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Estonian Research Council—The North Pontic region, which encompasses present-day Ukraine, was for centuries a crossroads of migration from multiple directions, connecting the vast Eurasian Steppe with Central Europe.

A study recently published in Science Advances uses ancient human remains to reveal the remarkably high genetic heterogeneity in the region during the last 3,500 years up to around 500 years ago. The study is led by Lehti Saag, a researcher at the University of Tartu Institute of Genomics (UT IG) and a former Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow at University College London (UCL), alongside professor Mark Thomas from UCL and Pontus Skoglund from the Francis Crick Institute. The study was made possible by the resilience of Ukrainian researchers – second author Olga Utevska who is currently a MSCA4Ukraine fellow at UT IG, and numerous archaeologists still actively conducting excavations in Ukraine despite the war.

The analyses show that at the end of the Bronze Age, broad-scale ancestry proportions are similar to contemporary populations in the rest of Europe – a mixture of European hunter-gatherer, Anatolian early farmer and Steppe pastoralist ancestries – and these ancestry components have been present in the Ukraine region since then until today. However, from the Early Iron Age until the Middle Ages, the appearance of eastern nomads in the Pontic region became a regular occurrence. Their genetic composition varied from Steppe-like superimposed on the locals to high degrees of East Asian ancestry with minimal local admixture.

At the same time, individuals from the rest of the Ukrainian region had ancestry mostly from different regions in Europe. The palimpsest created by migration and population mixing in the Ukraine region will have contributed to the high genetic heterogeneity in geographically, culturally and socially homogeneous groups, with different genetic profiles present at the same site, at the same time and among individuals with the same archaeological association.

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Scythian burial at the Skorobir necropolis in the fortified settlement of Bilski. Iryna Shramko

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Article Source: Estonian Research Council news release.

*North Pontic crossroads: Mobility in Ukraine from the Bronze Age to the early modern period, Science Advances, 8-Jan-2025. 10.1126/sciadv.adr0695 

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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—Researchers used lasers to reveal highly detailed tattoos on 1,200-year-old mummies from Peru. Mummified human remains from pre-Hispanic South America provide evidence of a long history of tattooing in the region. The ink used in tattoos tends to bleed and fade with age, a process further exacerbated by mummification, rendering the original designs difficult to discern. Michael Pittman and colleagues used laser-stimulated fluorescence to study approximately 1,200-year-old tattoos on mummified individuals belonging to the pre-Columbian Chancay culture in present-day coastal Peru. The authors inspected more than 100 mummified individuals for tattoos. The preserved skin of the mummified individuals fluoresced brightly, in contrast with the black tattoo ink. The resulting high-contrast images virtually eliminated the effects of ink bleed, revealing previously hidden details of the tattoo designs. The complex geometric and zoomorphic patterns were inked with a finely pointed object, possibly a single cactus needle or sharpened animal bone. The authors note that the artistic details and precision of the tattoos exceed that of contemporary Chancay pottery, textiles, and rock art, suggesting that some tattoos were the product of special effort. According to the authors, the findings provide insight into the artistic development and complexity found in pre-Columbian South America.

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1,200-year-old mummified forearm under laser-stimulated fluorescence revealing details of tattoo designs. Michael Pittman and Thomas G Kaye

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1,200-year-old mummified hand featuring tattoos. Michael Pittman and Thomas G Kaye

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Article Source: PNAS news release

*“Hidden artistic complexity of Peru’s Chancay culture discovered in tattoos by laser-stimulated fluorescence,” by Thomas G. Kaye, Judyta Bąk, Henry William Marcelo, and Michael Pittman, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 13-Jan-2025. https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2421517122

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Cranfield University—A Cranfield University, UK, academic has used drone mapping to investigate a 3000-year-old ‘mega fortress’ in the Caucasus mountains. Dr Nathaniel Erb-Satullo, Senior Lecturer in Architectural Science at Cranfield Forensic Institute, has been researching the site since 2018 with Dimitri Jachvliani, his co-director from the Georgian National Museum, revealing details that re-shape our understanding of the site and contribute to a global reassessment of ancient settlement growth and urbanism.

Fortress settlements in the South Caucasus appeared between 1500-500 BCE, and represent an unprecedented development in the prehistory of the regions. Situated at the boundary between Europe, the Eurasian Steppe, and the Middle East, the Caucasus region has a long history as a cultural crossroads with distinctive local identities.  

Research on the fortress – named Dmanisis Gora – began with test excavations on a fortified promontory between two deep gorges. A subsequent visit in Autumn, when the knee-high high summer grasses had died back, revealed that the site was much larger than originally thought. Scattered across a huge area outside the inner fortress were the remains of additional fortification walls and other stone structures. Because of its size, it was impossible to get a sense of the site as a whole from the ground.

“That was what sparked the idea of using a drone to assess the site from the air,” commented Dr Erb-Satullo. “The drone took nearly 11,000 pictures which were knitted together using advanced software to produce high-resolution digital elevation models and orthophotos – composite pictures that show every point as if you were looking straight down.

“These datasets enabled us to identify subtle topographic features and create accurate maps of all the fortification walls, graves, field systems, and other stone structures within the outer settlement. The results of this survey showed that the site was more than 40 times larger than originally thought, including a large outer settlement defended by a 1km long fortification wall.”

The research team used a DJI Phantom 4 RTK drone which can provide relative positional accuracy of under 2cm as well as extremely high-resolution aerial imagery. In order to obtain a highly accurate map of human-made features, the team carefully checked each feature in the aerial imagery to confirm its identification.

To understand how the landscape of the site had evolved, the orthophotos were compared with 50-year-old photos taken by a Cold War-era spy satellite declassified in 2013. That gave researchers much needed insight into which features were recent, which were older. It also enabled researchers to assess what areas of the ancient settlement were damaged by modern agriculture. All of those data sets were merged in Geographic Information System (GIS) software, helping to identify patterns and changes in the landscape.

“The use of drones has allowed us to understand the significance of the site and document it in a way that simply wouldn’t be possible on the ground” said Dr Erb-Satullo. ”Dmanisis Gora isn’t just a significant find for the Southern Caucasus region, but has a broader significance for the diversity in the structure of large scale settlements and their formation processes. We hypothesize that Dmanisis Gora expanded because of its interactions with mobile pastoral groups, and its large outer settlement may have expanded and contracted seasonally. With the site now extensively mapped, further study will start to provide insights into areas such as population density and intensity, livestock movements and agricultural practices, among others.”  

This data will give researchers new insights into Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age societies, and how these communities functioned. Since the aerial survey was completed, Dr. Erb-Satullo has been carrying out further excavations at the site, uncovering tens of thousands of pottery shards, animal bones, and other artefacts that tell us more about the society that built this fortress.

This work* has been funded by the Gerda Henkel Foundation, the Gerald Averay Wainwright Fund and the British Institute at Ankara.

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Atmospheric photo of the site at dusk, showing the location at the convergence of two gorges. 2023 excavations of inner fortress are visible in foreground. Nathaniel Erb-Satullo

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Photo of structures in the outer settlement, 1km long fortification wall is visible in upper left. Nathaniel Erb-Satullo

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Article Source: Cranfield University news release

*MEGA-FORTRESSES IN THE SOUTH CAUCASUS: NEW DATA FROM SOUTHERN GEORGIA, Antiquity, 8-Jan-2025. 10.15184/aqy.2024.197 

PHILADELPHIA, January 7, 2025—In conflict zones like Syria and Ukraine, erasure is a part of systematic genocide and cultural cleansing, but a new exhibition shifts the focus to cultural heritage restoration through community-led excavation—Preserving Assyria showcases archaeology’s role in safeguarding cultural heritage from targeted destruction.

With 16 objects on display from the Penn Museum’s collection, touchable 3D replicas of monumental relief carvings, and interactive multimedia components, this exhibition will be on view in the Merle-Smith Galleries on the Lower Level starting Saturday, February 8, 2025.

One of the world’s earliest empires, Assyria represents a crucial part of Iraq’s cultural identity, which the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) attempted to erase by destroying many Mesopotamian monuments in 2016––one of which was Mashki Gate in the ancient city of Nineveh (near Mosul in Northern Iraq).

With a long history of collaborating with the Iraqi researchers and officials, exhibition curators Dr. Michael Danti, Program Director of the Iraq Heritage Stabilization Program, and Dr. Richard L. Zettler, Director Emeritus, intend to spotlight the groundbreaking archaeological discoveries at Mashki Gate, and underscore how collaborative excavations center the cultural heritage priorities of the local people.

“Working closely with our Iraqi colleagues and local communities, scientific field archaeology is playing a key role in recovery efforts in Iraq, shedding new light on ancient cultures and, at the same time, enabling us to reconstruct damaged sites in more authentic and sustainable ways,” Dr. Danti explains. “Our main goal is to re-establish and enhance access to cultural heritage as a fundamental human right.”

One of the biggest discoveries since the 19th century are superbly preserved marble reliefs unearthed at Mashki Gate. They date back to an Assyrian king, Sennacherib, who ruled Nineveh from 705 to 681 BCE. As the original skillfully carved panels, depicting finely chiseled war scenes, mountains, grape vines, and palm trees remain in Iraq, visitors will be able to view intricate replicas, made via 3D scanning,of segments from these extraordinary reliefs.

“…These panels can become a celebrated cultural and archaeological attraction for Iraqis and international tourists. Personally, I have longed to touch our ancestors’ artifacts on museum visits in the West. Now, with these panels restored by Iraqi hands, I can experience the joy of physically connecting with our heritage and marvel at the skill and dedication of ancient artists,” explains Iraqi Assyriologist Dr. Ali al-Jabouri, Professor Emeritus at University of Mosul.

To chart the story of the Neo-Assyrian empire and its deep significance to Iraq’s heritage, the exhibition will feature a timeline of Assyrian history; digital reconstructions of what the ancient city once looked like; illustrations of King Sennacherib’s palace; and images from current excavations that offer “day-in-the-life” glimpses of archaeologists-in-action.

Preserving Assyria will illuminate select artifacts from the Penn Museum’s Near East collections, such as a stamp-inscribed brick from Tell Yarah, Iraq (near Mosul) written in the Sumerian language (911-612 BCE); a Sumerian clay tablet that contains ancient spells to ward off witchcraft (1900-1600 BCE); a glazed terracotta wall tile from Hasanlu, Iran (1000–800 BCE), cylinder seals made of quartz and marble; and a protective amulet made of carnelian.

Public programs related to the new exhibition include a special Curator’s Lectureon February 8 at 2:00 pm in Rainey Auditorium, as well as an engaging four-week online class, The Deep Dig: The Rise and Fall of Assyria, led by Dr. Michael Danti beginning March 6.

Included with Museum admission, Preserving Assyria will be on view through February 2026.

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Opening at the Penn Museum on Feb. 8, 2025, the Preserving Assyria exhibition will showcase a rendering of a restored palace wall in Nineveh. Photo_ Penn Museum.jpg

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The remarkably preserved reliefs discovered at the Mashki Gate in Nineveh offer exquisite detail. Portions of this have been 3D scanned and replicas will be on display as a part of Preserving Assyria at the Penn Museum. Opening Feb. 8, 2025  Photo_ Penn Museum.jpg

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This Mashki Gate marble relief shows a high-ranking captive of the Assyrians during a military campaign. Portions of this have been 3D scanned and replicas will be on display as a part of Preserving Assyria at the Penn Museum. Opening Feb. 8, 2025.   Photo_ Penn Museum.jpg

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The U.S.-Iraqi excavation team continue their work to protect and preserve cultural heritage. Opening Feb. 8, 2025, a new exhibition, Preserving Assyria, highlights the Penn Museum’s cultural preservation work in Iraq. Photo-Penn Museum.jpeg

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Penn’s Dr. Michael Danti cleans one of the seven ancient reliefs found at Nineveh. Photo-Penn Museum.jpeg

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An international team of Iraqi archaelogists, alongside researchers from the Penn Museum, uncover the 6.5-foot-high monumental doors ot an Assyrian king’s palace. Photo_ Michael Danti, Penn Museum.JPG

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ABOUT THE PENN MUSEUM

The Penn Museum’s mission is to be a center for inquiry and the ongoing exploration of humanity for our University of Pennsylvania, regional, national, and global communities, following ethical standards and practices.

Through conducting research, stewarding collections, creating learning opportunities, sharing stories, and creating experiences that expand access to archaeology and anthropology, the Museum builds empathy and connections across diverse cultures.

The Penn Museum is open Tuesday–Sunday, 10:00 am–5:00 pm. On first Wednesdays of the month, it is open until 8:00 pm. The Café is open Tuesday–Thursday, 9:00 am–3:00 pm and Friday and Saturday, 10:00 am–2:00 pm. On Sundays, the Café is open 10:30 am–2:30 pm. For information, visit www.penn.museum, call 215.898.4000, or follow @PennMuseum on social media. 

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Article Source: Penn Museum news release.

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University of Liverpool—The University of Liverpool has led an international team of scientists to take a fresh look at the running capabilities of Australopithecus afarensis, the early human ancestor famously represented by the fossil ‘Lucy’.

Karl Bates, Professor of Musculoskeletal Biology, convened experts from institutions across the UK and the Netherlands. Together they used cutting-edge computer simulations to uncover how this ancient species ran, using a digital model of ‘Lucy’s’ skeleton.

Previous work on the fossilized footprints of Australopithecus by multiple research teams has suggested that Lucy probably walked relatively upright and much more like a human than a chimpanzee. These new findings demonstrate that Lucy’s overall body shape limited running speed relative to modern humans and therefore support the hypothesis that the human body evolved to improve running performance, with top speed being a more critical driver than previously thought.

Professor Bates said: “When Lucy was discovered 50 years ago, it was by far the most complete skeleton of an early human ancestor. Lucy is a fascinating fossil because it captures what you might call an intermediate stage in Homo sapiens’ evolution. Lucy bridges the gap between our more tree-dwelling ancestors and modern humans, who walk and run efficiently on two legs.

“By simulating running performance in Australopithecus and modern humans with computer models, we’ve been able to address questions about the evolution of running in our ancestors.

“For decades scientists have debated whether more economical walking ability or improved running performance was the primary factor that drove the evolution of many distinctly human characteristics, such as longer legs and shorter arms, stronger leg bones and our arched feet. By illustrating how Australopithecus walked and ran, we have started to answer these questions.”

The team used computer-based movement simulations to model the biomechanics and energetics of running in Australopithecus afarensis, alongside a model of a human. In both the Australopithecus and human models, the team ran multiple simulations where various features thought to be important to modern human running, like larger leg muscles and a long Achilles Tendon, were added and removed, thereby digitally replaying evolutionary events to see how they impact running speed and energy use.

Muscles and other soft tissues are not preserved in fossils, so palaeontologists don’t know how large ‘Lucy’s’ leg muscles and other important parameters were. However, these new digital models varied the muscle properties from chimpanzee-like to human-like, producing a range of estimates for running speed and economy.

The simulations reveal that while Lucy was capable of running upright on both legs, her maximum speeds were significantly slower than those of modern humans. In fact, even the fastest speed the team predicted for Lucy (in a model with very human-like muscles) remained relatively modest at just 11mph (18kph). This is much slower than elite human sprinters, which reach peak speeds of more than 20mph (38kph). The models show the range of intermediate (‘jogging’) speeds that animals use to run longer distances (‘endurance running’) was also very restricted, perhaps suggesting that Australopithecus didn’t engage in the kind of long-distance hunting activities thought to be important to the earliest humans.

Professor Bates continued: “Our results highlight the importance of muscle anatomy and body proportions in the development of running ability. Skeletal strength doesn’t seem to have been a limiting factor, but evolutionary changes to muscles and tendons played a major role in enhancing running speed and economy.

“As the 50th anniversary of Lucy’s discovery is celebrated, this study* not only sheds new light on her capabilities but also underscores how far modern science has come in unravelling the story of human evolution.”

The study, ‘Running performance in Australopithecus afarensis’ was published in Current Biology (DOI:10.1016/j.cub.2024.11.025).

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Reconstruction of “Lucy”, Warsaw Museum of Evolution. Shalom, CC
BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

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Article Source: University of Liverpool news release

*Running performance in Australopithecus afarensis, Current Biology, 6-Jan-2025. 10.1016/j.cub.2024.11.025

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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—Lead mining in the Roman era resulted in widespread lead pollution and cognitive decline, according to a study. The negative impact of lead exposure in the modern era on human health and development has been widely recognized. Historical and archaeological records indicate that European populations in the Roman era also had high levels of lead exposure, including from air pollution associated with the large-scale mining and smelting of silver and lead ores. Joseph McConnell and colleagues used Artic ice core records and atmospheric aerosol modeling to estimate the concentrations and potential health impact of lead in European air during the height of the Roman Empire, called the Pax Romana. Analysis of three ice cores spanning 500 BCE to 600 CE indicated that European lead emissions sharply increased around 15 BCE, following the rise of the Roman Empire, remained high until the decline of the Pax Romana, beginning around 165 CE, and were not exceeded until the early 2nd millennium CE. Based on modern epidemiological studies, the authors estimated that atmospheric lead pollution during the Pax Romana would have resulted in an average increase in childhood blood lead levels of around 2.4 micrograms per deciliter. According to the authors, childhood lead exposure would have led to widespread cognitive declines of 2.5–3 IQ points throughout the Roman Empire.

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High-resolution measurement of Roman era lead pollution in Arctic ice cores at the Desert Research Institute. Jessi LeMay

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Article Source: PNAS news release

*“Pan-European atmospheric lead pollution, enhanced blood lead levels, and cognitive decline from Roman-era mining and smelting,” by Joseph R. McConnell et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 6-Jan-2025. https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2419630121

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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—Early hominins in the Early Middle Pleistocene Epoch processed a wide variety of starch-rich plant foods, according to a study. Compared with animal foods, wild plants require more extensive processing prior to consumption. The use of wild plants over the course of human evolution has not been well-studied, partly due to the low archaeological visibility of plant resources. Hadar Ahituv, Nira Alperson-Afil, Amanda Henry, Naama Goren-Inbar, and colleagues analyzed preserved plant microremains on eight basalt percussive tools, including anvils and hammerstones, from the early Middle Pleistocene site of Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov, Israel. The authors extracted and classified more than 650 starch grains embedded in the surfaces of the basalt tools. The authors detected starches from acorns, grass grains, water chestnuts, yellow waterlily rhizomes, and legume seeds. The identified plants originated from diverse habitats, including a lake close to the site and more distant upland areas. The documented diversity and association with stone tools suggest that the microremains represent residues of plant food processing by hominins, rather than a natural representation of local flora. The authors note that the identified plants vary in seasonality and require diverse gathering and processing methods, representing indirect evidence of advanced cognitive abilities. According to the authors, the findings suggest that carbohydrates extracted from diverse wild plants played an important role in the diets of early hominins at least 780,000 years ago.

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Whole plant (top), edible part (middle), and characteristic starch grain (bottom) of oak. Hadar Ahituv and Yoel Melamed

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Article Source: PNAS news release

*“Starch-rich plant foods 780,000 y ago: Evidence from Acheulian percussive stone tools,” by Hadar Ahituv et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 6-Jan-2025. https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2418661121

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The Francis Crick Institute—Waves of human migration across Europe during the first millennium AD have been revealed using a more precise method of analysing ancestry with ancient DNA, in research led by the Francis Crick Institute.

Researchers can bring together a picture of how people moved across the world by looking at changes in their DNA, but this becomes a lot harder when historical groups of people are genetically very similar. 

In research published today in Nature, researchers report a new data analysis method called Twigstats¹, which allows the differences between genetically similar groups to be measured more precisely, revealing previously unknown details of migrations in Europe.

They applied the new method to over 1500 European genomes (a person’s complete set of DNA) from people who lived primarily during the first millennium AD (year 1 to 1000), encompassing the Iron Age, the fall of the Roman Empire, the early medieval ‘Migration Period’ and the Viking Age.

Germanic-speaking people move south in the early Iron Age

The Romans – whose empire was flourishing at the start of the first millennium – wrote about conflict with Germanic groups outside of the Empire’s frontiers.

Using the new method, the scientists revealed waves of these groups migrating south from Northern Germany or Scandinavia early in the first millennium, adding genetic evidence to the historical record.

This ancestry was found in people from southern Germany, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, and southern Britain, with one person in southern Europe carrying 100% Scandinavian-like ancestry.

The team showed that many of these groups eventually mixed with pre-existing populations. The two main zones of migration and interaction mirror the three main branches of Germanic languages, one of which stayed in Scandinavia, one of which became extinct, and another which formed the basis of modern-day German and English.

Finding a Roman gladiator?

In 2^nd-4^th century York in Britain, 25% of the ancestry of an individual who could have been a Roman soldier or slave gladiator came from early Iron Age Scandinavia. This highlights that there were people with Scandinavian ancestry in Britain earlier than the Anglo-Saxon and Viking periods which started in the 5th century AD.

Germanic-speaking people move north into Scandinavia before the Viking Age

The team then used the method to uncover a later additional northward wave of migration into Scandinavia at the end of the Iron Age (300-800 AD) and just before the Viking Age. They showed that many Viking Age individuals across southern Scandinavia carried ancestry from Central Europe.

A different type of biomolecular analysis of teeth found that people buried on the island of Öland, Sweden, who carried ancestry from Central Europe, had grown up locally, suggesting that this northward influx of people wasn’t a one-off, but a lasting shift in ancestry.

There is archaeological evidence for repeated conflicts in Scandinavia at this time, and the researchers speculate that this unrest may have played a role in driving movements of people, but more archaeological, genetic and environmental data is needed to shed light on the reasons why people moved into and around Scandinavia².

Viking expansion out of Scandinavia

Historically, the Viking Age (c.800-1050 AD) is associated with people from Scandinavia raiding and settling throughout Europe.

The research showed that many people outside of Scandinavia during this time show a mix of local and Scandinavian ancestry, in support of the historical records.

For example, the team found some Viking Age individuals in the east (now present-day Ukraine and Russia) who had ancestry from present-day Sweden, and individuals in Britain who had ancestry from present-day Denmark.

In Viking Age mass graves in Britain, the remains of men who died violently showed genetic links to Scandinavia, suggesting they may have been executed members of Viking raiding parties.

Adding genetic evidence to historical accounts

Leo Speidel, first author, former postdoctoral researcher at the Crick and UCL and now group leader at RIKEN, Japan, said: “We already have reliable statistical tools to compare the genetics between groups of people who are genetically very different, like hunter-gatherers and early farmers, but robust analyses of finer-scale population changes, like the migrations we reveal in this paper, have largely been obscured until now.

“Twigstats allows us to see what we couldn’t before, in this case migrations all across Europe originating in the north of Europe in the Iron Age, and then back into Scandinavia before the Viking Age. Our new method can be applied to other populations across the world and hopefully reveal more missing pieces of the puzzle.”

Pontus Skoglund, Group Leader of the Ancient Genomics Laboratory at the Crick, and senior author, said: “The goal was a data analysis method that would provide a sharper lens for fine-scale genetic history. Questions that wouldn’t have been possible to answer before are now within reach to us, so we now need to grow the record of ancient whole-genome sequences.”

Peter Heather, Professor of Medieval History at King’s College London, and co-author of the study, said: “Historical sources indicate that migration played some role in the massive restructuring of the human landscape of western Eurasia in the second half of the first millennium AD which first created the outlines of a politically and culturally recognisable Europe, but the nature, scale and even the trajectories of the movements have always been hotly disputed. Twigstats opens up the exciting possibility of finally resolving these crucial questions.”

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Three waves of migrations across Europe were identified in the paper. Leo Speidel, The Francis Crick Institute

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Diagram showing how Twigstats works. Leo Speidel, the Francis Crick Institute

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Article Source: Francis Crick Institute news release.

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How does Twigstats work?

The more genetic mutations (differences in our DNA) that we share with another person, the closer we tend to be related. This is because we inherit our DNA through our ancestors, and so we inherit the same mutations that they also carried. Our DNA is therefore a proxy for the genetic ‘family trees’ that connect us all.

Over the past few years, scientists have found ways to directly reconstruct these genetic family trees by looking at how mutations are shared between people, connecting our DNA today with those of ancient people. These genetic family trees reveal how old mutations are and who they are shared by.

Twigstats directly looks at these genetic family trees to summarize who we have inherited our DNA from. This new approach looks at more recent mutations to reveal connections between people who lived closer together in time.

The period 300-800 AD is dynamic, and also one where the runic script and language changed across Scandinavia, as explored in the illustration.

About the Francis Crick Institute

The Francis Crick Institute is a biomedical discovery institute dedicated to understanding the fundamental biology underlying health and disease. Its work is helping to understand why disease develops and to translate discoveries into new ways to prevent, diagnose and treat illnesses such as cancer, heart disease, stroke, infections, and neurodegenerative diseases.

An independent organisation, its founding partners are the Medical Research Council (MRC), Cancer Research UK, Wellcome, UCL (University College London), Imperial College London and King’s College London.

The Crick was formed in 2015, and in 2016 it moved into a brand new state-of-the-art building in central London which brings together 1500 scientists and support staff working collaboratively across disciplines, making it the biggest biomedical research facility under a single roof in Europe.

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*High-resolution genomic history of early medieval Europe, Nature, 1-Jan-2025. 10.1038/s41586-024-08275-2  

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A recent investigation of human remains found in the UK’s Cheddar Gorge has once again brought a particularly unsavory aspect of our human story into the light: human consumption of other humans. The surprising discovery of cannibalism in the Early Bronze Age comes from the re-examination of the remains of 37 men, women, and children that were found in pieces at the site of Charterhouse Warren, down a disused shaft cut into the Mendip Hills. This is the first instance of cannibalism of humans, or anthropophagy, to be discovered in British prehistory on such a large scale, and the reported findings force a reconsideration of what role cannibalism may have played in the life of humans in the past. Reckoning with such an emotive and sensational topic has never been easy for scientists, however, and there is still quite a lot of controversy about exactly how much cannibalism ever really happened in the past.

In the fairly recent past, accusations of cannibalism in a society or group were often considered to be a propaganda move on the part of the accusers. William Arens argued in his 1979 book The Man-Eating Myth that accusations of anthropophagy were never based on observation, only second-hand reports, and reflected deeply held prejudices by racist and colonial commentators. Whether it was the dog-headed Cynocephali, a tribe of barbarian cannibals described by Ancient Greeks that somehow made it down to medieval times or the Carib people who were described as cannibals to the newly arrived Christopher Columbus by the neighboring Arawak group, what most accusations of cannibalism have in common is that they are used to denigrate the humanity of the accused. Columbus’s description of the “Caniba” in his 1490s journal tells of the people he encountered describing their rivals as “dog-nosed” cannibals. What is left to prove the truth of these accusations then, and what Columbus himself used to bolster his arguments for a dangerous and evil people that had to be subjugated, is the physical evidence left behind by the consumption of human flesh: the bones themselves.

While Columbus was, of course, not a biological anthropologist—a scientist who studies bones and teeth from people in the past—it is within the study of human remains of the past that we can start to see the reality of cannibalism. Anthropologists borrow techniques from forensic medicine to identify the traces of trauma left on human bones to quite literally piece together evidence of what has happened to a human body. Knives, axes, teeth, hammers, and other tools leave cuts, furrows, scrapes, and other marks on the bones they touch. These will differ depending on whether they are made in living flesh or dry bone, and what kind of tool was used for what kind of purpose. We know that humans have a long history of butchering animals for food, and we can recognize the characteristic patterns that they use to acquire specific cuts of meat or extract nutritious marrow from bones.

Sometimes, this pattern appears on human bones as well. Anthropologists have recognized the characteristic patterns of butchery on human remains in archaeological sites from around the world, across huge swathes of time. There are cups made from skulls from Gough’s Cave in the same Cheddar Gorge that date back almost 15,000 years. Bones found in the cave systems of Spain’s Atapuerca mountains show that about 800,000 years ago individuals from an ancient hominin species, Homo antecessor, were butchered and eaten by tool-wielding hominins far before the evolution of modern Homo sapiens. Perhaps the best-known examples of large-scale cannibalism come from the south-west of North America, where the remains of people from the Ancestral Puebloan culture were identified as having been cannibalized in the best-selling book Man Corn by anthropologists Christy G. Turner II and Jacqueline A. Turner. The broken-open bones, with distinct cut marks from being severed by tools, characteristic polish where they were stirred in a boiling pot—and later even a human coprolite that showed its owner had eaten another human—were a direct riposte to the anthropologists who insisted cannibalism was only something people accused other people of.

It was in fact a disease in living people that forced a reconsideration of whether or not our species was a habitual cannibal—and why. The discovery of a prion disease, kuru, in the Fore people of Papua New Guinea that was transmitted by consuming contaminated human brain tissue of family members during funeral rites demonstrated that cannibalism exists in living cultures. It further showed that the practice is not necessarily the bloodthirsty act of a warlike people, as those with vested interests in making another group “less” than human, like Columbus, reported. Many instances of what looks like butchery on human remains may reflect a cultural type of cannibalism; a particular society’s death rituals. In other cases, ecological pressures such as a natural disaster may prompt eating other humans, as has been proposed for the Ancestral Puebloans who may have been cannibalized during a period of intense drought, or for cases of known anthropophagy such as the Andes Flight Disaster.

These far more functional explanations for why humans would eat other humans are a far cry from the violence and inhumanity suggested by Columbus and his classical Western European idea of cannibalism, which is precisely why the Bronze Age remains from Cheddar Gorge come as such a surprise. The remains from Charterhouse Warren show signs that they were attacked and killed en masse as well as signs of being butchered, processed for meat, and even possible scrape marks from human teeth. This suggests that, on top of the cultural and ecological cannibalism we have slowly begun to accept as part of our story, we must also contend with cannibalism as a part of extreme violence that is also part of our species’s history.

Cover Image, Top Left: Skull. Peter Dargatz, Pixabay

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Source: This article was produced by Human Bridges.

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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—Researchers reconstructed familial relationships among elite individuals buried around 500 CE in Peru, including two ritually sacrificed relatives. The Moche archaeological culture lived in sophisticated urban complexes along the north coast of present-day Peru from 300 to 950 CE. Kinship is hypothesized to have played a central role in the maintenance of political authority in Moche society. Jeffrey Quilter, Régulo Fanco Jordan, John Krigbaum, Lars Fehren-Schmitz, Erik Marsh, John Verano, and colleagues used archaeological, genetic, and isotopic data to characterize familial relationships between four adults and two sacrificed juveniles buried in a pyramid-like temple in Chicama Valley, Peru. The burial group included an adult woman known as the Señora de Cao, who was interred along with numerous offerings and a sacrificed juvenile individual. The results revealed that all six individuals were biologically related in a family tree spanning at least four generations. Isotopic analyses suggested that most of the individuals likely spent their childhoods in or near the Chicama Valley and had similar diets rich in maize and marine-derived proteins. The juvenile sacrificed and buried with the Señora de Cao was possibly her niece and had a distinct geographic origin and diet. The finding suggests a previously undocumented form of ritual sacrifice among Moche elites involving close relatives. According to the authors, the study* provides insight into the intersection of kinship, elite status, and ritual practices in Moche society.

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Enclosure of burials at the Huaca Cao Viejo temple at the El Brujo archaeological complex in Peru. Credit Jeffrey Quilter

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Huaca Cao Viejo temple at the El Brujo archaeological complex in Peru. Credit Jeffrey Quilter

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Article Source: PNAS news release

*“Family relations of Moche elite burials on the North Coast of Peru (~500 CE): Analyses of the Señora de Cao and relatives,” by Jeffrey Quilter et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 23-Dec-2024. https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2416321121

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PHILADELPHIA, December 20, 2024—At the ancient Assyrian city of Nimrud in northern Iraq, a temple razed by fire around 612 BCE, has remarkably preserved shrines that were recovered by the Penn Museum and Iraqi archaeologists on a site excavation this year as part of the Penn Nimrud Project, one of several cultural heritage preservation and protection initiatives of Penn’s Iraq Heritage Stabilization Program (IHSP). These recent discoveries enhance our understanding of one of the world’s first empires while also highlighting archaeology’s integral role in cultural heritage restoration.

Penn Nimrud Project expands 19th-century excavations

Known as Kalhu by Assyrians and Calah in the Bible, Nimrud’s vast archaeological mounds first excavated in the 19th century, provide evidence confirming how ancient Mesopotamia contributed to human advancement. Assyria also represents a crucial part of Iraq’s cultural identity, which the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) attempted to erase by destroying major Mesopotamian monuments between 2014 and 2017.Two of these sites at Nimrud were the Ninurta Temple and its Ziggurat (stepped temple tower) and the famed Northwest Palace built by King Ashurnasirpal II (883-859 BCE) who reigned over Nimrud, the newly appointed capital of the Neo-Assyrian state.

Despite previous excavations led by the English archaeologist Sir Austen Henry Layard and then by British archaeologist Sir Max Mallowan, husband of renowned mystery author Agatha Christie, the temple remained poorly documented and predominantly unexplored until now.

Penn IHSP safeguards at-risk cultural heritage sites in Iraq and Syria. By working collaboratively with government authorities, international experts, and local stakeholders, the Penn Nimrud Project, a part of IHSP, seeks to repair recent damage, reopen the site to tourism, and refine our understanding of Nimrud’s temples and Assyrian religious practices. All artifacts recovered from excavations remain in Iraq.

Findings at the temple

In its third season, project excavations unearthed two new shrines within the sprawling Ninurta Temple. Inside the larger shrine, the team found a monumental stone dais (a low platform for the statue of a god or goddess worshipped in the temple, measuring about 12 ft. by 9.5 ft., with a cuneiform inscription, presumably of King Ashurnasirpal II. The smaller shrine contained a dais severely damaged in antiquity. These artifacts provide valuable clues regarding Assyrian religious practices and the deities worshipped there for centuries.

Other noteworthy finds in the shrines were possible parts of statues of unknown deities, which would have once stood on the daises. Yet only fragments of these types of statues and their accouterments were found after invaders from Babylonia (southern and central Iraq) and Media (ancient western Iran) pillaged and burned the temple around 614-12 BCE, overthrowing the Assyrian Empire. Through careful examination, excavators hope to develop a detailed picture of the religious practices surrounding the state god Ninurta, the war god of the mighty Assyrians, and closely associated deities as the kingdom emerged as one of the world’s first empires. Despite the looting and destruction of the temple in antiquity, the discoveries reveal Ninurta’s central role in the state religion and the incredible wealth held by the temple.

“The burning and sudden collapse of the Ninurta Temple left it in a remarkable state of preservation. The team located preserved cedar wood brought to Nimrud from the Lebanon Mountains for the temple’s construction—exactly as it was recorded in the inscriptions by King Ashurnasirpal II, in which he describes building the temple precinct,” says Dr. Michael Danti, Program Director of the IHSP. “The condition and distribution of artifacts strongly suggest that the shrines and associated treasures were looted and intentionally damaged by the Babylonians and Medes before being set ablaze.”

According to Dr. Danti, the most intriguing find was a kudurru, a cuneiform-inscribed stone monument in the temple, which dates to 797 BCE and features symbols of important deities. It documents a royal decree granting the governorship of Hindanu, an area located on the Euphrates River at the Syria-Iraq border.

“The Assyrian king Adad-Nerari III (811-783 BCE) assigned this strategic region to a governor named Nergal-Eresh of Rasappa (located west of the Tigris and northwest from Nimrud in the Khabur River region),” Dr. Danti explains. “It strongly emphasizes that no one may refute Nergal-Eresh’s claim to his new territory. It closes with a long list of curses for anyone who breaks the agreement, damages the stela, or removes it from the temple.”

Researchers also found well-preserved clay tablets with cuneiform inscriptions written in Assyrian (a dialect of Akkadian) that reveal details about the temple’s economic activities, such as silver loans and lists of assets, along with a note written in Aramaic—a language and script widely used during the later Assyrian Empire. Other objects recovered during the excavations include a stone bowl set into the brick floor of the shrine, likely used for pouring libations during religious ceremonies, the sculpted head of a griffon, fragments of glazed pottery and stone tablets, carved ivories, and jewelry. The wide range of object types, materials, and artistic styles reflect the burgeoning wealth of the Assyrian Empire and its vast military conquests and trade connections.

Preserving Assyria exhibition at the Penn Museum

Another site included in the Penn Nimrud Project is the Assyrian capital of Nineveh in the modern city of East Mosul, where the IHSP is helping to repair damage from terrorist attacks to the ancient fortifications of the Assyrian city. In support of the reconstruction effort, excavations at the Mashki Gate revealed detailed reliefs depicting military campaigns of King Sennacherib (705-681 BCE), which were 3D scanned by IHSP. Portions of their replicas will be the focus of an upcoming exhibition at the Penn Museum, Preserving Assyria, opening February 8, 2025.

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A closer look at the dais uncovered by Penn Museum and Iraqi archaeologists at Nimrud, Iraq (2024). Photo: Penn Museum

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The dais uncovered by Penn Museum and Iraqi archaeologists at Nimrud, Iraq (2024). Photo: Penn Museum

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The most intriguing find for archaeologists at Nimrud (2024) was a kudurru, a cuneiform-inscribed stone monument. It documents a royal decree granting the governorship of an area near the Euphrates River at the Syria-Iraq border. Photo: Penn Museum

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Cuneiform inscriptions can be seen on this Kudurru found by Penn Museum and Iraqi archaeologists at Nimrud, Iraq (2024). Photo: Penn Museum.

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Article Source: Penn Museum news release

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The University of Pennsylvania, Nimrud Archaeological Trust, and private sources funded the project.

 ABOUT THE PENN MUSEUM

The Penn Museum’s mission is to be a center for inquiry and the ongoing exploration of humanity for our University of Pennsylvania, regional, national, and global communities, following ethical standards and practices.

Through conducting research, stewarding collections, creating learning opportunities, sharing stories, and creating experiences that expand access to archaeology and anthropology, the Museum builds empathy and connections across diverse cultures.

The Penn Museum is open Tuesday-Sunday, 10:00 am-5:00 pm. It is open until 8:00 pm on first Wednesdays of the month through March. The Café is open Tuesday-Thursday, 9:00 am-3:00 pm and Friday and Saturday, 10:00 am-2:00 pm. For information, visit www.penn.museum, call 215.898.4000, or follow @PennMuseum on social media.

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Aarhus University—At a Neolithic settlement on the Danish island Funen dating back 5,500 years, archaeologists have discovered both grinding stones and grains from early cereals. However, new research* reveals that the inhabitants did not use the stones to grind the cereal grains. Instead of making bread, they likely prepared porridge or gruel from the grains.

A grinding stone, as the name suggests, is a stone with a sufficiently flat surface that allows grinding against it with another, smaller stone.

Archaeologists found fourteen of such stones when they excavated the remains of a settlement from the Early Neolithic Funnel Beaker Culture at Frydenlund, on Strandby Mark southeast of Haarby on Funen (see fact box at the bottom of this text).

You can view 3D images of 11 different grindings stones from the Frydenlund site here (you can rotate and turn them with your mouse). 

They also found over 5,000 charred grain kernels of naked barley, emmer wheat, and durum wheat, amongst others.

One might offhand assume that the inhabitants 5,500 years ago ground their cereals into flour and baked bread with it. That has indeed been the typical interpretation of grinding stones from that time.

But they didn’t.

An international research team from Denmark, Germany and Spain has now analyzed both the grains and the stones, concluding that the grinding stones were not used to grind cereals. 

The researchers examined microscopic mineral plant remains (phytoliths) and starch grains in small cavities on the surfaces of the stones. Surprisingly, they did not find any evidence of grinding of cereals.

The researchers found only a few phytoliths on the stones, and the starch grains they identified came from wild plants instead of cereals.

“We have not identified the plants the starch grains originate from. We have merely ruled out the most obvious candidates – namely the cereals found at the settlement, which were not ground, as well as various collected species, including hazelnuts,” explains archaeobotanist, PhD Welmoed Out from Moesgaard Museum.

Together with senior researcher, Dr. Phil. Niels H. Andersen, also from Moesgaard Museum, she led the study recently published in the scientific journal Vegetation History and Archaeobotany.

What the grinding stones were used for remains open to interpretation, aside from the fact that they lack clear wear marks from the pushing motions used for grinding grain.

“The trough-shaped querns with traces of pushing movements emerged 500 years later. The grinding stones we studied here were struck with pestles made of stone, like crushing in a mortar. We also found such pestles at the site, resembling rounded, thick stone sausages. However, we have not analyzed them for phytoliths or starch,” explains Niels H. Andersen.

This is the first time a state-of-the-art combination of phytolith and starch analyses has been performed on grinding stones from the first farmers in Northern Europe. The results support a hypothesis that archaeobotanists and archaeologists elsewhere in Northern Europe also have proposed after discovering remains of grains cooked into porridge and gruel: that the first farmers did not live on water and bread but rather on water and gruel, alongside berries, nuts, roots, and meat.

And yes, they likely drank water. According to Niels H. Andersen, no definitive traces of beer brewing have been found in Denmark before the Bronze Age.

However, as the two researchers from Moesgaard Museum emphasize: “This study only involves one settlement. While it supports other findings from the Funnel Beaker Culture, we cannot rule out the possibility of different results emerging when this method is applied to finds from other excavations.”

Facts:

• The Funnel Beaker Culture was an early farming culture in Northern, Central, and Eastern Europe during the period ca. 4000–2800 BCE, marking the introduction of agriculture and cattle farming to Scandinavia. The name refers to the culture’s commonly found clay beakers with funnel-shaped necks.
• The discovery on Southern Funen is the most extensive find of grinding stones and grains from the Funnel Beaker Culture in the entire region it encompassed.
• The study was done in collaboration between researchers from Moesgaard Museum and Aarhus University in Denmark, Kiel University in Germany and the Spanish National Research Council (IMF-CSIC) in Barcelona

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One of the 14 grinding stones that archeologists found while excavating a 5,500 years old settlement on the Danish island Funen. A new study reveals that the stones were not used to grind cereal grains. Niels H. Andersen, Moesgaard Museum

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Article Source: Aarhus University news release

*Plant use at Funnel Beaker sites: combined macro- and micro-remains analysis at the Early Neolithic site of Frydenlund, Denmark (ca. 3600 BCE), Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 16-Dec-2024. 10.1007/s00334-024-01020-9 

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Florence, Italy — Following a complex three-year process involving teams of experts, Museo di Palazzo Vecchio’s Wardrobe, commonly known as the Map Room—the most visited gallery in the museum—has been fully restored thanks to funding provided by Friends of Florence.

The project included restoration of both the large terrestrial globe and 53 maps of the world as it was known in the second half of the 16th century commissioned by Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici. The process also involved the structural consolidation of the floor, the installation of a domotic lighting system, the complete overhaul and maintenance of the 13 monumental walnut cabinets with carved decorative motifs by Dionigi di Matteo Nigetti; and the replacement of protective acrylic panes with modern antiglare panels.

The operation was devised and managed by Palazzo Vecchio’s Servizio Belle Arti e Fabbrica under the Direzione Servizi Tecnici in conjunction with the Direzione Cultura’s Servizio Musei. Most of the process was conducted on site so visitors could watch the restorers at work.

In tandem with the restoration, the Museo Galileo, thanks to an accord stipulated with the Comune di Firenze, developed a website enabling users to conduct an interactive 3D exploration of the room, which has been reconstructed digitally along with the globe and works of art it houses. An illustrated publication documenting the restoration process will be published by Mandragora in 2025. Both the website and publication are also supported by Friends of Florence.

The Map Room, a valuable part of the Palazzo Vecchio museum, has been restored to its former glory,” said Florence Mayor Sara Funaro. “This room of immense historical importance has been the object of a complex and meticulous operation thanks to the unflagging involvement of Palazzo Vecchio’s Servizio Belle Arti e Fabbrica. The superb globe in the center of the room, one of the oldest in the world, has also recovered its original beauty. And it is now going to be possible, quite literally, for users to immerse themselves in this unique environment thanks to the innovative technology developed by the Museo Galileo. A huge thank you to Friends of Florence, which is once again working hand in hand with our city to safeguard and enhance its artistic heritage.”

“This is one of the best-loved parts of our museum and now, after its restoration, it is even more beautiful,” opined Councilor for Cultural Affairs Giovanni Bettarini. “Thanks to the generosity of Friends of Florence, this room is once again a treasure house of beauty and knowledge that illustrates for us how the world was known back in the days of Grand Duke Cosimo I. This restoration, conducted by our distinguished experts and restorers, has been truly fascinating to track and now allows us to see this room as it was in the Renaissance, with an interesting 3D virtual tour produced thanks to the expertise of the Museo Galileo.”

“The Palazzo Vecchio Wardrobe study and restoration program has been a fascinating undertaking that has brought art, history, and geography together in a single project,” said Friends of Florence President Simonetta Brandolini d’Adda. “After three years’ work, the result is truly extraordinary. We thank Palazzo Vecchio’s Servizio Belle Arti e Fabbrica, the Servizio Tecnici, the Direzione Cultura’s Servizio Musei, and the Museo Galileo for their collegial partnership. We are also immensely grateful to our donor, the Giorgi Family Foundation, for their generous support for this special project.”

Soprintendente Antonella Ranaldi added, “This complex restoration, which has brought together the various institutions involved, is accompanied by explanatory videos and 3D models and by a dedicated publication, providing a splendid example of public- and private-sector involvement, and with Friends of Florence playing a proactive role in the funding.”

Background

The Map Room

When Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici (1519–1574) moved into the Palazzo Vecchio, the adjacent buildings were used as the Wardrobe, space in which the court’s movable property was stored. Beginning in 1661, this area was transformed under the direction of Giorgio Vasari to display, per the Duke, all the “things of heaven and earth.” The room’s design, devised by Vasari with cosmographer Fra’ Miniato Pitti and still partly unfinished at Cosimo’s death, featured 57 maps of lands then known in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the New World fitted as panels on the doors of the large wooden cabinets.

The ceiling, decorated with allegorical figures of the constellations, was to open to allow two large globes to drop down from a star-spangled vault: the celestial globe, which may never have been made, was to remain suspended in mid-air, while the extant terrestrial globe was to be lowered to the ground. The design also provided for busts of princes and emperors and the first 300 portraits of illustrious men in the Gioviana Collection (subsequently transferred to the Galleria degli Uffizi) to be displayed between the cabinets and the ceiling. The idea of displaying all the “things of heaven and earth” in a single room reflects Cosimo’s interest in the natural and mathematical sciences, geography, and trade, but also the Duke’s self-celebratory projects alluding to his name and the Greek word “cosmos.”

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“Sala della Guardaroba” (Wardrobe Room, or commonly known as the Map Room), 16th century, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Italy, after 2021-24 restoration with support from Friends of Florence. Terrestrial globe and geographical maps by Egnazio Danti and Stefano Bonsignori with walnut cabinets by Dionigi di Matteo. Photo courtesy of Comune di Firenze.

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“Sala della Guardaroba” (Wardrobe Room, or commonly known as the Map Room), 16th century, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Italy, after 2021-24 restoration with support from Friends of Florence. Detail of geographical maps by Egnazio Danti and Stefano Bonsignori with walnut cabinets by Dionigi di Matteo Nigetti. Photo courtesy of Comune di Firenze

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The Maps

The 13 large walnut cabinets (initially used to store tapestries and other textiles) were made by Dionigi di Matteo Nigetti between 1564 and 1571. Of the 57 maps in the original design, only 53 survive. Thirty of these were based on a design by the Dominican cosmographer Fra’ Egnazio Danti and completed in 1575, while the others were designed by his successor, the Olivetan monk Dom Stefano Bonsignori. The groups differ essentially in the techniques adopted by the two artists. Danti’s technique is akin to painting on paper and parchment reminiscent of illuminated codices, with inscriptions, profiles, and chiaroscuro outlined in ink. Bonsignori’s applied opaque brushwork using oil paints most commonly used at the time.

The spectacular globe in the center of the room, which measures some 220 cm. in diameter, is the world’s earliest surviving large-scale model of Earth. It was made with immense skill at a time when the technique for building such scientific instruments had not yet been codified. It was first fashioned between 1564 and 1569 by Fra’ Danti with the Medici court architect and engineer Antonio Lupicini who made its interior shell and its external iron structure “with such a new technique that with one finger alone that huge machine could be moved in every direction,” as Giorgio Vasari noted at the time. After it had become impossible to produce the amazing, theatrical machine envisioned by Cosimo I, the globe was moved to the new ducal residence in the Palazzo Pitti, before being transferred to the Terrazzo degli Uffizi around 1594.

In 1776, the globe was moved once again along with the entire grand ducal collection of scientific instruments to the new Museum of Physics and Natural History known today as La Specola. It remained there until the Comune di Firenze had it restored in the 1950s and returned to the room in Palazzo Vecchio for which it had originally been designed.

As restorers discovered during the intervention, however, the globe now in Palazzo Vecchio is no longer the one produced to Fra’ Danti’s design. After only a few decades its surface was restored – and possibly updated – on two separate occasions. The first was completed by court cosmographer Antonio Santucci in 1597 and the second a decade later by his successor Matteo Neroni.

An analysis of its surface, a historical and cartographical examination of the countries depicted, and a series of hitherto unknown archival documents discovered as the project was underway, show that between 1605 and 1613, Neroni did not confine himself to simply restoring and updating Fra’ Danti’s globe. Rather, he completely demolished it in order to rebuild it from scratch, from its innermost layers, possibly salvaging only the main part of the iron shell that Lupicini had made some 40 years earlier.

Restoration

The various restoration procedures were accompanied by a full program of multispectral photographic documentation and analyses. The globe was also recorded through the various phases of restoration with photogrammetrical surveys and the production of three-dimensional models. Its interior was inspected with a videoendoscope enabling restorers to get a clear picture of the composition of every layer in the painted surface’s complex support system.

The maps were restored in the adjacent Old Chancellery, in full public view, with the paintings being removed from the cabinet doors one at a time and then returned after restoration. Their wooden supports were in good condition overall, but both groups displayed defects in relation to the painting technique used: the paint and colors had deteriorated in the areas representing the sea on Bonsignori’s panels. The paintings’ legibility was seriously impaired by the effects of earlier restorations. Aggressive cleaning had worn down the painted surfaces; consolidations created stains; materials used over time had deteriorated; and the surfaces were extensively covered in a brown patina.

The present restoration project was designed to improve the painted panels’ legibility by conducting selective thinning or removal of the earlier restoration materials and retouching.

The operation enabled restorers to recover color values consistent with the original palette, such as the intense lapis lazuli blue of the seas in Fra’ Danti’s panels and the gleam of the tonal transitions in Bonsignori’s work.

The terrestrial globe, which could not be moved, was restored on site allowing the public to view the process. Barely legible and badly damaged by being moved around over the centuries and exposed to the elements when it stood in the courtyard of the Museo della Specola in the 19th century, the globe was removed from its external iron structure and placed on a wooden base. The challenging cleaning operation was conducted in two phases. First, the thick layer of repainting was completely removed. The second phase required removing, one by one, the countless residual black vestiges of old oil-based retouching that may have dated back to a 19th-century restoration.

The stunning, original palette was revealed. Lapis lazuli was used for the blue seas rippling with waves traversed by ships and sea creatures; gold for the inscriptions; ochre and malachite for the land masses with their reliefs highlighted and sparkling with golden specks; and cinnabar red for the islands and cities represented by small castles or by dots and the lines of the geographical grid.

The globe’s external support structure consisting of various iron pieces was dismantled, restored, and reassembled. This operation confirmed that the most important surviving iron elements are still the original pieces, despite their repeated disassembly and other interventions. The cleaning operation to remove deteriorated protective materials and surface corrosion revealed the details of the engraved graduations and inscriptions that had been invisible.

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“Sala della Guardaroba” (Wardrobe Room, or commonly known as the Map Room), 16th century, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Italy, after 2021-24 restoration with support from Friends of Florence. Detail of terrestrial globe by Egnazio Danti and Stefano Bonsignori. Photo courtesy of Comune di Firenze

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Website

Designed by the Museo Galileo with the support of the Friends of Florence, the new website is a 3D digital model of the cosmographical and geographical content in the renovated Map Room. Zoomable, it is designed to facilitate access to the room, maps, and globe with links to additional information. Visitors may rotate the model globe in any direction; see the metal and wood supports and materials used inside; and explore the surface and locations depicted.

Videos include an introduction, six segments devoted to the historical figures involved in the room’s layout and design, and two illustrating the designs themselves, one devised by Giorgio Vasari and a variant by architect and cosmographer Antonio Lupicini.

The protagonists in the videos are: Grand Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici, who first envisioned the project; Vasari, his architect and the designer of the mechanical equipment intended to make the model cosmos come to life; the cosmographer Dom Miniato Pitti charged by Vasari to produce the cosmographical mechanism; Cosimo I’s cosmographer Fra’ Egnazio Danti responsible for the terrestrial globe and for the majority of the cosmographical panels painted on the cabinet doors; Francesco I’s cosmographer Dom Stefano Buonsignori produced the rest of the cosmographical panels; and Antonio Lupicini designed the globe’s metal structure and devised a variant for the mechanical equipment which, in the end, was never built. https://mostre2.museogalileo.it/palazzovecchio-guardaroba/index.php/en/

Museo Galileo’s Scientific Director Filippo Camerota said, “The website project developed by the museum will enable anyone to virtually explore the Palazzo Vecchio museum’s Wardrobe in such a way that they will be able to consult content in detail, read the texts, and analyze information in greater depth. This useful tool for researchers, scholars, and enthusiasts alike is a research project that testifies to our institution’s commitment to combining the stringent study of historical sources with innovative ways of making information available to a broader audience, acting in synergy with the leading public- and private-sector players in our region.”

“The maps of Danti and Buonsignori, are on permanent loan to Palazzo Vecchio from the Gallerie degli Uffizi,” said Simona Pasquinucci, who is in charge of the Gallerie degli Uffizi’s Curatorial Department. “They have recovered their brilliance and their luminosity thanks to the restoration funded by the Friends of Florence, whom we thank profusely. It has proven to be a highly productive collaboration, for which we are grateful to the Comune di Firenze.”

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About Friends of Florence

Friends of Florence is a non-profit foundation supported by individuals from around the world who are dedicated to preserving and enhancing the rich cultural heritage of Florence and Tuscany and conserving irreplaceable artistic and cultural treasures. Friends of Florence identifies significant projects spanning centuries in need of restoration, secures funding, and works in collaboration with local authorities to complete projects.

Since its founding in 1998, the Foundation has raised and donated $10 million for conservation projects in the region. Friends of Florence works directly with Florence’s famed conservation laboratories to ensure restoration is done at the highest level, has the approval of the City of Florence and the Italian Ministry of Art, and is completed on time and on budget.

Through its work, Friends of Florence creates opportunities for the study and appreciation of paintings, sculptures, architectural elements, places of worship, and collections at the Uffizi Gallery, the Accademia, the Baptistry, the Piazza della Signoria, the Museum of San Marco, and dozens of other museums, churches, and public sites.

A model of high-impact, low-overhead philanthropy, Friends of Florence is the primary source of funding for the city’s conservators, a respected partner with museums and cultural authorities in Italy and the U.S., and a publisher/producer of publications, multimedia offerings, seminars, lectures, and cultural travel opportunities. www.friendsofflorence.org

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University of California – Berkeley—A new analysis* of DNA from ancient modern humans (Homo sapiens) in Europe and Asia has determined, more precisely than ever, the time period during which Neanderthals interbred with modern humans, starting about 50,500 years ago and lasting about 7,000 years — until Neanderthals began to disappear.

That interbreeding left Eurasians with many genes inherited from our Neanderthal ancestors, which in total make up between 1% and 2% of our genomes today.

The genome-based estimate is consistent with archeological evidence that modern humans and Neanderthals lived side-by-side in Eurasia for between 6,000 and 7,000 years. The analysis, which involved present-day human genomes as well as 58 ancient genomes sequenced from DNA found in modern human bones from around Eurasia, found an average date for Neanderthal-Homo sapiens interbreeding of about 47,000 years ago. Previous estimates for the time of interbreeding ranged from 54,000 to 41,000 years ago.

The new dates also imply that the initial migration of modern humans from Africa into Eurasia was basically over by 43,500 years ago.

“The timing is really important because it has direct implications on our understanding of the timing of the out-of-Africa migration as most non-Africans today inherit 1-2% ancestry from Neanderthals,” said Priya Moorjani, an assistant professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and one of two senior authors of the study. “It also has implications for understanding the settlement of the regions outside Africa, which is typically done by looking at archeological materials or fossils in different regions of the world.”

The genome analysis, also led by Benjamin Peter of the University of Rochester in New York and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) in Leipzig, Germany, will be published in the Dec. 13 print issue of the journal Science. The two lead authors are Leonardo Iasi, a graduate student at MPI-EVA, and Manjusha Chintalapati, a former UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow now at the company Ancestry DNA.

The longer duration of gene flow may help explain, for example, why East Asians have about 20% more Neanderthal genes than Europeans and West Asians. If modern humans moved eastward about 47,000 years ago, as archeological sites suggest, they would already have had intermixed Neanderthal genes.

“We show that the period of mixing was quite complex and may have taken a long time. Different groups could have separated during the 6,000- to 7,000-year period and some groups may have continued mixing for a longer period of time,” Peter said. “But a single shared period of gene flow fits the data best.”

“One of the main findings is the precise estimate of the timing of Neanderthal admixture, which was previously estimated using single ancient samples or in present-day individuals. Nobody had tried to model all of the ancient samples together,” Chintalapati said. “ This allowed us to build a more complete picture of the past”

Neanderthal deserts in the genome

In 2016, Moorjani pioneered a method for inferring the timing of Neanderthal gene flow using often incomplete genomes of ancient individuals. At that time, only five archaic Homo sapiens genomes were available. For the new study, Iasi, Chintalapati and their colleagues employed this technique with 58 previously sequenced genomes of ancient Homo sapiens who lived in Europe, Western and Central Asia over the past 45,000 years and the genomes of 275 worldwide contemporary humans to provide a more precise date — 47,000 years ago. Rather than assuming the gene flow occurred in a single generation, they tried more complex models developed by Iasi and Peter to establish that the interbreeding extended over about 7,000 years, rather than being intermittent.

The timing of the interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans was corroborated by another, independent study conducted by MPI-EVA researchers and scheduled to be published Dec. 12 in the journal Nature. That study, an analysis of two newly sequenced genomes of Homo sapiens that lived about 45,000 years ago, also found a date of 47,000 years ago.

“Although the ancient genomes were published in previous studies, they had not been analyzed to look at Neanderthal ancestry in this detailed way. We created a catalog of Neanderthal ancestry segments in modern humans. By jointly analyzing all these samples together, we inferred the period of gene flow was around 7,000 years,” Chintalapati said. “The Max Planck group actually sequenced new ancient DNA samples that allowed them to date the Neanderthal gene flow directly. And they came up with a similar timing as us.”

The UC Berkeley/MPI-EVA team also analyzed regions of the modern human genome that contain genes inherited from Neanderthals and some areas that are totally devoid of Neanderthal genes. They found that areas lacking any Neanderthal genes, so-called archaic or Neanderthal deserts, developed quickly after the two groups interbred, suggesting that some Neanderthal gene variants in those areas of the genome must have been lethal to modern humans.

Early modern human samples that are older than 40,000 years — samples from Oase cave in Romania, Ust’-Ishim in Russia, Zlatý kůň in the Czech Republic, Tianyuan in China and Bacho Kiro in Bulgaria  — already contained these deserts in their genomes.

“We find that very early modern humans from 40,000 years ago don’t have any ancestry in the deserts, so these deserts may have formed very rapidly after the gene flow,” said Iasi. “We also looked at the changes in Neanderthal ancestry frequency over time and across the genome and found regions that are present at high frequency, possibly because they carry beneficial variants that were introgressed from Neanderthals.”

Most of the high-frequency Neanderthal genes are related to immune function, skin pigmentation and metabolism, as reported in some previous studies. One immune gene variant inherited from Neanderthals confers protective effects to coronavirus that causes COVID-19, for example. Some of the Neanderthal genes involved in the immune system and skin pigmentation actually increased in frequency in Homo sapiens over time, implying that they may have been advantageous to human survival.

“Neanderthals were living outside Africa in harsh, Ice Age climates and were adapted to the climate and to the pathogens in these environments. When modern humans left Africa and interbred with Neanderthals, some individuals inherited Neanderthal genes that presumably allowed them to adapt and thrive better in the environment,” Iasi said.

“The fact that we find some of these regions already in 30,000-year-old samples shows that some of these regions were actually adapted immediately after the introgression,” Chintalapati added.

Other genes, such as the gene conferring resistance to coronaviruses, may not have been immediately useful but became useful later on.

“The environment changes and then some genes become beneficial,” Peter said.

Moorjani is currently looking at Neanderthal sequences in people of East Asian descent, who not only have a greater percentage of Neanderthal genes, but also some genes — up to 0.1% of their genome — from another early hominin group, the Denisovans.

“It’s really cool that we can actually peer into the past and see how variants inherited from our evolutionary cousins, Neanderthals and Denisovans, changed over time,” Moorjani said. “This allows us to understand the dynamics of the mixture of Neanderthals and modern humans.”

Other co-authors of the Science paper were postdoctoral fellow Laurits Skov of UC Berkeley and Alba Bossoms Mesa and Mateja Hajdinjak of MPI-EVA. Moorjani’s research was supported by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the National Institutes of Health (R35GM142978).

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Illustration of an encounter between a group of Neanderthals (black) and a group of modern humans (red, top row) with offspring showing recent Neanderthal ancestry (red, bottom row), imagined as a cave art painting. DNA from bones and teeth of these early human ancestors is helping scientists understand the interactions between early Homo sapiens and the Neanderthals they encountered after migrating out of Africa. Leonardo Iasi, MPI-EVA. Figure created with Dall-E and BioRender.com

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Article Source: University of California – Berkeley news release.

*Neandertal ancestry through time: Insights from genomes of ancient and present-day humans, Science, 13-Dec-2024. 10.1126/science.adq3010 

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PLOS—A research group led by Johannes Müller at the Institute of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology, at Kiel University, Germany, have shed light on the lives of people who lived over 5,600 years ago near Kosenivka, Ukraine. Published on December 11, 2024, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, the researchers present the first detailed bioarchaeological analyses of human diets from this area and provide estimations on the causes of death of the individuals found at this site.

The people associated with the Neolithic Cucuteni-Trypilla culture lived across Eastern Europe from approximately 5500 to 2750 BCE. With up to 15,000 inhabitants, some of their mega-sites are among the earliest and largest city-like settlements in prehistoric Europe. Despite the vast number of artefacts the Trypillia left behind, archeologists have found very few human remains. Due to this absence, many facets of the lives of this ancient people are still undiscovered.

The researchers studied a settlement site near Kosenivka, Ukraine. Comprised of several houses, this site is unique for the presence of human remains. The 50 human bone fragments recovered among the remains of a house stem from at least seven individuals—children, adults, males and a female, perhaps once inhabitants of the house. The remains of four of the individuals were also heavily burnt. The researchers were keen to explore potential causes for these burns, such as an accidental fire, or a rare form of burial rite.

The burnt bone fragments were largely found in the center of the house, and previous studies surmised the inhabitants of this site died in a house fire. Scrutinizing the pieces of bone under a microscope, the researchers concluded that the burning probably occurred quickly after death. In the case of an accidental fire, the researchers propose that some individuals could have died of carbon monoxide poisoning, even if they fled the house.

According to radiocarbon dating, one of the individuals died ca. 100 years later. The death of this person cannot be connected to the fire, but is otherwise unknown. Two other individuals with unhealed cranial injuries raise the question of whether violence could have played a role as well. A review of Trypillian human bone finds showed the researchers that less than 1% of the dead were cremated, and even more rarely buried within a house.

While bones can help archeologists speculate how ancient people died, these remains can also help us understand how they lived. By analyzing the carbon and nitrogen present in the bones—as well as in grains and the remains of animals found at the site—the researchers determined meat made up less than 10% of the inhabitants’ diets. This is in line with teeth found at the site, which have wear marks that indicate chewing on grains and other plant fibers. That Trypillia diets consisted mostly of plants supports theories that cattle in these cultures were primarily used for manuring the fields and milk rather than meat production.

Katharina Fuchs, first author of the study, adds: “Skeletal remains are real biological archives. Although researching the Trypillia societies and their living conditions in the oldest city-like communities in Eastern Europe will remain challenging, our ‘Kosenvika case’ clearly shows that even small fragments of bone are of great help. By combining new osteological, isotopic, archaeobotanical and archaeological information, we provide an exceptional insight into the lives—and perhaps also the deaths—of these people.”

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Archaeological context of Kosenivka. A: Map showing the location of the settlement of Kosenivka and the Chalcolithic sites referred to in the text. B: Photo showing the location of house 6 within the landscape. C: Photo showing house 6 being excavated, in 2004 (Map: R. Hofmann. Photos: republished from Kruts et al. [22] under a CC BY license with permission from V. Chabanyuk, original copyright 2005). Fuchs et al., 2024, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Kosenivka, selection of oral and pathological conditions. A–E: Individual 5/6/+left maxilla. A: Teeth positions 23–26 (buccal view). Signs of periodontal inflammation (upper arrows) and examples of dental calculus accumulation (third arrow) and dental chipping (lower arrow) on the first premolar (tooth 24). B: First premolar (24, mesial view). Interproximal grooving with horizonal striations on the lingual surface of the root (upper arrow) and at the cemento–enamel junction (middle arrow). Larger chipping lesion (lower arrow). C: Canine (23, distal view). Interproximal grooving, same location as on the neighbouring premolar (see B), but less distinct. D, E: Signs of periosteal reaction on the left maxillary sinus (medio–superior view). Increased vessel impressions (D, upper arrow) and porosity, as well as uneven bone surface (D, lower arrow, E), indicating inflammatory processes. F: Individual 2, left temporal, fragment (endocranial view). Periosteal reaction indicated by porous new bone formation (arrow). G: Individual 5, frontal bone (endocranial view). Periosteal reaction indicated by tongue-like new bone formation and increased vessel impressions (arrows). H: Individual 5/6/+, frontal bone, right part, orbital roof (inferior view). Signs of cribra orbitalia (evidenced by porosity, see arrow). Illustration: K. Fuchs. Fuchs et al., 2024, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

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Article Source: PLOS ONE news release.

*Life and death in Trypillia times: Interdisciplinary analyses of the unique human remains from the settlement of Kosenivka, Ukraine (3700–3600 BCE), PLOS ONE, 11-Dec-2024. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0289769

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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—Researchers uncovered a Paleolithic ritual chamber deep within a cave in the Levant*. The initial emergence of collective ritual practices among early humans in the Paleolithic period is not well-understood, partly due to the difficulty of identifying such ephemeral practices in the archaeological record. Omry Barzilai, Ofer Marder, Israel Hershkovitz, and colleagues documented an Early Upper Paleolithic ritual compound deep within Manot Cave in Israel. The ritual compound’s location in the deepest part of the cave is distinct from living areas close to the cave’s entrance, where activities such as flint knapping, animal butchering, and food consumption took place. The ritual site comprised a large gallery partitioned by speleothem cave formations. A large dolomite boulder engraved with complex, geometric patterns resembling a tortoise shell was prominently positioned at the back of the gallery. Linear microscratches within the grooves of the engraving indicated that it was carved by humans using sharp flint tools. Analysis of calcite crust on the boulder helped date the engraving to around 37,000–35,000 years ago. Wood ash particles identified in stalagmite laminae suggested that fire was used to illuminate the chamber. Acoustic analysis suggested that the ritual chamber was well-suited for conversations during communal gatherings. According to the authors, the ritual chamber represents the earliest known evidence of religious behavior in the Paleolithic Levant.

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Ritual compound at the deepest, darkest part of Manot Cave. Guy Geva

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Public ritual compound at the deepest part of Manot Cave and two rows of stalagmites leading to it. Guy Geva

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Article Source: PNAS news release.

*“Early human collective practices and symbolism in the Early Upper Paleolithic of Southwest Asia,” by Omry Barzilai et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 9-Dec-2024. https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2404632121

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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—Early rice domestication expanded alongside alcohol fermentation in Neolithic China, according to a study. Archaeological evidence has linked the earliest stages of rice (Oryza sp.) cultivation to the Shangshan culture in China’s lower Yangzi River region. The social processes that drove early rice domestication have not been well-studied. To explore early uses of domestic rice, Li Liu, Jianping Zhang, and colleagues analyzed microfossil remains, including phytoliths, starch granules, and fungi, associated with 12 pottery sherds excavated from the earliest deposits at a Shangshan site dated to around 10,000–9,000 years ago. The authors analyzed residues from the interior surfaces of the sherds and plant material incorporated into the clay itself. The analysis suggested that early domesticated rice was used both as a staple crop and for brewing fermented beverages using a traditional qu starter containing Monascus mold and yeast as fermentation agents. The authors note that the warm, humid climate of the early Holocene Epoch would have promoted fungal growth. Job’s tears grains, Panicoideae and Triticeae grasses, acorns, and lilies supplemented rice as fermentation ingredients. The authors report that the documented brewing method represents the earliest known fermentation technique in East Asia. According to the authors, alcoholic rice beverages likely served ritual functions and may have played a key role in the expansion of rice cultivation in Neolithic China.

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Shangshan pottery vessels and artistic representation of red beer served with a jar and cup. Leping Jiang, Jianping Zhang

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Article Source: PNAS news release.

*“Identification of 10,000-year-old rice beer at Shangshan in the Lower Yangzi River valley of China,” by Li Liu et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 9-Dec-2024. https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2412274121

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