Quaternary Environments and Humans最新文献

{"title":"Modern human origins: Do we know what we're looking for?","authors":"John D. Speth","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2026.100102","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2026.100102","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As proxies for the emergence of \"modern human behavior,\" archaeologists typically rely on changes in technological complexity and/or the first appearance of symbolic items or practices. In this paper, I examine both approaches and conclude that neither, as currently envisioned, is likely to provide the answers archaeologists seek. Technological complexity is always a work in progress, and deciding where to place the boundary between \"pre-modern\" and \"modern\" is arbitrary. The symbolic approach is better suited to the task but problematic nonetheless, because archaeologists focus only on objects or practices that had no evident utilitarian function. That assumption flies in the face of ethnographic reality. Traditional Indigenous peoples see symbolic meanings in almost everything in their world, whether utilitarian or not, mundane or special, animate or inanimate, natural or supernatural. The hearth, smoke, cardinal directions, colors, plants, animals, water, wind, clouds, rain, thunder, lightning, minerals, even toolstone, all are viewed as sentient, volitional spirit-beings with human-like temperaments, needs, and expectations. Importantly, this worldview introduces spiritually motivated behaviors and constraints that have real world causal agency. Why should we assume that the first time a few peoples scattered across Eurasia or Africa decided to wear ornaments or paint cave walls conveniently coincided with the first time human beings possessed the cognitive capacity for symbolic behavior? A deeply spiritual worldview could have emerged millennia earlier, but saw its expression in other domains of material culture or phenomena, including those that archaeologists routinely dismiss as utterly mundane and utilitarian. I suggest that technological complexity cannot resolve the modernity issue, and that the current focus on symbolism expressed exclusively in non-utilitarian objects and practices is far too narrow and fails to recognize the pervasive nature of spiritualism in traditional societies. I offer what I believe is a more anthropologically sound research paradigm for exploring the origins of modern human behavior, and some admittedly very preliminary suggestions for a way forward.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"4 1","pages":"Article 100102"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147398370","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 linguistic (pre)history on the eastern Tibetan Plateau: A multidisciplinary approach of archaeology, palaeoclimate and linguistics","authors":"Bingcong Deng ,&nbsp;Jade d’Alpoim Guedes","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2026.100100","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2026.100100","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The early dispersal of Sino-Tibetan language family has been proposed to be promoted by millet domestication and cultivation, and ultimately agricultural development in the Yellow River Valley. However, the spread of Sino-Tibetan onto the Tibetan Plateau was a more complex picture showing interactions between the agriculturalists from the Yellow River region and the local hunter-gatherers. This article investigates exchange and contact dynamics of different populations in prehistoric eastern Tibetan Plateau, combining data from archaeology and linguistics in the setting of climatic environment of the Holocene. We observe diversification in both archaeological and linguistic evidence following the 4.2 kya event, suggesting a potential human response to the climate change. Our results also illustrate acceptance and resistance of the populations on the Tibetan Plateau to different degrees in terms of agriculturalist economy and diversification of subsistence strategies in order to avoid risks.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"4 1","pages":"Article 100100"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147398416","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":"Quaternary research in South Asia: Exploring human-environment interactions","authors":"Kalyan Sekhar Chakraborty,&nbsp;Sourav Mukhopadhyay,&nbsp;Deepak Kumar Jha,&nbsp;Patrick Roberts","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2026.100098","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2026.100098","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"4 1","pages":"Article 100098"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147538405","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 Khovaling Loess Plateau as a window into Early Paleolithic human–environment interactions in Central Asia","authors":"Aljasil Chirakkal ,&nbsp;Anton Anoikin ,&nbsp;Redzhep Kurbanov ,&nbsp;Petr Sosin ,&nbsp;David K. Wright","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2026.100101","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2026.100101","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Loess–paleosol sequences in southern Tajikistan offer a valuable yet underexplored archive for reconstructing early human–environment interactions across Central Asia. Building on our previous investigations of geochemical and sedimentary proxies, here we make an overview based on lipid biomarkers, bulk stable carbon isotopes, and archaeological data from multiple localities of the Khovaling Loess Plateau on understanding ecological and anthropogenic signals spanning the Early Paleolithic. Our combined geochemical and archaeological data reveal repeated fire use, vegetation modification, and strategic occupation of ecotonal river valley environments by early humans dating back more than 500 ka. Notably, variations in lipid biomarkers and bulk carbon isotopic signatures across the studied loess sites in the vicinity of Obi-Mazar River underscore the spatial complexity of land-use strategies and highlight the ecological flexibility of Early Paleolithic populations. These findings position the Khovaling Loess Plateau as a key region for understanding long-term human adaptability and environmental shaping during early human dispersal through Central Asia.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"4 1","pages":"Article 100101"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147449020","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":"Bioarchaeological and Palynological Studies of Graves from Samshvilde: Diachronic Case for Preliminary Reconstruction of Environment, Human Diet, Diseases and Remedies","authors":"David Berikashvili ,&nbsp;Nino Tavartkiladze ,&nbsp;Levan Kvakhadze ,&nbsp;Shota Tvaladze ,&nbsp;Eliso Kvavadze","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100090","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100090","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper presents the results of multidisciplinary research carried out at the Samshvilde Archaeological Complex (Georgia, South Caucasus) between 2016 and 2024 by a team from the University of Georgia, the Georgian National Museum, and Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University. The project aimed to help reconstruction of the aspects of paleoecology, paleodiet, paleopathology, social hierarchy, and medical practices among Late Bronze–Iron Age, Hellenistic, and Medieval communities through the analysis of Samshvilde graves, despite the limited number of burials available. Eight graves spanning different periods were examined using a range of methodological approaches. Palynological analyses revealed widespread helminthic and gastrointestinal infections, which appear to have been treated with traditional remedies, including deer antler and volcanic ash residues identified in the graves. Archaeological evidence indicates a possible spatial shift in mortuary practices: graves from the Late Bronze–Iron Age and Hellenistic periods were concentrated near the Samshvilde citadel, whereas Medieval interments were mainly located in the eastern sector of the city. This transition may reflect demographic, economic fluctuations and broader sociopolitical changes. Bioarchaeological data further suggest that most individuals from the Medieval graves suffered violent deaths, consistent with the historical record of Seljuk, Mongol, and Iranian incursions in the region during the High and Late Middle Ages.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"3 4","pages":"Article 100090"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145418208","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":"High-precision dating of Abrigo de La Boja (Murcia, Spain): Implications for the Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition and the culture-stratigraphy of Upper Pleistocene Iberia","authors":"João Zilhão ,&nbsp;Lucas Ageby ,&nbsp;Ernestina Badal ,&nbsp;Luís Gomes ,&nbsp;Ignacio Martín-Lerma ,&nbsp;Peter Steier ,&nbsp;Eva Maria Wild ,&nbsp;Diego E. Angelucci ,&nbsp;Valentin Villaverde ,&nbsp;Josefina Zapata","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100085","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100085","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>La Boja is a rock-shelter located in Murcia (Spain) whose <em>c.</em>7 m infilling spans the last 50,000 years of the Pleistocene. Though punctuated by a few episodes of stasis or erosion, sediment accumulation proceeded at a regular rate, while human occupation was intermittent and light. This pattern allowed for the preservation of 31 well-separated Occupation Horizons whose stratigraphic integrity is demonstrated by stone tool refitting, the pristine preservation of hearths and earth ovens, and the age-depth consistency of dating results. Verification of these criteria warranted Bayesian modelling of the sequence, which was carried out under OxCal and delivered a high-resolution chronostratigraphy based on 56 age measurements obtained by OSL and radiocarbon. Our main conclusions are as follows: substantial human use of south-east Spain’s arid interior during MIS 2 and MIS 3 was restricted to interstadials; during stadials, visits were fleeting and left behind an exceedingly scant record (except perhaps in the Solutrean, when harsh conditions prevailed globally but short-lived pulses of increased humidity occurred locally); the Mousterian’s basal metre, featuring Levallois reduction and Soyons points, formed through the 50–55 ka (thousands of years ago) interval; the region’s earliest Upper Palaeolithic is the Evolved Aurignacian, which replaced the Middle Palaeolithic during the 37.1–37.4 ka interval (thereby supporting that, in southern and western Iberia, Neandertals persisted for longer than elsewhere in Eurasia); the transition to the Gravettian occurred within the 34–35 ka interval and there is no evidence that it was demic rather than simply technological; the existence of a distinct Lower Solutrean phase spanning the 25.0–25.5 ka interval is confirmed; in the region, the 20–22 ka slot is occupied by the Solutreo-gravettian, which implies that claims for the French Badegoulian to have extended as far south as the Spanish Levant cannot be supported.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"3 4","pages":"Article 100085"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145519999","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":"Stone tool use as an adaptive technology: A meta-analysis of functional estimates on use-wear traces from early, middle, and late Upper Paleolithic industries in the northeastern Japanese Archipelago","authors":"Akira Iwase","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100084","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100084","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Since the 1980s, the development of experimental traceological studies has enabled archaeologists to estimate the intended use of Paleolithic stone tools whose functions were unclear. Despite the functional analyses of over 5500 Japanese Upper Paleolithic artifacts, how stone tool use was organized in response to the Late Pleistocene environmental changes remains poorly understood. Using an updated database of Japanese Upper Paleolithic functional studies, this paper conducts a meta-analysis of functional estimates from use-wear traces to examine the differences in stone tool use among three lithic industries in the northeastern Paleo-Honshu Island: Trapezoid (early Upper Paleolithic: EUP, c. 38–32 cal ka BP), Blade point (middle Upper Paleolithic: MUP, c. 32–23 cal ka BP), and Microblade (late Upper Paleolithic: LUP, c. 18–16 cal ka BP) and to discuss how Paleolithic hunter-gatherers organized and adapted their tool use strategies during Marine Isotope Stages 3 and 2. Results suggest that EUP, MUP, and LUP populations organized their stone tool uses differently. The EUP foragers used trapezoidal tools multifunctionally, though infrequently for shaping non-lithic and/or complex tools. In contrast, LUP foragers honed technologies to maintain diverse stone toolkits specialized for processing non-lithic and complex tools. MUP foragers possessed blade tools with a moderate frequency of toolmaking traces and moderate multifunctionality. Taken together, observed diversity of stone tool use likely reflect differences in the toolkit structures that Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers designed to adapt to the Late Pleistocene environments on the northeastern Paleo-Honshu Island.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"3 4","pages":"Article 100084"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145322453","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":"Gender inequality in Ancient Rome through archaeometric studies of wine in funerary contexts","authors":"José Rafael Ruiz Arrebola","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100094","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100094","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article examines how the archaeometric and archaeological analysis of funerary assemblages in Roman tombs reveals gender inequality in Ancient Rome. Through modern scientific methodologies based on techniques coupled with mass spectrometry, differentiated patterns in funerary offerings according to the sex of the deceased are identified. The role of wine is analyzed as a symbolic marker of male power, linking its production, consumption, and representation to gender and the patriarchal structures of Roman society. Through the study of literary sources, archaeological evidence, and chemical analyses, it is demonstrated that wine was not merely an economic or ritual good, but a socially codified and widespread expression of power. Emphasis is placed on the discovery of liquid wine in a Roman mausoleum unearthed in Carmona (Spain), dated to the first half of the 1st century CE, and its exclusive association with male remains, which reinforces the symbolic dimension of wine as a masculine attribute, even in death. The article combines arqueometry, funerary archaeology, written sources, and gender studies, demonstrating how gender inequalities were reproduced even in mortuary practices.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"3 4","pages":"Article 100094"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145617969","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 geoarchaeological timeline of India","authors":"Deepak Kumar Jha ,&nbsp;Sujit Dasgupta ,&nbsp;Rajat Sanyal","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100089","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100089","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In the last decade, the growing interest in understanding the long-term human-environment interaction and its enduring impact on Earth systems has drawn scientists from around the world into multidisciplinary studies, including geology, archaeology, palaeoclimatology and palaeoecology. With the current trend towards understanding the roots of human impact on the landscape, the 'Anthropocene', and the complexities within the geosphere, biosphere and hydrosphere, it is high time to link geological, climatological and archaeological events at regional and global scales to human history, and therefore to introduce a first of its kind geoarchaeological timeline. Here we present a comprehensive geoarchaeological timeline that aligns major archaeological technological innovations and historical events in India with the geological timescale provided by the International Commission on Stratigraphy. This timeline will be crucial for understanding critical periods in India's history and for guiding current and future research on human-environment interactions, particularly in navigating the Anthropocene crisis. This timeline should be regularly updated as new knowledge is gained from future studies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"3 4","pages":"Article 100089"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145364350","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 coevolution of languages, peoples and environments in Central Africa’s Kwilu-Kasai region since ∼1000 BCE: A dialogue with Jan Vansina","authors":"Koen Bostoen ,&nbsp;Peter Coutros ,&nbsp;Jessamy Doman ,&nbsp;Cesar Fortes-Lima ,&nbsp;Sara Pacchiarotti ,&nbsp;Carina Schlebusch","doi":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100088","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100088","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In this article, Jan Vansina’s essay on the deep-time population history of the Kwilu-Kasai region, now more than half a century old, is revisited through the kaleidoscopic lens of newly collected linguistic, archaeological, palaeoecological and genetic evidence collected between 2018 and 2023. In contrast to Vansina’s view of the region as a terminus for the settlement of diverse Bantu speech communities, the area was likely an important center of diversification and expansion for early Bantu speakers. Under a drier climate favoring the increase of grassland and open woodland around Idiofa but not a general loss of the forest cover, Bantu speakers most probably started occupying the region from the 4th century BCE onwards. Pottery-producing settlements first emerge along the Kwilu River, i.e., at Luani (371–148 BCE) and Lukombe (357–27 BCE), and then near Idiofa (146–18 BCE), where the earliest evidence for iron metallurgy marks the actual start of the Early Iron Age (146 BCE-750CE) south of the Congo rainforest. The first settlers lived in small and enclaved communities without much mutual communication. These were perfect conditions for early divergence within the Bantu language family’s major West-Coastal Bantu branch. While modern language data situate the West-Coastal Bantu homeland between the Kasai and Kamtsha Rivers, this zone was only settled towards the beginning of the common era based on the currently available archaeological data. This apparent mismatch between archaeology and historical linguistics might be due to subsequent processes of language death and population relocation and restructuring. Confirming Vansina’s idea that modern-day Kwilu-Kasai communities do not directly descend from the region’s earliest Bantu-speaking settlers, significant population reshuffling did indeed occur after the Early Iron Age. During the so-called ‘hiatus period’ (750–1450 CE), human activity contracted to a few refuge areas, especially near the modern towns of Bandundu and Idiofa, and the vegetation underwent an irreversible climate-induced shift to open habitats, possibly connected to the Medieval Climate Anomaly. During the Late Iron Age, the study area was rapidly resettled, first in the south (15–16th c. CE), and then in the north (17–18th c. CE), and large cross-regional exchange networks developed. In line with oral histories still existing among Kwilu-Kasai peoples today and with the clans and political and social institutions they share, the region underwent a very advanced demographic, linguistic and cultural integration in the four to five centuries preceding the start of European colonization, which may have involved populations no longer present there today, such as Ubangi-speaking groups.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":101053,"journal":{"name":"Quaternary Environments and Humans","volume":"3 4","pages":"Article 100088"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2025-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145322452","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}