Biocultural diversity in Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene Africa: Olduvai Hominid 1 (Tanzania) biological affinity and intentional body modification John Willman, Raquel Hernando, Marie Matu, Isabelle Crevecoeur To cite this version: John Willman, Raquel Hernando, Marie Matu, Isabelle Crevecoeur. Biocultural diversity in Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene Africa: Olduvai Hominid 1 (Tanzania) biological affinity and intentional body modification. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Wiley, 2020, 172, pp.664 -681. 10.1002/ajpa.24007. hal-02990216 HAL Id: hal-02990216 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02990216 Submitted on 5 Nov 2020 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Received: 29 August 2019 Revised: 24 December 2019 Accepted: 2 January 2020 DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.24007 RESEARCH ARTICLE Biocultural diversity in Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene Africa: Olduvai Hominid 1 (Tanzania) biological affinity and intentional body modification John C. Willman1,2,3 | Raquel Hernando2,3 | Marie Matu4 | Isabelle Crevecoeur4 1Laboratory of Prehistory, CIAS – Research Centre for Anthropology and Health, Abstract Department of Life Sciences, University of Objectives: The dentition of Olduvai Hominid 1 (OH1) exhibits an anomalous pattern Coimbra, 3000-456, Coimbra, Portugal of dental wear that was originally attributed to either intentional cultural modification 2IPHES, Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social , 43007 Tarragona, (filing) or plant processing behaviors. A differential diagnosis of the wear and assess- Spain ment of the biological affinity of OH1 is presented. 3Àrea de Prehistòria, Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), 43002 Tarragona, Spain Materials and Methods: Macroscopic and microscopic observations of all labial and 4Unité Mixte de Recherche 5199, PACEA, De buccal tooth surfaces were undertaken to assess wear patterns. A multivariate analy- la Préhistoire à l'Actuel: Culture, sis of mandibular morphology of OH1 compared to other Late Pleistocene, Holocene, Environnement, et Anthropologie, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, and recent modern humans was used to ascertain biological affinity. Université de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France Results: The morphological variation of the OH1 mandible is closely aligned with var- Correspondence iation in penecontemporaneous fossils from Africa and outside that of recent John C. Willman, Laboratory of Prehistory, humans. The concave wear facets exposing dentin on the labial surfaces of all three CIAS – Research Centre for Anthropology and Health, Department of Life Sciences, preserved mandibular incisors is confirmed. Substantial loss of labial/buccal surfaces University of Coimbra, 3000-456 Coimbra, was documented on the surfaces of all in situ maxillary and mandibular canines, pre- Portugal. Email: [email protected] molars, and molars ranging from distinct facets with well-defined edges, to blunting or “polishing” around areas of maximum buccal curvature. The wear on both the Funding information Agence Nationale de la Recherche, Grant/ anterior and postcanine teeth closely resemble that caused by adornments (“labrets”) Award Number: ANR-14-CE31; Agència de worn in lower-lip and buccal facial piercings known from bioarchaeological and eth- Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca, Grant/Award Number: 2017SGR1040; H2020 nographic contexts. The wear pattern suggests that the OH1 wore three facial ł Marie Sk odowska-Curie Actions, Grant/ piercings—two buccal/lateral and a medial one in the lower lip. Award Number: H2020-MSCA-IF-2016 No. 749188; Ministerio de Ciencia e Discussion: Our findings suggest that the expression of social identities through Innovación, Grant/Award Number: intentional body modification is more diverse than previously documented elsewhere PGC2018-093925-B-C32; Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Grant/Award Number: 2017PFR-URV- in Africa during the Late Pleistocene (i.e., ablation) and Early Holocene (i.e., ablation, B2-91; Martí-Franqués Research Grant, Grant/ chipping, and filing). Award Number: 2019PMF-PIPF-59 KEYWORDS dental wear, facial piercing, labret, Later Stone Age, social identity 1 | INTRODUCTION continent and the transition from anatomically archaic to modern human morphology. This can be partly attributed to the sparse, highly Human morphological variation across Africa during the Late Pleisto- fragmentary, and often indirectly dated Late Pleistocene human fossil cene and Early Holocene is poorly understood despite its importance record of Africa (Crevecoeur, 2008; Crevecoeur, Brooks, Ribot, Cor- for understanding prehistoric population dynamics within the nelissen, & Semal, 2016; Crevecoeur, Rougier, Grine, & Froment, Am J Phys Anthropol. 2020;1–18. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/ajpa © 2020 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 1 2 WILLMAN ET AL. 2009; Grine, 2016; Grine et al., 2017; Stojanowski, 2014; Tryon et al., Salvatori & Usai, 2009, 2014, 2016; Santoni, Sakka, & Garcier, 2006; 2015). Human remains from MIS 2 and early MIS 1 are more common Stojanowski et al., 2014, 2016). than fossils from the preceding MIS 6 to MIS 3 (Grine 2016), but the regional distribution of human remains are skewed by a few, large mortuary contexts from more recent periods in North Africa 1.1 | Archaeological and paleobiological context (e.g., Afalou-bou-Rhummel and Grotte des Pigeons [Taforalt]) and the Nile Valley (e.g., Jebel Sahaba, Wadi Halfa, Tushka, Al Khiday) The archaeological context of the OH1 was initially published over (Arambourg, Boule, Vallois, & Verneau, 1934; Ferembach, Dastugue, & 100 years ago (M. D. Leakey, 1978; Reck, 1914), and few studies con- Poitrat-Targowla, 1962; Hachi, 1996; Humphrey, Bello, Turner, cerning this relatively complete skeleton have been published since Bouzouggar, & Barton, 2012; Stojanowski, Carver, & Miller, 2014; the 1930s (Boswell, 1932; Crevecoeur et al., 2016; Gieseler and Mol- Stojanowski, Johnson, Paul, & Carver, 2016; Usai et al., 2010; lison, 1929; L. S. B. Leakey, 1928; Matu et al., 2017; Mollison, 1929; Wendorf, 1968). With so few human fossils dated to the Late Pleisto- Parsche, 1993; Protsch, 1974; Twiesselman, 1973; Reck, 1926, 1933). cene and Early Holocene in Africa, and concomitant biases in regional Direct dating provided an age of 16,920 ± 920 BP for the skeleton representation, the ones that are available for detailed analyses are of (Protsch, 1974, 1975), but doubts have been cast on the dates great importance for understanding issues of human biocultural varia- acquired through the radiocarbon and/or amino acid racemization dat- tion in African prehistory (Crevecoeur et al., 2016; Mounier et al., ing by Protsch in the 1970s (Grine, 2016). A new attempt to re-date 2018; Sawchuk & Willoughby, 2015; Scerri et al., 2018). Cranial, den- OH1 was undertaken in 2018 on a fragment of femoral diaphysis that tal, and postcranial analyses of Pleistocene and Holocene humans pro- was not varnished. Unfortunately, despite a careful pretreatment, no vide meaningful insights into population dynamics within Africa reliable collagen fraction could be isolated and purified. The sample (Armelagos, Van Gerven, Martin, & Huss-Ashmore, 1984; Benoiston, could not be dated nor a δ15N/ δ14N measurement be done due to Bayle, & Crevecoeur, 2018; Crevecoeur, 2008; Crevecoeur et al., this absence of collagen. 2016; Crevecoeur et al., 2009; Greene, Ewing, & Armelagos, 1967; Previous analyses indicate that OH1 was a young adult male Holliday, 2015; Irish, 2000, 2005; Irish, Black, Sealy, & Ackermann, (~20–35 years old at death) and deliberately buried (Matu et al., 2014; Irish & Guatelli-Steinberg, 2003; Irish & Konigsberg, 2007; 2017). Morphological analyses have been more illustrative of the bio- Mounier et al., 2018; Pfeiffer & Harrington, 2018; Ponce de León logical and probable chronological affinity of the OH1 individual rela- et al., 2018; Sawchuk & Willoughby, 2015; Stojanowski, 2014; War- tive to other Later Stone Age human remains. For instance, ren, Hall, & Ackermann, 2015), but biocultural approaches emphasiz- morphological analyses show that the mandibular and distal humeral ing intentional body modification have also proven useful as markers morphology of OH1 are outside of the 95% confidence interval ellipse of population movement, continuity, and replacement in African pre- for recent African human comparative samples (Crevecoeur et al., history (Barton et al., 2008; De Groote & Humphrey, 2016; Finucane, 2016). Furthermore, the OH1 mandibular metrics cluster with pene- Manning, & Touré, 2008; Humphrey & Bocaege, 2008; Irish, 2017; contemporaneous Later Stone Age humans from Ishango and Mum- Mercader, Garralda, Pearson, & Bailey, 2001; Stojanowski et al., 2014, bwa, and distal humeral morphology follows the general pattern of 2016). Biocultural approaches also provide an additional level of infor- Late Pleistocene humans (Crevecoeur et al., 2016). The presence of mation on human lifeways and social identities that may otherwise be microlithic fragments found in potentially associated layers (Protsch, ignored in pursuit