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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.

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.

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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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.

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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.

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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.

Modern scholarship on human evolution has generally accepted the suggestion that there were some key changes in the skeletal anatomy of early humans sometime between the two genuses, Australopithecus, and Homo. Australopithecus, the proto-human thought to be ancestral to the more direct human line of Homo, is considered to have featured more primitive, ape-like characteristics. Homo, by contrast, has been thought to feature new, derived characteristics approaching the morphology more typically associated with human-like physical traits. 

But given the relative scarcity of early Homo fossil remains, comparatively less is known about the earliest Homo postcranial morphologies. A recent study by an international team of Homo fossil remains uncovered in Kenya, however, has provided a few more clues reflecting on the diversity and complexity of early Homo differentiation during the earliest periods of the emergence of humans from the still obscure primordial mix of a time when some species of Australopithecus are thought to have coexisted with their ‘more advanced’ Homo counterparts. The team examined a partial ilium (the uppermost and largest bone of the pelvis), and a femur (thigh bone) found at the famous hominin fossil site of Koobi Fora, Kenya, dating to 1.9 Ma (millions of years ago). They found that the specimens featured attributes commonly associated with the genus Homo. But they also found morphological characteristics not typically seen in eastern African early Homo erectus fossils:  “The geometry of the femoral midshaft and contour of the pelvic inlet do not resemble that of any specimens attributed to H. erectus from eastern Africa,” summarized the study authors in their report, which will soon be published in the Journal of Human Evolution. “This new fossil confirms the presence of at least two postcranial morphotypes within early Homo, and documents diversity in postcranial morphology among early Homo species that may reflect underlying body form and/or adaptive differences.”*

Koobi Fora has long been known as a key region containing hominin fossils that have shed light on human evolution over the last 4.2 million years. It is described as a ridge or outcrop of Pliocene/Pleistocene sediments that preserve a prolific record of mammal fossils, including early hominin species. The ridge is being eroded into a badlands terrain by rivers draining into modern Lake Turkana. Anciently, Lake Turkana provided a good habitable lake environment for a variety of mammals, including early humans. In 1968, Richard Leakey, the son of famous paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey and Mary Leakey, established the Koobi Fora Base Camp, a field center for hominin studies, at Lake Turkana.

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The Koobi Fora field center near Lake Turkana, Kenya. Maina Kiarie, Wikimedia Commons

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*Carol V. Ward, et al., Associated ilium and femur from Koobi Fora, Kenya, and postcranial diversity in early Homo, doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2015.01.005

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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.

A recent study paints a picture of a great ancient Mexican city-state that eventually collapsed, at least in part, due to the weight of its own internal social, political and economic struggles.

Known as Teotihuacán, the enigmatic end of this ancient, powerful central Mexican civilization has been the subject of a variety of theories and explanations, including warfare, draught, and internal unrest or conflict, to name a few. The latest study, however, points to internal social and economic struggles characteristic of a mixed, complex and fractured social fabric and power structure that essentially set the stage for conditions leading to its downfall.

“The contrast between the corporate organization at the base and top of Teotihuacán society and the exclusionary organization of the neighborhoods headed by the highly competitive intermediate elite introduced tensions that set the stage for Teotihuacan’s collapse,” stated Linda Manzanilla of Mexico’s Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in her report, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.*

Teotihuacán was one of the most powerful cultural centers in Mesoamerica between the 1st and 6th centuries CE. Unlike most preindustrial urban settlements, Teotihuacán was well-planned and multiethnic partly because two volcanic eruptions forced people of differing cultures to migrate to the metropolis, bringing with them new skill sets, knowledge, and additional labor to support a developing economy.

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The ancient city of Teotihuacán, 30 miles northeast of modern-day Mexico city. Wikimedia Commons

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Manzanilla’s findings are the result of extensive excavations and multidisciplinary analyses of bodies buried in Teotihuacán and, more specifically, one neighborhood center, Teopancazco. Her analyses included measurements of activity markers, nutritional patterns and status, isotopes, and ancient DNA. The results revealed groups from different backgrounds settling mostly on the margins of the metropolis. Around the city core, however, elites exploited the new dynamics by fostering the movement of goods, such as pigments, cosmetics, slate, greenstone, travertine, and foreign pottery, acquiring workers from a variety of foreign cultures to perform specialized tasks. The resulting complex multiethnic neighborhoods aggressively competed with each other and allowed intermediate elite residents to wield social and economic power. Manzanilla suggests that the contrast between the corporate organization wielded by the elites at the top of Teotihuacán society and the differing neighborhoods headed by the highly competitive intermediate elites introduced tensions that helped lead to Teotihuacán’s eventual collapse.

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Decapitated males from Teopancazco, a neighborhood within the ancient Mexican city of Teotihuacan. Image courtesy of Linda Manzanilla.

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“The major ritual and administrative buildings along the Street of the Dead were set on fire in A.D. 550, and the sculptures inside palatial structures, such as Xalla, were shattered,” reported Manzanilla. “No traces of foreign invasion are visible at the site. We interpret this event as a revolt against the ruling elite, perhaps a response to a late intervention on the part of the state to control the entrepreneurial movements of the intermediate elite.”*

The report is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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*Article #14-19881: “Cooperation and tensions in multiethnic corporate societies using Teotihuacan, Central Mexico, as a case study,” by Linda Manzanilla.

Source: Adapted, rewritten, and edited from a press release of the PNAS with information from the published study report.

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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 the summer of 2015 a team of archaeologists will begin excavation of a cyclopean sanctuary located on the Mediterranean island of Menorca. This type of building is monumental and exclusive to this island, with no parallel around the world. Because of this, fieldwork at this building will offer the opportunity to both researchers and excavators to uncover a unique megalithic religious center, where they will obtain information about the ritual practices carried out there and the whole meaning of the building in relation to their users: the so-called Talayotic society.

A Recent Prehistoric Society to be Discovered…the Talayotic

The sanctuary under archaeological investigation is located at the site of Sa Cudia Cremada, a talayotic site (Bronze and Iron Age) which is located in the outskirts of the city of Mahón, the capital of the island. Fieldwork will be carried out by Sa Cudia Cremada Field School: Mediterranean Archaeology in Menorca, an organization that is calling for participants to attend courses which are scheduled for the summer of 2015 in August and September. (By joining the Field School team, participants will have the opportunity to dig in a megalithic religious center, learn proper excavation techniques, work at the laboratory and discover the archaeology that this small paradise, the island of Menorca, hides!) The team aims to carry out scientific research as well as reach out to the general public so that everybody can learn about the archaeology of Menorca (not only professionals in the field of Archaeology and academic circles, but also the general public interested in archaeology).

Menorca is the easternmost of the Balearic Islands (Spain), a beautiful Mediterranean island that attracts visitors for its stunning nature and its unique archaeology. In fact, it was declared a Reserve of the Biosphere by the UNESCO in 1993, and it is currently a candidate to become a UNESCO World Heritage site for its recent prehistoric archaeology…which is unique in the World.

More than 1500 archaeological sites have been located on the island, which has a total area of 700 km2. This means that the density of archaeological remains is that of 2 sites per one square kilometer. The vast majority of these sites date back to the Bronze and Iron Age, from a period which is known as the Talayotic, in reference to the society, the “talaiotics”, who lived on the island from approximately the 2^nd millennium BC up to the conquest of the Balearics by Rome in 123 BC.

The Talayotic society was confined to Menorca and its neighbor, Majorca, and was formed by a community of indigenous peoples from the two islands. They experienced an evolution in their social organization (from a relatively egalitarian society to a hierarchized one from the beginning of the first millennium BC), although many other aspects did not change over time, such as their cyclopean construction technique, their hand-made pottery production, an economy based on farming and stock-breeding and their complex funerary rituals and practices. The funerary evidence suggests they had strong religious beliefs and took very seriously the passing into the afterlife. However, many questions have been left unanswered, partly because they left no traces of a written and spoken language.

The excavation of a cyclopean sanctuary from this past society will shed light on the lives of an island society that developed unique cultural manifestations but, at the same time, acquired some traits from other Mediterranean peoples that reached Menorca and had cultural or commercial contacts with other societies, such as Punics, Greeks and Iberians. Those contacts intensified around 500-400 BC, especially with Punics who, by that time, had a vast territory of the western Mediterranean sea under their control, including the island of Ibiza, quite close to Menorca, the northern coast of Africa and the southeast of the Iberian peninsula, among other places.

In fact, Punics hired talayotic men in order to use them as mercenaries for their troops in the Sicilian wars, against Greeks, since they were very skillful in the use of the slingshot. Since all this started, in the middle of the 1^st millennium BC, Balearic slingshot warriors fought for the Punics in many battles in many parts of the Mediterranean, including the Punic Wars against Rome, and became famous all around the ancient world for being skillful and fierce fighters. Many classical writers like Pliny, Strabo. Livy or Diodorus Siculus, praised the bravery of these warriors of the Balearic Islands, and described in detail aspects of their training, use of the slingshot, tastes and even how they were paid for their services. In fact, written sources state that these warriors refused payment with money—they preferred wine and women instead. Later on, the Balearic slingshot warriors were hired by Romans, who used them as light infantry in many battles, including the civil wars from the Late Republican period.

The Archaeological Site of Sa Cudia Cremada

The archaeological site of Sa Cudia Cremada, in the vicinity of the city of Mahón, is located on rural property, where very well-preserved architectural, ethnological and archaeological elements blend in a beautiful and characteristic Minorcan landscape. Even though the area is archaeologically rich, the most distinctive part is formed by a talayotic settlement along with its necropolis. The most visible structures are three talaiots (monumental tower-shape structures) around which the rest of the structural remains are organized in the dwelling area. Hence, the name of this society derives from the word talayot, as this is its most characteristic building.

Talayots could have served several functions, such as that of watchtowers for the defense and control of the territory, controlled storage of cereals and other products by the elite of each settlement and also as symbols of prestige and power.

The site also features a hypogeum, which is an artificial cave made by the talayotics in order to bury their dead. This cave necropolis, like rest of the hypogeums on the island, has several carved columns to sustain the roof and would have served as a collective inhumation cemetery where all the inhabitants of the settlement, regardless of age, sex and social condition, were buried. Differences in social status, gender and age could be shown by means of grave goods and personal items. Inside those cemeteries some rituals took place, about which we have not found a clear explanation yet. Some practices included storing locks of hair dyed in red in containers made of bull horns, which were all usually piled in hidden corners of the caves. Also, in several of these caves many skeletons have been found with trepanated skulls, which indicate that this society practiced surgery. Even though the purpose of trepanning is still not clear, as it happens in many other cultures, the practice of drilling a hole into the cranium, or scraping off part of it, could have served to heal head wounds, release pressure for treating migraines or other cranial illnesses. However, some scholars suggest that this practice could also be related to more spiritual purposes.

However, the most important building in Sa Cudia Cremada is the taula sanctuary, where archaeological fieldwork run by the field school will take place. Despite the fact that we still do not know much about the internal structure of this building, in these buildings the main feature is usually a large monolithic standing pillar with a lintel lying on it, called taula (meaning “table” in Catalan) due to its T shape, which is usually located at the central part of the building. The building’s layout has a horse-shoe shape composed of walls with large stone blocks. Even though we do not understand its whole meaning, it can be affirmed that religious ceremonies were carried out inside the building by the community. There is a total of 32 taula sanctuaries located on the island, and the sanctuary at the site of Sa Cudia Cremada is the only one that has not been excavated.

Other elements that can be seen at the site are several large storage pits, part of the outer wall that surrounded the settlement and walls from different buildings. The surface is full of materials, both indigenous and foreign from cultures such as Punic, Greek, Iberian and Roman.

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One of the many beautiful natural places in Menorca.

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Cales Fonts, very close to the city of Mahón.

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Entrance to a cyclopean talayotic house, Menorca.

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Taula monument of the site of Torralba d’en Salort, Menorca

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Talayot from Sa Cudia Cremada site, Menorca. Photo courtesy of Triangle Postals

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Sanctuary from Sa Cudia Cremada site, Menorca. Photo courtesy of Triangle Postals

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Talayotic Beliefs

What deities did they worship inside the taula sanctuaries? What were the types of rituals that took place there? Even though little is known about the talayotic religion, thanks to the archaeological record we can be sure about some aspects of their religion, despite the fact that classical sources do not mention it and the talayotics themselves did not leave anything written or, at least, there is no evidence for that.

As in many other Mediterranean cultures, the talayotics worshipped the bull, as can be inferred by some bronze bull statuettes and bronze bull horns found in several sanctuaries. In fact, some scholars have suggested that the T-shape taula monuments were schematic representations of this animal. However, current opinions maintain that this theory lacks sufficient evidence.

Other deities worshipped by the talayotics would have been related to fertility, like a mother-earth goddess type, since they belonged to an agrarian society that depended highly on the good conditions of the land to obtain good crops for their subsistence. In relation to this cult, it is important to highlight the location of several statuettes representing the goddess Tanit in sanctuaries, which was a cult introduced to Menorca by the Punics. Tanit was the main goddess in the Carthaginian pantheon from the 5^th century BC and was related to fertility as a mother goddess.  This indicates how foreign contacts influenced the talayotic culture, including their beliefs.

It is also noteworthy to mention that some Egyptian objects have been found in talayotic sanctuaries, such as a bronze statuette of Imothep and another one representing Horus. How these statuettes got to the island remains unclear, although it could have happened through Punic trade. Be that as it may, the fact that they were found in sanctuaries suggests that they were considered to be special objects worth being placed inside religious spaces.

We also know about another deity that was worshipped by this society. In some sanctuaries several statuettes representing a nude warrior wearing a helmet and carrying a lance have been located. They are called Mars Balearics and are thought to be war gods that could have been produced outside the islands between the 5^th and the 3^rd centuries BC, probably in Etruria, although copies could have been made in the islands as well.

As for their rituals, the sanctuaries that have been already excavated have offered ash contexts around the taula monument with abundant faunal remains and pottery shards, suggesting that ceremonies took place inside the sanctuaries, which were probably related to the cult of their deities, including the ones described above. When these ceremonies happened, how they were structured, who participated in them and the purposes of those events are still unknown. 

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Egyptian statuette of Imhotep found in a talayotic sanctuary from Menorca.

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2015 Fieldwork at Sa Cudia Cremada

In 2015 the Sa Cudia Cremada Field School offers archaeological courses for participants interested in gaining first-hand experience on fieldwork and laboratory tasks. The Field School welcomes university students, professionals, as well as everybody who is interested in archaeology, ancient Mediterranean history, Bronze and Iron Age archaeology, megalithism and cultural hybridization.

2015 courses will take place in two sessions with a length of 3 weeks each in August and September, combining rigorous research with quality training for students who join the team. On course days, students will dig in the settlement’s sanctuary during the first half of the day, whereas the second part will be devoted to lectures, laboratory tasks and workshops.

The sanctuary will be excavated by using a proper field methodology. Each participant will be assigned an area to dig inside the building or in its immediate surroundings. Proper recording systems will be used and everybody will be in charge of filling out context sheets, taking photographs and drawing plans and sections.

Laboratory tasks will include the processing of all archaeological materials found on site and their correct classification, inventory and drawing. Lectures, fieldtrips and workshops will complement the course so that participants get the most out of this experience.

To know more about the Sa Cudia Cremada Field School, the site, or to sign up for their courses, you can contact the team via email at: [email protected]

You can also visit the project’s blog to read updates about the site as well as information about the talayotic culture: http://sacudiafieldschool.blogspot.com.es

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A typical scene in the field: A student carrying out fieldwork

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Human foragers were relying on tropical rainforests for resources since at least 20,000 years ago, or 10,000 years earlier than researchers had thought, according to a new study. Until now, researchers had not been able to find direct evidence of human occupation of rainforest regions before about 10,000 years ago. They had generally assumed that rainforest environments were too dangerous—and offered too little food—to be attractive to prehistoric foragers. But Patrick Roberts and colleagues analyzed carbon and oxygen isotopes from the fossilized tooth enamel of humans and animals found in Sri Lanka and discovered that their diets consisted primarily of plants from rainforests as opposed to plants from open habitats. Humans and animals such as porcupines, giant squirrels, and monkeys foraged the forest edges and semi-open rainforests in Sri Lanka, they say. They didn’t just use them occasionally, as some previous research had suggested, but relied heavily on rainforest resources, even as the rainforest climate and environment experienced dramatic fluxes.

An international research team has shed new light on the diet of some of the earliest recorded humans in Sri Lanka. The researchers from Oxford University, working with a team from Sri Lanka and the University of Bradford, analysed the carbon and oxygen isotopes in the teeth of 26 individuals, with the oldest dating back 20,000 years. They found that nearly all the teeth analysed suggested a diet largely sourced from the rainforest.

This study*, published in the early online edition of the journal, Science, shows that early modern humans adapted to living in the rainforest for long periods of time. Previously it was thought that humans did not occupy tropical forests for any length of time until 12,000 years after that date, and that the tropical forests were largely ‘pristine’, human-free environments until the Early Holocene, 8,000 years ago. Scholars reasoned that compared with more open landscapes, humans might have found rainforests too difficult to navigate, with less available food to hunt or catch.

The Science paper also notes, however, that previous archaeological research provides ‘tantalising hints’ of humans possibly occupying rainforest environments around 45,000 years ago. This earlier research is unclear as to whether those early human dwellers of the rainforest were engaging in a specialised activity or whether they entered the rainforest for only limited periods of time in certain seasons rather than remaining there all year round.

Co-author Professor Julia Lee-Thorp from Oxford University said: ‘The isotopic methodology applied in our study has already been successfully used to study how primates, including African great apes, adapt to their forest environment. However, this is the first time scientists have investigated ancient human fossils in a tropical forest context to see how our earliest ancestors survived in such a habitat.’

The researchers studied the fossilised teeth of 26 humans of a range of dates – from 20,000 to 3,000 years ago. All of the teeth were excavated from three archaeological sites in Sri Lanka, which are today surrounded by either dense rainforest or more open terrain. The analysis of the teeth showed that all of the humans had a diet sourced from slightly open ‘intermediate rainforest’ environments. Only two of them showed a recognisable signature of a diet found in open grassland. However, these two teeth were dated to around 3,000 years, the start of the Iron Age, when agriculture developed in the region. The new evidence published in this paper argues this shows just how adaptable our earliest ancestors were.

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A view from Batadomba-lena rock shelter, the site at which the oldest fossils used in the study were found. Credit: Patrick Roberts

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The site of Batadomba-lena where the oldest human teeth (c. 20,000 years old) used in the study were excavated. Credit: Patrick Roberts

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Sri Lankan wet zone rainforest, near Batadomba-lena rock shelter. Credit: Patrick Roberts

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Lead author, Patrick Roberts, a doctoral student specialising in the investigation of early human adaptations from Oxford’s Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, said: ‘This is the first study to directly test how much early human forest foragers depended on the rainforest for their diet. The results are significant in showing that early humans in Sri Lanka were able to live almost entirely on food found in the rainforest without the need to move into other environments. Our earliest human ancestors were clearly able to successfully adapt to different extreme environments.’

Co-author Professor Mike Petraglia from Oxford University said: “Our research provides a clear timeline showing the deep level of interaction that early humans had with the rainforest in South Asia. We need further research to see if this pattern was also followed in other similar environments in Southeast Asia, Melanesia, Australasia and Africa.”

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*Direct evidence for human reliance on rainforest resources in late Pleistocene Sri Lanka, is by Patrick Roberts, Nimal Perera, Osham Wedage, Siran Deraniyagala, Jude Perera, Saman Eregama, Andrew Gledhill, Michael Petraglia and Julia Lee-Thorp.

The paper was co-authored by the University of Oxford; the Postgraduate Institute of Archaeology, Sri Lanka; Department of Archaeology, Sri Lanka, and the University of Bradford.

Source: University of Oxford and AAAS press releases.

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Krapina Neanderthals may have manipulated white-tailed eagle talons to make jewelry 130,000 years ago, before the appearance of modern human in Europe, according to a study* published March 11, 2015 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by David Frayer from the University of Kansas and colleagues from Croatia.

Researchers describe eight mostly complete white-tailed eagle talons from the Krapina Neanderthal site in present-day Croatia, dating to approximately 130,000 years ago. These white-tailed eagle bones, discovered more than 100 years ago, all derive from a single time period at Krapina. Four talons bear multiple edge-smoothed cut marks, and eight show polishing facets or abrasion. Three of the largest talons have small notches at roughly the same place along the plantar surface.

The authors suggest these features may be part of a jewelry assemblage, like mounting the talons in a necklace or bracelet. Some have argued that Neanderthals lacked symbolic ability or copied this behavior from modern humans, but the presence of the talons indicates that the Krapina Neanderthals may have acquired eagle talons for some kind of symbolic purpose. They also demonstrate that the Krapina Neanderthals may have made jewelry 80,000 years before the appearance of modern humans in Europe.

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Modified white-tailed eagle talons from the Krapina Neanderthal site in present-day Croatia, dated to approximately 130,000 years ago. Courtesy Luka Mjeda, Zagreb

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“It’s really a stunning discovery. It’s one of those things that just appeared out of the blue. It’s so unexpected and it’s so startling because there’s just nothing like it until very recent times to find this kind of jewelry,” said Frayer.

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*Radovi D, Sršen AO, Radovi J, Frayer DW (2015) Evidence for Neandertal Jewelry: Modified White-Tailed Eagle Claws at Krapina. PLoS ONE 10(3): e0119802. doi:10.1371/journal. pone.0119802

Source: Edited from a PLOS ONE press release.

_____________________________________________________

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A new intensive survey of the Messak Settafet escarpment, a massive outcrop of sandstone in the middle of the Saharan desert, has shown that stone tools occur “ubiquitously” across the entire landscape: averaging 75 artefacts per square metre, or 75 million per square kilometre.

Researchers say the vast ‘carpet’ of stone-age tools – extracted from and discarded onto the escarpment over hundreds of thousands of years – is the earliest known example of an entire landscape being modified by hominins: the group of creatures that include us and our ancestral species.

The Messak Settafet runs a total length of 350 km, with an average width of 60 km. Parts of the landscape are ‘anthropogenic’, or man-made, through build-up of tools over hundreds of thousands of years.

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The carpet of lithics on the Messak landscape. Courtesy Foley/Mirazón Lahr

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The research team have used this and other studies to attempt to estimate the volume of stone tools discarded over the last one million years of human evolution on the African continent alone. They say that it is the equivalent of more than one Great Pyramid of Giza per square kilometre of the entire continent (2.1 x 1014 cubic metres of rock).

“The Messak sandstone, now in the middle of the vast sand seas of Libya, would have been a high quality rock for hominins to fracture – the landscape is in effect a carpet of stone tools, most probably made in the Middle and Upper Pleistocene,” said Dr Robert Foley, from the Leverhulme Centre for Evolutionary Studies at the University of Cambridge, who conducted the research with colleague Dr Marta Mirazón Lahr.

“The term ‘anthropocene’ is now used to denote the point at which humans began to have a significant effect on the environment,” said Mirazón Lahr. “The critical time may well be the beginning of the industrial revolution about 200 years ago. Some talk of an ‘early anthropocene’ about 10,000 years ago when forests began being cleared for agriculture.

“Making stone tools, however, dates back more than two million years, and little research has been done on the impact of this activity. The Messak Settafet is the earliest demonstrated example of the scars of human activity across an entire landscape; the effects of our technology on the environment may be considerably older than previously thought,” Mirazón Lahr said. The study is published today in the journal PLOS ONE.

The survey, conducted in 2011, involved randomly selecting plots of one metre squared across the parts of the plateau surface. In each square, the researchers sifted through all the stones to identify the number that showed evidence of modification through hominin activity – evidence such as a ‘bulb of percussion’: a bulge or curved dent on the surface of a stone tool produced by the angular blows of hominin percussion. The average number of artefacts across all sample squares was 75.

At the simple end, large flakes of stone would have been opportunistically hacked from boulders to be used for cutting or as weapons. At the more sophisticated level, researchers found evidence that specific tools had been used to wedge into the stone in order split it.

“It is clear from the scale of activity how important stone tools were, and shows that African hominins were strongly technologically dependent,” said Foley. “Landscapes such as these must have been magnets for hominin populations, either for ‘stone foraging trips’ or residential occupation.”

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Above:  A Levallois core, a distinctive type of Middle Stone Age stone tool, recovered on the surface of the Messak. Courtesy Foley/Mirazón Lahr

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The researchers say that if – as seems likely – the success of Stone Age communities depended significantly on tool technology, there would be enormous advantage to knowing, remembering and indeed controlling access to areas with a “super-abundance” of raw materials, such as the Messak Settafet.

“Hominins may well have become tethered to these areas, unable to stray too far if survival depended on access to the raw materials for tools, and forced to make other adaptations subservient to that need,” said Mirazón Lahr.

One way that the environmental impact of hominin tool excavation may have been positive for later humans is through the clusters of small quarrying pits dotted across the landscape (ranging up to 2 metres in diameter, and 50 centimetres in depth).

These pits would have retained moisture – with surface water still visible today after rains – and the small pools would have attracted game. In many of these pits, the team found ‘trapping stones’: large stones used for traps and ties for game and/or cattle during the last 10,000 years.

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Prof. Robert Foley recording lithic density on the Messak. Courtesy Foley/Mirazón Lahr

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By combining their data with previous extensive surveys carried out across Africa, the researchers attempted to estimate roughly how much stone had been used as tools and discarded during human evolution.

Although stone tool manufacture dates back at least 2.5 million years, the researchers limited the estimate to one million years. Based on their and others research, they standardised population density (based on extant hunter-gatherers), tool volume, the number of tools used by one person in a year and the amount of resulting debris per tool.

They estimate an average density of between 0.5 and 5 million stone artefacts per square kilometre of Africa. When converted into an estimate of volume, this is the equivalent of between 42 to 84 million Great Pyramids of Giza.

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Source: University of Cambridge Press Release

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Other than agriculture, very little can be seen in the field of el-Manach. It is quiet and flat, the soil clearly worked as any farmer’s field would be in this part of Israel.  But beneath its surface lie the material vestiges of what at one time, about 1800 years ago, was a major encampment of Roman soldiers. MAJOR is the operative word, because this encampment constituted the military headquarters of the Legio VI Ferrata, or the Roman Sixth Legion, which, during its time, secured Rome’s hold of northern regions of the province of Syria-Palaestina with its strategic location near important imperial roads.  

Since Byzantine times, the exact location of the military base was a mystery to historians. But in the early 20^th century American engineer, architect and archaeologist Gottlieb Schumacher observed the remains of Roman architecture in the area of ancient Megiddo, and in the 1990’s during a survey Israeli archaeologist Yotam Tepper of the Israel Antiquities Authority identified Roman remains, including coins and roof tiles stamped with the name of the Roman Sixth Legion, concentrated in and around the el-Manach agricultural field.

But real validation didn’t come until 2010, when Tepper began focused archaeological investigations at el-Manach using a variety of remote sensing techniques. This, along with data acquired through preliminary archaeological and historical work, led to the first full-scale excavation at el-Manach in 2013, employing a team of archaeologists, American and European students, and participants from local youth and community groups under co-directors Tepper and Matthew J. Adams of the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research and Jonathan David of Gettysburg College.

What they found at the site, now referred to as Legio after an associated ancient place name, was nothing short of reaffirming.

“The data gathered so far in survey, research, and excavations shows a complex and unexpected settlement scenario at Legio,” wrote Tepper, et al. in a project summary soon to be published in Popular Archaeology Magazine.  “At its heart is a large legionary base of the Sixth Legion, perhaps accommodating the full legion of nearly 5,000 soldiers from all over the empire. Nearby would have been a vicus, an ad hoc civilian settlement providing entertainment, commercial support, and other services for the men of the legion. At Kefar ‘Othnay, just south of the base, was a Jewish-Samaritan village in which there is evidence for an early Christina gathering place, dedicated in part by a Roman centurion.”*

Thus far, finds have included defensive trenching earthworks, or fosse; evidence of a 6m-wide wall that surrounded the base, rooms of barracks that contained hundreds of ceramic tiles, some bearing the legion’s mark; a variety of local and foreign coins of the 2^nd and 3^rd centuries, CE; scale armor fragments; ceramic water pipes; lead ingots; and a stone table leg featuring the face of a panther. They also uncovered evidence of a wide street flanked by drainage channels.    

“Legio provides an incredible new window on the Roman military occupation of the eastern provinces,” state Tepper, et al. “No military headquarters of this type for this particular period have yet been excavated in the entire Eastern Empire.”*

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A volunteer excavates collapsed roof tiles from one of the barracks rooms. Courtesy Jezreel Valley Regional Project

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Roof tile stamped with LEG V (IFERR). Courtesy Jezreel Valley Regional Project

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Roman armor scales found in the barracks. Courtesy Jezreel Valley Regional Project

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In addition to the finds, the excavation has been a proving ground for the application of multiple technologies on a single site, including photogrammetry for digitally mapping and planning, 3D imaging, Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) for digital epigraphy, X-Ray Florescence for determining chemical composition of objects and sediments, and a new archaeological and historical database system.

In 2015, Tepper and colleagues plan to return to the site with another team of specialists, students and volunteers to continue the excavations. During this season, they plan to also employ a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) for aerial imagery, remote sensing, and landscape modeling.

More information about the Legio excavations and how to participate can be acquired at the project website, and a more detailed feature article about the Legio project will be published soon in the Spring issue of Popular Archaeology Magazine.

* The Legionary Base of the Roman Sixth Ferrata Legion at Legio, Israel, by Yotam Tepper, Matthew J. Adams, and Jonathan David

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An international team has discovered a fossilized partial mandible (lower jaw) with five intact teeth representing an early human that, based on the dating, lived as much as 2.8 million years ago in what is today the Afar region of Ethiopia. It is now the oldest fossil evidence to date of a hominin in the genus Homo, the line that includes modern humans. The findings are reported in the journal Science, the publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Led by Brian A. Villmoare of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Arizona State University (ASU) scientists Kaye E. Reed, William H. Kimbel, Christopher J. Campisano and J. Ramón Arrowsmith, and geoscientist Erin N. DiMaggio of Penn State, the researchers discovered the fossil in 2013 in the Ledi-Geraru area of the Afar Regional State of Ethiopia (see images below), an area that also features other ancient mammal fossils, such as prehistoric antelope, water dependent grazers, prehistoric elephants, a type of hippopotamus and crocodiles and fish. The area is significant because it shows geological strata, or layers, that have been exposed due to geologic fault uplifting in the African Great Rift Valley system, where it is located. In other areas where uplifting has not taken place, the same strata have been long eroded away through time.  

The fossil was first sighted by Ethiopian ASU graduate student Chalachew Seyoum on January 29, 2013 while conducting assigned surveying tasks. The 8 cm. long Ledi-Geraru mandible fossil represents the left side of the lower jaw and five teeth, still embedded within the mandible. Analysis of the fossil, led by Villmoare and William H. Kimbel of ASU’s Institute of Human Origins, has revealed features such as slim molars, symmetrical premolars and an evenly proportioned jaw, characteristics that have distinguished species of the Homo lineage from the more apelike characteristics of Australopithecus, an earlier hominin genus, of which one species is suggested by many scholars to have been a forerunner of the Homo genus. Yet some features of the Ledi-Geraru mandible, such as a more primitive, sloping chin morphology, is similar to that of the Australopithecines. It could suggest a possible bridge species between the Australopithecines and later Homo genus species. But it is too soon to assign the fossil to any specific species, say the researchers. There is not enough information yet to make a supportable designation.

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Detailed map of where the Ledi-Geraru site is located in reference to other important fossil sites in Ethiopia. Credit Erin DiMaggio

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Site, geography, and geological stratification where the fossil jaw (designated LD 350-1) was discovered. Credit: Villmoare, et al.

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“We used multiple dating methods including radiometric analysis of volcanic ash layers, and all show that the hominin fossil is 2.8 to 2.75 million years old,” said DiMaggio.

By dating volcanic ash/tuff layers below and above the fossil using argon 40/39 dating, a high-precision radiometric dating method that measures the decay through time of different isotopes of argon within the ash/tuff, scientists were able to calculate the ages of nearby associated ancient volcanic eruptions. In this way, geologists could determine the youngest and oldest dates when the Homo individual could have lived.

The variety of 2.8 – 2.75-year-old animal fossils found in the area indicates that the ancient landscape inhabited by the Homo individual was an open habitat of mixed grasslands and shrub lands with a gallery forest—trees lining rivers or wetlands, likely similar to African locations like the Serengeti Plains or the Kalahari.

Some researchers have also suggested that global climate change during that time created an environment of climate variability and aridity, triggering evolutionary changes in many mammal lines, including early humans.

“We can see the 2.8 million-year-old aridity signal in the Ledi-Geraru faunal community,” said Reed. “But it’s still too soon to say that this means climate change is responsible for the origin of Homo. We need a larger sample of hominin fossils and that’s why we continue to come to the Ledi-Geraru area to search.”

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A caravan moves across the Lee Adoyta region in the Ledi-Geraru project area near the early Homo site. The hills behind the camels expose sediments that are younger than 2.67 million year old, providing a minimum age for the mandible. Credit Erin DiMaggio

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Geologists Dr. Erin DiMaggio of Penn State (left) and Dominique Garello (ASU, right) sample a volcanic tuff near the early Homo site in the Ledi-Geraru project area. Credit J. Ramón Arrowsmith

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Most significantly, the Ledi-Geraru Homo fossil (designated LD 350-1) predates previously known fossils of the Homo lineage by about 400,000 years. Until now, the earliest credible fossil evidence of the Homo genus was dated to about 2.3 or 2.4 million years ago, as represented by the fossil mandible HCRP-UR 501 (see image below), found by the German paleoanthropologist Friedermann Shrenk at Uraha, Malawi. HCRP-UR 501 has been identified as belonging to Homo rudolfensis, an early Homo species that lived roughly contemporaneous with Homo habilis around 2 million years ago.

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HPCR-UR 501, recovered by Friedermann Shrenk at Uraha, Malawi. Gerbil, Wikimedia Commons

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LD 350-1. Close-up view of the Ledi-Geraru partial mandible close to where it was sighted. Credit: Kaye Reed

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Close-up images of the Ledi-Geraru partial mandible, as seen from different angles and perspectives. Credit: William Kimbel

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In a related report published in the journal Nature, Fred Spoor and his colleagues discuss a new reconstruction of the cranium and associated mandible belonging to the 1.8 million-year-old Homo habilis (“Handy Man”) from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. When first found by Mary and Louis Leakey on November 4, 1960, the fossil was in deformed condition. The reconstruction shows some surprising features that could help inform the discussion on where it might stand in relation to the Ledi-Geraru Homo within human evolution.

In any case, the researchers maintain that the new find from the Afar region represents a remarkable discovery.

“In spite of a lot of searching, fossils on the Homo lineage older than 2 million years ago are very rare,” says Villmoare. “To have a glimpse of the very earliest phase of our lineage’s evolution is particularly exciting.”

“The Ledi jaw helps narrow the evolutionary gap between Australopithecus and early Homo,” adds co-author William Kimbel of ASU. “It’s an excellent case of a transitional fossil in a critical time period in human evolution.”

The research team plans to continue their search for additional Homo fossils in the area of the find, hoping to shed additional light on the specimen and ultimately determine a suggested species designation. 

Two detailed research reports* documenting the discovery are published in the journal Science, a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

*“Early Homo at 2.8 Ma from Ledi-Geraru, Afar, Ethiopia” by B. Villmoare et al., and “Late Pliocene Fossiliferous Sedimentary Record and the Environmental Context of early Homo from Afar, Ethiopia,” by E.N. DiMaggio et al.

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The research team, which began conducting field work at Ledi-Geraru in 2002, included: Brian A. Villmoare (University of Nevada Las Vegas), William H. Kimbel (ASU Institute of Human Origins and School of Human Evolution and Social Change), and Chalachew Seyoum (ASU Institute of Human Origins and School of Human Evolution and Social Change, and Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage, Addis Ababa), who analyzed the hominin fossil. Erin N. DiMaggio (Pennsylvania State University), Christopher J. Campisano (ASU Institute of Human Origins and School of Human Evolution and Social Change), J. Ramón Arrowsmith (ASU School of Earth and Space Exploration), Guillaume Dupont-Nivet (CNRS Géosciences Rennes), and Alan L. Deino (Berkeley Geochronology Center), who conducted the geological research. Faysal Bibi (Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science), Margaret E. Lewis (Stockton University), John Rowan (ASU Institute of Human Origins and School of Human Evolution and Social Change), Antoine Souron (Human Evolution Research Center, University of California, Berkeley), and Lars Werdelin (Swedish Museum of Natural History), who identified the fossil mammals. Kaye E. Reed (ASU Institute of Human Origins and School of Human Evolution and Social Change), who reconstructed the past habitats based on the faunal communities. David R. Braun (George Washington University), who conducted archaeological research.

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In a very real way, it may have been the lion and the long-extinct sabertoothed cat, not the dog, that was ‘man’s best friend’, if we go back far enough into human prehistory. 

In a recently published study in the Journal of Human Evolution, author and paleoanthropologist Briana Pobiner of the Smithsonian Institution’s Human Origins Program shows that it was entirely feasible for early humans living on the African savanna as much as two million or more years ago to acquire enough calories simply by lying in wait and scavenging the remains of prey left by lions or big sabertoothed cats after they finished eating the first cuts. 

She concluded this after spending several months in Kenya’s Ol Pejeta Conservancy nature preserve observing, examining, and analyzing large carnivore kills scattered across its grasslands. According to Pobiner, even though it is a modern landscape and environment, it isn’t much different than some of the landscapes that early human ancestors inhabited millions of years ago.   

“The site is a great analogue for the kinds of African savanna environments where hominins are thought to have lived,” said Pobiner. “The habitats—both types and varieties—were probably similar, and in this particular place, lions were the dominant predator. This may have been very much like past carnivore communities during the time our ancestors were starting to eat meat from larger animals, when we have evidence that felids—ancient lions, leopards, and three species of sabertoothed cats—lived alongside our ancestors and may have been the dominant kinds of carnivores at this time.“ She points to ancient sites such as Koobi Fora and Olduvai Gorge in East Africa that have yielded evidence of the earliest stone tools, with ancient environments very similar to that of present-day Ol Pejeta where big felids coexisted with humans.

A typical day in the field for Pobiner would begin with listening to a short wave radio for any mention from the conservancy about spotting lions or hearing them roar during the night—particularly if they were eating prey. On a lucky day, she would drive her Land Cruiser along with an armed guard out to the lion site and then simply stop to observe them at a safe distance while they ate. The armed guard was critical. “I didn’t want to become prey myself—to be charged by an elephant, rhino, buffalo, or other angry ungulate,” she said. About one hour after the lions were done and had left the scene, she and her assisting guard would finally approach the kill, meticulously document the remains with photographs and notes, and then pick up the carcass and place it into the back of the Land Cruiser. Later, another assistant would carefully remove the meat from the bones with wooden tools so as not to make any marks that might be confused with tooth marks, and then boil the bones clean. Once the bones were dry, they would be ready for further study.

Apart from potentially angry ungulates, the work was not without other challenges.

“It turns out lions don’t kill things all that often,” Pobiner says. “So getting a large enough sample size was challenging. Another challenge was sometimes having difficulty getting around to get to the carcasses even with my sturdy vehicle during the rainy season when it got really muddy or if I inadvertently drove into a warthog burrow.”

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Parked near a kill site. Photo courtesy Briana Pobiner

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A typical kill site. Photo courtesy Briana Pobiner

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Stuck! One of the many pitfalls of the work. Photo courtesy Briana Pobiner

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For her efforts, however, Pobiner’s work has its rewards. Like others before her, this study could hold answers to questions related to the ongoing debate about early human behavior before the advent of more modern hunting tools and techniques. The debate has revolved around the ‘man the hunter’ hypothesis, which suggests that early humans who lived as much as two million or more years ago procured their meat needs primarily through hunting, versus the ‘man the scavenger’ hypothesis, which proposes that the early humans procured these needs mostly by scavenging the remains left by other preying carnivores, such as lions, sabertoothed cats, hyenas, and other animals. Subsumed within the ‘man the scavenger’ hypothesis has been the question of whether these early humans scavenged primarily as aggressive, confrontational, “power” scavengers who competed with the other carnivores for first access to the prey (such as scaring or beating off a lion from its hunted and killed prey), or as ‘passive’ scavengers who waited until other carnivores got their first prime cuts and then safely went in to pick the carcass for the scraps after the other big carnivores had left the scene. Specifically, Pobiner’s study results indicated that, even after the other large carnivores had their complete fill of the prey and left the carcass to the elements, there would have been enough meat in the scraps to provide a decent meal for a scavenging hominin afterwards. In other words, early humans could have made a living as passive scavengers.

“The most surprising finding was simply the large quantity of meat that lions leave when they eat their kills, which was more than anyone had observed before,” stated Pobiner. “In fact, the leftover meat from just one zebra kill made by lions could have provided almost 6,100 calories for our early human ancestors—that’s the entire daily caloric requirements of almost three adult male Homo erectus individuals, or just over 11 Big Macs. Not bad for a “lowly” scavenger!”

“Part of the criticism of the idea of a scavenging niche is whether there would even be enough meat on a lion kill worth scavenging, especially “passively” scavenging—waiting for the lions to be completely finished rather than chasing them off their kill in “active” or “confrontational” scavenging. My research answers a resounding “yes” to that question.” 

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Artist’s depiction of a group of Homo erectus individuals butchering an elephant carcass, based on evidence found of butchered elephant bones, and thousands of stone tools found at Olorgesailie, Kenya, a site where the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program has conducted excavations. Image courtesy Smithsonian Human Origins Program/Karen Carr

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Pobiner has clocked countless hours researching how and when eating meat, a key source of calories, protein and other nutrients, became an important factor in the ultimate evolutionary success of humans.

“Diet is such a crucial part of an organism’s adaptation, and understanding when and how hominins started incorporating meat from large animals into their diets can give us insight into other key adaptations that characterize our lineage – brain size increase, body size increase, home range and group size increase, moving into novel habitats and environments, interactions with other predators, and sophisticated communication and planning, for instance,” she said. “We went from being mostly prey to being the most dominant predator on earth, or at least one of them, in a mere 2.5 million years.”

The detailed study report is published in the Journal of Human Evolution. 

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If you liked this, see also The Bones of Ol Pejeta, by Briana Pobiner and Kris Kovarovic, and Rewriting Human Evolution, a premium article in the September, 2014 issue of Popular Archaeology.

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Read about the most fascinating discoveries with a premium subscription to Popular Archaeology Magazine.  Find out what Popular Archaeology Magazine is all about.  AND MORE:

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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.

Analysis of sedimentary ancient DNA from an underwater site off the southern coast of Britain suggests, according to a U.K research team, that Mesolithic hunter-gatherers who occupied a site now underwater traded in a Near Eastern strain of wheat 2,000 years before the currently generally-accepted advent of farming in Britain.

“The first evidence of cereal cultivation on what is now mainland Britain dates back only to about 6,000 years ago, suggesting a substantial temporal gap between the two sides of the English Channel,” wrote University of Oxford’s Greger Larson in a perspective article published about the finding in Science magazine.** Larson is Director of the Palaeogenomics & Bio-Archaeology Research Network Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art. It is generally thought that farming began in Europe, south and west of the English Channel, much earlier than in the British Isles. He goes on to summarize the process and merits of the recently completed study by a team of U.K. scientists led by Oliver Smith of the University of Warwick that suggests the presence of not just wheat, but a Near Eastern strain of wheat, within 8,000-year-old submerged paleosol sediments at Bouldnor Cliff off the Isle of Wight in the English Channel. 

Smith and colleagues teased DNA from core samples taken from a Mesolithic paleosol layer just beneath a peat layer sealed beneath silty-clay submerged alluvial sediments. Millennia ago, this paleosol layer was above ground, an ancient landscape that was gradually submerged as sea levels rose during the warming period beginning in the early Holocene epoch. The sea level change inundated the land bridge between what is today Britain and the rest of Europe, creating the English Channel. The researchers uncovered evidence of human occupation typical of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers at the site, which included worked wood, burnt flint and hazelnut shells. 

“The site has been dated to 8030 to 7980 calendar (cal) yr B.P.,” wrote Smith, et al. in their report, “placing it in the late Mesolithic of the British Isles, a period that is represented by few assemblages and is still little understood………The sedaDNA [sedimentary ancient DNA] profile revealed a wooded landscape that included oak, poplar, apple, and beech family members, with grasses and a few herbs present.”*

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Diver shows sample of finds unearthed at the marine site of Bouldnor Cliff. From the video describing the research findings in the paper titled “Sedimentary DNA from a submerged site reveals wheat in the British Isles 8,000 years ago”. Credit: University of Warwick

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But the most startling finding came from the DNA analysis. Through meticulous analysis accounting for and dismissing possible contamination as well as potential intrusion from other upper layers, they discovered clear DNA traces of Near Eastern strains of wheat genuinely dated to and associated within the context of the Mesolithic assemblage, which also included evidence of a Mesolithic human diet.

“The occurrence of wheat 8,000 years ago on the British continental shelf appears early, given its later establishment on the UK mainland,” wrote Smith, et al.,  “Neolithic assemblages first appear in northwest Europe in the 8th millennium B.P., from 7500 B.P. in the central Rhineland, 7300 B.P. in the Rhine/Maas delta and adjacent areas, and 7400 B.P. in western France.”*

The DNA results thus suggest the presence of wheat at Bouldnor Cliff about 400 years before the earliest known occurrences of farming in northwestern Europe, and 2,000 years before agriculture is known to have taken hold in what is today Britain.

The researchers found no evidence that the wheat had actually been cultivated at or near the site. Instead, they suggest, the wheat was likely traded into the area by a network established between hunter-gatherers at Bouldnor Cliff and Neolithic farmers further south and west in Europe.

“We suspect that this wheat represents foodstuffs imported from the continent rather than the cultivation of this cereal crop at this locale. The presence of wheat, along with pioneering technological artifacts at the site, provides evidence for a social network between well-developed Mesolithic peoples of northwest Europe and the advancing Neolithic front,” conclude Smith, et al., suggesting the agricultural products moved ahead of their actual cultivation in Britain.*

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Above: From the video describing the research findings in the paper titled “Sedimentary DNA from a submerged site reveals wheat in the British Isles 8,000 years ago”. Credit: University of Warwick

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Although the predominant thinking among scholars places the advent of the farming Neolithic in what is today Britain by 6000 years BPE, the timing and mode of Neolithization is still debated. One model suggests the arrival of Neolithic farming technologies on the mainland was rapid, facilitated by the arrival of migrating farmers from the rest of Europe, displacing or acculturating the indigenous hunter-gatherers; the other proposes that hunter-gatherers gradually transitioned to a Neolithic economy, with increasing dependency on cereals over thousands of years.

The study has important implications in the ongoing research on the evolution of agriculture in Europe. “The unexpectedly early appearance of wheat in Britain should force a rethinking of both the strength of the relationships between early farmers and hunter-gatherers, and the origins of settled agricultural communities in Europe,” concluded Larson in the Science perspective article.**

The detailed study report is published in Science, a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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*“Sedimentary DNA from a submerged site reveals wheat in the British Isles 8000 years ago,” by O. Smith; M. Pallen; R.G. Allaby at University of Warwick in Coventry, UK; G. Member at Maritime Archaeology Trust in Southampton, UK; G. Member at National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, UK; R. Bates at University of St. Andrews in St. Andrews, UK; P. Garwood; S. Fitch at University of Birmingham in Birmingham, UK; V. Gaffney at University of Bradford in Bradford, UK., Science, 27 February, 2015, VOL 347 ISSUE 6225.

** “How wheat came to Britain,” by Greger Larson at University of Oxford, Palaeogenomics & Bio-Archaeology Research Network Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, Science, 26 February, 2015.

_________________________________________________

Read about the most fascinating discoveries with a premium subscription to Popular Archaeology Magazine.  Find out what Popular Archaeology Magazine is all about.  AND MORE:

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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.