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An early Roman rare wooden carved figure has been discovered during work on the HS2 project. In July 2021, archaeologists from Infra Archaeology, working for HS2’s contractor Fusion JV, removed the well-preserved figure from a water-logged Roman ditch in a field in Twyford, Buckinghamshire.

As they were investigating at Three Bridge Mill, the team came across what they initially thought was a degraded piece of wood. As they continued to excavate it a humanlike, or anthropomorphic, figure was revealed. The figure, cut from a single piece of wood, stands at 67cm tall and is 18cm wide.

Initial assessment dates the wooden figure to the early Roman period, given the style of the carving and the tunic-like clothing. Shards of pottery dating from 43-70 AD were also discovered in the same ditch. Whilst archaeologists cannot be certain about what the carved figure was used for, there have been examples of wooden carved images being offered as gifts to the gods. It is possible that rather than being casually discarded in the ditch it was more deliberately placed there.

Given its predicted age and being carved from wood, what is most surprising is the incredible preservation of the artifact. The lack of oxygen in the water-logged clay fill of the ditch has helped prevent the wood from rotting, thus preserving it for centuries.

Speaking about the incredible discovery, Iain Williamson, Archaeologist for Fusion JV said:

“The amazing discovery of this wooden figure was totally unexpected, and the team did a great job of recovering it intact. The preservation of details carved into the wood such as the hair and tunic really start to bring the individual depicted to life. Not only is the survival of a wooden figure like this extremely rare for the Roman period in Britain, but it also raises new questions about this site: who does the wooden figure represent, what was it used for and why was it significant to the people living in this part of Buckinghamshire during the 1st century AD?” 

Whilst the figure is in good condition given its age, the arms below the elbows and feet have degraded. A surprising amount of detail remains visible in the carving with the figure’s hat or hairstyle clearly noticeable. The head is slightly rotated to the left, the tunic at the front seems to be gathered at the waist going down to above knee level, and the legs and shape of the calf muscles are well defined.  

The figure is currently being preserved by York Archaeology’s conservation team at their specialist laboratory where it will undergo examination and conservation. A small fragment from the figure, found broken off in the ditch, is being sent for radiocarbon dating to provide an accurate date for the wood, and stable isotope analysis is being undertaken, which may indicate where the wood originally came from.

Helen Wass, Head of Heritage at HS2 Ltd, said:

“Our unprecedented archaeology programme on Phase One of the HS2 project between London and Birmingham has provided us with a great wealth of new information about our past. In Buckinghamshire, our careful work has enabled us to build a much greater understanding of how the landscape was used by our ancestors, especially during the Roman period, and is brought to life further through incredible artefacts like this figure. We are committed to sharing our findings with communities and the public, to deepen our understanding of Britain’s history.”

The occurrence of carved, wooden figures in British prehistory and the Romano-British period is extremely rare.  In 2019 a wooden limb, thought to be a Roman votive offering, was found at the bottom of a well in Northampton. Examples of full Roman carved figures have been recovered in Dijon and Chamalières in France. A wooden carving, the ‘Dagenham Idol’, was recovered from the north bank of the Thames is 1922 and has been dated back to the Neolithic period and an early Iron Age carved figure was recovered from the banks of the River Teign, Kingsteignton in 1866.

Jim Williams, Senior Science Advisor for Historic England, said:

“This is a truly remarkable find which brings us face to face with our past. The quality of the carving is exquisite and the figure is all the more exciting because organic objects from this period rarely survive. This discovery helps us to imagine what other wooden, plant or animal-based art and sculpture may have been created at this time. Further analysis has the potential to reveal more detail, perhaps even providing clues about where it was made.”

This incredible rare find features in the new BBC Digging for Britain series, hosted by Professor Alice Roberts. The episode featuring the Roman wooden figure will air on BBC Two on Thursday 13^th January at 8pm.

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Carved wooden figure recovered by HS2 archaeologists in Buckinghamshire. Courtesy HS2 Ltd

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Roman Carved Wooden Figure uncovered by HS2 archaeologists in Buckinghamshire undergoing conservation. Courtesy HS2 Ltd

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Article Source: HS2 Ltd news release

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UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE—The age of the oldest fossils in eastern Africa widely recognized as representing our species, Homo sapiens, has long been uncertain. Now, dating of a massive volcanic eruption in Ethiopia reveals they are much older than previously thought.

The remains – known as Omo I – were found in Ethiopia in the late 1960s, and scientists have been attempting to date them precisely ever since, by using the chemical fingerprints of volcanic ash layers found above and below the sediments in which the fossils were found.

An international team of scientists, led by the University of Cambridge, has reassessed the age of the Omo I remains – and Homo sapiens as a species. Earlier attempts to date the fossils suggested they were less than 200,000 years old, but the new research shows they must be older than a colossal volcanic eruption that took place 230,000 years ago. The results* are reported in the journal Nature.

The Omo I remains were found in the Omo Kibish Formation in southwestern Ethiopia, within the East African Rift valley. The region is an area of high volcanic activity, and a rich source of early human remains and artifacts such as stone tools. By dating the layers of volcanic ash above and below where archaeological and fossil materials are found, scientists identified Omo I as the earliest evidence of our species, Homo sapiens.

“Using these methods, the generally accepted age of the Omo fossils is under 200,000 years, but there’s been a lot of uncertainty around this date,” said Dr Céline Vidal from Cambridge’s Department of Geography, the paper’s lead author. “The fossils were found in a sequence, below a thick layer of volcanic ash that nobody had managed to date with radiometric techniques because the ash is too fine-grained.”

As part of a four-year project led by Professor Clive Oppenheimer, Vidal and her colleagues have been attempting to date all the major volcanic eruptions in the Ethiopian Rift around the time of the emergence of Homo sapiens, a period known as the late Middle Pleistocene.

The researchers collected pumice rock samples from the volcanic deposits and ground them down to sub-millimeter size. “Each eruption has its own fingerprint – its own evolutionary story below the surface, which is determined by the pathway the magma followed,” said Vidal. “Once you’ve crushed the rock, you free the minerals within, and then you can date them, and identify the chemical signature of the volcanic glass that holds the minerals together.”

The researchers carried out new geochemical analysis to link the fingerprint of the thick volcanic ash layer from the Kamoya Hominin Site (KHS ash) with an eruption of the Shala volcano, more than 400 kilometers away. The team then dated pumice samples from the volcano to 230,000 years ago. Since the Omo I fossils were found deeper than this particular ash layer, they must be more than 230,000 years old.

“First I found there was a geochemical match, but we didn’t have the age of the Shala eruption,” said Vidal. “I immediately sent the samples of the Shala volcano to our colleagues in Glasgow so they could measure the age of the rocks. When I received the results and found out that the oldest Homo sapiens from the region were older than previously assumed, I was really excited.”

“The Omo Kibish Formation is an extensive sedimentary deposit which has been barely accessed and investigated in the past,” said co-author and co-leader of the field investigation Professor Asfawossen Asrat from Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, who is currently at BIUST in Botswana. “Our closer look into the stratigraphy of the Omo Kibish Formation, particularly the ash layers, allowed us to push the age of the oldest Homo sapiens in the region to at least 230,000 years.”

“Unlike other Middle Pleistocene fossils which are thought to belong to the early stages of the Homo sapiens lineage, Omo I possesses unequivocal modern human characteristics, such as a tall and globular cranial vault and a chin,” said co-author Dr Aurélien Mounier from the Musée de l’Homme in Paris. “The new date estimate, de facto, makes it the oldest unchallenged Homo sapiens in Africa.”

The researchers say that while this study shows a new minimum age for Homo sapiens in eastern Africa, it’s possible that new finds and new studies may extend the age of our species even further back in time.

“We can only date humanity based on the fossils that we have, so it’s impossible to say that this is the definitive age of our species,” said Vidal. “The study of human evolution is always in motion: boundaries and timelines change as our understanding improves. But these fossils show just how resilient humans are: that we survived, thrived and migrated in an area that was so prone to natural disasters.”

“It’s probably no coincidence that our earliest ancestors lived in such a geologically active rift valley – it collected rainfall in lakes, providing fresh water and attracted animals, and served as a natural migration corridor stretching thousands of kilometers,” said Oppenheimer. “The volcanoes provided fantastic materials to make stone tools and from time to time we had to develop our cognitive skills when large eruptions transformed the landscape.”

“Our forensic approach provides a new minimum age for Homo sapiens in eastern Africa, but the challenge still remains to provide a cap, a maximum age, for their emergence, which is widely believed to have taken place in this region,” said co-author Professor Christine Lane, head of the Cambridge Tephra Laboratory where much of the work was carried out. “It’s possible that new finds and new studies may extend the age of our species even further back in time.”

“There are many other ash layers we are trying to correlate with eruptions of the Ethiopian Rift and ash deposits from other sedimentary formations,” said Vidal. “In time, we hope to better constrain the age of other fossils in the region.”

The research was supported in part by the Leverhulme Trust, the Cambridge-Africa ALBORADA Research Fund and the Natural Environment Research Council. Céline Vidal is a Fellow of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.

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The Omo Kibish Formation in southwestern Ethiopia, within the East African Rift valley. The region is an area of high volcanic activity, and a rich source of early human remains and artifacts such as stone tools. Céline Vidal

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Researchers at the Omo Kibish Formation in southwestern Ethiopia, within the East African Rift valley. The region is an area of high volcanic activity, and a rich source of early human remains and artifacts such as stone tools. Céline Vidal

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Article Source: UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE news release

*Age of the oldest Homo sapiens from eastern Africa, Nature, 12-Jan-2022. 10.1038/s41586-021-04275-8 

Archaeologists working for HS2 Ltd have uncovered one of the most significant archaeological sites on the project to date near a small village in South Northamptonshire. Over the past twelve months, a team of around 80 archaeologists from MOLA Headland Infrastructure have been excavating an Iron Age village which developed into a wealthy Roman trading town.

The presence of such a significant archaeological site in the area has been known since the 18^th century, and initial survey and analysis by HS2 gave some indication of what could be discovered there. However, the scale and quality of the discoveries on site have surpassed expectations.

The original use of the site, known as Blackgrounds after the black soil found there, began in the Iron Age when it was a village formed of over 30 roundhouses, which have been uncovered alongside an Iron Age road. Evidence from the dig shows that the settlement expanded over time becoming more prosperous during the Roman period, with new stone buildings and new roads emerging.

Considering the close proximity of the Iron Age remains, the archaeological team believe it is likely that local inhabitants continued to live at the site into the Roman period and adapted to a new way of life. This ‘Romanization’ included taking on Roman customs, products and building techniques.

Running through the site is a 10m wide Roman road which is exceptional in its size. It indicates that the settlement would have been very busy with carts simultaneously coming and going to load and unload goods. The wealth of the settlement is likely to have been based on trade, both from the nearby River Cherwell and via the Roman road. Over 300 Roman coins, discovered as if lost or discarded, have been recovered, an indication that a significant volume of commerce was passing through this area.

The layout of the site suggests the settlement was split into different areas, with foundations uncovered of buildings used for domestic purposes, as well as more industrial practices. At its peak during the Roman age, Blackgrounds would have been a bustling and busy area, shown through the evidence of workshops, kilns, and several beautifully preserved wells, uncovered by HS2 archaeologists. In one area of the site, the earth has been preserved with a fiery red color, indicating that the area would have been used for activities involving burning, such as bread making, foundries for metal work, or a pottery kiln.  

Speaking about the incredible site, James West, MOLA Site Manager said:

“This is certainly one of the most impressive sites MOLA Headland Infrastructure has discovered whilst working on the HS2 scheme. A particular highlight for me has been understanding the emerging story of Blackgrounds, which we now know spans multiple time periods. Uncovering such a well-preserved and large Roman road, as well as so many high quality finds has been extraordinary and tells us so much about the people who lived here. The site really does have the potential to transform our understanding of the Roman landscape in the region and beyond.”

Alongside coinage, the wealth of the settlement’s inhabitants can be seen in the finds uncovered during the dig, which include glass vessels, highly decorative pottery, jewelry and even evidence of make-up. Traces of the mineral galena, lead sulphide, was found on the site – a substance that was crushed and mixed with oil as make up.

A particularly interesting discovery in the dig has been half a set of shackles, similar to those recently found at an excavation in Rutland. Unlike those uncovered in Rutland, the shackles found at Blackgrounds are not associated with a burial but may suggest the presence of either criminal activity or slave labor.

The removed artifacts are being cleaned and analyzed by specialists from MOLA Headland Infrastructure and the details of the buildings and layout of the settlement are being carefully mapped. Blackgrounds is one of over 100 archaeological sites that HS2 has examined since 2018 between London and Birmingham, which combined provide a detailed insight into the rich history of Britain.

Mike Court, Lead Archaeologist for HS2 Ltd, said:

“As we near the end of our archaeological field work between London and Birmingham, we have made some unprecedented discoveries, which we will continue to share with communities near our works. The opportunity to carefully examine a site such as Blackgrounds, and map out a long history of the site, brought to life through artifacts, building remains and roads, has enabled us to provide a more in depth understanding of what life was like in rural South Northamptonshire in the Iron and Roman Age.”

The history of the site, from the Iron Age to the Roman era, features in the new BBC Digging for Britain series, hosted by Professor Alice Roberts. The episode featuring the Blackgrounds dig will air on BBC Two on Tuesday 11^th January at 8pm.

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James West, Site Manager MOLA, by one of four wells uncovered during the archaeological excavation of a wealthy Roman trading settlement, known as Blackgrounds, in South Northamptonshire. Courtesy HS2 Ltd.

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Image of a roman wall, uncovered during the archaeological excavation of a wealthy Roman trading settlement, known as Blackgrounds, in South Northamptonshire. Courtesy HS2 Ltd

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Ariel view of archaeological excavation of a wealthy Roman trading settlement, known as Blackgrounds, in South Northamptonshire. Courtesy HS2 Ltd

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Walls of a domestic building uncovered during the archaeological excavation of a wealthy Roman trading settlement, known as Blackgrounds, in South Northamptonshire. Courtesy HS2 Ltd

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Archaeologist holding a Roman pot uncovered during the archaeological excavation of a wealthy Roman trading settlement, known as Blackgrounds, in South Northamptonshire. Courtesy HS2 Ltd

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Decorative Roman pottery uncovered during the archaeology excavation at Blackgrounds, Chipping Warden, Northamptonshire-14. Courtesy HS2 Ltd

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Roman cremation urns uncovered during the archaeology excavation at Blackgrounds, Chipping Warden, Northamptonshire-11. Courtesy HS2 Ltd

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Article Source: HS2 Ltd news release.

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AlUla, Saudi Arabia, 10 January 2022: Archaeologists from the University of Western Australia (UWA) have determined that the people who lived in ancient north-west Arabia built long-distance ‘funerary avenues’ – major pathways flanked by thousands of burial monuments that linked oases and pastures – suggesting a high degree of social and economic connection between the region’s populations in the 3^rd millennium BCE.

Publication of the findings in the journal The Holocene caps a year of tremendous progress by the UWA team, working under the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU), in shedding light on the lives of the ancient inhabitants of Arabia.

The existence of the funerary avenues suggests that complex social horizons existed 4,500 years ago across a huge swathe of the Arabian Peninsula. The finding adds to the steady progress by archaeologists working under the auspices of RCU in understanding the hidden story of the ancient kingdoms and earlier societies of north Arabia.

The UWA team’s work is part of a wider effort that includes 13 archaeological and conservation project teams from around the world collaborating with Saudi experts in AlUla and neighbouring Khaybar counties in Saudi Arabia.

Amr AlMadani, CEO of RCU, said: “The more we learn about the ancient inhabitants of north-west Arabia, the more we are inspired by the way our mission reflects their mindset: they lived in harmony with nature, honoured their predecessors, and reached out to the wider world. The work done by our archaeological teams in 2021 demonstrates that Saudi Arabia is a home for top-flight science – and we look forward to hosting more research teams in 2022.”

Dr. Rebecca Foote, Director of Archaeology and Cultural Heritage Research for RCU, said: “Projects that have been conducting fieldwork in AlUla and Khaybar for over three years, such as the UWA team, have started publishing their results, and it is terrific to see how analyses of the data are elucidating so many aspects of life from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age in north-west Arabia. These articles are just the beginning of the many publications that will advance our knowledge of prehistoric to modern times and have significant implications for the wider region.”

The new article is the UWA team’s fourth publication in less than a year in a peer-reviewed scientific journal on research at AlUla and Khaybar:

• In August in the journal Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy the team dated the pendant-shaped tombs of the Khaybar Oasis to the 3^rd millennium BCE – the first published radiocarbon evidence dating the tombs. This was also the first article in a peer-reviewed journal regarding the Bronze Age in Khaybar. Archaeological exploration of the mysteries of Khaybar is still in its infancy.
• In April the team wrote in the journal Antiquity that the monumental structures known as mustatils are much older than previously believed, dating as far back as 5,200 BCE, and appear to have had a ritual function.
• In March the team reported in the Journal of Field Archaeology that they had discovered the remains of the oldest known domesticated dog in Arabia.

The UWA team’s latest research, with Dr Matthew Dalton as lead author, used satellite imagery analysis, aerial photography, ground survey and excavation to locate and analyse funerary avenues over an area of at least 160,000 square km in north-west Arabia. They recorded more than 17,800 ‘pendant’ tombs in their primary study areas of AlUla and Khaybar counties, of which around 11,000 formed part of funerary avenues.

Whether on basalt plains or mountain passes, the densest concentrations of funerary structures on these avenues are located near permanent water sources. The direction of the avenues suggests that many were used to travel between major oases, including those of Khaybar, AlUla and Tayma. Other avenues fade into the landscapes surrounding oases, suggesting they were used to move herds of domestic animals into nearby pastures during periods of rain.

Dr. Hugh Thomas, project director, said: “The research by the UWA team and our colleagues working across AlUla and Khaybar shows how important the archaeology of this region is for our understanding of the Neolithic and Bronze Age across the Middle East. Our findings demonstrate that these structures linked various populated oases, situated across a vast area, and that the funerary avenues were established around 4,500 years ago. They are especially dense around Khaybar, which is one of the densest visible funerary landscapes anywhere in the world.”

The RCU has embarked on a 15-year masterplan, The Journey Through Time, to regenerate AlUla and parts of Khaybar as a leading global destination for cultural and natural heritage.

The archaeological research in AlUla and Khaybar counties by teams from Saudi Arabia and abroad is deepening and nuancing The Journey Through Time narrative of the region and providing a foundation for the Kingdoms Institute, a world-class centre for archaeological and conservation research with a focus on AlUla’s 200,000 years of human history.

This flagship institution, now active as a research organisation, will open its doors to the public as a permanent physical presence at AlUla by 2030. Its most prominent buildings will be established at the red sandstone mountains opposite the archaeological site of Dadan, with design inspired by the Dadanite civilisation that prospered during the heyday of the incense trade in the 1^st millennium BCE.

José Ignacio Gallego Revilla, RCU’s Archaeology, Heritage Research and Conservation Executive Director, said: “There is much more to come in 2022 and the years ahead as we reveal the depth and breadth of the area’s archaeological heritage, which for decades was underrepresented but which will finally have the showcase it deserves in the Kingdoms Institute.”

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Above and below: Pendant tombs and funerary avenues discovered in north-west Saudi Arabia. Courtesy Royal Commission for AlUla.

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Article Source: Royal Commission for AlUla news release.

About the Royal Commission for AlUla

The Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU) was established by royal decree in July 2017 to preserve and develop AlUla, a region of outstanding natural and cultural significance in north-west Saudi Arabia. RCU’s long-term plan outlines a responsible, sustainable, and sensitive approach to urban and economic development, that preserves the area’s natural and historic heritage, while establishing AlUla as a desirable location to live, work, and visit. This encompasses a broad range of initiatives across archaeology, tourism, culture, education, and the arts, reflecting a commitment to meeting the economic diversification, local community empowerment, and heritage preservation priorities of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 programme.

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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA – RIVERSIDE—A new study* casts doubt on drought as the driver of ancient Mayan civilization collapse. 

There is no dispute that a series of droughts occurred in the Yucatan Peninsula of southeastern Mexico and northern Central America at the end of the ninth century, when Maya cities mysteriously began to be depopulated. Believing the Maya were mostly dependent on drought-sensitive corn, beans, and squash, some scholars assume the droughts resulted in starvation.

However, a new analysis by UC Riverside archaeologist Scott Fedick and plant physiologist Louis Santiago shows the Maya had nearly 500 edible plants available to them, many of which are highly drought resistant. The results of this analysis have now been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

“Even in the most extreme drought situation — and we have no clear evidence the most extreme situation ever occurred — 59 species of edible plants would still have persisted,” Santiago said.

Some of the toughest plants the Maya would have turned to include cassava with its edible tubers, and hearts of palm. Another is chaya, a shrub domesticated by the Maya and eaten today by their descendants. Its leaves are high in protein, iron, potassium, and calcium.

“Chaya and cassava together would have provided a huge amount of carbohydrates and protein,” Santiago said. 

Unable to find a master list of indigenous Maya food plants, Fedick recently compiled and published one that draws on decades of Maya plant knowledge. Faced with much speculation about drought as the cause of Maya social disruptions, he and Santiago decided to examine all 497 plants on the list for drought tolerance. 

“When botanists study drought resistance, they’re usually talking about a specific plant, or a particular ecosystem,” Fedick said. “One of the reasons this project was so challenging is because we examined the dietary flora of an entire civilization — annuals, perennials, herbs, trees, domesticates, and wild species. It was a unique endeavor.”

Though the researchers do not have a clear answer about why ancient Maya society unraveled, they suspect social and economic upheaval played a role. 

“One thing we do know is the overly simplistic explanation of drought leading to agricultural collapse is probably not true,” Fedick said. 

The research also demonstrates the importance of exploiting a variety of plants to survive drought and climate change. 

“Even given a series of droughts, maintaining a diversity of resilient crops would enable people, both ancient and modern, to adapt and survive,” Santiago said.

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Cassava, a drought-resistant edible plant grown by the ancient Maya. Thamizhpparithi Maari

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Article Source: UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA – RIVERSIDE news release

*Large variation in availability of Maya food plant sources during ancient droughts, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 4-Jan-2022. 10.1073/pnas.2115657118 

Cover image, top left: Early Maya mask. Wolfgang Sauber, Public Domain

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UNIVERSITY OF READING—Human DNA can be extracted from the ‘cement’ head lice used to glue their eggs to hairs thousands of years ago, scientists have found, which could provide an important new window into the past.

In a new study, scientists for the first time recovered DNA from cement on hairs taken from mummified remains that date back 1,500-2,000 years. This is possible because skin cells from the scalp become encased in the cement produced by female lice as they attach eggs, known as nits, to the hair.

Analysis of this newly-recovered ancient DNA – which was of better quality than that recovered through other methods – has revealed clues about pre-Columbian human migration patterns within South America.  This method could allow many more unique samples to be studied from human remains where bone and tooth samples are unavailable.

The research was led by the University of Reading, working in collaboration with the National University of San Juan, Argentina; Bangor University, Wales; the Oxford University Museum of Natural History; and the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. It is published in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.

Dr Alejandra Perotti, Associate Professor in Invertebrate Biology at the University of Reading, who led the research, said: “Like the fictional story of mosquitos encased in amber in the film Jurassic Park, carrying the DNA of the dinosaur host, we have shown that our genetic information can be preserved by the sticky substance produced by headlice on our hair.  In addition to genetics, lice biology can provide valuable clues about how people lived and died thousands of years ago.

“Demand for DNA samples from ancient human remains has grown in recent years as we seek to understand migration and diversity in ancient human populations. Headlice have accompanied humans throughout their entire existence, so this new method could open the door to a goldmine of information about our ancestors, while preserving unique specimens.”

Until now, ancient DNA has preferably been extracted from dense bone from the skull or from inside teeth, as these provide the best quality samples. However, skull and teeth remains are not always available, as it can be unethical or against cultural beliefs to take samples from indigenous early remains, and due to the severe damage destructive sampling causes to the specimens which compromise future scientific analysis.

Recovering DNA from the cement delivered by lice is therefore a solution to the problem, especially as nits are commonly found on the hair and clothes of well preserved and mummified humans.

The research team extracted DNA from nit cement of specimens collected from a number of mummified remains from Argentina. The mummies were of people who 1,500-2,000 years ago reached the Andes mountains of the San Juan province, Central West Argentina. The team also studied ancient nits on human hair used in a textile from Chile and nits from a shrunken head originating from the ancient Jivaroan people of Amazonian Ecuador.

The samples used for DNA studies of nit cement were found to contain the same concentration of DNA as a tooth, double that of bone remains, and four times that recovered from blood inside far more recent lice specimens.

Dr Mikkel Winther Pedersen from the GLOBE institute at the University of Copenhagen, and first author, said: “The high amount of DNA yield from these nit cements really came as a surprise to us and it was striking to me that such small amounts could still give us all this information about who these people were, and how the lice related to other lice species but also giving us hints to possible viral diseases.

“There is a hunt out for alternative sources of ancient human DNA and nit cement might be one of those alternatives. I believe that future studies are needed before we really unravel this potential.”

As well as the DNA analysis, scientists are also able to draw conclusions about a person and the conditions in which they lived from the position of the nits on their hair and from the length of the cement tubes. Their health and even cause of death can be indicated by the interpretation of the biology of the nits.

Analysis of the recovered DNA from nit-cement revealed and confirmed:

• • The sex of each of the human hosts
  • A genetic link between three of the mummies and humans in Amazonia 2,000 years ago. This shows for the first time that the original population of the San Juan province migrated from the land and rainforests of the Amazon in the North of the continent (south of current Venezuela and Colombia).
  • All ancient human remains studied belong to the founding mitochondrial lineages in South America.
  • The earliest direct evidence of Merkel cell Polymavirus was found in the DNA trapped in nit cement from one of the mummies. The virus, discovered in 2008, is shed by healthy human skin and can on rare occasions get into the body and cause skin cancer. The discovery opens up the possibility that head lice could spread the virus.

Analysis of the DNA of the nits, confirmed the same migration pattern for the human lice, from the North Amazonian planes towards Central West Argentina (San Juan Andes).

Morphological analysis of the nits informed that:

• • The mummies were all likely exposed to extremely cold temperatures when they died, which could have been a factor in their deaths. This was indicated by the very small gap between the nits and scalp on the hairs shaft. Lice rely on the host’s head heat to keep their eggs warm and so lay them closer to the scalp in cold environments.
  • Shorter cement tubes on the hair correlated with older and/or less preserved specimens, due to the cement degrading over time.

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A mummified adult man of the Ansilta culture, from the Andes of San Juan, Argentina, dating back approx 2,000 years. Universidad Nacional de San Juan

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Article Source: UNIVERSITY OF READING news release.

*Ancient human genomes and environmental DNA from the cement attaching 2,000 year-old head lice nits, Molecular Biology and Evolution, 28-Dec-2021. 10.1093/molbev/msab351 

FRONTIERS—All the royal mummies found in the 19th and 20th centuries have long since been opened for study. With one exception: egyptologists have never been bold enough to open the mummy of Pharaoh Amenhotep I. Not because of any mythical curse, but because it is perfectly wrapped, beautifully decorated with flower garlands, and with face and neck covered by an exquisite lifelike facemask inset with colorful stones. But now for the first time, scientists from Egypt have used three-dimensional CT (computed tomography) scanning to ‘digitally unwrap’ this royal mummy and study its contents. They report their findings in Frontiers in Medicine.

This was the first time in three millennia that Amenhotep’s mummy has been opened. The previous time was in the 11th century BCE, more than four centuries after his original mummification and burial. Hieroglyphics have described how during the later 21st dynasty, priests restored and reburied royal mummies from more ancient dynasties, to repair the damage done by grave robbers.

“This fact that Amenhotep I’s mummy had never been unwrapped in modern times gave us a unique opportunity: not just to study how he had originally been mummified and buried, but also how he had been treated and reburied twice, centuries after his death, by High Priests of Amun,” said Dr Sahar Saleem, professor of radiology at the Faculty of Medicine at Cairo University and the radiologist of the Egyptian Mummy Project, the study’s first author.

“By digitally unwrapping of the mummy and ‘peeling off’ its virtual layers – the facemask, the bandages, and the mummy itself – we could study this well-preserved pharaoh in unprecedented detail,” said Saleem.

“We show that Amenhotep I was approximately 35 years old when he died. He was approximately 169cm tall, circumcized, and had good teeth. Within his wrappings, he wore 30 amulets and a unique golden girdle with gold beads.”

“Amenhotep I seems to have physically resembled his father: he had a narrow chin, a small narrow nose, curly hair, and mildly protruding upper teeth.”

Saleem continued: “We couldn’t find any wounds or disfigurement due to disease to justify the cause of death, except numerous mutiliations post mortem, presumably by grave robbers after his first burial. His entrails had been removed by the first mummifiers, but not his brain or heart.”

The mummy of Amenhotep I (whose name means ‘Amun is satisfied’) was discovered in 1881 – among other reburied royal mummies –  at the archeological site Deir el Bahari in southern Egypt. The second pharaoh of Egypt’s 18th dynasty (after his father Ahmose I, who had expelled the invading Hyksos and reunited Egypt), Amenhotep ruled from approximately 1525 to 1504 BCE. His was a kind of golden age: Egypt was prosperous and safe, while the pharaoh ordered a religious building spree and led successful military expeditions to Libya and northern Sudan. After his death, he and his mother Ahmose-Nefertari were worshipped as gods.

Sahar Saleem and her co-author egyptologist Dr Zahi Hawass, had previously speculated that the main intention of the restorers from the 11th century was to reuse royal burial equipment for later pharaohs. But here they disprove their own theory.

“We show that at least for Amenhotep I, the priests of the 21^st dynasty lovingly repaired the injuries inflicted by the tomb robbers, restored his mummy to its former glory, and preserved the magnificent jewelry and amulets in place,” said Saleem.

Hawass and Saleem studied more than 40 royal mummies of the New Kingdom in the Egyptian Antiquity Ministry Project that was launched since 2005. Twenty-two royal mummies, including that of Amenhotep I, were transferred in April 2021 to a new museum in Cairo. The face of the mummy of Amenhotep I with its mask was the icon of the spectacular ‘Royal Golden Mummy Parade’ on March 3rd, 2021 in Cairo.

“We show that CT imaging can be profitably used in anthropological and archeological studies on mummies, including those from other civilizations, for example Peru,” concluded Saleem and Hawass.

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Facemask of the never-before unwrapped mummy of pharaoh Amenhotep I. S. Saleem and Z. Hawass

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The pharaoh’s mummy, showing his shrunken skull and skeleton within the bandages. S. Saleem and Z. Nuwass

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The pharaoh’s skull, including his teeth in good condition. S. Saleem and Z. Hawass

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Article Source: FRONTIERS news release

PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES—A study uncovers remains of Late Bronze Age tsunami victims in the Mediterranean. The Late Bronze Age eruption of the Thera volcano on the island of Santorini in the Mediterranean Sea was one of the largest natural disasters in human history. Despite the magnitude of the eruption, remains from human victims have not been identified and evidence of tsunamis is scant. Vasıf Şahoğlu, Beverly Goodman Tchernov, and colleagues performed archaeological and sediment analysis on stratified deposits at Çeşme-Bağlararası in Turkey. The study area encompassed disturbed fortification walls and a layer of rubble and chaotic sediments along with a volcanic ash layer and a bone-rich charred layer. The results include evidence of seawater inundation and building collapse consistent with a series of at least four tsunamis impacting the site. The authors also found articulated skeletons of a young male human and a dog buried in the debris flow. The authors suggest that misshapen pits in the study area were attempts to recover victims from the debris. Calibrated radiocarbon ages suggest that the Thera eruption and subsequent tsunamis occurred no earlier than 1612 BCE. According to the authors, the results illustrate the multigenerational impact of a compound disaster such as the Thera eruption.

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Excavated skeleton of a tsunami victim. Vasıf Şahoğlu.

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Aerial view of the Çeşme-Bağlararası archaeological site and surrounding neighborhood. Vasıf Şahoğlu.

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Article Source: PNAS news release

*“Volcanic ash, victims, and tsunami debris from the Late Bronze Age Thera eruption discovered at Çeşme-Bağlararası (Turkey),” by Vasıf Şahoğlu et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2114213118

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PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES—A study of blocks of resin-impregnated archaeological sediment collected over the past 40 years from prehistoric sites in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America found that the solidified sediments can act as archives of ancient DNA from hominins and other mammals; according to the authors, DNA can remain stably localized in the sediments over long periods, predominantly preserved in small particles of bone and feces, and microsampling of archived sediment blocks can recover DNA of ancient hominins, such as Neanderthals, and link genetic information to archaeological and ecological records at a detailed level.

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A researcher samples a block of resin-impregnated archaeological sediment for ancient DNA analysis. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

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Article Source: PNAS news release

*“Microstratigraphic preservation of ancient faunal and hominin DNA in Pleistocene cave sediments,” by Diyendo Massilani et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 27-Dec-2021. https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2113666118

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NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY—Analysis of ancient DNA from one of the best-preserved Neolithic tombs in Britain has revealed that most of the people buried there were from five continuous generations of a single extended family.

By analyzing DNA extracted from the bones and teeth of 35 individuals entombed at Hazleton North long cairn in the Cotswolds-Severn region, the research team was able to detect that 27 of them were close biological relatives. The group lived approximately 5700 years ago – around 3700-3600 BC – around 100 years after farming had been introduced to Britain.

Published in Nature, it is the first study* to reveal in such detail how prehistoric families were structured, and the international team of archaeologists and geneticists say that the results provide new insights into kinship and burial practices in Neolithic times.

The research team – which included archaeologists from Newcastle University, UK, and geneticists from the University of the Basque Country, University of Vienna and Harvard University – show that most of those buried in the tomb were descended from four women who had all had children with the same man.

The cairn at Hazleton North included two L-shaped chambered areas which were located north and south of the main ‘spine’ of the linear structure. After they had died, individuals were buried inside these two chambered areas and the research findings indicate that men were generally buried with their father and brothers, suggesting that descent was patrilineal with later generations buried at the tomb connected to the first generation entirely through male relatives.

While two of the daughters of the lineage who died in childhood were buried in the tomb, the complete absence of adult daughters suggests that their remains were placed either in the tombs of male partners with whom they had children, or elsewhere.

Although the right to use the tomb ran through patrilineal ties, the choice of whether individuals were buried in the north or south chambered area initially depended on the first-generation woman from whom they were descended, suggesting that these first-generation women were socially significant in the memories of this community.

There are also indications that ‘stepsons’ were adopted into the lineage, the researchers say – males whose mother was buried in the tomb but not their biological father, and whose mother had also had children with a male from the patriline. Additionally, the team found no evidence that another eight individuals were biological relatives of those in the family tree, which might further suggest that biological relatedness was not the only criterion for inclusion. However, three of these were women and it is possible that they could have had a partner in the tomb but either did not have any children or had daughters who reached adulthood and left the community so are absent from the tomb.

Dr Chris Fowler of Newcastle University, the first author and lead archaeologist of the study, said: “This study gives us an unprecedented insight into kinship in a Neolithic community. The tomb at Hazleton North has two separate chambered areas, one accessed via a northern entrance and the other from a southern entrance, and just one extraordinary finding is that initially each of the two halves of the tomb were used to place the remains of the dead from one of two branches of the same family. This is of wider importance because it suggests that the architectural layout of other Neolithic tombs might tell us about how kinship operated at those tombs.”

Iñigo Olalde of the University of the Basque Country and Ikerbasque, the lead geneticist for the study and co-first author, said: “The excellent DNA preservation at the tomb and the use of the latest technologies in ancient DNA recovery and analysis allowed us to uncover the oldest family tree ever reconstructed and analyze it to understand something profound about the social structure of these ancient groups.”

David Reich at Harvard University, whose laboratory led the ancient DNA generation, added: “This study reflects what I think is the future of ancient DNA: one in which archaeologists are able to apply ancient DNA analysis at sufficiently high resolution to address the questions that truly matter to archaeologists.”

Ron Pinhasi, of the University of Vienna, said: “It was difficult to imagine just a few years ago that we would ever know about Neolithic kinship structures. But this is just the beginning and no doubt there is a lot more to be discovered from other sites in Britain, Atlantic France, and other regions.”

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Hazleton Long Barrow: Courtesy of Corinium Museum, copyright Cotswold District Council. Courtesy of Corinium Museum, copyright Cotswold District Council

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Layout of the interior of the Long Cairn at Hazleton North: Credit Fowler, Olalde et al. after Saville 1990, by permission of Historic England. 

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Analysis of ancient DNA from one of the best-preserved Neolithic tombs in Britain by a team involving archaeologists from Newcastle University, UK, and geneticists at the University of the Basque Country, University of Vienna and Harvard University, has revealed that most of the people buried there were from five continuous generations of a single extended family. Newcastle University/Fowler, Olalde et al.

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Article Source: NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY news release.

The project was an international collaboration between archaeologists from the Universities of Newcastle, York, Exeter and Central Lancashire, and geneticists at the University of Vienna, University of the Basque Country and Harvard University. Corinium Museum, Cirencester, provided permission to sample the remains in their collection.

The work received primary funding from a Ramón y Cajal grant from the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación of the Spanish Government (RYC2019-027909-I), Ikerbasque – Basque Foundation of Science, the US National Institutes of Health (grant GM100233), the John Templeton Foundation (grant 61220), a private gift from Jean-François Clin, the Allen Discovery Center program, a Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group advised program of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

*‘A high-resolution picture of kinship practices in an Early-Neolithic tomb’ Chris Fowler, Inigo Olalde et al. Nature. 22-Dec-2021. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-04241-4 

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AARHUS UNIVERSITY—Mobility shaped the human world profoundly long before the modern age. But archaeologists often struggle to create a timeline for the speed and impact of this mobility. An interdisciplinary team of researchers at the Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre for Urban Network Evolutions at Aarhus University (UrbNet) has now made a breakthrough by applying new astronomical knowledge about the past activity of the sun to establish an exact time anchor for global links in the year 775 CE.

In collaboration with the Museum of Southwest Jutland in the Northern Emporium Project, the team has conducted a major excavation at Ribe, one of Viking-age Scandinavia’s principal trading towns. Funded by the Carlsberg Foundation, the dig and the subsequent research project were able to establish the exact sequence of the arrival of objects from various corners of the world at the market in Ribe. In this way, they were able to trace the emergence of the vast network of Viking-age trade connections with regions such as North Atlantic Norway, Frankish Western Europe and the Middle East. To obtain a chronology for these events, the team has pioneered a new use of radiocarbon dating.

New use of radiocarbon dating

“The applicability of radiocarbon dating has hitherto been limited due to the broad age ranges of this method. Recently, however, it has been discovered that solar particle events, also known as Miyake events, cause sharp spikes in atmospheric radiocarbon for a single year. They are named after the female Japanese researcher Fusa Miyake, who first identified these events in 2012. When these spikes are identified in detailed records such as tree rings or in an archaeological sequence, it reduces the uncertainty margins considerably,” says lead author Bente Philippsen.

The team applied a new, improved calibration curve, based on annual samples, to identify a 775 CE Miyake event in one floor layer in Ribe. This enabled the team to anchor the entire sequence of layers and 140 radiocarbon dates around this single year.

“This result* shows that the expansion of Afro-Eurasian trade networks, characterised by the arrival of large numbers of Middle Eastern beads, can be dated in Ribe with precision to 790±10 CE – coinciding with the beginning of the Viking Age. However, imports brought by ship from Norway were arriving as early as 750 CE,” says Professor Søren Sindbæk, who is also a member of the team.

This groundbreaking result challenges one of the most widely accepted explanations for maritime expansions in the Viking Age – that Scandinavian seafaring took off in response to growing trade with the Middle East through Russia. Maritime networks and long-distance trade were already established decades before impulses from the Middle East caused a further expansion of these networks.

The construction of the new, annual calibration curve is a global effort to which the researchers from UrbNet and the Aarhus AMS Centre at the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Aarhus University have contributed.

“The construction of a calibration curve is a huge international effort with contributions from many laboratories around the world. Fusa Miyake’s discovery in 2012 has revolutionized our work, so that we now work with annual time resolution. New calibration curves are recurrently released, most recently in 2020, and Aarhus AMS centre has contributed significantly. The new high-resolution data from the present study will enter into a future update of the calibration curve and thus contribute to improve the precision of archaeological dates worldwide. This will provide better opportunities to understand rapid developments such as trade flows or environmental change in the past,” says Jesper Olsen, Associate Professor at Aarhus AMS Centre.

The global trends revealed by the study are essential for the archaeology of trading towns like Ribe. “The new results enable us to date the influx of new artefacts and far-reaching contacts on a much better background. This will help us to visualise and describe Viking Age Ribe in a way that will have great value for scientists, as well as helping us to present the new insight to the general public,” says Claus Feveile, curator of the Museum of Southwest Jutland.

Background facts

One of the most spectacular episodes of pre-modern global connectivity happened in the period c. 750-1000 CE, when trade with the burgeoning Islamic empire in the Middle East connected virtually all corners of Afro-Eurasia.

The spread of coins, trade beads and other exotic artifacts provides archaeological evidence of the trade links stretching from Southeast Asia and Africa to Siberia and the northernmost corners of Scandinavia. In the north, these long-distance connections mark the beginning of the maritime adventures that define the Viking Age. Researchers have even suggested that it was the arrival of silver and other valuable objects via Eastern Europe which sparked the first Scandinavian Viking expeditions.

It has proven difficult, however, to establish the time of arrival of the Middle Eastern beads and coins in relation to other developments in the Viking world, including the famous raids which shook Western Europe from c. 790.

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The Northern Emporium Project excavated parts of the main street and a plot with houses and workshops in the Viking-age emporium Ribe, Denmark. The excavations followed the stratigraphy of floors and waste deposits metriculously in order to trace the changing activities and arrival of trade goods at the site. Photo: The Museum of Southwest Jutland

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A selection of imported glass beads from the late eighth and early ninth century CE found in the emporium at Ribe, Denmark. As the new study shows, local glass bead production was largely replaced by long-distance imports around 790 CE. Photo: The Museum of Southwest Jutland

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Article Source: AARHUS UNIVERSITY news release.

*10.1038/s41586-021-04240-5 

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MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN HISTORY—Humans are social creatures, but little is known about when, how, and why different populations connected in the past. Answering these questions is crucial for interpreting the biological and cultural diversity that we see in human populations today. DNA is a powerful tool for studying genetic interactions between populations, but it can’t address any cultural exchanges within these ancient meetings. Now, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History have turned to an unexpected source of information—ostrich eggshell beads—to shed light on ancient social networks. In a new study published in Nature, researchers Drs. Jennifer Miller and Yiming Wang report 50,000 years of population connection and isolation, driven by changing rainfall patterns, in southern and eastern Africa.

Ostrich eggshell beads: a window into the past

Ostrich eggshell (OES) beads are ideal artifacts for understanding ancient social relationships. They are the world’s oldest fully manufactured ornaments, meaning that instead of relying on an item’s natural size or shape, humans completely transformed the shells to produce beads. This extensive shaping creates ample opportunities for variations in style. Because different cultures produced beads of different styles, the prehistoric accessories provide researchers a way to trace cultural connections.

“It’s like following a trail of breadcrumbs,” says Miller, lead-author of the study. “The beads are clues, scattered across time and space, just waiting to be noticed.”

To search for signs of population connectivity, Miller and Wang assembled the largest ever database of ostrich eggshell beads. It includes data from more than 1500 individual beads unearthed from 31 sites across southern and eastern Africa, encompassing the last 50,000 years. Gathering this data was a painstakingly slow process that took more than a decade.

Climate change and social networks in the Stone Age

By comparing OES bead characteristics, such as total diameter, aperture diameter and shell thickness, Miller and Wang found that between 50,000 and 33,000 years ago, people in eastern and southern Africa were using nearly identical OES beads. The finding suggests a long-distance social network spanning more than 3,000 km once connected people in the two regions.

“The result is surprising, but the pattern is clear,” says Wang, co-corresponding author of the study. “Throughout the 50,000 years we examined, this is the only time period that the bead characteristics are the same.”

This eastern-southern connection at 50-33,000 years ago is the oldest social network ever identified, and it coincides with a particularly wet period in eastern Africa. However, signs of the regional network disappear by 33,000 years ago, likely triggered by a major shift in global climates. Around the same time that the social network breaks down, eastern Africa experienced a dramatic reduction in precipitation as the tropical rain belt shifted southward. This increased rain in the large area connecting eastern and southern Africa (the Zambezi River catchment), periodically flooding riverbanks, and perhaps creating a geographic barrier that disrupted regional social networks.

“Through this combination of paleoenvironmental proxies, climate models, and archaeological data, we can see the connection between climate change and cultural behavior,” says Wang.

Weaving a story with beads

Together, the results of this work document a 50,000-year-long story about human connections, and the dramatic climate changes that drove people apart. The data even provides new insight into variable social strategies between eastern and southern Africa by documenting different bead-use trajectories through time. These regional responses highlight the flexibility of human behavior and show there’s more than one path to our species’ success.

“These tiny beads have the power to reveal big stories about our past,” says Miller. “We encourage other researchers to build upon this database, and continue exploring evidence for cultural connection in new regions.”

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Digital microscope images of archeological ostrich eggshell beads. Jennifer Miller

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

*Ostrich eggshell beads reveal 50,000-year-old social network in Africa, Nature, 20 Dec. 2021. 10.1038/s41586-021-04227-2 

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EARTH INSTITUTE AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY—New evidence from the bottom of a lake in the remote North Atlantic Faroe Islands indicates that an unknown band of humans settled there around 500 AD—some 350 years before the Vikings, who up until recently have been thought to have been the first human inhabitants. The settlers may have been Celts who crossed rough, unexplored seas from what are now Scotland or Ireland. The findings appear today in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

The Faroes are a small, rugged archipelago about midway between Norway and Iceland, some 200 miles northwest of Scotland. Towering cliffs dominate the coasts; buffeted by strong winds and cloudy weather, the rocky landscape is mostly tundra. There is no evidence that indigenous people ever lived there, making it one of the planet’s few lands that remained uninhabited until historical times. Past archaeological excavations have indicated that seafaring Vikings first reached them around 850 AD, soon after they developed long-distance sailing technology. The settlement may have formed a stepping stone for the Viking settlement of Iceland in 874, and their short-lived colonization of Greenland, around 980.

 The new study, led by scientists at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, is based on lake sediments containing signs that domestic sheep suddenly appeared around 500, well before the Norse occupation. Previously, the islands did not host any mammals, domestic or otherwise; the sheep could have arrived only with people. The study is not the first to assert that someone else got there first, but the researchers say it clinches the case.

In the 1980s, researchers determined that plantago lanceolata, a weed commonly associated with disturbed areas and pastures and often used as an indicator of early human presence in Europe, showed up in the Faroes around 2200 B.C. At the time, this was deemed possible evidence of human arrival. However, seeds could have arrived on the wind, and the plant does not need human presence to establish itself. Likewise, studies of pollen taken from lake beds and bogs show that some time before the Norse period, woody vegetation largely disappeared—possibly due to persistent chewing by sheep, but also possibly due to natural climatic changes.

Some Medieval texts suggest that Irish monks reached the islands by around 500. For one, St. Brendan, a famous and far-traveled early Irish navigator, was said to have set out across the Atlantic with comrades from 512 to 530, and supposedly found a land dubbed the Isle of the Blessed. Later speculations and maps say that this was the Faroes—or the far southerly Azores, or the Canary Islands—or that Brendan actually reached North America. There is no proof for any of this. Centuries later, in 825, the Irish monk and geographer Dicuil wrote that he had learned that hermits had been living in some unidentified northern islands for at least 100 years. Again, later speculations landed on the Faroes, but there was never any proof.

The first physical evidence of early occupation came with a 2013 study in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews, which documented two patches of burnt peat containing charred barley grains found underneath the floor of a Viking longhouse on the Faroese island of Sandoy. The researchers dated the grains to somewhere between 300 and 500 years before the Norse; barley was not previously found on the island, so someone must have brought it. For many archaeologists, this constituted firm evidence of pre-Viking habitation. However, others wanted to see some kind of corroboration before declaring the case closed.

The researchers in the new study employed a non-archaeological approach. In a small vessel, they sailed out onto a lake near the village of Eiði, site of an ancient Viking locale on the island of Eysturoy. Here, they dropped weighted open-ended tubes to the bottom to collect muck—sediments dropped year by year and built up over millennia, forming a long-term environmental record. The cores penetrated down about 9 feet, recording some 10,000 years of environmental history. The scientists had started out hoping to better understand the climate around the time of the Viking occupation, but came up with a surprise.

Starting at 51 centimeters (20 inches) down in the sediments, they found signs that large numbers of sheep had suddenly arrived, most likely some time between 492 and 512, but possibly as early as 370. The telltale signs: identifiable fragments of sheep DNA, and two distinctive types of lipids produced in sheep digestive systems—so-called fecal biomarkers. (The  researchers also found bits of human DNA in the same layers, but suspect modern contamination during handling of the samples.)  A layer of ash deposited from a known Icelandic volcano eruption in 877 helped them reliably date the sediment sequences below.

“We see this as putting the nail in the coffin that people were there before the Vikings,” said lead author Lorelei Curtin, who did the research as a grad student at Lamont-Doherty. She noted that while the Faroes look rugged and wild today, practically every square inch of vegetation has been chewed up by Faroese sheep, a staple of the Faroese diet that are found nearly everywhere.

Beyond the earlier discovery of barley grains, no one has yet found physical remains of pre-Norse people, but the researchers say this is unsurprising. The Faroes contain very few sites suitable for settlement, mainly flat areas at the heads of protected bays where the Norse would have built over earlier habitations. On the other hand, “You see the sheep DNA and the biomarkers start all at once. It’s like an off-on switch,” said Lamont-Doherty paleoclimatologist William D’Andrea, who co-led the study. He points out that the markers correspond well with the Irish monks’ accounts. But, he said, “Those early writings are tenuous—it’s all circumstantial.”

So, who were these early settlers? D’Andrea and Curtin speculate that they could have been Celts, though not necessarily monks. For one, many Faroese place names derive from Celtic words, and ancient, though undated, Celtic grave markings dot the islands. Also, DNA studies of the modern Faroese show that their paternal lineages are mainly Scandinavian, while their maternal lineages are mainly Celtic. Other regions in the north Atlantic show this asymmetry—male Viking settlers are thought to have brought Celtic brides with them—but the Faroes have the highest level of maternal Celtic ancestry, suggesting an existing Celtic population that preceded the Vikings.

Kevin Edwards, an archaeologist and environment researcher at Scotland’s University of Aberdeen, and coauthor of the 2013 barley-grains paper, said the new study “has produced convincing and exciting evidence from another island within the archipelago” of earlier human occupation. He added: “Is similar evidence to be found in Iceland, where similar arguments are made for a pre-Norse presence, and for which tantalizingly similar archaeological, pollen-analytical and human DNA are forthcoming?”

The other authors of the study are Nicholas Balascio of the College of William & Mary; Sabrina Shirazi and Beth Shapiro of the University of California, Santa Cruz; Gregory de Wet and Raymond Bradley of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and Jostein Bakke of the University of Bergen, Norway. Lorelei Curtin is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wyoming. The research is the outcome of a collaborative project awarded by the Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences of the U.S. National Science Foundation to Columbia University, UMass Amherst, and William & Mary.

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The bed of this lake on the island of Eysturoy contains a sediment layer laid down around 500 AD that documents the first arrival of sheep, and thus humans, on the archipelago. Raymond Bradley/UMass Amherst

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Article Source: EARTH INSTITUTE AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY news release.

Related: The Link Between Viking Settlements and Climate

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO DENVER—Working in a cave in Liguria, Italy, an international team of researchers uncovered the oldest documented burial of an infant girl in the European archaeological record. The richly decorated 10,000-year-old burial included over 60 pierced shell beads, four pendants, and an eagle-owl talon alongside the remains. The discovery offers insight into the early Mesolithic period, from which few recorded burials are known, and the seemingly egalitarian funerary treatment of an infant female.

“The evolution and development of how early humans buried their dead as revealed in the archaeological record has enormous cultural significance,” says Jamie Hodgkins, PhD, paleoanthropologist and associate professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado Denver.

The crew first discovered the burial in 2017 and fully excavated the delicate remains in July 2018. Hodgkins worked alongside her husband Caley Orr, PhD, paleoanthropologist and anatomist at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Their team of project codirectors included Italian collaborators Fabio Negrino, University of Genoa, and Stefano Benazzi, University of Bologna, as well as researchers from the University of Montreal, Washington University, University of Ferrara, University of Tubingen, and the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University.

Arma Veirana, a cave in the Ligurian pre-Alps of northwestern Italy, is a popular spot for local families to visit. Looters also discovered the site, and their digging exposed the late Pleistocene tools that drew researchers to the area.

The team spent its first two excavation seasons near the mouth of the cave, exposing stratigraphic layers that contained tools over 50,000 years old typically associated with Neandertals in Europe (Mousterian tools). They also found the remains of ancient meals such as the cut-marked bones of wild boars and elk, and bits of charred fat. To better understand the stratigraphy of the cave as it related to the artifacts, the team needed to expose potential Upper Paleolithic deposits that could have been the source of the more recently made stone tools they found eroding down the cave floor.

As the team explored the further reaches of the cave, they began to unearth pierced shell beads. Hodgkins was going through the beads back in the lab and knew the team was onto something. A few days later, using dental tools and a small paint brush, the researchers exposed parts of a cranial vault and articulated lines of pierced shell beads.

In a series of analyses coordinated with multiple institutions and numerous experts, the team uncovered several details about the ancient burial. Radiocarbon dating determined that the child, who the team nicknamed “Neve,” lived 10,000 years ago, and amelogenin protein analysis and ancient DNA revealed that the infant was a female belonging to a lineage of European women known as the U5b2b haplogroup.

“There’s a decent record of human burials before around 14,000 years ago,” said Hodgkins. “But the latest Upper Paleolithic period and earliest part of the Mesolithic are more poorly known when it comes to funerary practices. Infant burials are especially rare, so Neve adds important information to help fill this gap.”

“The Mesolithic is particularly interesting,” said Orr. “It followed the end of the final Ice Age and represents the last period in Europe when hunting and gathering was the primary way of making a living. So it’s a really important time period for understanding human prehistory.”

Detailed virtual histology of the infant’s teeth showed that she died 40–50 days after birth, and that she experienced stress that briefly halted the growth of her teeth 47 days and 28 days before she was born. Carbon and nitrogen analyses of the teeth revealed that the baby’s mother had been nourishing the infant in her womb on a land-based diet.

An analysis of the ornaments adorning the infant demonstrated the care invested in each piece and showed that many of the ornaments exhibited wear that proves they were passed down to the child from group members.

Along with the burial of a similarly aged female from Upward Sun River in Alaska, Hodgkins said the funerary treatment of Neve suggests that the recognition of infant females as full persons has deep origins in a common ancestral culture that was shared by peoples who migrated into Europe and those who migrated to North America. Or it may have arisen in parallel in populations across the planet.

Mortuary practices offer a window into the worldviews and social structure of past societies. Child funerary treatment provides important insights into who was considered a person and afforded the attributes of an individual self, moral agency, and eligibility for group membership. Neve shows that even the youngest females were recognized as full persons in her society.

And because archaeology has historically been viewed through a male lens, Hodgkins worries there are many stories we’ve missed.

“Right now, we have the oldest identified female infant burial in Europe,” said Hodgkins. “I hope that quickly becomes untrue. Archaeological reports have tended to focus on male stories and roles, and in doing so have left many people out of the narrative. Protein and DNA analyses are allowing us to better understand the diversity of human personhood and status in the past. Without DNA analysis, this highly decorated infant burial could possibly have been assumed male.”

In Western society, archaeologists have historically assumed that figureheads and warriors were male. But DNA analyses have proven the existence of female Viking warriors, nonbinary leaders, and powerful Bronze Age female rulers. Finding a burial like Neve’s is reason to look more critically at archaeology’s past, said Hodgkins. 

“This is about increasing our knowledge of women, but also acknowledging that we as archaeologists can’t understand the past through a singular lens. We need as diverse a perspective as possible because humans are complex.”

The research, excavation, and analysis were made possible with funding from The Wenner-Gren Foundation, Leakey Foundation, National Geographic Society Waitt Program, Hyde Family Foundation, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program, and the Max Planck Society.

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Jamie Hodgkins, lead researcher, and team at the burial discovery site in Italy. Jamie Hodkins, PhD, CU Denver

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Illustration showing the placement of beads and shells along with the cranium. Claudine Gravel-Miguel

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The mouth of the Arma Veirana cave, a site in the Ligurian mountains of northwestern Italy. Dominique Meyer image.

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Article Source: UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO DENVER news release.

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