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Science Advances—Neanderthals used eagle talons as symbolic adornments thirty-nine thousand years ago, according to a new report, which contributes to the scarce evidence that ancient humans used animal parts for symbolic purposes as opposed to practical ones. The finding represents the most recent known use of talons for adornments by Neanderthals and is the first such discovery on the Iberian Peninsula. Previously, archaeologists suggested that Neanderthals used seashells as beads and to hold paints, indicating that these ancient humans may have conveyed ideas like social status or rank with symbolic objects. Additionally, archaeologists have found eagle talons or bones from which talons had been removed at 10 other Neanderthal sites across Eurasia dated between 130 and 39 thousand years ago, and thus researchers have proposed that they had been used for symbolic purposes because of the eagles’ relative scarcity and impracticality as a food or tool source. Because these kinds of finds are uncommon, some researchers have argued that Neanderthals did not have symbolic culture, at least until modern humans introduced it to them after migrating into Europe and Eurasia.

In 2015, Antonio Rodriguez-Hidalgo and colleagues discovered the Imperial eagle toe bone (phalanx) in the Foradada Cave, located on the Catalonia coast in Spain. The find was associated with a lower depositional strata that featured objects identified to the Châtelperronian, a culture developed by the last Neanderthals during the transition period to the Upper Paleolithic. The phalanx showed distinctive cut marks. Using 3-D analysis, they found that the cut marks could only have been made by a stone tool, likely to remove the talon. Given that there is little nutritional content on that part of the bird, the researchers suggest that the Neanderthals who occupied the cave, the makers of the Châtelperronian culture, may have used eagle talons and feathers to evoke connotations of eagles as majestic predators. 

Rodriguez-Hidalgo and colleagues suggest that, based on the archaeological record, modern humans did not use raptor talons until they arrived in Europe, suggesting the possibility that the Neanderthals had an eagle talon ornamental tradition that the modern humans adopted after arrival. Such a tradition would be the oldest known expression of symbolism prior to modern human arrival. 

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Exterior view of the prehistoric site of Cova Foradada (Calafell, Tarragona). Antonio Rodríguez-Hidalgo

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Eagle bone from Cova Foradada showing cut marks. Antonio Rodríguez-Hidalgo

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3-D imaging analysis showed cut marks made by stone tools. Screenshot from video, The Necklace of the Last Neanderthal. Antonio Rodriguez-Hidalgo

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Article Source: Edited and adapted from the subject Science Advances news release. Science Advances is published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society.

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FLINDERS UNIVERSITY—The largest water management feature in Khmer history was built in the 10th century as part of a short-lived ancient capital in northern Cambodia to store water but the system failed in its first year of operation, possibly leading to the return of the capital to Angkor.

An international team of researchers led by Dr Ian Moffat from Flinders University in Australia used ground penetrating radar to map the surface of a buried spillway in Koh Ker to better understand why the reservoir failed during its first year of use.

In a study published in Geoarchaeology, archaeologists explain that the 7km long embankment was designed to capture water from the Stung Rongea river but modelling indicates it was inadequate to contain the average water flow in the catchment, putting into question the legitimacy of Khmer kings, and forcing them to re-establish their capital in Angkor.

“At that time, embarking on projects of civil engineering such as temple building, urban renewal, and the development of water infrastructure was central to establishing the legitimacy of Khmer kings,” says Dr Moffat

“It’s not difficult to envisage that the failure of the embankment at Koh Ker–the largest and most ambitious infrastructure project of the era–may have had a significant impact on the prestige of the sovereign capital, and contributed to the decision to re-establish Angkor as the capital of the Khmer Empire.”

“Our study shows that this ambitious engineering feat was always doomed to rapid failure.”

The monumental complex of Koh Ker, located 90 km northeast of Angkor, remains relatively poorly understood even though it was briefly the capital in the middle of the 10th century CE under King Jayavarman IV, the only capital throughout six centuries to be established outside of the Angkor region.

The site is located in an area of gently sloping hills and stone outcrops, far removed from the low-lying floodplains that define the Khmer heartland.

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Regional map of Koh Ker showing the location of the chute and key archaeological features. The detailed map area (top right) is shown as a white dashed box on the regional map (left). The black dashed line in the detailed map area shows the approximate area of Fig 2. The location of Koh Ker compared with Angkor, Phnom Penh, and Ho Chi Minh City is shown in the bottom right. North is up in all figures. Dr Ian Moffat, Flinders University

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Article Source: Flinders University news release

Researchers from Flinders, University of British Columbia and Ecole francaise d’Extreme-Orient in Paris contributed to the study.

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PLOS—Buried alongside the famous Ötzi the Iceman are at least 75 species of bryophytes – mosses and liverworts – which hold clues to Ötzi’s surroundings, according to a study released October 30, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by James Dickson of the University of Glasgow, UK and colleagues at the University of Innsbruck.

Ötzi the Iceman is a remarkable 5,300-year-old human specimen found frozen in ice approximately 3,200 meters above sea level in the Italian Alps. He was frozen alongside his clothing and gear as well as an abundant assemblage of plants and fungi. In this study, Dickson and colleagues aimed to identify the mosses and liverworts preserved alongside the Iceman.

Today, 23 bryophyte species live the area near where Ötzi was found, but inside the ice the researchers identified thousands of preserved bryophyte fragments representing at least 75 species. It is the only site of such high altitude with bryophytes preserved over thousands of years. Notably, the assemblage includes a variety of mosses ranging from low-elevation to high-elevation species, as well as 10 species of liverworts, which are very rarely preserved in archaeological sites. Only 30% of the identified bryophytes appear to have been local species, with the rest having been transported to the spot in Ötzi’s gut or clothing or by large mammalian herbivores whose droppings ended up frozen alongside the Iceman.

From these remains, the researchers infer that the bryophyte community in the Alps around 5,000 years ago was generally similar to that of today. Furthermore, the non-local species help to confirm the path Ötzi took to his final resting place. Several of the identified moss species thrive today in the lower Schnalstal valley, suggesting that Ötzi traveled along the valley during his ascent. This conclusion is corroborated by previous pollen research, which also pinpointed Schnalstal as the Iceman’s likely route of ascent.

Dickson adds, “Most members of the public are unlikely to be knowledgeable about bryophytes (mosses and liverworts). However, no fewer than 75 species of these important investigative clues were found when the Iceman (aka Ötzi) was removed from the ice. They were recovered as mostly small scraps from the ice around him, from his clothes and gear, and even from his alimentary tract. Those findings prompted the questions: Where did the fragments come from? How precisely did they get there? How do they help our understanding of the Iceman?”

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Taphonomic processes. These led to the deposition of flowering plant remains at the Ötzi discovery site according to Heiss and Oeggl. Dickson et al, 2019

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Article Source: PLoS ONE news release

*Dickson JH, Oeggl KD, Kofler W, Hofbauer WK, Porley R, Rothero GP, et al. (2019) Seventy-five mosses and liverworts found frozen with the late Neolithic Tyrolean Iceman: Origins, taphonomy and the Iceman’s last journey. PLoS ONE 14(10): e0223752. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0223752

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INSTITUT NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE – INRS—Soil erosion reduces the productivity of ecosystems, it changes nutrient cycles and it thus directly impacts climate and society. An international team of researchers, including Professor Pierre Francus at the Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique (INRS), recorded temporal changes of soil erosion by analyzing sediment deposits in more than 600 lakes worldwide. They found that the accumulation of lake sediments increased significantly on a global scale around 4,000 years ago. At the same time, tree cover decreased as shown by pollen records, which is a clear indicator of deforestation. The study suggests that human practices and land-use change have intensified soil erosion long before industrialization.

Soils are the foundation for almost all biological processes on the Earth’s land surface. On millennial time scales, their weathering and erosion is controlled mainly by climatic and tectonic impacts. In the short term and at smaller local scales, anthropogenic activities are the main drivers of soil erosion. It remained unclear, however, if soil erosion caused by humans has an impact on the global scale as well.

To address this question, European and Canadian researchers looked back in time regarding soil erosion. They investigated cores of sediments from 632 lakes worldwide, which had been collected during the last decades.

“Lake sediments are considered natural archives of erosion activities. All fluxes and processes removing soil, rock and dissolved materials result in chronological sediment layers that are accumulated and preserved at the bottom of lakes”, says lead author, Dr. Jean-Philippe Jenny, from Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany, and CARRTEL Limnology Center, Thonon-les-Bains, France.

Using 14C radiocarbon measurements, the scientists dated the age of lake sediment layers and the sediment accumulation rates. “This is the first time that by compiling data from so many lakes we see a general trend that shows an increasing sediment accumulation during the Holocene (or the last 10 000 years),” says co-author Professor Francus, who also holds a Canada Research Chair in Environmental Sedimentology at INRS.

When searching for potential causes of this increased sedimentation, the researchers looked at the pollen fossils recorded in the same lakes, in order to reconstruct land cover changes in each lake watersheds.

“We were excited to find that increased sediment accumulation 4,000 years ago coincided with a reduction of arboreal pollen derived from trees” says Dr. Jenny. “The tree pollen decrease reflects land-cover changes, in particular land clearances, e.g., for agriculture and settlement, that in turn are likely to lead to soil degradation and erosion.”

Further statistical analyses supported the notion that land cover change was the main driver of globally accelerated sediment accumulation in lakes, which is the proxy for soil erosion.

”This means that land use had a major impact as many as 4000 years ago, when the human population was much lower than it is today. Our ecosystems are extremely sensitive to modifications to land use,” explains Professor Francus.

Looking closer at their data, the researchers also found other exiting connections: on a regional level, changes in sediment accumulation seem to correlate with historical socio-economic developments during human settlements. For example, the increase of soil erosion started later in North America than in Europe. This increase likely corresponds to the delayed introduction of European agricultural practices in North America following colonization. On the contrary, the decrease in sediment accumulation in 23 percent of sites is likely associated with increased water use and building dams, especially in the Roman and Chinese empires 3,000 years ago.

Collectively, this study suggests that the change in tree abundance in lake catchments has long been the leading factor driving soil erosion. Furthermore, anthropogenic deforestation explains the accelerated soil erosion during the last four millennia.

“These findings are important as it will allow us to get better and more precise predictions of the carbon cycle in the long-term, ” adds Professor Francus.

“Well before the more recent and abrupt influences by greenhouse gas emissions, human activities must have influenced the global environment already 4,000 years ago,” concludes Dr. Jenny who led the research project at Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry as a fellow funded by the AXA research foundation. Dr. Jenny was also a postdoctoral fellow in Professor Francus’ laboratory at INRS – Centre Eau Terre Environnement (Research Centre on Water, Earth, and the Environment).

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Erosion caused by agriculture is a major cause of land degradation. Rick Bohn / United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS)

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Taking samples from a sediment core for age determination by radiocarbon measurements. Jean-Philippe-Jenny

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Article Source: INSTITUT NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE – INRS news release

*Jenny, J.-P., Koirala, S., Gregory-Eaves, I., Francus, P., Niemann, C., Ahrens, B., Brovkin, V., Baud, A., Ojala, A.E.K., Normandeau, A., Zolitschka, B., Carvalhais, N., Human and climate influences on sediment transfer – a global account for the Holocene, Proc.Natl.Acad.Sci.USA (2019)

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GARVAN INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL RESEARCH—A study has concluded that the earliest ancestors of anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) emerged in a southern African ‘homeland’ and thrived there for 70 thousand years. The breakthrough findings are published in the prestigious journal Nature today. The authors propose that changes in Africa’s climate triggered the first human explorations, which initiated the development of humans’ genetic, ethnic and cultural diversity. This study provides a window into the first 100 thousand years of modern humans’ history.

DNA as a time capsule

“It has been clear for some time that anatomically modern humans appeared in Africa roughly 200 thousand years ago. What has been long debated is the exact location of this emergence and subsequent dispersal of our earliest ancestors,” says study lead Professor Vanessa Hayes from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and University of Sydney, and Extraordinary Professor at the University of Pretoria.

“Mitochondrial DNA acts like a time capsule of our ancestral mothers, accumulating changes slowly over generations. Comparing the complete DNA code, or mitogenome, from different individuals provides information on how closely they are related.”

In their study, Professor Hayes and her colleagues collected blood samples to establish a comprehensive catalogue of modern human’s earliest mitogenomes from the so-called ‘L0’ lineage. “Our work would not have been possible without the generous contributions of local communities and study participants in Namibia and South Africa, which allowed us to uncover rare and new L0 sub-branches,” says study author and public health Professor Riana Bornman from the University of Pretoria.

“We merged 198 new, rare mitogenomes to the current database of modern human’s earliest known population, the L0 lineage. This allowed us to refine the evolutionary tree of our earliest ancestral branches better than ever before,” says first author Dr Eva Chan from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, who led the phylogenetic analyses.

By combining the L0 lineage timeline with the linguistic, cultural and geographic distributions of different sub-lineages, the study authors revealed that 200 thousand years ago, the first Homo sapiens sapiens maternal lineage emerged in a ‘homeland’ south of the Greater Zambezi River Basin region, which includes the entire expanse of northern Botswana into Namibia to the west and Zimbabwe to the east.

A homeland perfect for life to thrive

Investigating existing geological, archeological and fossil evidence, geologist Dr Andy Moore, from Rhodes University, revealed that the homeland region once held Africa’s largest ever lake system, Lake Makgadikgadi.

“Prior to modern human emergence, the lake had begun to drain due to shifts in underlying tectonic plates. This would have created a vast wetland, which is known to be one of the most productive ecosystems for sustaining life,” says Dr Moore.

Modern humans’ first migrations

The authors’ new evolutionary timelines suggest that the ancient wetland ecosystem provided a stable ecological environment for modern humans’ first ancestors to thrive for 70 thousand years.

“We observed significant genetic divergence in the modern humans’ earliest maternal sub-lineages, that indicates our ancestors migrated out of the homeland between 130 and 110 thousand years ago,” explains Professor Hayes. “The first migrants ventured northeast, followed by a second wave of migrants who travelled southwest. A third population remained in the homeland until today.”

“In contrast to the northeasterly migrants, the southwesterly explorers appear to flourish, experiencing steady population growth,” says Professor Hayes. The authors speculate that the success of this migration was most likely a result of adaptation to marine foraging, which is further supported by extensive archaeological evidence along the southern tip of Africa.

Climate effects

To investigate what may have driven these early human migrations, co-corresponding author Professor Axel Timmermann, Director of the IBS Center for Climate Physics at Pusan National University, analysed climate computer model simulations and geological data, which capture Southern Africa’s climate history of the past 250 thousand years.

“Our simulations suggest that the slow wobble of Earth’s axis changes summer solar radiation in the Southern Hemisphere, leading to periodic shifts in rainfall across southern Africa,” says Professor Timmermann. “These shifts in climate would have opened green, vegetated corridors, first 130 thousand years ago to the northeast, and then around 110 thousand years ago to the southwest, allowing our earliest ancestors to migrate away from the homeland for the first time.”

“These first migrants left behind a homeland population,” remarks Professor Hayes. “Eventually adapting to the drying lands, maternal descendants of the homeland population can be found in the greater Kalahari region today.”

This study uniquely combined the disciplines of genetics, geology and climatic physics to rewrite our earliest human history.

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Professor Vanessa Hayes learning how to make fire with Ju ‘hoansi hunters in the now dried homeland of the greater Kalahari of Namibia. From left to right: Namce Sao, kun Namce, Vanessa Hayes and kun kunta. Chris Bennett, Evolving Picture

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Article Source: GARVAN INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL RESEARCH news release

The research was supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project grant (DP170103071) and the Institute for Basic Science (IBS-R028-D1). Professor Vanessa Hayes holds the Sydney University Petre Chair of Prostate Cancer Research.

This study was conducted in consultation with the local African communities, approval from community leaders and ethics approval from the Ministry of Health and Social Services in Namibia, the University of Pretoria Human Research Ethics Committee and St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney. Participants for this study were recruited within the borders of South Africa and Namibia. The study was reviewed and approved by the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MoHSS) in Namibia (#17-3-3), with additional local approvals from community leaders, and the University of Pretoria Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC #43/2010 and HREC #280/2017), including US Federal-wide assurance (FWA00002567 and IRB00002235 IORG0001762).

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HOKKAIDO UNIVERSITY—Fossil coral records provide new evidence that frequent winter shamals, or dust storms, and a prolonged cold winter season contributed to the collapse of the ancient Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia.

The Akkadian Empire (24th to 22nd century B.C.E.) was the first united empire in Mesopotamia and thrived with the development of irrigation. Yet, settlements appear to have been suddenly abandoned ca. 4,200 years ago, causing its collapse. The area would also not experience resettlement until about 300 years later.

Past studies have shown that the Akkadian Empire likely collapsed due to abrupt drought and civil turmoil. However, the climatic dynamics which caused widespread agricultural failures and the end of an era have yet to be sufficiently explored.

Researchers from Hokkaido University, the KIKAI Institute for Coral Reef Sciences, Kyushu University, and Kiel University made paleoclimatic reconstructions of the temperature and hydrological changes of the areas around the archaeological site of Tell Leilan, the center of the Akkadian Empire. They sampled six 4,100-year-old fossil Porites corals from the Gulf of Oman, just directly downwind. The samples were aged by radiocarbon dating and geochemically analyzed to confirm they have not been significantly altered from their present state.

The coral data was then compared to modern coral samples and meteorological information. Although it is normal for the survey area to receive a significant amount of rainfall in the winter, the coral data suggests that, during the time of the empire’s collapse, the area suffered from significant dry spells. The data before and since the collapse are furthermore comparable to modern coral data, showing the dry spells would have been sudden and intense.

The fossil evidence shows that there was a prolonged winter shamal season accompanied by frequent shamal days. The impact of the dust storms and the lack of rainfall would have caused major agricultural problems possibly leading to social instability and famine, both factors which have been previously associated with the collapse of the empire.

“Although the official mark of the collapse of the Akkadian Empire is the invasion of Mesopotamia by other populations, our fossil samples are windows in time showing that variations in climate significantly contributed to the empire’s decline,” said Tsuyoshi Watanabe of Hokkaido University’s Department of Natural History Sciences. “Further interdisciplinary research will help improve our understanding of connections between climate changes and human societies in the past.”

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A 4,100-year-old Oman coral fossil. Hokkaido University

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A map showing the sample sites (red stars) in respect to Mesopotamia (green dots) and wind direction. (Watanabe T.K. et al, The Geological Society of America. September 2, 2019). Watanabe T.K. et al, The Geological Society of America. September 2, 2019

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Article Source: HOKKAIDO UNIVERSITY news release

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PLOS—Early Celts from the Heuneburg settlement may have enjoyed Mediterranean wine well before they began importing Mediterranean drinking vessels–and this special drink may have been available to all in the community, according to a study* published October 23, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Maxime Rageot from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and the University of Tübingen, and colleagues.

The Early Celtic “Heuneburg” settlement north of the Alps in modern-day Germany was a locus for early urbanization during the Early Iron Age (7th-5th centuries BCE): excavation has revealed several elite burials as well as a rich collection of Mediterranean imported goods used for feasting. In order to better understand feasting and consumption practices in the Heuneburg, Rageot and colleagues analyzed organic residues left on 126 local vessels and seven imported Attic ceramics recovered across the settlement, used for drinking and serving beverages, and food storage and preparation.

The results of the gas chromatography and mass spectrometry analyses showed that Mediterranean grape wine was present earlier than previously expected, and drunk from a large variety of vessels, including the oldest local ceramics created prior to the presence of imported Attic vessels or the formation of the settlement’s fortified central plateau (where elite members of the settlement are thought to have lived). This complicates a previous assumption that imported wine was reserved for the elite: this wine may have been available to all members of the community, at least early in Heuneburg’s history.

A bee or plant fermentation byproduct was also found in many of the vessels across the settlement, including Mediterranean-style goblets, so residents might have appropriated Mediterranean drinking style for local fermented beverages, too.

The authors’ analysis suggests that later, with the introduction of new imported Attic pottery and wheel-thrown local ceramics, residents may have preferred to drink imported wine solely from these finer vessels–potentially inspired by an increased knowledge of Mediterranean drinking practices.

After the elite plateau was walled off, the authors found more fermented beverage evidence in vessels from the plateau, and more millet/food evidence (including animal fats indicating consumption of dairy products) in vessels from the lower town, suggesting an increased distinction in vessel use between social classes. The intricate and shifting social dynamics hinted at in these findings suggest lines for future inquiry into Early Celtic sites.

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Heuneberg pottery / Heuneburg early celts from all social classes may have consumed mediterranean wine in local ceramics. Victor S. Brigola

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Article Source: PLOS One news release

*Rageot M, Mötsch A, Schorer B, Gutekunst A, Patrizi G, Zerrer M, et al. (2019) The dynamics of Early Celtic consumption practices: A case study of the pottery from the Heuneburg. PLoS ONE 14(10): e0222991. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222991

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FLINDERS UNIVERSITY—October 16, 2019 marks 360 years since the Dutch merchant ship Melckmeyt (Milkmaid) was wrecked off a remote Icelandic island during a clandestine trading mission.

Since its discovery in 1992 it has remained the oldest identified shipwreck in Iceland, and its lower hull has remained unusually well-preserved in Iceland’s icy waters.

To mark this anniversary, digital archaeology specialists at Flinders University have collaborated with maritime archaeologists at the University of Iceland to release a 360 degree virtual dive on the wreck.

This is a highly realistic virtual experience of the wreck and includes a digital reconstruction of how the ship might have appeared on the seabed moments after it sank.

The three minute virtual dive was created for an exhibition at the Reykjavik Maritime Museum, but has now been published through YouTube and is available to anyone with a VR headset – it can also be viewed with a smartphone or tablet just by turning it around to view the scene.

The wreck at the centre of the experience is a merchant ship around 33 meters long named Melckmeyt (Milkmaid), thought to be a type of Dutch ship known as a flute.

Flutes were one of the most widely used ship types in the 17th century, a period when the Dutch ruled the seas and piracy and sea battles were a frequent occurrence. The kingdom of Denmark ruled Iceland and forbade other European nations from trading with the island.

However, in 1659 a surprise attack by the Swedish king on the Danish capital prevented any Danish supply ships from traveling to Iceland.

Sensing an opportunity, enterprising merchants in the Netherlands sent a small fleet of unlicensed ships flying under a false Danish flag to trade illegally with the Icelandic population for fish and other goods. If discovered their ships were at risk of confiscation or attack by Danish authorities.

On October 16th, the ship Melckmeyt paid the ultimate price, wrecking in a remote harbor during a sudden storm, with the death of one crew member.

The survivors took shelter above water in the highest point of wreck for the next two days. Although recorded in the Icelandic annals, this event was largely forgotten until its rediscovery in 1992 by local divers Erlendur Guðmundsson and Sævar Árnason. In 2016 PHD candidate Kevin Martin from the University of Iceland returned to the wreck site to carry out a detailed high-resolution 3D survey with his team, including archaeologists from the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands.

“The significance of this wreck is enormous for Iceland. As it is one of the oldest known historic wrecks in this part of the world, it shines a light on a fascinating period of Icelandic history, when Denmark ruled the island and had a monopoly over trade here for a period of 200 years.”

“We have also been able to directly embed a 3D survey of the seabed with full photographic texture. In theory, a member of the public viewing this might even spot something on the wreck that we have missed during our dives on it!”

PHD candidate in Maritime Archaeology at Flinders University, John McCarthy created the virtual dive.

“Funding from the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Canberra allowed me to travel from Australia to the Netherlands to make a 3D scan of a rare ship model from the 17th century, supporting the most authentic reconstruction of the ship possible.”

“We have even based the stern painting on a real contemporary Dutch painting, Vermeer’s’ famous ‘Milkmaid’, painted just one year before the ship was wrecked.”

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Milkmaid virtual dive. Image by John McCarthy

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Map of Milkmaid wreck location. Image by John McCarthy

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Milkmaid reconstruction. Image by John McCarthy

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Aerial view of wreck site. Image by Kevin Martin

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Article Source: Flinders University news release

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TAYLOR & FRANCIS GROUP—An ancient walkway most likely used by pilgrims as they made their way to worship at the Temple Mount has been uncovered in the “City of David” in the Jerusalem Walls National Park.

In a new study* published in Tel Aviv: Journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University, researchers at the Israel Antiquities Authority detail finding over 100 coins beneath the paving stones that date the street to approximately 31 CE. The finding provides strong evidence that the street was commissioned by Pontius Pilate.

After six years of extensive archaeological excavations, researchers from the Israel Antiquities Authority and Tel Aviv University have uncovered a 220-meter-long section of an ancient street first discovered by British archaeologists in 1894. The walkway ascends from the Pool of Siloam in the south to the Temple Mount.

Both monuments are hugely significant to followers of Judaism and Christianity. The Temple Mount, located within the Old City of Jerusalem, has been venerated as a holy site for thousands of years. At the time of the street’s construction, it is where Jesus is said to have cured a man’s blindness by sending him to wash in the Siloam Pool.

The excavation revealed over 100 coins trapped beneath paving stones. The latest coins were dated between 17 CE to 31 CE, which provides firm evidence that work began and was completed during the time that Pontius Pilate governed Judea.

“Dating using coins is very exact,” says Dr Donald T. Ariel, an archaeologist and coin expert with the Israel Antiquities Authority, and one of the co-authors of the article. “As some coins have the year in which they were minted on them, what that means is that if a coin with the date 30 CE on it is found beneath the street, the street had to be built in the same year or after that coin had been minted, so any time after 30 CE.”

“However, our study goes further, because statistically, coins minted some 10 years later are the most common coins in Jerusalem, so not having them beneath the street means the street was built before their appearance, in other words only in the time of Pilate.”

The magnificent street 600 meters long and approximately 8 meters wide was paved with large stone slabs, as was customary throughout the Roman Empire. The researchers estimate that some 10,000 tons of quarried limestone rock was used in its construction, which would have required considerable skill.

The opulent and grand nature of the street coupled with the fact that it links two of the most important spots in Jerusalem—the Siloam Pool and Temple Mount—is strong evidence that the street acted as a pilgrim’s route.

“If this was a simple walkway connecting point A to point B, there would be no need to build such a grand street,” says Dr Joe Uziel and Moran Hagbi, archaeologists at the Israel Antiquities Authority, co-authors of the study. “At its minimum it is 8 meters wide. This, coupled with its finely carved stone and ornate ‘furnishings’ like a stepped podium along the street, all indicate that this was a special street.”

“Part of it may have been to appease the residents of Jerusalem, part of it may have been about the way Jerusalem would fit in the Roman world, and part of it may have been to aggrandize his name through major building projects,” says author Nahshon Szanton.

The paving stones of the street were found hidden beneath layers of rubble, thought to be from when the Romans captured and destroyed the city in 70 CE. The rubble contained weapons such as arrowheads and sling stones, remains of burnt trees, and collapsed stones from the buildings along its edge.

It is possible that he had the street constructed to reduce tensions with the Jewish population. “We can’t know for sure, although all these reasons do find support in the historical documents, and it is likely that it was some combination of the three.”

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The pavement of the street and the solid foundation that was exposed in a place where no paving stones were preserved. A. Peretz, IAA

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View of the foundations of the Western Wall (left) and the retaining wall that abutted it, built on bedrock (below). To the right are the constructive layers that filled the support system. M. Hagbi, IAA

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location map, marking excavation sites. D. Levi, IAA; printed by permission of the Survey of Israel.

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Article Source: TAYLOR & FRANCIS GROUP news release

*http://tandfonline.com/10.1080/03344355.2019.1650491

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AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE—Modern Melanesians harbor beneficial genetic variants that they inherited from archaic Neanderthal and Denisovan hominins, according to a new study*. These genes are not found in many other human populations, the study adds. The results suggest that large structural variants introgressed from our archaic ancestors may have played an important role in the adaptation of early modern human populations and that they may represent an under-appreciated source of the genetic variation that remains to be characterized in our modern genomes. As populations of our ancestors migrated out of Africa and into the vast Eurasian continent, they were required to adapt to the wide range of environments they encountered. They also interbred with the archaic hominin ancestors they encountered. However, the role of genetic exchange between archaic hominin and anatomically modern human populations in adaption and human evolution remains elusive. Genetic surveys with single-nucleotide variants (SNVs) have suggested their involvement in archaic introgression and adaptation. However, compared to SNVs, copy number variants (CNVs), a larger form of structural variant, are far more likely to be associated with genotype expression and are subject to stronger selective pressure. Despite this, the adaptive role of introgressed CNVs in human evolution and the genetic variation of modern humans remains unexplored. PingHsun Hsieh performed a genome-wide search for evidence of selective and archaic introgressed CNVs among Melanesian genomes. The Islanders of Melanesia harbor some of the greatest amounts of archaic human ancestry known. Hsieh et al. discovered hominin-shared, stratified CNVs associated with positive selection in the modern Melanesian genomes. Furthermore, the results revealed evidence for adaptive CNVs introgression at chromosomes 16p11.2 and 8p21.3, which were derived from Denisovans and Neanderthals, respectively. The results tentatively suggest that CNV introgression from ancestral hominins may have allowed modern humans to adapt to new environments by providing a source of beneficial genetic variation.

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The Islanders of Melanesia harbor some of the greatest amounts of archaic human ancestry known.

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Article Source: AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE news release

*”Adaptive archaic introgression of copy number variants and the discovery of new human genes,” by P. Hsieh, et al.

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MCMASTER UNIVERSITY—An international research team led by scientists from McMaster University has unearthed new evidence in Greece proving that the island of Naxos was inhabited by Neanderthals and earlier humans at least 200,000 years ago, tens of thousands of years earlier than previously believed.

The findings, published today in the journal Science Advances, are based on years of excavations and challenge current thinking about human movement in the region—long thought to have been inaccessible and uninhabitable to anyone but modern humans. The new evidence is leading researchers to reconsider the routes our early ancestors took as they moved out of Africa into Europe and demonstrates their ability to adapt to new environmental challenges.

“Until recently, this part of the world was seen as irrelevant to early human studies but the results force us to completely rethink the history of the Mediterranean islands,” says Tristan Carter, an associate professor of anthropology at McMaster University and lead author on the study. He conducted the work with Dimitris Athanasoulis, head of archaeology at the Cycladic Ephorate of Antiquities within the Greek Ministry of Culture.

While Stone Age hunters are known to have been living on mainland Europe for over 1 million years, the Mediterranean islands were previously believed to be settled only 9,000 years ago, by farmers, the idea being that only modern humans – Homo sapiens – were sophisticated enough to build seafaring vessels.

Scholars had believed the Aegean Sea, separating western Anatolia (modern Turkey) from continental Greece, was therefore impassable to the Neanderthals and earlier hominins, with the only obvious route in and out of Europe across the land bridge of Thrace (southeast Balkans).

The authors of this paper suggest that the Aegean basin was in fact accessible much earlier than believed. At certain times of the Ice Age the sea was much lower, exposing a land route between the continents that would have allowed early prehistoric populations to walk to Stelida, and an alternative migration route connecting Europe and Africa. Researchers believe the area would have been attractive to early humans because of its abundance of raw materials ideal for toolmaking and for its fresh water.

At the same time however, “in entering this region the pre-Neanderthal populations would have been faced with a new and challenging environment, with different animals, plants and diseases, all requiring new adaptive strategies,” says Carter.

In this paper, the team details evidence of human activity spanning almost 200,000 years at Stelida, a prehistoric quarry on the northwest coast of Naxos. Here early Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and earlier humans used the local stone (chert) to make their tools and hunting weapons, of which the team has unearthed hundreds of thousands.

Reams of scientific data collected at the site add to the ongoing debate about the importance of coastal and marine routes to human movement. While present data suggests that the Aegean could be crossed by foot over 200,000 years ago, the authors also raise the possibility that Neanderthals may also have fashioned crude seafaring boats capable of crossing short distances.

This research is part of the Stelida Naxos Archaeological Project, a larger collaboration involving scholars from all over the world. They have been working at the site since 2013.

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A researcher works at a trench at Stelida (Naxos, Greece). Evaggelos Tzoumenekas

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Today Naxos is completely surrounded by the sea, but “while present data suggests that the Aegean could be crossed by foot over 200,000 years ago, the authors also raise the possibility that Neanderthals may also have fashioned crude seafaring boats capable of crossing short distances.”

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Article Source: MCMASTER UNIVERSITY news release

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UNIVERSITY OF GÖTTINGEN—Recent archaeological investigations in the Tollense Valley led by the University of Göttingen, the State Agency for Cultural Heritage in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and the University of Greifswald have unearthed a collection of 31 unusual objects. Researchers believe this is the personal equipment of a Bronze Age warrior who died on the battlefield 3,300 years ago. This unique find was discovered by a diving team headed by Dr Joachim Krüger, from the University of Greifswald, and seems to have been protected in the river from the looting, which inevitably followed fighting. The study was published in Antiquity.

The archaeological records of the European Bronze Age are dominated by settlement finds, hoards and evidence of funeral sites. However, the site at the river Tollense in Northern Germany is very different and provides for the first time in Europe the evidence of a prehistoric battlefield. Over 12,000 pieces of human bone have already been recovered from the valley and osteoanthropologist Ute Brinker, from the State Agency has identified more than 140 individuals – young adult males in good physical condition. Their bones showed signs of recent trauma – the result of close and long-range weapons – and healed lesions, which probably indicate they were accustomed to combat. Isotopic results suggested that at least some of the group were not from the local area, but until now, it was not clear how far they travelled.

The discovery of a new set of artifacts from the remains of battle provides important new clues. The divers could document a number of Bronze finds in their original position on the river ground, among them a decorated belt box, three dress pins and also arrow heads. Surprisingly they also found 31 objects (250g) tightly packed together, suggesting they were in a container made of wood or cloth that has since rotted away. The items include a bronze tool with a birch handle, a knife, a chisel and fragments of bronze. Radiocarbon dating of the collection of objects demonstrates that the finds belong to the battlefield layer and they were probably the personal equipment of one of the victims. The finds were studied in a Master’s thesis by Tobias Uhlig and the new results make it increasingly clear that there was a massive violent conflict in the older Nordic Bronze Age (2000-1200 BC). In fact, recent evidence suggests that it is likely to have been on a large scale, clearly stretching beyond regional borders.

Professor Thomas Terberger, from the Department of Pre- and Early History at the University of Göttingen, says, “This is the first discovery of personal belongings on a battlefield and it provides insights into the equipment of a warrior. The fragmented bronze was probably used as a form of early currency. The discovery of a new set of artifacts also provides us with clues about the origins of the men who fought in this battle and there is increasing evidence that at least some of the warriors originated in southern Central Europe.”

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This collection of objects was found by divers in the Tollense river and is probably the contents of a personal pouch of a warrior who died 3,300 years ago on the battlefield. Volker Minkus

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Human skull found in the Tollense valley with fatal trauma caused by a Bronze arrowhead. Volker Minkus

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The battlefield remains from the layer where objects were found at the site near the Tollense river in Weltzin. Stefan Sauer

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Article Source: UNIVERSITY OF GÖTTINGEN news release

*Tobias Uhlig et al., Lost in combat? A scrap metal find from the Bronze Age battlefield site at Tollense (2019), Antiquity. DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2019.137

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SANTA FE INSTITUTE—Humankind first started farming in Mesopotamia about 11,500 years ago. Subsequently, the practices of cultivating crops and raising livestock emerged independently at perhaps a dozen other places around the world, in what archaeologists call the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution. It’s one of the most thoroughly-studied episodes in prehistory — but a new paper in the Journal of Political Economy shows that most explanations for it don’t agree with the evidence, and offers a new interpretation.

With farming came a vast expansion of the realm over which private property governed access to valued goods, replacing the forager social norms around sharing food upon acquisition. A common explanation is that farming increased labor productivity, which then encouraged the adoption of private property by providing incentives for the long-term investments required in a farming economy.

“But it’s not what the data are telling us”, says Santa Fe Institute economist Samuel Bowles, a co-author of the paper. “It is very unlikely that the number of calories acquired from a day’s work at the advent of farming made it a better option than hunting and gathering and it could well have been quite a bit worse.”

Prior studies, including those of human and animal bones, suggest that farming actually took an extreme nutritional toll on early adopters and their livestock. So why farm in the first place?

Some have suggested an inferior technology could have been imposed by political elites as a strategy for extracting taxes, tribute, or rents. But farming was independently adopted millennia before the emergence of governments or political elites capable of imposing a new way of life on heavily-armed foraging communities.

Bowles and co-author Jung-Kyoo Choi, an economist at Kyungpook National University in South Korea, use both evolutionary game theory and archaeological evidence to propose a new interpretation of the Neolithic. Based on their model, a system of mutually recognized private property rights was both a precondition for farming and also a means of limiting costly conflicts among members of a population. While rare among foragers, private property did exist among a few groups of sedentary hunter-gatherers. Among them, farming could have benefited the first adopters because it would have been easier to establish the private possession of cultivated crops and domesticated animals than for the diffuse wild resources on which hunter-gatherers relied.

“It is a lot easier to define and defend property rights in a domesticated cow than in a wild kudu,” says Choi. “Farming initially succeeded because it facilitated a broader application of private property rights, not because it lightened the toil of making a living.”

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Did private property facilitate the agricultural revolution?

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Article Source: SANTA FE INSTITUTE news release

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UPPSALA UNIVERSITY—In an interdisciplinary study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, an international research team has combined archaeological, genetic and stable isotope data to understand the demographic processes associated with the iconic Battle Axe Culture and its introduction in Scandinavia.

In 1953, a significant burial site belonging to the Battle Axe Culture was found when constructing a roundabout in Linköping. 4,500 years ago, a man and a woman were buried together with a child, a dog and a rich set of grave goods including one of the eponymous battle axes. “Today, we call this site ‘Bergsgraven’. I have been curious about this particular burial for a long time. The collaboration of archaeologists with geneticists allows us to understand more about these people as individuals as well as where their ancestors came from,” says archaeogeneticist Helena Malmström of Uppsala University, lead author of the study.

The Scandinavian Battle Axe Culture appears in the archaeological record about 5,000 years ago and archaeologically it resembles the continental European Corded Ware Culture. “The appearance and development of the culture complex has been debated for a long time, especially whether it was a regional phenomenon or whether it was associated with migratory processes of human groups, and – if the latter – from where,” says osteoarchaeologist Jan Storå of Stockholm University, one of the senior authors of the study.

By sequencing the genomes of prehistoric individuals from present-day Sweden, Estonia and Poland, the research team showed that the Scandinavian Battle Axe Culture and continental Corded Ware Culture share a common genetic ancestry, which had not been present in Scandinavia or central Europe before 5,000 years ago. “This suggests that the introduction of this new cultural manifestation was associated with movements of people. These groups have a history which we ultimately can trace back to the Pontic Steppe north of the Black Sea,” says population geneticist Torsten Günther of Uppsala University, co-lead author of the study.

In previous studies, the research team had been able to show that other cultural changes during the Stone Age, such as the introduction of farming practices, were also associated with movements of people. Torsten Günther: “Again, archaeogenomic analyses reveal new and surprising results concerning demographic processes in the Stone Age.” Jan Storå adds: “Prehistoric movements of people have played a major role in spreading innovations. But there is also some integration and reconnection of previous elements. For example, we find that people sharing the genetic signal of the Battle Axe sites were re-using megalithic tombs for their burials.”

Comparisons between these individuals and other prehistoric Scandinavians provided further valuable insights. Mattias Jakobsson, population geneticist at Uppsala University and one of the senior authors of this study, notes: “It is also interesting that the herders from the Battle Axe Culture differed from other contemporary farmer and hunter-gatherer groups in Scandinavia. At least three genetically and culturally different groups lived side-by-side for centuries and did not mix a lot.”

There is some evidence for low levels of genetic admixture between the incoming herders and other farming cultures. The research team was not able to determine whether this took place before or after their arrival in Scandinavia. “That remains an open question and still leaves room for future studies as more data from additional individuals as well as other geographic regions should provide a more detailed resolution,” concludes Helena Malmström.

The Bergsgraven burial as well as a reconstruction of the individuals is usually on exhibition at Östergötlands Museum in Linköping. “Östergötlands Museum is currently closed for renovation and renewal. Therefore, the display of the Bergsgraven grave has been temporarily removed, but it will be a central part of the upcoming exhibition, in which we aim to integrate current archaeological and historical research. This is a rare opportunity to build a new exhibition, and of course we want to tell the audience about the new analyses and interpretations made of the material,” says Per Nilsson, archaeologist at Östergötlands Museum.

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A skeleton of a male individual associated with the Neolithic Age Battle Axe culture on exhibition in Linköping, Sweden. Genomic DNA extracted from this individual was analyzed in the study. Jonas Karlsson, Östergötlands museum

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Article Source: UPPSALA UNIVERSITY news release

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AMERICAN FRIENDS OF TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY—Tel Aviv University researchers, in collaboration with scholars from Spain, have uncovered evidence of the storage and delayed consumption of animal bone marrow at Qesem Cave near Tel Aviv, the site of many major discoveries from the late Lower Paleolithic period some 400,000 years ago.

The research provides direct evidence that early Paleolithic people saved animal bones for up to nine weeks before feasting on them inside Qesem Cave.

The study, which was published in the October 9 issue of Science Advances, was led by Dr. Ruth Blasco of TAU’s Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations and Centro Nacional de Investigación Sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH) and her TAU colleagues Prof. Ran Barkai and Prof. Avi Gopher. It was conducted in collaboration with Profs. Jordi Rosell and Maite Arilla of Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) and Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES); Prof. Antoni Margalida of University of Lleida, University of Bern, and the Institute for Game and Wildlife Research (IREC); and Prof. Daniel Villalba of University of Lleida.

“Bone marrow constitutes a significant source of nutrition and as such was long featured in the prehistoric diet,” explains Prof. Barkai. “Until now, evidence has pointed to immediate consumption of marrow following the procurement and removal of soft tissues. In our paper, we present evidence of storage and delayed consumption of bone marrow at Qesem Cave.”

“This is the earliest evidence of such behavior and offers insight into the socioeconomics of the humans who lived at Qesem,” adds Dr. Blasco. “It also marks a threshold for new modes of Paleolithic human adaptation.”

“Prehistoric humans brought to the cave selected body parts of the hunted animal carcasses,” explains Prof. Rosell. “The most common prey was fallow deer, and limbs and skulls were brought to the cave while the rest of the carcass was stripped of meat and fat at the hunting scene and left there. We found that the deer leg bones, specifically the metapodials, exhibited unique chopping marks on the shafts, which are not characteristic of the marks left from stripping fresh skin to fracture the bone and extract the marrow.”

The researchers contend that the deer metapodials were kept at the cave covered in skin to facilitate the preservation of marrow for consumption in time of need.

The researchers evaluated the preservation of bone marrow using an experimental series on deer, controlling exposure time and environmental parameters, combined with chemical analyses. The combination of archaeological and experimental results allowed them to isolate the specific marks linked to dry skin removal and determine a low rate of marrow fat degradation of up to nine weeks of exposure.

“We discovered that preserving the bone along with the skin, for a period that could last for many weeks, enabled early humans to break the bone when necessary and eat the still nutritious bone marrow,” adds Dr. Blasco.

“The bones were used as ‘cans’ that preserved the bone marrow for a long period until it was time to take off the dry skin, shatter the bone and eat the marrow,” Prof. Barkai emphasizes.

Until recently, it was believed that the Paleolithic people were hunter gatherers who lived hand-to-mouth (the Stone Age version of farm-to-table), consuming whatever they caught that day and enduring long periods of hunger when food sources were scarce.

“We show for the first time in our study that 420,000 to 200,000 years ago, prehistoric humans at Qesem Cave were sophisticated enough, intelligent enough and talented enough to know that it was possible to preserve particular bones of animals under specific conditions, and, when necessary, remove the skin, crack the bone and eat the bone marrow,” Prof. Gopher explains.

According to the research, this is the earliest evidence in the world of food preservation and delayed consumption of food. This discovery joins other evidence of innovative behaviors found in Qesem Cave including recycling, the regular use of fire, and cooking and roasting meat.

“We assume that all this was because elephants, previously a major source of food for humans, were no longer available, so the prehistoric humans in our region had to develop and invent new ways of living,” concludes Prof. Barkai. “This kind of behavior allowed humans to evolve and enter into a far more sophisticated kind of socioeconomic existence.”

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Marrow inside a metapodial bone after six weeks of storage. Dr. Ruth Blasco/AFTAU

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Article Source: AMERICAN FRIENDS OF TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY news release

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BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY, BINGHAMTON, NY – A nearly 4,000-year-old burial site found off the coast of Georgia hints at ties between hunter-gatherers on opposite sides of North America, according to research led by faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York.

A research team led by Matthew Sanger, assistant professor of anthropology at Binghamton University, analyzed human remains, stone tools and a copper band found in an ancient burial pit in the McQueen shell ring on St. Catherine’s Island, Georgia. The burial at the shell ring closely resembles similar graves found in the Great Lakes region, suggesting an exchange network between the Great Lakes and the coastal southeast United States. Similarities in mortuary practices suggest that the movement of objects between these two regions was more direct and unmediated than archaeologists previously assumed.

“Our excavations revealed remarkable parallels between the shell ring in the coastal Southeast and in broadly contemporaneous sites in the Great Lakes including: the use of cremation to handle the dead, cremating the dead in an area separate from where the bones were eventually buried, the use of copper as a burial item, the burial of multiple people at the same time, and the use of ocher in the burial,” said Sanger. “Not only are these practices very similar, our analyses clearly show that the copper found at the shell ring originated in the Great Lakes and was therefore traded between the two regions. Notably, all of these practices are rare, or entirely absent, from the regions between the Great Lakes and the southeast, which suggests that there was not some sort of general diffusion of traditions, but rather a direct “transplant.”

According to the researchers, these findings challenge prevalent notions that view preagricultural Native American communities as relatively isolated from one another and suggest instead that wide social networks spanned much of North America thousands of years before the advent of domestication.

“These findings strongly suggest that Native Americans living in the Eastern Woodlands more than 3,000 years ago were far more interconnected than we have ever thought,” said Sanger. “Rather than living in small groups with limited contacts, Native American communities were cosmopolitan; they traded with distant peoples, they engaged in complex social and economic relationships, and they had direct and indirect knowledge spanning hundreds if not thousands of kilometers. Amazingly, all of this occurred thousands of years before Native Americans invented agricultural practices – the point at which “social complexity” is thought to emerge by many archaeologists.”

The discovery of long-distance exchange of prestige goods among Archaic period communities living in the U.S. Southeast challenges traditional notions of hunter-gatherers as living in relative isolation and instead suggests nonagrarian groups created and maintained vast social networks thousands of years earlier than typically assumed.

“Traditionally, archaeologists have thought that agriculture played a key role in the creation of long-distance interactions as domesticated food sources can produce massive surpluses, which can then be used to establish more complex social and political power structures and relations,” said Sanger. “Increasingly though, archaeologists from around the world are finding that non-agricultural people engaged in activities long thought reserved for farmers. Our findings at the shell ring are part of a much broader revolution in archaeology where non-agricultural people are viewed as living far more complex, interconnected and interesting lives than previously assumed.

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Native Americans had long-distance networks before agriculture.

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Article Source: Binghamton University news release

The paper, “Great Lakes Copper and Shared Mortuary Practices on the Atlantic Coast: Implications for Long-Distance Exchange during the Late Archaic,” was published in American Antiquity. 

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PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES—A study* explores how ancient Maya cultivated wetlands in Belize. Wetlands can function as farming fields during times of extreme weather events and provide evidence of environmental changes. However, current knowledge of how the Maya used wetlands for farming is limited. Timothy Beach and colleagues used airborne lidar surveys and radiocarbon dating to determine the chronology and ancient uses of 4 Maya wetland complexes in Belize’s Rio Bravo watershed. The area of wetland complexes totaled 14.08 km2. Although some field systems within the complexes dated between approximately 1,800 to 900 years ago, most dated to approximately 1,400 to 1,000 years ago. The wetlands served as large-scale, polycultural, agricultural systems for growing Maya crops, such as avocado, maize, and squash, and were active during extreme weather events, such as droughts, and times of population expansion in the Late Classic. The authors also determined that the Birds of Paradise complex is 5 times larger than initially thought, and the authors found an even larger complex. The findings suggest that wetland fields may have been adaptations to major shifts in Maya civilization as the demand for food increased, according to the authors.

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Pictured is the Birds of Paradise ancient Maya wetland field system and parts of the nearby Maya sites of Gran Cacao (bottom-left) and Akab Muclil (top-left) in northwestern Belize. Image courtesy of Timothy Beach, Sara Eshleman, Samantha Krause, Sheryl Luzzadder-Beach, and Colin Doyle

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Article Source: PNAS news release

*”Ancient Maya wetland fields revealed under tropical forest canopy from laser scanning and multiproxy evidence,” by Timothy Beach et al

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Diamond Light Source—Researchers led by the renowned ancient artifacts decoder, Professor Brent Seales, will be using Diamond, the UK’s national synchrotron science facility in the heart of Oxfordshire, to examine a collection of world-famous ancient artifacts owned by the Institut de France. Using this powerful light source and special techniques the team has developed, the researchers are working to virtually unwrap two complete scrolls and four fragments from the damaged Herculaneum scrolls. After decades of effort, Seales thinks the scans from Diamond represent his team’s best chance yet to reveal the elusive contents of these 2,000-year-old papyri.

Prof Seales is director of the Digital Restoration Initiative at the University of Kentucky (US), a research program dedicated to the development of software tools that enable the recovery of fragile, unreadable texts. According to Seales, “Diamond Light Source is an absolutely crucial element in our long-term plan to reveal the writing from damaged materials, as it offers unparalleled brightness and control for the images we can create, plus access to a brain trust of scientists who understand our challenges and are eager to help us succeed.?Texts from the ancient world are rare and precious, and they simply cannot be revealed through any other known process. Thanks to the opportunity to study the scrolls at Diamond Light Source, which has been made possible by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew Mellon Foundation, we are poised to take a tremendous step forward in our ability to read and visualize this material. The scan session promises to be a key moment in our quest for a reliable pathway to reading the invisible library.”

Over the past two decades, Prof Seales and his team have worked to digitally restore and read the vast amount of material in the “invisible library” of irreparably damaged manuscripts. In 2015 they achieved singular success when they visualized the never-before and never-to-be-seen writing trapped inside five complete wraps of the ancient Hebrew scroll from En Gedi (see Science Advances). For the first time ever, a complete text from an object so severely damaged that it could never be opened physically was digitally retrieved and recreated, representing a true technical breakthrough (see Virtually Unwrapping the En Gedi Scroll). It is this technology that Seales’ team plans to deploy on the data collected at Diamond.

A long-term goal of Prof Seales has been to reveal the contents of the most iconic items in the invisible library, the Herculaneum scrolls. Buried and carbonized by the deadly eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, the scrolls are too fragile to be opened and represent the perfect storm of important content, massive damage, extreme fragility, and difficult-to-detect ink.

These famous papyri were discovered in 1752 in an ancient Roman villa near the Bay of Naples believed to belong to the family of Julius Caesar. As such, they represent the only surviving library from antiquity. The majority of the 1,800 scrolls reside at the Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli, although a few were offered as gifts to dignitaries by the King of Naples and wound up at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, the British Library, and the Institut de France.

Last May, Prof Seales headed a small team of undergraduate students in Paris to survey the Institut de France’s Herculaneum collection. They examined two completely intact scrolls, along with four small fragments from scrolls unrolled in the late 1800s. All six items will be scanned at Diamond. Because the four fragments contain many layers and feature visible, exposed writing on the top, they will provide the key data needed to develop the next iteration of the team’s “virtual unwrapping” software pipeline, a machine learning algorithm that will enable the visualization of carbon ink.

The use of carbon ink is one of the main reasons these scrolls have evaded deciphering, according to Prof Seales. Unlike metal-based inks, such as the iron gall used to write medieval documents, carbon ink has a density similar to that of the carbonized papyrus on which it sits. Therefore, it appears invisible in X-ray scans.

“We do not expect to immediately see the text from the upcoming scans, but they will provide the crucial building blocks for enabling that visualization. First, we will immediately see the internal structure of the scrolls in more definition than has ever been possible, and we need that level of detail to ferret out the highly compressed layers on which the text sits. In addition, we believe strongly–and contrary to conventional wisdom–that tomography does indeed capture subtle, non-density-based evidence of ink, even when it is invisible to the naked eye in the scan data. The machine learning tool we are developing will amplify that ink signal by training a computer algorithm to recognize it-pixel by pixel-from photographs of opened fragments that show exactly where the ink is–voxel by voxel–in the corresponding tomographic data of the fragments. The tool can then be deployed on data from the still-rolled scrolls, identify the hidden ink, and make it more prominently visible to any reader.”

The scanning of these delicate items at the leading science facility, Diamond, will be a mammoth undertaking, for all involved. Because of their extreme fragility, the Seales team fabricated custom-fit cases for the scrolls that enable as little handling as possible. Only highly trained conservators are allowed to handle the samples. The Director of the Bibliothèque at the Institut de France, Mme Françoise Bérard will personally pack the scrolls into their special cases for travel to the UK, and after arrival they will be inserted into the I12 beamline at Diamond. The I12 beamline or JEEP (Joint Engineering, Environmental, and Processing) beamline is a high energy X-ray beamline for imaging, diffraction and scattering, which operates at photon energies of?53-150 keV.

While a handful of the scrolls from Herculaneum have been subjected to physical (and largely disastrous) efforts to open them, no one as yet has managed to reveal complete texts from the hundreds that remain tightly closed. Principle Beamline Scientist on the Diamond I12 Beamline where the experiment will take place, Dr. Thomas Connolley, adds; “This is the first time an intact scroll has been scanned in such detail at Diamond Light Source. We are very excited to work with the research team, playing our part in what we hope will be a major step forward in unlocking the secrets that the scrolls contain.”

“It’s ironic, and somewhat poetic,” concludes Seales, “that the scrolls sacrificed during the past era of disastrous physical methods will serve as the key to retrieving the text from those survive but are unreadable. And by digitally restoring and reading these texts, which are arguably the most challenging and prestigious to decipher, we will forge a pathway for revealing any type of ink on any type of substrate in any type of damaged cultural artifact.”

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End view of one of the two Herculaneum scrolls from L’Institut de France being scanned at Diamond Light Source by the University of Kentucky, Digital Restoration Initiative team. Diamond Light Source

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Science Advances, AAAS:  “Seeing” the Writing Hidden on the Reverse Side of an Ancient Text—Using the shortwave-infrared hyperspectral imaging— scientists have revealed portions of Greek text hidden on the back of an ancient scroll discovered in the 18^th century. The findings confirm the value of this imaging technique both for reading text on the reverse side of the Herculaneum papyri scrolls, which have been mounted to a support, and for reading the writing on the front of the scrolls. While 18^th-century drawings suggested the existence of writing on the back of the papyri, scholars have been unable to remove the scrolls from the paperboard to which they are permanently glued because this would involve painstaking work and could cause them to disintegrate. A. Tournié et al. applied the shortwave-infrared hyperspectral imaging to the most famous scroll, which contains text from the philosophical work History of the Academy by Philodemus, demonstrating its superior usefulness compared with previous imaging conducted at 950 nanometers. The researchers selected a passage in which scholars had identified the word “charmed” or “bewitched,” showing clearly with their improved resolution that the word was actually “enslaved.” However, while the technique produces better contrast than imaging at 950 nanometers, Tournié and colleagues note that it does enable holes and thin fractures or wrinkles to be mistaken for ink. They note that this issue could be resolved in the future by using a lens that leads to a spatial resolution of about 100 micrometers.

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Conventional picture of PHerc. 16911021. K. Fleischer, University of Würzburg

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Scanning the scroll samples. A. Tournié, Centre de Recherche sur la Conservation

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Article Source: Diamond Light Source and Science Advances news releases

MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN HISTORY—Microliths – small stone tools – are often interpreted as being part of composite tools, including projectile weapons, and essential to efficient hunting strategies of Homo sapiens. In Europe and Africa, the earliest appearance of these lithic toolkits are linked to hunting medium and large-sized animals in grassland or woodland settings, or as adaptations to risky environments during periods of climatic change. Yet the presence of small, quartz stone tools in Sri Lanka suggests the existence of more diverse ecological contexts for the development and use of these technologies by some of the earliest members of our species migrating out of Africa.

The paper*, published in PLOS One and led by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History alongside colleagues from Sri Lankan and other international institutions, reports microliths from the cave site of Fa-Hien Lena in the tropical evergreen rainforests of Sri Lanka, which have been dated to between 48,000 and 45,000 years ago. This is as early, or earlier, than the well-known ‘Upper Palaeolithic’ technologies of Europe associated with Homo sapiens, and highlights that these sophisticated toolkits were a key part of our species’ ecological flexibility as it colonized the Eurasian continent.

Tropical rainforests: a unique challenge

In the last decade, growing archaeological evidence has documented the use of tropical rainforest resources by Homo sapiens in several locations in South Asia, South East Asia, and Melanesia between 45,000 and 36,000 years ago. This is much earlier than previously considered, especially given stereotypes that these environments were ‘barriers’ to human migration, with disease, dangerous animals, and limited resources all posing challenges. Instead, research on human dispersal in Asia has focused on potential human use of coastal and savanna environments.

The island of Sri Lanka, at the southern tip of South Asia, has emerged as a particularly important area for investigating the adaptations of prehistoric hunter-gatherers to tropical rainforests. The earliest South Asian human fossils are found in Sri Lankan caves and rockshelters, in levels dated to about 45,000-36,000 years ago, and scientific analyses of these remains has highlighted human reliance on closed forest resources. Early microliths, commonly associated with efficient hunting strategies by our species, have also been found, yet more detailed analyses have been lacking. Finding such artifacts in this context is significant given that microliths have commonly been linked to hunting medium to large game in grassland settings.

‘Microliths’: why care?

Traditionally, the miniaturization of stone tool technology has been seen as a major step in the development of novel, projectile technologies such as the bow and arrow. While definitions are variable, the focus of human stone tool producers on the creation of small, sharp lithics is something that has been witnessed in Africa, Europe, and India from around 60,000-45,000 years ago. Early occurrences of this strategy have also been documented in Sri Lanka since the 1980s, by Siran Deraniyagala, but were frequently neglected due to a Eurocentric belief that such tools could not have been produced in this part of the world prior to similar technologies in Europe (at the time dated to only ~20,000 years ago).

Microlithic toolkits may also denote how fast and along which routes our species migrated through Asia. For example, a prominent argument states that microlith technologies emerged in Africa, and then rapidly dispersed along the Indian Ocean rim, acting as a proxy for the supposedly first, rapid movement of Homo sapiens through coastal settings. However, significant, local differences have been noted for microlith stone tools in Asia and Africa, alongside regional technological continuity, and a clear ‘coming and going’ of these type of tools as situations demanded them or not. Investigation of these tools and their adaptive context in different parts of the world is therefore crucial to discussions of human evolution and the archaeology of the last 100,000 years.

A Sri Lankan specialty

Sri Lanka has been a prominent part of discussions of early human adaptations to tropical rainforests, though there has been a lack of systematic, detailed analysis of the technological strategies associated with clear geochemical evidence or animal remains that demonstrate a clearly specialized adaptation. “We undertook detailed measurements of stone tools and reconstructed their production patterns at the site of Fa-Hien Lena Cave, the site with the earliest evidence for human occupation in Sri Lanka,” says PhD student Oshan Wedage of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, lead author of the study.

“We found clear evidence for the production of ‘miniaturized’ stone tools or ‘microliths’ at Fa-Hien Lena, dating to the earliest period of human occupation,” Wedage continues. “Interestingly, our evidence also shows that stone tool technology changed little over the long span of human occupation, from 48,000 to 4,000 years ago,” says Andrea Picin, also of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, co-author of the study. This would imply that the technological adaptation practiced by the earliest rainforest foragers on the island proved to be remarkably successful over the course of millennia.

Dedicated ‘plasticity’

“While we suspect that these small stone tools were used as part of projectile technologies, as we have also found for bone tools at the same site, residue analysis and impact fracture analysis is ongoing,” says Michael Petraglia, co-corresponding author of the paper. “Whatever the results, these miniaturized stone tools place Sri Lanka in a central position in terms of discussing technological sophistication among our species. We have essentially uncovered the ‘Upper Palaeolithic’ of the rainforest.”

Patrick Roberts, another co-corresponding author, continues, “It is evident that these microliths were part of a flexible human toolkit that enabled Homo sapiens to spread into all of the world’s environments, demonstrating unparalleled ecological ‘plasticity’ when compared to other hominin species.” The data from Sri Lanka is just one example of human populations demonstrating a remarkable ability to specialize their technological and cultural approaches to novel ecological situations during their movement across the majority of the Earth’s continents by 12,000 years ago.

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Fa Hien Cave in rainforests of Sri Lanka. Max Planck Institute

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Fa Hien Cave overlooking rainforest. Max Planck Institute

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Oldest microlithic artifacts from Fa Hien Cave. Max Planck Institute

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

*Oshan Wedage, Andrea Picin, James Blinkhorn, Katerina Douka, Siran Deraniyagala, Nikos Kourampas, Nimal Perera, Ian Simpson, Nicole Boivin, Michael Petraglia, Patrick Roberts, Microliths in the South Asian rainforest ~45-4 ka: new insights from Fa-Hien Lena Cave, Sri Lanka  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0222606