New research led by University of Victoria’s April Nowell reveals surprisingly sophisticated adaptations by early humans living 250,000 years ago in Shishan Marsh, a former desert oasis in Azraq, northeast Jordan.
250,000-year-old stone tool that tested positive for rhino protein residue. Image credit: April Nowell.
Dr. Nowell and co-authors have found the oldest evidence of protein residue on stone tools.
They excavated 10,000 stone tools over three years from what is now Jordan’s Eastern Desert, but was once a wetland that became increasingly arid habitat 250,000 years ago.
“Approximately 7,000 of the 10,000 artifacts excavated from Shishan Marsh have been analyzed in detail,” the scientists said.
“Of the 7,000 artifacts evaluated, 44 lithic artifacts (scrapers, utilized flakes, Levallois points and bifaces) made from local flint were chosen for further analysis to identify possible protein residues.”
Of this sample, 17 tools tested positive for rhinoceros (3 tools), duck (3), horse (5), camel (3), and bovine (3) protein residue, i.e. blood and other products.
“Researchers have known for decades about carnivorous behaviors by tool-making hominins dating back 2.5 million years, but now, for the first time, we have direct evidence of exploitation by our Stone Age ancestors of specific animals for subsistence,” Dr. Nowell said.
Middle Pleistocene hominins in Jordan were adaptable, opportunistic and capable of exploiting a wide range of fauna, from waterfowl to rhinoceros.
“What this tells us about their lives and complex strategies for survival, such as the highly variable techniques for prey exploitation, as well as predator avoidance and protection of carcasses for food, significantly diverges from what we might expect from this extinct species,” Dr. Nowell added.
“It opens up our ability to ask questions about how hominins lived in this region and it might be a key to understanding the nature of interbreeding and population dispersals across Eurasia with modern humans and archaic populations such as Neanderthals.”
Top: stone tools that tested positive for horse protein residue. Bottom: stone tools that tested positive for camel (left) and bovine protein residue (right). Image credit: April Nowell.
Another result of this study is the potential to revolutionize what paleoanthropologists know about diets of early hominins.
“Other researchers with tools as old or older than these tools from sites in a variety of different environmental settings may also have success when applying the same technique to their tools, especially in the absence of animal remains at those sites,” Dr. Nowell said.
The team’s findings will be published in the September 2016 issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science.
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A. Nowell et al. 2016. Middle Pleistocene subsistence in the Azraq Oasis, Jordan: Protein residue and other proxies. Journal of Archaeological Science 73: 36-44; doi: 10.1016/j.jas.2016.07.013
