Life without the Movius Line: The structure of the East and Southeast Asian Early Palaeolithic

© 2015 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA.The starting point of this paper is that the Movius Line is no longer an appropriate way of studying the Early Palaeolithic of East and Southeast Asia, and should be disregarded. Instead, it is argued that the Early Palaeolithic of East and Southeast Asia needs to be seen as comparable to that in the rest of Eurasia, rather than the product of an isolated backwater. Contra Movius, East Asia was not isolated throughout the entire Early and Middle Pleistocene, but open to immigration during interglacials, as is indicated by its fossil hominin record. As in Europe and Southwest Asia, both bifacial and non-biface assemblages are present in China and Korea, thus indicating the presence of an Acheulean component, although the lack of agreement over how the Acheulean should be defined creates difficulties in establishing its extent in Southeast Asia. Regarding non-biface assemblages, Zhoukoudian was an unfortunate choice of an East Asian site that lacked bifaces, as bifaces are also rare or absent in a number of caves in Southwest Asia and Europe. Additionally, the absence of bifaces in some sites is not convincingly demonstrated because of the small size of the lithic assemblage. Finally, the simple flake industries in Southeast Asia are likely contemporary with Upper Pleistocene, Middle Palaeolithic and microlithic assemblages in India rather than with Middle Pleistocene, Acheulean assemblages, as proposed by Movius

Tackling Bullying in Scotland's Schools : a View from the Sidelines

This policy brief considers the proposals to reduce bullying in Scotland's schools. A number of interventions have been introduced in Scotland’s schools that that place an emphasis on peer-initiated interventions. However these interventions often fail to consider the mental health and wellbeing of the pupils involved. The role of the so-called pupil 'bystander' is fundamentally misunderstood as these pupils often have multiple roles within ‘school yard’ culture. The lack of independently evaluated evidence on the success of direct pupil-initiated interventions to reduce the level of bullying in schools should be of concern to policymakers. A key recommendation is that schools, education authorities and policymakers pause, review the evidence and have an informed discussion about the most effective interventions to deliver safer schools in Scotland

Early hominins in north-west Europe: a punctuated long chronology?

In light of changing views regarding the identity and evolutionary positions of Europe’s Lower Palaeolithic hominins, a re-consideration of the hominin occupation of North-West Europe from c. 1 million years ago (mya) to c. 400 thousand years ago (kya) is timely. A change in the scale and character of the overall European Palaeolithic record around c. 800-600 kya has been well documented and argued over since the mid-1990s. Hominin expansion into the European north-west, potentially from southern Europe, Africa or south-western Asia, has been linked to the introduction of a new lithic technology in the form of the biface. We evaluate three potential drivers for this northern range expansion: changing palaeo-climatic conditions, the emergence of an essentially modern human life history, and greater hominin behavioural plasticity. Our evaluation suggests no major changes in these three factors during the c. 800-600 kya period other than enhanced behavioural plasticity suggested by the appearance of the biface. We offer here a model of hominin occupation for north-west Europe termed the ‘punctuated long chronology’ and suggest that the major changes in the European Lower Palaeolithic record that occur at a species wide level may post-date, rather than precede, the Anglian Glaciation (marine isotope stage (MIS) 12)

The Red Sea, Coastal Landscapes, and Hominin Dispersals

This chapter provides a critical assessment of environment, landscape and resources in the Red Sea region over the past five million years in relation to archaeological evidence of hominin settlement, and of current hypotheses about the role of the region as a pathway or obstacle to population dispersals between Africa and Asia and the possible significance of coastal colonization. The discussion assesses the impact of factors such as topography and the distribution of resources on land and on the seacoast, taking account of geographical variation and changes in geology, sea levels and palaeoclimate. The merits of northern and southern routes of movement at either end of the Red Sea are compared. All the evidence indicates that there has been no land connection at the southern end since the beginning of the Pliocene period, but that short sea crossings would have been possible at lowest sea-level stands with little or no technical aids. More important than the possibilities of crossing the southern channel is the nature of the resources available in the adjacent coastal zones. There were many climatic episodes wetter than today, and during these periods water draining from the Arabian escarpment provided productive conditions for large mammals and human populations in coastal regions and eastwards into the desert. During drier episodes the coastal region would have provided important refugia both in upland areas and on the emerged shelves exposed by lowered sea level, especially in the southern sector and on both sides of the Red Sea. Marine resources may have offered an added advantage in coastal areas, but evidence for their exploitation is very limited, and their role has been over-exaggerated in hypotheses of coastal colonization

Human Colonization of Asia in the Late Pleistocene The History of an Invasive Species

Narratives of “Out of Africa 2”—the expansion of Homo sapiens across Asia—emphasize the pattern of human dispersal but not the underlying processes. In recent years, the main debates have been over the timing and frequency of dispersal. Here, I treat these issues as subordinate to biogeographic ones that affected the behavior of humans in Asia as an invasive species that colonized new environments and had negative impacts on indigenous hominins. I suggest that attention should focus on three issues: (i) geographic factors that molded human dispersal across Asia, (ii) behavioral changes that enabled humans to overcome previously insurmountable barriers, and (iii) demographic considerations of human dispersal and colonization of Asia, including interactions with indigenous competitors. Although a strong case can be made that humans dispersed across southern Asia before 60 ka, this should not detract from attention on the underlying processes of dispersal and colonization

We Are Citizens! An Evaluation of the We are Citizens! Ensemble Care Experienced Theatre Company Project

In 2018 the Citizens Theatre, in partnership with CELCIS, was awarded funding from the Life Changes Trust’s Creative and Active Lives initiative, to establish Scotland’s first professional theatre company for young actors with care experience. The vision was to establish, develop and nurture a unique Theatre Company for the many diverse voices of young people enabling them to be listened to, heard, and celebrated for their artistic talents. The We Are Citizens! Ensemble developed from a series of taster workshops for care experienced young people at the Citizens Theatre, Glasgow, and in February 2020 they produced their first show

Less of a bird’s song than a hard rock ensemble

Corbey et al. (2016) have written an interesting and thoughtful paper designed to provoke debate surrounding one of the most important and persistent Stone Age artefacts, the Acheulean handaxe. They challenge the long held notion that the Acheulean handaxe was a product of a cultural landscape influenced through social learning. Instead they suggest the Acheulean handaxe was, in part, under genetic control. Whilst the Corbey et al. paper was an ambitious one with many points of debate included within it, we will focus here on those areas that best match our expertise, namely the nature of Acheulean handaxes and the archaeological record

Hominin occupation of the Chinese Loess Plateau since about 2.1 million years ago

Considerable attention has been paid to dating the earliest appearance of hominins outside Africa. The earliest skeletal and artefactual evidence for the genus Homo in Asia currently comes from Dmanisi, Georgia, and is dated to approximately 1.77-1.85 million years ago (Ma)(1). Two incisors that may belong to Homo erectus come from Yuanmou, south China, and are dated to 1.7 Ma(2); the next-oldest evidence is an H. erectus cranium from Lantian (Gongwangling)-which has recently been dated to 1.63 Ma(3) and the earliest hominin fossils from the Sangiran dome in Java, which are dated to about 1.5-1.6 Ma(4). Artefacts from Majuangou III5 and Shangshazui(6) in the Nihewan basin, north China, have also been dated to 1.6-1.7 Ma. Here we report an Early Pleistocene and largely continuous artefact sequence from Shangchen, which is a newly discovered Palaeolithic locality of the southern Chinese Loess Plateau, near Gongwangling in Lantian county. The site contains 17 artefact layers that extend from palaeosol S15-dated to approximately 1.26 Ma-to loess L28, which we date to about 2.12 Ma. This discovery implies that hominins left Africa earlier than indicated by the evidence from Dmanisi