Identification of fossil hairs in Parahyaena brunnea coprolites from Middle Pleistocene deposits at Gladysvale cave,South Africa

This research focuses on scale pattern and cross sectional morphology of hair to identify an expanded sample of fossil hairs from Parahyaena brunnea coprolites from Gladysvale cave in the Sterkfontein Valley, South Africa. The coprolites are part of a brown hyaena latrine preserved in calcified cave sediment dated to the Middle Pleistocene (257–195 ka). Forty-eight fossil hairs were extracted from 12 coprolites using fine tweezers and a binocular microscope, and examined using a scanning electron microscope. Hair identification was based on consultation of standard guides to hair identification and comparison with our own collection of samples of guard hairs from 15 previously undocumented taxa of indigenous southern African mammals. Samples were taken from the back of pelts curated at the Johannesburg Zoo and Ditsong National Museum of Natural History (formerly Transvaal Museum, Pretoria). Based on the fossil hairs identified here, this research has established that brown hyaenas shared the Sterkfontein Valley with hominins, warthog, impala, zebra and kudu. Apart from humans, these animals are associated with savanna grasslands, much like the Highveld environment of today. These findings support the previous tentative identification of fossil human hair in the coprolites, provide a new source of information on the local Middle Pleistocene fossil mammal community, and insight into the environment in which archaic and emerging modern humans in the interior of the African subcontinent lived.     

Middle Stone Age bone tools from the Howiesons Poort layers,Sibudu Cave,South Africa

Recently discovered bone implements from Middle Stone Age (MSA) deposits at Sibudu Cave, South Africa, confirm the existence of a bone tool industry for the Howiesons Poort (HP) technocomplex. Previously, an isolated bone point from Klasies River provided inconclusive evidence. This paper describes three bone tools: two points and the end of a polished spatula-shaped piece, from unequivocal HP layers at Sibudu Cave (with ages greater than ∼61 ka). Comparative microscopic and morphometric analysis of the Sibudu specimens together with bone tools from southern African Middle and Later Stone Age (LSA) deposits, an Iron Age occupation, nineteenth century Bushman hunter-gatherer toolkits, and bone tools used experimentally in a variety of tasks, reveals that the Sibudu polished piece has use-wear reminiscent of that on bones experimentally used to work animal hides. A slender point is consistent with a pin or needle-like implement, while a larger point, reminiscent of the single specimen from Peers Cave, parallels large un-poisoned bone arrow points from LSA, Iron Age and historical Bushman sites. Additional support for the Sibudu point having served as an arrow tip comes from backed lithics in the HP compatible with this use, and the recovery of older, larger bone and lithic points from Blombos Cave, interpreted as spear heads. If the bone point from the HP layers at Sibudu Cave is substantiated by future discoveries, this will push back the origin of bow and bone arrow technology by at least 20,000 years, and corroborate arguments in favour of the hypothesis that crucial technological innovations took place during the MSA in Africa.     

Blogging the Victorians for the Journal of Victorian Culture Online

The contributors to this forum each reflect on a particular aspect of the future of academic publishing. James Mussell outlines how the form of the online academic journal, and in particular ongoing use of pdf, remains resistant to the potential that the digital environment can offer. Lucinda Matthews-Jones continues the conversation by explaining how journal blogs, such as JVC Online, act as digital spaces that facilitate more creative engagement with multimedia and which allow authors to foster and to interact with new and often broader networks of readers. Finally, Helen Rogers surveys the current landscape of academic publishing and urges us, as scholars, to move beyond the traditional schema and embrace the potential that Web 2.0 can offer. As more and more of our scholarly lives are lived online, the investment of the scholarly journal in print culture becomes apparent. These essays recognize the value of longevity, of scholarship’s commitment to both the past and the future, but they also suggest that scholarly publication needs to attend more closely to the times in which it is published.     

Archaeological Evidence for the Emergence of Language,Symbolism, and Music–An Alternative Multidisciplinary Perspective

In recent years, there has been a tendency to correlate the origin of modern culture and language with that of anatomically modern humans. Here we discuss this correlation in the light of results provided by our first hand analysis of ancient and recently discovered relevant archaeological and paleontological material from Africa and Europe. We focus in particular on the evolutionary significance of lithic and bone technology, the emergence of symbolism, Neandertal behavioral patterns, the identification of early mortuary practices, the anatomical evidence for the acquisition of language, the development of conscious symbolic storage, the emergence of musical traditions, and the archaeological evidence for the diversification of languages during the Upper Paleolithic. This critical reappraisal contradicts the hypothesis of a symbolic revolution coinciding with the arrival of anatomically modern humans in Europe some 40,000 years ago, but also highlights inconsistencies in the anatomically–culturally modern equation and the potential contribution of anatomically pre-modern human populations to the emergence of these abilities. No firm evidence of conscious symbolic storage and musical traditions are found before the Upper Paleolithic. However, the oldest known European objects that testify to these practices already show a high degree of complexity and geographic variability suggestive of possible earlier, and still unrecorded, phases of development.