<A HREF="http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns222834">New
Scientist: Give me shelter</A>
Give me shelter
It's possible that early humans were building huts half a million years ago
WE KNOW that Homo erectus used stone tools. And now it seems likely that our
ancient ancestor built shelters, too. Japanese archaeologists have discovered
the remains of what is believed to be the world's oldest artificial structure
on a hillside at Chichibu, north of Tokyo.
The site has been dated to half a million years ago, a time when Homo erectus
lived in the region. It consists of what seem to be 10 post holes, which form
two irregular pentagons thought to be the remains of two huts. Thirty stone
tools were found scattered around the site.
"It's a nice find and it does sound important," says Chris Stringer, head of
the human origins group at London's Natural History Museum. "If this is
correctly dated and correctly interpreted, it is the first good evidence from
500 000 years ago of a hut structure made by these people." Before the
discovery, the oldest remains of a structure were those at Terra Amata in
France, from around 200 000 to 400 000 years ago.
The Japanese site was discovered during the construction of a park on a flat
piece of terrain with a commanding view of a river. After digging through
about 2 metres of river deposits, an archaeological team organised by the
local board of education found a layer of volcanic ash in which the shallow
post holes appear to have been dug. The holes were filled with loose
material, which was clearly distinct from the volcanic layer, says Kazutaka
Shimada, curator of the Meiji University Museum in Tokyo. "They had
well-defined edges."
He says the holes form two pentagons 1·3 and 1·7 metres across. According to
the board of education, which announced the find last week, the holes are
roughly equidistant, but the ones on the south side are slightly farther
apart, perhaps for an entrance. A total of 30 stone implements were found
around the site, seven of them within the pentagons themselves. "Most of them
are crude cutting instruments made of chert and shale," says Shimada. "They
have clearly been worked."
As for dating, Shimada says the volcanic layer is between 500 000 and 600 000
years old, while the alluvial layer covering it is more than 400 000 years
old, making the remains about half a million years old. Ofer Bar-Yosef, an
anthropologist at Harvard University, says Japanese dating techniques using
volcanic ash are usually reliable.
"If you have post holes, this is a rather exceptional situation in terms of
what we know about hominid archaeology," says John Rick, an anthropologist at
Stanford University. "Half a million years ago, we don't have any concept of
what our ancestors were capable of doing at all."
The remains could help explain how Homo erectus lived and hunted. "It's
evidence that they built structures but how permanent this was we don't
know," says Stringer. "They were hunter-gatherers and they had to move where
the resources were. Who knows whether this was a shelter they stayed in one
week, or one month."
Rick says that, if the find is confirmed, it will be interesting because it
shows that hominids could conceive of using technology to organise things.
"[They had] the idea of actually making a structure, making a cultural space;
a place where you might sleep," he says. "It represents a conceptual division
between inside and outside."
Bar-Yosef agrees that if the find stands up, it would add to mounting
evidence that hominids living 500 000 years ago were more sophisticated than
many anthropologists believe. "It wouldn't surprise me--the cognitive ability
to predict what you'll need was already embedded in the human mind."
Peter Hadfield
From New Scientist magazine, 04 March 2000.
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