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MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR EVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY—Present-day Croatia was an important crossroads for migrating peoples along the Danubian corridor and the Adriatic coast, linking east and west. “While this region is important for understanding population and cultural transitions in Europe, limited availability of human remains means that in-depth knowledge about the genetic ancestry and social complexity of prehistoric populations here remains sparse”, says first author Suzanne Freilich, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the University of Vienna.

To this aim, an international team of researchers set out to fill the gap. They studied* two archaeological sites in eastern Croatia – one containing predominantly Middle Neolithic burials from within the settlement site, the other a Middle Bronze Age necropolis containing cremations and inhumations – and sequenced whole genomes of 28 individuals from these two sites. The researchers’ goal was to understand both the genetic ancestry as well as social organization within each community – in particular, to study local residency patterns, kinship relations and to learn more about the varied burial rites observed.

Middle Neolithic settlement at Popova zemlja

Dated to around 4,700-4,300 BCE the Middle Neolithic settlement at Beli-Manastir Popova zemlja belongs to the Sopot culture. Many children, especially girls, were buried here, in particular along the walls of pit houses. “One question was whether individuals buried in the same buildings were biologically related to each other”, says Suzanne Freilich.

“We found that individuals with different burial rites did not differ in their genetic ancestry, which was similar to Early Neolithic people. We also found a high degree of haplotype diversity and, despite the size of the site, no very closely related individuals”, Freilich adds. This suggests that this community was part of a large, mainly exogamous population where people marry outside their kin group. Interestingly, however, the researchers also identified a few cases of endogamous mating practices, including two individuals who would have been the children of first cousins or equivalent, something rarely found in the ancient DNA record.

Middle Bronze Age necropolis at Jagodnjak-Krčevine

The second site the researchers studied was the Middle Bronze Age necropolis of Jagodnjak-Krčevine that belongs to the Transdanubian Encrusted Pottery Culture and dates to around 1,800-1,600 BCE. “This site contains burials that are broadly contemporaneous with some individuals from the Dalmatian coast, and we wanted to find out whether individuals from these different ecoregions carried similar ancestry”, says Stephan Schiffels.

The researchers found that the people from Jagodnjak actually carried very distinct ancestry due to the presence of significantly more western European hunter-gatherer-related ancestry. This ancestry profile is present in a small number of other studied genomes from further north in the Carpathian Basin. These new genetic results support archaeological evidence that suggests a shared population history for these groups as well as the presence of trade and exchange networks.

“We also found that all male individuals at the site had identical Y chromosome haplotypes”, says Freilich. “We identified two male first degree relatives, second degree and more distantly related males, while the one woman in our sample was unrelated. This points to a patrilocal social organization where women leave their own home to join their husband’s home.” Contrary to the Middle Neolithic site at Popova zemlja, biological kinship was a factor for selection to be buried at this site. In addition the authors found evidence of rich infant graves that suggests they likely inherited their status or wealth from their families.

Filling the gap in the archaeogenetic record

This study helps to fill the gap in the archaeogenetic record for this region, characterizing the diverse genetic ancestries and social organizations that were present in Neolithic and Bronze Age eastern Croatia. It highlights the heterogeneous population histories of broadly contemporaneous coastal and inland Bronze Age groups, and connections with communities further north in the Carpathian Basin. Furthermore, it sheds light on the subject of Neolithic intramural burials – burials within a settlement – that has been debated among archaeologists and anthropologists for some time. The authors show that at the site of Popova zemlja, this burial rite was not associated with biological kinship, but more likely represented age and sex selection related to Neolithic community belief systems.

So far, few archaeogenetic studies have focused on within-community patterns of genetic diversity and social organization. “While large-scale studies are invaluable in characterizing patterns of genetic diversity on a broader temporal and spatial scale, more regional and single-site studies, such as this one, are necessary to gain insights into community and social organization which vary regionally and even within a site”, says Freilich. “By looking into the past with a narrower lens, archaeogenetics can shed more light on how communities and families were organized.”

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Burials at Popova zemlja were typically along the walls of pit houses or in other pits with ceramic vessels near their heads. © Borko Rožanković

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Ceramic grave goods from Popova zemlja. © Borko Rožanković

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

CELL PRESS—Researchers have known from several lines of evidence that the ancient hominins known as the Denisovans interbred with modern humans in the distant past. Now researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on August 12* have discovered that the Philippine Negrito ethnic group known as the Ayta Magbukon have the highest level of Denisovan ancestry in the world. In fact, they carry considerably more Denisovan DNA than the Papuan Highlanders, who were previously known as the present-day population with the highest level of Denisovan ancestry.

“We made this observation despite the fact that Philippine Negritos were recently admixed with East Asian-related groups—who carry little Denisovan ancestry, and which consequently diluted their levels of Denisovan ancestry,” said Maximilian Larena (@maxlarena) of Uppsala University. “If we account for and masked away the East Asian-related ancestry in Philippine Negritos, their Denisovan ancestry can be up to 46 percent greater than that of Australians and Papuans.”

In the new study, Larena and colleagues, including Mattias Jakobsson, aimed to establish the demographic history of the Philippines. Through a partnership between Uppsala University of Sweden and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts of the Philippines (NCCA), aided by collaboration with indigenous cultural communities, local universities, local government units, non-governmental organizations, and/or regional offices of the National Commission for Indigenous Peoples, they analyzed about 2.3 million genotypes from 118 ethnic groups of the Philippines including diverse self-identified Negrito populations. The sample also included high-coverage genomes of AustraloPapuans and Ayta Magbukon Negritos.

The study shows that Ayta Magbukon possess the highest level of Denisovan ancestry in the world, consistent with an independent admixture event into Negritos from Denisovans. Together with the recent discovery of a small-bodied hominin, called Homo luzonensis, the data suggest that there were multiple archaic species that inhabited the Philippines prior to the arrival of modern humans, and that these archaic groups may have been genetically related.

Altogether, the researchers say that the findings unveil a complex intertwined history of modern and archaic humans in the Asia-Pacific region, where distinct Islander Denisovan populations differentially admixed with incoming Australasians across multiple locations and at various points in time.

“This admixture led to variable levels of Denisovan ancestry in the genomes of Philippine Negritos and Papuans,” Jakobsson said. “In Island Southeast Asia, Philippine Negritos later admixed with East Asian migrants who possess little Denisovan ancestry, which subsequently diluted their archaic ancestry. Some groups, though, such as the Ayta Magbukon, minimally admixed with the more recent incoming migrants. For this reason, the Ayta Magbukon retained most of their inherited archaic tracts and were left with the highest level of Denisovan ancestry in the world.”

“By sequencing more genomes in the future, we will have better resolution in addressing multiple questions, including how the inherited archaic tracts influenced our biology and how it contributed to our adaptation as a species,” Larena said.

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Map showing spread and evolution of Denisovans. John D. Croft, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

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Article Source: CELL PRESS news release

*Current Biology, Larena et al.: “Philippine Ayta possess the highest level of Denisovan ancestry in the world” https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(21)00977-5

Current Biology (@CurrentBiology), published by Cell Press, is a bimonthly journal that features papers across all areas of biology. Current Biology strives to foster communication across fields of biology, both by publishing important findings of general interest and through highly accessible front matter for non-specialists. Visit http://www.cell.com/current-biology. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact press@cell.com.

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EINDHOVEN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY—Researchers from the University of Leiden and Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands propose that the first clear example of widespread cultural diffusion in human evolution occurred around 400,000 years ago. They propose this on the basis of changes in the archaeological record of fire use. The earliest evidence for possible fire use is sparse and can be difficult to distinguish from natural fire residues. By contrast, after 400,000 years ago, multiple different types of fire evidence are found in many sites with good preservation conditions. Interestingly, this occurs at a geologically similar time over major parts of the Old World, in Africa as well as in western Eurasia, and in different populations of hominins.

Wide distribution of a cultural behavior could be explained in a number of ways: by independent invention in multiple places, movement of populations, or transmission of genes associated with the behavior. Particularly given the absence of widespread environmental change, rapidity of spread, and lack of genetic or fossil evidence for movements of hominin populations in this period, the authors argue that cultural diffusion is most plausible. This interpretation is supported by the slightly later spread, over the same region and in an even more constrained time period, of a relatively complicated method for making stone tools, called the Levallois technique. This adds to current research suggesting that hominin populations were exchanging genes and that there were cultural interactions too.

Interaction with fire was key in human cultural evolution, and is a focus for research and teaching in the Human Origins Group in the Faculty of Archaeology. When Eva van Veen started her RMA with the group, it struck her that the social structures and social behaviors surrounding early fire use had not been discussed in detail. According to Eva, ‘Given how important sociality is to hominin lives, questions about the social structures surrounding early fire use are essential to understanding the full implications of widespread fire use.’ In her thesis she looked at what it takes to organize a group of people to gather the raw materials for a fire and keep it going. The discussions of her thesis stimulated Eva and a number of colleagues to think about the larger scale social tolerance and social networks involved in the spread of fire skills.

Copying of stone tool technology occurred early in human evolution, and there are indications of the smaller-scale spread of technology likely involving both diffusion and population movement, for example in the record of Acheulean handaxe technology. But around 400,000 years ago, cultural diffusion really took off. This precedes by a long time the cultural florescence associated with late Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens. Our research should stimulate debate and new studies, particularly addressing the changes in cultural mechanisms for transmission that allowed this remarkably fast diffusion of fire and stone tool technology.

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This flake was struck from the core in a much earlier stage of the “biography” of the core, when it was significantly larger. Other flakes produced between the large flake and the final core were also recovered at the site, one of the minimally 250,000 years old flint and bone scatters excavated in the 1980s by Leiden archaeologists at Maastricht-Belvédère (The Netherlands). Leiden University

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Article Source: EINDHOVEN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY news release

*Middle Pleistocene fire use: The first signal of widespread cultural diffusion in human evolution, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 14-Jul-2021, 10.1073/pnas.2101108118

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UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES—A UNSW mathematician has revealed the origins of applied geometry on a 3700-year-old clay tablet that has been hiding in plain sight in a museum in Istanbul for over a century.

The tablet – known as Si.427 – was discovered in the late 19^th century in what is now central Iraq, but its significance was unknown until the UNSW scientist’s detective work was revealed today.

Most excitingly, Si.427 is thought to be the oldest known example of applied geometry – and in the study released today in Foundations of Science, the research also reveals a compelling human story of land surveying.

“Si.427 dates from the Old Babylonian (OB) period – 1900 to 1600 BCE,” says lead researcher Dr Daniel Mansfield from UNSW Science’s School of Mathematics and Statistics.

“It’s the only known example of a cadastral document from the OB period, which is a plan used by surveyors to define land boundaries. In this case, it tells us legal and geometric details about a field that’s split after some of it was sold off.”

This is a significant object because the surveyor uses what are now known as “Pythagorean triples” to make accurate right angles.

“The discovery and analysis of the tablet have important implications for the history of mathematics,” Dr Mansfield says. “For instance, this is over a thousand years before Pythagoras was born.”

Hot on the heels of another world-first find

In 2017, Dr Mansfield conjectured that another fascinating artifact from the same period, known as Plimpton 322, was a unique kind of trigonometric table.

“It is generally accepted that trigonometry – the branch of maths that is concerned with the study of triangles – was developed by the ancient Greeks studying the night sky in the second century BCE,” says Dr Mansfield.

“But the Babylonians developed their own alternative ‘proto-trigonometry’ to solve problems related to measuring the ground, not the sky.”

The tablet revealed today is thought to have existed even before Plimpton 322 – in fact, surveying problems likely inspired Plimpton 322.

“There is a whole zoo of right triangles with different shapes. But only a very small handful can be used by Babylonian surveyors. Plimpton 322 is a systematic study of this zoo to discover the useful shapes,” says Dr Mansfield.

Tablet purpose revealed: surveying land

Back in 2017, the team speculated about the purpose of the Plimpton 322, hypothesizing that it was likely to have had some practical purpose, possibly used to construct palaces and temples, build canals or survey fields.

“With this new tablet, we can actually see for the first time why they were interested in geometry: to lay down precise land boundaries,” Dr Mansfield says.

“This is from a period where land is starting to become private – people started thinking about land in terms of ‘my land and your land’, wanting to establish a proper boundary to have positive neighborly relationships. And this is what this tablet immediately says. It’s a field being split, and new boundaries are made.”

There are even clues hidden on other tablets from that time period about the stories behind these boundaries.

“Another tablet refers to a dispute between Sin-bel-apli – a prominent individual mentioned on many tablets including Si.427 – and a wealthy female landowner,” Dr Mansfield says.

“The dispute is over valuable date palms on the border between their two properties. The local administrator agrees to send out a surveyor to resolve the dispute. It is easy to see how accuracy was important in resolving disputes between such powerful individuals.”

Dr Mansfield says the way these boundaries are made reveals real geometric understanding.

“Nobody expected that the Babylonians were using Pythagorean triples in this way,” Dr Mansfield says. “It is more akin to pure mathematics, inspired by the practical problems of the time.”

Creating right angles – easier said than done

One simple way to make an accurate right angle is to make a rectangle with sides 3 and 4, and diagonal 5. These special numbers form the 3-4-5 “Pythagorean triple” and a rectangle with these measurements has mathematically perfect right angles. This is important to ancient surveyors and still used today.

“The ancient surveyors who made Si.427 did something even better: they used a variety of different Pythagorean triples, both as rectangles and right triangles, to construct accurate right angles,” Dr Mansfield says.

However, it is difficult to work with prime numbers bigger than 5 in the base 60 Babylonian number system.

“This raises a very particular issue – their unique base 60 number system means that only some Pythagorean shapes can be used,” Dr Mansfield says.

“It seems that the author of Plimpton 322 went through all these Pythagorean shapes to find these useful ones.

“This deep and highly numerical understanding of the practical use of rectangles earns the name ‘proto-trigonometry’ but it is completely different to our modern trigonometry involving sin, cos, and tan.”

Hunting down Si.427

Dr Mansfield first learned about Si.427 when reading about it in excavation records – the tablet was dug up during the Sippar expedition of 1894, in what’s the Baghdad province in Iraq today.

“It was a real challenge to trace the tablet from these records and physically find it – the report said that the tablet had gone to the Imperial Museum of Constantinople, a place that obviously doesn’t exist anymore.

“Using that piece of information, I went on a quest to track it down, speaking to many people at Turkish government ministries and museums, until one day in mid 2018 a photo of Si.427 finally landed in my inbox.

“That’s when I learned that it was actually on display at the museum. Even after locating the object it still took months to fully understand just how significant it is, and so it’s really satisfying to finally be able to share that story.”

Next, Dr Mansfield hopes to find what other applications the Babylonians had for their proto-trigonometry.

There’s just one mystery left that Dr Mansfield hasn’t unlocked: on the back of the tablet, at the very bottom, it lists the sexagesimal number ‘25:29’ in big font – think of it as 25 minutes and 29 seconds.

“I can’t figure out what these numbers mean – it’s an absolute enigma. I’m keen to discuss any leads with historians or mathematicians who might have a hunch as to what these numbers are trying to tell us!”

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Si.427 is a hand tablet from 1900-1600 BC, created by an Old Babylonian surveyor. It’s made out of clay and the surveyor wrote on it with a stylus. UNSW Sydney

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The tablet’s significance was unknown until Dr Mansfield’s detective work was revealed. UNSW Sydney

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Article Source: UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES news release

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CELL PRESS—Whole-genome sequencing efforts around the world have offered important insights into human diversity, historical migrations, and the relationships between people of different regions—but scientists still don’t have a complete picture because some regions and people remain understudied. A new study reported in the journal Cell on August 4 helps to fill one of these big gaps by generating more than 100 high-coverage genome sequences from eight Middle Eastern populations using linked-read sequencing.

“The Middle East is an important region to understand human history, migrations, and evolution: it is where modern humans first expanded out of Africa, where hunter-gatherers first settled and transitioned into farmers, where the first writing systems developed, and where the first major known civilizations emerged,” says Mohamed Almarri of the Wellcome Sanger Institute, UK. “However, despite this importance, the region has been historically understudied in genomic studies.”

In the new study*, Almarri, Marc Haber (@MarcHaber, University of Birmingham, UK), and their colleagues sequenced 137 whole genomes from eight Middle Eastern populations.

By generating the most comprehensive resource of human genetic variation in the Middle East using a new sequencing technology called linked-read sequencing, the researchers were able to reconstruct the genomic history of the region with unprecedented resolution. The researchers say that some of the events recorded in the Middle Eastern genomes could be linked with what’s known from archeology or linguistics, such as the invention of agriculture and the spread of Semitic languages. But other events can only be elucidated by studying the DNA of ancient and modern people who lived in the region.

Some of their most notable findings include the following:

• The identification of 4.8 million new gene variants that are specific to Middle Eastern populations that could now provide the basis for future research.
• Genetic variants that show evidence of selection—in other words, mutations that spread unusually quickly—potentially due to adaptation to the changing environment and lifestyle.
• In the Levant, where agriculture was first developed, populations experienced a massive growth around the transition to agriculture that wasn’t paralleled in Arabia.
• Arabian populations suffered a severe population decrease around 6,000 years ago, which coincides with the change in climate in Arabia turning it from a green, wet region into the largest sand desert in the world today.
• Middle Easterners descend from the same population that expanded out of Africa 50,000 to 60,000 years ago.
• Arabian groups have significantly lower Neanderthal ancestry than other Eurasians, potentially caused by excess basal Eurasian and African ancestry in Arabians that depletes their Neanderthal ancestry
• The movement of populations during the Bronze Age potentially spread the Semitic languages from the Levant to Arabia and East Africa.
• An increase in the frequency of variants associated with type 2 diabetes in some populations in the past 2,000 years, suggesting that variants that were beneficial in the past are today associated with diseases.

“We found 4.8 million variants that were not previously discovered in other populations,” Haber says. “Hundreds of thousands of these are common in the region, and any of them could hold medical relevance.”

“Our study fills a major gap in international genomic projects by cataloguing genetic variation in the Middle East,” says Chris Tyler-Smith of the Wellcome Sanger Institute, UK. “The millions of new variants we found in our study will improve future medical association studies in the region. Our results explain how the genetics of Middle Easterners formed over time, providing new insights, which complement knowledge from archeology, anthropology, and linguistics.”

The researchers say they will now follow up on variants that show evidence of selection. Through these continued studies, they hope to further understand the biological effects of those newly found variants while further refining the genetic history of the region.

Article Source: CELL PRESS news release.

*Almarri et al.: “The Genomic History of the Middle East” https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(21)00839-4 

Cover Image, Top Left: Genome sequencing has been key to understanding much about the human past. Image Kennethr, Pixabay

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CNRS—The origin and date of appearance of prehistoric cave art are the subjects of ongoing debate. Spain’s Cueva de Ardales is one point of discussion. There a flowstone formation is stained red in places. This coloring is apparently almost 65,000 years old but until now, a part of the scientific community attributed it to a natural coating of iron oxide deposited by flowing water. However, that hypothesis has just been rejected by the findings of an international team of scientists including a CNRS researcher. The team members analyzed samples of red residues collected from the flowstone surface and compared them with iron oxide–rich deposits in the cave. They concluded that the ochre-based pigment was intentionally applied, i.e. painted—by Neanderthals, as modern humans had yet to make their appearance on the European continent—and that, importantly, it had probably been brought to the cave from an external source.

Furthermore, variations in pigment composition between samples were detected, corresponding to different dates of application, sometimes many thousands of years apart. Thus, it seems that many generations of Neanderthals visited this cave and colored the draperies of the great flowstone formation with red ochre. This behavior indicates a motivation to return to the cave and symbolically mark the site, and it bears witness to the transmission of a tradition down through the generations. The scientists’ findings have been published in PNAS on 2 August 2021.

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Flowstone formation in the Sala de las Estrellas at Cueva de Ardales (Malaga, Andalusia), with the traces of red pigment analysed and discussed in the article. © João Zilhão, ICREA. 
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Article Source: CNRS news release

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PLOS—An analysis of the blood types of one Denisovan and three Neanderthal individuals has uncovered new clues to the evolutionary history, health, and vulnerabilities of their populations. Silvana Condemi of the Centre National de la Research Scientifique (CNRS) and colleagues at Aix-Marseille University, France, present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on July 28, 2021.

Neanderthals and Denisovans were ancient humans who lived across Eurasia, from Western Europe to Siberia, from about 300,000 to 40,000 years ago. Previous research efforts have produced full-genome DNA sequences for 15 of these ancient individuals, greatly enhancing understanding of their species. However, despite being encoded in DNA, these ancient individuals’ blood types have received little attention.

In the new study*, Condemi and colleagues investigated the previously sequenced genomes of one Denisovan and three Neanderthal individuals (ranging from 100,000 to 40,000 years ago) in order to determine their blood types and analyze the implications. While 43 different systems exist for assigning blood types, the researchers focused on seven systems that are often used in medical settings for blood transfusions.

This analysis of the four individuals’ blood types revealed new information about their species. For instance, the ancient individuals had blood type alleles—different versions of the same gene—in combinations that are consistent with the idea that Neanderthals and Denisovans originated in Africa.

In addition, a distinct genetic link between the Neanderthal blood types and the blood types of an Aboriginal Australian and an indigenous Papuan suggests the possibility of mating between Neanderthals and modern humans before modern humans migrated to Southeast Asia.

The Neanderthal individuals also had blood type alleles associated with increased vulnerability to diseases affecting fetuses and newborns, as well as reduced variability of many alleles compared to modern humans. This pattern is in line with existing evidence that links low genetic diversity and low reproductive success with the eventual demise of Neanderthals.

Overall, these findings highlight the relevance of blood types in understanding humans’ evolutionary history.

The authors add: “This work identifies the blood group systems in Neanderthals and Denisovans in order to better understand their evolutionary history and to consolidate hypotheses concerning their dispersal in Eurasia and interbreeding with early Homo sapiens.

The results of the Groups system analysis of Neanderthals and Denisovans confirm their African origin as well as the weakness in their fertility and susceptibility to virus infection leading to a high infant mortality rate.”

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Erythroid blood group distribution from Denisova and Neanderthal archaic genomes. Branching matches nuclear DNA tree topology [43]. Blue, Neanderthal lineage; red, Denisovan lineage. Made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com. Condemi et al, 2021, PLOS ONE (CC-BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Homo neanderthalensis adult male. Reconstruction based on Shanidar 1 by John Gurche for the Human Origins Program, NMNH. Date: 225,000 to 28,000 years. John Gurche,  CCO Universal Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

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Article Source: PLOS news release

*Condemi S, Mazières S, Faux P, Costedoat C, Ruiz-Linares A, Bailly P, et al. (2021) Blood groups of Neandertals and Denisova decrypted. PLoS ONE 16(7): e0254175. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254175

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PLOS—Ancient urn graves contain a wealth of information about a high-ranking woman and her Bronze Age Vatya community, according to a study published July 28, 2021 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Claudio Cavazzuti from the University of Bologna, Italy, and Durham University, UK, and colleagues.

People of the Vatya culture that flourished during the Hungarian Early and Middle Bronze Ages (approximately 2200-1450 BCE) customarily cremated the deceased–making the human remains difficult to analyze from a bioarchaeological perspective. In this study, the authors used new osteological sampling strategies to learn more about the people buried in the urnfield cemetery at Szigetszentmiklós-Ürgehegy, one of the largest Middle Bronze Age urn cemeteries in Central Hungary.

Cavazzuti and colleagues analyzed human tissues from 29 graves (three whole burials, or inhumations, and 26 urn cremations) and applied strontium isotope comparison techniques to test if sampled individuals were local to the geographic area. For the majority of sampled graves, each contained the remains of a single individual and simple grave goods made of ceramic or bronze; however, gravesite 241 was of special interest: this grave contained an urn with the cremated remains of an adult woman and two fetuses, buried alongside prestigious grave goods including a golden hair-ring, a bronze neck-ring, and two bone hairpin ornaments.

Though the three inhumed individuals were poorly preserved, the authors were able to confirm these had been adults, though they couldn’t determine the sex. Of the 26 cremated individuals, seven appeared to be adult males, 11 adult females, and two appeared to be adults whose sex couldn’t be determined. They also identified children’s remains: two individuals likely 5-10 years of age, and four individuals ranging from 2-5 years of age–the youngest present aside from the twin fetuses buried with the adult woman in grave 241, which were approximately 28-32 gestational weeks of age. The authors believe the woman in grave 241 may have died due to complications bearing or birthing these twins. Her remains indicate she was 25 to 35 years old at her time of death and the remains were especially carefully collected post-cremation, as her grave exhibited a bone weight 50 percent higher than the average sampled grave. The strontium analysis also revealed she was likely born elsewhere and moved to Szigetszentmiklós in early adolescence, between the ages of 8-13. One other adult woman also appeared non-local to Szigetszentmiklós, with the adult women in general featuring a more varied strontium isotope composition than the adult men, whose isotopes were concentrated in an especially small range–even narrower than those of the children analyzed in the study.

The authors note their findings at the Szigetszentmiklós urnfield reinforce evidence that women, especially of high rank, commonly married outside their immediate group in Bronze Age Central Europe–and confirm the informative potential of strontium isotope analyses even for cremated remains.

The authors add: “Thanks to a wide spectrum of new bioarchaeological methods, techniques and sampling strategies, it is now possible to reconstruct the life-histories of cremated people of the Bronze Age. In this case, the authors investigate the movements and the tragic events of a high-status woman’s life, settled along the Danube 4000 years ago, in the territory of modern-day Hungary.”

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Left: Bone assemblage from burial n. 241a (adult female individual). Right: Bones attributable to both foetuses (n. 241b and 241c). Cavazzuti et al, 2021, PLOS ONE (CC-BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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Grave goods from burial n. 241: 1. Bronze neck-ring (Ösenring); 2. Gold hair-ring (Noppenring); 3. Bone pins/needles (Knochennadeln). Cavazzuti et al, 2021, PLOS ONE (CC-BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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Article Source: PLOS news release

*Cavazzuti C, Hajdu T, Lugli F, Sperduti A, Vicze M, Horváth A, et al. (2021) Human mobility in a Bronze Age Vatya ‘urnfield’ and the life history of a high-status woman. PLoS ONE 16(7): e0254360. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0254360

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TAYLOR & FRANCIS GROUP—The magnificent London mansion of Thomas Cromwell has been revealed for the first time in an artist’s impression, following a new study which examines the building in unprecedented detail.

Dr Nick Holder, a historian and research fellow at English Heritage and the University of Exeter, has scrutinized an exceptionally rich source of information, including letters, leases, surveys and inventories, to present the most thorough insight to-date on “one of the most spectacular private houses” in 1530s London.

Published in the peer-reviewed Journal of the British Archaeological Association, his findings* – which have informed the artist’s impression created by illustrator Peter Urmston – include floor plans for the mansion, which had 58 rooms plus servants’ garrets, and a large garden.

The plans have been released before but the evidence behind them hasn’t been presented until now.

Together with an accompanying room-by-room analysis of another of Cromwell’s London homes, it provides a fascinating new insight into the life and personality of a man who was one of the architects of the English Reformation and helped engineer the annulment of Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon, allowing him to marry Anne Boleyn.

Cromwell, who as Henry VIII’s henchman was the most powerful man in England, still captures the public imagination – and inspires novels, including Hilary Mantel’s award-winning Wolf Hall series, plays and TV series – today, almost 500 years after his death.

The mansion, next to the Austin Friars monastery in the City of London, cost Cromwell at least £1,600 to build, including around £550 on the land.

Cromwell had lived in Italy and spoke Italian and it is “very likely” the architecture contained fashionable new Italian Renaissance features, says Dr Holder.

Construction began in July 1535 and, like many building projects, there were hitches, including a delay in October the following year when the 80-strong team of workmen was sent to Yorkshire to fight the rebels of the Pilgrimage of Grace uprising.

Cromwell also seems to have undertaken a “land grab”, confiscating a 22-foot strip of land to enlarge his garden, which may have had a bowling alley and tennis court.

The mansion, which boasted bedding made cloth of gold, damask and velvet, acted as a family home, an administrative base and a venue for entertainment. It may even have been designed in the anticipation, or perhaps fear, of a visit from the king.

Prestigious visitors would have been guided up the large stair tower to one of the sumptuous first-floor halls, the parlor or the ladies’ parlor. The heated halls were decorated with tapestry hangings and one had three distinctive oriel (bay) windows.

The mansion was also a store for Cromwell’s personal armouy – in reality enough for a small army. This included several hundred sets of “almayne revettes” (German plate armor for infantry), nearly 100 sallets and bascinets (head-pieces and helmets) and weaponry including 759 bows, complete with hundreds of sheaves of arrows.

Cromwell would, however, have had little time to enjoy his spectacular new home before he was executed for treason in 1540.

He had moved to the mansion from a 14-room neighboring townhouse, for which he probably paid £4 a year in rent. Documents, including two inventories from Cromwell’s tenancy, provide a room-by-room description of this home and its contents, which included 28 rings, three of which Cromwell was wearing at the time of the inventory. They also give an intriguing glimpse into his religious outlook.

Dr Holder says: “We think of Cromwell as Henry VIII’s henchman, carrying out his policy, including closing down the monasteries, and we know that by about 1530 Cromwell became one of the new Evangelical Protestants.

“But when you look at the inventory of his house in the 1520s, he doesn’t seem such a religious radical, he seems more of a traditional English Catholic.

“He’s got various religious paintings on the wall, he’s got his own holy relic, which is very much associated with traditional Catholics, not with the new Evangelicals, and he’s even got a home altar. In the 1520s he seems like much more of a conventional early Tudor Catholic gentleman.”

The coats of arms of his patron Cardinal Wolsey and former patron, Thomas Grey, which were on display in the townhouse, meanwhile, reveal a sense of loyalty beneath Cromwell’s ruthless exterior, says Dr Holder.

The exceptionally detailed analysis was made possible thanks to a “treasure trove” of documents held in the archives of the Drapers’ Company, the trade group that bought Cromwell’s mansion after his death.

Dr Holder adds: “These two houses were the homes of this great man, they were the places where he lived with his wife and two daughters, where his son grew up. It was also the place he went back to at night after being with Henry VIII at court and just got on with the hard graft of running the country.

“No one else has looked at these two houses in quite as much detail comparing all the available evidence. This is about as close as you are going to get to walking down these 16th-century corridors.”

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Artist conception of the Cromwell home. Peter Urmston

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Article Source: Taylor & Francis Group news release

*https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00681288.2021.1923812

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PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES—Crested rat fossils suggest that ecological corridors once connected Africa to the Levant, according to a study. Early humans and other hominins dispersed out of Africa through the Levant multiple times, but whether these journeys relied on technology to cross the Saharo-Arabian deserts or followed ecological corridors created by climate change is unclear. Ignacio Lazagabaster and colleagues analyzed rodent fossils discovered in the Cave of the Skulls in the southern Judean Desert as a proxy for the paleoenvironment of the Dead Sea region during the Late Pleistocene. Phylogenetic analyses of a sequenced mitochondrial genome and morphological comparisons suggest that the fossils, which were dated to between 42,000 and more than 103,000 years ago, belong to a now-extinct subspecies, Lophiomys imhausi maremortum subsp. nov., of the eastern African crested rat, an enigmatic large rodent equipped with a poisonous pelt and a helmet-like skull. Because extant crested rats live in habitats with relatively dense vegetation, the authors used species distribution models to estimate the timing and location of previously suitable habitats in the region. The results* suggest a brief period during the Last Interglacial when green habitat corridors connected eastern Africa to the Levant across the present-day Judean Desert, facilitating the dispersal of crested rats and humans out of Africa, according to the authors.

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A skull of the Dead Sea crested rat subspecies found in situ in the Cave of the Skulls in the southern Judean Desert. Ignacio A. Lazagabaster.

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View of the Dead Sea and the southern Judean Desert from the Cave of the Skulls. Ignacio A. Lazagabaster.

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Article Source: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES news release 

*“Rare crested rat subfossils unveil Afro-Eurasian ecological corridors synchronous with early human dispersals,” by Ignacio A. Lazagabaster et al.

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SCIENTIFIC REPORTS—The discovery of a Roman road submerged in the Venice Lagoon is reported in Scientific Reports this week. The findings* suggest that extensive settlements may have been present in the Venice Lagoon centuries before the founding of Venice began in the fifth century.

During the Roman era, large areas of the Venice Lagoon which are now submerged were accessible by land. Roman artifacts have been found in lagoon islands and waterways, but the extent of human occupation of the lagoon during Roman times has been unclear.

Mapping the lagoon floor using sonar, Fantina Madricardo and colleagues discovered 12 archaeological structures aligned in a northeasterly direction for 1,140 metres, in an area of the lagoon known as the Treporti Channel. The structures were up to 2.7 meters tall and 52.7 meters long. Previous surveys of the Treporti Channel uncovered stones similar to paving stones used by Romans during road construction, indicating that the structures may be aligned along a Roman road. The researchers also discovered an additional four structures in the Treporti Channel that were up to four meters tall and 134.8 meters long. Based on its dimensions and similarity to structures discovered in other areas, the largest of these structures is thought to be a potential harbor structure, such as a dock. Previously collected geological and modeling data indicates that the road is located on a sandy ridge that was above sea level during the Roman era but is now submerged in the lagoon.

The findings suggest that a permanent settlement may have been present in the Treporti Channel during the Roman era. The authors propose that the road may have been linked to a wider network of Roman roads in the Italian Veneto Region and may have been used by travelers and sailors to journey between what is now the city of Chioggia and the Northern Venice Lagoon.

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NASA satellite image of the Venetian Lagoon. Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

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Article Source: SCIENTIFIC REPORTS news release

*New evidence of a Roman road in the Venice Lagoon (Italy) based on high resolution seafloor reconstruction. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-92939-w

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UNIVERSITY OF MONTREAL—Throughout history, people of different cultures and stages of evolution have found ways to adapt, with varying success, to the gradual warming of the environment they live in. But can the past inform the future, now that climate change is happening faster than ever before?

Yes, say an international team of anthropologists, geographers and earth scientists in Canada, the U.S. and France led by Université de Montréal anthropologist Ariane Burke.

In a paper* published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Professor Burke and her colleagues make a case for a new and evolving discipline called “the archeology of climate change.”

It’s an interdisciplinary science that uses data from archeological digs and the palaeoclimate record to study how humans interacted with their environment during past climate-change events such as the warming that followed the last ice age, more than 10,000 years ago.

What the scientists hope to identify are the tipping points in climate history that prompted people to reorganize their societies to survive, showing how cultural diversity, a source of human resilience in the past, is just as important today as a bulwark against global warming.

“The archaeology of climate change combines the study of environmental conditions and archaeological information,” said Burke, who runs the Hominin Dispersals Research Group and the Ecomorphology and Paleoanthropology Laboratory.

“What this approach allows us to do identify the range of challenges faced by people in the past, the different strategies they used to face these challenges and ultimately, whether they succeeded or not.”

For instance, studying the rapid warming that occurred between 14,700 and 12,700 years ago, and how humans coped with it as evidenced in the archeological record, can help climate specialists model possible outcomes of climate change in the future, Burke said.

Her paper is co-authored with UdeM anthropologist Julien Riel-Salvatore and colleagues from Bishop’s University, Université du Québec à Montréal, the University of Colorado and the CNRS, in France.

Historically, people from different walks of life have found a variety of ways to adapt to the warming of their climate, and these can inform the present and help prepare for the future, the researchers say.

For example, traditional farming practices – many of which are still practiced today – are valid alternatives that can be used to redesign industrial farming, making it more sustainable in the future, they say.

Indigenous cultures have a major role to play in teaching us how to respond to climate change -in the Canadian Arctic, for instance, Indigenous people have a detailed knowledge of the environment that’s key to be essential to planning a sustainable response, said Burke.

“Similarly, indigenous farmers all over the world cultivate a wide variety of crop types that won’t all respond to changing climate conditions in the same way,” she said. “They are preserving crop diversity in the global food chain and if and when the main crop types we currently rely on fail, this diversity could well prove to be a lifeline.

Another example is the readoption in northeastern North America of multi-cropping agriculture based on the “three sisters”: corn, squash and beans. “There are archeological models for that,” said Burke, “and the point is to use them to come up with more sustainable, locally scaled ways of farming that will ensure food security in the years to come.

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Scientific evidence shows that humans adapted as climate changed in the past. ELG21, Pixabay

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Article Source: UNIVERSITY OF MONTREAL news release

*”The archeology of climate change: the case for cultural diversity,” by Ariane Burke et al, was published July 19 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Funding was provided by the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture.

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Science Advances—Only 1.5% to 7% of the modern human genome is uniquely human, according to an analysis of Neanderthal, Denisovan, and human genomes. The study* provides evidence for adaptive changes to the human genome within the past 600,000 years, most of which are connected to brain development. The findings also suggest that at least one wave of Neanderthals intermixed with the ancestors of all non-Africans and also point to Neanderthal and Denisovan genomic regions unique to South Asians. Scientists have found it difficult to determine which genes in the modern human genome were passed on from our hominin ancestors and which are uniquely our own. One particular roadblock is that humans harbor Neanderthal alleles, both from intermixing between human and Neanderthal populations and from incomplete lineage sorting, or alleles that predate the split between humans and Neanderthals but are not found in all humans. To circumvent these challenges, Nathan Schaefer and colleagues developed an improved ancestral recombination graph inference algorithm called Speedy Ancestral Recombination Graph Estimator (SARGE), which more effectively highlights alleles inherited from human intermixture with Neanderthals. The researchers ran SARGE on a panel of 279 modern human genomes, two Neanderthal genomes, and one Denisovan genome. They used the resulting ancestral recombination graph to map Neanderthal and Denisovan ancestry and the absence of both across modern human genomes. This enabled Schaefer et al. to identify mutations specific to humans and to determine that these mutations arose in 2 distinct bursts – one about 600,000 years ago and another about 200,000 years ago. Many of these mutations appear to affect genes involved in neural development and function, as well as RNA splicing.

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Only 1.5% to 7% of the modern human genome is uniquely human. The Digital Artist, Pixabay

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Article Source: The open-access journal Science Advances news release

*“An ancestral recombination graph of human, Neanderthal, and Denisovan genomes,” by N.K. Schaefer; B. Shapiro; R.E. Green at University of California, Santa Cruz in Santa Cruz, CA; N.K. Schaefer at University of California, San Francisco in San Francisco, CA.

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UNIVERSITAT POMPEU FABRA – BARCELONA—A study* conducted by researchers from the UPF Culture and Socio-Ecological Dynamics research group (CaSEs) and the University of Leicester (UK) has provided a highly dynamic image surrounding the use and importance of hitherto unknown wild plant resources at the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük (Anatolia, Turkey). The researchers carried out their work combining the analysis of microbotanical remains and use-wear traces in various stone implements recovered from the site, which in the past hosted one of mankind’s first agricultural societies.

Çatalhöyük is a world heritage archaeological site located in Anatolia (Turkey), which was inhabited during the Neolithic, between 7,100 and 6,000 BC. This site has received worldwide attention due to its size and because it is one of the first urban centers with a high density of agglomerated dwellings, to which entry was gained through the roof and which contained elaborate wall paintings inside. The settlement was studied continuously for nearly three decades and provided a wealth of archaeobotanical remains (charred remains of plants) and a wide range of stone artifacts and tools used to process plant resources.

An innovative approach that analyses residue trapped on the surface of grinding implements

Despite the extensive research conducted in the area, much of what is known about agricultural practices and the use of plant resources, both at Çatalhöyük and in many other archaeological settlements, is based on the study of charred remains. However, these remains occur causally, either when cooking food or due to accidental fire, which gives a limited image of the use of plant resources in the past.

“We recovered residues trapped in the pits and crevices of these stone artefacts that date back to the time of being used, and then carried out studies of microbotanical remains and thus reveal what types of plants had been processed with these artifacts in the past”

The study, led by Carlos G. Santiago-Marrero, a predoctoral researcher with the Culture and Socio-Ecological Dynamics (CaSEs) research group of the UPF Department of Humanities, together with Carla Lancelotti and Marco Madella, ICREA-UPF research professors and members of CaSEs, and Christina Tsoraki, of the School of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Leicester (UK), used an innovative approach based on the analysis of microscopic remains taken from grinding implements from three domestic contexts, attributed to the Middle (6,700-6,500 BC) and Late (6,500 -6,300 BC) periods of occupation.

“We recovered residues trapped in the pits and crevices of these stone artifacts that date back to the time of being used, and then carried out studies of microbotanical remains and thus reveal what types of plants had been processed with these artifacts in the past”, the researchers explain.

Among the microscopic remains studied by the researchers are phytoliths, from the deposition of opal silica in plant cells and cell walls, that provide clues about the presence of anatomical parts, such as the stems and husks of plants, including wheat and barley. Another residue studied are starches, glucose compounds, created by plants to store energy, which are found in large quantities in many edible parts of plants, such as seeds and tubers.

Thanks to combining these two lines, the researchers have shown that although the community of Çatalhöyük was based on an agricultural economy by definition, growing cereals and vegetables (wheat, oats, peas), there continued to be much exploitation of wild resources outside the spectrum of domestic resources, which had not yet been found at this site.

Use of wild plant resources to diversify the diet, through complex processing

“Microbotanical evidence has contributed to our knowledge about the plants used in the past and helped identify the presence of wild plants and various aspects related to possible strategies to exploit these resources, both to diversify the diet and to replace any calorie deficit that may have arisen in times of scarcity”, the researchers assert. These wild plant resources were as important as domestic ones, and were most likely used regularly to supplement the core diet.

“Among our findings we have shown that the community used a wide range of tuberous plants, many of them belonging to potentially toxic taxonomic families, which require complex processing or use. This shows the great phytocultural knowledge possessed by this community”, the authors underscore. And they add: “Many of these tuberous plants had highly restrictive seasonal life cycles, which has helped us to infer the possible means of organizing and exploiting the plant environment at different times of the year”.

Moreover, another important aspect revealed by the study is the processing of wild millet seeds, which had never been found among the charred remains of plants on the site.

Use-wear traces on the surfaces of processing implements denoting various uses

The analysis of use-wear traces on the surfaces of plant processing implements, produced by use in various activities, has allowed the researchers to infer different tasks for which the tools were used.

Thanks to these analyses, they have discovered very diverse life histories of these implements and the close relationship with various aspects related to the processing of plant resources and other domestic activities. “By combining microbotanical evidence with use traces, we have discovered processes such as grain husking, the milling of legumes, tubers and cereals, and even the use of these implements in other activities not related to plant processing”.

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A) Set of stone tools, storage area of building 52; B) Use-wear trace observed on the surface of stone implements; C) Wheat inflorescence phytolith; D) Wheat starch grain. UPF

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Article Source: UNIVERSITAT POMPEU FABRA news release

*Santiago-Marrero, C., Tsoraki, C., Lancelotti, C., and Madella, M. (June 2021). “A microbotanical and microwear perspective to plant processing activities and foodways at Neolithic Çatalhöyük”. PLOS ONE

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0252312

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RUTGERS UNIVERSITY—New Brunswick, N.J. (July 9, 2021) — A massive volcanic eruption in Indonesia about 74,000 years ago likely caused severe climate disruption in many areas of the globe, but early human populations were sheltered from the worst effects, according to a Rutgers-led study.

The findings appear in the journal PNAS.

The eruption of the Toba volcano was the largest volcanic eruption in the past two million years, but its impacts on climate and human evolution have been unclear. Resolving this debate is important for understanding environmental changes during a key interval in human evolution.

“We were able to use a large number of climate model simulations to resolve what seemed like a paradox,” said lead author Benjamin Black, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. “We know this eruption happened and that past climate modeling has suggested the climate consequences could have been severe, but archaeological and paleoclimate records from Africa don’t show such a dramatic response.

“Our results suggest that we might not have been looking in the right place to see the climate response. Africa and India are relatively sheltered, whereas North America, Europe and Asia bear the brunt of the cooling,” Black said. “One intriguing aspect of this is that Neanderthals and Denisovans were living in Europe and Asia at this time, so our paper suggests evaluating the effects of the Toba eruption on those populations could merit future investigation.”

The researchers analyzed 42 global climate model simulations in which they varied magnitude of sulfur emissions, time of year of the eruption, background climate state and sulfur injection altitude to make a probabilistic assessment of the range of climate disruptions the Toba eruption may have caused. This approach let the team account for some of the unknowns related to the eruption.

“By using a probabilistic approach, we aim at understanding the likelihood that some regions were less impacted by Toba, considering the wide range of estimates of its size and timing, in addition to our lack of knowledge of the underlying climate state,” said Black.

The results suggest there was likely significant regional variation in climate impacts. The simulations predict cooling in the Northern Hemisphere of at least 4°C, with regional cooling as high as 10°C depending on the model parameters. In contrast, even under the most severe eruption conditions, cooling in the Southern Hemisphere—including regions populated by early humans — was unlikely to exceed 4°C, although regions in southern Africa and India may have seen decreases in precipitation at the highest sulfur emission level.

The results explain independent archaeological evidence suggesting the Toba eruption had modest effects on the development of hominid species in Africa. According to the authors, their ensemble simulation approach could be used to better understand other past and future explosive eruptions.

“Our results reconcile the simulated distribution of climate impacts from the eruption with paleoclimate and archaeological records,” according to the study. “This probabilistic view of climate disruption from Earth’s most recent super-eruption underscores the uneven expected distribution of societal and environmental impacts from future very large explosive eruptions.”

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The Rutgers-led researchers examined explosive ash deposits that are tens of meters thick about 35 km north of the Toba caldera in Indonesia. Steve Self, UC Berkeley

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Article Source: RUTGERS UNIVERSITY news release

The study included researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, University of Leeds and University of Cambridge, and was supported by the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the National Science Foundation.

Broadcast interviews: Rutgers University has broadcast-quality TV and radio studios available for remote live or taped interviews with Rutgers experts. For more information, contact John Cramer at john.cramer@rutgers.edu

ABOUT RUTGERS-NEW BRUNSWICK

Rutgers University-New Brunswick is where Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, began more than 250 years ago. Ranked among the world’s top 60 universities, Rutgers’s flagship is a leading public research institution and a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities. It has an internationally acclaimed faculty, 12 degree-granting schools and the Big Ten Conference’s most diverse student body.

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UNIVERSITY OF EXETER—Evidence from an ancient eggshell has revealed important new information about the extreme climate change faced by human early ancestors.

The research shows parts of the interior of South Africa that today are dry and sparsely populated, were once wetland and grassland 250,000 to 350,000 years ago, at a key time in human evolution.

Philip Kiberd and Dr Alex Pryor, from the University of Exeter, studied isotopes and the amino acid from ostrich eggshell fragments excavated at the early middle Stone Age site of Bundu Farm, in the upper Karoo region of the Northern Cape. It is one of very few archaeological sites dated to 250,000 to 350,000 in southern Africa, a time period associated with the earliest appearance of communities with the genetic signatures of Homo sapiens.

This new research supports other evidence, from fossil animal bones, that past communities in the region lived among grazing herds of wildebeest, zebra, small antelope, hippos, baboons and extinct species of Megalotragus priscus and Equus capensis, and hunted these alongside other carnivores, hyena and lions.

After this period of equitable climate and environment the eggshell evidence – and previous finds from the site – suggests after 200,000 years ago cooler and wetter climates gave way to increasing aridity. A process of changing wet and dry climates recognized as driving the turnover and evolution of species, including Homo sapiens.

The study, published in the South African Archaeological Bulletin, shows that extracting isotopic data from ostrich eggshells, which are commonly found on archaeological sites in southern Africa, is a viable option for open-air sites greater than 200,000 years old. The technique which involves grinding a small part of the eggshell, to a powder allows experts to analyze and date the shell, which in turn gives a fix on the climate and environment in the past.

Using eggshell to investigate past climates is possible as ostriches eat the freshest leaves of shrubs and grasses available in their environment, meaning eggshell composition reflects their diet. As eggs are laid in the breeding season across a short window, the information found in ostrich eggshell provides a picture of the prevailing environment and climate for a precise period in time.

Bundu Farm, where the eggshell was recovered is a remote farm 50km from the nearest small town, sitting within a dry semi-desert environment, which supports a small flock of sheep. The site was first excavated in the late 1990’s the site with material stored at the McGregor Museum, Kimberley (MMK). The study helps fill a gap in our knowledge for this part of South Africa and firmly puts the Bundu Farm site on the map.

Philip Kiberd, who led the study, said: “This part of South Africa is now extremely arid, but thousands of years ago it would have been Eden-like landscape with lakes and rivers and abundant species of flora and fauna. Our analysis of the ostrich eggshell helps us to better understand the environments in which our ancestors were evolving and provides an important context in which to interpret the behaviors and adaptations of people in the past and how this ultimately led to the evolution of our species’.

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Mandible of small antelope in calcrete. Philip Kiberd

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ostrich eggshell in calcrete. Philip Kiberd

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partial skull of small antelope. Philip Kiberd

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Article Source: UNIVERSITY OF EXETER news release

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UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE—An interdisciplinary team of researchers, led by the Universities of Cambridge and Tübingen, has gathered measurements of body and brain size for over 300 fossils from the genus Homo found across the globe. By combining this data with a reconstruction of the world’s regional climates over the last million years, they have pinpointed the specific climate experienced by each fossil when it was a living human.

The study reveals that the average body size of humans has fluctuated significantly over the last million years, with larger bodies evolving in colder regions. Larger size is thought to act as a buffer against colder temperatures: less heat is lost from a body when its mass is large relative to its surface area. The results are published today in the journal Nature Communications.

Our species, Homo sapiens, emerged around 300,000 years ago in Africa. The genus Homo has existed for much longer, and includes the Neanderthals and other extinct, related species such as Homo habilis and Homo erectus.

A defining trait of the evolution of our genus is a trend of increasing body and brain size; compared to earlier species such as Homo habilis, we are 50% heavier and our brains are three times larger. But the drivers behind such changes remain highly debated.

“Our study indicates that climate – particularly temperature – has been the main driver of changes in body size for the past million years,” said Professor Andrea Manica, a researcher in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology who led the study.

He added: “We can see from people living today that those in warmer climates tend to be smaller, and those living in colder climates tend to be bigger. We now know that the same climatic influences have been at work for the last million years.”

The researchers also looked at the effect of environmental factors on brain size in the genus Homo, but correlations were generally weak. Brain size tended to be larger when Homo was living in habitats with less vegetation, like open steppes and grasslands, but also in ecologically more stable areas. In combination with archaeological data, the results suggest that people living in these habitats hunted large animals as food – a complex task that might have driven the evolution of larger brains.

“We found that different factors determine brain size and body size – they’re not under the same evolutionary pressures. The environment has a much greater influence on our body size than our brain size,” said Dr Manuel Will at the University of Tubingen, Germany, first author of the study.

He added: “There is an indirect environmental influence on brain size in more stable and open areas: the amount of nutrients gained from the environment had to be sufficient to allow for the maintenance and growth of our large and particularly energy-demanding brains.”

This research also suggests that non-environmental factors were more important for driving larger brains than climate, prime candidates being the added cognitive challenges of increasingly complex social lives, more diverse diets, and more sophisticated technology.

The researchers say there is good evidence that human body and brain size continue to evolve. The human physique is still adapting to different temperatures, with on average larger-bodied people living in colder climates today. Brain size in our species appears to have been shrinking since the beginning of the Holocene (around 11,650 years ago). The increasing dependence on technology, such as an outsourcing of complex tasks to computers, may cause brains to shrink even more over the next few thousand years.

“It’s fun to speculate about what will happen to body and brain sizes in the future, but we should be careful not to extrapolate too much based on the last million years because so many factors can change,” said Manica.

Summary:

• The average body size of humans has fluctuated significantly over the last million years and is strongly linked to temperature.
• Colder, harsher climates drove the evolution of larger body sizes, while warmer climates led to smaller bodies.
• Brain size also changed dramatically but did not evolve in tandem with body size.

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Skulls: – Left: Amud 1, Neanderthal, 55.000 years ago, ~1750 cm³ – Middle: Cro Magnon, Homo sapiens, 32.000 years ago, ~1570 cm³ – Right: Atapuerca 5, Middle Pleistocene Homo, 430.000 years ago, ~1100 cm³ Femora: – Top: Middle Pleistocene Homo, Trinil, 540.000 years ago, ~50 kg – Bottom: Neanderthal, La Ferrassie 1, 44.000 years ago, ~90 kg  Manuel Will

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Article Source: UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE news release

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The great Step Pyramid of Djoser in Egypt is popularly touted as the first and oldest ancient monumental pyramid ever built.

But think again.

Even before the ancients raised their massive stones in place in Egypt, more than 7700 miles to the southwest, on another continent, ancient people were constructing massive monumental structures, including pyramidal edifices in what is today known as Peru. At sites like Caral, Bandurria, Aspero, Huaricanga, and Sechin Bajo, all located within the north/central coastal region of Peru, massive construction requiring organized, community effort was underway as early as 3500/36000 BCE. That’s nearly 1,000 years before the Djoser pyramid and about 500 years before the Sialk zigurrat, the oldest Mesopotamian zigurrat, located in present-day Iran.

Dr. Kimberly Munro, an Andean archaeologist, has been exploring and investigating ancient sites in Peru for over a decade. She is the director of the Cosma Archaeological Project, a long-term research project involving excavation and survey in the Andean central highlands. “For the Andean region specifically, the origins of state development has long been debated,” writes Munro in an article recently published in Popular Archaeology. “The Andes is a peculiar case study, given that unlike the other 5 “cradles of civilization” located throughout the rest of the Prehistoric world, Andean state development did not rely entirely on an agricultural revolution. Large scale public monuments are found along the coast by at least 3700 BCE, and many early centers, especially in the highlands, predate intensive agriculture.”

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Detail view of one of the pyramids of Caral, which dates back to 2800 BCE.  Kimberly Munro

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Notwithstanding these early site discoveries, she maintains, there is room to question the suggestion by many archaeologists that this early development arose first in the coastal and lower river valley regions. There may be reason to seriously consider looking eastward toward the highlands, as well, to sites like Kotosh, near the town of Huánuco in the central highlands. She also points, for example, to a site known as La Galgada, located on the Tablachaca branch of the upper Santa River Valley at 1,100 masl (meters above sea level) in Peru’s Department of Ancash region. La Galgada features massive dual mounds, temples, and a sunken circular plaza.  “Dates for La Galgada range from 3000 to 1700 BCE,” she wrote to Popular Archaeology. “However, the base of the mound and presumably earliest constructions were never reached, indicating there may be earlier structures deep within the complex.”

Munro relates what is known to date about these ancient Peruvian cities in a major feature premium article now published at Popular Archaeology. She also plans to lead groups of interested participants on special tours/treks of these ancient sites, and many more, in the future. Anyone interested in participating in this activity may send an email expressing interest to populararchaeology@gmail.com. As these activities are developed, interested potential participants will be informed of the details and provided the opportunity to register with the group. Readers can also follow Dr. Munro’s archaeology updates on Instagram: @the.field.professor. Pictured here, Dr. Munro is on location at La Galgada.

Cover Image, Top Left: View of the pyramids of Caral. Kimberly Munro

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UNIVERSITY OF GÖTTINGEN—Since the discovery of the first fossil remains in the 19th century, the image of the Neanderthal has been one of a primitive hominin. People have known for a long time that Neanderthals were able to effectively fashion tools and weapons. But could they also make ornaments, jewelry or even art? A research team led by the University of Göttingen and the Lower Saxony State Office for Heritage has analyzed a new find from the Unicorn Cave (Einhornhöhle) in the Harz Mountains. The researchers conclude that, in fact, Neanderthals, genetically the closest relative to modern humans, had remarkable cognitive abilities. The results of the study were published in Nature Ecology and Evolution.

Working with the Unicornu Fossile society, the scientists have been carrying out new excavations at the Unicorn Cave in the Harz Mountains since 2019. For the first time, they succeeded in uncovering well-preserved layers of cultural artifacts from the Neanderthal period in the cave’s ruined entrance area. Among the preserved remains from a hunt, an inconspicuous foot bone turned out to be a sensational discovery. After removing the soil sticking to the bone, an angular pattern of six notches was revealed. “We quickly realized that these were not marks made from butchering the animal but were clearly decorative,” says the excavation leader Dr Dirk Leder of the Lower Saxony State Office for Heritage. The carved notches could then be analyzed with 3D microscopy at the Department of Wood Biology and Wood Products at Göttingen University.

To make a scientific comparison, the team carried out experiments with the foot bones of today’s cattle. They showed that the bone probably had to be boiled first in order to carve the pattern into the softened bone surface with stone tools and the work would take about 1.5 hours. The small ancient foot bone that had been discovered was identified as coming from a giant deer (Megaloceros giganteus). “It is probably no coincidence that the Neanderthal chose the bone of an impressive animal with huge antlers for his or her carving,” says Professor Antje Schwalb from the Technical University of Braunschweig, who is involved in the project.

The team of Leibniz laboratory at Kiel University dated the carved bone at over 51,000 years using radiocarbon dating technology. This is the first time that anyone has successfully directly dated an object that must have been carved by Neanderthals. Until now, a few ornamental objects from the time of the last Neanderthals in France were known. However, these finds, which are about 40,000 years old, are considered by many to be copies of pendants made by anatomically modern humans because by this time they had already spread to parts of Europe. Decorative objects and small ivory sculptures have survived from cave sites of modern humans on the Swabian Alb in Baden-Württemberg and these were found at about the same time.

“The fact that the new find from the Unicorn Cave dates from so long ago shows that Neanderthals were already able to independently produce patterns on bones and probably also communicate using symbols thousands of years before the arrival of modern humans in Europe,” says project leader Professor Thomas Terberger from Göttingen University’s Department for Prehistory and Early History, and the Lower Saxony State Office for Heritage. “This means that the creative talents of the Neanderthals must have developed independently. The bone from the Unicorn Cave thus represents the oldest decorated object in Lower Saxony and one of the most important finds from the Neanderthal period in Central Europe.”

Lower Saxony’s Minister of Science Björn Thümler says: “Lower Saxony’s archaeologists are always making discoveries that rewrite the history books. Now, research in the Unicorn Cave has revealed that the Neanderthals produced elaborate designs even before the arrival of modern humans – yet another important new finding that completely revises our picture of prehistory.”

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The Einhornhöhle (Unicorn Cave), Blaue Grotto. In the Middle Ages, animal bones from the ice-age were found, which treasure hunters mistook for unicorn bones and sold as possessing medicinal properties, hence the name “Unicorn Cave”. Since the discovery of the first stone tools from the Neanderthal period in 1985, archaeo-palaeontological excavations have been carried out in and in front of the cave. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:EHH-Wiki001_C_GUfeV.JPG (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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The carved bone – a foot bone from a giant deer (Megaloceros giganteus) – found in the Unicorn Cave (inventory no. 46999448-423). V. Minkus, © NLD

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microCT scan of carved bone with marking of the notches. Marked in red are the six notches that create the angular pattern, marked in blue are accompanying notches. Graphik: A. Tröller-Reimer/D. Leder, © NLD

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Article Source: UNIVERSITY OF GÖTTINGEN news release

In addition to the University of Göttingen, the Technical University of Braunschweig and the Lower Saxony State Office for Heritage, and the universities of Kiel and Tübingen were also involved in the project. It was funded by the Lower Saxony Ministry for Science and Culture.

*Dirk Leder, Thomas Terberger et. al. “A 51,000?year?old engraved bone reveals Neanderthals” in Nature Ecology & Evolution. DOI: 10.1038/s41559?021?01487?z

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