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FRONTIERS—The cities of the ancient Maya in Mesoamerica never fail to impress. But beneath the soil surface, an unexpected danger lurks there: mercury pollution. In a review article in Frontiers in Environmental Science, researchers conclude that this pollution isn’t modern: it’s due to the frequent use of mercury and mercury-containing products by the Maya of the Classic Period, between 250 and 1100 CE. This pollution is in places so heavy that even today, it pose a potential health hazard for unwary archeologists.

Lead author Dr Duncan Cook, an associate professor of Geography at the Australian Catholic University, said: “Mercury pollution in the environment is usually found in contemporary urban areas and industrial landscapes. Discovering mercury buried deep in soils and sediments in ancient Maya cities is difficult to explain, until we begin to consider the archeology of the region which tells us that the Maya were using mercury for centuries.”

Ancient anthropogenic pollution

For the first time, Cook and colleagues here reviewed all data on mercury concentrations in soil and sediments at archeological sites across the ancient Maya world. They show that at sites from the Classical Period for which measurements are available –  Chunchumil in today’s Mexico, Marco Gonzales, Chan b’i, and Actuncan in Belize, La Corona, Tikal, Petén Itzá, Piedras Negras, and Cancuén in Guatemala, Palmarejo in Honduras, and Cerén, a Mesoamerican ‘Pompeii’, in El Salvador –mercury pollution is detectable everywhere except at Chan b’i.

Concentrations range from 0.016 ppm at Actuncan to an extraordinary 17.16 ppm at Tikal. For comparison, the Toxic Effect Threshold (TET) for mercury in sediments is defined as 1 ppm.

Heavy users of mercury

What caused this prehistoric mercury pollution? The authors highlight that sealed vessels filled with ‘elemental’ (ie, liquid) mercury have been found at several Maya sites, for example Quiriqua in Guatemala, El Paraíso in Honduras, and the former multi-ethnic megacity Teotihuacan in Central Mexico. Elsewhere in the Maya region, archeologists have found objects painted with mercury-containing paints, mainly made from the mineral cinnabar.

The authors conclude that the ancient Maya frequently used cinnabar and mercury-containing paints and powders for decoration. This mercury could then have leached from patios, floor areas, walls, and ceramics, and subsequently spread into the soil and water.

“For the Maya, objects could contain ch’ulel, or soul-force, which resided in blood. Hence, the brilliant red pigment of cinnabar was an invaluable and sacred substance, but unbeknownst to them it was also deadly and its legacy persists in soils and sediments around ancient Maya sites,” said co-author Dr Nicholas Dunning, a professor at the University of Cincinnati.

As mercury is rare in the limestone that underlies much of the Maya region, they speculate that elemental mercury and cinnabar found at Maya sites could have been originally mined from known deposits on the northern and southern confines of the ancient Maya world, and imported to the cities by traders.

Health hazards and the ‘Mayacene’

All this mercury would have posed a health hazard for the ancient Maya: for example, the effects of chronic mercury poisoning include damage to the central nervous system, kidneys, and liver, and cause tremors, impaired vision and hearing, paralysis, and mental health problems. It’s perhaps significant that one of the last Maya rulers of Tikal, Dark Sun, who ruled around 810 CE, is depicted in frescoes as pathologically obese. Obesity is a known effect of metabolic syndrome, which can be caused by chronic mercury poisoning.

More research is needed to determine whether mercury exposure played a role in larger sociocultural change and trends in the Maya world, such as those towards the end of the Classic Period.

Co-author Dr Tim Beach, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said: “We conclude that even the ancient Maya, who barely used metals, caused mercury concentrations to be greatly elevated in their environment. This result is yet more evidence that just like we live today in the ‘Anthropocene’, there also was a ‘Maya anthropocene’ or ‘Mayacene’. Metal contamination seems to have been effect of human activity through history.”  

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Ancient Maya remains at Palenque. Connectingdots, Pixabay

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Article Source: Frontiers news release.

*Environmental legacy of pre-Columbian Maya mercury, Frontiers in Environmental Science, 23-Sep-2022.  10.3389/fenvs.2022.986119 

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MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR EVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY—Almost three hundred years after the Romans left, scholars like Bede wrote about the Angles and the Saxons and their migrations to the British Isles. Scholars of many disciplines, including archaeology, history, linguists and genetics, have debated what his words might have described, and what the scale, the nature and the impact of human migration were at that time.

New genetic results* now show that around 75 percent of the population in Eastern and Southern England was made up of migrant families whose ancestors must have originated from continental regions bordering the North Sea, including the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark. What is more, these families interbred with the existing population of Britain, but importantly this integration varied from region to region and community to community.

“With 278 ancient genomes from England and hundreds more from Europe, we now gained really fascinating insights into population-scale and individual histories during post-Roman times”, says Joscha Gretzinger, a lead author of the study. “Not only do we now have an idea of the scale of migration, but also how it played out in communities and families.” Using published genetic data from more than 4,000 ancient and 10,000 present-day Europeans, Gretzinger and colleagues identified subtle genetic differences between the closely related groups inhabiting the ancient North Sea region.

Migrants intermixed with the local population

Upon arrival, the migrants intermixed with the local population. In one case, in an Anglo-Saxon cemetery from Buckland near Dover, researchers were able to reconstruct a family tree across at least four generations and identify the point in time when migrants and locals intermarried. This family showed a large degree of interaction between the two gene pools. Overall, the researchers witnessed burials of prominent status across the studied cemeteries of both local and migrant origin.

The interdisciplinary team consisting of over 70 authors was able to integrate archaeological data with these new genetic results, which revealed that women of immigrant origin were buried with artifacts more often than women of local origin, especially considering items such as brooches and beads. Interestingly, men with weapons were found to have both genetic origins equally often. These differences were locally mediated with prominent burials or wealthy graves seen across the range of origins. For example, a woman buried with a complete cow in Cambridgeshire was genetically mixed, with majority local ancestry.

Duncan Sayer, archaeologist from the University of Central Lancashire and a lead author of the study says, “We see considerable variation in how this migration affected communities. In some places, we see clear signs of active integration between locals and immigrants, as in the case of Buckland near Dover, or Oakington in Cambridgeshire. Yet in other cases, like Apple Down in West Sussex, we see that people with immigrant and local ancestry were buried separately in the cemetery. Perhaps this is evidence of some degree of social separation at this site.”

Impact of this historic migration on present-day English people

With the new data, the team could also consider the impact of this historic migration today. Notably the present-day English derive only 40 percent of their DNA from these historic continental ancestors, whereas 20 to 40 percent of their genetic profile likely came from France or Belgium. This genetic component can be seen in the archaeological individuals and in the graves with Frankish objects found in early Medieval graves, particularly in Kent.

“It remains unclear whether this additional ancestry related to Iron Age France is connected to a few punctuated migration events, such as the Norman conquest, or whether it was the result of centuries-long mobility across the English Channel”, says Stephan Schiffels, lead senior author of the study. “Future work, specifically targeting the medieval period and later will reveal the nature of this additional genetic signal.

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An early Anglo-Saxon grave with pottery vessel, brooches and a Roman Spoon. This grave 66 from Oakington Cambridgeshire contained a woman of mixed ancestry. © Duncan Sayer, University of Central Lancashire

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Archaeologists excavate a complicated triple burial while working at Oakington Cambridgeshire. These three women were not related to each other, and each had a different proportion of WBI (Western Britain and Ireland) and CNE (Continental North European) ancestry. © Duncan Sayer, University of Central Lancashire

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Article Source: MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR EVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY news release.

CORNELL UNIVERSITY, ITHACA, N.Y. – A Cornell University researcher is using cutting-edge statistical analysis to narrow down the time range for one of the largest volcanic eruptions in the Holocene epoch — and settle one of modern archaeology’s longstanding disputes.

The eruption on the Greek island of Santorini, traditionally known as Thera, is considered a pivotal event in the prehistory of the Aegean and East Mediterranean region.

By parsing available data and combining it with cutting-edge statistical analysis, Sturt Manning, professor of archaeology, has zeroed in on a narrow range of dates for the eruption. His modeling identified the most likely range of dates to be: between about 1609–1560 BCE (95.4% probability), or about 1606–1589 BCE (68.3% probability).

Archeologists in the early 20th century theorized the volcano erupted around 1500 BCE, during the Egyptian New Kingdom period, and created a history around this assumption. But beginning in the 1970s, advances in radiocarbon dating threw that timeline into chaos.

“This has been the single most contested date in Mediterranean history for over 40 years,” said Manning. “I’m hoping with this paper people may suddenly go, ‘You know what, this actually limits and defines the problem in a way that we’ve never been able to do before, and narrows it down to where, usefully, we can say it’s in the Second Intermediate Period. So, we should start writing a different history.’”

The new timeline synchronizes the civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean while also ruling out several ancillary theories, such as the idea that the Thera eruption was responsible for destroying Minoan palaces on the coast of Crete as the first excavator of Akrotiri, Spyridon Marinatos, proposed in 1939.

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Landsat image of the caldera left by the ancient Thera eruption. Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

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Article Source: CORNELL UNIVERSITY news release.

*“Second Intermediate Period Date for the Thera (Santorini) Eruption and Historical Implications,” published Sept. 20 in PLOS ONE.

Cover Image, Top Left: Volcanic eruption, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

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UNIVERSITY OF MALAGA—A new research conducted by two paleontologists at the University of Malaga has just revealed that human evolution uniquely combines an increase in brain size with the acquisition of an increasingly juvenile cranial shape.

This paper, which has been published in the scientific journal PeerJ, is the result of a line of research that the UMA started in 2015 supplemented with the analysis of four new hominid crania of specimens that were discovered at a later time: Australopithecus anamensis, Australopithecus prometheus, Homo naledi and Homo longi. Moreover, the research adds juvenile samples of modern species of great apes.

Furthermore, this research brings an innovative approach to the interpretation of hominization in terms of embryonic development, which refers to changes in the start or end timing of the developmental processes, as well as to differences in the rhythm of these processes between an ancestral species and another derived species.

Cranial evolution: humans and apes

Thanks to these new analyses, they could verify that the representatives of the genus Homo, as well as the australopithecines –our close relatives in the evolution– share with orangutans, gorillas and chimpanzees a negative growth of the neurocranium –the cranial vault, which measures brain development, grows at a slower pace than the rest of the cranium– and a positive one in the splanchnocranium –the dimensions of the face, which correlate with the size of dentition, grow faster throughout development.

“This means that bigger crania present higher relative sizes in the face and more reduced sizes in the cranial vault”, explain the professors of the Faculty of Science Juan Antonio Pérez Claros and Paul Palmqvist, authors of this paper.

Greater brain development

Both experts point out that while the cranial evolution of australopithecines followed the same scaling during development as apes, in humans a series of lateral transpositions also occurred.

“The developmental trajectory of the genus Homo turned to a new starting point, where adults retained the characteristics of the infant crania of the ancestral species”, they say.

As they explain, these changes entailed a “juvenilization” of cranial proportions, a process known as paedomorphosis (“child-shape”), which enabled a greater brain development in our evolutionary lineage compared to other species.

Finally, this research demonstrated that the cranium of Homo naledi, despite being a relatively recent species in the fossil record of human evolution –less than 300,000 years–, show proportions that are similar to those of the first representatives of the human species, the Homo habilis, which are more than two million years old.

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Photographic representation of the four new hominid crania analyzed in the paper. University of Malaga

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Paleontologists at the University of Malaga show changes in the development of the dimensions, based on the analysis of four new hominid fossils. University of Malaga

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Article Source: UNIVERSITY OF MALAGA news release.

*Pérez-Claros, J.A. & Palmqvist, P. (2022). Heterochronies and allometries in the evolution of the hominid cranium: a morphometric approach using classical anthropometric variables. PeerJ, 25-Aug-2022. 10.7717/peerj.13991 

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UNIVERSITY OF COLOGNE—A new article* provides insights in the life and craftsmanship of the earliest modern humans in Europe around 40 thousand years ago, allowing an important glimpse into how early Homo sapiens adapted to their environment on the newly populated continent. The study, which was published in Nature: Scientific Reports’, reports on recent excavations in western Romania at Româneşti, one of the most important sites in southeastern Europe associated with the earliest Homo sapiens. The excavation was led by archaeologist Dr Wei Chu from the University of Cologne (Germany) and Leiden University (Netherlands) with contributions by Dr Jacopo Gennai from the University of Cologne (Germany) and University of Pisa (Italy).

Many early Homo sapiens fossils have been found in southeastern Europe, presumably because they first entered the continent through the Balkan Peninsula. Still, few Homo sapiens fossils have been found in association with cultural remains. Româneşti, however, offers numerous artifacts and is therefore an important window into observing how the first European Homo sapiens coped with their new environments.

The researchers found that artifacts at Româneşti were geared towards producing highly standardized chipped stone bladelets that could have been used as inserts for arrows or spears. Also, particular grindstones might have been used to straighten wooden shafts, suggesting that Româneşti was a kind of a projectile workshop. This is further corroborated by microscopic analyses of the artifact surfaces, which demonstrate that most of them were not used. This suggests that the site may have been used as a place for manufacturing tools that were later transported offsite.

Thousands of artifacts, some of which must have been carried to the site from over 300 km away based on geochemical evidence, combined with evidence for onsite fire use demonstrate that Româneşti was an important place in the landscape. Apparently, the early Homo sapiens of the area repeatedly returned to it.

The results of the large lithic assemblages and their high-quality contexts from the new excavations at Româneşti indicate changes in the ways Homo sapiens subsisted compared to Neanderthals, helping to explain their success. ‘Nearby contemporary fossils indicate that Homo sapiens and Neanderthals were interbreeding, but we still don’t know what that means for the ways in which their mutual lifestyles were changing and how we can see that in their archaeological remains,’ said Dr Jacopo Gennai of the University of Cologne’s Institute of Archaeology. ‘The next step is to try to elaborate on the relationship of these early Homo sapiens to earlier Neanderthals.’

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Homo sapiens are thought to have entered or passed through the Balkans when entering present-day Europe. OudsidEscape, Pixabay

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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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