James Ahern | University of Wyoming (original) (raw)

Books by James Ahern

Papers by James Ahern

Nalaziste Sandalja II od izuzetnog je važnosti za proucavanje raznih pitanja vezanih uz gornjopal... more Nalaziste Sandalja II od izuzetnog je važnosti za proucavanje raznih pitanja vezanih uz gornjopaleoliticku okupaciju istocne Jadranske obale. To je jedino nalaziste vremena epigravetijena u Hrvatskoj na kojem su, uz faunalne nalaze i nalaze artefakata, pronađeni i ljudski ostaci najmanje tri osobe. Samim time, analize nalaza ovog lokaliteta doprinose razumijevanju morfologije i ponasanja kasnopaleolitickih stanovnika ovih krajeva, sto pruža temelje za usporedbe ne samo sa nalazima istocne obale Italije, koja je u to vrijeme pripadala istoj ekoloskoj zoni kao i Sandalja, vec i sa lokalitetima obližnjih regija koje su pripadale drugim ekoloskim zonama.

Rad donosi rezultate arheoloških istraživanja provedenih tijekom 2014. i 2015. godine na četiri l... more Rad donosi rezultate arheoloških istraživanja provedenih tijekom 2014. i 2015. godine na četiri lokaliteta na području Limskog kanala u Istri. Istraživanja su dio projekta Hrvatske zaklade za znanost “Arheološka istraživanja kasnog pleistocena i ranog holocena na prostoru Limskog kanala” (ARCHAEOLIM). Terenski rad proveden je na četiri lokaliteta: Romualdovoj pećini, Abri Kontija 002, Pećini kod Rovinjskog Sela i Lim 001. Nadalje, tijekom 2015. godine proveden je i podvodni terenski pregled dijela Limskog kanala te geoarheološka uzorkovanja i geofizička mjerenja.This paper presents the results of archaeological investigation conducted in the course of 2014 and 2015 at four sites in the Lim Channel area in Istria County. The investigation is part of the Croatian Science Foundation’s Archaeological Investigations into the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene of the Lim Channel project (ARCHAEOLIM). The fieldwork was conducted at four locations: Romuald’s Cave, Abri Kontija 002, Pećina ...

Annales Instituti archaeologici, Dec 22, 2020

Quaternary International, 2018

Annales Instituti Archaeologici, Dec 22, 2020

Nalazište Šandalja II od izuzetnog je važnosti za proučavanje raznih pitanja vezanih uz gornjopal... more Nalazište Šandalja II od izuzetnog je važnosti za proučavanje raznih pitanja vezanih uz gornjopaleolitičku okupaciju istočne Jadranske obale. To je jedino nalazište vremena epigravetijena u Hrvatskoj na kojem su, uz faunalne nalaze i nalaze artefakata, pronađeni i ljudski ostaci najmanje tri osobe. Samim time, analize nalaza ovog lokaliteta doprinose razumijevanju morfologije i ponašanja kasnopaleolitičkih stanovnika ovih krajeva, što pruža temelje za usporedbe ne samo sa nalazima istočne obale Italije, koja je u to vrijeme pripadala istoj ekološkoj zoni kao i Šandalja, već i sa lokalitetima obližnjih regija koje su pripadale drugim ekološkim zonama.The Šandalja II site has a crucial role in the research of various issues related to the Upper Paleolithic occupation of the eastern Adriatic coast. It is the only Epigravettian site in Croatia that has yielded skeletal remains of at least three individuals found in association with numerous Late Upper Paleolithic (Epigravettian) tools a...

Archaeological Prospection, 2019

Electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) surveys were conducted at the Velika Pe cina near Kli cev... more Electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) surveys were conducted at the Velika Pe cina near Kli cevica and Romuald's Cave sites in Croatia in 2014 and 2015. The goal of the surveys was to estimate sediment depth to bedrock. However, neither survey produced reliable results at the 0.5 m probe spacing. In 2017, the Romuald's Cave site was revisited utilizing a high data density survey of 0.1 m probe spacing. All three surveys were conducted with a GeoScan RM85 in a pole-pole configuration. The high data density survey produced reliable results given the subsurface information available from three excavation trenches in the first chamber of the cave. The 2015 and 2017 ERT survey results are presented along with the results from two additional high data density ERT surveys located in the back chamber of Romuald's Cave. These results suggest that utilizing high data densities may improve the reliability of ERT surveys in cave environments. K E Y W O R D S cave site, early Mesolithic, Adriatic regionelectrical resistivity tomographyPaleolithicsediment depth estimation

This paper presents results from lithic, pottery, zooarchaeological, osteological, petrological a... more This paper presents results from lithic, pottery, zooarchaeological, osteological, petrological and geoarchaeological analyses from the early Neolithic, Mesolithic and late Upper Paleolithic levels of Zemunica Cave in Croatia. The site provides valuable information about the aforementioned periods in Dalmatia and original evidence supporting newly proposed models of the spread of Neolithisation in this area.

PLOS ONE, 2021

Paleogenomic and bioanthropological studies of ancient massacres have highlighted sites where the... more Paleogenomic and bioanthropological studies of ancient massacres have highlighted sites where the victims were male and plausibly died all in battle, or were executed members of the same family as might be expected from a killing intentionally directed at subsets of a community, or where the massacred individuals were plausibly members of a migrant community in conflict with previously established groups, or where there was evidence that the killing was part of a religious ritual. Here we provide evidence of killing on a massive scale in prehistory that was not directed to a specific family, based on genome-wide ancient DNA for 38 of the 41 documented victims of a 6,200 year old massacre in Potočani, Croatia and combining our results with bioanthropological data. We highlight three results: (i) the majority of individuals were unrelated and instead were a sample of what was clearly a large farming population, (ii) the ancestry of the individuals was homogenous which makes it unlikel...

The Quarterly Review of Biology, 2014

Rad donosi rezultate terenskog istraživanja u Ljubićevoj pećini kod Marčane u Istri, provedenog u... more Rad donosi rezultate terenskog istraživanja u Ljubićevoj pećini kod Marčane u Istri, provedenog u 2019. godini. Tijekom terenskog rada provedeno je lasersko skeniranje dijela lokaliteta te geofizikalna mjerenja gornje etaže pećine. Navedena mjerenja poslužit će u svrhu kvalitetnijeg planiranja budućih sustavnih arheoloških istraživanja navedenog lokaliteta.The paper presents the results of fieldwork at Ljubićeva pećina near Marčana in Istria conducted in 2019. During fieldwork, laser scanning of a part of the site, as well as geophysical work in the upper part of the cave, was conducted. This work will provide a better basis for the planning of future systematic archaeological excavations of the site

Arheologija špilje Zale. Od paleolitičkih lovaca skupljača do rimskih osvajača., 2015

Clanak donosi pregled aktivnosti i preliminarne rezultate arheoloskih istraživanja srednjopaleoli... more Clanak donosi pregled aktivnosti i preliminarne rezultate arheoloskih istraživanja srednjopaleolitickih nalazista u Dalmaciji te geoloskih istraživanja u okviru kojih su provedena busenja potencijalnih nalazista. Aktivnosti su ostvarene provedbom druge i trece godine projekta Kasni musterijen na istocnom Jadranu – temelj za razumijevanje identiteta kasnih neandertalaca i njihovog nestanka Hrvatske zaklade za znanost. Terenski je rad najvecim dijelom bio usmjeren na nastavak istraživanja Velike pecine u Klicevici i podvodnoga paleolitickog nalazista Kastel Stafilic – Resnik. Provedeno je također probno istraživanje jednog nalazista u zaleđu Kastela (Giljanovici/Karanusici) i geoloska busenja.

Annales Instituti archaeologici, Dec 22, 2020

Quaternary International, 2018

Annales Instituti Archaeologici, Dec 22, 2020

Archaeological Prospection, 2019

PLOS ONE, 2021

The Quarterly Review of Biology, 2014

Arheologija špilje Zale. Od paleolitičkih lovaca skupljača do rimskih osvajača., 2015

Antiquity, 2017

As a part of the multidisciplinary project entitled ‘Archaeological Investigations into the Late ... more As a part of the multidisciplinary project entitled ‘Archaeological Investigations into the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene of the Lim Channel, Istria’, archaeological research has been conducted at four sites: Romuald's Cave, Abri Kontija 002, Pećina at Rovinjsko Selo and Lim 001 (Figure 1). There is much debate on issues related to biological and behavioural continuity, to patterns of changes and adaptations during this crucial period, and to external factors (e.g. changes in ecology and climate). For example, a clearer insight is needed into how climatic change affects the ecology of specific regions, including changing sea levels. Additionally, there continues to be debate centring on who produced the earliest (Initial) Upper Palaeolithic industries in Europe. To achieve a more precise insight into long-term diachronic changes and cultural relations around the Adriatic, and to document the presence of Middle and Upper Palaeolithic humans in Istria, we concentrated on a s...

American Antiquity, 2017

Except for the addition of modern material remains, the archaeological record is a finite resourc... more Except for the addition of modern material remains, the archaeological record is a finite resource, which means that, at some point in the future, there will be nothing left to find. In this paper, we model trends in archaeological discovery based on the growth of the field and the probability of site discovery. We compare this model to seven diverse datasets of archaeological discovery trends: (1) all sites from the state of Wyoming, USA; (2) high-altitude archaeological sites from the state of Colorado, USA; (3) mostly complete Neandertal crania; (4) monumental sites of the Maya Classic period; (5) proboscidean kill/scavenge sites globally; (6) Upper Paleolithic sites from Europe; and (7) a compilation of shipwreck discoveries. We forecast discovery trends over the current century. We show that, for all datasets, rates of discovery are in decline, and some segments of the record are near depletion.

Paleoanthropology of the Balkans and Anatolia, 2016

In this chapter, we discuss Croatian sites that have yielded human skeletal remains from the Plei... more In this chapter, we discuss Croatian sites that have yielded human skeletal remains from the Pleistocene. These include the well-known Neandertal localities Husnjakovo (at Krapina) and Vindija cave, as well as the Late Upper Paleolithic hominin fossil site Sandalja II cave in Istria. The Krapina site played an important role in the historical development of paleoanthropology and is still the Neandertal site with the largest known minimum number of skeletal individuals to date. Finds from Vindija cave belong to one of the latest Neandertal groups in Europe and provide data for the study of both their behavioral, as well as biological characteristics (including genomics studies). The Sandalja II cave in Istria is the only site in Croatia with direct association of human skeletal finds and the late Paleolithic, an Epigravettian industry, providing us with data on the anatomy and behavior of the Late Paleolithic inhabitants of this region.

Quaternary International, 2017

Abstract The Assimilation Model (AM) was developed to explain the presence of evidence for small,... more Abstract The Assimilation Model (AM) was developed to explain the presence of evidence for small, but not insignificant, anatomical contributions of Eurasian archaic humans (including Neandertals) to modern Eurasians within a framework of the documented African origin of the majority of modern Eurasian ancestry. The AM was based entirely on morphological evidence for introgression in Eurasia and was initially not well supported by genetic studies, including ancient DNA. However, beginning with the publication of the first Neandertal draft genome in 2010, genomic data have consistently demonstrated low levels of archaic human gene flow into modern Eurasian populations and recently have shown modern gene flow into a Siberian Neandertal. Current data also indicate the complexity of archaic–modern human population dynamics during the late Pleistocene, another tenet of the AM. We conclude that the AM is strongly supported by current genetic and genomic data, as well as morphological evidence that has been documented elsewhere.

Public lecture given in Lokve, Croatia. May 2015.

The last excavations at Vindija Cave (Croatia) ended more than twenty-five years ago. Nevertheles... more The last excavations at Vindija Cave (Croatia) ended more than twenty-five years ago. Nevertheless, the archeological, paleontological and ecological evidence from this site continues to shed new light on the Neandertal-modern human transition. Since the last publication of new Neandertal remains from Vindija in 2004, there have been developments regarding the chronology and stratigraphy that have called into question earlier interpretations of the archaeology and biology of the Vindija hominins. On the other hand, recent paleogenomic and anatomical analyses of the Vindija remains seemingly confirm some of these earlier interpretations. In this paper, we examine the current state of the chronological, archaeological and biological evidence from Vindija. Although some interpretations must be tempered based on the available data, the Vindija evidence still supports some fundamental hypotheses about the biocultural dynamics of the Neandertal-modern human transition in south-central Europe. Finally, we report on recent efforts to test these hypotheses using new data from other Croatian Middle and Upper Paleolithic sites.

2015 Darwin Day Lecture given at the University of Wyoming.

Paleoanthropologists, like all scientists who study the past, are confronted with a limited datas... more Paleoanthropologists, like all scientists who study the past, are confronted with a limited dataset, but at least they usually can console themselves with the knowledge that information will increase over time as new discoveries are made. However, numerous dates of presumed early modern human fossils from Central Europe recently have been discovered to be fraudulent. As the extent of the fabrication has been realized, the presumed early modern human fossil record from Germany has gone from expansive to virtually nil. This presentation examines the scientific forgery perpetrated by a larger-than-life, German professor and then reinterprets modern human origins and the fate of the Neandertals in Central Europe in light of the shrunken fossil dataset.

Fred Smith’s seminal review of the late hominin fossil record of Central Europe was published nea... more Fred Smith’s seminal review of the late hominin fossil record of Central Europe was published nearly thirty years ago (1984). This work helped highlight the importance of this region at a time when much of the debate about modern human origins was focused on the Western European record. The present paper reassesses Smith’s interpretation of the evidence in light of recent research and discoveries. New discoveries at a variety of sites, especially in eastern Central Europe, have provided more information on the period and process of the Neandertal – modern transition. New dating techniques and their direct application to fossil remains have provided more chronological clarity. The genetic revolution, including the sequencing of the Neandertal genome, has shifted our field’s theoretical focus twice: 1) from a perspective that favored overall regional continuity, as favored in Smith’s original review, to one of complete replacement and 2) from complete replacement to a more nuanced understanding of the dynamics of origins and admixture. In addition to a review of the overall state of the Central European evidence, this paper provides new results on and interpretations of the record of the Neandertal – modern transition as documented in recent discoveries from Vindija and other Middle and Upper Paleolithic sites in Croatia. The available evidence from Central Europe is most commensurate with the Assimilation Model of modern human origins, although some other models cannot be ruled out. The exact patterns of admixture between Neandertals and modern humans must await further evidence and analyses.

Early modern human discoveries from Romania, with their Neandertal-reminiscent features, in combi... more Early modern human discoveries from Romania, with their Neandertal-reminiscent features, in combination with the dismissal-by-direct-dating of almost all of the ‘hyper-modern’ human remains from the early modern European sample, have fundamentally changed our understanding of the earliest modern humans and their admixed ancestry. Given the current evidence, we contend that Central European Neandertals were assimilated by early modern humans, contrary to either an overall in situ regional continuity or a complete replacement scenario. Although it is difficult to tell how much admixture took place in the region, the presence of more modern-like anatomy among late Neandertals and, more convincingly, the persistence of Neandertal features in early modern humans indicate that the degree of admixture exceeded that expected by interspecific hybridization. An improved fossil and archaeological record across the Neandertal – modern transition, further direct dating of fossils, more fossil genetic information, and the further application of additional analyses will help test this interpretation.

Recent work by Benazzi et al. (2011) suggests that the Uluzzian of Grotta del Cavallo (Puglia, It... more Recent work by Benazzi et al. (2011) suggests that the Uluzzian of Grotta del Cavallo (Puglia, Italy) was made by anatomically modern humans, in contrast to the prior consensus that had seen it as the handiwork of Neandertals. Here, we highlight some features of the record that indicate that the question may not be satisfactorily resolved. We focus on issues about the size and composition of the comparative samples used in their study that indicate that the within-sample variation may have been unintentionally depressed. This suggests that a larger sample of Neandertal comparative material less biased towards older specimens might show less difference to Upper Paleolithic modern humans than assumed. While this does not directly contradict the results of Benazzi et al.’s innovative analysis, it suggests that caution is still warranted when discussing the authorship of the Uluzzian and other ‘transitional’ technocomplexes. Drawing on the archaeological evidence, we discuss to what extent it matters to know the authorship of these industries when assessing how ‘modern’ they are, and how preconceptions about authorship only complicate research. Given that the majority of the available evidence is archaeological, we argue that the behavioral record itself needs to be given its proper place in such discussions. As concerns the Uluzzian, its ‘modern’ features appear clear but they remain distinct from those of the proto-Aurignacian which succeeds it. We conclude with a discussion of how this shifts how paleoanthropologists should approach the Middle-Upper Paleolithic in Italy and more broadly at a continental level.