Recent studies of some Early Pleistocene archaeological sites in North China have generated new discussions regarding Pleistocene technological development and human adaptation. There is a long-standing debate regarding whether Lower Paleolithic assemblages in the Nihewan Basin represent a static mode 1 technocomplex or reflect more sophisticated technical abilities and mental templates. The Donggutuo (DGT) site, a key Early Pleistocene locality in the eastern Nihewan Basin, comprises an ideal case study for understanding technology and hominin adaptability due to its long sedimentary sequence, reflecting a diversity of paleoenvironments and abundant archaeological remains. Although DGT has been the subject of multiple excavations over the past several decades, few detailed analyses have focused on diachronic variability through the sequence. The largest conducted excavation to date at DGT was carried out from 2016 to 2019 in trench 1, uncovering the complete archaeological sequence and thousands of artifacts. Here, we examine technological characteristics and assemblage variation throughout the DGT sequence, emphasizing two especially prolific layers: 6A2 and 6C1. The DGT assemblage is attributed to the core-flake technocomplex, characterized by expedient flaking and nonstandardized retouching. However, we identified subtle yet meaningful intra-assemblage variations in raw material procurement and utilization, flaking methods, and typological composition. These diachronic changes suggest that Early Pleistocene lithic technology in the Nihewan Basin was flexible rather than static, without changing the basic technological repertoire. This highlights the necessity of moving beyond the broad classification of assemblages by technological modes and, instead, focusing on deep understanding of technology and hominin adaptive behavior in response to environmental variability in East Asia.
The Notarchirico sequence comprises a continuous 100-ka-long record of phases of hominin occupation between Marine Isotope Stage 17 and Marine Isotope Stage 15, revealing remarkable technological stability alongside some innovations. We analyzed core technology, raw material provisioning, and shaping activities throughout this unique sequence. Large cutting tools, in particular bifaces, only appear in specific layers and are relatively rare, yet their presence demonstrates a clear capacity for bifacial volume management and opportunistic shaping when suitable blanks were available. The persistence of short reduction sequences, limited standardization, and the flexible use of local raw materials indicate a pattern of recurrent and low-intensity site use, with a strong link between technology, local raw material constraints, and functional needs. In Southern Europe at that time, archaeological sites are characterized by moderate climatic phases compared to those in Northwestern Europe, with relatively stable ecosystems and a consistent hominin presence. These transitions do not appear to have caused significant changes in technological behavior. Instead, hominins operated within a flexible adaptive framework, maintaining a shared technical background characterizing hominin adaptability during the late Middle Pleistocene Transition in this region. The variability observed across the Notarchirico assemblages seems to be best explained by the interplay of raw material constraints, low-intensity occupation, and the ecological setting, rather than by cultural change or unidirectional technological evolution. Overall, technological variability reflects a dynamic yet coherent behavioral repertoire shaped by local conditions and repeated short-term occupations focusing on foraging and transit activities, rather than long-term cultural change.
Over the past century, the Nihewan Basin is a key area for studying Quaternary environmental changes and hominin adaptations in East Asia and has served as a vital region for exploring the evolution of early human cultures. However, the insufficient research on human-environment interactions in this region has hindered a comprehensive understanding of hominin evolutionary processes. Here, we quantify climatic variations, reconstruct ecosystem landscapes, analyze the richness of food taxa potentially exploitable by hominins, and evaluate environmental impacts on human activities in the Nihewan Basin for the last 3.3 Ma. Results show that (1) temperature and precipitation have displayed an overall declining trend since 3.3 Ma, suggesting that hominins lived in warmer and wetter conditions than today; (2) during this time span, the Nihewan paleolake formed, expanded, and eventually contracted into a riverine system. Vegetation shifted from closed forests to forest-grassland and grassland/desert. In these landscapes, mammals coexisted with hominins in expanding lakeside grassland habitats; (3) a decline in the overall richness of food taxa was partially offset by rising relative proportions of easily exploitable taxa and the persistent representation of staples; and (4) the initial settlement of hominins in the Nihewan Basin may have been associated with its relatively open landscapes and a high richness of food taxa, while their prolonged occupation may have been supported by further landscape opening, an increased relative proportion of high-utility plant taxa, and the persistent representation of staple food taxa. Technological advancements may have played an important role in early human adaptation to environmental challenges. These findings significantly contribute to our understanding of hominin behavioral adaptation to environmental changes.
The Middle Stone Age of North Africa is tied to the emergence and evolution of early Homo sapiens and represents a pivotal period in the development of increasingly complex cultures. Within this framework, Aterian contexts provide some of the earliest evidence for technological and symbolic innovations, including the production of bone and ivory tools, pigment processing, and the use of perforated marine shells as personal ornaments. Lithic industries constitute a central component of this record and show significant variability in knapping methods and increased diversity of core-reduction strategies. Yet, despite their importance, the functional role of Aterian lithic industries, and their implications for settlement strategies and adaptative behaviors, remains poorly understood due to the scarcity and limited geographic distribution of use-wear studies. In this paper, we present the first use-wear analysis of the lithic assemblage from layer 4c of Bizmoune Cave (Atlantic Morocco), dated to 142–110 ka. This deposit contains abundant debris from Aterian occupation, including diverse lithic artefacts, faunal remains, ochre blocks, and some of the earliest evidence for the symbolic use of perforated marine shells in North Africa. This association provides a critical context for exploring the relationship between symbolic expression, technological organization, and subsistence behavior. Using an integrated technological and functional approach supported by an experimental reference collection, we reconstruct activity patterns across the assemblage. The results reveal a diversified spectrum of domestic and subsistence-related activities, including hide, plant working, and intensive wood processing, the latter representing the dominant functional signal. When integrated with typotechnological, faunal, raw material, and paleoenvironmental evidence, the functional data indicate repeated residential occupations involving varied activities rather than narrowly specialized task-specific visits. Taken together, these results point the importance of the Atlantic coast of Morocco within the Aterian settlement systems during late Marine Isotope Stage 6 and early Marine Isotope Stage 5 and provide new insights into how early H. sapiens populations organized technological practices, daily activities, and settlement dynamics during a critical phase of human evolutionary history marked by the emergence of one early symbolic behavior.
Many human sex differences can be explained by positing an evolutionary past in which males used force or threat against competitors to win mates. We review phenotypic, phylogenetic, archaeological, paleontological, genetic, and other evidence that this form of sexual selection—contest competition—played an important role in shaping men’s behaviors, including physical aggression and displays, and anatomical traits, including skeletal dimensions, muscle mass, facial hair, and voices. Contest competition is not mutually exclusive with other putative evolutionary causes such as sexual division of labor, female mate choice, selection on developmentally correlated traits, and phylogenetic inertia, but none of these explains human male phenotypes as parsimoniously. Our review suggests that human ancestors lived in single-male, often polygynous, family units embedded within larger bands and that males used aggression both within and between groups to obtain and defend mates. Although we understand social concerns regarding this perspective, such concerns may bias evaluations of the evidence, ultimately leading to worse outcomes.
