Living Off the Land
Mammoth featured heavily in Western Clovis diet
James Chatters et al.
Science Advances, December 2024
Abstract:
Ancient Native American ancestors (Clovis) have been interpreted as either specialized megafauna hunters or generalist foragers. Supporting data are typically indirect (toolkits, associated fauna) or speculative (models, actualistic experiments). Here, we present stable isotope analyses of the only known Clovis individual, the 18-month-old Anzick child, to directly infer maternal protein diet. Using comparative fauna from this region and period, we find that mammoth was the largest contributor to Clovis diet, followed by elk and bison/camel, while the contribution of small mammals was negligible, broadly consistent with the Clovis zooarchaeological record. When compared with second-order consumers, the Anzick-1 maternal diet is closest to that of scimitar cat, a mammoth specialist. Our findings are consistent with the Clovis megafaunal specialist model, using sophisticated technology and high residential mobility to subsist on the highest ranked prey, an adaptation allowing them to rapidly expand across the Americas south of the Pleistocene ice sheets.
Hominin brain size increase has emerged from within-species encephalization
Thomas Püschel et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 3 December 2024
Abstract:
The fact that rapid brain size increase was clearly a key aspect of human evolution has prompted many studies focusing on this phenomenon, and many suggestions as to the underlying evolutionary patterns and processes. No study to date has however separated out the contributions of change through time within vs. between hominin species while simultaneously incorporating effects of body size. Using a phylogenetic approach never applied before to paleoanthropological data, we show that relative brain size increase across ~7 My of hominin evolution arose from increases within individual species which account for an observed overall increase in relative brain size. Variation among species in brain size after accounting for this effect is associated with body mass differences but not time. In addition, our analysis also reveals that the within-species trend escalated in more recent lineages, implying an overall pattern of accelerating relative brain size increase through time.
Late Pleistocene onset of mutualistic human/canid (Canis spp.) relationships in subarctic Alaska
François Lanoë et al.
Science Advances, December 2024
Abstract:
Large canids (wolves, dogs, and coyote) and people form a close relationship in northern (subarctic and arctic) socioecological systems. Here, we document the antiquity of this bond and the multiple ways it manifested in interior Alaska, a region key to understanding the peopling of the Americas and early northern lifeways. We compile original and existing genomic, isotopic, and osteological canid data from archaeological, paleontological, and modern sites. Results show that in contrast to canids recovered in non-anthropic contexts, canids recovered in association with human occupations are markedly diverse. They include multiple species and intraspecific lineages, morphological variation, and diets ranging from terrestrial to marine. This variation is expressed along both geographic and temporal gradients, starting in the terminal Pleistocene with canids showing high marine dietary estimates. This paper provides evidence of the multiple ecological relationships between canids and people in the north -- from predation, probable commensalism, and taming, to domestication -- and of their early onset.
Social and genetic diversity in first farmers of central Europe
Pere Gelabert et al.
Nature Human Behaviour, forthcoming
Abstract:
The Linearbandkeramik (LBK) Neolithic communities were the first to spread farming across large parts of Europe. We report genome-wide data for 250 individuals: 178 individuals from whole-cemetery surveys of the Alföld Linearbankeramik Culture eastern LBK site of Polgár-Ferenci-hát, the western LBK site of Nitra Horné Krškany and the western LBK settlement and massacre site of Asparn-Schletz, as well as 48 LBK individuals from 16 other sites and 24 earlier Körös and Starčevo individuals from 17 more sites. Here we show a systematically higher percentage of western hunter-gatherer ancestry in eastern than in western LBK sites, showing that these two distinct LBK groups had different genetic trajectories. We find evidence for patrilocality, with more structure across sites in the male than in the female lines and a higher rate of within-site relatives for males. At Asparn-Schletz we find almost no relatives, showing that the massacred individuals were from a large population, not a small community.
The Enderby Bark Shield: A New Model for the Ancient World
Sophia Adams et al.
Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, forthcoming
Abstract:
A 2300 year old bark shield found in Enderby, Leicestershire, in 2015 is the only known example of its type. Made from the bark of a willow tree, it has a woven basket boss, a roundwood handle, and a rim of split roundwood edging and lime bast bindings. Pre-Roman shields made from organic materials rarely survive in Britain and Ireland and those without metal components are exceptionally rare. Contemporaneous wooden shields are known from anaerobic environments in Scandinavia but, unlike Enderby, none of these has a body of tree bark. The complexity of the design of the Enderby shield, the skill with which it was made, and the similarities between this and metal examples suggests it was a tried and tested design, rather than a one-off. With no other example against which to compare it, experiments in reproducing the shield have been used as a tool for interpretation and have proved vital to understanding the original design. As a result of this research, it is proposed that this single artefact represents a more commonly available form of shield in the 1st millennium BC than does any metal enhanced version.