Bare-bones summaries of current research papers relating to the Paleolithic in Franco-Iberia. Basic data, graphics and links only. News items to be fleshed out on the 2015 tour. Part 2 addresses new finds of fossils and artifacts and the interpretation of archaeological materials, including reports on the complex cultural activities of Neandertals. News items are presented in prehistoric chronological order.

1. An Archaeological Study Tour
Caves & Castles
Northern Spain & Southern France
212-986-3054
886-740-5130
archtours@aol.com
Niaux
Sept 6-20, 2015
Research news (2014-2015) relevant
to early humans in Franco-Iberia
Roy Larick, Lecturer
15 Days
© 2015 Bluestone Heights
Part 2: fossils and artifacts

2. Caves and Castles, 2015
Roy Larick, Lecturer
Archaeological Tours study tour
Research news relevant to early humans in Franco-Iberia
Part 2 addresses new finds of fossils and
artifacts and the interpretation of
archaeological materials, including reports
on the complex cultural activities of
Neandertals.
News items are presented in general
prehistoric chronological order.
Bare-bones summaries of current research
papers. Basic data, graphics and links only.
News items to be fleshed out on tour.
Includes links to the original abstracts--the online
papers usually lie behind a paywall.
© 2015 Bluestone Heights

3. Farming’s effect on the Homo sapiens skeleton
Gradual decline in mobility with the adoption of food production in Europe
Christopher Ruff et al.
PNAS, July, 2015 (Vol. 112, pg. 7147)
1,842 European skeletons spanning 33
kyr, Upper Paleolithic to 20th century
Decreased bending strength implies a
decline of mobility as agriculture came to
dominate how people produced food.
The original decline in mobility was more
important than subsequent changes in
farming technology.
http://www.pnas.org/content/112/23/7147.abstract
Decreased bending strength of leg bones
accompanied the shift. The trend was
not apparent during the last 2 ka, as
agriculture became more mechanized.
From the Neolithic to Roman eras (7-
2 ka) humans shifted from mobile to
an increasingly sedentary lifestyles.
© 2015 Bluestone Heights
The study measured the strength of the tibia,
femur, and humerus. The authors found little
change in mediolateral, or side-to-side, bending
strength in all the bones over time, but a decline in
anteroposterior, or front-to-back, bending strength
of the tibia and femur beginning in the Neolithic
Period (7 ka), and continuing through the
Iron/Roman Period (2 ka).
The results suggest that mild changes in
activity levels may be insufficient to
stimulate changes in bone mass and that
vigorous exercise may be required to
increase bone strength.
Temporal trends in bending
strength relative to body size
[mm3/(kg·mm)·104]. (A) Femoral
A–P strength. (B) Tibial A–P
strength. (C) Humeral A–P
strength. (D) Femoral M–L
strength. (E)Tibial M–L strength.
(F) Humeral M–L strength.
Males: blue; females: red.

4. 15 ka, all humans lived by foraging wild animals
and plants. Exploiting such resources worked best
when people lived in tiny bands and moved
around a lot. Individual foragers could not build
much wealth or power. They tended to be very
poor but very equal.
SoL: $1.10 per day (1990 values)
12 ka, foragers numbered 6 million
11 ka, population exploded with farming
2 ka, farmers numbered 250 million
By 1800 AD, foraging was almost extinct
With farming, big social groups stayed in one place
working their fields. They flourished at the expense
of smaller, less sedentary ones. Farmers were
typically richer than foragers
SoL: $1.50-$2.20 per day
Farming’s effect on wealth distribution
To each age its inequality
Ian Morris
New York Times, July 9, 2015
Farming needed more complicated divisions of
labor than foraging. Some people became
aristocrats or godlike kings; others became
peasants or slaves. Economic inequality surged.

5. Exotic objects of the European Neolithic
Signs of Wealth: Inequalities in the Neolithic
National Museum of Prehistory, Les Eyzies
June 27 to November 15, 2015
As Neolithic communities dispersed into
Europe, 8-4.2 ka, they brought new
techniques for making and ornamenting
material culture. Intricate manufacturing
could produce very beautiful pieces.
High-value items usually signified wealth
and distinction for the owner. Some were
hoarded to be used in relations between
the elites or with supernatural powers.
High-value items often featured exotic raw
materials, some traveling hundreds of
kilometers from quarry to workshop.
Likewise, finished pieces, including
necklaces, daggers, axes, bracelets, could
circulate for long distances and times.
Signs of Wealth features "object sign"
artifacts in exotic materials still valuable in
our day (jade, gold, turquoise, jet, etc).
(Larick’s paraphrase)

6. Ledi-Geraru, Ethiopia: Homo at 2.8 Ma
Early Homo at 2.8 Ma from Ledi-Geraru, Afar, Ethiopia
Villmoare et al.
Science, March 4 2015
Sudan
S. Sudan
Uganda
Kenya
Tanzania
Somalia
Ethiopia
Yemen
Uganda
Olduvai Hominid 7
Homo habilis
Afar Triangle
Olduvai Gorge
Ledi-Geraru
mandible
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/05/world/jawbones-discovery-fills-barren-evolutionary-period.html
Ledi-Geraru
early Homo
2.8 Ma
Rift Valley aridity
commences ~3.0 Ma
© 2015 Bluestone Heights
L-G may represent
the basal lineage
for four groups

7. Evidence for Neandertal Jewelry:
Modified White-Tailed Eagle
Claws at Krapina.
Krapina, Croatia
Radovčić, et al.
PLOS One, March 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/science/neanderthal-jewelry-the-eagle-talon-line.html?rref=science&module=Ribbon&version=origin&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Science&pgtype=article
130 ka
© 2015 Bluestone Heights

8. Preventative Archaeology Périgord
Chauzeys, Mussidan, Isle Valley
21st cent preventative archaeology
large spaces in new areas
floodplains and terraces
done with fast mechanical earth-moving
expands the concept of site and spatial analysis
Stratigraphy
Dark clay layer: 12th cent silos, ditches & bread ovens
Lighter silt layer: Aurignacian (in 2 levels), one with large foyer
Manganese-encrusted limestone pebble layer reflect humid conditions (Mousterian)
Cobble layer
Eem gravels with Mousterian flakes
Riss levels
Cobble layer was the object of exploitation.
Has Cretaceous flint clasts mixed with crystalline rocks (origin in Central Mountains)
Neandertals and Hs tested the cobbles and then reduced them in place.
Azinian (mini-Mousterian) presence; levallois flakes of thumbnail size
Some presence of Jonzac (Charente) flint
Aurignacian made carinated scrapers and bladelets;
Brought a few blades of exotic materials, including Bergeracois
Jean-Pierre Chadelle, Dept. de la Dordogne
Chauzeys
© 2015 Bluestone Heights
Chauzeys sits on a terrace lobe of at least Riss age
Wurm terrace (lower) to north
Terrace has a full Wurm accumulation on top of Eem

9. Neandertal pigeon eating at Gibraltar
The earliest pigeon fanciers
Ruth Blasco, Clive Finlayson, et al.
Nature 7 August 2014
Rock Dove, is a species of rocky habitats.
At Gorham's Cave, Neanderthals butchered
Rock Doves, beginning at least 67 ka, for a
period of more than 40 kyr.
http://www.nature.com/srep/2014/140807/srep05971/full/srep05971.html
© 2015 Bluestone Heights
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-28967746
Cut-marked bones of Rock Dove specimens from
Gorham's Cave: sternum (A), ulna (B, E) and
humerus (C, D) from level IV, and tibiotarsus from
LBSmcf.2 (F).

10. Neandertal bone tools
Un outil en os à usages multiples dans un
contexte moustérien
Luc Doyon, Geneviève Pothier Bouchard, and Maurice Hardy
Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française 15 Dec 2014
Discovered June 2014 at the Grotte du
Bison at Arcy-sur-Cure in Burgundy,
France. from the left femur of an adult
reindeer 60-55 ka.
Evidence of meat butchering and bone
fracturing to extract marrow are evident
on the tool.
Percussion marks suggest the use of the
bone fragment for carved sharpening
the cutting edges of stone tools.
Chipping and a significant polish show
the use of the bone as a scraper
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-01/uom-ydd011415.php
© 2015 Bluestone Heights

11. Manot Cave, western Galilee: H. sapiens at 55 ka
missing connection between African
and European populations
Israel Hershkovitz et al.
Nature, January 28, 2015
L-R: Neanderthal, Manot cranium, modern human
55,000-year-old skull, Manot Cave
The distinctive bunlike shape at the base of the skull
resembles modern African and European skulls but
differs from other anatomically modern humans from
the Levant, and is thus a strong clue that these were
among the first humans to settle Europe,
Manot 1 calotte is of a fairly small adult
individual, sex undetermined.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/29/science/ancient-skull-adds-new-insight-to-story-of-human-
evolution.html?action=click&contentCollection=Science&module=RelatedCoverage&region=Marginalia&pgtype=article
© 2015 Bluestone Heights

12. La Chapelle-aux-Saints burial evidence
Evidence supporting an intentional Neandertal burial at
La Chapelle-aux-Saints
William Rendu, et al.
PNAS 15 November 2013
A Neandertal burial was recognized in 1908
in the bouffia Bonneval, at La Chapelle-aux-
Saints (France). New research indicates that
the body was deposited in a pit dug by other
members of its group and protected by a rapid
covering from any disturbance.
the discovery of skeletal elements belonging to
the original La Chapelle aux Saints 1 individual,
two additional young individuals, and a second
adult in the bouffia Bonneval highlights a more
complex site-formation history than previously
proposed.
These discoveries attest the existence of West
European Neandertal burial and of the
Neandertal cognitive capacity to produce it.
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/1/81
© 2015 Bluestone Heights
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-28967746
Bouffia Bonneval excavation map and burial pit
position. Differences in the cavity topography and
in the localization of the burial pit are linked to
imprecision in the Bouyssonies’ drawing.

13. Neandertal Gibraltar engraving
A rock engraving made by Neanderthals in Gibraltar
Joaquín Rodríguez-Vidal, et al.
PNAS 15 September 2014
Gorham’s Cave, Gibraltar
Crosshatch cave wall engraving found under
layers yielding Neanderthal tools
older than 39 cal kyr BP
epigenetic coating came before accumulation
of archaeological layers
made by repeatedly and carefully passing a
pointed lithic tool into the grooves, excluding
the possibility of an unintentional or utilitarian
origin
full engraving would have required 200-300
strokes with a stone cutting tool, taking at least
an hour to create
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/37/13301
© 2015 Bluestone Heights
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-28967746

14. Neandertal demise
Neandertal Demise: An Archaeological
Analysis of the Modern Human
Superiority Complex
Table 1. Hypotheses for the demise of Neandertals (Hn) and rise of modern humans (Hs)
Paola Villa, Wil Roebroek
PLOS One, April 2014
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0096424#pone-0096424-t002
Hn and Hs archaeological records are not different
enough to explain Hn demise in terms of inferiority.
Interbreeding and assimilation may have hastened the
disappearance of Hn morphology.
1. Hs had complex symbolic communication systems and fully syntactic language, while Hn did not.
2. Hn had limited capacity for innovations.
3. Hn were less efficient hunters.
4. Hn weaponry was inferior to Hs projectile technology.
5. Hn had a narrow diet, unsuccessful in competition with Hs with their more diverse diets.
6. Hs exclusively used traps and snares to capture animals.
7. Hs had larger social networks.
8. Hs groups entering Europe were significantly larger than regional Hn groups.
9. Hs tool hafting is indicative of modern cognition; Hn hafting was simple (used naturally available glues).
10. Hn decline was related to cold climate ~40 ka.
11. Hn extinction was related to the eruption of the Mt. Toba volcano (Sumatra, 74 ka).
© 2015 Bluestone Heights

15. Chauvet Replica opens April, 2015
Caverne du Pont-d’Arc, the Chauvet interpretive center, comprises five
buildings on eight hectares at Razal, seven km from the true cave.
© Agence Fabre et Speller - Atelier 3A
Experienced artists have replicated
Chauvet to be as faithful as possible to
the original spontaneity of the work.
Major paintings, etchings, and geological
and archaeological components are
reproduced on a scale of 1:1.
The paintings are reproduced on a shotcrete
structure with resin coating using natural oxide
pigments and Scots pine charcoal.
http://lacavernedupontdarc.org/en/la-replique/
© 2015 Bluestone Heights

16. Women’s body shapes
Curvology: The Origins and Power of Female Body Shape .
David Bainbridge. Granta; 227 pages
it makes evolutionary sense for new couples to plump
up—in comparison with when they were single—as this
provides both of them with a fatty fallback for when they
begin the arduous task of reproducing the species
curvy bums and boobs ensure the future of humankind.
They are proof that a woman was well-nourished while
growing up and carries good child-feeding genes
Episodes of bingeing and starvation
were normal features of pre-
agricultural life; some animals still
reduce their intake in winter. Eating
disorders, the author writes, could
be “evolutionary relics of a time
when our food supply was
unpredictable
http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21645120-
why-and-wherefore-womens-curves-shape-shifting
© 2015 Bluestone Heights

17. An Archaeological Study Tour
Caves & Castles
Northern Spain & Southern France
212-986-3054
886-740-5130
archtours@aol.com
Niaux
Sept 6-20, 2015
Roy Larick, Lecturer
15 Days
© 2015 Bluestone Heights
I look forward to meeting you on
‘Caves’ 2015

18. Roy Larick
Walk back in time
Look to the Future
Euclid bluestone outcrop
Doan Brook, Cleveland OH
Bluestone Heights
© 2015 Bluestone HeightsR. Larick
A production by
bluestoneheights.org
roylarick@gmail.com