Palaeolithic Flashcards
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 – c. 800 kya - 1.2 mya
- Human remains associated with simple chopping tools, Homo antecessor
Dispersal to Britain
Early humans in Britain from close to 1 mya - extinct river systems provided mains routes of disperal
Happisburgh, East England
- 950-840 kya
- Pollen, plant macrofossils,
beetles, molluscs
Boxgrove, Sussex
• c. 500 kya, – Homo heidelbergensis • coastal plain/lagoon, overlooked by cliffs – Consumption of bison, rhino etc • Stone tool evidence
Climatic and vegetation variation
-interglacial > glacial > interglacial
-Open grassland > coniferous forest > deciduous
woodland > coniferous forest > open grassland
The Neanderthal skeleton
- Robust, stocky (av. 5’3”)
- Broad shoulders, short lower limbs
- Sometimes one arm more developed than other
- Lack of sexual dimorphism
Neanderthal skull
- Sloping foreheads
- Heavy brows
- Large nose
- Cold adapted?
- Brain a little larger (1450 cc) than ours (1350 cc)
Deliberate Neanderthal Burials
• 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
Controversy about language
– FOXP2 ‘language gene’ present
– Hyoid bone Kebara, Israel
– Differences in vocal tract?
Technology: Levallois technique
- 325-180 kya BP
– ‘Prepared core technology’
– Pre-shaping
– Wider range of tool types made
Lynford Quarry, Norfolk
- 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
Emergence of culture
c. 40,000-11,600 BP
Cave art, musical instruments, burial ritual, carvings
Homo sapiens
-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’
Models of origins of homo sapiens
Out of Africa, 60 kya
– Archaeological and genetic evidence
• Multi-regional
• Mixed models
Mezhirich, Ukraine
- 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
How did the Neanderthals become extinct?
- Modern humans out competed
- Neanderthals in an increasingly difficult environment
- Climatic change
- Active competition - ‘genocide’
- Neanderthals and humans interbred
Hybrid populations
-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
Technology: The Aurignacian
- 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
Gravettian
- 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
Europe 40-20 kya
- 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
Gough’s Cave
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?
