Ancestral
Ben Raffield, Neil Price & Mark Collard
Evolution and Human Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
In this paper we use a combination of evolutionary theory, ethnographic data, written sources, and archaeological evidence to develop a new explanation for the origins of Viking raiding. Our argument focuses on the operational sex ratio, which is the ratio of males to females in a society who are ready to mate at a given time. We propose that a combination of two practices - polygyny and concubinage - and the increase in social inequality that occurred in Scandinavia during the Late Iron Age resulted in a male-biased Operational Sex Ratio. This would have created a pool of unmarried men motivated to engage in risky behaviours that had the potential to increase their wealth and status, and therefore their probability of entering the marriage market. With high-status men looking to instigate expeditions to acquire plunder and develop their reputations as war leaders, raiding represented a mutually beneficial means of achieving social advancement and success.
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Monkey vocal tracts are speech-ready
Tecumseh Fitch et al.
Science Advances, December 2016
Abstract:
For four decades, the inability of nonhuman primates to produce human speech sounds has been claimed to stem from limitations in their vocal tract anatomy, a conclusion based on plaster casts made from the vocal tract of a monkey cadaver. We used x-ray videos to quantify vocal tract dynamics in living macaques during vocalization, facial displays, and feeding. We demonstrate that the macaque vocal tract could easily produce an adequate range of speech sounds to support spoken language, showing that previous techniques based on postmortem samples drastically underestimated primate vocal capabilities. Our findings imply that the evolution of human speech capabilities required neural changes rather than modifications of vocal anatomy. Macaques have a speech-ready vocal tract but lack a speech-ready brain to control it.
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Mark Collard et al.
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, December 2016, Pages 235-246
Abstract:
In this paper we report a study designed to shed light on the possibility that clothing differences played a role in the replacement of the Neanderthals by early modern humans. There is general agreement that early modern humans in Europe utilized specialized cold weather clothing, but the nature of the clothing used by Neanderthals is debated. Some researchers contend that they did not use clothes. Others argue that they were limited to cape-like clothing. Still others aver that their clothing was not substantively different in terms of thermal effectiveness from that of early modern humans. To test among these hypotheses, we employed a novel line of evidence-the bones of animals whose skins may have been made into clothing. We used an ethnographic database to identify mammalian families that were used to create cold weather clothing in the recent past. We then compared the frequency of occurrence of these families in European archaeological deposits associated with early modern humans and Neanderthals. We obtained two main results. One is that mammalian families used for cold weather clothing occur in both early modern human- and Neanderthal-associated strata. The other is that three of the families - leporids, canids, and mustelids - occur more frequently in early modern human strata than in Neanderthal strata. There is reason to believe that the greater frequency of canid and mustelid remains in early modern human strata reflects the use of garments with fur trim. Thus, these findings are most consistent with the hypothesis that Neanderthals employed only cape-like clothing while early modern humans used specialized cold weather clothing. We end by discussing the implications of this hypothesis for the debate about the replacement of the Neanderthals by early modern humans.
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The archaeology of persistent places: The Palaeolithic case of La Cotte de St Brelade, Jersey
Andrew Shaw et al.
Antiquity, December 2016, Pages 1437-1453
Abstract:
Excavations at the Middle Pleistocene site of La Cotte de St Brelade, on the island of Jersey in the English Channel, have revealed a long sequence of occupation. The continued use of the site by Neanderthals throughout an extended period of changing climate and environment reveals how, despite changes in the types of behaviour recorded at the site, La Cotte emerged as a persistent place in the memory and landscape of its early hominin inhabitants. The site's status as a persistent place for these people suggests a level of social and cognitive development permitting reference to and knowledge of places distant in time and space as long ago as at least MIS 7.
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Wild monkeys flake stone tools
Tomos Proffitt et al.
Nature, 3 November 2016, Pages 85-88
Abstract:
Our understanding of the emergence of technology shapes how we view the origins of humanity. Sharp-edged stone flakes, struck from larger cores, are the primary evidence for the earliest stone technology. Here we show that wild bearded capuchin monkeys (Sapajus libidinosus) in Brazil deliberately break stones, unintentionally producing recurrent, conchoidally fractured, sharp-edged flakes and cores that have the characteristics and morphology of intentionally produced hominin tools. The production of archaeologically visible cores and flakes is therefore no longer unique to the human lineage, providing a comparative perspective on the emergence of lithic technology. This discovery adds an additional dimension to interpretations of the human Palaeolithic record, the possible function of early stone tools, and the cognitive requirements for the emergence of stone flaking.
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Karen Lupo & Dave Schmitt
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, December 2016, Pages 185-197
Abstract:
Big game acquisition is viewed as pivotal in the evolution of early hominins and is often associated with the emergence of features that are hallmarks of Homo. We explore the energetic justification for the preference for big game under the premise that larger-sized prey is always more efficiently exploited than smaller-sized game. Using quantitative cost/benefit data derived from ethnographic, ethnoarchaeological and historic sources, we show that certain large-sized game (megafauna) are often more expensive to acquire than smaller-sized prey. Comparative analysis shows that African elephants (Loxodonta africana), the largest-sized terrestrial animal, are lower ranked and less efficient to acquire than many smaller-sized animals irrespective of their encounter rates. These data challenge the idea that prey body size can be used as a proxy for profitability and rank in zooarchaeological analyses. Prey profitability, especially for large-sized and costly taxa, is strongly influenced by prey characteristics relative to existing dispatch technology and the range of nonconsumptive benefits associated with hunting certain megafauna. Nonconsumptive rewards associated with these opportunities can only be gained by certain individuals and are not broadly available to everyone. We suggest that the idea of 'big game' specialization needs to be reframed in archaeology.