Review - April Nowell, Growing Up in the Ice Age: Fossil and Archaeological Evidence of the Lived Lives of Plio-Pleistocene Children (Oxbow Books, Oxford 2021)

Beginning with landmark papers such as Lillehammer’s (1989) much-cited programmatic vision for an archaeology of childhood, there has been a steady increase in studies identifying and discussing pa...

The first book on how Paleolithic children were born, grew up, got training and amused themselves (Nowell A. Growing Up in the Ice Age. Fossil and archaeological evidence of the lived lives of Plio-Pleistocene children. Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2021. xii + 372 p.)

Aim The southern European peninsulas (Iberian, Italian and Balkan) are considered to have been refugia for many European species of plants and animals during the climatic extremes of the Pleistocene ice ages. A number of recent studies (fossil and genetic), however, have provided evidence for full‐glacial survival of some species beyond these peninsulas. Here we explore the biogeographical traits of these species, and ask whether they possessed certain characteristics that enabled them to persist in more northerly refugia.Location Europe.Methods Fossil and genetic evidence for refugial localities of species that survived in Europe during the last full‐glacial was obtained from the literature (totalling 90 species: 34 woody plants and 56 vertebrates). Forty‐seven of these species (23 woody plants and 24 vertebrates) had fossil evidence, whereas the remaining 43 species (11 woody plants and 32 vertebrates) had only genetic evidence. All species were scored according to their present geographical distribution, habitat preference and life‐history traits. The species were classified on the basis of these traits using hierarchical cluster analysis. Analysis of similarities was used to examine differences in vertebrate and woody plant species groups that survived only in southerly refugia and those that also persisted in more northerly locations. Non‐metric multi‐dimensional scaling was used to examine patterns observed between and within groups.Results Results from our analysis of species with fossil and genetic evidence for survival in refugia reveal that species that survived only in southerly refugia were large‐seeded trees or thermophilous vertebrates. In contrast, species that had a full‐glacial distribution, including more northerly locations, were wind‐dispersed, habitat‐generalist trees with the ability to reproduce vegetatively, and habitat‐generalist mammals with present‐day northerly distributions.Main conclusions Analysis of the geographical distribution, habitat preference and life‐history traits of the species studied suggests that underlying biogeographical traits may have determined their response to Pleistocene glaciation. The traits most commonly found in present populations with a northerly distribution in Europe enabled the same species to exist much farther north than the southern European peninsulas during the full‐glacial. It is possible that many of these species are now in restricted populations, within the ‘warm‐stage’ refugia of the current interglacial. The northerly full‐glacial survival of a number of woody plants and vertebrate species has significant implications for understanding migration rates of these species in response to climate change. It also has important implications for understanding current patterns of genetic diversity of European species. We suggest that both fossil and genetic evidence should be used to identify and prioritize for conservation of refugial localities in southern and northern Europe.

It is suggested that modem Homo sapiens evolved from single small population of Homo erectus, living at high latitude during the last Interglacial period, which lost its body for while retaining the hair, at the same time perhaps reducing the chromosome number from 24 to 23 pairs. This meant that when, at the start of the last Ice Age, they migrated southwards again, viable hybridization with their H. erectus predecessors, still living over most of the rest of the world, might not have been possible. These H. sapiens had pale skins, no longer shielded from the sun by fur, and evolved protective skin pigmentation. In several physiologically different ways, the Neanderthalers are to be regarded as advanced and specialized H. erectus, probably with warm fur coats, rather than as primitive H. sapiens. Key Words: hybridization, extinction, hair, fur, facial flushing, skin coloration. As is generally agreed, the Neanderthalers died out some time before 30,000 years ago, soon after Cro-Magnon Homo sapiens made contact with them during the latter part of the last Ice Age. There is very little fossil or genetic evidence of hybridization between the two populations, and the Neanderthalers seem to have contributed little or nothing to the modern Homo sapiens genotype (Stringer & Gamble 1993. One possible explanation for this puzzling observation could be that when the modern H. sapiens were evolving genetic barrier may have developed which prevented viable hybridization with Homo erectus level populations from which they must have derived. This is how speciation often does occur, when small population becomes isolated, and evolves allopatrically before being brought back in to secondary sympatric contact with the rest of the species. Possibly the 24 pairs of chromosomes characteristic of the chimpanzees and gorillas, and perhaps of all the later hominids, including H. erectus and the Neanderthalers, could have been reduced to the 23 pairs of modern H. sapiens - perhaps by two of the smaller chromosomes joining up as one. Such chromosomal mismatch, although it might not have prevented mating between H. erectus, including the Neanderthalers, and the new H. sapiens, could well have produced inviable hybrids or sterile mules. Something like this was suggested by the well-known Finnish Quaternary biologist Bjorn Kurt6n in his novel, The Dance of the Tiger (Pantheon, New York 1980), concerned with Neanderthalers meeting with the Cro-Magnons at the end of the Ice Age. That was no more than science fiction but it could have happened, and it would explain the otherwise surprisingly rapid disappearance of the Neanderthalers. A Small Isolated Population Such transformation is most likely to have occurred in single numerically-small population. At the same time as the suggested genetical re-arrangement there seems to have been cultural transformation as well, perhaps related to the acquisition of symbolic language, from Palaeolithic stasis over most of the Pleistocene to where we are now, in tens rather than hundreds of thousands of years. This implies that all existing H. sapiens should be descended from one small isolated population, which then spread out over most of the world, replacing the H. erectus already there, including the Neanderthalers. There are some persuasive arguments (Goodhart 1996) to support this suggestion which, although to some extent speculative, is firmly based upon objective evidence. And anyway, Darwin himself observed, in letter to A. R. Wallace dated 22nd December 1857, that he was a firm believer that without speculation there is no good and original observation. Hair and Fur Firstly, although all modern humans have more or less naked bodies, lacking the fur found in all other Primates, humans of many though not all races have plenty of hair on their heads and around the genitalia, and in the armpits, of the long coarse sematic (i. …

Elucidating the colonization processes associated with Quaternary climatic cycles is important in order to understand the distribution of biodiversity and the evolutionary potential of temperate plant and animal species. In Europe, general evolutionary scenarios have been defined from genetic evidence. Recently, these scenarios have been challenged with genetic as well as fossil data. The origins of the modern distributions of most temperate plant and animal species could predate the Last Glacial Maximum. The glacial survival of such populations may have occurred in either southern (Mediterranean regions) and/or northern (Carpathians) refugia. Here, a phylogeographic analysis of a widespread European small mammal (Microtus arvalis) is conducted with a multidisciplinary approach. Genetic, fossil and ecological traits are used to assess the evolutionary history of this vole. Regardless of whether the European distribution of the five previously identified evolutionary lineages is corroborated, this combined analysis brings to light several colonization processes of M. arvalis. The species' dispersal was relatively gradual with glacial survival in small favourable habitats in Western Europe (from Germany to Spain) while in the rest of Europe, because of periglacial conditions, dispersal was less regular with bottleneck events followed by postglacial expansions. Our study demonstrates that the evolutionary history of European temperate small mammals is indeed much more complex than previously suggested. Species can experience heterogeneous evolutionary histories over their geographic range. Multidisciplinary approaches should therefore be preferentially chosen in prospective studies, the better to understand the impact of climatic change on past and present biodiversity.

Plant recolonization in the Himalaya from the southeastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau: Geographical isolation contributed to high population differentiation

Plant distributions are thought to be controlled by climate at large scales, and by non-climatic factors including soil conditions, topography and biotic interactions at smaller scales. However, not all plant distributions are explained by the current environment. Lags between current plant distributions and suitable environment for them are suggested to exist, which is often called empty habitat. To identify the existence and cause of lags between current climate and the distribution of Tsuga diversifolia, climatic conditions for the species distribution were clarified and potential habitats under current and the last glacial maximum (LGM; 21 ka) climates have been projected. The relationships between T. diversifolia distribution and climatic variables were explored using a classification tree model and a generalized additive model based on high-resolution (ca. 1 km) climatic data and a nationwide distribution database. The models were highly accurate. We revealed that T. diversifolia requires high summer precipitation even in humid Japanese environments. Areas with cool and wet summers were classified as potential habitat. Empty habitat for the focal species was identified in Hokkaido. Meanwhile, no potential habitat was projected in Hokkaido under the LGM. Additional experiments that varied temperature and summer precipitation during the LGM showed that the potential habitat was projected in Hokkaido irrespective of temperature decrease if summer precipitation increased nearly equal to the current climate. These results suggest that T. diversifolia vanished from Hokkaido, where fossil evidence indicated its occurrence until the late Neogene, during the glacial periods of the Pleistocene because of increased summer dryness.

Understanding extinction events requires an unbiased record of the chronology and ecology of victims and survivors. The rhinoceros Elasmotherium sibiricum, known as the 'Siberian unicorn', was believed to have gone extinct around 200,000 years ago-well before the late Quaternary megafaunal extinction event. However, no absolute dating, genetic analysis or quantitative ecological assessment of this species has been undertaken. Here, we show, by accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dating of 23 individuals, including cross-validation by compound-specific analysis, that E. sibiricum survived in Eastern Europe and Central Asia until at least 39,000 years ago, corroborating a wave of megafaunal turnover before the Last Glacial Maximum in Eurasia, in addition to the better-known late-glacial event. Stable isotope data indicate a dry steppe niche for E. sibiricum and, together with morphology, a highly specialized diet that probably contributed to its extinction. We further demonstrate, with DNA sequencing data, a very deep phylogenetic split between the subfamilies Elasmotheriinae and Rhinocerotinae that includes all the living rhinoceroses, settling a debate based on fossil evidence and confirming that the two lineages had diverged by the Eocene. As the last surviving member of the Elasmotheriinae, the demise of the 'Siberian unicorn' marked the extinction of this subfamily.

Ecologists have long been fascinated by the flora and fauna of extreme environments. Physiological studies have revealed the extent to which lifestyle is constrained by low temperature but there is as yet no consensus on why the diversity of polar assemblages is so much lower than many tropical assemblages. The evolution of marine faunas at high latitudes has been influenced strongly by oceanic cooling during the Cenozoic and the associated onset of continental glaciations. Glaciation eradicated many shallow-water habitats, especially in the Southern Hemisphere, and the cooling has led to widespread extinction in some groups. While environmental conditions at glacial maxima would have been very different from those existing today, fossil evidence indicates that some lineages extend back well into the Cenozoic. Oscillations of the ice-sheet on Milankovitch frequencies will have periodically eradicated and exposed continental shelf habitat, and a full understanding of evolutionary dynamics at high latitude requires better knowledge of the links between the faunas of the shelf, slope and deep-sea. Molecular techniques to produce phylogenies, coupled with further palaeontological work to root these phylogenies in time, will be essential to further progress.

This paper reviews the taxonomy, distribution, stock structure, biochemical genetics and zoogeography of the world's two subtropical sardines, Sardina and Sardinops. We conclude that both genera are monotypic and that the differences between populations of Sardinops in different current systems are not large enough to consider them distinct subspecies. Analysis of biochemical genetics information, fossil evidence, and present and paleo-climatic conditions suggests that Sardinops did not achieve its present distribution until the Pleistocene and that westward exchange of sardines via the northern and southern west wind drift regions is possible with present climatic conditions. Transequator exchange appears to be possible only during glacial maxima and only in the eastern tropical Pacific.

The Japanese turban snail Lunella coreensis is sensitive to ocean currents due to its short pelagic larval stage and moderate dispersal ability, making it an ideal model for studying genetic diversity shaped by paleoclimatic shifts. In this study, we analyzed the mitochondrial genes COI and 12S of museum samples collected from various coasts across Japan and identified 10 haplogroups divided into Pacific Ocean and Japan Sea clades, influenced by Kuroshio and Tsushima currents. Divergence time estimates indicate radiation between 3000 and 77,000 yr ago, coinciding with the last ice age, supported by fossil evidence in Japan. Glaciation cycles likely caused genetic isolation and exchange. Rapid radiation between 18,000 and 1000 yr ago aligns with climatic changes during the last glacial maximum. Effective population size estimates indicate past bottlenecks. These findings reveal how historical environmental events shaped L. coreensis genetic diversity, laying the groundwork for future sclerochronological research on marine biodiversity.

Genomic tools have greatly enhanced our ability to uncover ancient interspecific gene flow, including cases involving allopatric lineages and/or lineages that have gone extinct. Recently, a genomic analysis revealed the unexpected gene flow between the African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) and the dhole (Cuon alpinus). The two species have currently highly disjunct and patchy distributions in Africa and Asia, respectively, which are remnants of a much wider past distribution. Yet, no reported evidence of their past contact has ever been documented. By hindcasting the past potential distribution of both species during the Last Glacial Maximum and the Last Interglacial, validating paleoclimatic reconstructions with fossil evidence, quantifying the intersection of their bioclimatic niches, and assessing interspecific compatibility, we investigate the location and favorable conditions for such contact and its ecological validity. We were able to identify the Levant region in Eastern Mediterranean during the Last Interglacial as the most suitable spatio-ecological context for the co-occurrence of the two canids, and to provide evidence of a highly significant overlap of the African wild dog niche with the wider niche of the dhole. These results, combined with ecologic traits, including key compatibility features such as cooperative breeding and hunting, provide consistent support for the potential co-occurrence of both canids. We suggest that the ranges of these canids came into contact multiple times during periods resembling the Last Interglacial, eventually facilitating gene flow between the African wild dog and the dhole in their post-divergence history. Our results are highly supportive of the key role of the Levant region in providing connectivity between African and Eurasian faunas and provide further impetus to combine different tools and approaches in advancing the understanding of species evolutionary histories.

We present a short synthesis of the Pleistocene distribution dynamics and phylogeographic recolonization hypotheses for two temperate European mammal species, the red deer (Cervus elaphus) and the roe deer (Capreolus capreolus), for which high‐resolution patterns of fossil evidence and genetic data sets are available. Such data are critical to an understanding of the role of hypothesized glacial refugia. Both species show a similar pattern: a relatively wide distribution in the southern part of Central Europe 60,000–25,000 years ago, and a strong restriction to areas in southern Europe for nearly 10,000 years during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and the early Late Glacial (25,000–14,700 years ago). With the beginning of Greenland Interstadial 1 (Bølling/Allerød warming, c. 14,700–11,600 years ago) a sudden range expansion into Central Europe is visible, but the colonization of most of Central Europe, including the northern European Lowlands, only began in the early Holocene. In a European context, regions where the species were distributed during the LGM and early Late Glacial are most relevant as potential origins of recolonization processes, because during these c. 10,000 years distribution ranges were smaller than at any other time in the Late Quaternary. As far as the present distribution of temperate species and their genetic lineages is concerned, so‐called ‘cryptic refugia’ are important only if the species are actually confirmed there during the LGM, as otherwise they could not possibly have contributed to the recolonization that eventually resulted in the present distribution ranges.

The timing of the first appearance of animals is of crucial importance for understanding the evolution of life on Earth. Although the fossil record places the earliest metazoans at 572–602 Ma, molecular clock studies suggest a far earlier origination, as far back as ~850 Ma. The difference in these dates would place the rise of animal life into a time period punctuated by multiple colossal, potentially global, glacial events. Although the two schools of thought debate the limitations of each other's methods, little time has been dedicated to how animal life might have survived if it did arise before or during these global glacial periods. The history of recent polar biota shows that organisms have found ways of persisting on and around the ice of the Antarctic continent throughout the Last Glacial Maximum (33–14 Ka), with some endemic species present before the breakup of Gondwana (180–23 Ma). Here we discuss the survival strategies and habitats of modern polar marine organisms in environments analogous to those that could have existed during Neoproterozoic glaciations. We discuss how, despite the apparent harshness of many ice covered, sub‐zero, Antarctic marine habitats, animal life thrives on, in and under the ice. Ice dominated systems and processes make some local environments more habitable through water circulation, oxygenation, terrigenous nutrient input and novel habitats. We consider how the physical conditions of Neoproterozoic glaciations would likely have dramatically impacted conditions for potential life in the shallows and erased any possible fossil evidence from the continental shelves. The recent glacial cycle has driven the evolution of Antarctica's unique fauna by acting as a “diversity pump,” and the same could be true for the late Proterozoic and the evolution of animal life on Earth, and the existence of life elsewhere in the universe on icy worlds or moons.

Yellow‐cedar: climate change and natural history at odds