Scientists discover evidence of early human innovation, pushing back evolutionary timeline

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Scientists discover evidence of early human innovation, pushing back evolutionary timeline
Evidence of innovation dates to a period when humans faced an unpredictable and uncertain environment, according to three new studies

Date: March 15, 2018

Source: Smithsonian

Summary: Scientists discovered that early humans in East Africa had -- by about 320,000 years ago -- begun trading with distant groups, using color pigments and manufacturing more sophisticated tools than those of the Early Stone Age, tens of thousands of years earlier than previous evidence has shown in eastern Africa. As earthquakes remodeled the landscape and climate fluctuated between wet and dry conditions, technological and social innovation would have helped early humans survive unpredictable conditions.

Anthropologists at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and an international team of collaborators have discovered that early humans in East Africa had -- by about 320,000 years ago -- begun trading with distant groups, using color pigments and manufacturing more sophisticated tools than those of the Early Stone Age. These newly discovered activities approximately date to the oldest known fossil record of Homo sapiens and occur tens of thousands of years earlier than previous evidence has shown in eastern Africa. These behaviors, which are characteristic of humans who lived during the Middle Stone Age, replaced technologies and ways of life that had been in place for hundreds of thousands of years.

Evidence for these milestones in humans' evolutionary past comes from the Olorgesailie Basin in southern Kenya, which holds an archeological record of early human life spanning more than a million years. The new discoveries, reported in three studies published March 15 in the journal Science, indicate that these behaviors emerged during a period of tremendous environmental variability in the region. As earthquakes remodeled the landscape and climate fluctuated between wet and dry conditions, technological innovation, social exchange networks and early symbolic communication would have helped early humans survive and obtain the resources they needed despite unpredictable conditions, the scientists say.

"This change to a very sophisticated set of behaviors that involved greater mental abilities and more complex social lives may have been the leading edge that distinguished our lineage from other early humans," said Rick Potts, director of the National Museum of Natural History's Human Origins Program.

Potts has been leading the Human Origin Program's research in Olorgesailie for more than 30 years in collaboration with the National Museums of Kenya. He is the lead author on one of the three Science publications that describe the adaptive challenges that early humans faced during this phase of evolution. Alison Brooks, a professor of anthropology at George Washington University's Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology and an associate of the museum's Human Origins Program, is lead author on the paper that focuses on the evidence of early resource exchange and use of coloring materials in the Olorgesailie Basin. A third paper, by Alan Deino at the Berkeley Geochronology Center and colleagues, details the chronology of the Middle Stone Age discoveries.

Continues...

[OlegTheBatty]

There you have it. Neanderthals became extinct when H. sapiens invented tariffs, making the N's products less competitive. Take that, protectionists!

[Matthew Ellard]

I have a problem with the word "trading" to explain how technologies were moving between different Neanderthal troops (tribes) 320,000 years ago. I can't see how anyone can conclude it was trading rather than pillaging or just plain killing and taking. during inter tribal warfare.

Then again, I'm wondering about genetic diversity and dowry. Perhaps tools did get handed over with daughters. Perhaps dowry is an innate thing to allow for genetic diversity.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Perhaps it was easier to trade than to make war.

[Matthew Ellard]

Perhaps it was easier to trade than to make war.

I'm not 100% sure what I'm claiming.

I'm sitting and thinking about other ways technologies would get transferred between Neanderthal tribes.

My gut feeling is that neanderthal tribes had to exchange sons and daughters with other tribes to keep up genetic diversity and perhaps this is the simple answer. Basically were are talking about knaping stone tools and weaving leaf baskets to carry things. It's not like passing across a complex cooking recipe.

That's my current gut feeling, which may be 100% wrong.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Trading wives with other tribes is still the practice in some societies today.

[TJrandom]

Trading wives with other tribes is still the practice in some societies today.

Erm... trading husbands, no? I mean, just look at Trump... loaned out while wifey was having a child. Waste not want not....

[salomed]

I have a problem with the word "trading" to explain how technologies were moving between different Neanderthal troops (tribes) 320,000 years ago. I can't see how anyone can conclude it was trading rather than pillaging or just plain killing and taking. during inter tribal warfare.

By finding comparable distributions of relevant traded goods in the archeological records of the relevant trading partners, at comparable times in the past.

[Matthew Ellard]

By finding comparable distributions of relevant traded goods in the archeological records of the relevant trading partners, at comparable times in the past.

Salomed? Can you tell us what things were being exchanged to allow "trade" 320,000 year ago?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It's not impossible. We've found seashells well away from the coasts. PRETTY! is a tradable commodity.

[Matthew Ellard]

It's not impossible. We've found seashells well away from the coasts. PRETTY! is a tradable commodity.

I'm fine with that.

I'm just saying that a distant tribe adopting another tribe's method of knapping stone tools, may as well be members of the tribe leaving and taking the knowledge with them to the next tribe. Tribes with existing alpha males, do have leaving members.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It's not impossible. We've found seashells well away from the coasts. PRETTY! is a tradable commodity.

I'm fine with that.

I'm just saying that a distant tribe adopting another tribe's method of knapping stone tools, may as well be members of the tribe leaving and taking the knowledge with them to the next tribe. Tribes with existing alpha males, do have leaving members.

And "humans" were knowledge buckets. You could trade a flint knapper for a fletcher, or an expert at fish traps for a kid who had leather tanning down pat.

[Gord]

I'm sitting and thinking about other ways technologies would get transferred between Neanderthal tribes.

[TJrandom]

It's not impossible. We've found seashells well away from the coasts. PRETTY! is a tradable commodity.

Is there any landmass that wasn’t under water at some prior time?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It's not impossible. We've found seashells well away from the coasts. PRETTY! is a tradable commodity.

Is there any landmass that wasn’t under water at some prior time?

Eh?

Oh.

Seashells that are fresh look substantially different from ones that have been in the ground for as long as you've been alive.

[TJrandom]

It's not impossible. We've found seashells well away from the coasts. PRETTY! is a tradable commodity.

Is there any landmass that wasn’t under water at some prior time?

Eh?

Oh.

Seashells that are fresh look substantially different from ones that have been in the ground for as long as you've been alive.

Yea, I knew that - having retrieved shells in ocean sediment on mountain road cuts... I was just throwing out {!#%@}...

[salomed]

By finding comparable distributions of relevant traded goods in the archeological records of the relevant trading partners, at comparable times in the past.

Salomed? Can you tell us what things were being exchanged to allow "trade" 320,000 year ago?

Shells?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

And information. "Show me how you sewed that coat together so neatly and I'll get Ugg to show you how to build a fish trap."

[scrmbldggs]

Such a short time from pointy stick to USB stick...

[Gord]

Such a short time from pointy stick to USB stick...

Ohhhh, is THAT what's wrong with JO#s' computer!

[scrmbldggs]

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Excerpt:

Skilled female artisans

In traditional societies it is usually women who are in charge of the pottery craft and it is also common for women to relocate upon marriage. Corded Ware burials show that females were more likely to receive pottery as burial gifts, and analyses from European cemeteries show that the women were more likely to relocate during their lifetime.

It is likely that the first Corded Ware Culture artisans to arrive at the Fenno-Baltic and Swedish coasts were women who had learned their craft at their place of birth. They would have begun to use the clay available at their new home, but they mixed it with crushed pieces of pottery they had brought with them. Perhaps this was a way to preserve the older pottery which had been made in their previous homelands, thus maintaining a symbolic connection to their families and the members of their former communities in their everyday lives.

The study posits that skilled female artisans arrived in Sweden particularly from Estonia and Finland, as both the geochemical origin and cultural links of the imported pottery indicates a connection to the region. Cultural similarities in turn link the first Corded Ware communities in Finland and Estonia to the eastern part of the Bay of Finland, present day Russia.

The exchange network also suggests that even during the Stone Age, the Baltic Sea was less an obstacle and more a connection between communities, attaching Finland to a broader European culture