Jamie Hodgkins

On the Role of Fire in Neandertal Adaptations in Western Europe: Evidence from Pech de l'Azé and Roc de Marsal, France

Though the earliest evidence for the use of fire is a subject of debate, it is clear that by the late Middle Paleolithic, Neandertals in southwest France were able to use fire. The archaeological record of fire use in this place and time is, however, quite patchy. While there are a growing number of sites with impressive evidence for fire use, there are also a much larger number of sites without such evidence. Based primarily on evidence from two recently excavated well-stratified Middle Paleolithic sites, we argue here that taphonomic issues, sampling bias, or site use are not sufficient explanations to account for the relative lack of evidence for fire. Given that modern huntergatherers use fire daily and in a wide variety of circumstances, the prolonged periods of Mousterian occupation without fires, even during some of the harshest conditions of the late Pleistocene, raises significant issues regarding the role of fire during these times. In our view, the evidence suggests that Western European Neandertals were not habitual fire users. One explanation advanced here is that at least some Neandertals, even in the late Middle Paleolithic, lacked the technological skill to make fire on demand, and thus relied on access to natural sources of fire. PaleoAnthropology 2011: 216−242.

The Human Fossil Record of Bulgaria and the Formulation of Biogeographic Hypotheses

The location of Bulgaria on the Balkan Peninsula makes it potentially important for evaluating biogeographic hypotheses related to human evolution. The country lies at the crossroads of Europe and Asia Minor and constitutes a key portion of one of the possible dispersal pathways that hominin populations would have employed as they entered and left Europe during the Pleistocene. Unfortunately, the Pleistocene human fossil record of Bulgaria is sparse, and perhaps more importantly, the specific biogeographic hypotheses that human fossil discoveries might address could be more fully articulated. In this chapter, we review the fossil hominins currently known from Bulgaria and discuss the framing of biogeographic hypotheses.

Taphonomical and Zooarchaeological Analysis of Bordes’ Excavated Material from Levels I2 and Y-Z

This chapter explores the taphonomy and zooarchaeology of two archaeological levels from Pech IV (Levels I2 and Y-Z, corresponding to Layers 4B–4C and Layer 8, respectively, in the current excavations) that were excavated by Bordes from 1970 to 1977. The analyses described here were specifically geared toward (1) documenting the extent of post-depositional destruction that occurred in each level analyzed and; (2) determining the relative contribution by Neanderthals and carnivores to the accumulation and nutrient extraction of faunal remains found in Levels I2 and Y-Z

From monkeys to modeling: The 2017 meetings of the Paleoanthropology Society

The 25 annual Paleoanthropology Society meetings, held in Vancouver on March 28 and 29, 2017, took on new meaning in this politically tumultuous year. They preceded the highly publicized March for Science by just three weeks. As usual, research presented at the meetings set a high bar for scientific rigor and highlighted the rapid pace at which technological and analytical advances are allowing ever more detailed reconstruction of hominin behavior and evolution. These methodological strides have been spurred by the increasingly multidisciplinary nature of paleoanthropology, a fact that is important as political pressures mount to reduce funding and support from science.