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Saltré F, Chadœuf J, Higham T, Ochocki M, Block S, Bunney E, Llamas B, Bradshaw CJA. Environmental conditions associated with initial northern expansion of anatomically modern humans. Nat Commun 2024; 15:4364. [PMID: 38777837 PMCID: PMC11111671 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-48762-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/28/2022] [Accepted: 05/14/2024] [Indexed: 05/25/2024] Open
Abstract
The ability of our ancestors to switch food sources and to migrate to more favourable environments enabled the rapid global expansion of anatomically modern humans beyond Africa as early as 120,000 years ago. Whether this versatility was largely the result of environmentally determined processes or was instead dominated by cultural drivers, social structures, and interactions among different groups, is unclear. We develop a statistical approach that combines both archaeological and genetic data to infer the more-likely initial expansion routes in northern Eurasia and the Americas. We then quantify the main differences in past environmental conditions between the more-likely routes and other potential (less-likely) routes of expansion. We establish that, even though cultural drivers remain plausible at finer scales, the emergent migration corridors were predominantly constrained by a combination of regional environmental conditions, including the presence of a forest-grassland ecotone, changes in temperature and precipitation, and proximity to rivers.
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Affiliation(s)
- Frédérik Saltré
- Global Ecology | Partuyarta Ngadluku Wardli Kuu, College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide, SA, 5001, Australia.
- Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
| | - Joël Chadœuf
- UR 1052, French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA), Montfavet, France
| | - Thomas Higham
- Department of Evolutionary Biology, University of Vienna, University Biology Building, Carl Djerassi Platz 1, A-1030, Wien, Austria
- Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3TG, UK
| | - Monty Ochocki
- Department of Evolutionary Biology, University of Vienna, University Biology Building, Carl Djerassi Platz 1, A-1030, Wien, Austria
- Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3TG, UK
| | - Sebastián Block
- Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08544-1003, USA
| | - Ellyse Bunney
- Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Urrbrae, SA, 5064, Australia
| | - Bastien Llamas
- Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Wollongong, NSW, Australia
- Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, School of Biological Sciences, The Environment Institute, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, 5005, Australia
- National Centre for Indigenous Genomics, John Curtin School of Medical Research, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia
- Indigenous Genomics, Telethon Kids Institute, Adelaide, SA, 5000, Australia
| | - Corey J A Bradshaw
- Global Ecology | Partuyarta Ngadluku Wardli Kuu, College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide, SA, 5001, Australia
- Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Wollongong, NSW, Australia
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Salles T, Joannes-Boyau R, Moffat I, Husson L, Lorcery M. Physiography, foraging mobility, and the first peopling of Sahul. Nat Commun 2024; 15:3430. [PMID: 38653772 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-47662-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/27/2023] [Accepted: 04/09/2024] [Indexed: 04/25/2024] Open
Abstract
The route and speed of migration into Sahul by Homo sapiens remain a major research question in archaeology. Here, we introduce an approach which models the impact of the physical environment on human mobility by combining time-evolving landscapes with Lévy walk foraging patterns, this latter accounting for a combination of short-distance steps and occasional longer moves that hunter-gatherers likely utilised for efficient exploration of new environments. Our results suggest a wave of dispersal radiating across Sahul following riverine corridors and coastlines. Estimated migration speeds, based on archaeological sites and predicted travelled distances, fall within previously reported range from Sahul and other regions. From our mechanistic movement simulations, we then analyse the likelihood of archaeological sites and highlight areas in Australia that hold archaeological potential. Our approach complements existing methods and provides interesting perspectives on the Pleistocene archaeology of Sahul that could be applied to other regions around the world.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tristan Salles
- School of Geosciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia.
| | - Renaud Joannes-Boyau
- Geoarchaeology and Archaeometry Research Group, Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW, Australia
| | - Ian Moffat
- Geoarchaeology and Archaeometry Research Group, Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW, Australia
- Archaeology, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia
| | - Laurent Husson
- ISTerre, CNRS, Université Grenoble-Alpes, Grenoble, France
| | - Manon Lorcery
- School of Geosciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia
- ISTerre, CNRS, Université Grenoble-Alpes, Grenoble, France
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Chambers SN, Boyce GA, Martínez DE, Bongers CCWG, Keith L. The contribution of physical exertion to heat-related illness and death in the Arizona borderlands. Spat Spatiotemporal Epidemiol 2023; 46:100590. [PMID: 37500227 DOI: 10.1016/j.sste.2023.100590] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/21/2023] [Revised: 05/11/2023] [Accepted: 05/31/2023] [Indexed: 07/29/2023]
Abstract
Recent studies and reports suggest an increased mortality rate of undocumented border crossers (UBCs) in Arizona is the result of heat extremes and climatic change. Conversely, others have shown that deaths have occurred in cooler environments than in previous years. We hypothesized that human locomotion plays a greater role in heat-related mortality and that such events are not simply the result of exposure. To test our hypothesis, we used a postmortem geographic application of the human heat balance equation for 2,746 UBC deaths between 1990 and 2022 and performed regression and cluster analyses to assess the impacts of ambient temperature and exertion. Results demonstrate exertion having greater explaining power, suggesting that heat-related mortality among UBCs is not simply a function of extreme temperatures, but more so a result of the required physical exertion. Additionally, the power of these variables is not static but changes with place, time, and policy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Samuel N Chambers
- Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, The University of Arizona, Tucson AZ, USA.
| | | | - Daniel E Martínez
- School of Sociology, College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, The University of Arizona, Tucson AZ, USA
| | - Coen C W G Bongers
- School of Sport and Exercise, HAN University of Applied Sciences, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Department of Medical BioSciences, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Ladd Keith
- School of Landscape Architecture and Planning, The University of Arizona, Tucson AZ, USA
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Crabtree SA, Dunne JA. Towards a science of archaeoecology. Trends Ecol Evol 2022; 37:976-984. [PMID: 36055892 DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2022.07.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/14/2022] [Revised: 07/14/2022] [Accepted: 07/18/2022] [Indexed: 01/18/2023]
Abstract
We propose defining a field of research called 'archaeoecology' that examines the past ~60 000 years of interactions between humans and ecosystems to better understand the human place within them. Archaeoecology explicitly integrates questions, data, and approaches from archaeology and ecology, and coalesces recent and future studies that demonstrate the usefulness of integrating archaeological, environmental, and ecological data for understanding the past. Defining a subfield of archaeoecology, much as the related fields of environmental archaeology and palaeoecology have emerged as distinct areas of research, provides a clear intellectual context for helping us to understand the trajectory of human-ecosystem interactions in the past, during the present, and into the future.
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Affiliation(s)
- Stefani A Crabtree
- Department of Environment and Society, College of Natural Resources, Utah State University, 5200 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT 84322-5200, USA; The Ecology Center, Utah State University, 5205 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT 84322-5200, USA; Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Road, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA; Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, James Cook University, PO Box 6811, Cairns, QLD 4870, Australia; Crow Canyon Research Institute, 23390 County Road K, Cortez, CO 81321, USA.
| | - Jennifer A Dunne
- Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Road, Santa Fe, NM 87501, USA.
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Bradshaw CJA, Norman K, Ulm S, Williams AN, Clarkson C, Chadœuf J, Lin SC, Jacobs Z, Roberts RG, Bird MI, Weyrich LS, Haberle SG, O'Connor S, Llamas B, Cohen TJ, Friedrich T, Veth P, Leavesley M, Saltré F. Stochastic models support rapid peopling of Late Pleistocene Sahul. Nat Commun 2021; 12:2440. [PMID: 33927195 PMCID: PMC8085232 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-21551-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/20/2020] [Accepted: 02/02/2021] [Indexed: 02/02/2023] Open
Abstract
The peopling of Sahul (the combined continent of Australia and New Guinea) represents the earliest continental migration and settlement event of solely anatomically modern humans, but its patterns and ecological drivers remain largely conceptual in the current literature. We present an advanced stochastic-ecological model to test the relative support for scenarios describing where and when the first humans entered Sahul, and their most probable routes of early settlement. The model supports a dominant entry via the northwest Sahul Shelf first, potentially followed by a second entry through New Guinea, with initial entry most consistent with 50,000 or 75,000 years ago based on comparison with bias-corrected archaeological map layers. The model's emergent properties predict that peopling of the entire continent occurred rapidly across all ecological environments within 156-208 human generations (4368-5599 years) and at a plausible rate of 0.71-0.92 km year-1. More broadly, our methods and approaches can readily inform other global migration debates, with results supporting an exit of anatomically modern humans from Africa 63,000-90,000 years ago, and the peopling of Eurasia in as little as 12,000-15,000 years via inland routes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Corey J A Bradshaw
- Global Ecology, College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia.
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Wollongong, NSW, Australia.
| | - Kasih Norman
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Wollongong, NSW, Australia
- Centre for Archaeological Science, School of Earth, Atmospheric and Life Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, Australia
| | - Sean Ulm
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Wollongong, NSW, Australia
- College of Arts, Society and Education, James Cook University, Cairns, QLD, Australia
| | - Alan N Williams
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Wollongong, NSW, Australia
- Climate Change Research Centre, School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia
- EMM Consulting, St Leonards, NSW, Australia
| | - Chris Clarkson
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Wollongong, NSW, Australia
- School of Social Science, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
- Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany
- Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, Australia
| | - Joël Chadœuf
- UR 1052, French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA), Montfavet, France
| | - Sam C Lin
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Wollongong, NSW, Australia
- Centre for Archaeological Science, School of Earth, Atmospheric and Life Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, Australia
| | - Zenobia Jacobs
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Wollongong, NSW, Australia
- Centre for Archaeological Science, School of Earth, Atmospheric and Life Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, Australia
| | - Richard G Roberts
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Wollongong, NSW, Australia
- Centre for Archaeological Science, School of Earth, Atmospheric and Life Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, Australia
| | - Michael I Bird
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Wollongong, NSW, Australia
- College of Science and Engineering, James Cook University, Cairns, QLD, Australia
| | - Laura S Weyrich
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Wollongong, NSW, Australia
- Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA
| | - Simon G Haberle
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Wollongong, NSW, Australia
- Department of Archaeology and Natural History, School of Culture, History and Language, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia
| | - Sue O'Connor
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Wollongong, NSW, Australia
- Department of Archaeology and Natural History, School of Culture, History and Language, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia
| | - Bastien Llamas
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Wollongong, NSW, Australia
- School of Biological Sciences, Environment Institute, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia
- National Centre for Indigenous Genomics, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia
| | - Tim J Cohen
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Wollongong, NSW, Australia
- Centre for Archaeological Science, School of Earth, Atmospheric and Life Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, Australia
| | - Tobias Friedrich
- Department of Oceanography, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawai'i, USA
| | - Peter Veth
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Wollongong, NSW, Australia
- Archaeology and the Centre for Rock Art Research and Management M257, School of Social Sciences, University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, Australia
| | - Matthew Leavesley
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Wollongong, NSW, Australia
- College of Arts, Society and Education, James Cook University, Cairns, QLD, Australia
- Department of Anthropology and Sociology, University of Papua New Guinea, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea
| | - Frédérik Saltré
- Global Ecology, College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, Australia
- ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Wollongong, NSW, Australia
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