Before Us – Details, episodes & analysis

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Get read for a new podcast that digs deep into big issues in archaeology and human evolution. In this season, archaeologists Helen Farr and Erich Fisher take a deep dive into the origins and development of Maritime Adaptations, tracing humanity's journey from the earliest interests in aquatic resources to the global expansion of modern humans via oceans, coastlines, and waterways. Debuting January 2025.

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Archaeology tells the story of people, yet identifying individuals in the archaeological record remains notoriously challenging. In this episode, we speak with Rachel Bynoe, Charles Helm, and three Ju/’hoansi master trackers - /ui Kxunta,  ≠oma Daqm, and /uce Nǂamce - from Nyae Nyae, Namibia, to explore ichnology—the study of tracks and traces. Together, we uncover evidence of individuals from deep time and gain insights into the landscapes they inhabited.

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Key sites discussed: 

• Happisburgh, United Kingdom
• Brenton-on-Sea, South Africa
• Nyae Nyae Conservancy, Namibia

Guests:

• Rachel Bynoe
• Charles Helm
•  /ui Kxunta,  ≠oma Daqm, and /uce Nǂamce

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Homo erectus is widely believed to be the first human species to leave Africa, expanding into parts of Europe and Asia. They were also the first to control and use fire. In this episode, we speak with Josephine Joordens and Irit Zohar to explore these early time periods, approximately 2 million years ago. We delve into when and how hominins first developed an interest in aquatic resources, the transformative impact of cooking fish, and why a stable, year-round food source like fish was crucial for hominin survival and their dispersal across the globe.

Key Places

Gesher Benot Ya’aqov

Key Hominins

Homo erectus

Key People

• Irit Zohar
• Josephine Joordens

For more reading:

• Zohar, I., Alperson-Afil, N., Goren-Inbar, N. et al.Evidence for the cooking of fish 780,000 years ago at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Israel. Nat Ecol Evol 6, 2016–2028 (2022). 
• Joordens, J., d’Errico, F., Wesselingh, F. et al. Homo erectus at Trinil on Java used shells for tool production and engraving. Nature 518, 228–231 (2015). 
• Joordens, Josephine CA, et al. "Relevance of aquatic environments for hominins: a case study from Trinil (Java, Indonesia)." Journal of Human Evolution 57.6 (2009): 656-671.

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Have you ever wondered how aquatic foods shaped human evolution? In this episode, we dive into the fascinating role of seafood in our development with world-renowned experts Michael Crawford and Stephen Cunnane. As leading researchers in brain-selective nutrition, they explore how iodine, fatty acids, and other essential nutrients have influenced modern human health—and their profound impact on our evolutionary journey. 

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Guests:

Michael Crawford

Stephen Cunnane

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Why did humans migrate out of Africa? This question has long puzzled archaeologists. Were they driven by unknown pressures, drawn by opportunities, or was it something else entirely? Best-selling author and researcher Clive Gamble explores how curiosity may have fueled the human expansion out of Africa and how the development of the concept of 'containers' was crucial for technological innovations, such as boats.

Key People

Clive Gamble

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Sea levels have risen and fallen repeatedly over the last 2 million years. During low sea levels, large tracts of land were exposed along coastlines around the world, creating new habitats for plants, animals, and people to inhabit and new routes for people to move around the world. Now, many of these places are underwater, but evidence of these ancient landscapes, and the people who occupied them, still exists. In this episode we chat with Geoff Bailey and Hayley Cawthra about the challenges of working in coastal environments and reconstructing their submerged stories.

Key People

Geoff Bailey

Hayley Cawthra

Additional resources

 2021. Bailey G, Cawthra HC. The significance of sea-level change and ancient submerged landscapes in human dispersal and development: A geoarchaeological perspective. Oceanologia  

2020 Cawthra, Hayley C., et al. "Migration of Pleistocene shorelines across the Palaeo-Agulhas Plain: Evidence from dated sub-bottom profiles and archaeological shellfish assemblages." Quaternary Science Reviews 235: 106107. 

2022. Hill J, et al. Sea-level change, palaeotidal modelling and hominin dispersals: The case of the southern Red Sea. Quaternary Science Reviews

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Around 170,000 years ago people living in sea caves on South Africa’s south coast were repeatedly collecting and eating shellfish from the nearby coastline. It marked an important behavioral shift from the occasional collection of aquatic resources to systematic relying on aquatic resources for survival. In this episode, travel to the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Pinnacle Point in South Africa to talk with Curtis Marean, one of the foremost experts on the origins and development of coastal foraging, about how the transition from opportunistic to systematic coastal foraging may have occurred and the unexpected impact that the shift to a true coastal adaptation may have had on the development of social cooperation.

Key People

Curtis Marean

Key Places

Pinnacle Point

UNESCO

Marean, Curtis W. 2016, The transition to foraging for dense and predictable resources and its impact on the evolution of modern humansPhil. Trans. R. Soc. B37120150239http://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2015.0239

Marean, Curtis W. 2014. "The origins and significance of coastal resource use in Africa and Western Eurasia." Journal of Human Evolution 77: 17-40. 

Marean, C., Bar-Matthews, M., Bernatchez, J. et al. Early human use of marine resources and pigment in South Africa during the Middle Pleistocene. Nature 449, 905–908 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature06204 

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The discovery of Homo floresiensis and Homo luzonensis in SE Asia raises big questions about what happened to some early populations of migrants. Here, John McNabb, explains how these discoveries re-shape our understanding of human evolution and human migrations, but also what the world was like when modern humans began to expand out of Africa. It may have been much more crowded than previously thought!

Key Site

Liang Bua

Mata menge

Dmanisi

Key People

John McNabb (Mac)

Mike Morewood

Key Hominids

Homo floresiensis

Homo luzonensis

Homo erectus

Denisovan

More Reading

Brumm, A., van den Bergh, G., Storey, M. et al. Age and context of the oldest known hominin fossils from Flores. Nature 534, 249–253 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature17663 

Baab, K. L. (2012) Homo floresiensis: Making Sense of the Small-Bodied Hominin Fossils from Flores . Nature Education Knowledge 3(9):4 

Détroit, F., Mijares, A.S., Corny, J. et al. A new species of Homo from the Late Pleistocene of the Philippines. Nature 568, 181–186 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1067-9 

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In this special bonus episode, Erich answers some of the fantastic questions that we've received from listeners around the world. If you want to send us your own questions about anything you've heard on Before Us, or just comment in general, please hit the "send us a text" button above every episode description. We would love to hear from you!

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Sea levels rise and fall in response to complex planetary drivers, including shifts in polar ice caps, land masses, and other factors. Understanding these processes is crucial for studying prehistory in deep time, including human migration from Sundaland to Sahul and the movement of people around the globe. In this episode, Justin Dix breaks down what drives sea level change, how scientists reconstruct past sea levels, and how these fluctuations have shaped human history. 

Key People

Justin Dix

Key Places

Bonaparte Gulf

Key Concepts

Gravity Earth Model (aka the lumpy potato)

Further Reading

Anthony Fogg, Justin Dix, Helen Farr. Late Pleistocene Palaeo Environment Reconstruction from 3D Seismic data, NW Australia.The ACROSS project - Australasian Research: Origins of Seafaring to Sahul.  Authorea. January 06, 2020.