Remains of an Eocene skink from Queensland

Azurduya gen. nov. (Brachiopoda: Camarotoechiidae) is described from Early Carboniferous sequences in the Argentine Precordillera and northern Chile. Marine assemblages and the palynoflora associated with this genus suggest a Tournaisian age. The type species Azurduya chavelensis (Amos, 1958) is reviewed and redescribed from material from the type locality. Additional material from equivalent localities in the Rio Blanco Basin (La Rioja and San Juan provinces, Argentine Precordilera) has been used to understand ontogenetic changes as well intraspecific variation. Azurduya cingolanii sp. nov. is proposed.     

First record of Viperidae snakes from the Pleistocene of southwestern Brazilian Amazonia

We describe an incomplete trunk vertebra of a snake attributable to the Viperidae, collected from a conglomerate facies in upper Pleistocene sediments at the Mississippi locality, Upper Juruá River, southwestern Brazilian Amazonia. It represents the first fossil snake record from the Pleistocene of this region. This specimen extends the fossil distribution of the Viperidae, representing the northernmost record of a snake in the Brazilian Pleistocene.     

The oldest silken fungus beetle from the Early Cretaceous of southern China (Coleoptera: Cryptophagidae: Atomariinae)

Cai, C.-y. & Wang, B., 2013. The oldest silken fungus beetle from the Early Cretaceous of southern China (Coleoptera: Cryptophagidae: Atomariinae). Alcheringa 37, 1–4. ISSN 0311-5518

Atomaria cretacea sp. nov., a new silken fungus beetle, is described and figured based on an impression fossil from the Lower Cretaceous Shixi Formation at a locality near Qingxi Town, Jiangxi Province, southern China. The new species can be referred to the extant family Cryptophagidae as supported by the tiny body size, the clubbed antenna with dilated antennomere 1, closely spaced antennal insertions, and abdominal ventrite 1 being longer than the remaining ventrites. It is placed in the extant subfamily Atomariinae based on the presence of a frontoclypeal suture and the absence of gular sutures; and tentatively in Atomaria based on its body size, sub-parallel body shape, and the presence of a frontoclypeal suture.

Chen-Yang Cai [caichenyang1988@163.com], Bo Wang [savantwang@gmail.com], State Key Laboratory of Palaeobiology and Stratigraphy; Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, PR China. Received 11.11.2012; revised 26.1.2013; accepted 31.1.2013.     

Excavations at the Bairaki Lower Paleolithic Site,Trans-Dniesteria,in 2011

Early Paleolithic deposits of the left-bank high seventh fluvial terrace of the Dniester were excavated at Bairaki, Trans-Dniestria. The assemblage is comprised of 28 artifacts including distinct flakes, cores, and Lower Paleolithic tools. Based on the 2011 geological and archaeological study, tools from the riverbed alluvium, paralleled by those of the Middle Oldowan, date to the earliest Lower Pleistocene. Bairaki, then, should be classified among the most ancient Paleolithic sites in Eastern Europe.     

Experimental study of cut marks made with rocks unmodified by human flaking and its bearing on claims of ∼3.4-million-year-old butchery evidence from Dikika, Ethiopia

In order to assess further the recent claims of ∼3.4 Ma butchery marks on two fossil bones from the site of Dikika (Ethiopia), we broadened the actualistic-interpretive zooarchaeological framework by conducting butchery experiments that utilized naïve butchers and rocks unmodified by human flaking to deflesh chicken and sheep long limb bones. It is claimed that the purported Dikika cut marks present their unexpectedly atypical morphologies because they were produced by early hominins utilizing just such rocks. The composition of the cut mark sample produced in our experiments is quite dissimilar to the sample of linear bone surface modifications preserved on the Dikika fossils. This finding substantiates and expands our earlier conclusion that—considering the morphologies and patterns of the Dikika bone surface modifications and the inferred coarse-grained depositional context of the fossils on which they occur—the Dikika bone damage was caused incidentally by the movement of the fossils on and/or within their depositional substrate(s), and not by early hominin butchery. Thus, contrary to initial claims, the Dikika evidence does not warrant a major shift in our understanding of early hominin behavioral evolution with regard to carcass foraging and meat-eating.     

Late Pleistocene Crocuta crocuta spelaea (Goldfuss, 1823) clans as prezewalski horse hunters and woolly rhinoceros scavengers at the open air commuting den and contemporary Neanderthal camp site Westeregeln (central Germany)

Late Pleistocene Ice Age Crocuta crocuta spelaea ( Goldfuss, 1823) hyenas from the open-air gypsum karst site Westeregeln (Saxony-Anhalt, central Germany) is dated into the early to middle Late Pleistocene. Hyena clans apparently used the karst for food storage and as “commuting den”, where typical high amounts (15% of the NISP) of hyena remains appear, also faecal pellets in concentrations for den marking purposes. Additionally small carnivores Meles, Vulpes and Mustela appear to have used some cavities as dens. Several hundreds of lowland “mammoth steppe fauna” bones (NISP = 572) must have been accumulated primarily by hyenas, and not by Neanderthals at the contemporary hyena/human camp site. Abundant caballoid horse remains of “E. germanicus Nehring, (1884)” are revised by the holotype and original material to the small E. c. przewalskii horse. Woolly rhinoceros Coelodonta antiquitatis remains are also abundant, and were left in several cases with typical hyena scavenging damages. Rangifer tarandus (11%) is mainly represented by numerous fragments of shed female antlers that were apparently gathered by humans, and antler bases from male animals that were collected and chewed in few cases (only large male antlers) by hyenas. The large quantities of small reindeer antlers must have been the result of collection by humans; their stratigraphic context is unclear but such large quantities most probably resulted from schamanic activities. The hyena site overlaps with a Middle Palaeolithic Neanderthal camp, as well as possibly with a later human Magdalénian site.     

Late Middle Pleistocene horse fossils from northwestern Europe as biostratigraphic indicators

Biostratigraphy provides a crucial tool for establishing temporal correlations between late Middle Pleistocene sites. The caballoid horse lineage is one of the few large mammal groups that underwent changes in size and morphology over this period. Here, univariate, bivariate and multivariate statistics are used to identify temporal affinities of late Middle Pleistocene horse remains from northwest Europe.     

欧亚草原东部的考古发现与斯基泰的早期历史文化

新疆的考古材料对探讨斯基泰的来源和早期斯基泰文化同欧亚草原东部地区的关系等问题有重要意义。新疆及其周边地区在斯基泰西迁之前已经和丰提克地区有互动关系,三道海子文化在其中起了主要作用,其扩张也是斯基泰西迁的主要原因。斯基泰西迁后,欧亚草原进入以游牧为主要经济方式的时代。     

Icelandic volcanic ash from the Late-glacial open-air archaeological site of Ahrenshöft LA 58 D, North Germany

Cryptotephra of Icelandic origin from the open-air archaeological site of Ahrenshöft LA 58 D (Kr. Nordfriesland, Schleswig-Holstein), northern Germany overlies a Late-glacial Havelte lithic assemblage, hitherto dated by ¹⁴C and biostratigraphy to the earliest part of the Late-glacial interstadial (GI-1e to GI-1c₃). Peaks in ash shards are observed in two profiles. Major and minor element geochemistry indicates volcanic ash originating in the Katla system. Precise correlation to previously described tephra is uncertain due to overlapping chemical characteristics. The Ahrenshöft ¹⁴C determinations, litho- and bio-stratigraphy encompass a broad age-span for the cryptotephra bearing sediments, from the end of the Allerød to the Preboreal. The most plausible volcanic eruption correlates are the Vedde Ash (∼Younger Dryas), already known from the European mainland, tephra AF555 (late Younger Dryas) and the Suduroy tephra (∼Preboreal/Boreal), hitherto recorded only in the North Atlantic region. These three ash horizons have been dated to, respectively, 12,171 ± 57 yr b2k in the NGRIP ice-core, c.11,500 cal BP, in Scotland and c.8000 cal BP, by radiocarbon from the Faroe Isles. Ongoing research on deposits from the type sites for the tephra layers may in the future differentiate these markers leading to better discrimination of the chemistries and a resolution of this question.     

Stratigraphy and geochronology of La Playa archaeological site,Sonora, Mexico

La Playa archaeological site in northern Sonora, Mexico contains a long record of human activity that includes the Paleoindian period (terminal Pleistocene) and much of the Holocene. The size and complexity of La Playa has discouraged a systematic characterization of its stratigraphy and geochronology, a deficiency we redress in the study. We distinguished seven stratigraphic units ranging in age from >44,570 to 400 cal yr B.P. using ¹⁴C dates from charcoal and terrestrial gastropods found mostly in archaeological features. All of the buried (in situ) cultural remains are contained in Units B (4690–1580 cal yr B.P.) and C (1010–400 cal yr B.P.) and represent overbank deposition from the nearby Rio Boquillas. Occupation at the site peaks in Units B₄ and B₅, corresponding to the Cienega phase (2800–1800 cal yr B.P.) of the Early Agricultural period. This period coincides with the growth of early agricultural villages in the region and is marked at La Playa by thousands of archaeological features including roasting pits, human burials, and extensive canal irrigation systems. The presence of semi-aquatic and aquatic snails demonstrates that water was present year round in the canal systems constructed during this period. Stable and radiometric isotopic evidence suggests that early agriculturalists diverted ground water over several kilometers from the nearby Rio Boquillas. The extensive Cienega phase occupation ended after about 1700 cal yr B.P. with deep erosion of the site, an event also visible in alluvial records in southern Arizona that marked the end of the Early Agricultural period and significant changes in settlement organization in the region.