The investigation of human diet throughout our evolutionary past has focussed almost exclusively on the changing importance of meat and other carcass products. In part, this is due to the preservation and recovery of large quantities of animal bones at sites of various age at a global scale. Recently, such a “meatcentric” view of human…
The Uluzzian is a stone tool industry found stratigraphically between the late Mousterian and the early Upper Palaeolithic at sites in Italy and Greece. It’s a flake-based industry with lunates, crescent-shaped backed pieces, as type fossil. Alongside these lithic types bone points, perforated shell beads and mineral pigments are found. Only at one site, Cavallo…
At the site of Kocabaş (southwest Turkey) a fragmentary cranium was recovered in 2002 from a travertine quarry alongside faunal remains. The skull has been assigned to Homo erectus and its morphology seems to be intermediate between the skulls from Dmanisi (Georgie, 1.8mya) and Zhoukoudian (China, 0.8mya). So far age determinations of the travertines at…
When, where and how anatomically modern humans originated and migrated remains a controversial topic. While fossil evidence seems to favour eastern Africa (e.g. Omo and Herto), archaeological evidence seems to indicate the origin of certain types of behaviour in southern Africa (e.g. Blombos). Genetic and palaeoclimatic evidence add additional levels of complexity. A recent study…
