Kakapel rock art timeline reveals 9,000 years of painters in Kenya

Amazing stuff! The abstract of this research paper is lousy and dilettante!

"A recent study ... presents the first millimeter-accurate recording of the paintings at Kakapel rock shelter in Kenya, linking the layers of rock art painted over thousands of years to at least three culturally and genetically distinct groups.

The combination of rock art analysis, aDNA, and excavation data makes Kakapel one of the most comprehensively understood rock art sites in eastern Africa. ..."

From the abstract:

"... first described the Kakapel rock art of western Kenya in 1977.  ...

Fieldwork in 2011 was undertaken to ... further research at the site. This paper presents the first millimetre-accurate redrawing of the main panel at Kakapel and places the site within the broader context of eastern African rock art to propose an age and authorship for the different painted traditions represented there.

It thus builds on and extends current understandings of the rock art sequence of eastern Africa."

Kakapel rock art timeline reveals 9,000 years of painters in Kenya

The rock art of Kakapel Shelter, western Kenya (open access)

Figure 4. Kakapel: redrawing of the images in Layer 1 (redrawn by Wendy Voorveld in 2012 and coloured for publication by Kgolagano Vena).

Figure 5. Kakapel: redrawing of the images in Layer 2 (redrawn by Wendy Voorveld in 2012 and coloured for publication by Kgolagano Vena).

Figure 6. Kakapel: redrawing of the images in Layer 3 (redrawn by Wendy Voorveld in 2012 and coloured for publication by Kgolagano Vena).

Figure 1. Map of East Africa showing location of Kakapel rock art site in relation to other sites and places mentioned in the paper.

Did the first modern apes emerge in northern Africa and the Middle East instead of East Africa?

Amazing stuff! Maybe the pyramids in Egypt distracted too much! Just kidding!

"Scientists have long assumed that modern apes—the group that includes gibbons, orangutans, chimpanzees, gorillas, and humans—first emerged in East Africa. Newly discovered fossils described recently in Science, however, may rewrite that history.

Researchers working at the Wadi Moghra archaeological site in northern Egypt unearthed teeth and jawbones belonging to a previously unknown ape genus and species, which lived around 17 to 18 million years ago during the Early Miocene epoch. “Discovering a fossil ape in this region is both significant and somewhat surprising,” ...

The ancient animal, dubbed Masripithecus moghraensis , appears to be closely related to the last common ancestor of all living apes, suggesting this group actually got its start in northern Africa and the Middle East. Based on its large, textured teeth and robust jaw, the team believes M. moghraensis ate a flexible diet of fruit, nuts, and seeds—helping the species thrive during a period of climatic change. ..."

"... The remains, discovered in 2023 and 2024, are very incomplete ‪—‬ just a few fragments of lower jawbone and some worn teeth. But Al-Ashqar and her colleagues established that the remains didn't belong to any known ape species. The researchers have assigned the fossils to a new genus and species named Masripithecus moghraensis; the genus name translates to "Egypt monkey or trickster" in Arabic and Greek, while the species name refers to "Wadi Moghra," where it was found. ..."

From the Perspective abstract:

"Research on the closest extinct relatives of humans (such as australopiths) can only explain the most recent evolutionary history of the human lineage. Older apes are essential to reconstructing the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans—that is, the starting point of human evolution

(1). The ape and human lineage (hominoids) diverged from Old World monkeys in Afro-Arabia more than 25 million years ago (Ma)

(2). In the Miocene epoch (23 to 5 Ma), apes were much more diverse and widespread than they are today (1, 3). Various lineages of African archaic (stem) hominoids evolved before the origin of modern (crown) hominoids and their eventual dispersal into Eurasia. However, the origins of crown hominoids are still unclear. On page 1383 of this issue, Al-Ashqar et al. (4) describe a previously unknown Miocene ape from North Africa and discuss its relevance for crown-hominoid origins."

From the editor's summary and abstract:

"Editor’s summary

The vast majority of early hominoid fossil hunting has occurred in East Africa, where a trove of early fossils and lineages have been found. Other regions in Africa have been less explored for various reasons, inspiring the question of whether a focus on East Africa has shaped opinions about where early hominoid evolution occurred. Al-Ashqar et al. now describe a Miocene ape from Egypt with crown hominoid affinities suggesting both that this lineage diverged before entering Eurasia and that a focus on one African region may have shaped our ideas about where hominoids first emerged (see the Perspective by Alba and Arias-Martorell). ... 

Abstract

The Early Miocene fossil record documenting hominoid evolution has long been restricted primarily to sites in East Africa, whereas contemporaneous North African sites have only yielded remains of cercopithecoid monkeys.

Here, we describe a fossil ape from North Africa, a new genus (Masripithecus) from the Early Miocene (~17 million to 18 million years) of northern Egypt, on the basis of mandibular remains. A combined molecular-morphological Bayesian tip-dating analysis positions Masripithecus closer to crown hominoids than coeval fossil apes from East Africa, thereby filling a phylogenetic and biogeographic gap in the evolution of stem hominoids. This evidence suggests that crown Hominoidea might have originated during the Early Miocene in the underexplored northeastern part of Afro-Arabia, rather than in eastern Africa or Eurasia."

ScienceAdviser

18 million-year-old fossils of ape found in Africa, but in an unexpected place "The ancestor of apes was long thought to come from East Africa, but newly discovered fossils in Egypt may prompt a rethink."

The dawn of modern apes (Perspective, no public access)

An Early Miocene ape from the biogeographic crossroads of African and Eurasian Hominoidea (no public access)

A map showing the dispersal of apes, including Masripithecus moghraensis, in the Miocene.

A jaw fragment from Masripithecus moghraensis, photographed at the moment of discovery.

Neanderthals survived on a knife’s edge Between 400,000 and 45,000 years ago

Amazing stuff! 350,000 years on knife's edge? Really!

"Between 400,000 and 45,000 years ago, Neanderthals had most of Eurasia to themselves, hunting large game, harvesting plants, expertly knapping stone tools, and fashioning clothing from animal skins. But their existence was precarious. Two new studies show many Neanderthals lived in small, far-flung groups; likely experienced significant inbreeding; and survived a close brush with extinction about 75,000 years ago. ...

The team found that Neanderthal sites and skeletal remains were widely distributed across the continent, and their genomes relatively diverse, until about 75,000 years ago, Then, as an ice age gripped the continent between 75,000 and 65,000 years ago, “we see the number of sites decline,” ... Archaeological data show some Neanderthals found refuge in southwestern Europe, taking shelter inside caves in the valleys of southern France, while abandoning or dying out in the rest of the continent. ..."

Neanderthals survived on a knife’s edge for 350,000 years | Science | AAAS

A high-coverage Neandertal genome from the Altai Mountains reveals population structure among Neandertals (open access)

Archaeogenetic insights into the demographic history of Late Neanderthals (open access)

Fig. 1 Neandertal D17 and its relationship with other Neandertals. (A) Locations of high-coverage Neandertal genomes used in the study.

The biggest myths about Neanderthals

Recommendable!

(1) The biggest myths about Neanderthals - Bruce Hardy - YouTube

Only humans have chins: Study shows it's an evolutionary accident. Really!

Does it not provide any significant benefits to humans? How about speech and eating?

So far this paper is only published on PLOS.

The lead author Noreen von Cramon-Taubadel has only less than 4900 lifetime citations!

Why these authors even used the term "spandrel" (the space between the shoulders of adjoining arches) in the title of their paper?

"... "The chin evolved largely by accident and not through direct selection, but as an evolutionary byproduct resulting from direct selection on other parts of the skull," says Noreen von Cramon-Taubadel, Ph.D., professor and chair of the UB Department of Anthropology in the College of Arts and Sciences. ..."

From the abstract:

"Humans are unique among primates in possessing a chin, yet it is currently unclear whether the form of the symphyseal region of the mandible where the chin is located is the product of direct selection or a by-product of evolutionary pressures on other craniomandibular features.

Here, we conduct an evolutionary analysis of hominoid craniomandibular traits to test three hypotheses: symphyseal mandibular traits evolved

(1) neutrally due to genetic drift,

(2) under direct selection, and 

(3) as a by-product (or “spandrel”) of selection on other craniomandibular traits. Evolutionary rates of morphological change, via Lande’s generalized genetic distance, were estimated along each branch of a fully-resolved hominoid phylogeny to reveal patterns of neutral, stabilizing and directional selection.

Directional selection was detected along the branch between humans and the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans, against a backdrop of pervasive stabilizing selection and neutral evolution in hominoids. Significant directional selection was found on cranial traits reflecting increased basicranial flexion, neurocranial expansion, and reduction in lower facial prognathism, and on mandibular traits that generate a more parabolic-shaped, gracile mandible with a smaller ramus and shallower corpus.

In contrast, of the nine mandibular “chin” traits, only three were under significant direct selection, while the other six were either under no selection or indirect selection. Thus, the results are consistent with the hypothesis that the symphyseal morphology that forms the human chin evolved largely as a by-product (i.e., spandrel) [???] of direct selection for reduced anterior dental size and the craniofacial changes correlated with the evolution of bipedalism in hominins, rather than as a specific adaptation."

Only humans have chins: Study shows it's an evolutionary accident

Is the human chin a spandrel? Insights from an evolutionary analysis of ape craniomandibular form

Fig 2. Craniomandibular landmarks with all 22 cranial and 24 mandibular interlandmark distances considered here.

Landmark definitions can be found in S1 Table. Solid colored lines show the expected selection gradients to increase (red) and to decrease (blue) for the nine mandibular symphyseal traits related to the evolution of a chin under a hypothetical model of direct selection along the Homo sapiens branch since the last common ancestor with chimpanzees. [Notice, the authors forgot to explain the meaning of the capital letters!]

Exposure to burn injuries played key role in shaping human evolution, study suggests

Amazing stuff! How did the harnessing of fire by humans affect human evolution?

"A new study ... suggests that this increased exposure to burn injuries may have driven notable genetic adaptations which differentiated humans from other primates and mammals. This may also explain both beneficial and maladaptive responses to severe burn injury. ...

Using comparative genomic data across primates, the researchers found examples of genes associated with burn injury responses which show signs of accelerated evolution in humans. These genes are involved in wound closure, inflammation and immune system response—likely helping to rapidly close wounds and fight infection; a major complication after burn injury, particularly before the widespread use of antibiotics.

These findings support the theory that exposure to burn injuries may have been a notable force on the evolution of humans. ..."

From the abstract:

"The mastery of fire transformed human evolution through advantages spanning diet, behavior, physiology, and ecology. While these benefits are well established, here we highlight a previously overlooked cost — and selective pressure — unique to humans: high-temperature burn injury.

Unlike other species, humans and their hominin ancestors have faced increased lifetime risk of burns, which we argue has driven genetic adaptation. Drawing on comparative genomic evidence across primates, we suggest that genes associated with burn injury response — relating to wound healing and inflammation — show signs of accelerated evolution in humans.

We propose that recurrent exposure to burns acted as a selective force in our lineage, helping to explain both beneficial adaptations and paradoxical maladaptive responses to severe injury.

By framing burns as an evolutionary pressure, the Burn Selection Hypothesis invites a re-evaluation of how fire shaped human biology and offers new perspectives for understanding both the evolutionary past and modern burn care."

Exposure to burn injuries played key role in shaping human evolution, study suggests

Exposure to burn injuries played key role in shaping human evolution, study suggests (original news release) "Humans’ exposure to high temperature burn injuries may have played an important role in our evolutionary development, shaping how our bodies heal, fight infection, and sometimes fail under extreme injury, according to new research."

Burn Selection: How Fire Injury Shaped Human Evolution (open access)

World's Oldest Monumental Site Built 12,000 Years Before Agriculture - Göbekli Tepe

Recommendable!

Advanced ancient stone tools in China are forcing scientists to rethink early humans

Amazing stuff!

"An international research team led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences carried out excavations at Xigou in the Danjiangkou Reservoir Region of central China. Their work revealed evidence of advanced stone tool technologies dating from about 160,000 to 72,000 years ago. ..."

"... The explorations ... revealed hominins in this region were far more inventive and adaptable than previously believed, at a time when multiple large-brained hominins were present in China, such as Homo longi and Homo juluensis, and possibly Homo sapiens. ..."

From the abstract:

"Technological innovations in Africa and western Europe in the later part of the Middle Pleistocene signal the behavioural complexity of hominin populations. Yet, at the same time, it has long been believed that hominin technologies in Eastern Asia lack signs of innovation and sophistication.

Here, we report on technological innovations occurring at Xigou, in the Danjiangkou Reservoir Region, central China, dating to ~160,000–72,000 years ago. Technological, typological, and functional analyses reveal the presence of advanced technological behaviours spanning over a 90,000-year period. The Xigou hominins used core-on-flake and discoid methods to effectively obtain small dimensional flakes to manufacture a diverse range of tool forms. 

he identification of the hafted tools provides the earliest evidence for composite tools in Eastern Asia, to our knowledge.

Technological innovations revealed at Xigou and other contemporary sites in China correspond with increasing evidence for Late Quaternary hominin morphological variability, including larger brain sizes, such as demonstrated at Lingjing (Xuchang) in central China.

The complex technological advancements recorded at Xigou indicate that hominins developed adaptive strategies that enhanced their survivability across fluctuating environments of the late Middle Pleistocene and middle Late Pleistocene in Eastern Asia."

Ancient tools in China are forcing scientists to rethink early humans | ScienceDaily "A recently uncovered archaeological site in central China is changing how scientists understand early hominin behavior in East Asia. The discoveries suggest these ancient populations were far more capable and adaptable than previously assumed."

Discovery challenges long-held beliefs on early human technology in East Asia (original news release)

Technological innovations and hafted technology in central China ~160,000–72,000 years ago (open access)

Excavation of Xigou site

Fig. 2: Core metric and techno-typological variables.

These ancient handprints from Indonesia may represent some of the world’s first rock art about 70,000 years old

Amazing stuff!

"Brown-pigmented hand stencils found on the walls of caves on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi and dated to at least 67,800 years ago may be the oldest known examples of rock art in the world. The paintings—reported today in Nature—indicate that Sulawesi was a waypoint for early migrants to the greater region known as Sahul, which once connected Australia and New Guinea. ...

If the dates hold up, they would predate the oldest known Neanderthal paintings in Europe by about 1000 years. In some cases, similar motifs are found in the Sulawesi caves that are separated by tens of thousands of years, indicating a remarkable degree of continuity in the artistic culture of the islands’ early inhabitants. ..."

From the abstract:

"The Indonesian archipelago is host to some of the earliest known rock art in the world. Previously, secure Pleistocene dates were reported for figurative cave art and stencils of human hands in two areas in Indonesia—the Maros-Pangkep karsts in the southwestern peninsula of the island of Sulawesi and the Sangkulirang-Mangkalihat region of eastern Kalimantan, Borneo.

Here we describe a series of early dated rock art motifs from the southeastern portion of Sulawesi. Among this assemblage of Pleistocene (and possibly more recent) motifs, laser-ablation U-series (LA-U-series) dating of calcite overlying a hand stencil from Liang Metanduno on Muna Island yielded a U-series date of 71.6 ± 3.8 thousand years ago (ka), providing a minimum-age constraint of 67.8 ka for the underlying motif. The Muna minimum (67.8 ± 3.8 ka) exceeds the published minimum for rock art in Maros-Pangkep by 16.6 thousand years (kyr) (ref. 5) and is 1.1 kyr greater than the published minimum for a hand stencil from Spain attributed to Neanderthals, which until now represented the oldest demonstrated minimum-age constraint for cave art worldwide.

Moreover, the presence of this extremely old art in Sulawesi suggests that the initial peopling of Sahul about 65 ka7 involved maritime journeys between Borneo and Papua, a region that remains poorly explored from an archaeological perspective."

These ancient handprints may represent some of the world’s first rock art | Science | AAAS

Rock art from at least 67,800 years ago in Sulawesi (open access)

Fig. 1: Map of Sulawesi and the wider region.

Fig. 2 Fig. 2: Dated rock art from Liang Metanduno.

Ice age Europeans imported tools from distant lands, perhaps as souvenirs

Amazing stuff!

"To survive Europe’s bitterly cold ice age some 25,000 years ago, people did what people do best: They networked. In a paper published today in Science Advances, archaeologists report finding stone tools in central Spain that came from almost 800 kilometers away, the farthest confirmed distance a stone tool has been found from its source in this time period, known as the European Paleolithic. ..."

From the abstract:

"Social networking is an essential feature of hunter-gatherer societies. It fosters the circulation of goods and information and enables kinship ties across different scales, including long-distance contacts. While such behaviors are known since at least the Upper Palaeolithic, evidence for geographically extensive social networks remains scarce. This evidence is limited to indirect inferences based on shared cultural traits, “art” styles, and symbolic items, while lithic raw material movements are mostly local and regional, with few cases exceeding 300 kilometers.

We provide geochemical evidence for the largest confirmed distance between the source and discard location of a knapped lithic object in Palaeolithic Europe. Solutrean artifacts discarded at Peña Capón, Central Iberia, were sourced in Southwest France, 600 to 700 kilometers away.

This demonstrates social networks of unprecedented geographic scale maintained during ∼1400 years during the Last Glacial Maximum. It also suggests that stone tools were exchanged as symbolic items to solidify social contacts and sustain far-reaching networks as risk-buffering mechanisms among widely dispersed hunter-gatherers."

Ice age Europeans imported tools from distant lands, perhaps as souvenirs | Science | AAAS

Far-reaching hunter-gatherer networks during the Last Glacial Maximum in Western Europe (open access)

Fig. 1. Jasperoid chert artifacts.

Fig. 2. Location of studied geological units and outcrops.

On the last common ancestor (LCA) to modern human, Neanderthals and Denisovans found in Morocco dated to around 773,000 years ago

Amazing stuff! Casablanca is not only famous for the same name 1942 movie (director Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman)!

"Thanks to estimates for how long it would have taken for DNA differences to accrue, scientist have a good idea of when the last common ancestor (LCA) to modern humans—Neanderthals and Denisovans—lived: sometime around 765,000 to 550,000 years ago. But the identity of that LCA, and where it lived, have long been a mystery. A trove of fossils unearthed from a rock quarry in Morocco could shed light on the hominin that lived at this critical juncture in the story of human evolution.

Jawbones, teeth, and vertebrae discovered at the Grotte à Hominidés site have a mixed bag of derived and ancestral traits. The molars tapered toward the back of the mouth, and the lower surface of a vertebra was curved and inward-facing, like those of earlier hominins such as Homo erectus. Yet the shape and small size of wisdom tooth roots is a trait usually associated with Homo sapiens. The fossils were dated to around 773,000 years ago, close in time to when the LCA of humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans would have lived.

Taken together, that’s suggestive evidence that these fossils may have come from close relatives of that LCA, though exactly where their species falls in the human family tree remains a mystery. Still, other researchers urged caution, noting that while the authors’ interpretation is plausible, the fossils’ mixture of traits could simply represent normal variation, not a true blend of old and new that would anchor it at the root of our species’ split with its close cousins."

"... But the identity of the last common ancestor of all three has long eluded scientists. And rather than imagining one progenitor species, a growing number of researchers now think populations in different regions mated intermittently and contributed to the ancestry of these three big-brained human types. “There probably wasn’t one population that gave rise to the human lineage. There probably were lots of populations in various places,” Schroeder says.

Well-dated fossils from that time span could help untangle things, but few have been found. One exception, a trove of remains from a species called H. antecessor, comes from a site known as Gran Dolina in Spain. Fossils there date to between 950,000 and 770,000 years ago. Some scientists think H. antecessor could be that last common ancestor, but its Spanish residency flies against the consensus in paleoanthropology that our species’ roots were in Africa. ..."

"... The site, also known as Grotte à Hominidés (“Hominid Cave”), has drawn the interest of scientists since 1969—when a partial jaw of a modern human relative was discovered, along with dental remains and a femur.

In the Nature study, the authors used high-resolution magnetostratigraphy, a sophisticated technique that can precisely date geological sequences, to confirm that the fossils are approximately 773,000 years old.  ...

The results stem from over three decades of archaeological and geological research conducted under the Moroccan-French Program “Préhistoire de Casablanca.” This program conducts extensive excavations, systematic stratigraphic studies, and large-scale geoarchaeological analyses in the southwest part of the city of Casablanca. ...

As a result, the Casablanca region has become one of Africa’s richest repositories of Pleistocene palaeontology and archaeology, documenting the early Acheulean and its developments, diverse faunas reflecting environmental change, and several phases of hominin occupation."

From the abstract:

"Palaeogenetic evidence suggests that the last common ancestor of present-day humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans lived around 765–550 thousand years ago (ka). However, both the geographical distribution and the morphology of these ancestral humans remain uncertain.

The Homo antecessor fossils from the TD6 layer of Gran Dolina at Atapuerca, Spain, dated between 950 ka and 770 ka, have been proposed as potential candidates for this ancestral population.

However, all securely dated Homo sapiens fossils before 90 ka were found either in Africa or at the gateway to Asia, strongly suggesting an African rather than a Eurasian origin of our species.

Here we describe new hominin fossils from the Grotte à Hominidés at Thomas Quarry I (ThI-GH) in Casablanca, Morocco, dated to around 773 ka. These fossils are similar in age to H. antecessor, yet are morphologically distinct, displaying a combination of primitive traits and of derived features reminiscent of later H. sapiens and Eurasian archaic hominins. The ThI-GH hominins provide insights into African populations predating the earliest H. sapiens individuals discovered at Jebel Irhoud in Morocco and provide strong evidence for an African lineage ancestral to our species. These fossils offer clues about the last common ancestor shared with Neanderthals and Denisovans."

ScienceAdviser

Fossils point to common ancestor of modern humans, Neanderthals

Human Ancestors in Morocco Reveal an African Lineage Near the Root of Modern Humans (original news release) "Study pinpoints 773,000-year-old fossils with high-resolution dating technique, illuminating the shared ancestry of Homo sapiens, Neanderthals, and Denisovans"

Early hominins from Morocco basal to the Homo sapiens lineage (open access)

A partial jaw of a modern human relative discovered during the excavation at Thomas Quarry I (Grotte à Hominidés) in Morocco

Extended Data Fig. 7: Molar morphology of ThI-GH-10978.

Principal component plots of enamel-dentine junction (EDJ) shape of the

first deciduous molar (top left),

second deciduous molar (top right), and

first permanent molar (bottom) from the ThI-GH-10978 mandible.

The EDJ shape of all molars is different, and approximately equidistant from H. neanderthalensis and modern H. sapiens. Note that the H. antecessor second deciduous and first permanent molar are more derived in shape and sit closer to these two taxa.

Now back to the Casablanca movie. "Here's looking at you, kid"! (This is not the correct scene picture)

CARTA: The Genetic History of Europe with Johannes Krause

Very recommendable! Europeans are white skinned, because of lack of Vitamin D. I am a little skeptical.

How the depiction of the famous Ötzi changed within a few years

About 600 CE

60,000-year-old poison arrowheads show early humans' skillful hunting in South Africa or 50,000 years earlier than previously known

Amazing stuff! Our distant ancestors were more clever than we thought!

"... The five 60,000-year-old quartz arrowheads still have traces of a poison made from a bulbous flowering plant named gifbol (Boophone disticha), also called “poisonous onion,” that was used until recent centuries by traditional hunters. ..."

From the abstract:

"Poisoned weapons are a hallmark of advanced hunter-gatherer technology. Through targeted microchemical and biomolecular analyses, we identified traces of toxic plant alkaloids on backed microliths from Umhlatuzana Rock Shelter in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, excavated from a level dated to 60,000 years ago. The alkaloids buphandrine and epibuphanisine only originate from Amaryllidaceae indigenous to southern Africa. The most likely source is Boophone disticha (L.f.) Herb. bulb exudate, also associated with historically documented arrow poisons. To our knowledge, we present the first direct evidence for the application of this plant-based poison on the tips of Pleistocene hunting weapons. The discovery highlights the complexity of subsistence strategies and cognition in southern Africa since the mid-Pleistocene."

60,000-year-old poison arrowheads show early humans' skillful hunting "The South Africa find pushes the timeline for poisoned weapons back more than 50,000 years"

Direct evidence for poison use on microlithic arrowheads in Southern Africa at 60,000 years ago (open access)

Organic residues on ancient stone points (the orange material visible in the view on the left) still contain traces of a plant-based poison after 60,000 years in the ground, a new analysis shows.

Fig. 1. Boophone disticha (L.f.) Herb., microlithic arrowhead, and Umhlatuzana Rock Shelter.

Recent discovery reveals Africa's oldest cremation pyre and complex ritual practices dating back about 9,500 years ago

Amazing stuff!

"About 9,500 years ago, a community of hunter-gatherers in central Africa cremated a small woman on an open pyre at the base of Mount Hora, a prominent natural landmark in what is now northern Malawi, according to a new study ... It is the first time this behavior has been documented in African hunter gatherers. 

The study ... provides the earliest evidence of intentional cremation in Africa and describes the world’s oldest known in situ cremation pyre containing the remains of an adult.

While burned human remains have been found (at Lake Mungo, Australia) dating back as far as 40,000 years, cremation pyres — intentionally built structures of combustible fuel — do not appear in the archaeological record until nearly 30,000 years later. ...

"Cremation is very rare among ancient and modern hunter-gatherers, at least partially because pyres require a huge amount of labor, time, and fuel to transform a body into fragmented and calcined bone and ash," ..."

From the abstract:

"Human cremation on an open pyre demands intensive labor, communal resources, and sensory exposures.

We report the earliest evidence for intentional cremation in Africa, the oldest in situ adult pyre in the world, and one of only a few associated with hunter-gatherers.

A large cremation feature at Hora 1 in Malawi dates to ~9500 years ago and contains the remains of a small, gracile adult with evidence for perimortem defleshing and postcremation manipulation.

Subsequent revisiting of the site to build fires in the same place provided additional pyrotechnological spectacles.

High-resolution, multiproxy reconstruction of the ritual associated with cremation and its subsequent deposition demonstrates complex mortuary practices among ancient African foraging groups with substantial social investment and use of natural landscape features as persistent mortuary monuments."

Recent discovery reveals Africa's oldest cremation pyre and complex ritual practices

Ancient cremation pyre offers glimpse of tropical hunter gatherers’ mortuary practices "A new study ... provides evidence of the earliest intentional cremation in ancient Africa."

Earliest evidence for intentional cremation of human remains in Africa (open access)

Sediment block with striped ash layers

Fig. 1 HOR-1 site in context.

Fig. 4. Bone modifications made with stone tools.

Fig. 5. Reconstruction of the cremation ritual.

Early neanderthals made fire 400,000 years ago in the UK pushing back the origin of human fire making by over 350,000 years

Amazing stuff! Another surprising discovery about the Neanderthals!

I had previously blogged here already about this discovery, but it was only about a video!

I bet this is not the earliest ever, but other places somewhere around the world will be discovered in the future.

"... Pinpointing exactly when this kind of fire use evolved is tricky, since the traces of natural burns and human-made ones look alike. Now, a new study reports on a concentrated patch of heated sediment and burned stone tools from the East Farm Barnham archeological site.

The researchers found two fragments of pyrite, a mineral that can produce sparks when struck against flint, indicating that the early Neanderthals used them as “a fire-making kit.” These ancient deposits mark the earliest known evidence of fire-making, roughly 400,000 years ago. ..."

"A stunning discovery at an archaeological dig in the UK is rewriting the timeline of when humans first made fire.

Researchers have discovered the earliest known instance of human-created fire, which took place in the east of England 400,000 years ago.

The new discovery, in the village of Barnham, pushes the origin of human fire-making back by more than 350,000 years, far earlier than previously thought. ..."

"The discovery shows humans were making fire around 350,000 years earlier than previously known.

Research ... provides evidence of the earliest known instance of fire-making by humans – around 400,000 years ago. Previous recorded instances of fire-making date to only 50,000 years ago. ..."

From the abstract:

"Fire-making is a uniquely human innovation that stands apart from other complex behaviours such as tool production, symbolic culture and social communication.
Controlled fire use provided adaptive opportunities that had profound effects on human evolution. Benefits included warmth, protection from predators, cooking and creation of illuminated spaces that became focal points for social interaction. Fire use developed over a million years, progressing from harvesting natural fire to maintaining and ultimately making fire.

However, determining when and how fire use evolved is challenging because natural and anthropogenic burning are hard to distinguish. Although geochemical methods have improved interpretations of heated deposits, unequivocal evidence of deliberate fire-making has remained elusive.

Here we present evidence of fire-making on a 400,000-year-old buried land surface at Barnham (UK), where heated sediments and fire-cracked flint handaxes were found alongside two fragments of iron pyrite—a mineral used in later periods to strike sparks with flint.

Geological studies show that pyrite is locally rare, suggesting it was brought deliberately to the site for fire-making.

The emergence of this technological capability provided important social and adaptive benefits, including the ability to cook food on demand—particularly meat—thereby enhancing digestibility and energy availability, which may have been crucial for hominin brain evolution."

"... Sites in Africa suggest humans used natural fire over a million years ago, but the discovery at the Palaeolithic site in Barnham evidences the creation and control of fire, which carries huge implications for human development and evolution. Until now, the oldest known evidence of fire-making was from 50,000 years ago, found in northern France. ..."

Early neanderthals made fire 400,000 years ago

The moment the earliest known human-made fire was uncovered "BBC News visits the prehistoric site in Suffolk"

Groundbreaking discovery shows earliest evidence of fire-making (official news release) "Researchers led by the British Museum have unearthed the earliest known evidence of fire-making, dating back over 400,000 years, in a field in Suffolk."

Earliest evidence of making fire (no public access)

The site at Barnham, where the discoveries were made

Metabolites in million-year-old fossils reveal animals’ lives in detail

Amazing stuff!

Notice this study also mentions warmer temperatures than today millions of years before humans released CO2!

"About 2.4 million years ago, a large, now-extinct elephant meandered along the grassy shores of Lake Malawi in East Africa. Today, scientists know it was a juvenile that munched wormwood bark and mulberry leaves—and may have been fighting an infection when it died.

In a study ... scientists report that fossil bones and teeth from that elephant and other fossil animals dating back millions of years ago contain metabolites, tiny byproducts of internal metabolic processes. These compounds can reveal hidden insights into past environments, including details such as soil acidity and ancient pathogens. The work highlights the promise of such work to provide a window into the past. ...

The study “inaugurates paleometabolomics”—as the field is known—“as a robust, biomolecular tool for extracting … data from millions-of-years-old fossils,” ..."

"For the first time, scientists have analyzed metabolism-related molecules from the fossilized bones of animals that lived 1.3 to 3 million years ago, revealing insights about both the animals and their environments.

The metabolic clues about the animals’ health and diets enabled researchers to paint a picture of their living conditions, including the temperature, soil, rainfall, and vegetation. Their findings, published in Nature, reveal warmer and wetter conditions across these environments compared to today.

Studying metabolites—the molecules produced and used in digestion and other chemical processes in the body—can provide information about health and disease, as well as external factors like diet and environmental exposures. While metabolomic research is increasingly used in studying human diseases and drugs, few scientists have explored its use in understanding the prehistoric world. Instead, they largely focus on DNA in fossils, which is primarily used for establishing genetic relationships. ..."

From the abstract:

"The science of metabolic profiling exploits chemical compound byproducts of metabolism called metabolites that explain internal biological functions, physiological health and disease, and provide evidence of external influences specific to an organism’s habitat.
Here we assess palaeometabolomes from fossilized mammalian hard tissues as a molecular ecological strategy to provide evidence of an ancient organism’s relationship with its environment.
From eastern, central and southern African Plio-Pleistocene localities of palaeoanthropological significance, we study six fossils from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, one from the Chiwondo Beds, Malawi, and one from Makapansgat, South Africa.
We perform endogeneity assessments by analysing palaeometabolomes of palaeosols and the effects of owl digestion on rodent bones to enable prudent ecological inferences.

Diagenesis is indicated by metabolites of collagenase-producing bacteria, whereas the preservation of peptides including those of collagen are identified by proteomics.

Endogenous metabolites document biological functions and exogenous metabolites render environmental details including soil characteristics and woody cover, and enable annual minimum and maximum rainfall and temperature reconstructions at Olduvai Gorge, supporting the freshwater woodland and grasslands of Olduvai Gorge Bed, and the dry woodlands and marsh of Olduvai Gorge Upper Bed II6.

All sites denote wetter and/or warmer conditions than today.

We infer that metabolites preserved in hard tissues derive from an extravasated vasculature serum filtrate that becomes entombed within developing mineralized matrices, and most probably survive palaeontological timeframes in the nanoscopic ‘pool’ of structural-bound water that occurs in hard tissue niches."

Chemicals in million-year-old fossils reveal animals’ lives in detail | Science | AAAS "Ancient meals and infections reconstructed from preserved metabolic markers"

Metabolic Analyses of Animal Fossils Helps Scientists Reconstruct Million-Year-Old Environments (original news release) "Thanks to molecules trapped in ancient animal bones, fossils tell stories about disease, diet, and climate"

Palaeometabolomes yield biological and ecological profiles at early human sites (no public access)

A polarized light image of fossilized antelope bone showing intact collagen (scale: 1 mm across)

The Science Behind How Humans Walk and used their hands | Prehistoric Autopsy

Very recommendable!

Two prehistoric humans, including famed ‘Iceman,’ had cancer-causing virus about 5,000 and 45,000 years ago

Amazing stuff!

"Some 5000 years ago, the corpse of a man known as Ötzi, “the Iceman,” froze in the Alps along what’s now the Austrian-Italian border. The resulting mummy, known for his preserved clothing, weaponry, and tattooed skin, most likely succumbed to an arrowhead lodged in his shoulder. But before Ötzi’s death, he also endured broken bones, intestinal parasites, and soot-blackened lungs. Now, scientists may add another ailment to that list: the cancerous human papillomavirus, HPV16.

In a paper ..., researchers report that Ötzi and a 45,000-year-old Homo sapiens fossil from western Siberia both contain stretches of DNA from the cancer-causing virus. The results, which have yet to undergo peer review, could help pin down when and how modern humans first encountered the virus. ..."

From the abstract:

"Human papillomaviruses (HPVs) are ancient viruses with diverse lineages infecting epithelial tissues in primates and humans. Although contemporary distribution and clinical importance are well understood, there is limited knowledge about their occurrence among prehistoric human populations.

We investigated the presence of HPV in ancient anatomically modern humans (AMHs) by analyzing genome sequencing data from two exceptionally preserved individuals:
Ust’-Ishim (∼45,000 years BP) and
Ötzi the Iceman (∼5,300 years BP).
Using a combination of reference-guided mapping and ancient DNA authentication criteria, we searched for HPV sequences in these ancient genomes. We detected high-confidence papillomavirus fragments in both individuals.
Further phylogenetic and comparative analyses revealed that the reconstructed sequences belong to HPV16, the most oncogenic HPV lineage.
Our study presents the earliest molecular evidence of HPV16 in anatomically modern humans (AMHs), pushing back its evolutionary history and challenging the idea that HPV16A entered Homo sapiens through Neanderthal interbreeding.

Our results suggest that HPV16 was already present in modern humans during the Upper Paleolithic, indicating a long-standing host–virus association independent of Neanderthal transmission."

Two ancient humans, including famed ‘Iceman,’ had cancer-causing virus | Science | AAAS

Oncogenic HPV types identified in Paleolithic and Chalcolithic human genome sequencing data from Ust’-Ishim and Ötzi

Figure 1.

Mapping coverage of HPV16 using archaic hominin-derived reads. Reference mapping was done using BBMap.
In (a) is the mapping of 170,071 Ötzi reads (mean coverage 3923.4) to the HPV16A1 reference (NC_001526.4).
In (b) is the mapping of 53,770 Ust’-Ishim reads (mean coverage 2830.3) to the HPV16A4 reference (HQ644234). Orange arrows mark the protein-coding genes. Mapping was carried out simultaneously against multiple HPV16 reference sequences, as described in Materials and Methods, but only the corresponding reference is shown in each panel for clarity.

Human oral Microbiome Evolution with Christina Warinner

Very recommendable! Excellent talk! Fascinating research!

Some newly discovered bacteria of the human mouth/teeth vanished suddenly about 200 years ago after having been with humans for about 40,000 years or so.

Evolutionary Switches - How Regulatory Variants Shaped Human Evolution with David Gokhman

Very recommendable! Amazing stuff! E.g. the vocal box/cords apparently were also a very important distinguishing and developing part of human evolution.

Human-chimpanzee hybrid cells and organoids drive important insights.

Knocking out the CGAT1 in mice and chimpanzees helps to explain how the human face  developed