Exciting new specimen (Ardi) of Ardipithecus ramidus from the Middle Awash region of Ethiopia (T. White and team, around 4.4 million years ago)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Editorial
Understanding Human Origins
Bruce Alberts Full Text | PDF
News Focus
A New Kind of Ancestor: Ardipithecus Unveiled
Ann Gibbons Full Text | PDF
Habitat for Humanity
Ann Gibbons Full Text
The View from Afar
Ann Gibbons Full Text | PDF
Introduction
Light on the Origin of Man Full Text | PDF
Research Articles
Ardipithecus ramidus and the Paleobiology of Early Hominids
Tim D. White et al. Author’s Summary | Full Text | PDF
The Geological, Isotopic, Botanical, Invertebrate, and Lower Vertabrate Surroundings of Ardipithecus ramidus
Giday WoldeGabriel et al. Author’s Summary | Full Text | PDF
Taphonomic, Avian, and Small-Vertebrate Indicators ofArdipithecus ramidus Habitat
Antoine Louchart et al. Author’s Summary | Full Text | PDF
Macrovertebrate Paleontology and the Pliocene Habitat ofArdipithecus ramidus
Tim D. White et al. Author’s Summary | Full Text | PDF
The Ardipithecus ramidus Skull and Its Implications for Hominid Origins
Gen Suwa et al. Author’s Summary | Full Text | PDF
Paleobiological Implications of the Ardipithecus ramidus Dentition
Gen Suwa et al. Author’s Summary | Full Text | PDF
Careful Climbing in the Miocene: The Forelimbs of Ardipithecus ramidus and Humans Are Primitive
C. Owen Lovejoy et al. Author’s Summary | Full Text | PDF
The Pelvis and Femur of Ardipithecus ramidus: The Emergence of Upright Walking
C. Owen Lovejoy et al. Author’s Summary | Full Text | PDF
Combining Prehension and Propulsion: The Foot of Ardipithecus ramidus
C. Owen Lovejoy et al. Author’s Summary | Full Text | PDF
The Great Divides: Ardipithecus ramidus Reveals the Postcrania of Our Last Common Ancestors with African Apes
C. Owen Lovejoy et al. Author’s Summary | Full Text | PDF
Reexamining Human Origins in Light of Ardipithecus ramidus
C. Owen Lovejoy Author’s Summary | Full Text | PDF
ABSTRACT
Late Pleistocene Siberia was characterized by a unique mammoth-steppe biome. Two prevailing hypotheses exist to explain modern human dispersals in the Siberian mammoth-steppe.Upper Paleolithic human populations were either maintained continuously throughout the late Pleistocene or the peopling of this region resulted from multiple dispersal events. Past attempts at explaining the colonization process have resulted in culture-historical interpretations. This article uses lithic technological data from middle and late Upper Paleolithic sites in the Enisei River valley of southcentral Siberia to explain human dispersals from a behavioral perspective. Technological provisioning and land-use strategies are reconstructed to help explain dispersal processes. Results of the study demonstrate that hunter-gatherers were using different adaptive strategies before and after the Last Glacial Maximum, indicating multiple dispersal events shaped the peopling of Siberia.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Graf, K. E.
2009 Hunter-gatherer dispersals in the mammoth-steppe: technological provisioning and land-use in the Enisei River valley, south-central Siberia. Journal of Archaeological Science In Press(In Press).
Abstract
Powerful categories of evidence for symbolically mediated behaviour, variously described as ‘modern’ or ‘cognitively modern’ human behaviour, are geometric or iconographic representations. After 40,000 years ago such evidence is well documented in much of the Old World and is widely considered as typifying ‘modern human culture,’ but earlier evidence is rare. In Africa, this includes two deliberately engraved ochre pieces from c. 75,000 year old levels at Blombos Cave, Western Cape, South Africa and the greater than 55,000 year old incised ostrich egg shell from the Diepkloof shelter, located in the same province. Here we report on thirteen additional pieces of incised ochre recovered from c. 75,000–100,000 year old levels at Blombos Cave. These finds, taken together with other engraved objects reported from other southern African sites, suggest that symbolic intent and tradition were present in this region at an earlier date than previously thought.
References
Henshilwood, C., F. d’Errico and I. Watts
2009 Engraved ochres from the Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa. Journal of Human Evolution, In Press.
From the BBC News website, a Neandertal skull fragment “found among animal remains and stone artefacts dredged up 15km off the coast of the Netherlands in 2001. The fragment was spotted by Luc Anthonis, a private fossil collector from Belgium, in the sieving debris of a shell-dredging operation.”
In Press/Corrected Proof article:
Abstract
The Aurignacian is typically taken as a marker of the spread of anatomically modern humans into Europe. However, human remains associated with this industry are frustratingly sparse and often limited to teeth. Some have suggested that Neandertals may, in fact, be responsible for the Aurignacian and the earliest Upper Paleolithic industries. Although dental remains are frequently considered to be taxonomically undiagnostic in this context, recent research shows that Neandertals possess a distinct dental pattern relative to anatomically modern humans. Even so, it is rare to find mandibles or maxillae that preserve all or most of their teeth; and, the probability of correctly identifying individuals represented by only a few teeth or a single tooth is unknown.
We present a Bayesian statistical approach to classifying individuals represented exclusively by teeth into two possible groups. The classification is based on dental trait frequencies and sample sizes for ‘known’ samples of 95 Neandertals and 63 Upper Paleolithic modern humans. In a cross validation test of the known samples, 89% of the Neandertals and 89% of the Upper Paleolithic modern humans were classified correctly. We then classified an ‘unknown’ sample of 52 individuals: 34 associated with Aurignacian or other (non-Châtelperronian) early Upper Paleolithic industries, 15 associated with the Châtelperronian, and three unassociated. Of the 34 early Upper Paleolithic-associated individuals, 29 were assigned to modern humans, which is well within the range expected (95% of the time 26–33) with an 11% misclassification rate for an entirely modern human sample. These results provide some of the strongest evidence that anatomically modern humans made the Aurignacian and other (non-Châtelperronian) early Upper Paleolithic industries.
See also Bailey and Hublin 2005
References
Bailey, S. and J.-J. Hublin
2005 Dental remains from the Grotte du Renne at Arcy-sur-Cure (Yonne). Journal of Human Evolution 50(5):485-508.
Bailey, S., T. Weaver and J.-J. Hublin
2009 Who made the Aurignacian and other early Upper Paleolithic industries? Journal of Human Evolution In Press(In Press).
After last week’s news of some Homo floresiensis specimens traveling to SUNY-Stony Brook University, John Noble Wilford gives the reader some background on the topic. Nothing really new, some new interesting, but quick, comments from various paleoanthropologists and a clear attempt to build up some hype around the case (pros/cons, different species…).
Adding to recent studies on the adaptive advantages of running during hominin evolution, Steudel-Numbers and Wall-Scheffler investigated claims regarding the lack of optimal running speeds in humans by measuring the energetic cost of running in 9 individuals running at 6 different speeds. They concluded that humans do in fact have optimal running speeds. However, according to their analysis, implementing hunting strategies at running speeds (optimal or not) is much more energetically costly than strategies involving walking. The big take-home message seems to be that the variations of hominin locomotion (bipedalism) are not necessarily more efficient than the ones associated with quadrupedal locomotion. For background information on the long-distance/endurance running hypothesis, refer to Bramble and Lieberman 2004 (pro) and Pickering and Bunna 2007 (contra).
REFERENCES
Bramble, D. and D. Lieberman
2004 Endurance running and the evolution of Homo. Nature (18 November 2004):345-352.
Pickering, T. and H. Bunna
2007 The endurance running hypothesis and hunting and scavenging in savanna-woodlands. Journal of Human Evolution 53(4):434-438.
Steudel-Numbers, K. and C. Wall-Schefflerb
2009 Optimal running speed and the evolution of hominin hunting strategies. Journal of Human Evolution 56(4):355-360.
Make sure to check the (short) interview of Richard Wrangham about his new book (Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human) and an even shorter blurb announcing that a cast of Homo floresiensis (specimen?) is making its way to SUNY-Stony Brook.
William Jungers, a paleoanthropologist at Stony Brook, said casts of the hobbit skull had been displayed at a few scientific meetings, but this was the first time both skull and skeleton would be “displayed anywhere, inside or outside of Indonesia.”
An international team of researchers reported last week in the Journal of Archaeological Science (In Press section) the implementation of a new method to extract ancient DNA from two Neanderthal samples.
We report here the first results of a method to extract and sequence mature enamel proteins from modern human and Neanderthal tooth enamel. Using MALDI TOF/TOF mass spectrometry and a combination of direct sequencing and peptide mass mapping we have sequenced a peptide from the tyrosine rich amelogenin peptide (TRAP) of the X isoform of the amelogenin protein for modern and recent human samples. We also report our results from two Neanderthal enamel samples where we were also able to recover fragments of the TRAP protein, which had a similar sequence to the modern human samples.
I can almost hear some of you already saying “oh no, more genetic papers…”, some others would add “similar sequence to the modern human samples?! are you serious?!… what does that mean anyway?”. To answer all these questions, you will have to read the article…
REFERENCES
Nielsen-Marsh, C., C. Stegemann, R. Hoffmann, T. Smith, R. Feeney, M. Toussaint, K. Harvati, E. Panagopoulou, J.-J. Hublin and M. Richards
2009 Extraction and sequencing of human and Neanderthal mature enamel proteins using MALDI-TOF/TOF MS. Journal of Archaeological Science, In Press.
Springer announced the publication of a new online journal, Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences. You can review the content of the first issue online. Exciting.
