HOMO ERECTUS VILLAGES?

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

All,

The following may well make the round in a little while:

Our earliest ancestors gave up hunter-gathering and took to a settled life up to 400,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to controversial research.

The accepted timescale of Man’s evolution is being challenged by a German archaeologist who claims to have found evidence that Homo erectus — mankind’s early ancestor, who migrated from Africa to Asia and Europe — began living in settled communities long before the accepted time of 10,000 years ago.

The point at which settlement actually took place is the first critical stage in humanity’s cultural development.

Helmut Ziegert, of the Institute of Archaeology at Hamburg University, says that the evidence can be found at excavated sites in North and East Africa, in the remains of stone huts and tools created by upright man for fishing and butchery.

Professor Ziegert claims that the thousands of blades, scrapers, hand axes and other tools found at sites such as Budrinna, on the shore of the extinct Lake Fezzan in southwest Libya, and at Melka Konture, along the River Awash in Ethiopia, provide evidence of organised societies.

He believes that such sites show small communities of 40 or 50 people, with abundant water resources to exploit for constant harvests.

The implications for our knowledge of human evolution — and of our intellectual and social beginnings — are “profound” and a “staggering shift”, he said.

Click HERE for the full article.

Jacques

[Charlie Hatchett]

All,

The following may well make the round in a little while:

Our earliest ancestors gave up hunter-gathering and took to a settled life up to 400,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to controversial research.

The accepted timescale of Man’s evolution is being challenged by a German archaeologist who claims to have found evidence that Homo erectus — mankind’s early ancestor, who migrated from Africa to Asia and Europe — began living in settled communities long before the accepted time of 10,000 years ago.

The point at which settlement actually took place is the first critical stage in humanity’s cultural development.

Helmut Ziegert, of the Institute of Archaeology at Hamburg University, says that the evidence can be found at excavated sites in North and East Africa, in the remains of stone huts and tools created by upright man for fishing and butchery.

Professor Ziegert claims that the thousands of blades, scrapers, hand axes and other tools found at sites such as Budrinna, on the shore of the extinct Lake Fezzan in southwest Libya, and at Melka Konture, along the River Awash in Ethiopia, provide evidence of organised societies.

He believes that such sites show small communities of 40 or 50 people, with abundant water resources to exploit for constant harvests.

The implications for our knowledge of human evolution — and of our intellectual and social beginnings — are “profound” and a “staggering shift”, he said.

Click HERE for the full article.

Jacques

I think Ziegert's hypothesis is plausible, though it would be nice to have more details on the evidence he's found to support his hypothesis. For example, how did he come to the conclusion that some of the stones were the remains of huts?

Charlie

[lagarvelho]

Charlie and Jacques:

Well, as I said elsewhere, it's, uh, interesting.  It's also plausible, I think, that H.erectus people created dwellings from easily-worked materials and settled --- perhaps seasonally, at unusually favorable spots before moving on, possibly seasonally, over whatever territories they possessed.  But permanent villages?  That's, IMO, pretty far-fetched, 400 kyr ago.  Though it would seem that H.erectus people were far more sophisticated in some ways, than we "moderns" give them credit for.
Anne G

[AWSX]

If H. erectus was fortunate enough to wander into an enviroment where food and water were consistantly  available, what would cause them to leave? A fresh water lake full of fish or a seacoast with abundant fish and shellfish and a stream nearby would be a powerful incentive to settle down. Eventually climate change or  overexpoitation of the resources would result  but for a time 'permanent settlement' may have been an option. If no natural shelter such as a cave or rockshelter was near it seems very likely that any intelligent hominid could gather tree limbs to form a crude shelter to get out of the wind or rain and stay warm at night.

There was a discovery in Japan dated to about half a million years old where post holes had been dug into volcanic ash. This was presumed to be evidence that H. erectus had built some form of crude shelter.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/662794.stm

[aggsbach]

Even a site such as Bilzingsleben is not generally accepted as a base camp of early hominines. The claims and believes of Prof. Ziegert are not new. Until there is no solid publication available I would recommend to remain very sceptic.

Johannes

[trehinp]

Even a site such as Bilzingsleben is not generally accepted as a base camp of early hominines. The claims and believes of Prof. Ziegert are not new. Until there is no solid publication available I recommend to remain very sceptic.

Johannes

I agree indeed, if this theory is confirmed by subsequent publications it will indeed be quite a change in the understanding of the evolution of human settlements.

However, I find journalists statements like " Our earliest ancestors gave up hunter-gathering and took to a settled life up to 400,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to controversial research." detrimental to a proper understanding of such information.

It would be more correct in my opinion to use statements like "Some Homo Erectus managed to organise settlements as far ago as 400K years". This in itself is challenging enough previous theories. There is no need to generalise to all Homo Erectus this settlement capability.

Note that this is a common practice among journalists and even some palaeoantropologists. We often read statements like "Homo Erectus was able to do this and that, but not those other things.", Like wise Neanderthals had developed such and such hunting methods. This is a gross misrepresentation of the probable reality which was most likely made out of a broad diversity of subgroups with various modes of adaptation to their environments, like it is still the case nowadays.

Paul.

[Robert Henvell]

If H. erectus was fortunate enough to wander into an enviroment where food and water were consistantly  available, what would cause them to leave? A fresh water lake full of fish or a seacoast with abundant fish and shellfish and a stream nearby would be a powerful incentive to settle down. Eventually climate change or  overexpoitation of the resources would result  but for a time 'permanent settlement' may have been an option. If no natural shelter such as a cave or rockshelter was near it seems very likely that any intelligent hominid could gather tree limbs to form a crude shelter to get out of the wind or rain and stay warm at night.

There was a discovery in Japan dated to about half a million years old where post holes had been dug into volcanic ash. This was presumed to be evidence that H. erectus had built some form of crude shelter.

The Japanese discovery was fabricated and the person,who was responsible for the deception took his own life.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/662794.stm

[AWSX]

Yes, the 'divine digger' was involved, but this article says when he confessed, he claimed the post holes were real. However, it appears the half million year old dating was just a SWAG (probably without the Scientific).
http://www.athenapub.com/japhoax.htm