The significance of a single Neandertal tooth from Ciemna Cave in southern Poland that I worked on with an international team of collaborators has been published online in the Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology. The primary topics discussed in our paper concern the low number of Neandertal fossils in northern Central Europe despite the abundance of Middle Paleolithic archaeological sites in the region; and the particular details on the single Neandertal incisor recovered in Ciemna Cave. Of particular interest is the “toothpick groove” documented on the incisor. To date, three isolated teeth from Stajnia Cave are the only other Neandertal remains documented from archaeological sites in Poland. While there are other Neandertal remains from Central Europe (Švédův stůl [Ochoz], Kůlna Cave, Šipka Cave, Šal’a 1, Šal’a 2, Gànovce, Subalyuk, and Bordul Mare 1); they are few and fragmentary. However, there was extensive occupation of at least southern Poland into neighboring Moravia and the Carpathians during the Middle Paleolithic, so the general lack of Neandertal fossils in the region is puzzling. However, with so few fossils, it is all the more necessary to carefully document the few that are discovered. With this in mind, we carried out a detailed analysis of the single tooth from Ciemna Cave. Location of Ciemna Cave in relation to other Middle Paleolithic sites in Central Europe where Neandertal fossils have been discovered. We detail extensive damage to the crown and root of the tooth that occurred after death. While some of the damage can be attributed to natural processes like changes in humidity and abrasion from sediment, the degree of fragmentation and presence of only a single incisor still raises questions about how the tooth entered the archaeological record. During the late stages of carnivore scavenging, cranial bones can become very fragmented, teeth may become isolated, and these remains can be scattered over large areas. We also know that Ciemna Cave was a carnivore (primarily bear) den that was only inhabited by humans occasionally. In addition to bears, the remains of wolves, hyena, Lynx, and foxes have been identified in the layers contained the Ciemna 1 tooth. So, we propose that carnivores scavenging, fragmentation, and scattering of human remains could be one scenario for how the isolated tooth at Ciemna Cave entered into the archaeological record. Nevertheless, this scenario is difficult to confirm without direct evidence of carnivore tooth-marking or digestive corrosion on the Ciemna 1 fossil. Detailed photos of the Ciemna 1 Neandertal tooth. Despite the postmortem damage to the Ciemna 1 tooth, there is a well-preserved groove just below the enamel on the tooth root. We attributed this groove to the repetitive use of a probe – or “toothpick” – during this Neandertal's life. These so-called toothpick grooves are not uncommon in prehistoric contexts and are very well-documented among the earliest members of genus Homo and extremely well-documented among Neandertals. In fact, one of the teeth from Stajnia Cave also has a toothpick groove. Sometimes these grooves can be attributed to therapeutic activities, such as probing at inflamed gums or caries. In other cases, these grooves are attributed to hygienic behaviors – picking food and other gunk out from between your teeth. In our case, there is only a single tooth and it’s too fragmentary to clearly say whether the groove is a result of therapeutic or hygienic practices. However, it provides yet another case of this behavior among Neandertals. Detail images of the toothpick groove on the root of Ciemna 1. A) Dashed outline of the groove in the same view as B. B) Environmental scanning electron microscopy (ESEM) micrograph of the groove. C) ESEM micrograph creating by focus-stacking images for increased depth-of-field. D) Detail of microstriations in the labial portion of the groove using light microscopy. Scales are 1 mm (2 × 0.5 mm increments) Dr. Paweł Valde-Nowak will continue excavating at Ciemna Cave with his team this summer, and my fingers are crossed that more Neandertal fossils will be discovered.
This research was also presented a symposium I co-organizered with Libby W. Cowgill, Sheela Athreya, and Scott D. Maddux called From Pedestrian to Cerebral in the Pleistocene: A Symposium in Honor of Erik Trinkaus at the 88th Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, Cleveland, Ohio. Full Article: Willman JC, Ginter B, Hernando R, Lozano M, Sobczyk K, Stefański D, Szczepanek A, Wertz K, Wojtal P, Zając M, Zarzecka-Szubińska K, Valde-Nowak P. (2019). Paleobiology and Taphonomy of a Middle Paleolithic Neandertal Tooth from Ciemna Cave, Southern Poland. Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology, doi:10.1007/s41982-019-00026-4. More on the archaeology and excavations of Ciemna Cave: Valde-Nowak P, Alex B, Ginter B, Krajcarz MT, Madeyska T, Miękina B, et al. (2014). Middle Paleolithic sequences of the Ciemna Cave (Prądnik valley, Poland): the problem of synchronization. Quaternary International, 326, 125–145. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2014.01.002. Valde-Nowak P, Alex B, Boaretto E, Ginter B, Sobczyk K, Stefański D, et al. (2016a). The Middle Palaeolithic sequence of Ciemna Cave. Some aspects of the site formation process. Quärtar, 63, 33–46. https://doi.org/10.7485/QU63_2. Valde-Nowak P, Alex B, Ginter B, Krajcarz MT, Madeyska T, Miękina B, et al. (2016b). Late Middle Palaeolithic occupations in Ciemna Cave, southern Poland. Journal of Field Archaeology, 41(2), 193–210. https://doi.org/10.1080/00934690.2015.1101942.
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Dental microwear analysis is a tried-and-true method of reconstructing the diets of living and extinct animals – including early hominins and Homo sapiens – from prehistory to the present day. Microwear can be thought of as the microscopic “pits” and “scratches” that form on the tooth surfaces as food is chewed. The foods we consume, the ways foods are processed and prepared, and the particles that are ingested with food (e.g., dust and grit from the environment, particles worn off grindstones or milling devices, etc.) all influence the microscopic wear patterns on tooth surfaces. Microwear ”texture” is a way of quantifying wear in three-dimensions using standardized variables that reflect the directionality, size, depth, and other characteristics of enamel microwear (see the example below). Thus, microwear variation by group or individual can reveal a great deal of information concerning diet and past human lifeways. Photosimulations (left) and 3D representations of microwear textures. wear. The top two are from a Natufian forager, the middle two are from a Roman-era farmer from Herculaneum, and the bottom two are from a Mongolian pastoralist. The dark colors are low points and the hot (white/red) are higher points. Contemporary culinary traditions are vast, but prehistoric and historic diets also varied incredibly. In a pre-globalized world, eating local and less mechanically processed foods would have been the norm, local environmental conditions would have had an extensive influence on the types of foods available, and cultural practices would dictate how those foods were prepared. So, the grains, fruits, vegetables, tubers, meat and anything else you can think of stuffing down your gullet are only part of what influences microwear signatures on teeth. Other aspects to consider are whether these foods are wild or domestic, raw or cooked, grilled or boiled, salted or fermented, and so on and so on... One way of teasing out these influences on microwear signatures in archaeological contexts is through the creation of large comparative databases that include human groups with extensive spatial, temporal, environmental, and cultural variation – variation that would, in turn, also influence dietary variability. This is exactly what Christopher Schmidt (University of Indianapolis) and a team of 24 researchers set out to do using a global sample of 719 individuals from 51 archaeological sites (see map below). Locations of groups sampled in the study. Details of chronology, archaeology, subsistence, and more can be found in the original article. Schmidt and colleagues tested three main hypotheses to better understand the utility of microwear texture analysis for paleodietary reconstruction. We (yep, I was a co-author in the study), lumped the individuals studied into 3 general subsistence categories: 450 farmers, 192 foragers, and 77 pastoralists. Foragers gather, hunt, and/or fish for their sustenance; primarily consume non-domesticated foods; and generally process foods to a lesser degree than farming and pastoralist groups. Farmers tend to consume a diet dominated by domesticated plants, most frequently grains; and frequently use more intensive food processing (milling, grinding, boiling, etc.) than foragers which contributes to softer diets. Pastoralists are typically very mobile people relying on animal husbandry. Dietary staples such as cheese, meat, and yogurt are consumed but frequently supplemented with grains. Thus, pastoralists diets are generally soft with some abrasive content. However, these categories are NOT hard-and-fast distinctions. Instead, subsistence variation within these categories is HIGHLY variable, but broad categories allowed us to test for broad differences between groups. We found that important differences are found between the “big three” subsistence categories (see figure below). However, there were also interesting differences between foragers and farmers in the New World and Old World as well as interesting differences through time in the Old World farmers. Scatter Plot with the mean (central point) and standard deviations (lines) of the two microwear variables analyzed in the study. Some broad differences can be seen but the substantial overlap in subsistence groups can also be seen. Without getting into too much detail about the finer differences acknowledged in the study, I’d rather come back to the initial point I made about variability within the macro-categories we are using. Keep in mind that each comparative sample is unique because of the circumstances in which those people lived – e.g., local climate, environments, food availability, and the culinary traditions they practiced among other factors. However, each group also has its own internal variability related to things like age, sex, social status, etc. All of this variation is bound to make for extremely interesting case studies as the human groups in this study are are re-analyzed and published as individual case studies. Aside from being very happy to participate in this study, I am really looking forward to the individual papers that my co-authors will be preparing on the samples they contributed here.
Full Article: Schmidt CW, Remy A, Van Sessen R, Willman J, Krueger K, Scott R, Mahoney P, Beach J, McKinley J, d’Anastasio R, Chiu LW, Buzon M, De Gregory R, Sheridan SG, Eng J, Watson J, Klaus H, Da-Gloria P, Wilson J, Stone A, Sereno P, Droke J, Perash R, Stojanowski C. Herrmann, N. Dental microwear texture analysis of Homo sapiens sapiens: Foragers, farmers, and pastoralists. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 169(2), 207-226, https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.23815. If you’re interested in other research on prehistoric diets, I strongly urge you to get a hold of one of these popular accounts by Peter S. Ungar: The Real Paleo Diet. Scientific American, 319(1), 42-49. Evolution's Bite A Story of Teeth, Diet, and Human Origins https://press.princeton.edu/titles/10943.html In 2013, I had the opportunity to study human fossils from the site of Riparo Fredian in Tuscany as part of my dissertation fieldwork funded by the Leakey Foundation. The human remains were being re-analyzed at the time by researchers at the University of Florence under the direction of Jacopo Moggi-Cecchi. At the end of 2018, a revision of the human skeletal series from Riparo Fredian was published in the open access journal Alpine and Mediterranean Quaternary that followed-up on an earlier paper describing the a probable case of “early dentistry” for one of these Late Upper Paleolithic hunter-gatherers (Fredian 5) in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Location of Riparo Fredian in Northern Tuscany. The original assessment of the Fredian fossils described 39 isolated teeth and 3 postcranial remains. However, the new paper notes that 18 of the teeth were anatomically misidentified, 2 teeth were not human, and only 2 of 3 of the postcranial remains could be securely attributed to humans. Furthermore, the new analysis identified 2 new human teeth among the remains. Among the fossils, there are at least 2 infants, 2 young adults, and 1-2 mature adults. We cannot be certain about the mature adults because the very worn anterior (incisor and canine) teeth of Fredian 5 and three lesser-worn molars (Fredian 4) could belong to the same individual. The very worn upper incisors and canines from Fredian 5. Not that the pulp chambers of the central incisors are exposed. An earlier paper (Oxilia et al., 2017) describes the evidence for prehistoric dentistry associated with this pathology. This short manuscript is another example of the useful information that can be obtained when we re-examine old archaeological and skeletal collections. I have a feeling there are many more exciting papers to come out on Italian Late Upper Paleolithic human paleobiology as more of these skeletal collections from older excavations are re-assessed in the future. References:
Boschian G, Mallegni F, Tozzi C. 1995. The Epigravettian and Mesolithic site of Fredian Shelter (N Tuscany). Quaternaria Nova, 5, 45-80. Oxilia G, Fiorillo F, Boschin F, Boaretto E, Apicella SA, Matteucci C, Panetta D, Pistocchi R, Guerrini F, Margherita C, Andretta M, Sorrentino R, Arrighi S, Dori I, Mancuso G, Crezzini J, Riga A, Serrangeli MC, Vazzana A, Salvadori P, Vandini M, Tozzi C, Moroni A, Feeney RNM, Willman JC, Benazzi S, Moggi-Cecchi J. 2017. The dawn of dentistry in the Late Upper Paleolithic: An early case of pathological intervention at Riparo Fredian. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 163(3):446-461, doi:doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.23216. OPEN ACCESS! Riga A, Dori I, Vierin S, Boschian G, Tozzi C, Willman JC, Moggi-Cecchi J. 2018. At the Upper Paleolithic – Mesolithic boundary: revision of the human remains from Riparo Fredian (Molazzana, Lucca, Italy). Alpine and Mediterranean Quaternary 31(1):49-57, doi:https://doi.org/10.26382/AMQ.2018.04. After attending the UISPP Congress in Paris I went directly to Munich where I studied Olduvai Hominid I (OH1) curated at the Staatsammlung für Anthropologie und Paläoanatomie München. The fossil was originally discovered in Tanzania in 1913, but has seldom been studied since the 1930's. A lack of humans fossils Later Stone Age of East Africa emphasizes the need to revisit museum collections to analyze the few fossils that have been discovered. I spent two days studying OH1 and I look forward to sharing the results of that work here in the future. Until then, I suggest reading a very interesting work on the taphonomy of the postcranial skeleton by Matu and colleagues (2017) that documents extensive damage to the skeleton by subterranean termites. Reference:
Matu, M., I. Crevecoeur, and J. B. Huchet. 2017. Taphonomy and Paleoichnology of Olduvai Hominid 1 (OH1), Tanzania. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 27 (5):785-800. DOI: 10.1002/oa.2593. Last week I had the opportunity to attend the XVIIe Congrès Mondial UISPP - Union Internationale des Sciences Préhistoriques et Protohistoriques in Paris, France where I participated in Session XXXI-1 Through time, space and species: implication of new discoveries, technological developments and data diffusion improvement in Biological Anthropology organized by Dominique Grimaud-Hervé, Carlos Lorenzo, Julie Arnaud. I presented collaborative work synthsizing research on the "Non-alimentary tooth-use in European Prehistory". The presentation brought together data across a wide span of time and space that have been studied so far by my colleagues (Alejandro Romero, Eulàlia Subirà, and Marina Lozano) and me. Much of the data we presented will contribute to the IDENTITIES Project.
An article I contributed to on dietary reconstructions of Neandertals from Hortus Cave was published online this week in Comptes Rendus Palevol. The research was a collaborative effort between Frank L’Engle Williams, Jessica L. Droke, Christopher W. Schmidt, Gaël Becam, Marie-Antoinette de Lumley, and me. This is another paper that stems from the DENTALWEAR Project directed by Christopher W. Schmidt at the University of Indianapolis that I referenced in an earlier post. Our study is interesting because the Hortus Neandertal sample includes a wide range of age variation: a juvenile, 4 adults, and an older adult (50+ years old - "old" by Pleistocene standards). The Hortus individuals also come from different stratigraphic sequences in the site which are associated with different climatic conditions. Thus, we were able to investigation patterning in diet by both age and in relation to climate. Two-dimensional photosimulations (left, grey images) and their 3D enamel surface reconstructions counterparts for the Hortus Neandertals. for (a) Hortus III, (b) Hortus IV, (c) Hortus V, (d) Hortus VI, (e) Hortus VIII and (f) Hortus XI. The ones for Hortus III and XI are quite similar. We found that the This plot above summarizes are results well. The bivariate plot contains data for two dental microwear texture variables (complexity [Asfc] and anisotropy [epLsar]) that are known to characterize human dietary variation well. The black arrows are generalizations about diet based on comparative data from 12 recent human foraging, farming, and pastoralist groups from the DENTALWEAR Project (Karriger et al., 2016). The variation in diet related to climate is shown by the box labeled "Sub-Phase Vb". The Sub-Phase Vb Neandertals group together which indicates similar dietary strategies during this period of greater coldness and aridity than other phases at the site. The dashed line shows that the adults group separately from the "older" adult and young (juvenile) individual. Thus, age also contributes to unique patterns of dental microwear texture at Hortus. Our results were fairly consistent with our predictions. We now have an even greater understanding of dietary variation and adaptability among the Hortus Neandertals, but also Neandertals in general. References:
Williams FLE, Droke JL, Schmidt CW, Willman JC, Becam G, and de Lumley M-A. 2018 Dental microwear texture analysis of Neandertals from Hortus cave, France / Analyse de la texture des de la micro-usure dentaire chez les Néandertaliens de la grotte de l’Hortus, France. Comptes Rendus Palevol. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crpv.2018.04.003 Karriger WM, Schmidt CW, and Smith FH. 2016. Dental microwear texture analysis of Croatian Neandertal molars. PaleoAnthropology 2016:172-184. http://www.paleoanthro.org/journal/volumes/2016/ I am currently on a research trip at the Universidad de Alicante where I am working with Alejandro Romero on 3D methdologies for the IDENTITIES Project. The campus and weather are beautiful to say the least. Departamento de Biotecnología, Universidad de Alicante where I am currently working. My task for the two weeks that I am in Alicante is to scan as many teeth as possible and begin to work with the software needed to manipulate and analyze the 3D models we create. Below you can see the scanner in the background and a dental cast sitting on a rotating platter. The platter rotates automatically and scans are taken at set increments. The scans are then automatically fused together after the platter completes a full rotation. The image to the right shows fused scan before further post-processing takes place. The weird "glob" at the top of the scan is some modeling clay that held the tooth stationary on the platter which will be removed later.
Last week I attended the 87th Annual Meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropology in Austin, Texas. I presented research in a session called Tooth Wear in Evolutionary and Biocultural Perspectives that was organized by James T. Watson and Christopher W. Schmidt. I presented on the "Dental microwear texture analysis of the Late Upper Paleolithic/Neolithic humans at Tam Hang (Northern Laos)" . The research is a collaborative effort between myself and Christopher W. Schmidt, Ashley Remy, Laura Shackelford, and Fabrice Demeter that investigates how microscopic wear textures on the occlusal surfaces of molars reflects dietary variation within this group of foragers (and food-producers/farmers - see below) from the tropical environments of southeast Asia at the end of the Ice Age. Examples of 2D (grey) and 3D (color) dental microwear textures. The color differences help visualize the microwear on the tooth surfaces. Several variables are derived from the microscopic images to understand individual and group variation in diet-induced molar microwear. Our study on Tam Hang is a part of the larger "DENTALWEAR Project" directed by Christopher Schmidt at the University of Indianapolis. The DENTALWEAR Project compiles a massive dataset of microwear textures that encompass a large range of dietary variation. A global sampling of peoples practicing forms of foraging, farming, and pastoralist socioeconomic strategies provides a comparative framework for inferring aspects of dietary variation in prehistoric groups - like Tam Hang. Our results showed a high degree of variation in the microwear textures among the Tam Hang individuals. This could mean that the individuals exhibited broad spectrum foraging strategies typical of many hunter-gatherer groups at the end of the Ice Age and into the Holocene. This basically means that the people from Tam Hang probably had a wide dietary breadth - including a large range of animal and plant foods. However, some of the burials at Tam Hang may be intrusive. When the Neolithic (food-producing or agriculturalist) peoples of later periods settled in the region, they may have dug down into the Late Upper Paleolithic levels of the site when burying their dead. The skeletal material from Tam Hang was originally excavated during the 1930's, so it is difficult to reconstruct just how much mixing of the Upper Paleolithic and Neolithic archaeological contexts may have occurred. Therefore, what we think is "broad spectrum foraging" could also be an artifact of having samples from two different time periods mixed together. Future research will attempt to sort out this out. For anyone interested in the original abstract from the meeting: The human burials from Tam Hang provide a rare opportunity to study Late Pleistocene human paleobiology in a non-Western Eurasian context. As such, this study addresses dietary variation at Tam Hang using dental microwear texture analysis (DMTA). A white-light confocal profiler was used to examine phase II wear facets on molar casts following standard procedures. Complexity (Asfc), anisotropy (epLsar), and textural fill volume (Tfv) were calculated using scale-sensitive fractal analysis software (Sfraxâ and Toothfraxâ). Seven individuals had well-preserved microwear and were compared to previously published Pleistocene and Holocene groups. Tam Hang mean complexity (1.60) is high, and closest to Natufians and hard-diet foragers (Middle Woodland Indiana). However, two Tam Hang individuals have relatively low complexity (Asfc > 1.0) suggesting they ate softer foods, like meat. Mean anisotropy (0.0028) is low and most like the Vindija Neandertals, hard-diet foragers (Middle Woodland Indiana), and abrasive diet foragers (Middle-Late Archaic Kentucky). However, one individual has elevated anisotropy (0.0072) indicative of tough or fibrous food consumption. Mean Tfv is relatively low (26,509), but two sub-groupings in the Tam Hang sample indicates within group variation in the consumption of mechanically challenging foods. Overall, the microwear signature at Tam Hang is heterogeneous with some emphasis on hard food consumption, and idiosyncratic variation in meat and tough food consumption. There is no patterning by age, sex, or ablation status. High within sample variation may indicate broad spectrum foraging strategies, but we cannot rule out intrusive Neolithic burials in the Late Upper Paleolithic sample at Tam Hang. In a past paper (with Laura Shackelford and Fabrice Demeter) the practice of incisor ablation (the culturally motivated, intentional extraction of healthy teeth during the life of an individual) was addressed. That paper can be found here or here. Individuals from Tam Hang with a.) two; b.) three, c.) four, and d.) zero ablated teeth. In all cases, intentional extractions are marked with white arrows and the other missing teeth are due to postmortem (non-intentional) damage. Two examples from the University of Indianapolis DENTALWEAR Project are linked below. Both publications are open access:
Schmidt CW, Beach JJ, McKinley JI, and Eng JT. 2016. Distinguishing dietary indicators of pastoralists and agriculturists via dental microwear texture analysis. Surface Topography: Metrology and Properties 4(1):014008. Karriger WM, Schmidt CW, and Smith FH. 2016. Dental microwear texture analysis of Croatian Neandertal molars. PaleoAnthropology 2016:172-184. Today I gave a talk for my colleagues at IPHES to outline aspects of the IDENTITIES Project (H2020-MSCA-IF-2016 No. 749188). The talk was a very useful opportunity for me to organize my thoughts, since the pace of data collection for the IDENTITIES Project is about to speed up.
I also discussed ongoing collaborative work on the taphonomy of some Neandertal fossils from Poland. The work is ongoing, so more will be said about this topic when the research is complete. |
John C. Willman
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