scholarly journals Upper Pleistocene Human Dispersals out of Africa: A Review of the Current State of the Debate

2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanuel Beyin
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Last Interglacial ◽  
Upper Pleistocene ◽  
Current State ◽  
Human Colonization ◽  
Source Populations

Although there is a general consensus on African origin of early modern humans, there is disagreement about how and when they dispersed to Eurasia. This paper reviews genetic and Middle Stone Age/Middle Paleolithic archaeological literature from northeast Africa, Arabia, and the Levant to assess the timing and geographic backgrounds of Upper Pleistocene human colonization of Eurasia. At the center of the discussion lies the question of whether eastern Africa alone was the source of Upper Pleistocene human dispersals into Eurasia or were there other loci of human expansions outside of Africa? The reviewed literature hints at two modes of early modern human colonization of Eurasia in the Upper Pleistocene: (i) from multiple Homo sapiens source populations that had entered Arabia, South Asia, and the Levant prior to and soon after the onset of the Last Interglacial (MIS-5), (ii) from a rapid dispersal out of East Africa via the Southern Route (across the Red Sea basin), dating to ~74–60 kya.

scholarly journals Kehidupan Manusia Modern Awal di Indonesia: Sebuah Sintesa Awal

AMERTA ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Truman Simanjuntak
Keyword(s):  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Late Pleistocene ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Lithic Technology ◽  
Geographical Area ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Ice Age ◽  
Upper Pleistocene ◽  
Early Homo

Abstract. The Life of Early Modern Human in Indonesia: A Preliminary Synthesis. The Late Pleistocene period or, in broader sense, the second half of the Upper Pleistocene, was in general related to the emergence and development of Early Modern Human (EMH) in Indonesia. Archaeological evidences have more or less confirmed their existence - with records of their unique behavior - within the period. In spite of the still obscure date of their initial occupation, the available radiometry dating reveals that this early Homo sapiens had inhabited Indonesia, and Southeast Asia in general, at least since ca. 45 kya up to the end of the Ice Age. Some of the most prominent behavior phenomena, which distinct modern human to early men's behavior who inhabited Indonesia since millions of years previously, are: (I) exploitation of wider geographical area within the archipelago; (2) change of activity orientation from open-air areas to natural niches, such as caves and rock shelters; (3) development of lithic technology that produced flake tools, replacing the chopper/chopping tool groups; and (4) more advanced and diverse systems of subsistence with more varied animals to hunt. The entire phenomena of behavior are the main focus of this paper. Abstrak. Rentang waktu Plestosen Akhir atau paruh kedua Plestosen Atas pada umumnya merupakan periode yang mengait dengan kemunculan dan perkembangan Manusia Modern Awal (MMA) di Indonesia. Bukti-bukti arkeologi sedikit banyaknya telah meyakinkan keberadaannya, berikut rekaman perilakunya yang khas, dalam periode tersebut. Terlepas dari pertanggalan kolonisasi awal yang belum diketahui pasti dari manusia modern awal ini, pertanggalan radiometri yang tersedia menampakkan bahwa mereka telah menghuni Indonesia, dan Asia Tenggara pada umumnya, paling tidak sejak sekitar 45 ribu tahun lalu hingga akhir kala Plestosen.Beberapa fenomena perilaku yang paling menonjol, yang membedakannya dari perilaku manusia purba yang mendiami Indonesia sejak jutaan tahun sebelumnya, adalah: (1) ekploitasi geografi yang semakin luas di kepulauan; (2) perubahan lokasi hunian dari bentang alam terbuka ke relung-relung alam seperti gua dan ceruk; (3) pengembangan teknologi litik yang menghasilkan alat-alat serpih menggantikan alat-alat yang tergolong kelompok kapak perimbas/penetak; dan (4) sistem mata pencaharian yang lebih maju dan beragam dengan eksploitasi lingkungan (flora dan fauna) yang lebih bervariasi. Keseluruhan fenomena perilaku tersebut akan menjadi pokok bahasan tulisan ini.

Aterian

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elena A.A. Garcea
Keyword(s):  
Behavioral Plasticity ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Atlantic Coast ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Nile Valley ◽  
Mobility Patterns ◽  
North African ◽  
Behavioral Experiments ◽  
Wide Range

The Aterian is a North African late Middle Stone Age techno-complex. It is spread from the Atlantic coast in Morocco to the Middle Nile Valley in Sudan and from the Mediterranean hinterland to the Southern Sahara. Chronologically, it covers the period between c. 145,000 years bp and 29,000 bp, spanning across discontinuous, alternating dry (end of MIS 6 and MIS 4) and humid (MIS 5 and MIS 3) climatic phases. Few, but significant human remains indicate that the makers of the Aterian complex belong to early Homo sapiens. Their osteological features show affinities with the early anatomically modern human record in the Levant (Skhul and Qafzeh), suggesting that Aterian groups may have taken part in the initial dispersals out of Africa by Homo sapiens. Toolkits consist of a variety of implements not only made of stone but also of bone (points, spatulas, knives, and retouchers). They include tools that were lacking in earlier or other North African contemporary contexts, namely bifacial foliates, blades, perforators, burins, endscrapers, and particularly tanged pieces. Overemphasis on tanged tools often obscured the complexity of the Aterian, which instead displays a wide range of cultural and behavioral innovations. New mobility patterns and intra-site organization, as well as early symbolism with the use of Nassariidae shells and ochre, corroborate early fully complex behavior by these populations. Given the broad geographic and chronological extension of the Aterian, differences are evident at both local and regional scales. They suggest the development of a flexible and variable techno-complex mirroring considerable adaptive cognitive and behavioral plasticity derived from nonlinear processes. Such diversified behavioral experiments result from multiple and noncumulative trajectories due to different internal and external stimuli but are still part of a single cultural entity.

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 Explanations of variability in Middle Stone Age stone tool assemblage composition and raw material use in Eastern Africa

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Blinkhorn ◽  
M. Grove
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Population History ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Assemblage Composition

AbstractThe Middle Stone Age (MSA) corresponds to a critical phase in human evolution, overlapping with the earliest emergence of Homo sapiens as well as the expansions of these populations across and beyond Africa. Within the context of growing recognition for a complex and structured population history across the continent, Eastern Africa remains a critical region to explore patterns of behavioural variability due to the large number of well-dated archaeological assemblages compared to other regions. Quantitative studies of the Eastern African MSA record have indicated patterns of behavioural variation across space, time and from different environmental contexts. Here, we examine the nature of these patterns through the use of matrix correlation statistics, exploring whether differences in assemblage composition and raw material use correlate to differences between one another, assemblage age, distance in space, and the geographic and environmental characteristics of the landscapes surrounding MSA sites. Assemblage composition and raw material use correlate most strongly with one another, with site type as well as geographic and environmental variables also identified as having significant correlations to the former, and distance in time and space correlating more strongly with the latter. By combining time and space into a single variable, we are able to show the strong relationship this has with differences in stone tool assemblage composition and raw material use, with significance for exploring the impacts of processes of cultural inheritance on variability in the MSA. A significant, independent role for terrain roughness for explaining variability in stone tool assemblages highlights the importance of considering the impacts of mobility on structuring the archaeological record of the MSA of Eastern Africa.

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.

scholarly journals A Chronological Perspective on the Acheulian and Its Transition to the Middle Stone Age in Southern Africa: The Question of the Fauresmith

2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andy I. R. Herries
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Southern Africa ◽  
Cutting Tools ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Terminal Phase ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Early Modern Humans ◽  
Firm Evidence

An understanding of the age of the Acheulian and the transition to the Middle Stone Age in southern Africa has been hampered by a lack of reliable dates for key sequences in the region. A number of researchers have hypothesised that the Acheulian first occurred simultaneously in southern and eastern Africa at around 1.7-1.6 Ma. A chronological evaluation of the southern African sites suggests that there is currently little firm evidence for the Acheulian occurring before 1.4 Ma in southern Africa. Many researchers have also suggested the occurrence of a transitional industry, the Fauresmith, covering the transition from the Early to Middle Stone Age, but again, the Fauresmith has been poorly defined, documented, and dated. Despite the occurrence of large cutting tools in these Fauresmith assemblages, they appear to include all the technological components characteristic of the MSA. New data from stratified Fauresmith bearing sites in southern Africa suggest this transitional industry maybe as old as 511–435 ka and should represent the beginning of the MSA as a broad entity rather than the terminal phase of the Acheulian. The MSA in this form is a technology associated with archaic H. sapiens and early modern humans in Africa with a trend of greater complexity through time.

scholarly journals A re-examination of a human femur found at the Blind River Site, East London, South Africa: Its age, morphology, and breakage pattern

2008 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qian Wang ◽  
Phillip Tobias ◽  
David Roberts ◽  
Zenobia Jacobs
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Fracture Pattern ◽  
Last Interglacial ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Oxygen Isotope Stage ◽  
Human Femur ◽  
Distal Epiphysis ◽  
River Site

A re-examination of a human femur found at the Blind River Site, East London, South Africa: Its age, morphology, and breakage patternModern human femoral features might have appeared in the early Middle Stone Age (156 ka to 20 ka) in South Africa, as demonstrated by the recent re-examination of a human femur fossil found at the Blind River Site, East London in the 1930s, if new dating results hold. Two optically stimulated luminescence dates from the relocated original Blind River shallow marine/estuarine deposits that contained the femur gave almost identical ages of ~120 ka, corresponding to the early part of the Last Interglacial (Oxygen Isotope Stage 5). Overall, the slender headless femur is of modern human form. The distal epiphysis bears some typical squatting features, including a newly recognized squatting facet on the anterior wall of the intercondylar fossa. With the typical V-shaped and oblique fracture pattern left by the missing head, the Blind River femur was most likely modified through human activity. But this style is not a cultural trait found in recent South African people. Further study is needed to place this specimen in its due context in the course of human evolution.

Chronology of the Acheulean to Middle Stone Age transition in eastern Africa

Science ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 360 (6384) ◽  
pp. 95-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan L. Deino ◽  
Anna K. Behrensmeyer ◽  
Alison S. Brooks ◽  
John E. Yellen ◽  
Warren D. Sharp ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Technological Innovation ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Middle Stone Age ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
Kenya Rift ◽  
Sedimentary Deposits ◽  
Uranium Series ◽  
Uranium Series Dating

The origin of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) marks the transition from a highly persistent mode of stone toolmaking, the Acheulean, to a period of increasing technological innovation and cultural indicators associated with the evolution ofHomo sapiens. We used argon-40/argon-39 and uranium-series dating to calibrate the chronology of Acheulean and early MSA artifact–rich sedimentary deposits in the Olorgesailie basin, southern Kenya rift. We determined the age of late Acheulean tool assemblages from 615,000 to 499,000 years ago, after which a large technological and faunal transition occurred, with a definitive MSA lacking Acheulean elements beginning most likely by ~320,000 years ago, but at least by 305,000 years ago. These results establish the oldest repository of MSA artifacts in eastern Africa.

scholarly journals Emerging Religious Movements And Their Implications In African History And Heritage

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 365
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Osewe Akubor
Keyword(s):  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Homo Erectus ◽  
Eastern Africa ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
African History ◽  
Australopithecus Africanus ◽  
Historical Method ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Historical Heritage

Africa has often been referred to as the Home of Civilization. This reference is based on the fact that most of the continent evidences how man has, over time, interacted meaningful with his environment to produce all that he needs to make history. Archaeological remains in Egypt have shed light on this development as far as Africa is concern. Other remains found particularly in central Eastern Africa have been widely recognized such that the area is now widely accepted as the origin of humans and the Hominidae clade (great apes). This is evidenced by the discovery of the earliest hominids and their ancestors, as well as later ones that have been dated to around seven million years ago. These later ones include Sahelanthropus tchadensis, Australopithecus africanus, A. afarensis, Homo erectus, H. habilis, and H. ergaster, with the earliest Homo sapiens (modern human) found in Ethiopia dating far back to circa 200,000 years ago. Now, this rich historical heritage is being threatened by the emergence of some religious movements in Africa. The reason for this is that these religions see the preservation of these relics as idolatry and unacceptable. Data obtained from primary and secondary sources were deployed to carry out the study, and the study was carried out with an analytical and narrative historical method. Findings indicate that while the European world continue to beg for the preservation of these artifacts and in some cases preserve these artifacts and relics in their museums, the emerging groups continue to target these historical artifacts for destruction. This paper argues that this trend is unhealthy for the development of history and preservation of the continent’s heritage. Furthermore, it asserts that once this wanton destruction is not checked, there is a high possibility that in the nearest future, nothing would be left to study in African history.

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