UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO MEDICAL CENTER—Analysis of a 3.3 million-year-old fossil skeleton reveals the most complete spinal column of any early human relative, including vertebrae, neck and rib cage. The findings, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, indicate that portions of the human spinal structure that enable efficient walking motions were established millions of years earlier than previously thought.
The fossil, known as “Selam,” is a nearly complete skeleton of a 2½ year-old child discovered in Dikika, Ethiopia in 2000 by Zeresenay (Zeray) Alemseged, professor of organismal biology and anatomy at the University of Chicago and senior author of the new study. Selam, which means “peace” in the Ethiopian Amharic language, was an early human relative from the species Australopithecus afarensis—the same species as the famous Lucy skeleton.
In the years since Alemseged discovered Selam, he and his lab assistant from Kenya, Christopher Kiarie, have been preparing the delicate fossil at the National Museum of Ethiopia. They slowly chipped away at the sandstone surrounding the skeleton and used advanced imaging tools to further analyze its structure.
“Continued and painstaking research on Selam shows that the general structure of the human spinal column emerged over 3.3 million years ago, shedding light on one of the hallmarks of human evolution,” Alemseged said. “This type of preservation is unprecedented, particularly in a young individual whose vertebrae are not yet fully fused.”
Many features of the human spinal column and rib cage are shared among primates. But the human spine also reflects our distinctive mode of walking upright on two feet. For instance, humans have fewer rib-bearing vertebrae – bones of the back – than those of our closest primate relatives. Humans also have more vertebrae in the lower back, which allows us to walk effectively. When and how this pattern evolved has been unknown until now because complete sets of vertebrae are rarely preserved in the fossil record.
“For many years we have known of fragmentary remains of early fossil species that suggest that the shift from rib-bearing, or thoracic, vertebrae to lumbar, or lower back, vertebrae was positioned higher in the spinal column than in living humans. But we have not been able to determine how many vertebrae our early ancestors had,” said Carol Ward, a Curator’s Distinguished Professor of Pathology and Anatomical Sciences in the University of Missouri School of Medicine, and lead author on the study. “Selam has provided us the first glimpse into how our early ancestors’ spines were organized.”
In order to be analyzed, Selam had to take a trip. She traveled to the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France, where Alemseged and the research team used high-resolution imaging technology to visualize the bones.
“This technology provides the opportunity to virtually examine aspects of the vertebrae otherwise unattainable from the original specimen,” said coauthor of the study Fred Spoor, a professor of evolutionary anatomy in the Department of Biosciences at the University College London.
The scans indicated that Selam had the distinctive thoracic-to-lumbar joint transition found in other fossil human relatives, but the specimen is the first to show that, like modern humans, our earliest ancestors had only twelve thoracic vertebrae and twelve pairs of ribs. That is fewer than in most apes.
“This unusual early human configuration may be a key in developing more accurate scenarios concerning the evolution of bipedality and modern human body shape,” said Thierra Nalley, an assistant professor of anatomy at Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona, California, also an author on the paper.
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Vertebrae of the Selam skeleton. Credit: Zeray Alemseged, University of Chicago
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Full skeleton of Selam, including the spinal column. Credit: Zeray Alemseged, University of Chicago
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This configuration marks a transition toward the type of spinal column that allows humans to be the efficient, athletic walkers and runners we are today.
“We are documenting for the first time in the fossil record the emergence of the number of the vertebrae in our history, when the transition happened from the rib-bearing vertebrae to lower back vertebrae, and when we started to extend the waist,” Alemseged said. “This structure and its modification through time is one of the key events in the history of human evolution.”
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN HISTORY—The study—coordinated by the Human Biodiversity and Population Genomics group at the Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences (BiGeA) of the University of Bologna and funded by the National Geographic Society—describes the genetic fingerprints of the Mediterranean people with high-density genomic markers and a wide sample of modern populations from Sicily and Southern Italy. Their genetic profiles were analyzed to reconstruct the combination of ancestry components and the demographic history of the region. As one would expect, populations inhabiting the southeastern shores of Europe are the result of a complex, multi-layered history. One of these layers corresponds to a shared genetic background, extending from Sicily to Cyprus and involving Crete, the Aegean islands and Anatolia. “This shared Mediterranean ancestry possibly traces back to prehistoric times, as the result of multiple migration waves, with peaks during the Neolithic and the Bronze Age,” says Stefania Sarno, researcher from the University of Bologna and lead author of the study. Apparently, the ancient Greek expansions (during the Magna Graecia foundation) were only one of the last events in a long history of East-West movements, where the Mediterranean Sea served as a preferential crossroads for the circulation of genes and cultures.
A new perspective for the diffusion of Indo-European languages
One of the most intriguing layers hidden in the Mediterranean genetic landscape involves an important Bronze Age contribution from a Caucasus (or Caucasus-like) source, accompanied by the virtual absence of the typical “Pontic-Caspian” genetic component from the Asian steppe. The latter is a very characteristic genetic signal well represented in North-Central and Eastern Europe, which previous studies associated with the introduction of Indo-European languages to the continent. “These new genomic results from the Mediterranean open a new chapter for the study of the prehistoric movements behind the diffusion of the most represented language family in Europe. The spread of these languages in the Southern regions, where Indo-European languages like Italian, Greek and Albanian are spoken nowadays, cannot be explained with the major contribution from the steppe alone,” adds Chiara Barbieri from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena.
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A new genomic study on southern Mediterranean reveals a genetic continuity across geographic and national borders. The map shows the sampling locations included in the study, with presence of Albanian, Greek or Italian languages. Credit: Sarno et al. DOI 10.1038/s41598-017-01802-4.
The statues of the Bronzi di Riace (Riace’s warriors) from the 5th century BC, found in the province of Reggio Calabria, became one of the symbols of the Greek presence in Southern Italy. (Museo nazionale della Magna Grecia, Reggio Calabria). Credit: Public Domain
The current genetic study also focuses on more recent historical layers that contributed to the present-day genetic makeup of the populations sampled, in particular in the cases of long-standing, non-Italian-speaking communities in Italy. For example, mainland Greece and Albania seem to have acquired additional genetic contributions during historic times, most likely related to the Slavic migrations in the Balkans. This recent Balkan genetic ancestry is still evident in some ethno-linguistic minorities of Sicily and Southern Italy, such as the Albanian-speaking Arbereshe. The Arbreshe migrated from Albania to Italy at the end of the Middle Ages and experienced geographic and cultural isolation, which played a part in their distinctive genetic composition. A different case study is that of Greek-speaking communities from Southern Italy. The genetic features of these groups are compatible with the antiquity of their settlement and with a high cultural permeability with neighboring populations, combined with drift and effects of geographic isolation, as in the case of Calabrian Greeks. “The study of linguistic and cultural isolates in Italy proved to be important to understand our history and our demography,” says Alessio Boattini, geneticist and anthropologist from the University of Bologna. “The cases of the Albanian- and Greek-speaking communities of Southern Italy help to shed light into the formation of these cultural and linguistic identities.”
“Overall, the study illustrates how both genetic and cultural viewpoints can inform our knowledge of the complex dynamics behind the formation of our Mediterranean heritage, especially in contexts of extensive – both geographically and temporally – admixture,” says Davide Pettener, professor of Anthropology from the University of Bologna. “These results,” adds Prof. Donata Luiselli, who co-led the project, “will be further developed in future studies integrating data from other disciplines, in particular linguistics, archeology and palaeogenomics, with the study of ancient DNA from archaeological remains.”
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY—Who are you? A parent? An artist? A veteran? There are lots of different aspects of identity, and it takes more than just one to make you you. Ancient people were just as complex, but until recently, archaeologists didn’t have a clear way to capture all the nuances of human identities from the past outside of broader labels like gender and social status.
Individual people are an important part of the bigger human puzzle, because their unique actions accumulate to power cultural changes. Understanding them in detail gives researchers better insight into shifts that take place over generations, says Kelly Knudson.
Knudson is a professor with Arizona State University’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change and director of its Center for Bioarchaeological Research.
Together with Christina Torres-Rouff of the University of California Merced, Knudson has created a new model that brings together multiple lines of investigation to understand ancient lives on a microscale through the clues left behind in the grave.
A forum paper outlining the model and its application, “Integrating Identities: An Innovative Bioarchaeological and Biogeochemical Approach to Analyzing the Multiplicity of Identities in the Mortuary Record,” will be published in the June edition of Current Anthropology.
“One of the things I’m excited about is our ability to simultaneously study large populations over many generations and the very intimate details of individual lives in the past,” Knudson says.
If tombs could talk
Termed a “contextualized multiscalar bioarchaeological approach,” this model explores individual identity using a mix of biological and cultural data from grave sites. The authors used it to investigate northern Chilean society during an environmental and political shift from the Middle Horizon (AD 500 – 1100) to the Late Intermediate Period (AD 1100 – 1400). Details examined included:
Cranial characteristics, which helped determine genetic relatedness at the population level.
Modified head shapes, which demonstrated community identities, as skull shape was culturally dictated in the Andes.
Isotopic analyses, which revealed individuals’ geographic origins and whether they moved during their lifetimes.
Grave goods and construction, which shed light on how people were perceived and remembered by others.
The relationships these features had to an individual’s sex, which expanded on understandings of social identity.
In a comparison of two Middle Horizon-era cemeteries, the researchers found that even though the burial populations were related, they identified differently; one was much more cosmopolitan than the other, with the grave goods from distant regions like Bolivia and Argentina.
Similarly, even individual graves from the same cemetery advertised unique identities. A detailed look at three neighboring tombs revealed three very different, though nearly contemporary, lives. Using their innovative blend of methods, Knudson and Torres-Rouff were able to piece together the identities of a wealthy young tradesman, a middle-aged spiritual leader and a young woman who spun colorful textiles.
These graves stood in sharp contrast to graves from the Late Intermediate Period. Analysis of a burial from this time revealed a herdsman who, although honored by his community with a rare circular stone arrangement over his tomb, was buried with only a few, locally made items.
Knudson and Torres-Rouff argue that as Andean society transitioned from the Middle Horizon to the Late Intermediate Period, they moved the emphasis from individual identity to community identity and from foreign connections to local isolation, likely as a response to the time’s characteristic uncertainty due to widespread drought.
“I was surprised to find that people hunkered down and stayed put rather than moving to better regions where it wasn’t so dry,” Knudson says. “I expected to see environmental refugees, but we didn’t see that at all.”
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Snuffing paraphernalia found in the tomb of a spiritual leader. Credit: Constantino Torres
Professor Knudson in the archaeological chemistry laboratory. Credit: Arizona State University
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Knowing how people were impacted by a changing climate 1,000 years ago informs not only our understanding of ancient people, but of ourselves as well. Society’s response to today’s challenges happens one person at a time; with this new model, we have the tools to see how that process works and how everyday lives shape history.
“I think this long-term perspective is one of bioarchaeologists’ very valuable contributions to the past and present,” Knudson adds.
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
TATA INSTITUTE OF FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH—Prehistoric human migration was mainly driven by human wanderlust and population pressures but relied critically on the habitability of available land. We have modelled such prehistoric population dynamics using a diffusion equation whose numerical solution is tempered by accurate geological data for the Indian subcontinent taken from satellite databases.
We define the driving forces by assuming that people will move out of any given region if the neighbouring regions are habitable. In turn, we define habitability by quantifying parameters like the availability and proximity of water, and flatness and altitude of the land. We define relative habitability which takes into account the presence of the initial population. We then consult the archaeological evidence of early humans in the subcontinent and identify three possible locations in Kabul which would represent the Ancestral North Indian entry into India, Hyderabad which would represent the earliest Ancestral South Indian population into India and we take two possible entry points for Ancestral Austro Asiatic as Goa and Orissa identified as two major break points in the mountain range that mark the Indian Subcontinent for people coming to India along the coast.
We find that people entering from Goa would soon become indistinguishable from the original Ancestral South Indian population. We therefore focus on entry from Orissa. On simulating the movement of these people we find that the groups merge in well localised geographical regions within the subcontinent. We then analyse the genetic data of the tribal population of the region. Since these groups are largely endogamous, they maintain their original genetic signal with very weak dilution due to intermixing. This allows us to identify the roots of different groups and compare it with our simulation. The genetic data agrees well with our predictions. We then expand our simulation to show that over a long period of time, the pattern of population that appears, agrees well with the present population of India.
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Image shows one stage in the movement of people into the hinterland of the Indian subcontinent starting from Kabul, Hyderabad and North Orissa. Credit: Vahia, Yadav, Ladiwala, Mathur
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
More of the ancient Roman city of Verulamium’s secrets have been discovered by archaeologists. The burnt remains of a 1,800-year-old kiln – a type of oven used to create pottery – have been unearthed during excavations of the ancient city near the modern city of St. Albans in Hertfordshire, Great Britain.
Verulamium was the third largest City in Roman Britain and around half of it stood on the site of what is now Verulamium Park, St Albans.
It is the fifth kiln to be found at the historic site with the others having been located several decades ago.
Essential work started last month by Cadent to re-lay a gas pipe has involved digging deep holes. This has provided archaeologists with a rare opportunity to look underground.
They have already redrawn the map of the Roman city after making a series of surprising discoveries. Where they once thought a crossroads existed, instead they found compelling evidence of a wealthy Roman’s town house, possibly featuring mosaic flooring. One corner of the city wall was also discovered although, surprisingly, there was no sign of a tower. Its absence is significant as it suggests the city walls were built as much for image as for defense.
Now the fifth kiln has been found close to where four others were uncovered when the Abbey View running track was built in the late 1980s. Three of those kilns were excavated and the other was left intact as it was not under immediate threat. The kiln’s burnt remains have given the soil a deep red-orange colour while some shards of broken pottery, known as wasters, were also detected.
Simon West, District Archaeologist for St Albans City and District Council’s Museums team, said: “The pottery kiln is another exciting discovery that gives us a greater understanding of how Verulamium was set up. The old gas main would appear to cut through the middle of it.
“It is further evidence of just how advanced and productive the Romans who settled in Verulamium all those centuries ago were.
“The relaying of the gas pipe gave us a chance to discover new things about our past and we are certainly doing that.”
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Above and below: Remains of the Roman pottery kiln unearthed in Verulamium Park. The bowl shape of the base of the kiln can be seen in the discoloured soil. An area of intense heat on the right side has left a deep red-orange colour while on the left there are fragments of broken pottery, known as wasters, in what may be the remains of the kiln’s vault. The gas pipe has cut through the middle of the kiln. Credit St. Albans City and District Council
The archaeological recording work is being managed by Amec Foster Wheeler, on behalf of Cadent, and the excavation team is from AOC Archaeology Group. It is being monitored by the St. Albans Museums team and Historic England to ensure it complies with local policy and national legislation to protect the historic environment.
Dr Rachael Townend, Senior Historic Environment Consultant for Amec Foster Wheeler, said: “This is an excellent example of the benefits of everyone involved in the development process working openly together on an historic environment issue. This approach has given us new stories to tell about the Roman city and its people while simultaneously securing an essential service to the people of St. Albans today.”
Councillor Annie Brewster, the Council’s Portfolio Holder for Sport, Leisure and Heritage, said: “It is so exciting to discover additional details about the fascinating history of St. Albans. To find another ancient pottery kiln is a wonderful surprise.”
Remains of Verulamium’s walls, defensive ditch and a Roman villa’s hypocaust, a sort of central heating system, can be seen in the park. Verulamium Museum on the park’s edge contains a range of exhibits and was established following excavations carried out by Sir Mortimer Wheeler in the 1930s. Items on display include coffins with skeletons, mosaic floors, coins, pottery, jewellery and cooking utensils.
Earlier major excavations were conducted by Sheppard Frere in the 1950s and early 1960s with later investigations taking place under the current museum entrance.
Cadent has replaced 1.5km of aging gas mains with tough new pipes to safeguard gas supplies for decades to come.
Photo: Remains of the Roman pottery kiln unearthed in Verulamium Park. The bowl shape of the base of the kiln can be seen in the discoloured soil. An area of intense heat on the right side has left a deep red-orange colour while on the left there are fragments of broken pottery, known as wasters, in what may be the remains of the kiln’s vault. The gas pipe has cut through the middle of the kiln.
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND—Johannesburg – Scientists today announced that the Rising Star Cave system has revealed yet more important discoveries, only a year and a half after it was announced that the richest fossil hominin site in Africa had been discovered, and that it contained a new hominin species named Homo naledi by the scientists who described it.
The age of the original Homo naledi remains from the Dinaledi Chamber has been revealed to be startlingly young in age. Homo naledi, which was first announced in September 2015, was alive sometime between 335 and 236 thousand years ago. This places this population of primitive small-brained hominins at a time and place that it is likely they lived alongside Homo sapiens. This is the first time that it has been demonstrated that another species of hominin survived alongside the first humans in Africa.
The research, published today in three papers in the journal eLife, presents the long-awaited age of the naledi fossils from the Dinaledi Chamber and announces the new discovery of a second chamber in the Rising Star cave system, containing additional specimens of Homo naledi. These include a child and a partial skeleton of an adult male with a remarkably well-preserved skull.
The new discovery and research was done by a large team of researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), James Cook University, Australia, the University of Wisconsin, Madison, United States, and more than 30 additional international institutions have today announced two major discoveries related to the fossil hominin species Homo naledi.
The team was led by Professor Lee Berger of The University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, and a National Geographic Explorer in Residence. The discovery of the second chamber with abundant Homo naledi fossils includes one of the most complete skeletons of a hominin ever discovered, as well as the remains of at least one child and another adult. The discovery of a second chamber has led the team to argue that there is more support for the controversial hypothesis that Homo naledi deliberately disposed of its dead in these remote, hard to reach caverns. The dating of Homo naledi is the conclusion of the multi-authored paper entitled: The age of Homo naledi and associated sediments in the Rising Star Cave, South Africa, led by Professor Paul Dirks of James Cook University and the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits).
The naledi date is surprisingly recent. The fossil remains have primitive features that are shared with some of the earliest known fossil members of our genus, such as Homo rudolfensis and Homo habilis, species that lived nearly two million years ago. On the other hand, however, it also shares some features with modern humans. After the description of the new species in 2015, experts had predicted that the fossils should be around the age of these other primitive species. Instead, the fossils from the Dinaledi Chamber are barely more than one-tenth that age.
“The dating of naledi was extremely challenging,” noted Dirks, who worked with 19 other scientists from laboratories and institutions around the world, including labs in South Africa and Australia, to establish the age of the fossils. “Eventually, six independent dating methods allowed us to constrain the age of this population of Homo naledi to a period known as the late Middle Pleistocene.”
The age for this population of hominins shows that Homo naledi may have survived for as long as two million years alongside other species of hominins in Africa. At such a young age, in a period known as the late Middle Pleistocene, it was previously thought that only Homo sapiens (modern humans) existed in Africa. More critically, it is at precisely this time that we see the rise of what has been called “modern human behaviour” in southern Africa – behaviour attributed, until now, to the rise of modern humans and thought to represent the origins of complex modern human activities such as burial of the dead, self-adornment and complex tools.
The dating game
The team used a combination of optically stimulated luminescence dating of sediments with Uranium-Thorium dating and palaeomagnetic analyses of flowstones to establish how the sediments relate to the geological timescale in the Dinaledi Chamber.
Direct dating of the teeth of Homo naledi, using Uranium series dating (U-series) and electron spin resonance dating (ESR), provided the final age range. “We used double blinds wherever possible,” says Professor Jan Kramers of the University of Johannesburg, a uranium dating specialist. Dr. Hannah Hilbert-Wolf, a geologist from James Cook University who also worked on the Dinaledi Chamber, noted that it was crucial to figure out how the sediments within the Dinaledi Chamber are layered, in order to build a framework for understanding all of the dates obtained.
“Of course we were surprised at the young age, but as we realised that all the geological formations in the chamber were young, the U-series and ESR results were perhaps less of a surprise in the end,” added Professor Eric Roberts, from James Cook University and Wits, who is one of the few geologists to have ever entered the Dinaledi Chamber, due to the tight 18cm-wide constraints of the entrance chute.
Dr. Marina Elliott, Exploration Scientist at Wits and one of the original “underground astronauts” on the 2013 Rising Star Expedition, says she had always felt that the naledi fossils were ‘young’. “I’ve excavated hundreds of the bones of Homo naledi, and from the first one I touched, I realised that there was something different about the preservation, that they appeared hardly fossilised.”
Homo naledi‘s significant impact
In an accompanying paper, led by Berger, entitled Homo naledi and Pleistocene hominin evolution in subequatorial Africa, the team discuss the importance of finding such a primitive species at such a time and place. They noted that the discovery will have a significant impact on our interpretation of archaeological assemblages and understanding which species made them.
“We can no longer assume that we know which species made which tools, or even assume that it was modern humans that were the innovators of some of these critical technological and behavioural breakthroughs in the archaeological record of Africa,” says Berger. “If there is one other species out there that shared the world with ‘modern humans’ in Africa, it is very likely there are others. We just need to find them.”
John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Wits University, an author on all three papers, says: “I think some scientists assumed they knew how human evolution happened, but these new fossil discoveries, plus what we know from genetics, tell us that the southern half of Africa was home to a diversity that we’ve never seen anywhere else”.
“Recently, the fossil hominin record has been full of surprises, and the age of Homo naledi is not going to be the last surprise that comes out of these caves I suspect,” adds Berger.
A new chamber and skeleton
In a third paper published at the same time in eLife, entitled New fossil remains of Homo naledi from the Lesedi Chamber, South Africa, the team announces the discovery of a second chamber, within the Rising Star cave system, which contains more remains of Homo naledi.
“The chamber, which we have named the Lesedi Chamber, is more than a hundred meters from the Dinaledi Chamber. It is almost as difficult to access, and also contains spectacular fossils of naledi, including a partial skeleton with a wonderfully complete skull,” says Hawks, lead author on the paper describing the new discovery. Fossil remains were first recognised in the chamber by Rick Hunter and Steven Tucker in 2013, as fieldwork was underway in the Dinaledi Chamber.
The name “Lesedi” means “light” in the Setswana language. Excavations in the Lesedi Chamber began later, and would take nearly three years.
No easy access
“To access the Lesedi Chamber is only slightly easier than the Dinaledi Chamber,” says Elliott, who was lead excavator of the fossils from the new locality. “After passing through a squeeze of about 25cm, you have to descend along vertical shafts before reaching the chamber. While slightly easier to get to, the Lesedi Chamber is, if anything, more difficult to work in due to the tight spaces involved.”
Hawks points out that while the Lesedi Chamber is “easier” to get into than the Dinaledi Chamber, the term is relative. “I have never been inside either of the chambers, and never will be. In fact, I watched Lee Berger being stuck for almost an hour, trying to get out of the narrow underground squeeze of the Lesedi Chamber.” Berger eventually had to be extracted using ropes tied to his wrists.
The presence of a second chamber, distant from the first, containing multiple individuals of Homo naledi and almost as difficult to reach as the Dinaledi Chamber, gives an idea of the extraordinary effort it took for Homo naledi to reach these hard-to-get-to places, says Hilbert-Wolf.
“This likely adds weight to the hypothesis that Homo naledi was using dark, remote places to cache its dead,” says Hawks. “What are the odds of a second, almost identical occurrence happening by chance?”
So far, the scientists have uncovered more than 130 hominin specimens from the Lesedi Chamber. The bones belong to at least three individuals, but Elliot believes that there are more fossils yet to be discovered. Among the individuals are the skeletal remains of two adults and at least one child. The child is represented by bones of the head and body and would likely have been under five years of age. Of the two adults, one is represented by only a jaw and leg elements, but the other is represented by a partial skeleton, including a mostly complete skull.
Meeting naledi
The team describes the skull of the skeleton as “spectacularly complete”. “We finally get a look at the face of Homo naledi,” says Peter Schmid of Wits and the University of Zurich, who spent hundreds of hours painstakingly reconstructing the fragile bones to complete the reconstruction.
The skeleton was nicknamed “Neo” by the team, chosen for the Sesotho word meaning “a gift”. “The skeleton of Neo is one the most complete ever discovered, and technically even more complete than the famous Lucy fossil, given the preservation of the skull and mandible,” says Berger.
The specimens from the Lesedi Chamber are nearly identical in every way to those from the Dinaledi Chamber, a remarkable finding in and of itself. “There is no doubt that they belong to the same species,” says Hawks. The Lesedi Chamber fossils have not been dated yet, as dating would require destruction of some of the hominin material. “Once described, we will look at the way forward for establishing the age of these particular fossils,” says Dirks. Elliot adds, however, that as the preservation and condition of the finds are practically identical to that of the naledi specimens from the Dinaledi Chamber the team hypothesizes that their age will fall roughly within the same time period.
Berger believes that with thousands of fossils likely remaining in both the Lesedi and Dinaledi Chambers, there are decades of research potential. “We are going to treat ongoing extraction of material from both of these chambers with extreme care and thoughtfulness and with the full knowledge that we need to conserve material for future generations of scientists, and future technological innovations,” he says.
52 scientists from 35 departments and Institutions were involved in the research.
Wits Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Professor Adam Habib said: “The search for human origins on the continent of Africa began at Wits and it is wonderful to see this legacy continue with such important discoveries”
“The National Geographic Society has a long history of investing in bold people and transformative ideas,” said Gary E. Knell, president and CEO of the National Geographic Society, a funder of the expeditions that recovered the fossils and established their age. “The continued discoveries from Lee Berger and his colleagues showcase why it is critical to support the study of our human origins and other pressing scientific questions.”
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The ‘Neo’ skull of Homo naledi from the Lesedi Chamber. Credit: Wits University/John Hawks
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A schematic of the Rising Star cave system. Credit: Marina Elliott/Wits University
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Professor Lee Berger, leader of the Rising Star expedition, Research Professor in Human Evolution and the Public Understanding of Science Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. Credit: Wits University
The original fossils of these new discoveries, as well as those from the original Rising Star Expedition will be put on public display at the Maropeng, the Official Visitors Centre for the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site from May 25th. This exhibit of the largest display of original fossil hominin material in history forms part of an exhibition called “Almost Human”.
The exhibition will be housed in ‘The Gallery’. This state-of-the-art exhibition space was built as part of the Gauteng Infrastructure Upgrade Project. This is the second completed construction, the first being the upgrade to the Hominin House facilities at Maropeng.
Maropeng is getting ready to receive thousands of visitors wanting to the see the exhibition and the new fossils. In 2015, when Homo naledi was first put on display, some 3,500 visitors per day made their way to Maropeng. “It was an extraordinary thing to experience,” says Michael Worsnip, Managing Director of Maropeng. “It was something like a pilgrimage – a wonderful celebration of our heritage as a country, a continent and a planet.”
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON—MADISON, Wis.—Probing deeper into the South African cave system known as Rising Star, a subterranian maze that last year yielded the largest cache of hominin fossils known to science, an international team of researchers has discovered another chamber with more remains of a newfound human relative, Homo naledi.
The discovery, announced today (May 9, 2017) with the publication of a series of papers in the journal eLife, helps round out the picture of a creature that scientists now know shared the landscape with modern humans—and probably other hominin species—between 226,000 and 335,000 years ago. The discovery of the new fossils representing the remains of at least three juvenile and adult specimens includes a “wonderfully complete skull,” says University of Wisconsin-Madison anthropologist John Hawks.
Hawks, a leader of the research team at Rising Star and the lead author of the paper describing the new fossils, says finding more remains of multiple individuals in a chamber some distance from the chamber containing the original Homo naledi fossils lends heft to the idea that Homo naledi was caching its dead—a surprising behavior that suggests great intelligence and possibly the first stirrings of culture.
“This likley adds weight to the hyposthesis that Homo naledi was using dark, remote places to cache its dead,” Hawks observes. “What are the odds of a second, almost identical occurrence happening by chance?”
The new chamber, dubbed the Lesedi Chamber, is nearly 100 meters from the Dinaledi Chamber where the first Homo naledi fossils representing at least 15 indivuduals of various ages were found. So far, the team led by Hawks and Lee Berger, a noted paleoanthropologist from the University of Witwatersrand and a senior author of the paper with Hawks, has retrieved more than 130 new Homo naledi fossils from the Lesedi Chamber, a name that means “light” in the Setswana language.
The new chamber is also exceedingly difficult to access, requiring those excavating the fossils to crawl, climb and squeeze their way in pitch dark to the fossil cache.
The newly-reported remains were first discovered in 2013 while excavations were underway in the Dinaledi Chamber. The new fossils come from at least three individuals—two adults and a child—and the researchers believe more will be recovered as excavations progress. The child, estimated to be under five years of age, is represented by bones from the head and body. Of the adults, one is identified only by a jaw and leg bones.
The skeleton of the third individual, dubbed “Neo” after the Sesotho word meaning “a gift,” is remarkably complete. The skull has been painstakingly reconstructed, providing a much more complete portrait of Homo naledi. “We finally get a look at the face of Homo naledi,” notes Peter Schmid, who holds a joint appointment at the University of Witwatersrand and the University of Zurich, and who spent hundreds of hours reconstructing the fragile bones of the skull.
“The skeleton of ‘Neo’ is one of the most complete ever discovered, technically more complete than the famous Lucy fossil given the preservation of the skull and mandible,” explains Berger, the University of Witwatersrand paleoanthropologist overseeing the Rising Star excavations.
The skull of the new skeleton has much of the face, including the delicate bones of the inner eye region and nose, says Hawks, an expert on early hominins. “Some of the new bones add detail to what we knew before,” says the Wisconsin paleoanthropologist. “The ‘Neo’ skeleton has a complete collarbone and a near-complete femur, which help to confirm what we knew about the size and stature of Homo naledi, and that it was both an effective walker and climber. The vertebrae are just wonderfully preserved, and unique—they have a shape we’ve only seen in Neanderthals.”
Combined, the two caches of Homo naledi fossils give science its most complete record of a hominin species other than modern humans and Neanderthals.
“With the new fossils from the Lesedi Chamber, we now have approximately 2,000 specimens of Homo naledi, representing the skeletons of at least 18 individuals,” Hawks says. “There are more Homo naledi specimens than any other extinct species or population of hominins except for Neanderthals.”
The notion that Homo naledi were caching their dead in underground chambers that are exceedingly difficult to get to has one parallel in Neanderthals. In a deep Spanish cave known as Sima de los Huesos, there is evidence that Neanderthals were caching the bodies of their dead companions 400,000 years ago.
“What is so provacative about Homo naledi is that these are creatures with brains one third the size of ours,” Hawks says. “This is clearly not a human, yet it seems to share a very deep aspect of behavior that we recognize, an enduring care for other individuals that continues after their deaths. It awes me that we may be seeing the deepest roots of human cultural practices.”
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
UNIVERSITY OF HUDDERSFIELD—In addition to its vast patchwork of languages, cultures and religions, the Indian Subcontinent also harbours huge genetic diversity. Where did its peoples originate? This is an area of huge controversy among scholars and scientists. A University of Huddersfield PhD student is lead author of an article that tries to answer the question using genetic evidence.
A problem confronting archaeogenetic research into the origins of Indian populations is that there is a dearth of sources, such as preserved skeletal remains that can provide ancient DNA samples. Marina Silva and her co-authors have instead focused on people alive in the Subcontinent today.
They show that some genetic lineages in South Asia are very ancient. The earliest populations were hunter-gatherers who arrived from Africa, where modern humans arose, more than 50,000 years ago. But further waves of settlement came from the direction of Iran, after the last Ice Age ended 10-20,000 years ago, and with the spread of early farming.
These ancient signatures are most clearly seen in the mitochondrial DNA, which tracks the female line of descent. But Y-chromosome variation, which tracks the male line, is very different. Here the major signatures are much more recent. Most controversially, there is a strong signal of immigration from Central Asia, less than 5,000 years ago.
This looks like a sign of the arrival of the first Indo-European speakers, who arose amongst the Bronze Age peoples of the grasslands north of the Caucasus, between the Black and Caspian Seas. They were male-dominated, mobile pastoralists who had domesticated the horse – and spoke what ultimately became Sanskrit, the language of classical Hinduism – which more than 200 years ago linguists showed is ultimately related to classical Greek and Latin.
Migrations from the same source also shaped the settlement of Europe and its languages, and this has been the subject of most recent research, said Marina Silva. She has tried to tip the balance back towards India, and her findings are discussed in the article titled ‘A genetic chronology for the Indian Subcontinent’ points to heavily sex-biased dispersals. It appears in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology.
Authors of the new article include Professor Martin Richards, who heads the University of Huddersfield’s Archaeogenetics Research Group. Members of the group are also co-authors of another recent paper, which focuses in depth on just one of the lineages found in India, Origin and spread of mitochondrial haplogroup U7, which has just appeared in the journal Scientific Reports.
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Archaeogeneticist Marine Silva from the University of Huddersfield pinpoints Indian origins using today’s populace. Credit: University of Huddersfield
The group is the recipient of a £1 million award by the Leverhulme Trust, under its Doctoral Scholarships scheme. Portuguese-born Marina Silva is one of the first cohort. Her PhD work focuses on the Neolithic/Bronze Age transition in Eurasia, and is supervised by Professor Richards.
The research into Indian populations began while she was still based at the University of Porto, where she studied for her Master’s. Several of the other co-authors, principally Marisa Oliveira and Dr Luísa Pereira, are also affiliated with the University of Porto, and her external PhD co-supervisor, Dr Pedro Soares, now at the University of Minho, in Braga, is also a Visiting Researcher at Huddersfield.
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA—New research suggests that advances in the production of Early Stone Age tools had less to do with the evolution of language and more to do with the brain networks involved in modern piano playing.
Around 1.75 million years ago there was a revolutionary innovation in stone tool technology, when early humans moved from making simple Oldowan flake and pebble tools to producing two-sided, shaped tools, such as Acheulian hand axes and cleavers. This advance is thought to reflect an evolutionary change in intelligence and language abilities.
Understanding the link between brain evolution and cognition is a challenge, however, because it is impossible to observe the brain activity of extinct humans. An innovative approach to this challenge is to bring together modern neuroscience methods and material artefacts from the archaeological record.
To understand the brain changes that might have co-evolved with the advance in tool use, researchers in the field of neuroarcheology – from the University of East Anglia’s (UEA) School of Psychology, The Stone Age Institute at Indiana University, and the Department of Anthropology at the University of Iowa – have been examining the brain activity of modern humans as they learn to make Oldowan and Acheulian stone tools.
To test whether learning with language impacts which brain networks are involved in stone toolmaking, 15 of the 31 participants learned to knap stone via verbal instruction by watching videos of a skilled knapper’s hands during individual training sessions. The other 16 participants learned via nonverbal instruction using the same videos, but with the sound turned off.
The researchers found that the co-ordination of visual attention and motor control networks were sufficient to remove simple flakes for Oldowan tools. But the production of Acheulian tools required the integration of visual working memory, auditory and sensorimotor information, and complex action-planning – the same brain areas that are activated in modern piano playing. These findings, published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, are a major step forward in understanding the evolution of human intelligence.
Lead author Dr Shelby Putt, from the Stone Age Institute, said: “This work offers novel insights into prehistoric cognition using a cutting-edge neuroimaging technique that allows people to engage in complex actions while we are measuring localized brain activity.
“The study reveals key brain networks that might underlie the shift towards more human-like intelligence around 1.75 million years ago. We think this marked a turning point in the evolution of the human brain, leading to the evolution of a new species of human.”
The researchers also reported that brain networks specialised for language in modern humans were only activated during Acheulian tool production when participants learned to make tools in the verbal instruction condition. Since language was likely not available 1.75 million years ago, this suggests that Acheulian tool production did not rely heavily on the evolution of language centres in the brain.
Co-author Prof John Spencer from UEA said: “Our findings do not neatly overlap with prior claims that language and stone tool production co-evolved. There is more support for the idea that working memory and auditory-visual integration networks laid the foundation for advances in stone tool-making.
“It is fascinating that these same brain networks today allow modern humans to perform such behaviours as skilfully playing a musical instrument.”
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Oldowan stone tools. Didier Descouens, Wikimedia Commons
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Acheulean stone tools. José-Manuel Benito Álvarez, Wikimedia Commons
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Unlike the brain networks used to make the simpler Oldowan tools, the netwoorks used for making the more sophisticated Acheulean tools were the same as those used in modern piano playing. Image credit Shelby Putt
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Previous studies have attempted to simulate early tool making, for example, by showing participants images of tool production and then looking at brain activity.
Conducted at the University of Iowa, this is the first neuroimaging study to use a cutting-edge technique – functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) – to enable researchers to track real time changes in brain activity as participants made these two types of stone tools.
Summing up the study, co-author Prof Robert Franciscus from the University of Iowa said: “When and how humans became the exceptionally intelligent and language-using species that we are today is still a great mystery. We discovered that the appearance of a type of more complexly shaped stone tool kit in the archaeological record marked an important cognitive shift when our ancestors started to think and act more like humans rather than apes.
“The insights provided by this study into some of the biggest questions in human evolution – cognitive evolution and its relationship to the emergence of language – would have been difficult, if not impossible to achieve without the kind of interdisciplinary approach to research that this project was grounded on.”
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
SPANISH NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL (CSIC)—The Djehuty Project, led by research professor, José Manuel Galán, from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), has discovered a 4,000-year-old funerary garden- the first such garden ever to be found- on the Dra Abu el-Naga hill in Luxor, Egypt. The discovery comes during the 16th year of archaeological excavations which are sponsored this year by Técnicas Reunidas and Indra.
The discoveries made by this project shed light on a key epoch when, for the first time, Thebes (now Luxor) became the capital of the unified kingdom of Upper and Lower Egypt about 4,000 years ago.
Dr. Jose Galán explains, “We knew of the possible existence of these gardens since they appear in illustrations both at the entrances to tombs as well as on tomb walls, where Egyptians would depict how they wanted their funerals to be. The garden itself consisted of a small rectangular area, raised half a meter off the ground and divided into 30 cm2 beds. In addition, next to the garden, two trees were planted. This is the first time that a physical garden has ever been found, and it is therefore the first time that archaeology can confirm what had been deduced from iconography. The discovery and thorough analysis of the garden will provide valuable information about both the botany and the environmental conditions of ancient Thebes, of Luxor 4,000 years ago”.
Galán continues, “The plants grown there would have had a symbolic meaning and may have played a role in funerary rituals. Therefore, the garden will also provide information about religious beliefs and practices as well as the culture and society at the time of the Twelfth Dynasty when Thebes became the capital of the unified kingdom of Upper and Lower Egypt for the first time. We know that palm, sycamore and Persea trees were associated with the deceased’s power of resurrection. Similarly, plants such as the lettuce had connotations with fertility and therefore a return to life. Now we must wait to see what plants we can identify by analysing the seeds we have collected. It is a spectacular and quite unique find which opens up multiple avenues of research”.
“Digging in a necropolis not only allows us to discover details about the world of funerals, religious beliefs and funerary practices, it also helps us discover details about daily life, about society and about the physical environment, both plant and animal. The necropolis thus becomes, as the ancient Egyptians themselves believed, the best way to understand and embrace life”, concludes the CSIC researcher.
The garden, or funeral garden, was unearthed in an open courtyard at the entrance of a Middle Kingdom rock-cut tomb very probably from the Twelfth Dynasty, circa 2000 BCE. The garden, measuring 3m x 2m, is raised and is divided into a grid arrangement of 30 cm2 beds distributed in rows of five or seven beds.
According to experts, these small beds may have contained different types of plants and flowers. In addition, at the center of the raised garden there are two beds which are set higher than the others where small trees or shrubs probably grew.
In one corner, the researchers recovered a still upright tamarisk shrub complete with its roots and 30cm-long trunk, beside which was a bowl containing dates and other fruit which may have been given as an offering.
In addition, attached to the facade of the tomb, which the garden is related to for the time being, a small mud-brick chapel (46cm high x 70cm wide x 55cm deep) with three stelae, or stone tombstones, in its interior was also uncovered. These are dated later than the tomb and the garden, coming from the Thirteenth Dynasty, around the year 1800 BCE. One of them belongs to Renef-seneb, and the other to “the soldier (“citizen”) Khememi, the son of the lady of the house, Satidenu.” On each, reference is made to Montu, a local god from ancient Thebes, and to the funerary gods Ptah, Sokar and Osiris.
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Aerial view of the funerary garden discovered by CSIC’s research team. Credit: CSIC Communications
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“These finds highlight the importance of the area around the Dra Abu el-Naga hill as a sacred centre for a wide range of worship activities during the Middle Kingdom. This helps us understand the high density of tombs in later times as well as the religious symbolism that this area of the necropolis holds”, concludes the CSIC researcher.
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
STANFORD UNIVERSITY—Something odd happened in the transition from the Middle to the Upper Paleolithic, around 50,000 years ago. Modern humans and their immediate ancestors had been using tools for a few million years prior, but the repertoire was limited. Then, all of sudden, there was an explosion of new tools, art and other cultural artifacts.
What caused that change has been the subject of much debate. Maybe brainpower reached a critical threshold. Maybe climate change forced our prehistoric kin to innovate or die. Maybe it was aliens.
Or maybe it was the result of populations growing and spreading throughout the land, Stanford researchers write in Royal Society Interface. That certainly could explain some other curious features of Paleolithic culture—and it could mean that a number of paleontologists’ inferences about our genetic and environmental past are, if not wrong, not as well supported as they had thought.
Cultural bursts
“One captivating observation is if you look at the archaeological record, it seems to be highly punctuated” leading up to the Upper Paleolithic, said Oren Kolodny, a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Marcus Feldman, a professor of biology. In other words, Kolodny said, the Paleolithic was a time marked by periods of slow change separated by bursts of cultural innovation.
“Those cultural bursts have been taken as evidence of an external change,” such as genetic or environmental shifts, said Nicole Creanza, who led the study with Kolodny while a postdoctoral fellow in Feldman’s lab. “But to some extent, Oren, Marc and I felt that the simplest explanation could be that culture itself is capable of behaving in a punctuated fashion,” said Creanza, who is now an assistant professor of biological sciences at Vanderbilt University.
A search for something simpler
The researchers wondered, how could culture create these bursts of innovation?
In a 2015 paper, Kolodny, Creanza and Feldman, who is also co-director of Stanford’s Center for Computational, Evolutionary and Human Genomics, argued that human culture could have evolved through several distinct kinds of advance. First, some ideas emerge as “lucky leaps,” Kolodny said—perhaps an early human witnessed a mouse get trapped in a tangle of grass, and the hunting net was born. Other ideas could emerge either as extensions of those leaps or as combinations of other ideas or technologies. Finally, groups can also lose ideas, as prehistoric Tasmanians did when they lost, incredibly, the knowledge of how to fish, Kolodny said.
Aided by computer simulations, the team showed that combining the three kinds of advance could have led directly to bursts of innovation, as seen in the archaeological record. They also found that at the point where new ideas balance out with lost ones, the number of ideas a population can support increases dramatically with population size. A population twice the size, Kolodny, Creanza and Feldman’s model predicted, could support much more than twice the number of ideas.
Migration and other game changers
In their latest paper, Creanza, Kolodny and Feldman, who is also the Burnet C. and Mildred Finley Wohlford Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences, combined those conclusions with two new components. First, they considered migrations between otherwise distinct populations and assumed that such travel is more likely in larger populations. Second, they studied what would happen if certain major innovations, such as domesticating plants or developing hunting knives, helped grow the population.
The updated model made a number of predictions that at least qualitatively resemble what archaeologists know about cultural evolution in the Paleolithic.
First, when population sizes are small and migration is relatively rare, a pattern of cultural booms and busts is likely. Essentially, the occasional travel may bring a new idea, setting off a boom. Then, without a steady stream of new ideas or population growth – that is, a steady stream of new brains to contain all those new ideas – some ideas will be lost to time.
Innovations that encouraged population growth, however, can have lasting effects, since even slight increases in population size can support a disproportionate increase in innovation.
Migration can do something similar. As travel increases, it bridges societies, allowing for an exchange of ideas that creates a complex of interrelated cultures. And as travel becomes common, smaller groups effectively merge into one large population, with vastly more capacity for innovation. In fact, that can create a feedback loop: populations grow, contact with others increases, innovation results and populations grow even more.
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Prehistoric arrowheads and other knapped stones showing a variety of styles and types, many of them a far cry from the earliest, simple stone tools of over a million years ago. Linda Spashett, Wikimedia Commons
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Were Neanderthals less fit, or just fewer in number?
Those theoretical conclusions could help explain a number of puzzles in human history, such as the disappearance of Neanderthals long ago. “People tend to assume modern humans were better and replaced them,” Kolodny said, but how they were better remains unclear. A simpler explanation may lie in two observations: Neanderthals had roughly a third the population of other early humans, and migration was always out of Africa, not into it.
In that case, modern humans migrating from Africa might have brought with them a more advanced repertoire of technologies, due in part to their larger population, and Neanderthals just could not keep up.
“We don’t think that whenever we get a qualitative pattern that looks like the archaeological record, this is what necessarily happened,” Kolodny said. “But it is a proof of concept that it could have happened this way.”
Just as important, Creanza says, the results show that researchers cannot use cultural bursts as evidence of external changes—that is, just because our culture advanced 50,000 years ago, that does not imply our brains got bigger, the landscape changed or anything else. It might just be the way culture is.
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY—WASHINGTON (April 28, 2017)—A new study examining the muscular system of bonobos provides firsthand evidence that the rare great ape species may be more closely linked, anatomically, to human ancestors than common chimpanzees. Previous research suggested this theory at the molecular level, but this is the first study to compare in detail the anatomy of the three species.
“Bonobo muscles have changed least, which means they are the closest we can get to having a ‘living’ ancestor,” said Bernard Wood, professor of human origins at the GW Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology.
Scientists believe that modern human and common chimpanzee/bonobo lineages split about 8 million years ago with the two great ape species splitting about 2 million years ago. As common chimpanzees and bonobos evolved after their split, they developed different traits and physical characteristics, even though they remained geographically relatively close, with their main division being the Congo River. Because of this, researchers have been curious as to what those differences are and how they compare to humans. By studying the muscles of bonobos (which indicates how they physically function), the team was able to discover that they are more closely related to human anatomy than common chimpanzees, in the sense that their muscles have changed less than they have in common chimpanzees.
Earlier studies examined the DNA similarities and differences between bonobos and common chimpanzees, but this was the first study to compare the muscles of the three species.
“In addition, our study has shown that there is a mosaic evolution of the three species, in the sense that some features are shared by humans and bonobos, others by humans and common chimpanzees, and still others by the two ape species,” said Rui Diogo, lead author of the paper and associate professor of anatomy at Howard University. “Such a mosaic anatomical evolution may well be related to the somewhat similar molecular mosaic evolution between the three species revealed by previous genetic studies: each of the chimpanzees species share about 3 percent of genetic traits with humans that are not present in the other chimpanzee species.”
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A new study examining the muscular system of bonobos provides firsthand evidence that the rare great ape species may be more closely linked to human ancestors than common chimpanzees. Credit: iStock photo
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Illustrated here are differences between head muscles of common chimpanzees, bonobos and modern humans. There are no major consistent differences concerning the presence/absence of muscles in adult common chimpanzees (left) and bonobos (center), the only minor difference (shown in grey in the common chimpanzee scheme) being that the omohyoideus has no intermediate tendon in bonobos, contrary to common chimpanzees (and modern humans). In contrast, there are many differences between bonobos and modern humans (right) concerning the presence/absence of muscles in the normal phenotype (shown in colors and/or with labels in the human scheme). Credit: Julia Molnar
The researchers led a team that examined seven bonobos from the Antwerp Zoo that had died and were being preserved. Researchers said this was an extremely rare opportunity given bonobos’ status as an endangered species.
The scientists note that having a clear understanding of what makes humans different from our closest living relatives might lead to new breakthroughs or understandings of human health.
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The paper, “Bonobo anatomy reveals stasis and mosaicism in chimpanzee evolution, and supports bonobos as the most appropriate extant model for the common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans,” published in Scientific Reports, a Nature publication, this month.
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
MAX-PLANCK-GESELLSCHAFT—While there are numerous prehistoric sites in Europe and Asia that contain tools and other human-made artifacts, skeletal remains of ancient humans are scarce. Researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have therefore looked into new ways to get hold of ancient human DNA. From sediment samples collected at seven archaeological sites, the researchers “fished out” tiny DNA fragments that had once belonged to a variety of mammals, including our extinct human relatives. They retrieved DNA from Neandertals in cave sediments of four archaeological sites, also in layers where no hominin skeletal remains have been discovered. In addition, they found Denisovan DNA in sediments from Denisova Cave in Russia. These new developments now enable researchers to uncover the genetic affiliations of the former inhabitants of many archaeological sites which do not yield human remains.
By looking into the genetic composition of our extinct relatives, the Neandertals, and their cousins from Asia, the Denisovans, researchers can shed light on our own evolutionary history. However, fossils of ancient humans are rare, and they are not always available or suitable for genetic analyses. “We know that several components of sediments can bind DNA”, says Matthias Meyer of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. “We therefore decided to investigate whether hominin DNA may survive in sediments at archaeological sites known to have been occupied by ancient hominins.”
To this aim Meyer and his team collaborated with a large network of researchers excavating at seven archaeological sites in Belgium, Croatia, France, Russia and Spain. Overall, they collected sediment samples covering a time span from 14,000 to over 550,000 years ago. Using tiny amounts of material the researchers recovered and analyzed fragments of mitochondrial DNA – genetic material from the mitochondria, the “energy factories” of the cell – and identified them as belonging to twelve different mammalian families that include extinct species such as the woolly mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, the cave bear and the cave hyena.
The researchers then looked specifically for ancient hominin DNA in the samples. “From the preliminary results, we suspected that in most of our samples, DNA from other mammals was too abundant to detect small traces of human DNA”, says Viviane Slon, Ph.D. student at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig and first author of the study. “We then switched strategies and started targeting specifically DNA fragments of human origin.” Nine samples from four archaeological sites contained enough ancient hominin DNA for further analyses: Eight sediment samples contained Neandertal mitochondrial DNA from either one or multiple individuals, while one sample contained Denisovan DNA. Most of these samples originated from archaeological layers or sites where no Neandertal bones or teeth were previously found.
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Entrance to the archaeological site of Vindija Cave, Croatia. Credit: MPI f. Evolutionary Anthropology/ J. Krause
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Excavations at the site of El Sidrón, Spain. Credit: El Sidrón research team
A sediment sample is prepared for DNA extraction. Credit: MPI f. Evolutionary Anthropology/ S. Tüpke
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A new tool for archaeology
“By retrieving hominin DNA from sediments, we can detect the presence of hominin groups at sites and in areas where this cannot be achieved with other methods”, says Svante Pääbo, director of the Evolutionary Genetics department at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and co-author of the study. “This shows that DNA analyses of sediments are a very useful archaeological procedure, which may become routine in the future”.
Even sediment samples that were stored at room temperature for years still yielded DNA. Analyses of these and of freshly-excavated sediment samples recovered from archaeological sites where no human remains are found will shed light on these sites’ former occupants and our joint genetic history.
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
PLOS—The Tibetan people have inherited variants of five different genes that help them live at high altitudes, with one gene originating in the extinct human subspecies, the Denisovans. Hao Hu and Chad Huff of the University of Texas, Houston, and colleagues report these findings in a new study published April 27th, 2017 in PLOS Genetics.
The people of Tibet have survived on an extremely high and arid plateau for thousands of years, due to their amazing natural ability to withstand low levels of oxygen, extreme cold, exposure to UV light and very limited food sources. Researchers sequenced the whole genomes of 27 Tibetans and searched for advantageous genes. The analysis identified two genes already known to be involved in adaptation to high altitude, EPAS1 and EGLN1, as well as two genes related to low oxygen levels, PTGIS and KCTD12. They also picked out a variant of VDR, which plays a role in vitamin D metabolism and may help compensate for vitamin D deficiency, which commonly affects Tibetan nomads. The Tibetan variant of the EPAS1 gene originally came from the archaic Denisovan people, but the researchers found no other genes related to high altitude with Denisovan roots. Further analysis showed that Han Chinese and Tibetan subpopulations split as early as 44 to 58 thousand years ago, but that gene flow between the groups continued until approximately 9 thousand years ago.
The study represents a comprehensive analysis of the demographic history of the Tibetan population and its adaptations to the challenges of living at high altitudes. The results also provide a rich genomic resource of the Tibetan population, which will aid future genetic studies.
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The Tibetan Plateau in Qinghai. Credit: DaiLuo, Flickr, CC BY
Tatum Simonson adds: “The comprehensive analysis of whole-genome sequence data from Tibetans provides valuable insights into the genetic factors underlying this population’s unique history and adaptive physiology at high altitude. This study provides further context for analyses of other permanent high-altitude populations, who exhibit characteristics distinct from Tibetans despite similar chronic stresses, as well as lowland populations, in whom hypoxia-related challenges, such those inherent to cardiopulmonary disease or sleep apnea, elicit a wide-range of unique physiological responses. Future research efforts will focus on identifying the interplay between various adaptive versus non-adaptive genetic pathways and environmental factors (e.g., hypoxia, diet, cold, UV) in these informative populations to reveal the biological underpinnings of individualized physiological responses.”
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
PLOS—Innovations in stone knapping technology during the South African Middle Stone Age enabled the creation of early projectile weapons, according to a study* published April 26, 2017 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Veerle Rots from University of Liège, Belgium, and colleagues.
The South African Middle Stone Age (MSA) is considered a period of major technological advancement, with hunter-gatherers introducing new manipulative techniques using heat and pressure to create stone projectile weapons. However, the timing and location of these developments is a topic of much debate.
The authors of the present study examined 25 weapon point fragments excavated from the Sibudu Cave site, analyzing their technological and functional differences and comparing them with reference samples produced for the purpose by an experienced knapper. Some of the points had two faces, a likely result of applying pressure to both sides. Some had serrations, or jagged edges, that were likely produced by a technique known as pressure flaking.
The researchers found that 14 of the 25 point fragments bore evidence of impact-related damage, animal residues, and wear features that strongly indicated that these points may have been used for hunting. Examination of the impact-related fractures and the distribution of the points indicated that these points may have been attached to handles to form projectile weapons and that these weapons were projected from a distance, most likely with a flexible spear-thrower or a bow.
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Sibudu Cave is a rock shelter in a sandstone cliff in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It is an important Middle Stone Age site occupied, with some gaps, from 77,000 years ago to 38,000 years ago. Text and image credit:DarkaRolandStark, Wikimedia Commons
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Analyzed serrated pieces from Sibudu Cave. Credit: Rots et al (2017)
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While further research would help to confirm the timeline and development of stone knapping techniques, the new Sibudu Cave site data may push back the evidence for the use of pressure flaking during the MSA to 77,000 years ago. The authors note that these findings highlight the diversity of technical innovations adopted by southern African MSA humans.
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY—The most comprehensive study on the bones of Homo floresiensis, a species of tiny human discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003, has found that they most likely evolved from an ancestor in Africa and not from Homo erectus as has been widely believed.
The study by The Australian National University (ANU) found Homo floresiensis, dubbed “the hobbits” due to their small stature, were most likely a sister species of Homo habilis — one of the earliest known species of human found in Africa 1.75 million years ago.
Data from the study concluded there was no evidence for the popular theory that Homo floresiensis evolved from the much larger Homo erectus, the only other early hominid known to have lived in the region with fossils discovered on the Indonesian mainland of Java.
Study leader Dr Debbie Argue of the ANU School of Archaeology & Anthropology, said the results should help put to rest a debate that has been hotly contested ever since Homo floresiensis was discovered.
“The analyses show that on the family tree, Homo floresiensis was likely a sister species of Homo habilis. It means these two shared a common ancestor,” Dr Argue said.
“It’s possible that Homo floresiensis evolved in Africa and migrated, or the common ancestor moved from Africa then evolved into Homo floresiensis somewhere.”
Homo floresiensis is known to have lived on Flores until as recently as 54,000 years ago.
The study was the result of an Australian Research Council grant in 2010 that enabled the researchers to explore where the newly-found species fits in the human evolutionary tree.
Where previous research had focused mostly on the skull and lower jaw, this study used 133 data points ranging across the skull, jaws, teeth, arms, legs and shoulders.
Dr Argue said none of the data supported the theory that Homo floresiensis evolved from Homo erectus.
“We looked at whether Homo floresiensis could be descended from Homo erectus,” she said.
“We found that if you try and link them on the family tree, you get a very unsupported result. All the tests say it doesn’t fit — it’s just not a viable theory.”
Dr Argue said this was supported by the fact that in many features, such as the structure of the jaw, Homo floresiensis was more primitive than Homo erectus.
“Logically, it would be hard to understand how you could have that regression — why would the jaw of Homo erectus evolve back to the primitive condition we see in Homo floresiensis?”
Dr Argue said the analyses could also support the theory that Homo floresiensis could have branched off earlier in the timeline, more than 1.75 million years ago.
“If this was the case Homo floresiensis would have evolved before the earliest Homo habilis, which would make it very archaic indeed,” she said.
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Homo floresiensis skull 1 Credit: Stuart Hay – ANU
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Homo floresiensis skull 2 Credit: Stuart Hay – ANU
Professor Mike Lee of Flinders University and the South Australian Museum, used statistical modeling to analyse the data.
“When we did the analysis there was really clear support for the relationship with Homo habilis. Homo floresiensis occupied a very primitive position on the human evolutionary tree,” Professor Lee said.
“We can be 99 per cent sure it’s not related to Homo erectus and nearly 100 per cent chance it isn’t a malformed Homo sapiens,” Professor Lee said.
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE—Studies of bones from Ice Age megafaunal animals across Eurasia and the Americas have revealed that major increases in environmental moisture occurred just before many species suddenly became extinct around 11-15,000 years ago. The persistent moisture resulting from melting permafrost and glaciers caused widespread glacial-age grasslands to be rapidly replaced by peatlands and bogs, fragmenting populations of large herbivore grazers.
Research led by the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD) at the University of Adelaide, published today in Nature Ecology and Evolution, has revealed that the ancient bones preserve direct biochemical evidence of the environmental upheavals, which can be traced through time.
Using 511 radiocarbon dated bones from animals such as bison, horse, and llamas the team was able to investigate the role of environmental change in the mysterious megafaunal extinctions, which claimed the vast majority of existing large land animals such as giant sloths and sabre-toothed cats.
“We didn’t expect to find such clear signals of moisture increases occurring so widely across all of Europe, Siberia and the Americas,” says study leader Professor Alan Cooper, ACAD Director. “The timing varied between regions, but matches the collapse of glaciers and permafrost and occurs just before most species go extinct.
The international team of researchers, including the University of Alaska Fairbanks, University of Oslo, the Yukon Government, and palaeontologists across Russia and Canada, measured nitrogen isotopes preserved in dated ancient animal bones and teeth recovered from permafrost areas and caves across Europe, Siberia, North and South America. They found distinctive biochemical signals reflecting massive increases of moisture on the landscape.
“Grassland megafauna were critical to the food chains. They acted like giant pumps that shifted nutrients around the landscape”, says lead author Dr Tim Rabanus-Wallace, from the University of Adelaide. “When the moisture influx pushed forests and tundras to replace the grasslands, the ecosystem collapsed and took many of the megafauna with it.”
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Extinct megafauna, scene from La Brea Tar Pits. Wikimedia Commons
“The idea of moisture-driven extinctions is really exciting because it can also explain why Africa is so different, with a much lower rate of megafaunal extinctions and many species surviving to this day,” says Professor Cooper. “Africa’s position across the equator means that grassland zones have always surrounded the central monsoon region. The stable grasslands are what has allowed large herbivores to persist – rather than any special wariness of hunters learned from humans evolving there.”
Professor Matthew Wooller, of the University of Alaska Fairbanks, says: “We find that on different continents the climate changes happened at different times, but they all showed that moisture increased massively just prior to extinction. The really elegant feature of this study is that it produces direct evidence from the fossils themselves – these extinct creatures are informing us about the climate they experienced leading up to their own extinctions.”
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN HISTORY—According to new research, nomadic horse culture—famously associated with Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes—can trace its roots back more than 3,000 years in the eastern Eurasian Steppes, in the territory of modern Mongolia.
The study, published online March 31 in Journal of Archaeological Science, produces scientific estimates of the age of horse bones found from archaeological sites belonging to a culture known as the Deer Stone-Khirigsuur Complex. This culture, named for the beautiful carved standing stones (“deer stones”) and burial mounds (khirigsuurs) it built across the Mongolian Steppe, is linked with some of the oldest evidence for nomadic herding and domestic livestock use in eastern Eurasia. At both deer stones and khirigsuurs, stone mounds containing ritual burials of domestic horses – sometimes numbering in the hundreds or thousands – are found buried around the edge of each monument.
A team of researchers from several academic institutions – including the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Yale University, University of Chicago, the American Center for Mongolian Studies, and the National Museum of Mongolia – used radiocarbon dating to estimate the spread of domestic horse ritual at deer stones and khirigsuurs.
When an organism dies, an unstable radioactive molecule present in living tissues, known as radiocarbon, begins to decay at a known rate. By measuring the remaining concentration of radiocarbon in organic materials, such as horse bone, archaeologists can estimate how many years ago an animal took its final step. Many previous archaeological projects in Mongolia produced radiocarbon date estimates from horse remains found at these Bronze Age archaeological sites. However, because each of these measurements must be calibrated to account for natural variation in the environment over time, individual dates have large amounts of error and uncertainty, making them difficult to aggregate or interpret in groups.
By using a statistical technique known as Bayesian analysis – which combines probability with archaeological information to improve precision for groups of radiocarbon dates – the study authors were able to produce a high-precision chronology model for early domestic horse use in Mongolia. Lead author William Taylor, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, says that this model “enables us for the first time to link horse use with other important cultural developments in ancient Mongolia and eastern Eurasia, and evaluate the role of climate and environmental change in the local origins of horse riding.”
According to the study, domestic horse ritual spread rapidly across the Mongol Steppe at around 1200 BC – several hundred years before mounted horsemen are clearly documented in historical records. When considered alongside other evidence for horse transport in the Deer Stone-Khirigsuur Complex these results suggest that Mongolia was an epicenter for early horse culture – and probably early mounted horseback riding.
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“Deer stone” stela in Bayankhongor province, central Mongolia, surrounded by small stone mounds containing domestic horse remains. Credit: Photo: William Taylor
Precision Chronology: According to new research, nomadic horse culture—famously associated with Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes—can trace its roots back more than 3,000 years in the eastern Eurasian Steppes, in the territory of modern Mongolia. Photo: William Taylor
The study has important consequences for our understanding of human responses to climate change. For example, one particularly influential hypothesis argues that horse riding and nomadic herding societies developed during the late second millennium BCE, as a response to drought and a worsening climate. Taylor and colleagues’ results indicate instead that early horsemanship took place during a wetter, more productive climate period – which may have given herders more room to experiment with horse breeding and transport.
In recent years, scholars have become increasingly aware of the role played by Inner Asian nomads in early waves of globalization. A key article by Dr. Michael Frachetti and colleagues, published this month in Nature argues that nomadic movement patterns shaped the early trans-Eurasian trade networks that would eventually move goods, people, and information across the continent. The development of horsemanship by Mongolian cultures might have been one of the most influential changes in Eurasian prehistory – laying the groundwork for the economic and ecological exchange networks that defined the Old World for centuries to come.
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
PENN STATE—Reconstructed food webs from the Ancestral Puebloan southwestern United States show the complexity and interconnectedness of humans, other animals, crops and the environment, in an area of uncertain climate and resources, according to researchers, who think climate change and human decisions then, may shed light on future human choices.
“As southwestern archaeologists, we know that Ancestral Puebloan people were intrinsically connected to the environment,” said Stefani Crabtree, postdoctoral fellow in human behavioral ecology in the Department of Anthropology, Penn State. “But, most food webs have omitted humans.”
Traditionally, food webs, while they map the interaction of all the animals and plants in an area, usually do not emphasize the human component. Crabtree and colleagues created a digital food web that captures all categories of consumers and consumed, can be defined for specific time periods and can also represent food webs after major food sources or predators disappear from the area. If an area suddenly becomes devoid of deer or humans or corn, for example, a food web of that situation can show where predators went to find prey, or which prey thrived for lack of a predator.
These knockout food webs—webs missing a specific predator or prey—show the changes and pressures on the food sources substituted for the missing ones, or the changes that occur when pressure is removed by removing a major consumer. The researchers report the results of their study today (Apr. 10) in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
“When people show up in the area around A.D. 600 they bring corn,” said Crabtree. “It takes a while for critters to get used to it, but eventually, everything that eats vegetation, eats corn and prefers it.”
Humans bringing corn into an area is a major disruption of the existing food web. Planting corn means clearing fields to displace whatever plants and animals were there, creating a high-energy plant source of food and switching plant eaters to the preferred higher-calorie food source.
In the American Southwest, the Ancestral Puebloan people eventually preyed on their deer population enough so that they deer were no longer a reliable source of food. To compensate for this, they began to domesticate turkeys for food. Turkeys need to be fed corn if they are captive and that competes with corn for human consumption. At this time, corn made up 70 to 80 percent of Ancestral Puebloans’ food and so feeding turkeys altered the food web.
To create the food web, the team identified all the common, noninvasive species in the area. They then added species that were found in archaeological sites, but were absent from the modern lists. In some food webs, components are identified by their function, so all humming birds are considered flying pollinators, but in this case each type of humming bird received its own place in the web, linked to what it ate and what, if anything, ate it. This produced a very complicated web, but supplied exceptional redundancy.
“In the insect world it is harder to get at the data,” said Crabtree. “We have not been able to get at good databases so we aggregate at the functional level—pollinators or bloodsuckers for example.”
The exception to individual web entries then are invertebrates—insects, spiders, snails, etc.—that were classified by their function. Invertebrates are organized to the level of order and then grouped by function. With insects, for example, the researchers would group butterflies and moths that pollinated and sipped nectar, together in one group.
The overall food web had 334 nodes representing species or order-level functional groups with 11,344 links between predator and prey.
The researchers realize that there are differences in the environment between now and the Ancestral Puebloan period, but many things, such as pinon-juniper woodlands and sage flats are the same. Enough similarity exists for this approach to work.
The team did not produce just one overall food web, but also food webs corresponding to three archaeological locations and three time periods of Ancestral Pueblo occupation in the area —Grass Mesa Pueblo for Pueblo I, Albert Porter Pueblo for Pueblo II and Sand Canyon Pueblo for Pueblo III. They began with using archaeological assemblages from these sites incorporating all human prey and all human predators into the food web. Then they included the prey of the primary prey of humans and then predators of these human-prey species. Prey, in this case, includes animals, insects and plants.
When creating knockout food webs, the researchers included only those species that were found in reasonable quantities in the archaeological assemblages at those times.
“Knockout food webs are one of the best ways to understand how people interact with the environment,” said Crabtree. “Because we can remove something, predator or prey, and see what would happen.”
When major changes in climate variables such as drought, heat and lack of snowpack are factored in, the balance in the food web may become unstable. When food becomes scarce, most mobile creatures, animals and insects move to another location. During the time of the Ancestral Puebloans, this was possible and eventually, these people moved to the area of the Rio Grande in New Mexico and other places in New Mexico and Arizona.
“We didn’t have a long-term plan during the 600 years of Ancestral Pueblo habitation in the Mesa Verde region,” said Crabtree. “We don’t have a long-term plan today either. We don’t even have a four-year plan. Some people are pushing us to look closely at climate change.”
In the past, people migrated, said Crabtree. Unless we figure out better strategies, where are we going to migrate out to? We do not have a place to go, she said.
What people plant and eat has a great effect on the environment and on ecosystems. In the end, those choices will impact human survival, according to the researchers.
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This is a sample food web with red nodes representing primary producers, orange nodes primary consumers, yellow-orange nodes omnivores, true-yellow nodes are true carnivores. This draft food web was created with the program Network3D from foodwebs.org Credit: Stefani Crabtree, Penn State
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This is Square Tower House in Mesa Verde National Park. Credit: Nate Crabtree
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This work is part of a collaboration of researchers creating resolved food webs from a variety of places. Crabtree believes that she can compare this project to others that include humans in other geographical areas to help understand ecosystems with humans in them.
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
UNIVERSITY OF HUDDERSFIELD—A new article co-authored by experts at the University of Huddersfield bolsters a theory that the spread of agriculture throughout Europe followed migration into the Mediterranean from the Near East more than 13,000 years ago – thousands of years earlier than widely believed.
This was during the Late Glacial period and initially the migrants were hunter-gatherers. But they later developed a knowledge of agriculture from further newly-arrived populations from the Near East – where farming began – and during the Neolithic, approximately 8,000 years ago, they began to colonise other parts of Europe, taking their farming practices with them.
The University of Huddersfield is home to the Archaeogenetics Research Group, which uses DNA analysis to solve questions from archaeology, anthropology and history. It is headed by Professor Martin Richards, and the issue of the genetic ancestry of Europeans has been one of his major research areas for many years.
Now he is a principal contributor to the article that appears in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. It describes how the researchers used almost 1,500 mitochondrial genome lineages to date the arrival of people in different regions of Europe.
It was found that in central Europe and Iberia, these could mainly be traced to the Neolithic. However, in the central and eastern Mediterranean, they predominantly dated to the much earlier Late Glacial period.
The authors write that: “This supports a scenario in which the genetic pool of Mediterranean Europe was partly a result of Late Glacial expansions from a Near Eastern refuge, and that this formed an important source pool for subsequent Neolithic expansions into the rest of Europe”.
Professor Richards explained that he and his co-researchers carried out their latest investigations using modern DNA samples because in Italy and Greece there is an acute shortage of pre-Neolithic skeletal remains from which ancient samples can be taken. The warmth of the climate has resulted in low levels of preservation.
“We haven’t been able to fill the gap with ancient DNA, so we found a way to get round that by looking at modern samples. Instead of dating the lineages across Europe as a whole we have dated them firstly in the Mediterranean area and then we have looked at what happens if you assume that they have arrived in that area and then moved on,” said Professor Richards.
Now he hopes that new sources of ancient DNA in Italy and Greece will be discovered, so that his migration scenario can be tested more directly.
“In the past, it’s been difficult to recover DNA from these kinds of environments but there have been so many technical developments in the recovery of ancient DNA in the last few years that I think it will happen soon.” In fact, another team of researchers has already confirmed one of the paper’s main predictions, by looking at pre-Neolithic DNA from Sardinia, just one week ago.
The research was carried out primarily by Dr Joana Pereira as part of her PhD project, supervised jointly by Professor Richards and Dr Luisa Pereira of the Institute of Molecular Pathology and Immunology at the University of Porto, alongside Dr Pedro Soares of the University of Minho, in Portugal. The authors of the new article – titled Reconciling evidence from ancient and contemporary genomes: a major source for the European Neolithic within Mediterranean Europe – also include Dr Maria Pala, who is Senior Lecturer at the University of Huddersfield and a key member of the archaeogenetics group.
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
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