Beachcomber's cave, 164,000 BP

[Rokcet Scientist]

Wednesday, 17 October 2007, 22:18

Cave clue to 'first beachcombers'

The cave at Pinnacle Point is about 50m above current sea level

The waste from shellfish dinners discarded in a South African cave is said to be the earliest evidence of humans living and thriving by the sea.
The material was found by scientists working in a sandstone opening at Pinnacle Point on the Cape.

Researchers tell the journal Nature the remains were buried in sediments that are 164,000 years old.

The exploitation of coastal resources is thought to have been key in allowing early humans to move across the globe.

"All we find is the trash that was left behind, so we have to interpret what they were doing from the remains," said team member Erin Thompson from Arizona State University (ASU), US.

"[The layer of material] is about half-a-metre deep. It's cemented up against the side of the cave. That would be tens of thousands of years of garbage," she told the BBC.

The team excavated from the cave the cooked remains of some 15 types of marine invertebrate, mainly brown mussels, as well as other animal bones.

Colourful thoughts

The researchers also found pieces of ochre, a soft stone that can be scraped to produce powders with rich pigments.

Ochres are viewed as important indicators of advanced behaviour - the use of colour for symbolism. And although the powders can have a functional use, as an ingredient in glue, the persistent choice of the brightest hues suggests some abstract activity is being undertaken, such as body painting.


Ochre specimens with scrape marks (Scale bars: 1cm)
Being able to conceptualise - the ability to let one thing represent another - was a giant leap in human evolution. It was the mental activity that would eventually permit the development of sophisticated language and maths.

To unearth worked ochres at Pinnacle Point at this time, near the base of the time period when modern humans (Homo sapiens) are thought to have first evolved in Africa about 200,000 years ago, is in itself a remarkable finding.

"There is some potential ochre use earlier than this but Pinnacle Point is much the best context. There is a lot of red ochre and the colour is very striking," commented Professor Chris Stringer, of London's Natural History Museum, who was not connected with the research team.

"Even if some of it might be having a functional purpose, with that amount and the fact they are selecting this particular colour must have symbolic significance, we think."

ASU palaeoanthropologist Professor Curtis Marean said: "We also found what archaeologists call 'bladelets' - little blades less than 10mm in width, about the size of your little finger.

"These could be attached to the end of a stick to form a point for a spear, or lined up like barbs on a dart - which shows they were already using complex compound tools."

Washed clean

The very earliest human species would have been restricted to a diet of plants, such as berries and tubers, and the meat of animals they could catch.

The expansion to shellfish is one of the last additions of a new class of food to the human diet before the introduction of domesticated livestock meat just a few thousand years ago, the researchers tell Nature.

"Coastlines have few resources to attract hunter-gatherers if their diets do not include shellfish and/or fish. Once they do, coastlines become attractive for settlement and movement," they write.


When did modern humans evolve sophisticated behaviour?
"It has been argued that shellfish exploitation was crucial to a potential early coastal route of modern humans out of Africa via the Red Sea coast."

One of the great challenges for scientists has been to assemble the data to back up this theory. The difficulty is that rising and falling sea levels over millennia have almost certainly washed away key evidence.

The Pinnacle Point cave, although it stands directly on the coast today some 15m above the waves, would actually have been a few km from the shoreline when its inhabitants were eating their shellfish meals.

Settlements directly on or near the beach 164,000 years ago would now be under water.

As well as ASU workers, the research team included members from Israel, Australia, UK, Greece, and South Africa itself.

One tantalising find was a whale barnacle. "It suggests they might have used whale blubber. They probably weren't hunting the whale but if it washed up on shore they probably thought it was good to eat," said Ms Thompson.

Article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7049597.stm

[Minimalist]

Someone else had a theory about this not too long ago....but it was something like at 50,000 BC mankind discovered seafood and the new protein source enabled brain function to evolve rapidly.

Of course, it is a long way from 164,000 BC to 50,000 BC....

Anyone else recall that discussion?

[Digit]

Indeed Min, it was also suggested at the time that man carries as much fat as he does for insulation and streamlining in water. Not too sure about that bit though.

[Rokcet Scientist]

The NYT's take on the cave:

Key Human Traits Tied to Shellfish Remains
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
Published: October 18, 2007

Almost from the start, it seems, humans headed for the shore. But this was no holiday for them. More than likely, it was a matter of survival at a perilous time of climate change in Africa 164,000 years ago.

By then Homo sapiens had developed a taste for shellfish — much earlier than previously thought, scientists report in today’s issue of the journal Nature — as the species was adapting to life in caves on the craggy coast of southern Africa.

Exploring a cave in a steep cliff overlooking the ocean, an international team of scientists found deposits of shellfish remains, hearths, small stone blades and fragments of hematite, some of which, the scientists believe, had been ground for use as the coloring agent red ochre that sometimes had symbolic meaning.

“The shellfish,” the researchers concluded, “may have been crucial to the survival of these early humans as they expanded their home ranges” in response to the cooler and drier conditions that had prevailed for thousands of years in the interior of Africa.

Curtis W. Marean, the team leader and a paleoanthropologist with the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University, said, “Shellfish was one of the last additions to the human diet before domesticated plants and animals were introduced,” more than 10,000 years ago.

In an accompanying article, Sally McBrearty of the University of Connecticut and Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London, who were not involved in the research, said the find provided “strong evidence that early humans displayed key elements of modern behavior” as early as 164,000 years ago.

The discovery was made in a cave at Pinnacle Point near Mossel Bay on the southern coast of South Africa, about 200 miles east of Cape Town.

Previous research had indicated that human ancestors had for ages depended solely on terrestrial plants and animals. Both fossil and genetic data show that modern humans evolved 150,000 to 200,000 years ago, but archaeological evidence for the emergence of modern behavior in technology, creativity, symbolic thinking and lifestyles is sparse.

But six years ago, at Blombos Cave, near Pinnacle Point, archaeologists uncovered 77,000-year-old tools along with pigments and engraved stones suggesting symbolic behavior, a sign of early creativity. Now, at the Pinnacle Point cave site, the shellfish remains reveal another important innovation.

Other coastal populations had been found exploiting marine resources as early as 125,000 years ago. Neanderthals were cooking shellfish in Italy about 110,000 years ago.

The presence of red ochre at Pinnacle Point, Dr. Marean’s team also reported, indicated that at this time humans already “inhabited a cognitive world enriched by symbols.” The researchers said the material had both symbolic and utilitarian functions and was probably used for body painting and for coloring artifacts.

Until recently, anthropologists generally assumed that modern human behavior arose much more recently, probably around 45,000 years ago, as a consequence of some unidentified change in brain function that favored communication and symbolic thinking to express social status and group identity. This interpretation was based on the apparently sudden appearance of art and self-adornment at sites in Europe.

The search for early human use of marine resources, supported by the National Science Foundation, centered on the cave at Pinnacle Point because of its position high on a cliff. Other seashore sites of early human occupation had been inundated by the rise in sea level, beginning about 115,000 years ago at the end of Africa’s long arid conditions.

Forced to seek new sources of food, some of the people migrated to the shore in search of “famine food.” At Pinnacle Point, the discovery team reported, they feasted on a variety of marine life, brown mussels, giant periwinkles and whelks.

So on the southern shore of Africa, Dr. Marean said in a statement issued by Arizona State, a small population of cave-dwelling modern humans struggled and survived through the prevailing cold, eating shellfish and developing somewhat advanced technologies.

“It is possible,” he concluded, “that this population could be the progenitor population for all modern humans.”

Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/18/science/18beach.html (Reg. req.)

[hardaker]

Hi. This was just posted prematurely on the subject on origins above, but is best placed here. Sorry.

Here is a source for a Surfer Joe scenario for human evolution. Seems to be gaining relevancy every day. Neat stuff. It may even pertain to how erectus evolved the smarts to make boats 800ky, maybe even the great journeys taken by 1.7ma to Dmanisi, Indonesia, China. Phys Anths seem to be bothered by it, but what else is new.

http://www.google.com/search?num=50&hl= ... tnG=Search

Chris

[Minimalist]

It may even pertain to how erectus evolved the smarts to make boats 800ky

Still trying to piss off the Club, eh Chris?

[hardaker]

Hi Minimalist,
Try? What am I doing wrong? Well, maybe I'm outsourcing a bit to other disciplines, but there's something in my surfer's blood that appreciates the aquatic ape scenario. Coastal rivers were probably great places to live. The red ochre is awfully cool as well. On the other hand, there is that big carnivorous chimp tribe in the deep Congo with long sticks and sleeping on the ground -- so maybe seafood is not the complete answer. It's the fat, though, that might have made us bouyant enough to float? I'm no bio. But Cunnane brings up some good points.

Chris

[Cognito]

Chris, you'll never get your Club Card unless you starting sucking up to the established way of thinking, OK?!!?

[hardaker]

Damn. That's beautiful, so beautiful. I... I never saw one before. My God! What have I been missing? I'm sorry. i am so very sorry. I never knew. Honest. Never! What's happening to my heart? Is it changing? Could it be I've been wrong all along? This card says Yes. Yes!

[Minimalist]

Try? What am I doing wrong?

From that review I read of your book....nothing. When they send their attack dogs out you know you are getting to them!

[Forum Monk]

I notice Cog's has the white card - when you get the gold or platinum card then you know you've arrived at total acceptance.

[Cognito]

Damn. That's beautiful, so beautiful. I... I never saw one before. My God!

Well, obviously you weren't properly indoctrinated prior to receiving your final degree. You probably went through improper potty training also. Now look at you ... you've written a book and messed with everyone's paradigms! If you recant immediately, I think you can get a Platinum Card with Stuart Fiedel's picture on it, a six pack of beer and a toaster. Act soon though, this offer expires before midnight Arizona time.

[hardaker]

Sorry about the above. I just had a discussion with Jim Beam and he reminded me i don't need no stinkin card!!*

*except for visa, AAA, debit, safeway...

Chris
ps. My career at UAz was not about indoctrination but more about usher, like ushering me out in mid-Summer, quietly.

[hardaker]

Are the early Flores discoveries still in doubt? Like the article says, the 125ky date for seaside adaptation is now about 164ky, maybe almost 200k. But at over 880ky they were making boats and taking them to Flores Island. It runs rings around gathering shellfood and painting yourself with respect to adaptation, doesn't it? Or is the establishment still engaged in an adjustment period about this? The Flores dates first happened about ten years ago. Just bugs me. Maybe I'll shift to decaf.
Chris

[Forum Monk]

Chris are you talking about the Hobbits of Flores? If you are, I thought they were more recent (18kya?) and as far as I know, the controversy is totally immersed in their speciation. No one's really speculating much about how they got there - guess this board is kinda on the cutting edge of those kinds of discussions.