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      An Upper Palaeolithic engraved human bone associated with ritualistic cannibalism

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          Abstract

          Cut-marked and broken human bones are a recurrent feature of Magdalenian (~17–12,000 years BP, uncalibrated dates) European sites. Human remains at Gough’s Cave (UK) have been modified as part of a Magdalenian mortuary ritual that combined the intensive processing of entire corpses to extract edible tissues and the modification of skulls to produce skull-cups. A human radius from Gough’s Cave shows evidence of cut marks, percussion damage and human tooth marks, indicative of cannibalism, as well as a set of unusual zig-zagging incisions on the lateral side of the diaphysis. These latter incisions cannot be unambiguously associated with filleting of muscles. We compared the macro- and micro-morphological characteristics of these marks to over 300 filleting marks on human and non-human remains and to approximately 120 engraved incisions observed on two artefacts from Gough’s Cave. The new macro- and micro-morphometric analyses of the marks, as well as further comparisons with French Middle Magdalenian engraved artefacts, suggest that these modifications are the result of intentional engraving. The engraved motif comfortably fits within a Magdalenian pattern of design; what is exceptional in this case, however, is the choice of raw material (human bone) and the cannibalistic context in which it was produced. The sequence of the manipulations suggests that the engraving was a purposeful component of the cannibalistic practice, implying a complex ritualistic funerary behaviour that has never before been recognized for the Palaeolithic period.

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          Symbolic use of marine shells and mineral pigments by Iberian Neandertals.

          Two sites of the Neandertal-associated Middle Paleolithic of Iberia, dated to as early as approximately 50,000 years ago, yielded perforated and pigment-stained marine shells. At Cueva de los Aviones, three umbo-perforated valves of Acanthocardia and Glycymeris were found alongside lumps of yellow and red colorants, and residues preserved inside a Spondylus shell consist of a red lepidocrocite base mixed with ground, dark red-to-black fragments of hematite and pyrite. A perforated Pecten shell, painted on its external, white side with an orange mix of goethite and hematite, was abandoned after breakage at Cueva Antón, 60 km inland. Comparable early modern human-associated material from Africa and the Near East is widely accepted as evidence for body ornamentation, implying behavioral modernity. The Iberian finds show that European Neandertals were no different from coeval Africans in this regard, countering genetic/cognitive explanations for the emergence of symbolism and strengthening demographic/social ones.
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            Percussion marks on bone surfaces as a new diagnostic of hominid behaviour

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              Homo erectus at Trinil on Java used shells for tool production and engraving.

              The manufacture of geometric engravings is generally interpreted as indicative of modern cognition and behaviour. 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 origin. 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 (40)Ar/(39)Ar 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 far. 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.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Data curationRole: Formal analysisRole: Funding acquisitionRole: InvestigationRole: MethodologyRole: VisualizationRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Formal analysisRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Data curationRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                PLoS One
                PLoS ONE
                plos
                plosone
                PLoS ONE
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, CA USA )
                1932-6203
                9 August 2017
                2017
                : 12
                : 8
                : e0182127
                Affiliations
                [1 ] Department of Earth Sciences, The Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom
                [2 ] University College London, Institute of Archaeology, London, United Kingdom
                Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, GERMANY
                Author notes

                Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3777-7887
                Article
                PONE-D-17-17384
                10.1371/journal.pone.0182127
                5549908
                28792978
                1a551c41-8d14-4a10-8437-3fe817629a25
                © 2017 Bello et al

                This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : 5 May 2017
                : 12 July 2017
                Page count
                Figures: 6, Tables: 2, Pages: 18
                Funding
                Funded by: Calleva foundation
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: Calleva Foundation
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: Calleva Foundation
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: Human Research Fund at the Natural History Museum
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: funder-id http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000275, Leverhulme Trust;
                Award ID: RPG-2013-348
                Award Recipient :
                The research work of SMB, SAP and CBS was supported by the Calleva Foundation and the Human Research Fund at the Natural History Museum (London). The research work of RW was funded by the Leverhulme Trust (Grant RPG-2013-348). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
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