Upper Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic vegetation and climate of NW Iberia

Just a brief mention of an important palaeoclimatic paper (in Spanish language):

Pablo Ramil Rego, Cambio climático y dinámica del paisaje en Galicia (Climate change and environmental dynamics in Galicia). Recursos Rurais, 2009. (Direct PDF link).

Most informative is maybe figure 12, that I reproduce here:

Click to expand

It is pretty evident that in the Last Glacial Maximum (first map), the region was dominated by grass and mountain dwarf shrubs, but with importance of forest in the south (Northern Portugal) and even in Asturias (something I was not clearly aware of and that should be general for all the Cantabrian strip).

Forests gradually expanded in the Late Upper Paleolithic, as climate warmed gradually, becoming clearly dominant in the Epipaleolithic (last map), when climate was already pretty much like today's. Epipaleolithic would anyhow last for some three millennia after the period covered here.

Later deforestation is apparent (fig. 15) but mild at some locations since c. 5000 calBP (beginnings of Neolithic), in the Iron Age, but specially since the Roman and Medieval periods.

Found at Arquêociencias[por].

Dog remains from Epipaleolithic Portugal

As suspected, the dog was already domestic before the Neolithic and that was certainly the case in Europe. This seems confirmed by new findings of dog remains in the shell middens of the Muge area, the main clutural group of pre-Neolithic Portugal.

Cleia Detry and Joao Luis Cardoso, On some remains of dog (Canis familiaris) from the Mesolithic shell-middens of Muge, Portugal. Journal of Archaeological Science, 2010. Pay per view.

Just for the record. Notice that the oldest known dog skeleton is from Aurignacian Belgium although its mtDNA line is now extinct.

Mammoths died off because of forest expansion

That is the conclusion reached by Brian Huntley and colleagues of Durham University, UK, as reported by BBC (sorry but I cannot find a more direct reference at this time).

According to the British scientists, after running several models for the extinction of mammoth and other megafauna of the Ice Age, the model that is most plausible is that they went extinct because of loss of grasslands and not human hunters' pressure.

During the height of the ice age, mammoths and other large herbivores would have had more food to eat. But as we shifted into the post-glacial stage, trees gradually displaced those herbaceous ecosystems and that much reduced their grazing area.

Update (Aug 19):

Found the relevant paper:

Judy R. M. Allen et al., Last glacial vegetation of northern Eurasia. Quaternary Science Reviews, 2010. Pay per view.

There is also an alternative news article at Science Daily (typically a literal transcription from the press release) that uses maybe less absolute terms than the BBC one:

The change from productive grasslands across large areas of northern Eurasia, Alaska and Yukon to less productive tundra-like habitats had a huge effect on many species, particularly on the large herbivores like the woolly rhinoceros and woolly mammoth. Mammoths and other mega-mammals found it increasingly difficult to find food. We believe that the loss of food supplies from productive grasslands was the major contributing factor to the extinction of these mega-mammals.

North Iberian Neolithic seeds

Found at Arqueocienciências, a Portuguese archaeology blog.

It refers to a poster (quasi-paper, in English) presented to the last conference of the IWGP by Inés López, Pablo Arias and Roberto Ontañón detailing the carpological findings in two Neolithic caves of Northern Spain, Los Gitanos (Cantabria, near the Basque border) and Aranga (Asturias, near the Cantabrian border).


Synthesis of findings:


Aranga cave (Asturias):

The Mesolithic period (stratigraphic units 4 and 3) is dated to between c. 7500-7000 cal BCE and includes mainly hazelnut (Corylus avellana) remnants but also a few instances of barley (Hordeum vulgare) and another undescribed cereal, as well and Sorbus sp. (rowan).

The Late Neolithic period (unit D) is dated c. 3350-2600 cal BCE and contained mostly barley, as well as some instances of hazelnut and one acorn (Quercus sp.)

In addition to these, it is reported in the text the presence of wild apples. Apple seeds have also been recovered in a Basque cave (Aizpea, Zapata 2002).


Los Gitanos cave (Cantabria):

Neolithic (units A4, A3 and A2) is dated to c. 5000-2600 cal BCE and included only a few instances of hazelnut and acorn, plus a single instance of Brassica sp. (genus including mustard and cabbage)

Chalcolithic (unit A1) is dated more precisely to c. 3600-3100 BCE and is still dominated by hazelnuts and acorns but already showing some instances of cereal (wheat, oat and an undetermined cereal), as well as one instance of Rumex sp. (sorrel or dock)

The authors are unsure on whether the Brassica and Rumex instances were collected for food or arrived as part of some weeding activity.



The consumption of acorn bread was reported for Northern Iberia as very common in Roman times.

It is noticeable that not a single instance of pulse was found.

Macrolithic Epipaleolithic in NE Iberia

I have just found about a very interesting and intriguing phase of the Epipaleolithic in the NE Iberian peninsula, which I did not know about before. Thanks to Millán Mozota for the reference.

It seems that what used to be thought as a facies of Mousterian, defined by the saw-like edges of the tools, was eventually dated with radiocarbon to a very narrow period of the Epipaleolithic, between 10 and 8 thousand years ago.

The following papers (all in Spanish) deal with the issue:

A. Alday Ruiz, El Mesolítico de muescas y denticulados en la Cuenca del Ebro y el litoral Mediterráneo peninsular: síntesis de los datos. 2006.

Carlos Mazo Pérez et al., El Epipaleolítico macrolítico en Aragón en el contexto del valle del Ebro y la Cataluña costera. 2006.

Manuel Vaquero Rodríguez, El Mesolítico de Facies Macrolítica en el centro y sur de Cataluña. 2006.

All these articles, as well as others, are gathered in a book.

This map (from Mazo's paper, dates in thousand years ago) explains a bit how it happened:


Group 1: the macrolithic industries close the ocupation of the site after a period of abandonment

Group 2: the macrolithic industries are intercalated between early Epipaleolithic levels (Azilian/Sauveterrian) and late Epipaleolithic levels with geometrics of Cocina style (Tardenoisian of Iberian facies).

Group 3: the macrolithic industries initiate the occupation of the site, continued later with geometrics of Cocina style.

This other graph, from Vaquero's article illustrates the chronology in Catalonia:

Above: dated levels by millennium (in Roman numbers, often used in Spanish for ordinals). Below total of dates by millennium. The patterns indicate: Upper Paleolithic Magdalenian industries (black), Early "Sauveterroid" Epipaleolithic industries (horizontal stripes) and Macrolithic Epipaleolithic industries (vertical stripes).

I won't extend much on the matter as of now, as I'm still learning about it. But I find important the fact that this strange industry, allegedly related to a temporary and dramatic increase of the forests (Alday), seems to indicate the end of the so-called Microlaminar Epipaleolithic (Azilian/Sauveterrean) and precedes the establishment of the Geometric Epipaleolithic (Tardenoisian-derived).

As I have mentioned recently this last industry, though widespread, did not achieve full implantation in all the Iberian peninsula. It seems almost non-existent in Ronda (Andalusia) and as far as I know also in Murcia, where the Neolithic transition happened with the oldest Epipaleolithic facies (Microlaminar) still in use.

Instead in all this North/NE area, the Neolithic transition happens in a context of Geometric industries, also older than Neolithic itself but more recently arrived from France than the Microlaminar industries.

I wonder therefore if the Y-DNA lineage R1b1b2a1a2 (of which three subclades are found in the area described here, the others present in mainland Europe and Ireland, but very rare in West or South Iberia) may be related to the Tardenoisian spread, with the other major sublcade of R1b1b2a1, R1b1b2a1a1, being maybe related to Maglemosean and related epi-Magdalenian industries of the North Sea basin. It would make good sense if one accepts that R1b1b2a1 as a whole spread with Magdalenian culture.

The Neolithic transition in Ronda (Andalusia)

Found at Pileta en Blogger [es].

Natalia González Hidalgo, PROCESOS DE NEOLITIZACIÓN. EL CASO DE LA MEDIA MONTAÑA SUBBÉTICA OCCIDENTAL: LA DEPRESIÓN DE RONDA. Arqueología y territorio, nº6. 2010. (PDF - open access - [es]).

The author reviews the transition from Epipaleolithic to Neolithic in the Ronda Depression, Andalusia, Spain. The archaeology of the area is dominated by extensive prospections but few detailed excavations, what make a comprehensive analysis somewhat more difficult. In any case, I gather two important elements from this synthesis:

1. There was very limited impact of the Geometric microlithism (Tardenoisian-related), remaining the area essentially in the Laminar stage (Azilian-related) for all the Epipaleolithic.

2. There was clear continuity between Epipaleolithic and Neolithic, with gradual incorporation of agriculture and cattle to an economy that remained basically hunter-gatherer at first.

Above: stratigraphic sequence of La Pileta cave, presented as example of the Ronda sites. Notice the continuity between the Upper Paleolithic (Paleolítico Superior - D) and Neolithic (Neolítico - C), while there is a sterile layer (B) on top this phase separating it from the Chalcolithic period (A), being this the only moment of discontinuity that can be spotted in all the sequence from Gravettian to the Middle Ages.

People lived in Norway 10,000 years ago

In line with other recent discoveries that push back the Epipaleolithic colonization of far Northern Europe (North Sweden, Scotland), Norwegians can now also claim a somewhat older history.

Human inhabitation remains have been located at Ekenberg heights, near the Norwegian capital, a place then would have been at sea level. They have been dated to c. 10,000 year ago (until now the oldest remains were only some 8000 years old).

Source: the Norway Post (via Archaeology in Europe).

Human presence in North Scandinavia since 10-11,000 years ago.

From Radio Sweden International and The Local via Archaeology in Europe.

Two settlements dated to c. 10-11,000 BP (very late UP or early Epipaleolithic in pan-European chronology) have been found in the northernmost reaches of Sweden, in the Tornedale region that borders Finland (and used to be of Finnish culture and language).

This new evidence adds up to similar dates for another distant Northern European colonization: that of Scotland, probably one or two milennia earlier.
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Epipaleolithic bow and paddle found at Sweden

Archaeology in Europe points me to this news story of central Sweden, where archaeologists have found particularly interesting artifacts belonging to the Epipaleolothic ("Mesolithic") period.

The artifacts, dating to 9000 BP (when early European Neolithic was still coalescing in Greece) include the wooden parts of a bow, a paddle and the shaft of an axe. These findings of wooden materials are very rare for this period but some similar ones (including parts of a logboat) were already known of in nearby Denmark (Maglemose culture).

These new discoveries were found at Motala, near Lake Vättern, where the paddle would have seen some use, I can imagine.
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New megalithic find at Devon, Britain

Archaeology in Europe points me to this brief press note where a new archaeological discovery of some significance in, Devon, SW England.

The site, found under an old reservoir in Dartmoor National Park, has produced so far, a 27 m. wide stone ring, burial mounds and remains of walled buildings dated to c. 4000 BP. The oldest findings are anyhow from the Epipaleolithic (Mesolithic) era.
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Map of Paleolithic mtDNA in Europe

This seems to be what we know as of now of pre-Neolithic European mtDNA:

I just needed to create this map after the sometimes heated discussions at Dienekes' blog (and probably other places) after the publication of Bramanti 2009 (paywall but the supplementary material is freely available) and the even more confusing Malmstöm 2009, which in fact studies Neolithic hunter-gatherers rather than true Paleolithic samples.

I have included all hunter-gatherer samples from Bramanti's work except those of Funnelbeaker culture, which do in fact belong to the Neolithic period, even if they were (regressed?, subneolithic?) hunter-gatherers and (update) another case from NE Poland that would seem to belong to the same period (3rd milennium) and cultural area.

It's worth noticing that the samples in fact belong to various different periods anyhow: middle Upper Paleolithic in the case of Paglicci (Italy) and Sunghir (central Russia), late Upper Paleolithic in the case of Taforalt (Morocco) and a couple of the Swabian samples (the U* ones), and Epipaleolithic ("Mesolithic") in the rest.

The key issue is the lack of mtDNA H, the most common European lineage nowadays, in most or even maybe all the samples of Central/Northern/Eastern Europe, clearly dominated by U5 instead. On the other hand, H has been detected in dominant ammounts in pre-Neolithic Portugal and Morocco and its precursor, HV, was determined in the case of Gravettian age Italy.

I will deal with Neolithic aDNA later on but the case is that, while it begins to show up some H in Central and Northern Europe, it does not yet have it in the amounts that is found nowadays, while instead carries high amounts of mtDNA that is now pretty much rare (the most striking case is N1a, at least 12% among Danubian Neolithics but extremely rare today).

Notes:
- The other category includes a case determined to be N1 in Paglicci (Italy). It could be anything "exotic" in Portugal and Morocco.
- U(xU5) is determined to be U4 in the case of East Germany and Lithuania. It seems to be U6 in Morocco.

Sources:
- Ancient Eurasian DNA (reference site, thanks to PConroy for indicating this site)
- Caramelli 2003 and 2005
- Chandler 2005
- Kèfi 2005
- Bramanti 2009

Update (Oct 8th): a likely H individual from Di Benedetto 2000 (Villabruna, Trentino-South Tirol, c. 14,000 BP) was missing from this map. Somehow this was the piece that the puzzle needed so much to confirm widespread presence of H not just in Portugal but elsewhere in Southern Europe in the Paleolithic. So it's an important sample even if it only includes one individual.
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Epipaleolithic wooden dock found in southern England

Very interesting, unique and intriguing archaeological discovery this one that I found at Archaeology in Europe: the remains of a large wooden structure (maybe a dock), a log boat and lots of other artefacts (flint tools, strings, hazelnuts, charcoal...) have been discovered underwater at the Isle of Wight, in southern England. They date from the Epipaleolithic (also called sometimes "Mesolithic") period, before farming or pottery arrived to the area.

More details at ThisIsHapmshire.net.
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Oldest African pottery found in Mali

Swiss archaeologists have uncovered what could be the oldest African ceramic fragment, provisionally dated to c. 9400 BCE, which they describe as "very ornate". The discovery was made in the Dogon Country. Now they are digging at Ounjougou, a location they believe has a lot of potential.

Source: SwissInfo, via Archaeoforums.
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Portuguese ancient DNA

Via Mathilda's Anthropology Blog, one of my favorites because even if she often dwells in non-recent papers, these are almost always very interesting for those who, like myself, are fascinated by human prehistory. Also is probably the only anthropology blog that dedicates a lot of articles to North Africa.

The paper is: Using ancient DNA to examine genetic continuity at the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in Portugal (H. Chandler, B. Sykes and J. Zilhao, 2005). More than two years old but still a novelty for me.

There's an interesting introduction on Zilhao's view of the Epipaleo-Neolithic transition in central and southern Portugal and then the interesting stuff comes all in figure 4:

What do you see? I see continuity. Sure: some unexpected N* has vanished and some V has appeared. But this variance is normal between any two different samples and the rest remains all the same: H dominance and some U (U5 and U* that is surely all U6)

Chandler et al. instead read discontinuity: immigration from some nearby West Mediterranean (European) source and population replacement. Well in the line of Zilhao's vision of Portuguese Neolithic transition.

Whatever the case, it is noticeable that none of the so-called Neolithic clades (especially but not only J) were present then. J, T, K, X and W must have arrived to Portugal (and presumably to all SW Europe) later on, at least in the Chalcolithic, maybe even later. These clades are also the smallest ones (together with U6) among Basques (of all modern samples). This would seem to ratify the generally accepted belief that Basque people are among the least influenced by post-Neolithic genetic influx in Western Europe and that H, V, U5, U6 (along with some mysterious N*, maybe R*, and U8a in the Basque case) constituted the Paleolithic mtDNA pool of SW Europe.

Haplogroup U* (U6):

It is noticeable that U* (U6) was already important in southern Iberia in pre-Neolithic times, what may contradict Maca-Mayer's rather forced interpretation of the U6 variability and spread. She argues for Iberian U6 to be not older than 10,000 years ago but she fails to provide an archaeological mechanism for that migration (while disregarding as merely accidental the fact that the highest variability of U6 is in Iberia and Western Berbers, and not in her alleged urheimat of the Nile). All that reasoning is founded in two factors:

1. That U6 is almost not found in Europe outside Iberia (though in fact it is occasionally found in France and Italy, with an unnamed distinct subclade unique to Sardinia)

2. That Oranian (Iberomaurusian culture) expanded from East to West (against the C-14 actual datations).

I suspect (and this suspicion grows stronger the more I read on the matter) that Oranian does actually honor its original name of Iberomaurusian and is derived from the Gravetto-Solutrean of southern Iberia, expanding from West to East in North Africa, bringing with it European haplogroups like U6, H and V (and maybe also Y-DNA R1b, rather common in Sudan and Upper Egypt) as well as technlogical and artitistic manifestations. U6 would then be the product of an early UP founder effect in southern Iberia, much like U8a among Basques. The counter-tide would belong to Capsian culture, which would have brought Y-DNA E1b1b (maybe together withmtDNA L, too common in North Africa to be just product of the rather minor trans-Saharan slave trade) as well as Afroasiatic languages.
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Ice-free Arctic 7,000 years ago?

That is what a team from the Geological Survey of Norway thinks: they have found estabilished ancient beaches dating 6-7,000 years ago that they believe would be impossible to form is the Arctic was not largely ice free. They relate this warm epysode to the expansion of early Arctic cultures in North America.

Epipaleolithic remains found offshore of England

The finding, 500 meters offshore of Tynemouth, has recieved the unfortunate name of "Geordie Atlantis" (because it's submerged, I guess) but it is interesting anyhow, as they are the first Epipaleolithic remains found in that area. It is also interesting because, while we know that a lot of modern seabed was exposed and possibly inhabited in Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic times, findings like this one are extremely rare.

Source: Earthdive.