The Tibetan Plateau is the highest and one of the most demanding environments ever inhabited by humans. We investigated the timing and mechanisms of its initial colonization at the Nwya Devu site, ...located nearly 4600 meters above sea level. This site, dating from 40,000 to 30,000 years ago, is the highest Paleolithic archaeological site yet identified globally. Nwya Devu has yielded an abundant blade tool assemblage, indicating hitherto-unknown capacities for the survival of modern humans who camped in this environment. This site deepens the history of the peopling of the "roof of the world" and the antiquity of human high-altitude occupations more generally.
En este artículo discutimos el hallazgo de una importante muestra de cerámica del estilo Topará excavada sistemáticamente en el sitio de Pozuelo, valle bajo de Chincha, Perú. Nuestro análisis ...ceramográfico permite identificar sus características tipológicas y decorativas. Con toda esta información ceramográfica y contextual explicamos la presencia de este estilo en el sitio de Pozuelo, su dispersión en el Valle de Chincha y, finalmente, ofrecemos algunas reflexiones sobre su aparición en la Costa Sur del Perú prehispánico.
Resumen: Luis Alberto Borrero cambió la forma en que se generaba conocimiento arqueológico en la Patagonia y Tierra del Fuego (y más allá también). La interrelación entre la arqueología ...distribucional y la tafonomía regional -dos programas de investigación introducidos por él hace 30 años- resalta la importancia de tres unidades analíticas: la región, el artefacto y el elemento (óseo). Esta es la estructura, junto con una epistemología falsacionista, para formular preguntas amplias relacionadas principalmente con el uso del paisaje por parte de poblaciones cazadoras recolectoras a lo largo del Holoceno. Sobre la base de este legado se presenta un caso de estudio de los campos de invernada de la margen norte del Lago Viedma. Se integran los resultados de las distribuciones de artefactos con los de la tafonomía de guanacos (Lama guanicoe) y se dan a conocer nuevas cronologías radiocarbónicas que enmarcan el análisis de la fauna de sitios arqueológicos ubicados en hoyadas de deflación en médanos de la costa. La identificación de condiciones ambientales y arqueológicas semejantes a las propuestas por Borrero en 1988 en el Modelo de Pisoteo de guanacos para Tierra del Fuego, muestra la relevancia para su aplicación a la región del lago Viedma.
The complexity of these settlements is "mind blowing", says team member Heiko Prümers, an archaeologist at the German Archaeological Institute, headquartered in Berlin. Some researchers suggested2 ...that unusually high concentrations of domesticated plants, along with patches of unusually nutrient-rich soil that could have been created by people, might indicate that ancient Amazonians had shaped their environment. Present-day logging and farming in the Amazon Basin are almost certainly destroying important archaeological sites that have yet to be discovered, he says, but a growing interest in Amazonian archaeology could lead to the protection of vulnerable places.
The Told and Untold Mo, Jiajing
South Asian studies (Society for South Asian Studies),
05/2023, Letnik:
39, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Believed to be an eye-witnessed report by Xuanzang 玄奘 (c.602–664 CE), the Datang Xiyu ji has long been held up in the western scholarship as a handy guide for the historical geography of South Asia ...and a standard source for identifying archaeological sites since the pioneer archaeologist Alexander Cunningham (1814–1893). Strangely, over a century of using the Xiyu ji has generated little critical awareness among archaeologists who have too often taken the text for face values. Indeed, an examination of the text will demonstrate that not all the description from the text is firsthand, at least so for around one-fifth of the countries not visited by Xuanzang. Yet it does not mean that Xuanzang is to be blamed. The production of the Xiyu ji was more complex than that of a general travelling record, which associates the text to the genre of official geographical writing. It was brought into being in response to an expanding empire. The edited ‘itinerary’ and the incorporation of secondary sources thus pose outstanding questions for researchers who might assume that they were following the steps of the pilgrim and urge us to reconsider the current conception of and approach to this document.
The Eneolithic Botai culture of the Central Asian steppes provides the earliest archaeological evidence for horse husbandry, ~5500 years ago, but the exact nature of early horse domestication remains ...controversial. We generated 42 ancient-horse genomes, including 20 from Botai. Compared to 46 published ancient- and modern-horse genomes, our data indicate that Przewalski's horses are the feral descendants of horses herded at Botai and not truly wild horses. All domestic horses dated from ~4000 years ago to present only show ~2.7% of Botai-related ancestry. This indicates that a massive genomic turnover underpins the expansion of the horse stock that gave rise to modern domesticates, which coincides with large-scale human population expansions during the Early Bronze Age.
En el sitio arqueológico Laguna de Los Pampas, ubicado en el Campo de Dunas del Centro Pampeano, se han registrado ocho entierros humanos en dos sectores de la playa de la laguna. En este trabajo se ...analiza este registro mediante distintas líneas de evidencia. Se presentan los resultados alcanzados y se discuten las implicancias de cada uno de ellos para las interpretaciones sobre la dinámica de ocupación del área por parte de los grupos cazadores- recolectores durante el Holoceno. Los resultados indican una ocupación humana durante el Holoceno Temprano y Medio, con una señal más intensa para este último periodo; la modalidad inhumatoria registrada es primaria en todos los casos determinados. Por otro lado, la identificación de modificación tabular oblicua en un individuo del Holoceno Medio (~6000 años AP) constituye un dato novedoso, ya que sería el registro más temprano correspondiente a este tipo deformatorio craneal para la región pampeana. La evidencia analizada sugiere que Laguna de Los Pampas sería producto de la reocupación periódica del lugar a lo largo del tiempo (Holoceno Temprano y Medio), motivada posiblemente por la presencia de rasgos sobresalientes del paisaje, la laguna y los recursos que ella brindaba.
On the origin of modern humans Bae, Christopher J.; Douka, Katerina; Petraglia, Michael D.
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
12/2017, Letnik:
358, Številka:
6368
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
The traditional "out of Africa" model, which posits a dispersal of modern
across Eurasia as a single wave at ~60,000 years ago and the subsequent replacement of all indigenous populations, is in need ...of revision. Recent discoveries from archaeology, hominin paleontology, geochronology, genetics, and paleoenvironmental studies have contributed to a better understanding of the Late Pleistocene record in Asia. Important findings highlighted here include growing evidence for multiple dispersals predating 60,000 years ago in regions such as southern and eastern Asia. Modern humans moving into Asia met Neandertals, Denisovans, mid-Pleistocene
, and possibly
, with some degree of interbreeding occurring. These early human dispersals, which left at least some genetic traces in modern populations, indicate that later replacements were not wholesale.
The time of arrival of people in Australia is an unresolved question. It is relevant to debates about when modern humans first dispersed out of Africa and when their descendants incorporated genetic ...material from Neanderthals, Denisovans and possibly other hominins. Humans have also been implicated in the extinction of Australia's megafauna. Here we report the results of new excavations conducted at Madjedbebe, a rock shelter in northern Australia. Artefacts in primary depositional context are concentrated in three dense bands, with the stratigraphic integrity of the deposit demonstrated by artefact refits and by optical dating and other analyses of the sediments. Human occupation began around 65,000 years ago, with a distinctive stone tool assemblage including grinding stones, ground ochres, reflective additives and ground-edge hatchet heads. This evidence sets a new minimum age for the arrival of humans in Australia, the dispersal of modern humans out of Africa, and the subsequent interactions of modern humans with Neanderthals and Denisovans.
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