Human Prehistory (3.3 million years BC – 3500 BC)

[wjfox]

Population collapse almost wiped out human ancestors, say scientists

Thu 31 Aug 2023 19.00 BST

Early human ancestors came close to eradication in a severe evolutionary bottleneck between 800,000 and 900,000 years ago, according to scientists.

A genomics analysis of more than 3,000 living people suggested that our ancestors’ total population plummeted to about 1,280 breeding individuals for about 117,000 years. Scientists believe that an extreme climate event could have led to the bottleneck that came close to wiping out our ancestral line.

“The numbers that emerge from our study correspond to those of species that are currently at risk of extinction,” said Prof Giorgio Manzi, an anthropologist at Sapienza University of Rome and a senior author of the research.

However, Manzi and his colleagues believe that the existential pressures of the bottleneck could have triggered the emergence of a new species, Homo heidelbergensis, which some believe is the shared ancestor of modern humans and our cousins, the Neanderthals and Denisovans. Homo sapiens are thought to have emerged about 300,000 years ago.

“It was lucky [that we survived], but … we know from evolutionary biology that the emergence of a new species can happen in small, isolated populations,” said Manzi.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... scientists

[wjfox]

World's oldest wooden structure found in Zambia

Archaeologists say the structure dates back 476,000 years. It was intentionally shaped with wooden tools to create stable joints, attesting to the cognitive skills of Homo sapiens' forebears.

09/20/2023

Archaeologists working near Zambia's Kalambo Falls say they have unearthed the world's oldest wooden structure.

Embedded in clay and further preserved by a high water table, scientists say the structure, made from the logs of a large-fruited willow tree, was intentionally created roughly 476,000 years ago.

The well-preserved specimen was made before the advent of Homo sapiens, which archaeologists say points to a vastly higher cognitive ability than has been previously ascribed to such ancient ancestors.

The oldest wooden structure known before the announcement of the Zambia find was just 9,000 years old. The oldest known wooden artifact, discovered in Israel, is a 780,000-year-old fragment of plank.

https://www.dw.com/en/worlds-oldest-woo ... a-66878895

[weatheriscool]

with this in mind I wouldn't be shocked to read in the future of the discovery of a city much older then the current oldest.

[weatheriscool]

Neanderthals hunted dangerous cave lions, study shows
https://phys.org/news/2023-10-neanderth ... lions.html
by University of Reading

Neanderthals hunted cave lions and used the skin of this dangerous carnivore, a new study has shown for the first time.

Excavations at Einhornhöhle (Unicorn Cave) in the Harz Mountains (Lower Saxony, Germany) in 2019 uncovered abundant Ice Age animals, among which were a few bones of the extinct cave lion. The bones were discovered in a cave gallery approximately 30 meters from the now-collapsed entrance in a layer that dates to more than 200,000 years ago.

The new study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, outlines how a research team detected a toe bone with a cut mark among the remains of the cave lion. This led to the team determining that Neanderthals removed the lion's pelt with the claws attached, indicating that they used the skin for their own purposes.

[weatheriscool]

New study shows ancient Europe was not all forest, half was covered in grassland
https://phys.org/news/2023-11-ancient-e ... sland.html
by Bob Yirka , Phys.org

A team of ecologists, biologists, geographers, geologists and Earth scientists from across Europe, working with a colleague from the U.K. and another from Canada, has found evidence suggesting that Europe was not covered heavily by forest during the Last Interglacial period, as many have suggested, but was instead half grassland. In their project, published in the journal Science Advances, the group studied pollen samples collected over many years at dig sites across Europe.

As the researchers note, there are many opinions regarding the European landscape during the Last Interglacial period 116,000 to 129,000 years ago—the period just before modern humans arrived on the scene. Many have suggested that virtually the entirety of the continent was covered by thick forests.

[weatheriscool]

Paleolithic humans may have understood the properties of rocks for making stone tools
https://phys.org/news/2023-12-paleolith ... stone.html
by Nagoya University

A research group led by the Nagoya University Museum and Graduate School of Environmental Studies in Japan has clarified differences in the physical characteristics of rocks used by early humans during the Paleolithic. They found that humans selected rock for a variety of reasons and not just because of how easy it was to break off. This suggests that early humans had the technical skill to discern the best rock for the tool.

The researchers have published the results in the Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology.

As Homo sapiens moved from Africa to Eurasia, they used stone tools made of rocks, such as obsidian and flint, to cut, slice, and craft ranged weapons. Because of the significant role they played in their culture, understanding how early humans made stone tools is important to archaeologists.

[caltrek]

Unusual Hand Ax Discovered in Saudi Arabia
November 30, 2023

Introduction:

(Archaeology) ALULA, SAUDI ARABIA—A 20-inch-long hand ax sharpened on two edges was discovered on the surface of a sand dune in northwestern Saudi Arabia, according to a Live Science report. Excavation of the area uncovered an additional 13 smaller hand axes. The long, narrow tool is nearly four inches wide and about two inches thick. Researchers led by archaeologist Ömer Can Aksoy and Giulia Edmond of the Royal Commission for AlUla said that the basalt ax is easily held with two hands, but it is unclear how it might have been used for cutting or chopping. Aksoy explained that other tools found in the area may be about 200,000 years old, based upon an assessment of their form and characteristics, but the hand ax has not yet been dated.

Read more here: https://www.archaeology.org/news/11924 ... bia-tool

[caltrek]

Ancient Bones Reveal
Hominins Hunted Beavers At Least 400,000 Years Ago
by Enrico de Lazaro
November 29, 2023

Introduction:

(Sci.News) Archaeologists from the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, the Leibniz Zentrum für Archäologie and Leiden University say they have found cut marks on the bones of two beaver species from the 400,000-year-old hominin open air site of Bilzingsleben in central Germany. Their results demonstrate a greater diversity of prey choice by Middle Pleistocene hominins than commonly acknowledged, and a much deeper history of broad-spectrum subsistence than commonly assumed, already visible in prey choices 400,000 years ago.

“A solid understanding of early hominin diets, key for tracking human behavioral and cognitive evolution, is hampered by the fact that the archaeological record is strongly biased towards the remains of large ungulates, while it is well-established that a reliance on game meat alone would not have provided a sufficient subsistence base given human dietary needs,” said study’s first author Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser and her colleagues.

“Despite various biases, recent studies documented a greater diversity in hominin food choices, including regular exploitation of a variety of small animals, plant and aquatic foods, not only for the early modern human lineage in Africa, but also for Neanderthals, be it mainly from the southern parts of their range.”

“Most of that evidence dates respectively to the Middle Stone Age of Africa and to the later Middle Paleolithic in Europe, from about 125,000 years ago onwards,” they noted.

“Far less is still known about the subsistence base of the Middle Pleistocene predecessors of both lineages, with that record still strongly suggestive of a narrow, large- and medium-sized ungulates focused subsistence base.”

Read more of the Sci.News article here: https://www.sci.news/archaeology/homin ... 493.html

For a presentation of research results as published in the journal Scientific Reports . https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-46956-6

[caltrek]

War in The Time Of Neanderthals: How Our Species Battled For Supremacy For Over 100,000 Years
Nicholas R. Longrich
December 16, 2023

Introduction:

(IFL Science) Around 600,000 years ago, humanity split in two. One group stayed in Africa, evolving into us. The other struck out overland, into Asia, then Europe, becoming Homo neanderthalensis – the Neanderthals. They weren’t our ancestors, but a sister species, evolving in parallel.

Neanderthals fascinate us because of what they tell us about ourselves – who we were, and who we might have become. It’s tempting to see them in idyllic terms, living peacefully with nature and each other, like Adam and Eve in the Garden. If so, maybe humanity’s ills – especially our territoriality, violence, wars – aren’t innate, but modern inventions.

Biology and paleontology paint a darker picture. Far from peaceful, Neanderthals were likely skilled fighters and dangerous warriors, rivalled only by modern humans.

Top predators

Predatory land mammals are territorial, especially pack-hunters. Like lions, wolves and Homo sapiens, Neanderthals were cooperative big-game hunters. These predators, sitting atop the food chain, have few predators of their own, so overpopulation drives conflict over hunting grounds. Neanderthals faced the same problem; if other species didn’t control their numbers, conflict would have.

Read more here: https://www.iflscience.com/war-in-the- ... rs-72048

[weatheriscool]

North America's first people may have arrived by sea ice highway as early as 24,000 years ago
https://phys.org/news/2023-12-north-ame ... a-ice.html
by Liza Lester, American Geophysical Union

One of the hottest debates in archaeology is how and when humans first arrived in North America. Archaeologists have traditionally argued that people walked through an ice-free corridor that briefly opened between ice sheets an estimated 13,000 years ago.

But a growing number of archaeological and genetic finds—including human footprints in New Mexico dated to around 23,000 years old—suggests that people made their way onto the continent much earlier. These early Americans likely traveled along the Pacific coastline from Beringia, the land bridge between Asia and North America that emerged during the last glacial maximum when ice sheets bound up large amounts of water causing sea levels to fall.