Archives: Articles

The Francis Crick Institute—Waves of human migration across Europe during the first millennium AD have been revealed using a more precise method of analysing ancestry with ancient DNA, in research led by the Francis Crick Institute.

Researchers can bring together a picture of how people moved across the world by looking at changes in their DNA, but this becomes a lot harder when historical groups of people are genetically very similar. 

In research published today in Nature, researchers report a new data analysis method called Twigstats¹, which allows the differences between genetically similar groups to be measured more precisely, revealing previously unknown details of migrations in Europe.

They applied the new method to over 1500 European genomes (a person’s complete set of DNA) from people who lived primarily during the first millennium AD (year 1 to 1000), encompassing the Iron Age, the fall of the Roman Empire, the early medieval ‘Migration Period’ and the Viking Age.

Germanic-speaking people move south in the early Iron Age

The Romans – whose empire was flourishing at the start of the first millennium – wrote about conflict with Germanic groups outside of the Empire’s frontiers.

Using the new method, the scientists revealed waves of these groups migrating south from Northern Germany or Scandinavia early in the first millennium, adding genetic evidence to the historical record.

This ancestry was found in people from southern Germany, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, and southern Britain, with one person in southern Europe carrying 100% Scandinavian-like ancestry.

The team showed that many of these groups eventually mixed with pre-existing populations. The two main zones of migration and interaction mirror the three main branches of Germanic languages, one of which stayed in Scandinavia, one of which became extinct, and another which formed the basis of modern-day German and English.

Finding a Roman gladiator?

In 2^nd-4^th century York in Britain, 25% of the ancestry of an individual who could have been a Roman soldier or slave gladiator came from early Iron Age Scandinavia. This highlights that there were people with Scandinavian ancestry in Britain earlier than the Anglo-Saxon and Viking periods which started in the 5th century AD.

Germanic-speaking people move north into Scandinavia before the Viking Age

The team then used the method to uncover a later additional northward wave of migration into Scandinavia at the end of the Iron Age (300-800 AD) and just before the Viking Age. They showed that many Viking Age individuals across southern Scandinavia carried ancestry from Central Europe.

A different type of biomolecular analysis of teeth found that people buried on the island of Öland, Sweden, who carried ancestry from Central Europe, had grown up locally, suggesting that this northward influx of people wasn’t a one-off, but a lasting shift in ancestry.

There is archaeological evidence for repeated conflicts in Scandinavia at this time, and the researchers speculate that this unrest may have played a role in driving movements of people, but more archaeological, genetic and environmental data is needed to shed light on the reasons why people moved into and around Scandinavia².

Viking expansion out of Scandinavia

Historically, the Viking Age (c.800-1050 AD) is associated with people from Scandinavia raiding and settling throughout Europe.

The research showed that many people outside of Scandinavia during this time show a mix of local and Scandinavian ancestry, in support of the historical records.

For example, the team found some Viking Age individuals in the east (now present-day Ukraine and Russia) who had ancestry from present-day Sweden, and individuals in Britain who had ancestry from present-day Denmark.

In Viking Age mass graves in Britain, the remains of men who died violently showed genetic links to Scandinavia, suggesting they may have been executed members of Viking raiding parties.

Adding genetic evidence to historical accounts

Leo Speidel, first author, former postdoctoral researcher at the Crick and UCL and now group leader at RIKEN, Japan, said: “We already have reliable statistical tools to compare the genetics between groups of people who are genetically very different, like hunter-gatherers and early farmers, but robust analyses of finer-scale population changes, like the migrations we reveal in this paper, have largely been obscured until now.

“Twigstats allows us to see what we couldn’t before, in this case migrations all across Europe originating in the north of Europe in the Iron Age, and then back into Scandinavia before the Viking Age. Our new method can be applied to other populations across the world and hopefully reveal more missing pieces of the puzzle.”

Pontus Skoglund, Group Leader of the Ancient Genomics Laboratory at the Crick, and senior author, said: “The goal was a data analysis method that would provide a sharper lens for fine-scale genetic history. Questions that wouldn’t have been possible to answer before are now within reach to us, so we now need to grow the record of ancient whole-genome sequences.”

Peter Heather, Professor of Medieval History at King’s College London, and co-author of the study, said: “Historical sources indicate that migration played some role in the massive restructuring of the human landscape of western Eurasia in the second half of the first millennium AD which first created the outlines of a politically and culturally recognisable Europe, but the nature, scale and even the trajectories of the movements have always been hotly disputed. Twigstats opens up the exciting possibility of finally resolving these crucial questions.”

_____________________________

Three waves of migrations across Europe were identified in the paper. Leo Speidel, The Francis Crick Institute

_____________________________

Diagram showing how Twigstats works. Leo Speidel, the Francis Crick Institute

_____________________________

Article Source: Francis Crick Institute news release.

_____________________________

How does Twigstats work?

The more genetic mutations (differences in our DNA) that we share with another person, the closer we tend to be related. This is because we inherit our DNA through our ancestors, and so we inherit the same mutations that they also carried. Our DNA is therefore a proxy for the genetic ‘family trees’ that connect us all.

Over the past few years, scientists have found ways to directly reconstruct these genetic family trees by looking at how mutations are shared between people, connecting our DNA today with those of ancient people. These genetic family trees reveal how old mutations are and who they are shared by.

Twigstats directly looks at these genetic family trees to summarize who we have inherited our DNA from. This new approach looks at more recent mutations to reveal connections between people who lived closer together in time.

The period 300-800 AD is dynamic, and also one where the runic script and language changed across Scandinavia, as explored in the illustration.

About the Francis Crick Institute

The Francis Crick Institute is a biomedical discovery institute dedicated to understanding the fundamental biology underlying health and disease. Its work is helping to understand why disease develops and to translate discoveries into new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, stroke, infections, and neurodegenerative diseases.

An independent organisation, its founding partners are the Medical Research Council (MRC), Cancer Research UK, Wellcome, UCL (University College London), Imperial College London and King’s College London.

The Crick was formed in 2015, and in 2016 it moved into a brand new state-of-the-art building in central London which brings together 1500 scientists and support staff working collaboratively across disciplines, making it the biggest biomedical research facility under a single roof in Europe.

_______________________________

*High-resolution genomic history of early medieval Europe, Nature, 1-Jan-2025. 10.1038/s41586-024-08275-2  

_______________________________

Advertisement

EXPLORE THE ANCIENT ETRUSCANS IN PERSON!
Experience a unique, up-close-and-personal hike among ancient hilltop towns in central Italy. You will walk the sensational countryside of the regions of Umbria and Tuscany, soaking in important sites attesting to the advanced Etruscan civilization, forerunners of the ancient Romans; imposing architectural and cultural remains of Medieval Italy; local food and drink; and perhaps best of all — spectacular scenic views! Join us in this collaborative event for the trip of a lifetime!

 

A recent investigation of human remains found in the UK’s Cheddar Gorge has once again brought a particularly unsavory aspect of our human story into the light: human consumption of other humans. The surprising discovery of cannibalism in the Early Bronze Age comes from the re-examination of the remains of 37 men, women, and children that were found in pieces at the site of Charterhouse Warren, down a disused shaft cut into the Mendip Hills. This is the first instance of cannibalism of humans, or anthropophagy, to be discovered in British prehistory on such a large scale, and the reported findings force a reconsideration of what role cannibalism may have played in the life of humans in the past. Reckoning with such an emotive and sensational topic has never been easy for scientists, however, and there is still quite a lot of controversy about exactly how much cannibalism ever really happened in the past.

In the fairly recent past, accusations of cannibalism in a society or group were often considered to be a propaganda move on the part of the accusers. William Arens argued in his 1979 book The Man-Eating Myth that accusations of anthropophagy were never based on observation, only second-hand reports, and reflected deeply held prejudices by racist and colonial commentators. Whether it was the dog-headed Cynocephali, a tribe of barbarian cannibals described by Ancient Greeks that somehow made it down to medieval times or the Carib people who were described as cannibals to the newly arrived Christopher Columbus by the neighboring Arawak group, what most accusations of cannibalism have in common is that they are used to denigrate the humanity of the accused. Columbus’s description of the “Caniba” in his 1490s journal tells of the people he encountered describing their rivals as “dog-nosed” cannibals. What is left to prove the truth of these accusations then, and what Columbus himself used to bolster his arguments for a dangerous and evil people that had to be subjugated, is the physical evidence left behind by the consumption of human flesh: the bones themselves.

While Columbus was, of course, not a biological anthropologist—a scientist who studies bones and teeth from people in the past—it is within the study of human remains of the past that we can start to see the reality of cannibalism. Anthropologists borrow techniques from forensic medicine to identify the traces of trauma left on human bones to quite literally piece together evidence of what has happened to a human body. Knives, axes, teeth, hammers, and other tools leave cuts, furrows, scrapes, and other marks on the bones they touch. These will differ depending on whether they are made in living flesh or dry bone, and what kind of tool was used for what kind of purpose. We know that humans have a long history of butchering animals for food, and we can recognize the characteristic patterns that they use to acquire specific cuts of meat or extract nutritious marrow from bones.

Sometimes, this pattern appears on human bones as well. Anthropologists have recognized the characteristic patterns of butchery on human remains in archaeological sites from around the world, across huge swathes of time. There are cups made from skulls from Gough’s Cave in the same Cheddar Gorge that date back almost 15,000 years. Bones found in the cave systems of Spain’s Atapuerca mountains show that about 800,000 years ago individuals from an ancient hominin species, Homo antecessor, were butchered and eaten by tool-wielding hominins far before the evolution of modern Homo sapiens. Perhaps the best-known examples of large-scale cannibalism come from the south-west of North America, where the remains of people from the Ancestral Puebloan culture were identified as having been cannibalized in the best-selling book Man Corn by anthropologists Christy G. Turner II and Jacqueline A. Turner. The broken-open bones, with distinct cut marks from being severed by tools, characteristic polish where they were stirred in a boiling pot—and later even a human coprolite that showed its owner had eaten another human—were a direct riposte to the anthropologists who insisted cannibalism was only something people accused other people of.

It was in fact a disease in living people that forced a reconsideration of whether or not our species was a habitual cannibal—and why. The discovery of a prion disease, kuru, in the Fore people of Papua New Guinea that was transmitted by consuming contaminated human brain tissue of family members during funeral rites demonstrated that cannibalism exists in living cultures. It further showed that the practice is not necessarily the bloodthirsty act of a warlike people, as those with vested interests in making another group “less” than human, like Columbus, reported. Many instances of what looks like butchery on human remains may reflect a cultural type of cannibalism; a particular society’s death rituals. In other cases, ecological pressures such as a natural disaster may prompt eating other humans, as has been proposed for the Ancestral Puebloans who may have been cannibalized during a period of intense drought, or for cases of known anthropophagy such as the Andes Flight Disaster.

These far more functional explanations for why humans would eat other humans are a far cry from the violence and inhumanity suggested by Columbus and his classical Western European idea of cannibalism, which is precisely why the Bronze Age remains from Cheddar Gorge come as such a surprise. The remains from Charterhouse Warren show signs that they were attacked and killed en masse as well as signs of being butchered, processed for meat, and even possible scrape marks from human teeth. This suggests that, on top of the cultural and ecological cannibalism we have slowly begun to accept as part of our story, we must also contend with cannibalism as a part of extreme violence that is also part of our species’s history.

Cover Image, Top Left: Skull. Peter Dargatz, Pixabay

______________________________

Source: This article was produced by Human Bridges.

______________________________

Advertisement

EXPLORE THE ANCIENT ETRUSCANS IN PERSON!
Experience a unique, up-close-and-personal hike among ancient hilltop towns in central Italy. You will walk the sensational countryside of the regions of Umbria and Tuscany, soaking in important sites attesting to the advanced Etruscan civilization, forerunners of the ancient Romans; imposing architectural and cultural remains of Medieval Italy; local food and drink; and perhaps best of all — spectacular scenic views! Join us in this collaborative event for the trip of a lifetime!

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—Researchers reconstructed familial relationships among elite individuals buried around 500 CE in Peru, including two ritually sacrificed relatives. The Moche archaeological culture lived in sophisticated urban complexes along the north coast of present-day Peru from 300 to 950 CE. Kinship is hypothesized to have played a central role in the maintenance of political authority in Moche society. Jeffrey Quilter, Régulo Fanco Jordan, John Krigbaum, Lars Fehren-Schmitz, Erik Marsh, John Verano, and colleagues used archaeological, genetic, and isotopic data to characterize familial relationships between four adults and two sacrificed juveniles buried in a pyramid-like temple in Chicama Valley, Peru. The burial group included an adult woman known as the Señora de Cao, who was interred along with numerous offerings and a sacrificed juvenile individual. The results revealed that all six individuals were biologically related in a family tree spanning at least four generations. Isotopic analyses suggested that most of the individuals likely spent their childhoods in or near the Chicama Valley and had similar diets rich in maize and marine-derived proteins. The juvenile sacrificed and buried with the Señora de Cao was possibly her niece and had a distinct geographic origin and diet. The finding suggests a previously undocumented form of ritual sacrifice among Moche elites involving close relatives. According to the authors, the study* provides insight into the intersection of kinship, elite status, and ritual practices in Moche society.

______________________________

Enclosure of burials at the Huaca Cao Viejo temple at the El Brujo archaeological complex in Peru. Credit Jeffrey Quilter

______________________________

Huaca Cao Viejo temple at the El Brujo archaeological complex in Peru. Credit Jeffrey Quilter

______________________________

Article Source: PNAS news release

*“Family relations of Moche elite burials on the North Coast of Peru (~500 CE): Analyses of the Señora de Cao and relatives,” by Jeffrey Quilter et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 23-Dec-2024. https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2416321121

______________________________

Advertisement

EXPLORE THE ANCIENT ETRUSCANS IN PERSON!
Experience a unique, up-close-and-personal hike among ancient hilltop towns in central Italy. You will walk the sensational countryside of the regions of Umbria and Tuscany, soaking in important sites attesting to the advanced Etruscan civilization, forerunners of the ancient Romans; imposing architectural and cultural remains of Medieval Italy; local food and drink; and perhaps best of all — spectacular scenic views! Join us in this collaborative event for the trip of a lifetime!

PHILADELPHIA, December 20, 2024—At the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud in northern Iraq, a temple razed by fire around 612 BCE, has remarkably preserved shrines that were recovered by the Penn Museum and Iraqi archaeologists on a site excavation this year as part of the Penn Nimrud Project, one of several cultural heritage preservation and protection initiatives of Penn’s Iraq Heritage Stabilization Program (IHSP). These recent discoveries enhance our understanding of one of the world’s first empires while also highlighting archaeology’s integral role in cultural heritage restoration.

Penn Nimrud Project expands 19th-century excavations

Known as Kalhu by Assyrians and Calah in the Bible, Nimrud’s vast archaeological mounds first excavated in the 19th century, provide evidence confirming how ancient Mesopotamia contributed to human advancement. Assyria also represents a crucial part of Iraq’s cultural identity, which the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) attempted to erase by destroying major Mesopotamian monuments between 2014 and 2017.Two of these sites at Nimrud were the Ninurta Temple and its Ziggurat (stepped temple tower) and the famed Northwest Palace built by King Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BCE) who reigned over Nimrud, the newly appointed capital of the Neo-Assyrian state.

Despite previous excavations led by the English archaeologist Sir Austen Henry Layard and then by British archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, husband of renowned mystery author Agatha Christie, the temple remained poorly documented and predominantly unexplored until now.

Penn IHSP safeguards at-risk cultural heritage sites in Iraq and Syria. By working collaboratively with government authorities, international experts, and local stakeholders, the Penn Nimrud Project, a part of IHSP, seeks to repair recent damage, reopen the site to tourism, and refine our understanding of Nimrud’s temples and Assyrian religious practices. All artifacts recovered from excavations remain in Iraq.

Findings at the temple

In its third season, project excavations unearthed two new shrines within the sprawling Ninurta Temple. Inside the larger shrine, the team found a monumental stone dais (a low platform for the statue of a god or goddess worshipped in the temple, measuring about 12 ft. by 9.5 ft., with a cuneiform inscription, presumably of King Ashurnasirpal II. The smaller shrine contained a dais severely damaged in antiquity. These artifacts provide valuable clues regarding Assyrian religious practices and the deities worshipped there for centuries.

Other noteworthy finds in the shrines were possible parts of statues of unknown deities, which would have once stood on the daises. Yet only fragments of these types of statues and their accouterments were found after invaders from Babylonia (southern and central Iraq) and Media (ancient western Iran) pillaged and burned the temple around 614-12 BCE, overthrowing the Assyrian Empire. Through careful examination, excavators hope to develop a detailed picture of the religious practices surrounding the state god Ninurta, the war god of the mighty Assyrians, and closely associated deities as the kingdom emerged as one of the world’s first empires. Despite the looting and destruction of the temple in antiquity, the discoveries reveal Ninurta’s central role in the state religion and the incredible wealth held by the temple.

“The burning and sudden collapse of the Ninurta Temple left it in a remarkable state of preservation. The team located preserved cedar wood brought to Nimrud from the Lebanon Mountains for the temple’s construction—exactly as it was recorded in the inscriptions by King Ashurnasirpal II, in which he describes building the temple precinct,” says Dr. Michael Danti, Program Director of the IHSP. “The condition and distribution of artifacts strongly suggest that the shrines and associated treasures were looted and intentionally damaged by the Babylonians and Medes before being set ablaze.”

According to Dr. Danti, the most intriguing find was a kudurru, a cuneiform-inscribed stone monument in the temple, which dates to 797 BCE and features symbols of important deities. It documents a royal decree granting the governorship of Hindanu, an area located on the Euphrates River at the Syria-Iraq border.

“The Assyrian king Adad-Nerari III (811-783 BCE) assigned this strategic region to a governor named Nergal-Eresh of Rasappa (located west of the Tigris and northwest from Nimrud in the Khabur River region),” Dr. Danti explains. “It strongly emphasizes that no one may refute Nergal-Eresh’s claim to his new territory. It closes with a long list of curses for anyone who breaks the agreement, damages the stela, or removes it from the temple.”

Researchers also found well-preserved clay tablets with cuneiform inscriptions written in Assyrian (a dialect of Akkadian) that reveal details about the temple’s economic activities, such as silver loans and lists of assets, along with a note written in Aramaic—a language and script widely used during the later Assyrian Empire. Other objects recovered during the excavations include a stone bowl set into the brick floor of the shrine, likely used for pouring libations during religious ceremonies, the sculpted head of a griffon, fragments of glazed pottery and stone tablets, carved ivories, and jewelry. The wide range of object types, materials, and artistic styles reflect the burgeoning wealth of the Assyrian Empire and its vast military conquests and trade connections.

Preserving Assyria exhibition at the Penn Museum

Another site included in the Penn Nimrud Project is the Assyrian capital of Nineveh in the modern city of East Mosul, where the IHSP is helping to repair damage from terrorist attacks to the ancient fortifications of the Assyrian city. In support of the reconstruction effort, excavations at the Mashki Gate revealed detailed reliefs depicting military campaigns of King Sennacherib (705-681 BCE), which were 3D scanned by IHSP. Portions of their replicas will be the focus of an upcoming exhibition at the Penn Museum, Preserving Assyria, opening February 8, 2025.

______________________________

A closer look at the dais uncovered by Penn Museum and Iraqi archaeologists at Nimrud, Iraq (2024). Photo: Penn Museum

______________________________

The dais uncovered by Penn Museum and Iraqi archaeologists at Nimrud, Iraq (2024). Photo: Penn Museum

___________________________

The most intriguing find for archaeologists at Nimrud (2024) was a kudurru, a cuneiform-inscribed stone monument. It documents a royal decree granting the governorship of an area near the Euphrates River at the Syria-Iraq border. Photo: Penn Museum

___________________________

Cuneiform inscriptions can be seen on this Kudurru found by Penn Museum and Iraqi archaeologists at Nimrud, Iraq (2024). Photo: Penn Museum.

___________________________

Article Source: Penn Museum news release

___________________________

The University of Pennsylvania, Nimrud Archaeological Trust, and private sources funded the project.

 ABOUT THE PENN MUSEUM

The Penn Museum’s mission is to be a center for inquiry and the ongoing exploration of humanity for our University of Pennsylvania, regional, national, and global communities, following ethical standards and practices.

Through conducting research, stewarding collections, creating learning opportunities, sharing stories, and creating experiences that expand access to archaeology and anthropology, the Museum builds empathy and connections across diverse cultures.

The Penn Museum is open Tuesday-Sunday, 10:00 am-5:00 pm. It is open until 8:00 pm on first Wednesdays of the month through March. The Café is open Tuesday-Thursday, 9:00 am-3:00 pm and Friday and Saturday, 10:00 am-2:00 pm. For information, visit www.penn.museum, call 215.898.4000, or follow @PennMuseum on social media.

___________________________

Advertisement

EXPLORE THE ANCIENT ETRUSCANS IN PERSON!
Experience a unique, up-close-and-personal hike among ancient hilltop towns in central Italy. You will walk the sensational countryside of the regions of Umbria and Tuscany, soaking in important sites attesting to the advanced Etruscan civilization, forerunners of the ancient Romans; imposing architectural and cultural remains of Medieval Italy; local food and drink; and perhaps best of all — spectacular scenic views! Join us in this collaborative event for the trip of a lifetime!

Aarhus University—At a Neolithic settlement on the Danish island Funen dating back 5,500 years, archaeologists have discovered both grinding stones and grains from early cereals. However, new research* reveals that the inhabitants did not use the stones to grind the cereal grains. Instead of making bread, they likely prepared porridge or gruel from the grains.

A grinding stone, as the name suggests, is a stone with a sufficiently flat surface that allows grinding against it with another, smaller stone.

Archaeologists found fourteen of such stones when they excavated the remains of a settlement from the Early Neolithic Funnel Beaker Culture at Frydenlund, on Strandby Mark southeast of Haarby on Funen (see fact box at the bottom of this text).

You can view 3D images of 11 different grindings stones from the Frydenlund site here (you can rotate and turn them with your mouse). 

They also found over 5,000 charred grain kernels of naked barley, emmer wheat, and durum wheat, amongst others.

One might offhand assume that the inhabitants 5,500 years ago ground their cereals into flour and baked bread with it. That has indeed been the typical interpretation of grinding stones from that time.

But they didn’t.

An international research team from Denmark, Germany and Spain has now analyzed both the grains and the stones, concluding that the grinding stones were not used to grind cereals. 

The researchers examined microscopic mineral plant remains (phytoliths) and starch grains in small cavities on the surfaces of the stones. Surprisingly, they did not find any evidence of grinding of cereals.

The researchers found only a few phytoliths on the stones, and the starch grains they identified came from wild plants instead of cereals.

“We have not identified the plants the starch grains originate from. We have merely ruled out the most obvious candidates – namely the cereals found at the settlement, which were not ground, as well as various collected species, including hazelnuts,” explains archaeobotanist, PhD Welmoed Out from Moesgaard Museum.

Together with senior researcher, Dr. Phil. Niels H. Andersen, also from Moesgaard Museum, she led the study recently published in the scientific journal Vegetation History and Archaeobotany.

What the grinding stones were used for remains open to interpretation, aside from the fact that they lack clear wear marks from the pushing motions used for grinding grain.

“The trough-shaped querns with traces of pushing movements emerged 500 years later. The grinding stones we studied here were struck with pestles made of stone, like crushing in a mortar. We also found such pestles at the site, resembling rounded, thick stone sausages. However, we have not analyzed them for phytoliths or starch,” explains Niels H. Andersen.

This is the first time a state-of-the-art combination of phytolith and starch analyses has been performed on grinding stones from the first farmers in Northern Europe. The results support a hypothesis that archaeobotanists and archaeologists elsewhere in Northern Europe also have proposed after discovering remains of grains cooked into porridge and gruel: that the first farmers did not live on water and bread but rather on water and gruel, alongside berries, nuts, roots, and meat.

And yes, they likely drank water. According to Niels H. Andersen, no definitive traces of beer brewing have been found in Denmark before the Bronze Age.

However, as the two researchers from Moesgaard Museum emphasize: “This study only involves one settlement. While it supports other findings from the Funnel Beaker Culture, we cannot rule out the possibility of different results emerging when this method is applied to finds from other excavations.”

Facts:

• The Funnel Beaker Culture was an early farming culture in Northern, Central, and Eastern Europe during the period ca. 4000–2800 BCE, marking the introduction of agriculture and cattle farming to Scandinavia. The name refers to the culture’s commonly found clay beakers with funnel-shaped necks.
• The discovery on Southern Funen is the most extensive find of grinding stones and grains from the Funnel Beaker Culture in the entire region it encompassed.
• The study was done in collaboration between researchers from Moesgaard Museum and Aarhus University in Denmark, Kiel University in Germany and the Spanish National Research Council (IMF-CSIC) in Barcelona

________________________________

One of the 14 grinding stones that archeologists found while excavating a 5,500 years old settlement on the Danish island Funen. A new study reveals that the stones were not used to grind cereal grains. Niels H. Andersen, Moesgaard Museum

________________________________

Article Source: Aarhus University news release

*Plant use at Funnel Beaker sites: combined macro- and micro-remains analysis at the Early Neolithic site of Frydenlund, Denmark (ca. 3600 BCE), Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 16-Dec-2024. 10.1007/s00334-024-01020-9 

________________________________

Advertisement

EXPLORE THE ANCIENT ETRUSCANS IN PERSON!
Experience a unique, up-close-and-personal hike among ancient hilltop towns in central Italy. You will walk the sensational countryside of the regions of Umbria and Tuscany, soaking in important sites attesting to the advanced Etruscan civilization, forerunners of the ancient Romans; imposing architectural and cultural remains of Medieval Italy; local food and drink; and perhaps best of all — spectacular scenic views! Join us in this collaborative event for the trip of a lifetime!

Florence, Italy — Following a complex three-year process involving teams of experts, Museo di Palazzo Vecchio’s Wardrobe, commonly known as the Map Room—the most visited gallery in the museum—has been fully restored thanks to funding provided by Friends of Florence.

The project included restoration of both the large terrestrial globe and 53 maps of the world as it was known in the second half of the 16th century commissioned by Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici. The process also involved the structural consolidation of the floor, the installation of a domotic lighting system, the complete overhaul and maintenance of the 13 monumental walnut cabinets with carved decorative motifs by Dionigi di Matteo Nigetti; and the replacement of protective acrylic panes with modern antiglare panels.

The operation was devised and managed by Palazzo Vecchio’s Servizio Belle Arti e Fabbrica under the Direzione Servizi Tecnici in conjunction with the Direzione Cultura’s Servizio Musei. Most of the process was conducted on site so visitors could watch the restorers at work.

In tandem with the restoration, the Museo Galileo, thanks to an accord stipulated with the Comune di Firenze, developed a website enabling users to conduct an interactive 3D exploration of the room, which has been reconstructed digitally along with the globe and works of art it houses. An illustrated publication documenting the restoration process will be published by Mandragora in 2025. Both the website and publication are also supported by Friends of Florence.

The Map Room, a valuable part of the Palazzo Vecchio museum, has been restored to its former glory,” said Florence Mayor Sara Funaro. “This room of immense historical importance has been the object of a complex and meticulous operation thanks to the unflagging involvement of Palazzo Vecchio’s Servizio Belle Arti e Fabbrica. The superb globe in the center of the room, one of the oldest in the world, has also recovered its original beauty. And it is now going to be possible, quite literally, for users to immerse themselves in this unique environment thanks to the innovative technology developed by the Museo Galileo. A huge thank you to Friends of Florence, which is once again working hand in hand with our city to safeguard and enhance its artistic heritage.”

“This is one of the best-loved parts of our museum and now, after its restoration, it is even more beautiful,” opined Councilor for Cultural Affairs Giovanni Bettarini. “Thanks to the generosity of Friends of Florence, this room is once again a treasure house of beauty and knowledge that illustrates for us how the world was known back in the days of Grand Duke Cosimo I. This restoration, conducted by our distinguished experts and restorers, has been truly fascinating to track and now allows us to see this room as it was in the Renaissance, with an interesting 3D virtual tour produced thanks to the expertise of the Museo Galileo.”

“The Palazzo Vecchio Wardrobe study and restoration program has been a fascinating undertaking that has brought art, history, and geography together in a single project,” said Friends of Florence President Simonetta Brandolini d’Adda. “After three years’ work, the result is truly extraordinary. We thank Palazzo Vecchio’s Servizio Belle Arti e Fabbrica, the Servizio Tecnici, the Direzione Cultura’s Servizio Musei, and the Museo Galileo for their collegial partnership. We are also immensely grateful to our donor, the Giorgi Family Foundation, for their generous support for this special project.”

Soprintendente Antonella Ranaldi added, “This complex restoration, which has brought together the various institutions involved, is accompanied by explanatory videos and 3D models and by a dedicated publication, providing a splendid example of public- and private-sector involvement, and with Friends of Florence playing a proactive role in the funding.”

Background

The Map Room

When Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici (1519–1574) moved into the Palazzo Vecchio, the adjacent buildings were used as the Wardrobe, space in which the court’s movable property was stored. Beginning in 1661, this area was transformed under the direction of Giorgio Vasari to display, per the Duke, all the “things of heaven and earth.” The room’s design, devised by Vasari with cosmographer Fra’ Miniato Pitti and still partly unfinished at Cosimo’s death, featured 57 maps of lands then known in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the New World fitted as panels on the doors of the large wooden cabinets.

The ceiling, decorated with allegorical figures of the constellations, was to open to allow two large globes to drop down from a star-spangled vault: the celestial globe, which may never have been made, was to remain suspended in mid-air, while the extant terrestrial globe was to be lowered to the ground. The design also provided for busts of princes and emperors and the first 300 portraits of illustrious men in the Gioviana Collection (subsequently transferred to the Galleria degli Uffizi) to be displayed between the cabinets and the ceiling. The idea of displaying all the “things of heaven and earth” in a single room reflects Cosimo’s interest in the natural and mathematical sciences, geography, and trade, but also the Duke’s self-celebratory projects alluding to his name and the Greek word “cosmos.”

____________________________

“Sala della Guardaroba” (Wardrobe Room, or commonly known as the Map Room), 16th century, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Italy, after 2021-24 restoration with support from Friends of Florence. Terrestrial globe and geographical maps by Egnazio Danti and Stefano Bonsignori with walnut cabinets by Dionigi di Matteo. Photo courtesy of Comune di Firenze.

____________________________

“Sala della Guardaroba” (Wardrobe Room, or commonly known as the Map Room), 16th century, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Italy, after 2021-24 restoration with support from Friends of Florence. Detail of geographical maps by Egnazio Danti and Stefano Bonsignori with walnut cabinets by Dionigi di Matteo Nigetti. Photo courtesy of Comune di Firenze

____________________________

The Maps

The 13 large walnut cabinets (initially used to store tapestries and other textiles) were made by Dionigi di Matteo Nigetti between 1564 and 1571. Of the 57 maps in the original design, only 53 survive. Thirty of these were based on a design by the Dominican cosmographer Fra’ Egnazio Danti and completed in 1575, while the others were designed by his successor, the Olivetan monk Dom Stefano Bonsignori. The groups differ essentially in the techniques adopted by the two artists. Danti’s technique is akin to painting on paper and parchment reminiscent of illuminated codices, with inscriptions, profiles, and chiaroscuro outlined in ink. Bonsignori’s applied opaque brushwork using oil paints most commonly used at the time.

The spectacular globe in the center of the room, which measures some 220 cm. in diameter, is the world’s earliest surviving large-scale model of Earth. It was made with immense skill at a time when the technique for building such scientific instruments had not yet been codified. It was first fashioned between 1564 and 1569 by Fra’ Danti with the Medici court architect and engineer Antonio Lupicini who made its interior shell and its external iron structure “with such a new technique that with one finger alone that huge machine could be moved in every direction,” as Giorgio Vasari noted at the time. After it had become impossible to produce the amazing, theatrical machine envisioned by Cosimo I, the globe was moved to the new ducal residence in the Palazzo Pitti, before being transferred to the Terrazzo degli Uffizi around 1594.

In 1776, the globe was moved once again along with the entire grand ducal collection of scientific instruments to the new Museum of Physics and Natural History known today as La Specola. It remained there until the Comune di Firenze had it restored in the 1950s and returned to the room in Palazzo Vecchio for which it had originally been designed.

As restorers discovered during the intervention, however, the globe now in Palazzo Vecchio is no longer the one produced to Fra’ Danti’s design. After only a few decades its surface was restored – and possibly updated – on two separate occasions. The first was completed by court cosmographer Antonio Santucci in 1597 and the second a decade later by his successor Matteo Neroni.

An analysis of its surface, a historical and cartographical examination of the countries depicted, and a series of hitherto unknown archival documents discovered as the project was underway, show that between 1605 and 1613, Neroni did not confine himself to simply restoring and updating Fra’ Danti’s globe. Rather, he completely demolished it in order to rebuild it from scratch, from its innermost layers, possibly salvaging only the main part of the iron shell that Lupicini had made some 40 years earlier.

Restoration

The various restoration procedures were accompanied by a full program of multispectral photographic documentation and analyses. The globe was also recorded through the various phases of restoration with photogrammetrical surveys and the production of three-dimensional models. Its interior was inspected with a videoendoscope enabling restorers to get a clear picture of the composition of every layer in the painted surface’s complex support system.

The maps were restored in the adjacent Old Chancellery, in full public view, with the paintings being removed from the cabinet doors one at a time and then returned after restoration. Their wooden supports were in good condition overall, but both groups displayed defects in relation to the painting technique used: the paint and colors had deteriorated in the areas representing the sea on Bonsignori’s panels. The paintings’ legibility was seriously impaired by the effects of earlier restorations. Aggressive cleaning had worn down the painted surfaces; consolidations created stains; materials used over time had deteriorated; and the surfaces were extensively covered in a brown patina.

The present restoration project was designed to improve the painted panels’ legibility by conducting selective thinning or removal of the earlier restoration materials and retouching.

The operation enabled restorers to recover color values consistent with the original palette, such as the intense lapis lazuli blue of the seas in Fra’ Danti’s panels and the gleam of the tonal transitions in Bonsignori’s work.

The terrestrial globe, which could not be moved, was restored on site allowing the public to view the process. Barely legible and badly damaged by being moved around over the centuries and exposed to the elements when it stood in the courtyard of the Museo della Specola in the 19th century, the globe was removed from its external iron structure and placed on a wooden base. The challenging cleaning operation was conducted in two phases. First, the thick layer of repainting was completely removed. The second phase required removing, one by one, the countless residual black vestiges of old oil-based retouching that may have dated back to a 19th-century restoration.

The stunning, original palette was revealed. Lapis lazuli was used for the blue seas rippling with waves traversed by ships and sea creatures; gold for the inscriptions; ochre and malachite for the land masses with their reliefs highlighted and sparkling with golden specks; and cinnabar red for the islands and cities represented by small castles or by dots and the lines of the geographical grid.

The globe’s external support structure consisting of various iron pieces was dismantled, restored, and reassembled. This operation confirmed that the most important surviving iron elements are still the original pieces, despite their repeated disassembly and other interventions. The cleaning operation to remove deteriorated protective materials and surface corrosion revealed the details of the engraved graduations and inscriptions that had been invisible.

____________________________

“Sala della Guardaroba” (Wardrobe Room, or commonly known as the Map Room), 16th century, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Italy, after 2021-24 restoration with support from Friends of Florence. Detail of terrestrial globe by Egnazio Danti and Stefano Bonsignori. Photo courtesy of Comune di Firenze

____________________________

Website

Designed by the Museo Galileo with the support of the Friends of Florence, the new website is a 3D digital model of the cosmographical and geographical content in the renovated Map Room. Zoomable, it is designed to facilitate access to the room, maps, and globe with links to additional information. Visitors may rotate the model globe in any direction; see the metal and wood supports and materials used inside; and explore the surface and locations depicted.

Videos include an introduction, six segments devoted to the historical figures involved in the room’s layout and design, and two illustrating the designs themselves, one devised by Giorgio Vasari and a variant by architect and cosmographer Antonio Lupicini.

The protagonists in the videos are: Grand Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, who first envisioned the project; Vasari, his architect and the designer of the mechanical equipment intended to make the model cosmos come to life; the cosmographer Dom Miniato Pitti charged by Vasari to produce the cosmographical mechanism; Cosimo I’s cosmographer Fra’ Egnazio Danti responsible for the terrestrial globe and for the majority of the cosmographical panels painted on the cabinet doors; Francesco I’s cosmographer Dom Stefano Buonsignori produced the rest of the cosmographical panels; and Antonio Lupicini designed the globe’s metal structure and devised a variant for the mechanical equipment which, in the end, was never built. https://mostre2.museogalileo.it/palazzovecchio-guardaroba/index.php/en/

Museo Galileo’s Scientific Director Filippo Camerota said, “The website project developed by the museum will enable anyone to virtually explore the Palazzo Vecchio museum’s Wardrobe in such a way that they will be able to consult content in detail, read the texts, and analyze information in greater depth. This useful tool for researchers, scholars, and enthusiasts alike is a research project that testifies to our institution’s commitment to combining the stringent study of historical sources with innovative ways of making information available to a broader audience, acting in synergy with the leading public- and private-sector players in our region.”

“The maps of Danti and Buonsignori, are on permanent loan to Palazzo Vecchio from the Gallerie degli Uffizi,” said Simona Pasquinucci, who is in charge of the Gallerie degli Uffizi’s Curatorial Department. “They have recovered their brilliance and their luminosity thanks to the restoration funded by the Friends of Florence, whom we thank profusely. It has proven to be a highly productive collaboration, for which we are grateful to the Comune di Firenze.”

___________________________

About Friends of Florence

Friends of Florence is a non-profit foundation supported by individuals from around the world who are dedicated to preserving and enhancing the rich cultural heritage of Florence and Tuscany and conserving irreplaceable artistic and cultural treasures. Friends of Florence identifies significant projects spanning centuries in need of restoration, secures funding, and works in collaboration with local authorities to complete projects.

Since its founding in 1998, the Foundation has raised and donated $10 million for conservation projects in the region. Friends of Florence works directly with Florence’s famed conservation laboratories to ensure restoration is done at the highest level, has the approval of the City of Florence and the Italian Ministry of Art, and is completed on time and on budget.

Through its work, Friends of Florence creates opportunities for the study and appreciation of paintings, sculptures, architectural elements, places of worship, and collections at the Uffizi Gallery, the Accademia, the Baptistry, the Piazza della Signoria, the Museum of San Marco, and dozens of other museums, churches, and public sites.

A model of high-impact, low-overhead philanthropy, Friends of Florence is the primary source of funding for the city’s conservators, a respected partner with museums and cultural authorities in Italy and the U.S., and a publisher/producer of publications, multimedia offerings, seminars, lectures, and cultural travel opportunities. www.friendsofflorence.org

___________________________

Advertisement

EXPLORE THE ANCIENT ETRUSCANS IN PERSON!
Experience a unique, up-close-and-personal hike among ancient hilltop towns in central Italy. You will walk the sensational countryside of the regions of Umbria and Tuscany, soaking in important sites attesting to the advanced Etruscan civilization, forerunners of the ancient Romans; imposing architectural and cultural remains of Medieval Italy; local food and drink; and perhaps best of all — spectacular scenic views! Join us in this collaborative event for the trip of a lifetime!

University of California – Berkeley—A new analysis* of DNA from ancient modern humans (Homo sapiens) in Europe and Asia has determined, more precisely than ever, the time period during which Neanderthals interbred with modern humans, starting about 50,500 years ago and lasting about 7,000 years — until Neanderthals began to disappear.

That interbreeding left Eurasians with many genes inherited from our Neanderthal ancestors, which in total make up between 1% and 2% of our genomes today.

The genome-based estimate is consistent with archeological evidence that modern humans and Neanderthals lived side-by-side in Eurasia for between 6,000 and 7,000 years. The analysis, which involved present-day human genomes as well as 58 ancient genomes sequenced from DNA found in modern human bones from around Eurasia, found an average date for Neanderthal-Homo sapiens interbreeding of about 47,000 years ago. Previous estimates for the time of interbreeding ranged from 54,000 to 41,000 years ago.

The new dates also imply that the initial migration of modern humans from Africa into Eurasia was basically over by 43,500 years ago.

“The timing is really important because it has direct implications on our understanding of the timing of the out-of-Africa migration as most non-Africans today inherit 1-2% ancestry from Neanderthals,” said Priya Moorjani, an assistant professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and one of two senior authors of the study. “It also has implications for understanding the settlement of the regions outside Africa, which is typically done by looking at archeological materials or fossils in different regions of the world.”

The genome analysis, also led by Benjamin Peter of the University of Rochester in New York and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) in Leipzig, Germany, will be published in the Dec. 13 print issue of the journal Science. The two lead authors are Leonardo Iasi, a graduate student at MPI-EVA, and Manjusha Chintalapati, a former UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow now at the company Ancestry DNA.

The longer duration of gene flow may help explain, for example, why East Asians have about 20% more Neanderthal genes than Europeans and West Asians. If modern humans moved eastward about 47,000 years ago, as archeological sites suggest, they would already have had intermixed Neanderthal genes.

“We show that the period of mixing was quite complex and may have taken a long time. Different groups could have separated during the 6,000- to 7,000-year period and some groups may have continued mixing for a longer period of time,” Peter said. “But a single shared period of gene flow fits the data best.”

“One of the main findings is the precise estimate of the timing of Neanderthal admixture, which was previously estimated using single ancient samples or in present-day individuals. Nobody had tried to model all of the ancient samples together,” Chintalapati said. “ This allowed us to build a more complete picture of the past”

Neanderthal deserts in the genome

In 2016, Moorjani pioneered a method for inferring the timing of Neanderthal gene flow using often incomplete genomes of ancient individuals. At that time, only five archaic Homo sapiens genomes were available. For the new study, Iasi, Chintalapati and their colleagues employed this technique with 58 previously sequenced genomes of ancient Homo sapiens who lived in Europe, Western and Central Asia over the past 45,000 years and the genomes of 275 worldwide contemporary humans to provide a more precise date — 47,000 years ago. Rather than assuming the gene flow occurred in a single generation, they tried more complex models developed by Iasi and Peter to establish that the interbreeding extended over about 7,000 years, rather than being intermittent.

The timing of the interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans was corroborated by another, independent study conducted by MPI-EVA researchers and scheduled to be published Dec. 12 in the journal Nature. That study, an analysis of two newly sequenced genomes of Homo sapiens that lived about 45,000 years ago, also found a date of 47,000 years ago.

“Although the ancient genomes were published in previous studies, they had not been analyzed to look at Neanderthal ancestry in this detailed way. We created a catalog of Neanderthal ancestry segments in modern humans. By jointly analyzing all these samples together, we inferred the period of gene flow was around 7,000 years,” Chintalapati said. “The Max Planck group actually sequenced new ancient DNA samples that allowed them to date the Neanderthal gene flow directly. And they came up with a similar timing as us.”

The UC Berkeley/MPI-EVA team also analyzed regions of the modern human genome that contain genes inherited from Neanderthals and some areas that are totally devoid of Neanderthal genes. They found that areas lacking any Neanderthal genes, so-called archaic or Neanderthal deserts, developed quickly after the two groups interbred, suggesting that some Neanderthal gene variants in those areas of the genome must have been lethal to modern humans.

Early modern human samples that are older than 40,000 years — samples from Oase cave in Romania, Ust’-Ishim in Russia, Zlatý kůň in the Czech Republic, Tianyuan in China and Bacho Kiro in Bulgaria  — already contained these deserts in their genomes.

“We find that very early modern humans from 40,000 years ago don’t have any ancestry in the deserts, so these deserts may have formed very rapidly after the gene flow,” said Iasi. “We also looked at the changes in Neanderthal ancestry frequency over time and across the genome and found regions that are present at high frequency, possibly because they carry beneficial variants that were introgressed from Neanderthals.”

Most of the high-frequency Neanderthal genes are related to immune function, skin pigmentation and metabolism, as reported in some previous studies. One immune gene variant inherited from Neanderthals confers protective effects to coronavirus that causes COVID-19, for example. Some of the Neanderthal genes involved in the immune system and skin pigmentation actually increased in frequency in Homo sapiens over time, implying that they may have been advantageous to human survival.

“Neanderthals were living outside Africa in harsh, Ice Age climates and were adapted to the climate and to the pathogens in these environments. When modern humans left Africa and interbred with Neanderthals, some individuals inherited Neanderthal genes that presumably allowed them to adapt and thrive better in the environment,” Iasi said.

“The fact that we find some of these regions already in 30,000-year-old samples shows that some of these regions were actually adapted immediately after the introgression,” Chintalapati added.

Other genes, such as the gene conferring resistance to coronaviruses, may not have been immediately useful but became useful later on.

“The environment changes and then some genes become beneficial,” Peter said.

Moorjani is currently looking at Neanderthal sequences in people of East Asian descent, who not only have a greater percentage of Neanderthal genes, but also some genes — up to 0.1% of their genome — from another early hominin group, the Denisovans.

“It’s really cool that we can actually peer into the past and see how variants inherited from our evolutionary cousins, Neanderthals and Denisovans, changed over time,” Moorjani said. “This allows us to understand the dynamics of the mixture of Neanderthals and modern humans.”

Other co-authors of the Science paper were postdoctoral fellow Laurits Skov of UC Berkeley and Alba Bossoms Mesa and Mateja Hajdinjak of MPI-EVA. Moorjani’s research was supported by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the National Institutes of Health (R35GM142978).

__________________________

Illustration of an encounter between a group of Neanderthals (black) and a group of modern humans (red, top row) with offspring showing recent Neanderthal ancestry (red, bottom row), imagined as a cave art painting. DNA from bones and teeth of these early human ancestors is helping scientists understand the interactions between early Homo sapiens and the Neanderthals they encountered after migrating out of Africa. Leonardo Iasi, MPI-EVA. Figure created with Dall-E and BioRender.com

__________________________

Article Source: University of California – Berkeley news release.

*Neandertal ancestry through time: Insights from genomes of ancient and present-day humans, Science, 13-Dec-2024. 10.1126/science.adq3010 

__________________________

Advertisement

EXPLORE THE ANCIENT ETRUSCANS IN PERSON!
Experience a unique, up-close-and-personal hike among ancient hilltop towns in central Italy. You will walk the sensational countryside of the regions of Umbria and Tuscany, soaking in important sites attesting to the advanced Etruscan civilization, forerunners of the ancient Romans; imposing architectural and cultural remains of Medieval Italy; local food and drink; and perhaps best of all — spectacular scenic views! Join us in this collaborative event for the trip of a lifetime!

PLOS—A research group led by Johannes Müller at the Institute of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology, at Kiel University, Germany, have shed light on the lives of people who lived over 5,600 years ago near Kosenivka, Ukraine. Published on December 11, 2024, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, the researchers present the first detailed bioarchaeological analyses of human diets from this area and provide estimations on the causes of death of the individuals found at this site.

The people associated with the Neolithic Cucuteni-Trypilla culture lived across Eastern Europe from approximately 5500 to 2750 BCE. With up to 15,000 inhabitants, some of their mega-sites are among the earliest and largest city-like settlements in prehistoric Europe. Despite the vast number of artefacts the Trypillia left behind, archeologists have found very few human remains. Due to this absence, many facets of the lives of this ancient people are still undiscovered.

The researchers studied a settlement site near Kosenivka, Ukraine. Comprised of several houses, this site is unique for the presence of human remains. The 50 human bone fragments recovered among the remains of a house stem from at least seven individuals—children, adults, males and a female, perhaps once inhabitants of the house. The remains of four of the individuals were also heavily burnt. The researchers were keen to explore potential causes for these burns, such as an accidental fire, or a rare form of burial rite.

The burnt bone fragments were largely found in the center of the house, and previous studies surmised the inhabitants of this site died in a house fire. Scrutinizing the pieces of bone under a microscope, the researchers concluded that the burning probably occurred quickly after death. In the case of an accidental fire, the researchers propose that some individuals could have died of carbon monoxide poisoning, even if they fled the house.

According to radiocarbon dating, one of the individuals died ca. 100 years later. The death of this person cannot be connected to the fire, but is otherwise unknown. Two other individuals with unhealed cranial injuries raise the question of whether violence could have played a role as well. A review of Trypillian human bone finds showed the researchers that less than 1% of the dead were cremated, and even more rarely buried within a house.

While bones can help archeologists speculate how ancient people died, these remains can also help us understand how they lived. By analyzing the carbon and nitrogen present in the bones—as well as in grains and the remains of animals found at the site—the researchers determined meat made up less than 10% of the inhabitants’ diets. This is in line with teeth found at the site, which have wear marks that indicate chewing on grains and other plant fibers. That Trypillia diets consisted mostly of plants supports theories that cattle in these cultures were primarily used for manuring the fields and milk rather than meat production.

Katharina Fuchs, first author of the study, adds: “Skeletal remains are real biological archives. Although researching the Trypillia societies and their living conditions in the oldest city-like communities in Eastern Europe will remain challenging, our ‘Kosenvika case’ clearly shows that even small fragments of bone are of great help. By combining new osteological, isotopic, archaeobotanical and archaeological information, we provide an exceptional insight into the lives—and perhaps also the deaths—of these people.”

____________________________

Archaeological context of Kosenivka. A: Map showing the location of the settlement of Kosenivka and the Chalcolithic sites referred to in the text. B: Photo showing the location of house 6 within the landscape. C: Photo showing house 6 being excavated, in 2004 (Map: R. Hofmann. Photos: republished from Kruts et al. [22] under a CC BY license with permission from V. Chabanyuk, original copyright 2005). Fuchs et al., 2024, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Kosenivka, selection of oral and pathological conditions. A–E: Individual 5/6/+left maxilla. A: Teeth positions 23–26 (buccal view). Signs of periodontal inflammation (upper arrows) and examples of dental calculus accumulation (third arrow) and dental chipping (lower arrow) on the first premolar (tooth 24). B: First premolar (24, mesial view). Interproximal grooving with horizonal striations on the lingual surface of the root (upper arrow) and at the cemento–enamel junction (middle arrow). Larger chipping lesion (lower arrow). C: Canine (23, distal view). Interproximal grooving, same location as on the neighbouring premolar (see B), but less distinct. D, E: Signs of periosteal reaction on the left maxillary sinus (medio–superior view). Increased vessel impressions (D, upper arrow) and porosity, as well as uneven bone surface (D, lower arrow, E), indicating inflammatory processes. F: Individual 2, left temporal, fragment (endocranial view). Periosteal reaction indicated by porous new bone formation (arrow). G: Individual 5, frontal bone (endocranial view). Periosteal reaction indicated by tongue-like new bone formation and increased vessel impressions (arrows). H: Individual 5/6/+, frontal bone, right part, orbital roof (inferior view). Signs of cribra orbitalia (evidenced by porosity, see arrow). Illustration: K. Fuchs. Fuchs et al., 2024, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

____________________________

Article Source: PLOS ONE news release.

*Life and death in Trypillia times: Interdisciplinary analyses of the unique human remains from the settlement of Kosenivka, Ukraine (3700–3600 BCE), PLOS ONE, 11-Dec-2024. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0289769

___________________________

Advertisement

EXPLORE THE ANCIENT ETRUSCANS IN PERSON!
Experience a unique, up-close-and-personal hike among ancient hilltop towns in central Italy. You will walk the sensational countryside of the regions of Umbria and Tuscany, soaking in important sites attesting to the advanced Etruscan civilization, forerunners of the ancient Romans; imposing architectural and cultural remains of Medieval Italy; local food and drink; and perhaps best of all — spectacular scenic views! Join us in this collaborative event for the trip of a lifetime!

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—Researchers uncovered a Paleolithic ritual chamber deep within a cave in the Levant*. The initial emergence of collective ritual practices among early humans in the Paleolithic period is not well-understood, partly due to the difficulty of identifying such ephemeral practices in the archaeological record. Omry Barzilai, Ofer Marder, Israel Hershkovitz, and colleagues documented an Early Upper Paleolithic ritual compound deep within Manot Cave in Israel. The ritual compound’s location in the deepest part of the cave is distinct from living areas close to the cave’s entrance, where activities such as flint knapping, animal butchering, and food consumption took place. The ritual site comprised a large gallery partitioned by speleothem cave formations. A large dolomite boulder engraved with complex, geometric patterns resembling a tortoise shell was prominently positioned at the back of the gallery. Linear microscratches within the grooves of the engraving indicated that it was carved by humans using sharp flint tools. Analysis of calcite crust on the boulder helped date the engraving to around 37,000–35,000 years ago. Wood ash particles identified in stalagmite laminae suggested that fire was used to illuminate the chamber. Acoustic analysis suggested that the ritual chamber was well-suited for conversations during communal gatherings. According to the authors, the ritual chamber represents the earliest known evidence of religious behavior in the Paleolithic Levant.

______________________________

Ritual compound at the deepest, darkest part of Manot Cave. Guy Geva

______________________________

Public ritual compound at the deepest part of Manot Cave and two rows of stalagmites leading to it. Guy Geva

______________________________

Article Source: PNAS news release.

*“Early human collective practices and symbolism in the Early Upper Paleolithic of Southwest Asia,” by Omry Barzilai et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 9-Dec-2024. https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2404632121

______________________________

Advertisement

EXPLORE THE ANCIENT ETRUSCANS IN PERSON!
Experience a unique, up-close-and-personal hike among ancient hilltop towns in central Italy. You will walk the sensational countryside of the regions of Umbria and Tuscany, soaking in important sites attesting to the advanced Etruscan civilization, forerunners of the ancient Romans; imposing architectural and cultural remains of Medieval Italy; local food and drink; and perhaps best of all — spectacular scenic views! Join us in this collaborative event for the trip of a lifetime!

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—Early rice domestication expanded alongside alcohol fermentation in Neolithic China, according to a study. Archaeological evidence has linked the earliest stages of rice (Oryza sp.) cultivation to the Shangshan culture in China’s lower Yangzi River region. The social processes that drove early rice domestication have not been well-studied. To explore early uses of domestic rice, Li Liu, Jianping Zhang, and colleagues analyzed microfossil remains, including phytoliths, starch granules, and fungi, associated with 12 pottery sherds excavated from the earliest deposits at a Shangshan site dated to around 10,000–9,000 years ago. The authors analyzed residues from the interior surfaces of the sherds and plant material incorporated into the clay itself. The analysis suggested that early domesticated rice was used both as a staple crop and for brewing fermented beverages using a traditional qu starter containing Monascus mold and yeast as fermentation agents. The authors note that the warm, humid climate of the early Holocene Epoch would have promoted fungal growth. Job’s tears grains, Panicoideae and Triticeae grasses, acorns, and lilies supplemented rice as fermentation ingredients. The authors report that the documented brewing method represents the earliest known fermentation technique in East Asia. According to the authors, alcoholic rice beverages likely served ritual functions and may have played a key role in the expansion of rice cultivation in Neolithic China.

______________________________

Shangshan pottery vessels and artistic representation of red beer served with a jar and cup. Leping Jiang, Jianping Zhang

______________________________

Article Source: PNAS news release.

*“Identification of 10,000-year-old rice beer at Shangshan in the Lower Yangzi River valley of China,” by Li Liu et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 9-Dec-2024. https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2412274121

______________________________

Advertisement

EXPLORE THE ANCIENT ETRUSCANS IN PERSON!
Experience a unique, up-close-and-personal hike among ancient hilltop towns in central Italy. You will walk the sensational countryside of the regions of Umbria and Tuscany, soaking in important sites attesting to the advanced Etruscan civilization, forerunners of the ancient Romans; imposing architectural and cultural remains of Medieval Italy; local food and drink; and perhaps best of all — spectacular scenic views! Join us in this collaborative event for the trip of a lifetime!

Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona—The interdisciplinary research of archaeological remains found in the Cave of Los Murciélagos in Albuñol, Granada, has revealed the sophistication of Ancient Neolithic archery in the Iberian Peninsula (5300-4900 BCE), and provides unprecedented information in the European context on the materials and manufacturing techniques used.

The study was led by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and published in Scientific Reports (Nature Portfolio). Several research teams from centres and universities in Spain were involved in the study, including the University of Alcalá (UAH), the Institute of Heritage Sciences (INCIPIT-CSIC) and the UAB Institute for Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA-UAB), as well as the Université Côte d’Azur and the CNRS in France.

The exceptional preservation of the organic remains, preserved thanks to having dried out, made it possible to identify and document elements of the archery equipment of Neolithic populations inhabiting the southwestern part of the peninsula some 7,000 years ago. Among the findings are arrows preserved with their original feathers, remains of fibres, and two bowstrings made of animal sinews, which are the oldest found so far in Europe.

«The identification of these bowstrings marks a crucial step in the study of Neolithic weaponry. Not only were we able to confirm the use of animal tendons to make them, but we also identified the genus or species of animal from which they came», explains Ingrid Bertin, researcher at the UAB and first author of the published article. Tendons from Capra sp. (a genus that includes several species of goats and ibex), Sus sp. (a genus to which wild boar and pigs belong) and roe deer were used, which were twisted together to create ropes of sufficient length. «With this technique, strong and flexible ropes could be made, to meet the needs of experienced archers. This degree of precision and technical mastery, where every detail counts, attests to the exceptional knowledge of these Neolithic artisans», says Raquel Piqué, researcher in the Department of Prehistory of the UAB and coordinator of the study.

Local resources and thorough transformations

On the other hand, the arrow shafts provide new information on the use of local resources and a thorough transformation. For the first time, the analysis has revealed the use of olive wood (Olea europaea) and reed wood (Phragmites sp).

The use of reeds for the manufacturing of arrows in prehistoric Europe, a hypothesis considered by researchers for decades, is finally confirmed by these findings. In addition, the combination of olive, willow and reed wood is a particularly interesting choice of materials: «This integration offers a hard and dense front section, complemented by a light back, which significantly improves the ballistic properties of the arrows, whose tips are made of wood without stone or bone projectiles. Future experiments may clarify whether these arrows could have been used for hunting or close-range combat, or whether they could have been non-lethal arrows», Ingrid Bertin states.

Finally, the arrow shafts were coated with birch bark pitch, a material obtained by a controlled heat treatment of the bark of this tree, used not only for its protective properties, but probably also for decorative purposes, which adds an aesthetic and functional dimension to the equipment.

New perspective on the region’s Neolithic groups

Since the early Neolithic, populations have developed technical knowledge that attests to an impressive adaptation to local resources, but the combination of varied materials and advanced techniques identified in this study redefines current understanding of the technologies used by prehistoric communities and offers a new perspective on Neolithic societies in the region, the research team states.

«The discoveries contribute to enrich the understanding of the artisan practices and daily life of prehistoric societies and open ways for the study of ancient weaponry, by revealing methods and materials that can be investigated at other European Neolithic archaeological sites», says Raquel Piqué. She goes on to say: «In addition, they provide a better understanding of the symbolic sphere linked to these grave goods from a funerary context, such as is the Cave of Los Murciélagos».

The research team concludes that the discoveries made at the Cave of Los Murciélagos redefine the limits of our knowledge about the earliest agricultural societies in Europe and provide a unique view on ancestral archery materials and practices.

The study of the archaeological remains was carried out by applying advanced microscopy and biomolecular analysis techniques, which combine protein and lipid analysis.

——————————————-

This research was carried out under the framework of the CHEMARCH project (MSCA-ITN-EJD, The chemistry and molecular biology of prehistoric artifacts) funded by the European Union Horizon 2020 programme, with the participation of ICTA-UAB, Universidad de Alcalá, INCIPIT-CSIC, Universidad de Córdoba, Universidad de las Palmas de Gran Canarias, Université Côte d’Azur and CNRS (France).

It was also carried out within the framework of the project “From the Museum to the Field: Updating Scholarship on the Cave of Los Murciélagos in Albuñol, Granada” (MUTERMUR), financed by the Regional Government of Madrid and the University of Alcalá. The objective of this project is the holistic study of the site and its material record, applying the latest archaeometric techniques and generating quality scientific data. The project included the collaboration of the National Archaeological Museum, the Archaeological and Ethnological Museum of Granada, the City Council of Albuñol, and the owners of the cave.

__________________________

Three Neolithic arrows recovered from the Cave of Los Murciélagos in Albuñol: reed and wood (above) and details of tied sinew fibers, feathers and birch bark pitch (below). © MUTERMUR Project.

__________________________

Fragments of sine bowstrings from the Cave of Los Murciélagos in Albuñol, the oldest bowstrings found so far in Europe. © MUTERMUR Project.

__________________________

Article Source: Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona news release.

*Iberian Neolithic societies had a deep knowledge of archery techniques and materials, Scientific Reports, 5-Dec-2024. 

__________________________

Advertisement

EXPLORE THE ANCIENT ETRUSCANS IN PERSON!
Experience a unique, up-close-and-personal hike among ancient hilltop towns in central Italy. You will walk the sensational countryside of the regions of Umbria and Tuscany, soaking in important sites attesting to the advanced Etruscan civilization, forerunners of the ancient Romans; imposing architectural and cultural remains of Medieval Italy; local food and drink; and perhaps best of all — spectacular scenic views! Join us in this collaborative event for the trip of a lifetime!

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)—A new analysis* of stable isotope data gathered from the only known representative of the ancient Paleoindian Clovis culture – an 18-month-old boy referred to as Anzick-1, who lived roughly 12,800 years ago in what is now Montana – has shown that his mother subsisted on a diet heavy in mammoth meat. Elk, bison, and a now-extinct genus of camel (Camelops) together ranked a distant second, with little evidence for smaller animals or plants contributing dietary protein. Moreover, the child’s isotopic “fingerprint” (inherited directly from his mother, as he was likely still breastfeeding) most closely resembles that of the extinct scimitar cat (Homotherium serum), known to be a mammoth specialist. James Chatters and colleagues suggest that their results lend substantial support to a long-debated hypothesis that the Western Clovis people were accomplished hunters, specializing in mammoth and other large animals – and not generalist foragers, as suggested by a competing hypothesis. “Our results provide direct evidence for Western Clovis diets at ~12,800 cal yr B.P.,” the authors write, noting that their analysis also comports with prior zooarchaeological evidence, including strong representation of mammoth remains across known Clovis faunal assemblages. “Collectively, these data suggest that Western Clovis people (represented by Anzick-1) were more focused on larger-bodied megafaunal grazers, primarily Mammuthus, and were not generalists who regularly consumed smaller-bodied herbivores.” To date, only three individuals have been identified as likely members of the Clovis culture. Of these, Anzick-1 is the only one that was both found in close association with Clovis artifacts and for whom researchers could generate an isotopic fingerprint from bone collagen. Found accidentally in 1968, analyses of Anzick-1 yielded genetic data in addition to isotopic fingerprinting, before the individual was repatriated and reinterred in 2014. Accordingly, Chatters et al. relied entirely on these previously published data for their analyses of Anzick-1’s maternal diet. They then gathered isotopic fingerprints for a variety of possible prey species that shared time and space with the Western Clovis culture – some previously published and some gained from new analyses. They plugged these profiles into three different dietary mixing models to generate a suite of likely diets for Anzick-1’s mother. They also did the same for several contemporaneous predator species for comparison, and saw that the scimitar cat – strongly suspected to be a mammoth specialist – offered the closest match. “Our findings are consistent with the Clovis megafaunal specialist model, using sophisticated technology and high residential mobility to subsist on the highest ranked prey, an adaptation allowing them to rapidly expand across the Americas south of the Pleistocene ice sheets,” Chatters et al. conclude.

__________________________

Location of Anzick site, faunal samples (circles) used in this study, and major Clovis sites (triangles). Glacial ice at 12,800 cal yr B.P. (72). Chatters et al., Sci. Adv. 10, eadr3814 (2024)

__________________________

A larger version of the submitted cover art depicting findings of the study. The image was created in a collaboration between the artist, Eric Carlson (Desert Archaeology, Inc.) and archaeologists Ben Potter (University of Alaska Fairbanks) and Jim Chatters (McMaster University).

__________________________

Article Source: AAAS news release.

*Mammoth featured heavily in Western Clovis diet, Science Advances, 4-Dec-2024. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adr3814

__________________________

Advertisement

EXPLORE THE ANCIENT ETRUSCANS IN PERSON!
Experience a unique, up-close-and-personal hike among ancient hilltop towns in central Italy. You will walk the sensational countryside of the regions of Umbria and Tuscany, soaking in important sites attesting to the advanced Etruscan civilization, forerunners of the ancient Romans; imposing architectural and cultural remains of Medieval Italy; local food and drink; and perhaps best of all — spectacular scenic views! Join us in this collaborative event for the trip of a lifetime!

Aalto University—From feeling heavy-hearted to having butterflies in your stomach, it seems inherent to the human condition that we feel emotions in our bodies, not just in our brains. But have we always felt –– or at least expressed –– these feelings in the same way?

A multidisciplinary team of researchers studied a large body of texts to find out how people in the ancient Mesopotamian region (within modern day Iraq) experienced emotions in their bodies thousands of years ago, analysing one million words of the ancient Akkadian language from 934-612 BC in the form of cuneiform scripts on clay tablets. 

‘Even in ancient Mesopotamia, there was a rough understanding of anatomy, for example the importance of the heart, liver and lungs,’ says Professor Saana Svärd of the University of Helsinki, an Assyriologist who is leading the research project. One of the most intriguing findings relates to where the ancients felt happiness, which was often expressed through words related to feeling ‘open’, ‘shining’ or being ‘full’ –– in the liver.

‘If you compare the ancient Mesopotamian bodily map of happiness with modern bodily maps [published by fellow Finnish scientist, Lauri Nummenmaa and colleagues a decade ago], it is largely similar, with the exception of a notable glow in the liver,’ says cognitive neuroscientist Juha Lahnakoski, a visiting researcher at Aalto University.

Other contrasting results between ourselves and the ancients can be seen in emotions such as anger and love. According to previous research, anger is experienced by modern humans in the upper body and hands, while Mesopotamians felt most ‘heated’, ‘enraged’ or ‘angry’ in their feet. Meanwhile, love is experienced quite similarly by modern and Neo-Assyrian man, although in Mesopotamia it is particularly associated with the liver, heart and knees.

‘It remains to be seen whether we can say something in the future about what kind of emotional experiences are typical for humans in general and whether, for example, fear has always been felt in the same parts of the body. Also, we have to keep in mind that texts are texts and emotions are lived and experienced,’ says Svärd. The researchers caution that while it’s fascinating to compare, we should keep this distinction in mind when comparing the modern body maps, which were based on self-reported bodily experience, with body maps of Mesopotamians based on linguistic descriptions alone.

Towards a deeper understanding of emotions

Since literacy was rare in Mesopotamia (3 000-300 BCE), cuneiform writing was mainly produced by scribes and therefore available only to the wealthy. However, cuneiform clay tablets contained a wide variety of texts, such as tax lists, sales documents, prayers, literature and early historical and mathematical texts.

Ancient Near Eastern texts have never been studied in this way, by quantitatively linking emotions to body parts. This can be applied to other language materials in the future. ‘It could be a useful way to explore intercultural differences in the way we experience emotions,’ says Svärd, who hopes the research will provide an interesting contribution to discussion around the universality of emotions.

The results of the research will be published in the iScience journal on 4 December.

The corpus linguistic method, which makes use of large text sets, has been developed over many years in the Centre of Excellence in Ancient Near Eastern Empires (ANEE), led by Svärd. Next, the research team will look at an English corpus, or textual material from the 20th century, which contains 100 million words. Similarly, they also plan to examine Finnish data. 

In addition to Svärd and Lahnakoski, the team includes Professor Mikko Sams from Aalto University, Ellie Bennett from the University of Helsinki, Professor Lauri Nummenmaa from the University of Turku and Ulrike Steinert from Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz. The project is funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation.

_______________________

Modern and Mesopotamian people experience love in a rather similar way. In Mesopotamia, love is particularly associated with the liver, heart and knees. Figure: Modern/PNAS: Lauri Nummenmaa et al. 2014, Mesopotamian: Juha Lahnakoski et al. 2024. 

_______________________

Modern man experiences anger in the upper body and hands. In Mesopotamia, anger was associated specifically with the feet. Figure: Modern/PNAS: Lauri Nummenmaa et al. 2014, Mesopotamian: Juha Lahnakoski et al. 2024.
_______________________

Happiness ‘lights up’ similar areas on both modern and ancient body maps, with the exception of the liver, which was more significant for the ancient Mesopotamians. Figure: Modern/PNAS: Lauri Nummenmaa et al. 2014, Mesopotamian: Juha Lahnakoski et. al 2024.

______________________

Article Source: Aalto University news release.

*Embodied emotions in ancient Neo-Assyrian texts revealed by bodily mapping of emotional semantics, iScience, 4-Dec-2024. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2024.111365

_____________________

Advertisement

EXPLORE THE ANCIENT ETRUSCANS IN PERSON!
Experience a unique, up-close-and-personal hike among ancient hilltop towns in central Italy. You will walk the sensational countryside of the regions of Umbria and Tuscany, soaking in important sites attesting to the advanced Etruscan civilization, forerunners of the ancient Romans; imposing architectural and cultural remains of Medieval Italy; local food and drink; and perhaps best of all — spectacular scenic views! Join us in this collaborative event for the trip of a lifetime!

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)—Newly discovered footprints show that at least two hominid species were walking through the muddy submerged edge of a lake in Kenya’s Turkana Basin at the same time, about 1.5 million years ago. The find from the famous hominid fossil site of Koobi Fora described by Kevin Hatala and colleagues provides physical evidence for the co-existence of multiple hominid lineages in the region—something that has only been inferred previously from overlapping dates for scattered fossils. Based on information on gait and stance gleaned from the footprints, Hatala et al. think that the two species were Homo erectus and Paranthropus boisei. This is the first evidence of two different patterns of bipedalism among Pleistocene hominids appearing on the same footprint surface. After examining the new Koobi Fora footprints, the researchers analyzed other similar-age hominid footprints and conclude there is a distinct pattern of two different types of bipedalism across the East Turkana region. The overall analysis indicates that the different species were contemporaneously using these lake habitats, with varying possibilities of competition or niche partitioning that could have impacted trends in human evolution. William Harcourt-Smith discusses the implications of the footprints in a related Perspective.

___________________________

A footprint hypothesized to have been created by a Homo erectus individual. Kevin G. Hatala

___________________________

An aerial photo of the excavated trackway surface, with members of the research team along its perimeter. Louise N. Leakey

___________________________

A footprint hypothesized to have been created by a Paranthropus boisei individual. Kevin G. Hatala

___________________________

Members of the research team excavating the trackway surface. Neil T. Roach

___________________________

A trackway of footprints hypothesized to have been created by a Paranthropus boisei individual. Neil T. Roach

___________________________

Article Source: AAAS news release.

*Footprint evidence for locomotor diversity and shared habitats among early Pleistocene hominins, Science, 29-Nov-2024. 10.1126/science.ado5275 

___________________________

Advertisement

EXPLORE THE ANCIENT ETRUSCANS IN PERSON!
Experience a unique, up-close-and-personal hike among ancient hilltop towns in central Italy. You will walk the sensational countryside of the regions of Umbria and Tuscany, soaking in important sites attesting to the advanced Etruscan civilization, forerunners of the ancient Romans; imposing architectural and cultural remains of Medieval Italy; local food and drink; and perhaps best of all — spectacular scenic views! Join us in this collaborative event for the trip of a lifetime!

University of Wyoming—A Wyoming archaeological site where people killed or scavenged a Columbian mammoth nearly 13,000 years ago has produced yet another discovery that sheds light on the life of these early inhabitants of North America.

Wyoming State Archaeologist Spencer Pelton and colleagues at the University of Wyoming and other institutions have found that these Paleolithic humans made needles from the bones of fur-bearers — including foxes; hares or rabbits; and cats such as bobcats, mountain lions, lynx and possibly even the now-extinct American cheetah. The needles likely were used to create garments from the animals’ furs to keep the early foragers warm in what was a cool climate.

The findings appear in the journal PLOS ONE, a top-tier, peer-reviewed, open-access scientific journal published by the Public Library of Science.

“Our study* is the first to identify the species and likely elements from which Paleoindians produced eyed bone needles,” the researchers wrote. “Our results are strong evidence for tailored garment production using bone needles and fur-bearing animal pelts. These garments partially enabled modern human dispersal to northern latitudes and eventually enabled colonization of the Americas.”

The LaPrele site in Converse County preserves the remains of a killed or scavenged sub-adult mammoth and an associated camp occupied during the time the animal was butchered almost 13,000 years ago. Also discovered in the archaeological excavation — led by UW Department of Anthropology Professor Todd Surovell — was a bead made from a hare bone, the oldest known bead in the Americas.

Identification of the origins of both the bone bead and bone needles was made possible through the use of zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry, also known as ZooMS, and Micro-CT scanning. Collagen was extracted from the artifacts, and the chemical composition of the bone was analyzed.

The researchers examined 32 bone needle fragments collected at the LaPrele Mammoth site, comparing peptides — short chains of amino acids — from those artifacts with those of animals known to have existed during the Early Paleondian period, which refers to a prehistoric era in North America between 13,500 and 12,000 years ago.

The comparison concluded that bones from red foxes; bobcats, mountain lions, lynx or the American cheetah; and hares or rabbits were used to make needles at the LaPrele site. This is the first such analysis ever conducted.

“Despite the importance of bone needles to explaining global modern human dispersal, archaeologists have never identified the materials used to produce them, thus limiting understanding of this important cultural innovation,” the researchers wrote.

Previous research has shown that, in order to cope with cold temperatures in northern latitudes, humans likely created tailored garments with closely stitched seams, providing a barrier against the elements. While there’s little direct evidence of such garments, there is indirect evidence in the form of bone needles and the bones of fur-bearers whose pelts were used in the garments.

“Once equipped with such garments, modern humans had the capacity to expand their range to places from which they were previously excluded due to the threat of hypothermia or death from exposure,” Pelton and his colleagues wrote.

How did the people at the LaPrele site obtain the fur-bearing animals? Pelton and his colleagues say it was likely through trapping — and not necessarily in pursuit of food.

“Our results are a good reminder that foragers use animal products for a wide range of purposes other than subsistence, and that the mere presence of animal bones in an archaeological site need not be indicative of diet,” the researchers concluded. “Combined with a review of comparable evidence from other North American Paleoindian sites, our results suggest that North American Early Paleoindians had direct access to fur-bearing predators, likely from trapping, and represent some of the most detailed evidence yet discovered for Paleoindian garments.”

________________________________

This is an aerial view of the LaPrele archaeological site near Douglas, Wyoming. Todd Surovell

________________________________

An eyed needle made from the bone of a red fox found at the LaPrele archaeological site in Wyoming’s Converse County. Todd Surovell

________________________________

Article Source: University of Wyoming news release.

*Early Paleoindian use of canids, felids, and hares for bone needle production at the La Prele site, Wyoming, USA, PLOS ONE, 27-Nov-2024. 

________________________________

Advertisement

EXPLORE THE ANCIENT ETRUSCANS IN PERSON!
Experience a unique, up-close-and-personal hike among ancient hilltop towns in central Italy. You will walk the sensational countryside of the regions of Umbria and Tuscany, soaking in important sites attesting to the advanced Etruscan civilization, forerunners of the ancient Romans; imposing architectural and cultural remains of Medieval Italy; local food and drink; and perhaps best of all — spectacular scenic views! Join us in this collaborative event for the trip of a lifetime!

A new study* provides new insight on the evolution of brain size among human ancestors and related species over a period of about 7 million years. The research by a team of scientists, published in a study report by Thomas A. Püschel, et al. in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, employed a phylogenetic approach to paleoanthropological data from fossil specimens across a variety of hominin species through a timeline of approximately 7 million years.  The results indicated that relative brain size increases across this time span arose from differential increases recorded within individual species. They also found that any variation in brain size after accounting for this effect was associated with body mass differences, not time. Moreover, the analysis showed that the within-species increases escalated in the more recent lineages, suggesting an overall pattern of accelerated increasing brain size in the later time periods.

___________________________

Article Source: PNAS news release.

*Thomas A. Püschel , et al., Hominin brain size increase has emerged from within-species encephalization, PNAS, 26-Nov-2024. https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2409542121 

Cover Image, Top Left: Lateral cranial comparison of  hominin species. Hawks et al. (9 May 2017). “New fossil remains of Homo naledi from the Lesedi Chamber, South Africa”. eLife, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons 

___________________________

Advertisement

EXPLORE THE ANCIENT ETRUSCANS IN PERSON!
Experience a unique, up-close-and-personal hike among ancient hilltop towns in central Italy. You will walk the sensational countryside of the regions of Umbria and Tuscany, soaking in important sites attesting to the advanced Etruscan civilization, forerunners of the ancient Romans; imposing architectural and cultural remains of Medieval Italy; local food and drink; and perhaps best of all — spectacular scenic views! Join us in this collaborative event for the trip of a lifetime!