Fruits of the forest: Human stable isotope ecology and rainforest adaptations in Late Pleistocene and Holocene (~36 to 3 ka) Sri Lanka (original) (raw)
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Direct evidence for human reliance on rainforest resources in late Pleistocene Sri Lanka
Human occupation of tropical rainforest habitats is thought to be a mainly Holocene phenomenon. Although archaeological and paleoenvironmental data have hinted at pre-Holocene rainforest foraging, earlier human reliance on rainforest resources has not been shown directly. We applied stable carbon and oxygen isotope analysis to human and faunal tooth enamel from four late Pleistocene–to–Holocene archaeological sites in Sri Lanka. The results show that human foragers relied primarily on rainforest resources from at least ~20,000 years ago, with a distinct preference for semi-open rainforest and rain forest edges. Homo sapiens’ relationship with the tropical rainforests of South Asia is therefore long-standing, a conclusion that indicates the time-depth of anthropogenic reliance and influence on these habitats.
Pleistocene rainforests: barriers or attractive environments for early human foragers?
In the 1980s, anthropologists argued that tropical rainforests were unattractive environments for long-term human navigation, subsistence and occupation. Meanwhile, archaeologists have traditionally held that Homo sapiens only intensively colonized rainforests during the Holocene, from c. 11 thousand years ago (ka). New discoveries and re-appraisal of Pleistocene (c. 200–12 ka) archaeological sites in Africa, Southeast Asia, Melanesia, and Sri Lanka, have, however, indicated the possibility for human occupation of rainforests from c. 45 ka and, more controversially, c. 200 ka. We critically review the archaeological evidence for Pleistocene human rainforest occupation from several regions. We argue that clear evidence exists for human adaptation to rainforest ecologies from c. 45 ka, with tantalizing hints of even earlier colonization. More research, however, is needed in order to understand the dynamism and diversity of palaeoecologies commonly classified as ‘rainforest’, as well as the regional extent, nature, and longevity of early human rainforest habitations.
Specialized rainforest hunting by Homo sapiens ~45,000 years ago
Nature Communications, 2019
Defining the distinctive capacities of Homo sapiens relative to other hominins is a major focus for human evolutionary studies. It has been argued that the procurement of small, difficult-to-catch, agile prey is a hallmark of complex behavior unique to our species; however, most research in this regard has been limited to the last 20,000 years in Europe and the Levant. Here, we present detailed faunal assemblage and taphonomic data from Fa-Hien Lena Cave in Sri Lanka that demonstrates specialized, sophisticated hunting of semi arboreal and arboreal monkey and squirrel populations from ca. 45,000 years ago, in a tropical rainforest environment. Facilitated by complex osseous and microlithic technologies, we argue these data highlight that the early capture of small, elusive mammals was part of the plastic behavior of Homo sapiens that allowed it to rapidly colonize a series of extreme environments that were apparently untouched by its hominin relatives.
The deep human prehistory of global tropical forests and its relevance for modern conservation
Significant human impacts on tropical forests have been considered the preserve of recent societies, linked to large-scale deforestation, extensive and intensive agriculture, resource mining, livestock grazing and urban settlement. Cumulative archaeological evidence now demonstrates, however, that Homo sapiens has actively manipulated tropical forest ecologies for at least 45,000 years. It is clear that these millennia of impacts need to be taken into account when studying and conserving tropical forest ecosystems today. Nevertheless, archaeology has so far provided only limited practical insight into contemporary human–tropical forest interactions. Here, we review significant archaeological evidence for the impacts of past hunter-gatherers, agriculturalists and urban settlements on global tropical forests. We compare the challenges faced, as well as the solutions adopted, by these groups with those confronting present-day societies, which also rely on tropical forests for a variety of ecosystem services. We emphasize archaeology’s importance not only in promoting natural and cultural heritage in tropical forests, but also in taking an active role to inform modern conservation and policy-making.
Batadomba-lena, a rockshelter in the rainforest of southwestern Sri Lanka, has yielded some of the earliest evidence of Homo sapiens in South Asia. H. sapiens foragers were present at Batadomba-lena from ca. 36,000 cal BP to the terminal Pleistocene and Holocene. Human occupation was sporadic before the global Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Batadomba-lena’s Late Pleistocene inhabitants foraged for a broad spectrum of plant and mainly arboreal animal resources (monkeys, squirrels and abundant rainforest snails), derived from a landscape that retained equatorial rainforest cover through periods of pronounced regional aridity during the LGM. Juxtaposed hearths, palaeofloors with habitation debris, postholes, excavated pits, and animal and plant remains, including abundant Canarium nutshells, reflect intensive habitation of the rockshelter in times of monsoon intensification and biome reorganisation after ca. 16,000 cal BP. This period corresponds with further broadening of the economic spectrum, evidenced though increased contribution of squirrels, freshwater snails and Canarium nuts in the diet of the rockshelter occupants. Microliths are more abundant and morphologically diverse in the earliest, pre-LGM layer and decline markedly during intensified rockshelter use on the wane of the LGM. We propose that changing toolkits and subsistence base reflect changing foraging practices, from shorter-lived visits of highly mobile foraging bands in the period before the LGM, to intensified use of Batadomba-lena and intense foraging for diverse resources around the site during and, especially, following the LGM. Traces of ochre, marine shell beads and other objects from an 80 km-distant shore, and, possibly burials reflect symbolic practices from the outset of human presence at the rockshelter. Evidence for differentiated use of space (individual hearths, possible habitation structures) is present in LGM and terminal Pleistocene layers. The record of Batadomba-lena demonstrates that Late Pleistocene pathways to (aspects of) behavioural ‘modernity’ (composite tools, practice of symbolism and ritual, broad spectrum economy) were diverse and ecologically contingent.
Headland and Bailey (1991) argued in Human Ecology that tropical forests could not support long-term human foraging in the absence of agriculture. Part of their thesis was based on the fact that supposedly isolated 'forest' foragers, such as the Wanniyalaeto (or Vedda) peoples of Sri Lanka, could be demonstrated to be enmeshed within historical trade networks and rely on crops as part of their overall subsistence. Yet, in the same volume and in the years that followed scholars have presented ethnographic and archaeological evidence, including from Sri Lanka, that counter this proposition, demonstrating the occupation and exploitation of tropical rainforest environments back to 38,000 years ago (ka) in this part of the world. However, archaeological and ethnohistorical research has yet to quantify the overall reliance of human foragers on tropical forest resources through time. Here, we report stable carbon and oxygen isotope data from historical Wanniyalaeto individuals from Sri Lanka, in full collaboration with the present-day members of this group, that suggest that while a number of individuals made use of agricultural resources in the recent past, others subsisted primarily on tropical forest resources as late as the 1800s.
Tropical forests in the deep human past
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2022
Since Darwin, studies of human evolution have tended to give primacy to open ‘savannah’ environments as the ecological cradle of our lineage, with dense tropical forests cast as hostile, unfavourable frontiers. These perceptions continue to shape both the geographical context of fieldwork as well as dominant narratives concerning hominin evolution. This paradigm persists despite new, ground-breaking research highlighting the role of tropical forests in the human story. For example, novel research in Africa's rainforests has uncovered archaeological sites dating back into the Pleistocene; genetic studies have revealed very deep human roots in Central and West Africa and in the tropics of Asia and the Pacific; an unprecedented number of coexistent hominin species have now been documented, including Homo erectus , the ‘Hobbit’ ( Homo floresiensis ), Homo luzonensis , Denisovans, and Homo sapiens . Some of the earliest members of our own species to reach South Asia, Southeast Asia, ...
Late Pleistocene human paleoecology in the highland savanna ecosystem of mainland Southeast Asia
Scientific Reports
The late Pleistocene settlement of highland settings in mainland Southeast Asia by Homo sapiens has challenged our species’s ability to occupy mountainous landscapes that acted as physical barriers to the expansion into lower-latitude Sunda islands during sea-level lowstands. Tham Lod Rockshelter in highland Pang Mapha (northwestern Thailand), dated between 34,000 and 12,000 years ago, has yielded evidence of Hoabinhian lithic assemblages and natural resource use by hunter-gatherer societies. To understand the process of early settlements of highland areas, we measured stable carbon and oxygen isotope compositions of Tham Lod human and faunal tooth enamel. Our assessment of the stable carbon isotope results suggests long-term opportunistic behavior among hunter-gatherers in foraging on a variety of food items in a mosaic environment and/or inhabiting an open forest edge during the terminal Pleistocene. This study reinforces the higher-latitude and -altitude extension of a forest-gra...
The first human arrivals in northern Sahul (New Guinea) encountered new environments, flora and fauna, yet they appear to have rapidly adapted to the challenges of settlement in these different ecological niches. Our paper looks at these adaptations and makes a contribution in understanding the temporal and geographical diversity of rainforest environments occupied by our species. Most of our understanding of these events comes from palaeo-environmental and archaeological records. Here we review the current evidence for the impact of people in forested environments with a view to model landscape management practices from the earliest arrivals at c.50,000 years ago through to the Early Holocene. The first Sahul colonisers were remarkably dynamic, attested to by their rapid dispersal across Sahul in a relatively short time span, and not all would necessarily have arrived in Sahul by the most northern pathway discussed here. The model presented here provides a heuristic framework within which new data can be tested to further our understanding of human activities and subsistence strategies across a diverse range of New Guinea landscapes.