Jed O. Kaplan et al., Large Scale Anthropogenic Reduction of Forest Cover in Last Glacial Maximum Europe. PLoS ONE 2016. Open access → LINK [doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0166726]
Abstract
Reconstructions of the vegetation of Europe during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) are an enigma. Pollen-based analyses have suggested that Europe was largely covered by steppe and tundra, and forests persisted only in small refugia. Climate-vegetation model simulations on the other hand have consistently suggested that broad areas of Europe would have been suitable for forest, even in the depths of the last glaciation. Here we reconcile models with data by demonstrating that the highly mobile groups of hunter-gatherers that inhabited Europe at the LGM could have substantially reduced forest cover through the ignition of wildfires. Similar to hunter-gatherers of the more recent past, Upper Paleolithic humans were masters of the use of fire, and preferred inhabiting semi-open landscapes to facilitate foraging, hunting and travel. Incorporating human agency into a dynamic vegetation-fire model and simulating forest cover shows that even small increases in wildfire frequency over natural background levels resulted in large changes in the forested area of Europe, in part because trees were already stressed by low atmospheric CO2 concentrations and the cold, dry, and highly variable climate. Our results suggest that the impact of humans on the glacial landscape of Europe may be one of the earliest large-scale anthropogenic modifications of the earth system.
Not sure what to think, really. In any case the data they manage and share with us is very much worth taking a look at.
The U6 haplogroup of Pestera Muierii is officially confirmed.
Extra-officially, it also seems confirmed mtDNA H in Magdalenian El Mirón, another of the haplogroup challenged (without any reasoning) by Fu et al. In this last case, my sources suggest that Fu surely tested a bone belonging to a different individual, because the heap of bones could well include several people and the bones tested by Hervella (a tooth) and Fu (a femur) were different.
Anyhow, to the matter at hand:
Montserrat Hervella et al. The mitogenome of a 35,000-year-old Homo sapiens from Europe supports a Palaeolithic back-migration to Africa. Nature 2016. Open access → LINK[doi:10.1038/srep25501]
Abstract After the dispersal of modern humans (Homo sapiens) Out of Africa, hominins with a similar morphology to that of present-day humans initiated the gradual demographic expansion into Eurasia. The mitogenome (33-fold coverage) of the Peştera Muierii 1 individual (PM1) from Romania (35 ky cal BP) we present in this article corresponds fully to Homo sapiens, whilst exhibiting a mosaic of morphological features related to both modern humans and Neandertals. We have identified the PM1 mitogenome as a basal haplogroup U6*, not previously found in any ancient or present-day humans. The derived U6 haplotypes are predominantly found in present-day North-Western African populations. Concomitantly, those found in Europe have been attributed to recent gene-flow from North Africa. The presence of the basal haplogroup U6* in South East Europe (Romania) at 35 ky BP confirms a Eurasian origin of the U6 mitochondrial lineage. Consequently, we propose that the PM1 lineage is an offshoot to South East Europe that can be traced to the Early Upper Paleolithic back migration from Western Asia to North Africa, during which the U6 lineage diversified, until the emergence of the present-day U6 African lineages.
The interesting part is that today U6 is pretty much constrained to Northwest Africa and parts of Iberia and it has usually been considered until now as a North African haplogroup, even if of Eurasian derivation.
Fig. 2 - (A) Phylogenetic analysis and temporal estimates for lineages including the Peştera Muierii-1 (PM1) from the mitochondrial tree. (B) Location of the Peştera Muierii cave and surface map based on current frequencies of U6 lineages30; the European borders map was generated in ArcMap 10.1 (ESRI, http://www.esri.com) by modifying the World Borders Dataset (http://www.thematicmapping.org/downloads/world_borders.php), which is licensed under the Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license. The license terms can be found on the following link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ (This map was created by A.A.).
Another interesting bit is that U6(xU6a'b'd,U6c), U6* for short, is not known to exist today anymore. So it is reasonable to speculate about the "ancestral" position of Muierii in the lineage, regardless of whether Muierii-2 was a true ancestor or just a more or less distant relative of the real ancestor of modern day U6 carriers.
Complementary information is to be found Secher et al. (2014), which refined the knowledge of the U6 mitochondrial haplogroup, unveiling that the key basal (and rare) U6c sublineage is not only found in Morocco (as known earlier) but also in Europe. Specifically U6c, which hangs directly from the U6 root node, is found in: Hispanic America (5.7% of all U6 carriers), Spain (2.2%), Canada (12.5%), NW Europe (16.7%), Morocco (4.5%), Algeria (10%) and Tunisia (5.9%). It is missing in Brazil, Western, Central and East Africa, Romani ("Gypsies"), Jews, Azores, Madeira, Canary and Cape Verde Islands, Portugal, Central and Eastern Mediterranean, West Sahara, Mauritania and USA (African-Americans, European-Americans and Hispanics).
Figure 1
Surface maps, based on HVI frequencies (in o/oo), for total U6 (U6), total U6a (Tot U6a), U6a without 16189 (U6a), U6a with 16189 (U6a-189), U6b'd, U6c, U6b and U6d.
While the exact pattern of U6 expansion is not clear except for Africa (with a Moroccan origin surely), Sacher et al. believe that at least this part is related to the Iberomaurusian (aka Oranian) culture, which seems primarily an offshoot of Iberian Solutrean, also with origin in North Morocco (Taforalt) and European-like human looks (Cromagnoid).
An inspection of the U6 phylogenetic tree (S1 Dataset) showed that it is not easy to infer whether Iberia or North Africa bear more basal lineages. (...) The U6c (9.9 ky [5.0–15.0]) and U6d (12.0 ky [6.9–17.3]) are present in Iberia, Europe and North Africa at low frequencies.
While she seems to support a North African origin, the data is in fact somewhat contradictory:
Fig 5. Founder analysis for mtDNA U6 haplogroup. The plots show probabilistic distributions of U6 founder clusters for HVS-I sequences (A) and complete genomes (B) across migration times scanned at 200-year intervals from 0 to 60 ky.
Temporal changes of the effective population size, Ne in sub-Saharan Africa (brown color), North Africa (green color), and Iberian Peninsula (red color) are depicted. Solid lines represent the median values for the log10 of Ne on the Y-axis within each analyzed geographic region. The 95% HPD (highest posterior density) interval is shown for the three distributions (dashed lines). Notice that the "LGM" label is very wrong: it should be around 21.000 years ago!
Usually U6 genetic history is envisioned as a migration from southwest Asia through North Africa [50]. This hypothesis is based on the general origin of haplogroup U sub-clades in Southwest Asia, which is also the center of the geographical distribution of U sub-clades: Europe, India, Central Asia, East Africa and North Africa. Two possible scenarios for the first U6 haplotype (bearing mutations 3348 and 16172) can be advanced: i) these mutations aroused in the founder region but did not leave any genetic legacy in current human populations there; ii) they originated probably somewhere in North Africa, after the arrival of the U6 founder haplotype. Within North Africa U6 is only significantly frequent at its western edge (as well as in South-western Europe). More importantly, all the most basal branches are virtually restricted to that region (U6b, U6c and U6d), what could indicate its western origin. Nevertheless, it cannot be excluded the major sub-clade U6a, which shows a richness of sub-clades in Northwest Africa [29] although a few of derivative branches also include sequences from East African and the Middle Eastern populations (e.g. U6a2).
Her conclusions (insisting on an African origin and first arrival via Egypt) are not something I can share at this stage of the research but her data is clearly very interesting and, combined with the rest, useful in discerning the possible route of primeval U6 to the Gibraltar Strait area, where it found no doubt its niche for consolidated expansion.
After the Muierii finding the question is open: did primeval U6 arrive to North Africa via Iberia, being pruned in Europe afterwards just because of genetic drift and the sizable impact of Paleolithic migrations in low density areas? I cannot be 100% sure but I would say it is a very likely conclusion based not just on Muierii but also on the rather high basal diversity of U6 in Iberia (and surprisingly NW Europe!) and also on the archaeological data that makes almost necessary to root the first Upper Paleolithic of NW Africa (the Iberomaurusian) in the Iberian Solutrean.
(Special thanks to Jean Lohizun again).
Update (Jun 17):
The Hernández 2015 paper also mentions that U6a1 appears to be of European and specifically Portuguese origin:
Our U6 tree built from mitogenomes shows that U6a1 is predominantly European because it contains a significant number of sequences of Mediterranean individuals mainly from the northwestern shore with a leading Iberian contribution (21 of the 29 European samples) and has an ancestral node in Portugal (accession number HQ651694).
Thanks to Geog M. for highlighting this important detail.
A new study has been published that reviews all the data on the Southern Iberian Solutrean, which (excepted probably Asturias) is a distinct autonomous facies relative to Franco-Cantabrian Solutrean.
João Cascalheira & Nuno Bicho, On the Chronological Structure of the Solutrean in Southern Iberia. PLoS ONE 2015. Open access → LINK [doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0137308]
Abstract The Solutrean techno-complex has gained particular significance over time for representing a clear demographic and techno-typological deviation from the developments occurred during the course of the Upper Paleolithic in Western Europe. Some of Solutrean’s most relevant features are the diversity and techno-typological characteristics of the lithic armatures. These have been recurrently used as pivotal elements in numerous Solutrean-related debates, including the chronological organization of the techno-complex across Iberia and Southwestern France. In Southern Iberia, patterns of presence and/or absence of specific point types in stratified sequences tend to validate the classical ordering of the techno-complex into Lower, Middle and Upper phases, although some evidence, namely radiocarbon determinations, have not always been corroborative. Here we present the first comprehensive analysis of the currently available radiocarbon data for the Solutrean in Southern Iberia. We use a Bayesian statistical approach from 13 stratified sequences to compare the duration, and the start and end moments of each classic Solutrean phase across sites. We conclude that, based on the current data, the traditional organization of the Solutrean cannot be unquestionably confirmed for Southern Iberia, calling into doubt the status of the classically-defined type-fossils as precise temporal markers.
Mallaetes, but not nearby Parpalló, is confirmed as one of the oldest sites of the Southern Iberian Solutrean, but has to share the honor with Nerja and La Boja. In general this would support the old idea of rapid expansion from Southern France (Dordogne is slightly older for this culture than the oldest Iberian sites) along the Eastern Mediterranean coast, mimicking what happened before with Aurignacian and Gravettian and what would happen later with Magdalenian and Epipaleolithic cultures of Magdalenian derivation.
The ulterior evolution is rather fast and does not fit too well the French chronology: Middle Solutrean is short-lasting (mostly affecting Central Portugal) and almost overlaps with Upper Solutrean (oldest in Southern Portugal) and Gravetto-Solutrean (oldest in El Bajoncillo, an inland site not involved in the previous phases).
All the new phases do impact the core site of Mallaetes, which seems to be well connected.
Fig 5. Time slices for Southern
Iberia between 26 and 20 ka cal BP showing the distribution of modelled
ages of the classical Solutrean phases.
The
size of the dots represents increasing and decreasing levels of the
95.4% probability ranges determined from the duration (date range) of
each phase, as calculated by individual Bayesian site models (see
Appendix A in S1 File). Dots with two colors indicate overlapping date range probabilities for two or more phases found at the same site.
The authors underline that:
Two clear tendencies can be outlined related to the distribution
patterns of the Lower Solutrean and Solutreo-Gravettian type
assemblages. In fact, these two components seem to be restricted to the
Mediterranean region and totally absent from the Atlantic facade.
They conclude that:
... the main impacts of our analysis on the current knowledge of the LGM adaptations in Southern Iberia can be summarized as follow:
The call into doubt of the status of the traditionally-defined
type-fossils as precise temporal markers for each Solutrean phase in
Southern Iberia;
The confirmation of the presence of tanged “Parpalló-type” points at
a much earlier time (c. 25 ka cal BP) than previously thought;
The potential contemporaneity at a very early moment (c. 25 ka cal
BP) of the so-called Middle and Upper Solutrean/Solutreo-Gravettian
phases (and thus should preferably be called facies)
The likely organization, from a broad chrono-cultural point of view,
of the adaptive systems surrounding the LGM event in just two discrete
contiguous entities, known as the Proto-Solutrean and the Solutrean.
Some further context (my elaboration)
The Iberian Solutrean (roughly coincident with the Last Glacial Maximum) was the most populous period of the Upper Paleolithic in that province, at least according to the research of Bocquet-Appel.
It was maybe even more important for North Africa (Iberomaurusian culture), something not discussed in this study but that I am conscious interests many readers, as well as myself. For this reason I checked for a good reference on oldest calibrated dates for Taforalt's Iberomaurusian (alias Oranian) and found this 2013 study that states that it is as old as at least 21,160 Cal BP.
That would correspond with the fifth map (22-21 Ka cal BP), in which we see an increase of the closest site to North Africa: Gorham's Cave. It would be indeed interesting if someone compared the specifics of Upper Solutrean and that cave with Taforalt, which is by all accounts the oldest Iberomaurusian site.
The Iberomaurusian genesis, the first known Upper Paleolithic of NW Africa, surely carried a still very apparent Iberian-like genetic signature to across the strait, notably mtDNA haplogroups H1, H3, H4 and H7, and also maybe V. The H subclades were claimed to have an unmistakable Iberian origin by Cherni 2008, while the distribution of the H subhaplogroups in the region was researched by Enafaa & Cabrera 2009. Comparison with Álvarez-Iglesias 2009 suggests that H7 should rather be French than Iberian by origin however, as it is rare in the peninsula. It could still be a Solutrean founder effect anyhow.
Another possible founder effect of this Paleolithic trans-Mediterranean connection might be mtDNA U6. This lineage has a most likely origin in Northern Morocco but also has a lot of basal diversity across the strait in Iberia. However it could also represent a, so far archaeologically invisible, Aurignacoid migration via NE Africa with re-expansion to Iberia (and also in North Africa) in this period maybe. This could also explain its apparent connection with Y-DNA E1b-M81, which seems very old in NW Africa and is distributed in a similar way to U6 in the Iberian Peninsula and Europe in general.
The famous rock art of the Cave of Lions (Grotte Chauvet, Ardèche) seems now not to be of such an early date as was claimed by Valladas et al. in 2001 but rather from the Gravettian and Solutrean periods, with more solid dates between 26,000 to 18,000 BP.
Jean Combier & Guy Jouve, New investigations into the cultural and stylistic identity of the Chauvet cave and its radiocarbon dating. L'Anthropologie 2014. Pay per view → LINK[doi:10.1016/j.anthro.2013.12.001]
Abstract The discovery of Chauvet cave, at Vallon-Pont-d’Arc (Ardèche), in 1994, was an important event for our knowledge of palaeolithic parietal art as a whole. Its painted and engraved figures, thanks to their number (425 graphic units), and their excellent state of preservation, provide a documentary thesaurus comparable to that of the greatest sites known, and far beyond what had already been found in the group of Rhône valley caves (Ardèche and Gard). But its study – when one places it in its natural regional, cultural and thematic framework – makes it impossible to see it as an isolated entity of astonishing precocity. This needs to be reconsidered, and the affinities that our research has brought to light are clearly incompatible with the very early age which has been attributed to it. And if one extends this examination to the whole of the Franco-Cantabrian domain, the conclusion is inescapable: although Chauvet cave displays some unique characteristics (like every decorated cave), it belongs to an evolved phase of parietal art that is far removed from the motifs of its origins (known from art on blocks and on shelter walls dated by stratigraphy to the Aurignacian, in France and Cantabrian Spain). The majority of its works are therefore to be placed, quite normally, within the framework of the well-defined artistic creations of the Gravettian and Solutrean. Moreover, this phase of the Middle Upper Palaeolithic (26,000–18,000) coincides with a particularly intensive and diversified local human occupation, unknown in earlier periods and far less dense afterwards in the Magdalenian. A detailed critique of the treatment of the samples subjected to AMS radiocarbon dating makes it impossible to retain the very early age (36,000 cal BP) attributed by some authors to the painted and engraved figures of Chauvet cave.
Illustration by Arturo Asensio
Decorating Altamira Cave
As I have briefly mentioned before David Sánchez has a most interesting series of articles (in Spanish language) these days, at his blog Noticias de Prehistoria- Prehistoria al Día, dealing with the usage of oil lamps in SW Europe (France, Iberian Peninsula) in the Upper Paleolithic. If you are familiar with Spanish language (or willing to use an online translator), you can read them at the following links: PART 1, PART 2 and PART 3(update: part 4 is now also online).
To be most synthetic I will essentially borrow the excellent maps which shall give us a glimpse of the spread and time frame of this illumination fashion in the region:
Lamps found in France with chronology and type of site (Beaune & White 1993)
Lamps found in Iberia (by David Sánchez)
It must be mentioned, following the original articles, that the lamps of Iberia have all been found inside caves (while in France the locations are more diverse) and also nearly all them belong to the Magdalenian period. The exceptions are Bolinkoba (8), which is from a Solutrean chronology, La Trinidad de Ardales (1), which has no context, and a possible ill-documented lamp from Lezetxiki (14), originally argued to be of either Aurignacian or Mousterian context.
Even if you don't understand Spanish, I would suggest to take a look at the original articles for the many illustrations of a varied array of lamps.
Looters and bureaucracy destroy a Solutrean site in Andalusia (Higueral-Guardia cave). Sadly enough, it was a lot easier for looters to access the unprotected cave illegally than for archaeologists to do so legally ··> Pileta de Prehistoria[es].
What more classical troglodyte imagery than skulls on sticks? Sadly archaeology had never produced such artifacts... until now: Epipaleolithic Swedes had them ··> Pileta de Prehistoria[en].
Fascinating 'Nazca lines' found in Arabia ··> Live Science.
More Neolithic remains from Yesilova (Izmir, Turkey) ··> Daily News.
Remember the first pampooty shoe (or abarka) found in Areni 1 cave (Armenia)? It has now also produced a skirt ··> News.am.
Bronze Age's stone anchors from the Black Sea ··> Novinite.
Fscinating 3D reconstructions of Stonehenge, Woodhenge, etc. ··> The Heritage Journal.
Stanton Drew reconstruction
Cahokia Mounds researched in some depth finally ··> BND.
Bronze Age haploid DNA from North China yields no surprises (mtDNA: D4, D*, M7c, A4, F1b, G1a, M9a, M10 and M8z; Y-DNA: N1c and O3) ··> Dienekes.
First Aboriginal Australian genome sequenced ··> Dienekes.
Epigenetic evolution: Arabidopsis thaliana does it all the time, what about humans? ··> SD.
Other sciences:
Quite impressive stuff these days:
Speed of light may not be the ultimate speed limit: neutrinos found going faster. It also challenges the unidirectionality of time ··> Al Jazeera, BBC.
Video documentary on this fascinating affluent of the Douro river and its many Prehistoric engravings, of Middle and Late Upper Paleolithic age. It is in Portuguese mostly (with some fragments in French or English), however it is very worth watching even if you do not understand the language because of the engravings themselves and the beautiful context they are found at. Each part spans some 15 mins:
Since I started reading about the MSA (Middle Stone Age, the main African Middle Paleolithic stone industry) I have been under the impression that it had Solutrean affinities.
Well, now it is confirmed that at least some MSA crafters, those from Blombos Cave, South Africa, effectively used this technique some 35,000 years before it was known in Europe.
Pressure flaking has been considered to be an Upper Paleolithic innovation dating to ~20,000 years ago (20 ka). Replication experiments show that pressure flaking best explains the morphology of lithic artifacts recovered from the ~75-ka Middle Stone Age levels at Blombos Cave, South Africa. The technique was used during the final shaping of Still Bay bifacial points made on heat-treated silcrete. Application of this innovative technique allowed for a high degree of control during the detachment of individual flakes, resulting in thinner, narrower, and sharper tips on bifacial points. This technology may have been first invented and used sporadically in Africa before its later widespread adoption.
Very few stones types (obsidian, jasper, high quality flint) can be retouched this way without previous thermal modification (heating the stone appropriately). This was the technique used at Pinnacle Point, not far from Blombos in that very same time. The technological sophistication is such that it has been compared to metallurgy.
While Pinnacle point offered the first evidence of stone preparation through heating in order to improve knapping, Blombos has the first one of pressure retouch. Other evidence of the so-called modern behavior (symbolism, art, etc.) is also abundant in the South African MSA. Even food processing is known from that time in nearby Mozambique.
A cast of a Solutrean "laurel leaf" spear point, over 13 inches long. These delicate and beautiful implements were prepared by delicate flaking across the surface. Many are so large and delicate that they could never have been actually used, and may have been status objects.
VOLGU LAUREL-LEAF POINTS (CASTS) - SOLUTREAN PERIOD
LE VOLGU - EASTERN FRANCE - UPPER PALEOLITHIC PERIOD
Francois Bordes wrote that "The majority of these specimens (Volgu cache) were chipped by direct percussion; but for the finer ones, indirect percussion or pressure has been used." Jacques Bordaz wrote that "The obvious fragility of some of the specimens (Volgu cache) suggest rather a ritual use, or perhaps they were simply examples of some knapper's bravura."
Something I want to do in this new blog is to revisit some areas that I have explored in the past, hopefully with an improved approach. One of the key elements in understanding European Prehistory as a whole is the demographics of Paleolithic Europe. Nothing better surely than this excellent survey of archaeological density and corresponding population estimates:
The paper evidences the demographic growth, specially after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), when it really explodes (from 5900 to 28,700 - average figures).
But maybe even more interesting is the demographic tendencies of the various regions. Most outstandingly, the Franco-Cantabrian region comprises almost half of the all Europeans early on, reaching to 2/3 in the LGM.
Second is the Danube region, with 20-25% in the early period and a marked decrease in the LGM. Third is the related Rhine region with 6-9%, sharply declining to near zero in the LGM.
These three regions are fused in the latest map (Late UP, Magdalenian), including together 95% of all Europeans some 15-10,000 years ago. These would be then something between 11,000 and 73,000 individuals, average: 29,000 (more than 27,000 in the Magdalenian area).
Fig. 5 (2nd part). Population estimates for LGM (top) and Late UP (bottom)
Less important regions are East Europe (4% in the Gravettian era, declining after that) and Iberia (7% in the LGM, much less in the next period). Italy is not mentioned but does indeed show some sparse continuity (Gravettian/Epigravettian).
You can easily compare these maps and those of the patterns of R1b1b2a1a2; it seems clear to me that the best possible explanation for its subclades' dispersion patterns is at the post-LGM stage.
