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Images of the ‘Savage’. American Museum, 1921. state of savagery, AD 1500. American Museum, 1993. Neanderthals. Nearly complete skeleton in shallow grave at la Chapelle aux Saints (found 1908) became generalized description: - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Images of the ‘Savage’
state of savagery, AD 1500
American Museum, 1993
American Museum,
1921
Neanderthals• Nearly complete skeleton in
shallow grave at la Chapelle aux Saints (found 1908) became generalized description:
• Misshapen individual: acutely curved spine from osteoarthritis, thus being bent-over or hunched; old and highly degenerated
• Hardly representative of greater (i.e., younger and healthier) population
Brutish Neanderthals
Re-Constructing a Neanderthal
Distribution of Mousterian technology in Eurasia
Levallois Technique
By late Mousterian a variety of fairly finely worked stone tools were being used by Neanderthal populations
MOUSTERIAN, 200-40kUPPER PALEOLITHIC,
90(africa)/40-12k
ACHEULEAN, to 1.5m
OLDOWAN, to 2.4m
Ceremonialism
• Evidence from burials shows that Neanderthals accommodated the sick and injured in life and treated the dead with honor and ritual
Grave goods?
Artist’s impression of Shanidar Cave, Iraq
Neanderthal flute? (50k)
Neanderthal Welfare
• Also, sites like Shanidar cave, Iraq, where this old man whose skull was crushed, was carefully laid to rest, shows great caring for dead; evidence of blind and maimed individual
• Likewise, some living individuals were in very bad physical condition requiring care by others: La Chapelle
Neanderthal Pre-Neanderthal
Late Pleistocene Greece
A. Replacement (“Out of Africa”): no hybridization(anatomically modern humans in green)
B. Replacement and Hybridization
C. Assimilation
D. Multi-regional
A CB D
Neanderthals in southern Spainto 31-28 K
Lagar Velho, Portugal (1998); 25k, 4 year old, Homo sapiens/Homo neandertalensis transition?
DNA
Supports suggestion of Neanderthal as separate species
20
40
70
120
06/12/03
Herto, Ethiopia (160k)(Group 2: transitional modern H. sapiens)
Middle Stone Age: 250-125 k
Cranial Features of Anatomically Modern Humans
• Cranial capacity: 1350 cc• Vertical frontal bone (forehead)• High, parallel walled cranial vault• Rounded occiptal region (lacking occiptal
torus)• Non-continuous brow ridge• Flat, non-projecting face• chin
Post-100,000 Behavior(H. sapiens)
• Increased diversity and standardization• More rapid change in artifacts• Organic material culture• Jewelry and carvings• Figurative and non-figurative art• Clear organization of space (dwellings and elaborate hearths)• Long-distance transport of lithic raw materials• Broad-spectrum economies• Storage• Large mammal hunting• Occupation of more difficult environments• Growth in population density
Some aspects of advanced technology, such as worked blades,
typically associated with later Upper Paleolithic (H. sapiens
sapiens) groups are present in Middle Stone Age in Africa)
Klasies River Mouth (KRM), Border Cave, Howieson’s Poort
Stone tools from the MSA Howiesons Poort levels at Klasies River (South Africa) dated to ca. 65,000 B.P., showing closely similar forms of blades, end scrapers, burins, and small, hafted segment forms to those found in European and Asian Upper Palaeolithic sites from ca. 45,000 B.P. onwards
PNAS June 20, 2006 vol. 103 no. 25 9381-9386
Border cave Klasies River Mouth
Howieson’s Poort
Middle Stone Age, Southern Africa(Group 3; Anatomically modern H. sapiens)
Blombos
Blombos Cave, South Africa, 75k
Shell ornaments
Incised ocher, bone tools, stone projectile points
MSA: Bone technology• Bone points from MSA
deposits at Blombos Cave (a), Peers Cave (b), Sibudu Cave (c) and Klasies River (d);
• Later Stone Age layers at Rose Cottage Cave (e) and Jubilee Shelter (f), and an Iron Age occupation at Mapungubwe (g)
MSA Iron AgeLSA
Katanda, Democratic Republic of Congo (110-80 k)
Kung arrow points, 20th century
Broad spectrum diet, including terrestrial and marine mammals, fish, shell-fish, and reptiles
Clear evidence of hearths
Blade technology and projectile points
Art and ritual objects
Radiocarbon Dating
• Predictable radioactive decay to nitrogen of unstable C14 isotope (half-life: 5730 years)
• Developed by Willard Libby (≈1950)• Most common dating method (post-40,000)• Accelerator Mass Spectometry (AMS) dating • Calibration (C14 production in the atmosphere
changes through time)• Dates come as a statistical estimate: 1000 ± 100 BP
(1 Sigma (68% probability) = 900-1100 BP;2 Sigma (95% probability = 800-1200 BP)
EUROPEAN UPPER PALEOLITHIC
Aurignacian (40-29 K)Gravettian (29-21 K)Solutrian (21-19 K)
Magdalenian (19-12K)
Broad Spectrum EconomyMore Settled Life
CommunityReligion
Complex ToolsCold Weather
ClothingShelter
Art
Burial discovered by workmen in 1868 at Cro-Magnon (30K), in the village of Les Eyzies in France.
Middle to Upper Paleolithic Transition (55-35k)
• Aurignacian (after 40K)
• Aurignac Rockshelter, Pyrenees, France
Sunghir, Aurignacian, near Moscow, 30k
Mezir, Ukraine, 30-25K BP
Siberia, 10k
Elephant Hunters?
Grotte du Lazaret (France), 186-127 K
Terra Amata (France), 200-400 K
Early Dwellings
Magdalenian Structure
Reconstruction at UpperPaleolithic Site in
Dordogne region, France
Dolní Věstonice, Czech Republic (27-23 K)
Dolní Věstonice
Art and Clothes (Perishables)
ROCKART
Art and personal adornment probably quite old, but blossoms in the Upper Paleolithic
Art shows much about society:
Shamanism and Ritual (fertility)
Territory
Group Identity and Solidarity
Artistry
Deep skull, 40k
Niah cave, Sarawak
Lake Mungo (40k+)
Burial with red ocher
Boats from south-east Asia to Australia, 100km at its shortest point back then
(can’t see from coast to coast)
16,000
15,000
13,000
Meadowcroft, PA
• Strata IIA: C14 dates between 16,200 and 13,200 BP from undoubted cultural origin; (to 21,000 BP years from uncertain origin)
• Possible bark basket (19,600)• Cultural features: 26 firepits and hearths,
5 refuse and storage pits, 1 roasting pit, 1 fire floor, 1 ash/coral lens and 4 specialized activity areas
• 123 chipped stone artifacts• cut and charred fragment from a white-tailed
deer antler base ca. 16,000 years ago;bi-pointed wooden tool (spear foreshaft)
• Faunal and floral remains indicative of temperate climatic conditions
• fragment from a middle hand phalanx of a • young person (13,300 years ago)
Coastal adaptations
Tropical forestadaptation
Monte Verde, Chile (15k)
Monte Verde, 15-13 K
Clovis and Big-Game Hunting(13-12 K)
Mega-fauna extinction:
over-kill or climate
change