The Origins of Human

Culture
Owned.
Books/Articles referenced
• The Complete World of Human Evolution – Chris
Stringer and Peter Andrews – Thames and
Hudson, 2005 - A
• The Human Revolution – ed Paul Mellars and Chris
Stringer – Edinburgh University Press, 1989 – B
• The Neanderthal Legacy – Paul Mellars – Princeton
University Press, 1996 – C
• The Origins of Humankind – Richard Leakey –
Phoenix, 2000 –D
• Making Silent Stones Speak – Kathy Schick and
Nicholas Toth – Phoenix, 1993 – E
• The Impossible Coincidence: A single-species
model for the origins of modern human behaviour
in Europe – Paul Mellars – Evolutionary
Anthropology, 2005 - F
• Raw material selectivity of the earliest stone
toolmakers at Gona, Afar, Ethiopia - Dietrich
Stout, Jay Quade, Sileshi Semaw, Michael J
Rogers, Naomi E Levin – Journal of Human
Evolution, 2005 – G
• The Human Past – ed Chris Scarre – Thames and
Hudson, 2005 - G

Important Dates
• c 7mya = split from chimps
• 2.5 mya = emergence of first stone tools
○ Although there was a plethora of different
species around at the time, so it’s hard to tell
exactly who it might have been.
• c 1.6 mya = first exodus out of Africa
Definitions and Terms
• Movius Line
○ The global division line that separates the
East and West. The East was still Oldowan,
the West, Acheulian.
• A tool
○ An object that has been used, either
modified or unmodified, by an animal (for
our purposes by hominids generally)
• An artifact
○ An object that has been modified by human
intervention, either intentionally or
unintentionally.
• Conchoidal fracture
○ The breakage patterns on stone tools.

Big Ideas
• All species need a niche – maybe ours was meat
eating
• Learning and tools
○ Does learning necessarily come hand in hand
with tools?
○ Learning, when it does exist, is very
important for societies as it means they can
rapidly progress.
○ But it can occur on several levels.
 Individual
• Trial and error
 Instructive
• Parent -> child
○ Imitation
 Cultural
• As in properly taught as part of
general life – pretty uniquely
human (yes I realize)

Methods
 • A proper understanding of the classification of the
earliest humans requires study of their physical
remains and study based on the evidence of
stone tools, animal bones and any traces of
activity to try and ascertain aspects of their
behaviour.
• Looking at post-cranial aspects of the fossils, and
brain size
• There are certain criteria that must be fulfilled in
order for something to be classified as an official
archaeological ‘site’
○ There must be unequivocal signs that the
stones were modified by humans and not by
natural forces
○ They must be uncovered from “sealed,
stratified, geological deposits” so that it is
clear from what time period they came.
○ There must be some way of dating them,
and then preferably a way of testing the first
finding

Key Sites
• Olduvai Gorge – Tanzania
○ Lake deposits – where an old lake has
completely dried up.
 It was a very volcanic area = very easy
dating using Potassium/Argon dating
technique – key finds are between 1.8-2
mya.
○ FLK = one of the biggest ever excavations.
 FLK 1
• Shows the repeated use of the
same site, but for how long is hard
to tell.
• Shows that they imported stones,
sometimes from as far as 10km
away.
• Organised use of space
 ○ The larger tools are always
found on the outer parts of the
circle.
○ Beds I and II
 The work that the Leakeys did here is
fundamental to modern understanding
of hominid biological and technological
development in the Pleistocene.
• Lake Turkana – Kenya
○ Lake deposits – same as above
○ Good example of stone tools (lava cobbles)
that would have been there in the
Pleistocene (ie not transported) AND where
there have been finds of early Homo
(habilis?) and A boisei
• Omo Region – Ethiopia
○ Decent Plio-Pleistocene sequence, due to
large number of volcanic ash deposits.
○ Members E and F of the Omo stratigraphic
section, dated to c. 2.35 million years ago,
do not contain any Homo or austro
themselves (although some have been found
nearby) but do contain amazingly simple
tools: “small pebbles of milky white or
yellowish vein quartz fractured into
numerous flakes and fragments” (78 – E)
• Koobi Fora – Ethiopia
• Gona – Ethiopia
○ 2.6 -2.5 myr
○ Experienced knapping skills
○ Good raw material selection
○ Deliberate size of cobble as well
○ Accurate edge angles for flaking
○ Well flaked along perimeter
○ Tools carried long distances – anticipation
• Boxgrove – Sussex
○ There is an abundance of high quality flint in
the chalk cliffs
 ○ Most of the handaxes are oval-shaped, not
actually that pointy
○ At least in Britain there seems to be a
contraction around rivers.
• Mauer – Germany
○ They Mauer/Heidelberg jaw
 Perfect example of H erectus, or should
it be called H heidelbergensis?
• Terra Amata – Nice, France
○ Claims that there were hearths = fire, at
about 300-400,000 BP
○ At some sites where they’re clearly using
handaxes they haven’t totally abandoned
cutting tools.
• Torralba/Ambrona – Spain
○ Lots of animal bones found; more than a
hundred elephants!
○ How did they get there?
 Driving – to the peat around the rivers,
where they can be easily killed.
 Binford suggests it was just a
scavenging site – where the elephants
died naturally and then hominids came
and got some food! – There are tools so
clearly hominids were there
• Zhoukouclian (near Peking)
○ Originally a cave site, lots of stone tools
around but no handaxes – most famous for
its human remains – Peking Man = classic H.
erectus
• Vertesszölös, Hungary
○ Lots of smashed up animal bones and stone
tools – some of the animal bones are burned,
suggests the use of fire?
• Sima de los Huesos – Spain
○ A mass of bones, at least 32 individuals
identified up to now.
• Schoeningen – Germany
 ○ There are 10 wooden spears, 10ft in length,
which are perfectly balanced for throwing –
c150-250,000 y/a
○ But Binford claims that there was no hunting
until modern humans came along 100,000
years ago, so…
• Altamira – Spain
○ Lots of bison, the really famous one.
○ Was it one artist?
○ There’s a lot of debate over here.
• La Mouthe – France
○ As well as paintings, they also found stone
lamps, which don’t give off much soot, which
would explain how it is possible to paint in
very deep recesses of the cave and there not
be coal marks on the ceiling.

Key finds
• 1470 skull – 1967 – at least 1.8 myo – it was
found smashed into many pieces but has been
successfully reconstructed.
○ Remarkably human in appearance
○ c750cc brain case
 almost exactly midway between us and
chimps.
• Olduvai hominid 5 – 1971 – very advanced =
Homo habilis (definitely bipedal), some prefer the
term Homo rudolfensis NB the crucial thing is that
it’s Homo
○ Living in the same area at the same time
there were some more primitive forms.
• 3733 skull – type specimen of H. ergaster
○ 1.8 mya?
○ 800-1000cc brain size
• Nariokatome boy/Turkana boy – from Kenya, best
preserved ancient skeleton.

Hominoids and Miocene Hominin Origins

• First primates definitely in the Eocene – c 65 mya,
maybe
○ The Plesiadaptaforms
 But they have relatively small brains,
claws, not forward facing eyes BUT the
do live in trees, quadrapedal
• 55 mya +
○ Definite appearance of the first primates
○ NB their geographic range is very different to
today because of continual drift
○ It coincided with a huge spike in
temperature. 30oC average
 Tropical forests, normal forests etc
• 34 mya + - Oligocene
○ Fossil of Aegyptopithecus – found in Africa
 Could be the LCA of a lot of primates
today
• 25-5 mya - Miocene
○ Age of the primates
○ Lots of different species
○ Coincides with much cooler temperatures on
the Earth’s surface
 Forests begin to break up
○ Some of the primates come down from the
trees
○ Some dispersal
○ Where are they?
 All confined to North or East Africa
○ NB the Tethys Sea completely separated
Africa from Eurasia (Early Miocene)
 Mid-Miocene – new land bridges
• Spread of higher primates ->
Eurasia c. 16 mya
• 18-17 mya
○ Proconsul fossil
• Long trunk (body)
• Hands for grasping
• Long arms
  Central in our ancestry as well
○ Dryopithecus (13-8.5 mya) and
Ouranopithecus (9.5-7.5 mya) seem to be
related to modern apes and have similarities
to australopithecines NB they’re in Eurasia
○ 12-9.5 mya primates flourish in Eurasia while
there is a lack of African forms
 Implies a back migration in last 10myr
for human evolution later.
• But there could be missing fossils in
Africa
○ What happened?
 It could have been that glaciers started
to form in northerly latitudes as global
temperature went down 20-6 mya, so
these species -> Africa
○ We don’t have that critical LCA with African
apes and humans – no fossils at all until
pretty recently.
• Orrorin tugensis
○ Tugen hills in Kenya
○ 6 myr – at the time of the split
○ A new genus and species
○ 13 fragments
○ Claims
 That it was the most basal human
 Our direct ancestor
 Bipedal
○ But are there others?
• Sahelanthropus tchadensis
○ Another new genus and species
○ 6-7 myr
○ Forests and woodlands
○ But it has a very distorted crania
○ Sahara, Chad (North Africa) – NB not East
Africa – so is North Africa the ‘cradle’ of life
○ Traits
 Large brow ridges
  Short, flat faced
 Small canines
 Thick tooth enamel
○ Debate
 Is it hominin?
 Is it pre or post split? – actually an early
gorilla or chimp
 It has a small brain size (350cc)

Direct Comparisons of Hominins

• Sahelanthropus tchadensis
○ 7-6 mya
○ Key sites
 Toros-Menalla, Chad
○ Key fossils
 TM 266-01-060-1 (cranium)
 Also a mandible fragment
○ Cranial capacity
 Estimated 320-380cc
○ Morphology
 Small
 Ape-sized cranium
 Large brow-ridges BUT low prognathism
 Intermediate-thickness of tooth enamel
 Anterior position of foramen magnum
 We have no postcrania
• Orrorin tugenensis
○ c 6 mya
○ Key sites
 Lukenio formation, Baringo Basin, Kenya
○ Key fossils
 No skull, partial hands, arms and legs
○ Morphology
 Thickly-enameled, relatively small teeth
 Postcrania could suggest bipediality
• Ardipithecus ramidus
○ 5-4.4 mya
○ Key sites
 Ethiopia (Gona and Middle Awash)
 ○ Key fossils
 Some partial skeletons
○ Morphology
 Large canines, with relatively thin
enamel
• Australopithecus anamensis
○ 4.2-3.9 mya
○ Key sites
 Kenya (Kanapoi and Allia Bay)
○ Key fossils
 Minimal
○ Morphology
 Bipedal adaptation
 Thick enamel and large molars
 Pronounced sexual dimorphism
• Australopithecus afarensis
○ 4-3 mya
○ Key sites
 Ethiopia and Tanzania
○ Key fossils
 Lucy – AL 288
○ Cranial capacity
 375-500cc
○ Morphology
 Bipedal
 Prognathism
 Ape-sized brain
 Large browridges
 Sagittal cresting in males
 Large canines and incisors, and
relatively large and thickly enameled
molars.
 Pronounced sexual dimorphism
 Long arms compared to legs, long
fingers, short and wide pelvis.
• Australopithecus garhi
○ 2.5 mya
○ Key sites
  Ethiopia
○ Key fossils
 Cranial and dentition remains
○ Cranial capacity
 c 450cc
○ Morphology
 Prognathism
 Large anterior and check teeth – thick
enamel
 Long arms and legs
• Australopithecus africanus
○ 3-2 mya
○ Key sites
 South Africa
○ Key fossils
 Tuang child – Sterkfontein
○ Cranial capacity
 400-500cc
○ Morphology
 Prognathism
 No sagittal cresting
 Longer legs and shorter arms compared
AMH
 Reduced sexual dimorphism.
• Homo ergaster
○ 1,800,000 – 600,000 ya
○ Key sites
 Kenya, South Africa, Georgia
○ Key fossils
 Numerous crania and other body parts
○ Cranial capacity
 600-910cc
○ Morphology
 Generally more slender than previous
species, especially in the cranial area
 First species to have truly human body
proportions.
• Homo erectus
 ○ 1,010,000 – 50,000? ya
○ Key sites
 Indonesia, China
○ Key fossils
 More than 70 individuals represented in
China and Indonesia, from crania,
mandibles and limb bones
○ Cranial capacity
 810-1250cc
 Increasing through time
○ Morphology
 Prognathic, no chin
 Thick skulls
 More robust than ergaster or modern
humans
• Homo heidelbergensis
○ 600,000 – 400,000 ya
○ Key sites
 South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania, France
○ Key fossils
 Crania
○ Cranial capacity
 1225-1300cc
○ Morphology
 Large browridge
 Larger overall crania size than erectus
• Homo neanderthalensis
○ 400,000 – 30,000 ya
○ Key sites
 All over Europe, and some in the Middle
East
○ Key fossils
 Loads, most things really
○ Cranial capacity
 1125-1550cc
 Increasing through time – average =
1450cc (roughly)
○ Morphology
  Short, very powerful limbs
 You know what they’re like!
• Homo sapiens
○ 400,000 ya – now
○ Key sites
 Africa, then everywhere
○ Key fossils
 The whole caboodle
○ Cranial capacity
 900-2000cc
○ Morphology
 Like us
Ardipithecus
• Ardipithecus kadabba – 5.8 myr
○ Associated with forests
○ A single toe found – probably bipedal
○ But it has very powerful arms, suggests
arboreality
○ Primitive traits
 Large canines
 Thin enamel on molars
• Ardipithecus ramadis – 4.4 myr
○ Less primitive
• Is it a) an early hominin? - bipedal b) an early
chimp? – primitive dentition c) CA with Pan/Homo
– mix of traits
• They fit in an important gap around the time we
split with chimps

Australopithecus – Southern Ape

• It’s assumed from Austro’s shape and size that
it’s an intermediate between chimps and early
Homo.
• Split between robust (aethiopicus, boisei,
robustus) and gracile (africanus, garhi,
bahrelgazali)
• Bipedalism
 ○ Shown from hip/leg bones and skull and the
Laetoli footprints (East Africa 3.5 – 4 mya)
○ The tibia also suggests that it is an obligate
biped
• Dating
○ They go back about 5,000,000 years
• Australopithecines had a large sagittal crest –
very much restricting skull size
• At times referred to as zinjanthropus
• Gracile Australopithecines
○ Garhi – East Africa, very temporally confined
○ Africanus – South Africa, very long lasting
 Traditionally seen as an ancestor to the
genus Homo.
 Small canines
 Bipedal
 Large, flat molars
 Some ape like characteristics
• Prognathic
• Small brained (440cc)
○ BUT does A. garhi in fact offer a better
transition from afarensis -> Homo?! 2.5 myr
 Still a small brain size, but a slight
increase (450cc)
 Bipedal
 Legs elongated over afarensis
• = Similar to later patterns in Homo
 AND it’s associated with mammal bones
that have cut marks on them – they
might also have been cut up to get at
the marrow = Homo behavior.
○ A. bahrelgazali
 3.4-3 million years ago
 Similarity with afarensis
 An extended range
• Robust Australopithecines (sometimes called
Paranthropus)
○ 2.5 – 1.2 mya, completely extinct by 1 mya
  So quite successful really
○ Oftentimes considered a side branch of us,
they were around at the same time as H.
habilis and stuff so they can’t be our direct
ancestors
○ Found in East and Southern (only robustus)
Africa
○ P. aethiopicus
 2.5 myr
 Very prognathic
 Huge sagittal crest
 Extreme nuchal muscles and wide
zygomatic arches
• = powerful chewing jaws
○ P. boisei
 Slightly smaller sagittal crest
 Flared zygomatics
 Very megadontic (larhe molars)
 Thick enamel
 Molarised premolars
 Concave face
○ P. robustus
 Just slightly less ‘robust’ features
 They’re eating food which is very
coarse, tubers and hard fruits
○ How were they related from one to another?
Or are they just geographical variants?
○ Phylogeny
 Hypothesis 1 – all robusts are related
 Hypothesis 2 – South and East African
lineages; they’re just similar dietary
regulations and so it can’t be said that
they’re all closely related
• Tool-use
○ Found with tools, assumed they made them,
but Homo was found there too – so surely it
was the more advanced form that made
them… - so what the hell is austro doing
there? – food?
 ○ The tools invariably appear with a
concentration of animal bones as well.
○ Stone Cache Hypothesis – Potts
 Hominids were very deliberately
depositing stones in certain places, and
then bringing animal carcasses back to
these stone caches to use the tools on
them.
 Multiple sites formed
 Lots of coming and going – mainly to
guard against predators – especially
when they’re just sitting on the edge of
a lake
 Novel transport behaviors – specific to
Homo
• Diet
○ These large animal bone deposits suggest a
large degree of meat eating
○ Did they hunt? = big debate
○ Glyn Isaac
 He suggests that it shows large scale
meat eating = a human trait and that it
could also suggest hunting = potentially
sharing of food, cooperation and even
communication
 BUT it could have just been scavenging,
and all plant matter perishes, so it’s
impossible to see what the ratio of plant
to animal matter might have been.
○ Louis Binford
 Said that there was no link between the
tools and the animal bones at all, and
that carnivores could have just brought
them there.
 Said that it was rubbish that they would
have been drastically different
 Said that they definitely weren’t actually
hunting, pretty much just wandering
 around looking for the shade, and
occasionally finding stones.
• Social
○ Sites at Olduvai potentially occupied by
family groups – “homebases”
 A family group could mean a division of
labour and the origins of sexual
differentiation?
○ There have been many accusations though
of archaeologists simply putting modern
behavioural interpretations on these
findings.
○ Favored Places Hypothesis – Fith, Kathy
 Occupation in attractive foraging areas
• Consume food, rest, social activity,
sleep
 Habitual stone transport led to build up
 Foraging would take place nearby
 Fauna transported and consumed
 Like home bases – but no sharing
• Australopithecus afarensis
○ 4-2.9 myr
○ 60-100 individuals found in East Africa and
the Horn of Africa
○ Primitive characteristics
 Small brian case (420cc average)
 Subnasal prognathism
 Large anterior teeth
○ Teeth and jaw are intermediate between
chimps and humans
○ Sexually dimorphic – which suggests sexual
competition between males
○ Clearly a bipedal but…
 How bipedal? – did it spend any time in
the trees?
 Very long arms – partially arboreal… and
curved fingers and toes
 Gorilla like scapula
Oldowan Industry and associated implications
• Traditionally linked with Homo habilis or Homo
rudolfensis
○ Although there is also some talk of
Australopithecus.
 There is no evidence to prove that they
didn’t use the tools, obviously, but there
has to be positive evidence.
 Also, the huge cheek and jaw bones of
the robust australopithecines suggests
that they didn’t really rely on tools.
 Furthermore, when the
australopithecines went extinct
(c1,000,000 years ago) Homo continued
and stone technology went on apace.
• A new niche after 2.6 myr of no tools!
○ Due to an intensification of tool behavior or a
profound dietary shift
○ -> Homo
○ Now a selection for larger brains
○ Now dependent on tools for their survival
 Pretty much all about the meat-eating
• No other primate uses tools to get
faunal meat
• And there have been no clear finds of bones and
tools directly associated with each other.
• Once you have it, you end up finding it
everywhere.
○ In conjunction with a new kind of spatial
organization and diet.
• Types of Oldowan artefacts
○ Heavy-duty tools
 Made of cobbles or chunks of rock, from
which pretty large flakes have been
struck
 General thought is that they were
deliberately shaped and used – as
‘choppers’ etc
 ○ Light-duty tools
 Made of smaller rocks or flakes, to which
tiny adjustments are made.
○ Utilized Pieces
 Not deliberately shaped itself, in fact as
a byproduct of something else, but used
nonetheless.
○ Débitage
 Waste or debris caused from the
production of the others
• Features of the flakes
○ Striking platform – the part where the
‘hammer’ struck the core
○ Bulb/semicone of percussion – bulge/swelling
just below the platform, showing the waves
of energy caused by the blow
○ Fissures – radiating from the point of
percussion
○ Dorsal surface – the backside of the flake,
may show natural weathering or the effects
of previous blows.
○ Features of the core
 Cortex – outer rind of the cobble
 Flake scars – concavities showing the
negative areas of where the flakes have
been removed from the core
• Selectivity
○ Required qualities
 Relatively hard and consolidated
 Fine-grained
 Fracture
 Fresh on the inside, unweathered by
chemical alterations
 Less porphyritic
○ Two places that the raw materials might be
found
 Primary context – where they were
formed; lava or obsidian flows for
example
  Secondary context – moved by natural
forces; on a river bed etc
○ The fact that so many of the finds are the
‘correct’ sort of rock would suggest that
there was a decent selection process going
on.
○ Rocks at the Koobi Fora region the rocks
were predominantly chosen because they
were near, and there was just an abundance
of ‘good’ rocks.
○ There is a clear development over time in a
lot of places, but whether this was simply to
do with new availability is obviously unclear
 Bed I Olduvai Gorge (1.8 million years
ago) lava is the most common rock but
Bed II (1.5 million) quartz was becoming
the predominant one.
○ “The great age of the Gona sites indicates
that such selectivity did not develop over
time, but rather was a feature of the
Oldowan technological variation from its
very inception” - G
• Oldowan as evidence of pre-planning?
○ Were the tools just an immediate means to
an end – as in a problem arose OR did
hominins plan ahead and develop them as a
process to constantly overcome problems?
○ Immediate need would be shown by the use
and discarding of tools at the same place,
only used once for a single task
 But this is not the pattern seen
 Many cores are missing the outermost
flakes
• What do they suggest about intelligence?
○ Did they set out to make specific kinds of
tools (choppers, discoids etc) or were they
just what happened when they hit two
stones together.
 ○ The main aim of Stone Age toolmakers may
in fact have been the flakes rather than the
core = value on the process rather than the
product
○ Although the products are still relatively
simple, they would have required skill.
○ “We feel that these early stone tool-making
hominids had evolved, by 2.4 to 1.5 million
years ago, to an important new level of
intelligence and cognitive operations” (133 –
E)
• Other implications
○ Beginnings of right-handed dominance?
 It would have been easier to teach
someone who had the same dominant
had as you – ratio in humans is 9:1,
right: left, but in animals it’s pretty
much 50:50.
○ Technology as an evolutionary
accelerator
 S Washburn suggests a ‘biocultural
feedback’ – where as a culture becomes
more adaptive and advantageous to the
species, the genes that help with that
culture are selected for.
• Usage
○ No way of knowing for sure what the tools
were used for – but often found next to
scraped animal bones – so assumed that
they were used on carcasses
○ They could also have been used to dig up
vegetable tubers.
• Some people also suggest that there were
wooden or hide containers used to store water,
but none of these would have survived anyway so
there’s no way at all of telling.
• Tools allow species to survive beyond their
biological parameters.
• Oldowan site formation
 ○ The stones were specially manufactured.
○ Stones were brought in to a site to be
manufactured
○ Some tools were also taken out of sites
○ We can also look at faunal accumulations in
the site, and how decayed the bones are.
How open was the site? Was it reused?
 It does look like they were reused –
some are consistently come back to
over a 10 year period (?)
 Therefore some places must be favored
– this must suggest learning, improved
cognition and maybe some kind of
social group.
○ All Oldowan sites are not the same:
 Some just scattered tools
 Some a lot more dense
 Some with fossils
• Hominids were doing different
activities in different places
○ There is perhaps even some kind of
specialization in animal prey – especially
antelope NB very little dangerous predators
○ Issues
 Excavations small and concentrated
around Olduvai
 Poor faunal preservation
○ Important factors
 Recurrent visits to certain points
 Ranging likely influenced by food, water
and sleeping areas
 Need to reduce competition with
carnivores – still no weapons
 Faunal resources exploited
• Some faunal transport
 Need to be near stone sources
 NB lithic transport did occur.
• Home Base Hypothesis
○ Use of central place for daily return
 ○ Sexual division of labour
 Males hunted and scavenged
 Females gathered
○ Even a suggestion that there was a delayed
consumption and sharing of food
 Enhanced cognition, language, social
bonds – cooperation

Homo habilis
• Handy-man – tool making man.
• Especially in the 60s, tools were seen to be the
thing that set us apart from everything else,
including nature.
○ NB we never did give up our tools – which
suggests that they were pretty useful!
• General changes with the transition to genus
Homo:
○ Reduction is size of face -> cranial vault =
much larger brain
 Austros (400-545 cc) and Homo (509-
1880 cc)
 Reduction is zygomatic arches – less
emphasis on heavy chewing
 Less proganthism – teeth tucked under
face – less emphasis on dentition
 Reduced muscular crests
 Louis Leakey argued for 2 branches in
human evolution i) homo ii)
australopithecines
• By including H. habilis (handy man
– Oldowan) Leakey reduced the
accepted brain size of Homo from
1000cc->610cc (still 30% bigger
that africanus)
• BUT nowadays some people say A.
habilis
• A very recent discovery shows H. habilis dating to
1.44 myr
 ○ = 500,000 year overlap with H. erectus
• Slightly bigger brain – 30% bigger
• But large sexual dimorphism
• Getting taller
• Feet – much less divergent/differentiated big toe
than australopithecines – better for bipedalism
○ Could still climb trees, no need to do it that
often
• Oldowan – could not have been them
○ Unlikely to have enabled proper hunting –
more likely to be scavenging
• Some natural tools potentially used – horns and
bones etc., just not modified – just picking them
up from lying around
○ A much less smooth line!

Homo heidelbergensis
• Traditionally called archaic H. sapiens, but
obviously isn’t actually a valid taxonomic term
• H. heidelbergensis sites often coincide with H
erectus ones
• H. heidelbergensis is often used as part of the
multi-regional hypothesis – but obviously this has
been discredited in many was
○ SO maybe they evolved in Africa and were
simply another wave to come out of Africa
• 800-300 kyr
○ Crucial time period
• Geographically widespread in Africa
• Information for it in Asia is pretty limited
• H. sap seems to speciate from H heid in Africa
and then spread out all over the world and
replaced all their ancestors
• Primitive Features
○ Low frontal lobe
○ Massive face
○ Thick vault
 ○ Large projecting brow
○ No chin
○ Robust postcrania
• Derived features
○ Lateral, medial brow segments
○ Reduced prognathism
○ Larger average brain size than erectus (c.
1200cc compared to 1000cc)
• Atapuerca, Spain
○ Gran Dolina (TD6) – H. antecessor
○ > 780 kyr (very early) The few discoveries
suggest that H erectus or heid were the first
to make it to Europe
○ Sima de los Huesos
○ C 350,000 y/a
○ About 30 individuals of H heid
○ Idea that they foreshadowed the
Neanderthals
 Well developed nuchals
 Severely worn front teeth
 Retromolar spacing
• Thick bone cross sections
• Strong muscle insertions
• Ceprano, Italy
○ Suggestion that erectus also made it to
Europe
○ C 780,000 y/a
• Eastern Africa – H heid, potentially
○ 230-180 kyr
○ Larger brains
○ Arguments for intermediate morphology
 H. erectus and moderns
○ Dail and Jinniushan finds
• Behavioural and innovation change
○ Some are associated with very late
Acheulian, linking it to erectus
○ Pakefield (S Britain) – 700,00 y/a – not a
glacial period – v warm
  = stone tools – but who,
erectus/antecessor/heid
○ Boxgrove – 500,000 – tibia of heid found and
Acheulian stone tools found
○ From about 500,000 – the evidence for fire
picks up immensely
 Potentially as a result of going further
North where it would have been colder
○ Stone tools are associated with formidable
animals
 Elephants, rhinos and buffalos
○ -> Indicates consumption and increasing
importance of meat
○ Increased use of caves as shelters
○ Open air sites suggest domestic space use
 Bilzinglseben – Germany
○ Schoningen, Germany
 Wooden spears – 400,000 y/a
 Carefully manufactured
 2-3m long
 Associated with horse – cut marls and
puncture marks
○ Early symbolism?
 Berekhat Ram – Middle East
○ Atapuerca “Burials”?
 32 individuals in a cave shaft?
 Strangely mainly adolescents and young
adults
 A beautiful handaxe was found at the
bottom of the pit as well

Movement and Geography

• Homo are the first hominids to get out of Africa
• Previous ‘given’ idea:
○ Homo habilis -> ergaster -> (erectus)
○ BUT in 2007 we got some dates of H. habilis
– 1.4 myr = large overlap with ergaster
○ BOTH habilis and ergaster were around at
the dispersal from Africa
• First outings
○ Dmanisi, Georgia
 1.75 myr
 A much bigger range for the hominids
 Who got out first?! 1.75 myr overlaps
with habilis, erectus and ergaster
(African erectus)
 Brain sizes found at the site are
relatively small (600-780cc)
• = quite early hominid
 Technology at Dmanisi
• Oldowan may have facilitated
dispersal itself
• ‘Advanced’ technology was not
needed for expansion
○ Java, Indonesia (at the time it was connected
to SE Asia)
 Sangiran and Mojokerto – 1.7 myr
 H. erectus – lots of them
○ Nihewan Basin (East Asia)
 1.66-1.36 myr (no bones, stone tools)
 Mode 1 assemblages
 As high North as they get 40oN
• Argument for Early, Permanent Dispersals
○ Early = c 1.8 myr
○ Dispersals rapid and permanent
○ H. erectus persists in East Africa
○ Disperse with relatively basic technologies in
variable ecological settings
○ [Traditional model]
○ BUT – signs for hominins actually quite rare,
sites spatially and temporally discontinuous,
initial settlement not followed by permanent
settlement.
• Colonisation of Northern Europe from c500,000
y/a
○ How?
 Straits of Gibraltar?
  Across the Med?
 From the East?
○ Why?
 Dispersals probably driven by
environmental factors
 Probably just following lake edges and
large mammals
• How did the colonisation of these Northern parts
of Europe take place?
○ It’s much colder and very seasonal – you
need to be in control of fire and some kind of
clothing = a much heavier reliance on
animals – as food as well because there
wouldn’t be as much plant food available in
the winter.
• c 60,000 y/a AMh came out of Africa
○ Probably over a Red Sea crossing
• Europe 40,000-45,000 BP
○ Replacement of Neanderthals by H. sapiens
populations
○ Dramatic behavioural changes =
Middle/Upper Palaeolithic Revolution
 Human Revolution Model
• 40-50kyr – a dramatic shift in
behavior in our own species
○ Cognitive change – Klein
suggests there was a brain
mutation
○ Symbolism
○ Origin of language
• It enabled us to finally replace
everyone else – ie the
Neanderthals, who date to c
20,000yrs
○ The point = previously species had avoided
glacial Europe, but in the Middle Palaeolithic,
Neanderthals -> tundra and could survive
the cold winters
 ○ Neanderthals were short and stocky and very
strong, average brain size is very
comparable to modern humans – but
obviously size isn’t everything
○ Modern humans used the same route ->
Europe as did the first farmers 30,000 years
later.
○ Neanderthals were fully adapted to the cold
environments, but were kicked out by AMH
within a few thousand years…due to
disease? Technology? Climate change?
• Colonisation of Australia
○ We know that Australia was inhabited from
45,000 y/a – so H sap must have left Africa
before that
○ They can’t have walked there – it had to be
some kind of rafting technology
 Kind of supports the idea that they
became proficient with the sea, coastal
migration

Climate (Changes)
• There are glacial and interglacial periods –
roughly 10,000 years each in length
• Caused by slight variations in the earth’s orbit
around the sun
• Therefore at times it becomes too cold for trees in
much of Europe = all grass, lichen etc. (good for
grazing). Only in Sothern Europe were there any
trees.
• Bipedalism and Environment
○ -> Pliocene = a greater cooling -> break up
of some of the extensive forest habitats, so
maybe hominins had to change their habits.

Acheulian/Hand-axe industry
• Generally associated with Homo ergaster or
Homo heidelbergensis or Homo erectus,
 Neanderthals and early ancestors of Homo
sapiens.
• Defined by these hand-axes. A very obvious
advance on he previous chopping tools.
○ Extensively flaked on both surfaces to form a
sharp edge all the way around – bifacial
○ Normally tear-shaped
 This shape hardly changed for hundreds
of thousands of years, and can clearly
be seen in southern Africa, Israel, India
and Britain.
• Distinguishing features
○ Larger tools, made to a more standardized
and sophisticated design.
○ Large tools, with pointed edges.
○ Handaxes = bifacially flaked tools
○ Picks = made on large flakes or long, flat
cobbles, sometimes flaked on one side,
sometimes both.
○ Cleavers = large tools with a sharp bit at the
end
• Double function
○ Sharp edges
○ Bashing end
• More than just a functional item, a lot of care was
put into making them.
• First examples appear in East Africa (Olduvai and
Lake Turkana)
• People think that although it is much more
advanced, it’s clearly developed from earlier
chopping tools.
• Deliberately smashed
• In Africa they were normally made of volcanic
rock, but in other places they were made of local
materials, like flint or chert.
○ Were suitable rocks imported?
• Called choppers or cutters
• Produces a jagged chopping edge (bifacial)
• Used for:
○ We’re not really sure.
○ Meat – carcasses and skins
○ Wood
○ Probably no precise function
• Results in core and flakes
○ Were the flakes just by-products or were they
used too?
○ They were definitely used and sometimes
‘recut’ – finely adapted themselves – they
wouldn’t do that if they weren’t used
○ MAYBE the chopping tools were actually just
the waste product?
 Probably not – they’re very standardized
and some wear is visible as well
• Quite complex technology, and very there’s
variety as well.
• Spheroids – spherically shaped stones – hammer
stones? Pounders? For processing vegetables
(roots)?
• NB could go back even older than Olduvai and
Lake Turkana – Gona = potentially 2.5-2.6 million
years ago
• Function is uncertain – intention is clear
○ Very complicated noduling – requires skill,
practice and conceptual planning and
potentially training.
○ The standardised nature of the tools
suggests ‘traditions’ and therefore possibly
‘learning’
○ It is also sometimes said that there is an
obsession with symmetry – which would
suggest that they are working from some
kind of template.
• The technique remained dominant with
remarkably little change until c250,000 y/a
• Why did the Acheulian not move East?
 ○ Asia was definitely colonized by 1.5 mya
(Java etc) and they would have brought
Oldowan with them
○ Perhaps the raw materials just weren’t good
enough
○ It is also very possible that they might have
forgotten how to make handaxes on their
migration eastwards.
○ It is also possible that the lack of evidence
for stone handaxes in East Asia comes from
the fact that they might have used bamboo
instead, which would obviously have
perished.
• Acheulian as a Dispersal Event
○ 1.7 myr – Africa
○ Acheulian sites are common outside of Africa
 Early dates are few
 Later occupations secure
○ BUT they don’t make it North, or East
Asia/Indonesia
○ Movius Line – the line marking the
geographic extent of the Acheulian – further
is Mode 1 or nothing – bio-geographic
significance
○ Ubeidiya, Israel
 1.4-1myr
 Out through the Levant

Levallois technique
• c 300,000 y/a there was another large step
forward in tool technology
• Prepares bigger and better flakes
• More regular, with more regular edges
• Particularly common in the Middle-East.
• = Prepared-core techniques – created many
different flakes. Would have required a lot of skill
and forward planning, maybe even teaching?
 ○ NB they’re not any less variable than biface
retouch flakes in any way yet measured.
• NB it does have a lot in common with the
production of a handaxe, all you had to do was
strike a heavy blow on a handaxe and you make a
Levallois flake.
• SO why did it take so long to arrive?
• Flake control – the flake tools (which existed in
Olduvai) become much more common and more
standardized and you can clearly see which one is
for what purpose – scraper, cutter, point.
• There are 63 discrete types of stone tool
recognised in Europe and the Near East in the
Middle Palaeolithic.
• The important question = were these variations
deliberately made with a specific end shape in
mind?
• Some people think that instead the stones were
just constantly reshaped until their eventual
discard, which would suggest that there was not
as high cognitive function etc as the first theory
would suggest
○ Unless of course there was a consistent
reduction model as data from Tabun (Near
East) and La Quina (France) would suggest.
○ ALTHOUGH it seems more likely that the
pattern is due to technological constraints –
as in the stones were unusable unless they
were altered, rather than due to any cultural
pattern, because the tools in Israel and
France are totally unrelated.
• NB It seems that morphological variation in the
tools can be accounted for more by technological
constraints than cultural rules – shown by the fact
that tools in very different places are very similar
– so unless individuals in France and Israel were
speaking the same language…
Mousterian industry
• Associated with Neanderthals.
• Not all the flakes were Levallois flakes – normal
flakes were used as well
• Mousterian = a mid Palaeolithic industry, highly
dominated by flake tools – called such because
the type stone comes from le Moustier in France
○ Quina – side scrapers
○ Ferassie – Lev flakes, side scrapers
○ Denticulate - nodular
○ Typical
○ MTA
• How do you explain the Mousterian variations?
○ Borde says there are 5 ‘tribes’ of
Neanderthal who made different
kinds/amounts of certain tools
 BUT he also says there’s no
chronological difference; ie they’re all
living in the same area at the same time
for thousands of years.
○ Paul Mellars suggests it was chronological
○ Binford agreed they couldn’t live in the same
place – but that they were contemporaries.
So the difference represents the different
activities on different sites for different
seasons.
• AMH Mousterian sites
○ Skhul
○ Qafzeh

Homo ergaster
• 1.9 – 1.5 myr
• Increased brain size (750-1000cc)
• Broad and high cranial vault
• Distinct brow ridges
• External nose

Homo erectus
 • Did it live to 53,000 yr?!
• Long, low, vaulted cranium
• Sagittal keel
• Thick cranial walls
• Thick brow ridges, slight sulcus (depression just
behind the brow ridge)
• Enlarged brain (750 – 1250cc)
• Body Form
○ The ‘Turkana Boy’ – 90% complete
○ Longer legs, shorter arms
○ 3-4ft -> 5-6ft
○ It’s thought to somehow be related to
dispersal
○ It facilitates long-distance movement
○ And to combat hot, dry savannah
environments

Neanderthals
• Neanderthal symbolism
○ What is a symbol?
 “a symbol is anything, be it object, sign,
gesture or vocal expression which in
some way refers to or represents
something beyond itself (Chase 1991;
Hodder 1982)” (369 - C)
○ You can’t have a ‘real’ language without a
grasp of symbolism, because abstract
sounds have to refer to different concepts
○ BUT can you have symbolism without
language?
○ Language?
 To look at when language first entered
the hominid line you can either look at
fossil evidence or artefacts.
 A reconstruction of the vocal tracts of
Neands found at La Capelle-aux-Saints
suggests that they couldn’t make any
 complex sounds, but this test has
understandably been criticised for
potentially not being very accurate.
 But of course language is much more
than just a range of sounds that can be
produced.
 The stone tool evidence is generally
based on the idea that the more
standardised the design becomes, the
more contact must have been going on
between individuals and the more likely
it is that there were ‘names’ for the
tools in question.
 BUT the lack of hard evidence for any
real symbolic behaviour in Neanderthals
is perhaps enough to suggest that they
didn’t have a language…
 This ties in with the biological argument
which says that because of the form of
the mandible and basi-cranial region of
some of the Neands found they would
not have been able to form complex
vowel sounds, which obviously doesn’t
rule out language all together, but
which does suggest it would have been
limited at best.
○ Use of pigments
 Fragments of ochre have been
recovered from several areas in
southwestern France dated to the
Middle Palaeolithic.
• They show clear signs of scraping
 Can the use of simple coloring tools be
seen as explicitly symbolic – yes, but of
course we don’t know exactly how they
were used so they could theoretically
have been used in some strange non-
symbolic way.
 • They could have just been coloring
things in
○ Symbolic Artifacts
 There have supposedly been finds of
decorated bone from one of the Rissian
levels at Pech de l’Azé (Bordes
1969,1972)
 Fossil nummulite from the Mousterian
levels at Tata (Hungary) that shows
clear markings to form a symmetrical
cross, using a natural mark as one of
the lines.
 But they’re so rare…which makes “it
difficult to see symbolic expression as a
significant component of Neanderthal
behaviour” (375 - C)
 “The central assumption is that this
kind of morphological standardization
and imposed form in tool manufacture
does indeed have some clear symbolic
significance” (382 - C)
○ Burial?
 It does seem unlikely that so many
complete Neanderthal skeletons would
have survived in the same place, unless
they had been in some way placed there
and protected – from the traditional
threats to fossilization (predators,
erosion etc)
 Earliest examples date to the later part
of the Middle Palaeolithic
 La Chapelle-aux-Saints
 Shanidar (Iraq) – a whole series of
burials (10ish) of Neanderthals.
• Pollen remains found there – did
that mean that flowers were thrown
there? – potentially not, later
excavation showed that there were
 burrows of some animal that took
flower heads down with it.
 Grave offerings?
• Probably the stone tools and animal
bones that have been found there
just fell in at some point during the
burial of after.
 Are burials inherently symbolic?
• OR are they just a practical way of
disposing a body, so that you don’t
attract predators and encourage
disease.
• There are however, easier ways to
get rid of bodies, so it must mean
something.
 No evidence of ritual – it could just be
compassionate burial – you don’t want
to watch it get eaten by wolves – so it
clearly suggests something – even if not
the required cognition for burial.
• Neanderthal intelligence
○ One of the hardest parts of qualifying
Neanderthal intelligence is defining the term
‘intelligence’ in the first place
 Is it the ability to coordinate several
activities at once – as would be
necessary for hunting?
 Creation of mental maps of the spatial
and temporal environment?
 Creating complex and varies tools?
• At one Neanderthal site in Western Europe it
seems that Neanderthals dud copy some AMH
bone tools, NB copy
• NB it is essential not to judge them solely on their
lack of a very complex tool set
○ Look at modern Aborigines in Australia and
the Bushmen of Africa – they’re no less
intelligent than other peoples, they just use
simpler tools.
 • It is also possible that there was internal variation
in intelligence between different Neanderthal
populations

Upper Palaeolithic Revolution

• If these huge steps forward are accepted, then
how did they come about!?
○ Did they emerge by a purely internal
cognitive and behavioral evolution among
the European populations – coming straight
from the Neanderthal line?
○ OR was much of it due to a second influx
from Africa or Asia of a new species?
• Speed and scale
○ “…it is now possible to show beyond any
reasonable doubt that many of the most
distinctive archaeological hallmarks of the
classic Middle-Upper-Paleolithic transition in
Europe can be documented at least 30,000
to 40,000 years earlier in certain parts of
African than anywhere within Europe itself.”
–F
• Climatic driver?
○ Rapid climatic/environmental oscillations
(60,000-30,000 BP)
○ -> Demographic changes and displacements
○ -> Increased interaction and competition
between local populations
○ -> Technological, economic and social
innovations /adaptations
○ -> The “Upper Paleolithic Revolution”
• Tools
○ Improved blade technology – as opposed to
the cruder Levallois flakes
○ Aurignacian = a whole new range of tools
○ Appearance of the first shaped bone tools.
 ○ Aurignacian antler spear head – c 35,000 BP
– imposed form
○ c. 36,000 BP = ivory beads, which could
have taken up to 1hr to make
• Earliest art – there are differences from region
to region
○ herd (Aurignacian), South Germany – 36,000
BP – a carved mammoth, out of mammoth
ivory and a horse and a lion head = very
symbolic, they’re not just direct
representations
○ ‘Notation’ – marks on stone that look like
they might mean something
• First ceremonial burial – Sungir (Russia) c 30,000
BP
• Music? – flutes from Das Geissenklosterle (South
Germany) – c 36,000 BP
• Trading – Bergerac flint found as far South as the
Pyrenees
• Higher population (density)
• First huts Vigne Brune – 32,000 BP
• Improved blade technology
○ In the earliest stages of the Aurignacian the
quality of the blades is so much greater than
anything seen in even the later stages of the
Mousterian.
○ Better dexterity
○ Greater standardization means better
communication?
○ Introduction of hafting technology
• New forms of stone tools
○ 60ish types of differentiated tools, as
opposed to 20 odd before
○ A better memory if you’re working to a
template for all those different tools
• Bone, antler and ivory technology
○ “The appearance of complex, standardized
and extensively shaped bone, antler and
 ivory artefacts is a striking feature of the
early Aurignacian sites throughout Europe
(Hahn 1977; Bánesz & Kozlowski)” (396 - C)
○ The feature of an imposed form is even more
widely accepted with these tools than with
the stone ones.
○ Imposed form means learning, and culture?
○ Beginnings of exploiting even more of the
world around them
○ Hunting more likely than scavenging – well
not more likely, but when linked to other
things – at least a better understanding of
the parts of an animal
○ Desire to create
○ Blombos caves are a good place to find these
things.
• Personal ornaments
○ Shells, beads or ivory
○ Why? As a status symbol, to attract a mate?
The creation of things solely for their
aesthetic merit now, not just tools that
happen to be symmetrical
• Art and decoration
○ The appearance of representational art = the
first proof of symbolism
○ Ivory animal sculptures from Vogelherd, das
Geissenklosterle and Hohlenstein-stadel in
southern Germany
○ Phallic symbols from the Abri Blanchard and
Vogelherd
○ The arrival of symbolism as a real force
○ Again the desire to create things and make a
point of some sort
○ If a lack of symbolism is the best argument
for Neands not having language, is this the
best argument for AMH having it?
• Expanded distribution and trading networks
 ○ The best evidence is the “occurrence of far-
travelled marine shells in early Aurignacian
sites throughout Europe – for example the
frequent occurrence of shells from the
Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts in early
Aurignacian levels in the Perigord region, or
the shells from the Black Sea coast sites in
the Kostenki region of south Russia” (398 -
C)
○ If the last one didn’t prove language origins,
then this surely must
○ Also suggests some kind of firm camp,
otherwise who would you trade with
• Summary of Upper Palaeolithic innovations
○ Improved (punch-struck_ blade and bladelet)
technology
○ New end-scraper and burin forms
○ Increased ‘imposed form’ in tool
manufacture
○ Complex, highly shaped bone, antler and
ivory tools
○ Appearance of personal ornaments
 Perforated teeth, marine shell, shaped
stone and ivory beads
○ Appearance of complex and varied art forms
 Engravings, sculptures and cave
paintings
○ Appearance of symbolic ‘notation’ systems
○ New musical instruments
 Bird-bone flutes
○ Long distance distribution and exchange
networks
 For marine shells and high quality stone
etc
○ Improved missile technology
○ Rapid changes in technological patterns
○ Increased population densities
○ More highly structured occupation sites
 ○ Increased ‘specialization’ in some animal
exploitation patterns

Earliest Art
• Very Early
○ The Makapansgat cobble (South Africa)
 Entirely natural object, brought into a
cave – aesthetic appreciation
 2.3 million years ago
○ Differentiating between natural and man-
made marks
 Pech de l’Azé (France)
• Looks like lots of markings and
some parallel lines, but now we
know it’s natural.
○ Kozarnika, Bulgaria
 Clear marks
 1.4-1.2 mya
○ Berekhat Ram, Israel
 > 300,000 BP
 A very rough figurine – proto figurine
○ Hand axes
 Some people argue that the evident
time spent to make a really well crafted
axe shows aesthetic appreciation
 Some still have fossils that must have
been deliberately preserved in it.
• Middle Palaeolithic Art
○ La Ferassie
 Clear marks on tools, parallel lines
○ Axlar (Spain)
 A pebble with a groove
○ Arcy-sur-Cure, France
 Last gasp of the Neanderthals
 Lots of jewelry – made by distinctly
different technology to AMH jewelry
○ Invention or Acculturation?

Palaeolithic Art 35-10,000 y/a

• General
○ 2 colours used
 Red – iron oxide/haemotite
 Black – Manganese dioxide
○ To try and explain art, some people turn to
modern bush art – but it’s a bit derived, and
also a tad racist.
○ The Mayans are the only modern society to
actually use cave art.
 They felt that the deeper you went into
a cave, the further remove you were
from normal life
 The question obviously is: did Ice Age
folk think in the same way?
○ Early interpretations
 Ideas of ‘sympathetic magic’ – like
voodoo
• In the hope of gaining favorable
conditions of some sort.
 Hunting magic
• This doesn’t actually seem very
likely because there are relatively
few examples of missiles on the
same paintings as the animals
• Also, it’s possible that they were
drawn on later.
• Do they even symbolise missiles, or
are they something come out?
• They’re not always drawing what
they’re eating.
 Fertility magic
• To get animals to copulate so that
there were more for them to kill.
• Sometimes there are clear ‘vulva’
in the pictures, but naturally the
French see far too many.
• No clear depiction of animal
copulation at all
 • And the human copulation images
are iffy at best.
○ Mainly images of horse and bison.
○ Therianthropes
 Half-man half-animal images
 Shamans and stuff
 BUT they are actually extremely rare,
only 5 or so examples have ever been
found…
○ Was it public?
 Yes probably, at least some of it – the
ones in the larger galleries
 Some stalactites have been broken off
to make it easier to see paintings from
other sides of the cave.
 BUT there was also some very private
art, in places very hard to reach. One
example is only reachable by putting
your arm in a crack in the rock and
painting blind
• Offered to something else.
○ It’s definitely possible that open air art was a
lot more common and it has simply perished.
• Caves
○ They certainly weren’t afraid of caves, but
almost certainly didn’t live in them.
○ Lots of footprints in caves – mainly from
children
 Was it a place for play?
 For initiation?
• As a way of imprinting certain
things on youngsters, and the
paintings were a way of helping
with that.
○ NB you shouldn’t make everything in a cave
religious.
○ Chaffaud, France – carvings in reindeer
antlers found in a cave.
○ Altamira and La Mouthe – see sites.
Anatomically Modern Humans
• Timing – the transition occurred somewhere
between 500,000-34,000 y/a
○ Neanderthals were around 135,000-34,000
y/a
 Where did they go?
 but Neands and sapiens basically
coexisted for as much as 60,000 years -
“In 1989, the Tabun Neanderthal was
shown to be at least 100,000 years old,
making it a contemporary of the
modern humans from Qafzeh and
Skhul” (119 – D)
• Multi-regional Hypothesis
○ The idea that AMH developed independently
all over the world, and through genetic drift
and cross-breeding we ended up as we are
today.
○ Potentially places the Neanderthals as an
intermediary between us and H erectus
○ Problems
 It’s assuming that the Neanderthals had
the brain capacity for the UPR already,
and then this led to biological change as
well
 It’s fucking unlikely that it would all
have happened at such a similar time!
• Single-species or Out of Africa Hypothesis
○ One species developed in Africa (Homo
sapiens), which then moved out and
replaced any earlier species all across the
world.
 The idea is that they brought with them
the UPR
○ It does seem like an ‘impossible coincidence’
(Mellars, 2005) that H sapiens developed this
similarly all over the world.
○ Also, the speed at which the transition
occurred suggests that it was one species.
○ Evidence – (all from F)
 Mitochondrial DNA patterns of modern
Europeans suggest an African-derived
“founder lineage” dating to about
40,000 to 50,000 years BP
• Fossil evidence has given us Neand
mtDNA and it is totally lacking from
early anatomically modern humans
and modern day humans in Europe
 Rogers and Jorde’s study of “mtDNA
‘mismatch’ distributions” suggests a
date of expansion about 40,000 BP
 The (less reliable) study of Y-
chromosome DNA points to two
expansions i) 40-45,000 BP ii) c. 30,000
BP
 Fossil evidence – 5/6 discoveries that
point unmistakably to the presence of
anatomically modern humans in Europe
and the Near East c. 30,000-45,000 BP
• Most significant discovery was
three separate individuals from a
cave in Romania – Pestera cu Oase
– which have been radiocarbon
dated to about 35,000 BP
• AND one at Ksal Akil in Lebanon,
dated by radiocarbon and
associated material to about
39,000 BP
 It is hard to believe that after 200,000
years of being in Europe the
Neanderthals developed this complex
tool set at the same time a new species
arrived on the scene, only to be
eradicated regardless within the next
60,000 years.
• Modern Homo sapiens = “humans with a flair for
technology and innovation, a capacity for artistic
expression, an introspective consciousness, and a
sense of morality” (99 - D)
• Language
○ It seems that this is pretty central
○ It is quite hard to believe that any species
could possess a language as complex as our
modern languages and not also be fully
modern by all other standards.
• Reasons for the transition
○ Binford (1968) believes that it is mainly due
to the onset and development of cooperative
hunting.
○ Runaway brain hypothesis
○ Will
○ More complex culture led to the need for a
more powerful brain, which gave the
opportunity for a more complex culture etc.
• Specialised Hunting
○ Mellars (1973) says that the archaeological
record in the Dordogne shows a specialised
hunting of reindeer
 But there is little evidence for such
reliance on one species anywhere else,
which suggests that it was more a case
of there simply being an abundance of
reindeer in the area.
• Cooperative hunting
○ S Binford (1968) – she thinks that the
hunting of herds as they migrated between
the coastal plains and the highlands would
have required sizeable groups and therefore
sizeable cooperation and communication
between individuals  a genetic change.
• Foresight and sharing
○ L Binford (1984) feels that a lack of planning
and foresight is shown by the faunal data at
 the Klasies River Mouth sites in South Africa,
where the carcasses were butchered in such
a way that the best parts were eaten on the
spot, and also because either the animals
were small or the parts consumed were
small.
 He also suggests that small parts were
cut off because only small parts were
needed because you hunted for yourself
alone.
○ Not completely sure we agree with Binny on
this one – small game like fish and rabbits
can very easily be shared around.
○ In many sites one species outnumbers the
rest – whereas you’d expect it to be pretty
random if there was no foresight and animals
were just killed on sight and eaten
 Combe Grenal in SW France – there is a
predominance of red deer.
○ It probably suggests people going to a
specific place to hunt a specific animal at a
specific time of year.
○ “The regular transportation of food certainly
implies regular sharing” (pg 329)
○ “The very existence of burials in the Middle
Palaeolithic implies affective bonds among
individuals that would be hard to understand
without at least the emotional capability for
sharing and cooperation.”
○ NB always important to consider whether
these would have been possible without
language…
• Culture
○ It must be remembered that much of the
evidence for many aspects of culture is
completely invisible – a shamanic ritual or
marriage would leave no trace.