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Neanderthals had complex land use patterns, adapting to diversified landscapes and climates. Over the past decade, considerable progress has been made in reconstructing the chronology, land use and subsistence patterns, and occupation types of sites in the Rhône Valley, southeast France. In this study, Neanderthal mobility at the site of Payre is investigated by combining information from lithic procurement analysis (chaîne evolutive and chaîne opératoire concepts) and strontium isotope analysis of teeth (childhood foraging area), from two units (F and G). Both units date to the transition from Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 8 to MIS 7, and show similar environmental conditions, but represent contrasting occupation durations. Level Gb (unit G) represents a long-term year-round use, in contrast to short-term seasonal use of the cave in level Fb (unit F). For both levels, lithic material and food were generally collected from a local to semi-local region. However, in level Gb, lithic materials were mainly collected from colluviums and food collected in the valley, whereas in level Fb, lithic procurement focused primarily on alluvial deposits and food was collected from higher elevation plateaus. These procurement or exchange patterns might be related to flint availability, knapping advantages of alluvial flint or occupation duration. The site of Payre is located in a flint rich circulation corridor and the movement of groups or exchanges between groups were organized along a north-south axis on the plateaus or towards the east following the river. The ridges were widely used as they are rich in flint, whereas the Rhône Valley is not an important source of lithic raw materials. Compared to other western European Middle Palaeolithic sites, these results indicate that procurement strategies have a moderate link with occupation types and duration, and with lithic technology. The Sr isotope ratios broadly match the proposed foraging areas, with the Rhône Valley being predominantly used in unit G and the ridges and limestone plateaus in unit F. While lithic reconstructions and childhood foraging are not directly related this suggests that the three analysed Neanderthals spend their childhood in the same general area and supports the idea of mobile Neanderthals in the Rhône Valley and neighbouring higher elevation plateaus. The combination of reconstructing lithic raw material sources, provisioning strategies, and strontium isotope analyses provides new details on how Neanderthals at Payre practised land use and mobility in the Early Middle Palaeolithic.

The cranium from Broken Hill (Kabwe) was recovered from cave deposits in 1921, during metal ore mining in what is now Zambia.sup.1. It is one of the best-preserved skulls of a fossil hominin, and was initially designated as the type specimen of Homo rhodesiensis, but recently it has often been included in the taxon Homo heidelbergensis.sup.2-4. However, the original site has since been completely quarried away, and--although the cranium is often estimated to be around 500 thousand years old.sup.5-7--its unsystematic recovery impedes its accurate dating and placement in human evolution. Here we carried out analyses directly on the skull and found a best age estimate of 299 [plus or minus] 25 thousand years (mean [plus or minus] 2[sigma]). The result suggests that later Middle Pleistocene Africa contained multiple contemporaneous hominin lineages (that is, Homo sapiens.sup.8,9, H. heidelbergensis/H. rhodesiensis and Homo naledi.sup.10,11), similar to Eurasia, where Homo neanderthalensis, the Denisovans, Homo floresiensis, Homo luzonensis and perhaps also Homo heidelbergensis and Homo erectus.sup.12 were found contemporaneously. The age estimate also raises further questions about the mode of evolution of H. sapiens in Africa and whether H. heidelbergensis/H. rhodesiensis was a direct ancestor of our species.sup.13,14. Analyses of the hominin skull from Broken Hill, Zambia, place it at an earlier date than previously thought, confirming that later Middle Pleistocene Africa was home to at least three lineages of hominin., Author(s): Rainer Grün [sup.1] [sup.2] , Alistair Pike [sup.3] , Frank McDermott [sup.4] , Stephen Eggins [sup.2] , Graham Mortimer [sup.2] , Maxime Aubert [sup.2] [sup.5] , Lesley Kinsley [sup.2] [...]

Two fossilized human crania (Apidima 1 and Apidima 2) from Apidima Cave, southern Greece, were discovered in the late 1970s but have remained enigmatic owing to their incomplete nature, taphonomic distortion and lack of archaeological context and chronology. Here we virtually reconstruct both crania, provide detailed comparative descriptions and analyses, and date them using U-series radiometric methods. Apidima 2 dates to more than 170 thousand years ago and has a Neanderthal-like morphological pattern. By contrast, Apidima 1 dates to more than 210 thousand years ago and presents a mixture of modern human and primitive features. These results suggest that two late Middle Pleistocene human groups were present at this site--an early Homo sapiens population, followed by a Neanderthal population. Our findings support multiple dispersals of early modern humans out of Africa, and highlight the complex demographic processes that characterized Pleistocene human evolution and modern human presence in southeast Europe. Detailed comparative analyses of two fossil crania from Apidima Cave, Greece, indicate that two late Middle Pleistocene human groups were present at this site; first an early Homo sapiens population followed by a Neanderthal population., Author(s): Katerina Harvati [sup.1] [sup.2] [sup.3] , Carolin Röding [sup.1] , Abel M. Bosman [sup.1] [sup.2] , Fotios A. Karakostis [sup.1] , Rainer Grün [sup.4] , Chris Stringer [sup.5] , [...]

New excavations in Sulawesi, where in situ stone artefacts associated with fossil remains of megafauna have been recovered from stratified deposits between 200,000 and 100,000 years ago, suggest that Sulawesi was host to a long-established population of archaic hominins. Sulawesi is the largest and oldest island within Wallacea, a vast zone of oceanic islands separating continental Asia from the Pleistocene landmass of Australia and Papua (Sahul). By one million years ago an unknown hominin lineage had colonized Flores immediately to the south.sup.1, and by about 50 thousand years ago, modern humans (Homo sapiens) had crossed to Sahul.sup.2,3. On the basis of position, oceanic currents and biogeographical context, Sulawesi probably played a pivotal part in these dispersals.sup.4. Uranium-series dating of speleothem deposits associated with rock art in the limestone karst region of Maros in southwest Sulawesi has revealed that humans were living on the island at least 40 thousand years ago (ref. 5). Here we report new excavations at Talepu in the Walanae Basin northeast of Maros, where in situ stone artefacts associated with fossil remains of megafauna (Bubalus sp., Stegodon and Celebochoerus) have been recovered from stratified deposits that accumulated from before 200 thousand years ago until about 100 thousand years ago. Our findings suggest that Sulawesi, like Flores, was host to a long-established population of archaic hominins, the ancestral origins and taxonomic status of which remain elusive., Author(s): Gerrit D. van den Bergh [sup.1] [sup.2] , Bo Li [sup.1] , Adam Brumm [sup.3] [sup.4] , Rainer Grün [sup.3] , Dida Yurnaldi [sup.1] [sup.5] , Mark W. Moore [...]