scholarly journals Pleistocene Water Crossings and Adaptive Flexibility Within the Homo Genus

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dylan Gaffney
Keyword(s):  
Range Expansion ◽  
Social Ties ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Early Pleistocene ◽  
Adaptive Behaviors ◽  
Cognitive Ecology ◽  
Founder Populations ◽  
Provisioning Strategies ◽  
Novel Environments ◽  
Global Data

Abstract Pleistocene water crossings, long thought to be an innovation of Homo sapiens, may extend beyond our species to encompass Middle and Early Pleistocene Homo. However, it remains unclear how water crossings differed among hominin populations, the extent to which Homo sapiens are uniquely flexible in these adaptive behaviors, and how the tempo and scale of water crossings played out in different regions. I apply the adaptive flexibility hypothesis, derived from cognitive ecology, to model the global data and address these questions. Water-crossing behaviors appear to have emerged among different regional hominin populations in similar ecologies, initially representing nonstrategic range expansion. However, an increasing readiness to form connections with novel environments allowed some H. sapiens populations to eventually push water crossings to new extremes, moving out of sight of land, making return crossings to maintain social ties and build viable founder populations, and dramatically shifting subsistence and lithic provisioning strategies to meet the challenges of variable ecological settings.

Into the Woods Early Homo sapiens and Tropical Forest Colonization

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Tropical Forests ◽  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Homo Erectus ◽  
Rapid Expansion ◽  
Early Pleistocene ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Tropical Regions ◽  
Early Homo ◽  
Middle And Late Pleistocene

Popular philosophical associations of tropical forests, and forests in general, with an inherent ancestral state, away from the stresses, pollution, and technosphere of modern life, are nicely summarized by Murakami’s quote above (2002). Given the probable origins of the hominin clade in tropical forests, this quote is also apt from an evolutionary standpoint. Yet, somewhat surprisingly, tropical forests have frequently been considered impenetrable barriers to the global migration of Homo sapiens (Gamble, 1993; Finlayson, 2014). As was the case with the focus on ‘savannastan’ in facilitating the Early Pleistocene expansion of Homo erectus discussed in Chapter 3 (Dennell and Roebroeks, 2005), the movement of H. sapiens into tropical regions such as South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Australia has tended to be linked to Late Pleistocene periods when forests contracted and grasslands expanded (Bird et al., 2005; Boivin et al., 2013). Alternative narratives have focused on the importance of coastal adaptations as providing a rich source of protein and driving cultural and technological complexity, as well as mobility, in human populations during the Middle and Late Pleistocene (Mellars, 2006; Marean, 2016). The evidence of early art and symbolism at coastal cave sites such as Blombos in South Africa (Henshilwood et al., 2002, 2011; Vanhaeren et al., 2013) and Taforalt in North Africa (Bouzouggar et al., 2007) is often used to emphasize the role of marine habitats in the earliest cultural emergence of our species. Indeed, for the last decade, the pursuit of rich marine resources (Mellars, 2005, 2006) has been a popular explanation for the supposed rapidity of the ‘southern dispersal route’, whereby humans left Africa 60 ka, based on genetic information (e.g., Macaulay et al., 2005), to reach the Pleistocene landmass that connected Australia and New Guinea (Sahul) by c. 65 ka (Clarkson et al., 2017). In both of these cases, the coast or expanses of grassland have been seen as homogeneous corridors, facilitating rapid expansion without novel adaptation.

Do birds of a feather flock together? Factors for religious heterogamy

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (5) ◽  
pp. 664-680 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Fieder ◽  
Alexander Schahbasi ◽  
Susanne Huber
Keyword(s):  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Social Ties ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Religious Group ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
The Past ◽  
Labour Market Participation ◽  
Mixed Modelling ◽  
Diverse Groups

AbstractSocial cohesion – particularly with regard to the integration of migrants – is primarily measured in terms of education, labour market participation, unemployment, income levels and poverty. When seen from a historical long-term perspective (considering the migrations of Homo sapiens in the past 300,000 years) admixture merged members of diverse groups and forged – in addition to social ties – ‘strong biological ties’ of kinship, proposing that religious heterogamy is a long-term layer of social cohesion. Accordingly, this study investigated, on the basis of more than 600,000 men and women aged 26–35 years from Austria 2001, Germany (West) 1987, Ireland 2011, Portugal 2011, Romania 2011 and Switzerland 2000, which demographic characteristics foster religious heterogamy, controlling for various confounding factors using linear mixed modelling. By far the most important factor explaining religious heterogamy was the share of adherents to an individual’s religious group in their area of residence. It can be concluded that the rate of intermarriage declines with the increasing size of an individual’s religious group in their area of residence. From a long-term perspective the lack of familial ties (and conjoint offspring) between religious groups could lead to a lack of social cohesion.

scholarly journals Intergroup cannibalism in the European Early Pleistocene: The range expansion and imbalance of power hypotheses

2012 ◽  
Vol 63 (5) ◽  
pp. 682-695 ◽  
Author(s):  
Palmira Saladié ◽  
Rosa Huguet ◽  
Antonio Rodríguez-Hidalgo ◽  
Isabel Cáceres ◽  
Montserrat Esteban-Nadal ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Range Expansion ◽  
Early Pleistocene

scholarly journals Before the Emergence of Homo sapiens: Overview on the Early-to-Middle Pleistocene Fossil Record (with a Proposal about Homo heidelbergensis at the subspecific level)

2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giorgio Manzi
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Early Pleistocene ◽  
Middle Pleistocene ◽  
Last Common Ancestor ◽  
Homo Heidelbergensis ◽  
Deep Roots ◽  
Incipient Species ◽  
And Diffusion ◽  
Special Case ◽  
Subspecific Level

The origin of H. sapiens has deep roots, which include two crucial nodes: (1) the emergence and diffusion of the last common ancestor of later Homo (in the Early Pleistocene) and (2) the tempo and mode of the appearance of distinct evolutionary lineages (in the Middle Pleistocene). The window between 1,000 and 500 thousand years before present appears of crucial importance, including the generation of a new and more encephalised kind of humanity, referred to by many authors as H. heidelbergensis. This species greatly diversified during the Middle Pleistocene up to the formation of new variants (i.e., incipient species) that, eventually, led to the allopatric speciation of H. neanderthalensis and H. sapiens. The special case furnished by the calvarium found near Ceprano (Italy), dated to 430–385 ka, offers the opportunity to investigate this matter from an original perspective. It is proposed to separate the hypodigm of a single, widespread, and polymorphic human taxon of the Middle Pleistocene into distinct subspecies (i.e., incipient species). The ancestral one should be H. heidelbergensis, including specimens such as Ceprano and the mandible from Mauer.

scholarly journals No evidence for widespread island extinctions after Pleistocene hominin arrival

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (20) ◽  
pp. e2023005118
Author(s):  
Julien Louys ◽  
Todd J. Braje ◽  
Chun-Hsiang Chang ◽  
Richard Cosgrove ◽  
Scott M. Fitzpatrick ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Human Behavior ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Current Data ◽  
Early Pleistocene ◽  
Island Ecosystems ◽  
Cultural Changes ◽  
Deep Time ◽  
Common Assumption ◽  
Cultural Complex

The arrival of modern humans into previously unoccupied island ecosystems is closely linked to widespread extinction, and a key reason cited for Pleistocene megafauna extinction is anthropogenic overhunting. A common assumption based on late Holocene records is that humans always negatively impact insular biotas, which requires an extrapolation of recent human behavior and technology into the archaeological past. Hominins have been on islands since at least the early Pleistocene and Homo sapiens for at least 50 thousand y (ka). Over such lengthy intervals it is scarcely surprising that significant evolutionary, behavioral, and cultural changes occurred. However, the deep-time link between human arrival and island extinctions has never been explored globally. Here, we examine archaeological and paleontological records of all Pleistocene islands with a documented hominin presence to examine whether humans have always been destructive agents. We show that extinctions at a global level cannot be associated with Pleistocene hominin arrival based on current data and are difficult to disentangle from records of environmental change. It is not until the Holocene that large-scale changes in technology, dispersal, demography, and human behavior visibly affect island ecosystems. The extinction acceleration we are currently experiencing is thus not inherent but rather part of a more recent cultural complex.

Perception of Smokers: Results from the Tobacco Monitoring Switzerland

2011 ◽  
Vol 57 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theda Radtke ◽  
Roger Keller ◽  
Andrea Bütikofer ◽  
Rainer Hornung
Keyword(s):  
Social Ties ◽  
Tobacco Consumption ◽  
School Transitions ◽  
Prevention Measures

Aim: The purpose of the study is to present adolescents’ perceptions of smokers and non-smokers among 1015 Swiss adolescents. Method: The analyses are based on data from Tobacco Monitoring Switzerland, which is a survey of tobacco consumption in Switzerland. To measure the perceptions of smokers and non-smokers, respondents were asked to attribute a series of adjectives to each group. It was also recorded when respondents mentioned that “there is no difference between smokers and non-smokers.” Results: Results show that regardless of whether the adolescents smoked or did not smoke – with the exception of more sociable – the image of smokers was more negative than the image of non-smokers. Findings also indicated that regular smokers in particular often stated that there are no differences between both groups. Conclusions: Overall, the image of smokers is more negative than the image of non-smokers, with the exception of the attribute more sociable. This perception of smokers could be important for prevention measures in new contexts (e. g., school transitions), where smoking could be a means of establishing new social ties.

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