tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/human-origins-20798/articlesHuman origins – The Conversation2024-01-04T10:27:36Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2188332024-01-04T10:27:36Z2024-01-04T10:27:36ZAfricans discovered dinosaur fossils long before the term ‘palaeontology’ existed<p>Credit for discovering the first dinosaur bones usually goes to British gentlemen for their finds between the 17th and 19th centuries in England. <a href="http://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/learning/htmls/plot.htm">Robert Plot</a>, an English natural history scholar, was the first of these to <a href="https://www.amnh.org/explore/videos/dinosaurs-and-fossils/who-discovered-the-first-dinosaur-fossils?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share-from-amnh-org">describe</a> a dinosaur bone, in his 1676 book The Natural History of Oxfordshire. Over the next two centuries dinosaur palaeontology would be dominated by numerous British natural scientists. </p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.lyellcollection.org/doi/10.1144/SP543-2022-236">our study</a> shows that the history of palaeontology can be traced back much further into the past. We present evidence that the first dinosaur bone may have been discovered in Africa as early as 500 years before Plot’s.</p>
<p>We’re a team of scientists who study fossils in South Africa. Peering through the published and unpublished archaeological, historical and palaeontological literature, we discovered that there has been interest in fossils in Africa for as long as there have been people on the continent. </p>
<p>This is not a surprise. Humankind originated in Africa: <em>Homo sapiens</em> has existed for at least <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature22336">300,000 years</a>. And the continent has a great diversity of rock outcrops, such as the Kem Kem beds in Morocco, the Fayum depression in Egypt, the Rift Valley in <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-maasai-legend-behind-ancient-hominin-footprints-in-tanzania-119373">east Africa</a> and the Karoo in southern Africa, containing fossils that have always been accessible to our ancestors. </p>
<p>So it wasn’t just likely that African people discovered fossils first. It was inevitable.</p>
<p>More often than not, the first dinosaur fossils supposedly discovered by scientists were actually brought to their attention by local guides. Examples are the discovery of the gigantic dinosaurs <a href="https://kids.britannica.com/students/article/Jobaria/390687"><em>Jobaria</em></a> by the Tuaregs in Niger and <a href="https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/542624-Giraffatitan"><em>Giraffatitan</em></a> by the Mwera in Tanzania.</p>
<p>Our paper reviews what’s known about African indigenous knowledge of fossils. We list fossils that appear to have long been known at various African sites, and discuss how they might have been used and interpreted by African communities before the science of palaeontology came to be.</p>
<h2>Bolahla rock shelter in Lesotho</h2>
<p>One of the highlights of our paper is the archaeological site of Bolahla, a Later Stone Age rock shelter in Lesotho. Various dating techniques indicate that the site was occupied by the Khoesan and Basotho people from the 12th to 18th centuries (1100 to 1700 AD). The shelter itself is surrounded by hills made of consolidated sediments that were deposited under a harsh Sahara-like desert some 180 million to 200 million years ago, when the first dinosaurs roamed the Earth. </p>
<p>This part of Lesotho is particularly well known for delivering the species <em>Massospondylus carinatus</em>, a 4 to 6 metre, long-necked and small-headed dinosaur. Fossilised bones of <em>Massospondylus</em> are abundant in the area and were already so when the site was occupied by people in the Middle Ages. </p>
<p>In 1990, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3889171">archaeologists</a> working at Bolahla discovered that a finger bone of <em>Massospondylus</em>, a fossil phalanx, had been transported to the cave. There are no fossil skeletons sticking out the walls of the cave, so the only chance that this phalanx ended up there was that someone in the distant past picked it up and carried it to the cave. Perhaps this person did so out of simple curiosity, or to turn it into a pendant or toy, or to use it for traditional healing rituals. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dinosaur-tracksite-in-lesotho-how-a-wrong-turn-led-to-an-exciting-find-208963">Dinosaur tracksite in Lesotho: how a wrong turn led to an exciting find</a>
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<p>After heavy rains, it is not unusual that the people in the area discover the bones of extinct species that have been washed out of their mother-rock. They usually identify them as belonging to a dragon-like monster that devours people or even whole houses. In Lesotho, the Basotho call the monster “Kholumolumo”, while in South Africa’s bordering Eastern Cape province, the Xhosa refer to it as “<a href="https://chosindabazomhlaba.com/2022/03/29/ukufika-kwamacikilishe-angamagongqongqo/">Amagongqongqo</a>”.</p>
<p>The exact date when the phalanx was collected and transported is unfortunately lost to time. Given the current knowledge, it could have been at any time of occupation of the shelter from the 12th to 18th centuries. This leaves open the possibility that this dinosaur bone could have been collected up to 500 years prior to Robert Plot’s find.</p>
<h2>Early knowledge of extinct creatures</h2>
<p>Most people knew about fossils well before the scientific era, for as far back as collective societal memories can go. In Algeria, for example, people referred to some dinosaur footprints as belonging to the legendary “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10420940109380182">Roc bird</a>”. In North America, cave paintings depicting dinosaur footprints were painted by the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10420940109380182">Anasazi people</a> between AD 1000 and 1200. Indigenous Australians identified dinosaur footprints as belonging to a legendary “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10420940109380182">Emu-man</a>”. To the south, the notorious conquistador Hernan Cortes was given the fossil femur of a Mastodon by the <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Fossil_Legends_of_the_First_Americans.html?id=CMsgQQkmFqQC&redir_esc=y">Aztecs</a> in 1519. In Asia, Hindu people refer to ammonites (coiled fossil-sea-shells) as “<a href="https://theconversation.com/shaligrams-the-sacred-fossils-that-have-been-worshipped-by-hindus-and-buddhists-for-over-2-000-years-are-becoming-rarer-because-of-climate-change-209311">Shaligrams</a>” and have been worshipping them for more than 2,000 years. </p>
<h2>Claiming credit</h2>
<p>The fact that people in Africa have long known about fossils is evident from folklore and the archaeological record, but we still have much to learn about it. For instance, unlike the people in Europe, the Americas and Asia, indigenous African palaeontologists seem to have seldom used fossils for traditional medicine. We are still unsure whether this is a genuinely unique cultural trait shared by most African cultures or if it is due to our admittedly still incomplete knowledge. </p>
<p>Also, some rather prominent fossil sites, such as the Moroccan Kem Kem beds and South African Unesco <a href="https://www.maropeng.co.za/content/page/introduction-to-your-visit-to-the-cradle-of-humankind-world-heritage-site">Cradle of Humankind</a> caves, have still not provided robust evidence for indigenous knowledge. This is unfortunate, as fossil-related traditions could help bridge the gap between local communities and palaeontologists, which in turn could contribute <a href="https://theconversation.com/graffiti-threatens-precious-evidence-of-ancient-life-on-south-africas-coast-157777">preserving</a> important heritage sites.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/rock-stars-how-a-group-of-scientists-in-south-africa-rescued-a-rare-500kg-chunk-of-human-history-192508">Rock stars: how a group of scientists in South Africa rescued a rare 500kg chunk of human history</a>
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<p>By exploring indigenous palaeontology in Africa, our team is putting together pieces of a forgotten past that gives credit back to local communities. We hope it will inspire a new generation of local palaeoscientists to walk in the footsteps of these first African fossil hunters.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218833/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julien Benoit receives funding from the DSI-NRF African Origins Platform program and GENUS (DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences) </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cameron Penn-Clarke receives funding from GENUS (DSI-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charles Helm does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Some time between 1100 and 1700 AD, a Massospondylus bone was discovered and carried to a rock shelter in Lesotho.Julien Benoit, Senior Researcher in Vertebrate Palaeontology, University of the WitwatersrandCameron Penn-Clarke, Senior Researcher, University of the WitwatersrandCharles Helm, Research Associate, African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience, Nelson Mandela UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2062322023-06-13T20:05:08Z2023-06-13T20:05:08ZBones, the ‘Cave of the Monkeys’ and 86,000 years of history: new evidence pushes back the timing of human arrival in Southeast Asia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/528694/original/file-20230528-27-d2uomq.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5184%2C3453&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kira Westaway</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2009, when our team first found a human skull and jaw bone in Tam Pà Ling Cave in northern Laos, some were sceptical of its origin and true age. </p>
<p>When we published a <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1208104109">timeline</a> in 2012 for the arrival of modern humans in mainland Asia around 46,000 years ago based on the Tam Pà Ling evidence, the sceptics remained.</p>
<p>In short, the site was given a bad rap. One of the most interesting caves in mainland Southeast Asia was frequently overlooked as a possible route on the accepted path of human dispersal in the region. </p>
<p>However, in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-38715-y">new research</a> published today in Nature Communications, we report more human remains found in Tam Pà Ling – and a more detailed and robust timeline for the site. This shows humans reached the region at least 68,000 years ago, and possibly as long as 86,000 years ago.</p>
<h2>Plenty of evidence, but hard to date</h2>
<p>Our team of Laotian, French, US and Australian researchers has been excavating at Tam Pà Ling for many years. You can see a detailed, interactive 3D scan of the site <a href="https://mq.pedestal3d.com/r/0DH2py28jD">here</a>.</p>
<p>As we dug, we found more and more evidence of <em>Homo sapiens</em> at earlier and earlier times. </p>
<p>First there was a finger bone, then roughly 2.5 metres deeper, a chin bone, then part of a rib. In total, eight pieces were found in only 4.5 metres of sediment – which may not sound like a lot, but is huge in archaeological terms.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531223/original/file-20230611-22144-nb009s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A diagram showing a cave in a rocky hill." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531223/original/file-20230611-22144-nb009s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531223/original/file-20230611-22144-nb009s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531223/original/file-20230611-22144-nb009s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531223/original/file-20230611-22144-nb009s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=484&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531223/original/file-20230611-22144-nb009s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531223/original/file-20230611-22144-nb009s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531223/original/file-20230611-22144-nb009s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=608&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A cross-sectional view of the Tam Pà Ling cave, showing the location of the trench where remains were found.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-38715-y">Freidline et al. / Nature Communications</a></span>
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<p>Surely, we thought, this would be enough for Tam Pà Ling to take its place among the early human arrival sites in Southeast Asia.</p>
<p>But a hurdle remained: the cave is hard to date. This has prevented its significance being recognised, and without a convincing timeline the cave’s evidence will not be included in the debate over early human movements.</p>
<h2>Many common dating methods can’t be used</h2>
<p>There are a few difficulties with dating Tam Pà Ling. </p>
<p>First, the human fossils cannot be directly dated as the site is a world heritage area and the fossils are protected by Laotian laws. </p>
<p>Second, there are very few animal bones and no suitable cave decorations, either of which might be used for dating.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531222/original/file-20230611-158977-iblgu4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A photo from inside a cave, looking up a rocky slope to daylight outside." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531222/original/file-20230611-158977-iblgu4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531222/original/file-20230611-158977-iblgu4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531222/original/file-20230611-158977-iblgu4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531222/original/file-20230611-158977-iblgu4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531222/original/file-20230611-158977-iblgu4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531222/original/file-20230611-158977-iblgu4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531222/original/file-20230611-158977-iblgu4.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The wide, steep entrance to Tam Pà Ling channelled sediments and fossils into the cave over a long time period.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kira Westaway</span></span>
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<p>And third, the entrance of the site is wide and steep. This means any charcoal found in the cave, which is useful for dating, may well have come from outside – so it has little relation to the age of the sediment inside.</p>
<p>This means the backbone of the timeline must be established by the dating of the sediment itself, using techniques such as luminescence dating.</p>
<h2>Signals in buried minerals</h2>
<p>Luminescence dating relies on a light-sensitive signal that builds up in buried sediment, resetting to zero when it is exposed to light.</p>
<p>This technique mainly uses two minerals: quartz and feldspar. </p>
<p>Quartz can only be used in the younger levels as it is limited by how much signal it can hold. In the deeper layers it can often underestimate the age, so in Tam Pà Ling we only used quartz to date the top three metres of the sediment. </p>
<p>For the lower levels (four to seven metres), we had to switch to dating using feldspar to fill in the gap in the age profile. Below six metres the feldspar grains started to weather and we had to resort to fine-grain dating, using tiny mineral grains all mixed together. </p>
<h2>Dating teeth</h2>
<p>Tam Pà Ling is relatively poor in animal evidence. Yet, eventually two teeth from a cow-like animal were unearthed at 6.5 metres deep that could be dated using two distinct techniques. </p>
<p>Uranium series dating works by measuring uranium, and the elements into which it transforms via radioactive decay, within the tooth. Electron spin resonance dating relies on measuring the number of electrons in tooth enamel. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/old-teeth-from-a-rediscovered-cave-show-humans-were-in-indonesia-more-than-63-000-years-ago-82075">Old teeth from a rediscovered cave show humans were in Indonesia more than 63,000 years ago</a>
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<p>Each technique offers an individual numerical age for the fossil. By combining the two, we obtained robust direct dates, which can complement the luminescence chronology. </p>
<h2>A closer look at sediment</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531224/original/file-20230611-150540-ohn2oi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A photo of archaeologists at work in a cave." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531224/original/file-20230611-150540-ohn2oi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/531224/original/file-20230611-150540-ohn2oi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531224/original/file-20230611-150540-ohn2oi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531224/original/file-20230611-150540-ohn2oi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531224/original/file-20230611-150540-ohn2oi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531224/original/file-20230611-150540-ohn2oi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/531224/original/file-20230611-150540-ohn2oi.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Archaeologists have returned to Tam Pà Ling regularly, steadily accumulating more evidence from a deep 7 m excavation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kira Westaway</span></span>
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<p>To make the dating as strong as possible, we used every technique we could, such as applying uranium series dating to a stalactite tip that had been buried in sediment. </p>
<p>We also began to support all our dating evidence with a very detailed analysis of the sediments to assess the origin of the fossils. </p>
<p>Micromorphology is a technique that examines sediments under a microscope to establish the integrity of the layers that buried the fossils. </p>
<p>This is a key component of the new chronology, as it helped establish that there was a fairly consistent accumulation of sediment layers over a long period. </p>
<p>By 2022, we had amassed an array of dating evidence that could be modelled to determine the exact age of each layer and the fossils they buried. </p>
<h2>A stop on the route of human dispersal</h2>
<p>Our updated chronology revealed humans were present in the vicinity of Tam Pà Ling Cave for roughly 56,000 years. It also confirmed that, far from reflecting a rapid dump of sediments, the site contains sediments that accumulated steadily over some 86,000 years.</p>
<p>The age of the lowest fossil, a fragment of a leg bone found seven metres deep, suggests modern humans arrived in this region between 86,000 and 68,000 years ago.</p>
<p>The evidence from Tam Pà Ling has pushed back the timing of <em>Homo sapiens</em> arrival in Southeast Asia. This suggests the mainland, along with the coastal and island locations, may have also been a viable dispersal route. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-fossil-tooth-places-enigmatic-ancient-humans-in-southeast-asia-179290">A fossil tooth places enigmatic ancient humans in Southeast Asia</a>
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<p>Tam Pà Ling is just a stone’s throw from Cobra Cave, where we found a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29923-z">tooth</a> some 150,000 years old belonging to a Denisovan, the now-extinct human relatives otherwise known only from remains found in Siberia and Tibet. This suggests the site may lie on a previously used dispersal route among hominins.</p>
<p>Tam Pà Ling continues to reveal pieces of the puzzle of the ancient human journey across the world. Only time will tell how many more it has in store.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206232/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kira Westaway receives funding from Australian Research Council</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Meghan McAllister-Hayward receives funding from Flinders University College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences and the ARC Future Fellowship awarded to Associate Professor Mike Morley. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike W Morley receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Renaud Joannes-Boyau receives funding from the Australian Research Council </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vito C. Hernandez receives funding from the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences of Flinders University, and the ARC Future Fellowship grant of Associate Professor Mike Morley.</span></em></p>New evidence from contested Laos cave site shows humans reached Southeast Asia at least 68,000 years ago.Kira Westaway, Associate Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie UniversityMeghan McAllister-Hayward, PhD CandidateMike W. Morley, Associate Professor, Flinders UniversityRenaud Joannes-Boyau, Associate Professor, Southern Cross UniversityVito C. Hernandez, Geoarchaeologist and Postgraduate Research Scholar, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2053102023-05-23T13:57:46Z2023-05-23T13:57:46ZWorld’s oldest ‘Homo sapiens’ footprint identified on South Africa’s Cape south coast<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526199/original/file-20230515-12409-7oogjm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The oldest known footprint of our species, lightly ringed with chalk. It appears long and narrow because the trackmaker dragged their heel.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Charles Helm</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Just over two decades ago, as the new millennium began, it seemed that tracks left by our ancient human ancestors dating back more than about 50,000 years were excessively rare. </p>
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<p>Only four sites had been reported in the whole of Africa at that time. Two were from East Africa: <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/278317a0">Laetoli in Tanzania</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/289167a0">Koobi Fora in Kenya</a>; two were from South Africa (<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10420940802470482">Nahoon and Langebaan</a>). In fact the Nahoon site, reported in 1966, was the first hominin tracksite ever to be described.</p>
<p>In 2023 the situation is very different. It appears that people were not looking hard enough or were not looking in the right places. Today the African tally for dated hominin ichnosites (a term that includes both tracks and other traces) older than 50,000 years stands at 14. These can conveniently be divided into an East African cluster (five sites) and a South African cluster from the Cape coast (nine sites). There are a further ten sites elsewhere in the world including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0088329">the UK</a> and the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aba8940">Arabian Peninsula</a>.</p>
<p>Given that relatively few skeletal hominin remains have been found on the Cape coast, the traces left by our human ancestors as they moved about ancient landscapes are a useful way to complement and enhance our understanding of ancient hominins in Africa.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10420940.2023.2204231">recently published article</a> in <em>Ichnos</em>, the international journal of trace fossils, we provided the ages of seven newly dated hominin ichnosites that we have identified in the past five years on South Africa’s Cape south coast. These sites now form part of the “South African cluster” of nine sites. </p>
<p>We found that the sites ranged in age; the most recent dates back about 71,000 years. The oldest, which dates back 153,000 years, is one of the more remarkable finds recorded in this study: it is the oldest footprint thus far attributed to our species, <em>Homo sapiens</em>.</p>
<p>The new dates corroborate the archaeological record. Along with other evidence from the area and time period, including the development of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11660">sophisticated stone tools</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2009.01.005">art</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2004.09.002">jewellery</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2010.07.011">harvesting of shellfish</a>, it confirms that the Cape south coast was an area in which early anatomically modern humans survived, evolved and thrived, before spreading out of Africa to other continents.</p>
<h2>Very different sites</h2>
<p>There are significant differences between the East African and South African tracksite clusters. The East African sites are much older: Laetoli, the oldest, is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9956-3_4">3.66 million years old</a> and the youngest is <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-21158-7">0.7 million years old</a>. The tracks were not made by <em>Homo sapiens</em>, but by earlier species such as australopithecines, <em>Homo heidelbergensis</em> and <em>Homo erectus</em>. For the most part, the surfaces on which the East African tracks occur have had to be laboriously and meticulously excavated and exposed. </p>
<p>The South African sites on the Cape coast, by contrast, are substantially younger. All have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-22059-5%20https://doi.org/10.17159/sajs.2020/8156">been attributed</a> to <em>Homo sapiens</em>. And the tracks tend to be fully exposed when they’re discovered, in rocks known as aeolianites, which are the cemented versions of ancient dunes. </p>
<p>Excavation is therefore not usually considered – and because of the sites’ exposure to the elements and the relatively coarse nature of dune sand, they aren’t usually as well preserved as the East African sites. They are also vulnerable to erosion, so we often have to work fast to record and analyse them before they are destroyed by the ocean and the wind.</p>
<p>While this limits the potential for detailed interpretation, we can have the deposits dated. That’s where optically stimulated luminescence comes in.</p>
<h2>An illuminating method</h2>
<p>A key challenge when studying the palaeo-record – trackways, fossils, or any other kind of ancient sediment – is determining how old the materials are. </p>
<p>Without this it is difficult to evaluate the wider significance of a find, or to interpret the climatic changes that create the geological record. In the case of the Cape south coast aeolianites, the dating method of choice is often <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-earth-040610-133425">optically stimulated luminescence</a>.</p>
<p>This method of dating shows how long ago a grain of sand was exposed to sunlight; in other words, how long that section of sediment has been buried. Given how the tracks in this study were formed – impressions made on wet sand, followed by burial with new blowing sand – it is a good method as we can be reasonably confident that the dating “clock” started at about the same time the trackway was created. </p>
<p>The Cape south coast is a great place to apply optically stimulated luminescence. Firstly, the sediments are rich in quartz grains, which produce lots of luminescence. Secondly, the abundant sunshine, wide beaches and ready wind transport of sand to form coastal dunes mean any pre-existing luminescence signals are fully removed prior to the burial event of interest, making for reliable age estimates. This method has underpinned much of the dating of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2019.07.032">previous finds</a> <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047248410001375?via%3Dihub">in the area</a>. </p>
<p>The overall date range of our findings for the hominin ichnosites - about 153,000 to 71,000 years in age – is consistent with ages in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2010.10.003">previously reported studies</a> from similar geological deposits in the region. </p>
<p>The 153,000 year old track was found in the Garden Route National Park, west of the coastal town of Knysna on the Cape south coast. The two previously dated South African sites, Nahoon and Langebaan, have yielded ages of about <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10420940802470482">124,000 years and 117,000 years respectively</a>.</p>
<h2>Increased understanding</h2>
<p>The work of our research team, based in the African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience at Nelson Mandela University in South Africa, is not done. </p>
<p>We suspect that further hominin ichnosites are waiting to be discovered on the Cape south coast and elsewhere on the coast. The search also needs to be extended to older deposits in the region, ranging in age from 400,000 years to more than 2 million years.</p>
<p>A decade from now, we expect the list of ancient hominin ichnosites to be a lot longer than it is at present – and that scientists will be able to learn a great deal more about our ancient ancestors and the landscapes they occupied.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205310/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This was an area in which early anatomically modern humans survived, evolved and thrived, before spreading out of Africa to other continents.Charles Helm, Research Associate, African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience, Nelson Mandela UniversityAndrew Carr, Senior Lecturer, University of LeicesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1963982023-01-25T11:39:11Z2023-01-25T11:39:11ZLarge mammals shaped the evolution of humans: here’s why it happened in Africa<p>That humans originated in Africa is <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070509161829.htm">widely accepted</a>. But it’s not generally recognised how unique features of Africa’s ecology were responsible for the crucial evolutionary transitions from forest-inhabiting fruit-eater to savanna-dwelling hunter. These were founded on earth movements and aided physically by Africa’s seasonal aridity, bedrock-derived soils and absence of barriers to movements between north and south. </p>
<p>These features promoted extensive savanna grasslands marked by erratic rainfall, regular fires and abundant numbers of diverse grazing and browsing animals. </p>
<p>My lifelong studies have focused on the ecology of Africa’s large herbivores and their effects on savanna vegetation. In my <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/za/academic/subjects/life-sciences/evolutionary-biology/only-africa-ecology-human-evolution">recent book</a>, by linking pre-existing threads together for the first time, I explain how distinctive features of these animals’ ecology, founded on Africa’s physical geography, enabled the adaptive changes that led ultimately to modern humans.</p>
<p>What emerges is the realisation that this amazing evolutionary transformation could only have occurred in Africa. This recognition emphasises the deep cultural legacy formed by Africa’s large mammal heritage for all of humankind.</p>
<h2>Ape-men</h2>
<p>Starting during the late Miocene, around 10 million years ago, a plume of molten magma, hot liquid material from deep inside the Earth, pushed eastern parts of Africa upward. This led to rifting of the Earth’s crust, volcanic eruptions and soils enriched in mineral nutrients from the lava and ash. Grassy savannas spread and animals adapted increasingly to graze this vegetation component. Apes from that time were forced to spend less time up in trees and more time walking upright on two legs. </p>
<p>Progressive reductions in rainfall, restricting plant growth and worsening dry season aridity, forced the early ape-men, (<a href="https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/australopithecus-and-kin-145077614/"><em>Australopithecines</em></a>), to change their diet. They went from eating mainly fruits from forest trees to consuming underground bulbs and tubers found between the widely spaced trees. These were tough to extract and chew. </p>
<p>This led to the emergence through evolution of the genus <a href="https://www.maropeng.co.za/content/page/paranthropus"><em>Paranthropus</em></a> (colloquially “nutcracker man”), characterised by huge jaws and teeth. By about a million years ago they were gone. Apparently, the effort of extracting and processing these well-defended plant parts became too formidable. </p>
<h2><em>Homo habilis</em></h2>
<p>Around 2.8 million years ago, another lineage split off from the australopithecines, reversing the trend towards robust dentition. This lineage used stones chipped to serve as tools. These were used to scrape flesh from carcasses of animals killed by carnivores, and crack open long bones for their marrow content. This transition in ecology was sufficiently momentous to warrant a new generic name: <em>Homo</em>, specifically <em>habilis</em> (“handy-man”). </p>
<p>These first humans thus became scavengers on animal left-overs. They most probably exploited a time window around midday when the killers – mainly sabre-tooth cats – were resting, before hyenas arrived nocturnally to devour the leftovers. Walking upright freed their arms to carry bones away to be processed in safe sites to augment the plant-based dietary staples. </p>
<p>To facilitate such midday movements, <em>Homo habilis</em> lost its body hair; this made it possible for them <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature03052">to be active</a> under conditions when fur-covered animals would soon over-heat. </p>
<h2><em>Homo erectus</em></h2>
<p>Several hundred thousand years of progressive advancements in upright walking and brain capacity led to the next major adaptive shift, exemplified by improvements in the design of stone tools. Stone cores became shaped on both sides to aid the processing of animal carcasses.</p>
<p>This led to the emergence of <a href="https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/homo-erectus"><em>Homo erectus</em></a> around 1.8 million years ago. These early humans had become efficient hunters. Consequently, meat and bones became reliable food resources year-round. </p>
<p>A division of labour came about. Men hunted; women gathered plant parts. This required a home base and more elaborate forms of communication about planned excursions, laying the foundations for language. </p>
<h2><em>Homo sapiens</em></h2>
<p>After 800,000 years ago, fluctuations in heat and aridity became more extreme in Africa. Finely crafted stone tools defined the transition into the Middle Stone Age, coupled with the emergence of modern <em>Homo sapiens</em> in Africa around 300 thousand years ago.</p>
<p>But despite its hunting prowess <em>Homo sapiens</em> had declined to precarious numbers in Africa by around 130,000 years ago, following an especially severe ice age. <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2945812/">Genetic evidence indicates</a> that the entire human population across the continent shrank to fewer than 40,000 individuals, spread thinly from Morocco in the north to the Cape in the far south. </p>
<p>One remnant survived by inhabiting caves along the southern Cape coast, exploiting marine resources. This reliable food source fostered further advances in tool technology, and even the earliest art. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-blombos-cave-is-home-to-the-earliest-drawing-by-a-human-103017">South Africa's Blombos cave is home to the earliest drawing by a human</a>
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<p>The use of bows and arrows as weapons, along with spears, probably contributed crucially to the expansion of humans beyond Africa around 60,000 years ago. They spread onward through Asia and into Europe, displacing the Neanderthals. </p>
<h2>Only in Africa</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A herd of large brown wildebeest is spread out across a grassy landscape, chewing the grass" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505536/original/file-20230120-24-vwc5k1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505536/original/file-20230120-24-vwc5k1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505536/original/file-20230120-24-vwc5k1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505536/original/file-20230120-24-vwc5k1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505536/original/file-20230120-24-vwc5k1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505536/original/file-20230120-24-vwc5k1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505536/original/file-20230120-24-vwc5k1.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wildebeest grazing on the Serengeti Plains in Tanzania.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Norman Owen-Smith</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As outlined in my book, it was the abundance specifically of medium and large grazers in fertile savannas, concentrated near water in the dry season, that enabled the evolutionary transformation of a relatively puny ape into a feared hunter in Africa.</p>
<p>Africa’s high-lying interior plateau generated the seasonal dryness that restricted plant growth through its eastern and southern regions. Widespread volcanically derived soils were sufficiently fertile to foster the spread of medium-large grazers adapted to digest dry grass efficiently.</p>
<p>These especially abundant herbivores crowded around remaining waterholes, providing sufficient remnants of flesh and marrow to make scavenging a reliable means to overcome shortages of edible plant parts during the dry season. The increased dependence on meat to supplement a plant-based diet led to social coordination between male hunters and female gatherers, which in turn promoted advances in communication and tool technology supported by expanding cranial capacity. </p>
<p>If Africa had remained largely low-lying and leached of nutrients like most of South America and Australia, this would not have been possible.</p>
<p>Africa’s mobile grazers, such as wildebeest, are currently <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aay3049">being squeezed out of their sanctuaries</a> by expanding human settlements. These animals represent a global cultural heritage, having being pivotal to our evolutionary origins. We must ensure that sufficient space remains in Africa to enable their persistence despite burgeoning human populations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196398/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Norman Owen-Smith previously received funding from Sough Africa's National Research Foundation</span></em></p>Africa’s large mammal heritage has formed a deep cultural legacy for all of humankind.Norman Owen-Smith, Emeritus Research Professor of African Ecology, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1918992022-10-04T23:15:56Z2022-10-04T23:15:56ZWhat’s next for ancient DNA studies after Nobel Prize honors groundbreaking field of paleogenomics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488157/original/file-20221004-14-rupej6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=360%2C291%2C4414%2C3088&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Researchers need to be careful not to contaminate ancient samples with their own DNA.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/female-scientist-filling-pipette-trays-at-fume-hood-royalty-free-image/1374565126">Caia Image via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For the first time, a Nobel Prize recognized the field of anthropology, the study of humanity. Svante Pääbo, a pioneer in the study of ancient DNA, or aDNA, was awarded the 2022 <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/medicine/2022/summary/">prize in physiology or medicine</a> for his breathtaking achievements sequencing DNA extracted from ancient skeletal remains and reconstructing early humans’ genomes – that is, all the genetic information contained in one organism.</p>
<p>His accomplishment was once only the stuff of Jurassic Park-style science fiction. But Pääbo and many colleagues, working in large multidisciplinary teams, <a href="https://theconversation.com/nobel-prize-svante-paabos-ancient-dna-discoveries-offer-clues-as-to-what-makes-us-human-191805">pieced together the genomes</a> of our distant cousins, the famous Neanderthals and the more elusive Denisovans, whose existence was not even known until their <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/23/science/23ancestor.html">DNA was sequenced</a> from a tiny pinky bone of a child <a href="https://theconversation.com/fresh-clues-to-the-life-and-times-of-the-denisovans-a-little-known-ancient-group-of-humans-110504">buried in a cave in Siberia</a>. Thanks to interbreeding with <a href="https://theconversation.com/ancient-teenager-the-first-known-person-with-parents-of-two-different-species-101965">and among</a> these early humans, their genetic traces <a href="https://theconversation.com/neanderthals-died-out-40-000-years-ago-but-there-has-never-been-more-of-their-dna-on-earth-189021">live on in many of us today</a>, shaping our bodies and our disease vulnerabilities – for example, to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2026309118">COVID-19</a>.</p>
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<p>The world has learned a startling amount about <a href="https://theconversation.com/six-recent-discoveries-that-have-changed-how-we-think-about-human-origins-190274">our human origins</a> in the last dozen years since Pääbo and teammates’ groundbreaking discoveries. And the field of paleogenomics has rapidly expanded. Scientists have now sequenced <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-sequenced-the-oldest-ever-dna-from-million-year-old-mammoths-155485">mammoths that lived a million years ago</a>. Ancient DNA has addressed questions ranging from the origins of the <a href="https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/ancient-dna-native-americans/">first Americans</a> to the domestication of <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/genetic-sequencing-pinpoints-the-origins-of-the-domestic-horse-180978926/">horses</a> and <a href="https://bigthink.com/the-past/ancient-dogs/">dogs</a>, the spread of <a href="https://theconversation.com/ancient-dna-is-revealing-the-origins-of-livestock-herding-in-africa-114387">livestock herding</a> and our bodies’ adaptations – or lack thereof – to <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2331213-evolution-of-lactose-tolerance-probably-driven-by-famine-and-disease/">drinking milk</a>. Ancient DNA can even shed light on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2120786119">social questions</a> of marriage, kinship and mobility. Researchers can now sequence DNA not only from the remains of ancient humans, animals and plants, but even from their <a href="https://theconversation.com/digging-deep-dna-molecules-in-ancient-dirt-offer-a-treasure-trove-of-clues-to-our-past-172489">traces left in cave dirt</a>.</p>
<p>Alongside this growth in research, people have been grappling with <a href="https://theconversation.com/ancient-dna-unearths-fascinating-secrets-but-what-about-the-ethics-85186">concerns about the speed</a> with which skeletal collections around the world have been sampled for aDNA, leading to broader conversations about <a href="https://theconversation.com/rights-of-the-dead-and-the-living-clash-when-scientists-extract-dna-from-human-remains-94284">how research should be done</a>. Who should conduct it? Who may benefit from or be harmed by it, and who gives consent? And how can the field become more equitable? As an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=3QKcZMoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">archaeologist</a> who partners with geneticists to study <a href="https://theconversation.com/ancient-dna-helps-reveal-social-changes-in-africa-50-000-years-ago-that-shaped-the-human-story-175436">ancient African history</a>, I see both challenges and opportunities ahead.</p>
<h2>Building a better discipline</h2>
<p>One positive sign: Interdisciplinary researchers are working to establish <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-scholars-have-created-global-guidelines-for-ancient-dna-research-169284">basic common guidelines</a> for research design and conduct.</p>
<p>In North America, scholars have worked to address inequities by designing programs that <a href="https://www.singconsortium.org/">train future generations of Indigenous geneticists</a>. These are now expanding to other historically underrepresented communities in the world. In museums, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1822038116">best practices for sampling</a> are being put into place. They aim to minimize destruction to ancestral remains, while gleaning the most new information possible.</p>
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<p>But there is a long way to go to develop and enforce community consultation, ethical sampling and data sharing policies, especially in more resource-constrained parts of the world. The divide <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2022.880170">between the developing world and rich industrialized nations</a> is especially stark when looking at where <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1qwXOKV5uoQntgBsxQrxS01YHpbs&ll=-3.81666561775622e-14%2C6.726945455479381&z=1">ancient DNA labs</a>, funding and research publications are concentrated. It leaves fewer opportunities for scholars from parts of Asia, Africa and the Americas to be trained in the field and lead research. </p>
<p>The field faces structural challenges, such as the relative lack of funding for archaeology and cultural heritage protection in lower income countries, worsened by a <a href="https://theconversation.com/archaeology-is-changing-slowly-but-its-still-too-tied-up-in-colonial-practices-133243">long history of extractive research practices</a> and looming <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01280-1">climate change and site destruction</a>. These issues strengthen the regional bias in paleogenomics, which helps explain why some parts of the world – such as Europe – are so well-studied, while Africa – the <a href="https://theconversation.com/ancient-dna-increases-the-genetic-time-depth-of-modern-humans-84716">cradle of humankind</a> and the <a href="https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13059-019-1740-1">most genetically diverse continent</a> – is relatively understudied, with shortfalls in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/03/africa-humanity-heritage-archaeologist">archaeology</a>, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d44148-022-00051-6">genomics</a> and <a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/with-ancient-human-dna-africas-deep-history-is-coming-to-light">ancient DNA</a>.</p>
<h2>Making public education a priority</h2>
<p>How paleogenomic findings are interpreted and communicated to the public <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-019-0961-8">raises other concerns</a>. Consumers are regularly bombarded with advertisements for personal ancestry testing, <a href="https://blogs.ancestry.com/cm/goodbye-lederhosen-hello-kilt-how-a-dna-test-changed-one-mans-identity-forever/">implying that genetics and identity are synonymous</a>. But lived experiences and decades of scholarship show that biological ancestry and socially defined identities <a href="https://theconversation.com/genetic-ancestry-tests-dont-change-your-identity-but-you-might-98663">do not map so easily onto one another</a>.</p>
<p>I’d argue that scholars studying aDNA have a responsibility to work with educational institutions, like schools and museums, to communicate the meaning of their research to the public. This is particularly important because people with political agendas – <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-ancient-dna-gets-politicized-180972639/">even elected officials</a> – <a href="https://theconversation.com/white-supremacists-believe-in-genetic-purity-science-shows-no-such-thing-exists-146763">try to manipulate findings</a>.</p>
<p>For example, white supremacists have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/19/us/white-supremacists-science-genetics.html">erroneously equated lactose tolerance with whiteness</a>. It’s a falsehood that would be laughable to many livestock herders from Africa, one of the multiple <a href="https://www.the-scientist.com/daily-news/origins-of-lactase-persistence-in-africa-37810">centers of origin</a> for genetic traits enabling people to digest milk.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308159/original/file-20191221-11900-1i8iio9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308159/original/file-20191221-11900-1i8iio9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308159/original/file-20191221-11900-1i8iio9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308159/original/file-20191221-11900-1i8iio9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308159/original/file-20191221-11900-1i8iio9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308159/original/file-20191221-11900-1i8iio9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=635&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308159/original/file-20191221-11900-1i8iio9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=635&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308159/original/file-20191221-11900-1i8iio9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=635&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The 2010 excavation in the East Gallery of Denisova Cave, where the ancient hominin species known as the Denisovans was discovered.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bence Viola. Dept. of Anthropology, University of Toronto</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Leaning in at the interdisciplinary table</h2>
<p>Finally, there’s a discussion to be had about how <a href="https://theconversation.com/ancient-dna-is-a-powerful-tool-for-studying-the-past-when-archaeologists-and-geneticists-work-together-111127">specialists in different disciplines should work together</a>.</p>
<p>Ancient DNA research has grown rapidly, sometimes without sufficient conversations happening beyond the genetics labs. This oversight has provoked a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-03773-6">backlash</a> from archaeologists, anthropologists, historians and linguists. Their disciplines have generated decades or even centuries of research that shape ancient DNA interpretations, and their labor makes paleogenomic studies possible.</p>
<p>As an archaeologist, I see the aDNA “revolution” as usefully disrupting our practice. It prompts the archaeological community to reevaluate <a href="https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/south-africa-repatriation/">where ancestral skeletal collections come from and should rest</a>. It challenges us to publish archaeological data that is sometimes only revealed for the first time in the supplements of paleogenomics papers. It urges us to grab a seat at the table and help drive projects from their inception. We can design research grounded in archaeological knowledge, and may have longer-term and stronger ties to museums and to local communities, whose partnership is key to doing research right.</p>
<p>If archaeologists embrace this moment that Pääbo’s Nobel Prize is spotlighting, and lean in to the sea changes rocking our field, it can change for the better.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191899/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mary Prendergast does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Thousands of ancient genomes have been sequenced to date. A Nobel Prize highlights tremendous opportunities for aDNA, as well as challenges related to rapid growth, equity and misinformation.Mary Prendergast, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Rice UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1846482022-06-09T20:10:26Z2022-06-09T20:10:26Z65,000-year-old ‘stone Swiss Army knives’ show early humans had long-distance social networks<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467873/original/file-20220609-26-lmgtxf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C11%2C2507%2C1681&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paloma de la Peña</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Humans are the only species to live in every environmental niche in the world – from the icesheets to the deserts, rainforests to savannahs. As individuals we are rather puny, but when we are socially connected, we are the most dominant species on the planet. </p>
<p>New <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-12677-5">evidence from stone tools in southern Africa</a> shows these social connections were stronger and wider than we had thought among our ancestors who lived around 65,000 years ago, shortly before the large “out of Africa” migration in which they began to spread across the world. </p>
<h2>Social connection and adaptation</h2>
<p>The early humans weren’t always so connected. The first humans to leave Africa <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03244-5.pdf?origin=ppub">died out</a> without this migratory success and without leaving any genetic trace among us today.</p>
<p>But for the ancestors of today’s people living outside of Africa, it was a different story. Within a few thousand years they had migrated into and adapted to every type of environmental zone across the planet.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-a-handful-of-prehistoric-geniuses-launched-humanitys-technological-revolution-171511">How a handful of prehistoric geniuses launched humanity's technological revolution</a>
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<p>Archaeologists think the development of social networks and the ability to share knowledge between different groups was the key to this success. But how do we observe these social networks in the deep past?</p>
<p>To address this question, archaeologists examine tools and other human-made objects that still survive today. We assume that the people who made those objects, like people today, were social creatures who made objects with cultural meanings. </p>
<h2>Social connectivity 65,000 years ago</h2>
<p>A small, common stone tool gave us an opportunity to test this idea in southern Africa, during a period known as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howiesons_Poort">Howiesons Poort</a> around 65,000 years ago. Archaeologists call these sharp, multipurpose tools “backed artefacts”, but you can think of them as a “stone Swiss Army knife”: the kind of useful tool you carry around to do various jobs you can’t do by hand.</p>
<p>These knives are not unique to Africa. They are found across the globe and come in many different shapes. This potential variety is what makes these small blades so useful to test the hypothesis that social connections existed more than 60,000 years ago.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467869/original/file-20220609-12-r665l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A graphic with photos of stone tools and a map showing where each was found in Southern Africa." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467869/original/file-20220609-12-r665l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/467869/original/file-20220609-12-r665l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467869/original/file-20220609-12-r665l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467869/original/file-20220609-12-r665l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467869/original/file-20220609-12-r665l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=685&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467869/original/file-20220609-12-r665l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=685&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/467869/original/file-20220609-12-r665l2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=685&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Similar designs of ‘Stone Swiss Army knives’ have been found across southern Africa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paloma de la Peña</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Across southern Africa, these blades <em>could</em> have been made in any number of different shapes in different places. However, around 65,000 years ago, it turns out they were made to a very similar template across thousands of kilometres and multiple environmental niches.</p>
<p>The fact they were all made to look so similar points to strong social connections between geographically distant groups across southern Africa at this time.</p>
<p>Importantly, this shows for the first time that social connections were in place in southern Africa just before the big “out of Africa” migration.</p>
<h2>A useful tool in hard times</h2>
<p>Previously it has been thought people made these blades <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/multiple-uses-for-australian-backed-artefacts/779DCA6DF8D1261CB1D86150107FE138%5D">in response to various environmental stresses</a>, because just like the Swiss Army knife they are multi-functional and multi-use. </p>
<p>There is evidence the stone blades were often glued or bound to handles or shafts to make complex tools such as spears, knives, saws, scrapers and drills, and used as tips and barbs for arrows. They were used to process plant material, hide, feathers and fur. </p>
<p>While the making of the stone blade was not particularly difficult, the binding of the stone to the handle was, involving complex glue and adhesive recipes.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-stone-tools-found-in-southern-tip-of-africa-tell-us-about-the-human-story-43986">What stone tools found in southern tip of Africa tell us about the human story</a>
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<p>During the Howiesons Poort, these blades were produced in enormous numbers across southern Africa. </p>
<p>Data from Sibudu Cave in South Africa shows that their peak in production occurred during a very dry period, when there was less rain and vegetation. These tools were manufactured for thousands of years before the Howiesons Poort, but it is during this period of changing climatic conditions that we see a phenomenal increase in their production. </p>
<p>It is the multi-functionality and multi-use which makes this stone tool so flexible, a key advantage for hunting and gathering in uncertain or unstable environmental conditions. </p>
<h2>A strong social network adapted to a changing climate</h2>
<p>However, the production of this tool at this time cannot be seen as only a functional response to changing environmental conditions. </p>
<p>If their proliferation was simply a functional response to changing conditions, then we should see differences in different environmental niches. But what we see is similarity in production numbers and artefact shape across great distances and different environmental zones. </p>
<p>This means the increase in production should be seen as part of a socially mediated response to changing environmental conditions, with strengthening long-distance social ties facilitating access to scarce, perhaps unpredictable resources. </p>
<p>The similarity in the stone “Swiss Army knife” across southern Africa provides insight into the strength of social ties in this key period for human evolution. Their similarity suggests that it was the strength of this social network which allowed populations to prosper and adapt to changing climatic conditions. </p>
<p>These findings hold global implications for understanding how expanding social networks contributed to the expansion of modern humans out of Africa and into new environments across the globe.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cave-that-carries-evidence-of-humanitys-first-cultural-exploits-is-under-threat-44797">Cave that carries evidence of humanity's first cultural exploits is under threat</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184648/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The research was funded by the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, Australian Museum Foundation and Tom Austin Brown Research, University of Sydney.</span></em></p>Shared designs for stone tools across southern Africa show early humans had wide social connections before beginning to migrate to the rest of the world.Amy Mosig Way, Lecturer in Archaeology, University of Sydney, and Archaeologist, Australian MuseumLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1792902022-05-17T20:00:28Z2022-05-17T20:00:28ZA fossil tooth places enigmatic ancient humans in Southeast Asia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/459634/original/file-20220426-22-rl38zi.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C16%2C7491%2C2784&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fabrice Demeter (University of Copenhagen / CNRS Paris)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>What do a finger bone and some teeth found in the frigid Denisova Cave in Siberia’s Altai mountains have in common with fossils from the balmy hills of tropical northern Laos? </p>
<p>Not much, until now: in a Laotian cave, an international team of researchers including ourselves has <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29923-z">discovered a tooth</a> belonging to an ancient human previously only known from icy northern latitudes – a Denisovan.</p>
<p>The find shows these long-lost relatives of <em>Homo sapiens</em> inhabited a wider area and range of environments than we previously knew, confirming hints found in the DNA of modern human populations from Southeast Asia and Australasia.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fresh-clues-to-the-life-and-times-of-the-denisovans-a-little-known-ancient-group-of-humans-110504">Fresh clues to the life and times of the Denisovans, a little-known ancient group of humans</a>
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<h2>Who were the Denisovans?</h2>
<p>Little is known about these distant cousins of modern humans, except that they once lived in Asia, were related to and interacted with the better-known Neanderthals, and are now extinct. </p>
<p>The first traces of Denisovans were only found in 2010, with the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09710">discovery</a> of an innocuous finger bone in remote Denisova Cave. The extreme cold of the cave meant some ancient DNA was preserved in the bone – and the DNA revealed the finger had belonged to an unknown species of human.</p>
<p>This discovery changed the course of human evolutionary studies, and the newly discovered humans were named Denisovans after the cave where the fossil was found.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461151/original/file-20220504-14-lmc80h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461151/original/file-20220504-14-lmc80h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461151/original/file-20220504-14-lmc80h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461151/original/file-20220504-14-lmc80h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461151/original/file-20220504-14-lmc80h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461151/original/file-20220504-14-lmc80h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461151/original/file-20220504-14-lmc80h.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The first traces of the Denisovans were found at Denisova Cave in Siberia in 2010.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mike Morley (Flinders University)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>Fossilised teeth from Denisovans were <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1519905112">later discovered</a> in the <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aam9695">same cave</a>. Two upper and one lower molar were found in sediments that were dated to between 195,000 and 52,000 years ago. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, it was found that <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09710">genes from Denisovans survived</a> in modern day people from Southeast Asia and Australasia. This implied that the Denisovans had dispersed over a far larger area than anticipated. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/evolutionary-study-suggests-prehistoric-human-fossils-hiding-in-plain-sight-in-southeast-asia-157587">Evolutionary study suggests prehistoric human fossils 'hiding in plain sight' in Southeast Asia</a>
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<h2>The hunt for more fossils</h2>
<p>The hunt was on to find more evidence of these humans outside Russia, but scientists had no idea what they actually looked like. For the first time in history we knew more about a human’s DNA than their anatomy!</p>
<p>The next twist came when a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1139-x">160,000-year-old Denisovan jawbone</a> surfaced on the Tibetan Plateau, giving the scientific community a tantalising glimpse of what the bodies of these ancient humans were like and where they lived. </p>
<p>But questions remained: just how far did they spread in Asia, and how did their genetic imprint survive in Southeast Asians and Australasians? </p>
<p>Clearly Denisovans could live in the cold environments of Siberia and Tibet, but could they have also occupied a completely different ecological niche and adapted to a tropical climate?</p>
<h2>Tam Ngu Hao 2 (Cobra Cave)</h2>
<p>Enter a new cave found by an international (Laos–French–American–Australian) team in northern Laos in 2018, close to the famous Tam Pa Ling cave where 70,000-year-old <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1208104109">modern human fossils</a> were found. </p>
<p>The site, named Tam Ngu Hao 2 (or Cobra Cave), was found high up in the limestone mountains and contained remnants of old cave sediment packed with fossils.</p>
<p>The cave sediments contained teeth from giant herbivores, such as ancient elephants and rhinos that liked to live in woodland environments. The teeth were likely washed into the cave during a flooding event that deposited the sediments and fossils. </p>
<p>These sediments were covered by a layer of very hard rock called flowstone, which is formed by water flowing over the cave floor. The sediments and fossils were dated by this study to provide an age for the time of deposition in the cave, and by association a minimum age for the death of the animals.</p>
<h2>A young girl’s tooth</h2>
<p>A human tooth (a lower permanent molar) was found in the cave sediments, but we could not initially identify what species of human it came from. The humid conditions in Laos meant that the ancient DNA was not preserved. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461153/original/file-20220504-13-li3i3m.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461153/original/file-20220504-13-li3i3m.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/461153/original/file-20220504-13-li3i3m.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=686&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461153/original/file-20220504-13-li3i3m.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=686&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461153/original/file-20220504-13-li3i3m.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=686&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461153/original/file-20220504-13-li3i3m.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461153/original/file-20220504-13-li3i3m.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/461153/original/file-20220504-13-li3i3m.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=862&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This tooth likely belonged to a young Denisovan girl who lived around 150,000 years ago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Fabrice Demeter (University of Copenhagen / CNRS Paris)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We did however find ancient proteins that suggested the tooth came from a young, likely female, human – probably between 3.5 and 8.5 years old. </p>
<p>After very detailed analysis of the shape of this tooth, our team identified many similarities to the Denisovan teeth found on the Tibetan Plateau. This suggested the tooth’s owner was most likely a Denisovan who lived between 164,000 and 131,000 years ago in the warm tropics.</p>
<h2>An ancient human hotspot</h2>
<p>This fossil represents the first discovery of Denisovans in Southeast Asia, and shows that Denisovans were at least as far south as Laos. This is in agreement with the genetic evidence found in modern day Southeast Asian populations. </p>
<p>They may have been just at home in the balmy tropical climates of Laos as the icy conditions of northern Europe and the high-altitude environments of the Tibetan Plateau. This suggests the Denisovans were very good at adapting to diverse environments. </p>
<p>It would seem that Southeast Asia was a hotspot of diversity for humans. At least five different species set up camp there at different times: <em>Homo erectus</em>, the Denisovans/Neanderthals, <em>Homo floresiensis</em>, <em>Homo luzonensis</em>, and <em>Homo sapiens</em>. </p>
<p>How many of these species overlapped and interacted? Another fossil discovered in the dense network of Southeast Asian caves could provide the next clue to understanding these complex relationships.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179290/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kira Westaway receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the Leakey Foundation</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike W Morley receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Renaud Joannes-Boyau receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC).</span></em></p>The mysterious Denisovans left DNA traces in populations across Southeast Asia and Australasia, but until now no physical signs of their presence outside Eurasia had been found.Kira Westaway, Associate professor, Macquarie UniversityMike W. Morley, Associate Professor, Flinders UniversityRenaud Joannes-Boyau, Associate Professor, Southern Cross UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1797742022-03-24T14:25:09Z2022-03-24T14:25:09ZScience and race in South Africa: lessons from ‘old bones in boxes’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453535/original/file-20220322-302-1hjvrou.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Anatomist and anthropologist Matthew Drennan in his anthropology laboratory at the University of Cape Town in 1931.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cape Argus, 27 August 1931</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The discipline of physical anthropology has a dark, often fraught past. It was misused to justify slavery and even genocide. In this edited extract from the introduction of his new book, <a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/bones-and-bodies/">Bones and Bodies: How South African Scientists Studied Race</a> (Wits University Press, 2022), Alan G. Morris examines the discipline’s South African history. He points out that modern academics struggle to find ways <a href="https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/108710">to balance the roles of sociology and genetics</a> in their research – and that understanding how scientists previously understood the relationship between social and physical characteristics will guide them in navigating this tricky balance.</em> </p>
<p>The aphorism first spoken by the American philosopher <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/santayana/">George Santayana</a> (and paraphrased by Winston Churchill) is especially true for physical anthropology: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The subject’s past is not a pleasant one. Physical anthropology is the branch of anthropology that considers the structure and evolution of the human body. It has been used to <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33372273/">justify slavery</a>, condemn criminals by <a href="https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1062&context=histsp">their appearance</a> and <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.4159/harvard.9780674736160.c8/pdf">limit immigration</a> according to racial origin. In Nazi Germany it was used <a href="https://www.ushmm.org/collections/bibliography/nazi-racial-science">to commit genocide</a>. </p>
<p>Over the years, South African physical anthropologists have written a great deal about the peoples of southern Africa. Those of us in this field need to ask if these publications have contributed to the country’s own social heresies. That, of course, will be the task of historians. But we need to be aware that the old problems continue to surface all over the world. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453537/original/file-20220322-28-1tyvud6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453537/original/file-20220322-28-1tyvud6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453537/original/file-20220322-28-1tyvud6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453537/original/file-20220322-28-1tyvud6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=904&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453537/original/file-20220322-28-1tyvud6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453537/original/file-20220322-28-1tyvud6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453537/original/file-20220322-28-1tyvud6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1136&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/voices/the-real-problem-with-charles-murray-and-the-bell-curve/">Publications</a> in the 1990s tried to resurrect <a href="https://www.psychology.uwo.ca/people/faculty/remembrance/rushton.html">biological racism</a> by stratifying levels of intelligence by race. These are aberrations that have triggered heated responses from professional physical anthropologists. But in the eyes of the public such ideas do have legitimacy. </p>
<p>In the South African context, despite having vanquished the apartheid dragon, we need to understand exactly how much of the racist underpinnings of the policy have become internalised and are still part of us.</p>
<h2>Anatomists and anthropologists</h2>
<p><a href="https://journals.openedition.org/primatologie/2708">Anthropological discoveries</a> in South Africa over the past century have been of exceptional importance in terms of our understanding of human evolution. These discoveries have also influenced society in ways that have not always been positive. </p>
<p>Anatomists in the medical schools have most influenced our understanding of human structure and variation. Their racial classifications and descriptions of the peoples of southern Africa have flowed into and still affect medical specialities, including surgery, gynaecology, forensics, genetics and epidemiology/public health. </p>
<p>The same anatomists who have dabbled in physical anthropology have also taught racial variation to generations of undergraduate and postgraduate medical students. My choice of the word “dabbled” is intentional. None of these scholars were trained in the discipline of anthropology. Yet generations of researchers in medical, natural and social sciences have used the subject’s classifications and categories.</p>
<p>My training and my career are overwhelmingly in physical anthropology, not history. My <a href="https://digitalcollections.lib.uct.ac.za/osteological-analysis-protohistoric-populations-northern-cape-and-western-orange-free-state-south-0">doctoral thesis</a> examined a series of archaeologically derived human skeletons from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth century. They were excavated from locations along the historical border of what was then South Africa’s Northern Cape Colony. </p>
<p>To make sense of the skeletal variation seen in the archaeological skeletons, I needed to find modern skeletons from related populations for comparison. It became obvious that the skeletons accessioned in many museum and medical school collections were not identified on the basis of known self-defined ethnicity. They were lodged there as racial types determined by the collections’ accumulators and managers. </p>
<p>Many of the skeletons of people who had been known in life were labelled according to a strict racial typology. Racial identity was based on appearance, not the culture nor the community from which he or she originated. This opened the world of skeleton collecting to me and brought a context to the old bones in the boxes. Something that had started as a search for ethnically identified skeletons grew into a much larger project looking at the origins of the collections themselves. </p>
<p>It became apparent just how involved the physical anthropologists were as collectors and how ingrained their method of typology had become in the collection and description of “specimens” and in their publications.</p>
<h2>Anthropological vignettes</h2>
<p>I joined the Department of Anatomy at the University of Cape Town in 1981. I took on the unofficial role of department historian, especially with respect to things anthropological. This included storing boxes of old correspondence, lantern slides and old articles. Sorting through these had to wait until my retirement approached in 2014. Retiring gave me the opportunity to begin to put more than 30 years of <a href="https://scholar.google.co.za/citations?user=VY15b7QAAAAJ&hl=en">my research</a> together. It was also a chance to try to organise the historical material stored in the boxes in my office and around the department. </p>
<p>The organisation of the collection provided the opportunity for me to tackle a final historical task: writing a single volume that would encompass this wealth of unpublished material.</p>
<p><a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/bones-and-bodies/">Bones and Bodies: How South African Scientists Studied Race</a> is the outcome. This book consists of eight anthropological vignettes. Each examines specific researchers or topics that had a special impact on South African physical anthropology.</p>
<p>The first chapters focus on the early researchers in South Africa’s museums and newly opened medical schools. <a href="https://unsm-ento.unl.edu/workers/LPeringuey.htm">Louis Péringuey</a> and <a href="https://www.s2a3.org.za/bio/Biograph_final.php?serial=937">Frederick FitzSimons</a> began the collection of human skeletons that would be used to describe the prehistoric peoples of South Africa. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335291745_The_anatomical_and_anthropological_wayfaring_of_Matthew_Robertson_Drennan_1885-1965">Matthew Drennan</a> and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/raymond-arthur-dart">Raymond Dart</a> provided the professional anatomical expertise which would define the “age of typology”. It saw both living and ancient peoples placed in distinct racial categories. </p>
<p>The break with the rigid racial hierarchies came about in the 1950s and 1960s. This, under the leadership of Ronald Singer in Cape Town and Phillip Tobias in Johannesburg. The arrival of the “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/23736836">new physical anthropology</a>” on South African shores is intimately connected with these two researchers. It created a new dynamic in scientific approach exactly at the time when the policy of apartheid was being implemented. </p>
<p>The last two chapters look at the implementation of apartheid and how the creation of racial types in the first half of the 20th century not only misdirected archaeology but also gave legitimacy to <a href="https://www.apartheidmuseum.org/exhibitions/race-classification">apartheid’s classification system</a>. Scientists themselves seemed to be unaware that their lack of comment on the absurdity of apartheid was a statement in itself.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179774/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan G Morris does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Scientists themselves seemed to be unaware that their lack of comment on the absurdity of apartheid was a statement in itself.Alan G Morris, Professor of Biological Anthropology, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1754362022-02-23T16:03:13Z2022-02-23T16:03:13ZAncient DNA helps reveal social changes in Africa 50,000 years ago that shaped the human story<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446822/original/file-20220216-3870-1o2qb6l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=186%2C0%2C3661%2C2475&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Together with artifacts from the past, ancient DNA can fill in details about our ancient ancestors.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kondoa_Irangi_Rock_Paintings_(51507918388).jpg">Nina R/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every person alive on the planet today is descended from people who lived as hunter-gatherers in Africa. </p>
<p>The continent is the cradle of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-a-handful-of-prehistoric-geniuses-launched-humanitys-technological-revolution-171511">human origins and ingenuity</a>, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/archaeological-discoveries-are-happening-faster-than-ever-before-helping-refine-the-human-story-128743">with each new fossil and archaeological discovery</a>, we learn more about our shared African past. Such research tends to focus on when our species, <em>Homo sapiens</em>, <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-homo-sapiens-became-the-ultimate-invasive-species/">spread out to other landmasses 80,000-60,000 years ago</a>. But what happened in Africa after that, and why don’t we know more about the people who remained?</p>
<p>Our 2022 study, conducted by an interdisciplinary team of 44 researchers based in 12 countries, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04430-9">helps answer these questions</a>. By sequencing and analyzing ancient DNA (aDNA) from people who lived as long ago as 18,000 years, we roughly doubled the age of sequenced aDNA from sub-Saharan Africa. And this genetic information helps <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=GlrnQDgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">anthropologists</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MQkcYDYAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">like</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=3QKcZMoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">us</a> understand more about how modern humans were moving and mingling in Africa long ago.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441914/original/file-20220121-8326-sxvlib.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="View from above of archaeological excavation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441914/original/file-20220121-8326-sxvlib.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441914/original/file-20220121-8326-sxvlib.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441914/original/file-20220121-8326-sxvlib.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441914/original/file-20220121-8326-sxvlib.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441914/original/file-20220121-8326-sxvlib.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441914/original/file-20220121-8326-sxvlib.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441914/original/file-20220121-8326-sxvlib.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People took shelter in natural rock overhangs, leaving behind an archaeological record of their daily activities – and sometimes their graves. By digging carefully, archaeologists can connect information from aDNA to information about the social lives of these people.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jacob Davis</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Tracing our human past in Africa</h2>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/new-moroccan-fossils-suggest-humans-lived-and-evolved-across-africa-100-000-years-earlier-than-we-thought-78826">Beginning about 300,000 years ago</a>, people in Africa who looked like us – the earliest anatomically modern humans – also started behaving in ways that seem very human. They made <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-drastic-ecological-change-led-leap-forward-behavior-weapons-and-tools-180976101/">new kinds of stone tools and began transporting raw materials</a> up to 250 miles (400 kilometers), likely through trade networks. By 140,000-120,000 years ago, people made <a href="https://scitechdaily.com/early-humans-used-bone-tools-to-produce-clothing-in-morocco-120000-years-ago/">clothing from animal skins</a> and began to <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/worlds-oldest-jewelry-discovered-in-moroccan-cave-180978766/">decorate themselves with pierced marine shell beads</a>. </p>
<p>While early innovations appeared in a patchwork fashion, a more widespread shift happened around 50,000 years ago – around the same time that people started <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/australia-aboriginal-early-human-evolution-spd">moving into places as distant as Australia</a>. New types of stone and bone tools became common, and people began <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-tiny-ostrich-eggshell-beads-that-tell-the-story-of-africas-past-128577">fashioning and exchanging ostrich eggshell beads</a>. And while most <a href="https://theconversation.com/an-ancient-san-rock-art-mural-in-south-africa-reveals-new-meaning-157177">rock art in Africa</a> is undated and badly weathered, an increase in <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-use-of-ochre-tells-us-about-the-capabilities-of-our-african-ancestry-47081">ochre pigment at archaeological sites</a> hints at an explosion of art. </p>
<p>What caused this shift, known as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Stone_Age">Later Stone Age</a> transition, has been a longstanding archaeological mystery. Why would certain tools and behaviors, which up until that point had appeared in a piecemeal way across Africa, suddenly become widespread? Did it have something to do with changes in the number of people, or how they interacted? </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441913/original/file-20220121-9541-bx79fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Nine disc-shaped beads" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441913/original/file-20220121-9541-bx79fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/441913/original/file-20220121-9541-bx79fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441913/original/file-20220121-9541-bx79fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441913/original/file-20220121-9541-bx79fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=474&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441913/original/file-20220121-9541-bx79fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441913/original/file-20220121-9541-bx79fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/441913/original/file-20220121-9541-bx79fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=596&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Beads made from ostrich eggshell were hot trade items and can show the extent of ancient social networks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jennifer Miller</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The challenge of accessing the deep past</h2>
<p>Archaeologists reconstruct human behavior in the past mainly through things people left behind – remains of their meals, tools, ornaments and <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-we-discovered-the-oldest-human-burial-in-africa-and-what-it-tells-us-about-our-ancestors-160122">sometimes even their bodies</a>. These records may accumulate over thousands of years, creating views of daily livelihoods that are really averages over long periods of time. However, it’s hard to study ancient demography, or how populations changed, from the archaeological record alone. </p>
<p>This is where DNA can help. When combined with evidence from archaeology, linguistics and oral and written history, scientists can piece together how people moved and interacted based on which groups share genetic similarities.</p>
<p>But DNA from living people can’t tell the whole story. African populations have been transformed over the past 5,000 years by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/ancient-dna-is-revealing-the-origins-of-livestock-herding-in-africa-114387">spread of herding and farming</a>, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-we-recreated-a-lost-african-city-with-laser-technology-92852">development of cities</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/archaeology-shows-how-ancient-african-societies-managed-pandemics-138217">ancient pandemics</a> and the ravages of <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-digital-archive-of-slave-voyages-details-the-largest-forced-migration-in-history-74902">colonialism and slavery</a>. These processes caused <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/science/west-africa-ancient-humans.html">some lineages to vanish</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/mitochondrial-dna-reveals-unexpected-ancestral-connections-122053">brought others together</a>, forming new populations. </p>
<p>Using present-day DNA to reconstruct ancient genetic landscapes is like reading a letter that was left out in the rain: some words are there but blurred, and some are gone completely. Researchers need ancient DNA from archaeological human remains to explore human diversity in different places and times and to understand what factors shaped it.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, aDNA from Africa is particularly hard to recover because the continent straddles the equator and heat and humidity degrade DNA. While the <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/oldest-ancient-human-dna-details-dawn-of-neandertals/">oldest aDNA from Eurasia is roughly 400,000 years old</a>, all sequences from sub-Saharan Africa to date have been younger than around 9,000 years. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444879/original/file-20220207-47158-11n9ym1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Map with markers showing distribution of ancient DNA data in Africa, and the world." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444879/original/file-20220207-47158-11n9ym1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444879/original/file-20220207-47158-11n9ym1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=625&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444879/original/file-20220207-47158-11n9ym1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=625&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444879/original/file-20220207-47158-11n9ym1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=625&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444879/original/file-20220207-47158-11n9ym1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444879/original/file-20220207-47158-11n9ym1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444879/original/file-20220207-47158-11n9ym1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Map of all published ancient genomes, with black dots scaled to the number of individuals’ genomes. Blue dots indicate Later Stone Age foragers comparable to those in our study. Red stars indicate individuals reported for the first time in our study. Inset map underscores the gap between Africa and other parts of the world in terms of published ancient genomes. Ancient DNA preserved between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn is rare.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mary Prendergast; basemaps by Natural Earth</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Breaking the ‘tropical ceiling’</h2>
<p>Because each person carries genetic legacies inherited from generations of their ancestors, our team was able to use DNA from individuals who lived between 18,000-400 years ago to explore how people interacted as far back as the last 80,000-50,000 years. This allowed us, for the first time, to test whether demographic change played a role in the Later Stone Age transition. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04430-9">Our team sequenced aDNA</a> from six individuals buried in what are now Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia. We compared these sequences to previously studied aDNA from 28 individuals buried at sites stretching from Cameroon to Ethiopia and down to South Africa. We also generated new and improved DNA data for 15 of these people, trying to extract as much information as possible from the small handful of ancient African individuals whose DNA is preserved well enough to study.</p>
<p>This created the largest genetic dataset so far for studying the population history of ancient African foragers – people who hunted, gathered or fished. We used it to explore population structures that existed prior to the sweeping changes of the past few thousand years.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444614/original/file-20220205-23-d1055k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Museum building, palm trees" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444614/original/file-20220205-23-d1055k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444614/original/file-20220205-23-d1055k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444614/original/file-20220205-23-d1055k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444614/original/file-20220205-23-d1055k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444614/original/file-20220205-23-d1055k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444614/original/file-20220205-23-d1055k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444614/original/file-20220205-23-d1055k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">National Museum of Tanzania in Dar es Salaam. Ancient DNA studies in Africa are made possible by the efforts of curators to protect and preserve remains in tropical conditions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mary Prendergast</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>DNA weighs in on a longstanding debate</h2>
<p>We found that people did in fact change how they moved and interacted around the Later Stone Age transition.</p>
<p>Despite being separated by thousands of miles and years, all the ancient individuals in this study were descended from the same three populations related to ancient and present-day eastern, southern and central Africans. The presence of eastern African ancestry as far south as Zambia, and southern African ancestry as far north as Kenya, indicates that people were moving long distances and having children with people located far away from where they were born. The only way this population structure could have emerged is if people were moving long distances over many millennia. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446008/original/file-20220211-21-gafkub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Lush African landscape" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446008/original/file-20220211-21-gafkub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446008/original/file-20220211-21-gafkub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446008/original/file-20220211-21-gafkub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446008/original/file-20220211-21-gafkub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446008/original/file-20220211-21-gafkub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446008/original/file-20220211-21-gafkub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446008/original/file-20220211-21-gafkub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Genetic data now suggests that people moved and mingled across the eastern African Rift Valley during the Ice Ages.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Elizabeth Sawchuk</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Additionally, our research showed that almost all ancient eastern Africans shared an unexpectedly high number of genetic variations with hunter-gatherers who today live in central African rainforests, making ancient eastern Africa truly a genetic melting pot. We could tell that this mixing and moving happened after about 50,000 years ago, when there was a major split in central African forager populations.</p>
<p>We also noted that the individuals in our study were genetically most like only their closest geographic neighbors. This tells us that after around 20,000 years ago, the foragers in some African regions were almost exclusively finding their partners locally. This practice must have been extremely strong and persisted for a very long time, as our results show that some groups remained genetically independent of their neighbors over several thousand years. It was especially clear in Malawi and Zambia, where the only close relationships we detected were between people buried around the same time at the same sites. </p>
<p>We don’t know why people began “living locally” again. Changing environments as the last Ice Age peaked and waned between about 26,000-11,500 years ago may have made it more economical to forage closer to home, or perhaps elaborate exchange networks reduced the need for people to travel with objects.</p>
<p>Alternatively, new group identities may have emerged, restructuring marriage rules. If so, we would expect to see artifacts and other traditions like rock art diversify, with specific types clumped into different regions. Indeed, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jan/16/trail-of-african-bling-reveals-50000-year-old-social-network">this is exactly what archaeologists find</a> – a trend known as regionalization. Now we know that this phenomenon not only affected cultural traditions, but also the flow of genes. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446872/original/file-20220216-20-cuzc12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="workers at a table sort tiny items by hand" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446872/original/file-20220216-20-cuzc12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446872/original/file-20220216-20-cuzc12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446872/original/file-20220216-20-cuzc12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446872/original/file-20220216-20-cuzc12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446872/original/file-20220216-20-cuzc12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446872/original/file-20220216-20-cuzc12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446872/original/file-20220216-20-cuzc12.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Recovering and sorting archaeological remains is a slow and laborious process, where even small fragments can tell big stories.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chelsea Smith</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>New data, new questions</h2>
<p>As always, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ancient-dna-is-a-powerful-tool-for-studying-the-past-when-archaeologists-and-geneticists-work-together-111127">aDNA research raises as many questions as answers</a>. Finding central African ancestry throughout eastern and southern Africa prompts anthropologists to reconsider how interconnected these regions were in the distant past. This is important because central Africa has remained archaeologically understudied, in part because of political, economic and logistical challenges that make research there difficult. </p>
<p>Additionally, while genetic evidence supports a major demographic transition in Africa after 50,000 years ago, we still don’t know the key drivers. Determining what triggered the Later Stone Age transition will require closer examination of regional environmental, archaeological and genetic records to understand how this process unfolded across sub-Saharan Africa.</p>
<p>Finally, this study is a stark reminder that researchers still have <a href="https://theconversation.com/lesson-from-brazil-museums-are-not-forever-102692">much to learn from ancient individuals and artifacts</a> held in African museums, and highlights the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-its-like-curating-ancient-fossils-a-palaeontologist-shares-her-story-96555">critical role of the curators</a> who steward these collections. While some human remains in this study were recovered within the past decade, others have been in museums for a half-century.</p>
<p>Even though technological advances are pushing back the time limits for aDNA, it is important to remember that scientists have only just begun to understand human diversity in Africa, past and present.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GUau26szdzA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175436/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Sawchuk receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessica Thompson has received funding from the Leakey Foundation, National Geographic Society, Wenner-Gren Foundation, Australian Research Council, National Science Foundation, and Hyde Family Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mary Prendergast does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new study doubles the age of ancient DNA in sub-Saharan Africa, revealing how people moved, mingled and had children together over the last 50,000 years.Elizabeth Sawchuk, Banting Postdoctoral Fellow and Adjunct Professor of Anthropology, University of AlbertaJessica Thompson, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Yale UniversityMary Prendergast, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Rice UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1766482022-02-09T19:02:36Z2022-02-09T19:02:36ZNew research suggests modern humans lived in Europe 10,000 years earlier than previously thought, in Neanderthal territories<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445221/original/file-20220208-14-hacfd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C649%2C3302%2C2290&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Grotte Mandrin rock shelter saw repeated use by Neanderthals and modern humans over millennia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ludovic Slimak</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Perched about 325 feet (100 meters) up the slopes of the Prealps in southern France, a humble rock shelter looks out over the Rhône River Valley. It’s a strategic point on the landscape, as here the Rhône flows through a narrows between two mountain ranges. For millennia, inhabitants of the rock shelter would have had commanding views of herds of animals migrating between the Mediterranean region and the plains of northern Europe, today replaced by TGV trains and up to 180,000 vehicles per day on one of the busiest highways on the continent.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445214/original/file-20220208-36884-116o8hb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="woodsy landscape with rock outcropping against blue sky" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445214/original/file-20220208-36884-116o8hb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445214/original/file-20220208-36884-116o8hb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=164&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445214/original/file-20220208-36884-116o8hb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=164&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445214/original/file-20220208-36884-116o8hb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=164&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445214/original/file-20220208-36884-116o8hb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=206&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445214/original/file-20220208-36884-116o8hb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=206&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445214/original/file-20220208-36884-116o8hb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=206&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Grotte Mandrin is somewhat camouflaged as a rock outcropping when viewed from a distance.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ludovic Slimak</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The site, recognized in the 1960s and named Grotte Mandrin after French folk hero Louis Mandrin, has been a valued location for over 100,000 years. The stone artifacts and animal bones left behind by ancient hunter-gatherers from the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Paleolithic-Period">Paleolithic period</a> were quickly covered by the glacial dust that blew from the north on the famous mistral winds, keeping the remains well preserved. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445223/original/file-20220208-13-1ea5wyf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="people kneeling on ground, working in the dirt" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445223/original/file-20220208-13-1ea5wyf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445223/original/file-20220208-13-1ea5wyf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445223/original/file-20220208-13-1ea5wyf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445223/original/file-20220208-13-1ea5wyf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=785&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445223/original/file-20220208-13-1ea5wyf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445223/original/file-20220208-13-1ea5wyf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445223/original/file-20220208-13-1ea5wyf.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=986&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">View of the excavations at the entrance of Grotte Mandrin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ludovic Slimak</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=-RkV2cEAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Since 1990, our</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NuaVUcwAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">research</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Oj2sSG0AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">team</a> <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Laure-Metz-72173746">has</a> been carefully investigating the uppermost 10 feet (3 meters) of sediment on the cave floor. Based on artifacts and tooth fossils, we believe that Mandrin rewrites the consensus story about when modern humans first made their way to Europe.</p>
<p>Human origins researchers have generally agreed that between 300,000 and 40,000 years ago, Neanderthals and their ancestors occupied Europe. From time to time during that period, they had contact with modern humans in the Levant and parts of Asia. Then around 48,000 to 45,000 years ago, modern humans – essentially us – <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2014.08.011">expanded throughout the rest of the world</a>, and Neanderthals and all other archaic humans disappeared.</p>
<p>In the journal Science Advances, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abj9496">we describe our discovery</a> of evidence that modern humans lived 54,000 years ago at Mandrin. That’s some 10 millennia earlier than our species was previously thought to be in Europe and over a thousand miles west (1,700 kilometers) from the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2259-z">next-oldest known site, in Bulgaria</a>. And fascinatingly, Neanderthals appear to have used the cave both before and after the modern human occupation.</p>
<h2>Clues from tiny stone points and a tooth</h2>
<p>The first curious finding to emerge during the initial decade of Grotte Mandrin excavations were 1,500 tiny triangular stone points identified in what we labeled Layer E. Some less than half an inch (1 cm) in length, these points resemble arrowheads. They have no technological precursors or successors in the 11 surrounding archaeological layers of Neanderthal artifacts in the cave.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445229/original/file-20220208-21-1y943e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Triangular stone points against black background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445229/original/file-20220208-21-1y943e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445229/original/file-20220208-21-1y943e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445229/original/file-20220208-21-1y943e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445229/original/file-20220208-21-1y943e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445229/original/file-20220208-21-1y943e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=708&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445229/original/file-20220208-21-1y943e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=708&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445229/original/file-20220208-21-1y943e2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=708&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">These Neronian points have no equivalent technology among the Neanderthal groups that lived before and after the arrival of the first modern humans in Grotte Mandrin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Laure Metz and Ludovic Slimak</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Who made them? A handful of other sites in the middle Rhône Valley also contain these tiny points. But those sites were excavated long ago with pickaxes, making it hard to tell whether the points showed up abruptly or gradually over time, perhaps with Neanderthals having developed the methods to make them. In 2004, one of us, Ludovic Slimak, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2008.02.005">named this distinctive tradition “Neronian”</a> after the nearby site where such tiny points were first excavated.</p>
<p>Without more local sites for comparison, two of us, Laure Metz and Slimak, looked to a region where modern humans were definitely living by 54,000 years ago: the Eastern Mediterranean. In particular, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1501529112">the site of Ksar Akil</a> near Beirut preserves what may be the longest and richest Paleolithic record in all Eurasia. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445450/original/file-20220209-23-39hgqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="map of Mediterranean region with sketches of stone points superimposed" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445450/original/file-20220209-23-39hgqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445450/original/file-20220209-23-39hgqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445450/original/file-20220209-23-39hgqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445450/original/file-20220209-23-39hgqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445450/original/file-20220209-23-39hgqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445450/original/file-20220209-23-39hgqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445450/original/file-20220209-23-39hgqu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">On opposite sides of the Mediterranean, similar stone points were made by <em>Homo sapiens</em> around the same time.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Laure Metz and Ludovic Slimak</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our analyses of the stone artifacts from Ksar Akil show a similarly aged sediment layer with tiny points of the same size and made in the same technical traditions as those of Mandrin. This similarity strongly suggested that the Neronian artifacts were made not by Neanderthals, but rather by a group of modern human explorers who entered the region much earlier than we had expected.</p>
<p>The final piece of the puzzle came in 2018, when one of us, <a href="https://www.pacea.u-bordeaux.fr/zanolli-clament/">Clément Zanolli</a>, analyzed the nine hominin teeth we’d found throughout the different layers during excavation. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abj9496">Through painstaking analyses</a> using CT scans and comparisons with hundreds of other fossils, we were able to determine that the Mandrin E tooth, a single baby tooth from a child between 2 and 6 years of age, came from an early modern human and cannot be from a Neanderthal.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445239/original/file-20220208-23-1r0tzuu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="fossil teeth and stone tools found in the same layer are side by side" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445239/original/file-20220208-23-1r0tzuu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445239/original/file-20220208-23-1r0tzuu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445239/original/file-20220208-23-1r0tzuu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445239/original/file-20220208-23-1r0tzuu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=442&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445239/original/file-20220208-23-1r0tzuu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445239/original/file-20220208-23-1r0tzuu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445239/original/file-20220208-23-1r0tzuu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=555&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cultural and anthropological evidence in Grotte Mandrin show the arrival of <em>Homo sapiens</em> in the heart of Neanderthal territories.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ludovic Slimak</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Based on the stone point technologies and their contexts in other sites, along with this fossil evidence, we conclude that the makers of the Neronian points in Grotte Mandrin were modern humans.</p>
<h2>Reading campfire soot layers like treerings</h2>
<p>But the discoveries from Mandrin don’t stop there. Throughout the site’s layers there are fragments of the shelter walls and roof that have fallen off and been buried with the fossils and artifacts.</p>
<p>When Neanderthals and modern humans made fires in the site, the smoke would leave a layer of soot on those surfaces. Then the following season a thin layer of calcium carbonate called speleothem would cover it over. This cycle was repeated over and over.</p>
<p>[<em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>We first discovered these sooted vault fragments in 2006, and the team recovered thousands, year after year, in every archaeological layer of Mandrin. <a href="https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01610057/document">A decade of work</a> by team member <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/segolene-vandevelde-475892">Ségolène Vandevelde</a> has shown that these patterns can be read like tree rings to tell us with what frequency and duration the groups visited the site, demonstrating that human groups came to Mandrin some 500 times over 80,000 years. </p>
<p>Vandevelde was then able to determine how much time separated the last Neanderthal fire from the first modern human fire in the cave, showing that it was only a maximum of a year between Neanderthals using Grotte Mandrin and modern humans moving in.</p>
<p>After the modern humans occupied Mandrin annually for some 40 years, one or two generations, they disappeared just as quickly and mysteriously as they had appeared. Neanderthals then regularly reoccupied Mandrin over the following 12,000 years. </p>
<h2>Multiple human species sharing the landscape</h2>
<p>How did these modern humans arrive so early in Western Europe?</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/nature22968">Archaeological evidence from Australia</a> shows that modern humans reached that continent by as early as 65,000 years ago. Of course they would have needed a boat to cross the open ocean to get there. It therefore isn’t a stretch to assume that people in the Mediterranean had access to boat technologies 54,000 years ago and used them to explore along the coastlines of this contained sea.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445244/original/file-20220208-25317-1toppl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="thin stone against dirt ground" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445244/original/file-20220208-25317-1toppl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445244/original/file-20220208-25317-1toppl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=653&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445244/original/file-20220208-25317-1toppl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=653&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445244/original/file-20220208-25317-1toppl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=653&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445244/original/file-20220208-25317-1toppl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445244/original/file-20220208-25317-1toppl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445244/original/file-20220208-25317-1toppl8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=820&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">View of a long flint blade emerging from the sediment of Grotte Mandrin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ludovic Slimak</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We know from the source locations of the flint used to make the artifacts in Grotte Mandrin that both Neanderthals and modern humans roamed widely, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2018.12.019">about 60 miles (100 km) in all directions</a> around the site.</p>
<p>How did the modern humans learn about all these stone resources over such a large, varied landscape in such a short time? Did they have relationships with the Neanderthals, who could have exchanged information or acted as guides? Was this a moment when the two groups interbred?</p>
<p>Our ongoing work at Mandrin will shed light on these and other questions about our earliest ancestors in Europe.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176648/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Stone artifacts and a fossil tooth point to Homo sapiens living at Grotte Mandrin 54,000 years ago, at a time when Neanderthals were still living in Europe.Ludovic Slimak, CNRS Permanent Member, Université Toulouse – Jean JaurèsClément Zanolli, Paleoanthropologist, Université de BordeauxJason E. Lewis, Lecturer of Anthropology and Assistant Director of the Turkana Basin Institute, Stony Brook University (The State University of New York)Laure Metz, Archaeologist at Aix-Marseille Université and Affiliated Researcher in Anthropology, University of ConnecticutLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1483812020-10-21T18:01:02Z2020-10-21T18:01:02ZTurbulent environment set the stage for leaps in human evolution and technology 320,000 years ago<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364551/original/file-20201020-19-15ycnx4.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C535%2C3887%2C2374&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Drilling 139 meters down to volcanic rock provided scientists with a million-year environmental record. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Human Origins Program, Smithsonian</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>People thrive all across the globe, at every temperature, altitude and landscape. How did human beings become so successful at adapting to whatever environment we wind up in? <a href="https://humanorigins.si.edu/about/human-origins-program-team/rick-potts">Human origins researchers like me</a> are interested in how this quintessential human trait, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2015.06.014">adaptability</a>, evolved.</p>
<p>At a site in Kenya, my colleagues and I have been working on this puzzle for decades. It’s a place where we see big changes happening in the archaeological and fossil records hundreds of thousands of years ago. But what external factors drove the emergence of behaviors that typify how our species, <em>Homo sapiens</em>, interacts with its surroundings?</p>
<p>We wanted to know if we could connect what was happening in the environment at the time to these shifts in technology and the human species that lived there. Based on our analysis, <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/43/eabc8975">published in the journal Science Advances</a>, we conclude that the roots of <em>Homo sapiens</em>‘ evolutionary adaptations stem from our ability to adjust to environmental change.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364559/original/file-20201020-15-immv6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Aerial view of the Olorgesailie basin today." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364559/original/file-20201020-15-immv6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364559/original/file-20201020-15-immv6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364559/original/file-20201020-15-immv6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364559/original/file-20201020-15-immv6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364559/original/file-20201020-15-immv6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364559/original/file-20201020-15-immv6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364559/original/file-20201020-15-immv6u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Aerial view of the Olorgesailie region today.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Human Origins Program, Smithsonian</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Missing time in the archaeological record</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364584/original/file-20201020-15-13t3y9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="map locates the site in Kenya" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364584/original/file-20201020-15-13t3y9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364584/original/file-20201020-15-13t3y9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364584/original/file-20201020-15-13t3y9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364584/original/file-20201020-15-13t3y9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364584/original/file-20201020-15-13t3y9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364584/original/file-20201020-15-13t3y9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364584/original/file-20201020-15-13t3y9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Olorgesailie is in Kenya, in East Africa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Human Origins Program, Smithsonian</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Famed prehistoric site Olorgesailie is in southern Kenya. It lies within the Rift Valley, a seismically active area where lakes and streams produced sediments that accumulated over time, burying and preserving fossilized bones and ancient stone tools.</p>
<p>At Olorgesailie, our scientific team has found evidence that’s potentially related to the origin of <em>Homo sapiens</em> in the form of a critical transition from one technology to another.</p>
<p>The older technology is typified by large, oval cutting implements called handaxes. Typical of what’s called Acheulean stone technology, nearly two dozen layers of these handaxes and other <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aao2200">Acheulean tools have been unearthed at Olorgesailie</a>. They span an immense period of about 700,000 years, covering a time when fossil remains show that the hominin species <a href="https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/homo-erectus"><em>Homo erectus</em></a> and <a href="https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/homo-heidelbergensis"><em>Homo heidelbergensis</em></a> inhabited eastern Africa.</p>
<p>The last Acheulean archeological sites at Olorgesailie are 500,000 years old, at which point there is a frustrating 180,000-year gap in these sediments caused by erosion. The archaeological record starts up again around 320,000 years ago, as sediments began to fill in the landscape.</p>
<p>But the Acheulean was gone. In its place was <a href="https://humanorigins.si.edu/research/east-african-research-projects/evolution-human-innovation">Middle Stone Age technology</a>, consisting typically of smaller, more easily carried implements than the clunky Acheulean handaxes. In other areas of Africa, the Middle Stone Age technology is associated with the earliest African <em>Homo sapiens</em>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364548/original/file-20201020-17-1ab9zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Acheulean handaxes and Middle Stone Age projectiles and pigments" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364548/original/file-20201020-17-1ab9zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364548/original/file-20201020-17-1ab9zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364548/original/file-20201020-17-1ab9zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364548/original/file-20201020-17-1ab9zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364548/original/file-20201020-17-1ab9zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364548/original/file-20201020-17-1ab9zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364548/original/file-20201020-17-1ab9zg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">After a 180,000-year gap in the record at Olorgesailie, Achulean technologies had been replaced by those of the Middle Stone Age.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Human Origins Program, Smithsonian</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These toolmakers often used sharp-edged black obsidian as a raw material. Archaeologists <a href="https://humanorigins.si.edu/about/human-origins-program-team/alison-brooks">Alison Brooks</a>, <a href="https://humanorigins.si.edu/about/human-origins-program-team/john-yellen">John Yellen</a> and others chemically traced the obsidian to distant outcrops in several different directions, up to 95 kilometers away from Olorgesailie. They concluded that the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aao2646">far-off obsidian sources</a> provide evidence of resource exchange among groups, a phenomenon unknown in Acheulean times.</p>
<p>Our Middle Stone Age excavations also contained <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aao2646">black and red coloring materials</a>. Archaeologists view pigments like these as signs of increasingly complex symbolic communication. Think of all the ways people use color – in flags, clothing and the many other ways people visually claim their identity as part of a group.</p>
<p>So here we had the extinction of the Acheulean way of life as well as its replacement by dramatically new behaviors including technological innovations, intergroup exchange of obsidian and the use of pigments. But we had no way to examine what happened in the 180,000-year gap when this transition took place.</p>
<p>We needed to recover that time. We started strategizing how we could unearth sediments from somewhere nearby that would have recorded the environments and survival challenges associated with this shift in early human adaptation.</p>
<h2>Turning to geology for clues about early humans</h2>
<p>Different types of sediment are laid down in lakes, streams and soils, and the sediment layers tell the story of changing environments over time. Geologists <a href="https://naturalhistory.si.edu/staff/kay-behrensmeyer">Kay Behrensmeyer</a> and <a href="http://www.bgc.org/people/each_person/deino_a.html">Alan Deino</a> joined me in the field in southern Kenya to figure out where we might <a href="https://humanorigins.si.edu/research/east-african-research-projects/olorgesailie-drilling-project">drill for sediments</a> that could fill in the Olorgesailie time gap.</p>
<p>We surmised that the key to understanding the big transition would lie beneath a flat, grassy plain about 24 kilometers south of our Olorgesailie excavations. Together with colleagues including <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xx3i6sIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">René Dommain</a> and collaborators from the <a href="http://lrc.geo.umn.edu/laccore/">National Lacustrine Core Facility</a>, we drilled in September 2012 until we reached the volcanic rock floor of the Rift Valley.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364554/original/file-20201020-17-1ttsh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="drill team at work at dusk" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364554/original/file-20201020-17-1ttsh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364554/original/file-20201020-17-1ttsh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364554/original/file-20201020-17-1ttsh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364554/original/file-20201020-17-1ttsh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364554/original/file-20201020-17-1ttsh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364554/original/file-20201020-17-1ttsh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364554/original/file-20201020-17-1ttsh.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The drill team extracted a cylinder of earth, just four centimeters in diameter, that turned out to represent 1 million years of environmental history.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Human Origins Program, Smithsonian</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The result was a core 139 meters deep containing a sequence of ancient lake and lake margin habitats and soils, all riddled with volcanic layers we could date to yield the most precisely dated East African environmental record for the past 1 million years.</p>
<p>With advice from geologist <a href="https://www.geo.arizona.edu/Cohen">Andy Cohen</a> and other colleagues, I assembled an international team of earth scientists and paleoecologists to sample and analyze the core. We figured out ways to convert many different measures of past environment – microscopic bits of plants, <a href="https://diatoms.org/news/do-diatoms-form-fossils">single-celled diatoms</a> from the ancient lake deposits and various chemical signals – into ecological measures of freshwater availability and vegetation cover. The <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/43/eabc8975">newly published study</a> provides our findings.</p>
<h2>Environments during the time gap</h2>
<p>The sediment record showed that during the era 1 million to 500,000 years ago, when Acheulean toolmakers were busy in the Olorgesailie basin, ecological resources were relatively stable. Fresh water was reliably available. Grazing zebra, rhinoceros, baboons, elephants and pigs altered the regional vegetation of wooded grassland to create short, nutritious grassy plains.</p>
<p>And then what happened in the time gap?</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364556/original/file-20201020-13-1kqu1gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="cross-section of part of the core" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364556/original/file-20201020-13-1kqu1gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364556/original/file-20201020-13-1kqu1gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364556/original/file-20201020-13-1kqu1gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364556/original/file-20201020-13-1kqu1gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364556/original/file-20201020-13-1kqu1gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364556/original/file-20201020-13-1kqu1gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364556/original/file-20201020-13-1kqu1gv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=730&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Each sediment layer visible in this cross-section of the core provides a clue about the ancient environment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">LacCore, University of Minnesota</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The core is very well preserved in the previously mysterious time interval. We determined that right around 400,000 years ago, a critical environmental transition took place. From a relatively stable setting, we started to see repeated fluctuation in the vegetation, available water and other ecological resources on which our ancestors and other mammals depend. </p>
<p>According to the anthropological literature, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774314000237">hunter-gatherers today and in recent history</a> respond to periods of uncertain resources by investing time and energy to refine their technology. They connect with distant groups to sustain networks of resource and information exchange. And they develop symbolic markers that strengthen these social connections and group identity.</p>
<p>Sound familiar? These behaviors resemble how the ancient Middle Stone Age lifestyle at Olorgesailie differed from the Acheulean way of life.</p>
<p>Equally notable, the large grazing species typical of Acheulean times became extinct after 500,000 years ago. Between 360,000 and 300,000 years ago, ecologically flexible herbivore species smaller in size, less water-dependent and reliant on both short and tall grass and tree leaves, had replaced the specialized grazers such as now-extinct species of zebras and the huge baboon.</p>
<p>These changes in the animal community reflect the advantage of adaptable diets, a parallel to how our Middle Stone Age ancestors adjusted to environmental uncertainty.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364560/original/file-20201020-19-7zd9xm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="scientists working with a cross-section of a sediment core" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364560/original/file-20201020-19-7zd9xm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/364560/original/file-20201020-19-7zd9xm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364560/original/file-20201020-19-7zd9xm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364560/original/file-20201020-19-7zd9xm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364560/original/file-20201020-19-7zd9xm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364560/original/file-20201020-19-7zd9xm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/364560/original/file-20201020-19-7zd9xm.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Back in the lab, scientists analyzed the contents of the core’s sediment layers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Human Origins Program, Smithsonian</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For the past two decades, many human origins researchers have thought of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1190683">climate as the primary</a>, if not sole, driver of hominin adaptive evolution. Our new study draws attention, though, to several factors in the Acheulean-Middle Stone Age transition in southern Kenya.</p>
<p>Yes, rainfall varied strongly after the environmental transition 400,000 years ago. But the terrain across the region also became fractured by tectonic activity and blanketed with volcanic ash. And big herbivores exerted different influences on the vegetation before and after this transition.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>The result was an ecological cascade of changes that included the early humans who practiced the Middle Stone Age way of life. We propose that all of these factors together instigated this critical evolutionary change.</p>
<p>The Middle Stone Age might hold a lesson for today. As humanity now confronts an era of environmental uncertainty on a global scale, is our species sufficiently nimble to engage social networks, new technologies, and reliable sources of information to adjust to the environmental disruptions ahead?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148381/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Potts receives funding from the Smithsonian Institution, and the project reported in the article received funding from the William H. Donner Foundation (all research project funding is reported in the publication on which The Conversation article is based). </span></em></p>A new environmental record for a prehistoric site in Kenya helped researchers figure out how external conditions influenced which of our ancient ancestors lived there, with what way of life.Richard Potts, Director of the Human Origins Program, Smithsonian InstitutionLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1467632020-09-27T19:59:17Z2020-09-27T19:59:17ZWhite supremacists believe in genetic ‘purity’. Science shows no such thing exists<p>Far-right white supremacist ideology is on the rise in Europe, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-020-00546-3">North America</a> and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-24/asio-director-general-mike-burgess-neo-nazi-threat-rising/11994178">Australia</a>. It appeals to a <a href="https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-difficulties-in-overcoming-the-white-supremacist-phenomenon/">racist notion</a> whereby many white supremacists see themselves as members of a “pure” race that is at risk of dilution and contamination. </p>
<p>Science does not support the idea of pure races with ancient origins. In the past few years, genetic sequencing of ancient and modern humans and related species has given us a flood of new information about how human populations have evolved.</p>
<p>The evidence reveals a history of ongoing genetic mingling, due to interbreeding between different populations and even species. Humans from different groups had children together, and even with Neanderthals and members of other now-extinct hominin species.</p>
<p>This mingling occurred constantly in the long process of human migration across the globe. Europeans inhabit one region of a large genetic continuum and are no more or less “pure” than any other population.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-believers-in-white-genocide-are-spreading-their-hate-filled-message-in-australia-106605">How believers in 'white genocide' are spreading their hate-filled message in Australia</a>
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<h2>From Africa to the world</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.the-scientist.com/features/genetics-steps-in-to-help-tell-the-story-of-human-origins-67871">genetic history of humanity</a> begins in what we now know as Africa. The exact location (or locations) of the first anatomically modern humans is debated, but there is a consensus they lived south of the Sahara desert between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago. </p>
<p>A group or groups of these early humans migrated out of Africa and into the Middle East, as we now know it, some time between 50,000 and 70,000 years ago. Next, some went east into Asia while others headed west into Europe. </p>
<p>At some point, the wandering humans <a href="https://www.the-scientist.com/magazine-issue/infographic--history-of-ancient-hominin-interbreeding-66319">met and bred with Neanderthals</a>. These now-extinct hominins had left Africa many thousands of years earlier. </p>
<p>Modern Asians and Europeans still carry <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/116/31/15327">genetic signatures</a> of Neanderthals, while sub-Saharan Africans do not. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-dna-ancestry-testing-can-change-our-ideas-of-who-we-are-114428">How DNA ancestry testing can change our ideas of who we are</a>
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<p>The humans that migrated east into Asia also met and bred with other extinct species of hominins, including at least <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2018.02.031">two major injections of genes</a> from a group we call Denisovans. </p>
<p>Early modern humans almost certainly bred with other ancient hominins as well, because interspecies breeding was likely common. The remains of a girl with a <a href="https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/girl-had-a-denisovan-dad-and-neanderthal-mom-64674">Neanderthal mother and Denisovan father</a> have recently been discovered. Another recent study has shown some Neanderthals too <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6511/1653">carried traces of human DNA</a>.</p>
<h2>Genetic diversity leads to greater fitness</h2>
<p>Genetic diversity, as measured by a metric called heterozygosity, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27654910/">decreases with geographic distance from Africa</a>. Higher heterozygosity is generally associated with greater genetic fitness for survival. </p>
<p>From this perspective it could be argued that, when the humans who walked away from Africa lost genetic diversity through living in small groups, they also lost genetic fitness. By the same argument, interbreeding between populations increases fitness. </p>
<p>In fact, Europeans probably benefited from picking up some Neanderthal DNA: these genes are thought to have <a href="https://www.the-scientist.com/features/neanderthal-dna-in-modern-human-genomes-is-not-silent-66299">diversified their immune systems</a> and may have contributed to their lighter pigmentation. </p>
<p>Humans who migrated west into Europe continued to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature21347">meet and breed with other human populations</a>. </p>
<p>Another wave of humans from what we call Anatolia (roughly modern-day Turkey) followed the initial spread of humans into Europe. The Yamnaya population from what we now know as the Russian steppe migrated west into Europe between 3,000 and 5,000 years ago. In fact, little genetic trace remains of the first human inhabitants of Europe, as they were continually supplanted by others.</p>
<p>Even the Roman civilisation, considered to be one of the historical foundations of European identity, was home to great genetic variety. A <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6466/708.abstract">recent study</a> looked at the genomes of 127 people from 29 sites across the past 10,000 years. It found an initial wave of hunter-gatherers had been supplanted by an Anatolian population, and during the age of Imperial Rome (27 BC to 300 AD) there were significant introductions of genes from what is now Iran and the eastern Mediterranean.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/vikings-were-never-the-pure-bred-master-race-white-supremacists-like-to-portray-84455">Vikings were never the pure-bred master race white supremacists like to portray</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Even Vikings were diverse</h2>
<p>Blonde-haired, blue-eyed northern Europeans are considered by many white supremacists as the ideal of racial purity. They are epitomised historically by the Vikings. </p>
<p>However, the reality was different. A <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2688-8">recent study</a> of 442 human genomes from archaeological sites across Europe and Greenland found substantial ancestry from elsewhere in Europe entering Scandinavia during the Viking Age. In fact, Vikings were more likely to have dark hair than modern Scandinavians.</p>
<p>In short, the idea of a pure white race has no basis in genetics. Lightly pigmented skin, hair and eyes are simply an adaptation to northern European climates (and represent an inferior adaptation in equatorial regions). These features exist in a background of countless other genetic influences borrowed from many populations, old and new.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-science-has-been-abused-through-the-ages-to-promote-racism-50629">How science has been abused through the ages to promote racism</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/146763/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dennis McNevin is the Director of the Genetic Ancestry Lab. He has received funding from the Australian Research Council, the Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering (AINSE), the US Army International Technology Center - Pacific, ANU Connect Ventures and the AMP Tomorrow Fund.</span></em></p>Genetic studies show mingling between populations has been the norm throughout human history.Dennis McNevin, Professor of Forensic Genetics, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1453432020-09-01T06:55:59Z2020-09-01T06:55:59ZPioneering archaeologist Revil Mason leaves an immeasurable legacy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355546/original/file-20200831-19-i5i70r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Revil Mason remained passionate about archaeology throughout his life.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Brilliant, creative, unpredictable, sometimes difficult, humorous, an indefatigable field archaeologist.” That’s how the late Professor Phillip Tobias once described his fellow archaeologist Professor Revil John Mason, who passed away in Johannesburg on 23 August 2020. Mason was 91 years old.</p>
<p>I had the honour of learning more about Mason – the man and the archaeologist – in February 2019 when the <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/origins/">Origins Centre</a> at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg hosted an exhibition that celebrated his immense contribution to southern African archaeology. It’s hard to believe that the enthusiastic, sharp and able man with an incredible memory and deep knowledge is no longer with us.</p>
<h2>Mapping history</h2>
<p>Mason was born on 10 February 1929. He grew up in Saxonwold, Johannesburg, and attended St John’s College, from which he matriculated in 1946. He studied a B.Com at Wits and excelled, receiving numerous accolades and awards. But a different path awaited him. </p>
<p>After attending a lecture by world famous anatomist Professor Raymond Dart a young Revil Mason became fascinated by archaeology and went to the University of Cape Town to study the subject. Again, he was an excellent student and went on to obtain his doctorate in archaeology in 1957, when he was 28. He worked for the country’s Archaeological Survey until he took an archaeological position at Wits in the 1960s.</p>
<p>The institution became Mason’s academic home for the rest of his working life. He became a professor, and in 1976 was appointed as the founding director of the Archaeological Research Unit. It was a post he held until his retirement in 1989. With the unit, he launched an extensive survey and excavation programme and was instrumental in laying the foundation for the practice of archaeology in South Africa.</p>
<p>Together with colleagues, he excavated numerous Early, Middle and Later Stone Age (hunter-gatherer) sites dating back to almost 2.6 million years, as well as agriculturalist and herder (Iron Age and historic) sites, mostly around the Gauteng and North West provinces. Among them were Makapansgat, Cave of Hearths, Sterkfontein, Olieboomspoort, Kalkbank, Munro, Uitkomst, Melville Koppies, the Kruger Cave (later called the Mohale Cave) and Broederstroom.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355548/original/file-20200831-17-1ejnd01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355548/original/file-20200831-17-1ejnd01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355548/original/file-20200831-17-1ejnd01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355548/original/file-20200831-17-1ejnd01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355548/original/file-20200831-17-1ejnd01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355548/original/file-20200831-17-1ejnd01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355548/original/file-20200831-17-1ejnd01.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Revil Mason (centre) with fellow members of the Wits Archaeology Research Unit Tom Maubane (left) and Lewis Matileya at Zambok, a site discovered by Maubane near Haartebeest Poort.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mason introduced and demonstrated the value of various analytical methods into the field of archaeology. Under his directorship, the Archaeological Research Unit undertook smelting furnace experiments, to better understand the furnaces found at Melville Koppies and Lonehill – some of which are still there today. He also saw the value of aerial photography in discovering and recording archaeological sites; by combining this with many hours of excavating, he <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Revil_Mason">mapped</a> the Herder (Iron Age) archaeology of the entire North West and Gauteng provinces. </p>
<p>He published numerous papers and books, which are still read and used today. His books included <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Cave_of_Hearths_Makapansgat_Transvaal.html?id=b9IKAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">Cave of Hearths</a> (1988), <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/origins-of-black-people-of-johannesburg-and-the-southern-western-central-transvaal-ad-350-1880/oclc/17539135">Origins of Black People of Johannesburg Area</a> (1987), and South African Archaeology 1922-1988 (1989).</p>
<p>His work mapping Herder archaeology clearly demonstrated evidence for well-connected and thriving communities involved in trade and significant agricultural endeavours, long before European colonisers arrived in South Africa.</p>
<p>This fitted with his then progressive ideas about the importance of making all South Africans aware of the country’s archaeological past. During the 1980s historians and archaeologists began to challenge the fallacy of European colonial myths perpetuated in the school history curriculum. Mason tirelessly sought to convince officials of the need to recognise and celebrate the African past, and the role that African people played in the making of modern South African society. He welcomed school groups to visit the sites he was excavating, and worked with teachers to develop programmes to help learners understand how people lived in South Africa in the last 2,000 years.</p>
<h2>Rock art</h2>
<p>With his colleagues, Mason investigated the beautiful rock engravings in the Magaliesberg near Johannesburg, which are now curated by the <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/rockart/">Rock Art Research Institute</a> at Wits and some of which are on display at Origins Centre. </p>
<p>At the age of 25, Mason climbed the Brandberg mountains in Namibia looking for rock art made by the indigenous San people. He discovered what he called “the Brandberg Picasso”, an abstract San rock art image, and documented a San rock art site on top of the Brandberg in a cave now known as Mason shelter. Together with revered artist Judith Menger (whom he married in 1957), the sites were meticulously traced and, later, beautiful replica paintings were made. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Supplied" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355547/original/file-20200831-16-1it9px9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355547/original/file-20200831-16-1it9px9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355547/original/file-20200831-16-1it9px9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355547/original/file-20200831-16-1it9px9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355547/original/file-20200831-16-1it9px9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355547/original/file-20200831-16-1it9px9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355547/original/file-20200831-16-1it9px9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A young Revil Mason surveying for Professor C. Van Riet Louw.</span>
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</figure>
<p>He didn’t just climb for work. Mason was a keen explorer and mountaineer. He explored Kaokoland and the Brandberg in Namibia, the Ruwenzori in Uganda, and other African mountains. He hiked the great Asian mountains, climbed the ice mountains in Russia and the Pamirs in Central Asia. He cycled down North America from Canada to Mexico, and at the age of 69 went on a solo bike trip across the Karakoram Mountains, in the western Himalayas, from Pakistan to China.</p>
<p>Mason, who is survived by two daughters, Tamar and Petra Mason, and two grandchildren – was a driven yet humble and down to earth man. He lived his life simply, often preferring to cook food on an open fire: in fact, his braai grid was on display at the Origins Centre’s exhibition.</p>
<p>He will be sorely missed. But he will not be forgotten: Revil John Mason has left an incredible legacy and has inspired many to become (better) archaeologists, instilling a passion for exploring the real African history. His contribution to archaeology and towards an accurate understanding of South African history is immeasurable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145343/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tammy Hodgskiss does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mason tirelessly sought to convince officials of the need to recognise and celebrate the African past, and the role that African people played in the making of modern South African society.Tammy Hodgskiss, Curator at the Origins Centre Museum, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1423832020-07-12T19:58:38Z2020-07-12T19:58:38ZDid ancient Americans settle in Polynesia? The evidence doesn’t stack up<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346781/original/file-20200710-38-1fcsnhh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C3%2C2051%2C1335&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andres Moreno-Estrada</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>How did the Polynesian peoples come to live on the far-flung islands of the Pacific? The question has intrigued researchers for centuries.</p>
<p>Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl brought the topic to public attention when he sailed a balsa-wood raft called the Kon-Tiki from Peru to Polynesia in 1947. His goal was to <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=TRepvgEACAAJ">demonstrate</a> such voyages were possible, supporting theories linking Polynesian origins to the Americas. </p>
<p>Decades of research in archaeology, linguistics and genetics now show that Polynesian origins lie to the west, ultimately in the islands of southeast Asia. However, the myth of migrations from America has lingered in folk science and on conspiracy websites.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346969/original/file-20200712-58-pj05pt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346969/original/file-20200712-58-pj05pt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346969/original/file-20200712-58-pj05pt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=290&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346969/original/file-20200712-58-pj05pt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=290&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346969/original/file-20200712-58-pj05pt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=290&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346969/original/file-20200712-58-pj05pt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346969/original/file-20200712-58-pj05pt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346969/original/file-20200712-58-pj05pt.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=365&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Pacific migrations: red arrows show expansion from island southeast Asia, blue arrows show Polynesian expansion, yellow arrows show proposed contact with the Americas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pnas.org/content/108/5/1815">Anna Gosling / Wilmshurst et al. (2011)</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>New evidence for American interlopers?</h2>
<p>A new study <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2487-2">published in Nature</a> reports genetic evidence of Native American ancestry in several Polynesian populations. The work, by Alexander Ioannidis and colleagues, is based on a genetic analysis of 807 individuals from 17 island populations and 15 indigenous communities from South and Central America.</p>
<p>Other <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(14)01220-2">researchers</a> have <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1399-0039.2006.00717.x">previously</a> found <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2011.0319">evidence</a> of indigenous American DNA in the genomes of the modern inhabitants of Rapa Nui. (Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, is the part of Polynesia closest to South America.) </p>
<p>The estimated timing of these interactions, however, raised concerns. Analyses of DNA from ancient Rapa Nui skeletal remains found <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(17)31194-6">no evidence</a> of such mingling, or admixture. This suggests the “Amerindian” genetic component was likely introduced later via Chilean colonists. </p>
<p>Ioannidis and colleagues found southern South American Indigenous DNA in the genomes – the genetic material – of modern Rapa Nui, but they claim it represents a <em>second</em> pulse of contact. They also found signs of earlier contact, coming from as far north as Colombia or even Mexico. </p>
<p>More novel was the fact that this earlier signal was also found in modern DNA samples collected in the 1980s from the Marquesas and the Tuamotu archipelagos. The researchers argue this likely traces to a single “contact event” around 1200 AD, and possibly as early as 1082 AD. </p>
<p>Both suggested dates for this first event are earlier than those generally accepted for the settlement of Rapa Nui (1200-1250 AD). The earlier date predates <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/108/5/1815">any archaeological evidence</a> for human settlement of the Marquesas or any of the other islands on which it was identified. </p>
<p>Ioannidis and colleagues make sense of this by suggesting that perhaps “upon their arrival, Polynesian settlers encountered a small, already established, Native American population”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-wind-currents-and-geography-tell-us-about-how-people-first-settled-oceania-67410">What wind, currents and geography tell us about how people first settled Oceania</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Follow the kūmara</h2>
<p>The 1200 AD date and the more northerly location of the presumed contact on the South American continent are not unreasonable. They are consistent with the <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=TxHbAAAAMAAJ">presence and distribution of the sweet potato</a>, or kūmara. </p>
<p>This plant from the Americas is found throughout Eastern Polynesia. It gives us the strongest and most widely accepted archaeological and linguistic evidence of contact between Polynesia and South America.</p>
<p>Kūmara remains <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/prehistoric-sweet-potato-ipomoea-batatas-from-mangaia-island-central-polynesia/4EE1E443CBCBFE19645D63C1E0FFD468">about 1,000 years old</a> have been found in the Cook Islands in central Polynesia. When Polynesian colonists settled the extremes of the Polynesian triangle – Hawai’i, Rapa Nui, and Aotearoa New Zealand – between 1200 and 1300 AD, they brought kūmara in their canoes. </p>
<p>So contact with the Americas by that time fits with archaeological data. The suggestion that it was Native Americans who made the voyage, however, is where we think this argument goes off the rails. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346967/original/file-20200712-46-55tte8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346967/original/file-20200712-46-55tte8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/346967/original/file-20200712-46-55tte8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346967/original/file-20200712-46-55tte8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346967/original/file-20200712-46-55tte8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346967/original/file-20200712-46-55tte8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346967/original/file-20200712-46-55tte8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/346967/original/file-20200712-46-55tte8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Polynesian voyagers travelled in double-hulled canoes much like the Hokule'a, a reconstruction of a traditional vessel built in the 1970s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hokule%27a.jpg">Phil Uhl / Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A great feat of sailing</h2>
<p>Polynesians are among the greatest navigators and sailors in the world. Their ancestors had been undertaking voyages on the open ocean for at least 3,000 years. </p>
<p>Double hulled Polynesian voyaging canoes were <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/117/16/8813">rapidly and systematically sailing</a> eastwards across the Pacific. They would not have stopped until they hit the coast of the Americas. Then, they would have returned home, using their <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00223344.2018.1512369">well proven skills</a> in <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/voyaging-by-canoe-and-computer-experiments-in-the-settlement-of-the-pacific-ocean/BE1704DEF4803D0453E9D8E0B6329B00">navigation and sailing</a>. </p>
<p>While Heyerdahl showed American-made rafts could make it out to the Pacific, Indigenous Americans have no history of open ocean voyaging. Similarly, there is no archaeological evidence of pre-Polynesian occupation on any of the islands of Polynesia.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/chickens-tell-tale-of-human-migration-across-pacific-24461">Chickens tell tale of human migration across Pacific</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The limitations of genetic analysis</h2>
<p>Genetic analyses attempting to reconstruct historical events based on data from modern populations are fraught with potential sources of error. Addressing questions where only a few hundred years make a major difference is particularly difficult. </p>
<p>Modelling population history needs to consider demographic impacts such as the massive depopulation caused by disease and other factors associated with European colonisation. </p>
<p>Ioannidis and colleagues took this into account for Rapa Nui, but not for the Marquesas. <a href="https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/114682">Estimates of population decline</a> in the Marquesas from 20,000 in 1840 to around 3,600 by 1902 indicate a significant bottleneck. </p>
<p>The choice of comparative populations was also interesting. The only non-East Polynesian Pacific population used in analyses was from Vanuatu. Taiwanese Aboriginal populations were used as representatives of the “pure” Austronesian ancestral population for Polynesians. </p>
<p>This is wrong and overly simplistic. Polynesian genomes themselves are inherently admixed. They result from intermarriages between people probably from a homeland in island southeast Asia (<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-20026-8">not necessarily Taiwan</a>) and other populations encountered en route through the Pacific. </p>
<p>Polynesian Y chromosomes and other markers show clear evidence of admixture with western Pacific populations. Excluding other Oceanic and Asian populations from the analyses may have skewed the results. Interestingly, the amount of Native American admixture identified in the Polynesian samples correlates with the amount of European admixture found in those populations.</p>
<p>Finally, like many recent population genetic studies, Ioannidis and colleagues did not look at sequences of the whole genome. Instead, they used what are called single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) arrays. </p>
<p>SNP arrays are designed based on genetic variation identified through studies of primarily Asian, African and European genomes. Very few Pacific or other indigenous genomes were included in the databases used to design SNP arrays. This means variation in these populations may be misinterpreted or underestimated.</p>
<h2>Summing up</h2>
<p>While the results presented by Ioannidis and colleagues are very interesting, to fully understand them will require a level of scholarly engagement that may take some time. </p>
<p>Did contact between Polynesians and indigenous Americans happen? Significant evidence indicates that it did. Do these new data prove this? Perhaps, though there are a number of factors that need further investigation. Ideally, we would like to see evidence in ancient genetic samples. Engagement with the Pacific communities involved is also critical.</p>
<p>However, if the data and analyses are correct, did the process likely occur via the arrival of indigenous Americans, on their own, on an island in eastern Polynesia? This, we argue, is highly questionable.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142383/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lisa Matisoo-Smith receives research funding from the Royal Society of New Zealand and has received funding from National Geographic as part of the Genographic project. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna Gosling receives research funding from the Royal Society of New Zealand. </span></em></p>New research claiming indigenous Americans traveled to Polynesia is sensational, but the science is flawed and ignores other evidence.Lisa Matisoo-Smith, Professor of Biological Anthropology, University of OtagoAnna Gosling, Research Fellow, University of OtagoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1287432019-12-23T14:00:43Z2019-12-23T14:00:43ZArchaeological discoveries are happening faster than ever before, helping refine the human story<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308018/original/file-20191219-11896-dhp3e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C4%2C3285%2C1808&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">20 years ago, who could predict how much more researchers would know today about the human past – let alone what they could learn from a thimble of dirt, a scrape of dental plaque, or satellites in space.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1924, a 3-year-old child’s skull found in South Africa forever changed how people think about human origins. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-africa-became-the-cradle-of-humankind-108875040/">Taung Child</a>, our first encounter with an ancient group of proto-humans or <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/whats-in-a-name-hominid-versus-hominin-216054/">hominins</a> called <a href="https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/australopithecus-and-kin-145077614/">australopithecines</a>, was a turning point in the study of human evolution. This discovery shifted the focus of human origins research from Europe and Asia onto Africa, setting the stage for the last century of research on the continent and into its “<a href="https://www.maropeng.co.za/">Cradles</a> of <a href="https://www.ngorongorocrater.org/oldupai.html">Humankind</a>.” </p>
<p>Few people back then would’ve been able to predict what scientists know about evolution today, and now <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/10/science/hominins-human-evolution.html">the pace of discovery is faster than ever</a>. Even since the turn of the 21st century, human origins textbooks have been rewritten over and over again. Just 20 years ago, no one could have imagined what scientists know two decades later about humanity’s deep past, let alone how much knowledge could be extracted from a thimble of dirt, a scrape of dental plaque or satellites in space.</p>
<h2>Human fossils are outgrowing the family tree</h2>
<p>In Africa, there are now <a href="https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/the-earliest-hominins-sahelanthropus-orrorin-and-ardipithecus-67648286/">several fossil candidates for the earliest hominin</a> dated to between 5 and 7 million years ago, when we know <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-humans-split-from-the-apes-55104">humans likely split off from other Great Apes</a> based on differences in our DNA. </p>
<p>Although discovered in the 1990s, publication of the 4.4 million year old skeleton nicknamed “<a href="http://doi.org/10.1126/science.326.5960.1598-a">Ardi</a>” in 2009 <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-humanlike-was-ardi/">changed scientists’ views on how hominins began walking</a>. </p>
<p>Rounding out our new relatives are a few australopithecines, including <a href="https://theconversation.com/found-our-3m-year-old-forebear-who-lived-alongside-lucy-42444"><em>Australopithecus deryiremeda</em></a> and <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/is-australopithecus-sediba-the-most-important-human-ancestor-discovery-ever/"><em>Australopithecus sediba</em></a>, as well as a <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-secrets-of-human-ancestry-emerge-from-south-african-caves-77352">potentially late-surviving species of early <em>Homo</em></a> that reignited debate about when humans first began <a href="https://www.sapiens.org/culture/hominin-burial/">burying their dead</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308012/original/file-20191219-11909-obon37.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308012/original/file-20191219-11909-obon37.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308012/original/file-20191219-11909-obon37.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308012/original/file-20191219-11909-obon37.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308012/original/file-20191219-11909-obon37.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308012/original/file-20191219-11909-obon37.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308012/original/file-20191219-11909-obon37.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308012/original/file-20191219-11909-obon37.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fossils like that of <em>Australopithecus sediba</em>, discovered in South Africa by a 9-year-old boy, are reshaping the human family tree.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Brett Eloff. Courtesy Prof Berger and Wits University</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Perspectives on our own species have also changed. Archaeologists previously thought <em>Homo sapiens</em> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gde.2006.10.008">evolved in Africa around 200,000 years ago</a>, but <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/6/7/15745714/nature-homo-sapien-remains-jebel-irhoud">the story has become more complicated</a>. <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/06/world-s-oldest-homo-sapiens-fossils-found-morocco">Fossils discovered in Morocco</a> have pushed that date back to 300,000 years ago, consistent with <a href="https://theconversation.com/ancient-dna-increases-the-genetic-time-depth-of-modern-humans-84716">ancient DNA evidence</a>. This <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/07/180711114544.htm">raises doubts that our species emerged in any single place</a>. </p>
<p>This century has also brought unexpected discoveries from Europe and Asia. From enigmatic <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-700-000-year-old-fossil-find-shows-the-hobbits-ancestors-were-even-smaller-60192">“hobbits” on the Indonesian island of Flores</a> to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/fresh-clues-to-the-life-and-times-of-the-denisovans-a-little-known-ancient-group-of-humans-110504">Denisovans</a> in Siberia, our ancestors may have encountered a <a href="https://theconversation.com/southeast-asia-was-crowded-with-archaic-human-groups-long-before-we-turned-up-119818">variety of other hominins when they spread out of Africa</a>. Just this year, researchers reported a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-01152-3">new species from the Philippines</a>.</p>
<p>Anthropologists are realizing that our <em>Homo sapiens</em> ancestors had <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/evidence-mounts-for-interbreeding-bonanza-in-ancient-human-species-1.19394">much more contact with other human species</a> than previously thought. Today, human evolution <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2009/jan/21/charles-darwin-evolution-species-tree-life">looks less like Darwin’s tree</a> and more like a <a href="https://aeon.co/ideas/human-evolution-is-more-a-muddy-delta-than-a-branching-tree">muddy, braided stream</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307209/original/file-20191216-123998-1trhsoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307209/original/file-20191216-123998-1trhsoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307209/original/file-20191216-123998-1trhsoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307209/original/file-20191216-123998-1trhsoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307209/original/file-20191216-123998-1trhsoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307209/original/file-20191216-123998-1trhsoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307209/original/file-20191216-123998-1trhsoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307209/original/file-20191216-123998-1trhsoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The rise of biomolecular archaeology means new opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration among field- and lab-based scientists.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Christina Warinner</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Ancient DNA reveals old relationships</h2>
<p>Many recent discoveries have been made possible by the <a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/everything-worth-knowing-about-ancient-dna">new science of ancient DNA</a>. </p>
<p>Since scientists fully sequenced the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature08835">first ancient human genome</a> in 2010, data from <a href="http://www.frontlinegenomics.com/news/19758/1000-ancient-genomes-achieved/">thousands of individuals</a> have shed new insights on our species’ origins and early history.</p>
<p>One shocking discovery is that <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/10/131021-neanderthal-human-evolution-teeth/">although our lineages split up to 800,000 years ago</a>, modern humans and Neanderthals <a href="https://www.livescience.com/64189-neanderthals-and-humans-interbreeding.html">mated a number of times</a> during the last Ice Age. This is why many people today <a href="https://theconversation.com/paying-a-heavy-price-for-loving-the-neanderthals-67221">possess some Neanderthal DNA</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308159/original/file-20191221-11900-1i8iio9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308159/original/file-20191221-11900-1i8iio9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/308159/original/file-20191221-11900-1i8iio9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308159/original/file-20191221-11900-1i8iio9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308159/original/file-20191221-11900-1i8iio9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308159/original/file-20191221-11900-1i8iio9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=635&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308159/original/file-20191221-11900-1i8iio9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=635&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/308159/original/file-20191221-11900-1i8iio9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=635&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 2010 excavation in the East Gallery of Denisova Cave, where the ancient hominin species known as the Denisovans were discovered.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bence Viola. Dept. of Anthropology, University of Toronto</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ancient DNA is how researchers first identified the <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/03/our-mysterious-cousins-denisovans-may-have-mated-modern-humans-recently-15000-years-ago">mysterious Denisovans</a>, who interbred with us <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06004-0">and Neanderthals</a>. And while most studies are still conducted on bones and teeth, it is now possible to extract ancient DNA from other sources like <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/ancient-human-genomes-plucked-from-cave-dirt-1.21910">cave dirt</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/12/nearly-6000-year-old-chewing-gum-reveals-life-ancient-girl">6,000-year-old chewing gum</a>.</p>
<p>Genetic methods are also reconstructing <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/no-wait-real-ava-bronze-age-woman-scottish-highlands-180970950/">individual</a> and <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/this-5-000-year-old-grave-site-tells-a-tragic-tale-of-an-extended-family-s-murder">family relationships</a>, and connecting <a href="https://theconversation.com/kennewick-man-was-native-american-study-suggests-43503">ancient individuals to living peoples</a> to end <a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/kennewick-mans-bones-reburied-settling-a-decades-long-debate">decadeslong debates</a>.</p>
<p>The applications go far beyond humans. Paleogenomics is yielding surprising discoveries about <a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/ancient-dna-reveals-the-surprisingly-complex-origin-story-of-corn">plants</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/19/science/the-big-search-to-find-out-where-dogs-come-from.html">animals</a> from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tig.2019.02.006">ancient seeds and skeletons</a> hidden in the backrooms of museums. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307221/original/file-20191216-124036-13tvs7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307221/original/file-20191216-124036-13tvs7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307221/original/file-20191216-124036-13tvs7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307221/original/file-20191216-124036-13tvs7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307221/original/file-20191216-124036-13tvs7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307221/original/file-20191216-124036-13tvs7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307221/original/file-20191216-124036-13tvs7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307221/original/file-20191216-124036-13tvs7z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Natural history museums hold a wealth of information, some of which can only be tapped through new biomolecular methods. Scientists analyze modern and fossil animal skeletons to ask questions about the past using ancient proteins.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mary Prendergast at National Museums of Kenya</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Biomolecules are making the invisible visible</h2>
<p>DNA is not the only molecule revolutionizing studies of the past. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.the-scientist.com/features/paleoproteomics-opens-a-window-into-the-past-30026">Paleoproteomics</a>, the study of <a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/paleoproteomics-lets-researchers-study-the-past-anew">ancient proteins</a>, can <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01986-x">determine the species of a fossil</a> and recently linked a <a href="https://phys.org/news/2019-11-extinct-giant-ape-linked-orangutan.html">9-foot tall, 1,300-pound extinct ape</a> that lived nearly 2 million years ago to today’s orangutans.</p>
<p>Dental calculus – the hardened plaque that your dentist scrapes off your teeth – is particularly informative, revealing everything from <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49650806">who was drinking milk 6,000 years ago</a> to the surprising <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-daily-life-of-a-neanderthal-revealed-from-the-gunk-in-their-teeth-73959">diversity of plants</a>, some <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170308131218.htm">likely medicinal</a>, in Neanderthal diets. Calculus can help scientists understand <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2014/3/3/5465942/dental-plaque-preserves-bacteria-diet-1000-year-old-skeletons">ancient diseases</a> and how the human <a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/uncovering-our-ancestral-microbiomes">gut microbiome has changed over time</a>. Researchers even find cultural clues – <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-found-lapis-lazuli-hidden-in-ancient-teeth-revealing-the-forgotten-role-of-women-in-medieval-arts-109458">bright blue lapis lazuli</a> trapped in a medieval nun’s calculus led historians to reconsider who penned illuminated manuscripts.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307207/original/file-20191216-123987-1q3l38p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307207/original/file-20191216-123987-1q3l38p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307207/original/file-20191216-123987-1q3l38p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307207/original/file-20191216-123987-1q3l38p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307207/original/file-20191216-123987-1q3l38p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307207/original/file-20191216-123987-1q3l38p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=645&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307207/original/file-20191216-123987-1q3l38p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=645&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307207/original/file-20191216-123987-1q3l38p.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=645&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Scientists unexpectedly found lazurite pigment in calcified plaque clinging to a 11th- to 12th-century woman’s tooth, challenging the assumption that male monks were the primary makers of medieval manuscripts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Christina Warinner</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lipid residues trapped in pottery have revealed the <a href="https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/takeaway/segments/217810-african-pottery-gives-hints-earliest-dairy-farmers">origins of milk consumption in the Sahara</a> and showed that oddly shaped pots found throughout Bronze and Iron Age Europe were <a href="https://theconversation.com/discovery-of-prehistoric-baby-bottles-shows-infants-were-fed-cows-milk-5-000-years-ago-124115">ancient baby bottles</a>. </p>
<p>Researchers use <a href="https://www.wired.com/beyond-the-beyond/2018/08/lab-zooarchaeology-mass-spectrometry/">collagen-based “barcodes”</a> of different animal species to answer questions ranging from when <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-08/mpif-eio081717.php">Asian rats arrived as castaways on Africa-bound ships</a> to what <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/02/dna-books-artifacts/582814/">animals were used to produce medieval parchment</a> or even to detect <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/goats-bookworms-monk-s-kiss-biologists-reveal-hidden-history-ancient-gospels">microbes left by a monk’s kiss</a> on a page.</p>
<h2>Big data is revealing big patterns</h2>
<p>While biomolecules help researchers zoom into microscopic detail, other approaches let them zoom out. Archaeologists have used <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/declassified-u-2-spy-plane-photos-are-boon-aerial-archaeology">aerial photography</a> since the 1930s, but widely available <a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/how-google-earth-has-revolutionized-archaeology">satellite imagery</a> now enables researchers to <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/satellites-expose-8000-years-lost-civilization/">discover new sites</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0188589">monitor existing ones at risk</a>. Drones flying over sites help <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/archaeologists-dont-always-need-to-digtheyve-got-drones/">investigate how and why they were made</a> and <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/4/140411-drones-jordan-dead-sea-looting-archaeology/">combat looting</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307923/original/file-20191219-11891-t26lov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307923/original/file-20191219-11891-t26lov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307923/original/file-20191219-11891-t26lov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307923/original/file-20191219-11891-t26lov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307923/original/file-20191219-11891-t26lov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=369&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307923/original/file-20191219-11891-t26lov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307923/original/file-20191219-11891-t26lov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307923/original/file-20191219-11891-t26lov.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=464&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Archaeologists increasingly use technology to understand how sites fit into their environment and to document sites at risk. Here, a drone captured a tell (a mound indicating build-up of ancient settlements) in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jason Ur</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Originally developed for space applications, scientists now use <a href="https://theconversation.com/meet-lidar-the-amazing-laser-technology-thats-helping-archaeologists-discover-lost-cities-60915">LIDAR</a> – a remote sensing technique that uses lasers to measure distance – to map 3D surfaces and visualize landscapes here on Earth. As a result, ancient cities are emerging from dense vegetation in places like <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/08/science/archaeology-lidar-maya.html">Mexico</a>, <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/laser-scans-reveal-massive-khmer-cities-hidden-cambodian-jungle-180959395/">Cambodia</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-we-recreated-a-lost-african-city-with-laser-technology-92852">South Africa</a>.</p>
<p>Technologies that can peer underground from the surface, such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/ice-age-footprints-of-mammoths-and-prehistoric-humans-revealed-for-the-first-time-using-radar-126696">Ground Penetrating Radar</a>, are also revolutionizing the field – for example, <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/9/140911-stonehenge-map-underground-monument-radar/">revealing previously unknown structures at Stonehenge</a>. More and more, archaeologists are able to do their work <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-archaeology-is-so-much-more-than-just-digging-108679">without even digging a hole</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307212/original/file-20191216-123992-1dzh788.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307212/original/file-20191216-123992-1dzh788.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307212/original/file-20191216-123992-1dzh788.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307212/original/file-20191216-123992-1dzh788.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307212/original/file-20191216-123992-1dzh788.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307212/original/file-20191216-123992-1dzh788.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307212/original/file-20191216-123992-1dzh788.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307212/original/file-20191216-123992-1dzh788.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Geophysical survey methods enable archaeologists to detect buried features without digging large holes, maximizing knowledge while minimizing destruction.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mary Prendergast and Thomas Fitton</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Teams of archaeologists are <a href="https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/news/2017/01/from-scarcity-to-abundance-big-data-in-archaeology">combining big datasets</a> in new ways to understand large-scale processes. In 2019, over 250 archaeologists pooled their findings to show that <a href="https://theconversation.com/surveying-archaeologists-across-the-globe-reveals-deeper-and-more-widespread-roots-of-the-human-age-the-anthropocene-122008">humans have altered the planet for thousands of years</a>, for example, with a <a href="https://gbtimes.com/ancient-chinese-irrigation-systems-added-to-world-heritage-list">2,000-year-old irrigation system</a> in China. This echoes <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/new-research-shows-late-pleistocene-humans-transforming-habitats-180959324/">other studies</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1908179116">that challenge</a> the idea that the Anthropocene, the current period defined by human influences on the planet, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/aug/29/declare-anthropocene-epoch-experts-urge-geological-congress-human-impact-earth">only began in the 20th century</a>.</p>
<h2>New connections are raising new possibilities</h2>
<p>These advances bring researchers together in exciting new ways. Over <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/over-140-mysterious-geoglyphs-discovered-within-the-ancient-nazca-lines">140 new Nazca Lines</a>, ancient images carved into a Peruvian desert, were discovered using artificial intelligence to sift through drone and satellite imagery. With the wealth of high-resolution satellite imagery online, teams are also turning to <a href="https://www.wired.com/2017/01/want-space-archaeologist-heres-chance/">crowdsourcing</a> to find new archaeological sites.</p>
<p>Although new partnerships among archaeologists and scientific specialists <a href="https://theconversation.com/ancient-dna-is-a-powerful-tool-for-studying-the-past-when-archaeologists-and-geneticists-work-together-111127">are not always tension-free</a>, there is growing consensus that studying the past means reaching across fields.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/portals-and-platforms/goap/open-science-movement/">Open Science movement</a> aims to makes this work accessible to all. <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05227-z">Scientists</a> including <a href="http://www.openaccessarchaeology.org/">archaeologists</a> are sharing data more freely within and beyond the academy. <a href="https://www.saa.org/education-outreach/public-outreach/what-is-public-archaeology">Public archaeology</a> programs, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-community-digs-can-inspire-the-next-generation-of-archaeologists-70352">community digs</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-digital-archaeologist-helps-inaccessible-collections-be-seen-123672">digital museum collections</a> are becoming common. You can even print your own copy of famous fossils from <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2015/09/19/how-to-print-your-own-3d-replicas-of-homo-naledi-and-other-hominin-fossils/#48db66c512c0">freely available 3D scans</a>, or an <a href="http://christinawarinner.com/outreach/children/adventures-in-archaeological-science/">archaeological coloring book</a> in more than 30 languages.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307983/original/file-20191219-11946-1kkh5ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307983/original/file-20191219-11946-1kkh5ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/307983/original/file-20191219-11946-1kkh5ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307983/original/file-20191219-11946-1kkh5ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307983/original/file-20191219-11946-1kkh5ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307983/original/file-20191219-11946-1kkh5ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307983/original/file-20191219-11946-1kkh5ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/307983/original/file-20191219-11946-1kkh5ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Archaeologists are increasingly reaching out to communities to share their findings, for example at this school presentation in Tanzania.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Agness Gidna</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Efforts to make <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/a-voice-to-confront-one-woman-s-journey-to-decolonize-archeology-1.5137875">archaeology</a> and <a href="https://phys.org/news/2019-12-d-museums-repatriation-decolonization-efforts.html">museums</a> more equitable and engage <a href="https://www.crowcanyon.org/index.php/what-is-indigenous-archaeology-and-what-does-it-mean-for-crow-canyon">indigenous research partners</a> are gaining momentum as archaeologists consider <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6387/384">whose past is being revealed</a>. Telling the human story requires a community of voices to do things right.</p>
<h2>Studying the past to change our present</h2>
<p>As new methods enable profound insight into humanity’s shared history, a challenge is to ensure that these insights are relevant and beneficial in the present and future. </p>
<p>In a year marked by <a href="https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2019-greta-thunberg/">youth-led climate strikes</a> and <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/a-scary-year-for-climate-change/">heightened awareness of a planet in crisis</a>, it may seem counterproductive to look back in time. </p>
<p>Yet in so doing, archaeologists are providing <a href="https://theconversation.com/using-archaeology-to-understand-the-past-present-future-of-climate-change-108668">empirical support for climate change</a> and revealing how ancient peoples coped with challenging environments. </p>
<p>As one example, studies show that while industrial meat production has <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/beef-uses-ten-times-more-resources-poultry-dairy-eggs-pork-180952103/">serious environmental costs</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/transhumance">transhumance</a> – a traditional practice of seasonally moving livestock, now <a href="https://www.euromontana.org/en/transhumance-as-unesco-intangible-cultural-heritage/">recognized by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage</a> – is not only <a href="https://www.iucn.org/content/pastoralism-provides-crucial-services-humanity-can-support-green-economy-transition">light on the land</a> today, but helped promote <a href="https://natureecoevocommunity.nature.com/users/175450-fiona-marshall/posts/38272-ancient-herders-enriched-and-restructured-african-grasslands">biodiversity and healthy landscapes</a> in the past.</p>
<p>Archaeologists today are contributing their methods, data and perspectives toward a vision for a less damaged, more just planet. While it’s difficult to predict exactly what the next century holds in terms of archaeological discoveries, a new focus on “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-019-09347-9">usable pasts</a>” points in a positive direction.</p>
<p>[ <em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklysmart">You can get our highlights each weekend</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/128743/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>20 years ago, who could predict how much more researchers would know today about the human past – let alone what they could learn from a thimble of dirt, a scrape of dental plaque, or satellites in space.Elizabeth Sawchuk, Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Stony Brook University (The State University of New York)Mary Prendergast, Professor of Anthropology, Saint Louis University – MadridLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1261302019-10-31T11:59:02Z2019-10-31T11:59:02ZBotswana is humanity’s ancestral home, claims major study – well, actually …<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299660/original/file-20191031-187934-1yecnej.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A study claims the first humans lived in a wetland around what is now northern Botswana.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/aerial-view-okavango-delta-botswana-africa-381563779?src=c26RxRWx6zN_fvWLLN7FIw-1-0">Prill/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A recent paper in the prestigious <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1714-1">journal Nature</a> claims to show that modern humans originated about 200,000 years ago in the region <a href="http://theconversation.com/humanitys-birthplace-why-everyone-alive-today-can-call-northern-botswana-home-125814">around northern Botswana</a>. For a scientist like myself who studies human origins, this is exciting news. If correct, this paper would suggest that we finally know where our species comes from.</p>
<p>But there are actually several reasons why I and <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/10/experts-question-study-claiming-pinpoint-birthplace-all-humans">some of my colleagues</a> are not entirely convinced. In fact, there’s good reason to believe that our species doesn’t even have a single origin.</p>
<p>The scientists behind the new research studied genetic data from many individuals from the KhoeSan peoples of southern Africa, who are thought to live where their ancestors have lived for hundreds of thousands of years. The researchers used their new data together with existing information about people all around the world (including other areas traditionally associated with the origins of humankind) to reconstruct in detail the branching of the human family tree.</p>
<p>We can think of the earliest group of humans as the base of the tree with a specific set of genetic data - a gene pool. Each different sub-group that branched off and migrated away from humanity’s original “homeland” took a subset of the genes in that gene pool with them. But most people, and so the vast majority of those genes, remained behind. This means people alive today with different subsets of our species’ genes can be grouped on different branches of the human family tree.</p>
<p>Groups of people with the most diverse genomes are likely to be the ones that descended directly from the original group at the base of the tree, rather than one of the small sub-groups that split from it. In this case, the researchers identified one of the groups of KhoeSan people from around northern Botswana as the very bottom of the trunk, using geographical and archaeological data to back up their conclusion. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299662/original/file-20191031-30397-qkcywn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299662/original/file-20191031-30397-qkcywn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299662/original/file-20191031-30397-qkcywn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299662/original/file-20191031-30397-qkcywn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299662/original/file-20191031-30397-qkcywn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299662/original/file-20191031-30397-qkcywn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299662/original/file-20191031-30397-qkcywn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lead study author Vanessa Hayes with Juǀ’hoansi hunters in Namibia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Chris Bennett, Evolving Picture</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>If you compare this process to creating your own family tree, it makes sense to think you can use information about who lives where today and how everyone relates to each other to reconstruct where the family came from. For example, many of my relatives live on the lovely Channel Island of Alderney, and one branch of my family have indeed been islanders for many generations.</p>
<p>Of course, there’s always some uncertainty created by variations in the data. (I now live in Wales and have cousins in England.) But as long as you look for broad patterns rather than focusing on specific details, you will still get a reasonable impression. There are even some statistical techniques you can use to assess the strength of your interpretation.</p>
<p>But there are several problems with taking the process of building a human family tree to such a detailed conclusion, as this new research does. First, it’s important to note that the study didn’t look at the whole genome. It focused just on <a href="https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/mtdna-and-mitochondrial-diseases-903/">mitochondrial DNA</a>, a small part of our genetic material that (unlike the rest) is <a href="https://theconversation.com/study-shows-mitochondrial-dna-can-be-passed-through-fathers-what-does-this-mean-for-genetics-107641">almost only ever</a> passed from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/24/science/mitochondrial-dna-mothers.html">mothers to children</a>. This means it isn’t mixed up with DNA from fathers and so is easier to track across the generations. </p>
<p>As a result, mitochondrial DNA is commonly used to reconstruct evolutionary histories. But it only tells us part of the story. The new study doesn’t tell us the origin of the human genome but the place and time where our mitochondrial DNA appeared. As a string of just 16,569 genetic letters out of over 3.3 billion in each of our cells, mitochondrial DNA is a very tiny part of us.</p>
<h2>Other DNA</h2>
<p>The fact that mitochondrial DNA comes almost only ever from mothers also means the story of its inheritance is much simpler than the histories of other genes. This implies that every bit of our genetic material may have a different origin, and have followed a different path to get to us. If we did the same reconstruction <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23240-the-father-of-all-men-is-340000-years-old/">using Y chromosomes</a> (passed only from <a href="https://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask295">father to son</a>) or whole genomes, we’d get a different answer to our question about where and when humans originated.</p>
<p>There is actually <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/genetic-adam-and-eve-did-not-live-too-far-apart-in-time-1.13478">a debate</a> over whether the woman from whom all our mitochondrial DNA today descends (“mitochondrial Eve”) could ever have even met the man from whom all living men’s Y-chromosomes descend (“Y-chromosome Adam”). By some estimates, they may have lived as much as 100,000 years apart. </p>
<p>And all of this ignores the possibility that other species or populations may also have contributed DNA to modern humans. After this mitochondrial “origin”, our species interbred <a href="https://www.livescience.com/64189-neanderthals-and-humans-interbreeding.html">with Neanderthals</a> and a group called <a href="https://phys.org/news/2019-04-evidence-denisovans-interbreeding-humans-southeast.html">the Denisovans</a>. There’s even evidence that these two interbred with one another, at about the same time as they were <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06004-0">hybridising with us</a>. Earlier modern humans probably also interbred with other human species living alongside them in other time periods.</p>
<p>All of this, of course, suggests that modern human history – like the history of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/03014460.2014.922613">modern primates</a> – was much more than a simple tree with straight lines of inheritance. It’s much more likely that our distant ancestors interbred with other species and populations to form a braiding stream of gene pools than that we form a nice neat tree that can be reconstructed genetically. And if that’s true, we may not even have a single origin we can hope to reconstruct.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126130/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Isabelle Catherine Winder received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) as part of the DISPERSE project (2011-2016). It was as part of her work as a post-doc on this project that she wrote the paper about reticulation and the human past cited in this article.</span></em></p>It’s likely our species doesn’t actually have a single origin.Isabelle Catherine Winder, Lecturer in Zoology, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1103212019-01-29T14:05:03Z2019-01-29T14:05:03ZHow we know that ancient African people valued fossils and rocks<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/255824/original/file-20190128-108370-7e1l6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The trilobite manuport (Bainella sp) from Robberg on the Cape south coast was carried at least 10 km to a small cave shelter. For scale, the bar is 10 cm long.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author Supplied </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s been nearly 50 years since geologist and author Dorothy Vitaliano coined the term “<a href="https://web.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/MayorGeomythology.pdf">geomythology</a>”. This refers to the study of oral traditions from around the world that explain geological and other natural phenomena through metaphor and myth. Geomythology also involves investigating how pre-scientific cultures interpreted the geological and fossil phenomena they encountered in the world around them. </p>
<p>There are many benefits to this work. One is that it confirms how much knowledge and insight existed in pre-scientific cultures. Another is that a knowledge of local geomythology can help palaeontologists to identify and study important fossil sites.</p>
<p>There’s a lot of information about geomythology from places like <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/7923.html">North America</a>, <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/9435.html">Europe</a> and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10420940.2011.634038">China</a>. But very little is known about this field on the African continent, and particularly in southern Africa. We found this surprising: the region is home to the “<a href="http://www.thecradleofhumankind.net/">Cradle of Humankind</a>”, a world heritage site. It’s of critical importance in the <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1067575">origin of modern humans</a> and has a <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jafrearsci.2005.07.014">tremendous fossil record</a>, which includes numerous <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185941">vertebrate trackways</a> – the footprints that ancient species left as they moved around the landscape.</p>
<p>This evidence, coupled with the remarkable tracking ability of groups <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.1992.0095">like the San</a>, suggests that early southern African cultures might have been aware of this evidence in stone and what it represented: remarkable creatures that no longer existed.</p>
<p>We set out to better understand southern Africa’s geomythology. This was done using our combined knowledge, as well as literature searches. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001678781930001X">Our study</a> features 21 sites across southern Africa – and also lists sites elsewhere in Africa, like Uganda, Tanzania, Cameroon and Algeria – that show evidence of geomythology among pre-scientific societies.</p>
<p>Our hope is that this work will form a foundation for further studies, and that in time a diverse non-western, indigenous palaeontological and geomythological heritage will become evident in southern Africa. The resulting knowledge may shed new light on how our ancestors thought and behaved.</p>
<h2>Two categories</h2>
<p>Two main categories of geomythology emerged in our study. The first were manuports. These are unmodified objects like fossils or quartz crystals that are found in places where they couldn’t possibly have occurred naturally. Manuports would have made people curious enough to pick them up, carry them and store them.</p>
<p>We found examples of these in several places in South Africa and Lesotho. One of the most fascinating manuports was the remarkable fossil of a Karoo reptile, which was reportedly found being used as a pot lid in a Griqua hut around 1830. This specimen went on to become <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/292805733_Mesosaurus_tenuidens_and_Stereosternum_tumidum_from_the_Permian_Gondwana_of_both_Southern_Africa_and_South_America">very important</a> in the elaboration of the study of continental drift.</p>
<p>Quartz – and its <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0959774313000498">relationship to beliefs</a> on spiritual sight – figured prominently in our findings. One notable example was a large quartz crystal manuport from the southern Cape: it was found wedged into the eye socket of an infant in a burial site in a cave shelter.</p>
<p>Arguably the most famous and certainly the oldest known manuport in the world is the “<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-Makapansgat-cobble-South-Africa-carried-to-a-cave-and-deposited-almost-3-million_fig1_280621767">Makapansgat cobble</a>”. It resembles a human face, and has been dated to 2.95 million years. The inference is that someone appreciated the facial likeness – and maybe the red colour – and picked it up in the earliest known example of symbolic thinking.</p>
<p>The second major category involved spatial associations between rock art and dinosaur skeletons and trackways, particularly in South Africa’s eastern Free State and Lesotho. </p>
<p>The most compelling example was at <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258838712_Mokhali_Cave_revisited_-_dinosaur_rock_art_in_Lesotho">Mokhali Cave</a>. This is a rock art site containing an image of a dinosaur footprint beside bird-like images, close to dinosaur trackways and dinosaur bones. </p>
<p>Buttressing such evidence were ethnographic studies which document <a href="http://lloydbleekcollection.cs.uct.ac.za/stories/788/index.html">myths</a> of prehistoric monsters that may have made the tracks. These examples were complemented by a petroglyph resembling a dinosaur track in the northern Cape and rock art in the Cederberg with images that resemble mammal-like reptiles from the Permian period. These images were perhaps inferred from people’s awareness of trackways and fossils, and what these represented.</p>
<h2>Future inspiration</h2>
<p>These sites, and others we studied, share some commonalities with sites on other continents. But they have a uniquely African flavour, such as the San in the Kalahari Desert carrying fulgurites (rocks created by the fusion of sand during lightning strikes) to use in ceremonies to ward off lightning or to summon rain. </p>
<p>And, as we suggest in our study, geomythology – and those curious collectors from so long ago – can be a powerful way to inspire more people on the continent to become interested in Africa’s palaeoscience.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110321/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charles Helm does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Geomythology can be a powerful way to inspire more people on the continent to become interested in Africa’s palaeoscience.Charles Helm, Research Associate, African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience, Nelson Mandela UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1011222019-01-20T18:50:54Z2019-01-20T18:50:54ZA snapshot of our mysterious ancestor Homo erectus<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248350/original/file-20181203-194928-1spcrr2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Homo erectus had many features in common with Homo sapiens – but we still don't have a genetic profile for this species. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/silhouette-woman-standing-on-hill-dramatic-501150766">from www.shutterstock.com </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you bumped into a <em>Homo erectus</em> in the street you might not recognise them as being very different from you. You’d see a certain “human-ness” in the stance, and his or her size and shape might be similar to yours.</p>
<p>But their face would be flatter, with a more obvious brow. And having a conversation would be hard – his or her language skills would be poor (although they could certainly craft a stone tool or light a fire). </p>
<p>Of course this is entirely hypothetical, as <em>Homo erectus</em> is now extinct. This enigmatic human ancestor probably evolved in Africa more than <a href="https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/homo-erectus-a-bigger-smarter-97879043">2 million years ago</a>, although the timing of their disappearance is less clear. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/stone-tools-date-early-humans-in-north-africa-to-2-4-million-years-ago-107617">Stone tools date early humans in North Africa to 2.4 million years ago</a>
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<p><em>Homo erectus</em> was in the news over 2018 thanks to new discoveries in the <a href="http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/s41586-018-0072-8">Philippines</a> and <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0299-4">China</a>, which have transformed our understanding of this not too distant family member. </p>
<p>So who was <em>Homo erectus</em>? And could 2019 be the year we learn more about our mysterious ancestor? </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248357/original/file-20181203-194922-1vhw7gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248357/original/file-20181203-194922-1vhw7gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248357/original/file-20181203-194922-1vhw7gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248357/original/file-20181203-194922-1vhw7gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=544&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248357/original/file-20181203-194922-1vhw7gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=683&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248357/original/file-20181203-194922-1vhw7gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=683&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248357/original/file-20181203-194922-1vhw7gz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=683&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Homo erectus skull discovered in 1969 in Sangiran, Indonesia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/set-homo-erectus-skull-discovered-1969-726532813?src=mJCWresHNM93-ZxIqH3vKQ-1-0">from www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Where and when did they live?</h2>
<p><em>Homo erectus</em> was first discovered in Java, Indonesia and then <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/449:PekingManSiteatZhoukoudian">China</a> – these are the famous “Java Man” and “Peking Man” fossils. Eugène Dubois’ 1891 <a href="https://archive.org/details/Pithecanthropus00Dubo">discovery</a> on Java (originally called <em>Pithecanthropus erectus</em>) was a key piece of evidence in supporting Darwin’s ideas of human evolution. </p>
<p>The recent <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0299-4">discovery</a> of stone artefacts in the Loess Plateau of China suggests that a hominin, probably <em>Homo erectus</em>, was living in the region by 2.1 million years ago. This evidence pushes back their presence in Asia back by at least 400,000 years. </p>
<p>Other ancient <em>Homo erectus</em> sites are present in <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/108/26/10432">the Caucasus region</a> of Georgia (1.8 million years ago), on Java and in Africa.</p>
<p><em>Homo erectus</em> is thought to have become mostly extinct following the emergence of modern humans – yet some <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004724840800047X">specimens from Java</a> have been dated (with some controversy) to as recently as 40,000 years ago. If this dating is correct, it suggests that they coexisted with <em>Homo sapiens</em>, although probably only in very small pockets in Indonesia. </p>
<p>The expansion of <em>Homo erectus</em> throughout the globe was the first time that a hominin species had ventured beyond Africa, and occurred 2 million years before modern humans replicated this great feat of exploration. They may have been encouraged to spread so rapidly by the expansion of grassland during this period, driven by climate change. This created more habitats for plant-eating animals and so increased the amount of available prey.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/rhino-fossil-rewrites-the-earliest-human-history-of-the-philippines-95879">Rhino fossil rewrites the earliest human history of the Philippines</a>
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<h2>What did they look like?</h2>
<p><em>Homo erectus</em> was the first of our ancestors to physically resemble modern humans. They were taller and their brain was larger than previous hominin species such as <em>Australopithecus sp.</em> or <em>Homo habilis</em>. </p>
<p>They had a slightly different <a href="http://humanorigins.si.edu/sites/default/files/styles/full_width/public/images/square/erectus_JC_Recon_Head_CC_f_sq.jpg?itok=5yDjSzJx">face</a> to us: it was flatter with more prominent brow ridges. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248352/original/file-20181203-194932-142btpd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248352/original/file-20181203-194932-142btpd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/248352/original/file-20181203-194932-142btpd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=204&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248352/original/file-20181203-194932-142btpd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=204&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248352/original/file-20181203-194932-142btpd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=204&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248352/original/file-20181203-194932-142btpd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=256&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248352/original/file-20181203-194932-142btpd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=256&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/248352/original/file-20181203-194932-142btpd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=256&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There are clear differences in the size and shape of the skull in <em>Homo sapiens</em> compared to other human-like species including <em>Homo erectus</em> (schematic).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/evolution-skull-1097845550?src=jKcI7rWJmUj2mGN0cfa4uA-2-1">from www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The long legs and the fact that they were fully upright meant <em>Homo erectus</em> individuals were <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248410000564">efficient walkers and could cover larger ranges than their ancestors</a>. </p>
<p>Their body shape also meant that they could <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/004724849290071G">control their temperature and water balance well and so were well suited for living in open forests</a>.</p>
<h2>What did they eat?</h2>
<p><em>Homo erectus</em> were probably advanced <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FA%3A1014507129795">scavengers who augmented their diet with some predation</a> rather than sophisticated hunters. In fact, they probably occupied a similar ecological niche to hyenas today. </p>
<p>The importance of meat in their diets is still contested, with some researchers considering they were primarily <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0047248489900377">meat eaters</a> and others believing that they had a much <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/113/51/14674">broader diet</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/curious-kids-where-did-the-first-person-come-from-85891">Curious Kids: Where did the first person come from?</a>
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<h2>How smart where they?</h2>
<p><em>Homo erectus</em> was much smarter than previous hominins, being the first species to use <a href="https://core.ac.uk/reader/80779283">fire</a> and may have been the first to live in hunter-gather groups. They made stone tools in a style called the <a href="http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1498590/1/Torre%20The%20origins%20of%20the%20Acheulean%20%E2%80%93%20past%20and%20present%20perspectives%20on%20a%20major%20transition%20in%20human%20evolution%20AAM.pdf">Acheulian</a>, characterised by distinctive hand axes.</p>
<p>Despite this, their cognitive ability fell a long way short of modern humans. There is currently no evidence that <em>Homo erectus</em> was capable of undertaking modern behaviours such as using language or making art.</p>
<p>The importance of the recent discovery of archaeological material attributed to <em>Homo erectus</em> in the Philippines helps us learn more details about what this species may have been capable of. </p>
<p>Previously, it was widely accepted that <em>Homo erectus</em> was not able to undertake water crossings. This theory fitted with their presence as far as Java, but not across deeper water represented by the <a href="http://discovermagazine.com/1997/aug/mrwallacesline1198">Wallace line</a> to travel further east. </p>
<p>A discovery in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/rhino-fossil-rewrites-the-earliest-human-history-of-the-philippines-95879">Philippines</a> (and possibly in <a href="https://theconversation.com/ancient-stone-tools-found-on-sulawesi-but-who-made-them-remains-a-mystery-92277">Sulawesi</a>) overturns this, and opens the exciting possibility that <em>Homo erectus</em> may have been more capable sailors than we previously thought.</p>
<h2>How are they related to us?</h2>
<p>One of the most contentious aspects of <em>Homo erectus</em> is who to include in the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ajpa.10399">species</a>. While many researchers include a wide range of specimens from around the world as <em>Homo erectus</em>, some classify the African and Eurasian specimens as <em>Homo ergaster</em>. Others use the terms <em>Homo erectus</em> senso stricto (ie. in the narrow sense) for the Asian specimens and <em>Homo erectus</em> senso lato (ie. in the broad sense) for all specimens. </p>
<p>This somewhat confusing situation is actually far clearer than the early history of <em>Homo erectus</em> where a wide range of names including <em>Anthropopithecus</em>, <em>Homo leakeyi</em>, <em>Pithecanthropus</em>, <em>Sinanthropus</em>, <em>Meganthropus</em>, and <em>Telanthropus</em> were used. The reason for this complexity is that <em>Homo erectus</em> (whatever you choose to call them) have a comparatively wide range of morphological characteristics making it difficult to decide how much diversity to include within the definition of the species.</p>
<p>What is clear is that <em>Homo erectus</em> sits somewhere on the human lineage as an ancestor to modern humans, serving as a transition from early hominins such as <em>Australopithecus</em> to <em>Homo heidelbergensis</em>, <em>Homo neanderthalensis</em> and <em>Homo sapiens</em>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-know-why-short-statured-people-of-flores-became-small-but-for-the-extinct-hobbit-its-not-so-clear-100752">We know why short-statured people of Flores became small – but for the extinct 'Hobbit' it's not so clear</a>
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<h2>What next for <em>Homo erectus</em>?</h2>
<p>No area of archaeology has seen such vibrant change in recent years than how we understand our family tree. New species have been discovered (and debated) and the ages of the earliest examples of various species are constantly being revised. Unfortunately we only have limited fossils to work with and so new specimens and sites can quickly change our understanding of human evolution.</p>
<p>There is no doubt that ancient DNA studies will contribute to resolving this uncertainty – however DNA sequences have not yet been recovered from <em>Homo erectus</em>. We await this eventual discovery with bated breath!</p>
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<p><em>This article has been updated to correct the spelling of Homo habilis.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101122/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Moffat receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Commonwealth Scholarships Commission and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation. </span></em></p>No area of archaeology has seen such vibrant change in recent times than how we understand our family tree. Could 2019 be the year we learn more about our mysterious ancestor Homo erectus?Ian Moffat, ARC DECRA Research Fellow in Archaeological Science, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1067252018-12-12T12:14:38Z2018-12-12T12:14:38ZFive reasons why 2018 was a big year for palaeontology<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245536/original/file-20181114-194494-9cvzhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The dinosaur Ledumahadi mafube - reconstructed in this illustration - made headlines in 2018.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Viktor Radermacher</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>A lot happened in the world of palaeontology in 2018. Some of the big events included some major fossil finds, a new understanding of our reptile ancestors and a major controversy whose outcome could rewrite human history. The Conversation Africa asked Dr Julien Benoit to discuss five important moments in palaeontology you may have missed during 2018, and what they mean – particularly for Africa and its place in the story of human origins.</em></p>
<h2>1. A contested thigh bone</h2>
<p>The year started with a bang. In January Roberto Macchiarelli, a professor of human paleontology, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-00972-z">accused</a> his colleague Michel Brunet of totally misrepresenting an important piece of evidence in the story of human evolution. The evidence in question is a femur – a thigh bone found in northern Chad in 2001. Macchiarelli believes that the femur belonged to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-00972-z">Toumaï</a> (<em>Sahelanthropus tchadensis</em>), a species which his opponent argues is the earliest known example of a human ancestor, dating back around 7 million years. </p>
<p>But Macchiarelli insists the femur belonged to a quadrupedal ape, not a bipedal hominin. It’s an important distinction. Before the discovery of Toumaï, it had long been believed that <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/54fd/a0a2bd88f01ca23c3c364dd3e52a7f61b5d6.pdf">humankind originated in Eastern Africa</a>. Toumaï solidly roots the human family tree on the western side of the continent. But if it turns out not to be a hominin, evolutionary history shifts once more.</p>
<h2>2. Out of Africa</h2>
<p><em>Homo sapiens</em> originated from a single, common ancestor that lived in Africa 300 000 years ago. Then, between 100 000 and 80 000 years ago, <em>Homo sapiens</em> left the continent and began to spread out across the world.</p>
<p>Our African origins have been <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6395/1296">demonstrated countless times</a> by genetic analyses and fossil evidence.</p>
<p>But what’s known as the multiregional model has <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23931850-200-asias-mysterious-role-in-the-early-origins-of-humanity/">persisted</a>. Its proponents suggest that modern humans don’t have a single origin. Instead, we evolved independently of each other from different pre-human populations. Asians originated from the Asian <em>Homo erectus</em>, Europeans from the neanderthal man, and Africans from the African <em>Homo heidelbergensis</em>. </p>
<p>It’s a theory ripe with <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=LyOvT1Kv2uoC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">racist undertones</a> and has enjoyed decreasing support in the past few decades.</p>
<p>Those who backed the model pointed out that modern Asian populations and Asian <em>Homo erectus</em> all had unique shovel-like incisors. This was considered a sign of common ancestry.</p>
<p>In April, the final nail was hammered into the theory’s coffin. <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/04/18/1711788115?fbclid=IwAR3MJJH0KLJQQFbvTN8kiijIR9k2vpNY5w48k5--A2ZabMsiR8nFHviUBm8">Genetic analysis</a> showed that this trait of the incisors was merely a side effect of adaptation to a cold environment. </p>
<p>The gene that controls for the shovel-like incisors also coincidentally decreases the number of sweat glands and enriches mothers’ milk with fat. These two features can be crucial for survival during an Ice Age. </p>
<p>Because of the genetic connection between these traits, <em>Homo erectus</em> and Asian modern humans would have incidentally evolved similar incisors by evolving these adaptations against cold in a parallel manner. This means the shovel-like incisors were not inherited by Asian <em>Homo sapiens</em> from a <em>Homo erectus</em> ancestor: they were acquired because of the cold environment. </p>
<p>It’s yet more proof that humankind’s family tree is <a href="https://theconversation.com/theres-not-enough-evidence-to-back-the-claim-that-humans-originated-in-europe-78280">solidly rooted in Africa</a>.</p>
<h2>3. A seriously big dinosaur</h2>
<p>We’ve long known that gigantic dinosaurs roamed ancient African landscapes. The <em><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3045712/">Paralititan</a></em>, from Egypt, weighed around 60 tons. <em>Giraffatitan</em>, from Tanzania, was among the tallest dinosaurs that ever lived; another Tanzanian specimen, <em>Tornieria</em>, was among the longest.</p>
<p>The meat-eating <em>Spinosaurus</em>, found in Niger and North Africa, was even bigger than its iconic North American cousin <em>Tyrannosaurus rex</em>. </p>
<p>But when and where did gigantism among dinosaurs first evolve? <em>Ledumahadi mafube</em>, from South Africa, sheds <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(18)30993-X.pdf">new light</a> on this question. The 200 million year old dinosaur weighed around 12 tons, making it the earliest dinosaur to pass beyond the 10 ton threshold. Later, dinosaurs would become even bigger. But in its time, <em>Ledumahadi mafube</em> was a giant among dwarfs.</p>
<h2>4. Reimagining reptiles</h2>
<p>Mammals evolved from <a href="http://abt.ucpress.edu/content/37/1/21">an unexpected source</a>: reptiles, and specifically a group of “mammal-like reptiles” called the cynodonts. </p>
<p>One of the biggest differences between mammals and reptiles today is their reproductive biology. Most reptiles lay eggs and show little to no parental care, whereas most mammals give live birth to younglings and provide them with extensive parental care. </p>
<p>We haven’t known whether cynodonts were more like mammals or reptiles in this respect – until 2018. Scientists in the US <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0441-3#MOESM1">studied</a> the fossil remains of an adult cynodont dating back 190 million years, and found preserved with the skeletons of 38 babies. </p>
<p>That’s a huge clutch size; one that’s never encountered in mammals but is typically found among some reptiles that lay eggs. The scientists also argue that it’s unlikely that the adult mother cynodont could have produced enough milk or provided enough parental care to raise so many babies.</p>
<p>This suggests that cynodonts must have had a reptilian reproductive biology, and helps us to understand these important human ancestors a little better. It also means that South Africa’s extensive fossil record, which has so far been interpreted <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5228509/">to propose</a> that cynodonts cared for their young, might need a complete reinterpretation</p>
<h2>5. A four-legged find</h2>
<p>In June, it was <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6393/1120/tab-pdf?fbclid=IwAR3v9-3mfLyIbwNVxotugNkXELUsxWKKFNas4USuzhuJLnTVOD02wBYb5wk">announced</a> that two species of fossil amphibians new to science had been found in South Africa.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fossil-find-offers-first-evidence-of-four-legged-aquatic-ancestors-in-africa-97747">Fossil find offers first evidence of four-legged aquatic ancestors in Africa</a>
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<p>The two represent the oldest evidence of four legged land-dwelling animals, called tetrapods, on the African continent: a missing link between fish, amphibians and reptiles. Historically, the search for tetrapod ancestry overlooked Africa. This puts the continent on the map when it comes to seeking evidence for how the transition of life from sea to land occurred.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/106725/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julien Benoit receives funding from the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences and the Palaeontological Scientific Trust.</span></em></p>Five major finds this year adds to our understanding of evolution and ancient life history.Julien Benoit, Postdoc in Vertebrate Palaeontology, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1048562018-11-21T18:04:28Z2018-11-21T18:04:28ZHow we calculated the age of caves in the Cradle of Humankind – and why it matters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243267/original/file-20181031-122162-fh2d2o.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C314%2C2576%2C989&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Beautifully preserved flowstone and sediment layers from the Cradle of Humankind.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dr Robyn Pickering</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As a species, we humans have always been fascinated in where we came from. Initially, it was believed humans couldn’t have originated from Africa. </p>
<p>That misconception began to shift slowly from 1925, when the modern discipline of palaeoanthropology – the study of our origins – was born in South Africa. That’s when Professor <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Raymond-A-Dart">Raymond Dart</a> of the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, recognised the significance of a small fossil skull brought to him from Taung, in the country’s North West province. </p>
<p>Dart realised the skull belonged to a creature that was neither fully ape nor man: it represented one of our distant ancestors, which he called <em><a href="http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/australopithecus-africanus">Australopithecus africanus</a></em>, meaning “<em>southern ape of Africa</em>”.</p>
<p>In the years that followed palaeontologist <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/dr-robert-broom-discoverer-mrs-ples-born">Robert Broom</a> found more fossils of adult individuals from <a href="https://www.maropeng.co.za/content/page/explore-the-caves">Sterkfontein</a> and other caves in the area we now know as the <a href="https://www.gauteng.net/attractions/cradle_of_humankind">Cradle of Humankind</a>, just outside Johannesburg. His work cemented the fact that Africa was humankind’s birthplace, though it took years for many European scientists to come around to this.</p>
<p>Since the 1960s, this important area’s fossil record has largely taken a back seat to East African finds. That is because we didn’t know how old the caves in the Cradle of Humankind are, and so could not provide conclusive dates for the many fossils found in them. The geological setting in the Cradle is very different to <a href="https://geology.com/articles/east-africa-rift.shtml">East Africa’s Rift System</a>, where there are volcanic ash layers between the fossil beds; the ash layers can be dated, giving ages to the fossils. South Africa’s caves have no such volcanic layers.</p>
<p>But there are other types of rocks in the caves. Working with these, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0711-0">my colleagues and I</a> used a method called uranium-lead dating to establish the ages of the caves in the Cradle of Humankind. This means we can narrow down the entire early human record of the Cradle to a few brief time windows between one and three million years ago. </p>
<p>One of the things that’s particularly exciting about this research is that we can – for the first time – compare South African hominins with their cousins in East Africa. </p>
<h2>Unlocking flowstones</h2>
<p>Caves are full of special rock types. There are <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/stalactite#ref9559">stalagmites</a> which grow up from the floors, and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/stalactite#ref9559">stalactites</a> that hang down from the ceilings. As drip water in the cave flows along the floor, rocks known as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/flowstone">flowstones</a> form – and as they do, the mineral uranium is locked up inside them, crystal by crystal. This creates a sort of “clock” which tells us how old the flowstones are.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243225/original/file-20181031-76405-1kcn9uo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243225/original/file-20181031-76405-1kcn9uo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243225/original/file-20181031-76405-1kcn9uo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243225/original/file-20181031-76405-1kcn9uo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243225/original/file-20181031-76405-1kcn9uo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243225/original/file-20181031-76405-1kcn9uo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243225/original/file-20181031-76405-1kcn9uo.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Dr Pickering in a modern cave smiling about the beautiful flowstone on the cave floor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gavin Prideaux</span></span>
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<p>We collected these flowstones from the various cave sites in the Cradle, took them back to the lab, then extracted and concentrated the tiny amount of uranium present inside then, as well as the even tinier amount of lead which has been produced from the uranium decay. These uranium and lead isotopes allow us to read the flowstones’ “clocks” – technically known as <a href="https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-94-007-6326-5_193-1">uranium-lead dating</a>.</p>
<p>This <a href="https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-94-007-6326-5_193-1">Uranium-lead dating</a> is not new. It’s well established and has been used by geologists for decades; its how we know how old the earth is. Nevertheless, it has’t been an easy process. My colleagues and I had to adapt the existing uranium-lead dating method specifically for the South African flowstones. The challenge was that in rocks of only a few million years old – young by geological standards – there’s not been much time to accumulate lead, the daughter decay product of uranium. </p>
<p>It’s taken us 13 years to reach this point. But it’s been worth the wait. </p>
<p>In our recent <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0711-0">Nature paper</a>, we put together the biggest ever data set of ages for the Cradle caves and were able to thoroughly analyse these and look for patterns. Specifically, we asked whether all the caves were open to the surface for fossils to wash into them and collecting fossils at the same time – or if each acted as its own little ecosystem. </p>
<p>The Cradle is a relatively small place (about 10 x 15 km), and we would expect that the same events should be recorded in all the caves at the same time. </p>
<p>And this is exactly what we found. We dated 29 flowstones, from eight caves, and found that the flowstones all date to the same six narrow time windows. For example, 2 million years ago, all the important cave sites across the Cradle were closed – nothing was being washed into them – with flowstone forming inside them.</p>
<p>We also know that flowstones can only form during times when it rains more. So by dating the flowstones, we are picking out these times in the past. For the first time we know our early human ancestors lived through big changes in the local climate. The sediments with the fossils in them inside the caves, are all sandwiched between flowstones. We interpret this pattern, flowstone-sediment-flowstone, as a signal of these changing climates, with the sediments representing drier times. </p>
<p>This means that all the fossils from the Cradle, hominin and other animal, accumulated during drier times.</p>
<h2>Dating the undateable</h2>
<p>The flowstone layers in the caves are the equivalent of the ash layers in the Rift Valley. With the uranium-lead ages for these flowstones, South Africa’s fossils can step out of the shadows of being undated and undateable. </p>
<p>This will allow the world to turn its attention back to the country’s incredibly rich fossil record with a greater understanding of when those fossils were formed and what that tells us about human evolution.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104856/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robyn Pickering receives funding from the Department of Science and Technology Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences; the National Research Foundation African Origins Platform; The University of Cape Town; the Australian Research Council DECRA scheme; the University of Melbourne. </span></em></p>South Africa’s fossils can step out of the shadows of being undated and undateable.Robyn Pickering, Lecturer, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/839112017-09-18T16:19:50Z2017-09-18T16:19:50ZVirtual reality breathes new life into African fossils, art and artefacts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185670/original/file-20170912-10821-wdtqno.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">This picture of a reconstruction of a hominin skull is one of a variety of multimedia that can be experienced in the Origins Virtual Reality experience.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wits University</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Digital technology has become an integral part of our everyday lives. So it was only a matter of time before the ways people interact with the past and ancient artefacts in museum settings became digital, too. </p>
<p>The problem is that technology can be extremely expensive. Many museums just don’t have the funding to obtain, develop and maintain fancy devices or interactive digital gadgets. Some big European and North American museums, which receive millions of visitors each year, have been able to afford virtual reality (VR) and various other digital technologies. These are an appealing and popular element of the visitor experience. </p>
<p>For example, you can tour the <a href="http://blog.britishmuseum.org/new-virtual-reality-tour-with-oculus/">British Museum</a> in London using VR. Visitors to the <a href="https://americanart.si.edu/">Smithsonian American Art Museum</a> in Washington, DC can download an app to experience one of the exhibits in VR. </p>
<p>More digital avenues are being added to South Africa’s museums – and now the country has its first full VR exhibit. It will launch at the <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/origins/">Origins Centre</a> at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg on 25 September and will take visitors on a journey through hundreds of thousands of years of human history, art and innovation. <a href="http://wits.academia.edu/TammyHodgskiss">I am a</a> Middle Stone Age archaeologist and ochre specialist, and have been part of the team putting the exhibit together over the past four months. </p>
<p>Along the way, we’ve had to work out how to marry facts, interpretations, stories and technology. This hasn’t always been easy, but there have been a number of lessons along the way: most crucially, about the value of collaborative, interdisciplinary work to bring science to life.</p>
<h2>Getting started</h2>
<p>Steven Sack, the director of the Origins Centre and Professor Barry Dwolatzky, who runs the university’s <a href="http://www.tshimologong.joburg/">Tshimologong Digital Precinct</a>, were the exhibit’s initial champions. The precinct is a technology hub. Dwolatzky was so enthusiastic about the idea of VR at the Origins Centre that he personally donated money towards it. Armed with this and a grant from the <a href="http://www.nihss.ac.za/">National Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences</a>, we got started.</p>
<p>The next step was to develop VR hardware – headsets loaded in the content we went on to produce. For this, we had to look beyond academia and bring in a team from <a href="http://altreality.co.za/">Alt-Reality</a>, a company in Johannesburg. </p>
<p>My role was to provide guidance on my own areas of expertise, and to act as a link between the Origins Centre and Professor Chris Henshilwood, for whom I work at the university’s <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/esi/">Evolutionary Studies Institute</a>. It was one of the institutes that provided a great deal of content for the VR exhibit.</p>
<p>Lara Mallen, a rock art specialist who was the curator at the Origins Centre, was a crucial part of the project: her knowledge of the centre’s displays and her intricate understanding of the rock art was vital in developing the content. </p>
<p>I bugged many of my peers in the Evolutionary Studies Institute, <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/rockart/">Rock Art Research Institute</a> and <a href="https://www.wits.ac.za/gaes/">School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies</a> at Wits University as well as researchers at other institutions for their opinions and images. We also sourced video and digital content from their research that we could include in the VR exhibit. They were all intrigued and excited by the chance to share their work in a totally new, different form.</p>
<p>Then came the balancing act: what would work well in VR, how much content could we have and what was missing. It was a very organic and ever-changing process. We continually revised, cut and added content. </p>
<p>The visitor can chose what they want to see and what they want to learn more about. They can see (and hear) how people made stone tools and ground ochre 100,000 years ago, or they can be transported into a painted rock shelter while also being able to see the individual images right up close.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185983/original/file-20170914-8975-kg5pz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/185983/original/file-20170914-8975-kg5pz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=633&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185983/original/file-20170914-8975-kg5pz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=633&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185983/original/file-20170914-8975-kg5pz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=633&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185983/original/file-20170914-8975-kg5pz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185983/original/file-20170914-8975-kg5pz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/185983/original/file-20170914-8975-kg5pz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">An ochre processing toolkit from the Blombos caves. VR allows visitors to see how the process worked.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">C Henshilwood</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Telling stories in new ways</h2>
<p>As an academic I wanted to make sure that we presented a factual yet exciting summary of the Origin Centre’s content. That wasn’t at all straightforward. </p>
<p>We had to decide what stories we chose to tell, how we wanted to tell them – and whether our interpretations were correct. Bringing the past into a digital space creates so much more overt space for interpretation and different narratives. Traditional museum panels explain what an object is and how old it is. The VR actually shows how it worked and the process archaeologists have used to find that out.</p>
<p>One of the most valuable aspects of this project has been the opportunity to diversify traditional narratives around archaeology. Women and children have been somewhat neglected in archaeological interpretations, especially since in the past most histories were written by (white) men. This has tended to present a simplistic picture of prehistoric societies: men hunting, women gathering.</p>
<p>But there was more to it than that. Stone tools had to be made; poison was collected on use on the tips. Fires needed to be built and ochre ground to create paint for ritual. VR gives more space to explain the answers and explore the nuances of prehistoric societies.</p>
<p>Collaborating with a team of researchers of different ages, backgrounds and genders means a more unbiased picture of the past can be created. The VR content allows anyone to interact with the artefacts – female, male, young and old. They can immerse themselves in it and draw their own conclusions. </p>
<p>The digital experience might also appeal more to younger people and hopefully bring more young visitors into the museum. But it’s accessible, enlightening and informative and older people will enjoy it too.</p>
<h2>Collaboration is exciting</h2>
<p>As a scientist, I think these kinds of interactive museum displays are vital in aiding deeper understanding and interest in a topic. The same applies to archaeological research. </p>
<p>Being able to manipulate or reconstruct artefacts and use them helps us to understand how and why they were used or created. Being in the team that has conceptualised and created the Origins Centre’s VR content has reminded me that collaborative and interdisciplinary work – even though sometimes tricky to start – can be so fulfilling and revolutionary.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83911/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tammy Hodgskiss does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Bringing the past into a digital space creates so much more overt space for interpretation and different narratives.Tammy Hodgskiss, Research Associate, Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/786172017-06-08T16:31:58Z2017-06-08T16:31:58ZThe perversion of paleontology by apartheid’s advocates still lingers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172678/original/file-20170607-11297-11rdzfw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Children gather around a fossil skull at a South African museum.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Jon Hrusa </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1925, <a href="http://overcomingapartheid.msu.edu/people.php?id=65-251-19">Jan Smuts</a> was both a prominent politician and an advocate for science. Just after the first of his two terms as prime minister of the Union of South Africa, Smuts served as president of the South African Association for the Advancement of Science. It was in this capacity that he spoke out about <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/raymond-arthur-dart">Raymond Dart’s</a> discovery of <em>Australopithecus africanus</em> and his theories about the <a href="http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/fossils/taung-child">Taung skull</a>, saying these ideas meant that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>South Africa may yet figure as the cradle of mankind, or shall I rather, say, one of the cradles?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He remained in government at the time and actively supported the emerging discipline of paleontology – not just in speeches but in personalised contacts with the scientists who were birthing it. And so, as Christa Kuljan points out in her new book <a href="http://www.jacana.co.za/book-categories/natural-history-a-travel/darwins-hunch-detail">Darwin’s Hunch: Science, Race, and the Search for Human Origins</a>, from the beginning of the search for the “cradle” the role of state support – or lack thereof – was essential to how scientific research was conducted in South Africa. </p>
<p>In the book, Kuljan examines the history of South African palaeoanthropology and genetics research as she tries to make sense of science, race and their links to the hunt for human origins. The “hunch” she refers to was Darwin’s idea, from 1871, that humans evolved in Africa. He was later proved right. But for a long time European scientists rejected his thesis.</p>
<p>As an intellectual history of the disciplines of paleontology and paleoanthropology, Kuljan’s book is especially adept at narrating the interwoven connections between science and power. There are shortcomings, too; she doesn’t really grapple with ideas around identity, and could have explored some scientists’ bizarre preoccupation with Spiritualism in more depth.</p>
<p>The victory of the National Party (NP) in 1948’s elections, as Kuljan shows, threw paleontology into a crisis. This wasn’t only because the effusive support shown by Smuts was lost, but also because the meaning of the word “race” changed to suit the ideological ambitions of apartheid’s advocates. </p>
<h2>The fate of race</h2>
<p>Suspicion and complicity were united under the NP’s rule. Religion rather than science was used as the foundation of race thinking. But at the same time individual scientists – paleoanthropologist <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/people/professor-emeritus-phillip-tobias">Phillip Tobias</a> being the most prominent – were repeatedly asked to endorse the existence of “race” and “races”. </p>
<p>Tobias’ behaviour when it came to race was ambiguous.</p>
<p>In 1961 he published a paper titled “<a href="http://www.indiana.edu/%7Eafrcol/items/show/16485">The Meaning of Race</a>” in which he questioned the academic usefulness of the category of race. But at the same time he was leading the “Campbell Griqua Expedition” which exhumed 35 skeletons of people identified as <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/griqua">Griqua</a>. This was one instance of blatant and criminal “grave digging” by anatomists and paleoanthropologists.</p>
<p>The exhumations reveal a blind spot of the era’s paleontologists, like Tobias – one that even Kuljan does not observe. As far as we know the word “Griqua” is an invention. The people identified by the name are the epitome of hybridity in South Africa. Tobias and his team were looking for “pure Koranna” and “pure Bushman”. They were looking at the “Bushman” once again as the “missing link” – but that’s exactly the opposite of what the Griqua were: from their first appearance on the frontier, they were understood to be a cultural melange of indigenous and enslaved forefathers. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172681/original/file-20170607-11301-wz2oas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172681/original/file-20170607-11301-wz2oas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/172681/original/file-20170607-11301-wz2oas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=911&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172681/original/file-20170607-11301-wz2oas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=911&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172681/original/file-20170607-11301-wz2oas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=911&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172681/original/file-20170607-11301-wz2oas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1145&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172681/original/file-20170607-11301-wz2oas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1145&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/172681/original/file-20170607-11301-wz2oas.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1145&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jacana Media</span></span>
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<p>The failure to really dig into the question of “Griqua” identity is, I think, one of the glaring absences in Kuljan’s account. She could have simply asked the question: what does it mean to erase “hybridity” and replace it with “purity”? By missing this step, the apartheid mania for <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-myth-of-white-purity-and-narratives-that-fed-racism-in-south-africa-59330">racial purity</a> is once again left untouched. </p>
<p>Without this acknowledgement of the irrational, “science” remains “rational” – even while “race” seems to derail its assumptions and unhinge even the most talented minds. </p>
<h2>The metaphysics of science</h2>
<p>This derangement is also evident in the frequency with which believers in the “science of Man” – author J.M. Coetzee’s term for the ethnological disciplines – resorted to Spiritualism. </p>
<p>So, Kuljan writes, both <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/evan.10024/epdf">John Robinson</a> and <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/dated-event/dr-robert-broom-discoverer-mrs-ples-born">Robert Broom</a> – two of South Africa’s most prominent paleontologists – were members or attended the meetings of the mystically-focused <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/theosophy">Theosophical Society</a>.</p>
<p>The collision of science and religion caused Robinson to cleave them apart, Kuljan explains, since he saw</p>
<blockquote>
<p>science as explaining the material world, but he looked to his spiritual side to explore non-material aspects of the universe (page 127). </p>
</blockquote>
<p>He went even further by inviting a clairvoyant from New Zealand, Geoffrey Hodson, to Sterkfontein near Johannesburg to channel the life of the “ape-man” via fossils. The <a href="http://www.maropeng.co.za/content/page/explore-the-caves">Sterkfontein caves</a> were quickly becoming the most attractive site for finding fossils. Colloquially, even scientists referred to these fossils as a confirmation of an ancestor who was an “ape-man”. </p>
<p>Robinson invited Hodson to conjure the life of an “ape-man” since this was presumed to be the main characteristic of the human ancestor who became known as <em>Australopithecus africanus</em>. </p>
<p>These and other resorts to metaphysics are not as well explored in the book as they could have been. </p>
<p>It’s not surprising that as human beings scientists can entertain crystal ball visions and table-tapping seances even while claiming to be materialists. The most enduring legacy of these vacillations is that it has bequeathed to us a rather conflicted image of our hominid ancestors.</p>
<h2>African Genesis goes viral</h2>
<p>In Kuljan’s book this conflict revolves around the place of violence in the emergence of homo sapiens. The scientists are not entirely at fault here since it was the sensationalism of Robert Ardrey’s <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/African_genesis.html?id=9Yg1AAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">book</a> <em>African Genesis: A Personal Investigation into the Animal Origins and Nature of Man</em> (1961) that catapulted the fragmentary bones and skulls of southern Africa into a full-blown technicolour picture of a hominid ancestor who was a “killer ape”. </p>
<p>This reimagined violent ancestor is still with us not only in the continuing endeavour to “humanise” hominids – the liberal reaction – but also in the visceral <a href="http://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2015/09/24/Stop-divisive-attacks-over-Homo-naledi-Makhura">attack</a> on the recently discovered <em>Homo naledi</em> by those who think of hominids as “apes”. </p>
<p>Somewhere in between lies the truth of our ancestors. Kuljan’s book is a brave attempt to make this search for our ancestry a recuperable enterprise even while the “killer ape” keeps escaping her scientific confines and invading the imagination of the popular “scientist” and naysayer.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78617/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hlonipha Mokoena does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As an intellectual history of the disciplines of paleontology and paleoanthropology, Kuljan’s book is especially adept at narrating the interwoven connections between science and power.Hlonipha Mokoena, Associate Professor at the Wits Institute for Social & Economic Research, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/782802017-05-25T13:35:41Z2017-05-25T13:35:41ZThere’s not enough evidence to back the claim that humans originated in Europe<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/170798/original/file-20170524-31352-14imfyh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C2%2C1381%2C971&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The fossil remains which have caused all the consternation.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jochen Fuss, Nikolai Spassov, David R. Begun, Madelaine Böhme/via Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Africa is not the cradle of humankind: that’s the claim by a group of scientists who’ve <a href="https://phys.org/news/2017-05-scientists-million-year-old-pre-human-balkans.html">just published</a> what they describe as evidence of pre-human remains found in Eastern Europe (Greece and Bulgaria). The fossils in question belong to Graecopithecus freybergi, and are a little more than seven million years old. This would make them the world’s oldest hominin fossils.</em> </p>
<p><em>It would also re-root the human evolutionary tree in Eastern Europe, away from Africa. This runs counter to a great deal of evidence which suggests that humans originated in Africa.</em></p>
<p><em>Dr Julien Benoit, a vertebrate palaeontologist and palaeobiologist who has worked extensively on the African continent and was not part of the European research team, chatted to The Conversation Africa about the findings.</em></p>
<p><strong>This new research suggests that Greece, not Africa, should be calling itself the cradle of humankind. Do you think that’s accurate?</strong></p>
<p>Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence to support them. The African origin of humankind (<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248416300100">Hominini</a>) is currently supported by two really important elements.</p>
<p>Firstly, <a href="https://medium.com/@johnhawks/how-much-evidence-have-scientists-found-for-human-evolution-355801dfd35c">thousands</a> of hominin fossils have been found on African soil since the first fossil African hominin, <em>Australopithecus africanus</em>, was discovered in South Africa in 1924. </p>
<p>Nearly a century of fossil findings has followed, chronicling the complete evolution of hominin on African soil. These fossils range from the <em>Sahelanthropus</em>, which lived between six and seven million years ago in what is today Chad, to the earliest <em>Homo sapiens</em> from east Africa. </p>
<p>Secondly, our closest ape relatives, the Chimpanzees and the Gorilla are also <a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v448/n7156/full/nature06113.html">from Africa</a>. Our last common ancestors lived somewhere between eight and 12 million years ago, which strongly suggests that the origin of humankind is deeply rooted in Africa. This leave little room for a putative European origin.</p>
<p>Any study that counters this consensus would have to provide very strong evidence and perfect methodology to support its claim. In my opinion, this article doesn’t meet those criteria.</p>
<p><strong>Why not?</strong></p>
<p>For starters, the material isn’t well preserved. It consists mostly of a jaw with no complete teeth preserved. That’s a problem because the teeth’s anatomical characteristics are the most important element when classifying any primate, including humans.</p>
<p>The authors claim that the jaw’s fourth premolar root is similar to that of a hominin’s. This is not a character that is conventionally used in palaeoanthropology, especially because not all hominins have similar tooth roots. This character is rather variable – and the authors go on to acknowledge this – so it’s unreliable for classification.</p>
<p>They also argue that the small size of the incomplete canine tooth (as suggested by the size of its root) would put this fossil close to hominin ancestry. This is based on the assumption that hominins are the only apes with small canines. This, again, is not true. In Europe, where apes have a very rich fossil record, there’s an ape called <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/human-evolutions-cookie-monster-oreopithecus-1657956/">Oreopithecus</a> which has small canines but is not related to humans at all. </p>
<p>This is an example of independent, parallel evolution: when one species evolves similarities to another without being related to it. For instance, dolphins look like fish, but <a href="http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/dolphins.html">they’re not</a>. This is probably the same thing for <em>Graecopithecus</em> and hominins.</p>
<p>I agree with many of my <a href="http://johnhawks.net/weblog/fossils/miocene/graecopithecus/graecopithecus-fuss-2017.html">colleagues</a>, who think that this new jaw represents an Ape species that is not related to humans. It might belong to a species like <em>Oreopithecus</em>, which evolved human-like features – such as the fusion of the fourth premolar roots and small canines – in parallel to our lineage. </p>
<p>Finally, the study is lacking a phylogenetic analysis. This is a statistical method used to reconstruct a reliable evolutionary tree. To say that a fossil species is an early hominin without performing this kind of analysis is like giving the result of an equation without actually doing the maths.</p>
<p><strong>What sort of further research and clarification is needed to confirm or debunk this theory of European origins?</strong></p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248416300100">phylogenetic analysis</a> is crucial. This is a way to reconstruct the evolutionary tree of species and to address the hypotheses of any relationship between them. </p>
<p>It will allow scientists to assess this fossil jaw’s real position in the evolutionary tree of Primates and to actually test if the similarities observed between <em>Graecopithecus</em> and hominins were acquired independently or were inherited from a real common ancestor.</p>
<p><strong>And if their claim turns out to be true, would that mean we need to totally rewrite history?</strong></p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nature.com/nature/ancestor/pdf/115195.pdf">theory</a> that humankind originated in Europe is an old one. It was abandoned after 1924 when the first <em>Australopithecus</em> was discovered in South Africa. </p>
<p>Since then, thousands of fossils have been found around Africa that strongly support the “African origins” hypothesis. Even if this new fossil actually turns out to be a hominin, it would only be an outlier – like a drop in the ocean. It would change very few things, because much more and far better preserved material would be necessary to totally disprove the African origin of humankind.</p>
<p>It would open a brand new area of research, but would not change textbooks.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/78280/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julien Benoit receives funding from The Claude Leon Foundation; PAST and its Scatterlings projects; the National Research Foundation of South Africa; and the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences (CoE in Palaeosciences). </span></em></p>The theory that humankind originated in Europe is an old one. It was abandoned in 1924 when the first Australopithecus was discovered in South Africa.Julien Benoit, Postdoc in Vertebrate Palaeontology, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/479732015-09-25T18:01:13Z2015-09-25T18:01:13ZTesting ancient human hearing via fossilized ear bones<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95959/original/image-20150923-2620-1sbxgz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">3D virtual reconstruction of two-million-year-old ear.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rolf Quam</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>How did the world sound to our ancient human relatives two million years ago?</p>
<p>While we obviously don’t have any sound recordings or written records from anywhere near that long ago, we do have one clue: the fossilized bones from inside their ears. The internal <a href="http://www.audiologyawareness.com/hearinfo_howhear.asp">anatomy of the ear influences its hearing abilities</a>.</p>
<p>Using CT scans and careful virtual reconstructions, my <a href="http://www.atapuerca.tv">international colleagues</a> and I think we’ve demonstrated how our very ancient ancestors heard the world. And this isn’t just an academic enterprise; hearing abilities are <a href="http://www.asha.org/public/hearing/Effects-of-Hearing-Loss-on-Development/">closely tied with verbal communication</a>. By figuring out when certain hearing capacities emerged during our evolutionary history, we might be able to shed some light on when spoken language started to evolve. That’s one of the most hotly debated questions in paleoanthropology, since many researchers consider the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001934">capacity for spoken language</a> a defining human feature.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95963/original/image-20150923-2611-17yk3jy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95963/original/image-20150923-2611-17yk3jy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95963/original/image-20150923-2611-17yk3jy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95963/original/image-20150923-2611-17yk3jy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95963/original/image-20150923-2611-17yk3jy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95963/original/image-20150923-2611-17yk3jy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95963/original/image-20150923-2611-17yk3jy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95963/original/image-20150923-2611-17yk3jy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Many primates vocalize; only people have full-blown language.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chimpanzee_Pan_troglodytes.jpg">dsg-photo.com</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Human hearing is unique among primates</h2>
<p>We modern human beings have better hearing across a wider range of frequencies than most other primates, including chimpanzees, our closest living relative. Generally, we’re able to hear sounds very well between 1.0-6.0 kHz, a range that includes many of the sounds emitted during spoken language. Most of the vowels fall below about 2.0 kHz, while the higher frequencies mainly contain consonants.</p>
<p>Thanks to testing of their hearing in the lab, we know that chimpanzees and most other primates aren’t as sensitive in that same range. Chimpanzee hearing – like most other primates who also live in Africa, including baboons – shows a loss in sensitivity between 1.0-4.0 kHz. In contrast, human beings maintain good hearing throughout this frequency range.</p>
<p>We’re interested in finding out when this human hearing pattern first emerged during our evolutionary history. In particular, if we could find a similar pattern of good hearing between 1.0-6.0 kHz in a fossil human species, then we could make an argument that language was present.</p>
<h2>Testing the hearing of a long-gone individual</h2>
<p>To study hearing using fossils, we measure a large number of dimensions of the ancient ears – including the length of the ear canal, the size of the ear drum and so on – using virtual reconstructions of the fragile skulls on the computer. Then we input all these data into a computer model.</p>
<p>Published previously in the bioengineering literature, the model predicts how a person hears based on his ear anatomy. It studies the capacity of the ear as a receiver of a signal, similar to an antenna. The results tell us how efficiently the ear transmits sound energy from the environment to the brain.</p>
<p>We first tested the model on chimpanzee skulls, and got results similar to those of researchers who tested chimpanzee hearing in the lab. Since we know the model accurately predicts how humans hear and how chimpanzees hear, it should provide reliable results for our fossil human ancestors as well.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95962/original/image-20150923-2641-19yk6ow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95962/original/image-20150923-2641-19yk6ow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95962/original/image-20150923-2641-19yk6ow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95962/original/image-20150923-2641-19yk6ow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95962/original/image-20150923-2641-19yk6ow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95962/original/image-20150923-2641-19yk6ow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95962/original/image-20150923-2641-19yk6ow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95962/original/image-20150923-2641-19yk6ow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Excavations at Sterkfontein. This area contained regions of open savanna when these fossil hominins lived here.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sterkfontein.jpg">John Walker</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What do the fossils tell us?</h2>
<p>Previously, we studied the hearing abilities in several fossil hominin individuals from the site of the Sima de los Huesos (Pit of the Bones) in northern Spain. These fossils are about 430,000 years old, and anthropologists consider them to represent ancestors of the later Neanderthals. Based on ear bone measurements we took, the computer model calculated that hearing abilities in the Sima hominins were <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0403595101">nearly identical to living humans</a> in showing a broad region of good hearing.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/8/e1500355">our current study</a> published in Science Advances, we worked with much earlier hominin individuals, representing the species <em>Australopithecus africanus</em> and <em>Paranthropus robustus</em>. These fossils were excavated at the sites of <a href="http://www.maropeng.co.za/content/page/the-sterkfontein-caves">Sterkfontein</a> and <a href="http://swartkrans.org/">Swartkrans</a> in South Africa, and likely date to around two million years ago.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95960/original/image-20150923-2626-3ujn1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95960/original/image-20150923-2626-3ujn1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95960/original/image-20150923-2626-3ujn1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95960/original/image-20150923-2626-3ujn1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95960/original/image-20150923-2626-3ujn1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=565&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95960/original/image-20150923-2626-3ujn1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95960/original/image-20150923-2626-3ujn1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95960/original/image-20150923-2626-3ujn1b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=711&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Auditory sensitivity between 0.5-5.0 kHz for chimpanzees, humans and the early hominins. Points higher on the curve indicate greater auditory sensitivity. (A) Region of maximum sensitivity. The early hominins are shifted toward slightly higher frequencies compared with chimpanzees. (B) Hearing results. The early hominins are more sensitive than either chimpanzees or humans up to around 3 kHz. Above around 3.5 kHz, the early hominins resemble chimpanzees more closely in showing a drop-off in sensitivity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rolf Quam</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When we measured their ear structures and modeled their hearing, we found they had a hearing pattern that was more similar to a chimpanzee – but slightly modified in the human direction. In fact, these early hominins showed better hearing than either chimpanzees or modern humans from about 1.0-3.0 kHz, and the region of best hearing was shifted toward slightly higher frequencies compared with chimpanzees.</p>
<p>It turns out this auditory pattern may have been a particular advantage for living on the savanna. We know <em>A. africanus</em> and and <em>P. robustus</em> regularly occupied the savanna, since as much as half of their diet was made up of resources found in open environments, based on measurements of isotopes in their teeth.</p>
<p>In more open environments, sound waves don’t travel as far as they do in the rain forest canopy. Sound signals tends to fade out sooner, and short-range communication is favored on the savanna. The hearing pattern of these early hominins – greater sensitivity than humans or chimpanzees to frequencies between 1.0-3.0 kHz and maximum sensitivity at slightly higher frequencies than in chimps – that would work well in these conditions.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4768tKSaF1M?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The author describes his research.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>From hearing to talking</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95970/original/image-20150924-18245-7ydy0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95970/original/image-20150924-18245-7ydy0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95970/original/image-20150924-18245-7ydy0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95970/original/image-20150924-18245-7ydy0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95970/original/image-20150924-18245-7ydy0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95970/original/image-20150924-18245-7ydy0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95970/original/image-20150924-18245-7ydy0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95970/original/image-20150924-18245-7ydy0l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Model of A. africanus individual.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/flowcomm/4258107199">flowcomm</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em>A. africanus</em> and <em>P. robustus</em> had hearing abilities similar to a chimpanzee, but with some slight differences in the direction of humans. </p>
<p>There is a general consensus among anthropologists that the small brain size and ape-like cranial anatomy and vocal tract in these early hominins indicates they likely did not have the capacity for language.</p>
<p>My colleagues and I aren’t arguing that these early hominins had language, with its implications of symbolic content. They certainly could communicate vocally, though. All primates do, and many species regularly emit a <a href="http://pin.primate.wisc.edu/av/vocals/">variety of vocalizations</a> including grunts, screams, howls and so on.</p>
<p>But these South African fossils have given us another hearing data point as we try to puzzle out the emergence of language. Two million years ago, it looks like they didn’t have language. But 430,000 years ago, it looks like the Sima de los Huesos hominins did. We suspect that sometime between these early South African forms and the later more human-like forms from the Sima, language emerged. Now we just need to narrow that window.</p>
<p>We hope to continue this kind of work on hearing patterns in different groups of ancient hominins from various places and time periods. There is much left to uncover.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/47973/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rolf Quam does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Beyond the cool factor of figuring out hominin hearing capacities two million years ago, these findings could help answer the tantalizing question of when did human vocalized language first emerge.Rolf Quam, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Binghamton University, State University of New YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.