending strength of leg bones accompanied the shift. The trend was not apparent during the last 2 ka, as agriculture became more mechanized.
From the Neolithic to Roman eras (7-2 ka) humans shifted from mobile to an increasingly sedentary lifestyles.
The study measured the strength of the tibia, femur, and humerus. The authors found little change in mediolateral, or side-to-side, bending strength in all the bones over time, but a decline in anteroposterior, or front-to-back, bending strength of the tibia and femur beginning in the Neolithic Period (7 ka), and continuing through the Iron/Roman Period (2 ka).
The results suggest that mild changes in activity levels may be insufficient to stimulate changes in bone mass and that vigorous exercise may be required to increase bone strength.
15 ka, all humans lived by foraging wild animals and plants. Exploiting such resources worked best when people lived in tiny bands and moved around a lot. Individual foragers could not build much wealth or power. They tended to be very poor but very equal. SoL: $1.10 per day (1990 values)
12 ka, foragers numbered 6 million11 ka, population exploded with farming
2 ka, farmers numbered 250 millionBy 1800 AD, foraging was almost extinct
With farming, big social groups stayed in one place working their fields. They flourished at the expense of smaller, less sedentary ones. Farmers were typically richer than foragers SoL: $1.50-$2.20 per day
Farming’s effect on wealth distribution
To each age its inequality
Ian Morris New York Times, July 9, 2015
Farming needed more complicated divisions of labor than foraging. Some people became aristocrats or godlike kings; others became peasants or slaves. Economic inequality surged.
Exotic objects of the European Neolithic
Signs of Wealth: Inequalities in the Neolithic
National Museum of Prehistory, Les EyziesJune 27 to November 15, 2015
As Neolithic communities dispersed into Europe, 8-4.2 ka, they brought new techniques for making and ornamenting material culture. Intricate manufacturing could produce very beautiful pieces.
High-value items usually signified wealth and distinction for the owner. Some were hoarded to be used in relations between the elites or with supernatural powers.
High-value items often featured exotic raw materials, some traveling hundreds of kilometers from quarry to workshop. Likewise, finished pieces, including necklaces, daggers, axes, bracelets, could circulate for long distances and times.
Signs of Wealth features "object sign" artifacts in exotic materials still valuable in our day (jade, gold, turquoise, jet, etc).
(Larick’s paraphrase)
Ledi-Geraru, Ethiopia: Homo at 2.8 Ma
Early Homo at 2.8 Ma from Ledi-Geraru, Afar, Ethiopia
21st cent preventative archaeology large spaces in new areasfloodplains and terracesdone with fast mechanical earth-movingexpands the concept of site and spatial analysis
StratigraphyDark clay layer: 12th cent silos, ditches & bread ovensLighter silt layer: Aurignacian (in 2 levels), one with large foyerManganese-encrusted limestone pebble layer reflect humid conditions (Mousterian) Cobble layer Eem gravels with Mousterian flakesRiss levels
Cobble layer was the object of exploitation. Has Cretaceous flint clasts mixed with crystalline rocks (origin in Central Mountains)Neandertals and Hs tested the cobbles and then reduced them in place. Azinian (mini-Mousterian) presence; levallois flakes of thumbnail sizeSome presence of Jonzac (Charente) flintAurignacian made carinated scrapers and bladelets;
Brought a few blades of exotic materials, including Bergeracois
Chauzeys sits on a terrace lobe of at least Riss ageWurm terrace (lower) to northTerrace has a full Wurm accumulation on top of Eem
Neandertal pigeon eating at Gibraltar
The earliest pigeon fanciers
Ruth Blasco, Clive Finlayson, et al.Nature 7 August 2014
Rock Dove, is a species of rocky habitats. At Gorham's Cave, Neanderthals butchered Rock Doves, beginning at least 67 ka, for a period of more than 40 kyr.
Cut-marked bones of Rock Dove specimens from Gorham's Cave: sternum (A), ulna (B, E) and humerus (C, D) from level IV, and tibiotarsus from LBSmcf.2 (F).
missing connection between African and European populations
Israel Hershkovitz et al.Nature, January 28, 2015
L-R: Neanderthal, Manot cranium, modern human
55,000-year-old skull, Manot Cave
The distinctive bunlike shape at the base of the skull resembles modern African and European skulls but differs from other anatomically modern humans from the Levant, and is thus a strong clue that these were among the first humans to settle Europe,
Manot 1 calotte is of a fairly small adult individual, sex undetermined.
Evidence supporting an intentional Neandertal burial at La Chapelle-aux-SaintsWilliam Rendu, et al. PNAS 15 November 2013
A Neandertal burial was recognized in 1908 in the bouffia Bonneval, at La Chapelle-aux-Saints (France). New research indicates that the body was deposited in a pit dug by other members of its group and protected by a rapid covering from any disturbance.
the discovery of skeletal elements belonging to the original La Chapelle aux Saints 1 individual, two additional young individuals, and a second adult in the bouffia Bonneval highlights a more complex site-formation history than previously proposed.
These discoveries attest the existence of West European Neandertal burial and of the Neandertal cognitive capacity to produce it.
Bouffia Bonneval excavation map and burial pit position. Differences in the cavity topography and in the localization of the burial pit are linked to imprecision in the Bouyssonies’ drawing.
Hn and Hs archaeological records are not different enough to explain Hn demise in terms of inferiority. Interbreeding and assimilation may have hastened the disappearance of Hn morphology.
1. Hs had complex symbolic communication systems and fully syntactic language, while Hn did not.
2. Hn had limited capacity for innovations.
3. Hn were less efficient hunters.
4. Hn weaponry was inferior to Hs projectile technology.
5. Hn had a narrow diet, unsuccessful in competition with Hs with their more diverse diets.
6. Hs exclusively used traps and snares to capture animals.
7. Hs had larger social networks.
8. Hs groups entering Europe were significantly larger than regional Hn groups.
9. Hs tool hafting is indicative of modern cognition; Hn hafting was simple (used naturally available glues).
10. Hn decline was related to cold climate ~40 ka.
11. Hn extinction was related to the eruption of the Mt. Toba volcano (Sumatra, 74 ka).
Curvology: The Origins and Power of Female Body Shape .
David Bainbridge. Granta; 227 pages
it makes evolutionary sense for new couples to plump up—in comparison with when they were single—as this provides both of them with a fatty fallback for when they begin the arduous task of reproducing the species
curvy bums and boobs ensure the future of humankind. They are proof that a woman was well-nourished while growing up and carries good child-feeding genes
Episodes of bingeing and starvation were normal features of pre-agricultural life; some animals still reduce their intake in winter. Eating disorders, the author writes, could be “evolutionary relics of a time when our food supply was unpredictable