Quaternary Environments and Humans最新文献

{"title":"Reflections of Late Neolithic–Early Bronze Age environments, land use and pile dwelling activities in a new palynological record from the varved sediments of Lake Mondsee, Austria","authors":"Anna Schubert ,&nbsp;Stefan Lauterbach ,&nbsp;Christian Leipe ,&nbsp;Franziska Kobe ,&nbsp;Achim Brauer ,&nbsp;Pavel E. Tarasov","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100076","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100076","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Despite fundamental progress in geoarchaeological research in the Austrian Salzkammergut region, there are still many unanswered questions regarding human activity and its relationship to climate change and the diverse environments during prehistoric times. A new palynological record from the varved composite sediment core MO-05 from the south-eastern part of Lake Mondsee (47°49′N, 13°24′E, 481 m above sea level) provides palaeoecological evidence of a long-term, although possibly discontinuous, Late Neolithic/Copper Age habitation around the study site between ca. 6000 and 4000 cal BP. Agricultural activity during this interval focused on animal husbandry, which had only a minor impact on the natural forest vegetation. A particularly low level of local human activity is indicated at the end of the Late Neolithic between 4200 and 4000 cal BP while palynological indicators of deforestation and agriculture show a re-increase in human activity during the Early to early Middle Bronze Age (ca. 3950–3460 cal BP). Without clear evidence of human activity in the vicinity of the coring site, the increasing agricultural activities were most likely restricted to areas more distant from Lake Mondsee. The end of the Late Neolithic/Copper Age habitation phase with evidence of animal husbandry and local fire activity at 4200 cal BP coincides with the Northgrippian–Meghalayan transition, which is marked by a gradual change in vegetation distribution expressed by a shift to lower scores of the dominant cool mixed (COMX) forest biome. This shift to a cooler and wetter climate regime might have caused the decrease in human activity around this time.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"3 2","pages":"Article 100076"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144290813","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Archaeometric analysis of an early copper dagger from Kozareva Mogila, Western Black Sea region","authors":"Petya Georgieva,&nbsp;Yordan Milev","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100073","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100073","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In the fifth millennium BC (the Eneolithic period), copper extractive metallurgy developed in the region of Thrace and the Lower Danube. Massive tools and weapons were produced from copper. At the end of the fifth millennium, this development stopped, and the cultures associated with it disappeared. A period of cultural transformation followed, as a result of which the Early Bronze Age cultures appeared, which developed a different type of metallurgy, beginning with the so-called arsenic bronze. This transitional period lasted several hundred years. There is relatively little information on it, particularly for the region of Thrace. The reason for this is that after the end of the third phase of the Late Eneolithic Kodjadermen-Gumelniţa-Karanovo VI culture, a hiatus usually follows in the settlement mounds, above which the Early Bronze Age layers follow. In Kozareva Mogila, a separate layer of phase IV of the culture was discovered for the first time in a settlement mound. It represents the end of the Eneolithic and the beginning of the transitional period to the Bronze Age. This continuity in cultural development indicates that the old population was preserved. Here, we present a copper dagger from the site, originating from this layer, in which only materials from phase IV of the Late Eneolithic are present. A sample from the dagger was studied at the ‘Curt-Engelhorn’ Zentrum für Archäometrie, Mannheim, Germany. An XRF analysis was conducted to determine the chemical composition, and a lead isotope analysis was done to determine possible sources of raw material. The provenance study allowed the dagger to be related to some of the copper deposits in the Strandzha area. The XRF analysis showed that the artefact is made of copper with 0.54 % As, which is probably due to the deliberate use of copper ores with naturally occurring arsenic.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"3 2","pages":"Article 100073"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144222731","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The late Middle Pleistocene Homo erectus of the Madura Strait, first hominin fossils from submerged Sundaland","authors":"H.W.K. Berghuis ,&nbsp;Yousuke Kaifu ,&nbsp;Unggul Prasetyo Wibowo ,&nbsp;Thijs van Kolfschoten ,&nbsp;Indra Sutisna ,&nbsp;Sofwan Noerwidi ,&nbsp;Shinatria Adhityatama ,&nbsp;Gert van den Bergh ,&nbsp;Eduard Pop ,&nbsp;Rusyad Adi Suriyanto ,&nbsp;A. Veldkamp ,&nbsp;Josephine C.A. Joordens ,&nbsp;Iwan Kurniawan","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100068","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100068","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Eastern Asia yielded a rich fossil record of Pleistocene hominins, ranging from <em>Homo erectus</em> and the diminutive island species <em>Homo floresiensis</em> and <em>Homo luzonensis</em>, to post-<em>erectus</em> grade late archaic <em>Homo</em> (including Denisovans), and finally to anatomically modern humans. The Sunda Shelf played an important role in the dispersal and evolution of hominin populations. The shelf has been widely exposed during most of the Pleistocene, forming a landmass known as Sundaland. Today, the area holds the world’s largest shelf sea. Thus far, hominin fossils from submerged Sundaland were not available. Here we report on the finding of two hominin cranial fragments from the submerged Sunda Shelf, retrieved during a dredging work in the Madura Strait, off the Java coast. The specimens derive from the sandy fill of a late Middle Pleistocene submerged valley of the Solo River and consist of a frontal fragment and a parietal fragment. Metric and morphological comparisons with Pleistocene skulls from the Asian mainland, Java and Flores point to a relation with the late <em>Homo erectus</em> of Java, in particular with the crania from Sambungmacan. The Madura Strait hominins were probably part of an MIS6 population that lived along the Solo, which in this period continued eastward over the exposed shelf area of the Madura Strait. Probably, the large perennial rivers of Sundaland offered good living conditions for <em>Homo erectus</em>, in a late Middle Pleistocene climate setting that was relatively dry.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"3 2","pages":"Article 100068"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144222733","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A late Middle Pleistocene lowstand valley of the Solo River on the Madura Strait seabed, geology and age of the first hominin locality of submerged Sundaland","authors":"H.W.K. Berghuis ,&nbsp;A. Veldkamp ,&nbsp;Shinatria Adhityatama ,&nbsp;Tony Reimann ,&nbsp;Alice Versendaal ,&nbsp;Iwan Kurniawan ,&nbsp;Eduard Pop ,&nbsp;Thijs van Kolfschoten ,&nbsp;Josephine C.A. Joordens","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2024.100042","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2024.100042","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The island of Java (Indonesia) is renowned for its Pleistocene hominin-bearing vertebrate fossil site<em>s</em>. Recently, a marine sand extraction work in the Madura Strait, off the coast of Surabaya, hit upon vertebrate-rich sandstones. More than 6000 vertebrate fossils have been retrieved from the dredged sand, amongst which are two skull fragments ascribed to <em>Homo erectus</em>. The fossils form the first vertebrate record from submerged Sundaland, the lowland plains that connected the great islands of western Indonesia to the Asian mainland during Middle and Late Pleistocene lowstands. Here we present the results of a comprehensive study of the age, depositional background and landscape setting of the subsea fossil locality. The fossiliferous sandstones form the fill of a lowstand valley of the Solo River. The material was OSL-dated to 162 +/- 31 and 119 +/- 27 ka, which links the valley to the lowstand of MIS6. Fluvial backfilling was probably related to the stage of rising sea-level in the run-up to MIS5. The top of the valley fill consists of marine sandstones, pointing to valley drowning and a change to estuarine conditions, probably during peak highstand conditions of MIS5e. The Madura Strait submerged valley is of similar age as the Solo terrace of Ngandong, one of the richest <em>Homo erectus</em> sites of Java and regarded as yielding the youngest record of this species.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"3 2","pages":"Article 100042"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144229514","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Climate change and the spread of the Transeurasian languages","authors":"Martine Robbeets ,&nbsp;Christian Leipe","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100071","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100071","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The term “Transeurasian” refers to a proposed language family stretching across Europe and northern Asia, which includes five well-established branches: Japonic, Koreanic, Tungusic, Mongolic and Turkic. The complex range of interacting factors that drove the spread of these languages from their homeland in Northeast Asia to their present-day locations is yet to be understood. Here, we investigate the potential impacts of climate change on the spread of the Transeurasian languages across mid-latitude East Asia during the Holocene, beginning from the initial break-up of the Transeurasian language family about 9200 years ago. Comparison of palaeoclimate records and linguistic developments demonstrates that global- to regional-scale climate trends may have been factors that promoted the spread of these languages.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"3 2","pages":"Article 100071"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144222734","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"First vertebrate faunal record from submerged Sundaland: The late Middle Pleistocene, hominin-bearing fauna of the Madura Strait","authors":"H.W.K. Berghuis ,&nbsp;Gert van den Bergh ,&nbsp;Thijs van Kolfschoten ,&nbsp;Unggul Prasetyo Wibowo ,&nbsp;Iwan Kurniawan ,&nbsp;Shinatria Adhityatama ,&nbsp;Indra Sutisna ,&nbsp;Ivo Verheijen ,&nbsp;Eduard Pop ,&nbsp;A. Veldkamp ,&nbsp;Josephine C.A. Joordens","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2024.100047","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2024.100047","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Sunda Shelf currently holds the world’s largest shelf sea. During Pleistocene sea-level lowstands the area emerged, forming a vast landmass called Sundaland. Intermittently exposed Sundaland played an important role in the regional vertebrate biogeography and evolution of species including <em>Homo erectus</em> and, in the Late Pleistocene, <em>Homo sapiens</em>. So far, our models of the Pleistocene biogeography of Sundaland were based on the distribution of extant species and on island fossil assemblages, notably from Java (Indonesia). Here we present the first vertebrate fossil record from subsea Sundaland. The fossils derive from the sandy fill of a lowstand valley of the Solo River in the Madura Strait, which was OSL-dated to 162 ± 31 and 119 ± 27 ka. The cemented sand was recently extracted and used for a landfill in the port of Surabaya. The assemblage consists of at least 36 species and provides a unique insight into the lowland fauna of emerged Sundaland, during the late Middle Pleistocene. The lowland river had a rich reptile community, consisting of various turtle species, crocodilians, varanids, and pythons. The nearby estuary was frequented by several shark species, including the extinct <em>Hemipristis serra,</em> as well as several species of stingrays. Some of these also ascended the river. The lowland plains surrounding the river were populated by herbivores such as Hippopotamidae and several species of Bovidae, Cervidae, and Proboscidea. The terrestrial community represents a grass-dominated environment and is similar to the contemporaneous fossil assemblage of Ngandong (Java). However, on a detailed level, there are conspicuous differences. For example, <em>Duboisia santeng, Axis lydekkeri,</em> and <em>Epileptobos groeneveldtii</em> are absent in Ngandong and were generally believed to have become extinct by the end of the Middle Pleistocene. Their presence in the Madura Strait assemblage shows that the species persisted on the lowland plains. Interesting is also the presence of more rarely encountered species such as <em>Varanus komodoensis</em>, <em>Macaca</em> sp. and <em>Homo erectus</em> on the lowland plains. Metrically, <em>Elephas</em> sp. molars from the Madura Strait site are relatively high-crowned, whereas <em>Bos palaeosondaicus</em> is relatively small-statured compared to its Middle Pleistocene relatives from Java. The fossil fauna from the Madura Strait reflects a thus far unknown vertebrate coastal lowland community that lived in and around the lower reaches of the Middle Pleistocene Solo River.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"3 2","pages":"Article 100047"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144243082","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The taphonomy of the Madura Strait fossil assemblage, a record of selective hunting and marrow processing by late Middle Pleistocene Sundaland hominins","authors":"H.W.K. Berghuis ,&nbsp;Thijs van Kolfschoten ,&nbsp;Unggul Prasetyo Wibowo ,&nbsp;Iwan Kurniawan ,&nbsp;Shinatria Adhityatama ,&nbsp;Indra Sutisna ,&nbsp;Eduard Pop ,&nbsp;A. Veldkamp ,&nbsp;Josephine C.A. Joordens","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2024.100055","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2024.100055","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Madura Strait assemblage is the first vertebrate faunal record of submerged Sundaland. The material derives from an ancient valley of the Solo River, which was cut during the lowstand of MIS6. The geological background of the site and the taxonomy of the fossils have been described in previous publications. However, the significance of the assemblage within the Pleistocene biogeography of Southeast Asia can only be understood if we have insight into its accumulation history and homogeneity, and into the representativeness of the OSL-dated sediment for the fossils it contains. Moreover, the presence of hominin fossils raises questions on hominin subsistence strategies, which may have left traces in the fossil record. Over the past decades, similar questions have successfully been addressed by systematic taphonomic studies of fossil assemblages, notably from Africa and Europe. However, such studies are rare in Southeast Asia. Moreover, taphonomic studies of assemblages from subsea sites lag behind. Here we describe the results of a systematic taphonomic study of the Madura Strait assemblage. The fossils of terrestrial species form a homogenous assemblage, representing a steady supply of skeletal elements to the river, presumably during yearly flooding stages. OSL-dated fluvial sandstone samples point to a most likely age range of 146–131 ka. The material has been subject to fluvial size-sorting, but the absence of significant rounding points to short transportation distances and a local provenance. The skeletal remains accumulated in the fluvial valley fill or became concentrated in an overlying marine lag, as a result of tidal scour during the subsequent transition to estuarine conditions. Fossils of estuarine species derive from the estuarine sediment overlying this basal marine lag and are linked to peak-highstand conditions around MIS5e (∼123 ka). The bone remains of terrestrial species have been subject to two fracturing stages: a green-state fracturing stage prior to fluvial uptake and a sub-fossil-state fracturing stage during later marine reworking. Extensive green-state fragmentation of ruminant limb bones points to hominin bone battering and marrow processing. The age-at-death frequency distribution of bovids is indicative of selective hunting of prime adult prey. Cut marks on turtle bones show that hominins also fed on these aquatic species.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"3 2","pages":"Article 100055"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144243081","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Corrigendum to “Sedimentary records from human-made talavs reveal climate risks in semi-arid watersheds of India” [Quat. Environ. Hum. 3 (2) (2025) 100061]","authors":"Atreyee Bhattacharya ,&nbsp;S. Sarkar ,&nbsp;J.S. Leonard-Pingel ,&nbsp;A.V. Michelson ,&nbsp;A. Anoop ,&nbsp;P.K. Mishra ,&nbsp;S. Chakraborty ,&nbsp;K. Bajaj ,&nbsp;U. Singh ,&nbsp;V. Petryshyn ,&nbsp;R. Ray ,&nbsp;P.D. Sabale ,&nbsp;A. Bhattacharya ,&nbsp;M. Kirby ,&nbsp;A. Bazaz","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100075","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100075","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"3 2","pages":"Article 100075"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144279840","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Modelling the impact of large-scale hydroclimate change on prehistoric Polynesian island life","authors":"Charlotte V. Hipkiss ,&nbsp;Justin Sheffield ,&nbsp;Peter Langdon ,&nbsp;David Sear","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100074","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100074","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The South Pacific was one of the last regions on earth to be colonised by humans and offers a unique opportunity to study early climate-human interactions in environments previously untouched by people. Palaeoclimate evidence suggests the South Pacific has experienced shifts between dry and wet periods throughout the past three thousand years, the broad period of colonisation, with extremes in both modes being prevalent. Drought has significant repercussions for small Pacific islands, affecting water and food resources, with potential consequences on the viability of life on these islands leading to internal stress, conflict, collapse or migration. Previously, socio-ecological models have been developed to test mechanisms of change within prehistoric societies worldwide that can lead to migration or societal change, but thus far the connections between past climatic change and prehistoric island life within the tropical South Pacific have not been fully explored. This study utilises palaeoclimatic data alongside a new system dynamics socio-ecological model to explore the relationship between climate, agricultural carrying capacity and population dynamics on the Polynesian island of Mangaia (Cook Islands) in the tropical South Pacific. Model results suggest that as the population density of the island increases, the impact of drought events on population dynamics increases. We also show that the severity of the drought rather than the return frequency drove the largest changes in carrying capacity and population dynamics. Changes in long-term rainfall leading to persistent dry conditions impacted the timing and rate of population growth due to its role as a limiting factor for agricultural productivity. We compare our modelled results with the known history of population stress and societal change from Mangaia and found these corresponded with drought periods and low food availability. We demonstrate the potential for droughts to have impacted on the early colonisation and societal change on Eastern Polynesian islands.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"3 2","pages":"Article 100074"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144279839","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The newly uncovered Madura Strait fossil assemblage and its role in Pleistocene hominin dispersals in Southeast Asia","authors":"Silvia M. Bello,&nbsp;Chris B. Stringer","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100070","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100070","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"3 2","pages":"Article 100070"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144222732","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}