Revised timescale of human mtDNA evolution (Fu et al. 2013)

 

An important new paper has just appeared in Current Biology. It is very exciting for a couple of reasons:

• The paper uses the idea of branch shortening to infer dates for the mtDNA phylogeny. Briefly, if one counts differences between a present-day sample P and an ancient sample A, one can get a sense of when their most recent common ancestor X, lived. But PX and PA are not equal: PA is shorter, because A has "missed" a few thousand years of evolution (depending on its age). If we know the age of A (and this can be reliably known by direct dating for many samples), then we can infer the time of X.

Looking at the ages of many haplogroups, I don't see any that immediately strike me as inconsistent with recent published age estimates based on modern mtDNA alone, such as those from the Copernican reassessment paper. In any case, this is an exciting new application of an idea that will yield good dates for haplogroup ages in the future. For example, it could be used to date Y-chromosome lineages as well, when high-quality sequences of ancient human Y-chromosomes become available.

• The paper also presents a number of new and exciting ancient DNA samples:

Please note that the "Cro Magnon" sample is actually revealed to be non-ancient in the study; that is another utility of the "branch shortening" idea, since it can demonstrate that purported very old samples are in fact fairly recent.
Note the important new samples from Dolni Vestonice, Oberkassel, Continenza, all of which are Paleolithic Europeans and all of which belong, without exception to subgroups of haplogroup U. It appears that Europe was indeed dominated by this haplogroup down to Mesolithic times, with a sharp discontinuity with early Neolithic Europeans.
The only outlier in the European context is Paglicci Str. 4b which is assigned to haplogroup H1. However:

Using this criterion, we excluded Paglicci Str. 4b from further analysis as the rate of C to T misincorporation at the 50 end was only 8.8%, thus making an ancient origin for the DNA in this sample uncertain [14].

Personally, I doubt there was any mtDNA haplogroup H in pre-Neolithic Europe, as the first author of this paper has also argued for in a previous one.
There is also a new sample from Boshan; it is probably too early to detect a pattern, but it is nonetheless noteworthy that it also belonged to mtDNA haplogroup B like the much earlier sample from Tianyuan.
Finally, the paper also discusses the issue of the mutation rate, noting that the divergence between Eurasian (M+N) and African (L3) mtDNA is much later than that inferred for autosomal DNA using new and "slow" de novo autosomal mutation rates. In my opinion there are two possible interpretations for this: one that there's something wrong with the slow rates, while another is that the earlier divergence using autosomal DNA may be a consequence of inflation due to admixture events in Africa.
Current Biology doi:10.1016/j.cub.2013.02.044
A Revised Timescale for Human Evolution Based on Ancient Mitochondrial Genomes
Qiaomei Fu et al.
Summary
Background
Recent analyses of de novo DNA mutations in modern humans have suggested a nuclear substitution rate that is approximately half that of previous estimates based on fossil calibration. This result has led to suggestions that major events in human evolution occurred far earlier than previously thought.
Results
Here, we use mitochondrial genome sequences from ten securely dated ancient modern humans spanning 40,000 years as calibration points for the mitochondrial clock, thus yielding a direct estimate of the mitochondrial substitution rate. Our clock yields mitochondrial divergence times that are in agreement with earlier estimates based on calibration points derived from either fossils or archaeological material. In particular, our results imply a separation of non-Africans from the most closely related sub-Saharan African mitochondrial DNAs (haplogroup L3) that occurred less than 62–95 kya.
Conclusions
Though single loci like mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) can only provide biased estimates of population divergence times, they can provide valid upper bounds. Our results exclude most of the older dates for African and non-African population divergences recently suggested by de novo mutation rate estimates in the nuclear genome.
Link

Abnormalities in Pleistocene Homo

 

An excess of congenital defects is certainly compatible with high levels of inbreeding, and the publication of the Denisova genome clearly suggested "extremely low" genetic diversity in that Pleistocene human. It'll be interesting to see if more ancient DNA data will reveal high levels of inbreeding consistent with the abundance of genetic abnormalities evident in the anthropological record.

PLoS ONE 8(3): e59587. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0059587
An Enlarged Parietal Foramen in the Late Archaic Xujiayao 11 Neurocranium from Northern China, and Rare Anomalies among Pleistocene Homo

Xiu-Jie Wu et al.

We report here a neurocranial abnormality previously undescribed in Pleistocene human fossils, an enlarged parietal foramen (EPF) in the early Late Pleistocene Xujiayao 11 parietal bones from the Xujiayao (Houjiayao) site, northern China. Xujiayao 11 is a pair of partial posteromedial parietal bones from an adult. It exhibits thick cranial vault bones, arachnoid granulations, a deviated posterior sagittal suture, and a unilateral (right) parietal lacuna with a posteriorly-directed and enlarged endocranial vascular sulcus. Differential diagnosis indicates that the perforation is a congenital defect, an enlarged parietal foramen, commonly associated with cerebral venous and cranial vault anomalies. It was not lethal given the individual’s age-at-death, but it may have been associated with secondary neurological deficiencies. The fossil constitutes the oldest evidence in human evolution of this very rare condition (a single enlarged parietal foramen). In combination with developmental and degenerative abnormalities in other Pleistocene human remains, it suggests demographic and survival patterns among Pleistocene Homo that led to an elevated frequency of conditions unknown or rare among recent humans.

Link

33,000-year old dog from the Altai

From the paper:

In conclusion, our analyses support the hypothesis that the Altai specimen is more closely related to domestic dogs than to extant wolves, but we stress the point that these analyses were limited to a single, maternally inherited locus and more sequence data would be needed to obtain a statistically well supported phylogeny and unambiguously resolve the genetic relationship of the Altai specimen. However, this preliminary analysis affirms the conclusion that the Altai specimen is likely an ancient dog with a shallow divergence from ancient wolves. These results suggest a more ancient history of the dog outside the Middle East or East Asia, previously suggested as centres of dog origin. Additional discoveries of ancient dog-like remains are essential for further narrowing the time and region of origin for the domestic dog [5].

An ancient dog with shallow divergence from ancient wolves is probably what we might expect if dogs had been domesticated by some of the first Upper Paleolithic Eurasians a few thousand years prior to the date of this particular specimen.
PLoS ONE 8(3): e57754. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0057754
Ancient DNA Analysis Affirms the Canid from Altai as a Primitive Dog
Anna S. Druzhkova et al.
The origin of domestic dogs remains controversial, with genetic data indicating a separation between modern dogs and wolves in the Late Pleistocene. However, only a few dog-like fossils are found prior to the Last Glacial Maximum, and it is widely accepted that the dog domestication predates the beginning of agriculture about 10,000 years ago. In order to evaluate the genetic relationship of one of the oldest dogs, we have isolated ancient DNA from the recently described putative 33,000-year old Pleistocene dog from Altai and analysed 413 nucleotides of the mitochondrial control region. Our analyses reveal that the unique haplotype of the Altai dog is more closely related to modern dogs and prehistoric New World canids than it is to contemporary wolves. Further genetic analyses of ancient canids may reveal a more exact date and centre of domestication.
Link

Extreme mobility in the late Pleistocene (Shaw and Stock 2013)

The idea of Pleistocene remains having "extremely active and mobile lives" is consistent with the hypothesis that people moved around during prehistory, and did not simply grow roots after their initial colonization of the planet, as some models of "Paleolithic continuity" have affirmed.
Journal of Human Evolutiondoi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2013.01.004
Extreme mobility in the Late Pleistocene? Comparing limb biomechanics among fossil Homo, varsity athletes and Holocene foragers
Colin N. Shaw, Jay T. Stock
Descriptions of Pleistocene activity patterns often derive from comparisons of long bone diaphyseal robusticity across contemporaneous fossilized hominins. The purpose of this study is to augment existing understanding of Pleistocene hominin mobility patterns by interpreting fossil variation through comparisons with a) living human athletes with known activity patterns, and b) Holocene foragers where descriptions of group-level activity patterns are available. Relative tibial rigidity (midshaft tibial rigidity (J)/midshaft humeral rigidity (J)) was compared amongst Levantine and European Neandertals, Levantine and Upper Palaeolithic Homo sapiens, Holocene foragers and living human athletes and controls. Cross-country runners exhibit significantly (p < 0.05) greater relative tibial rigidity compared with swimmers, and higher values compared with controls. In contrast, swimmers displayed significantly (p < 0.05) lower relative tibial rigidity than both runners and controls. While variation exists among all Holocene H. sapiens, highly terrestrially mobile Later Stone Age (LSA) southern Africans and cross-country runners display the highest relative tibial rigidity, while maritime Andaman Islanders and swimmers display the lowest, with controls falling between. All fossil hominins displayed relative tibial rigidity that exceeded, or was similar to, the highly terrestrially mobile Later Stone Age southern Africans and modern human cross-country runners. The more extreme skeletal structure of most Neandertals and Levantine H. sapiens, as well as the odd Upper Palaeolithic individual, appears to reflect adaptation to intense and/or highly repetitive lower limb (relative to upper limb) loading. This loading may have been associated with bipedal travel, and appears to have been more strenuous than that encountered by even university varsity runners, and Holocene foragers with hunting grounds 2000–3000 square miles in size. Skeletal variation among the athletes and foraging groups is consistent with known or inferred activity profiles, which support the position that the Pleistocene remains reflect adaptation to extremely active and mobile lives.
Link

Late Middle Pleistocene teeth from South China (Liu et al. 2013)

From the paper:

The Panxian Dadong P3 falls in the upper left quadrant, an area that, with the exception of two out of the nine Atapuerca-SH specimens and S7-34, is exclusively occupied by recent humans. Thus this geometric morphometric analysis indicates that the general crown conformation of the Panxian Dadong P3 resembles some European Middle Pleistocene hominins, Chinese Upper Pleistocene hominins, and particularly the recent human specimens. 

According to the above comparisons, the Panxian Dadong P3 preserves some primitive and highly polymorphic traits, but in general its conformation is derived. Its occlusal morphology is simple, and the contour is symmetrical with a lingual cusp that is narrower than the buccal one. All these features make the Panxian Dadong P3 most similar to Upper Pleistocene hominins and recent humans in our comparative samples.

I suspect that the age of these teeth will render them useless for ancient DNA work.
Journal of Human Evolution doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2012.10.012
Late Middle Pleistocene hominin teeth from Panxian Dadong, South China
Wu Liu et al.
The hominin teeth and evidence of hominin activities recovered from 1991 to 2005 at the Panxian Dadong site in South China are dated to the late Middle Pleistocene (MIS 8–6 or ca. 130–300 ka), a period for which very little is known about the morphology of Asian populations. The present study provides the first detailed morphometric description and comparisons of four hominin teeth (I1, C1, P3 and P3) from this site. Our study shows that the Panxian Dadong teeth combine archaic and derived features that align them with Middle and Upper Pleistocene fossils from East and West Asia and Europe. These teeth do not display any typical Neanderthal features and they are generally more derived than other contemporaneous populations from Asia and Africa. However, the derived traits are not diagnostic enough to specifically link the Panxian Dadong teeth to Homo sapiens, a common problem when analyzing the Middle Pleistocene dental record from Africa and Asia. These findings are contextualized in the discussion of the evolutionary course of Asian Middle Pleistocene hominins, and they highlight the necessity of incorporating the Asian fossil record in the still open debate about the origin of H. sapiens.
Link

Our rabbit-hunting ancestors (Fa et al. 2013)

From the paper:

Relative to other mammal groups, rabbit bone abundance was always significantly higher during the Upper Palaeolithic (76%) and Mesolithic (59%) than during the Middle Palaeolithic (Fig. 4). The difference between the average rabbit remains and that of cervids, the second most abundant prey item, were less than 10% during the Mousterian. In contrast, during the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic, the difference between the rabbit and the second-most important prey items was over 60% and 20%, respectively. After the rabbit, large ungulates (caprids, cervids and equids) were relatively important during the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic, while caprids, cervids and suids took that place during the Mesolithic (Fig. 4).

and:

Our evidence indicates that hominin diets may have changed from one dependent on large mammals during the Middle Palaeolithic to diets dominated by smaller species in the Upper Palaeolithic, in particular by the wild rabbit. The explanation for this transition is either that climate change negatively impacted large mammal populations, forcing prehistoric people to incorporate smaller vertebrate species into their diets, or that people themselves negatively impacted large mammal populations, which in turn forced foragers to add smaller species to their diets.

I am not sure how modern hunter-gatherers hunt rabbits, but I would think that trapping, or some type of slingshot or blowdart would be ideal for this small and fast-moving animal. Did Neandertals simply lack efficient technology to capture rabbit, or is there some other reason why they underutilized the species?
Journal of Human Evolution DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2013.01.002
Rabbits and hominin survival in Iberia
John E. Fa et al.
High dependence on the hunting and consumption of large mammals by some hominins may have limited their survival once their preferred quarry became scarce or disappeared. Adaptation to smaller residual prey would have been essential after the many large-bodied species decreased in numbers. We focus on the use of a superabundant species, the rabbit, to demonstrate the importance of this taxon in Iberia as fundamental to predators. We show that the use of the rabbit over time has increased, and that there could have been differential consumption by Neanderthals and Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH). Analysis of bone remains from excavations throughout Iberia show that this lagomorph was a crucial part of the diet of AMH but was relatively unutilised during the Mousterian, when Neanderthals were present. We first present changes in mammalian biomass and mean body mass of mammals over 50,000 years, to illustrate the dramatic loss of large mammalian fauna and to show how the rabbit may have contributed a consistently high proportion of the available game biomass throughout that period. Unlike the Italian Peninsula and other parts of Europe, in Iberia the rabbit has provided a food resource of great importance for predators including hominins. We suggest that hunters that could shift focus to rabbits and other smaller residual fauna, once larger-bodied species decreased in numbers, would have been able to persist. From the evidence presented here, we postulate that Neanderthals may have been less capable of prey-shifting and hence use the high-biomass prey resource provided by the rabbit, to the extent AMH did.
Link

Early modern human burials in Eurasia

Early modern human burials in Eurasia

Early human burials varied widely but most were simple

"We don't know why some of these burials were so ornate, but what's striking is that they postdate the arrival of modern humans in Eurasia by almost 10,000 years," said Julien Riel-Salvatore, Ph.D., assistant professor of anthropology at CU Denver and lead author of the study. "When they appear around 30,000 years ago some are lavish but many aren't and over time the most elaborate ones almost disappear. So, the behavior of humans does not always go from simple to complex; it often waxes and wanes in terms of its complexity depending on the conditions people live under."

The study, which examined 85 burials from the Upper Paleolithic period, found that men were buried more often than women. Infants were buried only sporadically, if at all in later periods, a difference that could be related to changes in subsistence, climate and the ability to keep babies alive, Riel-Salvatore said.

It also showed that a few ornate burials in Russia, Italy and the Czech Republic dating back nearly 30,000 years are anomalies, and not representative of most early Homo sapiens burial practices in Eurasia.

Balanica BH-1: 397-525 thousand years old

Balanica BH-1: 397-525 thousand years old

The occurrence of derived Neandertal traits in Sima vs. their absence in penecontemporaneous samples from  southeastern Europe is fairly interesting. It might suggest that the Neandertal suite of traits first appeared in western Europe.

We tend to think of Old World H. heidelbergensis as a parental species which produced -at least in the western part of the Old World- two descendant species, sapiens and neanderthalensis, but clearly that is not the whole story. Unrelated to the current paper, but perhaps worthy of note is that these two descendant species make their appearance far apart in time, with Neandertaloid traits already in evidence very early in Europe, and modern human ones late in east Africa. We may wonder about what was taking place in the temporal gap between 600 and 200 thousand years ago, and the spatial gap between Europe and Africaa.

PLoS ONE 8(2): e54608. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0054608

New Radiometric Ages for the BH-1 Hominin from Balanica (Serbia): Implications for Understanding the Role of the Balkans in Middle Pleistocene Human Evolution

William J. Rink et al.

Newly obtained ages, based on electron spin resonance combined with uranium series isotopic analysis, and infrared/post-infrared luminescence dating, provide a minimum age that lies between 397 and 525 ka for the hominin mandible BH-1 from Mala Balanica cave, Serbia. This confirms it as the easternmost hominin specimen in Europe dated to the Middle Pleistocene. Inferences drawn from the morphology of the mandible BH-1 place it outside currently observed variation of European Homo heidelbergensis. The lack of derived Neandertal traits in BH-1 and its contemporary specimens in Southeast Europe, such as Kocabaş, Vasogliano and Ceprano, coupled with Middle Pleistocene synapomorphies, suggests different evolutionary forces acting in the east of the continent where isolation did not play such an important role during glaciations.

Link

Redating of the Early Upper Paleolithic site of Riparo Mochi (Italy)

Redating of the Early Upper Paleolithic site of Riparo Mochi (Italy)

There are two possibilities on how the early Aurignacian entered Europe. According to one hypothesis, its bearers followed the Danube, which formed a natural corridor into the heartland of the continent which was, at the time, thickly forested. A different hypothesis is that the early Aurignacian entered Europe via the Mediterranean. Distinguishing between the two hypotheses depends on obtaining reliable chronological estimates for the Mediterranean and Central European Aurignacian

A recent dating of a site in the Swabian Jura suggested that the Aurignacian was earlier attested in Central Europe. But, another paper in the Journal of Human Evolution examines meticulously the sequence in the Moch rockshelter and finds that it is just as early.

Comparisons with dates for other Upper Palaeolithic contexts outside Italy suggest that the date of the Protoaurignacian of Mochi compares closely. In Fig. 9a the start boundaries for the earliest Aurignacian evidence at the sites of Geissenklösterle (Germany), Abri Pataud and Isturitz (France) are compared to the start boundary for unit G in Mochi. The first two sites were dated recently in Oxford with reliable methodologies (Higham et al., 2011; Higham et al., in press) while for Isturitz only a small number of dates exist for the earliest Upper Palaeolithic (Szmidt et al., 2010). This comparison reveals that the lowermost Aurignacian levels at Geissenklosterle (AHIII) and Isturitz (C4d) date to the same period as Mochi G, at around 42.7-41.5 ka cal BP (68.2%). The earliest Aurignacian of Abri Pataud dates slightly later to around 41e40 ka cal BP (68.2%), but the assemblage there has always been considered more evolved, so this is not surprising. No Mousterian dates are included in any of these calculations, therefore the start boundaries in the Bayesian models are not well constrained at their earliest end. What is interesting is that there appears to be a close similarity between the dates for the Protoaurignacian and Early Aurignacian sites in Germany on the Danube and on the Mediterranean coast. This might suggest a rapid dispersal of both variants of the Aurignacian across Europe at c. 44-42 ka cal BP.

It does appear that the Aurignacian was a continent-wide punctuational event in Europe which occurred in the middle to late 40 thousands ka cal BP.

Either there were two streams into Europe (Danubian and Mediterranean), or one stream that quickly inundated much of the continent. Given that the argument for the Danubian Corridor is partly related to the ease of access it provided, it is difficult to imagine how the people who followed it would quickly stray far from it all the way to Italy. Overall, it does appear that there were multiple streams into Europe, and perhaps new research in the Balkans, Eastern Europe, and West Asia, may help us trace the earlier predecssor of these streams before they followed their separate ways into Europe.

Journal of Human Evolution DOI:10.1016/j.jhevol.2011.11.009

A new chronostratigraphic framework for the Upper Palaeolithic of Riparo Mochi (Italy)


Katerina Douka et al.


The rockshelter of Mochi, on the Ligurian coast of Italy, is often used as a reference point in the formation of hypotheses concerning the arrival of the Aurigancian in Mediterranean Europe. Yet, the site is poorly known. Here, we describe the stratigraphic sequence based on new field observations and present 15 radiocarbon determinations from the Middle Palaeolithic (late Mousterian) and Early Upper Palaeolithic (Aurignacian and Gravettian) levels. The majority of dates were produced on humanly modified material, specifically marine shell beads, which comprise some of the oldest directly-dated personal ornaments in Europe. The radiocarbon results are incorporated into a Bayesian statistical model to build a new chronological framework for this key Palaeolithic site. A tentative correlation of the stratigraphy to palaeoclimatic records is also attempted.

Link

43,000-year old Aurignacian in Swabian Jura

43,000-year old Aurignacian in Swabian Jura

A new paper continues the re-assessment of the radiocarbon dating record in Europe. It pushes the Aurignacian of Central Europe back in time, but not as far back as the appearance of modern humans in Europe. The implication is that the advanced music and art of the Aurignacian did not accompany modern humans as they made their first steps into Europe, but rather developed there.

The authors distinguish between a "strong" version of their model (which would posit a monocentric origin of music/art around the Geissenkoesterle site), and a "weak" one in which these innovations were contributed in parallel by different regions. A better understanding of the origin of different innovations and their assignment to specific groups of modern humans may help us better understand what was the "common core" of behavioral and technological modernity that facilitated the success of our species.

From the paper:

The majority of scholars conclude that the Aurignacian is the earliest signature of the first modern humans in Europe. Recent research suggests that this is not likely to be the case. Benazzi et al. (2011) have shown that the Uluzzian of Italy and Greece is likely to be a modern human industry based on the reanalysis of infant teeth in the archaeological site of Cavallo, and also demonstrated that it dates to 45,000-43,000 cal BP. Other dated examples from other Uluzzian sites (e.g., Higham et al., 2009) fall into the same period, and the Uluzzian is always stratigraphically below the Proto- Aurignacian in Italian sites where both co-occur. This adds an additional level of complexity to the emerging picture of early human dispersals and suggests that the Aurignacian does not represent the earliest evidence of our species in Europe. 

... 

Taken together, these results suggest that modern humans arrived in Europe as early as ~45,000 cal BP and spread rapidly across Europe to as far as southern England between 43,000 and41,000 cal BP. The dates for the lower Aurignacian at Geissenklosterle fall in the same period and appear to pre-date the ages for the Proto- Aurignacian and Early Aurignacian in other regions (Fig. 6). The new results suggest that the caves of the Swabian Jura document the earliest phase of the Aurignacian, and the region can be viewed as one of the key areas in which a variety of cultural innovations, including figurative art, mythical images, and musical instruments, are first documented. These dates are consistent with the Danube Valley serving as an important corridor for the movement of people and ideas (Conard, 2002; Conard and Bolus, 2003). 

... 

The new radiocarbon dates from Geissenklosterle document the presence of the Aurignacian in the Swabian Jura prior to the Heinrich 4 cold phase, with the Early Aurignacian beginning around 42,500 cal BP. In the coming years, excavations in the Swabian Jura will continue and new radiometric dates should contribute to an improved understanding of the spatial-temporal development of the Aurignacian and its innovative material culture.

From the press release:

Researchers from Oxford and Tübingen have published new radiocarbon dates from the from Geißenklösterle Cave in Swabian Jura of Southwestern Germany in the Journal of Human Evolution. The new dates use improved methods to remove contamination and produced ages between began between 42,000 – 43,000 years ago for start of the Aurignacian, the first culture to produce a wide range of figurative art, music and other key innovations as postulated in the Kulturpumpe Hypothesis. The full spectrum of these innovations were established in the region no later than 40 000 years ago.

Journal of Human Evolution doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2012.03.003

Τesting models for the beginnings of the Aurignacian and the advent of figurative art and music: The radiocarbon chronology of Geißenklösterle

Thomas Higham et al.

The German site of Geißenklösterle is crucial to debates concerning the European Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition and the origins of the Aurignacian in Europe. Previous dates from the site are central to an important hypothesis, the Kulturpumpe model, which posits that the Swabian Jura was an area where crucial behavioural developments took place and then spread to other parts of Europe. The previous chronology (critical to the model), is based mainly on radiocarbon dating, but remains poorly constrained due to the dating resolution and the variability of dates. The cause of these problems is disputed, but two principal explanations have been proposed: a) larger than expected variations in the production of atmospheric radiocarbon, and b) taphonomic influences in the site mixing the bones that were dated into different parts of the site. We reinvestigate the chronology using a new series of radiocarbon determinations obtained from the Mousterian, Aurignacian and Gravettian levels. The results strongly imply that the previous dates were affected by insufficient decontamination of the bone collagen prior to dating. Using an ultrafiltration protocol the chronometric picture becomes much clearer. Comparison of the results against other recently dated sites in other parts of Europe suggests the Early Aurignacian levels are earlier than other sites in the south of France and Italy, but not as early as recently dated sites which suggest a pre-Aurignacian dispersal of modern humans to Italy by ∼45000 cal BP. They are consistent with the importance of the Danube Corridor as a key route for the movement of people and ideas. The new dates fail to refute the Kulturpumpe model and suggest that Swabian Jura is a region that contributed significantly to the evolution of symbolic behaviour as indicated by early evidence for figurative art, music and mythical imagery.

Link

Rapid onset of Aurignacian in Southwest France

Rapid onset of Aurignacian in Southwest France

Journal of Archaeological Science doi:10.1016/j.jas.2011.09.019

A Radiocarbon chronology for the complete Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transitional sequence of Les Cottés (France)

Sahra Talamo et al.

The Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition is the key period for our understanding of Neanderthal and modern human interactions in Europe. The site of Les Cottés in south-west France is one of the rare sites with a complete and well defined sequence covering this transition period. We undertook an extensive radiocarbon dating program on mammal bone which allows us to propose a chronological framework of five distinct phases dating from the Mousterian to the Early Aurignacian at this site. We found that the Mousterian and Châtelperronian industries are separated from the overlying Protoaurignacian by a gap of approximately 1000 calendar years. Based on a comparison with Upper Paleolithic sites in Europe we see an overlap in the ages of Châtelperronian industries and Aurignacian lithic assemblages, which are usually associated with Anatomical Modern Humans, which is consistent with an acculturation at distance model for these late Neanderthals. The Proto and Early Aurignacian appear contemporaneous indicating that this transition was rapid in this region. Anatomically Modern Humans are present at the site of Les Cottés at least at 39,500 cal BP roughly coincident with the onset of the cold phase Heinrich 4.

Link