quote: ...here has been a longstanding disagreement whether humans began to increase in number as a result of innovative technologies and/or behaviors formulated by hunter-gatherer groups in the Late Pleistocene, or with the advent of agriculture in the Neolithic...
ScienceDaily (Aug. 4, 2009) — Genetic evidence is revealing that human populations began to expand in size in Africa during the Late Stone Age approximately 40,000 years ago. A research team led by Michael F. Hammer (Arizona Research Laboratory's Division of Biotechnology at the University of Arizona) found that sub-Saharan populations increased in size well before the development of agriculture.
Bingo! But what's up with the 'magical' era of ca. 40 kya? I believe archaeological indicators have by now rendered it high time that academia moved on from such 'rigid' thinking!
Lol, you know 40kya is their point of entrance into Europe....
Good catching on.
quote:
Btw, can you be more specific upon the archaeological indicators of which you speak?
First, you might want to take one more look at the piece I italicized, as far as the given context goes. Then, think back to such articles like for example...
—Oldest Jewelry? "Beads" Discovered in African Cave
—Is Bead Find Proof Modern Thought Began in Africa?
—African Bone Tools Dispute Key Idea About Human Evolution When Did Modern Behavior Emerge in Humans?
Not to mention one about Homo Erectus "urbanization" in northern and eastern Africa.
...and you'll get an idea of the recurring theme of these finds: that the thesis centered on the 'magical' era of a supposed "unprecedented" sudden burst of human "intellectual" ingenuity around 45 ky or 40 ky ago or so is no longer tenable.
And now, expanding on this, consider...
"Our illumination of the heat treatment process shows that these early modern humans commanded fire in a nuanced and sophisticated manner," says lead author Kyle Brown, a doctoral candidate at the University of Cape Town, and field and lab director in Mossel Bay, South Africa, for ASU's Institute of Human Origins.
"We show that early modern humans at 72,000 years ago, and perhaps as early as 164,000 years ago in coastal South Africa, were using carefully controlled hearths in a complex process to heat stone and change its properties, the process known as heat treatment," explains Brown.
"Heat treatment technology begins with a genius moment – someone discovers that heating stone makes it easier to flake," says Curtis Marean, project director and a co-author on the paper.
Marean is a paleoanthropologist with the Institute of Human Origins and a professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
"This knowledge is then passed on, and in a way unique to humans, the technology is slowly ratcheted up in complexity as the control of the heating process, cooling and flaking grows in sophistication," Marean says.
This creates a long-chain technological process that the researchers explain requires a complex cognition, and probably language, to learn and teach.
The heating transformed a stone called silcrete, which was rather poor for tool making, into an outstanding raw material that allowed the modern humans to make highly advanced tools.
...
Symbolic behavior and modern human origins
"Our discovery shows that these early modern humans had this complex cognition," Brown says.
"This expression of cognitive complexity in technology by these early modern humans on the south coast of South Africa provides further evidence that this locality may have been the origin location for the lineage that leads to all modern humans, which appeared between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago in Africa," explains Marean.
"There is no consensus as to when modern human behavior appears, but by 70,000 years ago there is good evidence for symbolic behavior," he says. "Many researchers are looking for technological proxies for complex cognition, and heat treatment is likely one such proxy.
"Prior to our work, heat treatment was widely regarded as first occurring in Europe at about 25,000 years ago," Marean says. "We push this back at least 45,000 years, and, perhaps, 139,000 years, and place it on the southern tip of Africa at Pinnacle Point."
The African location was at the center of another discovery by Marean – the documentation of the earliest evidence for exploitation of marine foods and modification of pigments – reported in the Oct. 17, 2007, journal Nature.
"Combined, these results sharply advance our knowledge of modern human origins, and show that something special in human cognition was happening on the coastline of South Africa during this crucial final phase in human origins," Marean says.
He adds that some time around 50,000 to 60,000 years ago, "these modern humans left the warm confines of Africa and penetrated into the colder glacial environment of Europe and Asia, where they encountered Neanderthals.
"By 35,000 years ago these Neanderthal populations were mostly extinct, and modern humans dominated the land from Spain to China to Australia," Marean says.
"The command of fire, documented by our study of heat treatment, provides us with a potential explanation for the rapid migration of these Africans across glacial Eurasia – they were masters of fire and heat and stone, a crucial advantage as these tropical people penetrated the cold lands of the Neanderthal," says Marean.
Fire As an Engineering Tool of Early Modern Humans
Kyle S. Brown,1,2 Curtis W. Marean,2 Andy I. R. Herries,3,4 Zenobia Jacobs,5 Chantal Tribolo,6 David Braun,1 David L. Roberts,7 Michael C. Meyer,5 Jocelyn Bernatchez2
The controlled use of fire was a breakthrough adaptation in human evolution. It first provided heat and light and later allowed the physical properties of materials to be manipulated for the production of ceramics and metals. The analysis of tools at multiple sites shows that the source stone materials were systematically manipulated with fire to improve their flaking properties. Heat treatment predominates among silcrete tools at ~72 thousand years ago (ka) and appears as early as 164 ka at Pinnacle Point, on the south coast of South Africa. Heat treatment demands a sophisticated knowledge of fire and an elevated cognitive ability and appears at roughly the same time as widespread evidence for symbolic behavior.
Evidence of early humans living on the coast in South Africa, harvesting food from the sea, employing complex bladelet tools and using red pigments in symbolic behavior 164,000 years ago, far earlier than previously documented, is being reported in the journal Nature.
The international team of researchers reporting the findings include Curtis Marean, a paleoanthropologist with the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University and three graduate students in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change.
"Our findings show that at 164,000 years ago in coastal South Africa humans expanded their diet to include shellfish and other marine resources, perhaps as a response to harsh environmental conditions," notes Marean, a professor in ASU's School of Human Evolution and Social Change. "This is the earliest dated observation of this behavior."
After decades of debate, paleoanthropologists now agree the genetic and fossil evidence suggests that the modern human species -- Homo sapiens -- evolved in Africa between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago.
Migrating along the coast
"Generally speaking, coastal areas were of no use to early humans -- unless they knew how to use the sea as a food source" says Marean. "For millions of years, our earliest hunter-gatherer relatives only ate terrestrial plants and animals. Shellfish was one of the last additions to the human diet before domesticated plants and animals were introduced."
Before, the earliest evidence for human use of marine resources and coastal habitats was dated about 125,000 years ago. "Our research shows that humans started doing this at least 40,000 years earlier. This could have very well been a response to the extreme environmental conditions they were experiencing," he says.
"We also found what archaeologists call bladelets -- little blades less than 10 millimeters in width, about the size of your little finger," Marean says. "These could be attached to the end of a stick to form a point for a spear, or lined up like barbs on a dart -- which shows they were already using complex compound tools. And, we found evidence that they were using pigments, especially red ochre, in ways that we believe were symbolic," he describes.
"Coastlines generally make great migration routes," Marean says. "Knowing how to exploit the sea for food meant these early humans could now use coastlines as productive home ranges and move long distances."
"This evidence shows that Africa, and particularly southern Africa, was precocious in the development of modern human biology and behavior. We believe that on the far southern shore of Africa there was a small population of modern humans who struggled through this glacial period using shellfish and advanced technologies, and symbolism was important to their social relations. It is possible that this population could be the progenitor population for all modern humans," Marean says.
Posts: 6572 | From: N.Y.C....Capital of the World | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
Props for the addition. These findings are consistent with DNA reports that place major population expansions intra-continentally in Africa itself in the Paleolithic, long before any OOA migration and adoption of Neolithic farming economies.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
^ Yes, interesting findings indeed. Are there any findings on the 'racial divergence' that some here speak of? Perhaps this complex intelligent behavior is the result of prehistoric African cacasoids! LMAOPosts: 26249 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Which reminds me that, even in the case of farming, dental changes associated with the change of lifestyle occur around 12,000 years ago in Africa and in Eurasia 6,000 years ago.
Posts: 5555 | From: Tha 5th Dimension. | Registered: Apr 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Looks like the modern-day folks are getting in line with the ''alternative'' history people after all. Ain't no news here for some people except to say maybe some of the latest discoveries have been refined. I keep readin' that's all.
By the way, 'sup with the 100,000 year old mining in South Africa (not mentioned anywhere here.) Whose dating period, I don't know. Don't even know if it's true or not. T'was long ago I read it. Sho' nuff did read it... long time ago; long, long before the internet.
Posts: 2118 | From: midwest, USA | Registered: Aug 2007
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Whatbox: Which reminds me that, even in the case of farming, dental changes associated with the change of lifestyle occur around 12,000 years ago in Africa and in Eurasia 6,000 years ago.
Noted:
Dr. Pritchard estimates that the average point at which the selected genes started to become more common under the pressure of natural selection is 10,800 years ago in the African population and 6,600 years ago in the Asian and European populations.Posts: 6572 | From: N.Y.C....Capital of the World | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
Tiny Ancient Shells -- 80,000 Years Old -- Point To Earliest Fashion Trend
ScienceDaily (Aug. 27, 2009) — Shell beads newly unearthed from four sites in Morocco confirm early humans were consistently wearing and potentially trading symbolic jewelry as early as 80,000 years ago. These beads add significantly to similar finds dating back as far as 110,000 in Algeria, Morocco, Israel and South Africa, confirming these as the oldest form of personal ornaments. This crucial step towards modern culture is reported this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
A team of researchers recovered 25 marine shell beads dating back to around 70,000 to 85,000 years ago from sites in Morocco, as part of the European Science Foundation EUROCORES programme 'Origin of Man, Language and Languages'. The shells have man-made holes through the centre and some show signs of pigment and prolonged wear, suggesting they were worn as jewelry.
Across all the locations shells were found from a similar time period from the Nassarius genus. That these shells were used similarly across so many sites suggests this was a cultural phenomenon, a shared tradition passed along through cultures over thousands of years. Several of the locations where shells have been found are so far inland that the shells must have been intentionally brought there.
"Either people went to sea and collected them, or more likely marine shell beads helped create and maintain exchange networks between coastal and inland peoples. This shows well-structured human culture that attributed meaning to these things," said Francesco d'Errico, lead author and director of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). "Organised networks would also assist trading of other items, as well as genetic and cultural exchange – so these shells help reveal the connections between cognition and culture."
For scientists, beadworks are not simply decoration, they also represents a specific technology that conveys information through a shared coded language. It indicates more advanced thinking and the development of modern cultural traits, giving clues to how such innovative behaviours might link to the spread of humans out of Africa.
"The early invention of the personal ornament is one of the most fascinating cultural experiments in human history," d'Errico continued. "The common element among such ornaments is that they transmit meaning to others. They convey an image of you that is not just your biological self."
Until recently the invention of personal ornaments was thought to coincide with the colonisation of Europe some 40,000 years ago, linking advanced cognitive capacity to early human dispersal. Yet this changed with the 2006 discovery of shell beads in Africa and the Near East dating back 35,000 years earlier, showing that symbolic thinking emerged more gradually through human evolution.
Curiously, shell beads disappear from the archaeological record in Africa and the Near East 70,000 years ago, along with other cultural innovations such as engravings on ochre slabs, and refined bone tools and projectile points. They reappear in different forms up to 30,000 years later, with personal ornaments simultaneously re-emerging in Africa and the Near East, and for the first time in Europe and Asia. This may reflect an entirely new and independent phase of population growth with previously unseen innovations allowing a more efficient exploitation of a wider variety of environments.
The temporary disappearance of cultural innovations could well be linked to population decreases during a long period of harsher climate conditions 60,000 to 73,000 years ago. This would have isolated populations, disrupting social and exchange networks.
This study was part of a broad network of 21 research projects and 44 individual research teams from 12 European countries forming the European Science Foundation EUROCORES programme 'Origin of Man, Language and Languages' (OMLL). This highly interdisciplinary collaborative action brought together scientists from a wide range of disciplines including genetics, linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, neurophysiology or cognitive sciences.
Dr Eva Hoogland, EUROCORES coordinator for the cognitive sciences at the European Science Foundation said: "This study presents a very good example of the groundbreaking results that can be gained from an interdisciplinary environment. Some questions, such as those concerning the interconnections between human cognition and culture, can only be addressed if scientists of varying backgrounds join forces. As witnessed by this study, this opens up new avenues for research when it happens on a structural basis, by leading scientists from across Europe."
Posts: 6572 | From: N.Y.C....Capital of the World | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by MindoverMatter718: Shell beads newly unearthed from four sites in Morocco confirm early humans were consistently wearing and potentially trading symbolic jewelry as early as 80,000 years ago. These beads add significantly to similar finds dating back as far as 110,000 in Algeria, Morocco, Israel and South Africa, confirming these as the oldest form of personal ornaments. This crucial step towards modern culture is reported this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
As noted above,from the northern parts of Africa (Morocco) to the southern coastal parts of South Africa on into Isreal (Jebel Qafzeh), there is evidence for humans possessing "cognitive cognition" in Africa for over 100kya before they made a successful journey out to populate the world...
Posts: 6572 | From: N.Y.C....Capital of the World | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged |
I'd made the point years back that abstract thinking goes back millions of years. One has to think abstractly to envision a rock tool from a rock and rock tools have been made for at least two million years.
Mary Leaky discovered a sculpture of a face going back 3 million years (see pic. 1).
There are putative beads found in Somalia going back 125,000 years. I read that once and tried to find a better reference for it but could not. If anyone has that reference, please let me know.
The first crowns, the forerunner to the diadem and golden crown, was made of beads of African folk in Russia from 25,000 years ago. By then, abstract thinking as found in art was as sophisticated as any found today.
By the way, the number of beads found with the probably tribal king of 25,000 years ago in picture 1 was over 12,000 and it is estimated it took several hours to make a single bead. One could argue not only that they were as sophisticated as we but more sophisticated than we.
Another medium revealing abstract thinking and using a different medium was rock art of the human. An early case is picture 1 below going back to France of some 25,000 years ago showing a black stick figure laying on the ground with a spear-thrower who was killed by a bison.
Abstract thinking emerged into rock art as with the black stick figure with the spear-thrower from 25,000 to 30,000 years ago. Rock art forms the world’s first art gallery. Compliments of the African
posted
Where is Euronut-slayed? Oh that's right his dumbass is too scared to touch this material that puts Africa at its primacy.
Posts: 26249 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Mark Washington said: [/QUOTE] I'd made the point years back that abstract thinking goes back millions of years. One has to think abstractly to envision a rock tool from a rock and rock tools have been made for at least two million years.
Mary Leaky discovered a sculpture of a face going back 3 million years (see pic. 1).
I'd made the point years back that abstract thinking goes back millions of years. One has to think abstractly to envision a rock tool from a rock and rock tools have been made for at least two million years.
Mary Leaky discovered a sculpture of a face going back 3 million years (see pic. 1).
Thanks for that 3 million year old head from Africa and All! When I was studying Paleoanthropology, back in early 80's this info was very quickly mentioned and our primary focus was brought to comb over specifics of the so called neolithic revolution in central Asia. We were taught that art and complex cognition first appeared here.
I saved a copy of National Geographic: Oct 1988 issue titled "The Peopling of the Earth". I could not figure out how to post the OUTRAGEOUS cover because I am still tech-challenged. This issue was subtitled; "Astonishing Ice Age discovery: Oldest realistic human portrait?" unquote. At first glance this is obviously such a forgery! Exactly in the same spirit as the Piltdown hoax or the more recent, King Tut 'MakeOver'! Posts: 84 | From: Oakland, Caifornia | Registered: Sep 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
I keep coming back to this ever since I joined this community earlier this year..and hard as I try I can't find anything but the views of some folks who will eventually find a space alien angle. not judging but I need a more drier look at this. There is a find in Southern Africa, about an important archeological find called the Adam's Calender which is assumptively acclaimed to be 75,000 years old or more. Has anyone heard of this structure and if it is a authentic archeological discovery , what would be the actual carbon dating of the stone. Many people claim for it to be a hoax, but there is suggestive evidence to say it was a archeological structure that is similar to Stone Hedge. According to some archeologist, these peculiar structures, are said to be inspired by astronomy
South African Explorers Discover The Oldest Man-made Structure on Earth
An Extract From Adam's Calendar - The Book
The Johan Heine Stone Calendar (affectionately called Adam’s Calendar) has been dated by astronomer Bill Hollenbach to be around 75,000 years, based on the movement of the peoples in southern Africa and the emergence of rock art during that period. But it could in fact be even older – dating back to the dawn of Homo sapiens some 250,000 years ago. Adam’s Calendar firmly places the many ancient ruins of southern Africa at a point in history that we modern humans have never faced before – some 75,000 ago. It therefore symbolises the FIRST FRE
These circular ruins are spread over thousands of square kilometres. They can only truly be appreciated from the air, and those lucky enough to view these ruins from the air will be able to see hundreds of ruins in a one-hour trip.
Many of them have almost completely eroded or have been covered by the movement of soil, while some have survived and still display the great sizes of the original walls that stand 2,5 metres high and over a metre wide in places. Prof Guy Charlesworth of Wits University concurs that if these were the original heights of some of the walls, it would have taken thousands of years to erode to knee-height through the effects of nature alone. www.allempires.net/forum/adams-calender-struc...Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Grumman: By the way, 'sup with the 100,000 year old mining in South Africa (not mentioned anywhere here.) Whose dating period, I don't know. Don't even know if it's true or not. T'was long ago I read it. Sho' nuff did read it... long time ago; long, long before the internet.
Too bad you'd never kept up with the reading huh...
Posts: 6572 | From: N.Y.C....Capital of the World | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
To continue along the same lines Back in 2002, a team working at Blombos Cave in South Africa reported finding two 77,000 year old pieces of ochre (one of which is pictured here) etched with what appears to be a deliberate cross-hatched pattern. The findings were published in Science, and I wrote about them at the time. A couple of years later, the same team, led by Christopher Henshilwood of the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa and the University of Bergen in Norway, reported equally old shell beads that may have been used as personal ornaments. Many, although not all, researchers interpreted these finds as evidence of early symbolic behavior and maybe even art. Indeed, the discoveries eventually convinced many scientists that symbolic behavior did not begin during the so-called "Upper Paleolithic creative explosion" in Europe 40,000 years ago but much earlier.
In this week's Science, I report on new finds of etched ochre, some dated 100,000 years old, from Blombos Cave. The work was presented at a meeting in Cape Town in January and is also in press at the Journal of Human Evolution. Here are a few extracts of my report:
To analyze the latest finds, Henshilwood teamed up with Francesco d'Errico of the University of Bordeaux in France and independent ochre expert Ian Watts, who is based in Athens. The trick with ancient ochre is to figure out what early humans were using it for. Many previous studies have concluded that ochre was often ground to make a powder, which could have been used to paint bodies--a form of social identification usually considered symbolic--or for more utilitarian purposes. For example, Lynnette Wadley of Witwatersrand has argued from modern-day experiments that ground ochre could have been used as a kind of glue to haft stone tools into wooden or bone handles. So Henshilwood and colleagues focused their attention on 13 pieces engraved in ways that seemed inconsistent with grinding alone. Some pieces have lines arranged in apparent fan-shaped or crosshatched designs; others are etched in wavy patterns. Microscopic examination showed that these engravings had been made with a pointed stone tool and a finely controlled hand.
Of the 13 pieces, eight were found at levels reliably dated to about 100,000 years ago. And Henshilwood's team argues that the findings of similar etched pieces at both 77,000 and 100,000 years ago is particularly significant:
... some of the oldest pieces have a crosshatched pattern similar to that of the two original ochre pieces dated to 77,000 years ago. And other researchers have very recently discovered similar crosshatched patterns on a few African stone and bone objects thought to be as old as the new finds, or nearly so. This refutes suggestions that the marks are merely doodles, Henshilwood says, and suggests a 25,000-year tradition of symbolic representation.
I quote a couple of researchers who aren't entirely convinced, on various grounds, that the pieces indicate symbolic behavior. But even if they did, we will probably never know what they really meant to the people who engraved them. michael-balter.blogspot.com/2009/02/earlier-s...
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
New evidence indicates that people living in Africa 90,000 years ago carved barbed bone points to spear fish and even organized annual fishing expeditions. This discovery challenges the widely accepted theory that the complex thinking and behavior necessary for major cultural changes arose in Europe no earlier than 35,000 years ago.
"What's exciting is that we're seeing strategic planning for subsistence by people who lived so long ago," says Alison S. Brooks, an archaeologist at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. "Humans in Africa invented sophisticated ...
This is the first page of the item you requested. .Barbed Bone Points: Tradition and Continuity in Saharan and Sub-Saharan AfricaJohn E. YellenThe African Archaeological Review, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Sep., 1998), pp. 173-198 (article consists of 26 pages) Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25130656
Abstract Examination of African barbed bone points recovered from Holocene sites provides a context to interpret three Late Pleistocene occurrences from Katanda and Ishango, Zaire, and White Paintings Shelter, Botswana. In sites dated to ca. 10,000 BP and younger, such artifacts are found widely distributed across the Sahara Desert, the Sahel, the Nile, and the East African Lakes. They are present in both ceramic and aceramic contexts, sometimes associated with domesticates. The almost-universal presence of fish remains indicates a subsistence adaptation which incorporates a riverine/lacustrine component. Typologically these points exhibit sufficient similarity in form and method of manufacture to be subsumed within a single African "tradition." They are absent at Fayum, where a distinct Natufian form occurs. Specimens dating to ca. 20,000 BP at Ishango, possibly a similar age at White Paintings Shelter, and up to 90,000 BP at Katanda clearly fall within this same African tradition and thus indicate a very long-term continuity which crosses traditionally conceived sub-Saharan cultural boundaries
The Ishango bone (c. 20,000 BCE) is the oldest record of mathematics in the form of groups of notches on a baboon fibula.
Figure 5. Lip-plugs made of bone. These were inserted into the lips to alter their shape and have been known in the Sudan since Neolithic times. They are still used by some African societies today
More on Bolombs finds Abstract Twenty-eight bone tools were recovered in situ from ca. 70 ka year old Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave between 1992 and 2000. These tools are securely provenienced and are the largest collection to come from a single African Middle Stone Age site. Detailed analyses show that tool production methods follow a sequence of deliberate technical choices starting with blank production, the use of various shaping methods and the final finishing of the artefact to produce “awls” and “projectile points”. Tool production processes in the Middle Stone Age at Blombos Cave conform to generally accepted descriptions of “formal” techniques of bone tool manufacture. Comparisons with similar bone tools from the Later Stone Age at Blombos Cave, other Cape sites and ethnographic collections show that although shaping methods are different, the planning and execution of bone tool manufacture in the Middle Stone Age is consistent with that in the late Holocene.
The bone tool collection from Blombos Cave is remarkable because bone tools are rarely found in African Middle or Later Stone Age sites before ca. 25 ka. Scarcity of early bone tools is cited as one strand of evidence supporting models for nonmodern behaviour linked to a lack of modern technological or cognitive capacity before ca. 50 ka. Bone artefacts are a regular feature in European sites after ca. 40 ka, are closely associated with the arrival of anatomically modern humans and are a key behavioural marker of the Upper Palaeolithic “symbolic explosion” linked to the evolution of modern behaviour.
Taken together with recent finds from Klasies River, Katanda and other African Middle Stone Age sites the Blombos Cave evidence for formal bone working, deliberate engraving on ochre, production of finely made bifacial points and sophisticated subsistence strategies is turning the tide in favour of models positing behavioural modernity in Africa at a time far earlier than previously accepted.
linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0047248401905159
Posts: 6546 | From: japan | Registered: Feb 2009
| IP: Logged |
posted
Modern Behavior of Early Humans Found Half-Million Years Earlier Than Thought
quote: ScienceDaily (Dec. 22, 2009) — Evidence of sophisticated, human behavior has been discovered by Hebrew University of Jerusalem researchers as early as 750,000 years ago -- some half a million years earlier than has previously been estimated by archaeologists.
The discovery was made in the course of excavations at the prehistoric Gesher Benot Ya'aqov site, located along the Dead Sea rift in the southern Hula Valley of northern Israel, by a team from the Hebrew University Institute of Archaeology. Analysis of the spatial distribution of the findings there reveals a pattern of specific areas in which various activities were carried out. This kind of designation indicates a formalized conceptualization of living space, requiring social organization and communication between group members. Such organizational skills are thought to be unique to modern humans.
Attempts until now to trace the origins of such behavior at various prehistoric sites in the world have concentrated on spatial analyses of Middle Paleolithic sites, where activity areas, particularly those associated with hearths, have been found dating back only to some 250,000 years ago.
The new Hebrew University study, a report on which is published in Science magazine, describes an Acheulian (an early stone tools culture) layer at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov that has been dated to about 750,000 years ago. The evidence found there consists of numerous stone tools, animal bones and a rich collection of botanical remains.
Analyses of the spatial distribution of all these finds revealed two activity areas in the layer: the first area is characterized by abundant evidence of flint tool manufacturing. A high density of fish remains in this area also suggests that the processing and consumption of many fish were carried out in this area -- one of the earliest evidences for fish consumption by prehistoric people anywhere.
In the second area, identified evidence indicates a greater variation of activities -- all of which took place in the vicinity of a hearth. The many wood pieces found in this area were used as fuel for the fire. Processing of basalt and limestone was spatially restricted to the hearth area, where activities indicate the use of large stone tools such as hand axes, chopping tools, scrapers, and awls. The presence of stone hammers, and in particular of pitted anvils (used as nutting stones), suggest that nut processing was carried out near the hearth and may have involved the use of nut roasting. In addition, fish and crabs were probably consumed near the hearth.
The Gesher Benot Ya'aqov excavations were carried out under the direction of Prof. Naama Goren-Inbar. The research collaborators are Dr. Ella Werker, Dr. Nira Alperson-Afil, Dr. Gonen Sharon, Dr. Rivka Rabinovich, Dr. Shosh Ashkenazi, Dr. Irit Zohar and Rebecca Biton of the Hebrew University Institute of Archaeology. Prof. Mordechai Kislev and Dr. Yoel Melamed of Bar Ilan University, Dr. Gideon Hartman of the Max Planck Institute and Prof. Craig Feibel of Rutgers Universit
Posts: 6572 | From: N.Y.C....Capital of the World | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
^Which would in effect predate anatomically modern humans altogether. I had already raised a question pertaining to this, with regards to the Homo Erectus elsewhere.
-------------------- The Complete Picture of the Past tells Us what Not to Repeat Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by The Explorer: ^Which would in effect predate anatomically modern humans altogether.
Indeed basically. And what is notable is how early these humans were consuming fish, perhaps this early consumption by Homo Erectus increasingly influenced these early humans to become anatomically modern, as fish has a perfect source of fats that are essential for normal bodily functions, including brain activity and other cell activities.
Analyses of the spatial distribution of all these finds revealed two activity areas in the layer: the first area is characterized by abundant evidence of flint tool manufacturing. A high density of fish remains in this area also suggests that the processing and consumption of many fish were carried out in this area -- one of the earliest evidences for fish consumption by prehistoric people anywhere. In the second area, identified evidence indicates a greater variation of activities -- all of which took place in the vicinity of a hearth. The many wood pieces found in this area were used as fuel for the fire. Processing of basalt and limestone was spatially restricted to the hearth area, where activities indicate the use of large stone tools such as hand axes, chopping tools, scrapers, and awls. The presence of stone hammers, and in particular of pitted anvils (used as nutting stones), suggest that nut processing was carried out near the hearth and may have involved the use of nut roasting. In addition, fish and crabs were probably consumed near the hearth.
This tells us that when anatomically modern humans evolved from homo Erectus in Africa that these skills (sophisticated tool making, fishing) were already installed into the human mind.
quote:Originally posted by The Explorer: I had already raised a question pertaining to this, with regards to the Homo Erectus elsewhere.
Thanks for the link, I'll read into it.
Posts: 6572 | From: N.Y.C....Capital of the World | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
The link basically contains a compilation of posts I had made here before, but with new additional insights in some areas.
-------------------- The Complete Picture of the Past tells Us what Not to Repeat Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
I wish there were more excavations done throughout Africa as this indicates there must be more and it's probably in abundance, only problem is "the people" only want to excavate in Southwest Asia... even though it's not the homeplace (Africa) of anatomically modern humans!
Posts: 6572 | From: N.Y.C....Capital of the World | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
Well, if for nothing else, these sort of finds should serve as anatomically modern humans having been predisposed to "behaving modernly" from the very start of their evolutionary history, which for the most part would be placed on the African continent, if and when the circumstances allowed it.
Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
Vincent Mourre,1,2 Paola Villa,3,4,5,* Christopher S. Henshilwood6,7
Pressure flaking has been considered to be an Upper Paleolithic innovation dating to ~20,000 years ago (20 ka). Replication experiments show that pressure flaking best explains the morphology of lithic artifacts recovered from the ~75-ka Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa. The technique was used during the final shaping of Still Bay bifacial points made on heat-treated silcrete. Application of this innovative technique allowed for a high degree of control during the detachment of individual flakes, resulting in thinner, narrower, and sharper tips on bifacial points. This technology may have been first invented and used sporadically in Africa before its later widespread adoption.
quote: Origin of Skillful Stone-Tool-Sharpening Method Pushed Back More Than 50,000 Years
(Oct. 29, 2010) — A highly skillful and delicate method of sharpening and retouching stone artifacts by prehistoric people appears to have been developed at least 75,000 years ago, more than 50,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder.
The new findings show that the technique, known as pressure flaking, took place at Blombos Cave in South Africa during the Middle Stone Age by anatomically modern humans and involved the heating of silcrete -- quartz grains cemented by silica -- used to make tools. Pressure flaking takes place when implements previously shaped by hard stone hammer strikes followed by softer strikes with wood or bone hammers are carefully trimmed on the edges by directly pressing the point of a tool made of bone on the stone artifact.
The technique provides a better means of controlling the sharpness, thickness and overall shape of bifacial tools like spearheads and stone knives, said Paola Villa, a curator at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History and a study co-author. Prior to the Blombos Cave discovery, the earliest evidence of pressure flaking was from the Upper Paleolithic Solutrean culture in France and Spain roughly 20,000 years ago.
"This finding is important because it shows that modern humans in South Africa had a sophisticated repertoire of tool-making techniques at a very early time," said Villa. "This innovation is a clear example of a tendency to develop new functional ideas and techniques widely viewed as symptomatic of advanced, or modern, behavior."
A paper on the subject was published in the Oct. 29 issue of Science. Other study co-authors included Vincent Mourre of the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research in France and Christopher Henshilwood of the University of Bergen in Norway and director of the Blombos Cave excavation. The research was funded by the Wenner Gren Foundation of New York.
"Using the pressure flaking technique required strong hands and allowed toolmakers to exert a high degree of control on the final shape and thinness that cannot be achieved by percussion," Villa said. "This control helped to produce narrower and sharper tool tips." The bifacial points, known as Still Bay points, likely were spearheads, she said.
The authors speculated that the pressure flaking technique may have been invented in Africa and used sporadically before its later, widespread adoption in Europe, Australia and North America. North American archaeologists have shown that Paleoindians used the pressure flaking technique to fashion stone points likely used to hunt a menagerie of now-extinct mammals like mammoths, mastodons and ancient horses.
With the exception of obsidian, jasper and some high-quality flint, few stone materials can be pressure flaked without first heating them, Villa said. While there is evidence of silcrete heating some 164,000 years ago at the Pinnacle Point site in South Africa, the Blombos Cave artifacts are the first clear evidence of the skillful pressure flaking technique being used to carefully shape, refine and retouch tools, said Villa.
There are several ways to confirm whether silcrete has been heat-treated, Villa said. Archaeologists at Pinnacle Point used two common methods called thermoluminescence and archaeomagnetism that require the destruction of stone tool samples, as well as a non-destructive technique known as maximum gloss analysis.
Villa, Mourre and Henshilwood used a visual method for the Blombos Cave artifact analysis based on the contrast between heated and unheated tool surfaces observed microscopically at low magnification. While the removal of flakes from unheated silcrete produces scar surfaces with a rough, dull texture, heat-treated silcrete scar surfaces have a smooth, glossy appearance, said Villa.
The researchers analyzed 159 silcrete points and fragments, 179 other retouched pieces and more than 700 flakes from a layer in Blombos Cave linked to the so-called Still Bay industry, a Middle Stone Age tool manufacturing style that started roughly 76,000 years ago and which may have lasted until 72,000 years ago. The researchers concluded that at least half of the ancient, finished points at Blombos Cave were retouched by pressure flaking.
In addition to the microscopic analysis of the tools, the team also used experimental replication to show that pressure flaking was used in the final retouching phase of the points. The shaping of both heated and non-heated tools -- known as knapping -- was done by Mourre using silcrete chunks collected by Henshilwood from outcrops roughly 20 miles from Blombos Cave.
The silcrete samples used in the replication stage of the study were heated by Henshilwood in collaboration with Kyle Brown of Arizona State University, who published a 2009 paper in Science on the heat-treatment of silcrete in South Africa. The team members compared attributes of points and flakes created for the experiments by percussion and pressure with points and flakes found in Blombos Cave, finding that unheated silcrete chunks first shaped with quartzite stone hammers and further worked on with wooden hammers known as billets could not be pressure flaked.
"Pressure flaking adds to the repertoire of technological advances during the Still Bay (period) and helps define it as a time when novel ideas were rapidly introduced," wrote the authors in Science. "This flexible approach to technology may have conferred an advantage to the groups of Homo sapiens who migrated out of Africa about 60,000 years ago."
Posts: 6572 | From: N.Y.C....Capital of the World | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
I was looking for the following study to post here on this thread ever since I read it almost a year ago, but forgot the name, I finally came across it again so here it is...
Mozambican Grass Seed Consumption During the Middle Stone Age
The role of starchy plants in early hominin diets and when the culinary processing of starches began have been difficult to track archaeologically. Seed collecting is conventionally perceived to have been an irrelevant activity among the Pleistocene foragers of southern Africa, on the grounds of both technological difficulty in the processing of grains and the belief that roots, fruits, and nuts, not cereals, were the basis for subsistence for the past 100,000 years and further back in time. A large assemblage of starch granules has been retrieved from the surfaces of Middle Stone Age stone tools from Mozambique, showing that early Homo sapiens relied on grass seeds starting at least 105,000 years ago, including those of sorghum grasses.
quote: Stone Age Pantry: Archaeologist Unearths Earliest Evidence of Modern Humans Using Wild Grains and Tubers for Food
(Dec. 18, 2009) — The consumption of wild cereals among prehistoric hunters and gatherers appears to be far more ancient than previously thought, according to a University of Calgary archaeologist who has found the oldest example of extensive reliance on cereal and root staples in the diet of early Homo sapiens more than 100,000 years ago.
Julio Mercader, holder of the Canada Research Chair in Tropical Archaeology in the U of C's Department of Archaeology, recovered dozens of stone tools from a deep cave in Mozambique showing that wild sorghum, the ancestor of the chief cereal consumed today in sub-Saharan Africa for flours, breads, porridges and alcoholic beverages, was in Homo sapiens' pantry along with the African wine palm, the false banana, pigeon peas, wild oranges and the African "potato." This is the earliest direct evidence of humans using pre-domesticated cereals anywhere in the world. Mercader's findings are published in the December 18 issue of the research journal Science.
"This broadens the timeline for the use of grass seeds by our species, and is proof of an expanded and sophisticated diet much earlier than we believed," Mercader said. "It has been hypothesized that starch use represents a critical step in human evolution by improving the quality of the diet in the African savannas and woodlands where the modern human line first evolved. This could be considered one of the earliest examples of this dietary transformation,"
In 2007, Mercader and colleagues from Mozambique's University of Eduardo Mondlane excavated a limestone cave near Lake Niassa that was used intermittently by ancient foragers over the course of more than 60,000 years. Deep in this cave, they uncovered dozens of stone tools, animal bones and plant remains indicative of prehistoric dietary practices. The discovery of several thousand starch grains on the excavated plant grinders and scrapers showed that wild sorghum was being brought to the cave and processed systematically.
"It has been hypothesized that starch use represents a critical step in human evolution by improving the quality of the diet in the African savannas and woodlands where the modern human line first evolved. This could be considered one of the earliest examples of this dietary transformation," Mercader said. "The inclusion of cereals in our diet is considered an important step in human evolution because of the technical complexity and the culinary manipulation that are required to turn grains into staples."
Mercader said the evidence is on par with grass seed use by hunter-gatherers in many parts of the world during the closing stages of the last Ice Age, approximately 12,000 years ago. In this case, the trend dates back to the beginnings of the Ice Age, some 90,000 years earlier.
Mercader's work was supported by the Canada Research Chairs program, Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the U of C's Faculty of Social Science and the National Geographic Society.
Posts: 6572 | From: N.Y.C....Capital of the World | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged |
quote: Lithic technology and behavioural modernity: New results from the Still Bay site, Hollow Rock Shelter, Western Cape Province, South Africa
Anders Högberg, a, and Lars Larsson, 5 April 2011.
Abstract
The Hollow Rock Shelter site in Western Cape Province, South Africa, was excavated in 1993 and 2008. This study presents new results from a technological analysis of Still Bay points and bifacial flakes from the site. The results show that Still Bay points from the site are standardized tools. The points in the assemblage consist of a complex mixture of whole and fragmented points in all phases of production. The fragmentation degree is high; approximately 80% of the points are broken. A high proportion of bending fractures shows that several of the points were discarded due to production failures, and points with impact damage or hafting traces show that used points were left in the cave. This illustrates that the production of points as well as replacement of used points took place at the site. The result also shows that worked but not finished preforms and points were left at the site, suggestive of future preparation. The points were produced within the framework of three different chaînes opératoires, all ending up in a typologically uniform tool. This shows that the manufacture of Still Bay points should be regarded as a special bifacial technology, only partly comparable with other bifacial technologies. A raw material analysis shows that locally available quartz and quartzite were used in the production, and that points made of silcrete were brought to the site. Based on the technological analysis, a discussion of behavioural modernity, focusing on hypotheses about social interaction, experimentation, different strategies for learning to knap, and landscape memories, results in an interpretation that behavioural modernity was established at Hollow Rock Shelter in the Still Bay phase of the southern African Middle Stone Age.
Cutting Edge Training Developed the Human Brain 80,000 Years Ago
— Advanced crafting of stone spearheads contributed to the development of new ways of human thinking and behaving, according to new findings by archaeologists from Lund University. The technology took a long time to acquire, required step by step planning and increased social interaction across the generations. This led to the human brain developing new abilities.
Some 200,000 years ago, small groups of people wandered across Africa, looking anatomically much like present-day humans, but not thinking the way we do today. Studies of fossils and the rate of mutations in DNA show that the human species to which we all belong -- Homo sapiens sapiens -- has existed for 200,000 years.
But the archaeological research of recent years has shown that, even though the most ancient traces of modern humans are 200,000 years old, the development of modern cognitive behaviour is probably much younger. For about 100,000 years, there were people who looked like us, but who were cognitively and socially very different from us.
It is precisely that period of transformation that the researchers at Lund University in Sweden have studied. In the next issue of the Journal of Human Evolution, they present new findings on the early modern humans that existed in what is now South Africa, approximately 80,000 years ago.
The findings show that people at that time used advanced technology for the production of spearheads and that the complicated crafting process likely developed the working memory and social life of humans.
"When the technology was passed from one generation to the next, from adults to children, it became part of a cultural learning process which created a socially more advanced society than before. This affected the development of the human brain and cognitive ability," says Anders Högberg, PhD.
The technology led to increased social interaction within and across the generations. This happened because the crafting of stone spearheads took a long time to learn and required a lot of knowledge, both theoretical and practical. Producing a stone spearhead also required the ability to plan in several stages. This social learning contributed to the subsequent development of early modern humans' cognitive ability to express symbolism and abstract thoughts through their material culture, for example in the form of decorated objects.
"The excavations have been carried out in a small cave; the location we have studied is called Hollow Rock Shelter and lies 250 km north of Cape Town. We are cooperating with the University of Cape Town and the research we have just published is part of a larger research project on this location," says Professor Lars Larsson.
Posts: 6572 | From: N.Y.C....Capital of the World | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
^ I'm pretty sure there was more to it than merely a passed on tradition of tool-making since even chimpanzees and bonobos were found to have traditions of tool making themselves albeit much simpler forms. And what of extinct species of the genus Homo? I'm pretty sure H. erectus and H. habilis had similar traditions.
Posts: 26249 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged |
Anyone know where the thread on the Rift Valley and it's cognitive impact on hominids / hominid ancestors went, or even ever hear of such a thing?
Posts: 5555 | From: Tha 5th Dimension. | Registered: Apr 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
^Mind718 has done a decent job of maintaining these interesting articles under one thread.
Now, thanks to Evergreen's posting, we have this as well:
October 13, 2011 NY Times
In African Cave, Signs of an Ancient Paint Factory
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Digging deeper in a South African cave that had already yielded surprises from the Middle Stone Age, archaeologists have uncovered a 100,000-year-old workshop holding the tools and ingredients with which early modern humans apparently mixed some of the first known paint.
These cave artisans had stones for pounding and grinding colorful dirt enriched with a kind of iron oxide to a powder, known as ocher. This was blended with the binding fat of mammal-bone marrow and a dash of charcoal. Traces of ocher were left on the tools, and samples of the reddish compound were collected in large abalone shells, where the paint was liquefied, stirred and scooped out with a bone spatula.
Archaeologists said that in the workshop remains they were seeing the earliest example yet of how emergent Homo sapiens processed ocher, one of the species’ first pigments in wide use, its red color apparently rich in symbolic significance. The early humans may have applied the concoction to their skin for protection or simply decoration, experts suggested. Perhaps it was their way of making social and artistic statements on their bodies or their artifacts.
Of special importance to the scientists who made the discovery, the ocher workshop showed that early humans, whose anatomy was modern, had also begun thinking like us. In a report published online on Thursday in the journal Science, the researchers called this evidence of early conceptual abilities “a benchmark in the evolution of complex human cognition.”
The discovery dials back the date when the modern Homo sapiens population was known to have started using paint. Previously, no workshop older than 60,000 years had come to light, and the earliest cave and rock art began appearing about 40,000 years ago. The exuberant flowering among the Cro-Magnon artists in the caves of Europe would come even later; the parade of animals on the walls of Lascaux in France, for example, was executed 17,000 years ago.
The cave people in South Africa were already learning to find, combine and store substances, skills that reflected advanced technology and social practices as well as the creativity of the self-aware.
The paint makers also appeared to have developed an elementary knowledge of chemistry and some understanding of long-term planning earlier than previously thought.
The discovery was made at Blombos Cave, 200 miles east of Cape Town, on a high cliff facing the Indian Ocean at the tip of South Africa. Christopher S. Henshilwood, of the University of Bergen in Norway and the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, led the team of researchers from Australia, France, Norway and South Africa.
Much of the analysis and dating of the material was directed by Francesco d’Errico of the University of Bordeaux in France.
The two clusters of tools and two ocher-filled abalone shells were found in 2008.
But Dr. Henshilwood said in an e-mail that it had taken a great deal of time and repeated testing to determine the age of the material and “make sure that the ocherous-looking deposits on each tool did in fact relate to the substance within the shells.”
Alison S. Brooks, an archaeologist at George Washington University who studies the Middle Stone Age in Africa but was not involved in this research, said, “This is another spectacular discovery from Blombos.”
Archaeologists and other scholars have come to expect the unexpected from Blombos Cave. In the past decade, Dr. Henshilwood’s teams have shaken conventional wisdom by finding persuasive evidence that people living in the cave were taking important strides toward modern behavior.
The researchers reported in 2001 finding tools there made from animal bones and finely worked stone weapon points. They gathered hundreds of pieces of ocher stone, including two inscribed with crisscrossed triangles and horizontal lines. This was occurring 75,000 years ago, some 40,000 years before the “creative explosion” of self-adornment and cave paintings once thought of as the sudden origin of human self-expression.
At the time of the first Blombos discovery, Dr. Henshilwood said, “We’re pushing back the date of symbolic thinking in modern humans — far, far back.”
And a few years earlier, Dr. Brooks and Sally McBrearty, an anthropologist at the University of Connecticut, published a comprehensive study of various African sites showing, they said, “the gradual assembling of the package of modern human behaviors in Africa and its later export to other regions of the Old World.”
Dr. Brooks noted this week that large quantities of ocher had been found elsewhere in Africa even before the 100,000-year-old workshop.
Recent research has also documented ocher’s early use in Africa as an adhesive to haft small points onto weapon shafts.
“But the Blombos discovery, not only of elaborate ocher processing but also of its mixture with marrow fat to produce a paint, rather than with plant resin to produce a mastic, argues strongly for its symbolic function,” Dr. Brooks said in an interview.
The assumed symbolic role of red ocher, Dr. Henshilwood said, comes from the large amounts of the predominantly red material found at a number of African sites as old as 160,000 years.
It is supposed that the color red relates to blood’s being associated with life and death or menstruation and fertility.
Based on the absence of scattered animal and seafood bones, hearths and other evidence of typical living quarters, the archaeologists said that the ocher artisans did not occupy the cave for long periods.
They came only to work, collecting their hammer stones and grindstones nearby and the chunks of ocher from perhaps as far away as 12 miles.
Inside the cave, the artisans chipped and crushed the soft ocher stones. They may have heated the mammal bones before crushing them, to enhance the extraction of the marrow fat. Then the fat, iron oxide powder, charcoal, stone chips, quartz grains and an unknown liquid were gently stirred in the shells from the abalone they may have feasted on the day before.
Over the years, windblown sand enveloped the workshop, preserving its tools in hardened sediments just below younger layers when life flourished at Blombos Cave and, most likely, it was often painted red.
The point of this thread, in case anyone out there is still wondering, is to squash the fallacy of some unexplained sudden "milestone" of human behavior associated with the movement of people in the so-called "Near East" circa 45,000 years ago, and, to show that complex human behavior, with which we can relate to today, was essentially exported from Africa to other parts of the globe, as humans spread. So, paleontologist/archaeologist Donald Johanson (discoverer of "Lucy") got it right:
Basically, Africans exported "modern behavior" to other parts of the globe.Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
Middle Stone Age Bedding Construction and Settlement Patterns at Sibudu, South Africa
Lyn Wadley1,2,*, Christine Sievers1, Marion Bamford3, Paul Goldberg4,5, Francesco Berna5, Christopher Miller4
ABSTRACT
The Middle Stone Age (MSA) is associated with early behavioral innovations , expansions of modern humans within and out of Africa , and occasional population bottlenecks . Several innovations in the MSA are seen in an archaeological sequence in the rock shelter Sibudu (South Africa). At ~77,000 years ago, people constructed plant bedding from sedges and other monocotyledons topped with aromatic leaves containing insecticidal and larvicidal chemicals. Beginning at ~73,000 years ago, bedding was burned, presumably for site maintenance. By ~58,000 years ago, bedding construction, burning, and other forms of site use and maintenance intensified , suggesting that settlement strategies changed. Behavioral differences between ~77,000 and 58,000 years ago may coincide with population fluctuations in Africa .Posts: 6572 | From: N.Y.C....Capital of the World | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
77,000-Year-Old Evidence for 'Bedding' and Use of Medicinal Plants Uncovered at South African Rock Shelter
(Dec. 8, 2011) — Researchers have discovered the earliest evidence for the intentional construction of plant "bedding."
An international team of archaeologists, with the participation of Christopher Miller, junior professor at the University of Tübingen, is reporting 77,000-year-old evidence for preserved plant bedding and the use of insect-repelling plants in a rock shelter in South Africa. This discovery is 50,000 years older than earlier reports of preserved bedding and provides a fascinating insight into the behavioural practices of early modern humans in southern Africa.
The team, led by Lyn Wadley of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in collaboration with Christopher Miller (University of Tübingen, Germany), Christine Sievers and Marion Bamford (University of the Witwatersrand), and Paul Goldberg and Francesco Berna (Boston University, USA), is reporting the discovery in the journal Science, available online this week.
The ancient bedding was uncovered during excavations at Sibudu rock shelter (KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa), where Prof. Wadley has been digging since 1998. At least 15 different layers at the site contain plant bedding, dated between 77,000 and 38,000 years ago. The bedding consists of centimetre-thick layers of compacted stems and leaves of sedges and rushes, extending over at least one square meter and up to three square meters of the excavated area. Christine Sievers, of the University of the Witwatersrand, was able to identify several types of sedges and rushes used in the construction of the bedding.
The oldest evidence for bedding at the site is particularly well-preserved, and consists of a layer of fossilized sedge stems and leaves, overlain by a tissue-paper-thin layer of leaves, identified by botanist Marion Bamford as belonging to Cryptocarya woodii, or River Wild-quince. The leaves of this tree contain chemicals that are insecticidal, and would be suitable for repelling mosquitoes. "The selection of these leaves for the construction of bedding suggests that the inhabitants of Sibudu had an intimate knowledge of the plants surrounding the shelter, and were aware of their medicinal uses. Herbal medicines would have provided advantages for early human health, and the use of insect-repelling plants adds a new dimension to our understanding of human behaviour 77,000 years ago" said Lyn Wadley, honorary professor at the University of the Witwatersrand.
"The inhabitants would have collected the sedges and rushes from along the uThongathi River, located directly below the site, and laid the plants on the floor of the shelter. The bedding was not just used for sleeping, but would have provided a comfortable surface for living and working," said Wadley. Microscopic analysis of the bedding, conducted by Christopher Miller, junior-professor for geoarchaeology at the University of Tübingen, suggests that the inhabitants repeatedly refurbished the bedding during the course of occupation.
The microscopic analysis also demonstrated that after 73,000 years ago, the inhabitants of Sibudu regularly burned the bedding after use. "They lit the used bedding on fire, possibly as a way to remove pests. This would have prepared the site for future occupation and represents a novel use of fire for the maintenance of an occupation site," said Miller.
The preserved bedding is also associated with the remains of numerous fireplaces and ash dumps. Beginning at 58,000 years ago, the number of hearths, bedding and ash dumps increases dramatically. The archaeologists believe that this is a result of increased occupation of the site. In the article, the archaeologists argue that the increased occupation may correspond with changing demographics within Africa at the time. By around 50,000 years ago, modern humans began expanding out of Africa, eventually replacing archaic forms of humans in Eurasia, including the Neanderthals.
This discovery adds to a long list of important finds at Sibudu over the past decade, including perforated seashells, believed to have been used as beads, and sharpened bone points, likely used for hunting. Wadley and others have also presented early evidence from the site for the development of bow and arrow technology, the use of snares and traps for hunting and the production of glue for hafting stone tools.
The discovery is particularly well timed, since future work at the site may be in jeopardy. Local officials are planning the construction of large housing tracts near Sibudu that would irreparably damage the site and prevent future excavation. Wadley and her colleagues hope that this discovery will emphasize the importance of Sibudu as an irreplaceable cultural resource for South Africa and the rest of the world.
Posts: 6572 | From: N.Y.C....Capital of the World | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
Perhaps this would make a good "sticky" topic, if there were still active moderation on ES [which sadly doesn't seem to be the case]...since it is emerging that research in this field, i.e. pre-OOA modern behavior, is a work-in-progress, with more and more stuff coming to light, essentially solidifying and building on where the last left off; this would ideally facilitate instant addition of new finds under a single thread, rather than having to browse through the archives to recall similar stuff.
Until then, I guess we'll just have to make do with bumping, if we must, and have to settle with the current state of affairs. Again, kudos to those who have overseen the maintenance of what is proving to be a resourceful thread. Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
| IP: Logged |
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
even though it's not the homeplace (Africa) of anatomically modern humans!
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic