The coast in colour.pdf

Vol 449|18 October 2007

NEWS & VIEWS

PALAEOANTHROPOLOGY

The coast in colour

Sally McBrearty and Chris Stringer

A South African cave overlooking the Indian Ocean was apparently a desirable residence for early

humans. The site has provided rich evidence for the early use of colour and marine resources.

On the basis of both fossil and genetic data,

we know that Homo sapiens had evolved in

Africa by 150,000–200,000 years ago. But the

time and manner of human behavioural evolu-

tion are less clear. Exploiting marine resources,

producing complex technology and manipu-

lating symbols are all symptomatic of modern

human activity. When did such behaviours

appear, and how did the process relate to the

morphological evolution of our species?

On page 905 of this issue, Marean et al. 1

provide strong evidence that early humans

displayed key elements of modern behaviour

as far back as 165,000 years ago at Pinnacle

Point on the coast of South Africa (Fig. 1). The

evidence is in the form of shellfish, haematite

(red ochre) used as a colouring agent, and

small stone ‘bladelets. The site provides a rare

glimpse into human adaptation to coastal con-

ditions during a time for which most evidence

elsewhere has been scuttled by subsequent rises

in sea level.

The earliest unequivocal fossils of H. sapiens

are crania from Ethiopian sites at Omo Kibish

and Herto, respectively dated to about 195,000

and 160,000 years ago. Genetic estimates 2 for

the origin of our species also lie in the interval

100,000–200,000 years ago. But the behavioural

repertoire and precise geographical range of

these early human populations in Africa are

unevenly documented.

There are two distinct views about the rela-

tionship between anatomical and behavioural

evolution in early H. sapiens . Some work-

ers favour a late and rather sudden origin

for behavioural modernity, dating to around

45,000 years ago at the transition from the

Middle Stone Age to the Later Stone Age 3 . In

this view, behavioural change lagged consider-

ably behind anatomical change, and may have

resulted from a sudden neurological shift. A

competing interpretation is that beads, art

objects and other forms of technological and

behavioural complexity emerged gradually

over the course of the Middle Stone Age (some

285,000 to 45,000 years ago), tracking morpho-

logical evolution more closely 4 . In this view,

early H. sapiens were essentially neurologically

and cognitively identical to modern humans,

and new behaviours seen in the archaeological

record resulted from human innovation, some-

times in response to the pressures of popula-

tion growth or environmental change.

The ability to manipulate symbols is

Figure 1 | A home at Pinnacle Point. Marean and colleagues’ evidence 1 for modern behaviour in early humans, dating to 165,000 years ago, comes from

site PP13B, the cave with the walkway entering it. Many coastal archaeology sites elsewhere must have been swept clean by sea-level rises during

interglacials. The materials at Pinnacle Point were spared such a fate because of the site’s elevation.

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NEWS & VIEWS

NATURE|Vol 449|18 October 2007

considered an essential part of modern

human cognition and behaviour 5 , although

definite traces of symbols in the archaeological

record are difficult to recognize and are often

obscured by the ravages of time. All humans

today express their social status and group

identity through visual clues such as cloth-

ing, jewellery, cosmetics and hairstyle. Shell

beads, and haematite used as pigment, show

that this behaviour dates to 80,000 years ago

in coastal North and South Africa 6,7 , and to

perhaps 110,000 years ago in western Asia 8 ; and

there are even earlier records of microliths and

pigment use in Africa (Fig. 2).

Marean et al. 1 now describe 57 pieces of

haematite, many apparently ground for use as

a colouring agent, from cave PP13B at Pinna-

cle Point. Like haematite from the nearby site

of Blombos, South Africa 6 , some of the pieces

of haematite from Pinnacle Point are incised,

either as an aid to grinding, or perhaps as

decoration, or even as elements of a notational

system. The Pinnacle Point evidence is signifi-

cant because it suggests that early humans in

Africa inhabited a cognitive world enriched by

symbols before 160,000 years ago.

Might the haematite have been used instead

for some utilitarian purpose? Experimental

replication demonstrates that ochre has little

of its claimed utility as a hide preservative 9 .

Archaeological and ethnographic evidence

shows, however, that ground haematite was

added to adhesives used to attach stone arte-

facts to bone or wooden shafts, and experi-

mental replication demonstrates that ochre

improves the durability and workability of

the mastic 10 . But the consistent selection of

the most brilliant reds for use in the adhesive

medium by the inhabitants of Pinnacle Point,

and of other African sites dating to the Mid-

dle Stone Age 1,9 , cannot be so easily explained.

Ochre seems to have been a material with both

symbolic and utilitarian functions. The colour

red is fundamental to colour classifications

in all known human societies 11 , and it seems

probable that the substance was indeed used

for body painting and to colour artefacts by

165,000 years ago.

The presence of stone bladelets at Pinnacle

Point may also be significant. Miniature stone

tools were important to African technology

after 40,000 years ago, when small geometric

implements were mounted, often in multiples,

as projectiles. These no doubt gave their wield-

ers an advantage over populations limited to

hand weapons. Microlithic technology is

known from South and East Africa at around

70,000 years ago, but the Pinnacle Point blade-

lets are nearly 100,000 years older. However,

they show no sign of shaping into geometric

tools, and the fact that they comprise the small

end of a continuous size distribution for blades

at the site indicates that they may not have been

deliberately designed 12 . Microwear and residue

analysis might reveal if and how the bladelets

were hafted and used.

At about 165,000 years old, the remains

Twin Rivers

Pinnacle Point

Howiesonspoort

Mumba

Enkapune

Ya Muto

Microliths

Pinnacle Point

Grotta dei

Moscerini

Klasies

Shellfishing

Kapthurin

Twin Rivers

Pinnacle Point

Klasies

Blombos

Ochre

Skhul

Taforalt

Blombos

Enkapune

Ya Muto

Shell beads

300

250

200

150

100

Thousands of years ago

Figure 2 | Timeline of some notable archaeological evidence for modern behaviour in early Homo

sapiens . For context, the earliest unequivocal fossils of H. sapiens come from two sites in Ethiopia,

and date to about 195,000 and 160,000 years ago. The behavioural evidence is in the form of the

production of microliths (very small stone flakes); the exploitation of shellfish as a food resource;

the use of ochre (haematite) as a pigment; and the creation of shell beads. The coastal site of

Pinnacle Point, South Africa, has yielded evidence for the first three of these activities, as described by

Marean et al. 1 . Site locations: Twin Rivers, Zambia; Howiesonspoort, South Africa; Mumba, Tanzania;

Enkapune Ya Muto, Kenya; Klasies, South Africa; Kapthurin, Kenya; Blombos, South Africa; Skhul,

Israel; and Taforalt, Morocco. Grotta dei Moscerini, in Italy, provides an early example of Neanderthal

exploitation of marine resources.

of molluscs at Pinnacle Point are the earliest

securely dated evidence for the systematic

exploitation of shellfish as food. Marean et al. 1

suggest that shellfish may have been seen by

the Pinnacle Point people as a ‘famine food, to

be consumed when more preferred items were

scarce during the challenging cold and dry con-

ditions that pertained in Africa between about

195,000 and 130,000 years ago. Neanderthals

are known to have cooked shellfish in caves in

Italy as early as 110,000 years ago 13 , and shell-

fish may well have been exploited routinely

by even earlier coastal populations. However,

many cave repositories around the world were

swept clean by the rise in sea level during the

last interglacial, which ended around 115,000

years ago, and others have been submerged by

the sea-level rise of the present interglacial.

Anthropogenic deposits fortunately escaped

this fate at Pinnacle Point owing to its eleva-

tion. By comparing dates obtained from ura-

nium-isotope and luminescence dating with

bathymetric records and reconstruction of

topography based on geographic-information-

system data, the authors show that the coastline

lay within reasonable foraging distance of the

site only at around 167,000 years ago, in good

agreement with the key dated phase of human

occupation. Better understanding of the ancient

topography may help in discovering other sites

in the vicinity of Pinnacle Point, and advances

in dating techniques may allow further

evidence from this critical interval to be

identified elsewhere on the continent, in both

coastal and inland settings. We should expect

surprises as the evidence for behavioural

complexity in early humans continues to

accumulate.

■

Sally McBrearty is in the Department of

Anthropology, University of Connecticut,

Storrs, Connecticut 06269-2176, USA.

Chris Stringer is in the Department of

Palaeontology, The Natural History Museum,

London SW7 5BD, UK.

e-mails: mcbrearty@uconn.edu;

c.stringer@nhm.ac.uk

1. Marean, C. W. et al. Nature 449, 905–908 (2007).

2. Stringer, C. in The Prehistory of Africa (ed. Soodyall, H.)

10–20 (Ball, Johannesburg, 2006).

3. Klein, R. G. & Edgar, B. The Dawn of Human Culture

(Nevraumont, New York, 2002).

4. McBrearty, S. & Brooks, A. J. Hum. Evol. 39, 453–563

(2000).

5. Henshilwood, C. S. & Marean, C. W. Curr. Anthropol. 44,

641–642 (2003).

6. Henshilwood, C. S. in Rethinking the Human Revolution

(eds Mellars, P. & Boyle, K.) (MacDonald Institute,

Cambridge, in the press).

7. Bouzouggar,A. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 104,

9964–9969 (2007).

8. Vanhaeren,M. et al. Science 312, 1785–1788

(2006).

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661–675 (2004).

11. Kay, P., Berlin, B., Maffi, M. & Merrifield, W. in Color

Categories in Thought and Language (eds Hardin, C. &

Maffi, I.) 21–58 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997).

12. Ambrose, S. H. in Thinking Small: Global Perspectives on

Microlithization (eds Elston, R. G. & Kuhn, S. H.) 9–29

(Am. Anthropol. Assoc., Washington DC, 2002).

13. Stiner, M. C. Honor Among Thieves (Princeton Univ. Press,

1994).

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