Coastal adaptations have become an important topic in discussions about the evolution and dispersal of Homo sapiens. However, the actual distribution and potential relevance of coastal adaptations ...(broadly, the use of coastal resources and settlement along shorelines) in these processes remains debated, as is the claim that Neanderthals exhibited similar behaviors. To assess both questions, we performed a systematic review comparing coastal adaptations of H. sapiens during the African Middle Stone Age (MSA) with those of contemporaneous Neanderthals during the European Middle Paleolithic. In both species, systematic use of marine resources and coastal landscapes constitutes a consistent behavioral signature over ~ 100,000 years (MIS 6–3) in several regions of Africa and Europe. We found more similarities than differences between Neanderthals and modern humans, with remaining disparities all in degree rather than kind. H. sapiens exploited a wider range of marine resources—particularly shellfish—more intensively. MSA shellfish-bearing sites are also more often associated with intense occupations on coastal landscapes, and more evidence of complex material culture such as shell beads. In terms of broader ramifications, Pleistocene coastal adaptations are best conceived of as an 'add-on' to previous adaptive strategies, complementing more frequently exploited inland resources and landscapes. Still, Neanderthals and modern humans increased their dietary breadth and quality, and added options for occupation and range expansion along coastlines. Potential evolutionary implications of these multi-generational behaviors include higher intakes of brain-selective nutrients as a basis for neurobiological changes connected to increased cognitive capacities, but also greater reproductive success, dispersal abilities and behavioral flexibility. Whether gradual differences between modern humans and Neanderthals stimulated different evolutionary trajectories is a question for future research.
In this paper, we analyze faunal data from southern Africa in order to explore the nature and extent of variability in human hunting strategies and diet breadth during the Middle Stone Age (MSA). Our ...analysis incorporates data from eight sites that span marine isotope stages (MIS) 6–3 (∼170–40 ka). The sample includes both coastal and inland sites; while it primarily derives from cave and rock shelter contexts (Blombos, Die Kelders, Diepkloof, Klasies River, Pinnacle Point, Sibudu, and Ysterfontein), we also include one open-air site (Florisbad). The data indicate marked changes in subsistence over time—of particular note is a spike in the exploitation of small ungulates and other small mammals during MIS 4. Trends in shellfish utilization also suggest an increasing dietary breadth over time, although shellfish consistently represent only a small portion of the overall diet. We close with a discussion of several causal mechanisms (environment, demography, technology, and cognition) that could account for the patterning evidenced in the data. While environmental change appears to play an important role in shaping the character of the data, we argue that no single causal factor can account for the full range of variability.
Abstract
Paleogenomic research can elucidate the evolutionary history of human and faunal populations. Although the Levant is a key land-bridge between Africa and Eurasia, thus far, relatively little ...ancient DNA data has been generated from this region, since DNA degrades faster in warm climates. As sediments can be a source of ancient DNA, we analyzed 33 sediment samples from different sedimentological contexts in the Paleolithic layers of Sefunim Cave (Israel). Four contained traces of ancient Cervidae and Hyaenidae mitochondrial DNA. Dating by optical luminescence and radiocarbon indicates that the DNA comes from layers between 30,000 and 70,000 years old, surpassing theoretical expectations regarding the longevity of DNA deposited in such a warm environment. Both identified taxa are present in the zooarchaeological record of the site but have since gone extinct from the region, and a geoarchaeological study suggests little movement of the sediments after their deposition, lending further support to our findings. We provide details on the local conditions in the cave, which we hypothesize were particularly conducive to the long-term preservation of DNA—information that will be pertinent for future endeavors aimed at recovering ancient DNA from the Levant and other similarly challenging contexts.
Large scale databases are critical for helping scientists decipher long-term patterns in human evolution. This paper describes the conception and development of such a research database and ...illustrates how big data can be harnessed to formulate new ideas about the past. The Role of Culture in Early Expansions of Humans (ROCEEH) is a transdisciplinary research center whose aim is to study the origins of culture and the multifaceted aspects of human expansions across Africa and Eurasia over the last three million years. To support its research, the ROCEEH team developed an online tool named the ROCEEH Out of Africa Database (ROAD) and implemented its web-based applications. ROAD integrates geographical data as well as archaeological, paleoanthropological, paleontological and paleobotanical content within a robust chronological framework. In fact, a unique feature of ROAD is its ability to dynamically link scientific data both spatially and temporally, thereby allowing its reuse in ways that were not originally conceived. The data stem from published sources spanning the last 150 years, including those generated by the research team. Descriptions of these data rely on the development of a standardized vocabulary and profit from online explanations of each table and attribute. By synthesizing legacy data, ROAD facilitates the reuse of heritage data in novel ways. Database queries yield structured information in a variety of interoperable formats. By visualizing data on maps, users can explore this vast dataset and develop their own theories. By downloading data, users can conduct further quantitative analyses, for example with Geographic Information Systems, modeling programs and artificial intelligence. In this paper, we demonstrate the innovative nature of ROAD and show how it helps scientists studying human evolution to access datasets from different fields, thereby connecting the social and natural sciences. Because it permits the reuse of "old" data in new ways, ROAD is now an indispensable tool for researchers of human evolution and paleogeography.
The archaeological record is one piece of the puzzle in understanding the evolution of humans, helping to trace the cultural connections between different species and their technologies, as well as ...their expansion in time and space. Here we demonstrate a method for mapping the boundaries, centers, and peripheries of ancient cultures, as well as the technological similarities between different cultures. The proposed workflow includes: a systematic collection of archaeological information in a database; a process to infer the similarities between assemblages and generate a network; and finally, a graphical method for big data visualization, a technique also used in social media analysis. We present the geography of multiple cultural complexes that span several stages of cultural evolution from the Lower to the Upper Paleolithic (Stone Age) and involve several species of the genus Homo. Finally, we discuss some alternative trajectories in which this workflow can be developed further.
The Middle Stone Age (MSA) of Africa documents the earliest and longest record of marine resource use and coastal settlements by modern humans. Here, we provide a long-term and evolutionary ...perspective of these behaviors. We propose a definition of “coastal adaptations” rooted in the principles of evolutionary biology as a workable analytical device and review the MSA archaeological record from Africa to characterize the specific nature of coastal adaptations by Homo sapiens. On this basis we evaluate current models addressing the importance of coastal adaptations for human evolution and formulate new hypotheses within the larger framework of evolutionary causality by linking these behaviors directly to reproductive success. While the current archaeological record suggests that modern humans occasionally consumed marine resources during the late Middle Pleistocene, systematic and optimized gathering of a variety of marine food items dates to MIS 5 and 4. Archaeozoological studies show that people exploited marine resources in a methodical manner on the Atlantic, Indian, and Mediterranean coasts of Africa during this time frame. Despite the similarities in coastlines, mobile hunter–gatherers also integrated these variable coastal landscapes into their settlement strategies for more than 100 ka, as shown by evidence for stable, repeated and planned occupations. Additionally, elements of complex material culture, such as bone tools and shell beads, occur particularly often in (near-) coastal MSA sites. The specific nature of coastal adaptations by modern humans can thus be characterized by their systematic nature, long duration and verifiable impact on the overall adaptive suite. By combining archaeological data with ethnographic, nutritional and medical studies we propose several evolutionary scenarios for how modern humans could have increased survival and fecundity rates by their specific adaptations to coastal environments. In order to test these hypothetical scenarios for the selective advantages of coastal adaptations for Homo sapiens, we need more data deriving from an expanded spatiotemporal archaeological record, just as much as more formal evolutionary models and research strategies.
Over the last two decades, red ochre has played a pivotal role in discussions about the cognitive and cultural evolution of early modern humans during the African Middle Stone Age. Given the ...importance of ochre for the scholarly debate about the emergence of ‘behavioral modernity’, the lack of long-term spatio-temporal analyses spanning large geographical areas represents a significant gap in knowledge. Here we take a continent-wide approach, rather than focusing on specific sites, regions or technocomplexes. We report the most comprehensive meta-analysis of ochre use to date, spanning Africa between 500 and 40 thousand years ago, to examine data from more than a hundred archaeological sites. Using methods based on time averaging, we identified three distinct phases of ochre use: the initial phase occurred from 500,000 to 330,000; the emergent phase from 330,000 to 160,000; and the habitual phase from 160,000 to 40,000 years ago. The number of sites with ochre increased with each subsequent phase. More importantly, the ratio of sites with ochre compared to those with only stone artifacts also followed this trend, indicating the increasing intensity of ochre use during the Middle Stone Age. While the geographical distribution expanded with time, the absolute number of ochre finds grew significantly as well, underlining the intensification of ochre use. We determine that ochre use established itself as a habitual cultural practice in southern, eastern and northern Africa starting about 160,000 years ago, when a third of archaeological sites contain ochre. We argue that this pattern is a likely material manifestation of intensifying ritual activity in early populations of
Homo sapiens
. Such ritual behavior may have facilitated the demographic expansion of early modern humans, first within and eventually beyond the African continent. We discuss the implications of our findings on two models of ritual evolution, the
Female Cosmetic Coalitions Hypothesis
and the
Ecological Stress Hypothesis,
as well as a model about the emergence of complex cultural capacities, the
Eight-Grade Model for the Evolution and Expansion of Cultural Capacities
.
New excavations at the Middle Stone Age (MSA) open-air site of Hoedjiespunt 1 (HDP1) on the west coast of South Africa advance our understanding of the evolution of coastal adaptations in Homo ...sapiens. The archaeological site of HDP1 dates to the last interglacial and consists of three phases of occupation, each containing abundant lithic artifacts, shellfish, terrestrial fauna, ostrich eggshell and pieces of ground ocher. The site provides an excellent case study to analyze human behavioral adaptations linked to early exploitation of marine resources.
Here we reconstruct human activities through a detailed study of the lithic assemblages, combining analyses of the reduction sequences, artifact attributes and quartz fracturing. These methods provide insights into raw material procurement, lithic reduction sequences, site use and mobility patterns, and foster comparison with other MSA coastal sites.
The main characteristics of the lithic assemblages remain constant throughout the use of the site. Quartz dominates silcrete and other raw materials by almost four to one. Knappers at HDP1 produced different forms of flakes using multiple core reduction methods. Denticulates represent the most frequent tool type. The assemblages document complete, bipolar and hard hammer reduction sequences for the locally available quartz, but highly truncated reduction sequences with many isolated end products for silcrete, a material with a minimum transport distance of 10–30km. This observation suggests that well provisioned individuals executed planned movements to the shoreline to exploit shellfish. Our excavations at HDP1 furthermore demonstrate the simultaneous occurrence of flexible raw material use, anticipated long-distance transport, systematic gathering of shellfish and use of ground ocher. The HDP1 lithic assemblages document a robust pattern of land-use that we interpret as a stable adaptation of modern humans to coastal landscapes as early as MIS 5e.
Current knowledge about Paleolithic human plant use is limited by the rare survival of identifiable plant remains as well as the availability of methods for plant detection and identification. By ...analyzing DNA preserved in cave sediments, we can identify organisms in the absence of any visible remains, opening up new ways to study details of past human behavior, including plant use. Aghitu-3 Cave contains a 15,000-yearlong record (from ∼39,000 to 24,000 cal BP) of Upper Paleolithic human settlement and environmental variability in the Armenian Highlands. Finds from this cave include stone artifacts, faunal remains, bone tools, shell beads, charcoal, and pollen, among others. We applied sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) metabarcoding to the Aghitu-3 sedimentary sequence and combined this with pollen data to obtain a temporal reconstruction of plant assemblages. Our results reveal a stratification of plant abundance and diversity where sedaDNA reflects periods of human occupation, showing higher diversity in layers with increased human activity. Low pollen concentrations combined with high sedaDNA abundance indicate plant remains may have been brought into the cave by animals or humans during the deposition of the lower two archaeological horizons. Most of the recovered plants are reported to be useful for food, flavor, medicine, and/or technical purposes, demonstrating the potential of the environment around Aghitu-3 Cave to support humans during the Upper Paleolithic. Moreover, we identified several specific plant taxa that strengthen previous findings about Upper Paleolithic plant use in this region (i.e., for medicine and the manufacturing and dyeing of textiles). This study represents the first application of plant sedaDNA analysis of cave sediments for the investigation of potential plant use by prehistoric humans.
•We successfully recovered plant DNA from Upper Paleolithic layers at Aghitu-3 Cave.•Detailed assessment of pollen and plant DNA shows a diverse array of plant uses.•Plant DNA reflects periods of human occupation and provides evidence for plant use.•Detected taxa support earlier reports of prehistoric plant use as medicine and dye.
