Barogali et l’Oued Doure. Deux gisements représentatifs du Paléolithique ancien en République de Djibouti

In the Republic of Djibouti, surveys and excavations, carried out from 1985 to 1992, confirmed the presence of the pre-Acheulean (Oldowan) and Acheulean sites in the country. Three seasons of excavations (1985-1987 in the Gobaad Basin, have unearthed in a hardened compact clay strata of an ancient marshland dating to the Lower Pleistocene, the fossilized skeletal remains of an Elephas recki ileretensis. Numerous stone tools have been gathered with the bones. The E.S.R. dating the elephant’s lower third molar gave a date between 1,.6 and 1,.3 MY that would confirm its paleontological grouping and the membership of this butchery site to the Oldowan period. The animal appeared to have been lying on its left side. The cranial roof had been separated from the calvarium, perhaps to get at the brain; but the skull remains in anatomic connection with the tusks. The jaw (mandible) seems to have been broken to extract the tongue. Hominids, perhaps Homo ergaster, knapped tools from a nearly outcrop of poor quality lava. The tools were specifically adapted to their needs, such as scraping, chopping and scattering the bones. The site has yielded 569 artifacts: utilized material and hammerstones (121); pebble tools (32); cores (14); “debitage” products (366); retouched flakes (36). Artifacts are rarely retouched and often broken. Five different types of choppers have been classified. The polyedrons and one bola make up 22% of the pebble tools. The cores are divided into unipolar, centripetal and polyhedrical types. In another site, Haïdalo, an almost complete skeleton of an Elephas recki recki in anatomical connection and without any sign of predation, has been found at eight kilometers from Barogali. During surveys in the Ali Sabîh region (1990-1992) seven sectors have been discovered and prospected in the Oued Doure Basin. On the surface area and also in situ into some little pits, 345 rhiolitic Acheulean artifacts have been found, near rhyolitic outcrop. These artifacts are generally large. The choppers (18) can be dividended into 2 sets : side choppers (55%) and end choppers (27%), often with a bifacial cutting edge. There is only one polyedron, but we have found eight heavy scrapers. The Acheulean group is important (43 tools). The bifaces are varied and there are also a few cleavers and picks. Cores are numerous (92) and Levallois cores are preponderant (45%). We find also centripetal cores (27%) and so unipolar, bipolar and polyhedral cores. Tools made of flakes (118) are numerous: scrapers are typologically diversified. Some of them have a double utilization. Notch tools, denticulate tools are presents but also end scrapers, burin, borer, back knifes and scantily retouched flakes. The characters of this lithic material, large cores and big flakes, large bifaces of various types, cleavers and retouched flakes, indicates that they are Acheulean products. So, the Doure Site can be placed in the Middle / Upper Acheulean transition.     

Position chronologique des sites de l’Homme moderne en Chine d’après la datation U-Th

The origin and evolution of modern Homo sapiens has been the subject of an intensive debate between exponents of two competing hypotheses, multiregional origins and “recent out of Africa”. This paper presents a synthesis of the chronological studies on seven hominid sites in China based on the U-series dating, five of them of intercalated speleothem calcites and other two of fossil materials. The results show that modern humans were present in China about 100 ka ago, much earlier than previously estimated, and that the so-called “temporal gap” of human presence in China between 40 and 100 ka is most probably nothing but an artifact caused by systematic errors of the dating methods. Further multidisciplinary studies on hominid sites in China may provide important evidence for resolving the hotly debated issues concerning the origin of modern humans.     

Le gisement acheuléen de plein air de La Garde (Loire). Remarques sur une série lithique acheuléenne entre Rhône et Loire

The lithic assemblage of La Garde offers the opportunity to observe a Final Acheulean series located in the Loire department (south-east France). The site was probably a multi-activity place asking large tools and flakes, according to the strategies used by humans. Three main categories of large bifacial tools mainly made of flint can be described, with a triangular or oval shape and with a transversal cutting edge. These tools are more bifacial-tools than bifaces through the kind of shaping and the retouches on the cutting edges. The Levallois flaking is associated to various other types of knapping. The site, located along a small valley, suggests a human circulating between the Saône-Rhône corridor and the interior basins of the Massif Central Mountains. The Rhodanian corridor yielded little evidence of Acheulean settlements while in the Centre of France, they are numerous. La Garde proves that systematic prospecting in this area will permit in future to complete the map of the Acheulean occupations in south-east France.     

L’architecture de l’épaule au sein du genre Homo : nouvelles interprétations

The morphology of human clavicles can be estimated by projecting them on two perpendicular planes in order to assess the shapes of their cranial and dorsal primary curvatures. In cranial view no differences in curvature appear within the genus Homo, which means the different species had similar arms elevation capacity, especially in protraction. On the contrary, in dorsal view two clavicles morphologies could be defined. The first one is characterized by two curvatures in dorsal view and is possessed by all Homo species, from Homo habilis to Neanderthal, including Homo ergaster, but not modern human, Upper Paleolithic and anatomically modern human remains, who possess clavicles of the second type, characterized by either one curvature, or two slightly pronounced ones in dorsal view. Clavicles displaying two pronounced curvatures in dorsal view are associated with scapula sitting high on the thorax in regard to modern human. However, shoulder with high scapula on the thorax displays two different kinds of architectures: (i) shoulder with short clavicles associated to scapulas sitting more laterally than those of modern human. This group includes earlier Homo like Homo habilis and Homo ergaster and (ii) shoulder with long clavicles associated to scapulas sitting more dorsally on the thorax, like those of modern human. This group includes Homoantecessor and Neanderthals. In other words, within the genus Homo, three shoulders would have existed. Evolution of the shoulder complex is far more complex than previously thought and the arrival of modern bipedalism was not associated to modern shoulder.     

Contexte géographique et géologique du site de Kocabaş, Bassin de Denizli,Anatolie, Turquie

The site of Kocaba? is located in the Denizli Basin, in western Anatolia, 400 km southwest of Ankara, 360 km south of Istanbul, 200 km east-southeast of Izmir and 150 km northwest of Antalya. The Denizli Basin depression, at the junction of the Buyuk Menderes and Gediz grabens, which began to form at the beginning of the Miocene, was filled in around the edges, along fault lines, by significant travertine formations, some of which are still active today. The age of the Kocaba? travertines, which yielded the Kocaba? Homo erectus skullcap, was evaluated by thermoluminescence at 828,000 years, by electron spin resonance (ESR) at 1,110,000 years and by the ²⁶Al/¹⁰Be cosmogenic nuclide method to more than 1.22 Ma and less than 1.5 Ma, a date which has been confirmed by magnetostratigraphy and biochronology.     

Le peuplement humain en Eurasie : l’Asie centrale montagneuse et les piémonts sous-himalayens du Plio-Pléistocène à l’Holocène, origines, évolution humaine et migrations

During the years 1996 and 1997, a team of the Laboratory of Prehistory, National Museum of Natural History, Paris, and of the Departments of Archaeology, Karachi and Peshawar University, Pakistan, leads the first prehistoric field investigation in the District of Chitral, Hindu Kush, close to the Wakhan Corridor (the Amu Daria course in the Pamir). Problematics are the origins and the becoming of the Epipaleolithic/Neolithic hunters-gatherers known in the Pamir Plateau and the Gissar Range, the lithics tradition of which share common roots with the Sub-Himalayan Soanian tradition (Mode 1). A second field investigation has been conduced in the North West India, where Soan developed from Early Pleistocene, in the Frontal Range of the Siwaliks and Himachal Pradesh during the years 2003, 2005 and 2006 in cooperation with the Department of Archaeology and Museums of Punjab, India. New discoveries in both countries support new hypothesis for the understanding of human evolution in Asia and Homo sapiens origins.     

Étude taphonomique d’assemblages fauniques de sites à Homo erectus du dôme de Sangiran (Pléistocène moyen,Java central,Indonésie)

Since the sixties, the National Indonesian Center for Archaeological Research, in collaboration with the Gajah Mada University, organizes field excavations on open-air sites in the Sangiran dome, one of the most famous places of palaeoanthropological discoveries in Southeast Asia. That project led to the discovery of Homo erectus more or less fragmentary fossils, and to the collection of numerous mammal fossils in open-air localities such as Tanjung, Sendang Busik, Ngrejeng Plupuh, Grogol Plupuh and Bukuran. Most of the bone assemblages from these sites come from the volcanic-sedimentary Kabuh layers (Early Middle Pleistocene) deposited in a fluvial context. The herbivores dominate the assemblages. The best-represented species are large bovids like Bubalus palaeokerabau or Bibos palaesondaicus and smaller cervids like Axis lydekkeri. The carnivore are very rare, only a Pachycrocuta brevirostris in Bukuran. The taphonomical study of the collections, involving several common and also modern methods, is among the first carried out on Javanese sites. The high degree of fragmentation is attested by the dominance of splinters among the fossils. In most sites, teeth and member extremities (autopodial) prevail. Conservation and fragmentation of fossil bones is not the same at all sites. Water action, either chemical or mechanical, is predominant, regarding the origin and the modification of the assemblages. The climato-edaphic traces like oxides and concretions are well represented on the bone surface. Different methods were applied to study transportation and to document the sites contexts in the frame of the ancient riverine paleogeography. Carnivores are almost absent in the material and traces of their action are rare, only in Bukuran and Ngrejeng. The tools are rare, only a bola in Tanjung 82 and chalcedony flakes in Tanjung 63–64. Anthropic influence is only obvious at Ngebung 2, a site in the west part of the dome, supported by fossil observation and correlated to the occurrence of lithic artefacts. This site was excavated during the 1990’s by a French-Indonesian team and it is a site of comparison for our study. Several analytical methods could be applied for the first time on Pleistocene faunal assemblages from Java, for example, the study of the fragmentation, that of fissuration and the characterization of the fluviatile transport undergone by the fossils.     

Les derniers Homo heidelbergensis et leurs descendants les néandertaliens : datation des sites d’Orgnac 3, du Lazaret et de Zafarraya

This article presents the dating results recently obtained on three archaeological sites in Europe. At Orgnac 3 (Ardèche, France) from where the last Homo heidelbergensis fossils are associated with the first evidence of levallois technique, two speleothem formations from the 5b–6–7^th layers were U-Th dated with MC-ICPMS, giving an age range of 319–255 ka (2σ) (MIS 8–9), while the volcanic ash-bearing second layer was dated by ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar, obtaining a preliminary date of 308.2 ± 6.8 ka (2σ). The combined ESR/U-Th dating of red deer enamel teeth from Lazaret cave (Alpes-Maritimes, France) attributed ages of 120–190 ka to the Acheulean and pre-Mousterian layers (MIS 6), which is in agreement with previous TIMS U-Th dates between 108 and 44 ka on calcite samples from the overlying TRA trench (MIS 5, 4, 3). At Zafarraya (Andalousie, Espagne), a number of ¹⁴C measurements on charcoal samples as well as combined ESR/U-Th dates on Capra and Equus dental enamels assigned the Mousterian artefacts and neandertalian fossils-bearing deposits an age interval between 42 and 34 ka (MIS 3).     

Investigating early hominin dispersal patterns: developing a framework for climate data integration

An investigation using the Stepping Out model of early hominin dispersal out of Africa is presented here. The late arrival of early hominins into Europe, as deduced from the fossil record, is shown to be consistent with poor ability of these hominins to survive in the Eurasian landscape. The present study also extends the understanding of modelling results from the original study by Mithen and Reed (2002. Stepping out: a computer simulation of hominid dispersal from Africa. J. Hum. Evol. 43, 433-462). The representation of climate and vegetation patterns has been improved through the use of climate model output. This study demonstrates that interpretative confidence may be strengthened, and new insights gained when climate models and hominin dispersal models are integrated.     

Réflexions sur les débuts de la guerre au Néolithique en Europe occidentale

The emergence of war during prehistoric times is a recurrent subject that has often been treated in archaeological literature. The present publication, in the light of a synthetic analysis of traces of violent death observed in Neolithic graves in France and completed by new data information obtained from excavations in Germany, in Austria and in Iberian Peninsula, raises the issue of emergence of a real climate of collective violence in the first farmer communities in Europe. From that moment on, violence ascent during Neolithic times can be reported to several factors: factual causes in relation to disputes over territorial boundaries, economic motivations to permit forcible seizure of wealth or valuable objects by incursions, raids and razzias, and to finish social reasons because victorious conflicts are a demonstration of strength of one community against another and they confirm the prestige of the group or the chief. However, the recognized or established examples of violent death and slaughter remain very few in the end within the first farmer and peasant communities in western Europe. They don’t justify the hypothesis of armed disputes on a large scale. We cannot speak of “war”. Actually, this collective violence is the early beginning of real war in this definition, that is to say an aggressiveness organized, managed, socialized and used for the group at the expense of a neighbouring group, referred to other implications. War is established notably by specific armaments adapted to hand-to-hand fight and to collective fight. Moreover, a society dedicated or consecrated to war includes a military caste or a military aristocracy. Once again, the appearance of a warlike elite is not discernable before the beginnings of the Bronze Age.     

Stratégie de débitage et mode de façonnage des industries du Paléolithique inférieur en Chine et en Europe entre 1 Ma et 400 000 ans: Ressemblances et différences de la culture de l’homme de Yunxian et Acheuléen européen

These stone tools from Yunxian with other Lower Paleolithic sites in South China, for example, the site Lantian (Shanxi, China) and the site Bose (Guangxi, China), indicates that there are many common characteristics among these industries. There are choppers, chopping-tools, picks, hand-axes, cleavers and scrapers. Long ago we thought that there are not hand-axes in China. In fact, there are lots of hand-axes in China and these hand-axes existed more earlier than those in Europe. The hand-axe appeared in China before 800,000 years old and it barely arrived in Europe before 600,000 years old. The quaternary deposits of the site of Yunxian Hominid (Hubei, China) are at least dated to 800,000 years old. A large quantity of lower Paleolithic material was discovered. The types of the tools are choppers, picks, scrapers, hand-axes and cleavers. The pebbles tools make up the majority of the implements. Small flake tools are relatively rare. The lithic industries comparison of the two regions has help us to know the cultural evolution in China and Europe.     

Réflexion sur l’extension de l’Ibéromaurusien au Maghreb à la fin du Pléistocène

This paper proposes a new reflection about the late Pleistocene climate impact on the iberomausian coastal expansion. A recent advancement of palaeoenvironment knowledge allows us from now to apprehend a context and circumstances in which are developed diverse late Pleistocene cultures in the Maghreb. This article tries to understand a cultural dynamic of this period by the light of a contemporary climatic evolution.     

The face of Olduvai Hominid 12

Facial remains of Homo erectus are rare and their scarcity hinders our understanding of the variability and relationships in this taxon. Previously undescribed fragments of the peri-orbital region and unidentified matches between fragments of Olduvai Hominid 12 (OH 12) enhance comparison of the African H. erectus hypodigm. The newly reconstructed upper face and maxilla of OH 12 is most similar in size and shape to that of KNM-ER 3733, despite being as much as one million years younger than the Koobi Fora hominin. However, the posterior vault and mastoid region of OH 12 are most similar to OH 9. This combination of morphology suggests that the relationship between the Olduvai and Koobi Fora portions of the H. erectus hypodigm requires reconsideration.     

Cristatopecten nov. gen. benoisti (Pectinidae, Bivalvia) du Chattien d'Aquitaine (France). Révision systématique et réflexions sur l'origine et l'évolution des Cristatopecten

The detailed study of a sample of “Pecten (Amussiopecten) benoisti” Cossmann and Peyrot (1914) from the Chattian outcrops of the Adour Basin, allowed to improve our knowledge of this species poorly known till now and to show its important ornamental variability. It follows that some nomenclatural points have been clarified at the generic level: we refute the attribution of this species to the genus Amussiopecten Sacco (1897) as used by authors—genus which was besides emended several times subsequently— and we propose its allocation to Cristatopecten nov. gen. Furthermore, this study allowed to remove the ambiguity existing originally as for the attribution of the species benoisti and burdigalensis to a same genus: our comparison of the latter two taxa shows that if benoisti has to be henceforth included in the new genus Cristatopecten (as its type species), burdigalensis (which is the type species of Amussiopecten) must be incorporated in the genus Flabellipecten Sacco (1897). The two genera Amussiopecten and Flabellipecten are therefore synonymous, as Depéret and Roman had already stated in 1910. The Cristatopecten from the Old World seem to be derived from a group of “Aequipecten” notably known in the Italian Rupelian, the group of “Aequipecten deletus” (Michelotti, 1861), of which we study here a sample from the Aquitaine Chattian. In the Aquitaine Basin, the Cristatopecten are represented, in the Chattian, by Cristatopecten benoisti (Cossmann and Peyrot, 1914); in the Lower Aquitanian, by C. praehaueri (Bongrain, Cahuzac and Freneix, 1994); in the Burdigalian-Langhian of the Saubrigues paleocanyon, by C. haueri (Michelotti, 1847) and C. miogallicus (Cossmann and Peyrot, 1914). During the whole Neogene, they spread and evolved in the Tethys and the Paratethys areas, and seem to have become extinct in the Pliocene with the disappearance of C. cristatus (Bronn, 1827), a species that we consider not as an Amusium s.s., but as the last representative of the Cristatopecten phylum.     

Dental microwear and diets of African early Homo

Conventional wisdom ties the origin and early evolution of the genus Homo to environmental changes that occurred near the end of the Pliocene. The basic idea is that changing habitats led to new diets emphasizing savanna resources, such as herd mammals or underground storage organs. Fossil teeth provide the most direct evidence available for evaluating this theory. In this paper, we present a comprehensive study of dental microwear in Plio-Pleistocene Homo from Africa. We examined all available cheek teeth from Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, and South Africa and found 18 that preserved antemortem microwear. Microwear features were measured and compared for these specimens and a baseline series of five extant primate species (Cebus apella, Gorilla gorilla, Lophocebus albigena, Pan troglodytes, and Papio ursinus) and two protohistoric human foraging groups (Aleut and Arikara) with documented differences in diet and subsistence strategies. Results confirmed that dental microwear reflects diet, such that hard-object specialists tend to have more large microwear pits, whereas tough food eaters usually have more striations and smaller microwear features. Early Homo specimens clustered with baseline groups that do not prefer fracture resistant foods. Still, Homo erectus and individuals from Swartkrans Member 1 had more small pits than Homo habilis and specimens from Sterkfontein Member 5C. These results suggest that none of the early Homo groups specialized on very hard or tough foods, but that H. erectus and Swartkrans Member 1 individuals ate, at least occasionally, more brittle or tough items than other fossil hominins studied.     

Dental microwear texture analysis of hominins recovered by the Olduvai Landscape Paleoanthropology Project, 1995-2007

Dental microwear analysis has proven to be a valuable tool for the reconstruction of aspects of diet in early hominins. That said, sample sizes for some groups are small, decreasing our confidence that results are representative of a given taxon and making it difficult to assess within-species variation. Here we present microwear texture data for several new specimens of Homo habilis and Paranthropus boisei from Olduvai Gorge, bringing sample sizes for these species in line with those published for most other early hominins. These data are added to those published to date, and microwear textures of the enlarged sample of H. habilis (n = 10) and P. boisei (n = 9) are compared with one another and with those of other early hominins. New results confirm that P. boisei does not have microwear patterns expected of a hard-object specialist. Further, the separate texture complexity analyses of early Homo species suggest that Homo erectus ate a broader range of foods, at least in terms of hardness, than did H. habilis, P. boisei, or the “gracile” australopiths studied. Finally, differences in scale of maximum complexity and perhaps textural fill volume between H. habilis and H. erectus are noted, suggesting further possible differences between these species in diet.     

Apport de l’imagerie hybride TEMP-TDM dans le suivi d’un cancer différencié de la thyroïde

In the management of patients with differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC), abnormalities detected on planar whole body scan and ¹³¹I-SPECT are difficult to interpret because of a lack of anatomical landmarks and limited specificity. Integrated ¹³¹I-SPECT-CT imaging has an additional value for characterization of equivocal tracer uptake seen on planar imaging as well as for precise localization. We illustrate through an observation the incremental diagnostic value of ¹³¹I-SPECT-CT images in the diagnosis of a cervical lymph node mimicking a physiological uptake on planar views. A 35-year-old Tunisian female was followed for papillary thyroid carcinoma, for which she underwent total thyroidectomy and iratherapy. Three years after a complete remission, the thyroglobulin (Tg) level on TSH stimulation increased. Diagnostic planar images with ¹³¹I did not disclose any obvious pathological foci. Furthermore, we noticed an increased ¹³¹I-uptake in the left sub-mandibulary area, which suggested a salivary physiological activity. SPECT-CT of the neck and chest were then performed with a Symbia T camera. Fused images demonstrate that this activity corresponds to a cervical lymph node closely adjacent to sub-mandibulary gland. Management of the patient was then changed. In selected patients with DTC, hybrid imaging should be used as a complementary to planar imaging in terms of diagnostic accuracy, because of superior focus localization and additional anatomic information derived from the CT component. Integrated SPECT-CT is then a useful tool, especially in cases of unclear diagnoses, precising anatomical localization of areas of increased ¹³¹I-uptake and distinguishing malignant lesions from normal physiological uptakes. This is particularly important in an oncologic center, as ours, where we don’t yet have a positron emission tomography (PET) camera is not yet available.