Espacio virtual creado realmente por Nicanor Domínguez. Dedicado a la historia del Sur-Andino peruano-boliviano.

martes, 31 de julio de 2012

Orígenes sudafricanos de la Humanidad - 2


FOTO: El hallazgo incluye bastones de madera, punzones de hueso y ornamentos corporales. / F. D'Errico / L. Backwell

Los San lo iniciaron todo

* Hallados en Sudáfrica los primeros artefactos de la cultura humana moderna

* Los bosquimanos propagaron hace 44.000 años la tecnología del cazador

Por Javier Sampedro

El País, Madrid, 30 de julio, 2012.

Una de las grandes paradojas de la paleontología es el llamado Gran Salto, o aparición repentina en Europa, hace unos 40.000 años, de los instrumentos avanzados propios de la creatividad humana moderna. Pero los últimos datos revelan que ese Gran Salto ya había ocurrido en África 4.000 años antes. Un grupo de arqueólogos encabezados por Francesco d’Erico, de la Universidad de Burdeos, acaba de descubrir estas evidencias en la cueva de la Frontera (Border Cave), un yacimiento de extraordinaria riqueza situado en el límite entre Suazilandia y la provincia surafricana de Zululandia, en el sudeste del continente. Los artefactos pertenecen a la cultura San, uno de los grupos de bosquimanos que, según todas las evidencias, inventaron la moderna cultura de los cazadores-recolectores que enseguida se propagó por el mundo.

Las huellas arqueológicas de instrumentos sofisticados y de la primera cultura simbólica de que se tiene noticia ya habían aparecido en este y otros yacimientos sudafricanos —en particular la cueva Blombos, en el puro extremo meridional del continente— en estratos datados hace 75.000 años. Sin embargo, esa cultura relativamente avanzada no debió establecerse con firmeza, pues desapareció 15.000 años después sin dejar rastro aparente.

Los artefactos de la cultura San hallados en la cueva de la Frontera, por el contrario, abarcan un periodo extenso de tiempo y un abanico mucho más amplio de tecnologías. Incluyen ornamentos corporales hechos de conchas y cuentas, huesos con muescas, bastones de madera para excavar, punzones de hueso y puntas de flecha del mismo material. Los resultados se presentan este martes en PNAS.

Los San también fueron los primeros, si no en domesticar a las abejas, al menos sí en utilizar la cera de las colmenas para sus propósitos industriales, según proponen los autores. La cueva de la Frontera contiene restos analizables de una pócima hecha con huevo, cera de abeja y resina de euphorbia, un material francamente pegajoso que los primitivos bosquimanos, posiblemente, utilizaban para adherir las herramientas a su mango. El primer pegamento de la historia, datado en 40.000 años.

El artefacto más reciente, que data de hace 24.000 años, es un aplicador de veneno que aún conserva restos tóxicos derivados de semillas de ricino. Nuestros ancestros no se andaban con tonterías a la hora de cazar.

Los resultados añaden fuerza a otras evidencias genómicas obtenidas el año pasado, y a los análisis lingüísticos que se han ido acumulando en los últimos años. También según estas líneas de investigación, nuestros primeros ancestros eran bosquimanos del sur de África, como los San, y se comunicaban en khoisán, el lenguaje-clic que probablemente fue lengua ancestral de la humanidad, donde las consonantes eran chasquidos como el que aún usamos para indicar fastidio, y como el sonido de un beso.

Los San y otros bosquimanos del sur revelan una variedad genética interna mucho mayor que cualquier otra población humana actual. Y la explicación más simple es que toda la humanidad actual proviene de aquellos primitivos habitantes del sur de África —no de Etiopía, como se pensaba anteriormente—, y que los actuales hablantes de lenguajes clic son los herederos en línea directa de nuestros primeros padres.

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* Tomado de: http://sociedad.elpais.com/sociedad/2012/07/30/actualidad/1343673812_453154.html

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Southern African Origins of Humanity - 2

Southern African Paleolithic (44,000 years ago) and the San ("Bushmen") ethno-linguistic group

Researchers: Modern culture may have earlier start

By EMOKE BEBIAK Associated Press – Mon. July 30, 2012

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Poisoned-tipped arrows and jewelry made of ostrich egg beads found in South Africa show modern culture may have emerged about 30,000 years earlier in the area than previously thought, according to two articles published on Monday.

The findings published in the journal "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" show that the 44,000-year-old artifacts are characteristic of the San hunter-gatherers. The descendants of San people live today in southern Africa, so the items can clearly be traced forward to modern culture, unlike other archaeological finds, researchers said.

South African researcher Lucinda Backwell said the findings are the earliest known instances of "modern behavior as we know it." Backwell said the discovery reinforces the theory that modern man came from southern Africa.

The carbon dating on the items shows that traces of the San culture may have existed earlier than the previous estimate of somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago, the journal said.

The find, discovered at Border Cave close to South Africa's northeastern border with Swaziland, is a comprehensive package of hunting kits and jewelry made of ostrich egg and marine shell beads.

Backwell, who was part of the team of international researchers that made the find, said the artifacts created as many as 44,000 years ago served the same purposes as they would today.

"They all have a specific reason we understand, that's why we can name them," Backwell said.

The researchers' articles said the Border Cave people used poisoned arrows to hunt and put spiral engraving on arrowheads to indicate ownership. The latter practice has been preserved in the San culture, they said.

Professor Francesco d'Errico of the French National Research Centre, who led the research team, said that the findings tell of a people who were highly evolved.

"They were fully modern genetically and cognitively," d'Errico said.

Their cognitive development is evident in their symbolic behavior, the professor said. The ostrich egg beads were not only ornaments, but played a major role in bartering with neighboring groups, he said. That practice continues today.

The paper claimed that the fossils show that all modern culture came from southern Africa, though the researchers acknowledged it remains difficult to pinpoint where in history that modernity began.

Eric Delson, a paleoanthropologist at Lehman College of the City University of New York, said that while the testing used by the researchers to determine the age of the fossils was very clear and reliable, the findings didn't support the idea that all modern human cultures are connected to this find.

He said there is evidence that a modern culture already existed in Europe around the time the new find is dated.

"They say, 'Modern human behavior first found!'" Delson said. "Well, not exactly."

He did, however, applaud the research for finding the origins of one specific group of modern people.

Scientists from Britain, France, Italy, Norway, South Africa and the U.S. all took part in the research, helmed out of the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

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* Tomado de: http://news.yahoo.com/researchers-modern-culture-may-earlier-start-171918659.html

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Oldest Poison Pushes Back Ancient Civilization 20,000 Years

By Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer LiveScience.com –
Mon. July 30, 2012

The late Stone Age may have had an earlier start in Africa than previously thought — by some 20,000 years.

A new analysis of artifacts from a cave in South Africa reveals that the residents were carving bone tools, using pigments, making beads and even using poison 44,000 years ago. These sorts of artifacts had previously been linked to the San culture, which was thought to have emerged around 20,000 years ago.

"Our research proves that the Later Stone Age emerged in South Africa far earlier than has been believed and occurred at about the same time as the arrival of modern humans in Europe," study researcher Paola Villa, a curator at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, said in a statement.

The Later Stone Age in Africa occurred at the same time as Europe's Upper Paleolithic Period, when modern humans moved into Europe from Africa and met the Neanderthals about 45,000 years ago.

"[T]he differences in technology and culture between the two areas are very strong, showing the people of the two regions chose very different paths to the evolution of technology and society," Villa said.

Hints of culture

Traces of civilization have been found going back nearly 80,000 years in Africa, but these fragments — bone tools, carved beads — vanish from the archaeological record by about 60,000 years ago.

In fact, almost nothing is known about what happened in Southern Africa between 40,000 and 20,000 years ago, Villa and his colleagues wrote online today (July 30) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This gap makes it hard to link middle-Stone Age societies to the ones that came later.

The researchers brought the latest in dating technology to bear on a site on the border of South Africa and Swaziland called Border Cave. They found that a number of the artifacts in the cave were much older than expected.

Ostrich eggshell beads, sharp bone points likely used for arrowheads, and notched bones were among the fragments of life dating back thousands of years before the San were thought to have emerged. One long-bone tool is decorated with a spiral incision that was then filled with red-clay pigment. A set of warthog or pig tusks shows signs of grinding and scraping. Other bones are marked with notches, as if they were used to keep a tally of something.

The researchers also found beads, several apparently deliberately blackened by fire, one dating back more than 38,000 years. A piece of wood associated with a stone with a hole through it was dated to about 35,000 years ago. The tool appears to be an early digging stick of the sort used by the later San people to unearth roots and termite larvae.

Oldest poison

The researchers also dated a lump of beeswax mixed with toxic resin that was likely used to haft, or attach, stone points to the shafts of arrows or spears. The beeswax dates to about 35,000 years ago, making it the oldest known example of beeswax being used as a tool.

Finally, researchers dated a thin wooden stick scarred with perpendicular scratches. A chemical analysis revealed traces of ricinoleic acid, a natural poison found in castor beans. It's likely that the stick was an applicator used to put poison on an arrow or spearheads, the archaeologists reported. At about 20,000 years old, the applicator marks the first use of poison ever discovered.

"The very thin bone points from the Later Stone Age at Border Cave are good evidence for bow and arrow use," Villa said. "The work by d'Errico and colleagues [published alongside Villa's group's report in the same journal] shows that the points are very similar in width and thickness to the bone points produced by San culture that occupied the region in prehistoric times, whose people were known to use bows and arrows with poison-tipped bone points as a way to bring down medium and large-sized herbivores."

The ancient dates help fill in a continuity gap of human civilization, said study researcher Lucinda Backwell, a researcher in palaeoanthropology at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.

"The dating and analysis of archaeological material discovered at Border Cave in South Africa, has allowed us to demonstrate that many elements of material culture that characterize the lifestyle of San hunter-gatherers in southern Africa, were part of the culture and technology of the inhabitants of this site 44,000 years ago," Backwell said.

It seems plausible that these technologies arose 50,000 to 60,000 years ago in Africa and later spread to Europe, Villa said.

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* Tomado de: http://news.yahoo.com/oldest-poison-pushes-back-ancient-civilization-20-000-190830216.html

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