Starting Up
Earliest evidence of making fire
Rob Davis et al.
Nature, forthcoming
Abstract:
Fire-making is a uniquely human innovation that stands apart from other complex behaviours such as tool production, symbolic culture and social communication. Controlled fire use provided adaptive opportunities that had profound effects on human evolution. Benefits included warmth, protection from predators, cooking and creation of illuminated spaces that became focal points for social interaction. Fire use developed over a million years, progressing from harvesting natural fire to maintaining and ultimately making fire. However, determining when and how fire use evolved is challenging because natural and anthropogenic burning are hard to distinguish. Although geochemical methods have improved interpretations of heated deposits, unequivocal evidence of deliberate fire-making has remained elusive. Here we present evidence of fire-making on a 400,000-year-old buried landsurface at Barnham (UK), where heated sediments and fire-cracked flint handaxes were found alongside two fragments of iron pyrite -- a mineral used in later periods to strike sparks with flint. Geological studies show that pyrite is locally rare, suggesting it was brought deliberately to the site for fire-making. The emergence of this technological capability provided important social and adaptive benefits, including the ability to cook food on demand -- particularly meat -- thereby enhancing digestibility and energy availability, which may have been crucial for hominin brain evolution.
Africa as a Success Story: Political Organization in Pre-Colonial Africa
Soeren Henn & James Robinson
NBER Working Paper, December 2025
Abstract:
We provide an overview of the explanations for the relative lack of state formation historically in Africa. In doing so we systematically document for the first time the extent to which Africa was politically decentralized, calculating that in 1880 there were probably 45,000 independent polities which were rarely organized on ethnic lines. At most 2% of these could be classified as states. We advance a new argument for this extreme political decentralization positing that African societies were deliberately organized to stop centralization emerging. In this they were successful. We point out some key aspects of African societies that helped them to manage this equilibrium. We also emphasize how the organization of the economy was subservient to these political goals.
Submerged Stone Structures in the Far West of Europe During the Mesolithic/Neolithic Transition (Sein Island, Brittany, France)
Yves Fouquet et al.
International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Morpho-tectonic analysis of LIDAR data off Sein Island (France) revealed 11 submerged structures at significant depths. Dives conducted between 2022 and 2024 confirmed these are human-built granite structures, with the largest wall measuring 120 m long. Some structures appear to be fish weirs, others possibly protective. Based on relative sea level data, the dating of these structures was estimated to range from 5800 to 5300 BCE. These remains, unique at such depth, show Mesolithic human presence and advanced building skills, predating Neolithic megalithism in Brittany by 500 years. They offer valuable insight into maritime hunter-gatherer societies during the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition.
Investigating Technology Change without Typology: The Spread of the Bow and Arrow in California
Nathan Stevens
American Antiquity, forthcoming
Abstract:
Archaeologists in North America often think of the bow and arrow as appearing more or less instantaneously, a conception baked into many culture-historical schemes. However, this specialized technology likely has a more complex history. From a single Old World origin, it is thought to have spread throughout North America from the Arctic after about 5000 cal BP. From there, it seems to have moved from north to south, but the specific timing of the arrival of this important technology is not known in great detail throughout most of California. Rather than using typological or culture-historical categories to discern this technological replacement, this study plots salient artifact attributes from a large sample of projectile points from central and northern California through continuous time to provide more detail on the timing of the spread of this important prehistoric technology. Results suggest the bow and arrow entered northeastern California before 2000 cal BP and moved southward, arriving at the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta as much as 1,000 years later. The changepoint analysis method introduced here should be broadly applicable to a wide variety of similar archaeological patterns.
Ancient DNA from Shimao city records kinship practices in Neolithic China
Zehui Chen et al.
Nature, forthcoming
Abstract:
The discovery of Shimao city (around 2300–1800 BCE), a premier state-level Neolithic fortified settlement in Shaanxi, China, played an important role in helping us understand the emergence of socially stratified urban societies. However, key questions remain regarding how ancestry and kinship shaped the hierarchy of this class-based society characterized by human sacrifice. The origin of the founding populations of Shimao and other Loess Plateau settlements, and their interactions within the broader ancestral landscape, have yet to be determined. Here we present, by sequencing 144 ancient genomes from Shimao city and its satellites, pedigrees among tomb owners spanning up to four generations. These findings reveal a predominantly patrilineal descent structure across Shimao communities, and possibly sex-specific sacrificial rituals. We also characterize the population history, revealing that Shimao culture-related populations originated mostly from a Yangshao culture-related population present at least 1,000 years earlier, and the lasting inflow of Yumin-related populations from Inner Mongolia did not interrupt regional genetic continuity. Broader genetic influence from southern mainland ancestry over Shimao culture-related populations supports evidence of rice farming expanding further north than previously expected. Together, these results uncover fine details of the regional peopling and social structure of early state establishment.