Curtis W. Marean

Early human use of marine resources and pigment in South Africa during the Middle Pleistocene

Genetic and anatomical evidence suggests that Homo sapiens arose in Africa between 200 and 100 thousand years (kyr) ago, and recent evidence indicates symbolic behaviour may have appeared ∼135–75 kyr ago. From 195–130 kyr ago, the world was in a fluctuating but predominantly glacial stage (marine isotope stage MIS6); much of Africa was cooler and drier, and dated archaeological sites are rare. Here we show that by ∼164 kyr ago (±12 kyr) at Pinnacle Point (on the south coast of South Africa) humans expanded their diet to include marine resources, perhaps as a response to these harsh environmental conditions. The earliest previous evidence for human use of marine resources and coastal habitats was dated to ∼125 kyr ago. Coincident with this diet and habitat expansion is an early use and modification of pigment, probably for symbolic behaviour, as well as the production of bladelet stone tool technology, previously dated to post-70 kyr ago. Shellfish may have been crucial to the survival of these early humans as they expanded their home ranges to include coastlines and followed the shifting position of the coast when sea level fluctuated over the length of MIS6.

Evidence for stone-tool-assisted consumption of animal tissues before 3.39 million years ago at Dikika, Ethiopia

The oldest direct evidence of stone tool manufacture comes from Gona (Ethiopia) and dates to between 2.6 and 2.5 million years (Myr) ago. At the nearby Bouri site several cut-marked bones also show stone tool use approximately 2.5 Myr ago. Here we report stone-tool-inflicted marks on bones found during recent survey work in Dikika, Ethiopia, a research area close to Gona and Bouri. On the basis of low-power microscopic and environmental scanning electron microscope observations, these bones show unambiguous stone-tool cut marks for flesh removal and percussion marks for marrow access. The bones derive from the Sidi Hakoma Member of the Hadar Formation. Established 40Ar–39Ar dates on the tuffs that bracket this member constrain the finds to between 3.42 and 3.24 Myr ago, and stratigraphic scaling between these units and other geological evidence indicate that they are older than 3.39 Myr ago. Our discovery extends by approximately 800,000 years the antiquity of stone tools and of stone-tool-assisted consumption of ungulates by hominins; furthermore, this behaviour can now be attributed to Australopithecus afarensis.

Fire As an Engineering Tool of Early Modern Humans

Friendly Fire Hints of the use of more advanced materials by humans, including symbolic marking and jewelry, appear about 75,000 years ago or so in Africa. Brown et al. (p. 859; see the Perspective by Webb and Domanski) now show that these early modern humans were also experimenting with the use of fire for improved processing of materials. Replication experiments and analysis of artifacts suggest that humans in South Africa at this time, and perhaps earlier, systematically heated stone materials, including silcrete to improve its flaking properties in making tools. Early modern humans used fire to improve the fracturing of silcrete in making tools in South Africa 72,000 years ago. The controlled use of fire was a breakthrough adaptation in human evolution. It first provided heat and light and later allowed the physical properties of materials to be manipulated for the production of ceramics and metals. The analysis of tools at multiple sites shows that the source stone materials were systematically manipulated with fire to improve their flaking properties. Heat treatment predominates among silcrete tools at ~72 thousand years ago (ka) and appears as early as 164 ka at Pinnacle Point, on the south coast of South Africa. Heat treatment demands a sophisticated knowledge of fire and an elevated cognitive ability and appears at roughly the same time as widespread evidence for symbolic behavior.

Captive hyaena bone choice and destruction, the Schlepp effect and olduvai archaeofaunas

Abstract Skeletal element representation at archaeological and palaeontological sites often differs from natural anatomical proportions. At archaeological sites this pattern could result from hominid behaviour, predepositional destructive or dispersive forces (such as carnivore ravaging), or post-depositional destructive forces (such as sediment compaction and leaching). Predepositional ravaging by carnivores is documented at several important Plio-Pleistocene archaeofaunal assemblages (FLK Zinjanthropus and FLKN levels 1–2). Here we present the first systematic and controlled experimental data on the effect of this process on skeletal element survival. Simulated archaeological assemblages of defleshed hammerstone-broken and unbroken bones were created within a captive spotted hyaena enclosure, and controlled numbers of hyaenas were allowed to ravage the sites. Vertebrae and pelves were nearly always chosen first for consumption by the hyaenas. Vertebrae and ribs were nearly always destroyed completely and pelves were destroyed 50% of the time. Limb-bone ends were frequently destroyed, while limb middle shaft fragments preserve nearly 100% of the original number of elements. Thus, hominid discarded bone assemblages, regardless of the original representation of elements, can come to resemble the schlepp effect simply through post-hominid hyaena scavenging. The documented pattern at FLK Zinjanthropus and FLKN1–2 of low frequencies of vertebrae, ribs and pelves and high frequencies of limbs may be due to post-hominid ravaging by hyaenas and not selective hominid transport of limb elements to the sites.

Impact of carnivore ravaging on zooarchaeological measures of element abundance

Most zooarchaeologists estimate limb-bone abundance from limb ends. Researchers have provided detailed documentation of the preferential destruction by carnivores of limb ends (Binford 1981; Binford et al. 1988; Blumenschine 1988; Brain 1981; Marean et al. 1990; Orloff and Marean 1990; Sutcliffe 1970). Others have observed differences between limb abundances calculated on limb shafts vs. ends, suggesting shaft pieces may provide more accurate estimates of original element abundance in carnivore-ravaged assemblages (Bunn 1986; Bunn and Kroll 1986; Blumenschine 1988; Klein 1975; Marean et al. 1990; Orloff and Marean 1990). However, the exact quantitative effect of carnivore ravaging on measures of element abundance has never been investigated. We provide an experimental test of the accuracy of different bone portions for estimating the original element abundance after carnivore ravaging. Spotted hyenas were allowed to ravage 33 simulated archaeological sites of known element abundance. Estimates of abundance calculated on limb ends differ greatly from original bone abundance, and estimates based on proximal/distal-shaft pieces are also inaccurate. Estimates from middle-shaft fragments, however, are uniquely accurate. These experimental data mandate reanalysis of assemblages where limb frequencies were calculated from limb ends and carnivore ravaging is implicated, and experimentally vindicate observations originally provided by Klein (1975).

Characteristics of an Early Hominid Scavenging Niche [and Comments and Reply]

The characteristics of scavenging opportunities in the Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Crater are here documented and applied to the Plio/Pleistocene East Turkana and Olduvai lake basins. The earliest stone-tool-using, meat-eating hominids are argued to have most regularly encountered abandoned felid kills of medium-sized adult herbivores in riparian woodlands during the dry season, kills from which little flesh but all marrow and head contents could have been obtained. Additionally, it is suggested that they may have encountered large quantities of scavengeable flesh if sabertooth predation was concentrated on large herbivores. Such reconstruction of a possible hominid scavenging niche is considered a prerequisite to the development of criteria for the archaeological recognition of scavenging.

Mousterian Large‐Mammal Remains from Kobeh Cave Behavioral Implications for Neanderthals and Early Modern Humans

Researchers have argued that Neanderthals and/or early modern humans scavenged the majority of the larger mammals represented in Middle Paleolithic/Middle Stone Age faunal assem‐blages at Combe Grenal, Grotte Vaufrey, Grotta Guattari, Grotta dei Moscerini, and Klasies River Mouth. If this is true, then these hominids practiced a pattern of faunal exploitation undocu‐mented among modern hunter‐gatherers. The evidence for this scavenging rests upon the presence of a head‐dominated or headand‐foot‐dominated skeletal‐element pattern. These are skeletal parts with little flesh. However, the sites where this pattern is found are either biased assemblages, shaft fragments having been discarded by the excavators, or unbiased ones in which shaft ments were not included in the zooarchaeologists analysis. An analysis of the Mousterian fauna from Kobeh Cave, Iran, in which the mid‐shaft fragments of long bones typically considered nonidentifiable were refitted, identified, and entered into the mates of element abundance produced a skeletal‐element profile dominated by limb bones of the highest meat utility. If we remove these mid‐shaft fragments we create a profile of the headand‐foot variety. This suggests that the ubiquitous head‐and‐foot‐dominated or head‐dominated pattern is a methodological arti‐fact resulting from ignoring shaft fragments and that there is evidence that Neanderthals or early modern humans procured large mammals primarily from scavenging. Analysis of surface modification (cut marks, hammerstone percussion marks, and carnivore tooth marks) further substantiates a pattern of hunting by the Middle Paleolithic hominids that inhabited Kobeh Cave.

Pinnacle Point Cave 13B (Western Cape Province, South Africa) in context: The Cape Floral kingdom, shellfish, and modern human origins

Genetic and anatomical evidence suggests that Homo sapiens arose in Africa between 200 and 100ka, and recent evidence suggests that complex cognition may have appeared between ~164 and 75ka. This evidence directs our focus to Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 6, when from 195-123ka the world was in a fluctuating but predominantly glacial stage, when much of Africa was cooler and drier, and when dated archaeological sites are rare. Previously we have shown that humans had expanded their diet to include marine resources by ~164ka (±12ka) at Pinnacle Point Cave 13B (PP13B) on the south coast of South Africa, perhaps as a response to these harsh environmental conditions. The associated material culture documents an early use and modification of pigment, likely for symbolic behavior, as well as the production of bladelet stone tool technology, and there is now intriguing evidence for heat treatment of lithics. PP13B also includes a later sequence of MIS 5 occupations that document an adaptation that increasingly focuses on coastal resources. A model is developed that suggests that the combined richness of the Cape Floral Region on the south coast of Africa, with its high diversity and density of geophyte plants and the rich coastal ecosystems of the associated Agulhas Current, combined to provide a stable set of carbohydrate and protein resources for early modern humans along the southern coast of South Africa during this crucial but environmentally harsh phase in the evolution of modern humans. Humans structured their mobility around the use of coastal resources and geophyte abundance and focused their occupation at the intersection of the geophyte rich Cape flora and coastline. The evidence for human occupation relative to the distance to the coastline over time at PP13B is consistent with this model.

Measuring the post-depositional destruction of bone in archaeological assemblages

Abstract Post-depositional processes have affected most archaeozoological assemblages, often causing fragmentation or destruction of bone which can vary by assemblage and hamper interpretations of the original element representation (Klein & Cruz-Uribe, 1984, The Analysis of Animal Bones from Archaeological Sites. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.). Prior to performing interassemblage comparisons analysts must first assess the post-depositional destruction for each assemblage. Hammerstone breakage and hyaena ravaging experiments show that compact bones (carpals, tarsals, fibulae) are rarely fragmented, therefore fragmentation of these bones in archaeozoological assemblages should be the result of post-depositional destruction. A “Completeness Index” for compact bones provides a description of the magnitude of post-depositional destruction because the “Completeness Index” is independent of differential fragmentation and transport by bone collectors, and quantification variation between researchers. The efficacy of the “Completeness Index” for showing varing completeness of archaeological bone is demonstrated by comparing two Late Pleistocene archaeological sites in Kenya. When guided by experimental results the “Completeness Index” allows an evaluation of the impact of post-depositional destruction on the two Kenyan assemblages. Published archaeozoological reports must provide a measure of post-depositional destruction or else the usefulness of the data for comparative analysis is compromised.

An early and enduring advanced technology originating 71,000 years ago in South Africa

There is consensus that the modern human lineage appeared in Africa before 100,000 years ago. But there is debate as to when cultural and cognitive characteristics typical of modern humans first appeared, and the role that these had in the expansion of modern humans out of Africa. Scientists rely on symbolically specific proxies, such as artistic expression, to document the origins of complex cognition. Advanced technologies with elaborate chains of production are also proxies, as these often demand high-fidelity transmission and thus language. Some argue that advanced technologies in Africa appear and disappear and thus do not indicate complex cognition exclusive to early modern humans in Africa. The origins of composite tools and advanced projectile weapons figure prominently in modern human evolution research, and the latter have been argued to have been in the exclusive possession of modern humans. Here we describe a previously unrecognized advanced stone tool technology from Pinnacle Point Site 5–6 on the south coast of South Africa, originating approximately 71,000 years ago. This technology is dominated by the production of small bladelets (microliths) primarily from heat-treated stone. There is agreement that microlithic technology was used to create composite tool components as part of advanced projectile weapons. Microliths were common worldwide by the mid-Holocene epoch, but have a patchy pattern of first appearance that is rarely earlier than 40,000 years ago, and were thought to appear briefly between 65,000 and 60,000 years ago in South Africa and then disappear. Our research extends this record to ∼71,000 years, shows that microlithic technology originated early in South Africa, evolved over a vast time span (∼11,000 years), and was typically coupled to complex heat treatment that persisted for nearly 100,000 years. Advanced technologies in Africa were early and enduring; a small sample of excavated sites in Africa is the best explanation for any perceived ‘flickering’ pattern.