Michael Chazan

Microstratigraphic evidence of in situ fire in the Acheulean strata of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa

The ability to control fire was a crucial turning point in human evolution, but the question when hominins first developed this ability still remains. Here we show that micromorphological and Fourier transform infrared microspectroscopy (mFTIR) analyses of intact sediments at the site of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa, provide unambiguous evidence—in the form of burned bone and ashed plant remains—that burning took place in the cave during the early Acheulean occupation, approximately 1.0 Ma. To the best of our knowledge, this is the earliest secure evidence for burning in an archaeological context.

Evidence for Early Hafted Hunting Technology

Ancient Weaponry Hafting, which allowed projectile points to be attached to a staff, was an important technological advance that greatly increased the functionality of weapons of early humans. This technology was used by both Neandertals and early Homo sapiens and is readily seen after about 200,000 to 300,000 years ago, but whether it was used by a common ancestor or was separately acquired by each species is unclear. Supporting use by a common ancestor, Wilkins et al. (p. 942) report that stone points in a site in central South Africa were hafted to form spears around 500,000 years ago. The evidence includes damaged edges consistent with this use and marks at the base that are suggestive of hafting. Damage on 500,000-year-old stone points implies their use on spears, perhaps by the ancestor of Neandertals and Homo sapiens. Hafting stone points to spears was an important advance in weaponry for early humans. Multiple lines of evidence indicate that ~500,000-year-old stone points from the archaeological site of Kathu Pan 1 (KP1), South Africa, functioned as spear tips. KP1 points exhibit fracture types diagnostic of impact. Modification near the base of some points is consistent with hafting. Experimental and metric data indicate that the points could function well as spear tips. Shape analysis demonstrates that the smaller retouched points are as symmetrical as larger retouched points, which fits expectations for spear tips. The distribution of edge damage is similar to that in an experimental sample of spear tips and is inconsistent with expectations for cutting or scraping tools. Thus, early humans were manufacturing hafted multicomponent tools ~200,000 years earlier than previously thought.

Radiometric dating of the Earlier Stone Age sequence in Excavation I at Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa: preliminary results

We present here the results of 44 paleomagnetic measurements, and single cosmogenic burial and optically stimulated luminescence ages for the Earlier Stone Age deposits from Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape, South Africa. The resulting paleomagnetic sequence: N>R>N>R>N constrains the Earlier Stone Age strata in this part of the site to between approximately 0.78-1.96 Ma. A single cosmogenic date of approximately 2.0 Ma from the base of the section offers some corroboration for the paleomagnetic sequence. Preliminary results indicate that the small lithic assemblage from the basal stratum may contain an Oldowan facies. This is overlain by several strata containing Acheulean industries. The preliminary radiometric dates reported here place the onset of the Acheulean at this site to approximately 1.6 Ma, which is roughly contemporaneous with that of East Africa.

Oasis or Mirage? Assessing the Role of Abrupt Climate Change in the Prehistory of the Southern Levant

Few prehistoric developments have received as much attention as the origins of agriculture and its associated societal implications in the Near East. A great deal of this research has focused on correlating the timing of various cultural transformations leading up to farming and village life with dramatic climatic events. Using rigorously selected radiocarbon dates from archaeological sites and palaeoenvironmental datasets, we test the predominate models for culture change from the early Epipalaeolithic to the Pottery Neolithic (c. 23,000–8000 cal. bp) to explore how well they actually fit with well-documented and dated palaeoclimatic events, such as the Bolling-Allerod, Younger Dryas, Preboreal and 8.2 ka event. Our results demonstrate that these correlations are not always as clear or as consistent as some authors suggest. Rather, any relationships between climate change and culture change are more complicated than existing models allow. The lack of fit between these sources of data highlight our need for further and more precise chronological data from archaeological sites, additional localized palaeoclimatic data sets, and more nuanced models for integrating palaeoenvironmental data and prehistoric peoples behaviours.

Reconstructing the history of sediment deposition in caves: A case study from Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa

We applied cosmogenic isotope burial dating, magnetostratigraphy, and grain-size distribution analysis to elucidate the history of the sedimentary sequence, composed of fine quartz sands and silts, of Wonderwerk Cave, located on the southern edge of the Kalahari Desert, South Africa. The source for the quartz sand is the Kalahari sand dunes, presently located ∼100 km to the north of the cave. Field observations and grain-size analysis suggest a sediment transport scenario that includes eolian transport of Kalahari sand, abraded to a size of 70–100 µm, to the Kuruman Hills, temporary storage on the hill slopes and valleys surrounding Wonderwerk Cave, and later transport and deposition inside the cave. Our results suggest simple burial ages for sediments from both the front and back of the cave that range between 2.63 ± 0.17 Ma and 1.56 ± 0.10 Ma following initial exposure of 310–620 k.y. However, 26 Al/ 10 Be ratios of 3.98 ± 0.24 and 4.08 ± 0.22 measured in a sand sample collected from the surface outside the cave may imply an initial burial signal equivalent to 0.78 ± 0.15 Ma, thus reducing the possible age range of the buried samples to between 1.85 ± 0.23 and 0.78 ± 0.18 Ma. The paleomagnetic results for the front of the cave gave a polarity sequence of N > R > N||N, where N indicates normal polarity, and R indicates reverse polarity. This sequence can be correlated with both the older and younger cosmogenic burial age ranges. The correlation suggests that in the cave front, cosmogenic burial ages and the acquisition of stable remanent magnetization were not significantly affected by chemical and physical processes and that postburial production of cosmogenic isotopes was insignificant. In contrast, at the back of the cave, the paleomagnetic polarity sequence of R > N cannot be correlated with the cosmogenic burial ages, since the temporal gap between the initial penetration of the sediment into the cave and the final acquisition of a stable remanent magnetization may have been long (∼10 5 yr), and the single polarity transition can be correlated to any reverse-normal transition that occurred during the Quaternary. This highlights the need for caution when cosmogenic burial ages and paleomagnetic sequences are compared. The buried sediments in Wonderwerk Cave show similar grain-size distributions to the fine sand sediment presently exposed at the surface in the vicinity of the cave. Furthermore, calculated preburial 10 Be concentrations for the buried sediment are similar to those measured in sediment outside the cave. These similarities suggest that the environmental conditions and rates of geomorphic processes that persisted during sand deposition in Wonderwerk Cave during the late Pliocene and early Pleistocene may have been similar to those currently experienced in the southern Kalahari, the Kuruman Hills, and the western Ghaap Plain. These conditions favor the transport of fine-grained quartz sand to the vicinity of the cave.

Protein sequences bound to mineral surfaces persist into deep time

Proteins persist longer in the fossil record than DNA, but the longevity, survival mechanisms and substrates remain contested. Here, we demonstrate the role of mineral binding in preserving the protein sequence in ostrich (Struthionidae) eggshell, including from the palaeontological sites of Laetoli (3.8 Ma) and Olduvai Gorge (1.3 Ma) in Tanzania. By tracking protein diagenesis back in time we find consistent patterns of preservation, demonstrating authenticity of the surviving sequences. Molecular dynamics simulations of struthiocalcin-1 and -2, the dominant proteins within the eggshell, reveal that distinct domains bind to the mineral surface. It is the domain with the strongest calculated binding energy to the calcite surface that is selectively preserved. Thermal age calculations demonstrate that the Laetoli and Olduvai peptides are 50 times older than any previously authenticated sequence (equivalent to ~16 Ma at a constant 10°C). DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.17092.001

Milestones in the development of symbolic behaviour: a case study from Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa

Abstract Wonderwerk Cave (Northern Cape Province, South Africa) is an example of a natural locality that, in the past as in the present, was imbued with meaning and symbolism. Today, local communities associate the cave with a snake spirit, while rock art adorning the cave walls attests to the special status of the cave during the Later Stone Age. In the terminal Acheulean (over 180,000 years ago), hominins introduced manuports with special sensory properties into the back of the cave, a locality with singular acoustic and visual qualities. Thus, the archaeological record of Wonderwerk Cave serves as a unique and extensive diachronic record of milestones in the development of symbolic behaviour. It provides evidence to support the position that elements of symbolic behaviour emerged long before the dispersal of modern humans out of Africa.

Early Evidence for Brilliant Ritualized Display: Specularite Use in the Northern Cape (South Africa) between ∼500 and ∼300 Ka

Earth pigments figure prominently in debates about signal evolution among later Homo. Most archaeologists consider such behavior to postdate ~300 Ka. To evaluate claims for Fauresmith and Acheulean pigments in South Africa’s Northern Cape Province, extending back 1.1 Ma (Beaumont and Bednarik 2013), we reexamined collections from Kathu Pan 1, Wonderwerk Cave, and Canteen Kopje. We report and describe materials where we are confident as to a pigment status. We found (i) compelling evidence of absence in all but the youngest Acheulean contexts, (ii) definite but irregular use in Fauresmith contexts from at least 500 Ka, (iii) widespread and regular use within this limited area by ~300 Ka, coeval with circumstantial evidence for pigment transport over considerable distances and use in fire-lit environments. These findings are used to evaluate predictions derived from two competing hypotheses addressing the evolution of group ritual, the “female cosmetic coalitions” hypothesis (Power 2009) and the “cheap-but-honest signals” hypothesis (Kuhn 2014), finding that the former accounts for a greater range of the observations. The findings underscore the wider behavioral significance of the Fauresmith as an industry transitional between the Acheulean and the Middle Stone Age.

Flake production at the Lower Palaeolithic site of Holon (Israel): implications for the origin of the Levallois method

The analysis of flake production at the late Lower Palaeolithic site of Holon (Israel) suggests that the introduction of the Levallois method was an abrupt event related to a shift in the design of tools.

Assessing the Lower to Middle Paleolithic Transition

This paper considers three different approaches to the use of the concept of time series as applied to archaeological chronology, with particular reference to the Lower to Middle Paleolithic transition. Perspectives on this transition based on the theoretical positions of Leroi-Gourhan and Childe are considered along with the possibility of adopting the concept of time series as a measure of values at fixed intervals.