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1. Coastal occupation and foraging during the last glacial maximum and early Holocene at Waterfall Bluff, eastern Pondoland, South Africa

   https://doi.org/10.1017/qua.2020.26  

   Fisher, Erich C.; Cawthra, Hayley C.; Esteban, Irene; Jerardino, Antonieta; Neumann, Frank H.; Oertle, Annette; Pargeter, Justin; Saktura, Rosaria B.; Szabó, Katherine; Winkler, Stephan; et al (September 2020, Quaternary Research)

   null (Ed.)

   Abstract Waterfall Bluff is a rock shelter in eastern Pondoland, South Africa, adjacent to a narrow continental shelf that limited coastline movements across glacial/interglacial cycles. The archaeological deposits are characterized by well-preserved stratigraphy, faunal, and botanical remains alongside abundant stone artifacts and other materials. A comprehensive dating protocol consisting of 5 optically stimulated luminescence ages and 51 accelerator mass spectrometry 14 C ages shows that the record of hunter-gatherer occupations at Waterfall Bluff persisted from the late Pleistocene to the Holocene, spanning the last glacial maximum and the transition from the Pleistocene to the Holocene. Here, we provide detailed descriptions about the sedimentary sequence, chronology, and characteristics of the archaeological deposits at Waterfall Bluff. Remains of marine mollusks and marine fish also show, for the first time, that coastal foraging was a component of some hunter-gatherer groups’ subsistence practices during glacial phases in the late Pleistocene. The presence of marine fish and shellfish further demonstrates that hunter-gatherers selectively targeted coastal resources from intertidal and estuarine habitats. Our results therefore underscore the idea that Pondoland's coastline remained a stable and predictable point on the landscape over the last glacial/interglacial transition being well positioned for hunter-gatherers to access resources from the nearby coastline, narrow continental shelf, and inland areas. 

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2. Female hunters of the early Americas

   https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abd0310  

   Haas, Randall; Watson, James; Buonasera, Tammy; Southon, John; Chen, Jennifer C.; Noe, Sarah; Smith, Kevin; Llave, Carlos Viviano; Eerkens, Jelmer; Parker, Glendon (November 2020, Science Advances)

   null (Ed.)

   Sexual division of labor with females as gatherers and males as hunters is a major empirical regularity of hunter-gatherer ethnography, suggesting an ancestral behavioral pattern. We present an archeological discovery and meta-analysis that challenge the man-the-hunter hypothesis. Excavations at the Andean highland site of Wilamaya Patjxa reveal a 9000-year-old human burial (WMP6) associated with a hunting toolkit of stone projectile points and animal processing tools. Osteological, proteomic, and isotopic analyses indicate that this early hunter was a young adult female who subsisted on terrestrial plants and animals. Analysis of Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene burial practices throughout the Americas situate WMP6 as the earliest and most secure hunter burial in a sample that includes 10 other females in statistical parity with early male hunter burials. The findings are consistent with nongendered labor practices in which early hunter-gatherer females were big-game hunters. 

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3. Ancient DNA and deep population structure in sub-Saharan African foragers

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04430-9  

   Lipson, Mark; Sawchuk, Elizabeth A.; Thompson, Jessica C.; Oppenheimer, Jonas; Tryon, Christian A.; Ranhorn, Kathryn L.; de Luna, Kathryn M.; Sirak, Kendra A.; Olalde, Iñigo; Ambrose, Stanley H.; et al (March 2022, Nature)

   Abstract Multiple lines of genetic and archaeological evidence suggest that there were major demographic changes in the terminal Late Pleistocene epoch and early Holocene epoch of sub-Saharan Africa 1–4 . Inferences about this period are challenging to make because demographic shifts in the past 5,000 years have obscured the structures of more ancient populations 3,5 . Here we present genome-wide ancient DNA data for six individuals from eastern and south-central Africa spanning the past approximately 18,000 years (doubling the time depth of sub-Saharan African ancient DNA), increase the data quality for 15 previously published ancient individuals and analyse these alongside data from 13 other published ancient individuals. The ancestry of the individuals in our study area can be modelled as a geographically structured mixture of three highly divergent source populations, probably reflecting Pleistocene interactions around 80–20 thousand years ago, including deeply diverged eastern and southern African lineages, plus a previously unappreciated ubiquitous distribution of ancestry that occurs in highest proportion today in central African rainforest hunter-gatherers. Once established, this structure remained highly stable, with limited long-range gene flow. These results provide a new line of genetic evidence in support of hypotheses that have emerged from archaeological analyses but remain contested, suggesting increasing regionalization at the end of the Pleistocene epoch. 

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4. Tracing demographic histories through time using ancient DNA in Chilean Fuego-Patagonia

   Balentine, C. M.; Alfonso-Durruty, M.; Reynolds, A. W.; Vilar, M.; Morello, F.; San Román, M.; Springs, L. C.; Bolnick, D. A. (January 2022, American Journal of Biological Anthropology)

   Historically, hunter-gatherers living east and west of the Andean foothills of southern South America (Fuego-Patagonia) practiced different subsistence strategies. To the east, the wide open and relatively dry pampas presented a climate ideal for Terrestrial hunter-gatherers who depended on terrestrial animals (e.g., Lama guanicoe). In contrast, Marine hunter-gatherers who lived on islands in the western archipelago, a colder and wetter environment, mainly subsisted on marine resources (e.g., seals and shellfish). Archaeological evidence dates Terrestrial hunter-gatherers’ presence in Fuego-Patagonia to at least ~10,500 BP, whereas Marine hunter-gatherers’ presence dates to ~6,500 BP and is associated with highly specialized tools that have only been observed in the archaeological record after this time. Genetic analyses of some ancient Fuegian-Patagonians have supported the hypothesis that Marine hunter-gatherers migrated into the region after Terrestrial hunter-gatherers, around 6,500 BP (7,500 calBP), while analyses of other individuals suggest that Marine hunter-gatherers descended from the earlier Terrestrial hunter-gatherer groups. Here, we test these hypotheses by analyzing newly collected genome-wide data from n=46 ancient Chilean Fuegian-Patagonian individuals belonging to Marine, Terrestrial, and Mixed-economy archaeological sites dating to 6,895–304 calBP. We explored basic population structure among these hunter-gatherer groups using PCA and ADMIXTURE. We calculated π, pairwise-FST, and f-statistics, and developed demographic simulations to further examine genetic relationships among the groups. The results of this study shed light on local demographic patterns of ancient southern South American groups, which in turn provides more insight into broader population histories of South America. This study was funded by FONDECYT (Chile), National Geographic Society, National Science Foundation, and Wenner-Gren Foundation. C. M. Balentine is supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship. 

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5. Mount Hunter (Denali National Park) Alaska ice core radiocarbon (14-Carbon) data, 2013

   https://doi.org/10.18739/A2BZ6183N  

   Kreutz, Karl (January 2020, Arctic Data Center)

   Investigation of North Pacific climate variability during warm intervals outside of the Common Era is essential for addressing questions regarding ocean-atmosphere teleconnections between low latitudes and the Arctic under future warming scenarios. However, most of existing ice cores extracted from Alaska/Yukon region archive climate information from the last few centuries. This dataset contains radiocarbon (14C) data from a 208 meter surface-to-bedrock ice core recovered from the summit plateau of Mt. Hunter in central Alaska in 2013. By applying radiocarbon dating on carbonaceous aerosols, a continuous depth-age relationship has been established in the Mt. Hunter ice core. Calibrated 14C ages from the two lowest samples (7,946-10,226 cal BP and 7,018-7,975 cal BP) indicate that basal ice on Mt. Hunter has an early Holocene (> 8 kyr) origin. We also show that samples from depth of 161.0-166.1 m weq have nearly uniform 14C ages (3,200 to 3,500 cal BP). One possible explanation is an increase in snow accumulation at Mt. Hunter during regional neoglaciation. When paired with the Mt. Logan PRCol record, the only other Holocene-length ice core from North Pacific region, the Mt. Hunter ice core provides the possibility to investigate spatial changes in high-elevation Holocene hydroclimate. 

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