ALBERT

Description: The Hawaiian-Emperor bend has played a prominent yet controversial role in deciphering past Pacific plate motions and the tempo of plate motion change. New ages for volcanoes of the central and southern Emperor chain define large changes in volcanic migration rate with little associated change in the chain's trend, which suggests that the bend did not form by slowing of the Hawaiian hot spot. Initiation of the bend near Kimmei seamount about 50 million years ago (MA) was coincident with realignment of Pacific spreading centers and early magmatism in western Pacific arcs, consistent with formation of the bend by changed Pacific plate motion.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Sharp, Warren D -- Clague, David A -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2006 Sep 1;313(5791):1281-4.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Berkeley Geochronology Center, 2455 Ridge Road, Berkeley, CA 94709, USA. wsharp@bgc.org〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16946069" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Seventeen Middle Pleistocene crania from the Sima de los Huesos site (Atapuerca, Spain) are analyzed, including seven new specimens. This sample makes it possible to thoroughly characterize a Middle Pleistocene hominin paleodeme and to address hypotheses about the origin and evolution of the Neandertals. Using a variety of techniques, the hominin-bearing layer could be reassigned to a period around 430,000 years ago. The sample shows a consistent morphological pattern with derived Neandertal features present in the face and anterior vault, many of which are related to the masticatory apparatus. This suggests that facial modification was the first step in the evolution of the Neandertal lineage, pointing to a mosaic pattern of evolution, with different anatomical and functional modules evolving at different rates.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Arsuaga, J L -- Martinez, I -- Arnold, L J -- Aranburu, A -- Gracia-Tellez, A -- Sharp, W D -- Quam, R M -- Falgueres, C -- Pantoja-Perez, A -- Bischoff, J -- Poza-Rey, E -- Pares, J M -- Carretero, J M -- Demuro, M -- Lorenzo, C -- Sala, N -- Martinon-Torres, M -- Garcia, N -- Alcazar de Velasco, A -- Cuenca-Bescos, G -- Gomez-Olivencia, A -- Moreno, D -- Pablos, A -- Shen, C-C -- Rodriguez, L -- Ortega, A I -- Garcia, R -- Bonmati, A -- Bermudez de Castro, J M -- Carbonell, E -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2014 Jun 20;344(6190):1358-63. doi: 10.1126/science.1253958.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Centro Mixto UCM-ISCIII de Evolucion y Comportamiento Humanos, Madrid, Spain. Departamento de Paleontologia, Facultad Ciencias Geologicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain. jlarsuaga@isciii.es. ; Area de Paleontologia, Departamento de Geologia, Geografia y Medio Ambiente, Universidad de Alcala, Spain.Centro Mixto UCM-ISCIII de Evolucion y Comportamiento Humanos, Madrid, Spain. ; Centro Nacional de Investigacion sobre la Evolucion Humana Burgos, Spain. School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, the Environment Institute, and the Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing (IPAS), University of Adelaide, Australia. ; Departamento Mineralogia y Petrologia, Facultad de Ciencia y Tecnologia, Universidad del Pais Vasco, Spain. ; Berkeley Geochronology Center, Berkeley, CA, USA. ; Department of Anthropology, Binghamton University (State University of New York), Binghamton, NY, USA. Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, USA.Centro Mixto UCM-ISCIII de Evolucion y Comportamiento Humanos, Madrid, Spain. ; Departement de Prehistoire, Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France. ; Centro Mixto UCM-ISCIII de Evolucion y Comportamiento Humanos, Madrid, Spain. Departamento de Paleontologia, Facultad Ciencias Geologicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain. ; U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA,USA. ; Centro Nacional de Investigacion sobre la Evolucion Humana Burgos, Spain. ; Laboratorio de Evolucion Humana, Departamento de Ciencias Historicas y Geografia, Universidad de Burgos, Spain. ; Centro Nacional de Investigacion sobre la Evolucion Humana Burgos, Spain. Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing (IPAS), School of Chemistry and Physics, University of Adelaide, Australia. ; Area de Prehistoria, Departamento d'Historia i Historia de l'Art, Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), Tarragona, Spain. Institut Catala de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolucio Social, Tarragona, Spain.Centro Mixto UCM-ISCIII de Evolucion y Comportamiento Humanos, Madrid, Spain. ; Centro Mixto UCM-ISCIII de Evolucion y Comportamiento Humanos, Madrid, Spain. ; Paleontologia, Aragosaurus-IUCA and Facultad Ciencias, Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain. ; Centro Mixto UCM-ISCIII de Evolucion y Comportamiento Humanos, Madrid, Spain. Departement de Prehistoire, Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France. PAVE Research Group, Division of Biological Anthropology, Cambridge, UK. ; Departement de Prehistoire, Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France. Laboratorio de Evolucion Humana, Departamento de Ciencias Historicas y Geografia, Universidad de Burgos, Spain. ; Centro Mixto UCM-ISCIII de Evolucion y Comportamiento Humanos, Madrid, Spain. Centro Nacional de Investigacion sobre la Evolucion Humana Burgos, Spain. Laboratorio de Evolucion Humana, Departamento de Ciencias Historicas y Geografia, Universidad de Burgos, Spain. ; High-Precision Mass Spectrometry and Environment Change Laboratory (HISPEC), Department of Geosciences, National Taiwan University, Taiwan ROC. ; Institut Catala de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolucio Social, Tarragona, Spain. Area de Prehistoria, Departamento d'Historia i Historia de l'Art, Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), Tarragona, Spain. Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of Beijing (IVPP), China.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24948730" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: In proto-historic Hawaii (1500-1795 A.D.), as in many other evolving polities, temples functioned as centers for control over production and the extraction of surplus food and goods. Thorium-230 dates (uncertainty +/- approximately 10 years) on branch coral dedicatory offerings from temples in the Kahikinui district (Maui) indicate that its temple system was constructed within 60 years, far more rapidly than indicated by radiocarbon dating. Introduction of the temple system in 1580-1640 A.D. coincided with predatory expansion and consolidation of the Maui polity to form an incipient archaic state.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Kirch, Patrick V -- Sharp, Warren D -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2005 Jan 7;307(5706):102-4.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Anthropology, 232 Kroeber Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. kirch@sscl.berkeley.edu〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15637276" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Our understanding of climatic conditions, and therefore forcing factors, in North America during the past two glacial cycles is limited in part by the scarcity of long, well-dated, continuous paleoclimate records. Here, we present the first, to our knowledge, continuous, millennial-resolution paleoclimate proxy record derived from millimeter-thick pedogenic carbonate clast...

Description: 〈p〉Hershkovitz 〈i〉et al〈/i〉. (Reports, 26 January 2018, p. 456) interpreted the Misliya-1 fossil maxilla as evidence of the earliest known anatomically modern human outside Africa. However, the fossil’s reported age of 177,000 to 194,000 years relies on flawed interpretations of uranium-series data. We contend that those data support a minimum age of no more than ~60,000 to 70,000 years.〈/p〉

Description: Hershkovitz et al . (Reports, 26 January 2018, p. 456) interpreted the Misliya-1 fossil maxilla as evidence of the earliest known anatomically modern human outside Africa. However, the fossil’s reported age of 177,000 to 194,000 years relies on flawed interpretations of uranium-series data. We contend that those data support a minimum age of no more than ~60,000 to 70,000 years.

Description: The origin of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) marks the transition from a highly persistent mode of stone toolmaking, the Acheulean, to a period of increasing technological innovation and cultural indicators associated with the evolution of Homo sapiens . We used argon-40/argon-39 and uranium-series dating to calibrate the chronology of Acheulean and early MSA artifact–rich sedimentary deposits in the Olorgesailie basin, southern Kenya rift. We determined the age of late Acheulean tool assemblages from 615,000 to 499,000 years ago, after which a large technological and faunal transition occurred, with a definitive MSA lacking Acheulean elements beginning most likely by ~320,000 years ago, but at least by 305,000 years ago. These results establish the oldest repository of MSA artifacts in eastern Africa.