Tortoise taphonomy and tortoise butchery patterns at Blombos Cave, South Africa

Tortoises are one of the most common faunal components at many Palaeolithic archaeological sites across the Old World. They provide protein, fat, and other 'animal' resources in a 'collectable' package. However, for most sites their interpretation as human food debris is based only on association, rather than demonstrated through taphonomic analysis. Because of their very different anatomical configuration compared to mammals, it is difficult to conduct such analyses by directly applying the taphonomic methods used to interpret large mammal assemblages. Tortoise-specific taphonomic analysis is presented here for the Still Bay layers at the important Middle Stone Age (MSA) site of Blombos Cave (BBC), Western Cape, South Africa. Research on MSA subsistence systems at sites such as BBC has almost exclusively relied on analysis of large ungulate remains, in spite of the fact that many of these key sites contain equal or greater numbers of tortoise fragments. In this analysis we show that human modification is common on the BBC tortoises, and that there are consistent patterns of fragmentation and burning that indicate set processing sequences including cooking while in the shell, hammerstone percussion, and human chewing of limbs. The almost exclusive dominance of the angulate tortoise, Chersina angulata, is confirmed by full skeletal element analyses rather than only counts of single elements such as humeri. The sex distribution can be reconstructed for this species, and is female-biased. For all tortoise assemblages, taxonomic and skeletal element abundance data should be calculated from a sample of complete elements, or at minimum the entoplastron and humerus. A sample of shell and limb/girdle elements should also be subjected to microscopic bone surface modification analysis, as modifications are often rare or subtle but highly informative. Using this approach, analysis of breakage patterns, bone surface modification, and burning patterns can be understood together to specifically reconstruct tortoise collection, processing, and human dietary significance across a range of archaeological sites

Nutritional values of tortoises relative to ungulates from the Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa: Implications for foraging and social behaviour

The site of Blombos Cave (BBC), Western Cape, South Africa has been a strong contributor to establishing the antiquity of important aspects of modern human behaviour, such as early symbolism and technological complexity. However, many linkages between Middle Stone Age (MSA) behaviour and the subsistence record remain to be investigated. Understanding the contribution of small fauna such as tortoises to the human diet is necessary for identifying shifts in overall foraging strategies as well as the collecting and processing behaviour of individuals unable to participate in large-game hunting. This study uses published data to estimate the number of calories present in tortoises as well as ungulates of different body size classes common at South African sites. A single tortoise (Chersina angulata) provides approximately 3332 kJ (796 kcal) of calories in its edible tissues, which is between 20 and 30% of the daily energetic requirements for an active adult (estimated between 9360 kJ [3327 kcal] and 14,580 kJ [3485 kcal] per day). Because they are easy to process, this would have made tortoises a highly-ranked resource, but their slow growth and reproduction makes them susceptible to over-exploitation. Zooarchaeological abundance data show that during the ca. 75 ka (thousands of years) upper Still Bay M1 phase at BBC, tortoises contributed twice as many calories to the diet relative to ungulates than they did during the ca. 100 ka lower M3 phase. However, in spite of the abundance of their fossils, their absolute caloric contribution relative to ungulates remained modest in both phases. At the end of the site's MSA occupation history, human subsistence strategies shifted to emphasise high-return large hunted mammals, which likely precipitated changes in the social roles of hunters and gatherers during the Still Bay

Lithic technological responses to Late Pleistocene glacial cycling at Pinnacle Point Site 5-6, South Africa

There are multiple hypotheses for human responses to glacial cycling in the Late Pleistocene, including changes in population size, interconnectedness, and mobility. Lithic technological analysis informs us of human responses to environmental change because lithic assemblage characteristics are a reflection of raw material transport, reduction, and discard behaviors that depend on hunter-gatherer social and economic decisions. Pinnacle Point Site 5-6 (PP5-6), Western Cape, South Africa is an ideal locality for examining the influence of glacial cycling on early modern human behaviors because it preserves a long sequence spanning marine isotope stages (MIS) 5, 4, and 3 and is associated with robust records of paleoenvironmental change. The analysis presented here addresses the question, what, if any, lithic assemblage traits at PP5-6 represent changing behavioral responses to the MIS 5-4-3 interglacial-glacial cycle? It statistically evaluates changes in 93 traits with no a priori assumptions about which traits may significantly associate with MIS. In contrast to other studies that claim that there is little relationship between broad-scale patterns of climate change and lithic technology, we identified the following characteristics that are associated with MIS 4: increased use of quartz, increased evidence for outcrop sources of quartzite and silcrete, increased evidence for earlier stages of reduction in silcrete, evidence for increased flaking efficiency in all raw material types, and changes in tool types and function for silcrete. Based on these results, we suggest that foragers responded to MIS 4 glacial environmental conditions at PP5-6 with increased population or group sizes, 'place provisioning', longer and/or more intense site occupations, and decreased residential mobility. Several other traits, including silcrete frequency, do not exhibit an association with MIS. Backed pieces, once they appear in the PP5-6 record during MIS 4, persist through MIS 3. Changing paleoenvironments explain some, but not all temporal technological variability at PP5-6.Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada; NORAM; American-Scandinavian Foundation; Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia [SFRH/BPD/73598/2010]; IGERT [DGE 0801634]; Hyde Family Foundations; Institute of Human Origins; National Science Foundation [BCS-9912465, BCS-0130713, BCS-0524087, BCS-1138073]; John Templeton Foundation to the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State Universit

Detection of koi herpesvirus (KHV) in koi carp (Cyprinus carpio L.) imported into Ireland.

Peer-reviewedThis report described the first detections of koi herpesvirus (KHV) in the Republic of Ireland in imported koi carp. In both cases the KHV suspicions were confirmed by molecular diagnosis and the infected stocks culled.Funder: Marine Institut

Q&A: What is human language, when did it evolve and why should we care?

Human language is unique among all forms of animal communication. It is unlikely that any other species, including our close genetic cousins the Neanderthals, ever had language, and so-called sign 'language' in Great Apes is nothing like human language. Language evolution shares many features with biological evolution, and this has made it useful for tracing recent human history and for studying how culture evolves among groups of people with related languages. A case can be made that language has played a more important role in our species' recent (circa last 200,000 years) evolution than have our genes

Microstratigraphic preservation of ancient faunal and hominin DNA in Pleistocene cave sediments

Ancient DNA recovered from Pleistocene sediments represents a rich resource for the study of past hominin and environmental diversity. However, little is known about how DNA is preserved in sediments and the extent to which it may be translocated between archaeological strata. Here, we investigate DNA preservation in 47 blocks of resin-impregnated archaeological sediment collected over the last four decades for micromorphological analyses at 13 prehistoric sites in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America and show that such blocks can preserve DNA of hominins and other mammals. Extensive microsampling of sediment blocks from Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains reveals that the taxonomic composition of mammalian DNA differs drastically at the millimeter-scale and that DNA is concentrated in small particles, especially in fragments of bone and feces (coprolites), suggesting that these are substantial sources of DNA in sediments. Three microsamples taken in close proximity in one of the blocks yielded Neanderthal DNA from at least two male individuals closely related to Denisova 5, a Neanderthal toe bone previously recovered from the same layer. Our work indicates that DNA can remain stably localized in sediments over time and provides a means of linking genetic information to the archaeological and ecological records on a microstratigraphic scale

Presumed Symbolic Use of Diurnal Raptors by Neanderthals

In Africa and western Eurasia, occurrences of burials and utilized ocher fragments during the late Middle and early Late Pleistocene are often considered evidence for the emergence of symbolically-mediated behavior. Perhaps less controversial for the study of human cognitive evolution are finds of marine shell beads and complex designs on organic and mineral artifacts in early modern human (EMH) assemblages conservatively dated to ≈100–60 kilo-years (ka) ago. Here we show that, in France, Neanderthals used skeletal parts of large diurnal raptors presumably for symbolic purposes at Combe-Grenal in a layer dated to marine isotope stage (MIS) 5b (≈90 ka) and at Les Fieux in stratigraphic units dated to the early/middle phase of MIS 3 (60–40 ka). The presence of similar objects in other Middle Paleolithic contexts in France and Italy suggest that raptors were used as means of symbolic expression by Neanderthals in these regions

The Red Sea, Coastal Landscapes, and Hominin Dispersals

This chapter provides a critical assessment of environment, landscape and resources in the Red Sea region over the past five million years in relation to archaeological evidence of hominin settlement, and of current hypotheses about the role of the region as a pathway or obstacle to population dispersals between Africa and Asia and the possible significance of coastal colonization. The discussion assesses the impact of factors such as topography and the distribution of resources on land and on the seacoast, taking account of geographical variation and changes in geology, sea levels and palaeoclimate. The merits of northern and southern routes of movement at either end of the Red Sea are compared. All the evidence indicates that there has been no land connection at the southern end since the beginning of the Pliocene period, but that short sea crossings would have been possible at lowest sea-level stands with little or no technical aids. More important than the possibilities of crossing the southern channel is the nature of the resources available in the adjacent coastal zones. There were many climatic episodes wetter than today, and during these periods water draining from the Arabian escarpment provided productive conditions for large mammals and human populations in coastal regions and eastwards into the desert. During drier episodes the coastal region would have provided important refugia both in upland areas and on the emerged shelves exposed by lowered sea level, especially in the southern sector and on both sides of the Red Sea. Marine resources may have offered an added advantage in coastal areas, but evidence for their exploitation is very limited, and their role has been over-exaggerated in hypotheses of coastal colonization

Stable isotope ecology of Cape dune mole-rats (Bathyergus suillus) from Elandsfontein, South Africa: implications for C4 vegetation and hominin paleobiology in the Cape Floral Region

The archaeological and paleontological records from the west coast of South Africa have potential to provide insights into ecosystem dynamics in the region during the mid Pleistocene. Although the fossil record suggests an ecosystem quite different than that of the region today, we understand little about the ecological factors that contributed to this disparity. The site of Elandsfontein (EFT) dates to between 1.0 and 0.6 million years ago (Ma), preserves in situ lithic and faunal materials found in direct association with each other, and provides the rare opportunity to examine the relationship between hominin behavioural variability and landscape heterogeneity in a winter rainfall ecosystem. In this study, we examine the stable carbon isotopic composition of a large sample (n = 81) of Cape dune mole-rats (Bathyergus suillus) and contemporaneous large mammals (> 6 kg; n = 194) from EFT. We find that δ13C values of B. suillus are significantly different to those of contemporaneous large mammals from EFT indicating a significant presence of plants utilizing the C4 photosynthetic pathway during the mid-Pleistocene, in contrast to present C3 dominated ecosystems along the west coast of South Africa. Additionally, we find that artifact density at EFT localities is positively correlated with δ13C values in B. suillus enamel suggesting that evidence of more intense hominin occupation may be associated with the presence of more C4 vegetation. Lastly, we hypothesize that this unique distribution of vegetation 1) provided abundant resources for both hominin and non-hominin taxa and 2) may have concentrated hominin and animal behavior in certain places on the ancient landscape