Anne-Marie Bacon

An Archaic Homo Molar from Northern Vietnam1

fabrice demeter, anne-marie bacon, nguyen kim thuy, vu the long, hirofumi matsumura, ha huu nga, mathieu schuster, nguyen mai huong, and yves coppens Laboratoire de Paleoanthropologie et Prehistoire, College de France, 11 Place Marcelin Berthelot, 75005 Paris, France (fabrice.demeter@college-de-france.fr) (Demeter and Coppens)/Unite Ecoanthropologie et Ethnobiologie UMR 5145 du CNRS, Departement Homme, Nature, Societes du MNHN (Demeter)/UPR 2147 du CNRS, 44, rue du l’Amiral Mouchez, 75014 Paris, France (Bacon)/National Center for Social Sciences and Humanities of Vietnam, Institute of Archaeology, 61, Phan Chu Trinh, Hanoi, Vietnam (Thuy, Long, Nga, Huong)/Sapporo Medical University, Department of Anatomy, Minami 1, Mishi 17, ChuoKu, Sapporo 060-8556, Japan (Matsumura)/ULP, Universite Louis Pasteur, Institut de Geologie (EOSTCGS CNRS-UMR 7517), 1, rue Blessig, 67084 Strasbourg cedex, France (Schuster). 28 i 04

Analyse morphofonctionnelle des fémurs et des tibias des «Adapis» du Quercy: mise en évidence de cinq types morphologiques

The study of 13 partial femora and 3 tibiae from late Eocene Quercy localities (France) confirms the distinction of the two adapinine genera Adapis and Palaeolemur. The femora come from both new (Rosières 2 and Escamps) and old collections (of uncertain provenance). They allow the distinction of 5 morphological groups, whose morphological characteristics are functionally explained. Adapis and Palaeolemur show strong similarities to some small living platyrrhines (Saimiri, Cebus, Aotus) and much less to lorisines. Type 1 and type 2 were probably branch walking and running forms, using climbing less frequently. Types 4 and 5 were probably less specialized for running and used climbing more frequently. These relatively close 4 types are interpreted as 4 species of Adapis. Type 3 is associated with the only species known from Escamps, Palaeolemur betillei. This last species appears to have been predominantly a climber, however, without the morphological specializations of the posterior limb associated with slow climbing in lorisines.

Early Modern Humans from Tam Pà Ling, Laos: Fossil Review and Perspectives

Despite the importance of its geographical position for early modern human migration through Australasia, the Indochinese Peninsula has produced relatively few fossils or well-documented archaeological sites, resulting in a poor chronology for early occupation. Tam Pà Ling (TPL), a cave in northern Laos, is one of the rare sites yielding fossils contemporaneous with the earliest migrants into Australasia within a securely established chronology. From its discovery in 2008 until the most recently filed season in 2016, TPL has provided evidence of a modern human presence in the region by marine isotope stages 4 and 3. A partial cranium (TPL1), two mandibles (TPL2, TPL3), and assorted postcranial fragments (TPL4, TPL5) represent the earliest well-dated, anatomically modern humans in the Indochinese Peninsula and introduce new migration routes into the area. The sedimentary context of TPL is described and refined elsewhere, resulting in an approximate age of 44–63 ka for the TPL1 and TPL2 fossils and a maximum depositional age of 70 ka for the lowest layer containing the TPL3 mandible. This is 20 ka older than the depositional ages for the TPL1 and TPL2 fossils and establishes a new upper limit for sedimentary deposition at the site and for the associated fossil evidence. In this study, we review previously presented material (TPL1–TPL3), present unpublished postcranial material (TPL4 and TPL5), and provide dental metric analysis of the TPL1–TPL3 specimens.

Modern human fossils from Tam Pa Ling, Laos

Supplement: Program of the 81st Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists (2012)The catacomb of Saints Peter and Marcellinus located in the south-east of Rome approximately contains 25 000 graves dated from the 3rd to the 5th century AD. Seven newly discovered rooms having an unusual organization in the heart of the catacomb were investigated in 2003. Excavations of these rooms revealed a mass grave, where 3000 corpses were laid together. These individuals were stacked in rows apparently following a common fatal incident. Presumably, this epidemic crisis occurred between the 1st and the 3rd century AD. The specific funerary treatment (textile wrapping and plaster) recalls mummification and might be related to exogenous practices, possibly connected to Early Christians. Moreover, the presence of rare and expensive materials (e.g., Baltic amber, resins and gold threads) may indicate a high social status. Stable isotope analyses (carbon, nitrogen and oxygen) of bone collagen, bone apatite and tooth hydroxyapatite were carried out on 111 individuals to obtain further information on their diet and residential mobility. Additionally, a study of dental nonmetric traits was conducted on 200 individuals to define the biological distance between the deceased and to assess their phenetic similarity. The combination of these two approaches will bring new insight into the homogeneity of the Early population of the catacomb of Saints Peter and Marcellinus and the relationship between funerary practices and geographical origin of buried individuals.

Ancient Genomics Reveals Four Prehistoric Migration Waves into Southeast Asia

Two distinct population models have been put forward to explain present-day human diversity in Southeast Asia. The first model proposes long-term continuity (Regional Continuity model) while the other suggests two waves of dispersal (Two Layer model). Here, we use whole-genome capture in combination with shotgun sequencing to generate 25 ancient human genome sequences from mainland and island Southeast Asia, and directly test the two competing hypotheses. We find that early genomes from Hoabinhian hunter-gatherer contexts in Laos and Malaysia have genetic affinities with the Onge hunter-gatherers from the Andaman Islands, while Southeast Asian Neolithic farmers have a distinct East Asian genomic ancestry related to present-day Austroasiatic-speaking populations. We also identify two further migratory events, consistent with the expansion of speakers of Austronesian languages into Island Southeast Asia ca. 4 kya, and the expansion by East Asians into northern Vietnam ca. 2 kya. These findings support the Two Layer model for the early peopling of Southeast Asia and highlight the complexities of dispersal patterns from East Asia.