Anatomy,behavior, and modern human origins

The fossil record suggests that modern human morphology evolved in Africa between 150,000 and 50,000 years ago, when the sole inhabitants of Eurasia were the Neanderthals and other equally nonmodern people. However, the earliest modern or near-modern Africans were behaviorally (archaeologically) indistinguishable from their nonmodern, Eurasian contemporaries, and it was only around 50,000-40,000 years ago that a major behavioral difference developed. Archaeological indications of this difference include the oldest indisputable ornaments (or art broadly understood); the oldest evidence for routine use of bone, ivory, and shell to produce formal (standardized) artifacts; greatly accelerated variation in stone artifact assemblages through time and space; and hunting-gathering innovations that promoted significantly larger populations. As a complex, the novel traits imply fully modern cognitive and communicative abilities, or more succinctly, the fully modern capacity for Culture. The competitive advantage of this capacity is obvious, and preliminary dates suggest that it appeared in Africa about 50,000 years ago and then successively in western Asia, eastern Europe, and western Europe, in keeping with an African origin. Arguably, the development of modern behavior depended on a neural change broadly like those that accompanied yet earlier archaeologically detectable behavioral advances. This explanation is problematic, however, because the putative change was in brain organization, not size, and fossil skulls provide little or no secure evidence for brain structure. Other potential objections to a neural advance in Africa 50,000-40,000 years ago or to the wider Out-of-Africa hypothesis, include archaeological evidence (1) that some Neanderthals were actually capable of fully modern behavior and (2) that some Africans were behaviorally modern more than 90,000 years ago.     

Behavioural and Taphonomic Patterning at Katanda 9: a Middle Stone Age Site, Kivu Province, Zaire

Katanda 9, an open air Middle Stone Age site, contains a dense vertically compressed accumulation of lithic and faunal remains. The physical state of these materials indicates prolonged surface exposure before burial and the site shares essential characteristics therefore with many Lower and Middle Stone Age and Lower and Middle Palaeolithic occurrences in Africa and Eurasia. An important goal of archaeological research is to determine what, if any, anthropogenic signature can be extracted from distributional data and this article utilizes Katanda 9 to suggest an approach to such spatial analysis. It employs a bottom-up, top-down strategy which works in sequential fashion first to determine and control for taphonomic bias and secondly to fit the resultant pattern to models of hominid behaviour. It proposes that questions be posed in nested hierarchical fashion and that probabilities of correctness be assessed. It concludes that the distribution of materials observed at Katanda is most consistent with a nuclear family pattern.     

Palaeoenvironments and Cultural Sequence of the Florisbad Middle Stone Age Hominid Site, South Africa

Florisbad, an open-air spring site with 7 m of strata, has yielded the type assemblage of Middle Stone Age (MSA) fauna, the cranium of an archaic hominid in 1932 and an extensive sequence of MSA artefacts in the 1980s. The cultural assemblages include an early MSA dated broadly to 279,000±47,000 years, a highly retouched form of MSA at 157,000±21,000 years and a minimally retouched, expedient MSA assemblage from a series of occupation horizons at 121,000±6000 years. The latter represents multiple brief visits to a hunting and butchery site on the edge of an active spring pool, where periodic sedimentation gently buried occupation debris in a near-pristine context. Periods of lower spring discharge are represented by organic horizons as swampy vegetation encroached on the springs, while periods of higher spring discharge created pools. Overall the spring sequence indicates low-energy subaqueous environments similar to lakes, ponds or backwater sites. The sequence is characterized by fine sands, silts and clays responsible for the good archaeological preservation.     

SELECTION AND HEATING OF COLOURING MATERIALS IN THE MOUSTERIAN LEVEL OF ES‐SKHUL (c. 100 000 YEARS BP,MOUNT CARMEL,ISRAEL)

The transformation of yellow goethite into red hematite by heating has long been assumed for Palaeolithic red artefacts excavated close to fireplaces. However, this transformation is extremely rare. Using SEM–FEG–EDX, PIXE–PIGE, TEM and μXRD, we characterized the mineralogical and chemical compositions of four microsamples of colouring materials from the Mousterian layer B in the es‐Skhul rock‐shelter, from about 100 kya ago. For some colouring materials, the Mousterian people of es‐Skhul chose to gather remote yellow lumps for heating. Their significant transport distance provides evidence of the possible high cultural value of these colouring materials for transformation into red pigments.     

Raman Spectroscopic Analysis of Ancient Egyptian Pigments

The application of FT‐Raman spectroscopy and visible Raman microscopy to the non‐destructive analysis of pigment specimens excavated from Tell el Amarna by Flinders Petrie in the 1890s has provided information about the chemical composition of the materials used by XVIIIth Dynasty artists in the New Kingdom at the time of King Akhenaten, c. 1340 bc. Comparison of the Raman spectra of the samples labelled ‘red and yellow ochre’ with documented, archival material from geological collections provided a clear indication of the materials used in the iron(III) oxide/hydroxide system, including α‐hematite, goethite, maghemite, magnetite and lepidocrocite. The yellow–orange specimen labelled ‘realgar’ proved to be a mixture of realgar and pararealgar; since the specimen had been sheltered from light since its excavation, this could indicate that the ancient Egyptian artists recognized the colour variation and may have used this to effect in their decorations. A specimen of yellow ochre contained goethite, α‐FeO.OH, with particles of crystalline, highly ordered graphite; in contrast, the red ochre specimens contained amorphous carbon particles.     

AN ATTEMPT AT DATING THE SWANSCOMBE SKULL BONES USING NON-DESTRUCTIVE GAMMA-RAY COUNTING

A low-background germanium spectrometer was used to measure the gamma-ray spectra of the three parts of the Swanscombe skull. Detailed studies of the method showed that it was possible to make accurate measurements of the content of ²²⁶ Ra and ²³¹ Pa but less accurate ones of ²³⁸U and ²³⁵U. Results from the three samples were inconsistent, showing that their exposure to radioactive ground water must have been very different, although they were found close together. The uncertainty in the ratio of ²³⁴U to ²³⁸U in the ground water and the lack of knowledge of the time at which the bones acquired the uranium also prevented the deduction of any reliable dates for these specimens.     

A NEW METHOD FOR EXTRACTION,ISOLATION AND TRANSESTERIFICATION OF FREE FATTY ACIDS FROM ARCHAEOLOGICAL POTTERY

This paper presents evidence for increased recovery of organic residues from archaeological pottery through use of a microwave‐assisted liquid chromatography protocol. C_16:0 and C_18:0 saturated fatty acids were obtained from archaeological potsherds recovered from nine Neolithic settlements in the Middle East dating between 4700 and 7300 cal bc , including materials that had not produced evidence for the survival of any lipid species through use of ‘conventional’ solvent extraction techniques. Compound‐specific isotopic analyses of C_16:0 and C_18:0 fatty acids in potsherd extracts subsequently revealed δ¹³C/δ¹²C compositions consistent with modern subcutaneous fats of wild boar and goats pastured on lands adjacent to the Jordan Valley, and residues from a modern pottery vessel used in the manufacturing of butter, cheese and yogurt in central Turkey. These results are presented as an illustration of capabilities of the microwave‐assisted recovery protocol. The reclamation of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids from archaeological pottery fragments recovered from a number of the earliest ceramic horizons in the Middle East is herewith reported, and the extraction methods and instrumental analytical techniques are described.     

New Human Remains of Archaic Homo sapiens and Lower Palaeolithic Industries from Visogliano (Duino Aurisina, Trieste, Italy)

New human remains have been found during recent excavations conducted in the lower section of Visogliano dolina (Trieste, Italy). They are represented by teeth and a fragment of particularly robust mandible that for their morphological and morphometrical characters can be generically attributed to archaic Homo sapiens. The lithic industry is formed by flakes, carinated points, scrapers, choppers and chopping tools and is characteristic of the Italian Pebble Culture. Sediments, pollen and faunal remains indicate that this part of the deposit was formed during interglacial climatic conditions in the early, but not initial phase of Middle Pleistocene (isotopic stadium 13 or 11).     

Glass Fragments from the Crypta Balbi in Rome: the Composition of Eighth‐century Fragments

Eighth‐century glass fragments from the Crypta Balbi in Rome were analysed by inductively coupled plasma emission spectroscopy. The samples included fragments of artefacts as well as ingots of raw glass and wasters. All the fragments proved to be soda–lime glasses. Manganese‐to‐iron atomic ratios are highly variable and determine the colour of a large number of samples. Fairly high copper contents, generally associated with relatively high amounts of antimony and lead, were detected in some green and blue–green samples: this suggests recycling of glass in the form of opaque mosaic tesserae. All three elements are higher in eighth‐century than in previously analysed seventh‐century fragments. This may indicate greater recourse to recycled glass, related to a reduction in trade exchanges in the Mediterranean.     

The Middle Stone Age of West Turkana,Kenya

Abstract

Research on the origins of Homo sapiens and the development of our species’ unique behavior is focused on the Middle Stone Age (MSA) period in Africa (in comparison with the European Upper Palaeolithic). Although archaeological and paleontological fieldwork in the Turkana Basin in northwestern Kenya has contributed greatly to our understanding of human evolution in Africa, the Basin's MSA archaeological record remains poorly known. We report on a reconnaissance of MSA sites in West Turkana, Kenya, which included known archaeological/paleoanthropological localities at Eliye Springs and Kabua Waterhole (Kadokorinyang). A newly-discovered site, Nakechichok 1 (GdJh 5), preserves MSA tools stratified beneath Late Stone Age assemblages. The MSA lithic artifacts from Nakechichok 1 differ from those known from other MSA localities in nearby regions, and, they expand the known scope of MSA variability in the Turkana Basin, demonstrating that the MSA is not “missing” in this region, but just hard to find.