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paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

Russia

  • Mailbag: Science coverage of Denisova news

    Fri, 2011-08-26 16:33 -- John Hawks

    Dear Dr. Hawks,

    In case you don't already know, the current issue of Science has 2 articles on the Denisovans:

    Who Were the Denisovans?
    http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6046/1084.summary

    A Denisovan Legacy in the Immune System?
    http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6046/1086.summary

    Also, their podcast discusses what is covered in the issue:
    http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6046/1167.2.summary

    Have a wonderful night!

    You'll see I make a brief appearance in the article, and I'll be writing more about the site and my trip there in the next few weeks. Hope everything's going well with you!

    Tags: 
    mailbag
    Denisova
    Hawks sightings
    meetings
    Russia
    immune

  • Neandertals of the North

    Fri, 2011-05-13 10:42 -- John Hawks

    Ludovic Slimak and colleagues [1] this week argue that Byzovaya, a site in the Russian far north, was produced by Neandertals.

    If true, this is very newsworthy. It would be the highest-latitude Neandertal site, one that would clearly have required an effective adaptation to continental cold. The reported dates would place Byzovaya among the latest Neandertal sites -- showing that these people persisted longest not only the extreme south of their range but also in the far north. Such a finding would pretty much overturn two decades of literature on how and why the Neandertals disappeared.

    I really don't see many reasons to doubt the results, except to note that the conclusions must be limited to the quality of the data. Most important, there are no skeletal remains, so we have to depend on the assumption that Mousterian assemblages in this late context were the product of Neandertals. So far that assumption is consistent with the record in Western Europe, but we should probably be cautious nonetheless.

    Here's the abstract, which summarizes the paper admirably:

    Palaeolithic sites in Russian high latitudes have been considered as Upper Palaeolithic and thus representing an Arctic expansion of modern humans. Here we show that at Byzovaya, in the western foothills of the Polar Urals, the technological structure of the lithic assemblage makes it directly comparable with Mousterian Middle Palaeolithic industries that so far have been exclusively attributed to the Neandertal populations in Europe. Radiocarbon and optical-stimulated luminescence dates on bones and sand grains indicate that the site was occupied during a short period around 28,500 carbon-14 years before the present (about 31,000 to 34,000 calendar years ago), at the time when only Upper Palaeolithic cultures occupied lower latitudes of Eurasia. Byzovaya may thus represent a late northern refuge for Neandertals, about 1000 km north of earlier known Mousterian sites.

    I've wrote briefly about Byzovaya in 2005, as part of a discussion of Mamontovaya Kurya, a site slightly north of there ("Who colonized the European Arctic?"). As you can guess from the title of that post, the question of Neandertal occupation of extreme northern Russia was already at play. I quoted Pavlov and colleagues at the time [2]:

    The stone-working technology reflected in the Byzovaya material is similar to that of Sungir and other early Upper Palaeolithic sites of the eastern Szeletien tradition, indicating that these artefacts were manufactured by modern humans. However, whether the person who inflicted the marks on the tusk from Mamontovaya Kurya, as much as 8,000-9,000 years earlier, belonged to the same human lineage as the residents at Byzovaya and other Palaeolithic sites further to the south is more uncertain (Pavlov et al. 2001:66-67, citations omitted).

    In that 2001 paper, Pavlov and colleagues accepted Szeletian as the product of early modern humans, but I pointed out that this association depended on unjustified assumptions about the technical relation of Sungir and Szeletian sites in Central Europe. Sungir is important because it has skeletal remains, which are not Neandertal. If other sites of equivalent age had similar archaeology, we would assume they were not made by Neandertals. How much does the archaeology at Byzovaya resemble Sungir?

    In the current paper, Slimak and colleagues emphasize the differences between the Byzovaya and Sungir assemblages. The work reflects renewed excavations at Byzovaya started in 2007, now totalling more than 300 artifacts, of which 80 are typologically identifiable, the rest cores or unmodified flakes:

    None of the 313 artefacts reflects a tool production technology typical of UP cultures. Furthermore, diagnostic tools that are common in any UP industry of Eurasia such as burins, backed tools, pointed blades, or bladelets are not represented. There are 11 end-scrapers, but none of these were prepared from UP blades. Varieties of end-scrapers, prepared from flakes, are common elements in any European MP industry, known since the first Mousterian typological analysis (16). Typological tools are mainly members of the Mousterian group (16), dominated by distinctive side-scrapers made out of flakes (fig. S5, nos. 1 and 2) that are typical for MP industries (17) (fig. S6 and table S4). Six of these tools have been retouched to form a bifacial tool. Most of the bifacial tools are thick, with a plano-convex section: one face shaped by large flakes and the opposite face formed by a semi-abrupt retouch. This way of shaping has been used for producing so-called Keilmesser tools (plano-convex and backed bifacial tools, Fig. 3, no. 1), which are considered to be specific artefacts of some archetypical MP industries of Central and Eastern Europe (18–20). Two of the bifacial tools from Byzovaya present a thin regular transformation of their faces that illustrates the technological similarities between this industry and the Eastern European MP (18, 19), where the so-called Blattspitzen (short foliate) tools occur frequently.

    The apparent use of a Keilmesser-like approach is interesting, this is otherwise known from late Micoquian contexts in Germany and other parts of central Europe. It does seem to hang together as a technical package, involving a distinctive pattern of retouch on bifaces by flake removal from flat surfaces. The authors argue that the technology at Byzovaya is "technically homogeneous" with diagnostic features of central and eastern European Middle Paleolithic; this is supported by their data but it is worth noting that only 5 of the tools show these links -- the larger signature is the lack of anything that could belong only to an Upper Paleolithic context. The authors deal in a paragraph with the alternative hypotheses that raw material or the indended use (expedient butchery) may have limited the toolkit, concluding not. So it's Mousterian, likely similar to the kind found in Eastern Europe but quite a bit later in time.

    (as an aside, I will point out that I have written quite a bit about the early Upper Paleolithic of the Russian Plain, many of the sites are discussed in this paper. For example, my post on Kostenki: "The initial Upper Paleolithic at Kostenki", which links to others.)

    The news aspect of the story -- the reason it's in Science -- is the date. Several radiocarbon dates on fauna, including cutmarked bone and ivory, cluster around 28,500 years BP, which calibrates to between 31,300 and 34,500 years ago. This range of dates is also confirmed by OSL on sand grains. If Neandertals made this site (and if we admit some doubt about later dates for Mousterian sites in Spain) Byzovaya could have been made by the latest Neandertals anywhere in the world.

    A site near the Arctic Circle is totally the opposite of where we've been finding other late Mousterian occupations. Up to now, the latest Neandertals apparently had lived in Iberia, sites not quite as late are found in France, Italy, Croatia, and the Caucasus. Those places are all in the southern tier of Europe, leading many archaeologists to conclude that the Neandertals couldn't cope with the deteriorating climate of the Heinrich IV event. With better-tailored clothing and a more complex logistical strategy, Upper Paleolithic people seemed to have had a better cultural strategy to handle the truly cold steppes of periglacial Europe. Neandertals were increasingly limited to areas with the mixed patches of forest that they favored, an ecology that was shrinking after 45,000 years ago.

    Toss that hypothesis out the window. And close it, it's cold out there!

    Oh, well I guess I don't really think this paper alone disposes so neatly of the lingering Neandertal sauna hypothesis. But it should inspire us to think of an alternative. I like that, no neat tidy package.

    But this paper has a glaring problem, as I see it: Somebody was at Mamontovaya Kurya, more than 100 km north of Byzovaya, more than 5,000 years earlier. But the paper doesn't discuss Mamontovaya Kurya at all! The paper discusses earlier sites far to the south, but not the one that's closest. If there is a Neandertal persistence in the Russian Arctic, surely these two nearby sites must both represent that population. Are the toolkits similar? Are these the same people? Why is there no discussion of it? Do Science papers no longer have to cite Nature papers? Isn't this the obvious comparison?

    Frustrating it is.

    Pavlov and colleagues wrote that the Mamontovaya Kurya and Byzovaya assemblages were quite different. But at that time (2001), they also wrote that Byzovaya was similar to Sungir. Here, Sungir and Byzovaya are depicted as very different. There are only 313 artifacts here. This is my frustration with archaeologists: too much depends on a typological assessment, the details of which are underreported in many publications.

    How sure can we be that the apparent technical connections with Eastern and Central European Micoquian are real, sustained cultural traditions? In light of the rapid cultural shifts further to the south, probably we should doubt such a persistence or at least provide some mechanism for it.

    What does this signify about the radiocarbon story?

    Of course, my other frustration of late has been the problems of radiocarbon chronology. Just this week, I wrote about a paper that questioned the persistence of Neandertals after 40,000 years ago anywhere in Europe. Now, here's a paper that posits Neandertals in an entirely unexpected part of Europe less than 35,000 years ago. What gives?

    As I noted on Tuesday, one of the sticking points is that some archaeologists insist on dating human bone because of the doubt that always accompanies mere associations by level. Only a few sites have Neandertal or non-Neandertal skeletal material, but many, many sites have been dated and have archaeology that is typologically diagnostic -- Mousterian, Châtelperronian, Aurignacian or whatever. Many archaeologists are happy to assume that a Mousterian site was made by Neandertals, an Aurignacian site by modern humans. Transitional (Châtelperronian, Uluzzian, Szeletian) sites have always raised more objections, as does early Aurignacian for many because of the lack of skeletal associations.

    From the current paper, you can see the assumption and its effects:

    Most researchers agree that classical Mousterian industries in Europe were exclusively produced by Neandertals (30, 31). However, whether Byzovaya represents a Neandertal site or not cannot be demonstrated beyond doubt until human bones or DNA are found. If the Byzovaya artefacts were struck by modern humans, this would have major implications for understanding the MP-UP transition, as it would imply that these Arctic H. sapiens groups preserved older, traditional MP cultures far after the full expansion of UP modern societies in the rest of Eurasia.

    Oh, yes. That would be interesting, wouldn't it? I don't want to reduce the dichotomy but to multiply it. There weren't only two populations, a single group of Neandertals and a single group of early Upper Paleolithic non-Neandertals -- there were many successive populations of both. The Russian Plain was probably covered by different modern human populations at different times, possibly none of whom were very closely related to today's Europeans.

    If the population history of Europe during the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition is demographically complex, I think we should be more skeptical about the association of stone assemblages. We should probably insist even more strongly on dates from human skeletal material. But we should be less certain of the affinities of the skeletal materials themselves -- which are rarely complete. As we know from Les Rois, a few Neandertal traits will not allow a satisfactory diagnosis of partial remains.

    At the moment, the dispute about radiocarbon dates of Neandertals is quite simple. It is not about Neandertals, really; it's about the quality of evidence associating Neandertals with dates, which must (at present) go through the two indirect steps: Associating fragments with populations, and associating populations with tool assemblages. Some researchers leap through these two steps, others take them more cautiously, a few won't take them at all. And that's not going to change soon.

    References

    1. Slimak L, Svendsen JI, Mangerud J, Plisson H, Heggen HP, Brugère A, and Pavlov PY. 2011. Late Mousterian Persistence near the Arctic Circle. Science [Internet] 332:841–845. Available from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1203866
    2. Pavlov P, Svendsen JI, and Indrelid S. 2001. Human Presence in the {European} {Arctic} Nearly 40,000 Years Ago. Nature 413:64–67.
    Tags: 
    Russia
    Neandertals
    Upper Paleolithic
    Micoquian
    Europe
    Arctic
    Szeletian
    Mousterian
    Synopsis: 
    A late Mousterian site near the Arctic circle suggests that Neandertals may have persisted in the far North. But the story may have some holes.

  • An earlier initial Upper Paleolithic at Kostenki

    Wed, 2007-01-17 06:00 -- John Hawks

    A paper by Anikovich and colleagues in Science describes revisions to the Upper Paleolithic chronology of Kostenki, Russia.

    Here's what I think about this paper:

    1. The issue of redating for the Kostenki chronology is covered better in a Quaternary International paper by Sinitsyn and Hoffecker last year. This new paper in Science basically takes that earlier paper and cuts out most of the details -- both for and against their preferred chronology. The new elements are all hidden away in the supplementary information, but they only include a new stratigraphic description and a series of OSL dates.

    2. If you know a little about Kostenki, the magnitude of the redating -- around 10,000 years earlier -- may be surprising. If you don't know anything about Kostenki, well, consider that Kostenki is not a site, but a village with around 20 separate Paleolithic localities around it. Many of these localities already have long series of radiocarbon dates, so that the chronology of the entire array of localities has been based on hundreds of radiocarbon dates. This paper isn't discarding all those dates, but it is proposing that the older ones should be recalibrated much earlier, and that still doesn't make them old enough to match the OSL and other kinds of dates.

    If you know a lot about Kostenki, then there's no surprise here; the earlier dates follow directly from accepting that the ash layer is actually 40,000 instead of much younger. That has been known for a few years. It's really not very novel.

    It is interesting that much of the way toward the older date on the radiocarbon dates comes from calibrating them. I've written about the problems of radiocarbon calibrations before; this paper doesn't mention them. The calibration here is enough to make a 37,000 14C date into a 42,000 year calibrated date.

    3. The paper says this about the initial Upper Paleolithic at Kostenki:

    The artifact assemblages below the CI tephra do not represent an Upper Paleolithic industry that is "transitional" from the local Middle Paleolithic, but rather an abrupt departure from the latter. Prismatic blade technology is predominant and Middle Paleolithic artifact types are rare. Most of the stone used for artifact production was imported 100 to 150 km from its sources (9), and the perforated shells (Columbellidae) in the lowermost level at Kostenki 14 (Fig. 4G) apparently are derived from a source no closer than the Black Sea (i.e., transported >500 km) (8). Other raw materials include bone, antler, and ivory. Most noteworthy is the carved ivory piece that may represent an example of figurative art. Novel technologies include the rotary drill and - by implication - devices for harvesting small game (26). Although taxonomic assignment of the associated human teeth is tentative, the contents of this Upper Paleolithic industry suggest that it was probably manufactured by modern humans.

    Deposits below the CI tephra at Kostenki also yielded several artifact assemblages that primarily contain typical Middle Paleolithic tool forms (e.g., side-scrapers, bifaces) manufactured on flakes (7). They lack imported raw materials, bone-antler-ivory artifacts, and art. The faunal remains are confined to large mammals (30). These assemblages, which are assigned to the local Strelets culture, are analogous to the "transitional" Upper Paleolithic industries of western and central Europe (especially the Szeletian), at least some of which apparently were produced by local Neandertals (1, 26). The Strelets artifacts are not associated with any human skeletal remains and their makers are unknown. They may represent an activity variant of the other Kostenki industry (i.e., probably produced by modern humans) related to the butchering of large mammals. Younger Strelets assemblages are found above the CI tephra (7, 12) (Anikovich et al. 2007:225).

    Of course, these paragraphs directly contradict each other. If the assemblages below the ash layer are an "abrupt departure" from the Middle Paleolithic, then they shouldn't "primarily contain typical Middle Paleolithic tool forms."

    The resolution of this contradiction is that there are two distinct industries represented, one at Kostenki 14/IVb, and one at Kostenki 12/III. And as discussed by Vishnyatsky and Nehoroshev (2004), the Kostenki 14/IVb assemblage may represent something different than the "advanced" industry from Kostenki 17/III and possibly Kostenki 12/II.

    There may be a reason for the current paper to gloss over these distinctions (even omitting names for the industries, Streletskian and Spitsynian) -- there is currently no reason to think one of them is older than the other. Anikovich and colleagues suggest they may be different use facies of a single industry. The weakness of this explanation may be the long duration of the Streletskian (the one with Middle Paleolithic elements); it would seem to render the more "advanced" boneworking and ornament-making industries as apparently more ephemeral and special-use, because they are not found as widely or as long. Whether elements of them may be mixed together in different proportions at different sites is a good question that somebody should examine -- an increased emphasis of ornaments and bone in the later Streletskian may signal this.

    At present, there is not really any convincing case for an intrusive origin of the initial EUP at Kostenki. For more information, I have put together a long post on the archaeology of the initial Upper Paleolithic at Kostenki, reflecting on a paper by Vishnyatsky and Nehoroshev (2004). An earlier date makes an intrusive origin more problematic, because it greatly narrows the possible locations for such an originating population. From an archaeological perspective, it is simpler to argue that the Russian Plain itself is the origination point for the advanced boneworking industries of the initial EUP. Absent the need for a migration of prismatic core-knapping and bone carving people into the area, it is not clear whether archaeology is really telling us about the movement of modern humans into this region. I would guess that the important factor is the occupation itself; Neandertals may not have been able to use the Russian Plain effectively, as reflected by a rarity of Middle Paleolithic sites.

    4. The carved ivory "head" is not very persuasive. There is no suggestion of features. Looks like it might be some kind of toggle instead.

    5. If the initial UP at Kostenki can be redated 10,000 years earlier, and if dozens of radiocarbon dates earlier than 32,000 years can unilaterally have 5000 or more years added to them, this inspires little confidence in the existing radiocarbon chronology of Europe. Of course, we've been seeing changes in radiocarbon chronology for many years now. Still, the scale of this change is very impressive.

    If I had a very important specimen that was supported by a single radiocarbon date, I would be very nervous. Something like Vindija 80...

    References:

    Anikovich MV and 14 others. 2007. Early Upper Paleolithic in Eastern Europe and implications for the dispersal of modern humans. Science 315:223-226. doi:10.1126/science.1133376

    Sinitsyn AA, Hoffecker JF. 2006. Radiocarbon dating and chronology of the Early Upper Paleolithic at Kostenki. Quaternary International 152-153:175-185. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2005.12.007

    Vishnyatsky LB, Nehoroshev PE. 2004. The beginning of the Upper Paleolithic on the Russian Plain. Pp. 80-96 in Brantingham PJ, Kuhn SL, Kerry KW, eds, The Early Upper Paleolithic beyond Western Europe. University of California Press, Berkeley CA.

    Tags: 
    Russia
    Kostenki
    archaeology

  • An earlier initial Upper Paleolithic at Kostenki

    Wed, 2007-01-17 06:00 -- John Hawks

    A paper by Anikovich and colleagues in Science describes revisions to the Upper Paleolithic chronology of Kostenki, Russia.

    Here's what I think about this paper:

    1. The issue of redating for the Kostenki chronology is covered better in a Quaternary International paper by Sinitsyn and Hoffecker last year. This new paper in Science basically takes that earlier paper and cuts out most of the details -- both for and against their preferred chronology. The new elements are all hidden away in the supplementary information, but they only include a new stratigraphic description and a series of OSL dates.

    2. If you know a little about Kostenki, the magnitude of the redating -- around 10,000 years earlier -- may be surprising. If you don't know anything about Kostenki, well, consider that Kostenki is not a site, but a village with around 20 separate Paleolithic localities around it. Many of these localities already have long series of radiocarbon dates, so that the chronology of the entire array of localities has been based on hundreds of radiocarbon dates. This paper isn't discarding all those dates, but it is proposing that the older ones should be recalibrated much earlier, and that still doesn't make them old enough to match the OSL and other kinds of dates.

    If you know a lot about Kostenki, then there's no surprise here; the earlier dates follow directly from accepting that the ash layer is actually 40,000 instead of much younger. That has been known for a few years. It's really not very novel.

    It is interesting that much of the way toward the older date on the radiocarbon dates comes from calibrating them. I've written about the problems of radiocarbon calibrations before; this paper doesn't mention them. The calibration here is enough to make a 37,000 14C date into a 42,000 year calibrated date.

    3. The paper says this about the initial Upper Paleolithic at Kostenki:

    The artifact assemblages below the CI tephra do not represent an Upper Paleolithic industry that is "transitional" from the local Middle Paleolithic, but rather an abrupt departure from the latter. Prismatic blade technology is predominant and Middle Paleolithic artifact types are rare. Most of the stone used for artifact production was imported 100 to 150 km from its sources (9), and the perforated shells (Columbellidae) in the lowermost level at Kostenki 14 (Fig. 4G) apparently are derived from a source no closer than the Black Sea (i.e., transported >500 km) (8). Other raw materials include bone, antler, and ivory. Most noteworthy is the carved ivory piece that may represent an example of figurative art. Novel technologies include the rotary drill and - by implication - devices for harvesting small game (26). Although taxonomic assignment of the associated human teeth is tentative, the contents of this Upper Paleolithic industry suggest that it was probably manufactured by modern humans.

    Deposits below the CI tephra at Kostenki also yielded several artifact assemblages that primarily contain typical Middle Paleolithic tool forms (e.g., side-scrapers, bifaces) manufactured on flakes (7). They lack imported raw materials, bone-antler-ivory artifacts, and art. The faunal remains are confined to large mammals (30). These assemblages, which are assigned to the local Strelets culture, are analogous to the "transitional" Upper Paleolithic industries of western and central Europe (especially the Szeletian), at least some of which apparently were produced by local Neandertals (1, 26). The Strelets artifacts are not associated with any human skeletal remains and their makers are unknown. They may represent an activity variant of the other Kostenki industry (i.e., probably produced by modern humans) related to the butchering of large mammals. Younger Strelets assemblages are found above the CI tephra (7, 12) (Anikovich et al. 2007:225).

    Of course, these paragraphs directly contradict each other. If the assemblages below the ash layer are an "abrupt departure" from the Middle Paleolithic, then they shouldn't "primarily contain typical Middle Paleolithic tool forms."

    The resolution of this contradiction is that there are two distinct industries represented, one at Kostenki 14/IVb, and one at Kostenki 12/III. And as discussed by Vishnyatsky and Nehoroshev (2004), the Kostenki 14/IVb assemblage may represent something different than the "advanced" industry from Kostenki 17/III and possibly Kostenki 12/II.

    There may be a reason for the current paper to gloss over these distinctions (even omitting names for the industries, Streletskian and Spitsynian) -- there is currently no reason to think one of them is older than the other. Anikovich and colleagues suggest they may be different use facies of a single industry. The weakness of this explanation may be the long duration of the Streletskian (the one with Middle Paleolithic elements); it would seem to render the more "advanced" boneworking and ornament-making industries as apparently more ephemeral and special-use, because they are not found as widely or as long. Whether elements of them may be mixed together in different proportions at different sites is a good question that somebody should examine -- an increased emphasis of ornaments and bone in the later Streletskian may signal this.

    At present, there is not really any convincing case for an intrusive origin of the initial EUP at Kostenki. For more information, I have put together a long post on the archaeology of the initial Upper Paleolithic at Kostenki, reflecting on a paper by Vishnyatsky and Nehoroshev (2004). An earlier date makes an intrusive origin more problematic, because it greatly narrows the possible locations for such an originating population. From an archaeological perspective, it is simpler to argue that the Russian Plain itself is the origination point for the advanced boneworking industries of the initial EUP. Absent the need for a migration of prismatic core-knapping and bone carving people into the area, it is not clear whether archaeology is really telling us about the movement of modern humans into this region. I would guess that the important factor is the occupation itself; Neandertals may not have been able to use the Russian Plain effectively, as reflected by a rarity of Middle Paleolithic sites.

    4. The carved ivory "head" is not very persuasive. There is no suggestion of features. Looks like it might be some kind of toggle instead.

    5. If the initial UP at Kostenki can be redated 10,000 years earlier, and if dozens of radiocarbon dates earlier than 32,000 years can unilaterally have 5000 or more years added to them, this inspires little confidence in the existing radiocarbon chronology of Europe. Of course, we've been seeing changes in radiocarbon chronology for many years now. Still, the scale of this change is very impressive.

    If I had a very important specimen that was supported by a single radiocarbon date, I would be very nervous. Something like Vindija 80...

    References:

    Anikovich MV and 14 others. 2007. Early Upper Paleolithic in Eastern Europe and implications for the dispersal of modern humans. Science 315:223-226. doi:10.1126/science.1133376

    Sinitsyn AA, Hoffecker JF. 2006. Radiocarbon dating and chronology of the Early Upper Paleolithic at Kostenki. Quaternary International 152-153:175-185. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2005.12.007

    Vishnyatsky LB, Nehoroshev PE. 2004. The beginning of the Upper Paleolithic on the Russian Plain. Pp. 80-96 in Brantingham PJ, Kuhn SL, Kerry KW, eds, The Early Upper Paleolithic beyond Western Europe. University of California Press, Berkeley CA.

    Tags: 
    Europe
    archaeology
    Upper Paleolithic
    dating
    Kostenki
    Russia

  • The initial Upper Paleolithic at Kostenki

    Thu, 2007-01-11 23:58 -- John Hawks

    In one of those interesting twists of bibliographic fate, before today's announcement about the new dates for the initial Upper Paleolithic at Kostenki, I happened to have been reading the chapter, "The beginning of the Upper Paleolithic on the Russian Plain," by L. B. Vishnyatsky and P. E. Nehoroshev.

    I was reading it for a project that I will describe here soon.

    The question addressed by the chapters in this volume (The Early Upper Paleolithic Beyond Western Europe, edited by Brantingham, Kuhn and Kerry) is a central one for evaluating evolution and population movements in Late Pleistocene Europe: What is "the" Aurignacian, how does it compare to other varieties of initial Upper Paleolithic and earlier Middle Paleolithic industries, and what are its origins?

    Vishnyatsky and Nehoroshev address these questions with respect to the Upper Paleolithic north of the Black Sea, broadly the "Russian Plain," in present-day Russia and Ukraine. Contrary to press reports, Kostenki is not a single "site": instead there are an array of open-air sites within the Kostenki district, all of which are stratified into the terraces of the Don River. Distinct localities are labeled with an Arabic number and the "cultural layer" is given a Roman numeral, e.g., "Kostenki 12/III." These localities comprise a majority of the initial Upper Paleolithic sites on the Russian Plain, and the archaeological and the earliest occupation stages had been dated to between 39,000 and 34,000 years ago.

    Vishnyatsky and Nehoroshev put the boundary between initial and later EUP at the date represented by the "ashfall" in the Kostenki chronology. According to their sources, this ashfall was the result of volcanic activity in Italy around 32,000 years ago. One of the major changes in the new dating is this ashfall, which is now supposed to be around 40,000 years old. With this redating, the initial EUP discussed by Vishnyatsky and Nehoroshev is in fact all older than 40,000 years ago.

    The archaeological assemblages from the initial Upper Paleolithic localities fall into two apparently different traditions. Kostenki 12/III, Kostenki 6, and Kostenki 1/V, as well as several of the later localities, are Streletskian. The Streletskian also occurs at other post-32,000-year-old sites on the Russian Plain. As described by Vishnyatsky and Nehoroshev, the Streletskian includes many Middle Paleolithic elements, such as triangular bifacial points, many side scrapers, a high overall proportion of flake tools compared to few blades, and a very low proportion of prismatic cores.

    Overall, the Streletskian is characterized by many Middle Paleolithic features, which are perceptible not only in the earliest sites (Kostenki 12/III, Kostenki 6, Kostenki 1/V), but also in those postdating 32,000 ka and situated far to the north and south of Kostenki.... Bone tools and ornaments are absent from initial Upper Paleolithic Streletskian assemblages, although they are well represented in some late early Upper Paleolithic examples (e.g., Sungir) (Vishnyatsky and Nehoroshev 2004:87).

    After describing the Streletskian, which is widespread, early, long-lasting, and marked by Middle Paleolithic technical elements, Vishnyatsky and Nehoroshev turn to the other Kostenki-represented tradition, the Spitsyn:

    The Spitsyn culture, in contrast to the Streletskian, is known only from Kostenki and only from under the ash horizon [this put it older than 32,000 years ago under the old dating]. There is one definitive assemblage representing this culture (Kostenki 17/II), and one candidate assemblage (Kostenki 12/II). The stone industry of Kostenki 17/II, containing about ten thousand items, is very distinctive against the background of contemporary Streletskian sites. At the same time, it has no peculiar tool types (fossiles directeurs), which would allow us to put the search for analogies on firmer ground. As a consequence, it is difficult to demonstrate convincingly that any other assemblage should be considered Spitsynian. Unlike the Streletskian, the Spitsynian at Kostenki 17/II lacks any "archaic" features. Despite its very early age, it looks to be a full-fledged Upper Paleolithic, with prismatic cores being the only form of nuclei and blades dominating among the blanks (Vishnyatsky and Nehoroshev 2004:87).

    This passage goes on to describe other UP elements in the Spitsyn, such as retouched blades, blades made into endscrapers, burins, retouched microblades, a "few" bone tools, around 50 drilled pendants, shells and corals. They consider whether the industry is related to the Aurignacian:

    It has recently been proposed that the Spitsynian may be considered one of the oldest Aurignacoid industries in Europe (Anikovich 1999). We are inclined to agree with Sinitsyn (2000), however, who argues that the term "Aurignacian" (in any form) to describe Kostenki 17/II is unwarranted (Vishnyatsky and Nehoroshev 2004:87).

    In addition to these, Kostenki 14/IVb has a rich assemblage of worked bone tools, which are featured in the redating article. Vishnyatsky and Nehoroshev say only that it cannot be clearly assigned to either the Streletskian or Spitsynian -- it "has no parallels among contemporary sites," and is described by Sinitsyn (2000). I'll have to wait a bit to get my hands on this one, since my library doesn't subscribe to Stratum.

    Vishnyatsky and Nehoroshev describe other initial Upper Paleolithic sites, which are mostly very sparse artifact accumulations that are difficult to diagnose, as well as the early Upper Paleolithic after 32,000 years ago. Included in the latter is Sungir, with a rich Streletskian artifact assemblage including bone tools, ornaments, and portable art. This site is apparently late, after around 25,000 years, which puts it as a contemporary of more similarly complex UP examples further to the west in the Danube basin.

    Two other developments occur during the later EUP in this region. The first is the appearance of the actual Aurignacian, at a few sites, including Kostenki 1/III:

    The collection consists of more than 4,500 stone and bone items. The technology is clearly blade-oriented. Tools (about two hundred) are dominated by retouched microblades, including those with alternate retouch (i.e., dorsal retouch on one edge and ventral on the opposite edge). There are also thick (carinated) end scrapers of typical Aurignacian appearance, end scrapers on large blades with retouched edges, various burins and scaled pieces, single perforators, and small side scrapers. Split-base bone points, characteristic of many Aurignacian industries, are absent; a surprising feature, given the rich bone inventory. It includes awls, polishers, a perforated pendant made from a fox canine, and engraved ivory rods and points. Of the thirteen radiocarbon dates obtained from different labs, eight are indicative of an age around 25-26 ka, whereas two dates suggest the assemblage may be as old as 32 ka. For the time being, it is impossible to choose between these two alternative age estimates, although palynological and stratigraphic data are thought to be more consistent with the earlier date. (Sinitsyn et al. 1997:29) (Vishnyatsky and Nehoroshev 2004:90).

    Considering that these Aurignacian occurrences are late (even 32,000 is relatively late compared to the early Aurignacian), they had appeared contemporary with the later Aurignacian in central Europe, and may represent population expansion out of central Europe onto the Russian Plain. Vishnyatsky and Nehoroshev note that these Aurignacian sites are very "few in number and isolated" (90). But with the redating, Aurignacian is plausibly much earlier at Kostenki, as early as 40,000 years ago. In particular, Kostenki 14/III is apparently sealed at the ash horizon. Other Aurignacian occurrences may still be much later than this, however.

    The other development is the appearance of a tradition called "Gorodtsovian" at Kostenki, around 30,000 years ago.

    Despite their relatively late age, the Gorodtsovian, like the Streletskian, is characterized by a flake-oriented technology and contains many tools that would look more natural in the Middle Paleolithic. For example, Kostenki 14/II contains many retouched artifacts of Mousterian appearance, including diverse side scrapers, points, limaces, and knives, which altogether comprise about half of all tools (Sinitsyn 1996:282). Such tools are also well represented at Kostenki 15 and are still recognized at Kostenki 16, which is probably the latest known Gorodtsovian assemblage. In addition, all of the aforementioned sites contain diverse collections of scaled pieces and end scrapers, whereas burins and bifacially worked tools are either rare or absent. The Gorodtsov culture is famous for its bone inventory, consisting of many utilitarian and decorative objects, such as points (including one with a zoomorphic head), needles, pendants, and beads. Particularly characteristic are the so-called shovels with ornamented handles made on mammoth long bones or scapulae (Vishnyatsky and Nehoroshev 2004:89-90).

    All in all, this leads to a complex and interesting situation. There are two plausible staging areas from which either populations, genes, and information can move into Central (and ultimately Western) Europe from Asia -- either here on the Russian Plain, or south of the Black Sea via Anatolia. Here, we see that the EUP on the Russian Plain includes at least four different industries before 25,000 years ago; there is no obvious sequence, with three different variants possibly occurring in the same time interval.

    According to Vishnyatsky and Nehoroshev, the scarcity of Middle Paleolithic assemblages in the area makes it difficult to evaluate the origins of the industries with apparent technical similarities to Mousterian or other MP variants.

    The later assemblages (post-32,000 in this context) are in some cases associated with skeletal remains of modern humans (e.g., at Sungir, Kostenki 14, Kostenki 15). The initial EUP has only a couple of isolated teeth. So there is no secure biological association for either the early Streletskian, the Spitsynian, or the Kostenki 14/IVb assemblage, whatever it represents.

    Anikovich et al. (2007:225) argue that the appearance of worked bone tools represents "an intrusion of modern humans onto the central East European Plain several thousand years before their spread across western and eastern Europe." But with no apparent antecedents for this technology, it is increasingly difficult to see where these people were "intruding" from. With a date as old as 45,000 years ago or older, they surely weren't coming from the Caucasus, because there were Neandertals there then, as well as points further south. This leaves points further to the east across central Asia, or from the west out of Central Europe. But there is no evidence of UP in either of these areas early enough.

    In my view, explaining the Streletskian is the central aspect of this problem. Anikovich et al. (2007) suggest that it may be an activity variant of the more "advanced" industry (they apparently ignore any possibility of distinction between Kostenki 14/IVb and Spitsynian Kostenki 17/II). Vishnyatsky and Nihoroshev (2004) cite Anikovich et al. (1999) as suggesting that the early Streletskian assemblages are a case of "acculturation" in which indigenous people using an MP variant observed and imported elements of a more advanced intrusive UP tradition.

    After noting the lack of modern human remains in association with the early Aurignacian thorughout Europe, Vishnyatsky and Nehoroshev say this:

    But, most importantly, all the Neanderthal eaerly Upper Paleolithic cutlures seem too original to have been simply borrowed. These observations necessarily exclude acculturation as a viable mechanism of culture change for the Neanderthal early Upper Paleolithic in Europe. On the Russian Plain, not only is there no reason to associated the "advanced" Spitsynian early Upper Paleolithic with anatomically modern humans and the "archaic" Streletskian early Upper Paleolithic with archaic humans, but there is also little evidence to suggest that the Spitsynian predates the Streletskian. As in western Europe, acculturation is thus a nonviable explanation for the genesis of te early Upper Paleolithic on the Russian Plain (Vishnyatsky and Nehoroshev 2004:96).

    I think the presence of these different industries is important -- probably the best information we have about population dynamics. With respect to the origin of the "advanced" Kostenki 14/IVb or Spitsyn occurrences, it seems to me that we don't need to invoke an intrusive origin. The Russian Plain was evidently not inhabited very successfully by Neandertals, as reflected by the rarity of MP sites there. No plausible source population for non-Neandertals has similar ecological characteristics to this plain. In other words, if people came from Anatolia into the Russian Plain, they were not likely to arrive with tools that were already useful for the local ecology. To adapt successfully to this area, people had to innovate -- make new stuff. This innovation wouldn't be instantaneous, but there is no expectation that all the elements of an assemblage should have predecessors in some source population.

    That might well include replacing an ancient wood technology with bone, since wood is not easily replaced on the plains, and bone is common. The use of bone in this way could be episodic in response to climatic changes, since sometimes trees would have succeeded in river drainages like the Don, while at other times the river flow or local temperatures might eliminate many trees.

    With respect to "acculturation": I would like to see an argument clearly distinguishing "acculturation" from diffusion. Of course, it must be a type of diffusion, but all modern human material cultures have interactions with and pick up elements from their neighbors. The Streletskian may provide an interesting opportunity for comparisons considering its relatively long duration. Temporal changes are already known; how do these compare to the predictions of diffusion over time? Even similarities with earlier MP technological patterns may be relatively unsurprising, since these must to some extent represent highly stable technical patterns. If they hadn't been stable, they would not have lasted so long. A low-density population that conserves highly stable elements is in no sense surprising, no matter what its origin.

    Anyway, this gives some background about the initial Upper Paleolithic at Kostenki and why the redating of the site has some relevance to the pattern of technological change in Europe. I don't think many of the interesting questions have good answers yet. But my impression is that answers depend on the dates only to the extent that they force better explanations than mass migration.

    References:

    Vishnyatsky LB, Nehoroshev PE. 2004. The beginning of the Upper Paleolithic on the Russian Plain. Pp. 80-96 in Brantingham PJ, Kuhn SL, Kerry KW, eds, The Early Upper Paleolithic beyond Western Europe. University of California Press, Berkeley CA.

    Anikovich MV and 14 others. 2007. Early Upper Paleolithic in Eastern Europe and implications for the dispersal of modern humans. Science 315:223-226. doi:10.1126/science.1133376

    Sinitsyn AA. 2003. A Palaeolithic 'Pompeii' at Kostenki, Russia. Antiquity 77:9-14.

    Tags: 
    Neandertals
    Europe
    Russia
    Late Pleistocene
    Upper Paleolithic
    Ukraine
    archaeology

  • Who colonized the European Arctic?

    Tue, 2005-04-26 16:05 -- John Hawks

    I happened across an article by Pavlov and colleagues (2001) about the Mamontovaya Kurya site in the Russian Arctic. From the abstract (64):

    The transition from the Middle to the Upper Palaeolithic, approximately 40,000-35,000 radiocarbon years ago, marks a turning point in the history of human evolution in Europe. Many changes in the archaeological and fossil record at this time have been associated with the appearance of anatomically modern humans. Before this transition, the Neanderthals roamed the continent, but their remains have not been found in the northernmost part of Eurasia. It is generally believed that this vast region was not colonized by humans until the final stage of the last Ice Age some 13,000-14,000 years ago. Here we report the discovery of traces of human occupation nearly 40,000 years old at Mamontovaya Kurya, a Palaeolithic site situated in the European part of the Russian Arctic. At this site we have uncovered stone artefacts, animal bones and a mammoth tusk with human-made marks from strata covered by thick Quaternary deposits. This is the oldest documented evidence for human presence at this high latitude; it implies that either the Neanderthals expanded much further north than previously thought or that modern humans were present in the Arctic only a few thousand years after their first appearance in Europe.

    An interesting start, that. The archaeology includes a mammoth tusk with marks that may be the result either of deliberate incision or of chopping of other material using the tusk as an anvil. The radiocarbon date of bones and the tusk range between 34,400 and 37,400 years ago.

    There are no fossil humans at this site. The authors raise the issue of attribution, noting that the date of the site would mean that modern humans had expanded into the Arctic fringe very shortly after they appeared in Europe.

    A pressing question is whether the pioneers who lived in these northern landscapes were members of the ancient Neanderthal population (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) or newcomers from the south. Most scholars associate the Aurignacian industry -- the more advanced stone-tool technology that appeared in Europe at around 40,000 yr BP -- with the emergence of modern humans. However, the earliest indisputable remains of humans with a fully modern morphology (Homo sapiens sapiens) date to 30,000-35,000 yr BP; that is, well after the archaeologically defined transition from the Middle to the Upper Palaeolithic. In European Russia, well preserved skeletons from the famous Palaeolithic site of Sungir, northeast of Moscow (Fig. 1), show that anatomically modern humans were present there not later than 28,000 yr BP. At the Kostenki IV site on the west bank of the Don river, bones of modern humans have been uncovered from strata dated to 30,000 yr BP. The stone-working technology reflected in the Byzovaya material is similar to that of Sungir and other early Upper Palaeolithic sites of the eastern Szeletien tradition, indicating that these artefacts were manufactured by modern humans. However, whether the person who inflicted the marks on the tusk from Mamontovaya Kurya, as much as 8,000-9,000 years earlier, belonged to the same human lineage as the residents at Byzovaya and other Palaeolithic sites further to the south is more uncertain (Pavlov et al. 2001:66-67, citations omitted).

    They also relate the site extensively to the Byzovaya site in the preceding paragraph, noting the archaeology has been classified as "eastern Szeletien with Aurignacian traits" (66).

    I remembered Szeletian as a Neandertal-associated "transitional" Upper Paleolithic industry, so I went on a bit of a search to see what the story actually is. The search is not finished yet, as there are some books to consult, but the short answer is that Szeletian means different things to different archaeologists. From Churchill and Smith (2000:75, citations in original):

    Most of the various IUP [Initial Upper Paleolithic] cultures of Central and Eastern Europe that are characterized by leaf points have at one time or another been seen as regional variants of the Szeletian, a culture defined at Szeleta Cave in the Bukk Mountains of Hungary (Allsworth-Jones 1990a). Regional distinctions can be identified, however, and the possibility exists as well that the occurrence of leaf points in different regions may be the result, at least in some cases, of convergence (Allsworth-Jones 1990a). Regionally defined leaf-point cultures include the Brynzeny, the Gordineshty, and the Kostenki-Streletsian (Streletskaya) of the Russian Plain (Anikovich 1992), the Altmuhlian of southern Germany, the Jerzmanowician of eastern Germany and Poland, the Bohunician of the Czech Republic (in which leaf points are relatively rare, leading to suggestions that this industry should be considered as a development separate from the Szeletian: Svoboda 1998, 1990), and the Jankovichian (although this might be seen as a Middle Paleolithic industry with leaf points: Gabori-Csank 1990) and the Szeletian sensu stricto of Hungary (see Allsworth-Jones 1990a).

    Whoa. At a glance, it sounds like like the Szeletian is defined by leaf points in about the same way that the Aurignacian is defined by split-base bone points, and is therefore just about as unitary -- in other words, it barely hangs together. Like I said, I'm working on understanding this better, but my predilection is to step away from the names and consider the possibility that the "Szeletian" really is a constellation of behaviors weakly if at all linked, and it therefore has no necessary link to biological differences between human populations.

    The argument for the Szeletian being the product of the Neandertals is almost entirely based on the similarities between it and the earlier Micoquian industry. There are only two sites with human remains associated with Szeletian assemblages, and neither of these has been clearly shown to be Neandertal in anatomy (the sum total is four teeth from both sites) (Churchill and Smith 2000). The case for archaeological similarity, and the status of the Szeletian as a "transitional" industry, is presented by Valoch (2000):

    The situation with the Szeletian is quite different. Even though it is also likely to have been produced by the Neanderthals, the stone industry differes from the Bohunician in completely lacking a Levalloisian component. Typological and technological analyses have shown that the archaic elements of the industry are Micoquian and reflect a technological complex that was widespread in Central Europe. However, the types characteristic of the Upper Palaeolithic are carinated and nosed scrapers and carinated burins -- shapes exclusive to the Aurignacian (Allsworth-Jones 1986, 1990; Oliva 1991, 1992; Valoch et al. 1993). The only type specific to the Szeletian -- the leaf point -- has its origin in the Micoquian. The genesis of such an industry can be explained in only two ways: either it developed as a result of spontaneous substrate evolution (i.e., Micoquian), in which case the different Aurignacian types developed in parallel or almost simultaneously and quite independently of the Aurignacian proper, or the Aurignacian had a share in the formation of the industry through some form of contact with the Micoquian. No other explanation appears viable today, although future studies may produce new information (Valoch 2000:625).

    The argument for the eastern Szeletian being the product of modern humans apparently comes from the association with the remains at Sungir. Since these apparently are not necessarily the same cultural tradition as other Szeletian sites (despite the shared name), there seems not to be a conflict.

    The implication that the far northern tier of Eurasia was occupied very early by modern humans is another piece of evidence consistent with the idea that the first modern Europeans came from the far north. This hypothesis proposes that the features that people spread into the Palearctic as a rather specialized adaptation, and may have exploited a niche available to highly mobile, long-limbed, and culturally sophisticated people. Ultimately, the eastern extreme of this population may have moved into Beringia and further to the New World.

    A list of online resources related to the topic of Paleolithic occupation of the circumarctic is maintained at WorkingDogWeb, which I assume is related because of dogsleds?

    References:

    Churchill SE, Smith FH. 2000. Makers of the Early Aurignacian of Europe. Yearbk Phys Anthropol 43:61-115. Wiley InterScience

    Pavlov P, Svendsen JI, Indrelid S. 2001. Human presence in the European Arctic nearly 40,000 years ago. Nature 413:64-77. Nature

    Valoch K. 2000. More on the question of Neanderthal acculturation in Central Europe. Curr Anthropol 41:625.

    Tags: 
    Upper Paleolithic
    Neandertals
    Szeletian
    Arctic
    Europe
    Russia
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