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In 2015, a team of archaeologists and students will be returning to the site of Cova Gran de Santa Linya, a rock shelter located at the seam between the first range of the southern Pyrenees and the Ebro Basin in the Catalonia region of northeastern Spain. They plan to recover and investigate evidence they hope will shed light on Early Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherer adaptations in this mountainous region.  

The cave has been found to yield a rich stratigraphic sequence of human occupation, including animal bones, lithic stone tool artifacts and hearths, dating back to at least 50,000 years ago with additional evidence of human occupation continuing through the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Led by Professor Rafael Mora and Dr. Jorge Martinez-Moreno of the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, investigations will focus on questions surrounding the adaptations of Neanderthal and Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH) in the area.    

“Investigation at the site will allow us to recognize both the evolution of hunting and gathering strategies in the region and recognize important differences between Neanderthals and modern human adaptive strategies,” state the project leaders. “The deep archaeological sequence at Cova Gran contains animal bones, hearths, and Middle and Upper Paleolithic artifacts. The presence of Early Upper Paleolithic layers in stratigraphic context enable careful examination of two competing models that explain Middle/Upper Paleolithic “transition”: the first suggesting a continuity and the second suggesting a population replacement.“*

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Above and below: The Cova Gran rockshelter, site of intensive archaeological excavations and investigations into a long sequence of human occupation going back to Middle and Upper Paleolithic times. Centre d’Estudis Patrimoni Arqueològic Prehistòric, Cova Gran Archaeological Project, Institute for Field Research

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Cova Gran was first discovered during surveys in 2002, and in recent years has been the subject of continuing excavations and research. Scientists hope that the site will help answer questions within the ongoing scientific debate regarding the disappearance of the Neanderthals and the appearance of modern humans in Europe.

For individuals interested in participating in the excavations and research, more information can be found at the Institute for Field Research website.

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*http://www.ifrglobal.org/programs/europe/spain-cova-gran

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You can read our more in-depth articles about new discoveries and developments in archaeology and anthropology with a premium subscription to Popular Archaeology Magazine.  Find out what Popular Archaeology Magazine is all about. 

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Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery Edition eBook is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition.  We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.

Emory Health Sciences—The ability to make a Lower Paleolithic hand axe depends on complex cognitive control by the prefrontal cortex, including the “central executive” function of working memory, a new study finds.

PLOS ONE published the results, which counter theories that Stone Age hand axes are simple tools that don’t involve higher-order executive function of the brain.

“For the first time, we’ve showed a relationship between the degree of prefrontal brain activity, the ability to make technological judgments, and success in actually making stone tools,” says Dietrich Stout, an experimental archeologist at Emory University and the leader of the study. “The findings are relevant to ongoing debates about the origins of modern human cognition, and the role of technological and social complexity in brain evolution across species.”

The skill of making a prehistoric hand axe is “more complicated and nuanced than many people realize,” Stout says. “It’s not just a bunch of ape-men banging rocks together. We should have respect for Stone Age tool makers.”

The study’s co-authors include Bruce Bradley of the University of Exeter in England, Thierry Chaminade of Aix-Marseille University in France; and Erin Hecht and Nada Khreisheh of Emory University.

Stone tools – shaped by striking a stone “core” with a piece of bone, antler, or another stone – provide some of the most abundant evidence of human behavioral change over time. Simple Oldowan stone flakes are the earliest known tools, dating back 2.6 million years. The Late Acheulean hand axe goes back 500,000 years. While it’s relatively easy to learn to make an Oldowan flake, the Acheulean hand axe is harder to master, due to its lens-shaped core tapering down to symmetrical edges.

“We wanted to tease apart and compare what parts of the brain were most actively involved in these stone tool technologies, particularly the role of motor control versus strategic thinking,” Stout says.

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Above: Example of an experimentally replicated handaxe made in coarse grain flint from the village of Mucientes in the Valladolid province (Spain). José-Manuel Benito Álvarez, Wikimedia Commons

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The researchers recruited six subjects, all archeology students at Exeter University, to train in making stone tools, a skill known as “knapping.” The subjects’ skills were evaluated before and after they trained and practiced. For Oldowan evaluations, subjects detached five flakes from a flint core. For Acheulean evaluations, they produced a tool from a standardized porcelain core.

At the beginning, middle and end of the 18-month experiment, subjects underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) scans of their brains while they watched videos. The videos showed rotating stone cores marked with colored cues: A red dot indicated an intended point of impact, and a white area showed the flake predicted to result from the impact. The subjects were asked the following questions:

“If the core were struck in the place indicated, is what you see a correct prediction of the flake that would result?”

“Is the indicated place to hit the core a correct one given the objective of the technology?”

The subjects responded by pushing a “yes” or “no” button.

Answering the first question, how a rock will break if you hit it in a certain place, relies more on reflexive, perceptual and motor-control processes, associated with posterior portions of the brain. Stout compares it to the modern-day rote reflex of a practiced golf swing or driving a car.

The second question – is it a good idea to hit the core in a certain spot if you want to make a hand axe – involves strategic thinking, such as planning the route for a road trip. “You have to think about information that you have stored in your brain, bring it online, and then make a decision about each step of the trip,” Stout says.

This so-called executive control function of the brain, associated with activity in the prefrontal cortex, allows you to project what’s going to happen in the future and use that projection to guide your action. “It’s kind of like mental time travel, or using a computer simulation,” Stout explains. “It’s considered a high level, human cognitive capacity.”

The researchers mapped the skill level of the subjects onto the data from their brain scans and their responses to the questions.

Greater skill at making tools correlated with greater accuracy on the video quiz for predicting the correct strategy for making a hand axe, which was itself correlated with greater activity in the prefrontal cortex. “These data suggest that making an Acheulean hand axe is not simply a rote, auto pilot activity of the brain,” Stout says. “It requires you to engage in some complicated thinking.”

Most of the hand axes produced by the modern hands and minds of the study subjects would not have cut it in the Stone Age. “They weren’t up to the high standards of 500,000 years ago,” Stout says.

A previous study by the researchers showed that learning to make stone tools creates structural changes in fiber tracts of the brain connecting the parietal and frontal lobes, and that these brain changes correlated with increases in performance. “Something is happening to strengthen this connection,” Stout says. “This adds to evidence of the importance of these brain systems for stone tool making, and also shows how tool making may have shaped the brain evolutionarily.”

Stout recently launched a major, three-year archeology experiment that will build on these studies and others. Known as the Language of Technology project, the experiment involves 20 subjects who will each devote 100 hours to learning the art of making a Stone Age hand axe, and also undergo a series of MRI scans. The project aims to hone in whether the brain systems involved in putting together a sequence of words to make a meaningful sentence in spoken language overlap with systems involved in putting together a series of physical actions to reach a meaningful goal.

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Edited from the subject Emory Health Services press release.

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You can read our more in-depth articles about new discoveries and developments in archaeology and anthropology with a premium subscription to Popular Archaeology Magazine.  Find out what Popular Archaeology Magazine is all about. 

In addition, the latest Popular Archaeology ebook is now available.

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Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery Edition eBook is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition.  We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.

In a research paper published in the online Journal of Human Evolution, scientists are reporting the results of years of study on early human stone tool assemblages unearthed at the famous Sima del Eefante  cave site in Spain.

According to the authors, the tools, along with human fossils and other fossilized faunal remains, provide a record of human habitation at the site going back to about 1.22 million years, or the Early Pleistocene period—a time long before the arrival of early modern humans in Europe around 40,000 – 45,000 years ago. 

“This site has characteristics that are of great value for the study of human evolution,” write the authors in the report abstract. “The lower levels….are an essential reference for understanding the early stages of the colonization of Europe.”*

Archaeologists began full-scale excavations at the site of Sima del Elefante, one of a number of caves exposed by a railway cut, when they dug a test trench in 1997. A series of excavations followed, uncovering a wealth of faunal remains dated to the Lower and Middle Pleistocene. It was not until a 2007 dig, however, that a curious mandible with its four teeth had been unearthed. The mandible (now classified to an early human species known as Homo antecessor) was found within the context of an assemblage of “Mode 1” (also called Oldowan) lithic tools, the earliest and simplest stone tool industry known, along with faunal (animal) bone remains bearing traces of hominin modification, such as butchering marks. All of these remains were recovered from a deep stratigraphic level, ancient deposits that were dated to approximately 1.2–1.1 Mya (million years ago) in the Early Pleistocene (which spanned 2.59 to .781 Mya), based on the careful application of a combination of several methodologies: palaeomagnetism, cosmogenic nuclides testing and biostratigraphy. The validity of the dating was so airtight, in fact, that scientists consider the site of the finds as one of the most accurately dated records of human occupation in Europe.

The discoveries at the site are considered, along with finds at various other sites in Europe, a testament to the very early arrival of human ancestral groups. At the site of Dmanisi in the Republic of Georgia, for example, hominin fossils (thought to be Homo erectus) and lithic (stone tool) remains have been dated to as far back as about 1.8 million years ago; at the site of Happisburgh in Norfolk, U.K., finds, which included an unprecedented (for northern Europe) collection of hominin footprints, were found to be dated to between ca. 1 and 0.78 million years ago; and at Untermassfeld in Germany, scientists recovered and dated artifacts that could be as old as 1.07 million years.

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Excavators at work at the Sima del Elefante site. Mario Modesto Mata, Wikimedia Commons

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The researchers also report on findings related to remains dated to the Middle Pleistocene period (about 781,000 to 126,000 year ago). But they note a distinctive gap, or absence of evidence, of a hominin presence at the site between these two geologic periods. Noted the authors, “the presence of archaeologically sterile units prevents us from establishing a continuous relationship between the Early and Middle Pleistocene human settlements and, consequently, between their technological and behavioural differences.”*

The data acquired from their analysis, however, will provide a good basis for comparison between the technological and behavioral characteristics of early humans of the Early Pleistocene and those of the Middle Pleistocene, they say.

The research report has been published online at the Journal of Human Evolution.

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*Arturo de Lombera-Hermida et al., The lithic industry of Sima del Elefante (Atapuerca, Burgos, Spain) in the context of Early and Middle Pleistocene technology in Europe, Journal of Human Evolution doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2015.03.002

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You can read our more in-depth articles about new discoveries and developments in archaeology and anthropology with a premium subscription to Popular Archaeology Magazine.  Find out what Popular Archaeology Magazine is all about. 

In addition, the latest Popular Archaeology ebook is now available.

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Travel and learn with Far Horizons.

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Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery Edition eBook is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition.  We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.

First excavated in 1993, the site of Barranco León in the Guadix-Baza Basin of southeastern Spain, just 80 km west of the Mediterranean shoreline, has yielded simple Oldowan-type stone tools within a context dated as far back as 1.4 million years ago. It documents the earliest known hominin (early human ancestral) presence in Western Europe, evidenced by the discovery of one tooth and thousands of ‘Mode 1’ (Oldowan-type) stone tools associated with fossil fauna, particularly large mammalian herbivores. The examined evidence shows that at least some of the herbivores were scavenged as carcasses by hominins as food sources after the initial carnivore predators were finished with them. The discoveries there paint an emerging new picture of one of the first dispersals of early human ancestors into a non-African landscape.

Questions surrounding the climatic and physical environment of this time period in Western Europe, however, have been much debated, including the potential role environmental factors played in influencing or formulating the patterns and timing of hominin dispersal outside of Africa. In a paper published online in the Journal of Human Evolution, Jordi Agustí and colleagues argue that changing climate conditions and its impact on available resources played a salient role in the timing and geographic dispersal of Early Pleistocene hominins in present-day Europe, particularly the region of present-day southeastern Spain.

“The early Pleistocene in the Guadix-Baza Basin is characterized by a sharp climatic deterioration [meaning colder and drier], which possibly impeded the settlement of this region by the early hominin population from the southern Caucasus,” write the authors in the report abstract. Lack of evidence for a hominin presence during the colder, drier period supported this. But “shortly afterwards,” the authors continue, “when the climatic conditions were again favorable, a hominin presence is suddenly evidenced.”* According to the researchers’ microvertebrate analysis of deposits at Barranco León, which was located near a paleolake (Paleolake ‘Baza’, an ancient lake that no longer exists) they found that the mean annual temperature at the time of the deposition within which the subject stone tool artifacts and faunal remains were found evidenced a time period characterized by warmer temperatures and greater humidity. Moreover, their analysis indicated that the hominins and other mammalian species that inhabited the area at the time exploited the water edges in a region that otherwise featured an open landscape. 

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Excavations in process at the site of Barranco León. From a YouTube screenshot Excavación en Barranco Leon en Orce

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The findings have implications for human evolution and dispersal outside of Africa, especially in present-day Europe.

“The data reported here clearly support the idea that the early hominin occupation of Europe was strongly constrained by climatic and environmental conditions, rather than by physiography or cultural factors.”*

The study is published online in the Journal of Human Evolution.

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*Jordi Agustí, et al., Chronological and environmental context of the first hominin dispersal into Western Europe: The case of Barranco León (Guadix-Baza Basin, SE Spain), Journal of Human Evolution, doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2015.02.014

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You can read our more in-depth articles about new discoveries and developments in archaeology and anthropology with a premium subscription to Popular Archaeology Magazine.  Find out what Popular Archaeology Magazine is all about. 

In addition, the latest Popular Archaeology ebook is now available.

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Travel and learn with Far Horizons.

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Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery Edition eBook is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition.  We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.

It has been said that the period between 760 BCE to 656 BCE in Egypt was the ‘age of the black pharaohs’. It was during this time that ancient Egypt was ruled by a dynasty or succession of kings from Nubia, the Kingdom of Kush, a rival African kingdom just to its south in what is today northern Sudan. Beginning with king Kashta‘s successful invasion of Upper Egypt, what became known as the 25^th Dynasty achieved the reunification of Lower Egypt, Upper Egypt, and also Kush (Nubia), the largest Egyptian empire since the New Kingdom. They introduced new Kushite cultural elements into Egypt, yet they also reaffirmed and promoted the traditional ancient Egyptian religion, temples, and artistic forms.

The dynasty reached its zenith during the powerful rule of Taharqa, who reigned between 690 and 664 BCE. Known among many other things to have allied with the Judahite King Hezekiah to save Jerusalem from the Assyrians under Sennacherib, he spent much of his reign battling the Assyrian Empire.

Now, some 2500 years after his rule and that of the other ‘black pharaohs’ of the 25^th Dynasty, a special exhibit at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, Denmark, reveals a one-of-a-kind showing of more than 70 archaeological finds to the public, summing up a time when a fusion of Egyptian and African traits and culture characterized ancient Egypt for a century. The exhibition zooms in and out on its subject, presenting temple finds of varying scope and scale as well as small, but highly sophisticated artifacts from Nubian tombs and palaces. The vast majority of the archaeological finds on display were excavated in Meroë and Kawa in present-day Sudan, where large-scale archaeological excavations are still in progress. Through photographic documentation, including reports from the Glyptotek’s most recent expedition in the area, and through reconstructions of the arrays of objects that appeared to the archaeologists working there in the present, some 2,500 years after the last black pharaohs ruled, the exhibition seeks to capture echoes of that distinctive time. Noteworthy among the objects is Taharqa’s classical sphinx, a prominent loan from the British Museum, which has made the extraordinary gesture of allowing the Glyptotek to display one of the highlights from its own collection.

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On display: Above and below, Sphinx of Taharqa from the Temple of Taharqa in Kawa, Sudan  680 BC  granite  Credit: The Trustees of the British Museum

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The Temple of Amun in Meroë, Sudan  1st cent. BC – 1st cent AD Credit: Janne Klerk

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On display: Part of Bes pillar from the Temple of Amun in Meroë, Sudan. 1st cent. AD sandstone, painted  Credit: Ole Haupt

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On display: Baboon statue with the name of Taharqa from Kawa, Sudan  25th Dynasty, 690 – 664 BC granite  Credit: Ole Haupt

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The exhibition supplements the Glyptotek’s rich collections from the period with important loans from the National Museum of Denmark and the British Museum. In preparation for this exhibition, the Glyptotek has carried out extensive restoration and conservation work on a number of archaeological finds. Two large stelae that were completely smashed during transit from Sudan a hundred years ago have now been pieced back together and are exhibited for the first time ever. They are presented here alongside two other stelae, also owned by the Glyptotek, which were found at the same site: Taharqa’s large temple in Kawa.

The exhibit, Taharqa: The Black Pharaoh, will be shown at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, Denmark, from April 26 to June 28, 2015.

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To accompany the exhibition the Glyptotek will publish a catalogue, in English, written by the exhibition curator, Tine Bagh. The book provides the first-ever comprehensive account of the Glyptotek’s collection of finds from Meroë and Kawa in Sudan.
Finds from J. Garstang’s Excavations in Meroe and F. Ll. Griffith’s in Kawa, Sudan, in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.

The exhibition is sponsored by Knud Højgaards Fond.

This article was written with some edited and adapted text from the subject Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek press release.

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You can read our more in-depth articles about new discoveries and developments in archaeology and anthropology with a premium subscription to Popular Archaeology Magazine.  Find out what Popular Archaeology Magazine is all about. 

In addition, the latest Popular Archaeology ebook is now available.

 ______________________________________________

Travel and learn with Far Horizons.

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Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery Edition eBook is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition.  We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.

New York University—According to a team of researchers, northern Europeans in the Neolithic period initially rejected the practice of farming, which was otherwise spreading throughout the continent. Their findings offer a new wrinkle in the history of a major economic revolution that moved civilizations away from foraging and hunting as a means for survival.

“This discovery goes beyond farming,” explains Solange Rigaud, the study’s lead author and a researcher at the Center for International Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences (CIRHUS) in New York City. “It also reveals two different cultural trajectories that took place in Europe thousands of years ago, with southern and central regions advancing in many ways and northern regions maintaining their traditions.”

CIRHUS is a collaborative arrangement between France’s National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and New York University.

The study, whose other authors include Francesco d’Errico, a professor at CNRS and Norway’s University of Bergen, and Marian Vanhaeren, a professor at CNRS, appears in the journal PLOS ONE.

In order to study these developments, the researchers focused on the adoption or rejection of ornaments—certain types of beads or bracelets worn by different populations. This approach is suitable for understanding the spread of specific practices—previous scholarship has shown a link between the embrace of survival methods and the adoption of particular ornaments. However, the PLOS ONE study marks the first time researchers have used ornaments to trace the adoption of farming in this part of the world during the Early Neolithic period (8,000-5,000 BCE).

It has been long established that the first farmers came to Europe 8,000 years ago, beginning in Greece and marking the start of a major economic revolution on the continent: the move from foraging to farming over the next 3,000 years. However, the pathways of the spread of farming during this period are less clear.

To explore this process, the researchers examined more than 200 bead-types found at more than 400 European sites over a 3,000-year period. Previous research has linked farming and foraging populations with the creation and adornment of discrete types of beads, bracelets, and pendants. In the PLOS ONE study, the researchers traced the adoption of ornaments linked to farming populations in order to elucidate the patterns of transition from foraging and hunting to farming.

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Above: Examples of personal ornaments used by the first European farming societies. Credit: Solange Rigaud

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Above: Examples of personal ornaments used by the last European foraging societies. Credit: Solange Rigaud

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Their results show the spread of ornaments linked to farmers—human-shaped beads and bracelets composed of perforated shells—stretching from eastern Greece and the Black Sea shore to France’s Brittany region and from the Mediterranean Sea northward to Spain. By contrast, the researchers did not find these types of ornaments in the Baltic region of northern Europe. Rather, this area held on to decorative wear typically used by hunting and foraging populations—perforated shells rather than beads or bracelets found in farming communities.

“It’s clear hunters and foragers in the Baltic area resisted the adoption of ornaments worn by farmers during this period,” explains Rigaud. “We’ve therefore concluded that this cultural boundary reflected a block in the advancement of farming—at least during the Neolithic period.”

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The research was supported, in part, by the French Ministry of National Education, Research, and Technology, the Fyssen Foundation, and the Maria Sklodowska-Curie COFUND Action.

Source: This is an adaptation of a New York University press release entitled Don’t farm on me: Northern Europeans to Neolithic interlopers

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You can read our more in-depth articles about new discoveries and developments in archaeology and anthropology with a premium subscription to Popular Archaeology Magazine.  Find out what Popular Archaeology Magazine is all about. 

In addition, the latest Popular Archaeology ebook is now available.

 ______________________________________________

Travel and learn with Far Horizons.

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Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery Edition eBook is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition.  We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.

Research in genetics and across a variety of archaeological sites in Africa and beyond has shown that anatomically modern humans (AMH) dispersed between regions within and also out of Africa from 70,000 to 35,000 years ago. Paleoanthropologists have long suggested that environmental changes have played a key role in this process. However, a clear understanding of the complexity and how this took place has been lacking due to the deficiency of archaeological evidence in association with paleoenvironmental data.

In a recent study conducted by Nicole Garrett of the University of Minnesota and colleagues, researchers have revealed additional information by applying stable isotope analysis of paleosols and fauna remains associated with Middle Stone Age (MSA) archaeological sites on Rusinga and Mfangano islands in Lake Victoria in East Africa.

Along with bifacial points and Levallois flakes and cores typically identified with the presence of AMH, the sites contained the remains of ancient fauna long extinct, including mammals that inhabit wetland/riverine-type environments, as well as mammals that lived on the dry, open grasslands of the African savanna. Some of the fossil remains featured cut marks likely created by stone tools.

“The Pleistocene faunas from Rusinga and Mfangano contain the largest number of extinct species of any Pleistocene site in East Africa during the last 400,000 years,” wrote the study authors in the detailed research report, published in the Journal of Human Evolution.* 

Most telling, however, was the specific mix of fauna found in association with the human lithic artifact sites. Along with taxa that lived in wet environments, such as Hippopotamus, they also found evidence of ungulates related to gazelles, widebeest and zebra, mammals that thrived primarily in dry, open grassland environments. Results of their analysis suggested a period when the climate had become drier, even drier than today, with the expansion of the savanna open grasslands, while leaving wetter, woodland refugia for humans and other mammals around critical riverine or lake areas.

“As the expanse of Lake Victoria is largely rainfall dependent, this and other lines of evidence imply a substantial reduction  [anciently] in water level, likely transforming Rusinga and Mfangano into topographic highpoints on a grassland landscape, which would have supported more wooded habitats in an otherwise rich open grassland ecosystem,” wrote the authors.* “The association of stone tools with the paleosols and fossils sampled here suggest that, in some cases, humans persisted during intervals of drier conditions with expanded grassland cover rather than migrating into wetter habitats. They did this by exploiting locally closed and well-watered habitats within the larger grassland communities.”*

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Lake Victoria expanded and contracted, and even dried completely up at times, with climate fluctuations throughout geologic periods. Wikimedia Commons

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View of Rusinga island today. Küchenkraut, Wikimedia Commons

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The researchers estimate that the layers at the sites that contain the artifacts and fossils range in age between 100,000 and 45,000 years ago, containing the critical time period when early modern humans were dispersing between equatorial East Africa and Central Africa, as well as dispersing out of Africa into the rest of the world.

The detailed report has been published as an article in press in the online version of the Journal of Human Evolution.

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*Garrett, N.D., et al., Stable isotope paleoecology of Late Pleistocene Middle Stone Age humans from the Lake Victoria basin, Kenya, Journal of Human Evolution (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2014.10.005

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You can read our more in-depth articles about new discoveries and developments in archaeology and anthropology with a premium subscription to Popular Archaeology Magazine.  Find out what Popular Archaeology Magazine is all about. 

In addition, the latest Popular Archaeology ebook is now available.

 ______________________________________________

Travel and learn with Far Horizons.

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Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery Edition eBook is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition.  We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.

According to a recent study conducted by Jaime Swift of the Australian National University and colleagues from several other institutions in Australia and Chile, a significant part of a pre-Columbian population in northern Chile suffered from slow poisoning due to the intake of arsenic from water sources.

The researchers performed plasma mass spectrometry trace element analysis of human bone and tooth samples from 21 burials excavated at the site of Caleta Vitor on the Pacific coast of northern Chile, a part of the ultra-dry Atacama Desert region. Their tests showed that “the pre-Columbian inhabitants were exposed to elevated levels of arsenic where one third of the sample population had accumulated levels in their skeletal system indicative of chronic poisoning.”*

The time period for sampling spanned c. 3867 to 474 cal BP and included all major cultural periods in the region, showing that the population was exposed to a long-term continuing risk of arsenic poisoning over several millennia.

“Numerous factors may have partially contributed to the population’s inferred poisoning, due to the complex interaction of various environmental sources of arsenic and human behaviours,” wrote the researchers in the report abstract. “Increased exposure to arsenic could relate to climatic variability influencing sources of drinking water or anthropogenic activities such as mining and metallurgy or dietary changes associated with agriculture. Assessment of these potential sources of arsenic toxication, including evaluation of modern environmental data from the region, suggests contaminated drinking water was the most likely cause of arseniasis.”*

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Satellite view of the Atacama Desert along the coast. Wikimedia Commons

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The results of the research* are published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

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*Jaime Swift, et al., Skeletal Arsenic of the Pre-Columbian Population of Caleta Vitor, Northern Chile, Journal of Archaeological Science, doi:10.1016/j.jas.2015.03.024

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You can read our more in-depth articles about new discoveries and developments in archaeology and anthropology with a premium subscription to Popular Archaeology Magazine.  Find out what Popular Archaeology Magazine is all about. 

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 ______________________________________________

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Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery Edition eBook is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition.  We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.

Sterkfontein Caves—world famous for their fossil and stone tool finds bearing on human origins, continue to make human evolution history with recent research on the dating of one iconic hominid fossil skeleton and an artifact bearing on humankind’s earliest known stone tool industry.

By applying new dating technologies, an international team of scientists from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, Purdue University in the U.S., the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) in France, and the University of Brunswick in Canada, have produced new dates that effectively clear up the ongoing age uncertainty or controversy on the famous Little Foot skeleton and Oldowan tools found in the Sterkfontein Caves years before.

“Little Foot” is the nickname given to a nearly complete Australopithecus, or proto-human, fossilized skeleton found in the 1990’s by Professor Ron Clarke of the University of the Witwatersrand in the Sterkfontein cave system. Assigning it to a new species he called Australopithecus prometheus, Clarke has been painstakingly excavating it over the years from the hard, cement-like breccia encasing it within the caves. Its dating by various dating methodologies at different times have yielded significantly differing dates, causing confusion and skepticism within the scholarly world regarding its true age. The efforts have been in part complicated by the dating of flowstones within the deposits that have shown young ages, in contrast to the surrounding deposits, which have shown much older dates.

New progress was made in dispelling the uncertainty when, in 2014, Dr. Laurent Bruxelles of INRAP, Clarke, and colleagues released a map of the Sterkfontein caves sediment stratigraphy that “showed beyond doubt that the dated (2.2 My) flowstones had formed within voids opened by collapse of the cave sediments.”* Because the flowstones were observed to have intrusively separated parts of the skeleton itself within its sediment context, “it opens the possibility that the sediment and the skeleton within it could be far older than the 2.2 million year old flowstones.”* 

To more precisely and reliably date the sediments, the researchers applied two major new advancements in dating methodology, one of which was a technology first developed and applied in mid-2014 at Purdue University’s PRIME lab, an accelerator mass spectrometry facility directed by Professor Marc Caffee. The results, considered more precise and reliable than any to date, were eye-opening—Little Foot is 3.67 million years old, with a margin of uncertainty of .16 million years.

The implications are significant. This meant that Little Foot lived at about the same time as another, well-known Australopithecine species, known as Australopithicus afarensis, time-correspondent fossil specimens of which were found at Laetoli in Tanzania and Woranso-Mille in Ethiopia. Little Foot, however, differed from afarensis in its morphology, with similarities to the flat-faced Paranthropus species with its bulbous cusped cheek-teeth. It also differed from another well-known Australopithecine species called Australopithecus africanus, whose fossils were also found at Sterkfontein, and who was generally smaller. According to the scientists, Little Foot, or Australopithecus prometheus, “poses new questions about the diversity, geographic spread, and relationships of early hominid species in Africa.”* 

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The Sterkfontein caves. Located about 23 miles northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa, in what has been called the Cradle of Humankind area, these limestone caves have yielded a number of history-making fossil remains related to early human evolution. Here, in 1947, the famous adult female Australopithecine skull of ‘Mrs. Ples” was discovered by Robert Broom. Mike Peel, Wikimedia Commons

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Little Foot as situated (in situ) within the Sterkfontein Caves. It has since been removed from the cave context and brought into the lab. Courtesy University of the Witwatersrand

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Above and below: The Little Foot skull discovered by Ron Clarke. Courtesy University of the Witwatersrand

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The research team also conducted tests on higher-level sediments that contained a quartz manuport, (an Oldowan-type cobble that was transported into the site by hominids). Oldowan is considered the oldest known simple stone tool industry. Based on the new sediment dating, the manuport was about 2.18 million years old, with a margin of uncertainty of .21 million years, making it, and the Oldowan stone tools found at the same level in the caves, the same age as Oldowan tools found at other sites in South Africa. According to the researchers, it “shows that South Africa’s Cradle of Humankind was home to tool-making hominids by 2 million years ago or earlier……a much earlier age for tool-bearing hominids than previously anticipated in this part of Africa.”*

Who made these stone tools?

Likely not Little Foot, say most scholars, as the Oldowan tools were found at a higher level within the sediment stratigraphy. Many scientists suggest that the tools were made by an early Homo (human line) species, such as Homo habilis, fossils of which have been dated from various locations in East and South Africa between 2.4 and 1.8 million years ago.  

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The dated quartz Oldowan cobble, a manuport from nearby gravels. Courtesy University of the Witwatersrand

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Artifacts of the Oldowan. Courtesy University of the Witwatersrand

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The detailed report of the findings is published in the journal Nature**.

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*An Update on Research at Sterkfontein: Dating of the Little Foot skeleton and the Oldowan artefacts, press release from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Soth Africa

**Darryl E. Granger, et al., New Cosmogenic burial ages for Sterkfontein Member 2 Australopithecus and Member 5 Oldowan, Nature, April 1, 2015

____________________________________________________

You can read our more in-depth articles about new discoveries and developments in archaeology and anthropology with a premium subscription to Popular Archaeology Magazine.  Find out what Popular Archaeology Magazine is all about. 

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 ______________________________________________

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Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery Edition eBook is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition.  We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.

An international team of archaeologists has uncovered remains of a massive Iron Age period fortification wall and enclosure at the coastal archaeological site known as Ashdod-Yam, in Israel.

Located on the Mediterranean coast within the southern boundaries of the modern city of Ashdod and about 5 km northwest of Tel Ashdod, a related archaeological site, the site contains the remains of a fortified settlement that likely abutted a port facility that played a strategic and commercial role under ancient Assyrian dominance and control during the 8^th and 7^th centuries BCE. 

“The fate of Ashdod-Yam was always connected to the capital city of Ashdod, one of the five major Philistine cities during the Iron Age,” said excavations Director Dr. Alexander Fantalkin of Tel Aviv University. “In Byzantine times, as is evident from the 6th century AD Madaba mosaic map and a number of historical sources, the coastal city of Azotos Paralios (Ashdod-Yam) became more important than its former capital Azotos Hippenos (Ashdod), known also as Azotos Mesogaios. It seems that this shifting of the region’s center of gravity from Ashdod to Ashdod-Yam can be detected much earlier, perhaps already during the Iron Age, following the uprising of Yamani, the rebel king of Ashdod against the Assyrians, and the destruction of Ashdod in 712/711 BCE [by the Assyrians].”

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Aerial photograph of the site of Ashdod-Yam, taken in 1944 (courtesy of the Survey of Israel)

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Aerial photograph of the southern part of the site – the fortified enclosure from the Iron Age IIB (8th – 7th centuries BCE), looking south, taken in 2013 (photographed by Pascal Partouche, Skyview Photography)

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The Iron Age fortified enclosure, the subject of current renewed excavations, was actually tested archaeologically between 1965 and 1968 under the directorship of Jacob Kaplan on behalf of the Museum of Antiquities of Tel Aviv-Jaffa. These early, more limited excavations exposed some elements of the enclosure wall and uncovered pottery finds of locally-produced and Phoenician origin, helping to date the compound to the 8^th – early 7^th centuries BCE.  Fantalkin’s renewed excavations, which began in 2013, will be more extensive.

“Following the first season of renewed excavations undertaken in the summer of 2013, the remains of massive ancient fortifications have been rediscovered,” continued Fantalkin. “The construction, however, appears too impressive to have been done in a hurry and the fortifications were probably erected in order to protect a man-made harbor, created either before the rebellion or slightly afterwards. During the period of Assyrian domination, Ashdod-Yam became one of the most important Assyrian international emporia at the empire’s Mediterranean frontier.”

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Area B of the current excavations: Iron Age IIB (8th – 7th centuries BCE) mud-brick fortification wall, a view to the southeast (photographed by Philip Sapirstein)

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One of the chalices found near the Iron Age IIB (8th – 7th centuries BCE) mud-brick fortification wall (photographed by Pavel Shrago, drawn by Yulia Gottlieb)

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Fantalkin said that remains from the Hellenistic period were also discovered. “These buildings were found destroyed as a result of an earthquake, most probably accompanied by a palaeo-tsunami.”

In 2015, the team will continue excavations, particularly on the inside of the enclosure. The southern part of the enclosure features a mound of earth, which Fantalkin suggests might be significant. “Kaplan has reasonably suggested that this mass of earth probably conceals the remains of the ‘citadel’ of Ashdod-Yam. If so, this artificial mound may supply us with stratigraphically positioned remains for both the late 7th century BCE and the late 8th – early 7th centuries BCE settlements.”

“We shall also attempt to locate a man-made harbor at Ashdod-Yam and clarify the nature of Hellenistic occupation,” Fantalkin adds. “The excavations will shed light on the modes of Assyrian imperial control of subjected areas, clarifying the nature of interaction between different peoples in the Mediterranean melting pot at Ashdod-Yam.”

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Area A of the current excavations: The traces of collapse of a mud-brick structure from the Hellenistic period (photographed by Pascal Partouche, Skyview Photography)

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 Found in Area A: Note the dimensions of a previously unattested type of the Philistine Athenian-styled silver coin, most probably minted in Ashdod in the late 5th – early 4th centuries BCE (photographed by Pavel Shrago)

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Individuals and institutions interested in joining the excavations may visit the project website and the Registration and Housing Form for more information.

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Ashdod-Yam’s excavation project is a joint venture of the Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University and the Institut für Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft of the University of Leipzig, with many additional partners from Israel and from abroad. The Ashdod-Yam archaeological project intends to study the archaeology and history of this site in the years to come. The project welcomes volunteers and institutions from all over the world. Various options for affiliations with the project can be arranged (such as independent volunteers, organized groups of volunteers and/or students; research-related affiliation; etc). As the project is, by definition, an inter- and multi-disciplinary endeavor, the project staff welcomes people with diverse research interests and perspectives.

____________________________________________________

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Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery Edition eBook is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition.  We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.

For three decades, archaeologist Anabel Ford has been exploring and studying the ancient Maya site of El Pilar, but until now she has never encountered anything like the ‘Citadel’.

“We discovered a completely new component of the greater site that does not meet with any traditional expectations,” said Ford. “It shares nothing in common with Classic Maya centers: no clear open plaza, no cardinal structure orientation, and curiously no evident relationship to the major Classic site of El Pilar, little more that 600 meters away.”

What Ford was describing was an unseen building, or associated complex of buildings, that was recently only detected by remote sensing technology—more specifically, a laser application known as LiDAR, or Light Detection and Ranging—in this instance an airborne remote sensing technique utilizing a helicopter employing laser technology to penetrate the thick vegetation and forest canopy that overlies and enshrouds objects and structures. It is a way of ‘seeing through’ the forest to reveal things otherwise invisible to the naked eye.

LiDAR helped to produce a remarkable map of El Pilar, revealing unexposed Maya architectural and other human-made features that, although still hidden from the naked eye, fit an often-seen pattern. This new set of structures, however, was something new. Dubbed the “Citadel” because of its location perched atop a ridge with the appearance of fortifications, it contains concentric terracing and four ‘temples’, each about three to four meters high. Unlike the other structure complexes, it seems by placement to have been isolated from the rest of greater El Pilar.

“The complex stretches from south to north across nearly a kilometer of terrain dramatically shaped into the hill with evident design and purpose,” states Ford. “The enormous complex presents a mystery.  What is its origin?  When was it built? How was it used? Why was it isolated?”

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El Pilar lies below a thick jungle canopy. Courtesy BRASS/El Pilar

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LiDAR image showing the core area of El Pilar. Courtesy BRASS/El Pilar

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LiDAR detail view of the newly discovered Citadel detected east of the main temples of El Pilar. Citadel is on the right. Courtesy BRASS/El Pilar

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In a quest to find answers, Ford will be returning to the site in 2015, this time to do some ‘ground-truthing” and excavation.  It will involve preliminary excavations to gather information about the nature and use of the constructions and terraces.  

“Much can be resolved about the context by identifying the dates of construction,” states Ford, “but this requires identification of the construction sequence, collection of contextual diagnostic ceramic artifacts, and carbon samples for C14 dating.”

Ford hypothesizes that the Citadel, if it is a Classic period site, may have been designed and used for purposes separate from the Classic period site of El Pilar nearby, but she suggests two other contending possibilities: It could be an early, Preclassic (before 250 BCE) construction, before the organization of buildings on plazas became standardized during the Classic period (200 – 1000 CE); or it could be a later construction of the Postclassic period (after 1200 CE) when defensive locations were common. This would explain the massive terracing and the higher, ridge-top location. 

“These hypotheses can be tested in a single excavation season and the essential dating will be answered,” she continues. “The function of the site and its associated terraces and temples may not be fully clarified in one season, yet there is no doubt we will have a better sense of the place after the investigations.”

Spread across the imaginary line between western Belize and northeastern Guatemala, El Pilar is considered the largest site in the Belize River region, boasting over 25 known plazas and hundreds of other structures, covering an area of about 120 acres. Monumental construction at El Pilar began in the Middle Preclassic period, around 800 BCE, and at its height centuries later it supported more than 20,000 people. Ford, who is the Director of the BRASS/El Pilar Program at the MesoAmerican Research Center of the University of California, Santa Barbara, has taken a “hands-off”, highly selective conservation approach to investigating the site. With the exception of a fully exposed Maya house structure, most of the structures at El Pilar have remained completely conserved by design, still covered in their tropical shroud. The Citadel excavations will open a new chapter in the research at El Pilar.

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Above and below: Most of the El Pilar structures remain enshrouded in foliage, a natural strategy for conserving its remains. Courtesy BRASS/El Pilar Program

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More information about the LiDAR discoveries at El Pilar, including the Citadel, can be found in the article, Seeing Through The Canopy, by Anabel Ford.

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Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery Edition eBook is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition.  We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.

New findings from an international team of archaeological researchers highlight the complexity of geopolitics in Aztec era Mesoamerica and illustrate how the relationships among ancient states extended beyond warfare and diplomacy to issues concerning trade and the flow of goods.

The team, consisting of researchers from North Carolina State University, the Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional-Unidad Mérida, El Colegio de Michoacán and Purdue University, focused on an independent republic called Tlaxcallan in what is now central Mexico, about 75 miles east of modern Mexico City. The new research focuses on where the people of Tlaxcallan obtained their obsidian in the century before the arrival of Cortés. Obsidian is a volcanic glass that was widely used in everything from household tools and weapons to jewelry and religious objects. The researchers systematically collected artifacts from the surfaces of stone-walled terraces at the site of the pre-Columbian city of Tlaxcallan. A representative number of the artifacts were then analyzed using x-ray fluorescence. This information was compared with samples from known sources of obsidian in the region to determine where the obsidian artifacts came from.

Tlaxcallan was founded in the mid-13th century and, by 1500, was effectively surrounded by the Aztec Empire—but never lost its independence. In fact, Tlaxcallan supported Cortés and played a critical role in the Spanish Conquest of Mexico in the 16th century. Within this context, therefore, obsidian would have been a strategic commodity. But Tlaxcallan did not have a source of obsidian within its territory—so where did it come from?

“It turns out that Tlaxcallan relied on a source we hadn’t expected, called El Paredón,” says Dr. John Millhauser, an assistant professor of anthropology at NC State and lead author of a paper on the work. “Almost no one else was using El Paredón at the time, and it fell just outside the boundaries of the Aztec Empire. So, one question it raises is why the Aztecs – who were openly hostile to Tlaxcallan – didn’t intervene.”

One possible explanation is that the Aztecs didn’t intervene because it would have been too much effort. “Obsidian was widely available and was an everyday good. It probably wasn’t worth the time and expense to try to cut off Tlaxcallan’s supply of obsidian from El Paredón because other sources were available,” Millhauser says.

The finding drives home how complex international relations were during the Aztec Empire’s reign.

“The fact that they got so much obsidian so close to the Aztec Empire makes me question the scope of conflict at the time,” Millhauser says. “Tlaxcallan was able to access a source of household and military goods from a source that required it to go right up to the border of enemy territory.”

At the same time, the research makes clear that there was an economic rift between Tlaxcallan and the Aztecs. Previous research shows that more than 90 percent of Aztec obsidian came from a source called Pachuca, further to the north. But the new research finds that only 14 percent of the obsidian at Tlaxcallan was from Pachuca—most of the rest came from El Paredón.

“All of this drives home the fact that geopolitics mattered for the economies of ancient states,” Millhauser says. “Political stances and political boundaries influenced everyday behavior, down to the flow of basic commodities like obsidian. The popular conception of the Aztec Empire as all powerful before the arrival of Cortés is exaggerated. The region was a politically and culturally complicated place.”

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A view to the west from the heights of Tlaxcallan. The active volcano, Popocatepetl, is visible in the background. Courtesy Lane Fargher

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Archaeological researchers are shown collecting surface artifacts from the upper portion of Tlaxcallan. Courtesy  John Millhauser

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A fragment of an obsidian blade that had been shaped to a point, collected during the survey of Tlaxcallan. Courtesy John Millhauser

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The paper, “The Geopolitics of Obsidian Supply in Postclassic Tlaxcallan: A Portable X-Ray Fluorescence Study,” was published online March 25 in the Journal of Archaeological Science. The paper was co-authored by Dr. Lane Fargher of the Centro de Investigación y de Estudios Avanzados del Instituto Politécnico Nacional-Unidad Mérida; Dr. Verenice Heredia Espinoza, of El Colegio de Michoacán; and Dr. Richard Blanton, of Purdue University.

The research was done with support from the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, the Elemental Analysis Facility of the Field Museum of Natural History, The Grainger Foundation, Purdue University, the Colegio de Michoacán, FAMSI, the National Geographical Society (under grant number 8008-06), and the National Science Foundation (under grant number BCS-0809643).

Source: Adapted and edited from a North Carolina University press release, Study underscores complexity of geopolitics in the age of the Aztec empire

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It may not be an implausible leap to imagine a small band of hunter-gatherers composed of extended family and friends having a seasonal picnic on the beach about 100,000 years ago on what is today’s western South African Atlantic coast. It is a picture that could be painted with the help of results from a recent research study conducted by archaeologist Katharine Kyriacou of the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and colleagues from the University of Tübingen and the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.

Following renewed excavations in 2011 under the University of Tûbingen’s N. J. Conard at the open-air coastal site of ‘Hoedjispunt 1’ (HDP1) located on a peninsula jutting out into the Saldanha Bay of South Africa’s southwestern Cape, Kyriacou and her colleagues performed extensive analysis and additional dating on assemblages of lithic artifacts and associated shellfish remains systematically collected from that site and other related sites in the region, such as the nearby sites of Lynch Point and Sea Harvest. These are sites that have yielded evidence of human occupation during the Middle Stone Age (MSA, or 280,000 – 50,000 BP), a time range within which anatomically modern humans (AMH), or early modern humans, were present on the African landscape. Their results showed clear collection and consumption/preparation of selected types of high meat-yielding shellfish using stone artifacts, some made locally and others transported from distant locales, within a pattern of short-term periodic encampments or stays. The HDP1site has been tentatively dated, based on past uranium series, infrared stimulated luminescence, and electron spin resonance dating, including new dating that is yet to be completed, to as early as 115 – 130 ka.

“Based on these age determinations, HDP1 is the oldest known shell-bearing site along the Atlantic west coast,” write Kyriacou, et al.*

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View of Saldanha Bay, South Africa. Sebastian Dick, Wikimedia Commons

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Shown in red, the Saldanha Bay area on the southwest coast of South Africa. HitonI, Wikimedia Commons

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The Hoedjiespunt site, far left, in relation to other MSA sites across southwest South Africa. From the Role of Culture in the Early Expansion of Humans (ROCEEH). Map shows ‘least cost path’ analysis of connectivity between MSA sites and Pinnacle Point, one of the oldest MSA sites. Wikimedia Commons

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Kyriacou and colleagues reinforce an emerging view among scholars on the nature of early modern human habitation and movement in the coastal areas and their diets, which has significant implications for human evolution during this time period.

“Small groups of foragers engaged in the selective exploitation of a narrow range of mussels and limpets, particularly large species from the mid-intertidal, during relatively short excursions to the coast,” concluded the authors. “The integration of simple marine resources into the diets of people visiting the Atlantic west coast probably had major implications for the evolution of modern humans in this region. Shellfish represent an easily accessible and reliable source of nutrition on a landscape characterized by seasonal fluctuations in the availability of terrestrial resources [other prey further inland]. The consumption of even small quantities of mussels and limpets would have helped prehistoric people meet their requirements for essential nutrients, especially trace elements and polyunsaturated fatty acids [critical for brain development].”*

The research report is published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

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*K. Kyriacou, et al., Middle and Later Stone Age shellfish exploitation strategies and coastal foraging at Hoedjiespunt and Lynch Point, Saldanha Bay, South Africa, Journal of Archaeological Science 57 (2015) 197 – 206.

______________________________________________________

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Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery Edition eBook is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition.  We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.

Advanced radiocarbon dating techniques have revealed that a prehistoric kill and butchering site attributed to the Clovis People was active approximately 300 years earlier than previously dated. Animal remains butchered with stone tools near Wally’s Beach, Alberta, Canada, currently represent evidence that prehistoric humans hunted now-extinct horse and camel species near the end of the last Ice Age. The site contains the only known evidence to date for horse and camel hunting in the Americas during that time period.

As documented in a report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences*, Michael Waters of Texas A&M University and colleagues from two other institutions re-dated the remains using advanced sample purification techniques. The remains were previously dated to around 13,000 years ago and ascribed to the Clovis People. The authors produced 27 new radiocarbon ages that suggest that Wally’s Beach was active around 13,300 years ago, approximately 300 years before the generally accepted earliest date range for the Clovis culture. The new timeframe, the authors report, allows the Canadian site to be examined in the context of human hunting and the well-documented extinction of numerous large mammal species near the end of the last Ice Age. Added to other North American sites that demonstrate mammoth, mastodon, sloth, and gomphothere hunting, Wally’s Beach suggests that prehistoric humans hunted six of the 36 now-extinct genera of large mammals for at least 2,000 years before the animals vanished from the North American landscape around 12,700 years ago, according to the authors.*

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Map of North America showing stages of Ice Age retreat with associated ages. Wally’s Beach, as an active site, would have been located within the 12 – 15 ka region on the map. T. Kostolany, Wikimedia Commons

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*Article #14-20650: “Late Pleistocene horse and camel hunting at the southern margin of the ice-free corridor: Reassessing the age of Wally’s Beach, Canada,” by Michael R. Waters, Thomas W. Stafford, Jr., Brian Kooyman, and L. V. Hills.

Source: Adapted and edited from the PNAS press release, Large mammals hunted by prehistoric humans

_______________________________________________________

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Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery Edition eBook is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition.  We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.

The transition from groups of mobile foragers to established sedentary communities in ancient Maya society may have involved groups of varying degrees of mobility gathering for public ceremonies and joint construction projects, according to a study conducted by Takeshi Inomata and an international team.

Since 2005, Inomata and colleagues have been conductiing archaeological investigations at the site of Ceibal, Guatemala, located in the Maya lowlands. They evaluated detailed stratigraphic and ceramic data, along with an analysis of radiocarbon dates, to develop a detailed, ‘high-resolution’ chronology of Ceibal, built around 950 BC, comparing the data with archaeological sequences in other parts of the Maya lowlands. In this way, they were able to develop a clearer picture of how a population landscape of mobile foraging groups transitioned to the centralized, urbanized Maya populations represented by the remains of the Classical Maya centers we know about today.

“A uniquely rich dataset obtained from the Maya site of Ceibal (or Seibal) suggests the possibility that groups with different levels of mobility gathered and collaborated for constructions and public ceremonies, which contrasts with the common assumption that sedentary and mobile groups maintained separate communities,” wrote Inomata, et al., in the recent report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.*

The authors found that inhabitants maintained ephemeral dwellings until around 700 BC, when durable dwelling construction began, likely to house the community’s elite. By 300 BC, practices of rebuilding durable homes in the same location and burying the dead beneath house floors had become common among Ceibal residents. Ceremonial complexes built during this period appear only in a small number of important communities in the Maya lowlands, however, suggesting that groups with varying levels of mobility gathered for rituals at ceremonial sites. The results suggest that interactions among diverse groups at such gatherings may have contributed to the development of sedentary communities in the Maya civilization, according to the authors.

“It is probable that public ceremonies, as well the construction of ceremonial complexes, provided opportunities for groups with different lifestyles to gather and collaborate,” concluded the authors in the report. “Such collective activities possibly played a central role in facilitating social integration among diverse participants and eventually, in spreading more sedentary ways of life.”*

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Aerial view of Ceibal, at bottom center. Courtesy of Tsuyoshi Haraguchi (Osaka City University, Osaka, Japan).

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An early residential structure, circa 500 BC, found in the Karinel Group at Ceibal. Courtesy of Tsuyoshi Haraguchi (Osaka City University, Osaka, Japan).

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An early burial, circa 500 BC, placed in an underground cavity at Ceibal. Courtesy of Tsuyoshi Haraguchi (Osaka City University, Osaka, Japan).

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*“Development of sedentary communities in the Maya lowlands: Coexisting mobile groups and public ceremonies at Ceibal, Guatemala,” by Takeshi Inomata et al.

Source: The subject report, with a summary and some adpatation and editing of a related PNAS press release.

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Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery Edition eBook is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition.  We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.

Not Harrison Ford, but the long lost Ark of the Covenant, Crystal Skull, and other archaeological artifact props from the well-known Indiana Jones films will be making their way this May to the exhibit halls of the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C. They promise to be a major attractor for fans of the film series and the Hollywood-famous fictional archaeologist who, for many young people around the world, embodied the inspiration and impetus to at least explore the possibility of becoming real archaeologists themselves.

“Indiana Jones made archaeology cool for an entire generation and influenced countless scientists to go into this field,” commented National Geographic’s vice president of exhibitions Kathryn Keane about the upcoming exhibit.*

But no less fascinating and no less important are the real artifacts and stories that will be on display, including a wide array of objects on loan from the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, otherwise known as the Penn Museum—among the top museums of the world when it comes to archaeology and things anthropological. Thus, among the popularly-recognized iconic but fictional artifacts presented by the Lucasfilm Archives from the Jones intrepid adventures will be equally fascinating but genuine artifacts that will tell the story of real archaeology. Objects will include finds from the Royal Cemetery at Ur (ancient Mesopotamia), gold objects from ancient Panama, funerary objects from ancient Egypt, and finds from ancient Peru, to name a few from the Penn Museum. The exhibit will also include photos, videos and content archives from the National Geographic Society’s own collection.

“It was fabulous to be able to draw on the Museum’s vast international collection to help tell this story—the excitement of real archaeological discovery,” said exhibit co-curator Dr. Fredrik Hiebert, an Archaeology Fellow with the National Geographic Society and consulting scholar of the Penn Museum. “We’ve got a great set of objects—they add up to a microcosm of the best of the Penn Museum’s collections.”** Hiebert is a world-renowned archaeologist with extensive field experience in North America, South America and Asia.

Entitled Indiana Jones and the Adventure of Archaeology: The Exhibition, the showing will explain the myths associated with famous, fictional artifacts and places, such as those featured in the popular films, but will also elucidate how archaeologists do their real work and make discoveries related to real artifacts and places.

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Scene from the film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, depicting Indiana Jones with excavators at the scene where they discovered the lost Ark of the Covenant. Screenshot of Lucasfilms clip shown in Youtube video about the exhibit.

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Ark of the Covenant prop used in Lucasfilm Production’s Raiders of the Lost Ark. Clip from screenshot in Youtube video about the exhibit.

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Real artifact on exhibit: This embossed gold plaque, circa AD 500-900, comes from the Penn Museum Expedition to Sitio Conte, Panama in 1940. Image and text courtesy Penn Museum

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Also featured at the exhibit: This clay cuneiform tablet, from the site of Nippur in Iraq, 1500-1155 BC, features the first known depiction of a map. Excavated by the Penn Museum Babylonian Expedition. Image and text courtesy Penn Museum

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The multi-media exhibit was designed by X3 Productions with input from Hiebert and Dr. Michel Fortin. Fortin specializes in Near Eastern archaeology and has been teaching at Université Laval in Quebec City for almost 30 years, with many years of experience leading excavation teams at sites in the Middle East.

Visitors may tour the exhibit using a multi-media hand-held device, which will provide information, videos and commentaries about the exhibits. As a video ‘companion’, it will also allow young people the option of creating their own ‘interactive quest’ within the exhibit.

“This exhibition is an exciting journey into the fascinating world of archaeology,” said Hiebert. “This is the perfect opportunity to introduce audiences of all ages to this scientific field through the inspiration of these highly popular films.”

Indiana Jones and the Adventure of Archaeology: The Exhibition can be seen at the National Geographic Museum from May 14, 2015, to Jan. 3, 2016. Tickets are now on sale at the website, or call (202) 857-7700. For information about the exhibit, visit indianajonestheexhibition.com.

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About X3 Productions

X3 Productions consists of three reputed Montreal-based creative companies who have joined forces and combined their extensive expertise in order to offer turnkey project solutions that reflect the challenges faced by museums around the world. Established as pioneers and major players in the field of exhibit design and production for over 50 years, gsmprjct° (gsmprjct.com) is a collective of four integrated teams behind the creation of many exhibitions for a variety of world-class museums. As Canada’s leading cultural organization, L’Équipe Spectra (equipespectra.ca), is best known for its creation of world-class cultural projects reaching an educated clientele. Bleublancrouge (bleublancrouge.ca) has been voted one of Canada’s best creative agencies every year since 2008 by developing local, national and international integrated communications campaigns that have garnered worldwide acclaim. X3 Productions is committed to redefining the modern museum experience by developing and promoting interactive blockbuster touring museum exhibitions. With a focus on creating innovative concepts, gathering unique collections and developing content driven experiences, X3 aims to provide a new kind of museum experience, one that engages, educates and entertains visitors in innovative ways. For more information, visit x3productions.ca.

About Indiana Jones

2011 marks the thirtieth anniversary of Indiana Jones’ first appearance on the silver screen. Since then, audiences around the world have been enraptured by his exploits and adventures. The popular film series – Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom, Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – has garnered 14 Academy Awards® nominations and won seven Oscars. When the fourth film was released in 2008, it immediately reached the top of the box office as the number one movie in America. The films have become a part of film history themselves, and remain among the most popular films ever made – with record box office and merchandise sales and a strong fan base around the world. Boasting a charismatic hero with wide-spread appeal, the film series lends itself to an unprecedented exhibit opportunity by which museum visitors of all ages can be introduced to the history, tools, findings and principles of archaeology. For more information, visit indianajones.com.

About Lucasfilm Ltd.

Lucasfilm Ltd. is one of the world’s leading film and entertainment companies. Founded by George Lucas in 1971, it is a privately held, fully integrated entertainment company. In addition to its motion-picture and television production operations, the company’s global activities include Industrial Light & Magic and Skywalker Sound, serving the digital needs of the entertainment industry for visual-effects and audio post-production; LucasArts, a leading developer and publisher of interactive entertainment software worldwide for video game console systems and PC; Lucas Licensing, which manages the global merchandising activities for Lucasfilm’s entertainment properties; and Lucasfilm Animation, which is currently producing Star Wars: The Clone Wars, a CG-animated half-hour television series produced jointly with the latest addition to the Lucas family, Lucasfilm Singapore. Additionally, Lucas Online creates Internet-based content for Lucasfilm’s entertainment properties and businesses. Lucasfilm’s motion-picture productions include three of the 20 biggest box-office hits of all time and have received 19 Oscars and more than 60 Academy Award nominations. Lucasfilm’s television projects have won 12 Emmy Awards. Lucasfilm Ltd. is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

About the National Geographic Society

The National Geographic Society is one of the world’s largest non-profit scientific and educational organizations. Since 1888, National Geographic has shared unforgettable stories and groundbreaking discoveries with each new generation. National Geographic supports critical expeditions and scientific fieldwork, advances geography education, promotes natural and cultural conservation, and inspires audiences through vibrant exhibits and live events. National Geographic is one of the world’s leading organizers of large-scale, travelling exhibitions. Since it launched “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs” in 2004, National Geographic has organized two more Egyptian-themed exhibitions, “Tutankhamun: The Golden King and the Great Pharaohs” and “Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt.” Other exhibitions National Geographic has organized include the four-city U.S. tour of “Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul.” In 2009, National Geographic travelling exhibitions were seen by more than 6 million visitors. For more information, visit nationalgeographic.com.

About the Penn Museum

The Penn Museum (the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, located on the Penn campus in Philadelphia) is dedicated to the study and understanding of human history and diversity. Founded in 1887, Penn Museum has sent more than 400 archaeological and anthropological expeditions to all the inhabited continents of the world. The Museum’s collection of nearly one million objects include world-renowned artefacts from ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean World, Asia, Africa, Polynesia and the Americas. With an active exhibition schedule and educational programming for children and adults, Penn Museum offers the public an opportunity to share in the ongoing discovery of humankind’s collective heritage.

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Source: Core article written by Popular Archaeology staff, but quotes and other information adapted and edited from a *press release of the National Geographic Society and a **press release of the Penn Museum.

Cover Photo: Screenshot of clip from Lucasfilm Production’s Raiders of the Lost Ark as seen in Youtube video about the exhibition.

_____________________________________________________

Read about the most fascinating discoveries with a super-saver subscription to Popular Archaeology Magazine.  Find out what Popular Archaeology Magazine is all about. 

Recently released!

A special new premium quality print edition of Popular Archaeology Magazine. A beautiful volume for the coffee table.

Travel and learn with Far Horizons.

____________________________________________

Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery Edition eBook is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition.  We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.