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East African Fossil Finds Show Early Human Diversity

Modern scholarship on human evolution has generally accepted the suggestion that there were some key changes in the skeletal anatomy of early humans sometime between the two genuses, Australopithecus, and Homo. Australopithecus, the proto-human thought to be ancestral to the more direct human line of Homo, is considered to have featured more primitive, ape-like characteristics. Homo, by contrast, has been thought to feature new, derived characteristics approaching the morphology more typically associated with human-like physical traits. 

But given the relative scarcity of early Homo fossil remains, comparatively less is known about the earliest Homo postcranial morphologies. A recent study by an international team of Homo fossil remains uncovered in Kenya, however, has provided a few more clues reflecting on the diversity and complexity of early Homo differentiation during the earliest periods of the emergence of humans from the still obscure primordial mix of a time when some species of Australopithecus are thought to have coexisted with their ‘more advanced’ Homo counterparts. The team examined a partial ilium (the uppermost and largest bone of the pelvis), and a femur (thigh bone) found at the famous hominin fossil site of Koobi Fora, Kenya, dating to 1.9 Ma (millions of years ago). They found that the specimens featured attributes commonly associated with the genus Homo. But they also found morphological characteristics not typically seen in eastern African early Homo erectus fossils:  “The geometry of the femoral midshaft and contour of the pelvic inlet do not resemble that of any specimens attributed to H. erectus from eastern Africa,” summarized the study authors in their report, which will soon be published in the Journal of Human Evolution. “This new fossil confirms the presence of at least two postcranial morphotypes within early Homo, and documents diversity in postcranial morphology among early Homo species that may reflect underlying body form and/or adaptive differences.”*

Koobi Fora has long been known as a key region containing hominin fossils that have shed light on human evolution over the last 4.2 million years. It is described as a ridge or outcrop of Pliocene/Pleistocene sediments that preserve a prolific record of mammal fossils, including early hominin species. The ridge is being eroded into a badlands terrain by rivers draining into modern Lake Turkana. Anciently, Lake Turkana provided a good habitable lake environment for a variety of mammals, including early humans. In 1968, Richard Leakey, the son of famous paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey and Mary Leakey, established the Koobi Fora Base Camp, a field center for hominin studies, at Lake Turkana.

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koobiforamainakiarieThe Koobi Fora field center near Lake Turkana, Kenya. Maina Kiarie, Wikimedia Commons

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*Carol V. Ward, et al., Associated ilium and femur from Koobi Fora, Kenya, and postcranial diversity in early Homo, doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2015.01.005

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discovery2014cover2Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery Edition eBook is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition.  We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.

 

  







 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Canaanites and Israelites at Tel ‘Eton, Israel

Avraham Faust is chairman of the Martin Szusz Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology at Bar-Ilan University. He has been the director of the Tel Eton excavations since 2006.

Tel ‘Eton (Figure 1) is a large, 6 hectares mound in Israel’s lowland (the Shephelah), at the edge of the trough valley which separates the lowlands from the Judean highlands (Figure 2). The ancient city, usually identified with biblical ‘Eglon (Josh 10:34-36: 15:39), is situated near an important junction on the north-south road that meandered along the trough valley and the east-west road that connected the coastal plain with Hebron. The site’s location near large valleys also secured its proximity to fertile soils, increasing its economic importance.

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etonfig1Fig. 1: An aerial photograph of Tel ‘Eton, looking north (photographed by Sky View\ Griffin Aerial  Imaging)

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etonfig2Fig. 2: A schematic map showing the location of Tel ‘Eton

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Past Research

Salvage excavations in the vicinity of the mound, in the large necropolis that surrounds Tel ‘Eton, were carried out already in 1968, and small-scale (four squares) salvage excavations of the mound were conducted in 1977 by the Lachish Expedition (headed by David Ussishkin, and directed by Etan Ayalon and Rachel Bar-Natan). 

The Bar-Ilan University (BIU) Expedition

The current project started in 2006, on behalf of the Institute of Archaeology at the Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology at Bar-Ilan University.[1] The site was selected for excavations due to its location at the eastern edge of the Shephelah, just below the Judean highlands. While the lowlands are well-known archaeologically, the highlands are far less studied (as a result of security concerns, unclear political status, etc.). Tel ‘Eton is not located on the highlands, but its location does have a few advantages in this respect, as it is located farther east than any other mound currently excavated in the lowlands, hence providing much better information on the heartland of Judah. Additionally, it is located on the border between two geographical units (lowlands and highlands), and the information collected can inform us about the changing relations between these regions, and on the role of Tel ‘Eton in the interaction. (The excavations also aim to address a number of methodological issues, such as the reliability of surveys, site formation processes, remote sensing, and more, but these cannot be discussed here).

The Field Work

Over the course of the nine seasons of excavation conducted so far (2006-2014), we have excavated five Areas (Figure 3). Area A is located at the highest point of the mound, and was chosen because of its prominent location; Area B is also located in the upper part of the site, adjacent to the Lachish expedition excavation trench. This area also serves as our “section”, where we cut deep into the mound in order to reach most periods; Area C is located on the northeastern slope of the site, and was chosen randomly, in order to provide us with information on the situation in the lower part of the city; Area D is located on the western part of the upper mound, and was selected in order to study the fortifications of the site; Area E was opened in an attempt to verify the results of remote sensing survey we conducted at the site.

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etonfig3Fig. 3: Map of the mound showing excavation areas (2014)

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The History of Tel ‘Eton Through Archaeology

The Canaanite Town

The earliest period we uncovered so far in the excavations is that of the Early Bronze Age (third millennium BCE), but the remains are buried deep below the later remains, and the exposure was very limited. No Intermediate Bronze Age (2300-2000 BCE) remains were yet unearthed in the excavations and survey, and although a few sherds from the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1550 BCE) were found in the survey, no remains from this period have been uncovered yet.

A significant settlement existed on the mound during the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1550-1200/1150 BCE), and remains from this period were unearthed wherever we cut through the Iron II destruction layer (as well as in the few places where those remains were not found as a result of later activities, like agricultural terracing). Remains from this period were unearthed in practically every square in the section in which we dug deep enough, and in-situ vessels were discovered even down the slopes, signifying that the town was large. Remains were also uncovered in area C, toward the northernmost edge of the mound. The Late Bronze age town was apparently large and dense, probably covering the entire mound.

The Late Bronze Age is relatively well-documented in the Egyptian sources, especially in the el Amarna letters, which provide a wealth of information on the situation in Canaan. Combining this information with the results of the excavations, it is commonly assumed that Tel ‘Eton was a field-town on the border between Lachish and Hebron, two city-states that dominated the region, but we cannot rule out the possibility that during at least part of this era Tel ‘Eton maintained a semi-independent status. The finds (e.g., the petrographic analysis of the pottery) indicate that the site interacted almost solely with sites in the southern Shephelah, like Tel Halif and Lachish, and not with the Highlands, and unequivocally attest that it was part of the settlement system of the Shephelah at this time.

The evidence regarding the end of the Late Bronze Age town hints that it was destroyed, probably in the first half of the 12th century BCE. This was part of a wider wave of destruction throughout the region (see more below). The causes of the destruction are not clear. Various suggestions were raised regarding the identity of the responsible party, including the Israelites, the Philistines and the Egyptians.

Tel ‘Eton in the Iron Age: between Israelites and Philistines

Remains from the Iron Age I (roughly 12th-11th centuries BCE) were unearthed, in some areas, on top of the late Late Bronze Age level. Those remains, however, were unearthed only in a limited area, and while this limits our ability to reconstruct life at this period, the fact that Iron I remains were not uncovered above these of the Late Bronze Age on the western slope of Area B, nor in northern square of Area C (a few out of context Iron I sherds were uncovered in other squares in this Area), suggests that the settlement shrank in size and was smaller than the Late Bronze Age Town. The ceramic assemblage, however, exhibits clear continuities with Late Bronze Age forms in the region, but also includes some bichrome Philistine pottery, which suggests some connection with the coastal plain during the second part of this era.

The Iron I was a formative period in the Land of Israel, with the Philistines settling and forming in the southern coastal plain to the west, and the Israelites crystallizing on the highlands to the east. The Shephelah, located in-between those regions, was only sparsely settled at the time and most sites did not recover from the above-mentioned destructions. Unlike the situation in most sites, settlement at Tel ‘Eton was resumed after the destruction, and the site was part of a small group of settlements that existed at the time in the trough valley. The petrographic analysis indicates that Tel ‘Eton had only limited interaction with its vicinity, and the site interacted mainly with the few remaining adjacent sites like Tell Beit Mirsim and Tel Halif. Various lines of evidence, for example the rarity of pork and some aspects of the ceramic assemblage, suggest that the inhabitants maintained clear boundaries with both the Philistines of the coastal plain and the Israelites of the highlands. Tel ‘Eton was apparently part of a small Canaanite enclave that survived the turmoil that accompanied the transition to the Iron I in the region.

Things changed, however, during the Iron Age II (ca. 10th– 6th centuries BCE). The evidence suggests that the settlement expanded significantly during the early part of the Iron II (Iron Age IIA, ca. 10th– 9th centuries BCE), and was fortified. The Iron II is, historically, the period of the monarchy in Israel and Judah, and this era is well documented in the biblical narrative, although the historicity of many elements are debated. The 10th century is, roughly, the time of Israel’s United Monarchy as depicted in the Bible (the time of David and Solomon). According to the Bible the kingdom was split in the late 10th century, and subsequently the dominant polity in the region in which Tel ‘Eton is located was the kingdom of Judah. The changes in the character of Tel ‘Eton and its growth and fortification should most probably be therefore viewed in relation to the highland kingdom. Notably, similar changes in the character of settlement were observed also in other sites in the Canaanite enclave, e.g., Tell Beit Mirsim and Tel Beth-Shemesh, and it appears that all those sites were now incorporated into the kingdom of Israel/Judah. This is further supported by the establishment of many new settlements in the Shephelah during this phase of the Iron Age – apparently by Israelites from the highlands. It is likely that the process started at the time of the United Monarchy, but this is debated by some scholars, opting for a later date for the processes of highland expansion.

Most of the remains in the excavations and in the survey are from the Iron Age IIB (8th century BCE), and remains were uncovered practically everywhere. Among the finds one should mention parts of a number of dwellings in Area A, including what we call the governor’s residency. This is a large long house (Figure 4), built following the four room plan which is typical of this era, and whose ground floor covered some 240 sq.m. The location of the structure at the highest point on the mound, with a good control over wide areas on the mound and below it, the building’s size and quality of construction, as well as the finds unearthed in it, led us to interpret it as the governor’s residency. The structure was excavated, almost in its entirety, and was composed of a large courtyard with rooms on three sides. The building was nicely executed, including ashlar stones in the corners and openings. Hundreds of artifacts were unearthed within the debris, including a wide range of pottery vessels, loom weights, many metal objects, botanical remains, as well as many arrowheads—evidence of the battle which accompanied the conquest of the site by the Assyrians. It is noteworthy to mention a small collection of bullae/sealings (Figure 5) that were unearthed within the building, indicating its significance.

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etonfig4Fig. 4: A composite aerial photograph of Area A (after the 2012 season), showing the Iron Age IIB structure below the remains of the Persian period fort (mainly on the left) (composite photograph; photographs by Sky View)

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etonfig5Fig. 5: A bulla, with an inscription (Photographed by Zev Radovan)

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An additional residential neighborhood was discovered in the upper part of area B, where parts of some five structures were unearthed, along with many finds including dozens of artifacts. Segments of additional buildings were exposed also in the lower part of Area B. Parts of three buildings, built parallel to the city wall, were uncovered in Area D (Figure 6), and damaged remains were also uncovered in Area C.

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etonfig6Fig. 6: A composite photograph of the fortifications and the adjacent buildings (Area D) (Photographs by Sky View)

Iron Age II fortifications were discovered in three areas. In Area D, a massive 4 m. wall was unearthed (Figure 6), and formidable walls were exposed also in Areas B and C (Figure 7).

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etonfig7Fig. 7: The fortifications in Area C (photographed by Sky View/Griffin Aerial Imaging)

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A number of factors suggest that Tel ‘Eton had a central role within the Judahite settlement system and administration: its relatively large size, the relatively high percentage of non-local pottery (compared with other sites), the finding of the only 8th century collection of bullae and seal impression discovered in Judah, and perhaps even the unique characteristics of the governor’s residency. It appears that Tel ‘Eton’s location in the trough valley, nearer to the highlands, allowed it to be a bridge through which Judah administrated the Shephelah.

The 8th century central settlement that existed at Tel ‘Eton was violently destroyed toward the end of the century, most likely by the army of the Assyrian king – Sennacherib in 701 BCE  (Figures 8, 9) – a campaign which is well known in both the Bible and the Assyrian sources. Although the kingdom was not annexed by the Assyrians, and Jerusalem was spared, the sources are very clear that the Shephelah was devastated, and the area was subsequently transferred to Philistine hands. The massive destruction layer unearthed at Tel ‘Eton nicely demonstrate this devastation. Furthermore, the city was not rebuilt after the destruction, and in this it shared the fate of the entire regions. Limited evidence suggests that there was a short-lived attempt at reoccupation, but this squatting left only limited remains.

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etonfig8Fig. 8: The Assyrian destruction layer: room 101D (Area A)

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etonfig9Fig. 9: Photograph of part of the ceramic assemblage from the destruction layer (after the fifth season)

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Later Occupations

Tel ‘Eton remained unsettled for about 300 years, until settlement was resumed in the 4th century BCE, i.e., the late Persian period. The finds include a fort at the top of the mound (Area A), and village that was built around it. Although settlement was much more limited than that of the Iron Age II, it still covered large parts of the site.

On the basis of the pottery and a few carbon 14 dates, as well as a few ostraca (dated paleographically) we date this settlement mainly to the 4th century BCE, probably extending into the 3rd century BCE. At this time the region was part of the province of Idumaea, and it appears that Tel ‘Eton was a central site in this region. This was the last settlement at Tel ‘Eton, and following the abandonment of the site at some point in the 3rd century BCE (the early Hellenistic period), it was never resettled.

The findings in the topsoil also include a few later sherds, but those do not seem to represent a real settlement. It appears that during the Byzantine period much of the site was used for agriculture, and the evidence suggest that much of the current form of the mound is a result of agricultural terracing activity conducted at the time. The people who built the terraces changed the shape of the site, moving earth around to create their desired pattern. A few nearby hills were settled in the Roman-Byzantine period, but the site probably served only for agricultural purposes—most of it was probably tilled, while soil from the mound was also taken for fertilizing the nearby fields.

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Illustrations

Unless otherwise noted, all rights reserved to the Tel ‘Eton Archaeological Expedition

Tel ‘Eton: Partial Bibliography

Ayalon, E. 1985 Trial Excavation of Two Iron Age Strata at Tel ‘Eton, Tel Aviv 12: 54-62.

Edelstein, G., Ussishkin, D., Dothan, T., and Tzaferis, V. 1971 The Necropolis of Tell ‘Aitun, Qadmoniot 15:86-90 (Hebrew).

Faust, A. 2011 Tel ‘Eton Excavations (2006-2009): A Preliminary Report, PEQ 143:198-224.

Faust, A., and Katz, H. 2011 Philistines, Israelites and Canaanites in the Southern Trough Valley during the Iron Age I, Egypt and the Levant 21: 231-247.

Faust, A., and Katz, H. in press, Tel ‘Eton Cemetery: An Introduction, Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel.

Faust, A., Katz, H., Ben-Shlomo, D., Sapir, Y., and Eyall, P., 2014, Tel ‘Eton/Tell ‘Etun and its Interregional Contacts from the Late Bronze Age to the Persian-Hellenistic Period: Between Highlands and Lowlands, ZDPV 130: 43-76.

Katz, H., and Faust, A. 2012 The Assyrian Destruction Layer at Tel ‘Eton, IEJ 62: 22-53.

 



[1] The excavations were directed by Avraham Faust, and the permanent members of the expedition are Haya Katz (associate director and ceramic analysis), Ortal Chalaf (supervising Area D), Pirchia Eyal (supervising Area C), Aharon Greener (supervising Area A), Oria Amiahi (supervising Area B), Yair Sapir (surveying and GIS analysis), Michal Marmelshtein (registrar), Tehila Sadiel, Ram Bouchnik and Guy Bar Oz (Bone analysis), Zev Farber (assisting in supervising Area A).  Restoration was done by Dina Castel and Shimrit Salem and Yafit Wiener, pottery drawing by Yulia Rodman and conservation by Yishaiau Ben-Yaakov. Plans were drawn by Yair Sapir, Yonatan Shemla, Ortal Calaf and Michal Marmelshtein. Epigraphic finds were analyzed by Esti Eshel. The archeobotanical analysis is carried out by Ehud Weiss, with the assistance of Anat Hartman, Yael Mahler-Slaski, and Chen Auman. Remote sensing was conducted by Shani Libi. Metal objects are analyzed by Kfir Arbiv, and construction techniques are studied by Assaf Avraham, Oren Vilany and Micheel Tsesarsky. Geomorphology is studied by Oren Ackerman, and formation processes are studied by Yair Sapir. Soil is studied by Sara Pariente. Petrography was done by David Ben Shlomo. The excavations were carried out with the help of students from Bar-Ilan University, Wheaton College, Franklin and Marshall College, and the Open University of Israel, and volunteers.  The expedition was greatly assisted by the Lachish Regional Council. We would especially like to thank Mr. Danni Moravia, the mayor; Mr. Meir Dahan, the mayor’s assistant; Yaron Meshulam, the council’s security officer; and Mr. Avi Cohen, the director of the transportation department. This help, along with the assistance we received from the people living in the region (and especially those in Moshav Shekef, notably Gadi Eilon and Eitan Rosenblat), was invaluable and aided the expedition in achieving its goals.  Different aspects of the research were supported by various grants, including the Israel Science Foundation (Tel ‘Eton and Judah’s Southern Trough Valley: a Bridge or a Barrier; The Birth, Life and Death of a Four Room House at Tel ‘Eton), the Jewish National Fund (Archaeological Sites and the “Open” Landscape – the Landscape around Tel ‘Eton as a Test-Case), and the Open University of Israel (The Iron Age IIa Tomb from the vicinity of Tel ‘Eton; Death at Tel ‘Eton: Final publication of four tombs in the vicinity of Tel ‘Eton; The ceramic sequence at Tel ‘Eton and other trough valley sites and its implications for understanding the settlement history in the region during the third and second millennia BCE). 

Tel Burna: An Ancient Judean Stronghold

Dr. Itzhaq Shai is an assistant professor at Ariel University and the head of the Institute of Archaeology at Ariel Univeirsty. He has served as the director of the project since its beginning (the 2009-2012 seasons as co-director with Dr. Joe Uziel). He has extensive experience in field archaeology of different periods. He worked for more than a decade at the Tell es-safi/Gath project and served as director of a number of other excavations. Dr. Shai finished his PhD at Bar Ilan University (under the advising of Prof. Aren Maeir) and was a post-fellow at the Harvard University and a junior research fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University.

His published articles deal with the Early Bronze Age in the southern Levant, Philistine material culture, place names and their importance in ethnic identification, the status of Jerusalem in the Iron Age and the political structure of Philistia, the Late Bronze Age remains at Tell es-Saf/Gath, and various publications on the results of the Tel Burna Archaeological Project.

Tel Burna is located in the heart of one of Israel’s most intensively researched regions, yet the site is one of a few multi-period settlements that has remained unexcavated until the current project commenced. Burna is located in the Judean Shephelah, along the northern banks of Wadi Guvrin (Figure 1).  Sites in its immediate vicinity include Lachish, Maresha, Tel Goded, Tel Zayit, with Tell es-Safi/Gath and Azekah also in close proximity. This region represents a rift between the southern Coastal Plain in the west and the Highlands toward the East. A wide range of evidence, including Egyptian, Assyrian and Babylonian texts, biblical passages, and epigraphic and material cultural finds, attests to the importance of this region as a borderland in the Bronze (3300 – 1200 BCE) and particularly in the Iron Age (1200 – 500 BCE), when Judahites and Philistines settled on opposite sides of the border.

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burnaFigure1Figure 1: Location of Burna in relation to other archaeological sites in its vicinity.

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Several surveys have been conducted in the region, including Aharoni and Amiran’s survey of Shephelah mounds in the 1950s, Peterson’s examination of the ‘Levitical’ cities in the 1970s, Dagan’s survey of the Shephelah and Koh’s survey of the tell approximately ten years ago. However, the site had never been excavated until the summer of 2009, when we began a long-term archaeological project on the site.

The Project’s Goals

One of the primary research questions that the project aims to address is the role of borders in the southern Levant of the Bronze and Iron Ages. Therefore we have determined to examine the relationship of Tel Burna with its surroundings on both sides of the border. This will reflect the geographical border between highlands and lowlands, which affected the culture of these two regions in all periods. Several questions on this topic will be addressed, include the following: How did the border move in different periods? How were sites along the border affected by this movement? How did the material culture at sites on the border differ from those inland, due to the proximity to the other nearby entity? Finally, what can we learn from the border sites about Philistine-Judean relations in different periods?

The second research goal relates to economic systems. A cultural frontier is a contact zone between cultures, serving as a catalyst for socioeconomic processes. While Judah played a smaller role in the greater economic and geopolitical system of the Iron Age southern Levant, it is still possible to discern some activity and influence in Judah, particularly near its western border. Philistia however was more active in global economic and political trends. The excavations at Tel Burna will stress how the border was affected by different economic and political trends in the region. For example, how did Philistia’s involvement in the world markets from the Iron Age II (1000 – 800 BCE) onward affect Judahite sites along the border? How did the Assyrian Empire’s presence affect the border – did it open up the border or was Judah still involved in more of a localized economy? How did the economic border function during the Iron Age I (1200 – 1000 BCE)? 

The third goal is to further develop survey methodology and tools, in order to improve their quality and reliability as an archaeological technique and help in influencing attitudes towards field work in this respect in the Southern Levant.

Is Tel Burna Biblical Libnah?

The identification of the site has been debated for more than a century. There are scholars who have claimed that Tel Burna is biblical Libnah, which was mentioned several times in the Bible. This identification was based mainly on geographical and historical arguments. For example, according to the biblical tradition it was a Canaanite town that was conquered by Joshua, and also a city that was chosen as one of the Levitical cities. In 2 Kgs. 8:22 the city of Libnah was involved in the rebellion against Jehoram the king of Judah (in 9th century BCE) and later, a woman from Libnah married King Josiah in the 7th century BCE. To date, there are other candidates for the location of ancient Libnah, including nearby Tel Zayit. However, the exposed archaeological remains at Tel Burna support this identification, with both the geographical, survey and excavation data fitting well with what we know and expect from a border town in the Iron Age. Regardless of the identification of the site, it is clear that Tel Burna lies along the border between Judah and the Philistines, and was a prominent site during the Iron Age, making it a prime target for studying ancient borders.

The Survey

As mentioned above, one of our main goals was to develop a survey methodology to use in a multi-period site. The first step of the project was taken in 2009 with a surface survey. We have continued to reach this goal through test-pit excavations and the documentation of features visible on the surface, such as agricultural installations, caves and other man-made features. The results of these two methods have already been published in a scientific manner (Uziel and Shai 2011; Shai and Uziel 2014). Below is a concise presentation of the main conclusions of both methods.

The Surface Survey

The distribution of the sherds and other artifacts lead us to estimate that the settlement on the site covered 10 hectares. The significant periods of settlement were in the Early Bronze Age III (2700 – 2200 BCE), Middle Bronze Age IIB (1850 – 1750 BCE), Late Bronze Age II (1400 – 1200 BCE), and Iron Age I and II (1200 – 800 BCE) (Figure 2). One should note that only 9% of the identified sherds collected in the survey post-date the Iron Age. This indicates that the site was poorly settled during those periods.

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burnaFigure2Figure 2

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The Test Pit Survey

The circular test pits, with a diameter of 1m, were distributed according to the survey fields and excavated to a depth of 30 cm.  The contents of all of the test pits were fully sifted, in order to remove any bias based on preference of pottery types. As the test pits only covered the upper tell and surrounding slopes and not the entire area covered by the surface survey, it is still too early to determine the site size according to the dispersal of artifacts in the test pits. However, a few points can be made regarding the area covered. First, the early periods (EBIII, MBII) detected in the survey do not appear whatsoever in the test pits other than stray sherds. Even in fields that yielded many EBIII/MBII sherds on the surface, such pottery was not found in the test pits. Second, the two dominant periods represented are the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age II, similar to the surface survey. This indicates the intensive settlement on the site during the LB and Iron Age II as also noted in the surface survey. Finally, as opposed to the surface survey, where Byzantine sherds were scattered in small amounts in different areas of the tell, the test pits yielded Byzantine pottery almost exclusively from the eastern slopes, where the lines of walls of a large building can be seen on the surface. It seems that there is a slightly closer affinity between the test pit results and the excavations as they remove the later periods, which are not actually represented on the summit. Earlier periods which are likely buried beneath the Iron Age remains, were not present in the test pits, yet were present on the surface.

The Excavations

To date, three areas have been excavated (Figure 3). Area A2 is located on the center of the summit of the tell, where a fortification system has created a flat, almost square area of 70 by 70 meters. The second area (A1) was placed along the eastern slopes of the summit, in order to create a section along the upper tell. The third is Area B, which was placed in the terrace just below the summit, to the west of the fortifications. Thus far, the two main periods that were exposed are the Late Bronze Age (in Area B) and the Iron Age II (in Areas A1 and A2).

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burnaFigure3Figure 3: The excavated areas

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The Late Bronze Age Remains

A portion of a large 13th century BCE public building was uncovered only a few centimeters below the surface in Area B. Although the plan of the building is still unclear, the size of the building and the construction technique clearly indicates that it was not a common domestic building. The bedrock in the large courtyard (16×16 m) is very high and was used as a surface in several places, while in other parts of the area, there are signs of intentionally filling in of gaps in the bedrock. Three Cypriot votive vessels were placed on a flattened stone, which was located where the bedrock had a natural hump (Figure 4). The finds include a scarab with dozens of beads, a cylinder seal, a rich ceramic assemblage and many animal bones. Some of the pottery vessels may reflect the activity that took place in this courtyard. These are comprised of (Figure 5) goblets and chalices, which are often associated with feasting activity, Cypriot zoomorphic vessels (for liquid libation?), local and imported  (Cypriot and Mycenaean) figurines and two fragments of different ceramic masks. One can also note two large (ca. 200 liters volume!) imported Cypriot pithoi. All in all, the building size and the effort that was undertaken in order to build it alongside the presence of unique vessels indicate that this was a 13th century public building where ritual activity took place within its courtyard. Since we have not yet finished the excavation of the building or the analysis of the finds, it is too early to determine the exact purpose of the building.

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burnaFigure4Figure 4: Aerial view of Area B

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burnaFigure5Figure 5: Cypriot votive vessels in situ

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The Iron Age Remains

While there is evidence of Iron Age I settlement at the site from the survey, we have yet to reach these levels in the excavations. However, the two areas on the summit and its eastern slope reveal a series of strata from the ninth century BCE to the Persian period.

The summit is defined by the distinct remains of fortification walls. The excavations thus far have revealed a segment of the fortification walls in the NE corner of the summit that was partially exposed along the perimeter of the upper tell. The fortifications of Tel Burna were in use during the ninth and eighth centuries BCE. The Iron Age II wall reflects the role of this site during this period. The location of Tel Burna—midway between Gath, the dominant Philistine city in the Iron Age IIA, and Lachish, the main Judahite city, monitoring the road along Nahal Guvrin, with visibility all the way to the coastal plain — would account for the investment of the central authority of Judah in establishing such a walled city so close to the city of Lachish.

In the center of the summit (Area A2) a portion of a typical four-room house was uncovered, which was destroyed at the end of the eighth century BCE, as indicated by the smashed vessels found on its floors (Fig. 6). It is tempting to correlate this destruction with Sennacherib’s campaign (701 BCE), although it is too early to determine if this is a local destruction or something more elaborate.

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burnaFigure8Figure 6: Excavated portion of a typical four-room house structure

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Among the pottery finds there are stamped jar handles (Figure 7) several of the LMLK type and one with a private or official seal bearing the names לעזר/חגי (to Ezer son of Haggi).

This building was only partially exposed but a few points can already be highlighted:

1. Combining the fact that it was located inside the fortified area with the building size, technique and the  discovery of a LMLK stamped handle suggests that this was a public or an elite building.

2. The pottery assemblage is typical of the end of 8th century BCE and is very similar to Lachish Level III.

3. Several pillar figurines were discovered in this building. As noted in the past (Kletter 1995), this figurine is typical to Judah.

4. To date, we have yet to uncover evidence for a widespread destruction as expected for eighth century BCE Shephelah sites, save for one portion of the four room house. Such a destruction is further expected if the site is in fact Libnah, which according to the biblical text was destroyed during the Assyrian military campaign.

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burnaFigure9Figure 7: Stamped jar handles

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The Iron Age IIC (7th century BCE) remains uncovered at Tel Burna consist of a series of silos and related architectural elements (Figure 8).  Six such silos, all lined with stone, cut into the earlier remains, sometimes even reusing earlier features, and are spread over the entire summit.

The silos yielded archaeobotanical remains recovered through flotation of the sediments. Archaeobotanical analysis yielded 16 different crop taxa and 32 wild plant taxa, among them one can mention wheat, barley and figs. The presence of Rosette stamped handles indicates the site was affiliated and under control of Judah in this period as well. This point is crucial in light of the identification of the site with biblical Libnah, as according to the bible, Josiah’s wife (the king of Judah in the second half of the 7th century BCE) was from Libnah.

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burnaFigure10Figure 8: The casemate fortifications, partially cut by one of the 7th century BCE silos

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Conclusions and Future Plans

Tel Burna was settled from the 3rd millennium BCE throughout the mid-1st millennium BCE.  The settlement at the site reached its pick in two periods – the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age II. The excavations thus far have revealed a public building well dated to the 13th century BCE (Late Bronze Age) where ritual activity took place. The Iron Age remains attested to the importance of the settlement at the site and that it was a fortified Judahite border site facing the Philistines in the west.

In the next excavation seasons we are planning to expand the excavated area in order to complete our view of the LB public building, the Iron Age fortification system and the Iron Age administration. We also plan to excavate several agricultural installations, in collaboration with several scholars in various specialization fields (e.g. soil, geoarchaeology, archaeo-botany, aDNA etc.) in order to gain a better understanding on the economic life of the inhabitants of the site. In addition, an in-depth study accompanied by an excavation of Late Bronze Age burial caves will allow us to investigate more about the people who lived in Tel Burna and their customs, both in life and in afterlife.

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The Legionary Base of the Roman Sixth Ferrata Legion at Legio, Israel

Yotam Tepper is a researcher and archaeologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), and co-director of excavations at the legionary base at Legio (2013). His PhD dissertation at Tel Aviv University (2015) is devoted to the region of Legio in the Roman Period, with emphasis on the ethno-cultural and religious identities of different groups at the site and the daily lives of both civilians and soldiers. He has directed numerous excavations in Israel, including surveys in the Legio-Megiddo region over the last 15 years. As part of this work, he conducted excavations at Kibbutz Megiddo and the nearby site at Enot [YT19] Nisanit, and his largest such project was a four-year extensive excavation at the Megiddo Prison compound, in which a remarkable Christian Prayer Hall from the 3rd century CE was discovered

Matthew J. Adams is the Dorot Director of the W. F. Albright Institute for Archaeological Research and director of the JVRP. Adams received his PhD in History from the Pennsylvania State University in 2007, specializing in Egyptology and Near Eastern Archaeology. He has directed excavations at several sites in Egypt and Israel. His primary research focus is on the development of urban communities in the third millennium in Egypt and Levant. In addition to directing the JVRP, he is a member of the Penn State excavations at Mendes, Egypt and the Tel Aviv University Megiddo Expedition. He is also president of the non-profit organization American Archaeology Abroad.

Jonathan David is professor of Classics at Gettysburg College, assistant director of the JVRP, and co-director of excavations at the legionary base at Legio (2013). He studies the history and archaeology of ancient Greece broadly, but his particular interests involve earliest historiography and the interconnections between the Graeco-Roman world and the Near East. He has been a regular member at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, a Mellon Foundation research fellow, and a founding member of American Archaeology Abroad.

In the early First Century CE, Judaea became a province of Augustus’ expanding Roman Empire. By the late 60s, Jewish opposition to Roman administration had escalated to full-scale rebellion which resulted in the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of its temple in 70 CE. Near the beginning of the Second Century CE, Legio VI Ferrata, the “Iron Legion”, was deployed to Judaea, joining Legio X Fretensis, which had been garrisoned in Jerusalem after the destruction of the temple. With the addition of a second legion, Judaea was incorporated into the province of Syria-Palaestina and upgraded to a proconsular province and new administrative policies were put in place to secure Rome’s hold on the region. The Sixth Legion remained in Palestine for nearly two centuries before being transferred to a new base in Udruh (Jordan), likely as a result of the extensive administrative and military reforms of the emperor Diocletian (284-305 CE).

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Print Map of Southern Levant

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The exact location of the new legionary base (castra) of this legion, has been a matter of some debate by historians, but it is agreed that it was somewhere on the western edge of the Jezreel Valley in modern Israel near ancient Bronze and Iron Age Tel Megiddo[MJA1]  (a UNESCO world heritage site[MJA2] ). Contemporary Latin and Greek sources place it in the vicinity of the Jewish village of Caparcotani/Kaperkotnei (Kefar ‘Othnay) and on the imperial road leading from the provincial capital of Caesarea Maritima on the coast to Scythopolis (Beth Shean) in the Jordan Valley. From this important location, the base of the Ferrata was well situated to control international imperial roads, as its predecessor Megiddo had done for nearly 3000 years. It also gave the legion direct access to the Galilee and inland valleys of northern Palestine – important centers of the local Jewish population at that time.

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Basic RGBThe imperial road (in red) from Caesarea to Scythopolis through Caparcotani.

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The Roman-era historian Eusebius of Caesarea (260-340 CE) refers to a place called Legeon which he uses as a benchmark to describe the locations of various important Old and New Testament sites in the region. While a Roman-Byzantine polis called Maximianopolis was founded at the site in the 4th Century, the older name survived in the name of the Islamic to Ottoman period village and caravanserai of el-Lajjun. These names preserve the Latin, Legio, providing evidence for the location of the nearby legionary base. Thus, historical sources from the Roman and Byzantine periods point to three different settlements existing at Legio: the Jewish village of Kefar ‘Othnay (Caparcotna), a Roman legionary base (Legio), and a Byzantine polis of the 4th to 7th centuries CE (Maximianopolis).

While almost nothing is visible today, in the early 20th century, when Gottlieb Schumacher surveyed Megiddo and its environs, some remains of these once-great settlements were obvious on the surface. South of Tell Megiddo, Schumacher observed a Roman theater nestled in the foothills. To the east and south of the theater were scattered architectural ruins with Roman pottery, among which he found a brick or roof-tile stamped with “LEGVIF,” i.e. Legio VI Ferrata. In his day, the visible Roman-Ottoman ruins stretched far to the south including the hills of el-Manach and Daher ed-Dar, as far as the Wadi el-Lajjun, the ancient Nahal Qeni, through which the road to Caesarea and the coast passed the Manasseh hills. All told, Schumacher observed contiguous archaeological remains across more than 700 acres, representing the settlement history of the Megiddo/Legio area from ca. 3500 BCE to 1900 CE.

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legiofig4Schumacher’s Survey Map (G. Schumacher, Tell el-Mutesellim [Leipzig, 1908] Pl. I).

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After Schumacher, little work was carried out at Legio until the 1990s. The most intensive survey of this area was conducted by Yotam Tepper (co-author here), who attempted to identify the exact locations of the legionary base, the village, and the polis. As part of his PhD research at Tel Aviv University, Tepper delineated discrete areas of Roman material culture remains, including coins and roof-tiles stamped with the name of the Sixth Legion, concentrated in and around the large agricultural field known as el-Manach.

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Legio_and_environs_orthophoto copyMap of the Megiddo/Legio Environs

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While working nearby on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority in 2003-2005, Tepper also uncovered the now-famous 3rd– century Christian prayer hall [MJA4] [MJA5] at the Megiddo Prison just south of el-Manach, the mosaics of which bore dedicatory inscriptions to “God Jesus Christ,” including one sponsored by a centurion named Gaianus.[1] This find and others in the area of the prison strongly suggest that this area, just south of the base, was the location of Kefar ‘Othnay, the Jewish-Samaritan (and apparently Christian) village. Overall, Tepper concluded that there was compelling evidence pointing to the exact location of the castra of the Sixth Legion nearby in the field of el-Manach.[2]

In 2010 Tepper teamed up with the Jezreel Valley Regional Project[MJA6]  (JVRP)[3] to begin archaeological investigations at el-Manach in search of architectural remains. In collaboration with Jessie Pincus and Tim de Smet (Texas A&M University), the JVRP conducted a Ground Penetrating Radar and Electromagnetic survey of this area. These technologies allowed the team to see beneath the surface of the fields and provided additional clues for the presence of significant architecture – in particular, the radar and electromagnetic anomalies suggested something long, linear, and wall-like along the northern depression.[4]

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legiofig7Working on the Ground Penetrating Radar study at el-Manach, looking northwards toward Tell Megiddo.

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Additionally, aerial photographs, satellite imagery, and LiDAR data (airborne topographical laser scanning) acquired by the JVRP hinted at a large rectangular structure in the field just beneath the surface, at least 275m by 275m, bounded on the north and south by long depressions. The size and shape of the structure, and the surrounding depressions were consistent with Roman military architecture of the period.

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legiofig8Shaded relief map of el-Manach based on 1-m resolution lidar data (data and imaging courtesy of the Jezreel Valley Regional Project). The GPR/EM survey grid appears in solid black lines. Tepper’s (2007) hypothesized minimum size location of the camp enclosure in long dashed white lines.

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On the basis of Tepper’s archeological, historical, and geographical work, in combination with the remote sensing evidence, the JVRP spent two weeks during the summer of 2013 [MJA7] excavating a small part of the legionary base of Legio VI Ferrata.[5] Over the course of only ten excavation days, with the assistance of American and European students working side-by-side with members of local youth and community service groups[MJA8], the team exposed a north-south test trench of 125 m by 5 m that revealed clear evidence of this base [MJA9] and the Sixth Legion’s presence in it.

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legiofig9Aerial photograph of el-Manach and 2013 excavation area. Looking southward toward the Megiddo Prison.

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D:\Users\Adam\JVRP13 Season13 Legio\CAD\Legio_Master_Plan_Planned 2013 excavation area at el-Manach.

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legiofig11Aerial photograph of the 2013 excavations. North is to the right.

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At the north end of this line, it became evident that the depressions seen in aerial photography were in fact part of a Roman legionary base’s typical defensive trenching earthworks, the fosse. Next to this 2m-deep ditch was the foundation of a great wall, nearly 6m wide, evidently the main circumvallation rampart of the base. In the remaining 100 m of the trench, extended within this outer wall, the team exposed a series of rooms likely belonging to one of the barracks of the camp. Much of the upper architectural remains had long been stripped away, but within the rooms were hundreds of ceramic roof tiles, some with the legion’s mark. Finds indicating the presence of the imperial army included a wide variety of local and foreign coins of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, fragments of scale armor, ceramic water pipes, and lead ingots – the Romans are known to have brought increased lead production to the eastern provinces. A surprise find on the last day of excavations was a stone table leg sculpted with the three-dimensional visage of a panther. Near the southern extent of the excavation, the putative barracks were bounded by a wide street carved in bedrock and flanked by drainage channels, probably one of the important roads connecting the barracks to the main street of the camp.

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Fig 12The 6 m wide base of the northern enclosure wall of the base. Squares to the right (north) of the wall descend into the fosse.

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legiofig13A volunteer excavates collapsed roof tiles from one of the barracks rooms.

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legiotileRoof tile stamped with LEG V[IFERR]

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legiofig15Roman armor scales found in the barracks

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legiofig16Volunteers removing ceramic water supply pipes

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legiofig17Three hemispherical lead ingots in situ

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legiofig18aSculpted limestone table leg with a feline head.

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The data gathered so far in survey, research, and excavations shows a complex and unexpected settlement scenario at Legio. At its heart is a large legionary base of the Sixth Legion, perhaps accommodating the full legion of nearly 5000 soldiers from all over the empire. Nearby would have been a vicus, an ad hoc civilian settlement providing entertainment, commercial support, and other services for the men of the legion. At Kefar ‘Othnay, just south of the base, was a Jewish-Samaritan village in which there is evidence for an early Christian gathering place, dedicated in part by a Roman centurion.

The excavation of a Roman legionary base with clear ties to major political and cultural events in the formative years of Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity is exciting in itself, but Legio also provides an incredible new window on the Roman military occupation of the eastern provinces. No military headquarters of this type for this particular period have yet been excavated in the entire Eastern Empire. Not only will continued excavations at Legio reveal this important settlement in its own right, but its revelation may also be used as a proxy for the study of the Roman military’s occupation at Jerusalem and other parts of the empire before Diocletian’s reforms.

The JVRP’s 2013 excavation season, at both Legio and the nearby Bronze Age site of Tel Megiddo East[MJA10], has also served as a proving ground for a variety of new technologies that the team is developing for use in excavation.[6] These include photogrammetry[MJA11] for digitally mapping and planning, Structure from Motion for 3D imaging, Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) for digital epigraphy, field X-Ray Florescence (XRF) studies[MJA12] for determining chemical composition of artifacts and sediments, and a highly anticipated archaeological and historical database system[MJA13], called Codifi, developed in cooperation with the Center for Digital Archaeology[MJA14]  (CoDA) and Codifi, Inc.[MJA15]  The technological star of our 2015 season promises to be our custom-built Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) for aerial imagery, remote sensing, and landscape modeling.

In June of 2015, the JVRP will return to Legio to continue exploration of the castra. The Legio excavation also serves as an archaeological field school, training as many as 50 undergraduate and graduate students annually, but participating in an archaeological dig is not just for college students. Through the JVRP’s volunteer program, numerous non-professionals participate in discovery every year, including local community groups, American and European retirees, and just about anyone else looking for a completely different kind of summer.

This year the volunteer program will include a 5-day preseason tour to sites in northern Israel (6-11 June 2015), taking participants off the beaten path, guided by archaeologists and historians specializing in these areas. The 4-week excavation will take place from 13 June to 10 July. All are welcome to join us[MJA16], or to follow our progress throughout the season on facebook and our website blog, to be a part of the revelation of the Roman army in Israel.

Speaking of revelation, the historical site of Legio is identified with biblical Har Megiddo, “the hill of Megiddo”, (the origin of the term Armageddon) the gathering place for the armies before the Last Battle in the New Testament (Rev. 16:16). What more apt location to initiate a campaign of liberation and salvation than from the site of the Sixth Legion? The JVRP’s project here is only in its opening stages, but this gathering point for the historical Roman army has already turned out to be quite an exciting place!

Find out more about the project and how to participate at the project website.

 


[1] Tepper Y. and Di Segni L. 2006. A Christian Prayer Hall of the 3rd Century CE at Kfar ‘Othnai (Legio). Excavations at the Megiddo Prison 2005. Israel Antiquities Authority; Jerusalem.

[2] Tepper Y. 2007. The Roman Legionary Camp at Legio, Israel: Results of an Archaeological Survey and Observations on the Roman Military Presence at the Site. In A.S. Lewin and P. Pellegrini (Eds.) The Late Roman Army in the Near East from Diocletian to the Arab Conquest (pp. 57-71). BAR International Series; Oxford.

[3] The Jezreel Valley Regional Project (JVRP) is a long-term, multi-disciplinary survey and excavation project investigating the history of human activity in the Jezreel Valley from the Paleolithic through the Ottoman period. It strives for a total history of the region using the tools and theoretical approaches of such disciplines as archaeology, anthropology, geography, history, ethnography, and the natural sciences, within an organizational framework provided by landscape archaeology. The project is directed by Matthew J. Adams (W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research) with Jonathan David (Gettysburg College), Margaret Cohen (Penn State University), and Robert Homsher (Harvard University) as Assistant Directors.

[4] J. Pincus, T. DeSmet, Y. Tepper, and M.J. Adams, “Ground Penetrating Radar and Electromagnetic Archaeogeophysical Investigations at the Roman Legionary Camp at Legio, Israel,” Archaeological Prospection 20.3 (2013) 1-13. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/arp.1455/abstract

[5] The Legio excavations operate under the auspices of the JVRP, American Archaeology Abroad, the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research, and the University of Hawai’i with the cooperation of the Tel Aviv University Megiddo Expedition. The 2013 excavations were directed by Yotam Tepper (Tel Aviv University), Jonathan David (Gettysburg College), and Matthew J. Adams (W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research).

[6] A. Prins, M.J. Adams, M. Ashley, R.S. Homsher, “Digital Archaeological Fieldwork and the Jezreel Valley Regional Project, Israel,” Near Eastern Archaeology 77:3 (2014) 196-201.


 [MJA1]https://sites.google.com/site/megiddoexpedition/

 [MJA2]http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/

 [MJA3]

http://www.archaeologie-online.de/magazin/nachrichten/bauingenieur-auf-den-spuren-der-antike-16834/

 [MJA6]link to www.jezreelvalleyregionalproject.com

 [MJA15]MJA TO ELABORATE LIKE THE NEA ARTICLE WITH FIGS

 [MJA16]http://www.jezreelvalleyregionalproject.com/volunteer-2015.html

 [MJA20]http://www.aiar.org/

 [MJA21]www.americanarchaeologyabroad.org

Digging in the Yard

As Founder and Editor of Popular Archaeology Magazine, Dan is a freelance writer and journalist specializing in archaeology.  He studied anthropology and archaeology in undergraduate and graduate school and has been an active participant on archaeological excavations in the U.S. and abroad.  He is the creator and administrator of Archaeological Digs, a popular weblog about archaeological excavation and field school opportunities.  

Williamsburg, Virginia, November, 2014—Looking over this quiet yard today, one would never suspect that, only a few months before, a major archaeological excavation was taking place in this place. Only the areas where grass is absent betray the recent activity. Excavated areas were re-filled and smoothed over after digging was completed. Known as the south yard of the Christopher Wren building at the College of William and Mary, it lies adjacent to the historic structure. The building is the oldest preserved and perhaps most iconic structure of Williamsburg, Virginia’s, colonial past. Still used today as an academic building, the Wren is the architectural representative of what is arguably the first and oldest college in the United States, chartered in 1693 and constructed between 1695 and 1700.

From mid-May through most of August, 2014, the yard was humming with archaeologists and teams of volunteers. Crouched or kneeling with trowels in hand, they painstakingly and methodically shaved and peeled away layers of soil, searching for and securing and recording any artifacts and architectural features they encountered. They were here because three years before, members of the William & Mary Center for Archaeological Research discovered evidence of structural foundations while conducting archaeological testing beneath a brick sidewalk in anticipation of its widening.

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wrenbuildingwrenbuilding2

The Wren building is the oldest college building in continuous use in the United States. Construction of the building began in 1695 and was completed in 1700. To the left is the earliest known drawing of the Wren building by Swiss traveler Francois-Louis Michel, rendered in 1702. It was accompanied by the caption “The college standing in Willemsburg, in which the governor has his residence, 1702.” source url: http://www.patc.net/images/michel5.jpg

A Brew House?

Initial 2011 test pits gave few details, but the full excavation in 2014 soon revealed brick foundations of a 18’ by 20’ 18th century building, determined by archaeologists to have been built in the 1720’s or 1730’s, but gone by 1770. Curiously, it lacked any traces of a fireplace or chimney, but it featured a large, circular ash pit and a heap of bricks near its center. The structure was too large to have been a smokehouse or privy, say archaeologists, and the absence of a chimney and fireplace ruled out a bake house or kitchen. But the circular feature near the center and the discovery of wide drains and a faucet that might have been used to tap beer hinted at the possibility that this was a brew house or malt house. Historical documentation mentions a College brew house, and notes had been discovered in the historic College bursar related to payments for hops, a prime ingredient for making beer. In addition to tobacco, it is known that Williamsburg slaves were employed to grow hops. Confirmation still awaits lab test results on pollen and phytoliths within the soil samples taken from the site, which might reveal the presence of hops.

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brewhouseoverallOverhead view of the 18th c. foundation discovered on the College of William and Mary Campus. Circular pit at the center was filled with ash, likely the result of brewing or malting.  (The building measures 18’ x 20’ with a later 8’ addition.) Courtesy Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

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The possibility of a brew or malt house is intriguing. Says Susan Kern, the Executive Director of the College of William & Mary’s Historic Campus, “the building itself as a place of labor is, to me, very interesting, because it concerns questions of who these people [who worked here] were, and entertains questions about what it takes to provision a college like this. The college had a kitchen, bakery, and other such operations needed to feed and provide for school masters and a student population—it thus sets up questions about the social and economic relationship of an institution like a college to other people and activities.”

Kern oversees the campus’s 17th and 18th century buildings, their archaeological resources and interpretation, and is also the preservation officer for the entire campus complex.

The possibility of a brew or malt house reinforces other accounts of what life was like during the 18th century for the college population. Beer consumption, for example, was almost as common as drinking water among the students and faculty, particularly as beer was considered safer than drinking water. It was not uncommon to serve beer, in addition to cider or other non-alcoholic drinks, at the tables within the dining halls of the school.

The Sawpit

The excavations at the location turned up another surprising element, however. Just to the east of the brick foundation structure archaeologists found traces of a large, rectangular-shaped pit feature measuring 23’ long and 12’ feet. From this location, they recovered large amounts of architectural artifacts, such as dressed stone, window elements, and brick. Their examination of the site and the finds suggested that it was used for a relatively short time and fell into disuse by about 1720.

“Until they got to the bottom of it, they really didn’t know what it was,” said Kern. But “the material at the top showed evidence of a feast – large oyster shells, large bones, wine bottles and pipe stems, hinting at some big event.” Among these artifacts at this stage were numerous fragments of what was later identified as an ornate Persan bleu flower urn dated to the early 18th century, what would be a rare find at any location in Williamsburg.

By the time they completed excavating through to the bottom of the cultural layers in the pit, they began to have some answers. It resembled similar sites that had been identified as colonial period sawpits, the more labor-intensive precursor to later saw mills. Such pits were used by carpenters in the 18th century to cut or saw timber into long planks used for construction. As the finds and stratigraphy dated it to earlier than the adjacent brick ‘brewery’ structure, “the building materials found at the bottom of the pit clarified the relationship of the site with the historic building,” continued Kern. Historical documents record that the Wren building burned down in 1705, but was reconstructed in the ensuing years. Workmen were likely at the site preparing the timber for the reconstruction. “The sawpit fills in the landscape of the area, and lets us imagine other people working in this environment and the space out there as a work yard.”  Kern imagines that the artifacts unearthed near the top of the pit were discarded from a feast held in celebration of the reconstruction completion. Once used, the sawpit served as a trash pit, including the refuse from the possible feast, and was subsequently filled in.

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sawpitoverheadArchaeologists create a profile to record the sawpit fill. Measuring approximately 23’ x 12’, the pit was only partially excavated, preserving some of the fill for future archaeologists. The sawpit excavation os upper center in this photograph, adjacent to the “brew house” foundation excavation. Courtesy Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

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sawpitstratigraphyLayers of fill within the sawpit contained early 18th century domestic and building debris, the latter from early 18th century rebuilding after a 1705 fire at the Wren Building. Courtesy Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

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artifactsinscreenJust a few of the artifacts recovered from the sawpit including stoneware tankard fragments, a wine bottle base, nails, animal bones, fragments of tin-glazed earthenware. Courtesy Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

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urninsituRecovered from the bottom of the sawpit, the flower urn was remarkably intact. Courtesy Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

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The material collected from the Wren Yard excavations also has significance in the context of exploring current research areas and questions for the archaeologists and historians of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (CWF) and the College of William & Mary’s Historic Campus program, especially regarding slave life at the College location and in Williamsburg generally. “The excavations come at a time when we are looking more at the institution of slavery and slave life here, so they are ideal in this regard,” says Kern. Historical documents refer to the use of slaves in the construction and provisioning activities related to the College, as well as other historic buildings in the restored area of Williamsburg.

Into the Lab

As is standard with any archaeological excavation, once the excavation, mapping and other field recording was completed, the archaeologists moved on to process the finds in the lab—a process that involves carefully cleaning, identifying, cataloguing, data entry, and analysis of the finds prior to preparing the formal written reports of the excavation. This is an ongoing phase that could take many years, depending upon the nature and quantity of artifacts and the research goals, but it is perhaps the most important part of archaeological investigation. “It’s the less visible part of archaeology, “ says Kern, “but that is where we really learn the hard facts.”

A key part of the ongoing work focuses on reconstruction and preservation of many of the remains. Emily Williams is the Conservator of Archaeological Materials for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. An archaeologist in her own right, she has also found herself at a variety of excavations across the globe, even as she has been involved in conservation at Williamsburg for the past19 years. Along with a variety of objects recovered by archaeologists across the Colonial Williamsburg landscape, many rare and valuable artifacts pass through her lab for restoration and preservation. The facility, first established in 1931, pioneered the application of conservation in American historical archaeology and continues to be one of the largest labs of its kind in the U.S.   

“Our role is to stabilize any objects that need immediate attention to ‘survive’ and to help the archaeologists answer questions they may have about the site,” says Williams. “Conservation is often viewed as the process of making things whole again, bringing them back to their original appearance for public display. But it is far more than this. It also includes stabilizing all of the components of a piece, for example, so it can be studied further by researchers. The ultimate goal is to make a piece accessible for asking new questions in the future.”

Williams emphasizes the point that conservators are often integrated with the archaeologists as excavations occur, with questions going back and forth as new information is gleaned from the artifacts while they are being examined and conserved.  “Data collection takes place in the field,” she says, “but it continues as you begin to study them in the lab. Conservation contributes to that process, in that we can see how objects have been used and misused. Clues are written on their surfaces. By closely examining the make-up and changes that have taken place in the materials we can then ‘reconstruct’ an activity or process or series of events, even mistakes that were made in making things. This helps to humanize the past, helping to make connections to viewers about why the objects have meaning, making connections to their daily lives.” 

As in any scientific or technical discipline, archaeological conservation requires the application of knowledge, tools, techniques and processes, many of which are borrowed or applied from other disciplines and sciences, particularly the medical sciences. As a case in point, Williams refers to a watering can that was made in the early 1600s. It was excavated in 1964. It was one of the first things she worked on as a conservator at Williamsburg. “It was in for treatment prior to an exhibit,” she says. “There were a lot of tears in the surface of it and small bumps that looked like rivets that didn’t make sense. But when x-rayed we found that it was part of a decorative pattern—grapes hanging from a central vine. This raised its status as a “high-end” object and thus reflected on the social context of the find.”  There is a large x-ray facility in the basement of the building in which the lab is housed. It has been used, she says, to x-ray every single piece of iron brought in from the excavations. This is done in order to identify the objects under their corrosion crusts and determine which will be treated. Other equipment includes such things as Airbrasive tools that direct a narrow jet of air and abrasive powder at artifacts to clean them and expose their authentic original surfaces and features, pneumatic air scribes for removing hard, rocky concretions formed on artifacts over time within their sub-surface contexts, a freeze dryer used to conserve and treat waterlogged artifacts, such as those they receive from the excavations at Jamestown, Virginia (site of the first successful English colony in the Americas), and even a large physician’s ear-nose-and-throat microscope used to better facilitate the examination and cleaning of small objects. Finally, swabs and scalpels round out this albeit incomplete tool list.

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wateringcan-002The watering can. Courtesy Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

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But even with all of the equipment and materials at their disposal for doing their work, the CWF conservers have important rules of thumb that continuously guide and even constrain their use of the tools. “We try and use the ‘least aggressive’ methods,” she emphasizes. “We rely a lot on scalpel cleaning under the microscope, and it’s not as easy as it might look. It takes a fair amount of experience and skill to do it right. Chemical solutions at times help us in cleaning, but we carefully target them to the objects and the materials they are made from.”

A typical occupation in the lab involves the careful, methodical reconstruction or ‘mending’ of artifacts, such as ceramic ware, brought in from the excavation sites. Thousands of pottery sherds are commonly recovered from the archaeological sites in Williamsburg. From the Wren Yard excavations, a total of about 481 large bags of artifacts were recovered, most of them stored and processed in the receiving lab of the CWF. But some of the artifacts, particularly pieces identified for special examination and treatment, are brought into the conservation lab for attention.

One such example is the rare delft urn uncovered at the “brew house” site. Known as “Persan Bleu” (or Persian blue), the ceramic emulated the blue and white ceramics coming to Europe from East Asia. This piece poses particular problems because the glaze is very poorly adhered and has fallen off in many places. “Before we can even clean any dirt off the object we have to adhere the edges of the glaze back to the surface, then clean, adhere, clean…The loose glaze fragments are carefully washed and we hope to be able to mend some of them back on to the urn, giving us a better sense of the decorative scheme.”  Already, examination of the fragments has suggested the possibility that the archaeologists may have discovered the remains of two urns, rather than one.

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Archaeology Lab view 5View of the conservation lab. Emily Williams is seen center, working on the Persan bleu urn. Courtesy Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

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Archaeology Lab view 1Emily Williams in the lab, working on the Persan bleu urn. Courtesy Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

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archaeologylabironobjectsxrayXray images taken of iron objects recovered from excavations. Such images help to identify and determine the details of the objects, often otherwise unrecognizable due to corrosion crusts when first recovered during an excavation. Courtesy Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

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Looking Ahead

From the Wren Yard excavations alone, hundreds of bags of artifacts have been stored on shelves in the lab’s washroom. Thousands of artifacts were excavated from the “brew house” and sawpit locations combined, including more than 1,900 oyster shells from a single layer of the sawpit alone, with about 35 large plastic pails of shells in total from the site.

The artifacts won’t simply sit there. They will be grist for further handling and examination, providing deeper insights to the history of the sites and the life-ways related to them. “As artifacts and soil samples yield additional information, what we know about this building, and the pit beside it, will evolve,” states Meredith Poole, a senior staff archaeologist of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. “Dates will be honed, and functions will be reconsidered.* We may be revising our interpretation of the building in the Wren Yard to include the possibility of it being a malt house. Interpretations are always fluid until all of the artifacts are processed and analyzed, and until we finish mulling over possibilities amongst ourselves and colleagues.”

Ultimately, the discoveries and information gleaned from the Wren Yard excavations will become part of the emerging total picture of an American colonial capital that has seen excavations at dozens of locations since 1928……and an American college that remains a  living reminder of an important historical period in U.S. history.

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*http://whatsnew.history.org/2014/09/whats-brewing-in-the-wren-yard/

Cover Photo, Top Left, and Below: From overhead, a view of what may be a brew or malting house and (to its left) an earlier sawpit (two unrelated features). Courtesy Colonial Williamsburg Foundation 


arialsawpitandfoundation

 

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The Exodus: Myth or History?

David Rohl is a British Egyptologist with a reputation for the controversial. Regarded by his colleagues as a maverick, Rohl proposes bold solutions to some of the ancient world’s greatest historical conundrums – many related to the epic stories of the Old Testament. He regards himself as an agnostic, yet he argues for a historical Bible. He accepts that he is a heterodox who does not accept orthodoxy simply because it is the consensus view. Rohl is a fully trained scholar with a degree in Egyptology, ancient history, Levantine archaeology, and the history of ancient Greece, whilst his post-graduate research concentrated on the complex and rarely studied chronology of the Third Intermediate Period in Egypt.

Rohl’s conclusions have been dismissed by academia, mainly on the grounds that they are too bold, too radical and not supported by the evidence. He would disagree with the last sentiment, arguing that most scholars who dismiss his work are not themselves familiar with the material and have not understood his evidence, since they have not actually read his books. He feels they are simply regurgitating an anti-Rohl consensus, which amounts to “we all know he’s wrong”, even though a detailed and thorough critique of his work has never been offered. Many in the general public, on the other hand, have been captivated by his research and, as a result, he has become the de facto leader of a new ‘Bible as history’ movement.

Here Rohl discusses the question of the historical basis for the Exodus story, given the renewed interest engendered by two new films on the subject released in the last twelve months.

 

Question 1: With the recent release of Ridley Scott’s ‘Exodus: Gods and Kings’ and even more recently the documentary movie ‘Patterns of Evidence: The Exodus’, why do you think the Exodus story remains a compelling topic for both filmmakers and moviegoers?


David Rohl: Biblical epics have always been a part of the movie scene, almost from the birth of Hollywood just before the advent of the First World War. The original great epic was Cecil B. DeMille’s 1923 black and white, silent movie ‘The Ten Commandments’. The biblical epic genre has tended to come and go in cycles. It was done to death in the 1950s and 60s, reaching its zenith with DeMille’s color remake of ‘The Ten Commandments’ in 1956, starring Charlton Heston as Moses and Yul Brynner as Ramesses II. And now, as you rightly point out, the biblical epics have come back into fashion once more in the last couple of years with the release of ‘Noah’ and ‘Exodus: Gods and Kings’. The reason for this resurrection seems to be the popularity of fantasy movies, whether it be vampires and werewolves, super heroes or hobbits, elves, orcs and golden rings … and, of course, because Hollywood now has the new toy of CGI (Computer Generated Graphics) to make the mighty miracles of Genesis and Exodus even more impressive for the demanding moviegoer.

The thing is that the Bible stories are very much a part of our heritage – within both Jewish and Christian communities – and, of course, Hollywood was virtually created by Jewish filmmakers and producers imbued, through the annual Passover meal, with the legend of their ancestral and religious origins.

But the academic disciplines of archaeology and ancient history have moved on, far ahead of Hollywood, in the sense that, over the past fifty years since Charlton Heston parted the waters of the Red Sea, scholars have conclusively demonstrated that there is no evidence of a large population of Semites sojourning in Egypt at the time of Ramesses, nor an Exodus from Egypt in his reign, and especially no military conquest of the Promised Land (i.e. Canaan) during the closing years of Egypt’s 19th Dynasty (archaeologically speaking the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the early Iron Age). As a result, the Exodus epic is regarded as nothing more than a ‘pious myth’ created by the Judean priesthood of the seventh to third centuries BC in order to provide a mythical past for the Jewish people.

 

Question 2: But you would disagree with those findings wouldn’t you? In ‘Patterns of Evidence: The Exodus’ you say that you believe Moses was the first historian, long before Greeks like Herodotus wrote their histories of the ancient world. Does this mean the Bible can be viewed as a kind of history book?

 

David Rohl: Yes. Actually I don’t disagree with the findings of archaeologists at all … far from it. I concur completely with the view that there was no Exodus and Conquest during the 19th Dynasty. The evidence is perfectly clear on that. Where I disagree is in treating the Old Testament narratives as a work of fiction. I prefer to view the stories as legendary narratives based on genuine historical events. Exaggerated and aggrandized? Certainly. Legendary? Probably. But myth? No.

For me, the reason why we find no evidence for the Exodus narratives in the closing years of the Late Bronze Age is because it didn’t happen then but rather much earlier, towards the end of the Middle Bronze Age. In other words, archaeologists have been looking in all the right places for the Sojourn, Exodus and Conquest stories but in entirely the wrong time.

 

Question 3: I read that you regard yourself as an agnostic, yet, as you say, you believe there are some historical truths in the various books of the Bible. How do you go about distinguishing fact from fiction in the Old Testament?  

 

David Rohl: It’s very simple. I treat the biblical text like any other ancient document. Just because it’s a ‘religious text’ doesn’t mean it has no history in it. In fact, many of the annals and narrative texts from the ancient world are ‘religious’ in the sense that kings go into battle with their gods by their sides. Ramesses II claims to have won the Battle of Kadesh with the personal support of his god Amun, literally by his side. We wouldn’t dismiss the Battle of Kadesh as ‘pious fiction’ on that basis would we? Today, most scholars would accept the historicity of the Trojan War, even though Homer’s Iliad is replete with the interventions of gods on both sides during the battles. Why then should we treat the biblical text differently?

So I analyze the narrative, looking for potentially historical elements (not miracles or personal details that have no hope of being seen in the archaeological record). I then test the sequence of those ‘historical’ elements against the archaeological evidence in Egypt and Israel/Palestine. If I observe a pattern of evidence in the archaeology which matches the biblical narrative, then I can conclude that the narrative has a basis in history. If there is no match at any point in the historical timeline, I conclude that the story is not based on real events. I would approach any ancient document in exactly the same way. Let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water just because the baby is called the Bible!

 

Question 4:  As you say, in our current scholarly climate, even if historians do not believe the Exodus occurred, they still choose to place it hypothetically in the time of Pharaoh Ramesses II. Then, when archaeologists look for evidence for these events in that time period, they find nothing, which seems to confirm their view that the Exodus is nothing more than a myth. Do you think Scott’s film adds to the general impression that the Exodus is merely a fairy tale?

 

David Rohl: Now, there’s the rub of the matter – a prime example of circular reasoning, which Ridley Scott perpetuates in his ‘fantasy movie’. The first chapter of the Book of Exodus mentions that Israelite slaves built a city called ‘Raamses’. Now scholars take that to mean the city of Pi Ramesse (the ‘Estate of Ramesses’) built as Ramesses II’s delta capital. On that basis … and that basis alone … they date Moses to the time of Ramesses II and the Exodus and Conquest to the 19th Dynasty. Then, when they examine the archaeology, they find no evidence for these events.

But that’s not all. They then use the Bible to construct the entire chronology of the Egyptian dynasties! Ever since the days of Champollion (decipherer of the Egyptian hieroglyphs in 1822) the Egyptian king Shishak, plunderer of Yahweh’s temple in Jerusalem in Year 5 of the reign of Solomon’s son Rehoboam, according to the Books of Kings and Chronicles, has been identified with Pharaoh Shoshenk I, founder of the 22nd Dynasty. Shoshenk undertook a military campaign into Canaan in his 20th year, and it’s fair to say that the names Shishak and Shoshenk do sound similar. But, as I and other scholars have pointed out, the campaigns of Shishak and Shoshenk are completely different. Whereas Shishak invades the kingdom of Judah, captures Rehoboam’s fortified towns and plunders the temple and palace in Jerusalem of its treasures, Shoshenk avoids Judah and focuses his campaign in the northern kingdom of Israel. According to the Bible, the king of the Northern Kingdom, Jeroboam I, was an ally of Egypt. So the campaign of Shoshenk is the complete opposite of the campaign of Shishak. I believe Shoshenk is not Shishak and we must look for Shishak in the identity of another historical pharaoh who is much more famous.

Nevertheless, Egyptologists date Shoshenk’s 20th regnal year to 925 BC, based solely on the biblical date of 925 BC for the fifth regnal year of Rehoboam, when Shishak plundered the Temple of Solomon. So … and this is the important point … we use the Bible to date the 22nd Dynasty and, from that, working backwards, we arrive at the dates for Ramesses II (1279-1213 BC). Having done so, scholars then find that there is no evidence for the Exodus in this era, and so dismiss the Bible as fiction. Can you see the methodological circularity here? Egyptian history is dated by a book which is subsequently regarded as a work of fiction!

Question 5: ‘Patterns of Evidence: The Exodus’, on the other hand, is a documentary that takes a serious and fair-minded approach towards ascertaining whether or not the events of the Sojourn, Exodus and Conquest actually happened. The centerpiece of the film is your ‘New Chronology’. What are the origins of the New Chronology and what does it set out to do?

 

David Rohl: The New Chronology is my attempt at restructuring the ancient timeline of Egypt using only the Egyptian internal evidence (not relying initially on any biblical dating), plus retro-calculable astronomical events recorded in the ancient documents which can be tied to actual historical events. I then use that new chronological framework to see how it synchronizes with other ancient civilisations, such as the Bronze Age Greeks and Anatolians, and the biblical narratives. That research has been underway now for over forty years, since I first noticed anomalies in the Egyptian timeline back in the 1970s.

The conclusion that arises out of this re-examination and reworking of Egyptian chronology is that scholars have artificially stretched out the pharaonic timeline, making it around three centuries too old. This is why the Old Testament events can’t be found in the conventional or orthodox chronology. With the three centuries removed from the timeline, the dates for the Egyptian Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom are lowered (younger in time) and therefore align quite differently with the timeline of the Bible.

 

Question 6: So basically, if we look several centuries further back in time from the reign of Ramesses everything begins to fit together?

David Rohl: That is not quite the right way to see it. Ramesses II’s dates are now lower, shifting down by three centuries. He is now a king of the tenth century BC and therefore a contemporary of Solomon (whose dates have not shifted). It is then interesting to discover that Ramesses had a hypocoristicon or short-form of his name used throughout Canaan. He was called Shisha … does that remind you of a certain pharaoh who plundered the Temple of Solomon in 925 BC?

Looking further back in time, the biblical Exodus date of 1447 BC now falls in what Egyptologists call the Second Intermediate Period, which is the archaeological period known as the Middle Bronze IIA-IIB. It was at this time that we find a huge city, lying underneath the 19th Dynasty capital of Pi Ramesse (biblical Raamses), known in the contemporary texts as Avaris. And this Middle Bronze Age city, located in the land of Goshen, was teaming with Semites who had initially migrated from Canaan into the Egyptian delta. They then abruptly abandon the city and disappear. About half a century later the city of Jericho is violently destroyed, its walls falling down in an apparent earthquake. Jericho is then burnt to the ground and abandoned for nearly 600 years. All the cities described in the Book of Joshua as being ‘placed under the curse of destruction’ are also destroyed at this time.

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davidrohlpatternsDavid Rohl and Director Tim Mahoney examining a replica of the ‘Israel Stela’ during the filming of ‘Patterns of Evidence: The Exodus’. Courtesy David Rohl

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davidrohlexodusRecreated depiction of the Israelites leaving Egypt and heading into Sinai during the dramatic events of the Exodus. Courtesy David Rohl

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Question 7: What has been the response of religious believers to your New Chronology? To what extent does the New Chronology challenge or reinforce what they already believe?

David Rohl: It has been a mixed reaction. The general public in both the Jewish and Christian communities has welcomed it with open arms and people are genuinely excited by the discoveries resulting from the time shift. Evangelical Christian scholars, on the other hand, tend to be very much against it. They take their stance from the high priest of Egyptian chronology, Professor Kenneth Kitchen, who is also an evangelical Christian. When my first book A Test of Time (published in the USA as Pharaohs and Kings) came out in 1995, it went straight to the top of the bestsellers list, supported by a three-part TV documentary series. Kitchen immediately wrote a letter to his evangelical colleagues in America, ridiculing the hypothesis and dismissing it as “98% rubbish”. The effect was dramatic within evangelical scholarship. His letter was circulated throughout the evangelical world … I even received five copies myself from different sources – sympathetic scholars who thought I had better be made aware of what was happening.

So Kitchen effectively generated a strong negative reaction within Christian academia which took his decree on faith. Sadly that negativity still persists, even though Kitchen has gone a considerable way towards retracting his initial angry response. In 2004 a public debate was held at the University of Reading in the UK, where Professor Kitchen and I debated the issue ‘Exodus – Myth or History?’ in front of 450 conference delegates. In the closing discussion, Kitchen offered a public apology for his written outburst and then admitted that he now accepted that there were two ‘powerful sets of options’ for the Exodus dating – his own 19th Dynasty, Late Bronze Age date, which he continued to argue for, and the David Rohl Middle Bronze Age date. That admission has not been widely disseminated among Christian scholarship. 

 

Question 8: Why do you think Egyptologists have not embraced the New Chronology?

David Rohl: Because Egyptian chronology is a very specialist field which most Egyptologists stay well clear of, preferring to accept Professor Kitchen’s chronology, which has been the orthodoxy for decades now. In effect, the Conventional Chronology has been set in stone and there is simply no appetite to re-examine it from the foundations upwards.

 

Question 9: Do you think “Patterns of Evidence: The Exodus” will help in showing the world that the New Chronology solves the problems that exist in the Conventional Chronology?

David Rohl: I hope so. The film has created a new momentum within the religious communities and, now that they have seen the compelling evidence, even among leading authorities within evangelical academia. Let’s see where it takes us this time, now that America is aware of these exciting developments in biblical archaeology.

 

Question 10: How does your upcoming book Exodus – Myth or History? fit into all this?

David Rohl: The movie, by its very nature, can only really highlight the evidence for this new biblical research. A film has a different role to play, involving storytelling, drama and emotion; it primarily has to be a medium for entertainment. My new book Exodus – Myth or History? is there to compliment the movie and to go into much greater depth than a two-hour film can possibly achieve. It is a tough read … but full of fascinating detail. It lays out the entire case for placing the Sojourn, Exodus and Conquest in the Middle Bronze Age … and now it is up to both academia and the public to determine if I have done a decent job and made a strong enough case for a re-examination of the question.

 

Question 11: Why is it important that we know the truth about the Exodus?

 

David Rohl: First because we should always be in search of historical truth, wherever we find it; and second because, if my work supports a historically based Bible, then I am happy to offer that biblical reality as a re-enforcement of faith in a world where skepticism is so fashionable and opinions are so deeply entrenched.

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The video and book, Patterns of Evidence, are available from the web site www.PatternsOfEvidence.com and from selected retailers, including Amazon. David Rohl’s book Exodus – Myth or History? is available in April, 2015.

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About David Rohl

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davidrohlDavid Rohl’s life-long love affair with Egypt began in 1960 when he first travelled to the Nile valley as a nine-year-old, sailing upstream all the way from Cairo to Abu Simbel in King Farouk’s paddle steamer the ‘Khased Kheir’, following the king’s exile after the 1952 revolution.

David was born in Manchester, England, on September 12 1950 and has spent much of his life exploring the Middle East, from the high valleys of the Zagros mountains in Azerbaijan, Kurdistan and Luristan (in search of the legendary land of Eden), to the vast expanses of the Egyptian desert (in search of the origins of pharaonic civilisation). He has been described by one UK national newspaper as ‘Britain’s highest profile Egyptologist’ and ‘the British explorer who is outdoing Hollywood’s Indiana Jones’.

David Rohl is also famous (some would say notorious) for his radical revision of the ancient Egyptian timeline. His ‘New Chronology’ proposes to remove several centuries from what he believes to be an over-extended reconstruction of history by modern scholars, to reveal a whole new set of synchronisms between Egypt and the Old Testament, as well as eliminating the Dark Ages from Greek and Anatolian histories.

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This interview was conducted by Ryan Cochrane

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Photo above: David Rohl in the Egyptian Eastern Desert at one of the predynastic rock art sites. Courtesy David Rohl

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Decoding Human Prehistory

Standing on stage, Svante Pääbo makes a soft-spoken yet commanding impression before his audience. Dressed in a loose, well-pressed suit with eyeglasses that make him appear the stereotype of the quintessential scientist, he expounds on a topic that has recently commanded headlines and captured imaginations the world over—how the field of genetics has been illuminating and even revolutionizing what we know about human evolution and the human prehistoric past. 

Pääbo is a director at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. He and his team are known for developing a methodology for isolating and sequencing actual ancient DNA by sampling the remains of extinct  human species. He is perhaps best known for his genetic findings suggesting that Neanderthals, an extinct form of human that lived in Eurasia more than 30,000 years ago, mated with modern humans and left their genetic imprint in people who live today. 

“Neanderthals are not totally extinct,” he said before his audience. “In some of us they live on, a little bit.”

Pääbo was speaking in this instance before an audience at the international TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference held in Edinburgh, Scotland in July, 2011. Entitled “DNA Clues to Our Inner Neanderthal”, he explained how he and his team of scientists have been able to look into the complex elements of the human genome and ferret out the telltale signs of these prehistoric human cousins within our own ancestry.

But Pääbo spoke of much more than Neanderthals.  “From a genomic perspective, we are all Africans,” he said with clear assurance—his work has also helped to show that all humans can trace their ancestry far back to a small population of Africans who later expanded and spread out across the globe. It has become a widely accepted paradigm among anthropologists and geneticists worldwide. Being at the forefront of that paradigm, he has, arguably more than any other scholar, become in some ways an iconic figure of the field of paleogenetics, the study of the past through the analysis of preserved genetic material from the remains of ancient organisms, a field that has become somewhat romanticized and sensationalized through popular cinematic productions like Jurassic Park

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But it didn’t all begin with Pääbo. Emile Zuckerkandl and the physical chemist Linus Carl Pauling introduced the term “paleogenetics” in 1963, and in 1984 a team led by Allan Wilson published the achievement of the first sequence of ancient DNA isolated from the remains of the quagga, an extinct form of zebra.[1] Wilson’s 1984 breakthrough kick-started a scientific explosion of efforts and studies that would take the field to new technical breakthroughs, using developing new laboratory techniques, methods of DNA abstraction and complex computational tools.
 

Finding Ancient Code in the Living

Recovering and studying ancient DNA (aDNA) from long-dead organisms tells only part of the story. There is a history buried deep within our living genes, a history that could possibly take us back to glimpse the primordial soup of our human ancestry, perhaps even as far back as the ancient proto-humans who walked the world long before modern humans.  It can be found in the “fossil” shadows of our past that actually exist today within our genes—clues that have fascinating implications for human evolution and past population migrations and dispersals.

Knowing that many current, ‘living’ genomic sequences existing in today’s populations are also replicated copies of DNA that existed in the past, researchers over the past few decades began using concepts and models such as ‘coalescent theory’ and ‘multilocus nested clade analysis’ (MLNCA) on the mitochondrial genome (mtDNA) and the Y chromosome, those parts of the genome that have seen little or no recombination (mixing with other DNA segments that have a different evolutionary history). It was much like studying “fossil” DNA imprinted within the genome. In this way, scientists were able to discover what is famously penned today in the popular culture as “Mitochondrial Eve”, the matrilineal most recent common ancestor (MRCA), which suggested that modern humans descended in a direct, unbroken, maternal line to a single female ancestor who lived approximately 100,000–200,000 years ago, most likely in East Africa. The discovery was made in the 1980’s thanks to Allan Wilson of the University of California, Berkeley, along with doctoral students Mark Stoneking and Rebecca L. Cann, who developed and used a molecular clock, a technique by which species divergence time could be estimated.

In other words, we were all originally Africans.  It became a headline-making story.

But there was more. Alan R. Templeton, the Charles Rebstock Professor of Biology and Genetics and Professor of Evolutionary and Environmental Biology in the Department of Biology at Washington University in St. Louis, in an article[1] published in a 2013 issue of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News, has summarized some of the suggestions that have emerged—human population and evolution ‘events’ through time that have defined the directions of our ancestry. He points to three major ‘events’ that have been suggested by genetic research.

“The first detected event,” he writes, “ is an expansion out of Africa into Eurasia dated to 1.9 million years ago using a molecular clock—an inference confirmed by the fossil record.”* The landmark fossil discoveries of 1.8 million-year-old hominins in Dmanisi, Georgia, by David Lordkipanidze of the Georgian National Museum, are prime examples supporting this finding. A second dispersal out of Africa event occurred about 650,000 years ago, also attested to by the archaeological record—such as the Acheulean stone tool industry with its most characteristic marker, the bifacial hand-axe, and the fossil record of hominins such as Homo erectus, traditionally thought to be the first global colonizing human ancestor. Finally, Templeton suggests that a third dispersal out of Africa occurred about 130,000 to 125,000 years ago, reaching East Asia by about 110,000 years ago.

This third major dispersal has also been perhaps the most debated. Some recent studies, however, have produced results that may lend further support to the theory. One such study involved an international team of scientists conducting an analysis of the genetic diversity and cranial measurements of 10 African and Asian human populations, concluding that anatomically modern (AMH) humans may have dispersed out of Africa earlier than previously thought, and in more than one stage: initially into Asia by taking a southern route through Arabia as much as 130,000 years ago; and later into Northern Eurasia on a more northerly route 50,000 years ago. As the timing and nature of early modern human dispersal out of Africa has long been disputed among scholars, with competing theories or models about how and when it all occurred, the research team analyzed their data within the framework of the competing models. They came up with the model that best fits the results. “We tested for the first time to our knowledge the spatiotemporal dimensions of competing out-of-Africa dispersal models,” write Hugo Reyes-Centeno and colleagues in their report, “analyzing in parallel genomic and craniometric data. Our results support an initial dispersal into Asia by a southern route beginning as early as ∼130 ka and a later dispersal into northern Eurasia by ∼50 ka.”*  Reyes-Centeno is a paleoanthropologist with the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Germany. Other researchers included Katerina Harvati, also of Eberhard Karls University; Silvia Ghirotto and Guido Barbujani of the University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy; and Florent Détroit and Dominique Grimaud-Herve of the National Museum of Natural History, Paris, France.  “This is consistent with archaeological evidence for modern human occupation in the southern Arabian Peninsula at ∼125 ka,” wrote the authors. “This date [130,000 ka] is in intriguingly closer correspondence with the genetic divergence estimates for our sampled populations, with a calendar date of divergence between Melanesians and South Africans at ∼116 ka, for example. No modern human fossils have been discovered in the southern Arabian Peninsula, but lithic artifacts show affinities with African assemblages, including those discovered alongside the fossil remains at Herto, Ethiopia, dated between ∼154–160 ka.”**

 

Extracting Ancient Genes from the Bones

Most scientists would arguably agree, however, that there is nothing quite like getting the direct evidence from the ancient specimens themselves. They knew that extracting actual aDNA from human bones dated to prehistoric periods, in a very real sense, would move us beyond the ‘smoking gun’ of the ‘fossil shadows’ imprinted within our genes. It was therefore a natural step to pick the available human fossil bones themselves of their DNA and to study them.

It has not been an easy task. The challenge has been fraught with technical, methodological, and environmental difficulties and complexity, which has included the tricky business of dealing with contamination from other DNA introduced into the sample study mixes as a result of such things as modern human handling and microbes, as well as the fact that ancient DNA has had tens of thousands of years to break down or ‘deteriorate’ within the environmental context since death of the individuals. Nevertheless, geneticists and other specialists have continued to advance the science with improved techniques, technologies, and knowledge.

The Neanderthals

No ancient hominin fossils have been subject to as much DNA sampling and analysis than that of our famous ancient human cousins, the Neanderthals. Through the study of bone samples from a number of Neanderthal specimens recovered from different archaeological sites across Eurasia, a vast dataset has been developed, characterizing the Neanderthal genome as the best known and most complete archaic human genome of any extinct hominin. Genetically, we only know more about one other hominin—modern humans, the last and only surviving hominin on the planet. Pivotal to the Neanderthal research was a landmark study published in Science in May of 2010, where R.E. Green, Svante Pääbo and colleagues at the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, relate in detail how they generated a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome composed of more than 4 billion nucleotides from three Neanderthal bone specimens. [2] They compared the Neanderthal genome to the genomes of five present-day humans from different parts of the world, identifying genomic regions that were possibly affected by selection in ancestral modern humans, genes such as those involved in metabolism and cognitive and skeletal development. In the process, they were able to show that Neanderthals shared more genetic variants with present-day humans in Eurasia than with present-day humans in sub-Saharan Africa, suggesting that gene flow from Neanderthals to the ancestors of present-day non-Africans likely occurred before the divergence of Eurasian groups from each other.

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vindijaThree bones from Vindija cave, Croatia. Most of the Neanderthal genome sequence was retrieved from these bones. This image relates to the paper published in Science on 7 May 2010 by Richard Green and colleagues titled “A Draft Sequence of the Neandertal Genome.” This image relates to a paper that appeared in the Dec. 23, 2011, issue of Science, published by AAAS. The paper, by Science News staff in Washington D.C., was titled, “Breakthrough of the Year.” Image courtesy of Max-Planck-Institute EVA

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As research has progressed, geneticists and other scientists have been able to piece together some interesting suggestions for four evolutionary traits related to this, what is considered modern humanity’s closest extinct hominin relative:

First, sequencing indicated that Neanderthal and modern human populations split from a common ancestor about ca. 550,000 – 765,000 years ago. Second, although Neanderthals are thought to have mostly inhabited what is present-day Eurasia and the Levant, genetic evidence of their presence has also been found as far east as the Okladnikov and Denisova caves in the Altai mountains of Western Siberia, suggesting the existence of distinct groups across a very broad geographic range. Third, even given the broad range, the size of the Neanderthal population seems to have been much smaller than that of the later, emerging modern humans, effectively only one-tenth the size of the latter.  And fourth, more than their modern human cousins, the Neanderthals seem to have engaged in more intra-familial mating patterns, such as inbreeding between half-siblings, uncle and niece, grandfather and granddaughter, or double first cousins. Some scholars hypothesize that this may be in part because of the smaller size of the population groups and their comparatively greater extent of isolation as compared with their modern human counterparts. 

Certainly a great deal more needs to be researched related to the Neanderthal genome, and ongoing and future studies may indeed challenge this emerging picture. But it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the pace and volume of new findings about the Neanderthals have been nothing less than remarkable.

The Denisovans

In March 2010, scientists announced the discovery of an ancient finger bone fragment from a female who lived in the remote Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains in Siberia, a cave where archaeological excavations had yielded fossils of Neanderthals and prehistoric modern humans. But this finger bone, along with two teeth and a toe bone that were recovered later, came from a human that was neither Neanderthal nor modern human. Analysis of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) showed this individual to be genetically distinct from Neanderthals and modern humans. Sequencing revealed that the individual belonged to a distinct species of human, named by the discoverers as’Denisovans’ after the cave in which the first fossil remains were found, and that this new species of humans split from Neanderthal populations about 381 – 473 kyr ago.[3]

The Denisovans were apparently not a blip on the screen of human evolution. Recent sequencing of the mitochondrial genome of a roughly 400,000-year-old hominin fossil recovered from the Sima de los Huesos cave in Spain revealed that it belonged to a hominin from a population characterized as a sister group to Denisovans [4]; and genetic evidence of admixture with Denisovans between anatomically modern humans (AMH) has shown up in Melanesian groups, especially those of Papua New Guinea, and to a lesser extent among mainland Asians and Native Americans.

Who were these Denisovans and what did they look like?

We know what Neanderthals looked like, based on the fossil record. But the fossil record for Denisovans has been very paltry by comparison. Here again, genetic sequencing and analysis has made a difference. Another landmark genome sequencing study, this time in 2012, was conducted on the Denisovan finger bone by a team led by Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, revealing a young girl with dark skin, brown hair, and brown eyes—the sequence indicated genetic variants that in present-day humans are associated with these physical traits. Moreover, from this study the researchers were able to determine that the genetic variation of the Denisovans was lower than in present-day humans, and suggested that an initially small Denisovan population grew quickly and spread over a wide geographic range. Coupled with similar genetic research on Neanderthals, the results even spelled possible implications for the early dispersal of hominins from their African homeland. “If future research of the Neanderthal genome shows that their population size changed over time in similar ways,” said Pääbo, “it may well be that a single population expanding out of Africa gave rise to both the Denisovans and the Neanderthals.” The researchers generated a list of about 100,000 changes in the human genome that occurred after the split from the Denisovans. Some of the changes are associated with brain function and nervous system development. Others may be related to the skin, eye and dental morphology.

“This research will help determining how it was that modern human populations came to expand dramatically in size as well as cultural complexity while archaic humans [such as the Denisovans and Neanderthals] eventually dwindled in numbers and became physically extinct”, said Pääbo.

The Denisovan discovery was another reminder to evolutionists that the landscape of human evolution was far more complicated than what had previously been imagined.

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denisovacave-001This is the Denisova Cave entrance, located in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia, Russia. The cave was inhabited at various times by three different groups of early humans: Neanderthals, Denisovans and modern humans. Credit: Bence Viola

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denisovacaveexcavationExcavation shown in progress inside the Denisova cave. This image relates to a paper that appeared in the Aug. 31, 2012, issue of Science, published by AAAS. The paper, by M. Meyer at Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and colleagues was titled, “A High-Coverage Genome Sequence from an Archaic Denisovan Individual.” Image courtesy of Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

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matthiasmeyerIn the genetics lab: Matthias Meyer at work in the clean lab. Meyer was co-author of the 2012 Denisova genome study. Credit:MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology

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Mixing it Up

The possibility of admixture, or interbreeding, between AMHs and archaic humans such as Neanderthals has been the subject of anthropological discussion and debate for decades. Finally, the recent characterization of genomes from archaic human remains has provided convincing evidence that such events occurred. The more abundant findings have related to the relationship between Neanderthals and AMHs.

For example, one recent study [5] by a University of California, Berkeley, research team achieved a complete sequence of the Neanderthal genome using DNA extracted from a woman’s toe bone (also excavated in Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains) dating back to 50,000 years, revealing a history of interbreeding among at least four different types of early humans living in Europe and Asia at that time. In this study, they generated a high-quality sequence of the Neanderthal genome and compared it with the genomes of modern humans and Denisovans. Their comparison showed that Neanderthals and Denisovans were closely related, and that their common ancestor split from the ancestors of modern humans about 400,000 years ago. The study also showed that Neanderthals and Denisovans split about 300,000 years ago. The study indicated that, though Denisovans and Neanderthals became extinct, they left behind traces of their genes because they occasionally interbred with AMHs. They estimated that between 1.5 and 2.1 percent of the genomes of modern non-Africans can be traced to Neantherthals. Denisovan genetic traces were also found in some Oceanic and Asian modern human populations. The genomes of Australian aborigines, New Guineans and some Pacific Islanders were determined to be about 6 percent Denisovan genes, according to earlier studies. The new analysis found that the genomes of Han Chinese and other mainland Asian populations, as well as of Native Americans, contain about 0.2 percent Denisovan genes. More interesting still was the finding that Denisovans interbred with a mysterious fourth group of early humans also living in Eurasia at the time. That group split away from the others more than a million years ago, and scientists suggest this group may have been Homo erectus, the archaeological and fossil evidence of which has indicated their presence in Europe and Asia a million or more years ago.

“The paper really shows that the history of humans and hominins during this period was very complicated,” said population geneticist Montgomery Slatkin, a study co-author and a UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology. “There was a lot of interbreeding that we know about and probably other interbreeding we haven’t yet discovered.” Although interbreeding, based on the study results, is thought to have been relatively infrequent between Neanderthals and AMHs.

In another analysis, they discovered that the Neanderthal woman whose toe bone provided the DNA was highly inbred. The woman’s genome indicated that she was the daughter of a mother and father who either were half-siblings who shared the same mother, an uncle and niece or aunt and nephew, a grandparent and grandchild, or double first-cousins (the offspring of two siblings who married siblings). Additional analyses suggested that the population sizes of Neanderthals and Denisovans were small and that inbreeding may have been more common in Neanderthal groups than in modern populations. Moreover, they identified at least 87 genes in modern humans that differ significantly from corresponding genes in Neanderthals and Denisovans. These genes may hold key clues to the behavioral differences between modern humans and the extinct, archaic human species. According to Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute, they could constitute “a catalog of genetic features that sets all modern humans apart from all other organisms, living or extinct.”

“I believe,” he added, “that in it hide some of the things that made the enormous expansion of human populations and human culture and technology in the last 100,000 years possible.”

In another new study, conducted by researchers under the leadership of Benjamin Vernot and Joshua Akey of the University of Washington, Seattle, researchers came up with a proven methodology to determine the percentages and precise genome segments that have been inherited, and which parts of the total Neanderthal genome bestowed an adaptive advantage (and were thus retained) in modern human descendants. [6] Their model involved a two-staged computational strategy framework, without additional sampling of fossil remains, applied to whole-genome sequences of 379 Europeans and 286 East Asians, courtesy of data from the 1000 Genomes Project. The results of their research suggested that, while the total amount of Neanderthal sequence in any individual modern human is relatively low, about 2 – 4 percent, the cumulative amount of the Neanderthal genome identified across all humans in the aggregate represents segments that constituted about 20 percent of a total Neanderthal genome sequence. In some parts of the modern genome, they observed large regions without Neanderthal DNA, suggesting that certain portions of the archaic genetic sequence were deleterious to survival. On the other hand, they also observed sections of the modern sequence that showed more Neanderthal DNA than expected. Vernot and Akey concluded that these sequences remained because their functions provided an adaptive advantage, perhaps related to skin phenotype.

Their study could have implications for future research.

“Our  results provide a new avenue for paleogenomics studies,” wrote Vernot and Akey in their report, “allowing substantial amounts of population-level DNA sequence information to be obtained from extinct groups even in the absence of fossilized remains……. potentially allowing the discovery and characterization of previously unknown hominins that interbred with modern humans.”[6]

In a related study published in the Jan. 29 issue of the journal Nature, another team of scientists led by Harvard Medical School geneticist David Reich, including Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute, obtained results suggesting that modern human populations inherited other genetic traits from Neanderthals that are connected to both positive adaptive functions and characteristics and those that could be described as negative. They found traces of Neanderthal DNA, for example, that affect the keratin filaments in the skin—proteins that make hair, nails and skin tougher for surviving colder climates; genes that affect the immune system; and genes that affect such conditions as Crohn’s disease, type 2 diabetes, smoking behavior, billiary cirrhosis, and lupus. The researchers did this by analyzing the genetic variants found in 846 non-African people and 176 people from sub-Saharan Africa, and then compared the results to that of a 50,000-year-old Neanderthal with a relatively intact genome sequence.

Finally, in a yet more recent study published in the journal Nature, Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany and Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator David Reich at Harvard Medical School, along with researchers at the Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins in Beijing, China, were able to tease out and analyze a small percentage of the DNA remnants found in a 37,000 to 42,000-year-old modern human jaw bone originally found in 2002 by cavers and archaeologists in the Oase Cave in south-western Romania. The fossil itself has been considered evidence of the oldest known modern human in Europe.

The results of their study were astonishing. By comparing the fossil’s genome to genetic data from other groups and then conducting a series of statistical analyses, they determined that the human to which the fossil jaw bone belonged had a Neanderthal ancestor removed by only 4 to 6 generations back.

“I could hardly believe it when we first saw the results,” said Pääbo. “It is such a lucky and unexpected thing to get DNA from a person who was so closely related to a Neanderthal.”

“The sample is more closely related to Neanderthals than any other modern human we’ve ever looked at before,” Reich added. “We estimate that six to nine percent of its genome is from Neanderthals. This is an unprecedented amount. Europeans and East Asians today have more like two percent.”

Thus, not only was the Oase specimen the oldest modern human in Europe known so far, but now research confirmed that the individual had a relatively closely connected Neanderthal ancestor, further evidence that at least some Neanderthals and modern humans, for a time, comingled at a level something beyond a hand shake or exchange of goods.  

The evidence for admixture and the affects of it will likely continue to emerge as scientists further develop techniques and technologies in genetic analysis and as new finds are uncovered through archaeological and other field research.

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neandertalgenepic1DNA taken from a 40,000-year-old modern human jawbone reveals that this man had a Neandertal ancestor as recently as four to six generations back. Courtesy MPI f. Evolutionary Anthropology/Pääbo

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Out of Africa

According to the preponderance of aDNA study results, anatomically modern humans originated in Africa. The big debate has revolved around when, how, and the tempo of dispersal out of Africa into Eurasia and further southeast into mainland East Asia and Melanesia/Australia. Generally, the suggested exodus date has been estimated to be between 50 and 62 kyr ago, branching from a small population of about 1,000 individuals. From this point, two contending models have topped the list of proposed dispersal paradigms.

The first, called the ‘single dispersal’ hypothesis, suggests an initial dispersal about 50 kyr ago out of Africa into Eurasia, supported by genetic studies that show descendants of all non-African lineages from a single ancestor who lived around 55-75 kyr ago. The initial single dispersal was followed by a series of ‘founder’ and separate migrations into Asia (55-40 kyr ago) and Europe (40-25 kyr ago), with a further expansion from Asia into Australia as early as 50-40 kyr ago as the ancestral group to Aboriginal Australians.

The second model, called the ‘multiple dispersal’ hypothesis, suggests separate successive migrations out of Africa, including a very early dispersal that accounts for an ancestral Aboriginal Australian population at about 60-50 kyr ago. Interesting for this hypothesis was the sequencing of the complete genome of an ancient Aboriginal Australian taken from a hair tuft. It indicated that the ancestors of Aboriginal Australians spread into East Asia around 62-75 kyr ago, interbreeding with Denisovans along the way and arriving in Australia about 50 kyr ago. The model further suggests that the ancestors of present-day mainland Asians followed in a second, independent wave at around 38-25 kyr ago. 

Most recently, a genomic study conducted by Dr. Luca Pagani of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the University of Cambridge in the UK and colleagues suggested that modern humans made their first successful major migration out of Africa around 55,000 – 60,000 years ago through Egypt. The results of that study has informed the ongoing scholarly debate related to whether the first major modern human migration made its way initially out of Africa by taking a northern route through Egypt, or by traveling from a more southerly orientation northward through Ethiopia and up through the Arabian Peninsula.

“In our research,” explained Pagani, “we generated the first comprehensive set of unbiased genomic data from Northeast Africans and observed, after controlling for recent migrations, a higher genetic similarity between Egyptians and Eurasians than between Ethiopians and Eurasians.”

Pagani’s research team accomplished this by analyzing genetic information from six modern Northeast African populations, consisting of 100 Egyptians and five Ethiopian populations, each represented by 25 people. The team also used high-quality genomes to estimate the time that the populations split from one another: the genomes of people outside Africa showed a split from the Egyptian genomes more recently than the split from Ethiopians (55,000 as opposed to 65, 000 years ago), supporting the idea that Egypt was the last stop on the route out of Africa.

“This important study still leaves questions to answer,” says Dr Chris Tyler-Smith, a senior author from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. “For example, did other migrations also leave Africa around this time, but leave no trace in present-day genomes? To answer this, we need ancient genomes from populations along the possible routes. Similarly, by adding present-day genomes from Oceania, we can discover whether or not there was a separate, perhaps Southern, migration to these regions.”

Needless to say, a complete and accurate picture of AMH dispersal may be a long way off, although future genetic studies, coupled with refinements and innovations in genetic sequencing and analysis of ancient human remains (if recent history of the science is any indicator) show exciting promise.

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outofafricapicHuman genome sequences from Ethiopians and Egyptians point to a Northern exit out of Africa as the most likely route by the ancestors of all Eurasians. Image courtesy Luca Pagani

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The First Americans

Hotly debated among researchers have been the questions of when, how and where the first peopling of the Americas occurred. Recent archaeological research has cast new light and raised new questions about who the ‘first Americans’ were and when and how they entered the American continents, not the least of which have been the recent archaeological findings at sites such as the Paisley Caves in Oregon, the Manis site in Wisconsin, the Anzick site in Montana, and the Meadowcroft rockshelter in Pennsylvania, to name only a few. These sites, among others, have arguably pushed back the clock on the timing of the first peopling, challenging the long-held tradition that the Clovis culture represented the first population to enter the Americas. The broadly accepted view about when and how people first entered the Americas has revolved in part around the changes in the glacial periods associated with the last glacial period of the Ice Age, a time when the Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets covered much of northern North America. However, during the warmer interglacial periods, they retreated to create ice-free corridors along the Pacific coast and areas east of the Rocky Mountains of Canada. Scientists have long suggested that it was through these corridors that humans were likely able to cross Beringia into the Americas. Beringia was a land bridge as much as 1,000 miles wide that joined present-day Alaska and eastern Siberia at various times 110,000 to 10,000 years ago. Exactly when and how this crossing may have occurred has been open to question for decades, but traditionally the most widely accepted proposal advanced the suggestion that it may have occurred around 15,000 years ago, giving rise to the Clovis culture—until the discovery of pre-Clovis type artifacts at sites such as those mentioned above.

DNA evidence for earlier settlement of the Americas has continued to mount. DNA was found and analyzed in human coprolites excavated at Paisley Caves in south-central Oregon, dating to approximately 12.3 kyr ago.[7] DNA analyses of the tip of a bone projectile point implanted in the rib bone of a disarticulated mastodon uncovered at the Manis site in Wisconsin and dated to about 11.9 kyr ago, brought additional evidence that humans already hunted such large mammals very early on, further supporting a pre-Clovis settlement of the Americas.[8] The genome of a 24 kyr old individual from the Mal’ta site in south-central Siberia (Russian Federation) was sequenced, revealing a new window on the origins of Native Americans outside of the American continents.[9] A Mal’ta Y chromosome haplotype corresponded to a basal lineage of haplogroup R, which is widespread in modern-day western Eurasians and is thought to be a sister lineage to ‘haplogroup Q’, considered the most common haplogroup in Native Americans. Scientists suggest that this gene flow occurred prior to diversification of Native American populations in the Americas, possibly representing 14—38% of Native American ancestry. The western Eurasian ancestry finds suggest that Native Americans may have derived the European component not only from post-Columbian interbreeding, but from an earlier mixed ancestry that included a European contribution.

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maltaboyThe remains of the 24,000-year-old Mal’ta boy. Credit: State Hermitage Museum in Russia

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But add to this the sequencing of a complete genome of a 12.6 kyr old child who was buried among ochre-covered Clovis artifacts at the Anzick site Montana.[10] This genome showed a much greater genetic affinity with Native Americans, particularly Central and South Americans, than with any extant Eurasian population or North American Native populations. It suggested that the North American and South American lineages diverged early, the Anzick individual being related to the South American lineage, possibly ancestral to all South American populations, or possibly ancestral to all Native Americans. This individual used Clovis tools. Many scientists theorize that since both the Anzick and Mal’ta individuals shared affinities to both western and eastern Eurasians, gene flow from the Mal’ta population of Siberia into Native American population groups likely happened before about 12.6 kyr ago.

And finally, initially discovered in 2007 by a team of underwater archaeologists, a nearly complete skeleton was found within a submerged chamber (which site investigators called “Hoyo Negro”, or “black hole”) in the Sac Actun cave system on Mexico’s Eastern Yucatán Peninsula. Named “Naia” by the dive team, she was, according to forensic analysis, a slightly-built teenage girl at death, measuring only 4 feet 10 inches in height. Anthropologists who examined the skeleton determined that she was between 15 and 16 years old, and had likely fallen to her death into the chamber (a dry pit during the time of the fall) before the cave had subsequently filled with water due to climate change and rising sea levels. 

The find was unprecedented for two reasons. The first reason had to do with the age. Scientists dated the skeleton to between 12,000 and 13,000 years ago based on radiocarbon dating of tooth enamel and Uranium/Thorium dating analyses of mineral deposits on her bones. The second reason was related to the pristine preservation of the bones, which facilitated the study team’s analysis of the girl’s mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), a useful tool for examining the relatedness of populations. Their analysis revealed a haplotype common to modern Native Americans, subhaplogroup D1. This genetic signature occurs only in the Americas. The report authors suggested that this genetic signature likely developed in Beringia after populations there split from other Asians, indicating that individuals of this population traveled at least far and wide enough through the Americas to have reached Mexico by 12,000 – 13,000 BP.

But there was one fly in the ointment. The cranio-facial features of this skeleton differed noticeably form those of most Native Americans today. To this the researchers suggested that the differences in craniofacial form were probably best explained as evolutionary changes that happened after the divergence of Beringians from their Siberian ancestors. Thus the Americas, they theorize, were not colonized by separate migration events from different parts of Eurasia. Rather, the earliest Americans represent an early population expansion out of Beringia. This aligns with the hypothesis that both Paleoamericans and Native Americans derive from a single source population, hunter-gatherers who moved onto the Bering Land Bridge from northeast Asia (Beringia) between 26,000 and 18,000 years ago, spreading southward into North America sometime after 17,000 years ago. [11] 

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earlyamericanspic8A broad view of Hoyo Negro, shot from the floor near the south edge, showing the immensity of the chamber and the complexity of the boulder-strewn bottom. One access tunnel can be seen near the ceiling at top left. This photo was taken by the “painting with light” method on a 30 second exposure. Text and photo credit: Roberto Chavez Arce

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earlyamericanspic6The skull of Naia as it was discovered in 2007, resting against the left humerus (upper arm bone).
Photo and text credit: Daniel Riordan Araujo

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Research, genetic and otherwise, continues on the question of the first Americans. More surprises may be in store. 

Our Big Brains

Without question, the human brain has been perhaps the single-most distinctive morphological and functional characteristic that has separated our species from the rest of the primates.  Here, too, genetic research is shedding new light on the role and significance this organ has played in our evolutionary past, and what makes it unique among the planet’s biological fabric.

In a recent study, for example, Duke University researchers mined databases of genomic data from humans and chimpanzees, finding ‘enhancers’ that were present in the brain tissue.[12] They studied the enhancers that significantly differed between the two primate species, identifying genes key to brain development. They called them ‘human-accelerated regulatory enhancers,’ or HARE, connected to the proliferation of new neurons. One particular enhancer stood out, which they called ‘HARE5’. They compared the HARE5 to its equivalent in the chimpanzee by expressing them into mice embryos. What they found was that, though the human HARE5 and the chimpanzee HARE5 sequences differed by only 16 letters in their genetic code, the human enhancer was active earlier in brain development and more active generally than the chimpanzee enhancer. The human HARE5 mice embryos developed brains 12% larger in area compared with chimpanzee HARE5 mice to gestation. The growth centered on the neocortex, the region of the brain involved in higher-level function such as language and reasoning.

“What we found is a piece of the genetic basis for why we have a bigger brain,” said study co-author Gregory Wray, professor of biology and director of the Duke Center for Genomic and Computational Biology. “It really shows in sharp relief just how complicated those changes must have been.”

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mouseembryoThe human version of a DNA sequence called HARE5 turns on a gene important for brain development (gene activity is stained blue), and causes a mouse embryo to grow a 12 percent larger brain by the end of pregnancy than an embryo injected with the chimpanzee version of HARE5. Image Credit: Silver lab, Duke University

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In another similar recent study, a research team headed by Marta Florio of the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics identified a gene that, like the HARE5 gene regulatory enhancer in the Duke University study, drives the proliferation of neural progenitor cells in the neocortex.[13] The gene, they maintain, is common among modern humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans, but not other primates. Called ‘ARHGAP11B’, it is a hominin-specific gene. The researchers suggested that it arose in the human lineage soon after humans diverged from chimpanzees. Like the Duke University study, when Florio and her colleagues expressed the gene into a developing mouse brain, they found that a key section of the neocortex grew significantly larger than what would be expected in a normal mouse.

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cerebralcortexmouseEmbryonic mouse cerebral cortex stained for cell nuclei and a marker of deep-layer neurons (red). The human gene ARHGAP11B was expressed into the right hemisphere. Credit: Marta Florio and Wieland B. Huttner, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics

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What were the factors that influenced this genetic change in human/primate evolutionary history? That is the ‘million dollar question’, so to speak. It has, and will continue, to require a global, multidisciplinary effort by scientists to come up with the answers.

From Mesolithic to Neolithic in Europe

A key debate in more recent human evolutionary studies has revolved around understanding the genetic history of Europeans, and central to the discussion has been the impact of the Neolithic transition (the switch from hunting-gathering to farming) on the European gene pool. According to supporters of what has been called the ‘demic diffusion’ model, the Neolithic transition in Europe was defined at least in part by migrations of early farmers from the Near East, suggesting a genetic ‘discontinuity’ between pre-Neolithic, or Mesolithic, populations and Neolithic and post-Neolithic populations. Under this model, a significant Near Eastern Neolithic ancestry should show up in the current gene pool. Conversely, the ‘cultural diffusion’ model suggests the diffusion of ideas and technology, and not people, which would result in a genetic continuity between early farmers and hunter-gatherers and thus a much less significant Near Eastern marker in the gene pool.

These models have been genetically tested on a variety of European remains. Not altogether surprising to many theorists, the genetic data from post-Mesolithic prehistoric individuals has generally shown that the Neolithic was the transition primarily responsible for a genetic discontinuity between hunter-gatherers and present-day populations, and that there is a genetic affinity between Early Neolithic individuals and present-day Near Eastern populations. In other words, much of the data has supported the demic diffusion model.

It is more complicated than this, however. The data also suggested some genetic discontinuity between Early Neolithic people and today’s Europeans, pointing to possible later population movements. For example, genomic data from the now famous Tyrolean ‘Iceman’, dated to about 5,000 year ago, indicated a genetic affinity with the Funnel Beaker Culture, a hunter-gatherer population of Scandinavia. This suggested that these Scandinavian groups were geographically widespread at that time. [14]

Genetic studies conducted on samples outside of ancient human remains have also shed light and raised new questions about this period of time in Europe, further complicating the emerging picture. One recent study serves to illustrate this point well:

In an analysis of sedimentary ancient DNA from an underwater site off the southern coast of Britain, a U.K research team found that Mesolithic hunter-gatherers who occupied a site now underwater traded in a Near Eastern strain of wheat 2,000 years before the currently generally-accepted advent of farming in Britain. [15]  

“The first evidence of cereal cultivation on what is now mainland Britain dates back only to about 6,000 years ago, suggesting a substantial temporal gap between the two sides of the English Channel,” wrote University of Oxford’s Greger Larson in a perspective article published about the finding in Science magazine. Larson is Director of the Palaeogenomics & Bio-Archaeology Research Network Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art. It is generally thought that farming began in Europe, south and west of the English Channel, much earlier than in the British Isles. He went on to summarize the process and merits of the recently completed study by the team of U.K. scientists led by Oliver Smith of the University of Warwick, which suggested the presence of not just wheat, but a Near Eastern strain of wheat, within 8,000-year-old submerged paleosol sediments at Bouldnor Cliff off the Isle of Wight in the English Channel. 

Smith and colleagues teased DNA from core samples taken from a Mesolithic paleosol layer just beneath a peat layer sealed beneath silty-clay submerged alluvial sediments. Millennia ago, this paleosol layer was above ground, an ancient landscape that was gradually submerged as sea levels rose during the warming period beginning in the early Holocene epoch. The sea level change inundated the land bridge between what is today Britain and the rest of Europe, creating the English Channel. The researchers uncovered evidence of human occupation typical of Mesolithic hunter-gatherers at the site, which included worked wood, burnt flint and hazelnut shells. 

“The site has been dated to 8030 to 7980 calendar (cal) yr B.P.,” wrote Smith, et al. in their report, “placing it in the late Mesolithic of the British Isles, a period that is represented by few assemblages and is still little understood………The sedaDNA [sedimentary ancient DNA] profile revealed a wooded landscape that included oak, poplar, apple, and beech family members, with grasses and a few herbs present.”

But the most startling finding came from the DNA analysis. Through meticulous analysis accounting for and dismissing possible contamination as well as potential intrusion from other upper layers, they discovered clear DNA traces of Near Eastern strains of wheat genuinely dated to and associated within the context of the Mesolithic assemblage, which also included evidence of a Mesolithic human diet.

“The occurrence of wheat 8,000 years ago on the British continental shelf appears early, given its later establishment on the UK mainland,” wrote Smith, et al.,  “Neolithic assemblages first appear in northwest Europe in the 8th millennium B.P., from 7500 B.P. in the central Rhineland, 7300 B.P. in the Rhine/Maas delta and adjacent areas, and 7400 B.P. in western France.”

The DNA results thus suggested the presence of wheat at Bouldnor Cliff about 400 years before the earliest known occurrences of farming in northwestern Europe, and 2,000 years before agriculture is known to have taken hold in what is today Britain.

The researchers found no evidence that the wheat had actually been cultivated at or near the site. Instead, they suggested the wheat was likely traded into the area by a network established between hunter-gatherers at Bouldnor Cliff and Neolithic farmers further south and west in Europe.

“We suspect that this wheat represents foodstuffs imported from the continent rather than the cultivation of this cereal crop at this locale. The presence of wheat, along with pioneering technological artifacts at the site, provides evidence for a social network between well-developed Mesolithic peoples of northwest Europe and the advancing Neolithic front,” concluded Smith, et al., suggesting the agricultural products moved ahead of their actual cultivation in Britain.

The point of the foregoing example is that, although the predominant thinking among scholars has placed the advent of the farming Neolithic in what is today Britain by 6000 years BPE, the timing and mode of Neolithization is still debated. As such, this study has important implications in the ongoing research on the evolution of agriculture in Europe.

“The unexpectedly early appearance of wheat in Britain should force a rethinking of both the strength of the relationships between early farmers and hunter-gatherers, and the origins of settled agricultural communities in Europe,” concluded Larson in the Science perspective article.

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wheatpic3Above: From the Youtube video (screenshot) describing the research findings in the paper titled “Sedimentary DNA from a submerged site reveals wheat in the British Isles 8,000 years ago”. Credit: University of Warwick

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The First Great Population Explosion?

The prevailing theory regarding human population expansion revolves around the generally accepted notion that human populations rapidly increased with the advent of agriculture. The archaeological record bears this out. But one interesting genetic study has provided evidence of another, earlier “population explosion” before modern humans settled into communities centered around agriculture and animal husbandry:

Carla Aimé and her colleagues at Laboratoire Eco-Anthropologie et Ethnobiologie, University of Paris, conducted a study using 20 different genomic regions and mitochondrial DNA of individuals from 66 African and Eurasian populations, and compared the genetic results with archaeological findings. [16] They concluded that the first big expansion of human populations may be much older than the one associated with the emergence of farming and herding, and that it could date as far back as Paleolithic times, or 60,000-80,000 years ago. The humans who lived during this time period were hunter-gatherers. The authors hypothesized that the early population expansion could be associated with the emergence of new, more sophisticated hunting technologies, as evidenced in some archaeological findings. Moreover, they state, environmental changes could possibly have played a role.

The researchers also showed that populations who adopted the farming lifestyle during the Neolithic Period (10,200 – 3,000 B.C.) had experienced the most robust Paleolithic expansions prior to the transition to agriculture.  

“Human populations could have started to increase in Paleolithic times, and strong Paleolithic expansions in some populations may have ultimately favored their shift toward agriculture during the Neolithic,” said Aimé.

The details of the study have been published in the scientific journal, Molecular Biology and Evolution, by Oxford University Press.

 

The Promise of the Future

Genetic research has already provided a massive amount of new data that has in many ways revolutionized what we know about our prehistoric past. And though this writing has only touched the surface of what has been accomplished in the last two decades, it has hopefully afforded an appetizing glimpse for readers of what has been happening. To date, we have genomic data on at least 24 individuals, of which 8 are archaic humans, that have informed our understanding of human evolution. That number will no doubt increase. At this writing, new advances are under development that will push back the human prehistoric and evolutionary timeline available for examination, including a sharpening of our focus and discovery of new events related to what was going on in our ancestral past. With the ongoing development of such new things as ‘high-throughput sequencing’ technologies, as well as technologies capable of targeting ultra-short and ultra-damaged ancient DNA fragments and, beyond genetics, the development of ancient protein sequencing techniques, scientists will make it possible for us to see far deeper into our prehistoric past with a clarity likely unachievable through the archaeological and paleontological record alone. 

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[1]* Templeton, Alan R., Revolutionizing the ‘Out of Africa’ Story, Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News, April 1, 2013, Vol 33, No. 7 (online)

** Genomic and cranial phenotype data support multiple modern human dispersals from Africa and a southern route into Asia,” by Hugo Reyes-Centeno et al.  http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1323666111

[2] Green, R.E., A draft sequence of the Neandertal genome, Science 328, 71 – 722.

[3] Krause, J., et al., The complete mitochondrial DNA genome of an unknown hominin from southern Siberia, Nature 464, 894 -897.

[4] Meyer, M., et al., A mitochondrial genome sequence of a hominin fro Sima de los Huesos. Nature 505, 403 – 406.

[5] Prufer, Kay, et al., The complete genome sequence of a Neanderthal from the Altai Mountains, Nature, Vol. 505, Issue 7481, 02 January 2014.

[6 ] “Resurrecting Surviving Neanderthal Lineages from Modern Human Genomes,” by B. Vernot; J.M. Akey at University of Washington in Seattle, WA, Science, 29 January, 2014.

[7] Gilbert, M.T., et al., DNA from pre-Clovis human coprolites in Oregon, North America. Science 320, 786 – 789.

[8] Waters, M.R., Pre-Clovis mastodon hunting 13,800 years ago at the Manis site, Washington. Science 334, 351 – 353.

[9] Raghaven, M., et al., Upper Palaeolithic Siberian genome reveals dual ancestry of Native Americans. Nature 505 87 – 91.

[10] Rasmussen, M., et al., The genome of a Late Pleistocene human from a Clovis burial site in western Montana. Nature 506, 225 – 229.

[11] https://popular-archaeology.com/issue/winter-01012015/article/oldest-most-complete-early-american-skeleton-yields-clues-to-native-american-ancestry

[12] https://popular-archaeology.com/issue/winter-01012015/article/scientists-evolve-bigger-brains-in-mice-by-using-human-dna

[13] https://popular-archaeology.com/issue/winter-01012015/article/a-brain0building-gene-unique-to-humans

[14] Skoglund, P., et al., Origins and genetic legacy of Neolithic farmers and hunter-gatherers in Europe. Science 336, 466 – 469.  – and – Skoglund, P., et al., Genomic diversity and admixture differs for Stone-Age Scandinavian foragers and famers. Science 344, 747 – 750.

[15] https://popular-archaeology.com/issue/winter-01012015/article/a-wheat-trade-in-britain-before-farming-suggest-researchers

[16] https://popular-archaeology.com/issue/winter-01012015/article/the-first-great-human-population-explosion

Ermini, L., et al., Major transitions in human evolution revisited: A tribute to ancient DNA, Journal of Human Evolution (2014), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2014.06.015

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The Tomb of the Warrior King

Winter 2014, Abydos, Egypt—The first clues were nothing extraordinary—a line of mudbricks in the sand, not unlike the first evidence of many of the other tombs already found in this ancient, sacred place. 

But digging down further, the excavators could see something different about this one. The line of bricks eventually became walls, and the walls became a decorated burial chamber. Wall paintings depicted images of the Egyptian gods Isis, Nut, Nephthys, and Selket, surrounding a canopic shrine. Among the paintings was a royal cartouche. Cartouches always meant names. This one belonged to ‘Woseribre Senebkay’—a virtual unknown among the pharaonic lists. The tomb had all the hallmarks of a royal tomb, but the name didn’t ring any bells for the excavators.

Teams from the University of Pennsylvania’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (Penn Museum), currently headed by Josef Wegner, have been excavating in this area, the southern part of the ancient site of Abydos, since 1994 as part of the combined University of Pennsylvania-Yale-Institute of Fine Arts/New York University Expedition. Abydos is best known as the ancient sacred center of the cult of Osiris, king of the afterlife and god of the netherworld. As an important cult center, it was long a place of pilgrimage for ancient Egyptians, and it was here that Egypt’s Predynastic (4000 – 3000 BCE) kings were buried, along with later pharaohs. The tombs being excavated by Wegner’s team were constructed by some of these later pharaohs, including a royal tomb they had most recently investigated, belonging to a familiar pharaoh—that of Sobekhotep I, the first 13th dynasty king who ruled Egypt around 1800 BCE. Only a year before, they discovered his 60-ton red quartzite royal sarcophagus chamber.

But who was this Senebkay?

Further excavation of this mystery tomb revealed an antechamber (now dated to Egypt’s Second Intermediate Period, or 1650 to 1550 BCE) containing skeletal remains, presumably of Senebkay himself. Also with his remains was his canopic chest, and fragments of a mummy mask. The condition and positioning of the objects had all the signs that the tomb had been plundered anciently by robbers—what was left was only debris, his mummy having been torn apart in antiquity, his coffin and canopic chest in fragments, and the original gild surfaces of his other tomb equipment long gone.  But for archaeologists, there was enough information here to keep them busy for years. The skeletal remains alone contained a wealth of information, and as modern forensic science would have it, the scientists were in for a fascinating up-close-and-personal encounter with a pharaoh who, until January, 2014, no one knew existed.

A Violent Death

Initial examination of Senebkay’s skeleton by University of Pennsylvania graduate students and team members Paul Verhelst and Matthew Olson suggested the king was moderate in height, about 5’10, and that he died in his mid-to-late 40s.

But further study revealed much more. A more detailed examination by Dr. Maria Rosado and Dr. Jane Hill of Rowan University pinpointed his death at 35 to 40 years of age, and showed clear evidence of multiple wounds to his body. They documented no less than 18 wounds, including cuts to his lower back, knees, ankles, feet, and hands. But, according to the examiners, death likely came as evidenced by three major wounds to his skull. More telling, the wounds matched the distinctive size and shape of well-known battleaxes used in warfare during Egypt’s Second Intermediate Period. And more telling still, the pattern of most of the wounds suggested that they had been inflicted while he was in an elevated position.

A few possible scenarios could explain this. One stands out—evidence on the femur and pelvis bones of muscle attachments indicated he had spent a significant amount of his life on horseback.

Was Senebkay slain in battle or in an ambush while on horseback?

The researchers suggest this as a real possibility. He may have been, like other pharaohs known from later periods, a warrior king, fighting alongside his troops. Another king’s remains discovered in a tomb near Senebkay’s also indicated a life of horseback riding, additional evidence that Second Intermediate Period kings were already riding horses, a skill that was not known to have been commonly employed in battle until after the Bronze Age. Was horseback riding beginning to play an increasing role in military campaigns as early as the Second Intermediate Period? The researchers hope that further discoveries and research will shed more light on the question.

In any case, for the first time, archaeologists had what appeared to be first evidence of a long-forgotten Egyptian pharaoh who likely met a dramatic and viciously dealt death—what today could be the stuff of a cinematic production.

Other key questions revolve around whom he might have fought and where the battle took place, assuming by interpretation that he died in battle. His remains indicated that a significant amount of time passed between the time of his death and actual burial, suggesting that his body may possibly have been transported from a distant location to the place of burial. But this is where the evidence stops. Based on what scholars know about the history of the region, the king may have died fighting the Hyksos. The ancient record reflects 15th Dynasty Hyksos rule of northern Egypt at that time. Alternatively, he may have died in battle against possible enemies such as the 16th Dynasty Thebans to the south, or the Nubians, who according to written records from his time invaded Egypt from the south at least once. These are questions that await further research.

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AbydosmapAbydos (in yellow) in relation to other sites of Egypt.

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senekbayfig8Team members work to excavate the burial chamber of the pharaoh Woseribre Senebkay, with sheets covering a painted wall decoration. Photo: Josef Wegner, Penn Museum.

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cartouchAt left, the sun disc and goose means “Son of Re” (or Ra), the Egyptian sun god. The cartouche at right spells the name of the pharaoh, Senebkay, whose body was interred in this tomb. Photo: Jennifer Wegner, Penn Museum.

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senebkayskeletonThe skeleton of pharaoh Woseribre Senebkay. Originally mummified, the body was ripped apart by robbers in antiquity. Photo: Josef Wegner, Penn Museum

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senekbayfig3Schematic showing the distribution of traumatic battle wounds to Senebkay: front view. Image: Dr. Jane Hill.

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senekbayfig4Schematic showing the distribution of traumatic battle wounds to Senebkay: rear view. Image: Dr. Jane Hill.

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senekbayfig7Image composite depicting the right ankle and left knee of Woseribre Senebkay’s skeleton. The patterns of wounds to Senebkay’s body suggest he was attacked while in an elevated position relative to his assailants, quite possibly mounted on horseback. Image: Jane Hill and Josef Wegner.

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senskbayfig6Rear view of Woseribre Senebkay’s skull, indicating the locations of two axe wounds to the back of the cranium. Photo: Jane Hill and Josef Wegner.

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senekbayfig5Front and top views of Woseribre Senebkay’s skull, indicating the location of an axe wound to the front of the cranium. This and two other major blows to Senebkay’s skull preserve the distinctive size and curvature of battle axes used during Egypt’s Second Intermediate Period. Photo: Josef Wegner, Penn Museum.

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senekbayfig2A facial reconstruction of the pharaoh Senebkay based on the detailed cranial study, by Mireya Poblete Arias. Image: Mireya Poblete Arias.

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A Dynasty Lost and Found

The Penn Museum excavations at Abydos have focused primarily on the subterranean tomb of the powerful and well-known 12th Dynasty Middle Kingdom pharaoh Senwosret III, his mortuary temple and associated structures, a related royal town settlement known as Wah-Sut, and a New Kingdom cemetery further to the north. Senwosret was significant for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the nature of his burial—instead of being interred within a traditional royal pyramid like his forerunners, he chose to be buried in a subterranean tomb. This was a first, giving rise eventually to the well-known underground tomb concept popularly associated with the royal tombs of the New Kingdom pharaohs in the Valley of the Kings.

Much is known about the 12th Dynasty and its kings, but recent excavations have turned up evidence bearing on an Egyptian Second Intermediate period series of kings of which Egyptologists, until now, have known next to nothing—in essence, a lost 13th Dynasty of kings, of which Senebkay was one.

As the excavators found, the tomb of Senebkay proved to be comparatively modest in scale and showed reuse of materials from the earlier Middle Kingdom, such as decayed cedar wood remains of his canopic chest, which still bore the name of Sobekhotep I beneath its gild covering. This, along with other evidence, suggested a kingdom with far more limited resources than the previous Middle Kingdom. But the discovery provides new evidence of the existence of a forgotten Abydos Dynasty contemporary with the 16th Theban Dynasty to its south and the 15th Hyksos Dynasty to its north.

There is now evidence for about 16 royal tombs spanning the period of this lost dynasty. Tombs of seven of them have been excavated, of which Senebkay’s, dated to 1650 BCE, is the most recently uncovered, revealing clues to a time and series of pharaohs that until now were not known to exist.

Who were these kings and what was their place in history? Sandwiched between their Hyksos and Theban Dynasty contemporaries, did they vie with them for power and control of all of ancient Egypt, or simply defend themselves in efforts to hold on to what they had, including invasions from the Nubians further to the south? Do Senebkay’s fatal wounds tell a story that could have anything to do with any of these potential scenarios?  Wegner’s team, including other researchers, may find answers to these questions as they continue their investigations.

“It’s exciting to find not just the tomb of one previously unknown pharaoh, but the necropolis of an entire forgotten dynasty,” stated Dr. Wegner in a Penn Museum press release*. “Continued work in the royal tombs of the Abydos Dynasty promises to shed new light on the political history and society of an important but poorly understood era of Ancient Egypt.”

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senebkaylidarThe exposed tomb of Woseribre Senebkay. Here, a LiDAR instrument and spheres were set up to create a precise digital map of the tomb. As an essential part of investigating the area in which the tomb was located, researchers utilized technology such as LiDARLight Detection And Radar), as well as magnetometry and ground penetrating radar. Photo courtesy Paul Verhelst

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senebkaylidar2Above: Graphic results of the LiDAR scanning of Senebkay’s tomb. With carefully employed LiDAR scanning, team member Paul Verhelst was able to produce this 3D model of the tomb as excavated.  Photo courtesy Paul Verhelst

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* http://www.penn.museum/press-releases/1032-pharaoh-senebkay-discovery-josef-wegner.html?utm_source=website&utm_medium=news&utm_content=abydos&utm_campaign=pr

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See more about the Penn Museum, and its many exhibits and research projects at its website.

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This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe.  Find it on Amazon.com.

 

 

 

 

 

Unearthing an Iron Age Sanctuary in the Mediterranean

In the summer of 2015 a team of archaeologists will begin excavation of a cyclopean sanctuary located on the Mediterranean island of Menorca. This type of building is monumental and exclusive to this island, with no parallel around the world. Because of this, fieldwork at this building will offer the opportunity to both researchers and excavators to uncover a unique megalithic religious center, where they will obtain information about the ritual practices carried out there and the whole meaning of the building in relation to their users: the so-called Talayotic society.

A Recent Prehistoric Society to be Discovered…the Talayotic

The sanctuary under archaeological investigation is located at the site of Sa Cudia Cremada, a talayotic site (Bronze and Iron Age) which is located in the outskirts of the city of Mahón, the capital of the island. Fieldwork will be carried out by Sa Cudia Cremada Field School: Mediterranean Archaeology in Menorca, an organization that is calling for participants to attend courses which are scheduled for the summer of 2015 in August and September. (By joining the Field School team, participants will have the opportunity to dig in a megalithic religious center, learn proper excavation techniques, work at the laboratory and discover the archaeology that this small paradise, the island of Menorca, hides!) The team aims to carry out scientific research as well as reach out to the general public so that everybody can learn about the archaeology of Menorca (not only professionals in the field of Archaeology and academic circles, but also the general public interested in archaeology).

Menorca is the easternmost of the Balearic Islands (Spain), a beautiful Mediterranean island that attracts visitors for its stunning nature and its unique archaeology. In fact, it was declared a Reserve of the Biosphere by the UNESCO in 1993, and it is currently a candidate to become a UNESCO World Heritage site for its recent prehistoric archaeology…which is unique in the World.

More than 1500 archaeological sites have been located on the island, which has a total area of 700 km2. This means that the density of archaeological remains is that of 2 sites per one square kilometer. The vast majority of these sites date back to the Bronze and Iron Age, from a period which is known as the Talayotic, in reference to the society, the “talaiotics”, who lived on the island from approximately the 2nd millennium BC up to the conquest of the Balearics by Rome in 123 BC.

The Talayotic society was confined to Menorca and its neighbor, Majorca, and was formed by a community of indigenous peoples from the two islands. They experienced an evolution in their social organization (from a relatively egalitarian society to a hierarchized one from the beginning of the first millennium BC), although many other aspects did not change over time, such as their cyclopean construction technique, their hand-made pottery production, an economy based on farming and stock-breeding and their complex funerary rituals and practices. The funerary evidence suggests they had strong religious beliefs and took very seriously the passing into the afterlife. However, many questions have been left unanswered, partly because they left no traces of a written and spoken language.

The excavation of a cyclopean sanctuary from this past society will shed light on the lives of an island society that developed unique cultural manifestations but, at the same time, acquired some traits from other Mediterranean peoples that reached Menorca and had cultural or commercial contacts with other societies, such as Punics, Greeks and Iberians. Those contacts intensified around 500-400 BC, especially with Punics who, by that time, had a vast territory of the western Mediterranean sea under their control, including the island of Ibiza, quite close to Menorca, the northern coast of Africa and the southeast of the Iberian peninsula, among other places.

In fact, Punics hired talayotic men in order to use them as mercenaries for their troops in the Sicilian wars, against Greeks, since they were very skillful in the use of the slingshot. Since all this started, in the middle of the 1st millennium BC, Balearic slingshot warriors fought for the Punics in many battles in many parts of the Mediterranean, including the Punic Wars against Rome, and became famous all around the ancient world for being skillful and fierce fighters. Many classical writers like Pliny, Strabo. Livy or Diodorus Siculus, praised the bravery of these warriors of the Balearic Islands, and described in detail aspects of their training, use of the slingshot, tastes and even how they were paid for their services. In fact, written sources state that these warriors refused payment with money—they preferred wine and women instead. Later on, the Balearic slingshot warriors were hired by Romans, who used them as light infantry in many battles, including the civil wars from the Late Republican period.

The Archaeological Site of Sa Cudia Cremada

The archaeological site of Sa Cudia Cremada, in the vicinity of the city of Mahón, is located on rural property, where very well-preserved architectural, ethnological and archaeological elements blend in a beautiful and characteristic Minorcan landscape. Even though the area is archaeologically rich, the most distinctive part is formed by a talayotic settlement along with its necropolis. The most visible structures are three talaiots (monumental tower-shape structures) around which the rest of the structural remains are organized in the dwelling area. Hence, the name of this society derives from the word talayot, as this is its most characteristic building.

Talayots could have served several functions, such as that of watchtowers for the defense and control of the territory, controlled storage of cereals and other products by the elite of each settlement and also as symbols of prestige and power.

The site also features a hypogeum, which is an artificial cave made by the talayotics in order to bury their dead. This cave necropolis, like rest of the hypogeums on the island, has several carved columns to sustain the roof and would have served as a collective inhumation cemetery where all the inhabitants of the settlement, regardless of age, sex and social condition, were buried. Differences in social status, gender and age could be shown by means of grave goods and personal items. Inside those cemeteries some rituals took place, about which we have not found a clear explanation yet. Some practices included storing locks of hair dyed in red in containers made of bull horns, which were all usually piled in hidden corners of the caves. Also, in several of these caves many skeletons have been found with trepanated skulls, which indicate that this society practiced surgery. Even though the purpose of trepanning is still not clear, as it happens in many other cultures, the practice of drilling a hole into the cranium, or scraping off part of it, could have served to heal head wounds, release pressure for treating migraines or other cranial illnesses. However, some scholars suggest that this practice could also be related to more spiritual purposes.

However, the most important building in Sa Cudia Cremada is the taula sanctuary, where archaeological fieldwork run by the field school will take place. Despite the fact that we still do not know much about the internal structure of this building, in these buildings the main feature is usually a large monolithic standing pillar with a lintel lying on it, called taula (meaning “table” in Catalan) due to its T shape, which is usually located at the central part of the building. The building’s layout has a horse-shoe shape composed of walls with large stone blocks. Even though we do not understand its whole meaning, it can be affirmed that religious ceremonies were carried out inside the building by the community. There is a total of 32 taula sanctuaries located on the island, and the sanctuary at the site of Sa Cudia Cremada is the only one that has not been excavated.

Other elements that can be seen at the site are several large storage pits, part of the outer wall that surrounded the settlement and walls from different buildings. The surface is full of materials, both indigenous and foreign from cultures such as Punic, Greek, Iberian and Roman.

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talayot1One of the many beautiful natural places in Menorca.

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talayot2Cales Fonts, very close to the city of Mahón.

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talayot3Entrance to a cyclopean talayotic house, Menorca.

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talayot4Taula monument of the site of Torralba d’en Salort, Menorca

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talayot5Talayot from Sa Cudia Cremada site, Menorca. Photo courtesy of Triangle Postals

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talayot6Sanctuary from Sa Cudia Cremada site, Menorca. Photo courtesy of Triangle Postals

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Talayotic Beliefs

What deities did they worship inside the taula sanctuaries? What were the types of rituals that took place there? Even though little is known about the talayotic religion, thanks to the archaeological record we can be sure about some aspects of their religion, despite the fact that classical sources do not mention it and the talayotics themselves did not leave anything written or, at least, there is no evidence for that.

As in many other Mediterranean cultures, the talayotics worshipped the bull, as can be inferred by some bronze bull statuettes and bronze bull horns found in several sanctuaries. In fact, some scholars have suggested that the T-shape taula monuments were schematic representations of this animal. However, current opinions maintain that this theory lacks sufficient evidence.

Other deities worshipped by the talayotics would have been related to fertility, like a mother-earth goddess type, since they belonged to an agrarian society that depended highly on the good conditions of the land to obtain good crops for their subsistence. In relation to this cult, it is important to highlight the location of several statuettes representing the goddess Tanit in sanctuaries, which was a cult introduced to Menorca by the Punics. Tanit was the main goddess in the Carthaginian pantheon from the 5th century BC and was related to fertility as a mother goddess.  This indicates how foreign contacts influenced the talayotic culture, including their beliefs.

It is also noteworthy to mention that some Egyptian objects have been found in talayotic sanctuaries, such as a bronze statuette of Imothep and another one representing Horus. How these statuettes got to the island remains unclear, although it could have happened through Punic trade. Be that as it may, the fact that they were found in sanctuaries suggests that they were considered to be special objects worth being placed inside religious spaces.

We also know about another deity that was worshipped by this society. In some sanctuaries several statuettes representing a nude warrior wearing a helmet and carrying a lance have been located. They are called Mars Balearics and are thought to be war gods that could have been produced outside the islands between the 5th and the 3rd centuries BC, probably in Etruria, although copies could have been made in the islands as well.

As for their rituals, the sanctuaries that have been already excavated have offered ash contexts around the taula monument with abundant faunal remains and pottery shards, suggesting that ceremonies took place inside the sanctuaries, which were probably related to the cult of their deities, including the ones described above. When these ceremonies happened, how they were structured, who participated in them and the purposes of those events are still unknown. 

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talayot8Egyptian statuette of Imhotep found in a talayotic sanctuary from Menorca.

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2015 Fieldwork at Sa Cudia Cremada

In 2015 the Sa Cudia Cremada Field School offers archaeological courses for participants interested in gaining first-hand experience on fieldwork and laboratory tasks. The Field School welcomes university students, professionals, as well as everybody who is interested in archaeology, ancient Mediterranean history, Bronze and Iron Age archaeology, megalithism and cultural hybridization.

2015 courses will take place in two sessions with a length of 3 weeks each in August and September, combining rigorous research with quality training for students who join the team. On course days, students will dig in the settlement’s sanctuary during the first half of the day, whereas the second part will be devoted to lectures, laboratory tasks and workshops.

The sanctuary will be excavated by using a proper field methodology. Each participant will be assigned an area to dig inside the building or in its immediate surroundings. Proper recording systems will be used and everybody will be in charge of filling out context sheets, taking photographs and drawing plans and sections.

Laboratory tasks will include the processing of all archaeological materials found on site and their correct classification, inventory and drawing. Lectures, fieldtrips and workshops will complement the course so that participants get the most out of this experience.

To know more about the Sa Cudia Cremada Field School, the site, or to sign up for their courses, you can contact the team via email at: [email protected]

You can also visit the project’s blog to read updates about the site as well as information about the talayotic culture: http://sacudiafieldschool.blogspot.com.es

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talayot7A typical scene in the field: A student carrying out fieldwork

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Ancients Set Stage for Collapse of Teotihuacan

A recent study paints a picture of a great ancient Mexican city-state that eventually collapsed, at least in part, due to the weight of its own internal social, political and economic struggles.

Known as Teotihuacán, the enigmatic end of this ancient, powerful central Mexican civilization has been the subject of a variety of theories and explanations, including warfare, draught, and internal unrest or conflict, to name a few. The latest study, however, points to internal social and economic struggles characteristic of a mixed, complex and fractured social fabric and power structure that essentially set the stage for conditions leading to its downfall.

“The contrast between the corporate organization at the base and top of Teotihuacán society and the exclusionary organization of the neighborhoods headed by the highly competitive intermediate elite introduced tensions that set the stage for Teotihuacan’s collapse,” stated Linda Manzanilla of Mexico’s Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México in her report, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.*

Teotihuacán was one of the most powerful cultural centers in Mesoamerica between the 1st and 6th centuries CE. Unlike most preindustrial urban settlements, Teotihuacán was well-planned and multiethnic partly because two volcanic eruptions forced people of differing cultures to migrate to the metropolis, bringing with them new skill sets, knowledge, and additional labor to support a developing economy.

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teotihuacanThe ancient city of Teotihuacán, 30 miles northeast of modern-day Mexico city. Wikimedia Commons

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Manzanilla’s findings are the result of extensive excavations and multidisciplinary analyses of bodies buried in Teotihuacán and, more specifically, one neighborhood center, Teopancazco. Her analyses included measurements of activity markers, nutritional patterns and status, isotopes, and ancient DNA. The results revealed groups from different backgrounds settling mostly on the margins of the metropolis. Around the city core, however, elites exploited the new dynamics by fostering the movement of goods, such as pigments, cosmetics, slate, greenstone, travertine, and foreign pottery, acquiring workers from a variety of foreign cultures to perform specialized tasks. The resulting complex multiethnic neighborhoods aggressively competed with each other and allowed intermediate elite residents to wield social and economic power. Manzanilla suggests that the contrast between the corporate organization wielded by the elites at the top of Teotihuacán society and the differing neighborhoods headed by the highly competitive intermediate elites introduced tensions that helped lead to Teotihuacán’s eventual collapse.

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teotihuacanpicDecapitated males from Teopancazco, a neighborhood within the ancient Mexican city of Teotihuacan. Image courtesy of Linda Manzanilla.

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“The major ritual and administrative buildings along the Street of the Dead were set on fire in A.D. 550, and the sculptures inside palatial structures, such as Xalla, were shattered,” reported Manzanilla. “No traces of foreign invasion are visible at the site. We interpret this event as a revolt against the ruling elite, perhaps a response to a late intervention on the part of the state to control the entrepreneurial movements of the intermediate elite.”*

The report is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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*Article #14-19881: “Cooperation and tensions in multiethnic corporate societies using Teotihuacan, Central Mexico, as a case study,” by Linda Manzanilla.

Source: Adapted, rewritten, and edited from a press release of the PNAS with information from the published study report.

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Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery Edition eBook is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition.  We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.

 

  







 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Popular Archaeology Releases Spring 2015 Issue

spring2015coverfinal6Popular Archaeology Magazine is pleased to announce the release of its Spring 2015 issue. In this issue, readers who subscribe to the magazine as premium members will enjoy the following fascinating articles:

1. The Tomb of the Warrior King

The newly discovered tomb and contents of a previously unknown pharaoh shed light on a lost ancient Egyptian dynasty.

2. Decoding Human Prehistory

How genetics is revolutionizing what we know about human evolution and our prehistoric past.

3. The Exodus: Myth or History?

In this Viewpoints interview, one scholar relates his controversial ‘New Chronology’ and how it supports the historicity of the biblical Exodus. 

4. Digging in the Yard

Unearthing new history in the shadow of the U.S.’s oldest college building in Williamsburg, Virginia.

5. The Legionary Base of the Roman Sixth Ferrata Legion at Legio, Israel

Remains of walls, barracks and artifacts testify to a major 2nd-3rd century CE Roman military presence near ancient Megiddo, Israel.

6. Tel Burna: An Ancient Judean Stronghold

Archaeologists are uncovering evidence of a fortified settlement in the borderland between the kingdoms of ancient Judah and the Philistines.

7. Canaanites and Israelites at Tel ‘Eton, Israel

Archaeologists uncover what may have been an administrative center of ancient Judah.

8. Unearthing an Iron Age Sanctuary in the Mediterranean (public article, free for all)

Excavation of a cyclopean sanctuary promises to shed light on a recent prehistoric island society in Spain’s Balearic Islands.

 

Individuals interested in becoming first-time premium subscribers are invited to join us by learning more About Us and going to the website to sign up. Annual fees are kept extremely low, making this affordable to anyone interested in reading about new archaeological discoveries worldwide. Back-issue premium content is available going back over four years. (Click on ‘Subscribe Here’ in the upper right-hand corner of the website. Allow up to 24 hours for account to be activated to premium level.)

 

Researchers discover possible origin of Trieste, Italy

A Roman military camp flanked by two minor forts and likely built in 178 BC may have provided the foundation for the first settlement of Tergeste, the ancestor of Trieste, a study suggests. Federico Bernardini and colleagues used airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), Ground Penetrating Radar, and archaeological surveys to assess the archeological landscape of the Trieste area, located near Italy’s Northeast border with Slovenia. The authors discovered evidence for one of the earliest examples of Roman military fortifications, predating by decades the famous camps of Numantia, Spain. Numerous modern cities along the Mediterranean and through Western Europe developed from ancient Roman army camps.The fortifications discovered in the current study provide the only examples identified in Italy.

The main central camp, called San Rocco, includes an area wider than 13 hectares defended by wide ramparts, strategically located near the Bay of Muggia, a protected natural harbor of the northern Adriatic. Evidence suggests that the Romans likely built San Rocco during the first year of the second Istrian War (178-177 BC), and that the camp’s chronology, position, and size match literary sources, making it a good candidate as the site of the first settlement of Tergeste, according to the authors.

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trieste2LiDAR-derived digital terrain model with the location and plan of Grociana piccola, Montedoro, and San Rocco fortifications. Orange represents features reconstructed from photo aerial documentation. Red represents surviving emerging features. The black circles indicate the main pre-Roman sites of the area.Image courtesy of Federico Bernardini.

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The detailed report of the study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

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Article #14-19175: “Early Roman military fortifications and the origin of Trieste, Italy,” by Federico Bernardini et al.

Source: Adapted and edited from a PNAS press release.

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Smithsonian Takes Hall of Human Origins Across Country in New Traveling Exhibition

The Smithsonian and the American Library Association (ALA) have developed a new traveling exhibition on human evolution based on the iconic “David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins” at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. “Exploring Human Origins: What Does It Mean to Be Human?” will appear at 19 public libraries across the country between April 2015 and April 2017.

“This exhibition is all about integrating scientific discoveries from around the globe and making them available for everyone to see,” said Rick Potts, director of the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program and curator of the traveling exhibition. “We hope that it will spark a respectful and positive conversation across the country about what it means to be human and inspire people to contemplate their place in the natural world.”

The 1,200-square-foot traveling exhibition includes more than 40 educational panels, interactive kiosks, hands-on displays, videos, 3-D skull casts and presentations representing groundbreaking research in the scientific study of human origins. “Exploring Human Origins: What Does It Mean to Be Human?” will highlight key milestones in the journey of human evolution and explain how they developed over time, including walking upright, the earliest known technologies, brain enlargement, symbolic language development, the origin of agriculture and the creation of complex societies.

The traveling exhibition appeals to the innate curiosity of all human beings in terms of understanding themselves and their own existence. It aims to engage local communities in the global scientific exploration of how humans have evolved over time, while inviting discussion that connects this exploration to varied societal perspectives about what it means to be human.

Each library will host the exhibition for four weeks before it moves on to the next location. Many of the locations are small towns, such as Andover, Ohio (population about 1,100), and Lake Orion, Mich. (population about 3,000). Larger cities are also included, such as Spokane, Wash., (population about 210,000), and Orlando, Fla. (population about 240,000).

Applications to host the exhibition were reviewed by peer public librarians and representatives from the National Museum of Natural History and ALA’s Public Programs Office. The selected libraries will receive a programming support grant from the project sponsors. They will also offer free public science lectures and education workshops hosted by Smithsonian scientists, including paleoanthropologists Potts and Briana Pobiner. These programs will be complemented by community events that invite conversations with clergy, civic leaders and the public to consider how scientific discoveries about human origins may relate to diverse cultural and religious perspectives on what it means to be human. The Human Origins Initiative’s Broader Social Impacts Committee, co-chaired by Connie Bertka and Jim Miller, will help facilitate these conversations.

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exhibitpic1

The new traveling exhibition will highlight key milestones in the journey of human evolution such as symbolic language development, as depicted in this artist’s rendering of a Homo sapiens creating an outline of his hand on a cave wall. “Exploring Human Origins: What Does It Mean to Be Human?” was developed by the Smithsonian Institution and American Library Association and will appear at 19 public libraries across the country between April 2015 and April 2017. Credit: Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program

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exhibitpic3

The 1,200-square-foot new traveling exhibition includes 3-D skull casts representing groundbreaking research in the scientific study of human origins. Credit: Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program

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exhibitpic2

The new traveling exhibition tells the story of how humans, or Homo sapiens, are descended from a complex tree of upright walking ancestors, including species from the genera Ardipithecus, Australopithecus and ParanthropusCredit: Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program

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“Exploring Human Origins: What Does It Mean to Be Human?” was made possible by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation and support from the Peter Buck Human Origins Fund.

The traveling exhibition will feature replicas and images of specimens from the Smithsonian’s “David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins” in the nation’s capital. More than 20 million people have visited the $20.7 million permanent exhibition hall in the nearly five years since it first opened in March 2010. The 15,000-square-foot exhibition space was named for David H. Koch, a well-known philanthropist, whose $15 million gift made the hall possible. Both the permanent and traveling exhibitions are part of the National Museum of Natural History’s Human Origins Initiative, which seeks to explore what it means to be human.

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About the Museum

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History welcomed more than 7 million visitors in 2014, making it one of the most-visited museums in the world. Opened in 1910, the museum on the National Mall is dedicated to maintaining and preserving the world’s most extensive collection of natural history specimens and human artifacts. It also fosters significant scientific research and educational programs and exhibitions that present the work of its scientists to the public. The museum is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Admission is free. For more information, visit the museum’s website or connect with it on Facebook and Twitter.

About ALA

ALA is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with approximately 58,000 members in academic, public, school, government and special libraries. ALA’s mission is to provide leadership for the development, promotion and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all.

The traveling exhibition will visit the following communities:

Chesterfield County Public Library; Chesterfield, Va.
March 31–April 27

Orange County Library; Orlando, Fla.
May 9–June 5

Andover Public Library; Andover, Ohio
June 19–July 16

Ephrata Public Library; Ephrata, Pa.
July 29–Aug. 25

Oelwein Public Library; Oelwein, Iowa
Sept. 6–Oct. 3

Cedar City Public Library; Cedar City, Utah
Oct. 16–Nov. 12

Milpitas Library; Milpitas, Calif.
Nov. 25–Dec. 22

Spokane County Library; Spokane, Wash.
Jan. 6, 2016–Feb. 2, 2016

Pueblo City-County Library; Pueblo, Colo.
Feb. 17, 2016–March 15, 2016

Cottage Grove Public Library; Cottage Grove, Ore.
March 27, 2016–April 23, 2016

Springfield-Greene County Library; Springfield, Mo.
May 7, 2016–June 3, 2016

Peoria Public Library; Peoria, Ill.
June 17, 2016–July 14, 2016

Orion Township Public Library; Lake Orion, Mich.
July 28, 2016–Aug. 24, 2016

Skokie Public Library; Skokie, Ill.
Sept. 7, 2016–Oct. 4, 2016

Wyckoff Free Public Library; Wyckoff, N.J.
Oct. 16, 2016–Nov. 12, 2016

Tompkins County Public Library; Ithaca, N.Y.
Nov. 25, 2016–Dec. 22, 2016

Otis Library; Norwich, Conn.
Jan. 7, 2017–Feb. 3, 2017

Fletcher Free Library; Burlington, Vt.
Feb. 18, 2017–March 17, 2017

Bangor Public Library; Bangor, Maine
April 1, 2017–April 28, 2017

 

Source: Smithsonian Institution Press Release

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Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery Edition eBook is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition.  We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.

 

  







 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Humans adapted to rainforest living much earlier than thought

Human foragers were relying on tropical rainforests for resources since at least 20,000 years ago, or 10,000 years earlier than researchers had thought, according to a new study. Until now, researchers had not been able to find direct evidence of human occupation of rainforest regions before about 10,000 years ago. They had generally assumed that rainforest environments were too dangerous—and offered too little food—to be attractive to prehistoric foragers. But Patrick Roberts and colleagues analyzed carbon and oxygen isotopes from the fossilized tooth enamel of humans and animals found in Sri Lanka and discovered that their diets consisted primarily of plants from rainforests as opposed to plants from open habitats. Humans and animals such as porcupines, giant squirrels, and monkeys foraged the forest edges and semi-open rainforests in Sri Lanka, they say. They didn’t just use them occasionally, as some previous research had suggested, but relied heavily on rainforest resources, even as the rainforest climate and environment experienced dramatic fluxes.

An international research team has shed new light on the diet of some of the earliest recorded humans in Sri Lanka. The researchers from Oxford University, working with a team from Sri Lanka and the University of Bradford, analysed the carbon and oxygen isotopes in the teeth of 26 individuals, with the oldest dating back 20,000 years. They found that nearly all the teeth analysed suggested a diet largely sourced from the rainforest.

This study*, published in the early online edition of the journal, Science, shows that early modern humans adapted to living in the rainforest for long periods of time. Previously it was thought that humans did not occupy tropical forests for any length of time until 12,000 years after that date, and that the tropical forests were largely ‘pristine’, human-free environments until the Early Holocene, 8,000 years ago. Scholars reasoned that compared with more open landscapes, humans might have found rainforests too difficult to navigate, with less available food to hunt or catch.

The Science paper also notes, however, that previous archaeological research provides ‘tantalising hints’ of humans possibly occupying rainforest environments around 45,000 years ago. This earlier research is unclear as to whether those early human dwellers of the rainforest were engaging in a specialised activity or whether they entered the rainforest for only limited periods of time in certain seasons rather than remaining there all year round.

Co-author Professor Julia Lee-Thorp from Oxford University said: ‘The isotopic methodology applied in our study has already been successfully used to study how primates, including African great apes, adapt to their forest environment. However, this is the first time scientists have investigated ancient human fossils in a tropical forest context to see how our earliest ancestors survived in such a habitat.’

The researchers studied the fossilised teeth of 26 humans of a range of dates – from 20,000 to 3,000 years ago. All of the teeth were excavated from three archaeological sites in Sri Lanka, which are today surrounded by either dense rainforest or more open terrain. The analysis of the teeth showed that all of the humans had a diet sourced from slightly open ‘intermediate rainforest’ environments. Only two of them showed a recognisable signature of a diet found in open grassland. However, these two teeth were dated to around 3,000 years, the start of the Iron Age, when agriculture developed in the region. The new evidence published in this paper argues this shows just how adaptable our earliest ancestors were.

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fossilteethrainforest1A view from Batadomba-lena rock shelter, the site at which the oldest fossils used in the study were found. Credit: Patrick Roberts

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fossilteethrainforest2The site of Batadomba-lena where the oldest human teeth (c. 20,000 years old) used in the study were excavated. Credit: Patrick Roberts

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fossilteethrainforest3Sri Lankan wet zone rainforest, near Batadomba-lena rock shelter. Credit: Patrick Roberts

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Lead author, Patrick Roberts, a doctoral student specialising in the investigation of early human adaptations from Oxford’s Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, said: ‘This is the first study to directly test how much early human forest foragers depended on the rainforest for their diet. The results are significant in showing that early humans in Sri Lanka were able to live almost entirely on food found in the rainforest without the need to move into other environments. Our earliest human ancestors were clearly able to successfully adapt to different extreme environments.’

Co-author Professor Mike Petraglia from Oxford University said: “Our research provides a clear timeline showing the deep level of interaction that early humans had with the rainforest in South Asia. We need further research to see if this pattern was also followed in other similar environments in Southeast Asia, Melanesia, Australasia and Africa.”

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*Direct evidence for human reliance on rainforest resources in late Pleistocene Sri Lanka, is by Patrick Roberts, Nimal Perera, Osham Wedage, Siran Deraniyagala, Jude Perera, Saman Eregama, Andrew Gledhill, Michael Petraglia and Julia Lee-Thorp.

The paper was co-authored by the University of Oxford; the Postgraduate Institute of Archaeology, Sri Lanka; Department of Archaeology, Sri Lanka, and the University of Bradford.

Source: University of Oxford and AAAS press releases.

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Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery Edition eBook is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition.  We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.

 

  







 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saharan ‘carpet of tools’ is earliest known man-made landscape

A new intensive survey of the Messak Settafet escarpment, a massive outcrop of sandstone in the middle of the Saharan desert, has shown that stone tools occur “ubiquitously” across the entire landscape: averaging 75 artefacts per square metre, or 75 million per square kilometre.

Researchers say the vast ‘carpet’ of stone-age tools – extracted from and discarded onto the escarpment over hundreds of thousands of years – is the earliest known example of an entire landscape being modified by hominins: the group of creatures that include us and our ancestral species.

The Messak Settafet runs a total length of 350 km, with an average width of 60 km. Parts of the landscape are ‘anthropogenic’, or man-made, through build-up of tools over hundreds of thousands of years.

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saharantools2The carpet of lithics on the Messak landscape. Courtesy Foley/Mirazón Lahr

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The research team have used this and other studies to attempt to estimate the volume of stone tools discarded over the last one million years of human evolution on the African continent alone. They say that it is the equivalent of more than one Great Pyramid of Giza per square kilometre of the entire continent (2.1 x 1014 cubic metres of rock).

“The Messak sandstone, now in the middle of the vast sand seas of Libya, would have been a high quality rock for hominins to fracture – the landscape is in effect a carpet of stone tools, most probably made in the Middle and Upper Pleistocene,” said Dr Robert Foley, from the Leverhulme Centre for Evolutionary Studies at the University of Cambridge, who conducted the research with colleague Dr Marta Mirazón Lahr.

“The term ‘anthropocene’ is now used to denote the point at which humans began to have a significant effect on the environment,” said Mirazón Lahr. “The critical time may well be the beginning of the industrial revolution about 200 years ago. Some talk of an ‘early anthropocene’ about 10,000 years ago when forests began being cleared for agriculture.

“Making stone tools, however, dates back more than two million years, and little research has been done on the impact of this activity. The Messak Settafet is the earliest demonstrated example of the scars of human activity across an entire landscape; the effects of our technology on the environment may be considerably older than previously thought,” Mirazón Lahr said. The study is published today in the journal PLOS ONE.

The survey, conducted in 2011, involved randomly selecting plots of one metre squared across the parts of the plateau surface. In each square, the researchers sifted through all the stones to identify the number that showed evidence of modification through hominin activity – evidence such as a ‘bulb of percussion’: a bulge or curved dent on the surface of a stone tool produced by the angular blows of hominin percussion. The average number of artefacts across all sample squares was 75.

At the simple end, large flakes of stone would have been opportunistically hacked from boulders to be used for cutting or as weapons. At the more sophisticated level, researchers found evidence that specific tools had been used to wedge into the stone in order split it.

“It is clear from the scale of activity how important stone tools were, and shows that African hominins were strongly technologically dependent,” said Foley. “Landscapes such as these must have been magnets for hominin populations, either for ‘stone foraging trips’ or residential occupation.”

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saharantools1Above:  A Levallois core, a distinctive type of Middle Stone Age stone tool, recovered on the surface of the Messak. Courtesy Foley/Mirazón Lahr

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The researchers say that if – as seems likely – the success of Stone Age communities depended significantly on tool technology, there would be enormous advantage to knowing, remembering and indeed controlling access to areas with a “super-abundance” of raw materials, such as the Messak Settafet.

“Hominins may well have become tethered to these areas, unable to stray too far if survival depended on access to the raw materials for tools, and forced to make other adaptations subservient to that need,” said Mirazón Lahr.

One way that the environmental impact of hominin tool excavation may have been positive for later humans is through the clusters of small quarrying pits dotted across the landscape (ranging up to 2 metres in diameter, and 50 centimetres in depth).

These pits would have retained moisture – with surface water still visible today after rains – and the small pools would have attracted game. In many of these pits, the team found ‘trapping stones’: large stones used for traps and ties for game and/or cattle during the last 10,000 years.

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saharantools3Prof. Robert Foley recording lithic density on the Messak. Courtesy Foley/Mirazón Lahr

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By combining their data with previous extensive surveys carried out across Africa, the researchers attempted to estimate roughly how much stone had been used as tools and discarded during human evolution.

Although stone tool manufacture dates back at least 2.5 million years, the researchers limited the estimate to one million years. Based on their and others research, they standardised population density (based on extant hunter-gatherers), tool volume, the number of tools used by one person in a year and the amount of resulting debris per tool.

They estimate an average density of between 0.5 and 5 million stone artefacts per square kilometre of Africa. When converted into an estimate of volume, this is the equivalent of between 42 to 84 million Great Pyramids of Giza.

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Source: University of Cambridge Press Release

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Neanderthals modified eagle claws 130,000 years ago

Krapina Neanderthals may have manipulated white-tailed eagle talons to make jewelry 130,000 years ago, before the appearance of modern human in Europe, according to a study* published March 11, 2015 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by David Frayer from the University of Kansas and colleagues from Croatia.

Researchers describe eight mostly complete white-tailed eagle talons from the Krapina Neanderthal site in present-day Croatia, dating to approximately 130,000 years ago. These white-tailed eagle bones, discovered more than 100 years ago, all derive from a single time period at Krapina. Four talons bear multiple edge-smoothed cut marks, and eight show polishing facets or abrasion. Three of the largest talons have small notches at roughly the same place along the plantar surface.

The authors suggest these features may be part of a jewelry assemblage, like mounting the talons in a necklace or bracelet. Some have argued that Neanderthals lacked symbolic ability or copied this behavior from modern humans, but the presence of the talons indicates that the Krapina Neanderthals may have acquired eagle talons for some kind of symbolic purpose. They also demonstrate that the Krapina Neanderthals may have made jewelry 80,000 years before the appearance of modern humans in Europe.

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krapinaModified white-tailed eagle talons from the Krapina Neanderthal site in present-day Croatia, dated to approximately 130,000 years ago. Courtesy Luka Mjeda, Zagreb

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“It’s really a stunning discovery. It’s one of those things that just appeared out of the blue. It’s so unexpected and it’s so startling because there’s just nothing like it until very recent times to find this kind of jewelry,” said Frayer.

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*Radovi D, Sršen AO, Radovi J, Frayer DW (2015) Evidence for Neandertal Jewelry: Modified White-Tailed Eagle Claws at Krapina. PLoS ONE 10(3): e0119802. doi:10.1371/journal. pone.0119802

Source: Edited from a PLOS ONE press release.

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Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery Edition eBook is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition.  We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.

 

  







 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No One Knows Our Names

More than 300 years ago, three African-born slaves died on the Caribbean island of Saint Martin. No written records memorialized their fate, and their names and precise ethnic background remained a mystery. For centuries, their skeletons were subjected to the hot, wet weather of the tropical island until they were unearthed in 2010 during a construction project in the Zoutsteeg area of the capital city of Philipsburg.

Now researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the University of Copenhagen have extracted and sequenced tiny bits of DNA remaining in the skeletons’ teeth. From this data, they were able to determine where in Africa the individuals likely lived before they were captured and enslaved.

The research marks the first time that scientists have been able to use such old, poorly preserved DNA to identify with high specificity the ethnic origins of long-dead individuals. The finding paves the way for a greater understanding of the patterns of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, and may transform the general practice of genealogical and historical research.

“Through the barbarism of the middle passage, millions of people were forcibly removed from Africa and brought to the Americas,” said Carlos Bustamante, PhD, professor of genetics at Stanford. “We have long sought to use DNA to understand who they were, where they came from, and who, today, shares DNA with those people taken aboard the ships. This project has taught us that we cannot only get ancient DNA from tropical samples, but that we can reliably identify their ancestry. This is incredibly exciting to us and opens the door to reclaiming history that is of such importance.”

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slaveinspectionInspection and sale of a ‘negro’, or slave from Africa. Wikimedia Commons

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A new tool

The researchers used a technique recently devised in the Bustamante laboratory called whole-genome capture to isolate enough ancient DNA from the skeletons to sequence and analyze. In this way, they learned that one skeleton was that of a man who had likely belonged to a Bantu-speaking group in northern Cameroon. The other two shared similarities with non-Bantu-speaking groups in present-day Nigeria and Ghana.

Bustamante is co-author of a paper describing the research. It will be published online March 9 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study was led by Hannes Schroeder, PhD, a molecular anthropologist from the University of Copenhagen, and Stanford postdoctoral scholar Maria Avila-Arcos, PhD. The research was initiated in Denmark, and the senior author of the study is Thomas Gilbert, PhD, of the University of Copenhagen.

Bustamante is well-known for his studies of the ethnic background of native Mexicans and Caribbean dwellers, as well as for using genomics to study the patterns of human migration from North Africa to southern Europe.

“Several years ago, we were part of the team that sequenced the genome of Otzi, the iceman, and we were able to show that the people alive today that most closely match him genetically are Sardinians,” said Bustamante. “This incredible precision was possible because we, as a community, had invested lots of resources in understanding patterns of DNA variation in Europe. I started to talk about the ‘Otzi rule,’ or the idea that we should be able to do for all people alive today what we can do for a 5,000-year-old mummy. However, few skeletons today are as well-preserved as Otzi, and not all are of European background.”

In the centuries of the Atlantic slave trade, the largest forced migration in history, more than 12 million enslaved Africans were shipped to the New World to work on plantations in eastern South America, the Caribbean, and portions of the eastern United States. Although some records were kept detailing the slaves’ departure from West and Central African ports, they are often incomplete. Furthermore, it is impossible to tell from the shipping records where in Africa individuals originated.

Researchers could tell from the skeletons found in the Zoutsteeg area that the three people were between 25 and 40 years old when they died in the late 1600s. The skulls of each also bore teeth that had been filed down in patterns characteristic of certain African groups. But this alone wasn’t enough to pinpoint where the individuals originated on the African continent.

Getting DNA from tooth roots

Schroeder and Avila-Arcos isolated DNA from the tooth roots of each of the skeletons. Although the tooth roots are relatively protected from the elements and from external contamination with unrelated genetic material, the DNA was very poorly preserved and highly fragmented — likely due to the centuries of hot, humid conditions the skeletons had endured. Initial DNA sequencing efforts rendered short stretches of highly damaged DNA.

The researchers turned to the whole-genome capture technique developed by study co-author Meredith Carpenter, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar in the Bustamante laboratory, to fish out snippets of ancient DNA from the mixture. The approach exposes the DNA sample to a genome-wide panel of human-specific RNA molecules to which the degraded DNA in the sample can bind. The effect is somewhat like stirring a pile of iron-rich dirt with a powerful magnet to isolate the metal from the soil, and it allowed the researchers to concentrate the ancient DNA for more efficient sequencing.

They then used a different technique called principal component analysis to compare the DNA sequences of the enslaved Africans with a reference panel of 11 West African populations and identify the distinct ethnic groups from which each individual likely originated. The findings illuminate a tumultuous period of time in the Americas and may provide insight into subsequent population patterns and perceived ethnic identities.

“We were able to determine that, despite the fact that the three individuals were found at the same site, and may even have arrived on the same ship, they had genetic affinities to different populations within Africa,” said Avila-Arcos. “They may have spoken different languages, making communication difficult. This makes us reflect on two things: the dynamics of the trans-Atlantic slave trade within Africa, and how this dramatic, ethnic mingling may have influenced communities and identities in the Americas.”

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Other Stanford authors are graduate student David Poznik and former postdoctoral scholar Martin Sikora, PhD.

The research was supported by the Danish National Research Foundation, the Directorate General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission, the European Research Council, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Swiss National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health (grant numbers 5F32HG007342 and K99GM104158), a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship, the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacin, the Plan Galego IDT, the Sistema Universitario Gallego-Modalidad REDES, the Xunta de Galicia, the Lundbeck Foundation and the Danish Council for Independent Research.

Bustamante is the founder of IdentifyGenomics LLC, and is on the scientific advisory board of Personalis Inc. and Ancestry.com, as well as the medical advisory board of InVitae. Carpenter is now the chief scientific officer at IdentifyGenomics.

Information about Stanford’s Department of Genetics, which also supported the work, is available at http://genetics.stanford.edu.

The Stanford University School of Medicine consistently ranks among the nation’s top medical schools, integrating research, medical education, patient care and community service. For more news about the school, please visit http://med.stanford.edu/school.html. The medical school is part of Stanford Medicine, which includes Stanford Health Care and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford. For information about all three, please visit http://med.stanford.edu.

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Source: Stanford University Medical Center

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discovery2014cover2

Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery Edition eBook is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition.  We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.

 

  







 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Archaeologists Return to Unearth Base of the Roman Sixth Legion

Other than agriculture, very little can be seen in the field of el-Manach. It is quiet and flat, the soil clearly worked as any farmer’s field would be in this part of Israel.  But beneath its surface lie the material vestiges of what at one time, about 1800 years ago, was a major encampment of Roman soldiers. MAJOR is the operative word, because this encampment constituted the military headquarters of the Legio VI Ferrata, or the Roman Sixth Legion, which, during its time, secured Rome’s hold of northern regions of the province of Syria-Palaestina with its strategic location near important imperial roads.  

Since Byzantine times, the exact location of the military base was a mystery to historians. But in the early 20th century American engineer, architect and archaeologist Gottlieb Schumacher observed the remains of Roman architecture in the area of ancient Megiddo, and in the 1990’s during a survey Israeli archaeologist Yotam Tepper of the Israel Antiquities Authority identified Roman remains, including coins and roof tiles stamped with the name of the Roman Sixth Legion, concentrated in and around the el-Manach agricultural field.

But real validation didn’t come until 2010, when Tepper began focused archaeological investigations at el-Manach using a variety of remote sensing techniques. This, along with data acquired through preliminary archaeological and historical work, led to the first full-scale excavation at el-Manach in 2013, employing a team of archaeologists, American and European students, and participants from local youth and community groups under co-directors Tepper and Matthew J. Adams of the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research and Jonathan David of Gettysburg College.

What they found at the site, now referred to as Legio after an associated ancient place name, was nothing short of reaffirming.

“The data gathered so far in survey, research, and excavations shows a complex and unexpected settlement scenario at Legio,” wrote Tepper, et al. in a project summary soon to be published in Popular Archaeology Magazine.  “At its heart is a large legionary base of the Sixth Legion, perhaps accommodating the full legion of nearly 5,000 soldiers from all over the empire. Nearby would have been a vicus, an ad hoc civilian settlement providing entertainment, commercial support, and other services for the men of the legion. At Kefar ‘Othnay, just south of the base, was a Jewish-Samaritan village in which there is evidence for an early Christina gathering place, dedicated in part by a Roman centurion.”*

Thus far, finds have included defensive trenching earthworks, or fosse; evidence of a 6m-wide wall that surrounded the base, rooms of barracks that contained hundreds of ceramic tiles, some bearing the legion’s mark; a variety of local and foreign coins of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, CE; scale armor fragments; ceramic water pipes; lead ingots; and a stone table leg featuring the face of a panther. They also uncovered evidence of a wide street flanked by drainage channels.    

“Legio provides an incredible new window on the Roman military occupation of the eastern provinces,” state Tepper, et al. “No military headquarters of this type for this particular period have yet been excavated in the entire Eastern Empire.”*

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legiofig13A volunteer excavates collapsed roof tiles from one of the barracks rooms. Courtesy Jezreel Valley Regional Project

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legiofig14Roof tile stamped with LEG V (IFERR). Courtesy Jezreel Valley Regional Project

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legiofig15Roman armor scales found in the barracks. Courtesy Jezreel Valley Regional Project

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In addition to the finds, the excavation has been a proving ground for the application of multiple technologies on a single site, including photogrammetry for digitally mapping and planning, 3D imaging, Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) for digital epigraphy, X-Ray Florescence for determining chemical composition of objects and sediments, and a new archaeological and historical database system.

In 2015, Tepper and colleagues plan to return to the site with another team of specialists, students and volunteers to continue the excavations. During this season, they plan to also employ a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) for aerial imagery, remote sensing, and landscape modeling.

More information about the Legio excavations and how to participate can be acquired at the project website, and a more detailed feature article about the Legio project will be published soon in the Spring issue of Popular Archaeology Magazine.

 

* The Legionary Base of the Roman Sixth Ferrata Legion at Legio, Israel, by Yotam Tepper, Matthew J. Adams, and Jonathan David

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Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery Edition eBook is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition.  We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.

 

  







 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Early Human Fossil Find Pushes Back the Clock

An international team has discovered a fossilized partial mandible (lower jaw) with five intact teeth representing an early human that, based on the dating, lived as much as 2.8 million years ago in what is today the Afar region of Ethiopia. It is now the oldest fossil evidence to date of a hominin in the genus Homo, the line that includes modern humans. The findings are reported in the journal Science, the publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Led by Brian A. Villmoare of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Arizona State University (ASU) scientists Kaye E. Reed, William H. Kimbel, Christopher J. Campisano and J. Ramón Arrowsmith, and geoscientist Erin N. DiMaggio of Penn State, the researchers discovered the fossil in 2013 in the Ledi-Geraru area of the Afar Regional State of Ethiopia (see images below), an area that also features other ancient mammal fossils, such as prehistoric antelope, water dependent grazers, prehistoric elephants, a type of hippopotamus and crocodiles and fish. The area is significant because it shows geological strata, or layers, that have been exposed due to geologic fault uplifting in the African Great Rift Valley system, where it is located. In other areas where uplifting has not taken place, the same strata have been long eroded away through time.  

The fossil was first sighted by Ethiopian ASU graduate student Chalachew Seyoum on January 29, 2013 while conducting assigned surveying tasks. The 8 cm. long Ledi-Geraru mandible fossil represents the left side of the lower jaw and five teeth, still embedded within the mandible. Analysis of the fossil, led by Villmoare and William H. Kimbel of ASU’s Institute of Human Origins, has revealed features such as slim molars, symmetrical premolars and an evenly proportioned jaw, characteristics that have distinguished species of the Homo lineage from the more apelike characteristics of Australopithecus, an earlier hominin genus, of which one species is suggested by many scholars to have been a forerunner of the Homo genus. Yet some features of the Ledi-Geraru mandible, such as a more primitive, sloping chin morphology, is similar to that of the Australopithecines. It could suggest a possible bridge species between the Australopithecines and later Homo genus species. But it is too soon to assign the fossil to any specific species, say the researchers. There is not enough information yet to make a supportable designation.

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ledigerarumap

Detailed map of where the Ledi-Geraru site is located in reference to other important fossil sites in Ethiopia. Credit Erin DiMaggio

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ledigerarumap2aSite, geography, and geological stratification where the fossil jaw (designated LD 350-1) was discovered. Credit: Villmoare, et al.

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“We used multiple dating methods including radiometric analysis of volcanic ash layers, and all show that the hominin fossil is 2.8 to 2.75 million years old,” said DiMaggio.

By dating volcanic ash/tuff layers below and above the fossil using argon 40/39 dating, a high-precision radiometric dating method that measures the decay through time of different isotopes of argon within the ash/tuff, scientists were able to calculate the ages of nearby associated ancient volcanic eruptions. In this way, geologists could determine the youngest and oldest dates when the Homo individual could have lived.

The variety of 2.8 – 2.75-year-old animal fossils found in the area indicates that the ancient landscape inhabited by the Homo individual was an open habitat of mixed grasslands and shrub lands with a gallery forest—trees lining rivers or wetlands, likely similar to African locations like the Serengeti Plains or the Kalahari.

Some researchers have also suggested that global climate change during that time created an environment of climate variability and aridity, triggering evolutionary changes in many mammal lines, including early humans.

“We can see the 2.8 million-year-old aridity signal in the Ledi-Geraru faunal community,” said Reed. “But it’s still too soon to say that this means climate change is responsible for the origin of Homo. We need a larger sample of hominin fossils and that’s why we continue to come to the Ledi-Geraru area to search.”

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ledigerarusiteA caravan moves across the Lee Adoyta region in the Ledi-Geraru project area near the early Homo site. The hills behind the camels expose sediments that are younger than 2.67 million year old, providing a minimum age for the mandible. Credit Erin DiMaggio

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ledigerarudiggingGeologists Dr. Erin DiMaggio of Penn State (left) and Dominique Garello (ASU, right) sample a volcanic tuff near the early Homo site in the Ledi-Geraru project area. Credit J. Ramón Arrowsmith

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Most significantly, the Ledi-Geraru Homo fossil (designated LD 350-1) predates previously known fossils of the Homo lineage by about 400,000 years. Until now, the earliest credible fossil evidence of the Homo genus was dated to about 2.3 or 2.4 million years ago, as represented by the fossil mandible HCRP-UR 501 (see image below), found by the German paleoanthropologist Friedermann Shrenk at Uraha, Malawi. HCRP-UR 501 has been identified as belonging to Homo rudolfensis, an early Homo species that lived roughly contemporaneous with Homo habilis around 2 million years ago.

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homorudolfensismandibleHPCR-UR 501, recovered by Friedermann Shrenk at Uraha, Malawi. Gerbil, Wikimedia Commons

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fossiljawLD 350-1. Close-up view of the Ledi-Geraru partial mandible close to where it was sighted. Credit: Kaye Reed

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ledigerarumandiblecloseupClose-up images of the Ledi-Geraru partial mandible, as seen from different angles and perspectives. Credit: William Kimbel

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In a related report published in the journal Nature, Fred Spoor and his colleagues discuss a new reconstruction of the cranium and associated mandible belonging to the 1.8 million-year-old Homo habilis (“Handy Man”) from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. When first found by Mary and Louis Leakey on November 4, 1960, the fossil was in deformed condition. The reconstruction shows some surprising features that could help inform the discussion on where it might stand in relation to the Ledi-Geraru Homo within human evolution.

In any case, the researchers maintain that the new find from the Afar region represents a remarkable discovery.

“In spite of a lot of searching, fossils on the Homo lineage older than 2 million years ago are very rare,” says Villmoare. “To have a glimpse of the very earliest phase of our lineage’s evolution is particularly exciting.”

“The Ledi jaw helps narrow the evolutionary gap between Australopithecus and early Homo,” adds co-author William Kimbel of ASU. “It’s an excellent case of a transitional fossil in a critical time period in human evolution.”

The research team plans to continue their search for additional Homo fossils in the area of the find, hoping to shed additional light on the specimen and ultimately determine a suggested species designation. 

Two detailed research reports* documenting the discovery are published in the journal Science, a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. 

*“Early Homo at 2.8 Ma from Ledi-Geraru, Afar, Ethiopia” by B. Villmoare et al., and “Late Pliocene Fossiliferous Sedimentary Record and the Environmental Context of early Homo from Afar, Ethiopia,” by E.N. DiMaggio et al.

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The research team, which began conducting field work at Ledi-Geraru in 2002, included: Brian A. Villmoare (University of Nevada Las Vegas), William H. Kimbel (ASU Institute of Human Origins and School of Human Evolution and Social Change), and Chalachew Seyoum (ASU Institute of Human Origins and School of Human Evolution and Social Change, and Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage, Addis Ababa), who analyzed the hominin fossil. Erin N. DiMaggio (Pennsylvania State University), Christopher J. Campisano (ASU Institute of Human Origins and School of Human Evolution and Social Change), J. Ramón Arrowsmith (ASU School of Earth and Space Exploration), Guillaume Dupont-Nivet (CNRS Géosciences Rennes), and Alan L. Deino (Berkeley Geochronology Center), who conducted the geological research. Faysal Bibi (Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science), Margaret E. Lewis (Stockton University), John Rowan (ASU Institute of Human Origins and School of Human Evolution and Social Change), Antoine Souron (Human Evolution Research Center, University of California, Berkeley), and Lars Werdelin (Swedish Museum of Natural History), who identified the fossil mammals. Kaye E. Reed (ASU Institute of Human Origins and School of Human Evolution and Social Change), who reconstructed the past habitats based on the faunal communities. David R. Braun (George Washington University), who conducted archaeological research.

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Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery Edition eBook is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition.  We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.

 

  







 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Study Lends New Support to Theory that Early Humans were Scavengers

As Founder and Editor of Popular Archaeology Magazine, Dan is a freelance writer and journalist specializing in archaeology.  He studied anthropology and archaeology in undergraduate and graduate school and has been an active participant on archaeological excavations in the U.S. and abroad.  He is the creator and administrator of Archaeological Digs, a popular weblog about archaeological excavation and field school opportunities.  

In a very real way, it may have been the lion and the long-extinct sabertoothed cat, not the dog, that was ‘man’s best friend’, if we go back far enough into human prehistory. 

In a recently published study in the Journal of Human Evolution, author and paleoanthropologist Briana Pobiner of the Smithsonian Institution’s Human Origins Program shows that it was entirely feasible for early humans living on the African savanna as much as two million or more years ago to acquire enough calories simply by lying in wait and scavenging the remains of prey left by lions or big sabertoothed cats after they finished eating the first cuts. 

She concluded this after spending several months in Kenya’s Ol Pejeta Conservancy nature preserve observing, examining, and analyzing large carnivore kills scattered across its grasslands. According to Pobiner, even though it is a modern landscape and environment, it isn’t much different than some of the landscapes that early human ancestors inhabited millions of years ago.   

“The site is a great analogue for the kinds of African savanna environments where hominins are thought to have lived,” said Pobiner. “The habitats—both types and varieties—were probably similar, and in this particular place, lions were the dominant predator. This may have been very much like past carnivore communities during the time our ancestors were starting to eat meat from larger animals, when we have evidence that felids—ancient lions, leopards, and three species of sabertoothed cats—lived alongside our ancestors and may have been the dominant kinds of carnivores at this time.“ She points to ancient sites such as Koobi Fora and Olduvai Gorge in East Africa that have yielded evidence of the earliest stone tools, with ancient environments very similar to that of present-day Ol Pejeta where big felids coexisted with humans.

A typical day in the field for Pobiner would begin with listening to a short wave radio for any mention from the conservancy about spotting lions or hearing them roar during the night—particularly if they were eating prey. On a lucky day, she would drive her Land Cruiser along with an armed guard out to the lion site and then simply stop to observe them at a safe distance while they ate. The armed guard was critical. “I didn’t want to become prey myself—to be charged by an elephant, rhino, buffalo, or other angry ungulate,” she said. About one hour after the lions were done and had left the scene, she and her assisting guard would finally approach the kill, meticulously document the remains with photographs and notes, and then pick up the carcass and place it into the back of the Land Cruiser. Later, another assistant would carefully remove the meat from the bones with wooden tools so as not to make any marks that might be confused with tooth marks, and then boil the bones clean. Once the bones were dry, they would be ready for further study.

Apart from potentially angry ungulates, the work was not without other challenges.

“It turns out lions don’t kill things all that often,” Pobiner says. “So getting a large enough sample size was challenging. Another challenge was sometimes having difficulty getting around to get to the carcasses even with my sturdy vehicle during the rainy season when it got really muddy or if I inadvertently drove into a warthog burrow.”

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scavenger1Parked near a kill site. Photo courtesy Briana Pobiner

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scavenger3A typical kill site. Photo courtesy Briana Pobiner

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scavenger2Stuck! One of the many pitfalls of the work. Photo courtesy Briana Pobiner

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For her efforts, however, Pobiner’s work has its rewards. Like others before her, this study could hold answers to questions related to the ongoing debate about early human behavior before the advent of more modern hunting tools and techniques. The debate has revolved around the ‘man the hunter’ hypothesis, which suggests that early humans who lived as much as two million or more years ago procured their meat needs primarily through hunting, versus the ‘man the scavenger’ hypothesis, which proposes that the early humans procured these needs mostly by scavenging the remains left by other preying carnivores, such as lions, sabertoothed cats, hyenas, and other animals. Subsumed within the ‘man the scavenger’ hypothesis has been the question of whether these early humans scavenged primarily as aggressive, confrontational, “power” scavengers who competed with the other carnivores for first access to the prey (such as scaring or beating off a lion from its hunted and killed prey), or as ‘passive’ scavengers who waited until other carnivores got their first prime cuts and then safely went in to pick the carcass for the scraps after the other big carnivores had left the scene. Specifically, Pobiner’s study results indicated that, even after the other large carnivores had their complete fill of the prey and left the carcass to the elements, there would have been enough meat in the scraps to provide a decent meal for a scavenging hominin afterwards. In other words, early humans could have made a living as passive scavengers.

“The most surprising finding was simply the large quantity of meat that lions leave when they eat their kills, which was more than anyone had observed before,” stated Pobiner. “In fact, the leftover meat from just one zebra kill made by lions could have provided almost 6,100 calories for our early human ancestors—that’s the entire daily caloric requirements of almost three adult male Homo erectus individuals, or just over 11 Big Macs. Not bad for a “lowly” scavenger!”

“Part of the criticism of the idea of a scavenging niche is whether there would even be enough meat on a lion kill worth scavenging, especially “passively” scavenging—waiting for the lions to be completely finished rather than chasing them off their kill in “active” or “confrontational” scavenging. My research answers a resounding “yes” to that question.” 

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scavenger4aArtist’s depiction of a group of Homo erectus individuals butchering an elephant carcass, based on evidence found of butchered elephant bones, and thousands of stone tools found at Olorgesailie, Kenya, a site where the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program has conducted excavations. Image courtesy Smithsonian Human Origins Program/Karen Carr

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Pobiner has clocked countless hours researching how and when eating meat, a key source of calories, protein and other nutrients, became an important factor in the ultimate evolutionary success of humans.

“Diet is such a crucial part of an organism’s adaptation, and understanding when and how hominins started incorporating meat from large animals into their diets can give us insight into other key adaptations that characterize our lineage – brain size increase, body size increase, home range and group size increase, moving into novel habitats and environments, interactions with other predators, and sophisticated communication and planning, for instance,” she said. “We went from being mostly prey to being the most dominant predator on earth, or at least one of them, in a mere 2.5 million years.”

The detailed study report is published in the Journal of Human Evolution

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If you liked this, see also The Bones of Ol Pejeta, by Briana Pobiner and Kris Kovarovic, and Rewriting Human Evolution, a premium article in the September, 2014 issue of Popular Archaeology.

__________________________________________________

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Popular Archaeology’s annual Discovery Edition eBook is a selection of the best stories published in Popular Archaeology Magazine in past issues, with an emphasis on some of the most significant, groundbreaking, or fascinating discoveries in the fields of archaeology and paleoanthropology and related fields. At least some of the articles have been updated or revised specifically for the Discovery edition.  We can confidently say that there is no other single issue of an archaeology-related magazine, paper print or online, that contains as much major feature article content as this one. The latest issue, volume 2, has just been released. Go to the Discovery edition page for more information.