Early Homo Sapiens Research Articles

Foundation and Frontier – Centenary Path of Dental Anthropology in China

Dental anthropology has been developed for 100 years in China. In this paper, the author reviews the articles on dental anthropology related to Chinese materials in the past one hundred years and briefly introduces the issues involved such as human evolution, and the interaction of different populations in historical periods. Results and discussion. The work of foreign scholars has been the foundation of Chinese paleoanthropology and dental anthropology since the discovery of the Hetao human teeth and the Zhoukoudian site. Since then, dental anthropology in China has gone through a phase of material accumulation, a phase of introducing the American ASUDAS in the 1990s, and a phase of prosperity in the last 30 years. The numerous discoveries and the application of new techniques have brought Chinese dental anthropology to an international level. Until now, there are more than 70 human fossil sites in China, over 60 of which contain human dental remains. Less material has been found from the early Pleistocene, and there is some controversy on whether they belong to the genus Homo. While early Middle Pleistocene Homo erectus teeth show primitiveness and some special features, the late Middle Pleistocene human teeth show greater variability, and mosaic features, and there is some controversy on whether some fossils belong to early Homo sapiens or other taxa. The Late Pleistocene human dentition is related to the question of how and when early modern human appeared in China and the evolution of early modern humans. However, due to the incompleteness of the material, the question of human origins is a matter of multidisciplinary and comprehensive interpretation. About 10 sites were studied from Neolithic to modern human dentition using the American ASUDAS. These results show the consistency of non-metric traits in teeth and skulls, display differences between northern and southern Chinese populations, and reveal the exchange between northwestern Chinese and western populations. Some of these results have been confirmed by paleogenomics. Conclusion. Anthropologists began to pay more attention to the morphology of modern human teeth. In the future, the application of new methods and the collection of modern human materials will help us better understand the evolution of ancient humans, population interaction.

Continuous technological and behavioral development of late Pleistocene hominins in central South China: Multidisciplinary analysis at Sandinggai

Lithic technological development in the Late Pleistocene of South China has received substantial attention in recent years due to a series of recent fossil discoveries in the region, including some assigned to early modern Homo sapiens. Here we present a comprehensive study of the open-air site of Sandinggai, which is located in the middle valley of the Yangtze River in central South China. Luminescence dating based on quartz and feldspar has shown that the initial occupation of the site began from ca. 96.6 ± 5.1 ka and continued until the end of the last deglacial period (i.e., ca. 13.3 ± 0.3 ka). The site thus provides a substantial chronological sequence to investigate the behavioral development of early humans. Technological analysis shows that a Large Cutting Tool (LCT) techno-complex based mainly on coarse-grained quartz sandstone co-existed with a small flake and flake tool production system based on chert, with the latter playing a more prominent role. In addition, this small débitage flaking component lacks skillful prepared core technology, which is often present in the West at contemporaneous sites. Furthermore, from a wider regional context, an evolutionary pattern is suggested which shows that the pre-existing Middle Pleistocene LCT techno-complex underwent a marked decline during the Late Pleistocene, while in contrast, the local small flaking system became prominent and continued to develop through time, without discernible external influence. These data suggest a re-evaluation of current ideas on the movement of early modern humans into the region, along with their potential influence in the different regions of South China.

Aurignacian dynamics in Southeastern Europe based on spatial analysis, sediment geochemistry, raw materials, lithic analysis, and use-wear from Românești-Dumbrăvița

The Aurignacian is one of the first cultural-technological traditions commonly associated with the expansion of Homo sapiens in Europe. Early Homo sapiens demographics across the continent are therefore typically inferred using the distribution of Aurignacian assemblages. Western Romania has been used as a tie-point to connect the well-researched lithic assemblages from the eastern Mediterranean and Western Europe through its early Homo sapiens fossils. However, Romania’s archeological record remains underexplored thereby hindering our ability to directly connect better understood regions through time and space. Here we report on excavations from the open-air Middle/Upper Paleolithic site of Românești-Dumbrăvița I in southwestern Romania. Three stratified Paleolithic assemblages were extensively excavated within a 1-m-thick eolian-deposited sequence. Spatial, geochemical, raw material, techno-typological, and use-wear analysis of the site reveal patterns of artifact configuration, resource exploitation, fire history, knapping objectives, and functionality. Taken together, Românești-Dumbrăvița I is the first well-contextualized archeological site in close spatiotemporal proximity to many early, well-preserved human fossils and in East-Central Europe.

Endocranial ontogeny and evolution in early Homo sapiens: The evidence from Herto, Ethiopia

Fossils and artifacts from Herto, Ethiopia, include the most complete child and adult crania of early Homo sapiens. The endocranial cavities of the Herto individuals show that by 160,000 y ago, brain size, inferred from endocranial size, was similar to that seen in modern human populations. However, endocranial shape differed from ours. This gave rise to the hypothesis that the brain itself evolved substantially during the past ∼200,000 y, possibly in tandem with the transition from Middle to Upper Paleolithic techno-cultures. However, it remains unclear whether evolutionary changes in endocranial shape mostly reflect changes in brain morphology rather than changes related to interaction with maxillofacial morphology. To discriminate between these effects, we make use of the ontogenetic fact that brain growth nearly ceases by the time the first permanent molars fully erupt, but the face and cranial base continue to grow until adulthood. Here we use morphometric data derived from digitally restored immature and adult H. sapiens fossils from Herto, Qafzeh, and Skhul (HQS) to track endocranial development in early H. sapiens. Until the completion of brain growth, endocasts of HQS children were similar in shape to those of modern human children. The similarly shaped endocasts of fossil and modern children indicate that our brains did not evolve substantially over the past 200,000 y. Differences between the endocranial shapes of modern and fossil H. sapiens adults developed only with continuing facial and basicranial growth, possibly reflecting substantial differences in masticatory and/or respiratory function.

Aperçu critique du Middle Stone Age en Afrique du Nord

The North African MSA stretches, at least in some areas, from about 300,000years BP to almost all of MIS 3. During this long period, the large geographic region extending from the Mediterranean Sea to the Southern Sahara and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea was occupied by anatomically modern human populations who had diverse cultural characteristics, but shared a common technological substrate (Mode 3). North Africa is a key region for understanding the history of early Homo sapiens, their adaptation strategies to not always favorable environments and their technological and symbolic behavior, which finds comparisons in the rest of Africa, in the Levant and in the Arabian Peninsula. This critical overview presents and discusses currently available archaeological data based on the most recent literature. After a description of the paleoenvironment and human exploitation of animal resources, the main sites and cultural complexes are treated separately for the different geographical areas.

The first use of olives in Africa around 100,000 years ago

The olive tree was an iconic plant for most of the past Mediterranean civilizations, for which it had important economic value. Here we report the earliest use of fruits and wood from olive trees in Africa so far, around 100,000 years ago. These findings suggest the presence of olive trees on the Atlantic coast of Morocco during most of the last glacial period, and the use of olives by the early Homo sapiens for fuel management and most probably for consumption.

Хронология плейстоценовых находок рода Homo в Сибири: результаты и проблемы (краткий обзор)

This overview article contains a brief critical analysis of the chronology of Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene finds of Homo remains in Siberia. Direct dating of the Homo bones and teeth, as well as the isolation and analysis of the ancient human DNA, has now become firmly established in the practice of paleoanthropological research. About 62% of the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene Siberian Homo remains have information on ancient DNA and direct dates of the bones and teeth. Particular attention is given to the assessment of the reliability of ages determined by the radiocarbon dating method. Information on the taphonomy (conditions and process of burial and fossilization) of Homo remains in the caves of the Mountain Altai is also of great importance. At present, three species of Pleistocene Homo are known in Siberia: Denisovans, Neanderthals, and anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens). For the DenisovanNeanderthal hybrid, there is a direct date obtained by the Uranium series method, which shows the age of 67,500 cal BP. The age of other Denisovan fossils cannot be precisely determined due to the significant mixing of layers in Denisova Cave. The timing of the Denisovans in Siberia can be preliminarily determined at 130,000–44,000 cal BP (the upper limit is very approximate). The age of Siberian Neanderthals is greater than 50,000 cal BP; it is difficult to be more precise due to the widespread disturbance of the Altai caves’ stratigraphy by the burrowing activity of animals, primarily cave hyenas. Early Homo sapiens inhabited Siberia from 45,000 cal BP to the Early Holocene. No clear correspondence can be observed between climate changes in the second half of the Late Pleistocene (45,000–12,000 cal BP) and the chronology of Homo sapiens in Siberia. The age of some Homo sapiens fossils (Baigara, Solovyinaya Luka, and Sibiryachikha 6) after direct dating turned out to be much younger than initially expected. The taxonomic status of some Siberian Homo (Tuyana; an individual from the Okladnikov Cave with a date of 28,300 cal BP) has not yet been reliably identified. Obviously, it is necessary to increase the number of direct dates for Siberian hominins.

Luminescence dating estimates for the coastal MSA sequence of Hoedjiespunt 1 (South Africa)

Coastal adaptations have been considered to play an important role in the bio-cultural evolution of early Homo sapiens and their dispersal out of Africa. In line with this assessment, recent years have seen increasing evidence for the exploitation of seafood from the Middle Stone Age (MSA) of northern and southern Africa. Yet, chronological control constitutes a key problem for better understanding the evolution of these behaviours, with little well-dated evidence for their origins in the late Middle Pleistocene and only few sites dated to before 100 ka. The shellfish-bearing MSA site of Hoedjiespunt 1 (HDP1), located in the Western Cape in South Africa, is one of the localities tentatively dated to the early Late Pleistocene. HDP1 has yielded a 1.5 m stratigraphic sequence with three phases of occupation, each containing abundant lithic artefacts, shellfish, terrestrial fauna, ostrich eggshell and pieces of ground ochre. Analyses of the cultural and zooarchaeological remains of HDP1 have provided evidence for systematic gathering of a narrow range of marine resources coupled with stable adaptations to coastal landscapes. Here we present the first complete absolute chronology for the site and its entire stratigraphic sequence by applying luminescence dating (OSL) to quartz grains extracted from the carbonate-rich sediments. The results show repeated human occupations during Marine Isotope Stages 5e-5c (∼130–100 ka) at HDP1, suggesting successful integration of coastal ecosystems into the regular repertoire of behavioural adaptations by early modern humans by no later than the beginning of the Late Pleistocene.

Steak tournedos or beef Wellington: an attempt to understand the meaning of Stone Age transformative techniques

Research into human uniqueness is gaining increasing importance in prehistoric archaeology. The most striking behaviour unique to early and modern humans among other primates is perhaps that they used fire to transform the properties of materials. In Archaeology, these processes are sometimes termed “engineering” or “transformative techniques” because they aim at producing materials with altered properties. Were such transformative techniques cognitively more demanding than other tool making processes? Were they the key factors that separated early humans, such as Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens, from other hominins? Many approaches to investigating these techniques rely on their complexity. The rationale behind this is that some techniques required more steps than others, thus revealing the underlying mechanisms of human uniqueness (e.g., unique human culture). However, it has been argued that the interpretation of process complexity may be prone to arbitrariness (i.e., different researchers have different notions of what is complex). Here I propose an alternative framework for interpreting transformative techniques. Three hypotheses are derived from an analogy with well-understood processes in modern-day cuisine. The hypotheses are about i) the requirement in time and/or raw materials of transformative techniques, ii) the difficulty to succeed in conducting transformative techniques and iii) the necessity to purposefully invent transformative techniques, as opposed to discovering them randomly. All three hypotheses make testable predictions.

Not a bathtub: A consideration of sea-level physics for archaeological models of human migration

Accurately reconstructing past sea level is key to simulating potential migration pathways of ancient hominins, including early Homo sapiens. Models of ancient human migration events commonly construct estimates of paleoenvironments using the “bathtub” model, in which sea level is assumed to rise and fall according to a “eustatic” (global average) value over time. However, large uncertainties exist on past ice sheet sizes and shapes, particularly prior to the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), ∼26,000 years ago. Moreover, regional sea level varies significantly due to the effects of glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA). That process includes Earth's gravitational, deformational, and rotational response to changing surface (ice plus ocean) loads across the ice age. Here, we offer an updated account of the physics of GIA-induced sea-level change and consider the impacts of these effects, together with a newly published ice sheet history, on sea-level changes across the last glacial cycle. As illustrations, we highlight the significance of these issues for studies of ancient human migration from Sunda to Sahul and for the timing of the final, post-LGM flooding of the Strait of Dover. These examples demonstrate the importance of incorporating updated ice sheet histories and accurate sea-level physics into archaeological research.

Aspects of Health Status in Pre-Sedentism Populations of Southwestern Asia

The Qafzeh site in Lower Galilee yielded a unique set of early modern Homo sapiens skeletal remains dated to ca. 100 ka BP and represents all age categories from perinatal to adulthood. Numerous and varied developmental abnormalities, dental and bone lesions, are reported that provide insights into life history among these Middle Palaeolithic nomadic hunter-gatherers from Southwestern Asia. Several pathological conditions affecting young subadults enable us to understand childhood mortality in past human populations. In addition, other skeletal variations provide information related to social care and funerary practices among the inhabitants at Qafzeh, ca. 100 ka BP.

Morphological description and evolutionary significance of 300 ka hominin facial bones from Hualongdong, China

Late Middle Pleistocene hominins in Africa displaying key modern morphologies by 315 ka are claimed as the earliest Homo sapiens. Evolutionary relationships among East Asian hominins appear complex due to a growing fossil record of late Middle Pleistocene hominins from the region, reflecting mosaic morphologies that contribute to a lack of consensus on when and how the transition to modern humans transpired. Newly discovered 300 ka hominin fossils from Hualongdong, China, provide further evidence to clarify these relationships in the region. In this study, facial morphology of the juvenile partial cranium (HLD 6) is described and qualitatively and quantitatively compared with that of other key Early, Middle, and Late Pleistocene hominins from East Asia, Africa, West Asia, and Europe and with a sample of modern humans. Qualitatively, facial morphology of HLD 6 resembles that of Early and Middle Pleistocene hominins from Zhoukoudian, Nanjing, Dali, and Jinniushan in China, as well as others from Java, Africa, and Europe in some of these features (e.g., supraorbital and malar regions), and Late Pleistocene hominins and modern humans from East Asia, Africa, and Europe in other features (e.g., weak prognathism, flat face and features in nasal and hard plate regions). Comparisons of HLD 6 measurements to group means and multivariate analyses support close affinities of HLD 6 to Late Pleistocene hominins and modern humans. Expression of a mosaic morphological pattern in the HLD 6 facial skeleton further complicates evolutionary interpretations of regional morphological diversity in East Asia. The prevalence of modern features in HLD 6 suggests that the hominin population to which HLD 6 belonged may represent the earliest pre-modern humans in East Asia. Thus, the transition from archaic to modern morphology in East Asian hominins may have occurred at least by 300 ka, which is 80,000 to 100,000 years earlier than previously recognized.

Early Middle Stone Age personal ornaments from Bizmoune Cave, Essaouira, Morocco

Ornaments such as beads are among the earliest signs of symbolic behavior among human ancestors. Their appearance signals important developments in both cognition and social relations. This paper describes and presents contextual information for 33 shell beads from Bizmoune Cave (southwest Morocco). Many of the beads come as deposits dating to ≥142 thousand years, making them the oldest shell beads yet recovered. They extend the dates for the first appearance of this behavior into the late Middle Pleistocene. The ages and ubiquity of beads in Middle Stone Age (MSA) sites in North Africa provide further evidence of the potential importance of these artifacts as signals of identity. The early and continued use of Tritia gibbosula and other material culture traits also suggest a remarkable degree of cultural continuity among early MSA Homo sapiens groups across North Africa.

New insights into the late Middle Stone Age occupation of Oued el Akarit, southern Tunisia

AbstractThis article reports on a new project to investigate the activities of earlyHomo sapiensin the area of the Chotts ‘megalake’ in southern Tunisia. Excavations in 2015 and 2019 at Oued el Akarit revealed one of a number of Middle Stone Age (MSA) horizons near the top of a long sequence of Upper Pleistocene deposits. The site identified as Oued el Akarit (Sondage 8) consists of lithic artefacts, bone fragments of large ungulates and pieces of ostrich eggshell. Many of the objects are burnt. Excavation of about nine square metres revealed that these were associated with a lightly trampled and combusted occupation surface. Amongst the identified artefacts were Levallois flakes some of which could be refitted, thereby indicating the generally undisturbed nature of the occupation. The lithic finds also included side scrapers and other tools diagnostic of the MSA but significantly no bifacial or tanged tools. OSL (Optically Stimulated Luminescence) dating of the sediments and AMS (Accelerator Mass Spectrometry) radiocarbon dating of ostrich eggshell have produced uncalibrated age determinations in the range 37,000–40,000 years ago, one of the youngest ages for MSA sites in the region. This is the first example of a securely dated later MSA occupation in a riparian environment in south-eastern Tunisia.

Did Pleistocene Africans use the spearthrower‐and‐dart?

Archeologists commonly suppose that among complex projectile weapons humans use as subsistence aids, the spearthrower-and-dart preceded bow-and-arrow use. And yet, neither ethnographic nor archeological records furnish any robust evidence for spearthrower-and-dart use in Africa. Instead, evidence grows apace for ever-more ancient bow-and-arrow use. Here we explore these findings and their implications for models of early Homo sapiens behavior.

A 51,000-year-old engraved bone reveals Neanderthals' capacity for symbolic behaviour.

While there is substantial evidence for art and symbolic behaviour in early Homo sapiens across Africa and Eurasia, similar evidence connected to Neanderthals is sparse and often contested in scientific debates. Each new discovery is thus crucial for our understanding of Neanderthals' cognitive capacity. Here we report on the discovery of an at least 51,000-year-old engraved giant deer phalanx found at the former cave entrance of Einhornhöhle, northern Germany. The find comes from an apparent Middle Palaeolithic context that is linked to Neanderthals. The engraved bone demonstrates that conceptual imagination, as a prerequisite to compose individual lines into a coherent design, was present in Neanderthals. Therefore, Neanderthal's awareness of symbolic meaning is very likely. Our findings show that Neanderthals were capable of creating symbolic expressions before H. sapiens arrived in Central Europe.

How did modern morphology evolve in the human mandible? The relationship between static adult allometry and mandibular variability in Homo sapiens

Key to understanding human origins are early Homo sapiens fossils from Jebel Irhoud, as well as from the early Late Pleistocene sites Tabun, Border Cave, Klasies River Mouth, Skhul, and Qafzeh. While their upper facial shape falls within the recent human range of variation, their mandibles display a mosaic morphology. Here we quantify how mandibular shape covaries with mandible size and how static allometry differs between Neanderthals, early H. sapiens, and modern humans from the Upper Paleolithic/Later Stone Age and Holocene (= later H. sapiens). We use 3D (semi)landmark geometric morphometric methods to visualize allometric trends and to explore how gracilization affects the expression of diagnostic shape features. Early H. sapiens were highly variable in mandible size, exhibiting a unique allometric trajectory that explains aspects of their ‘archaic’ appearance. At the same time, early H. sapiens share a suite of diagnostic features with later H. sapiens that are not related to mandibular sizes, such as an incipient chin and an anteroposteriorly decreasing corpus height. The mandibular morphology, often referred to as ‘modern’, can partly be explained by gracilization owing to size reduction. Despite distinct static allometric shape changes in each group studied, bicondylar and bigonial breadth represent important structural constraints for the expression of shape features in most Middle to Late Pleistocene hominin mandibles.

On the efficiency of Palaeolithic birch tar making

Birch tar is an adhesive dating back to the European Middle Palaeolithic. Several possible production pathways have been derived from experimentation and their complexity is often used to argue for complex behaviours or cognitive capacities of Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens. Efficiency may help to evaluate the likelihood that one technique or another was used in the Palaeolithic. Based on published and new experimental data, we analyse the efficiency of four birch tar production methods in terms of resource and time consumption. We found that there are differences in efficiency between all these methods, but they are not as great as previously thought. The most complex underground technique is most efficient in terms of tar yield but even the least complex aboveground condensation method produces usable amounts of tar in relatively short time intervals. Our findings highlight that efficiency cannot be used to evaluate the likelihood that specific techniques were used in the Palaeolithic. Only direct archaeological data on the techniques used in the Palaeolithic will allow to make inferences about the behavioural complexity of birch tar production.

No evidence for widespread island extinctions after Pleistocene hominin arrival

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.

Trabecular bone properties in the ilium of the Middle Paleolithic/Middle Stone Age Border Cave 3 Homo sapiens infant and the onset of independent gait

The Border Cave 3 (BC3) infant skeleton has been understudied, despite its importance as an example of a well-preserved and fairly complete immature skeleton of early Homo sapiens which potentially provides a rare window into various aspects of ontogenetic development, including locomotor activity (e.g., timing of gait events). Trabecular structure in the BC3 ilium was evaluated to investigate whether it matches that of an equivalently aged infant from a postindustrialized society. Microcomputed tomography (μCT) scans were acquired from the BC3 infant and from an ontogenetic series of 25 postindustrial infants that were divided into three age classes (ACs) ranging from neonates to toddlers (<36 months). All ilia were qualitatively compared and then digitally subdivided into 10 volumes of interest (VOIs) based on anatomical reference points. The VOIs were quantified and ontogenetic differences in trabecular structure were statistically evaluated. Across the comparative ontogenetic series, trabecular architectural properties overlapped in all regions. However, trabecular thickness increased significantly after the first year of life. The BC3 infant demonstrated generally similar trabecular structure to that observed in the age-equivalent postindustrial infants (AC2), including relatively strong development of the trabecular chiasma qualitatively. However, some interesting distinctions were observed in BC3, such as low strut thickness compared with infants from the postindustrial sample, that bear further exploration in future studies. Evaluation of only one individual from the Middle Stone Age (MSA), coupled with the relatively small comparative sample, limit our ability to distinguish more meaningful biological differences in trabecular structure throughout ontogeny from idiosyncratic characteristics. Nonetheless, results of this study extend ongoing research on infant locomotor and morphological development to archeological populations in the Middle Stone Age. Further cross-cultural studies consisting of larger comparative postindustrial samples may provide additional information on trabecular structure in the infant ilium during this important developmental timeframe.