Bone tools, carnivore chewing and heavy percussion: assessing conflicting interpretations of Lower and Upper Palaeolithic bone assemblages.

The use of bone tools by early humans has provided valuable insights into their technology, behaviour and cognitive abilities. However, identifying minimally modified or unshaped Palaeolithic osseous tools can be challenging, particularly when they are mixed with bones altered by natural taphonomic processes. This has hampered the study of key technical innovations, such as the use of bones, antlers and teeth as hammers or pressure-flakers to work (knap) stone tools.

Extreme glacial cooling likely led to hominin depopulation of Europe in the Early Pleistocene.

The oldest known hominin remains in Europe [~1.5 to ~1.1 million years ago (Ma)] have been recovered from Iberia, where paleoenvironmental reconstructions have indicated warm and wet interglacials and mild glacials, supporting the view that once established, hominin populations persisted continuously.

Taphonomic and technological analyses of Lower Palaeolithic bone tools from Clacton-on-Sea, UK.

The exceptional survival of Middle Pleistocene wooden spears at Schöningen (Germany) and Clacton-on-Sea (UK) provides tantalizing evidence for the widespread use of organic raw materials by early humans. At Clacton, less well-known organic artefacts include modified bones that were identified by the Abbé Henri Breuil in the 1920s. Some of these pieces were described and figured by Hazzledine Warren in his classic 1951 paper on the flint industry from the Clacton Channel, but they have been either overlooked in subsequent studies or dismissed as the product of natural damage.

Knapping tools in Magdalenian contexts: New evidence from Gough's Cave (Somerset, UK).

Our knowledge of the recolonization of north-west Europe at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum depends to a large extent on finds from Gough's Cave (Somerset, UK). Ultra-high resolution radiocarbon determinations suggest that the cave was occupied seasonally by Magdalenian hunters for perhaps no more than two or three human generations, centred on 12,600 BP (~14,950-14,750 cal BP). They left behind a rich and diverse assemblage of Magdalenian lithic and osseous artefacts, butchered animal bones, and cannibalised human remains.

The morphology of the Late Pleistocene hominin remains from the site of La Cotte de St Brelade, Jersey (Channel Islands).

Thirteen permanent fully erupted teeth were excavated at the Paleolithic site of La Cotte de St Brelade in Jersey in 1910 and 1911. These were all found in the same location, on a ledge behind a hearth in a Mousterian occupation level. They were originally identified as being Neanderthal.

90,000 year-old specialised bone technology in the Aterian Middle Stone Age of North Africa.

The question of cognitive complexity in early Homo sapiens in North Africa is intimately tied to the emergence of the Aterian culture (~145 ka). One of the diagnostic indicators of cognitive complexity is the presence of specialised bone tools, however significant uncertainty remains over the manufacture and use of these artefacts within the Aterian techno-complex. In this paper we report on a bone artefact from Aterian Middle Stone Age (MSA) deposits in Dar es-Soltan 1 cave on the Atlantic coast of Morocco.

An Upper Palaeolithic engraved human bone associated with ritualistic cannibalism.

Cut-marked and broken human bones are a recurrent feature of Magdalenian (~17-12,000 years BP, uncalibrated dates) European sites. Human remains at Gough's Cave (UK) have been modified as part of a Magdalenian mortuary ritual that combined the intensive processing of entire corpses to extract edible tissues and the modification of skulls to produce skull-cups. A human radius from Gough's Cave shows evidence of cut marks, percussion damage and human tooth marks, indicative of cannibalism, as well as a set of unusual zig-zagging incisions on the lateral side of the diaphysis.

New genetic and morphological evidence suggests a single hoaxer created 'Piltdown man'.

In 1912, palaeontologist Arthur Smith Woodward and amateur antiquarian and solicitor Charles Dawson announced the discovery of a fossil that supposedly provided a link between apes and humans: (Dawson's dawn man). The publication generated huge interest from scientists and the general public. However, 'Piltdown man's' initial celebrity has long been overshadowed by its subsequent infamy as one of the most famous scientific frauds in history.

Lower Paleolithic bone tools from the 'Spear Horizon' at Schöningen (Germany).

The Lower Paleolithic locality of Schöningen 13 II-4 is famous for the discovery of wooden spears found amongst the butchered remains of numerous horses and other large herbivores. Although the spears have attracted the most interest, other aspects of the associated artifact assemblage have received less attention. Here we describe an extraordinary assemblage of 88 bone tools from the 'Spear Horizon.

Upper Palaeolithic ritualistic cannibalism at Gough's Cave (Somerset, UK): The human remains from head to toe.

A recurring theme of late Upper Palaeolithic Magdalenian human bone assemblages is the remarkable rarity of primary burials and the common occurrence of highly-fragmentary human remains mixed with occupation waste at many sites. One of the most extensive Magdalenian human bone assemblages comes from Gough's Cave, a sizeable limestone cave set in Cheddar Gorge (Somerset), UK. After its discovery in the 1880s, the site was developed as a show cave and largely emptied of sediment, at times with minimal archaeological supervision.

Hominin footprints from early Pleistocene deposits at Happisburgh, UK.

Investigations at Happisburgh, UK, have revealed the oldest known hominin footprint surface outside Africa at between ca. 1 million and 0.78 million years ago.

An aminostratigraphy for the British Quaternary based on Bithynia opercula.

Aminostratigraphies of Quaternary non-marine deposits in Europe have been previously based on the racemization of a single amino acid in aragonitic shells from land and freshwater molluscs. The value of analysing multiple amino acids from the opercula of the freshwater gastropod Bithynia, which are composed of calcite, has been demonstrated. The protocol used for the isolation of intra-crystalline proteins from shells has been applied to these calcitic opercula, which have been shown to more closely approximate a closed system for indigenous protein residues.

A chronological framework for the British Quaternary based on Bithynia opercula.

Marine and ice-core records show that the Earth has experienced a succession of glacials and interglacials during the Quaternary (last ∼2.6 million years), although it is often difficult to correlate fragmentary terrestrial records with specific cycles. Aminostratigraphy is a method potentially able to link terrestrial sequences to the marine isotope stages (MIS) of the deep-sea record.

3-dimensional microscope analysis of bone and tooth surface modifications: comparisons of fossil specimens and replicas.

Cut-marks on fossil bones and teeth are an important source of evidence in the reconstruction of ancient butchery practices. The analysis of butchery marks has allowed archaeologists to interpret aspects of past subsistence strategies and the behavior of early humans. Recent advances in optical scanning microscopy allow detailed measurements of cut-mark morphology to be undertaken.

Earliest directly-dated human skull-cups.

Background: The use of human braincases as drinking cups and containers has extensive historic and ethnographic documentation, but archaeological examples are extremely rare. In the Upper Palaeolithic of western Europe, cut-marked and broken human bones are widespread in the Magdalenian (∼15 to 12,000 years BP) and skull-cup preparation is an element of this tradition.

Principal Findings: Here we describe the post-mortem processing of human heads at the Upper Palaeolithic site of Gough's Cave (Somerset, England) and identify a range of modifications associated with the production of skull-cups.

Early Pleistocene human occupation at the edge of the boreal zone in northwest Europe.

The dispersal of early humans from Africa by 1.75 Myr ago led to a marked expansion of their range, from the island of Flores in the east to the Iberian peninsula in the west. This range encompassed tropical forest, savannah and Mediterranean habitats, but has hitherto not been demonstrated beyond 45 degrees N.

New evidence for complex climate change in MIS 11 from Hoxne, Suffolk, UK.

The climatic signal of Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 11 is well-documented in marine and ice-sheet isotopic records and is known to comprise at least two major warm episodes with an intervening cool phase. Terrestrial records of MIS 11, though of high resolution, are often fragmentary and their chronology is poorly constrained. However, some notable exceptions include sequences from the maar lakes in France and Tenaghi Philippon in Greece.

The earliest record of human activity in northern Europe.

The colonization of Eurasia by early humans is a key event after their spread out of Africa, but the nature, timing and ecological context of the earliest human occupation of northwest Europe is uncertain and has been the subject of intense debate. The southern Caucasus was occupied about 1.8 million years (Myr) ago, whereas human remains from Atapuerca-TD6, Spain (more than 780 kyr ago) and Ceprano, Italy (about 800 kyr ago) show that early Homo had dispersed to the Mediterranean hinterland before the Brunhes-Matuyama magnetic polarity reversal (780 kyr ago).