FIELD MUSEUM—All good things must come to an end. Whether societies are ruled by ruthless dictators or more well-meaning representatives, they fall apart in time, with different degrees of severity. In a new paper, anthropologists examined a broad, global sample of 30 pre-modern societies. They found that when “good” governments–ones that provided goods and services for their people and did not starkly concentrate wealth and power–fell apart, they broke down more intensely than collapsing despotic regimes. And the researchers found a common thread in the collapse of good governments: leaders who undermined and broke from upholding core societal principles, morals, and ideals.
“Pre-modern states were not that different from modern ones. Some pre-modern states had good governance and weren’t that different from what we see in some democratic countries today,” says Gary Feinman, the MacArthur curator of anthropology at Chicago’s Field Museum and one of the authors of a new study in Frontiers in Political Science. “The states that had good governance, although they may have been able to sustain themselves slightly longer than autocratic-run ones, tended to collapse more thoroughly, more severely.”
“We noted the potential for failure caused by an internal factor that might have been manageable if properly anticipated,” says Richard Blanton, a professor emeritus of anthropology at Purdue University and the study’s lead author. “We refer to an inexplicable failure of the principal leadership to uphold values and norms that had long guided the actions of previous leaders, followed by a subsequent loss of citizen confidence in the leadership and government and collapse.”
In their study, Blanton, Feinman, and their colleagues took an in-depth look at the governments of four societies: the Roman Empire, China’s Ming Dynasty, India’s Mughal Empire, and the Venetian Republic. These societies flourished hundreds (or in ancient Rome’s case, thousands) of years ago, and they had comparatively more equitable distributions of power and wealth than many of the other cases examined, although they looked different from what we consider “good governments” today as they did not have popular elections.
“There were basically no electoral democracies before modern times, so if you want to compare good governance in the present with good governance in the past, you can’t really measure it by the role of elections, so important in contemporary democracies. You have to come up with some other yardsticks, and the core features of the good governance concept serve as a suitable measure of that,” says Feinman. “They didn’t have elections, but they had other checks and balances on the concentration of personal power and wealth by a few individuals. They all had means to enhance social well-being, provision goods and services beyond just a narrow few, and means for commoners to express their voices.”
In societies that meet the academic definition of “good governance,” the government meets the needs of the people, in large part because the government depends on those people for the taxes and resources that keep the state afloat. “These systems depended heavily on the local population for a good chunk of their resources. Even if you don’t have elections, the government has to be at least somewhat responsive to the local population, because that’s what funds the government,” explains Feinman. “There are often checks on both the power and the economic selfishness of leaders, so they can’t hoard all the wealth.”
Societies with good governance tend to last a bit longer than autocratic governments that keep power concentrated to one person or small group. But the flip side of that coin is that when a “good” government collapses, things tend to be harder for the citizens, because they’d come to rely on the infrastructure of that government in their day-to-day life. “With good governance, you have infrastructures for communication and bureaucracies to collect taxes, sustain services, and distribute public goods. You have an economy that jointly sustains the people and funds the government,” says Feinman. “And so social networks and institutions become highly connected, economically, socially, and politically. Whereas if an autocratic regime collapses, you might see a different leader or you might see a different capital, but it doesn’t permeate all the way down into people’s lives, as such rulers generally monopolize resources and fund their regimes in ways less dependent on local production or broad-based taxation.”
The researchers also examined a common factor in the collapse of societies with good governance: leaders who abandoned the society’s founding principles and ignored their roles as moral guides for their people. “In a good governance society, a moral leader is one who upholds the core principles and ethos and creeds and values of the overall society,” says Feinman. “Most societies have some kind of social contract, whether that’s written out or not, and if you have a leader who breaks those principles, then people lose trust, diminish their willingness to pay taxes, move away, or take other steps that undercut the fiscal health of the polity.”
This pattern of amoral leaders destabilizing their societies goes way back–the paper uses the Roman Empire as an example. The Roman emperor Commodus inherited a state with economic and military instability, and he didn’t rise to the occasion; instead, he was more interested in performing as a gladiator and identifying himself with Hercules. He was eventually assassinated, and the empire descended into a period of crisis and corruption. These patterns can be seen today, as corrupt or inept leaders threaten the core principles and, hence, the stability of the places they govern. Mounting inequality, concentration of political power, evasion of taxation, hollowing out of bureaucratic institutions, diminishment of infrastructure, and declining public services are all evidenced in democratic nations today.
“What I see around me feels like what I’ve observed in studying the deep histories of other world regions, and now I’m living it in my own life,” says Feinman. “It’s sort of like Groundhog Day for archaeologists and historians.”
“Our findings provide insights that should be of value in the present, most notably that societies, even ones that are well governed, prosperous, and highly regarded by most citizens, are fragile human constructs that can fail,” says Blanton. “In the cases we address, calamity could very likely have been avoided, yet, citizens and state-builders too willingly assumed that their leadership will feel an obligation to do as expected for the benefit of society. Given the failure to anticipate, the kinds of institutional guardrails required to minimize the consequences of moral failure were inadequate.”
But, notes Feinman, learning about what led to societies collapsing in the past can help us make better choices now: “History has a chance to tell us something. That doesn’t mean it’s going to repeat exactly, but it tends to rhyme. And so that means there are lessons in these situations.”
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The ruins of the Roman Forum, once a site of a representational government. Linda Nicholas, Field Museum
CELL PRESS—Of the six or more different species of early humans, all belonging to the genus Homo, only we Homo sapiens have managed to survive. Now, a study reported* in the journal One Earth on October 15 combining climate modeling and the fossil record in search of clues to what led to all those earlier extinctions of our ancient ancestors suggests that climate change–the inability to adapt to either warming or cooling temperatures–likely played a major role in sealing their fate.
“Our findings show that despite technological innovations including the use of fire and refined stone tools, the formation of complex social networks, and–in the case of Neanderthals–even the production of glued spear points, fitted clothes, and a good amount of cultural and genetic exchange with Homo sapiens, past Homo species could not survive intense climate change,” says Pasquale Raia of Università di Napoli Federico II in Napoli, Italy. “They tried hard; they made for the warmest places in reach as the climate got cold, but at the end of the day, that wasn’t enough.”
To shed light on past extinctions of Homo species including H. habilis, H. ergaster, H. erectus, H. heidelbergensis, H. neanderthalensis, and H. sapiens, the researchers relied on a high-resolution past climate emulator, which provides temperature, rainfall, and other data over the last 5 million years. They also looked to an extensive fossil database spanning more than 2,750 archaeological records to model the evolution of Homo species’ climatic niche over time. The goal was to understand the climate preferences of those early humans and how they reacted to changes in climate.
Their studies offer robust evidence that three Homo species–H. erectus, H. heidelbergensis, and H. neanderthalensis–lost a significant portion of their climatic niche just before going extinct. They report that this reduction coincided with sharp, unfavorable changes in the global climate. In the case of Neanderthals, things were likely made even worse by competition with H. sapiens.
“We were surprised by the regularity of the effect of climate change,” Raia says. “It was crystal clear, for the extinct species and for them only, that climatic conditions were just too extreme just before extinction and only in that particular moment.”
Raia notes that there is uncertainty in paleoclimatic reconstruction, the identification of fossil remains at the level of species, and the aging of fossil sites. But, he says, the main insights “hold true under all assumptions.” The findings may serve as a kind of warning to humans today as we face unprecedented changes in the climate, Raia says.
“It is worrisome to discover that our ancestors, which were no less impressive in terms of mental power as compared to any other species on Earth, could not resist climate change,” he said. “And we found that just when our own species is sawing the branch we’re sitting on by causing climate change. I personally take this as a thunderous warning message. Climate change made Homo vulnerable and hapless in the past, and this may just be happening again.”
UNIVERSITY OF COLOGNE—Favorable climatic conditions influenced the sequence of settlement movements of Homo sapiens in the Levant on their way from Africa to Europe. In a first step, modern humans settled along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Only then did they spread out into the Sinai desert and the eastern Jordanian Rift Valley. This is the result of archaeological research conducted by Collaborative Research Centre ‘Our Way to Europe’ (CRC 806) at the universities of Cologne, Bonn, and Aachen. The article ‘Al-Ansab and the Dead Sea: mid-MIS 3 Archaeology and Environment of the Early Ahmarian Population of the Levantine Corridor’ was published in PLOS ONE.
For more than ten years, the team has been analyzing sediments, pollen, and archaeological artifacts around the site of Al-Ansab 1 near the ancient ruin-city of Petra (Jordan). The goal was to gain an understanding of the environmental conditions that prevailed at the time of human expansion. ‘Human presence consolidated in the region under favorable climate conditions’, said Professor Dr Jürgen Richter, lead author of the study.
The success story of anatomically modern humans outside of Africa began about 100,000 years ago with well-known sites such as Qafzeh and Skhul in Israel. However, these early records only reveal a brief, temporary expansion of the territory into the Levant. Permanent settlement of the region only dates back to about 43,000 years ago, scientists believe. During the epoch of the so-called ‘Early Ahmarian’, modern humans gradually had been spreading throughout the Levant – a first step on their way to Asia and Europe.
Favorable climatic conditions were preconditions for permanent human settlement. On a large scale, this is illustrated by the presence of the so-called Lake Lisan. This freshwater lake was located where the Dead Sea is today. However, it was of a much larger extent and carried greater water volume. Most of the water evaporated only with the end of the last ice age, leaving behind the hypersaline Dead Sea known today.
Even on a small scale, the scientists were able to recognize the favorable environmental conditions: geo-archaeological teams from the University of Cologne and RWTH Aachen University examined the site of Al-Ansab 1. Whereas today, the Wadi Sabra, in which the site is located, is strongly shaped by seasonal flash floods, geomorphological and archaeological investigations showed that at the time of settlement, the conditions were less erosive and continuously wet, permitting the presence of humans.
‘This enabled the spread of humans from the coastal Mediterranean area to the formerly drier regions of the Negev desert and the eastern slopes of the Jordan Rift Valley. They hunted gazelles in the open landscape – a prey we found in many sites in the region from this period’, says Richter. ‘Humans did not come by steady expansion out of Africa through the Levant and further to Europe and Asia. Rather, they first settled in a coastal strip along the Mediterranean Sea.’
The region around the site of Al-Ansab 1 therefore was a stepping stone on Homo sapiens’ way – a journey that did not take a straight path to the European continent, but was guided by complex interactions between humans and their environment.
UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH—Today, ball games are one of the most popular leisure activities in the world, an important form of mass entertainment and big business. But who invented balls, where and when? The oldest balls that are currently known about were made in Egypt about 4,500 years ago using linen. Central Americans have been playing ball games for at least 3,700 years, as evidenced through monumental ball courts made of stone and depictions of ball players. Their oldest balls were made of rubber. Until now, it was believed that ball games in Europe and Asia followed much later: In Greece about 2,500 years ago and in China about 300 years after that.
Eurasia’s oldest known balls
Researchers from the University of Zurich, together with German and Chinese researchers, have now examined in more detail three leather balls found in graves in the old Yanghai cemetery near the city of Turfan in northwest China. The balls, measuring between 7.4 and 9.2cm in diameter, have been dated at around 2,900 to 3,200 years old. “This makes these balls about five centuries older than the previously known ancient balls and depictions of ball games in Eurasia,” says first author Patrick Wertmann of the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies of the University of Zurich. “Unfortunately, however, the associated archaeological information is not sufficient to answer the question of exactly how these balls were played.”
The earliest illustrations from Greece show ball players running, and depictions from China show riders using sticks. Comparable curved sticks were also found in Yanghai, but there was no apparent direct connection with the balls. Moreover, they are dated to a more recent period. “Therefore, the leather balls from Yanghai are not connected to early forms of field hockey or polo, even though two of the balls were found in the graves of horsemen,” says Wertmann.
New era of Central Asian equestrian warfare
In one of the riders’ graves, the preserved remains of a composite bow and a pair of trousers (1) were found, which were made in the region at that time and are among the oldest in the world. Both are signs of a new era of horse riding, equestrian warfare and fundamental societal transformations which accompanied increasing environmental changes and a rising mobility in eastern Central Asia. The current study shows that balls and ball games were part of physical exercise and military training from the very beginning. In addition, just like today, sport also played a central role in society and was a widespread leisure activity. The study’s findings once again highlight that this region was a center of innovation within Eurasia several millennia ago.
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The area near the city of Turfan in northwest China. (Picture: UZH)
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The three leather balls with diameters between 7.4 and 9.2 cm are between 3200 and 2900 years old.(Picture: UZH)
Science Advances—Neanderthal babies were born with the characteristic barrel-shaped rib cage shape previously identified in adult specimens, according to an analysis of digitally reconstructed rib cages from four Neanderthal infants. The findings suggest that Neanderthals’ rib cages were already shorter and deeper than that of modern humans at birth, rather than shifting their shape later in development. While scientists have known that adult Neanderthals were heavier than modern humans, requiring significant differences in skeletal shape, there have been few studies that have compared the earliest postnatal developmental stages of Neanderthals and modern humans, due to a lack of well-preserved fossil remains of Neanderthal children. To investigate whether the shape of this hominid’s thorax changed between birth and adulthood, Daniel García-Martínez and colleagues scanned and virtually reconstructed ribcages from 4 young Neanderthals estimated to be about 1 to 2 weeks old, less than 4 months old, 1.5 years old, and 2.5 years old. The most complete Neanderthal specimen (the 1.5-year-old) also revealed the species had relatively longer mid-thoracic ribs compared to its uppermost and lowermost ribs and a spine folded inward toward the center of the body, forming a cavity on the outside of the back. The researchers compared rib cage development in these specimens with a baseline for modern human development in the first three years of life, which they derived from a forensic assessment of remains from 29 humans. The Neanderthal specimens had consistently shorter spines and deeper rib cages, regardless of their age at death. García-Martínez et al. conclude that the bulky Neanderthal ribcage may have been genetically inherited, at least in part, from early Pleistocene ancestors.
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Development of the Neanderthal ribcage, from newborns to three years old. Marcos Galeano Prados/Dr. Daniel García-Martínez
AMERICAN FRIENDS OF TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY—A new study by Tel Aviv University and the Israel Antiquities Authority indicates that a workshop for smelting copper ore once operated in the Neveh Noy neighborhood of Beer Sheva, the capital of the Negev Desert. The study, conducted over several years, began in 2017 in Beer Sheva when the workshop was first uncovered during an Israel Antiquities Authority emergency archeological excavation to safeguard threatened antiquities.
The new study also shows that the site may have made the first use in the world of a revolutionary apparatus: the furnace.
The study was conducted by Prof. Erez Ben-Yosef, Dana Ackerfeld, and Omri Yagel of the Jacob M. Alkow Department of Archeology and Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations at Tel Aviv University, in conjunction with Dr. Yael Abadi-Reiss, Talia Abulafia, and Dmitry Yegorov of the Israel Antiquities Authority and Dr. Yehudit Harlavan of the Geological Survey of Israel. The results of the study were published online on September 25, 2020, in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.
According to Ms. Abulafia, Director of the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “The excavation revealed evidence for domestic production from the Chalcolithic period, about 6,500 years ago. The surprising finds include a small workshop for smelting copper with shards of a furnace — a small installation made of tin in which copper ore was smelted — as well as a lot of copper slag.”
Although metalworking was already in evidence in the the Chalcolithic period, the tools used were still made of stone. (The word “chalcolithic” itself is a combination of the Greek words for “copper” and “stone.”) An analysis of the isotopes of ore remnants in the furnace shards show that the raw ore was brought to Neveh Noy neighborhood from Wadi Faynan, located in present-day Jordan, a distance of more than 100 kilometers from Beer Sheva.
During the Chalcolithic period, when copper was first refined, the process was made far from the mines, unlike the prevalent historical model by which furnaces were built near the mines for both practical and economic reasons. The scientists hypothesize that the reason was the preservation of the technological secret.
“It’s important to understand that the refining of copper was the high-tech of that period. There was no technology more sophisticated than that in the whole of the ancient world,” Prof. Ben-Yosef says. “Tossing lumps of ore into a fire will get you nowhere. You need certain knowledge for building special furnaces that can reach very high temperatures while maintaining low levels of oxygen.”
Prof. Ben-Yosef notes that the archeology of the land of Israel shows evidence of the Ghassulian culture. The culture was named for Tulaylât al-Ghassûl, the archeological site in Jordan where the culture was first identified. This culture, which spanned the region from the Beer Sheva Valley to present-day southern Lebanon, was unusual for its artistic achievements and ritual objects, as evidenced by the copper objects discovered at Nahal Mishmar and now on display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
According to Prof. Ben-Yosef, the people who lived in the area of the copper mines traded with members of the Ghassulian culture from Beer Sheva and sold them the ore, but they were themselves incapable of reproducing the technology. Even among the Ghassulian settlements along Wadi Beer Sheva, copper was refined by experts in special workshops. A chemical analysis of remnants indicates that every workshop had its own special “recipe” which it did not share with its competitors. It would seem that, in that period, Wadi Beer Sheva was filled with water year-round, making the location convenient for smelting copper where the furnaces and other apparatus were made of clay.
Prof. Ben-Yosef further notes that, even within Chalcolithic settlements that possessed both stone and copper implements, the secret of the gleaming metal was held by the very few members of an elite. “At the beginning of the metallurgical revolution, the secret of metalworking was kept by guilds of experts. All over the world, we see metalworkers’ quarters within Chalcolithic settlements, like the neighborhood we found in Beer Sheva.”
The study discusses the question of the extent to which this society was hierarchical or socially stratified, as society was not yet urbanized. The scientists feel that the findings from Neveh Noy strengthen the hypothesis of social stratification. Society seems to have consisted of a clearly defined elite possessing expertise and professional secrets, which preserved its power by being the exclusive source for the shiny copper. The copper objects were not made to be used, instead serving some ritual purpose and thus possessing symbolic value. The copper axe, for example, wasn’t used as an axe. It was an artistic and/or cultic object modeled along the lines of a stone axe. The copper objects were probably used in rituals while the everyday objects in use continued to be of stone.
“At the first stage of humankind’s copper production, crucibles rather than furnaces were used,” says Prof. Ben-Yosef. “This small pottery vessel, which looks like a flower pot, is made of clay. It was a type of charcoal-based mobile furnace. Here, at the Neveh Noy workshop that the Israel Antiquities Authority uncovered, we show that the technology was based on real furnaces. This provides very early evidence for the use of furnaces in metallurgy and it raises the possibility that the furnace was invented in this region.
“It’s also possible that the furnace was invented elsewhere, directly from crucible-based metallurgy, because some scientists view early furnaces as no more than large crucibles buried in the ground,” Prof. Ben-Yosef continues. “The debate will only be settled by future discoveries, but there is no doubt that ancient Beer Sheva played an important role in advancing the global metal revolution and that in the fifth millennium BCE the city was a technological powerhouse for this whole region.”
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Work on the dig in Beer Sheva. Anat Rasiuk, Israel Antiquities Authority
UNIVERSITY OF READING—Archaeologists have uncovered a warrior burial in Berkshire that could change historians’ understanding of southern Britain in the early Anglo-Saxon era.
The burial, on a hilltop site near with commanding views over the surrounding Thames valley, must be of a high-status warlord from the 6th century AD, archaeologists from the University of Reading believe.
The ‘Marlow Warlord’ was a commanding, six-foot-tall man, buried alongside an array of expensive luxuries and weapons, including a sword in a decorated scabbard, spears, bronze and glass vessels, and other personal accoutrements.
The pagan burial had remained undiscovered and undisturbed for more than 1,400 years until two metal detectorists, Sue and Mick Washington came across the site in 2018.
Sue said: “On two earlier visits I had received a large signal from this area which appeared to be deep iron and most likely not to be of interest. However, the uncertainty preyed on my mind and on my next trip I just had to investigate, and this proved to be third time lucky!”
Sue, who along with other members of the Maidenhead Search Society metal detecting club had visited the site several times previously, initially unearthed two bronze bowls. Realizing the age and significance of the find, she stopped digging and the Club, in line with best practice, registered this discovery with the Portable Antiquities Scheme. (PAS).
The PAS Finds Liaison Officer for Buckinghamshire undertook a targeted excavation to recover the very fragile bronze vessels and, in the process, recovered a pair of iron spearheads suggested that the context was likely to be an Anglo-Saxon grave.
Thanks to their actions, the bowls and spearheads were identified and conserved, and following Sue’s generous donation, are soon to go on display at Buckinghamshire Museum in Aylesbury.
Recognizing the importance of the burial and the need for more detailed archaeological investigation, a team led by the Department of Archaeology at the University of Reading carried out a full survey and excavation in August 2020. The burial was at a very shallow depth, making the excavation crucial to protect it from farming activity.
Dr Gabor Thomas, a specialist in early medieval archaeology at the University of Reading, said: “We had expected to find some kind of Anglo-Saxon burial, but what we found exceeded all our expectations and provides new insights into this stretch of the Thames in the decades after the collapse of the Roman administration in Britain.
“This the first burial of its kind found in the mid-Thames basin, which is often overlooked in favor of the Upper Thames and London. It suggests that the people living in this region may have been more important than historians previously suspected.
“This guy would have been tall and robust compared to other men at the time, and would have been an imposing figure even today. The nature of his burial and the site with views overlooking the Thames suggest he was a respected leader of a local tribe and had probably been a formidable warrior in his own right.”
The early Anglo-Saxon period was one of great change in England with significant levels of immigration from the continent and the formation of new identities and power structures in the vacuum created by the collapse of the Roman administration around 400 AD. Around a century later – the period in which the Marlow Warlord lived -England was occupied by local tribal groupings, some of which expanded into Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, such as Wessex, Mercia and Kent.
The region of the mid-Thames between London and Oxford was previously thought to be a ‘borderland’ in this region, with powerful tribal groups on each side. This new discovery suggests that the area may have hosted important groups of its own. It is likely that the area was later squeezed out or absorbed into the larger neighboring proto-kingdoms of Kent, Wessex and Mercia.
A team involving archaeologists from the University of Reading and local volunteer groups carried out a two-week excavation of the site in August 2020 with the kind permission of the supportive landowner. This activity included geophysical survey, test excavations, and a full excavation of the grave site.
Found buried with the Marlow Warlord were a sword with an exceptionally well-preserved scabbard – making it one of the best-preserved sheathed swords known from the period -made of wood and leather with decorative bronze fittings, spears, bronze and glass vessels, dress-fittings, shears and other implements.
These objects are currently being conserved by Pieta Greaves of Drakon Heritage and Conservation. Further analysis of the human remains will be carried out at the Department of Archaeology, University of Reading, to help determine the man’s age, health, diet and geographical origins.
Michael Lewis, Head of the British Museum’s Portable Antiquities Scheme, said: “This is a great example of archaeologists and metal-detectorists working together. Especially important is the fact that the finders stopped when they realized they had discovered something significant and called in archaeological assistance. By doing so they ensure much more could be learnt about this interesting burial.”
The team are now hoping to raise funds to pay for further conservation work, to allow some of the finds to go on display to the public at the Buckinghamshire Museum in 2021, when their newly refurbished permanent galleries re-open.
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The remains of the warlord. University of Reading
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Overhead drone photo of the excavation at the burial site. University of Reading
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Sue Washington, the metal detectorist who discovered the burial. James Mather
OKINAWA INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (OIST) GRADUATE UNIVERSITY—Since first appearing in late 2019, the novel virus, SARS-CoV-2, has had a range of impacts on those it infects. Some people become severely ill with COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, and require hospitalization, whereas others have mild symptoms or are even asymptomatic.
There are several factors that influence a person’s susceptibility to having a severe reaction, such as their age and the existence of other medical conditions. But one’s genetics also plays a role, and, over the last few months, research by the COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative has shown that genetic variants in one region on chromosome 3 impose a larger risk that their carriers will develop a severe form of the disease.
Now, a new study, published in Nature, has revealed that this genetic region is almost identical to that of a 50,000-year old Neanderthal from southern Europe. Further analysis has shown that, through interbreeding, the variants came over to the ancestors of modern humans about 60,000 years ago.
“It is striking that the genetic heritage from Neanderthals has such tragic consequences during the current pandemic,” said Professor Svante Pääbo, who leads the Human Evolutionary Genomics Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST).
Is severe COVID-19 written in our genes?
Chromosomes are tiny structures that are found in the nucleus of cells and carry an organism’s genetic material. They come in pairs with one chromosome in each pair inherited from each parent. Humans have 23 of these pairs. Thus, 46 chromosomes carry the entirety of our DNA – millions upon millions of base pairs. And although the vast majority are the same between people, mutations do occur, and variations persist, at the DNA level.
The research by the COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative looked at over 3,000 people including both people who were hospitalized with severe COVID-19 and people who were infected by the virus but weren’t hospitalized. It identified a region on chromosome 3 that influences whether a person infected with the virus will become severely ill and needs to be hospitalized.
The identified genetic region is very long, spanning 49.4 thousand base pairs, and the variants that impose a higher risk to severe COVID-19 are strongly linked – if a person has one of the variants then they’re very likely to have all thirteen of them. Variants like these have previously been found to come from Neanderthals or Denisovans so Professor Pääbo, in collaboration with Professor Hugo Zeberg, first author of the paper and a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and Karolinska Institutet, decided to investigate whether this was the case.
They found that a Neanderthal from southern Europe carried an almost identical genetic region whereas two Neanderthals from southern Siberia and a Denisovan did not.
Next, they questioned whether the variants had come over from Neanderthals or had been inherited by both Neanderthals and present-day people through a common ancestor.
If the variants had come from interbreeding between the two groups of people, then this would have occurred as recently as 50,000 years ago. Whereas, if the variants had come from the last common ancestor, they would have been around in modern humans for about 550,000 years. But random genetic mutations, and recombination between chromosomes, would have also occurred during this time and because the variants between the Neanderthal from southern Europe and present-day people are so similar over such a long stretch of DNA, the researchers showed that it was much more likely that they came from interbreeding.
Professor Pääbo and Professor Zeberg concluded that Neanderthals related to the one from southern Europe contributed this DNA region to present-day people around 60,000 years ago when the two groups met.
Neanderthal variants pose up to three times the risk
Professor Zeberg explained that those who carry these Neanderthal variants have up to three times the risk of requiring mechanical ventilation. “Obviously, factors such as your age and other diseases you may have also affect how severely you are affected by the virus. But among genetic factors, this is the strongest one.”
The researchers also found that there are major differences in how common these variants are in different parts of the world. In South Asia about 50% of the population carry them. However, in East Asia they’re almost absent.
It is not yet known why the Neanderthal gene region is associated with increased risk of becoming severely ill. “This is something that we and others are now investigating as quickly as possible,” said Professor Pääbo.
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These genetic variants are almost completely absent in Africa and occur in the highest frequency in Bangladesh. Professor Svante Pääbo and Professor Hugo Zeberg. This figure appeared in the publication in Nature.
TAYLOR & FRANCIS GROUP—Stunning Arnhem Land rock art images including three rare depictions of bilbies and a dugong have been described by researchers in a new paper in Australian Archaeology today (Oct 1).
Led by Professor Paul Taçon, Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and Griffith University Chair in Rock Art Research, the team documented 572 previously unknown images ranging in age from 6000 to 9400 years from 87 sites from 2008 to 2018.
Named Maliwawa Figures, they are found in northwest Arnhem Land and recorded at sites from Awunbarna (Mount Borradaile area) to the Namunidjbuk clan estate of the Wellington Range.
The Maliwawa images include large (over 50cm high, sometimes life-size) naturalistic humans and macropods with animals more often depicted than human figures. Painted in various shades of red with stroke-infill or outline forms with a few red strokes as infill, they are shown with little material culture other than various forms of headdresses.
Professor Taçon said the rock art provided a window into the past and showed us what people were doing at this time. “They’re a missing link between the well-known early-style Dynamic Figures, about 12,000 years of age, and X-ray figures made in the past 4000 years.”
“Maliwawas are depicted as solitary figures and as part of group scenes showing various activities and some may have a ceremonial context. Human figures are frequently depicted with animals, especially macropods, and these animal-human relationships appear to be central to the artists’ message,” he said.
He also said the Maliwawa Figures and scenes were not just simple depictions of everyday life.
“The artists are clearly communicating aspects of their cultural beliefs, with an emphasis on important animals and interactions between humans and other humans or animals.
“Indeed, animals are much more common than in the Dynamic Figure style rock art in terms of percentage of subject matter, as 89% of Dynamic Figures are human, whereas only about 42% of Maliwawa Figures are human.”
Professor Taçon said in some images animals almost appeared to be participating in or watching some human activity.
“This occurrence, and the frequency and variability of headdresses, suggests a ritual context for some of the production of Maliwawa rock art.
Co-author Dr Sally K. May from Griffith University’s Place, Evolution and Rock Art Heritage Unit said the discovery of what appear to be depictions of ‘bilbies’ at an Awunbarna site was surprising.
“Bilbies are associated with arid and semi-arid environments far to the south and Arnhem Land has not been within their range in historic times,” she said.
“Two of these animals are back-to-back and almost identical in size. The third bilby-like depiction appears to have been made at a different time, and perhaps by a different artist, as it is larger, has a longer snout, has more line infill, and is in a lighter shade of red.
“There is also the possibility that the depictions are of Agile Wallabies, Northern Nailtail Wallabies or Short-eared Rock-wallabies, all widespread across Kakadu-Arnhem Land today, but all of these species have much shorter ears and snouts than extant bilbies and the creatures depicted at Awunbarna.”
The researchers also recorded the oldest know depiction of a dugong.
“The solitary dugong painting also seems out of place,” Dr May said.
“Today it is located about 15 kilometers south of the Arafura Sea but 6000-9400 years ago the coast would have been further north. It indicates a Maliwawa artist visited the coast but the lack of other saltwater fauna may suggest this was not a frequent occurrence.”
At some sites there are two large macropods shown back-to-back with a small space between them. There are also some back-to-back human figures and the back-to-back ‘bilbies’.
“The Maliwawa back-to-back figures are the oldest known for western Arnhem Land and it appears this painting convention began with the Maliwawa style. It continues to the present with bark paintings and paintings on paper,” Professor Taçon said.
“But was the Maliwawa rock art sporadic and made during a short time period or did it continue over a long period of time?
He said they could not rule out the possibility that Maliwawa rock paintings were produced by a small number of artists. It is even possible only a couple artists made most of the paintings, with one responsible for the more outline forms with minimal infill and another creating much of the fuller stroke-line infill examples.
“At the same time, much art produced after the Maliwawa style demonstrates a remarkable consistency in the manner of depiction and a significant increase in the standardization of some subject matter such as X-ray fish.
“So, perhaps what we are observing is increasing standardization in the manner of depiction after the period in which Dynamic Figures were made. This has implications for rock art research everywhere in which a style or manner of depiction is suggested to have been made over hundreds of years or millennia.”
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Maliwawa macropod over 3MFC hand stencil, Namunidjbuk P. Tac¸on
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Indeterminate Maliwawa human with lines suggestive of hair all over its body, Awunbarna P. Tac¸on
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Large male Maliwawa human figures from an Awunbarna site. The largest male is 1.15 meters wide by 1.95 meters high. P. Tac¸on
Stretching from the border with Namibia to the border of Mozambique, the coastline of South Africa extends an impressive 1,770 miles. In many places, its dramatic scenic allure reminds one of the rugged, rocky coastline of northern California, drawing both local and foreign visitors throughout the year as they escape to popular resort destinations. Perhaps less known to the general public, however, are coastal locations that in recent years have yielded tantalizing clues to a modern human presence dating back as much, or even more than, 100,000 years. Here, scientists have uncovered evidence for behaviorally modern humans who lived in caves such as Blombos and Pinnacle Point, who crafted comparatively advanced stone and bone tools, created symbolic art, and exploited marine environments, requiring a level of cooperation, organization and planning unrecorded for their earlier hominin ancestors. To some scientists, these discoveries suggest the birthplace of the first behaviorally modern humans — surviving and thriving in a resource-rich southern coastal refugium during a time when other locations were not as hospitable.
Ancient Tracks
Along with ancient caves, the South African coast also features another geological formation known as aeolianite — coastal limestone consisting of carbonate sediment that has formed into coastal dunes by the wind, and then lithified (hardened into stone) with the passage of time. These geologic structures take tens of thousands of years to form, today characterizing part of the greater Pleistocene deposits that make up what is called the Bredasdorp Group, marine and marine-related formations along the coast of South Africa’s Cape Province. Within these aeolianites lie a physical record of life, like the tracks of animals that once lived and traveled along the dunes long before they solidified into their present state. It turns out these animal tracks also included those of humans, discovered first in 1964 at the site of Nahoon in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province. Found in hyporelief (natural casts of solidified impressions on the original surface) they were dated by optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) to about 124,000 years ago. More tracks identified as human, this time in epirelief (the solidified impressions in the original surface), were also discovered at Langebaan in the Western Cape Province in 1995 and dated to about 117,000 years ago. And in 2016 at Brenton-on-Sea, a series of 40 tracks in hyporelief were discovered on the ceiling and walls of a coastal cave, with an estimated date of about 90,000 years ago. A more precise date for this latter site awaits the results of OSL analysis. Without doubt, these aeolianite tracks have added a new dimension to the mounting evidence for early modern humans on the South African coastal landscape.
But new developments have expanded on this story……..
New Sites
Most recently, a team of scientists led by Charles Helm of Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, along with experts from the University of Colorado, Denver and the Council for Geoscience in Cape Town, South Africa, identified a number of additional human footprints at new coastal sites. The discoveries were actually made within the context of a larger endeavor, where the researchers documented more than 250 animal track sites across 350 kilometers, even identifying animals not previously represented in the fossil record for the area, such as giraffe, crocodiles, and sea turtles. But the most exciting track sites for enthusiasts and scholars of human prehistory were those exhibiting the human tracks.
Finding them was not easy. “Firstly, there were physical challenges, involving working in confined spaces in small caves, working on tracks on ceilings, or on high overhangs,” said Helm. “Secondly, in many cases the features that identified the tracks as hominin in origin were rather subtle, as dune sand does not always lead to great track quality. Photogrammetry proved really important. But perhaps the most important factor in our favor was obtaining Dr Martin Lockley as part of our team. He is an internationally renowned ichnologist, based in Colorado, and one of the global leaders in the interpretation of hominin tracks.”
Their resulting study report*, published September 29, 2020 in the South African Journal of Science, documented field investigations at four sites, three of which yielded data robust enough to draw some conclusions. The first set of tracks was identified as 18 natural casts on the ceiling of a sandy cave within the coastal area of Garden Route National Park. Only 10 of the 18 tracks were sufficiently well enough defined to be described in detail. The second set, foundon the coast of the Goukamma Nature Reserve, featured no less than 32 tracks. Remarkably, these tracks were manifested in two corresponding exposed surfaces, one above on a cliff face overhang with tracks in natural cast hyporelief, and one below on a fallen block featuring the same tracks, in this case exhibited in epirelief. The third site, also along the coast of the Goukamma Nature Reserve, featured some partial track impressions. This site, however, showed what the researchers cautiously interpret as possible “ammoglyphs”, or associated markings or impressions in the ancient sand that may have been deliberately made by humans, providing a possible whisper of insight into their behavior at the location. More specifically, the team observed and recorded parallel grooves next to the track impressions, as well as “a number of smaller circular impressions, all clustered around an impression of what resembled the anterior portion of a left human foot”.*In all three sites, tracks of various sizes were identified and recorded, suggesting that there was more than one track maker at each location. The varying sizes and their positioning on the ancient surface further suggested that they consisted of a mixture of adults and juveniles, particularly as the size and shape of the larger tracks all showed a common consistency. This raises the possibility of family groups, according to the report authors, providing some possible insight into the social relationships and group structure of these early modern humans. Finally, the team returned to a previously explored site known as Brenton-on-Sea, where earlier investigations yielded as many as 40 tracks in hyporelief and cross sections on the walls and ceiling of a coastal cave, the tracks securely dated with OSL to about 117 ka. In this area, along a coastal cliff exposure, seven apparent human tracks were newly identified. The description and interpretation of this track site location remains inconclusive, however, and a more detailed study has been left for future excavation or exploration.
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Map of South Africa and the Cape south coast, showing places mentioned and the locations of Site 1 — Site 4, and the extent of outcrops of the Bredasdorp Group. Text and image courtesy Helm, et al., Newly identified hominin trackways from the Cape south coast of South Africa, South African Journal of Science 2020.
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At the entrance to the small cave that contains Site 1. Image courtesy Helm, et al., Newly identified hominin trackways from the Cape south coast of South Africa, South African Journal of Science 2020.
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Photogrammetry color mesh of two tracks at Site 1, using 131 images. Image courtesy Helm, et al., Newly identified hominin trackways from the Cape south coast of South Africa, South African Journal of Science 2020.
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Photo image of a track, lightly outlined in chalk, at Site 1. Below the photo image, the same track in photogrammetry color mesh, using 59 images. Image courtesy Helm, et al., Newly identified hominin trackways from the Cape south coast of South Africa, South African Journal of Science 2020.
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(a) The figure is standing on top of the loose slab block containing the tracks in epirelief (indicated by arrow) at Site 2. He is analyzing the tracks on the opposing/corresponding hyporelief surface above him. (b) The hyporelief surface, viewed from a distance. (c) Close-up view of a track that is only seen on the epirelief surface. (d) Close-up view of a track. Text and image courtesy Helm, et al., Newly identified hominin trackways from the Cape south coast of South Africa, South African Journal of Science 2020.
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Trackway map of Site 2. Text and image courtesy Helm, et al., Newly identified hominin trackways from the Cape south coast of South Africa, South African Journal of Science 2020.
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(a) Photogrammetry color mesh of the Site 2 hyporeleif surface, using 193 images. (b) Close-up photogrammetry view of tracks A9 – A15. (c) Close-up photogrammetry view of tracks B5 and B6, indicating a likely left-right sequence. Text and image courtesy Helm, et al., Newly identified hominin trackways from the Cape south coast of South Africa, South African Journal of Science 2020.
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An Unfolding Story
Even with the publication of the report, Helm makes clear that the jury is still out on precise dating—an essential factor in interpreting the results of their research—while they await the results of testing. “Samples [from the sites described in this latest report] have been sent to the University of Leicester in the U.K., and are under the supervision of Dr Andrew Carr,” he explained. “We are reasonably confident of the approximate dates, because of other dated samples from nearby, but knowing the dates with more precision will be really important.” The sites rest in or very near to the Wilderness Embayment, where specific OSL dating of sediments have already been obtained from previous investigations. OSL results from this region yielded dates between about 148 ka to about 79 ka. Combined with the track site results from the three previous investigations at Nahoon, Langebaan, and Brenton-on-Sea, this would make South Africa arguably the region where scientists have thus far found the earliest record of Homo sapiens footprints in Africa, and possibly the world (with the possible exception of the recent Homo sapiens footprint discoveries in the Nefud Desert of Saudi Arabia).
Interpreting actual ancient human behavior at these sites, says Helm, is a somewhat trickier proposition. Referring to the finds at the third site, located in the Gaukamma Nature Reserve, Helm explains: “We have been very careful not to over-interpret in areas where we really cannot be sure. Our focus is ichnology, which includes pattern recognition. The presence of what appear to be foot impressions beside these patterns seems compelling, but we try to avoid ascribing meaning. Foraging and messaging are two possibilities, but are by no means certain. The sub-parallel grooves and the smaller [circular] depressions could have been made by a finger or a stick in the sand, but while these may be the likeliest explanations, this is speculative.”
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Above, the originally documented surface of Site 3, with a foot impression (indicated by arrow) and the surrounding groove and circular impression features. Below, the same site surface after scouring by wave action; white arrows indicate three likely partial human tracks; black arrows indicate newly exposed groove features after wave action. Text and image courtesy Helm, et al., Newly identified hominin trackways from the Cape south coast of South Africa, South African Journal of Science 2020.
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Going forward, Helm says that further field work and study will need to be done before the bigger picture of what was happening in this region can be formulated. Site 4 (the Brenton-on Sea site) “has potential as a possible hominin track site, but nothing more conclusive can be stated until further features are exposed, through either an excavation or natural forces or erosions.”* Indeed, the study authors maintain, all four sites are open to further excavation. But there are upsides and downsides to excavating, says Helm, including the risks involved in digging in and around cave ceilings and rock overhangs.
“No field season for me on the Cape south coast this year due to COVID,”, wrote Helm to Popular Archaeology when asked about the immediate future of research and exploration at the sites and any other new sites. “But our experience has taught us that we have to be nimble and have to keep looking. Many of the sites are ephemeral, and others are only free from sand cover for brief intervals. So, constant exploration by our team members is crucial.”
See much more about the fascinating evidence uncovered for the earliest behaviorally modern humans in the (now free) premium article, Where Hominins Became Human, published in the Fall 2016 issue of Popular Archaeology Magazine, and the recently re-published interview of world-renowned pioneering archaeologist Christ Henshilwood in Exploring the Roots of Modern Human Behavior.
See more about how other ancient hominin track record discoveries have shed light on our understanding of human origins and human evolution in the premium articles, Laetoli: The Unfolding Story and Footprints in the Silt, both published previously in Popular Archaeology Magazine.
UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE, LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Modern humans arrived in the westernmost part of Europe 41,000 – 38,000 years ago, about 5,000 years earlier than previously known, according to Jonathan Haws, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Louisville, and an international team of researchers. The team has revealed the discovery of stone tools used by modern humans dated to the earlier time period in a report published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The tools, discovered in a cave named Lapa do Picareiro, located near the Atlantic coast of central Portugal, link the site with similar finds from across Eurasia to the Russian plain. The discovery supports a rapid westward dispersal of modern humans across Eurasia within a few thousand years of their first appearance in southeastern Europe. The tools document the presence of modern humans in westernmost Europe at a time when Neanderthals previously were thought to be present in the region. The finding has important ramifications for understanding the possible interaction between the two human groups and the ultimate disappearance of the Neanderthals.
“The question whether the last surviving Neanderthals in Europe have been replaced or assimilated by incoming modern humans is a long-standing, unsolved issue in paleoanthropology,” said Lukas Friedl, an anthropologist at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, Czech Republic, and project co-leader. “The early dates for Aurignacian stone tools at Picareiro likely rule out the possibility that modern humans arrived into the land long devoid of Neanderthals, and that by itself is exciting.”
Until now, the oldest evidence for modern humans south of the Ebro River in Spain came from Bajondillo, a cave site on the southern coast. The discovery of stone stools characterized as Aurignacian, technology associated with early modern humans in Europe, in a secure stratigraphic context at Picareiro provide definitive evidence of early modern human arrival.
“Bajondillo offered tantalizing but controversial evidence that modern humans were in the area earlier than we thought,” Haws said. “The evidence in our report definitely supports the Bajondillo implications for an early modern human arrival, but it’s still not clear how they got here. People likely migrated along east-west flowing rivers in the interior, but a coastal route is still possible.”
“The spread of anatomically modern humans across Europe many thousands of years ago is central to our understanding of where we came from as a now-global species,” said John Yellen, program director for archaeology and archaeometry at the National Science Foundation, which supported the work. “This discovery offers significant new evidence that will help shape future research investigating when and where anatomically modern humans arrived in Europe and what interactions they may have had with Neanderthals.”
The Picareiro cave has been under excavation for 25 years and has produced a record of human occupation over the last 50,000 years. An international research team from the Interdisciplinary Center for Archaeology and Evolution of Human Behavior (ICArEHB) in Faro, Portugal, is investigating the arrival of modern humans and extinction of Neanderthals in the region.
The project is led by Haws, Michael Benedetti of the University of North Carolina Wilmington, and Friedl, in collaboration with Nuno Bicho and João Cascalheira of the University of Algarve, where ICArEHB is housed, and Telmo Pereira of the Autonomous University of Lisbon.
With support from U.S. National Science Foundation grants to Haws and Benedetti, the team has uncovered rich archaeological deposits that include stone tools in association with thousands of animal bones from hunting, butchery and cooking activities.
Sahra Talamo of the University of Bologna, Italy, and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, joined the research team to determine the age of the early modern human and Neanderthal occupations. She used state-of-the-art bone pretreatment and accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) to date the bones that show evidence of butchery cut marks and intentional breakage by humans to extract bone marrow, a highly prized and nutritious food consumed by ancient people. The dating results place the modern human arrival to the interval between 41,000 and 38,000 years ago. The last Neanderthal occupation at the site took place between 45,000 and 42,000 years ago.
“The radiocarbon results from Lapa do Picareiro are not only very precise in terms of the dating method, but also demonstrate the meticulous work of the archeologists at the site,” Talamo said. “The importance of collaboration between the radiocarbon specialist and the archaeologists is essential in order to obtain an accurate chronology like in the case of Picareiro.”
Spatial analysis of high-resolution three-dimensional data confirmed the precise stratigraphic relationships between artifacts and radiocarbon samples and revealed discrete layers of occupation at the site.
“Analysis of high-resolution spatial data is crucial for documenting and observing lenses of human occupation and reconstructing occupational patterns, especially in cave environments where complex formation processes exist,” said Grace Ellis, a Ph.D. student at Colorado State University studying landscape archaeology and ancient settlement patterns.
This was backed up by artifact refitting that showed the stone tools were not moved through post-depositional processes.
“Refitting is a task that requires a lot of time and patience, and in this case, it really was worthwhile because the results verified the geospatial observations,” said Pereira, an archaeologist who specializes in stone technology.
While the dates suggest that modern humans arrived after Neanderthals disappeared, a nearby cave, Oliveira, has evidence for Neanderthals’ survival until 37,000 years ago. The two groups may have overlapped for several thousand years in the area.
“If the two groups overlapped for some time in the highlands of Atlantic Portugal, they may have maintained contacts between each other and exchanged not only technology and tools, but also mates. This could possibly explain why many Europeans have Neanderthal genes,” said Bicho, director of ICArEHB.
“Besides genetic and archeological evidence, high-resolution temporal context and fossil evidence across the continent is crucial for answering this question. With the preserved key layers dated to the transitional period, we are now awaiting human fossils to tell us more about the nature of the transition,” Friedl said.
Despite the overlap in dates, there does not appear to be any evidence for direct contact between Neanderthals and modern humans. Neanderthals continued to use the same stone tools they had before modern humans arrived, bringing a completely different stone technology.
“Differences between the stone tool assemblages dated before and after about 41,000 years ago are striking at Picareiro,” said Cascalheira, an ICArEHB board member and specialist on stone tool technology. “Older levels are dominated by quartzite and quartz raw materials and marked by the presence of Levallois technology, a typical element of Neanderthal occupations in Europe. Aurignacian levels, on the other hand, are dominated by flint and the production of very small blades that were likely used as inserts in arrow shafts for hunting.”
Flint also was used to make tools for butchering animals such as red deer, ibex and possibly rabbits. The team recovered a few red deer canine teeth, often used as personal adornments, but so far these do not show traces of manufacturing jewelry.
“The bones from Lapa do Picareiro make up one of the largest Paleolithic assemblages in Portugal, and the preservation of these animal bones is remarkable,” said Milena Carvalho, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of New Mexico and ICArEHB researcher studying the diets and paleoecology of Neanderthals and modern humans. “The collection will provide tremendous amounts of information on human behavior and paleoecology during the Paleolithic and we will be studying it for decades.”
The cave sediments also contain a well-preserved paleoclimatic record that helps reconstruct environmental conditions at the time of the last Neanderthals and arrival of modern humans.
“We studied changes in the size of limestone clasts and the chemistry of muddy fine sediment filling the cave to understand the paleoclimatic context for the transition,” Benedetti said. “Our analysis shows that the arrival of modern humans corresponds with, or slightly predates, a bitterly cold and extremely dry phase. Harsh environmental conditions during this period posed challenges that both modern human and Neanderthal populations had to contend with.”
The cave itself has an enormous amount of sediment remaining for future work and the excavation still hasn’t reached the bottom.
“I’ve been excavating at Picareiro for 25 years and just when you start to think it might be done giving up its secrets, a new surprise gets unearthed,” Haws said. “Every few years something remarkable turns up and we keep digging.”
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View of the excavation of the early modern human (foreground) and Neanderthal layers (background) of Lapa do Picareiro. Jonathan Haws
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Tools discovered in Lapa do Picareiro in central Portugal. Jonathan Haws.
Decades of research and discovery have generated new revelations and theories about the ascent of our species, Homo sapiens, within the context of biological evolution. Consensus to date suggests that human origins took place in Africa, as evidenced through the archaeological and paleontological record, including new discoveries in human genetics. But the ongoing search for the detailed specifics of human origins has raised, as scientific inquiry often does, more questions than answers. Among the mysteries of the ongoing search are the questions revolving around where, when, and how anatomically modern humans became humans capable of the advanced cognition and behavior necessary for the foundation of modern culture and civilization. Recent years have seen some remarkable new discoveries being made in South Africa that are shedding light on these questions.
Popular Archaeology interviewed Dr. Christopher Henshilwood, Professor of Middle and Later Stone Age African Archaeology at the University of Bergen. He is also a key member of the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of Witwatersrand, and he is arguably the world’s leading researcher and authority on the emergence of modern human behavior and cognition, especially as it is reflected in the archaeological record. Geographically, his work has focused primarily on certain sites along the coast of South Africa that have revealed some intriguing clues in recent years bearing on the search for modern human origins. What follows is his response to a series of questions posed to him about the latest discoveries:
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What, from your perspective, is the significance of the research you have been conducting as it relates to behaviorally modern humans? And how do you define ‘behaviorally modern’?
Not long ago, most people didn’t think that humans living around 100,000 years ago had enhanced cognitive abilities – abilities that allowed for complex behaviors, such as long-range planning, the use of symbols and complex language. It was thought that human culture, often implied by art, such as jewelry and engraved designs, suddenly appeared during the Upper Palaeolithic in Europe 40,000–50,000 years ago.
Evidence of symbolic thought (the transmission of coded information) and long range planning mark milestones in the evolution of Homo sapiens. The creation of paint, collection and manipulation of unique raw materials, and physical ornamentation are just some evidence that humans living ~100,000 years ago could conceptualize, create and store items for future use. It is these kinds of actions that are unique to modern humans and indicate that they were behaviorally modern, had enhanced cognitive abilities and social conventions and identities similar to humans living today.
My research into the MSA (Middle Stone Age), along with the finds of many other MSA researchers, has produced crucial evidence that modern human behavior originated in southern Africa; the origins were not in Europe.
What have been your research objectives related to this topic?
My research focus has been the MSA along the southern Cape coast of South Africa. My research has looked at the early behavioral evolution of Homo sapiens, the origins of language and symbolic behavior, and the effects of climate and climate change on human demographics.
What have been the important sites for your field work, and why?
My fieldwork has been focused on two sites along the southern Cape coast of South Africa – Blombos Cave and Klipdrift Complex. We have excavated at Blombos Cave from 1992. The results of these excavations and our discoveries at the site are published in numerous papers and books, and analysis of the remarkable material culture is ongoing. The MSA levels at Blombos Cave are dated to between 130,000 – 72,000 years ago (dated using optically stimulated luminescence, OSL) and the lithic component at the site relates to Still Bay and pre-Still Bay techno-complexes.
The other site is Klipdrift Shelter. This is part of the Klipdrift Complex, which is located in the De Hoop Nature Reserve. The MSA levels at Klipdrift Shelter are dated to 66,000 – 52,000 years ago (dated using OSL), and the lithic component relates to the Howiesons Poort techno-complex. We have made some remarkable discoveries at this site and are still excavating. We have also started excavating in another cave in the complex called Klipdrift Cave Lower, which also contains MSA deposits.
Both of these sites have significant and long MSA sequences. The artifacts and the material culture from these sites provide valuable insight into our knowledge of complex behaviors of early Homo sapiens in southern Africa.
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The relative locations of Klipdrift Shelter and Blombos Cave on the southern coast of Africa. Courtesy Chris Henshilwood and the University of the Witwatersrand
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Exterior view of the Blombos Cave. Courtesy Chris Henshilwood and the University of the Witwatersrand
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Interior panorama of the Blombos Cave. Image credit: Magnus Haaland
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What has been your research/investigative strategy related to the work at these sites and your scientific inquiry generally?
I conduct high precision excavations using a range of scientific research methods, such as 3D site plotting, chemical analyses and micromorphology, with all details methodically recorded as we excavate. My research has brought together an inter-disciplinary team of international experts to identify and interpret the various aspects of the sites and artifacts. We then link observations from the different fields and synthesize these with new discoveries, and present these in a global perspective.
In conjunction with rigorous scientific methods, I aim to educate and inspire people – researchers and the general public – about our southern African roots and the prehistory of humanity. The discoveries we have made have changed the way we view our ancestors.
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Henshilwood at work within Blombos Cave. Image credit: Magnus Haaland
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What have been the salient finds related to the discoveries you are making bearing on origins of behaviorally modern humans, and why are these finds significant or important?
Blombos Cave and Klipdrift Shelter have yielded an enormous wealth of artifacts that have contributed to our understanding of early [modern] humans and how they evolved. Some of the salient finds are:
Engravedochre. Ochre is a form of iron ore and ochre pieces are found at most MSA sites, and are found at Blombos Cave in huge quantities. Many of them were scraped and ground to make flat surfaces and used to create red powder. As early as 100,000 years ago, some of these ground surfaces were then marked with cross-hatches and lines to create complex geometric patterns. It is likely that the designs were made with symbolic intent, but the meaning of these symbols is unknown.
Engraved ostrich eggshell. We have identified 111 engraved ostrich eggshell fragments from Klipdrift Shelter from layers dating to 65,000 – 59,000 years ago. The designs entail variations of cross-hatched and parallel lines. Diepkloof Shelter, on the western Cape coast, is the only other MSA site in South Africa that has engraved ostrich eggshell, and just 2 pieces were found in the MSA at Apollo 11(site) in Namibia.
Shell beads. At Blombos, hundreds of Nassarius kraussianus (sea snail or marine tick) shell beads were discovered in sediments dated to 75,000 years ago. All of these shells have holes in them that were made with bone tools, and, based on wear patterns, the shells were then strung together as necklaces or bracelets. The shell beads are among the earliest examples of symbolic objects in the archaeological record. They mark an important step in the emergence of modern social behavior in early humans. Symbols allowed for the transferal of individual and group cultural values, so once symbols were adopted, communication could develop rapidly.
Ochre-processingtoolkits. One of the most remarkable finds we have made at Blombos Cave is an ochre-processing ‘toolkit’, discovered in 100,000-year-old layers. The composite toolkits consist of two Haliotis midae (abalone) shells containing an ochre-rich compound mixture, grindstones, hammerstones, seal bone and charcoal. The toolkits stored an ochre-rich paint mixture, possibly used for decoration on faces, tools or clothes, or perhaps smeared on skin as sun protection. This discovery shows that humans had the conceptual ability to deliberately plan, find, combine and, once produced, store pigmented compounds. This is an important benchmark in the evolution of complex mental processes. People living 100,000 years ago had an elementary knowledge of, what we now call, chemistry.
Heat treated silcrete and new lithic technologies. Heating silcrete enhances its flaking qualities, allowing for the creation of superior stone artifacts. Pressure-flaked Still Bay bifacial points, on heat-treated silcrete, are found at Blombos Cave in levels dated to 75,000 years ago. Pressure-flaking is a delicate technique that requires skill in sharpening and retouching tools. These points were likely used as spear heads, but may also have had other uses. The presence of these tools shows that the people at Blombos Cave had sophisticated tool-making techniques and were highly innovative in developing new technologies. At Klipdrift Shelter the Howiesons Poort backed tools and blades were also created on heat-treated silcretes. These tools were probably then hafted onto handles to create complex tools. It is likely that the Howiesons Poort marks the period when the first bow and arrow was used with the arrow head composed of small stone segments attached with mastic.
Bone tools. More than 100 bone tools haven been discovered in the 75,000-year-old layers at Blombos Cave. Some were used as awls to pierce soft material such as hide, while others were polished and possibly hafted and used as projectile points. The systematic manufacture of carefully polished, aesthetically pleasing, bone tools at Blombos Cave suggests that the points may have formed part of a cultural exchange system.
All these items imply enhanced levels of cognitive behavior – behaviors not previously associated with people living in the Middle Stone Age.
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Engraved design on ochre nodule from Blombos Cave, c. 75 ka. Courtesy Chris Henshilwood and the University of the Witwatersrand
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Engraved ochre from Blombos Cave, c. 100ka. Courtesy Chris Henshilwood and the University of the Witwatersrand
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A Haliotis midae shell with ochre residues and an ochre nodule (in situ), which make up part of an ochre processing toolkit from Blombos Cave, c. 100ka. Courtesy Chris Henshilwood and the University of the Witwatersrand
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Dr. Karen van Niekerk as she discovered the ochre processing toolkit at Blombos Cave, c. 100ka. Courtesy Chris Henshilwood and the University of the Witwatersrand
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Perforated Nassarius kraussianus shell bead from Blombos Cave, c. 75ka. Modern N. kraussianus shells were experimentally strung to determine how the wear on the archaeological shells formed. Courtesy Chris Henshilwood and the University of the Witwatersrand
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Still Bay bifacial points from Blombos Cave, c. 75ka. Courtesy Chris Henshilwood and the University of the Witwatersrand
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Bone tools from Blombos Cave, c. 75ka. Courtesy Chris Henshilwood and the University of the Witwatersrand
If you were to imagine or describe a group of humans who lived during the times relevant to the dating of the finds, how would you define them culturally/behaviorally, if that is possible to any extent?
The people of Blombos Cave and Klipdrift Shelter were anatomically modern humans and they would have looked the same as us today. They were hunter-gatherers who probably lived in extended family groups of 20-30 people that moved fairly extensively across the landscape, possibly with movement dictated by seasonal availability of resources. What we are attempting to discover and what is still the subject of many debates, is whether they were behaviorally the same as us. The use of items, like the shell beads and the engraving of designs, were likely used to signal information to other groups and to cement social relationships – perhaps shared access to resources, or a sense of identity. The ability to do this requires an understanding of abstract concepts and probably included the need for a well-developed language. This is unique to modern humans – and the evidence shows that this was most likely taking place ~100 000 years ago.
How did the landscapes and climate that form the context of the significant finds bearing on behaviorally modern humans differ from how they can be described today?
Climate and environment would have played a major role in where people could live but humans are highly adaptable. Access to resources would have dictated, to an extent, when groups could move around the landscape. Palaeoclimatic data shows that the southern Cape was a lush Mediterranean environment with an abundance of resources. Conditions also suggest that there was a lack of disease such as bilharzia, malaria, and tsetse-fly (Trypanosomiasis).
Glacial and interglacial periods in the last 100,000 years drastically modified conditions and sea levels, and affected what resources were available. For example, we know from looking at marine sediment and ice cores that ~76,000 years ago global temperatures dropped, polar ice sheets grew and sea levels dropped. Conditions changed from being warm and rainy to colder and drier. This coincides with the sudden disappearance of the bifacial point culture, known as the Still Bay culture, and the later appearance of a new culture – the Howiesons Poort. When this climatic change occurred it’s likely that the Still Bay people moved, following the sea as the continental shelf became a highly productive plain.
Climatic changes affected the kinds of tools and technologies used, as well as communicative strategies that were necessary. Climate change may have been one factor responsible for the migration of some small groups of Middle Stone Age people out of Africa. However, people may also have moved because of their advanced cognition and technologies, thus resulting in easier access to a greater range of resources, such as smaller animals and marine life through hunting, snaring and fishing. A knock-off effect of this would have been expanded social structures and, in time, increased population sizes.
What are your plans for the future related to this topic and what do you hope to accomplish?
We will continue excavations at Klipdrift Complex as well as continue our analysis of the wealth of material from Klipdrift Shelter and Blombos Cave. Together with my students, post docs and other experts, for example in social psychology, climate reconstruction, dating and micromorphology, we will continue to produce inter-disciplinary scientific research and push the boundaries of science to better understand our early [modern] human ancestors.
A current priority is to test the hypothesis that many of the cultural developments of early Homo sapiens are related to climate variability. Currently much research is being done on reconstructing climate and vegetation changes in Europe and in southern Africa, and on comparing the ecological niches exploited by human groups during climatic phases. Climate may have been a major factor in early Homosapiens development, possibly even defining who we were and what we have become.
We are currently constructing a new learning centre and museum in the Hoop Nature Reserve, just a few kilometers from the Klipdrift Complex. This will be called the De Hoop Human Origins Centre. The primary mission of the centre is to display, explain and interpret the origins of our own species, Homo sapiens, whose origins lie in Africa. A core aim is to show how people from all nations, creeds and colors share one origin and common ancestors. Armed with this knowledge we can still celebrate our cultural diversity and current identities but the centre will help break down present conceived boundaries based on culture, religion and race and install a new sense of pride in all our visitors as we celebrate the common African origin of us all. The centre will be developed and managed as a community resource to inspire, educate and inform the community and visitors and to contribute to the conservation of the history, prehistory and heritage of the southern Cape, southern Africa and Africa.
On a more personal level, how did you arrive at your present point in time (related to your research), and what inspired you to ‘journey’ on this course in your life?
In 1961, my grandfather bought the property that Blombos Cave is on, and I spent many holidays there, often searching the hills and caves for artifacts. In 1985 I enrolled for a degree in archaeology at the University of Cape Town and went on to do my PhD in Archaeology at Cambridge. I returned to Blombos in 1991, as a PhD student, to search for Later Stone Age sites and artefacts in the area. During this search I discovered Blombos Cave and after excavating 50 cm of Later Stone age material I uncovered the top layers of the MSA levels. Bifacial points and bone tools lay on the surface. This was the start of the adventure and after numerous unsuccessful attempts at raising funds I was eventually rewarded with a generous 3-year National Science Foundation grant at Stony Brook University in New York and also support from National Geographic. This was the start of the adventure.
Are there any other comments or statements you would like to make about the topic?
Despite significant advances in recent years, it must also be emphasized that well-dated archeological sites between c. 300 ka and 100 ka are rare, so the evolution of Homo sapiens and the earliest emergence of symbolic behavior during this key period is still poorly understood. There might have been a sudden surge in human innovation at c. 100 ka, but the possibility of a much longer and gradual evolution of modern symbolic behavior following a mosaic pattern is clearly probable.
Another possibility is that, despite the appearance of anatomically modern humans at c. 300 – 200 ka, neural reorganization within the human brain was not a punctuated event, but happened gradually between 300 – 200 ka and 100 ka. Depending on selective criteria that may have favored or disfavored novelty and change, periods of rapid innovation or stasis might have followed. Until a clearer picture of human evolution between 300 ka and 100 ka has emerged, it is hard to produce a detailed argument about the earliest links between neural and behavioral evolution in early Homo sapiens but it seems plausible that the building blocks for social systems mediated by symbolic behavior were laid during this time.
The origins of ‘modern’ human behavior generates lively debate world-wide, but the African evidence for its origins has long remained elusive. Published results from the Blombos Cave excavations complement recent and older findings from a number of African MSA sites that suggest some aspects of ‘modern behavior’ evolved during the early Late Pleistocene in Africa. The discoveries at Blombos Cave clearly reflect the acquisition of fully modern cognitive abilities by southern African populations by at least 100,000 years.
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Chris Henshilwood at Blombos Cave. Courtesy Chris Henshilwood and the University of the Witwatersrand
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Read more about this topic in the article, Where Hominins Became Human, a free premium article published in the Fall 2016 issue of Popular Archaeology.
UNIVERSITY OF SEVILLE—Experts from the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology of the University of Seville have just published a study in the prestigious journal PLOS ONE on an important archaeological find in the Cueva de la Dehesilla (Cádiz). Specifically, two human skulls and a juvenile goat were discovered along with various archaeological structures and materials from a funerary ritual from the Middle Neolithic period (4800-4000 BC) hitherto unknown in the Iberian Peninsula.
“This finding opens new lines of research and anthropological scenarios, where human and animal sacrifice may have been related to ancestral cults, propitiatory rituals and divine prayers in commemorative festivities,” explains US researcher Daniel García Rivero.
The archaeological site located in the Cueva de la Dehesilla consists of two adult human skulls, one male one female, the former being older. The female skull shows a depression in the frontal bone, which probably comes from an incomplete trepanation, as well as cuts in the occipital bone produced by decapitation. In addition, a wall was found separating the human skulls and the skeleton of the goat, on the one hand, from a stone altar with a stele and a hearth, on the other. Finally, several uniquely decorated ceramic vessels, some lithic objects and charred plant remains were discovered in the so-called Locus 2.
“These elements display various characteristics that make it an exceptional archaeological find. The differential treatment of skulls with traumatological evidence along with sacrificed animals, as well as the documented archaeological structures and materials do not match the normative funerary record we were working with until now. This discovery is of great importance not only because of its peculiarity, but also because it constitutes a sealed, intact ritual deposit, which is a great opportunity to gain a more detailed insight into the funerary and ritual behaviors of the Neolithic populations of the Iberian Peninsula,” emphasizes professor García Rivero.
Neolithic funeral rituals
This work contributes in a particular way to the knowledge of the funerary rituals of the middle part of the 5th millennium before Christ, currently the least well known period of the Neolithic populations of the Iberian Peninsula as a whole. The scarce funerary record from that time shows fundamentally individual burials, with secondary burials being unusual. The sort of context just discovered is really extraordinary. Burials usually occur in areas of habitat, and are mostly associated with remains of ceramics and shells, as well as homes, which reflect the importance of activities related to the use of fire, but without stone structures like those now documented in the mountains of Cádiz.
The study and review of the entire funerary record of this period allows us to offer a kind of cultural mosaic in relation to the funerary and ritual traditions of these peasant and herding populations, with a probable division between the Andalusian region and the eastern seaboard of the peninsula, the two regions where most data is available today.
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Skulls found in the Cueva de la Dehesilla. Universidad de Sevilla
MAX-PLANCK-GESELLSCHAFT—In 1997, the very first Neanderthal DNA sequence – just a small part of the mitochondrial genome – was determined from an individual discovered in the Neander Valley, Germany, in 1856. Since then, improvements in molecular techniques have enabled scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology to determine high quality sequences of the autosomal genomes of several Neanderthals, and led to the discovery of an entirely new group of extinct humans, the Denisovans, who were relatives of the Neanderthals in Asia.
However, because all specimens well-preserved enough to yield sufficient amounts of DNA have been from female individuals, comprehensive studies of the Y chromosomes of Neanderthals and Denisovans have not yet been possible. Unlike the rest of the autosomal genome, which represents a rich tapestry of thousands of genealogies of any individual’s ancestors, Y chromosomes have a peculiar mode of inheritance – they are passed exclusively from father to son. Y chromosomes, and also the maternally-inherited mitochondrial DNA, have been extremely valuable for studying human history.
New method to identify Y chromosome molecules
In this study, the researchers identified three male Neanderthals and two Denisovans that were potentially suitable for DNA analysis, and developed an approach to fish out human Y chromosome molecules from the large amounts of microbial DNA that typically contaminate ancient bones and teeth. This allowed them to reconstruct the Y chromosome sequences of these individuals, which would not have been possible using conventional approaches.
By comparing the archaic human Y chromosomes to each other and to the Y chromosomes of people living today, the team found that Neanderthal and modern human Y chromosomes are more similar to one another than they are to Denisovan Y chromosomes. “This was quite a surprise to us. We know from studying their autosomal DNA that Neanderthals and Denisovans were closely related and that humans living today are their more distant evolutionary cousins. Before we first looked at the data, we expected that their Y chromosomes would show a similar picture,” says Martin Petr, the lead author of the study. The researchers also calculated that the most recent common ancestor of Neanderthal and modern human Y chromosomes lived around 370,000 years ago, much more recently than previously thought.
It is by now well established that all people with non-African ancestry carry a small amount of Neanderthal DNA as a result of interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans approximately 50,000-70,000 years ago, quite shortly after modern humans migrated out of Africa and started spreading around the world. However, whether Neanderthals might also carry some modern human DNA has been a matter of some debate.
These Y chromosome sequences now provide new evidence that Neanderthals and early modern humans met and exchanged genes before the major out of Africa migration – potentially as early as 370,000 years ago and certainly more than 100,000 years ago. This implies that some population closely related to early modern humans must already have been in Eurasia at that time. Surprisingly, this interbreeding resulted in the replacement of the original Neanderthal Y chromosomes with those of early modern humans, a pattern similar to what has been seen for Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA in an earlier study.
Selection for Y chromosomes from early modern humans
At first, the complete replacement of both Y chromosomes and mtDNA of early Neanderthals was puzzling, as such replacement events are quite unlikely to occur by chance alone. However, the researchers used computer simulations to show that the known small size of Neanderthal populations may have led to an accumulation of deleterious mutations in their Y chromosomes which would reduce their evolutionary fitness. This is quite similar to situations where extremely small population sizes and inbreeding can sometimes increase the incidence of some diseases. “We speculate that given the important role of the Y chromosome in reproduction and fertility, the lower evolutionary fitness of Neanderthal Y chromosomes might have caused natural selection to favor the Y chromosomes from early modern humans, eventually leading to their replacement” says Martin Petr.
Janet Kelso, the senior author of the study, is optimistic that this replacement hypothesis could be tested in the near future: “If we can retrieve Y chromosome sequences from Neanderthals that lived prior to this hypothesized early introgression event, such as the 430,000 year old Neanderthals from Sima de los Huesos in Spain, we predict that they would still have the original Neanderthal Y chromosome and will therefore be more similar to Denisovans than to modern humans.”
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Matthias Meyer at work in the clean laboratory at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. MPI f. Evolutionary Anthropology
CNRS—Millions of ibis and birds of prey mummies, sacrificed to the Egyptian gods Horus, Ra or Thoth, have been discovered in the necropolises of the Nile Valley. Such a quantity of mummified birds raises the question of their origin: were they bred, like cats, or were they hunted? Scientists from the CNRS, the Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 and the C2RMF have carried out extensive geochemical analyses on mummies from the Musée des Confluences, Lyon. According to their results, published on 22nd September 2020 in the journal Scientific Reports, they were wild birds.
Mammals, reptiles, birds: the tens of millions of animal mummies deposited as offerings in the necropolises of the Nile Valley bear witness to an intense religious fervor, and to the practices of collecting and preparing animals that undoubtedly contributed significantly to the economy from the Old Kingdom (3rd millennium BC) to Roman Egypt (1st-3rd centuries AD). However, the origin of these animals and the methods of supply remain unknown. For some tamed species, such as the cat, breeding was probably the most efficient way of supplying large numbers of animals for mummification. But unlike cats, bird mummies cover all stages of development, from egg to adult, which may indicate more opportunistic sourcing practices.
In order to determine the origin—breeding or hunting—of the mummified birds, tiny fragments of feathers, bones and embalming strips were taken from 20 ibis and birds of prey mummies from the collections of the Musée des Confluences, Lyon. If these birds, which migrate in the wild, had been bred, their diet would have been homogeneous, of local origin and reflected in the uniform isotopic composition of the animal remains, regardless as to whether that diet had been produced specifically or derived from that of coexisting humans.
The various tissues were therefore dated using the carbon-14 method; and the isotopic compositions of oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, sulfur and strontium were measured, interpreted in terms of food sources and compared with those of contemporaneous human mummies. However, far from being homogeneous, these isotopic compositions showed a high variability and “exotic” signatures compared to those of ancient Egyptian humans: the birds were wild, migrating seasonally out of the Nile Valley.
These results, combined with that of a genetic study carried out by another team, suggest the mass hunting and capture of birds as documented on certain tomb frescoes (for example on the wall of Nakht’s tomb in the Theban Necropolis). Indeed, the Egyptians probably exerted a significant ecological pressure on wild bird populations long before the decline in avifauna observed today.
UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO—New bioarchaeology research from a University of Otago PhD candidate has shown how infectious diseases may have spread 4000 years ago, while highlighting the dangers of letting such diseases run rife.
Yaws – from the same bacteria species responsible for syphilis (Treponema pallidum) – is a childhood disease causing highly infectious skin lesions. It is spread via touch from person to person and, in advanced cases, can leave sufferers with severe bone disfigurement. While it is easily curable in its early stages, the bone disfigurements are irreversible.
The disease has been eradicated from much of the world but is still prevalent in the Western Pacific, affecting some 30,000 people. A previous global attempt to eradicate this tropical disease failed at the last hurdle in the 1950’s and a new attempt was curtailed by the COVID-19 outbreak, University of Otago Department of Anatomy PhD candidate Melandri Vlok says.
Ms Vlok’s PhD research uses archaeology to shed light on the spread of diseases when different human populations interact for the first time. Her specific interest is in what she calls the “friction zone”, where ancient agricultural people met hunter gatherer people.
In 2018 she travelled to Vietnam to study skeletal remains from the Man Bac archaeological site. From the Ninh Bình Province in the north of the country, Man Bac was excavated in 2005 and 2007 and has delivered a treasure trove of information for archaeologists thanks to its role during the transition away from foraging to farming in Mainland Southeast Asia.
Now housed in Hanoi’s Institute of Archaeology those remains are well-studied but had not been analyzed for evidence of yaws, Ms Vlok says.
Her supervisor at Otago, renowned bioarchaeologist Professor Hallie Buckley, had seen what she thought might be yaws on a photograph of Man Bac remains. Professor Buckley travelled with Ms Vlok and together with a passionate team of experts from Vietnam they confirmed their suspicions, Ms Vlok says. Later, Ms Vlok found a second example of the disease.
This was significant, as the Man Bac site dates back 4000 years. Till now, there was no strong evidence for yaws in prehistoric Asia.
Ms Vlok’s research suggests yaws was introduced to hunter-gatherers in present-day Vietnam by an agricultural population moving south from modern-day China. These hunter-gatherers descended from the first people out of Africa and into Asia who also eventually inhabited New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Australia.
The farmers had been in China for at least 9000 years but it wasn’t until around 4000 years ago farming was introduced to Southeast Asia. It is possible this movement of people brought diseases, including yaws, at the same time.
Ms Vlok says the length of time the disease has existed in the region is relevant when addressing how hard it has been to eradicate.
“This matters, because knowing more about this disease and its evolution, it changes how we understand the relationship people have with it. It helps us understand why it’s so difficult to eradicate. If it’s been with us thousands of years it has probably developed to fit very well with humans.”
This year’s COVID-19 pandemic has focused people’s attention on infectious diseases, and there are lessons to be learned from the past, Ms Vlok says.
“Archaeology like this is the only way to document how long a disease has been with us and been adapting to us. We understand with COVID-19 today how fantastic that disease is at adapting to humans. And Treponema has been with us for so much longer.
“So, this shows us what happens when we don’t take action with these diseases. It’s a lesson of what infectious diseases can do to a population if you let them spread widely. It highlights the need to intervene, because sometimes these diseases are so good at adapting to us, at spreading between us.”
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New bioarchaeology research from a University of Otago PhD candidate has shown how infectious diseases may have spread 4000 years ago, while highlighting the dangers of letting such diseases run rife. University of Otago
UNIVERSITY OF BERN—Ancient historiographers described steppe nomads as violent people dedicated to warfare and plundering. Little archaeological and anthropological data are however available regarding violence in these communities during the early centuries CE. In a new study in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, an international team led by researchers from the University of Bern and the Russian Academy of Sciences presents new discoveries about the types of violence lived by nomads from Siberia between the 2nd-4th centuries CE. The study “Troubles in Tuva: patterns of perimortem trauma in a nomadic community from Southern Siberia (2nd-4th c. CE)” was performed by Dr. Marco Milella from the Department of Physical Anthropology, Institute of Forensic Medicine (IRM), University of Bern and colleagues.
A late antique cemetery in the heart of Siberia
The Republic of Tuva in Southern Siberia features a rich archaeological record documenting its human occupation since the Paleolithic. Of particular importance are Scythians from the Bronze-Iron Age and Late Antique funerary structures. The site of Tunnug1 is one of the earliest “royal” tombs of Scythian material culture in Siberia known to date, and it has been excavated from 2017 by an archaeological mission co-led by Dr. Gino Caspari from the University of Bern as well as Timur Sadykov and Jegor Blochin from the Russian Academy of Sciences. Recent excavations at Tunnug1 have exposed a peripheral cemetery dating to the 2nd-4th centuries CE including the skeletal remains of 87 individuals. Of these, several presented exceptional traces of violence, not exclusively related to warfare, but possibly also due to rituals.
A research team performed a detailed analysis of the traumas found on the skeletal remains. The researchers were interested in reconstructing the possible scenarios leading to the observed anthropological evidence. In conjunction with this study, the Institute of Forensic Medicine is completing the work on stable isotope ratios and ancient DNA of the bones. This will allow in the next future to reconstruct the diet, mobility, genetic affiliation of these people.
Violence, warfare, and rituals
The study demonstrates that 25% of the individuals died as a consequence of interpersonal violence, mostly related to hand-to-hand combat, often represented by traces of decapitation. Even though violence affected mostly men, also women and children were found among the victims. Some of the individuals from Tunnug1 show traces of throat-slitting and scalping. According to Marco Milella, first author of the study “this suggests that violence was not only related to raids and battles, but probably also due to specific, still mysterious, rituals involving the killing of humans and the collection of war trophies”.
Political instability and violence in the past
Marco Milella states: “Our data show that the individuals buried at Tunnug1 experienced high levels of violence. During the early centuries CE the whole area of Southern Siberia went through a period of political instability. Our study demonstrates how political changes affected, in the past like nowadays, the life and death of people.”
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1700 years old skeletons of southsiberian steppe nomads site of Tunnug1. Tunnug 1 Research Project
UNIVERSITÀ DI BOLOGNA—A milk-tooth found in the vicinity of “Riparo del Broion” on the Berici Hills in the Veneto region bears evidence of one of the last Neanderthals in Italy. This small canine tooth belonged to a child between 11 and 12 that had lived in that area around 48,000 years ago. This is the most recent Neanderthal finding in Northern Italy.
The study uncovering this tooth was carried out by a group of researchers from the Universities of Bologna and Ferrara, who have recently published a paper* in the Journal of Human Evolution. “This work stems from the synergy between different disciplines and specializations”, says Matteo Romandini, lead author of this study and researcher at the University of Bologna. “High-resolution prehistoric field archaeology allowed us to find the tooth, then we employed virtual approaches to the analyses of its shape, genome, taphonomy and of its radiometric profile. Following this process, we could identify this tooth as belonging to a child that was one of the last Neanderthals in Italy”.
The genetic analysis reveals that the owner of the tooth found in Veneto was a relative, on their mother’s side, of Neanderthals that had lived in Belgium. This makes this site in Veneto a key area for comprehending the gradual extinction of Neanderthals in Europe.
“This small tooth is extremely important”, according to Stefano Benazzi, professor at the University of Bologna and research coordinator. “This is even more relevant if we consider that, when this child who lived in Veneto lost their tooth, Homo sapiens communities were already present a thousand kilometers away in Bulgaria”.
Researchers analyzed the tooth by employing highly innovative virtual methods. “The techniques we employed to analyze the tooth led to the following discovery: this is an upper canine milk-tooth that belonged to a Neanderthal child, aged 11 or 12, that lived between 48,000 and 45,000 years ago”, as reported by Gregorio Oxilia and Eugenio Bortolini, who are co-authors of the study and researchers at the University of Bologna. “According to this dating, this little milk-tooth is the most recent finding of the Neanderthal period in Northern Italy and one of the latest in the entire peninsula”.
The findings retrieved from the “Riparo del Broion” are still being analyzed. However, preliminary results show that this site had been used for a long period of time as there are signs of hunting activities and butchering of large prey. “The manufacturing of tools, mainly made of flint, shows Neanderthals’ great adaptability and their systematic and specialized exploitation of the raw materials available in this area”, adds Marco Peresanti, a professor of the University of Ferrara who contributed to the study.
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An upper canine milk-tooth that belonged to a Neanderthal child, aged 11 or 12, that lived between 48,000 and 45,000 years ago. Journal of Human Evolution
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The findings retrieved from the “Riparo del Broion” are still being analyzed. However, preliminary results show that this site had been used for a long period of time as there are signs of hunting activities and butchering of large prey. Journal of Human Evolution
*The paper reporting about the results of this study was published in the Journal of Human Evolution and its title is “A late Neanderthal tooth from northeastern Italy”. Matteo Romandini, Gregorio Oxilia, Eugenio Bortolini, Simona Arrighi, Federica Badino, Carla Figus, Federico Lugli, Giulia Marciani, Sara Silvestrini and Stefano Benazzi (all from the Department of Cultural Heritage) participated in the study proudly representing the University of Bologna.
For the first time, an international team of scientists have uncovered fossilized footprints of humans that inhabited the present-day Nefud Desert in Saudi Arabia about 120,000 years ago. The discovery provides evidence for the presence of anatomically modern humans (AMH, or Homo sapiens) in a region suggested by some scientists to have been inhabited during early exodus episodes of humans out of Africa well before the date range thought by archaeologists for the exit (about 60,000 years ago).
Through investigative field efforts led by Mathew Stewart of the Max Planck Institutes for Chemical Ecology (MPI-CE), the research team, consisting of members from MPI-CE and the Science of Human History (MPI-SHH) in Jena, Germany and Royal Holloway University of London, UK, along with other partners, discovered the footprints along with numerous other large mammal footprint tracks in the Alathar ancient paleolake deposit located within the western Nefud desert. The geological deposit, like the desert that surrounds it, has been dry for tens of thousands of years, but at one time it formed the bed of a fresh water lake. The researchers surveyed two sections within a 1.8-meter-thick deposit of sandy-silt diatomite layer, which was overlaid by a layer formed by windblown sand. They uncovered a total of 376 tracks, which included 44 elephant, 107 camel, and 7 hominin footprints. The sediment in which the tracks were found was sandwiched between a younger sediment above and an older sediment below, dating the tracks to a time between 112,00 and 121,000 years ago.
The finding was nothing less than remarkable. “We immediately realized the potential of these findings,” said Stewart. “Footprints are a unique form of fossil evidence in that they provide snapshots in time, typically representing a few hours or days, a resolution we tend not get from other records.” Similar striking snapshots on the spectrum of human evolution have been discovered, for example, at Laetoli in Tanzania and near Happisburgh in the UK.
Other than the human footprints, equally noteworthy were the elephant tracks, as elephants are thought to have gone extinct in the Levant to the west about 400 thousand years ago. According to team member and study author Michael Petraglia of MPI-SHH, the evidence for the presence of large mammals like elephants and water-loving hippos, along with the paleoenvironmental evidence for open grasslands and significant water resources such as lakes in Arabia at this ancient time, likely made the region a desirable place for animals, including humans, to pass through and inhabit as a kind of corridor region between Africa and Eurasia. In the case of Alathar, the findings suggest that the animals and humans were coming together to forage and survive around the ancient lake during a time of increasing aridification (drying) and diminishing water resources. “We know people visited the lake, but the lack of stone tools or evidence of the use of animal carcasses suggests that their visit to the lake was only brief,” says Stewart.
Following the Green
The findings actually represent an event within a larger pattern of environmental fluctuations and animal and human movements over time in the region. “In the present day,” says Ash Parton of the University of Oxford, a specialist on palaeoenvironmental change, “monsoon rains only reach the very south-southwestern edges of the peninsula; however, palaeoclimatic evidence suggests that over the past 130,000 years there have been several periods in which these rains extended all the way into the desert interior. Utilizing a technique that allows researchers to know when individual grains of sand were buried (optically stimulated luminescence dating), findings suggest that the ‘greening of Arabia’ occurred approximately every 22,000 years between around 130,000 and 50,000 years ago. During these times drainage systems became active, leading to the expansion of large meandering rivers and the development of vast freshwater lakes, some of which were up to 2000 km². Palaeoenvironmental evidence from relict lake beds in what are now the hyper-arid Nefud and Rub al Khali deserts of Saudi Arabia, also shows that these large lakes were fringed with grasslands and trees, and home to a wide variety of fauna.”
The Gateway to Eurasia
The species of human that moved through the region during this time period remains a matter of debate. Neanderthals were in Eurasia at the time. But the archaeological record thus far does not support their presence in Arabia during this period, and the record for modern human habitation of the Levant region just to the west dates back to about 180,000 years ago. “It is only after the last interglacial with the return of cooler conditions that we have definitive evidence for Neanderthals moving into the region,” says Stewart. “The footprints, therefore, most likely represent [anatomically modern] humans, or Homo sapiens.”
The footprints are located within what many scientists suggest was a ‘gateway’ between Africa and Eurasia, a possible general route for the dispersal of modern humans out of Africa and into the rest of the world. Although the earliest fossils of AMH discovered outside of Africa date to about 210,000 years ago in southern Greece and 180,000 years ago in the Levant, the exit routes they took from Africa into Eurasia remain largely unknown and a topic of scholarly debate. But it is clear that investigations in Arabia will continue to play a prominent role in the debate. “Every new site being discovered in Arabia reveals remarkable new information which makes it a very exciting time to be working in the area,” said Huw Groucutt, an archaeologist and paleoanthropologist currently with the MPI-SHH who has been conducting research and working at sites in Saudi Arabia for years. “We are confident that……..we will make some major discoveries. We are also keen to see archaeological data emphasized when it seems that many archaeologists have been living in the shadow of genetics interpretations over recent years. Yet archaeological data is the only record of how humans were behaving in particular times and places, so we are trying to restore the balance to the subjects contributing to the story of modern human origins.” Thus the Alathar footprints, maintain Stewart and his colleagues, make an important contribution to the search for early movements of AMH out of Africa into the Eurasian continent.
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View of the edge of the Alathar ancient lake deposit and surrounding landscape. Klint Janulis
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Researchers surveying the Alathar ancient lake deposit. Palaeodeserts Project
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Elephant (left) and camel (right) trackways. Stewart et al., 2020
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The first human footprint discovered at Alathar and its corresponding digital elevation model (DEM). Stewart et al., 2020
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Above and below: First human footprint discovered at the Alathar ancient lake. Klint Janulis
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ST JOHN’S COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE—Invaders, pirates, warriors – the history books taught us that Vikings were brutal predators who travelled by sea from Scandinavia to pillage and raid their way across Europe and beyond.
Now cutting-edge DNA sequencing of more than 400 Viking skeletons from archaeological sites scattered across Europe and Greenland will rewrite the history books as it has shown:
Skeletons from famous Viking burial sites in Scotland were actually local people who could have taken on Viking identities and were buried as Vikings.
Many Vikings actually had brown hair not blonde hair.
Viking identity was not limited to people with Scandinavian genetic ancestry. The study shows the genetic history of Scandinavia was influenced by foreign genes from Asia and Southern Europe before the Viking Age.
Early Viking Age raiding parties were an activity for locals and included close family members.
The genetic legacy in the UK has left the population with up to six per cent Viking DNA.
The six-year research project, published in Nature today (16 September 2020), debunks the modern image of Vikings and was led by Professor Eske Willerslev, a Fellow of St John’s College, University of Cambridge, and director of The Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre, University of Copenhagen.
He said: “We have this image of well-connected Vikings mixing with each other, trading and going on raiding parties to fight Kings across Europe because this is what we see on television and read in books – but genetically we have shown for the first time that it wasn’t that kind of world. This study changes the perception of who a Viking actually was – no one could have predicted these significant gene flows into Scandinavia from Southern Europe and Asia happened before and during the Viking Age.”
The word Viking comes from the Scandinavian term ‘vikingr’ meaning ‘pirate’. The Viking Age generally refers to the period from A.D. 800, a few years after the earliest recorded raid, until the 1050s, a few years before the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. The Vikings changed the political and genetic course of Europe and beyond: Cnut the Great became the King of England, Leif Eriksson is believed to have been the first European to reach North America – 500 years before Christopher Columbus – and Olaf Tryggvason is credited with taking Christianity to Norway. Many expeditions involved raiding monasteries and cities along the coastal settlements of Europe but the goal of trading goods like fur, tusks and seal fat were often the more pragmatic aim.
Professor Willerslev added: “We didn’t know genetically what they actually looked like until now. We found genetic differences between different Viking populations within Scandinavia which shows Viking groups in the region were far more isolated than previously believed. Our research even debunks the modern image of Vikings with blonde hair as many had brown hair and were influenced by genetic influx from the outside of Scandinavia.”
The team of international academics sequenced the whole genomes of 442 mostly Viking Age men, women, children and babies from their teeth and petrous bones found in Viking cemeteries. They analyzed the DNA from the remains from a boat burial in Estonia and discovered four Viking brothers died the same day. The scientists have also revealed male skeletons from a Viking burial site in Orkney, Scotland, were not actually genetically Vikings despite being buried with swords and other Viking memorabilia.
There wasn’t a word for Scandinavia during the Viking Age – that came later. But the research study shows that the Vikings from what is now Norway travelled to Ireland, Scotland, Iceland and Greenland. The Vikings from what is now Denmark travelled to England. And Vikings from what is now Sweden went to the Baltic countries on their all male ‘raiding parties’.
Dr Ashot Margaryan, Assistant Professor at the Section for Evolutionary Genomics, Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen and first author of the paper, said: “We carried out the largest ever DNA analysis of Viking remains to explore how they fit into the genetic picture of Ancient Europeans before the Viking Age. The results were startling and some answer long-standing historical questions and confirm previous assumptions that lacked evidence.
“We discovered that a Viking raiding party expedition included close family members as we discovered four brothers in one boat burial in Estonia who died the same day. The rest of the occupants of the boat were genetically similar suggesting that they all likely came from a small town or village somewhere in Sweden.”
DNA from the Viking remains were shotgun sequenced from sites in Greenland, Ukraine, The United Kingdom, Scandinavia, Poland and Russia.
Professor Martin Sikora, a lead author of the paper and an Associate Professor at the Centre for GeoGenetics, University of Copenhagen, said: “We found that Vikings weren’t just Scandinavians in their genetic ancestry, as we analyzed genetic influences in their DNA from Southern Europe and Asia which has never been contemplated before. Many Vikings have high levels of non-Scandinavian ancestry, both within and outside Scandinavia, which suggest ongoing gene flow across Europe.”
The team’s analysis also found that genetically Pictish people ‘became’ Vikings without genetically mixing with Scandinavians. The Picts were Celtic-speaking people who lived in what is today eastern and northern Scotland during the Late British Iron Age and Early Medieval periods.
Dr Daniel Lawson, lead author from The University of Bristol, explained: “Individuals with two genetically British parents who had Viking burials were found in Orkney and Norway. This is a different side of the cultural relationship from Viking raiding and pillaging.”
The Viking Age altered the political, cultural and demographic map of Europe in ways that are still evident today in place names, surnames and modern genetics.
Professor Søren Sindbæk, an archaeologist from Moesgaard Museum in Denmark who collaborated on the ground-breaking paper, explained: “Scandinavian diasporas established trade and settlement stretching from the American continent to the Asian steppe. They exported ideas, technologies, language, beliefs and practices and developed new socio-political structures. Importantly our results show that ‘Viking’ identity was not limited to people with Scandinavian genetic ancestry. Two Orkney skeletons who were buried with Viking swords in Viking style graves are genetically similar to present-day Irish and Scottish people and could be the earliest Pictish genomes ever studied.”
Assistant Professor Fernando Racimo, also a lead author based at the GeoGenetics Centre in the University of Copenhagen, stressed how valuable the dataset is for the study of the complex traits and natural selection in the past. He explained: This is the first time we can take a detailed look at the evolution of variants under natural selection in the last 2,000 years of European history. The Viking genomes allow us to disentangle how selection unfolded before, during and after the Viking movements across Europe, affecting genes associated with important traits like immunity, pigmentation and metabolism. We can also begin to infer the physical appearance of ancient Vikings and compare them to Scandinavians today.”
The genetic legacy of the Viking Age lives on today with six per cent of people of the UK population predicted to have Viking DNA in their genes compared to 10 per cent in Sweden.
Professor Willeslev concluded: “The results change the perception of who a Viking actually was. The history books will need to be updated.”
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DNA from a female skeleton named Kata found at a Viking burial site in Varnhem, Sweden, was sequenced as part of the study. Västergötlands Museum
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A mass grave of around 50 headless Vikings from a site in Dorset, UK. Some of these remains were used for DNA analysis. Dorset County Council/Oxford Archaeology
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An artistic reconstruction of ‘Southern European’ Vikings emphasising the foreign gene flow into Viking Age Scandinavia. Jim Lyngvild
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