Modern Origins: A North African Perspective Jean-Jacques Hublin and Shannon P. McPherron (eds.) Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology Series. New York: Springer, 2012, 244 pp. (hardrback), $139.00; €98.75; £85.50 ISBN-13: 9789400729285. Reviewed by TELMO PEREIRA NAP–Núcleo de Arqueologia e Paleoecologia, Universidade do Algarve, Campus Gambelas, 8005-139 Faro, PORTUGAL; [email protected] frica has the longest archaeological record on the This edited book, Modern Origins: A North African Per- Aplanet and a great part of it concerns human evolu- spective, has 15 chapters divided into three parts—Paleoen- tion. That makes this region one of the most attractive to vironment and Chronology (six chapters); Archaeology research, which resulted in its intensive survey and excava- (five chapters); and The Fossil Hominins (four chapters). tion over the last 150 years. One hot issue is the emergence The preface gives very detailed information about the ob- of anatomically modern humans and Northern Africa has jectives of the conference, of the volume, and of the present- evidence that seems to be key for the understanding of ly big picture of climate, biology, archaeology, chronology, such a topic. For decades, research in Northern Africa was and subsistence. It also points to some gaps that remain in aimed at the construction of key sequences that would fit research. Most of the papers are very didactic about the into time and space the natural and cultural phenomena. method and the relevance of the data approached. The first With the emergence of absolute dating, this approach lost two chapters reconstruct the paleoclimate using deep-sea importance and science become more interested in issues cores. Marine deposits are very important for such recon- such as ecology, adaptation, and behavior which, in turn, struction because they have high-resolution, can be studied led to an increase in multi- and interdisciplinary studies. in several aspects such as sediment, chemistry, isotopes, The result was a clearer image of the past, even if that often pollen, etc., and can be dated. Studies about oceanic de- means more confusing and even apparently contradictory position of Sahara dust are mandatory because Africa re- results. sponded to colder periods with aridity in contrast to Europe From the second half of the 19th century, Northern Af- which responded with the formation of ice-sheets. Moreno rican research was conducted by European teams because (Chapter 1) focuses on the NW sector in the last ~250 ka, France, Italy, and England controlled those territories. using three cores (GeoB 5559-2, GeoB4216-1, and MD95- From 1940’s to 1960´s, these countries become free and re- 2043), the SeaWiFS project satellite images, and the data search almost stopped, causing a divide between the his- from the Greenland GISP2. She identifies similar signatures torical-culturalist and processualist perspectives. After the between NW Africa and Greenland during the Dansgaard- 1990’s, research in Northern African gained a new thrust, Oeschger stadials, a correlation between the low latitude with well-funded multidisciplinary teams using up-to-date atmospheric system and these stadials, and an influence of technologies that were specifically targeting the emergence the orbital cycles in the dust input and upwelling. Larra- of modern humans. That brought this region back into the soaña (Chapter 2) has a similar approach for the NE Af- spotlight. This new set of high-resolution data led McPher- rican coast using Site 967. He recognizes nine episodes of ron and Hublin, both from the Department of Human Evo- low dust deposition between 330 and 80 ka that are related lution of the Max Planck Institute (Germany) to host, in to the penetration of insolation, consequent higher rainfall 2007, a conference called Modern Origins: A North African rates, and subtropical savannah vegetation. Smith (Chapter Perspective with 33 researchers with recent and relevant in- 3) approaches the inland water masses during the Pleis- terdisciplinary research in North Africa. That also became tocene using sedimentological and geochemical analysis the name of the book here under review. of fluvial, lacustrine, and spring sediments from Eastern, The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropol- Central, and Western Northern Africa. She infers the extent ogy is a multi-department research center, founded in 1997, and changes of the lakes (from small to enormous), their sa- with the objective of investigating the history of human- linity (from freshwater to brackish), that the Western sector kind using a multi- and inter-disciplinary approach. Shan- had different climatic variations than the Central and East- non McPherron is a Paleolithic lithic expert who received ern ones, which can be related to Atlantic and Mediterra- his PhD in 1991 from the University of Pennsylvania. He nean rainfall, respectively. Geraads (Chapter 4) approaches has been working in France, Morocco, and Ethiopia. Jean- the mammalian assemblages using the proportions of open Jacques Hublin received his Ph.D. in 1978 from the Uni- country antelopes and of gerbillids; this as a control for the versity of Paris VI. His work focuses on Northern Africa, eventual distortion caused by human hunting preferences. Spain, Ethiopia, and France. The research of both these ex- He infers that the second half of the Middle Pleistocene perts mainly concentrates on the transition from pre-mod- was more humid and/or forested than before, but that the ern humans to anatomically modern humans. western sector remained open or arid. However, the zoo- PaleoAnthropology 2012: 235−237. © 2012 PaleoAnthropology Society. All rights reserved. ISSN 1545-0031 doi:10.4207/PA.2012.REV128 236 • PaleoAnthropology 2012 archaeological record points to the existence of conditions to the Mousterian which would be based on the non (or that would allow a permanent human settlement. Rich- not as much)-mobile and more predictable resources dur- ter, Moser, and Nami (Chapter 5) approach Ifri n’Ammar ing wetter times. More and less mobility seems to have an (Morocco), a long human occupation sequence site with an influence on the way people managed not only the lithic alternating presence of the Mousterian and Aterian. With raw materials but also their lithic blanks and tools. the combination of TL and U-series/ESR dates they show Harvati and Hublin (Chapter 12) open the Physical that Maghrebine Middle Paleolithic is at least older than Anthropology section by analyzing Pleistocene hominins 160 ka and the Aterian more than 130 ka, both out of radio- using 3D geometric morphometrics. They show that fossils carbon range. Based on this sequence, the authors suggest associated with the Aterian and Mousterian are different that the Aterian should be considered a Northern African from those related to the Iberomaurusian which, in turn, facies of the Mousterian and not a technocomplex. Raynal are more similar to those from the European Upper Paleo- and Occhietti (Chapter 6) successfully dated Moroccan ar- lithic. They point to a possible regional continuity in north- chaeological layers using amino chronology attributed to ern African populations, and an evolutionary discontinuity the Aterian and confirm that they that fall beyond the 14C between the Aterian and later Ibermaurusian populations, limit. Amino acid chronology is important because, among which could correspond to the large chronological gap other advantages, it allows verification of the chronologi- between these populations. Hublin and colleagues (Chap- cal homogeneity of the archaeological assemblages and the ter 13) study the dental assemblages associated with the selection of suitable samples for radiocarbon dating. With Moroccan Aterian, dated from 90–35 ka. They show that their study, the authors suggest amino acid zones using these fossils are modern humans despite their megadon- whole shell protein from continental gastropods. tia features and thick enamel, characteristics interpreted as Bouzouggar and Barton (Chapter 7) open the section reminiscent of both Near East Middle Paleolithic modern about archaeology, which is mostly focused on the Aterian. humans and northern and eastern African Homo sapiens. At They criticize the disproportion given to pedunculated and the same time, northern African modern humans are differ- other lithic tools in the Aterian assemblages. They propose ent from those from Eurasia or South Africa, but similar to that these tools might be related to the use of blades and the oldest found in Europe which suggests a link between suggest that not only the Aterian but also the techno-com- these two regions. Crevecoeur (Chapter 14) studies the hu- plexes prior to the Aterian should be investigated in order man remains from Nazlet Khater 2, found in association to obtain a correct picture of the essence of the Aterian it- with a flint mining site dated to 35–40 ka. The fossil exhibits self. Steele (Chapter 8) does a zooarchaeological study us- archaic features and the postcranial section shows an adap- ing five sites from Morocco and one from Libya. She was tation to high biomechanical strength and specialized ac- able to show that not only big game, but also small game, tivities. Results suggest that past modern human variation including seafood, was part of the subsistence of modern may differ from the present and that recent populations humans. She also noted a similar pattern between Northern could represent a restricted part of the diversity of past and Southern Africa, where taxa of open landscapes graz- modern human genetics. Braüer (Chapter 15) focuses on ers are more abundant during colder and dry phases, while Middle Pleistocene human diversity. He defends the idea those adapted to closed landscapes are more abundant that the last speciation occurred at 0.8–0.7 Ma when Homo during the warmer and wetter periods. Garcea (Chapter 9) erectus gave rise to a new species that encompasses modern uses data from Lybia to point to the Aterian as a modern features and, therefore, should be designated Homo sapiens human adaptation to the desert because the sites are locat- (sensu lato).