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AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE (AAAS)—A new study* describes a previously unidentified genetic lineage from which the modern-day Blood (Kainai) First Nation/Blackfoot Confederacy descended. Through comparisons of DNA from both Ancestral and modern-day Confederacy members, the work dates this Historic Blackfoot lineage to the late Pleistocene, corroborating established oral and archaeological records. The Blackfoot Confederacy is made of member tribes with ancestral ties to nomadic bison hunters that lived across the Northwestern Plains and Rocky Mountain Front. Oral and archaeological records place them in this region during the end of the last glaciation by at least 10,000 years ago.  Yet, the Blackfoot’s legacy has been contested frequently in land and water rights lawsuits. “The objectives of this study were not only to advance scientific knowledge about Indigenous genomic lineages that can provide insight into the peopling of the Americas but also to provide the Blackfoot with an independent line of evidence for evaluating purported ancestral relationships with other North American groups,” Dorothy First Rider and colleagues write. Here, First Rider et al. analyzed samples from 7 historical Ancestors and 6 living Blackfoot people. They found that ancient and modern DNA had a high proportion of shared alleles, demonstrating genetic continuity over millennia. Further modeling suggests that the Blood/Blackfoot ancient lineage split from other ancestral Indigenous American groups roughly 18,000 years ago. Athabascan and Karitiana then separated from this Historic Blackfoot group 13,000 years ago. Notably, the investigations help answer why Blackfoot language has minimal linguistic overlap with other Algic (or Indigenous North American) languages such as central Algonquian. “Certain elements of Blackfoot are older than proto-Algonquian language and likely were spoken by Indigenous peoples in the aboriginal homelands of the Blackfoot Confederacy,” the authors explain. “This finding changes the traditional anthropological assumption that the Blackfoot language (and, by extension, its speakers) originated in the North American Great Lakes, where Algonquian purportedly evolved.” They add that Historic Blackfoot likely traveled from west to east to end up in the Northwestern Plains.

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Genomic lineages of the Americas that evolved in the Late Pleistocene. Nomenclature follows from (22) with USR1 (2) representing ANC-C, Big Bar (3) representing ANC-D and Historic Blackfoot representing ANC-E. Rider et al., Sci. Adv. 10, eadl6595 (2024)

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Article Source: Science Advances news release

PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES—Researchers documented well-preserved wooden tools from a Pleistocene archaeological site in Germany. Little is known about the use of wooden tools by Paleolithic hunter-gatherers due to the poor preservation of wooden artifacts in the archaeological record. Well-preserved wooden tools have been recovered at the 300,000-year-old archaeological site of Schöningen in Germany during excavations starting in 1981. Dirk Leder and colleagues characterized an assemblage of 187 wooden artifacts identified from excavations at Schöningen 13 II-4, known as the Spear Horizon. The wooden artifacts were made from spruce (Picea sp.), larch (Larix sp.), and pine (Pinus sylvestris), primarily using splitting, scraping, and abrasion techniques. The raw materials would not have been available at the former interglacial lakeshore, where the site was located, and must have been transported at least 3–5 kilometers. Based on identification of complete and fragmented spears and throwing sticks, the authors deduced that the assemblage contained an estimated 20–25 hunting weapons. The authors also identified 35 wooden tools likely used in domestic activities, such as processing animal hides. Artifacts identified as working debris suggested that tools were repaired and recycled into new tools at the site. According to the authors, the findings expand understanding of Pleistocene woodworking techniques and provide insight into early human hunting strategies, range expansion, technical and social skills, and cognition. 

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What became famously known as the the ‘Schöningen spears’ were initially excavated between 1994 and 1999 from the above mentioned ‘Spear Horizon’ in the open-cast lignite mine in Schöningen, Helmstedt district, Germany. They are considered to be the oldest wood hunting weapons discovered, found in association with animal bones and other stone and bone tools. The spears provided evidence that at least this group of early human ancestors were more sophisticated both technically and socially than previously thought for Middle Pleistocene hominins. 

The age of the spears were originally assessed at between 380,000 and 400,000 years old based on their stratigraphic position at the site, however, later thermoluminescence dating of heated flints in a deposit situated beneath the Spear Horizon showed the spears to be dated between 337,000 and 300,000 years old. Today, the spears are widely regarded as the oldest complete wooden weapons.

Due to the lack of evidence and data on any hominin remains at the site, scientists have not been able to determine the specific hominin, or early human, species responsible for the creation of the implements. Scholars speculate that the most likely candidates would be Homo heidelbergensis or early Neanderthals. The spears provide evidence for the use of wood in making Palaeolithic tools, and their use in hunting by Middle Pleistocene humans.

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The Schöningen excavation site. P. Pfarr NLD, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

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Schöningen spears as presented at the exhibition of the Forschungsmuseum Schöningen. Niedersächsisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege (NLD)

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Spears and throwing sticks discovered from the Spear Horizon. Niedersächsisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege (NLD)

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Working traces on the spear point of Spear V, including annual rings, surface facets, and a flattened knot. Niedersächsisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege (NLD)

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Article Source: Edited from the subject PNAS news release. 

*“The wooden artifacts from Schöningen’s Spear Horizon and their place in human evolution,” by Dirk Leder et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1-Apr-2024. https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2320484121 

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Who were the Neanderthals, really? Read the in-depth, comprehensive premium article that tells the story in the soon-to-be-released new issue of Popular Archaeology. Join today.  

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CELL PRESS—What did an ancient Chinese emperor from 1,500 years ago look like? A team of researchers reconstructed the face of Chinese Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou using DNA extracted from his remains. The study, published March 28 in the journal Current Biology, suggests the emperor’s death at the age of 36 might be linked to a stroke. It also sheds light on the origin and migration patterns of a nomadic empire that once ruled parts of northeastern Asia.

Emperor Wu was a ruler of the Northern Zhou dynasty in ancient China. Under his reign from AD 560 to AD 578, Emperor Wu built a strong military and unified the northern part of ancient China after defeating the Northern Qi dynasty.

Emperor Wu was ethnically Xianbei, an ancient nomadic group that lived in what is today Mongolia and northern and northeastern China.

“Some scholars said the Xianbei had ‘exotic’ looks, such as thick beard, high nose bridge, and yellow hair,” says Shaoqing Wen, one of the paper’s corresponding authors at Fudan University in Shanghai. “Our analysis shows Emperor Wu had typical East or Northeast Asian facial characteristics,” he adds.

In 1996, archaeologists discovered Emperor Wu’s tomb in northwestern China, where they found his bones, including a nearly complete skull. With the development of ancient DNA research in recent years, Wen and his team managed to recover over 1 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on his DNA, some of which contained information about the color of Emperor Wu’s skin and hair. Combined with Emperor Wu’s skull, the team reconstructed his face in 3D. The result shows Emperor Wu had brown eyes, black hair, and dark to intermediate skin, and his facial features were similar to those of present-day Northern and Eastern Asians.

“Our work brought historical figures to life,” says Pianpian Wei, the paper’s co-corresponding author at Fudan University. “Previously, people had to rely on historical records or murals to picture what ancient people looked like. We are able to reveal the appearance of the Xianbei people directly.”

Emperor Wu died at the age of 36, and his son also died at a young age with no clear reason. Some archaeologists say Emperor Wu died of illness, while others argue the emperor was poisoned by his rivals. By analyzing Emperor Wu’s DNA, researchers found that the emperor was at an increased risk for stroke, which might have contributed to his death. The finding aligns with historical records that described the emperor as having aphasia, drooping eyelids, and an abnormal gait—potential symptoms of a stroke.

The genetic analysis shows the Xianbei people intermarried with ethnically Han Chinese when they migrated southward into northern China. “This is an important piece of information for understanding how ancient people spread in Eurasia and how they integrated with local people,” Wen says.

Next, the team plans to study the people who lived in ancient Chang’an city in northwestern China by studying their ancient DNA. Chang’an was the capital city of many Chinese empires over thousands of years and the eastern terminus of the Silk Road, an important Eurasian trade network from the second century BC until the 15th century. The researchers hope that the DNA analysis can reveal more information about how people migrated and exchanged cultures in ancient China.

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The facial reconstruction of Emperor Wu who was ethnically Xianbei. Pianpian Wei

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Article Source: CELL PRESS news release.

*Current Biology, Du et al. “Ancient genome of the Chinese emperor Wu of Northern Zhou” https://cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(24)00240-9

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OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS USA—A new paper in Molecular Biology and Evolution, published by Oxford Univeristy Press, uncovers well-preserved microbiomes from two 4,000 year old teeth in a limestone cave in Ireland. These contained bacteria that cause gum disease, as well as the first high quality ancient genome from S. mutans, an oral bacterium that is one of the major causes of tooth decay.

These discoveries allowed the researchers to assess the impact of past dietary changes on the oral microbiome across millennia, including major changes coinciding with the popularization of sugar and industrialization. The teeth, both derived from the same Bronze Age man, also provided a snapshot of oral health in the past, with one tooth showing evidence of microbiome dysbiosis.

Microbial DNA extracted from ancient human teeth can provide information on the evolution of the oral microbiome. How did our ancestors’ mouths differ from our own and why? The excellent preservation of DNA in fossilized dental plaque has made the oral cavity one of the best studied aspects of the ancient human body. However, scientists have retrieved very few full genomes from oral bacteria from prior to the Medieval era. Researchers have limited knowledge about prehistoric bacterial diversity and the relative impact of recent dietary changes compared to ancient ones, such as the spread of farming starting about ten thousand years ago.

S. mutans is the primary cause of dental cavities and very common in oral microbiomes. However, it is exceptionally rare in the ancient genomic record. One reason for its rarity could be its acid-producing nature – this acid causes the tooth to decay but also degrades DNA and prevents plaque from mineralizing. The absence of S. mutans DNA in ancient mouths could also reflect less favorable habitats for the species across most of human history. Archaeologists have observed an uptick in dental cavities in skeletal remains following the adoption of cereal agriculture, but cavities become much more common in the Early Modern period, beginning about 1500 AD.

The sampled teeth were among a large assemblage of skeletal remains excavated from a limestone cave at Killuragh, County Limerick, by the late Peter Woodman of University College Cork. While other teeth in the cave showed advanced dental decay there was no evidence of caries on the sampled teeth. Nevertheless, one tooth root yielded an unprecedented quantity of mutans sequences.

“We were very surprised to see such a large abundance of mutans in this 4,000 year old tooth” said Lara Cassidy, an assistant professor at Trinity College Dublin and senior author of the study. “It is a remarkably rare find and suggests this man was at high risk of developing cavities right before his death.”

The cool, dry, and alkaline conditions of the cave may have contributed to the exceptional preservation of S. mutans DNA, but its high abundance also points to dysbiosis. The researchers found that while S. mutans DNA was plentiful, other streptococcal species were virtually absent from the tooth sample. This implies that the natural balance of the oral biofilm had been upset – mutans had outcompeted the other species leading to a pre-disease state.

The study lends support to the “disappearing microbiome” hypothesis, which proposes the microbiomes of our ancestors were more diverse than our own today. Alongside the S. mutans genome, the authors reconstructed two genomes for T. forsythia – a bacteria involved in gum disease – and found them to be highly divergent from one another, implying much higher levels of strain diversity in prehistoric populations.

“The two sampled teeth contained quite divergent strains of T. forsythia” explained Iseult Jackson, a PhD candidate and first author of the study. “These strains from a single ancient mouth were more genetically different from one another than any pair of modern strains in our dataset, despite these modern samples deriving from Europe, Japan, and the USA. This is interesting because a loss of biodiversity can have negative impacts on the oral environment and human health.”

The reconstructed T. forsythia and S. mutans genomes revealed dramatic changes in the oral microenvironment over the last 750 years. In recent centuries, one lineage of T. forsythia has become dominant in global populations. This is the tell-tale sign of a selective episode – where one strain rises rapidly in frequency due to some genetic advantage. The researchers found that post-industrial T. forsythia genomes have acquired many new genes that help the bacteria colonize the oral environment and cause disease.

S. mutans also showed evidence of recent lineage expansions and changes in gene content, which coincide with the popularization of sugar. However, the investigators found that modern S. mutans populations have remained more diverse than T. forsythia, with deep splits in the mutans evolutionary tree pre-dating the Killuragh genome.  They believe this is driven by differences in the evolutionary mechanisms that shape genome diversity in these species.

“S. mutans is very adept at swapping genetic material across strains.” said Cassidy “This allows an advantageous innovation to be spread across mutans lineages, rather than one lineage becoming dominant and replacing all others.”

In effect, both these disease-causing bacteria have changed dramatically from the Bronze Age to today, but it appears that very recent cultural transitions, such as the consumption of sugar, have had an inordinate impact.

The paper, “Ancient genomes from Bronze Age remains reveal deep diversity and recent adaptive episodes for human oral pathobionts,” is available (at midnight on March 27^th) at https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/molbev/msae017.

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Killuragh Cave, County Limerick, Ireland. Sam Moore and Marion Dowd/Molecular Biology and Evolution

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Article Source: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS USA news release

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TEL-AVIV UNIVERSITY—Archaeologists from Tel Aviv University have uncovered the mystery surrounding extensive Paleolithic stone quarrying and tool-making sites: Why did Homo erectus repeatedly revisit the very same locations for hundreds of thousands of years? The answer lies in the migration routes of elephants, which they hunted and dismembered using flint tools crafted at these quarrying sites.

The research was led by Dr. Meir Finkel and Prof. Ran Barkai of Tel Aviv University’s Jacob M. Alkow Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures

The study* was published in the journal Archaeologies.

Prof. Ran Barkai explains: “Ancient humans required three things: water, food and stone. While water and food are necessities for all creatures, humans relied on stone tools to hunt and butcher animals, as they lack the sharp claws or fangs of other predators. The question is, why do we find rock outcrops that were used for the production of flint tools, surrounded by thousands of stone tools, and next to them rock outcrops containing flint that was not used for the production of tools? A study of indigenous groups that lived until recently, with some still alive today, shows that hunter-gatherers attribute great importance to the source of the stone — the quarry itself — imbuing it with potency and sanctity, and hence also spiritual worship. People have been making pilgrimages to such sites for generations upon generations, leaving offerings at the rock outcrop, while adjacent outcrops, equally suitable for stone tool production, remain untouched. We sought to understand why; what is special about these sites?”

For nearly 20 years, Prof. Barkai and his colleagues have been researching flint quarrying and tool-making sites in the Upper Galilee. These sites are characterized by large nodules of flint convenient for crafting and are located within walking distance of the major Paleolithic sites of the Hula Valley — Gesher Benot Ya’akov and Ma’ayan Baruch. These sites boast thousands of quarrying and extraction localities where, until half a million years ago, in the Lower Paleolithic period, prehistoric humans fashioned tools and left offerings, despite the presence of flint in other geological formations in various places. Because elephants were the primary dietary component for these early humans, the Tel Aviv University researchers cross-referenced the database of the sites’ distribution with the database of the elephants’ migration routes, and discovered that the flint quarrying and knapping sites were situated in rock outcrops near the elephants’ migration paths.

“An elephant consumes 400 liters of water a day on average, and that’s why it has fixed movement paths,” says Dr. Finkel. “These are animals that rely on a daily supply of water, and therefore on water sources — the banks of lakes, rivers and streams. In many instances, we discover elephant hunting and processing sites at “necessary crossings” — where a stream or river passes through a steep mountain pass, or when a path along a lakeshore is limited to the space between the shore and a mountain range. At the same time, given the absence of available means of preservation and the presence of predatory animals in the area, the window of opportunity for a group of hunter-gatherers to exhaust their elephant prey was limited. Therefore, it was imperative to prepare suitable cutting tools in large quantities in advance and nearby. For this reason, we find quarrying and knapping sites in the Upper Galilee located a short distance from elephant butchering sites, which are positioned along the elephants’ movement paths.”

Subsequently, the researchers sought to apply an adapted model from the one they developed in Israel to several sites from the Lower Paleolithic period in Asia, Europe and Africa, where such a “triad” exists. These included both sites where the hunted animals were elephants or mammoths, as well as later sites where other animals, such as hippos, camels, and horses, were the prey.

“It appears that the Paleolithic holy trinity holds true universally: Wherever there was water, there were elephants, and wherever there were elephants, humans had to find suitable rock outcrops to quarry stone and make tools in order to hunt and butcher their favorite mega herbivores,” says Prof. Barkai. “It was a tradition: For hundreds of thousands of years the elephants wandered along the same route, while humans produced stone tools nearby. Ultimately, those elephants became extinct, and the world changed forever.”

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Illustration of elephant hunting using spears by Dana Ackerfeld. Dana Ackerfeld

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Article Source: TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY news release.

*Finkel, M., Barkai, R. Quarries as Places of Significance in the Lower Paleolithic Holy Triad of Elephants, Water, and Stone. Arch (2024). https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11759-024-09491-y

Cover Image, Top Left: Mammoth Hunt; Bryant, William Cullen, 1794-1878;Gay, Sydney Howard, 1814-1888; Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

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ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY—Modern humans dispersed from Africa multiple times, but the event that led to global expansion occurred less than 100,000 years ago. Some researchers hypothesize that dispersals were restricted to “green corridors” formed during humid intervals when food was abundant and human populations expanded in lockstep with their environments. But a new study* in Nature, including ASU researchers Curtis Marean, Christopher Campisano, and Jayde Hirniak, suggests that humans also may have dispersed during arid intervals along “blue highways” created by seasonal rivers. Researchers also found evidence of cooking and stone tools that represent the oldest evidence of archery.

Working in the Horn of Africa, researchers have uncovered evidence showing how early modern humans survived in the wake of the eruption of Toba, one of the largest supervolcanoes in history, some 74,000 years ago. The behavioral flexibility of these people not only helped them live through the supereruption but may have facilitated the later dispersal of modern humans out of Africa and across the rest of the world.

“This study confirms the results from Pinnacle Point in South Africa – the eruption of Toba may have changed the environment in Africa, but people adapted and survived that eruption-caused environmental change,” said Marean, research scientist with the Institute of Human Origins and Foundation Professor with the School of Human Evolution and Social Change.

The team investigated the Shinfa-Metema 1 site in the lowlands of present-day northwestern Ethiopia along the Shinfa River, a tributary of the Blue Nile River.

The supereruption occurred during the middle of the time when the site was occupied and is documented by tiny glass shards whose chemistry matches that of Toba.

Pinpoint timing through cryptotephra

“One of the ground-breaking implications of this study,” said Marean, “is that with the new cryptotephra methods developed for our prior study in South Africa, and now applied here to Ethiopia, we can correlate sites across Africa, and perhaps the world, at a resolution of several weeks of time.” 

Cryptotephra are signature volcanic glass shards that can range from 80–20 microns in size, which is smaller than the diameter of a human hair. To extract these microscopic shards from archaeological sediment requires patience and great attention to detail. 

“Searching for cryptotephra at these archaeological sites is like looking for a needle in a haystack, but not knowing if there is even a needle. However, having the ability to correlate sites 5,000 miles apart, and potentially further, to within weeks instead of thousands of years makes it all worth it,” said Christopher Campisano, research scientist with the Institute of Human Origins and professor with the School of Human Evolution and Social Change.

“This study, once again,” said Campisano, “highlights the importance of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas/Arizona State University team pushing the limits for successfully analyzing extremely low abundance cryptotephra to date and correlate archaeological sites across Africa.” 

The methods for identifying low abundance cryptotephra at Pinnacle Point were first developed at University of Nevada Las Vegas led by the late Gene Smith and Racheal Johnsen and now carried on at Arizona State University’s Sediment and TEphra Preparation (STEP) Lab.

School of Human Evolution and Social Change graduate student Jayde Hirniak led ASU’s effort to create its own cryptotephra lab—the STEP Lab—working with Campisano and building on methods developed at UNLV. Hirniak also collaborated with cryptotephra labs in the United Kingdom that work with sediment samples preserving hundreds or thousands of glass shards. Now Hirniak’s primary expertise is in tephrochronology, which involves the use of volcanic ash to link archaeological and paleoenvironmental records and place them on the same timeline, which was her contribution to this research.

“Our lab at ASU was built to process extremely low abundance cryptotephra horizons (<10 shards per gram) using a highly specialized technique. There are only a few labs in the world with these capabilities,” said Hirniak.

Migrations along “blue highways”

Based on isotope geochemistry of the teeth of fossil mammals and ostrich eggshells, they concluded that the site was occupied by humans during a time with long dry seasons on a par with some of the most seasonally arid habitats in East Africa today. Additional findings suggest that when river flows stopped during dry periods, people adapted by hunting animals that came to the remaining waterholes to drink. As waterholes continued to shrink, it became easier to capture fish without any special equipment, and diets shifted more heavily to fish.

Its climatic effects appear to have produced a longer dry season, causing people in the area to rely even more on fish. The shrinking of the waterholes may also have pushed humans to migrate outward in search of more food.

“As people depleted food in and around a given dry season waterhole, they were likely forced to move to new waterholes,” said John Kappelman, a UT anthropology and earth and planetary sciences professor and lead author of the study. “Seasonal rivers thus functioned as ‘pumps’ that siphoned populations out along the channels from one waterhole to another, potentially driving the most recent out-of-Africa dispersal.

The humans who lived at Shinfa-Metema 1 are unlikely to have been members of the group that left Africa. However, the behavioral flexibility that helped them adapt to challenging climatic conditions such as the Toba supereruption was probably a key trait of Middle Stone Age humans that allowed our species to ultimately disperse from Africa and expand across the globe.

The people living in the Shinfa-Metema 1 site hunted a variety of terrestrial animals, from antelope to monkey, as attested to by cut marks on the bones, and apparently cooked their meals as shown by evidence of controlled fire at the site. The most distinctive stone tools are small, symmetrical triangular points. Analyses show that the points are most likely arrowheads that, at 74,000 years in age, represent the oldest evidence of archery.

ASU’s cryptotephra research was funded by the Hyde Family Foundations, the National Science Foundation, the Institute of Human Origins, and Arizona State University.

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Excavations at a Middle Stone Age archaeological site, Shinfa-Metema 1, in the lowlands of northwest Ethiopia revealed a population of humans at 74,000 years ago that survived the eruption of the Toba supervolcano. From https://topographic-map.com Open Database License (ODbL) v1.0

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A tiny glass shard less than the diameter of human hair was recovered from a Middle Stone Age site in northwest Ethiopia. Its chemistry matches that of the Toba supervolcano located on the other side of the world in Indonesia. The people who lived at this archaeological site survived the supereruption because of their behavioral flexibility. Photograph by Racheal Johnsen.

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Projectile points from a Middle Stone Age archaeological site, Shinfa-Metema 1, in the lowlands of northwest Ethiopia dating from the time of the Toba supereruption at 74,000 years ago provide evidence for bow and arrow use prior to the dispersal of modern humans out of Africa. Photograph by Blue Nile Survey Project.

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Article Source: ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY news release.

*Adaptive foraging behaviors in the Horn of Africa during Toba, Nature, 20-Mar-2024. 

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PLOS—More than 7,000 years ago, people navigated the Mediterranean Sea using technologically sophisticated boats, according to a study* published March 20, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Juan F. Gibaja of the Spanish National Research Council, Barcelona and colleagues.

Many of the most important civilizations in Europe originated on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. During the Neolithic, communities clearly traveled and traded across the water, as evidenced by watercraft in the archeological record and the presence of settlements on coasts and islands. In this study, Gibaja and colleagues provide new insights into the history of seafaring technology through analysis of canoes at the Neolithic lakeshore village of La Marmotta, near Rome, Italy.

Excavation at this site has recovered five canoes built from hollowed-out trees (dugout canoes) dating between 5700-5100BC. Analysis of these boats reveals that they are built from four different types of wood, unusual among similar sites, and that they include advanced construction techniques such as transverse reinforcements. One canoe is also associated with three T-shaped wooden objects, each with a series of holes that were likely used to fasten ropes tied to sails or other nautical elements. These features, along with previous reconstruction experiments, indicate these were seaworthy vessels, a conclusion supported by the presence at the site of stone tools linked to nearby islands.

The authors describe these canoes as exceptional examples of prehistoric boats whose construction required a detailed understanding of structural design and wood properties in addition to well-organized specialized labor. Similarities between these canoes and more recent nautical technologies support the idea that many major advances in sailing were made during the early Neolithic. The authors suggest there may be more boats preserved near La Marmotta, a potential avenue for future research.

The authors add: “Direct dating of Neolithic canoes from La Marmotta reveals them to be the oldest in the Mediterranean, offering invaluable insights into Neolithic navigation. This study reveals the amazing technological sophistication of early agricultural and pastoral communities, highlighting their woodworking skills and the construction of complex vessels.”

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Excavation of Canoe 5. Gibaja et al., 2024, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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Canoe Marmotta 1. On display in the Museo delle Civiltà in Rome. Gibaja et al., 2024, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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Article Source: PLOS news release

*Gibaja JF, Mineo M, Santos FJ, Morell B, Caruso-Fermé L, Remolins G, et al. (2024) The first Neolithic boats in the Mediterranean: The settlement of La Marmotta (Anguillara Sabazia, Lazio, Italy). PLoS ONE 19(3): e0299765. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0299765

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The presence and pattern of peopling of Europe during the Middle Pleistocene (between 770,000 and 126,000 years ago) has long been a subject of debate among scientists. Some scholars suggest coexistence of multiple human lineages during this time in Europe, and others propose a single lineage evolving from Homo heidelbergensis to Homo neanderthalensis. Recently, researchers conducted a morphometric, biomechanical and palaeopathological study of a second right metatarsal SdD2 hominin fossil found at the Sedia del Diavolo site in Italy, and found that the fossil showed features more archaic than those of Neanderthals. From the research, the study authors were also able to suggest a revised assessment of the technology and hunting strategies adopted by Homo in the region between MIS 9 (337,000 to 300,000 years ago) and MIS 8 (301,000 to 245,000 years ago).

“These observations,” state the authors in the published study*, “when interpreted within the context of the available fossil record, may suggest the co-existence of at least two hominin clades in the Italian Peninsula during the beginning of marine isotope stage (MIS) 8”.

Moreover, according to the study authors, the Sedia del Diavolo site provides evidence for the oldest association of a hominin, in this case possibly other than Neanderthal, and Levallois technology, challenging the previously held  paradigm that only Neanderthals were associated with this technology in Europe. Finally, observance of bony stress injuries in the fossil specimen, coupled with the known prevalence of such bone stress injuries in specimens found within Early and Middle Pleistocene fossil assemblages, supports the contention for persistence hunting as a common activity among early members of Homo, the genus through which modern humans have evolved.

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(a) the SdD2 fossil, a second right metatarsal with a bony callus on the distal diaphysis, interpreted as a stress fracture38. From left to right: dorsal, plantar, lateral, and medial views. Reference scale bar 10 mm. (b) the set of landmarks (large spheres) and semilandmarks (small spheres) used for the three-dimensional geometric morphometric analysis of the proximal epiphysis (dark blue), distal epiphysis (light blue) and diaphysis (purple). CC BY-SA 4.0, Riga, A., Profico, A., Mori, T. et al. The Middle Pleistocene human metatarsal from Sedia del Diavolo (Rome, Italy). Sci Rep 14, 6024 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-55045-1

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*Riga, A., Profico, A., Mori, T. et al. The Middle Pleistocene human metatarsal from Sedia del Diavolo (Rome, Italy). Sci Rep 14, 6024 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-55045-1

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Here are the most compelling published stories of Popular Archaeology Magazine. Some have an element of controversy, some discoveries took place decades before, and others entail findings that may lead to further discoveries yet to come. In all cases, they represent the excitement and adventure of archaeology as it opens new and fascinating windows on humanity’s collective past.

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The discovery of the world’s largest trove of ancient writings opened an unparalleled window on a vanished world. Read About It Here

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The story of a forgotten explorer and his intrepid journey to discover great ancient Arabian cities of the Incense Road. Read About It Here

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How an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life. Read About It Here

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Two remarkable sites are shedding light on a critical transitional period in human evolution. Read About It Here

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The startling discovery of million-year-old human footprints on a beach in the United Kingdom had scientists jumping. Read About It Here

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The recent controversial discoveries, and a renowned scholar’s quest to uncover the historical truth about Jesus of Nazareth. Read About It Here

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Excavations of princely tombs are shedding new light on a formative time before the high florescence of the Mycenaean civilization. Read About It Here

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An anthology of articles focusing on the findings that are informing a new paradigm about the early settling of the Americas. Read About It Here

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Archaeologists are unearthing new clues to America’s historic “lost” colony. Read About It Here

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The in-depth story about the controversial discovery of a 130,000-year-old human presence in Southern California. Read About It Here

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Most of us have heard or read about the great Trojan War and the epic journey of Odysseus (otherwise known as Ulysses) through the legendary characters and events as described by Homer in his famous literary works, The Iliad and The Odyssey. Fewer, however, have a more than passing knowledge of the ancient Bronze and Iron Age peoples who many scholars suggest may have formed the historical basis for Homer’s epic mythical stories, such as the Mycenaeans and Minoans. The real story of these civilizations has slowly come to light through the painstaking efforts of archaeologists and scholars, popularized by the media over the years, but documented and studied more meticulously within the halls of academia. Despite the efforts to come to a greater understanding, mysteries still abound and there are more questions than answers.

Dr. Ester Salgarella, who received her Ph.D from Cambridge University and subsequently conducted post-doctoral research at the university, has developed and released a new podcast series, entitled Aegean Connections, that explores all facets of these civilizations, bringing the research out from the confines of the scholarly “ivory tower” and into the listening ear of the general public. She does this by conducting interviews of the very scholars who engage in the study and research, focusing on such topics as undeciphered scripts, the life-ways and origins of these Aegean peoples, and many other topics to “build a bridge between scholars (both well-established and early-career) in Aegean-oriented academic fields and the wider audience….,” according to Salgarella. 

Linear B tablet Clay from Pylos end of 13th century BCE NAM Athens. Mary Harrsch, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

The second episode of the series, released on February 6, 2024, interviews Dr. Rachele Pierini, a Senior Researcher and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Centre for Textile Research, Saxo Institute, University of Copenhagen. In this episode, the listener will learn a few fascinating things about this ancient script, used by the ancient Mycenaeans to write the earliest attested form of the Greek language. Rachele will tell us about how Linear B textual evidence is incorporated into her current research related to textile production, sustainability, gender identity and cultural identity, showing how a Bronze Age script can be used as an example of how the past can inform and explain the present.

Anyone can listen to the podcast, which is free to the public.

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Above: Fresco wall painting detail created by an ancient Minoan artist at Akrotiri, depicting a city and the seafaring adventures of this maritime civilization.

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Cover Image, Above: Image by Vektorianna, Pixabay

PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES—The migration of hominins out of Africa may have been driven by climatic changes, a study suggests. Genomic studies have suggested that humans underwent a population bottleneck around 0.9 million years ago, but a recent study* of early archaeological sites suggested that this bottleneck occurred around 1.1 million years ago. The dating discrepancy makes it challenging to identify climatic events that may have contributed to a bottleneck. Giovanni Muttoni and Dennis Kent reevaluated the stratigraphic records of early hominin sites across Eurasia to explore the timing and drivers of a hominin population bottleneck. The authors identified a concentration of Eurasian hominin sites reliably dated to 0.9 million years ago. In comparison, the stratigraphic records dating Eurasian sites to greater than 1.1 million years ago were ambiguous and disputed, making associations with climatic events less reliable. The findings are consistent with a rapid migration of hominins and other animals out of Africa around 0.9 million years ago during the first major glaciation of the Pleistocene Epoch, when a drop in sea level opened land routes out of Africa and aridity increased across Africa. According to the authors, the findings suggest that the dispersal of humans out of Africa may have been an adaptive response to a population bottleneck driven by climatic changes around 0.9 million years ago.

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Deployment of piston corer used to recover 16 meter-long, deep-sea sediment cores. Dennis Kent

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Effects of enhanced, cyclical cooling and warming since marine isotope stage 22 shown in open-pit excavation of loess-paleosol sequence in Kostolac, Serbia. Giovanni Muttoni

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Loess section being sampled for integrated stratigraphy in Krakow-Zwierzniec, Poland, with researcher standing on level with evidence of early occupation by H. sapiens. Giovanni Muttoni

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Article Source: PNAS news release

*“Hominin population bottleneck coincided with migration from Africa during the Early Pleistocene ice-age transition,” by Giovanni Muttoni and Dennis V. Kent. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 11-Mar-2024. https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2318903121

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UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER—More than forty archaeological sites in Cyprus dating potentially as far back as the Bronze Age that were thought lost to history have been relocated by University of Leicester scientists working for the Ministry of Defence.

A small team of archaeologists from University of Leicester Archaeological Services, funded by the DIO Overseas Stewardship Project, undertook a ‘walkover survey’ – a systematic surveying and recording of visible archaeological remains – of the Eastern Sovereign Base Area at Dhekelia (ESBA) on the south coast of the island. The work, licensed by Cyprus’ Department of Antiquities in Nicosia, is to inform site management by the DIO, which is the custodian of the UK and overseas Defence estate.

Dhekelia is about 30km south-east of Nicosia, and 80km north-east of the Western Sovereign Base Area (WSBA) at Akrotiri where the University of Leicester has been working since 2015.

The task of the walkover was to relocate around 60 possible archaeological sites that had been recorded in the early 1960s prior to the development of the garrison within the Dhekelia base, and the laying out of the Kingsfield Airstrip at the western end of the area.

In preparation of the survey a Geographic Information System (GIS) record was compiled that included all the known information, and from that co-ordinate points for the possible sites were exported to standard handheld GPS units. Archaeologists then visited each site and searched for the evidence that had been previously recorded. When successfully found, each site would then be photographed, GPS located, and recorded on pro forma sheets.

In total, 51 sites including 5 historic buildings were located. Some records survived for 47 of the sites, but a further four were known only from labels on a 1:25,000 scale plan. Although the dating of most of the sites is currently unknown, they are likely to span from the Bronze Age which started c.2500 BC to the Byzantine period which ended in the 12^th Century AD, and to include sites from the Hellenistic period (312 – 58 BC) and Roman periods (58 BC – 395 AD).

Particular highlights included three coastal quarries where stone was being taken off low spits running out into the sea. One quarry had a little ramp that looked like it was used for loading slabs of quarried rock into boats tied in deep water alongside, and another had dozens of very clear circular grinding stone removals which, where immediately adjacent to each other, left behind distinct clover leaf shapes in the bed rock.

Large areas of rock cut tomb extended over several hectares in one part of the inland plateau. Most of these tombs were in a very poor state and some bore clear signs of looting in the form of adjacent mounds of earth. Many tombs have been used as convenient areas for fly tipping. One tomb, part of a substantial cemetery surrounding a monastery to the west of Xylotymbou village was being used for caging cats.

Matt Beamish from University of Leicester Archaeological Services, who led the survey, said:

“Our GIS and survey methods had worked well when used for a similar survey of the Akrotiri peninsula in 2019. Many of the sites we were planning to survey had been last visited over 20 years ago, and in many instances had been reported as no longer existing or being unfindable. On reflection this had more to do with inadequate mapping, lack of preparation and lack of satellite location technologies: we found that many of the sites could be re-found with a little bit of patience.

“There were undoubtedly problems with some of the archive information which was incomplete and had been inaccurately redrawn at some stage in the past. Some sites had clearly been lost to the subsequent development of roads and buildings.”

The Dhekelia Sovereign base is around 20km wide and 7km deep and sits on the east side of Larnaca Bay. The topography is varied including a flat coastal strip meeting steep limestone cliffs and hills, with a broadly flat plateau on the interior which includes more areas of rocky outcrop and is bisected by rivers which are generally dry beds under cultivation. The coastal strip and plateau include areas of agriculture and horticulture, and areas of olive and citrus grove and scrub. In the north of the area there are large dairy and livestock farms.

Cyprus’ position on Mediterranean sea routes has led to a rich and diverse cultural heritage, and it is famed for the preservation of many archaeological sites from the Bronze Age, Hellenistic/Iron Age, Roman, and Byzantine or medieval periods. At the western end of the Dhekelia area this occupation is represented in a significant archaeological landscape comprising a large Bronze Age defended hilltop settlement at Kokkinokremnos and an adjacent Iron Age hillfort at Vikla, both sitting above the Roman harbour town of Koutsopetria: all these protected sites are subject to recent research excavations. The Roman harbour is all now infilled, possibly stemming from a catastrophic tsunami event.

Much of the known archaeology across Dhekelia is funerary, and this mostly comprises rock cut tombs, some of which were built into the limestone caves (generally Hellenistic/Iron Age), and rock cut shaft graves (generally Byzantine/Roman-Medieval). 

Matt Beamish added: “The survey was very successful with the identification of significant archaeological areas. We know that many more archaeological sites will exist which are not obvious to the naked eye. Much of the area has seen no systematic archaeological survey, and the application of remote sensing or aerial survey perhaps using LiDAR would enable a wider picture of previous human activity to be drawn. The information will enable the DIO to better manage the archaeological sites within the Sovereign Base Administration Area, and allow a wider understanding of Dhekelia’s archaeological heritage.”

Alex Sotheran, Archaeology Advisor, DIO, praised the survey and the results:

“The work carried out by Matt and the team has really improved our knowledge and understanding of the archaeology across the Dhekelia area and will allow for an improved system of management of these vital and important heritage assets going forward.”

David Reynolds, Environmental Advisor (Cyprus), DIO, added:

“Along with the University of Leicester team, we would like to thank the Republic of Cyprus Department of Antiquities and the Sovereign Base Area Office (Dhekelia) for all their support and guidance in making this extremely valuable piece of work happen.”

The data created during the survey has been entered into DIO’s Historic Buildings, Sites and Monuments Record, which in turn is vital for helping to protect the historic environment across the Ministry of Defence’s UK and overseas estate.

Additionally, the archaeological data has been shared with the Republic of Cyprus Department of Antiquities (DoA) as part of a Protocol for Collaboration between British Forces Cyprus and the Republic of Cyprus DoA. The protocol will ensure that potential impacts on archaeology will be actively considered alongside military training activities and infrastructure work across the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia. It also sets out procedures for managing any archaeological remains uncovered during construction projects.

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Location of sites visited by archaeologists from University of Leicester Archaeological Services. © ULAS, University of Leicester

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Adjacent grinding stone removals at Ormideia leaving a clover leaf shape. © ULAS, University of Leicester

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Slab quarrying near Xylophagou anchorage. © ULAS, University of Leicester

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Article Source: UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER news release.

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CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES HEADQUARTERS—A new study from the Nihewan basin of China has revealed that hominins who possessed advanced knapping abilities equivalent to Mode 2 technological features occupied East Asia as early as 1.1 million years ago (Ma), which is 0.3 Ma earlier than the date associated with the first handaxes found in East Asia. This suggests that Mode 2 hominins dispersed into East Asia much earlier than previously thought. 

The study, which was conducted by a joint team led by Prof. PEI Shuwen from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Prof. Ignacio de la Torre from the Institute of History the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), was published in PNAS on Mar. 4 and provide insights into the early dispersals and adaptions of hominins in Eurasia.  

By reconstructing Cenjiawan refit sets from Nihewan basin, the research team discovered organized flaking techniques that aimed at producing slender flakes by core preparation on both the striking platform and flaking surface. The standardized operational process was not only shown by refit sets: Plenty of products detached at each stage of the process, thus provide strong evidence of standardized core preparation.  

Prepared core technologies were characterized by organized methods to obtain predetermined flakes that required detailed planning and a deep understanding of flaking mechanisms, which originated in the Acheulean and particularly more than 1.0 Ma.  

Regarding retouched tools, technological analysis of refitted products detached from the prepared core technology indicates intentional breakage of slender flakes in two halves. One or more of the resulting fragments were then selected as blanks for retouching, with the aiming of creating tipped tools with two convergent sides, thus significantly altering the original shape of blanks.  

In addition, patterns of retouching tools like points and borers, which showed standardization of tool shape, were also well documented in the Cenjiawan assemblage, thus suggesting complex mental templates among the Cenjiawan toolmakers.  

The prepared core technology, standardized predetermined products and retouching tool shapes, together with the high level of manual precision, fragmented reduction sequences, long reduction sequences, and organized management of raw materials documented in the Cenjiawan assemblage, provide compelling evidence for complex technical abilities and in-depth planning behaviors among Early Pleistocene hominins in East Asia. 

“The advanced technological behaviors documented at the Cenjiawan site similar to those of Mode 2 technology, rather than the technical simplicity attributed to Mode 1”, said Dr. MA Dongdong, first author of the study, who conducted the research during his Ph.D at IVPP and currently is working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of History of CISC.  

The Lower Paleolithic technology in China has long been regarded as simple (Oldowan-like/Mode 1) and homogeneous before late Pleistocene. The compelling evidence in the Cenjiawan assemblage provides a new perspective in understanding the small debitage system in China and may force a reconsideration of current perceptions of technological stasis in East Asia.  

The authors argued that the technological features, rather than the mere presence or absence of specific tool types (e.g., handaxes), should be the basis for studying Early and Middle Pleistocene assemblages in East Asia. This enables a more integrated understanding of Mode 2 technology as well as the human cultural and biological connections between East Asia and other regions of the Old World. 

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(A-E) Slender flakes are intentionally broken and used as blanks for retouching tipped tools. (G-I) Unifacially retouched points. (J-M) Borers. IVPP

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Article Source: CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES HEADQUARTERS news release

*Earliest Prepared core technology in Eurasia from Nihewan (China): Implications for early human abilities and dispersals in East Asia, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 4-Mar-2024. 10.1073/pnas.2313123121 

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NYU LANGONE HEALTH / NYU GROSSMAN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE—A genetic change in our ancient ancestors may partly explain why humans don’t have tails like monkeys, finds a new study led by researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.  

Published online February 28 as the cover story of the journal Nature*, the work compared the DNA of tail-less apes and humans to that of tailed monkeys, and found an insertion of DNA shared by apes and humans, but missing in monkeys. When the research team engineered a series of mice to examine whether the insertion, in a gene called TBXT, affected their tails, they found a variety of tail effects, including some mice born without tails.

“Our study begins to explain how evolution removed our tails, a question that has intrigued me since I was young,” says corresponding study author Bo Xia, PhD, a student at the time of the study in the labs of study senior co-authors Jef D. Boeke, PhD, and Itai Yanai, PhD at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Xia is now a junior fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows, and a principal investigator at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

More than 100 genes had been linked by past work to the development of tails in various vertebrate species, and the study authors hypothesized that tail loss occurred through changes in the DNA code (mutations) of one or more of them. Remarkably, say the study authors, the new study found that the differences in tails came not from TBXT mutations, but instead from the insertion of a DNA snippet called AluY into the gene’s regulatory code in the ancestors of apes and humans.

Profound Surprise

The new finding proceeds from the process by which genetic instructions are converted into proteins, the molecules that make up the body’s structures and signals. DNA is “read” and converted  into a related material in RNA, and ultimately into mature messenger RNA (mRNA), which produces proteins.

In a key step that produces mRNA, “spacer” sections called introns are cut out of the code, but before that guide the stitching together (splicing) of just the DNA sections, called exons, which encode the final instructions. Further, the genomes of vertebrate animals evolved to feature alternative splicing, in which a single gene can code for more than one protein by leaving out or adding exon sequences. Beyond splicing, the human genome grew more complex still by evolving to include “countless” switches, part of the poorly understood “dark matter” that turns on genes at different levels in different cell types.

Still other work has shown that half of this non-gene “dark matter” in the human genome, which lies both between genes and within the introns, consists of highly repeated DNA sequences. Further, most of these repeats consist of retrotransposons, also called “jumping genes” or “mobile elements,” which can move around and insert themselves repeatedly and randomly in human code.

Pulling these details together, the “astounding” current study found that the transposon insertion of interest, AluY, which affected tail length, had randomly occurred in an intron within the TBXT code. Although it did not change a coding portion, the intron insertion, so the research team showed, influenced alternative splicing, something not seen before, to result in a variety of tail lengths. Xia found an AluY insertion that remained in the same location within the TBXT gene in humans and apes resulted in the production of two forms of TBXT RNA. One of these, they theorize, directly contributed to tail loss.

“This finding is remarkable because most human introns carry copies of repetitive, jumping DNAs without any effect on gene expression, but this particular AluY insertion did something as obvious as determine tail length,” said Boeke, the Sol and Judith Bergstein Director of the Institute for System Genetics at NYU Langone Health.

Tail loss in the group of primates that includes gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans is believed to have occurred about 25 million years ago, when the group evolved away from Old World monkeys, said the authors. Following this evolutionary split, the group of apes that includes present-day humans evolved the formation of fewer tail vertebrae, giving rise to the coccyx, or tailbone. Although the reason for the tail loss is uncertain, some experts propose that it may have better suited life on the ground than in the trees.

Any advantage that came with tail loss was likely powerful, the researchers say, because it may have happened despite coming with a cost. Genes often influence more than one function in the body, so changes that bring an advantage in one place may be detrimental elsewhere. Specifically, the research team found a small uptick in neural tube defects in mice with the study insertion in the TBXT gene.  

“Future experiments will test the theory that, in an ancient evolutionary trade-off, the loss of a tail in humans contributed to the neural tube birth defects, like those involved in spinal bifida, which are seen today in one in a thousand human neonates,” said Yanai, also in the Institute for Systems Genetics.

Article Source: NYU LANGONE HEALTH news release.

*On the genetic basis of tail-loss evolution in humans and apes, Nature, 28-Feb-2024. 10.1038/s41586-024-07095-8 

Image, Top Left: Tail loss in gorillas, chimpanzees, and humans is believed to have occurred about 25 million years ago, when the group evolved away from Old World monkeys. Courtesy of Nature (2024)

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