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Spikins P, French JC, John-Wood S, Dytham C. Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to Ecological Changes, Social Behaviour and Human Intergroup Tolerance 300,000 to 30,000 BP. JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL METHOD AND THEORY 2021; 28:53-75. [PMID: 33679119 PMCID: PMC7891228 DOI: 10.1007/s10816-020-09503-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 12/15/2020] [Indexed: 05/13/2023]
Abstract
UNLABELLED Archaeological evidence suggests that important shifts were taking place in the character of human social behaviours 300,000 to 30,000 years ago. New artefact types appear and are disseminated with greater frequency. Transfers of both raw materials and finished artefacts take place over increasing distances, implying larger scales of regional mobility and more frequent and friendlier interactions between different communities. Whilst these changes occur during a period of increasing environmental variability, the relationship between ecological changes and transformations in social behaviours is elusive. Here, we explore a possible theoretical approach and methodology for understanding how ecological contexts can influence selection pressures acting on intergroup social behaviours. We focus on the relative advantages and disadvantages of intergroup tolerance in different ecological contexts using agent-based modelling (ABM). We assess the relative costs and benefits of different 'tolerance' levels in between-group interactions on survival and resource exploitation in different environments. The results enable us to infer a potential relationship between ecological changes and proposed changes in between-group behavioural dynamics. We conclude that increasingly harsh environments may have driven changes in hormonal and emotional responses in humans leading to increasing intergroup tolerance, i.e. transformations in social behaviour associated with 'self-domestication'. We argue that changes in intergroup tolerance is a more parsimonious explanation for the emergence of what has been seen as 'modern human behaviour' than changes in hard aspects of cognition or other factors such as cognitive adaptability or population size. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10816-020-09503-5.
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Affiliation(s)
- Penny Spikins
- Department of Archaeology, Archaeology PalaeoHub, University of York, York, YO10 5DD UK
| | - Jennifer C. French
- Department of Archaeology, Classics, and Egyptology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, L69 7WZ UK
| | - Seren John-Wood
- York Cross-disciplinary Centre for Systems Analysis (YCCSA) Internship Programme, University of York, York, UK
- University College London, London, UK
| | - Calvin Dytham
- Department of Biology, University of York, York, YO10 5DD UK
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Hérisson D, Soriano S. A view of the Lower to Middle Paleolithic boundary from Northern France, far from the Near East? J Hum Evol 2020; 145:102814. [PMID: 32673890 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2020.102814] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/18/2019] [Revised: 04/16/2020] [Accepted: 04/16/2020] [Indexed: 01/06/2023]
Abstract
Northern France and the Near East play and have played a central role in the debate around the Lower Paleolithic (LP) to Middle Paleolithic (MP) boundary. In the early 1990s, the renewed Saalian record for Northern France began to outline a mosaic model of the LP-to-MP transition-mainly based on Tuffreau's works. It implied the coexistence of Upper Acheulean assemblages (numerous bifaces with few standardized retouched flakes), 'Epi-Acheulean' assemblages (rare bifaces and diversified retouched flakes), and Mousterian assemblages (Levalloisian industries) during the Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 8-6 period. Since the 2000s, the discovery of new key sites and enhanced field and laboratory methods are challenging this model. We present first a brief historical summary of previous approaches to the LP to MP boundary in Northern France. A large data set of Saalian archaeological units available from previous works has been updated and expanded to include additional sites. This allows us to demonstrate that the current Saalian record from Northern France is both rich and sparse as it is heterogeneously biased through time and space and that these biases limit the accuracy of any attempt to model the LP-to-MP transition. Nevertheless, we describe the differences between pre-MIS 9 and MIS 9 and MIS 8-6 records for lithic industries and discuss whether the current periodization is still relevant considering new data on technological, behavioral, and cultural changes. The comparison between Northern France and Near Eastern records allows regional cultural patterns to be distinguished from global trends in lithic trajectories of change and determination of how they slotted together. Our review of the available data from these two distant regions confirms that the LP-to-MP transition is probably one of the major cultural shifts in human evolution.
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Affiliation(s)
- David Hérisson
- CNRS-UMR7041 ArScAn, Équipe AnTET (Anthropologie des Techniques, des Espaces et des Territoires au Pliocène et au Pléistocène), MSH Mondes, Université Paris Nanterre, 21 Allée de l'Université, Nanterre Cedex, 93023, France.
| | - Sylvain Soriano
- CNRS-UMR7041 ArScAn, Équipe AnTET (Anthropologie des Techniques, des Espaces et des Territoires au Pliocène et au Pléistocène), MSH Mondes, Université Paris Nanterre, 21 Allée de l'Université, Nanterre Cedex, 93023, France
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Malinsky-Buller A, Hovers E. One size does not fit all: Group size and the late middle Pleistocene prehistoric archive. J Hum Evol 2019; 127:118-132. [PMID: 30777353 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2018.11.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/22/2018] [Revised: 11/02/2018] [Accepted: 11/06/2018] [Indexed: 02/03/2023]
Abstract
The role of demography is often suggested to be a key factor in both biological and cultural evolution. Recent research has shown that the linkage between population size and cultural evolution is not straightforward and emerges from the interplay of many demographic, economic, social and ecological variables. Formal modelling has yielded interesting insights into the complex relationship between population structure, intergroup connectedness, and magnitude and extent of population extinctions. Such studies have highlighted the importance of effective (as opposed to census) population size in transmission processes. At the same time, it remained unclear how such insights can be applied to material culture phenomena in the prehistoric record, especially for deeper prehistory. In this paper we approach the issue of population sizes during the time of the Lower to Middle Paleolithic transition through the proxy of regional trajectories of lithic technological change, identified in the archaeological records from Africa, the Levant, Southwestern and Northwestern Europe. Our discussion of the results takes into consideration the constraints inherent to the archaeological record of deep time - e.g., preservation bias, time-averaging and the incomplete nature of the archaeological record - and of extrapolation from discrete archaeological case studies to an evolutionary time scale. We suggest that technological trajectories of change over this transitional period reflect the robustness of transmission networks. Our results show differences in the pattern and rate of cultural transmission in these regions, from which we infer that information networks, and their underlying effective population sizes, also differed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ariel Malinsky-Buller
- MONREPOS, Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioural Evolution, Schloss Monrepos, 56567, Neuwied, Germany.
| | - Erella Hovers
- The Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mt. Scopus, 91905, Jerusalem, Israel; International Affiliate, Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA
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Pereira JB, Costa MD, Vieira D, Pala M, Bamford L, Harich N, Cherni L, Alshamali F, Hatina J, Rychkov S, Stefanescu G, King T, Torroni A, Soares P, Pereira L, Richards MB. Reconciling evidence from ancient and contemporary genomes: a major source for the European Neolithic within Mediterranean Europe. Proc Biol Sci 2018; 284:rspb.2016.1976. [PMID: 28330913 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2016.1976] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/07/2016] [Accepted: 02/14/2017] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Important gaps remain in our understanding of the spread of farming into Europe, due partly to apparent contradictions between studies of contemporary genetic variation and ancient DNA. It seems clear that farming was introduced into central, northern, and eastern Europe from the south by pioneer colonization. It is often argued that these dispersals originated in the Near East, where the potential source genetic pool resembles that of the early European farmers, but clear ancient DNA evidence from Mediterranean Europe is lacking, and there are suggestions that Mediterranean Europe may have resembled the Near East more than the rest of Europe in the Mesolithic. Here, we test this proposal by dating mitogenome founder lineages from the Near East in different regions of Europe. We find that whereas the lineages date mainly to the Neolithic in central Europe and Iberia, they largely date to the Late Glacial period in central/eastern Mediterranean Europe. This supports a scenario in which the genetic pool of Mediterranean Europe was partly a result of Late Glacial expansions from a Near Eastern refuge, and that this formed an important source pool for subsequent Neolithic expansions into the rest of Europe.
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Affiliation(s)
- Joana B Pereira
- Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK.,Instituto de Investigacão e Inovacão em Saúde (i3S), Universidade do Porto, Porto 4200-135, Portugal.,Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto (IPATIMUP), Porto 4200-465, Portugal
| | - Marta D Costa
- Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK.,Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto (IPATIMUP), Porto 4200-465, Portugal.,Life and Health Sciences Research Institute (ICVS), School of Health Sciences, University of Minho, Campus de Gualtar, 4710-057 Braga, Portugal.,ICVS/3Bs-PT Government Associate Laboratory, Braga/Guimarães, Portugal
| | - Daniel Vieira
- Department of Biology, CBMA (Centre of Molecular and Environmental Biology), University of Minho, Braga, Portugal
| | - Maria Pala
- Department of Biological Sciences, School of Applied Sciences, University of Huddersfield, Queensgate, Huddersfield HD1 3DH, UK
| | - Lisa Bamford
- Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
| | - Nourdin Harich
- Laboratoire d'Anthropogenetique, Department de Biologie, Universite Chouaib Doukkali, El Jadida 24000, Morocco
| | - Lotfi Cherni
- Laboratory of Genetics, Immunology and Human Pathology, Faculté de Sciences de Tunis, Université de Tunis El Manar, Tunis 2092, Tunisia.,Tunis and High Institute of Biotechnology, University of Monastir, 5000 Monastir, Tunisia
| | - Farida Alshamali
- General Department of Forensic Sciences and Criminology, Dubai Police General Headquarters, Dubai 1493, United Arab Emirates
| | - Jiři Hatina
- Medical Faculty in Pilsen, Institute of Biology, Charles University, Pilsen, Czech Republic
| | | | | | - Turi King
- Department of Genetics, University of Leicester, Adrian Building, University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK
| | - Antonio Torroni
- Dipartimento di Biologia e Biotecnologie 'L. Spallanzani', Università di Pavia, Pavia, Italy
| | - Pedro Soares
- Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto (IPATIMUP), Porto 4200-465, Portugal.,Department of Biology, CBMA (Centre of Molecular and Environmental Biology), University of Minho, Braga, Portugal
| | - Luísa Pereira
- Instituto de Investigacão e Inovacão em Saúde (i3S), Universidade do Porto, Porto 4200-135, Portugal.,Instituto de Patologia e Imunologia Molecular da Universidade do Porto (IPATIMUP), Porto 4200-465, Portugal.,Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade do Porto, Porto 4200-319, Portugal
| | - Martin B Richards
- Faculty of Biological Sciences, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK .,Department of Biological Sciences, School of Applied Sciences, University of Huddersfield, Queensgate, Huddersfield HD1 3DH, UK
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Hosfield R. Walking in a Winter Wonderland? Strategies for Early and Middle Pleistocene Survival in Midlatitude Europe. CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY 2016. [DOI: 10.1086/688579] [Citation(s) in RCA: 66] [Impact Index Per Article: 8.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/03/2022]
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Climatic variability, plasticity, and dispersal: A case study from Lake Tana, Ethiopia. J Hum Evol 2016; 87:32-47. [PMID: 26472274 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2015.07.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 22] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/14/2014] [Revised: 03/06/2015] [Accepted: 07/12/2015] [Indexed: 12/23/2022]
Abstract
The numerous dispersal events that have occurred during the prehistory of hominin lineages are the subject of longstanding and increasingly active debate in evolutionary anthropology. As well as research into the dating and geographic extent of such dispersals, there is an increasing focus on the factors that may have been responsible for dispersal. The growing body of detailed regional palaeoclimatic data is invaluable in demonstrating the often close relationship between changes in prehistoric environments and the movements of hominin populations. The scenarios constructed from such data are often overly simplistic, however, concentrating on the dynamics of cyclical contraction and expansion during severe and ameliorated conditions respectively. This contribution proposes a two-stage hypothesis of hominin dispersal in which populations (1) accumulate high levels of climatic tolerance during highly variable climatic phases, and (2) express such heightened tolerance via dispersal in subsequent low-variability phases. Likely dispersal phases are thus proposed to occur during stable climatic phases that immediately follow phases of high climatic variability. Employing high resolution palaeoclimatic data from Lake Tana, Ethiopia, the hypothesis is examined in relation to the early dispersal of Homo sapiens out of East Africa and into the Levant. A dispersal phase is identified in the Lake Tana record between c. 112,550 and c. 96,975 years ago, a date bracket that accords well with the dating evidence for H. sapiens occupation at the sites of Qafzeh and Skhul. Results are discussed in relation to the complex pattern of H. sapiens dispersal out of East Africa, with particular attention paid to the implications of recent genetic chronologies for the origin of non-African modern humans.
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Pala M, Olivieri A, Achilli A, Accetturo M, Metspalu E, Reidla M, Tamm E, Karmin M, Reisberg T, Kashani B, Perego U, Carossa V, Gandini F, Pereira J, Soares P, Angerhofer N, Rychkov S, Al-Zahery N, Carelli V, Sanati M, Houshmand M, Hatina J, Macaulay V, Pereira L, Woodward S, Davies W, Gamble C, Baird D, Semino O, Villems R, Torroni A, Richards M. Mitochondrial DNA signals of late glacial recolonization of Europe from near eastern refugia. Am J Hum Genet 2012; 90:915-24. [PMID: 22560092 DOI: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2012.04.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 109] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/26/2012] [Revised: 03/22/2012] [Accepted: 04/03/2012] [Indexed: 10/28/2022] Open
Abstract
Human populations, along with those of many other species, are thought to have contracted into a number of refuge areas at the height of the last Ice Age. European populations are believed to be, to a large extent, the descendants of the inhabitants of these refugia, and some extant mtDNA lineages can be traced to refugia in Franco-Cantabria (haplogroups H1, H3, V, and U5b1), the Italian Peninsula (U5b3), and the East European Plain (U4 and U5a). Parts of the Near East, such as the Levant, were also continuously inhabited throughout the Last Glacial Maximum, but unlike western and eastern Europe, no archaeological or genetic evidence for Late Glacial expansions into Europe from the Near East has hitherto been discovered. Here we report, on the basis of an enlarged whole-genome mitochondrial database, that a substantial, perhaps predominant, signal from mitochondrial haplogroups J and T, previously thought to have spread primarily from the Near East into Europe with the Neolithic population, may in fact reflect dispersals during the Late Glacial period, ∼19-12 thousand years (ka) ago.
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Grove M, Pearce E, Dunbar RIM. Fission-fusion and the evolution of hominin social systems. J Hum Evol 2011; 62:191-200. [PMID: 22197359 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2011.10.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 53] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/25/2010] [Revised: 10/08/2011] [Accepted: 10/12/2011] [Indexed: 10/14/2022]
Abstract
The course of hominin evolution has involved successive migrations towards higher absolute latitudes over the past three million years. Poorer habitat quality further from the equator has led to the necessity for groups occupying higher latitudes to live at lower population densities. Coupled with a trend towards increasing group size over this time period, this tendency towards expansion has led to exponential increases in the area requirements of hominin groups, and a concomitant need to adjust foraging patterns. The current analyses suggest that the development of increasingly complex, multi-level fission-fusion social systems could have freed hominins of the foraging constraints imposed by large group sizes and low population densities. Analyses of the fossil record suggest latitudinally-driven differences in area requirements of the australopithecines from East and South Africa, and African and Asian Homo erectus. In contrast, chronologically-driven differences appear between H. erectus as a whole and Homo heidelbergensis, and between H. heidelbergensis and the Neanderthals. These results are discussed in relation to studies of the foraging patterns of primates and hunter-gatherers.
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Affiliation(s)
- Matt Grove
- School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, University of Liverpool, William Hartley Building, Brownlow Street, Liverpool L69 3GS, UK.
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