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The Cyrenaican Prehistory Project 2012: the fifth season of investigations of the Haua Fteah cave. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2014. [DOI: 10.1017/s026371890000008x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 45] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
Abstract
AbstractThe paper reports on the fifth (2012) season of fieldwork of the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project. The primary focus of the season was the continuation of the excavation of the prehistoric occupation layers in the Haua Fteah cave. A small trench (Trench U) was cut into Holocene (Neolithic) sediments exposed on the south wall of Charles McBurney's Upper Trench. Below this, the excavation of Trench M was continued, on the southern side of McBurney's Middle Trench. In previous seasons we had excavated Oranian ‘Epipalaeolithic’ layers dating toc.18,000–10,000 BP (years before the present). In 2012 the excavation continued downwards through Dabban ‘Upper Palaeolithic’ occupation layers, one of which was associated with a post-built structure and likely hearths. There are indications of an occupational hiatus separating the oldest Dabban from the youngest Levallois-Mousterian (Middle Palaeolithic or Middle Stone Age) lithic material. The Deep Sounding excavated by Charles McBurney in 1955 was cleared of backfill to its base, and its south-facing wall was recorded in detail and sampled extensively for materials for dating and palaeoenvironmental reconstruction. McBurney believed that he had reached bedrock at the base of the Deep Sounding, but a small sounding (Trench S) cut into the sediments below this level found further, albeit sparse, evidence for human occupation. Whilst the antiquity of ‘Pre-Aurignacian’ human occupation at the site still needs to be resolved, it seems likely to reach back at least to Marine Isotope Stage 5e, the beginning of the last interglacial (c.130,000–115,000 BP). Important finds from the 2012 excavations in terms of the behavioural complexity of the human groups using the cave include a possible worked bone point from a Pre-Aurignacian layer and a granite rubbing stone in a Dabban layer from a source over 600 km from the cave.
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Douka K, Jacobs Z, Lane C, Grün R, Farr L, Hunt C, Inglis RH, Reynolds T, Albert P, Aubert M, Cullen V, Hill E, Kinsley L, Roberts RG, Tomlinson EL, Wulf S, Barker G. The chronostratigraphy of the Haua Fteah cave (Cyrenaica, northeast Libya). J Hum Evol 2013; 66:39-63. [PMID: 24331954 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2013.10.001] [Citation(s) in RCA: 102] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/07/2012] [Revised: 10/25/2013] [Accepted: 10/25/2013] [Indexed: 11/16/2022]
Abstract
The 1950s excavations by Charles McBurney in the Haua Fteah, a large karstic cave on the coast of northeast Libya, revealed a deep sequence of human occupation. Most subsequent research on North African prehistory refers to his discoveries and interpretations, but the chronology of its archaeological and geological sequences has been based on very early age determinations. This paper reports on the initial results of a comprehensive multi-method dating program undertaken as part of new work at the site, involving radiocarbon dating of charcoal, land snails and marine shell, cryptotephra investigations, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of sediments, and electron spin resonance (ESR) dating of tooth enamel. The dating samples were collected from the newly exposed and cleaned faces of the upper 7.5 m of the ∼14.0 m-deep McBurney trench, which contain six of the seven major cultural phases that he identified. Despite problems of sediment transport and reworking, using a Bayesian statistical model the new dating program establishes a robust framework for the five major lithostratigraphic units identified in the stratigraphic succession, and for the major cultural units. The age of two anatomically modern human mandibles found by McBurney in Layer XXXIII near the base of his Levalloiso-Mousterian phase can now be estimated to between 73 and 65 ka (thousands of years ago) at the 95.4% confidence level, within Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 4. McBurney's Layer XXV, associated with Upper Palaeolithic Dabban blade industries, has a clear stratigraphic relationship with Campanian Ignimbrite tephra. Microlithic Oranian technologies developed following the climax of the Last Glacial Maximum and the more microlithic Capsian in the Younger Dryas. Neolithic pottery and perhaps domestic livestock were used in the cave from the mid Holocene but there is no certain evidence for plant cultivation until the Graeco-Roman period.
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Affiliation(s)
- Katerina Douka
- Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK.
| | - Zenobia Jacobs
- Centre for Archaeological Science, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia.
| | - Christine Lane
- Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK.
| | - Rainer Grün
- Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra 0200, Australia.
| | - Lucy Farr
- McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3ER, UK.
| | - Chris Hunt
- School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, Ireland.
| | - Robyn H Inglis
- Department of Archaeology, University of York, King's Manor, York YO1 7EP, UK.
| | - Tim Reynolds
- Department of History, Classics and Archaeology, Birkbeck College, University of London, 26 Russell Square, London WC1B 5DQ, UK.
| | - Paul Albert
- Department of Earth Sciences, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham TW20 0EX, UK.
| | - Maxime Aubert
- Centre for Archaeological Science, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia.
| | - Victoria Cullen
- Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Dyson Perrins Building, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3QY, UK.
| | - Evan Hill
- School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, Ireland.
| | - Leslie Kinsley
- Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra 0200, Australia.
| | - Richard G Roberts
- Centre for Archaeological Science, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia.
| | - Emma L Tomlinson
- Department of Geology, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Ireland; Department of Earth Sciences, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham TW20 0EX, UK.
| | - Sabine Wulf
- GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Section 5.2 - Climate Dynamics and Landscape Evolution, Telegrafenberg, D-14473 Potsdam, Germany.
| | - Graeme Barker
- McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 3ER, UK.
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Volcanic ash layers illuminate the resilience of Neanderthals and early modern humans to natural hazards. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2012; 109:13532-7. [PMID: 22826222 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1204579109] [Citation(s) in RCA: 154] [Impact Index Per Article: 12.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Marked changes in human dispersal and development during the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition have been attributed to massive volcanic eruption and/or severe climatic deterioration. We test this concept using records of volcanic ash layers of the Campanian Ignimbrite eruption dated to ca. 40,000 y ago (40 ka B.P.). The distribution of the Campanian Ignimbrite has been enhanced by the discovery of cryptotephra deposits (volcanic ash layers that are not visible to the naked eye) in archaeological cave sequences. They enable us to synchronize archaeological and paleoclimatic records through the period of transition from Neanderthal to the earliest anatomically modern human populations in Europe. Our results confirm that the combined effects of a major volcanic eruption and severe climatic cooling failed to have lasting impacts on Neanderthals or early modern humans in Europe. We infer that modern humans proved a greater competitive threat to indigenous populations than natural disasters.
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