[language] New Technology Out Of Africa In Early Ice Age]

Sat Aug 12 00:26:12 UTC 2000

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New Technology Out Of Africa In Early Ice Age

Using geological clues from an ancient shift in the Earth's magnetic field,
scientists working in Israel have significantly pushed back the date of an "out
of Africa" migration of early humans that brought new technologies to Eurasia
in the midst of the early Ice Age.

Their findings also indicate that our ancestors' tool-making skills were more
sophisticated for that time than previously believed.

In an article in today's issue of Science, a team working at the
archaeologically rich site of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov (GBY) in the Dead Sea Rift
of northern Israel reports that early humans belonging to the species Homo
erectus traversed the corridor between Africa and Eurasia 780,000 years ago,
bringing with them new technologies.

According to co-author Craig Feibel, a geologist and assistant professor of
anthropology and geology at Rutgers, the findings indicate this migration
occurred some 250,000 years earlier than had been suspected.

They also confirm that the site's abundant trove of stone tools, including
handaxes and cleavers, reflects a higher level of skill and sophistication than
scientists thought existed at that time.

Feibel, who was one of two geologists on the team, reconstructed the geological
sequence from sediments at GBY. The sediments showed clear evidence dating them
to the most recent reversal in the Earth's magnetic field 780,000 years ago,
says Feibel.

"Until this recent work, we didn't have a clear age estimate. Scientists had
estimated the technology and associated flora and fauna at a half million
years, but that was conservative," Feibel said. "This time, we were fortunate
to find in the sediments a record of the shift in the Earth's magnetic field,
which is a well-dated phenomenon."

Feibel noted the discovery was a serendipitous one that the team had not been
seeking, but one that solved a long-standing mystery regarding the site's true
age.

Thousands of extremely well-preserved artifacts along with fossils have been fo
und at GBY, which is a "wet" site. Organic matter is well preserved at GBY, in
contrast to sites in Africa where much evidence of hominin occupation and flora
and fauna has disintegrated over time.

GBY was discovered in the 1930s and has been the site of many excavations.

The article's authors note that the "archaeological data from the site portray
strong affinities with African stone tool traditions. It also reflects adroit
technical skills and in-depth planning abilities."

Early Pleistocene hominins were bringing with them their lithic technologies
that would eventually be found throughout Eurasia.

"What we see at GBY is a whole new technology that also was found at Olduvai
Gorge in Tanzania. All of the technological breakthroughs seem to have been
made in Africa, and they came out of Africa," Feibel said.

The migration through GBY was occurring during the Pleistocene Epoch, when the
climate would have concentrated movement near the equator. The article notes
that more than a dozen "archaeological occurrences" are identified in the
geological sequence, showing repeated occupations of the same area over a
prolonged period.

The interdisciplinary team included two archaeologists, two geologists, one
paleontologist and two paleobotanists. The project began at GBY in 1989.

In addition to Feibel, the article's authors are Naama Goren-Inbar and Idit
Saragusti of the Institute of Archaeology at Hebrew University, Jerusalem,
Israel; Kenneth L. Verosub of the department of geology at the University of
California at Davis; Yoel Melamed and Mordechai E. Kislev of the department of
life sciences at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel; and Eitan Tchernov
of the department of evolution, systematics and ecology at Hebrew University.
Goren-Inbar is the lead author and project leader.

The project is supported by the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation and the National
Geographic Society. - By Sandra Lanman

Related websites:

Photos of the archaeological site
http://ur.rutgers.edu/medrel/photos/gby/
GBY Website
http://www.hum.huji.ac.il/archaeology/GBY/english.htm
Rutgers Website
http://ur.rutgers.edu/
[Contact: Craig Feibel, Sandra Lanman]
feibel at rci.rutgers.edu
slanman at ur.rutgers.edu
11-Aug-2000

_______

Volume 289, Number 5481, Issue of 11 Aug 2000, pp. 944-947
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/289/5481/944

Pleistocene Milestones on the Out-of-Africa Corridor at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov,
Israel
Naama Goren-Inbar,1* Craig S. Feibel,2 Kenneth L. Verosub,3 Yoel Melamed,4
Mordechai E. Kislev,4 Eitan Tchernov,5 Idit Saragusti1

The Acheulean site of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov in the Dead Sea Rift of Israel
documents hominin movements and technological development on a corridor between
Africa and Eurasia. New age data place the site at 780,000 years ago (oxygen
isotope stage 19), considerably older than previous estimates. The
archaeological data from the site portray strong affinities with African stone
tool traditions. The findings also reflect adroit technical skills and in-depth
planning abilities, more advanced and complex than those of earlier
archaeological occurrences in the Levant.

1 Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University, Mt. Scopus, Jerusalem 91905,
Israel.
2 Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University, 131 George Street, New
Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA.
3 Department of Geology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
4 Department of Life Sciences, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan 52900, Israel.
5 Department of Evolution, Systematics and Ecology, Hebrew University, Givat
Ram, Jerusalem 91904, Israel.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: goren at cc.huji.ac.il

Full text, pay per view:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/289/5481/944
PDF:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/289/5481/944

______

ABC NEWS
Israel Fossils Change Record
Evidence Puts Hominid Migration 250,000 Years Earlier

The Associated Press
W A S H I N G T O N, Aug. 11 — New findings in the sediments of a dried lake
bed in Israel show that early hominids migrated into the region some 780,000
years ago, bringing with them sophisticated stone tool-making skills developed
in Africa.
     Craig S. Feibel, a Rutgers University geologist, said that the findings
show that a hominid called Homo erectus migrated from Africa and settled at a
site called Gesher Benot Ya’aqov some 250,000 years earlier than previous
studies had suggested.
     Gesher Benot Ya’aqov is located in the Dead Sea rift of northern Israel.
The site is dry now, but once it was the center of a freshwater lake,
surrounded by trees and lively with game, said Feibel, the co-author of a
studying appearing today in the journal Science.

Full text:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/hominid_000811.html

______

Friday August 11 4:20 PM ET
Study Shows Out-Of-Africa Migration to Israel

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Magnetic dating has showed that pre-humans living in
what is now Israel exported the latest Stone Age technology out of Africa much
earlier than believed, scientists said Friday.

Their study adds to evidence that humans and their ancestors came out of Africa
in successive waves, each time bringing better and better technology with them.

Full text:
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000811/sc/humans_stoneage_dc_1.html

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