tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/prehistoric-humans-50566/articles
Prehistoric humans – The Conversation
2024-02-22T17:09:13Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/223614
2024-02-22T17:09:13Z
2024-02-22T17:09:13Z
Out of Darkness: I’m an expert on human origins – here’s how this stone age thriller surprised me
<p>Neither the choice of genre (survivalist horror) nor time period (43,000 years ago) bodes well for Out of Darkness. After all, films set in the stone age tend to be comedic, sexualised or woefully historically inaccurate. Think Ice Age (2002), Clan of the Cave Bear (1986) or 10,000BC (2008) – in which <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVzdHEhC8YI">mammoths help build the pyramids</a>. Yet this film is neither. It goes way beyond expectations with its attempts at historical accuracy, and what’s more it is fun to watch – especially if suspense or a high body count are your thing.</p>
<p>A film set at the time of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-long-did-neanderthals-and-modern-humans-co-exist-in-europe-evidence-is-growing-it-may-have-been-at-least-10-000-years-222762">modern human and Neanderthal interactions</a> is long overdue, given both the better public understanding of this period and Neanderthals being thought of in <a href="https://www.sapiens.org/biology/hominin-species-neanderthals/">more humanised terms</a> than ten years ago.</p>
<p>What’s more, as we face more existential threats there is a greater tendency to look to the distant past for inspiration for how we should live, both <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-living-like-a-hunter-gatherer-could-improve-your-health-208813">physically</a> and <a href="https://universitypress.whiterose.ac.uk/site/chapters/m/10.22599/HiddenDepths.k/">emotionally</a>. Still, the producers of Out of Darkness should be applauded for having the guts to tackle some of the real challenges of setting a film in this period. </p>
<p>They have used as authentic a language as possible – hiring linguist Dr Daniel Andersson to create a stone age-sounding language especially for the film, translated for the audience using subtitles. They also cast actors with accurate skin tones. The makeup of the group at its heart is realistic, with older and vulnerable members and, refreshingly, a competent, proactive woman lead (who is dressed in appropriate clothing, rather than a <a href="https://www.biography.com/actors/a42940234/raquel-welch-fur-bikini-mixed-feelings">fur bikini</a>). </p>
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<h2>Is the film historically accurate?</h2>
<p>Out of Darkness follows a small group of modern humans who set out across the Europe of 43,000 years ago, trying to find new land and rescue the leader’s son, who has apparently been taken by some strange creatures. </p>
<p>There are amazing landscapes, tense scenes and – as is expected from a survivalist horror – few people left standing after the carnage. For those of us looking for meaning under the macabre, there is a cautionary tale about acting on assumptions and the dangers of rage and fear.</p>
<p>There is plenty of detail here which fits the evidence we have about this period of the stone age (known as the middle-upper palaeolithic transition). There’s fitted clothing with fur inside, decorated spears, fire-lighting kits, a <a href="https://www.donsmaps.com/discs.html#:%7E:text=Discs%20from%20the%20stone%20age,objects%20in%20their%20own%20right">rondelle</a> (a bone disc with a central hole) and Neanderthals with raptor feather headdresses. </p>
<p>There are even rather slick references for the knowledgeable. Dead mammoths are shown at the bottom of a ravine modelled on <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-this-spot-on-the-jersey-coast-was-like-a-magnet-for-neanderthals-70369">La Cotte de St Brelade</a>, a Neanderthal hunting site in Jersey. Neanderthals are shown taking and wearing modern human jewellery as a nod to the <a href="https://phys.org/news/2016-09-evidence-ancient-jewelry-grotte-du.html">Châtelperronian bone pendants</a>, found in the south of France.</p>
<p>People are buried at a location that looks remarkably like the most famous Neanderthal burial site, <a href="https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/shanidarz">Shanidar Cave</a> in Iraq. Even depictions of <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10816-016-9306-y">cannibalism</a> are not at odds with what we know of mortuary practices in the period.</p>
<p>The wider social settings also bring some welcome authenticity. Telling firelight stories of courageous journeys into new lands, the elderly, young and pregnant work together.</p>
<p>Is Out of Darkness entirely prehistorically accurate? No, of course not. But it goes way beyond most depictions. In reality, stone age people would have carried tents and built shelters, not fought over a cold damp cave. They would also have found a fair bit of food in the tundra rather than starving. And of course it is not clear how the characters in the film managed to shave. </p>
<p>I would also expect links to other groups, or perhaps more of a story as to why this group is so isolated. And the voices of the Neanderthals are a bit too far fetched (more like a squawk than high-pitched language). What’s more, the lack of other living things depicted feels like a missed opportunity to include more predators, which were <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-015-0248-1?origen=app">genuinely dangerous and scary</a> in the stone age.</p>
<h2>Stone age bad guys</h2>
<p>As a professor of the archaeology of human origins, the one thing I dislike about the film is that subservience to the “bad guys” doesn’t fit <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0376635717303698?casa_token=6nkGRzHGKkwAAAAA:yrmVb7eFtEzSxibNdEJ1HNt0Utw94yl2p0IJRcCR514KP6RZ0P_SsaT226vYMhEiIyJnf3X7">what we know</a>. </p>
<p>The leader of this small band of travellers, Adem (Chuku Modu), is a bit of bully, who tells women what to do or say, and supports some hierarchy in which “strays eat last”. Neither the impulsiveness nor the violence fit what we know of <a href="https://www.academia.edu/12015116/Myths_about_hunter_gatherers_redux_nomadic_forager_war_and_peace">hunter-gatherer populations</a>. Their <a href="https://universitypress.whiterose.ac.uk/site/books/m/10.22599/HiddenDepths/">emotional regulation</a> (capacity to feel emotions consciously rather than simply act on them) was actually far better than ours in our <a href="https://api.repository.cam.ac.uk/server/api/core/bitstreams/f6f8491c-dbf5-46ed-bf5b-c62342a7ae3b/content%7DChaudbury%20ref">comparatively dysfunctional</a> modern societies. </p>
<p>It is also hard to see how humans and Neanderthals could <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-long-did-neanderthals-and-modern-humans-co-exist-in-europe-evidence-is-growing-it-may-have-been-at-least-10-000-years-222762">live contemporaneously</a> for as much as 10,000 years with such a mutual wipe out. But given that bloodshed comes with the genre, all of this may be something we need to forgive. </p>
<p>I might perhaps let them get away with this if we accept these people were some kind of <a href="https://openquaternary.com/articles/10.5334/oq.ai">dysfunctional outcast party</a>, in which dominance tactics might be more tolerated and normal rules didn’t apply.</p>
<p>There is, after all, plenty to love. Out of Darkness offers a great portrayal of a capable stone age woman protagonist – and equally capable Neanderthal woman. Beyah (Safia Oakley-Green) is adept with both knife, spear and any convenient rock, dispatching people whenever the occasion demands (which seems to be pretty regularly).</p>
<p>There will always be some gripes over accuracy here and there but Out of Darkness is fun to watch, and it is great to see the period opening up to more informed popular imagination. I’m hoping for a sequel.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?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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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Penny Spikins was amongst several academics who spoke to the film producers in the very early conceptual stages of the film. </span></em></p>
Out of Darkness attempts at historical accuracy are a welcome surprise, and what’s more, it is fun to watch.
Penny Spikins, Professor of the Archaeology of Human Origins, University of York
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/213714
2023-10-05T19:16:35Z
2023-10-05T19:16:35Z
Humans got to America 7,000 years earlier than thought, new research confirms
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551046/original/file-20230928-19-398dat.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C5%2C1726%2C806&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The footprints come from a group of people of different ages.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Park Service</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>When and how humans first settled in the Americas is a subject of considerable controversy. In the 20th century, archaeologists believed that humans <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-clovis-point-and-the-discovery-of-americas-first-culture-3825828/">reached the North American interior</a> no earlier than around 14,000 years ago. </p>
<p>But our new research found something different. Our latest <a href="http://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adh5007">study</a> supports the view that people were in America about 23,000 years ago.</p>
<p>The 20th century experts thought the appearance of humans had coincided with the formation of an ice-free corridor between two immense ice sheets straddling what’s now Canada and the northern US. According to this idea, the corridor, caused by melting at the end of the last Ice Age, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17838701/">allowed humans to trek from Alaska</a> into the heart of North America. </p>
<p>Gradually, this orthodoxy crumbled. In recent decades, dates for the earliest evidence of people have crept back from 14,000 years ago to 16,000 years ago. This is still consistent with humans only reaching the Americas as the last Ice Age was ending.</p>
<p>In September 2021, we <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abg7586">published a paper in Science</a> that dated fossil footprints uncovered in New Mexico to around 23,000 years ago – the height of the last Ice Age. They were made by a group of people passing by an ancient lake near what’s now White Sands. The discovery added 7,000 years to the record of humans on the continent, rewriting American prehistory. </p>
<p>If humans were in America at the height of the last Ice Age, either the ice posed few barriers to their passage, or humans had been there for much longer. Perhaps they had reached the continent during an earlier period of melting. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fossil-footprints-prove-humans-populated-the-americas-thousands-of-years-earlier-than-we-thought-168426">Fossil footprints prove humans populated the Americas thousands of years earlier than we thought</a>
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<p>Our conclusions were criticised, however we have now published evidence confirming the early dates.</p>
<h2>Dating the pollen</h2>
<p>For many people, the word pollen conjures up a summer of allergies, sneezing and misery. But fossilised pollen can be a powerful scientific tool. </p>
<p>In our 2021 study, we carried out radiocarbon dating on common ditch grass seeds found in sediment layers above and below where the footprints were found. Radiocarbon dating is based on how a particular form – called an isotope – of carbon (carbon-14) undergoes radioactive decay in organisms that have died within the last 50,000 years.</p>
<p>Some researchers claimed that the radiocarbon dates in our 2021 research were too old because they were subject to <a href="https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/2050-7445-1-24">something called the “hard water” effect</a>. Water contains carbonate salts and therefore carbon. Hard water is groundwater that has been isolated from the atmosphere for some period of time, meaning that some of its carbon-14 has already undergone radioactive decay. </p>
<p>Common ditch grass is an aquatic plant and the critics said seeds from this plant could have consumed old water, scrambling the dates in a way that made them seem older than they were.</p>
<p>It’s quite right that they raised this issue. This is the way that science should proceed, with claim and counter-claim.</p>
<h2>How did we test our claim?</h2>
<p>Radiocarbon dating is robust and well understood. You can date any type of organic matter in this way as long as you have enough of it. So two members of our team, Kathleen Springer and Jeff Pigati of the United States Geological Survey set out to date the pollen grains. However, pollen grains are really small, typically about 0.005 millimetres in diameter, so you need lots of them.</p>
<p>This posed a formidable challenge: you need thousands of them to get enough carbon to date something. In fact, you need 70,000 grains or more.</p>
<p>Medical science provided a remarkable solution to our conundrum. We used a technique called flow cytometry, which is more commonly used for counting and sampling individual human cells, to count and isolate fossil pollen for radiocarbon dating. </p>
<p>Flow cytometry uses the fluorescent properties of cells, stimulated by a laser. These cells move through a stream of liquid. Fluorescence causes a gate to open, allowing individual cells in the flow of liquid to be diverted, sampled, and concentrated.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Illustration of pollen grains." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551051/original/file-20230928-25-iu74im.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/551051/original/file-20230928-25-iu74im.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551051/original/file-20230928-25-iu74im.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551051/original/file-20230928-25-iu74im.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551051/original/file-20230928-25-iu74im.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551051/original/file-20230928-25-iu74im.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/551051/original/file-20230928-25-iu74im.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">
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<span class="caption">Pollen can be a useful tool for dating evidence of human settlement.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/pollen-grains-different-plants-3d-illustration-1479353525">Kateryna Kon / Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>We have pollen grains in all sediment layers between the footprints at White Sands, which allows us to date them. The key advantage of having so much pollen is that you can pick plants like pine trees that are not affected by old water. Our samples were processed to concentrate the pollen within them using flow cytometry. </p>
<p>After a year or more of labour intensive and expensive laboratory work, we were rewarded with dates based on pine pollen that validated the original chronology of the footprints. They also showed that old water effects were absent at this site. </p>
<p>The pollen also allowed us to reconstruct vegetation that was growing when people made the footprints. We got exactly the kinds of plants we would expect to have been there during the Ice Age in New Mexico. </p>
<p>We also used a different dating technique <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s43586-021-00068-5">called optically stimulated luminescence</a> (OSL) as an independent check. OSL relies on the accumulation of energy within buried grains of quartz over time. This energy comes from the background radiation that’s all around us.</p>
<p>The more energy we find, the older we can assume the quartz grains are. This energy is released when the quartz is exposed to light, so what you are dating is the last time the quartz grains saw sunlight.</p>
<p>To sample the buried quartz, you drive metal tubes into the sediment and remove them carefully to avoid exposing them to light. Taking quartz grains from the centre of the tube, you expose them to light in the lab and measure the light emitted by grains. This reveals their age. The dates from OSL supported those we got using other techniques.</p>
<p>The humble pollen grain and some marvellous medical technology helped us confirm the dates the footprints were made, and when people reached the Americas.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213714/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Robert Bennett receives funding from UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sally Christine Reynolds receives funding from Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)</span></em></p>
The early settlement of the Americas is hugely contested area of archaeology.
Matthew Robert Bennett, Professor of Environmental and Geographical Sciences, Bournemouth University
Sally Christine Reynolds, Associate Professor in Hominin Palaeoecology, Bournemouth University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/197816
2023-03-22T17:18:31Z
2023-03-22T17:18:31Z
How a local community helped us make incredible prehistoric discoveries
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516900/original/file-20230322-22-l769gr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C18%2C4160%2C3095&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Around 400 local children have been involved in this archaeological project in Cardiff, Wales.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vivian Paul Thomas</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The knowledge and control of bronze gave some people who lived between 2200BC and 700BC enormous wealth and power. Their lives and deeds were immortalised by their burial mounds, known as barrows and cairns, which still litter our landscape today. Incredibly though, finding the places where <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Bronze-Age">bronze age</a> people lived has proven to be very difficult. </p>
<p>In south Wales, for example, only a handful of settlements are <a href="https://museum.wales/articles/1339/Prehistoric-feasting-in-south-Wales/">known</a> about. Typically, all that remain are the ruins of a flimsy roundhouse or two. We have little else to tell us about the lives of the inhabitants. Maybe that’s because bronze age people had mobile lifestyles, moving around the landscape with their herds from season to season but never staying in the same place too long. That’s one argument, anyway. </p>
<p>However, in the summer of 2022, a collaborative, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335914255_The_Caerau_and_Ely_Rediscovering_Heritage_Project_legacies_of_co-produced_research">community-led archaeological excavation</a> on the outskirts of Cardiff began to challenge those assumptions. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An illustration depicts a prehistoric bearded man pouring liquid into a mould. Two men in the background are gathered around a fire." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516899/original/file-20230322-399-mcbkan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516899/original/file-20230322-399-mcbkan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516899/original/file-20230322-399-mcbkan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516899/original/file-20230322-399-mcbkan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516899/original/file-20230322-399-mcbkan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516899/original/file-20230322-399-mcbkan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516899/original/file-20230322-399-mcbkan.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&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">The bronze age is the name given to the period of time between 2200BC and 700BC.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/foundry-workshop-on-outskirts-lake-town-1122922061">Morphart Creation</a></span>
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<p>It’s hard to imagine how our prehistoric ancestors would have reacted when they first began to make and use metal. They took rocks that sparkled with green and silver, crushed and heated them until they became liquid. They then poured this elixir into moulds before cooling and breaking them open to reveal the dark golden-coloured metallic objects inside. It must have appeared like magic. </p>
<p>Since 2011, our <a href="https://www.caerheritage.org">CAER Heritage Project</a> has mobilised people in the Cardiff suburbs of Caerau and Ely to imagine and explore such history and archaeology. Both areas face challenges such as high unemployment and poor educational attainment. But they are also home to a host of extremely friendly and talented people, not to mention some outstanding heritage too.</p>
<p>Until recently, much of our archaeological investigation had focused on the <a href="https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/130880/1/Davis_and_Sharples_Glamorgan_Hillforts_Caerau.pdf">Caerau hillfort</a>. This is the largest and most impressive iron age (700BC) hillfort in the region and is almost entirely surrounded by houses. </p>
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<img alt="A group of school children stand in a field with their backs towards the camera. A man stands in front of them pointing towards something." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516749/original/file-20230321-2560-3ljuag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2048%2C1532&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516749/original/file-20230321-2560-3ljuag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516749/original/file-20230321-2560-3ljuag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516749/original/file-20230321-2560-3ljuag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516749/original/file-20230321-2560-3ljuag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516749/original/file-20230321-2560-3ljuag.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516749/original/file-20230321-2560-3ljuag.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Local schoolchildren gather near the Caerau hillfort.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vivian Paul Thomas</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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</figure>
<p><a href="https://caerheritageproject.com/discover/">We discovered</a> that the hilltop was used as a gathering place during the stone age (3600BC), before the hillfort was built around 600BC. </p>
<p>Over the last couple of years, we have taken archaeology into the housing estates themselves. During the COVID lockdowns between 2020 and 2021, local residents did “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-53234395">mini-digs</a>” in their gardens. Many <a href="https://caerheritageproject.com/2020/07/16/caer-big-dig-the-big-discoveries-so-far/">discovered</a> prehistoric items such as flints and pottery shards. </p>
<p>The best chance of finding the places where prehistoric people lived was in a large area of open ground known as Trelai Park, which is around 1,500 metres east of the Caerau hillfort. The park is today used for sport but in its centre are the remains of a <a href="http://www.cardiffparks.org.uk/otheropenspaces/trelaipark/info/romanvilla.shtml">Roman villa</a>, which was excavated in 1922 by the renowned archaeologist, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mortimer-Wheeler">Sir Mortimer Wheeler</a>. </p>
<p>A century later, in April 2022, we completed a “geophysical survey” of the park with local school children and adults. Geophysics is a process using a machine called a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/technology/magnetometer">magnetometer</a>, which allows archaeologists to “see” under the ground without removing the soil and helps us work out where to dig.</p>
<p>We had expected to find more Roman remains, but around 200 metres south of the villa, we discovered an intriguing square enclosure.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="Looking over the shoulder of a man wearing a baseball cap who is using a tool to carve out a section of earth." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516908/original/file-20230322-26-zw4oej.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516908/original/file-20230322-26-zw4oej.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516908/original/file-20230322-26-zw4oej.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516908/original/file-20230322-26-zw4oej.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=901&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516908/original/file-20230322-26-zw4oej.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516908/original/file-20230322-26-zw4oej.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516908/original/file-20230322-26-zw4oej.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1132&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vivian Paul Thomas</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Digging beneath one of the football pitches last summer, we revealed the <a href="https://the-past.com/news/remains-of-a-bronze-age-roundhouse-unearthed-in-near-cardiff/">remains of a substantial roundhouse</a>. It was made from timber and thatch which had long since rotted away, but the big post holes that held up its circular wall still survived. </p>
<p>A radiocarbon date from a piece of burnt wood indicated it was built around 1500BC, which is the middle of the bronze age. That makes it the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-62155069">oldest known house in the Welsh capital</a>. </p>
<p>Even more amazingly, the floor surface that its occupants had walked, worked and slept on was still there. Trampled into this floor were finds of flint and stone tools, pottery and burnt bones which gave us a glimpse into bronze age daily life. </p>
<p>Surrounding the roundhouse was a large ditch and bank which was the square enclosure we had discovered through geophysics. Placed into the ditch was an <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-62155069">extraordinary complete pot</a>, beautifully decorated in bronze age “<a href="https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/library/browse/details.xhtml?recordId=3246094&recordType=MonographSeries">Trevisker</a>” style. This type of decoration is common in Devon and Cornwall but this pot was made from local Welsh clay. Perhaps it was a copy made by bronze age travellers 3,500 years ago. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A pair of hands wearing rubber gloves holds up a muddy object." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516909/original/file-20230322-1452-pa1ljw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516909/original/file-20230322-1452-pa1ljw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516909/original/file-20230322-1452-pa1ljw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516909/original/file-20230322-1452-pa1ljw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516909/original/file-20230322-1452-pa1ljw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516909/original/file-20230322-1452-pa1ljw.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516909/original/file-20230322-1452-pa1ljw.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">Was this clay pot made by bronze age travellers?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Vivian Paul Thomas</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>No other bronze age settlement like this has been discovered in south Wales and we have plenty of questions as a result, which, so far, remain unanswered.</p>
<p>One thing we do know is that none of these discoveries could have been made without the passion and participation of local people. Almost 400 children were involved in the dig as well as hundreds of volunteers, who gave more than 3,000 hours of their time to help out. </p>
<p>What sets CAER apart from many other community archaeology projects is that the people have remained involved in the work way beyond just the excavation process. Children and adults have sieved, cleaned and analysed our finds and continue to research the bronze age in their spare time. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An aerial shot of a green field with three separate archaeological excavations taking place. There are precise holes in the ground and a blue tent set up." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516922/original/file-20230322-18-qmmcss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516922/original/file-20230322-18-qmmcss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516922/original/file-20230322-18-qmmcss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516922/original/file-20230322-18-qmmcss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516922/original/file-20230322-18-qmmcss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516922/original/file-20230322-18-qmmcss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516922/original/file-20230322-18-qmmcss.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The archaeological dig in Trelai Park took place on the football pitch.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Crown Copyright RCAHMW</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Buoyed by such enthusiasm, we will be back digging in Trelai Park this summer, where once again we will be working alongside our passionate citizen archaeologist colleagues. We’re excited at the prospect of what we may uncover.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197816/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Oliver Davis receives funding from AHRC, National Lottery Heritage Fund, Arts Council Wales, Royal Archaeological Institute, Prehistoric Society, Cambrian Archaeological Association. </span></em></p>
Since 2011, professional and amateur archaeologists in Cardiff have been unearthing prehistoric artefacts. But last summer, they began to discover something even more extraordinary.
Oliver Davis, Senior lecturer, Cardiff University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/188908
2022-09-08T17:13:08Z
2022-09-08T17:13:08Z
Seven times people discovered the Americas – and how they got there
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483191/original/file-20220907-20-oi2zhy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C0%2C5734%2C2742&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Vikings got to the Americas long before Columbus.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/vikings-ships-on-horizon-stormy-ocean-1090110953">vlastas/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Columbus landed in 1492, the Americas had been settled for tens of thousands of years. He wasn’t the first person to discover the continent. Instead, his discovery was the last of many discoveries. </p>
<p>In all, people found the Americas at least seven different times. For at least six of those, it wasn’t so new after all. The discoverers came by sea and by land, bringing new genes, new languages, new technologies. Some stayed, explored, and built empires. Others went home, and left few hints they’d ever been there.</p>
<p>From last to first, here’s the story of how we discovered the Americas.</p>
<p><strong>7. Christopher Columbus: AD 1492</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Three ships" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483181/original/file-20220907-22-6xdmsq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483181/original/file-20220907-22-6xdmsq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483181/original/file-20220907-22-6xdmsq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483181/original/file-20220907-22-6xdmsq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483181/original/file-20220907-22-6xdmsq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483181/original/file-20220907-22-6xdmsq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483181/original/file-20220907-22-6xdmsq.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Replicas of Columbus’s ships sailed to the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus#/media/File:1893_Nina_Pinta_Santa_Maria_replicas.jpg">E. Benjamin Andrews/wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 1492, Europeans could reach Asia by the <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/silk-road">Silk Road</a>, or by sailing the Cape Route around the southern tip of Africa. Sailing west from Europe was thought to be impossible. </p>
<p>The ancient Greeks had accurately calculated that the circumference of the Earth was <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/152473a0">40,000 km</a>, which put Asia far to the west. But Columbus botched his calculations. An error in unit conversion gave him a circumference of just 30,000 km. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/four-amazing-astronomical-discoveries-from-ancient-greece-136197">Four amazing astronomical discoveries from ancient Greece</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This mistake, with other assumptions born of wishful thinking, gave a distance of just <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0025570X.1992.11996024">4,500 km</a> from Europe to Japan. The actual distance is almost 20,000 kilometres.</p>
<p>So Columbus’s ships set sail without enough supplies to reach Asia. Fortunately for him, he hit the Americas. Columbus, thinking he’d found the East Indies, called its people “Indios”, or Indians. He ultimately died without realising his mistake. It was the navigator Amerigo Vespucci who realised Columbus had <a href="https://www.livescience.com/42510-amerigo-vespucci.html">found an unknown land</a> and in 1507 the name America was applied in Vespucci’s honour.</p>
<p><strong>6. Polynesians: AD 1,200</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483170/original/file-20220907-22-j5r5p8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A sketch of a Polynesian canoe" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483170/original/file-20220907-22-j5r5p8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483170/original/file-20220907-22-j5r5p8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483170/original/file-20220907-22-j5r5p8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483170/original/file-20220907-22-j5r5p8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=382&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483170/original/file-20220907-22-j5r5p8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483170/original/file-20220907-22-j5r5p8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483170/original/file-20220907-22-j5r5p8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Doubled hulls gave Polynesian canoes more stability on the open ocean.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Fijian_druas_%28NYPL_Hades-2359184-4043540%29.jpg">NYPL/wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Around 2,500 BC, a seafaring people <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03902-8">sailed from Taiwan</a> to find new lands. They sailed south through the Philippines, east through Melanesia, then out into the vast South Pacific. These people, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Polynesia">Polynesians</a>, were master navigators, reading wind, waves and stars to cross thousands of kilometres of open ocean. </p>
<p>Using huge double canoes, the Polynesians <a href="https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1586/polynesian-navigation--settlement-of-the-pacific/">settled</a> Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, and the Cook Islands. Some went <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1408491111">south to New Zealand</a>, becoming <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10963-017-9110-y">the Maori</a>. Others went east to Tahiti, Hawaii, Easter Island, and the Marquesas. From here, they at last hit South America. Then, having explored most of the Pacific, they gave up exploration and forgot South America entirely.</p>
<p>But evidence of this remarkable voyage remained. The South Americans acquired <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.0703993104">chickens from Polynesians</a>, while the Polynesians may have picked up <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440307000805">South American sweet potatoes</a>. And they shared more than food. Eastern Polynesians have <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2487-2?from=article_link">Native American DNA</a>. Polynesians didn’t just meet Native Americans, they married them.</p>
<p><strong>5. Norse: AD 1,021</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A viking ship" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483172/original/file-20220907-24-dlur5y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483172/original/file-20220907-24-dlur5y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483172/original/file-20220907-24-dlur5y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483172/original/file-20220907-24-dlur5y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483172/original/file-20220907-24-dlur5y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483172/original/file-20220907-24-dlur5y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483172/original/file-20220907-24-dlur5y.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Osebergskipet, a viking ship constructed in AD 820.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osebergskipet#/media/Fil:Osebergskipet_2016.jpg">Petter Ulleland/wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to Viking sagas, around AD 980, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Erik-the-Red">Eric the Red</a>, fierce Viking and cunning salesman, named a vast, icy wasteland “Greenland” to <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/iceland-greenland-name-swap">entice people to move there</a>. Then, in AD 986, a boat from Greenland <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/icelanders">spotted the coast of Canada</a>.</p>
<p>Around <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03972-8">AD 1,021</a>, Erik’s son Leif established a settlement in Newfoundland. The Vikings struggled with the harsh climate, before war with Native Americans ultimately forced them back to Greenland. These stories were long dismissed as myths, until 1960, when archaeologists dug up the remains of <a href="https://www.newfoundlandlabrador.com/top-destinations/lanse-aux-meadows">Viking settlements in Newfoundland</a>.</p>
<p><strong>4. Inuit: AD 900</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An Inuit skin boat" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483174/original/file-20220907-16-hosg6d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483174/original/file-20220907-16-hosg6d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483174/original/file-20220907-16-hosg6d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483174/original/file-20220907-16-hosg6d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483174/original/file-20220907-16-hosg6d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483174/original/file-20220907-16-hosg6d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483174/original/file-20220907-16-hosg6d.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=439&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Inuit boats were built from walrus or seal skins stretched over driftwood or whalebone.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://ian.macky.net/secretmuseum/eskimo_umiak.jpg">The Secret Museum of Mankind</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Just before the Vikings, the Inuit people travelled <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1251-y">from Siberia to Alaska</a> in skin boats. Hunting whales and seals, living in sod huts and igloos, they were well adapted to the cold Arctic Ocean, and skirted its shores all the way to Greenland. </p>
<p>Curiously, their DNA is <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1251-y">closest to native Alaskans</a>, implying their ancestors colonised Asia from Alaska, then went back to discover the Americas again. </p>
<p><strong>3. Eskimo-Aleut: 2,000-2,500 BC</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An Inuit family" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483185/original/file-20220907-18-z2zpwc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483185/original/file-20220907-18-z2zpwc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483185/original/file-20220907-18-z2zpwc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483185/original/file-20220907-18-z2zpwc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=419&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483185/original/file-20220907-18-z2zpwc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483185/original/file-20220907-18-z2zpwc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483185/original/file-20220907-18-z2zpwc.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=527&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Inuits have a distinct history from other Native Americans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Eskimo_Family_NGM-v31-p564-2.jpg">George R. King/wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Inuit descend from an earlier migration: that of speakers of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Eskimo-Aleut-languages">Eskimo-Aleut languages</a>. These are distinct from other Native American languages, and might even be distantly related to Uralic languages such as <a href="https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1111/j.1749-818X.2010.00239.x">Finnish and Hungarian</a>. </p>
<p>This, with DNA evidence, suggests the Eskimo-Aleut was a distinct migration. They came across the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Bering-Sea">Bering Sea</a> from present-day Russia to Alaska, perhaps <a href="https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1525/aa.1987.89.1.02a00020">4,000-4,500</a> years ago, partly displacing and mixing with earlier migrants: the Na-Dene people. </p>
<p><strong>2. Na-Dene: 3,000-8,000 BC</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A mother and son in a canoe" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483186/original/file-20220907-22-hwrqm8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483186/original/file-20220907-22-hwrqm8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483186/original/file-20220907-22-hwrqm8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483186/original/file-20220907-22-hwrqm8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=349&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483186/original/file-20220907-22-hwrqm8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483186/original/file-20220907-22-hwrqm8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483186/original/file-20220907-22-hwrqm8.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Na-Dene people may have arrived in Alaska 10,000 years ago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Hareskin_canoe.jpg">Canadian National Exhibition/wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another group, the Na-Dene, crossed the Bering Sea to Alaska around <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1251-y">5,000 years ago</a>, although other studies suggest they settled the Americas as long as <a href="https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1525/aa.1987.89.1.02a00020">10,000 years ago</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1251-y">DNA from their bones</a> links them not to modern people in the Eskimo-Aleut group, but to Native Americans speaking the Na-Dene language family, such as the <a href="https://www.navajo-nsn.gov/">Navajo</a>, <a href="https://denenation.com/">Dene</a>, <a href="https://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent/northwest-coast/tlingit">Tlingit</a>, and Apache people. Na-Dene languages are closest to languages <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC25007/">spoken in Siberia</a>, suggesting again that they represent a distinct migration.</p>
<p><strong>1. First Americans: 16,000-35,000 years ago</strong></p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483189/original/file-20220907-13-vqciq3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Ancient tools" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483189/original/file-20220907-13-vqciq3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483189/original/file-20220907-13-vqciq3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=258&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483189/original/file-20220907-13-vqciq3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=258&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483189/original/file-20220907-13-vqciq3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=258&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483189/original/file-20220907-13-vqciq3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483189/original/file-20220907-13-vqciq3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483189/original/file-20220907-13-vqciq3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=324&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Clovis points uncovered at a site in Iowa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clovis_culture#/media/File:Clovis_Rummells_Maske.jpg">Billwhittaker/wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Almost all Native American tribes – Sioux, Comanche, Iroquois, Cherokee, Aztec, Maya, Quechua, Yanomani, and dozens of others – speak <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/American-Indian-languages">similar languages</a>. That suggests their languages evolved from a common ancestor tongue, spoken by a single tribe entering the Americas long ago. Their descendants’ low genetic diversity suggests this founding tribe was small, maybe <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.0030193">less than 80 people</a>. </p>
<p>How did they get there? Before the last ice age ended 11,700 years ago, so much water was <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3083538">locked up in glaciers</a> that sea levels fell. The bottom of the Bering Sea dried out, creating the <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1705966114">Bering Land Bridge</a>. America’s first people just walked from Russia to Alaska. But the timing of their migration is controversial.</p>
<p>Archaeologists once thought the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Clovis-complex">Clovis people</a>, living <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10.1073/pnas.0704215104">13,000 years ago</a>, were the <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-clovis-point-and-the-discovery-of-americas-first-culture-3825828/">first settlers of America</a>. But evidence <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02137-3">now suggests</a> humans arrived in the Americas much earlier. </p>
<p>Finds in <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.1207663?casa_token=i79Z6iFCPuwAAAAA:onB6l4Ih9BSvJY9a6rTuKDjv9pD1_EEaPJlwmjsk1qVgjDcqotjX2jlmzXMg-Kh1fqxMMXLhUeMvIw">Washington</a>, <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aba6404">Oregon</a>, <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1201855">Texas</a>, the <a href="https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1026&context=sciaa_staffpub">east coast of the US</a>, and <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/sciadv.1600375">Florida</a> suggest people reached the Americas long before the Clovis people.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fossil-footprints-prove-humans-populated-the-americas-thousands-of-years-earlier-than-we-thought-168426">Fossil footprints prove humans populated the Americas thousands of years earlier than we thought</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abg7586">Footprints in New Mexico</a> date to 23,000 years ago. <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2509-0">Stone tools</a> in a Mexican cave may date to 32,000 years ago. A <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2022.903795/full">butchered mammoth</a> from Colorado dates to 31,000-38,000 years ago. And traces of fire put <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379118307716">humans in Alaska</a> 32,000 years ago. </p>
<p>Some of these dates could be incorrect, but with each new discovery it seems increasingly unlikely that they’re all wrong.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Map showing sites of pre-Clovis sites" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483260/original/file-20220907-24-ss7zkf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483260/original/file-20220907-24-ss7zkf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483260/original/file-20220907-24-ss7zkf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483260/original/file-20220907-24-ss7zkf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=611&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483260/original/file-20220907-24-ss7zkf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483260/original/file-20220907-24-ss7zkf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483260/original/file-20220907-24-ss7zkf.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=767&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Geographic distribution of pre-Clovis sites. Numbers provided are ‘years ago’.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nicholas R. Longrich/Google Earth</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>An early migration would neatly solve a major mystery. 13,000 years ago, a vast glacier, the <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1601077113">Laurentide Ice Sheet</a>, buried Canada in ice up to three kilometres thick. If people arrived in North America then, how did they cross the ice? Southeast Alaska’s rugged coast, full of glaciers and fjords, was likely impassible, and early Americans probably lacked boats. But 30,000 years ago, the ice sheet hadn’t fully formed. </p>
<p>Before the ice spread, people could have hunted mammoths and horses east from Alaska into the Northwest Territories, then south through Alberta and Saskatchewan into Montana. Remarkably, humans may have settled the Americas <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-94408-w">before western Europe</a>. Yet that might make sense. Alaska’s Arctic is harsh, but Europe had <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1365-2699.2011.02536.x">potentially hostile Neanderthals</a>.</p>
<h2>The end of discovery</h2>
<p>1492 was the last discovery of the Americas. Following the voyages of Columbus, Magellan, and Cook, the scattered descendants of humanity’s diaspora were finally reunited. Aside from a few <a href="https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140804-sad-truth-of-uncontacted-tribes">uncontacted tribes</a>, everywhere was known to everyone. Discovery was impossible.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Old wooden ships" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483180/original/file-20220907-11-1d1rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483180/original/file-20220907-11-1d1rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483180/original/file-20220907-11-1d1rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483180/original/file-20220907-11-1d1rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483180/original/file-20220907-11-1d1rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483180/original/file-20220907-11-1d1rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483180/original/file-20220907-11-1d1rn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=556&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Captain Cook’s ships, Resolution and Discovery, off the coast of Tahiti.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%27Resolution%27_and_%27Discovery%27_off_the_coast_of_Tahiti_RMG_D2537.tiff">Samuel Atkins/wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But the story of the Americas’ settlement is still being written, and our understanding is evolving. The Eskimo-Aleut may have been <a href="https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1525/aa.1987.89.1.02a00020">two different migrations</a>, not one. Genes <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14895">hint at the possibility</a> of other, early founding populations. And given how little evidence the Polynesians and Norse left of their visits, it’s conceivable there were other migrations, ones of which we have little evidence. </p>
<p>There’s so much we don’t know. No one can discover the Americas anymore, but there’s a lot left to discover about their discovery.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188908/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas R. Longrich 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>
Columbus’s was the last of at least seven discoveries of the Americas.
Nicholas R. Longrich, Senior Lecturer in Paleontology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Bath
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/179360
2022-06-27T12:25:01Z
2022-06-27T12:25:01Z
How many ice ages has the Earth had, and could humans live through one?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468859/original/file-20220614-17290-2cjvwa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=25%2C12%2C8601%2C5729&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">During ice ages, ice sheets like the one in Greenland have covered much of Earth's surface. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-greenland-ice-sheet-is-the-largest-ice-sheet-in-the-news-photo/1399203109">Thor Wegner/DeFodi Images via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&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><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/curious-kids-us-74795">Curious Kids</a> is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">curiouskidsus@theconversation.com</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>How many ice ages has the Earth had, and could humans live through one? – Mason C., age 8, Hobbs, New Mexico</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>First, what is an <a href="https://geology.utah.gov/map-pub/survey-notes/glad-you-asked/ice-ages-what-are-they-and-what-causes-them/">ice age</a>? It’s when the Earth has cold temperatures for a long time – millions to tens of millions of years – that lead to ice sheets and glaciers covering large areas of its surface. </p>
<p>We know that the Earth has had <a href="http://iceage.museum.state.il.us/content/when-have-ice-ages-occurred">at least five major ice ages</a>. The first one happened about 2 billion years ago and lasted about 300 million years. The most recent one started about 2.6 million years ago, and in fact, we are still technically in it. </p>
<p>So why isn’t the Earth covered in ice right now? It’s because we are in a period known as an “interglacial.” In an ice age, temperatures will fluctuate between colder and warmer levels. Ice sheets and glaciers melt during warmer phases, which are called interglacials, and expand during colder phases, which are called glacials.</p>
<p>Right now we are in the most recent ice age’s warm interglacial period, which began about 11,000 years ago.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/I4EZCy14te0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Earth’s climate goes through warming and cooling cycles that are influenced by gases in its atmosphere and variations in its orbit around the sun.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What was it like during the ice age?</h2>
<p>When most people talk about the “ice age,” they are usually referring to the last glacial period, which began about 115,000 years ago and ended about 11,000 years ago with the start of the current interglacial period. </p>
<p>During that time, the planet was much cooler than it is now. At its peak, when ice sheets covered most of North America, the average global temperature was about <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/ice-age-temperature-science-how-cold-180975674/">46 degrees Fahrenheit</a> (8 degrees Celsius). That’s 11 degrees F (6 degrees C) cooler than the global annual average today.</p>
<p>That difference might not sound like a lot, but it resulted in most of North America and Eurasia being covered in ice sheets. Earth was also much drier, and <a href="https://www.usgs.gov/media/images/coastline-eastern-us-changesslowly">sea level was much lower</a>, since most of the Earth’s water was trapped in the ice sheets. <a href="https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/steppe">Steppes</a>, or dry grassy plains, were common. So were <a href="http://kids.nceas.ucsb.edu/biomes/savanna.html">savannas</a>, or warmer grassy plains, and deserts.</p>
<p>Many <a href="https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/quaternary/ple.html">animals present during the ice age</a> would be familiar to you, including brown bears, caribou and wolves. But there were also megafauna that went extinct at the end of the ice age, like <a href="https://uwaterloo.ca/earth-sciences-museum/resources/ice-age-mammals">mammoths, mastodons, saber-toothed cats</a> and <a href="https://www.livescience.com/56762-giant-ground-sloth.html">giant ground sloths</a>. </p>
<p>There are different ideas about <a href="https://samnoblemuseum.ou.edu/understanding-extinction/extinctions-in-the-recent-past-and-the-present-day/pleistocene-extinctions/">why these animals went extinct</a>. One is that humans hunted them into extinction when they came in contact with the megafauna.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468864/original/file-20220614-2525-72v0y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Scientist and workers gather around a jawbone and horns protruding out of the ground." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468864/original/file-20220614-2525-72v0y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468864/original/file-20220614-2525-72v0y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468864/original/file-20220614-2525-72v0y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468864/original/file-20220614-2525-72v0y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468864/original/file-20220614-2525-72v0y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468864/original/file-20220614-2525-72v0y4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468864/original/file-20220614-2525-72v0y4.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">Excavating a mastodon skeleton at Burning Tree Golf Course in Heath, Ohio, December 1989. The skeleton, found by workers who were digging a pond, was 90% to 95% complete and more than 11,000 years old.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://flic.kr/p/mF53eR">James St. John/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Wait, there were humans during the ice age?!</h2>
<p>Yes, people just like us lived through the ice age. Since our species, <em>Homo sapiens</em>, <a href="https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/homo-sapiens">emerged about 300,000 years ago in Africa</a>, we have spread around the world. </p>
<p>During the ice age, some populations remained in Africa and did not experience the full effects of the cold. Others moved into other parts of the world, including the cold, glacial environments of Europe. </p>
<p>And they weren’t alone. At the beginning of the ice age, there were other species of hominins – a group that includes our immediate ancestors and our closest relatives – throughout Eurasia, like the <a href="https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/homo-neanderthalensis">Neanderthals</a> in Europe and the mysterious <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/definition/denisovans/">Denisovans</a> in Asia. Both of these groups seem to have gone extinct before the end of the ice age. </p>
<p>There are lots of ideas about how our species survived the ice age when our hominin cousins did not. Some think that it has to do with how adaptable we are, and how we <a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/how-humans-survived-the-ice-age">used our social and communication skills and tools</a>. And it appears that humans didn’t hunker down during the ice age. Instead they moved into new areas. </p>
<p>For a long time it was thought that humans did not enter North America until after the ice sheets started to melt. But <a href="https://www.nps.gov/whsa/learn/nature/fossilized-footprints.htm">fossilized footprints</a> found at <a href="https://www.nps.gov/whsa/index.htm">White Sands National Park</a> in New Mexico show that humans have been in North America since at least 23,000 years ago – close to the peak of the last ice age.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com</a>. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.</em></p>
<p><em>And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/179360/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Denise Su 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>
The Earth has had at least five major ice ages, and humans showed up in time for the most recent one. In fact, we’re still in it.
Denise Su, Associate Professor, Arizona State University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/159159
2021-04-19T15:15:43Z
2021-04-19T15:15:43Z
Prehistoric cave painters might have been ‘high’ on oxygen deprivation – new study
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395701/original/file-20210419-13-etly5c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C50%2C4135%2C2727&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Prehistoric hand paintings at the Cave of Hands in Argentina, thought to be over 10,000 years old
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/prehistoric-hand-paintings-cave-hands-spanish-1634481835">R.M. Nunes/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Long before the emergence of writing, palaeolithic cave paintings represent the very first examples of human visual culture. They provide a shadowy glimpse of a prehistoric world in which signs were beginning to be used to communicate meaning.</p>
<p>Archaeologists have long been fascinated over what exactly compelled “cave men” to produce these enigmatic paintings. Because they’re often located in caves – enchanting and atmospheric places in their own right – certain experts have argued that prehistoric painters may have produced their art under the influence of “altered states of consciousness”. The theory essentially claims the painters in some way got high.</p>
<p>In support of this theory, a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1751696X.2021.1903177">new study</a> has found that low oxygen levels in poorly ventilated caves can induce hypoxia, which can inspire hallucinations. But while the theory is certainly plausible, here’s why I think it fails to explain the majority of cave art.</p>
<h2>Cave art</h2>
<p>Over <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-018-0598-z">65,000 years ago</a>, the Neanderthals left finger dots and hand stencils on European cave walls. These basic markings were made using ochre, manganese and charcoal – common materials in Neanderthal life, likely also used to ornament the body.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-we-discovered-that-neanderthals-could-make-art-92127">How we discovered that Neanderthals could make art</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Eurasian figurative art – featuring representations of people and animals – appeared some 40,000 years ago in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature13422">Indonesia</a> and 37,000 years ago in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature07995">Europe</a>. This appears to have been exclusive to the successors of Neanderthals: <em>Homo sapiens</em>. </p>
<p>These people’s images of herbivorous prey animals were carved, engraved and painted on bone, stone and mammoth ivory – and on the walls of caves. The overwhelming dominance of prey such as horse, bison, deer and mammoth reflects the critical importance of these species to survival in the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/images-of-the-ice-age-9780199686001?cc=ro&lang=en&">harsh environments</a> of the Pleistocene north.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="What appear to be bison painted on a cave wall" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395702/original/file-20210419-15-mulbw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/395702/original/file-20210419-15-mulbw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395702/original/file-20210419-15-mulbw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395702/original/file-20210419-15-mulbw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=347&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395702/original/file-20210419-15-mulbw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395702/original/file-20210419-15-mulbw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/395702/original/file-20210419-15-mulbw.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=436&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Lascaux Cave in south-western France, thought to have been painted around 20,000 years ago.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/vezere-valley-france-april-22-2017-659932633">thipjang/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But why figurative “cave art” emerged and how it functioned has baffled archaeologists since its rediscovery and authentication in the late 19th century. Whether they’re simple stencils of hands or complex drawings of prey, cave paintings are a window into the minds of the very first artists. Scholars believe that knowing what inspired them could teach us something about the very human compulsion to express ourselves creatively.</p>
<h2>Why paint?</h2>
<p><a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/images-of-the-ice-age-9780199686001?cc=ro&lang=en&">Successive theories</a> have purported to explain the origins of ancient art – a rich and varied collection that we know was added to over at least 50,000 years of prehistory. Yet these theories inevitably say more about their proponents than about the motives of Pleistocene man. </p>
<p>To the Victorians, those motives boiled down to pure aesthetics. In the 20th century, scholars began to believe the paintings had a magical function, and theories of hunting and fertility magic arose to explain drawings of animals and sculptures of “venuses”.</p>
<p>As we entered the information age, the images came to be seen as repositories of ecological information – recording details about things like prey animals and their behaviour. And by the 1980s, the worst excesses of new age thinking promoted the idea that cave art was the product of altered states of consciousness and the <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mind-Cave-Consciousness-Origins-Art/dp/0500284652">visions that can</a> go hand in hand. Since then, the notion has never gone away.</p>
<h2>Altered states</h2>
<p>But what could have caused ancient altered states? Psychoactive substances other than fly agaric (the red and white topped mushroom) were not present in <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-archaeological-journal/article/abs/waking-the-trancefixed/EAECEF9095A87C13979B1D37306669EC">Pleistocene Eurasia</a>. Ingesting ochre or manganese would give you a poor stomach, not hallucinations. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1751696X.2021.1903177">The new study</a> has proposed altered states instead caused by low oxygen levels, produced by small hearths and simple animal-fat lamps that would have been burning in confined caves. The authors claim this could have induced hypoxia (oxygen deprivation), leading to hallucinations which, in turn, stimulated creativity in the form of cave art. </p>
<p>Typically, around 21% of air is oxygen. Any reduction below 18% produces a mild hypoxia, and below 13% produces severe hypoxia. The study uses computer simulations to demonstrate the plausibility of this new theory, while drawing on ethnography – notably the ubiquity of “shamanic” belief systems among hunter-gatherers, and the idea that caves form a link between this world and others.</p>
<h2>Reviewing the theory</h2>
<p>It’s plausible that altered states stimulated some cave art. But it’s just as plausible that hypoxia in caves produced far more <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/hypoxia">common symptoms</a> of weakness, headaches, drowsiness, nausea and breathlessness, which don’t sound inspiring to me. </p>
<p>In any case, cave chambers vary considerably in size and are often decently ventilated. <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/abs/div-classtitlelorblanchet-michel-la-naissance-de-landaposart-genese-de-landaposart-prehistorique-304-pages-bandampw-and-colour-figures-1999-paris-errance-2-87772-165-5-hardback-ff290div/A8A4C3BE8E4DDA5CF60CDB6F59EDF7E3">Niaux’s Salon Noir</a> in southwestern France is positively cathedral-like, and features many cave paintings. Many examples of cave art are also complex and highly skilled compositions that took hours to produce – they’re unlikely to be the product of hallucinations.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZjejoT1gFOc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">France is home to many of the world’s most impressive prehistoric cave paintings.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s difficult to falsify the new hypothesis scientifically – but even if it’s true, what would it really tell us? At best, altered states could provide a mechanism but not an explanation for some Palaeolithic art. If they did cause some individuals to create, they would not explain the content, themes, style or wider function of the art. </p>
<p>To discuss altered states is therefore as meaningless as making the observation that the tomb builders of Egypt’s Valley of the Kings <a href="https://openlibrary.org/books/OL7653843M/The_Egyptians">drank beer</a>: we know that, but we can be sure that it wasn’t drunkenness that stimulated them to create the art on the walls of the tombs they built. </p>
<p>I have spent enough time underground, observing cave art in its context, to understand how making simple links between hallucinations, shamanism and cave art fails to do justice to the remarkably complex works created by early artists in these mysterious places.</p>
<h2>A seductive theory</h2>
<p>But why are altered states perennially popular explanations for Palaeolithic cave art? It’s probably because caves are mysterious, suggestive places, triggering responses in our brains such as pareidolia – our <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-archaeological-journal/article/abs/origins-of-iconic-depictions-a-falsifiable-model-derived-from-the-visual-science-of-palaeolithic-cave-art-and-world-rock-art/CC686395FE47390DE88F67ADDF85A838">evolutionary propensity</a> to give meaning to natural things, like finding faces in clouds. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/warning-signs-how-early-humans-first-began-to-paint-animals-95597">Warning signs: how early humans first began to paint animals</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In our everyday lives, we constantly toggle between mild altered states of consciousness. They make our imaginary lives immensely rich, and may go some way to explaining how early art took the form it did. Ultimately, imagination is far richer than trance – and we do a disservice to our prehistoric ancestors when we argue their art was the product of a “high” rather than creative expression.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/159159/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Pettitt 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>
It’s possible that low oxygen levels in caves produced hallucinations – but that doesn’t explain the majority of prehistoric art.
Paul Pettitt, Professor in the Department of Archaeology, Durham University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/157587
2021-03-23T22:36:46Z
2021-03-23T22:36:46Z
Evolutionary study suggests prehistoric human fossils ‘hiding in plain sight’ in Southeast Asia
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391289/original/file-20210323-13-1ietwc1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=32%2C11%2C1918%2C1907&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Homo erectus skull from Java, Indonesia. This pioneering species stands at the root of a fascinating evolutionary tree.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Scimex</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Island Southeast Asia has one of the largest and most intriguing hominin fossil records in the world. But our new research suggests there is another prehistoric human species waiting to be discovered in this region: a group called Denisovans, which have so far only been found thousands of kilometres away in caves in Siberia and the Tibetan Plateau.</p>
<p>Our study, published in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-021-01408-0">Nature Ecology and Evolution</a>, reveals genetic evidence that modern humans (<em>Homo sapiens</em>) interbred with Denisovans in this region, despite the fact Denisovan fossils have never been found here.</p>
<p>Conversely, we found no evidence that the ancestors of present-day Island Southeast Asia populations interbred with either of the two hominin species for which we <em>do</em> have fossil evidence in this region: <em>H. floresiensis</em> from Flores, Indonesia, and <em>H. luzonensis</em> from Luzon in the Philippines.</p>
<p>Together, this paints an intriguing — and still far from clear — picture of human evolutionary ancestry in Island Southeast Asia. We still don’t know the precise relationship between <em>H. floresiensis</em> and <em>H. luzonensis</em>, both of which were distinctively small-statured, and the rest of the hominin family tree. </p>
<p>And, perhaps more intriguingly still, our findings raise the possibility there are Denisovan fossils still waiting to be unearthed in Island Southeast Asia — or that we may already have found them but labelled them as something else.</p>
<h2>An ancient hominin melting pot</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/stone-tools-rhinoceros-luzon-philippines-ancient-hominins-science">Stone tool records</a> suggest that both <em>H. floresiensis</em> and <em>H. luzonensis</em> are descended from <em>Homo erectus</em> populations that colonised their respective island homes about 700,000 years ago. <em>H. erectus</em> is the first ancient human known to have ventured out of Africa, and has first arrived in Island Southeast Asia at least 1.6 million years ago.</p>
<p>This means the ancestors of <em>H. floresiensis</em> and <em>H. luzonensis</em> diverged from the ancestors of modern humans in Africa around two million years ago, before <em>H. erectus</em> set off on its travels. Modern humans spread out from Africa much more recently, probably arriving in Island Southeast Asia <a href="https://australian.museum/learn/science/human-evolution/the-first-modern-humans-in-southeast-asia/#">70,000-50,000 years ago</a>.</p>
<p>We already know that on their journey out of Africa about 70,000 years ago, <em>H. sapiens</em> met and interbred with other related hominin groups that had already colonised Eurasia.</p>
<p>The first of these encounters was with Neanderthals, and resulted in about 2% Neanderthal genetic ancestry in <a href="https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/understanding/dtcgenetictesting/neanderthaldna/#">today’s non-Africans</a>. </p>
<p>The other encounters involved Denisovans, a species that has been described solely from DNA analysis of a finger bone <a href="https://theconversation.com/fresh-clues-to-the-life-and-times-of-the-denisovans-a-little-known-ancient-group-of-humans-110504">found in Denisova Cave</a> in Siberia.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Denisovan jaw fossil." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391154/original/file-20210323-13-qb8qta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/391154/original/file-20210323-13-qb8qta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391154/original/file-20210323-13-qb8qta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391154/original/file-20210323-13-qb8qta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=326&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391154/original/file-20210323-13-qb8qta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391154/original/file-20210323-13-qb8qta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/391154/original/file-20210323-13-qb8qta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Only a handful of Denisovan fossils have been found, such as this jawbone unearthed in a Tibetan cave.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dongju Zhang/Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Intriguingly, however, the largest amounts of Denisovan ancestry in today’s human populations are found in Island Southeast Asia and the former continent of Sahul (New Guinea and Australia). This is most likely the result of local interbreeding between Denisovans and modern humans — despite the lack of Denisovan fossils to back up this theory.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/southeast-asia-was-crowded-with-archaic-human-groups-long-before-we-turned-up-119818">Southeast Asia was crowded with archaic human groups long before we turned up</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>To learn more, we searched the genome sequences of more than 400 people alive today, including more than 200 from Island Southeast Asia, looking for distinct DNA sequences characteristic of these earlier hominin species.</p>
<p>We found genetic evidence the ancestors of present-day people living in Island Southeast Asia have interbred with Denisovans — just as many groups outside Africa have similarly interbred with Neanderthals during their evolutionary history. But we found no evidence of interbreeding with the more evolutionarily distant species <em>H. floresiensis</em> and <em>H. luzonensis</em> (or even <em>H. erectus</em>).</p>
<p>This is a remarkable result, as Island Southeast Asia is thousands of kilometres from Siberia, and contains one of the richest and most diverse hominin fossil records in the world. It suggests there are more fossil riches to be uncovered.</p>
<h2>So where are the region’s Denisovans?</h2>
<p>There are two exciting possibilities that might reconcile our genetic results with with the fossil evidence. First, it’s possible Denisovans mixed with <em>H. sapiens</em> in areas of Island Southeast Asia where hominin fossils are yet to be found.</p>
<p>One possible location is Sulawesi, where stone tools have been found dating back at least 200,000 years. Another is Australia, where 65,000-year-old artefacts currently attributed to modern humans were recently found at Madjebebe.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/buried-tools-and-pigments-tell-a-new-history-of-humans-in-australia-for-65-000-years-81021">Buried tools and pigments tell a new history of humans in Australia for 65,000 years</a>
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</em>
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<hr>
<p>Alternatively, we may need to rethink our interpretation of the hominin fossils already discovered in Island Southeast Asia.</p>
<p>Confirmed Denisovan fossils are extremely rare and have so far only been found in central Asia. But perhaps Denisovans were much more diverse in size and shape than we realised, meaning we might conceivably have found them in Island Southeast Asia already but labelled them with a different name.</p>
<p>Given that the earliest evidence for hominin occupation of this region predates the divergence between modern humans and Denisovans, we can’t say for certain whether the region has been continuously occupied by hominins throughout this time. </p>
<p>It might therefore be possible that <em>H. floresiensis</em> and <em>H. luzonensis</em> (but also later forms of <em>H. erectus</em>) are much more closely related to modern humans than currently assumed, and might even be responsible for the Denisovan ancestry seen in today’s Island Southeast Asia human populations.</p>
<p>If that’s true, it would mean the mysterious Denisovans have been hiding in plain sight, disguised as <em>H. floresiensis</em>, <em>H. luzonensis</em> or <em>H. erectus</em>.</p>
<p>Solving these intriguing puzzles will mean waiting for future archaeological, DNA and proteomic (protein-related) studies to reveal more answers. But for now, the possibilities are fascinating.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/157587/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>João Teixeira receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kristofer M. Helgen received funding from the Australian Research Council’s Centre for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH).</span></em></p>
The ancestors of modern-day people living on Southeast Asian islands likely interbred with a prehistoric species called Denisovans - raising the possibility of fresh and intriguing fossil discoveries.
João Teixeira, Research associate, University of Adelaide
Kristofer M. Helgen, Chief Scientist and Director, Australian Museum Research Institute, Australian Museum
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/144570
2020-08-19T20:12:47Z
2020-08-19T20:12:47Z
Stone tools from a remote cave reveal how island-hopping humans made a living in the jungle millennia ago
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353559/original/file-20200819-42823-req2bj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3750%2C2890&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">ANU</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Prehistoric axes and beads found in caves on a remote Indonesian island suggest this was a crucial staging post for seafaring people who lived in this region as the last ice age was coming to an end.</p>
<p>Our discoveries, <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0236719">published today in PLOS ONE</a>, suggest humans arrived on the tropical island of Obi at least 18,000 years ago, successfully making a living there for at least the next 10,000 years. </p>
<p>It also provides the first direct archaeological evidence to support the idea these islands were crucial for humans’ island-hopping migration through this region millennia ago.</p>
<p>In early April 2019, we and our colleagues in Indonesia became the first archaeologists to explore Obi, in Indonesia’s Maluku Utara province. </p>
<p>We found the oldest example from east Indonesia of edge-ground axes, made by grinding a piece of stone to a sharp blade against a rough material such as sandstone. These were likely used for clearing the forest and making dugout canoes. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353556/original/file-20200819-42831-1gqncd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Hand holding a prehistoric stone axe" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353556/original/file-20200819-42831-1gqncd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353556/original/file-20200819-42831-1gqncd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353556/original/file-20200819-42831-1gqncd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353556/original/file-20200819-42831-1gqncd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353556/original/file-20200819-42831-1gqncd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353556/original/file-20200819-42831-1gqncd9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353556/original/file-20200819-42831-1gqncd9.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">Stone axes were vital tools for clearing forest and making canoes.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ANU</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our discoveries suggest the prehistoric people who lived on Obi were adept on both land and sea, hunting in the dense rainforest, foraging by the sea, and possibly even making canoes for voyaging between islands.</p>
<p>Our research is part of a <a href="https://epicaustralia.org.au/mapping-the-journeys-of-australias-first-people/">project</a> to learn more about how people first dispersed from mainland Asia, through the Indonesian archipelago and into Sahul, the prehistoric continent that once connected Australia and New Guinea. </p>
<h2>An island stepping-stone</h2>
<p>Recent <a href="https://epicaustralia.org.au/mapping-the-journeys-of-australias-first-people/">models</a> by <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-42946-9">CABAH researchers</a> identified the collection of small islands in northeast Indonesia – and Obi in particular – as the most likely “stepping-stones” used by humans on their very first journey east towards northern Sahul (modern-day New Guinea), about 65,000-50,000 years ago.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353613/original/file-20200819-24815-zdtt7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Map of Obi and surrounding islands" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353613/original/file-20200819-24815-zdtt7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353613/original/file-20200819-24815-zdtt7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353613/original/file-20200819-24815-zdtt7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353613/original/file-20200819-24815-zdtt7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=593&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353613/original/file-20200819-24815-zdtt7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353613/original/file-20200819-24815-zdtt7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=745&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353613/original/file-20200819-24815-zdtt7d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=745&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 the region showing the location of Obi island and the sites excavated by the team, and the previous geography of the region when sea levels were lower.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Migrating through this region, which is named <a href="https://theconversation.com/wallacea-a-living-laboratory-of-evolution-85602">Wallacea</a> after the explorer and naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, would have required multiple sea crossings. This enormous archipelago thus has a unique significance in human history, as the region where people first set out on deliberate long sea voyages. </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248418302136">earlier research</a> suggested the northern Wallacean islands, including Obi, would have offered the easiest migration route. But to back this theory, we need archaeological evidence for humans living in this remote area in the ancient past. So we travelled to Obi to look for cave sites that might reveal evidence of early occupation.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/island-hopping-study-shows-the-most-likely-route-the-first-people-took-to-australia-93120">Island-hopping study shows the most likely route the first people took to Australia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Tools and treasure</h2>
<p>We found two rock shelter sites, just inland from the village of Kelo on Obi’s northern coast, that were suitable for excavation. With the permission and help of the local people of Kelo, we dug a small test excavation in each shelter. </p>
<p>We found numberous artefacts including fragments of edge-ground axes, some dating to about 14,000 years ago. The earliest ground axes at Kelo were made using clam shells. Axes made from shells have also been found elsewhere in this region from roughly the same time, including on the nearby island of Gebe to the northeast. Traditionally, they were used by people in the region for the construction of dugout canoes. It is highly likely that Obi’s axes were also used for making canoes, thus allowing these early peoples to maintain connections between communities on neighbouring islands.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People walking among coconut trees" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353561/original/file-20200819-24671-j439w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353561/original/file-20200819-24671-j439w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353561/original/file-20200819-24671-j439w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353561/original/file-20200819-24671-j439w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353561/original/file-20200819-24671-j439w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353561/original/file-20200819-24671-j439w8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353561/original/file-20200819-24671-j439w8.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The research team treks through coconut groves on Obi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ANU</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The oldest cultural layers from the Kelo 6 site, containing a combination of shell and stone tool flakes, provided us with the earliest record for human occupation on Obi, dating back around 18,000 years. At this time the climate was drier and colder the today, and the island’s dense rainforests would likely have been much less impenetrable than they are now. Sea levels were about 120 metres lower, meaning Obi was a much larger island, encompassing what is today the separate island of Bisa, as well as several other small islands nearby.</p>
<p>Roughly 11,700 years ago, as the most recent ice age ended, the climate became significantly warmer and wetter, no doubt making Obi’s jungle much thicker. It is perhaps no coincidence this is the time we see the first evidence of axes made from stone rather than sea shells, likely in response to their increased, heavy-duty use for clearing and modification of the increasingly dense rainforest. While stone takes about twice as long to grind into an axe compared to shell, the harder material also keeps its sharp edge for longer as well.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353657/original/file-20200819-42893-t2s41e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Various views of stone axes" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353657/original/file-20200819-42893-t2s41e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353657/original/file-20200819-42893-t2s41e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353657/original/file-20200819-42893-t2s41e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353657/original/file-20200819-42893-t2s41e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=517&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353657/original/file-20200819-42893-t2s41e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=650&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353657/original/file-20200819-42893-t2s41e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=650&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353657/original/file-20200819-42893-t2s41e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=650&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Stone axes found on the ground near Kelo village. Scale bar represents 1cm.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shipton et al. 2020</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Judging by the bones we found in the Kelo caves, people living there mainly hunted the <a href="https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/16852/6506978">Rothschild’s cuscus</a>, a possum-like animal that still lives on Obi today. As the forest grew more dense, people probably used axes to clear patches of forest and make hunting easier. </p>
<p>Again, it’s probably no coincidence axes made of volcanic stone – which would have stayed sharp for longer, and are known to have been used for this purpose in New Guinea – first appearing in the archaeological record at around the time the climate was changing. </p>
<p>We also found obsidian, which must have been brought over from another island as there is no known source on Obi, and particular types of shell beads in the Kelo caves, similar to those previously found on islands in southern Wallacea. This again supports the idea that Obi islanders routinely travelled to other islands.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353557/original/file-20200819-24757-3totpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Selection of ancient sea shell pieces" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353557/original/file-20200819-24757-3totpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/353557/original/file-20200819-24757-3totpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353557/original/file-20200819-24757-3totpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353557/original/file-20200819-24757-3totpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353557/original/file-20200819-24757-3totpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353557/original/file-20200819-24757-3totpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/353557/original/file-20200819-24757-3totpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sea shell fragments on the cave floor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">ANU</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Moving out, or moving on?</h2>
<p>Our excavations suggest people successfully lived at the Kelo caves for about 10,000 years. But then, about 8,000 years ago, both sites were abandoned. </p>
<p>Did the residents leave Obi completely, or move elsewhere on the island? Perhaps the jungle had grown so thick human axes (even stone ones!) were no longer a match for the dense undergrowth. Perhaps people simply moved to the coast and became mainly fishers rather than hunters. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/an-incredible-journey-the-first-people-to-arrive-in-australia-came-in-large-numbers-and-on-purpose-114074">An incredible journey: the first people to arrive in Australia came in large numbers, and on purpose</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Whatever the reason, we have no evidence for use of the Kelo shelters after this time, until about 1,000 years ago, when they were reoccupied by people who had pottery and metal items. It seems likely, in view of Obi’s location in the middle of the Maluku “Spice Islands”, this final phase of occupation saw the Kelo shelters used by people involved in the historic spice trade.</p>
<p>We will hopefully find the answers to some of these questions when we return to Obi next year, COVID permitting, to excavate some coastal caves.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/144570/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shimona Kealy receives funding from the Australian Research Council through the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage. She is affiliated with the Australian National University, College of Asia and the Pacific. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span><a href="mailto:sue.oconnor@anu.edu.au">sue.oconnor@anu.edu.au</a> receives funding from the Australian Research Council
through the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage.
She is affiliated with the Australian National University, College of Asia and the Pacific.</span></em></p>
Archaeological discoveries in a jungle cave in central Indonesia suggest humans arrived there 18,000 years ago and decided to stay a while, hunting in the jungle and building canoes.
Shimona Kealy, Postdoctoral Researcher, College of Asia & the Pacific, Australian National University
Sue O'Connor, Distinguished Professor, School of Culture, History & Language, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/136392
2020-04-17T08:05:22Z
2020-04-17T08:05:22Z
How climate change affected foraging patterns of prehistoric humans in Indonesia
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328001/original/file-20200415-153326-zu7ksy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shtterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>During the transitional period between <a href="https://www.livescience.com/40311-pleistocene-epoch.html">the Pleistocene epoch</a> (or the Ice Age, from 2.58 million to 11,700 years ago) and <a href="https://www.livescience.com/28219-holocene-epoch.html">the Holocene epoch</a> (from 11,700 years ago until today), the Earth’s temperature underwent massive change.</p>
<p>Within this period of highly fluctuating temperatures, ice sheets in the North and South Poles melted and <a href="https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/gornitz_09/">sea levels started rising</a>, in a process called deglaciation. </p>
<p>As a result, islands in <a href="https://theconversation.com/wallacea-a-living-laboratory-of-evolution-85602">the Wallacea region</a> in Central Indonesia <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15564894.2015.1119218">shrank in size and became more isolated</a>. The region also experienced a sudden shift in vegetation, forcing the humans living there to adapt further to this changing environment. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325387/original/file-20200403-74225-lsr7tw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325387/original/file-20200403-74225-lsr7tw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325387/original/file-20200403-74225-lsr7tw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325387/original/file-20200403-74225-lsr7tw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325387/original/file-20200403-74225-lsr7tw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325387/original/file-20200403-74225-lsr7tw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325387/original/file-20200403-74225-lsr7tw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325387/original/file-20200403-74225-lsr7tw.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=599&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A map showing the location of Kisar Island. Gray indicates landmasses during the Pleistocene epoch.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This unique prehistoric geography makes the Wallacean islands an ideal region for studying how humans adapted their foraging patterns to climatic changes during the end of the last Ice Age.</p>
<p>During September and October 2015, our team of Indonesian and Australian researchers excavated the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15564894.2018.1443171">Here Sorot Entapa rock shelter in Kisar</a> – an island northeast of Timor in the regency of Maluku Barat Daya.</p>
<p>The island is <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-archaeological-journal/article/ideology-ritual-performance-and-its-manifestations-in-the-rock-art-of-timorleste-and-kisar-island-island-southeast-asia/9D66588AF7B8A12E781D337474E406E">rich in prehistoric remains</a>, and our team went there specifically to study changes in prehistoric people’s dietary patterns in response to climate change.</p>
<h2>When the climate suddenly cooled in Indonesia</h2>
<p>Humans first occupied the cave 15,000 years ago as rising sea levels at the end of the Ice Age caused <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/292/5517/679">coastal ecosystems to thrive</a>, increasing the occupation of many prehistoric sites in Wallacea.</p>
<p>During that initial phase, humans occupying the Here Sorot Entapa rock shelter mainly ate aquatic species including fish, turtles, shellfish and sea urchins.</p>
<p>However, a drastic change in climate occurred during the final stages of the Ice Age deglaciation, a period commonly known as the Bølling-Allerød (around 14,500 to 12,800 years ago). This change led to a denser human population at Here Sorot Entapa.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325078/original/file-20200402-74874-ei9wax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325078/original/file-20200402-74874-ei9wax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325078/original/file-20200402-74874-ei9wax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=167&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325078/original/file-20200402-74874-ei9wax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=167&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325078/original/file-20200402-74874-ei9wax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=167&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325078/original/file-20200402-74874-ei9wax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=209&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325078/original/file-20200402-74874-ei9wax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=209&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325078/original/file-20200402-74874-ei9wax.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=209&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fluctuations in the Earth’s temperature throughout the period between the Pleistocene and Holocene epochs, compared to glacial temperatures in Greenland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nature.com/articles/srep40338">(Platt et al., 2017)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During that climate event, Kisar and the surrounding Wallacea islands <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms3908">experienced a sudden temperature drop</a>.</p>
<p>As glaciers continued to melt with high temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere, the climate in Wallacea became much cooler, while at the same time sea levels continued to rise.</p>
<p>We found numerous remains of fish hooks fashioned out of seashells in the excavation layers corresponding to this period. These finds indicated that at that time people relied on marine resources, likely venturing out to fish in deep waters.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328578/original/file-20200417-192731-1leiu5k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328578/original/file-20200417-192731-1leiu5k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/328578/original/file-20200417-192731-1leiu5k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328578/original/file-20200417-192731-1leiu5k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328578/original/file-20200417-192731-1leiu5k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328578/original/file-20200417-192731-1leiu5k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328578/original/file-20200417-192731-1leiu5k.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/328578/original/file-20200417-192731-1leiu5k.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"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Indonesian-Australian research team conducted excavations at the Here Sorot Entapa rock-shelter in Kisar Island.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, our dig also suggests Kisar’s early occupants expanded their diet to include land animals, particularly reptiles such as snakes and lizards.</p>
<p>These animals were able to reproduce well through this period due to their ability to <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16321368">survive in this period of change and colder conditions</a>.</p>
<h2>But then gradually it became hot again</h2>
<p>Then, from 12,800 to 9,500 years ago, human occupation of Here Sorot Entapa shows a gradual decrease until the cave was abandoned for more than 3,000 years.</p>
<p>This coincided with the Younger Dryas episode, a turbulent climate event known from European records. It reversed the previous warming and deglaciation in the Northern Hemisphere, making temperatures <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/104061829500049O">severely drop again</a> for hundreds of years.</p>
<p>Below the equator in Wallacea, however, the opposite occurred. Throughout the Younger Dryas, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2182">temperatures rose</a> in regions close to the equator.</p>
<p>This condition – where the temperature became hotter while sea levels stopped rising – is probably what caused the humans of Here Sorot Entapa to leave. They perhaps migrated towards larger islands with a greater abundance of resources in order to survive.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325392/original/file-20200403-74261-84wv8b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325392/original/file-20200403-74261-84wv8b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/325392/original/file-20200403-74261-84wv8b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325392/original/file-20200403-74261-84wv8b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325392/original/file-20200403-74261-84wv8b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325392/original/file-20200403-74261-84wv8b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325392/original/file-20200403-74261-84wv8b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/325392/original/file-20200403-74261-84wv8b.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=648&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Changes in the occupation intensity in Here Sorot Entapa rock shelter since 15,000 years ago, compared to climate fluctuation rates occurring in Liang Luar Cave, Flores. HS1: Heinrich Stadial 1; B-A: Bølling-Allerød; and YD: Younger Dryas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Throughout this low-occupation period, our excavation reveals fishing activities plummeted, as foraging activities shifted to mostly land animals.</p>
<p>While the most hunted land animals during the previous occupation phase had been reptiles, rats became the primary choice for the rock-shelter residents.</p>
<p>A number of palaeontological and archaeological studies reveal the rise of the rat population coincided with <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ej/article-abstract/116/513/751/5087867?redirectedFrom=PDF">increasing human activities</a> in the early Holocene such as inter-island transport, preliminary agriculture and land clearing.</p>
<p>Most probably, rats came to Kisar through sea trade as they are renowned stowaways.</p>
<h2>Toward the climatic stability of the Holocene</h2>
<p>Based on our team’s archaeological data, the Here Sorot Entapa rock shelter was once more occupied from 5,000 to 1,600 years ago.</p>
<p>In this occupation phase, the Earth’s temperature <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/109/19/E1134">gradually stabilised</a> due to the end of the deglaciation process, until the climate reached similar levels to the present.</p>
<p>This Goldilocks climate – not too hot and not too cold – allowed people to thrive and develop various <a href="https://academic.oup.com/ej/article-abstract/116/513/751/5087867?redirectedFrom=PDF">agricultural technologies</a>. They also started living in larger groups and communities.</p>
<p>For instance, we found a high volume of pottery pieces and charcoal remains from the mid-Holocene around 4,000 years ago. These findings indicate major advances in the development of technologies for processing and storing food.</p>
<h2>Learning from the past to prepare for the future</h2>
<p>Through archaeology and palaeontology, we can try to understand how the environment acts as a central part of human civilisation.</p>
<p>Humans have managed to overcome a multitude of climatic challenges throughout their history by adapting and taking advantage of natural resources.</p>
<p>However, the current climate crisis has proven to be a new challenge for humanity. Forest fires, floods and erratic weather patterns seem to be the new normal.</p>
<p>For that reason it is now more important than ever for humanity to be wiser in managing the richness offered by mother nature. We have a responsibility to fulfil our needs for energy, food and clean water without damaging the environment.</p>
<p>The early communities of Kisar reflect the incredible resilience and adaptability of our species. We have the capacity to overcome the changes that we face – our history shows this to be true.</p>
<p>We are the “wise men”, or <em>Homo sapiens</em> as they say in Latin. Remain wise, or we may see our period on this Earth come to an end.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/136392/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>This fieldwork was undertaken as part of a joint research project by the Australian National University and Universitas Gadjah Mada. The work was funded by an ARC Laureate Fellowship awarded to Prof. Sue O’Connor (FL120100156). Permits to undertake the research on Kisar Island, Indonesia, were granted by Kementerian Riset & Teknologi, under research visa 315: 1456/FRP/SM/VII/2015 granted to O’Connor.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span> </span></em></p>
During the transitional period between the Pleistocene and Holocene epoch, the Earth’s temperature underwent massive change, forcing prehistoric humans in Indonesia to change their diet.
Hendri A. F. Kaharudin, Higher Degree Research Candidate, Australian National University
Shimona Kealy, Postdoctoral Researcher, College of Asia & the Pacific, Australian National University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/126696
2019-11-12T11:01:50Z
2019-11-12T11:01:50Z
Ice Age footprints of mammoths and prehistoric humans revealed for the first time using radar
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301122/original/file-20191111-194656-43yhyp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6000%2C3000&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/columbian-mammoth-herd-winter-sets-mammoths-236426374?src=76c64e75-dbdd-410a-a46b-e16875e89596-1-3">Catmando/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The mammoth lumbers through our imaginations when we think about the world during the most recent Ice Age. They’re just one of many giant creatures that our ancestors lived alongside and which became extinct when the climate changed. The giant ground sloth – <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-vqQioKtQU">a large herbivore</a> which was endemic to the Americas – is another.</p>
<p>We can study these extinct animals from their bones – but also from the preserved footprints they left in mud. But these footprints are often hard to find – and while they can tell us about the presence of an animal, they don’t always tell us much about the animal itself, like how it walked, for instance. The giant ground sloth was unusual in that it walked on the outside of its feet. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301096/original/file-20191111-194665-15o6i8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301096/original/file-20191111-194665-15o6i8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301096/original/file-20191111-194665-15o6i8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301096/original/file-20191111-194665-15o6i8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301096/original/file-20191111-194665-15o6i8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1340&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301096/original/file-20191111-194665-15o6i8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301096/original/file-20191111-194665-15o6i8p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1340&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alkali Flat in New Mexico, USA. Ancient footprints of bygone creatures are preserved here.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Matthew Robert Bennett</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To help us, we turned to a new method which geologists and archaeologists use to image the hidden subsurface. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQaRfA7yJ0g">Ground penetrating radar</a> was first used during the Vietnam War to reveal bunkers below ground. Today, engineers use it to spot cracks in railway tracks and girders. It works by sending signals into the ground which bounce back to reveal subsurface structures. It can be used for imaging big stuff, including buried walls in ancient ruins, but <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-52996-8">in our new study</a>, we used it to find buried animal tracks from the Ice Age.</p>
<p>Our research team has been working for several years at <a href="https://www.nps.gov/whsa/index.htm%5D(https://www.nps.gov/whsa/index.htm">White Sands National Monument</a> in New Mexico in the US where one of the largest collection of vertebrate animal tracks from the Ice Age can be found. These tracks are preserved on a dried lake bed called Alkali Flat. Because they’re so difficult to make out, they’re locally referred to as “ghost tracks”. </p>
<p>Not only were we able to identify and map large tracks made by big animals such as mammoths and giant ground sloths, but to our surprise, we could also see those of the human hunters that stalked those animals. Imaging footprints of Ice Age giants, and their hunters, without excavating the tracks has huge advantages for their conservation. </p>
<p>Much of Alkali Flat is also used by the <a href="https://www.wsmr.army.mil/Pages/home.aspx">White Sands Missile Range</a>, where the American space programme began and the first nuclear bomb was detonated. In places, missile debris litters the ground. Being able to map where most of the tracks are will help prevent them from being erased.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301095/original/file-20191111-194650-olovl7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301095/original/file-20191111-194650-olovl7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301095/original/file-20191111-194650-olovl7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301095/original/file-20191111-194650-olovl7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301095/original/file-20191111-194650-olovl7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=270&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301095/original/file-20191111-194650-olovl7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301095/original/file-20191111-194650-olovl7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301095/original/file-20191111-194650-olovl7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=339&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Human footprints from the last Ice Age at White Sands National Monument in New Mexico.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Matthew Robert Bennett</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We also noticed something interesting beneath the mammoth tracks in the radar data. Below the base of the footprint, we consistently saw something resembling a hook in the radar image. This was completely unexpected. We weren’t sure what this was at first, but suspected that it might be due to the sediment below being compressed by the footprint. If so, this could provide crucial information about the way the animal walked. If this was indeed a pressure record, then it would likely match the pressure record from a close relative, like an elephant.</p>
<p>Foot pressure data for elephants, by the way, are rare – you can imagine how hard it is to get them into the lab and walking on delicate scientific instruments. Thanks to colleagues from <a href="https://www.rvc.ac.uk/">the Royal Veterinary College</a> in London and <a href="https://www.monash.edu/">Monash University</a>, we got our hands on some of this data. The pressure record for elephants turned out to be similar to the hook-like structures revealed in the radar data beneath the mammoth tracks. This led us to conclude that the radar was not only picking out the shape of the footprint, but also giving us much more data on the pressure exerted by the foot on the ground as the mammoth walked. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301136/original/file-20191111-194675-1ugixeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301136/original/file-20191111-194675-1ugixeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301136/original/file-20191111-194675-1ugixeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301136/original/file-20191111-194675-1ugixeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301136/original/file-20191111-194675-1ugixeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301136/original/file-20191111-194675-1ugixeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301136/original/file-20191111-194675-1ugixeh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=470&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The pressure data from the mammoth footprints closely resembled those of modern elephants.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Matthew Robert Bennett</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For scientists studying the way extinct animals walk, this was very exciting. It’s the equivalent of getting an extinct animal to come into the lab and walk on a force plate. Best of all, the radar imaging allows us to study how these ancient creatures walked without having to disturb the footprint itself. </p>
<p>We think we’ll be able to use the same technique at other sites to image the pressure pattern beneath a dinosaur’s foot, just as if we’d managed to bring a living specimen into the lab. We should also be able to use this technology to map human footprints at other sites, especially where digging could be disruptive. There are famous sites, such as <a href="http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/behavior/footprints/laetoli-footprint-trails">Laetoli in Tanzania</a>, where footprints of the oldest human ancestors can be found. We’re not quite there yet, but given the right circumstances, we think it’s possible.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126696/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Robert Bennett 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 have worked out a new way to scan beneath the ground for footprints – and it’s revealing traces of an ancient world.
Matthew Robert Bennett, Professor of Environmental and Geographical Sciences, Bournemouth University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/124115
2019-09-25T17:39:13Z
2019-09-25T17:39:13Z
Discovery of prehistoric baby bottles shows infants were fed cow’s milk 5,000 years ago
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/294039/original/file-20190925-51410-ovs749.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C799%2C475&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Late Bronze Age baby bottles from Vösendorf, Austria. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Enver-Hirsch © Wien Museum</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>How did people look after their children in the Stone Age? It turns out that prehistoric parents may not have been so different to modern mums and dads. Clay vessels that have been found in Germany could have been used to supplement breast milk and wean children more than 5,000 years ago. They became more common across Bronze and Iron Age Europe and are thought to be some of the first-known baby bottles.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/1758571615Z.00000000026?src=recsys&journalCode=ycip20">Analyses of child skeletons</a> from this period suggest that supplementary foods were given to babies at around six months and weaning was complete by two to three years of age. These bottles are often stray finds on dig sites of ancient settlements and come in all sorts of shapes, but are always very small and have a spout through which liquid could be poured or suckled. </p>
<p>Sometimes they take the form of very cute mythical animals with feet and heads, perhaps made by the parents to entertain their children. Archaeologists have suggested that they were used to feed infants, but they might also have fed the sick or elderly. Until now, no one knew their true purpose, or what types of food they might have contained. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293894/original/file-20190924-51401-1v83vg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293894/original/file-20190924-51401-1v83vg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293894/original/file-20190924-51401-1v83vg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293894/original/file-20190924-51401-1v83vg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293894/original/file-20190924-51401-1v83vg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293894/original/file-20190924-51401-1v83vg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293894/original/file-20190924-51401-1v83vg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293894/original/file-20190924-51401-1v83vg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Feeding vessels of the late Bronze and early Iron Ages from Znojmo (Czech Republic), Harting (Bavaria, Germany), Franzhausen-Kokoron (Austria), Batina (Croatia) and Statzendorf (Austria), c. 1200-600 BC.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Katharina Rebay-Salisbury</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Parenting through the ages</h2>
<p><a href="https://nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1572-x">In our study</a>, we decided to investigate these objects using a technique called organic residue analysis. We found three in European child graves and two of them were complete. Normally we’d grind up broken pots, but we couldn’t possibly do this to these very small and precious vessels. </p>
<p>Instead, we did some very delicate drilling to produce enough ceramic powder and then treated it with a chemical technique that extracts molecules called lipids. These lipids come from the fats, oils and waxes of the natural world and are normally absorbed into the material of the prehistoric pots during cooking, or, in this case, through heating the milk. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/what-ancient-footprints-can-tell-us-about-what-it-was-like-to-be-a-child-in-prehistoric-times-91584">What ancient footprints can tell us about what it was like to be a child in prehistoric times</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Luckily, these lipids often survive for thousands of years. We regularly use this technique to find out what sort of food people cooked in their ancient pots. It seems they ate many of the things we eat today, including various types of meat, dairy products, fish, vegetables and honey.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293893/original/file-20190924-51414-yuwv1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293893/original/file-20190924-51414-yuwv1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293893/original/file-20190924-51414-yuwv1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=845&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293893/original/file-20190924-51414-yuwv1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=845&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293893/original/file-20190924-51414-yuwv1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=845&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293893/original/file-20190924-51414-yuwv1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1062&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293893/original/file-20190924-51414-yuwv1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1062&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293893/original/file-20190924-51414-yuwv1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1062&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A prehistoric family scene showing an infant being fed with a baby bottle similar to those we tested.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Christian Bisig/Archäologie der Schweiz</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our results showed that the three vessels contained ruminant animal milk, either from cows, sheep or goat. Their presence in child graves suggests they were used to feed babies animal milk, as a supplementary food during weaning.</p>
<p>This is interesting because animal milk would only have become available as humans changed their lifestyles and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-some-humans-developed-a-taste-for-milk-and-some-didnt-56084">settled in farming communities</a>. It’s at that time – the dawn of agriculture – that people first domesticated cows, sheep, goats and pigs. This ultimately led to the “<a href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-neolithic-demographic-transition-and-its-Bocquet-Appel-Bar-Yosef/25a36c84878d02df6b0eba8a6b5074555255f74e">Neolithic demographic transition</a>”, when the widespread use of animal milk to feed babies or as a supplementary weaning food in some parts of the world improved nutrition, contributing to an increased birth rate. The human population grew significantly as a result, and so did settlement sizes, which eventually became the towns and cities we know today. By holding these ancient baby bottles, we’re connected to the first generations of children who grew up in the transition from hunter-gatherer groups to communities based around agriculture.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293891/original/file-20190924-51421-n2us8b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293891/original/file-20190924-51421-n2us8b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/293891/original/file-20190924-51421-n2us8b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293891/original/file-20190924-51421-n2us8b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293891/original/file-20190924-51421-n2us8b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=568&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293891/original/file-20190924-51421-n2us8b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=714&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293891/original/file-20190924-51421-n2us8b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=714&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/293891/original/file-20190924-51421-n2us8b.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=714&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A modern-day baby testing a replica of one of the ancient bottles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Helena Seidl da Fonseca</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This research gives us a greater insight into the lives of mothers and babies in the past and how prehistoric families were dealing with infant feeding and nutrition at what would have been a very risky time in an infant’s life. Child mortality would have been high – there were no antibiotics in those days – and feeding babies with animal milk would have come with its own set of risks. Although it may have provided a valuable source of nutrition, today we know that unpasteurised milk carries the risk of contamination from bacteria and can transmit disease from the animal.</p>
<p>Like all good research, this begs a range of new questions. Both the ancient Greeks and the Romans used very similar vessels and we know of a small number in a prehistoric site in Sudan. It would be interesting to see how these generations of children were fed and raised elsewhere in the world. It’s perhaps comforting to know that despite the vast distance of time, these people loved and cared for their children in much the same way that we do today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124115/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julie Dunne receives funding from The Leverhulme Trust.</span></em></p>
Ancient farmers ensured their children were fed and entertained in a similar way to modern parents.
Julie Dunne, Postdoctoral Researcher in Archaeology, University of Bristol
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/117558
2019-06-03T10:00:57Z
2019-06-03T10:00:57Z
How prehistoric people faced climate change revealed by video game technology
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276782/original/file-20190528-42600-97z989.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3199%2C2400&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/people-ice-age-248931799?src=XX3frlPrmJYZyK_KHcr_FQ-1-78">Esteban De Armas/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>How will climate change remake our world in the 21st century? Will we be able to adapt and survive? As with many things, the past is a good guide for the future. Humans have experienced climate changes in the past that have transformed their environment – studying their response could tell us something about our own fate.</p>
<p>Human populations and cultures died out and were replaced throughout Eurasia during the last 500,000 years. How and why one prehistoric population displaced another is unclear, but these ancient people were exposed to climate changes that changed their natural environment in turn.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276057/original/file-20190523-187153-18gsjpy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276057/original/file-20190523-187153-18gsjpy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/276057/original/file-20190523-187153-18gsjpy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276057/original/file-20190523-187153-18gsjpy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276057/original/file-20190523-187153-18gsjpy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276057/original/file-20190523-187153-18gsjpy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276057/original/file-20190523-187153-18gsjpy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/276057/original/file-20190523-187153-18gsjpy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How habitats in prehistoric Eurasia would have looked (a) during a period of relative warmth, and (b) during period of relative cooling ‘T.’ = Temperate.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-43797-0.epdf?author_access_token=hozqQ6r5u_UpUmK5gyU87dRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0PVleaRBThmy23C8kAauLjxnI4pRjg8nqb9Rfw-0UNbEGg5Kgi-XHCRb9fCu8zHzNA-zw4v8U4RDppl5A6RQr4kBPXZ1-B4oAK7GGTC01yLQQ%3D%3D">Allen et al. (2019)</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We looked at the region around Lyon, France, and imagined how Stone Age hunter gatherers 30,000-50,000 years ago would have fared as the world around them changed. Here, as elsewhere in Eurasia during colder periods, the environment would have <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379116305534">shifted towards tundra-like vegetation</a> – vast, open habitats that may have been best suited for running down prey while hunting. When the climate warmed for a few centuries, trees would have spread – creating dense woods which favour hunting methods involving ambush. </p>
<p>How these changes affected a population’s hunting behaviour could have decided whether they prospered, were forced to migrate, or even died out. The ability of hunter gatherers to detect prey at different distances and in different environments would have decided who dominated and who was displaced. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/humans-are-not-off-the-hook-for-extinctions-of-large-herbivores-then-or-now-107727">Humans are not off the hook for extinctions of large herbivores – then or now</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Short of building a time machine, finding out how prehistoric people responded to climate change could only be possible by recreating their worlds as virtual environments. Here, researchers could control the mix and density of vegetation and enlist modern humans to explore them and see how they fared finding prey.</p>
<h2>Surviving in the virtual Stone Age</h2>
<p><a href="https://rdcu.be/bCqoO">We designed a video game environment</a> and asked volunteers to find red deer in it. The world they explored changed to scrub and grassland as the climate cooled and thick forest as it warmed.</p>
<p>The participants could spot red deer at a greater distance in grassland than in woodland, when the density of vegetation was the same. As vegetation grew thicker they struggled to detect prey at greater distances in both environments, but more so in woodland. Prehistoric people would have faced similar struggles as the climate warmed, but there’s an interesting pattern that tells us something about human responses to change.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275734/original/file-20190521-23841-k8bndt.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275734/original/file-20190521-23841-k8bndt.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=253&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275734/original/file-20190521-23841-k8bndt.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=253&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275734/original/file-20190521-23841-k8bndt.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=253&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275734/original/file-20190521-23841-k8bndt.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275734/original/file-20190521-23841-k8bndt.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275734/original/file-20190521-23841-k8bndt.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">As the climate warmed and wooded environments spread, finding prey became increasingly difficult.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Creeping environmental change didn’t affect deer spotting performance in the experiment until a certain threshold of forest had given way to grassland, or vice-versa. Suddenly, after the landscape was more than 30% forested, participants were significantly less able to spot deer at greater distances. As an open environment became more wooded, this could have been the tipping point at which running down prey became a less viable strategy, and hunters had to switch to ambush. </p>
<p>This is likely the critical moment at which ancient populations were forced to change their hunting habits, relocate to areas more favourable for their existing techniques, or face local extinction. As the modern climate warms and ecosystems change, our own survival could become threatened by these sudden tipping points.</p>
<p>The effects of climate change on human populations may not be intuitive. Our lifestyles may seem to continue working just fine up until a certain point. But that moment of crisis, when it does arrive, will often dictate the outcome – adapt, move or die.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=176&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><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/imagine-newsletter-researchers-think-of-a-world-with-climate-action-113443?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=Imagineheader1117558">Click here to subscribe to our climate action newsletter. Climate change is inevitable. Our response to it isn’t.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117558/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Allen conducted this research with colleagues across palaeontology (John Stewart and Chris Stringer), computer games design (Pete Allen, Christos Gatzidis), and psychology (Jan Wiener).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Stewart 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>
Environmental change can be a slow creep towards disaster for species. We studied how prehistoric humans coped to help make sense of the future using video game technology.
Peter Allen, PhD Researcher in Human Evolution, Bournemouth University
John Stewart, Associate Professor of Evolutionary Palaeoecology, Bournemouth University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/117272
2019-05-21T13:05:03Z
2019-05-21T13:05:03Z
DNA from 10,000 year old chewing gum reveals the secrets of Stone Age Scandinavians
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275686/original/file-20190521-23814-3i9ecy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5472%2C3645&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/close-hand-removing-sticky-chewing-gum-1086001733?src=ctz-ttQ74PBjgFQwmDeeyQ-1-9">iMoved Studio/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Chewing gum may seem like a modern habit but that’s apparently not quite the case. Scientists have recovered DNA that is nearly 10,000 years old from gum that was chewed by people in Scandinavia during the Mesolithic – or Stone Age – period. </p>
<p>This gum was used as glue to make tools – the chewing is believed to have helped make it more pliable and sticky. They may not have chewed it for pleasure, but recreational chewing of resin and gum has been <a href="https://rdcu.be/bCqmQ">known of since ancient times</a>. The gum itself was found at Huseby Klev, a Mesolithic site in western Sweden. </p>
<p>It’s difficult to find DNA from ancient specimens because it is so often degraded. Most samples of ancient DNA are obtained from <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14558">bones</a> or <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nprot.2007.247">teeth</a>. Such remains are rare and precious, so grinding them into powder to extract DNA is rarely encouraged. Material that is meant to be chewed but not swallowed has been found in many sites, but is <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0047248472900747">often disregarded</a> during excavations.</p>
<p>The knowledge that human DNA can be obtained from bits of old chewing gum is a breakthrough that offers fascinating possibilities for future work. Through this seemingly inconsequential scrap of ancient detritus come several fascinating insights into life 9,800 years ago.</p>
<h2>Diverse and resourceful</h2>
<p>The researchers sequenced the entire genomes of three individuals who had chewed gum and made tools on the site and compared them with contemporary genomes from 10 other sites, spread across Europe from Samara in Russia to La Brana in Spain.</p>
<p>Their stone tools largely consisted of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1179/jfa.2001.28.3-4.253?needAccess=true">small flakes of flint</a>, called microliths, carefully shaped and glued into wooden or bone hafts. Harpoon points made of bone with small barbs of flint glued in have also been found and arrowheads made of flint that have been carefully shaped by the technique of <a href="https://science.sciencemag.org/content/330/6004/659">pressure flaking</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275660/original/file-20190521-23814-o5aujq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275660/original/file-20190521-23814-o5aujq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275660/original/file-20190521-23814-o5aujq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275660/original/file-20190521-23814-o5aujq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275660/original/file-20190521-23814-o5aujq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275660/original/file-20190521-23814-o5aujq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275660/original/file-20190521-23814-o5aujq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rock carvings from Mesolithic-era Sweden. Note the hunter with bow top left.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Haljesta.jpg">Olof Ekström/Wikipedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Scientists had assumed these <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.2003703#sec002">Scandinavian hunter gatherers</a> had mostly arrived in western Sweden from Eastern Europe, as the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/european-journal-of-archaeology/article/crafting-bone-tools-in-mesolithic-norway-a-regional-easternrelated-knowhow/8A0F2912B13EF66AEDF7489F3826FBE2">tools almost entirely originated from there</a>. However, the genetic evidence suggests they were more diverse.</p>
<p>These prehistoric people were genetically Scandinavian but more closely related to people from further west and south than to eastern populations, even though they favoured a style of tool-making prevalent in the East. This shows it’s not always safe to make assumptions about where ancient people come from based on their culture.</p>
<h2>Fluid gender roles</h2>
<p>Two of the three individuals whose genomes were successfully sequenced were female. There has been a perception among some archaeologists that females in prehistory were relegated to a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040618217313034">purely domestic role</a> and had little to do with “masculine” tasks such as making tools. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275663/original/file-20190521-23817-1fafqe8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275663/original/file-20190521-23817-1fafqe8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=699&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275663/original/file-20190521-23817-1fafqe8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=699&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275663/original/file-20190521-23817-1fafqe8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=699&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275663/original/file-20190521-23817-1fafqe8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=878&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275663/original/file-20190521-23817-1fafqe8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=878&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275663/original/file-20190521-23817-1fafqe8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=878&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An ancient Swedish flake axe made from flint microliths.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Skivyxa,_Nordisk_familjebok.jpg">Nordisk familjebok/Wikipedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These findings suggest that gender roles were rather more fluid, clearly supporting the idea that <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/30638181/Genderlithics.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1558006489&Signature=Sq1MdR5n83QrEv5dfnru7W3jPSw%253D&response-content-disposition=inline%253B%2520filename%253DGenderlithics_womens_roles_in_stone_tool.pdf">females were involved in the prehistoric tool industry</a>. The fact that some of the eight samples of mastic that were found had impressions of milk teeth in them also suggests that some of those chewing the mastic were between five and 18 years of age.</p>
<p>It would be unthinkable in modern times to allow a child of five loose with these sharp and dangerous hunting tools. In perspective though, <a href="https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/80105/1/541602659.pdf">life expectancy</a> was around 30 years, so a teenager would not only be considered fully adult but probably have a family of their own.</p>
<h2>Familiar environment</h2>
<p>The gum that was chewed by the tool makers at Husebey Kelv was birch pitch, a dark, sticky substance, similar to tar, that is <a href="https://www.primitiveways.com/birch_bark_tar.html">distilled from birch bark</a> by heating it to around 420°C without letting air get to it. Because it’s very viscous (it is solid and rubbery at ambient temperature) it can be used to waterproof objects and as a glue. It also tells us something about the environment in which the people lived – birch woods rather than pine forest.</p>
<p>This suggests the people lived in an environment similar to parts of Scotland today, where birch woodland is prevalent. Agriculture had started elsewhere, but there’s nothing to say that these people were practising it. The presence of bones and tools place them as hunter gatherers. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275618/original/file-20190521-23838-5ggg0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275618/original/file-20190521-23838-5ggg0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275618/original/file-20190521-23838-5ggg0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275618/original/file-20190521-23838-5ggg0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275618/original/file-20190521-23838-5ggg0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275618/original/file-20190521-23838-5ggg0t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275618/original/file-20190521-23838-5ggg0t.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">Swedish birch forests acted as a material inventory for these prehistoric Scandinavians.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/birch-forest-sunlight-morning-108101294?src=ScNFKCURE8G5hiUkZfuBxg-1-8">JanBussan/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The harpoons suggest that <a href="https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/publication/3c1fd58a-9495-4403-ab7d-d22104f2fafb%E2%80%8B">life at Huleseby Klev</a> revolved around hunting marine mammals and fish. One can imagine that the birch pitch would be good for waterproofing boats made from animal hide, or even birch bark canoes.</p>
<p>This research gives us a greater insight into the lives and origins of our recent ancestors. Like all good research, this opens up a whole raft of new questions. </p>
<p>If females were making tools, were they also using them to hunt? What was the life of a Mesolithic child in Scandinavia like? Did Mesolithic people chew gum for recreational, hygienic and medicinal reasons, as other cultures did? Why did Scandinavian populations continue to use the Eastern European technologies rather than a mixture of Eastern and Western? Some of these questions will never have answers, but every new finding sheds a tiny beam of light onto the distant past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117272/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jan Hoole 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>
DNA found in chewing gum from 10,000 years ago is helping scientists learn about prehistoric humans.
Jan Hoole, Lecturer in Biology, Keele University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/102605
2018-09-05T13:57:08Z
2018-09-05T13:57:08Z
New technology tells us which animal bones were used to make ancient tools
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234782/original/file-20180904-45151-st77jp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bone artefacts from various South African Stone Age archaeological sites have been interpreted as arrowheads. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">J. Bradfield (as published in Bradfield, J. & Choyke, A. 2016. Bone technology in Africa. In: H. Selin (ed.), Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures, pp, 20-27. Springer). </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Animals played an important role in prehistoric societies. They were a source of food, raw material, and, sometimes, <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/10913138?q&versionId=15780350">reverence</a>. Their bones were also used to create tools – for instance, arrowheads. The use of animal bone as raw material for tools dates back <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/98/4/1358">at least 1.8 million years</a>.</p>
<p>In several parts of the world certain animals and the tools made from their bones were held by their makers to be <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325829028_Hidden_Agendas_Ancient_Raw_Material_Choice_for_Worked_Osseous_Objects_in_Central_Europe_and_Beyond">symbolically important</a>. For instance, in South Africa the frequent depiction of certain animals such as eland and rhinoceros in <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3889274?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">rock art</a> illustrates their cultural importance. </p>
<p>Some animals served as important symbols of <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Believing-Seeing-Symbolic-Paintings-Anthropology/dp/0124470602">power and religion</a> among hunter-gatherer and Bantu-speaking <a href="https://lapalala.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/MeloraStudyBoeyensAndRyst.pdf">farmer groups</a>. </p>
<p>But it wasn’t clear whether and to what extent certain animals’ symbolic importance translated into other aspects of society, such as technology and tool manufacture. That’s because most bone tools recovered from archaeological excavations are so pervasively modified that it is impossible to identify the type of animal from which they were made based on anatomical markers. Archaeologists could only assume that people made tools from the same animals they preyed on for food. </p>
<p>But we’ve used emerging technology to provide some answers. A recent <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-018-0688-5?wt_mc=Internal.Event.1.SEM.ArticleAuthorOnlineFirst&utm_source=ArticleAuthorOnlineFirst&utm_medium=email&utm_content=AA_en_06082018&ArticleAuthorOnlineFirst_20180902">study</a> by scientists in South Africa and the UK has identified the animals used by people in the past to make bone arrowheads. </p>
<p>Our findings suggest that only certain animals were used for tool manufacture. Others appear to have been deliberately avoided. For example, carnivores and bush pigs appear not to have been selected for tool manufacture despite their remains being found in archaeological sites. Their apparent avoidance may have to do with cultural taboos. </p>
<p>This is the first time a species-level identification of bone tools has been undertaken in southern Africa. Future research could offer greater insight into how ancient people chose the raw material for their tools. This, in turn, could provide clues about the social, ideological and technological considerations that governed their choices and how these may have changed through time.</p>
<h2>Animal identification</h2>
<p>We used an analytical technique called Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (<a href="https://pure.york.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/distinguishing-between-archaeological-sheep-and-goat-bones-using-a-single-collagen-peptide(cbcd74f7-e508-4f0f-b4a9-3ba37997745b)/export.html">ZooMS</a>). This uses unique collagen peptide markers (which are the amino acids that make up the organic component of bone) to distinguish between different groups of animals. It can sometimes identify bone to the level of species.</p>
<p>The results indicate that farmers used fewer species for tool manufacture than they hunted for food. We also found that certain animal species were used for tools that didn’t appear to have been hunted for food. </p>
<p>We identified a narrow range of antelope from the bone tools from nine archaeological sites from Gauteng and Limpopo. Of particular interest is the presence of sable, roan, zebra and rhino. Until now, we didn’t know that these species’ bones were used to make tools in southern Africa. </p>
<p>Sable and roan were important sources of <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/wounded-roan-a-contribution-to-the-relation-of-hunting-and-trance-in-southern-african-rock-art/10DB13EF1CA47464619E237BA69708C9">supernatural potency</a> among the Bushmen. But their symbolic importance to early farmers is unknown. </p>
<p>Rhinos, on the other hand, were an important symbol among both hunter-gatherers and farmers. <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3889274?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">Rock engravings</a> of rhinoceros (as well as of raon, sable, sheep, wildebeest and giraffe) are common in our study area. Rhinos were likely associated with shamanism and rain making by the Bushmen, and <a href="https://lapalala.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/MeloraStudyBoeyensAndRyst.pdf">leadership</a> by the farmers. </p>
<p>Despite the symbolic importance attached to the rhinoceros, they were still actively hunted and consumed by farmers. This indicates that their symbolic significance didn’t spare them from becoming food.</p>
<p>We also identified cattle bones at several farming sites, supporting the long-held <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3858141?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">notion</a> that farmers used livestock bones to manufacture tools.</p>
<p>If we accept that <a href="https://www.academia.edu/3298479/Smith_B.W._and_Hall_S._2000._Empowering_places_rock_shelters_and_ritual_control_in_farmer_-_forager_interactions_in_the_Northern_Province_South_Africa._South_African_Archaeological_Society_Goodwin_Series_8_30-46">rock art</a> and the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Geoffrey_Blundell/publication/237545450_RE-DISCOVERING_THE_ROCK_ART_OF_THE_LIMPOPO-SHASHI_CONFLUENCE_AREA_SOUTHERN_AFRICA/links/55e40ed708ae6abe6e8e8ace/RE-DISCOVERING-THE-ROCK-ART-OF-THE-LIMPOPO-SHASHI-CONFLUENCE-AREA-">animals</a> it depicted were believed to be imbued with supernatural powers, then it is conceivable that the tools made from their bones were viewed in a similar way. </p>
<h2>Some exclusions</h2>
<p>It’s worthwhile noting which species don’t appear to have been targeted for tool manufacture. </p>
<p>There are many different animals in the study region whose bones are the correct size from which to make arrowheads. Yet, despite a wide range of animal remains found at the sites, only a fraction were used to make bone arrowheads. Most of the bone tools come from bovids. The two exceptions are zebra and rhinoceros. Why might this be?</p>
<p>Carnivores’ long bones, for instance, are mechanically ill-suited for impact-related tasks like arrows. That may explain why we didn’t find any bones belonging to species like jackal, leopard or lion. But we’re not sure how to explain the absence of other species, such as pigs, whose bones share the same broad mechanical properties as cows and antelopes and which are present at all the archaeological sites.</p>
<p>The apparent avoidance of certain animals in bone tool manufacture may be understood in terms of their bones’ fitness for purpose: that is, could it perform the desired task? Yet, it is clear that this was not their only consideration and that <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030544031830089X?via%3Dihub">culturally-mediated</a> technological strategies were likely a factor too. </p>
<h2>Future directions</h2>
<p>This study looked at only a small sample of bone tools from a small geographical area. There is clearly much more scope to improve our understanding by expanding the study to include older contexts from other parts of southern Africa. This line of enquiry has already started to gain traction in Europe and North Africa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102605/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Justin Bradfield receives funding from the National Research Foundation and from the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust. </span></em></p>
Species-level identification of bone tools has been undertaken for the first time in southern Africa.
Justin Bradfield, Researcher, University of Johannesburg
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/95597
2018-05-04T08:48:01Z
2018-05-04T08:48:01Z
Warning signs: how early humans first began to paint animals
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216272/original/file-20180425-175058-1g3w6sv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Painting from El Castillo cave (Cantabria, Spain). Early Upper Palaeolithic or older.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo Becky Harrison and courtesy Gobierno de Cantabria.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Visual culture – and the associated forms of symbolic communication, are regarded by palaeo-anthropologists as perhaps the <a href="https://www.academia.edu/8238840/Henshilwood_C.S._and_Marean_C.W._2003._The_origin_of_modern_human_behaviour_A_review_and_critique_of_models_and_test_implications._Current_Anthropology_44_5_627-651">defining characteristic</a> of the behaviour of <em>Homo sapiens</em>. One of the great mysteries of archaeology is why figurative art, in the form of the stunningly naturalistic animal depictions, appeared relatively suddenly around 37,000 years ago in the form of small sculpted objects and drawings and engravings on cave and rock shelter walls. </p>
<p>Since the discovery and authentication of such Palaeolithic art more than a century ago, theories have abounded as to what this meant to its Ice Age hunter-gatherer creators. But theories often say more about modern preconceptions regarding the function of art – how can we tell if we’re on the right track to understanding the remote and alien societies that created the first images? </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-archaeological-journal/article/origins-of-iconic-depictions-a-falsifiable-model-derived-from-the-visual-science-of-palaeolithic-cave-art-and-world-rock-art/CC686395FE47390DE88F67ADDF85A838">radical new approach</a> to the issue, we applied recent findings from visual neuroscience, perceptual psychology and the archaeology of cave art, that begin to make sense of the intriguing representations and forward what we hope can be tested scientifically.</p>
<h2>Hands down</h2>
<p>The first clue to their provenance came from the ancient hand marks (positive prints and negative stencils), which predate the earliest animal depictions by a considerable period. <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6378/912">Recent dating</a> shows that they were created by Neanderthals more than 64,000 years ago. The second clue came from the widespread inclusion of <a href="http://archeologie.culture.fr/chauvet/fr/visiter-grotte/galerie-cactus/mammouth-peint-brun">natural cave features</a> – such as ledges and cracks – as parts of animal depictions. The final clue relates to the environment in which Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers, along with other predators, were stalking the large herbivores – such as bison, deer and horses – that formed their prey and which often lay hidden in camouflage in the tundra environment.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216279/original/file-20180425-175074-qbnsqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216279/original/file-20180425-175074-qbnsqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216279/original/file-20180425-175074-qbnsqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216279/original/file-20180425-175074-qbnsqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216279/original/file-20180425-175074-qbnsqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216279/original/file-20180425-175074-qbnsqs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216279/original/file-20180425-175074-qbnsqs.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This hand stencil has been deliberately placed so its left side matches with a natural crack in the wall of El Castillo cave.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo Paul Pettitt and courtesy Gobierno de Cantabria.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We argue that hand marks initially supplied the idea to archaic humans that a graphic mark could act as a representation, however basic it was. This was a beginning of sorts – but how could hand marks give rise to the more complex animal depictions? We needed to be able to explain how that gap was bridged. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216271/original/file-20180425-175077-ecuxh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216271/original/file-20180425-175077-ecuxh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216271/original/file-20180425-175077-ecuxh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216271/original/file-20180425-175077-ecuxh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216271/original/file-20180425-175077-ecuxh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216271/original/file-20180425-175077-ecuxh8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216271/original/file-20180425-175077-ecuxh8.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">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The interior of the cave at Castillo in Spain.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gabinete de Prensa del Gobierno de Cantabria</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Seeing the unseen</h2>
<p>Fortunately, the way hunters relate to the environment has changed little since early times in that they remain acutely sensitive to particular animal contours. So much so, that in challenging lighting situations – and where prey might be well camouflaged – the hunter becomes <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231876489_The_Visual_Dynamics_of_Upper_Palaeolithic_Cave_Art">hypersensitive to such features</a>.</p>
<p>In such ambiguous circumstances, it’s <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=dZNAQh6TuwIC&pg=PA45&lpg=PA45&dq=guthrie+mistake+a+bear+for+a+boulder+than+a+boulder+for+a+bear&source=bl&ots=rSP9Q-n2_Q&sig=QI1RYrsY5AhKo4vzZrd-C5gbs5U&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiW-vT7hdjaAhVqKMAKHYowCIsQ6AEIPzAI#v=onepage&q=guthrie%20mistake%20a%20bear%20for%20a%20boulder%20than%20a%20boulder%20for%20a%20bear&f=false">better to “see” an animal when it’s not there</a> – to mistake a rock for a bear – than not see it. Such better-safe-than-sorry hair-trigger cues are <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1090513816300046">cognitive adaptations that promote survival</a>. In dangerous conditions, the human visual system becomes increasingly aroused and is even more easily triggered into accepting the slightest cue as an animal. </p>
<p>In short, we are preconditioned to interpret ambiguous shapes as animals. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010945214000288?via%3Dihub">Recent evidence</a> from visual neuroscience shows that when individuals are conditioned to see particular objects – faces, say – they are more likely to see them in ambiguous patterns. Upper Palaeolithic hunters conditioned themselves due to the need to detect animals, but this effect was reinforced by the suggestive features of the caves.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216277/original/file-20180425-175047-3wisye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/216277/original/file-20180425-175047-3wisye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216277/original/file-20180425-175047-3wisye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216277/original/file-20180425-175047-3wisye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=552&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216277/original/file-20180425-175047-3wisye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=693&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216277/original/file-20180425-175047-3wisye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=693&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/216277/original/file-20180425-175047-3wisye.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=693&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In El Castillo cave, this natural stalagmite column bears a boss in the shape of an upright bison, which has been elaborated by painting in black pigment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo with thanks to Marc Groenen and courtesy Gobierno de Cantabria.</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Caves are full of suggestive cues. They are dangerous places, often inhabited by predators, thereby stimulating increased arousal levels. Hunters entering the caves with an overactive visual system will have <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/caveartorg/">regularly “mistaken”</a> the natural cave features for animals. The cave walls also simulated the outdoor environment, where hunters regularly had to be able to spot their prey in camouflage. </p>
<p>All the hunter needed to do to “complete” a depiction was to add one or two graphic marks to the suggestive natural features based on the visual imagery in their “mind’s eye”. A typical example of this can be seen at Chauvet cave where two giant deer (<em>Megaloceros</em>) are depicted by complementing the natural wall fissures (highlighted in brown) with lines (highlighted in black) painted onto the cave wall to complete the animal outlines. This potentially explains how the very first representational depictions arose. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217007/original/file-20180501-135825-78zrp7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217007/original/file-20180501-135825-78zrp7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217007/original/file-20180501-135825-78zrp7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217007/original/file-20180501-135825-78zrp7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217007/original/file-20180501-135825-78zrp7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217007/original/file-20180501-135825-78zrp7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217007/original/file-20180501-135825-78zrp7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/217007/original/file-20180501-135825-78zrp7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Image based on: Relevé de La Niche Au Petit Ours by Carole Fritz et Gilles Tosello – CNRS – Équipe Chauvet – Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Corroborating evidence</h2>
<p>We’ve tried to combine our respective expertise in visual psychology and Palaeolithic art and, unlike many other theories, our approach is open to refutation. For example, if someone finds depictions of animals or similar that predate the first hand marks, this would overturn our main proposition. Similarly, if earlier figurative depictions come to light that do not derive from natural features, this would also challenge our theory.</p>
<p>But as we were making the final touches to our academic paper, <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6378/912">valuable corroborative evidence</a> came to light supporting the theory. Namely, the dating of a negative hand stencil and a geometric mark from the Monte Castillo cave art complex in Spain dating to a minimum of 64,000 years ago and almost certainly made by Neanderthals. </p>
<p>When later humans entered the same caves and saw these, the Neanderthals may literally have “handed on” to our own species the notion that a graphic mark could act as a figurative representation. Thanks to the primed visual system of the later hunter-gatherers – and the suggestive environment of the caves – it was <em>Homo sapiens</em> who took the final step creating the first complex figurative representations, with all the ramifications that followed for art and culture.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/95597/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>
Figurative art may derive from Neanderthal hand prints and the hunter’s keen eye for perceiving animals.
Derek Hodgson, Research Associate, University of York
Paul Pettitt, Professor in the Department of Archaeology, Durham University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/92546
2018-03-01T16:47:39Z
2018-03-01T16:47:39Z
Human ancestors had the same dental problems as us – even without fizzy drinks and sweets
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208468/original/file-20180301-152552-1m1hj72.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Teeth fossils with evidence of dental lesions from _Australopithecus africanus_.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian Towle</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Dental erosion is one of the most common tooth problems in the world today. Fizzy drinks, fruit juice, wine, and other <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-43141587">acidic food and drink</a> are usually to blame, although perhaps surprisingly the way we <a href="https://www.karger.com/Article/Abstract/359936">clean our teeth also plays a role</a>. This all makes it sound like a rather modern issue. But research suggests actually humans have been suffering dental erosion for millions of years. </p>
<p>My colleagues and I have discovered dental lesions remarkably similar to those caused by modern erosion on two 2.5m year-old front teeth from one of our <a href="http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/australopithecus-africanus">extinct ancestors</a>. This adds to the evidence that prehistoric humans and their predecessors suffered surprisingly similar dental problems to ourselves, despite our very different diets.</p>
<p>Dental erosion can affect all dental tissue and typically leaves shallow, shiny, lesions in the enamel and root surface. If you brush your teeth too vigorously you can weaken dental tissue, which over time allows acidic foods and drinks to create deep holes known as non-carious cervical lesions (NCCLs).</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208469/original/file-20180301-152564-17d89g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208469/original/file-20180301-152564-17d89g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208469/original/file-20180301-152564-17d89g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208469/original/file-20180301-152564-17d89g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=318&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208469/original/file-20180301-152564-17d89g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208469/original/file-20180301-152564-17d89g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208469/original/file-20180301-152564-17d89g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>Australopithecus africanus</em> teeth with lesions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian Towle</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1879981717301766">We found such lesions</a> on the fossilised teeth from a human ancestor species <em>Australopithecus africanus</em>. Given the lesions’ size and position, this individual would likely have had toothache or sensitivity. So why did this prehistoric hominin have tooth problems that look indistinguishable from that caused by drinking large volumes of fizzy drinks today?</p>
<p>The answer may come back to another unlikely parallel. Erosive wear today is often also associated with aggressive tooth brushing. <em>Australopithecus africanus</em> probably experienced similar dental abrasion from eating tough and fibrous foods. For lesions to form, they would still have needed a diet high in acidic foods. Instead of fizzy drinks, this probably came in the form of citrus fruits and acidic vegetables. For example, tubers (potatoes and the like) are tough to eat and some can be surprisingly acidic, so they could have been a cause of the lesions.</p>
<p>Dental erosion is extremely rare in the fossil record, although this might be because researchers haven’t thought to look for evidence of it until now. But another type of problem, carious lesions or cavities, has been found more often in fossilised teeth.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208161/original/file-20180227-36706-111tmgl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208161/original/file-20180227-36706-111tmgl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208161/original/file-20180227-36706-111tmgl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208161/original/file-20180227-36706-111tmgl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208161/original/file-20180227-36706-111tmgl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208161/original/file-20180227-36706-111tmgl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208161/original/file-20180227-36706-111tmgl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Carious lesions on the mandibular right second premolar and first molar. Homo naledi (UW 101-001).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ian Towle</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Cavities are the most common cause of toothache today and are caused by consuming starchy or sugary food and drink including grains. They are <a href="https://askthedentist.com/paleo-diet-oral-health/">often considered</a> a relatively modern problem linked to the fact that the invention of farming introduced large amounts of carbohydrates, and more recently refined sugar, to our diets. </p>
<p>But recent research suggests this is not the case. In fact, cavities <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/000399699090185D">have now been found</a> in tooth fossils from nearly every prehistoric hominin species studied. They were probably caused by eating certain fruits and vegetation as well as honey. These lesions were often severe, as in the case of cavities found on the teeth of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/homo-naledi-fossil-discovery-a-triumph-for-open-access-and-education-47726">newly discovered species</a>, <em>Homo naledi</em>. In fact, these cavities <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320042869_Dental_pathology_wear_and_developmental_defects_in_fossil_hominins_and_extant_primates">were so deep</a> they probably took years to form and would almost certainly have caused serious toothache.</p>
<h2>Dental abrasion</h2>
<p>Another striking type of dental wear is also more common in the fossil record, and again we can guess how and why it was created by looking at the teeth of people alive today. This process, called dental abrasion, is caused by repeatedly rubbing or holding a hard item against a tooth. It could come from biting your nails, smoking a pipe or holding a sewing needle between your teeth. These activities usually take years to form noticeable notches and grooves, so when we find such holes in fossilised teeth they offer fascinating insights into behaviour and culture.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208472/original/file-20180301-152564-1e9aq03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/208472/original/file-20180301-152564-1e9aq03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208472/original/file-20180301-152564-1e9aq03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208472/original/file-20180301-152564-1e9aq03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208472/original/file-20180301-152564-1e9aq03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208472/original/file-20180301-152564-1e9aq03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/208472/original/file-20180301-152564-1e9aq03.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=510&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Example of a notch from a clay pipe (17th century set of teeth).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsdesk.si.edu/photos/wear-and-tear-clay-pipe">Chip Clark, Smithsonian Institute</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The best examples of this type of prehistoric dental wear are “toothpick grooves”, thought to be caused by repeatedly placing an object in the mouth, <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/neanderthals-used-toothpicks-treat-aching-teeth-180963883/">usually in the gaps between the back teeth</a>. The presence of <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.23166/full">microscopic scratches around these grooves</a> suggests they are examples of prehistoric dental hygiene, where the individual has used stick or other implements used to dislodge food. Some of these grooves are found on the same teeth as cavities and other dental problems, suggesting they may also be evidence of people trying to relieve their toothache.</p>
<p>These lesions have been found in a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040618214001451">variety of hominin species</a>, including prehistoric humans and Neanderthals, but only in the species most closely related to us, not our older ancestors. This might mean this tooth wear is the result of more complex behaviour from species with larger brains. But more likely it’s a consequence of different diets and cultural habits.</p>
<p>What we do know for sure is that the complex and severe dental problems we often associate with a modern diet of processed foods and refined sugars actually existed far back into our ancestry, although less frequently. Further research will likely show that lesions were more common than previously thought in our ancestors, and ultimately will provide more information into the diet and cultural practices of our distant fossil relatives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92546/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Towle 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>
Prehistoric humans and their predecessors may have had a very different diet but their teeth suffered in similar ways to ours.
Ian Towle, Sessional Lecturer in Anthropology, Liverpool John Moores University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.