17 Apples and Oranges : Morphological Versus Behavioral Transitions in the Pleistocene

Introduction Paleoanthropologists who seek correspondences between the fossil and archaeological records of the Pleistocene have a frustrating task. The fossil record suggests that Homo erectus (or possibly H. ergaster) migrated out of Africa by 1.8 Ma and then evolved in Africa, Europe and Asia into a group of taxa or populations—often termed collectively as “archaic Homo”—that are chiefly distinguished from early African H. erectus by larger brains and faces. While many subsequent events are unclear, archaic Homo populations in various parts of the Old World had different subsequent evolutionary histories: in Africa they were ancestral to modern H. sapiens; in Europe they evolved into the Neanderthals; and in Asia they persisted as H. erectus and/or archaic Homo. A series of archaeological transitions, defined primarily on the basis of lithic technologies, also occurred over the same time period, but with little evident correlation to the species identified in the fossil record (Figure 17.1). We have no idea who created the earliest lithic industry, the Oldowan, that first appears approximately 2.6 Ma (Semaw et al. 2003). Moreover, the Oldowan gave rise to various chopper-chopping tool industries that persisted for almost two million years throughout much of the old world. The Acheulian industry, characterized by handaxes, first appears at about 1.7 Ma (Dominguez-Rodrigo et al. 2001), significantly after the first appearance of early H. erectus in East Africa and Eurasia. Acheulian industries are present in Africa, western and south Asia, and western Europe until about 250 Ka but have no more correlation to any hominid species than the contemporaneous core-chopper or core and flake industries. Likewise, the Middle Paleolithic (MP) and Middle Stone Age (MSA) industries, based on prepared core reduction techniques, are widely present by 250 Ka although they may be as old ... one is not being too daring in pointing to major contrasts between archaic and modern humans.