Castel di Guido is a typical Middle Pleistocene elephant site where intentionally fragmented bones of elephant and of other large mammals were found together with Acheulean biface-like industry, ...including bifaces made of various stone types and of elephant bone, associated with flint tools on pebbles and flakes. Following a first interpretation of the evidence, the site represented a single and short phase of use, and elephants, horses, aurochs and few other species were killed and butchered on site, or partly brought to the site to be butchered after having been killed elsewhere. The bones were intentionally fractured for marrow extraction and left to “season” before being used as raw material for artefact production. Further evidence deriving from more recent studies suggests that the site lasted for much longer time and is in fact an intricate palimpsest of several phases of human use and partial reworking.
Castel di Guido results largely from anthropic processes, deriving from peculiar behavioural aspects of the Early Neandertal groups that frequented the site. The carcasses of various taxa were exploited for food, and the elephant ones also for raw material in bone tool production. This choice was probably due to limited availability of good quality flint (or other hard rocks) in the area.
Because of these characteristics, Castel di Guido is an ideal ground for exploring the aspects of use, re-use and recycling of food and raw material resources, and of tools. Several stone and some bone tools show clear evidence of recycling, such as subsequent knapping or refashioning phases put into evidence by different wear of the surfaces. These characteristics point to long continuity of use of the site for similar purposes, which is in accordance with the very different preservation of the remains that were partly reworked by short-range fluvial processes. These aspects indicate that the bones of large taxa, mostly elephant, were part of a complex subsistence system characterised by hunting and scavenging on one side, and an extremely fuzzy boundary among use, re-use and recycling on the other one. This system was based on the recycling – or transfunctionalisation – of the carcasses, which were exploited for food consumption (meat and possibly marrow), and later for raw material procurement over a long time of permanence and availability on the surface of the site.
Laetoli is a well-known palaeontological locality in northern Tanzania whose outstanding record includes the earliest hominin footprints in the world (3.66 million years old), discovered in 1978 at ...Site G and attributed to
. Here, we report hominin tracks unearthed in the new Site S at Laetoli and referred to two bipedal individuals (S1 and S2) moving on the same palaeosurface and in the same direction as the three hominins documented at Site G. The stature estimates for S1 greatly exceed those previously reconstructed for
from both skeletal material and footprint data. In combination with a comparative reappraisal of the Site G footprints, the evidence collected here embodies very important additions to the Pliocene record of hominin behaviour and morphology. Our results are consistent with considerable body size variation and, probably, degree of sexual dimorphism within a single species of bipedal hominins as early as 3.66 million years ago.
The use of bone as raw material for implements is documented since the Early Pleistocene. Throughout the Early and Middle Pleistocene bone tool shaping was done by percussion flaking, the same ...technique used for knapping stone artifacts, although bone shaping was rare compared to stone tool flaking. Until recently the generally accepted idea was that early bone technology was essentially immediate and expedient, based on single-stage operations, using available bone fragments of large to medium size animals. Only Upper Paleolithic bone tools would involve several stages of manufacture with clear evidence of primary flaking or breaking of bone to produce the kind of fragments required for different kinds of tools. Our technological and taphonomic analysis of the bone assemblage of Castel di Guido, a Middle Pleistocene site in Italy, now dated by 40Ar/39Ar to about 400 ka, shows that this general idea is inexact. In spite of the fact that the number of bone bifaces at the site had been largely overestimated in previous publications, the number of verified, human-made bone tools is 98. This is the highest number of flaked bone tools made by pre-modern hominids published so far. Moreover the Castel di Guido bone assemblage is characterized by systematic production of standardized blanks (elephant diaphysis fragments) and clear diversity of tool types. Bone smoothers and intermediate pieces prove that some features of Aurignacian technology have roots that go beyond the late Mousterian, back to the Middle Pleistocene. Clearly the Castel di Guido hominids had done the first step in the process of increasing complexity of bone technology. We discuss the reasons why this innovation was not developed. The analysis of the lithic industry is done for comparison with the bone industry.
We present here the results of a technological and typological analysis of the Acheulian and early Middle Paleolithic assemblages from Torre in Pietra (Latium, Italy) together with comparisons with ...the Acheulian small tools of Castel di Guido. The assemblages were never chronometrically dated before. We have now 40Ar/39Ar dates and ESR-U-series dates, within a geomorphological framework, which support correlations to marine isotope stages. The Acheulian (previously correlated to MIS 9) is now dated to MIS 10 while the Middle Paleolithic is dated to MIS 7. Lithic analyses are preceded by taphonomic evaluations. The Levallois method of the Middle Paleolithic assemblage is an innovation characterized by the production of thin flake blanks without cortex. In contrast, the small tool blanks of the Acheulian were either pebbles or thick flakes with some cortex. They provided a relatively easy manual prehension. The choice of Levallois thin flake blanks in the Middle Paleolithic assemblage suggest that the new technology is most likely related to the emergence of hafting. Accordingly, the oldest direct evidence of hafting technology is from the site of Campitello Quarry in Tuscany (Central Italy) where birch-bark tar, found on the proximal part of two flint flakes, is dated to the end of MIS 7. Nevertheless, a peculiar feature of the Middle Paleolithic at Torre in Pietra is the continuous presence of small tool blanks on pebbles and cores and on thick flake albeit at a much lower frequency than in the older Acheulian industries. The adoption of the new technology is thus characterized by innovation combined with a degree of stability. The persistence of these habits in spite of the introduction of an innovative technique underlies the importance of cultural transmission and conformity in the behavior of Neandertals.
The penecontemporaneous Middle Pleistocene sites of Fontana Ranuccio (Latium) and Visogliano (Friuli-Venezia Giulia), set c. 450 km apart in central and northeastern Italy, respectively, have yielded ...some among the oldest human fossil remains testifying to a peopling phase of the Italian Peninsula broadly during the glacial MIS 12, a stage associated with one among the harshest climatic conditions in the Northern hemisphere during the entire Quaternary period. Together with the large samples from Atapuerca Sima de los Huesos, Spain, and Caune de l'Arago at Tautavel, France, the remains from Fontana Ranuccio and Visogliano are among the few mid-Middle Pleistocene dental assemblages from Western Europe available for investigating the presence of an early Neanderthal signature in their inner structure. We applied two- three-dimensional techniques of virtual imaging and geometric morphometrics to the high-resolution X-ray microtomography record of the dental remains from these two Italian sites and compared the results to the evidence from a selected number of Pleistocene and extant human specimens/samples from Europe and North Africa. Depending on their preservation quality and on the degree of occlusal wear, we comparatively assessed: (i) the crown enamel and radicular dentine thickness topographic variation of a uniquely represented lower incisor; (ii) the lateral crown tissue proportions of premolars and molars; (iii) the enamel-dentine junction, and (iv) the pulp cavity morphology of all available specimens. Our analyses reveal in both samples a Neanderthal-like inner structural signal, for some aspects also resembling the condition shown by the contemporary assemblage from Atapuerca SH, and clearly distinct from the recent human figures. This study provides additional evidence indicating that an overall Neanderthal morphological dental template was preconfigured in Western Europe at least 430 to 450 ka ago.
Amanzi Springs is a series of inactive thermal springs located near Kariega in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Excavations in the 1960s exposed rare, stratified Acheulian-bearing deposits that were ...not further investigated over the next 50 years. Reanalysis of the site and its legacy collection has led to a redefined stratigraphic context for the archaeology, a confirmed direct association between Acheulian artefacts and wood, as well as the first reliable age estimates for the site. Thermally transferred optically stimulated luminescence and post-infrared infrared stimulated luminescence dating indicates that the Acheulian deposits from the Amanzi Springs Area 1 spring eye formed during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 11 at ~ 404–390 ka. At this time, higher sea levels of ~13-14m would have placed Amanzi Springs around 7 km from a ria that would have formed along what is today the Swartkops River, and which likely led to spring reactivation. This makes the Amanzi Springs Area 1 assemblage an unusual occurrence of a verified late occurring, seaward, open-air Acheulian occupation. The Acheulian levels do not contain any Middle Stone Age (MSA) elements such as blades and points that have been documented in the interior of South Africa at this time. However, a small number of stone tools from the upper layers of the artefact zone, and originally thought of as intrusive, have been dated to ~190 ka, at the transition between MIS 7 to 6, and represent the first potential MSA identified at the site.
We report here preliminary results from four seasons of excavation at the rockshelter of Riparo Bombrini (2002–2005). Three markedly separate horizons were uncovered: the deepest, comprising Levels ...M1-7, yielded abundant Mousterian lithics and faunal remains. A second macro-unit, corresponding to Levels MS1-2, is only a few decimeters thick and is characterized by the presence of large limestone blocks from partial collapse of the shelter's vault. The scarcity of material and presence of carnivore coprolites suggest sporadic human occupation. The third macro-unit, constituted by Levels A1-3 and following immediately above Levels MS1-2, contains a rich Proto-Aurignacian industry, including Dufour bladelets, bone tools, abundant ochre, numerous decorative objects (mainly perforated shells) and widespread use of exotic raw material. New AMS dates and stratigraphic and sedimentological evidence indicate that the appearance of the Proto-Aurignacian at Bombrini dates to around 41 ky cal BP, in a phase of climatic degradation, paralleling the conditions observed for the transition at other northern Italian sites. While preliminary faunal analysis suggests little change in site use over time, the composition of the lithic assemblages point to a marked technological discontinuity between the two time periods. Riparo Bombrini's stratigraphic sequence affords important details about the environmental and cultural dynamics that marked the expansion of modern humans into Europe and the disappearance of Neandertals in that region during OIS 3. The association of a rich Proto-Aurignacian complex with an anatomically modern deciduous human tooth enhances further its importance for understanding early Upper Paleolithic in Italy.
Several porcupine taxa are reported from the middle Miocene to the early Holocene in the Old World. Among these, five species of the subfamily Hystricinae occurred in Africa approximately in the last ...6 Ma: the extinct
Hystrix makapanensis
,
Hystrix leakeyi
, and
Xenohystrix crassidens
and the still living
Hystrix africaeaustralis
and
Hystrix cristata
. The large-sized
H. makapanensis
is reported from numerous sites in East and South Africa between the early Pliocene and Early Pleistocene. In this paper, we describe a new mandible of
H. makapanensis
from the world-renowned Tanzanian paleontological and archeological site of Olduvai Gorge (HWK West; lowermost Bed II; ca. 1.8–1.7 Ma). The discovery of the new mandible triggered a comprehensive review of the entire African record of
H. makapanensis
. In particular, we describe or re-analyze the samples from South Africa (Makapansgat Limeworks, Gondolin, Kromdraai, Swartkrans, and Sterkfontein), Tanzania (Olduvai and Laetoli), Ethiopia (Omo Shungura and Hadar), and Kenya (Chemeron), enriching the quantity of specimens confidently referable to this species and above all improving the information on its craniodental anatomy. On this basis, we: (1) propose an emended diagnosis of
H. makapanensis
; (2) point out the morphological and biometric differences between
H. makapanensis
and other African Hystricinae (also in terms of body mass); and (3) broaden the knowledge on the geographical and chronological distribution of this extinct species.
Paranthropus robustus is a small-brained extinct hominin from South Africa characterized by derived, robust craniodental morphology. The most complete known skull of this species is DNH 7 from ...Drimolen Main Quarry, which differs from P. robustus specimens recovered elsewhere in ways attributed to sexual dimorphism. Here, we describe a new fossil specimen from Drimolen Main Quarry, dated from approximately 2.04-1.95 million years ago, that challenges this view. DNH 155 is a well-preserved adult male cranium that shares with DNH 7 a suite of primitive and derived features unlike those seen in adult P. robustus specimens from other chronologically younger deposits. This refutes existing hypotheses linking sexual dimorphism, ontogeny and social behaviour within this taxon, and clarifies hypotheses concerning hominin phylogeny. We document small-scale morphological changes in P. robustus associated with ecological change within a short time frame and restricted geography. This represents the most highly resolved evidence yet of microevolutionary change within an early hominin species.
CT-scan analyses were carried out on limb bones of straight-tusked elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) from the Middle Pleistocene site of Castel di Guido (Italy), where bifaces made of elephant bone ...were found in association with lithics and a large number of intentionally modified bone remains of elephants and other taxa. CT-scans show that marrow cavities are present within the limb bones of this taxon. Though rather small compared to the size of the bones, these cavities suggest that bone raw material procurement may not have been the unique goal of intentional elephant bone fracturing, and the marrow may also have been extracted for consumption.
•Elephant meat/fat consumed by Pleistocene Hominins worldwide, bones intentionally fractured.•Elephant bone tools (bifaces) relatively common, so fracturing necessary.•Was bone fractured for extracting marrow or fashioning tools, or for both purposes?•Literature reports no medullary cavity in extant/extinct elephant bones, so no marrow.•CT-scans reveal cavities, though small, hence both options possible.
PDF
