Old Ways
Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54,000 years ago at Mandrin, France
Ludovic Slimak et al.
Science Advances, February 2022
Abstract:
Determining the extent of overlap between modern humans and other hominins in Eurasia, such as Neanderthals and Denisovans, is fundamental to understanding the nature of their interactions and what led to the disappearance of archaic hominins. Apart from a possible sporadic pulse recorded in Greece during the Middle Pleistocene, the first settlements of modern humans in Europe have been constrained to ~45,000 to 43,000 years ago. Here, we report hominin fossils from Grotte Mandrin in France that reveal the earliest known presence of modern humans in Europe between 56,800 and 51,700 years ago. This early modern human incursion in the Rhône Valley is associated with technologies unknown in any industry of that age outside Africa or the Levant. Mandrin documents the first alternating occupation of Neanderthals and modern humans, with a modern human fossil and associated Neronian lithic industry found stratigraphically between layers containing Neanderthal remains associated with Mousterian industries.
The Hopewell airburst event, 1699–1567 years ago (252–383 CE)
Kenneth Barnett Tankersley et al.
Scientific Reports, February 2022
Abstract:
Meteorites, Fe and Si-rich microspherules, positive Ir and Pt anomalies, and burned charcoal-rich Hopewell habitation surfaces demonstrate that a cosmic airburst event occurred over the Ohio River valley during the late Holocene. A comet-shaped earthwork was constructed near the airburst epicenter. Twenty-nine radiocarbon ages establish that the event occurred between 252 and 383 CE, a time when 69 near-Earth comets were documented. While Hopewell people survived the catastrophic event, it likely contributed to their cultural decline. The Hopewell airburst event expands our understanding of the frequency and impact of cataclysmic cosmic events on complex human societies.
Antipolygynous bachelorhood in Icelandic sagas
Mads Larsen
Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, forthcoming
Abstract:
Henrich (2020) accounts for how the modern world was underpinned by a psychological-institutional coevolution set in motion by the Church’s Marriage and Family Practices (MFPs). Among these was the prohibition of polygyny, which had driven a zero-sum mindset of violence and risk-taking — to the detriment of social trust and self-regulation. Raffield et al. (2017a) use evolutionary theory to argue that the Viking Age was driven by how elite woman-hoarding had deprived low-status males of access to the mating market. Norse men in the Late Iron Age suffered a fate common throughout humanity’s agricultural period: to be relegated to lifelong bachelorhood. After the Viking Age, one Germanic tribe still resisted feudalism. With their 13th-century saga production, Icelanders use fiction to convince themselves to submit to European normalcy under the Norwegian king. The Christian authors aggrandize their Viking ancestors, but in a way that whitewashes Germanic sexual practices while promoting new MFPs. The European transitions to lifelong monogamy took centuries, as not only high-status males, but females too, are biased toward polygyny in many environments. This article shows how sagas commonly use their very narrative structure to convince men to restrict their bachelor phase to only a few years of wealth and status amassment—before they settle down and marry one woman for life. The social dysfunction that results from large numbers of men being unmarried had ingrained a deep cultural stain on prolonged bachelorhood, which is used as a thematic analogy to how kinship societies drive similar dysfunction.
Ancient DNA at the edge of the world: Continental immigration and the persistence of Neolithic male lineages in Bronze Age Orkney
Katharina Dulias et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 22 February 2022
Abstract:
Orkney was a major cultural center during the Neolithic, 3800 to 2500 BC. Farming flourished, permanent stone settlements and chambered tombs were constructed, and long-range contacts were sustained. From ∼3200 BC, the number, density, and extravagance of settlements increased, and new ceremonial monuments and ceramic styles, possibly originating in Orkney, spread across Britain and Ireland. By ∼2800 BC, this phenomenon was waning, although Neolithic traditions persisted to at least 2500 BC. Unlike elsewhere in Britain, there is little material evidence to suggest a Beaker presence, suggesting that Orkney may have developed along an insular trajectory during the second millennium BC. We tested this by comparing new genomic evidence from 22 Bronze Age and 3 Iron Age burials in northwest Orkney with Neolithic burials from across the archipelago. We identified signals of inward migration on a scale unsuspected from the archaeological record: As elsewhere in Bronze Age Britain, much of the population displayed significant genome-wide ancestry deriving ultimately from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe. However, uniquely in northern and central Europe, most of the male lineages were inherited from the local Neolithic. This suggests that some male descendants of Neolithic Orkney may have remained distinct well into the Bronze Age, although there are signs that this had dwindled by the Iron Age. Furthermore, although the majority of mitochondrial DNA lineages evidently arrived afresh with the Bronze Age, we also find evidence for continuity in the female line of descent from Mesolithic Britain into the Bronze Age and even to the present day.
Application of insects to wounds of self and others by chimpanzees in the wild
Alessandra Mascaro et al.
Current Biology, 7 February 2022
Abstract:
Self-medication refers to the process by which a host suppresses or prevents the deleterious effects of parasitism and other causes of illness via behavioural means1. It has been observed across multiple animal taxa (e.g. bears, elephants, moths, starlings)2, with many case studies in great apes1,3. Although the majority of studies on self-medication in non-human primates concern the ingestion of plant parts or non-nutritional substances to combat or control intestinal parasites4, more recent examples also report topical applications of leaves or other materials (including arthropods) to skin integuments3. Thus far, however, the application of insects or insect parts to an individual’s own wound or the wound of a conspecific has never been reported. Here, we report the first observations of chimpanzees applying insects to their own wounds (n = 19) and to the wounds of conspecifics (n = 3).
High-precision U-series dating of the late Pleistocene–early Holocene rock paintings at Tiger Leaping Gorge, Jinsha River valley, southwestern China
Yun Wu et al.
Journal of Archaeological Science, February 2022
Abstract:
Paleolithic rock paintings are known from many parts of the world, including Africa, Australia, Europe and Island Southeast Asia. However, no Paleolithic rock paintings have yet been confirmed in the East Asia mainland, partly due to the lack of suitable dating materials. The rock paintings distributed at more than 70 sites in the Jinsha River valley, Yunnan Province, southwestern China, include the naturalistic outlines of large mammals, which superficially resemble the Magdalenian rock art in Europe. Wanrendong Cave in Tiger Leaping Gorge, has preserved typical Jinsha River rock paintings, associated with some precipitates of secondary carbonates (i.e., speleothem). High precision U-series dating of 13 small speleothems, with a total of 36 subsamples overlying or underlying the pigment layers, revealed that these red paintings were created during the Pleistocene–Holocene transition, representing the oldest absolutely dated rock paintings from China so far. Our results show that at least three painting phases in Wanrendong Cave can be precisely constrained: ∼13,000–13,580 yr B.P., ∼10,540–10,830 yr B.P., and ∼8370–8700 yr B.P. These intervals are substantially earlier than the timing of agriculture in Yunnan Province (∼4600 yr BP), indicating that these paintings were created by Paleolithic hunter-gatherers. Additionally, these intervals coincide with the Bølling-Allerød and early Holocene warming periods, suggesting a possible link between the rock painting activity and climate changes.