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Atlanta Antiquity Newsletter of the Greater Atlanta Archaeological Society for September 2009 ___________________________________________________________________________ Opinions expressed in this newsletter do not necessarily reflect those of the Greater Atlanta Archaeological Society or its board of directors. Articles, comments, and responses to items contained herein are invited September Meeting Join us in the Fernbank Museum auditorium on September 8 at 7:30pm for a talk by GAAS Vice- President Dennis Blanton on some of his latest discoveries in South Georgia: Spanish Calling Cards on the Ocmulgee - Making Sense of an Archaeological Puzzle . Three years of archaeological exploration on the lower Ocmulgee River by Fernbank Museum of Natural History has revealed unanticipated but very powerful evidence of early Spanish exploration. Sixteenth-century artifacts indicate direct contact between Indian people and early explorers. But who were these Spanish intruders? Learn how the Fernbank archaeologists tackle this and other important questions. It is not certain whether there will be a dinner with the speaker prior to the meeting. For further information on possible dinner plans, contact Allen Vegotsky at (770) 270-1034. GAAS Information Hot Line 770-452-0009 Get info about GAAS activities! Call For Papers - The SGA Fall Meeting, October 17 (SGA website) Meeting organizer (and SGA President-Elect) Catherine Long is recruiting papers for the Fall SGA Meeting, to be held on Saturday, October 17 at the Gwinnett Environmental & Heritage Center in Buford. This meeting does not have a specific theme, and all presentations are welcomed. Members and chapters can make presentations. Chapters are encouraged to participate by setting up a table to display their work and activities. Please prearrange with Catherine for tables, etc. Registration will begin at 8:30 AM followed by a Welcome and the first papers at approximately 9:00 AM. Registration will be $10 for adults and $5 for students. Registration for the SGA meeting will not include entry into the Gwinnett Environmental & Heritage Center (due to deep budget cuts). We plan that part of the afternoon session will include a walking tour of the Woodward Mill/Shadrack Bogan site on the Center’s property. All technology will be provided—please bring your presentation on a memory stick or CD and send your paper title to Catherine Long ([email protected]). We look forward to hearing about the great research going on in Georgia. We hope that you and your colleagues will participate in making this meeting a success. ____________________________ GAAS T-Shirts (Carol Reed) We now have a new supply of GAAS t-shirts in sizes Small to 2XX. Same color, same great logo, same great price $10.00 each. I will have a supply at our next meeting or you may call me at (770) 439-1502. This is a “famous” shirt since it has appeared in several PBS programs on archaeology. Our past speakers and members wear them as they give interviews. Why not become one of the “famous”? ____________________________ New Electronic SGA The Profile (Jack Kilgore) As you probably have read, SGA has replaced the paper version of The Profile with an electronic version. It will be posted quarterly on the SGA website (thesga.org). Members will receive an email notice with a direct link to the issue. In order to make this happen SGA will need email addresses from all members. Please send SGA a current email address to receive this notice. Send email address to: [email protected], or to: P.O.Box 693, Athens, GA 30603 ____________________________ Florida Public Archaeology Network Outreach Coordinators (Allen Vegotsky) The Florida Public Archaeology Network (www.flpublicarchaeology.org) has or will soon have positions open for Outreach Coordinators with our East Central, Southeast, Southwest, and Northwest Regional

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Page 1: Atlanta Antiquity - The Society for Georgia Archaeologythesga.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/09.09_GAAS_newsletter.pdfQuetzalcoatl and I’ll start with the first I knew was the plumed

Atlanta Antiquity Newsletter of the Greater Atlanta Archaeological Society for September 2009 ___________________________________________________________________________ Opinions expressed in this newsletter do not necessarily reflect those of the Greater Atlanta Archaeological Society or its board of directors. Articles, comments, and responses to items contained herein are invited

September Meeting Join us in the Fernbank Museum auditorium

on September 8 at 7:30pm for a talk by GAAS Vice-President Dennis Blanton on some of his latest discoveries in South Georgia: Spanish Calling Cards on the Ocmulgee - Making Sense of an Archaeological Puzzle. Three years of archaeological exploration on the lower Ocmulgee River by Fernbank Museum of Natural History has revealed unanticipated but very powerful evidence of early Spanish exploration. Sixteenth-century artifacts indicate direct contact between Indian people and early explorers. But who were these Spanish intruders? Learn how the Fernbank archaeologists tackle this and other important questions.

It is not certain whether there will be a dinner with the speaker prior to the meeting. For further information on possible dinner plans, contact Allen Vegotsky at (770) 270-1034.

GAAS Information

Hot Line 770-452-0009 Get info about GAAS activities! Call For Papers - The SGA Fall Meeting, October 17 (SGA website)

Meeting organizer (and SGA President-Elect) Catherine Long is recruiting papers for the Fall SGA Meeting, to be held on Saturday, October 17 at the Gwinnett Environmental & Heritage Center in Buford. This meeting does not have a specific theme, and all presentations are welcomed. Members and chapters can make presentations.

Chapters are encouraged to participate by setting up a table to display their work and activities. Please prearrange with Catherine for tables, etc.

Registration will begin at 8:30 AM followed by a Welcome and the first papers at approximately 9:00 AM. Registration will be $10 for adults and $5 for students. Registration for the SGA meeting will not include entry into the Gwinnett Environmental & Heritage Center (due to deep budget cuts). We plan that part of the afternoon

session will include a walking tour of the Woodward Mill/Shadrack Bogan site on the Center’s property.

All technology will be provided—please bring your presentation on a memory stick or CD and send your paper title to Catherine Long ([email protected]).

We look forward to hearing about the great research going on in Georgia. We hope that you and your colleagues will participate in making this meeting a success.

____________________________ GAAS T-Shirts (Carol Reed) We now have a new supply of GAAS t-shirts in sizes Small to 2XX. Same color, same great logo, same great price $10.00 each. I will have a supply at our next meeting or you may call me at (770) 439-1502. This is a “famous” shirt since it has appeared in several PBS programs on archaeology. Our past speakers and members wear them as they give interviews. Why not become one of the “famous”?

____________________________ New Electronic SGA The Profile (Jack Kilgore)

As you probably have read, SGA has replaced the paper version of The Profile with an electronic version. It will be posted quarterly on the SGA website (thesga.org). Members will receive an email notice with a direct link to the issue. In order to make this happen SGA will need email addresses from all members. Please send SGA a current email address to receive this notice. Send email address to: [email protected], or to: P.O.Box 693, Athens, GA 30603

____________________________ Florida Public Archaeology Network Outreach Coordinators (Allen Vegotsky)

The Florida Public Archaeology Network (www.flpublicarchaeology.org) has or will soon have positions open for Outreach Coordinators with our East Central, Southeast, Southwest, and Northwest Regional

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2 Centers. Outreach Coordinators assist the Regional Director with the delivery of a dynamic public archaeology program within a multi-county region, which involves public outreach, assistance to local governments, and assistance with the state of Florida Department of Historical Resources. These are permanent, professional positions. The East Central Region is hosted by Brevard Community College in Titusville, the Southeast Region is hosted by Florida Atlantic University in Ft. Lauderdale, the Southwest Region is hosted by the Town of Fort Myers Beach at the Mound House in Fort Myers Beach, and the Northwest Region is operated by the University of West Florida in Pensacola.

Full information on these positions will be posted as they are opened at the website of the Florida Public Archaeology Network: http://www.flpublicarchaeology.org/cc/jobs/

____________________________ China's Founding Legend May Not Be True

In a news report in the current Science, writer Andrew Lawler surveys a decade's worth of discoveries suggesting ancient China sprang from distinct regions, rather than possessing a single national culture some 4,300 years ago. "How China became China is no mere academic topic; it goes to the very heart of how the world’s most populous and economically vibrant nation sees itself and its role in the world," Lawler writes.

Since 2004, archeologists headed by Wang Wei of the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing have begun tying together a broader picture of China's origins. “Most of us accepted that the Yellow River was the origin of Chinese civilization. But as we’ve done more research, we have found other cultural areas," Wei tells Science. In particular, the Xia dynasty -- written about as the founder of the Chinese state by Confucius around 600 B.C. -- seems suspect. In 1959, Chinese archaeologist reported the discovery of the capital city of Xia, dating from 2100 B.C. to 1600 B.C., but modern excavations and more recent dating, "challenge its status," writes Lawler. "Although not even half-complete, the project to define the origins of Chinese civilization has already laid to rest the notion of an imperial China rising from the central plains of the Yellow River to bestow its gifts on backward hinterlands."

____________________________ Quetzalcoatl – The Plumed Serpent (David Smith)

One of the main gods of ancient Mexico is a synthesis of a serpent and a bird; the rattlesnake and the emerald plumed quetzal, associated with a creation myth. The earliest known representations are on monument 19

from La Venta that portrays a rattlesnake with an avian beak and a feathered crest. Another is a serpent with a duck bill and a flaming crest on a ceramic pot from Tlatilco Mexico City. What is interesting is the rocker stamp representing the skin of this god is where rocker stamping on Hopewell pottery comes from. The god becomes strong in Teotihuacan at the temple of Quetzalcoatl with its fantastic façade of the plumed serpents and the scaly monsters around 300 AD.

Though Quetzalcoatl appears on a shell pectoral palma from late classic Veracruz as human, he doesn’t show up human in this form commonly until the post classic period dressed in a conical hat and shell jewelry with a conch shell pectoral in the form Ehecatl – Quetzalcoatl come to earth. In this form he has the date name of “9 wind & 9 reptile eye” for just Quetzalcoatl.

Cholula in Puebla became a great center of pilgrimage to Quetzalcoatl during the post classic period. He appears as the legendary king of Tollan or Tula. Then he migrates to Yucatan and becomes Kukulcan, and then disappears into the east. Later, the Aztecs thought De Soto was Kukulcan returning. He also shows up in the Southeast United States iconography and still today among the modern Pueblo. He even showed up with the Moche in Peru.

I found three designs that I thought were related to Quetzalcoatl and I’ll start with the first I knew was the plumed serpent and a design Bettye Broyles made in the 1960’s. F-1-2-L is the number I gave it from A World Engraved – Archaeology of the Swift Creek Culture. It is a representation of Quetzalcoatl in the form, I think, of a great comet. It is related to two other designs F-1-2-A and F-1-2-E, one a bicephalic caiman form representing the Pleiades, as it appeared 2000 years ago, and the other a sacrificial glyph. All three of these images are from the same man or Barrio in Mexico City.

Image F-6-1-K is a Frankie Snow design that I had problems mastering until I realized the duck bill motif made this design an early representation of the Wind God, Ehecatl and with the serpent making the god Ehecatl – Quetzalcoatl, come to earth.

Image F-6-2-F is another Frankie Snow design that he thinks represents a rabbit, but I see it as a snakehead with many other motifs that I will describe. Starting at the bottom is a “Sky Band” motif connecting to the top. Above this is a “Sun Knife” motif and behind this is a Saint Andrews like cross that represents the rays that separate the four quadrants of the universe. Partly shown is what I think is a year sign. On the right and left are two knives that represent pits of the pit viper and also numbers. Between this is a platform temple with a cane roof being the snake’s tongue making the calendar date Year 2 Cane, when time began in the pre-Hispanic Mexican mythology. With the connection of this date and the god Quetzalcoatl it makes this a creation design. It is also shaped like a stone ax.

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3

Quetzalcoatl - The Plumed Serpent F-1-2-L

Great Comet

Note: All images are from the book A World Engraved – Archaeology of the Swift Creek Culture (1998, The University of Alabama Press). Images F-1-2-L, F-1-2-A, and F-1-2-E are reconstructed designs by Bettye Broyles and are from chapter 1 Swift Creek Research – History and Observations by Mark Williams and Daniel Elliott. Images F-6-1-K and F-6-2-F are from chapter 6 Swift Creek Design Investigations – The Hartford Case by Frankie Snow.

F-1-2-A Bicephalic Caiman

F-1-2-E Sacrificial Glyph

F-6-1-K Ehecatl – Quetzalcoatl

F-6-2-F Snake Head

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4 Discovery Confirms Partial Use of Bricks in Ancient Maya Settlements (ArtDaily.org)

MEXICO CITY. Remains of Prehispanic domestic architecture and an offering of ceramic and marine elements were found at Jonuta Archaeological Zone, in Tabasco, a discovery that confirms partial use of bricks in ancient Maya settlements at Tabasco plain near 850 AD. Exploration conducted by the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) as part of the first field season of Jonuta Archaeological Project 2009 lead to the finding, with the aim of deepening studies at southeast Tabasco, where Prehispanic dwellers were great ceramics producers that traded them locally and with faraway places.

Four parallel masonry walls were found on the site located at the right bank of Usumacinta River, built with little thin bricks, as well as 2 small slabs placed vertically in front of the last wall, as a kind of stelae, made out of powdered shell mortar. “These slabs are peculiar because they were not manufactured with clay and are not stone-carved; they are blocks made out of shell mortar, unique in their context”. “This finding shows that Jonuta population was in initial phases of brick use in architecture, unlike sites as Comalcalco, where well-achieved masonry was used during the last stage”, informed Miriam Gallegos Gomora, Tabasco INAH Center researcher in charge of the project.

There was no information about local architecture, and the discovery will allow studying special distribution in Maya constructions at low flood terrains, pointed out the archaeologist.

Sea shells and other marine objects, bone awls, obsidian knives and small animals’ bones were found around architectural vestiges, which suggest a ritual was practiced in front of the building. Five figurines and 2 vessels were found as well, associated to an eroded soil monticule. “Only 2 figurines were complete, both represent female supplicants by the arms up position and clothing”. The important ceramic collection recovered will allow redefining the sequence established in 1979,

which will enrich knowledge regarding local earthenware manufacture process. About Jonuta temporality, based on ceramics Carbon dating, 2 occupation sequences have been defined: Jonuta Phase (600-1000 AD) and Cintla Phase (1100-1350 AD), both to be redefined based on new information recovered at 2009 field season.

____________________________ Bipedal Humans Came Down From The Trees, Not Up From The Ground (ScienceDaily)

A detailed examination of the wrist bones of several primate species challenges the notion that humans evolved their two-legged upright walking style from a knuckle-walking ancestor. The same lines of evidence also suggest that knuckle-walking evolved at least two different times, making gorillas distinct from chimpanzees and bonobos. "We have the most robust data I've ever seen on this topic," said Daniel Schmitt, a Duke University associate professor of evolutionary anthropology. "This model should cause everyone to re-evaluate what they've said before."

A report on the findings will appear online during the week of Aug. 10 in the research journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The research, led by post-doctoral research associate Tracy Kivell, was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council in her native Canada, General Motors' Women in Science and Mathematics, and the University of Toronto, where Kivell did her Ph.D. work.

The debate over the origins of human bipedalism began during Charles Darwin's lifetime and continues vigorously to this day, commonly dividing into two competing models, the researchers explained. One model "envisions the pre-human ancestor as a terrestrial knuckle-walker, a behavior frequently used by our closest living relatives, the African apes," they wrote in the PNAS report. The other model traces our two-legged walking to earlier tree-climbing, a mode of locomotion that is used by all living apes.

Supporters of the knuckle-walking origin think we and African apes evolved from a common knuckle walking ancestor. That connection, they contend, is still evident in wrist and hand bone features shared by African apes and by fossil and living humans. But Kivell found otherwise when she began comparing juvenile and adult wrist bones of more than 100 chimps and bonobos, our closest living primate kin, with those of gorillas. Significantly, two key features associated with knuckle walking were present in only 6 percent of the gorilla specimens she studied. But she found them in 96 percent of adult chimpanzees and 76 percent of bonobos. In all, she looked at specimens from 91 gorillas, 104 chimps and 43 bonobos.

Kivell and Schmitt suggested that one explanation for the absence of these features in gorillas is that they

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5 knuckle-walk in a fundamentally different way from chimps and bonobos. Gorillas stride with their arms and wrists extended straight down and locked in what Kivell called "columnar" stances that resemble how elephants walk. By contrast, chimps and bonobos walk more flexibly, "with their wrists in a bent position as opposed to being stacked-up," she said. "And with their wrists in bent positions there will be more stresses at those joints." As a result, chimp and bonobo wrists have special features that gorillas lack -- little ridges and concavities that serve as "bony stops" to keep their wrists from over-bending. Gorillas don't need those, she added. "When we first got together to work on this study that (difference) really jumped out in living color," Schmitt said. "Then we sat down together and asked: 'What are the differences between them?' Schmitt said. "The answer is that chimps and bonobos spend a lot of time in the trees. And gorillas do not."

Chimpanzees and bonobos have a more extended-wrist way of knuckle-walking which gives them added stability on branches, the researchers concluded. In contrast, gorillas' "columnar" style of knuckle-walking is consistent with ground transport. Indeed, "from what we know about knuckle-walking among wild populations, gorillas and adult chimpanzees will both knuckle-walk about 85 percent of the time that they're moving," Kivell said. "But chimpanzees and bonobos are more arboreal than gorillas. So they're doing a lot more of it in the trees." Kivell and Schmitt think this suggests independent evolution of knuckle-walking behavior in the two African ape lineages.

Some scientists point to features in the human anatomy as our own vestiges of a knuckle-walking ancestry. One notable example is the fusion a two wrist bones that could provide us extra stability, a feature we share with gorillas, chimps and bonobos. But some lemurs have that feature too, and they do a variety of different movements in the trees but do not knuckle-walk, Kivell said.

Altogether, the evidence leans against the idea that our own bipedalism evolved from a knuckle-walking ancestor, the pair wrote. "Instead, our data support the opposite notion, that features of the hand and wrist found in the human fossil record that have traditionally been treated as indicators of knuckle-walking behavior in general are in fact evidence of arboreality." In other words, a long-ago ancestor species that spent its time in the trees moved to the ground and began walking upright. There are no fossils from the time of this transition, which likely occurred about seven million years ago, Kivell and Schmitt said. But none of the later fossils considered to be on the direct human line were knuckle-walkers.

____________________________

Ancient Weapons Point to First Use of Fire for Tools? (National Geographic)

With the tell-tale sheen of heat-treated rock, a 72,000-year-old cache of stone weapons found in Africa suggests humans began using fire to create tools nearly 50,000 years earlier than previously thought, a new study says. Scientists had thought people began manipulating fire to create tools in Europe about 25,000 years ago. But the new finds suggest that people in what is now South Africa discovered that heating a stone called silcrete would make it easier to flake, allowing them to shape more advanced blades, knives, and other tools.

These early engineers likely used some of these tools, mounted on handles, to hunt and butcher wide range of prey, from the aggressive Cape buffalo to the tiny mole rat, according to the authors of the study, to be published in the journal Science.

This sophisticated control over fire reflects advanced smarts, and marks the turning point when we became "uniquely human," said study leader Kyle Brown, an archaeologist at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. "These people were extremely intelligent," Brown said. "These are not the image of the classic cavemen, of brutish people that are stumbling around the landscape and, in spite of themselves, surviving. "These are the people that may have even colonized the rest of the world," he said.

As part of the study, the researchers replicated the processes the early Africans likely would have used to make the stone tools. Heated over a fire pit, the silcrete flaked and took on a glossy red color. Such craftsmanship required thinking ahead, a sign of high intelligence, Brown said. People had to collect firewood, build the fire, work the stone, and then afix the handle to the stone using natural adhesives. "Because this is such a sophisticated technology, this is something that would involve language to pass it on to the next generation," he added.

But paleoanthropologist John Shea isn't convinced by the idea that "heat treating" stone was a sign of the transition to modern human behavior. "People rush immediately to look for evidence of a transforming event in the course of Homo sapiens evolution to distinguish modern humans from so-called early ones," said Shea, of Stony Brook University. My position is that you shouldn't assume this transformative event—you have to prove it," Shea said. To begin with, scientists would need to verify that the various human species preceding H. sapiens in South Africa did not also heat-treat stones. Even so, Shea praised the study, saying it will inspire people to seek out other heat-treated stone tools undetected in the African record.

The tools were apparently created during a burst of cultural growth, when the human population was slowly recovering from a severe glacial period. At the South African sites, humans were designing jewelry, such as shell beads, and grinding up ochre to paint themselves and

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6 decorate their caves, study leader Brown said. Heat-treating stone could have been "one of the technologies in their toolkits that allowed them]to adapt to different areas as they expanded out of Africa," Brown said.

But heat treatment probably didn't improve the tools, and may have even made them more likely to shatter, Stony Brook's Shea said. Instead the flashy artifacts might have been ways that "some humans showed off that they had time on their hands," Shea said. "Going into woods with a bunch of arrows that would shatter on impact is another way of saying, I'm a really good hunter; I don't need backup."

____________________________ Laboratory to Decipher Zapoteca Writing will be Created (Artdaily.org)

Nearly 300 engraved stones will be studied in a new laboratory that will be operating at Monte Alban Archaeological Zone in Oaxaca to advance in deciphering Zapoteca writing. The creation of this scientific research center is possible thanks to contributions of World Monuments Fund (WMF)(90,000 USD), Alfredo Harp Helu Foundation (750,000 MXP) and the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), to construct and habilitate the space. Nelly Robles Garcia, director of the archaeological site, remarked the importance of this laboratory since “it will promote lecture of Monte Alban stelae in terms of Prehispanic past comprehension, because Zapoteca writing has not been totally deciphered yet”.

In the ancient metropolis and Oaxaca Valley, there is a great amount of engraved stones and stelae fragments dated between 500 BC and 850 AD. “This writing system goes back to the first stage of Monte Alban, towards 500 BC; Los Danzantes engraved stones are an example of this. Tradition continued during the next period, (100BC-100AD), exemplified by Lapidas de Conquista, found in Structure J. During Late Classic period (650-850 AD) there was an extraordinary development in writing and historical events were written in stelae”.

The laboratory will ensure that engraved stones distributed around the archaeological zone undergo detailed study in an adequate place for their preservation and storage. With the support of WMF, experts will be assisted by computers and digital photography equipment, and precision measurement devices. “The objective is that researchers count on with specialized tools to observe engravings, this will help them draw, measure and interpret them”.

Robles Garcia mentioned that since 500 BC Zapoteca left their imprint on stones, associating anthropomorphic figures “with certain ways of naming things”, for instance names of persons. During that age, the numeral system began, which would reach a great sophistication towards the 7th century. “Engraved stones from that period are complicated to interpret, because they narrate enthronements and changes of power in Monte Alban. The scenes show musicians and dancers, and very precise dates”.

The laboratory construction will be conducted in an area near to the archaeological zone, and it is expected to be functioning by 2010. This is an up to date of a site that since 1987 is part of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage List.

____________________________ Hobbits Walked Out of Africa

According to a team led by Australian National University doctoral student Debbie Argue, not only is Homo floresiensis, nicknamed the hobbit, not a deformed modern human, as a handful of critics claim, but the small-brained, long-armed biped was the first human-like creature to walk out of Africa. And it did so nearly two million years ago, roughly 100,000 years before a species most scientists believed was the first migrant. That was a somewhat more modern hominin -- a member of a group including humans and their ancestors -- that was discovered in Dmanisi, Republic of Georgia, variously identified as H.georgicus, H. ergaster or H. erectus.

"We're looking at a very archaic being indeed, one that appears to have gone its own evolutionary way long before our species emerged," Ms Argue said. She noted that a population of hobbits lived on Flores from roughly 76,000 to about 13,000 years ago, seemingly unbothered by the emergence and expansion of modern humans. "I think it's incredible that it lived until so recently," Ms Argue said. "Humans came down through Asia but missed Flores. It's lucky that Flores was hard to get to."

The findings, recently reported in the Journal of Human Evolution, back a similar argument made in the journal Science in 2007 that the hobbit's unique wrist anatomy suggested the 1m-tall creature came from a lineage that lived long before the common ancestor of people and Neanderthals. Previously researchers

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7 suspected hobbits descended from H. erectus but had shrunk because of their confinement on an island.

In her study Ms Argue collaborated with discovery team co-leaders Mike Moorwood at the University of Wollongong in NSW and Thomas Sutikna at the Jakarta-based Indonesian Centre for Archeology. With ICA colleagues they compared 60 skull and skeletal features obtained from two individual hobbits to those of hominins, chimps and gorillas. The technique, cladistic analysis, revealed hobbits probably took one of two evolutionary paths from Africa to Flores. One began 1.66 million years ago, the other 1.9 million years ago.

Three years ago a group headed by the University of Sydney's Richard Wright, including Ms Argue, reported complementary results in Journal of Human Evolution. They used a separate procedure, multivariate analysis, to determine which species the hobbit most resembled, not to tease out evolutionary relationships, as did Ms Argue's team. Professor Wright said: "Before I did my analyses, I had an open mind about whether H.floresiensis was a deformed modern human or an early hominin. "My analysis forced me to concluded that H.floresiensis was an early hominin in shape, like well-known fossils of H.erectus. "So different methods and different data lead to the same result (ancient hominin, not deformed human).

____________________________ Tiny Ancient Shells Point to Earliest Fashion Trend (EurekAlert)

Shell beads newly unearthed from four sites in Morocco confirm early humans were consistently wearing and potentially trading symbolic jewelry as early as 80,000 years ago. These beads add significantly to similar finds dating back as far as 110,000 years ago in Algeria, Morocco, Israel and South Africa, confirming these as the oldest form of personal ornaments. This crucial step towards modern culture is reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS).

A team of researchers recovered 25 marine shell beads dating back to around 70,000 to 85,000 years ago from sites in Morocco, as part of the European Science Foundation EUROCORES program Origin of Man, Language and Languages. The shells have man-made holes through the centre and some show signs of pigment and prolonged wear, suggesting they were worn as jewelry.

Across all the locations shells were found from a similar time period from the Nassarius genus. That these shells were used similarly across so many sites suggests this was a cultural phenomenon, a shared tradition passed along through cultures over thousands of years. Several of the locations where shells have been found are so far inland that the shells must have been intentionally brought there. "Either people went to sea and collected them, or more likely marine shell beads helped create and maintain exchange networks between coastal and inland peoples. This shows well-structured human culture that attributed meaning to these things," said Francesco d'Errico, lead author and director of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). "Organized networks would also assist trading of other items, as well as genetic and cultural exchange – so these shells help reveal the connections between cognition and culture."

For scientists, beadworks are not simply decoration, they also represents a specific technology that conveys information through a shared coded language. It indicates more advanced thinking and the development of modern cultural traits, giving clues to how such innovative behaviors might link to the spread of humans out of Africa. "The early invention of the personal ornament is one of the most fascinating cultural experiments in human history," d'Errico continued. "The common element among such ornaments is that they transmit meaning to others. They convey an image of you that is not just your biological self."

Until recently the invention of personal ornaments was thought to coincide with the colonization of Europe some 40,000 years ago, linking advanced cognitive capacity to early human dispersal. Yet this changed with the 2006 discovery of shell beads in Africa and the Near East dating back 35,000 years earlier, showing that symbolic thinking emerged more gradually through human evolution.

Curiously, shell beads disappear from the archaeological record in Africa and the Near East 70,000 years ago, along with other cultural innovations such as engravings on ochre slabs, and refined bone tools and projectile points. They reappear in different forms up to 30,000 years later, with personal ornaments simultaneously re-emerging in Africa and the Near East, and for the first time in Europe and Asia. This may reflect an entirely new and independent phase of population growth with previously unseen innovations allowing a more efficient exploitation of a wider variety of environments. The temporary disappearance of cultural innovations could well be linked to population decreases during a long period of harsher climate conditions 60,000 to 73,000 years ago. This would have isolated populations, disrupting social and exchange networks.

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8 Announcements (Leslie Perry, Terry Hynes, &Allen Vegotsky)) September 12 – 2:30pm - Etowah Indian Mounds Historic Site - Lecture: Georgia’s Indian Heritage by noted historian, Dr. Max White, on prehistoric Creek and Cherokee Indians of north Georgia; Entry fee: $2.50 to $5.00 per person. For information, call 770-387-3747. Etowah Indian Mounds Historic Site, 813 Indian Mounds Rd., SW, Cartersville, GA 30120 October 2-4 - The Archaeological Sciences of the Americas Symposium 2009 will be held in Tampa, Florida from October 2–4 2009. The goal of the symposium is to address and discuss issues pertaining to the science of prehistoric and historic materials. For more information, visit the conference website at http://www.anthro.fsu.edu/news/asas2009. Rooms will be available at the Hyatt Regency Tampa for a reduced rate from October 1 - 3 for conference participants. To reserve these special-rate rooms please go to: http://tamparegency.hyatt.com/groupbooking/tpartsoci2009. For further session questions or more symposium information, please contact us at [email protected]. Contact Info: Michelle Hughes Markovics [email protected] 707-778-3689 October 3 – 10:00am - Etowah Indian Mounds Historic Site - Weaponry, flintknapping, basketweaving and pottery-making—all crafts essential to the survival of the Native Americans of the Southeast—will be demonstrated. Entry fee: $2.50 to $5.00 per person. For information, call 770-387-3747. Etowah Indian Mounds Historic Site, 813 Indian Mounds Rd., SW, Cartersville, GA 30120 October 29 - 7:00pm - AIA National Sponsored Lectures - Clemens Reichel, University of Toronto (Kershaw Lecture), Worlds in Collision - Urbanism, Competition and Conflict in Northern Syria During the Chalcolithic Period (4500-3000 BC), at the Reception Hall, Michael C. Carlos Museum, 571 South Kilgo Circle, Society Contact: Dr. Cynthia J. Schwenk, [email protected] November 4-7 - SEAC 2009, 66th Annual Meeting at the Renaissance Riverview Hotel in Mobile, Alabama; Phil Carr is the Meeting Organizer. SEAC 2010, 67th Annual Meeting, will be on October 27-30, 2010 at the Lexington Downtown Hotel and Conference Center, Lexington, Kentucky.

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Greater Atlanta Archaeological Society Officers Term Expires President: David Noble (404) 325-3076 email: [email protected] 1/1/2010 Vice-President: Dennis Blanton (404) 929-6304 email: [email protected] 1/1/2010 Secretary: Connie White (404) 375-0380 email: [email protected] 1/1/2010 Treasurer: Carol Reed (770) 439-1502 email: [email protected] 1/1/2010 Board of Directors Dr. Jeffrey Glover (Professional Archaeologist) (404) 413-5164 email: [email protected] 1/1/2010 Jack Kilgore (404) 325-4311 email: [email protected] 1/1/2010 Terry Hynes (404) 876-2561 email: [email protected] 1/1/2011 Pat LoRusso (678) 493-0103 email: [email protected] 1/1/2011 Christine Van Roosen email: [email protected] 1/1/2010 __________________________________________ Program Chair Christine Van Roosen email: [email protected] Newsletter Editor Louie Campbell (770) 452-0009 email: [email protected]