Episode 6 - Arsonists and Elephant Hunters

Written By Nicholas Camferdam
Modern landscape surrounding Gesher Benot Ya’aqov. The Jordan River flows through the ravine at the center of the image, where the famous Jacob’s Ford is located, the last natural ford of the Jordan at the southern end of the Hula Basin between the …

Modern landscape surrounding Gesher Benot Ya’aqov. The Jordan River flows through the ravine at the center of the image, where the famous Jacob’s Ford is located, the last natural ford of the Jordan at the southern end of the Hula Basin between the Korazim Plateau and the Golan Heights.

Following the titanic shifts in climate brought on by the Mid-Pleistocene Transition, the Near East is entering an uncertain new phase. This new phase will bring unprecedented changes to hominins, and will culminate in, among other things, the appearance of the human species. The path we will take to reach that point is illustrated at the Levantine site of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, one of the most fascinating and archaeologically-dense sites we'll ever encounter. Here we find an endless list of historical "firsts", but far more importantly, the changes to the hominin mind which made those firsts possible.

Excellent video produced by Naama Goren-Inbar, one of the principle archaeologists responsible for the excavation of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov. Here you can get a much better visual of the techniques and mechanics involved in the large core Acheulian, and what each component actually looked like. Take particular note of the various reduction strategies described (the biface method, the Kombewa method, the Levallois methos, the slicing method). These are the alternatives that GBY hominins could select between thanks to executive control.

Good overview of some of the key components of executive control, all of which are evidenced at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov.

Sources

Books

  1. Alperson-Afil, N., & Goren-Inbar, N. (2010). The Acheulian Site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov Volume II: Ancient Flames and Controlled Use of Fire. Springer Science & Business Media.

  2. Ayala, F. J., & Conde, C. J. C. (2017). Processes in Human Evolution: The Journey from Early Hominins to Neanderthals and Modern Humans. Oxford University Press.

  3. Dennell, R. (2008). The Paleolithic Settlement of Asia. Cambridge University Press.

  4. Enzel, Y., & Bar-Yosef, O. (Eds.). (2017). Quaternary of the Levant: Environments, Climate Change, and Humans. Cambridge University Press.

  5. Goren-Inbar, N., Alperson-Afil, N., Sharon, G., & Herzlinger, G. (2018). The Acheulian Site of Gesher Benot Ya ‘aqov Volume IV: The Lithic Assemblages. Springer Science and Business Media.

  6. Herrera, R. J., & Garcia-Bertrand, R. (2018). Ancestral DNA, Human Origins, and Migrations. Elsevier Academic Press.

  7. Laland, K. N. (2017). Darwin's Unfinished Symphony. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

  8. Matthews, R. (2000). The Early Prehistory of Mesopotamia, 500,000 to 4,500 BC. (Subartu V) (pp. 1-149). Brepols.

  9. Overmann, K. A., & Coolidge, F. L. (Eds.). (2019). Squeezing Minds from Stones: Cognitive Archaeology and the Evolution of the Human Mind. Oxford University Press.

  10. Scott, A. C. (2018). Burning Planet: The Story of Fire through Time. Oxford University Press.

  11. Shea, J. J. (2013). Stone Tools in the Paleolithic and Neolithic Near East: A Guide. Cambridge University Press.

  12. Shea, J. J. (2016). Stone Tools in Human Evolution: Behavioral Differences among Technological Primates. Cambridge University Press.

  13. Suddendorf, T. (2013). The Gap: The Science of What Separates Us from Other Animals. Constellation.

  14. Wenke, R. J., & Olszewski, D. (2006). Patterns in Prehistory: Humankind's First Three Million Years. New York: Oxford University Press.

Research Papers

  1. Agam, A., & Barkai, R. (2016). Not the brain alone: The nutritional potential of elephant heads in Paleolithic sites. Quaternary International, 406, 218-226.

  2. Alperson-Afil, N., Goren-Inbar, N., Herzlinger, G., & Wynn, T. (2020). Expert Retrieval Structures and Prospective Memory in the Cognition of Acheulian Hominins. Psychology, 11(01), 173.

  3. Alperson-Afil, N., Sharon, G., Kislev, M., Melamed, Y., Zohar, I., Ashkenazi, S., ... & Feibel, C. (2009). Spatial organization of hominin activities at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Israel. Science, 326(5960), 1677-1680.

  4. Bar-Yosef, O., & Belmaker, M. (2011). Early and Middle Pleistocene faunal and hominins dispersals through Southwestern Asia. Quaternary Science Reviews, 30(11-12), 1318-1337.

  5. Belitzky, S., Goren-Inbar, N., & Werker, E. (1991). A Middle Pleistocene wooden plank with man-made polish. Journal of Human Evolution, 20(4), 349-353.

  6. Ben-Dor, M., Gopher, A., Hershkovitz, I., & Barkai, R. (2011). Man the fat hunter: the demise of Homo erectus and the emergence of a new hominin lineage in the Middle Pleistocene (ca. 400 kyr) Levant. PLoS One, 6(12).

  7. Blasco, R., Rosell, J., Cuartero, F., Peris, J. F., Gopher, A., & Barkai, R. (2013). Using bones to shape stones: MIS 9 bone retouchers at both edges of the Mediterranean Sea. PLoS One, 8(10).

  8. Corballis, M. C. (2019). Language, Memory, and Mental Time Travel: An Evolutionary Perspective. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 13, 217.

  9. Herzlinger, G., & Goren-Inbar, N. (2019). Do a few tools necessarily mean a few people? A techno-morphological approach to the question of group size at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel. Journal of Human Evolution, 128, 45-58.

  10. Herzlinger, G., & Goren-Inbar, N. (2020). Beyond a Cutting Edge: a Morpho-technological Analysis of Acheulian Handaxes and Cleavers from Gesher Benot Ya ‘aqov, Israel. Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology, 3(1), 33-58.

  11. Herzlinger, G., Wynn, T., & Goren-Inbar, N. (2017). Expert cognition in the production sequence of Acheulian cleavers at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel: A lithic and cognitive analysis. PloS One, 12(11).

  12. Goldberg, P., Miller, C. E., & Mentzer, S. M. (2017). Recognizing fire in the Paleolithic archaeological record. Current Anthropology, 58(S16), S175-S190.

  13. Goren-Inbar, N. (2011). Culture and cognition in the Acheulian industry: a case study from Gesher Benot Yaʿaqov. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 366(1567), 1038-1049.

  14. Goren-Inbar, N., Feibel, C. S., Verosub, K. L., Melamed, Y., Kislev, M. E., Tchernov, E., & Saragusti, I. (2000). Pleistocene milestones on the out-of-Africa corridor at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel. Science, 289(5481), 944-947.

  15. Goren-Inbar, N., Grosman, L., & Sharon, G. (2011). The technology and significance of the Acheulian giant cores of Gesher Benot Ya ‘aqov, Israel. Journal of Archaeological Science, 38(8), 1901-1917.

  16. Goren-Inbar, N., Lister, A., Werker, E., & Chech, M. (1994). A butchered elephant skull and associated artifacts from the Acheulian site of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel. Paléorient, 99-112.

  17. Goren-Inbar, N., Melamed, Y., Zohar, I., Akhilesh, K., & Pappu, S. (2014). Beneath still waters–multistage aquatic exploitation of Euryale ferox (Salisb.) during the Acheulian. Internet Archaeol, 37(10.11141).

  18. Goren-Inbar, N., Sharon, G., Alperson-Afil, N., & Herzlinger, G. (2015). A new type of anvil in the Acheulian of Gesher Benot Ya ‘aqov, Israel. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 370(1682), 20140353.

  19. Gowlett, J. A. (2016). The discovery of fire by humans: a long and convoluted process. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 371(1696), 20150164.

  20. Madsen, B. & Goren-Inbar, N. (2004). Acheulian giant core technology and beyond: An archaeological and experimental case study. Eurasian Prehistory 2: 3–52.

  21. Melamed, Y., Kislev, M. E., Geffen, E., Lev-Yadun, S., & Goren-Inbar, N. (2016). The plant component of an Acheulian diet at Gesher Benot Ya ‘aqov, Israel. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(51), 14674-14679.

  22. Moncel, M. H., Arzarello, M., Boëda, É., Bonilauri, S., Chevrier, B., Gaillard, C., ... & Zeitoun, V. (2018). The assemblages with bifacial tools in Eurasia (first part). What is going on in the West? Data on western and southern Europe and the Levant. Comptes Rendus Palevol, 17(1-2), 45-60.

  23. Parker, C. H., Keefe, E. R., Herzog, N. M., O'connell, J. F., & Hawkes, K. (2016). The pyrophilic primate hypothesis. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, 25(2), 54-63.

  24. Rolland, N. (2004). Was the emergence of home bases and domestic fire a punctuated event? A review of the Middle Pleistocene record in Eurasia. Asian Perspectives, 248-280.

  25. Sharon, G., Alperson-Afil, N., & Goren-Inbar, N. (2011). Cultural conservatism and variability in the Acheulian sequence of Gesher Benot Ya ‘aqov. Journal of Human Evolution, 60(4), 387-397.

  26. Sharon, G., Barkai, R., Gowlett, J. A. J., Hodgson, D., Kuman, K., Petraglia, M. D., ... & Sharon, G. (2009). Acheulian giant-core technology: a worldwide perspective. Current Anthropology, 50(3), 335-367.

  27. Suddendorf, T., Addis, D. R., & Corballis, M. C. (2009). Mental time travel and the shaping of the human mind. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 364(1521), 1317-1324.

  28. Vaesen, K. (2012). The cognitive bases of human tool use. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 35(4), 203-218.

  29. Wrangham, R. (2017). Control of fire in the Paleolithic: evaluating the cooking hypothesis. Current Anthropology, 58(S16), S303-S313.

  30. Wynn, T., & Coolidge, F. L. (2016). Archeological insights into hominin cognitive evolution. Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews, 25(4), 200-213.

  31. Zohar, I., & Biton, R. (2011). Land, lake, and fish: investigation of fish remains from Gesher Benot Ya ‘aqov (paleo-lake Hula). Journal of human evolution, 60(4), 343-356.

  32. Zohar, I., Goren, M., & Goren-Inbar, N. (2014). Fish and ancient lakes in the Dead Sea Rift: The use of fish remains to reconstruct the ichthyofauna of paleo-Lake Hula. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 405, 28-41.

Articles

  1. Anderson, L. V. (October 5, 2012). Who Mastered Fire? The heated archaeological debate about which hominids first started cooking. Slate. Retrieved from https://slate.com/technology/2012/10/who-invented-fire-when-did-people-start-cooking.html

  2. Burmester, A. (June 5, 2017). Working Memory: How You Keep Things “In Mind” Over the Short Term. Scientific American. Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/working-memory-how-you-keep-things-ldquo-in-mind-rdquo-over-the-short-term/

  3. Dance, A. (June 19, 2017). Quest for Clues to Humanity's First Fires. Scientific American. Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/quest-for-clues-to-humanitys-first-fires/

  4. Deleniv, S. (September 5, 2018). The 'me' illusion: How your brain conjures up your sense of self. New Scientist. Retrieved from https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23931940-100-the-me-illusion-how-your-brain-conjures-up-your-sense-of-self/

  5. Geggel, L. (December 21, 2016). What's Cookin'? Nothing, If You Were an Early Human. Live Science. Retrieved from https://www.livescience.com/57278-early-humans-ate-raw-meat.html

  6. Graziano, M. (June 6, 2016). A New Theory Explains How Consciousness Evolved. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/06/how-consciousness-evolved/485558/

  7. Hirst, K. K. (May 4, 2019). The Discovery of Fire. Thought Company. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/the-discovery-of-fire-169517

  8. Hurley, K. (January 10, 2017). Your Dog Remembers Even More about What You Do Than You Think. Scientific American. Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/your-dog-remembers-even-more-about-what-you-do-than-you-think/

  9. Kaplan, M. (April 2, 2012). Million-year-old ash hints at origins of cooking. Nature. Retrieved from https://www.nature.com/news/million-year-old-ash-hints-at-origins-of-cooking-1.10372

  10. Miller, K. (December 16, 2013). Archaeologists Find Earliest Evidence of Humans Cooking With Fire. Discover Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/archaeologists-find-earliest-evidence-of-humans-cooking-with-fire

  11. News Staff (December 5, 2016). Secrets of the paleo diet: Discovery reveals plant-based menu of prehistoric man. Phys.Org. Retrieved from https://phys.org/news/2016-12-secrets-paleo-diet-discovery-reveals.html

  12. Panko, B. (November 29, 2016). Dogs May Possess a Type of Memory Once Considered ‘Uniquely Human’. Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/dogs-remember-more-than-we-think-180961219/

  13. Scott, A. C. (June 1, 2018). When Did Humans Discover Fire? The Answer Depends on What You Mean By 'Discover'. Time Magazine. Retrieved from https://time.com/5295907/discover-fire/

  14. Walker, M. (June 22, 2016). The people who ate elephant heads. BBC. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160614-the-people-who-ate-elephant-heads

  15. Wilford, J. N. (December 21, 2009). Excavation Sites Show Distinct Living Areas Early in Stone Age. New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/science/22archaeo.html

  16. Zyga, L. (December 22, 2010). Scientists find evidence for 'chronesthesia,' or mental time travel. Phys.Org. Retrieved from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2010-12-scientists-evidence-chronesthesia-mental.html

Useful Links

Official website of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov: http://gby.huji.ac.il/

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on animal consciousness: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-animal/

Wikipedia entry on executive control: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_functions

Covid-19 Resources

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PP4oBLmOh2Cp6lMMwercH52nM-pAr_juBQLUmX_9QQg/edit#

Nicholas Camferdam
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