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Yang SX, Zhang JF, Yue JP, Wood R, Guo YJ, Wang H, Luo WG, Zhang Y, Raguin E, Zhao KL, Zhang YX, Huan FX, Hou YM, Huang WW, Wang YR, Shi JM, Yuan BY, Ollé A, Queffelec A, Zhou LP, Deng CL, d'Errico F, Petraglia M. Initial Upper Palaeolithic material culture by 45,000 years ago at Shiyu in northern China. Nat Ecol Evol 2024; 8:552-563. [PMID: 38238436 DOI: 10.1038/s41559-023-02294-4] [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: 07/23/2023] [Accepted: 11/28/2023] [Indexed: 03/13/2024]
Abstract
The geographic expansion of Homo sapiens populations into southeastern Europe occurred by ∼47,000 years ago (∼47 ka), marked by Initial Upper Palaeolithic (IUP) technology. H. sapiens was present in western Siberia by ∼45 ka, and IUP industries indicate early entries by ∼50 ka in the Russian Altai and 46-45 ka in northern Mongolia. H. sapiens was in northeastern Asia by ∼40 ka, with a single IUP site in China dating to 43-41 ka. Here we describe an IUP assemblage from Shiyu in northern China, dating to ∼45 ka. Shiyu contains a stone tool assemblage produced by Levallois and Volumetric Blade Reduction methods, the long-distance transfer of obsidian from sources in China and the Russian Far East (800-1,000 km away), increased hunting skills denoted by the selective culling of adult equids and the recovery of tanged and hafted projectile points with evidence of impact fractures, and the presence of a worked bone tool and a shaped graphite disc. Shiyu exhibits a set of advanced cultural behaviours, and together with the recovery of a now-lost human cranial bone, the record supports an expansion of H. sapiens into eastern Asia by about 45 ka.
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Affiliation(s)
- Shi-Xia Yang
- Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
- Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
| | - Jia-Fu Zhang
- MOE Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China.
| | - Jian-Ping Yue
- Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- Department of History, Anhui University, Hefei, China
| | - Rachel Wood
- Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
| | - Yu-Jie Guo
- Institute of Nihewan Archaeology, College of History and Culture, Hebei Normal University, Shijiazhuang, China
| | - Han Wang
- Department of Archaeology of Graduate School of Arts and Letters, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan
| | - Wu-Gan Luo
- School of Humanities, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Yue Zhang
- Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Emeline Raguin
- Department of Biomaterials, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Potsdam, Germany
| | - Ke-Liang Zhao
- Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Yu-Xiu Zhang
- College of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Fa-Xiang Huan
- Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Ya-Mei Hou
- Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Wei-Wen Huang
- Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Yi-Ren Wang
- Shanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology, Taiyuan, China
| | | | - Bao-Yin Yuan
- State Key Laboratory of Lithospheric Evolution, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Andreu Ollé
- Institut Català de Palaeoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES-CERCA), Tarragona, Spain
- Dept. d'Història i Història de l'Art, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain
| | - Alain Queffelec
- Université de Bordeaux, PACEA UMR 5199, CNRS, Pessac, France
| | - Li-Ping Zhou
- MOE Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China
| | - Cheng-Long Deng
- College of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
- State Key Laboratory of Lithospheric Evolution, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
| | - Francesco d'Errico
- Université de Bordeaux, PACEA UMR 5199, CNRS, Pessac, France.
- Centre for Early Sapiens Behaviour (SapienCE), Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway.
| | - Michael Petraglia
- Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Griffith University, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
- School of Social Science, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
- Human Origins Program, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA.
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Taphonomic and technological analyses of Lower Palaeolithic bone tools from Clacton-on-Sea, UK. Sci Rep 2022; 12:20222. [PMID: 36418870 PMCID: PMC9684524 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-23989-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/02/2022] [Accepted: 11/09/2022] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
The exceptional survival of Middle Pleistocene wooden spears at Schöningen (Germany) and Clacton-on-Sea (UK) provides tantalizing evidence for the widespread use of organic raw materials by early humans. At Clacton, less well-known organic artefacts include modified bones that were identified by the Abbé Henri Breuil in the 1920s. Some of these pieces were described and figured by Hazzledine Warren in his classic 1951 paper on the flint industry from the Clacton Channel, but they have been either overlooked in subsequent studies or dismissed as the product of natural damage. We provide the first detailed analysis of two Clactonian bone tools found by Warren and a previously unrecognized example recovered in 1934 during excavations directed by Mary Leakey. Microscopic examination of percussion damage suggests the bones were used as knapping hammers to shape or resharpen flake tools. Early Palaeolithic bone tools are exceedingly rare, and the Clacton examples are the earliest known organic knapping hammers associated with a core-and-flake (Mode 1) lithic technology. The use of soft hammers for knapping challenges the consensus that Clactonian flintknapping was undertaken solely with hard hammerstones, thus removing a major technological and behavioural difference used to distinguish the Clactonian from late Acheulean handaxe (Mode 2) industries.
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Technological and functional analysis of 80-60 ka bone wedges from Sibudu (KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa). Sci Rep 2022; 12:16270. [PMID: 36175454 PMCID: PMC9523071 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-20680-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/08/2022] [Accepted: 09/16/2022] [Indexed: 11/08/2022] Open
Abstract
Fully shaped, morphologically standardized bone tools are generally considered reliable indicators of the emergence of modern behavior. We report the discovery of 23 double-beveled bone tools from ~ 80,000-60,000-year-old archaeological layers at Sibudu Cave in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. We analyzed the texture of use-wear on the archaeological bone tools, and on bone tool replicas experimentally used in debarking trees, processing rabbit pelts with and without an ochre compound, digging in sediment in and outside a cave, and on ethnographic artefacts. Debarking trees and digging in humus-rich soil produce use-wear patterns closely matching those observed on most Sibudu tools. This tool type is associated with three different Middle Stone Age cultural traditions at Sibudu that span 20,000 years, yet they are absent at contemporaneous sites. Our results support a scenario in which some southern African early modern human groups developed and locally maintained specific, highly standardized cultural traits while sharing others at a sub-continental scale. We demonstrate that technological and texture analyses are effective means by which to infer past behaviors and assess the significance of prehistoric cultural innovations.
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