Field: Social Science
Session Topic:
The Evolution of Modern Humans
Speaker:
Minoru Yoneda/The University of Tokyo
1. Introduction: a brief review of modern human evolution before agriculture
The origin and evolution of modern human has been investigated by
anthropological and archaeological approaches. The oldest fossil evidence from
Ethiopia, Homo sapiens idultu, dated to 160,000 (1), which generally agreed with the
estimations of modern human origin based on the genetic diversity of modern
populations, pioneered by the “mitochondrial Eve” work (2).
However, the recent findings have indicated that the modern behavior appeared
significantly later than the biological origin of modern human. In the Levant around
100,000 year ago, the difference between Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis
were not clear in their industries and subsistence, although some exceptions were
reported such as ochre from Qafzeh (3) and shell beads from Skful, Israel (4).
The progress in human behavior was significant in the Upper Paleolithic culture of
Europe. In the traditional perspective, this culture was carried by “Cro-Magnon” from
the Near East. However the origin of Upper Paleolithic was not clear in the Near East.
On the other hand, new evidences from Africa indicated the scattered origins of the
modern behaviors, such as the evidences of symbolism and marine resource
consumption at the Blombos cave, South Africa, dated to 75,000 year ago (5). The
evolution of the modern behaviors and its biological backgrounds are speculated to
relate to neural network and language developments by researchers of various fields.
2. The Natufian culture in the Levant
In most of the way of modern human evolution, human adapted to various
environments based on the hunting, gathering, and fishing. The next giant leap of
human evolution had been called “Neolithization” including the origin of sedentarism,
agriculture, and animal husbandry, occurred from 11,000 to 9,000 years ago in the
Near East. An Epi-Paleolithic culture called the Natufian (13,000-10,500 BP) showed
a good example of adaptation to drastic climate changes in this period.
The Early Natufian culture showed an adaptive strategy for the warm and wet
condition after the Ice Age based on “collecting” in woodlands, and the Late Natufian
who faced to the cool and dry condition in the Younger Dryas event (11,000 to 10,000
BP) found the threshold to the agriculture (6, 7). Natufian sites were located mainly
in the southern coastal Levant in the early period and then expanded to the northern
and inland area in the late period. In the Early Natufian, many round pit-houses
surrounded by stones were uncovered. They lived on the plant materials including
pistachio, acorns, wild cereals (wheat, barley and rye) and pears (lentil, pea, bitter
vetch and chickpea). This new subsistence on plants required much labor and time to
process foods than previous one based on hunting games. The food processing requires
many heavier stone grinding tools, such as mortar and pestle, as well. These factors
probably made people more sedentary than the precedent hunter-gatherers, while
they still exploited a larger amount of mammals, especially gazelles.
The growth of precipitation during 14,500 to 11,000 BP made north and inland
expansion of the Natufian culture, but rainfall decreased during the Younger Dryas
period. This cold climate in the Late Natufian caused the shrinkage of woodland and
people started to exploit various plant resources more extensively. When the warmer
and pluvial conditions returned around 10,000 BP, the new subsistence including
cereal agriculture expanded among the Prepottery Neolithic (PPN) populations.
3. The Jomon culture of Japan
Similar adaptive strategies in the early Holocene could be found in the sequence of
the Jomon culture from 16,500 to 2500 years ago in Japan. The Jomon culture
consisted of six sub-period, Incipient (~11,000), Initial (~7000), Early (~5300), Middle
(~4200) Late (~3300), and Final periods, and their subsistence patterns have not well
studied in the perspective of human evolution. In many books, the Jomon subsistence
was described as “sedentary hunter-gatherers” but some recent discussions suggested
the temporal changes in the adaptive strategies (10, 11).
Although the Jomon pottery is known as one of the oldest potteries, their function
in the Incipient period is not clear. Radiocarbon dates of 16,500 year ago assigned to
potsherds from the Odai Yamamoto I site suggest that pottery was used by Jomon
people in the glacial condition. The Holocene climate promoted the Jomon culture in
the Initial period. In this period, people started using pottery more commonly and it
probably made people more sedentary. While most sites of Incipient Jomon were
located in mountainous caves and rock shelters, Initial Jomon people made small
settlements with 5 or less pit-houses. In the southern Japan, a larger settlement
including 52 houses was found at Uenohara, Kagoshima. Potteries were used for not
only cooking but removing the harshness of acorns, although they seemed to prefer
chestnuts which can eat without cooking. The tools including grounding stones
suggested their intensive exploitation of plants in the Initial Jomon. The sedentarism
and plant exploitation were also recognized as the adaptations of the Early Natufian
in the Levant to the global warming.
It should be noted that marine resources had stared to be used in the Initial
Jomon period as well. The subsistence based on the plants, especially chestnuts, and
marine foods worked as complementary roles to each other. Further, recent works on
chestnuts remains from the Sannai Maruyama site of the Early Jomon showed a
genetic evidence of intensive care for chestnuts.
Conclusion
It is clear Jomon developed adaptive strategies for the changing environment after
the last glacial period. Although some strategies were similar to those of Natufian,
differences should be noted to understand the human adaptations at that period. The
nature of main plant resources, supplemental hunting games, and the function of
potteries seems to be important to understand the difference. It may be interesting
that clear evidence of cooling event at Younger Dryas has not found in Japan. Jomon
culture could be investigated in the light on the human evolution after the Ice Age.
References
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