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Camille Daujeard - Aurélien Mounier, UMR 7194 HNHP, CNRS-UPVD-MNHN
The Early and Middle Pleistocene are of particular importance for the various disciplines (i.e. palaeoanthropology, prehistory, zooarchaeology, archaeobotany, geochronology and geoarchaeology) housed within the UMR 7194 HNHP. In this context, the transversal research group OEPP aims at offering a collaborative framework to approach the study of the hominin populations which lived during those time periods (i.e. H. heidelbergensis sensu lato, H. erectus sensu lato et H. habilis sensu lato).
More specifically, the Early to Middle Pleistocene Transition (EMPT) raises numerous questions which should be handled in a transcontinental and multidisciplinary framework. Therefore, OEPP principal objective is to investigate whether the massive climatic and environmental changes, which occurred during the EMPT, can be considered as evolutionary catalysts for the hominin populations (regarding changes in their biological and cultural diversity).
Amongst the interrogations which stem from this general topic, OEPP will consider various subjects:
The common origin of H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis as well as the impact of different environmental conditions on their evolutionary divergence (e.g. North Africa vs Sub-Saharan Africa);
The hominin expansion from Africa towards Eurasia and the diversification of the H. erectus sensu lato populations;
The emergence of new behaviour (subsistence, technology, mobility, etc…)
The evolutionary landscape of modern human origins in Africa
The evolutionary landscape of modern human origins in Africa
Our understanding of the origins of our species, Homo sapiens, has undergone a major shift. New fossils, dates and genomic studies have consolidated our African origin. Yet, they also indicate a deeper past, involving multiple events. These events stretch to nearly three quarters of a million years ago (Ma), and take the problem of modern human origins into an entirely different climatic and ecological context. From 1.4 Ma, climate dynamics changed, initiating a 1 million-year period known as the Early-Middle Pleistocene Transition, or EMPT, during which, besides greater climatic variability, there was a prolonged arid phase, profoundly affecting African environments. By the end of the EMPT, the structure of the large mammal community in East Africa had changed significantly. The first modern humans are part of this change. The recognition of this older, drier context for the evolution of our species drives NG’IPALAJEM. Our aim is that NG’IPALAJEM will bring a new understanding of how the evolution of our species is part of a broader and longer African evolutionary landscape
PI Dr Silvana Condemi, ADES (CNRS-Aix-Marseille Uuniversité)
Funding: French National Research Agency (ANR-20-CE03-0002)
The Starch Food Niche: Human Adaptation, Genes, and Culture
Biological and behavioral changes that made possible efficient starchy food metabolization
Biological and behavioral changes that made possible efficient starchy food metabolization
Starch4Sapiens aims to analyze and compare the biological and behavioral changes that made possible efficient starchy food metabolization which occurred in Eurasia between the Upper Pleistocene and Neolithic (from ca 126 ka to 12 ka, 6). Our hypothesis is that regular consumption of large amounts of dietary carbohydrates required molecular adaptations to permit positive selection under constraining environmental conditions and this favored Homo sapiens expansion. We aim to read the history of genotypic changes from genomes, which are also noticeable in fossil remains and cultural behavior, in order to determine the extent to which they were introduced by regular starch-rich food consumption well before the Neolithic transition. Thus, the project risk-hypothesis is to show that continuous and massive dietary carbohydrate consumption was only possible due to co-evolution between genetic adaptation, which allowed the effective digestion of starch-rich foods contained in dietary carbohydrates (CNV analysed by P2), and lifestyle transformations, on the level of socially-learned culture and behavior patterns (mechanical processing of starchy plants into staple food by means of ground stones and probably associated to thermal treatment, namely wet-cooking; analyzed by P3). These modifications may have led to better health conditions (visible by change in bones, teeth and pathology from EAHS and HS) (studied by P1) necessary and essential for a constant increase in the HS population and, consequently, to the disappearance of other humans (notably Neandertals and Denisovans).
The question of the correspondence between cerebral and endocranial features is crucial for applications in palaeoneurology and has never been addressed. To do so, we will investigate for the first time the correlation between the shapes of the brain and the endocast within a sample of modern humans using MRI acquisitions, including some with a specific sequence (UTE) that allows the characterisation of bone tissues. This input will be decisive for detailed study of neurological information from fossil humans. We will then reconstruct for the first time the H. erectus brain and Neandertal brain, as well as their respective growth pattern, taking into account the specificities of these species. Understanding brain morphology and ontogeny of extinct hominins will also enhance the understanding of the emergence of the modern human brain. Pluridisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity will be strong components of PaleoBRAIN and an essential condition to achieve the scientific objectives.
PI Dr Antoine Balzeau & Dr Aurélien Mounier, HNHP (CNRS-MNHN)
Funding: DIM Matériaux anciens et patrimoniaux
The growth of the brain in Neandertals: a comparative study of the cerbral anatomy from childhood to adulthood within the Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens.
HoBiS est un projet de recherche fondamentale pluridisciplinaire et centrée sur des questions paléoanthropologiques liées à la bipédie habituelle, l'une des caractéristiques les plus frappantes de la lignée humaine. Les découvertes récentes (jusqu'à 7 Ma) mettent en évidence une diversité inattendue d'anatomies locomotrices chez les homininés qui conduisent les paléoanthropologues à émettre l'hypothèse que la bipédie chez les homininés a pris des formes distinctes au cours de l'évolution humaine. Ces bipédies étaient ni transitoires ni inefficaces, mais constituaient probablement des modes positionnels efficaces et bien coordonnés. Un scénario beaucoup plus complexe d'évolution des homininés que celui proposé il y a quelques années émerge dans lequel les connaissances sur l'anatomie locomotrice jouent un rôle croissant.
Views of Gravettian skulls digitised using photogrametry at the Anthropos Institute in Brno (Czech Republic). From left to right and top to bottom: Brno 3 (Cast) , Brno 1 (Original), Predmsoti IV (Cast), Dolni Vestonice 16 (Cast), Brno 2 (Original).
PI Dr Sébastien Villotte PACEA (CRNS-Université de Bordeaux)
Funding: French National Research Agency (ANR-15-CE33-0004)
The European Upper Palaeolithic is a pivotal period in the history of humanity. Everything about the period supports the existence of highly complex societies based on profound changes in social relations that were not present in previous periods.
The GRAVETT’OS project aims to better understand these Upper Palaeolithic European populations and, in particular, the key Gravettian period, some 29 to 21,000 years ago, which is characterised by a cultural homogeneity encompassing the entirety of continental Europe that has prompted it to be called ‘the first pan-European culture’.
Within the Gravett'os project I am studying the morphological and phenetic affinities of the cranium of the various fossil populations which can be culturally assigned to the Gravettian.
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