Views on the Central/Eastern European Plain during the Ice Age.

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

The following – I think it may have been missed before -- is from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

March 21, 2002

EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN EUROPE
REVEAL ANCIENT HUMAN LIFESTYLES

Ongoing excavations in Russia indicate anatomically modern humans were developing new technologies for survival in the cold, harsh region some 30,000 to 40,000 years ago, according to a University of Colorado at Boulder researcher.

John Hoffecker of CU-Boulder's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research said that excavations at Kostenki -- a series of more than 20 sites about 250 miles south of present-day Moscow -- have yielded bone and ivory needles with eyelets that are 30,000 years old.

In addition, the research team uncovered nearly articulated bones of both arctic foxes and hares at the site, which is along the Don River. These discoveries strongly hint that ancient residents of Kostenki had developed trapping techniques to obtain furs that would help keep them warmer in the winters.

The many discoveries at Kostenki since the 1940s imply that anatomically modern humans who had migrated out of Africa 40,000 to 50,000 years ago were adapting to the frigid temperatures of the central east European Plain, he said.

"The use of furs is particularly important, given these were a slender people with long limbs recently arrived from southern latitudes, making the cold even more of a challenge to survive in," Hoffecker said.

The Kostenki sites, which date beyond 40,000 years ago, may have hosted Neanderthals as well as modern humans, he said. "It looks like there were two separate industries at work here. One culture was advanced in terms of bone and ivory tool-making and decorative figurine art, while the other produced little more than crude stone tools."

Although modern human remains have been found at Kostenki associated with the advanced culture, no human skeletal materials have been found with the cruder tools, and their makers are unknown, said Hoffecker.

Hoffecker gave a talk on the latest research at Kostenki at the annual Paleoanthropology Society meeting held in Denver March 18 and March 19.

Other participants in the study include Michael Anikovich and Andre Sinitsyn of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vance Holiday of the University of Wisconsin and Steve Forman, a former CU-Boulder researcher now at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Hoffecker also will give a talk on Kostenki research at the larger annual meeting of the 2002 Society for American Archaeology, which meets March 20 to March 22 at the Adam's Mark Hotel on Denver's 16th Street Mall.

"It was critical for these people to adapt to cold climates in order to survive," said Hoffecker, an INSTAAR Fellow whose research has been funded by the Leakey Foundation, the National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society. The modern humans at Kostenki also were creating symbols, art and language, as evidenced by decorated and engraved figurines, as well as some supporting anatomical evidence, he said.

"There may have been a relationship between their ability to formulate and communicate concepts through language and their ability to manipulate their environment through complex technology," he said.

"The exciting aspect is that we continue to find evidence of these people in deeper layers of sediment," he said. The evidence for modern humans at Kostenki is buried under 3 meters to 5 meters of silt.

Dating the early human sites beyond 40,000 years is a challenge because it is roughly the limit of radiocarbon dating, he said. The researchers turned to luminescence dating, which involves heating rock crystals from the sites and counting photons emitted from the crystals -- which have been trapped under sediments for millennia -- in order to determine accurate dates for specific sites.

Animal remains found at modern human sites at Kostenki included horses, mammoth, bison, moose and reindeer, said Hoffecker. In addition, other researchers recently found evidence for high consumption of fish based on analyses of bone chemistry from 30,000-year-old human remains, another indication that anatomically modern humans were advancing human technology.

"The fishing activity shows these people were probably manipulating the environment with fish weirs or traps,'' said Hoffecker. "They appear to have been using their sophisticated technology to expand the range of their diet, in comparison to Neanderthals."

In addition to trapping fur-bearing mammals, there also is evidence at Kostenki that modern humans were killing other small mammals and possibly birds using darts. "There is no evidence that Neanderthals were using this technique," he said.

Hoffecker recently authored a book titled "Desolate Landscape: Ice Age Settlement in Eastern Europe," which was published by Rutgers University Press.

CONTACT:
John Hoffecker, (303) 220-7646 jfhoffeck@aol.com
Jim Scott, (303) 492-3114
 

And, if you want to get a fuller appreciation of Hoffecker’s views on Late Pleistocene life was like  in the Central/Eastern European plain, have a look at his recent book entitled:

John F. Hoffecker. 2002.Desolate Landscapes: Ice-Age Settlement in Eastern Europe – with a Preface by Richard G. Klein.(The Rutgers Series in Human Evolution, Edited by Robert Trivers)

Jacques Cinq-Mars

[Dale Hoogeveen]

Book Review
Desolate Landscapes: Ice-Age Settlement in Eastern Europe
By John F. Hoffecker
New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press: 2002

review:
http://human-nature.com/nibbs/02/frost.html
Reviewed by Peter Frost

There is this book review.  I found it hard to differentiate between the reviewer's opinion and the book he was writing about.

So my comments will be addressed to them together.

Loess-steppe -10 to -30 F in winter sounds like the soil type and winter temperature range for northern Minnesota, the Dakota prairies and into the Prairie Provences of Canada with the latter also lacking any winter shelter.  Any presence of loess soils indicates large open expanses which has another effect which is that weather fronts come from very large distances and can be mild as well as harsh.  Temperatures in North Dakota in summer can be +100 F and break 90 every summer with weather patterns depending on movement of the jet streams which can bring Siberian and Alaskan arctic air from one direction but at the lattitudes talked about can also bring milder fronts from the Pacific or from the southwest and frequently bring moist air from the Gulf of Mexico which has similar supply in Central Asia from the Black and Caspian Seas.

Within the past week temperatures here in the Upper Midwest have ranged from +90 to well below freezing with significant accumulations of snow in some areas and this is only mid-April;  so what ever the pattern is currently is subject to dramatic and rapid change and was likely to have been that way in the portion of the Russian steppe under consideration by the Hoffecker.  Further more that takes wide open spaces with vast open areas in all directions which is not the geography much farther east into Europe proper.

I also noticed the use of Inuit sex ratios to explain diversity of type in the section Male Provisioning, Polygyny Constraints, and Sexual Selection.  However the examples given come from non-diverse types and therefore do not apply.  In fact, diversity in type especially in coloring only occurrs in those areas which had a prior Neanderthal presence, only from Central Asia west, but show little presence from Central Asia east.  That is not to say the important differences did not exist in the percentage of men and women at the sites being described;  however it cannot explain regionally specific differences in the variety of expressions of the resulting offspring, since there is no uniform outcome.

It is interesting, however, to examine the sex ratio difference in regard to replacement of mtDNA lineages as potentially seperate from chromosomal inheritance.  IIRC one of the initial assumptions of mtDNA EVE is that should Neanderthals have contributed some of their lineages should have survived.  Assuming that none did (which itself is still in question in some quarters), sex ratio disparity would make females more aggressively available outside their own groups.  Should culture have advanced to the point of providing a survivable environment for gracile types,  it is likely that the simple fact of a more gracile infant at birth would provide a selective factor for that trait alone which would work almost completely on women.  Gracile infants, likely somewhat less ossified even at that point would be easier to deliver for both robust and gracile mothers, but robust infants would be exceptionally difficult for the less hardy gracile women.  So providing culturally levels could support gracility, robust infants immediately become a liability at delivery time.  The selection is totally for a particular type of woman;  robust daughters are selected against, and severely, limiting the survival of mtDNA lineages.  Differential and specifically female selection.

Dutch

The following – I think it may have been missed before -- is from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

March 21, 2002

EXCAVATIONS IN EASTERN EUROPE
REVEAL ANCIENT HUMAN LIFESTYLES

Ongoing excavations in Russia indicate anatomically modern humans were developing new technologies for survival in the cold, harsh region some 30,000 to 40,000 years ago, according to a University of Colorado at Boulder researcher.

John Hoffecker of CU-Boulder's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research said that excavations at Kostenki -- a series of more than 20 sites about 250 miles south of present-day Moscow -- have yielded bone and ivory needles with eyelets that are 30,000 years old.

In addition, the research team uncovered nearly articulated bones of both arctic foxes and hares at the site, which is along the Don River. These discoveries strongly hint that ancient residents of Kostenki had developed trapping techniques to obtain furs that would help keep them warmer in the winters.

The many discoveries at Kostenki since the 1940s imply that anatomically modern humans who had migrated out of Africa 40,000 to 50,000 years ago were adapting to the frigid temperatures of the central east European Plain, he said.

"The use of furs is particularly important, given these were a slender people with long limbs recently arrived from southern latitudes, making the cold even more of a challenge to survive in," Hoffecker said.

The Kostenki sites, which date beyond 40,000 years ago, may have hosted Neanderthals as well as modern humans, he said. "It looks like there were two separate industries at work here. One culture was advanced in terms of bone and ivory tool-making and decorative figurine art, while the other produced little more than crude stone tools."

Although modern human remains have been found at Kostenki associated with the advanced culture, no human skeletal materials have been found with the cruder tools, and their makers are unknown, said Hoffecker.

Hoffecker gave a talk on the latest research at Kostenki at the annual Paleoanthropology Society meeting held in Denver March 18 and March 19.

Other participants in the study include Michael Anikovich and Andre Sinitsyn of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Vance Holiday of the University of Wisconsin and Steve Forman, a former CU-Boulder researcher now at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Hoffecker also will give a talk on Kostenki research at the larger annual meeting of the 2002 Society for American Archaeology, which meets March 20 to March 22 at the Adam's Mark Hotel on Denver's 16th Street Mall.

"It was critical for these people to adapt to cold climates in order to survive," said Hoffecker, an INSTAAR Fellow whose research has been funded by the Leakey Foundation, the National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society. The modern humans at Kostenki also were creating symbols, art and language, as evidenced by decorated and engraved figurines, as well as some supporting anatomical evidence, he said.

"There may have been a relationship between their ability to formulate and communicate concepts through language and their ability to manipulate their environment through complex technology," he said.

"The exciting aspect is that we continue to find evidence of these people in deeper layers of sediment," he said. The evidence for modern humans at Kostenki is buried under 3 meters to 5 meters of silt.

Dating the early human sites beyond 40,000 years is a challenge because it is roughly the limit of radiocarbon dating, he said. The researchers turned to luminescence dating, which involves heating rock crystals from the sites and counting photons emitted from the crystals -- which have been trapped under sediments for millennia -- in order to determine accurate dates for specific sites.

Animal remains found at modern human sites at Kostenki included horses, mammoth, bison, moose and reindeer, said Hoffecker. In addition, other researchers recently found evidence for high consumption of fish based on analyses of bone chemistry from 30,000-year-old human remains, another indication that anatomically modern humans were advancing human technology.

"The fishing activity shows these people were probably manipulating the environment with fish weirs or traps,'' said Hoffecker. "They appear to have been using their sophisticated technology to expand the range of their diet, in comparison to Neanderthals."

In addition to trapping fur-bearing mammals, there also is evidence at Kostenki that modern humans were killing other small mammals and possibly birds using darts. "There is no evidence that Neanderthals were using this technique," he said.

Hoffecker recently authored a book titled "Desolate Landscape: Ice Age Settlement in Eastern Europe," which was published by Rutgers University Press.

CONTACT:
John Hoffecker, (303) 220-7646 jfhoffeck@aol.com
Jim Scott, (303) 492-3114

And, if you want to get a fuller appreciation of Hoffecker’s views on Late Pleistocene life was like  in the Central/Eastern European plain, have a look at his recent book entitled:

John F. Hoffecker. 2002.Desolate Landscapes: Ice-Age Settlement in Eastern Europe – with a Preface by Richard G. Klein.(The Rutgers Series in Human Evolution, Edited by Robert Trivers)

Jacques Cinq-Mars

[Daryl Habel]

Hi Dutch (and all),

Thanks for the upper Midwest weather report <grin>.  I've also had some difficulty differentiating opinions in the book review, probably only resolved by reading the book (hopefully, sometime).  Add some difficulty with Hoffecker's interpretation of the archaeological evidence from the Kostenki sites.  It is important to remember that this evidence comes from more than 25 sites located within an area of ~20 square kilometers along the Middle Don river, and taking into account that more than 10 of these are multi-layered, represent the remains of >50 settlements of Upper Paleolithic times ranging from >40 kyr BP down until ~20 kyr BP, after which the region seems to have been largely abandoned, probably due to climatic deterioration associated with the advent of the Last Glacial Maximum.

As you've (all) probably read (from the article posted by Jacques to initiate this thread), it can be surmised that Hoffecker strongly advocates the theory "that anatomically modern humans who had migrated out of Africa 40,000 to 50,000 years ago were adapting to the frigid temperatures of the central east European Plain" [he said], and that "The use of furs is particularly important, given these were slender people with long limbs recently arrived from southern latitudes, making the cold even more of a challenge to survive in."

I'd say (from my dreaded "armchair") that while the Kostenki archaeological evidence is certainly compatable with this theory of migrating Africans of 50-40 kyr BP, the totality of the Kostenki archaeological remains do not require this to be true, and the available evidence certainly also is compatable with other interpretations of initial Upper Paleolithic demographic and cultural changes that do not require recently arrived Africans to explain this evidence.

In particular, I had a problem with Hoffecker's depiction in the news release Jacques posted, specifically the quote: "One culture was advanced in terms of bone and ivory tool-making and decorative figurine art, while the other produced little more than crude stone tools."  The "other" culture (presumed Neanderthals, in Hoffecker's view) might not have the "advanced" (presumed recent African) innovations, but on the other hand, so far as I've been informed, all presently known assemblages from Kostenki are considered to be of "Upper Paleolithic" culture  (be they Spitsinskayan, Streletskayan, Gorodsovskayan, or whatever localized attribution to which one wishes to ascribe these assemblages), since no one yet has formally reported (again, so far as I know) a "Middle Paleolithic" presence at the Kostenki sites.  

Although there are distinct differences in the types of material culture represented, both penecontemporaneously and over time, in the various assemblages from Kostenki,  I just don't see the necessity to invoke recent African migrants for their presence.  After all, nobody has been reported living along the Middle Don river during the earlier penultimate glaciation of OIS 4 (70-60 kyr BP), and both the "advanced" and "crude" cultures of the early Upper Paleolithic of 40 kyr BP could, in my opinion, just as easily have been produced by immigrants repopulating the central east European Plain  from climatic refuges that could have been located elsewhere than Africa.

I think these are issues that are not fully answered yet, neither by the evidence from Kostenki nor elsewhere.

I haven't had time yet to fully digest your points about sex ratios and differential female selection accounting for the present mtDNA evidence, but the idea seems worth looking into, and I'll think some on it.

Cheers,
Dar

[Dale Hoogeveen]

Hi Dar,

Having not really studied the area, I was under the impression that there was a dramatic difference in the two types of tools, rather than both or all being either true or at least borderline UP.  Is it maybe possible that there aren't actually two cultures involved, but might be differing dedicated purposes from site to site?

Hoffecker does say that no remains are associated with the "cruder" technological level.  Like you point out a number of explanations can be very easily made to fit at this point.

The point about the weather report was really meant to underscore the severity of the weather on the Russian steppe and its rapid changeability, which might very well have been as difficult to take as the absolute severity.  We have a close modern analog in the northern plains of the US into the prairie provinces of Canada.  

Dutch

[Daryl Habel]

Dutch,

I suppose I was not very clear, but yes you are correct that there is a clear and distinct difference between the two industry types that are found in the earliest Upper Paleolithic deposits at the Kostenki sites, and they could very well be the productions of two very different cultural groups.  My gripe was with the usage of the adjectives "advanced" and "crude" to describe the difference in the press release of 2002.  And yes, I got the point of your weather analogy.  

It was noted in the press release that Hoffecker was to give a talk on the findings in 2002 and I have an abstract from the 2002 Paleoanthropology Society Meetings held in Denver last year.  This doesn't add too much to what is said in the press release posted by Jacques to initiate this thread, so I won't quote from it.

Here is what I have on the (more carefully worded than the 2002 press release) most recent work done by Hoffecker and colleagues at Kostenki.  It is the abstract from this year's 2003 Paleoanthropology Society Meeting to be held in Tempe, Arizona,  April 22-23.

http://www.paleoanthro.org/prog2003.htm

Early Dates for the European Upper Paleolithic from Kostenki (Russia)

J.F. Hoffecker1, A.A. Sinitsyn2, M.V. Anikovich2 , S.L. Forman3, V.T. Holliday4, and P. Goldberg5
1Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0450 U.S.A. hoffecke@spot.colorado.edu
2Institute of the History of Material Culture, Russian Academy of Sciences, 191186 Saint Petersburg, Russia a.sinitsyn@AS6238.spb.edu, kate_archae@freemail.ru
3Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60607-7059 U.S.A.  slf@uic.edu
4Departments of Anthropology and Geosciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721-0030 U.S.A. vthollid@email.arizona.edu
5Department of Archaeology, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215 U.S.A. paulberg@bu.edu

Abstract:

During 2002, field research continued at Kostenki on the west bank of the Don River near the city of Voronezh in Russia.  New excavations were conducted in the lower occupation levels at Kostenki 12 (Layers III and IV) and Kostenki 14 (Layer IVb).  These levels are found stratigraphically beneath a horizon of volcanic ash dating between 35,000 and 40,000 years BP.  They contain artifacts and vertebrate remains in layers of silt that seem to have been deposited by a complex interplay of slope and low-energy stream processes.  A series of five luminescence (IRSL) dates on these sediments at Kostenki 12 yielded estimates between 43,470 and 51,060 years ago.  Buried soils are present at both localities and some of them are associated with occupation levels.  

The lowest occupation level at Kostenki 14 (Layer IVb) contains prismatic blade cores, end-scrapers, burins, and bifaces, along with tools of bone, antler, and ivory (e.g., points).  Other artifacts include a perforated shell (imported from a remote source) and carved ivory fragment that appears to represent the head of a figurine.  An isolated tooth recovered from this level in 2001 has been assigned to modern humans.  A broadly correlative level at Kostenki 12 (Layer III) contains an assemblage of bifacial points, end-scrapers, and side-scrapers that lacks non-lithic tools, ornaments, and art objects (assigned to the Streletskaya kul’tura).  In 2002, a large bone bed comprising fragmented remains of reindeer and horse was uncovered in Layer III.  The underlying level (Layer IV) may contain an assemblage similar to that of Layer IVb at Kostenki 14, but the sample size is small.

The new discoveries at Kostenki indicate that an Upper Paleolithic industry—most probably created by modern humans—was present as early as ca. 45,000 years BP on the central East European Plain.  This suggests that modern humans may have initially occupied some of the coldest and driest areas of mid-latitude Europe during the earlier Middle Pleniglacial.  It is unclear if Neanderthals were also present in the region at this time, although they might have produced the assemblage from Layer III at Kostenki 12.

Supported by an NSF grant in archaeology (BCS-0132553).

End of abstract.

I don't have a clear idea of what Hoffecker and his colleagues have found in the lowest layers of Kostenki 12 and 14, but here is what Evhenji Giria said about the Spitsinskaya (the "advanced" culture) and the Streletskaya industry ("kul'tura"), mentioned above as possibly Neanderthal manufactured, and described in the press release of 2002 as consisting merely of "crude stone tools".  Giria gave a presentation at the International Congress: "Central and Eastern Europe from 50,000 to 30,000 BP",  held at the Neanderthal Museum in 1999, and his characterization of Streletskayan seems at odds with a description of mere "crude stone tools".  The abstract (in pdf) is still available from the Neanderthal Museum website pages at:

http://www.neanderthal.de/e_thal/abstr/abstr22.pdf

My gripe with Hoffecker's description of Kostenki has not so much to do with the dichotomy between the "advanced" Spitsinskaya ("Aurignacoid") and the Streletskaya, but more with his easy way of relating the differences in industries ("crude"/"advanced") at Kostenki with resident European  Neanderthals and "recent" (50,000-40,000 BP)  AMH immigrants from Africa.  As if there was little to discuss about this.  The newcomers from Africa discovered how to obtain fur coats, insuring their success in arctic environments, and probably were better at symbolism also.  The truth has been found.  Read the book and all will be revealed.

So far as I know, all human remains so far found from the Kostenki sites can be considered anatomically modern.  But I'm not really comfortable with the assignment of the Streletskaya industry to Neanderthals when, so far, no Neanderthal fossils have ever turned up from Kostenki, nor as far as I know, no diagnostic human remains have ever been found associated with the Streletskayan anywhere, including the Crimea, where it also is said to exist, and called by some a variant of the eastern Szeletian.  Who says Streletskayan at Kostenki has to be produced by Neanderthals?

Streletskaya points, the nice bifacial tools described by Giria, are found at Sungir' in association with the elaborate burials, and some Russian scholars claim that the Sungir' industry is "late" Streletskayan, but others have called it Aurignacian with leaf points (Randall White) or eastern Gravettian (Gamble).  

....so who knows what about who made the Streletskayan?  I've more questions than answers, but Hoffecker's scenario of the origins of modern humans sounds slanted a little too far towards Colin's "same old story" for me to accept without attempting something of a "search and destroy" mission on the weak points of his version, which is slanted very obviously toward a very recent (40-50 ka) "Out-of-Africa" migration.

Of course, I'll have to read the book to find out exactly where the weak points are.  Hopefully, it won't cost my right arm.

More information on the Kostenki sites from Sinitsyn at:

http://carbon14.univ-lyon1.fr/synits.htm

this being a paper presented in 1999 at an International Congress 14C and Archaeology at the University of Lyon, France:

http://carbon14.univ-lyon1.fr/preactes.htm


Cheers,
Dar

[rich]

just to add to what Dar has already posted, here is my timeline.
look at the geography,and timescale, although as we appreciate times are not set in stone.
45 k -Europe - Aurignacian in evidence.  Kostenki 12 and 14 appear to predate aurignacian tech  in east europe, this site MAY HAVE hosted nean ( Strelestskaya -simpler tools) as well as mh ( aurignacian as at geissenklosterle with bone & ivory tools) dated paleo ecologically to hengelo interstadial. ? * corridor ?

43k  the earliest manifestations from the Danube corridor near the scource of the river. And far upstream of the Bacho Kiro and Temnata sites But do these swabian sites predate Kostenki (38 -35k, volcanic ash) on the east european plain in another region of europe but see 45k kostenki 12

40k Spitsenskaya.- blade industry similar to Kostenki Willendorf 10 -15k later.

38k  Europe.-?earliest UP sites now at Korolevo and Kostenki  at the end of the very cold period in this region,  asoc though with  treeless period - Dniestre, Besna and Don basins. Then see 36k

36.5k Russian plane middle don valley.- Kostenki -Borshchevo region.- IUP begins  at earlier times cf 30-25k in other areas of Eastern Europe. Nb the later tech may have developed indipendently,- lack of cultural similarity.industries are - Streletskaya (40k on where bifacial items predominate)   & Kostenki & Spitsynskaya ( now a developed blade prod in evidence{ * UP {, cf earlier)  all are Aurignacian tech on mousterian form. With a decrease inall these cultures of IUP  can be traced back along the Dneister & prut to the Crimean mousterian, perhaps with exception of Spitsynskaya. Horse meat seems to be the main diet in these cultures. mousterian as time advances with bone tools as well. ..

36.4k Russia - Kostenki. -Don valley - AMH - bone needles for making furs to protect from the cold ,- fishing, small birds hunted.- art, figurines found.- Spitsinkaya culture.(38-31k)

36k -E Europe.- sees the end of the mousterian tech @ Betovo (Russian plane) during the cold spell that brought about a treeless steppe landscape.  But see 34k also,  sites of Korolevo (Transcarpathia), Kostenki 14 (Russia), and Matouzka (Caucasus) sees final mousterian.

32k -Russia..- Strelestskaya culture,-? AMH   mousterian derived tech, but no ornaments. See Kostenki @ 31k.

31k -Russia - Kostenki. -Don valley - AMH - bone needles for making furs to protect from the cold ,- fishing, small birds hunted.- art, figurines found.- Spitsinkaya culture.(38-31k)

28.7k Ukraine.- Buran Kaya 111. Def earliest UP  on top of MP.- similar to Kostenki, Strelestskaya, because of bifacially worked points. Also Ukraine  -at same date  at Siuren 1 yielded Aurignacian assemblage , all other sites other than those mentioned at this time in Ukraine seem to be MP at Siuren H&G- MP and Aurignacian
Siuren 1 -some MP tools found in assoc with Aurignacian - bifacials, points and scrapers similar to CM ?interaction or mechanical mixing of tool types.


Also Dutch, could you run the MtDna lineage thing passed me once again. R U posting that because gracile would be selected for over robust then robust would dissappear ? I can see that argument, though should not lineages be taken up by gracile and robust .  I can see that the robust female infant may not deliver ,to the mortality of the mother also, but a female gracile infant could carry certain lineages with the effect to water them down. But are nean MTDna traits assoc with a robust morph ? I only ask this in ignorance because i do not  know the answer.

Nice to be involved in a thread again, I am just running to keep up at the moment Dar.Regards,
Rich

[Dale Hoogeveen]

Also Dutch, could you run the MtDna lineage thing passed me once again. R U posting that because gracile would be selected for over robust then robust would dissappear ? I can see that argument, though should not lineages be taken up by gracile and robust .  I can see that the robust female infant may not deliver ,to the mortality of the mother also, but a female gracile infant could carry certain lineages with the effect to water them down. But are nean MTDna traits assoc with a robust morph ? I only ask this in ignorance because i do not  know the answer.

Nice to be involved in a thread again, I am just running to keep up at the moment Dar.Regards,
Rich

Hi Rich,

Let's see if I can remember what I was going to reply to this:
(It's good to have palanth.com back again.  The outage must have been a nightmare...)

Admittedly I treated mtDNA lineages as if they were connected to a particular morphology, which was meant to show that even if they were, a very simple selection mechanism could easily disrupt that connection.  Bear in mind that both gracility and robusticity are not single entities, but rather general descriptions of complex sets of independantly variable traits;  so there really is no single gracile or robust human type to begin with.   I apologize for going up the ladder on someone else's logical development to show its underlying weakness.

Neaderthal mtDNA lineages are considered to be distinct from the "only" gracile strains that appear to have survived into current populations.  There is no knowing whether they had any particular linkage to any essentially robust expression or not.  My speculation was more to show that particular female selective pressures could be misinterpreted as mtDNA linkage to chromosomal genotypes;  it is my belief that they have been, making African Eve mtDNA irrelevant to chromosomal inheritance.  Taking that even a little further, the survivor of each pair of chromosomes that makes it into the gamete is selected independantly from the selection in any of the other 22 pairs, actually providing for independant lineages of mutated traits amoung them as well.  

Actually there is no way to show more than an isolated connection between mtDNA and chromosomal DNA which usually is in regard to some manifest pathology which actually challenges its applicability to general processes.  The mtDNA and chromosomal genotypes replicate independantly and undergo dramatically different population dynamics in every generation of the creature carrying them.

mtDNA is often viewed as a single entity in a creature which is not true.  It is a population in every cell.  What happens in humans is that following fertilization there is a dramatic decrease in the number of mitochondria in the initial fetal cells that will divide to become the eventual infant.  The mature ovum has something like 10,000 by itself and whether or not the sperm's 2 or 300 hundred particpate or are inherantly marked for destruction they can only be a maximum of a couple of percentage points and likely only show ongoing presence when a portion of one of them is assimilated in one of the female originating mtDNA replications rather than being completely deactivated.  That population is reduced to about 100 to 150 AFTER fertilization to form the ongoing colony that will totally populate the next human generation.

That is a statistical bottleneck of nearly 99% which naturally produces a very uniform ongoing population of mtDNA.  IOW mtDNA has a  population explosion in each ovum from 100 or so to about 10,000 that is spread over only a couple of dozen human cellular generations (which is what the female chromosomal DNA experiences during the development of the ovum that will contribute to the next human generation) and then is bottlenecked to a survival of about 1% all in a real time of 9 months which spans the actual human female generational period of from about 15 to 50 years or so.

Naturally that produces the appearance of homeoplasy in mtDNA lineages, and that approximation is close to accurate as well, but it can also produce dramatically quick lineage branches in a way that is impossible for chromosomal DNA, should mutated mtDNA survive that bottleneck which has obviously happened from time to time.  Each human generation begins with a dramatically reduced and usually quite uniform founder population of mtDNA which then explodes and is bottlenecked anew at the beginning of the fetal development of the next generation.  Little variation has a chance of getting transmitted, but when it does its continuing presence gets concentrated.

Throughout all this the chromosomal DNA is transmitted between generations in single copies, which are therefore naturally and completely homeoplasic and which also undergo far fewer replications per human generation;  so mutation rates cannot be correlated between the types of DNA either.

My feeling is that mtDNA inheritance and chromosomal inheritance are independant and should not be coupled, but should rather be considered to have converged at each individual reproduction.  It seems to me that the mechanics are so inherantly distinct that their lineage histories cannot be cross-translated.

For that matter individual chromosomal traits can also have dramatically different lineage histories from each other, although many of them are so naturally linked in function that selection reduces that.

To me complete replacement by a single mitochondrially and chromosomally uniform population is a non-starter, dead at the starting gate once one examines the life cycles of the distinct genetic materials it attempts to unify.

Dutch

[Dale Hoogeveen]

Dutch,

I suppose I was not very clear, but yes you are correct that there is a clear and distinct difference between the two industry types that are found in the earliest Upper Paleolithic deposits at the Kostenki sites, and they could very well be the productions of two very different cultural groups.  My gripe was with the usage of the adjectives "advanced" and "crude" to describe the difference in the press release of 2002.  And yes, I got the point of your weather analogy.  

Cheers,
Dar

Hi Dar,

I agree with your gripe.

A couple of "quick" questions:

How long does it take a population to culturally cross the boundry into Upper Paleolithic levels?

Am I wrong to think that it can be quite abrupt?

Dutch

[Daryl Habel]

Hi Dar,

I agree with your gripe.

A couple of "quick" questions:

How long does it take a population to culturally cross the boundry into Upper Paleolithic levels?

Am I wrong to think that it can be quite abrupt?

Dutch

Hi Dutch,

I'm a poor one to ask such profound questions.

Theoretically I suppose that "crossing the boundary" could, under certain circumstances, be quite abrubt, meaning occurring relatively rapidly as a response to changing conditions, as has been shown, for example, in historical times when a less industrialized culture comes into first contact with more industrialized cultures.

But for the MP/UP boundary I'm sure your ideas are as good as mine.  Without specifying behavioral change based on evidence, which I'm hesitant to do, all we can do is speculate.

Given that populations tend to be behaviorally conservative, unless forced, I would suspect cultural change followed the same general conservative trend.  I wonder if there is any archaeological site that demonstrates the change between MP and UP with the degree of chronological control required to answer your question.  Certainly none I can think of.  

Dar  

[Daryl Habel]

just to add to what Dar has already posted, here is my timeline.
look at the geography,and timescale, although as we appreciate times are not set in stone.

(SNIP)

Nice to be involved in a thread again, I am just running to keep up at the moment Dar.Regards,
Rich

Hi Rich,

Yes, there's no question that your "timeline" has to be tempered with an appreciation that the dates are not set in stone.  With regards to the Kostenki chronology, for instance, the best base seems to be the division of the sites into three chronological groups, as noted by Sinitsyn in the abstract from the 1998 (I miswrote earlier 1999) radiocarbon conference held at Lyon:

"The division of the lower and upper humic beds is the horizon of sterile loam containing lenses of volcanic ash, which have been analyzed and attributed to one of the eruptions of Campi Flegrei in Italy, the age of which can be regarded as 35-32 kyr...." (Sinitsyn 1998 <http://carbon14.univ-lyon1.fr/synits.htm>)

This horizon is a widespread marker at Kostenki, and I notice that Hoffecker and colleagues, in their latest abstracts from the Paleoanthropology Society meetings (2002, 2003), have dated this at 38-35 ka (which differs from Sinitsyn's 35-32 kyr, for which I'm without any current information for this apparent revision).

Given that we've discussed in other threads the problems with 14C chronology in the 40-30 kyr range, it's probably best to regard early UP dates (>30 kyr BP) reported from Kostenki in the context of the upper and lower humic beds, with the separation of the two being the sterile loam containing the Camp Flegrei volcanic ash lenses.  Hoffecker et al., in the 2003 Paleoanthropology Society Meeting abstract, report five IRSL luminescence dates from lower levels at Kostenki 12 ranging from ~43.5 to ~51.1 kyr BP, but we (meaning you and I) don't yet have enough information to place the site in context with others at Kostenki or elsewhere in Europe.

Nothing wrong with gathering the scraps of information as they come our way, but it seems, to me anyway, a bit early to draw anything more than tentative sketches of the nature of the Early Upper Paleolithic on the Russian Plain.

Dar

[Dale Hoogeveen]

Hi Dar,

Like you mention there are examples of abrupt cultural change in modern times.  It seems to me that those show that the most rapid change tends to happen when distinct cultures begin to interact, and may well have dynamics independant of the biological types carrying the cultures.

You make a very good point that human behaviour seems to be quite conservative to which I would add this reservation that upon outside contact it frequently is rapidly changeable.

While there is no question in my mind that cultural structure can influence some elements of human selection, to me the big question is whether there really were inherant differences in cultural ability between human types as far back as say half a million years ago and perhaps even more.    

The complexity of cultural expression and the ability for degree of cultural complexity are quite distinct things.  I tend to think they are not usually considered independantly enough of each other.

Dutch

Hi Dar,

I agree with your gripe.

A couple of "quick" questions:

How long does it take a population to culturally cross the boundry into Upper Paleolithic levels?

Am I wrong to think that it can be quite abrupt?

Dutch

Hi Dutch,

I'm a poor one to ask such profound questions.

Theoretically I suppose that "crossing the boundary" could, under certain circumstances, be quite abrubt, meaning occurring relatively rapidly as a response to changing conditions, as has been shown, for example, in historical times when a less industrialized culture comes into first contact with more industrialized cultures.

But for the MP/UP boundary I'm sure your ideas are as good as mine.  Without specifying behavioral change based on evidence, which I'm hesitant to do, all we can do is speculate.

Given that populations tend to be behaviorally conservative, unless forced, I would suspect cultural change followed the same general conservative trend.  I wonder if there is any archaeological site that demonstrates the change between MP and UP with the degree of chronological control required to answer your question.  Certainly none I can think of.  

Dar  

[colin]

Hi Dar, Dutch, Rich
Just as this thread was warming up the plug got pulled. I'm glad to see it back. Some very good points have been made.

Hoffecker's would- be assignment of the "primitive" stone tools to Neanderthals is another instance of slotting facts to fit the "old old story",  as Dar pointed out, whereas the truth is there is no evidence for it.

Dutch's question about the rapidity of cultural change from MP to UP is an interesting one, although I suspect the best answer may be "well, it depends...".  My own guess is that given  environmental/lifestyle changes humans (of whatever persuasion) tend to respond fairly quickly with technological/cultural changes. Equally, given a lack of new challenges, if people are getting along OK, I suspect that long periods of cultural stasis might occur. Incidentally, I read a while back (sorry, no refs to hand) that Tasmanians in the 19th century were using technology that was less "sophisticated" than that in the fossil record from 10,000bp. This seemed to underline the fact that it is a mistake to think there is something inexorable and directional about technological advance. This thinking, of course, was part of the old old story - thousands of years of neanderthal stasis, then along come AMH with the UP and in no time you got the Lascaux caves!

I guess Dutch was thinking something along these sort of lines when he made his comment (which seemed to me very profound the more I read it): "Complexity of cultural expression and the ability for degree of cultural expression are quite distinct things".  If I get him right, the implication is that just because the AMH of Tasmania (for instance) didn't build jet aircraft it doesn't mean  they didn't have the have the same innate cultural abilities  as other AMH;  and ditto for neanderthal abilities even  if they didn't paint the Lascaux caves.  
I hope I'm not misrepresenting you, Dutch.
Cheers
Colin  

[Dale Hoogeveen]

Hi Dar, Dutch, Rich
I guess Dutch was thinking something along these sort of lines when he made his comment (which seemed to me very profound the more I read it): "Complexity of cultural expression and the ability for degree of cultural expression are quite distinct things".  If I get him right, the implication is that just because the AMH of Tasmania (for instance) didn't build jet aircraft it doesn't mean  they didn't have the have the same innate cultural abilities  as other AMH;  and ditto for neanderthal abilities even  if they didn't paint the Lascaux caves.  
I hope I'm not misrepresenting you, Dutch.
Cheers
Colin  

Hi Colin,

That's pretty much it.  And neither Neanderthals nor AMH in ancient Europe built any jet aircraft either.   At least none that has yet been found.  Such ultra recent technology makes a good example, since we can place current human abilities prior to the ability to produce such current levels of cultural behaviour (both in concepts and artifacts).

Dutch