Periodic Reporting for period 3 - LASTJOURNEY (The End of the Journey: The Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene Colonisation of South America)
Reporting period: 2022-10-01 to 2024-03-31
Understanding the human journey of global colonisation is the history of modern humanity and the development of the diverse cultural characteristics of humans around the world. The ERC Last Journey project investigates the peopling of South America, the last continent (other than Antarctica) to be colonised by humans, constituting a virtually unprecedented migration of modern humans across richly diverse, empty landscapes during the Late Pleistocene-Early Holocene (LP-EH) transition. This process took place amidst one of the most significant climatic, environmental, and subsistence regime shifts in human history, which resulted in the extinction of megafauna, plant domestication, and the foundation of South American peoples and cultures.
A critical set of questions corresponding to three research themes remain unanswered:
1. Human mode and tempo of dispersal. When did people begin to colonise the different environments of northwest South America? How did the tempo of dispersal vary between environments? Are these adaptations correlated with major changes in material culture?
2. Changing climates and environments. What was the timing and nature of climate change during the LP-EH transition? What were the plant and animal associations that initial tropical colonists encountered and how did they change over time? When did the extinction of native megafauna happen and what was its ecological impact? How did these climate and environmental perturbations impact the human colonisation of South America?
3. Subsistence strategies and human impacts. How did these early colonists tune their subsistence strategies to the Andean forests, Sub-Andean forests, lowland tropical forests, savannahs, and coastal landscapes they confronted? When, how and which plants and animals were exploited in these different environments? Were these early colonists highly mobile, big-game hunters or territorial foragers subsisting on a wide variety of local foods? How did colonists adapt their subsistence strategies to abrupt climate events and the arrival of the wetter, warmer Holocene? When and which plants were first cultivated and domesticated? Did these foragers manage plant and animal resources by fostering environmental conditions that promoted preferred foods? What was the role of humans versus climate in the extinction of megafauna?
To investigate these sets of questions Last Journey will employ an innovative interdisciplinary research strategy combining state-of-the-art palaeoclimate, palaeoecology, archaeology, archaeobotany, ancient eDNA and isotope studies.
A critical set of questions corresponding to three research themes remain unanswered:
1. Human mode and tempo of dispersal. When did people begin to colonise the different environments of northwest South America? How did the tempo of dispersal vary between environments? Are these adaptations correlated with major changes in material culture?
2. Changing climates and environments. What was the timing and nature of climate change during the LP-EH transition? What were the plant and animal associations that initial tropical colonists encountered and how did they change over time? When did the extinction of native megafauna happen and what was its ecological impact? How did these climate and environmental perturbations impact the human colonisation of South America?
3. Subsistence strategies and human impacts. How did these early colonists tune their subsistence strategies to the Andean forests, Sub-Andean forests, lowland tropical forests, savannahs, and coastal landscapes they confronted? When, how and which plants and animals were exploited in these different environments? Were these early colonists highly mobile, big-game hunters or territorial foragers subsisting on a wide variety of local foods? How did colonists adapt their subsistence strategies to abrupt climate events and the arrival of the wetter, warmer Holocene? When and which plants were first cultivated and domesticated? Did these foragers manage plant and animal resources by fostering environmental conditions that promoted preferred foods? What was the role of humans versus climate in the extinction of megafauna?
To investigate these sets of questions Last Journey will employ an innovative interdisciplinary research strategy combining state-of-the-art palaeoclimate, palaeoecology, archaeology, archaeobotany, ancient eDNA and isotope studies.
Last Journey is centred on three major themes: 1) Human tempos of dispersal: archaeology, material culture, and chronology; 2) Changing climates and environments; and 3) Subsistence adaptations and human impacts. Progress has been made on the work packages and specific goals of all three themes, with primary activities focused achieving Milestone 1 and Milestone 2 of the project, in relation to the collection of data and samples through fieldwork in Colombia. Between 2019-2022 archaeological permit requests were submitted to ICANH and access to sites was negotiated with local landowners. All permits were granted for research activities at El Abra, Tibito, Tequendama, Pubenza, and in the Serrania de la Lindosa archaeological sites (Cerro Azul, Limoncillo, Montoya and Nuevo Tolima). Permits for exporting archaeological sediments and teeth DNA (University of Copenhagen), charcoal for radiocarbon dates (University of Exeter), and megafauna bones for isotopes analysis (Max Planck Institute, Jena) were all obtained during 2019-2022. Three-dimensional printed replicas of human teeth from Tequendama, which will be analysed by the project, have been produced to comply with ICANH requisites. A series of reports from completed excavations and lab analyses have been submitted and approved by ICANH. Archaeological fieldwork was conducted at the sites mentioned above between 2019 - 2022. The excavations recorded human occupation and activity at the sites, recovering materials for laboratory analyses. Archaeological excavations were combined with sedimentary DNA research at El Abra, Tequendama and Montoya, as well as samples collected from sediment coring at Tibito, Pedro Palo and El Abra. PDRA Ramirez collected speleothems for palaeoclimate reconstruction at Parque Natural Nacional Caverna de los Guacharos in Dec 2019. PhD Ziegler inventoried and sampled megafauna remains for isotope analysis from the Instituto de Ciencias Naturales at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia in 2021. Analysis of materials is ongoing with positive initial results from archaeobotanical analysis, radiocarbon dating, lithic analysis, and speleothem analysis.
Initial results from the analysis of rock art and archaeological sediments from Serrania de la Lindosa have been published in three international journals and one book chapter. The findings reveal a far more extensive and earlier occupation of the Colombian Amazon than previously realised. Radiocarbon dating from the excavated contexts demonstrates multiple rock shelters were occupied from 12.5k years ago. The depiction of megafauna in the art alludes to the different habitats and animal populations that were present during these early human occupations. The artwork and archaeological remains hold clues to the inception of human-environment interaction in the Amazon, the potential role human resource exploitation had on biodiversity trajectories, and the development of cosmological worldview, cultural norms, and artistic traditions that characterise and define South American culture. Further collaborations on early peopling of tropical South America, plant domestication, and the analysis of glyptodon (Ice Age armadillos) skulls have resulted in the publication of three other papers (Nature, Quaternary Science Reviews, and Journal of Swiss Palaeontology). The project organised a major international rock art symposium in Colombia and produced the book, "The Painted Forest: rock art and archaeology in the Colombian Amazon". 400 copies of the book were donated to the local community for sale to tourists.
Initial results from the analysis of rock art and archaeological sediments from Serrania de la Lindosa have been published in three international journals and one book chapter. The findings reveal a far more extensive and earlier occupation of the Colombian Amazon than previously realised. Radiocarbon dating from the excavated contexts demonstrates multiple rock shelters were occupied from 12.5k years ago. The depiction of megafauna in the art alludes to the different habitats and animal populations that were present during these early human occupations. The artwork and archaeological remains hold clues to the inception of human-environment interaction in the Amazon, the potential role human resource exploitation had on biodiversity trajectories, and the development of cosmological worldview, cultural norms, and artistic traditions that characterise and define South American culture. Further collaborations on early peopling of tropical South America, plant domestication, and the analysis of glyptodon (Ice Age armadillos) skulls have resulted in the publication of three other papers (Nature, Quaternary Science Reviews, and Journal of Swiss Palaeontology). The project organised a major international rock art symposium in Colombia and produced the book, "The Painted Forest: rock art and archaeology in the Colombian Amazon". 400 copies of the book were donated to the local community for sale to tourists.
Last Journey has redefined the timing of human entry into Amazon, generating evidence for human occupation of western Amazonia beginning 12,500 years ago. These data negate prevailing assumptions that the tropical forest was avoided during human migrations across the continent.
The discovery of far more extensive rock art than was realised in the Colombian Amazon, coupled with the identification imagery representing now extinct megafauna, and the confirmed human occupation during the Late Pleistocene, has major implications for the role of humans in shaping the vegetation and animal populations during the dramatic climatic upheaval during the Late Pleistocene to Holocene transition. Archaeobotanical analyses suggest palm were a key resource enabling low risk experimentation and adaptation to forest resources, with potential impacts on vegetation structure and composition as a result of resource exploitation. The overlap of humans and megafauna, as evidenced by the early dates of human occupation and the depiction of megafauna in rock art, including hunting scenes, suggests human predation has a role in the extinction of these animal populations, which were already stressed due to changing habitats caused by climatic change.
The discovery of far more extensive rock art than was realised in the Colombian Amazon, coupled with the identification imagery representing now extinct megafauna, and the confirmed human occupation during the Late Pleistocene, has major implications for the role of humans in shaping the vegetation and animal populations during the dramatic climatic upheaval during the Late Pleistocene to Holocene transition. Archaeobotanical analyses suggest palm were a key resource enabling low risk experimentation and adaptation to forest resources, with potential impacts on vegetation structure and composition as a result of resource exploitation. The overlap of humans and megafauna, as evidenced by the early dates of human occupation and the depiction of megafauna in rock art, including hunting scenes, suggests human predation has a role in the extinction of these animal populations, which were already stressed due to changing habitats caused by climatic change.