Archaic Humans Research Articles

A New Cultural Frontier for the Last Neanderthals: The Uluzzian in Northern Italy

The Middle–Upper Paleolithic shift was a crucial event intimately involved in Neanderthal biogeography and the patchy scenario that emerges from the last marked cultural and behavioral evolution our extinct relatives underwent during the interval 50‐30 k.yr. BP. In Mediterranean Europe, this behavior, considered modern, gave rise to the Uluzzian, a cultural complex confined to central‐southern Italy and Greece as a consequence of the supposed retreat of archaic humans in the face of the rapid diffusion of Homo sapiens. The recent discovery of dwelling structures and lithic implements at Fumane Cave in northeastern Italy redraws this scenario and depicts at 33.4 k.yr. BP the northernmost frontier to which the Uluzzian spread around the Great Adriatic Plain, a pivotal region near the western edge of the Middle Danube basin, where the last Neanderthals were using very different cultural items.

Cioclovina (Romania): affinities of an early modern European

The current modern human origins debate centers on the possibility and degree of admixture between indigenous archaic humans and modern human populations migrating out of Africa into Europe and Asia in the Late Pleistocene. Evidence for such admixture must be sought in the earliest fossil record of modern humans outside Africa, as it is those populations that would have encountered, and possibly interbred with, archaic hominins. In the case of Europe, the recent application of direct dating techniques has eliminated several specimens from the Upper Paleolithic fossil record, while confirming early ages for others. Among these earliest reliably dated specimens is the Cioclovina calvaria from Romania. This individual is of highest importance for the understanding of modern human origins in Europe, and has recently been proposed to represent a Neanderthal-modern human hybrid. We present a short description and a three-dimensional (3D) geometric morphometric analysis of the Cioclovina specimen using a large geographic sample of recent humans, Neanderthals and Middle and Late Pleistocene fossil hominins from Europe, Africa, and the Levant, in order to establish its phenetic affinities and to evaluate its morphology for evidence of admixture between Neanderthals and early modern Europeans. Our results show Cioclovina to be entirely modern in its cranial shape, and do not support the hypothesis that it represents a hybrid.

Paleobiology and comparative morphology of a late Neandertal sample from El Sidron, Asturias, Spain.

Fossil evidence from the Iberian Peninsula is essential for understanding Neandertal evolution and history. Since 2000, a new sample approximately 43,000 years old has been systematically recovered at the El Sidrón cave site (Asturias, Spain). Human remains almost exclusively compose the bone assemblage. All of the skeletal parts are preserved, and there is a moderate occurrence of Middle Paleolithic stone tools. A minimum number of eight individuals are represented, and ancient mtDNA has been extracted from dental and osteological remains. Paleobiology of the El Sidrón archaic humans fits the pattern found in other Neandertal samples: a high incidence of dental hypoplasia and interproximal grooves, yet no traumatic lesions are present. Moreover, unambiguous evidence of human-induced modifications has been found on the human remains. Morphologically, the El Sidrón humans show a large number of Neandertal lineage-derived features even though certain traits place the sample at the limits of Neandertal variation. Integrating the El Sidrón human mandibles into the larger Neandertal sample reveals a north-south geographic patterning, with southern Neandertals showing broader faces with increased lower facial heights. The large El Sidrón sample therefore augments the European evolutionary lineage fossil record and supports ecogeographical variability across Neandertal populations.

Archaic and modern human distal humeral morphology

The morphology of the proximal ulna has been shown to effectively differentiate archaic or premodern humans (such as Homo heidelbergensis and H. neanderthalensis) from modern humans ( H. sapiens). Accordingly, the morphology of adjacent, articulating elements should be able to distinguish these two broad groups as well. Here we test the taxonomic utility of another portion of the elbow, the distal humerus, as a discriminator of archaic and modern humans. Principal components analysis was employed on a suite of log-raw and log-shape distal humeral measures to examine differences between Neandertal and modern human distal humeri. In addition, the morphological affinities of Broken Hill (Kabwe) E.898, an archaic human distal humeral fragment from the middle Pleistocene of Zambia, and five Pliocene and early Pleistocene australopith humeri were assessed. The morphometric analyses effectively differentiated the Neandertals from the other groups, while the Broken Hill humerus appears morphologically similar to modern human distal humeri. Thus, an archaic/modern human dichotomy—as previously reported for proximal ulnar morphology—is not supported with respect to distal humeral morphology. Relative to australopiths and modern humans, Neandertal humeri are characterized by large olecranon fossae and small distodorsal medial and lateral pillars. The seeming disparity in morphological affinities of proximal ulnae (in which all archaic human groups appear distinct from modern humans) and distal humeri (in which Neandertals appear distinct from modern humans, but other archaic humans do not) is probably indicative of a highly variable, possibly transitional population of which our knowledge is hampered by sample-size limitations imposed by the scarcity of middle-to-late Pleistocene premodern human fossils outside of Europe.

Genes, Fossils, and Culture. An Overview of the Evidence for Neandertal–Modern Human Interaction and Admixture

This paper re-examines current arguments concerning the evidence for Neandertal-modern human interaction and admixture. While most researchers now agree that the ancestry of all present day humans can be traced back to African late Middle Pleistocene populations, at a time when the remainder of Eurasia was inhabited by ‘archaic humans’, most notably the Neandertals, issues that remain to be resolved are the tempo and mode of early modern human dispersal and interaction with archaic humans.This paper focuses on what happened at the time of contact in Europe, and assesses the level of admixture that may have occurred, as well as the extent to which such level may have varied in both time and space. It explains how the available mtDNA evidence does not preclude admixture at the time of contact, and is in fact consistent, depending on a number of parameters, with a possibly substantial Neandertal contribution to the initial modern human population of Europe. It is argued that the absence of Neandertal mtDNA lineages among present Europeans is likely, on dating evidence, to be simply a particular case of generalised loss of Pleistocene mtDNA lineages. Although the full range of interaction types (mutual avoidance, hostile confrontation, full integration) is conceivable, there is plenty of archaeological evidence to suggest that admixture must have been the general rule, and that the paleontological evidence for the generalised presence of archaic traits among Europe's earliest moderns implies the transmission of genes, and indicates that mixed groups should have been reproductively viable. In this context, it would seem that the most parsimonious explanation for the disappearance of the Neandertal mtDNA lineage is genetic swamping.

The challenge of the abstract mind: symbols, signs and notational systems in European prehistory

Since the earliest manifestations of symbolic activity in modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) in the Upper Palaeolithic, there is evidence for two independent cognitive procedures, for the production of representational images (naturalistic pictures or sculptures) and of abstract signs. The use of signs and symbols is attested for archaic humans (Homo neanderthalensis) and for Homo erectus while art in naturalistic style is an innovation among modern humans. The symbiotic interaction of the two symbolic capacities is illustrated for the visual heritage of Palaeolithic cave paintings in Southwestern Europe, for rock engravings in the Italian Alps (Val Camonica) and for the vivid use of signs and symbols in Southeastern Europe during the Neolithic. Around 5500 BC, sign use in Southeastern Europe reached a sophisticated stage of organization as to produce the earliest writing system of mankind. Since abstractness is the main theme in the visual heritage of the region, this script, not surprisingly, is composed of predominantly abstract signs.

Modern Human Origins and the Evolution of Behavior in the Later Pleistocene Record of South Asia

The archaeological record of Later Pleistocene South Asia has a crucial role to play in our understanding of the evolution of modern human behavior and the dispersal of anatomically modern humans around the Old World. Later Pleistocene records of South Asia are here summarized and placed in the context of the modernhumanorigins debate. Aspects of the South Asian record share familiar traits with other regions of the Old World, but South Asia also appears to have its own adaptive features and material culture developments. The fluctuating environment during the Later Pleistocene would have influenced the adaptations of anatomically modern and archaic humans, affecting population size, movement, and the usefulness of cultural innovations. On the basis of prevailing genetic, archaeological, and biogeographic information, it is hypothesized that Homo sapiens colonized South Asia as part of an early southern dispersal from Africa. The effect of demographic processes on the rate and direction of cultural change is proposed as an explanation for the lack of a symbolic revolution signaling the arrival of anatomically modern humans on the Indian subcontinent. Instead, the Late Paleolithic represents a diversification of adaptive behaviors that may be traced to the Middle Paleolithic.

New Light on the Earliest Hominid Occupation in East Asia

New Light on the Earliest Hominid Occupation in East Asia

Early Modern Humans

Perceptions of the emergence and spread of modern humans have changed recently through the reanalysis of fossils, an improved geochronological framework, and the discovery of a few specimens. Early modern humans in various portions of the Old World exhibit complex and varying mosaics of archaic, modern, and regional morphological characteristics. On the basis of this pattern, in conjunction with the emerging chronology of the earliest modern humans, the paleontological data indicate an assimilation model for modern human origins, in which the earliest modern humans emerged in eastern Africa, dispersed briefly into southwestern Asia, and then subsequently spread into the remainder of Africa and southern Asia, eventually into higher latitude Eurasia. The earliest modern humans outside of the core area of eastern Africa can be understood only if a variable degree of admixture with regional groups of late archaic humans occurred. Current and expected fossil and molecular data are unlikely to illuminate the degree of assimilation that took place in most regions of the Old World. However, the current chronological and phylogenetic framework provides the basis for ongoing investigation of the nature of this Late Pleistocene transitional period.

Genomics refutes an exclusively African origin of humans

Ten years ago, evidence from genetics gave strong support to the “recent African origin” view of the evolution of modern humans, which posits that Homo sapiens arose as a new species in Africa and subsequently spread, leading to the extinction of other archaic human species. Subsequent data from the nuclear genome not only fail to support this model, they do not support any simple model of human demographic history. In this paper, we study a process in which the modern human phenotype originates in Africa and then advances across the world by local demic diffusion, hybridization, and natural selection. While the multiregional model of human origins posits a number of independent single locus selective sweeps, and the “out of Africa” model posits a sweep of a new species, we study the intermediate case of a phenotypic sweep. Numerical simulations of this process replicate many of the seemingly contradictory features of the genetic data, and suggest that as much as 80% of nuclear loci have assimilated genetic material from non-African archaic humans.

Looking Farther Afield

Several recent studies have investigated the potential association between assisted reproductive technology (ART) and risk of childhood cancer (e.g., retinoblastoma) or genetic syndromes at high risk of malignancy [e.g., Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome (BWS); refs. [1][1], [2][2]]. Most recently,

Modern Human Origins and the Evolution of Behavior in the Later Pleistocene Record of South Asia

The archaeological record of Later Pleistocene South Asia has a crucial role to play in our understanding of the evolution of modern human behavior and the dispersal of anatomically modern humans around the Old World. Later Pleistocene records of South Asia are here summarized and placed in the context of the modernhumanorigins debate. Aspects of the South Asian record share familiar traits with other regions of the Old World, but South Asia also appears to have its own adaptive features and material culture developments. The fluctuating environment during the Later Pleistocene would have influenced the adaptations of anatomically modern and archaic humans, affecting population size, movement, and the usefulness of cultural innovations. On the basis of prevailing genetic, archaeological, and biogeographic information, it is hypothesized that Homo sapiens colonized South Asia as part of an early southern dispersal from Africa. The effect of demographic processes on the rate and direction of cultural change is proposed as an explanation for the lack of a symbolic revolution signaling the arrival of anatomically modern humans on the Indian subcontinent. Instead, the Late Paleolithic represents a diversification of adaptive behaviors that may be traced to the Middle Paleolithic.

Why not the Neandertals?

Some workers have suggested that a hypothetical genetic mutation in an African population less than 100,000 years ago led to a cascade of neurological changes in the human brain that culminated in the appearance of modern language. Language then triggered the socioeconomic and cognitive changes we associate with behavioral modernity and Africans, armed with behavioral modernity, then spread out from that continent, out-competing, displacing, extirpating, outbreeding or, most generally, replacing the Neandertals and other archaic humans throughout the middle latitudes of the Old World. The Neandertals of Europe are the best-known, best-represented and longest studied test case for this theory. In this paper we present evidence from skeletal anatomy, mitochondrial DNA, morphology and genetics of speech and the archaeology of the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition in Europe that directly contradicts all of the elements in this replacement scenario. The processes leading to modernity involved the entire human species, and were based on the ethnogenic principle of communication and reticulation among populations.

Molecular Evolution of Pediculus humanus and the Origin of Clothing

In volume 13, issue 16 of Current Biology (pp. 1414–1417), we used a molecular-clock approach to date the origin of human body lice and, by inference, the origin of human clothing. To calibrate the molecular clock, we obtained mtDNA and nuclear gene sequences from a chimpanzee louse (Pediculus schaeffi). Reed et al. (PLoS Biol 2:e340, 2004) recently reported that the mtDNA cytochrome b (CYTB) sequence we reported for the chimpanzee louse fell outside the range of other Pediculus CYTB sequences [1Reed, D.L., Smith, V.S., Hammond, S.L., Rogers, A.R., and Clayton, D.H. (2004). Genetic analysis of lice supports direct contact between modern and archaic humans. PloS Biol 2(11): e340.Google Scholar]. After further investigation, we determined that our P. schaeffi CYTB sequence is closely related to Chironomus CYTB sequences and, hence, most likely reflects a contaminant. The sequences we reported for the mtDNA ND4 gene and the nuclear genes RPII and EF-1α from this chimpanzee louse do appear to reflect authentic P. schaeffi sequences. Reanalysis of our data with the P. schaeffi CYTB sequence from Reed et al. along with the rest of our CYTB and ND4 sequence data results in a time of 770,000 years for the human louse ancestor and 107,000 years for the origin of body lice. No other analyses are influenced by the incorrect P. schaeffi CYTB sequence, and none of our conclusions are changed.

Neanderthals in the Levant: Behavioral Organization and the Beginnings of Human Modernity. Donald O. Henry.

The volume traces the controversy that revolves around the bio-cultural relationships of Archaic (Neanderthal) and Modern humans at global and regional, Levantine scales. The focus of the book is on understanding the degree to which the behavioral organization of Archaic groups differed from Moderns. To this end, a case study is presented for a 44-70,000 year old, Middle Paleolithic occupation of a Jordanian rockshelter. The research, centering on the spatial analysis of artifacts, hearths and related data, reveals how the Archaic occupants of the shelter structured their activities and placed certain conceptual labels on different parts of the site. The structure of Tor Faraj is compared to site structures defined for modern foragers, in both ethnographic and archaeological contexts, to measure any differences in behavioral organization. The comparisons show very similar structures for Tor Faraj and its modern cohorts. The implications of this finding challenge prevailing views in the emergence of modern human controversy in which Archaic groups are thought to have had inferior cognition and less complex behavioral-social organization than modern foragers. And, it is generally thought that such behaviors only emerged after the appearance of the Upper Paleolithic, dated some 10-20,000 years later than the occupation of Tor Faraj.

New Species of Small Human Found in Indonesia

Archaeologists have made the startling discovery of a lost world of small archaic humans, who hunted dwarf elephants and Komodo dragons on an Indonesian island as recently as 18,000 years ago.

Genetic Analysis of Lice Supports Direct Contact between Modern and Archaic Humans

Parasites can be used as unique markers to investigate host evolutionary history, independent of host data. Here we show that modern human head lice, Pediculus humanus, are composed of two ancient lineages, whose origin predates modern Homo sapiens by an order of magnitude (ca. 1.18 million years). One of the two louse lineages has a worldwide distribution and appears to have undergone a population bottleneck ca. 100,000 years ago along with its modern H. sapiens host. Phylogenetic and population genetic data suggest that the other lineage, found only in the New World, has remained isolated from the worldwide lineage for the last 1.18 million years. The ancient divergence between these two lice is contemporaneous with splits among early species of Homo, and cospeciation analyses suggest that the two louse lineages codiverged with a now extinct species of Homo and the lineage leading to modern H. sapiens. If these lice indeed codiverged with their hosts ca. 1.18 million years ago, then a recent host switch from an archaic species of Homo to modern H. sapiens is required to explain the occurrence of both lineages on modern H. sapiens. Such a host switch would require direct physical contact between modern and archaic forms of Homo.

Tooth loss, survival, and resource use in wild ring-tailed lemurs ( Lemur catta): implications for inferring conspecific care in fossil hominids

The degree of antemortem tooth loss seen in wild nonhuman primates is central to the ongoing debate concerning conspecific care in fossil hominids (see Holden, 2003). Lebel and Trinkaus (2002) argued that the extreme (R81.8%) antemortem tooth loss seen in Aubesier 11, a partial hominid mandible from the middle Pleistocene (Lebel et al., 2001), exceeds that of known samples of living nonhuman primates. Their argument follows that, because of its severely impaired masticatory system, this individual would have required some form of social assistance to survive (Lebel et al., 2001; Lebel and Trinkaus, 2002). DeGusta (2002, 2003) refuted this, arguing that the degree of tooth loss in archaic humans does not exceed that of wild nonhuman primates. Of interest, both Lebel and Trinkaus (2002) and DeGusta (2003) cited data on dental health in the population of ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta) at Beza Mahafaly Special Reserve, Madagascar (Sauther et al., 2002) in their arguments. As noted by DeGusta (2003), Lebel and Trinkaus (2002) were incorrect in their characterization of the data presented by Sauther et al. (2002), arguing that “wild-trapped individuals with extensively worn teeth disappear shortly after observation” (Lebel and Trinkaus, 2002: 672). Rather, Sauther et al. (2002) reported the long-term survival (several years) of two ringtailed lemurs with pronounced dental impairment. However, the data on tooth loss and individual survival presented by Sauther et al. (2002) were descriptive, rather than quantitative, and illustrate the need for comprehensive data on dental health and tooth loss in wild nonhuman primates. When considering hominid paleobiology in a comparative context, the choice of an appropriate analogue is important. Lebel and Trinkaus (2002) argued that the most appropriate direct comparison for understanding hominid paleobiology and inferring conspecific care in middle Pleistocene hominids is other archaic human populations, as the social systems and technology associated with modern human groups limit their relevance. They also noted the significance of large-bodied, wild * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-815-753-0744; fax: +1-815-753-7027 E-mail addresses: fcuozzo@niu.edu (F.P. Cuozzo), sauther@stripe.colorado.edu (M.L. Sauther). Journal of Human Evolution 46 (2004) 623–631

An early modern human from the Peştera cu Oase, Romania.

The 2002 discovery of a robust modern human mandible in the Peştera cu Oase, southwestern Romania, provides evidence of early modern humans in the lower Danubian Corridor. Directly accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon (14C)-dated to 34,000-36,000 14C years B.P., the Oase 1 mandible is the oldest definite early modern human specimen in Europe and provides perspectives on the emergence and evolution of early modern humans in the northwestern Old World. The moderately long Oase 1 mandible exhibits a prominent tuber symphyseos and overall proportions that place it close to earlier Upper Paleolithic European specimens. Its symmetrical mandibular incisure, medially placed condyle, small superior medial pterygoid tubercle, mesial mental foramen, and narrow corpus place it closer to early modern humans among Late Pleistocene humans. However, its cross-sectional symphyseal orientation is intermediate between late archaic and early modern humans, the ramus is exceptionally wide, and the molars become progressively larger distally with exceptionally large third molars. The molar crowns lack derived Neandertal features but are otherwise morphologically undiagnostic. However, it has unilateral mandibular foramen lingular bridging, an apparently derived Neandertal feature. It therefore presents a mosaic of archaic, early modern human and possibly Neandertal morphological features, emphasizing both the complex population dynamics of modern human dispersal into Europe and the subsequent morphological evolution of European early modern humans.

Eyasi 1 and the suprainiac fossa.

A reexamination of Eyasi 1, a later Middle Pleistocene east African neurocranium, reveals the presence of a suite of midoccipital features, including a modest nuchal torus that is limited to the middle half of the bone, the absence of an external occipital protuberance, and a distinct transversely oval suprainiac fossa. These features, and especially the suprainiac fossa, were considered to be uniquely derived for the European and western Asian Neandertals. These observations therefore indicate that these features are not limited to Neandertal lineage specimens, and should be assessed in terms of frequency distributions among later archaic humans.