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An Archaeological Study Tour
Caves & CastlesNorthern Spain & Southern France
Niaux
Sept 6-20, 2015
Research news (2014-2015) relevant to early humans in Franco-Iberia
Roy Larick, Lecturer
15 Days
© 2015 Bluestone Heights
Part 2: fossils and artifacts
Caves and Castles, 2015
Roy Larick, Lecturer
Archaeological Tours study tour
Research news relevant to early humans in Franco-Iberia
Part 2 addresses new finds of fossils and artifacts and the interpretation of archaeological materials, including reports on the complex cultural activities of Neandertals.
News items are presented in general prehistoric chronological order.
Bare-bones summaries of current research papers. Basic data, graphics and links only. News items to be fleshed out on tour.
Includes links to the original abstracts--the online papers usually lie behind a paywall.
© 2015 Bluestone Heights
Farming’s effect on the Homo sapiens skeleton
Gradual decline in mobility with the adoption of food production in Europe
Christopher Ruff et al. PNAS, July, 2015 (Vol. 112, pg. 7147)
1,842 European skeletons spanning 33 kyr, Upper Paleolithic to 20th century
Decreased bending strength implies a decline of mobility as agriculture came to dominate how people produced food. The original decline in mobility was more important than subsequent changes in farming technology.
http://www.pnas.org/content/112/23/7147.abstract
Decreased bending strength of leg bones accompanied the shift. The trend was not apparent during the last 2 ka, as agriculture became more mechanized.
From the Neolithic to Roman eras (7-2 ka) humans shifted from mobile to an increasingly sedentary lifestyles.
© 2015 Bluestone Heights
The study measured the strength of the tibia, femur, and humerus. The authors found little change in mediolateral, or side-to-side, bending strength in all the bones over time, but a decline in anteroposterior, or front-to-back, bending strength of the tibia and femur beginning in the Neolithic Period (7 ka), and continuing through the Iron/Roman Period (2 ka).
The results suggest that mild changes in activity levels may be insufficient to stimulate changes in bone mass and that vigorous exercise may be required to increase bone strength.
Temporal trends in bending strength relative to body size [mm3/(kg·mm)·104]. (A) Femoral A–P strength. (B) Tibial A–P strength. (C) Humeral A–Pstrength. (D) Femoral M–L strength. (E)Tibial M–L strength. (F) Humeral M–L strength. Males: blue; females: red.
15 ka, all humans lived by foraging wild animals and plants. Exploiting such resources worked best when people lived in tiny bands and moved around a lot. Individual foragers could not build much wealth or power. They tended to be very poor but very equal. SoL: $1.10 per day (1990 values)
12 ka, foragers numbered 6 million11 ka, population exploded with farming
2 ka, farmers numbered 250 millionBy 1800 AD, foraging was almost extinct
With farming, big social groups stayed in one place working their fields. They flourished at the expense of smaller, less sedentary ones. Farmers were typically richer than foragers SoL: $1.50-$2.20 per day
Farming’s effect on wealth distribution
To each age its inequality
Ian Morris New York Times, July 9, 2015
Farming needed more complicated divisions of labor than foraging. Some people became aristocrats or godlike kings; others became peasants or slaves. Economic inequality surged.
Exotic objects of the European Neolithic
Signs of Wealth: Inequalities in the Neolithic
National Museum of Prehistory, Les EyziesJune 27 to November 15, 2015
As Neolithic communities dispersed into Europe, 8-4.2 ka, they brought new techniques for making and ornamenting material culture. Intricate manufacturing could produce very beautiful pieces.
High-value items usually signified wealth and distinction for the owner. Some were hoarded to be used in relations between the elites or with supernatural powers.
High-value items often featured exotic raw materials, some traveling hundreds of kilometers from quarry to workshop. Likewise, finished pieces, including necklaces, daggers, axes, bracelets, could circulate for long distances and times.
Signs of Wealth features "object sign" artifacts in exotic materials still valuable in our day (jade, gold, turquoise, jet, etc).
(Larick’s paraphrase)
Ledi-Geraru, Ethiopia: Homo at 2.8 Ma
Early Homo at 2.8 Ma from Ledi-Geraru, Afar, Ethiopia
Villmoare et al. Science, March 4 2015
Sudan
S. Sudan
UgandaKenya
Tanzania
Somalia
Ethiopia
YemenUganda
Olduvai Hominid 7Homo habilis
Afar Triangle
Olduvai Gorge
Ledi-Gerarumandible
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/05/world/jawbones-discovery-fills-barren-evolutionary-period.html
Ledi-Geraruearly Homo2.8 Ma
Rift Valley aridity commences ~3.0 Ma
© 2015 Bluestone Heights
L-G may represent the basal lineage for four groups
Evidence for Neandertal Jewelry: Modified White-Tailed Eagle Claws at Krapina.
Krapina, Croatia
Radovčić, et al. PLOS One, March 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/science/neanderthal-jewelry-the-eagle-talon-line.html?rref=science&module=Ribbon&version=origin®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Science&pgtype=article
130 ka
© 2015 Bluestone Heights
Preventative Archaeology Périgord
Chauzeys, Mussidan, Isle Valley
21st cent preventative archaeology large spaces in new areasfloodplains and terracesdone with fast mechanical earth-movingexpands the concept of site and spatial analysis
StratigraphyDark clay layer: 12th cent silos, ditches & bread ovensLighter silt layer: Aurignacian (in 2 levels), one with large foyerManganese-encrusted limestone pebble layer reflect humid conditions (Mousterian) Cobble layer Eem gravels with Mousterian flakesRiss levels
Cobble layer was the object of exploitation. Has Cretaceous flint clasts mixed with crystalline rocks (origin in Central Mountains)Neandertals and Hs tested the cobbles and then reduced them in place. Azinian (mini-Mousterian) presence; levallois flakes of thumbnail sizeSome presence of Jonzac (Charente) flintAurignacian made carinated scrapers and bladelets;
Brought a few blades of exotic materials, including Bergeracois
Jean-Pierre Chadelle, Dept. de la Dordogne
Chauzeys
© 2015 Bluestone Heights
Chauzeys sits on a terrace lobe of at least Riss ageWurm terrace (lower) to northTerrace has a full Wurm accumulation on top of Eem
Neandertal pigeon eating at Gibraltar
The earliest pigeon fanciers
Ruth Blasco, Clive Finlayson, et al.Nature 7 August 2014
Rock Dove, is a species of rocky habitats. At Gorham's Cave, Neanderthals butchered Rock Doves, beginning at least 67 ka, for a period of more than 40 kyr.
http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/140807/srep05971/full/srep05971.html
© 2015 Bluestone Heights
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-28967746
Cut-marked bones of Rock Dove specimens from Gorham's Cave: sternum (A), ulna (B, E) and humerus (C, D) from level IV, and tibiotarsus from LBSmcf.2 (F).
Neandertal bone tools
Un outil en os à usages multiples dans un contexte moustérien
Luc Doyon, Geneviève Pothier Bouchard, and Maurice Hardy Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française 15 Dec 2014
Discovered June 2014 at the Grotte du Bison at Arcy-sur-Cure in Burgundy, France. from the left femur of an adult reindeer 60-55 ka.
Evidence of meat butchering and bone fracturing to extract marrow are evident on the tool.
Percussion marks suggest the use of the bone fragment for carved sharpening the cutting edges of stone tools.
Chipping and a significant polish show the use of the bone as a scraper
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-01/uom-ydd011415.php
© 2015 Bluestone Heights
Manot Cave, western Galilee: H. sapiens at 55 ka
missing connection between African and European populations
Israel Hershkovitz et al.Nature, January 28, 2015
L-R: Neanderthal, Manot cranium, modern human
55,000-year-old skull, Manot Cave
The distinctive bunlike shape at the base of the skull resembles modern African and European skulls but differs from other anatomically modern humans from the Levant, and is thus a strong clue that these were among the first humans to settle Europe,
Manot 1 calotte is of a fairly small adult individual, sex undetermined.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/29/science/ancient-skull-adds-new-insight-to-story-of-human-evolution.html?action=click&contentCollection=Science&module=RelatedCoverage®ion=Marginalia&pgtype=article
© 2015 Bluestone Heights
La Chapelle-aux-Saints burial evidence
Evidence supporting an intentional Neandertal burial at La Chapelle-aux-SaintsWilliam Rendu, et al. PNAS 15 November 2013
A Neandertal burial was recognized in 1908 in the bouffia Bonneval, at La Chapelle-aux-Saints (France). New research indicates that the body was deposited in a pit dug by other members of its group and protected by a rapid covering from any disturbance.
the discovery of skeletal elements belonging to the original La Chapelle aux Saints 1 individual, two additional young individuals, and a second adult in the bouffia Bonneval highlights a more complex site-formation history than previously proposed.
These discoveries attest the existence of West European Neandertal burial and of the Neandertal cognitive capacity to produce it.
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/1/81
© 2015 Bluestone Heights
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-28967746
Bouffia Bonneval excavation map and burial pit position. Differences in the cavity topography and in the localization of the burial pit are linked to imprecision in the Bouyssonies’ drawing.
Neandertal Gibraltar engraving
A rock engraving made by Neanderthals in Gibraltar
Joaquín Rodríguez-Vidal, et al. PNAS 15 September 2014
Gorham’s Cave, GibraltarCrosshatch cave wall engraving found under layers yielding Neanderthal toolsolder than 39 cal kyr BP
epigenetic coating came before accumulation of archaeological layers
made by repeatedly and carefully passing a pointed lithic tool into the grooves, excluding the possibility of an unintentional or utilitarian origin
full engraving would have required 200-300 strokes with a stone cutting tool, taking at least an hour to create
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/37/13301
© 2015 Bluestone Heights
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-28967746
Neandertal demise
Neandertal Demise: An Archaeological Analysis of the Modern Human Superiority Complex
Table 1. Hypotheses for the demise of Neandertals (Hn) and rise of modern humans (Hs)
Paola Villa, Wil RoebroekPLOS One, April 2014
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0096424#pone-0096424-t002
Hn and Hs archaeological records are not different enough to explain Hn demise in terms of inferiority. Interbreeding and assimilation may have hastened the disappearance of Hn morphology.
1. Hs had complex symbolic communication systems and fully syntactic language, while Hn did not.
2. Hn had limited capacity for innovations.
3. Hn were less efficient hunters.
4. Hn weaponry was inferior to Hs projectile technology.
5. Hn had a narrow diet, unsuccessful in competition with Hs with their more diverse diets.
6. Hs exclusively used traps and snares to capture animals.
7. Hs had larger social networks.
8. Hs groups entering Europe were significantly larger than regional Hn groups.
9. Hs tool hafting is indicative of modern cognition; Hn hafting was simple (used naturally available glues).
10. Hn decline was related to cold climate ~40 ka.
11. Hn extinction was related to the eruption of the Mt. Toba volcano (Sumatra, 74 ka).
© 2015 Bluestone Heights
Chauvet Replica opens April, 2015
Caverne du Pont-d’Arc, the Chauvet interpretive center, comprises five buildings on eight hectares at Razal, seven km from the true cave.
© Agence Fabre et Speller - Atelier 3A
Experienced artists have replicated Chauvet to be as faithful as possible to the original spontaneity of the work.
Major paintings, etchings, and geological and archaeological components are reproduced on a scale of 1:1.
The paintings are reproduced on a shotcretestructure with resin coating using natural oxide pigments and Scots pine charcoal.
http://lacavernedupontdarc.org/en/la-replique/
© 2015 Bluestone Heights
Women’s body shapes
Curvology: The Origins and Power of Female Body Shape .
David Bainbridge. Granta; 227 pages
it makes evolutionary sense for new couples to plump up—in comparison with when they were single—as this provides both of them with a fatty fallback for when they begin the arduous task of reproducing the species
curvy bums and boobs ensure the future of humankind. They are proof that a woman was well-nourished while growing up and carries good child-feeding genes
Episodes of bingeing and starvation were normal features of pre-agricultural life; some animals still reduce their intake in winter. Eating disorders, the author writes, could be “evolutionary relics of a time when our food supply was unpredictable
http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21645120-why-and-wherefore-womens-curves-shape-shifting
© 2015 Bluestone Heights
An Archaeological Study Tour
Caves & CastlesNorthern Spain & Southern France
Niaux
Sept 6-20, 2015
Roy Larick, Lecturer
15 Days
© 2015 Bluestone Heights
I look forward to meeting you on ‘Caves’ 2015
Roy Larick
Walk back in time Look to the Future
Euclid bluestone outcropDoan Brook, Cleveland OH
Bluestone Heights
© 2015 Bluestone HeightsR. Larick
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bluestoneheights.org
