The revolution that wasn't: a new interpretation of the origin of modern human behavior.

http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~peter/site/Papers_files/deMenocal.2004.pdf

African climate change and faunal evolution during the Pliocene-Pleistocene

Our view of H. erectus is vastly different today than when Pithecanthropus erectus was described in 1894. Since its synonimization into Homo, views of the species and its distribution have varied from a single, widely dispersed, polytypic species ultimately ancestral to all later Homo, to a derived, regional isolate ultimately marginal to later hominin evolution. A revised chronostratigraphic framework and recent work bearing either directly or indirectly on reconstructions of life-history patterns are reviewed here and, together with a review of the cranial and postcranial anatomy of H. erectus, are used to generate a natural history of the species. Here I argue that H. erectus is a hominin, notable for its increased body size, that originates in the latest Pliocene/earliest Pleistocene of Africa and quickly disperses into Western and Eastern Asia. It is also an increasingly derived hominin with several regional morphs sustained by intermittent isolation, particularly in Southeast Asia. This view differs from several current views, most especially that which recognizes only a single hominin species in the Pleistocene, H. sapiens, and those which would atomize H. erectus into a multiplicity of taxa. Following Jolly ([2001] Yrbk Phys Anthropol 44:177–204), the regional morphs of H. erectus may be productively viewed as geographically replacing allotaxa, rather than as the focus of unresolvable species debates. Such a view allows us to focus on the adaptations and biology of local groups, including questions of biogeographic isolation and local adaptation. A number of issues remain unresolved, including the significance of diversity in size and shape in the early African and Georgian records. Yrbk Phys Anthropol 46:126–170, 2003. © 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ajpa.10399

Natural history of Homo erectus.

This review begins by setting out the context and the scope of human evolution. Several classes of evidence, morphological, molecular, and genetic, support a particularly close relationship between modern humans and the species within the genus Pan, the chimpanzee. Thus human evolution is the study of the lineage, or clade, comprising species more closely related to modern humans than to chimpanzees. Its stem species is the so-called ‘common hominin ancestor’, and its only extant member is Homo sapiens. This clade contains all the species more closely-related to modern humans than to any other living primate. Until recently, these species were all subsumed into a family, Hominidae, but this group is now more usually recognised as a tribe, the Hominini. The rest of the review sets out the formal nomenclature, history of discovery, and information about the characteristic morphology, and its behavioural implications, of the species presently included in the human clade. The taxa are considered within their assigned genera, beginning with the most primitive and finishing with Homo. Within genera, species are presented in order of geological age. The entries conclude with a list of the more important items of fossil evidence, and a summary of relevant taxonomic issues.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1046/j.1469-7580.2000.19710019.x

Human evolution: taxonomy and paleobiology

Important changes in the brain have occurred during the course of human evolution. Both absolute and relative size increases can be documented for species of Homo, culminating in the appearance of modern humans. One species that is particularly well-represented by fossil crania is Homo erectus. The mean capacity for 30 individuals is 973 cm3. Within this group there is substantial variation, but brain size increases slightly in specimens from later time periods. Other Middle Pleistocene crania differ from those of Homo erectus. Characters of the facial skeleton, vault, and cranial base suggest that fossils from sites such as Arago Cave in France, the Sima de los Huesos in Spain, Bodo in Ethiopia, Broken Hill in Zambia, and perhaps Dali in China belong to the taxon Homo heidelbergensis. Ten of these mid-Quaternary hominins have brains averaging 1,206 cm3 in volume, and many fall beyond the limits of size predicted for Homo erectus of equivalent age. When orbit height is used to construct an index of relative brain size, it is apparent that the (significant) increase in volume documented for the Middle Pleistocene individuals is not simply a consequence of larger body mass. Encephalization quotient values confirm this finding. These changes in absolute and relative brain size can be taken as further corroborative evidence for a speciation event, in which Homo erectus produced a daughter lineage. It is probable that Homo heidelbergensis originated in Africa or western Eurasia and then ranged widely across the Old World. Archaeological traces indicate that these populations differed in their technology and behavior from earlier hominins. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2003. © 2003 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Brain size and encephalization in early to Mid-Pleistocene Homo.

One of the most contentious topics in the study of human evolution is that of the time, place and mode of origin of Homo sapiens1,2,3. The discovery in the Northern Danakil (Afar) Depression, Eritrea, of a well-preserved Homo cranium with a mixture of characters typical of H. erectus and H. sapiens contributes significantly to this debate. The cranium was found in a succession of fluvio-deltaic and lacustrine deposits and is associated with a rich mammalian fauna of early to early-middle Pleistocene age. A magnetostratigraphic survey indicates two reversed and two normal magnetozones. The layer in which the cranium was found is near the top of the lower normal magnetozone, which is identified as the Jaramillo subchron. Consequently, the human remains can be dated at ∼1 million years before present.

A one-million-year-old Homo cranium from the Danakil (Afar) Depression of Eritrea

The amphipod Talitrus saltator as a bioindicator of human trampling on sandy beaches

Middle and late Pleistocene glaciations in the Campo Felice Basin (central Apennines, Italy)

The reconstruction of the tectono-stratigraphical framework of the oceanic units (Ligurian Units Auctt.: Helminthoid Flysch Units, Vara Units, Lanciaia Fm.) cropping out in southern Tuscany is difficult because of the complex tectonics which characterize this sector of the Northern Apennines. Moreover, the widespread occurrence of Miocene-Pliocene and Quaternary sedimentary covers interrupt the areal continuity of the outcrops of the structural pile. To reconstruct the stratigraphic-structural evolution of the Ligurian Units (LU) of southern Tuscany and to compare their sedimentary and compositional features in areas crossed by the CROP-18 profile, the authors performed sedimentological, biostratigraphical, petrographical and structural studies on some key outcrops (Gambassi-Montaione, S. Donato in Poggio, Northern Monti della Gherardesca, Micciano-Libbiano and Serrazzano, Lanciaia-Montecastelli Pisano). Data from geothermal wells were also used in the regional correlation of units. The Cretaceous helminthoid flysches have been grouped into a single formation, the Monteverdi Marittimo Fm., subdivided into three members: (i) the Larderello Member; (ii) the Montaione Member; (iii) the San Donato Member. These represent different parts of the oceanic basin. The Larderello Member (Flysch CalcareoMarnoso, Flysch di Monteverdi M.mo Auctt.) represents normal sedimentation in the middle part of the basin; the Montaione Member (Flysch di Montaione, Flysch di Chianni, Flysch di Castelluccio Auctt.) was deposited in the inner (western?) part and close to an ophiolitic ridge because of the occurrence of ophiolitic olistoliths and breccias; while the San Donato Member (Formazione di S. Donato: BORTOLOTT1, 1962) represents the distal eastern part of the turbiditic system. Even though the LU of southern Tuscany were affected by a complex polyphasic evolution (including out-of-sequence thrusting), we can recognize the sequence of five main tectonic units (from bottom to top of the pile): Morello Unit, Castelnuovo Val di Cecina Unit (e.g. Marly-Calcareous Flysch Unit, Auctt.), Vara Unit (Lower Ophiolitiferous Unit Auctt.) and Lanciaia Fm., Castelluccio Unit (Montaione Flysch Unit Auctt.) and Montignoso Unit (Upper Ophiolitiferous Unit Auctt.). The Lupicaia Creek Unit (Montecatini Sandstones Unit Auctt.) is also present locally at the lop of the pile (Montecatini Val di Cecina and south of the Montaione-Gambassi areas). In the Early to Late Paleocene, the thrusting of the Vara Unit onto the Monteverdi M.mo Fm. occurred and was sealed by the sedimentation, in a piggyback basin, of the Lanciaia Fm., which can be considered an earlier Epiligurian unit. From the Late Eocene the Lanciaia Fm. was deformed by the out-of-sequence thrusting of the Castelluccio Unit and, finally, of the Montignoso Unit. The main structural features of the LU have an «anti-Apenninic» trend (N80 to N110) superimposed by a late «Apenninic» (N150 to N180) trend. The former trend involved the LU at least until Middle-Late Eocene, while is not recognizable in the Tuscan Units, and the Neogene deposits which preserve only the Apenninic orientation. Moreover, the regional distribution of the Cretaceous-Eocene ophiolitic debris in the flysch sequences reflects the anti-Apenninic trend.

Nicola Cipriani

Papers

A one-million-year-old Homo cranium from the Danakil (Afar) Depression of Eritrea

The amphipod Talitrus saltator as a bioindicator of human trampling on sandy beaches

Middle and late Pleistocene glaciations in the Campo Felice Basin (central Apennines, Italy)

The ligurian units of southern tuscany

Late Quaternary record of the Rieti basin, central Iraly: paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic evolution