This report summarises a workshop that was part of the 16th International Conference on the History and Archaeology of Jordan, which took place in Athens, Greece, in September 2025. Titled “The Palaeolithic of Jordan: The State of the Art”, the workshop brought together Jordanian and international scholars to discuss current research on Jordan’s Palaeolithic archaeological record, from the start of the Lower Palaeolithic to the Epipalaeolithic-Neolithic transition. Several presentations focused on the Zarqa Valley, where new chronostratigraphic data point to an unexpectedly early occupation by hominins and contribute to the ongoing debate about the timing of the first out of Africa dispersal. The implications of recent work in the Zarqa Valley for the emergence of Acheulean technology were also discussed. Other papers presented at the workshop discussed research in the Azraq Basin, Jordan Valley, and southern desert regions. These contributions covered a range of issues, including lithic variability, patterns of landscape use, the significance of Nubian Levallois technology, and Epipalaeolithic subsistence strategies. The workshop’s discussion session explored current and anticipated research priorities, including the search for hominin fossils, the application of innovative scientific techniques, improved spatial-temporal models, and the reanalyses of legacy collections. The necessity of sustained funding, stronger coordination among research teams, and capacity building through the integration of Jordanian students and scholars into all stages of research were also covered. In sum, the workshop underscored the importance of Jordan’s Palaeolithic archaeological record, highlighted a number of future research possibilities, and improved communication among research teams.

Technological complexity is a defining eature of human adaptation, yet the processes determining how much technology societies require remain poorly understood. Existing explanations emphasize environmental risk, resource productivity, or demographic factors, but provide limited insight into why technological systems respond differently across subsistence economies. Here, we propose that technological complexity reflects the computational burden imposed by environmental uncertainty. In seasonal environments, survival requires solving a sequential decision problem in which risks accumulate multiplicatively across the year, increasing demand for technological buffering. Technologies reduce this uncertainty but are costly to produce and maintain, generating an optimization problem balancing risk reduction against technological costs. We further argue that niche construction fundamentally alters this relationship by smoothing environmental variability and transforming exogenous uncertainty into managed, endogenous processes. From this framework we derive the prediction that technological complexity should increase with environmental seasonality among hunter-gatherers but become increasingly independent of climate as niche construction intensifies. We test these predictions using data on toolkit richness and component-part diversity from 127 small-scale societies. We find the richness of hunter-gatherer technologies increases exponentially with environmental seasonality, whereas farming technologies remain largely invariant across climatic regimes. These findings suggest that technological complexity responds to the informational and computational demands environmental conditions impose. More broadly, these results imply that agriculture represents not simply a new mode of energy acquisition, but a transition in the computational architecture of human adaptation, in which farming reduces the effective depth of adaptive problems by restructuring the environments that generate uncertainty.

The migration of Dene groups from the western subarctic of North America to the American Southwest is one of the longest prehistoric migrations. The starkly different environment of the Southwest, and the presence of groups who had been living in the region for millennia, have made this migration a focus of anthropological and archaeological interest for many years. In the study reported here, we analyzed 547 binary cultural traits pertaining to northern Dene groups, southern Dene groups, and non-Dene groups from the Southwest. First, we focused on the scale of the impact of the migration on the cultural repertoires of the southern Dene. Then, we investigated the relative importance of three processes of change: loss, invention, and borrowing from neighboring non-Dene groups in the Southwest. The results of the first analysis indicate that the migration led to the transformation of the cultural repertoires of the southern Dene. Not only were nearly two-thirds of traits changed, but also a majority of the traits in six of the seven trait categories we employed were altered by the migration. The second analysis indicated that the transformation was not the result of a single process of change. Loss, invention, and borrowing were all involved, and their relative importance varied among categories. These results are consistent with previous characterizations of the southern Dene as flexible and open to change. They also have broader implications. Most importantly, they challenge us to rethink how we approach cases in which there are cultural similarities between ethnographic groups or archaeological sites.

Spinal osteoarthritis (SOA) is an important contributor to back pain, but the factors that lead to its development are poorly understood. Here, we report a study designed to test the idea that vertebral shape influences the probability of developing SOA. We used geometric morphometrics to compare the 3D shape of the last thoracic (T12) and the first lumbar vertebrae (L1) of adults with and without SOA. The sample was drawn from archaeological and documented skeletons, consisting of 143 T12s and 136 L1s. Two linked hypotheses were tested. The first was that there is an association between vertebral shape and SOA. The second was that the association between in the first hypothesis exists because the risk of SOA is increased by a morphotype that includes more sagittal zygapophyseal facets and smaller interfacet distances. This hypothesis was informed by the results of two previous studies. The analyses supported the first hypothesis. MANOVAs and DFAs indicated that the vertebrae of individuals with SOA tend to have a significantly different morphotype to unaffected individuals. In contrast, the results of the analyses only partially supported the second hypothesis. PCA-derived wireframes upheld only one of the predicted differences, smaller interfacet distances. The other predicted difference more sagittal facets in affected individuals was not supported. Unexpectedly, the analyses identified several other traits that distinguish the vertebrae of individuals with SOA. All of these traits can be plausibly linked to suboptimal biomechanics for the spine. Overall, the study supports the idea that vertebral shape can increase the probability of developing SOA.

The Chiari malformation type I (CM-I) is a herniation of the cerebellum through the foramen magnum. Its proximate cause is accepted to be an unusually small occipital bone. However, its ultimate cause remains unclear. In 2013, Fernandes and colleagues hypothesized that individuals develop CM-I because some of their cranial development-coding genes derive from three extinct Homo species that have smaller basicrania than is typical for modern humans-Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, and Homo neanderthalensis. Here, we report a study in which we used 3D data and Geometric Morphometrics to evaluate this hypothesis. We began by investigating whether CM-I is associated with significant differences in cranial shape in a sample of living humans. Subsequently, we compared the crania of living humans with and without CM-I to fossil crania assigned to H. erectus, H. heidelbergenesis, H. neanderthalensis, and H. sapiens. The study's results were mixed. The first set of analyses identified significant shape differences between the crania of people with CM-I and the crania of unaffected people, which is in line with the hypothesis. In contrast, the second set of analyses did not support the hypothesis. They indicated that the crania of living humans with CM-I are only closer in shape to one of the extinct species, H. neanderthalensis. The other two extinct species were found to be closer in shape to living humans without CM-I. This is contrary to the main prediction of the hypothesis. Together, our results suggest the hypothesis should be narrowed to focus on introgressed genes from Neanderthals.

Background There remains debate about the pyrotechnical capabilities of Neanderthals. Evidence of fire has been found at many Middle Palaeolithic sites, widely accepted to be associated with Neanderthals. However, multiple Neanderthal sites show a marked decrease in evidence for fire use during colder periods. This counterintuitive pattern was explained by the possibility that some Neanderthal groups were unable to create fire at will and relied on wildfire. Here, we evaluate the plausibility of this “wildfire hypothesis” through formal modeling. Methods We computed the probability of a group of Neanderthals losing campfire-making skills due to cultural loss. The EMBERS model codes four empirically motivated mechanisms of skill loss: variability in use, period in between uses, memory decay and number of experts. Results Our results indicate that losing the ability to use wildfire was more likely than retaining it for most of our parameter values within reasonable ranges. Significantly, demography, in the form of expert numbers, was the least significant mechanism of loss. The rate of memory loss at group level, and intervals between uses were markedly more important than demography. Variability in time between uses was by far the strongest driver of loss. These results, linked with the estimated climatic, mnemonic, and demographic conditions for the Neanderthals’ occupation of Europe in cold periods, support the plausibility of the wildfire hypothesis. Our results also highlight the need to pay more attention to cultural loss as a factor in cultural evolution. Teaser Our modeling demonstrates the feasibility of the controversial hypothesis that some European Neanderthal groups were unable to create fire at will and instead relied on wildfire to start their campfires.

Technology plays a central role in all human societies, from foraging to industrial economies. However, technological solutions come with associated costs, and in small-scale societies, technological complexity reflects this trade-off between efficiency and resource constraints. Here, we analyze this trade-off and show a sublinear scaling relationship between toolkit richness and tool part richness in ethnographic societies. This result indicates diminishing returns where each additional part contributes less to overall toolkit diversity. This scaling holds across diverse ecological and cultural contexts, suggesting a general principle of optimization in tool design. Ethnographic toolkits achieve their adaptability by reusing a core set of versatile parts and selectively incorporating more specialized parts. However, increasing richness also increases complexity, and complexity is costly. We formalize these dynamics within a combinatorial optimization framework and discuss the implications.

This article introduces an archaeological project in the Flinders Islands Group, Queensland, Australia. A collaboration between academics, the islands' Traditional Owners and Cape Melville National Park, the project focuses on the islands' important corpus of rock art.

The Azraq Basin in Jordan’s eastern desert features Qa’ Azraq, a seasonally flooded mudflat, and a spring-fed wetland complex that was vital for hominin populations in prehistory. A recent survey focused on prehistoric lithic artefacts along wadis draining into Qa’ Azraq, yielding over 900 artefacts. The chronologically diagnostic materials mainly originate from four Levantine prehistoric periods: the Lower, Middle, and Upper Palaeolithic, and Neolithic. While many artefact locations align with past findings, new discoveries alter our understanding of the basin’s prehistory. The study concludes with an updated prehistoric overview and recommendations for future fieldwork.

Background There remains debate about the pyrotechnical capabilities of Neanderthals. Evidence of fire has been found at many Middle Palaeolithic sites, widely accepted to be associated with Neanderthals. However, multiple Neanderthal sites show a marked decrease in evidence for fire use during colder periods. This counterintuitive pattern was explained by the possibility that some Neanderthal groups were unable to create fire at will and relied on wildfire. Here, we evaluate the plausibility of this “wildfire hypothesis” through formal modeling. Methods We computed the probability of a group of Neanderthals losing campfire-making skills due to cultural loss. The EMBERS model codes four empirically motivated mechanisms of skill loss: variability in use, period in between uses, memory decay and number of experts. Results Our results indicate that losing the ability to use wildfire was more likely than retaining it for most of our parameter values within reasonable ranges. Significantly, demography, in the form of expert numbers, was the least significant mechanism of loss. The rate of memory loss at group level, and intervals between uses were markedly more important than demography. Variability in time between uses was by far the strongest driver of loss. These results, linked with the estimated climatic, mnemonic, and demographic conditions for the Neanderthals’ occupation of Europe in cold periods, support the plausibility of the wildfire hypothesis. Our results also highlight the need to pay more attention to cultural loss as a factor in cultural evolution. Teaser Our modeling demonstrates the feasibility of the controversial hypothesis that some European Neanderthal groups were unable to create fire at will and instead relied on wildfire to start their campfires.

Establishing a link between mandibular morphology and diet in extant primates has long been a goal in biological anthropology because it should provide important insight into the diets of extinct primates, including fossil hominins. To date, efforts to explore this question have produced mixed results, largely perhaps due to a reliance on the use of 2D morphological data. Here, we report a study where we investigated whether 3D shape data would provide a clearer picture. We used geometric morphometrics to analyse 3D mandibular shape variation in a sample of > 200 primate specimens, representing individuals from 27 species and five families. Two sets of analyses investigated i) whether there was a relationship between mandibular shape and four standard dietary categories and ii) whether there was a relationship between mandibular shape and a well-known index of diet quality. We found an association between mandibular shape and the dietary categories when we employed raw Procrustes coordinates and allometry-free residuals, but the relationship was weak to non-existent when the effects of phylogeny were taken into account. We found no relationship between shape and the diet quality index, no matter whether the data were raw, corrected for the effects of allometry, corrected for the effects of phylogeny, or corrected for the effects of both allometry and phylogeny. Taken together, the results of the two sets of analyses suggest that there is a weak relationship between 3D mandibular shape and diet in extant primates. Allometry and phylogeny appear to be more important influences on the 3D shape of extant primate mandibles than is diet. We conclude from this that 3D analysis of mandibular shape is unlikely to further illuminate the diets of extinct primates, and research efforts should, therefore, be directed elsewhere.

Abstract Several published studies indicate that amputating finger segments, and even multiple entire fingers, for nonmedical reasons has been a surprisingly common practice over the past few hundred years. This chapter reports the results of a study undertaken (a) to shed further light on the occurrence of finger amputation via a survey of ethnographic and historical documents and ethnographic and archaeological objects, and (b) to review the ethnohistoric literature to identify motivations for amputating healthy fingers. Based on information gathered from six online resources using keywords from seven different languages, the survey of ethnohistorical texts revealed that at least 181 remarkably diverse societies engaged in finger amputation as a cultural practice, and that it was not limited to a particular geographic region or type of society. The search for finger amputation-related ethnographic and archaeological objects produced evidence that the total number of societies that engaged in finger amputation in the past may be over 200 and suggests that the practice has a time depth of thousands, possibly even tens of thousands, of years. In addition, the chapter identifies seventeen different reasons for engaging in it other than trying to solve a medical problem with the targeted finger. Among the most common of the nonsurgical motivations were mourning a deceased loved one, appealing to a deity for assistance, and punishment. Taken together, the findings reported in this chapter demonstrate that finger amputation was a widespread cultural practice in the past, one that was invented multiple times, in multiple places, for multiple reasons.

Here, we report the first attempt to use isotope geochemistry to improve understanding of the experiences of Indigenous Australians living on the colonial frontier in late 19th century CE Australia. In the study, we analysed strontium ( 87 Sr/ 86 Sr), carbon (δ 13 C), and oxygen (δ 18 O) isotope ratios from the tooth enamel and dentine of six individuals who died in Normanton, Queensland, in the 1890s. The study was a collaboration between scientists and the local Traditional Owners, the Gkuthaarn and Kukatj people, and was carried out to promote truth and reconciliation. The enamel 87 Sr/ 86 Sr results suggest that the individuals moved to Normanton from three geologically distinct regions during the period of European expansion into the Gulf of Carpentaria, Cape York. This is consistent with the oral histories and historical documents, which suggest that many Indigenous people in the Gulf Country were displaced to camps on the outskirts of towns like Normanton because of European settlement. The δ 13 C values we obtained indicate that the individuals mostly ate C 4 plants and/or C 4 -plant-consuming herbivores. When combined with the fact that some of the individuals’ teeth had dental caries, this suggests that the individuals may have had regular access to introduced foods. The enamel δ 18 O values are high compared to an international comparative sample, at 0.72–4.69‰ VPDB. We suspect the elevated values are due to a combination of a high degree of preferential loss of 16 O through evaporation of surface water, the amount effect associated with the Australian monsoon, and high prevalence of introduced infectious diseases. Together, the results of our study demonstrate that isotopic analysis of human remains has the potential to further illuminate the effects of European colonisation on Indigenous people in Australia. Perhaps most importantly in connection with this, our study’s results show that isotopic analyses of human remains can provide surprisingly detailed information about the lives of a category of Indigenous Australians who rarely appear in the documents written by early ethnographers and colonial officials—subadults. That the analysis of the skeletal remains of Indigenous Australians can now contribute to the truth and reconciliation process is an unexpected, interesting, and welcome development in the story of bioarchaeology in Australia.

Background: One of the main recommendations of the Paleo Diet is that individuals replicate the whole-diet macronutrient ranges of hunter-gatherer diets. These are suggested to be 19%-35% protein, 22%-40% carbohydrate, and 28%-58% fat, by energy. However, the plant food contribution to these ranges was estimated exclusively from Australian data, which is a potential problem. Objectives: We investigated whether estimates of the contribution of protein, carbohydrate, and fat to hunter-gatherer diets are impacted by using plant data from other regions of the world.Methods: The values that form the basis of the Paleo Diet' s recommended macronutrient ranges were generated with a set of equations. We combined these equations with published plant macronutrient data from a multi-region sample of 5 hunter-gatherer groups to generate new estimated macronutrient percentages and then statistically compared the old and new estimates. Subsequently, we collated plant macronutrient data for a sample of 10 hunter -gatherer groups from several regions and repeated the exercise.Results: The whole-diet macronutrient percentages we calculated are significantly different from those that underpin the Paleo Diet's recommendations. Additionally, the ranges derived from our whole-diet macronutrient percentages (14%-35% protein, 21%-55% carbohydrate, 12%-58% fat) are markedly wider than those recommended by the Paleo Diet.Conclusions: The estimated whole-diet macronutrient percentages that form the basis of the Paleo Diet's macronutrient recommendations are not robust. Using plant data from multiple regions leads to significantly different estimates. Additionally, the macronutrient ranges derived from our whole-diet macronutrient percentages overlap with those recommended by the US Department of Agriculture and the WHO. This undercuts one of the main jus-tifications for adopting the Paleo Diet-namely that because it is vastly different from Western diets, it can reduce the probability of experiencing noncommunicable diseases. There may still be reasons for adopting the Paleo Diet rather than a conventional diet, but healthier macronutrient percentages is not one of them.

Debate surrounds the identity of the Europeans who settled Iceland and Greenland in the early medieval period. Historical sources record settlers travelling from Norway to Iceland and then Greenland, but recent analyses of biological data suggest that some settlers had British and Irish ancestry. Here, the authors test these hypotheses with 3D-shape analyses of human crania from Scandinavia, Britain and Ireland, and one of the Norse colonies in Greenland. Results suggest that some 63 per cent of the ancestry of the Greenlandic individuals can be traced to Britain and Ireland and 37 per cent to Scandinavia. These findings add further weight to the idea that the European settlers who colonised Iceland and later Greenland were of mixed ancestry.

Back pain has serious impacts on individual people and society, but its causes remain poorly understood. One long-standing hypothesis contends that many common back problems may be due at least partly to the stresses caused by our evolutionarily novel form of bipedalism. This chapter discusses this hypothesis and shows how recent palaeopathological, comparative and clinical evidence has been interpretated within an evolutionary framework to develop a new version of the hypothesis. We begin by outlining how the spine in humans differs from those in the great apes. We then review clinical evidence that suggests that there is a link between spinal column and individual vertebral shape on the one hand, and spinal diseases on the other. Next, we outline palaeopathological and comparative anatomical evidence that also supports the link between spinal/vertebral shape and disease. Thereafter, we discuss recent studies that not only indicate that two important acquired spinal diseases—intervertebral disc herniation and spondylolysis—are associated with vertebral shape, but also suggest that the pathology-linked morphologies can be understood in terms of our evolutionary history. Subsequently, we discuss potential biomechanical explanations for the putative link between vertebral shape and intervertebral disc herniation and spondylolysis.

Virtual methods for studying human remains are becoming increasingly popular in bioarchaeology, and the rate of technological innovation in the last few years has been such that we now have multiple options to choose from when collecting data. This raises the question of whether datasets generated with different methods are transposable. In the study reported here, we investigated whether it is valid to combine 3D data obtained with a MicroScribe digitising arm and 3D data collected via photogrammetry. We did so by simulating a population-based analysis similar to those commonly undertaken in bioarchaeology. Our sample comprised 19 crania from two ethnic groups, Ancient Egyptians and Guanches, and the landmarks we employed pertained to facial shape.The analyses yielded several findings. First, we found that photogrammetry was significantly more precise than the MicroScribe digitising arm. Second, the photogrammetry-based method revealed the existence of facial shape differences between the two ethnic groups that were not captured by the MicroScribe-based method. Third, we found that the two methods did not consistently capture the same facial shapes—they did for one of the ethnic groups but not for the other. Fourth, the analyses indicated that using the two methods can result in ethnic group-level differences in facial shape when they are applied to individuals from a single ethnic group. Lastly, the two methods of data collection yielded different patterns of variation in facial shape. Together, these findings suggest that combining 3D landmark coordinates collected with a MicroScribe and those obtained via photogrammetry may introduce considerable error into an analysis, and, consequently, bioarchaeologists should be cautious about doing so.