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Plant use in the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic: Food, medicine, and raw materials
Abstract
The use of plant materials in the manufacture of technological items is likely to be very extensive throughout the Palaeolithic, though only circumstantial evidence survives from the earliest periods.
Abstract
There is little surviving evidence for plant use in the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic periods yet the evidence there is, clearly indicates the importance of plants in the diet, as medicines and as raw materials. Here, the current evidence for plants is summarised, and the way this can be used to enrich perceptions of the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic are explored. The evidence for plant food fits well with basic nutritional requirements while the presence of medicinal plants correlates with plant-based self-medication by animals. Many plant-based technologies are likely to have developed early in the Palaeolithic. Though investigating this is challenging due to a lack of evidence, the extensive evidence for use of plant materials as tools by chimpanzees provides a broad backdrop. The ecological knowledge carried by all hominins would have provided a safety net when moving into new regions, while varying levels of neophobia would have enabled adaptation to new environments as hominin populations moved and climates changed. Recent plant use among traditional societies in high latitudes shows that even in locations with reduced biodiversity, plant resources can fulfil essential dietary requirements.
... Este comportamiento se identifica en restos de Homo habilis (Hardy 2018Ungar et al. 2001) y también en muchas especies fósiles posteriores (Hardy 2018;Ungar et al. 2001). Las evidencias más antiguas pertenecen a un molar aislado de Homo erectus (OH 60; de edad y sexo indeterminados), datado en 1,84 millones de años atrás (Ungar et al. 2001). ...
... Este comportamiento se identifica en restos de Homo habilis (Hardy 2018Ungar et al. 2001) y también en muchas especies fósiles posteriores (Hardy 2018;Ungar et al. 2001). Las evidencias más antiguas pertenecen a un molar aislado de Homo erectus (OH 60; de edad y sexo indeterminados), datado en 1,84 millones de años atrás (Ungar et al. 2001). ...
... Otra actividad de cuidado individual a destacar es la automedicación o el uso de plantas medicinales con objetivos de prevención y curación. Las plantas medicinales, estudiadas en arqueobotánica analizando sedimentos y cálculos dentales (Hardy 2018(Hardy , 2019Hardy et al. 2013Hardy et al. , 2016Weyrich et al. 2017), ofrecen importantes datos para inferir sobre las actividades de cuidado. A través de análisis químicos (Hardy 2018(Hardy , 2019Hardy et al. 2013Hardy et al. , 2016 se identifican una serie de compuestos secundarios de las plantas (Plant Secondary Com-pounds, PSC). ...
Desde el siglo XX, se estudian las patologías neandertales mediante el análisis de sus huesos. Sin embargo, el cuidado de la salud en poblaciones del Paleolítico medio, y sus implicaciones, no han sido estudiadas hasta muy recientemente. En la última década algunos autores comenzaron a considerar este tema para una mejor comprensión de las sociedades paleolíticas a partir de la bioarqueología del cuidado. Este trabajo es la primera síntesis crítica de los datos sobre neandertales. El conjunto estudiado incluye 16 yacimientos en Europa y Asia. Permite discutir los comportamientos sanitarios y sus implicaciones a nivel individual, poblacional y social. Nuestro estudio muestra que los comportamientos asistenciales se atestiguaban sistemáticamente en estas poblaciones y permite discutir aspectos técnicos y sociales e inferir capacidades cognitivas y emocionales. Esta investigación tiene una importante implicación social y contribuye a la creación de un vínculo directo entre el Paleolítico medio y los aspectos sociales de la atención sanitaria que todos hemos experimentado en los últimos años, debido al COVID-19, poniendo la Arqueología del Paleolítico en el centro de una reflexión sobre “qué nos hace humanos” y destacando su papel para proponer temas que tienen repercusión en los debates más actuales en nuestro mundo contemporáneo.
... For example, in warmer periods or regions, tree cover was more extensive and the range of plant foods increased, from staples such as grass seeds and underground storage organs to mushrooms, dates, pine nuts and tree moss (Henry et al., 2011;Weyrich et al., 2017). In contrast, under colder climate regimes, Neandertal adults were forced to subsist more exclusively on returns from the hunt and had fewer opportunities to exploit plants, although they still did (Hardy, 2018;Power et al., 2018). For example, Neandertals from Hortus cave Sub-Phase Vb, a colder period with a remarkable dearth of evidence of plant food consumption, differ from slightly warmer-wetter phases of the sequence where a heavier plant food signal is evidenced (Williams et al., 2018). ...
... Hortus II probably had access to fewer woodland plant resources compared to Pech de l'Azé I from a more temperate interval. Although the kinds of plants used by Neandertals differed by region -for example, the consumption of wild dates and mushrooms by Neandertals in Iraq and Spain, respectively -evidence from dental calculus shows a rather consistent use of starches from grass seeds and underground storage organs in a wide range of habitats (Madella et al., 2002;Henry et al., 2011Henry et al., , 2014Hardy et al., 2012;Hardy, 2018, Power et al., 2018. Additional plant foods consumed during the Middle Paleolithic, primarily charred, include hackberry (Celtis sp.) (Hardy, 2018); stone pine nuts (Pinus pinea), wild olives (Olea sp.) and Pistacea sp. ...
... Although the kinds of plants used by Neandertals differed by region -for example, the consumption of wild dates and mushrooms by Neandertals in Iraq and Spain, respectively -evidence from dental calculus shows a rather consistent use of starches from grass seeds and underground storage organs in a wide range of habitats (Madella et al., 2002;Henry et al., 2011Henry et al., , 2014Hardy et al., 2012;Hardy, 2018, Power et al., 2018. Additional plant foods consumed during the Middle Paleolithic, primarily charred, include hackberry (Celtis sp.) (Hardy, 2018); stone pine nuts (Pinus pinea), wild olives (Olea sp.) and Pistacea sp. (Barton et al., 1999); common hazel (Corylus avellana), Cornelian cherry (Cornus mas) and linden tree (Tilia) fruits (Richter, 2016); a great diversity of legumes (Papilionaceae) as well as pistachios (Pistacia atlantica), acorns (Quercus sp.), vetch (Vicia sp.) and other seeds (Lev et al., 2005); bitter-tasting medicinal plants (Hardy et al., 2012); stone seeds/field gromwell (Lithospermum arvense) (Tsartsidou et al., 2015); and possibly chyme from hunted or scavenged herbivores (Speth, 2017). ...
Neandertal adults show differences in diet with respect to paleohabitat. To examine whether Neandertal children of France during Marine Isotope Stage 3 also show these dietary distinctions, the deciduous second molars of Pech de l’Azé I, from a cold-temperate period, and Hortus II from Sub-Phase Vb, an extreme cold-arid interval, were examined using dental microwear texture analysis. The comparative sample (n=76) includes deciduous molars from Neolithic forager-farmers of Belgium, including Caverne de la Cave at Maurenne (n=5), Sclaigneaux (n=7) and Bois Madame (n=6), Roman-era farmers from Herculaneum (n=15) and Medieval agriculturalists from Canterbury, England (n=43). When complexity is compared to anisotropy, Pech de l’Azé I exhibits an elevated value from the mastication of plants with hard parts or adherent particles, or the consumption of foods that were poorly processed or grit-laden, whereas Hortus II presents a low value, perhaps from limited access to hard plant parts such as seeds and nuts. However, Pech de l’Azé I and Hortus II resemble each other in having a low value for anisotropy, which is indicative of complicated movements of the jaws during mastication and are dissimilar to Neolithic, Roman and Medieval human children who tend to have higher values. The diets of Neandertal children differ with respect to paleohabitat and typically were more diverse than those of food producers regardless of whether they inhabited wooded or open environments.
... Perry et al. (2007) proposed an association between high copy numbers of AMY1 with the quantity of starch consumed in different human diets. Plants also provided important medicines (Hardy 2019(Hardy , 2021 and raw materials for technologies and cultural practices (Hardy, 2018). But the role of plants can only be evaluated indirectly because the evidence rarely survives, unlike that for animals or stone tool production since plant skeletal structures are largely decomposed by soil microbes. ...
... Therefore, even with the considerable climatic fluctuations during the Pleistocene, plants with concentrated edible storage organs are likely to have been available in every habitable environment. Starch accumulates and becomes available in seeds and grains in late spring and summer, whereas roots and tubers accumulate starch in autumn and are a valuable winter and early spring resource (Moore, 2000;Kubiak-Martens, 2006;Hardy, 2007Hardy, , 2018. Starch is also present in small amounts in leaves, but it is usually transiently associated with photosynthesis and provides little dietary nutrition. ...
... Macroscopic remains of uncharred starchy plants on Paleolithic sites are relatively rare, yet what evidence there is indicates their importance (Hardy, 2018(Hardy, , 2019. The most common remain are Celtis seeds that have been recovered from several Lower and Middle Paleolithic sites, and although they could potentially have been left by animals (Dennell, 2008), human agency cannot be ignored. ...
Evidence for plants rarely survives on Paleolithic sites, while animal bones and biomolecular analyses suggest animal produce was important to hominin populations, leading to the perspective that Neanderthals had a very-high-protein diet. But although individual and short-term survival is possible on a relatively low-carbohydrate diet, populations are unlikely to have thrived and reproduced without plants and the carbohydrates they provide. Today, nutritional guidelines recommend that around half the diet should be carbohydrate, while low intake is considered to compromise physical performance and successful reproduction. This is likely to have been the same for Paleolithic populations, highlighting an anomaly in that the basic physiological recommendations do not match the extensive archaeological evidence. Neanderthals had large, energy-expensive brains and led physically active lifestyles, suggesting that for optimal health they would have required high amounts of carbohydrates. To address this anomaly, we begin by outlining the essential role of carbohydrates in the human reproduction cycle and the brain and the effects on physical performance. We then evaluate the evidence for resource availability and the archaeological evidence for Neanderthal diet and investigate three ways that the anomaly between the archaeological evidence and the hypothetical dietary requirements might be explained. First, Neanderthals may have had an as yet unidentified genetic adaptation to an alternative physiological method to spare blood glucose and glycogen reserves for essential purposes. Second, they may have existed on a less-than-optimum diet and survived rather than thrived. Third, the methods used in dietary reconstruction could mask a complex combination of dietary plant and animal proportions. We end by proposing that analyses of Paleolithic diet and subsistence strategies need to be grounded in the minimum recommendations throughout the life course and that this provides a context for interpretation of the archaeological evidence from the behavioral and environmental perspectives.
... A list of edible plants (Supplementary File S7) was established from the biological data presented in this article. In total, 82 edible taxa were identified (Supplementary File S7) based on our knowledge [5] and those found in the literature [88][89][90][91]. Among these plants, 49.3% are trees and 50.7% are herbs ( Figure 17A,B). ...
... They could also feed on Castanea, Corylus sp., Juglans sp., Prunus t., Cornus sanguinea sp., Malus acerba, Vitis sp., Carduus t., Urtica t., Malva sp. and many other plants listed in Supplementary File S7. Hardy [91] indicates that plant resources could constitute the bulk of the diet, even in regions where biodiversity was reduced. To this could be added marine animal resources because the tufa of Marseille were close to the Mediterranean Sea in the Lower Pleistocene or those coming from terrestrial animal hunting. ...
Abstract: The environment of the Marseille basin in the Early Pleistocene was reconstructed through a multiproxy study of fluvial tufa deposits. Palaeomagnetic measurements revealed the Jaramillo subchron and dated the tufa to within the 0.8-1.5 Ma interval, probably between 0.9 and1.2 Ma. Sedimentological studies show varied depositional environments comprising natural dams formed by accumulations of plants promoting the development of upstream water bodies. The very negative δ 13 C values indicate that the Marseille tufa is not travertine sensu stricto but tufa deposited by local cold-water rivers. Palynological analyses indicate a semi-forested, diverse, mosaic vegetation landscape dominated by a Mediterranean pine and oak forest. Along the streams, the riparian forest was diverse and included Juglans, Castanea, Platanus and Vitis. The potential diet reconstructed from pollen was varied. The most surprising discovery was the presence of proto-cereals, which could potentially enrich the diet with carbohydrates. The identification of spores of coprophilous fungi seems to indicate the presence in situ of large herbivore herds. It is possible that, as in Anatolia, the disturbance of ecosystems by large herbivores was responsible for the genetic mutation of Poaceae and the appearance of proto-cereals. Climatic reconstructions indicate a slightly cooler and wetter climate than the present.
... Non-industrialized human societies and nonhuman primate species use plant materials for implements far more often than bones or stone (Marlowe, 2010;Rolian & Carvalho, 2017). It is therefore unlikely that our early ancestors overlooked the potential value of this material, with plant tools likely being part of the most ancient technological repertoires (Hardy, 2018;Hardy et al., 2020;Panger et al., 2002). Given the limited archaeological evidence for perishable materials before the emergence of anatomically modern humans ($400-300 thousand years ago), testing this hypothesis remains challenging (but see Wadley et al., 2020 for novel discoveries in cave contexts and Luncz, Braun, et al., 2022 for novel methods to allow identification of damage on wooden tools). ...
... This broadly coincides with the use of tools by wild chimpanzees, in which plant implements constitute the bulk of their technical repertoire, with proportions ranging between 11%-18% for stones compared to 78%-83% of plant-based materials (Reader, 2004). As such, most of the technology used by chimpanzees today, like most ancient human technologies (Hardy, 2018), would not enter the archaeological record (McGrew, 2010). ...
The new field of primate archaeology investigates the technological behavior and material record of nonhuman primates, providing valuable comparative data on our understanding of human technological evolution. Yet, paralleling hominin archaeology, the field is largely biased toward the analysis of lithic artifacts. While valuable comparative data have been gained through an examination of extant nonhuman primate tool use and its archaeological record, focusing on this one single aspect provides limited insights. It is therefore necessary to explore to what extent other non-technological activities, such as non-tool aided feeding, traveling, social behaviors or ritual displays, leave traces that could be detected in the archaeological record. Here we propose four new areas of investigation which we believe have been largely overlooked by primate archaeology and that are crucial to uncovering the full archaeological potential of the primate behavioral repertoire, including that of our own: (1) Plant technology; (2) Archaeology beyond technology; (3) Landscape archaeology; and (4) Primate cultural heritage. We discuss each theme in the context of the latest developments and challenges, as well as propose future directions. Developing a more "inclusive" primate archaeology will not only benefit the study of primate evolution in its own right but will aid conservation efforts by increasing our understanding of changes in primate-environment interactions over time.
... Multi-proxy data from Early Upper Palaeolithic sites in the Pontic steppe, derived from starch residue extraction, spectroscopic and spectrometric techniques, point to the processing by pounding of a diverse group of tubers, possibly with the aim of tenderising them for consumption (including some less commonly observed C 4 carbon-fixing plant species; see Longo et al. 2021). Other aspects of plant resource choice and use, including raw materials and medicinal uses, have also been highlighted with regard to Lower and Middle Palaeolithic foraging (Hardy et al. 2012(Hardy et al. , 2022Hardy 2018). ...
... Our results reinforce current understanding that the use of plants in the Palaeolithic regularly relied on starch-rich tubers and grasses (Henry et al. 2011;Hardy et al. 2022) and further demonstrate that the labour-intensive processing of a broad spectrum of plant foods, including bitter, astringent and potentially toxic plants for human consumption, was an integral part of hunter-gatherer resource management strategies. The use of plant food preparation techniques was prevalent across the Eastern Mediterranean and South-west Asia from as early as the Middle Palaeolithic and appears to be independent of fluctuations in forage and prey ceilings due to climatic conditions (Hardy 2018;Power & Williams 2018). Crucially, our results demonstrate that food choices and preparation practices traditionally associated with the intensification of plant resource use that is linked to climatic amelioration at the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary and the origin of farming (Smith & Zeder 2013) clearly have a deep history that precedes the earliest evidence for plant cultivation by several tens of thousands of years. ...
Research on Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer diet has focused on the consumption of animals. Evidence for the use of plant foods is comparatively limited but is rapidly expanding. The authors present an analysis of carbonised macro-remains of processed plants from Franchthi Cave in the Aegean Basin and Shanidar Cave in the north-west Zagros Mountains. Microscopic examination of the charred food remains reveals the use of pounded pulses as a common ingredient in cooked plant foods. The results are discussed in the context of the regional archaeobotanical literature, leading the authors to argue that plants with bitter and astringent tastes were key ingredients of Palaeolithic cuisines in South-west Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean.
... Further DNA work on the same samples from El Sidrón consolidated this and also identifi ed several pathogenic bacteria, providing a possible link between the illness and the treatment (Weyrich et al., 2017). So many plants are poisonous, and the use of medicinal plants suggests that Neanderthals and all other early prehistoric populations must have had deep ecological knowledge of their environment (Hardy, 2018(Hardy, , 2019. Th is fi ts well with increasing evidence from other researchers, such as João Zilhão (ICREA, University of Barcelona), of complexity in Neanderthal behaviour. ...
... Th e battle is not over yet, but there is a growing amount of research into the use of plants and this, together with the abundant evidence or should be for of plants from outstanding sites, such as the 790,000-year-old site of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov (Goren-Inbar et al., 2002, Melamed et al., 2016, means that use of plants, both as food and medicine and extensive ecological knowledge, is slowly being integrated into perceptions of early prehistoric life (Hardy, 2018). ...
A personal story about my life as a mother and researcher (In English)
... Through the analysis of cut marks, dismemberment, filleting, long/extensive bone breakage and bones with traces of burning, it was possible to identify anthropogenic activities composing the assemblage (Camarós et al., 2013;Milošević, 2016Milošević, , 2020Majkić et al., 2018;Mihailović et al., 2022a). Likewise, the use of plant materials for food and technological items cannot be disregarded (Ward et al., 2012a(Ward et al., , 2012bHardy, 2018;Zilhão et al., 2020), especially since Fellows Yates et al. (2021) demonstrated the presence of bacteria involved in starch digestion within the oral microbiome of the Pes-3 Neanderthal from Layer 4 in Pešturina. Besides, a number of recent investigations highlight how relevant plants were for Neanderthal diet (Barton et al., 1999;Carrión et al., 2008Carrión et al., , 2018Hardy et al., 2012;Ochando et al., 2019Ochando et al., , 2020aOchando et al., , 2020bOchando et al., , 2020cOchando et al., , 2020d. ...
The Central Balkans are a key biogeographical region in Southern Europe, influenced by a central European-Mediterranean climate, which acted as a refugium for flora and fauna, and favored the dispersion of Neander-thals and migration of modern human populations during Late Glacial Period. This study presents pollen analyses of sediment and hyaena coprolites from Pešturina Cave in Serbia to reconstruct the vegetation landscapes faced by Balkan Neanderthals and early Anatomically Modern Humans between MIS 5e-3. Between MIS 5e-5c (archaeological layers 4c and 4b) and MIS 5b-5a (layer 4a), semi-forested environments prevailed, characterized by Pinus, deciduous Quercus, Tilia and other angiosperm woody taxa, accompanied by heliophytes such as Artemisia and Poaceae. During MIS 4-3 (layers 3-2), the vegetation was dominated by Artemisia-Poaceae steppes with Quercus patches, conifers and legumes. Overall across the sequence, pollen assemblages are highly diverse and include a number of deciduous trees and sclerophylls. In addition, the occurrence of several herbaceous taxa reinforces the view that the Balkans were outstanding for endemicity. Neanderthals and early Upper Palaeolithic hominins lived in a highly diverse refugium, offering multiple opportunities for survival during the warm in-terstadials and, more critically, the cold stadials of the Pleistocene.
... Recently, views about the Neanderthal use of plant foods have also partially changed (Hardy, 2018). The initial results of stable isotope analyses of carbon ( 13 C) and nitrogen ( 15 N) supported the conclusion that Neanderthal populations relied almost exclusively on meat for their dietary needs (Richards et al., 2000). ...
... Some differences have however been noticed between these two levels concerning the types and the varieties of activities carried out. In level 13, the use-wear analysis shows a low variety of activities performed in the site and the predominance of the processing of secondary products, not related to the direct achievement of food resources: i.e. fresh and dry wood working, with a small representation of traces related to carcass processing ; these kind of activities could be linked to the production and maintenance of spears or of other objects of daily use (Hardy, 2018). In level 14, traces linked to animal carcass processing are frequent, with representation of different phases of carcass exploitation (butchering, filleting, work of fresh and dry hide, bone and soft animal tissue working, periosteum removal); less frequent is the processing of woody and non woody plants (Daffara et al., 2021). ...
... Analyses of preserved botanical remains yield excitingly detailed insights into the integral role that plants played in prehistoric human life, as plants provide food, medicine, raw materials, and fuel (Shipley and Kindscher, 2016;Hardy, 2018Hardy, , 2019. Evidence for the Paleolithic human diet gleaned from plant fragments, phytoliths, and microfossils, as well as biomarkers from food preparation tools and dental calculus, has shifted the assumption of a largely animal-based diet to one that included a range of plants (Revedin et al., 2010;Power et al., 2018;Wadley et al., 2020). ...
Current knowledge about Paleolithic human plant use is limited by the rare survival of identifiable plant remains as well as the availability of methods for plant detection and identification. By analyzing DNA preserved in cave sediments, we can identify organisms in the absence of any visible remains, opening up new ways to study details of past human behavior, including plant use. Aghitu-3 Cave contains a 15,000-yearlong record (from ∼39,000 to 24,000 cal BP) of Upper Paleolithic human settlement and environmental variability in the Armenian Highlands. Finds from this cave include stone artifacts, faunal remains, bone tools, shell beads, charcoal, and pollen, among others. We applied sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) metabarcoding to the Aghitu-3 sedimentary sequence and combined this with pollen data to obtain a temporal reconstruction of plant assemblages. Our results reveal a stratification of plant abundance and diversity where sedaDNA reflects periods of human occupation, showing higher diversity in layers with increased human activity. Low pollen concentrations combined with high sedaDNA abundance indicate plant remains may have been brought into the cave by animals or humans during the deposition of the lower two archaeological horizons. Most of the recovered plants are reported to be useful for food, flavor, medicine, and/or technical purposes, demonstrating the potential of the environment around Aghitu-3 Cave to support humans during the Upper Paleolithic. Moreover, we identified several specific plant taxa that strengthen previous findings about Upper Paleolithic plant use in this region (i.e., for medicine and the manufacturing and dyeing of textiles). This study represents the first application of plant sedaDNA analysis of cave sediments for the investigation of potential plant use by prehistoric humans.
... High rates of healing and low rates of infection (Trinkaus and Zimmerman 1982: 75) argue for planned care practices for the injured. Bitter-tasting plants with no nutritional value found in dental calculus provide evidence for possible medical consumption, for example (Hardy 2018;Hardy 2019;Hardy et al. 2012). Poplar in the dental calculus of a Neanderthal with a dental abscess from El Sidrón may have been used as a painkiller as it contains salicylic acid (which acts as a painkiller in aspirin) (Weyrich et al. 2017). ...
In Hidden Depths, Professor Penny Spikins explores how our emotional connections have shaped human ancestry. Focusing on three key transitions in human origins, Professor Spikins explains how the emotional capacities of our early ancestors evolved in response to ecological changes, much like similar changes in other social mammals. For each transition, dedicated chapters examine evolutionary pressures, responses in changes in human emotional capacities and the archaeological evidence for human social behaviours. Starting from our earliest origins, in Part One, Professor Spikins explores how after two million years ago, movement of human ancestors into a new ecological niche drove new types of collaboration, including care for vulnerable members of the group. Emotional adaptations lead to cognitive changes, as new connections based on compassion, generosity, trust and inclusion also changed our relationship to material things. Part Two explores a later key transition in human emotional capacities occurring after 300,000 years ago. At this time changes in social tolerance allowed ancestors of our own species to further reach out beyond their local group and care about distant allies, making human communities resilient to environmental changes. An increasingly close relationship to animals, and even to cherished possessions, appeared at this time, and can be explained through new human vulnerabilities and ways of seeking comfort and belonging. Lastly, Part Three focuses on the contrasts in emotional dispositions arising between ourselves and our close cousins, the Neanderthals. Neanderthals are revealed as equally caring yet emotionally different humans, who might, if things had been different, have been in our place today. This new narrative breaks away from traditional views of human evolution as exceptional or as a linear progression towards a more perfect form. Instead, our evolutionary history is situated within similar processes occurring in other mammals, and explained as one in which emotions, rather than ‘intellect’, were key to our evolutionary journey. Moreover, changes in emotional capacities and dispositions are seen as part of differing pathways each bringing strengths, weaknesses and compromises. These hidden depths provide an explanation for many of the emotional sensitivities and vulnerabilities which continue to influence our world today.
... High rates of healing and low rates of infection (Trinkaus and Zimmerman 1982: 75) argue for planned care practices for the injured. Bitter-tasting plants with no nutritional value found in dental calculus provide evidence for possible medical consumption, for example (Hardy 2018;Hardy 2019;Hardy et al. 2012). Poplar in the dental calculus of a Neanderthal with a dental abscess from El Sidrón may have been used as a painkiller as it contains salicylic acid (which acts as a painkiller in aspirin) (Weyrich et al. 2017). ...
In Hidden Depths, Professor Penny Spikins explores how our emotional connections have shaped human ancestry. Focusing on three key transitions in human origins, Professor Spikins explains how the emotional capacities of our early ancestors evolved in response to ecological changes, much like similar changes in other social mammals. For each transition, dedicated chapters examine evolutionary pressures, responses in changes in human emotional capacities and the archaeological evidence for human social behaviours. Starting from our earliest origins, in Part One, Professor Spikins explores how after two million years ago, movement of human ancestors into a new ecological niche drove new types of collaboration, including care for vulnerable members of the group. Emotional adaptations lead to cognitive changes, as new connections based on compassion, generosity, trust and inclusion also changed our relationship to material things. Part Two explores a later key transition in human emotional capacities occurring after 300,000 years ago. At this time changes in social tolerance allowed ancestors of our own species to further reach out beyond their local group and care about distant allies, making human communities resilient to environmental changes. An increasingly close relationship to animals, and even to cherished possessions, appeared at this time, and can be explained through new human vulnerabilities and ways of seeking comfort and belonging. Lastly, Part Three focuses on the contrasts in emotional dispositions arising between ourselves and our close cousins, the Neanderthals. Neanderthals are revealed as equally caring yet emotionally different humans, who might, if things had been different, have been in our place today. This new narrative breaks away from traditional views of human evolution as exceptional or as a linear progression towards a more perfect form. Instead, our evolutionary history is situated within similar processes occurring in other mammals, and explained as one in which emotions, rather than ‘intellect’, were key to our evolutionary journey. Moreover, changes in emotional capacities and dispositions are seen as part of differing pathways each bringing strengths, weaknesses and compromises. These hidden depths provide an explanation for many of the emotional sensitivities and vulnerabilities which continue to influence our world today.
... Neanderthals' strengths were in repetitive movements, an effective power grip in precision tasks (Faivre et al., 2014;Karakostis et al., 2018), diet diversity (e.g. Blasco et al., 2010Blasco et al., , 2016Marín et al., 2017;Zilhão et al., 2020), knowledge and use of medical plants (Hardy, 2018), and symbolic thinking (e.g. Hoffmann et al., 2018a;Jaubert et al., 2016;Majkić et al., 2017;Peresani et al., 2011;Zilhão et al., 2010). ...
This chapter aims is to briefly review the history of research on Neanderthals and to show how we have reached the current behavioural approach, including the complex scenario we have today. The main scientific debates that have marked Neanderthal studies since the discovery of skeletal remains at Feldhofer Cave in 1856 and the theoretical and methodological approaches that have progressively contributed to change and improve our image and understanding of this species are presented. Moreover, this chapter briefly introduces the main scientific issues and perspectives that have dominated the academic scene in the 21st century, which are further detailed in this book.
... Some differences have however been noticed between these two levels concerning the types and the varieties of activities carried out. In level 13, the use-wear analysis shows a low variety of activities performed in the site and the predominance of the processing of secondary products, not related to the direct achievement of food resources: i.e. fresh and dry wood working, with a small representation of traces related to carcass processing ; these kind of activities could be linked to the production and maintenance of spears or of other objects of daily use (Hardy, 2018). In level 14, traces linked to animal carcass processing are frequent, with representation of different phases of carcass exploitation (butchering, filleting, work of fresh and dry hide, bone and soft animal tissue working, periosteum removal); less frequent is the processing of woody and non woody plants (Daffara et al., 2021). ...
A technological and functional approach has been used to face the study of the lithic artefacts made in allochthonous raw materials from level 14 of the Ciota Ciara cave. The site it is the only reliable source of information about the Middle Palaeolithic peopling of north-western Italy. According to the results coming from different studies, the level 14 attests the phases of most intense frequentation of the cave, and it is the layer where allochthonous lithic raw materials are better represented. In a technological context already described as markedly opportunistic, where reduction sequences are strongly adapted to the characteristics of the local rocks available in the surrounding of the site, some tools and unretouched flake, made in raw materials collected at a distance between 2 and 30 km, have been introduced in the site. The present work is aimed to the understanding of the role of these artefacts within the technological organization of the Neanderthal groups that inhabited the cave. The obtained results indicate that these “exotic” artefacts were part of the mobile toolkit of the human groups of the Ciota Ciara cave and that they were multifunctional tools extensively used for different activities (mainly butchering activities). The obtained data led also to some observations about the technology of these Neanderthal groups and on their capability in terms of planning and forecasting during land mobility.
... Vegetation plays an important role for humans such that while it provides both food and raw materials, it can be hazardous (e.g., toxins, thorns; [74]). For this reason, the categorization of plants for subsistence strategies was an integral part of ancestral human life [74][75][76]. ...
An infant’s everyday visual environment is composed of a complex array of entities, some of which are well integrated into their surroundings. Although infants are already sensitive to some categories in their first year of life, it is not clear which visual information supports their detection of meaningful elements within naturalistic scenes. Here we investigated the impact of image characteristics on 8-month-olds’ search performance using a gaze contingent eye-tracking search task. Infants had to detect a target patch on a background image. The stimuli consisted of images taken from three categories: vegetation, non-living natural elements (e.g., stones), and manmade artifacts, for which we also assessed target background differences in lower- and higher-level visual properties. Our results showed that larger target-background differences in the statistical properties scaling invariance and entropy, and also stimulus backgrounds including low pictorial depth, predicted better detection performance. Furthermore, category membership only affected search performance if supported by luminance contrast. Data from an adult comparison group also indicated that infants’ search performance relied more on lower-order visual properties than adults. Taken together, these results suggest that infants use a combination of property- and category-related information to parse complex visual stimuli.
... Vegetal resources have represented an integral part of the subsistence strategies of Paleolithic hominins concerning both diet and technology (e.g. Bello-Alonso et al., 2021;Domínguez-Rodrigo et al., 2001;Hardy, 2018;Hardy et al., 2018;Melamed et al., 2016). So far, at Layer C3, no such evidence has been found, but traces of wood processing were found at Layer C5 on an end-scraper and a biface (Zupancich et al., 2018). ...
Recent techno-functional studies of the lithic assemblage of Layer C3 in Late Acheulian Revadim (Israel) have demonstrated the variability in tool production and use in this layer. Here we present the results of a techno-functional and residue analysis of two central categories of artifacts found in Layer C3: side-scrapers and cortical flakes. We investigate the assumed functional link between side-scrapers and scraping activities and examine the question of whether cortical flakes were considered by the Revadim hominins as simple waste products or as useful tools. Our study applies an integrative and multidisciplinary methodology combining experimental archaeology, use-wear and residue analysis, and spectroscopic measurements. Our results show that side-scrapers were used for scraping and mixed activities, mostly on soft-medium and medium materials, while cortical flakes were occasionally used, mostly for cutting. Tool function reconstruction was supported by the morphological, elemental, and chemical characterization of extraordinarily well-preserved residues of animal origin, suggesting their use in butchery. .
... Carvalho's ingenious example provides a cautionary analogy of how much would be missed if we reconstructed the tool repertoire of Bossou chimpanzees from archaeological excavations that recovered only their lithic tools: lithics constitute just one of the 22 different tool types that they are known to use (Matsuzawa 2011). Plant-based technologies likely dominated the hominin technological repertoire, but they will remain eclipsed unless we develop novel analytical methods to enable their identification in archaeological records (Hardy 2018). ...
... Vegetation plays a distinctive role for humans in that while it provides both food and raw materials, it can also be hazardous. For this reason, the categorization of plants for subsistence strategies was an integral part of ancestral human life (Hardy, 2018;Şerban et al., 2008;Wertz, 2019 Rakison & Derringer, 2008). These examples of early sensitivities support the claim that entities or events which were of ancestral relevance can lead to behavioral adaptations in infants (Pauen & Hoehl, 2015;Wertz, 2019). ...
Detecting and categorizing particular entities in the environment are important visual tasks that humans have had to solve at various points in our evolutionary time. The question arises whether characteristics of entities that were of ecological significance for humans play a particular role during the development of visual categorization. The current project addressed this question by investigating the effects of developing visual abilities, visual properties and ecological significance on categorization early in life. Our stimuli were monochromatic photographs of structure-like assemblies and surfaces taken from three categories: vegetation, non-living natural elements, and artifacts. A set of computational and rated visual properties were assessed for these stimuli. Three empirical studies applied coherent research concepts and methods in young children and adults, comprising (a) two card-sorting tasks with preschool children (age: 4.1-6.1 years) and adults (age: 18-50 years) which assessed classification and similarity judgments, (b) a gaze contingent eye-tracking search task which investigated the impact of visual properties and category membership on 8-month-olds' ability to segregate visual structure. Because eye-tracking with infants still provides challenges, a methodological study (c) assessed the effect of infant eye-tracking procedures on data quality with 8- to 12-month-old infants and adults. In the categorization tasks we found that category membership and visual properties impacted the performance of all participant groups. Sensitivity to the respective categories varied between tasks and over the age groups. For example, artifact images hindered infants' visual search but were classified best by adults, whereas sensitivity to vegetation was highest during similarity judgments. Overall, preschool children relied less on visual properties than adults, but some properties (e.g., rated depth, shading) were drawn upon similarly strong. In children and infants, depth predicted task performance stronger than shape-related properties. Moreover, children and infants were sensitive to variations in the complexity of low-level visual statistics. These results suggest that classification of visual structures, and attention to particular visual properties is affected by the functional or ecological significance these categories and properties may have for each of the respective age groups. Based on this, the project highlights the importance of further developmental research on visual categorization with naturalistic, structure-like stimuli. As intended with the current work, this would allow important links between developmental and adult research.
... Furthermore, other studies caution about the attribution of plant remains retrieved in dental calculus to the exclusive connection with food consumption (187) and bring about insights on the use of teeth as the "third hand" therefore starch, fibres, tissues residues entrapped in the calculus might also be referred to alternative plants processing (e.g. for technological processing) or for medical purposes (188,189). ...
Dietary adaptation involves evolving an efficient system to digest food available in an ecosystem. The diet of archaic humans is traditionally reconstructed by isotopic analyses of human remains combined with the faunal assemblages found on the sites, and, recently, from metagenomic analyses of dental calculus. Here, we propose a new computational approach to find the genetic basis for human dietary adaptation. We searched 15 genomes from Neandertal, Denisovan and Early Sapiens for food digestion genes that tend to have more or fewer copies than the modern human reference genome. We identify 50 genes, including 10 gene clusters, with discernible copy number variation (CNV) trends at the population level, from an analysis of the full set of 20,000 human genes. The genomic variation of 19 of these genes shows how metabolic pathways for carbohydrates, lipids, liver lipids and brown fat in archaic humans adapted to metabolize food from animal or plant sources. The remaining 31 genes are all highly expressed in tissues of the digestive apparatus and are involved in immune response, environmental response and obesity. Analysis of the CNV profiles, compared to 64 modern human individuals belonging to distinct ethnic groups in Eurasia, Africa, Oceania, suggests that Homo sapiens may have had an evolutionary advantage compared to Neandertal and Denisovan in adapting to cold and temperate ecosystems.
Significance Statement
Understanding dietary strategies and foraging behaviors of past populations are among the goals of paleoanthropological and prehistoric studies. Based on a new computational approach, we seek for the genetic basis for human dietary adaptation. Gene copy number variation (CNV) is a major type of structural genome variation that we used as indicator of efficient metabolic processes for food digestion. By analysing billions of short sequences from 15 archaic human genomes and 64 modern human ones, across the full set of 20,000 human genes, we identify 50 genes whose population-wide discernable CNV trends point to lipid metabolism as being crucial for Neandertal, the efficiency in carbohydrate metabolism for Sapiens’ diet, and the importance of lipid metabolism and brown fat metabolism for both Neandertal and early Sapiens compared to modern humans.
Preprint availability: an early version, where the CNV analysis of ancient genomes was conducted on the human reference genome hg19, was deposited on BioRxiv on November 2, 2021 (DOI: 10.1101/2021.10.30.466563 ). The current version, which utilises CNV estimates based on the human reference genome hg38 and includes comparisons with modern human populations, was deposited in BioRxiv in November 2024.
... Situations of parasite infections or invasion by predators during foraging activities may have stimulated the first humans to look for medicinal plants [38]. In addition, Homo habilis used medicinal plants to treat diseases based on observation of plant-based self-medication by other animals [39]. The use of medicinal plants by non-human primates may also involve different plant parts. ...
Adaptive memory is the propensity of human memory to easily store and retrieve important information to deal with challenges related to the Pleistocene. Recent evidence shows that humans have had a multiregional evolution across the African continent, including the rainforests and deciduous forests; however, there is little evidence regarding the implications of these origins and the relevant and recurring challenges of these environments on survival processing advantage in memory. In this study, we conducted an experiment with volunteers to analyze whether adaptive memory operates in the retrieval of important information to solve challenges of using medicinal plants to treat diseases in the ancestral environments of the savanna, rainforests, and deciduous forests compared to the modern environments of desert, tundra, coniferous forest, and urban areas. We used simulated survival environments and asked volunteers (30 per simulated scenario) to imagine themselves sick in one of these environments, and needing to find medicinal plants to treat their disease. The volunteers rated the relevance of 32 words to solve this challenge, followed by a surprise memory test. Our results showed no ancestral priority in recalling relevant information, as both ancestral and modern environments showed a similar recall of relevant information. This suggests that the evolved cognitive apparatus allows human beings to survive and can create survival strategies to face challenges imposed in various environments. We believe that this is only possible if the human mind operates through a flexible cognitive mechanism. This flexibility can reflect, for example, the different environments that the first hominids inhabited and the different dangerous situations that they faced.
... The adoption of agriculture occurred in various times and places around the world, and several authors have linked this development with the formation of large complex political units/organizations (Bellwood 2005;Fuller and Stevens 2009). However, the consumption of plants, especially starch-rich plants that eventually became the targets of domestication (Piperno et al. 2004;Yang et al. 2012a;Hardy 2018;Fellows Yates et al. 2021), has been a key part of the human niche since well before the emergence of agriculture. The earliest stages of domestication likely took the form of cultivation, or para-cultivation, of plants that were already well known to foragers from that region. ...
The founding processes of the first state of ancient China with a known written record, the Shang dynasty (3600–3046 cal BP), have been poorly understood. Recent discoveries of a host of archaeological sites dating to the proto-Shang culture (4000–3600 cal BP) have helped elucidate the transition to the Shang culture. Nevertheless, there are few investigations about the mode of subsistence and economy of the proto-Shang culture, and how this might have shaped the transition to statehood. In this present study, we analyzed the starch grains preserved in dental calculus and teeth surfaces from 16 samples from the site of Nancheng in order to gain a better understanding of the subsistence strategy and plant consumption of proto-Shang people. We also performed experiments to test how different cooking methods may lead to size changes in the starches of four Poaceae plants, in order to identify the processing methods used by the proto-Shang people. The results indicate that Triticum aestivum, Coix lacryma-jobi, Setaria italica and some yet-unidentified roots and tubers were consumed by these individuals. These data indicate a broader spectrum of plant consumption than that seen by previous archaeobotanical and stable isotope analyses. Such a broad spectrum of plant consumption provided a substantial economic base for proto-Shang people and might be one of the factors supporting the subsequent development of the Shang state culture.
... The adoption of agriculture occurred in various times and places around the world, and several authors have linked this development with the formation of large complex political units/organizations (Bellwood 2005;Fuller and Stevens 2009). However, the consumption of plants, especially starch-rich plants that eventually became the targets of domestication (Piperno et al. 2004;Yang et al. 2012a;Hardy 2018;Fellows Yates et al. 2021), has been a key part of the human niche since well before the emergence of agriculture. The earliest stages of domestication likely took the form of cultivation, or para-cultivation, of plants that were already well known to foragers from that region. ...
The founding processes of the first state of ancient China with a known written record, the Shang dynasty (3600–3046 cal BP), have been poorly understood. Recent discoveries of a host of archaeological sites dating to the proto-Shang culture (4000–3600 cal BP) have helped elucidate the transition to the Shang culture. Nevertheless, there are few investigations about the mode of subsistence and economy of the proto-Shang culture, and how this might have shaped the transition to statehood. In this present study, we analyzed the starch grains preserved in dental calculus and teeth surfaces from 16 samples from the site of Nancheng in order to gain a better understanding of the subsistence strategy and plant consumption of proto-Shang people. We also performed experiments to test how different cooking methods may lead to size changes in the starches of four Poaceae plants, in order to identify the processing methods used by the proto-Shang people. The results indicate that Triticum aestivum, Coix lacryma-jobi, Setaria italica and some yet-unidentified roots and tubers were consumed by these individuals. These data indicate a broader spectrum of plant consumption than that seen by previous archaeobotanical and stable isotope analyses. Such a broad spectrum of plant consumption provided a substantial economic base for proto-Shang people and might be one of the factors supporting the subsequent development of the Shang state culture.
... The main objectives of this research can be listed as follows: 1. To discover which food products are related to which diseases 2. To study the common or individual social representations of adults living in the central district regarding the benefits of remedial use of foodstuffs in their daily lives in cases of any diseases or illnesses 3. To understand how the participation of these individuals in the social representations occur in relation to their choices Theoretical Background Practices of traditional medicine Human beings have been receiving the support of nature to cure or prevent diseases and use various plants for healing or food purposes since the paleolithic era [6]. It is also known that, apart from plants, various animals, and animal parts (hooves, skins, bones, feathers, and tusks) are used for therapeutic purposes [7]. ...
In the treatment of diseases or illnesses, modern medicine is used as well as traditional medicine practices. Medicinal plants are commonly used in traditional medicine. For this reason, it is seen in the literature that this subject is generally studied from pharmacology or ethnobotanical per- spective. However, in-home practices, it is seen that gastronomic products are also used for healing purposes, along with medicinal and aromatic plants. This research is conducted in order to identify the remedial use of food/beverages and to evaluate them within the scope of social representation theory. The qualitative research method was preferred as the best way to observe social representations and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 people. As a result of the interviews, it was determined that 107 different practices were applied in the treatment of 35 diseases. These practices have been evaluated in the context of social representations, and it was concluded that scientific knowledge and common-sense.
... Here we see that some important occupations, otherwise permanent or quasipermanent, suggest human preferences for the forest and tree savannah landscapes, probably because they presented environmental circumstances that favoured survival, including opportunities for hunting, gathering and shelter. The use of plant materials for food and technological items cannot be disregarded (Ward et al., 2012a,b;Hardy, 2018;Zilhão et al., 2020). ...
This article aims to delve into the reality of glacial refuges of forests and tree species (including conifers, mesothermophilous angiosperms and xerothermic scrub) during the cold dry phases of the Iberian Pleistocene in which there is evidence of occupation of Middle Palaeolithic people. The research framework focuses on the eastern sector of the Iberian Peninsula due to the physiographic, palaeobotanical and archaeological peculiarities, substantiated by recent studies. We contend that some Neanderthal occupations developed in the context of high geobiological complexity, high biological diversity and highly structured forest ecosystems. We highlight the importance of glacial refuges as local anomalies that, however, would be contingent on vegetational development, and on the survival of Palaeolithic groups in areas with a broad diversity of natural resources.
... Johan's wort (SJW), and Azo-Cranberry. Similarly, some of the medicinal plants are also used as raw materials to synthesize other medicines (Hardy 2018). ...
This study illustrates a profile of some essential and non-essential elements (Na, K, Mg, Ca, Cu, Zn, Mn, Fe, Pb, Cr, Cd, Co, Al, and Sn) in the aerial parts of six medicinal plants, i.e. Coriandrum sativum L., Mentha spicata L., Papaver somniferum L., Calotropis gigantean (L.) Dryand., Withania coagulans (Stock) Dunal, and Fagonia arabica L. widely consumed in district Peshawar, the capital city of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The samples were converted into liquid state via wet digestion method and analyzed for elemental composition by using atomic absorption spectrometry. After determining the concentration, hazard quotient (HQ) was calculated for the elements having available maximum permissible limit set by FAO/WHO or any other agency for 50 mg daily intake of the herbal plants by a person of body mass 70 kg. K/Na ratio for the studied plants varied between 14.88:1 and 113.75:1 which was in agreement with the reported permissible range. The amount of Mg, Ca, Cu, and Co was within the permissible limit in all the enlisted plants. However, the HQ value for Mg and Ca was greater than the safe limit for some of the plants. The concentration and HQ value of Zn, Mn, Fe, Pb, Cr, and Cd was beyond the permissible and unsafe limits for almost all the plants. This study suggests that the plants of this area must be pretreated for lessening the concentration of some elements before consumption.
... Es sabido que vegetales con propósitos medicinales son usadas por una amplia gama de animales. Chimpancés y gorilas registran varias decenas de usos medicinales de plantas y puede intuirse que todos los antepasados del Homo sapiens los utilizaban (Hardy, 2018). Hay indicaciones que el Homo neandertal usaba plantas medicinales (Lietava, 1992). ...
El artículo explora el reciente cambio en la economía agraria de Paraguay hacia el agroextractivismo y sus efectos en la reconfiguración de la estructura de clases. Se analiza cómo dicha estructura de clase ha contribuido a las formas cambiantes que la lucha de clases (desde arriba y desde abajo) ha adquirido en Paraguay en el curso de la prolongada transición del país a la democracia (1989-2008). Se centra en «el ascenso y la caída» del presidente Fernando Lugo (2008-2012) y estudia los procesos históricos específicos de formación de clases y del Estado en Paraguay que explican el golpe constitucional instigado por la clase terrateniente contra Lugo en 2012. Además, se argumenta que la burguesía terrateniente paraguaya ejerce un control oligárquico sobre el Estado, de tal forma que las posibilidades de una reforma agraria redistributiva continúan siendo muy complicadas en tanto no se produzcan cambios profundos, estructurales e institucionales en la sociedad y el Estado.
... Carvalho's ingenious example provides a cautionary analogy of how much would be missed if we reconstructed the tool repertoire of Bossou chimpanzees from archaeological excavations that recovered only their lithic tools: lithics constitute just one of the 22 different tool types that they are known to use (Matsuzawa 2011). Plant-based technologies likely dominated the hominin technological repertoire, but they will remain eclipsed unless we develop novel analytical methods to enable their identification in archaeological records (Hardy 2018). ...
... Es sabido que vegetales con propósitos medicinales son usadas por una amplia gama de animales. Chimpancés y gorilas registran varias decenas de usos medicinales de plantas y puede intuirse que todos los antepasados del Homo sapiens los utilizaban (Hardy, 2018). Hay indicaciones que el Homo neandertal usaba plantas medicinales (Lietava, 1992). ...
Resumen. El covid-19 ha sido la causa inmediata de la más profunda crisis de la sociedad moderna. Este artículo trata de un aspecto de esta crisis: el papel de la me-dicina capitalista hegemónica. El enfoque no es técnico sino social; no se refiere a la eficacia del diagnóstico o sus medicamentos, sino a la trayectoria teórica y meto-dológica de largo alcance. El objetivo es llamar la atención sobre cómo la medicina capitalista hegemónica ha roto radicalmente con las tradiciones médicas precapita-listas, sin considerar oportunidades en ciencia y tecnología que podrían resultar más eficientes para atender la salud de la población, pero desechadas por seleccionar un camino más rentable para la industria farmacéutica.
... These viscous and hydrophobic materials were used in various ways: as adhesives for hafting and making composite tools (Bjørnevad et al., 2019;Mazza et al., 2006), for decorating vessels (Morandi et al., 2018), or lining the internal surfaces of wells and repairing ceramic vessels (van Gijn & Boon, 2006). It is known from ethnographic sources that tars and pitches were also used as a disinfectant, a dental pain reliever (Hardy, 2018;Morikawa et al., 2017), and probably as the earliest "chewing gum" (Morikawa et al., 2017;Pesonen, 1999), whereas lately birch bark tar "chewing gums" have been discovered as an excellent source for aDNA studies . ...
Attenuated total reflection‐Fourier transform‐infrared spectroscopy (ATR‐FT‐IR) analysis of 100 adhesive samples from different prehistoric composite artefacts, pottery and amorphous lumps across Eastern Europe and Urals were conducted with the aim to establish a fast analytical screening method for adhesive assignment. The ATR‐FT‐IR analysis allowed the identification of major chemical components of the adhesive samples which were assigned to three main groups: birch bark tar without major additives, birch bark tar with additives and minor/non‐birch bark tar samples. ATR‐FT‐IR spectra were further analyzed using principal component analysis (PCA)‐based discriminant analysis (DA) that allowed additional refinement of adhesive classifications. The ATR‐FT‐IR results and the DA classification were confirmed by analyzing a selection of samples with gas chromatography‐mass spectrometry (GC‐MS). Results demonstrate that ATR‐FT‐IR coupled with DA classification allows fast and reliable preliminary identification of the major components in archaeological adhesives and their further classification. As such it is a considerable and faster alternative to more laborious GC‐MS analysis, especially in the case of very small samples.
... Carvalho's ingenious example provides a cautionary analogy of how much would be missed if we reconstructed the tool repertoire of Bossou chimpanzees from archaeological excavations that recovered only their lithic tools: lithics constitute just one of the 22 different tool types that they are known to use (Matsuzawa 2011). Plant-based technologies likely dominated the hominin technological repertoire, but they will remain eclipsed unless we develop novel analytical methods to enable their identification in archaeological records (Hardy 2018). ...
... 300 ka) exhibit traces of peeling and cutting tubers, including their residue detected on the cutting edges . These evidences allude to knowledge of plant properties and a variety of crafts, from the production of ropes and mats (as seen in Misliya; Bar-Yosef Mayer et al.,) to the processing of foods and perhaps medicines (Melamed et al., 2016;Hardy, 2018Hardy, , 2019. ...
The Early Middle Paleolithic (EMP) is a less-studied phase of the Levantine Middle Paleolithic, attributable to the small number of sites discovered. Drawing on the dense archaeological accumulations at Misliya Cave, Mount Carmel, Israel, the present study seeks to trace EMP daily activities and behavioral patterns through the prism of use-wear analysis. The emergence of the laminar and Levallois technologies that form the EMP toolkit is investigated to reveal other dimensions of tool novelties. Through microscopic analyses, integrated with experimentation, the most outstanding aspect revealed in this study is the extensive evidence of hafting, which included the use of binding together with various techniques for tool design. A unique treatment was identified, never reported before, entailing the abrasion of cortical surfaces and protruding dorsal ridges. Other aspects include the clear preference for pointed tools as a leading morphological trend and the use of retouch as a mean to create durable working edges and facilitate grip arrangements. The analysis demonstrates the venue of use-wear to trace a wide variety of practices, including consumption-related (processing hunted game and edible plants) and craft-related (hide processing, woodworking, and perhaps stone working) activities that otherwise hardly leave a trace in the archaeological record. By exploring these features, the research provides important insights into early hominin behavior and way of life during the EMP, emphasizing the novelties brought by the earliest Homo sapiens out of Africa.
... Although starch consumption is evident throughout the Pleistocene (K. Hardy, 2018), its relative importance is difficult to elucidate from the archaeological record. Salivary amylase is an enzyme degrading starch into glucose in preparation for cell energy metabolism, and Vining and Nunn (2016) discerned a significant evolution in amylaseproducing genes in Homo species but could not determine the temporal dynamics. ...
The human trophic level (HTL) during the Pleistocene and its degree of variability serve, explicitly or tacitly, as the basis of many explanations for human evolution, behavior, and culture. Previous attempts to reconstruct the HTL have relied heavily on an analogy with recent hunter‐gatherer groups' diets. In addition to technological differences, recent findings of substantial ecological differences between the Pleistocene and the Anthropocene cast doubt regarding that analogy's validity. Surprisingly little systematic evolution‐guided evidence served to reconstruct HTL. Here, we reconstruct the HTL during the Pleistocene by reviewing evidence for the impact of the HTL on the biological, ecological, and behavioral systems derived from various existing studies. We adapt a paleobiological and paleoecological approach, including evidence from human physiology and genetics, archaeology, paleontology, and zoology, and identified 25 sources of evidence in total. The evidence shows that the trophic level of the Homo lineage that most probably led to modern humans evolved from a low base to a high, carnivorous position during the Pleistocene, beginning with Homo habilis and peaking in Homo erectus. A reversal of that trend appears in the Upper Paleolithic, strengthening in the Mesolithic/Epipaleolithic and Neolithic, and culminating with the advent of agriculture. We conclude that it is possible to reach a credible reconstruction of the HTL without relying on a simple analogy with recent hunter‐gatherers' diets. The memory of an adaptation to a trophic level that is embedded in modern humans' biology in the form of genetics, metabolism, and morphology is a fruitful line of investigation of past HTLs, whose potential we have only started to explore.
... However, while the oldest stone tools date back 3.3 million years (Harmand et al. 2015 ), it is likely that the very first tools made and used by hominins were actually of plant materials (e.g. Schoch et al. 2015;Aranguren et al. 2018;Rios-Garaizar et al. 2018;Hardy 2018;Hardy et al. 2020). Use and (more rarely) manufacture of tools from plant materials has in fact been recorded in a wide range of species including chimpanzees (Goodall 1964;Pruetz and Bertolani 2007), orangutans (van Schaik, Fox, and Sitompul 1996), elephants (Hart et al. 2001), and crows (Hunt and Gray 2004). ...
At the 23rd Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists (EAA) in August to September 2017 in Maastricht, NL, two sessions explored how archaeobotanical analysis can be used to explore plant use beyond arable agriculture. Session 203 (The Archaeobotany of Non-Food Plant Exploitation) focused on the non-food uses of plants, while Session 346 (Within the Woodlands: Exploitation of Wild Plants during the Medieval and Post-Medieval Period) explored the various uses of wild plants. A key aim of both sessions was to encourage archaeologists to consider the many varied uses of plant materials in the past, including food, fuel, construction materials, textiles, cordage, pigments, medicine and ritual, and to consider also that many of these materials will be collected from the wider landscape rather than cultivated. Many of these themes have been taken forward by ARCHWILD, an EAA Community with a focus on research on wild plant resources founded by the organisers of these sessions, amongst others. This editorial introduces a special issue comprising papers stemming from these sessions, which together provide an exploration of the 'state-of-the-art' in the investigation of wild and non-food plant exploitation.
Palaeolithic stone artifacts reflect traces of human activity and spatio-temporal natural modifications. The study of stone artifacts and the development of modern technologies serve as an impetus for the development of new methods of reconstruction of the prehistoric past. Findings of the remains of natural dyes have always attracted the special attention of researchers, because it is traditionally believed that such finds rather reflect symbolic and social behaviour, interpreted according to numerous ethnographic and archaeological sources. Numerous finds of the use of ochre pigments as various dyes and unmodified nodules, which in most cases are interpreted by researchers as a display of symbolic behaviour, are recorded at Palaeolithic sites on the territory of Ukraine. Recent microscopic studies of the ochre pigments and use-wear analysis on the stone artifacts from the Late Acheulean site of Zaskelna IX (Crimea) allowed researchers to hypothesize the use of ochre as one from the components of the adhesive mixture for clamping the artifacts in the handle, which was composed of hides and plants. Taking into account the personal experience of studying ochre pigments on stone artifacts, the authors highlight the main stages and research methods that can be used to reproduce the hominins behavioural activities in prehistory. In the process of researching the ochre pigments on the stone artifacts originating from the cultural layer, there is a need to distinguish successive stages to study the surface: archeomineralogical, technological and residue analysis, use-wear analysis, and conducting an experiment. Non-destructive methods of studying the surface of a stone artifact are of great importance on the study of the composition of organic and inorganic compounds by modern methods of spectrometry. Key words: ochre pigments, residue analysis, stone artifacts, Palaeolithic, territory of Ukraine.
Rice ( Oryza sativa ) serves as a staple food for more than one-third of the global population. However, its journey from a wild gathered food to domestication remains enigmatic, sparking ongoing debates in the biological and anthropological fields. Here, we present evidence of rice phytoliths sampled from two archaeological sites in China, Shangshan and Hehuashan, near the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. We demonstrate the growth of wild rice at least 100,000 years before present, its initial exploitation as a gathered resource at about 24,000 years before present, its predomestication cultivation at about 13,000 years before present, and eventually its domestication at about 11,000 years before present. These developmental stages illuminate a protracted process of rice domestication in East Asia and extend the continuous records of cereal evolution beyond the Fertile Crescent.
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Lithic use-wear analysis, through defining site function and allowing reconstructing of patterns of human occupation, can contribute to our understanding of archaeological palimpsests. The Ciota Ciara cave represents an excellent case study for this methodology. Multidisciplinary research so far conducted on the materials recovered from the atrial sector of the cave distinguishes three archaeological units from a Middle Palaeolithic occupation of the site: stratigraphic units (SUs) 13, 14, and 15. Each unit is interpreted as referring to a period of numerous, superimposed episodes of human occupation, the characteristics of which we try to reconstruct and present in this work through use-wear studies. The functional analysis of lithic industries from the upper units (13 and 14) has already been published previously; here, we report corresponding new data from the lowest level, SU 15. By comparing the use-wear results from the three units and integrating the findings with data from the geoarchaeological, palaeontological, zooarchaeological, and technological studies, we attempt to reconstruct the different phases of human occupation represented in the site through time, contributing to current interpretations regarding settlement dynamics and human behaviour in the Middle Palaeolithic of north-western Italy.
Plant seeds have been used for thousands of years for their nutritional, medicinal, and culinary benefits. Contemporary medical research is investigating plant seeds' therapeutic potential for improving and treating human diseases.
Plant seeds contain bioactive components such as phytochemicals, polyphenols, and lignans, which express antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, and antibacterial effects. They are being studied for their potential to treat various medical afflictions, including hyperglycemia and diabetes, respiratory and cardiovascular disorders, and eye and skin disorders. Clinical trials are investigating the therapeutic value of various plant seeds-based drugs to act on inflammation, cancer, infectious diseases, and autoimmune disorders. Plant seed extracts have also been found to exhibit antitumor effects.
However, limitations and challenges exist for using plant seeds in medical care. Standardization in seed preparation is crucial to ensure safety and efficacy. The lack of awareness of appropriate dosages for treatment and lack of quality control in production raise concerns about adverse health outcomes with their use. Regulatory challenges remain to incorporate plant seeds-based treatments in medical care and develop practical and comprehensive guidelines for their use. Clinical studies remain limited regarding the therapeutic potential of plant seeds.
Also noted in this paper is plant seeds' potential as an alternative to synthetic pharmaceuticals. Their natural availability makes them a promising source for developing low-cost treatment options and improving quality of life (QoL).
The impact of contemporary urbanisation on health has been studied extensively but the study into to the origin and influences of care during prehistoric periods has created debate among scholars. This paper uses the bioarchaeology of care to explore the presence of care in Neolithic Europe and analyses the relationship between the adoption of a sedentary lifestyle that utilises agriculture and pastoralism and the advancements of health-related caregiving such as new medicines and surgeries. Studies have argued that kinship plays a significant role in determining the provision of care and supports why individuals in a subsistence economy expended the time and resources to prolong an individual’s life. I also use a case study from three Neolithic Linearbandkeramik (LBK) sites in Central Germany to demonstrate how the poor nutrition obtained from the change in dietary patterns, has also been linked to a reduced immune system and in turn, makes individuals more prone to infections. The Index of Care is applied to three case studies of varying pathologies and quantity of skeletal remains: Neolithic amputation (Burial 416 at Buthiers-Boulancourt, France); skeletal dysplasia (Burial 9 at Schweizersbild, Switzerland); Neolithic trepanation (Eira Pedrinha). The application of the Index of Care in this paper shows both the strengths and weaknesses of the program. The Index of Care provides a universal methodology for the determination of care provision in human remains but can only be accurately applied to articulated remains. The case study of Neolithic trepanation from Eira Pedrinha proves this.
Neanderthals ate plants, they self-medicated using a range of medicinal plants, and they used complex material processing methods to construct composite objects with plant materials. While the evidence for the consumption of plants as food, medicine, and raw materials by Neanderthals is not abundant, by using a combination of direct and indirect methods, including recovery and analysis of macrobotanical and microfossil remains, biomolecular and genetic evidence and use wear patterns on teeth and tools, reconstruction of the basic premises of their plant use can be partially reconstructed. This provides nuanced insights into their cognitive and technological abilities and the deep ecological knowledge that was the foundation of their existence.
La esperanza en la biomedicina para superar la pandemia de la COVID-19 no significa que otras epidemias no se encadenen en el futuro, como lo ha demostrado la cantidad de epidemias surgidas en el correr de este siglo. El artículo analiza el mito de la neutralidad de la tecnología en relación con la tecnología biomédica, para concluir mostrando la importancia de los mecanismos ideológicos y legales, así como las tendencias intrínsecas a la propia biomedicina para que el sector biomédico hegemónico y la industria asociada sean aceptados por la percepción global como una solución a un problema que es lejos de ser pasajero. El caso en cuestión llama la atención para los educadores ambientales que como resultado de prácticas en gran medida de gestión, tienden a tomar las posiciones científicas hegemónicas acríticamente. Palabras-clave: neutralidad de la tecnología; biomedicina; big pharma; capitalismo.
Is it possible to define what it means to be human based on biological, social, ecological, or cultural factors? Is it something physical, something in the way we think, or in the way we behave? When we look at the long history of humankind, it becomes clear that we had to experience many different developmental stages throughout the millions of years of developmental history to become the multifaceted species that populates this Earth today.
The Guadix-Baza Basin, in SE Spain, harbors hominin fossils and lithic artifacts dated to ca. 1.4–1.3 Ma, representing the first hominin habitat in the Iberian Peninsula and possibly in Western Europe. Recent palynological studies have described a high diversity of plant taxa and biomes existing in the basin at the time of hominin presence. However, the relationship between these hominins and their environment has not been fully explored. Two novel methodologies are developed. The first method maps the distribution of the Early Pleistocene vegetation units based on paleobotanical and paleogeographic data. The second method assesses the availability of edible plant parts using a combination of Early Pleistocene and modern taxa lists. The resulting vegetation maps reveal a great diversity of vegetation types. During dry (glacial) periods, the vegetation of the basin was represented mostly by steppes, with the appearance of forested vegetation only in the mountainous regions. During humid (interglacial) periods, Mediterranean woodlands represented the dominant vegetation, accompanied by deciduous and conifer forests in the areas of higher altitude. The lake system present in the basin also allowed for the presence of marshland vegetation. The assessment of the availability of edible plant parts reveals that early Homo could have found a high number of resources in marshland and riparian environments throughout the year. Mediterranean woodlands and deciduous forests also provided numerous edible plant parts. During dry periods, the availability of plant resources decreased heavily, but the prevalence of marshland and riparian vegetation and of forested vegetation in the areas of higher altitude could have sustained hominin communities during harsher climatic periods. However, the disappearance of the lake system and an increase of aridity after the Mid-Pleistocene Transition and during the Middle Pleistocene probably led to an impoverishment of plant resources available to early Homo in the Guadix-Baza Basin.
Das Forschungsfeld zur Evolution menschlicher Sprachbefähigung zeigt sich als in höchstem Maße multidisziplinär sowie methodisch und theoretisch heterogen. Diese Monografie verfolgt drei für die einschlägige Forschung relevante Ziele. Erstens werden für die Sprachursprungsforschung notwendige fachliche und methodische Grundlagen einführend aufbereitet. Zweitens wird ein Methodenkatalog erarbeitet, welcher sich aus allgemeinen Prinzipien der Wissenschaftstheorie, Qualitätskriterien etablierter (meta)wissenschaftlicher Vorgehensweisen sowie Leitlinien guter Literaturrezeption ableitet, um ein methodisches Instrument zum leistungsfähigen Umgang mit der einschlägigen Literatur vorzulegen. Drittens wird ebenjener Methodenkatalog exemplarisch auf mehrere Bereiche der multidisziplinären Forschung angewandt. Dabei zeigt sich, dass zu innerhalb der Literatur scheinbar unsicheren, da widersprüchlich diskutierten, Positionen und Argumentationslinien durchaus vergleichsweise klare und valide Aussagen gemacht werden können. Dies betrifft sowohl theoretische Konzeptualisierungen als auch empirisch orientierte Interpretationen. Umfasst werden innerhalb der Analyse Disziplinen von der Linguistik über die Paläoanthropologie und die Neurologie bis zur Genetik.
Reconstructing plant use before domestication is challenging due to a lack of evidence. Yet, on the small number of sites with assemblages, the wide range of different plant species cannot be explained simply in terms of nutrition. Assemblages from the Lower Paleolithic to the Early Neolithic were examined to investigate the relative edible and medicinal properties of the plants. The assemblages contain a mixture of edible species, plants that are both edible and medicinal, and plants with only medicinal properties. The proportion of medicinal plants at all sites is well above the natural average and increases over time. Mechanisms for preventing intestinal parasitic infections are common among animals and together with chimpanzees’ preventative and curative self‐medication practices suggest an evolutionary context for this behavior. A broad‐spectrum approach to plant collection is likely to have been in place throughout the Paleolithic driven, in part, by the need for medicinal compounds.
Aranbaltza is an archaeological complex formed by at least three open-air sites. Between 2014 and 2015 a test excavation carried out in Aranbaltza III revealed the presence of a sand and clay sedimentary sequence formed in floodplain environments, within which six sedimentary units have been identified. This sequence was formed between 137–50 ka, and includes several archaeological horizons, attesting to the long-term presence of Neanderthal communities in this area. One of these horizons, corresponding with Unit 4, yielded two wooden tools. One of these tools is a beveled pointed tool that was shaped through a complex operational sequence involving branch shaping, bark peeling, twig removal, shaping, polishing, thermal exposition and chopping. A use-wear analysis of the tool shows it to have traces related with digging soil so it has been interpreted as representing a digging stick. This is the first time such a tool has been identified in a European Late Middle Palaeolithic context; it also represents one of the first well-preserved Middle Palaeolithic wooden tool found in southern Europe. This artefact represents one of the few examples available of wooden tool preservation for the European Palaeolithic, allowing us to further explore the role wooden technologies played in Neanderthal communities.
This paper focuses on the empirical evidence for the cognitive abilities of early hominins of the Oldowan Industrial Complex (c. ≥2.6 to 1.4 Mya) on the African continent. It profiles various researchers’ approaches to and inferences about the cognitive abilities of Oldowan (Mode 1) toolmakers, based on the excavated archaeological evidence, primate models, experimental archaeology and neuroimaging techniques. Although there is a great deal of variation with regard to how to interpret such evidence, a variety of archaeological and palaeoneurological evidence indicates that Oldowan hominins represent a stage of technological and cognitive complexity not seen in modern great apes (chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, orangutans), but transitional between a modern ape-like cognition and that of later Homo (erectus, heidelbergensis, sapiens). Prevailing evidence and evolutionary models suggest that this new evolutionary stage entailed the growing elaboration of a problem-solving, technological niche that incorporated manufactured tools as a critical component of adaptation, especially to enhance food procurement and processing, as well as enhancements and greater complexity in social behaviours and communication.
The ecology of Neanderthals is a pressing question in the study of hominin evolution. Diet appears to have played a
prominent role in their adaptation to Eurasia. Based on isotope and zooarchaeological studies, Neanderthal diet has
been reconstructed as heavily meat-based and generally similar across different environments. This image persists,
despite recent studies suggesting more plant use and more variation. However, we have only a fragmentary picture of
their dietary ecology, and how it may have varied among habitats, because we lack broad and environmentally
representative information about their use of plants and other foods. To address the problem, we examined the plant
microremains in Neanderthal dental calculus from five archaeological sites representing a variety of environments from
the northern Balkans, and the western, central and eastern Mediterranean. The recovered microremains revealed the
consumption of a variety of non-animal foods, including starchy plants. Using a modelling approach, we explored the
relationships among microremains and environment, while controlling for chronology. In the process we compared the
effectiveness of various diversity metrics and their shortcomings for studying microbotanical remains, which are often
morphologically redundant for identification. We developed Minimum Botanical Units as a new way of estimating of
how many plant types or parts are present in a microbotanical sample. In contrast to some previous work, we find no
evidence that plant use is confined to the southern-most areas of Neanderthal distribution. Although the interpreting
ecogeographic variation is limited by the incomplete preservation of dietary microremains, it is clear that plant
exploitation was a widespread and deeply rooted Neanderthal subsistence strategy even if they were predominately
game hunters. Given the limited dietary variation across Neanderthal range in time and space in both plant and animal
food exploitation, we argue that vegetal consumption was a feature of a generally static dietary niche
Significance
Wood is a widely available and versatile material, which has admittedly played a fundamental role in all human history. Wood, however, is most vulnerable to decomposition. Hence, its use is very rarely documented during prehistory. The present study yields new insights into the cognitive abilities of the early Neanderthals in wooden tool production and pyrotechnology. The early Neanderthals from the late Middle Pleistocene site of Poggetti Vecchi (central Italy) were able to choose the appropriate timber and to process it with fire to produce tools. The artifacts recall the so-called “digging sticks,” multipurpose tools used by all hunter-gatherer societies.
The destructive distillation of birch bark to produce tar has recently featured in debates about the
technological and cognitive abilities of Neandertals and modern humans. The abilities to precisely
control fre temperatures and to manipulate adhesive properties are believed to require advanced
mental traits. However, the signifcance given to adhesive technology in these debates has quickly
outgrown our understanding of birch bark tar and its manufacture using aceramic techniques. In this
paper, we detail three experimental methods of Palaeolithic tar production ranging from simple to
complex. We recorded the fuel, time, materials, temperatures, and tar yield for each method and
compared them with the tar known from the Palaeolithic. Our results indicate that it is possible to
obtain useful amounts of tar by combining materials and technology already in use by Neandertals.
A ceramic container is not required, and temperature control need not be as precise as previously
thought. However, Neandertals must have been able to recognize certain material properties, such as
adhesive tack and viscosity. In this way, they could develop the technology from producing small traces
of tar on partially burned bark to techniques capable of manufacturing quantities of tar equal to those
found in the Middle Palaeolithic archaeological record.
The time of arrival of people in Australia is an unresolved question. It is relevant to debates about when modern humans first dispersed out of Africa and when their descendants incorporated genetic material from Neanderthals, Denisovans and possibly other hominins. Humans have also been implicated in the extinction of Australia’s megafauna. Here we report the results of new excavations conducted at Madjedbebe, a rock shelter in northern Australia. Artefacts in primary depositional context are concentrated in three dense bands, with the stratigraphic integrity of the deposit demonstrated by artefact refits and by optical dating and other analyses of the sediments. Human occupation began around 65,000 years ago, with a distinctive stone tool assemblage including grinding stones, ground ochres, reflective additives and ground-edge hatchet heads. This evidence sets a new minimum age for the arrival of humans in Australia, the dispersal of modern humans out of Africa, and the subsequent interactions of modern humans with Neanderthals and Denisovans.
The use of plants as raw materials is likely to have existed throughout the whole of
the human past. Usable plant components consist of leaves, bark, wood, fibres and
vines, sticks, saps and resins, nut and large seed shells and a wide range of plant
secondary compounds. These were all used in an apparently unlimited way as raw
materials to manufacture all manner of items. Examples of the way multiple lines of
evidence can be used to reconstruct past use of plant materials, even when primary
evidence is lacking, include the use of plant materials in oral hygiene activities, the
manufacture of pitch, twisted fibre technology and woodworking.
Recent genomic data have revealed multiple interactions between Neanderthals and modern humans, but there is currently little genetic evidence regarding Neanderthal behaviour, diet, or disease. Here we describe the shotgun-sequencing of ancient DNA from five specimens of Neanderthal calcified dental plaque (calculus) and the characterization of regional differences in Neanderthal ecology. At Spy cave, Belgium, Neanderthal diet was heavily meat based and included woolly rhinoceros and wild sheep (mouflon), characteristic of a steppe environment. In contrast, no meat was detected in the diet of Neanderthals from El Sidrón cave, Spain, and dietary components of mushrooms, pine nuts, and moss reflected forest gathering. Differences in diet were also linked to an overall shift in the oral bacterial community (microbiota) and suggested that meat consumption contributed to substantial variation within Neanderthal microbiota. Evidence for self-medication was detected in an El Sidrón Neanderthal with a dental abscess and a chronic gastrointestinal pathogen (Enterocytozoon bieneusi). Metagenomic data from this individual also contained a nearly complete genome of the archaeal commensal Methanobrevibacter oralis (10.2× depth of coverage)-the oldest draft microbial genome generated to date, at around 48,000 years old. DNA preserved within dental calculus represents a notable source of information about the behaviour and health of ancient hominin specimens, as well as a unique system that is useful for the study of long-term microbial evolution.
Abstract
Reporting on the nutritional, botanical and ethnological data of more than one thousand species of edible plants, this reference guide addresses an academic audience with a variety of backgrounds and needs. In addition to providing nutrition information, it describes regions where plants are available and presents patterns of use of particular species of Canadian Indigenous Peoples. Several cross-referencing tables containing common English plant names, botanical names and composite information about each species are accompanied by chapters giving an overview of the known ethnic uses of the most important and universally used species. In addition, a thorough index is supplied. Biologists, ethnologists, Indigenous Peoples, nutritionists, wildlife enthusiasts and health care professionals should all find this volume irreplaceable.
Significance
Our knowledge of the diet of early hominins derives mainly from animal skeletal remains found in archaeological sites, leading to a bias toward a protein-based diet. We report on the earliest known archive of food plants found in the superimposed Acheulian sites excavated at Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov, Israel. These remains, some 780,000 y old, comprise 55 taxa, including nuts, fruits, seeds, vegetables, and plants producing underground storage organs. They reflect a varied plant diet, staple plant foods, seasonality, and hominins’ environmental knowledge and use of fire in food processing. Our results change previous notions of paleo diet and shed light on hominin abilities to adjust to new environments and exploit different flora, facilitating population diffusion, survival, and colonization beyond Africa.
In 2013, Hardy et al. offered a broad behavioural context for the hypothesis that the ingestion of non-nutritional plants (yarrow and camomile) by Neanderthals was for the purpose of self-medication. Chemical traces of these plants had been detected in samples of dental calculus from Neanderthals at the site of El Sidrón, Spain, along with traces of bitumen and wood smoke, as well as starch granules that showed evidence of roasting (Hardy et al. 2012). Subsequently, the presence of traces of resin and a piece of non-edible conifer wood were also identified from these samples (Radini et al. 2016). Although not rejecting our interpretation for the presence of these two non-edible plants as evidence of medicinal plant use, two recent articles offer alternative scenarios for why and how those plants may have reached the mouth and, eventually, the dental calculus of the individual concerned. Buck and Stringer (2014) suggest that the plants were not deliberately ingested, and that the traces of yarrow and camomile were in fact embedded in the chyme, or stomach contents, of herbivore prey. Krief et al. (2015) propose two hypotheses: first, they suggest that the plants could have been used to flavour meat; second, while not ruling out the possibility that they could be medicinal, they argue on a technical point that the plants were not self-administered but were provided by a caregiver. Here, we examine these suggestions and consider their probability and feasibility as alternatives to our original proposal of self-medication.
The finding of archaeological evidence predating 1 Ma and a small hominin species (Homo floresiensis) on Flores, Indonesia, has stimulated much research on its origins and ancestry. Here we take a different approach and examine two key questions – 1) how did the ancestors of H. floresiensis reach Flores and 2) what are the prospects and difficulties of estimating the likelihood of hominin persistence for over 1 million years on a small island? With regard to the first question, on the basis of the biogeography we conclude that the mammalian, avian, and reptilian fauna on Flores arrived from a number of sources including Java, Sulawesi and Sahul. Many of the terrestrial taxa were able to float or swim (e.g. stegodons, giant tortoises and the Komodo dragon), while the rodents and hominins probably accidentally rafted from Sulawesi, following the prevailing currents. The precise route by which hominins arrived on Flores cannot at present be determined, although a route from South Asia through Indochina, Sulawesi and hence Flores is tentatively supported on the basis of zoogeography. With regards to the second question, we find the archaeological record equivocal. A basic energetics model shows that a greater number of small-bodied hominins could persist on Flores than larger-bodied hominins (whether H. floresiensis is a dwarfed species or a descendent of an early small-bodied ancestor is immaterial here), which may in part explain their apparent long-term success. Yet the frequent tsunamis and volcanic eruptions in the region would certainly have affected all the taxa on the island, and at least one turnover event is recorded, when Stegodon sondaari became extinct. The question of the likelihood of persistence may be unanswerable until we know much more about the biology of H. floresiensis.
Numbers of animal species react to the natural phenomenon of fire, but only humans have learnt to control it and to make it at will. Natural fires caused overwhelmingly by lightning are highly evident on many landscapes. Birds such as hawks, and some other predators, are alert to opportunities to catch animals including invertebrates disturbed by such fires and similar benefits are likely to underlie the first human involvements with fires. Early hominins would undoubtedly have been aware of such fires, as are savanna chimpanzees in the present. Rather than as an event, the discovery of fire use may be seen as a set of processes happening over the long term. Eventually, fire became embedded in human behaviour, so that it is involved in almost all advanced technologies. Fire has also influenced human biology, assisting in providing the high-quality diet which has fuelled the increase in brain size through the Pleistocene. Direct evidence of early fire in archaeology remains rare, but from 1.5 Ma onward surprising numbers of sites preserve some evidence of burnt material. By the Middle Pleistocene, recognizable hearths demonstrate a social and economic focus on many sites. The evidence of archaeological sites has to be evaluated against postulates of biological models such as the ‘cooking hypothesis' or the ‘social brain’, and questions of social cooperation and the origins of language. Although much remains to be worked out, it is plain that fire control has had a major impact in the course of human evolution.
This article is part of the themed issue ‘The interaction of fire and mankind’.
Following on from our previous research into the prehistoric aceramic distillation and production of birch bark tar, this series of exploratory experiments investigated the use of raised structures within a fire. These field-based experiments were conducted using sand, gravel, wood fuel, and bark from Betula pubescens (downy birch). The structures that were created were simple raised sand mounds, which reflected known Neanderthal combustion surfaces from the Middle Palaeolithic. The bulk of the experiments were recorded throughout using a thermocouple to provide temperature readings from the base of the bark pyrolysis chamber. The experiments proved successful at producing birch bark tar and several containers were used to catch the tar for later analysis. Based on the results, the authors contend that not only could Neanderthals control fire but that regular birch bark tar production by Neanderthals was most likely a result of specific chaînes opératoires in order to provide the necessary control and outcomes.
The German Middle Paleolithic is marked by two stages with abundant archaeological sites: The Eemian Interglacial (MIS 5e) and the Weichselian Interpleniglacial (MIS 3). On the other hand, several stages were seemingly void of any human population (the second half of MIS 6 and MIS 4) and two long periods (MIS 8-6 and MIS 5d-5a) delivered very few archaeological sites, so far. The majority of all assemblages seem to belong to the latest part of the Middle Paleolithic, during the first half of MIS 3. Concerning this period, the layer G stratigraphic complex (“G-Komplex”) of Sesselfelsgrotte yielded the longest cultural sequence of late Middle Paleolithic unifacial-plus-bifacial industries (Keilmessergruppen, Micoquian in the sense of a “Mousterian with a Micoquian option”, MMO) in Central Europe. Information from this sequence permitted a reconsideration of the internal structure and the dating of the MMO. Evidence is presented for an earlier MMO stage with almost no Levallois technology (MMO-A) and a later stage (MMO-B) with Levallois technology, both occurring at the very end of the European Middle Paleolithic, between 60,000 and 43,000 (cal.) B.P. The vast majority of all Middle Paleolithic sites in Germany belong to the MMO-B which was, in Southern Germany, rapidly followed by the Upper Paleolithic Aurignacian from 42 ka (cal.) B.P. onwards without any Proto-Aurignacian interlude.
Since its inception, paleoanthropology has been closely wedded to the idea that big-game hunting by our hominin ancestors arose, first and foremost, as a means for acquiring energy and vital nutrients. This assumption has rarely been questioned, and seems intuitively obvious—meat is a nutrient-rich food with the ideal array of amino acids, and big animals provide meat in large, convenient packages. Through new research, the author of this volume provides a strong argument that the primary goals of big-game hunting were actually social and political—increasing hunter’s prestige and standing—and that the nutritional component was just an added bonus. Through a comprehensive, interdisciplinary research approach, the author examines the historical and current perceptions of protein as an important nutrient source, the biological impact of a high-protein diet and the evidence of this in the archaeological record, and provides a compelling reexamination of this long-held conclusion. This volume will be of interest to researchers in Archaeology, Evolutionary Biology, and Paleoanthropology, particularly those studying diet and nutrition.
Discoveries about the cultures and cultural capacities of the great apes have played a leading role in the recognition emerging in recent decades that cultural inheritance can be a significant factor in the lives not only of humans but also of nonhuman animals. This prominence derives in part from these primates being those with whom we share the most recent common ancestry, thus offering clues to the origins of our own thoroughgoing reliance on cumulative cultural achievements. In addition, the intense research focus on these species has spawned an unprecedented diversity of complementary methodological approaches, the results of which suggest that cultural phenomena pervade the lives of these apes, with potentially major implications for their broader evolutionary biology. Here I review what this extremely broad array of observational and experimental methodologies has taught us about the cultural lives of chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans and consider the ways in which this knowledge extends our wider understanding of primate biology and the processes of adaptation and evolution that shape it. I address these issues first by evaluating the extent to which the results of cultural inheritance echo a suite of core principles that underlie organic Darwinian evolution but also extend them in new ways and then by assessing the principal causal interactions between the primary, genetically based organic processes of evolution and the secondary system of cultural inheritance that is based on social learning from others.
According to current evidence, Homo sapiens was unable to survive on a diet of raw wild foods. Because cooked diets have large physiological and behavioral consequences, a critical question for understanding human evolution is when the adaptive obligation to use fire developed. Archaeological evidence of fire use is scarce before ca. 400 ka, which suggests to some that the commitment to fire must have arisen in the mid-Pleistocene or later. However, weak jaws and small teeth make all proposals for a raw diet of early Pleistocene Homo problematic. Furthermore, the mid-Pleistocene anatomical changes seem too small to explain the substantial effect expected from the development of cooking. Here I explore these and other problems. At the present time no solution is satisfactory, but this does not mean the problem should be ignored.
At the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic (M/UP) transition in Western Europe, hominins depended mostly on terrestrial mammals for subsistence, being pointed out that reliance on reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) would have promoted declines in human population densities during that period. Food-composition tables have been compiled for hominins at the M/UP transition, listing protein, fat, energy, different omega-3 fatty acids and ascorbic acid concentrations. These data were used to compute the regular relations between fatty and lean tissues of the main hunted food-animals to meet hominin energy needs. Then, with daily protein intake considered critical, the optimal contribution of the different omega-3 fatty acids from different hunted species to hominin diets were computed. Several faunal assemblages from different human sites at different M/UP periods were used to assess the overall daily intake of the various omega-3 fatty acid classes. The results of the calculations made in this work are quite clear; hominins at the M/UP transition had a deficit of both omega-3 fatty acids and ascorbic acid. Data on human organs summarized here are also conclusive: these contain such nutrients in amounts much higher than reached in the corresponding mammal organs consumed, and thus could have been alternative sources of those nutrients for Palaeolithic hominins. Therefore, nutritional cannibalism detected at such times could have had the function of alleviating these deficits. The evolutionary advantages gained by the consumption of the various omega-3 fatty acids of human origin are also discussed.
A few decades ago, we knew next to nothing about the behavior of our closest animal relative, the chimpanzee, but long-term field studies have since revealed an undreamed-of richness in the diversity of their cultural traditions across Africa. These discoveries have been complemented by a substantial suite of experimental studies, now bridging to the wild through field experiments. These field and experimental studies, particularly those in which direct chimpanzee-child comparisons have been made, delineate a growing set of commonalities between the phenomena of social learning and culture in the lives of chimpanzees and humans. These commonalities in social learning inform our understanding of the evolutionary roots of the cultural propensities the species share. At the same time, such comparisons throw into clearer relief the unique features of the distinctive human capacity for cumulative cultural evolution, and new research has begun to probe the key psychological attributes that may explain it.
Sima del Elefante, Atapuerca, Spain contains one of the earliest hominin fragments yet known in Europe, dating to 1.2 Ma. Dental calculus from a hominin molar was removed, degraded and analysed to recover entrapped remains. Evidence for plant use at this time is very limited and this study has revealed the earliest direct evidence for foods consumed in the genus Homo. This comprises starchy carbohydrates
from two plants, including a species of grass from the Triticeae or Bromideae tribe, meat and plant fibres. All food was eaten raw, and there is no evidence for processing of the starch granules which are intact and undamaged. Additional biographical detail includes fragments of non-edible wood found adjacent to an interproximal groove suggesting oral hygiene activities, while plant fibres may be linked to raw
material processing. Environmental evidence comprises spores, insect fragments and conifer pollen grains which are consistent with a forested environment.
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The site of Payre (SE France) is presented as a case study to decipher possible changes in subsistence and land-use strategies during the middle Pleistocene in Europe. This study applies carbon and oxygen isotopic data (δ¹³C and δ¹⁸O) in dental tooth enamel from four distinct Middle Pleistocene Neanderthals coming from two phases of occupation. This allows us to test if these different Neanderthals were similar in their subsistence strategies and mobility during their childhood, and to compare them with terrestrial predators and to herbivores dwelling in different areas around the cave. The results show that Neanderthals were exploiting the environment differently over time in the absence of a significant environmental change. This change of environment exploitation coincides with different durations of occupation. The age of the individuals allows us to discuss the mobility of young Neanderthals and the topographies they lived on before arriving in the cave. The combination of results obtained from various approaches throws a new light on the investigation of Neanderthal ecosystem and land-use patterns during the Early Middle Palaeolithic in Southeastern France.
Have you ever wondered why we eat wheat, rice, potatoes and cassava? Why we routinely domesticate foodstuffs with the power to kill us, or why we chose almonds over acorns? Answering all these questions and more in a readable and friendly style, this book takes you on a journey through our history with crop plants. Arranged into recurrent themes in plant domestication, this book documents the history and biology of over 50 crops, including cereals, spices, legumes, fruits and cash crops such as chocolate, tobacco and rubber.
Studies of the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in Europe have focused on plants and animals exploited for food. However, the exploitation of plants for fibres underwent a significant change with the addition of domestic flax as a fibre crop. While the technology of flax fibre processing is increasingly understood by archaeologists, its material value as a fibre crop in comparison to indigenous fibre is less well explored. We examine the mechanical properties of flax and two indigenous fibres (lime bast, willow bast), by testing fibre strips for tensile properties and discuss the results in the light of material choices in these periods.
Any occupation of northern Europe by Lower Paleolithic hominins, even those occurring during full interglacials, must have addressed the challenges of marked seasonality and cold winters. These would have included the problems of windchill and frostbite; duration, distribution, and depth of snow cover; reduced daylight hours; and distribution and availability of animal and plant foods. Solutions can essentially be characterized as a “stick or twist” choice, that is, year-round presence on a local scale versus extensive annual mobility. However, these options—and the interim strategies that lie between them—present various problems, including maintaining core body temperature, meeting the energetic demands of mobility, coping with reduced resource availability and increasing patchiness, and meeting nutritional requirements. The feasibility of different winter survival strategies are explored with reference to Lower Paleolithic paleoenvironmental reconstructions and on-site behavioral evidence. Emphasis is placed on possible strategies for (i) avoiding the excessive lean meat protein problem of “rabbit starvation” (e.g., through exploitation of “residential” species with significant winter body fat and/or by targeting specific body parts, following modern ethnographic examples, supplemented by the exploitation of winter plants) and (ii) maintaining body temperatures (e.g., through managed pyrotechnology and/or other forms of cultural insulation). The paper concludes with a suggested winter strategy.
Few sites with evidence for fire use are known from the Last Interglacial in Europe. Hearth features are rarely preserved, probably as a result of post-depositional processes. The small postglacial basins (<300 m in diameter) that dominate the sedimentary context of the Eemian record in Europe are high-resolution environmental archives often containing charcoal particles. This case study presents the macroscopic charcoal record of the Neumark-Nord 2 basin, Germany, and the correlation of this record with the distinct find levels of the basin margin that also contain thermally altered archaeological material. Increased charcoal quantities are shown to correspond to phases of hominin presence—a pattern that fits best with recurrent anthropogenic fires within the watershed. This research shows the potential of small basin localities in the reconstruction of local fire histories, where clear archaeological features like hearths are missing.
Lower and Middle Palaeolithic artifacts on Greek islands separated from the mainland in the Middle and Upper Pleistocene may be proxy evidence for maritime activity in the eastern Mediterranean. Four hypotheses are connected with this topic. The first is the presence of archaic hominins on the islands in the Palaeolithic, and the second is that some of the islands were separated from the mainland when hominins reached them. A third hypothesis is that archaic hominin technological and cognitive capabilities were sufficient for the fabrication of watercraft. Finally, the required wayfinding skills for open sea-crossings were within the purview of early humans. Our review of the archaeological, experimental, ethno-historical, and theoretical evidence leads us to conclude that there is no a priori reason to reject the first two hypotheses in the absence of more targeted archaeological surveys on the islands, and thus the latter two hypotheses should be tested by future research.
In this paper we present the development of a method for the detection of toxic substances on ancient arrow points. The aim is to go back in time until the Palaeolithic period in order to determine if poisonous substances were used to enhance the hunting weapons.
The ethnographic documentation demonstrates that hunters of every latitude poisoned their weapons with toxic substances derived from plants and occasionally from animals. This highlights that often the weapons would be rather ineffective if the tips were not poisoned. The fact that toxic substances were available and the benefits arising from their application on throwing weapons, suggests that this practice could be widespread also among prehistoric hunters.
The project reviewed the research of the toxic molecules starting from current information on modern plants and working backwards through the ages with the study of ethnographic and historical weapons. This knowledge was then applied to the archaeological material collected from International museum collections.
Results have shown that using this method it is possible to detect traces of toxic molecules with mass spectrometry (MS) and hyphenated chromatographic techniques even on samples older than one hundred years, which we consider a positive incentive to continue studying plant poisons on ancient hunting tools.