The Homo erectus Site of Trinil: Past, Present and Future of a Historic Place

Abstrak. Trinil: Masa lalu, Sekarang dan Masa Depan Sebuah Situs Bersejarah. Dusun Trinil menjadi  terkenal  dengan  ditemukannya  Pithecanthropus  erectus,  sekarang  Homo  erectus,  oleh Dubois pada tahun 1891. Setelah ekskavasi Dubois, pada tahun 1907 sebuah ekspedisi besar-besaran dipimpin oleh E. Selenka berlangsung di lokasi yang sama. Selain fosil-fosil sisa manusia, puluhan ribu fosil vertebrata lain dan moluska ditemukan dalam ekskavasi Dubois dan Selenka antara tahun 1891  dan  1907.  Koleksi  ini  sekarang  disimpan  di  Naturalis  di  Leiden  (Belanda)  dan  di  Museum für  Naturkunde  di  Berlin  (Jerman).  Studi  yang  berlangsung  saat  ini  terhadap  koleksi-koleksi  itu mendorong perlunya penelitian baru di lapangan. Tujuannya selain untuk mengetahui potensi situs juga  untuk  menjawab  pertanyaan-pertanyaan  yang  muncul  dalam  studi  koleksi.  Parit  penggalian Dubois  dan  ekspedisi  Selenka  dikontekstualisasikan  dalam  peta  geografi  modern  berdasarkan data historis, bahan fotografi yang masih ada, dan peninjauan lapangan 2014/2015. Potensi untuk menemukan  tinggalan  pada  ‘Hauptknochenschicht’  (HK)  cukup  besar  di  tepi  kiri  sungai  Solo, di  selatan  penggalian  Dubois  yang  asli,  termasuk  di  tepi  kiri  disebelah  timur  lokasi  yang  digali. Pertanyaan yang masih tersisa, antara lain menyangkut stratigrafi situs, umur fauna Trinil dan Homo erectus, dan homogenitas himpunan HK, diharapkan dapat terjawab melalui penelitian baru yang akan dilaksanakan di situs ini. Abstract. Trinil became famous through the discovery of Pithecanthropus erectus, now Homo erectus, by Dubois in 1891. After Dubois’ excavations it was the expedition led by E. Selenka in  1907  performing  large  scale  fieldwork  at  the  location.  Apart  from  the  hominin  remains, thousands of other vertebrate and molluscan fossils were excavated by both Dubois and Selenka between  1891  and  1908.  These  collections  are  currently  housed  at  Naturalis  in  Leiden  (The Netherlands) and the Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin (Germany). Ongoing studies of these collections have raised questions that warrant new fieldwork. This study aimed to establish the site‘s present potential to solve extant research questions. The excavation trenches of Dubois and the Selenka expedition were contextualized within a modern geographical map, based on historical data, extant photographic material and a 2014/2015 field trip. The potential to reach the find bearing Hauptknochenschicht (HK) is high at the left bank of the Solo river, south of Dubois’ original excavations. Also the left bank directly east of the former excavation pits has a good potential. Still remaining questions concerning the site stratigraphy, the age of the Trinil fauna, including the Homo erectus finds, and the homogeneity of the HK assemblage, might be resolved by new fieldwork.

Population size does not explain past changes in cultural complexity

Acknowledgments We thank three anonymous reviewers and our PNAS editor, James O'Connell, for their generous feedback on earlier versions of this manuscript. K.V. acknowledges support from The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (VIDI Grant 016.144312). M.C. is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research of Canada, the Canada Research Chairs Program, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund, and Simon Fraser University. R.C. and W.R. acknowledge support from the Australian Research Council (Discovery Grant DP120100580).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The empirical case against the ‘demographic turn’ in Palaeolithic archaeology

Funding. M.C.’s work is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research of Canada, the Canada Research Chairs Programme, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund and Simon Fraser University. K.V. received support from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (VIDI-grant 016.144312). R.C. and W.R. are supported by the Australian Research Council (discovery grants nos DP120100580 and DP150100586). Acknowledgements. M.C. is grateful to Rob Foley, Marta Lahr, Lawrence Martin and Chris Stringer for inviting him to participate in the Major Transitions in Human Evolution meeting. We thank the following people for their assistance with this paper: Claes Andersson, JeanMarc Argentin, Raymond Corbey, Andre Costopoulos, Helen Eaton, Rob Foley, Denis French, Lola Greeno, Rex Greeno, Huw Groucutt, Peter Hiscock, Curtis Marean, Jim O’Connell, Dwight Read, Eleanor Scerri, George Serras, Christian Tryon, Pierre Vermeersch, Patrick at the Sawtooth ARI Gallery in Launceston, Tasmania and two anonymous reviewers. We also thank the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery Aboriginal Reference Group for permission to work on the material from Oatlands Shelter, Tasmania. Lastly, we thank the National Museum of Australia and the La Havre Museum for giving permission to reproduce some of the images used in this paper.Peer reviewedPostprin

Guts and brains : an integrative approach to the hominin record

The human brain and its one hundred billion neurons compose the most complex organ in the body and harness more than 20 per cent of all the energy we produce. Why do we have such large and energy-demanding brains, and how have we been able to afford such an expensive organ for thousands of years? Guts and Brains discusses the key variables at stake in such a question, including the relationship between brain size and diet, diet and social organization, and large brains and the human sexual division of labour. This interdisciplinary volume provides an entry for the reader into understanding the development of both early primates and our own species.Wetensch. publicati

Oxygen isotope analyses of Equus teeth evidences early Eemian and early Weichselian palaeotemperatures at the Middle Palaeolithic site of Neumark-Nord 2, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany

We thank Annabell Reiner (MPI-EVA) for technical and practical support with preparation of samples and Bernd Steinhilber for the oxygen isotope measurements of the silver phosphate samples at the Institut für Geowissenschaften (Universität Tübingen); Thanks to the Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie, Sachsen-Anhalt, and Landesmuseum Sachsen-Anhalt in Halle for providing samples; and to Geoff Smith (RGZM Monrepos and MPI-EVA) for comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. Financial support for the Neumark-Nord 2 excavations was provided by the Lausitzer Mitteldeutsche Braunkohlengesellschaft mbH, the Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt (Harald Meller, Susanne Friederich), the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum Mainz, the Leids Universiteits Fonds “Campagne voor Leiden” program and the NetherlandsOrganization for Scientific Research (N.W.O.). The isotope research was funded by the Max Planck Institute and a Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst Junior Research Grant to KB (ref: A0970923). Thanks also to the University of Aberdeen, and The Leverhulme Trust (RPG-2017-410) for financial and professional support during this project and preparation of the manuscript. TT acknowledges funding by the German National Science foundation in the framework of the Emmy Noether Program (DFG grant TU 148/2-1 “Bone Geochemistry”).Peer reviewedPostprin

Evaluating the incidence of hydrological processes during site formation through orientation analysis. A case study of the middle Palaeolithic Lakeland site of Neumark-Nord 2 (Germany)

Lacustrine localitieswere attractive environments for Palaeolithic hominins, since they provide a large and broad spectrumof resources. Moreover, they are excellent archives that allowfor high-resolution environmental, chronological and archaeological analyses. However, these deposits are often subject to complex formation and postdepositional factors, including water-related processes. Evaluating the influence of hydrological processes in site formation is thus essential to more accurately reconstruct the duration, intensity and types of hominin behaviour within these environments. In this paperwe present the orientation analysis of archaeological material from the Last Interglacial site Neumark-Nord 2, Germany. Orientation analysis was done using GIS to calculate the orientation of artefact from digital plans of the excavation surface, which were subsequently tested using circular statistics. The results of the orientation analysis are compared with a hydrological model to check the relation between preferred orientations and reconstructed areas of water flow and accumulation. Results suggest that low-energy hydrological processes could have affected certain areas of the find-bearing deposits at Neumark-Nord 2 but, overall, there is no evidence for either high-energy hydrological processes or a significant movement of parts of the archaeological assemblage.The project “Interglacial landscapes and Neanderthal adaptations in the Neumark-Nord region (Saxony-Anhalt)” is funded by the Deutsche Forchungsgemeinschaft (DFG) (GA 683/9-1)

Human occupation of northern Europe in MIS 13: Happisburgh Site 1 (Norfolk, UK) and its European context

The timing, environmental setting and archaeological signatures of an early human presence in northernEurope have been longstanding themes of Palaeolithic research. In the space of 20 years, the earliestrecord of human occupation in Britain has been pushed back from 500 ka (Boxgrove) to 700 ka (Pakefield)and then to >800 ka (Happisburgh Site 3). Other sites also contribute to this record of humanoccupation; a second locality at Happisburgh, referred to as Site 1, attests to human presence at around500 ka (MIS 13). This paper provides the first comprehensive account of research undertaken at HappisburghSite 1 since 2000. The early human landscape and depositional environment was that of a riverfloodplain, where an active river channel, in which a grey sand was deposited, was abandoned, forming afloodplain lake, with marginal marsh/swamp environments, which was infilled with organic mud. Thissuccession is sealed by Middle Pleistocene glacial deposits. An assemblage of 199 flint flakes, flake toolsand cores was recovered from the grey sand and organic mud. The evidence from Happisburgh Site 1 isplaced in the context of the wider British and European MIS 13 record. The growing evidence for asignificant dispersal of humans into northern Europe around 500 ka raises critical questions concerningthe environmental conditions under which this took place. We also consider the evolutionary andbehavioural changes in human populations that might have enabled the more widespread and persistentperiod of human presence in northern Europe at this time.</p

Fires at Neumark-Nord 2, Germany: An analysis of fire proxies from a Last Interglacial Middle Palaeolithic basin site

Few sites with evidence for fire use are known from the Last Interglacial in Europe. Hearth features are rarely preserved, probably as a result of post-depositional processes. The small postglacial basins (<300 m in diameter) that dominate the sedimentary context of the Eemian record in Europe are high-resolution environmental archives often containing charcoal particles. This case study presents the macroscopic charcoal record of the Neumark-Nord 2 basin, Germany, and the correlation of this record with the distinct find levels of the basin margin that also contain thermally altered archaeological material. Increased charcoal quantities are shown to correspond to phases of hominin presence-a pattern that fits best with recurrent anthropogenic fires within the watershed. This research shows the potential of small basin localities in the reconstruction of local fire histories, where clear archaeological features like hearths are missing