Images of the ‘Savage’

Images of the ‘Savage’

state of savagery, AD 1500

American Museum, 1993

American Museum,

1921

Neanderthals• Nearly complete skeleton in

shallow grave at la Chapelle aux Saints (found 1908) became generalized description:

• Misshapen individual: acutely curved spine from osteoarthritis, thus being bent-over or hunched; old and highly degenerated

• Hardly representative of greater (i.e., younger and healthier) population

Brutish Neanderthals

Re-Constructing a Neanderthal

Distribution of Mousterian technology in Eurasia

Levallois Technique

By late Mousterian a variety of fairly finely worked stone tools were being used by Neanderthal populations

MOUSTERIAN, 200-40kUPPER PALEOLITHIC,

90(africa)/40-12k

ACHEULEAN, to 1.5m

OLDOWAN, to 2.4m

Ceremonialism

• Evidence from burials shows that Neanderthals accommodated the sick and injured in life and treated the dead with honor and ritual

Grave goods?

Artist’s impression of Shanidar Cave, Iraq

Neanderthal flute? (50k)

Neanderthal Welfare

• Also, sites like Shanidar cave, Iraq, where this old man whose skull was crushed, was carefully laid to rest, shows great caring for dead; evidence of blind and maimed individual

• Likewise, some living individuals were in very bad physical condition requiring care by others: La Chapelle

Neanderthal Pre-Neanderthal

Late Pleistocene Greece

A. Replacement (“Out of Africa”): no hybridization(anatomically modern humans in green)

B. Replacement and Hybridization

C. Assimilation

D. Multi-regional

A CB D

Neanderthals in southern Spainto 31-28 K

Lagar Velho, Portugal (1998); 25k, 4 year old, Homo sapiens/Homo neandertalensis transition?

DNA

Supports suggestion of Neanderthal as separate species

20

40

70

120

06/12/03

Herto, Ethiopia (160k)(Group 2: transitional modern H. sapiens)

Middle Stone Age: 250-125 k

Cranial Features of Anatomically Modern Humans

• Cranial capacity: 1350 cc• Vertical frontal bone (forehead)• High, parallel walled cranial vault• Rounded occiptal region (lacking occiptal

torus)• Non-continuous brow ridge• Flat, non-projecting face• chin

Post-100,000 Behavior(H. sapiens)

• Increased diversity and standardization• More rapid change in artifacts• Organic material culture• Jewelry and carvings• Figurative and non-figurative art• Clear organization of space (dwellings and elaborate hearths)• Long-distance transport of lithic raw materials• Broad-spectrum economies• Storage• Large mammal hunting• Occupation of more difficult environments• Growth in population density

Some aspects of advanced technology, such as worked blades,

typically associated with later Upper Paleolithic (H. sapiens

sapiens) groups are present in Middle Stone Age in Africa)

Klasies River Mouth (KRM), Border Cave, Howieson’s Poort

Stone tools from the MSA Howiesons Poort levels at Klasies River (South Africa) dated to ca. 65,000 B.P., showing closely similar forms of blades, end scrapers, burins, and small, hafted segment forms to those found in European and Asian Upper Palaeolithic sites from ca. 45,000 B.P. onwards

PNAS June 20, 2006 vol. 103 no. 25 9381-9386

Border cave Klasies River Mouth

Howieson’s Poort

Middle Stone Age, Southern Africa(Group 3; Anatomically modern H. sapiens)

Blombos

Blombos Cave, South Africa, 75k

Shell ornaments

Incised ocher, bone tools, stone projectile points

MSA: Bone technology• Bone points from MSA

deposits at Blombos Cave (a), Peers Cave (b), Sibudu Cave (c) and Klasies River (d);

• Later Stone Age layers at Rose Cottage Cave (e) and Jubilee Shelter (f), and an Iron Age occupation at Mapungubwe (g)

MSA Iron AgeLSA

Katanda, Democratic Republic of Congo (110-80 k)

Kung arrow points, 20th century

Broad spectrum diet, including terrestrial and marine mammals, fish, shell-fish, and reptiles

Clear evidence of hearths

Blade technology and projectile points

Art and ritual objects

Radiocarbon Dating

• Predictable radioactive decay to nitrogen of unstable C14 isotope (half-life: 5730 years)

• Developed by Willard Libby (≈1950)• Most common dating method (post-40,000)• Accelerator Mass Spectometry (AMS) dating • Calibration (C14 production in the atmosphere

changes through time)• Dates come as a statistical estimate: 1000 ± 100 BP

(1 Sigma (68% probability) = 900-1100 BP;2 Sigma (95% probability = 800-1200 BP)

EUROPEAN UPPER PALEOLITHIC

Aurignacian (40-29 K)Gravettian (29-21 K)Solutrian (21-19 K)

Magdalenian (19-12K)

Broad Spectrum EconomyMore Settled Life

CommunityReligion

Complex ToolsCold Weather

ClothingShelter

Art

Burial discovered by workmen in 1868 at Cro-Magnon (30K), in the village of Les Eyzies in France.

Middle to Upper Paleolithic Transition (55-35k)

• Aurignacian (after 40K)

• Aurignac Rockshelter, Pyrenees, France

Sunghir, Aurignacian, near Moscow, 30k

Mezir, Ukraine, 30-25K BP

Siberia, 10k

Elephant Hunters?

Grotte du Lazaret (France), 186-127 K

Terra Amata (France), 200-400 K

Early Dwellings

Magdalenian Structure

Reconstruction at UpperPaleolithic Site in

Dordogne region, France

Dolní Věstonice, Czech Republic (27-23 K)

Dolní Věstonice

Art and Clothes (Perishables)

ROCKART

Art and personal adornment probably quite old, but blossoms in the Upper Paleolithic

Art shows much about society:

Shamanism and Ritual (fertility)

Territory

Group Identity and Solidarity

Artistry

Deep skull, 40k

Niah cave, Sarawak

Lake Mungo (40k+)

Burial with red ocher

Boats from south-east Asia to Australia, 100km at its shortest point back then

(can’t see from coast to coast)

16,000

15,000

13,000

Meadowcroft, PA

• Strata IIA: C14 dates between 16,200 and 13,200 BP from undoubted cultural origin; (to 21,000 BP years from uncertain origin)

• Possible bark basket (19,600)• Cultural features: 26 firepits and hearths,

5 refuse and storage pits, 1 roasting pit, 1 fire floor, 1 ash/coral lens and 4 specialized activity areas

• 123 chipped stone artifacts• cut and charred fragment from a white-tailed

deer antler base ca. 16,000 years ago;bi-pointed wooden tool (spear foreshaft)

• Faunal and floral remains indicative of temperate climatic conditions

• fragment from a middle hand phalanx of a • young person (13,300 years ago)

Coastal adaptations

Tropical forestadaptation

Monte Verde, Chile (15k)

Monte Verde, 15-13 K

Clovis and Big-Game Hunting(13-12 K)

Mega-fauna extinction:

over-kill or climate

change