TL Dates of Burnt Flints from Jelinek's Excavations at Tabun and their Implications

Mercier, Norbert; Valladas, Hélène; Valladas, G.; Reyss, Jean-Louis; Jelinek, Arthur J.; Meignen, Liliane; Joron, Jean Louis

doi:10.1006/jasc.1995.0048

Cited by 159 publications

(69 citation statements)

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“…Here, micromorphological studies suggest that recrystallized wood ash was a major part of the cave deposits over a long time period and that, at least in the upper part of the sequence, repeated use of fire was common (17). Another signal for habitual fire use in the 300-to 200-ka period comes from a study of heated flints from the Tabun site, also in Israel (53). Many later Middle Paleolithic sites have yielded a wide range of evidence for fire, in the form of the large combustion areas from Kebara or the hearths from Hayonim (54,55).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 90%

On the earliest evidence for habitual use of fire in Europe

Roebroeks

Villa

2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

574

317

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The timing of the human control of fire is a hotly debated issue, with claims for regular fire use by early hominins in Africa at ∼1.6 million y ago. These claims are not uncontested, but most archaeologists would agree that the colonization of areas outside Africa, especially of regions such as Europe where temperatures at time dropped below freezing, was indeed tied to the use of fire. Our review of the European evidence suggests that early hominins moved into northern latitudes without the habitual use of fire. It was only much later, from ∼300,000 to 400,000 y ago onward, that fire became a significant part of the hominin technological repertoire. It is also from the second half of the Middle Pleistocene onward that we can observe spectacular cases of Neandertal pyrotechnological knowledge in the production of hafting materials. The increase in the number of sites with good evidence of fire throughout the Late Pleistocene shows that European Neandertals had fire management not unlike that documented for Upper Paleolithic groups.human evolution | Paleolithic archeology | fireplaces | hafting adhesives T he emergence of stone tool manufacture and the control of fire are undoubtedly the two most significant events in the technological evolution of early humans. Although stone tool use and manufacture were regular activities from at least 2.6 million y ago (1), the timing of the human control of fire is a controversial issue (2), with some claims for regular fire use by early hominins in Africa at ∼1.6 million y ago (3-5). Longer chronologies for the use of fire include Wrangham's recent hypothesis that fire was a central evolutionary force toward larger human brains (6-9): eating cooked foods made early hominin digestion easier, and the energy formerly spent on digestion was freed up, enabling their energy-expensive brains to grow. Using fire to prepare food made early humans move away from the former feed-as-you-go-and-eat-raw-food strategy and toward the sharing of cooked foods around fires, which became attractive locations for increased social interaction between individuals. Wrangham situates these developments around the time of the emergence of Homo erectus, approximately two million y ago. Most archeologists would agree that the colonization of areas outside of Africa, especially of regions such as Europe where temperatures at time dropped below freezing (10), was tied to the use of fire to bridge gaps in the energy budget and in resource availability during winter (11). For much later periods, a greater control and more extensive use of fire is seen by some (12, 13) as one of the behavioral innovations that emerged in Africa among modern humans, favoring their spread throughout the world and their eventual evolutionary success.How strong are these hypotheses? To what extent are they backed up by archeological data on hominin use of fire? Our focus in this review is on Europe, an area of the Old World for which we have a rich record with a large number of sampling points distributed in time and space, w...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 90%

On the earliest evidence for habitual use of fire in Europe

Roebroeks

Villa

2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

574

317

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“…Multiple samples from the same stratum, or even site, may depend on a few evaluations of external dose, so that statistical analysis is complicated by correlation of uncertainties; this is often forgotten when dates are being combined or compared (Millard, 2003). In addition, where dating is conducted on museum specimens excavated many years ago, careful consideration must be given to the reconstruction of the external dose rate and whether it can be made reliably from small amounts of soil adhering to the sample (Mercier et al, 1995). This is true for all three methods, but in practice applies more to ESR dating studies.…”

Section: Electron Spin Resonance (Esr) Optically Stimulated Luminescmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A sequence of TL dates on burnt flint derive mostly from flints recovered by Jelinek (Mercier et al, 1995(Mercier et al, , 2000Mercier and Valladas, 2003) from strata correlated with Garrod"s Layer C and below. Rink et al (2004) obtained ESR dates for a single tooth recovered in Ronen"s excavation from layers equivalent to Garrod"s Layer Ed.…”

Section: Comment [Msu51]: Referencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The TL dates of Mercier et al (1995Mercier et al ( , 2000 and the ESR dates of have been the subject of debate, as they disagree in the lower levels of the site. Mercier et al (1995) suggested that the elemental concentrations in the sediments used by had been altered postdepositionally, thus shortening the ESR chronology.…”

Section: Comment [Msu51]: Referencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mercier et al (1995) suggested that the elemental concentrations in the sediments used by had been altered postdepositionally, thus shortening the ESR chronology. Grün and Stringer (2000) showed that the differences persist with a larger suite of sediment samples from the Garrod collection, and their analyses are therefore likely to be representative of the sediments from which the teeth came.…”

Section: Comment [Msu51]: Referencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A critique of the chronometric evidence for hominid fossils: I. Africa and the Near East 500–50ka

Millard¹

2008

Journal of Human Evolution

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The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. AbstractThe chronometric dating evidence for all hominid fossils from Africa and the Near East that have previously been dated to 500-50 ka is critically assessed using the concept of chronometric hygiene, and these dates are revised using Bayesian statistical analyses where possible. Sixteen relevant hominid sites lacking chronometric evidence are briefly discussed.Chronometric evidence from 37 sites is assessed in detail. The dates for many hominid fossils are poorly constrained, with a number dated by comparisons of faunal assemblages a method that does not have good chronological resolution for much of the last million years. For sites with stratigraphic sequences of dates, it is generally possible to refine the dating, but in some cases, the revised chronology is less precise than previous chronologies. Fossils over 200 ka in age tend to be poorly dated, but for the last 200 ka, dating is better due to the availability of electron-spinresonance and thermoluminescence dating. Consideration of the chronologies favored by the proponents of the out-of-Africa and multiregional hypotheses of human evolution shows their selectivity. The chronological assessment of the fossils here is compatible with either hypothesis.If evolutionary schemes that do not rely on the morphology of the hominid fossils to decide the sequence of fossils are to be built, then further dating is required, alongside full publication of existing dates.3

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Luminescence dating and modern human origins

Feathers

1996

Evol. Anthropol.

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TL Dates of Burnt Flints from Jelinek's Excavations at Tabun and their Implications

Cited by 159 publications

References 18 publications

On the earliest evidence for habitual use of fire in Europe

On the earliest evidence for habitual use of fire in Europe

A critique of the chronometric evidence for hominid fossils: I. Africa and the Near East 500–50ka

Luminescence dating and modern human origins

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