The archaeological attributes of behaviour: difference or variability (original) (raw)
The Neanderthals were a robust, short and stocky people who lived between 300/250-35 k.y.a. mainly in Europe, the Middle East and central Asia who are source of great contention. Although they buried some of their dead, performed targeted hunting in groups, foraged, and made and adapted tools specific and indigenous to the locality, their humanity is under question. They traded raw materials with other Neanderthal groups, and with Homo sapiens though a large network, created artefacts with decoration, and used ochre pigment for paint. One particular group even performed artificial cranial modification for beauty. Neanderthals even show an ability to learn from others and their dwelling places were very similar to those of modern hunter gatherers. Artefacts and fossils from the archaeological record prove one thing about these hominins: although they were a different species, in terms of behaviour, the Neanderthals were truly human.
Whether Neanderthals were capable of behaviours commonly held to be the exclusivempreserve of modern humans — such as abstract thought, language, forward planning, art, reverence of the dead, complex technology, etc. — has remained a fundamental question in human evolutionary studies since their discovery more than a hundred years ago. A lack of quantitative data on Neanderthal symbolism and complex behaviour is a key obstacle to the resolution of this question, with temporal analyses usually confined to single regions or short time periods. Here we present an approach to the issue of symbolism and complex behaviours among Neanderthals that examines the frequency of key proxies for symbolic and complex behaviours through time, including burials, modified raw materials, use of pigments, use of composite technology and body modification. Our analysis demonstrates that the number and diversity of complex Neanderthal behaviours increases between 160,000 and 40,000 years ago. Whether this pattern derives from preservation factors, the evolution of cognitive and behavioural complexity, cumulative learning, or population size is discussed. We take the view that it is not the apparent sophistication of a single specific item, nor the presence or absence of particular types in the archaeological record that is important. Instead, we believe that it is the overall abundance of artefacts and features indicative of complex behaviours within the Neanderthal archaeological record as a whole that should provide the mark of Neanderthal capabilities and cultural evolutionary potential.
When Neanderthals and modern …, 2006
Assessment of the processes that led to the replacement of local Neandertals by modern humans in Europe between 40,000 and 30,000 l4e years ago is complicated by the lack of a precise chronology of the sites belonging to this time period. There is some evidence of chronological overlap between the two groups in Europe, and this contemporaneity is supported by the cultural changes observed in the latest Neandertals that are best explained by short-or long-distance diffusion from one group to the other. However, in limited areas the replacement process appears to have progressed rapidly. A question that remains is whether or not there was gene flow between the two groups. This issue has been assessed primarily by looking for Neandertal features in Upper Paleolithic modern humans. In this paper we use an alternative approach, reviewing the evidence for the occurrence of anatomically modern features in the latest Neandertals. When more weight is given to features representing a. strong genetic signal, clear evidence for "intermediate" states in the last Neandertals is not observed. Other features that have been interpreted this way more likely belong to the normal range of variation of the Neandertals, and some are documented in Europe long before any modern humans were present. In some cases, they can also be seen as resulting from behavioral changes during the period of replacement.
Neanderthals and Modern Humans Across Eurasia
In: T. Akazawa et al. (eds.), Dynamics of Learning in Neanderthals and Modern Humans Volume 1: Cultural Perspectives. Springer New-York. Pp. 7-20., 2013
Neanderthals, a European population was undoubtedly successful in surviving through several glacial periods. Their population, originally spread across Europe, composed of small communities but succeeded to maintain their relationships and their mating systems and thus secured their biological survival. Published samples of aDNA and teeth indicate that they formed a particular population, although morphological deviations from the western European relics are found at the edges of their geographic distribution. The expansions of Neanderthals into western Asia and reaching the Altai Mountains refl ect their successful adaptations to variable environments. Their demise was caused, among others, by the expansion of groups of modern humans of African origins. The cultural traits of the new invading and colonizing people included high degree of mobility, signs of group identity, new cloths, use of ornaments, new hunting tools, and means of communication. The interactions of modern humans with the Neanderthals, discussed in the paper, provide a foundation for further research along economic and biological considerations that may provide a more sound explanation for the disappearance of a past successful meta-population.
American Anthropologist, 1994
Questions of origins have long had a prominent place in archaeology, and none more so than the question concerning the origins of our own species, Homo sapiens. The issue is partly anatomical, and through the skeletal record physical anthropologists can chart some of the key changes which took place in human bodily morphology. For archaeology, however, the crucial issue is cultural, rather than biological. At what stage, or by what stages, did human behaviour and consciousness reach the form we associate with modern humans today? This is the key issue addressed by Stringer and Gamble in their recent book In Search of the Neanderthals. It is far from being theonly recent book on thesubject; but it is perhaps unique in combining the skills of a palaeoanthropologist and an archaeologist as joint authors. The result is a wide-ranging discussion of the case for and against an African origin for modern humans. Much of their attention is focused on the status of the famous Neanderthals, who immediately precede the appearance of modern humans in Europe. Were the Neanderthals simply absorbed into the modern human populations, or did they die out, unable to compete with the new arrivals? This has become the subject of a well-known and often heated debate in recent years, stimulated in part by the controversial study of mitochondrial DNA. But human genetics are only a part of the question. What about language, symbolism and technology? Did the Neanderthals speak to each other? How did they interact, if at all, with modern humans? Were modern humans the first to develop artistic expression? Did the Neanderthals organize their lives, their living sites and their hunting strategies differently? It is on issues such as these that archaeology comes into its own, shedding light on patterns of behaviour through the meticulous study of settlement remains and cultural traces. Were the Neanderthals our close relatives, or if not near-related, were they at least very like ourselves? This is a debate destined to run and run, as perhaps is only natural for an issue so primordial as the origins and individuality of our own species. In the pages which follow we have invited a number of reactions to In Search of the Neanderthals, spanning a range of different viewpoints. First of all, however, we have asked the authors themselves to summarize their approach.
Epilogue: 150 Years of Neanderthal Research – A Hopeless Situation but Not Serious
Continuity and discontinuity in the peopling of Europe, 2011
Since the Western world first became aware of Neanderthals, this Pleistocene human has been a regular focus of both public and specialist interest. In fact, we know far more about Neanderthals than we do about any other extinct human. Further, over the past 150 years no other palaeospecies has provided such a constant source of discussion and fierce debate among palaeoanthropologists (human paleontologists) and archaeologists.
To date, the Neanderthals remain the best-documented group of late Middle/early Upper Pleistocene fossil hominins contemporary with the emergence of anatomical modernity. A century and a half of investigation in Europe and in the Middle East has resulted in the collection of a large sample, allowing us to study many aspects of the biology and behaviour of these extinct humans. The interest of both the public and the scientific community in Neanderthal studies partly results from these historical circumstances, as well as from a clear Eurocentrism in most palaeoanthropological studies thus far. It also results from the peculiar situation of this human lineage, which likely represents our sister species, i.e. the last diverging branch before the emergence of modem humans. Since the nineteenth century, much discussion of the Neanderthals has focused on their possible relationship with our own species. The goal of this chapter is to explore the extent to which the evolutionary processes at work in our sister group can shed light on or raise additional questions about modern human evolution. In all comparisons between the Neanderthal and the Homo sapiens lineages, it is necessary, however, to keep in mind that for most of their histories, the two groups evolved under quite different environmental conditions. This could have resulted in significant differences with respect to adaptive strategies and population history.
The Role of the Neanderthal in Modern Behavior and Cultural Development
2013
This effort aims to shed light in the Neanderthal behavioral hypothesis. The reader will be exposed to some of the most recent ongoing researches and discoveries that have been trying to improve our knowledge on the extinct species. Considering multiple elements such as; a sophisticated lithic industry, ornamental objects, artistic features and burials, the author aims to give a clear explanation that relies behind the theory of Neanderthal development of cognitive thought. Nevertheless, the reader will be presented with several factors which can alter the researches and the range of error which can emerge from these discoveries, amongst these contact with Anatomically Modern Humans. Overall, the following paper yields important considerations and evaluations on today’s assumptions on the Neanderthal, which could turn out to be more cognitively advanced than generally assumed.
The appearance of anatomically modern humans in Europe and the nature of the transition from the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic are matters of intense debate. Most researchers accept that before the arrival of anatomically modern humans, Neanderthals had adopted several ‘transitional’ technocomplexes. Two of these, the Uluzzian of southern Europe and the Châtelperronian of western Europe, are key to current interpretations regarding the timing of arrival of anatomically modern humans in the region and their potential interaction with Neanderthal populations. They are also central to current debates regarding the cognitive abilities of Neanderthals and the reasons behind their extinction. However, the actual fossil evidence associated with these assemblages is scant and fragmentary and recent work has questioned the attribution of the Châtelperronian to Neanderthals on the basis of taphonomic mixing and lithic analysis. Here we reanalyse the deciduous molars from the Grotta del Cavallo (southern Italy), associated with the Uluzzian and originally classified as Neanderthal. Using two independent morphometric methods based on microtomographic data, we show that the Cavallo specimens can be attributed to anatomically modern humans. The secure context of the teeth provides crucial evidence that the makers of the Uluzzian technocomplex were therefore not Neanderthals. In addition, new chronometric data for the Uluzzian layers of Grotta del Cavallo obtained from associated shell beads and included within a Bayesian age model show that the teeth must date to ~45,000–43,000 calendar years before present. The Cavallo human remains are therefore the oldest known European anatomically modern humans, confirming a rapid dispersal of modern humans across the continent before the Aurignacian and the disappearance of Neanderthals.
CHANGING VIEWS OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NEANDERTHALS AND MODERN HUMANS
WHEN NEANDERTHALS AND MODERN HUMANS MET, 2006
Prior to the 1980s comparatively little research addressed the interaction between Neanderthals and modern humans. In recent years the realization that modern humans evolved in Africa and colonized the territories occupied by Neanderthals has led to a major shift in paleoanthropological research. The interaction between Neanderthals and modern populations is now a central focus of study. The running debate on the evolution of cultural modernity results in large measure from the need to explain what behavioral patterns separated modern humans from Neanderthals and led to the latter group’s extinction. This introduction presents ways of linking Darwinian approaches with social and economic analyses of Paleolithic populations to develop refutable models and scenarios for what occurred when Neanderthals and modern humans met. These approaches lead to explanations for the extinction of Neanderthals and the spread of modern humans.
The last decade has seen a significant growth of our knowledge of the Neandertals, a population of Pleistocene hunter-gatherers who lived in (western) Eurasia between ∼400,000 and 40,000 y ago. Starting from a source population deep in the Middle Pleistocene, the hundreds of thousands of years of relative separation between African and Eurasian groups led to the emergence of different phenotypes in Late Pleistocene Europe and Africa. Both recently obtained genetic evidence and archeological data show that the biological and cultural gaps between these populations were probably smaller than previously thought. These data, reviewed here, falsify inferences to the effect that, compared with their near-modern contemporaries in Africa, Neandertals were outliers in terms of behavioral complexity. It is only around 40,000 y ago, tens of thousands of years after anatomically modern humans first left Africa and thousands of years after documented interbreeding between modern humans, Neandertals and Denisovans, that we see major changes in the archeological record, from western Eurasia to Southeast Asia, e.g., the emergence of representational imagery and the colonization of arctic areas and of greater Australia (Sahul).
Neandertal ArchaeologyImplications for Our Origins
American Anthropologist, 2002
This article identifies key aspects of the metaphysical paradigms under which European Paleolithic archaeological research is conducted and contrasts the anthropological approaches typical of anglophone New World workers with those of the "his-• tory-like" natural science-based traditions of Latin Europe. Because the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition in Europe is thought by many to correspond to the biological replacement of Neandertals by modern humans over the ten millennia bracketing 40 kyr B.P., generalizations about the archaeological transition invoked in support of biological replacement are examined and are found to lack empirical support. Patterns in lithic technology, typology, raw material variability, reduction strategies, blank frequencies, bone and antler technologies, Paleolithic art, subsistence strategies, and settlement patterns all indicate a temporal-spatial mosaic of changing monitors of human adaptation over the transition interval that cannot be reconciled with any construal of a relatively abrupt and complete biological replacement. [The Definition of Culture New World Paradigm Old World Paradigm Developed out of culture area studies Received its mandate from cultural anthropology Essentially gradualist, emphasized continuity over space and time Led to normative (I.e., variety-minimizing) views of culture manifest in diagnostic artifact types (e.g., projectile points) Recognizes some vectored change within temporally and spatially large and vaguely defined analytical units Coherent; cultures equated with trait complexes that cohere over space and time unless or until the physical environment changes Culture existed at a level above that <>i social, ethnic, and lingistit groups Social organization, ethnicity, and language vary Independently of one another Many definitions of culture; sunn-ideatlonal, others phcnoiiH-nologkal .Sourer dark 1993; Binford -uul Sabloff 1982. Developed out of European history and nationalism Received its mandate from natural science (especially geology, paleontology) Characterized by punctuated equilibrium; emphasized discontinuity in that aspects of material culture were believed to correspond to social, ethnic, and linguistic groups Also normative; cultures equated with differentiated packages of diagnostic traits (I.e., archaeological index fossils) Essentially static within equally large and vague analytical units Incoherent; when cultures changed they changed en bioc and relatively abruptly; the principle cause of culture change is population replacement Culture existed at the level of social, ethnic, and linguistic groups Social organization, ethnicity, and language covary directly with one another Definition of culture essentially ideational; culture comprises a monothetic set of norms and values in people's heads that are manliest In their material remains
Early dispersal of modern humans in Europe and implications for Neanderthal behaviour
Nature, 2011
The appearance of anatomically modern humans in Europe and the nature of the transition from the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic are matters of intense debate. Most researchers accept that before the arrival of anatomically modern humans, Neanderthals had adopted several 'transitional' technocomplexes. Two of these, the Uluzzian of southern Europe and the Châtelperronian of western Europe, are key to current interpretations regarding the timing of arrival of anatomically modern humans in the region and their potential interaction with Neanderthal populations. They are also central to current debates regarding the cognitive abilities of Neanderthals and the reasons behind their extinction. However, the actual fossil evidence associated with these assemblages is scant and fragmentary, and recent work has questioned the attribution of the Châtelperronian to Neanderthals on the basis of taphonomic mixing and lithic analysis. Here we reanalyse the deciduous molars from the Grotta ...
2006 Harvati & Harrison - Neanderthals Revisited
This volume is dedicated to the memory of W.W. Howells for his remarkable and pioneering contributions to the study of human evolution, especially his role in the greater understanding and appreciation of the Neanderthals. He was mentor and source of inspiration to generations of anthropologists, and his work continues to be a tremendous resource for research in human variation and evolution.
An aetiology of hominin behaviour
A rough framework for a first attempt to formulate a preliminary aetiology of hominin behaviour is proposed, based on scientific rather than archaeological evidence and reasoning. Distinctive precursors of modernity in human behaviour were present several million years ago, and since then have become gradually more established. By the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene, modern human cognitive processes seem to have been largely established. However, full modernity of behaviour can only have occurred in recent centuries, and there remain great variations in it even among extant conspecifics. This model differs significantly from all narratives offered by mainstream archaeology, which generally place the advent of modern human behaviour 30 or 40 millennia ago. These notions and the hypotheses they are based on appear to be false, however such behaviour is defined. from the obvious lack of internal falsifiability of most archaeological and many palaeoanthropological propositions. For instance, in perceiving cultural evolution as teleological, archaeology ignores that evolution is fundamentally dysteleological-an example of the incommensurabilities between humanistic and scientific terminologies. Since devolution cannot occur in biology, but can and does occur in culture, the respective meanings of "evolution" differ fundamentally in archaeology and biology. Qualities such as behaviour, cognition, intellect, intention or meaning are not recoverable by archaeology. Moreover, the imposition of modern, literate narratives on properties of incredibly remote societies needs to be questioned (Helvenston, 2013). Lithocentric Pleistocene archaeology cannot even define culture reliably, because taphonomically truncated tool traditions are inert to emic identification, nor should they be expected to differentiate cultures. Rather than characterizing cultures by cultural variables, such as rock art, the discipline has invented tool types (etic constructs or "observer-relative, institutional facts"; sensu Searle, 1995), whose combinations are regarded as diagnostic in identifying cultures. These in turn became the basis of invented ethnic entities such as, for instance, "Mousterians". Obviously the concept of such a discrete society, tribe, language group, nation or ethnicity has no sound logical basis. Of the many limitations to the credibility of the discipline, one more needs to be mentioned here: for much of the last two centuries, all of the most important discoveries in Pleistocene archaeology were presented by non-archaeologists and were without exception rejected for decades-a trend that has continued to this day.
2009
The biological differentiation of Upper Pleistocene populations is phylogenetically determined by the existence of two main lineages of archaic humans whose origins reach back to the Middle Pleistocene. On the one hand this is archaic Homo sapiens deriving from Africa on the other hand these are Neanderthals that evolved in western Eurasia. These two lineages met, for the first time, about 120-100 Kyr BP in the Near East where they existed parallely until about 40 Kyr BP.Subsequently, their confrontation in Europe and western and central Asia took place at 45/42-28 Kyr BP. This model, which is today commonly accepted on the basis of physical anthropology, is still questioned by palaeogenetists on the basis of fossile mt DNA. Most reports on the first identifications of fossile sequences of mt DNA seems to support the view that mt DNA of Neanderthals is totally unlike that of mt DNA of European modern humans. Consequently, a model would be acceptable of total replacement of Neanderthal populations by modern humans in the effect of the second "out of Africa" migration via the Near East to Europe and to western, possibly also central, Asia (Serre et al.2004, Currat, Escofer 2004, Caramelli et al. 2003). Recently, however, arguments have appeared that suggest a certain contribution of Neanderthals in the formation of the genome of European modern humans. Some of these arguments point to genetic differentiation of Neanderthal populations in the period when they cohabited with modern humans (Schmitz et al.2002, Beauval et al.2005, Lalueza et al.2006), some others point to more divergent Neanderthal haplotypes before 45 Kyr BP (Orlando et al.2008). Effectively the hypothesis about the total replacement has to be reassessed. Moreover, the fact should be taken into account that the identification of mt DNA of European modern humans is based on bone remains fom the period as late as 28-25 Kyr BP (i.e. from the period of the Gravettian), whereas we do not know mt DNA sequences of early Homo sapiens from the period of Neanderthal/Modern Man cohabitation. This makes the construction of new hypothesis of the process of diffusion of modern humans more difficult. There are no such cases that would provide arguments in support of the hypothesis about autochthonous evolution of Neanderthals into anatomically modern humans. Data that are significant for the discussion about the total replacement and about the contribution of Neanderthal populations to the emergence of Eurpean anatomically modern humans is the comparison of culture systems created by the two populations. In the period of their cohabitation in the Near East material cultures of the two populations were similar and corresponds to-broadly understood-the Near Eastern Levallois-Mousterian. Most importantly it should be stressed that the culture of archaic Homo sapiens in Northern Africa belongs too, to a taxonomic unit similar to some facies of the Mousterian of Neanderthals in Europe. The differences between the cultures could be seen, first of all, in the sphere of symbolic culture