Stable isotope evidence for the consumption of millet and other plants in Bronze Age Italy

Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis was carried out on human and animal bones from four inland Early and Middle Bronze Age sites in Northern and Southern Italy. The main aims of the investigation were to explore the contribution of plant foods to the human diet and to examine any dietary differences between and within each of the sites. At two of the sites in Northern Italy, human and animal bones were significantly enriched in ¹³C. This finding was attributed to the consumption of domestic millets (Panicum miliaceum and/or Setaria italica), which are C₄ pathway plants. Conversely, individuals from the two Bronze Age sites in Southern Italy were significantly depleted in ¹³C compared to those from the north. Here, millet was absent from the diet, and protein from C₃ plants made a much greater dietary contribution than animal protein. This finding highlights the importance of cereal cultivation, most likely of wheat and barley, in the south of Italy during the Bronze Age. Overall, our results support the idea that the widespread cultivation of millet first occurred in Northern Italy, following its introduction from across the Alps in Central Europe. Finally, we found no significant differences in the stable isotope values between individuals at each site, when grouped by their sex or presence of grave goods. This leads to the conclusion that any status difference that may have existed is not reflected in the long‐term dietary record, or at least not as measurable by stable isotope analysis. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2009. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Clovis in context: New light on the peopling of the Americas

Until recently, the first Americans were thought to be fluted-point spear-hunters from the Siberian steppes. Near the end of the Ice Age, they followed big-game herds over the Bering land bridge into the open, upland habitats of the interior of North America about 12,000 years ago. Rapidly extinguishing the big game herds with their deadly hunting methods, they pressed southward in search of new herds and reached the tip of South America about a thousand years later. Today, nearly 70 years after the first excavations at Clovis, New Mexico, the type site for this culture, new sites and new dates from both North and South America are forcing a revision of the earlier picture of the migrations and adaptations of the first Americans. But despite recurring claims that human colonization of the Western Hemisphere began as early as 20,000 or more years ago with the arrival of generalized foragers lacking a projectile-point tradition, no definitive data gives empirical support for a human presence before c. 12,000 before the present (B.P.). All supposed pre-Clovis cultures except one in Alaska have failed to withstand careful scrutiny of their data. In addition, despite recent claims for cultural and biological links of the migrants to Europe or the Pacific Islands, the skeletons and cultural assemblages of Paleoindians throughout the hemisphere point consistently to a northeast Asian origin. According to new data, Paleoindian ancestors in Beringia c. 12,000 years ago were not specialized, fluted-point hunters of large game, but broad-spectrum hunter-gatherers using triangular or bipointed, lanceolates. Diverse cultures descended from these ancestors, not only the big-game hunting Clovis culture of the North American high plains. And just as Clovis did not set the cultural pattern for the hemisphere, it was not the earliest culture. Fully contemporary with the earliest possible Clovis dates of c. 11,200, in South America there already were maritime foragers on the Pacific coast, small-game hunters in the southern pampas, and tropical forest riverine foragers in the eastern tropical lowlands. The Clovis culture thus was just one of several regional cultures developed in the millennium after the initial migration. It could not have been the ancestor of the other early Paleoindian cultures. This new picture of Paleoindian cultures changes understanding of initial human adaptive radiation in the Americas and has implications for general theories of human evolution and behavioral ecology.     

哈民忙哈遗址之石器工具

哈民忙哈遗址以发现大量凌乱堆弃的人骨而闻名,了解当时生产方式、文化生态关系对于了解史前灾难的原因很有意义。通过石器工具组合的功能分析,可以较清晰地了解到,其石器组合缺乏真正的农耕工具,当时人们依赖的是一种以狩猎采集兼营农业的生产方式,强调植物根茎与坚果的利用。结合当时的文化背景与自然环境条件分析,则进一步了解到,哈民忙哈先民利用了一个从前很少利用的农业边缘环境,他们选择了一种与其经济基础不相宜的集中居住模式,这为史前灾难埋下了祸根。     

A simple carbon isotope model for reconstructing prehistoric human diet

A compilation of experimental animal data shows that neither delta13C(collagen) nor delta13C(apatite) nor Delta13C(CO-AP) indicate diagnostic reconstructions of diet, diet energy and diet protein. In contrast, plots of delta13C(collagen) against delta13C(apatite) provide a model of three regression lines (C3, C4, and marine diet protein) where position on each line indicates the energy source (C3, C4, or mixed). Neither body size nor trophic position appears to affect these relationships. Modern free-ranging, terrestrial fauna do not fit the model perhaps because they, unlike the experimental fauna, mainly use fermentation rather than digestion during energy metabolism. Archaeological humans fall as expected based on associated floral and faunal evidence. Foraging people plot at positions expected from associated C3 fauna and plants. Those from Cahokia plot, as expected, from associated deer, nuts, and maize whereas people from nearby smaller sites plot in positions consistent with eating more fish. Agriculturists from Ontario and Grasshopper Pueblo plot consistent with dependence on fish by the former and on turkeys by the latter. In Tierra del Fuego, people from interior regions ate more terrestrial fauna, as suggested by ethnohistoric reports, than did people from the coast. In the Southwestern Cape in South Africa individuals late in the sequence have pure C3 diets whereas ones early in the sequence ate marine protein as suggested by independent archaeological evidence. People on San Nicolas Island depended on C4 plants in contrast to other islands off California's coast. This simple model provides more detailed and precise dietary information than do individual isotopic measures.     

Prehistoric inter-archipelago trading of Polynesian tree snails leaves a conservation legacy

Inter-archipelago exchange networks were an important aspect of prehistoric Polynesian societies. We report here a novel genetic characterization of a prehistoric exchange network involving an endemic Pacific island tree snail, Partula hyalina. It occurs in the Society (Tahiti only), Austral and Southern Cook Islands. Our genetic data, based on museum, captive and wild-caught samples, establish Tahiti as the source island. The source lineage is polymorphic in shell coloration and contains a second nominal species, the dark-shelled Partula clara, in addition to the white-shelled P. hyalina. Prehistoric inter-island introductions were non-random: they involved white-shelled snails only and were exclusively inter-archipelago in scope. Partulid shells were commonly used in regional Polynesian jewellery, and we propose that the white-shelled P. hyalina, originally restricted to Tahiti, had aesthetic value throughout these archipelagoes. Demand within the Society Islands could be best met by trading dead shells, but a low rate of inter-archipelago exchange may have prompted the establishment of multiple founder populations in the Australs and Southern Cooks. The alien carnivorous land snail Euglandina rosea has recently devastated populations of all 61 endemic species of Society Island partulid snails. Southern Cooks and Australs P. hyalina now represent the only unscathed wild populations remaining of this once spectacular land snail radiation.     

The pre-Natufian Epipaleolithic: long-term behavioral trends in the Levant

Few cultural developments have taken on as much archeological significance as when people began living in villages and producing their own food. The economic, social, technological, and ideological transformations immediately preceding and following these changes were profound. Early models of culture change associated with pre-agricultural societies of the Levant focused on the sudden, late origin of settled farming villages triggered by climate change. Accompanying this new economic and living situation was durable stone-built architecture; intensified plant and animal use; a flourishing of art and decoration; new mortuary traditions, including marked graves and cemeteries; elaborate ritual and symbolic behavior-a new way of life. This new life style arguably had a slow start, but really took off during the Epipaleolithic period (EP), spanning more than 10,000 years of Levantine prehistory from c. 23,000-11,500 cal BP. The last EP phase, immediately preceding the Neolithic, is by far the best-studied in terms of its cultural and economic contributions to questions on the origins of agriculture.1-4 Recently, archeologists have considered the earlier parts of the EP to be more culturally dynamic and similar to the later phase (Natufian) than was previously thought.3-10 The earlier EP is increasingly seen as demonstrating the behavioral variability and innovations that help us to understand the economic, technological, and social changes associated with complex hunter-gatherers of the Natufian and farmers of the Neolithic. This paper traces the cultural and biological developments of the EP period leading up to the Natufian and considers the long-term trajectory of culture change, social complexity, and village life in the Near East.     

The human dimension of fire regimes on Earth

Humans and their ancestors are unique in being a fire-making species, but 'natural' (i.e. independent of humans) fires have an ancient, geological history on Earth. Natural fires have influenced biological evolution and global biogeochemical cycles, making fire integral to the functioning of some biomes. Globally, debate rages about the impact on ecosystems of prehistoric human-set fires, with views ranging from catastrophic to negligible. Understanding of the diversity of human fire regimes on Earth in the past, present and future remains rudimentary. It remains uncertain how humans have caused a departure from 'natural' background levels that vary with climate change. Available evidence shows that modern humans can increase or decrease background levels of natural fire activity by clearing forests, promoting grazing, dispersing plants, altering ignition patterns and actively suppressing fires, thereby causing substantial ecosystem changes and loss of biodiversity. Some of these contemporary fire regimes cause substantial economic disruptions owing to the destruction of infrastructure, degradation of ecosystem services, loss of life, and smoke-related health effects. These episodic disasters help frame negative public attitudes towards landscape fires, despite the need for burning to sustain some ecosystems. Greenhouse gas-induced warming and changes in the hydrological cycle may increase the occurrence of large, severe fires, with potentially significant feedbacks to the Earth system. Improved understanding of human fire regimes demands: (1) better data on past and current human influences on fire regimes to enable global comparative analyses, (2) a greater understanding of different cultural traditions of landscape burning and their positive and negative social, economic and ecological effects, and (3) more realistic representations of anthropogenic fire in global vegetation and climate change models. We provide an historical framework to promote understanding of the development and diversification of fire regimes, covering the pre-human period, human domestication of fire, and the subsequent transition from subsistence agriculture to industrial economies. All of these phases still occur on Earth, providing opportunities for comparative research.     

A multilevel analytical framework for studying cultural evolution in prehistoric hunter–gatherer societies

Over the past decade, a major debate has taken place on the underpinnings of cultural changes in human societies. A growing array of evidence in behavioural and evolutionary biology has revealed that social connectivity among populations and within them affects, and is affected by, culture. Yet the interplay between prehistoric hunter–gatherer social structure and cultural transmission has typically been overlooked. Interestingly, the archaeological record contains large data sets, allowing us to track cultural changes over thousands of years: they thus offer a unique opportunity to shed light on long‐term cultural transmission processes. In this review, we demonstrate how well‐developed methods for social structure analysis can increase our understanding of the selective pressures underlying cumulative culture. We propose a multilevel analytical framework that considers finer aspects of the complex social structure in which regional groups of prehistoric hunter–gatherers were embedded. We put forward predictions of cultural transmission based on local‐ and global‐level network metrics of small‐scale societies and their potential effects on cumulative culture. By bridging the gaps between network science, palaeodemography and cultural evolution, we draw attention to the use of the archaeological record to depict patterns of social interactions and transmission variability. We argue that this new framework will contribute to improving our understanding of social interaction patterns, as well as the contexts in which cultural changes occur. Ultimately, this may provide insights into the evolution of human behaviour.