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Springer—A unique dark-colored organic glass, found inside the skull of an individual who died in Herculaneum during the 79 CE Mount Vesuvius eruption, likely formed when they were killed by a very hot but short-lived ash cloud. The conclusion, from research published in Scientific Reports*, is based on an analysis of the physical properties of the glass, thought to comprise the fossilized brain of the individual.

Glass rarely occurs naturally due to the specific conditions required for formation. For a substance to become glass, its liquid form must cool fast enough to not crystallize when becoming solid — requiring a large temperature difference between the substance and its surroundings — and the substance must become solid at a temperature well above that of its surroundings. As a result, it is extremely difficult for an organic glass to form, as ambient temperatures are rarely low enough for water — a key component of organic matter — to solidify. The only suspected natural organic glass was identified in 2020 in Herculaneum, Italy, but it was not clear how this glass formed.

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Guido Giordano and colleagues analyzed fragments of glass sampled from inside the skull and spinal cord of a deceased individual from Herculaneum, found lying in their bed in the Collegium Augustalium. The results of the analysis — which included imaging using X-rays and electron microscopy — indicated that, for the brain to become glass, it must have been heated above at least 510 degrees Celsius before cooling rapidly.

The authors note that this could not have occurred if the individual was heated solely by the pyroclastic flows which buried Herculaneum, as the temperatures of these flows did not reach higher than 465 degrees Celsius and would have cooled slowly. The authors therefore conclude, based on modern volcanic eruption observations, that a super-heated ash cloud which dissipated quickly was the first deadly event during Vesuvius’s eruption. They theorise that such an event would have raised the individual’s temperature above 510 degrees Celsius, before it rapidly cooled to ambient temperatures as the cloud dissipated. The bones of the individual’s skull and spine likely protected the brain from complete thermal breakdown, allowing fragments to form this unique organic glass.

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Skeletal remains at Herculaneum. Andrea Schaffer, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons

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Above and below: Remains of Herculaneum, destroyed during the famous eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD.

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Article Source: Springer news release.

*Unique formation of organic glass from a human brain in the Vesuvius eruption of 79 CE, Scientific Reports, 27-Feb-2025. 10.1038/s41598-025-88894-5 

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Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology—Rainforests are a major world biome which humans are not thought to have inhabited until relatively recently. New evidence now shows that humans lived in rainforests by at least 150 thousand years ago in Africa, the home of our species.

Our species originated in Africa around 300 thousand years ago, but the ecological and environmental contexts of our evolution are still little understood. In the search for answers, rainforests have often been overlooked, generally thought of as natural barriers to human habitation. 

Now, in a new study* published in Nature, an international team of researchers challenge this view with the discovery that humans were living in rainforests within the present-day Côte d’Ivoire much earlier than previously thought. The article reveals that human groups were living in rainforests by 150 thousand years ago and argues that human evolution occurred across a variety of regions and habitats. 

The story of this discovery begins in the 1980s, when the site was first investigated by co-author Professor Yodé Guédé of l’Université Félix Houphouët-Boigny on a joint Ivorian-Soviet mission. Results from this initial study revealed a deeply stratified site containing stone tools in an area of present-day rainforest. But the age of the tools – and the ecology of the site when they were deposited there – could not be determined.

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“Several recent climate models suggested the area could have been a rainforest refuge in the past as well, even during dry periods of forest fragmentation,” explains Professor Eleanor Scerri, leader of the Human Palaeosystems research group at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology and senior author of the study. “We knew the site presented the best possible chance for us to find out how far back into the past rainforest habitation extended.”

The Human Palaeosystems team therefore mounted a mission to re-investigate the site. “With Professor Guédé’s help, we relocated the original trench and were able to re-investigate it using state of the art methods that were not available thirty to forty years ago,” says Dr. James Blinkhorn, researcher at the University of Liverpool and the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology. The renewed study took place just in time, as the site has since been destroyed by mining activity.

“Before our study, the oldest secure evidence for habitation in African rainforests was around 18 thousand years ago and the oldest evidence of rainforest habitation anywhere came from southeast Asia at about 70 thousand years ago,” explains Dr. Eslem Ben Arous, researcher at the National Centre for Human Evolution Research (CENIEH), the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology and lead author of the study. “This pushes back the oldest known evidence of humans in rainforests by more than double the previously known estimate.”

The researchers used several dating techniques, including Optically Stimulated Luminescence and Electron-Spin Resonance, to arrive at a date roughly 150 thousand years ago. 

At the same time, sediment samples were separately investigated for pollen, silicified plant remains called phytoliths, and leaf wax isotopes. Analyses indicated the region was heavily wooded, with pollen and leaf waxes typical for humid West African rainforests.  Low levels of grass pollen showed that the site wasn’t in a narrow strip of forest, but in a dense woodland. 

“This exciting discovery is the first of a long list as there are other Ivorian sites waiting to be investigated to study the human presence associated with rainforest,” says Professor Guédé joyfully. 

“Convergent evidence shows beyond doubt that ecological diversity sits at the heart of our species,” says Professor Scerri. “This reflects a complex history of population subdivision, in which different populations lived in different regions and habitat types. We now need to ask how these early human niche expansions impacted the plants and animals that shared the same niche-space with humans. In other words, how far back does human alteration of pristine natural habitats go?”

The research was funded by the Max Planck Society and the Leakey Foundation. 

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Stone tools like this one, excavated at the Anyama site, reveal that humans were present at the rainforested site roughly 150,000 years ago. Jimbob Blinkhorn, MPG

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The trench initially excavated by Professor Guédé’s team was overgrown when researchers returned for the current study. Jimbob Blinkhorn, MPG

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Article Source: Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology news release.

*Humans in Africa’s wet tropical forests 150 thousand years ago, Nature, 26-Feb-2025. 10.1038/s41586-025-08613-y 

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Five times a day, approximately one-fourth of the world’s population turns toward Mecca to bow their heads in prayer. The Kaaba at the center of this global genuflection has a cornerstone that some speculate is a meteor.

Meteoritic artifacts appear as early as the dawn of Egypt’s Early Dynastic Period, approximately 4,500 years ago. Archaeological teams in the 1920s reported that beads from the Gerzeh cemetery in northern Egypt had very high concentrations of nickel, typical of meteoritic iron. These are the earliest analyzed artifacts, and modern metal testing technologies mean that chemists can now identify and catalog the presence of meteoritic iron in archaeological collections across Eurasia. Since 2013, this has led to many discoveries reframing the prominence of extraterrestrial resources in the archaeological record, including identifying that King Tutankhamun’s dagger was crafted from a meteor.

Experts believe this opulent weapon was a gift to the boy king’s grandfather Amenhotep III around 1300 BCE, from the king of the Mitanni region, based on the Amarna tablets. This high-status gift is one of the many ways meteoritic iron was revered by ancient civilizations. One of the earliest Egyptian hieroglyphics for iron seems to be derived from a longer phrase translating to: “iron from the sky.”

This word has cosmological connotations associated with the Egyptian belief that the sky was an iron pot or tub filled with water, and bits of it fell to the Earth in the form of meteorites.

“We have evidence for the idea that the sky was a dome made of iron in a few different civilizations,” explains Victoria Almansa-Villatoro, the Egyptologist who analyzed the hieroglyphic for iron (and sky), during an interview. “If all of these civilizations had this idea and they are so spread apart, it is possible that the idea goes way back in time, maybe before writing was invented.”

Almansa-Villatoro emphasizes tracing any common meanings or beliefs linking such cultures is purely speculation. Contemporaneously to the Mitanni, it is believed the Hittites used meteoritic iron by 3,000 to 2,000 BCE as one iron dagger excavated in Alaca Höyük in modern-day Turkey was made from a meteor and dated to 2,500 BCE. Iron pendants from Umm el-Marra in Syria and an iron axe from Ugarit in Lebanon are other key examples of hammered meteoritic iron.

The process of working with meteoritic iron is much simpler than having to reduce the impurities out of terrestrial iron ore (because meteoritic iron is already a metal). All that needs to be done is hammering the material. This key difference is why meteoritic iron appears well before terrestrial iron and even before the beginning of the Bronze Age, which varies by region but is approximately from 3,000 to 1,200 BCE.

The Gerzeh beads and King Tutankhamun’s dagger were hammered cold or hot, similar to early gold and copper processing. Smelting out impurities from terrestrial iron demarcates the start of the Iron Age because Bronze Age furnaces were not hot enough for such a complex process. The dawn of this development is between 1,200 and 600 BCE depending on the region. How early metallurgists started working with iron ore is still being actively explored by experts. Even though the melting of copper is much simpler than iron production, it may have played a role in the development of iron reduction.

“Copper slags have a lot of iron oxide, and if your furnace reduces too much you will get a small amount of iron in your slag,” explains geochemist and metallurgist Albert Jambon, Sorbonne University, during an interview. “Maybe the first people were working with slags, but to go from slag to an ore, I just don’t know.”

Slag is the waste from metal processing, and it is a good and readily available source of data in the archaeological record. Jambon devised a chemical strategy for identifying meteoritic iron by studying the ratios of nickel to iron and copper in artifacts. It seems that all the iron artifacts from the Bronze Age came from outer space, but research published in 2025 identified that three of 26 iron artifacts were meteoritic. These artifacts were found in an early Iron Age cemetery of the Lusatian culture in modern-day Poland. Oddly, these artifacts were not found with any wealthy implements in what seemed like graves of “commoners,” a stark contrast to how meteoritic iron was valued during earlier historic periods.

Even though approximately 17,000 meteors weighing more than 50 grams hit Earth each year, most are made of stone. Only about 4 percent are composed of iron alloys with abnormal nickel content that people can use. These materials became a rare commodity for ancient people, who began valuing this easy-made iron above gold. Cuneiform tablets found at the Old Assyrian Colonial site of Kültepe-Kanesh in Turkey from approximately 4,000 years ago refer to a “sky metal” that cost as much as 40 times the price of silver. Silver was the most valuable common precious metal in the region at the time.

Assur, the capital of the Old Assyrian city-state, felt that the meteoritic iron needed to be taxed, which makes Jan Gerrit Dercksen of Leiden University think that it was common enough to be included in the system of trade tariffs. In Anatolia, not every merchant could afford to trade meteoritic iron, and it seems that groups of merchants combined their funds to buy this sky metal in bulk according to Dercksen.

There was a smaller source of meteoritic iron coming from the East into Assur, but it is difficult to identify where the trade originated. Jambon has struggled to identify more meteoritic iron artifacts farther East, but it has been difficult to obtain and test artifacts from Turkey. As for Iran, there are very few iron artifacts and they don’t appear well into the Iron Age.

This as well as the context in which most Bronze Age meteoritic iron was found suggests that its rarity in part made it a highly valued commodity. This changed with the Iron Age, while meteoritic iron remained rare, terrestrial iron became more common and the early Iron Age cemetery site in Poland is the only identified site where meteoritic iron was found alongside terrestrial iron. It is unclear how much meteoritic iron was used as the number of iron artifacts exploded in the archaeological record.

“There are two possibilities: either there was so little meteoritic iron [artifacts] that it looks like there was no meteoritic iron or the second possibility [is], the price of iron sank so much cheaper than copper,” explains Jambon. “People didn’t care anymore about meteoritic iron because iron was so common it was no longer fashionable.”

The Sky is Falling

There is evidence globally that meteors have carried importance across millennia, including the Western Hemisphere. Archaeologists in Arizona found the Winona meteorite inset in what was assumed to be a ritual cyst in a pre-Columbian settlement. The Clackamas tribe in Oregon have a rich oral tradition and a range of ceremonies surrounding the Willamette meteor, the largest meteor found in North America. Just like the ancient Egyptians, the Hopewell tribe made beads out of meteoritic iron brought from more than 400 miles away as well as adzes and earspools.

In the 1500s, Indigenous guides brought Spanish soldiers to a field of at least 26 impact craters 500 miles north of Buenos Aires that they called Piguem Nonraltá. The Spanish translated this to Campo del Cielo—“field of the sky.” The Spanish soldiers claimed they saw a huge slab of iron but couldn’t believe the local stories that it had fallen from the sky.

The meteor shower occurred approximately 4,500 years ago and was recorded by the local cultures as a great catastrophe. Spanish records indicate that the Indigenous tribes made weapons from the iron, but none have been preserved or identified. This field is home to some of the world’s largest meteorite fragments including the 30-ton Gancedo fragment found in 2016.

A meteorite currently in the Academy of Sciences of Munich struck Zanzibar in the middle of the 19th century only to be revered by the Wanika tribe until a Maasai cattle raid made them lose respect for it. They promptly sold it to German missionaries.

Prehistoric stone tools also developed a type of lore as good luck charms in different periods and regions due to different cultic traditions largely associated with cosmological concepts.

Tuvan reindeer herders in northern Mongolia continue to collect prehistoric stone tools for good luck and call them “sky stones.” Obsidian and flint tools of the Neolithic and Paleolithic in both classical Greek and Roman periods were called “lightning stones” because they looked like weapons and were associated with the lightning bolt weapons of Zeus. It was recorded as late as the 20th century in Italy that Neolithic flints were treated as amulets to protect against lightning and natural disasters.

It is speculated that people didn’t associate these tools or lightning stones as man-made from an earlier period. Scholar Christopher A. Faraone writes that there is “no evidence that the Greeks or Romans realized that these axe-heads were manufactured by previous stone-age cultures and indeed the inclusion of them in [natural history and geology books] confirms… that they were believed to be ‘natural’ stones which, like amber, jet or coral, had special protective powers.”

The historical depth and meaningful associations people have historically placed on meteoritic iron are more fully illustrated by the tale of a 1,000-year-old Buddha statue, made by the Bon culture in Tibet. A Nazi expedition looted the statue weighing just more than 10 kilograms between 1938 and 1939 not knowing that it was made out of meteoritic iron.

Indiana Jones wasn’t there to rescue the statue, and it disappeared for decades. The statue reappeared in the hands of a private collector, who collaborated with researchers and determined its extraterrestrial composition and landing spot on Earth. They determined it came from the Chinga meteor which landed 10,000 to 20,000 years ago in southern Siberia, likely traveling thousands of kilometers in its journey to Tibet. While the space-born Buddha is one of the most unique and intricate objects crafted from a meteor, the oldest meteoritic artifacts found east of the Levant are weapons from China’s Shang Dynasty, dating to 1,400 BCE. A knife and a pole-mounted dagger-axe called ge from 900-800 BCE were also made from meteoritic iron.

Baetyls

Meteors are part of many myths and stories around the globe, but one of the most interesting correlations between meteors and sacred sites is found in southwest Eurasia and the Mediterranean region. Baetyls are an ancient tradition of using sacred stones thought to be meteorites or based on meteorites. The etymological origin of the word translates to “house of god.”

Thought to originally refer to open-air sites of worship from the original Semitic term, depictions across cultures and civilizations, however, all show hewn stones at the center of god’s house that some speculate are meteorites. The word baetyl itself is now used to refer to these revered stones.

In Agia Eirini, Cyprus, more than 2,000 terracotta figurines were found surrounding and facing a cultic stone on an altar. This miniature terracotta army was surrounding a round-shaped small boulder that appears contextually to have been treated as a sacred baetyl.

Baetyls were known to be in the Phoenician cities of Byblos and Tyre and were adopted by Greek tradition in Delphi at the Temple of Apollo and the Needle of Aphrodite in Paphos. The origin of the baetyl at Tyre may be related to accounts from the Phoenician writer, Sanchuniathon, that the goddess Astarte found a stone fallen from the sky, which she took to Tyre to worship in a shrine.

It is even speculated that the cultic practices around meteors played a role in the founding of Rome. Rome had a sacred black stone and shrine like a baetyl called the Lapis Niger, which was believed to have been derived from preexisting cultic worship practices. According to the Roman Grammarian and teacher Marcus Verrius Flaccus, the Lapis Niger marks a spot of ill omen and was intended to be the mythical founder Romulus’s burial spot but was, in fact, not used as such.

Excavations under Giacomo Boni at the Roman Forum in 1899 uncovered what was dubbed the Lapis Niger and the tomb of Romulus. This was something of a misnomer because it is unclear whether he actually found this site or if the accounts were accurate in the first place.

The archaeological journal volume about his excavations from 1903 suggested that the polished black stone on the Lapis Niger that Flaccus saw could have been a meteorite, but the excavations from 1899 only seemed to have uncovered copies influenced by the Lapis Niger. Etruscan grave markers from a major necropolis in Cerveteri have similar black stones to that of the Lapis Niger.

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There are several textual references to sacred stones from the sky in Greco-Roman sources that experts believe are meteor fragments. The religious historian Mircea Eliade even asserted that important holy sites, including the Palladion of Troy, the Artemis of Ephesus, and the Cone of Elagabalus in Emesa, were actually based on meteorites.

There is no physical evidence supporting the origin stories of these shrines and the historical speculations surrounding them—no excavated or identified baetyl was a meteor. Other descriptions of baetyls are regularly just rock or even simply mounds of earth. The same stands true for the Egyptian Benben stone—a black pyramidal stone thought to either be on top of a pyramid or influence the pyramids in ancient Egypt.

Benben has become a generic term for the top cornerstone of a pyramid or obelisk, but it is derived from a revered one mentioned repeatedly in Egyptian texts. The original was venerated at the “Mansion of the Phoenix” within the Great Sun Temple of Heliopolis but likely predates the sun cult of Ra. It is linked to the creation story of Atum, one of the oldest Egyptian deities. The Benben is either the hill he rises out of the waters from or what he falls out of the sky on (remember the Egyptian sky being an iron tub of water). But Atum is credited with and linked to many cosmological symbols.

Just like the Black Stone of the Kaaba in Mecca, it is still not scientifically conclusive whether or not any revered stones recorded in historical documents are meteors. It is speculated there are cultic, pre-Abrahamic items of worship inside the Kaaba Similarly, any potential meteor worship in the Greco-Roman pantheons could have been derived from earlier traditions, like how Atum’s Benben predated the Sun God Ra.

Although the Black Stone, or al-Hajar al-Aswad in Arabic, makes appearances during the lifetime of Abraham and Muhammad, it supposedly fell to Earth when Adam and Eve were expelled from Eden. It landed where they were to build the first temple, and it was placed into the Kaaba by the Prophet Muhammad in 605 CE. According to tradition, the Black Stone was originally white but turned black as it absorbed the sin of the hajis who touched it at Mecca. Islamic tradition is the only source of information on the origin of al-Hajar al-Aswad.

In the oldest known epic poem from Mesopotamia, the titular protagonist Gilgamesh dreams of a meteor landing outside the ancient city of Uruk that he is unable to move. This dream has prophetic meaning for the rest of the epic, putting meteors front and center in one of the oldest pieces of literature.

Philosophers of the Greco-Roman period were some of the first known to record rocks falling from the sky. Aristotle, Plutarch, and Pliny the Elder, to name a few, were the first to record a meteor fall in Turkey around either 467 or 466 BC. Meanwhile, the community of European scientists debated the existence of meteors until the early 19th century; a meteor shower in France in 1803 ended the debate.

The uncertainty of textual references can hopefully be proved by the archaeological record. Jambon first started using his chemical analysis looking for meteoritic iron in 2010 after purchasing an XRF instrument. Despite the many obstacles in obtaining old artifacts from around Eurasia, he continues to shine a light on ancient metallurgical technologies.

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This article was produced by Human Bridges.

Image, Top Left: Tutankhamun’s dagger made from meteorite. Replica. Juhele_CZ, CC 1.0 Universal, Wikimedia Commons

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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—Researchers report genetic evidence clarifying the origin of the European Huns. The origin of the Huns, who arrived in Europe in the 370s, had previously been linked to the Xiongnu nomadic group of the Mongolian steppe. However, little historical and archaeological evidence exists to bridge the 300-year gap between the fall of the Xiongnu empire and the appearance of the Huns. Guido Alberto Gnecchi-Ruscone and colleagues analyzed archaeological evidence alongside genomic data for 370 people*. The genomic data came from people in the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE Xiongnu period in the Mongolian steppe; the 5th–6th century CE Hun period in the Carpathian Basin, including some rare burials exhibiting cultural connections to the steppe; and the intervening 2nd–5th century CE period across central Asia. The authors found high genetic diversity among people across the Eurasian steppe. The findings suggest a mixed origin of the Hun-period population, with no evidence of a large steppe descent community living in the Carpathian Basin during this period. However, some of the Hun- and post-Hun-period individuals carried genetic lineages linking them to elites of the Xiongnu empire. Although the Xiongnu are likely not the principal ancestors of the Hun-period population, some Huns were likely descended from Xiongnu, according to the authors.

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Article Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences news release.

*“Ancient genomes reveal trans-Eurasian connections between the European Huns and the Xiongnu Empire,” by Guido Alberto Gnecchi-Ruscone et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 24-Feb-2025. https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2418485122

Image, Top Left: Roman villa in Gaul sacked by the hordes of Attila the Hun. GRochegrosse, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

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University of Gothenburg—Sweden’s Viking Age population appears to have suffered from severe oral and maxillofacial disease, sinus and ear infections, osteoarthritis, and much more. This is shown in a study from the University of Gothenburg in which Viking skulls were examined using modern X-ray techniques.

About a year ago saw the publication of research based on the examination of a large number of teeth from the Viking Age population of Varnhem in the Swedish province of Västergötland. Varnhem is known for its thousands of ancient graves and excavations of well-preserved skeletons.

Now, odontologists at the University of Gothenburg have taken this research further, looking at not only teeth but also entire skulls, by using modern computed tomography, also known as CT scans.

Detailed image analysis

The results presented in British Dental Journal Open* suggest that the fifteen individuals whose skulls were examined suffered from a broad range of diseases. The CT scans show pathological bone growths in the cranium and jawbone, revealing infections and other conditions.

Several individuals showed signs of having suffered from sinus or ear infections that left traces in the adjacent bone structures. Signs of osteoarthritis and various dental diseases were also found. All the skulls came from adults who died between 20 and 60 years of age.

The study lead, Carolina Bertilsson, is an assistant researcher at the University of Gothenburg and a dentist within Sweden’s Public Dental Service. The study was performed with specialists in dental radiology at the University of Gothenburg and an archaeologist from Västergötlands museum.

Together, they conducted the examinations and analyzed the images. CT scans provide three-dimensional images that enable researchers to study in detail the various types of skeletal damage, layer by layer, in the different parts of the skull.

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Greater understanding

“There was much to look at. We found many signs of disease in these individuals. Exactly why we don’t know. While we can’t study the damage in the soft tissue because it’s no longer there, we can see the traces left in the skeletal structures,” says Carolina Bertilsson, and continues:

“The results of the study provide greater understanding of these people’s health and wellbeing. Everyone knows what it’s like to have pain somewhere, you can get quite desperate for help. But back then, they didn’t have the medical and dental care we do, or the kind of pain relief – and antibiotics – we now have. If you developed an infection, it could stick around for a long time.”

The study is described as a pilot study. One important aspect was to test CT as a method for future and more extensive studies.”Very many of today’s archaeological methods are invasive, with the need to remove bone or other tissue for analysis. This way, we can keep the remains completely intact yet still extract a great deal of information,” says Carolina Bertilsson.

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The skulls of Viking-era individuals were examined with modern computed tomography, in the search for infections, inflammations and other diseases. Photo by Carolina Bertilsson

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Computed tomography provide 3D photos and the possibility of advanced image analysis where layer by layer of bones, jaw bones and teeth are studied in detail. Photo by Carolina Bertilsson

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Article Source: University of Gothenburg news release.

*Findings from computed tomography examinations of Viking age skulls, BDJ Open, 18-Feb-2025. 10.1038/s41405-025-00309-9 

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Ateneo de Manila University—The ancient peoples of the Philippines and of Island Southeast Asia (ISEA) may have built sophisticated boats and mastered seafaring tens of thousands of years ago—millennia before Magellan, Zheng He, and even the Polynesians.

In a new paper* coming out in the April 2025 issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, Ateneo de Manila University researchers Riczar Fuentes and Alfred Pawlik challenge the widely-held contention that technological progress during the Paleolithic only emerged in Europe and Africa.

They point out that much of ISEA was never connected to mainland Asia, neither by land bridges nor by ice sheets, yet it has yielded evidence of early human habitation. Exactly how these peoples achieved such daring ocean crossings is an enduring mystery, as organic materials like wood and fiber used for boats rarely survive in the archaeological record. But archaeological sites in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Timor-Leste are now providing strong evidence that ancient seafarers had a technological sophistication comparable to much later civilizations.

Microscopic analysis of stone tools excavated at these sites, dating as far back as some 40,000 years ago, showed clear traces of plant processing—particularly the extraction of fibers necessary for making ropes, nets, and bindings essential for boatbuilding and open-sea fishing. Archaeological sites in Mindoro and Timor-Leste also yielded the remains of deep ocean fish such as tuna and sharks as well as fishing implements such as fishing hooks, gorges, and net weights. 

“The remains of large predatory pelagic fish in these sites indicate the capacity for advanced seafaring and knowledge of the seasonality and migration routes of those fish species,” the researchers said in their paper. Meanwhile, the discovery of fishing implements “indicates the need for strong and well-crafted cordage for ropes and fishing lines to catch the marine fauna.” 

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This body of evidence points to the likelihood that these ancient seafarers built sophisticated boats out of organic composite materials held together with plant-based ropes and also used the same rope technology for open-sea fishing. If so, then prehistoric migrations across ISEA were not undertaken by mere passive sea drifters on flimsy bamboo rafts but by highly skilled navigators equipped with the knowledge and technology to travel vast distances and to remote islands over deep waters.  

Several years of fieldwork in Ilin Island, Occidental Mindoro, inspired the researchers to think of this topic and to test this hypothesis. Together with naval architects from the University of Cebu, they recently started the First Long-Distance Open-Sea Watercrafts (FLOW) Project, supported by a research grant from the Ateneo de Manila University, with the aim of testing raw materials that were probably used in the past, and to design and test scaled-down seacraft models. 

The presence of such advanced maritime technology in prehistoric ISEA highlights the ingenuity of early Philippine peoples and their neighbors, whose boat-building knowledge likely made the region a center for technological innovations tens of thousands of years ago and laid the foundations for the maritime traditions that still thrive in the region today. 

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New archaeological evidence suggests that ancient inhabitants of the Philippines and Island Southeast Asia had the advanced plant-working technology needed for sophisticated boat building and open-sea fishing. Alfred Pawlik

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Evidence of plant-working technology in ancient human habitations across Island Southeast Asia suggests that the prehistoric peoples of the Philippines and their neighbors possessed both sophisticated seacraft and advanced nautical skills. Riczar Fuentes and Alfred Pawlik, CC BY-NC

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Article Source: Ateneo de Manila University news release.

*Testing the waters: Plant working and seafaring in Pleistocene Wallacea, Journal of Archaeological Science Reports, 10.1016/j.jasrep.2025.105020 

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University of Seville—Researchers from the University of Seville have led a study* that analyzed the perforated beads discovered in the Tholos de Montelirio, part of the Copper Age mega-site of Valencina de la Concepción-Castilleja de Guzmán (Seville). The conclusions of their work, published in the journal Science Advances, highlight the importance of the ceremonial clothing and its symbolism.

The garments worn by the women buried in the Montelirio tholos were made using perforated beads and probably linen fibre to bind them together. They were ceremonial garments which, in at least two cases, were full-length tunics. These robes were also ornamented with ivory and amber pendants representing acorns, birds and other, unidentifiable, items. The radiocarbon dating study reveals that these robes were manufactured at the same time as the Montelirio burials were made, between 2800 and 2700 BC.

The materials found at Montelirio constitute the largest collection of perforated beads ever documented in a single tomb. A quantification of the collection, which is currently conserved at the Archaeological Museum of Seville, has found that some 270,000 of these beads have been found to date. This makes Montelirio the largest collection of such objects discovered anywhere in the world.

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These beads, with an average diameter of between 2 and 5 millimeters, were mostly made from the shells of marine molluscs of the Pectinidae and Cardidiae families. Of these, the popular ‘scallop’ shells stand out; they are known today as the symbol of the apostle St. James and the famous pilgrimage route associated with him, but which in antiquity were the symbol of the goddess Venus/Aphrodite. The results of the experimental study show that, in total, more than 800 kilogrammes of these shells were used, which had to be collected from the coasts and beaches that 5000 years ago stretched along what is now the lower Guadalquivir Valley and its marshes.

The garments had a strongly symbolic meaning, given the marine nature of the raw material used and their intense white colour. Dressed in them, and probably ornamented (perhaps painted) with red cinnabar pigment, which is found in abundance in the same tomb, these women performed tasks of religious and probably political leadership in their time, managing a famous sanctuary around which important congregations of great social significance took place.

An extensive study carried out over the last five years – including meticulous quantification of the collection, characterisation of raw materials, radiocarbon dating and statistical chronometric modeling, morphometric analysis, phytolith analysis, experimental work and contextual analysis – has revealed several new features of these remarkable creations. The role of the garments as sumptuary attributes loaded with symbolism, used by a selected group of women of high social position, underlines the extraordinary role that the mega-site of Valencina played 5,000 years ago as a central social, political and religious place, a reference for a wide range of communities distributed throughout the Guadalquivir Valley and, more generally, the south of the Iberian Peninsula.

The work, led by researchers from the University of Seville’s Atlas Group features eighteen specialists from various national and international scientific institutions, including the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO-CSIC), the universities of La Laguna, Huelva, Granada and Basque Country (Spain), Southampton and Durham (UK) and Northwestern (USA), as well as the Municipal Museum of Valencina de la Concepción (Seville).

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Tholos de Montelirio – human remains with remains of a dress made from amber and shell beads. Murillo-Barroso M, Peñalver E, Bueno P, Barroso R, de Balbín R, Martinón-Torres M; CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

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Article Source: University of Seville news release.

*A multi-analytical study of the Montelirio beaded attires: Marine resources, sumptuary crafts, and female power in copper age Iberia, Science Advances, 29-Jan-2025. 10.1126/sciadv.adp1917 

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Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont—Neanderthals emerged around 250.000 years ago from European   populations—referred to as “pre-Neanderthals”—which inhabited the Eurasian continent between 500.000 and 250.000 years ago. It was long believed that no significant changes occurred throughout the evolution of Neanderthals, yet recent paleogenetic research based on DNA samples extracted from fossils revealed the existence of a drastic genetic diversity loss event between early Neanderthals (or ancient Neanderthals) and later ones (also referred to as “classic” Neanderthals). Technically known as a “bottleneck”, this genetic loss is frequently the consequence of a reduction in the number of individuals of a population. Paleogenetic data indicate that the decline in genetic variation took place approximately 110,000 years ago.

The presence of an earlier bottleneck event related to the origin of the Neanderthal lineage was also a widespread assumption among the scientific community. As such, all hypotheses formulated thus far were based on the idea that the earliest Neanderthals exhibited lower genetic diversity than their pre-Neanderthal ancestors, as consequence of a bottleneck event. However, the existence of a bottleneck at the origin of the Neanderthals has not been confirmed yet through paleogenetic data, mainly due to the lack of genetic sequences old enough to record the event and needed for ancient DNA studies.

In a study* led by Alessandro Urciuoli (Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) and Mercedes Conde-Valverde (Cátedra de Otoacústica Evolutiva de HM Hospitales y la Universidad de Alcalá), researchers measured the morphological diversity in the structure of the inner ear responsible for our sense of balance: the semicircular canals. It is widely accepted that results obtained from studying the morphological diversity of the semicircular canals are comparable to those obtained through DNA comparisons.

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The study focused on two exceptional collections of fossil humans: one from the Sima de los Huesos site of Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain), dated to 430,000 years old, which constitutes the largest sample of pre-Neanderthals available in the fossil record; and another from the Croatian site of Krapina, this representing the most complete collection of early Neanderthals and dated to approximately 130.000-120.000 years ago. The researchers calculated the amount of morphological diversity (i.e., disparity) of the semicircular canals of both samples, comparing them with each other and with a sample of classic Neanderthals of different ages and geographical origins.

The study’s findings reveal that the morphological diversity of the semicircular canals of classic Neanderthals is clearly lower than that of pre-Neanderthals and early Neanderthals, which aligns with previous paleogenetic results. Mercedes Conde-Valverde, co-author of the study, emphasized the importance of the analyzed sample: “By including fossils from a wide geographical and temporal range, we were able to capture a comprehensive picture of Neanderthal evolution. The reduction in diversity observed between the Krapina sample and classic Neanderthals is especially striking and clear, providing strong evidence of a bottleneck event.”

On the other hand, the results challenge the previously accepted idea that the origin of Neanderthals was associated with a significant loss of genetic diversity, prompting the need to propose new explanations for their origin. “We were surprised to find that the pre-Neanderthals from the Sima de los Huesos exhibited a level of morphological diversity similar to that of the early Neanderthals from Krapina,” commented Alessandro Urciuoli, lead author of the study. “This challenges the common assumption of a bottleneck event at the origin of the Neanderthal lineage,” the researcher stated.

Alessandro Urciuoli is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Zurich (previously employed at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona as a Margarita Salas postdoctoral fellow) and associated researcher at the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont; Mercedes Conde-Valverde is lecturer at the Universidad de Alcalá and director of the Cátedra de Otoacústica Evolutiva de HM Hospitales and the Universidad de Alcalá.

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Schematic representation of the changes in morphological diversity along the evolutionary history of the Neanderthal clade. Sima de los Huesos and, particularly, Krapina populations show similarly large amounts of morphological variation, thus suggesting continuity during the Middle Pleistocene. Later, classic Neanderthals instead appear much less diverse, hence hinting for the presence of a drop in phenotypic variation right after the temperature maximum reached around 120.000 years ago, and at the beginning of the Last Glacial cycle. Alessandro Urciuoli (Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont)

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Artwork on the schematical representation of the distribuition of morphological variation of th inner ear along time in Neanderthals. Alessandro Urciuoli (Institut Català de Paleop

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Life appearance reconstruction of a Neanderthal male at the Natural History Museum of London. (Photo: Allan Henderson under CC BY 2.0). Photo: Allan Henderson, under CC BY 2.0

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Article Source: Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont news release

*Semicircular canals shed light on bottleneck events in the evolution of the Neanderthal clade, Nature Communications, 20-Feb-2025. 10.1038/s41467-025-56155-8 

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Editor’s Note: Following is a documented interview of Ramesh Yadav, Archaeological Officer at the Directorate of Archaeology, Archives, and Museums, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India, by Popular Archaeology Magazine. Yadav relates the activities and significance of work that will reveal a remarkable past yet to be fully realized by the world’s public. 

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1. What would you consider to be the ‘hot spots’ or ‘hot sites’ for archaeological investigation and/or excavation in Madhya Pradesh, and why?

Since 1995, the Directorate of Archaeology, Archives, and Museums has been systematically conducting village-to-village surveys to identify and document archaeological heritage sites across Madhya Pradesh. As part of this initiative, teams of archaeologists visit various locations to assess and record the presence of ancient remains, often leading to the discovery of remnants of early settlements.

The selection of excavation sites is based on the findings from these surveys, including surface collections and recovered artifacts. Extensive surveys have been carried out throughout the state, with a notable concentration of significant excavation sites along the banks of the Narmada River. To date, at least 30 such sites have been excavated, offering valuable insights into the region’s historical and cultural evolution.

2. What is it about this region that stands out for archaeological investigation and archaeological visitation/ tourism in India, and/or, as compared to anywhere else?

Madhya Pradesh holds a prominent place in India’s archaeological landscape, with remains spanning from the prehistoric period to the 19th century. The region is home to significant rock paintings, some dating back to the Upper Paleolithic period, with Bhimbetka—a UNESCO World Heritage Site—being among the most renowned. Beyond Bhimbetka, extensive rock art sites are found in the Mandsaur and Neemuch districts, the Gwalior and Rewa regions, and the Satpura range.

For the Chalcolithic period, the state features several key excavation sites that provide valuable insights into early human settlements. In terms of built heritage, Madhya Pradesh is home to some of India’s most iconic historical sites, including Sanchi, Mandu, Gwalior, and Khajuraho. Additionally, sites like Sahastradhara and remains from the Mauryan period in Ujjain further enrich the region’s archaeological significance.

With its diverse and extensive archaeological wealth, Madhya Pradesh continues to be a focal point for researchers, historians, and heritage enthusiasts, offering a deep and immersive experience into India’s historical and cultural evolution.

3. Where (in terms of a site) has the most significant or most promising archaeological investigation or excavation work taken place?

Several regions in Madhya Pradesh have emerged as promising areas for archaeological investigation. The Chambal-Gwalior belt is of particular interest, with multiple sites reported to have significant excavation potential. Additionally, the corridor between Ujjain and Mandsaur, especially in the Ratlam and Ujjain districts, has been identified as an area rich in archaeological heritage, warranting further exploration. These regions continue to offer valuable insights into the historical and cultural evolution of the state.

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4. What new developments in the process of archaeological research and investigation have taken place in relation to the site(s) mentioned above?

Archaeological research in Madhya Pradesh has seen significant advancements in recent years. One of the key initiatives involves extensive explorations and village-to-village surveys to systematically identify and document archaeological sites. In addition to this, a major focus has been placed on the identification and restoration of ancient temples that date back over a thousand years. These temples, originally constructed during the reigns of the Kachchhapaghata, Pratihara, Chandela, Kalachuri, and Paramara dynasties, saw extensive development between the 9th and 13th centuries but suffered damage over time due to invasions and natural calamities.

The Directorate of Archaeology is actively engaged in the scientific excavation of these sites, with a strong emphasis on temple restoration. If a site yields over 90% of a temple’s structural remains, efforts are made to restore it to its original architectural form, making this a priority project. Additionally, the department is conducting targeted excavations at historically significant sites, where findings have the potential to reshape our understanding of the region’s history and cultural heritage. These developments mark an important step forward in preserving and uncovering Madhya Pradesh’s rich archaeological legacy.

5. What are the plans and objectives going forward in relation to the above?

One of the key objectives moving forward is to enhance public awareness and engagement with the state’s rich archaeological heritage. To achieve this, the Directorate of Archaeology is actively working on publishing books focusing on district-level archaeology. These publications aim to make archaeological knowledge more accessible to a wider audience, allowing people to discover and appreciate the historical significance of their own villages and districts.

In addition to these educational initiatives, there are plans to expand excavation projects at identified sites with significant historical potential. The department is also prioritizing the restoration and conservation of ancient structures, particularly temples and monuments that have been damaged over time. Efforts are being made to implement modern conservation techniques while maintaining the authenticity of these heritage sites.

Furthermore, the Directorate aims to leverage digital technology by digitizing archival records and excavation findings. This will facilitate research, enable remote access to historical data, and encourage academic collaborations at national and international levels.

Through these initiatives, the overarching goal is to preserve, document, and promote Madhya Pradesh’s archaeological treasures, ensuring that future generations continue to connect with and appreciate the state’s remarkable historical legacy.

6. What specific historic /cultural/ archaeological questions are you trying to answer in relation to the above research and exploration?

One of the key research objectives is to uncover and reinterpret the historical narratives of Madhya Pradesh’s ancient civilizations. A notable example is the excavation conducted near the town of Maihar, at a site known as Manora Hill. The findings from this site have provided significant insights into the history of the Vindhya region, reshaping our understanding of its past.

Through careful analysis of the unearthed remains, we have been able to establish that Manora Hill was once the capital of the Vakataka dynasty. This discovery is particularly important as it offers new evidence about the political and cultural landscape of the region during that era. Our research continues to focus on understanding the extent of Vakataka rule, their architectural advancements, and their influence on trade, administration, and society.

Additionally, ongoing studies aim to explore connections between Madhya Pradesh’s archaeological sites and other ancient civilizations, helping to answer broader questions about the historical evolution of settlements, trade networks, and artistic influences in Central India. These investigations not only add depth to academic research but also contribute to the conservation and promotion of the state’s cultural heritage for future generations.

7. What is the potential for archaeological tourism for this region?

Madhya Pradesh offers immense potential for archaeological tourism, given its rich historical and cultural heritage. The state is home to a diverse range of archaeological sites, spanning from prehistoric rock art to grand medieval temples and forts, making it an ideal destination for history enthusiasts and scholars alike.

Recognizing this potential, the Madhya Pradesh government has taken significant steps to promote and develop archaeological tourism. Visitors have the opportunity to explore these ancient sites first-hand, immersing themselves in the region’s storied past while gaining insights into India’s historical evolution.

To further enhance this experience, the state has established 44 museums dedicated to preserving and showcasing archaeological artefacts. These museums serve as vital repositories for scattered sculptures, inscriptions, and excavated relics, ensuring that valuable heritage is both protected and accessible to the public.

With ongoing conservation efforts, improved infrastructure, and increasing public awareness, Madhya Pradesh continues to position itself as a key hub for archaeological tourism, offering travellers an unparalleled glimpse into the past.

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Aparajta. 11th Cent.A.D., Hinglajgarh, Mandsaur

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Ravnanugraha, 11th Cent. A.D., Hinglajgarh, Mandsaur

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Shakti-Ganesh, 11th Cent. A.D., Mandsaur

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State Museum

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Gohad Fort Exterior

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Gohad Fort Interiors

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Dr. Ramesh Yadav -Archaeological Officer

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University of Göttingen—An international research team including the University of Göttingen has gained new insights into the burial rituals of Late Ice Age societies in Central Europe. Signs of human remains from the Maszycka Cave in southern Poland being manipulated indicate systematic dissection of the deceased, as well as cannibalism. The research was published in Scientific Reports*.

The Maszycka Cave in Poland is a significant excavation site for the late Upper Palaeolithic times. More than 100 years ago, researchers discovered human bones there among stone and bone tools alongside the remains of hunted Ice Age animals. These discoveries were associated with a late Ice Age society in France, known as the Magdalenian, that existed between 20,000 and 14,500 years ago. Excavations in the 1960s yielded more human remains, so that a total of 63 bones from ten individuals dating back 18,000 years were available for examination. This is one of the most important collections of human remains from the late Upper Palaeolithic.

Using modern methods, the team identified 36 bone fragments, which showed signs that the individuals were dissected immediately after death. Cut marks on skull fragments indicate that the muscle attachments and scalp were removed before the long bones were smashed to get to the bone marrow. First author Francesc Marginedas from the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution explains: “The position and frequency of the cut marks, as well as the targeted smashing of bones, leave no doubt that their intention was to extract nutritious components from the dead.”

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But how and why did cannibalism happen here? The Magdalenian are known for their impressive art – such as the famous cave paintings at Lascaux. “The wide range of artistic evidence points to favourable living conditions during this period. It therefore seems unlikely that cannibalism was practiced out of necessity,” says Professor Thomas Terberger from the Department of Prehistory and Early History at the University of Göttingen. Marginedas adds: “It is possible that this was an example of violent cannibalism. After the last Ice Age, there was population growth, and that may have led to conflicts over resources and territories. And there is evidence of isolated incidences of cannibalism in connection with violent conflict. Furthermore, human remains were found mixed with settlement debris in the Maszycka Cave, which indicates that the dead were not treated with respect.” The results help to improve our understanding of the cultural development and group-dynamics in the Late Ice Age society.

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The entrance to the Maszycka Cave in southern Poland. Darek Bobak

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Cut and impact marks indicating cannibalism on various human parts of the skeleton from the Maszycka Cave. Antonio Rodríguez-Hidalgo IAM (CSIC-Junta de Extremadura)

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The 18,000-year-old discoveries from the Maszycka Cave include decorated hunting tools made of bone and antler. Darek Bobak

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Article Source: University of Göttingen news release

*Francesc Marginedas et al. New insights of cultural cannibalism amongst Magdalenian groups at Maszycka Cave, Poland, Scientific Reports (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-86093-w

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Looking in awe at the tiny skull, set in still silence behind the glass of a centrally placed and carefully guarded and maintained case within the Fossil Primate and Hominid Vault at the University of the Witwatersrand’s Evolutionary Studies Institute, I felt like I was, in a sense, standing in a sacred space. Here, within this vault, scientists have stored and protected some of the world’s most pivotal and significant original fossils bearing on human origins, fossils dated back millions of years into the deep human past.  

I was in this vault as part of a small privileged group of human evolution educators and enthusiasts who were given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to view, in person, hominin fossils that made history in the story of the human quest to understand our collective, deep prehistoric ancestral human origins.

The skull of what has been penned in the popular literature as the “Taung Child” holds a special significance, even in this iconic vault, among its nearby fossil neighbors….

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The original Taung Child skull as displayed and protected within the vault.

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The Taung Child is actually a fossil skull of a young Australopithecus africanus, an extinct species of human relative that lived between about 3.3 and 2.1 million years ago in the Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene of South Africa. It was initially discovered in 1924 by quarrymen working for the Northern Lime Company in Taung, South Africa.  Raymond Dart , an Australian anatomist and anthropologist who lived between 1893 and 1988, described it as a new extinct human species in a published piece in the journal Nature in 1925.

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The Story

In the early 20th century, the workers at limestone quarries in Southern Africa routinely uncovered animal fossils from tufa formations through which they were mining by the use of explosives. These fossils, many of which represented extinct fauna, were saved by some of the miners. It was in 1924 when workers at the Buxton Limeworks, near Taung, showed a fossilized primate skull that had been recovered from these operations to Edwin Gilbert Izod, the visiting director of the Northern Lime Company. The director in turn gave it to his son, Pat Izod, who displayed it on the mantle over the fireplace. When Josephine Salmons, a friend of the Izod family, visited to Pat’s home, she noticed the primate skull and identified it as that of an extinct monkey. Realizing its potential significance and showed it to her mentor, Raymond Dart. Salmons was the first female student of Dart. 

Dart was very excited about the find and asked the Company to send more similarly curious fossil skulls they might find. A consulting geologist for the Company, Robert Young, sent some selected skulls back to Dart in a crate. Anxious to see the finds in the crate, he examined the contents and found a fossil endocast of a skull showing the impression of a complex brain. Upon further search of the crate’s contents, he was able to match the endocast to a fossil skull of a juvenile primate, which exhibited a shallow face and small teeth. 

For Dart, this was a remarkable realization. Forty days later, he completed the paper, published in the 7 February 1925 issue of Nature, announcing the discovery of a new species he designated as Australopithecus africanus, meaning “southern ape from Africa”. He described it as “an extinct race of apes intermediate between living anthropoids and man”. For him, this was a pivotal moment in the search for human origins.

The fossil was nicknamed in the popular press as the Taung Child.

Dart’s claim was initially greeted with skepticism and debate for a variety of reasons by the scholarly world, but later discoveries, analysis and developments supported his contention. Most salient were the efforts of two scientists, Robert Broom and Wilfrid Le Gros Clark. Broom, a paleontologist, visited Dart in Johannesburg to see the fossil. He also undertook excavations, and discovered more Australopithecus africanus specimens, corroborating the human-like morphology and classification of the Taung child. In 1946, Broom and colleague Gerrit Schepers published in a volume titled The South African Fossil Men: The Australopithecinae. Clark, a prominent and highly respected British anthropologist, visited Johannesburg in 1946 to study Dart’s Taung skull and Broom’s excavated adult fossils, intending to prove that they were only apes. However, after two weeks of studies and visiting the caves in which Broom had recovered his fossils, Clark became convinced that the Taung Child, and the other fossils discovered by Broom, were in fact those of hominids.

In a much later development in 2006, Lee Berger, a world-renowned South African paleoanthropologist, suggested that the Taung Child was likely killed by a large predatory bird, such as an eagle, citing clear similarities between markings on the skull and eye sockets of the Taung Child to those seen in modern primates known to have been killed by eagles. 

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Above and below: cast in three parts: endocranium, face and mandible, of a 2.1 million year old Australopithecus africanus specimen so-called Taung child, discovered in South Africa.
Collection of the University of the Witwatersrand (Evolutionary Studies Institute), Johannesburg, South Africa. Sterkfontein cave, hominid fossil. Didier Descouens, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

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The Centenary of the Taung Child Discovery

On February 7, 2025, the South African Journal of Science published a special issue commemorating the discovery and significance of this iconic fossil. This special issue, ‘The Taung Child then and now: Commemorating its centenary in a postcolonial age’, brings together a group of African researchers and international collaborators who offer their perspectives on the science, history, and legacy of palaeoanthropology in South Africa and beyond. They explore how the history of the discovery of early hominins in South Africa, as it played out in a colonial context, impacted the scientific field of palaeoanthropology, asking: Did it promote or limit scientific enquiry? What were its cultural effects, and how do they play out in our current context a century later? How might we work to decolonize palaeoanthropology and its narratives?

The goal of this special issue is to celebrate the remarkable science that the discovery of A. africanus enabled, but also to probe disciplinary legacies viewed through a critical lens that challenges us to do science better. As we enter the next century of palaeoanthropological research and discovery, the contributors call on researchers to take on board socially responsive practice, and for institutions to hold researchers to higher standards of practice.

Read the special online issue now. 

Article Information Source: South African Journal of Science news release

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University of Vienna—Where lies the origin of the Indo-European language family? Ron Pinhasi and his team in the Department of Evolutionary Anthropology at the University of Vienna contribute a new piece to this puzzle in collaboration with David Reich’s ancient DNA laboratory at Harvard University. They analyzed ancient DNA from 435 individuals from archaeological sites across Eurasia between 6.400–2.000 BCE. They found out that a newly recognized Caucasus-Lower Volga population can be connected to all Indo-European-speaking populations. The new study is published in Nature.

Indo-European languages (IE), which number over 400 and include major groups such as Germanic, Romance, Slavic, Indo-Iranian, and Celtic, are spoken by nearly half the world’s population today. Originating from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) language, historians and linguists since the 19th century have been investigating its origins and spread as there is still a knowledge gap. 

The new study* published in Nature, also involving Tom Higham and Olivia Cheronet from the University of Vienna, analyzes ancient DNA from 435 individuals from archaeological sites across Eurasia between 6400–2000 BCE. Earlier genetic studies had shown that the Yamnaya culture (3.300-2.600 BCE) of the Pontic-Caspian steppes north of the Black and Caspian Seas expanded into both Europe and Central Asia beginning about 3.100 BCE, accounting for the appearance of “steppe ancestry” in human populations across Eurasia 3.100-1.500 BCE. These migrations out of the steppes had the largest effect on European human genomes of any demographic event in the last 5.000 years and are widely regarded as the probable vector for the spread of Indo-European languages. 

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The only branch of Indo-European language (IE) that had not exhibited any steppe ancestry previously was Anatolian, including Hittite, probably the oldest branch to split away, uniquely preserving linguistic archaisms that were lost in all other IE branches. Previous studies had not found steppe ancestry among the Hittites because, the new paper argues, the Anatolian languages were descended from a language spoken by a group that had not been adequately described before, an Eneolithic population dated 4.500-3.500 BCE in the steppes between the North Caucasus Mountains and the lower Volga. When the genetics of this newly recognized Caucasus-Lower Volga (CLV) population are used as a source, at least five individuals in Anatolia dated before or during the Hittite era show CLV ancestry.

Newly recognized population with broad influence

The new study shows the Yamnaya population to have derived about 80% of its ancestry from the CLV group, which also provided at least one-tenth of the ancestry of Bronze Age central Anatolians, speakers of Hittite. “The CLV group therefore can be connected to all IE-speaking populations and is the best candidate for the population that spoke Indo-Anatolian, the ancestor of both Hittite and all later IE languages,” explains Ron Pinhasi. The results further suggest that the integration of the proto-Indo-Anatolian language, shared by both Anatolian and Indo-European peoples, reached its zenith among the CLV communities between 4.400 BC and 4.000 BC.

“The discovery of the CLV population as the missing link in the Indo-European story marks a turning point in the 200-years-old quest to reconstruct the origins of the Indo-Europeans and the routes by which these people spread across Europe and parts of Asia”, concludes Ron Pinhasi.

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Photo of Remontnoye (3766-3637 calBCE), with a spiral temple ring. Natalia Shishlina (co-author of “The Genetic Origin of the Indo-Europeans”)

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A Yamnaya grave at Tsatsa, North Caspian steppes (I6919), 2847-2499 calBCE. Natalia Shishlina

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Article Source: University of Vienna news release

*The genetic origin of Indo-Europeans, Nature, 5-Feb-2025. 10.1038/s41586-024-08531-5 

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The Hebrew University of Jerusalem—New study demonstrates that certain incised stone artefacts from the Levantine Middle Palaeolithic, specifically from Manot, Qafzeh, and Quneitra caves, were deliberately engraved with geometric patterns, indicating advanced cognitive and symbolic behaviour among early humans. In contrast, artefacts from Amud Cave, with shallow and unpatterned incisions, are consistent with functional use. This research highlights the intentionality behind the engravings, providing key insights into the development of abstract thinking and the cultural complexity of Middle Palaeolithic societies.

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A new study led by Dr. Mae Goder-Goldberger (Hebrew University and Ben Gurion University) and Dr. João Marreiros (Monrepos Archaeological Research Centre and Museum for Human Behavioural Evolution, LEIZA, and ICArEHB, University of Algarve), in collaboration with Prof. Erella Hovers (Hebrew University) and Dr. Eduardo Paixão (ICArEHB, University of Algarve), has shed new light on the behavioral complexity of Palaeolithic hominins. Published in Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, the research* explores the intentionality behind incised stone artifacts, providing compelling evidence of abstract thinking and symbolic behavior during the Middle Palaeolithic period.

Until now, the intentionality of Middle Palaeolithic incised stone artifacts was broadly accepted, although not well-supported by empirical testing. Many archaeologists viewed these marks as functional, created through tool use or natural wear. There was skepticism about the existence of abstract or symbolic thought in early hominins, with the understanding that symbolic behavior, such as art or abstract expression, emerged much later in human evolution and is specifically associated with modern humans. This study challenges that view, offering evidence of deliberate, symbolic engravings prior to global colonization by modern humans.

The study focuses on artifacts from key Levantine sites, including Manot Cave, Amud Cave, Qafzeh Cave, and the open-air site of Quneitra. Using advanced 3D surface analysis, the researchers examined the geometry and patterns of incisions to distinguish intentional engravings from functional marks. The findings reveal striking differences:

Artifacts from Manot, Qafzeh, and Quneitra feature deliberate engravings with geometric patterns that align with the surface topography, underscoring their aesthetic and symbolic intent. In contrast, incisions on artifacts from Amud Cave are shallow, unpatterned, and consistent with functional use as abraders.

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Dr. Mae Goder-Goldberger explains, “Abstract thinking is a cornerstone of human cognitive evolution. The deliberate engravings found on these artifacts highlight the capacity for symbolic expression and suggest a society with advanced conceptual abilities.”

Dr. João Marreiros added, “The methodology we employed not only highlights the intentional nature of these engravings but also provides for the first time a comparative framework for studying similar artifacts, enriching our understanding of Middle Palaeolithic societies.”

While the engraved artifacts from Qafzeh, Quneitra, and Manot are isolated initiatives within their chronological and geographic contexts, the shared traits of the incisions themselves and the similarities in pattern structuring suggest intentional, predetermined actions. These findings deepen our understanding of symbolic behavior and offer crucial insights into the cognitive and cultural development of early hominins.

This research marks a significant step toward understanding the scope of symbolic behavior of our ancestors, bridging the gap between functional tool use and abstract expression.

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The engraved cortical Levallois core of Manot. High-resolution photograph and 3D model. (photo by E. Ostrovsky and drawing by M. Smelansky, 3-D models by E. Paixao and L. Schunk.)

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Photo of Amud 1, the retouched blade, note the Incisions on the cortex. (Photo by Erella Hovers)

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Article Source: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem news release

*Incised stone artefacts from the Levantine Middle Palaeolithic and human behavioural complexity, Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 10-Jan-2025. 10.1007/s12520-024-02111-4 

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Heidelberg University—Studies of sediment cores from the sea floor and the coastal regions surrounding the Aegean Sea show that humans contaminated the environment with lead early on in antiquity. A research team led by geoscientists from Heidelberg University conducted the analyses, which revealed that human activity in the region resulted in lead contamination of the environment approximately 5,200 years ago – much earlier than previously known. Combined with the results of pollen analyses from the sediment cores, this contamination also offers insights into socioeconomic change in the Aegean, even reflecting historical events such as the conquest of Greece by the Romans.

The Aegean region gave rise to some of the earliest cultures of ancient Europe. The research team investigated when and to what extent early human activities in the region affected ecosystems both on land and in the marine environment. To this end, the team analyzed 14 sediment cores from the floor of the Aegean Sea and the surrounding coastline. One core from a peat bog offered up the earliest known evidence of environmental contamination with lead. The researchers dated this lead signal to approximately 5,200 years ago, about 1,200 years before the previously earliest known evidence of environmental contamination with the heavy metal that is traceable to human activity.

“Because lead was released during the production of silver, among other things, proof of increasing lead concentrations in the environment is, at the same time, an important indicator of socioeconomic change,” states Dr Andreas Koutsodendris, a member of the Palynology & Paleoenvironmental Dynamics research group of Prof. Dr Jörg Pross at Heidelberg University’s Institute of Earth Sciences. The sediment cores the Heidelberg scientists analyzed contained lead as well as pollen, which allowed them to reconstruct vegetation development in the Aegean region. The pollen content pointed to how the land was used. “The combined data on lead contamination and vegetation development show when the transition from agricultural to monetary societies took place and how that impacted the environment,” stresses Jörg Pross.

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Lead concentration rose significantly about 2,150 years ago, accompanied by intense deforestation and increasing agricultural use, as indicated by the composition of the pollen spectra. Starting then, lead contamination is also evident in sediment from the floor of the Aegean Sea – the earliest record worldwide of human-caused lead pollution in the ocean, emphasizes Andreas Koutsodendris. “The changes coincide with the conquest of Hellenistic Greece by the Romans, who subsequently claimed for themselves the region’s wealth of resources,” adds Heidelberg archeologist Prof. Dr Joseph Maran. The Roman conquerors thus pushed the mining of gold, silver, and other metals, with ore extraction and smelting also requiring wood.

The sediment cores from the Aegean Sea were collected during expeditions of the METEOR and AEGAEO research vessels between 2001 and 2021. The German Research Foundation (DFG) and the European Union financed the research expeditions, with the DFG also funding the most recent research work. Along with researchers from Heidelberg University, scientists from Berlin, Frankfurt (Main), Hamburg, Hohenheim, Tübingen and Greece also participated in the studies. The results were published in the journal “Communications Earth & Environment”.

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Collected during expeditions with the research vessel METEOR: sediment cores from the Aegean Sea, which as natural environmental archives provide insights into the effects of early human activity on ecosystems. Andreas Koutsodendris

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Article Source: Heidelberg University news release

*Societal changes in Ancient Greece impacted terrestrial and marine environments, Communications Earth & Environment, 30-Jan-2025. 10.1038/s43247-024-01921-7 

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Trinity College Dublin—Sheep have been intertwined with human livelihoods for over 11,000 years. As well as meat, their domestication led to humans being nourished by their protein-rich milk and clothed by warm, water-resistant fabrics made from their wool. 

Now, an international and interdisciplinary team of researchers led by geneticists from Trinity College Dublin and zooarchaeologists from LMU Munich and the Bavarian State Collections of Natural History (SNSB) has deciphered the prehistoric cultural trajectory of this species by analyzing 118 genomes recovered from archaeological bones dating across 12 millennia and stretching from Mongolia to Ireland. 

The earliest sheep-herding village in the sample, Aşıklı Höyük in central Türkiye, has genomes that seem ancestral to later populations in the wider region, confirming an origin in captures of wild mouflon over 11,000 years ago in the western part of the northern Fertile Crescent.

By 8,000 years ago, in the earliest European sheep populations, the team found evidence that farmers were deliberately selecting their flocks – in particular for the genes coding for coat color.  Along with a similar signal in goats, this is the earliest evidence for human moulding of another animal’s biology and shows that early herders, like today’s farmers, were interested in the beautiful and unusual in their animals.

Specifically, the main gene the team found evidence of selection near was one known as “KIT”, which is associated with white coat color in a range of livestock.

Also by that time, the earliest domestic sheep genomes from Europe and further east in Iran and Central Asia had diverged from each other. However, this separation did not last as people translocated sheep from eastern populations to the west.  

First, in parallel with human cultural influences spreading out from the early cities of Mesopotamia we see sheep genomes moving west within the Fertile Crescent around 7,000 years ago.

Second, the rise of pastoralist peoples in the Eurasian steppes and their westward spread some 5,000 years ago profoundly transformed ancestral European human populations and their culture. This process changed the makeup of human populations, for example, altering the ancestry of British peoples by around 90%, and introduced the Indo-European language ancestor of the tongues spoken across the continent today.

From the dataset used in this study it now seems that this massive migration was fueled by sheep herding and exploitation of lifetime products, including milk and probably cheese, as it is around the same time that sheep ancestries are also changed. Consequently, by the Bronze Age, herds had about half their ancestry from a source in the Eurasian steppe.

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Dr Kevin Daly, Ad Astra Assistant Professor at UCD School of Agriculture and Food Science and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in Trinity’s School of Genetics and Microbiology, is the first author on the research article that has just been published in leading international journal Science. He said: “One of our most striking discoveries was a major prehistoric sheep migration from the Eurasian steppes into Europe during the Bronze Age. This parallels what we know about human migrations during the same period, suggesting that when people moved, they brought their flocks with them.”

Dan Bradley, leader of the research and Professor of Population Genetics in Trinity’s School of Genetics and Microbiology, said: “This research demonstrates how the relationship between humans and sheep has evolved over millennia. From the early days of domestication through to the development of wool as a crucial textile resource, sheep have played a vital role in human cultural and economic development.”

Joris Peters, co-corresponding author, Professor of Paleoanatomy, Domestication Research and the History of Veterinary Medicine at LMU Munich and Director of the State Collection for Paleoanatomy Munich (SNSB-SPM), said: “Our study, while convincingly reconciling morphological and genomic evidence of the geographic origin of domestic sheep, clearly illustrates that further transdisciplinary research is needed to clarify the patterns of dispersal and selection of the many landraces occurring today in Eurasia and Africa.”

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Today’s descendants of the first domestic sheep of Central Anatolia. N. Pollath, SNSB.

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Vessel supported by two rams, 2600 to 2500 BCE, object number 1989.281.3, Gift of Norbert Shcimmel Trust, 1989, open access Met Museum. Gift of Norbert Shcimmel Trust, 1989, open access Met Museum.

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Article Source: Trinity College Dublin news release

*Kevin G. Daly, et al., Ancient genomics and the origin, dispersal, and development of domestic sheep, Science, 30-Jan 2025. 10.1126/science.adn2094 

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Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona—A pre-Columbian society in the Amazon developed a sophisticated agricultural engineering system that allowed them to produce maize throughout the year, according to a recent discovery by a team of researchers from the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA-UAB) and the Department of Prehistory at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, (Spain); the Universities of Exeter, Nottingham, Oxford, Reading and Southampton (UK); the University of São Paulo (Brazil) and Bolivian collaborators. This finding contradicts previous theories that dismissed the possibility of intensive monoculture agriculture in the region.

The study*, published today in the journal Nature, describes how the pre-Hispanic Casarabe society of the Llanos de Moxos in Bolivia designed and implemented an innovative landscape engineering system, including the construction of extensive drainage canals and farm ponds. This advancement allowed the transformation of flooded tropical savannahs into highly productive fields, thereby driving the development of the “Neolithic Revolution” in the Amazon, understood as the process towards an economy based on grain production.

This region, inhabited by the Casarabe people between 500 and 1400 A.D., is a tropical lowland savannah marked by intense rainy seasons and flooding, as well as very dry seasons. The discovery, led by Umberto Lombardo, an environmental archaeologist at the UAB, has identified a unique agricultural infrastructure previously undocumented anywhere else in the world.. This system enabled them to drain excess water from flooded fields during the rainy season, facilitating agricultural productivity. In addition to the drainage canals, the Casarabe people constructed clusters of farm ponds that served as water reservoirs. These ponds enabled pot-irrigation, allowing maize cultivation to continue throughout the dry season.

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This dual water management system enabled at least two harvests of maize per year, ensuring a stable food supply year-round, which was essential for sustaining a relatively large population. “This intensive agricultural strategy indicates that maize was not only cultivated but was likely the staple crop of the Casarabe culture,” explains Lombardo.

This agricultural model did not rely on traditional slash-and-burn techniques used to create fertile fields. Instead, the Casarabe people preserved nearby forests for other purposes, such as obtaining firewood and medicinal plants, while implementing practices that maximized the efficient use of water and soil in the seasonally flooded savannas.

These conclusions were made possible through meticulous fieldwork combining techniques such as microbotanical analysis, remote sensing, and environmental archaeology. The analysis of 178 phytolith (plant microfossils) and pollen samples from a farm pond confirmed the presence of maize in the fields and the crucial role of maize monoculture in the diet of this pre-Columbian society. “The data shows the absence of other types of crops,” Lombardo adds.

“We can document that this is the first grain-based agrarian economy in the Amazon, where until now it was believed that agriculture was based on agroforestry polyculture and not on large-scale monocultures. Now we know that this was not the case in Llanos de Moxos”, says Lombardo, who asserts that this innovative piece of engineering allowed for the transformation of a challenging environment into a productive system that ensured food stability and supported the development of a growing population.

The research not only sheds light on the technological capabilities of pre-Columbian civilizations but also offers valuable lessons for modern agricultural sustainability. This discovery is a testament to the ingenuity and adaptability of the Casarabe people, who thrived due to their ability to design long-term sustainable agricultural solutions in an adverse environment.

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Photo of ponds from airplane. Author Umberto Lombardo

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Article Source: Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona news release

*Maize monoculture supported pre-Columbian urbanism in southwestern Amazonia, Nature, 29-Jan-2025. 10.1038/s41586-024-08473-y 

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The Hebrew University of Jerusalem—Scholars from the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the University of Vienna and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem unveil a unique papyrus from the collections held by the Israel Antiquities Authority, offering rare insights into Roman legal proceedings and life in the Roman Near East. In a new publication* in the international scholarly journal Tyche, the research team reveals how the Roman imperial state dealt with financial crimes – specifically, tax fraud involving slaves – in the Roman provinces of Iudaea and Arabia. The new papyrus furnishes a strikingly direct view of Roman jurisdiction and legal practice, as well as important new information about a turbulent era shaken by two massive Jewish revolts against Roman rule. 

The longest Greek papyrus ever found in the Judaean Desert, comprising over 133 lines of text, has now been published for the first time. Initially misclassified as Nabataean, the papyrus remained unnoticed for decades until its rediscovery in 2014 by Prof. Hannah Cotton Paltiel, emerita of the Hebrew University. “I volunteered to organize documentary papyri in the Israel Antiquities Authority’s scrolls laboratory, and when I saw it, marked ‘Nabataean,’ I exclaimed, ‘It’s Greek to me!’” recalls Prof. Cotton Paltiel. In recognition of her discovery, the papyrus has been named P. Cotton, in line with papyrological conventions.

Recognizing the document’s extraordinary length, complex style, and potential ties to Roman legal proceedings, Prof. Cotton Paltiel assembled an international team to decipher it. The team, including Dr. Anna Dolganov of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Prof. Fritz Mitthof of the University of Vienna and Dr. Avner Ecker of Hebrew University, determined the document to be prosecutors’ notes for a trial before Roman officials on the eve of the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE), including a rapidly drafted transcript of the judicial hearing itself. The language is vibrant and direct, with one prosecutor advising another on the strength of various pieces of evidence and strategizing to anticipate objections. “This papyrus is extraordinary because it provides direct insight into trial preparations in this part of the Roman Empire,” says Dr. Dolganov. Dr. Ecker adds, “This is the best-documented Roman court case from Iudaea apart from the trial of Jesus.”

The papyrus details a gripping case involving forgery, tax evasion, and the fraudulent sale and manumission of slaves in the Roman provinces of Iudaea and Arabia, roughly corresponding to modern Israel and Jordan. The main defendants, Gadalias and Saulos, stand accused of corrupt dealings. Gadalias, the son of a notary and possibly a Roman citizen, had a criminal history involving violence, extortion, counterfeiting, and inciting rebellion. Saulos, his collaborator, orchestrated the fictitious sale and manumission of slaves without paying the requisite Roman taxes. To conceal their activities, the defendants forged documents. “Forgery and tax fraud carried severe penalties under Roman law, including hard labor or even capital punishment,” explains Dr. Dolganov.

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This criminal case unfolded between two major Jewish uprisings against Roman rule: the Jewish Diaspora revolt (115–117 CE) and the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE). Notably, the text implicates Gadalias and Saulos in rebellious activities during Emperor Hadrian’s visit to the region (129/130 CE) and names Tineius Rufus, the governor of Iudaea when the Bar Kokhba revolt began. In the wake of prior unrest, Roman authorities likely viewed the defendants with suspicion, connecting their crimes to broader conspiracies against the empire. “Whether they were indeed involved in rebellion remains an open question, but the insinuation speaks to the charged atmosphere of the time,” notes Dr. Dolganov. As Dr. Ecker points out, the nature of the crime raises questions, as “freeing slaves does not appear to be a profitable business model.” The enslaved individuals’ origins remain unclear, but the case may have involved illicit human trafficking or the Jewish biblical duty to redeem enslaved Jews.

The papyrus offers new insights into Roman law in the Greek-speaking eastern empire, referencing the governor of Iudaea’s assize tour and compulsory jury service. “This document shows that core Roman institutions documented in Egypt were also implemented throughout the empire,” notes Prof. Mitthof. The papyrus also showcases the Roman state’s ability to regulate private transactions even in remote regions. Likely originating from a hideout cave in the Judaean Desert during the Bar Kokhba revolt, its careful preservation remains a mystery, and the trial’s outcome may have been interrupted by the rebellion.

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Papyrus Cotton. (© Israel Antiquities Authority)

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Detail of the infrared image of the Papyrus Cotton. (© Israel Antiquities Authority)

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Article Source: The Hebrew University of Jerusalem news release.

*Forgery and Fiscal Fraud in Iudaea and Arabia on the Eve of the Bar Kokhba Revolt: Memorandum and Minutes of a Trial before a Roman Official (P.Cotton), Tyche, 20-Jan-2025. 10.25365/tyche-2023-38-5 
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