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HARVARD UNIVERSITY and MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN HISTORY—New research on one history’s most important trading hubs provides some of the earliest genetic glimpses at the movement and interactions of populations that lived in parts of Western Asia between two major events in human history: the origins of agriculture and the rise of some of the world’s first cities.

The work reveals how a high level of human movement in the region not only led to the spread of ideas and material culture but to a more genetically connected society well before the rise of cities, not the other way around, as previously thought.

The researchers, made up of an international team of scientists including Harvard anthropology professor Christina Warinner, looked at DNA data from 110 skeletal remains in West Asia dated 3,000 to 7,500 years ago. The remains came from archaeological sites in the Anatolia (present-day Turkey), the Northern Levant which includes countries on the Mediterranean coast such as Israel and Jordan, and countries in the Southern Caucasus which include present-day Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Based on their analysis, the scientists describe two genomic events that occurred around 8,500 years ago and 4,000 years ago that pointed to long-term genetic mixing in the region and subtle population movements within the area, shedding light on a long-standing question.

“Within this geographic scope, you have a number of distinct populations, distinct ideological groups that are interacting quite a lot and it hasn’t really been clear to what degree people are actually moving or if this is simply just a high contact area from trade,” said Warinner, assistant professor of anthropology at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Sally Starling Seaver Assistant Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. “What we can see is that rather than this period being characterized by dramatic migrations or conquest, what we see is the slow mixing of different populations, the slow mixing of ideas, and it’s percolating out of this melting pot that we see the rise of urbanism — the rise of cities,”

The study was led by the Max Planck-Harvard Research center for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean and published in the journal Cell. Warinner was a senior author on the paper.

Historically, Western Asia, which includes the modern-day Middle East, is one of the world’s most important geographical locations. Early on it not only created some of humanity’s earliest cities but its early trade routes laid the foundation for what would become the Silk Road, a route that commercially linked Asia, Africa, and Europe.

Even prior to being connected with other regions, however, populations across Western Asia had already developed their own distinct traditions and systems of social organization and complexity. The areas studied in this paper played major roles in this development from early farming to pastoral communities to early state-level societies.

With the study, the researchers wanted to fill in some of the anthropological gaps between the origins of agriculture and of cities to better understand these different communities came together to eventually form cities.

“What we see in archeology is that the interconnectivity within Western Asia increased and areas such as Anatolia, the Northern Levant, and the Caucasus became a hub for [the] exchange of ideas and material culture,” said Eirini Skourtanioti, a Ph.D. student at the Max Plank Institute and the lead author of the study, in a video accompanying the release of the paper. “The goal of our study was to understand the role of human mobility throughout this process.”

The researchers included an international team of authors from many disciplines and countries, including Australia, Azerbaijan, France, Italy, Germany, South Korea, Turkey, and the United States. They gathered the 110 ancient remains and took samples from their teeth and part of the temporal bone called the petrous, which is part of the inner ear. The samples from the skeletons were all previously excavated and were housed in different museums and labs around the world. The genetic analysis was all conducted by scientists at the Max Planck Institute, including Warinner.

In the paper, the authors outline how approximately 8,500 years ago, populations across Anatolia and the Southern Caucasus began genetically mixing. It resulted in a gradual change in genetic profile that over a thousand years slowly spread across the both areas and entered into what is now Northern Iraq. Known as a cline in genetics, this mixture indicated to the researchers ongoing human mobility in the area and the development of a regional genetic melting pot in Anatolia and its surrounding areas.

The other shift researchers detected wasn’t as gradual. They looked at samples from the ancient cities of Alalakh and Ebla in what is today southern Turkey and northern Syria and saw that around 4,000 years ago the Northern Levant experienced a relatively sudden introduction of new people.

The subtle genetic shifts points to a mass migration event. The timing of this migration corresponds with a massive drought in Northern Mesopotamia. It is likely where the migrants that entered the Northern Levant area originated from. The scientists can’t be sure because there are currently no well preserved genomes for Mesopotamia.

Along with findings on interconnectivity in the region, the paper presents new information about long distance migration during the late Bronze age about 4,000 years ago. Researchers determined that a lone corpse genetically belonged in Central Asia at the time, not the site that is part of present-day Turkey where the skeletal remains were found. In addition to being a genetic outlier, the individual, who was identified as female, was unearthed at the bottom of a well which was in use at the time of her consignment.

“I was fascinated by our results for the ‘lady in the well,'” says Philipp Stockhammer, co-director of MHAAM and another senior author of the study. “She provides a unique insight into individual female mobility over large distances. We know from literary sources that women travelled in this time throughout Western Asia – very often as marriage partners. However, the story of this woman of Central Asian origin will remain an enigma.”

“We can’t exactly know her story, but we can piece together a lot of information that suggests that either she or her ancestors were fairly recent migrants from Central Asia,” said Warinner, who is also a group leader in the Department of Archaeogenetics at the Max Planck Institute. “We don’t know the context in which they arrived in the Eastern Mediterranean but this is a period of increasing connectivity in this part of the world.”

The corpse had many injuries and the way she was buried indicates a violent death. Warinner hopes more genomic analysis can play some type of role in unraveling the ancient woman’s story.

For Warinner, who earned her master’s in 2008 and her Ph.D. in 2010 from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, these types of studies are proof of the insights DNA analysis can provide when more traditional clues don’t tell the full story.

“What’s really interesting is that we see these populations are mixing genetically long before we see clear material culture evidence of this—so, long before we see direct evidence in pottery or tools or any of these more conventional archaeological evidence artifacts,” Warinner said. “That’s important because sometimes we’re limited in how we see the past. We see the past through artifacts, through the evidence people leave behind. But sometimes events are happening that don’t leave traces in conventional ways, so by using genetics, we were able to access this much earlier mixing of populations that wasn’t apparent before.”

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A partial map of West Asia, which includes Anatolia (present-day Turkey), the Northern Levant, and the Southern Caucasus. An international team of researchers showed populations from Anatolia and the Caucasus started genetically mixing around 6,500 BC and that small migration events from Mesopotamia 4,000 years ago brought further genetic mixture to the region. The orange marker shows the route from Central Asia. DNA from a lone ancient woman revealed proof of long distance migration during the late Bronze age about 4,000 years ago from Central Asia to the Mediterranean Coast. Image courtesy of the Max Planck-Harvard Research center for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean

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Skeletal remains of ‘Lady in the Well’ from the site of Alalakh in Hatay, Turkey. Murat Akar © Alalakh Excavations Archive

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Article Sources: HARVARD UNIVERSITY and MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN HISTORY news releases

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PLOS—A wave of new technology in the Late Paleolithic had reached North China by around 41,000 years ago, according to a study* published May 27, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Fei Peng of the Minzu University of China, Beijing and colleagues.

Around 40,000 years ago, the Asian continent saw the spread of new forms of technology associated with what’s known as the Initial Upper Paleolithic. This change brought new blade technology along with symbolic materials such as beads and pendants, and it is thought to mark the spread of humans, possibly our own species Homo sapiens, across the continent. But the exact timing and route of this dispersal has been difficult to ascertain in past studies.

Shuidonggou is an archaeological site in North China that provides the southernmost examples of Initial Upper Paleolithic technology in North Asia. In this study, Peng and colleagues provide radiocarbon dates on 18 samples of charcoal and ostrich eggshell beads from multiple stratigraphic layers of Shuidonggou Locality 2. Their results indicate that this new wave of technology had reached this region by between 43,000 and 39,000 years ago, slightly later than dates recovered from more northern sites.

These results support previous hypotheses that the spread of this Initial Upper Paleolithic technology originated in the Altai region of Russia around 47,000 years ago before spreading eastward and southward across Asia. While more dating will be needed to further constrain the timing of this event, this study shows that, even in a region with unfavorable conditions for preserving datable materials, careful selection and treatment of samples can yield reliable results from multiple corroborating sources of data.

The authors add: “We carried out a systematical radiocarbon analysis of charcoal and ostrich eggshell samples obtained from 2014-2016 excavation throughout the whole sequence of Shuidonggou locality 2. Based on the Bayesian age modeling, two phases which is an early phases 43-35 cal kBP and a later phase 35-28 cal kBP were split. The result supports the interpretation that the blade technology appeared in this region by at least ~41ka.”

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SDG2 T3 stratigraphy. On the left, the schematic column summarizes the general sediment characteristic and archaeological remain distribution of the site stratigraphic sequence. On the right, the photographs and schematic drawings show a close-up view of different parts of the stratigraphic sequence. The distribution of the three main types of archaeological remains recovered (lithics, fauna remains and ostrich egg shell fragments) corresponding to the photographed sections are overlain on the schematic drawings. The partitioning of the seven cultural layers (CL1a-7) are denoted beside the schematic drawings. Peng et al, 2020 (PLOS ONE) CC BY

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Article Source: PLOS news release

*Peng F, Lin SC, Patania I, Levchenko V, Guo J, Wang H, et al. (2020) A chronological model for the Late Paleolithic at Shuidonggou Locality 2, North China. PLoS ONE 15(5): e0232682. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0232682

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UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK—One of the most promising theories for the evolution of human speech has finally received support from chimpanzee communication, in a study conducted by a group of researchers led by the University of Warwick.

The evolution of speech is one of the longest-standing puzzles of evolution. However, inklings of a possible solution started emerging some years ago when monkey signals involving a quick succession of mouth open-close cycles were shown to exhibit the same pace of human spoken language.

In the paper ‘Chimpanzee lip-smacks confirm primate continuity for speech-rhythm evolution’, published today, the 27th May, in the journal Biology Letters, a consortium of researchers, including St Andrews University and the University of York, led by the University of Warwick, have found that the rhythm of chimpanzee lip-smacks also exhibit a speech-like signature – a critical step towards a possible solution to the puzzle of speech evolution.

Just like each and every language in the world, monkey lip-smacks have previously shown a rhythm of about 5 cycles/second (i.e. 5Hz). This exact rhythm had been identified in other primate species, including gibbon song and orangutan consonant-like and vowel-like calls.

However there was no evidence from African apes, such as gorillas, bonobos and chimpanzees – who are closer related to humans, meaning the plausibility of this theory remained on hold.

Now, the team of researchers using data from 4 chimpanzee populations have confirmed that they too produce mouth signals at a speech-like rhythm. The findings show there has been most likely a continuous path in the evolution of primate mouth signals with a 5Hz rhythm. Proving that evolution recycled primate mouth signals into the vocal system that one day was to become speech.

African great apes, the closest species to humans, had never been studied for the rhythm of their communication signals. Researchers investigated the rhythm of chimpanzee lip-smacks, produce by individuals while they groom another and found that chimpanzees produce lip-smacks at an average speech-like rhythm of 4.15 Hz.

Researchers used data across two captive and two wild populations, using video recordings collected at Edinburgh Zoo and Leipzig Zoo, and recordings of wild communities including the Kanyawara and the Waibira community, both in Uganda.

Dr Adriano Lameira, from the Department of Psychology at the University of Warwick comments:

“Our results prove that spoken language was pulled together within our ancestral lineage using “ingredients” that were already available and in use by other primates and hominids. This dispels much of the scientific enigma that language evolution has represented so far. We can also be reassured that our ignorance has been partly a consequence of our huge underestimation of the vocal and cognitive capacities of our great ape cousins.

“We found pronounced differences in rhythm between chimpanzee populations, suggesting that these are not the automatic and stereotypical signals so often attributed to our ape cousins. Instead, just like in humans, we should start seriously considering that individual differences, social conventions and environmental factors may play a role in how chimpanzees engage “in conversation” with one another.

“If we continue searching, new clues will certainly unveil themselves. Now it’s a matter of mastering the political and societal power to preserve these precious populations in the wild and continue enabling scientists to look further.”

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Two Chimpanzees grooming each other. Catherine Hobaiter

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Article Source: UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK news release

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KAROLINSKA INSTITUTET—One in three women in Europe inherited the receptor for progesterone from Neanderthals – a gene variant associated with increased fertility, fewer bleedings during early pregnancy and fewer miscarriages. This is according to a study published in Molecular Biology and Evolution by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany and Karolinska Institutet in Sweden.

“The progesterone receptor is an example of how favorable genetic variants that were introduced into modern humans by mixing with Neanderthals can have effects in people living today,” says Hugo Zeberg, researcher at the Department of Neuroscience at Karolinska Institutet and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, who performed the study with colleagues Janet Kelso and Svante Pääbo.

Progesterone is a hormone, which plays an important role in the menstrual cycle and in pregnancy. Analyses of biobank data from more than 450,000 participants – among them 244,000 women – show that almost one in three women in Europe have inherited the progesterone receptor from Neanderthals. 29 percent carry one copy of the Neandertal receptor and three percent have two copies.

“The proportion of women who inherited this gene is about ten times greater than for most Neanderthal gene variants,” says Hugo Zeberg. “These findings suggest that the Neanderthal variant of the receptor has a favorable effect on fertility.”

The study shows that women who carry the Neanderthal variant of the receptor tend to have fewer bleedings during early pregnancy, fewer miscarriages, and give birth to more children. Molecular analyses revealed that these women produce more progesterone receptors in their cells, which may lead to increased sensitivity to progesterone and protection against early miscarriages and bleeding.

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Article Source: KAROLINSKA INSTITUTET news release

*”The Neandertal Progesterone Receptor”. Hugo Zeberg, Janet Kelso and Svante Pääbo. Molecular Biology and Evolution, online 21 May 2020, doi: 10.1093/molbev/msaa119.

Cover image, top left: Manuchi, Pixabay

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Archaeologists who unearthed a particularly rare medieval priestly burial earlier this year at Lincoln Cathedral have shared their findings and a facial reconstruction of the clergy member, enabling us to see what the priest looked like and giving us an insight into what life would have been like for him.

The priest’s burial was revealed by Lincoln-based Allen Archaeology Ltd during excavations – as part of the Lincoln Cathedral Connected project – to enable drainage works and landscaping around the cathedral, in the area that is now the building’s West Parvis.

Analysis of the skeleton has confirmed that the medieval priest was a male, and that he was approximately 169cm tall and died between the ages of 35 and 45 years old, but most likely in his late 30s.

Regarding the associated grave goods interred with him – a pewter chalice and paten which are key symbols of the work of a priest and used during communion – the report shows that these objects were plain in style, and similar examples have been dated back to as far as the 12^th and 13^th centuries.

Inverness-based forensic artist Hew Morrison, used Allen Archaeology’s findings and photographs of the skull, to build up a reconstruction of the priest’s face. The outcome looks like a real-life photo; enabling the people of Lincoln and Lincolnshire to come face to face with the medieval priest.

Forensic studies have shown that facial reconstruction techniques do not create an exact likeness, but a close representative image of a particular person that could be recognized by those who knew them. In this instance, without the availability of DNA testing, the color of the hair and eyes etc. are conjectural, but the features of the priest’s skull – his close-set eyes and slightly asymmetrical chin – plus his estimated age at the time of death, are factual information that form the basis for facial reconstruction.

From the bone report, a number of interesting and unusual traits were found on the rest of the priest’s body. There was little sign in the skeleton that he had suffered from any disease or injury during his life, with the exception of a small lump resulting from deep tissue bruising and small deposits of mineralized dental plaque.

Hypoplasia (underdevelopment of tissue) which was seen in a neck vertebra, may have been associated with asymmetry of the blood vessels, but whilst this has been shown to increase predisposition to certain types of stroke, it is not possible to conclude that the priest had any associated symptoms.

The degeneration of the discs of his lower spine show that the priest was involved in some level of physical activity, and are within the changes that would be expected to have occurred with age. His remains suggest that he was apparently well nourished and had a relatively risk-free lifestyle.

The Revd Canon, John Patrick, Subdean of Lincoln, said: “These excavation findings are truly captivating and the historical insights we gain are testament to the rich history of the religious site. This burial was one of many significant objects discovered during renovation works and we look forward to being able to see many of these treasures in the new visitor centre.

“The whole cathedral team and I hope everyone is keeping well in these unprecedented times and we are eager to welcome people back to the cathedral once government lockdown measures are lifted.”

During this excavation, a host of other fascinating historic artifacts were unearthed which are currently being studied and dated. It is planned that some will be displayed as part of the new Lincoln Cathedral visitor centre, which is currently under construction due to complete later this year.

Senior manager at Allen Archaeology, Natasha Powers, said: “This burial is just one of the fascinating discoveries that our team has made during the Cathedral Connected project. We have revealed new evidence of Roman, Saxon, medieval, Tudor and Victorian activity within the site, and full analysis of the 50 or so burials that have been unearthed will provide us with a window into understanding the lives of the medieval population of Lincoln.”

The area between the West Front of the cathedral and the neighboring Exchequergate Arch, is known to have been used as a burial ground for not only the cathedral but the church of St Mary Magdalene, in nearby Bailgate. Part of the area of the Dean’s Green was also used as a burial ground for the cathedral, as were the many green spaces surrounding it.

The National Lottery-funded Connected project includes the delivery of vital restoration and renovation works to the iconic Lincoln Cathedral which are due to complete in 2022. The works will provide news spaces for all to enjoy, including a new visitor centre, and will help to protect and safeguard the cathedral for generations to come.

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Forensic facial reconstruction of the priest of Lincoln Cathedral. Courtesy Hew Morrison, Jennie Holland PR and Lincoln Cathedral Connected

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Article Source: Jennie Holland PR and Lincoln Cathedral Connected news release

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PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES—A large genomic dataset reveals ancient demographic events that accompanied the transition to agriculture and changes in metallurgic practices in France, according to a study*. The analysis of ancient genomes has revealed how demographic events such as migrations have spurred major cultural shifts and shaped the genetic makeup of present-day populations in Europe. However, such analysis for France has been limited to relatively few archeological sites and partial genomic data. Thierry Grange, Eva-Maria Geigl, Melanie Pruvost, and colleagues analyzed mitochondrial genomes and 120 genetic variants in the nuclear genomes of 243 individuals sampled from 54 French archeological sites representing a 7,000-year time span, from the Mesolithic period, before the onset of agriculture, to the Iron Age. Analysis of genomic data from three Mesolithic individuals revealed the late survival of Magdalenian-associated ancestry in hunter-gatherer populations beyond the Iberian Peninsula, suggesting that these populations expanded at the end of the Paleolithic period into regions that are more northerly than those previously reported. The first Neolithic people who migrated to France descended from Anatolian farmers, who later mixed with hunter-gatherer populations. At the onset of the Bronze Age, there was substantial gene flow from individuals deriving part of their ancestry from Pontic Steppe herders. According to the authors, the findings provide a comprehensive view of the genomic and demographic history of Europe during major cultural transitions.

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Samantha Brunel examining a skull in Institut Jacques Monod ‘s high containment laboratory (CNRS/Université de Paris) © Eva-Maria Geigl et Thierry Grange, Institut Jacques Monod (CNRS/Université de Paris)

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Article Source: PNAS news release

*”Ancient genomes from present-day France unveil 7,000 years of its demographic history,” by Samantha Brunel et al.

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UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO DENVER—Pinnacle Point, a series of archaeological sites that overlook a now submerged section of South Africa’s coastline and one of the world’s most important localities for the study of modern human origins, was as much of an Eden for animals as it was for early humans. Jamie Hodgkins, PhD, assistant professor of anthropology at University of Colorado Denver, and her team drilled ancient herbivore teeth to find that many local animals stayed put in the ecologically rich ecosystem, which may explain why humans flourished there, too.

Their study was published in a Quaternary Science Reviews special issue: The Palaeo-Agulhas Plain: a lost world and extinct ecosystem this month.

Home to the Earliest Modern Humans

Home to some of the richest evidence for the behavior and culture of the earliest clearly modern humans, the submerged shelf called the Palaeo-Agulhas Plain (PAP) once formed its own ecosystem. Co-author Curtis Marean, PhD, Arizona State University, has worked with teams of scientists for decades to reconstruct the locale back into the Pleistocene, the time period that spanned from 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago.

In this study, the researchers looked specifically at antelope migratory patterns at Pinnacle Point. This series of cave sites that sit on the modern South African coast offers archaeological materials from humans who were living and hunting there back to 170,000 years ago.

“During glacial cycles, the coastal shelf was exposed,” said Hodgkins. “There would have been a huge amount of land in front of the cave sites. We thought it was likely that humans and carnivores were hunting animals as they migrated east and west over the exposed shelve.”

A Lack of Migratory Pattern

Hodgkins and her team wanted to understand those migratory patterns. They studied the carbon and oxygen isotopes within the tooth enamel of many large herbivores, including Redunca, or reedbuck, a nonmigratory antelope. Tooth enamel can reveal a pattern of migration by tracking changing levels of carbon from the plants an animal eats as its teeth grow.

In general, wetter, cooler environments are home to C3 plants; hotter, drier environments are home to C4 plants. Animals like lush vegetation, which means they tend to follow the rain patterns: in this case east for summer rain (C4 grasses), and west for winter rain (C3 grasses). If animals were migrating between summer and winter rainfall zones, their tooth enamel would register that annual C3 and C4 plant rotation as a sinusoidal curve as their teeth grew.

A) Map of South Africa (SA) showing the distribution of C4 grasses associated with the percentage of summer rain from east to west along the coast, and with the winter rainfall zone in the west (modified from Vogel, 1978); B) A map of SA showing the area of the Greater Cape Floristic Region with the expanded PAP and hypothesized animals migration (i.e. It is hypothesized that animals would have been undertaking long-distance migrations between the east coast in summer rainfall zone and west coast in the winter rainfall zone)

But when Hodgkins and her team used the nonmigratory reedbuck as their control animal, they found that the enamel from its typically migratory pals–like the wildebeest, hartebeest, and springbok–showed no discernible migratory pattern. Most animals seemed happy right where they were.

“They weren’t struggling at Pinnacle Point,” says Hodgkins. “We now know that powerful river systems supplied the expanded coast, thus animals didn’t have to be migratory. It was a great location, resource-wise. During interglacials when the coast moved closer to the caves humans had shellfish and other marine resources, and when the coast expanded in glacial times hunters had access to a rich, terrestrial environment. Hunters wouldn’t need to be as mobile with all of these herbivores wandering around.”

Thriving in an Ecogeological Haven

Hodgkins’ team’s findings of this prehistoric Eden echoed another recent discovery. Seventy-four-thousand years ago, one of Earth’s largest known eruptions at Mount Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia, created a global winter, causing population crashes. In 2018, researchers from Marean’s group found that humans at Pinnacle Point not only survived, but thrived in the haven.

Hodgkins says this is just a first attempt at using isotopic data to test the hypothesis of east and west migration patterns at these sites and further research will be done.

“It is quite possible that animal migration patterns changed as the coastline moved in and out during glacial and interglacial cycles,” said Hodgkins.

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Antelope in South Africa

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Article Source: UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO DENVER news release

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BMC (BIOMED CENTRAL)—Genetic adaptations of early Italian ancestors to environmental changes, such as those that occurred soon after the Last Glacial Maximum, may explain some of the genetic differences between northern and southern Italian populations today, according to a study published in BMC Biology. The research suggests that northern and southern Italian populations may have begun to diverge genetically as early as 19,000-12,000 years ago and constitutes the earliest known evidence of genetic divergence in Italy so far.

A team of researchers at the University of Bologna sequenced the genomes of 38 unrelated participants from different regions in Italy, each the third generation of their family native to each region. The genomes were selected as representative of known genetic differences across the Italian population and over 17 million distinct genetic variants were found between individuals. The authors compared these variations with existing genetic data from 35 populations across Europe and the Mediterranean and with variants previously observed in 559 ancient human remains, dating from the Upper Palaeolithic (approx. 40,000 years ago) to the Bronze Age (approx. 4,000 years ago).

Prof. Marco Sazzini, lead author of the study said: “When comparing sequences between modern and ancient genome samples, we found early genetic divergence between the ancestors of northern and southern Italian groups dating back to the Late Glacial, around 19,000-12,000 years ago. Migrations during the Neolithic and Bronze Age periods, thousands of years later, then further differentiated their gene pools. Divergence between these ancestral populations may have occurred as a result of temperature rises and subsequent shrinking of glaciers across Northern Italy during this time, allowing ancestors who survived the glaciation period to move north, separating from groups who remained in the south.”

Further analyses also revealed signatures ascribable to specific biological adaptations in northern and southern Italian genomes suggestive of habitation in differing climates. The genetic history of northern Italians showed changes in the genes responsible for regulating insulin, body-heat production and fat metabolism, whilst southern Italians showed adaptations in genes regulating the production of melanin and responses to pathogens.

Prof. Sazzini said: “Our findings suggest that the ancestors of northern Italians adapted to lower environmental temperatures and the related high-calorie diets by optimising their energy metabolism. This adaptation may play a role in the lower prevalence of Type 2 Diabetes recorded in Northern Italy today. Conversely, southern Italian ancestors adapted to a warmer climate with higher UV levels by increasing melanin production, which may explain the lower incidence rates of skin cancers recorded across Southern regions. The genomes of southern Italians also showed changes in the genes encoding mucins, which play a role in protection against pathogens, and genetic variants linked to a longer lifespan. Further research in this area may help us understand how the observed genetic differences can impact population health or predisposition to a number of diseases.”

The authors caution that although correlations may be drawn between evolutionary adaptations and current disease prevalence among populations, they are unable to prove causation, or rule out the possibility that more recent gene flow from populations exposed to diverse environmental conditions outside of Italy may have also contributed to the different genetic signatures seen between northern and southern Italians today.

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Hans, Pixabay

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Article Source: BMC (BIOMED CENTRAL) news release

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INSTITUTE FOR BASIC SCIENCE—Climate scientists from the IBS Center for Climate Physics discover that, contrary to previously held beliefs, Neanderthal extinction was neither caused by abrupt glacial climate shifts, nor by interbreeding with Homo sapiens. According to new supercomputer model simulations, only competition between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens can explain the rapid demise of Neanderthals around 43 to 38 thousand years ago.

Neanderthals lived in Eurasia for at least 300,000 years. Then, around 43 to 38 thousand years ago they quickly disappeared off the face of the earth, leaving only weak genetic traces in present-day Homo sapiens populations. It is well established that their extinction coincided with a period of rapidly fluctuating climatic conditions, as well as with the arrival of Homo sapiens in Europe. However, determining which of these factors was the dominant cause has remained one of the biggest challenges of evolutionary anthropology.

To quantify which processes played a major role in the collapse of Neanderthal populations one needs to use mathematical models that can realistically simulate the migration of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, their interactions, competition and interbreeding in a changing climatic environment. Such models did not exist previously.

In a new paper published in the journal Quaternary Science Review, Axel Timmermann, Director of the IBS Center for Climate Physics at Pusan National University, presents the first realistic computer model simulation of the extinction of Neanderthals across Eurasia. The model, which is comprised of several thousands of lines of computer code and is run on the IBS supercomputer Aleph, solves a series of mathematical equations that describe how Neanderthals and Homo sapiens moved in a time-varying glacial landscape and under shifting temperature, rainfall and vegetation patterns. In the model both hominin groups compete for the same food resources and a small fraction is allowed to interbreed. The key parameters of the model are obtained from realistic climate computer model simulations, genetic and demographic data.

“This is the first time we can quantify the drivers of Neanderthal extinction,” said Timmermann. “In the computer model I can turn on and off different processes, such as abrupt climate change, interbreeding or competition” he said. By comparing the results with existing paleo-anthropological, genetic and archeological data, Timmermann demonstrated that a realistic extinction in the computer model is only possible if Homo sapiens had significant advantages over Neanderthals in terms of exploiting existing food resources. Even though the model does not specify the details, possible reasons for the superiority of Homo sapiens could have been associated with better hunting techniques, stronger resistance to pathogens or higher level of fecundity.

What exactly caused the rapid Neanderthal demise has remained elusive for a long time. This new computer modeling approach identifies competitive exclusion as the likely reason for the disappearance of our cousins. “Neanderthals lived in Eurasia for the last 300,000 years and experienced and adapted to abrupt climate shifts that were even more dramatic than those that occurred during the time of Neanderthal disappearance. It is not a coincidence that Neanderthals vanished just at the time when Homo sapiens started to spread into Europe” says Timmermann. He adds “The new computer model simulations show clearly that this event was the first major extinction caused by our own species”.

A research team at the IBS Center for Climate Physics is now improving the computer model to also include megafauna and implement more realistic climate forcings. “This is a new field of research in which climate scientists can interact with mathematicians, geneticists, archaeologists and anthropologists”, said Axel Timmermann.

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Computer simulations of population density of Neanderthals (left) and Homo sapiens (right) 43,000 years ago (upper) and 38,000 years ago (lower). Orange/green circles indicate archeological sites of Neanderthals/Homo sapiens during 5,000-year-long intervals centered around 43 and 38 thousand years before present. IBS

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Article Source: INSTITUTE FOR BASIC SCIENCE news release

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MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN HISTORY—Using human population genetics, ancient pathogen genomics and isotope analysis, a team of researchers assessed the population history of the Lake Baikal region, finding the deepest connection to date between the peoples of Siberia and the Americas. The current study, published in the journal Cell, also demonstrates human mobility, and hence connectivity, across Eurasia during the Early Bronze Age.

Modern humans have lived near Lake Baikal since the Upper Paleolithic, and have left behind a rich archaeological record. Ancient genomes from the region have revealed multiple genetic turnovers and admixture events, indicating that the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age was facilitated by human mobility and complex cultural interactions. The nature and timing of these interactions, however, remains largely unknown.

A new study published in the journal Cell reports the findings of 19 newly sequenced ancient human genomes from the region of Lake Baikal, including one of the oldest reported from that region. Led by the Department of Archaeogenetics at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, the study illuminates the population history of the region, revealing deep connections with the First Peoples of the Americas, dating as far back as the Upper Paleolithic period, as well as connectivity across Eurasia during the Early Bronze Age.

The deepest link between peoples

“This study reveals the deepest link between Upper Paleolithic Siberians and First Americans,” says He Yu, first author of the study. “We believe this could shed light on future studies about Native American population history.”

Past studies have indicated a connection between Siberian and American populations, but a 14,000-year-old individual analyzed in this study is the oldest to carry the mixed ancestry present in Native Americans. Using an extremely fragmented tooth excavated in 1962 at the Ust-Kyahta-3 site, re-searchers generated a shotgun-sequenced genome enabled by cutting edge techniques in molecular biology.

This individual from southern Siberia, along with a younger Mesolithic one from northeastern Siberia, shares the same genetic mixture of Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) and Northeast Asian (NEA) ancestry found in Native Americans, and suggests that the ancestry which later gave rise to Native Americans in North- and South America was much more widely distributed than previously assumed. Evidence suggests that this population experienced frequent genetic contacts with NEA populations, resulting in varying admixture proportions across time and space.

“The Upper Paleolithic genome will provide a legacy to study human genetic history in the future,” says Cosimo Posth, a senior author of the paper. Further genetic evidence from Upper Paleolithic Siberian groups is necessary to determine when and where the ancestral gene pool of Native Americans came together.

A web of prehistoric connections

In addition to this transcontinental connection, the study presents connectivity within Eurasia as evidenced in both human and pathogen genomes as well as stable isotope analysis. Combining these lines of evidence, the researchers were able to produce a detailed description of the population history in the Lake Baikal region.

The presence of Eastern European steppe-related ancestry is evidence of contact between southern Siberian and western Eurasian steppe populations in the preamble to the Early Bronze Age, an era characterized by increasing social and technological complexity. The surprising presence of Yersinia pestis, the plague-causing pathogen, points to further wide-ranging contacts.

Although spreading of Y. pestis was postulated to be facilitated by migrations from the steppe, the two individuals here identified with the pathogen were genetically northeastern Asian-like. Isotope analysis of one of the infected individuals revealed a non-local signal, suggesting origins outside the region of discovery. In addition, the strains of Y. pestis the pair carried is most closely related to a contemporaneous strain identified in an individual from the Baltic region of northeastern Europe, further supporting the high mobility of those Bronze age pathogens and likely also people.

“This easternmost appearance of ancient Y. pestis strains is likely suggestive of long-range mobility during the Bronze Age,” says Maria Spyrou, one of the study’s coauthors. “In the future, with the generation of additional data we hope to delineate the spreading patterns of plague in more detail,” concludes Johannes Krause, senior author of the study.

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Excavation in 1976 of the Ust’-Kyakhta-3 site located on right bank of the Selenga River in the vicinity of Ust-Kyakhta village in the Kyakhtinski Region of the Republic of Buryatia (Russia). A. P. Okladnikov

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Recent view on the Selenga River close to the archeological site Ust-Kyakhta-3. G. Pavlenok

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The fragmented tooth of individual UKY001 excavated from an archeological layer at the Ust-Kyakhta-3 site dated to the Upper Paleolithic, around 14,000 years old. G. Pavlenok (Published in Pavlenok, G.D., and Zubova, A. V. (2019). New Dental Finds Associated with the Paleolithic Selenga Culture, Western Trans-Baikal Region. Archaeol. Ethnol. Anthropol. Eurasia 47.)

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Article Source: MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN HISTORY news release

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UNIVERSITY OF KENT—Research by anthropologists at the University of Kent has identified hand use behavior in fossil human relatives that is consistent with modern humans.

The human lineage can be defined by a transition in hand use. Early human ancestors used their hands to move around in the trees, like living primates do today, whereas modern human hands have evolved to primarily perform precision grips.

However, new research led by Dr Christopher Dunmore, Dr Matthew Skinner and Professor Tracy Kivell from Kent’s School of Anthropology and Conservation has revealed that the hand of an ancient human relative was used for both human-like manipulation as well as climbing.

Their discovery came from analyzing and comparing the internal bony structures of fossil knuckle and thumb joints from the hands of several fossil species from South Africa, eastern Africa and Europe. These included: Australopithecus sediba, Australopithecus africanus, Australopithecus afarensis, Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens dated between 12 thousand and three million years old.

The knuckles at the base of Australopithecus sediba‘s fingers were found to have an internal trabecular structure consistent with branch grasping, but that of their thumb joints is consistent with human-like manipulation. This unique combination is different to that found in the other Australopithecus species studied and provides direct evidence that ape-like features of this species were actually used, probably during climbing. Furthermore, it supports the idea that the transition to walking on two legs was gradual in this late surviving member of the Australopithecus genus.

Dr Dunmore said: ‘Internal bone structures are shaped by frequent behaviors during life. Therefore, our findings can support further research into the internal structure of hands in relation to stone tool use and production. This approach may also be used to investigate how other fossil hominin species moved around and to what degree climbing might have remained an important part of their lifestyle.’

Professor Kivell said: ‘The internal bone structure can reveal hidden evidence that gives us insight into how our fossil human relatives behaved. We were really excited to see this particular hand-use pattern in Australopithecus sediba as it was so different from other australopiths. The fossil record is revealing more and more diversity in the ways our ancestors moved around, and interacted with, their environments – the human evolutionary story is even more complex and interesting than we previously thought.’

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Malapa cave, where Australopithecus sediba was found. Lee Berger

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The skull of MH1 (A. sediba specimen) at the site. Photo by Brett Eloff, courtesy Lee Berger

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The Malapa Hominin 2 (MH2) articulated in situ, where it was found in the cave. Peter Schmid, courtesy Tracy Kivell

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The MH2 hand in palmar (left) and dorsal views (right). Peter Schmid, courtesy Tracy Kivell

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Article Source: A UNIVERSITY OF KENT news release

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ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY—Archaeological sites on the far southern shores of South Africa hold the world’s richest records for the behavioral and cultural origins of our species. At this location, scientists have discovered the earliest evidence for symbolic behavior, complex pyrotechnology, projectile weapons and the first use of foods from the sea.

The Arizona State University Institute of Human Origins (IHO) field study site of Pinnacle Point sits at the center of this record, both geographically and scientifically, having contributed much of the evidence for these milestones on the evolutionary road to being a modern human.

The scientists working on these sites, led by IHO Associate Director Curtis Marean, have always faced a dilemma in understanding the context of these evolutionary milestones — much of the landscape used by these ancient people is now submerged undersea and thus poorly known to us. Marean is a Foundation Professor with the ASU School of Human Evolution and Social Change and Honorary Professor with Nelson Mandela University in South Africa.

The archaeological records come from caves and rockshelters that now look out on to the sea, and in fact, walking to many of the sites today involves dodging high tides and waves. However, through most of the last 200,000 years, lowered sea levels during glacial phases, when the ice sucks up the water, exposed a vast plain. The coast was sometimes as much as 90 km distant! Our archaeological data shows that this was the prime foraging habitat for these early modern humans, and until recently, we knew nothing about.

That has now changed with the publication of 22 articles in a special issue of Quaternary Science Reviews titled “The Palaeo-Agulhas Plain: A lost world and extinct ecosystem.” About ten years ago, Marean began building a transdisciplinary international team to tackle the problem of building an ecology of this ancient landscape. ASU, Nelson Mandela University, the University of Cape Town, and the University of California at Riverside anchored the research team. Funded primarily by a $1 million National Science Foundation grant to Marean, with significant funding and resources from the Hyde Family Foundations, the John Templeton Foundation, ASU, IHO, and XSEDE, they developed an entirely new way to reconstruct “paleoecologies” or ancient ecosystems.

This began with using the high-resolution South African regional climate model — running on U.S. and South African supercomputers — to simulate glacial climate conditions. The researchers used this climate output to drive a new vegetation model developed by project scientists to recreate the vegetation on this paleoscape. They then used a wide variety of studies such as marine geophysics, deep-water diving for sample collection, isotopic studies of stalagmites and many other transdisciplinary avenues of research to validate and adjust this model output. They also created a human “agent-based model” through modern studies of human foraging of plants, animals, and seafoods, simulating how ancient people lived on this now extinct paleoscape.

“Pulling the threads of all this research into one special issue illustrates all of this science,” said Curtis Marean. “It represents a unique example of a truly transdisciplinary paleoscience effort, and a new model for going forward with our search to recreate the nature of past ecosystems. Importantly, our results help us understand why the archaeological records from these South African sites consistently reveal early and complex levels of human behavior and culture. The Palaeo-Agulhas Plain, when exposed, was a ‘Serengeti of the South”‘ positioned next to some of the richest coastlines in the world. This unique confluence of food from the land and sea cultivated the complex cultures revealed by the archaeology and provided safe harbor for humans during the glacial cycles that revealed that plain and made much of the rest of the world unwelcoming to human life.”

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Looking out at the Palaeo-Agulhas Plain from the cave entrance at the Pinnacle Point, South Africa, research site–left, 200,000 years ago during glacial phases and lower sea levels, and right, today where the ocean is within yards of the cave entrances at high tides. Erich Fisher

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Article Source: ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY news release

If you liked this article, you may also like Where Hominins Became Human, published previously in Popular Archaeology.

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SCIENTIFIC REPORTS—The largest collection of footprints from the human fossil record in Africa is described in Scientific Reports this week. The findings, which further our understanding of human life during the Late Pleistocene period (126,000 to 11,700 years ago), suggest a division of labour in ancient human communities.

Kevin Hatala and colleagues uncovered 408 human footprints in Engare Sero, Tanzania after the site was discovered by members of a nearby Maasai community. The researchers dated the footprints to between 19,100 and 5,760 years ago. Based on their size, the distances between them and their orientations, the authors suggest that 17 tracks of footprints were created by a group of individuals moving together at walking speed in a southwesterly direction. The group was likely made up of 14 adult females, two adult males and one young male. The authors speculate that the females who made the tracks were foraging together and were visited or accompanied by the males, as this behavior is observed in modern hunter-gatherers such as the Ache and Hadza. The findings may indicate a division of labor based on sex in ancient human communities.

For an additional six tracks of footprints oriented to the northeast, the authors estimate a broader range of variation in speed, which may suggest that they were not created by a single group traveling together, but by various individuals running and walking at different speeds.

The findings provide a snapshot of the movements and group behavior of modern humans living in east Africa during the Late Pleistocene period.

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The Late Pleistocene human footprints near Lake Natron. Richard Mortel, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license, Wikimedia Commons

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*Article Source: Scientific Reports news release and study report

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CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES HEADQUARTERS—Newly released genomes from Neolithic East Asia have unveiled a missing piece of human prehistory, according to a study conducted by Prof. FU Qiaomei’s team from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The study, published in Science on May 14, reveals that population movement played a profound role in the early genetic history of East Asians.

The researchers used advanced ancient DNA capture techniques to retrieve ancient DNA from 25 individuals dating back 9,500-4,200 years and one individual dating back 300 years from northern and southern East Asia.

The newly sequenced DNA casts a spotlight on an important period in East Asia’s early history: the transition from hunter-gathering to agricultural economies.

One hypothesis for population movement in East Asia is that during the Neolithic, a “second layer” of agriculturalists replaced a “first layer” of hunter-gatherers in East and Southeast Asia.

While the genetics of ancient humans in Southeast Asia, Siberia, and the Japanese archipelago have been well-studied, little has been known until now about the genetics of ancient humans in northern and southern China.

Prof. FU and her team found that these Neolithic humans share the closest genetic relationship to present-day East Asians who belong to this “second layer.” This suggests that by 9,500 years ago, the primary ancestries composing the genetic makeup of East Asians today could already be found in mainland East Asia.

While more divergent ancestries can be found in Southeast Asia and the Japanese archipelago, in the Chinese mainland, Neolithic populations already displayed genetic features belonging to present-day East Asians.

Notably, this includes the Early Neolithic southern East Asians dating to ~8,000 years from this study that should have been “first layer” early Asians, according to the earlier hypothesis. In fact, Prof. FU and her team showed that they shared a closer relationship to present-day “second layer” East Asians. Thus, the results of the current study fail to support a “two layer” dispersal model in Neolithic East Asia in this area.

The scientists also found that Early Neolithic East Asians were more genetically differentiated from each other than present-day East Asians are. In early Neolithic East Asia since 9,500 BP, a northern ancestry existed along the Yellow River and up into the eastern steppes of Siberia, distinct from a southern ancestry that existed along the coast of the southern Chinese mainland and islands in the Taiwan Strait since 8,400 BP.

Population movement may have already started impacting East Asians by the Late Neolithic. For example, the Late Neolithic southern East Asians may have shared a connection to coastal northern East Asians and the former’s ancestry may have extended north as well.

Today, most East Asian populations are not clearly separated into two distinct groups. Present-day mainland East Asians from both the north and south share a closer genetic relationship to northern Neolithic East Asians along the Yellow River than to southern Neolithic East Asians on the southern coast of China.

Further analyses show that they are almost all a mixture of northern and southern ancestry from Neolithic East Asia, with northern ancestry playing a larger role. Population movement, particularly from the north along the Yellow River southward was a prominent part of East Asian prehistory after the Neolithic.

Interestingly, present-day Han Chinese in all provinces, north and south, show a similar amount of northern and southern influences.

Southern ancestry, while less represented in mainland East Asia today, had extensive influence on other regions. Present-day Austronesian speakers, who share a close genetic relationship to present-day mainland East Asians but live across a wide swath of islands in Southeast Asia and the Southwest Pacific, show a remarkably close genetic relationship to Neolithic populations from the southern coast of China.

Archaeological materials dating back to the Middle Neolithic have long hinted at the connection between Austronesian islanders and populations in mainland East Asia. Now, the genetic relationships uncovered by Prof. FU and her team show unambiguous evidence that Austronesian speakers today originated from a proto-Austronesian population that derived from southern China at least 8,400 year ago.

The history revealed by these 26 ancient humans highlights the profound impact that population movement and mixture had on human history, but they also reveal continuity that extends back 9,500 years. Unlike in Europe, influences from Central Asia had no role in the formation of East Asian ancestry, with mixing largely occurring regionally between northern and southern populations in East Asia.

The whole slate of ancestries present across East Asia during the Neolithic is still unknown, as genome-wide data have not been retrieved from many inland regions of mainland East Asia.

But coastal connections between ancient populations in Siberia, Japan, China, and Southeast Asia suggest that as more ancient DNA is retrieved and studied, a complex history of population contact and admixture in East Asian human prehistory will be revealed.

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Skull of Qihe 2, a ~8,400-year-old individual from Qihe Cave, Fujian, China. FAN Xuechun

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Piece of petrous bone from a ~9,500-year-old individual from Bianbian Cave, Shandong, China. This individual was part of a northern ancestry group found along the Yellow River and up into the eastern steppes of Siberia. GAO Wei

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Article Source: CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES HEADQUARTERS news release

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UNIVERSITY OF YORK—Human self-control evolved in our early ancestors, becoming particularly evident around 500,000 years ago when they developed the skills to make sophisticated tools, a new study suggests.

While early hominins such as Homo erectus could craft basic handaxes as early as 1.8 million years ago, our hominin ancestors began to create more elaborate and carefully designed versions of these tools sometime before 500,000 years ago.

The authors of the study*, from the University of York, say these advances in craftsmanship suggest individuals at this time possessed characteristics which demonstrate significant self-control, such as concentration and frustration tolerance.

The study highlights a collection of 500,000 year-old flint axes unearthed from a gravel quarry in the village of Boxgrove in West Sussex. The axes are highly symmetrical suggesting careful workmanship and the forgoing of immediate needs for longer term aims.

Senior author of the study, Dr Penny Spikins, from the Department of Archaeology said: “More sophisticated tools like the Boxgrove handaxes start to appear around the same time as our hominin ancestors were developing much bigger brains.

“The axes demonstrate characteristics that can be related to self-control such as the investment of time and energy in something that does not produce an immediate reward, forward planning and a level of frustration tolerance for completing a painstaking task.

“In the present day our capacity for self-control has become particularly important. Without the advanced levels of self-control we possess as a species, lockdown would be impossible. It takes self-control to put the needs of the community first rather than focus on our own immediate ends. Our study offers some clues as to where in human history this ability originated.”

The researchers also point to evidence that the production of highly symmetrical and elaborate axes would have required knowledge and skill accumulated over a life time.

In one study, it took people trying to replicate the axes discovered at Boxgrove 16 hours of practice to even produce a recognizable handaxe.

Lead author of the study, James Green, a PhD student in the Department of archaeology at the University of York, added: “By deciphering the mental and physical processes involved in the production of prehistoric artifacts, we can gain valuable insights into the abilities of the individuals who made them.

“These axes demonstrate social learning and effortful activity directed at honing skills. They also provide some of the earliest evidence of something being deliberately made in a sequence from a picture in someone’s mind.

“Self-control is not unique to humans, but may have played an important role in our evolution. It’s key to many of the traits which define modern humans such as pro-sociality, cooperation and caring for the vulnerable.”

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The paleolithic handaxe. Credit/Source: The Portable Antiquities Scheme, CC By-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons

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Article Source: UNIVERSITY OF YORK news release

*Not just a virtue: The evolution of self-control is published in Time and Mind: The Journal of Archaeology, Consciousness and Culture

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AMERICAN FRIENDS OF TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY—The sprawling 11,500-year-old stone Göbekli Tepe complex in southeastern Anatolia, Turkey, is the earliest known temple in human history and one of the most important discoveries of Neolithic research.

Researchers at Tel Aviv University and the Israel Antiquities Authority have now used architectural analysis to discover that geometry informed the layout of Göbekli Tepe’s impressive round stone structures and enormous assembly of limestone pillars, which they say were initially planned as a single structure.

Three of the Göbekli Tepe’s monumental round structures, the largest of which are 20 meters in diameter, were initially planned as a single project, according to researchers Gil Haklay of the Israel Antiquities Authority, a PhD candidate at Tel Aviv University, and Prof. Avi Gopher of TAU’s Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations. They used a computer algorithm to trace aspects of the architectural design processes involved in the construction of these enclosures in this early Neolithic site.

Their findings were published in Cambridge Archaeological Journal in May.

“Göbekli Tepe is an archaeological wonder,” Prof. Gopher explains. “Built by Neolithic communities 11,500 to 11,000 years ago, it features enormous, round stone structures and monumental stone pillars up to 5.5 meters high. Since there is no evidence of farming or animal domestication at the time, the site is believed to have been built by hunter-gatherers. However, its architectural complexity is highly unusual for them.”

Discovered by German archaeologist Dr. Klaus Schmidt in 1994, Göbekli Tepe has since been the subject of hot archaeological debate. But while these, and other early Neolithic remains, have been intensively studied, the issue of architectural planning during these periods and its cultural ramifications have not.

Most researchers have made the case that the Göbekli Tepe enclosures at the main excavation area were constructed over time. However, Haklay and Prof. Gopher say that three of the structures were designed as a single project and according to a coherent geometric pattern.

“The layout of the complex is characterized by spatial and symbolic hierarchies that reflect changes in the spiritual world and in the social structure,” Haklay explains. “In our research, we used an analytic tool — an algorithm based on standard deviation mapping — to identify an underlying geometric pattern that regulated the design.”

“This research introduces important information regarding the early development of architectural planning in the Levant and in the world,” Prof. Gopher adds. “It opens the door to new interpretations of this site in general, and of the nature of its megalithic anthropomorphic pillars specifically.”

Certain planning capabilities and practices, such as the use of geometry and the formulation of floor plans, were traditionally assumed to have emerged much later than the period during which the Göbekli Tepe was constructed — after hunter-gatherers transformed into food-producing farmers some 10,500 years ago. Notably, one of the characteristics of early farmers is their use of rectangular architecture.

“This case of early architectural planning may serve as an example of the dynamics of cultural changes during the early parts of the Neolithic period,” Haklay says. “Our findings suggest that major architectural transformations during this period, such as the transition to rectangular architecture, were knowledge-based, top-down processes carried out by specialists.

“The most important and basic methods of architectural planning were devised in the Levant in the Late Epipaleolithic period as part of the Natufian culture and through the early Neolithic period. Our new research indicates that the methods of architectural planning, abstract design rules and organizational patterns were already being used during this formative period in human history.”

Next, the researchers intend to investigate the architectural remains of other Neolithic sites throughout the Levant.

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Göbekli Tepe, Enclosure C. Gil Haklay/AFTAU.

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Geometric pattern underlying the architectural planning of a complex at Göbekli Tepe. A diagram superimposed over the schematic plan. Gil Haklay/AFTAU.

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Article Source: AMERICAN FRIENDS OF TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY news release

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If you liked this article, you will like Göbekli Tepe: Discovering the World’s Oldest Religious Site, a major feature article previously published in Popular Archaeology.

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MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR EVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY—Two studies report new Homo sapiens fossils from the site of Bacho Kiro Cave in Bulgaria. “The Bacho Kiro Cave site provides evidence for the first dispersal of H. sapiens across the mid-latitudes of Eurasia. Pioneer groups brought new behaviors into Europe and interacted with local Neanderthals. This early wave largely predates that which led to their final extinction in western Europe 8,000 years later”, says Jean-Jacques Hublin, director at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

An international research team, led by Jean-Jacques Hublin, Tsenka Tsanova and Shannon McPherron of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and Nikolay Sirakov and Svoboda Sirakova of the National Institute of Archaeology with Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia, Bulgaria, renewed excavations at Bacho Kiro Cave in 2015. The most spectacular finds come from a rich, dark layer near the base of the deposits. Here the team uncovered thousands of animal bones, stone and bone tools, beads and pendants and the remains of five human fossils.

Protein analysis

Except for one human tooth, the human fossils were too fragmented to be recognized by their appearance. Instead, they were identified by analyzing their protein sequences. “Most Pleistocene bones are so fragmented that by eye, one cannot tell which species of animal they represent. However, the proteins differ slightly in their amino acid sequence from species to species. By using protein mass spectrometry, we can therefore quickly identify those bone specimens that represent otherwise unrecognizable human bones”, says Frido Welker, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Copenhagen and research associate at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

To know the age of these fossils and the deposits at Bacho Kiro Cave, the team worked closely with Lukas Wacker at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, using an accelerator mass spectrometer to produce ages with higher precision than normal and to directly date the human bones.

“The majority of animal bones we dated from this distinctive, dark layer have signs of human impacts on the bone surfaces, such as butchery marks, which, along with the direct dates of human bones, provides us with a really clear chronological picture of when Homo sapiens first occupied this cave, in the interval from 45,820 to 43,650 years ago, and potentially as early as 46,940 years ago”, says Helen Fewlass of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. “The radiocarbon dates at Bacho Kiro Cave are not only the largest dataset of a single Palaeolithic site ever made by a research team, but also are the most precise in terms of error ranges”, say researchers Sahra Talamo from the University of Bologna and Bernd Kromer from the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig.

DNA sequencing

Though some researchers have suggested that Homo sapiens may have already occasionally entered Europe by this time, finds of this age are typically attributed to Neanderthals. To know which group of humans were present at Bacho Kiro Cave, Mateja Hajdinjak and Matthias Meyer of the genetics team led by Svante Pääbo at the Department of Evolutionary Genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology sequenced the DNA from the fragmented fossils bones.

“Given the exceptionally good DNA preservation in the molar and the hominin fragments identified by protein mass spectrometry, we were able to reconstruct full mitochondrial genomes from six out of seven specimens and attribute the recovered mitochondrial DNA sequences from all seven specimens to modern humans. Interestingly, when relating these mtDNAs to those of other ancient and modern humans, the mtDNA sequences from Layer I fall close to the base of three main macrohaplogroups of present-day people living outside of Sub-Saharan Africa. Furthermore, their genetic dates align almost perfectly with those obtained by radiocarbon”, says Mateja Hajdinjak, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Francis Crick Institute in London and research associate at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

The results demonstrate that Homo sapiens entered Europe and began impacting Neanderthals by around 45,000 years ago and likely even earlier. They brought into Bacho Kiro Cave high quality flint from sources up to 180 km from the site which they worked into tools like pointed blades perhaps to hunt and very likely to butcher the remains of the animals found at the site.

“The animal remains from the site illustrate a mix of cold and warm adapted species, with bison and red deer most frequent”, says palaeontologist Rosen Spasov from the New Bulgarian University. These were butchered extensively but were also used as a raw material source. “The most remarkable aspect of the faunal assemblage is the extensive collection of bone tools and personal ornaments”, says zooarchaeologist Geoff Smith from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Cave bear teeth were made into pendants, some of which are strikingly similar to ornaments later made by Neanderthals in western Europe.

Homo sapiens replaced Neanderthals

Taken together, the Bacho Kiro Cave sediments document the period of time in Europe when Middle Paleolithic Neanderthals were replaced by Upper Paleolithic Homo sapiens (the so-called transition period), and the first Homo sapiens assemblages are what archaeologists call the Initial Upper Paleolithic. “Up to now, the Aurignacian was thought of as the start of the Upper Paleolithic in Europe, but the Initial Upper Paleolithic of Bacho Kiro Cave adds to other sites in western Eurasia where there is an even older presence of Homo sapiens“, notes Nikolay Sirakov of the National Institute of Archaeology with Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

“The Initial Upper Paleolithic in Bacho Kiro Cave is the earliest known Upper Palaeolithic in Europe. It represents a new way of making stone tools and new sets of behavior including manufacturing personal ornaments that are a departure from what we know of Neanderthals up to this time”, says Tsenka Tsanova of the Department of Human Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. “The Initial Upper Paleolithic probably has its origin in southwest Asia and soon after can be found from Bacho Kiro Cave in Bulgaria to sites in Mongolia as Homo sapiens rapidly dispersed across Eurasia and encountered, influenced, and eventually replaced existing archaic populations of Neanderthals and Denisovans.”

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Excavations in Initial Upper Paleolithic Layer I at Bacho Kiro Cave (Bulgaria). Four Homo sapiens bones were recovered from this layer along with a rich stone tool assemblage, animal bones, bone tools, and pendants. Tsenka Tsanova, License: CC-BY-SA 2.0

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Stone artifacts from the Initial Upper Paleolithic at Bacho Kiro Cave: 1-3, 5-7 Pointed blades and fragments from Layer I; 4 Sandstone bead with morphology similar to bone beads; 8 The longest complete blade. Tsenka Tsanova, License: CC-BY-SA 2.0

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Article Source: MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR EVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY news release

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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA – DAVIS—Evidence continues to mount that the Neanderthals, who lived in Europe and Asia until about 40,000 years ago, were more sophisticated people than once thought. A new study from UC Davis shows that Neanderthals chose to use bones from specific animals to make a tool for specific purpose: working hides into leather.

Naomi Martisius, research associate in the Department of Anthropology, studied Neanderthal tools from sites in southern France for her doctoral research. The Neanderthals left behind a tool called a lissoir, a piece of animal rib with a smoothed tip used to rub animal hides to make them into leather. These lissoirs are often worn so smooth that it’s impossible to tell which animal they came from just by looking at them.

Martisius and colleagues used highly sensitive mass spectrometry to look at residues of collagen protein from the bones. The method is called ZooMS, or Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry. The technique breaks up samples into fragments that can be identified by their mass to charge ratio and used to reconstruct the original molecule.

Normally, this method would involve drilling a sample from the bone. To avoid damaging the precious specimens, Martisius and colleagues were able to lift samples from the plastic containers in which the bones had been stored and recover enough material to perform an analysis.

Favoring bovine ribs over deer

The results show that the bones used to make lissoirs mostly came from animals in the cattle family, such as bison or aurochs (a wild relative of modern cattle that is now extinct). But other animal bones from the same deposit show that reindeer were much more common and frequently hunted for food. So the Neanderthals were choosing to use only ribs from certain types of animals to make these tools.

“I think this shows that Neanderthals really knew what they were doing,” Martisius said. “They were deliberately picking up these larger ribs when they happened to come across these animals while hunting and they may have even kept these rib tools for a long time, like we would with a favorite wrench or screwdriver.”

Bovine ribs are bigger and more rigid than deer ribs, making them better suited for the hard work of rubbing skins without wearing out or breaking.

“Neanderthals knew that for a specific task, they needed a very particular tool. They found what worked best and sought it out when it was available,” Martisius said.

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Evidence continues to mount that the Neanderthals, who lived in Europe and Asia until about 40,000 years ago, were more sophisticated people than once thought. A new study from UC Davis shows that Neanderthals chose to use bones from specific animals to make a tool for specific purpose: working hides into leather. Naomi Martisius, UC Davis

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Article Source: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA – DAVIS, news release

The results were published May 8 in Scientific Reports. Coauthors on the study are Teresa Steele, professor of anthropology and Mark Grote at UC Davis; Frido Welker, University of Copenhagen; Tamara Dogandi?, Virginie Sinet-Mathiot and Shannon McPherron, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Liepzig; William Rendu, Université de Bordeaux, France; Arndt Wilcke, Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology, Liepzig; and Marie Soressi, Leiden University, The Netherlands. The work was partly supported by the NSF.

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HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL—An international research team has conducted the first in-depth, wide-scale study of the genomic history of ancient civilizations in the central Andes mountains and coast before European contact.

The findings, published online May 7 in Cell, reveal early genetic distinctions between groups in nearby regions, population mixing within and beyond the Andes, surprising genetic continuity amid cultural upheaval, and ancestral cosmopolitanism among some of the region’s most well-known ancient civilizations.

Led by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the University of California, Santa Cruz, the team analyzed genome-wide data from 89 individuals who lived between 500 and 9,000 years ago. Of these, 64 genomes, ranging from 500 to 4,500 years old, were newly sequenced–more than doubling the number of ancient individuals with genome-wide data from South America.

The analysis included representatives of iconic civilizations in the Andes from whom no genome-wide data had been reported before, including the Moche, Nasca, Wari, Tiwanaku and Inca.

“This was a fascinating and unique project,” said Nathan Nakatsuka, first author of the paper and an MD/PhD student in the lab of David Reich in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS.

“It represents the first detailed study of Andean population history informed by pre-Colonial genomes with wide-ranging temporal and geographic coverage,” said Lars Fehren-Schmitz, associate professor at UC Santa Cruz and co-senior author of the paper with Reich.

“This study also takes a major step toward redressing the global imbalance in ancient DNA data,” said Reich, professor of genetics at HMS and associate member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

“The great majority of published ancient DNA studies to date have focused on western Eurasia,” he said. “This study in South America allows us to begin to discern at high resolution the detailed history of human movements in this extraordinarily important part of the world.”

Attention on the Andes

The central Andes, surrounding present-day Peru, is one of the few places in the world where farming was invented rather than being adopted from elsewhere and where the earliest presence of complex civilizations in South America has been documented so far. While the region has been a major focus of archaeological research, there had been no systematic characterization with genome-wide ancient DNA until now, the authors said.

Geneticists, including several of the current team members, previously studied the deep genetic history of South America as a whole, including analysis of several individuals from the Andean highlands from many thousands of years ago. There have also been analyses of present-day residents of the Andes and a limited number of mitochondrial or Y-chromosome DNA analyses from individual ancient Andean sites.

The new study, however, expands on these findings to provide a far more comprehensive portrait. Now, Nakatsuka said, researchers are “finally able to see how the genetic structure of the Andes evolved over time.”

By focusing on what is often called pre-Columbian history, the study demonstrates how large ancient DNA studies can reveal more about ancient cultures than studying present-day groups alone, said Reich.

“In the Andes, reconstruction of population history based on DNA analysis of present-day people has been challenging because there has so been much demographic change since contact with Europeans,” Reich explained. “With ancient DNA data, we can carry out a detailed reconstruction of movements of people and how those relate to changes known from the archaeological record.”

‘Extraordinary’ ancient population structure

The analyses revealed that by 9,000 years ago, groups living in the Andean highlands became genetically distinct from those that eventually came to live along the Pacific coast. The effects of this early differentiation are still seen today.

The genetic fingerprints distinguishing people living in the highlands from those in nearby regions are “remarkably ancient,” said Nakatsuka, who will receive his PhD in systems, synthetic and quantitative biology in May.

“It is extraordinary, given the small geographic distance,” added Reich.

By 5,800 years ago, the population of the north also developed distinct genetic signatures from populations that became prevalent in the south, the team found. Again, these differences can be observed today.

After that time, gene flow occurred among all regions in the Andes, although it dramatically slowed after 2,000 years ago, the team found.

“It is exciting that we were actually able to determine relatively fine-grained population structure in the Andes, allowing us to differentiate between coastal, northern, southern and highland groups as well as individuals living in the Titicaca Basin,” said Fehren-Schmitz.

“This is significant for the archaeology of the Andes and will now allow us to ask more specific questions with regards to local demographies and cultural networks,” said study co-author Jose Capriles of Pennsylvania State University.

Genetic intermingling

The team discovered genetic exchanges both within the Andes and between Andean and non-Andean populations.

Ancient people moved between south Peru and the Argentine plains and between the north Peru coast and the Amazon, largely bypassing the highlands, the researchers found.

Fehren-Schmitz was especially interested to uncover signs of long-range mobility in the Inca period. Specifically, he was surprised to detect ancient North Coast ancestry not only around Cusco, Peru, but also in a child sacrifice from the Argentinian southern Andes.

“This could be seen as genetic evidence for relocations of individuals under Inca rule, a practice we know of from ethnohistorical, historical and archaeological sources,” he said.

Although the findings of genetic intermingling throughout the Andes correlate with known archaeological connections, they will likely prompt additional archaeological research to understand the cultural contexts underlying the migrations, said Nakatsuka.

“Now we have more evidence demonstrating important migrations and some constraints on when they happened, but further work needs to be done to know why exactly these migrations occurred,” he said.

Long-term continuity

The analyses revealed that multiple regions maintained genetic continuity over the past 2,000 years despite clear cultural transformations.

The finding contrasts with many other world regions, where ancient DNA studies often document substantial genetic turnover during this period, said Reich.

The population structures that arose early on persisted through major social changes and on into modern societies, the authors said. The discoveries offer new evidence that can be incorporated alongside archaeological and other records to inform theories on the ancient history of different groups in the region.

“To our surprise, we observed strong genetic continuity during the rise and fall of many of the large-scale Andean cultures, such as the Moche, Wari and Nasca,” said Nakatsuka. “Our results suggest that the fall of these cultures was not due to massive migration into the region, e.g., from an invading military force, a scenario which had been documented in some other regions of the world.”

Two exceptions to the continuity trend were the vast urban centers that the Tiwanaku and Inca cultures called home. Rather than being fairly genetically homogeneous, the capital regions of these civilizations were cosmopolitan, hosting people from many genetic backgrounds, the team found.

“It was interesting to start to see these glimpses of ancestral heterogeneity,” said Nakatsuka. “These regions have some similarity to what we see now in places like New York City and other major cities where people of very different ancestries are living side by side.”

Cooperative authorship

The study included authors from many disciplines and many countries, including Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Chile, Germany, Peru, the United Kingdom and the United States.

“This is an impressive interdisciplinary but, just as importantly, international collaboration,” said study co-author Bastien Llamas of the University of Adelaide. “All worked very closely to draft this manuscript under the leadership of Fehren-Schmitz and Reich.”

It was important to team up with local scientists who belong to communities that descend from the individuals analyzed in the study, Fehren-Schmitz said, and to obtain permission from and continually engage with indigenous and other local groups as well as local governments.

The analysis of DNA from ancient individuals can have significant implications for present-day communities. One concerns the physical handling of the skeletal materials, which might be sensitive to the groups involved.

The work provided opportunities to heal past wounds. In one case, a sample from Cusco, previously housed in the U.S., was repatriated to Peru. Other remains that had long ago been taken improperly from burial sites were able to be carbon-dated and reburied.

In the absence of pre-Columbian written histories, archaeology has been the main source of information available to reconstruct the complex history of the continent, said study co-author Chiara Barbieri of the University of Zurich.

“With the study of ancient DNA, we can read the demographic history of ancient groups and understand how ancient and present-day groups are related,” she said. “The link with the genetic study of living populations opens a direct dialogue with the past and an occasion to involve local communities.”

The researchers sought to deeply involve communities with the help of archaeologists from each area, said Nakatsuka. Their efforts included giving public talks about the study and translating materials into Spanish.

“We were really happy to have the summary and key findings of our paper translated and included as part of the Cell paper itself, to increase accessibility of our work,” said Nakatsuka. “We hope future studies will do similar translations, including versions suitable for lay audiences for schools, museum exhibits and cultural organizations, which we are in the process of doing as well.”

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An international research team has conducted the first in-depth, wide-scale study of the genomic history of ancient civilizations in the central Andes mountains and coast before European contact. The analysis included representatives of iconic civilizations in the Andes from whom no genome-wide data had been reported before, including the Moche, Nasca, Wari, Tiwanaku and Inca. Shown here is a detail from the Tiwanaku Gate of the Sun. Miguel Angel López

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Article Source: HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL news release

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UNIVERSITAT POMPEU FABRA – BARCELONA—Expansions by groups of humans were common during prehistoric times, after the adoption of agriculture. Among other factors, this is due to population growth of farmers which was greater than of that hunter-gatherers. We can find one example of this during the Neolithic period, when farming was introduced to Europe by migrations from the Middle East.

However, in South America, it was not clear whether the same would have occurred as it was argued that no cultural group had expanded across such long distances as in Europe or Asia. In addition, it was believed that the type of agriculture practiced by pre-Columbian peoples in the Amazon would not allow them to expand at the same rate.

Research conducted by three members of the Culture and Socio-Ecological Dynamics Research Group (CaSEs) at the UPF Department of Humanities shows that expansions by some archaeological cultures in South America can be simulated by computer through population growth and migration in the same way as the Neolithic in Europe. This is the case of so-called Saladoid-Barrancoid culture, which spread from the Orinoco to various parts of Amazonia, even reaching the Caribbean.

The article, published on 27 April in the journal PLOS ONE, involved Jonas Gregorio de Souza, a Marie Curie researcher, as first author, together with Jonas Alcaina Mateos, a predoctoral researcher, and Marco Madella, UPF-ICREA research professor and director of the CaSEs Research Group.

“The use of computer simulations to test human migrations in prehistoric times is an approach that has proved productive in other continents, but had not been applied to the area of the tropics of South America. We have shown that some cultural expansions that have taken place from Amazonia may be the result of similar demographic processes to the Neolithic in Eurasia”, says Jonas Gregorio de Souza.

A computational model to simulate the expansions of four archaeological cultures

The article uses a computational approach to simulate human expansions in prehistory. “We use parameters derived from the ethnography of farmers in the Amazon to simulate the rate of population growth, the fission of villages, how far and how often they moved”, the authors state. Based on these parameters, they created a computer model to simulate expansions from different points and dates and compare the results with archaeological data.

The researchers used radiocarbon dates from different archaeological cultures over a large area of territory in the last 5,000 years, which were compared with the prediction of the model, to assess whether their rate of territorial expansion could be explained as being a demographic phenomenon (rather than another type, such as cultural diffusion).

The four archaeological cultures or traditions analyzed were the Saladoid-Barrancoid, the Arauquinoid, the Tupiguarani, and the (closely related) Una, Itararé and Aratu traditions. In most regions where they settled, these cultures introduced the cultivation of domesticated plants, marked the transition towards more permanent settlements, and spread an economic model called “polycultureagroforestry”.

However, the authors warn that some expansions could not be predicted by the simulations, suggesting that they were caused by other factors: “Although some archaeological expansions can be predicted, by the simulations, as demographic processes, others are not easily explained in the same way. This is possibly due to different processes that drive their dispersal, such as cultural diffusion, or because the archaeological data are inconclusive or sparse”, they conclude.

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Computer simulation of the expansions of several archaeological cultures in South America. UPF

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Article Source: UNIVERSITAT POMPEU FABRA – BARCELONA news release

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