Stone Age diet key to some climate change adaptation
Modern society could benefit from understanding how prehistoric humans adapted diets and food-related tools to respond to severe climate shifts. However, there are serious gaps in what we know about how humans in the Late Pleistocene actually dealt with climate change. In particular, climate-related environmental changes may vary regionally, causing localised challenges requiring localised solutions. Such variability limits researchers to generalisations about our predecessors′ ability to adapt. An EU-funded researcher approached this problem proactively by studying in the 'Human adaptational patterns to arid environments in North Africa' (HUMANARIDADAPT) project. Humans have inhabited the Haua Fteah cave in Cyrenaica (north-eastern Libya) for tens of thousands of years. The HUMANARIDADAPT project, analysed artefacts found there and compared them with artefacts from Libya′s Maghreb region. Specifically, the researchers analysed Stone Age tools according to visual characteristics (e.g. size and shape), source material, organic residues, and damage due to use. HUMANARIDADAPT determined Haua Fteah artefacts from the Oranian era (17 000-11 500 years ago) were considerably smaller than those from the Dabban era (42 000-17 000 years ago). Impacts as a result of local climate change include Oranian 'microlithic' innovations that were localised and abrupt. In contrast, Iberomaurusian tools from the Maghreb remained relatively unchanged from 24 000 years ago to around 10 000 years ago. Notably, Oranians made more task-specific tools. Dr Mutri found that Oranian tools both developed from, and enabled these hunter-gatherers to transition to, a more diverse diet. Oranians produced certain tools customised for hunting game animals, some unique to plant gathering, and yet others designed for working specific materials such as bone, shell, and wood. Together, these adaptations enabled Oranian-era tool users to subsist in a smaller foodshed than was likely necessary for their predecessors. HUMANARIDADAPT researchers now plan to compare the artefacts from Cyrenaica and the Magreb with robust palaeoenvirontmental and palaeoeconomic data from these regions. Doing so could result in the first accurate descriptions of the interplay of changing climate, social and subsistence patterns, and technology of prehistoric Libyans.
