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Dating the Paleolithic: Trapped charge methods and amino acid geochronology. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2022; 119:e2109324119. [PMID: 36252044 PMCID: PMC9618083 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2109324119] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Despite the vast array of different geochronological tools available, dating the Paleolithic remains one of the discipline’s greatest challenges. This review focuses on two different dating approaches: trapped charge and amino acid geochronology. While differing in their fundamental principles, both exploit time-dependent changes in signals found within crystals to generate a chronology for the material dated and hence, the associated deposits. Within each method, there is a diverse range of signals that can be analyzed, each covering different time ranges, applicable to different materials and suitable for different paleoenvironmental and archaeological contexts. This multiplicity of signals can at first sight appear confusing, but it is a fundamental strength of the techniques, allowing internal checks for consistency and providing more information than simply a chronology. For each technique, we present an overview of the basis for the time-dependent signals and the types of material that can be analyzed, with examples of their archaeological application, as well as their future potential.
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Stewart M, Clark-Wilson R, Breeze PS, Janulis K, Candy I, Armitage SJ, Ryves DB, Louys J, Duval M, Price GJ, Cuthbertson P, Bernal MA, Drake NA, Alsharekh AM, Zahrani B, Al-Omari A, Roberts P, Groucutt HS, Petraglia MD. Human footprints provide snapshot of last interglacial ecology in the Arabian interior. SCIENCE ADVANCES 2020; 6:6/38/eaba8940. [PMID: 32948582 PMCID: PMC7500939 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aba8940] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/14/2020] [Accepted: 07/31/2020] [Indexed: 05/03/2023]
Abstract
The nature of human dispersals out of Africa has remained elusive because of the poor resolution of paleoecological data in direct association with remains of the earliest non-African people. Here, we report hominin and non-hominin mammalian tracks from an ancient lake deposit in the Arabian Peninsula, dated within the last interglacial. The findings, it is argued, likely represent the oldest securely dated evidence for Homo sapiens in Arabia. The paleoecological evidence indicates a well-watered semi-arid grassland setting during human movements into the Nefud Desert of Saudi Arabia. We conclude that visitation to the lake was transient, likely serving as a place to drink and to forage, and that late Pleistocene human and mammalian migrations and landscape use patterns in Arabia were inexorably linked.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mathew Stewart
- Extreme Events Research Group, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Hans-Knöll-Strasse 8, 07745 Jena, Germany.
- Department of Archaeology, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Kahlaische Strasse 10, D-07743 Jena, Germany
- Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Hans-Knöll-Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
| | - Richard Clark-Wilson
- Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, UK.
| | - Paul S Breeze
- Department of Geography, King's College London, London, UK
| | - Klint Janulis
- School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, 36 Beaumont Street, Oxford OX1 2PG, UK
| | - Ian Candy
- Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, UK
| | - Simon J Armitage
- Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, UK
- SFF Centre for Early Sapiens Behaviour (SapiensCE), University of Bergen, Post Box 7805, 5020 Bergen, Norway
| | - David B Ryves
- Geography and Environment, Loughborough University, Loughborough, Leics LE11 3TU, UK
| | - Julien Louys
- Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution (ARCHE), Environmental Futures Research Institute, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, Australia
| | - Mathieu Duval
- Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution (ARCHE), Environmental Futures Research Institute, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, Australia
- Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH), Burgos09002, Spain
| | - Gilbert J Price
- School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Queensland, St. Lucia QLD 4072, Australia
| | - Patrick Cuthbertson
- Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Marco A Bernal
- Fundación Instituto de Investigación de Prehistoria y Evolución Humama. PALEOMÁGINA, Centro de Investigaciones Prehistóricas de Sierra Mágina Calle Nueva s/n; 23537 Bedmar (Jaén), Spain
| | - Nick A Drake
- Department of Geography, King's College London, London, UK
- Department of Archaeology, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Kahlaische Strasse 10, D-07743 Jena, Germany
| | - Abdullah M Alsharekh
- Department of Archaeology, College of Tourism and Archaeology, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
| | - Badr Zahrani
- Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
| | - Abdulaziz Al-Omari
- Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
| | - Patrick Roberts
- Department of Archaeology, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Kahlaische Strasse 10, D-07743 Jena, Germany
| | - Huw S Groucutt
- Extreme Events Research Group, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Hans-Knöll-Strasse 8, 07745 Jena, Germany
- Department of Archaeology, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Kahlaische Strasse 10, D-07743 Jena, Germany
- Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Hans-Knöll-Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
| | - Michael D Petraglia
- Department of Archaeology, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Kahlaische Strasse 10, D-07743 Jena, Germany.
- Human Origins Program, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20013, USA
- School of Social Science, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia
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Porraz G, Val A, Tribolo C, Mercier N, de la Peña P, Haaland MM, Igreja M, Miller CE, Schmid VC. The MIS5 Pietersburg at '28' Bushman Rock Shelter, Limpopo Province, South Africa. PLoS One 2018; 13:e0202853. [PMID: 30303992 PMCID: PMC6179383 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0202853] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/09/2018] [Accepted: 08/12/2018] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Abstract
In the past few decades, a diverse array of research has emphasized the precocity of technically advanced and symbolic practices occurring during the southern African Middle Stone Age. However, uncertainties regarding the regional chrono-cultural framework constrain models and identification of the cultural and ecological mechanisms triggering the development of such early innovative behaviours. Here, we present new results and a refined chronology for the Pietersburg, a techno-complex initially defined in the late 1920's, which has disappeared from the literature since the 1980's. We base our revision of this techno-complex on ongoing excavations at Bushman Rock Shelter (BRS) in Limpopo Province, South Africa, where two Pietersburg phases (an upper phase called '21' and a lower phase called '28') are recognized. Our analysis focuses on the '28' phase, characterized by a knapping strategy based on Levallois and semi-prismatic laminar reduction systems and typified by the presence of end-scrapers. Luminescence chronology provides two sets of ages for the upper and lower Pietersburg of BRS, dated respectively to 73±6ka and 75±6ka on quartz and to 91±10ka and 97±10ka on feldspar, firmly positioning this industry within MIS5. Comparisons with other published lithic assemblages show technological differences between the Pietersburg from BRS and other southern African MIS5 traditions, especially those from the Western and Eastern Cape. We argue that, at least for part of MIS5, human populations in South Africa were regionally differentiated, a process that most likely impacted the way groups were territorially and socially organized. Nonetheless, comparisons between MIS5 assemblages also indicate some typological similarities, suggesting some degree of connection between human groups, which shared similar innovations but manipulated them in different ways. We pay particular attention to the end-scrapers from BRS, which represent thus far the earliest documented wide adoption of such tool-type and provide further evidence for the innovative processes characterizing southern Africa from the MIS5 onwards.
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Affiliation(s)
- Guillaume Porraz
- CNRS, UMR 7041, ArScAn-AnTET, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, Paris, France
- Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
| | - Aurore Val
- Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
- Ditsong National Museum of Natural History, Pretoria, South Africa
| | - Chantal Tribolo
- CNRS, UMR 5060, IRAMAT-CRP2A, CNRS-Université Bordeaux Montaigne, Bordeaux, France
| | - Norbert Mercier
- CNRS, UMR 5060, IRAMAT-CRP2A, CNRS-Université Bordeaux Montaigne, Bordeaux, France
| | - Paloma de la Peña
- Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
| | - Magnus M. Haaland
- Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
- Centre for Early Sapience Behaviour (SapienCE), University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
| | | | - Christopher E. Miller
- Centre for Early Sapience Behaviour (SapienCE), University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
- Institute for Archaeological Sciences & Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment, Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
| | - Viola C. Schmid
- CNRS, UMR 7041, ArScAn-AnTET, Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, Paris, France
- Abteilung für Ältere Urgeschichte und Quartärökologie, Universität Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
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Across the Gap: Geochronological and Sedimentological Analyses from the Late Pleistocene-Holocene Sequence of Goda Buticha, Southeastern Ethiopia. PLoS One 2017; 12:e0169418. [PMID: 28125597 PMCID: PMC5268652 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0169418] [Citation(s) in RCA: 33] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/26/2016] [Accepted: 12/17/2016] [Indexed: 11/23/2022] Open
Abstract
Goda Buticha is a cave site near Dire Dawa in southeastern Ethiopia that contains an archaeological sequence sampling the late Pleistocene and Holocene of the region. The sedimentary sequence displays complex cultural, chronological and sedimentological histories that seem incongruent with one another. A first set of radiocarbon ages suggested a long sedimentological gap from the end of Marine Isotopic Stage (MIS) 3 to the mid-Holocene. Macroscopic observations suggest that the main sedimentological change does not coincide with the chronostratigraphic hiatus. The cultural sequence shows technological continuity with a late persistence of artifacts that are usually attributed to the Middle Stone Age into the younger parts of the stratigraphic sequence, yet become increasingly associated with lithic artifacts typically related to the Later Stone Age. While not a unique case, this combination of features is unusual in the Horn of Africa. In order to evaluate the possible implications of these observations, sedimentological analyses combined with optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) were conducted. The OSL data now extend the radiocarbon chronology up to 63 ± 7 ka; they also confirm the existence of the chronological gap between 24.8 ± 2.6 ka and 7.5 ± 0.3 ka. The sedimentological analyses suggest that the origin and mode of deposition were largely similar throughout the whole sequence, although the anthropic and faunal activities increased in the younger levels. Regional climatic records are used to support the sedimentological observations and interpretations. We discuss the implications of the sedimentological and dating analyses for understanding cultural processes in the region.
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