Lower and Middle Paleolithic Flashcards
Basic chronology of British Palaeolithic
- Period 1: Cromerian & Intra-Anglian (950 – 450 kya). Homo antecessor & H. heidelbergensis.
- Period 2: Pre-Levallois (420 – 250 kya). Late H. heidelbergensis & early Homo neanderthalensis – Neanderthals.
- Period 3: Levallois (250 – 150 kya). Homo neanderthalensis – Neanderthals.
- Period 4: Mousterian (60 – 44 kya). Homo neanderthalensis – Neanderthals.
- Period 5: Early Upper Palaeolithic (44 – 27 kya). Homo sapiens sapiens – Modern humans.
- Period 6: Magdelanian/Creswellian – Late Upper Palaeolithic (c. 15,000 – 9,500 BC).
Milankovitch cycles & climate change
• Eccentricity – Earth’s orbit around sun varies, on cycles of c. 413,000 – 100,000 yrs;
• Tilt – Tilt in Earth’s axis relative to sun varies, on cycles of c. 41,000 yrs;
• Precession – Slight ‘wobble’ in orientation of Earths axis, on cycles of c. 23,000 – 19,000 yrs.
-These all affect whether it is a glacial or an interglacial period
Earliest evidence of humans outside Africa
-Riwat, Pakistan – stone tools c. 1.9 mya
• simple chopping tools
-Dmanisi, Georgia
• bones of Homo erectus – c. 1.7 – 1.8 mya
-Gran Dolina, Atapuerca Hills, Spain c. 800 kya – 1.2 mya.
• Hominin remains associated with simple bifaces & chopping tools;
• Homo antecessor
Happisburgh, Norfolk
• Sediments laid down when Britain was connected to the continent
• Organic material such as tree trunks & pine cones
• Site 3 - notched flint flakes & faunal remains, dated by palaeomagnetic, floral & faunal means to c. 990,000 – 780,000 BP – oldest evidence for inhabitation in Britain.
• Happisburgh hominin footprints, 2013 - exposed by
erosion, containing hominin & animal
footprints of similar date.
• Possibly 5 different hominins of mixed ages
• The pollen, plant macrofossils, beetles, & molluscs at Site 3 indicate coast near river estuary, climate similar to southern Scandinavia.
• Reed swamp, grassland, & forests
• Animals - elephant, horse, red deer, spotted hyaena, beaver, & lemmings.
Boxgrove, West Sussex
- Excavated between 1982-1996
- Dated to c. 500,000 BP.
- Acheulean bifacial handaxes
- Horse scapula found with a circular puncture in it possibly from a wooden spear. Hunting?
- Cut marks and butchery patterns
- Hominin presence at Boxgrove - tibia of robust individual, and two teeth -Homo heidelbergensis.
- Tooth had many fine striations on it showing where they held food with their teeth whilst cutting it.
Were Acheulean handaxes sexy
• The bilateral symmetry of hand axes - cognitive & aesthetic development – the hand axe had
to be visualised ‘within’ the stone.
• Some hand axes from Britain & Continent also deliberately incorporate fossils
• Role in sexual selection?
Anglian glaciation
- From c. 450,000 – 420,000 BP
- Most of Britain covered by ice sheet, with meltwater lakes & polar desert at fringes.
- No evidence for any inhabitation
The Hoxnian interglacial
• Species included straighttusked elephant, narrow-nosed rhino, European hippo, red deer, fallow deer, lion, & spotted hyaena.
Ebbsfleet, Kent
• Straight-tusked elephant butchery site c. 420,000
BP &; lion astralagus from Ebbsfleet
• This was a Clactonian industry site – no bifaces.
Clatonian industry (c. 400,000 BP)
• Swanscombe, Clacton-on-Sea, & High Lodge in
Suffolk
• Made by striking thick, irregular flakes from flint cores. Used as crude choppers & handaxes – flakes were used as knives & scrapers.
• Initially thought to completely pre-date Acheulean
in Britain, now dated to c. 400,000 BP.
• May be a different tool kit, but some butchery sites found with no handaxes, so possibly different hominin
groups living at approx. same time.
• Clacton-on-Sea in Essex - yew wood digging stick or spear
• Similar to 8 slightly later wooden spears from Schöningen in Germany
• At Beeches Pit in Suffolk, charcoal deposits show large hearths maintained by side of a creek – earliest known in Britain.
• Burnt bone, shells and heated & reddened flints indicating highly localised burning
Swanscombe
- Swanscombe in Kent, tens of thousands of handaxes have probably been recovered from river gravel deposits over the years
- In 1935, 1936 and c. 1956, three separate finds were made of skull fragments from a young adult female.
- Many aspects of her skull are similar to another from Steinheim in Germany, & from the Pit of Bones at Atapuerca in Spain.
- These all have protoNeanderthal features.
Climatic fluctuations
• Interglacial > glacial > interglacial … repeat!
Interglacial vegetation sequence from cold to warm, then cold again
• Open steppe grassland > coniferous forest > deciduous woodland > coniferous forest > open grassland
The Neanderthal skeleton
- Robust, stocky (av. 1.5m);
- Broad shoulders, short lower limbs;
- Sometimes one arm more developed than other;
- Lack of sexual dimorphism;
- Often evidence for healed injuries.
Neanderthal skull
• Sloping foreheads, receding chin
• Heavy eyebrow ridges
• Large nose – cold adapted?
• Brain a little larger (1450 cc) than ours (1350 cc)
– Key issue is structure/quality of brain
Brains & language
Much controversy over years about language & speech;
• FOXP2 ‘language gene’ present;
• Previously thought limited vocal tract due to no hyoid bone, but one found at Kebara, Israel
• Differences in vocal tract?
• Neanderthal brains have much larger visual cortices & occipital lobes, & more of brain may have been occupied with body maintenance & muscle control.
Are we related?
• 1990s mtDNA samples taken from first Neanderthal fossil discovered in Neander Valley, Germany.
The Neanderthal mtDNA sequences were substantially different from modern human mtDNA
• Suggested last common ancestor of Neanderthals & modern humans was c. 690,000 – 550,000 BP, about 4 times older than the modern human mtDNA pool
• Further mtDNA sequences confirmed differences between Neanderthals & modern humans, in different geographic regions.
• Low genetic diversity might indicate small population sizes, possibly due to the incursions of modern humans into their range?
• More similarities between non-African modern humans & Neanderthals, than between African modern humans and Neanderthals – consistent with some interbreeding between Neanderthals & ancestors of Eurasian modern humans before they branched off into regional groups.
• Interbreeding may have involved different species of archaic hominins, including populations in Africa, Asia & Europe.
Neanderthal culture
Symbolism, ritual, complex social relations, belief in the afterlife?
• e.g Pierced shells at Cueva de los Aviones, SE Spain
Did Neanderthals bury their
dead?
• Shanidar, N Iraq c. 70,000 BP
– Pollen in all graves
• Old Man of La Chappelleaux-Saints
– Blind, withered right arm missing hand, left leg injuries
Technology – 325-180 kya BP
- Levallois technique
- ‘Prepared core technology’
- Pre-shaping
- Wider range of tool types made
The Mammoth Steppe
- The mammoth steppe extended from Britain right across northern Europe, south of the glaciers. It consisted of grasslands richer in plant species than modern tundra, & was populated by woolly mammoths, woolly rhino, musk oxen, steppe bison, Ice Age horse, reindeer cave lion, cave bear, cave hyaena, wolverine, lynx, & Arctic hare.
- Cold & inhospitable in winter, but rich summer grazing in short summer months.
Vegetation sequence
- Open grassland with relict cool fauna immediately after glaciations (horse, woolly mammoth, woolly rhino, steppe bison, giant deer, cave lion, cave bear, cave hyaena);
- Progressive change to dense woodland & associated fauna (bear, elephant, rhino, wild boar, roe deer, fallow deer, badger, beaver, squirrel)
Lynford Quarry, Norfolk
- 60,000 BP;
- Sedge & reed swamp at edge of slow-moving river;
- Most artefacts brought to site from further afield;
- Handaxe manufacture (trimming rather than primary working – few primary flakes) & repair;
- 90% of mammal remains mammoth;
- Handaxes found amongst mammoth bones.
