Carbon Chemist

Tag: Archaeology

  • Humans and their livestock have sheltered in this Saudi Arabian cave for 10,000 years

    Humans and their livestock have sheltered in this Saudi Arabian cave for 10,000 years

    [ad_1]

    A first-of-its-kind study in northwestern Saudi Arabia suggests that humans and their livestock have been using a cave for shelter sporadically for up to 10,000 years. The finding1 offers insight into the region’s history and ecology.

    In the past decade, satellite data and fossil finds have suggested that the Arabian Peninsula was not always an arid desert. Periods when the region contained lakes and lush greenery might have drawn people and animals there from Africa, according to the study’s authors.

    “Today, it’s a fairly harsh environment,” says study co-author Mathew Stewart, a zooarchaeologist at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. Across the surface of Saudi Arabia, “the fossil record is just horrendous”, he says. Wind and scorching heat reduce bones and artefacts to dust, making them difficult to study.

    But in 2018, Stewart and his colleagues described an 88,000-year-old finger bone from the Saudi Arabian desert2 — one of the oldest human fossils found outside of Africa. And in 2020, they described footprints on a lake shore dating back around 120,000 years3. These suggested that the region had stories to give up.

    The researchers turned to caves under Harrat Khaybar, a vast basalt plain pocked with volcanic craters in northwestern Saudi Arabia. The caves were made by lava as it flowed from nearby volcanoes, forming rocky tunnels as it cooled.

    A researcher digging in a square trench.

    The researchers excavated a one-square-metre site near the entrance of the cave.Credit: Green Arabia Project

    An excavation near the entrance of one cave produced more than 600 animal and human bones and 44 stone-tool fragments. The oldest stone tools dated back to as many as 10,000 years ago, and the oldest human bone fragments were almost 7,000 years old. The study was published on 17 April in PLoS ONE1.

    The distribution of samples suggests that people did not live in the cave for long periods, but stayed there occasionally. Nearby rock art depicts people with goats and sheep. The drawings are difficult to date, but they support the fossil evidence that people used the cave as a place to rest and shelter their herds. Even today, farmers seek shade and water in underground lava tubes for themselves and their animals, says Stewart.

    According to Melissa Kennedy, an archaeologist at the University of Sydney in Australia, the finding suggests that herders have travelled across Harrat Khaybar from oasis to oasis on the same paths for thousands of years.

    Across Harrat Khaybar are paths spanning hundreds of kilometres, some flanked with stone tombs dating back around 4,500 years. Kennedy says the routes were probably used even earlier than the dating of the tombs would suggest. “People are very lazy,” says Kennedy. “You find the easiest route and you stick to it.”

    Ahmed Nassr, an archaeologist at the University of Ha’il in Saudi Arabia, says the discovery is significant. “This discovery opens new windows into Arabian research in prehistory,” he says. He hopes that further geographical surveys will be conducted in Saudi Arabia, because they could reveal more such cave sites. “There are many areas that are unexplored.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Australia’s Indigenous people were making pottery over 2000 years ago

    Australia’s Indigenous people were making pottery over 2000 years ago

    [ad_1]

    The excavation on Jiigurru that uncovered the pottery fragments

    Sean Ulm

    Indigenous Australians were manufacturing ceramics on a remote island, nearly 35 kilometres from the Queensland coast, more than 2000 years ago.

    Pottery fragments found on Jiigurru (Lizard Island) in the Coral Sea are the earliest securely dated, locally produced pottery found in Australia that pre-dates the arrival of Europeans.

    The discovery overturns the long-held belief that early Australians didn’t produce ceramics or have the maritime technology to undertake long…

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Stone Age blades could have been used for butchery, not just hunting

    Stone Age blades could have been used for butchery, not just hunting

    [ad_1]

    Prehistoric stone blades called Clovis points could have been used as weapons – or butchery tools

    Metin I. Eren

    Stone “Clovis points” used by prehistoric hunters to kill animals are also remarkably efficient at cutting meat off a large animal carcass – at least according to a modern bison butchering experiment. The finding complicates our knowledge of prehistoric hunting practices.

    Archaeologists teamed up with modern hunters to compare how well replicas of two types of prehistoric stone tools could harvest meat from an animal carcass. They used a humanely killed bison bull weighing more than 450 kilograms.

    “This study actually showed that Clovis points were more effective than what was presumed to be the butchery tool: large stone flakes,” says Metin Eren at Kent State University in Ohio.

    The five hunters, associated with the MeatEater outdoor lifestyle company, took just 3 hours and 10 minutes to completely butcher the bison carcass using both stone tools. But the Clovis points achieved a butchering efficiency of 0.38 kilograms of meat per minute, whereas the handheld stone flake tools processed 0.34 kilograms of meat per minute.

    The Clovis points, which were mounted on wooden handles, had the added benefit of not injuring any users, whereas four out of five experts suffered minor cuts while using the handheld stone flakes.

    But the Clovis points also required frequent resharpening during the butchering – and three of the 10 stone tools broke. “They demonstrate that the Clovis points work well, but they also demonstrate that the Clovis points break a lot,” says John Shea at Stony Brook University in New York, who was not part of the study. “And this is important because those things are not easy to make.”

    Still, prehistoric peoples in the Americas may have adopted “such a labour-intensive and breakage-prone artefact” as part of social displays of group cooperation and stone working skills, says Shea.

    Field processors butcher the bison with stone tools, while recorders take notes on how they use them

    Seth Morris

    Another surprise came from how a Clovis point snapped and broke in a way that was nearly identical to how another Clovis point on an atlatl weapon broke when hurled at an elephant carcass in a previous study. “The possibility of snap breaks being mistaken for impact breaks is an eye-opener from the standpoint of interpreting how Clovis points might have been used,” says Vance Holliday at the University of Arizona, who did not participate in the study.

    That means broken Clovis points discovered at prehistoric archaeological sites may not represent a “smoking gun for hunting”, as researchers previously believed. They could instead show how people “came across an already dead animal and scavenged it”, says Eren. In other words, deducing prehistoric hunting and scavenging behaviours just got a lot more complicated.

    Topics:

    • archaeology/
    • ancient humans

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Sound Tracks: A fascinating archaeological history of music

    Sound Tracks: A fascinating archaeological history of music

    [ad_1]

    MPTKBG Trumpets and trumpet tube, Bronze Age (Britain), (c2500 BC-c800 BC). Artist: Unknown.

    Trumpets and a trumpet tube from between 4500 and 2800 years ago

    Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology/Heritage Images/Alamy

    Sound Tracks
    Graeme Lawson (Bodley Head)

    DIGGING around for old instruments and the sounds of the past is a natural obsession of music lovers. It conjures up those countless hours spent happily scouring record stores or digital archives for treasures, building up a vinyl collection or rooting out rare gems for a playlist.

    For archaeologist, multi-instrumentalist and historian Graeme Lawson, it takes on a more literal meaning as well as an impressively ambitious scope. The publicity for his new…

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Ancient people carved mysterious symbols near dinosaur footprints

    Ancient people carved mysterious symbols near dinosaur footprints

    [ad_1]

    Dinosaur footprints and rock carvings, both highlighted with dashed lines, at the Serrote do Letreiro site in Brazil

    Leonardo Troiano/ National Institute of Historic and Artistic Heritage, Brazil

    Mysterious rock carvings found next to dinosaur tracks in Brazil suggest ancient people discovered the footprints thousands of years ago and recognised them as meaningful.

    The Serrote do Letreiro site in Paraíba state features the footprints of theropod, sauropod and ornithopod dinosaurs from the Early Cretaceous Epoch, between 145 million and 100 million years ago. Adjacent to these are numerous rock carvings, or petroglyphs, predominantly circular with radial lines and other abstract motifs.…

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • A horse cemetery in London reveals medieval mounts’ distant origins

    A horse cemetery in London reveals medieval mounts’ distant origins

    [ad_1]

    Horses were central to life in medieval England as farm labour, in battle and for transport, and also served as status symbols. Alexander Pryor at the University of Exeter, UK, and his colleagues were able to glean information about the international reach of medieval horse-trading networks from an unusual source: a horse cemetery near Westminster, in what is now central London, that was the final resting place of what were probably elite animals owned by elite households1.

    Access options

    Rent or buy this article

    Prices vary by article type

    from$1.95

    to$39.95

    Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

    doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00861-8

    Subjects

    Latest on:


    [ad_2]
    Source link

  • Medieval horses buried in London had far-flung origins

    Medieval horses buried in London had far-flung origins

    [ad_1]

    International trade may have helped medieval elites acquire the best horses for jousting tournaments

    PRISMA ARCHIVO / Alamy

    Horses owned by the elite in medieval England were probably imported from continental Europe, possibly travelling hundreds of kilometres, according to tooth analysis of horses unearthed at a cemetery in London.

    In the 1990s, commercial excavators stumbled across an unusually large horse burial site in central London. Subsequent digs at the site, now known as the Elverton Street cemetery, have uncovered 70 whole or partial horse remains. Some of the graves have been dated to between 1425 and 1517, but the cemetery may have been used over a wider period.

    “It’s medieval Britain’s only real, good example of a horse cemetery,” says Oliver Creighton at the University of Exeter in the UK. “We usually find [horse remains] scattered across archaeological sites in very small numbers.”

    To learn more about the origin and lives of these medieval horses, Creighton and his colleagues collected and analysed the molars from 15 horses buried at the site.

    Plants from different parts of the world contain varying levels of carbon, oxygen and strontium isotopes – atoms with different numbers of neutrons. When an animal eats these plants, these isotopes accumulate in their bones and teeth over time. So, by analysing the chemical signatures of the horses’ teeth, the team could pinpoint where they probably came from.

    This revealed that at least seven came from abroad, possibly from Scandinavia or the western Alps, says Alexander Pryor, also at the University of Exeter.

    “These were also some of the largest medieval horses yet discovered in the UK,” says Pryor, which suggests that English elites may have sought out the best horses from Europe.

    The arrangement of their teeth seemed to suggest the use of a special mouthpiece typically reserved for horses groomed for battle or jousting tournaments.

    “There’s a good chance the horses could have come from the jousting arena at Westminster Palace, which was just a kilometre away,” says Creighton.

    “The nature of horse teeth – with very high crowns that develop over quite a long time – gives them huge potential for studies using isotopes to track movements over the course of an individual horse’s life,” says David Orton at the University of York, UK. “But this is the first paper I’ve seen that really seems to make full use of that potential.”

    Topics:

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Human brains have been mysteriously preserved for thousands of years

    Human brains have been mysteriously preserved for thousands of years

    [ad_1]

    The 1000-year-old brain of an individual excavated from a churchyard in Ypres, Belgium. The folds of the tissue, which are still soft and wet, are stained orange with iron oxides

    Alexandra L. Morton-Hayward

    A study of human brains that have been naturally preserved for hundreds or thousands of years has identified 1300 cases where the organs have survived even when all other soft tissues have decomposed. Some of these brains are more than 12,000 years old.

    “Brains of this type, where they’re the only soft tissue preserved, have been found in sunken shipwrecks and in waterlogged graves where the bones are just floating,” says Alexandra Morton-Hayward at the University of Oxford. “It’s really, really strange.”

    “We’re not expecting a brain to preserve in any type of environment, to be honest,” she says. “If, as an archaeologist, I dig up a grave and I find a brain rattling around in a skull, I would be shocked. But particularly, we’re not expecting soft tissues to preserve in waterlogged environments.”

    Morton-Hayward first became interested in brain preservation while working as an undertaker. “The brain is known to be one of the first organs to decompose post-mortem. I saw it liquefy pretty quickly. But I also saw it preserve,” she says.

    Many researchers have noted that human brains are found preserved more often than expected and in surprising circumstances, says Morton-Hayward. Now, she and her colleagues have done the first ever systematic study of the phenomenon. They have put together a database of more than 4400 preserved human brains found all over the world.

    They have also collected and studied many preserved brains themselves. “I did put one in an MRI machine, which was a terrible mistake. I didn’t realise how much iron was in there,” says Morton-Hayward.

    In most cases, the brain preservation could be explained by known processes. For instance, the brains of Incan human sacrifices entombed on top of a volcano in South America around AD 1450 were freeze-dried along with the bodies, says Morton-Hayward.

    The bodies and brains of bog people such as Tollund Man, who was hanged and dumped in a bog 2400 years ago in what is now Denmark, were preserved by a tanning process similar to that used for leather.

    And saponification, where fatty substances turn into a form of soap called grave wax, preserved the brains of some people shot in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War and buried in a mass grave.

    But the known processes preserve all soft tissues, not just brains. They don’t explain the 1300 cases where brains are the only soft tissue to survive.

    “This unknown mechanism is completely different,” says Morton-Hayward. “The key feature of it is that we only have the brain and the bones left. There’s no skin, no muscle, no gut.”

    For instance, Saint Hedwig of Silesia was buried in Poland in 1243. When her body was exhumed in the 17th century, her brain was found to be preserved, which at the time was attributed to divine power.

    Alexandra Morton-Hayward holding a 1000-year-old preserved brain

    Graham Poulter

    Morton-Hayward’s working hypothesis is that, in certain circumstances, substances such as iron can catalyse the formation of cross-links between proteins and lipids, forming more stable molecules that resist degradation. The nature of the proteins and lipids found in brains, or their ratio, might be the key.

    “The mechanisms are similar to those that we see in neurodegenerative diseases, like dementia,” she says. “So if we can figure out what’s happening to brains after death, we might be able to shed some light on what’s happening in brain ageing in life as well.”

    “It is fantastic news that the data is being published,” says Brittany Moller at James Cook University in Melbourne, Australia, one of the researchers who has found that brain preservation is more common than thought. “It may increase awareness among researchers of the likely potential for brain material preservation,” she says.

    That is important because preserved brains often have the same colour as surrounding soil. “It is therefore highly likely that brain material is frequently discarded during archaeological excavation as it is not recognised for what it is,” says Moller.

    While the study focused on human brains, the findings should apply to animals too. There are at least 700 instances of animal brains preserved in fossils, says Morton-Hayward, with the oldest being arthropods that are half a billion years old.

    Topics:

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • British Pompeii: Amazingly preserved Bronze Age village reveals life in ancient England

    British Pompeii: Amazingly preserved Bronze Age village reveals life in ancient England

    [ad_1]

    An intact hafted axe found under one of the structures that burnt down at the Must Farm site

    Cambridge Archaeological Unit

    The remains of a Bronze Age settlement in eastern England have been exquisitely preserved after being destroyed by a fire 3000 years ago. An examination of the site gives us an extraordinary snapshot of how Britons lived at the time, from what people may have eaten for breakfast to the tools they used to build houses.

    Archaeologists first stumbled across ancient wooden posts at Must Farm quarry, near the small town of Whittlesey, in 1999. The small-scale investigations that followed sought to figure out whether there was anything interesting there, says Chris Wakefield at the University of York in the UK. But it wasn’t until 2015 that Wakefield and his colleagues conducted a full-scale excavation of the site.

    The team uncovered the structural remains of four large roundhouses – circular dwellings usually made of wood with thatched conical roofs – dating back to between 3000 and 2800 years ago. Wooden stumps suggest these were built on stilts, connected by wooden walkways, over a small river that ran through the area. Based on the size of the channel, there may have been about 10 roundhouses at the settlement, says Wakefield.

    Tree-ring analysis on wood from the structures suggests the settlement was destroyed a year after its construction, with the houses falling into the muddy water below. The waterlogged, oxygen-scarce environment prevented the settlement from degrading, preserving it in unprecedented detail, says Wakefield. Charring on the objects from the fire also provided a protective layer against environmental decay. “Pretty much everything that had been there in time of the fire inside these people’s houses has been preserved to find nearly 3000 years later,” says Wakefield.

    The way items fell into the mud gave clues to the layout of each house. As you step through the door, the kitchen area tended to be in the east side of the house, with a sleeping area in the north-west and pens for livestock in the south-east.

    Chemical analysis of kitchenware, including pots, bowls, cups and jars, suggests that the settlement’s prehistoric inhabitants probably ate porridge, cereals, honey and stews made with beef, mutton and fish.

    “This is the best evidence we have on understanding prehistoric diet and cooking practices,” says Rachel Pope at the University of Liverpool in the UK. “It’s the closest we’ll ever get to walking through the doorway of a roundhouse 3000 years ago and seeing what life was like inside.”

    Illustration depicting daily life in one of the Must Farm structures

    Judith Dobie/Historic England

    Toolboxes filled with axes, sickles and razors were a staple in every household. “One of the most beautiful objects that one of my colleagues found was an incredible two-part hafted axe,” says Wakefield. “What was so amazing about this particular design is that the axe head itself was inserted into an extra bit of wood that you could swap out.”

    The garments recovered at the site have a lush, velvety feel – they were made of some of the finest textiles produced in Europe at that time, says Wakefield. Decorative beads, which may have been used in necklaces, were also found across the site, possibly coming from elsewhere in Europe or the Middle East.

    The settlement has been likened to the ancient Roman town of Pompeii, which was entombed in ash after a volcanic eruption in AD 79. “Archaeologists sometimes talk of a Pompeii-like discovery – a moment frozen in time – and this is one of those, a burnt-down settlement that gives us an intimate view into people’s lives just before the fire and in the months running up to it around 2900 years ago,” says Michael Parker Pearson at University College London.

    “Must Farm is more than a once-in-a-generation site. It is very likely that there will never be a site that tells us more about Bronze Age Britain,” says Richard Madgwick at Cardiff University, UK.

    Topics:

    • archaeology/
    • ancient humans

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Adaptive foraging behaviours in the Horn of Africa during Toba supereruption

    [ad_1]

  • Bergström, A., Stringer, C., Hajdinjak, M., Scerri, E. M. L. & Skoglund, P. Origins of modern human ancestry. Nature 590, 229–237 (2021).

    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar     

  • Vaks, A. et al. Desert speleothems reveal climatic window for African exodus of early modern humans. Geology 35, 831–834 (2007).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Smith, E. I. et al. Humans thrived in South Africa through the Toba eruption about 74,000 years ago. Nature 555, 511–515 (2018). (2018).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar     

  • Loewy, S. L. et al. Improved accuracy of U-series and radiocarbon dating of ostrich eggshell using a sample preparation method based on microstructure and geochemistry: a study from the Middle Stone Age of northwestern Ethiopia. Quat. Sci. Rev. 247, 106525 (2020).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Hughes, S. S. Getting to the point: evolutionary change in prehistoric weaponry. J. Archaeol. Method Theory 5, 345–408 (1998).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Sisk, M. L. & Shea, J. J. The African origin of complex projectile technology: an analysis using tip cross-sectional area and perimeter. Int. J. Evol. Biol. https://doi.org/10.4061/2011/968012 (2011).

  • Thomas, D. H. Arrowheads and atlatl darts—how stones got shaft. Am. Antiquity 43, 461–472 (1978).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Shott, M. J. Stones and shafts redux: the metric discrimination of chipped-stone dart and arrow points. Amer. Antiq. 62, 86–101 (1997).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Cheshier, J. & Kelly, R. L. Projectile point shape and durability: the effect of thickness:length. Am. Antiq. 71, 353–363 (2006).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Sahle, Y. & Brooks, A. S. Assessment of complex projectiles in the early Late Pleistocene at Aduma, Ethiopia. PLoS ONE 14, e0216716 (2019).

    Article 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar     

  • Pargeter, J. & Shea, J. J. Going big versus going small: lithic miniaturization in hominin lithic 507 technology. Evol. Anthropol. 28, 72–85 (2019).

    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar     

  • Coppe, J. & Rots, V. Focus on the target. The importance of a transparent fracture terminology for understanding projectile points and projecting modes. J. Archaeol. Sci. 12, 109–123 (2017).


    Google Scholar     

  • Metz, L., Lewis, J. E. & Slimak, L. Bow-and-arrow technology of the first modern humans in Europe 54,000 years ago at Mandrin, France. Sci. Adv. 9, eadd4675 (2023).

    Article 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar     

  • Lombard, M. & Shea, J. J. Did Pleistocene Africans use the spearthrower-and-dart? Evol. Anthropol. 30, 307–315 (2021).

    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar     

  • Brown, K. S. et al. An early and enduring advanced technology originating 71,000 years ago in South Africa. Nature 491, 590–593 (2012).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar     

  • Baker, S. W. The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia and the Sword Hunters of the Hamran Arabs (Macmillan, 1867).

  • Assefa, Z. Faunal remains from Porc-Epic: paleoecological and zooarchaeological investigations from a Middle Stone Age site in southeastern Ethiopia. J. Hum. Evol. 51, 50–75 (2006).

    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar     

  • Behrensmeyer, A. K. Taphonomic and ecologic information from bone weathering. Paleobiology 4, 150–162 (1978).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Capaldo, S. D. Simulating the formation of dual-patterned archaeofaunal assemblages with experimental control samples. J. Archaeol. Sci. 25, 311–330 (1998).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Brooks, A. S. et al. Dating and context of three Middle Stone Age sites with bone points in the Upper Semliki Valley, Zaire. Science 268, 548–553 (1995).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar     

  • Kappelman, J. et al. Another unique river: a consideration of some of the characteristics of the trunk tributaries of the Nile River in northwestern Ethiopia in relationship to their aquatic food resources. J. Hum. Evol. 77, 117–131 (2014).

    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar     

  • Willis, L. M., Eren, M. I. & Rick, T. C. Does butchering fish leave cut marks? J. Archaeol. Sci. 35, 1438–1444 (2008).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Cerling, T. E., Harris, J. M. & Passey, B. H. Diets of East African Bovidae based on stable isotope analysis. J. Mammal. 84, 456–470 (2003).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Francey, R. J. et al. A 1000-year high precision record of δ13C in atmospheric CO2. Tellus 51B, 170–193 (1999).

    Article 
    CAS 

    Google Scholar     

  • Cerling, T. E. & Harris, J. M. Carbon isotope fractionation between diet and bioapatite in ungulate mammals and implications for ecological and paleoecological studies. Oecologia 120, 347–363 (1999).

    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar     

  • Faith, J. T. et al. Paleoenvironmental context of the Middle Stone Age record from Karungu, Lake Victoria Basin, Kenya, and its implications for human and faunal dispersals in East. Africa. J. Hum Evol. 83, 28–45 (2015).

    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar     

  • Robinson, J. R., Rowan, J., Faith, J. T. & Fleagle, J. G. Paleoenvironmental change in the late Middle Pleistocene—Holocene Kibish Formation, southern Ethiopia: evidence from ungulate isotopic ecology. Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol. 450, 50–59 (2016).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Robinson, J. R. Thinking locally: environmental reconstruction of Middle and Later Stone Age archaeological sites in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Zambia based on ungulate stable isotopes. J. Hum. Evol. 106, 19–37 (2017).

    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar     

  • Garrett, N. D. et al. Stable isotope paleoecology of Late Pleistocene Middle Stone Age humans from the Lake Victoria basin, Kenya. J. Hum. Evol. 82, 1–14 (2015).

    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar     

  • Roberts, P. et al. Fossil herbivore stable isotopes reveal middle Pleistocene hominin palaeoenvironment in ‘Green Arabia’. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 2, 1871–1878 (2018).

    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar     

  • Kohn, M. J. Predicting animal δ18O: accounting for diet and physiological adaptation. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 60, 4811–4829 (1996).

    Article 
    CAS 

    Google Scholar     

  • Blumenthal, S. A. et al. Aridity and hominin environments. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 114, 7331–7336 (2017).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar     

  • Larned, S. T., Datry, T., Arscott, D. B. & Tockner, K. Emerging concepts in temporary-river ecology. Freshw. Biol. 55, 717–738 (2010).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Tabor, N. J. et al. Stable isotope compositions of the Shinfa River, northwestern Ethiopian lowlands: implications for Middle Stone Age human environments. Geol. Soc. Spec. Publ. 507, 225 (2021).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Green, D. R. et al. Quantitative reconstruction of seasonality from stable isotopes in teeth. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 235, 483–504 (2018).

    Article 
    CAS 

    Google Scholar     

  • Hermance, J. F. Historical Variability of Rainfall in the African East Sahel of Sudan Implications for Development (Springer, 2014).

  • Niespolo, E. M. et al. Carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen isotopes of ostrich eggshells provide site-scale Pleistocene-Holocene paleoenvironmental records for eastern African archaeological sites. Quat. Sci. Rev. 230, 106142 (2020).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Hayes, E. H. et al. 65,000-years of continuous grinding stone use at Madjedbebe, Northern Australia. Sci. Rep. 12, 11747 (2022).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar     

  • Tierney, J. E., de Menocal, P. B. & Zander, P. D. A climatic context for the out-of-Africa migration. Geology 45, 1023–1026 (2017).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Armitage, S. J. et al. The southern route “Out of Africa”: evidence for an early expansion of modern humans into Arabia. Science 331, 453–456 (2011).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar     

  • Beyin, A., Hall, J. & Day, C. A. A least cost path model for hominin dispersal routes out of the East African Rift region (Ethiopia) into the Levant. J. Archaeol. Sci. Rep. 23, 763–772 (2019).


    Google Scholar     

  • Lamb, H. F. et al. 150,000-year palaeoclimate record from northern Ethiopia supports early, multiple dispersals of modern humans from Africa. Sci. Rep. 8, 1077 (2018).

    Article 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar     

  • Revel, M. et al. 100,000 Years of African monsoon variability recorded in sediments of the Nile margin. Quat. Sci. Rev. 29, 1342–1362 (2010).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Ehrmann, W., Schmiedl, G., Seidel, M., Krüger, S. & Schulz, H. A distal 140 kyr sediment record of Nile discharge and East African monsoon variability. Clim. Past 12, 713–727 (2016).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Lane, C. S., Chorn, B. T. & Johnson, T. C. Ash from the Toba supereruption in Lake Malawi shows no volcanic winter in East Africa at 75 ka. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 110, 8025–8029 (2013).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar     

  • Ambrose, S. H. Late Pleistocene human population bottlenecks, volcanic winter, and differentiation of modern humans. J. Hum. Evol. 34, 623–651 (1998).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar     

  • Black, B. A., Lamarque, J.-F., Marsh, D. R., Schmidt, A. & Bardeen, C. G. Global climate disruption and regional climate shelters after the Toba supereruption. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 118, e2013046118 (2021).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar     

  • Osipov, S. et al. The Toba supervolcano eruption caused severe tropical stratospheric ozone depletion. Commun. Earth Environ. 2, 71 (2021).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Yost, C. L., Jackson, L. J., Stone, J. R. & Cohen, A. S. Subdecadal phytolith and charcoal records from Lake Malawi, East Africa imply minimal effects on human evolution from the ~74 ka Toba supereruption. J. Hum. Evol. 116, 75–94 (2018).

    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar     

  • Grove, M. Evolution and dispersal under climatic instability: a simple evolutionary algorithm. Adapt. Behav. 22, 235–254 (2014).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Cann, R. L., Stoneking, M. & Wilson, A. C. Mitochondrial DNA and human evolution. Nature 325, 31–36 (1987).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar     

  • Blockley, S. P. E. et al. A new and less destructive laboratory procedure for the physical separation of distal glass tephra shards from sediments. Quat. Sci. Rev. 24, 1952–1960 (2005).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Sun, S. S. & McDonough, W. F. Chemical and isotopic systematics of oceanic basalts: implications for mantle composition and processes. Geol. Soc. Spec. Publ. 42, 313–345 (1989).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Storey, M., Roberts, R. G. & Saidin, M. Astronomically calibrated 40Ar/39Ar age for the Toba supereruption and global synchronization of late Quaternary records. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 109, 18684–18688 (2012).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 
    PubMed Central 

    Google Scholar     

  • Mark, D. F. et al. A high-precision 40Ar/39Ar age for the Young Toba Tuff and dating of ultra-distal tephra: forcing of Quaternary climate and implications for hominin occupation of India. Quat. Geochronol. 21, 90–103 (2014).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Skinner, A. R. in Encyclopedia of Geology 2nd Edn (eds Alderton, D. & Elias, S. A.) 153–163 (Academic, Springer, 2020).

  • Joannes-Boyau, R. & Grün, R. A comprehensive model for CO2− radicals in fossil tooth enamel: implications for ESR dating. Quat. Geochronol. 6, 82–97 (2011).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Semenov, S. A. Prehistoric Technology (Cory, Adams, & MacKay, 1964).

  • Banks, W. E. Toolkit Structure and Site Use: Results of a High-power Use-wear Analysis of Lithic Assemblages from Solutré (Saône-et-Loire), France (BAR International Series, 2009).

  • Kay, M. in Agate Basin Archaeology at Beacon Island, North Dakota (ed. Mitchell, M. D.) 155–168 (Paleocultural Research Group, 2012).

  • Keeley, L. Experimental Determination of Stone Tool Uses: A Microwear Analysis (Univ. Chicago Press, 1980).

  • Kay, M. & Mainfort, R. C. Jr Functional analysis of prismatic blades and bladelets from Pinson Mounds, Tennessee. J. Archaeol. Sci. 50, 63–83 (2014).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Banks, W. E. & Kay, M. High-resolution casts for lithic use-wear analysis. Lithic Tech. 28, 27–34 (2003).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Pettigrew, D. B. The Ballistics of Archaic North American Atlatls and Darts. MA thesis, Univ. Arkansas (2015).

  • Hoffman, R. & Gross, L. Reflected-light differential-interference microscopy: principles, use, and image interpretation. J. Microsc. 91, 149–172 (1970).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar     

  • Davis, C. A. Foraging Along Blue Highways: Seasonality and Subsistence Strategies in the Middle Stone Age of Ethiopia. PhD thesis, Univ. Texas (2019).

  • Gifford, D. P. & Crader, D. C. A computer coding system for archaeological faunal remains. Am. Antiq. 42, 225 (1977).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Thompson, J. C. Zooarchaeological Tests for Modern Human Behavior at Blombos Cave and Pinnacle Point Cave 13B, Southwestern Cape, South Africa. PhD thesis, Arizona State Univ. (2008).

  • Bunn, H. T. in Animals and Archaeology (eds Clutton-Brock, J. & Grigson, C.) 143–148 (BAR, 1983).

  • von den Driesch, A. A Guide to the Measurement of Animal Bones from Archaeological Sites Peabody Museum Bulletin 1 (Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, 1976).

  • Morales, A. & Rosenlund, K. Fish Bone Measurements (Steenstrupia, 1979).

  • Cohen, A. & Serjeantson, D. A Manual for the Identification of Bird Bones from Archaeological Sites (Archetype, 1996).

  • Brain, C. K. The Hunters or the Hunted? An Introduction to African Cave Taphonomy (Univ. Chicago Press, 1981).

  • Reynard, J. P., Badenhorst, S. & Henshilwood, C. S. Inferring animal size from the unidentified long bones from the Middle Stone Age layers at Blombos Cave, South Africa. Ann. Ditsong Natl Mus. Nat. Hist. 4, 9–25 (2014).


    Google Scholar     

  • Stewart, K. M. Fishing Sites of North and East Africa in the Late Pleistocene and Holocene (BAR, 1989).

  • Villa, P. & Mahieu, E. Breakage patterns of human long bones. J. Hum. Evol. 21, 27–48 (1991).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Zohar, I., Dayan, T., Galili, E. & Spanier, E. Fish processing during the early Holocene: a taphonomic case study from coastal Israel. J. Archaeol. Sci. 28, 1041–1053 (2001).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Zohar, I. et al. The living and the dead: how do taphonomic processes modify relative abundance and skeletal completeness of freshwater fish? Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol. 258, 292–316 (2008).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Zohar, I. Fish Exploitation at the Sea of Galilee (Israel) By Early Fisher-Hunter-Gatherers (23,000 BP): Ecological, Economical, and Cultural Implications. PhD thesis, Tel-Aviv University (2003).

  • Shipman, P., Foster, G. & Schoeninger, M. Burnt bones and teeth: an experimental study of color, morphology, crystal structure and shrinkage. J. Archaeol. Sci. 11, 307–325 (1984).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Binford, L. R. Bones: Ancient Men and Modern Myths (Academic, 1981).

  • Haynes, G. A guide for differentiating mammalian carnivore taxa responsible for gnaw damage to herbivore limb bones. Paleobiology 9, 164–172 (1983).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Shipman, P. & Rose, J. Evidence of butchery and hominid activities at Torralba and Ambrona; an evaluation using microscopic techniques. J. Archaeol. Sci. 10, 465–474 (1983).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Behrensmeyer, A. K., Gordon, K. D. & Yanagi, G. T. Trampling as a cause of bone surface damage and pseudo-cutmarks. Nature 319, 768–771 (1986).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Blumenschine, R. J. & Selvaggio, M. M. Percussion marks on bone surfaces as a new diagnostic of hominid behaviour. Nature 333, 763–765 (1988).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Butler, V. L. Natural versus cultural salmonid remains: origin of the Dalles Roadcut bones, Columbia River, Oregon, U.S.A. J. Archaeol. Sci. 20, 1–24 (1993).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Stewart, K. M. & Gifford-Gonzalez, D. An ethnoarchaeological contribution to identifying hominid fish processing sites. J. Archaeol. Sci. 21, 237–248 (1994).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Blumenschine, R. J., Marean, C. W. & Capaldo, S. D. Blind tests of inter-analyst correspondence and accuracy in the identification of cut marks, percussion marks, and carnivore tooth marks on bone surfaces. J. Archaeol. Sci. 23, 493–507 (1996).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Pickering, T. R. & Egeland, C. P. Experimental patterns of hammerstone percussion damage on bones: implications for inferences of carcass processing by humans. J. Archaeol. Sci. 33, 459–469 (2006).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Domínguez-Rodrigo, M., de Juana, S., Galán, A. B. & Rodríguez, M. A new protocol to differentiate trampling marks from butchery cut marks. J. Archaeol. Sci. 36, 2643–2654 (2009).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Fernandez-Jalvo, Y. & Andrews, P. Atlas of Taphonomic Identifications: 1001+ Images of Fossil and Recent Mammal Bone Modification, Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology (Springer, 2016).

  • Thompson, J. C. The impact of post-depositional processes on bone surface modification frequencies: a corrective strategy and its application to the Loiyangalani site, Serengeti Plain, Tanzania. J. Taphon. 3, 57–79 (2005).


    Google Scholar     

  • Pante, M. C. et al. A new high-resolution 3-D quantitative method for identifying bone surface modifications with implications for the Early Stone Age archaeological record. J. Hum. Evol. 102, 1–11 (2017).

    Article 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar     

  • Mountains surface imaging & metrology software: MountainsMap Premium, www.digitalsurf.fr/en/mntkey.html (Digital Surf, 2015).

  • Jones, C. H. User-driven integrated software lives: “PaleoMag” paleomagnetics analysis on the Macintosh. Comput. Geosci. 28, 1145–1151 (2002).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Allmendinger, R. W., Cardozo, N. C. & Fisher, D. Structural Geology Algorithms: Vectors & Tensors (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2013).

  • Cardozo, N. & Allmendinger, R. W. Spherical projections with OSXStereonet. Comput. Geosci. 51, 193–205 (2013).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

  • Passey, B. H. et al. Timing of C4 biomass expansion and environmental change in the Great Plains: an isotopic record from fossil horses. J. Geol. 110, 123–140 (2002).

    Article 
    CAS 

    Google Scholar     

  • Passey, B. H., Cerling, T. E. & Levin, N. E. Temperature dependence of oxygen isotope acid fractionation for modern and fossil tooth enamels. Rapid Commun. Mass Spectrom. 21, 2853–2859 (2007).

    Article 
    CAS 
    PubMed 

    Google Scholar     

  • Swart, P. K., Burns, S. J. & Leder, J. J. Fractionation of the stable isotopes of oxygen and carbon in carbon dioxide during the reaction of calcite with phosphoric acid as a function of temperature and technique. Chem. Geol. Isotope Geosci. 86, 89–96 (1991).

    Article 
    CAS 

    Google Scholar     

  • Graven, H. et al. Compiled records of carbon isotopes in atmospheric CO2 for historical simulations in CMIP6. Geosci. Model Dev. 10, 4405–4417 (2017).

    Article 
    CAS 

    Google Scholar     

  • Rots, V., Lentfer, C., Schmid, V. C., Porraz, G. & Conard, N. J. Pressure flaking to serrate bifacial points for the hunt during the MIS5 at Sibudu Cave (South Africa). PLoS ONE 12, e017515 (2017).

    Article 

    Google Scholar     

[ad_2]

Source link