Archives

UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE—Genetic analysis has revealed that the ancestors of modern humans interbred with at least five different archaic human groups as they moved out of Africa and across Eurasia.

While two of the archaic groups are currently known – the Neanderthals and their sister group the Denisovans from Asia ¬- the others remain unnamed and have only been detected as traces of DNA surviving in different modern populations. Island Southeast Asia appears to have been a particular hotbed of diversity.

Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers from the University of Adelaide’s Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD) have mapped the location of past “mixing events” (analyzed from existing scientific literature) by contrasting the levels of archaic ancestry in the genomes of present-day populations around the world.

“Each of us carry within ourselves the genetic traces of these past mixing events,” says first author Dr João Teixeira, Australian Research Council Research Associate, ACAD, at the University of Adelaide. “These archaic groups were widespread and genetically diverse, and they survive in each of us. Their story is an integral part of how we came to be.

“For example, all present-day populations show about 2% of Neanderthal ancestry which means that Neanderthal mixing with the ancestors of modern humans occurred soon after they left Africa, probably around 50,000 to 55,000 years ago somewhere in the Middle East.”

But as the ancestors of modern humans travelled further east they met and mixed with at least four other groups of archaic humans.

“Island Southeast Asia was already a crowded place when what we call modern humans first reached the region just before 50,000 years ago,” says Dr Teixeira. “At least three other archaic human groups appear to have occupied the area, and the ancestors of modern humans mixed with them before the archaic humans became extinct.”

Using additional information from reconstructed migration routes and fossil vegetation records, the researchers have proposed there was a mixing event in the vicinity of southern Asia between the modern humans and a group they have named “Extinct Hominin 1”.

Other interbreeding occurred with groups in East Asia, in the Philippines, the Sunda shelf (the continental shelf that used to connect Java, Borneo and Sumatra to mainland East Asia), and possibly near Flores in Indonesia, with another group they have named “Extinct Hominin 2”.

“We knew the story out of Africa wasn’t a simple one, but it seems to be far more complex than we have contemplated,” says Dr Teixeira. “The Island Southeast Asia region was clearly occupied by several archaic human groups, probably living in relative isolation from each other for hundreds of thousands of years before the ancestors of modern humans arrived.

__________________________

Map of sites with ages and postulated early and later pathways associated with modern humans dispersing across Asia during the Late Pleistocene. Regions of assumed genetic admixture are also shown. ka, thousand years ago. Katerina Douka & Michelle O’Reilly, Michael D. Petraglia

__________________________

“The timing also makes it look like the arrival of modern humans was followed quickly by the demise of the archaic human groups in each area.”

Article Source: University of Adelaide news release

PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES—Researchers report* the discovery of a previously unknown cultural horizon in a peat bog near L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, a site of Norse settlement in the New World. Paul Ledger and colleagues excavated in a peat bog approximately 30 meters east of the settlement, aiming to recover samples for a paleoenvironmental reconstruction of Norse environmental impacts. In the process, the authors discovered a previously unknown archaeological horizon at a depth of around 40 centimeters that contained trampled surfaces, charcoal, and wood working debris. The horizon revealed no culturally diagnostic artifacts. However, radiocarbon dating estimated that the layer was deposited sometime between the late 12th century and 13th century, postdating evidence for Norse occupation. Laboratory analyses recovered insect remains, including early records for beetle species assumed to be post-Columbian additions to the Canadian fauna. According to the authors, the physical character and biological content of the horizon recalls Norse deposits from the North Atlantic region; however, based on the current state of knowledge, the radiocarbon dates point to the layer resulting from indigenous activities.

__________________________

The researchers working at L’Anse aux Meadows, August 2018. Linus Girdland-Flink

__________________________

Article Source: PNAS news release

*”New horizons at L’Anse aux Meadows,” by Paul M. Ledger, Linus Girdland Flink, and Véronique Forbes.

American Association for the Advancement of Science—Archaeological and genetic evidence now suggests that humans arrived on the American continent around 15,000 years ago, according to a Review by Michael Waters of the latest research on the topic. There have been hints that the Americas were peopled before the traditional date of 13,000 years ago, but Waters notes that more rigorous analysis and dating at known sites in Alaska, the eastern United States and South America, plus the discovery of new sites, are “providing evidence of early occupation that cannot be dismissed.” The last decade of genomic research has also bolstered the case for early occupation, as it has been used to untangle the east Asian and northern Eurasian origins of the first Americans and to clarify the relationship of modern-day populations to founder populations in Beringia about 15,000 years ago. The new analyses suggest that regional archaeological cultures were established by at least 13,000 years ago in North America, about 12,900 years ago in South America, and that a western coastal route for migration might have been available as early as 16,000 years ago.

_______________________

Excavations at the 15,000-year-old Debra L. Friedkin site in 2016. Center for the Study of the First Americans, Texas A&M University

_______________________

15,000-year-old Stemmed Point in place at Friedkin site, Texas. Center for the Study of the First Americans, Texas A&M University

_______________________

Underwater excavations at the 14,600-year-old Page-Ladson site. Center for the Study of the First Americans, Texas A&M University

_______________________

14,550-year-old knife from the Page-Ladson site, Florida. Center for the Study of the First Americans, Texas A&M University

_______________________

Distribution and ages of the oldest sites in the Americas. Center for the Study of the First Americans, Texas A&M University

_______________________

Article Source: AAAS news release. This research appears in the 12 July 2019 issue of Science. Science is published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society.

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER—Chaco Canyon, a site that was once central to the lives of pre-colonial peoples called Anasazi, may not have been able to produce enough food to sustain thousands of residents, according to new research. The results could shed doubt on estimates of how many people were able to live in the region year-round.

Located in Chaco Culture National Historic Park in New Mexico, Chaco Canyon hosts numerous small dwellings and a handful of multi-story buildings known as great houses. Based on these structures, researchers think that it was once a bustling metropolis that was home to as many as 2,300 people during its height from 1050 to 1130 AD.

But Chaco also sits in an unforgiving environment, complete with cold winters, blazing-hot summers and little rainfall falling in either season.

“You have this place in the middle of the San Juan Basin, which is not very habitable,” said Larry Benson, an adjoint curator at the CU Museum of Natural History.

Benson and his colleagues recently discovered one more wrinkle in the question of the region’s suitability. The team conducted a detailed analysis of the Chaco Canyon’s climate and hydrology and found that its soil could not have supported the farming necessary to feed such a booming population.

The findings, Benson said, may change how researchers view the economy and culture of this important area.

“You can’t do any dry-land farming there,” Benson said. “There’s just not enough rain.”

Today, Chaco Canyon receives only about nine inches of rain every year and historical data from tree rings suggest that the climate wasn’t much wetter in the past.

Benson, a retired geochemist and paleoclimatologist who spent most of his career working for the U.S. Geological Survey, set out to better understand if such conditions might have limited how many people could live in the canyon. In the recent study, he and Ohio State University archaeologist Deanna Grimstead pulled together a wide range of data to explore where Chaco Canyon residents might, conceivably, have grown maize, a staple food for most ancestral Pueblo peoples.

They found that these pre-colonial farmers not only contended with scarce rain, but also destructive flash floods that swept down the canyon’s valley floor.

“If you’re lucky enough to have a spring flow that wets the ground ahead of planting, about three-quarters of the time you’d get a summer flow that destroys your crops,” Benson said.

The team calculated that Chacoans could have, at most, farmed just 100 acres of the Chaco Canyon floor. Even if they farmed all of the surrounding side valleys–a monumental feat–they would still have only produced enough corn to feed just over 1,000 people.

The researchers also went one step further, assessing whether past Chaco residents could have supplemented this nutritional shortfall with wild game like deer and rabbits. They calculated that supplying the 185,000 pounds of protein needed by 2,300 people would have quickly cleared all small mammals from the area.

In short, there would have been a lot of hungry mouths in Chaco Canyon. Benson and Grimstead published their results this summer in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

For Benson, that leaves two possibilities. Chaco Canyon residents either imported most of their food from surrounding regions 60 to 100 miles away, or the dwellings in the canyon were never permanently occupied, instead serving as temporary shelters for people making regular pilgrimages.

Either scenario would entail a massive movement of people and goods. Benson estimates that importing enough maize and meat to feed 2,300 people would have required porters to make as many as 18,000 trips in and out of Chaco Canyon, all on foot.

“Whether people are bringing in maize to feed 2,300 residents, or if several thousand visitors are bringing in their own maize to eat, they’re not obtaining it from Chaco Canyon,” Benson said.

____________________________

An image of the ruins of Chetro Ketl in Chaco Canyon (New Mexico, United States); shown is the complex’s great kiva.

____________________________

Article Source: University of Colorado at Boulder news release

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE—Gorillas have more complex social structures than previously thought, from lifetime bonds forged between distant relations, to “social tiers” with striking parallels to traditional human societies, according to a new study.

The findings suggest that the origins of our own social systems stretch back to the common ancestor of humans and gorillas, rather than arising from the “social brain” of hominins after diverging from other primates, say researchers.

Published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the study used over six years of data from two research sites in the Republic of Congo, where scientists documented the social exchanges of hundreds of western lowland gorillas.

“Studying the social lives of gorillas can be tricky,” said lead author Dr Robin Morrison, a biological anthropologist from the University of Cambridge. “Gorillas spend most of their time in dense forest, and it can take years for them to habituate to humans.”

“Where forests open up into swampy clearings, gorillas gather to feed on the aquatic vegetation. Research teams set up monitoring platforms by these clearings and record the lives of gorillas from dawn to dusk over many years.”

Some data came from a project in the early 2000s*, but most of the study’s observational data was collected from the Mbeli Bai clearing**, run by the Wildlife Conservation Society, where scientists have recorded gorilla life stories for over 20 years.

Gorillas live in small family units – a dominant male and several females with offspring – or as solitary male “bachelors”. Morrison, who has worked at Mbeli, used statistical algorithms to reveal patterns of interaction between family groups and individuals in the datasets.

By analyzing the frequency and length of “associations”, she found hitherto undetermined social layers. Beyond immediate family, there was a tier of regular interaction – an average of 13 gorillas – that maps closely to “dispersed extended family” in traditional human societies e.g. aunts; grandparents; cousins.

Beyond that, a further tier of association involved an average of 39 gorillas, similar to an “aggregated group” that spends time together without necessarily being closely related. “An analogy to early human populations might be a tribe or small settlement, like a village,” said Morrison.

Where dominant males (“silverbacks”) were half-siblings they were more likely to be in the same “tribe”. But over 80% of the close associations detected were between more distantly related – or even apparently unrelated – silverbacks.

“Females spend time in multiple groups throughout their lives, making it possible for males not closely related to grow up in the same natal group, similar to step-brothers,” said Morrison. “The bonds that form may lead to these associations we see as adults.”

“If we think of these associations in a human-centric way, the time spent in each other’s company might be analogous to an old friendship,” she said.

Occasionally, when lots of young males “disperse” from their families at the same time but are not yet ready to strike out on their own, they form “all-male bachelor groups” for a while. The researchers suggest this could be another bond-forming period.

The team uncovered hints of an even higher social tier of “periodic aggregations”, similar to an annual gathering or festival based around “fruiting events”, although these are too infrequent to detect with certainty from this study’s data.

In fact, Morrison and colleagues argue that sporadic fruiting schedules of the gorillas’ preferred foods may be one reason why they – and consequently maybe we – evolved this “hierarchical social modularity”.

“Western gorillas often move many kilometers a day to feed from a diverse range of plants that rarely and unpredictably produce fruit,” said Morrison. “This food is easier to find if they collaborate when foraging.”

“Gorillas spend a lot of their early life in the family group, helping to train them for foraging. Other long-term social bonds and networks would further aid cooperation and collective memory for tracking down food that’s hard to find.”

A small number of mammal species have a similar social structure to humans. These species also rely on “idiosyncratic” food sources – whether forest elephants hunting irregular fruitings, or the mercurial fish schools sought by dolphins – and all have spatial memory centers in their brain to rival those of humans.

Before now, the species on this short list were evolutionarily distant from humans. Our closest relatives, chimpanzees, live in small territorial groups with fluctuating alliances that are highly aggressive – often violent – with neighbors.

As such, one theory for human society is that it required the evolution of a particularly large and sophisticated “social brain” unique to the hominin lineage.

However, Morrison and colleagues say the addition of gorillas to this list suggests the simplest explanation may be that our social complexity evolved much earlier, and is instead merely absent from the chimpanzee lineage.

“The scaling ratio between each social tier in gorillas matches those observed not just in early human societies, but also baboons, toothed whales and elephants,” added Morrison, from Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology.

“While primate societies vary a lot between species, we can now see an underlying structure in gorillas that was likely present before our species diverged, one that fits surprisingly well as a model for human social evolution.”

“Our findings provide yet more evidence that these endangered animals are deeply intelligent and sophisticated, and that we humans are perhaps not quite as special as we might like to think.”

________________________

Young gorillas take a break from feeding to socialize. Wildlife Conservation Society

________________________

Three western gorilla groups (Conan, Morpheus and Zulu) mingle peacefully as they feed at the Mbeli Bai clearing in the Nouabale-Ndoki National Park, Republic of Congo. Wildlife Conservation Society

________________________

Article Source: University of Cambridge news release

Notes:

*A combination of observational and genetic data – the latter obtained through fecal samples – that had been collected from the Lokoue site between 2001-2002 formed part of the study’s sample.

**The Mbeli Bai clearing is located in the Nouabale-Ndoki National Park, and managed by the Nouabale-Ndoki Foundation, a public private partnership between the Congolese Government and Wildlife Conservation Society Congo Program.

________________________

See, first-hand, the original fossils. See original artifacts. See the actual sites. Talk with the famous scientists. Join us on this unique specialized study tour.

________________________

PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES—A study* describes a rare three-rooted lower molar in an archaic human in China as well as the corresponding implications for the history of human evolution in Asia. The presence of a third root on lower molars is rare, occurring in less than 3.5% of non-Asian humans, but can be found in up to 40% of populations derived from China and the New World. Other Homo sapiens fossils have been found in Asia that exhibit archaic traits that may have come from admixture with Denisovans. Shara E. Bailey and colleagues discovered a three-rooted lower molar in a 160,000-year-old Denisovan mandible from China. Previously, researchers thought that the three-rooted molar developed in Asian populations of H. sapiens well after their dispersal from the African continent, with a known case in H. sapiens from the Philippines that may be as old as 47,000 years. However, the presence of the three-rooted molar in a Denisovan that pre-dates H. sapiens dispersal, suggests that the trait is much older than previously thought. According to the authors, the three-rooted molar trait may have passed into modern Asian human populations when dispersing H. sapiens interbred with Denisovans.

________________________

A three-rooted lower second molar in a Denisovan individual from Xiahe, China. Jean-Jacques Hublin

________________________

A three-rooted lower first molar and its corresponding jaw in a recent Asian individual. Christine Lee (California State University, Los Angeles, CA)

________________________

Article Source: PNAS news release

*”Rare dental trait provides morphological evidence of archaic introgression in Asian fossil record,” by Shara E. Bailey, Jean-Jacques Hublin, and Susan C. Antón.

________________________

See, first-hand, the original fossils. See original artifacts. See the actual sites. Talk with the famous scientists. Join us on this unique specialized study tour.

________________________

PLOS—New analysis of the fossilized skull of an Upper Paleolithic man suggests that he died a violent death, according to a study published July 3, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by an international team from Greece, Romania and Germany led by the Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Germany

The fossilized skull of a Paleolithic adult man, known as the Cioclovina calvaria, was originally uncovered in a cave in South Transylvania and is thought to be around 33,000 years old. Since its discovery, this fossil has been extensively studied. Here, the authors reassessed trauma on the skull–specifically a large fracture on the right aspect of the cranium which has been disputed in the past–in order to evaluate whether this specific fracture occurred at the time of death or as a postmortem event.

The authors conducted experimental trauma simulations using twelve synthetic bone spheres, testing scenarios such as falls from various heights as well as single or double blows from rocks or bats. Along with these simulations, the authors inspected the fossil both visually and virtually using computed tomography technology.

The authors found there were actually two injuries at or near the time of death: a linear fracture at the base of the skull, followed by a depressed fracture on the right side of the cranial vault. The simulations showed that these fractures strongly resemble the pattern of injury resulting from consecutive blows with a bat-like object; the positioning suggests the blow resulting in the depressed fracture came from a face-to-face confrontation, possibly with the bat in the perpetrator’s left hand. The researchers’ analysis indicates that the two injuries were not the result of accidental injury, post-mortem damage, or a fall alone.

While the fractures would have been fatal, only the fossilized skull has been found so it’s possible that bodily injuries leading to death might also have been sustained. Regardless, the authors state that the forensic evidence described in this study points to an intentionally-caused violent death, suggesting that homicide was practiced by early humans during the Upper Paleolithic.

The authors add: “The Upper Paleolithic was a time of increasing cultural complexity and technological sophistication. Our work shows that violent interpersonal behaviour and murder was also part of the behavioural repertoire of these early modern Europeans.”

____________________________

Right lateral view of the Cioclovina calvaria exhibiting a large depressed fracture. Kranoti et al, 2019

____________________________

*Kranioti EF, Grigorescu D, Harvati K (2019) State of the art forensic techniques reveal evidence of interpersonal violence ca. 30,000 years ago. PLoS ONE 14(7): e0216718. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0216718

Article Source: PLOS ONE news release

BIOMED CENTRAL—Observations of bonobos in the Congo basin foraging in swamps for aquatic herbs rich in iodine, a critical nutrient for brain development and higher cognitive abilities, may explain how the nutritional needs of prehistoric humans in the region were met. This is the first report of iodine consumption by a nonhuman primate and it is published in the open access journal BMC Zoology.

Dr. Gottfried Hohmann, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the lead author of the study said: “Our results have implications for our understanding of the immigration of prehistoric human populations into the Congo basin. Bonobos as a species can be expected to have similar iodine requirements to humans, so our study offers – for the first time – a possible answer on how pre-industrial human migrants may have survived in the Congo basin without artificial supplementation of iodine.”

The researchers made behavioural observations of two bonobo communities in the LuiKotale forest in Salonga National Park, Democratic Republic of Congo. These observations were combined with data on the iodine content of plants eaten by bonobos from an ongoing study by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Berlin. They found that the aquatic herbs consumed by bonobos are a surprisingly rich natural source of iodine in the Congo basin, a region that was previously thought to be scarce in iodine sources.

Dr. Hohmann said: “Evolutionary scenarios suggest that major developments of human evolution are associated with living in coastal areas, which offer a diet that triggered brain development in hominins. The results of our study suggest that consumption of aquatic herbs from swamps in forest habitat could have contributed to satisfying the iodine requirements of hominin populations used to diets prevalent in coastal environments.”

He added: “Our report potentially answers the question of how apes obtain iodine from natural food sources, when many populations inhabit areas considered to be iodine deficient. Other apes such as chimpanzees and gorillas have also been observed eating aquatic herbs, which suggests that they could be obtaining essential iodine from these sources.”

The authors caution that without data on the iodine status of wild bonobos, it is difficult to tell how much iodine they absorb, although given the high concentrations in the herbs, it is likely to be substantial. The authors also stress that the iodine concentrations obtained at the field site of LuiKotale may not be reflective of the entire Congo basin.

_________________________

Luikotale Bonobo with aquatic goodies. Zana Clay, LuiKotale Bonobo Project

_________________________

Article Source: Biomed Central news release.

Fishing for iodine: what aquatic foraging by bonobos tells us about human evolution 
Hohmann et al. BMC Zoology 2019  DOI: 10.1186/s40850-019-0043-z

UNC-Chapel Hill—Dr. Jodi Magness, Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism in the Department of Religious Studies in UNC-Chapel Hill’s College of Arts & Sciences, has now completed nine consecutive excavation seasons at the ancient site of the Late Roman synagogue of Huqoq in Israel’s Lower Galilee. Her excavations have revealed the remains of a 1,600-year-old Jewish synagogue, featuring detailed mosaic art that helps to open a window on the world of Judaism between the fourth and sixth centuries CE. Most recently, Magness and her team discovered a mosaic that depicts the first-ever scene from a biblical story from Exodus.

With each excavation season, the students and researchers build on what little is known about the fifth century CE Jewish community of Huqoq and the artists who crafted depictions of biblical stories with tiny cubes of stone, or tesserae.

Dr. Magness explains her team’s newest findings and how the art they find connects them to texts written thousands of years ago:

Question: If you could name the biggest new discovery of this summer, what would it be?

Answer: I couldn’t name just one from this summer’s work, so how about two big discoveries?

First: Chapter 7 in the book of Daniel describes four beasts which represent the four kingdoms leading up to the end of days. This year our team discovered mosaics in the synagogue’s north aisle depicting these four beasts, as indicated by a fragmentary Aramaic inscription referring to the first beast: a lion with eagle’s wings. The lion itself is not preserved, nor is the third beast.  However, the second beast from Daniel 7:4 – a bear with three ribs protruding from its mouth – is preserved. So is most of the fourth beast, which is described in Daniel 7:7 as having iron teeth.

Second: We’ve uncovered the first depiction of the episode of Elim ever found in ancient Jewish art. This story is from Exodus 15:27. Elim is where the Israelites camped after leaving Egypt and wandering in the wilderness without water. The mosaic is divided into three horizontal strips, or registers. We see clusters of dates being harvested by male agricultural workers wearing loincloths, who are sliding the dates down ropes held by other men. The middle register shows a row of wells alternating with date palms. On the left side of the panel, a man in a short tunic is carrying a water jar and entering the arched gate of a city flanked by crenellated towers. An inscription above the gate reads, “And they came to Elim.”

Q: A lot of previous discoveries give so much context for this period. What questions do this year’s findings prompt for you?

A: The Daniel panel is interesting because it points to eschatological, or end of day, expectations among this congregation. The Elim panel is interesting as it is generally considered a fairly minor episode in the Israelites’ desert wanderings ­­– which raises the question of why it was significant to this Jewish congregation in Lower Galilee.

Q: Can you describe the, “Wow- look at this!” moment of this year’s dig?

A: The “Wow!” moment came when we understood that the animals depicted in the mosaic in the north aisle are the four beasts in Daniel 7. And that was something we realized only a week after uncovering them, when one of our staff members was able to read the accompanying Aramaic inscription identifying the first beast.

Q: Each year, you and the team uncover pieces of history that are significant to so many people for a variety of reasons. What do you hope this work does for the field and what we know of history?

A: Our work sheds light on a period when our only written sources about Judaism are rabbinic literature from the Jewish sages of this period and references in early Christian literature. The full scope of rabbinic literature is huge and diverse, but it represents the viewpoint of the group of men who wrote it. That group was fairly elite, and we don’t have the writings of other groups of Jews from this period. Early Christian literature is generally hostile to Jews and Judaism. So, archaeology fills this gap by shedding light on aspects of Judaism between the fourth to sixth centuries CE – about which we would know nothing otherwise. Our discoveries indicate Judaism continued to be diverse and dynamic long after the destruction of the second Jerusalem temple in 70 CE.

Q: Now in the ninth season of digging at this site, what keeps you and the team coming back?

A: We are committed to completing the excavation of the synagogue before we turn the site over to the state of Israel, with the hope that they will develop and open it to the public in the future. In the meantime, I expect our work will continue to shed light on the past through new discoveries.

The mosaics have been removed from the site for conservation, and the excavated areas have been backfilled. Excavations are scheduled to continue in summer 2020. For additional information, images of previous discoveries and project updates, visit the Huqoq Excavation Project site here.

____________________________

Elim mosaic detail, Huqoq Excavation Project. Jim Haberman, Courtesy: UNC-Chapel Hill

____________________________

Article Source: Adapted from a UNC-Chapel Hill news release.

Shua Kisilevitz, assistant director of the Israel Antiquities Authority and Tel Aviv University, assists Magness in her work.

Sponsors of the project are UNC-Chapel Hill, Austin College, Baylor University, Brigham Young University and the University of Toronto. Students and staff from Carolina and the consortium schools participated in the dig. Financial support for the 2019 season was also provided by the Kenan Charitable Trust and the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill.

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER—Archaeologists working in two Italian caves have discovered some of the earliest known examples of ancient humans using an adhesive on their stone tools—an important technological advance called “hafting.”

The new study, which included CU Boulder’s Paola Villa, shows that Neanderthals living in Europe from about 55 to 40 thousand years ago traveled away from their caves to collect resin from pine trees. They then used that sticky substance to glue stone tools to handles made out of wood or bone.

The findings add to a growing body of evidence that suggests that these cousins of Homo sapiens were more clever than some have made them out to be.

“We continue to find evidence that the Neanderthals were not inferior primitives but were quite capable of doing things that have traditionally only been attributed to modern humans,” said Villa, corresponding author of the new study and an adjoint curator at the CU Museum of Natural History.

That insight, she added, came from a chance discovery from Grotta del Fossellone and Grotta di Sant’Agostino, a pair of caves near the beaches of what is now Italy’s west coast.

Those caves were home to Neanderthals who lived in Europe during the Middle Paleolithic period, thousands of years before Homo sapiens set foot on the continent. Archaeologists have uncovered more than 1,000 stone tools from the two sites, including pieces of flint that measured not much more than an inch or two from end to end.

In a recent study of the tools, Villa and her colleagues noticed a strange residue on just a handful of the flints—bits of what appeared to be organic material.

“Sometimes that material is just inorganic sediment, and sometimes it’s the traces of the adhesive used to keep the tool in its socket” Villa said.

To find out, study lead author Ilaria Degano at the University of Pisa conducted a chemical analysis of 10 flints using a technique called gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. The tests showed that the stone tools had been coated with resin from local pine trees. In one case, that resin had also been mixed with beeswax.

Neanderthal wielding weapon made of hafted wood with stone point.

Villa explained that the Italian Neanderthals didn’t just resort to their bare hands to use stone tools. In at least some cases, they also attached those tools to handles to give them better purchase as they sharpened wooden spears or performed other tasks like butchering or scraping leather.

“You need stone tools to cut branches off of trees and make them into a point,” Villa said.

The find isn’t the oldest known example of hafting by Neanderthals in Europe—two flakes discovered in the Campitello Quarry in central Italy predate it. But it does suggest that this technique was more common than previously believed.

The existence of hafting also provides more evidence that Neanderthals, like their smaller human relatives, were able to build a fire whenever they wanted one, Villa said—something that scientists have long debated. She said that pine resin dries when exposed to air. As a result, Neanderthals needed to warm it over a small fire to make an effective glue.

“This is one of several proofs that strongly indicate that Neanderthals were capable of making fire whenever they needed it,” Villa said.

___________________________

Article Source: University of Colorado at Boulder news release

___________________________

See, first-hand, the original fossils. See original artifacts. See the actual sites. Talk with the famous scientists. Join us on this unique specialized study tour.

___________________________

PLOS—The archaeological site of ‘Ein Qashish in northern Israel was a place of repeated Neanderthal occupation and use during the Middle Paleolithic, according to a study* released June 26, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Ravid Ekshtain of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and colleagues.

In the Levant region of the Middle East, the main source of information on Middle Paleolithic human occupation comes from cave sites. Compared to open air settlements, sheltered sites like caves were easily recognized and often visited, and therefore are more likely to record long periods of occupation. The open-air site of ‘Ein Qashish in northern Israel, however, is unusual in having been inhabited over an extended prehistoric time period. This site provides a unique opportunity to explore an open-air locality across a large landscape and over a long period ranging between 71,000 and 54,000 years ago.

In a joint collaboration with the Israel Antiquities Authority Ekshtain and colleagues identified human skeletal remains in ‘Ein Qashish as Neanderthal and observed more than 12,000 artifacts from four different depositional units in the same location on the landscape. These units represent different instances of occupation during changing environmental conditions.

From modification of artifacts and animal bones at the site, the authors infer that the occupants were knapping tools, provisioning resources, and consuming animals on-site.

Whereas many open-air settlements are thought to be short-lived and chosen for specialized tasks, ‘Ein Qashish appears to be the site of repeated occupations each of which hosted a range of general activities, indicating a stable and consistent settlement system. The authors suggest that within a complex settlement system, open-air sites may have been more important for prehistoric humans than previously thought.

Ekshtain adds: “Ein Qashish is a 70-60 thousand years open-air site, with a series of stratified human occupations in a dynamic flood plain environment. The site stands out in the extensive excavated area and some unique finds for an open-air context, from which we deduce the diversity of human activities on the landscape. In contrast to other known open-air sites, the locality was not used for task-specific activities but rather served time and again as a habitation location. The stratigraphy, dates and finds from the site allow a reconstruction of a robust settlement system of the late Neanderthals in northern Israel slightly before their disappearance from the regional record, raising questions about the reasons for their disappearance and about their interactions with contemporaneous modern humans.”

__________________________

The archaeological site of ‘Ein Qashish in northern Israel was a place of repeated Neanderthal occupation and use during the Middle Paleolithic, according to a study released June 26, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Ravid Ekshtain of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and colleagues. Ekshtain, 2019

__________________________

Article Source: PLOS One news release

*Ekshtain R, Malinsky-Buller A, Greenbaum N, Mitki N, Stahlschmidt MC, Shahack-Gross R, et al. (2019) Persistent Neanderthal occupation of the open-air site of ‘Ein Qashish, Israel. PLoS ONE 14(6): e0215668. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0215668

__________________________

See, first-hand, the original fossils. See original artifacts. See the actual sites. Talk with the famous scientists. Join us on this unique specialized study tour.

__________________________

Science Advances—After managing to obtain DNA from two 120,000-year-old European Neanderthals, researchers report that these specimens are more genetically similar to Neanderthals that lived in Europe 80,000 year later than they are to a Neanderthal of similar age found in Siberia. The findings, which reveal a stable, 80,000-year ancestry for European Neanderthals, also suggest that this group may have migrated east and replaced some Siberian Neanderthal populations. The work begins to unravel the early history of Neanderthals, which has otherwise been inaccessible since DNA predating 100,000 years ago was lacking. Bone samples and genetic evidence indicate that Neanderthals lived in Europe and Central Asia until about 40,000 years ago. Recent studies have shown that those last Neanderthals all belonged to a single group, descended from a common ancestor who lived 97,000 years ago. However, a Neanderthal dated to 90,000 years ago found in Denisova Cave in modern day Siberia appears to be more closely related to those late Neanderthals than to the so-called Altai Neanderthal found in the same cave, but dated to 120,000 years ago. This suggests that there had been an early Neanderthal migration into Siberia, followed by a later migration from Europe that replaced the earlier population. To clarify how this happened, Stéphane Peyrégne and colleagues obtained nuclear DNA samples from Western European Neanderthals who lived about 120,000 years ago — one from Scladina Cave in Belgium (called Scladina), and the other from Hohlenstein-Stadel Cave in Germany (HST). Using advanced techniques to account for microbial and present-day human DNA contamination, the study authors found that Scladina and HST were members of a population in Western Europe that gave rise to all currently identified Neanderthals except the Altai Neanderthal. This suggests that the population to which the Scladina and HST belonged lived in Western Europe contemporaneously with the Altai population in Siberia and later migrated east to replace them. Surprisingly, the researchers also found highly divergent mitochondrial DNA in HST, indicating an even more complex history that warrants further investigation.

__________________________

The Scladina Juvenile Neanderthal, mandible and fragmentary maxilla. J. Eloy, AWEM, © Archéologie andennaise

__________________________

Femur of the Hohlenstein-Stadel Neanderthal. O. Kuchar © Museum Ulm

__________________________

Fragmentary right maxilla of the Scladina juvenile. J. Eloy, AWEM, © Archéologie andennaise

__________________________

Hohlenstein-Stadel Cave. K. Wehrberger © Museum Ulm

__________________________

Scladina Cave. D. Bonjean, © Archéologie andennaise

__________________________

Article Source: A Science Advances news release. Science Advances is published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society.

__________________________

See, first-hand, the original fossils. See original artifacts. See the actual sites. Talk with the famous scientists. Join us on this unique specialized study tour.

__________________________

IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON—Nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes mountains, Peru’s coastal region relies on surface water from the Andes for drinking water, industry, and animal and crop farming.

The region, which includes Peru’s capital city Lima, is often overwhelmed with rain in the wet season – but by the time the dry season comes, water is scarce.

These factors, together with Lima’s rapidly growing population, mean the city struggles to supply water to its 12 million residents during the dry months of May to October.

Now, Imperial researchers and their colleagues at the Regional Initiative for Hydrological Monitoring of Andean Ecosystems in South America, have outlined how reviving ancient water systems could help save wet season water for the dry season, where it is desperately needed.

To do so, they studied a water system in Huamantanga, Peru – one of the last of its kind.

Coastal Peru’s continuously stressed systems struggle to cope with increasing demand and are fragile – a landslide, for example, could easily cut off Lima’s water supply.

Senior author Dr Wouter Buytaert, of Imperial’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, said: “The people of Lima live with one of the world’s most unstable water situations. There’s too much water in the wet seasons, and too little in the dry ones.

“The indigenous peoples of Peru knew how to get around this, so we’re looking to them for answers.”

Ancient Peruvian civilizations in 600 AD created systems within mountains to divert excess rainwater from source streams onto mountain slopes and through rocks.

The water would take some months to trickle through the system and resurface downstream – just in time for the dry season.

To study this, the researchers looked at one such system in Huamantanga. They used dye tracers and hydrological monitoring to study the system from the wet to dry seasons of 2014-2015 and 2015-2016. Social scientists involved also worked with Huamantanga’s local people to understand the practice and help map the landscape.

They found the water took between two weeks and eight months to re-emerge, with an average time of 45 days. From these time scales, they calculated that, if governments upscale the systems to cater to today’s population size, they could reroute and delay 35 per cent of wet season water, equivalent to 99 million cubic metres per year of water through Lima’s natural terrain.

This could increase the water available in the dry season by up to 33 per cent in the early months, and an average of 7.5 per cent for the remaining months. The method could essentially extend the wet season, providing more drinking water and longer crop-growing periods for local farmers.

The study, published in Nature Sustainability, is the first to examine the pre-Inca system in this much detail to find answers to modern problems. The authors say their research shows how indigenous systems could complement modern engineering solutions for water security in coastal Peru.

Lead author Dr Boris Ochoa-Tocachi, also from Imperial’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, said: “With the advent of modern science, you’d be forgiven for wondering how ancient methods could apply to modern day problems. However, it turns out that we have lots to learn from our ancestors’ creative problem-solving skills.”

Dr Buytaert said: “Like many tropical cities, Lima’s population is growing fast – too fast for water reserves to keep up during dry seasons.

“Upscaling existing pre-Inca systems could help relieve Peru’s wet months of water and quench its dry ones.”

The seasonal variability typical of coastal Peru is worsened by human impacts – particularly by melting glaciers caused by global warming. Humans also contribute to soil erosion, which renders soil too weak to support dams big enough to hold all the water.

Climate change also makes wet seasons wetter, and dry seasons drier – making the need for effective water storage in Peru even more urgent.

In addition, the uncertainty of our climate’s future makes it difficult to design and build systems that are intended to last for decades into the future.

The authors say combining pre-Inca systems with classic structures, such as smaller dams, could spread the workload across methods and increase adaptability in an unpredictable climate.

Dr Buytaert explained: “Because we can’t rely fully on one method, we must be open-minded and creative – but our study shows we have lots to learn from the way Peru’s indigenous population intelligently managed their landscape 1,400 years ago.”

The researchers looked only at one system, so the results of similar work will likely differ throughout Peru’s coastal areas. However, they say their work presents a strong argument for using nature-based solutions to improve water security, which currently tops water agendas both locally and globally.

They continue to study the area to learn more about how indigenous knowledge, practices, and systems can help supply water to large urban populations in water-unstable, dry environments. In doing so, they hope to improve coastal Peru’s water security and resilience to a changing and unpredictable climate.

Dr Ochoa-Tocachi concluded: “This is a fascinating example of ingenuity within local communities and shows the enormous potential of indigenous knowledge to complement modern science.

“Beyond this fascinating example of ingenious problem-solving, our research shows the enormous potential for indigenous knowledge and rural science to complement modern science”.

_______________________________

Conceptual representation of how the pre-Inca infiltration system works. Water is diverted during the wet season using canals that transport surplus water during the wet season to high permeability zones. Water penetrates the soil and emerges in downstream springs after weeks or even months, which provides water during the dry season. Ochoa-Tocachi et al., Nat. Sustain., 2019.

_______________________________

Above and below: A diversion canal as part of the pre-Inca infiltration system during the dry season. Canals like this divert water during the wet season allowing infiltration in the permeable bottom. Water is stored in the soils and becomes available during the dry season. Musuq Briceño, CONDESAN, 2012.

_______________________________

______________________________

A water pond as part of the pre-Inca infiltration system during the dry season. Ponds like this store water when it emerges downstream after it was infiltrated in the highlands. Water in the pond is used by the local community for agriculture and livestock grazing, and is also infiltrated further in the soils. Sam Grainger, Imperial College London, 2015.

______________________________

Article Source: Imperial College London news release

If you are interested in reading about another ancient practice that can inform solutions to problems related to climate change, see The Milpa Way in the spring 2019 issue of Popular Archaeology.

FLINDERS UNIVERSITY—New insights into how people first arrived in Australia have been revealed by a group of experts brought together to investigate the continent’s deep history.

They used sophisticated modelling to determine not only the likely routes travelled by Aboriginal people tens of thousands of years ago, but also the sizes of groups required for the population to survive in harsh conditions.

The research, published today in two companion papers (one in Scientific Reports and the other in Nature Ecology and Evolution), confirms the theory that people arrived in several large and deliberate migrations by island-hopping to reach New Guinea more than 50,000 years ago.

While many Aboriginal cultures believe people have always been here, others have strong oral histories of ancestral beings arriving from the north.

“We know that Aboriginal people have lived here for more than 50,000 years. This research offers a greater understanding of how migration events took place and further evidence of the marine and navigation capabilities used to make these deliberate journeys,” said Professor Michael Bird, from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH) and James Cook University.

The team of multidisciplinary researchers from CABAH and the CSRIO set out to establish the most likely route travelled to reach the ancient mega-continent, known as Sahul (New Guinea, Australia and Tasmania joined at times of low sea level).

“We developed demographic models to determine which island-hopping route ancient people most likely took,” said CABAH’s Professor Corey Bradshaw, from Flinders University.

“A northern route connecting the islands of Mangoli, Buru, and Seram into West Papua New Guinea would probably have been easiest to navigate and survive. This route was easiest when compared to the southern route from Timor that leads to the now-drowned Sahul Shelf in the modern-day Kimberley region.”

The researchers also used complex mathematical modelling—considering factors including fertility, longevity, past climate conditions, and other ecological principles—to calculate the numbers of people required for the population as a whole to survive.

The simulations indicate that at least 1300 people arrived in either a single migration event or smaller, successive waves averaging at least 130 people every 70 years or so, over the course of about 700 years.

“This suggests planned and well-organised maritime migration, rather than accidental arrival” Professor Bradshaw added.

The studies confirm the ancestors of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people possessed sophisticated technology and knowledge to build watercraft. This research also showcases the remarkable ability at that time to plan, navigate, and make multiple complicated, open-ocean voyages to directly transport large numbers of people.

“Both studies are unique because they relied on past environmental information and did not use any genetic data. We are very excited to see how further archaeological and genetics studies in CABAH can contribute to this story,” says Dr Laura Weyrich, a CABAH investigator at the University of Adelaide.

The papers Early human settlement of Sahul was not an accident and Minimum founding populations for the first peopling of Sahul, were co-authored by scientists from around Australia, including Flinders University, James Cook University, University of Wollongong, University of New South Wales, University of Adelaide, Australian National University, and the CSIRO.

CABAH brings together expertise from diverse academic disciplines to answer fundamental questions about the natural and human history of our region, including how and when people first came to Australia.

____________________________

Arrival of First Australians infographic. Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH)

____________________________

Article Source: Flinders University news release

LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY—LSU College of the Coast & Environment Distinguished Professor Emeritus John Day has collaborated with archeologists on a new analysis of societal development. They report that over the past 10,000 years, humanity has experienced a number of foundational transitions, or “bottlenecks.” During these periods of transition, the advance or decline of societies was related to energy availability in the form of a benign climate and other factors.

“Studying the factors that led to the advancement and contraction of past societies provides insight into how our globalized society might become more or less sustainable,” Day said.

Day’s collaborators include Joel Gunn of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, William Folan of the Universidad Autonoma de Campeche in Mexico and Matthew Moerschbaecher of the Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinators Office. Gunn and Folan are Mayan archeologists and Moerschbaecher is a graduate of LSU’s oceanography program.

With the human population having exceeded the capacity of Earth’s resources, this analysis suggests that a transition toward sustainability for the current energy-dense, globalized industrial society will be very difficult if not impossible without dramatic changes.

The authors say that these past transitions were caused by a combination of social, astronomical and biogeophysical events such as volcanic eruptions, changes in solar emissions, sea-level rise and ice volume, biogeochemical and ecological changes, and major social and technological innovations. One example is the worldwide crisis that began in 536 AD, which was caused by three major volcanic eruptions within a decade. This event led to the destruction of half the population of Europe via the Black Death plague, starvation and wars. In China and the Mayan region, it led to crop failures, famine and plagues.

They found that when energy was abundant, societies expanded and prospered. Conversely, when energy sources declined, there was societal contraction and collapse. The previous example implies that changes are more likely to transpire due to planetary-scale disturbances and constraints, whether societal or environmental, and will likely lead to strong societal disruptions.

However, in the past, major changes sometimes moved toward a more sustainable social organization. For example, after one disruption, the ancient Maya switched to a more efficient use of energy and marine transportation and, at the time of European contact, they were leading a sustainable lifestyle.

_______________________________

Volcanic eruptions impacted ancient civilizations beyond the general destruction that occurred. Wikimedia Commons

_______________________________

Source: Louisiana State University news release

If you liked this article, you may like The Milpa Way, an article about how the ancient Maya achieved a sustainable living.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA – DAVIS—Geneticists exploring the dark heart of the human genome have discovered big chunks of Neanderthal and other ancient DNA. The results open new ways to study both how chromosomes behave during cell division and how they have changed during human evolution.

Centromeres sit in the middle of chromosomes, the pinched-in “waist” in the image of a chromosome from a biology textbook. The centromere anchors the fibers that pull chromosomes apart when cells divide, which means they are really important for understanding what happens when cell division goes wrong, leading to cancer or genetic defects.

But the DNA of centromeres contains lots of repeating sequences, and scientists have been unable to properly map this region.

“It’s the heart of darkness of the genome, we warn students not to go there,” said Charles Langley, professor of evolution and ecology at UC Davis. Langley is senior author on a paper describing the work published June 18 in the journal eLife.

Langley and colleagues Sasha Langley and Gary Karpen at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and Karen Miga at UC Santa Cruz reasoned that there could be haplotypes—groups of genes that are inherited together in human evolution — that stretch over vast portions of our genomes, and even across the centromere.

That’s because the centromere does not participate in the “crossover” process that occurs when cells divide to form sperm or eggs. During crossover, paired chromosomes line up next to each other and their limbs cross, sometimes cutting and splicing DNA between them so that genes can be shuffled. But crossovers drop to zero near centromeres. Without that shuffling in every generation, centromeres might preserve very ancient stretches of DNA intact.

The researchers looked for inherited single nucleotide polymorphisms — inherited changes in a single letter of DNA—that would allow them to map haplotypes in the centromere.

They first showed that they could identify centromeric haplotypes, or “cenhaps,” in Drosophila fruit flies.

That finding has two implications, Langley said. Firstly, if researchers can distinguish chromosomes from each other by their centromeres, they can start to carry out functional tests to see if these differences have an impact on which piece of DNA is inherited. For example, during egg formation, four chromatids are formed from two chromosomes, but only one makes it into the egg. So scientists want to know: Are certain centromere haplotypes transmitted more often? And are some haplotypes more likely to be involved in errors?

Secondly, researchers can use centromeres to look at ancestry and evolutionary descent.

Turning to human DNA, the researchers looked at centromere sequences from the 1000 Genomes Project, a public catalog of human variation. They discovered haplotypes spanning the centromeres in all the human chromosomes.

Haplotypes from half a million years ago

In the X chromosome in these genome sequences, they found several major centromeric haplotypes representing lineages stretching back a half a million years. In the genome as a whole, most of the diversity is seen among African genomes consistent with the more recent spread of humans out of the African continent. One of the oldest centromere haplotype lineages was not carried by those early emigrants.

In chromosome 11, they found highly diverged haplotypes of Neanderthal DNA in non-African genomes. These haplotypes diverged between 700,000 to a million years ago, around the time the ancestors of Neanderthals split from other human ancestors. The centromere of chromosome 12 also contains an even more ancient, archaic haplotype that appears to be derived from an unknown relative.

This Neanderthal DNA on chromosome 11 could be influencing differences in our sense of smell to this day. The cells that respond to taste and smell carry odorant receptors triggered by specific chemical signatures. Humans have about 400 different genes for odorant receptors. Thirty-four of these genes reside within the chromosome 11 centromere haplotype. The Neanderthal centromeric haplotypes and a second ancient haplotype account for about half of the variation in these odorant receptor proteins.

It’s known from work by others that genetic variation in odorant receptors can influence sense of taste and smell, but the functional effects of the variation found in this study are yet to be discovered and their impact on taste and smell analyzed.

____________________________

The central area of chromosomes, the centromere, contains DNA that has survived largely unchanged for hundreds of thousands of years, researchers at UC Davis and the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory have found. Some of this DNA comes from Neanderthals or other relatives or ancestors of humans from before modern humans migrated out of Africa. Charles and Sasha Langley

____________________________

Source: University of California, Davis news release