Advancements of the Past
Widespread horse-based mobility arose around 2200 BCE in Eurasia
Pablo Librado et al.
Nature, 25 July 2024, Pages 819–825
Abstract:
Horses revolutionized human history with fast mobility. However, the timeline between their domestication and their widespread integration as a means of transport remains contentious. Here we assemble a collection of 475 ancient horse genomes to assess the period when these animals were first reshaped by human agency in Eurasia. We find that reproductive control of the modern domestic lineage emerged around 2200 BCE, through close-kin mating and shortened generation times. Reproductive control emerged following a severe domestication bottleneck starting no earlier than approximately 2700 BCE, and coincided with a sudden expansion across Eurasia that ultimately resulted in the replacement of nearly every local horse lineage. This expansion marked the rise of widespread horse-based mobility in human history, which refutes the commonly held narrative of large horse herds accompanying the massive migration of steppe peoples across Europe around 3000 BCE and earlier. Finally, we detect significantly shortened generation times at Botai around 3500 BCE, a settlement from central Asia associated with corrals and a subsistence economy centred on horses. This supports local horse husbandry before the rise of modern domestic bloodlines.
Cotton and post-Neolithic investment agriculture in tropical Asia and Africa, with two routes to West Africa
Dorian Fuller et al.
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, September 2024
Abstract:
This article provides an up-to-date review of the origins and spread of cottons in the Old World based on archaeobotanical evidence, and explores the routes and socioeconomic context through which cotton cultivation became established across the tropics and sub-tropics of Asia and Africa. Two cotton species were domesticated in the Old World, one of which was grown for millennia as a long-lived tree (Gossypium arboreum) and the other as a shrub over several years (Gossypium herbaceum). While G. arboreum began to be cultivated during the Middle Holocene (7000–4000 years ago) in Pakistan and Northwest India, G. herbaceum was likely domesticated in Africa, perhaps in Sudan. Evidence for cultivation of cotton in Sudan dates from around 2000 years ago, the same period that import of cotton from India into the Roman world was common. The spread of cotton through the African continent involved three trajectories. In southeast Africa, its near coastal islands and Madgascar, received cotton, inferred to be G. arboreum from India, around 1000 years ago in the context of increasing contact across the Indian ocean. As for western Africa, we postulate two dispersal routes: an oasis route through the Sahara and Sahel that focused on G. herbaceum, and a savanna route further south that brought G. arboreum to Cameroon, Benin and Ghana.
The world’s earliest ground stone needles: Archaeological evidence from the early Holocene of the Western Tibetan Plateau
Yun Chen et al.
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, September 2024
Abstract:
The earliest grinding and perforating techniques used for manufacturing bone tools represent an important aspect of the complexity of modern human behaviors. Ground perforated stone tools appeared relatively later, mainly as small ornaments and portable tools, and have been discovered extensively within the context of Neolithic technological complexity. We present six ground stone perforated (eyed) needles dated to the early Holocene from the Xiada Co (XDC) site. They represent the earliest known stone ground needles in Eurasian archaeological context, as well as the earliest instance of ground stone artefacts found on the Tibetan Plateau. We employed a combination of microscopic analysis, experiments, three-dimensional (3D) models, and residue analysis in conjunction with previous ethnographic studies to analyze the needles’ production processes, and potential functions. The findings indicated that modern humans of the Tibetan Plateau possess technological skills in ground technology and intentionally selected appropriate raw materials for processing stone needles at 8,900–8,500 cal. BP. We found that the production of stone needles involves the selection of blanks, scrapping, grinding and drilling, which is more time-consuming than producing bone needles. However, stone needles are harder and better suited for sewing tents. Our analysis of stone needles suggests they represent a special adaptive behavior of modern humans after their spread to and the permanent settlement of the Tibetan Plateau, which has not yet been found elsewhere. Furthermore, the discovery of pigments on stone needles indicates their possible ornamental functions, which could be one of the earliest instances of symbolism on the Tibetan Plateau.
The use of carinated items in the Levantine Aurignacian -- Insights from layer D, Hayonim Cave, W. Galilee, Israel
Hannah Parow-Souchon & Anna Belfer-Cohen
PLoS ONE, July 2024
Abstract:
A longstanding debate concerns the function of carinated elements in both, the Levantine, and European Aurignacian. The present study aims to contribute to this topic with the evaluation of the carinated assemblage from layer D in Hayonim Cave, Western Galilee, Israel, one of the type sites of the Levantine Aurignacian. An operational chain reconstruction with an attribute analysis is paired with a typological approach to the preparation and maintenance products based on artefacts defined as West European Aurignacian. The results of this study are investigated with multivariate statistics offering a methodological contribution. The data is subjected to a transformation into a distance matrix using the Gower distance and tested with the adonis-algorithm for significance. The results clearly indicate that the carinated items in Hayonim Cave did fully or partially function as cores. They are accompanied by diagnostic preparation- and- maintenance products known from the literature e.g. Thèmes bladelets. The statistical analysis indicates only a minor correlation with stratigraphy yet supports the techno-typological criteria applied for defining artefact categories (cores, debitage, tools), as well as the proposed differentiation of carinated ‘core’ types. The non-carinated cores in Hayonim Cave are characterised by a high variability in typology and reduction concepts. A curious similarity to the Levallois-concept is observed on some of the flake cores. It is therefore suggested that the frequent recycling of Middle Palaeolithic artefacts in the Levantine Aurignacian might have given the Aurignacian flint-knappers the opportunity to study the Levallois concept and apply an approximation of it in their own core reduction strategies. The notion that Palaeolithic flint-knappers actively observed former technological systems through the discarded artefacts directly opens up a new trajectory for the understanding of lithic reduction concept permanence. The conceptual diversification and variability in Hayonim Cave D indicate a highly dynamic period in the Levantine Upper Palaeolithic which increased the adaptive potential and promoted a rapid cultural change.
Weaving social networks from cultural similarities on the neolithisation process in the Western Mediterranean: Evolutionary trajectories using projectile tools
María Barrera-Cruz et al.
PLoS ONE, July 2024
Abstract:
In this paper, we concentrate on the neolithisation process in Mediterranean Iberia through a diachronic view (from 8600–6800 cal. BP), focusing on social interaction as a factor in articulating new cultural ties. To do this, we apply techniques centred on similarities in material culture by applying Social Network Analysis (SNA). For the first time, we point to the geometric projectiles, taking into account their recurrence in both Mesolithic and Neolithic groups as part of their characteristic hunting equipment. We hypothesise that patterns of cultural variability would express the changing flow of information between communities according to their mobility strategies (last hunter-gatherer groups), including economic and social behaviour, and that these relationships will be restructured with the arrival of the newcomer farmers and herders and their new spatial and social arrangement. The results obtained allow us to describe a connected and homogeneous Late Mesolithic network dramatically structured by the Neolithic arrival. Since then, a heterogenous pattern emerged, involving connected periods, network ruptures, and small-world phenomena. The emergence of this characteristic could support the flow of information when the network presents a clustered structure, the last probably due to regionalisation events. These diachronic dynamics fit well with demographic and socioecological trends observed from regional literature.