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HARVARD UNIVERSITY—If evolutionary biologist Terence D. Capellini were to rank the body parts that make us quintessentially human, the pelvis would place close to the top.

After all, its design makes it possible for humans to walk upright on two legs (unlike our primate cousins) and it makes it possible for mothers to give birth to babies with large heads (therefore big brains). On an anatomical level, the pelvis is well understood, but that knowledge starts to break down when it comes to how and when this uber-important structure takes its shape during development.

A new study from Capellini’s lab is changing that. Published in Science Advances, the work shows when during pregnancy the pelvis takes shape and identifies the genes and genetic sequences that orchestrate the process. The work can one day shed light on the genetic origin of bipedalism and open the door for treatments or predictors of hip joint disorders, like hip dysplasia and hip osteoarthritis.

“This paper is really focused on what all humans share, which are these changes to the pelvis that allowed us to walk on two legs and allowed us to give birth to a large fetal head,” said Capellini, a newly tenured Professor in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology and senior author on the study.

The study shows that many of the features essential for human walking and birth form around the 6- to 8-week mark during pregnancy. This includes key pelvic features unique to humans, like its curved and basin-like shape. The formation happens while bones are still cartilage so they can easily, curve, rotate, expand, and grow.

The researchers also saw that as other cartilage in the body begins to turn into bone this developing pelvic section stays as cartilage longer, so it has time to form properly.

“There appears to be a stalling that happens and this stalling allows the cartilage to still grow, which was pretty interesting to find and surprising,” Capellini said. “I call it a zone of protection.”

The researchers performed RNA sequencing to show which genes in the region are actively triggering the formation of the pelvis and are stalling ossification, which normally turns softer cartilage to hard bone. They identified hundreds of genes that are turned either on or off during the 6- to 8-week mark to form the ilium in the pelvis, the largest and uppermost bones of the hip with blade-like structures that curve and rotate into a basin to support walking on two legs.

Compared to chimpanzees and gorillas, the shorter and wider reorientation of our pelvic blades make it so humans don’t have to shift the mass of our weight forward and use our knuckles to walk or balance more comfortably. It also helps increase the size of the birth canal. Apes on the other hand have much narrower birth canals and more elongated ilium bones.

The researchers started the study by comparing these differences in hundreds of skeletal samples of humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas. The comparisons demonstrated the striking effects that natural selection has had on the human pelvis, the ilium in particular.

To see when the ilium and pelvic elements forming the birth canal began to take shape, the researchers examined 4- to 12-week-old embryos under a microscope with the consent of people who had legally terminated their pregnancies. The researchers then compared samples from the developing human pelvis’ with mouse models to identify the on and off switches triggering the formation.

The work was led by Mariel Young, a former graduate researcher in Capellini’s lab who graduated in 2021 with her Ph.D. The study was a collaboration between Capellini’s lab and 11 other labs in the U.S. and around the world. Ultimately, the group wants to see what these changes mean for common hip diseases.

“Walking on two legs affected our pelvic shape, which affects our disease risk later,” Capellini said. “We want to reveal that mechanism. Why does selection on the pelvis affect our later disease risk of the hip, like osteoarthritis or dysplasia. Making those connections at the molecular level will be critical.”

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Kellepics, Pixabay

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Article Source: Harvard University news release.

*The developmental impacts of natural selection on human pelvic morphology, Science Advances, 17-Aug-2022. 10.1126/sciadv.abq4884 

MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE OF MOLECULAR CELL BIOLOGY AND GENETICS (MPI-CBG)—The question of what makes modern humans unique has long been a driving force for researchers. Comparisons with our closest relatives, the Neanderthals, therefore provide fascinating insights. The increase in brain size, and in neuron production during brain development, are considered to be major factors for the increased cognitive abilities that occurred during human evolution. However, while both Neanderthals and modern humans develop brains of similar size, very little is known about whether modern human and Neanderthal brains may have differed in terms of their neuron production during development. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) in Dresden now show that the modern human variant of the protein TKTL1, which differs by only a single amino acid from the Neanderthal variant, increases one type of brain progenitor cells, called basal radial glia, in the modern human brain. Basal radial glial cells generate the majority of the neurons in the developing neocortex, a part of the brain that is crucial for many cognitive abilities. As TKTL1 activity is particularly high in the frontal lobe of the fetal human brain, the researchers conclude that this single human-specific amino acid substitution in TKTL1 underlies a greater neuron production in the developing frontal lobe of the neocortex in modern humans than Neanderthals.

Microscopy picture of a dividing basal radial glial cell, a progenitor cell type that generates neurons during brain development. Modern human TKTL1, but not Neandertal TKTL1, increases basal radial glia and neuron abundance.
Pinson et al., Science 2022 / MPI-CBG

Only a small number of proteins have differences in the sequence of their amino acids – the building blocks of proteins – between modern humans and our extinct relatives, the Neanderthals and Denisovans. The biological significance of these differences for the development of the modern human brain is largely unknown. In fact, both, modern humans and Neanderthals, feature a brain, and notably a neocortex, of similar size, but whether this similar neocortex size implies a similar number of neurons remains unclear. The latest study of the research group of Wieland Huttner, one of the founding directors of the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) in Dresden, carried out in collaboration with Svante Pääbo, director at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, and Pauline Wimberger of the University Hospital Dresden and their colleagues, addresses just this question. The researchers focus on one of these proteins that presents a single amino acid change in essentially all modern humans compared to Neanderthals, the protein transketolase-like 1 (TKTL1). Specifically, in modern humans TKTL1 contains an arginine at the sequence position in question, whereas in Neanderthal TKTL1 it is the related amino acid lysine. In the fetal human neocortex, TKTL1 is found in neocortical progenitor cells, the cells from which all cortical neurons derive. Notably, the level of TKTL1 is highest in the progenitor cells of the frontal lobe.

Modern human TKTL1, but not Neandertal TKTL1, leads to more neurons in embryonic mouse neocortex
Anneline Pinson, the lead author of the study and researcher in the group of Wieland Huttner, set out to investigate the significance of this one amino acid change for neocortex development. Anneline and her colleagues introduced either the modern human or the Neandertal variant of TKTL1 into the neocortex of mouse embryos. They observed that basal radial glial cells, the type of neocortical progenitors thought to be the driving force for a bigger brain, increased with the modern human variant of TKTL1 but not with the Neandertal variant. As a consequence, the brains of mouse embryos with the modern human TKTL1 contained more neurons.

More neurons in the frontal lobe of modern humans
After this, the researchers explored the relevance of these effects for human brain development. To this end, they replaced the arginine in modern human TKTL1 with the lysine characteristic of Neanderthal TKTL1, using human brain organoids – miniature organ-like structures that can be grown from human stem cells in cell culture dishes in the lab and that mimic aspects of early human brain development. “We found that with the Neanderthal-type of amino acid in TKTL1, fewer basal radial glial cells were produced than with the modern human-type and, as a consequence, also fewer neurons,” says Anneline Pinson. “This shows us that even though we do not know how many neurons the Neanderthal brain had, we can assume that modern humans have more neurons in the frontal lobe of the brain, where TKTL1 activity is highest, than Neanderthals.” The researchers also found that modern human TKTL1 acts through changes in metabolism, specifically a stimulation of the pentose phosphate pathway followed by increased fatty acid synthesis. In this way, modern human TKTL1 is thought to increase the synthesis of certain membrane lipids needed to generate the long process of basal radial glial cells that stimulates their proliferation and, therefore, to increase neuron production.

“This study implies that the production of neurons in the neocortex during fetal development is greater in modern humans than it was in Neandertals, in particular in the frontal lobe,” summarizes Wieland Huttner, who supervised the study. “It is tempting to speculate that this promoted modern human cognitive abilities associated with the frontal lobe.”

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Article Source: MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE OF MOLECULAR CELL BIOLOGY AND GENETICS news release.

UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL—A team of scientists, led by the University of Bristol, has uncovered intriguing new insights into the diet of people living in Neolithic Britain and found evidence that cereals, including wheat, were cooked in pots.

Using chemical analysis of ancient, and incredibly well-preserved pottery found in the waters surrounding small artificial islands called crannogs in Scotland, the team were able to discern that cereals were cooked in pots and mixed with dairy products and occasionally meat, probably to create early forms of gruel and stew. They also discovered that the people visiting these crannogs used smaller pots to cook cereals with milk and larger pots for meat-based dishes.  

The findings are reported today in the journal Nature Communications.

Cereal cultivation in Britain dates back to around 4000 BCE was probably introduced by migrant farmers from continental Europe. This is evidenced by some, often sparse and sporadic, recovery of preserved cereal grains and other debris found at Neolithic sites.

At this time pottery was also introduced into Britain and there is widespread evidence for domesticated products like milk products in molecular lipid fingerprints extracted from the fabric of these pots. However, with exception for millet, it has not yet been possible to detect molecular traces of accompanying cereals in these lipid signatures, although these went on to become a major staple that dominates the global subsistence economy today.

Previously published analysis of Roman pottery from Vindolanda [Hadrian’s Wall] demonstrated that specific lipid markers for cereals can survive absorbed in archaeological pottery preserved in waterlogged conditions and be detectable through a high-sensitivity approach but, importantly this was ‘only’ 2,000 years old and from contexts where cereals were well-known to have been present. The new findings reported now show that cereal biomarkers can be preserved for thousands of years longer under favourable conditions.

Another fascinating element of this research was the fact that many of the pots analysed were intact and decorated which could suggest they may have had some sort of ceremonial purpose. Since the actual function of the crannogs themselves is also not fully understood yet (with some being far too small for permanent occupation) the research provides new insights into possible ways these constructions were used.

During analysis, cereal biomarkers were widely detected (one third of pots), providing the earliest biomolecular evidence for cereals in absorbed pottery residues in this region.

The findings indicate that wheat was being cooked in pots, despite the fact that the limited evidence from charred plant parts in this region of Atlantic Scotland points mainly to barley. This could be because wheat is under-represented in charred plant remains as it can be prepared differently (e.g., boiled as part of stews), so not as regularly charred or because of more unusual cooking practices.

Cereal markers were strongly associated with lipid residues for dairy products in pots, suggesting they may have been cooked together as a milk-based gruel.

The research was led by Drs Simon Hammann* and Lucy Cramp at the University of Bristol’s Department of Anthropology and Archaeology.

Dr Hammann said: “It’s very exciting to see that cereal biomarkers in pots can actually survive under favourable conditions in samples from the time when cereals (and pottery) were introduced in Britain. Our lipid-based molecular method can complement archaeobotanical methods to investigate the introduction and spread of cereal agriculture.”

Dr Cramp added: “This research gives us a window into the culinary traditions of early farmers living at the northwestern edge of Europe, whose lifeways are little understood. It gives us the first glimpse of the sorts of practices that were associated with these enigmatic islet locations.”

Crannog sites in the Outer Hebrides are currently the focus of the four-year Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded ‘Islands of Stone’ project, directed by two of the papers’ authors (Duncan Garrow from the University of Reading and Fraser Sturt from the University of Southampton) along with Angela Gannon, Historic Environment Scotland.

Professor Garrow said: “This research, undertaken by our colleagues at the University of Bristol, has hugely improved our knowledge of these sites in many exciting ways. We very much look forward to developing this collaborative research going forwards.”

The next stage of the research at the University of Bristol is an exploration of the relationship between these islets and other Neolithic occupation sites in the Hebridean region and beyond as well as more extensive comparative study of the use of different vessel forms through surviving lipid residues. These questions form part of an on-going Arts and Humanities Research Council/South-West and Wales Doctoral Training Partnership-funded PhD studentship.

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A substantial sherd of Early Neolithic pottery, as found on the loch bed at Loch Bhogastail. Dan Pascoe

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One of the first pots to be discovered, an Unstan Bowl from Loch Arnish (photo: Chris Murray). Previously published in: Garrow, D., & Sturt, F. (2019). Neolithic crannogs: Rethinking settlement, monumentality and deposition in the Outer Hebrides and beyond. Antiquity, 93(369), 664-684. doi:10.15184/aqy.2019.41. Chris Murray

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Photo reconstruction of one of the pots from Loch Langabhat. Mike Copper

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Article Source: University of Bristol news release

Dr Hammann is now based at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg in Erlangen, Germany.

*Neolithic culinary traditions revealed by cereal, milk and meat lipids in pottery from Scottish crannogs, Nature Communications, 6-Sep-2022. 

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Paris, France 7th of September 2022: a magnificent 800 kilogram, 2.3-metre-tall statue of an ancient Lihyanite king unearthed by archaeologists working in the Dadan region of AlUla, Saudi Arabia, goes on display for the world to see at the Louvre Museum in Paris. As part of a far-reaching cultural collaboration and intergovernmental exchange partnership signed between Saudi Arabia and France, the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) is loaning the imposing sandstone statue to the iconic institution in the French capital from September for a period of five years.

AlUla is located in a fertile valley, at the ancient crossroads of the incense and aromatic caravan routes leading from the south of the Arabian Peninsula to Egypt, Mesopotamia and the shores of the Mediterranean. Around 2.800 years ago the ancient civilization of  Dadan was located here. It was one of the most important trade route stations. Around the second half of the 1st millennium BCE, it was ruled by the kings of the Lihyan tribe, who retained power for several centuries.

Several colossal statues – believed to depict kings and priests – were discovered between 2005 and 2007 during archaeological excavations of the sanctuary of Dadan, led by King Saud University. One of these statues, called the ‘Monumental Statue’, which is now on loan at the Louvre, shows exceptional craftsmanship. The statue’s smooth surface with intricate details showing the muscles of the torso, abdomen, and the remains of the limbs displays characteristic elements of the Lihyanite school of sculpture. These features indicate the statue’s distinct local character and reflects the early artistic influence of Ancient Egypt or Greece.

The five-year loan is an important step to close a critical historical gap in the Louvre’s near-east collection, given that the Arabian Peninsula is under-represented in most of the Museum. This display highlights the archaeological discoveries and preservation work carried out at AlUla by the RCU. AlUla is home to 200,000 years of human history, and an important part of it can now be shared with the Louvre’s international audience through this long-term loan.

The statue was restored in France in 2010 in the context of the Roads of Arabia exhibition through a selection of 300 works, most of which had never been seen before outside their country of origin. Entitled “Archaeology and History of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” the exhibition artifacts were presented at the Louvre at that time. During this exhibition visitors were offered  an unprecedented glimpse into the various cultures that inhabited the territory of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from prehistoric times to the dawn of the modern era.

Since its establishment in 2017, RCU has overseen a wide range of archaeological projects, with finds of great importance to regional and global history made by an international team of experts. This exhibition is the beginning of what is hoped to be great collaborations between the RCU and major French institutions of heritage, research, and education.

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The Monumental Stature dates from the 5th – 3rd centuries BCE. Courtesy RCU

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The statue within its exhibit space. The statue is thought to depict a Lihyanite king. Courtesy RCU

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Article Source: Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) news release.

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AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE (AAAS)—Across three studies, Iosif Lazaridis, David Reich, and colleagues present a comprehensive genomic history of the so-called “Southern Arc,” a region spanning southeastern Europe and Western Asia and long considered to be the “cradle of Western civilization.” The analysis, which examined newly sequenced ancient DNA from more than 700 individuals across the region, reveals a complex population history from the earliest farming cultures to post-Medieval times. Until relatively recently, much of the ancient history of the Southern Arc – stories concerning its people and populations – have been told through archaeological data and the thousands of years of historical accounts and texts from the region. However, innovations in sequencing ancient DNA have provided a new source of historical information. Here, in three separate studies, Lazaridis et al. use ancient DNA from the remains of 777 humans to build a detailed genomic history of the Southern Arc from the Neolithic (~10,000 BCE) to the Ottoman period (~1700 CE). The findings provide an account of complex migrations and population interactions that have shaped the region for thousands of years and suggest that the earlier reliance on modern population history and ancient writings and art have provided an inaccurate picture of early Indo-European cultures.

The first study: “The genetic history of the Southern Arc: a bridge between West Asia and Europe,” presents the new dataset and focuses analysis on the Chalcolithic and Bronze Ages (roughly 5000 to 1000 BCE). This analysis revealed large genetic exchanges between the Eurasian Steppe and the Southern Arc and provides new insights into the formation of the Yamnaya steppe pastoralists and the origin of Indo-European language. The second study: “Ancient DNA from Mesopotamia suggests distinct Pre-Pottery and Pottery Neolithic migrations into Anatolia,” presents the first ancient DNA from Pre-Pottery Neolithic Mesopotamia from the epicenter of the region’s Neolithic Revolution. The findings suggest that the transition between Pre-Pottery and Pottery Neolithic phases of Neolithic Anatolia was associated with two distinct pulses of migration from the Fertile Crescent heartland. The third study: “A genetic probe into the ancient and medieval history of Southern Europe and West Asia,” focuses on ancient DNA analysis during the period of recorded history in the Southern Arc, elucidating the not-well-understood demographics and geographic origins of groups like the Myceneans, Urartians, and Romans.

“The studies by Lazaridis et al. represent an important milestone for ancient genomic research, providing a rich dataset and diverse observations that will drive the next iteration of interpretations of the human history of West Eurasia,” write Benjamin Arbuckle and Zoe Schwandt in a related Perspective. Although the authors note that Lazaridis et al. have produced an “astounding dataset, unimaginable in its scale just a decade ago,” Arbuckle and Schwandt highlight the challenges and limitations of the interpretations, suggesting that many of the narratives explored across the three studies reflect a Eurocentric worldview.

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High aerial view of the Karashamb Necropolis, Armenia. Pavel Avetisyan and Varduhi Melikyan

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Painted vessel-urn from Trench 1, Areni-1 cave, Armenia. Dina Zardaryan

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Basilica of St. Neophytos (in Lake İznik, İznik/ Nikaia, Turkey; Roman/Byzantine period). Constructed in the 4th c. after the First Council of Nicaea convened by Roman Emperor Constantine, the Basilica was erected to honor St. Neophytos who was martyred in 303 AD. The Basilica was submerged underwater after an earthquake in the 8th c. AD. Nine individuals from the Basilica were, based on their DNA, of likely local Anatolian origin, and two genetic outlier individuals of probable Levantine descent. Mustafa Şahin

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Karnut, Tomb 6 (Kura Araxes culture, Early Bronze Age, Armenia). Levon Aghikyan

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Article Source: AAAS news release

*The genetic history of the Southern Arc: a bridge between West Asia and Europe, Science, 26-Aug-2022. 10.1126/science.abm4247 

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MCMASTER UNIVERSITY—A modern scientific analysis of ancient stone tools is challenging long-held beliefs about what caused radical change on the island of Crete, where the first European state flourished during the Bronze Age: the ‘Minoan civilization.’ 

About 3,500 years ago, Crete underwent significant cultural transformations, including the adoption of a new language and economic system, burial customs, dress and drinking habits – all of which could be traced to the neighboring Mycenaean Greek mainland.

At roughly the same time, many important sites across the island were destroyed and warriors’ graves appeared at the famed palace of Knossos, leading scholars to long believe that these seismic changes had been the result of a Mycenaean invasion.

A new study, published online in the journal PLOS One questions that theory.

“Our findings suggest a more complex picture than previously believed,” explains Tristan Carter, a lead author of the study and professor in the Department of Anthropology at McMaster University who has conducted research in north-central Crete for nearly three decades.

“Rather than wholescale cultural change, our study has found evidence of significant continuity after the alleged invasion. While new practices can be initiated through external forces such as invasion, migration, colonialism, or cross-cultural intermarriage, we also know of examples where locals choose to adopt foreign habits to distinguish themselves within their own society,” says Carter.  

Rather than looking at things like burial, art, or dress, practices that tend to shift with fashion, archaeologists have begun to look more closely at more mundane, everyday practices as a better insight to a culture’s true character, he explains.   

For the study, the researchers analyzed a sample of tools the Bronze Age Cretans fashioned from obsidian, a black volcanic glass which is sharper than surgical steel when freshly flaked.  Vassilis Kilikoglou, director of the Demokritos national research centre in Athens, used a nuclear reactor to determine the origin of the raw materials and found them to be from the Cycladic island of Melos [modern name: Milos].

When these results were considered together with the way the obsidian blades had been made and used for work such as harvesting crops, it was clear the community had lived the same way their predecessors had for the past thousand years, which continued to be distinct from life on the Greek mainland.

“Our analysis suggests the population had largely remained local, of Minoan descent,” says Carter and Kilikoglou.  

“This is not to say an invasion of Crete didn’t occur, but that the political situation across the rest of the island at this time was more complex than previously believed with significant demographic continuity in many areas.”

The researchers believe that while local elites were strategically aligned with Mycenaean powers, as evidenced by their conspicuous adoption of mainland styles of dress, drinking, and burial, most people continued to live their lives in much the same way as before.

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Lead researcher Tristan Carter in front of a quarry obsidian exposure on Melos [modern name: Milos]. Daniel Contreras

Bronze Age blades made of obsidian from Melos [modern name: Milos}. Deanna Aubert

Article Source: MCMASTER UNIVERSITY news release

CLUSTER OF EXCELLENCE “RELIGION AND POLITICS”—According to new research, the combined analysis of animal and plant remains, as well as written evidence, is leading to more precise dating of archaeological finds. “We can now often determine not only the year, but also the season. This allows us to reconstruct the events that produced the finds much more precisely”, says archaeologist Prof. Dr. Achim Lichtenberger from the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” at the University of Münster. “The destruction of the Greek town Tell Iẓṭabba in present-day Israel by a military campaign waged by the Hasmoneans, a Judean ruling dynasty in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, has so far been dated to between 111 and 107 BC”, says Lichtenberger. “More recent research dates it to 108/107 BC, based on coin finds and the siege of the city of Samaria at the same time. Now, using our multi-proxy approach that makes use of several analytical methods, we can for the first time date the events with certainty to the spring of 107 BC”.

“We came across chicken leg bones in the dwellings destroyed by the Hasmoneans. Analyzing them revealed residues containing marrow that served to produce eggshells during the laying season in spring. This indicates that the chickens were slaughtered in spring”, explain Achim Lichtenberger and his colleague Prof. Oren Tal from the University of Tel Aviv. “We also discovered the shells of field snails, which were often eaten at this time of year”. Botanical examinations of the remnants of flowers on the floors of the dwellings reveal that these plants flowered in spring. Analysis of the objects is always accompanied by analysis of written evidence: “The contemporary Hebrew scroll of Megillat Ta’anit about the Hasmonean conquest, also known as the Scripture of the Fast, reports the expulsion of the inhabitants in the Hebrew month of Sivan, which corresponds to our May/June”.

“Only the multiplicity of analytical methods makes precise statements possible”

“From an archaeological point of view, this makes spring the season of destruction”, says Lichtenberger, which underlines previous findings on Hellenistic warfare, as military offensives usually took place in spring and early summer. “The individual data taken on their own would not justify determining such a clear chronology”, emphasizes Lichtenberger, who, together with his colleague Oren Tal and an interdisciplinary team comprising natural scientists, is leading a research project on the archaeology of the Hellenistic settlement Tell Iẓṭabba, in ancient Nysa-Scythopolis, an ancient conurbation in the ancient Near East. “Only by taking an overall view of the results from all analytical methods can we provide more precise information about the time of the destruction of Tell Iẓṭabba, and thus about the course of the Hasmonean campaign”. The finds must therefore be interpreted in the light of the seasons. (apo/sca)

Article Source: CLUSTER OF EXCELLENCE “RELIGION AND POLITICS” news release

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Excavation of Tell Iztabba.  German-Israeli Tell Iztabba Excavation Project

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*For everything there is a season: more than a year of destruction at Seleucid Tell Iẓṭabba (Israel), Antiquity, 17-Aug-2022. 10.15184/aqy.2022.92  

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AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE (AAAS)—Humans expend considerable energy while chewing, according to a new study that directly isolated and measured the metabolic costs of this behavior. Chewing gum elevated metabolic rate by 10 to 15 percent over basal metabolic rate, with the highest rate increases for stiffer gum bases, according to Adam van Casteren and colleagues. Their findings could shed light on how the energetic costs of chewing may have shaped musculoskeletal changes in the skull and jaw throughout human evolution. Researchers have assumed that many of these changes could have been related to differences in energy expenditure among species and through time, but such interpretation is complicated by the fact that little is known about the metabolic cost of modern human chewing. “The assumption generally was that the energy expended by the mastication system, the feeding system, in humans just wasn’t that much, and it was a little bit overlooked,” van Casteren said in a related podcast. “This is compounded also by the fact that, as weird modern humans, we eat cooked foods that we process with tools beforehand. So we don’t do as much chewing as our relatives and our ancient ancestors.” To gain a better understanding of these costs, van Casteren et al. had people chew an odorless, tasteless gum (to control for the metabolic costs of digestion and sensory stimuli) while measuring caloric expenditure and muscle activity in the masseter muscle, the main muscle of chewing. People chewing softer gum increased their energy expenditure by an average of 10.2 percent over their base rate, while those chewing stiffer gum had an average increase of 15.1 percent. Given this substantial energy expenditure in modern humans, the researchers suggest chewing might have had important metabolic costs that shaped hominin anatomy, before the advent of cooking and similar ways to process food before eating.

A related podcast, featuring an interview with lead author Adam van Casteren, will be available at https://science.org/podcasts on Thursday, August 18.

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The ventilated hood system at Maastricht University used to measure oxygen consumed and carbon dioxide produced during activities such as chewing. Dr Amanda Henry

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Article Source: AAAS news release.

GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY—A new study* into the multipurpose uses of boomerangs has highlighted the hardwood objects were used to shape the edges of stone tools used by Australian Indigenous communities.  

The research, published in PLOS ONE, demonstrated how boomerangs could function as lithic (or stone) tool retouchers by investigating the use-wear generated on the boomerangs’ surfaces during retouching activities. 

It was found that these use-wear impacts on boomerangs are comparable to those observed on Paleolithic bone retouching tools, which date back to more than 200,000 years ago.  

The research adds to a previous study into boomerang uses led by the same team from Griffith University’s Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, but also highlights the broader topic of the multipurpose application of many Indigenous tools throughout Australia.  

ARCHE PhD Candidate Eva Francesca Martellotta said the study revealed a deep functional connection between bone and wooden objects – a topic rarely investigated in archaeological contexts. 

“Studying the shaping techniques applied to stone tools is crucial to understand our past,” Martellotta said.  

“Thinking in modern terms, it is like understanding the difference between a butcher knife and a bread knife: their blades have different shapes – one straight, the other serrated – because they are used to cut different materials. That is, to perform different functions. 

 “Australian boomerangs are mainly used as hunting and fighting weapons. However, they also have many other functions, linked to the daily activities of Aboriginal communities.  

“In our article, we put together traditional knowledge and experimental archaeology to investigate a forgotten use of boomerangs: modifying the edges of stone tools. 

 “This activity is fundamental to producing a variety of stone implements, each of them with one or more functions.  

“Traditionally handcrafted experimental replicas of boomerangs proved very functional to shape stone tools.  

“Our results are the first scientific proof of the multipurpose nature of these iconic objects.” 

 “While our results for the first time scientifically quantify the multipurpose nature of daily tools like boomerangs, this is something that Aboriginal people have known for a very long time.” 

Study co-author Paul Craft, a Birrunburra / Bundjalung / Yugambeh / Yuggera / Turrbal man, contributed two of the four hardwood boomerangs used in the lithic tool knapping (shaping) experiments, which were performed in the Griffith Experimental Archaeology Research Lab located outdoors at the Nathan campus.  

The EXARC Experimental Archaeology Association partially funded the project through a 2021 Experimental Archaeology Award. 

The findings ‘Beyond the main function: An experimental study of the use of hardwood boomerangs in retouching activities’ have been published in PLOS ONE. 

Carley Rosengreen
Griffith University

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Australian boomerang. Creative Commons CCO 1.0 Universal (CCO 1.0) Public Domain

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Article Source: GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY news release

Krasnodar region, 5 August 2022 – The Phanagoria archaeological expedition, which is conducting excavations in the Black Sea region along the Taman Peninsula with support from Oleg Deripaska’s Volnoe Delo Foundation, has discovered a horde of Bosporan coins dating to the 6^th century AD. This and similar finds on the Taman Peninsula allow archaeologists to make a rough estimate of the standards of living of the medieval inhabitants of the Black Sea coast and conclude that the savings of ordinary citizens were enough to last them up to one month.

A purse with 30 copper staters, a type of Greek coin minted in the Bosporan Kingdom, was found during excavations of the historical layer of Phanagoria, which dates back to the 6^th century AD. Archaeologists believe that these coins were lost or hidden by the owner during a sudden attack on Phanagoria, likely by the Huns or the Turks. The cache of coins was found between two burned-out houses. Last year, a similar find – a bundle of 80 coins stashed inside an amphora by their owner – was made not far from this site. 

Archaeologists have found similar treasures along the coast of the Taman Peninsula in the past. In a town that also used to be a part of the Bosporan Kingdom, called Hermonassa, a bundle of coins was found on the threshold of an ancient temple, and several dozens of them fell onto the floor inside the building. In Kitey, another Bosporan city, a pouch with coins was found in a house stove. The owner was presumably trying to stow it during a siege but never returned to pick it up. 

In most cases, the findings contain several dozen Bosporan coins, with analyses suggesting that their owners parted with them in a hurry due to extraordinary circumstances. This leads archaeologists to believe that medieval inhabitants of the Taman Peninsula had approximately 30-80 coins on hand for their everyday needs. “These coins and these amounts were likely used for small transactions such as buying food or clothes,” says Prof. Mikhail Abramzon, numismatist and senior researcher of the Phanagoria archaeological expedition.

Archaeological finds in the region also suggest that the ‘savings’ of ordinary citizens of medieval cities on the Black Sea coast amounted to roughly 1,000 Bosporan coins. Based on the approximate daily expenditure of 30-80 coins, researchers conclude that, on average, such savings lasted citizens for no longer than one month. One of the largest hordes found on the territory of Phanagoria dates to the 4^th century AD and contains approximately 4,000 copper and silver coins, which was a considerable fortune for that period. It likely belonged to a major craftsman or merchant.

The Bosporan coins are unique in that they were last minted in 34 AD but continued to be used in the region until at least the end of the 6^th century. There is hardly any modern currency that can boast such a long lifespan. This demonstrates the large number of minted coins and their reliability as a means of payment. After Phanagoria became a Byzantine dependency, Byzantine gold also circulated on its territory, which had a higher value than the Bosporan coins. Nevertheless, unlike copper staters, gold coins were used almost exclusively for large transactions, and only the richest medieval classes could afford them. Hordes containing gold coins are usually thought to have belonged to moneylenders, merchants or major artisans.

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The cache of coins. Phanagoria Archaeological Expedition, Institute of Archaeology, Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Volnoe Delo Foundation 

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Coin cache, cleaned. Phanagoria Archaeological Expedition, Institute of Archaeology, Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Volnoe Delo Foundation 

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Aerial view of excavation site. Phanagoria Archaeological Expedition, Institute of Archaeology, Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Volnoe Delo Foundation 

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Article Source: Volnoe Delo Foundation press release

About the Phanagoria archaeological expedition 

The Phanagoria expedition of the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences is conducting archaeological excavations on the territory of the historical and archaeological museum-reserve Phanagoria. Since 2004, the excavations have been supported by the Volnoe Delo Foundation. Phanagoria is made up of 2.5 million cubic meters of cultural land, with excavations of 7,000 square meters conducted by 250 archaeological scientists, students and volunteers as part of the annual expedition. In 2014, the State Historical and Archaeological Museum-Reserve Phanagoria was established on the excavation site. 

Phanagoria was founded in the middle of the 6^th century BC by Greek settlers on the shores of the Taman Gulf. Its ancient settlement and necropolis include over 700 mounds and occupy 900 hectares. The city existed for more than 1,500 years and, for a long time, was one of two capitals of the oldest state formation on the Russian territory: the Bosporan Kingdom. 

The treasures found in the Phanagoria mounds are stored in the Hermitage and the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, as well as in museums in countries including Great Britain and Germany. The results of the expedition have been presented at international scientific forums in Germany, France, Denmark, Greece and the United States, among others. In 2009, the discovery of the palace of Mithridates VI was included in the list of the ten most outstanding archaeological finds in the world, according to Archaeology Magazine (USA). 

 www.phanagoria.info 

About Volnoe Delo Foundation  

Volnoe Delo is one of the largest non-profit organisations in Russia involved in charity, patronage and volunteer projects. The foundation addresses social issues, supports education and the sciences, and helps preserve the country’s cultural and historical heritage. The Foundation has supported more than 500 projects in 50 different regions of Russia to date. The projects’ beneficiaries include around 90,000 school children, 4,000 teachers, 8,000 students from universities and vocational schools, 4,000 scientists, and over 1,200 educational, scientific, cultural, healthcare and sporting institutions.

http://volnoe-delo.ru  

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PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES—Researchers report* that brain shape differences between fossil and modern humans are likely due to facial evolution rather than brain evolution. Although brain sizes of Homo sapiens from 160,000 years ago in Herto, Ethiopia are similar to that of modern humans, the shape of the brain cavity differs, suggesting further evolution of the brain or shape change related to evolution of the face. Tim White, Christoph Zollikofer, and colleagues conducted endocranial scans on 125 modern humans, including children, and reconstructed the crania of 50 fossil Homo individuals, including children, comprising Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis, and H. sapiens. The samples of fossil H. sapiens were found at Herto, Ethiopia and the Qafzeh and Skuhl caves in Israel. Because brain growth ceases with the eruption of the first permanent molars but facial structure continues to grow until adulthood, the authors compared endocranial shapes in immature and adult specimens. Throughout brain growth, endocranial shapes were similar between fossil and modern children, and differences in endocranial shape developed with continued growth of facial structure. According to the authors, the results suggest that the differences in endocranial shapes between fossil and modern humans were not due to brain evolution but likely due to dietary and lifestyle differences that influenced facial bone structure.

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Digital restoration of the skulls of fossil Homo sapiens from Herto, Ethiopia, dated to 160,000 years ago (left: adult individual; right: 6-7-year-old child). Virtual fillings of their braincases (blue) permit inferences on brain shape development and evolution. Tim White, Christopher Zollikofer, and Marcia Ponce de Leon

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Extraction of the in situ adult cranium from Pleistocene sandstone at the Herto Bouri locality required the application of preservative to hold its fragile bones together. Tim White, Christopher Zollikofer, and Marcia Ponce de Leon

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Article Source: PNAS news release.

*“Endocranial ontogeny and evolution in early Homo sapiens: The evidence from Herto, Ethiopia,” by Christoph P.E. Zollikofer et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1-Aug-2022. https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2123553119

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AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE (AAAS)—An analysis of the bark vocalizations that wild chimpanzees make while hunting suggests that communication and cooperation may have coevolved in the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans. The study*, which draws from observations of 227 hunting events conducted by chimpanzees in a Ugandan community from 1996 to 2018, demonstrated that these primates use vocal signals to facilitate cooperative hunts. The study found that chimps who barked before a hunt were more likely to participate and that barks are associated with greater hunter recruitment and more effective hunting. While scientists have known that the abilities to cooperate and to communicate likely coevolved in humans, the evolutionary roots of the relationship between these two abilities has not been clear, including whether its basic building blocks may be found in humans’ closest living primate relatives. To investigate, Joseph Mine and colleagues analyzed data on how 74 chimpanzees used hunting-related bark vocalizations between 1996 and 2018 in the Kanyawara chimpanzee community, located in a national park in Uganda. The researchers used data from 2,398 observations during that period to construct a generalized linear mixed-effects model and applied it to understand whether the apes’ barks were associated with an increased likelihood of individuals participating in a hunt for monkey prey. Mine et al. found that the probability of joining a hunt was considerably higher for chimpanzees that had barked beforehand than for those that had not, suggesting that the bark vocalizations signaled their motivation to participate. Additionally, the researchers found that these vocalizations the group’s behavior as a whole – hunting was more effective when it was preceded by barking, since this meant more chimpanzees were involved.

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Group of chimpanzees engaged in social behaviour and vocalizing. KCP project

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Summary author: Shannon Kelleher

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

PLOS—Beaver fur was a symbol of wealth and an important trade item in 10th Century Denmark, according to a study* published July 27, 2022 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Luise Ørsted Brandt of the University of Copenhagen and colleagues.

Written sources indicate that fur was a key commodity during the Viking Age, between 800-1050 CE, but fur doesn’t often survive well in the archaeological record, so little direct evidence is available. Previous reports have used the microscopic anatomy of ancient fur to identify species of origin, but this method is often inexact. All in all, not much is known about the kinds of furs the Vikings preferred.

In this study, Brandt and colleagues analyzed animal remains from six high-status graves from 10th Century Denmark. While no ancient DNA was recovered from the samples, perhaps due to treatment processes performed on furs and skins and probably due to preservation conditions, identifiable proteins were recovered by two different analytical techniques. Grave furnishings and accessories included skins from domestic animals, while clothing exhibited furs from wild animals, specifically a weasel, a squirrel, and beavers.

These findings support the idea that fur was a symbol of wealth during the Viking Age. The fact that beavers are not native to Denmark suggests this fur was a luxury item acquired through trade. Some clothing items included fur from multiple species, demonstrating a knowledge of the varying functions of different animal hides, and may have indicated a desire to show off exclusive furs. The authors note the biggest limiting factor in this sort of study is the incompleteness of comparative protein databases; as these databases expand, more specific identifications of ancient animal skins and furs will be possible.

The authors add: “In the Viking Age, wearing exotic fur was almost certainly an obvious visual statement of affluence and social status, similar to high-end fashion in today’s world. This study uses ancient proteins preserved in elite Danish Viking burials to provide direct evidence of beaver fur trade and use.”

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Map of studied sites (a) and examples of included fur: b) Hvilehøj C4273-97, fragment 1, c) Hvilehøj C4280c, d) Bjerringhøj C143. Graphics: Luise Ørsted Brandt and Charlotte Rimstad. Photos: Roberto Fortuna, National Museum of Denmark. Brandt et al., 2022, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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Article Source: PLOS news release.

*Brandt LØ, Taurozzi AJ, Mackie M, Sinding M-HS, Vieira FG, Schmidt AL, et al. (2022) Palaeoproteomics identifies beaver fur in Danish high-status Viking Age burials – direct evidence of fur trade. PLoS ONE 17(7): e0270040. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0270040

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On July 6, 2022, reporter Eric Vasallo attended the world premiere of Beyond Tut in Boston. Here is his story on the show, the ideas behind it, and what he experienced:

Since COVID changed our lives forever, life on Earth has become increasingly meta and online as social distancing has become our new normal. Blog sites such as Ancient Egypt Alive have evolved to offer a variety of opportunities to learn about ancient Egypt without having to fly to annual conventions or even visit far away museums. Online workshops, seminars and now, the next level—immersive virtual reality experiences—enable audiences to see, feel and visualize in high definition and surround sound what these worlds may have been like to the ancients.

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Exterior (entrance) to the exhibit. Photo courtesy Eric Vasallo

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Currently, there are two exceptional virtual exhibits touring North America to commemorate the 100^th anniversary of the discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb. Tutankhamun (popularly shortened as ‘Tut’) was an Egyptian king who lived over 3,300 years ago. He was just a boy when he inherited the throne at the age 9. Not only is he eternally alive in our minds thanks to the unprecedented riches of his tomb and the world-famous solid gold face mask, but he is also renowned for being the son of rebel King Akhenaten. Akhenaten was a heretic king whose depictions suggest he was the first gender fluid king on Earth and who led the disastrous Amarna Revolution, forming what some scholars suggest was the world’s first monotheistic religion. But this ruler’s excesses nearly bankrupted the Egyptian empire. 

Why Tut became a “phenom”

The wealth of Tut’s tomb certainly conveys a reverence for a ruler that restored order from chaos and returned to the worship of Egypt’s many gods, reversing the change established by his father before him.

Tut was also son (or stepson) of Queen Nefertiti, who aside from Cleopatra is considered the most fascinating and beautiful queen of Ancient Egypt. Her tomb has yet to be found, but there is a belief that it might still be hidden inside King Tut’s tomb behind a false wall— a hope kept alive by countless people around the world dreaming of another discovery equaling the grandeur and importance of her son’s intact tomb. 

Beyond Tut show: An augmented experience that delves into the life of Tut 

These touring exhibits promise to deliver a richer, meta experience and a deeper understanding of the stories behind these artifacts you see behind glass cases in museums around the world. In a joint venture with National Geographic, Beyond King Tut – The Immersive Experience invites audiences to learn the life story of this historic figure that has captivated the world’s imagination for the last 100 years and will probably continue to do so for generations to come. 

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Beyond King Tut. Press image courtesy Beyond King Tut

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Creative Producer Mark Lach’s intention wasn’t to just make an immersive experience, but to also provide a fuller picture of who King Tut was. 

It opened on July 8^th in downtown Boston at the historic SOWA Power Station.

As you enter the experience you are wrapped in darkness, the tone immediately set. Dimly lit, tomb-like spaces, bright blue, gold, and brown colors meet the eyes, provide instill both a sense of comfort and wonder about what is to be revealed. The first space is dotted with faux stone walls and openings revealing illuminated vintage photos of Howard Carter’s original discovery in the heart of the Valley of the Kings. That world-changing moment when Egyptian workers broke the false wall and Carter peeked into the intact tomb for the first time.

Lord Carnarvon “Can you see anything?”

Carter, holding a flickering candle to illuminate the tomb, 

“Yes, wonderful things.”

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The moments when Howard Carter (kneeling at opening) first glimpsed the tomb interior. Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

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Howard Carter brushing dust off King Tut’s mummy. NBC PHOTO: Harry Burton. Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

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The next room boasts a huge life-size replica of King Tut’s gold-plated wood shrine with its many smaller shrines nested inside. This great shrine is surrounded by a 360-degree video illuminating the first leg of the king’s journey into the afterlife. It provides a simulated peek at the series of nested sarcophagi held inside the shrine, each smaller than the next, like Russian dolls, until the mummy of the King is revealed. 

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Shrine Room. Rodney Bailey, Beyond King Tut.

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Shrine Room/Burial Chamber. Rodney Bailey, Beyond King Tut

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The experience leads you into another hall which tells the story of Tutankhamen’s family and heritage. Here, you also encounter a larger-than-life size ancient Senet game with instructions, inviting visitors to play—a great diversion for kids of all ages. Several examples of this ancient “snakes and ladders” style game were found inside his tomb. 

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Above and below: Senet game in Tut’s family room. Photos courtesy Eric Vasallo

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Next stop is the Mummification Room where you can see a simple and easy to understand step-by-step illustration of the embalming process. 

Travel with Tut on his journey through the afterlife

Following that space is the Verses of Immortality hall which highlights different magical themes found in the Book of the Dead.

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Book of the Dead Passage. Rodney Bailey, Beyond King Tut

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Verses for Immortality. Press Photo, Beyond King Tut

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The next space is a vast space presenting a wondrous, goosebump-inducing immersive experience of the boy king’s journey through the afterlife—a fantastical dream of the Egyptian Book of the Dead where you witness the final judgement as his heart is weighed against an ostrich feather in the presence of Anubis and the monstrous Ammit. The adventure ends on a happy note and visitors get to ride along a wooden replica of the royal Solar Barque as the king reaches his final destination – the abundant and heavenly realm of Aaru where he will reside for all eternity. 

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Photo Eric Vasallo

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The Solar Barque. Eric Vasallo

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Experience the tomb as Carter discovered it

Last stop before the well-stocked gift shop is a seven-minute, VR experience by Positron that takes you into the tomb as Carter discovered it, filled to the walls with untold riches.

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Sarcophagus Sequence. Courtesy Beyond King Tut

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Immersive Room. Rodney Bailey, Beyond King Tut

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Immersive Room. Courtesy Beyond King Tut

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Meeting the man who photographed the mask

After finishing the experience, I was honored to meet Kenneth Garrett, the National Geographic photographer responsible for all photos of the artifacts displayed in the exhibit. He also captured the historic September 2010 cover photo of the ubiquitous golden death mask of King Tut in the Cairo Museum. Kenneth gushed as he shared the story of how difficult it was to properly photograph the mask since it had so many different surfaces of gold and precious gemstones. Ultimately, he had to use six strobe lights and reflectors and Egyptian authorities only gave him 45 minutes before the museum opened. 

He also related that it took him about two weeks to photograph all artifacts stored in the basement of the Cairo Museum. The artifacts have never been exhibited since Howard Carter delivered them there. 

Artifacts of the boy king will finally be displayed in the new Grand Egyptian Museum when it opens later this year.

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Kenneth Garrett. Eric Vasallo

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Kenneth Garrett’s cover photo for National Geographic. Eric Vasallo

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Tut’s treasures no longer leaving Egypt

Due to the fragility of these very ancient objects, Egypt has decided to no longer allow these artifacts to leave Egypt, forcing Egypt lovers to visit the new Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) in Cairo to get up close and personal with these masterpieces that tell the story of arguably the richest, most influential culture on Earth, the story of us. It is estimated to open in November of 2022. 

Tips on attending the show in Boston

Avoid parking in the lot next to the Tut exhibit, which is $30. The other lot at 500 is $9- for 2 hours. Also, a short walk away off Harrison Avenue and Albany street, under the highway overpass, has EV car chargers and is $5 for up to 3 hours.

Immersive Tut – yet another virtual reality show opening soon.

The other virtual Tut experience is brought to life by the creators of the Van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, and The Art of Banksy exhibits. Lighthouse Artspace Productions presents their North American tour of Immersive King Tut – Magic Journey to the Light, which promises to take audiences young and old on a fantastic journey to the mythic realm of the Egyptian afterlife. First stop on their tour is Denver on July 22nd, then on to Toronto and Los Angeles, as well as 11 other cities across America. 

Stay tuned to this blog, Ancient Egypt Alive, to learn more about this second immersive adventure seeking to revivify the life of Tut – and ensure his legacy goes on for millions of years.

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN, NEWS BUREAU, CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — The ancient North American city of Cahokia had as its focal point a feature now known as Monks Mound, a giant earthwork surrounded on its north, south, east and west by large rectangular open areas. These flat zones, called plazas by archaeologists since the early 1960s, were thought to serve as communal areas that served the many mounds and structures of the city.

New paleoenvironmental analyses of the north plaza suggest it was almost always underwater, calling into question earlier interpretations of the north plaza’s role in Cahokian society. The study* is reported in the journal World Archaeology.

Cahokia was built in the vicinity of present-day St. Louis, beginning in about A.D. 1050. It grew, thrived for more than 300 years and was abandoned by 1400. Many mysteries surround the culture, layout and architecture of the city, in particular its relationship to water. Cahokia was built in a flood plain below the confluence of the Mississippi and Illinois rivers and would have been regularly infiltrated with flowing water, said Caitlin Rankin, a geoarchaeologist at the Illinois State Archaeological Survey who conducted the new research.

“Cahokia is the largest archaeological site in North America, but only about 1% of it has been excavated, so there’s so much about the site that we don’t know,” Rankin said.

Early in her encounters with the city’s layout, Rankin was baffled by the location and height of the north plaza.

“It’s a really strange area because it’s at a very low elevation, like the lowest elevation of the site,” she said. “And it’s in an old meander scar of the Mississippi River.”

Two creeks ran through the area, and it likely flooded whenever the Mississippi swelled after heavy rains.

To investigate the site, Rankin conducted test excavations and extracted sediment cores around the four mounds that define the north plaza. She also took soil samples in the same meander scar less than 5 kilometers from the plaza and analyzed stable carbon isotopes in these modern soils to determine isotope differences between wetlands, seasonal wetlands and prairie environments. Comparing these with carbon isotopes from ancient soils chronologically associated with the mounds gave insight into what types of plants had grown there in the past.

“What I learned is that this area remained wet throughout the year,” Rankin said. “There may have been some seasonal dryness, but overall, it was a wetland.”

Her findings challenge previous notions about this site being a plaza, which is generally thought of as a dry open area across which people walk and congregate. “Generally, those places aren’t underwater,” Rankin said.

How the north plaza was used remains a mystery, she said, but the study adds to the evidence that water was a central element of the city.

“Water was important to the people of Cahokia for a number of reasons,” she said. “They had a whole agricultural suite of wetland plants that they domesticated and relied on as food.” Water also was essential to their trade with people up and down the Mississippi River. And the cosmological beliefs of many Indigenous groups include creation stories that involve complex interactions with sky, water and earth.

“At Cahokia, you have these mounds emerging from this watery sphere,” she said. “And so that was a significant feature that probably resonated with their creation stories and their myths and their worldview.”

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The study focused on the north plaza, an expanse at a low elevation that is almost always inundated with water. Photo courtesy Caitlin Rankin

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Sediments from excavations at Mound 5 reveal that the north plaza was a wetland prior to, and after, mound construction. Photo courtesy Caitlin Rankin

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Caitlin Rankin stands in a trench dug in Mound 16, one of four mounds that delineate the north plaza. Photo by Ann Merkle

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Article Source: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN news release.

The Illinois State Archaeological Survey is a division of the Prairie Research Institute at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

The National Geographic Society and National Science Foundation supported this work.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA – SANTA BARBARA—An extended period of turmoil in the prehistoric Maya city of Mayapan, in the Yucatan region of Mexico, was marked by population declines, political rivalries and civil conflict. Between 1441 and 1461 CE the strife reached an unfortunate crescendo — the complete institutional collapse and abandonment of the city. This all occurred during a protracted drought.

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Central Mayapan showing the K’uk’ulkan and Round temples. Bradley Ruseell

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Article Source: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA – SANTA BARBARA news release.

HEIDELBERG UNIVERSITY—The mountain fortress of Rabana-Merquly in modern Iraqi Kurdistan was one of the major regional centers of the Parthian Empire, which extended over parts of Iran and Mesopotamia approximately 2,000 years ago. This is a conclusion reached by a team of archaeologists led by Dr Michael Brown, a researcher at the Institute of Prehistory, Protohistory and Near-Eastern Archaeology of Heidelberg University. Together with Iraqi colleagues, Brown studied the remains of the fortress*. Their work provides important insights into the settlement structures and history of the Parthians, about whom there is surprisingly little knowledge, emphasizes Dr Brown, even though the annals of history record them as a major power. Furthermore, Rabana-Merquly may be the lost city of Natounia.

Situated on the southwest flanks of Mt. Piramagrun in the Zagros Mountains, the stone fortress of Rabana-Merquly comprises not only the nearly four-kilometer-long fortifications but also two smaller settlements for which it is named. Because of its high position on the mountain, mapping the site was possible only with drones. Within the framework of multiple excavation campaigns conducted from 2009 and most recently between 2019 and 2022, the international team of researchers was able to study the archaeological remains on site. Structures that have survived to this day suggest a military use and include the remains of several rectangular buildings that may have served as barracks. The researchers also found a religious complex possibly dedicated to the Zoroastrian Iranian goddess Anahita.

The rock reliefs at the entrance to the fortress are of special significance, along with the geographic location of the fortification in the catchment area of the Lower Zab River, known in antiquity by its Greek name of Kapros. The researchers suspect that Rabana-Merquly may be the lost city of Natounia. Until now, the existence of the royal city known as Natounia on the Kapros, or alternatively as Natounissarokerta, has been documented only on a few coins dating from the first century BC. According to one scientific interpretation, the place name Natounissarokerta is composed of the royal name Natounissar, the founder of the Adiabene royal dynasty, and the Parthian word for moat or fortification. “This description could apply to Rabana-Merquly,” states Dr Brown.

According to the Heidelberg archaeologist, the wall reliefs at the entrance to the fortress could depict the city’s founder, either Natounissar or a direct descendant. The researcher explains that the relief resembles a likeness of a king that was found approximately 230 kilometers away in Hatra, a location rich in finds from the Parthian era. The Rabana-Merquly mountain fortress is located on the eastern border of Adiabene, which was governed by the kings of a local dynasty dependent on the Parthians. It may have been used, among other things, to conduct trade with the pastoral tribes in the back country, maintain diplomatic relations, or exert military pressure. “The considerable effort that must have gone into planning, building, and maintaining a fortress of this size points to governmental activities,” stresses Dr Brown.

The current research in Rabana-Merquly is being funded by the German Research Foundation as part of priority program 2176, “The Iranian Highlands: Resilience and Integration of Premodern Societies”. The aim of the research project is to investigate Parthian settlements and society in the Zagros highlands on both sides of the Iran-Iraq border. During the latest excavations at Rabana-Merquly, Dr Brown collaborated with colleagues from the Directorate of Antiquities in Sulaymaniyah, a city in the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan. The results of the Heidelberg investigations were published in the journal “Antiquity”.

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Excavation of the perimeter wall at the entrance to Rabana valley. Rabana-Merquly Archaeological Project

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UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA—The study of the genomes of our closest relatives, the Neanderthals and Denisovans, has opened up new research paths that can broaden our understanding of the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens. A study* led by the University of Barcelona has made an estimation of the time when some of the genetic variants that characterize our species emerged. It does so by analyzing mutations that are very frequent in modern human populations, but not in these other species of archaic humans.

The results, published in the journal Scientific Reports, show two moments in which mutations accumulated: one around 40,000 years ago, associated with the growth of the Homo sapiens population and its departure from Africa, and an older one, more than 100,000 years ago, related to the time of the greatest diversity of types of Homo sapiens in Africa.

“The understanding of the deep history of our species is expanding rapidly. However, it is difficult to determine when the genetic variants that distinguish us from other human species emerged. In this study, we have placed species-specific variants on a timeline. We have discovered how these variants accumulate over time, reflecting events such as the point of divergence between Homo sapiens and other human species around 100,000 years ago”, says Alejandro Andirkó, first author of this article, which was part of his doctoral thesis at the UB.

The study, led by Cedric Boeckx, ICREA research professor in the section of General Linguistics and member of the Institute of Complex Systems of the UB (UBICS), included the participation of Juan Moriano, UB researcher, Alessandro Vitriolo and Giuseppe Testa, experts from the University of Milan and the European Institute of Oncology, and Martin Kuhlwilm, researcher at the University of Vienna.

Predominance of behavioral and facial-related variations

The results of the research study also show differences between evolutionary periods. Specifically, they highlight the predominance of genetic variants related to behavior and facial structure —key characteristics in the differentiation of our species from other human species— more than 300,000 years ago, a date that coincides with the available fossil and archaeological evidence. “We have discovered sets of genetic variants which affect the evolution of the face and which we have dated between 300,000 and 500,000 years ago, the period just prior to the dating of the earliest fossils of our species, such as the ones discovered at the Jebel Irhoud archaeological site in Morocco”, notes Andirkó.

The researchers also analyzed variants related to the brain, the organ that can best help explain key features of the rich repertoire of behaviors associated with Homo sapiens. Specifically, they dated variants which medical studies conducted in present-day humans have linked to the volume of the cerebellum, corpus callosum and other structures. “We found that brain tissues have a particular genomic expression profile at different times in our history; that is, certain genes related to neural development were more highly expressed at certain times,” says the researcher.

Supporting the mosaic nature of the evolution of Homo sapiens

These results complement an idea that is dominant in evolutionary anthropology: that there is no linear history of human species, but that different branches of our evolutionary tree coexisted and often intersected. “The breadth of the range of human diversity in the past has surprised anthropologists. Even within Homo sapiens there are fossils, such as the ones I mentioned earlier from Jebel Irhoud, which, because of their features, were thought to belong to another species. That’s why we say that human beings have lived a mosaic evolution,” he notes.

“Our results,” the researcher continues, “offer a picture of how our genetics changed, which fits this idea, as we found no evidence of evolutionary changes that depended on one or a several key mutations,” he says.

Application of machine learning techniques

The methodology used in the study was based on a Genealogical Estimation of Variant Age method, developed by researchers at the University of Oxford. Once they had this estimation, they applied a machine learning tool to predict which genes have changed the most in certain time windows and which tissues these genes may have impacted. Specifically, they used ExPecto, a deep learning tool that uses a convolutional network — a type of computational model — to predict gene expression levels and function from a DNA sequence.

“Since there are no data on the genomic expression of variants in the past, this tool is an approach to a problem that has not been addressed until now. Although the use of machine learning prediction is increasingly common in the clinical world, as far as we know, nobody has tried to predict the consequences of genomic changes over time,” notes Andirkó.

The importance of the perinatal phase in the brain development of our species

In a previous study, the same UB team, together with the researcher Raül Gómez Buisán, used genomic information from archaic humans. In that study they analyzed genomic deserts, regions of the genome of our species where there are no genetic fragments of Neanderthals or Denisovans, and which, moreover, have been subjected to positive pressure in our species: that is, they have accumulated more mutations than would have been expected by neutral evolution. The researchers studied the expression of genes — i.e., which proteins code for different functions — found in desert regions throughout brain development, from prenatal to adult stages, covering sixteen brain structures. The results showed differences in gene expression in the cerebellum, striatum and thalamus. “These results bring into focus the relevance of brain structures beyond the neocortex, which has traditionally dominated research on the evolution of the human brain,” says Juan Moriano.

Moreover, the most striking differences between brain structures were found at prenatal stages. “These findings add new evidence to the hypothesis of a species-specific trajectory of brain development taking place at perinatal stages — the period from 22 weeks to the end of the first four weeks of neonatal life — that would result in a more globular head shape in modern humans, in contrast to the more elongated shape seen in Neanderthals,” concludes Moriano.

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These results complement an idea that is dominant in evolutionary anthropology: that there is no linear history of human species, but that different branches of our evolutionary tree coexisted and often intersected. UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA, CC BY

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Article Source: UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA news release.

*Fine-grained temporal mapping of derived high-frequency variants supports the mosaic nature of the evolution of Homo sapiens, Scientific Reports, 10.1038/s41598-022-13589-0 .

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