A new 42kyr site in East Timor

[Daryl Habel]

Here's a current news story from theage.com.au (The Age, Australia), telling of an exciting new discovery on the island of Timor (East Timor), at least 42,000 years old (perhaps earlier, but uncertainty because of the radiocarbon-dating limitations).
Timor cave may reveal how humans reached Australia.

Deborah Smith
December 22, 2006

AN AUSTRALIAN archaeologist has discovered the oldest evidence of occupation by modern humans on the islands that were the stepping stones from South-East Asia to Australia.

A cave site in East Timor where people lived more than 42,000 years ago, eating turtles, tuna and giant rats, was unearthed by Sue O'Connor, head of archaeology and natural history at the Australian National University.

 Dr O'Connor also found ancient stone tools and shells used for decoration in the limestone shelter, known as Jerimalai, on the eastern tip of the island.

She said her discovery could help solve the mystery of the route ancient seafarers took to get here from South-East Asia.

It strengthens the view that they made a southern passage, via Timor, rather than travelling northwards via Borneo and Sulawesi, then down through Papua New Guinea. "The antiquity of the Jerimalai shelter makes this site significant at a world level," said Dr O'Connor, who presented the findings at the annual conference of the Australian Archaeological Association this month......(more)

The full story (including a nice photograph) can be read HERE

Announced at  the annual conference of the Australian Archaeological Association this month, apparently there has been no widespread publication of this discovery, but I'd expect more news on this in the future.

Dar

[AWSX]

Dar,
There is an article by Moore & Brumm in the January issue of Journal of Human Evolution. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=PublicationURL&_cdi=6886&_pubType=J&_auth=y&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=99d369b53b8d67d1cf8aadad9885678f
 
and it is free!

Abstract

This study reexamines the current understanding of Pleistocene stone-artifact assemblages in island Southeast Asia. A differentiation has long been made between assemblages of large-sized “core tools” and assemblages of small-sized “flake tools.” “Core tool” assemblages are often argued to be the handiwork of early hominin species such as Homo erectus, while small-sized “flake tool” assemblages have been attributed to Homo sapiens. We argue that this traditional Southeast Asian perspective on stone tools assumes that the artifacts recovered from a site reflect a complete technological sequence. Our analyses of Pleistocene-age artifact assemblages from Flores, Indonesia, demonstrate that large pebble-based cores and small flake-based cores are aspects of one reduction sequence. We propose that the Flores pattern applies across island Southeast Asia: large-sized “core tool” assemblages are in fact a missing element of the small-sized flake-based reduction sequences found in many Pleistocene caves and rock-shelters. We conclude by discussing the implications of this for associating stone-artifact assemblages with hominin species in island Southeast Asia.

Also I was browsing through the 'Articles in Press' and noticed an article on Niah Cave.

Abstract

Recent research in Europe, Africa, and Southeast Asia suggests that we can no longer assume a direct and exclusive link between anatomically modern humans and behavioral modernity (the ‘human revolution’), and assume that the presence of either one implies the presence of the other: discussions of the emergence of cultural complexity have to proceed with greater scrutiny of the evidence on a site-by-site basis to establish secure associations between the archaeology present there and the hominins who created it. This paper presents one such case study: Niah Cave in Sarawak on the island of Borneo, famous for the discovery in 1958 in the West Mouth of the Great Cave of a modern human skull, the ‘Deep Skull,’ controversially associated with radiocarbon dates of ca. 40,000 years before the present. A new chronostratigraphy has been developed through a re-investigation of the lithostratigraphy left by the earlier excavations, AMS-dating using three different comparative pre-treatments including ABOX of charcoal, and U-series using the Diffusion-Absorption model applied to fragments of bones from the Deep Skull itself. Stratigraphic reasons for earlier uncertainties about the antiquity of the skull are examined, and it is shown not to be an ‘intrusive’ artifact. It was probably excavated from fluvial-pond-desiccation deposits that accumulated episodically in a shallow basin immediately behind the cave entrance lip, in a climate that ranged from times of comparative aridity with complete desiccation, to episodes of greater surface wetness, changes attributed to regional climatic fluctuations. Vegetation outside the cave varied significantly over time, including wet lowland forest, montane forest, savannah, and grassland. The new dates and the lithostratigraphy relate the Deep Skull to evidence of episodes of human activity that range in date from ca. 46,000 to ca. 34,000 years ago. Initial investigations of sediment scorching, pollen, palynomorphs, phytoliths, plant macrofossils, and starch grains recovered from existing exposures, and of vertebrates from the current and the earlier excavations, suggest that human foraging during these times was marked by habitat-tailored hunting technologies, the collection and processing of toxic plants for consumption, and, perhaps, the use of fire at some forest-edges. The Niah evidence demonstrates the sophisticated nature of the subsistence behavior developed by modern humans to exploit the tropical environments that they encountered in Southeast Asia, including rainforest.

Allan Shumaker

[Daryl Habel]

Dar,
There is an article by Moore & Brumm in the January issue of Journal of Human Evolution. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=PublicationURL&_cdi=6886&_pubType=J&_auth=y&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=99d369b53b8d67d1cf8aadad9885678f
 
and it is free!

Abstract...
(SNIP)

Also I was browsing through the 'Articles in Press' and noticed an article on Niah Cave.

Abstract....
(SNIP)

Allan Shumaker

Thanks Allan,

Indeed, the content of the entire January 2007 issue of Journal of Human Evolution is available as free html and/or pdf download files.  I entered this information in the Palanth Forum  Bookyard section yesterday, but I had failed to take notice of the JHE 'Articles in Press' forthcoming paper on Niah Cave , so this apparent confirmation of the age (40 +/- 6 ka) and context of the Niah Cave 'Deep Skull' is news to me.  I'll have to look into this.

For more information on the new discoveries from the >42 ka (calendar years) Jerimalai Shelter, East Timor, credit goes to Richard Parker, who dug out Sue O'Connor's abstract of her presentation made at the 2006 Australian Archaeological Association Conference, held this month at La Trobe at Beechworth (Victoria), Australia, posting  the information originally on Gisele Horvat's HumanMigrations Yahoo group. .

http://www.latrobe.edu.au/aaa2006/abstracts.html#signature4

En route to Sahul: Jerimalai shelter, a 40,000 year-old record of occupation by Homo sapiens in East Timor
Sue O’Connor
Australian National University
soconnor@coombs.anu.edu.au

This paper reports new finds from Timor, where a habitation site dated to 38,255+/-596 b.p. or > 42,000 calBP provides the earliest evidence for migration by modern sapiens east of the Sunda Shelf into Island Southeast Asia. Until now there has been a major discrepancy between the dates for earliest occupation in Australia and those from island Southeast Asia, with the earliest dated sites from Australia being significantly older than the oldest sites from any of the potential stepping stone islands en route (even relying purely on the radiocarbon chronology). Although a southern route through the Lesser Sunda islands (including Flores and Timor) has usually been proposed as the most parsimonious for maritime passage to Sahul (the ancient continent that encompassed Australia and New Guinea), the lack of early dated evidence on any of the stepping stone islands of this group has led some authors to propose alternative routes (albeit equally lacking in evidence for early colonization).  Perhaps the greatest recent challenge to the southern route has been posed by the recent finds from Flores, Timor’s eastern neighbour island, where modern humans apparently failed to colonise prior to the Holocene. The new dates and data from Timor redresses this situation, and indicate that the southern route is still the strongest contender for the earliest seafaring passage to Sahul. With moderns humans firmly ensconced in Australia by this time, it would not previously have been considered necessary to argue the case that a site of this age was the product of modern human behaviour; especially for a site on an island requiring a water crossing to reach it. But the fact that a non-modern hominid was present on Flores until 12,000 years ago changes this. In the absence of human skeletal remains, the nature of the occupation evidence from Timor is evaluated in order to demonstrate that it is qualitatively different from the assemblage produced by non-moderns from the late Pleistocene context at Liang Bua, as well as for its significance in contributing to our understanding of the types of adaptations made at this early date on route to Sahul.

Within the abstracts for all presentations made at the 2006 Australian Archaeological Association Conference earlier this month, available  HERE.  Many informative and interesting presentations, so check it out.

Thanks Richard,
Dar
 

[Daryl Habel]

John Hawks, on his weblog, has commented on the story released online in The Age in a post titled, "Early Timor habitation at Jerimalai," CLICK HERE.

I urge you to read Hawks' weblog comment for yourself, but I'll add my agreement with the following points.  First, Hawks notes that the article in The Age "...discusses the significance in terms of a possible demonstration that the Timor route was taken by early Australian colonists, rather than the northern route via Sulawesi - although it by no means rules out the northern route..."   Important to remember the latter, since the article in The Age stresses the former. 

Secondly, Hawks takes issue with another suggestion made in the article from The Age,

"The find, however, raised big questions, such as why modern humans appeared to have bypassed Flores on their way to Timor.  One possibility was that the hobbits were able to repel them."

To which Hawks adds: "Or, modern humans were on Flores and left their tools there...".  This possibility is totally ignored in the news story from The Age, perhaps because, if true, it removes some of the evidence to support the hypothesis of a new tool-making species on Flores ca. 95-12 kyr BP, Homo floresiensis.  Hawks notes: "Actually, the most important piece of evidence at this Timor site may be the exploitation of deep marine resources, because it really shows a sophistication of seagoing technology. This sophistication is quite consistent with the early habitation of the Bismarck Archipelago before 30,000 years ago",  and concludes with "A sophisticated seafaring modern human culture that dated to as early as 60,000 years would encompass almost all the time depth of the Liang Bua cave stratigraphy, by the way." 

All of which is not to deny the possibility of the reality of the new species Homo floresiensis, but that the conclusion in The Age article:

"It is clear that this region warrants a great deal more study," Dr O'Connor said.

is quite correct.  There are other possibilities.  I'm still sitting on the fence regarding most issues surrounding Homo floresiensis, and this new discovery at Jerimalai, East Timor, does not offer strong support for Su O'Connor's contention in The Age, that that the tools found on Flores and those found at Jerimalai were manufactured by two species, H. sapiens and H. floresiensis:

Although the Jerimalai site is at least 42,000 years old, it could be much older, Dr O'Connor said, because this was the detection limit of the radiocarbon dating method used. She said the simple stone tools unearthed in the shelter were similar to those used by the species of hobbit-sized people who lived in a cave on the nearby island of Flores until 12,000 years ago.

But she was confident Jerimalai's inhabitants were modern humans, Homo sapiens, and not small-brained members of Homo floresiensis, because of the evidence for their sophisticated behaviour found in the dig. Fish such as tuna, for example, "could only have been captured in the deeper waters offshore using hooks, and probably also water craft", she said.

Dar

   

[gladen]

It seems that these 40K plus/minus sites are multiplying in the general region.  Is this supposed to suggest that there is a DIFFERENT route across Oceania or rather that there was a LOT of movement among these island areas.

Does the absence of sites on micro/melo/polynesian islands mean an absence of traffic in these areas, thus making us believe that boats were not in common use, or is it just because these small islands were, well, small and uninteresting to the people at the time?

The African evidence, and increasingly other evidence, really forces us to not draw a line between earlier and later modern humans that means much in terms of capacity, though of course there are technological "lines" that could be drawn. 

I guess this is my question:  What do we need to see to draw the conclusion that modern humans were seafarers way back?

(Which, of course they MUST have been in order to transport their Pet Hobbits to Flores!?!?)

GTL

[lagarvelho]

Greg:

But if they weren't seafarers, how *did* they get to East Timor?  I'm just kind of raising the question "rhetorically" here: I'm just glad they are finding ancient sites in a region that has been neglected by prehistorians for far too long, IMO.As ofor "pet hobbits", well, as I've said elsewhere, I'm basically "agnostic" about the whole Flores issue.

Incidentally, welcome to this list,
Anne G

[Daryl Habel]

Greg:
(snip)
Incidentally, welcome to this list,
Anne G

Actually, he's returning after a long hiatus.  Welcome back, Greg, we've missed you.
Dar

[gladen]

Anne:  I'm sure they must have been seafareres.  I've always supported the idea. 

Dar:  Nice to be back! 

Flores: I'm probably in agreement that agnosticism is a good approach, but I am not even slightly impressed by the pathology arguments.  These are hominids, or at least hominoids, of uncertain affinity. 

I'm happy with thinking of them as a kind of diminutive homo erectus, provisionally.  I have a huge problem making any assumptions about the connection between particular stone tools and particular hominds.  Why do so here when we say we can't elsewhere? 

GTL

[lagarvelho]

Greg:

Sorry about the slightly "misinformed" welcome.  I couldn't remember whether or not you'd joined here.   And I have to say, I agree with most of what you say.  Certainly about the Flores "hobbits".  There's no doubt that, whatever else they were, they were hominids of some kind.  What kind, I wouldn't know.  Because I'm not the expert on these things.  And they probably got there by sea, but how, and under what circumstances, I wouln't have any idea.  And as for "pathologies", I'll leave that for better minds than my own to work out.
Anne G