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STANFORD UNIVERSITY—SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES AND SCIENCES—Growing up in Israel, Gili Greenbaum would give tours of local caves once inhabited by Neanderthals and wonder along with others why our distant cousins abruptly disappeared about 40,000 years ago. Now a scientist at Stanford, Greenbaum thinks he has an answer.

In a new study published in the journal Nature Communications, Greenbaum and his colleagues propose that complex disease transmission patterns can explain not only how modern humans were able to wipe out Neanderthals in Europe and Asia in just a few thousand years but also, perhaps more puzzling, why the end didn’t come sooner.

“Our research suggests that diseases may have played a more important role in the extinction of the Neanderthals than previously thought. They may even be the main reason why modern humans are now the only human group left on the planet,” said Greenbaum, who is the first author of the study and a postdoctoral researcher in Stanford’s Department of Biology.

The slow kill

Archeological evidence suggests that the initial encounter between Eurasian Neanderthals and an upstart new human species that recently strayed out of Africa—our ancestors—occurred more than 130,000 years ago in the Eastern Mediterranean in a region known as the Levant.

Yet tens of thousands of years would pass before Neanderthals began disappearing and modern humans expanded beyond the Levant. Why did it take so long?

Employing mathematical models of disease transmission and gene flow, Greenbaum and an international team of collaborators demonstrated how the unique diseases harbored by Neanderthals and modern humans could have created an invisible disease barrier that discouraged forays into enemy territory. Within this narrow contact zone, which was centered in the Levant where first contact took place, Neanderthals and modern humans coexisted in an uneasy equilibrium that lasted tens of millennia.

Ironically, what may have broken the stalemate and ultimately allowed our ancestors to supplant Neanderthals was the coming together of our two species through interbreeding. The hybrid humans born of these unions may have carried immune-related genes from both species, which would have slowly spread through modern human and Neanderthal populations.

As these protective genes spread, the disease burden or consequences of infection within the two groups gradually lifted. Eventually, a tipping point was reached when modern humans acquired enough immunity that they could venture beyond the Levant and deeper into Neanderthal territory with few health consequences.

At this point, other advantages that modern humans may have had over Neanderthals—such as deadlier weapons or more sophisticated social structures—could have taken on greater importance. “Once a certain threshold is crossed, disease burden no longer plays a role, and other factors can kick in,” Greenbaum said.

Why us?

To understand why modern humans replaced Neanderthals and not the other way around, the researchers modeled what would happen if the suite of tropical diseases our ancestors harbored were deadlier or more numerous than those carried by Neanderthals.

“The hypothesis is that the disease burden of the tropics was larger than the disease burden in temperate regions. An asymmetry of disease burden in the contact zone might have favored modern humans, who arrived there from the tropics,” said study co-author Noah Rosenberg, the Stanford Professor of Population Genetics and Society in the School of Humanities and Sciences.

According to the models, even small differences in disease burden between the two groups at the outset would grow over time, eventually giving our ancestors the edge. “It could be that by the time modern humans were almost entirely released from the added burden of Neanderthal diseases, Neanderthals were still very much vulnerable to modern human diseases,” Greenbaum said. “Moreover, as modern humans expanded deeper into Eurasia, they would have encountered Neanderthal populations that did not receive any protective immune genes via hybridization.”

The researchers note that the scenario they are proposing is similar to what happened when Europeans arrived in the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries and decimated indigenous populations with their more potent diseases.

If this new theory about the Neanderthals’ demise is correct, then supporting evidence might be found in the archaeological record. “We predict, for example, that Neanderthal and modern human population densities in the Levant during the time period when they coexisted will be lower relative to what they were before and relative to other regions,” Greenbaum said.

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Illustration of modern humans overcoming disease burden before Neanderthals. Vivian Chen Wong

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Article Source: STANFORD UNIVERSITY—SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES AND SCIENCES news release

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AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE—All roads may lead to Rome, and in ancient times, a great many European genetic lineages did too, according to a new study*. Its results, perhaps the most detailed analysis of changing genetic variation patterns in the region to date, reveal a dynamic population history from the Mesolithic (~10,000 BCE) into modern times, and spanning the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. At its height, the ancient Roman Empire sprawled across three continents, encompassing the entirety of the Mediterranean and the lives of tens of millions across Europe, the Near East and North Africa. The size of the city at its center, Rome – the first to reach more than one million residents in the ancient world – would remain unrivaled in Europe until the dawn of the industrial revolution nearly 1,500 years later. Even long before the rise of Imperial Rome, the region was an important cultural crossroads between Europe and the Mediterranean. However, while Rome and central Italy’s antiquity is well-documented in a rich archaeological and historical record, little is known about the region’s genetic history. Margaret Antonio and colleagues present a new genetic record, built from genome data of 127 ancient individuals from 29 archaeological sites in and around Rome, spanning nearly 12,000 years of Roman prehistory and history. Antonio et al. revealed two major prehistoric ancestry shifts – one occurring as Neolithic farmers replaced Mesolithic hunter-gathers roughly 7,000 years ago, and another during the Bronze age likely coinciding with increased trade and interaction with populations from across the Mediterranean. The results suggest that by Rome’s founding, the genetics of ancient central Italy were much the same as that seen in modern populations. However, throughout the historic period (the past 3,000 years), genetic ancestry was greatly diverse, with genetic contributions from individuals from across the Near East, Europe and North Africa, and changes largely reflected major Roman historical events, the authors say.

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Ancient Rome’s population was genetically diverse, say researchers. Pictured here is the Arch of Constantine, by Julius Silver (Pixabay).

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Article Source: AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE news release

*”Ancient Rome: A genetic crossroads of Europe and the Mediterranean,” by M.L. Antonio, et al.

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UNIVERSITAT POMPEU FABRA – BARCELONA—An international team of scientists has for the first time performed an analysis of the complete genome of the population of North Africa. They have identified a small genetic imprint of the inhabitants of the region in Palaeolithic times, thus ruling out the theory that recent migrations from other regions completely erased the genetic traces of ancient North Africans. The study was led by David Comas, principal investigator at UPF and at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE: CSIC-UPF) and it has been published in the journal Current Biology.

The field of genomics has evolved greatly in recent years. DNA sequencing is increasingly affordable and there are major projects studying genomes at the population level. However, some human populations like those of North Africa have been systematically ignored. This is the first genomic study to contextualize this region of the world.

The origin and history of the population of North Africa are different from the rest of the continent and are more similar to the demographic history of regions outside Africa: the Middle East, Europe or Asia. Palaeontological remains exist that prove the existence of humans in the region more than 300,000 years ago. In any case, previous genetic studies had shown that current populations of North Africa originated as a result of a Back to Africa process, that is, recent migrations from the Middle East that populated northern Africa.

Hence, the debate that arises is one of continuity versus replacement. On the one hand, the continuity hypothesis posits that current North African populations descend from Palaeolithic groups, i.e., that such ancient humans are the ancestors of present human populations. Meanwhile, other hypotheses argue that the populations that existed in Palaeolithic times were replaced, and that the humans that currently inhabit North Africa are the result of recent migrations that arrived there since the Neolithic.

In this study, the researchers compared genetic data from current North African individuals with data recently published on the DNA of fossil remains found at different sites in Morocco. “We see that the current populations of North Africa are the result of this replacement but we detect small traces of this continuity from Palaeolithic times, i.e., total replacement did not take place in the populations of North Africa”, reveals David Comas, full professor of Biological Anthropology at the Department of Experimental and Health Sciences (DCEXS) at UPF. “We do not know whether the first settlers 300,000 years ago are their ancestors, but we do detect imprints of this continuity at least since Palaeolithic times, since 15,000 years ago or more”, he adds.

“We have seen that the genetic imprint of Palaeolithic populations of North Africa is unique to the current North African populations and is decreasingly distributed from west to east in the region, inversely proportional to the Neolithic component coming from the Middle East, which had a greater effect on the eastern region, which is geographically closer”, says Gerard Serra-Vidal, first author of the article.

“Therefore, our results confirm that migrations from other regions such as Europe, the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa to this area did not completely erase the genetic traces of the ancient North Africans”, explains David Comas, head of the Human Genome Diversity research group of the IBE.

These results of the populations of North Africa are in contrast with what is known about the European continent, in whose current populations a strong Palaeolithic component is found, i.e., more continuity and less replacement than in North Africa.

Many genomic data are still missing, both of current populations and of fossil remains, to be able to establish the population history of the human species. “This is or particular concern in populations such as those of North Africa about which we have very little information compared to other populations in the world. In order to have a complete picture of human genome diversity we still have to do a considerable amount of research”, David Comas concludes.

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The origin and history of the population of North Africa are different from the rest of the continent and are more similar to the demographic history of regions outside Africa. Michael Gaida, Pixabay

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Article Source: UNIVERSITAT POMPEU FABRA news release

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AMERICAN FRIENDS OF TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY—Who exactly were the Aurignacians, who lived in the Levant 40,000 years ago? Researchers from Tel Aviv University, the Israel Antiquities Authority, and Ben-Gurion University now report that these culturally sophisticated yet mysterious humans migrated from Europe to the Levant some 40,000 years ago, shedding light on a significant era in the region’s history.

The Aurignacian culture first appeared in Europe some 43,000 years ago and is known for having produced bone tools, artifacts, jewelry, musical instruments, and cave paintings. For years, researchers believed that modern man’s entry into Europe led to the rapid decline of the Neanderthals, either through violent confrontation or wresting control of food sources. But recent genetic studies have shown that Neanderthals did not vanish. Instead, they assimilated into modern human immigrant populations. The new study adds further evidence to substantiate this theory.

Through cutting-edge dental research on six human teeth discovered at Manot Cave in the Western Galilee, Dr. Rachel Sarig of TAU’s School of Dental Medicine and Dan David Center Center for Human Evolution and Biohistory Research, Sackler Faculty of Medicine in collaboration with Dr. Omry Barzilai of the Israel Antiquities Authority and colleagues in Austria and the United States, have demonstrated that Aurignacians arrived in modern-day Israel from Europe some 40,000 years ago — and that these Aurignacians comprised Neanderthals and Homo sapiens alike.

A report on the new findings was published in the Journal of Human Evolution on October 11.

“Unlike bones, teeth are preserved well because they’re made of enamel, the substance in the human body most resistant to the effects of time,” Dr. Sarig explains. “The structure, shape, and topography or surface bumps of the teeth provided important genetic information. We were able to use the external and internal shape of the teeth found in the cave to associate them with typical hominin groups: Neanderthal and Homo sapiens.”

The researchers performed in-depth lab tests using micro-CT scans and 3D analyses on four of the teeth. The results surprised the researchers: Two teeth showed a typical morphology for Homo sapiens; one tooth showed features characteristic of Neanderthals; the last tooth showed a combination of Neanderthal and Homo sapiens features.

This combination of Neanderthal and modern human features has, to date, been found only in European populations from the early Paleolithic period, suggesting their common origin.

“Following the migration of European populations into this region, a new culture existed in the Levant for a short time, approximately 2,000-3,000 years. It then disappeared for no apparent reason,” adds Dr. Sarig. “Now we know something about their makeup.”

“Until now, we hadn’t found any human remains with valid dating from this period in Israel,” adds Prof. Israel Hershkovitz, head of the Dan David Center, “so the group remains a mystery. This groundbreaking study contributes to the story of the population responsible for some of the world’s most important cultural contributions.”

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A view of Manot cave and a close up of the area where some of the teeth were found. Prof. Israel Hershkovitz/American Friends of Tel Aviv University

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Upper and lower molars taken from the Manot cave, dated to 38,000 years ago, showing a mixture of characteristics. Dr. Rachel Sarig

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Article Source: AMERICAN FRIENDS OF TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY news release

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AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR HORTICULTURAL SCIENCE—Roland Ebel of the Sustainable Food Systems Program at Montana State University conducted a research project to determine the extent to which an ancient Aztec agricultural technique could benefit 21st century horticultural needs.

Specifically, Ebel examined the use of “chinampas” with the hope of discovering their modern utility. A chinampa is a raised field on a small artificial island on a freshwater lake (usually surrounded by canals and ditches), where vegetables can be produced year round. The irrigation needs of chinampas is low and the productivity extremely high. Chinampas provide fresh produce for a megacity such as Mexico City and are conceivable around many of today’s exploding urban areas.

Ebel’s findings are illustrated in the article “Chinampas: An Urban Farming Model of the Aztecs and a Potential Solution for Modern Megalopolis”, found open access in the online journal HortTechnology.

The chinampa system, commonly called floating gardens, is still practiced in certain suburban areas in Xochimilco, in the southern valley of Mexico City. These raised fields are constructed by digging the canals and mounding the displaced earth onto platforms. Similar historic raised field systems can be found in South America, Asia, Oceania, and parts of Africa.

In a chinampa, the canal water rises through capillary action to the plant roots, which reduces irrigation demand. Additionally, a considerable portion of the soil fertility is generated in the canal floors. Complex rotations allow up to seven harvests in a year. Chinampas also provide ecosystem services, particularly greenhouse gas sequestration and biodiversity. In addition, the recreational benefits are tremendous: today, chinampas generate even more money from tourism than by horticultural production.

Ebel discovered the chinampa to be one of the most intensive and prolific production systems ever developed, and it is highly sustainable. It can be kept in almost continuous cultivation, and the microclimate is favorable for many horticultural crops, including ornamentals, which play an increasingly important role in Xochimilco. Even small animals can be raised on chinampas.

During the Aztec period (1325-1521), the development of chinampas is linked to high regional population density and the growth of sizable local urban communities. The raised field agriculture provided pre-Columbian farmers with better drainage, soil aeration, moisture retention during the dry season, and higher and longer-term soil fertility than in conventional outdoor production.

“Today, many cities face very similar challenges as Mexico City did 700 years ag– a rapidly growing population, and less and less arable land available for food production. Highly intensive production systems with low resource demand are, therefore, a strategic goal of urban agriculture developers. Thus, while most strategists emphasize high-tech solutions such as complex vertical farms, I think it is worthwhile to learn from the achievements of our ancestors,” states Ebel.

Nevertheless, despite versatile efforts to revitalize and reinterpret chinampas, the raised-field production system today is mostly limited to small-scale research and development projects.

Ebel supports efforts for a revitalization of the chinampa system. “A restored use of chinampas would allow intensive production of fresh vegetables close to Mexico City, avoiding transport needs and avoiding negative consequences on produce quality and greenhouse gas emissions,” he states.

Furthermore, chinampas could provide a series of desirable ecosystem services, including water filtration, regulation of water levels, microclimate regulation, increased biodiversity, and carbon capture and storage. Ebel adds, “Wherever you have freshwater lakes near a big city, chinampa-like systems are conceivable–and this applies for many parts of the world.”

The benefits of creating chinampas are not limited to big cities, although the assistance it could provide urban farming would be difficult to overstate. This system could be adopted into smaller rural communities as well, especially in tropical wetlands.

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The ancient agricultural practice of the chinampa could provide a solution to sustainable agriculture. Image by Oscar Frazelle

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Article Source: AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR HORTICULTURAL SCIENCE news release

The complete article is available on the ASHS HortTechnology electronic journal web site: https://journals.ashs.org/horttech/view/journals/horttech/aop/article-10.21273-HORTTECH04310-19.xml.

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Science Advances—Neanderthals used eagle talons as symbolic adornments thirty-nine thousand years ago, according to a new report, which contributes to the scarce evidence that ancient humans used animal parts for symbolic purposes as opposed to practical ones. The finding represents the most recent known use of talons for adornments by Neanderthals and is the first such discovery on the Iberian Peninsula. Previously, archaeologists suggested that Neanderthals used seashells as beads and to hold paints, indicating that these ancient humans may have conveyed ideas like social status or rank with symbolic objects. Additionally, archaeologists have found eagle talons or bones from which talons had been removed at 10 other Neanderthal sites across Eurasia dated between 130 and 39 thousand years ago, and thus researchers have proposed that they had been used for symbolic purposes because of the eagles’ relative scarcity and impracticality as a food or tool source. Because these kinds of finds are uncommon, some researchers have argued that Neanderthals did not have symbolic culture, at least until modern humans introduced it to them after migrating into Europe and Eurasia.

In 2015, Antonio Rodriguez-Hidalgo and colleagues discovered the Imperial eagle toe bone (phalanx) in the Foradada Cave, located on the Catalonia coast in Spain. The find was associated with a lower depositional strata that featured objects identified to the Châtelperronian, a culture developed by the last Neanderthals during the transition period to the Upper Paleolithic. The phalanx showed distinctive cut marks. Using 3-D analysis, they found that the cut marks could only have been made by a stone tool, likely to remove the talon. Given that there is little nutritional content on that part of the bird, the researchers suggest that the Neanderthals who occupied the cave, the makers of the Châtelperronian culture, may have used eagle talons and feathers to evoke connotations of eagles as majestic predators. 

Rodriguez-Hidalgo and colleagues suggest that, based on the archaeological record, modern humans did not use raptor talons until they arrived in Europe, suggesting the possibility that the Neanderthals had an eagle talon ornamental tradition that the modern humans adopted after arrival. Such a tradition would be the oldest known expression of symbolism prior to modern human arrival. 

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Exterior view of the prehistoric site of Cova Foradada (Calafell, Tarragona). Antonio Rodríguez-Hidalgo

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Eagle bone from Cova Foradada showing cut marks. Antonio Rodríguez-Hidalgo

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3-D imaging analysis showed cut marks made by stone tools. Screenshot from video, The Necklace of the Last Neanderthal. Antonio Rodriguez-Hidalgo

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Article Source: Edited and adapted from the subject Science Advances news release. Science Advances is published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society.

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FLINDERS UNIVERSITY—The largest water management feature in Khmer history was built in the 10th century as part of a short-lived ancient capital in northern Cambodia to store water but the system failed in its first year of operation, possibly leading to the return of the capital to Angkor.

An international team of researchers led by Dr Ian Moffat from Flinders University in Australia used ground penetrating radar to map the surface of a buried spillway in Koh Ker to better understand why the reservoir failed during its first year of use.

In a study published in Geoarchaeology, archaeologists explain that the 7km long embankment was designed to capture water from the Stung Rongea river but modelling indicates it was inadequate to contain the average water flow in the catchment, putting into question the legitimacy of Khmer kings, and forcing them to re-establish their capital in Angkor.

“At that time, embarking on projects of civil engineering such as temple building, urban renewal, and the development of water infrastructure was central to establishing the legitimacy of Khmer kings,” says Dr Moffat

“It’s not difficult to envisage that the failure of the embankment at Koh Ker–the largest and most ambitious infrastructure project of the era–may have had a significant impact on the prestige of the sovereign capital, and contributed to the decision to re-establish Angkor as the capital of the Khmer Empire.”

“Our study shows that this ambitious engineering feat was always doomed to rapid failure.”

The monumental complex of Koh Ker, located 90 km northeast of Angkor, remains relatively poorly understood even though it was briefly the capital in the middle of the 10th century CE under King Jayavarman IV, the only capital throughout six centuries to be established outside of the Angkor region.

The site is located in an area of gently sloping hills and stone outcrops, far removed from the low-lying floodplains that define the Khmer heartland.

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Regional map of Koh Ker showing the location of the chute and key archaeological features. The detailed map area (top right) is shown as a white dashed box on the regional map (left). The black dashed line in the detailed map area shows the approximate area of Fig 2. The location of Koh Ker compared with Angkor, Phnom Penh, and Ho Chi Minh City is shown in the bottom right. North is up in all figures. Dr Ian Moffat, Flinders University

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Article Source: Flinders University news release

Researchers from Flinders, University of British Columbia and Ecole francaise d’Extreme-Orient in Paris contributed to the study.

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PLOS—Buried alongside the famous Ötzi the Iceman are at least 75 species of bryophytes – mosses and liverworts – which hold clues to Ötzi’s surroundings, according to a study released October 30, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by James Dickson of the University of Glasgow, UK and colleagues at the University of Innsbruck.

Ötzi the Iceman is a remarkable 5,300-year-old human specimen found frozen in ice approximately 3,200 meters above sea level in the Italian Alps. He was frozen alongside his clothing and gear as well as an abundant assemblage of plants and fungi. In this study, Dickson and colleagues aimed to identify the mosses and liverworts preserved alongside the Iceman.

Today, 23 bryophyte species live the area near where Ötzi was found, but inside the ice the researchers identified thousands of preserved bryophyte fragments representing at least 75 species. It is the only site of such high altitude with bryophytes preserved over thousands of years. Notably, the assemblage includes a variety of mosses ranging from low-elevation to high-elevation species, as well as 10 species of liverworts, which are very rarely preserved in archaeological sites. Only 30% of the identified bryophytes appear to have been local species, with the rest having been transported to the spot in Ötzi’s gut or clothing or by large mammalian herbivores whose droppings ended up frozen alongside the Iceman.

From these remains, the researchers infer that the bryophyte community in the Alps around 5,000 years ago was generally similar to that of today. Furthermore, the non-local species help to confirm the path Ötzi took to his final resting place. Several of the identified moss species thrive today in the lower Schnalstal valley, suggesting that Ötzi traveled along the valley during his ascent. This conclusion is corroborated by previous pollen research, which also pinpointed Schnalstal as the Iceman’s likely route of ascent.

Dickson adds, “Most members of the public are unlikely to be knowledgeable about bryophytes (mosses and liverworts). However, no fewer than 75 species of these important investigative clues were found when the Iceman (aka Ötzi) was removed from the ice. They were recovered as mostly small scraps from the ice around him, from his clothes and gear, and even from his alimentary tract. Those findings prompted the questions: Where did the fragments come from? How precisely did they get there? How do they help our understanding of the Iceman?”

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Taphonomic processes. These led to the deposition of flowering plant remains at the Ötzi discovery site according to Heiss and Oeggl. Dickson et al, 2019

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Article Source: PLoS ONE news release

*Dickson JH, Oeggl KD, Kofler W, Hofbauer WK, Porley R, Rothero GP, et al. (2019) Seventy-five mosses and liverworts found frozen with the late Neolithic Tyrolean Iceman: Origins, taphonomy and the Iceman’s last journey. PLoS ONE 14(10): e0223752. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0223752

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INSTITUT NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE – INRS—Soil erosion reduces the productivity of ecosystems, it changes nutrient cycles and it thus directly impacts climate and society. An international team of researchers, including Professor Pierre Francus at the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS), recorded temporal changes of soil erosion by analyzing sediment deposits in more than 600 lakes worldwide. They found that the accumulation of lake sediments increased significantly on a global scale around 4,000 years ago. At the same time, tree cover decreased as shown by pollen records, which is a clear indicator of deforestation. The study suggests that human practices and land-use change have intensified soil erosion long before industrialization.

Soils are the foundation for almost all biological processes on the Earth’s land surface. On millennial time scales, their weathering and erosion is controlled mainly by climatic and tectonic impacts. In the short term and at smaller local scales, anthropogenic activities are the main drivers of soil erosion. It remained unclear, however, if soil erosion caused by humans has an impact on the global scale as well.

To address this question, European and Canadian researchers looked back in time regarding soil erosion. They investigated cores of sediments from 632 lakes worldwide, which had been collected during the last decades.

“Lake sediments are considered natural archives of erosion activities. All fluxes and processes removing soil, rock and dissolved materials result in chronological sediment layers that are accumulated and preserved at the bottom of lakes”, says lead author, Dr. Jean-Philippe Jenny, from Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany, and CARRTEL Limnology Center, Thonon-les-Bains, France.

Using 14C radiocarbon measurements, the scientists dated the age of lake sediment layers and the sediment accumulation rates. “This is the first time that by compiling data from so many lakes we see a general trend that shows an increasing sediment accumulation during the Holocene (or the last 10 000 years),” says co-author Professor Francus, who also holds a Canada Research Chair in Environmental Sedimentology at INRS.

When searching for potential causes of this increased sedimentation, the researchers looked at the pollen fossils recorded in the same lakes, in order to reconstruct land cover changes in each lake watersheds.

“We were excited to find that increased sediment accumulation 4,000 years ago coincided with a reduction of arboreal pollen derived from trees” says Dr. Jenny. “The tree pollen decrease reflects land-cover changes, in particular land clearances, e.g., for agriculture and settlement, that in turn are likely to lead to soil degradation and erosion.”

Further statistical analyses supported the notion that land cover change was the main driver of globally accelerated sediment accumulation in lakes, which is the proxy for soil erosion.

”This means that land use had a major impact as many as 4000 years ago, when the human population was much lower than it is today. Our ecosystems are extremely sensitive to modifications to land use,” explains Professor Francus.

Looking closer at their data, the researchers also found other exiting connections: on a regional level, changes in sediment accumulation seem to correlate with historical socio-economic developments during human settlements. For example, the increase of soil erosion started later in North America than in Europe. This increase likely corresponds to the delayed introduction of European agricultural practices in North America following colonization. On the contrary, the decrease in sediment accumulation in 23 percent of sites is likely associated with increased water use and building dams, especially in the Roman and Chinese empires 3,000 years ago.

Collectively, this study suggests that the change in tree abundance in lake catchments has long been the leading factor driving soil erosion. Furthermore, anthropogenic deforestation explains the accelerated soil erosion during the last four millennia.

“These findings are important as it will allow us to get better and more precise predictions of the carbon cycle in the long-term, ” adds Professor Francus.

“Well before the more recent and abrupt influences by greenhouse gas emissions, human activities must have influenced the global environment already 4,000 years ago,” concludes Dr. Jenny who led the research project at Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry as a fellow funded by the AXA research foundation. Dr. Jenny was also a postdoctoral fellow in Professor Francus’ laboratory at INRS – Centre Eau Terre Environnement (Research Centre on Water, Earth, and the Environment).

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Erosion caused by agriculture is a major cause of land degradation. Rick Bohn / United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS)

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Taking samples from a sediment core for age determination by radiocarbon measurements. Jean-Philippe-Jenny

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Article Source: INSTITUT NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE – INRS news release

*Jenny, J.-P., Koirala, S., Gregory-Eaves, I., Francus, P., Niemann, C., Ahrens, B., Brovkin, V., Baud, A., Ojala, A.E.K., Normandeau, A., Zolitschka, B., Carvalhais, N., Human and climate influences on sediment transfer – a global account for the Holocene, Proc.Natl.Acad.Sci.USA (2019)

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GARVAN INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL RESEARCH—A study has concluded that the earliest ancestors of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) emerged in a southern African ‘homeland’ and thrived there for 70 thousand years. The breakthrough findings are published in the prestigious journal Nature today. The authors propose that changes in Africa’s climate triggered the first human explorations, which initiated the development of humans’ genetic, ethnic and cultural diversity. This study provides a window into the first 100 thousand years of modern humans’ history.

DNA as a time capsule

“It has been clear for some time that anatomically modern humans appeared in Africa roughly 200 thousand years ago. What has been long debated is the exact location of this emergence and subsequent dispersal of our earliest ancestors,” says study lead Professor Vanessa Hayes from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and University of Sydney, and Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria.

“Mitochondrial DNA acts like a time capsule of our ancestral mothers, accumulating changes slowly over generations. Comparing the complete DNA code, or mitogenome, from different individuals provides information on how closely they are related.”

In their study, Professor Hayes and her colleagues collected blood samples to establish a comprehensive catalogue of modern human’s earliest mitogenomes from the so-called ‘L0’ lineage. “Our work would not have been possible without the generous contributions of local communities and study participants in Namibia and South Africa, which allowed us to uncover rare and new L0 sub-branches,” says study author and public health Professor Riana Bornman from the University of Pretoria.

“We merged 198 new, rare mitogenomes to the current database of modern human’s earliest known population, the L0 lineage. This allowed us to refine the evolutionary tree of our earliest ancestral branches better than ever before,” says first author Dr Eva Chan from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, who led the phylogenetic analyses.

By combining the L0 lineage timeline with the linguistic, cultural and geographic distributions of different sub-lineages, the study authors revealed that 200 thousand years ago, the first Homo sapiens sapiens maternal lineage emerged in a ‘homeland’ south of the Greater Zambezi River Basin region, which includes the entire expanse of northern Botswana into Namibia to the west and Zimbabwe to the east.

A homeland perfect for life to thrive

Investigating existing geological, archeological and fossil evidence, geologist Dr Andy Moore, from Rhodes University, revealed that the homeland region once held Africa’s largest ever lake system, Lake Makgadikgadi.

“Prior to modern human emergence, the lake had begun to drain due to shifts in underlying tectonic plates. This would have created a vast wetland, which is known to be one of the most productive ecosystems for sustaining life,” says Dr Moore.

Modern humans’ first migrations

The authors’ new evolutionary timelines suggest that the ancient wetland ecosystem provided a stable ecological environment for modern humans’ first ancestors to thrive for 70 thousand years.

“We observed significant genetic divergence in the modern humans’ earliest maternal sub-lineages, that indicates our ancestors migrated out of the homeland between 130 and 110 thousand years ago,” explains Professor Hayes. “The first migrants ventured northeast, followed by a second wave of migrants who travelled southwest. A third population remained in the homeland until today.”

“In contrast to the northeasterly migrants, the southwesterly explorers appear to flourish, experiencing steady population growth,” says Professor Hayes. The authors speculate that the success of this migration was most likely a result of adaptation to marine foraging, which is further supported by extensive archaeological evidence along the southern tip of Africa.

Climate effects

To investigate what may have driven these early human migrations, co-corresponding author Professor Axel Timmermann, Director of the IBS Center for Climate Physics at Pusan National University, analysed climate computer model simulations and geological data, which capture Southern Africa’s climate history of the past 250 thousand years.

“Our simulations suggest that the slow wobble of Earth’s axis changes summer solar radiation in the Southern Hemisphere, leading to periodic shifts in rainfall across southern Africa,” says Professor Timmermann. “These shifts in climate would have opened green, vegetated corridors, first 130 thousand years ago to the northeast, and then around 110 thousand years ago to the southwest, allowing our earliest ancestors to migrate away from the homeland for the first time.”

“These first migrants left behind a homeland population,” remarks Professor Hayes. “Eventually adapting to the drying lands, maternal descendants of the homeland population can be found in the greater Kalahari region today.”

This study uniquely combined the disciplines of genetics, geology and climatic physics to rewrite our earliest human history.

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Professor Vanessa Hayes learning how to make fire with Ju ‘hoansi hunters in the now dried homeland of the greater Kalahari of Namibia. From left to right: Namce Sao, kun Namce, Vanessa Hayes and kun kunta. Chris Bennett, Evolving Picture

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Article Source: GARVAN INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL RESEARCH news release

The research was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant (DP170103071) and the Institute for Basic Science (IBS-R028-D1). Professor Vanessa Hayes holds the Sydney University Petre Chair of Prostate Cancer Research.

This study was conducted in consultation with the local African communities, approval from community leaders and ethics approval from the Ministry of Health and Social Services in Namibia, the University of Pretoria Human Research Ethics Committee and St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney. Participants for this study were recruited within the borders of South Africa and Namibia. The study was reviewed and approved by the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MoHSS) in Namibia (#17-3-3), with additional local approvals from community leaders, and the University of Pretoria Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC #43/2010 and HREC #280/2017), including US Federal-wide assurance (FWA00002567 and IRB00002235 IORG0001762).

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HOKKAIDO UNIVERSITY—Fossil coral records provide new evidence that frequent winter shamals, or dust storms, and a prolonged cold winter season contributed to the collapse of the ancient Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia.

The Akkadian Empire (24th to 22nd century B.C.E.) was the first united empire in Mesopotamia and thrived with the development of irrigation. Yet, settlements appear to have been suddenly abandoned ca. 4,200 years ago, causing its collapse. The area would also not experience resettlement until about 300 years later.

Past studies have shown that the Akkadian Empire likely collapsed due to abrupt drought and civil turmoil. However, the climatic dynamics which caused widespread agricultural failures and the end of an era have yet to be sufficiently explored.

Researchers from Hokkaido University, the KIKAI Institute for Coral Reef Sciences, Kyushu University, and Kiel University made paleoclimatic reconstructions of the temperature and hydrological changes of the areas around the archaeological site of Tell Leilan, the center of the Akkadian Empire. They sampled six 4,100-year-old fossil Porites corals from the Gulf of Oman, just directly downwind. The samples were aged by radiocarbon dating and geochemically analyzed to confirm they have not been significantly altered from their present state.

The coral data was then compared to modern coral samples and meteorological information. Although it is normal for the survey area to receive a significant amount of rainfall in the winter, the coral data suggests that, during the time of the empire’s collapse, the area suffered from significant dry spells. The data before and since the collapse are furthermore comparable to modern coral data, showing the dry spells would have been sudden and intense.

The fossil evidence shows that there was a prolonged winter shamal season accompanied by frequent shamal days. The impact of the dust storms and the lack of rainfall would have caused major agricultural problems possibly leading to social instability and famine, both factors which have been previously associated with the collapse of the empire.

“Although the official mark of the collapse of the Akkadian Empire is the invasion of Mesopotamia by other populations, our fossil samples are windows in time showing that variations in climate significantly contributed to the empire’s decline,” said Tsuyoshi Watanabe of Hokkaido University’s Department of Natural History Sciences. “Further interdisciplinary research will help improve our understanding of connections between climate changes and human societies in the past.”

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A 4,100-year-old Oman coral fossil. Hokkaido University

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A map showing the sample sites (red stars) in respect to Mesopotamia (green dots) and wind direction. (Watanabe T.K. et al, The Geological Society of America. September 2, 2019). Watanabe T.K. et al, The Geological Society of America. September 2, 2019

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Article Source: HOKKAIDO UNIVERSITY news release

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PLOS—Early Celts from the Heuneburg settlement may have enjoyed Mediterranean wine well before they began importing Mediterranean drinking vessels–and this special drink may have been available to all in the community, according to a study* published October 23, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Maxime Rageot from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and the University of Tübingen, and colleagues.

The Early Celtic “Heuneburg” settlement north of the Alps in modern-day Germany was a locus for early urbanization during the Early Iron Age (7th-5th centuries BCE): excavation has revealed several elite burials as well as a rich collection of Mediterranean imported goods used for feasting. In order to better understand feasting and consumption practices in the Heuneburg, Rageot and colleagues analyzed organic residues left on 126 local vessels and seven imported Attic ceramics recovered across the settlement, used for drinking and serving beverages, and food storage and preparation.

The results of the gas chromatography and mass spectrometry analyses showed that Mediterranean grape wine was present earlier than previously expected, and drunk from a large variety of vessels, including the oldest local ceramics created prior to the presence of imported Attic vessels or the formation of the settlement’s fortified central plateau (where elite members of the settlement are thought to have lived). This complicates a previous assumption that imported wine was reserved for the elite: this wine may have been available to all members of the community, at least early in Heuneburg’s history.

A bee or plant fermentation byproduct was also found in many of the vessels across the settlement, including Mediterranean-style goblets, so residents might have appropriated Mediterranean drinking style for local fermented beverages, too.

The authors’ analysis suggests that later, with the introduction of new imported Attic pottery and wheel-thrown local ceramics, residents may have preferred to drink imported wine solely from these finer vessels–potentially inspired by an increased knowledge of Mediterranean drinking practices.

After the elite plateau was walled off, the authors found more fermented beverage evidence in vessels from the plateau, and more millet/food evidence (including animal fats indicating consumption of dairy products) in vessels from the lower town, suggesting an increased distinction in vessel use between social classes. The intricate and shifting social dynamics hinted at in these findings suggest lines for future inquiry into Early Celtic sites.

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Heuneberg pottery / Heuneburg early celts from all social classes may have consumed mediterranean wine in local ceramics. Victor S. Brigola

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Article Source: PLOS One news release

*Rageot M, Mötsch A, Schorer B, Gutekunst A, Patrizi G, Zerrer M, et al. (2019) The dynamics of Early Celtic consumption practices: A case study of the pottery from the Heuneburg. PLoS ONE 14(10): e0222991. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222991

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FLINDERS UNIVERSITY—October 16, 2019 marks 360 years since the Dutch merchant ship Melckmeyt (Milkmaid) was wrecked off a remote Icelandic island during a clandestine trading mission.

Since its discovery in 1992 it has remained the oldest identified shipwreck in Iceland, and its lower hull has remained unusually well-preserved in Iceland’s icy waters.

To mark this anniversary, digital archaeology specialists at Flinders University have collaborated with maritime archaeologists at the University of Iceland to release a 360 degree virtual dive on the wreck.

This is a highly realistic virtual experience of the wreck and includes a digital reconstruction of how the ship might have appeared on the seabed moments after it sank.

The three minute virtual dive was created for an exhibition at the Reykjavik Maritime Museum, but has now been published through YouTube and is available to anyone with a VR headset – it can also be viewed with a smartphone or tablet just by turning it around to view the scene.

The wreck at the centre of the experience is a merchant ship around 33 meters long named Melckmeyt (Milkmaid), thought to be a type of Dutch ship known as a flute.

Flutes were one of the most widely used ship types in the 17th century, a period when the Dutch ruled the seas and piracy and sea battles were a frequent occurrence. The kingdom of Denmark ruled Iceland and forbade other European nations from trading with the island.

However, in 1659 a surprise attack by the Swedish king on the Danish capital prevented any Danish supply ships from traveling to Iceland.

Sensing an opportunity, enterprising merchants in the Netherlands sent a small fleet of unlicensed ships flying under a false Danish flag to trade illegally with the Icelandic population for fish and other goods. If discovered their ships were at risk of confiscation or attack by Danish authorities.

On October 16th, the ship Melckmeyt paid the ultimate price, wrecking in a remote harbor during a sudden storm, with the death of one crew member.

The survivors took shelter above water in the highest point of wreck for the next two days. Although recorded in the Icelandic annals, this event was largely forgotten until its rediscovery in 1992 by local divers Erlendur Guðmundsson and Sævar Árnason. In 2016 PHD candidate Kevin Martin from the University of Iceland returned to the wreck site to carry out a detailed high-resolution 3D survey with his team, including archaeologists from the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands.

“The significance of this wreck is enormous for Iceland. As it is one of the oldest known historic wrecks in this part of the world, it shines a light on a fascinating period of Icelandic history, when Denmark ruled the island and had a monopoly over trade here for a period of 200 years.”

“We have also been able to directly embed a 3D survey of the seabed with full photographic texture. In theory, a member of the public viewing this might even spot something on the wreck that we have missed during our dives on it!”

PHD candidate in Maritime Archaeology at Flinders University, John McCarthy created the virtual dive.

“Funding from the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Canberra allowed me to travel from Australia to the Netherlands to make a 3D scan of a rare ship model from the 17th century, supporting the most authentic reconstruction of the ship possible.”

“We have even based the stern painting on a real contemporary Dutch painting, Vermeer’s’ famous ‘Milkmaid’, painted just one year before the ship was wrecked.”

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Milkmaid virtual dive. Image by John McCarthy

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Map of Milkmaid wreck location. Image by John McCarthy

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Milkmaid reconstruction. Image by John McCarthy

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Aerial view of wreck site. Image by Kevin Martin

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Article Source: Flinders University news release

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TAYLOR & FRANCIS GROUP—An ancient walkway most likely used by pilgrims as they made their way to worship at the Temple Mount has been uncovered in the “City of David” in the Jerusalem Walls National Park.

In a new study* published in Tel Aviv: Journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University, researchers at the Israel Antiquities Authority detail finding over 100 coins beneath the paving stones that date the street to approximately 31 CE. The finding provides strong evidence that the street was commissioned by Pontius Pilate.

After six years of extensive archaeological excavations, researchers from the Israel Antiquities Authority and Tel Aviv University have uncovered a 220-meter-long section of an ancient street first discovered by British archaeologists in 1894. The walkway ascends from the Pool of Siloam in the south to the Temple Mount.

Both monuments are hugely significant to followers of Judaism and Christianity. The Temple Mount, located within the Old City of Jerusalem, has been venerated as a holy site for thousands of years. At the time of the street’s construction, it is where Jesus is said to have cured a man’s blindness by sending him to wash in the Siloam Pool.

The excavation revealed over 100 coins trapped beneath paving stones. The latest coins were dated between 17 CE to 31 CE, which provides firm evidence that work began and was completed during the time that Pontius Pilate governed Judea.

“Dating using coins is very exact,” says Dr Donald T. Ariel, an archaeologist and coin expert with the Israel Antiquities Authority, and one of the co-authors of the article. “As some coins have the year in which they were minted on them, what that means is that if a coin with the date 30 CE on it is found beneath the street, the street had to be built in the same year or after that coin had been minted, so any time after 30 CE.”

“However, our study goes further, because statistically, coins minted some 10 years later are the most common coins in Jerusalem, so not having them beneath the street means the street was built before their appearance, in other words only in the time of Pilate.”

The magnificent street 600 meters long and approximately 8 meters wide was paved with large stone slabs, as was customary throughout the Roman Empire. The researchers estimate that some 10,000 tons of quarried limestone rock was used in its construction, which would have required considerable skill.

The opulent and grand nature of the street coupled with the fact that it links two of the most important spots in Jerusalem—the Siloam Pool and Temple Mount—is strong evidence that the street acted as a pilgrim’s route.

“If this was a simple walkway connecting point A to point B, there would be no need to build such a grand street,” says Dr Joe Uziel and Moran Hagbi, archaeologists at the Israel Antiquities Authority, co-authors of the study. “At its minimum it is 8 meters wide. This, coupled with its finely carved stone and ornate ‘furnishings’ like a stepped podium along the street, all indicate that this was a special street.”

“Part of it may have been to appease the residents of Jerusalem, part of it may have been about the way Jerusalem would fit in the Roman world, and part of it may have been to aggrandize his name through major building projects,” says author Nahshon Szanton.

The paving stones of the street were found hidden beneath layers of rubble, thought to be from when the Romans captured and destroyed the city in 70 CE. The rubble contained weapons such as arrowheads and sling stones, remains of burnt trees, and collapsed stones from the buildings along its edge.

It is possible that he had the street constructed to reduce tensions with the Jewish population. “We can’t know for sure, although all these reasons do find support in the historical documents, and it is likely that it was some combination of the three.”

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The pavement of the street and the solid foundation that was exposed in a place where no paving stones were preserved. A. Peretz, IAA

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View of the foundations of the Western Wall (left) and the retaining wall that abutted it, built on bedrock (below). To the right are the constructive layers that filled the support system. M. Hagbi, IAA

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location map, marking excavation sites. D. Levi, IAA; printed by permission of the Survey of Israel.

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Article Source: TAYLOR & FRANCIS GROUP news release

*http://tandfonline.com/10.1080/03344355.2019.1650491

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AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE—Modern Melanesians harbor beneficial genetic variants that they inherited from archaic Neanderthal and Denisovan hominins, according to a new study*. These genes are not found in many other human populations, the study adds. The results suggest that large structural variants introgressed from our archaic ancestors may have played an important role in the adaptation of early modern human populations and that they may represent an under-appreciated source of the genetic variation that remains to be characterized in our modern genomes. As populations of our ancestors migrated out of Africa and into the vast Eurasian continent, they were required to adapt to the wide range of environments they encountered. They also interbred with the archaic hominin ancestors they encountered. However, the role of genetic exchange between archaic hominin and anatomically modern human populations in adaption and human evolution remains elusive. Genetic surveys with single-nucleotide variants (SNVs) have suggested their involvement in archaic introgression and adaptation. However, compared to SNVs, copy number variants (CNVs), a larger form of structural variant, are far more likely to be associated with genotype expression and are subject to stronger selective pressure. Despite this, the adaptive role of introgressed CNVs in human evolution and the genetic variation of modern humans remains unexplored. PingHsun Hsieh performed a genome-wide search for evidence of selective and archaic introgressed CNVs among Melanesian genomes. The Islanders of Melanesia harbor some of the greatest amounts of archaic human ancestry known. Hsieh et al. discovered hominin-shared, stratified CNVs associated with positive selection in the modern Melanesian genomes. Furthermore, the results revealed evidence for adaptive CNVs introgression at chromosomes 16p11.2 and 8p21.3, which were derived from Denisovans and Neanderthals, respectively. The results tentatively suggest that CNV introgression from ancestral hominins may have allowed modern humans to adapt to new environments by providing a source of beneficial genetic variation.

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The Islanders of Melanesia harbor some of the greatest amounts of archaic human ancestry known.

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Article Source: AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE news release

*”Adaptive archaic introgression of copy number variants and the discovery of new human genes,” by P. Hsieh, et al.

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MCMASTER UNIVERSITY—An international research team led by scientists from McMaster University has unearthed new evidence in Greece proving that the island of Naxos was inhabited by Neanderthals and earlier humans at least 200,000 years ago, tens of thousands of years earlier than previously believed.

The findings, published today in the journal Science Advances, are based on years of excavations and challenge current thinking about human movement in the region—long thought to have been inaccessible and uninhabitable to anyone but modern humans. The new evidence is leading researchers to reconsider the routes our early ancestors took as they moved out of Africa into Europe and demonstrates their ability to adapt to new environmental challenges.

“Until recently, this part of the world was seen as irrelevant to early human studies but the results force us to completely rethink the history of the Mediterranean islands,” says Tristan Carter, an associate professor of anthropology at McMaster University and lead author on the study. He conducted the work with Dimitris Athanasoulis, head of archaeology at the Cycladic Ephorate of Antiquities within the Greek Ministry of Culture.

While Stone Age hunters are known to have been living on mainland Europe for over 1 million years, the Mediterranean islands were previously believed to be settled only 9,000 years ago, by farmers, the idea being that only modern humans – Homo sapiens – were sophisticated enough to build seafaring vessels.

Scholars had believed the Aegean Sea, separating western Anatolia (modern Turkey) from continental Greece, was therefore impassable to the Neanderthals and earlier hominins, with the only obvious route in and out of Europe across the land bridge of Thrace (southeast Balkans).

The authors of this paper suggest that the Aegean basin was in fact accessible much earlier than believed. At certain times of the Ice Age the sea was much lower, exposing a land route between the continents that would have allowed early prehistoric populations to walk to Stelida, and an alternative migration route connecting Europe and Africa. Researchers believe the area would have been attractive to early humans because of its abundance of raw materials ideal for toolmaking and for its fresh water.

At the same time however, “in entering this region the pre-Neanderthal populations would have been faced with a new and challenging environment, with different animals, plants and diseases, all requiring new adaptive strategies,” says Carter.

In this paper, the team details evidence of human activity spanning almost 200,000 years at Stelida, a prehistoric quarry on the northwest coast of Naxos. Here early Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and earlier humans used the local stone (chert) to make their tools and hunting weapons, of which the team has unearthed hundreds of thousands.

Reams of scientific data collected at the site add to the ongoing debate about the importance of coastal and marine routes to human movement. While present data suggests that the Aegean could be crossed by foot over 200,000 years ago, the authors also raise the possibility that Neanderthals may also have fashioned crude seafaring boats capable of crossing short distances.

This research is part of the Stelida Naxos Archaeological Project, a larger collaboration involving scholars from all over the world. They have been working at the site since 2013.

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A researcher works at a trench at Stelida (Naxos, Greece). Evaggelos Tzoumenekas

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Today Naxos is completely surrounded by the sea, but “while present data suggests that the Aegean could be crossed by foot over 200,000 years ago, the authors also raise the possibility that Neanderthals may also have fashioned crude seafaring boats capable of crossing short distances.”

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Article Source: MCMASTER UNIVERSITY news release

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UNIVERSITY OF GÖTTINGEN—Recent archaeological investigations in the Tollense Valley led by the University of Göttingen, the State Agency for Cultural Heritage in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and the University of Greifswald have unearthed a collection of 31 unusual objects. Researchers believe this is the personal equipment of a Bronze Age warrior who died on the battlefield 3,300 years ago. This unique find was discovered by a diving team headed by Dr Joachim Krüger, from the University of Greifswald, and seems to have been protected in the river from the looting, which inevitably followed fighting. The study was published in Antiquity.

The archaeological records of the European Bronze Age are dominated by settlement finds, hoards and evidence of funeral sites. However, the site at the river Tollense in Northern Germany is very different and provides for the first time in Europe the evidence of a prehistoric battlefield. Over 12,000 pieces of human bone have already been recovered from the valley and osteoanthropologist Ute Brinker, from the State Agency has identified more than 140 individuals – young adult males in good physical condition. Their bones showed signs of recent trauma – the result of close and long-range weapons – and healed lesions, which probably indicate they were accustomed to combat. Isotopic results suggested that at least some of the group were not from the local area, but until now, it was not clear how far they travelled.

The discovery of a new set of artifacts from the remains of battle provides important new clues. The divers could document a number of Bronze finds in their original position on the river ground, among them a decorated belt box, three dress pins and also arrow heads. Surprisingly they also found 31 objects (250g) tightly packed together, suggesting they were in a container made of wood or cloth that has since rotted away. The items include a bronze tool with a birch handle, a knife, a chisel and fragments of bronze. Radiocarbon dating of the collection of objects demonstrates that the finds belong to the battlefield layer and they were probably the personal equipment of one of the victims. The finds were studied in a Master’s thesis by Tobias Uhlig and the new results make it increasingly clear that there was a massive violent conflict in the older Nordic Bronze Age (2000-1200 BC). In fact, recent evidence suggests that it is likely to have been on a large scale, clearly stretching beyond regional borders.

Professor Thomas Terberger, from the Department of Pre- and Early History at the University of Göttingen, says, “This is the first discovery of personal belongings on a battlefield and it provides insights into the equipment of a warrior. The fragmented bronze was probably used as a form of early currency. The discovery of a new set of artifacts also provides us with clues about the origins of the men who fought in this battle and there is increasing evidence that at least some of the warriors originated in southern Central Europe.”

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This collection of objects was found by divers in the Tollense river and is probably the contents of a personal pouch of a warrior who died 3,300 years ago on the battlefield. Volker Minkus

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Human skull found in the Tollense valley with fatal trauma caused by a Bronze arrowhead. Volker Minkus

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The battlefield remains from the layer where objects were found at the site near the Tollense river in Weltzin. Stefan Sauer

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Article Source: UNIVERSITY OF GÖTTINGEN news release

*Tobias Uhlig et al., Lost in combat? A scrap metal find from the Bronze Age battlefield site at Tollense (2019), Antiquity. DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2019.137

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SANTA FE INSTITUTE—Humankind first started farming in Mesopotamia about 11,500 years ago. Subsequently, the practices of cultivating crops and raising livestock emerged independently at perhaps a dozen other places around the world, in what archaeologists call the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution. It’s one of the most thoroughly-studied episodes in prehistory — but a new paper in the Journal of Political Economy shows that most explanations for it don’t agree with the evidence, and offers a new interpretation.

With farming came a vast expansion of the realm over which private property governed access to valued goods, replacing the forager social norms around sharing food upon acquisition. A common explanation is that farming increased labor productivity, which then encouraged the adoption of private property by providing incentives for the long-term investments required in a farming economy.

“But it’s not what the data are telling us”, says Santa Fe Institute economist Samuel Bowles, a co-author of the paper. “It is very unlikely that the number of calories acquired from a day’s work at the advent of farming made it a better option than hunting and gathering and it could well have been quite a bit worse.”

Prior studies, including those of human and animal bones, suggest that farming actually took an extreme nutritional toll on early adopters and their livestock. So why farm in the first place?

Some have suggested an inferior technology could have been imposed by political elites as a strategy for extracting taxes, tribute, or rents. But farming was independently adopted millennia before the emergence of governments or political elites capable of imposing a new way of life on heavily-armed foraging communities.

Bowles and co-author Jung-Kyoo Choi, an economist at Kyungpook National University in South Korea, use both evolutionary game theory and archaeological evidence to propose a new interpretation of the Neolithic. Based on their model, a system of mutually recognized private property rights was both a precondition for farming and also a means of limiting costly conflicts among members of a population. While rare among foragers, private property did exist among a few groups of sedentary hunter-gatherers. Among them, farming could have benefited the first adopters because it would have been easier to establish the private possession of cultivated crops and domesticated animals than for the diffuse wild resources on which hunter-gatherers relied.

“It is a lot easier to define and defend property rights in a domesticated cow than in a wild kudu,” says Choi. “Farming initially succeeded because it facilitated a broader application of private property rights, not because it lightened the toil of making a living.”

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Did private property facilitate the agricultural revolution?

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Article Source: SANTA FE INSTITUTE news release

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