Primitive Thinking
Neanderthals and Homo sapiens had similar auditory and speech capacities
Mercedes Conde-Valverde et al.
Nature Ecology & Evolution, forthcoming
Abstract:
The study of audition in fossil hominins is of great interest given its relationship with intraspecific vocal communication. While the auditory capacities have been studied in early hominins and in the Middle Pleistocene Sima de los Huesos hominins, less is known about the hearing abilities of the Neanderthals. Here, we provide a detailed approach to their auditory capacities. Relying on computerized tomography scans and a comprehensive model from the field of auditory bioengineering, we have established sound power transmission through the outer and middle ear and calculated the occupied bandwidth in Neanderthals. The occupied bandwidth is directly related to the efficiency of the vocal communication system of a species. Our results show that the occupied bandwidth of Neanderthals was greater than the Sima de los Huesos hominins and similar to extant humans, implying that Neanderthals evolved the auditory capacities to support a vocal communication system as efficient as modern human speech.
Life, death, and the destruction of architecture: Hunter-gatherer mortuary behaviors in prehistoric Jordan
Lisa Maher et al.
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, March 2021
Abstract:
The end of the Pleistocene in Southwest Asia is widely known for the emergence of socially-complex hunter-gatherers — the Natufians — characterized by a rich material culture record, including elaborate burials. In comparison, human interments that predate the Natufian are rare. The discovery and excavation of a hut structure at the 20,000-year-old Epipalaeolithic site of Kharaneh IV in eastern Jordan reveals the remains of an adult female intentionally placed in a semi-flexed position on one of the structure’s floors. The structure was burned down shortly after her deposition, extensively charring the human remains. The burying of the dead within structures and the burning of domestic structures are well-known from later Neolithic periods, although their combination as a mortuary practice is rare. However, for the Early Epipalaeolithic, the burning of a structure containing the primary deposition of human remains is novel and signifies an early appearance for the intentional burning of bodies as a mortuary treatment and symbolic behaviors associated with the interrelated life histories of structures and people.
Genomic Insights into the Formation of Human Populations in East Asia
Chuan-Chao Wang et al.
Nature, forthcoming
Abstract:
The deep population history of East Asia remains poorly understood due to a lack of ancient DNA data and sparse sampling of present-day people. We report genome-wide data from 166 East Asians dating to 6000 BCE – 1000 CE and 46 present-day groups. Hunter-gatherers from Japan, the Amur River Basin, and people of Neolithic and Iron Age Taiwan and the Tibetan plateau are linked by a deeply-splitting lineage likely reflecting a Late Pleistocene coastal migration. We follow Holocene expansions from four regions. First, hunter-gatherers of Mongolia and the Amur River Basin have ancestry shared by Mongolic and Tungusic language speakers but do not carry West Liao River farmer ancestry contradicting theories that their expansion spread these proto-languages. Second, Yellow River Basin farmers at ~3000 BCE likely spread Sino-Tibetan languages as their ancestry dispersed both to Tibet where it forms up ~84% to some groups and to the Central Plain where it contributed ~59-84% to Han Chinese. Third, people from Taiwan ~1300 BCE to 800 CE derived ~75% ancestry from a lineage also common in modern Austronesian, Tai-Kadai and Austroasiatic speakers likely deriving from Yangtze River Valley farmers; ancient Taiwan people also derived ~25% ancestry from a northern lineage related to but different from Yellow River farmers implying an additional north-to-south expansion. Fourth, Yamnaya Steppe pastoralist ancestry arrived in western Mongolia after ~3000 BCE but was displaced by previously established lineages even while it persisted in western China as expected if it spread the ancestor of Tocharian Indo-European languages. Two later gene flows affected western Mongolia: after ~2000 BCE migrants with Yamnaya and European farmer ancestry, and episodic impacts of later groups with ancestry from Turan.
Human arrival and landscape dynamics in the northern Bahamas
Patricia Fall et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 9 March 2021
Abstract:
The first Caribbean settlers were Amerindians from South America. Great Abaco and Grand Bahama, the final islands colonized in the northernmost Bahamas, were inhabited by the Lucayans when Europeans arrived. The timing of Lucayan arrival in the northern Bahamas has been uncertain because direct archaeological evidence is limited. We document Lucayan arrival on Great Abaco Island through a detailed record of vegetation, fire, and landscape dynamics based on proxy data from Blackwood Sinkhole. From about 3,000 to 1,000 y ago, forests dominated by hardwoods and palms were resilient to the effects of hurricanes and cooling sea surface temperatures. The arrival of Lucayans by about 830 CE (2σ range: 720 to 920 CE) is demarcated by increased burning and followed by landscape disturbance and a time-transgressive shift from hardwoods and palms to the modern pine forest. Considering that Lucayan settlements in the southern Bahamian archipelago are dated to about 750 CE (2σ range: 600 to 900 CE), these results demonstrate that Lucayans spread rapidly through the archipelago in less than 100 y. Although precontact landscapes would have been influenced by storms and climatic trends, the most pronounced changes follow more directly from landscape burning and ecosystem shifts after Lucayan arrival. The pine forests of Abaco declined substantially between 1500 and 1670 CE, a period of increased regional hurricane activity, coupled with fires on an already human-impacted landscape. Any future intensification of hurricane activity in the tropical North Atlantic Ocean threatens the sustainability of modern pine forests in the northern Bahamas.
First AMS radiocarbon date and stable C:N isotope analysis for the Mount Holly Mammoth, Vermont, USA
Nathaniel Kitchel & Jeremy Desilva
Boreas, forthcoming
Abstract:
Proboscidean remains have been documented in New England for well over a century, yet few radiocarbon dates exist for these animals in the region. Here, we report the first AMS radiocarbon date and stable carbon:nitrogen isotope analysis for the Mount Holly mammoth, Mount Holly, Vermont. Among proboscidean finds in New England the date of 10 860±30 (12 882–12 792 cal. BP) from the Mount Holly mammoth is the most recent radiocarbon date for a mammoth or mastodon in New England and the most precisely dated specimen possibly post‐dating the accepted age of the initial human settlement of the region during the onset of the Younger Dryas. Stable nitrogen isotope values are low for mammoths both regionally and globally, but consistent with a pattern of falling δ15N values for mammoths following the Last Glacial Maximum with particularly low values during the Younger Dryas.
Ages for Australia’s oldest rock paintings
Damien Finch et al.
Nature Human Behaviour, forthcoming
Abstract:
Naturalistic depictions of animals are a common subject for the world’s oldest dated rock art, including wild bovids in Indonesia and lions in France’s Chauvet Cave. The oldest known Australian Aboriginal figurative rock paintings also commonly depict naturalistic animals but, until now, quantitative dating was lacking. Here, we present 27 radiocarbon dates on mud wasp nests that constrain the ages of 16 motifs from this earliest known phase of rock painting in the Australian Kimberley region. These initial results suggest that paintings in this style proliferated between 17,000 and 13,000 years ago. Notably, one painting of a kangaroo is securely dated to between 17,500 and 17,100 years on the basis of the ages of three overlying and three underlying wasp nests. This is the oldest radiometrically dated in situ rock painting so far reported in Australia.
Uniting against a common enemy: Perceived outgroup threat elicits ingroup cohesion in chimpanzees
James Brooks et al.
PLoS ONE, February 2021
Abstract:
Outgroup threat has been identified as an important driver of ingroup cohesion in humans, but the evolutionary origin of such a relationship is unclear. Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) in the wild are notably aggressive towards outgroup members but coordinate complex behaviors with many individuals in group hunting and border patrols. One hypothesis claims that these behaviors evolve alongside one another, where outgroup threat selects for ingroup cohesion and group coordination. To test this hypothesis, 5 groups of chimpanzees (N = 29 individuals) were observed after hearing either pant-hoots of unfamiliar wild chimpanzees or control crow vocalizations both in their typical daily environment and in a context of induced feeding competition. We observed a behavioral pattern that was consistent both with increased stress and vigilance (self-directed behaviors increased, play decreased, rest decreased) and increased ingroup cohesion (interindividual proximity decreased, aggression over food decreased, and play during feeding competition increased). These results support the hypothesis that outgroup threat elicits ingroup tolerance in chimpanzees. This suggests that in chimpanzees, like humans, competition between groups fosters group cohesion.
Pitted ware culture: Isotopic evidence for contact between Sweden and Denmark across the Kattegat in the Middle Neolithic, ca. 3000 BC
Douglas Price, Lutz Klassen & Karl-Göran Sjögren
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, March 2021
Abstract:
The Pitted Ware Culture emerged during the Neolithic around 3400 BCE in east-central Sweden and quickly spread south and west to various parts of southern Scandinavia. For the next millennium these groups exhibited less interest in agricultural activity and a general return to the hunting and gathering of wild animals and plants with a focus on seals in some coastal areas. Pitted Ware Culture arrived in northeastern Denmark after 3100 BCE. One of the most important sites of this period was at Kainsbakke, on the peninsula of Djursland. One deep pit at the site contained unusual numbers of bear, red deer, European elk, and boar remains. This study focuses on the isotopic proveniencing of some of these animal remains to evaluate their origins. Confirmation of the import of some of the animals, probably from western Sweden, suggests possible shared ritual activity at the central Kainsbakke site. This evidence also confirms the navigating skills of Neolithic peoples in northern Europe.