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MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN HISTORY—An international team of scientists, led by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, analyzed ancient human genomes from 38 northern Europeans dating from approximately 7,500 to 500 BCE. The study, published today in Nature Communications, found that Scandinavia was initially settled via a southern and a northern route and that the arrival of agriculture in northern Europe was facilitated by movements of farmers and pastoralists into the region.

Northern Europe could be considered a late bloomer in some aspects of human history: initial settlement by hunter-gatherers occurred only about 11,000 years ago, after the retreat of the lingering ice sheets from the Pleistocene, and while agriculture was already widespread in Central Europe 7,000 years ago, this development reached Southern Scandinavia and the Eastern Baltic only millennia later.

Several recent studies of ancient human genomes have dealt with the prehistoric population movements that brought new technology and subsistence strategies into Europe, but how they impacted the very north of the continent has still been poorly understood.

For this study, the research team, which included scientists from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia and Sweden, assembled genomic data from 38 ancient northern Europeans, from mobile hunter-gatherers of the Mesolithic (approximately 12,000 to 7,000 years ago) and the first Neolithic farmers in southern Sweden (approximately 6,000 to 5,300 years ago) to the metallurgists of the Late Bronze Age in the Eastern Baltic (approximately 1300 to 500 BCE). This allowed the researchers to uncover surprising aspects of the population dynamics of prehistoric northern Europe.

Two routes of settlement for Scandinavia

Previous analysis of ancient human genomes has revealed that two genetically differentiated groups of hunter-gatherers lived in Europe during the Mesolithic: the so-called Western Hunter-Gatherers excavated in locations from Iberia to Hungary, and the so-called Eastern Hunter-Gatherers excavated in Karelia in north-western Russia. Surprisingly, the results of the current study show that Mesolithic hunter-gatherers from Lithuania appear very similar to their Western neighbors, despite their geographic proximity to Russia. The ancestry of contemporary Scandinavian hunter-gatherers, on the other hand, was comprised from both Western and Eastern Hunter-Gatherers.

“Eastern Hunter-Gatherers were not present on the eastern Baltic coast, but a genetic component from them is present in Scandinavia. This suggests that the people carrying this genetic component took a northern route through Fennoscandia into the southern part of the Scandinavian peninsula. There they genetically mixed with Western Hunter-Gatherers who came from the South, and together they formed the Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherers,” explains Johannes Krause, Director of the Department of Archaeogenetics at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, and senior author of the study.

Agriculture and animal herding – cultural imports by incoming people

Large-scale farming first started in southern Scandinavia around 6,000 years ago, about one millennium after it was already common in Central Europe. In the Eastern Baltic, the inhabitants relied solely on hunting, gathering and fishing for another 1000 years. Although some have argued that the use of the new subsistence strategy was a local development by foragers, possibly adopting the practices of their farming neighbors, the genetic evidence uncovered in the present study tells a different story.

The earliest farmers in Sweden are not descended from Mesolithic Scandinavians, but show a genetic profile similar to that of Central European agriculturalists. Thus it appears that Central Europeans migrated to Scandinavia and brought farming technology with them. These early Scandinavian farmers, like the Central European agriculturalists, inherited a substantial portion of their genes from Anatolian farmers, who first spread into Europe around 8,200 years ago and set in motion the cultural transition to agriculture known as the Neolithic Revolution.

Similarly, a near-total genetic turnover is seen in the Eastern Baltic with the advent of large-scale agro-pastoralism. While they did not mix genetically with Central European or Scandinavian farmers, beginning around 2,900 BCE the individuals in the Eastern Baltic derive large parts of their ancestry from nomadic pastoralists of the Pontic-Caspian steppe.

“Interestingly, we find an increase of local Eastern Baltic hunter-gatherer ancestry in this population at the onset of the Bronze Age,” states Alissa Mittnik of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, lead author of the study. “The local population was not completely replaced but coexisted and eventually mixed with the newcomers.”

This study emphasizes the regional differences of cultural transitions and sets the stage for more in-depth studies of later periods in northern European prehistory, such as the Iron Age and Viking Age.

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Skull included in this study from Ölsund, Hälsingland, Sweden, dating to around 2,300 BCE, in the ancient DNA laboratory at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. Alissa Mittnik 

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Map showing locations and timeline of the samples introduced in this study. Mittnik et al. The Genetic Prehistory of the Baltic Sea Region. Nature Communications (2018).

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

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UNIVERSITY OF YORK—Archaeologists say they may have discovered one of the earliest examples of a ‘crayon’ – possibly used by our ancestors 10,000 years ago for applying colour to their animal skins or for artwork.

The ochre crayon was discovered near an ancient lake, now blanketed in peat, near Scarborough, North Yorkshire. An ochre pebble was found at another site on the opposite side of the lake.

The pebble had a heavily striated surface that is likely to have been scraped to produce a red pigment powder. The crayon measures 22mm long and 7mm wide.

Ochre is an important mineral pigment used by prehistoric hunter-gatherers across the globe. The latest finds suggest people collected ochre and processed it in different ways during the Mesolithic period.

The ochre objects were studied as part of an interdisciplinary collaboration between the Departments of Archaeology and Physics at the University of York, using state-of-the-art techniques to establish their composition.

The artifacts were found at Seamer Carr and Flixton School House. Both sites are situated in a landscape rich in prehistory, including one of the most famous Mesolithic sites in Europe, Star Carr.

A pendant was discovered at Star Carr in 2015 and is the earliest known Mesolithic art in Britain. Here, more than 30 red deer antler headdresses were found which may have been used as a disguise in hunting, or during ritual performances by shamans when communicating with animal spirits.

Lead author, Dr Andy Needham from the University of York’s Department of Archaeology, said the latest discoveries helped further our understanding of Mesolithic life.

He commented: “Color was a very significant part of hunter-gatherer life and ochre gives you a very vibrant red color. It was very important in the Mesolithic period and seems to have been used in a number of ways. One of the latest objects we have found looks exactly like a crayon; the tip is faceted and has gone from a rounded end to a really sharpened end, suggesting it has been used. For me it is a very significant object and helps us build a bigger picture of what life was like in the area; it suggests it would have been a very colorful place.”

The research team say Flixton was a key location in the Mesolithic period and the two objects help paint a vibrant picture of how the people interacted with the local environment.

“The pebble and crayon were located in an area already rich in art. It is possible there could have been an artistic use for these objects, perhaps for colouring animal skins or for use in decorative artwork,” Dr Needham added.

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 The crayon revealed a sharpened end. Paul Shields/University of York

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Article Source: University of York news release

The study, which involved collaboration with the Universities of Chester and Manchester, is published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

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CELL PRESS—Until recently, very little was known about the genetic relationship between modern humans of the Upper Paleolithic age (the period of time between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago, also called the Late Stone age) and today’s populations. But with direct DNA sequencing, researchers are discovering unexpected genetic connections between individuals on opposing sides of Eurasia. These suggest a complex history that may represent early gene flow across Eurasia or an early population structure that eventually led to Europeans and Asians.

In a review* published in the journal Trends in Genetics on January 25, scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing discuss what we know about the genetics of ancient individuals from Eurasia (Europe and Western Asia) between 45,000-7,500 years ago. The authors summarized work that investigated the genomes of more than 20 ancients in the Eurasian family tree, including the 45,000-year-old Ust’-Ishim individual from Central Siberia, for their paper.

“Aside from these individuals, it is a fact that sampling for the Eurasian region is sparse for all time periods except the present-day,” says co-author Qiaomei Fu, a paleogeneticist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. “But with the information from the several individuals available for ancient DNA sequencing we do have hints at interesting population structure, migration and interaction in East Asia.”

The researchers learned that in Eurasia between 35,000 and 45,000 years ago, at least four distinct populations were present. These were early Asian and Europeans, as well as populations with ancestry hardly found or not at all in modern populations. By 15,000-34,000 years ago, however, DNA sequencing showed that modern humans in Eurasia are similar to either Europeans or to Asians, suggesting that a genetic Asian-European separation likely occurred prior to 40,000 years ago. By 7,500-14,000 years ago, the populations across Eurasia shared genetic similarities, suggesting greater interactions between geographically distant populations.

These analyses also revealed at least two Neanderthal population mixing events, one approximately 50,000-60,000 years ago and a second more than 37,000 years ago. This Neanderthal ancestry gradually declined in archaic ancestry in Europeans dating from ~14,000-37,000 years ago.

“Genetic studies of ancient individuals have become more frequent in recent years because of technology,” says Fu. “As a result, we can now see the presence of multiple distinct subpopulations in Europe and in Asia, and these in turn contribute different amounts of ancestry to more recent subpopulations.”

“Right now is a great time to study human evolutionary genetics because the development of sequencing technology and computing resources minimizes destruction of samples and maximizes data generation and storage,” Fu says. “With large present-day genomic datasets and increased international collaboration to handle the many newly sequenced ancient datasets, there is huge potential to understand the biology of human prehistory in a way that has never been accessible before.”

Looking ahead, Fu and colleagues hope to extend this type of sequencing and analysis to learn more about the genetic prehistory of East Asia and other regions, including Oceania, Africa, and the Americas. “All of those areas have a rich human prehistory, particularly in Africa, so any ancient DNA from those continents will likely resolve some major questions on human migration,” she says.

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This is a schematic of populations in Eurasia and the Americas from 45,000 to 7,500 years ago. A summary of major events in each of the time periods is on the left. Melinda A.Yang and Qiaomei Fu

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Article Source: Cell Press news release

*Trends in Genetics, Yang MA and Fu Qiaomei: “Insights into Modern Human Prehistory Using Ancient Genomes“ 

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An international research team led by Israel Hershkovitz of Tel Aviv University has discovered a modern human fossil dated to between 177,000 and 194,000 years old, excavated from the Misliya Cave at Mount Carmel in northern Israel. The find pushes back the estimated time range as evidenced by the archaeological record for arrival of modern humans (Homo sapiens) out of Africa by about 40,000 to 50,000 years. 

The fossil, an upper jaw bone designated ‘Misliya-1’, features some intact teeth and falls within the upper size range characteristic of modern human teeth. Scientists examining Misliya-1 maintain that the fossil shares some features but lacks other key features identifiable with Neandertals and other earlier hominin species, such as a low, broad tooth crown, and that it otherwise shares many features of teeth and jawbones typical of modern humans. They analyzed the fossil using microCT scans and 3D virtual models, then compared it to other hominin fossils from Africa, Europe and Asia. 

“While all of the anatomical details in the Misliya fossil are fully consistent with modern humans, some features are also found in Neandertals and other human groups,” said Rolf Quam, Binghamton University anthropology professor and a coauthor of the fossil study*. “One of the challenges in this study was identifying features in Misliya that are found only in modern humans. These are the features that provide the clearest signal of what species the Misliya fossil represents.”

Stone tools were also excavated near Misliya-1. The tools, said by the archaeologists to have been produced using the Levallois technique, may represent the earliest known association of the technique with modern humans in this region, suggesting that the emergence of this technology may have been due to the appearance of modern humans in the Levant. Levallois can be found in Middle Stone Age assemblages associated with Home sapiens in Africa.

The archaeological evidence from Misliya Cave thus far reveals that the inhabitants of the cave were capable hunters of large game species, controlled the production of fire and were associated with an Early Middle Paleolithic stone tool kit, similar to that found with the earliest modern humans in Africa.

While older fossils of modern humans have been found in Africa, the timing and routes of modern human migration out of Africa are key issues for understanding the evolution of our own species, said the researchers. The region of the Middle East represents a major corridor for hominin migrations during the Pleistocene and has been occupied at different times by both modern humans and Neandertals. This new discovery opens the door to demographic replacement or genetic admixture with local populations earlier than previously thought. Indeed, the evidence from Misliya is consistent with recent suggestions based on ancient DNA for an earlier migration, prior to 220,000 years ago, of modern humans out of Africa. Several recent archaeological and fossil discoveries in Asia are also pushing back the first appearance of modern humans in Eurasia and, by implication, the migration out of Africa.

For all of these reasons, “Misliya is an exciting discovery,” says Quam, “It also means that modern humans were potentially meeting and interacting during a longer period of time with other archaic human groups, providing more opportunity for cultural and biological exchanges.”

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A view of Misliya Cave when approached climbing from the coastal plain. The cave is located some 90 m above mean sea level (AMSL) and is part of a series of prominent prehistoric cave sites located along the western slopes of Mount Carmel, Israel. The cave had collapsed following the Early Middle Paleolithic human occupation, represented by rich lithic and faunal assemblages associated with the maxilla (Misliya-1) of a modern human. Strongly cemented archaeological sediments (breccias) that extend some 30 m west of the cliff indicate that the cave had once been very large. Mina Weinstein-Evron, Haifa University  

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The Misliya Cave Early Middle Paleolithic layers of the Upper Terrace of the cave, during excavation (viewed from the southeast). The layers here are some 1.5-2 m thick. Note the in-situ hearth, consisting of indurated dark ashy sediment, at the bottom central-right part of the picture. Hearths were repeatedly constructed during the long habitation of the cave. The habitual use of fire is also evident from abundant wood ash, as well as burnt animal bones, flint implements and phytoliths. Charred laminated vegetal tissues constitute the earliest evidence for bedding or matting to date. Mina Weinstein-Evron, Haifa University 

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The Misliya-1 left maxilla. All teeth are present except the central incisor. The shape and structure of the teeth and the dentine underneath yielded important data regarding the definition of this specimen as Homo sapiens. Israel Hershkovitz, Tel Aviv University  

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Close-up view of the of Misliya-1 dentition, showing details of the crown topography and dental features. Gerhard Weber, University of Vienna

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Virtual reconstruction of the left upper jaw of Misliya-1. The right (transparent) side is a mirror image of the preserved left side for visualization purposes. The dental arch is parabolic and the alignment of the anterior teeth appears very modern human like. Gerhard Weber, University of Vienna 

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Location of early modern human fossils in Africa and the Middle East. The fossils from Jebel Irhoud date to 315,000 years ago and are thus older than Misliya, while those from Omo Kibish (195,000) and Herto (160,000) are similar in age to Misliya (177,000-194,000). The 3D virtual reconstruction of the Misliya-1 maxilla and several Early Middle Paleolithic stone tools from Misliya Cave are also included. Similar stone tools have been found at Jebel Irhoud. Image modified from [http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/view_rec.php?vev1id=11656 “Blue Marble”]. Rolf Quam, Binghamton University 

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For more about all of the astonishing new discoveries of early humans in the Levant, look for the in-depth special feature article, Before Kings and Temples, in the upcoming Spring 2018 issue of Popular Archaeology Magazine. 

Article Source: Edited and adapted from the subject AAAS and Binghamton University news releases.

*“The earliest modern humans outside Africa,” by I. Hershkovitz; R. Sarig; H. May; V. Slon; D.E. Bar-Yosef Mayer at Tel Aviv University in Tel Aviv, Israel; G.W. Weber; C. Fornai; V.A. Krenn at University of Vienna in Vienna, Austria; R. Quam at Binghamton University (SUNY) in Binghamton, NY; R. Quam; J.L. Arsuaga; L. Rodríguez; R. García; J.M. Carretero at Centro UCM-ISCIII de Investigación sobre la Evolución y Comportamiento Humanos in Madrid, Spain; R. Quam at American Museum of Natural History in New York, NY; M. Duval; R. Grün at Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution (ARCHE) at Griffith University in Nathan, QLD, Australia.

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Although studies suggest that the brain size of Homo sapiens was within the modern human range as of about 300,000 years ago, more globular (or round) brain features exhibited by present-day humans only emerged approximately 40,000 years ago, according to a new fossil analysis. That’s roughly the time when the full suite of modern human behaviors emerged, say the authors. These findings demonstrate a more gradual appearance of so-called behavioral modernity, one in which brain shape played a part. Modern humans have large, globular brains which develop early and affect cognitive development; however, how and when globularity evolved, and how that relates to the evolutionary increase in brain size remains unknown. Using computed tomographic scans and sophisticated 3-D analyses to elucidate the evolution of brain shape, Simon Neubauer and colleagues analyzed endocranial casts of 20 H. sapiensfossils from different time periods, dating from about 300,000 to 10,000 years ago. Their analyses showed that endocranial shape variations of Upper Paleolithic and more recent specimens overlap with present-day human shape variations, ultimately suggesting brain shape reached current globularity ranges somewhere between 100,000 and 35,000 years ago – thus, not coincident with the evolution of larger brain size in earlier H. sapiens. Based on their fossil analyses as well as information about human behavior from archeological records, the authors believe the gradual globularization of the brain during evolution paralleled the emergence of behavioral modernity. As such, they say, the “human revolution” during the Middle to the Upper Paleolithic in Europe around 50,000 years ago was not due to a rapid evolutionary event related to a specific genetic change, but rather, was merely a point in time where gradual changes supported the full suite of modern behaviors.

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Brain shape evolution in Homo sapiens. The left image shows brain shape as reconstructed based on micro computed tomographic scans of one of the earliest known members of our species, the fossil cranium Jebel Irhoud 1, dated to about 300,000 years. Brain shape, and possibly brain function, evolved gradually, and have reached the globularity typical for present-day humans (right image) only by about 35,000 years ago. Simon Neubauer, Philipp Gunz, MPI EVA Leipzig (License: CC-BY-SA 4.0)

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Brain shape comparison between Homo sapiensand Neandertals. The left image shows the globular endocranial shape of present-day humans as reconstructed based on micro computed tomographic scans. In contrast, endocranial shape of Neandertals like in La-Chapelle-aux-Saints shown on the right, but also in the earliest Homo sapiens fossils, is elongated. The typical globular human shape evolved gradually and reached modern conditions only recently – about 35,000 years ago. Simon Neubauer, Philipp Gunz, MPI EVA Leipzig (License: CC-BY-SA 4.0)

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Article Source: AAAS news release

Cover image, top left: Modern human skull. Skimsta, Wikimedia Commons

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UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE—Climate change is one of the most important issues facing people today and year on year the melting of glacial ice patches in Scandinavia, the Alps and North America reveals and then destroys vital archaeological records of past human activity.

Enter the glacial archaeologists – specialists who rescue now-threatened artifacts and study the relationship between variability in climate and the intensity of human use of alpine landscapes.

Focusing on Jotunheimen and the surrounding mountain areas of Oppland, which include Norway’s highest mountains (to 2649m), an international team of researchers have conducted a systematic survey at the edges of the contracting ice, recovering artifacts of wood, textile, hide and other organic materials that are otherwise rarely preserved.

To date, more than 2,000 artifacts have been recovered. Some of the finds date as far back as 4000 BC and include arrows, Iron Age and Bronze Age clothing items and remains of skis and packhorses.

By statistical analysis of radiocarbon dates on these incredibly unusual finds, patterns began to emerge showing that they do not spread out evenly over time. Some periods have many finds while others have none.

What could have caused this chronological patterning – human activity and/or past climate change? These questions are the focus of a new study published today in Royal Society Open Science.

Dr James H. Barrett, an environmental archaeologist at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge and senior author of the paper commented, “One such pattern which really surprised us was the possible increase in activity in the period known as the Late Antique Little Ice Age (c. 536 – 660 AD). This was a time of cooling; harvests may have failed and populations may have dropped. Remarkably, though, the finds from the ice may have continued through this period, perhaps suggesting that the importance of mountain hunting (mainly for reindeer) increased to supplement failing agricultural harvests in times of low temperatures. Alternatively, any decline in high-elevation activity during the Late Antique Little Ice Age was so brief that we cannot observe it from the available evidence.”

Barrett continues, “We then see particularly high numbers of finds dating to the 8th – 10th centuries AD, probably reflecting increased population, mobility (including the use of mountain passes) and trade – just before and during the Viking Age when outward expansion was also characteristic of Scandinavia. One driver of this increase may have been the expanding ecological frontier of the towns that were emerging around Europe at this time. Town-dwellers needed mountain products such as antlers for artifact manufacture and probably also furs. Other drivers were the changing needs and aspirations of the mountain hunters themselves.”

There is then a decrease in the number of finds dating to the medieval period (from the 11th century onwards). Lars Pilø, co-director of the Glacier Archaeology Program at Oppland County Council and lead author on the study further explains, “There is a sharp decline in finds dating from the 11th century onwards. At this time, bow-and-arrow hunting for reindeer was replaced with mass-harvesting techniques including funnel-shaped and pitfall trapping systems. This type of intensive hunting probably reduced the number of wild reindeer.”

Professor in medieval archaeology Brit Solli, of the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo, who led the study of the recovered artifacts, comments “Once the plague arrived in the mid-14th century, trade and markets in the north also suffered. With fewer markets and fewer reindeer the activity in the high mountains decreased substantially. This downturn could also have been influenced by declining climatic conditions during the Little Ice Age.”

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Iron Age arrow from Trollsteinhøe used to study the relationship between climate variability and how humans used alpine landscapes in the past. James H. Barrett, Wikimedia Commons 

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Glacial archaeologists systematically survey the mountainous areas of Oppland, Norway, rescuing now-threatened ancient artifacts. Johan Wildhagen, Palookaville

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Article Source: University of Cambridge news release

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UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS JOURNALS—Before the expansion of the Inka empire, the Late Intermediate Period was marked by political upheaval and the emergence of new cultural practices. In “Ethnogenesis and Social Difference in the Andean Late Intermediate Period (AD 1100-1450): A Bioarchaeological Study of Cranial Modification in the Colca Valley, Peru,” published in Current Anthropology, Matthew C. Velasco examines how the prevalence and evolution of cranial modification practices during the Late Intermediate Period influenced ethnic identity formation in Peru’s Colca Valley. In the study, Velasco explores how head-shaping practices may have enabled political solidarity and furthered social inequality in the region.

The study employs ethnogenetic research to determine the historical processes responsible for the formation and embodiment of new group identities during this period.

Cranial modification is a deliberate, permanent, and highly visible identity marker that is inscribed during infancy. Head shape may have served as an indicator of ethnic affiliation, kin categorization, or geographic origin. Archaeological and ethnohistoric data offer insights into the head-shaping practices of two major ethnic groups in the Colca Valley, the Collaguas and the Cavanas. The Collaguas employed methods to make their heads assume a longer, narrower shape while the Cavanas sought to make their heads wide and squat.

To analyze how the frequency and significance of cranial modification changed over time, skeletal samples were collected from two mortuary sites in the Collagua region and submitted for radiocarbon measurement. Crania were assorted into five categories based on modification type. Utilizing newly-calibrated radiocarbon dates, the samples were divided into two groups representing the early LIP (AD 1150-1300) and the late LIP (AD 1300-1450).

Bioarchaeological and radiometric data present a significant increase in the prevalence of cranial modification practices. During the early LIP, 39.2% of individuals exhibited modification. This percentage rose to 73.7% during the later portion of the Late Intermediate Period. The study also reveals a significant change in the distribution of modification types as time progresses. Initially, there is an equal distribution of individuals among four modification types: tabular, erect, oblique, and slight. However, results indicate that by the late LIP, oblique modification–similar to the elongated head shape of the Collaguas–became the predominant style of cranial modification.

Increased homogeny of head shapes in the late LIP suggests that modification practices contributed to the creation of a new collective identity, and while cranial modification consolidated prior social boundaries, the author argues that the standardization of these practices may have exacerbated emerging social differences.

Acting as a signifier of affiliation, head shape may have encouraged unity among elites and fostered increased cooperation in politics. Involvement in political and social matters may have, in turn, elevated the status of modified individuals and conferred on them distinct privileges that were not available to unmodified individuals. Bioarchaological evidence also suggests that modification practices reinforced structures of inequality that prioritized modified females. Compared to unmodified females, modified females possessed greater access to diverse food options and were less likely to encounter violence.

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Modified cranium from Peru. Didier Descouens, Wikimedia Commons 

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Article Source: University of Chicago Press Journals news release

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UNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIRE—DURHAM, N.H. – Tropical forests span a huge area, harbor a wide diversity of species, and are important to water and nutrient cycling on a planet scale. But in ancient Amazonia, over 500 years ago, clearing tropical forests was a way of survival to provide land for families to farm and villages to prosper. Researchers at the University of New Hampshire used high-tech tools to more precisely view where these cleared sites were and how much lasting impact they had on the rainforest in the Amazon Basin in South America.

“One of the key mysteries in this area of the world is that no one knows how many people lived in Amazonia before European contact,” said Michael Palace, an associate professor in the Earth Sciences Department and Earth Systems Research Center at UNH. “Once the Europeans arrived, indigenous populations were devastated due to disease, slavery and displacement so it’s often hard to determine lasting impact. It is important to understand the resilience or fragility of these forests to past human disturbance, which allows for appropriate planning on the use of natural resources.”

One of the few indicators of human settlements are the terra preta, or Amazonian Dark Earths (ADEs). These are black, human-made soils that are enriched by materials left behind from past societies, pottery remnants, charcoal and other artifacts frequently associated with human origin. There is very little rock and metal in that part of the world (a former ocean bottom), and wood, bone and other organic materials decay quickly in the humid tropics.

In their study, recently published in the journal Ecosphere, the researchers used imagery from NASA’s terra satellite, MODIS, and geospatial modeling to predict the ADE probability across six million square kilometers of the Amazonia. They found that biomass (primarily weight of trees in forests), tree height, and tree cover were all lower at ADE sites than adjacent random non-ADE locations. The ADE sites were also more susceptible to drought.

Indigenous people most likely used slash-and-burn techniques to clear the forests so the ADE sites may have been pre-selected due to the propensity for drought or intensity of dry seasons. Researchers also observed differences in spectral properties (reflective light) between ADE and non-ADE sites that are likely driven by forest structure and tree species, indicating that remnant forests are still showing impacts from past human settlement patterns.

Researchers further explain that the high spatial heterogeneity in ADE sites across the Amazon suggests that pre-Columbian occupation by indigenous people was complex and varied substantially across this ecologically diverse region. But they speculate that because of their proximity to the rivers, ADEs may have become areas of interest for other groups to settle and reoccupy, further impacting the forests and vegetation in the ADE areas.

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Map developed using satellite imagery and spatial modeling showing estimated past human impact on the Amazonian forest. Michael Palace/UNH 

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Article Source: University of New Hampshire news release

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UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER—Using ‘next generation’ DNA sequencing scientists have found that the famous ‘Two Brothers’ mummies of the Manchester Museum have different fathers so are, in fact, half-brothers.

The Two Brothers are the Museum’s oldest mummies and amongst the best-known human remains in its Egyptology collection. They are the mummies of two elite men – Khnum-nakht and Nakht-ankh – dating to around 1800 BC.

However, ever since their discovery in 1907 there has been some debate amongst Egyptologists whether the two were actually related at all. So, in 2015, ‘ancient DNA’ was extracted from their teeth to solve the mystery.

But how did the mystery start? The pair’s joint burial site, later dubbed The Tomb of The Two Brothers, was discovered at Deir Rifeh, a village 250 miles south of Cairo.

They were found by Egyptian workmen directed by early 20th century Egyptologists, Flinders Petrie and Ernest Mackay. Hieroglyphic inscriptions on the coffins indicated that both men were the sons of an unnamed local governor and had mothers with the same name, Khnum-aa. It was then the men became known as the Two Brothers.

When the complete contents of the tomb were shipped to Manchester in 1908 and the mummies of both men were unwrapped by the UK’s first professional female Egyptologist, Dr Margaret Murray. Her team concluded that the skeletal morphologies were quite different, suggesting an absence of family relationship. Based on contemporary inscriptional evidence, it was proposed that one of the Brothers was adopted.

Therefore, in 2015, the DNA was extracted from the teeth and, following hybridization capture of the mitochondrial and Y chromosome fractions, sequenced by a next generation method. Analysis showed that both Nakht-Ankh and Khnum-Nakht belonged to mitochondrial haplotype M1a1, suggesting a maternal relationship. The Y chromosome sequences were less complete but showed variations between the two mummies, indicating that Nakht-Ankh and Khnum-Nakht had different fathers, and were thus very likely to have been half-brothers.

Dr Konstantina Drosou, of the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Manchester who conducted the DNA sequencing, said: “It was a long and exhausting journey to the results but we are finally here. I am very grateful we were able to add a small but very important piece to the big history puzzle and I am sure the brothers would be very proud of us. These moments are what make us believe in ancient DNA. “

The study, which is being published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, is the first to successfully use the typing of both mitochondrial and Y chromosomal DNA in Egyptian mummies.

Dr Campbell Price, Curator of Egypt and Sudan at Manchester Museum, said: “The University of Manchester, and Manchester Museum in particular, has a long history of research on ancient Egyptian human remains. Our reconstructions will always be speculative to some extent but to be able to link these two men in this way is an exciting first.”

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The Two Brothers are the Museum’s oldest mummies and amongst the best-known human remains in its Egyptology collection. They are the mummies of two elite men—Khnum-nakht and Nakht-ankh—dating to around 1800 BC. Manchester Museum, The University of Manchester

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Article Source: University of Manchester news release

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UNIVERSITY OF PLYMOUTH—More than half of Europe’s forests have disappeared over the past 6,000 years thanks to increasing demand for agricultural land and the use of wood as a source of fuel, new research led by the University of Plymouth suggests.

Using pollen analysis from more than 1,000 sites, scientists showed that more than two thirds of central and northern Europe would once have been covered by trees.

Today, that is down to around a third, although in more western and coastal regions, including the UK and Republic of Ireland, the decline has been far greater with forest coverage in some areas dropping below 10%.

However, those downward trends have begun to reverse, through the discovery of new types of fuel and building techniques, but also through ecological initiatives such as the ongoing National Forest project and the new Northern Forest, announced by the UK Government in January 2018.

The study is published in Nature’s Scientific Reports and lead author Neil Roberts, Professor of Physical Geography at the University of Plymouth, said: “Most countries go through a forest transition and the UK and Ireland reached their forest minimum around 200 years ago. Other countries in Europe have yet to reach that point, and some parts of Scandinavia – where there is not such a reliance on agriculture – are still predominantly forest. But generally, forest loss has been a dominant feature of Europe’s landscape ecology in the second half of the current interglacial, with consequences for carbon cycling, ecosystem functioning and biodiversity.”

The research, which also involved academics in Sweden, Germany, France, Estonia and Switzerland, sought to establish precisely how the nature of Europe’s forests has changed over the past 11,000 years.

It combined three different methods of analysing pollen data, taken from the European Pollen Database, and showed that forest coverage actually increased from around 60% 11,000 years ago up to as much as 80% 6,000 years ago.

However, the introduction of modern farming practices during the Neolithic period sparked a gradual decline which accelerated towards the end of the Bronze Age and has largely continued until the present day.

Professor Roberts said this was one of the more surprising elements of the research because while forest clearance might be assumed to be a relatively recent phenomena, 20% of Britain’s forests had actually gone by the end of the Bronze Age 3,000 years ago.

He added: “Around 8,000 years ago, a squirrel could have swung tree to tree from Lisbon to Moscow without touching the ground. Some may see that loss as a negative but some of our most valued habitats have come about through forests being opened up to create grass and heathland. Up until around 1940, a lot of traditional farming practices were also wildlife friendly and created habitats many of our most loved creatures. This data could then potentially be used to understand how future forestry initiatives might also influence habitat change.”

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 Gribskov Forest in Denmark. Malene Thyssen, Wikimedia Commons

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Source: University of Plymouth news release

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POLITECNICO DI MILANO—In early November 2017, Nature published the results of the Scan Pyramids project, led by Mehdi Tayoubi (Hip Institute, Paris) and Kunihiro Morishima (University of Nagoya, Japan): there is a “huge void”, at least 30 meters long, within the Pyramid of Cheops.

Discovering its function and content clearly is a most passionate challenge for archaeologists.

Giulio Magli, Director of the Department of Mathematics and Professor of Archaeoastronomy at the Politecnico di Milano, has formulated one of the first hypotheses of interpretation.

“Cheop’s Pyramid, built around 2550 BC, is one of the largest and most complex monuments in the history of architecture. Its internal rooms are accessible through narrow tunnels, one of which, before arriving at the funerary chamber, widens and rises suddenly forming the so-called Great Gallery. The newly discovered room is over this gallery, but does not have a practical function of “relieving weight ” from it, because the roof of the gallery itself was already built with a corbelled technique for this very reason.”

So what does that mean?

“There is a possible interpretation, which is in good agreement with what we know about the Egyptian funerary religion as witnessed in the Pyramids Texts. In these texts it is said that the pharaoh, before reaching the stars of the north, will have to pass the “gates of the sky” and sit on his “throne of iron”.

Within the Pyramid there are four narrow shafts, the width of a handkerchief, directed to the stars. The pharaoh’s afterlife was in fact, according to the Texts, in the sky, and in particular among the stars of the north, like the Big Dipper and Draco. Two of the four channels open onto the facades of the monument, while the other two run into small doors. One of the two doors, the south one, has been explored several times without results, while the north one is still sealed.

These doors are with all probabilities representative of the “gates of the sky” and the north one could well lead into the newly discovered room. The room may contain, at its upper end and exactly under the apex of the great pyramid, an object needed by Cheops after crossing the doors: the “iron throne” mentioned in the Pyramid Texts.

We can get an idea of how this object could be, looking at the throne of Cheop’s mother, Queen Hetepheres, which has been found in pieces and reconstructed by Harward University. It is a low chair of cedar wood covered with sheets of gold and faience. Cheops’ could be similar, but coated with thin iron sheets. Of course it would not be melted iron, but meteoritic iron that is, fallen from the sky in the form of Iron meteorites (distinguishable due to the high percentage of the element Nickel) and again cited in the Texts. It is certain that the Egyptians knew this material for many centuries before Cheops, and continued to use it for special items designed for the Pharaohs during millennia: just think of the famous Tutankamon dagger.

A way to check or discard this hypothesis exists: a new exploration of the north shaft. This is a long-awaited exploration, long before the room’s discovery. At present, it is difficult to say with certainty that the northern channel leads into the newly discovered room – the “big void” as called by its discoverers – because the available images are approximate. The Scan Pyramid project indeed used a non-invasive technique based on the measurement of muons: elementary particles that are generated in cosmic rays and are absorbed differently depending on the materials they go through. The result is similar to a radiography which must be interpreted.

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North-south section of the Great Pyramid showing (dust-filled area) the hypothetical chamber, in connection with the lower southern shaft. The upper southern shaft does not intersect the chamber (as instead suggested by the section) because, when viewed in plan, it is displaced to the west with respect to the Great Gallery. Giulio Magli

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Article Source: POLITECNICO DI MILANO news release

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PLOS—Ancient DNA from the Phoenician remains found in Sardinia and Lebanon could provide insight into the extent of integration with settled communities and human movement during ancient times, according to a study* published January 10, 2018 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by E. Matisoo-Smith from the University of Otago, New Zealand and Pierre Zalloua from the Lebanese American University, Beirut, and colleagues. The researchers looked at mitochondrial genomes, which are maternally inherited, in a search for markers of Phoenician ancestry.

The Phoenicians were an ancient civilization who emerged in 1800 BCE in the Northern Levant and by the 9th century BCE had spread their culture across the Mediterranean to parts of Asia, Europe and Africa through their trade networks and settlements. Despite their widespread influence, most of what we know about the Phoenicians comes from Greek and Egyptian documents on this civilization.

The authors of this study analyzed Phoenicians’ ancient DNA to investigate how Phoenicians integrated with the Sardinian communities they settled. The researchers found 14 new ancient mitogenome sequences from pre-Phoenician (~1800 BCE) and Phoenician (~700-400 BCE) samples from Lebanon and Sardinia and then compared these with 87 new complete mitogenomes from modern Lebanese and 21 recently published pre-Phoenician ancient mitogenomes from Sardinia.

The researchers found evidence of continuity of some lineages of indigenous Sardinians after Phoenician settlement, which suggests that there was integration between Sardinians and Phoenicians in Monte Sirai. They also discovered evidence of new, unique mitochondrial lineages in Sardinia and Lebanon, which may indicate the movement of women from sites in the Near East or North Africa to Sardinia and the movement of European women to Lebanon. Combined, the authors suggest that there was a degree of female mobility and genetic diversity in Phoenician communities, indicating that migration and cultural assimilation were common occurrences.

Pierre Zalloua says, “this DNA evidence reflects the inclusive and multicultural nature of Phoenician society. They were never conquerors, they were explorers and traders”.

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 A sampling from the Tomb 351 Monte Sirai. Michele Guirguis

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Article Source: A PLOS news release

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*Matisoo-Smith E, Gosling AL, Platt D, Kardailsky O, Prost S, Cameron-Christie S, et al. (2018) Ancient mitogenomes of Phoenicians from Sardinia and Lebanon: A story of settlement, integration, and female mobility. PLoS ONE 13(1): e0190169.

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UPPSALA UNIVERSITY—In a new study published in PLoS Biology, an international research team suggests Scandinavia was populated by two main migrations after the last glacial maximum: an initial migration of groups from the south (modern day Denmark and Germany) and an additional migration from the north-east, following the ice-free Atlantic coast.

After the last glacial maximum more than 10,000 years ago, Scandinavia was one of the last parts of Europe that became ice-free and thus habitable for humans. In the new study, a team of interdisciplinary researchers assembled archaeological and genetic data in combination with the latest results of climate modeling in order to study the early post-glacial settlers of Scandinavia.

The team collected human remains of seven individuals from the Norwegian Atlantic coast and the Baltic islands of Gotland and Stora Karlsö. The remains were radiocarbon-dated to more than 8,000 years before present and belonged to a part of the Stone Age called the Mesolithic. DNA was extracted from bones and teeth for genome sequencing. For one individual, the team was able to reconstruct one of the highest quality genomes of any prehistoric individual so far.

The team compared the genomic data to the genetic variation of Mesolithic hunter-gathers from other parts of Europe.

“We were surprised to see that Mesolithic hunter-gatherers from the Norwegian west coast were genetically more similar to contemporaneous populations from east of the Baltic Sea while hunter-gatherers from what is Sweden today were genetically more similar to other hunter-gatherers from central and western Europe”, says population-geneticist Torsten Günther of Uppsala University, one of the lead authors of the study.

This contradiction between genetics and geography can be explained by two main migrations into Scandinavia after the last glacial maximum: an initial migration of groups from the south – modern day Denmark and Germany – and an additional migration from the north-east, following the ice-free Atlantic coast.

Obtaining genomic data from the Norwegian individuals was the key to understanding the migration routes. The genetic patterns overlap the distribution patterns of different stone tool techniques, and archaeological artifacts and diet isotopes show that the Scandinavian hunter-gatherers used different stone tool technology and relied on different food sources.

“The archaeological sites have been subject to different types of research for more than a century, it is exciting to see what the genetic data can add to our understanding of these hunter-gatherer groups”, says osteoarcheologist Jan Storå of Stockholm University, one of the senior authors of the study.

The comprehensive data allowed the team a deeper study of the population dynamics in Mesolithic Scandinavia. One consequence of the two groups mixing was a surprisingly large number of genetic variants in Scandinavian hunter-gatherers.

“These groups were genetically more diverse than the groups that lived in central, western and southern Europe at the same time. That is in stark contrast to the pattern seen today where more genetic variation is found in southern Europe and less in the north,” says Mattias Jakobsson, population-geneticist at Uppsala University and one of the senior authors of the study.

The two groups migrating into Scandinavia in the Mesolithic were genetically distinct and displayed different physical appearance. The people from the south likely displayed blue-eyes and dark skin and the people from the northeast a variation of eye colors and pale skin.

Similar to northern Europeans today, the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers were facing a high latitude climate associated with low levels of sunlight in winter causing low temperatures, which would be a challenging environment to live in. Humans can cope with such conditions physiologically and by changes in behavior, but in the long term there is also potential for genetic adaptation to such environments.

The team found that genetic variants associated with light skin and eye pigmentation were carried, on average, in greater frequency among Scandinavian hunter-gatherers than their ancestors from other parts of Europe.

“That suggests local adaptation taking place in Scandinavia after these groups arrived which is in line with the world-wide pattern of pigmentation decreasing with distance to the equator,” Torsten Günther explains.

While comparing the Mesolithic groups to modern-day northern Europeans, the team found particular similarities in a gene associated with physical performance.

“It will be interesting to see if future studies can show how this gene affects the physiological adaptation to cold environments,” says Torsten Günther.

Modern-day people of northern Europe trace relatively little genetic material back to the Mesolithic Scandinavians.

“What we have found is that already 10,000 years ago, after Scandinavia became ice-free, different groups of migrants entered the Scandinavian Peninsula. A migration process into Scandinavia that we have seen over and over again; later in the Stone Age, in the Bronze Age and in historical times,” says Mattias Jakobsson.

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 The excavations of Stora Förvar on Stora Karlsö. Hjalmar Stolpe. Antiquarian Topographical Archives (ATA), Stockholm.

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Skeletal fragments from the Hummervikholmen site. Beate Kjørslevik 

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Article Source: Uppsala University news release

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AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY—An archaeologist from The Australian National University (ANU) is set to redefine what we know about elderly people in cultures throughout history, and dispel the myth that most people didn’t live much past 40 prior to modern medicine.

Christine Cave, a PhD Scholar with the ANU School of Archaeology and Anthropology, has developed a new method for determining the age-of-death for skeletal remains based on how worn the teeth are.

Using her method, which she developed by analysing the wear on teeth and comparing with living populations of comparable cultures, she examined the skeletal remains of three Anglo-Saxon English cemeteries for people buried between the years 475 and 625.

Her research determined that it was not uncommon for people to live to old age.

“People sometimes think that in those days if you lived to 40 that was about as good as it got. But that’s not true.

“For people living traditional lives without modern medicine or markets the most common age of death is about 70, and that is remarkably similar across all different cultures.”

Ms Cave said the myth has been built up due to deficiencies in the way older people are categorised in archaeological studies.

“Older people have been very much ignored in archaeological studies and part of the reason for that has been the inability to identify them,” she said.

“When you are determining the age of children you use developmental points like tooth eruption or the fusion of bones that all happen at a certain age.

“Once people are fully grown it becomes increasingly difficult to determine their age from skeletal remains, which is why most studies just have a highest age category of 40 plus or 45 plus.

“So effectively they don’t distinguish between a fit and healthy 40 year old and a frail 95 year old.

“It’s meaningless if you are trying to study elderly people.”

Ms Cave said the new method will give archaeologists a more accurate view of past societies and what life was like for older people.

For those in the three cemeteries she studied, which were Greater Chesterford in Essex, Mill Hill in Kent, and Worthy Park in Hampshire, she found a marked difference in the way male and female people of old age were buried.

“Women were more likely to be given prominent burials if they died young, but were much less likely to be given one if they were old,” she said.

“The higher status men are generally buried with weapons, like a spear and a shield or occasionally a sword.

“Women were buried with jewellery, like brooches, beads and pins. This highlights their beauty which helps explain why most of the high-status burials for women were for those who were quite young.”

Ms Cave’s study “Sex and the Elderly” was published in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology.

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Teeth examined as part of Christine Cave’s research. Credit: ANU

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Article Source: Australian National University news release

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MCMASTER UNIVERSITY, HAMILTON, ON, Jan. 4, 2018 – A team of scientists has sequenced the complete genome of an ancient strain of the Hepatitis B virus (HBV), shedding new light on a pervasive, complex and deadly pathogen that today kills nearly one million people every year.

While little is known about its evolutionary history and origin, the findings confirm the idea that HBV has existed in humans for centuries.

The findings are based on genomic data extracted from the mummified remains of a small child buried in the Basilica of Saint Domenico Maggiore in Naples, Italy.

Previous scientific analysis of the 16th century remains—which did not include DNA testing—suggested the child was infected with Variola virus, or smallpox. In fact, this was the oldest evidence for the presence of smallpox in Medieval remains and a critical time stamp for its origins.

Using advanced sequencing techniques, researchers now suggest otherwise—the child was actually infected by HBV. Interestingly, children infected with HBV infections can develop a facial rash, known as Gianotti-Crosti syndrome. This may have been misidentified as smallpox and illustrates the trickiness of identifying infectious disease in the past.

The findings are published online in the journal PLOS Pathogens.

“These data emphasize the importance of molecular approaches to help identify the presence of key pathogens in the past, enabling us to better constrain the time they may have infected humans,” explains Hendrik Poinar, an evolutionary geneticist with the McMaster Ancient DNA Centre and a principal investigator with the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research.

Using small tissue samples of skin and bone, scientists were able to tease out tiny fragments of DNA and then stitch together pieces of genetic information to create a much more complete picture.

While viruses often evolve very rapidly—sometimes in just days—researchers suggest that this ancient strain of HBV has changed little over the last 450 years and that the evolution of this virus is complex.

While the team found a close relationship between the ancient and modern strains of HBV, both are missing what is known as temporal structure. In other words, there is no measurable rate of evolution throughout the 450-year period which separates the mummy sample from modern samples.

By some estimates, more than 350 million people living today have chronic HBV infections while approximately one-third of the global population has been infected at some point in their lives. Researchers suggest that the underline the importance of studying ancient viruses.

“The more we understand about the behaviour of past pandemics and outbreaks, the greater our understanding of how modern pathogens might work and spread, and this information will ultimately help in their control,” says Poinar.

Article Source: McMaster University news release

Image: The mummified remains of a small child buried in the Basilica of Saint Domenico Maggiore in Naples, Italy. Previous analysis of the 16th century remains had suggested the child was infected with smallpox, in what had been believed to be the earliest dated evidence of the virus. Advanced sequencing techniques, now suggest the child was actually infected by Hepatitis B. Credit: Gino Fornaciari, University of Pisa

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Direct genetic traces of the earliest Native Americans have been identified for the first time in a new study. The genetic evidence suggests that people may have entered the continent in a single migratory wave, perhaps arriving more than 20,000 years ago.

The data, which came from archaeological finds in Alaska, also points to the existence of a previously unknown Native American population, whom academics have named “Ancient Beringians”.

The findings are being published in the journal Nature and present possible answers to a series of long-standing questions about how the Americas were first populated.

It is widely accepted that the earliest settlers crossed from what is now Russia into Alaska via an ancient land bridge spanning the Bering Strait which was submerged at the end of the last Ice Age. Issues such as whether there was one founding group or several, when they arrived, and what happened next, are the subject of extensive debate, however.

In the new study, an international team of researchers led by academics from the Universities of Cambridge and Copenhagen sequenced the full genome of an infant – a 6-week-old girl named Xach’itee’aanenh t’eede gay, or Sunrise Child-girl, by the local Native community – whose remains were found at the Upward Sun River archaeological site in Alaska in 2013.

To their surprise, they found that although the child had lived around 11,500 years ago, long after people first arrived in the region, her genetic information did not match either of the two recognised branches of early Native Americans, which are referred to as Northern and Southern. Instead, she appeared to have belonged to an entirely distinct Native American population, which they called Ancient Beringians. 

The DNA from the infant has provided an unprecedented window into the history of her people, said Ben Potter, one of the lead authors of the study and a professor of anthropology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She and the 11,500-year-old remains of a younger female infant, also found at the Upward Sun River site in 2015, were closely related, likely first cousins. The younger infant has been named “Ye?kaanenh T’eede Gaay” (dawn twilight girl-child).

Further analyses then revealed that the Ancient Beringians were an offshoot of the same ancestor population as the Northern and Southern Native American groups, but that they separated from that population earlier in its history. This timeline allowed the researchers to construct a picture of how and when the continent might have been settled by a common, founding population of ancestral Native Americans, that gradually divided into these different sub-groupings.

The study was led by Professor Eske Willerslev, who holds positions both at St John’s College, University of Cambridge, UK, and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

“The Ancient Beringians diversified from other Native Americans before any ancient or living Native American population sequenced to date. It’s basically a relict population of an ancestral group which was common to all Native Americans, so the sequenced genetic data gave us enormous potential in terms of answering questions relating to the early peopling of the Americas,” he said.

“We were able to show that people probably entered Alaska before 20,000 years ago. It’s the first time that we have had direct genomic evidence that all Native Americans can be traced back to one source population, via a single, founding migration event.”

The study compared data from the Upward Sun River remains with both ancient genomes, and those of numerous present-day populations. This allowed the researchers first to establish that the Ancient Beringian group was more closely related to early Native Americans than their Asian and Eurasian ancestors, and then to determine the precise nature of that relationship and how, over time, they split into distinct populations.

Until now, the existence of two separate Northern and Southern branches of early Native Americans has divided academic opinion regarding how the continent was populated. Researchers have disagreed over whether these two branches split after humans entered Alaska, or whether they represent separate migrations.

The findings suggest two new scenarios for populating the New World: One is that there were two distinct groups of people who crossed over the Beringian land bridge. A second is that one group of people crossed over the land bridge and then split in Beringia into two groups: Ancient Beringians and other Native Americans, with the latter moving south of the ice sheets 15,700 years ago.

In any case, the Upward Sun River genome shows that Ancient Beringians were isolated from the common, ancestral Native American population, both before the Northern and Southern divide, and after the ancestral source population was itself isolated from other groups in Asia. The researchers say that this means it is likely there was one wave of migration into the Americas, with all subdivisions taking place thereafter.

According to the researchers’ timeline, the ancestral population first emerged as a separate group around 36,000 years ago, probably somewhere in northeast Asia. Constant contact with Asian populations continued until around 25,000 years ago, when the gene flow between the two groups ceased. This cessation was probably caused by brutal changes in the climate, which isolated the Native American ancestors. “It therefore probably indicates the point when people first started moving into Alaska,” Willerslev said.

Around the same time, there was a level of genetic exchange with an ancient North Eurasian population. Previous research by Willerslev has shown that a relatively specific, localised level of contact between this group, and East Asians, led to the emergence of a distinctive ancestral Native American population.

Ancient Beringians themselves then separated from the ancestral group earlier than either the Northern or Southern branches around 20,000 years ago. Genetic contact continued with their Native American cousins, however, at least until the Upward Sun River girl was born in Alaska around 8,500 years later.

The geographical proximity required for ongoing contact of this sort led the researchers to conclude that the initial migration into the Americas had probably already taken place when the Ancient Beringians broke away from the main ancestral line. Jos Vctor Moreno-Mayar, from the University of Copenhagen, said: “It looks as though this Ancient Beringian population was up there, in Alaska, from 20,000 years ago until 11,500 years ago, but they were already distinct from the wider Native American group.”

Finally, the researchers established that the Northern and Southern Native American branches only split between 17,000 and 14,000 years ago which, based on the wider evidence, indicates that they must have already been on the American continent south of the glacial ice.

The divide probably occurred after their ancestors had passed through, or around, the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets – two vast glaciers which covered what is now Canada and parts of the northern United States, but began to thaw at around this time.

The continued existence of this ice sheet across much of the north of the continent would have isolated the southbound travellers from the Ancient Beringians in Alaska, who were eventually replaced or absorbed by other Native American populations. Although modern populations in both Alaska and northern Canada belong to the Northern Native American branch, the analysis shows that these derive from a later “back” migration north, long after the initial migration events. What this suggests is that the Ancient Beringian people remained in the Far North for thousands of years, while the ancestors of other Native American peoples spread south throughout the rest of North America. The DNA results, along with other archaeological data, suggest that Athabascan ancestors moved north again, possibly around 6,000 years ago, eventually absorbing or replacing the Ancient Beringian population and establishing deep roots in their ancestral lands.

“One significant aspect of this research is that some people have claimed the presence of humans in the Americas dates back earlier – to 30,000 years, 40,000 years, or even more,” Willerslev added. “We cannot prove that those claims are not true, but what we are saying, is that if they are correct, they could not possibly have been the direct ancestors to contemporary Native Americans.”

The study, Terminal Pleistocene Alaskan genome reveals first founding population of Native Americans, is published in Nature.

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Excavations at the Upward Sun River archaeological site in Alaska. The new study shows that the remains found there belonged to members of a previously unknown Native American population, whom academics have named “Ancient Beringians”. Credit: Ben Potter

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Article Source: Edited from news releases of St. John’s College, University of Cambridge, and the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

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UNIVERSITY OF GRANADA—An international team, including researchers from the UGR’s anthropology group led by Prof. Miguel Cecilio Botella López of the Department of Legal Medicine, Toxicology and Physical Anthropology, has discovered the world’s oldest known cases of breast cancer and multiple myeloma (a type of bone marrow cancer). The discoveries were made by conducting CT scans of two mummies found in the pharaonic necropolis of Qubbet el-Hawa in Aswan, Egypt.

Following their thorough analysis of the mummies, the international research team has established that the woman with breast cancer died around 2000 B.C., while the man with multiple myeloma died around 1800 B.C. Both individuals belonged to the ruling classes (or at least to the wealthy classes) of the governing Egyptian families of Elephantine.

The researchers employed computed tomography scanning techniques (CT scans) to analyse the mummies. CT scanning techniques provide better results than traditional methods, which invariably lead to significant loss of the mummy wrapping as well as to partial destruction of the dressing and the body itself.

Moreover, tomography scanning techniques are more precise when it comes to ascertaining information about the insides of the mummies, as well as capturing minute details in the dressing and about the embalming techniques employed.

The same CT scanning technique was also applied to two fully intact mummies from the Late Period of ancient Egypt — the dressings on which were also still intact.

Prof. Botella López explains: “Both mummies were still wrapped in spectacular shrouds of multi-coloured faience beads, which in turn resemble a mask. The body structures of mummies from this period are superbly preserved and we can discern very clearly what their faces looked like.” Through reconstructions carried out using specific software, researchers were able to conduct detailed studies of these mummies from the Late Period, one of which is the body of a boy around 9 years of age, while the other is that of a young teenage girl.

Meanwhile, the two oldest mummies — those which have been affected by cancer—have been reduced to bones and are wrapped in a considerable number of bandages. Details such as these suggest that embalming techniques changed over time and that the techniques described by the Greek historian Herodotus were only established in the Late Period, at least in that southern part of Ancient Egypt, from the 10th century onward.

The research team, led by Dr. Mamoun, obtained the images at the Radiodiagnosis Service of Aswan University Hospital. They employed a next-generation CT scanner capable of performing 124 tomographic slices simultaneously and with a very high degree of precision. Staff from the Radiodiagnosis Service of the “Campus de la Salud” Hospital in Granada have also collaborated on this groundbreaking research project.

Studies conducted on the two oldest mummies, which reveal evidence of breast cancer and multiple myeloma—the oldest known cases to date—have enabled researchers to confirm that these diseases were already present in humans in ancient times. The research findings also confirm that these individuals belonged to an advanced society with enough resources to support and care for them throughout the long course of their diseases, at a time when no cures or treatments were available.

No traces of disease have been found in the mummies from the Late Period. Consequently, researchers posit acute infections as the probable cause of death in these instances, since infections either result in death or are cured within short time periods and, as a result; they do not leave any marks on bones. In ancient times, infections were the most common cause of death and, overall, they are currently still the most common cause of death across the globe, despite the vast range of treatment options that have been made available in modern times.

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Image of the mummy obtained using the CT scanner. Credit: Patricia Mora 

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Article Source: University of Granada news release

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