Eco-cultural niches of the Badegoulian: Unraveling links between cultural adaptation and ecology during the Last Glacial Maximum in France

This study details an application of eco-cultural niche modeling (ECNM) using two modeling architectures—a genetic algorithm (GARP) and maximum entropy (Maxent)—aimed at examining the ecological context of sites with archaeological remains attributed to the culture termed the Badegoulian (ca. 22–20 k cal BP), which dates to the middle part of the Last Glacial Maximum (ca. 23–19 k cal BP). We reconstructed the ecological niche of the Badegoulian and assessed whether eco-cultural niche variability existed within this technocomplex. We identified two broad but distinct spatial entities in the distribution of Badegoulian sites based on lithic raw material sources and circulation, and found that these spatial units share a similar ecological niche. We discuss the implications of territorial differentiation within this niche in light of research on land use by culturally affiliated groups within a broad cultural entity. We propose that Badegoulian circulation networks reflect distinct social territories associated with particular conditions within a single ecological niche. This study illustrates the utility of combining ecological niche reconstructions with archaeological data to identify and evaluate diachronic trends in cultural continuity for situations where such patterns may be missed when the focus of study is restricted solely to lithic technology and typology.     

Fires at Neumark-Nord 2, Germany: An analysis of fire proxies from a Last Interglacial Middle Palaeolithic basin site

Few sites with evidence for fire use are known from the Last Interglacial in Europe. Hearth features are rarely preserved, probably as a result of post-depositional processes. The small postglacial basins (<300?m in diameter) that dominate the sedimentary context of the Eemian record in Europe are high-resolution environmental archives often containing charcoal particles. This case study presents the macroscopic charcoal record of the Neumark-Nord 2 basin, Germany, and the correlation of this record with the distinct find levels of the basin margin that also contain thermally altered archaeological material. Increased charcoal quantities are shown to correspond to phases of hominin presence—a pattern that fits best with recurrent anthropogenic fires within the watershed. This research shows the potential of small basin localities in the reconstruction of local fire histories, where clear archaeological features like hearths are missing.     

Deglaciation and Human Colonization of Northern Europe

Few places worldwide experienced Late Glacial ecological shifts as drastic as those seen in the areas covered by, or adjacent to, the massive ice sheets that blanketed much of the northern hemisphere. Among the most heavily glaciated regions, northern Europe underwent substantial ecological shifts during and after the Last Glacial Maximum. The climatically unstable Pleistocene–Holocene transition repeatedly transformed far-northern Europe, placing it among the last regions to be colonized by Paleolithic societies. As such, it shares paleoenvironmental and archaeological analogues with other once glaciated areas where human populations, entrenched in periglacial environments prior to glacier retreat, spread into newly deglaciated territories. Perhaps most significant for northern Europeans were post-glacial effects of the Younger Dryas and Preboreal periods, as shifts in climate, plant, and animal communities elicited several adaptive responses including innovation, exploration, and the eventual settlement of once glaciated landscapes. This paper is a detailed review of existing archaeological and paleoecological evidence pertaining to the Late Upper Paleolithic of northern Europe, and offers theoretical observations on human colonization models and ecological responses to large-scale stadial and interstadial events.     

Human ecological niches and ranges during the LGM in Europe derived from an application of eco-cultural niche modeling

We apply eco-cultural niche modeling (ECNM), an heuristic approach adapted from the biodiversity sciences, to identify habitable portions of the European territory for Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), circumscribe potential geographic extents of the Solutrean and Epigravettian technocomplexes, evaluate environmental and adaptive factors that influenced their distributions, and discuss this method's potential to illuminate past human–environment interaction. Our ECNM approach employed the Genetic Algorithm for Rule-Set Prediction (GARP) and used as input a combination of archaeological and geographic data, in conjunction with high-resolution paleoclimatic simulations for this time frame. The archaeological data consist of geographic coordinates of sites dated by Accelerator Mass Spectrometry to the LGM and attributed to the Solutrean and Epigravettian technocomplexes. The areas predicted by ECNM consistently outline the northern boundary of human presence at 22,000–20,000 cal BP. This boundary is mainly determined by climatic constraints and corresponds well to known southern limits of periglacial environments and permafrost conditions during the LGM. Differences between predicted ecological niches and known ranges of the Solutrean and Epigravettian technocomplexes are interpreted as Solutrean populations being adapted to colder and more humid environments and as reflecting influences of ecological risk on geographic distributions of cultures.     

Siberia at the Last Glacial Maximum: Environment and Archaeology

This article focuses on the presence of humans in Siberia and the Russian Far East at the coldest time of the Late Pleistocene, called the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and dated to c. 20,000–18,000 rcbp. Reconstruction of the LGM environment of Siberia, based on the latest models and compilations, provides a background for human existence in this region. Most of Siberia and the Russian Far East at c. 20,000–18,000 rcbp was covered by tundra and cool steppe, with some forest formations in the river valleys. Climate was much colder and drier than it is today. Eighteen Upper Paleolithic sites in Siberia are radiocarbon dated strictly to the LGM, and at least six of them, located in southern parts of western and eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East, have solid evidence of occupation during that time span. It seems clear that southern Siberia was populated by humans even at the height of the LGM, and that there was no dramatic decline or complete disappearance of humans in Siberia at that time. The degree of human adaptation to periglacial landscapes in the mid-Upper Paleolithic of northern Eurasia was quite high; humans coped with the cold and dry environmental conditions using microblade technology, artificial shelters, tailored clothes, and megafaunal bones as fuel. An erratum to this article can be found at     

“The Good,the Bad,and the Ugly”: evaluating the radiocarbon chronology of the middle and late Upper Paleolithic in the Enisei River valley,south-central Siberia

The ¹⁴C record for the Upper Paleolithic in Siberia has remained largely unevaluated and includes good, bad, and ugly dates. Too often researchers accept either all published dates or only those dates that tend to support proposed chronological hypotheses, regardless of sample quality and association. This article systematically evaluates all published ¹⁴C dates (including several newly obtained AMS dates) from middle and late Upper Paleolithic sites in the Enisei River valley of south-central Siberia to establish a reliable chronology for the region and address the tempo of modern human dispersals in Siberia during late Pleistocene times. The revised chronology indicates humans were present before and after the Last Glacial Maximum, but absent during this climatic event. Results also suggest that human population in the region may have increased during the Oldest Dryas.     

The Enisei River of Central Siberia in the Late Pleistocene

Recent Paleolithic work along the middle Enisei River of central Siberia has revealed a long history of occupation that almost certainly begins in the Middle Pleistocene. Although the evidence for the Lower Paleolithic is somewhat tentative, there is good reason to believe that hunter-gatherers had periodically occupied the middle Enisei before the last interglacial. The steppe environment of the region during the Upper Pleistocene was relatively bountiful; more than 200 Upper Paleolithic sites, both before and after the Last Glacial Maximum, have been located. The region appears to have been abandoned during the Last Glacial Maximum. Most of Soviet and Russian archaeological work has been guided by a cultural–historical orientation, but recently there has been increased interest in developing adaptationist and ecological research strategies. The middle Enisei and the wider central Siberian region are key to understanding early adaptations to the north and the dimensions of Paleolithic population movements.     

Hunter–gatherer dispersals in the mammoth-steppe: technological provisioning and land-use in the Enisei River valley,south-central Siberia

Late Pleistocene Siberia was characterized by a unique mammoth-steppe biome. Two prevailing hypotheses exist to explain modern human dispersals in the Siberian mammoth-steppe. Upper Paleolithic human populations were either maintained continuously throughout the late Pleistocene or the peopling of this region resulted from multiple dispersal events. Past attempts at explaining the colonization process have resulted in culture-historical interpretations. This article uses lithic technological data from middle and late Upper Paleolithic sites in the Enisei River valley of south-central Siberia to explain human dispersals from a behavioral perspective. Technological provisioning and land-use strategies are reconstructed to help explain dispersal processes. Results of the study demonstrate that hunter–gatherers were using different adaptive strategies before and after the Last Glacial Maximum, indicating that multiple dispersal events shaped the peopling of Siberia.     

Investigating the role of food processing in human evolution: a niche construction approach

While it is generally agreed that food processing has had a role in human evolution, the specific ways that is has affected our evolution are not well understood. Using a Niche Construction Theory (NCT) perspective, coupled with methodologies borrowed from “post-harvest” research in the plant sciences, this paper investigates the means and mechanism by which food processing is of evolutionary consequence. The central tenet of NCT is that organisms have an active role in their own evolution through reciprocal interactions with their environments; niche construction is understood to occur when organisms initiate long-term changes to their environments that modify the selection pressures on themselves and their descendants (and on other organisms in the environment). Humans and our hominin ancestors are considered to be the ultimate niche constructors due to our ability to modify selection pressures through diverse culturally generated and transmitted cultural means, i.e. cultural niche construction. In this paper, post-harvest methods are used to identify how food processing could feasibly have permitted hominins to modify their evolutionary selection pressures. Food processing is shown to facilitate access to increasing amounts of digestible nutrients and energy (kilocalories/kilojoules) as well as promoting increased dietary breadth and making possible the production of safer and more stable foods. It is argued that these advancements catalysed related technological and ecological skills and knowledge, which together with the nutritional benefits, further triggered changes in hominin brain and body and locomotory adaptations and increased longevity, disease prevention and juvenile survival rates.     

Human refugia in Australia during the Last Glacial Maximum and Terminal Pleistocene: a geospatial analysis of the 25–12 ka Australian archaeological record

A number of models, developed primarily in the 1980s, propose that Aboriginal Australian populations contracted to refugia – well-watered ranges and major riverine systems – in response to climatic instability, most notably around the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) (∼23–18 ka). We evaluate these models using a comprehensive continent-wide dataset of archaeological radiocarbon ages and geospatial techniques. Calibrated median radiocarbon ages are allocated to over-lapping time slices, and then K-means cluster analysis and cluster centroid and point dispersal pattern analysis are used to define Minimum Bounding Rectangles (MBR) representing human demographic patterns. Exploring data between 25 and 12 ka, we find a refugia-type hunter-gatherer response during the LGM (∼23–18 ka) and again during the Antarctic Cold Reversal (ACR) (∼14.5–12.5 ka), with expansion in the intervening period. Several refugia persist between 25 and 12 ka, including (by Interim Biogeographic Regionalisation for Australia areas) Gulf Plains/Einasleigh Uplands, Brigalow Belt South, Murray Darling Depression, and Tasmanian Central Highlands. Others appear sporadically through the same period. These include South Eastern Highlands, NSW South Western Slopes, Sydney Basin, Warren, Murchison, Gascoyne, Central and Northern Kimberley, Ord Victoria Plain, Arnhem Plateau, MacDonnell Ranges and Central Ranges. The Pilbara may also have been a refugium during the LGM, but geospatial results are problematic for this region. Areas devoid of human activity (‘barriers’) include the main desert regions, especially in the south and west of the continent, although some of these may be the result of an absence of archaeological fieldwork. Point dispersal pattern analysis indicates a reduction in occupied territory of nearly 80% during the LGM. A reduction of close to 50% was also evident during the ACR. A large number of the refugia were in close proximity to glaciated areas during the LGM, and probably benefitted from increased summer snowmelt along the major river systems. The remaining refugia are likely the result of a range of local environmental and resource factors. We identify areas for future research, including a focus on regional studies to determine possible cryptic or idiosyncratic refugia emerging in phlyogeographic studies.     

Quaternary Organic Deposit from Newton Creek Valley,Western Tasmania

Pollen and macrofossils from an organic deposit probably 44 ka BP in age record subalpine heath with abundant local Athrotaxis cupressoides. This was succeeded by subalpine heath that included Casuarina, Phyllocladus and Eucalyptus. The pollen/vegetation assemblages are comparable with present subalpine vegetation located between 850–1050 m, though the site is at 550 m and potentially below the limit of temperate rainforest (620 m). It is inferred that the vegetation altered from upper to lower subalpine heath and that the climate became warmer and wetter. The mean temperature is estimated to have been at least 3.2°C to 1.7°C colder than today. The trend of vegetation and climate change compares closely with Late Glacial changes but does not compare with changes recorded from sites of Middle Last Glacial age in the West Coast Ranges. A radiocarbon date of 34 ka BP and a trend towards warming suggests that the deposit may represent the onset of an interstadial during the Early Last Glacial Stage.     

The Upper Paleolithic Rock Art of Iberia

Nearly 200 rock art sites of Upper Paleolithic age are currently known on the Iberian Peninsula, in both caves and the open air. Over half are still concentrated in Cantabrian Spain and they span the period between c. 30–11 kya, but–tracking the course of human demography in this geographically circumscribed region–many of the images were probably painted or engraved during the Solutrean and, especially, Magdalenian. Dramatic discoveries and dating projects have significantly expanded the Iberian rock art record both geographically and temporally in recent years, in close coincidence with the growth of contemporaneous archeological evidence: cave art loci in Aragón and Levante attributable to the Solutrean and Magdalenian, many cave art sites and a few open-air ones in Andalucía and Extremadura that are mostly Solutrean (in line with evidence of a major Last Glacial Maximum human refugium in southern Spain), the spectacular Côa Valley open-air complex in northern Portugal (together with a growing number of other such loci and one cave) that was probably created during the Gravettian-Magdalenian periods, and a modest, but important increase in proven cave and open-air sites in the high, north-central interior of Spain that are probably Solutrean and/or Magdalenian. Despite regional variations in decorated surfaces, themes, techniques and styles, there are broad (and sometimes very specific) pan-Iberian similarities (as well as ones with the Upper Paleolithic art of southern France) that are indicative of widespread human contacts and shared systems of symbols and beliefs during the late Last Glacial. As this Ice Age world and the forms of social relationships and ideologies that helped human groups survive in it came to an end, so too did the decoration of caves, rockshelters and outcrops, although in some regions other styles of rock art would return under very different conditions of human existence.     

The Middle Stone Age human remains from Diepkloof Rock Shelter (Western Cape,South Africa)

In the course of recent excavations at Diepkloof Rock Shelter (South Africa), three human remains were found in the Middle Stone Age layers. These human remains are two pedal phalanges (intermediate and distal) from a fifth ray, which belong to the same individual, and a deciduous first lower molar. The layers in which they were found represent the end of the Howiesons Poort and the beginning of post-Howiesons Poort occupation, and are radiometrically dated to MIS 3, between 45 and 65 kyr ago. They are thus very close in time to the assumed period of anatomically modern humans (AMH) dispersal out of Africa into Eurasia, a period for which very few remains are available in the African fossil record. Here, we describe these new remains and compare their morphology and dimensions to samples of African and Eurasian Pleistocene and Holocene humans. Our results show that the human remains from Diepkloof Rock Shelter fall well within the range of variation of AMH. The phalanges are of very small size and indistinguishable from those of recent humans. In addition, our analysis of the dm₁ underlines a large size variation at the end of the MIS 4/beginning of the MIS 3 in the Western Cape. The discovery of human remains at Diepkloof Rock Shelter, albeit limited to three small bones, enriches a poorly represented chronological period of the African hominin fossil record.     

INTIMATE (Integration of Ice-core,Marine and Terrestrial Records) 20 Years on: Retrospect and Prospect

The INTIMATE (Integration of ice-core, marine and terrestrial records) project, the successor to the North Atlantic Seaboard Programme of International Geological Correlation Programme (IGCP-253) ‘Termination of the Pleistocene’, began in 1995 with the aim of integrating proxy climate records from around the North Atlantic during the Last Termination (18–8?ka BP). The INTIMATE remit has since expanded geographically to include the entire Atlantic basin and Australasia, while an extended temporal framework now covers the early Holocene and the Last Glacial cycle. This short paper outlines the principal achievements of the INTIMATE research community, which include the development of an event stratigraphy for the North Atlantic region; the establishment of protocols for ice–land–ocean correlation; important contributions to geochronology, most notably to tephrochronology, and to palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic reconstructions; and the designation of the Greenland ice-core record as the global stratotype for the Pleistocene–Holocene boundary. Future directions of the INTIMATE programme are also briefly considered.     

Middle pleistocene adaptations in Central Europe

The biological evolution documented in the fossil and archaeological record of Central Europe between about 700,000 and 100,000 years ago reflects the transition fromHomo erectus to the earliestHomo sapiens. These populations created different types of industries, ranging from assemblages of small artifacts and industries with simple pebble tools to standardized units such as the Evolved Acheulean and the Early Mousterian. The industries of the Last Interglacial (Taubachian) show some regression in technological standardization and a reappearance of small artifacts. Other aspects of cultural adaptation (settlements, dwellings, hunting activity, symbolic and aesthetic expressions) are also summarized. It is suggested that the impact of climate and climatic changes on human settlement and behavior was greater in Central Europe (where two glaciations advanced from both north and south) than in the Mediterranean and Western Europe. The general trend of cultural veolution was toward greater technological and social complexity, but its course was not unilinear.     

Standing at the gates of Europe: Human behavior and biogeography in the Southern Carpathians during the Late Pleistocene

This study presents a behavioral analysis of Middle and Upper Paleolithic lithic assemblages from 14 sites located in the southern Carpathian Mountains. Using a whole assemblage behavioral indicator, we show that the hominins that manufactured those stone tools do not appear to have differed in terms of the flexibility of the mobility strategies they employed to exploit their landscapes. Rather than biological change, we argue that large-scale climate changes are likely more important drivers of behavioral changes during the Late Pleistocene of the region, including during the Middle–Upper Paleolithic transition. These results agree well with the results of studies having employed this methodology in other regions, suggesting that this is a generalized feature of the transition across Eurasia. Recasting the transition as a mainly ecological rather than purely biocultural process allows us to generate new perspectives from which to approach the question of behavioral change during the Late Pleistocene, and ultimately suggests that the process referred to as the ‘Middle–Upper Paleolithic transition’ is essentially a brief segment of a much more extensive process driven by prehistoric human–environment interactions that would culminate in the highly logistical mobility strategies documented throughout the continent at the Last Glacial Maximum.     

Investigating links between ecology and bifacial tool types in Western Europe during the Last Glacial Maximum

We apply Eco-Cultural Niche Modeling (ECNM), using the Genetic Algorithm for Rule-Set Prediction, to reconstruct the ecological niches exploited by Middle Solutrean and Upper Solutrean populations during the latter stages of Heinrich Event 2 and the early part of the Last Glacial Maximum, respectively. We focus on the Upper Solutrean technocomplex and its regionally distinct styles of hunting weaponry to investigate whether regional cultural variability reflects a link between material culture and ecology. Our analytical approach uses archaeological and geographic data in conjunction with high-resolution paleoclimatic simulations and vegetation reconstructions for the two climatic phases in question. Our results indicate that cultural choices behind the production of specific projectile point types have at some level an ecological basis and are linked to particular environments. We also find that the identified pattern of Upper Solutrean territoriality has an ecological foundation, but that its stylistic expression in the variation of diagnostic armature types is likely a byproduct of cultural drift. We argue that ECNM is an effective means with which to evaluate the paleoecological pertinence of archaeologically defined artifact types and to identify the ecological and cultural mechanisms underlying material culture variability.     

A Tale of Two Migrations: Reconciling Recent Biological and Archaeological Evidence for the Pleistocene Peopling of the Americas

This article synthesizes the 2000s-era “peopling of the Americas” data drawn from molecular biology, osteology, and archaeology. Collectively, they suggest that colonization proceeded in two pulses, both originating in western Beringia, and before that, south-central and southeastern Siberia. The first pulse occurred circa 16 k–15 k cal. B.P. by watercraft along the coast of Beringia and western North and South America. The second took place 1,000 years later and involved proto-Clovis hunter-gatherers who used the ice-free corridor as a conduit south. At least eight North American sites dating as far back as the Last Glacial Maximum suggest that the peopling picture may eventually need to change to accommodate an earlier than previously thought migration through the ice-free corridor. For now, the data are not strong enough to support this scenario, but they are tantalizingly close.     

Refuting the technological cornerstone of the Ice-Age Atlantic crossing hypothesis

The “North Atlantic Ice-Edge Corridor” hypothesis proposes that sometime during the Last Glacial Maximum, roughly 26,500–19,000 years ago, human populations from southern France and the Iberian Peninsula made their way across the North Atlantic and colonized North America. A key element of that hypothesis is the apparent similarity between stone-tool-production techniques of Solutrean peoples of Western Europe and Clovis and purportedly pre-Clovis peoples of eastern North America, most especially the supposed intentional use of “controlled overshot flaking,” a technique for thinning a bifacial stone tool during manufacture. Overshot flakes, struck from prepared edges of the tool, travel across the face and remove part of the opposite margin. Experimental and archaeological data demonstrate, however, that the most parsimonious explanation for the production of overshot flakes is that they are accidental products created incidentally and inconsistently as knappers attempt to thin bifaces. Thus, instead of representing historical divergence, overshot flakes in Clovis and Solutrean assemblages mark convergence in the use of the same simple solution for thinning bifaces that produced analogous detritus.