scholarly journals Integrative geochronology calibrates the Middle and Late Stone Ages of Ethiopia’s Afar Rift

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (50) ◽  
pp. e2116329118
Author(s):  
Elizabeth M. Niespolo ◽  
Giday WoldeGabriel ◽  
William K. Hart ◽  
Paul R. Renne ◽  
Warren D. Sharp ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Later Stone Age ◽  
Evolutionary Changes ◽  
Middle Awash ◽  
Tectonically Active ◽  
Minimum Age ◽  
Dating Method ◽  
Middle And Late Pleistocene ◽  
Lithic Artifacts ◽  
Complex Settings

The Halibee member of the Upper Dawaitoli Formation of Ethiopia’s Middle Awash study area features a wealth of Middle and Later Stone Age (MSA and LSA) paleoanthropological resources in a succession of Pleistocene sediments. We introduce these artifacts and fossils, and determine their chronostratigraphic placement via a combination of established radioisotopic methods and a recently developed dating method applied to ostrich eggshell (OES). We apply the recently developed 230Th/U burial dating of OES to bridge the temporal gap between radiocarbon (14C) and 40Ar/39Ar ages for the MSA and provide 14C ages to constrain the younger LSA archaeology and fauna to ∼24 to 21.4 ka. Paired 14C and 230Th/U burial ages of OES agree at ∼31 ka for an older LSA locality, validating the newer method, and in turn supporting its application to stratigraphically underlying MSA occurrences previously constrained only by a maximum 40Ar/39Ar age. Associated fauna, flora, and Homo sapiens fossils are thereby now fixed between 106 ± 20 ka and 96.4 ± 1.6 ka (all errors 2σ). Additional 40Ar/39 results on an underlying tuff refine its age to 158.1 ± 11.0 ka, providing a more precise minimum age for MSA lithic artifacts, fauna, and H. sapiens fossils recovered ∼9 m below it. These results demonstrate how chronological control can be obtained in tectonically active and stratigraphically complex settings to precisely calibrate crucial evidence of technological, environmental, and evolutionary changes during the African Middle and Late Pleistocene.

Problems of Developing the Pleistocene Radiocarbon Chronology within high Mountain Terranes by the Example of Russian Altai

Radiocarbon ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 61 (6) ◽  
pp. 2019-2028 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Agatova ◽  
Roman Nepop ◽  
Elya Zazovskaya ◽  
Ivan Ovchinnikov ◽  
Piotr Moska
Keyword(s):  
Organic Material ◽  
High Mountain ◽  
Proxy Data ◽  
Near Surface ◽  
Treatment Techniques ◽  
Tectonically Active ◽  
Dating Method ◽  
Pre Treatment ◽  
Radiocarbon Chronology ◽  
Russian Altai

ABSTRACTThe paper presents a discussion of 24 radiocarbon (14C) dates of organic material from deposits of various genesis within the intermountain depressions and valleys of the Russian Altai. These apparent 14C ages (sometimes near the upper time limit of the 14C dating method) contradict to other proxy data and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dates. Rejuvenation of ancient deposits by 14C dating encountered two problems: (1) wrong interpretation of previously unknown near-surface location of Tertiary deposits as being of the Pleistocene ones with the redeposited ancient flora; and (2) wrong age estimation of the Pleistocene-Holocene deposits with redeposited Carboniferous, Jurassic, and Neogene organic material, which is represented as inclusions. Significant scattering of 14C ages, their inversion within a section, and discrepancy with other proxy data indicate penetrating of the “young” carbon into ancient organic material, and its presence in a unique (for each sample) ratio. Today such contamination cannot be eliminated utilizing standard pre-treatment techniques. The influx of “young” carbon is related to post-sedimentation tectonic and exogenous processes, which are common for tectonically active mountain provinces including Altai. The reported problem is not a new one, although methodological studies in the Russian Altai have not yet been carried out earlier.

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.

How We Got Here: Evolutionary Changes in Skull Shape in Humans & Their Ancestors

2012 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 106-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca M. Price
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Homo Erectus ◽  
Australopithecus Afarensis ◽  
Skull Shape ◽  
Evolutionary Changes

This activity uses inquiry to investigate how large changes in shape can evolve from small changes in the timing of development. Students measure skull shape in fetal, infant, juvenile, and adult chimpanzees and compare them to adult skulls of Homo sapiens, Homo erectus, and Australopithecus afarensis. They conclude by re-interpreting their findings in light of Ardipithecus ramidus.

scholarly journals Late Pleistocene age and archaeological context for the hominin calvaria from GvJm-22 (Lukenya Hill, Kenya)

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (9) ◽  
pp. 2682-2687 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian A. Tryon ◽  
Isabelle Crevecoeur ◽  
J. Tyler Faith ◽  
Ravid Ekshtain ◽  
Joelle Nivens ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Morphological Variability ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Upper Paleolithic ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Radiocarbon Dates ◽  
Middle And Late Pleistocene ◽  
Age Range

Kenya National Museums Lukenya Hill Hominid 1 (KNM-LH 1) is a Homo sapiens partial calvaria from site GvJm-22 at Lukenya Hill, Kenya, associated with Later Stone Age (LSA) archaeological deposits. KNM-LH 1 is securely dated to the Late Pleistocene, and samples a time and region important for understanding the origins of modern human diversity. A revised chronology based on 26 accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dates on ostrich eggshells indicates an age range of 23,576–22,887 y B.P. for KNM-LH 1, confirming prior attribution to the Last Glacial Maximum. Additional dates extend the maximum age for archaeological deposits at GvJm-22 to >46,000 y B.P. (>46 kya). These dates are consistent with new analyses identifying both Middle Stone Age and LSA lithic technologies at the site, making GvJm-22 a rare eastern African record of major human behavioral shifts during the Late Pleistocene. Comparative morphometric analyses of the KNM-LH 1 cranium document the temporal and spatial complexity of early modern human morphological variability. Features of cranial shape distinguish KNM-LH 1 and other Middle and Late Pleistocene African fossils from crania of recent Africans and samples from Holocene LSA and European Upper Paleolithic sites.

scholarly journals How an Advanced Neurocognitive Human Trait for Religious Capacity Fails to Form

Studia Humana ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-66
Author(s):  
Margaret Boone Rappaport ◽  
Christopher Corbally
Keyword(s):  
Human Population ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Evolutionary Model ◽  
Final Analysis ◽  
Altered States Of Consciousness ◽  
Altered States ◽  
States Of Consciousness ◽  
Evolutionary Changes ◽  
Human Trait ◽  
Evolutionary Emergence

Abstract The authors present an evolutionary model for the biological emergence of religious capacity as an advanced neurocognitive trait. Using their model for the stages leading to the evolutionary emergence of religious capacity in Homo sapiens, they analyze the mechanisms that can fail, leading to unbelief (atheism or agnosticism). The analysis identifies some, but not all types of atheists and agnostics, so they turn their question around and, using the same evolutionary model, ask what keeps religion going. Why does its development not fail in one social group after another, worldwide? Their final analysis searches for reasons in important evolutionary changes in the senses of hearing, vision, and general sensitivity on the hominin line, which together interact with both intellectual and emotional brain networks to achieve, often in human groups, variously altered states of consciousness, especially a numinous state enabled in part by a brain organ, the precuneus. An inability to experience the numinous, consider it important, or believe in its supernatural nature, may cleave the human population into those with belief and those with unbelief.

scholarly journals Age of the oldest Homo sapiens from eastern Africa

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Céline Vidal ◽  
Christine Lane ◽  
Asfawossen Asrat ◽  
Dan Barfod ◽  
Emma Tomlinson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Explosive Eruption ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Ethiopian Rift ◽  
Tephra Layer ◽  
Main Ethiopian Rift ◽  
Minimum Age ◽  
Geochemical Analyses ◽  
Human Fossils

Abstract Efforts to date the oldest modern human fossils in East Africa, from Omo-Kibish and Herto in Ethiopia, have drawn on a variety of chronometric evidence, including 40Ar/39Ar ages of stratigraphically-associated tuffs. The generally-accepted ages for these fossils are ca. 196 thousand years (ka) for the Kibish Omo I and ca. 160-155 ka for the Herto hominins. However, stratigraphic relationships and tephra correlations that underpin these estimates have been challenged. Here, we report new geochemical analyses that link the Kamoya Hominin Site (KHS) Tuff, which conclusively overlies the Kibish Formation member containing Omo I, with a major explosive eruption of Shala volcano in the Main Ethiopian Rift. By dating the proximal deposits of this eruption, we obtain a new minimum age for the Omo fossils of 212±16 ka. Contrary to previous arguments, we also show that the KHS Tuff does not correlate with another widespread tephra layer, the Wadaido Vitric Tuff (WAVT), and therefore cannot anchor a minimum age for the Herto fossils. Shifting the age of the oldest known Homo sapiens fossils in eastern Africa to before ~200 ka is consistent with several independent lines of evidence for greater antiquity to the modern human lineage.

Stratigraphic, chronological and behavioural contexts of Pleistocene Homo sapiens from Middle Awash, Ethiopia

Nature ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 423 (6941) ◽  
pp. 747-752 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Desmond Clark ◽  
Yonas Beyene ◽  
Giday WoldeGabriel ◽  
William K. Hart ◽  
Paul R. Renne ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Middle Awash

Herto Brains and Minds: Behaviour of Early Homo sapiens from the Middle Awash

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yonas Beyene
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Mortuary Practices ◽  
Middle Pleistocene ◽  
Post Mortem ◽  
Early Homo ◽  
Middle Awash ◽  
Late Middle Pleistocene

The discovery of three late Middle Pleistocene hominid crania, Homo sapiens idaltu, at Herto in the Middle Awash research area in Ethiopia in 1997 shed considerable light on this little-known period in Africa. These fossils consist of two adults' and a child's crania. All are morphologically intermediate between geologically earlier African fossils and anatomically modern later Pleistocene humans. The three Herto Homo sapiens idaltu crania show cutmarks indicating defleshing using sharp-edged stone tools. The post-mortem modifications and manipulation of the crania, demonstrated best on the child and broken adult crania, suggest that Homo sapiens idaltu performed ritual mortuary practices of which the dimension, context and meaning might only be revealed by further discoveries.

Geochronology, paleogeography, and archaeology of the Acheulian locality of ‘Evron Landfill in the western Galilee, Israel

2018 ◽  
Vol 91 (2) ◽  
pp. 729-750 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maayan Shemer ◽  
Onn Crouvi ◽  
Ron Shaar ◽  
Yael Ebert ◽  
Ari Matmon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Coast ◽  
Middle Pleistocene ◽  
Faunal Remains ◽  
Faunal Assemblage ◽  
Important Data ◽  
Cosmogenic Isotope ◽  
Lower Paleolithic ◽  
Multidisciplinary Study ◽  
Minimum Age ◽  
Lithic Artifacts

AbstractA multidisciplinary study was conducted in a newly discovered Paleolithic locality, named ‘Evron Landfill. This locality is a part of the Lower Paleolithic complex of ‘Evron located at the western Galilee, Israel. Examination of artifacts has enabled the cultural attribution of ‘Evron Landfill to the Early Acheulian, while detailed paleomagnetic stratigraphy places the hominin occupations near the Brunhes–Matuyama transition ~0.77 Ma. This age is constrained by cosmogenic isotope burial dating of the sediments overlying the Paleolithic finds, providing a minimum age of ~0.66±0.11 Ma for hominin activity at the site. These results are further supported by the biochronological information derived from the faunal assemblage. Comparative analyses of faunal remains and lithic artifacts from ‘Evron Landfill demonstrate similarities to the assemblages from the Early Acheulian site of Evron Quarry, located ~300 m to the south. Pedo-sedimentological analyses indicate that hominin activity took place in a marsh environment in proximity to the Mediterranean coast, which probably fluctuated in both space and time with a fluvial environment. In addition, this study provides important data about ancient coastal activity during the early to middle Pleistocene.

Middle Stone Age

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jayne Wilkins
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Time Range ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Later Stone Age ◽  
Forthcoming Article ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Homo Heidelbergensis ◽  
Ongoing Research

This is an advance summary of a forthcoming article in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Please check back later for the full article. The Middle Stone Age (MSA) is a period of African prehistory characterized by the production of stone points and blades using prepared core reduction techniques. The MSA follows the Earlier Stone Age and precedes the Later Stone Age. The MSA is generally regarded as having started by at least 300 thousand years ago, and lasting to roughly 40 to 20 thousand years ago. Identifying the chronological limits for the MSA is challenging because some aspects of Middle Stone Age technology are found in assemblages outside this time range that also have Earlier or Later Stone Age-type tools. The earlier part of the MSA is associated with Homo heidelbergensis (alternatively known as archaic Homo sapiens, or Homo rhodesiensis). The later part of the MSA, post-200-thousand-years, ago is associated with Homo sapiens. Identifying the processes underlying the evolution of Homo sapiens during the MSA is a major objective of ongoing research, but very few fossil remains have been recovered so far. Across the African continent and through time, the MSA exhibited a high degree of variability in the types of and ways that stone tools were manufactured and used. Archaeologists have used this variability to define several techno-complexes and industries within the MSA that include the Aterian, Howiesons Poort, Still Bay, and Lupemban. Variation in point styles, presumably hafted to wooden handles or projectiles in many cases, is a hallmark of the regional diversification that originates in the MSA. This kind of variability, which is temporally and spatially restricted, differs in degree from the preceding Earlier Stone Age. The MSA is significant from an evolutionary perspective because it is associated with the anatomical origins of Homo sapiens, as well as several significant changes in human behavior. Populations in the MSA practiced a foraging economy, were proficient hunters, and began efficiently utilizing aquatic resources such as shellfish and freshwater fish for the first time. Other significant changes included the elaboration of and increased reliance on symbolic resources, complex technologies, and social learning. For example, the first known externally stored symbols in the form of cross-hatched incised pigments date to 100 thousand years ago. In contexts of similar age, shell beads for making jewelry have been recovered from Morocco and South Africa. The earliest evidence for complex projectiles dates to at least 74 thousand years ago. The meaning, utility, and persistence of symbols and complex technologies depend on social learning and confer advantages in contexts that involve long-distance, complex social networks. While many of these earliest finds linked to behavioral modernity have been geographically restricted, the combined suite of genetic, fossil, and archaeological evidence may better support a pan-African origin for Homo sapiens over the course of the MSA.

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