Science—More than 10,000 Pre-Columbian archaeological sites likely rest undiscovered throughout the Amazon basin, estimates a new study. The findings, derived from remote sensing data and predictive spatial modeling, address questions about the influence of pre-Columbian societies on the Amazon region. “The massive extent of archaeological sites and widespread human-modified forests across Amazonia is critically important for establishing an accurate understanding of interactions between human societies, Amazonian forests, and Earth’s climate,” write the authors. Indigenous societies have called the Amazon basin home for more than 12,000 years, creating ancient earthwork structures and domesticated landscapes that have had long-lasting effects on modern forest composition. However, the size and scale of Amazon settlement and landscape transformation are poorly understood – sites are remote and often obscured by dense vegetation. As such, there has never been a comprehensive survey of pre-Columbian sites across the Amazon basin. Airborne LIDAR (light detection and ranging), a remote sensing technique that can map small changes in topography on the ground surface beneath the forest canopy, has been used to discover many previously unknown pre-Columbian structures and earthworks in heavily forested sites throughout Central and South America. Here, Vinicius Peripato and colleagues searched 5,315 square kilometers of LIDAR survey data and discovered 24 unreported human-made earthworks, including fortified villages, defensive and ceremonial structures, mountaintop settlements, and other geoglyphs, in regions across the Amazon basin. However, the LIDAR survey data covered only 0.08% of the total area of Amazonia. To better understand where and how many undocumented pre-Columbian sites might occur, Peripato et al. combined the data from their small basin-wide survey, as well as data on other previously identified sites with a predictive spatial distribution model. According to the model, between 10,272 and 23,648 large-scale pre-Columbian structures remain to be discovered, particularly in southwestern Amazonia. What’s more, the authors identified relationships between the predicted probability of earthworks and the occurrence and abundance of domesticated tree species and found significant association between the two, suggesting that active pre-Columbian Indigenous forest management practices have long shaped the ecology of modern forests across Amazonia. “Amazonian forests clearly merit protection not only for their ecological and environmental value but also for their high archaeological, social, and biocultural value, which can teach modern society how to sustainably manage its natural resources,” write Peripato et al.
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Earthwork on Amazonian landscape. Mauricio de Paiva
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LiDAR point cloud and the digital terrain beneath the forest with a vertical exaggeration of 2.5 meters. The scale on the right represents the tree’s height. Vinicius Peripato
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igure of the forested landscape of Amazonia. Hans ter Steege
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE (AAAS)—New radiocarbon (14C) and optically simulated luminescence ages have confirmed the controversial antiquity of the ancient human footprints discovered in White Sands National Park, and reported in a study* in 2021. Addressing the widespread criticism of their previous study, researchers report that the independent ages from multiple resolved sources conclusively show that the footprints were left behind between roughly 23,000 and 20,000 years ago, demonstrating that humans were present in southern North America during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM).
When and how humans first migrated into North America has long been debated and remains poorly understood. Current estimates for the timing of these first occupants range from ~13,000 years ago to more than 20,000 years ago. However, the earliest archaeological evidence for the region’s settlement is sparse and often controversial. In a Science study published in September 2021 (Bennett et al.), researchers reported the discovery of in situ human footprints preserved in an ancient lakebed dating to between ~23,000 and 21,000 years ago in what is now White Sands National Park – findings which suggest nearly 2,000 years of human occupation in North America during the height of the LGM. However, since the study’s publication, the accuracy of the radiocarbon dates has been debated. It’s argued that the ancient seeds from the aquatic plant (Ruppia cirrhosa) that were used to date the surfaces the footprints were embedded in have the potential to be affected by old carbon reservoir effects that could influence the reported radiocarbon ages and make them appear older than they truly are.
Here, Jeffery Pigati, Kathleen Springer, and colleagues report new evidence in the form of multiple independent age estimates of the White Sands footprints, which support their previous study’s claims. “We always knew that we would have to independently evaluate the accuracy of our ages to convince the archaeological community that the peopling of the Americas occurred far earlier than traditionally thought,” said Pigati.
In their new work, Pigati and Springer et al. present calibrated 14C ages of terrestrial pollen collected from the same stratigraphic contexts as the Ruppia seeds. Unlike the seeds, conifer pollen fixes atmospheric carbon and, therefore is not subject to potential old carbon reservoir effects. According to the findings, the resulting calibrated 14C ages range from 23.4 ± 2.5 – 22.6 ± 2.3 thousand years ago. In addition, the authors obtained optically simulated luminescence ages of the sediments from within the footprint-bearing strata, which produced a minimum age of 21.5 ± 1.9 thousand years ago. In both cases, Pigati and Springer et al. show that the resolved dates were statistically indistinguishable from the original calibrated 14C ages of the oldest Ruppia seeds reported previously. In a related Perspective, Bente Phillipson discusses the study and its findings in greater detail.
“Even as the original work was being published, we were forging ahead to test our results with multiple lines of evidence and independent chronologic techniques,” said Kathleen Springer, co-lead author of the study. “Although we were confident in the original seed ages, we wanted to develop community confidence in them as well. Our new ages, combined with the strong geologic, hydrologic, and stratigraphic evidence, unequivocally support the conclusion that humans were present in North America during the last Glacial Maximum.”
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Above and below: Human footprints at study site. National Park Service
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A single human footprint at site. National Park Service
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The study site trench with White Sands National Park Resource Program Manager, David Bustos in foreground. National Park Service
PLOS—Paleolithic human populations survived even in the coldest and driest upland parts of Spain, according to a study* published October 4, 2023 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Manuel Alcaraz-Castaño of the University of Alcalá, Spain, Javier Aragoncillo-del Rió of the Molina-Alto Tajo UNESCO Global Geopark, Spain and colleagues.
Research into ancient hunter-gatherer populations of the Iberian Peninsula has mainly focused on coastal regions, with relatively little investigation into the inland. A classic hypothesis has been that the cold and dry conditions of inland Iberia would have been too harsh for such populations to inhabit during the coldest periods of the Last Glacial, but recent findings have begun to challenge this view. In this study, researchers report new evidence for high-altitude human occupation from the Upper Paleolithic of Spain.
This evidence comes from a site called Charco Verde II, located in the Guadalajara province. This site is situated over 1,000 meters above sea level, in one of the coldest regions of Spain. Despite this, the abundance of tools and ornaments at the site reveals a recurring sequence of human occupation between around 21,000 and 15,000 years ago. This time span is especially notable since it includes two of the coldest periods of the Last Glacial.
This discovery further challenges the idea that Upper Palaeolithic humans avoided inland Iberia due to its harsh climate, and instead shows that the inland hosted complex and relatively dense settlements even during very cold and arid periods. These findings add to the growing evidence for Middle and Upper Paleolithic occupations throughout this region, altogether indicating that the historic lack of evidence for hunter-gatherer sites in inland Iberia is not an accurate reflection of prehistoric human distributions, but instead a result of modern research hitherto prioritizing study of coastal regions and neglecting the inland.
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View from the top of the Charco Verde II archeological deposit during the 2021 excavation season. Aragoncillo-del Río et al., 2023, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
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Selection of lithic artifacts collected at the Charco Verde II site. All come from Level 1 except number 3, which was found on the ground Surface of the archeological deposit, and number 6, recorded at the fluvial terrace below the slope. 1 & 4: Endscrapers on blades. 2, 3 & 6: Canted dihedral burins. 5 & 7: Large blades. 8: Unidirectional blade core. 9: Backed bladelet. 10: Denticulated backed bladelet. 11: Unidirectional bladelet core. Aragoncillo-del Río et al., 2023, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
*Aragoncillo-del Río J, Alcolea-González J-J, Luque L, Castillo-Jiménez S, Jiménez-Gisbert G, López-Sáez J-A, et al. (2023) Human occupations of upland and cold environments in inland Spain during the Last Glacial Maximum and Heinrich Stadial 1: The new Magdalenian sequence of Charco Verde II. PLoS ONE 18(10): e0291516. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0291516
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE (AAAS)—New sediment analyses from southern Jordan offer new insights into the environmental conditions and chronology of human migration out of Africa during the last interglacial period. Mahmoud Abbas and colleagues’ findings support growing evidence that the region, now a desert, was once a wetland suitable for human passage. Additionally, stone flakes that the researchers dated to around 84,000 years ago suggest that migrants were taking this northern route earlier than previously believed. “Our findings support the growing consensus for a well-watered Jordan Rift Valley that funneled migrants into western Asia and northern Arabia,” the authors write. Homo sapiens are thought to have migrated out of Africa in multiple waves, including during the last major interglacial period, sometime between around 129,000 and 71,000 years ago. Fossil evidence shows that humans were present in Arabia during this period, but researchers have been unable to piece together the routes and chronologies of their dispersals. One theory is that humans traveled through Arabia into Asia via a southern route, crossing the Bab-el-Mandeb strait and dispersing along the southern coast. Another is that they took a northern passage through the Sinai Peninsula and Jordan Rift Valley. Recent analyses of sediments from central and southern Jordan suggest that this region may have been a wetland during the last interglacial. Extending these analyses, Abbas et al. collected and dated sediments from three sites along the Jordan River Valley: Wadi Hasa, Gregra, and Wadi Gharandal. The sediments contained organic matter, muddy sands, and marl – a silty carbonate material associated with water bodies – and some contained small rocks indicative of flash flooding and a landslide. Wadi Gharandal sediments also contained three stone tools, including two Levallois flakes dated to around 84,000 years ago – suggesting that human passage through the region happened much earlier than previous records imply.
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Wadi Rum, in southern Jordan. ChiemSeherin, Pixabay
*“Human dispersals out of Africa via the Levant” by Mahmoud Abbas in (CN) , Zhongping Lai in (CN) , Hua Tu in (CN) , Xiaolin Xu in (CN) , Mohammad Alqudah in (JO) , John Jansen in (CZ) , Xianjiao Ou in (CN) , Bety Saqarat in (JO) , Mu’ayyad Al Hseinat in (JO) , Michael Petraglia in University of Queensland (AU) in Griffith University (AU) in Smithsonian (US) , Paul Carling in University of Southampton (GB), Science Advances, 4-Oct-2023. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adi6838
AUTONOMOUS UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA—A team of scientists, led by researchers from the Universidad de Alcalá (UAH) and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), has discovered and analyzed the first direct evidence of basketry among hunter-gatherer societies and early farmers in southern Europe in the Cueva of the Bats of Albuñol (Granada, Spain).
Their work, published in the prestigious journal Science Advances , analyzes 76 objects made of organic materials (wood, reed and esparto) discovered during 19th century mining activities in the Granada cave. The researchers studied the raw materials and technology and carried out carbon-14 dating, which revealed that the set dates to the early and middle Holocene period, between 9,500 and 6,200 years ago. This is the first direct evidence of basketry made by Mesolithic hunter-gatherer societies in southern Europe and a unique set of other organic tools associated with early Neolithic farming communities, such as sandals and a wooden mace.
As researcher of the Prehistory Department of the University of Alcalá Francisco Martínez Sevilla explains, ”the new dating of the esparto baskets from the Cueva de los Murciélagos of Albuñol opens a window of opportunity to understanding the last hunter-gatherer societies of the early Holocene. The quality and technological complexity of the basketry makes us question the simplistic assumptions we have about human communities prior to the arrival of agriculture in southern Europe. This work and the project that is being developed places the Cueva de los Murciélagos as a unique site in Europe to study the organic materials of prehistoric populations.”
Cueva de los Murciélagos is located on the coast of Granada, to the south of the Sierra Nevada and 2 kilometers from the town of Albuñol. The cave opens on the right side of the Barranco de las Angosturas, at an altitude of 450 meters above sea level and about 7 kilometers from the current coastline. It is one of the most emblematic prehistoric archaeological sites of the Iberian Peninsula due to the rare preservation of organic materials, which until this study had only been attributed to the Neolithic. The objects made of perishable materials were discovered by the mining activities of the 19th century and were documented and recovered by Manuel de Góngora y Martínez, later becoming part of the first collections of the National Archaeological Museum of Madrid.
As detailed by María Herrero Otal, co-author of the work and researcher at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, “the esparto grass objects from Cueva de los Murciélagos are the oldest and best-preserved set of plant fiber materials in southern Europe so far known . The technological diversity and the treatment of the raw material documented demonstrates the ability of prehistoric communities to master this type of craftsmanship, at least since 9,500 years ago, in the Mesolithic period. Only one type of technique related to hunter-gatherers has been identified, while the typological, technological and treatment range of esparto grass was extended during the Neolithic from 7,200 to 6,200 years before the present.”
The work is part of the project “From museums to territory: updating the study of the Bat Cave of Albuñol (Granada)” (MUTERMUR), which has been funded by the Community of Madrid and the University of Alcalá. The objective of this project is the holistic study of the site and its material record, applying the latest archaeometric techniques and generating quality scientific data. The project also included the collaboration of the National Archaeological Museum, the Archaeological and Ethnological Museum of Granada, the City Council of Albuñol and the owners of the cave.
“The results of this work and the finding of the oldest basketry in southern Europe give more meaning, if possible, to the phrase written by Manuel de Góngora in his work Prehistoric Antiquities of Andalusia (1868): ‘the now forever famous Cueva de los Bats’”, the authors highlight.
In addition to Francisco Martínez Sevilla and María Herrero Otal, specialists from different disciplines such as Prehistory, Geology, Physics-Chemistry, Carpology or Anthracology participated in this interdisciplinary study: María Martín-Seijo (Universidad de Cantabria); Jonathan Santana (University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria); José A. Lozano Rodríguez (Oceanographic Center of the Canary Islands); Ruth Maicas Ramos (National Archaeological Museum); Miriam Cubas, Rosa Barroso Bermejo, Primitiva Bueno Ramírez and Rodrigo de Balbín Behrmann (University of Alcalá); Anna Homs; Rafael M. Martínez Sánchez (University of Córdoba) Ingrid Bertin (Université Côte d’Azur); Antonio M. Álvarez-Valero (University of Salamanca); Leonor Peña Chocarro (Institute of History, Higher Council for Scientific Research); Javier L. Carrasco Rus, Rubén Pardo Martínez and Mercedes Murillo Barroso (University of Granada); Eva Fernández Domínguez (Durham University); Manuel Altamirano García (Distance University); Mercedes Iriarte Cela (SDLE Technology and Research Center); Carmen Alfaro Giner (University of Valencia); Antoni Palomo Pérez and Raquel Piqué Huerta (Autonomous University of Barcelona).
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Interior of the Cueva de los Murciélagos de Albuñol. Blas Ramos Rodríguez. CC BY-ND
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Wooden mace and esparto sandals, dating back to the Neolithic 6,200 years ago (right). MUTERMUR Project. CC BY-ND
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Oldest Mesolithic baskets in southern Europe, 9,500 years old. MUTERMUR Project, CC BY-ND
*The earliest basketry in southern Europe: Hunter-gatherer and farmer plant-based technology in Cueva de los Murciélagos (Albuñol), Science Advances, 27-Sep-2023. 10.1126/sciadv.adi3055
UNIVERSITY OF WÜRZBURG—An Egyptian-German mission led by Egyptologist Dr. Mohamed Ismail Khaled of the Department of Egyptology at Julius-Maximilians-Universität of Würzburg (JMU) has made a significant discovery within Sahura’s Pyramid.
The exploration has unearthed a number of storage rooms that had not been documented before. This discovery sheds new light on the architecture of the pyramid of Sahura, the second king of the Fifth Dynasty (2400 BC) and the first king to be buried at Abusir.
The conservation and restoration project inside Sahura’s pyramid, initiated in 2019 and supported by the Antiquities Endowment Fund (AEF) of the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE), aimed to safeguard the substructure of Sahura’s pyramid. The team’s efforts focused on cleaning the interior rooms, stabilizing the pyramid from inside, and preventing further collapse. In the process, the team succeeded in securing the pyramid’s burial chambers, which had previously been inaccessible.
A Briton with the Right Hunch
During the restoration work, the team discovered the original dimensions and was able to uncover the floor plan of the antechamber, which had deteriorated over time. Consequently, the destroyed walls were replaced with new retaining walls. The eastern wall of the antechamber was badly damaged, and only the northeast corner and about 30 centimeters of the eastern wall were still visible.
Traces of a low passageway that John Perring had already noticed during an excavation in 1836 continued to be excavated. Perring had mentioned that this passage had been full of debris and rubbish and had been impassable due to decay. The British Egyptologist suspected that it might have led to storage rooms. However, during further exploration of the pyramid by Ludwig Borchardt in 1907, these assumptions were called into question – other experts joined his opinion.
All the more surprising was the find of the Egyptian-German team, which actually discovered traces of a passage. Thereby proving that the observations made during Perring’s exploration were correct. The work was continued, and the passage was uncovered. Thus, eight storerooms have been discovered so far. Although the northern and southern parts of these magazines, especially the ceiling and the original floor, are badly damaged, remnants of the original walls and parts of the floor can still be seen.
Modern Technology in Use
Careful documentation of the floor plan and dimensions of each storage room has greatly enhanced the researchers’ understanding of the pyramid’s interior. During restoration, a balance between preservation and presentation was pursued to ensure the structural integrity of the rooms while making them accessible for future study and potentially the public.
Using state-of-the-art technology, including 3D laser scanning with a ZEB Horizon portable LiDAR scanner from GeoSLAM, the Egyptian-German team collaborated with the 3D Geoscan team to conduct detailed surveys inside the pyramid. This advanced technology enabled comprehensive mapping of both the extensive external areas and the narrow corridors and chambers inside. The frequent scans provide real-time updates of progress and create a permanent record of exploration efforts.
This groundbreaking project represents a significant milestone in the understanding of the Sahura pyramid and its historical significance. The discovery and restoration of the storerooms is expected to revolutionize the view of historical development of pyramid structures and challenge existing paradigms in the field.
UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS, LAWRENCE — It’s an Ice Age mystery that’s been debated for decades among anthropologists: Exactly when and how did the flow of Homo sapiens in Eurasia happen? Did a cold snap or a warming spell drive early human movement from Africa into Europe and Asia?
A new study* appearing in Science Advances compares Pleistocene vegetation communities around Lake Baikal in Siberia, Russia, to the oldest archeological traces of Homo sapiens in the region. The researchers use the “remarkable evidence” to tell a compelling story from 45,000-50,000 years ago with new detail: how the first humans migrated across Europe and Asia.
The new pollen data suggest warming temperatures supported forests that expanded into Siberia and facilitated early human migration there, at roughly the same time as more and western areas of Eurasia.
“This research addresses long-standing debates regarding the environmental conditions that early Homo sapiens faced during their migration into Europe and Asia around 40,000 to 50,000 years ago,” said co-author Ted Goebel, professor of anthropology at the University of Kansas. “It provides critical insights into environmental conditions at Lake Baikal, using pollen records to reveal surprising warmth during this period.”
Indeed, the pollen data suggest that the dispersal of people occurred during some of the highest temperatures in the late Pleistocene, which also would have featured higher humidity. The ancient pollen record shows coniferous forests and grasslands characterized the region, able to support foraging and hunting by humans. Goebel said the environmental data, combined with archeological evidence, tell a new story.
“This contradicts some recent archaeological perspectives in Europe,” said the KU researcher. “The key factor here is accurate dating, not just of human fossils and animal bones associated with the archaeology of these people, but also of environmental records, including from pollen. What we have presented is a robust chronology of environmental changes in Lake Baikal during this time period, complemented by a well-dated archaeological record of Homo sapiens’ presence in the region.”
Goebel’s collaborators were lead author Koji Shichi of the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute in Kochi, Japan; Masami Izuho of Tokyo Metropolitan University, Hachioji, Japan; and Kenji Kashiwaya of Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Japan.
While the pollen analysis was carried out in Japan, Goebel and Izuho tied the pollen data to important evidence in the archeological record of early human migration. Goebel said the emergence of full-fledged Homo sapiens in the archaeological record corresponds to changes in culture and behavior. Early modern humans of this period were making stone tools on long, slender blades, working bone, antler and ivory to craft tools — including some of the first bone needles with carved eyelets for sewing and early bone and antler spear points.
“Some of us argue that as the anatomical changes were occurring, as evidenced by the fossil record, there was a simultaneous shift in behavior and cognition,” Goebel said. “These early humans were becoming more creative, innovative and adaptable. This is when we start to observe significant changes in the archaeological record, such as cave paintings. We also find mobile art, like the early carvings known as Venus figurines. In Central Europe, there’s even an ivory sculpture dating back to this early period, depicting a lion-headed man. It’s not just replicating nature; it’s about creative expression, inventing new things, exploring new places.”
At least one human bone has been found in the region that dates to the era, according to the KU researcher.
“There is one human fossil from Siberia, although not from Lake Baikal but farther west, at a place called Ust’-Ishim,” Goebel said. “Morphologically, it is human, but more importantly, it’s exceptionally well-preserved. It has been directly radiocarbon-dated and has yielded ancient DNA, confirming it as a representative of modern Homo sapiens, distinct from Neanderthals or Denisovans, or other pre-modern archaic humans.”
Goebel said the earliest human inhabitants of the area likely would have lived in extended nuclear families or small bands, as they seem to have done in other areas of Eurasia. But because so much archeological evidence is degraded, it’s difficult to know with certainty.
“At Ust’-Ishim in Siberia, we have evidence of a fully modern human co-existing with the sites we’ve been discussing,” he said. “However, Ust’-Ishim was an isolated discovery, found by geologists eroding from a riverbank. We lack information about its archaeological context, whether it was part of a settlement or simply a solitary bone washed downstream. Consequently, linking that single individual to the archaeological sites in the Baikal region is tenuous — do they represent the same population? We think so, but definitely need more evidence.”
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Map showing theorized migration routes of early Homo sapiens from Africa across Eurasia. Ted Goebel
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Chikoi River valley, Trans-Baikal region. Ted Goebel
*Climate amelioration, abrupt vegetation recovery, and the dispersal of Homo sapiens in Baikal Siberia, Science Advances, 22-Sep-2023. 10.1126/sciadv.adi0189
Durham University—New research has found that Ice Age cave art made as early as 40,000 years ago could have been influenced in part by a visual psychological phenomenon that humans still experience today.
The research team, led by Dr Izzy Wisher, then a PhD student at Durham University’s Department of Archaeology, tested the theory that cave artists may have experienced pareidolia – a psychological phenomenon where people see meaningful forms in random patterns, such as seeing faces in clouds.
They investigated whether pareidolia may have influenced the artists who painted depictions of animals in the Las Monedas and La Pasiega caves, in Northern Spain.
If so, then the majority of drawings would be expected to be depictions of animals that included features of the cave walls within them and take relatively simple forms (pareidolic images tend to be simple and lack detail).
Their study, published today in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal, found that pareidolia could be responsible for the production of some cave images, suggesting that the cave artists were experiencing the same psychological influences on perception when viewing the natural features of cave walls that humans still experience today.
While the researchers found evidence that pareidolia played a part in the production of some cave images, their research also found the cave painters were influenced by their own experiences and creativity.
Dr Izzy Wisher, now based at Aarhus University, Denmark, said: “It is exciting to see that cave artists in the Upper Palaeolithic era were also experiencing pareidolia, just like many of us do today, and that this influenced their art.
“Much like a modern artist might take inspiration from a basic form or shape, like a crack in a material or a smudge of paint on a canvas, and build their art around this, we can see that cave artists worked in similar ways.
“However, whilst our study showed that pareidolia did have some influence on the cave artists, this was not always the case, giving us fascinating insight into the work of these early painters.
“It seems to us that their art may have been part of a ‘creative conversation’ with the cave walls, where they both took inspiration from what they saw in the cracks and shapes of the cave wall, but also used their own creativity.”
The research found that as many as 71 per cent of images studied in the Las Monedas caves, and 55 per cent in the La Pasiega caves, showed a strong relationship to the natural features of the cave wall, suggesting pareidolia may have been a partial influence on the artists.
Examples included where the curved edges of the cave wall were used to represent the backs of animals such as wild horses, or where natural cracks were used as bison’s horns.
The study also found that of those drawings with a strong relationship to natural features on the cave wall, the majority (80 per cent in Las Monedas and 83 per cent in La Pasiega) lacked additional details such as eyes or hair, which correlates with the simplistic nature of imagery influenced by pareidolia.
The research team, which included Professor Paul Pettitt, Department of Archaeology and Professor Robert Kentridge, Department of Psychology, both Durham University, also investigated whether lighting conditions in the caves at the time the artwork was created might have contributed to the potential influence of pareidolia.
To do this Dr Wisher used a virtual reality gaming software called Unity to model the cave walls and replicate the light sources used by the cave artists, which would have consisted of flickering firelight produced by small torches or lamps, to understand the visual effects across the cave wall.
The results showed that low and unstable lighting conditions did not have a strong correlation to cave art that uses natural features.
Dr Wisher argues that this, coupled with the conclusion that the influence of pareidolia was evident in some, but not all, of the artwork, suggests that cave artists may also have been actively looking for shapes that reminded them of animals within the caves to incorporate into their drawings, as part of a nuanced dialogue between the artist’s personal creativity and the forms seen in the cave walls.
Whilst the theory that pareidolia may have influenced cave artists has long been discussed, the team believes their study offers the first systematic testing of this theory, and is the first to utilise simulated lighting conditions in virtual reality to achieve this.
It provides further detail in the understanding of the experiences, desires, imagination and influences of Upper Palaeolithic cave artists and how cave art may have been made. It also advances Durham University’s research into visual palaeopsychology.
Pareidolia may have first evolved to help humans evade predators by providing a heightened sense of visual interpretation for potential risks, such as helping humans see predators hiding behind bushes. It is a fundamental part of the human visual system, and was probably triggered within dark cave environments.
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Top image: Upper Palaeolithic drawing of a bison in vertical orientation, which uses the edge of the cave wall surface to represent the back. Bottom image: The same bison drawing under the simulated VR light conditions. Copyright: Izzy Wisher, courtesy of the Gobierno de Cantabria
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Top image: Upper Palaeolithic drawing of the partial outline of a horse that uses the natural edge of the cave wall to represent the back and head of the horse. Bottom image: The same horse drawing under the simulated VR light conditions. Copyright: Izzy Wisher, courtesy of the Gobierno de Cantabria
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Caption: A Palaeolithic painting of a horse from the cave of La Pasiega, where the artist used a natural crack to represent the head and ear of the horse. Copyright: Izzy Wisher, courtesy of the Gobierno de Cantabria
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A Palaeolithic painting of an aurochs from the cave of La Pasiega. The Palaeolithic artist traced the natural cracks in the cave wall when painting the head, horns, and back leg of the animal. Copyright: Izzy Wisher, courtesy of the Gobierno de Cantabria
PLOS—Interpersonal violence was a consistent part of life in ancient hunter-gatherer communities on the Atacama Desert coast of northern Chile, according to a study* published September 20, 2023 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Vivien Standen of the University of Tarapacá, Chile and colleagues.
Archaeological research supports the notion that interpersonal violence and warfare have played an important role in the lives of hunter-gatherer groups over time, but many questions remain about the factors that influence such violence. The record of human populations in northern Chile extends across 10,000 years, providing a valuable opportunity to study patterns in violence over time.
In this study, Standen and colleagues examined signs of violent trauma on the remains of 288 adult individuals from funerary sites across the Atacama Desert coast, dating from 10,000 years ago to 1450 AD. The researchers also analyzed patterns in weaponry and in artistic depictions of combat during this time. They found that rates of violence were surprisingly static over time, though there was a notable increase in lethal violence during the Formative Period starting around 1000 BC, a trend also found in similar studies of the Andean region. Data from strontium isotopes indicate that this interpersonal violence was occurring between local groups, not between local and foreign populations.
These results indicate that violence was a consistent part of the lives of these ancient populations for many millennia. The absence of a centralized political system during this time might have been a factor leading to the consistency of violent tensions in the region. It’s also possible that violence was the result of competition for resources in the extreme environment of the desert, a factor which might have become exacerbated as farming became more prominent and widespread.
The authors add: “Despite all the technological advances, humanity has not learned to resolve its conflicts in a different way than our millenary ancestors, in peace and without war.”
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Weapons and defensive objects. Standen et al., 2023, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Funerary bundle of an individual with probable role of “warrior” (photographs by Nick Charlesworth). Standen et al., 2023, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
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Motifs in rock art and geoglyphs from the Formative Period (a-c) and Late Intermediate Period (d-j). Photograph (a) and (d) by Nick Charlesworth; (e) photogrammetry by Marta Crespo. Standen et al., 2023, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
*Standen VG, Santoro CM, Valenzuela D, Arriaza B, Verano J, Monsalve S, et al. (2023) Violence in fishing, hunting, and gathering societies of the Atacama Desert coast: A long-term perspective (10,000 BP—AD 1450). PLoS ONE 18(9): e0290690. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0290690
UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL—Half a million years ago, earlier than was previously thought possible, humans were building structures made of wood, according to new research* by a team from the University of Liverpool and Aberystwyth University.
The research, published in the journal Nature, reports on the excavation of well-preserved wood at the archaeological site of Kalambo Falls, Zambia, dating back at least 476,000 years and predating the evolution of our own species, Homo sapiens.
Expert analysis of stone tool cut-marks on the wood show that these early humans shaped and joined two large logs to make a structure, probably the foundation of a platform or part of a dwelling.
This is the earliest evidence from anywhere in the world of the deliberate crafting of logs to fit together. Until now, evidence for the human use of wood was limited to its use for making fire, digging sticks and spears.
Wood is rarely found in such ancient sites as it usually rots and disappears, but at Kalambo Falls permanently high water levels preserved the wood.
This discovery challenges the prevailing view that Stone Age humans were nomadic. At Kalambo Falls these humans not only had a perennial source of water, but the forest around them provided enough food to enable them to settle and make structures.
Professor Larry Barham, from the University of Liverpool’s Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, who leads the ‘Deep Roots of Humanity’ research project said:
“This find has changed how I think about our early ancestors. Forget the label ‘Stone Age,’ look at what these people were doing: they made something new, and large, from wood. They used their intelligence, imagination, and skills to create something they’d never seen before, something that had never previously existed.”
“They transformed their surroundings to make life easier, even if it was only by making a platform to sit on by the river to do their daily chores. These folks were more like us than we thought.”
The specialist dating of the finds was undertaken by experts at Aberystwyth University.
They used new luminescence dating techniques, which reveal the last time minerals in the sand surrounding the finds were exposed to sunlight, to determine their age.
Professor Geoff Duller from Aberystwyth University said:
“At this great age, putting a date on finds is very challenging and we used luminescence dating to do this. These new dating methods have far reaching implications – allowing us to date much further back in time, to piece together sites that give us a glimpse into human evolution. The site at Kalambo Falls had been excavated back in the 1960s when similar pieces of wood were recovered, but they were unable to date them, so the true significance of the site was unclear until now.”
The site of Kalambo Falls on the Kalambo River lies above a 235 metres (772 foot) waterfall on the border of Zambia with the Rukwa Region of Tanzania at the edge of Lake Tanganyika. The area is on a ‘tentative‘ list from UNESCO for becoming a World Heritage site because of its archaeological significance.
Professor Duller added:
“Our research proves that this site is much older than previously thought, so its archaeological significance is now even greater. It adds more weight to the argument that it should be a United Nations World Heritage Site.”
This research forms part of the pioneering ‘Deep Roots of Humanity’ project, an investigation into how human technology developed in the Stone Age. The project is funded by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council and involved teams from Zambia’s National Heritage Conservation Commission, Livingstone Museum, Moto Moto Museum and the National Museum, Lusaka.
Professor Barham added:
“Kalambo Falls is an extraordinary site and a major heritage asset for Zambia. The Deep Roots team is looking forward to more exciting discoveries emerging from its waterlogged sands.”
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Professor Larry Barham (pictured, right) uncovering the wooden structure on the banks of the river with a fine spray. Professor Geoff Duller, Aberystwyth University
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The excavation team uncovering the wooden structure. Professor Larry Barham, University of Liverpool
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A wedge shaped piece of wood. Professor Larry Barham, University of Liverpool
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The wooden structure, showing where Stone Age Humans have cut into the wood. Professor Larry Barham, University of Liverpool
PLOS—During the Later Stone Age in what is now Namibia, rock artists imbued so much detail into their engravings of human and animal prints that current-day Indigenous trackers could identify which animals’ prints they were depicting, as well as the animals’ general age and sex. Andreas Pastoors of Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany, and colleagues report these findings in a new study published September 13 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.
Engravings of animal tracks and human footprints appear in numerous traditions of prehistoric rock art around the world. Namibia is especially rich in hunter-gatherer rock art from the Later Stone Age with many well-executed engravings of animal and human tracks. Most research into prehistoric rock art has grouped these engravings with geometric shapes, however, leaving them badly under-researched despite being common throughout the world.
In the new study, researchers enlisted the help of Indigenous tracking experts from the Kalahari desert to analyze animal and human footprints in rock art in the Doro! Nawas Mountains in central Western Namibia. The experts were able to define the species, sex, age group and even the exact leg of the animal or human print in more than 90% of the 513 engravings they analyzed. Their work showed the rock art had much more diversity in the animals represented by tracks than the engravings of the animals themselves. Engravers also showed a clear preference for certain species and were more likely to depict adult animals than juveniles, and male footprints compared to female footprints.
The new findings reveal patterns that likely arise from culturally determined preferences, but the meaning of these patterns is still unknown. The researchers propose that consulting with present-day Indigenous experts may shed some light in this area. They point out that while Indigenous knowledge has tremendous capacity to advance archaeological research, in this situation, the precise meaning and context of the rock art will likely remain elusive.
The authors add: “Namibia’s rock faces contain numerous Stone Age depictions of animals and humans, as well as human footprints and animal tracks. Until now, the latter have received little attention because researchers lacked the knowledge to interpret them. Archaeologists from the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nürnberg and the University of Cologne in Germany, together with indigenous trackers from the Nyae Nyae Conservancy in Tsumkwe, Namibia, have now examined several hundred of the tracks in more detail and discovered surprising details: the tracks cover a wider range of animal species than in conventional animal depictions and differentiated cultural patterns emerge in the representation of the various species.”
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Detail of Stone Age depictions of human footprints and animal tracks in Doro! nawas mountains, Namibia. Andreas Pastoors, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
*Lenssen-Erz T, Pastoors A, Uthmeier T, Ciqae T, Kxunta /, Thao T (2023) Animal tracks and human footprints in prehistoric hunter-gatherer rock art of the Doro! nawas mountains (Namibia), analysed by present-day indigenous tracking experts. PLoS ONE 18(9): e0289560. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0289560
Funding: TU: Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation, https://www.dfg.de/) – UT41/6-1. AP: We acknowledge financial support by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg within the funding programme “Open Access Publication Funding”. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
AlUla, Saudi Arabia: Results of two recent archaeological excavations supported by the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) demonstrate that the Neolithic inhabitants of north-west Arabia conducted “complex and sophisticated ritual practices” in the late 6th millennium BCE.
The unprecedented findings open unsuspected horizons for a broader understanding of the social, cultural and spiritual background of the ancient peoples of north-west Arabia.
Researchers emphasize the probable communal character of the ritual and the possibility that people journeyed specifically to prehistoric stone structures known as mustatils to undertake the ritual, which would represent one of the earliest known pilgrimage traditions. Further, greater representation of domestic species among the animal offerings confirms the pastoral nomadic nature of the community, whose members may have built the mustatils as a form of social bonding and/or a marker of territory.
Mustatils are large-scale, open-air rectangular structures with low stone walls. Through aerial surveys, researchers have identified more than 1,600 of them across north Arabia. Though the structures’ function was at first unknown, excavations since 2018 have pointed to a ritual significance and provided increasing insights into the practice.
Results of the two studies have been peer-reviewed and recently published. The study led by Dr Wael Abu-Azizeh of the Archéorient Laboratory and France’s Lyon 2 University appears in the book ‘Revealing Cultural Landscapes in North-West Arabia’, edited by a team of experts led by Dr Rebecca Foote, Director of Archaeology at RCU. The study led by Dr Melissa Kennedy of Australia’s University of Sydney appeared in the journal PLoS One in March.
Abu-Azizeh study
In 2018 Dr Abu-Azizeh began an excavation on behalf of Oxford Archaeology that unearthed the ‘Horn Chamber’ in a mustatil at site IDIHA-0000687 north-east of AlUla dating to circa 5300-5000 BCE. The chamber measures 3.25m by 0.8m and is at the western end of a mustatil measuring 40×12 meters – smaller than most mustatils.
Inside the ‘Horn Chamber’ he and his team made an exceptional discovery of horns and skull fragments, densely packed into a layer 20 to 30 cm deep that covered the floor of the chamber. This, they write, is “a unique and unprecedented assemblage in the context of north Arabian Neolithic.”
About 95% of the horns and skull fragments were from domestic species – goat, sheep and cattle – with the rest from wild species including gazelle, Nubian ibex and aurochs (a now-extinct ancestor of domestic cattle). Beneath the assemblage was a thin bedding of twigs that in preparation for the ritual had been placed on the chamber’s sandstone surface.
The researchers conclude that the horns and skull fragments were probably deposited during a single ceremony. In a tentative reconstruction of the ritual, they propose that pastoral nomads gathered and bore the offerings as part of the ritual performance. To reach the solemn space of the small Horn Chamber they entered one by one through a narrow doorway and small antechamber with hearths to present this trophy on behalf of their social group. The collective hoard of enshrined offerings expressed a cohesive identity for the wider social group.
The researchers write: “By the quantity of remains, the diversity of species represented, and the unusual state of preservation, this assemblage constitutes a unique and unprecedented discovery in the archaeological record of the region. This deposit is interpreted as a testimony of complex and sophisticated ritual practices … ”
Kennedy study
In 2019, the second study, by a team led by Dr Kennedy, then of the University of Western Australia, began excavation of a mustatil deep within dense sandstone canyons east of AlUla, at site IDIHA-0008222. Like Abu-Azizeh’s team, they found a chamber containing horns and skull parts that dated to circa 5200-5000 BCE, though not in as great a quantity. There are further differences: these bones appeared to have been deposited in three or four phases over a generation or two, rather than all at once.
Most of the horns and skull parts were from cattle, and several from goats. The researchers write that this finding is “amongst the earliest attestation of domestic cattle and goat in northern Arabia”.
At the center of the shrine is an upright stone that is believed to have served as the focal point for the ritual. Most of the horns and skull parts were deposited around this standing stone, which stood 0.8m high. The researchers interpret this stone as being a betyl, “a mediator between humankind and the divine, acting as a proxy or a manifestation of an unknown Neolithic deity/deities or religious idea, to which the faunal elements were deposited as votive offerings.” This would constitute one of the earliest known betyls in the Arabian Peninsula.
The researchers further note that the repeated used of the shrine over a period of years “represents one of the earliest examples of ‘pilgrimage’ or shrine revisiting currently identified in the Arabian Peninsula.”
Intriguingly, they hypothesize that the placement of the mustatils might have had an ecological basis. The Arabian climate was growing more arid in the Middle Holocene Period; varying micro-climates made mobility essential and herding viable. The ritual might have been intended to ensure fertility and the continuity of rains, with the mustatils themselves possibly located near water sources such as wadis. This, the writers say, is a key avenue for future research.
Dr Rebecca Foote, Director of Archaeology and Cultural Heritage Research at RCU, said: “RCU has embarked on one of the largest archaeological research programmes worldwide. Across AlUla and Khaybar, 12 current surveys, excavations and specialist projects are deepening our understanding of the past environment, land use, and human occupation of the region. Rich cultural landscapes are being revealed, including funerary avenues, mustatils, ancient cities, inscriptions in 10 languages, rock art and complex agricultural practices. AlUla is a leading hub of archaeological activity, a standing that will be enhanced by the inaugural AlUla World Archaeology Summit.”
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In this overview of the horn chamber mustatil, SU300 marks the eastern wall of the mustatil, SU200 marks a stone cairn and SU100 marks the 7×2.5m platform containing the horn chamber. The cliff overhang protected the horn chamber from exposure to the elements. Credit: Wael Abu-Azizeh et al 2022 / RCU
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The outline of the Kennedy team’s mustatil is at the forefront of this image of the landscape east of AlUla. They describe the location as “essentially hidden in the sandstone canyons”. Credit: Hugh Kennedy, AAKSA / RCU
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The team led by Dr Wael Abu-Azizeh excavates the chamber that contained “an exceptional discovery” of skull and horn fragments. Muhammad Al-Dajani / RCU
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At top is a general view of the SU100 platform; at bottom are details of the horn chamber. Credit: Wael Abu-Azizeh et al 2022 / RCU
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The Kennedy team found most of the skulls and horns deposited around a central standing stone that the researchers interpret as a betyl, “a mediator between humankind and the divine”. Credit: Melissa Kennedy, AAKSA / RCU
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The Abu-Azizeh team found horns from several domestic and wild species, ranging from goats to the now-extinct aurochs. The horns were predominantly from male animals. Credit: Wael Abu-Azizeh et al 2022 / RCU
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About the Royal Commission for AlUla
The Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) was established by royal decree in July 2017 to preserve and develop AlUla, a region of outstanding natural and cultural significance in north-west Saudi Arabia. RCU’s long-term plan outlines a responsible, sustainable, and sensitive approach to urban and economic development that preserves the area’s natural and historic heritage while establishing AlUla as a desirable location to live, work, and visit. This encompasses a broad range of initiatives across archaeology, tourism, culture, education, and the arts, reflecting a commitment to meeting the economic diversification, local community empowerment, and heritage preservation priorities of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 programme.
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE (AAAS)—Between 800,000 and 900,000 years ago, the population of human ancestors crashed, according to a new genomic model* by Wangjie Hu and colleagues. They suggest that there were only about 1280 breeding individuals during this transition between the early and middle Pleistocene, and that the population bottleneck lasted for about 117,000 years. The researchers say about 98.7% of the ancestral population was lost at the beginning of the bottleneck. This decline coincided with climate changes that turned glaciations into long-term events, a decrease in marine surface temperatures, and a possible long period of drought in Africa and Eurasia. Hu et al. developed a coalescence model that looks at divergence between gene lineages and can be used to estimate past population size, using it to analyze genomic sequences from 3154 people from 10 African and 40 non-African populations. The ancient “bottleneck was directly found in all 10 African populations, but only a weak signal of the existence of such was detected in all 40 non-African populations,” Hu et al. write. The proposed bottleneck also coincided with the time that many researchers think the last common ancestor of Denisovans, Neanderthals and modern Homo sapiens lived, but the bottleneck theory needs to be tested against the archaeological and fossil human evidence, Nick Ashton and Chris Stringer write in a related Perspective. “If, as seems likely, humans were widespread inside and outside of Africa in the period between about 800-900,000 years BP … whatever caused the inferred bottleneck was limited in its effects on the wider non-sapiens lineage populations, or any effects were short-lived,” the Perspective authors add.
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A new genomic model opens a window on a prehistoric bottleneck in human evolution. The Digital Artist, Pixabay
MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE OF GEOANTHROPOLOGY—In an innovative endeavor to create a sensory bridge to the ancient past, a team of researchers led by Barbara Huber of the MPI of Geoanthropology has recreated one of the scents used in the mummification of an important Egyptian woman more than 3500 years ago.
Coined ‘the scent of the eternity’, the ancient aroma will be presented at the Moesgaard Museum in Denmark in an upcoming exhibition, offering visitors a unique sensory experience: to encounter firsthand an ambient smell from antiquity – and catch a whiff of the ancient Egyptian process of mummification.
The team’s research centered on the mummification substances used to embalm the noble lady Senetnay in the 18th dynasty, circa 1450 BCE. The researchers utilized advanced analytical techniques – including Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry, High-Temperature Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry, and Liquid Chromatography-Tandem Mass Spectrometry – to reconstruct the substances that helped to preserve and scent Senetnay for eternity.
“We analyzed balm residues found in two canopic jars from the mummification equipment of Senetnay that were excavated over a century ago by Howard Carter from Tomb KV42 in the Valley of the Kings,” says Huber. Today, the jars are housed in the Museum August Kestner in Hannover, Germany. The team found that the balms contained a blend of beeswax, plant oil, fats, bitumen, Pinaceae resins (most likely larch resin), a balsamic substance, and dammar or Pistacia tree resin.
“These complex and diverse ingredients, unique to this early time period, offer a novel understanding of the sophisticated mummification practices and Egypt’s far-reaching trade-routes,” says Christian E. Loeben, Egyptologist and curator at the Museum August Kestner.
“Our methods were also able to provide crucial insights into balm ingredients for which there is limited information in contemporary ancient Egyptian textual sources,” observes Huber.
The work also highlights the trade connections of the Egyptians in the 2nd millennium BCE. “The ingredients in the balm make it clear that the ancient Egyptians were sourcing materials from beyond their realm from an early date,” says Prof. Nicole Boivin, senior researcher on the project. “The number of imported ingredients in her balm also highlights Senetnay’s importance as a key member of the pharaoh’s inner circle.”
Among those imported ingredients were larch tree resin, which likely came from the northern Mediterranean, and possibly dammars, which come exclusively from trees in Southeast Asian tropical forests. If the presence of dammar resin is confirmed, as in balms recently identified from Saqqara dating to the 1st millennium BCE, it would suggest that the ancient Egyptians had access to this Southeast Asian resin via long-distant trade almost a millennium earlier than previously known.
Working closely with the French perfumer Carole Calvez and the sensory museologist Sofia Collette Ehrich, the team meticulously recreated the scent based on their analytical findings.
“’The scent of eternity’ represents more than just the aroma of the mummification process,” notes Huber. “It embodies the rich cultural, historical, and spiritual significance of Ancient Egyptian mortuary practices.”
In creating this smell for museum display, the team hopes to help provide an immersive, multisensory experience to visitors, allowing them to connect with the past in a uniquely olfactory way, while bringing the mystique of Ancient Egyptian mummification to the modern day. Their groundbreaking approach not only bridges a deep temporal divide, but also enables visually impaired individuals to participate more fully in the exhibition of Egypt’s past, making new research results on ancient mummification accessible to a broader audience.
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Perfumer Carole Calvez in the process of recreating the scent of eternity. Carole Calvez
*Biomolecular characterization of 3500-year-old ancient Egyptian mummification balms from the Valley of the Kings, Scientific Reports, 31-Aug-2023. 10.1038/s41598-023-39393-y
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO—A new fossil ape from an 8.7-million-year-old site in Türkiye is challenging long-accepted ideas of human origins and adding weight to the theory that the ancestors of African apes and humans evolved in Europe before migrating to Africa between nine and seven million years ago.
Analysis of a newly identified ape named Anadoluvius turkae recovered from the Çorakyerler fossil locality near Çankırı with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in Türkiye, shows Mediterranean fossil apes are diverse and are part of the first known radiation of early hominines – the group that includes African apes (chimpanzees, bonobos and gorillas), humans and their fossil ancestors.
The findings are described in a study published today in Communications Biology co-authored by an international team of researchers led by Professor David Begun at the University of Toronto (U of T) and Professor Ayla Sevim Erol at Ankara University.
“Our findings further suggest that hominines not only evolved in western and central Europe but spent over five million years evolving there and spreading to the eastern Mediterranean before eventually dispersing into Africa, probably as a consequence of changing environments and diminishing forests,” said Begun, professor in the Department of Anthropology in the Faculty of Arts & Science at U of T. “The members of this radiation to which Anadoluvius belongs are currently only identified in Europe and Anatolia.”
The conclusion is based on analysis of a significantly well-preserved partial cranium uncovered at the site in 2015, which includes most of the facial structure and the front part of the brain case.
“The completeness of the fossil allowed us to do a broader and more detailed analysis using many characters and attributes that are coded into a program designed to calculate evolutionary relationships,” said Begun. “The face is mostly complete, after applying mirror imaging. The new part is the forehead, with bone preserved to about the crown of the cranium. Previously described fossils do not have this much of the brain case.”
The researchers say Anadoluvius was about the size of a large male chimpanzee (50-60 kg) – very large for a chimp and close to the average size of a female gorilla (75-80 kg) – lived in a dry forest setting, and probably spent a great deal of time on the ground.
“We have no limb bones but judging from its jaws and teeth, the animals found alongside it, and the geological indicators of the environment, Anadoluvius probably lived in relatively open conditions, unlike the forest settings of living great apes,” said Sevim Erol. “More like what we think the environments of early humans in Africa were like. The powerful jaws and large, thickly enameled teeth suggest a diet including hard or tough food items from terrestrial sources such as roots and rhizomes.”
The animals that lived with Anadoluvius are those commonly associated with African grasslands and dry forests today, such as giraffes, wart hogs, rhinos, diverse antelopes, zebras, elephants, porcupines, hyaenas and lion-like carnivores. Research shows that the ecological community appears to have dispersed into Africa from the eastern Mediterranean sometime after about eight million years ago.
“The founding of the modern African open country fauna from the eastern Mediterranean has long been known and now we can add to the list of entrants the ancestors of the African apes and humans,” said Sevim Erol.
The findings establish Anadoluvius turkae as a branch of the part of the evolutionary tree that gave rise to chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and humans. Although African apes today are only known from Africa, as are the earliest known humans, the study’s authors – which also include colleagues at Ege University and Pamukkale University in Türkiye and the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in The Netherlands – conclude that the ancestors of both came from Europe and the eastern Mediterranean.
Anadoluvius and other fossil apes from nearby Greece (Ouranopithecus) and Bulgaria (Graecopithecus) form a group that come closest in many details of anatomy and ecology to the earliest known hominins, or humans. The new fossils are the best-preserved specimens of this group of early hominins and provide the strongest evidence to date that the group originated in Europe and later dispersed into Africa.
The study’s detailed analysis also reveals that the Balkan and Anatolian apes evolved from ancestors in western and central Europe. With its more comprehensive data, the research provides evidence that these other apes were also hominines and means that it is more likely that the whole group evolved and diversified in Europe, rather than the alternative scenario in which separate branches of apes earlier moved independently into Europe from Africa over the course of several million years, and then went extinct without issue.
“There is no evidence of the latter, though it remains a favorite proposal among those who do not accept a European origin hypothesis,” said Begun. “These findings contrast with the long-held view that African apes and humans evolved exclusively in Africa. While the remains of early hominines are abundant in Europe and Anatolia, they are completely absent from Africa until the first hominin appeared there about seven million years ago.
“This new evidence supports the hypothesis that hominines originated in Europe and dispersed into Africa along with many other mammals between nine and seven million years ago, though it does not definitively prove it. For that, we need to find more fossils from Europe and Africa between eight and seven million years old to establish a definitive connection between the two groups.”
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A new face and partial brain case of Anadoluvius turkae, a fossil hominine – the group that includes African apes and humans – from the Çorakyerler fossil site located in Central Anatolia, Türkiye. Sevim-Erol, A., Begun, D.R., Sözer, Ç.S. et al. Above and below: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
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Excavation of the Anadoluvius turkae fossil, a significantly well-preserved partial cranium uncovered at the Çorakyerler fossil site in Türkiye in 2015. The fossil includes most of the facial structure and the front part of the brain case. Ayla Sevim-Erol
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Çorakyerler excavation site. This vertebrate fossil settlement near Çankırı, Türkiye, is one of the most important humanoid settlements in Eurasia. As a result of nearly 20 years of excavations, Çorakyerlar has taken its place among the important Late Miocene reference localities of Anatolia and Europe with 8 mammalian orders, more than 10 families and 43 species. Ayla Sevim-Erol
JOHANNES GUTENBERG UNIVERSITAET MAINZ—The diversity of family systems in prehistoric societies has always fascinated scientists. A groundbreaking study by Mainz anthropologists and an international team of archaeologists now provides new insights into the origins and genetic structure of prehistoric family communities.
Researchers Jens Blöcher and Joachim Burger from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have analyzed the genomes of skeletons from an extended family from a Bronze Age necropolis in the Russian steppe. The 3,800-year-old “Nepluyevsky” burial mound was excavated several years ago and is located on the geographical border between Europe and Asia. Using statistical genomics, the family and marriage relationships of this society have now been deciphered. The study was carried out in cooperation with archaeologists from Ekaterinburg and Frankfurt a. M. and was partly financially supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Russian Science Foundation (RSCF).
The kurgan (burial mound) investigated was the grave of six brothers, their wives, children and grandchildren. The presumably oldest brother had eight children with two wives, one of whom came from the Asian steppe regions in the east. The other brothers showed no signs of polygamy and probably lived monogamously with far fewer children.
Fascinating snapshot of a prehistoric family
“The burial site provides a fascinating snapshot of a prehistoric family,” explains Jens Blöcher, lead author of the study. “It is remarkable that the first-born brother apparently had a higher status and thus greater chances of reproduction. The right of the male firstborn seems familiar to us, it is known from the Old Testament, for example, but also from the aristocracy in historical Europe.”
The genomic data reveal even more. Most women buried in the kurgan were immigrants. The sisters of the buried brothers, in turn, found new homes elsewhere. Joachim Burger, senior author of the study, explains: “Female marriage mobility is a common pattern that makes sense from an economic and evolutionary perspective. While one sex stays local and ensures the continuity of the family line and property, the other marries in from the outside to prevent inbreeding.”
The genomic diversity of the prehistoric women was higher than that of the men
Accordingly, the Mainz population geneticists found that the genomic diversity of the prehistoric women was higher than that of the men. The women who married into the family thus came from a larger area and were not related to each other. In their new homeland, they followed their husbands into the grave. From this the authors conclude that in Nepluyevsky there was both “patrilineality”, i.e. the transmission of local traditions through the male line, and “patrilocality”, i.e. the place of residence of a family is the place of residence of the men.
“Archaeology shows that 3,800 years ago, the population in the southern Trans-Ural knew cattle breeding and metalworking and subsisted mainly on dairy and meat products,” comments Svetlana Sharapova, archaeologist from Ekaterinburg and head of the excavation, adding, “the state of health of the family buried here must have been very poor. The average life expectancy of the women was 28 years, that of the men 36 years.”
In the last generation, the use of the kurgan suddenly stopped and almost only infants and small children were found. Sharapova adds, “it is possible that the inhabitants were decimated by disease or that the remaining population went elsewhere in search of a better life.”
Multiple partners and many children for the putative firstborn son
“There is a global connection between different family systems and certain forms of life-style and economy,” says Blöcher. “Nevertheless, human societies are characterized by a high degree of flexibility.” He adds, “in Nepluyevsky, we find evidence of a pattern of inequality typical of pastoralists: multiple partners and many children for the putative firstborn son and no or monogamous relationships for most others.”
The authors find additional genomic evidence that populations genetically similar to Neplujevsky society lived throughout most of the Eurasian steppe belt. Burger comments: “It is quite possible that the local pattern we found is relevant to a much larger area.” Future studies will show to what extent the “Neplujevsky” model can be verified at other prehistoric sites in Eurasia.
*Descent, marriage, and residence practices of a 3,800-year-old pastoral community in Central Eurasia, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 21-Aug-2023. 10.1073/pnas.2303574120
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE (AAAS)—Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions from Southern California were driven by large-scale fires in an ecosystem made increasingly vulnerable by climate change and human impacts, according to a new study*. The findings, made possible by a new radiocarbon chronology of fossils from the La Brea tar pits, not only provide insights into the dynamics that contributed to Pleistocene extinctions, but inform understandings of modern ecological change. “The conditions that led to the end-Pleistocene state shift in Southern California are recurring today across the western United States and in numerous other ecosystems worldwide,” write the authors, “and understanding the interplay of climatic and anthropogenic changes in driving this past extinction event may be helpful in mitigating future biodiversity loss in the face of similar pressures.”
At the end of the last Ice Age, roughly two-thirds of Earth’s large mammals in most regions worldwide went extinct. This extinction – the largest of the Cenozoic – coincided with both late-Quaternary climate changes and the growth and expansion of human populations across continents. However, the timing, causes, and consequences of the end-Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions have been difficult to understand. Much of what is known about the event is based on fragmentary paleontological records that lack the chronological precision required to compare the timing of species disappearances to archaeological and environmental data. Using the abundant fossils preserved at the La Brea tar pits (Rancho La Brea) – a site that contains a nearly continuous record of Pleistocene megafaunal occupation of the Los Angeles Basin from more than 55,0000 years ago to the Holocene – Frank O’Keefe and colleagues investigated the potential drivers of megafaunal extirpations in Southern California. O’Keefe et al. obtained new AMS radiocarbon dates on 172 megafaunal individuals and developed a high-resolution radiocarbon chronology for the eight most common mammal species at La Brea from 15.6 to 10 thousand years before present (ka). They found that 7 of these species were extinct in the region by 12.9 ka. Then, using local sediment core records, the authors evaluated the timing of these extirpations with regional paleoclimate and paleoenvironmental records, as well as continental-scale analyses of megafaunal extinction and human demographic growth in North America. According to the findings, the disappearance of megafauna at La Brea preceded North American megafaunal extinction by at least 1000 years, preceded the Younger Dryas climate event, and coincided with vegetation change and aridification at the end of the Bølling-Allerød – a brief climatic warming event that occurred between 14.6 and 12.8 ka. Moreover, the records reveal an increase in large-scale fire activity in the region, which the authors estimate was the primary cause of La Brea’s regional megafaunal extinction. In sum, O’Keefe et al. argue that this increase in fire may have resulted from climate change-induced warming and drying in conjunction with mounting impacts of human hunting and burning in an increasingly fire-prone ecosystem.
MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR EVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY—The genetic makeup of most present-day Europeans has resulted mainly from the admixture of three ancestral groups: western hunter-gatherers gradually merged with early farmers who migrated from Anatolia about 8,000 years ago and who were later on joined by Steppe Herders from Eastern Europe, approximately 4,900 years ago.
The initial analysis of the Iceman’s genome revealed genetic traces of these Steppe Herders. However, the refined new results no longer support this finding. The reason for the inaccuracy: the original sample had been contaminated with modern DNA. Since that first study, not only have sequencing technologies advanced enormously, but many more genomes of other prehistoric Europeans have been fully decoded, often from skeletal finds. This has made it possible to compare Ötzi’s genetic code with his contemporaries. The result: among the hundreds of early European people who lived at the same time as Ötzi and whose genomes are now available, Ötzi’s genome has more ancestry in common with early Anatolian farmers than any of his European counterparts.
Ötzi’s Ancestry and Appearance
The research team concludes that the Iceman came from a relatively isolated population that had very little contact with other European groups. “We were very surprised to find no traces of Eastern European Steppe Herders in the most recent analysis of the Iceman genome; the proportion of hunter-gatherer genes in Ötzi’s genome is also very low. Genetically, his ancestors seem to have arrived directly from Anatolia without mixing with hunter gatherer groups,” explains Johannes Krause, head of the Department of Archaeogenetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, and co-author of the study*.
The study also yielded new results about Ötzi’s appearance. His skin type, already determined in the first genome analysis to be Mediterranean-European, was even darker than previously thought. “It’s the darkest skin tone that has been recorded in contemporary European individuals,” explains anthropologist Albert Zink, study co-author and head of the Eurac Research Institute for Mummy Studies in Bolzano: “It was previously thought that the mummy’s skin had darkened during its preservation in the ice, but presumably what we see now is actually largely Ötzi’s original skin color. Knowing this, of course, is also important for the proper conservation of the mummy.”
Our previous image of Ötzi is also incorrect regarding his hair: as a mature man, he most likely no longer had long, thick hair on his head, but at most a sparse crown of hair. His genes, in fact, show a predisposition to baldness. “This is a relatively clear result and could also explain why almost no hair was found on the mummy,” says Zink. Genes presenting an increased risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes were also found in Ötzi’s genome; however, these factors probably did not come into play thanks to his healthy lifestyle.
Volnoe Delo Foundation—Phanagoria archaeologists have unearthed the foundational structure and wall outlines of the synagogue on the Taman Peninsula, along the Black Sea coast. Inside, they found marble menorahs, liturgy tables, and marble stele fragments. One stele from the 5th century AD bears the Greek inscription “synagogue”. This, along with earlier discoveries including marble tablets inscribed with “house of prayer” and “synagogue” dating to 16 and 51 A.D., respectively, establishes the Phanagoria synagogue as one of the world’s oldest, operating since at least the early 1st century AD.
The Phanagoria synagogue is a rectangular structure, measuring 21 meters by 6 meters, with two chambers each exceeding 60 square meters. The interior boasted marble columns and liturgy tables, showcasing intricate decorative details. The walls were adorned with paintings and tiles. The ornamentation of the marble menorahs discovered within the synagogue displays unique characteristics that differentiate them from their counterparts in the Near East. The Phanagoria synagogue existed until the middle of the 6th century, when the city was pillaged and devastated by local barbarian tribes.
The synagogue can be traced back to the end of the Second Temple period, a historical epoch spanning from 516 BC to 70 AD. It is characterized by the religious centrality of the Second Temple of Jerusalem, which was constructed on the ruins of the First Temple following its obliteration by the Babylonians. All religious rituals were conducted within the confines of the Temple, rendering synagogues a rarity, primarily constructed by Diaspora communities residing far from Jerusalem. The earliest synagogues date back to the 3rd century BC, while their construction only saw a notable increase towards the 3rd century AD. Consequently, the Phanagoria synagogue stands as one of the earliest examples globally.
The presence of a robust Jewish community within the city already in the 1st century AD is corroborated by depictions of menorahs on amphorae and tombstones from that era. Historical records from the medieval period also affirm the notion that Jews constituted a significant portion of the city’s inhabitants. Notably, Theophanes, an 8th-century Byzantine chronicler, and Ibn-Hordadbeha, a 9th-century Arabian geographer, both referred to Phanagoria as a “Jewish city”. Contemporary historians believe that the Jewish community of Phanagoria mirrored the city’s cosmopolitan character.
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Above and below: the Phanagoria synagogue excavation site and some of the remains uncovered at the site. Courtesy Phanagoria Archaeological Expedition and the Volnoe Delo Foundation
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About the Phanagoria archaeological expedition
The Phanagoria expedition, led by the Institute of Archaeology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, is currently excavating the ancient Greek city of Phanagoria. Supported by the Oleg Deripaska Volnoe Delo Foundation since 2004, these excavations encompass 7,000 square meters. A team of 250 archaeologists, students, and volunteers conducts these annual explorations.
Founded by Greek settlers on the Taman Gulf’s shores around the middle of the 6th century BC, Phanagoria encompasses an ancient settlement and necropolis across 900 hectares, featuring over 700 mounds. The city flourished for over 1,500 years and was one of the Bosporan Kingdom’s two capitals.
The treasures discovered within Phanagoria’s mounds are housed in esteemed institutions like the Hermitage and the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, as well as museums in Great Britain and Germany. The expedition’s findings have been showcased at international scientific gatherings in Germany, France, Denmark, Greece, the United States. In 2009, the uncovering of Mithridates VI’s palace earned a spot on Archaeology Magazine’s list of the world’s ten most remarkable discoveries. www.phanagoria.info
About Volnoe Delo Foundation Volnoe Delo is one of the largest non-profit organizations in Russia involved in charity, patronage and volunteer projects. The foundation addresses social issues, supports education and the sciences, and helps preserve the country’s cultural and historical heritage. The Foundation has supported more than 500 projects in 50 different regions of Russia to date. The projects’ beneficiaries include around 90,000 school children, 4,000 teachers, 8,000 students from universities and vocational schools, 4,000 scientists, and over 1,200 educational, scientific, cultural, healthcare and sporting institutions. http://volnoe-delo.ru
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE (AAAS)—In two studies*, researchers demonstrate how climate modeling approaches can fill gaps in our understanding of hominin evolution and migration.
Over the last several decades, research efforts into the lives of hominins – humans and their close ancestors – have shifted from identifying fossils and artifacts to understanding the environmental and climate settings in which they lived and how these factors could have influenced hominin evolution and migration. However, like the hominin fossil record, environmental and climate records that accurately capture environmental change and span the period over which hominins evolved and spread across the globe are uncommon and incomplete. Some of these limitations can be addressed through advances in analytical tools, particularly climate and ecosystem models, which can help fill these gaps and provide valuable new insights into hominin migration.
In one study, Vasiliki Margari and colleagues used a deep-sea sediment core, which provided a temperature record for Europe from 800,000 to 1.8 million years ago. Using these data, the authors created a climate envelope model and evaluated the geographic range of hominin species using climate variables such as temperature and precipitation. Margari et al. discovered hominin presence around the Mediterranean before ~1.1 million years ago was characterized by long, stable interglacial conditions with short glacials that would have allowed for hominin establishment and long-term occupation. However, extreme glacial conditions beginning around 1.1 million years ago would likely have made the region too cold for hominins to survive. Margari et al. argue that these extreme conditions likely led to the depopulation of Europe, which could have lasted for several glacial-interglacial cycles.
In another study, Jiaoyang Ruan and colleagues evaluate how climate shifts across central Eurasia during the Pleistocene could have facilitated interbreeding between Denisovans and Neanderthals. Genetic studies have revealed evidence of interbreeding between Neanderthals and Denisovans in Eurasia. However, much about these admixture events remains unknown. Here, Ruan et al. developed a species distribution model combining extensive fossil, archaeological, and genetic data with transient coupled general circulation model simulations of global climate and habitat change for the past 400,000 years, which was used to determine the habitat preferences for both Neanderthals and Denisovans. The authors found that, although both species lived in a variety of environments, Neanderthals preferred temperate forests, whereas Denisovans lived in a much wider range of habitats. However, orbitally driven climate shifts in habitat caused the preferred habitats of Denisovans and Neanderthals to overlap, providing opportunities for interbreeding between the two species.
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Figure showing interbreeding between Neanderthals and Denisovans. Made by Axel Timmermann using Paraview software
Compelling stories dramatize and humanize major events and characters in the history of Ephesus, the ruins of which are a popular destination for tourists in present-day Turkey.Historium Press, 2023.Available from Amazon and other online booksellers.
WHO WERE THE AEGEANS? The exciting new podcast series exploring the mysteries of the ancient Aegeans, the Bronze Age people who inspired Homer's epic stories of the Iliad and the Odyssey.
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