Two polarising models, Recent African Origin (RAO) and Multiregional Evolution (MRE), have dominated modern human origins debates since the 1980s. A recent paper by Holliday, Gautney and Friedl published in Current Anthropology explores how the successful sequencing of the Neanderthal genome, indicating gene flow between Neanderthals and Modern Humans, influences the feasibility of these two…
Horizons of volcanic tephra were repeatedly deposited across Mediterranean and Eastern Europe throughout the Pleistocene, providing a distinct chronological marker. One of these main tephra events, the Campanian Ignimbrite (CI), took place around the time of the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition. Its influence on Neanderthal and early modern human populations and cultural changes has…
The debate surrounding the deliberate burial by Neanderthal of their dead continues. In a recent reply to the Rendu et al. 2014 paper in PNAS, Dibble et al discuss in detail the problems related to interpreting the La-Chapelle-aux-Saints skeleton as an intentional burial. Their main critiques relate to the fact that: – The La Chapelle…
Both zooarchaeological and isotope analyses suggest that the Neanderthal diet focussed heavily on meat resources from large animals. However, such a restricted diet could have had negative consequences for Neanderthal populations, and there is a tacit assumption that plant resources must also have been important. The lack of preserved plant material from secure contexts has…
The recently discovered open-air site of Les Bossates (Ormesson, northern France) has a rich archaeological sequence, including a late Mousterian assemblage which has been TL dated to around 47,000 years ago. As reported elsewhere, this assemblage is characterised by discoidal flaking and a large number (77) of red and yellow iron oxide-rich rocks. These fragments…
The use of organic materials, such as bone, wood and antler, has been identified throughout various Lower, Middle and Upper Palaeolithic contexts. Through detailed archaeological investigations and experimental approaches it is has been demonstrated that these objects were frequently used to shape and retouch lithic artefacts. New research published in Quaternary International provides the first…
Many studies into Palaeolithic diet, both traditional zooarchaeological analysis and isotope studies, emphasise the importance of meat to past hominin diet. However, these frequently encounter the problem of explaining how these past communities overcame problems related to the consumption of large quantities of meat. Whilst it is one of the worst kept secrets in Palaeolithic archaeology…
For Palaeolithic archaeologists, assessing the language capacity of any extinct hominin lineage is hard, and really only possible through the analysis of directly preserved remains (hyoid bones) or indirectly through material-culture expressions. The discovery of numerous hyoid bones from various sites has continued to fuel the debate about the language capacities of many of our…
The Denisova cave in the Altai Mountains is known for the discovery of a finger bone, from which DNA was sequenced and related to a previous unknown species, the Denisovans. Now in an older layer in the same cave researchers found a toe bone, at least 50,000 years old. The complete genome of this toe…
The deliberate burial of individuals in western Europe prior to the arrival of Anatomically Modern Humans has long been questioned by scholars. Nevertheless, in recent years more evidence has been recovered from sites as far afield as the Middle East purporting to illustrate Neanderthal burial practices. However, doubts have been cast over many of these…
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