Adam Brumm

Hominins on Flores, Indonesia, by one million years ago

Previous excavations at Mata Menge and Boa Lesa in the Soa Basin of Flores, Indonesia, recovered stone artefacts in association with fossilized remains of the large-bodied Stegodon florensis florensis. Zircon fission-track ages from these sites indicated that hominins had colonized the island by 0.88 ± 0.07 million years (Myr) ago. Here we describe the contents, context and age of Wolo Sege, a recently discovered archaeological site in the Soa Basin that has in situ stone artefacts and that lies stratigraphically below Mata Menge and immediately above the basement breccias of the basin. We show using 40Ar/39Ar dating that an ignimbrite overlying the artefact layers at Wolo Sege was erupted 1.02 ± 0.02 Myr ago, providing a new minimum age for hominins on Flores. This predates the disappearance from the Soa Basin of ‘pygmy’ Stegodon sondaari and Geochelone spp. (giant tortoise), as evident at the nearby site of Tangi Talo, which has been dated to 0.90 ± 0.07 Myr ago. It now seems that this extirpation or possible extinction event and the associated faunal turnover were the result of natural processes rather than the arrival of hominins. It also appears that the volcanic and fluvio-lacustrine deposits infilling the Soa Basin may not be old enough to register the initial arrival of hominins on the island.

Early stone technology on Flores and its implications for Homo floresiensis

In the Soa Basin of central Flores, eastern Indonesia, stratified archaeological sites, including Mata Menge, Boa Lesa and Kobatuwa (Fig. 1), contain stone artefacts associated with the fossilized remains of Stegodon florensis, Komodo dragon, rat and various other taxa. These sites have been dated to 840–700 kyr bp (thousand years before present). The authenticity of the Soa Basin artefacts and their provenance have been demonstrated by previous work, but to quell lingering doubts, here we describe the context, attributes and production modes of 507 artefacts excavated at Mata Menge. We also note specific similarities, and apparent technological continuity, between the Mata Menge stone artefacts and those excavated from Late Pleistocene levels at Liang Bua cave, 50 km to the west. The latter artefacts, dated to between 95–74 and 12 kyr ago, are associated with the remains of a dwarfed descendent of S. florensis, Komodo dragon, rat and a small-bodied hominin species, Homo floresiensis, which had a brain size of about 400 cubic centimetres. The Mata Menge evidence negates claims that stone artefacts associated with H. floresiensis are so complex that they must have been made by modern humans (Homo sapiens).

Symbolic Revolutions and the Australian Archaeological Record

Australia was colonized by at least 40,000 bp and scientists agree that the continent was only ever occupied by anatomically and behaviourally modern humans. Australia thus offers an alternative early record for the archaeological expression of behavioural modernity. This review finds that the pattern of change in the Australian archaeological sequence bears remarkable similarity to the pattern from the Lower to Upper Palaeolithic in the Old World, a finding that is inconsistent with the ‘symbolic revolution’ model of the origin of modern behaviour. This highlights the need for archaeologists to rethink the implications of the various criteria and scales of analysis used to identify modern human behaviour.

Revised stratigraphy and chronology for Homo floresiensis at Liang Bua in Indonesia

Homo floresiensis, a primitive hominin species discovered in Late Pleistocene sediments at Liang Bua (Flores, Indonesia), has generated wide interest and scientific debate. A major reason this taxon is controversial is because the H. floresiensis-bearing deposits, which include associated stone artefacts and remains of other extinct endemic fauna, were dated to between about 95 and 12 thousand calendar years (kyr) ago. These ages suggested that H. floresiensis survived until long after modern humans reached Australia by ~50 kyr ago. Here we report new stratigraphic and chronological evidence from Liang Bua that does not support the ages inferred previously for the H. floresiensis holotype (LB1), ~18 thousand calibrated radiocarbon years before present (kyr cal. bp), or the time of last appearance of this species (about 17 or 13–11 kyr cal. bp). Instead, the skeletal remains of H. floresiensis and the deposits containing them are dated to between about 100 and 60 kyr ago, whereas stone artefacts attributable to this species range from about 190 to 50 kyr in age. Whether H. floresiensis survived after 50 kyr ago—potentially encountering modern humans on Flores or other hominins dispersing through southeast Asia, such as Denisovans—is an open question.

Shell Artefact Production at 32,000-28,000 BP in Island Southeast Asia: Thinking across Media?

The evolution of anatomical and behavioural modernity in Homo sapiens has been one of the key focus areas in both archaeology and palaeoanthropology since their inception. Traditionally, interpretations have drawn mainly on evidence from the many large and well‐known sites in Europe, but archaeological research in Africa and the Levant is increasingly altering and elaborating upon our understanding of later human evolution. Despite the presence of a number of important early modern human and other hominin sites in Southeast Asia, evidence from this region has not contributed to the global picture in any significant way. Indeed, the acknowledged simplicity of lithic assemblages has led generations of scholars to assume that Southeast Asia was far from the cutting edge of behavioural evolution. Comparison of sophisticated shell tools from levels dated to 32,000–28,000 b.p. in eastern Indonesia with lithic artefacts recovered from the same levels and an assessment of raw‐material procurement suggest that using lithic technologies as markers of behavioural complexity may be misleading in a Southeast Asian context and, indeed, may be hampering our efforts to assess behavioural complexity in global and comparative frameworks.

Earliest hominin occupation of Sulawesi, Indonesia

Sulawesi is the largest and oldest island within Wallacea, a vast zone of oceanic islands separating continental Asia from the Pleistocene landmass of Australia and Papua (Sahul). By one million years ago an unknown hominin lineage had colonized Flores immediately to the south, and by about 50 thousand years ago, modern humans (Homo sapiens) had crossed to Sahul. On the basis of position, oceanic currents and biogeographical context, Sulawesi probably played a pivotal part in these dispersals. Uranium-series dating of speleothem deposits associated with rock art in the limestone karst region of Maros in southwest Sulawesi has revealed that humans were living on the island at least 40 thousand years ago (ref. 5). Here we report new excavations at Talepu in the Walanae Basin northeast of Maros, where in situ stone artefacts associated with fossil remains of megafauna (Bubalus sp., Stegodon and Celebochoerus) have been recovered from stratified deposits that accumulated from before 200 thousand years ago until about 100 thousand years ago. Our findings suggest that Sulawesi, like Flores, was host to a long-established population of archaic hominins, the ancestral origins and taxonomic status of which remain elusive.

'The falling sky': symbolic and cosmological associations of the Mt William greenstone axe quarry, Central Victoria, Australia

This article examines the roles of socio-symbolic practices and cosmological beliefs in the production and exchange of stone artefacts in an ethnohistorically documented context in Australia. Isabel McBrydes petrological and ethnohistorical analysis of greenstone axe distribution patterns in central Victoria provides a key example of social factors overriding technological concerns in the production and exchange of lithic artefacts. Her research shows that greenstone axes from Mt William quarry were distributed further than axes from equivalent sources. This suggests that Mt William stone axes had symbolic values that cannot be appreciated from straightforward economic perspectives – the aim of this article is to investigate why. A detailed consideration of the ethnohistorical evidence highlights the embeddedness of axe technology in cultural perceptions of landscape and the belief systems of Aboriginal people.

Homo floresiensis and the African Oldowan

The small-bodied hominin Homo floresiensis was recently identified at Liang Bua, Flores, Indonesia. Some researchers have argued that H. floresiensis represents pathological individuals from a behaviorally modern Homo sapiens population, arguing in part that the stone-tools found in association are too “advanced” to have been manufactured by a nonmodern hominin. Here we show that the Pleistocene stone-tools from Flores, including Liang Bua, are technologically and morphologically similar to the 1.2–1.9 Mya Oldowan/Developed Oldowan tools from Olduvai Gorge in Africa. The Pleistocene lithic technology on Flores was therefore within the capabilities of small-brained, nonmodern hominins.

Scraper reduction and "imposed form" at the Lower Palaeolithic site of High Lodge, England.

This paper investigates patterns of scraper retouch at the Lower Palaeolithic site of High Lodge, England. The unifacial scrapers from High Lodge are intensively retouched tools with regular and complex shapes that have been routinely interpreted as evidence of intentional design. The primary aim is to determine whether the different scraper types identified in the assemblage represent discrete and discontinuous implement categories made according to fixed designs, or rather, points or stages along one or more reduction continuums. To achieve this, we apply a range of quantitative measures of artifact reduction to all complete single, double, convergent, and transverse scrapers from the site (n=165). Our results indicate that morphological and typological diversity in the High Lodge scraper assemblage can be parsimoniously explained as a result of both the extent to which implements were resharpened during use and subtle variability in the nature of blank forms selected for retouch. Accordingly, we critique the notion that high levels of morphological complexity in retouched Lower Palaeolithic tool types necessarily reflect the imposition of preconceived forms on stones.

The Movius Line and the Bamboo Hypothesis: Early Hominin Stone Technology in Southeast Asia

Abstract This paper reviews the development of ideas about early hominin stone technology and behavior in Southeast Asia and the state of current thinking on the subject. Particular emphasis is placed on the enduring influence of the “Movius Line” concept, the decades-old notion that Acheulean handaxes are absent from Southeast Asia (and the Far East in general), marking this area off as distinct from the Palaeolithic developmental sequence elsewhere in the Old World. The most widely accepted explanation for the Movius Line is that organic-based tool technologies took precedence over stone in the endemic rainforests of Pleistocene Southeast Asia: the so-called “Bamboo Hypothesis. “The rationalefor the Bamboo Hypothesis is examined and the model called into question on empirical and theoreticalgrounds. Finally, thepaper reviews claims for early hominin stone tools in Southeast Asia and considers their implications for our understanding of Palaeolithic hominin behavior.