David Pleurdeau

“Of Sheep and Men”: Earliest Direct Evidence of Caprine Domestication in Southern Africa at Leopard Cave (Erongo, Namibia)

The origins of herding practices in southern Africa remain controversial. The first appearance of domesticated caprines in the subcontinent is thought to be c. 2000 years BP; however, the origin of this cultural development is still widely debated. Recent genetic analyses support the long-standing hypothesis of herder migration from the north, while other researchers have argued for a cultural diffusion hypothesis where the spread of herding practices took place without necessarily implicating simultaneous and large population movements. Here we document the Later Stone Age (LSA) site of Leopard Cave (Erongo, Namibia), which contains confirmed caprine remains, from which we infer that domesticates were present in the southern African region as early as the end of the first millennium BC. These remains predate the first evidence of domesticates previously recorded for the subcontinent. This discovery sheds new light on the emergence of herding practices in southern Africa, and also on the possible southward routes used by caprines along the western Atlantic coast.

Human remains from a new Upper Pleistocene sequence in Bondi Cave (Western Georgia)

A new sequence containing human remains from a previously unstudied cave, Bondi Cave, has been discovered in Georgia, with deposits dating to the Caucasian Upper Pleistocene. This site lies in the basin of Rioni-Kvirila Rivers, in the Imereti region of north-western Georgia. The site has yielded a long sequence with human occupations dated from~39 ka14C (uncalibrated) and thus covers the time span of the Middle Palaeolithic (MP)-Upper Palaeolithic (UP) transition in the region. Changes in the techno- logical features between the lower and upper part of the sequence indicate that Bondi Cave could potentially highlight the tempo and mode of the population replacement. Indeed, recent studies in the southern Caucasus (notably at Ortvale Klde, Western Georgia) suggest a very rapid occupation by modern humans replacing existing Neanderthal populations (Adler, 2002; Meshveliani et al., 2004; Bar-Yosef et al., 2006; Adler et al., 2008). The rich UP levels at the upper and middle parts of the new sequence offer data on modern human subsistence and technological behaviors, and on the humans who occupied this cave, as a human tooth has also been discovered in this part of the sequence.

The Early Oldowan Stone-Tool Assemblage from Fejej FJ-1A, Ethiopia

Located in the Omo-Turkana basin at the northern limit of the Koobi Fora sedimentary Formation, the Fejej region has recently proven to be a rich study area for understanding early hominin behaviour and paleoenvironmental conditions. Among the rich fossiliferous and stone artefact localities discovered so far at Fejej, the FJ-1a archeological site has yielded a faunal and lithic assemblage in primary context. The archeological level is situated within a 15 meter fluvial sequence beneath a volcanic tuff. Geochronological data from the FJ-1 sequence indicate an age of nearly 1,9 Ma for the FJ-1a artefact level. The stone industry was knapped from locally available raw materials (mainly quartz and basalt) and rocks had been carefully selected according to specific petrographical and formal criterion. Hominins mastered several distinct stone knapping methods and used more or less exhaustive reduction sequences in order to produce small flakes. The different techniques used for stone reduction are defined in this paper thanks to a series of refits of flakes onto cores. Along with the refits, an in-depth analysis of the flakes, cores and worked pebbles provides an overview of the technological capacities of hominins present at the site nearly 2 million years ago. After the Fejej FJ-1a site was abandoned the archeological materials were rapidly buried, leaving an almost undisturbed archeological level. This site appears to represent a short episode of hominin occupation.

New chronology for the Middle Palaeolithic of the southern Caucasus suggests early demise of Neanderthals in this region.

Neanderthal populations of the southern and northern Caucasus became locally extinct during the Late Pleistocene. The timing of their extinction is key to our understanding of the relationship between Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans (AMH) in Eurasia. Recent re-dating of the end of the Middle Palaeolithic (MP) at Mezmaiskaya Cave, northern Caucasus, and Ortvale Klde, southern Caucasus, suggests that Neanderthals did not survive after 39 ka cal BP (thousands of years ago, calibrated before present). Here we extend the analysis and present a revised regional chronology for MP occupational phases in western Georgia, based on a series of model-based Bayesian analyses of radiocarbon dated bone samples obtained from the caves of Sakajia, Ortvala and Bronze Cave. This allows the establishment of probability intervals for the onset and end of each of the dated levels and for the end of the MP occupation at the three sites. Our results for Sakajia indicate that the end of the late Middle Palaeolithic (LMP) and start of the Upper Palaeolithic (UP) occurred between 40,200 and 37,140 cal BP. The end of the MP in the neighboring site of Ortvala occurred earlier at 43,540-41,420 cal BP (at 68.2% probability). The dating of MP layers from Bronze Cave confirms that it does not contain LMP phases. These results imply that Neanderthals did not survive in the southern Caucasus after 37 ka cal BP, supporting a model of Neanderthal extinction around the same period as reported for the northern Caucasus and other regions of Europe. Taken together with previous reports of the earliest UP phases in the region and the lack of archaeological evidence for an in situ transition, these results indicate that AMH arrived in the Caucasus a few millennia after the Neanderthal demise and that the two species probably did not interact.

The Lithic Assemblage of the 1975-1976 Excavation of the Porc-Epic Cave, Dire-Dawa, Ethiopia. Implications for the East African Middle Stone Age

I provide a qualitative study of the unpublished portions of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) lithic assemblage from the Porc-Epic cave site in Ethiopia, presently conserved at the National Museum of Ethiopia (NME), in Addis Ababa.Previous investigation of all the lithic material collected during the 1933 excavations resulted in an in-depth technological study, revealing its important technical variability, and integrated this material into a regional and continental context. The focus here are the 1975-76 excavations at Porc-Epic Cave, which have provided a collection of several tens of thousands of stone tools, forming the majority of the total lithic material of the cave. This collection, never before studied, published, or inventoried, is stored at the NME in Addis Ababa. It is remarkable for its quantitative importance and its relevance to Ethiopian heritage, as well as for its scientific interest concerning the behaviour of modern humans more than 70,000 years ago.

The first technical sequences in human evolution from East Gona, Afar region, Ethiopia

Gona in the Afar region of Ethiopia has yielded the earliest Oldowan stone tools in the world. Artefacts from the East Gona (EG) 10 site date back 2.6 million years. Analysis of the lithic assemblage from EG 10 reveals the earliest-known evidence for refitting and conjoining stone artefacts. This new information supplements data from other Oldowan sites in East Africa, and provides an important insight into the technological capacities and evolutionary development of hominins during this period.

Late Pleistocene and Holocene Lithic Variability at Goda Buticha (Southeastern Ethiopia): Implications for the Understanding of the Middle and Late Stone Age of the Horn of Africa

The Late Pleistocene is a key period to understand the shift from the Middle ( MSA ) to the Late Stone Age ( LSA ) in Africa. More generally, it is also a crucial time for elucidation of changes in the technological behaviours of human populations in Africa after the main Out of Africa event of modern humans ca. 60-50 thousand years ago. However, the archaeological record for this period is relatively poor, particularly for the Horn of Africa. Here we present a detailed analysis of the lithic assemblages from Goda Buticha ( GB ), a cave in southeastern Ethiopia, which has yielded a long stratigraphic sequence including Late Pleistocene and Holocene levels. This study (1) contributes to a better knowledge of the late MSA in the Horn of Africa; (2) documents a late Holocene LSA level ( GB – Complex I ); (3) highlights the presence of MSA characteristics associated with LSA features in the Holocene ( GB – Layer II c). This adds to the emerging record of great lithic technological variability during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene in this region.Le Pleistocene recent est une periode cle pour comprendre le changement du Middle ( MSA ) vers le Late Stone Age ( LSA ) en Afrique. Plus generalement, c’est une periode-cle pour comprendre les changements dans les comportements techniques des populations humaines en Afrique, apres l’episode principal Out of Africa des Hommes modernes, ca 60-50 ka. Cependant, les donnees archeologiques pour cette periode sont relativement rares, particulierement pour la Corne de l’Afrique. Nous presentons ici une analyse detaillee des assemblages lithiques de la grotte de Goda Buticha ( GB ), situee pres de Dire-Dawa, en Ethiopie, et qui a livre une longue sequence stratigraphique incluant des niveaux dates du Pleistocene recent et de l’Holocene. Cette etude (1) contribue a une meilleure connaissance du MSA recent de la Corne de l’Afrique; (2) decrit un niveau LSA de l’Holocene recent ( GB – complexe I ); (3) souligne la presence de caracteristiques MSA associees a des traits LSA tres tard dans l’Holocene ( GB – couche II c). Ces nouvelles donnees attestent de la grande variabilite technique au Pleistocene recent et a l’Holocene dans cette region.This article is in English.

Research data supporting "Late Pleistocene and Holocene Lithic Variability at Goda Buticha (Southeastern Ethiopia): Implications for the Understanding of the Middle and Late Stone Age of the Horn of Africa"

This data is composed of (1) a) a list of the attributes used in the analysis of the lithic assemblages of Goda Buticha (southeastern Ethiopia); the site has yielded a sequence dated to the Late Pleistocene (from ca 65 ka) until the Holocene (upper levels dated to 2-1ka), b) a figure illustrating how some of the attributes were recorded; (2) the raw data regarding (a) elongated blanks, (b) cores, (c) retouched points and (d) other retouched tools. Measurements were taken on the lithic artefacts between 2011 and 2012 at the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis-Ababa (Ethiopia).