Middle and Upper Paleolithic Hunter-Gatherers The Emergence of Modern Humans, The Mesolithic
Lesson Objectives: Compare models of Neanderthal and early modern humans and their lifestyles based on cultural evidence; understand political contexts; understand the Upper Paleolithic lifestyles and interpretations of art; the Mesolithic.
What is the Middle Paleolithic? This cultural “stage” was once easier to describe when it was thought that clear divisions could be made in both culture and associated biological forms of humans. So the Neanderthals, robust and ugly-looking to us, were considered to be the makers of Middle Paleolithic tools in Europe and the Near East (eastern Mediterranean and southwestern Asia), then in came modern people with Upper Paleolithic tools and art, and away went Neanderthals. Now the picture is enormously more complicated and debated. One reason for this is that we know now that modern humans appear as early as 100,000 years ago, but Neanderthals last until about 40,000 years ago.
What is the relationship between Neanderthals and modern
humans? There are many opposing arguments. Some think Neanderthals were
a separate species of hominid from Homo sapiens, called Homo
neanderthalensis, that evolved from the Homo erectus forms
in Europe and died out when moderns came in. Others consider Neanderthals
a subspecies or biological race, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis,
differentiated only by geographical isolation but still contributing
genes to modern humans, that is, mating with moderns to a degree. Physically,
Neanderthals were different looking, with longer heads, more robust
bones, even bigger brains; these adaptations are thought to be adaptations
to the cold periglacial climate of their northerly home.
What are the two opposing models explaining the appearance of modern humans? The “out of Africa” model has modern humans developing in Africa and moving out to replace other hominids all over the Old World. Replacement is considered to include everything from violent conflict to genetic superiority, from no mating with “the other” to some exchange of genes. The “multiregional” model has modern humans evolving in place all over the world; in other words, gradually developing from whatever hominid is there because there would be enough gene flow (translation: mating across geographical regions) to assure continuity of the evolution of the species all over the map.
How can archaeology contribute to the debates on modern
human origins? In this class, we will not discuss very much the details
of biological evolution nor the evidence from both fossil skeletal remains
and molecular evolutionary studies such as changes through time in DNA.
There have been a couple of DNA studies done on European Neanderthals
which found that there was enough difference from modern humans so as
to make them not ancestral. But this is a small sample size, and those
individuals may have simply had family lines that died out. There will
be more such studies soon. Meanwhile, the archaeology is not simple
either. There have been Upper Paleolithic tools found with Neanderthal
skeletal remains and Middle Paleolithic artifacts with modern humans.
The question of whether Neanderthals or even earlier hominids could
talk is also difficult to solve. How could Homo erectus have
made it across the hemisphere without language? Can you teach someone
to chip fancier stone tools without talking? There is even debate on
whether skeletal remains can demonstrate that the vocal apparatus was
present in earlier hominids; it is not there in apes.
What behavior can we attribute to Neanderthals from
the archaeological remains? Mousterian tools of the Middle
Paleolithic were made on flint flakes; they were scrapers and gravers
and many other types, including triangular, unifacial points. Deliberate
burials are known, possible evidence for cannibalism, and many features
that are interpreted as “ceremonial,” often including deposits
of cave bear bones or other items.
What evidence is known from Shanidar Cave? This famous site in Iraq produced, among other things, a Neanderthal skeleton of an older adult male who had been severely disabled from birth yet apparently cared for within his society. Another burial had pollen from plants in different kinds of environments, suggesting the placement of flowers over the dead. This has been disputed lately too, however.
What evidence is known from the Klasies River Mouth caves? These South African
coastal caves have a record dating from 120,000 to 60,000 years old, with flake
tools from the Middle Stone Age (Africa uses this terminology instead of Paleolithic)
and fancier blade and other tools from the Late Stone Age (equivalent of Upper
Paleolithic; see pictures p. 104), as well as remains of terrestrial mammals
and marine foods. There is disputed evidence for cannibalism and for use of
plant foods around hearths. Modern-looking human skeletal remains appear very
early here, about 100,000 years ago.
What major archaeological characteristics are present in the Upper Paleolithic? We can characterize this time period, from perhaps 50,000 years ago to a little over 10,000 years ago, by its sophisticated blade tools and also artifacts of bone, antler, and ivory that are very standardized and diverse. The artifact typologies were established mostly in the south of France, where many caves and rock shelters were excavated over the past century.
Also this is the time of the earliest widespread art,
both on rock walls and as portable items. Was there no art in the Middle
Paleolithic? Did Neanderthals have the concept of art? There are a few
engraved bones and now the newest, oldest find from a South African
cave, dated to 77,000 years old so in the Middle Stone Age, is some
stones with crisscross lines engraved in them, associated with finely
carved bone tools and fishing gear (Blombos Cave finds, Jan 2002, in
the news and online; also in Henshilwood et al. 2002). Is this doodling?
Mapmaking? Evidence of complex thinking or esthetics? No way to tell.
What hominid made this? Again, we do not know. But in the Upper Paleolithic
there is what has been called an explosion of art of many kinds.
What is Upper Paleolithic stationary art or parietal or mural art? Engravings and/or paintings on cave walls, usually in the forms of animals, abstract lines, and sometimes people. What is portable art? The stone or fired clay figurines in the forms of animals and people. The best known examples of each are found in Europe (where, again, we have the longest history of archaeological investigation, though not necessarily the earliest or best archaeology!). Where is Lascaux cave, and what is in it? In the southwest of France, it is famous for painted animals, and there are many other such caves in this region discussed in your book. Where is Dolni Vestonice? In the Czech Republic, it has produced interesting evidence of portable art. Besides the representation of the asymmetrical human face buried near a skeleton of a woman who would have had such a face, the site has also produced thousands of fired clay figurines of animals and women.
What is the meaning of Upper Paleolithic art? What
are the subjects of the depictions? Are they just art for art’s
sake or more likely symbolic of some ceremonial traditions? A traditional,
simple answer is that the animals are the important species hunted and
the women, both engraved on rock walls and as figurines, were fertility
symbols. But let’s look again at the animals. Even Lascaux had
a bird figure and others that may not be food species. Two new caves
discovered in the 1990s are Chauvet and Cosquer, shown on the map, p.
129 in the book, but not discussed. Chauvet depicts many rhinos and
lions and may date as early as 35,000 years ago, older than all the
others. Cosquer is an underwater cave with pictures of fish, penguins,
and jellyfish! Portrayals of humans are not always female—see
the excited man next to the bird from Lascaux, p. 133. Figurines are
not always of women, and even those that are women are not always heavy
or pregnant-looking bodies. Many are slim women, many are not clearly
women, and we have absolutely no way of testing the hypothesis that
they are fertility figurines.
What alternative explanations could you suggest for these “Venus” figurines? (Why are they named that?). They could be pictures of your mom that you kept with you, or Paleolithic Barbie dolls, or general goddess figures. One clue that has yet to be interpreted is that the figurines from Dolni Vestonice, which appeared to have shattered during firing of the clay, were found by experimental archaeology replication techniques to have been deliberately shattered. They had to go through several manufacturing steps to get them to shatter that way.
What other evidence tells us about Upper Paleolithic
lifestyles? Clearly people were hunting, butchering, and cooking food.
The Pincevent site has many living floors with hearths, an area where
the flintknapper apparently worked, and suggestions of a tent-type shelter.
Binford disputes the indications of a tent shelter based on his ethnoarchaeological
work with Nunamiut Eskimo, who moved around an open fire on windy days.
Arcs of debris around the hearths could be deposited as people moved
around and do not necessarily indicate there was a circular floor inside
a shelter.
How far did people go during the Upper Paleolithic? The earliest people in Australia and in the “New World,” North and South America, arrived during the Upper Paleolithic. How did they get there? Walk or take the boat.
Australia has archaeological evidence dating back at least 40,000 years, and it was an island then, so it required knowledge of boats to cross some 100 km of water. Coastal and inland forager sites and rock art are common here as well. People were still hunting and gathering, with no development of agriculture, when Western culture “discovered” Australia (in the person of Captain Cook). Does this mean that there was no culture change since the Pleistocene? No, of course not. There is always culture change. The direction, speed, and characteristics of change are different from place to place, however.
People reached North America at least 13,000 years ago and maybe much earlier; we will discuss this when we return to the North and South American archaeology sections later in the class.
What does the archaeology of the Mesolithic look like? What environmental changes might be tied to culture change? The end of the Ice Age began around 10,000 years ago, or 8000 B.C. (“before Christ,” which can also be written B.C.E., before the common era, or 10,000 B.P., before the present; what values are expressed in different ways of writing dates?). Was the extinction of the Pleistocene megafauna at this time due only to climate change? Probably humans helped along the extinctions of various species, as we do today. Archaeological evidence from Pacific islands shows clearly that shortly after humans arrive, just a couple centuries, the largest game animals, whatever they are (usually large terrestrial birds) disappear from the middens because they have already been hunted to extinction. Is there some lesson here for us today?
So what did people eat during the Mesolithic? Modern fauna were hunted after about 8000 B.C., the spectacular cave art apparently disappears, and different distinctive regional traditions emerge around the world. The New World time period equivalent to the Mesolithic is the Archaic. During this time it appears that hunter-gatherer peoples expanded the diversity of species that they used and exploited smaller regions more intensively. There are more plant remains in general, but that may just be from better preservation, not necessarily an indication that Paleolithic meat-eaters were now getting a different diet with more fruits and vegetables! Similarly, the higher number of coastal sites does not necessarily mean a sudden change toward favoring saltwater fish and clams, but results from the elimination of earlier coastal evidence under rising postglacial sea levels. In addition, the rising water backed up river mouths to create estuaries and bays, much like we have in the Tampa area, with more environmental niches and thus more diverse species available to collect. Many shell midden sites appear during this time period. These are ancient trash piles with animal bone and plant remains and shells left from harvesting various molluscs or gastropods; the shell makes the sites more visible and easier to find.
What is the evidence for postglacial foragers in the Old World? In Ireland,
for example, there was no Paleolithic occupation because it was under
or too near the ice (go back to map, p. 76). By 7,000 years ago, people
had arrived. The Mount Sandel site shows
posthole patterns of round, possibly sod-covered huts, with animal bone
and seeds and other plant remains that suggest year-round occupation
of this favorable coastal location. Page 165 shows a very nice frequency
seriation chart of what species were available at what times of year,
indicating that there was always something that could be harvested from
the wild resource base. This is an important aspect of the Mesolithic/Archaic—that
sedentism is becoming possible, often in coastal locations.
What subsistence and ceremonial materials were found at Vedbaek site in Denmark? Another nice diagram (p. 169), this time a cross section of the coastal landscape, shows the range of species from land, water, and air that were utilized at camps in this region, according to the faunal remains. The Mesolithic cemetery dated to 4800 B.C. included many graves with decorative items and things we can interpret possibly as giving social and ceremonial information. The man’s skeleton with a bone point in the throat, accompanied by skeletons of a woman and child, p. 161, are described as evidence for nuclear families. The child burial on the wing of a swan next to an adult woman’s skeleton is interpreted as a mother and child. What could the swan wing symbolize? Belief of the flight of the soul up to heaven, or just a soft baby bed? Can we assume these family relationships? How could we test these very Western assumptions? DNA studies might at least give genetic family data, but if the child was adopted, they would not!
How was subsistence and seasonality interpreted and tested at Elands Bay Cave in South Africa? Interpretation of inland and coastal hunter-gatherer sites discovered during a large survey suggested to the researcher that people established a pattern of transhumance, moving across the landscape annually to take advantage of available resources. Both faunal assemblages of animals available only during certain times of the year and stone tool assemblages with different diagnostic artifacts suggested that people wintered on the coast and moved inland during the summer. But bone chemistry studies did not show any marine diet in the carbon isotopes of their skeletons, providing negative support for the model. A frequency seriation chart (p. 176) nicely shows the change through time in the faunal assemblage at the site, with more fur seals and smaller bovids (horned terrestrial mammals such as antelope and cow) through time.
What notable characteristics mark the Jomon culture? Dating from 10,000 to 300 B.C., Jomon sites in eastern Japan have similar evidence of terrestrial hunting and coastal gathering and fishing, with elaborate gear including net weights and floats, harpoons, fishhooks, and dugout canoes. There is also evidence of early plant cultivation and much wild plant gathering, as judged from the various species recovered archaeologically and also the mortars, pestles, and other grinding stones and chipped stone hoes. There are circular house patterns and faunal evidence of year-round settlement on the coast. The earliest pottery known so far appears in Jomon. Remember that the technology of fired clay artifacts was known, since people made figurines in the Upper Paleolithic, perhaps 25,000 years ago. But then it disappeared until earthenware vessels appeared in Japan.