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Chemical analysis of food residues associated with Japanese Jōmon pottery, which dates from the Late Pleistocene epoch and is the oldest pottery so far investigated, shows that most deposits were derived from high-trophic-level aquatic food. Earliest kitchen pot prepared a fish dish The development of pottery was a milestone in human achievement, paving the way for sophisticated cooking, storage and many other technologies. The earliest known potters lived in eastern Asia long before the development of agriculture or a settled way of life. What they did with their pots has been a matter of speculation, but is now a matter of chemistry. A chromatographic stable-isotope investigation of 101 charred ceramic pots from the Japanese Jōmon period, dating to 11,800–15,000 years old, has provided the earliest evidence for the use of pottery for cooking. And fish was on the menu, as the lipids extracted from the ceramic fragments are characteristic of marine and freshwater organisms. Pottery was a hunter-gatherer innovation that first emerged in East Asia between 20,000 and 12,000 calibrated years before present 1 , 2 (cal bp ), towards the end of the Late Pleistocene epoch, a period of time when humans were adjusting to changing climates and new environments. Ceramic container technologies were one of a range of late glacial adaptations that were pivotal to structuring subsequent cultural trajectories in different regions of the world, but the reasons for their emergence and widespread uptake are poorly understood. The first ceramic containers must have provided prehistoric hunter-gatherers with attractive new strategies for processing and consuming foodstuffs, but virtually nothing is known of how early pots were used. Here we report the chemical analysis of food residues associated with Late Pleistocene pottery, focusing on one of the best-studied prehistoric ceramic sequences in the world, the Japanese Jōmon. We demonstrate that lipids can be recovered reliably from charred surface deposits adhering to pottery dating from about 15,000 to 11,800 cal  bp (the Incipient Jōmon period), the oldest pottery so far investigated, and that in most cases these organic compounds are unequivocally derived from processing freshwater and marine organisms. Stable isotope data support the lipid evidence and suggest that most of the 101 charred deposits analysed, from across the major islands of Japan, were derived from high-trophic-level aquatic food. Productive aquatic ecotones were heavily exploited by late glacial foragers 3 , perhaps providing an initial impetus for investment in ceramic container technology, and paving the way for further intensification of pottery use by hunter-gatherers in the early Holocene epoch. Now that we have shown that it is possible to analyse organic residues from some of the world’s earliest ceramic vessels, the subsequent development of this critical technology can be clarified through further widespread testing of hunter-gatherer pottery from later periods.

This study shows that a highly advanced stone tool technology (microlithic) appears earlier than originally thought; this microlithic technology persisted over a vast time span (∼11,000 years), and was part of an even longer-lived (>100,000 years) advanced technology of complex heat treatment. A hello to arms: an early microlithic technology The modern human lineage appeared in Africa between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago, but the roots of modern human technology are much less clearly defined. Curtis Marean and colleagues describe a previously unrecognized advanced stone tool technology from Pinnacle Point in South Africa, dating back to around 71,000 years ago. Previously observed signs of such activity have been less definitive, seeming to appear and disappear — perhaps because of poor sampling — but the current work indicates that these tools persisted for some 11,000 years. The technology is dominated by heat-treated stone 'bladelets' that are thought to have been components of composite tools. The technology provides strong evidence for advanced projectile weapons such as spearthrowers, or even bows and arrows. The authors speculate that weapons made using such bladelets may have been pivotal to the success of modern humans as they left Africa and encountered Neanderthals. There is consensus that the modern human lineage appeared in Africa before 100,000 years ago 1 , 2 . But there is debate as to when cultural and cognitive characteristics typical of modern humans first appeared, and the role that these had in the expansion of modern humans out of Africa 3 . Scientists rely on symbolically specific proxies, such as artistic expression, to document the origins of complex cognition. Advanced technologies with elaborate chains of production are also proxies, as these often demand high-fidelity transmission and thus language. Some argue that advanced technologies in Africa appear and disappear and thus do not indicate complex cognition exclusive to early modern humans in Africa 3 , 4 . The origins of composite tools and advanced projectile weapons figure prominently in modern human evolution research, and the latter have been argued to have been in the exclusive possession of modern humans 5 , 6 . Here we describe a previously unrecognized advanced stone tool technology from Pinnacle Point Site 5–6 on the south coast of South Africa, originating approximately 71,000 years ago. This technology is dominated by the production of small bladelets (microliths) primarily from heat-treated stone. There is agreement that microlithic technology was used to create composite tool components as part of advanced projectile weapons 7 , 8 . Microliths were common worldwide by the mid-Holocene epoch, but have a patchy pattern of first appearance that is rarely earlier than 40,000 years ago 9 , 10 , and were thought to appear briefly between 65,000 and 60,000 years ago in South Africa and then disappear. Our research extends this record to ∼71,000 years, shows that microlithic technology originated early in South Africa, evolved over a vast time span (∼11,000 years), and was typically coupled to complex heat treatment that persisted for nearly 100,000 years. Advanced technologies in Africa were early and enduring; a small sample of excavated sites in Africa is the best explanation for any perceived ‘flickering’ pattern.

The controlled use of fire was a breakthrough adaptation in human evolution. It first provided heat and light and later allowed the physical properties of materials to be manipulated for the production of ceramics and metals. The nalysis of tools at multiple sites shows that the source stone materials were systematically manipulated with fire to improve their flaking properties. Heat treatment predominates among silcrete tools at ∼72 thousand years ago (ka) and appears as early as 164 ka at Pinnacle Point, on the south coast of South Africa. Heat treatment demands a sophisticated knowledge of fire and an elevated cognitive ability and appears at roughly the same time as widespread evidence for symbolic behavior.

The Paisley Caves in Oregon record the oldest directly dated human remains (DNA) in the Western Hemisphere. More than 100 high-precision radiocarbon dates show that deposits containing artifacts and coprolites ranging in age from 12,450 to 2295 ¹⁴C years ago are well stratified. Western Stemmed projectile points were recovered in deposits dated to 11,070 to 11,340 ¹⁴C years ago, a time contemporaneous with or preceding the Clovis technology. There is no evidence of diagnostic Clovis technology at the site. These two distinct technologies were parallel developments, not the product of a unilinear technological evolution. \"Blind testing\" analysis of coprolites by an independent laboratory confirms the presence of human DNA in specimens of pre-Clovis age. The colonization of the Americas involved multiple technologically divergent, and possibly genetically divergent, founding groups.

Eastern Africa is an important area to study early populations ofHomo sapiensbecause subsets of those populations likely dispersed to Eurasia and subsequently throughout the globe during the Upper Pleistocene. The Middle Stone Age (MSA) archaeology of this region, particularly aspects of stone-tool technology and typology, is highly variable with only rare cases of geographic and temporal patterning. Although there are differences in timing and perhaps frequency of occurrence, those elements that make up the MSA lithic tool kit are also found at contemporaneous sites elsewhere in Africa and Eurasia, making it difficult to identify a unique archaeological signal for hominin dispersals out of eastern Africa. Rather, regional variation appears to be the outcome of possibly long-term interactions between particular physical and social environments experienced by hominin populations.

The range of technological elements that marks the Middle Stone Age originated more than 300,000 years ago and formed the basic tool kit for an extended period of time. No spatial and chronological patterns can be identified from the Early Middle Stone Age until marine isotope stage (MIS) 5, and there is no cumulative trend of increasing complexity and diversity; instead, periods of complexity come and go. The Howiesons Poort and Still Bay techno-complexes, broadly associated with MIS 4, are recognized across various ecological zones of South Africa. These techno-complexes contain relatively more retouched tools and exhibit heightened levels of what is described as innovative practices. The Howiesons Poort is the best understood industry in the Middle Stone Age of South Africa. Its unifying technological characteristic is the almost exclusive use of a blade and bladelet production system, but subtle changes in types of backed artefacts, other retouched tools, and raw material exploitation patterns occur through time. Technological preferences change in the ensuing MIS 3 period, and other strategies and implement types become popular, particularly unifacial points, but trends once again are less clear. This historical review of the technological diversity in the Middle Stone Age of South Africa emphasizes that the roots of some innovations may lie in the earlier Middle Stone Age and that innovation is best understood within the context of local historical trajectories of technological change in South Africa.

Since the pioneering days of Paleolithic archaeology in western Europe, the making of stone tools has received special attention. Numerous studies were aimed at creating systematic typologies of artifacts based on descriptions of their technical features and morphological attributes. Recently, the concept of chaîne opératoire, or \"operational sequence\" (sometimes called \"core reduction sequence\"), borrowed from French social anthropologists, has been introduced into the study of Old World prehistory. Its conceptual framework is focused on the recognition of the overall technology and the practical skills of the prehistoric knapper in employing a particular technique responsible for the transformation of raw material to tools. Although the stone objects of all periods received attention, those of the Middle Paleolithic-due to issues such as the significance of lithic variability in retouched tools, the demise of the Neanderthals, or the emergence of \"modern behavior\"-have been at the forefront. This paper discusses the definition of chaîne opératoire and its practice and demonstrates that as a system of classification, it is overformalized and provides but an illusion of reading the minds of prehistoric knappers. The need to pay more attention to the recognition of patterning in the technological information is essential if we wish to go beyond a formal type list of knapping products. We argue that an elaborate, complex typology of core reduction products and discrete chaînes opératoires is an approach that impedes informed behavioral interpretations by forcing a rigid framework of \"technical\" definitions on the prehistoric lithic technologies.

This paper presents an overview of the Chinese Paleolithic industries between 300 ka and 40 ka, a time span now termed the “later Early Paleolithic” (LEP) in the Chinese chronological scheme. It describes the unique features of LEP remains in China compared with contemporaneous materials in Africa and western Eurasia as well as the internal diversity and complexity of these Chinese Paleolithic assemblages. Basic features of LEP remains in China include the persistent and conservative pebble-tool and simple flake-tool traditions, the use of poor-quality local raw materials, tool fabrication on pebbles and direct use of unretouched flakes, opportunistic flaking, simple and casual modification, and the lack of obvious temporal trends. The diversity and complexity of Chinese Paleolithic cultures as they are expressed in terms of the major difference between southern China’s pebble-tool tradition and northern China’s simple flake-tool tradition are also assessed. Based on such generalizations and analyses, a comprehensive behavioral model is proposed to explain the unique features of LEP cultures in China and the alternative pathway of human evolution and adaptation in China during that period of time.

Archaeometallurgy is an interdisciplinary and international field of study that examines all aspects of the production, use, and consumption of metals from ∼8000 BCE to the present, although this review is restricted to mining and metallurgy in preindustrial societies. Most of this literature was not written with an anthropological readership in mind, but many of its central themes are relevant to some current debates in anthropology. Since the 1970s, archaeometallurgists have been concerned explicitly with the materiality of metals and also with the highly variable value of precious metals across time and space. Exacting criteria have been developed for distinguishing past technology transfers from independent inventions. Archaeometallurgists have also done important work on the social construction of technology in precapitalist economies. In short, archaeometallurgy offers much that is of interest to anthropologists who study the growth and spread of knowledge, and of systems of value, before the capitalist era.

Assessments of the complexity of lithic technologies coming from different time periods, regions, or hominid species are recurrent features of the literature on Paleolithic archaeology. Yet the notion of lithic complexity is often defined intuitively and qualitatively, which can easily lead to circular arguments and makes difficult the comparison of assemblages across different regions and time periods. Here we propose, in the spirit of Oswalt’s techno-units, that the complexity of lithic technology can be quantified by counting the procedural units involved in tool manufacture. We define procedural units as mutually exclusive manufacturing steps that make a distinct contribution to the finished form of a technology. As a proof of concept, we use the procedural-unit approach to measure the complexity of 13 Paleolithic assemblages. While preliminary, these results provide a quantitative benchmark confirming that lithic technological complexity increased throughout the Paleolithic period. The method to measure lithic complexity outlined here will allow us to revisit several claims made about change in technological complexity during human evolution.