Archaeology in West Africa May Cause a Human Evolution, Research Rewrite AOC Sustainability

By Eleanor Scerri, Independent Group Leader, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History

Our species, Homo sapiens, rose in Africa some 300,000 years ago. The objects that early humans made and used, known as the Middle Stone Age material culture, are found throughout much of Africa and include a vast range of innovations.

Among them are bow and arrow technology, specialised tool forms, the long-distance transport of objects such as marine shells and obsidian, personal ornamentation, the use of pigments, water storage, and art. Although it is possible that other ancestors of modern humans contributed to this material culture in Africa, some of the earliest Middle Stone Age stone tools have been found with the oldest Homo sapiens fossils found so far.

The textbook view is that by around 40,000 years ago, the Middle Stone Age had largely ceased to exist in Africa. This was a milestone in the history of our species: the end of the first and longest lasting culture associated with humanity, and the foundation for all the subsequent innovations and material culture that defines us today.

Despite its central role in human history, we have little understanding of how the Middle Stone Age ended. Such an understanding could tell us how different groups were organised across the landscape, how they may have exchanged ideas and genes, and how these processes shaped the later stages of human evolution.

Unfortunately, vast swathes of Africa remain near complete blanks on the map when it comes to such deep prehistory, making it difficult to address these questions. Research has tended to focus on areas such as eastern Africa, where preservation is known to be high, understandably minimising risks and maximising gains. However, the emerging consensus that all of Africa played some role in human origins means that we can no longer afford to neglect vast regions of the continent if we want to reconstruct our evolution in a realistic framework.

For these reasons, my colleagues and I have been focusing on West Africa, one of the least well understood African regions for human evolution. And our recent work is validating earlier claims of a rich Middle Stone Age past.

Read on: Archaeology in West Africa May Cause a Human Evolution, Research Rewrite AOC Sustainability

Plants Use Advertising-like Strategies to Attract Bees with Colour and Scent

Watching plants and pollinators such as bees can teach us a lot about how complex networks work in nature.

There are thousands of species of bees around the world, and they all share a common visual system: their eyes are sensitive to ultraviolet, blue and green wavelengths of the light spectrum.

This ancient colour visual system predates the evolution of flowers, and so flowers from around the world have typically evolved colourful blooms that are easily seen by bees.

For example, flowers as perceived by ultraviolet-sensitive visual systems look completely different than what humans can see.

However, we know that flowers also produce a variety of complex, captivating scents. So in complex natural environments, what signal should best enable a bee to find flowers: colour or scent?

Our latest research uncovered a surprising outcome. It seems that rather that trying to out-compete each other in colour and scent for bee attention, flowers may work together to attract pollinators en masse. It’s the sort of approach that also works in the world of advertising.