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A Very Remote Period Indeed
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- March 9, 2010
- 12:46 AM
- 37 views
60,000 year old decorated ostrich eggshell canteens from Diepkloof, South Africa
by Julien Riel-Salvatore in A Very Remote Period Indeed
Sometimes, it's what a paper doesn't emphasize that's the most thought-provoking and has the most far-ranging implications. A case in point is the recent paper by Texier et al. (2010) on decorated (i.e., engraved/incised) ostrich eggshell fragments from the Middle Stone Age site of Diepkloof in South Africa. The paper provides a lot of information about the sequence of deposits at the site, as well as on their archaeological contents. They emphasize specifically the layers attributed to the Howi........ Read more »
Henshilwood, C., d'Errico, F., & Watts, I. (2009) Engraved ochres from the Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa. Journal of Human Evolution, 57(1), 27-47. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2009.01.005
Texier, P., Porraz, G., Parkington, J., Rigaud, J., Poggenpoel, C., Miller, C., Tribolo, C., Cartwright, C., Coudenneau, A., Klein, R.... (2010) A Howiesons Poort tradition of engraving ostrich eggshell containers dated to 60,000 years ago at Diepkloof Rock Shelter, South Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0913047107
- February 22, 2010
- 08:59 PM
- 64 views
Relics fail!
by Julien Riel-Salvatore in A Very Remote Period Indeed
This exchange between William of Baskerville and Adso of Melk, in The Name of the Rose seems pretty timely... “Some time ago, in the Cathedral of Cologne, I saw the skull of John the Baptist at the age of twelve”“Really?” I exclaimed, amazed. Then, seized by doubt, I added, “But the Baptist was executed at a more advanced age!”“The other skull must be in another treasury,” William said, with a grave face.I say timely because last week, a study reporting the results of genetic and........ Read more »
Nilsson, M., Possnert, G., Edlund, H., Budowle, B., Kjellström, A., & Allen, M. (2010) Analysis of the Putative Remains of a European Patron Saint–St. Birgitta. PLoS ONE, 5(2). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0008986
- February 1, 2010
- 05:56 PM
- 86 views
Neanderthal toothpicking - 100,000 year-old evidence from Poland
by Julien Riel-Salvatore in A Very Remote Period Indeed
There's an interesting newsreport that summarizes a recent paper on the discovery, context and characteristics of three Neanderthal teeth recovered from Stajnia Cave, in southern Poland. Urbanowski et al. (2010) suggest that, on the basis of the associated fauna, which comprises mostly reindeer as well as some red deer, horses and ibex, as well as some cut-marked cave bear bones, the most likely age for these remains falls towards the end of Oxygen Isotope Stage 5, somewhere between 80-100,000BP........ Read more »
Urbanowski, M., Socha, P., Dąbrowski, P., Nowaczewska, W., Sadakierska-Chudy, A., Dobosz, T., Stefaniak, K., & Nadachowski, A. (2010) The first Neanderthal tooth found North of the Carpathian Mountains. Naturwissenschaften. DOI: 10.1007/s00114-010-0646-2
- January 22, 2010
- 03:37 PM
- 141 views
Neanderthal wooden structures, sleeping areas and group size at Abric Romaní
by Julien Riel-Salvatore in A Very Remote Period Indeed
Well, what do you know... it looks as though Neanderthals in Mediterranean Spain were up to all sorts of interesting stuff ca. 55-50kya! Hot on the heels of the news that ornaments and coloring materials were found in Mousterian deposits at Cueva Anton and Cueva de los Aviones, we get news that Neanderthals at Abric Romaní (Spain, near Barcelona) appear to have had well defined sleeping areas that bear striking resemblance to those found in rockshelters used by extant hunter-gatherers (Vallverd........ Read more »
Vallverdú, J., Vaquero, M., Cáceres, I., Allué, E., Rosell, J., Saladié, P., Chacón, G., Ollé, A., Canals, A., Sala, R.... (2010) Sleeping Activity Area within the Site Structure of Archaic Human Groups. Current Anthropology, 51(1), 137-145. DOI: 10.1086/649499
- January 18, 2010
- 12:45 PM
- 101 views
Early modern human parietal art at Fumane Cave
by Julien Riel-Salvatore in A Very Remote Period Indeed
The last three issues of the 2009 volume of L'Anthropologie are dedicated to prehistoric art, and one the papers contained in that special volume concerns five vault fragments from Fumane Cave (Veneto region, Italy) that were recovered during excavation and that bear designs made in red ochre. The art itself is already well known and has been published in great detail as part of a monograph a few years ago (Broglio and Dalmieri 2005), but this study presents some new data on the likely age of t........ Read more »
Broglio, A., De Stefani, M., Gurioli, F., Pallecchi, P., Giachi, G., Higham, T., & Brock, F. (2009) L’art aurignacien dans la décoration de la Grotte de Fumane. L'Anthropologie, 113(5), 753-761. DOI: 10.1016/j.anthro.2009.09.016
- January 15, 2010
- 02:16 PM
- 155 views
Prehistoric ballistics, or Mythbusters meets archaeology
by Julien Riel-Salvatore in A Very Remote Period Indeed
Nicole Waguespack and a bunch of others (including four of the Mythbusters gang, which leads one to wonder whether this will be the basis of a future episode) ask the question: "Given that so many hunter-gatherers use/d stone-tipped projectile, what are the advantages of a stone tip relative to one whose point is simply sharpened wood?" This is a good question to ask, since crafting an projectile point from stone consumes more time, effort and resources than simply sharpening the end of the shaf........ Read more »
Waguespack, N.M., Surovell, T.A., Denoyer, A., Dallow, A., Savage, A., Hyneman, J., & Tapster, D. (2009) Making a point: wood- versus stone-tipped projectiles. Antiquity, 786-800. info:/
- January 12, 2010
- 06:36 PM
- 124 views
Colorful Neanderthals on the half shell
by Julien Riel-Salvatore in A Very Remote Period Indeed
There’s been a lot of buzz about the new paper by Zilhão et al. (2010) on the use of pierced shells and pigments by Neanderthals at the sites of Cueva de los Aviones and Cueva Antón, in southern Spain some 50,000 years ago, so I thought I’d give a few comments about it here.This is a very significant study in that it strengthens the conclusions of previous research that suggests that Neanderthals habitually used pigments (e.g., Soressi and d’Errico 2007, which I discussed here). Importa........ Read more »
Zilhao, J., Angelucci, D., Badal-Garcia, E., d'Errico, F., Daniel, F., Dayet, L., Douka, K., Higham, T., Martinez-Sanchez, M., Montes-Bernardez, R.... (2010) Symbolic use of marine shells and mineral pigments by Iberian Neandertals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0914088107
- April 10, 2008
- 01:56 PM
- 513 views
A Meat-Eating Neanderthal from Jonzac
by Julien Riel-Salvatore in A Very Remote Period Indeed
There is a new isotopic dietary analysis of Neanderthals at the site of Jonzac (Chez Pinaud), in SW France, available in the Journal of Human Evolution (Richards et al., 2008). Here's the abstract:We report here on the isotopic analysis (carbon and nitrogen) of collagen extracted from a Neanderthal tooth and animal bone from the late Mousterian site of Jonzac (Charente-Maritime, France). This study was undertaken to test whether the isotopic evidence indicates that animal protein was the ma........ Read more »
M RICHARDS, G TAYLOR, T STEELE, S MCPHERRON, M SORESSI, J JAUBERT, J ORSCHIEDT, J MALLYE, W RENDU, & J HUBLIN. (2008) Isotopic dietary analysis of a Neanderthal and associated fauna from the site of Jonzac (Charente-Maritime), France. Journal of Human Evolution. DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2008.02.007
- March 3, 2008
- 02:15 PM
- 511 views
Mad Neanderthal Disease?
by Julien Riel-Salvatore in A Very Remote Period Indeed
The impact of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSE) on Neanderthals is the topic of a short paper by Simon Underdown (2008), in press in Medical Hypotheses. You might be familiar with TSEs already: a few years back, the so-called “Mad Cow Disease” scare was caused by Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy. Getting back to the study at hand, the gist of the paper is this: 1) Neanderthals are known to have practiced cannibalism. 2) Cannibalism is known to resul........ Read more »
S UNDERDOWN. (2008) A potential role for Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies in Neanderthal extinction. Medical Hypotheses. DOI: 10.1016/j.mehy.2007.12.014
- February 22, 2008
- 03:08 PM
- 469 views
Spoken too soon? More Dmanisi news
by Julien Riel-Salvatore in A Very Remote Period Indeed
I'm finally back from various unexpectedly lengthy pursuits south of the border, and now enjoying the light snow lightly caking everything in MTL, like so much powdered sugar on a delicious sfogliatella...Two weeks ago I posted about a new study on the potential impact of volcanism on the accumulation of hominin remains at the Lower Pleistocene site of Dmanisi, Georgia. One of the appealing aspects of the conclusions of that study by de Lumley et al. (in press) is that it accounted for the ........ Read more »
M CALVO-RATHERT, A GOGUITCHAICHVILI, D SOLOGASHVILI, J VILLALAIN, M BOGALO, A CARRANCHO, & G MAISSURADZE. (2008) New paleomagnetic data from the hominin bearing Dmanisi paleo-anthropologic site (southern Georgia, Caucasus). Quaternary Research, 69(1), 91-96. DOI: 10.1016/j.yqres.2007.09.001
M DELUMLEY. (2008) Impact probable du volcanisme sur le décès des Hominidés de Dmanissi. Comptes Rendus Palevol. DOI: 10.1016/j.crpv.2007.09.002
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