Upper Palaeolithic: the coming of modern humans
Modern humans (Homo sapiens) evolved in Africa and subsequently migrated into Asia, Europe, Australia, and other parts of the earth. This conclusion is supported by the fossil record of modern humans as well as the genetics of living humans.
The oldest fossils that may be assigned to Homo sapiens are found in sub-Saharan Africa, and their dating indicates that modern human anatomy is present there by roughly 200,000 years ago, if not earlier. Analysis of the genetics of living humans - specifically the non-recombining DNA of the mitochondrion and Y-chromosome - reveals that the present-day peoples of the world are either Africans or a subset of Africans. At some point after 60,000 years ago, modern humans expanded out of Africa and into southern Asia and Australia, as well as the Near East and northern Eurasia.Modern humans seem to have invaded Europe in a series of migratory waves beginning possibly as early as 50,000 years ago. In the coming years, it seems likely that individual population waves into Europe will be identified in the form of genetic markers or haplogroups from ancient DNA extracted from the skeletal remains recovered from their sites. A series of haplogroups thought to represent the population movements into Europe already have been identified from the genetics of living people, but, to date, only a few modern human skeletal remains dating to more than 30,000 years ago have been analyzed for ancient DNA. At present, the migratory waves of Homo sapiens are represented primarily by archaeological proxies.
The archaeological record of Ice-Age modern humans in Europe is lumped into the Upper Palaeolithic - a classificatory term of the midnineteenth century that has become an anachronism. The archaeological remains of modern humans are fundamentally different from those of their predecessors, and reflect the unlimited creative powers of the modern mind: the capacity for generating a potentially infinite variety of informational or technological constructions.
This capacity is illustrated by the presence of complex visual art - such as cave paintings and sculptures - in the early Upper Palaeolithic of Europe. It also is manifest in the dynamic character of the technology, which exhibits rapid change in time and space and constant innovation. The archaeological manifestations of creativity presumably reflect a parallel capacity in vocal communication - a fully syntactic language with phrase structure grammar and potentially infinite variety of sentences and narratives. Despite the fact that written language did not appear until several millennia after the end of the Ice Age, the process of history began with the advent of the modern mind.It is the rapidly changing character of their archaeological record that permits the identification of migratory waves of modern humans into Europe after 50,000 years ago. Although ultimately derived from Africa, the immediate source of these population movements is the Near East, and despite the evidence from other parts of the world that modern humans already were creating watercraft, they seem to have moved into Europe by land across the Bosporus and through the Caucasus Mountains, as did humans during Lower Palaeolithic times. There is no evidence for movements across the Strait of Gibraltar or the strait between Sicily and Tunisia.
The earliest credible evidence for modern humans in Europe lies in a group of sites in Central and Southeast Europe that contain artefacts assigned to the ‘Initial Upper Palaeolithic', but which are lacking skeletal remains that may be firmly attributed to Homo sapiens. More sites may exist in Eastern Europe. The artefacts are similar to those in contemporaneous sites of the Levant, where modern humans already were established. The Initial Upper Palaeolithic is comparatively simple - at least as currently revealed - and exhibits little of the technological innovation and creativity that emerges in subsequent phases of the Upper Palaeolithic. It is associated with an interval of significant and sustained warmth (corresponding to Greenland Interstadial 12 in the North Atlantic palaeoclimate record), and may indicate an unexpectedly important role for climate in the initial peopling of Europe by modern humans.
Technological innovation almost certainly played a critical role in the rapid expansion of modern humans out of Africa and into a wide range of habitats and climate zones, and it is strikingly evident in the next Upper Palaeolithic industry that appears in Europe. Widely termed the ‘Proto-Aurignacian' because of similarities that it bears to the succeeding Aurignacian, this industry also bears a close resemblance to one found in the Levant (‘Ahmarian'). It shows up in Southern and Eastern Europe roughly 42,000 years ago (possibly earlier in some places), and seems to represent population movements via the Bosporus and Caucasus Mountains. Like the Initial Upper Palaeolithic, associated skeletal remains are scarce, but in the case of the Proto-Aurignacian, the archaeological remains are so characteristic of the modern human mind that there is little if any doubt as to the identity of their makers.
Two significant technological innovations that appear with the Proto- Aurignacian intrusion into Europe are the eyed needle, which recently turned up in Mezmaiskaya Cave in the northwest Caucasus Mountains,[519] and indirect evidence for devices used to trap and/or snare small mammals. The harvesting of small mammals is indicated by concentrations of hare remains at Kostenki on the central plain of Eastern Europe. It is either accompanied, or shortly followed, by other novel technologies for harvesting birds and fish. The pattern reflects expansion of the human dietary niche relative to the Neanderthals - perhaps critical during cooler and drier intervals in Europe, when biological productivity declined. The most characteristic stone artefact of the Proto-Aurignacian - the backed bladelet - may have been used to produce a new type of composite weapon with razorsharp blades inserted into lateral slots.
Evidence of visual art is still wanting in the Proto-Aurignacian (although a possible ivory figurine head is known from Russia), but personal ornaments - perhaps worn to symbolize social or ethnic identity - are common.
Perforated shells and canine teeth are especially common, but stone pendants also are found.[520] Spectacular visual art has been dated to the younger Aurignacian industry (which seems to postdate 40,000 years ago) including imaginative sculptures from sites in southern Germany. Among them is the famous Lowenmensch ivory figurine from Hohlenstein-Stadel that depicts a halfhuman mythical creature. In Western Europe, the early Aurignacian is linked to an extremely cold interval (Heinrich Event 4) that may have finished off the last of the Neanderthals. Further east, this interval follows a massive volcanic eruption in southern Italy (Campanian Ignimbrite) that spread an immense cloud of ash across Southeastern Europe and the East European Plain, perhaps wiping out much of the human population.A richer collection of human skeletal material from the interval between 40,000 and 30,000 years ago provides a glimpse of the physical appearance of the inhabitants of Europe at this time. Their anatomical proportions reflect adaptation to tropical climates (for example, elongated forelimbs), and offer a stark contrast to their Neanderthal predecessors. The pattern reflects the African origin of the European population. It also reflects the heavy reliance on novel and complex technology, which seems to have ‘buffered' modern humans from the selective effects of cold climate, allowing them to retain their tropical anatomy for thousands of years at higher latitudes.
Major changes are evident in the European archaeological record by 30,000-25,000 years ago, both with respect to economy and art, and they underscore the historical character of the Upper Palaeolithic. In parts of Central and Eastern Europe, settlements of unprecedented size - probably occupied at least briefly by fifty or more persons - materialize.[521] This presumably was a consequence of an increasingly efficient system of food procurement and storage, supported by various novel technologies.
Among the latter were kilns used to fire ceramics at controlled temperatures of up to 800°C and refrigerated storage units. The period (Gravettian) is also characterized by particularly elaborate burial ritual, and widespread production of the famous ‘Venus' figurines in ivory, clay, and other materials (see Figure 16.4).The boom seems to have come to an end after 25,000 years ago with the onset of the Last Glacial Maximum. An immense ice sheet expanded over much of Northern Europe, and conditions of extreme cold and aridity prevailed for several millennia across a broad periglacial zone. Despite their impressive technological achievements, people apparently were forced to abandon many areas, and there is evidence of dietary stress among the refugees who continued to dwell in Southern Europe. Perhaps the retention of a tropical physique exposed people to higher risk of cold injury (that is, frostbite and hypothermia), while an absence of wood in the coldest and driest areas may have deprived them of adequate fuel.24
In any case, the later Upper Palaeolithic settlements of Europe (known as Magdalenian in Western Europe and Epi-Gravettian in Eastern Europe) reveal a successful reoccupation of the periglacial zone, as conditions ameliorated after 20,000 years ago. The final millennia of the Ice Age in Europe, which ended roughly 12,000 years ago, is characterized by increasingly large and semi-permanent-looking settlements in parts of Western and Eastern Europe. In the east, these included groups of oval houses constructed out of mammoth bone. Among the technological innovations are spear-throwers (that is, mechanical devices) and increasingly complex artificial memory systems. Outside Europe, in the Near East and southern China (where pottery vessels appear at this time), the pattern clearly anticipates the farming villages of the postglacial epoch.
sites of northern Canada, which are also thought to represent periodic and temporary aggregations of multiple families.
See Robert McGhee, Ancient People of the Arctic (Vancouver: University of British Columbia, 1996).24 Although Upper Palaeolithic people often used fresh bone as a substitute for wood fuel, experimental research reveals that bone must be supplemented with at least a modest quantity of wood in order to render it practical as a fuel, because very large quantities of the former are required to sustain a burning hearth without the latter. See Isabelle Thery-Parisot, Sadrine Costamagno, Jean-Philip Brugal, Philippe Fosse, and Raphaele Guilbert, ‘The use ofbone as fuel during the palaeolithic, experimental study of bone combustible properties', in J. Mulville and A. K. Outram (eds.), The Zooarchaeology of Milk and Fats (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2005), pp. 50-9.
Figure 16.4 Venus of Dolni Vestonice, a small ceramic statue dating from 30,000 to 25,000 bce, from a Gravettian era settlement in Moravia (© Walter Geiersperger/Corbis).