The role of African savannahs in the evolution of early hominins has been debated for nearly a century. Resolution of this issue has been hindered by difficulty in quantifying the fraction of woody cover in the fossil record. Here we show that the fraction of woody cover in tropical ecosystems can be quantified using stable carbon isotopes in soils. Furthermore, we use fossil soils from hominin sites in the Awash and Omo-Turkana basins in eastern Africa to reconstruct the fraction of woody cover since the Late Miocene epoch (about 7 million years ago). (13)C/(12)C ratio data from 1,300 palaeosols at or adjacent to hominin sites dating to at least 6 million years ago show that woody cover was predominantly less than ∼40% at most sites. These data point to the prevalence of open environments at the majority of hominin fossil sites in eastern Africa over the past 6 million years.

Woody cover and hominin environments in the past 6 million years

Previous research suggests that the complex symbolic, technological, and socioeconomic behaviors that typify Homo sapiens had roots in the middle Pleistocene

Long-distance stone transport and pigment use in the earliest Middle Stone Age

It has been argued recently that the initial dispersal of anatomically modern humans from Africa to southern Asia occurred before the volcanic “supereruption” of the Mount Toba volcano (Sumatra) at ∼74,000 y before present (B.P.)—possibly as early as 120,000 y B.P. We show here that this “pre-Toba” dispersal model is in serious conflict with both the most recent genetic evidence from both Africa and Asia and the archaeological evidence from South Asian sites. We present an alternative model based on a combination of genetic analyses and recent archaeological evidence from South Asia and Africa. These data support a coastally oriented dispersal of modern humans from eastern Africa to southern Asia ∼60–50 thousand years ago (ka). This was associated with distinctively African microlithic and “backed-segment” technologies analogous to the African “Howiesons Poort” and related technologies, together with a range of distinctively “modern” cultural and symbolic features (highly shaped bone tools, personal ornaments, abstract artistic motifs, microblade technology, etc.), similar to those that accompanied the replacement of “archaic” Neanderthal by anatomically modern human populations in other regions of western Eurasia at a broadly similar date.

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/110/26/10699.full.pdf

Genetic and archaeological perspectives on the initial modern human colonization of southern Asia

1. The diets of non-human primates: frugivory, food processing, and food sharing. G. Hohmann 2. The Energetics of Encephalization in Early Hominids. J.J. Snodgrass, W.R. Leonard, and M.L. Robertson 3. Meals vs. snacks and the human dentition and diet during the Paleolithic. P. Lucas, Z.Q. Sui, K.Y. Ang, H.T.W. Tan, S.H. King, B. Sadler, and N. Peri 4. Modern human physiology with respect to evolutionary adaptations that relate to diet in the past. S. Lindeberg 5. Hunting and hunting weapons of the Lower and Middle Paleolithic of Europe. P. Villa and M. Lenoir 6. Neanderthal and modern human diet in Eastern Europe. J. Hoffecker 7. Hominin subsistence patterns during the Middle and Late Pleistocene in northwestern Europe. S. Gaudzinski-Windheuser and L. Niven 8. Late Pleistocene subsistence strategies and resource intensification in Africa. T.E. Steele and R.G. Klein 9. Seasonal Patterns of Prey Acquisition and Inter-group Competition During the Middle and Upper Paleolithic of the Southern Caucasus. .D. S. Adler and G. Bar-Oz 10. Epipaleolithic subsistence intensification in the southern Levant: the faunal evidence. N. Munro 11. Paleolithic diet and the division of labor in Mediterranean Eurasia. M.C. Stiner and S.L. Kuhn 12. Moving north: archaeobotanical evidence for plant diet in Middle and Upper Paleolithic Europe. M. Jones 13. Diet in early hominin species: a paleoenvironmental perspective. Z. Alemseged and R. Bobe 14. The Impact of Projectile Weaponry on Late Pleistocene Hominin Evolution. J.J. Shea 15. The evolution of the human capacity for 'killing at a distance'. S.E. Churchill and J.A. Rhodes 16. An energetics perspective on the Neandertal record. K. Macdonald, W. Roebroeks, and A. Verpoorte 17. d13C valuesreflect aspects of primate ecology in addition to diet. M.J. Schoeninger 18. Increased Dietary Breadth in Early Hominin Evolution: Revisiting Arguments and Evidence with a Focus on Biogeochemical Contributions. M. Sponheimer and D.L. Dufour 19. Neanderthal dietary habits: Review of the isotopic evidence. H. Bocherens 20. Stable isotope evidence for European Upper Paleolithic human diets. M.P. Richards

/pdf/the-evolution-of-hominin-diets-integrating-approaches-to-the-1oirbqpzl9.pdf

The evolution of hominin diets : integrating approaches to the study of palaeolithic subsistence

Paleolithic archaeologists conceptualize the uniqueness of Homo sapiens in terms of “behavioral modernity,” a quality often conflated with behavioral variability. The former is qualitative, essentialist, and a historical artifact of the European origins of Paleolithic research. The latter is a quantitative, statistically variable property of all human behavior, not just that of Ice Age Europeans. As an analytical construct, behavioral modernity is deeply flawed at all epistemological levels. This paper outlines the shortcomings of behavioral modernity and instead proposes a research agenda focused on the strategic sources of human behavioral variability. Using data from later Middle Pleistocene archaeological sites in East Africa, this paper tests and falsifies the core assumption of the behavioral-modernity concept—the belief that there were significant differences in behavioral variability between the oldest H. sapiens and populations younger than 50 kya. It concludes that behavioral modernity and allie...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/658067

Homo sapiens Is as Homo sapiens Was

The Aduma region of the Middle Awash Valley, Ethiopia, contains multiple surface and in situ Middle Stone Age (MSA) occurrences that include lithics and spatially associated faunal and hominid remains. While one Aduma site may, on the basis of lithic comparison, be assigned to an early phase of the MSA, both absolute dates and lithic typology indicate that the remainder represent a significantly later stage of this industrial tradition, likely dating to ca. 80,000 to 100,000 years ago. Assemblages were deposited on an aggrading alluvially dominated landscape which included riverine and floodplain environments. Chronological changes in landform and raw material availability within the geographically limited Aduma region provided a dynamic context that required behavioral flexibility to adapt successfully. Analysis of ten assemblages from eight sites provides the basis for characterizing the Aduma sequence, setting it into broader sub-Saharan context and reconstructing aspects of hominid subsistence strategy and lithic economy. The Aduma lithic assemblages constitute a regional variant within the MSA characterized by a distinctive range of point, scraper and core types. Most striking are the small “microlithic” size of multiple types all produced by MSA technologies and the increasing emphasis on smaller tools over time, which suggests a process similar to yet independent from that which culminated in the appearance of the Late Stone Age. Faunal remains indicate use of multiple habitats with a strong and consistent reliance on riverine resources including large easily predated fish. Based on cranial remains, the Aduma hominids fall within the range of anatomically modern humans. Intersite comparison reveals a scheduling of subsistence and manufacturing behaviors typical of some ethnographically known hunter and gatherer groups. As raw material availability changed over time, lithic manufacturing and utilization patterns varied in an economically rational manner to maximize efficiently the use of scarce and valuable stone types. I N T R O D U C T I O N This article reports on a series of Middle Stone Age (MSA) sites excavated in the Aduma region, Middle Awash valley Ethiopia (Fig. 1) between 1993 and 1998 under the aegis of the Middle Awash research project. They derive their significance in part from the fact that they document a portion of the MSA sequence from a region in which little information is available and thus constitute a useful addition of data to the African archaeological record. The sites also serve to define a distinct regional tradition within the MSA and how it developed over time. Within the last decade, with the recognition that both anatomically modern humans and “complex” behaviors first appear in the MSA, increasing attention has been focused on this tradition. Understanding of the MSA, however, has been constrained not only by data limitations themselves but because of the narrow and restricted framework within which this industrial tradition has been viewed. While the debate over modern human origins is clearly of anthropological signifiA D U M A E T H I O P I A M I D D L E S T O N E A G E • 2 7 cance and MSA data relevant to its resolution, one negative and unintended side effect is the tendency not to address MSA behaviors in their own right, to ignore potentially unique features and the fact that the MSA constituted a set of changing functioning cultural systems which persisted over a broad expanse of sub Saharan Africa in excess of 200,000 years. Although the paucity of well-dated sites and sequences is partly responsible, also minimized in the “modern origins” debate is the fact that MSA adaptations vary significantly over both time and space; such homogenization not only blurs detail but also makes it difficult to discern adaptations specific to time and place. At Aduma, because of the number of sites excavated and assemblages analyzed, because they are constrained in both time and geography and because they show a range of behavioral variation it is possible to gain some insight into late MSA adaptation within this region. The Middle Awash Valley Ethiopian Aduma sites reported here are significant within this context. The localities that were given systematic inspection are mapped on Fig. 2. The excavated materials comprise 10 assemblages that include lithics and spatially associated vertebrate faunas from eight sites referred to as A1, A2 (VP1/1 and VP 1/3), A4, A5, A8, A8A, A8B. They represent a distinct localized variant within the Horn of Africa. While a second set of comparable sites (Shea et al., 2002) is possibly present in the Southern Ethiopian Rift Valley in the Omo River Kibish formation, archaeological data are insufficient to delineate clearly the boundaries of what is herein termed the “Aduma Figure 1. Location of the Middle Awash region, Aduma and the Ardu sediments. The area from Aduma village North to the furthermost Ardu sediment is denoted in this article as “Aduma.” 2 8 • P a l e o A n t h r o p o l o g y 2 0 0 5 Industry.” Aduma provides an example of a regional tradition which, while clearly MSA in technology, developed in relative independence following a trajectory towards lithic miniaturization over time; it provides an excellent comparative example to the better known South African sequence. Although at Aduma synchronic paleoenvironmental diversity is limited by a tightly constrained geographical area of only 15 sq. km, rapid geomorphological change characterizes this tectonically active region and the 10 assemblages which constitute the Aduma sample provide insight into how MSA hominids adapted to changing resource availability over time.

The Archaeology of Aduma Middle Stone Age Sites in the Awash Valley, Ethiopia

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The Archaeology of Aduma Middle Stone Age Sites in the Awash Valley, Ethiopia