Archives

Carved on stone stelae, lintels and painted on ceramics of the Maya Classic period (250-950 AD)*, one sees spouses of lords and other women who were ranking officials in social, political, and spiritual contexts. The history of the Red Queen of Lakamha’ is inseparable from the life of her adopted society in a challenging seventh-century environment riven by conflicts. Lakamha’ in Maya-Ch’ol means “big waters” for the fifty-six streams and small rivers flowing down the slopes of the Chiapas mountain range over natural stair-steps and pools. The city is today known by its Spanish name Palenque, in the Mexican state of Chiapas.

________________________

Central Palenque 650-750AD/CE.  @ artstation.com

________________________

Ph.02 – Temple of the Inscriptions-L  &  Temple.XIII-R.  @georgefery.com

________________________

Contributions by women are historically understated in the archaeological record, but have been addressed over recent years, bringing a sharper focus on Maya ancient societies. In the seventh century, the time of our story, hostility led to frequent armed conflicts that were major disruptors in people’s daily lives. Beside securing and raising children, among other important duties, the woman of the family often had to attend to elderly parents or help neighbors in needs. Her husband was either away at the crack of dawn, working in the corn fields (milpas), he may have been ordered to join the army or, between planting and harvesting seasons, summoned by the city leaders to work on major construction projects.

The historical record for the Red Queen’s early life is scarce. However, we know that the society in which she lived was not dissimilar to that of other communities in the region at the time. A brief review of Palenque’s tumultuous history and that of its leading figures will help to set the context leading to her position of great power….

********

In the mid-seventh century, Palenque leaders and those from other communities in the region had to contend with fast drivers of change, among which was a growing population that brought challenges to producing more maize and other edible products. The ensuing need to expand farming areas brought people closer together and forced them to compete for arable land and water. Recurrent severe climate events such as El Niño and La Niña were also major factors in farmers’ migrations, worsening clashes and conflicts. Important socio-economic and political disruptions, among other factors, led heads of large cities and small chiefdoms to search for allies to face up to encroaching powerful rivals. The trade of salt, cocoa beans, cotton, and jade, among other products was carried overland through natural choke points such as rivers and mountain passes guarded by local lords who charged arbitrary taxes. Additionally, the aggressiveness of the powerful Kaan or “kingdom of the snake” of Calakmul to control these choke points and attendant political dominance, was unrelenting. Calakmul was then one of the largest and most powerful kingdoms, located in the greater Petén Basin region, in today’s Mexican state of Campeche.

Young Tz’ak-b’u, the future Red Queen, was playing with her friends when lords and ladies from the great city of Lakamha’ arrived in 599 at Ux te Kuh’, the town of her birth, located mid-way between today’s Palenque and Tortuguero. She could not have imagined then that one of the slender young boys in the refugee party, Janaab’ Pakal, would be her consort for most of her life. How could she?

______________________________

Read the rest of this premium article story at https://popular-archaeology.com/article/the-red-queen-of-palenque/

Image courtesy author Georges Fery

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA – SAN DIEGO—Around 6,200 BCE, the climate changed. Global temperatures dropped, sea levels rose and the southern Levant, including modern-day Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan, Lebanon, southern Syria and the Sinai desert, entered a period of drought. 

Previously, archaeologists believed that this abrupt shift in global climate, called the 8.2 ka event, may have led to the widespread abandonment of coastal settlements in the southern Levant. In a recent study* published with the journal Antiquity, researchers at UC San Diego, the University of Haifa and Bar-Ilan University share new evidence suggesting at least one village formerly thought abandoned not only remained occupied, but thrived throughout this period. 

“This [study] helped fill a gap in our understanding of the early settlement of the Eastern Mediterranean coastline,” said Thomas Levy, a co-author on the paper, co-director of the Center for Cyber-Archaeology and Sustainability (CCAS) at the UC San Diego Qualcomm Institute (QI), inaugural holder of the Norma Kershaw Chair in the Archaeology of Ancient Israel and Neighboring Lands in the Department of Anthropology, and a distinguished professor in the university’s Graduate Division. “It deals with human resilience.” 

Signs of Life

The village of Habonim North was discovered off Israel’s Carmel Coast in the mid-2010s and later surveyed by a team led by the University of Haifa’s Ehud Arkin Shalev. 

Prior to its excavation and analysis, there was scant evidence for human habitation along the southern Levantine coast during the 8.2 ka event. The dig, which took place during the COVID-19 lockdown and involved a weeks-long, 24/7 coordinated effort between partners at UC San Diego and the University of Haifa, was the first formal excavation of the submerged site. 

Led by Assaf Yasur-Landau, head of the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies at the University of Haifa, and Roey Nickelsberg, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Haifa, the international team excavated the site using a combination of sediment dredging and sampling, as well as photogrammetry and 3D modeling. Team members uncovered pottery shards or “sherds”; stone tools, including ceremonial weapons and fishing-net weights; animal and plant remains; and architecture. 

Using radiocarbon dating, the researchers tested the recovered bones of wild and domesticated animals; the charred seeds of wild plants; crops like wheat and lentils; and weeds that tend to accompany these crops. Their results traced these organic materials back to the Early Pottery Neolithic (EPN), which coincided with both the invention of pottery and the 8.2 ka event.

Habonim North’s pottery sherds, stone tools and architecture likewise dated activity at the site to the EPN and, surprisingly, to the Late Pottery Neolithic, when the village was thought to have been abandoned.

As for how the village likely weathered the worst of the climate instability, the researchers point to signs of an economy that diversified from farming to include maritime culture and trade within a distinct cultural identity. Evidence includes fishing-net weights; tools made of basalt, a stone that does not naturally occur along this part of the eastern Mediterranean coast; and a ceremonial mace head.

“[Our study] showed that the Early Pottery Neolithic society [at Habonim North] displayed multi-layered resilience that enabled it to withstand the 8.2 ka crisis,” said Assaf Yasur-Landau, senior author on the paper. “I was happily surprised by the richness of the finds, from pottery to organic remains.” 

Through 3D “digital twin” technology and the Haifa – UC San Diego QI collaboration, the researchers studying Habonim North have been able to recreate their excavation, virtually, and 3D-print artifacts, opening the path to further study. The team previously received an Innovations in Networking Award for Research Applications from the non-profit organization CENIC for “exemplary” work leveraging high-bandwidth networking during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Shifting the Focus to Resilience

Although scientists debate the cause of the 8.2 ka event, some speculate that it began with the final collapse of the Laurentide ice sheet, which shaped much of the North American landscape in its retreat from modern-day Canada and the Northern United States. 

As it melted, the ice sheet would have changed the flow of ocean currents, affecting heat transport and leading to the observed drop in global temperatures. 

For the authors behind the study, the discovery of lasting and evolving social activity at Habonim North through this period of climate instability indicates a level of resilience in early Neolithic societies. Many of the activities uncovered at the village, including the creation of culturally distinct pottery and trade, formed the basis for later urban societies. 

“To me, what’s important is to change how we look at things,” said Nickelsberg. “Many archaeologists like to look at the collapse of civilizations. Maybe it’s time to start looking at the development of human culture, rather than its destruction and abandonment.”

Article Source: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA – SAN DIEGO news release

MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR EVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY—Conducted by an international team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig, Germany), Géoscience et Environnement Toulouse (Toulouse, France), and the Institut National des Sciences de l’Archéologie et du Patrimoine (Rabat, Morocco), a study* examines the diet of individuals associated with the Iberomaurusian culture discovered in the cave of Taforalt, Morocco. Using a comprehensive multi-isotopic approach, including zinc and strontium isotope analysis in dental enamel, carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur analysis in collagen, as well as amino acid analysis of human and faunal remains, the researchers uncovered surprising insights into ancient dietary practices.

The study’s major conclusions clearly show that the diet of these hunter-gatherers included a significant proportion of plants belonging to Mediterranean species, predating the advent of agriculture in the region by several millennia. Archaeobotanical remains found at the site, such as acorns, pine nuts, and wild pulses, further support this notion. Moreover, the study suggests that plant foods were also introduced into infant diets and may have served as weaning products for this human population. This finding has significant implications, as it suggests the potential for earlier weaning practices in pre-agricultural communities compared to previously thought norms for hunter-gatherer societies.

Complex dietary practices of pre-agricultural societies

This challenges the prevailing notion of a diet heavily based on animal protein among pre-agricultural human groups and raises questions about the lack of agricultural development in North Africa at the beginning of the Holocene. Zineb Moubtahij, first author of the study, explains: “Our findings not only provide insights into the dietary practices of pre-agricultural human groups but also highlight the complexity of human subsistence strategies in different regions. Understanding these patterns is crucial to unraveling the broader story of human evolution.”   

Furthermore, this study is the first to use zinc isotopes preserved in enamel to determine the diet of ancient populations in Africa. North Africa is a key region for the study of human evolution and modern human dispersal. Having a tool that allows us to further explore human diet deep in time in this region will provide valuable insights into human dietary patterns and adaptability in different environments.

Moving forward, the research team hopes to explore additional Paleolithic sites in North Africa and use innovative techniques to gain a deeper understanding of ancient dietary practices and their implications for human evolution.

________________________________

Human tooth from the Taforalt Cave in Morocco, showing severe wear and caries. © Heiko Temming

________________________________

Article Source: MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR EVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY news release.

*Isotopic evidence of high reliance on plant food among Later Stone Age hunter-gatherers at Taforalt, Morocco, Nature Ecology & Evolution, 29-Apr-2024. 10.1038/s41559-024-02382-z 

________________________________

Advertisement

Our species devotes a singular amount of time to an utterly unserious aspect of life: play. This begs the question: what is the adaptive value of horsing around? What possible evolutionary benefit could an activity that sees no specific return possibly have that we devote so much time to it?

Play holds a particularly special position in the study of both human and non-human behavior; it is accepted as a near-universal part of many animals’ lives, but a definition for ‘play’ that covers species from birds to bats is elusive. What holds together the mock-fighting of puppies and the rhyming chants of our own children, however, is a definition of play that says it is not for any specific purpose; it’s a set of actions that don’t quite achieve anything that an animal repeats during certain phases of their life when they are relaxed and not under threat. Three separate types of play are usually distinguished: play with objects, with locomotor skills, and with friends. The critical thing that separates these types of activities from others, whether undertaken by a cow or a crow, is that they are fun.

It does not, in a strictly Darwinian sense, make any sense for animals to play unless play itself has some adaptive value. Time spent in play is not spent acquiring food or sleeping, for instance, and bouncing around unnecessarily in play burns calories that could be used for growth or survival. And yet, a huge number of animal species have been observed ‘playing’: monitor lizards like the giant Komodo dragon will chew and fetch objects like a dog, fish will chase balls, and octopuses will explore Lego. Play is most at home, however, in mammals, and nowhere is it more obvious than in our own species.

There has been a great deal of argument in evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology about what that adaptive value might be. Hypotheses include play in animals as physical training, allowing immature individuals to ‘practice’ pounces or perches that they will need as adults. The theory dating back to Victorian times that play is in fact a serious business that serves to train adult minds is still quite prominent, as can be seen by the vast array of ‘educational’ toys available. What these approaches have in common is that they see play as purposeful, as a kind of training mechanism. In this framing, juvenile play serves to make a fully competent adult, of whatever species.

It is clear that play does help train some animals to survive and thrive. A study of bear cubs found the cubs that played more had better survival rates; cheetah cubs that spent more time pretending to stalk their family also did more stalking of prey. There is a vast body of research on the way that play prepares human children for their lives as adults, and in fact our species spends a proportionately longer amount of time on the most playful period of our lives, childhood, than any other. So, while we know that humans engage in locomotor, object, and social play, what we need to understand is why it is adaptive for our species to spend so much time doing it.

One of the ways to do this is to look at how play works in closely related animals. Play does not behave like some sort of directly inherited Mendelian trait; play is deployed very differently even among relatively closely related species. Compare two of the great apes that, to the untrained eye, seem very similar: bonobos and chimpanzees. Both are great ape species of similar size and morphology, but they last shared an ancestor 1 to 2 million years ago and today are separated by the Congo River. Their social systems are very different, with male-dominated hierarchies in the chimpanzees and more fluid and female-led social groups in bonobos. They also occupy different environmental niches, with more reliance on seasonal fruit by bonobos and more access to year-round foods, including plants and insects, by chimpanzees. These may relate to differences in the skills they need to eat: chimpanzees make and use tools such as termite ‘fishing rods’ while bonobos have never been seen to do so.

One difference is in the amount and time the species spend in play. Bonobos are inveterate players throughout their lifetimes, whereas chimpanzees tend to limit play to infancy and childhood. The type of play chimpanzees and bonobos enjoy is also different. Young chimpanzees, who will grow up to become tool users, do more ‘object’ based play than young bonobos. Young bonobos however, who rely more on cooperation to organize their adult societies, will spend more time in ‘social’ play. Play also results in different outcomes for the two species: juvenile chimp play fights often escalate into real fights, while this almost never happens in bonobos.

Perhaps one of the most critical differences in the way these two species play is that in bonobos, play carries on throughout the animals’ lives. Chimpanzees, as they get older, have less and less tolerance for these kinds of interactions, while bonobos retain a kind of childlike tolerance for some kinds of play throughout their lives. That not all species give up on play as adults suggests that there is more to play than just training—adults, after all, are supposed to be fully trained. This is something that we can recognize in our own species: human adults are also champions at playing; whether it is sports, video games, dramas, or any other sort of activity that meets the not-quite-functional-but-fun definition of play.

Adult play tends to be social and to happen in species where social relationships are complicated and require a lot of finesse to manage. Playful interactions, particularly play fighting, help less-dominant adults test the boundaries of their relationships with more dominant ones, reinforce social bonds, and generally maintain the social organization of the group. This kind of adult play encourages cooperation and tolerance, and may even support collective decision-making.

We can look at the evolutionary commitment to play that our species has made in two parts, then. Our long childhoods give us a great deal of opportunity to ‘train’ through play—to gain competence in locomotor, object manipulation, and social skills. We are certainly not the only species to do this, nor are we very unique among our closest relatives: we like to play with tools, just like chimpanzees, because we are also a tool-using species, and we engage in all sorts of social play like bonobos. For us humans, our long childhoods give us a chance to play longer—but perhaps what most stands out is our ability to carry on this childlike willingness to take things a bit less seriously into adulthood. Our dedication to play throughout our lives, then, may be precisely the mechanism that allowed us to evolve to survive with less rigid social hierarchies and more cooperative social groups.

This article was produced by Human Bridges.

Cover Image, Top Left: Chimps in the wild. Pixabay image

_______________________________

Few cities and regions of the world can match the significance and draw of Jerusalem with the public and scholars alike. In this ancient city, some of the world’s most defining historical events and figures have played out their stories, influencing generations through the ensuing centuries, especially concerning religious beliefs and practices. It therefore goes without saying that historical and archaeological research and publication related to the salient events and figures of historical Jerusalem and its regional context have taken on intense popular interest, as well as some intense scholarly and ecclesiastical debate. The cultural, emotional and ‘spiritual’ roots run deep.

Dr. James Tabor, one of the world’s foremost academic authorities on the Late Second Temple period (aka the Herodian period) Judaism and early Christianity, has offered a new video series he entitles “Jesus Archaeology”. Free to the public, the series focuses on how ancient texts, historical and archaeological sites, and ancient artifacts shed light on the rise of Christianity and the context in which it occurred. It also explores the period extending from at least 100 years before the time of Jesus through the century in which his crucifixion occurred. Of particular note here is video no. 1, entitled Ten Jerusalem Tombs from the Time of Jesus (See complete video below). Here, Tabor reviews and summarizes, with photographic images and illustrations, ten extraordinary burial cave tomb discoveries in the Old City area that relate to the context and events around the time of the Late Second Temple, the time period where Jesus enters the flow of time as it is now documented in historical and biblical records.

The Ossuary of Caiaphas

As is known to many who have a knowledge of the events as accounted in the Canonical gospels of the New Testament, Joseph, son of Caiaphas, presided as High Priest over the trial of Jesus before his crucifixion. A number of scholars suggest that an ornate ossuary (stone box that carries bones of the deceased), discovered with 11 other ossuaries in a tomb accidentally revealed through construction work south of Jerusalem in 1990, contained the skeletal remains of Joseph. Although the identification of the find has been subject to scholarly dispute, the discovery is one of the most important material objects relating to the times in which Jesus lived. Decorated with very ornate etchings — a practice usually reserved for a high status individual — the ossuary contained collectively the remains of two infants, two teenage boys, an adult woman and a man around 60 years old. Scholars suggest that the remains of the 60-year-old man was probably Joseph, son of Caiaphas, as the ossuary exterior was inscribed “Yehosef bar Qayafa” on the long side and “Yehosef bar Qafa” on the narrow side. 

The tomb and the ossuary of Caiaphas that it contained is one example among 9 other tomb discoveries Tabor discusses in the first installment of his video series. Each discovery excites the imagination in equal measure, providing a fascinating window on the lives and times of First Century Jerusalem, a critical and tumultuous period in religious history.

___________________________

The Ossuary of Caiaphas, the High Priest. Note the name inscription on one side. BRBurton, CCO 1.0 Universal, Wikimedia Commons

______________________________

Detail view of the Caiaphas ossuary inscription. BRBurton, CCO 1.0 Universal, Wikimedia Commons

___________________________

Following is a summary of the tomb discoveries Tabor discusses:

1. The Ossuary of Yehonatan ben Yeshua (Jonathan son of Yeshua) — This is an ornately inscribed but unprovenanced bone box that came into the possession of Tabor and which awaits publication and return to the collection under management of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
2. The Ossuary of Caiaphas (summarized above).
3. The Tomb of Bethphage on the Mount of Olives — A tomb with a circular rolling blocking stone at its entrance. The tomb features early Christian ‘graffiti’ on an internal wall surface. It is suggested by Tabor as a likely candidate for the first (temporary) tomb in which Jesus was laid directly after his crucifixion (not to be confused with the second, more permanent tomb belonging to Joseph of Arimathea as mentioned in the Gospel account).
4. The Tomb of the Shroud in Hinnom Valley — Located just south of Jerusalem, this tomb was looted when first encountered by Tabor and archaeologist colleague Shimon Gibson. Here, skeletal remains and an intact burial shroud was found within the tomb, a very rare discovery. Also a first, the skeletal remains revealed the deceased suffered from advanced leprosy. The shroud was carbon dated to the 1st century AD.
5. The Talpiot “Jesus Family” Tomb — First discovered during clearing of the area of Talpiot south of Jerusalem for construction of condominiums in 1980, this tomb contained 10 ossuaries. Six of the ossuaries were inscribed with names identifiable with names known to be associated with Jesus and his family, including the name of Jesus himself.
6. The Talpiot “Resurrection Tomb” — Discovered just steps away from the “Jesus Family Tomb” and now situated beneath a condominium, this tomb was initially investigated but subsequently re-explored 25 years after its discovery by a team using a robotic arm and camera device. The tomb contained ossuaries with inscribed images and inscriptions relating (by interpretation) to the raising of the dead, or resurrection.
7. The James Ossuary — This famous ossuary, and the story behind it, featured the inscription, “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus”.  It was brought to light in 2002 from an antiquities dealer and from the beginning became the center of a debate firestorm. Recent geochemical studies have shown that the ossuary likely originally came from the “Jesus Family Tomb” described above.
8. The Ossuary of Simon and son Alexandros — One of a number of ossuaries discovered through excavation in 1941 of a tomb by archaeologists in the Kidron Valley near Jerusalem. It featured inscriptions of the names of Simon the Cyrenian (suggested to be the Simon of Cyrenia of the New Testament biblical account), and his son Alexandros.
9. The Abba Tomb — This tomb was found just north of Jerusalem in 1970. It is where Abba, son of Eliza the Priest, and Mattathia son of Judah were buried. Tabor suggests that this Mattathia (Matthew) was in fact the last Maccabean (Hasmonean) king, Antigonus (aka Mattathia or Mathew). The ossuary associated with Antigonus contained nails used for crucifixion, along with skeletal remains.
10. The Tomb of Yehochanan — This tomb was found north of Jerusalem not far from the Abba tomb in 1968. It contained the remains of a man who, based on the evidence found in the tomb, was crucified. The evidence uncovered provided new insights on how individuals were crucified during the Late Second Temple period in Jerusalem.
11. Cave 2001 at Masada — In the 1960’s archaeologists found 25 skeletons of men, women and children who were once living in a cave at the southern tip of the summit of Masada near the Dead Sea during the time of the famous siege of Masada. Suggested to have been among the defenders of Masada during the siege, Tabor theorizes that they were the remains of what was left of the Hasmonean priestly royal family based on DNA analysis.

Tabor hopes to realize future DNA analysis of embedded residues within ossuaries such as those described here to develop family profiles for further study.

________________________________

The James ossuary. Paradiso, Wikimedia Commons

________________________________

Inscription detail, James ossuary. Paradiso, Wikimedia Commons

________________________________

Aerial view of Masada. Samirsmier, Pixabay

________________________________

Cover Photo, Top Left: The Ossuary of Caiaphas, the High Priest. BRBurton, CCO 1.0 Universal, Wikimedia Commons

For more details about the “Jesus Family Tomb” and the “Resurrection Tomb”, see the article, In Search of the Historical Jesus, previously published in Popular Archaeology Magazine.

________________________________

Advertisement

Recently, scholars have focused on changes and transitions among ancient civilizations and population centers of western Anatolia and the eastern Aegean with increasing interest, particularly during the transitional periods from the Late Bronze Age to the Classical period. Place names such as Wilusa (Troy), Millawanda (Miletus), Hattusa (of the Hittites), Apasa (Ephesus), Sardis, and population groups like the Luwians, Lydians, Lycians, Carians, and the Mycenaeans, all played prominent roles in events and activities of Bronze Age and Iron Age western and coastal Anatolia, and its interface with the rest of the Aegean world during those time periods. 

Archaeologist and scholar Dr Jana Mokrisova, research associate at the University of  Cambridge, working with the Migration and the Making of the Ancient Greek World project under the direction of Prof. Naoíse Mac Sweeney (University of Vienna), is helping to shed light on various aspects of ancient mobility in the eastern Mediterranean and more specifically, western Anatolia and the eastern Aegean, from the Late Bronze Age to the Classical period.

In a recently published podcast, Mokrisova addresses important questions about this comparatively less known subject and its significance in understanding the ancient history and development of this part of the eastern Mediterranean world.  

Ester Salgarella, of the podcast series Aegean Connections, interviews Mokrisova on the subject. The podcast interview is available for free at this website.

Cover Image, Top Left: Map of the cities and regions of Bronze Age Anatolia. Al-qamar, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

_____________________________

Advertisement

Of all the extinct hominins that came before us, we know most about the Neanderthals. The archaeological and fossil evidence has simply been more prolific for them—that is, outside of Homo sapiens, our own species.

Most significantly, the past decade has seen a surge in new information, affording clues about who the Neanderthals really were, based on insights and discoveries made through archaeological excavation and investigation, new fossil discoveries, improved methods in dating, and new developments in the study of ancient proteins and ancient DNA. We now know more about the Neanderthal brain and cognition; social and family structure; growth and development; sexuality; disease, inbreeding and introgression; blood groups; symbolic behavior; the use of resources and subsistence; and death and caring. The new research is beginning to paint a portrait of the Neanderthal as a being more like us than scientists have previously thought. Of particular note are the strides that have been made in understanding Neanderthals in the areas of the brain and cognition, symbolic behavior, social structure, and use of resources and subsistence as salient factors that contributed to their enduring persistence for over 500,000 years, and in some ways also their subsequent demise around the time of Home sapiens’ entrance on the scene of prehistory.

The Neanderthal Brain and Cognition

Recent studies have provided clues that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens were both comparatively different yet similar in cognitive ability. Earlier morphological studies have shown that Neanderthal brains were at least as large, if not a bit larger, than those of Homo sapiens. However, new research has indicated some important differences in brain structure and anatomy. For example, a study by Kochiyama et al. (2018) that produced a 3D reconstruction of the Neanderthal brain indicated that Neanderthals had smaller cerebellar hemispheres than Homo sapiens. This suggested that Neanderthals were less sophisticated with language communication, were less flexible in their thinking, and possessed a more limited memory capacity. In another study by Pinson and colleagues published in 2022, they found that Homo sapiens produced more neurons and greater neuron connectivity than Neanderthals. On the other hand, research has suggested that Neanderthals and Home sapiens had similar auditory capacities.

The jury is still very much out when it comes to drawing definite overall conclusions about the similarities and differences between Neanderthal and Homo sapiens cognition, but work goes on and their is little doubt that much more will be learned as further study progresses.

Symbolic Behavior

Historically, scholars have attributed symbolic thinking exclusively to Homo sapiens, the ‘last hominin standing’ on the prehistoric hominin timeline. It goes without saying that the evidence supporting this has been prolific. But scientists have now uncovered new clues to a Neanderthal capacity to express themselves abstractly, or symbolically. Cave painting attributed to Neanderthals, such as hand stencils, lines and dots, have been found in a small number of Spanish caves, including La Pasiega, Maltravieso and Ardales. Digital (finger) tracings in soft sediment dated to 57,000 years ago found in the La Roche-Cotard cave in France are suggested to have been made by Neanderthals, given the time period. A 51,000-year-old engraved giant deer phalanx was found at a site (Einhornhohle) in Germany. Cross-hatching on the interior of Gorham’s Cave in Spain has ben suggested to be the work of the Neanderthal occupants. What appear to be purposefully and systematically collected large herbivore crania (especially those with horns) were found at the Cueve Des-Cubierta cave site in Spain. All of these are remarkable and curious finds, though not without intense scholarly debate.

More about these discoveries, including their use of resources and subsistence; family structure and social groups; their DNA legacy; and death and caring, can be found in the full story published in the spring 2024 issue of Popular Archaeology.

___________________________

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

_______________________________

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

_______________________________

Article Source: Science Advances news release

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

______________________

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

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

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

__________________________

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

__________________________

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

__________________________

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

__________________________

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

__________________________

Article Source: Edited from the subject PNAS news release. 

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

___________________________

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

__________________________

Advertisement

See the incredible archaeology, architecture, and art of northern Spain. A unique tour with special expert guides and lecturers through the collaboration of Popular Archaeology Magazine and Stone & Compass Tours. Not to be missed. Read More About It: https://popular-archaeology.com/article/northern-spains-triple-a-archaeology-architecture-and-art/.

__________________________

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

__________________________________

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

__________________________

Article Source: CELL PRESS news release.

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

__________________________

Advertisement

See the incredible archaeology, architecture, and art of northern Spain. A unique tour with special expert guides and lecturers through the collaboration of Popular Archaeology Magazine and Stone & Compass Tours. Not to be missed. Read More About It: https://popular-archaeology.com/article/northern-spains-triple-a-archaeology-architecture-and-art/.

__________________________

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

___________________________

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

___________________________

Article Source: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS USA news release

___________________________

Advertisement

See the incredible archaeology, architecture, and art of northern Spain. A unique tour with special expert guides and lecturers through the collaboration of Popular Archaeology Magazine and Stone & Compass Tours. Not to be missed. Read More About It: https://popular-archaeology.com/article/northern-spains-triple-a-archaeology-architecture-and-art/.

___________________________

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

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

The study* was published in the journal Archaeologies.

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

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

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

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

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

_______________________________

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

_______________________________

Article Source: TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY news release.

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

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

_______________________________

Advertisement

See the incredible archaeology, architecture, and art of northern Spain. A unique tour with special expert guides and lecturers through the collaboration of Popular Archaeology Magazine and Stone & Compass Tours. Not to be missed. Read More About It: https://popular-archaeology.com/article/northern-spains-triple-a-archaeology-architecture-and-art/.

_______________________________

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

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

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

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

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

Pinpoint timing through cryptotephra

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Migrations along “blue highways”

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

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

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

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

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

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

___________________________

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

____________________________

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

____________________________

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

____________________________

Article Source: ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY news release.

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

____________________________

Advertisement

See the incredible archaeology, architecture, and art of northern Spain. A unique tour with special expert guides and lecturers through the collaboration of Popular Archaeology Magazine and Stone & Compass Tours. Not to be missed. Read More About It: https://popular-archaeology.com/article/northern-spains-triple-a-archaeology-architecture-and-art/.

____________________________

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

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

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

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

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

___________________________________

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

___________________________________

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

___________________________________

Article Source: PLOS news release

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

___________________________________

Advertisement

See the incredible archaeology, architecture, and art of northern Spain. A unique tour with special expert guides and lecturers through the collaboration of Popular Archaeology Magazine and Stone & Compass Tours. Not to be missed. Read More About It: https://popular-archaeology.com/article/northern-spains-triple-a-archaeology-architecture-and-art/.

___________________________________

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

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

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

___________________________

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

___________________________

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

___________________________

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

______________________________

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

________________________________

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

________________________________

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

________________________________

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

________________________________

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

________________________________

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

________________________________

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

________________________________

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

________________________________

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

________________________________

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

________________________________

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

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

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

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

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

____________________________

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

____________________________

Cover Image, Above: Image by Vektorianna, Pixabay