Victoria van der Haas, BHAP Ph.D. student, published in Nature
December 3, 2014
Congratulations to Ms. Victoria van der Haas, our new BHAP Ph.D. student, who recently had her paper published in Nature!
Link to paper here.
Title: "Homo erectus at Trinil on Java used shells for tool production and engraving"
Abstract: The manufacture of geometric engravings is generally interpreted as indicative of modern cognition and behaviour1. Key questions in the debate on the origin of such behaviour are whether this innovation is restricted to Homo sapiens, and whether it has a uniquely African origin1. Here we report on a fossil freshwater shell assemblage from the Hauptknochenschicht (‘main bone layer') of Trinil (Java, Indonesia), the type locality of Homo erectus discovered by Eugène Dubois in 1891 (refs 2 and 3). In the Dubois collection (in the Naturalis museum, Leiden, The Netherlands) we found evidence for freshwater shellfish consumption by hominins, one unambiguous shell tool, and a shell with a geometric engraving. We dated sediment contained in the shells with 40Ar/39Ar and luminescence dating methods, obtaining a maximum age of 0.54 ± 0.10 million years and a minimum age of 0.43 ± 0.05 million years. This implies that the Trinil Hauptknochenschicht is younger than previously estimated. Together, our data indicate that the engraving was made by Homo erectus, and that it is considerably older than the oldest geometric engravings described so far4, 5. Although it is at present not possible to assess the function or meaning of the engraved shell, this discovery suggests that engraving abstract patterns was in the realm of Asian Homo erectus cognition and neuromotor control.
1Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, PO Box 9515, 2300RA, Leiden, The Netherlands. 2Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences, VU University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1085, 1081HV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. 3Universite´ de Bordeaux, CNRS UMR 5199, Alle´e Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 33615 Pessac, France. 4Institute of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion, University of Bergen, Øysteinsgate 3, PO Box 7805, Bergen, Norway. 5Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Darwinweg 2, PO Box 9517, 2300RA, Leiden, The Netherlands.