They Chased Fire
Thermal constraints on Middle Pleistocene hominin brain evolution and cognition
Robin Dunbar
Journal of Archaeological Science, July 2025
Abstract:
High latitude habitats are subject to thermally-driven energetic constraints that make their occupation challenging. This is likely to have had a particularly significant impact on energy-expensive tissue like the brain, especially during periods of lower global temperatures during the Mid-Pleistocene Ice Ages. I analyse data on endocranial volumes for archaic humans (Homo heidelbergensis, H. neanderthalensis and allies) to show (1) that cranial volumes were typically smaller at high latitudes than in the tropics and (2) that they declined during cold phases and increased during warm phases of the Middle Pleistocene Ice Ages. Within this broad pattern, there is a significant uplift in cranial volumes after 400 ka that seems to coincide with widespread presence of hearths at high latitudes, suggesting that hominin populations might have gained at least partial release from this constraint through cultural control over fire. While this might pinpoint the time at which hominins first began to cook on a regular basis, fire offers other important benefits (notably warmth and extending the length of the working day) that might have played an equally important role in buffering populations against thermal stresses. The larger brain sizes that this made possible have implications for social cognitive capacities like mentalising, that in turn have implications for language skills, cultural behaviour and social group size.
Agent Preference in Chasing Interactions in Guinea Baboons (Papio papio): Uncovering the Roots of Subject-Object Order in Language
Floor Meewis et al.
Psychological Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Languages tend to describe "who is doing what to whom" by placing subjects before objects. This may reflect a bias for agents in event cognition: Agents capture more attention than patients in human adults and infants. We investigated whether this agent preference is shared with nonhuman animals. We presented Guinea baboons (Papio papio; N = 13) with a change-detection paradigm on chasing animations. The baboons were trained to respond to a color change that was applied to either the chaser/agent or the chasee/patient. They were faster to detect a change to the chaser than to the chasee, which could not be explained by low-level features in our stimuli such as the chaser's motion pattern or position. An agent preference may be an evolutionarily old mechanism that is shared between humans and other primates that could have become externalized in language as a tendency to place the subject first.
New scientific evidence for the history and occupants of Tomb I ("Tomb of Persephone") in the Great Tumulus at Vergina
Yannis Maniatis et al.
Journal of Archaeological Science, July 2025
Abstract:
The Great Tumulus of Vergina (Aegae) is considered to be the royal burial complex of the Macedonian kings. Beneath it four tombs were discovered, labeled Tomb I, II, III and IV. Several hypotheses have been proposed for the identities of the occupants of the "royal tombs", but without scientific backing. We present new data from Tomb I ("The Tomb of Persephone"), which contained inhumed (unburnt), in situ and commingled adult skeletal remains, as well as commingled nonadult and animal bones. We applied a range of scientific techniques, including radiocarbon dating, ancient DNA (aDNA), strontium and stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis, supported by osteological and odontological observations on the adult and nonadult bones found in Tomb I to provide concrete evidence for the date of burials, sex, age at death and origin of the individuals interred in this tomb. Our results show that, with the exception of four bones that were identified as female, all the adult bones are male according to the aDNA and osteological results, and they belonged to a man aged 25-35 years with a stature of approximately 167 cm. Radiocarbon dating places this burial in the first half of the 4th century calBC, specifically between 400 and 367 calBC, and by applying a potential collagen offset correction this is slightly shifted to 388-356 calBC at the latest. The female bones date to the same period. However, all the nonadults and animal bones, date to the Roman period from 150 calBC, the earliest to 130 calAD the latest. Therefore, these are not related to the primary adult burials. The male occupant was most likely an important Macedonian royal of the Argead/Temenid house who died in the period 388-356 calBC and was probably honored or worshipped in the shrine above and entombed likely together with a female. Previous suggestions that the skeletal remains belong to Philip II, his wife Cleopatra and newborn child are not scientifically sustainable.
The Rule of an Empire: Megiddo in the Late Bronze Age
Mario Martin & Israel Finkelstein
Near Eastern Archaeology, June 2025, Pages 154-165
Abstract:
During the Egyptian empire in the Late Bronze Age Megiddo was the hub of a city-state linked to all areas of the eastern Mediterranean, and its fate was determined by the macro-political events of the time. Early in the period, especially in the aftermath of the Battle of Megiddo in 1457 BCE, the city was in decline. A long spell of revival and prosperity ensued in the fourteenth (Amarna Age) and thirteenth centuries. The twelfth century brought a period of crisis, which caused the downfall of the Late Bronze city in several steps; various quarters were hit at different times and intensity. The final blow is marked by the fiery destruction of the palace district in the early eleventh century, more than a generation after the demise of the Egyptian empire.
On the Mousterian origin of bone-tipped hunting weapons in Europe: Evidence from Mezmaiskaya Cave, North Caucasus
Liubov Golovanova et al.
Journal of Archaeological Science, July 2025
Abstract:
This paper presents a detailed analysis of a unique pointy bone artefact produced by Neanderthals, which was found in 2003 in a Middle Paleolithic layer dated c. 80-70 ka at Mezmaiskaya Cave in the Caucasus. The definition and interpretation of anthropic traces related to technological modifications and functional use of the bone tool were analyzed using stereoscopic and metallographic microscopes, high-resolution digital microscopy, and microfocus computed tomography. Research of a bitumen residue preserved on the specimen was done using Fourier-transform infrared microscopy and spectroscopy, and crystal-optical microscopy. Based on the totality of analytical and comparative data we interpret the artefact as the tip of a hunting weapon that was likely mounted on a shaft made from wood. Several lines of evidence suggest its short use as a bone-tipped hunting projectile. The results suggest an independent invention of bone-tipped hunting weapons by Neanderthals in Europe long before the arrival of Upper Paleolithic modern humans to the continent, and also show that the production technology of bone-tipped hunting weapons used by Neanderthals was in the nascent level in comparison to those used and introduced to Eurasia by modern humans.