Paleoanthropology

Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar (1922-1990), a spiritual guru (also known as Shrii Shrii Anandamurti) and social philosopher, describes remarkable previously unknown facts about the evolution of the earth and human civilization, and the birthplace of the first human beings in Ráŕh, an ancient area of India. This spoken discourse “Geology and Human Civilization” was given in Anandanagar, India on 28 December 1987.  –  Richard Gauthier, Department of Chemistry and Physics, Santa Rosa Junior College, Santa Rosa, California, USA, September 13, 2020.

azı durumlarda insan ve hayvan kemikleri birbirine kolaylıkla karıştırılabil-mektedir, yapılacak bu hatayı önlemek için osteoloji bilgisine sahip kişilerin karar vermesi gerekmektedir. Ülkemizde Antropoloji bölümlerinde hem insan hem de hayvan osteolojisi dersleri verilmektedir. Hayvan osteolojisi üzerine çalışma yapan birçok araştırmacı zooarkeolog/arkeozoolog olarak geçmiş dönem in-sanlarına ilişkin birçok bilgiye hayvan kemiklerini çalışarak ulaşabilmektedir. Diğer bir deyişle Zooarkeoloji, hayvan kemik kalıntılarını inceleyen ve insanın çevrele-riyle ilişki kurmasına yardımcı olan bir bilim dalıdır. 1 Bu kapsamda özellikle hay-van kemiklerinin insan kemikleriyle karşılaştırılması durumunda bu kişilere danışılması gerekmektedir. Antropologların alan çalışmalarında yanıtlamaları gereken birçok soru mev-cuttur, bunlardan ilki arazide bulunan kemiklerin insana ait olup olmadığıdır. Bu durumda insan kemiklerini hayvanlardan ayırt edebilmek için osteolojik bilgi bi-rikimine sahip olmak gerekir. Özellikle kırık veya parçalanmış iskelet malzeme-Turkiye Klinikleri J Foren Med-Special Topics 2017;3(1):21-6 21 İnsan ve Hayvan Kemiklerinin Ayrımı DERLEME Ö ÖZ ZE ET T İçeriği adli veya arkeolojik olsa da insana ait olan veya olmayan kemiklerin doğru bir şekilde tanımlanması için osteoloji analizlerinin yapılması gerekmektedir. Ancak, kemik gelişimi sırasında çok fazla değişime uğradığı gibi tür bazında da gerçekleşen varyasyonlar, yapılan tanımlama çalış-malarını hem kısıtlamaktadır hem de kemiklerin ayrımının yapılmasını zorlaştırmaktadır. Bu ne-denle adli antropolojik çalışmalarda ve arkeolojik alanlardan gelen iskelet veya fosil insan kalıntılarının tanımlanmasında uzman kişilere başvurulması gerekmektedir. Bunun yanı sıra insan-hayvan kemiklerinin ayrımında iyi bir referans koleksiyonun bulunması yapılan çalışmaların gü-venirliğini arttırmaktadır. Bu çalışma kapsamında insan ve hayvan kemiklerinin ayrımında kullanılan morfolojik kriterler ele alınmıştır. A An na ah ht ta ar r K Ke el li im me el le er r: : Adli antropoloji; zooarkeoloji; insan hayvan kemik ayrımı; antropoloji A AB BS ST TR RA AC CT T Distinguishing between human and nonhuman bone is a task that should only be un-dertaken anthropologists. In particular, when bones are highly weathered, eroded, and fragmented, identification may be difficult and limited. Thus, an experienced forensic anthropologist will have help to distinguishing no osseous material from bone. In addition, osteologists can become familiar with animal bones by putting together a comparative collection to determine the species. They can then use this collection to determine the species of questionable bones. In this study, the morphological criteria used to distinguish human and animal bones are discussed. K Ke ey yw wo or rd ds s: : Forensic anthropology; zooarcheology; distinguish nonhuman skeletal; anthropology

The aim of this study was to evaluate the ornamental shells in order to establish whether they were used as tools or not. A total of 1946 ornamental sea shells were found in Hatay Üçağızlı Cave (Turkey) during excavation seasons of 2005-2006, 2008 and 2010-2017. The F-I layers of the Cave are classified as Initial Upper Palaeolithic (IUP), D-E layers as Ahmarian-IUP transition and B-C layers Ahmarian (Early Upper Palaeolithic). The shells were divided into 3 categories; marine, freshwater and terrestrial. 12.44%, belonged to Ahmarian, 11.82% to Ahmarian-IUP Transition and 75.75% to IUP. 98.56% of the crustaceans belonged to marine, 1.13% to fresh water and 0.31% to terrestrial molluscs. Total of 11 crustaceans taxa representing crustaceans varied as; 10 in IUP, 8 in Ahmarian–IUP transition and 6 in Ahmarian. The trace of erosion and irregularity observed on the margins of a small number of Glycymeris bimaculata seashells from the year 2017 suggests that at least this taxa was used as an instrument by the early modern humans of Üçağızlı Cave.

Mystery of the Ancient Anasazi Cliff Dwellings

          This paper was my final project for Anthropology 202: Human Origins and Prehistory under the director of Anthropology at Ashford University, Dr. Janni Pedersen. Dr. Pedersen is an exceptional anthropologist and superior professor. Her courses are expertly designed to assure that her students get the most out of the time spent in her classes.
          I chose the Anasazi in particular because their story has always fascinated me and I had a chance to visit some of the archaeological sites associated with them as well as the Pueblo sites to the south back in the late 1980s while living in California. The cliff dwellings that the Anasazi people left behind are truly a wonder to behold, especially in person and one can not help but be intrigued by the notion of the final days of the tribe's existence while marveling at the archaeological remnants that remain there.
          There are many theories about the events that led up to their demise, but none have been conclusive. My research was no different in that regard, but while researching past studies, my focus turned from attempting to solve the riddle, toward an effort to compile the best material I could through cross-reference examination of existing sources, along with my own observations, in the hopes of better understanding what could be known. The full story of the Anasazi people and their enigmatic archaeological record may never be fully understood, but that is sometimes the beauty of the discipline of archaeology. In the case of many of these sites, perhaps we are not meant to know the answers, but therein lies the intrigue in continuing to revisit them.
          I would have loved to have had much more time to take my research even further and perhaps some time in the future I will get that chance, but I hope that my work makes for some interesting reading at the very least. I plan to take a trip back there during my graduate studies at Berkeley and spend more time there. The Pueblo peoples were very accommodating to me and they are a fascinating people in their own rite. I have plans to spend some time among the Lakota Sioux as well and I have made a couple of great connections among members of the Pine Ridge Reservation in recent years that I feel will be invaluable toward the quest to better understand these ancient cultures of living legend...

Happy hunting!
John T. Metts
Anthropologist, Archaeologist & Scholar of Human History

Image Reference

Anasazi Cliff Dwellings: Mesa Verde National Park
Retrieved from: http://www.edupic.net

In this paper, we present data on the morphological features and linear measurements for the Hexian Homo erectus and other comparative endocasts, in order to highlight variation during human brain evolution. The endocast of Hexian was reconstructed in 1982, and an endocranial volume of 1,025 ml was estimated. The geological age is about 412 ka, or roughly contemporaneous with the Zhoukoudian (ZKD) specimens. There are some differences between Hexian and the modern Chinese male endocasts in our sample, including low position of the greatest breadth, low maximum height, a well-marked and prominent frontal keel, the flat surface of the frontal lobes, prominent sagittal keel along the center frontal and parietal lobes, depressed Sylvian areas and parietal lobes superiorly, strong

We have carried out a comprehensive ESR and U-series dating study on the Lake Mungo 3 (LM3) human skeleton. The isotopic Th/U and Pa/U ratios indicate that some minor uranium mobilization may have occurred in the past. Taking such effects into account, the best age estimate for the human skeleton is obtained through the combination of U-series and ESR analyses yielding 62,000±6000 years. This age is in close agreement with OSL age estimates on the sediment into which the skeleton was buried of 61,000±2000 years. Furthermore, we obtained a U-series age of 81,000±21,000 years for the calcitic matrix that was precipitated on the bones after burial. All age results are considerably older than the previously assumed age of LM3 and demonstrate the necessity for directly dating hominid remains. We conclude that the Lake Mungo 3 burial documents the earliest known human presence on the Australian continent. The age implies that people who were skeletally within the range of the present Australian indigenous population colonized the continent during or before oxygen isotope stage 4 (57,000–71,000 years).

Interaction of orbital insolation cycles defines a predictive model of alternating phases of high- and low-climate variability for tropical East Africa over the past 5 million years. This model, which is described in terms of climate variability stages, implies repeated increases in landscape/resource instability and intervening periods of stability in East Africa. It predicts eight prolonged (>192 kyr) eras of intensified habitat instability (high variability stages) in which hominin evolutionary innovations are likely to have occurred, potentially by variability selection. The prediction that repeated shifts toward high climate variability affected paleoenvironments and evolution is tested in three ways. In the first test, deep-sea records of northeast African terrigenous dust flux (Sites 721/722) and eastern Mediterranean sapropels (Site 967A) show increased and decreased variability in concert with predicted shifts in climate variability. These regional measurements of climat...

According to a conventional evolutionary perspective, the human propensity for substance use is the product of a 'mismatch' between emotional mechanisms that evolved in a past without pure drugs or direct routes of drug administration, and the occurrence of these phenomena in the contemporary environment. The primary purpose of this review is to assert that, contrary to the conventional view, humans have shared a coevolutionary relationship with psychotropic plant substances that is millions of years old. We argue that this 'deep time' relationship is self-evident both in the extant chemical-ecological adaptations that have evolved in mammals to metabolize psychotropic plant substances and in the structure of plant defensive chemicals that have evolved to mimic the structure, and interfere with the function, of mammalian neurotransmitters. Given this evidence, we question how emotional mechanisms easily triggered by plant toxins can have evolved. Our argument is also supported with archeological and historical evidence of substance use in antiquity suggesting that, for people in the past, psychotropic plant substances were as much a mundane everyday item as they are for many people today. Our second, and more speculative objective is to suggest provisional hypotheses of human substance-using phenomena that can incorporate the evolutionary implications of a deep time relationship between psychotropic substances and people. We discuss hypotheses of selective benefits of substance use, including the idea that neurotransmitter-analog plant chemicals were exploited as substitutes for costly, nutritionally constrained endogenous neurotransmitters. However, even if substance seeking was adaptive in the environment of our hominid ancestors, it may not still be so in the contemporary environment. Thus, the implications of our argument are not that the mismatch concept does not apply to human substance-using phenomena, but that it must be reconsidered and extended to incorporate the implications of a substance-rich, rather than substance-free, evolutionary past.

Authors describe a hyoid bone body, without horns, attributed to Homo erectus from Castel di Guido (Rome, Italy), dated to about 400,000 years BP. The hyoid bone body shows the bar-shaped morphology characteristic of Homo, in con- trast to the bulla-shaped body morphology of African apes and Australopithecus. Its measurements differ from those of the only known complete specimens from other extinct human species and early hominid (Kebara Neandertal and Au- stralopithecus afarensis), and from the mean values observed in modern humans. The almost total absence of muscular impressions on the body's ventral surface suggests a reduced capability for elevating this hyoid bone and modulating the length of the vocal tract in Homo erectus. The shield-shaped body, the probable small size of the greater horns and the ra- diographic image appear to be archaic characteristics; they reveal some similarities to non-humans and pre-human gen- era, suggesting that the morphological basis for hum...

If belief drives behavior, what did first nations peoples believe? Though a material approach attempts to bridge the gap, other disciplines such as philology may be of assistance and compatible with a strict material diagnostic. This paper marries material evidence and current theory with immaterial evidence from other disciplines for a working model to understand the most basic questions as to why there were people in America before Columbus.

This study presents an analysis of linear enamel hypoplasias (LEH) and plane-form defects (PFD) in the hominine dental sample from the Sima de los Huesos (SH) Middle Pleistocene site in Atapuerca (Spain). The SH sample comprises 475 teeth, 467 permanent and 8 deciduous, belonging to a minimum of 28 individuals. The method for recording PFD and LEH is discussed, as well as the definition of LEH. The prevalence of LEH and PFD in SH permanent dentition (unilateral total count) is 4.6% (13/280). Only one deciduous tooth (lower dc) showed an enamel disruption. Prevalence by individual ranges from 18.7-30%. The most likely explanation for the relatively low LEH and PFD prevalence in the SH sample suggests that the SH population exhibited a low level of developmental stress. The age at occurrence of LEH and PFD was determined by counting the number of perikymata between each lesion and the cervix of the tooth. Assuming a periodicity of nine days for the incremental lines, the majority of LEH in the SH sample occurred during the third year of life and may be related to the metabolic stress associated with weaning. Am J Phys Anthropol 125: 220 -231, 2004.

Art and Adaptability: Consciousness and Cognitive Culture  (Brill/Rodopi 2018, ISBN: 9789004354524, 216 pgs., 5 color illustrations) represents over three years of work and the culmination of a trilogy of books, written over the course of more than a decade, addressing the arts and humanities in light of evolution. Art and Adaptability argues for a co-evolution of theory of mind and material/art culture. Art and Adaptability argues for a co-evolution of theory of mind and material/art culture. The book covers relevant areas from great ape intelligence, hominin evolution, Stone Age tools, Paleolithic culture and art forms, to neurobiology. We use material and art objects, whether painting or sculpture, to modify our own and other people’s thoughts so as to affect behavior. We don’t just make judgments about mental states; we create objects about which we make judgments in which mental states are inherent. Moreover, we make judgments about these objects to facilitate how we explore the minds and feelings of others. The argument is that it’s not so much art because of theory of mind but art as theory of mind.

Some of the most long-standing questions in paleoanthropology concern how and why human bipedalism evolved. Over the last century, many hypotheses have been offered on the mode of locomotion from which bipedalism originated. Candidate ancestral adaptations include monkey-like arboreal or terrestrial quadrupedalism, gibbon-or orangutan-like (or other forms of) climbing and suspension, and knuckle-walking. This paper reviews the history of these hypotheses, outlines their predictions, and assesses them in light of current phylogenetic, comparative anatomical, and fossil evidence. The functional significance of characteristics of the shoulder and arm, elbow, wrist, and hand shared by African apes and humans, including their fossil relatives, most strongly supports the knuckle-walking hypothesis, which reconstructs the ancestor as being adapted to knuckle-walking and arboreal climbing. Future fossil discoveries, and a clear understanding of anthropoid locomotor anatomy, are required to ultimately test these hypotheses. If knucklewalking was an important component of the behavioral repertoire of the prebipedal human ancestor, then we can reject scenarios on the origin of bipedalism that rely on a strictly arboreal ancestor. Moreover, paleoenvironmental data associated with the earliest hominins, and their close relatives, contradict hypotheses that place the agents of selection for bipedality in open savanna habitats. Existing hypotheses must explain why bipedalism would evolve from an ancestor that was already partly terrestrial. Many food acquisition and carrying hypotheses remain tenable in light of current evidence.

We generated genome-wide data from 69 Europeans who lived between 8,000-3,000 years ago by enriching ancient DNA libraries for a target set of almost four hundred thousand polymorphisms. Enrichment of these positions decreases the sequencing required for genome-wide ancient DNA analysis by a median of around 250-fold, allowing us to study an order of magnitude more individuals than previous studies and to obtain new insights about the past. We show that the populations of western and far eastern Europe followed opposite trajectories between 8,000-5,000 years ago. At the beginning of the Neolithic period in Europe, ~8,000-7,000 years ago, closely related groups of early farmers appeared in Germany, Hungary, and Spain, different from indigenous hunter-gatherers, whereas Russia was inhabited by a distinctive population of hunter-gatherers with high affinity to a ~24,000 year old Siberian6. By ~6,000-5,000 years ago, a resurgence of hunter-gatherer ancestry had occurred throughout much ...

Recent surveys and the researches of the Lower Paleolithic of Georgia demonstrate that the territory of Georgia was much more intensively occupied by the humans than it was known before.
The Lower Paleolithic sites and the stone materials were discovered in Eastern Georgia and Western Georgia, as well.
Recently discovered sites differ from the before known and studied sites and they assigned to the non-handaxe, core and flake assemblages
The researches of the Georgian scientists support the opinion of the French scientists [MarieAntoinette de Lumley et al.] that it is probable that the Dmanisi Hominids were Dmanisi Hominids were asphyxiated, 1 810 000 years ago, by volcanic ashfalls.

Hominin brain evolution is a topic of great interest in paleoanthropology. Details of this evolutionary process are typically inferred from endocasts. However, very little research has been done to quantifiably establish the relationship between an endocast and its corresponding brain. This study investigates this relationship using asymmetry of the entire endocranial surface. As the modern human brain is structurally asymmetric, the results of this study allow for a direct quantitative comparison of this characteristic between the two surfaces. In addition, because important aspects of behavior, such as handedness and language processing, are organized asymmetrically in the brain, it is of great interest to be able to see these same asymmetries on the endocranial surface.

Using innovative geometric morphometric techniques, this study quantified the degree and direction of asymmetry of the entire endocranial surface in adult modern humans. Results indicate the well-known petalia pattern of asymmetry extends beyond the frontal lobe to include the right temporal and anterior parietal regions. In addition to an anterior-posterior and lateral asymmetry, the petalias also differ in superior-inferior distribution. A rightward asymmetry of Broca’s area was found, contradicting previous qualitative reports. A leftward asymmetry of the anterior cerebellum was also found and a rightward asymmetry of the temporal pole, as well as several other subtle asymmetries across the rest of the endocranial surface. The findings are compared with brain asymmetry research and the implications for brain evolution research are discussed.

To date, the earliest modern human fossils found outside of Africa are dated to around 90,000 to 120,000 years ago at the Levantine sites of Skhul and Qafzeh. A maxilla and associated dentition recently discovered at Misliya Cave, Israel, was dated to 177,000 to 194,000 years ago, suggesting that members of the Homo sapiens clade left Africa earlier than previously thought. This finding changes our view on modern human dispersal and is consistent with recent genetic studies, which have posited the possibility of an earlier dispersal of Homo sapiens around 220,000 years ago. The Misliya maxilla is associated with full-fledged Levallois technology in the Levant, suggesting that the emergence of this technology is linked to the appearance of Homo sapiens in the region, as has been documented in Africa.

Il presente saggio si propone di fornire un breve exursus sull'attività scientifica di Alberto Carlo Blanc (1906-1960). Blanc fu professore di Etnologia dal 1939 (succedendo a Pettazzoni), di Paletnologia e di Paleontologia Umana all'Università di Roma. Noto soprattuto per la scoperta del cranio neandertaliano del Circeo, interpretato quale prova di cannibalismo rituale, Blanc formulò una nuova teoria riguardo l'evoluzione culturale ("etnolisi"), basata sul'idea di "evoluzione per segregazione". Con il successivo Cosmolisi egli integrò i concetti già espressi con le acquisizioni della genetica, affermando l'idea di una finalismo nell'evoluzione psichica dell'uomo. I lavori etnologici di Blanc ebbero un impatto modesto e una ricezione travagliata e non esente da critiche. Nonostante l'ampia fama raggiunta all'estero, in Italia egli soffrì un certo isolamento accademico, acuitosi dopo la scissione dell'Isipu nel 1953.

Since chimpanzee and bonobo ancestors were evolutionarily closer to the Homo/Pan last common ancestor than extant members of Pan, they probably had more humanlike traits than extant chimps or bonobos. This implies that the presence of humanlike traits in australopithecines (such as a vertical spine, low ilia, smaller canines, thick enamel etc.) does not necessarily indicate human ancestry.

Most paleo-anthropologists conventionally assume that the australopithecines were ancestors of humans (but not of Pan or Gorilla) because they were bipedal. Different lines of evidence (e.g. centrally-placed spines in hominoids, versus dorsally-placed spines in monkeys), however, suggest that not only humans, gibbons and siamangs (who still have habitually vertical spines) had more bipedal ancestors, but all hominoids. This implies that the presence of "bipedal traits" in fossil hominoids does not define human ancestry.

There are a lot of fossil apes in Europe (dryopithecines) as well as in Asia (fossil pongids), but it is traditionally assumed that virtually all fossil hominid fossils in Africa are closer relatives of humans than of gorillas, chimps or bonobos. This is statistically impossible: why should there be plenty of fossil apes in Europe as well as in Asia, but virtually no fossil apes in Africa? Why are all hominid fossils in Africa traditionally assumed to be closer relatives of Homo than of Pan or Gorilla?

This presentation shows that the traditional views that australopithecines are human relatives to the exclusion of Pan and Gorilla, and that human ancestors became bipedal when they moved from the forest to the open plane, are exclusively based on anthropocentric preassumptions, and are contradicted by the comparative anatomy and all other available evidence. We propose alternative hypotheses, fully supported by comparative biology.

The relationships among the living apes and modern humans have effectively been resolved, but it is much more difficult to locate fossil apes on the tree of life because shared skeletal morphology does not always mean shared recent evolutionary history. Sorting fossil taxa into those that belong on the branch of the tree of life that leads to modern humans from those that belong on other closely related branches is a considerable challenge.

Back in 2014, I took a challenging but rewarding MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), "Human Evolution: Past and Future," a free online course taught by University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of anthropology Dr. John Hawks. Hawks, who might be described as both genial and genius, seems equally devoted to both advancing studies in paleoanthropology, and sharing data cross-discipline for the greater good of scientists, students, and the wider public audience-a heresy that cuts against the grain in scientific as well as academic circles among those who jealously guard their discoveries in order to be the first in line for credit and publication. The course introduced via video clips a leading paleontologist in the field, Lee Berger, whose two remarkable and vastly dissimilar hominin finds in South Africa have each literally shifted the landscape in studies of human evolution.

La paléontologie a connu au cours du XX e siècle une « révolution paléobiologique » (Sepkoski et Ruse, 2009), en se constituant comme science théorique et intégrée à la biologie de l'évolution. Si l'histoire de la paléoanthropologie reflète un tournant similaire, la révolution paléobiologique reste, à plusieurs égards, inachevée dans cette discipline. Cet article analyse les causes de cet inachèvement, en identifiant des limites empiriques, relatives aux particularités du registre fossile de la paléoanthropologie, mais aussi des limites épistémologiques, rapportées à différentes conceptions de la paléobiologie en jeu dans cette discipline. Nous montrons enfin qu'il est nécessaire de prendre en considération la spécificité anthropologique de la discipline pour apprécier la particularité du tournant paléobiologique dans le champ de l'évolution humaine. Abstract Paleontology underwent a "paleobiological revolution" during the twentieth century (Sepkoski and Ruse, 2009), by becoming a theoretical science and a part of evolutionary biology. Although the history of paleoanthropology reflects a similar change, the paleobiological revolution is still incomplete in this field. This article explains why the change is only partial. We identify empirical limits, pertaining to the distinctive features of the fossil record in paleoanthropology, as well as epistemological limits, linked with several different understandings of what paleobiology means. Finally, we demonstrate that there is a need to consider paleoanthropology as being not only a branch of paleobiology, but also an anthropology. By doing so, it is possible to assess properly the paleobiological change in the field of human evolution.

The reconstruction of behavior patterns of extinct hominid populations, far removed chronologically morphologically, and technologically from modern man, has long been important to anthropologists. This paper demonstrates some possibilitiesfor using one archeological technique--faunal analysis--to establish meaningful hypotheses concerning the way of life of the South African australopithecines. Scavenging is found to be significant for these hominids, and an associationis made between scavenging and bipedalism.

L'acte moderne de croire passe souvent pour un acte de savoir. Ce livre traite des visions scientifiques de l'origine de l'homme. Savoir ou croyances ? Il est des croyances dont la force de séduction est si grande que nous les prenons pour un savoir. C'est ici que la crédulité naïve de l'écolier rencontre la crédulité savante du chercheur.
Une analyse des principales conceptions de l'anthropogenèse, proposées entre le début du XIXe siècle et nos jours, montre que la science, après avoir rejeté les traditionnels récits mythiques, ne parvient pas à se libérer entièrement de leur influence. La pensée scientifique continue encore à reproduire la trame des anciennes conceptions.
Rationnels que nous nous efforçons d'être, nous n'en restons pas moins croyants, car nous croyons savoir, et s'il arrive fréquemment que la noble science rejoint dans ses conclusions la pensée ordinaire, c'est parce que l'une comme l'autre peuvent être tributaires d'un ancien imaginaire où se reflète toute une anthropologie naïve : notre simpliste manière de voir l'homme, sa culture et les vicissitudes de son histoire.

More than 800 isolated teeth of fossil Pongo have been recovered from cave sites in the vicinity of Chongzuo in Guangxi, southern China, ranging from the Early to Late Pleistocene (2.0e0.1 Ma). These collections provide a unique regional window into the evolutionary history of orangutans over a twomillion-year period at the northernmost extent of their former geographic range. Here we investigate the nature and timing of the evolutionary change in the dental size of fossil orangutans from Chongzuo. Fossil tooth size (mesiodistal length*buccolingual breadth) was compared against an extant Pongo pygmaeus standard (n ¼ 106 individuals). During the course of the Pleistocene, orangutans from southern China exhibited a progressive reduction in overall dental size. Early Pleistocene Pongo has cheek teeth with occlusal areas that are 38.1% larger than those of extant P. pygmaeus. Those from the Middle and Late Pleistocene are 25.2% and 18.9% larger, respectively. Previously, the size difference in dentition between the Early to Middle Pleistocene and Middle to Late Pleistocene samples was used to differentiate time-successive species of Pongo, namely Pongo weidenreichi and Pongo devosi. However, with access to larger samples and better representation of populations through time, the evidence in support of this taxonomic arrangement requires reconsideration. Diminution of the teeth now appears to be a gradual evolutionary transformation rather than a punctuated event. Moreover, the morphological features that distinguish the Chongzuo fossil orangutans from extant Pongo spp. remain uniform throughout the Pleistocene. Retaining P. weidenreichi and P. devosi as anagenetic species remains an option, but, given the current evidence, we consider it preferable to assign all of the fossil orangutans from Chongzuo to P. weidenreichi. Beyond resolving questions of alpha taxonomy, the study of fossil orangutan dental size provides a basis for estimating body mass, which has implications for interpreting the paleobiology of Pleistocene Pongo in southern China.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the variation of dental modification related to the history of human migration in Indonesia. Material used in this study were cranium of ancient populations from Java (Binangun, Leran), Bali (Semawang, Gilimanuk), Sumba (Melolo) and Flores (Liang Bua, Liang Toge, Lewoleba). The pattern of dental modification were observed and categorized. It is assumed that the variation of dental modification was influenced by culture that was brought by migrant population, or it could be, there was a mix-culture between migrant’s and indigenous population. Furthermore, the variation of dental modification indicates the in-migration from different time and different group of migrant people. The pattern of dental modification that disappeared earlier is the oldest pattern that has ever been practiced in Indonesia. In the other hand, the youngest patterns or the newest influence is the patterns that existed in longer time. This information is suitable with pattern of migration of Austronesian people into Indonesia.

Keywords
dental modification; Indonesia; ancient population, human migration

Extended research has shown that the environmental stimuli triggered biomechanical and biochemical alterations in human species since the early Palaeolithic times (Laoupi, 2011; Laoupi, 2016). One unique example is the fact that our remote ancestors chose repeatedly the volcanic environments, where they survived, lived, reproduced and evolved. Other biogenetic alterations helped also Neanderthals to survive in harsh conditions. Even more caves with their ionized internal atmosphere, acoustics, biochemical composition and soothing impact were healing places for humans, places of initiation, education and mystic allegories (Laoupi, 2007). The volcanic landscapes and their positive impact on human health

The Shungura Formation in southwestern Ethiopia preserves a long and relatively continuous record of eastern African mammalian and hominin evolution. This study reconstructs habitat preferences of the Shungura Formation bovids from ca. 3.4–1.9 Ma (million years ago), based on the ecomorphology of fossil bovid astragali. Habitat predictions are made using a Discriminant Function Analysis informed by functional analysis of the astragalus that controls for body size and phylogenetic signal. The high abundance of astragali in the Shungura record allows for habitat reconstructions on sub-unit timescales, rather than aggregating samples at the level of geological member.

During much of the time period examined, the lower Omo Valley was dominated by relatively mesic habitats in close proximity to the ancestral Omo River. Previous research has suggested that environmental change at ∼2.85 Ma caused significant habitat change at Shungura, but the astragalar data do not support major habitat change at this time. However, there are significant fluctuations in inferred habitats, with more open habitats indicated in sub-units C-08 and C-09 (∼2.56 Ma), and in unit F-01 (just after 2.36 Ma). The cause of sub-unit fluctuations in habitat signal is difficult to determine, but local factors, including spatial habitat heterogeneity around the river channel and in its floodplain, may play a contributing role. In the light of faunal evidence from elsewhere in the greater Omo-Turkana Basin, hominins in the area likely had access to a variety of heterogeneous habitats.