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Here, we report the first attempt to use isotope geochemistry to improve understanding of the experiences of Indigenous Australians living on the colonial frontier in late 19th century CE Australia. In the study, we analysed strontium (87Sr/86Sr), carbon (δ13C), and oxygen (δ18O) isotope ratios from the tooth enamel and dentine of six individuals who died in Normanton, Queensland, in the 1890s. The study was a collaboration between scientists and the local Traditional Owners, the Gkuthaarn and Kukatj people, and was carried out to promote truth and reconciliation. The enamel 87Sr/86Sr results suggest that the individuals moved to Normanton from three geologically distinct regions during the period of European expansion into the Gulf of Carpentaria, Cape York. This is consistent with the oral histories and historical documents, which suggest that many Indigenous people in the Gulf Country were displaced to camps on the outskirts of towns like Normanton because of European settlement. The δ13C values we obtained indicate that the individuals mostly ate C4 plants and/or C4-plant-consuming herbivores. When combined with the fact that some of the individuals’ teeth had dental caries, this suggests that the individuals may have had regular access to introduced foods. The enamel δ18O values are high compared to an international comparative sample, at 0.72–4.69‰ VPDB. We suspect the elevated values are due to a combination of a high degree of preferential loss of 16O through evaporation of surface water, the amount effect associated with the Australian monsoon, and high prevalence of introduced infectious diseases. Together, the results of our study demonstrate that isotopic analysis of human remains has the potential to further illuminate the effects of European colonisation on Indigenous people in Australia. Perhaps most importantly in connection with this, our study’s results show that isotopic analyses of human remains can provide surprisingly detailed information about the lives of a category of Indigenous Australians who rarely appear in the documents written by early ethnographers and colonial officials—subadults. That the analysis of the skeletal remains of Indigenous Australians can now contribute to the truth and reconciliation process is an unexpected, interesting, and welcome development in the story of bioarchaeology in Australia.

Bioarchaeological research in Australia has lagged behind that in other regions due to understandable concerns arising from the disregard of Indigenous Australians rights over their ancestors’ remains. To improve this situation, bioarchaeologists working in Australia need to employ more community-oriented approaches to research. This paper reports a project in which we employed such an approach. The project focused on burials in the Flinders Group, Queensland. Traditional Owners played a key role in the excavations and helped devise analyses that would deliver both scientific contributions and socially relevant outcomes. The fieldwork and laboratory analyses yielded a number of interesting results. Most significantly, they revealed that the pattern of mortuary practices recorded by ethnographers in the region in the early 20th century—complex burial of powerful people and simple interment of less important individuals—has a time depth of several hundred years or more. More generally, the project shows that there can be fruitful collaboration between archaeologists and Indigenous communities in relation to the excavation and scientific analysis of Aboriginal ancestral remains.

The ability to control fire clearly had a significant impact on human evolution, but when and how hominins developed this ability remains poorly understood. Improving our understanding of the history of hominin fire use will require not only additional fieldwork but also comparative analyses of fire use by ethnographically-documented hunter-gatherer groups. Here, we report a study that focused on the second of these tasks. In the study, we consulted ethnographic texts for a sample of 93 hunter-gatherer groups and collected data pertaining to fire use in settlements. We focused on the groups’ methods of making fire, the ways in which they used fire, and when and where they created fires. While many of the observations were in line with expectations, some were surprising. Perhaps most notably, we found that several groups did not know how to make fire and that even within some of the groups who were able to make fire, the relevant knowledge was restricted to a very small number of individuals. Another surprising finding was that many groups preferred to preserve fire rather than creating it anew, to the point that they would carry it between camps. In the final section of the paper, we discuss the implications of the survey’s findings for understanding the early archaeological record of fire use.

Isotopic analyses of human remains have the potential to alter our understanding of prehistoric lifeways and migration in Australia, but very few such analyses have been conducted in the country to date. Here, we report the first regional multiproxy isotope study of pre-contact human remains from Australia. We obtained δ13Ccollagen, δ15Ncollagen, δ18Obioapatite, δ13Cbioapatite and 87Sr/86Sr isotope values from three complex interments and two simple beach burials from the Flinders Group of Islands, Queensland. The study had two goals. One was to assess how the diets of the individuals compared to those of pre-contact populations elsewhere in the region. The other goal was to test the hypothesis that burial type was indicative of local/non-local status. We found that the individuals’ diets were diverse and included a relatively high percentage of low trophic level foods. With regard to the difference in burial practices, we found those afforded complex burials had grown up in the Flinders Group, while those given beach burials likely grew up away from the islands. These results highlight the intricacies of the lives of the Indigenous Australians who inhabited the islands and inform our understanding of their pre-contact diet and mobility. The results also suggest that multiproxy isotope studies may be able to aid with the repatriation of unprovenanced remains of Indigenous Australians.

Recently, there has been a lot of discussion about the impact of climate change on human conflict. Here, we report a study in which we revisited the findings of a paper that has been cited many times in the discussion. The paper in question focused on the association between temperature and conflict in Europe between 1000 and 1980 CE and suggested that colder temperatures led to more conflict. However, there are reasons to be skeptical of this finding. Most importantly, the analytical technique used by the paper’s authors was not suitable for the conflict dataset because the dataset is count-based and contains autocorrelation. With this in mind, we developed a Bayesian time-series model that is capable of dealing with these features, and then we reanalysed the dataset in conjunction with several temperature reconstructions. The results we obtained were unambiguous. None of the models that included temperature as a covariate outperformed a null hypothesis in which conflict levels at any given time were determined only by previous levels. Thus, we found no evidence that colder temperatures led to more conflict in Europe during the second millennium CE. When this finding is placed alongside the results of other studies that have examined temperature and conflict over the long term, it is clear that the impact of temperature on conflict is context dependent. Identifying the factor(s) that mediate the relationship between temperature and conflict should now be a priority.

Hand images with missing phalanges occur at a number of Upper Palaeolithic rock art sites in Europe. It has been argued that they represent hand signals or a counting system, but there are reasons to believe they were actually produced by hands from which finger segments had been removed. Here, we report a cross-cultural study designed to shed light on this phenomenon. Our review of the ethnographic literature identified 121 societies from Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Oceania that engaged in finger segment amputation, and we were able to distinguish ten distinct amputation practices within this sample. When the contexts and what we can infer about the participants are taken into account, the scenario that best fits the rock art hand images is removal of finger segments during life in order to appeal for supernatural assistance. This has potentially interesting implications for social life in the Upper Palaeolithic because traumatic religious rituals have been found to foster strong interpersonal bonds among group members and hostility towards members of other groups.

Publisher's version (útgefin grein)., Background: Recently we proposed an evolutionary explanation for a spinal pathology that afflicts many people, intervertebral disc herniation (Plomp et al. [2015] BMC Evolutionary Biology 15, 68). Using 2D data, we found that the bodies and pedicles of lower vertebrae of pathological humans were more similar in shape to those of chimpanzees than were those of healthy humans. Based on this, we hypothesized that some individuals are more prone to intervertebral disc herniation because their vertebrae exhibit ancestral traits and therefore are less well adapted for the stresses associated with bipedalism. Here, we report a study in which we tested this "Ancestral Shape Hypothesis" with 3D data from the last two thoracic and first lumbar vertebrae of pathological Homo sapiens, healthy H. sapiens, Pan troglodytes, and several extinct hominins. Results: We found that the pathological and healthy H. sapiens vertebrae differed significantly in shape, and that the pathological H. sapiens vertebrae were closer in shape to the P. troglodytes vertebrae than were the healthy H. sapiens vertebrae. Additionally, we found that the pathological human vertebrae were generally more similar in shape to the vertebrae of the extinct hominins than were the healthy H. sapiens vertebrae. These results are consistent with the predictions of the Ancestral Shape Hypothesis. Several vertebral traits were associated with disc herniation, including a vertebral body that is both more circular and more ventrally wedged, relatively short pedicles and laminae, relatively long, more cranio-laterally projecting transverse processes, and relatively long, cranially-oriented spinous processes. We found that there are biomechanical and comparative anatomical reasons for suspecting that all of these traits are capable of predisposing individuals to intervertebral disc herniation. Conclusions: The results of the present study add weight to the hypothesis that intervertebral disc herniation in H. sapiens is connected with vertebral shape. Specifically, they suggest that individuals whose vertebrae are towards the ancestral end of the range of shape variation within H. sapiens have a greater propensity to develop the condition than other individuals. More generally, the study shows that evolutionary thinking has the potential to shed new light on human skeletal pathologies., We thank the following institutions for access to the specimens used in this study: Naturhistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria; Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, Germany; University of Zürich’s Anthropological Institute & Museum, Zürich, Switzerland; the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Forensic Medicine, Copenhagen, Denmark; the Smithsonian Institute Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC, USA; and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Cleveland, Ohio, USA. We also thank Allowen Evin for her assistance with the analyses. This study was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (895-2011-1009), Canada Research Chairs Program (228117 and 231256), Canada Foundation for Innovation (203808 and 36801), British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund (862-804231 and 962-805808), Simon Fraser University (14518), MITACS (IT03519), the Wenner-Gren Foundation (62447), and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (SAR10359).

Women often experience novel food aversions and cravings during pregnancy. These appetite changes have been hypothesized to work alongside cultural strategies as adaptive responses to the challenges posed by pregnancy (e.g., maternal immune suppression). Here, we report a study that assessed whether data from an indigenous population in Fiji are consistent with the predictions of this hypothesis. We found that aversions focus predominantly on foods expected to exacerbate the challenges of pregnancy. Cravings focus on foods that provide calories and micronutrients while posing few threats to mothers and fetuses. We also found that women who experience aversions to specific foods are more likely to crave foods that meet nutritional needs similar to those provided by the aversive foods. These findings are in line with the predictions of the hypothesis. This adds further weight to the argument that appetite changes may function in parallel with cultural mechanisms to solve pregnancy challenges.

Estimating body mass from skeletal material is a key task for many biological anthropologists. As a result, several sets of regression equations have been derived for cranial and postcranial material. The equations have been applied to a wide range of specimens, but several factors suggest they may not be as reliable as generally assumed. Specifically, since many of the equations were derived from small reference samples using proxies for key variables and/or mean data, the nature of the relationship between the skeletal variables and body mass has often not been adequately demonstrated. In addition, few of the equations have been validated on known samples, making their accuracy and precision uncertain. Lastly, because no study has used cranial and postcranial material from the same individuals, the two approaches have never been systematically compared. The present study responded to these issues by deriving new regression equations from cranial and postcranial material using a large sample of modern humans of known-mass and associated skeletal variables measured from CT data. The equations were then tested on an independent sample, also of known mass. The results show that the newly derived equations estimate mass more accurately than existing equations for most variables. However, improvements were modest and accuracy rates remained relatively low. In addition, variables that had previously been argued to be ideal predictors were not the most accurate, and the current criteria used to assess equations did not ensure reliability. Overall, the results suggest that body mass estimates must be used cautiously and that further research is required.

Many inferences in palaeoanthropology and bioarchaeology rely on estimates of body mass from skeletal material. Body mass estimation is also becoming an area of interest for forensic anthropologists. The most common approach to estimating body mass from the skeleton involves measurements of the postcranium, and a number of equations have been developed for femoral head size and stature plus bi-iliac breadth. These equations have become standard in biological anthropology, but they have rarely been tested on individuals of known mass. In addition, the effects of several assumptions involved in the application of the equations have not been rigorously investigated. Accordingly, this study employed CT scans from a sample of 253 adult modern humans of known body mass to test the accuracy of the most widely used postcranial body mass estimation equations. The results were then used to evaluate several claims concerning the performance of the equations relative to one another. Most of the equations that were tested met the criteria for acceptance as reliable estimators with the male and the combined-sex samples. However, females were not estimated as reliably. In addition, the equations did not always perform consistently or as expected. Overall, our results suggest that estimating body mass with the postcranial equations that are currently available requires more caution than is usually exercised.

This paper reports a study that sheds light on an issue that is important for understanding human behavioral evolution—the factors that influence hunter-gatherers’ decisions regarding the number and degree of specialization of their tools. Two primary drivers of technological richness and complexity have been proposed in the anthropological literature: population size and environmental risk. In general, ethnographic studies tend to support environmental risk as the primary driver, whereas the limited number of archaeological studies that have been carried out seem to support population size. These findings are difficult to reconcile because problems exist for both sets of studies. The present study was designed with these problems in mind. We used an archaeological dataset to test which of the hypothesized driving factors—population size or environmental risk—best explains changes in technological richness. More specifically, we investigated whether changes in the number of point types in Texas from the first occupation more than 13,000 years ago to the Late Prehistoric period, around 400 years ago, are better explained by environmental risk or by population size. Bivariate correlations and a generalized linear model indicate that temporal changes in point-type richness in Texas are significantly associated with changes in one of our proxies of risk—global temperature. We found no relationship between temporal changes in point-type richness and changes in population size. Thus, the results derived from this study are consistent with the environmental risk hypothesis and inconsistent with the population size hypothesis.

Researchers have debated the existence of regional variation in Clovis points for over 60 years. Here, we report an attempt to resolve this argument using a large sample of Clovis points from dated assemblages and a suite of shape analysis methods known as geometric morphometrics. The study tested the two main hypotheses that have been put forward in the debate: the continent-wide adaptation hypothesis, which holds that Clovis points do not vary regionally, and the regional environmental adaptation hypothesis, which holds that there is regional variation as a consequence of Clovis groups adjusting their food-getting toolkits to local conditions. We used discriminant function analysis and a multivariate extension of the t test to assess whether differences in shape exist at two scales. The first set of analyses compared points from the most obvious environmental regions in North America, the East and the West. The second set of analyses investigated differences among points from subregions within the East and West. The analyses revealed significant differences between points from the East and the West and among points from some subregions. Follow-up analyses demonstrated that these differences are not the result of the most common confounding factors, raw material quality and resharpening. As such, the analyses support the regional environmental adaptation hypothesis rather than the continent-wide adaptation hypothesis. We conclude from this that Clovis people modified their points to suit the characteristics of local prey and/or the habitats in which they hunted.

In the study reported here we examined the impact of population size and two proxies of risk of resource failure on the diversity and complexity of the food-getting toolkits of hunter–gatherers and small-scale food producers. We tested three hypotheses: the risk hypothesis, the population-size hypothesis, and a hypothesis derived from niche construction theory. Our analyses indicated that the toolkits of hunter–gatherers are more affected by risk than are the toolkits of food producers. They also showed that the toolkits of food producers are more affected by population size than are the toolkits of hunter–gatherers. This pattern is inconsistent with the predictions of both the risk hypothesis and the population-size hypothesis. In contrast, it is consistent with the predictions of the niche construction hypothesis. Our results indicate that niche construction has affected the evolution of technology in small-scale societies and imply that niche construction must be taken into account when seeking to understand technological variation among food producers and the technological changes that occurred in association with the various transitions to farming that have occurred over the last 10,000 years.

Background: Recent studies suggest there is a relationship between intervertebral disc herniation and vertebral shape. The nature of this relationship is unclear, however. Humans are more commonly afflicted with spinal disease than are non-human primates and one suggested explanation for this is the stress placed on the spine by bipedalism. With this in mind, we carried out a study of human, chimpanzee, and orangutan vertebrae to examine the links between vertebral shape, locomotion, and Schmorl’s nodes, which are bony indicators of vertical intervertebral disc herniation. We tested the hypothesis that vertical disc herniation preferentially affects individuals with vertebrae that are towards the ancestral end of the range of shape variation within Homo sapiens and therefore are less well adapted for bipedalism. Results: The study employed geometric morphometric techniques. Two-dimensional landmarks were used to capture the shapes of the superior aspect of the body and posterior elements of the last thoracic and first lumbar vertebrae of chimpanzees, orangutans, and humans with and without Schmorl’s nodes. These data were subjected to multivariate statistical analyses. Canonical Variates Analysis indicated that the last thoracic and first lumbar vertebrae of healthy humans, chimpanzees, and orangutans can be distinguished from each other (p0.4590). The Procrustes distance between pathological humans and chimpanzees was found to be smaller than the one between pathological and healthy humans. This was the case for both vertebrae. Pair-wise MANOVAs of Principal Component scores for both the thoracic and lumbar vertebrae found significant differences between all pairs of taxa (p0.367). Together, these results suggest that human vertebrae with Schmorl’s nodes are closer in shape to chimpanzee vertebrae than are healthy human vertebrae. Conclusions: The results support the hypothesis that intervertebral disc herniation preferentially affects individuals with vertebrae that are towards the ancestral end of the range of shape variation within H. sapiens and therefore are less well adapted for bipedalism. This finding not only has clinical implications but also illustrates the benefits of bringing the tools of evolutionary biology to bear on problems in medicine and public health.

These are exciting times in the study of human origins. But excitement needs to be tempered with caution in assessing the claim of a six-million-year-old direct ancestor of modern humans.

A reanalysis of the wrist bones of early human fossils provides the first good evidence that humans evolved from ancestors who 'knuckle-walked', as chimps and gorillas do today.