Procesos de formación de los yacimientos plio-pleistocenicos africanos y su relevancia para los modelos de comportamiento homínido

La controversia surgida a principios de los años 80 sobre la naturaleza del registro del Plio-Pleistoceno, ha conducido a un debate aún vigente en torno a los agentes envueltos en la formación de los primeros yacimientos arqueológicos. Algunos autores argüyeron que estos depósitos eran palimpsestos en los que la actividad humana fue marginal, mientras que otros opinan que son el resultado de unas estrategias complejas llevadas a cabo por los primeros representantes del género Homo. En el presente trabajo se hace una valoración crítica de los datos disponibles sobre el registro arqueológico plio-pleistocénico, y se propone el marco conductual que hizo posible la formación de estos primeros yacimientos.The controversy about the formation of the early Piio-Pieistocene archaeological site formation has resulted in a wide array of studies regarding the different processes involved therein. Some authors argüe that early sites were palimpsest where hominid intervention was minimal, whereas other researchers support the idea that sites were referential places used by the earliest representatives of the genus Homo. This paper presents the available evidence supporting either hyphoteses and several behavioral models are critically revised

Paleoecology of the Serengeti during the oldowan-Acheulean transition at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania: The mammal and fish evidence

Eight years of excavation work by the Olduvai Geochronology and Archaeology Project (OGAP) has produced a rich vertebrate fauna from several sites within Bed II, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Study of these as well as recently re-organized collections from Mary Leakey's 1972 HWK EE excavations here provides a synthetic view of the faunal community of Olduvai during Middle Bed II at ~1.7e1.4 Ma, an interval that captures the local transition from Oldowan to Acheulean technology. We expand the faunal list for this interval, name a new bovid species, clarify the evolution of several mammalian lineages, and record new local first and last appearances. Compositions of the fish and large mammal assemblages support previous indications for the dominance of open and seasonal grassland habitats at the margins of an alkaline lake. Fish diversity is low and dominated by cichlids, which indicates strongly saline conditions. The taphonomy of the fish assemblages supports reconstructions of fluctuating lake levels with mass die-offs in evaporating pools. The mammals are dominated by grazing bovids and equids. Habitats remained consistently dry and open throughout the entire Bed II sequence, with no major turnover or paleoecological changes taking place. Rather, wooded and wet habitats had already given way to drier and more open habitats by the top of Bed I, at 1.85e1.80 Ma. This ecological change is close to the age of the Oldowan-Acheulean transition in Kenya and Ethiopia, but precedes the local transition in Middle Bed II. The Middle Bed II large mammal community is much richer in species and includes a much larger number of large-bodied species (>300 kg) than the modern Serengeti. This reflects the severity of Pleistocene extinctions on African large mammals, with the loss of large species fitting a pattern typical of defaunation or ‘downsizing’ by human disturbance. However, trophic network (food web) analyses show that the Middle Bed II community was robust, and comparisons with the Serengeti community indicate that the fundamental structure of food webs remained intact despite Pleistocene extinctions. The presence of a generalized meateating hominin in the Middle Bed II community would have increased competition among carnivores and vulnerability among herbivores, but the high generality and interconnectedness of the Middle Bed II food web suggests this community was buffered against extinctions caused by trophic interactions.Fieldwork by OGAP is authorized by the National Museum of Tanzania, Tanzanian Antiquities, and COSTECH, and the Ngorongoro Conservation Authority, and was funded by the NSF (BCS-0852292) and a European Research Council Starting Grant (283366). FB was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG, grant number BI 1879/1-1). AS was funded by the LaScArBx (Universite de Bordeaux), a research program supported by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche, France (ANR-10-LABX-52), and a SYNTHESYS grant (DE-TAF-5741). SV was supported by a post-doctoral fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. LW was funded by the Swedish Research Council.Peer reviewe

Editorial: continuity and change in Trabajos de Prehistoria Editorial: continuidad y cambio en Trabajos de Prehistoria

Para Trabajos de Prehistoria este último número del año 2022 marca el final de un ciclo y el ilusionante arranque de otro lleno de novedades. Con el inicio de 2023 se producirán tres importantes transformaciones: la revista cambiará de equipo editorial, de formato y de forma de gestión. Todo ello se produce en un momento de cierre de un ciclo generacional no solo en la revista, sino en la práctica totalidad de la academia española. En este contexto, Trabajos de Prehistoria se renueva manteniendo el firme compromiso de seguir sirviendo a la excelencia científica y al colectivo de prehistoria-dores/as que la produce.Todos estos cambios suceden en paralelo a los producidos en la estructura organizativa de Editorial CSIC, unos cambios encaminados a reforzar su profesionalización y protagonismo en la política de difusión científica institucional. El Servicio de Publicaciones del Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, creado en 1940, solo un año después de la fundación de la institución (López Sánchez y Fernández Gallego 2021) se convirtió en Editorial CSIC en agosto de 2019, bajo la dirección de Pura Fernández. Editorial CSIC se integra en 2021 en el área de Cultura Científica y Ciencia Ciudadana que, en 2022, pasa a ser una de las nuevas Vicepresidencias adjuntas de la institución. Esta trayectoria indica con claridad la importancia que el CSIC ha concedido y concede a la publicación como forma por excelencia de la comunicación científica. En este sentido, la modernización de Trabajos de Prehistoria ha sido históricamente posible gracias al apoyo y compromiso de nuestra institución con la difusión de una ciencia excelente y abierta

Jornada de Grandes infraestructuras europeas de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades en el CSIC: DARIAH y CLARÍN en el horizonte (11 de mayo de 2023)

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Spatiotemporal Characteristics of the Largest HIV-1 CRF02_AG Outbreak in Spain: Evidence for Onward Transmissions

Background and Aim: The circulating recombinant form 02_AG (CRF02_AG) is the predominant clade among the human immunodeficiency virus type-1 (HIV-1) non-Bs with a prevalence of 5.97% (95% Confidence Interval-CI: 5.41–6.57%) across Spain. Our aim was to estimate the levels of regional clustering for CRF02_AG and the spatiotemporal characteristics of the largest CRF02_AG subepidemic in Spain.Methods: We studied 396 CRF02_AG sequences obtained from HIV-1 diagnosed patients during 2000–2014 from 10 autonomous communities of Spain. Phylogenetic analysis was performed on the 391 CRF02_AG sequences along with all globally sampled CRF02_AG sequences (N = 3,302) as references. Phylodynamic and phylogeographic analysis was performed to the largest CRF02_AG monophyletic cluster by a Bayesian method in BEAST v1.8.0 and by reconstructing ancestral states using the criterion of parsimony in Mesquite v3.4, respectively.Results: The HIV-1 CRF02_AG prevalence differed across Spanish autonomous communities we sampled from (p < 0.001). Phylogenetic analysis revealed that 52.7% of the CRF02_AG sequences formed 56 monophyletic clusters, with a range of 2–79 sequences. The CRF02_AG regional dispersal differed across Spain (p = 0.003), as suggested by monophyletic clustering. For the largest monophyletic cluster (subepidemic) (N = 79), 49.4% of the clustered sequences originated from Madrid, while most sequences (51.9%) had been obtained from men having sex with men (MSM). Molecular clock analysis suggested that the origin (tMRCA) of the CRF02_AG subepidemic was in 2002 (median estimate; 95% Highest Posterior Density-HPD interval: 1999–2004). Additionally, we found significant clustering within the CRF02_AG subepidemic according to the ethnic origin.Conclusion: CRF02_AG has been introduced as a result of multiple introductions in Spain, following regional dispersal in several cases. We showed that CRF02_AG transmissions were mostly due to regional dispersal in Spain. The hot-spot for the largest CRF02_AG regional subepidemic in Spain was in Madrid associated with MSM transmission risk group. The existence of subepidemics suggest that several spillovers occurred from Madrid to other areas. CRF02_AG sequences from Hispanics were clustered in a separate subclade suggesting no linkage between the local and Hispanic subepidemics

How Many Handaxes Make an Acheulean? A Case Study from the SHK-Annexe Site, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania

The first major archaeological transition –and one that has received much attention– is that from the Oldowan to the Acheulean. The seminal work by Mary Leakey (1971) at Olduvai Gorge built the paradigm for the chronological, technological and evolutionary grounds over which such transition took place. The past decade has also witnessed the renewal of fieldwork in early Acheulean contexts at Olduvai, which is contributing new data to the debate on the dynamics of the Oldowan-Acheulean transition. This paper aims to contribute to such debate by presenting a first-hand re-study of the lithic assemblage excavated by Mary Leakey (1971) in SHK-Annexe. Leakey (1971) included SHK within the Developed Oldowan B, and therefore it is a relevant assemblage to characterize technological dynamics during the onset of the Acheulean at Olduvai Gorge.We thank the National Museum of Nairobi for permits to study the Leakey collection from SHK. Funding by the NSF (BCS-0852292) and the European Research Council-Starting Grants (283366) is gratefully acknowledgedPeer reviewe

Peninj (West Lake Natron), Tanzania

Peninj is located on the western shore of Lake Natron, in northern Tanzania. This sequence became known through the discovery of the first Paranthropus boisei mandible ever found. Archaeologically, the sequence achieved recognition thanks to the discovery by Glynn Isaac of Acheulean sites that were at the time one of the world’s earliest evidences of this technology, with an estimated age of 1.5-1.4 Ma. The abundance of handaxes in the RHS-Mugulud and MHS-Bayasi sites enables detailed analyses of the technological features of the early Acheulean, and the core-and-flake technology in the Maritanane area has elicited discussions on the knapping techniques and aspects of inter-assemblage variability during the initial stages of the Acheulean in Africa.This paper was written when the author was beneficiary of an ERC-Advanced Grant (European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme grant agreement No. 832980, BICAEHFID).Peer reviewe

Perspectives on the biogeographic and cultural adaptations of early humans during the first intercontinental dispersals

Our understanding of the emergence and dispersal of the earliest tool-making hominins has been revolutionised in the last decade, with sites in eastern Africa and China pushing records of both events several hundred thousand years earlier than previously thought. In recent years, climate and environmental factors have been considered by many as primary drivers of these evolutionary events in human history. However, models linking Earth’s dynamics with biological speciation, cultural innovation and migration events with climatic require further testing, and recent discoveries suggest that the picture of the earliest human colonization across the Old World is far more complex, demanding new approaches to the biogeography and adaptive behaviours of early humans. In this paper, we argue for a broader geographic approach to the study of earliest human occupation dynamics by comparing eastern Africa and China, two of the world’s longest sequences of early archaeological sites. We thus review major research questions involved in the investigation of the earliest human migrations and propose a route map to better understand the alternative evolutionary trajectories adopted by hominins that shared an overarching biological and cultural background, but who faced different climatic and biogeographic challenges and opportunities.Peer reviewe

Estudio tecnológico de los yacimientos olduvayenses de Omo (sur de Etiopía)

Este artículo está sujeto a una licencia CC BY-NC-ND 4.0[EN] The Omo archaeological sites, in southern Ethiopia, are dated to 2, 3 million years ago. Because of their early dates, the Omo industries have been a reference in the literature about the first technological skills of early humans. In this work, a technological review of the Omo industries stored at the National Museum of Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) is presented. Following the current review, the Omo industry shows higher technical skills than previously thought, allowing to reflect about the technological abilities of Pliocene hominids.[ES] Los conjuntos arqueológicos de Omo, en el sur de Etiopía, están datados alrededor de 2, 3 ma. Su gran antigüedad los ha convertido en un referente en la bibliografía sobre las capacidades tecnológicas de los primeros seres humanos. En este trabajo se presenta una revisión de las industrias de Omo depositadas en el Museo Nacional de Addis Ababa (Etiopía), realizando un estudio tecnológico de las colecciones allí conservadas. Según la presente revisión, la industria de Omo refleja unas habilidades técnicas muy superiores a lo que se había propuesto anteriormente, y lleva a reflexionar sobre las capacidades tecnológicas de los homínidos del Plioceno.Peer reviewe

La tecnología. El poder de las piedras

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