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Multiple hominin dispersals into Southwest Asia over the past 400,000 years. Nature 2021; 597:376-380. [PMID: 34471286 PMCID: PMC8443443 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03863-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/12/2021] [Accepted: 07/29/2021] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Abstract
Pleistocene hominin dispersals out of, and back into, Africa necessarily involved traversing the diverse and often challenging environments of Southwest Asia1-4. Archaeological and palaeontological records from the Levantine woodland zone document major biological and cultural shifts, such as alternating occupations by Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. However, Late Quaternary cultural, biological and environmental records from the vast arid zone that constitutes most of Southwest Asia remain scarce, limiting regional-scale insights into changes in hominin demography and behaviour1,2,5. Here we report a series of dated palaeolake sequences, associated with stone tool assemblages and vertebrate fossils, from the Khall Amayshan 4 and Jubbah basins in the Nefud Desert. These findings, including the oldest dated hominin occupations in Arabia, reveal at least five hominin expansions into the Arabian interior, coinciding with brief 'green' windows of reduced aridity approximately 400, 300, 200, 130-75 and 55 thousand years ago. Each occupation phase is characterized by a distinct form of material culture, indicating colonization by diverse hominin groups, and a lack of long-term Southwest Asian population continuity. Within a general pattern of African and Eurasian hominin groups being separated by Pleistocene Saharo-Arabian aridity, our findings reveal the tempo and character of climatically modulated windows for dispersal and admixture.
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Page AE, French JC. Reconstructing prehistoric demography: What role for extant hunter-gatherers? Evol Anthropol 2020; 29:332-345. [PMID: 33103830 DOI: 10.1002/evan.21869] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/03/2019] [Revised: 02/17/2020] [Accepted: 10/06/2020] [Indexed: 11/06/2022]
Abstract
Demography is central to biological, behavioral, and cultural evolution. Knowledge of the demography of prehistoric populations of both Homo sapiens and earlier members of the genus Homo is, therefore, key to the study of human evolution. Unfortunately, demographic processes (fertility, mortality, migration) leave little mark on the archeological and paleoanthropological records. One common solution to this issue is the application of demographic data from extant hunter-gatherers to prehistory. With the aim of strengthening this line of enquiry, here we outline some pitfalls and their interpretative implications. In doing so, we provide recommendations about the application of hunter-gatherer data to the study of demographic trends throughout human evolution. We use published demographic data from extant hunter-gatherers to show that it is the diversity seen among extant hunter-gatherers-both intra- and inter-population variability-that is most relevant and useful for understanding past hunter-gatherer demography.
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Affiliation(s)
- Abigail E Page
- Department of Population Health, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK
| | - Jennifer C French
- Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, 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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Goren-Inbar N, Belfer-Cohen A. Reappraisal of hominin group size in the Lower Paleolithic: An introduction to the special issue. J Hum Evol 2020; 144:102821. [PMID: 32497921 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2020.102821] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/24/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Naama Goren-Inbar
- Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mt. Scopus, 919051, Jerusalem Israel.
| | - Anna Belfer-Cohen
- Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mt. Scopus, 919051, Jerusalem Israel
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Derex M, Mesoudi A. Cumulative Cultural Evolution within Evolving Population Structures. Trends Cogn Sci 2020; 24:654-667. [PMID: 32466991 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2020.04.005] [Citation(s) in RCA: 42] [Impact Index Per Article: 10.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/20/2020] [Revised: 04/24/2020] [Accepted: 04/28/2020] [Indexed: 12/13/2022]
Abstract
Our species has the peculiar ability to accumulate cultural innovations over multiple generations, a phenomenon termed 'cumulative cultural evolution' (CCE). Recent years have seen a proliferation of empirical and theoretical work exploring the interplay between demography and CCE. This has generated intense discussion about whether demographic models can help explain historical patterns of cultural changes. Here, we synthesize empirical and theoretical studies from multiple fields to highlight how both population size and structure can shape the pool of cultural information that individuals can build upon to innovate, present the potential pathways through which humans' unique social structure might promote CCE, and discuss whether humans' social networks might partly result from selection pressures linked to our extensive reliance on culturally accumulated knowledge.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maxime Derex
- Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse, UMR 5314, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Toulouse 31015, France.
| | - Alex Mesoudi
- Human Behaviour and Cultural Evolution Group, Department of Biosciences, University of Exeter, Penryn, TR10 9FE, UK
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Nikolsky A, Alekseyev E, Alekseev I, Dyakonova V. The Overlooked Tradition of "Personal Music" and Its Place in the Evolution of Music. Front Psychol 2020; 10:3051. [PMID: 32132941 PMCID: PMC7040865 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.03051] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/28/2019] [Accepted: 12/24/2019] [Indexed: 12/31/2022] Open
Abstract
This is an attempt to describe and explain so-called timbre-based music as a special system of musicking, communication, and psychological and social usage, which along with its corresponding beliefs constitutes a viable alternative to “frequency-based” music. Unfortunately, the current scientific research into music has been skewed almost entirely in favor of the frequency-based music prevalent in the West. Subsequently, whenever samples of timbre-based music attract the attention of Western researchers, these are usually interpreted as “defective” implementations of frequency-based music. The presence of discrete pitch is often regarded as the structural criterion that distinguishes music from non-music. We would like to present evidence to the contrary—in support of the existence of indigenous music systems based on the discretization and patterning of aspects of timbre, rather than pitch. This evidence comes mainly from extensive ethnographic research systematically conducted in eastern European and Asian parts of Russia from the 1890s. It involved the efforts of thousands of specialists and was coordinated by dozens of research institutions, and it has included not just ethnomusicology but linguistics, philology, organology, archaeology, anthropology, geography, and religious, and social studies. Much of the data has not been translated into Western languages. Although some Soviet-era publications were tainted by Marxist ideology, many researchers strove to provide accurate information (despite at times having been prosecuted for their work), and post-1990 research undertook a substantial revision of ideologically compromised concepts. Timbre-based tonal organization (TO) differs from that based on frequency in its personal orientation: musicking here occurs primarily for oneself and/or for close relatives/friends. Collective music-making is rare and exceptional. The foundation of timbre-based music seems to have vocal roots and rests on “personal song”—a system of personal identification through individualized patterns of rhythm, timbre, and pitch contour, utilized like a “human voice”—whose sound enables the recognition of a particular individual. The instrumental counterpart of the personalized singing tradition is the jaw harp tradition. The jaw harp is the principal musical instrument for at least 21 ethnicities in Russia, who occupy over half the territory of the country. The evolution of its TO forms the backbone for the development of timbre-based music art. Here, we provide the acoustic, socio-cultural, geographic, and chronological overview of timbre-based music.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Eduard Alekseyev
- Independent Researcher, Boston, MA, United States.,The State Institute for Art Studies of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, Moscow, Russia
| | - Ivan Alekseev
- Experimental Laboratory of the North-Eastern Federal University, Yakutsk, Russia.,International Jaw Harp Music Center, Yakutsk, Russia
| | - Varvara Dyakonova
- Department of Art Studies, Arctic State Institute of Arts and Culture, Yakutsk, Russia
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Meignen L, Bar-Yosef O. Acheulo-Yabrudian and Early Middle Paleolithic at Hayonim Cave (Western Galilee, Israel): Continuity or break? J Hum Evol 2020; 139:102733. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2019.102733] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/28/2019] [Revised: 11/18/2019] [Accepted: 11/19/2019] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
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Belfer-Cohen A, Hovers E. Prehistoric Perspectives on "Others" and "Strangers". Front Psychol 2020; 10:3063. [PMID: 32038416 PMCID: PMC6985552 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.03063] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/29/2019] [Accepted: 12/26/2019] [Indexed: 01/19/2023] Open
Abstract
Social "connectivity" through time is currently considered as one of the major drivers of cultural transmission and cultural evolution. Within this framework, the interactions within and between groups are impacted by individuals' distinction of social relationships. In this paper, we focus on changes in a major aspect of social perceptions, "other" and "stranger." As inferred from the archaeological record, this perception among human groups gained importance during the course of the Pleistocene. These changes would have occurred due to the plasticity of cognitive mechanisms, in response to the demands on behavior along the trajectory of human social evolution. The concepts of "other" and "stranger" have received little attention in the archaeological discourse, yet they are fundamental in the perception of social standing. The property of being an "other" is defined by one's perception and is inherent to one's view of the world around oneself; when shared by a group it becomes a social cognitive construct. Allocating an individual the status of a "stranger" is a socially-defined state that is potentially transient. We hypothesize that, while possibly entrenched in deep evolutionary origins, the latter is a relatively late addition to socio-cognitive categorization, associated with increased sedentism, larger groups and reduced territorial extent as part of the process of Neolithization. We posit that "others" and "strangers" can be approached from contextual archaeological data, with inferences as regards the evolution of cognitive social categories. Our analysis focused on raw material studies, observations on style, and evidence for craft specialization. We find that contrary to the null hypothesis the archaeological record implies earlier emergence of complex socio-cognitive categorization. The cognitive, cultural and social processes involved in the maintenance and distinction between "others" and "strangers" can be defined as "self-domestication" that is still an on-going process.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anna Belfer-Cohen
- The Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
| | - Erella Hovers
- The Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
- Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, United States
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The shift from typical Western European Late Acheulian to microproduction in unit ‘D’ of the late Middle Pleistocene deposits of the Caune de l’Arago (Pyrénées-Orientales, France). J Hum Evol 2019; 135:102650. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2019.102650] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/10/2019] [Revised: 08/06/2019] [Accepted: 08/06/2019] [Indexed: 11/17/2022]
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Tools, trails and time: Debating Acheulian group size at Attirampakkam, India. J Hum Evol 2019; 130:109-125. [PMID: 31010538 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2019.02.004] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/04/2018] [Revised: 02/12/2019] [Accepted: 02/21/2019] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
Estimating Acheulian group sizes based on a fragmentary archaeological record is fraught with difficulties, more so in regions like India, where lithics form the primary source of information. Here, we review current approaches towards modeling group size in Indian archaeology. We then examine to what extent one may address issues related to seasonality, fission-fusion strategies and group size in the context of Acheulian sites, drawing on our research along the southeastern coast of India. We move between multiple scales of analysis: from the regional Acheulian archaeological record to specific studies at the site of Attirampakkam (ATM). We consider aspects of site distribution, sizes, artefact densities and Acheulian lithic reduction strategies, factoring in issues related to geomorphology, taphonomy and chronology. Acheulian hominins occupied the study region over the early to middle Pleistocene, and the fragmented lithic reduction sequence noted on landscape scales suggests diverse site functions structured by ease of access to quartzite raw material for large flake production in addition to other resources. In contrast to most sites, the absence of raw material at ATM necessitated groups to anticipate this, and organize their behavior on landscape scales, and on-site, to resolve this issue. We show how successive groups were attracted to the site over the early Pleistocene, potentially aiming at exploiting seasonally predictable biological resources in a riparian environment, knowledge of which was transmitted across generations. Considerations of the spatial and temporal variability in artefact densities across a vast site area, along with aspects of the lithic reduction sequences suggests a short-duration occupation by a potentially large group, possibly resulting from aggregation of several small groups as noted in some ethnographic examples of hunter-gatherer fission-fusion strategies. We show drastic changes in behavioral organization in the succeeding Middle Palaeolithic phases at the site and in the region.
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