Lee Olsen
Wed, Jul-11-07, 17:16
http://www.utexas.edu/opa/pubs/oncampus/00oc_issues/oc000626/-
oc_eritrean.html
An international research team, including two geologists from
UT Austin, has unearthed ancient stone tools from an unusual
geological setting in Africa that may contribute to solving
the mystery of the geographic origins and adaptations of
modern humans. The findings push back by 10,000 years the date
for earliest evidence of human consumption of shellfish,
marking the onset of a new type of feeding strategy in human
evolution. The tools were found within a fossil reef terrace
on the Red Sea coast of Eritrea. They suggest that early
humans were adapted to coastal marine environments and ate
seafood, including clams, crabs, scallops and oysters, as
early as 125,000 years ago. Eritrea is located north of
Ethiopia and southeast of the Sudan. The findings were
published in the May 4 issue of the journal Nature.
Dr. Richard T. Buffler, a professor of geological sciences and
senior research scientist at the UT Austin Institute for
Geophysics, and Berhane Negassi Ghebretensae, a UT Austin
graduate student from Eritrea, participated in the
project. The project was headed by Dr. Robert C. Walter, a
geologist and geochronologist with Mexico's Centro de
Investigacion Cientifica y Educacion Superior de Ensenada
in Baja California. The research team includes scientists
from Eritrea, the U.S., Mexico, the Netherlands, France
and Canada. The Paleolithic hand axes and obsidian flakes
and blades were discovered in a fossil reef terrace near
the Eritrean village of Abdur on the Gulf of Zula. The
reef terrace is about ten kilometers long and about six to
fourteen meters above current sea level. "This is the
oldest documentation in the world of the utilization of
marine resources - clams, crabs and oysters - which are
found in this reef along with the stone tools," Buffler
said. "The use of marine seafoods as a food source
indicates a new behavior for early humans." "We would like
to call this the 'first oyster bar,'" said Walter. "Abdur
is an important site, not just because it is the earliest
evidence for coastal marine occupation to date, but
because it opens up the entire coast of Africa as a whole
new realm of exploration for early human archaeology and
paleontology." Buffler said the discovery "adds credence
to the idea that early Homo sapiens originated in Africa,
and migrated from there to Europe and Asia." The
geographic origin of modern humans is a subject of intense
debate. One school of thought contends that modern humans
evolved semi- independently in Europe, Asia and Africa
between 100,000 and 40,000 years ago. Another holds that
modern humans evolved in Africa between 200,000 and
100,000 years ago, migrating to Eurasia at a later period.
Direct paleontological, archaeological and biological
evidence is required to resolve the conflict. The
importance of finding ancient tools in Eritrea is that it
favors an "out of Africa" migration. "It is right on the
potential migration route of modern humans out of Africa
into Europe, Central Asia and over into Far Eastern Asia,"
Buffler said. The age of the stone tools found embedded in
the rock was based on dating the fossil corals close to
the tools by uranium-thorium mass spectrometric techniques
to 125,000 years ago. The oldest previously known coastal
site, the Klasies River mouth in South Africa, is
estimated to be 115,000 years old, some 10,000 years later
than the Abdur site. Rare occurrences of bifacial handaxes
have been found on the surface of Pleistocene marine
terraces from the Danakil Rift Valley of Eritrea and the
Egyptian coast of the Red Sea. But they were not found in
geological context, meaning direct estimates of their age
were not possible. "Nowhere else have stone tools been
reported to be in a reef rock itself. So we know that the
ancient people at Abdur were there on the reef and dropped
these tools where they harvested their food. And the tools
then became part of the geological record," Buffler said.
Buffler said the team of researchers was traveling to
another field area in the winter of 1997 when the group
stopped near the reef. "We camped overnight and in the
morning we started looking around and discovered the
paleolithic tools in the reef," Buffler said. The team,
led by Walter and partly funded with a National Science
Foundation grant, returned to study the area in more
detail in January and February of 1999.
oc_eritrean.html
An international research team, including two geologists from
UT Austin, has unearthed ancient stone tools from an unusual
geological setting in Africa that may contribute to solving
the mystery of the geographic origins and adaptations of
modern humans. The findings push back by 10,000 years the date
for earliest evidence of human consumption of shellfish,
marking the onset of a new type of feeding strategy in human
evolution. The tools were found within a fossil reef terrace
on the Red Sea coast of Eritrea. They suggest that early
humans were adapted to coastal marine environments and ate
seafood, including clams, crabs, scallops and oysters, as
early as 125,000 years ago. Eritrea is located north of
Ethiopia and southeast of the Sudan. The findings were
published in the May 4 issue of the journal Nature.
Dr. Richard T. Buffler, a professor of geological sciences and
senior research scientist at the UT Austin Institute for
Geophysics, and Berhane Negassi Ghebretensae, a UT Austin
graduate student from Eritrea, participated in the
project. The project was headed by Dr. Robert C. Walter, a
geologist and geochronologist with Mexico's Centro de
Investigacion Cientifica y Educacion Superior de Ensenada
in Baja California. The research team includes scientists
from Eritrea, the U.S., Mexico, the Netherlands, France
and Canada. The Paleolithic hand axes and obsidian flakes
and blades were discovered in a fossil reef terrace near
the Eritrean village of Abdur on the Gulf of Zula. The
reef terrace is about ten kilometers long and about six to
fourteen meters above current sea level. "This is the
oldest documentation in the world of the utilization of
marine resources - clams, crabs and oysters - which are
found in this reef along with the stone tools," Buffler
said. "The use of marine seafoods as a food source
indicates a new behavior for early humans." "We would like
to call this the 'first oyster bar,'" said Walter. "Abdur
is an important site, not just because it is the earliest
evidence for coastal marine occupation to date, but
because it opens up the entire coast of Africa as a whole
new realm of exploration for early human archaeology and
paleontology." Buffler said the discovery "adds credence
to the idea that early Homo sapiens originated in Africa,
and migrated from there to Europe and Asia." The
geographic origin of modern humans is a subject of intense
debate. One school of thought contends that modern humans
evolved semi- independently in Europe, Asia and Africa
between 100,000 and 40,000 years ago. Another holds that
modern humans evolved in Africa between 200,000 and
100,000 years ago, migrating to Eurasia at a later period.
Direct paleontological, archaeological and biological
evidence is required to resolve the conflict. The
importance of finding ancient tools in Eritrea is that it
favors an "out of Africa" migration. "It is right on the
potential migration route of modern humans out of Africa
into Europe, Central Asia and over into Far Eastern Asia,"
Buffler said. The age of the stone tools found embedded in
the rock was based on dating the fossil corals close to
the tools by uranium-thorium mass spectrometric techniques
to 125,000 years ago. The oldest previously known coastal
site, the Klasies River mouth in South Africa, is
estimated to be 115,000 years old, some 10,000 years later
than the Abdur site. Rare occurrences of bifacial handaxes
have been found on the surface of Pleistocene marine
terraces from the Danakil Rift Valley of Eritrea and the
Egyptian coast of the Red Sea. But they were not found in
geological context, meaning direct estimates of their age
were not possible. "Nowhere else have stone tools been
reported to be in a reef rock itself. So we know that the
ancient people at Abdur were there on the reef and dropped
these tools where they harvested their food. And the tools
then became part of the geological record," Buffler said.
Buffler said the team of researchers was traveling to
another field area in the winter of 1997 when the group
stopped near the reef. "We camped overnight and in the
morning we started looking around and discovered the
paleolithic tools in the reef," Buffler said. The team,
led by Walter and partly funded with a National Science
Foundation grant, returned to study the area in more
detail in January and February of 1999.