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AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE (AAAS)—A dense system of pre-Hispanic urban centers, characterized by constructed platforms and plazas and connected by large, straight roads, has been discovered in the upper Amazon, according to a new study*. The research, based on more than 20 years of interdisciplinary research, suggests that this original 2500-year-old society constitutes the earliest and largest low-density agrarian urbanism documented in the Amazon thus far. Such extensive early development in the Upper Amazon resembles similar Maya urban systems in Central America. Although a growing body of research has begun to highlight the scope and scale of pre-Hispanic occupation of the Amazon, evidence for large-scale urbanism has remained elusive. Stéphen Rostain and colleagues present evidence for an agrarian-based civilization that began more than 2500 years ago in the Upano Valley of Amazonian Ecuador, a region in the eastern foothills of the Andes. Based on more than 20 years of interdisciplinary research that included fieldwork and light detection and ranging (LIDAR) mapping, Rostain et al. describe urbanism at a scale never before documented in Amazonia, consisting of more than 6000 anthropogenic rectangular earthen platforms and plaza structures connected by footpaths and roads and surrounded by expansive agricultural landscapes and river drainages within the 300 square kilometer survey area. The authors identified at least 15 distinct settlement sites of various sizes based on clusters of structures. However, according to Rostain et al., the most notable elements of this built environment are the extensive and complex regional-scale road network connecting urban centers and the surrounding hinterland. Archaeological excavations indicate that the construction and occupation of the platforms and roads occurred between ~500 BCE and 300 to 600 CE and was carried out by groups from the Kilamope and later Upano cultures. Rostain et al. note that the Upano sites are different from other monumental sites discovered in Amazonia, which are more recent and less extensive. “Such a discovery is another vivid example of the underestimation of Amazonia’s twofold heritage: environmental but also cultural, and therefore Indigenous,” write Rostain et al. “…we believe that it is crucial to thoroughly revise our preconceptions of the Amazonian world and, in doing so, to reinterpret contexts and concepts in the necessary light of an inclusive and participatory science.”

Article Source: AAAS news release

*Two thousand years of garden urbanism in the Upper Amazon, Science, 12-Jan-2024. 10.1126/science.adi6317 

Cover Image, Top Left: Credit Rosinakaiser, Pixabay

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CNRS—The North Arabian Desert oases were inhabited by sedentary populations in the 4^th and 3^rd millennia BCE. A fortification enclosing the Khaybar Oasis—one of the longest known going back to this period—was just revealed by a team of scientists from the CNRS¹ and the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU). This new walled oasis is, along with that of Tayma, one of the two largest in Saudi Arabia. While a number of walled oases dating back to the Bronze Age had already been documented, this major discovery sheds new light on human occupation in north-western Arabia, and provides a better grasp of local social complexity during the pre-Islamic period.

Cross-referencing field surveys and remote sensing data with architectural studies, the team estimated the original dimensions of the fortifications at 14.5 kilometres in length, between 1.70 and 2.40 metres in thickness, and approximately 5 metres in height. Preserved today over a little less than half of its original length (41%, 5.9 km and 74 bastions), this colossal edifice enclosed a rural and sedentary territory of nearly 1,100 hectares. The fortification’s date of construction is estimated between 2250 and 1950 BCE, on the basis of radiocarbon dating of samples collected during excavations.

While the study* confirms that the Khaybar Oasis clearly belonged to a network of walled oases in north-western Arabia, the discovery of this rampart also raises questions regarding why it was built as well as the nature of the populations that built it, in particular their relations with populations outside the oasis.

This archaeological discovery, whose results will be published on 10 January in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports (JASREP), paves the way for major advances in understanding the prehistoric, pre-Islamic, and Islamic past of the north-western Arabian Peninsula.

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Digital reconstruction of the rampart network from the northern section of the Khaybar walled oasis 4,000 years ago. © Khaybar Longue Durée Archaeological Project, M. Bussy & G. Charloux

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Article Source: CNRS news release

Notes

1 – From the Orient and Mediterranean Laboratory (CNRS/Collège de France/EPHE-PSL/Sorbonne Université/Université Panthéon-Sorbonne) and the Archéorient – Environments and Societies of the Ancient East Laboratory (CNRS/Université Lumière Lyon 2), in connection with the Khaybar Longue Durée Archaeological Project commissioned by the French Agency for AlUla Development (AFALULA) for the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU).

*Discovery of immense fortifications dating back 4,000 years in north-western Arabia, Journal of Archaeological Science, 10-Jan-2024. 

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PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES—A study finds a link between the strengthening of the Asian summer monsoon and early human migration out of Africa to East Asia during the last interglacial period. The role of climate shifts in shaping early Homo sapiens dispersal to East Asia is an important aspect of human history.  However, the subject remains underexplored due to a lack of coordinated paleoclimate and paleoanthropological data. Hong Ao, Jiaoyang Ruan, and colleagues combined records of the Asian summer monsoon from the Chinese Loess Plateau with models of East Asian paleoclimate, compilations of paleoanthropological data, and simulations of Homo sapiens habitat suitability. The resulting reconstruction covers the last 280,000 years and connects the orbital-scale influences on Asian summer monsoon dynamics with early human dispersal. The results suggest that the Asian summer monsoon is influenced by Northern Hemisphere ice volume, greenhouse gas concentrations, and summer solar radiation. The monsoon strengthened between 125,000 and 70,000 years ago, increasing temperatures and precipitation across Asia. The monsoon strengthening coincides with the earliest fossil H. sapiens specimens at multiple locations in Asia. According to the authors, the strengthening of the Asian summer monsoon, along with a coincident deterioration of the climate in Southeast Africa, may have spurred the dispersal of early humans from Africa into East Asia.

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Map showing the early (pre-LGM) dispersal of Homo sapiens, 200,000 to 32,000 years ago. Katerina Douka & Michelle O’Reilly, Michael D. Petraglia, CC-BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

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Article Source: PNAS news release

*“Concurrent Asian monsoon strengthening and early modern human dispersal to East Asia during the last interglacial,” by Hong Ao et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 8-Jan-2024. https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2308994120

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SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY—Douglas Boin, Ph.D., a professor of history at Saint Louis University, made a major announcement at the annual meeting of the Archeological Institute of America, revealing he and his team discovered an ancient Roman temple that adds significant insights into the social change from pagan gods to Christianity within the Roman Empire. 

“We found three walls of a monumental structure that evidence suggests belonged to a Roman temple that dates to Constantine’s period,” Boin said. “It dates to the fourth century AD and it would be a remarkable addition to the landscape of this corner of Italy. It will significantly aid in the understanding of the ancient town, the ancient townscape and city society in the later Roman Empire because it shows the continuities between the classical pagan world and early Christian Roman world that often get blurred out or written out of the sweeping historical narratives.”

Boin and his excavation team made the monumental discovery over the summer. Boin, an expert in ancient Roman and its religious transitions, had been digging in the town of Spello, the famous medieval hilltop city about 20 minutes from Assisi and 2.5 hours north of Rome. Boin selected the town based on a rescript of a 4th century letter from Emperor Constantine to the townspeople regarding a religious holiday. 

This rescript, which was discovered in the 18th century, allowed the people of Spello to celebrate a religious festival in their hometown rather than travel a great distance to another festival. However, in order to do so, the town was told it must erect a temple to Constantine’s divine ancestors, the Flavian family, and worship them, showcasing how multicultural Roman society was at the time.

“There was a remarkable religious continuity between the Roman world and the early Christian world,” Boin said. “Things didn’t change overnight. Before our find, we never had a sense that there were actual physical, religious sites associated with this late ‘imperial cult practice.’ But because of the inscription and its reference to a temple, Spello offered a very tantalizing potential for a major discovery of an Imperial cult underneath a Christian ruler.”

Boin traveled to Spello and oversaw underground imaging to determine if there were any potential ruins below the surface that needed to be uncovered. After many weeks, and almost by chance, Boin finally received promising images underneath a parking lot where the temple was suspected to be. 

Very carefully, the team dug into the ground until they found two adjoining walls. More digging unearthed what Boin believes to be the inside walls of the temple. This temple immediately became what Boin calls the largest evidence ever of the Imperial Cult in both fourth-century Italy and the late Roman Empire.. 

“There’s evidence from other places throughout the Roman world that Christian rulers supported imperial cult practices,” Boin said. “We’ve known that pagans worshiped at their temples in the fourth century, but those findings have all been small and inconsequential. And we’ve known that Christians supported the imperial cult, and we’ve known that without any sense of where it would have happened. This temple bridges those two landmarks, and in that respect, it is unlike any temple that I know about from the Mediterranean world of the fourth century Roman Empire. Any study of the imperial cult in the fourth century Roman Empire is now going to have to take account of this temple, which is an incredible discovery to make.”

With the discovery, Boin now can show how the societal changes of the time moved very slowly. Though Constantine was the first Roman emperor to famously convert to Christianity, it would take almost 70 years for Christianity to become the official religion of the Roman Empire, under the Emperor Theodosius. During that time it still took many convincing and gradual shifts for those who worshiped pagan gods to convert to Christianity.

“This changes everything about how we perceive the pace of social change and our impression of the impact of social and cultural change,” Boin said. “This building, in a very radical way on its own, shows us the staying power of the pagan traditions that had been on the ground for centuries prior to the rise of Christianity, and it shows us how the Roman emperors continued to negotiate their own values, their own hopes and dreams for the future of the emperor and the Empire without knocking down or burying the past.”

Boin and his team will return to Spello next summer to completely excavate the area to examine the full temple, where he hopes to make even more significant discoveries. 

“We are on the cusp of giving people a very visible piece of evidence that really upends the neat and tidy ways people think about big moments of cultural change,” Boin said “Cultural changes are never as big as we think they are when living through them, and there’s a lot of gray area in between people’s customs and the broader society and culture. And a lot of those can be left out of the story. So to have this temple potentially be a temple dedicated to Constantine’s divine ancestors as a way to worship the emperor in an increasingly Christian world at the time, it’s so weird and I love that we can bring it to light.” 

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An aerial photograph of the newly-discovered Imperial Cult ruins by Douglas Boin, Ph.D., and his team. Douglas Boin, Ph.D.

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Article Source: SAINT LOUIS UNIVERSITY news release.

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TEL-AVIV UNIVERSITY—A breakthrough achieved by researchers from four Israeli universities – Tel Aviv University, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Bar-Ilan University and Ariel University– will enable archaeologists to identify burnt materials discovered in excavations and estimate their firing temperatures. Applying their method to findings from ancient Gath (Tell es-Safi in central Israel), the researchers validated the Biblical account: “About this time Hazael King of Aram went up and attacked Gath and captured it. Then he turned to attack Jerusalem” (2 Kings 12, 18). They explain that unlike previous methods, the new technique can determine whether a certain item (such as a mud brick) underwent a firing event even at relatively low temperatures, from 200°C and up. This information can be crucial for correctly interpreting the findings. 

The multidisciplinary study* was led by Dr. Yoav Vaknin from the Sonia & Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology, Entin Faculty of Humanities, at Tel Aviv University, and the Palaeomagnetic Laboratory at The Hebrew University. Other contributors included: Prof. Ron Shaar from the Institute of Earth Sciences at The Hebrew University, Prof. Erez Ben-Yosef and Prof. Oded Lipschits from the Sonia & Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University, Prof. Aren Maeir from the Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology at Bar-Ilan University and Dr. Adi Eliyahu Behar from the Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology and the Department of Chemical Sciences at Ariel University. The paper has been published in the scientific journal PLOS ONE.

Prof. Lipschits: “Throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages the main building material in most parts of the Land of Israel was mud bricks. This cheap and readily available material was used to build walls in most buildings, sometimes on top of stone foundations. That’s why it’s so important to understand the technology used in making these bricks.”

Dr. Vaknin adds: “During the same era dwellers of other lands, such as Mesopotamia where stone was hard to come by, would fire mud bricks in kilns to increase their strength and durability. This technique is mentioned in the story of the Tower of Babel in the Book of Genesis: “They said one to another, Come, let us make bricks and fire them thoroughly. So they used brick for stone”(Genesis 11, 3). Most researchers, however, believe that this technology did not reach the Land of Israel until much later, with the Roman conquest. Until that time the inhabitants used sun-dried mud bricks. Thus, when bricks are found in an archaeological excavation, several questions must be asked: First, have the bricks been fired, and if so, were they fired in a kiln prior to construction or in situ, in a destructive conflagration event? Our method can provide conclusive answers.”

The new method relies on measuring the magnetic field recorded and ‘locked’ in the brick as it burned and cooled down. Dr. Vaknin: “The clay from which the bricks were made contains millions of ferromagnetic particles – minerals with magnetic properties that behave like so many tiny ‘compasses’ or magnets. In a sun-dried mud brick the orientation of these magnets is almost random, so that they cancel out one another. Therefore, the overall magnetic signal of the brick is weak and not uniform. Heating to 200°C or more, as happens in a fire, releases the magnetic signals of these magnetic particles and, statistically, they tend to align with the earth’s magnetic field at that specific time and place. When the brick cools down, these magnetic signals remain locked in their new position and the brick attains a strong and uniformly oriented magnetic field, which can be measured with a magnetometer. This is a clear indication that the brick has, in fact, been fired.

In the second stage of the procedure, the researchers gradually ‘erase’ the brick’s magnetic field, using a process called thermal demagnetization. This involves heating the brick in a special oven in a palaeomagnetic laboratory that neutralizes the earth’s magnetic field. The heat releases the magnetic signals, which once again arrange themselves randomly, canceling each other out, and the total magnetic signal becomes weak and loses its orientation.

Dr. Vaknin: “We conduct the process gradually. At first, we heat the sample to a temperature of 100°C, which releases the signals of only a small percentage of the magnetic minerals. We then cool it down and measure the remaining magnetic signal. We then repeat the procedure at temperatures of 150°C, 200°C, and so on, proceeding in small steps, up to 700°C. In this way the brick’s magnetic field is gradually erased. The temperature at which the signal of each mineral is ‘unlocked’ is approximately the same as the temperature at which it was initially ‘locked’, and ultimately, the temperature at which the magnetic field is fully erased was reached during the original fire.”

The researchers tested the technique in the laboratory: they fired mud bricks under controlled conditions of temperature and magnetic field, measured each brick’s acquired magnetic field, then gradually erased it. They found that the bricks were completely demagnetized at the temperature at which they had been burned – proving that the method works.    

Dr. Vaknin: “Our approach enables identifying burning which occurred at much lower temperatures than any other method. Most techniques used for identifying burnt bricks are based on actual changes in the minerals, which usually occur at temperatures higher than 500°C – when some minerals are converted into others.”

Dr. Eliyahu Behar: “One of the common methods for identifying mineralogical changes in clay (the main component of mud bricks) due to exposure to high temperatures is based on changes in the absorption of infrared radiation by the various minerals. In this study we used this method as an additional tool to verify the results of the magnetic method.” Dr. Vaknin: “Our method is much more sensitive than others because it targets changes in the intensity and orientation of the magnetic signal, which occur at much lower temperatures. We can begin to detect changes in the magnetic signal at temperatures as low as 100°C, and from 200°C and up the findings are conclusive.”

In addition, the method can determine the orientation in which the bricks cooled down. Dr. Vaknin: “When a brick is fired in a kiln before construction, it records the direction of the earth’s magnetic field at that specific time and place. In Israel this means north and downward. But when builders take bricks from a kiln and build a wall, they lay them in random orientations, thus randomizing the recorded signals. On the other hand, when a wall is burned in-situ, as might happen when it is destroyed by an enemy, the magnetic fields of all bricks are locked in the same orientation.”

After proving the method’s validity, the researchers applied it to a specific archaeological dispute: was a specific brick structure discovered at Tell es-Safi – identified as the Philistine city of Gath, home of Goliath – built of pre-fired bricks or burned on location? The prevalent hypothesis, based on the Old Testament, historical sources, and Carbon-14 dating attributes the destruction of the structure to the devastation of Gath by Hazael, King of Aram Damascus, around 830 BCE. However, a previous paper by researchers including Prof. Maeir, head of the Tell es-Safi excavations, proposed that the building had not burned down, but rather collapsed over decades, and that the fired bricks found in the structure had been fired in a kiln prior to construction. If this hypothesis were correct, this would be the earliest instance of brick-firing technology discovered in the Land of Israel. 

To settle the dispute, the current research team applied the new method to samples from the wall at Tell es-Safi and the collapsed debris found beside it. The findings were conclusive: the magnetic fields of all bricks and collapsed debris displayed the same orientation – north and downwards. Dr. Vaknin: “Our findings signify that the bricks burned and cooled down in-situ, right where they were found, namely in a conflagration in the structure itself, which collapsed within a few hours. Had the bricks been fired in a kiln and then laid in the wall, their magnetic orientations would have been random. Moreover, had the structure collapsed over time, not in a single fire event, the collapsed debris would have displayed random magnetic orientations. We believe that the main reason for our colleagues’ mistaken interpretation was their inability to identify burning at temperatures below 500°C. Since heat rises, materials at the bottom of the building burned at relatively low temperatures, below 400°C, and consequently the former study did not identify them as burnt – leading to the conclusion that the building had not been destroyed by fire. At the same time, bricks in upper parts of the wall, where temperatures were much higher, underwent mineralogical changes and were therefore identified as burnt – leading the researchers to conclude that they had been fired in a kiln prior to construction. Our method allowed us to determine that all bricks in both the wall and debris had burned during the conflagration: those at the bottom burned at relatively low temperatures, and those that were found in higher layers or had fallen from the top –at temperatures higher than 600°C.”

Prof. Maeir: “Our findings are very important for deciphering the intensity of the fire and scope of destruction at Gath, the largest and most powerful city in the Land of Israel at the time, as well as understanding the building methods prevailing in that era. It’s important to review conclusions from previous studies, and sometimes even refute former interpretations, even if they came from your own school.” Prof. Ben-Yosef adds: “Beyond their historical and archaeological significance, ancient building methods also had substantial ecological implications. The brick firing technology requires vast quantities of combustive materials, and in ancient times this might have led to vast deforestation and even loss of tree species in the area. For example, certain species of trees and shrubs exploited by the ancient copper industry in the Timna Valley have not recovered to this day and the industry itself ultimately collapsed once it had used up its natural fuels. Our findings indicate that the brick firing technology was probably not practiced in the Land of Israel in the times of the Kings of Judah and Israel.”

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The studied area during excavation. Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project, Bar-Ilan University

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One of the studied burnt mudbricks. Dr. Yoav Vaknin

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Article Source: Tel Aviv University news release

*https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0289424

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HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM— Prof. Gideon Shelach-Lavi from Hebrew University and Prof. Amartuvshin Chunag from the National University of Mongolia, and their team unveil a new discovery in their latest research published in the Journal of Field Archaeology. Their paper, “Unraveling the Mongolian Arc: a Field Survey and Spatial Investigation of a Previously Unexplored Wall System in Eastern Mongolia,” sheds light on a monumental wall system that has remained largely overlooked in existing academic discourse.

The “Mongolian Arc,” spanning 405 kilometers in eastern Mongolia, comprises an earthen wall, a trench, and 34 accompanying structures. Constructed between the 11th and 13th centuries A.D., this intricate system has emerged as a pivotal yet understudied facet of historical architectural marvels.

The research, conducted through a collaborative effort, involved a comprehensive approach combining remote sensing data collection, archaeological field surveys, and analysis through geographic information systems (GIS). Professors Shelach-Lavi and Amartuvshin’s team also delved into ancient written sources to offer a preliminary interpretation of the design and potential functions of the Mongolian Arc.

“Understanding the significance of the Mongolian Arc unlocks profound insights into medieval wall systems, raising pertinent questions about the motives, functionality, and enduring consequences of such colossal constructions,” remarked Prof. Gideon Shelach-Lavi.

This study is part of a larger multidisciplinary project, funded by a generous research fund from the European Research Council (ERC) addressing the construction of extensive walls and structures in northern China and eastern Mongolia during the 11th–13th centuries A.D. The findings not only contribute to unraveling historical mysteries but also offer a framework for exploring the broader socio-political, economic, and environmental impacts of such endeavors.

The published paper marks a pivotal milestone in the ongoing investigation, sparking renewed interest and further inquiry into ancient architectural wonders and their societal implications.

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Drone photo of Khaltaryn Balgas. CREDIT: Study Authors

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The wall section is located between structures 17 and 18. Measurements are typical based on measurements at various locations along the wall. CREDIT: Study Authors

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Article Source: HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM news release.

*Unraveling the Mongolian Arc: a Field Survey and Spatial Investigation of a Previously Unexplored Wall System in Eastern Mongolia, Journal of Field Archaeology, 27-Dec-2023. 10.1080/00934690.2023.2295198 

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UNIVERSITAT AUTONOMA DE BARCELONA—The research on management strategies and use of animal resources in high mountain areas during the Early Neolithic, approximately 6,500 to 7,500 years ago, was conditioned by the presumption that human occupancy of these regions were mainly seasonal and that economic practices focused greatly on making use of wild resources. With regards to livestock rearing, the role of sheep and goat transhumance in high mountain areas has stood out traditionally, while only a marginal role has been given to other livestock activities, in which the temporary maintenance of these animal flocks has been highlighted.

Researchers from the Archaeozoology Laboratory and the High Mountain Archaeology Group of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), the University of Évora (HERCULES Laboratory), the Milà i Fontanals Institution-CSIC and the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage of the Government of Aragon, have now for the first time managed to characterize the livestock practices and feeding strategies of domesticated animals in high mountain regions during the Early Neolithic, specifically in the archaeological site of Coro Trasito, located in the region of Sobrarbe, Aragon. Their research has yielded new elements to be used in the study of the complexity of neolithisation processes in the Central Pyrenees.

The study* conducted by the research team focused on assessing animal ecology, livestock management strategies and feeding practices implemented by the first societies settling in high mountain regions (over 1,500 metres above sea level). To do so, the team became the first to apply to high mountain contexts a combination of analysis of stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes in bone collagen – the study of these two isotopes can be used to determine the diet and the position in the food chain of the animals – and the archaeozoological analysis of the remains of animals from that period. Thanks to this combination, researchers were able to document that management and feeding strategies differed among flocks.

The results obtained showed that flocks belonging to these first settlers were small and formed by a few number of each species: cows, goats, sheep and pigs (Bos taurus, Capra hircus, Ovis aries and Sus domesticus), and were mainly used for their meat and milk production. In addition, researchers were able to document the rise in the economic importance of pigs (Sus domesticus) during the Neolithic.

The presence in some of the cases studied of different ways of managing the feeding of animals, with access to different pastures and the possible provision of forage, mainly from surplus agricultural products, shows that livestock practices developed at the Coro Trasito site were consolidated practices at the start of the Neolithic and related to agricultural practices. The study also demonstrates how flocks were adapted to the environmental conditions of the cave.

The results of the archaeozoological, isotopic and archaeological analyses reveal that the inhabitants of the Coro Trasito cave made use mainly of domestic resources. In addition, the presence of transformation activities related to dairy products and fat, as well as the existence of storage structures within the cave, point to the complexity of neolithisation processes in the Central Pyrenees and how these areas were rapidly integrated into an even wider and more complex economic system.

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Above: Image of the southern slope of Sierra de Tucas (Huesca, Spain). The arrow indicates Coro Trasito cave. Below: Entrance to Coro Trasito cave. (B) Plan view of Coro Trasito cave, showing the location of the 2011 and 2013 test-pit and the area of the extended excavation. The isocotes indicate every 20 cm. © 2023 Navarrete, Viñerta, Clemente-Conte, Gassiot, Rey Lanaspa and Saña, CC-BY-4.0, Creative Commons

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Article Source: UNIVERSITAT AUTONOMA DE BARCELONA news release

*Navarrete V, Viñerta A, Clemente-Conte I, Gassiot E, Rey Lanaspa J and Saña M (2023) Early husbandry practices in highland areas during the Neolithic: the case of Coro Trasito cave (Huesca, Spain). Front. Environ. Archaeol. 2:1309907. doi: 10.3389/fearc.2023.1309907

Cover Image, Top Left: © 2023 Navarrete, Viñerta, Clemente-Conte, Gassiot, Rey Lanaspa and Saña, CC-BY-4.0, Creative Commons

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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA – DAVIS—When did archery arise in the Americas? And what were the effects of this technology on society?

These questions have long been debated among anthropologists and archaeologists. But a study* led by a University of California, Davis, anthropologist, is shining light on this mystery.

Focusing on the Lake Titicaca Basin in the Andes mountains, anthropologists found through analysis of 1,179 projectile points that the rise of archery technology dates to around 5,000 years ago. Previous research held that archery in the Andes emerged around 3,000 years ago.

The new research indicates that the adoption of bow-and-arrow technology coincided with both the expansion of exchange networks and the growing tendency for people to reside in villages.

“We think our paper is groundbreaking because it gives us a chance to see how society changed throughout the Andes throughout ancient times by presenting a huge number of artifacts from a vast area of South America,” said Luis Flores-Blanco, an anthropology doctoral student and corresponding author of the paper. “This is among the first instances in which Andean archaeologists have investigated social complexity through the quantitative analysis of stone tools.”

The study was published online in November in Quaternary International.

Researchers said increasing social complexity in the region is usually investigated through analysis of monumental architecture and ceramics rather than projectile points, which are historically linked to foraging communities.

Pooling from 10,000 years of history

For the study, the team examined more than a thousand projectile points created over 10,000 years. Each projectile point originated in the Lake Titicaca Basin, specifically the Ilave and Ramis valleys, which are located southwest and northwest of the basin, respectively.

Flores-Blanco said it’s among the highest plateau lands explored and conquered by humans, with Lake Titicaca sitting at an elevation of 12,500 feet.

“At Titicaca, Andeans accomplished the remarkable achievement of domesticating plants like the potato, leaving behind a nutritious legacy that is still appreciated today,” he said. “On top of that, the Tiwanaku were one of the major Andean civilizations that built their vast territory here. Even the Inca Empire claimed this territory was their mythical place of origin. Our study digs even deeper and goes to the roots of this Andean civilization.”

In their analysis, Flores-Blanco and his colleagues considered each projectile’s date of origin and then measured its length, width, thickness and weight. They noticed that older projectile points — from the Early Archaic through the Late Archaic — were larger. A significant decrease in size occurred during the Terminal Archaic period, around 5,000 years ago. The team hypothesized that this size shift indicates a change in preference from spear-throwing technology to bow-and-arrow technology, but without abandoning the old technologies.  

In addition, the team compared their projectile data to archaeological data from the region concerning settlement sizes, raw material availability and cranial trauma data. During the Terminal Archaic period, settlement sizes increased but the total number of settlement sites decreased, researchers said. Not only that, but the inhabitants lacked signs of social violence, even though they had access to exotic raw materials.

“Based on our discovery, we can suggest that bow-and-arrow technology could have maintained and ensured adherence to emerging social norms that were crucial, such as those observed in the development of new social institutions, like obsidian exchange hubs or among individuals establishing residence in expanding villages,” Flores-Blanco said. 

Flores-Blanco co-authored the study with Lucero Cuellar, National University of San Marcos; Mark Aldenderfer, UC Merced; Charles Stanish, University of South Florida; and Randall Haas, University of Wyoming and formerly of UC Davis.  

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Lake Titicaca. Mailanmaik, Pixabay

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Article Source: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA – DAVIS news release

*Did archery technology precipitate complexity in the Titicaca Basin? A metric analysis of projectile points, 11–1 ka,

Quaternary International, 23-Nov-2023. 10.1016/j.quaint.2023.10.012 

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PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES—Researchers used baked bricks to reconstruct Earth’s magnetic field intensity in Mesopotamia during the first three millennia BCE. Archaeomagnetic techniques attempt to reconstruct the direction and intensity of Earth’s magnetic field over time and can be used to date archaeological materials. However, archaeomagnetic research is often limited by a dearth of data in certain regions and time periods. Matthew Howland and colleagues analyzed 32 inscribed baked bricks from Mesopotamia to produce precise archaeomagnetic datapoints spanning the third to first millennia BCE. During the kiln firing process, iron oxide minerals within the bricks record the intensity of Earth’s magnetic field at the time the bricks were made. The authors interpreted Sumerian and Akkadian inscriptions on the bricks and associated them with the reigns of 12 Mesopotamian kings, enabling dating at a higher resolution compared with radiocarbon methods. The results corroborate data from neighboring regions pertaining to a period of high geomagnetic field intensity from around 1050 to 550 BCE and known as the Levantine Iron Age geomagnetic anomaly. According to the authors, the findings provide insight into the dynamics of Earth’s magnetic field and establish a baseline for accurately dating archaeological materials from Mesopotamia during the first three millennia BCE, a region and period relevant for studies on the development of urbanism and social complexity.

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A mudbrick dated to approximately 1800—1736 BCE, featuring an inscription that reads, “Palace of Iakūn-dīri son of Suma/tanim, king of the land Huršitum.” Matthew D. Howland

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Article Source: PNAS news release.

*“Exploring geomagnetic variations in ancient mesopotamia: Archaeomagnetic study of inscribed bricks from the 3rd–1st millennia BCE,” by Matthew D. Howland et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 18-Dec-2023. https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2313361120

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AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION—SAN FRANCISCO — One of the hottest debates in archeology is how and when humans first arrived in North America. Archaeologists have traditionally argued that people walked through an ice-free corridor that briefly opened between ice sheets an estimated 13,000 years ago.  

But a growing number of archeological and genetic finds — including human footprints in New Mexico dated to around 23,000 years old — suggests that people made their way onto the continent much earlier. These early Americans likely traveled along the Pacific coastline from Beringia, the land bridge between Asia and North America that emerged during the last glacial maximum when ice sheets bound up large amounts of water causing sea levels to fall.  

Now, in research to be presented Friday, 15 December at the American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting (AGU23) in San Franciso, paleoclimate reconstructions of the Pacific Northwest hint that sea ice may have been one way for people to move farther south.  

The idea that early Americans may have traveled along the Pacific Coast isn’t new. People were likely south of the massive ice sheets that once covered much of the continent by at least 16,000 years ago. Given that the ice-free corridor wouldn’t be open for thousands of years before these early arrivals, scientists instead proposed that people may have moved along a “kelp highway.” This theory holds that early Americans slowly traveled down into North America in boats, following the bountiful goods found in coastal waters.  

Archeologists have found evidence of coastal settlements in western Canada dating from as early as 14,000 years ago. But in 2020, researchers noted that freshwater from melting glaciers at the time may have created a strong current that would make it difficult for people to travel along the coast. 

Ice highway over dangerous water 

To get a fuller picture of ocean conditions during these crucial windows of human migration, Summer Praetorius of the US Geological Survey and her colleagues looked at climate proxies in ocean sediment from the coast. Most of the data came from tiny, fossilized plankton. The abundance and chemistry of these organisms help reconstruct ocean temperatures, salinity and sea ice cover.  

Praetorious’ presentation is part of a session on the climate history and geology of Beringia and the North Pacific during the Pleistocene, the current ice age, at AGU23. The week-long conference has brought 24,000 experts from across the spectrum of the Earth and space sciences to San Francisco this year and connected 3,000 online attendees.  

Praetorious’ team used climate models and found that ocean currents were more than twice the strength they are today during the height of the last glacial maximum around 20,000 years ago due to glacial winds and lower sea levels. While not impossible, to paddle against, these conditions would have made traveling by boat very difficult, Praetorius said. 

However, the records also showed that much of the area was home to winter sea ice until around 15,000 years ago. As a cold-adapted people, “rather than having to paddle against this horrible glacial current, maybe they were using the sea ice as a platform,” Praetorius said.  

Arctic people today travel along sea ice on dog sleds and snow mobiles. Early Americans may also have used the ‘sea ice highway’ to get around and hunt marine mammals, slowly making their way into North America in the process, Praetorius said. The climate data suggest conditions along the coastal route may have been conducive to migration between 24,500-22,000 years ago and 16,400-14,800 years ago, possibly aided by the presence of winter sea ice.  

While proving that people were using sea ice to travel will be tricky given most of the archeological sites are underwater, the theory provides a new framework for understanding how humans may have arrived in North America without a land bridge or easy ocean travel.  

And the sea ice highway isn’t mutually exclusive with other human migrations further down the line, says Praetorius. The team’s models show , the Alaskan current had calmed down by 14,000 years ago, making it easier for people to travel by boat along the coast.  

“Nothing is off the table,” she said. “We will always be surprised by ancient human ingenuity.” 

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Article Source: AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION news release

*PP51A-05 Did a “Sea-ice Highway” facilitate early human migration from Beringia into North America along the coastal route

Cover Image, Top Left: Pexels, Pixabay

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AGU (www.agu.org) is a global community supporting more than half a million advocates and professionals in Earth and space sciences. Through broad and inclusive partnerships, AGU aims to advance discovery and solution science that accelerate knowledge and create solutions that are ethical, unbiased and respectful of communities and their values. Our programs include serving as a scholarly publisher, convening virtual and in-person events and providing career support. We live our values in everything we do, such as our net zero energy renovated building in Washington, D.C. and our Ethics and Equity Center, which fosters a diverse and inclusive geoscience community to ensure responsible conduct. 

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OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS USA—A new paper in Genome Biology and Evolution, published by Oxford University Press, finds that genetic material from Neanderthal ancestors may have contributed to the propensity of some people today to be “early risers,” the sort of people who are more comfortable getting up and going to bed earlier.

All anatomically modern humans trace their origin to Africa around 300 thousand years ago, where environmental factors shaped many of their biological features. Approximately seventy-thousand years ago, the ancestors of modern Eurasian humans began to migrate out to Eurasia, where they encountered diverse new environments, including higher latitudes with greater seasonal variation in daylight and temperature.

But other hominins, such as the Neanderthals and Denisovans, had lived in Eurasia for more than 400,000 years. These archaic hominins diverged from modern humans around 700,000 ago, and as a result, our ancestors and archaic hominins evolved under different environmental conditions. This resulted in the accumulation of lineage-specific genetic variation and phenotypes. When humans came to Eurasia, they interbred with the archaic hominins on the continent, and this created the potential for humans to gain genetic variants already adapted to these new environments.

Previous work has demonstrated that much of the archaic hominin ancestry in modern humans was not beneficial and removed by natural selection, but some of the archaic hominin variants remaining in human populations show evidence of adaptation. For example, archaic genetic variants have been associated with differences in hemoglobin levels at higher altitude in Tibetans, immune resistance to new pathogens, levels of skin pigmentation, and fat composition.

Changes in the pattern and level of light exposure have biological and behavioral consequences that can lead to evolutionary adaptations. Scientists have previously explored the evolution of circadian adaptation in insects, plants, and fishes extensively, but it is not well studied in humans. The Eurasian environments where Neanderthals and Denisovans lived for several hundred thousand years are located at higher latitudes with more variable daylight times than the landscape where modern humans evolved before leaving Africa. Thus, the researchers explored whether there was genetic evidence for differences in the circadian clocks of Neanderthals and modern humans.

The researchers defined a set of 246 circadian genes through a combination of literature search and expert knowledge. They found hundreds of genetic variants specific to each lineage with the potential to influence genes involved in the circadian clock. Using artificial intelligence methods, they highlighted 28 circadian genes containing variants with potential to alter splicing in archaic humans and 16 circadian genes likely divergently regulated between present-day humans and archaic hominins. This indicated that there were likely functional differences between in the circadian clocks in archaic hominins and modern humans. Since the ancestors of Eurasian modern humans and Neanderthals interbred, it was thus possible that some humans could have obtained circadian variants from Neanderthals.

To test this, the researchers explored whether introgressed genetic variants—variants that moved from Neanderthals into modern humans—have associations with the preferences of the body for wakefulness and sleep in large cohort of several hundred thousand people from the UK Biobank. They found many introgressed variants with effects on sleep preference, and most strikingly, they found that these variants consistently increase morningness, the propensity to wake up early. This suggests a directional effect on the trait and is consistent with adaptations to high latitude observed in other animals.

Increased morningness in humans is associated with a shortened period of the circadian clock. This is likely beneficial at higher latitudes, because it has been shown to enable faster alignment of sleep/wake with external timing cues. Shortened circadian periods are required for synchronization to the extended summer light periods of high latitudes in fruit flies, and selection for shorter circadian periods has resulted in latitudinal clines of decreasing period with increasing latitude in natural fruit fly populations. Therefore, the bias toward morningness in introgressed variants may indicate selection toward shortened circadian period in the populations living at high latitudes. The propensity to be a morning person could have been evolutionarily beneficial for our ancestors living in higher latitudes in Europe and thus would have been a Neanderthal genetic characteristic worth preserving.

“By combining ancient DNA, large-scale genetic studies in modern humans, and artificial intelligence, we discovered substantial genetic differences in the circadian systems of Neanderthals and modern humans,” said the paper’s lead author, John A. Capra. “Then by analyzing the bits of Neanderthal DNA that remain in modern human genomes we discovered a striking trend: many of them have effects on the control of circadian genes in modern humans and these effects are predominantly in a consistent direction of increasing propensity to be a morning person. This change is consistent with the effects of living at higher latitudes on the circadian clocks of animals and likely enables more rapid alignment of the circadian clock with changing seasonal light patterns. Our next steps include applying these analyses to more diverse modern human populations, exploring the effects of the Neanderthal variants we identified on the circadian clock in model systems, and applying similar analyses to other potentially adaptive traits.”

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Article Source: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS USA news release.

*Archaic Introgression Shaped Human Circadian Traits, Genome Biology and Evolution, 14-Dec-2023. 10.1093/gbe/evad203 

Cover Image, Top Left: Artist recreation of Neanderthal encampment, Pixabay

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AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE (AAAS)—The human brain has exceptionally high metabolic demands compared with other species, accounting for roughly 20% of the body’s energy consumption. Now, brain scans from 30 people suggest that the neuromodulator activity involved in cognitive functions such as reading and memory formation may contribute most to these high energetic costs. The findings shed new light on brain evolution, indicating that human cognition may have emerged in part from the evolutionary expansion of specific brain networks – not just from a larger brain size. Common theories on human evolution propose that humans’ high cognitive capacity is largely due to an adaptive increase in brain size. However, research has shown that the scale of human brain structure is not unique among mammals, with some species having larger brains, higher brain-to-body mass ratios, or more neurons. Recent studies suggest that neuromodulator activity – dynamic regulation of neurons via chemicals such as dopamine and serotonin – may have influenced the evolution of human cognition and behavior over time. However, it has been unclear how these processes and their energy demands vary across the human brain. To investigate, Gabriel Castrillon and colleagues employed a correlative neuroimaging approach to analyze the distribution of energy usage and signaling in the brains of 30 participants, using data from positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging. The researchers measured energetic costs for signaling activities across functional networks of the brain, finding that frontoparietal networks – which have expanded most in human brain evolution – demanded around 67% more energy than sensorimotor networks per gram of tissue. Regions that exhibited more regulation from neuromodulators, such as serotonin, dopamine, and noradrenaline, required the most energy. “Our findings suggest that the evolution of human cognition may have emerged not only from an overall larger brain but particularly by the development of slow-acting neuromodulator circuits,” Castrillon et al. write.

Article Source: AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE (AAAS) news release

*An energy costly architecture of neuromodulators for human brain evolution and cognition, Science Advances, 13-Dec-2023. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adi7632

Cover Image, Top Left: Geralt, Pixabay

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AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE (AAAS)—New archaeological analyses of the remains of 193 yak, cattle, and their hybrids from recent excavations on the southern Tibetan Plateau reveal that these animals were likely domesticated and crossbred in the high-altitude region by at least 2,500 years ago. Present-day Tibetan herders frequently crossbreed domestic yak with non-native taurine cattle – a long-standing practice known to produce hardy hybrids that combine yaks’ endurance in harsh environments with the meat- and milk-producing capabilities of cattle. Although this practice is thought to extend back thousands of years, researchers have found limited archaeological evidence to constrain its introduction on the Tibetan Plateau. Genetic studies have offered clues about yak lineages, but it’s been difficult to distinguish between wild and domestic ancient yak remains. Recent excavations at Bangga, located about 3,750 meters above sea level on the southern Tibetan Plateau, uncovered remains of more than 10,000 mammals dated to between 3,000 and 2,200 years ago. From these remains, Ningbo Chen and colleagues identified 193 Bos specimens – including bones from 31 taurine (Bos taurus) or indicine (Bos indicus) cattle, and 13 wild or domestic yak, dated to between around 2,700 and 2,350 years ago. The researchers compared the genomes of 5 of these Bos specimens against 11 new genomes of modern Tibetan cattle, as well as previously published genomes of ancient and modern cattle and yak from across the region. Yak remains found at Bangga were closely related to present-day domestic yak, but not today’s wild yak. Cattle DNA from Bangga resembled that of older, lower-altitude taurine cattle from western Asia, as well as present-day Tibetan taurine cattle. These findings suggest that taurine cattle were likely brought to the region at least 2,500 years ago and were bred with domestic yak, Chen et al. say.

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Excavation at Bangga during the 2017 field season. Zhengwei Zhang

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Yak in western Tibetan Plateau, 4,000 meters above sea level. Zhengwei Zhang

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Tibetan yak. Zhengwei Zhang

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Article Source: AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE (AAAS) news release

*Evidence for early domestic yak, taurine cattle, and their hybrids on the Tibetan Plateau, Science Advances, 13-Dec-2023. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adi6857

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UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER—In April 2015, looters sacked an ancient cave burial at a site called Urd Ulaan Uneet high within the Altai Mountains of western Mongolia. When police apprehended the criminals, they uncovered, among other artifacts, an elegantly carved saddle made from several pieces of birch wood.

Now, in a new study*, researchers from Mongolia collaborating with University of Colorado Boulder archaeologist William Taylor have described the find. The team’s radiocarbon dating pins the artifact to roughly the 4^th Century C.E., making it one of the earliest known frame saddles in the world. 

“It was a watershed moment in the technological history of people and horses,” said Taylor, corresponding author of the new study and curator of archaeology at the CU Museum of Natural History.

He and his colleagues, including scientists from 10 countries, published their findings Dec. 12 in the journal Antiquity.

The research reveals the underappreciated role that ancient Mongolians played in the spread of horse riding technology and culture around the globe. Those advances ushered in a new and sometimes brutal era of mounted warfare around the same time as the fall of the Roman Empire. 

The discovery also highlights the deep relationships between human and animals in Mongolia. For millennia, pastoral peoples have traveled between the vast grasslands of the Mongolian Steppe with their horses—which, in the region, tend to be short but sturdy, capable of surviving winter temperatures that can plummet far below freezing. Airag, a lightly alcoholic beverage made from fermented horse milk, remains a popular libation in Mongolia.

“Ultimately, technology emerging from Mongolia has, through a domino effect, ended up shaping the horse culture that we have in America today, especially our traditions of saddlery and stirrups,” Taylor said.

But these insights also come at a time when Mongolia’s horse culture is beginning to disappear, said study lead author Jamsranjav Bayarsaikhan. 

“Horses have not only influenced the history of the region but also left a deep mark on the art and worldview of the Nomadic Mongols,” said Bayarsaikhan, an archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany. “However, the age of technology is slowly erasing the culture and use of horses. Instead of herders riding horses, more and more people are riding motorcycles in the plains of Mongolia.”

Mounted combat

Bayarsaikhan was working as a curator at the National Museum of Mongolia when he and his colleagues got the call from police in Hovd Province. The team later excavated the Urd Ulaan Uneet cave and unearthed the mummified remains of a horse, which the group partially described in a 2018 paper.

The saddle itself was made from about six pieces of birch wood held together with wooden nails. It bears traces of red paint with black trim and includes two leather straps that likely once supported stirrups. (The researchers also reported an iron stirrup recently discovered from around the same time period in eastern Mongolia).

The group couldn’t definitively trace back where those materials came from. Birch trees, however, grow commonly in the Mongolian Altai, suggesting that locals had crafted the saddle themselves, not traded for it.

Taylor explained that humans had used pads, a form of proto-saddle, to keep their rear ends comfortable on horseback since the earliest days of mounted riding. Rigid wooden saddles, which were much sturdier, paired with stirrups opened a new range of things that people could do with horses. 

“One thing they very gave rise to was heavy cavalry and high-impact combat on horseback,” Taylor said. “Think of jousting in Medieval Europe.”

Traveling west

In the centuries after the Mongolian saddle was crafted, these types of tools spread rapidly west across Asia and into the early Islamic world. There, cavalry forces became key to conquest and trade across large portions of the Mediterranean region and northern Africa. 

Where it all began, however, is less clear. Archaeologists have typically considered modern-day China the birthplace of the first frame saddles and stirrups—with some finds dating back to the 5^th to 6^th Century C.E. or even earlier.

The new study, however, complicates that picture, Taylor said. 

“It’s not the only piece of information suggesting that Mongolia might have been either among the very first adopters of these new technologies—or could, in fact, be the place where they were first innovated,” he said.

He suspects that Mongolia’s place in that history may have gone underappreciated for so long in part because of the region’s geography. The population density in the country’s mountainous expanses is low, among the lowest on Earth, making it difficult to encounter and analyze important archaeological finds. 

Bayarsaikhan, for his part, calls for more archaeological research in the nation to better tell the story of horses in Mongolia. 

“Mongolia is one of the few nations that has preserved horse culture from ancient times to the present day,” he said. “But the scientific understanding of the origin of this culture is still incomplete.”

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Scientists uncovered a elegantly carved saddle made from several pieces of birch wood from an ancient cave in Mongolia. William Taylor/ CU Boulder

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Article Source: UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER news release.

*The origins of saddles and riding technology in East Asia: discoveries from the Mongolian Altai, Antiquity, 12-Dec-2023. 10.15184/aqy.2023.172 

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UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA—A multidisciplinary study* has reconstructed the genomic history of the Balkan Peninsula during the first millennium of the common era, a time and place of profound demographic, cultural and linguistic change. The team has recovered and analyzed whole genome data from 146 ancient people excavated primarily from Serbia and Croatia—more than a third of which came from the Roman military frontier at the massive archaeological site of Viminacium in Serbia—which they co-analyzed with data from the rest of the Balkans and nearby regions.

The work, published in the journal Cell, highlights the cosmopolitanism of the Roman frontier and the long-term consequences of migrations that accompanied the breakdown of Roman control, including the arrival of people speaking Slavic languages. Archaeological DNA reveals that despite nation-state boundaries that divide them, populations in the Balkans have been shaped by shared demographic processes.

“Archaeogenetics is an indispensable complement to archaeological and historical evidence. A new and much richer picture comes into view when we synthesize written records, archaeological remains like grave goods and human skeletons, and ancient genomes”, said co-author Kyle Harper, a historian of the ancient Roman world at the University of Oklahoma.

Massive demographic influx into the Balkans from the East during the Roman Empire – largely from the eastern Mediterranean and even from East Africa

After Rome occupied the Balkans, it turned this border region into a crossroads, one that would eventually give rise to 26 Roman Emperors, including Constantine the Great, who shifted the capital of the empire to the eastern Balkans when he founded the city of Constantinople.

The team’s analysis of ancient DNA shows that during the period of Roman control, there was a large demographic contribution of people of Anatolian descent that left a long-term genetic imprint in the Balkans. This ancestry shift is very similar to what a previous study showed happened in the megacity of Rome itself—the original core of the empire—but it is remarkable that this also occurred at the Roman Empire’s periphery.

A particular surprise is that there is no evidence of a genetic impact on the Balkans of migrants of Italic descent: “During the Imperial period, we detect an influx of Anatolian ancestry in the Balkans and not that of populations descending from the people of Italy,” said Íñigo Olalde, Ikerbasque researcher at the University of the Basque Country and co-lead author of the study. “These Anatolians were intensively integrated into local society. At Viminacium, for example, there is an exceptionally rich sarcophagus in which we find a man of local descent and a woman of Anatolian descent buried together.”

The team also discovered cases of sporadic long-distance mobility from far-away regions, such as an adolescent boy whose ancestral genetic signature most closely matches the region of Sudan in sub-Saharan Africa and whose childhood diet was very different from the rest of the individuals analyzed. He died in the 2nd century CE and was buried with an oil lamp representing an iconography of the eagle related to Jupiter, one of the most important gods for the Romans.

“We don’t know if he was a soldier, slave or merchant, but the genetic analysis of his burial reveals that he probably spent his early years in the region of present-day Sudan, outside the limits of the Empire, and then followed a long journey that ended with his death at Viminacium (present-day Serbia), on the northern frontier of the Empire,” said Carles Lalueza-Fox, principal investigator at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology and director of the Museum of Natural Sciences of Barcelona.

The Roman Empire incorporated “barbarian” peoples long before its collapse

The study identified individuals of mixed Northern European and Pontic steppe descent in the Balkans from the 3rd century, long predating the final breakdown of Roman imperial control. Anthropological analysis of their skulls shows that some of them were artificially deformed, a custom typical of some populations of the steppes, including groups labeled by ancient authors as “Huns.” These results reflect the integration of people from beyond the Danube into Balkan society centuries before the fall of the Empire.

“The borders of the Roman Empire differed from the borders of today’s nation-states. The Danube served as the geographic and military boundary of the Empire. But it also acted as a crucial communication corridor that was permeable to the movement of people attracted by the wealth Rome invested in its frontier zone,” said co-author Michael McCormick, Francis Goelet Professor of Medieval History at Harvard University.

Slavic populations changed the demographic composition of the Balkans

The Roman Empire permanently lost control of the Balkans in the sixth century, and the study reveals the subsequent large-scale arrival in the Balkans of individuals genetically similar to the modern Slavic-speaking populations of Eastern Europe. Their genetic fingerprint accounts for 30-60% of the ancestry of today’s Balkan peoples, representing one of the largest permanent demographic shifts anywhere in Europe in the early medieval period.

The study is the first to detect the sporadic arrival of individual migrants who long preceded later population movements, such as a woman of Eastern European descent buried in a high imperial cemetery. Then, from the 6th century onwards, migrants from Eastern Europe are observed in larger numbers; as in Anglo-Saxon England, the population changes in this region were at the extreme high end of what occurred in Europe and were accompanied by language shifts.

“According to our ancient DNA analysis, this arrival of Slavic-speaking populations in the Balkans took place over several generations and involved entire family groups, including both men and women,” explains Pablo Carrión, a researcher at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology and co-lead author of the study.

The establishment of Slavic populations in the Balkans was greatest in the north, with a genetic contribution of 50-60% in present-day Serbia, and gradually less towards the south, with 30-40% in mainland Greece and up to 20% in the Aegean islands. “The major genetic impact of Slavic migrations is visible not only in current Balkan Slavic-speaking populations, but also in places that today do not speak Slavic languages such as Romania and Greece,” said co-senior author David Reich, professor of genetics in the Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical School and professor of human evolutionary biology in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Bringing together historians, archaeologists, and geneticists

The study involved an interdisciplinary collaboration of over 70 researchers, including archaeologists who excavated the sites, anthropologists, historians and geneticists.

“This work exemplifies how genomic data can be useful for getting beyond contentious debates around identity and ancestry that have been inspired by historical narratives rooted in nascent nineteenth-century nationalisms and that have contributed to conflict in the past,” Lalueza-Fox said.

The team also generated genomic data from diverse present-day Serbs that could be compared with ancient genomes and other present-day groups from the region.

“We found there was no genomic database of modern Serbs. We therefore sampled people who self-identified as Serbs on the basis of shared cultural traits, even if they lived in different countries such as Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro or North Macedonia”, said co-author Miodrag Grbic, a professor at the University of Western Ontario, Canada.

Co-analyzing the data with that of other modern people in the region, as well as the ancient individuals, shows that the genomes of the Croats and Serbs are very similar, reflecting shared heritage with similar proportions of Slavic and local Balkan ancestry.

“Ancient DNA analysis can contribute, when analyzed together with archaeological data and historical records, to a richer understanding of the history of Balkans history,” said Grbic. “The picture that emerges is not of division, but of shared history. The people of the Iron Age throughout the Balkans were similarly impacted by migration during the time of the Roman Empire, and by Slavic migration later on. Together, these influences resulted in the genetic profile of the modern Balkans—regardless of national boundaries.”

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Skull of an individual of East African ancestral origin found in Viminacium, with the oil lamp featuring an eagle found in his tomb. Photo credit: Miodrag (Mike) Grbic.

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Exceptionally rich sarcophagus found at Viminacium in which a man of local descent and a woman of Anatolian descent were buried. It features several gold and silver objects including two gold earrings, a silver mirror, a silver brooch and 151 gold beads. Photo credit: Ilija Mikić.

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Article Source: University of Oklahoma news release.

*Olalde & Carrión et al., 2023, Cell 186, 1-14; December 7, 2023; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2023.10.018

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PLOS—Baboons were raised in captivity before being mummified in Ancient Egyptian sites, according to a study published December 6, 2023 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Wim Van Neer of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Belgium and colleagues.

For over a millennium, from the 9th Century BC to the 4th Century AD, ancient Egyptians venerated and mummified various animal species for religious purposes. Included among these animals were baboons, notably species not native to ancient Egypt, and not much is known about how these animals were acquired and kept. In this study, the researchers examined a collection of baboon mummies from the ancient Egyptian site of Gabbanat el-Qurud, the so-called Valley of the Monkeys on the west bank of Luxor.

The team examined skeletal remains representing at least 36 individual baboons of varying ages, dated to between 800-500 BC. Lesions, deformations, and other abnormalities on the bones indicate that most of the baboons suffered from poor nutrition and a lack of sunlight, most likely as a result of being born and raised in captivity. The authors note that similar conditions are seen in baboon remains from two other sites of similar age, Saqqara and Tuna el-Gebel, suggesting a fairly consistent mode of captive keeping in all three sites.

These results provide insights into how baboons were kept and treated in Ancient Egypt before their eventual mummification, although more details remain to be explored. The authors suggest, for example, that further examination of the animals’ teeth could provide more data on the diets they were fed, and if it is possible to extract DNA from these remains, genetic data might reveal information on where the animals were caught in the wild and what breeding practices their keepers were employing.

The authors add: “Life was not easy for Egypt’s sacred baboons. Scientific study shows they suffered from malnutrition and lack of sunlight.”

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Overview of some skulls available for study. Bea De Cupere, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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Article Source: PLOS news release

*Van Neer W, Udrescu M, Peters J, De Cupere B, Pasquali S, Porcier S (2023) Palaeopathological and demographic data reveal conditions of keeping of the ancient baboons at Gabbanat el-Qurud (Thebes, Egypt). PLoS ONE 18(12): e0294934. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0294934

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PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES—Researchers report evidence of widespread butchering of straight-tusked elephants by Neanderthals during the Last Interglacial Period. Previous analysis of faunal materials excavated at Neumark-Nord, Germany revealed evidence that Neanderthals hunted and butchered straight-tusked elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) at the site for at least 2,000 years during the Last Interglacial Period, 125,000 years ago. However, how widespread such practices were among Neanderthals is unclear due to a dearth of evidence from other sites. Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser, Lutz Kindler, and Wil Roebroeks documented evidence* of straight-tusked elephant exploitation at two additional, contemporary Neanderthal sites at Gröbern and Taubach in Germany. Fossil P. antiquus remains from all three sites displayed cut marks distributed across the animals’ skeletons, consistent with butchering of entire carcasses to remove all edible meat, fat, and other tissues. A high fraction of individuals among the fossil assemblages were adults, suggesting that prime-aged individuals were preferentially targeted. The authors note that processing an entire adult straight-tusked elephant, which could weigh up to 13 metric tons, could provide more than 2,500 portions of daily calories. The results suggest that Neanderthals may have possessed the means to store large quantities of meat and fat, may have temporarily gathered in larger groups than previously recognized, or a combination of both explanations. According to the authors, Neanderthals on the North European plain routinely exploited straight-tusked elephants during the Last Interglacial Period.

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Artist’s reconstruction of a group of Neanderthals butchering a straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus). (It is unknown whether Neanderthals wore any type of clothing, so the depiction reflects artistic license) Credit: Alex Boersma/PNAS

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Pelvis of Gröbern elephant remains during inspection for cut marks. Image credit: Lutz Kindler.

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Article Source: PNAS news release.

*“Widespread evidence for elephant exploitation by Last Interglacial Neanderthals on the North European plain,” by Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser, Lutz Kindler, and Wil Roebroeks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 4-Dec-2023. https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2309427120

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JOHANNES GUTENBERG UNIVERSITAET MAINZ—Around 400,000 years ago, early humans hunted beavers as a food resource and possibly also for their pelts. This is the conclusion of a team from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), the Leibniz Zentrum für Archäologie (LEIZA), also in Mainz, and Leiden University in the Netherlands. In their publication* in the journal Scientific Reports, the authors show that Middle Pleistocene humans systematically fed on these smaller animals and hence had a more varied diet than thus far known. Previously, the opinion was that that hominins of this age primarily subsisted on large mammals, such as bovids and rhinoceroses, for one simple reason: “The remains of large mammals from this period are generally much better preserved than those of small ones, not to mention plant remains,” says Sabine Gaudzinski-Windheuser, Professor in the Department of Ancient Studies/Section Pre- and Protohistoric Archaeology at JGU and Director of the Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioural Evolution, MONREPOS, in Neuwied, which is part of LEIZA. She authored the new study together with two colleagues, Lutz Kindler, also from JGU and MONREPOS, and Wil Roebroeks from Leiden University. “Until now, cut marks on Palaeolithic beaver bones had been identified very rarely and on isolated bones only. Dietrich Mania’s extensive and long-term excavations in Bilzingsleben yielded a large number of beaver remains. Their study has now revealed for the first time the long-term strategy behind the exploitation of these animals,” she explains.

Targeted hunting of young adults

The researchers used magnifying glasses and digital microscopes to examine the approximately 400,000-year-old bones of at least 94 beavers, excavated several decades ago in Bilzingsleben, Thuringia. This enabled them to identify cut marks from stone tools that indicate intensive use of the carcasses. “It is interesting that the remains in Bilzingsleben mainly represent young adult beavers,” says Gaudzinski-Windheuser. This indicates that hominins back then would have deliberately hunted inexperienced but fully grown and fat-rich animals. Fat was a very important food resource during the Pleistocene. “Until now, it was generally thought that people in Europe fed primarily on large game until around 50,000 years ago, and that this was an important difference to the more flexible dietary strategies of modern humans. We have now demonstrated that the hominin food spectrum was much broader much earlier,” says Gaudzinski-Windheuser.

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Article Source: JOHANNES GUTENBERG UNIVERSITAET MAINZ news release.

*Beaver exploitation, 400,000 years ago, testifies to prey choice diversity of Middle Pleistocene hominins,

Scientific Reports, 13-Nov-2023. 10.1038/s41598-023-46956-6 

Cover Image, Top Left: Deluxtrade, Pixabay

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