Journal of Anthropological Sciences最新文献

{"title":"Inspecting human evolution from a cave. Late Neanderthals and early sapiens at Grotta di Fumane: present state and outlook.","authors":"Marco Peresani","doi":"10.4436/JASS.10016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4436/JASS.10016","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Of the many critical phases of human evolution, one of the most investigated is the transition from the Middle to the Upper Palaeolithic with the pivotal bio-cultural substitution of Neanderthals by Homo sapiens in Western Eurasia. The complexity of this over ten thousands years phase raises from the ensemble of evidence ascribed to the diverse adaptations expressed by Neanderthals and the first representatives of our species. In countless archaeological records Neanderthals left clear traces of a cultural variability dotted with innovations in the technology of stone and bone tools, alongside with manifestations in the range of the symbolic sphere. Together with other aspects of daily life, this evidence contributes shedding light on the cognitive aptitudes of those hominins and reassessing gaps in Pleistocene human diversities. Among archaeological contexts, the cave of Fumane in the Monti Lessini (Veneto Pre-Alps, northeastern Italy) is a key site. It is positioned along the potential trajectory of hominins moving into southern Europe from eastern and southeastern regions and includes a finely layered sedimentary sequence with cultural layers ascribed to the Mousterian, Uluzzian, Aurignacian and Gravettian. The ensemble constitutes one of the most complete, detailed and dated continental stratigraphic series from a segment of the late Pleistocene between 50 and 30 ka cal BP in a cave context of Southern Europe. Assessments based on sedimentological and palaeontological record provide indicators for framing Neanderthals in their respective ecological contexts since the late Middle Pleistocene until their demise during MIS3. On-going research is producing data ascribable to the human ecological relations and the interaction with specific natural resources, thus contributing to shed light on the complexity of Neanderthal behavior. Thanks to the high-resolution archaeological record of the earliest appearances of Homo sapiens, Fumane also provides clues to compare life, subsistence, and cultures between these Pleistocene hominins for comprehensive reasonings on our unicity.</p>","PeriodicalId":48668,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Sciences","volume":"100 ","pages":"71-107"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10830865","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The future of the Eurasian past: highlighting plotholes and pillars of human population movements in the Late Pleistocene.","authors":"Leonardo Vallini,&nbsp;Luca Pagani","doi":"10.4436/JASS.10013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4436/JASS.10013","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The major genetic divergences among non-Africans took place within a relatively short period of time, between 50 and 40 thousand years ago. These events shaped human diversity worldwide and set the basis for our current understanding of demographic history, patterns of adaptation and genetic burden across human populations. While the global picture appears already set, with the main human expansion Out of Africa inferred to have occurred between 60 and 70 thousand years ago and the main separation between contemporary East and West Eurasian to have taken place at around 40 thousand years ago, several finer details remain unresolved, including the whereabouts of such expansions and the dynamics of their interactions with archaic hominins and the interplay between environmental, cultural and demographic effectors. Here we review the major events that characterize human movements across and beyond Eurasia until the last glacial maximum and, at the end of each paragraph, spell out in italics the major questions that remain unsolved and that may provide major breakthroughs in the field in the upcoming years.</p>","PeriodicalId":48668,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Sciences","volume":"100 ","pages":"231-241"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10549447","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"From the Alps to the Mediterranean and beyond: genetics, environment, culture and the \"impossible beauty\" of Italy.","authors":"Paolo Anagnostou,&nbsp;Francesco Montinaro,&nbsp;Marco Sazzini,&nbsp;Fabio Di Vincenzo,&nbsp;Giovanni Destro Bisol","doi":"10.4436/JASS.10010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4436/JASS.10010","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Since prehistoric times, Italy has represented a bridge between peoples, genes and cultures. Its peculiar geographical position explains why: it is located in the center of the Mediterranean Sea, flanked by the Balkans and the Hellenic Peninsula to the east, Iberia to the west and surrounded by North Africa to the south and central Europe to the north. This makes Italy of extraordinary interest for the study of some different aspects of human diversity. Here we overview current knowledge regarding the relationships between the structure of the genetic variation of Italian populations and the geographical, ecological and cultural factors that have characterized their evolutionary history. Human presence in Italian territory is deeply rooted in the past. Lithic artifacts produced by the genus Homo and remains of Homo sapiens are among the earliest to have been found on the continent, as shown by the lithic industry of Pirro Nord (between 1.3 and 1.6 Mya) and the dental remains of the \"Grotta del Cavallo\" (between 45 and 43 Kya). Genetic and genomic studies relating to existing and extinct human groups have shed light on the migrations from Europe, Africa and Asia that created the ancient layers of the genetic structure of today's Italian populations, especially before the Iron Age. The important role of isolation (genetic and cultural) in shaping genetic structure is clearly visible in the patterns of intra- and inter-population diversity observed among Italian ethno-linguistic minorities that settled on the peninsula and on the major islands until the 19th century. Finally, selective pressures have likely driven the distribution of originally adaptive variants and haplotypes that now confer protection or susceptibility to major diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease (in northern Italy) and tuberculosis and leprosy (in the south). What emerges is a picture where the combined effects of migration, isolation and natural selection generated by the interplay of geography, environment and culture have shaped a complex pattern of human diversity that is unique in Europe and which goes hand in hand with today's rich animal and plant biodiversity. In a nutshell, scientific evidence and cultural heritage paint Italy as a place with extremely diverse environments where distant peoples have met since the deep past, bringing and sharing genes and ideas.</p>","PeriodicalId":48668,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Sciences","volume":"100 ","pages":"267-294"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10830375","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Ancient genomic research - From broad strokes to nuanced reconstructions of the past.","authors":"Kathrin Nägele,&nbsp;Maite Rivollat,&nbsp;He Yu,&nbsp;Ke Wang","doi":"10.4436/JASS.10017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4436/JASS.10017","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Ancient DNA (aDNA) studies have deployed genetic material from archaeological contexts to investigate human dispersals and interactions, corroborating some longstanding hypotheses and revealing new aspects of human history. After drawing the broad genomic strokes of human history, geneticists have discovered the exciting possibilities of applying this method to answer questions on a smaller scale. This review provides an overview of the commonly used methods, both in the laboratory and the analyses, and summarizes the current state of genomic research. It reviews human dispersals across the continents and additionally highlights some studies that integrated genomics to answer questions beyond biology to understand the cultural and societal traits of past societies. By shining a light from multiple angles, we gain a much better understanding of the real shape of the human past.</p>","PeriodicalId":48668,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Sciences","volume":"100 ","pages":"193-230"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10830864","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Patterns of integration and modularity in the primate skeleton: a review.","authors":"Noreen von Cramon-Taubadel","doi":"10.4436/JASS.10012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4436/JASS.10012","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The question of how complex morphologies evolve, given constraints imposed by genetic, developmental and functional factors, has been a topic of inquiry for many decades. In the mid-twentieth century the study of morphological trait covariation, and the implications of this for evolutionary diversification, was developed under the general concept of \"morphological integration\". Given the polygenic inheritance model underlying quantitative skeletal traits, and the existence of differential pleiotropic effects, it is assumed that variation in the genotype to phenotype map will lead to the emergence of semi-autonomous \"modules\" that share relatively stronger covariance (integration) among traits within them. Understanding these potential patterns of modularity in the primate skeleton is important for clarifying the seeming inconsistencies presented by \"mosaic\" morphologies found in fossil taxa, as well as providing hypothetical units of morphological evolution that can be compared across the primate order. A review of the primate skeletal integration and modularity literature was conducted with the aim of assessing (i) the general nature of primate skeletal integration patterns, and (ii) the extent to which any identified modularity patterns are ubiquitous across primates. The vast literature on cranial integration reveals some consistency in suggesting that the face and the neurocranium (and in some cases, the basicranium and vault) form distinct modules, but the intensity of this modular pattern varies across taxa. The much more modest postcranial integration literature suggests that apes show overall reduced covariation among skeletal regions compared with other anthropoid taxa, but the extent to which any identified modularity patterns hold true across primates is still very unclear. While much has been learned about primate skeletal integration in the past two decades, we still need more studies that establish benchmarks as to what constitutes an integrated modular structure, and that empirically test these potential modules across a wider range of primate taxa.</p>","PeriodicalId":48668,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Sciences","volume":"100 ","pages":"109-140"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10479201","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The power of 100.","authors":"Giovanni Destro Bisol,&nbsp;Giorgio Manzi","doi":"10.4436/JASS.10018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4436/JASS.10018","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48668,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Sciences","volume":"100 ","pages":"1-3"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10496019","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Prehistory, neuroscience, and evolutionary anthropology: a personal journey.","authors":"Emiliano Bruner","doi":"10.4436/JASS.10011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4436/JASS.10011","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The relationship between anthropology and neuroscience has always been friendly but controversial, because they embrace inclusive common topics (human beings and their brains) although following distinct approaches, often more holistic and speculative in the former field, more reductionist and quantitative in the latter. In recent decades, novel disciplines have been proposed to bridge the gap between anthropology and neuroscience, mostly taking into account their common interest in human evolution. Paleoneurology deals with the study of brain anatomy in extinct species. Neuroarchaeology concerns the study of brain functions associated with behaviours that are of interest according to the archaeological record. Cognitive archaeology investigates the evolution of those behaviours following methods and theories in psychology. These new fields can provide quantitative and experimental support to topics that, to date, have been largely discussed only on a theoretical basis. Nonetheless, working with extinct species necessarily involves many limitations. Consistent theories on the evolution of our cognitive abilities must rely on the integration of different sources of information, on parallel and independent evidence from different fields, and on a proper attitude: openness and caution.</p>","PeriodicalId":48668,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Sciences","volume":"100 ","pages":"173-192"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10536658","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The first uses of colour: what do we know?","authors":"Daniela Eugenia Rosso","doi":"10.4436/JASS.10005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4436/JASS.10005","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Colour strongly shapes our perception of the world and plays a main role in the emergence of language and in the transmission of information. It has been shown that systematic use of ochre, along with other cultural traits that reflect cognitive complexity, disappear and reappear from the archaeological record, suggesting that cultural transmission follows discontinuous trajectories that to this day are unknown to us. Understanding when humans started using colour and how this feature evolved may therefore be instrumental to understand the evolutionary paths followed by members of our lineage towards cultural complexity. The earliest secure evidence for ochre use is found at 300.000-year-old archaeological sites from Africa and Europe. It usually consists of iron-rich rocks characterized by a red, orange, yellow or brown colour and/or streak, modified by grinding, scraping and knapping to produce red or yellow powder, ochre residues adhering to different types of artefacts or sediment stained with ochre or rich in ochre microfragments. Around 160 ka, ochre use becomes a recurrent feature. Although analyses of ochre collections have become increasingly frequent, there is still very little information on the first instances of ochre use and on how this cultural feature evolved through time. Most cases of early evidence for colour use by different human fossil species were recovered during excavations conducted several decades ago, when ochre was not documented systematically. Excluding a few recently studied cases, there is often a lack of evidence to support the anthropogenic nature of these findings. The aim of this paper is to summarise what we know on ochre use during the Lower Palaeolithic / Early Stone Age (ESA) and Middle Palaeolithic / Middle Stone Age (MSA), review techniques currently used for the analysis of this material and highlight analytical and theoretical issues surrounding this complex cultural feature.</p>","PeriodicalId":48668,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Sciences","volume":"100 ","pages":"45-69"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10468999","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Evolutionary theory, systematics, and the study of human origins.","authors":"Ian Tattersall","doi":"10.4436/JASS.10007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4436/JASS.10007","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Paleoanthropology's relationship with evolutionary theory has not been entirely happy. The anatomists who dominated paleoanthropology for its first century had little interest in biological diversity and its causes, or in hominins' place in that diversity, or in the rules and principles of zoological nomenclature - which they basically ignored entirely. When, as the twentieth century passed its midpoint, Ernst Mayr introduced theory to paleoanthropology in the form of the gradualist Modern Evolutionary Synthesis (in its most hardened form), he shocked students of human evolution not only into a strictly linear evolutionary mindset, but into a taxonomic minimalism that would for years obscure the signal of phylogenetic diversity and vigorous evolutionary experimentation among hominins that was starting to emerge from a rapidly enlarging hominin fossil record. Subsequently, the notion of episodic as opposed to gradualist evolution re-established phylogenies as typically branching, and species as bounded entities with births, histories, and deaths; but the implications of this revised perspective were widely neglected by paleoanthropologists, who continued to reflexively cram diverse new morphologies into existing taxonomic pigeonholes. For Pleistocene hominins, the effective systematic algorithm became, \"if it isn't Australopithecus, it must be Homo\" (or vice versa), thereby turning both taxa into wastebaskets. The recent development of the \"Extended Evolutionary Synthesis\" has only exacerbated the resulting caricature of phylogenetic structure within Homininae, by offering developmental/phenotypic plasticity as an excuse for associating wildly differing morphologies within the same taxon. Homo erectus has been a favorite victim of this foible. Biological species are indeed morphologically variable. But they are only variable within limits; and until we stop brushing diverse morphologies under the rug of developmental plasticity, paleoanthropology will remain at a major impasse.</p>","PeriodicalId":48668,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Sciences","volume":"100 ","pages":"19-43"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2022-12-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"10479078","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"New insights on hip bone sexual dimorphism in adolescents and adults using deformation-based geometric morphometrics.","authors":"Cinzia Fornai, Nicole M Webb, Alessandro Urciuoli, Viktoria A Krenn, Louise K Corron, Martin Haeusler","doi":"10.4436/JASS.99017","DOIUrl":"10.4436/JASS.99017","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Morphological variation of the human pelvis, and particularly the hip bone, mainly results from both female-specific selective pressure related to the give birth of large-headed newborns, and constraints in both sexes for efficient bipedal locomotion, abdominal stability, and adaptation to climate. Hip bone morphology has thus been extensively investigated using several approaches, although the nuances of inter-individual and sex-related variation are still underappreciated, and the effect of sex on ontogenetic patterns is debated. Here, we employ a landmark-free, deformation-based morphometric approach to explore variation in modern human hip bone shape and size from middle adolescence to adulthood. Virtual surface models of the hip bone were obtained from 147 modern human individuals (70 females and 77 males) including adolescents, and young and mature adults. The 3D meshes were registered by rotation, translation, and uniform scaling prior to analysis in Deformetrica. The orientation and amplitude of deviations of individual specimens relative to a global mean were assessed using Principal Component Analysis, while colour maps and vectors were employed for visualisation purposes. Deformation-based morphometrics is a time-efficient and objective method free of observer-dependent biases that allows accurate shape characterisation of general and more subtle morphological variation. Here, we captured nuanced hip bone morphology revealing ontogenetic trends and sex-based variation in arcuate line curvature, greater sciatic notch shape, pubic body and rami length, acetabular expansion, and height-to-width proportions of the ilium. The observed ontogenetic trends showed a higher degree of bone modelling of the lesser pelvis of adolescent females, while male variation was mainly confined to the greater pelvis.</p>","PeriodicalId":48668,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Anthropological Sciences","volume":"99 ","pages":"117-134"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2021-12-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"39766179","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}