Early Homo Research Articles

Possible Traces of Early Modern Human Architectural Heritage: A Comment on Similarities Between Nest-Building Activity of Homo Species and Shelter Forms of Indigenous People in Sub-Saharan Africa

The architectural artefacts, materials, and techniques used for constructing shelters may share some common properties derived from the architectural culture that has evolved within the human species. This article examines the material features and settlement organisations employed in the nest-building activities of early human species and the shelter forms of indigenous peoples residing in sub-Saharan Africa. It questions whether early modern human notions of architectural heritage, which lack substantiation, might have influenced nest construction, typological differentiation, material utilisation, and the transmission of practices to subsequent generations and habitats. The focus is on home-based spatial organisation and the construction of structures. We recognise the need to clarify some fundamental misunderstandings regarding the nature of cultural and archaeological taxonomies, as well as the misuse of analogical reasoning when comparing contemporary hunter–gatherer populations with certain hominin groups. The paper aims to explore whether the early ‘Homo architecture’ in Africa bears any resemblance to that of modern Africans. The central inquiry of this study is whether indigenous architectural artefacts, materials, and techniques have been passed down throughout the evolution of architectural culture. The discussion suggests that the architectural products found in the settlement remains of early Homo species may exhibit characteristics similar to the huts of the indigenous people, who live as hunter–gatherers in sub-Saharan Africa. Discussing the architectural activities of different human species proves fruitful, as early architectural understanding and principles can be adapted to contemporary placemaking scenarios, urban design approaches, and housing models. We believe that, with further evidence, this foundational idea has the potential to be developed further.

Climate seasonality and predictability during the middle stone age and implications for technological diversification in early Homo sapiens

Regionalisation is considered to be a hallmark of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) compared to the Early Stone Age. Yet what drove diversification around a shared technological substrate that persisted across Africa for hundreds of thousands of years remains debated. Non-mutually exclusive hypotheses include region-specific styles in manufacture, social signalling, cultural drift between geographically isolated populations, and diverse environmental adaptations, as well as the impacts of unequal research histories and intensities. We explore the potential ecological bases of behavioural diversity during the MSA between two well-studied and diverse areas: eastern and northwestern Africa. We utilise a set of standardised bioclimatic simulations, as well as a time series decomposition algorithm, to determine the nature and extent of regional differences in terms of environmental productivity, seasonality and predictability at MSA sites through time. Our results highlight that, compared to human occupations of eastern Africa, northwestern African MSA occupations are associated with colder, drier and less productive environments, albeit colder, but wetter and more productive compared to surrounding areas, with higher temperature seasonality and more predictable climates across millennia. We then theoretically consider the implications of our results for technological diversification between these two regions during the Middle to Late Pleistocene, such as for the investment in specific risk mitigation strategies for dealing with seasonally mobile resources in northern localities, and the diversification of MSA toolkits in tropical eastern Africa.

Morphological variation of the Australopithecus afarensis maxilla.

Morphological variation of the Australopithecus afarensis maxilla.

Further assessment of a ~2-million-year-old hominin pelvis (DNH 43) from Drimolen Main Quarry, South Africa

The palaeocave site of Drimolen Main Quarry (DMQ) in Gauteng Province, South Africa, has produced fossil hominin material dating to 2.04–1.95 Ma, including craniodental remains attributed to Paranthropus robustus and the earliest specimen of Homo erectus sensu lato along with numerous postcrania of uncertain taxonomic affiliation. Among this collection is a partial pelvis (DNH 43), which includes the sacrum and elements of the right os coxae. Although previously described as showing similarities to the pelvis of Australopithecus and Paranthropus, comparisons across the broader hominin fossil record have been limited and DNH 43 has never been analysed quantitatively. Here we present a partial digital reconstruction of DNH 43 and compare it to an expanded data set of fossil specimens to determine its closest morphological affinities. Overall, the quantitative analysis is congruent with qualitative results reflecting the primitive features of DNH 43, suggesting an Australopithecus/Paranthropus-like anatomy, including small absolute size, relatively small sacroiliac articulation, moderately wide tuberoacetabular sulcus, gracile acetabulosacral buttress, and obstetric dimensions that are relatively broad. A study of this rare articulated pelvis shows that the orientation of the sacrum (pelvic incidence) is similar to that of recent Homo sapiens. Although DNH 43 shares some specific metric similarities with specimens MH2 (Australopithecus sediba) and OH 28 (cf. Homo erectus), the taxonomic relevance is unclear given the poor understanding of Paranthropus and early Homo postcranial variation. Affiliation with Paranthropus robustus (which dominates the DMQ craniodental assemblage) cannot be ruled out, and we consider assignment to that taxon to be a reasonable provisional attribution.

Linguistic capacity was present in the Homo sapiens population 135 thousand years ago.

Recent genome-level studies on the divergence of early Homo sapiens, based on single nucleotide polymorphisms, suggest that the initial population division within H. sapiens from the original stem occurred approximately 135 thousand years ago. Given that this and all subsequent divisions led to populations with full linguistic capacity, it is reasonable to assume that the potential for language must have been present at the latest by around 135 thousand years ago, before the first division occurred. Had linguistic capacity developed later, we would expect to find some modern human populations without language, or with some fundamentally different mode of communication. Neither is the case. While current evidence does not tell us exactly when language itself appeared, the genomic studies do allow a fairly accurate estimate of the time by which linguistic capacity must have been present in the modern human lineage. Based on the lower boundary of 135 thousand years ago for language, we propose that language may have triggered the widespread appearance of modern human behavior approximately 100 thousand years ago.

Systematic bone tool production at 1.5 million years ago

Recent evidence indicates that the emergence of stone tool technology occurred before the appearance of the genus Homo1 and may potentially be traced back deep into the primate evolutionary line2. Conversely, osseous technologies are apparently exclusive of later hominins from approximately 2 million years ago (Ma)3,4, whereas the earliest systematic production of bone tools is currently restricted to European Acheulean sites 400–250 thousand years ago5,6. Here we document an assemblage of bone tools shaped by knapping found within a single stratigraphic horizon at Olduvai Gorge dated to 1.5 Ma. Large mammal limb bone fragments, mostly from hippopotamus and elephant, were shaped to produce various tools, including massive elongated implements. Before our discovery, bone artefact production in pre-Middle Stone Age African contexts was widely considered as episodic, expedient and unrepresentative of early Homo toolkits. However, our results demonstrate that at the transition between the Oldowan and the early Acheulean, East African hominins developed an original cultural innovation that entailed a transfer and adaptation of knapping skills from stone to bone. By producing technologically and morphologically standardized bone tools, early Acheulean toolmakers unravelled technological repertoires that were previously thought to have appeared routinely more than 1 million years later.

New modern and Pleistocene fossil micromammal assemblages from Swartkrans, South Africa: Paleobiodiversity, taphonomic, and environmental context.

The oldest deposit at the hominin-bearing cave of Swartkrans, South Africa, is the Lower Bank of Member 1, dated to ca. 2.2 million years ago. Excavations of this unit have produced a diverse and extensive mammalian fossil record, including Paranthropus robustus and early Homo fossils, along with numerous Oldowan stone tools. The present study focuses on the taxonomic analysis of the micromammalian fossil assemblage obtained from recent excavations of the Lower Bank, conducted between 2005 and 2010, as part of the Swartkrans Paleoanthropological Research Project. The taxonomic composition of this assemblage is dominated by Mystromys, a rodent indicative of grassland environments. Taphonomic analysis indicates an accumulation of prey by Tyto alba (Barn owl) or a related species. Environments inferred from this evidence reflect an open landscape primarily covered by grassland vegetation, but they also feature components of wooded areas, rocky outcrops, and the proximity of a river. The Swartkrans fossil assemblage is compared with Cooper's D (dated to ca. 1.4Ma) and a modern coprocoenosis of Bubo africanus (spotted eagle-owl) collected within the Swartkrans cave for taxonomic, taphonomic, and paleoecological perspectives. Contrasting fossil and modern micromammalian data provide a better understanding of accumulation processes and facilitate a diachronic reconstruction of changes in climate and landscape evolution. Issues regarding paleoenvironmental reconstruction methodologies based on micromammals are also discussed.

Pliocene climatic change and the origins of Homo at Ledi-Geraru, Ethiopia

Background Long-term cooling and aridification are associated with the spread of grassland habitats and the appearance of new hominin adaptations starting in the late Miocene. However, limited fossil data during critical periods limits our ability to examine these climatic correlations further. Aim We set out to reconstruct potential habitat and climate conditions at the origin of our genus Homo. Subjects and methods Mammalian faunal lists and species trait data were collected for Ledi-Geraru localities dated from ∼2.78 to <2.59 million years ago (Ma). These were compared to a modern comparative dataset of mammal communities across Africa with known habitat and climate conditions, as well as to other fossil mammal data from eastern Africa in the time period leading up to and following shortly after the earliest known appearance of Homo at ∼2.78 Ma. Results Early Homo is associated with ongoing aridification and increasing seasonality in the Afar Depression. While climate trends in eastern Africa parallel global models, local environmental variation persisted across fossil-bearing regions. Conclusion Climatic change (aridification and increasing seasonality) continues to be supported as a possible factor in the origins of our genus, although other fossil hominins continued to persist in these conditions.

Dentition of the Mugharet El'Aliya Fossil Human Maxilla, Morocco.

This study follows up on our recent morphological analysis of the juvenile maxilla from Mugharet el'Aliya, Morocco. Although this specimen shows a reportedly archaic morphology, likely due to its large size, 3D shape analyses indicated affinities with early Homo sapiens. Here, we conducted an in-depth comparative investigation of the associated dentition to further clarify this individual's phylogenetic and taxonomic affinities. Our analyses were based on three kinds of data: (a) external crown dimensions and non-metric features, analyzed via summary statistics; (b) CT scan data enabling the study of internal structures (enamel-dentine junction) via geometric morphometrics; and (c) high-resolution replicas of the external surface of the upper canine enabling the study of perikymata numbers via probability functions. The comparative samples included Middle Pleistocene (Chibanian) Europeans and Africans, Neanderthals, and early and later H. sapiens. Mugharet el'Aliya showed the greatest similarities in external and internal tooth morphology with early and later H. sapiens. Perikymata counts cluster the upper canine with H. sapiens. However, its canine and fourth premolar are megadont at a level generally atypical for H. sapiens. Our analyses of the dentition of the Mugharet el'Aliya individual support our previous findings on the morphological analysis of the maxilla, placing this fossil closest to H. sapiens. Our study further strengthens the evidence connecting fossils from the North African Aterian to those from Western Asia, especially Qafzeh. We also provide the first comparative analysis of a permanent upper canine from the Aterian fossil record.

Are we jingling modern hunter-gatherers and early Homo sapiens?

Using modern hunter-gatherers to infer about early Homo sapiens only works if at least (a) modern hunter-gatherers represent an unbiased sample of humanity, and (b) modern hunter-gatherers act in ways similar to the behavior of early Homo sapiens. Both of these are false, leading to the problem of whether we can draw conclusions about early Homo sapiens from modern hunter-gatherers.

Refitting the Context: A Reconsideration of Cultural Change among Early Homo sapiens at Fumane Cave through Blade Break Connections, Spatial Taphonomy, and Lithic Technology

High-resolution stratigraphic frameworks are crucial for unraveling the biocultural processes behind the dispersals of Homo sapiens across Europe. Detailed technological studies of lithic assemblages retrieved from multi-stratified sequences allow archaeologists to precisely model the chrono-cultural dynamics of the early Upper Paleolithic. However, it is of paramount importance to verify the integrity of these assemblages before building explanatory models of cultural change. In this study, multiple lines of evidence suggest that the stratigraphic sequence of Fumane Cave in northeastern Italy experienced minor post-depositional reworking, establishing it as a pivotal site for exploring the earliest stages of the Aurignacian. By conducting a systematic search for break connections between blade fragments and applying spatial analysis techniques, we identified three well-preserved areas of the excavation containing assemblages suitable for renewed archaeological investigations. Subsequent technological analyses, incorporating attribute analysis, reduction intensity, and multivariate statistics, have allowed us to discern the spatial organization of the site during the formation of the Protoaurignacian palimpsest A2–A1. Moreover, diachronic comparisons between three successive stratigraphic units prompted us to reject the hypothesis of techno-cultural continuity of the Protoaurignacian in northeastern Italy after the onset of the Heinrich Event 4. Based on the variability of the lithic and osseous artifacts, the most recent assemblage analyzed, D3b alpha, is now ascribed to the Early Aurignacian, aligning the evidence from Fumane with the current understanding of the development of the Aurignacian across Europe. Overall, this study demonstrates the high effectiveness of the break connection method when combined with detailed spatial analysis and lithic technology, providing a methodological tool particularly amenable to be applied to sites excavated in the past with varying degrees of recording accuracy.

Random forest models highlight early Homo sapiens habitats and their relationship to lithic assemblage composition

Random forest models highlight early Homo sapiens habitats and their relationship to lithic assemblage composition

The Late Villafranchian Absence of Pigs in Europe. Comment on Iannucci, A. The Occurrence of Suids in the Post-Olduvai to Pre-Jaramillo Pleistocene of Europe and Implications for Late Villafranchian Biochronology and Faunal Dynamics. Quaternary 2024, 7, 11

On 2015, after the direct study of the most important Late Villafranchian fossil collections of Europe and Western Asia, including Orce (Spain), Pirro Nord and Upper Valdarno (Italy), Appollonia (Greece), Dmanisi (Georgia) and ‘Ubeidiya (Israel), among others, our team proposed the hypothesis that suids disappeared from Europe during the time span between 1.8 and 1.2 Ma. The implications of our conclusions were significant, the arrival of Early Homo into Western Europe, dated to 1.4 Ma at the site of Barranco León in Orce (Spain), preceded the return of pigs into the continent at 1.2 Ma. This hypothesis has been recently challenged because of the finding of an incomplete metatarsal ascribed to Sus sp., with no clear stratigraphic origin, found in the XIX Century Croizet collection of Peyrolles (France), which is housed in the Natural History Museum, London, together with other weak arguments based on the absence of reliable dating for many Early Pleistocene European sites, and other hypothetical records of pigs, with no real fossil support. We answer all these questions and defend that our 2015 hypothesis is correct.

The species in paleoanthropology

The species is the basic unit of analysis in systematic paleontology. Yet, for most of its history the subfield of paleoanthropology has lacked any coherent concept of what fossil species are, using the species epithet variously at different times – most recently, with the conspicuous effect of minimizing apparent diversity among the hominins. The application of molecular systematic techniques to the analysis of high-latitude early Homo sapiens Linnaeus, 1758 and its contemporaries thus offers a welcome opportunity to reappraise our approaches to species recognition in the rapidly expanding hominin fossil record. But it must be cautioned that evidence for hybridization among documented or hypothesized lineages cannot necessarily be taken as evidence for recoalescence among them, and that “braided stream” models of hominin evolution (which militate against speciation) cannot ­account for the diversity of historically and morphologically differentiated entities we see in that record.

Dental evidence for extended growth in early Homo from Dmanisi

Human life history is characterized by an extended period of immaturity during which there is a disjunction between cerebral and somatic growth rates1. This mode of ontogeny is thought to be essential for the acquisition of advanced cognitive capabilities in a socially complex environment while the brain is still growing2. Key information about when and how this pattern evolved can be gleaned from the teeth of fossil hominins because dental development informs about the pace of life history3–5. Here we show that the first evolutionary steps towards an extended growth phase occurred in the genus Homo at least 1.77 million years ago, before any substantial increase in brain size. We used synchrotron phase-contrast tomography6 to track the microstructural development of the dentition of a subadult early Homo individual from Dmanisi, Georgia. The individual died at the age of 11.4 ± 0.6 years, shortly before reaching dental maturity. Tooth growth rates were high, similar to rates in living great apes. However, the Dmanisi individual showed a human-like delayed formation of the posterior relative to the anterior dentition, and a late growth spurt of the dentition as a whole. The unique combination of great-ape-like and human-like features of dental ontogeny suggests that early Homo had evolved an extended growth phase before a general slow-down in life history, possibly related to biocultural reproduction7 rather than brain growth.

Craniometric variation and the ancestry of modern humans.

Ancient and contemporary DNA provide information about geographic variation in the ancestry of present-day humans. All living populations have ancestry from early Homo sapiens originating in sub-Saharan Africa. Populations of Eurasian descent also have a small amount of Neandertal ancestry. This study examines whether craniometric distances between recent modern human samples reflect this geographic variation in ancestry. Among recent modern humans, Eurasians are expected to be more similar to Neandertals, whereas both sub-Saharan Africans and Eurasians are expected to be equidistant from early H. sapiens. Data on 33 craniometric traits from 2524 recent modern humans were compared with data from the literature for Neandertals and early H. sapiens. Mahalanobis distances were computed for each modern specimen to both the Neandertal and early H. sapiens means. These distances were examined for differences between recent humans from sub-Saharan Africa (N = 373) and those of Eurasian descent (N = 2151). Eurasians as a group are significantly closer than sub-Saharan Africans to Neandertals. There is no significant difference between the distances of sub-Saharan Africans and Eurasians to early H. sapiens. The differences between sub-Saharan Africans and Eurasians for both Neandertals and early H. sapiens are as expected. Although there has been geographic differentiation among recent modern humans, including differences in Neandertal admixture, these differences have not affected overall similarity of recent modern sub-Saharan Africans and Eurasians to the earliest samples of H. sapiens.

Chronometric data and stratigraphic evidence support discontinuity between Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens in the Italian Peninsula

The process by which Palaeolithic Europe was transformed from a Neanderthal-dominated region to one occupied exclusively by Homo sapiens has proven challenging to diagnose. A blurred chronology has made it difficult to determine when Neanderthals disappeared and whether modern humans overlapped with them. Italy is a crucial region because here we can identify not only Late Mousterian industries, assumed to be associated with Neanderthals, but also early Upper Palaeolithic industries linked with the appearance of early H. sapiens, such as the Uluzzian and the Aurignacian. Here, we present a chronometric dataset of 105 new determinations (74 radiocarbon and 31 luminescence ages) from four key southern Italian sites: Cavallo, Castelcivita, Cala, and Oscurusciuto. We built Bayesian-based chronometric models incorporating these results alongside the relative stratigraphic sequences at each site. The results suggest; 1) that the disappearance of Neanderthals probably pre-dated the appearance of early modern humans in the region and; 2) that there was a partial overlap in the chronology of the Uluzzian and Protoaurignacian, suggesting that these industries may have been produced by different human groups in Europe.

Quantifying heterogeneity of hominin environments in and out of Africa using herbivore dental traits

Quantifying heterogeneity of hominin environments in and out of Africa using herbivore dental traits

Seasonal landscape variability advances Lantian hominin's recognition capacity to strategically adapt to changing environments

Seasonal landscape variability advances Lantian hominin's recognition capacity to strategically adapt to changing environments

Abrupt onset of intensive human occupation 44,000 years ago on the threshold of Sahul

Archaeological evidence attests multiple early dispersals of Homo sapiens out of Africa, but genetic evidence points to the primacy of a single dispersal 70-40 ka. Laili in Timor-Leste is on the southern dispersal route between Eurasia and Australasia and has the earliest record of human occupation in the eastern Wallacean archipelago. New evidence from the site shows that, unusually in the region, sediment accumulated in the shelter without human occupation, in the window 59–54 ka. This was followed by an abrupt onset of intensive human habitation beginning ~44 ka. The initial occupation is distinctive from overlying layers in the aquatic focus of faunal exploitation, while it has similarities in material culture to other early Homo sapiens sites in Wallacea. We suggest that the intensive early occupation at Laili represents a colonisation phase, which may have overwhelmed previous human dispersals in this part of the world.