Simulating the prehistoric use of fire through computer models

Archaeologists often use the percentages of heat-affected stone or bone artifacts found at archaeological sites as a way to determine how frequently fire was used by the inhabitants. Andrew Sorensen and Fulco Scherjon have come up with a computer model called 'fiReproxies' to simulate how fires used by prehistoric peoples affect artefacts buried in the substrate below.

Credit: Leiden University

FiReproxies

The fiReproxies model allows researchers to reconstruct the archaeological record and to test the relative importance of various cultural and environmental conditions (like wood fuel availability, group mobility or sedimentation rates at an archaeological site) in determining how and when fire is used and better understand how these factors, in turn, influence the rates at which artefacts are accidentally heated within an archaeological layer.

Credit: Leiden University

Interpreting fire signals

As an illustrative example, the study models conditions expected at a Middle Palaeolithic Neanderthal site over time and demonstrates that during colder climatic conditions the expected number of heated artefacts produced are lower than during warmer climatic conditions, even when fire is used regularly during both periods. This has implications for how archaeologists interpret differences in fire signals between layers deposited during cold and warm climatic periods.

The study has been published in PLOS ONE.

Source: Leiden University [May 24, 2018]

How human brains became so big

The human brain is disproportionately large. And while abundant grey matter confers certain intellectual advantages, sustaining a big brain is costly - consuming a fifth of energy in the human body.

Dr Diana Rivas displays a human brain on a working surface at the "Museum of Neuropathology" in Lima, Peru
[Credit: Ernesto Benavides/AFP]

It is an oddity that has long flummoxed scientists: while most organisms thrive with small brains, or none at all, the human species opted to sacrifice a degree of body growth for more cerebral capacity.

On Wednesday, researchers said they can finally reveal how and why this happened.

The human brain, they suggested, expanded mainly in response to environmental stresses that forced our species to come up with innovative solutions for food and shelter, and pass the lessons on to our offspring.

The finding challenges a popular theory that the thinking organ grew as social interactions between humans became more and more complex, a research duo wrote in the science journal Nature.

In fact, the inverse may be true.

"The findings are intriguing because they suggest that some aspects of social complexity are more likely to be consequences rather than causes of our large brain size," said paper co-author Mauricio Gonzalez-Forero of the University of St Andrews in Scotland.

"The large human brain is more likely to stem from ecological problem-solving and cumulative culture than it is from social manoeuvering."

From our ape-like Australopithecus ancestors to modern Homo sapiens, the human brain has tripled in size.

But feeding such a big brain has been suggested to come at the cost of slow body growth in childhood - leaving our young dependent and vulnerable for longer than other animals.

Brain over brawn?

Previous research found correlations between large brain size in species and complex social structures, living in challenging environments, and an ability to learn lessons from peers -- also described as "culture".

But no studies have been able to conclude whether these factors are the cause of brain expansion, or the result of it.

With colleague Andy Gardner, Gonzalez-Forero developed a mathematical model to measure whether being confronted with ecological and social problems has a measurable impact on brain growth, and if yes, how much.

Model "brains" were presented with ecological challenges -- finding prey in bad weather or in tough terrain, for example, preserving food to protect it against mold or heat spoilage, or storing water amid drought.

Social challenges were introduced too, to test the influence on brain growth of cooperation and competition between individuals and groups.

Interestingly, cooperation was associated with a decrease in brain size, the researchers said -- probably because it allows individuals to rely on each other's resources and to save energy by growing smaller brains themselves.

"We find that increasingly difficult ecological problems expand brains, but social demands fail to lead to human sized brains," Gonzalez-Forero told AFP.

But why did human brains grow more than those of other animals living in challenging environments?

Probably because of culture -- the ability to learn skills from others rather than having to figure everything out for ourselves.

"So, our results suggest that it is the interaction of hard ecology and culture that produced the human brain size," said Gonzalez-Forero.

Source: AFP [May 23, 2018]

Where hominid brains are concerned, size doesn't matter

The recently-discovered species Homo naledi may have had a pint-sized brain, but that brain packed a big punch. New research by Ralph Holloway and colleagues - that include researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa - published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examines the imprints of the brain upon the skulls of this species, called endocasts. The research highlights the humanlike shape of naledi's tiny brain, surprising scientists who studied the fossils. These findings draw further into question the long-held belief that human evolution was an inevitable march towards bigger, more complex brains.

The skulls of Homo naledi bear traces on their inside surfaces of the shape of naledi's brain. Only a third the size
of human brains, they nonetheless had some surprisingly humanlike features [Credit: John Hawks]

The discovery of Homo naledi by Professor Lee Berger of Wits University and his team at the Rising Star caves in the Cradle of Human Kind in 2013 was one of the largest hominin discoveries ever made and hailed as one of the most significant hominid discoveries of the 21st Century. Berger and Professor John Hawkes who was also part of the original Rising Star team who made the naledi discovery, as well as Professor Heather Garvin from Des Moines University in the US, are associated with the Evolutionary Studies Institute (ESI), based at Wits University. They are all co-authors of the current study.

In 2017, geologists demonstrated that this species existed in southern Africa between 236,000 and 335,000 years ago--potentially the same time that modern humans first emerged in Africa. This is a puzzle to scientists, who long held that there was only one species in Africa at this late time period - Homo sapiens. How did this species exist alongside others with brains three times its size? The new study suggests that naledi's behavior may have reflected the shape and structure of the brain more than its size.

Homo naledi endocast (top) with a curvature map (bottom) highlighting the sulci that are visible. The frontal
of naledi's brain looked very humanlike despite its small size [Credit: Heather Garvin]

The researchers pieced together traces of Homo naledi's brain shape from an extraordinary collection of skull fragments and partial crania, from at least five adult individuals. One of these bore a very clear imprint of the convolutions on the surface of the brain's left frontal lobe. "This is the skull I've been waiting for my whole career," said lead author Ralph Holloway, of Columbia University.

The anatomy of naledi's frontal lobe was similar to humans, and very different from great apes. Naledi wasn't alone. Other members of our genus, from Homo erectus to Homo habilis and the small-brained "hobbits", Homo floresiensis, also share features of the frontal lobe with living humans. But earlier human relatives, like Australopithecus africanus, had a much more apelike shape in this part of the brain, suggesting that functional changes in this brain region emerged with Homo. "It's too soon to speculate about language or communication in Homo naledi," said coauthor Shawn Hurst, "but today human language relies upon this brain region."

Evidence about the brain shape of Homo naledi comes from many partial skulls. The team used virtual methods
to understand how naledi's brain fits into the big picture [Credit: Heather Garvin]

The back of the brain also showed humanlike changes in naledi compared to more primitive hominins like Australopithecus. Human brains are usually asymmetrical, with the left brain displaced forward relative to the right. The team found signs of this asymmetry in one of the most complete naledi skull fragments. They also found hints that the visual area of the brain, in the back of the cortex, was relatively smaller in naledi than in chimpanzees--another humanlike trait.

The small brains of Homo naledi raise new questions about the evolution of human brain size. Big brains were costly to human ancestors, and some species may have paid the costs with richer diets, hunting and gathering, and longer childhoods. But that scenario doesn't seem to work well for Homo naledi, which had hands well-suited for toolmaking, long legs, humanlike feet, and teeth suggesting a high-quality diet. According to study coauthor John Hawks, "Naledi's brain seems like one you might predict for Homo habilis, two million years ago. But habilis didn't have such a tiny brain--naledi did."

A humanlike brain organisation might mean that naledi shared some behaviours with humans despite having a much smaller brain size. Lee Berger, a co-author on the paper, suggests that the recognition of naledi's small but complex brain will also have a significant impact on the study of African archaeology. "Archaeologists have been too quick to assume that complex stone tool industries were made by modern humans. With naledi being found in southern Africa, at the same time and place that the Middle Stone Age industry emerged, maybe we've had the story wrong the whole time."

Source: University of the Witwatersrand [May 14, 2018]

How our ancestors with autistic traits led a revolution in Ice Age art

The ability to focus on detail, a common trait among people with autism, allowed realism to flourish in Ice Age art, according to researchers at the University of York.

Detailed illustrations of lions painted in the Chauvet Cave [Credit: WikiCommons]

Around 30,000 years ago realistic art suddenly flourished in Europe. Extremely accurate depictions of bears, bison, horses and lions decorate the walls of Ice Age archaeological sites such as Chauvet Cave in southern France.

LSD

Why our ice age ancestors created exceptionally realistic art rather than the very simple or stylised art of earlier modern humans has long perplexed researchers.

Many have argued that psychotropic drugs were behind the detailed illustrations. The popular idea that drugs might make people better at art led to a number of ethically-dubious studies in the 60s where participants were given art materials and LSD.

The authors of the new study discount that theory, arguing instead that individuals with “detail focus”, a trait linked to autism, kicked off an artistic movement that led to the proliferation of realistic cave drawings across Europe.

Realism

Lead author of the paper, Dr Penny Spikins from the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, said: “Detail focus is what determines whether you can draw realistically; you need it in order to be a talented realistic artist. This trait is found very commonly in people with autism and rarely occurs in people without it.

“We looked at the evidence from studies attempting to identify a link between artistic talent and drug use, and found that drugs can only serve to disinhibit individuals with a pre-existing ability. The idea that people with a high degree of detail focus, many of which may have had autism, set a trend for extreme realism in ice age art is a more convincing explanation.”

Focus

The research adds to a growing body of evidence that people with autistic traits played an important role in human evolution.

Dr Spikins added:  “Individuals with this trait – both those who would be diagnosed with autism in the modern day and those that wouldn’t – likely played an important part in human evolution and survival as we colonised Europe.

“As well as contributing to early culture, people with the attention to detail needed to paint realistic art would also have had the focus to create complex tools from materials such as bone, rock and wood. These skills became increasingly important in enabling us to adapt to the harsh environments we encountered in Europe.”

The study is published in Open Archaeology.

Author: Shelley Hughes | Source: University of York [May 14, 2018]

85,000-year-old human footprints discovered in Saudi Arabia

Human footprints dating back to about 85,000 years have been discovered on the banks of an ancient lake in the Nefud Desert in Tabuk region, Prince Sultan Bin Salman, president of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage (SCTH), announced in Tokyo on Thursday.

Credit: Saudi Press Agency (SPA), Ministry of Culture and Information, Saudi Arabia

This amazing and rare discovery points to a new understanding of how our species came out of Africa en route to colonizing the world.

Prince Sultan’s announcement came on the sidelines of his visit on Thursday to the exhibition entitled “Trade routes in the Arabian Peninsula – the magnificent antiquities of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia throughout the ages.” The exhibition, organized by the SCTH in the Japanese National Museum in Tokyo, is scheduled to end on Sunday.

A joint Saudi international team discovered traces of several adults who were scattered on a muddy land in an old lake — each heading to a different destination — in the northwest of Saudi Arabia, Prince Sultan said, according to a Saudi Press Agency (SPA) report on Friday.

Credit: Saudi Press Agency (SPA), Ministry of Culture and Information, Saudi Arabia

The research team included the Saudi Geological Survey, the SCTH, King Saud University, the Max Planck Foundation for Human History, Oxford University, Cambridge University, Australia National, and the University of New South Wales in Australia.

Prince Sultan said the age of the footprints coincides with the fossil of the finger of an adult person recently found near the central site in the province of Taima.

The finger, whose discovery was announced last month, is considered to belong to an adult of the early migrants in recent times to the Arabian Peninsula via the Nefud Desert, which then was a green pasture replete with rivers, lakes, freshwater and abundant animals – a source of food for humans.

Prince Sultan said the SCTH is working side-by-side with archaeologists at the Max Planck Institute that has started work with the commission for several years. The objective is to study these footprints in detail. The archaeological and scientific exploratory works are still going on in international laboratories.

Source: Saudi Gazette [May 12, 2018]

Stone Age hepatitis B virus decoded

An international team of scientists led by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the University of Kiel has successfully reconstructed genomes from Stone Age and Medieval European strains of the hepatitis B virus. This unprecedented recovery of ancient virus DNA indicates that hepatitis B was circulating in Europe at least 7000 years ago. While the ancient virus is similar to its modern counterparts, the strains represent a distinct lineage that has likely gone extinct and is most closely related to chimpanzee and gorilla viruses.

Skeletal remains of HBV positive individual from the Stone Age site of Karsdorf, Germany. The individual
was a male with an age at death of around 25-30 years [Credit: Nicole Nicklisch]

The hepatitis B virus (HBV) is one of the most widespread human pathogens known today, affecting over 250 million people worldwide. However, its origin and evolutionary history remain unclear. Studying the evolution and history of the virus has to date been especially difficult, because until now viral DNA had not been successfully recovered from prehistoric samples. In the present study, which has been published in eLife, an international team of researchers led by the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the Institute of Clinical Molecular Biology at Kiel University, not only recovered ancient viral DNA from skeletons but also reconstructed the genomes of three strains of HBV.

The ancient history of hepatitis B

For this study, the researchers analyzed samples from the teeth of 53 skeletons excavated from Neolithic and medieval sites in Germany. The remains dated from around 5000 BC to 1200 AD. The researchers screened all samples for viral pathogens and detected ancient HBV in three of the individuals.

Geographic location of the samples from which ancient HBV genomes were recovered. Icons indicate the sample
material (tooth or mummy). HBV genomes obtained in this study are indicated by black frame
[Credit: Krause-Kyora et al. eLife 2018]

Full HBV genomes were recovered from these samples, two of which were from the Neolithic period, dating to about 7000 and 5000 years ago, and one from the medieval period. The Neolithic genomes represent the by far oldest virus genomes reconstructed to date.

Interestingly, the ancient virus genomes appear to represent distinct lineages that have no close relatives today and possibly went extinct. The two Neolithic genomes, although recovered from individuals that lived 2000 years apart, were relatively similar to each other in comparison with modern strains, and were in fact more closely related to modern strains of HBV found in Chimpanzees and Gorillas. In contrast, the medieval HBV genome is more similar to modern strains, but still represents a separate lineage.

This is the case even when it is compared to two previously published HBV genomes recovered from mummies dating to the 16th century. The HBV strains found in these mummies are closely related to modern strains, suggesting a surprising lack of change in the virus over the last 500 years. These findings point to a complicated history for the virus, which may have involved multiple cross-species transmission events.

Skeletal remains of HBV positive individual from the medieval site of Petersberg, Germany. The individual
was a male with an age at death of around 65-70 years [Credit: Ben Krause-Kyora]

Long and complicated evolution of one of today's most common viruses

"Taken together, our results demonstrate that HBV already existed in Europeans 7000 years ago and that its genomic structure closely resembled that of modern hepatitis B viruses, despite the differences observed," explains first author Ben Krause-Kyora, of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and Kiel University. "More ancient precursors, intermediates and modern strains of both human and non-human primate HBV strains need to be sequenced to disentangle the complex evolution of this virus," he adds.

New tool for studying the evolution of blood-borne viruses

Johannes Krause, senior author and director of the Department of Archaeogenetics at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, emphasizes the most important implication of the study. "Our results reveal the great potential of ancient DNA from human skeletons to allow us to study the evolution of blood-borne viruses. Previously, there was doubt as to whether we would ever be able to study these diseases directly in the past," he explains. "We now have a powerful tool to explore the deep evolutionary history of viral diseases."

Source: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History [May 10, 2018]

78,000 year cave record from East Africa shows early cultural innovations

An international, interdisciplinary group of scholars working along the East African coast have discovered a major cave site which records substantial activities of hunter-gatherers and later, Iron Age communities.

The first substantial cave record from coastal Kenya ranges from the Middle Stone Age to the Iron Age, showing
gradual changes in cultural, technological and symbolic innovations beginning at 67,000 years ago
[Credit: Mohammad Shoaee]

Detailed environmental research has demonstrated that human occupations occur in a persistent tropical forest-grassland ecotone, adding new information about the habitats exploited by our species, and indicating that populations sought refuge in a relatively stable environment.

Prior to this cave excavation, little information was available about the last 78,000 years from coastal East Africa, with the majority of archaeological research focused on the Rift Valley and in South Africa.

Humans lived in the humid coastal forest

A large-scale interdisciplinary study, including scientific analyses of archaeological plants, animals and shells from the cave indicates a broad perseverance of forest and grassland environments.

The Panga ya Saidi cave [Credit: Dr Ceri Shipton]

As the cave environment underwent little variation over time, humans found the site attractive for occupation, even during periods of time when other parts of Africa would have been inhospitable. This suggests that humans exploited the cave environment and landscape over the long term, relying on plant and animal resources when the wider surrounding landscapes dried.

The ecological setting of Panga ya Saidi is consistent with increasing evidence that Homo sapiens could adapt to a variety of environments as they moved across Africa and Eurasia, suggesting that flexibility may be the hallmark of our species. Homo sapiens developed a range of survival strategies to live in diverse habitats, including tropical forests, arid zones, coasts and the cold environments found at higher latitudes.

Technological innovations occur at 67,000 years ago

Carefully prepared stone tool toolkits of the Middle Stone Age occur in deposits dating back to 78,000 years ago, but a distinct shift in technology to the Later Stone Age is shown by the recovery of small artefacts beginning at 67,000 years ago. The miniaturization of stone tools may reflect changes in hunting practices and behaviors.

Worked red ochre; bead made of a sea shell; ostrich eggshell beads; bone tool; close-up of the bone tool showing
 traces of scraping. (from left to right) [Credit: Francesco D'Errico and Africa Pitarch]

The Panga ya Saidi sequence after 67,000, however, has a mix of technologies, and no radical break of behavior can be detected at any time, arguing against the cognitive or cultural 'revolutions' theorized by some archaeologists.

Moreover, no notable break in human occupation occurs during the Toba volcanic super-eruption of 74,000 years ago, supporting views that the so-called 'volcanic winter' did not lead to the near-extinction of human populations, though hints of increased occupation intensity from 60,000 years ago suggests that populations were increasing in size.

Earliest symbolic and cultural items found at Panga ya Saidi cave

The deep archaeological sequence of Panga ya Saidi cave has produced a remarkable new cultural record indicative of cultural complexity over the long term.

Among the recovered items are worked and incised bones, ostrich eggshell beads, marine shell beads, and worked ochre. Panga ya Saidi has produced the oldest bead in Kenya, dating to ~65,000 years ago. At about 33,000 years ago, beads were most commonly made of shells acquired from the coast. While this demonstrates contact with the coast, there is no evidence for the regular exploitation of marine resources for subsistence purposes.

Excavations at the Panga ya Saidi cave [Credit: Dr Ceri Shipton]

Ostrich eggshell beads become more common after 25,000 years ago, and after 10,000 years ago, there is again a shift to coastal shell use. In the layers dating to between ~48,000 to 25,000 years ago, carved bone, carved tusk, a decorated bone tube, a small bone point, and modified pieces of ochre were found.

Though indicative of behavioral complexity and symbolism, their intermittent appearance in the cave sequence argues against a model for a behavioral or cognitive revolution at any specific point in time.

Project Principal Investigator and Director of the Department of Archaeology at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History Dr. Nicole Boivin states, "The East African coastal hinterland and its forests and have been long considered to be marginal to human evolution so the discovery of Panga ya Saidi cave will certainly change archaeologists' views and perceptions."

Group Leader of the Stable Isotopes Lab Dr. Patrick Roberts adds, "Occupation in a tropical forest-grassland environment adds to our knowledge that our species lived in a variety of habitats in Africa."

"The finds at Panga ya Saidi undermine hypotheses about the use of coasts as a kind of 'superhighway' that channeled migrating humans out of Africa, and around the Indian Ocean rim," observes Professor Michael Petraglia.

The findings are published in Nature Communications.

Source: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History [May 09, 2018]

Warning signs: how early humans first began to paint animals

Visual culture – and the associated forms of symbolic communication, are regarded by palaeo-anthropologists as perhaps the defining characteristic of the behaviour of Homo sapiens. One of the great mysteries of archaeology is why figurative art, in the form of the stunningly naturalistic animal depictions, appeared relatively suddenly around 37,000 years ago in the form of small sculpted objects and drawings and engravings on cave and rock shelter walls.

Painting from El Castillo cave (Cantabria, Spain). Early Upper Palaeolithic or older
[Credit: Becky Harrison and courtesy Gobierno de Cantabria., Author provided]

Since the discovery and authentication of such Palaeolithic art more than a century ago, theories have abounded as to what this meant to its Ice Age hunter-gatherer creators. But theories often say more about modern preconceptions regarding the function of art – how can we tell if we’re on the right track to understanding the remote and alien societies that created the first images?

In a radical new approach to the issue, we applied recent findings from visual neuroscience, perceptual psychology and the archaeology of cave art, that begin to make sense of the intriguing representations and forward what we hope can be tested scientifically.

Hands down

The first clue to their provenance came from the ancient hand marks (positive prints and negative stencils), which predate the earliest animal depictions by a considerable period. Recent dating shows that they were created by Neanderthals more than 64,000 years ago. The second clue came from the widespread inclusion of natural cave features – such as ledges and cracks – as parts of animal depictions. The final clue relates to the environment in which Upper Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers, along with other predators, were stalking the large herbivores – such as bison, deer and horses – that formed their prey and which often lay hidden in camouflage in the tundra environment.

This hand stencil has been deliberately placed so its left side matches with a natural crack in the wall of El Castillo cave
[Credit: Paul Pettitt and courtesy Gobierno de Cantabria., Author provided]

We argue that hand marks initially supplied the idea to archaic humans that a graphic mark could act as a representation, however basic it was. This was a beginning of sorts – but how could hand marks give rise to the more complex animal depictions? We needed to be able to explain how that gap was bridged.

Seeing the unseen

Fortunately, the way hunters relate to the environment has changed little since early times in that they remain acutely sensitive to particular animal contours. So much so, that in challenging lighting situations – and where prey might be well camouflaged – the hunter becomes hypersensitive to such features.

The interior of the cave at Castillo in Spain [Credit: Gabinete de Prensa del Gobierno de Cantabria, CC BY-SA]

In such ambiguous circumstances, it’s better to “see” an animal when it’s not there – to mistake a rock for a bear – than not see it. Such better-safe-than-sorry hair-trigger cues are cognitive adaptations that promote survival. In dangerous conditions, the human visual system becomes increasingly aroused and is even more easily triggered into accepting the slightest cue as an animal.

In short, we are preconditioned to interpret ambiguous shapes as animals. Recent evidence from visual neuroscience shows that when individuals are conditioned to see particular objects – faces, say – they are more likely to see them in ambiguous patterns. Upper Palaeolithic hunters conditioned themselves due to the need to detect animals, but this effect was reinforced by the suggestive features of the caves.

In El Castillo cave, this natural stalagmite column bears a boss in the shape of an upright bison, which has been
elaborated by painting in black pigment [Credit: Marc Groenen and courtesy Gobierno de Cantabria]

Caves are full of suggestive cues. They are dangerous places, often inhabited by predators, thereby stimulating increased arousal levels. Hunters entering the caves with an overactive visual system will have regularly “mistaken” the natural cave features for animals. The cave walls also simulated the outdoor environment, where hunters regularly had to be able to spot their prey in camouflage.

All the hunter needed to do to “complete” a depiction was to add one or two graphic marks to the suggestive natural features based on the visual imagery in their “mind’s eye”. A typical example of this can be seen at Chauvet cave where two giant deer (Megaloceros) are depicted by complementing the natural wall fissures (highlighted in brown) with lines (highlighted in black) painted onto the cave wall to complete the animal outlines. This potentially explains how the very first representational depictions arose.

Corroborating evidence

We’ve tried to combine our respective expertise in visual psychology and Palaeolithic art and, unlike many other theories, our approach is open to refutation. For example, if someone finds depictions of animals or similar that predate the first hand marks, this would overturn our main proposition. Similarly, if earlier figurative depictions come to light that do not derive from natural features, this would also challenge our theory.

Image based on: Relevé de La Niche Au Petit Ours by Carole Fritz et Gilles Tosello
 – CNRS – Équipe Chauvet –Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication.

But as we were making the final touches to our academic paper, valuable corroborative evidence came to light supporting the theory. Namely, the dating of a negative hand stencil and a geometric mark from the Monte Castillo cave art complex in Spain dating to a minimum of 64,000 years ago and almost certainly made by Neanderthals.

When later humans entered the same caves and saw these, the Neanderthals may literally have “handed on” to our own species the notion that a graphic mark could act as a figurative representation. Thanks to the primed visual system of the later hunter-gatherers – and the suggestive environment of the caves – it was Homo sapiens who took the final step creating the first complex figurative representations, with all the ramifications that followed for art and culture.

Authors: Derek Hodgson And Paul Pettitt | Source: The Conversation [May 04, 2018]

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.