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HUMAN EVOLUTION—A team of eminent specialists from a variety of academic disciplines has coalesced around a goal of creating new insight into the life and genius of Leonardo da Vinci by means of authoritative new research and modern detective technologies, including DNA science.

The Leonardo Project is in pursuit of several possible physical connections to Leonardo, beaming radar, for example, at an ancient Italian church floor to help corroborate extensive research to pinpoint the likely location of the tomb of his father and other relatives. A collaborating scholar also recently announced the successful tracing of several likely DNA relatives of Leonardo living today in Italy.

If granted the necessary approvals, the Project will compare DNA from Leonardo’s relatives past and present with physical remnants—hair, bones, fingerprints and skin cells—associated with the Renaissance figure whose life marked the rebirth of Western civilization.

The Project’s objectives, motives, methods, and work to date are detailed in a special issue of the journal Human Evolution, published coincident with a meeting of the group hosted in Florence this week under the patronage of Eugenio Giani, President of the Tuscan Regional Council (Consiglio Regionale della Toscana).

Born in Vinci, Italy, Leonardo died in 1519, age 67, and was buried in Amboise, southwest of Paris. His creative imagination foresaw and described innovations hundreds of years before their invention, such as the helicopter and armored tank. His artistic legacy includes the iconic Mona Lisa and The Last Supper.

The idea behind the Project, founded in 2014, has inspired and united anthropologists, art historians, genealogists, microbiologists, and other experts from leading universities and institutes in France, Italy, Spain, Canada and the USA, including specialists from the J. Craig Venter Institute of California, which pioneered the sequencing of the human genome.

The work underway resembles in complexity recent projects such as the successful search for the tomb of historic author Miguel de Cervantes and, in March 2015, the identification of England’s King Richard III from remains exhumed from beneath a UK parking lot, fittingly re-interred 500 years after his death.

Like Richard, Leonardo was born in 1452, and was buried in a setting that underwent changes in subsequent years such that the exact location of the grave was lost.

If DNA and other analyses yield a definitive identification, conventional and computerized techniques might reconstruct the face of Leonardo from models of the skull.”

In addition to Leonardo’s physical appearance, information potentially revealed from the work includes his ancestry and additional insight into his diet, state of health, personal habits, and places of residence.

Beyond those questions, and the verification of Leonardo’s “presumed remains” in the chapel of Saint-Hubert at the Château d’Amboise, the Project aims to develop a genetic profile extensive enough to understand better his abilities and visual acuity, which could provide insights into other individuals with remarkable qualities.

It may also make a lasting contribution to the art world, within which forgery is a multi-billion dollar industry, by advancing a technique for extracting and sequencing DNA from other centuries-old works of art, and associated methods of attribution.

Says Jesse Ausubel, Vice Chairman of the Richard Lounsbery Foundation, sponsor of the Project’s meetings in 2015 and 2016: “I think everyone in the group believes that Leonardo, who devoted himself to advancing art and science, who delighted in puzzles, and whose diverse talents and insights continue to enrich society five centuries after his passing, would welcome the initiative of this team—indeed would likely wish to lead it were he alive today.”

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 “Vitruvian Man”, by Leonardo da Vinci. This work done by the artist is used to illustrate the cover of the special issue of Human Evolution that features the Leonardo Project. Wikimedia Commons

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Leonardo’s fingerprints

In the journal, group members underline the highly conservative, precautionary approach required at every phase of the Project, which they aim to conclude in 2019 to mark the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death.

For example, one objective is to verify whether fingerprints on Leonardo’s paintings, drawings, and notebooks can yield DNA consistent with that extracted from identified remains.

Early last year, Project collaborators from the International Institute for Humankind Studies in Florence opened discussions with the laboratory in that city where Leonardo’s Adoration of the Magi has been undergoing restoration for nearly two years, to explore the possibility of analyzing dust from the painting for possible DNA traces. A crucial question is whether traces of DNA remain or whether restoration measures and the passage of time have obliterated all evidence of Leonardo’s touch.

In preparation for such analysis, a team from the J. Craig Venter Institute and the University of Florence is examining privately owned paintings believed to be of comparable age to develop and calibrate techniques for DNA extraction and analysis. At this year’s meeting in Florence, the researchers also described a pioneering effort to analyze the microbiome of a painting thought to be about five centuries old.

If human DNA can one day be obtained from Leonardo’s work and sequenced, the genetic material could then be compared with genetic information from skeletal or other remains that may be exhumed in the future.

Says Eugenio Giani, President of the Regional Council of Tuscany: “The fact that a team of eminent scholars from different academic disciplines and parts of the world has united with the common objective of furthering investigation into one of the greatest geniuses is positive and very important.”

“As President of the Tuscan Regional Council, I am pleased to host in our headquarters a meeting that shows key aspects our current state of knowledge of Leonardo da Vinci. My hope, as a Florentine and Tuscan, is that all this will help outline a portrait of Leonardo as faithful as possible to reality, bringing out the true bond that he had with Florence, starting from the properties of his family in the city. Scientifically, the chance to create, through new research and technology, a new vision of the life of Leonardo starting from a study of DNA is very important.”

Compiled by Project collaborator Claire Stypulkowski, the collection of five journal articles trace the path Leonardo took from his Italian birthplace to his final days serving the King of France. They outline the efforts to date, detailing the history and evidence regarding Leonardo’s life and his remains in Amboise, the research and high-tech investigation of his father’s tomb in Florence, and the tracing of family descendants.

Says Brunetto Chiarelli of the International Institute for Humankind Studies and editor of Human Evolution: “We are proud to share with the public the details of this exciting endeavor.”

And he underlined this message from the Project’s introductory paper: “The search for Leonardo’s remains at Amboise Castle, for the remains or traces of his family members in Florence, Vinci, and Milan, and for traces of his DNA in his works is fraught with difficulty.”

“Matching Leonardo’s DNA to that of his family presents puzzles that are minutely specific to their history and circumstances, but the tools the investigators use are generic and broadly applicable. We stand to gain not only greater historical knowledge of Leonardo but possibly a reconstruction of his genetic profile, which could provide insights into other individuals with remarkable qualities.”

“The last Plantagenet King of England and the author who gave us Don Quixote are two whose places in history are somewhat better documented now through recent anthropological study. Is Leonardo the next?”

Source: Human Evolution press release. The Leonardo Project

Organizations participating in the Leonardo Project include:

• The Institut de Paléontologie Humaine, Paris
• The International Institute for Humankind Studies, Florence
• The Laboratory of Molecular Anthropology and Paleogenetics, Biology Department, University of Florence
• Museo Ideale Leonardo da Vinci, in Vinci, Italy
• J. Craig Venter Institute, La Jolla, California
• Laboratory of Genetic Identification, University of Granada, Spain
• The Rockefeller University, New York City

 Initial support comes from the Richard Lounsbery Foundation, Washington D.C.

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 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.

In March, 2016, Dr. James D. Tabor of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte led a group to revisit a cave not far from Jerusalem, a site he and archaeologist Shimon Gibson began excavating more than 15 years ago. Many know it as the Suba Cave, an ancient cave some scholars hypothesize John the Baptist used to perform baptisms near Ein Karem in the Judean hills, a place that tradition holds was his home town…………. 

Dr. James D. Tabor, one of the world’s foremost authorities on 2nd Temple period Judaism and early Christian origins, calls it “one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the last 25 years”. Located near the Tzuba kibbutz just west of Jerusalem in the Judean hills, an ancient cave was discovered by archaeologists in 1999. Otherwise popularly known as the Suba Cave, it is located near a vineyard within walking distance of Ein Karem, the small town or village long traditionally considered to have been the birthplace and home of John the Baptist and his family.  

It all began when Shimon Gibson, a well-known British-born Israeli archaeologist, was first contacted in 1999 about carvings or engravings discovered in a cave near Tzuba and Ein Karem. After his initial investigation of the cave, he called Tabor, by then known as a scholarly expert on John the Baptist. 

“I remember I was sitting in my office when he called,” said Tabor. “At first, I didn’t believe it.” 

Gibson suggested that the location, the drawings/engravings, and other circumstantial elements pointed to the possibility of some association with John the Baptist. Following examination of photos of the cave drawings sent by Gibson, Tabor knew there was something to this discovery beyond a simple hunch. He, along with Gibson, quickly assembled an excavation team and, very early on, unearthed something that had exceeded all expectations.

“I’ll never forget that day,” said Tabor, as he related the story of the day they really hit “pay dirt”. In the beginning, the cave, having silted up through centuries, allowed only about one meter’s worth of clearance from the roof of the cave to ‘ground level’ in order to enter. “We had to crawl on our hands and knees,” said Tabor. But on the last day of the excavation season in March of 2000, the excavators began to encounter Roman period pottery shards.  

“As we dug down we suddenly came across a meter to a meter and a half filled with clearly 1st century CE period pottery shards, and this was out of a total of 4 meters of cultural layers in the cave. So something was really going on in this cave during the early 1st century. We found evidence of thousands of clay vessels in the cave, all broken.”

Successive seasons uncovered a large, plastered cave carved out of bedrock with steps leading into a large interior pool of water. The cave extended 90 feet into the hillside bedrock. Gibson and Tabor suggest that it was a place for ritual immersion, or baptism. In the 1st century CE such a feature was normally characterized as a mikveh, a Jewish ritual bath, ancient examples of which can be found throughout Israel at a variety of archaeological sites. The Suba Cave is now considered to be the largest mikveh in Israel.  

Given the abundance and concentration of the vessels — what was determined to have been small one-handled jugs — the archaeologists concluded that they had to have been deliberately broken and deposited in a relatively short time period. 

What was happening in this place?  

Tabor and Gibson hypothesize that the pottery shards were related to a baptismal ritual conducted in the cave. Based in part on their research of 2nd century manuscripts, they suggest that baptisms at the time of Jesus and John may have followed a set process that included not only dipping, or immersion, in the water, but also the pouring of water over the head from the vessel, the anointing of the right foot (there is a foot-shaped cavity carved out of the bedrock near the steps no far from inside the cave entrance and just above the water line), and the deliberate breaking of the vessel so the vessel could no longer be used for common purposes. The thousands of 1st century jug shards uncovered in the cave were the remains of these vessels. 

Was this in fact a cave used by John to baptize people during the time of Jesus? A cave with drawings or engravings that could be interpreted as a pictographic or visual representation of John the Baptist, located very near Ein Karem, the home town of John and his family, with evidence of use as a facility for ritual immersion — all pointed to this possibility, according to the site excavators.

But it should be noted that the Suba Cave was initially created and used for a very different purpose. The plaster lining the interior walls of the cave was radiocarbon dated to the Iron Age, and more specifically, to the time of King Hezekiah of Judah. Five years of excavation and research revealed that the cave, including associated exterior features, was actually initially created and used as a clay-making facility for the manufacture of pottery. The cave was first meant to be “a water reservoir [fed by an adjacent spring, which still exists] for clay making,” says Tabor. “Pottery for the king’s house was made at Tzuba because the clay was so pure. Then it went out of use in the 2nd century BCE and silted over.” It was then re-dug and converted into a ritual immersion facility during the 1st century CE.

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A view of the village of Ein Karem. Gila Brand, Wikimedia Commons 

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 The Suba Cave entrance, looking toward it from outside the cave. Photo by Victoria Brogdon 

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 Steps leading down to the Suba Cave entrance. Photo by Daniela Ciubuc

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Looking into the Suba Cave from the interior steps, which descend into the water as is typically characteristic of an ancient mikveh. The interior of the cave is covered in plaster, which has been present since first applied by the ancients during the days of Hezekiah, King of Judah, when it was initially used as a clay-making facility for pottery-making. The water, though it appears murky, is surprisingly clean in terms of bacterial content. Photo by Daniela Ciubuc.

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Rough engraved dawings high on the interior wall of the cave, above the water. Note the figure of a person on the left. Site investigators have interpreted this as an individual, perhaps even John the Baptist, officiating a ritual activity, such as a baptismal rite. Photo by Victoria Brogdon

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This article is a preview excerpt from the article, In Search of the Historical Jesus, to be released as a major feature article in the Summer 2016 issue of Popular Archaeology Magazine.

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 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 ONE—Tooth-marks on a 500,000-year-old hominin femur bone found in a Moroccan cave indicate that it was consumed by large carnivores, likely hyenas, according to a study* published April 27, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Camille Daujeard from the Muséum National D’Histoire Naturelle, France, and colleagues.

Read more in-depth articles about archaeology with a premium subscription to Popular Archaeology Magazine. 

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Travel and learn with Far Horizons.

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 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.

WELLCOME TRUST SANGER INSTITUTE—The largest ever study* of global genetic variation in the human Y chromosome has uncovered the hidden history of men. Research published in Nature Genetics reveals explosions in male population numbers in five continents, occurring at times between 55 thousand and four thousand years ago.

The study, led by Dr Chris Tyler-Smith of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, analysed sequence differences between the Y chromosomes of more than 1200 men from 26 populations around the world using data generated by the 1000 Genomes Project.

The work involved 42 scientists from four continents.

Dr David Poznik, from Stanford University, California, first author on the paper, said: “We identified more than 60,000 positions where one DNA letter was replaced by another in a man with modern descendants, and we discovered thousands of more complex DNA variants. These data constitute a rich and publicly available resource for further genealogical, historical and forensic studies.”

Analysing the Y chromosomes of modern men can tell us about the lives of our ancestors. The Y chromosome is only passed from father to son and so is wholly linked to male characteristics and behaviours. The team used the data to build a tree of these 1200 Y chromosomes; it shows how they are all related to one another. As expected, they all descend from a single man who lived approximately 190,000 years ago.

The most intriguing and novel finding was that some parts of the tree were more like a bush than a tree, with many branches originating at the same point.

Dr Yali Xue, lead author from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, explained: “This pattern tells us that there was an explosive increase in the number of men carrying a certain type of Y chromosome, within just a few generations. We only observed this phenomenon in males, and only in a few groups of men.”

The earliest explosive increases of male numbers occurred 50,000-55,000 years ago, across Asia and Europe, and 15,000 years ago in the Americas. There were also later expansions in sub-Saharan Africa, Western Europe, South Asia and East Asia, at times between 4,000 and 8,000 years ago. The team believes the earlier population increases resulted from the first peopling by modern humans of vast continents, where plenty of resources were available.

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 Chakazul, Wikimedia Commons

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The later expansions are more enigmatic.

Dr Chris Tyler-Smith, from the Sanger Institute, added: “The best explanation is that they may have resulted from advances in technology that could be controlled by small groups of men. Wheeled transport, metal working and organised warfare are all candidate explanations that can now be investigated further.”

All of the samples and data from the 1000 Genomes Project are freely available for use by other scientists and interested investigators.

Source: Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute

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*Poznik GD et al. Punctuated bursts in human male demography inferred from 1,244 worldwide Y-chromosome sequences is published in Nature Genetics 25 April 2016 DOI: 10.1038/ng.3559

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Travel and learn with Far Horizons.

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 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 AMSTERDAM—‘Rarely, if ever, has such a big discovery been made in a maritime context’, says Maarten van Bommel, Professor of Conservation Science and chair of the section Restoration and Conservation of Cultural Heritage at the UvA. The items, which were found at the wreck of a 17th-century ship in the Wadden Sea near Texel, include a very luxurious gown that has remained remarkably well preserved. This gown serves as the showpiece of the temporary exhibition ‘Garde Robe’, which has opened at the museum, Kaap Skil. 

The gown, which due to its rich detail is believed to have belonged to ‘high nobility, possibly even royalty’, is part of an extensive wardrobe. Among other articles, the site also yielded a cloak, stockings and silk and satin bodices decorated with large quantities of gold and silver thread. In addition to textiles, divers also found practical items like pottery from Italy, a gilded silver chalice and scents from Greece or Turkey. In addition, a number of book covers emerged from the depths that bear the coat of arms of the English Royal House of Stuart. 

International importance

Experts from the Rijksmuseum, the University of Amsterdam and the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE), consider the textiles one of Europe’s most important clothing finds ever. Their discovery, in combination with other objects, makes this one of the foremost and most appealing finds in the history of Dutch archaeology. Because in a ship everything is preserved together – as if in a time capsule – this discovery can give great insight into the life and work of those on board and the trade relations and political situation of the time.

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 One of the wardrobe items found at the site of the shipwreck. Credit Kaap Skil

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Who wore it?

Archival research revealed that the wardrobe belonged to the royal court of the English queen Henrietta Maria. In March 1642 the queen was travelling to the Netherlands on a secret mission when one of her baggage ships sunk in the Wadden Sea. This discovery was made by cultural historians Helmer Helmers from the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and Nadine Akkerman from Leiden University. It probably belonged to Jean Kerr, Countess of Roxburghe (c. 1585-1643), lady-in-waiting and confidante to Queen Henrietta Maria (1609-1669). Jean was one of two ladies-in-waiting whose clothes went down with the ship, but the style and size of the gown indicates strongly that it belonged to Kerr, the elder of the two. 

Elizabeth Stuart

Cultural historians Nadine Akkerman and Helmer Helmers are experts on the British Royal House of Stuart. Their findings are based on a letter written by Elizabeth Stuart (1596-1662), the Stuart princess who found refuge in The Hague after being exiled from the Kingdom of Bohemia. In a letter to the English diplomat Sir Thomas Roe, dated 17 March 1642, Elizabeth describes how her sister-in-law lost a baggage ship during the crossing. In addition to the clothing of two ladies-in-waiting and their maids, the queen herself lost the ‘vessels’ from her private chapel in the shipwreck.

A secret mission

The official story behind Henrietta Maria’s trip to the Dutch Republic was one of royal connections: she was  delivering her 11-year old daughter Mary to the court of William II, Prince of Orange and future stadtholder, whom the girl had married the previous year. This was only a ruse, however: her real mission was to sell the crown jewels and use the proceeds to buy weapons. These were essential for King Charles I to take on Parliament in the English Civil War. According to Akkerman and Helmers, the find at Texel represents a tangible reminder of the strong Dutch involvement in this conflict.

Winter Queen

Akkerman, assistant professor of Early Modern English Literature at Leiden University, and Helmers, assistant professor of Early Modern Dutch Literature and Culture at the UvA, were able to solve the mystery of the unknown gown owner reasonably quickly. Akkerman: ‘Once Helmer alerted me to the find, it took us about five minutes to unearth the relevant letter, as I remembered transcribing and deciphering it in 2006. We continue to find more references.’

Akkerman is the editor of the Correspondence of Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, while Helmers is the author of The Royalist Republic, on Anglo-Dutch relations in this period.

Unnecessary speculation

The mystery and speculation in the Dutch press surrounding the origin of the wardrobe were unnecessary. With the discovery of the family crest, the evidence quickly started pointing towards the Stuarts. Helmers: ‘It is a pity we weren’t consulted earlier – the puzzle would have been solved much earlier. The archaeological experts have primarily focused on the material side. Of course this is important, but the historical texts also tell a thrilling story.’

Shipwrecks of the Texel Roadstead

Off the coast of Texel, at Oudeschild, lie hundreds of shipwrecks, many from the Golden Age. Waiting for cargo or a favorable wind, they went down in storms and severe weather. However, their contents were well preserved under the sand. Due to the changing sea currents, the wrecks sometimes come loose, often threatening their cargo. Various organizations responsible for preserving these sites are currently investigating how best to deal with these processes. They are working together in this context with the Texel Diving Club, which called attention to this find.

Exhibition opening

The exhibition Garde Robe was officially opened on Thursday, 14 April, on behalf of all parties involved, by Jack van der Hoek, member of the Provincial Executive of North Holland. The spectacular opening ceremony was directed by Studio Aziz Bekkaoui. During the opening, well-known UvA archaeologist Prof. Jerzy Gawronski admitted that it was a huge surprise to him that the seabed around Texel is home to such treasures. Provincial Executive member Jack van der Hoek said he saw it as a great gift, which also entails a great responsibility.

Museum Kaap Skil will be showing a selection of the find to the public for a month – until Monday, 16 May 2016. After that, the objects will be transferred to Huis van Hilde (Hilde’s House), the archaeology information centre of the Province of North Holland, where the research will be conducted. The University of Amsterdam, RCE and the Rijksmuseum will be closely involved in this research. The Province of North Holland, which acquired ownership of the find, is in charge of the investigation. Eventually, the find will be exhibited in museum Kaap Skil on Texel.

Source: Adapted and edited from press releases of the University of Amsterdam.

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Travel and learn with Far Horizons.

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 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 SHEFFIELD—The origin of Yiddish, the millennium old language of Ashkenazic Jews, is something which linguists have questioned for decades.

Now, a pioneering tool – the Geographic Population Structure (GPS) – which converts DNA data into its ancestral coordinates, has helped scientists pinpoint that the DNA of Yiddish speakers could have originated from four ancient villages in north-eastern Turkey.

The research, led by Dr Eran Elhaik from the University of Sheffield, suggests the Yiddish language was invented by Iranian and Ashkenazic Jews as they traded on the Silk Road.

The ancient villages, identified by the GPS tool, are clustered close to the crossroads of the Silk Roads and are named Iskenaz, Eskenaz, Ashanaz, and Ashkuz – names which may derive from the word “Ashkenaz.”

“Language, geography and genetics are all connected,” said Dr Eran Elhaik from the University’s Department of Animal and Plant Sciences.

“Using the GPS tool to analyse the DNA of sole Yiddish and non-Yiddish speakers, we were able to predict the possible ancestral location where Yiddish originated over 1,000 years ago – a question which linguists have debated over for many years.”

He added: “North east Turkey is the only place in the world where these place names exist – which strongly implies that Yiddish was established around the first millennium at a time when Jewish traders who were plying the Silk Road moved goods from Asia to Europe wanted to keep their monopoly on trade.

“They did this by inventing Yiddish – a secret language that very few can speak or understand other than Jews. Our findings are in agreement with an alternative theory that suggests Yiddish has Iranian, Turkish, and Slavic origins and explains why Yiddish contains 251 words for the terms ‘buy’ and ‘sell’. This is what we can expect from a language of experienced merchants.”

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 Ancient silk road routes. Wikimedia Commons

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Yiddish, which incorporates German, Slavic and Hebrew, and is written in Aramaic letters, is commonly thought to be an old German dialect.

However, an alternative theory proposed by Professor Paul Wexler from the University of Tel Aviv and also an author on the study, suggests that Yiddish is a Slavic language that used to have both Slavic grammar and words but in time shed its Slavic lexicon and replaced it with common and unfamiliar German words.

The findings of the study, published today (Wednesday 20 April 2016) in Genome Biology and Evolution, led researchers to believe that towards the end of the first millennium, Ashkenazic Jews may have relocated to Khazaria before moving into Europe half a millennium later after the fall of the Khazarian Empire, and during a time when the international trading networks collapsed.

As Yiddish became the primary language of Ashkenazic Jews, the language began to acquire new words from other cultures while retaining its Slavic grammar.

Dr Elhaik said: “Yiddish is such a wonderful and complex language, which was inappropriately called “bad German” by both its native and non-native speakers because the language consists of made-up German words and a non-German grammar.

“Yiddish is truly a combination of familiar and adapted German words using Slavic grammar. In a sense the language uses the same premise as Yoda from the Star Wars movies. For example, Yoda’s language consists of common and made-up English words like ‘Wookie’ or ‘Jedi’ but the grammar is different – the words are used in a different order to what we are familiar with.”

He added: “Utilizing the GPS ancestry technology and applying it to the DNA of sole Yiddish speakers and non-Yiddish speakers allowed us to find the ancestral origins of their DNA. The GPS tool indicates where ancient Ashkenaz could have existed over 1,500 years ago.”

Professor Paul Wexler, from the University of Tel Aviv, said: “The linguistic data used are from Yiddish, which we assume was invented in Western Asia as a Slavic language with a largely German-like lexicon and a significant Iranian component on all levels of the language.

“The genetic data presented here appear to corroborate the linguistic hypothesis.”

Source: University of Sheffield news release.

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For the full study report, go to  http://gbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/03/03/gbe.evw046.full.pdf+html

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Travel with Popular Archaeology and personally see some of the most exciting archaeological discoveries underpinning the historical basis for the places and events of the biblical accounts!

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Read more in-depth articles about archaeology with a premium subscription to Popular Archaeology Magazine. 

 ______________________________________________

Travel and learn with Far Horizons.

____________________________________________

 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.

AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY—New research suggests that humans became the large-brained, large-bodied animals we are today because of natural selection to increase brain size. The work, published in the journal Current Anthropology, contradicts previous models that treat brain size and body size as independent traits responding to separate evolutionary pressures. Instead, the study shows that brain size and body size are genetically linked and that selection to increase brain size will “pull along” body size. This phenomenon played a large role in both brain- and body-size increases throughout human evolution and may have been solely responsible for the large increase in both traits that occurred near the origins of our genus, Homo.

“Over the last four million years, brain size and body size increased substantially in our human ancestors,” said paper author Mark Grabowski, a James Arthur postdoctoral fellow in the Division of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History. “This observation has led to numerous hypotheses attempting to explain why observed changes occurred, but these typically make the assumption that brain- and body-size evolution are the products of separate natural selection forces.”

That assumption is now being questioned, based on a large body of work that has shown that genetic variation—the fuel of evolution—in some traits is due to genes that also cause variation in other traits, with the result that selection on either trait leads to a correlated response in the unselected trait. Consider the leg bone, or femur, of an elephant. As the bone gets longer, it also gets wider. If artificial selection is used to produce a tall elephant, its legs likely won’t just become long, they’ll also get wider. Part of this effect is due to shared genetic variation, or covariation, among traits in the femur. Grabowski set out to explore this kind of genetic relationship between human brain size and body size, and its impact on our evolution.

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 New research shows that a strong selection to increase brain size alone played a large role in both brain- and body-size increases throughout human evolution. This phenomenon also may have been solely responsible for the major increase in both traits that occurred during the transition from human ancestors like Australopithecus, a model of which is seen here in the American Museum of Natural History’s Hall of Human Origins, to Homo erectus. Credit: AMNH/R. Mickens

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With brain- and body-size covariation patterns from a range of primates and modern humans, Grabowski created a number of models to examine how underlying genetic relationships and selection pressures likely interacted across the evolution of our lineage. His findings demonstrate, for the first time, that strong selection to increase brain size alone played a large role in both brain- and body-size increases throughout human evolution. This phenomenon also may have been solely responsible for the major increase in both traits that occurred during the transition from human ancestors like Australopithecus (the most famous of which is the Lucy fossil) to Homo erectus.

In other words, while there are many scientific ideas explaining why it would be beneficial for humans to evolve bigger bodies over time, the new work suggests that those hypotheses may be unnecessary; instead, body size just gets pulled along as the brain expands.

“While selection no doubt played a role in refining the physical changes that came with larger body sizes, my findings suggest it was not the driving force behind body-size evolution in our lineage,” Grabowski said. “Therefore, evolutionary models for the origins of Homo based on an adaptive increase in body size need to be reconsidered.”

Source: American Museum of Natural History subject news release.

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*The Current Anthropology paper: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/685655

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LOMONOSOV MOSCOW STATE UNIVERSITY—Archaeologists from the Lomonosov Moscow State University studied artifacts made of bone, antler and ivory excavated at the Sungir archaeological site. Through the study, they determined how Homo sapiens occupying the site processed solid organic materials and produced tools and ornaments. The study was published in a specialized digest produced by the Hugo Obermaier Society for Quaternary Research and Archaeology of the Stone Age.

The work has established that Sungir was a base camp for Paleolithic hunter-gatherers. One of the study authors, Taisiya Soldatova (Ph.D., Faculty of Foreign Languages and Regional Studies, MSU), also reports that further study of the objects may help to determine the place of the site in relation to the Upper Paleolithic of Europe.

The open-air Upper Paleolithic site is located near Vladimir city, 200 kilometers east of Moscow. It was discovered in 1955 during preparation work for construction of a plant, and investigated by an expedition under the leadership of the famous Soviet archaeologist Otto N. Bader. There he and his team uncovered a complex funerary complex, consisting of two graves, each containing two burials. The burials were accompanied by a rich inventory of objects, including a profusion of products made of ivory, such as beads, bracelets, and spears.

Radiocarbon analysis of fossils and other biological materials found at the site suggested a date range between 28,800 ± 240 and 25,500 ± 200 BP, but other data suggests the site is about 30 thousand years old.

During the collaborative work, Taisiya Soldatova conducted a study of 171 specimens of bone, antler and ivory (including working and hunting tools, blanks for various purposes and waste materials), while Vladislav Zhitenev (Ph.D., Associate Professor of Historical Archaeology, on the faculty of Moscow State University) focused his attention on the ornaments: pendants made of arctic fox teeth and beads of ivory.

“The main objective of the study is to examine the products made of solid organic materials (bone, antler and ivory) from the Sungir Upper Paleolithic site. Together with stone tools, working bone is an important indicator of cultural attribution, and can also play a significant role in addressing some of the relative chronology issues”, says Taisiya Soldatova.

Technological analysis of the Upper Paleolithic sites of the Vladimir region have shown that the Sungirian occupants had mastered a wide range of techniques for processing bone material—longitudinal and transverse fracture, transverse breaks with preparatory sawing, cutting, sawing, planing/scraping. All of these techniques have been used to create collections of bones, antler and ivory, so it is possible to determine a uniform treatment of solid organic materials by the Sungirian occupants.

On the other hand, the study showed that there are some differences between bone- and antler-working and the ivory industry: ivory tools and ornaments are better formed than bone and antler. Moreover, no ivory tools were used in household activity: only hunting weapons, art objects and ornaments. The collection, however, also contains three items of ivory that can be interpreted as tools: a “retoucher” and two “shaft straighteners”, though it should be emphasized that these instruments of ivory were found in burials and may thus have a symbolic meaning.

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 Bone industry of the Sungir site: 1-5. Credit: Taisiya Soldatova

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 The instruments of hunting: 1, 3 – points; 2, 4 -blanks forpoint. Credit:Taisiya Soldatova

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The peculiarities of ivory processing found at the site have allowed the researchers to draw some parallels between Sungir and early Aurignacian sites (European Upper Paleolithic culture), from the raw material that served as ornaments and small figurines, and, in rare cases – a point with a massive base. Thus, it can be assumed that the bone industry of Sungir was culturally influenced by the early Aurignacian, resulting in similar categories of tools, as well as the nature of the ivory material use. Also found at Sungir was a high percentage of objects from antler (16%), similar to sites of the Upper Paleolithic found in Central and Western Europe.

Among the investigated items are finds of varying completion – from blanks to finished products. Therefore, the researchers suggest that the treatment of bone material happened at the site. In addition, the functional variety of the findings indicates that Sungir, covering an area of over 4,000 km2, showed a  diversity of economic activity: The manufacturing of clothing from animal skins was confirmed by awls and pins; and hoe-like tools for excavation. Archaeologists also found chisels and points – meaning that the Sungir people paid attention to productive activities as well as hunting – particularly deer, mammoths, wolves and wild horses. In other words, Sungir was probably a prehstoric base camp, as opposed to the site discovered near Rusanikha, 8 km away from the study area. The head of the Rusanikha excavations – L.A. Mikhailova – suggests that the site was an encampement of mammoth hunters because of the predominance of stone hunting tools and animal bones.

“Comparing bones, antler and ivory objects from Sungir with European collections of the Early Upper Paleolithic sites can help identify the cause of differences in methods of treating various bone material, and finding the similarities may help define common features in the nature of bone industries of this age and determine the place of the researched site in the Upper Paleolithic of Europe”, Soldatova explains.

Source: Edited and adapted from a  Lomonosov Moscow State University subject news release.

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UNIVERSITY OF UTAH—Fire, a tool broadly used for cooking, constructing, hunting and even communicating, was arguably one of the earliest discoveries in human history. But when, how and why it came to be used is hotly debated among scientists.

A new scenario crafted by University of Utah anthropologists proposes that human ancestors became dependent on fire as a result of Africa’s increasingly fire-prone environment 2-3 million years ago.

As the environment became drier and natural fires occurred more frequently, ancestral humans took advantage of these fires to more efficiently search for and handle food. With increased resources and energy, these ancestors were able to travel farther distances and expand to other continents.

The study was funded by the National Science Foundation and the findings were published April 10, 2016 in Evolutionary Anthropology.

Serendipitous science

Current prevailing hypotheses of how human ancestors became fire-dependent depict fire as an accident — a byproduct of another event rather than a standalone occurrence. One hypothesis, for example, explains fire as a result of rock pounding that created a spark and spread to a nearby bush.

“The problem we’re trying to confront is that other hypotheses are unsatisfying. Fire use is so crucial to our biology, it seems unlikely that it wasn’t taken advantage of by our ancestors,” said Kristen Hawkes, distinguished professor of anthropology at the U and the paper’s senior author.

“Everything is modified by fire; just take a look around at the books and furniture in this room. We’re surrounded by fire’s byproducts,” added Christopher Parker, anthropology postdoctoral research associate at the U and the paper’s first author.

The team’s proposed scenario is the first known hypothesis in which fire does not originate serendipitously. Instead, the team suggests that the genus Homo, which includes modern humans and their close relatives, adapted to progressively fire-prone environments caused by increased aridity and flammable landscapes by exploiting fire’s food foraging benefits.

Parker and Hawkes conducted the research with University of Utah anthropology doctoral candidate Earl Keefe, postdoctoral research associate Nicole Herzog and distinguished professor James F O’Connell.

Shedding light on the past

“All humans are fire-dependent. The data show that other animals and even some of our primate cousins use it as an opportunity to eat better; they are essentially taking advantage of landscape fires to forage more efficiently,” said Hawkes.

By reconstructing tropical Africa’s climate and vegetation about 2-3 million years ago, the research team pieced together multiple lines of evidence to craft their proposed scenario for how early human ancestors first used fire to their advantage.

To clarify the dating and scope of increasingly fire-prone landscapes, the research team took advantage of recent work on carbon isotopes in paleosols, or ancient dirt. Because woody plants and more fire-prone tropical grasses use different photosynthetic pathways that result in distinct variants of carbon, the carbon isotopic composition of paleosols can directly indicate the percentage of woody plants versus tropical grasses.

Recent carbon analyses of paleosols from the Awash Valley in Ethiopia and Omo-Turkana basin in northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia show a consistent pattern of woody plants being replaced by more tropical, fire-prone grasses approximately 3.6-1.4 million years ago. This is explained by reductions in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and increased aridity. Drier conditions and the expansion of fire-prone grasslands are also evidenced in fossil wood evidence in Omo Shungura G Formation, Ethiopia.

As the ecosystem became increasingly arid and a pattern of rapid, recurring fluctuation between woodlands and open grasslands emerged, many ancestral humans adapted to eating grassland plants and food cooked by fires. In essence, they took advantage of the foraging benefits that fire provided.

Turn up the heat: more fire for more food

More specifically, fire-altered landscapes provided foraging benefits by improving both the processes of searching for and handling food. The research team identified these benefits by using the prey/optimal diet model of foraging, which simplifies foraging into two mutually exclusive components — searching and handling — and ranks resources by the expected net profit of energy per unit of time spent handling. This model identifies changes in the suite of resources that give the highest overall rate of gain as search and handling costs change.

By burning off cover and exposing previously obscured holes and animal tracks, fire reduces search time; it also clears the land for faster growing, fire-adapted foliage. Foods altered by burning take less effort to chew and nutrients in seeds and tubers can be more readily digested. Those changes reduce handling efforts and increase the value of those foods.

“Most people think that the logical reaction would be to run away from fire, but fire provided our ancestors with a feeding opportunity. Evidence shows that other animals take advantage of fire for foraging, so it seems very likely that our ancestors did as well,” said Hawkes.

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 This image shows anthropogenic burning in Hadza country, Africa. Credit: James F. O’Connell

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Without a trace

Landscapes burned by fire, then, had numerous foraging payoffs for genus Homo.

The proposed scenario not only explains how hominins came to manipulate fire for its foraging advantages, but also provides a solution to the baffling mismatch between the fossil and archaeological records. Anatomical changes associated with dependence on cooked food such as reduced tooth size and structures related to chewing appear long before there is clear archaeological evidence of cooking hearths.

Parker and Hawkes’ scenario resolves the mismatch by suggesting that the earliest forms of fire use by the genus Homo would not have left traces in the form of traditional fire hearths.

Instead of cooking over a prepared hearth that would be visible archaeologically, hominins were taking advantage of burns, had an increased energy budget and could travel longer distances. Early fire use, therefore, would have been indistinguishable from naturally occurring fires.

“When our genus appears, almost immediately, those populations got out of Africa. If you look at the other great apes, they’re tied to habitats where juveniles can feed themselves. We were able to expand out of Africa into Europe and Asia because our fire use not only earned higher return rates, but also permitted older women in these communities to help feed juveniles, thereby freeing our ancestors to move into habitats where youngsters couldn’t feed themselves,” said Hawkes.

“This scenario tells a story about our ancestors’ foraging strategies and how those strategies allowed our ancestors to colonize new habitats. It gives us more insight into why we came to be the way we are; fire changed our ancestors’ social organization and life history.”

Looking forward, the research team will take on an ethnographic project with the Hadza people, an indigenous ethnic group in Tanzania that are among the last hunter-gatherers in the world, to learn how they forage in burns. The team will also continue to study more examples of how nonhuman primates forage in burns to confirm the anecdotal evidence that they take advantage of landscape fires, as well as further study fire ecology in tropical Africa and how that allowed ancestors to move to other continents.

Source: University of Utah

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 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.