Palaeolithic

Question 1

Earliest evidence of humans outside Africa

Answer 1

• 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 – c. 800 kya - 1.2 mya
• Human remains associated with simple chopping tools, Homo antecessor

Question 2

Dispersal to Britain

Answer 2

Early humans in Britain from close to 1 mya - extinct river systems provided mains routes of disperal

Question 3

Happisburgh, East England

Answer 3

• 950-840 kya
• Pollen, plant macrofossils,
  beetles, molluscs

Question 4

Boxgrove, Sussex

Answer 4

• c. 500 kya,
– Homo heidelbergensis
• coastal plain/lagoon, overlooked by cliffs
– Consumption of bison, rhino etc
• Stone tool evidence

Question 5

Climatic and vegetation variation

Answer 5

-interglacial > glacial > interglacial
-Open grassland > coniferous forest > deciduous
woodland > coniferous forest > open grassland

Question 6

The Neanderthal skeleton

Answer 6

• Robust, stocky (av. 5’3”)
• Broad shoulders, short lower limbs
• Sometimes one arm more developed than other
• Lack of sexual dimorphism

Question 7

Neanderthal skull

Answer 7

• Sloping foreheads
• Heavy brows
• Large nose
• Cold adapted?
• Brain a little larger (1450 cc) than ours (1350 cc)

Question 8

Deliberate Neanderthal Burials

Answer 8

• Shanidar, N Iraq c 70 kya
– Pollen in all graves
• Old Man of La Chappelleaux-Saints
– Blind, withered right arm missing hand, left leg injuries

Question 9

Controversy about language

Answer 9

– FOXP2 ‘language gene’ present
– Hyoid bone Kebara, Israel
– Differences in vocal tract?

Question 10

Technology: Levallois technique

Answer 10

• 325-180 kya BP
  – ‘Prepared core technology’
  – Pre-shaping
  – Wider range of tool types made

Question 11

Lynford Quarry, Norfolk

Answer 11

• 60,000 kya
• Sedge and reed swamp at edge of slowmoving river
• artefacts – most brought to the site from further afield
• handaxe manufacture (trimming rather than primary working – few primary flakes) and repair
• 90% of mammal remains were mammoth
• Handaxes found amongst the mammoth bones

Question 12

Emergence of culture

Answer 12

c. 40,000-11,600 BP

Cave art, musical instruments, burial ritual, carvings

Question 13

Homo sapiens

Answer 13

-Developed 200,000 in Africa
- Gracile skeletons
• Reduced brow ridges
• Teeth & jaws reduced in size
• Vertical flat faces,
– prominent nose
– Chin
– High forehead
– Large brain (nb. reduces 10% over last 20 kya)
• ‘Culture’

Question 14

Models of origins of homo sapiens

Answer 14

Out of Africa, 60 kya
– Archaeological and genetic evidence
• Multi-regional
• Mixed models

Question 15

Mezhirich, Ukraine

Answer 15

• Different environment – v cold steppe landscapes
• c. 13,000 BP; 5-6 days to build, held 10 people; 95 mammoth skulls
• Stone working etc inside, pits cut into permafrost, long distance trade

Question 16

How did the Neanderthals become extinct?

Answer 16

• Modern humans out competed
• Neanderthals in an increasingly difficult environment
• Climatic change
• Active competition - ‘genocide’
• Neanderthals and humans interbred

Question 17

Hybrid populations

Answer 17

-Lagar Velho, Portugal c. 24.5 kya
• 4yr old boy
• Debate over Neanderthal influence on skeleton
-Peștera cu Oase, Romania c. 40 kya
• ‘modern human’ features like projecting chin, no brow ridge, high and rounded brain case
• Neanderthal characteristics e.g. large crest of bone behind the ear and big teeth that get even larger toward the back

Question 18

Technology: The Aurignacian

Answer 18

• c. 35-36 kya
• 1st unambiguous indication of arrival of Homo sapiens
• endscrapers (carinated, nosed and shouldered)
• also burins busqués (chisel-like implements)
• multi-component tools and weapons
• bone/antler points

Question 19

Gravettian

Answer 19

• c. 33-34ka BP
• • Goat’s Hole, Paviland
• William Buckland, 1823
• ‘Red Lady of Paviland’
• Cro-Magnon
• Mammoth ivory rods, rings, bead
• Cranium and tusks of a mammoth
• Ochre
• Perforated shells and teeth
• ‘Sollas Egg’ – pathological fragment of mammoth tusk pierced for suspension

Question 20

Europe 40-20 kya

Answer 20

• Colonisation by modern humans c. 40,000
• Abandoned c.33,000 BP as weather deteriorated
• Last Glacial Maximum- c 20,000 BP- weather warmed up

Question 21

Gough’s Cave

Answer 21

Cheddar Gorge – c. 14,000 BP

• Partial and disarticlated remains of 5 humans
• Cut-marks
• Heads severed, defleshed, scalped and shaped into skull cups
• Complex mortuary treatment?
• Social consumption of the remains of close relatives?
• Cannibalism following violent encounters?