We present the results of a multi-disciplinary investigation on a deciduous human tooth (Pradis 1), recently recovered from the Epigravettian layers of the Grotte di Pradis archaeological site ...(Northeastern Italian Prealps). Pradis 1 is an exfoliated deciduous molar (Rdm
), lost during life by an 11-12-year-old child. A direct radiocarbon date provided an age of 13,088-12,897 cal BP (95% probability, IntCal20). Amelogenin peptides extracted from tooth enamel and analysed through LC-MS/MS indicate that Pradis 1 likely belonged to a male. Time-resolved
Sr/
Sr analyses by laser ablation mass spectrometry (LA-MC-ICPMS), combined with dental histology, were able to resolve his movements during the first year of life (i.e. the enamel mineralization interval). Specifically, the Sr isotope ratio of the tooth enamel differs from the local baseline value, suggesting that the child likely spent his first year of life far from Grotte di Pradis. Sr isotopes are also suggestive of a cyclical/seasonal mobility pattern exploited by the Epigravettian human group. The exploitation of Grotte di Pradis on a seasonal, i.e. summer, basis is also indicated by the faunal spectra. Indeed, the nearly 100% occurrence of marmot remains in the entire archaeozoological collection indicates the use of Pradis as a specialized marmot hunting or butchering site. This work represents the first direct assessment of sub-annual movements observed in an Epigravettian hunter-gatherer group from Northern Italy.
Summary
Archaeological sites characterized by significant concentrations of pits (‘pit sites’) were widespread in prehistoric Europe. In southern Iberia, many pit sites date back to the Late ...Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods (fourth‐third millennia BCE), and often display massive numbers of pits. Deciphering the social, economic, and symbolic significance of such sites, composed of hundreds or even thousands of pits, holds deep historical implications. What do these pits mean, and how were they used? If they functioned as grain storage pits, as many believe, did they represent a substantial economic surplus? Unfortunately, many of these sites have been inadequately published and remain poorly known north of the Pyrenees. This paper aims to contribute to the broader understanding of prehistoric pit sites in Europe by providing an overview of southern Iberian pit sites, and of the debates that have developed around their interpretation.
Vulnerability to flood damage is increasing due to the drastic increase in external forces caused by the climate change and high populations in urban areas. As there are limitations to structural ...flood control measures, measures that include land use optimization are essential for the resilience of humankind. This study investigated the relationship between water management, settlement, and land-use changes from the Paleolithic to the present day in the Kofu basin alluvial fan, Japan, which has a high flood frequency. The results of a chronological analysis of 191 archaeological sites showed that the highest elevation was 352 m in the Paleolithic period and the lowest elevation was 290 m in the Middle Ages, which later indicated the expansion of settlements into lowlands as time passed. Analysis of the relationship between land use and microtopography in the post-modern period also revealed that approximately until 1929, most of the settlement was located on natural levees. However, the construction of continuous levees since the modern era has led to settlements in areas with a high risk of flooding, which is known as the levee effect. While the importance of land use in flood control has been highlighted, here, by examining the relationship between the distribution of settlements, the change of river channels, and flood risk since the recorded history, we highlight the heterogeneity of the current practice of prioritizing development and the timeless universality of land use as a countermeasure for flood inundation.
Everyone agrees that fire has played an important part in the history of the genus Homo. However, because of the sometimes ephemeral and ambiguous nature of the evidence for fire in the Paleolithic ...record, establishing when and how hominins actively interacted with fire has been difficult. Over the past several decades, multiple techniques have been developed and employed in the search for the origins of human use of fire. Because fire is a natural phenomenon, the identification of burned remains at an archaeological site is generally not considered to be, on its own, convincing evidence for human use of fire. Rather, much of the difficulty of identifying early evidence for fire use has hinged on the question of how to establish a more direct link between burned materials and human activity. Here, we advocate for an approach to the investigation of the history of hominin use of fire that emphasizes an integration of multiple techniques. In particular, we argue that a contextualized study conducted at the microscopic scale—what we call a microcontextual approach—shows the most promise for establishing a behavioral connection between hominins and fire in the archaeological record.
Documenting underwater archaeological sites is an extremely challenging problem. Sites covering large areas are particularly daunting for traditional techniques. In this paper, we present a novel ...approach to this problem using both an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) and a diver‐controlled stereo imaging platform to document the submerged Bronze Age city at Pavlopetri, Greece. The result is a three‐dimensional (3D) reconstruction covering 26,600 m2 at a resolution of 2 mm/pixel, the largest‐scale underwater optical 3D map, at such a resolution, in the world to date. We discuss the advances necessary to achieve this result, including i) an approach to color correct large numbers of images at varying altitudes and over varying bottom types; ii) a large‐scale bundle adjustment framework that is capable of handling upward of 400,000 stereo images; and iii) a novel approach to the registration and rapid documentation of an underwater excavations area that can quickly produce maps of site change. We present visual and quantitative comparisons to the authors' previous underwater mapping approaches.
The timing and location of the emergence of our species and of associated behavioural changes are crucial for our understanding of human evolution. The earliest fossil attributed to a modern form of ...Homo sapiens comes from eastern Africa and is approximately 195 thousand years old, therefore the emergence of modern human biology is commonly placed at around 200 thousand years ago. The earliest Middle Stone Age assemblages come from eastern and southern Africa but date much earlier. Here we report the ages, determined by thermoluminescence dating, of fire-heated flint artefacts obtained from new excavations at the Middle Stone Age site of Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, which are directly associated with newly discovered remains of H. sapiens. A weighted average age places these Middle Stone Age artefacts and fossils at 315 ± 34 thousand years ago. Support is obtained through the recalculated uranium series with electron spin resonance date of 286 ± 32 thousand years ago for a tooth from the Irhoud 3 hominin mandible. These ages are also consistent with the faunal and microfaunal assemblages and almost double the previous age estimates for the lower part of the deposits. The north African site of Jebel Irhoud contains one of the earliest directly dated Middle Stone Age assemblages, and its associated human remains are the oldest reported for H. sapiens. The emergence of our species and of the Middle Stone Age appear to be close in time, and these data suggest a larger scale, potentially pan-African, origin for both.
This article reviews key data and debates focused on relative sea-level changes since the Last Interglacial (approximately the last 132,000 years) in the Mediterranean Basin, and their implications ...for past human populations. Geological and geomorphological landscape studies are critical to archaeology. Coastal regions provide a wide range of resources to the populations that inhabit them. Coastal landscapes are increasingly the focus of scholarly discussions from the earliest exploitation of littoral resources and early hominin cognition, to the inundation of the earliest permanently settled fishing villages and eventually, formative centres of urbanisation. In the Mediterranean, these would become hubs of maritime transportation that gave rise to the roots of modern seaborne trade. As such, this article represents an original review of both the geo-scientific and archaeological data that specifically relate to sea-level changes and resulting impacts on both physical and cultural landscapes from the Palaeolithic until the emergence of the Classical periods. Our review highlights that the interdisciplinary links between coastal archaeology, geomorphology and sea-level changes are important to explain environmental impacts on coastal human societies and human migration. We review geological indicators of sea level and outline how archaeological features are commonly used as proxies for measuring past sea levels, both gradual changes and catastrophic events. We argue that coastal archaeologists should, as a part of their analyses, incorporate important sea-level concepts, such as indicative meaning. The interpretation of the indicative meaning of Roman fishtanks, for example, plays a critical role in reconstructions of late Holocene Mediterranean sea levels. We identify avenues for future work, which include the consideration of glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) in addition to coastal tectonics to explain vertical movements of coastlines, more research on Palaeolithic island colonisation, broadening of Palaeolithic studies to include materials from the entire coastal landscape and not just coastal resources, a focus on rescue of archaeological sites under threat by coastal change, and expansion of underwater archaeological explorations in combination with submarine geomorphology. This article presents a collaborative synthesis of data, some of which have been collected and analysed by the authors, as the MEDFLOOD (MEDiterranean sea-level change and projection for future FLOODing) community, and highlights key sites, data, concepts and ongoing debates.
Radiocarbon dating of the earliest occupational phases at the Cooper's Ferry site in western Idaho indicates that people repeatedly occupied the Columbia River basin, starting between 16,560 and ...15,280 calibrated years before the present (cal yr B.P.). Artifacts from these early occupations indicate the use of unfluted stemmed projectile point technologies before the appearance of the Clovis Paleoindian tradition and support early cultural connections with northeastern Asian Upper Paleolithic archaeological traditions. The Cooper's Ferry site was initially occupied during a time that predates the opening of an ice-free corridor (≤14,800 cal yr B.P.), which supports the hypothesis that initial human migration into the Americas occurred via a Pacific coastal route.
Prehistoric human activities were likely influenced by cyclic monsoon climate changes in East Asia. Here we report a decadal-resolution Holocene pollen record from an annually-laminated Maar Lake in ...Northeast China, a proxy of monsoon climate, together with a compilation of 627 radiocarbon dates from archeological sites in Northeast China which is a proxy of human activity. The results reveal synchronous ~500-year quasi-periodic changes over the last 8000 years. The warm-humid/cold-dry phases of monsoon cycles correspond closely to the intensification/weakening of human activity and the flourishing/decline of prehistoric cultures. Six prosperous phases of prehistoric cultures, with one exception, correspond approximately to warm-humid phases caused by a strengthened monsoon. This ~500-year cyclicity in the monsoon and thus environmental change triggered the development of prehistoric cultures in Northeast China. The cyclicity is apparently linked to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation, against the background of long-term Holocene climatic evolution. These findings reveal a pronounced relationship between prehistoric human activity and cyclical climate change.
The second plague pandemic, caused by Yersinia pestis, devastated Europe and the nearby regions between the 14
and 18
centuries AD. Here we analyse human remains from ten European archaeological ...sites spanning this period and reconstruct 34 ancient Y. pestis genomes. Our data support an initial entry of the bacterium through eastern Europe, the absence of genetic diversity during the Black Death, and low within-outbreak diversity thereafter. Analysis of post-Black Death genomes shows the diversification of a Y. pestis lineage into multiple genetically distinct clades that may have given rise to more than one disease reservoir in, or close to, Europe. In addition, we show the loss of a genomic region that includes virulence-related genes in strains associated with late stages of the pandemic. The deletion was also identified in genomes connected with the first plague pandemic (541-750 AD), suggesting a comparable evolutionary trajectory of Y. pestis during both events.
PDF
