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BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY—BINGHAMTON, N.Y. – Researchers at Binghamton University, State University at New York have used a new image-based analysis technique to identify once-hidden North American mounds, which could reveal valuable information about pre-contact Native Americans.

“Across the East Coast of the United States, some of the most visible forms for pre-contact Native American material culture can be found in the form of large earthen and shell mounds,” said Binghamton University anthropologist Carl Lipo. “Mounds and shell rings contain valuable information about the way in which past people lived in North America. As habitation sites, they can show us the kinds of foods that were eaten, the way in which the community lived, and how the community interacted with neighbors and their local environments.

In areas that are deeply wooded or consist of bayous and swamps, there exist mounds that have eluded more than 150 years of archaeological survey and research. Due to vegetation, these kinds of environments make seeing more than a couple of dozen feet difficult, and even large mounds can be hidden from view, even when one systematically walks on the terrain.

The use of satellites and new kinds of aerial sensors such as LiDAR (light detection and ranging) have transformed the way archaeologists can gather data about the archaeological record, said Lipo. Now scientists can study landscapes from images and peer through the forest canopy to look at the ground. LiDAR has been particularly effective at showing the characteristic rises in topography that mark the presence of mounds. The challenge to archaeologists, however, is to manage such a vast array of new data that are available for study. Object based image analysis (OBIA) allows archaeologists to configure a program to automatically detect features of interest. OBIA is a computer-based approach to use data from satellite images and aerial sensors to look for shapes and combinations of features that match objects of interest. Unlike traditional satellite image analyses that looks at combinations of light wavelengths, OBIA adds characteristics of shape to the search algorithm, allowing archaeologists to more easily distinguish cultural from natural phenomena.

Lipo’s team systematically identified over 160 previously undetected mound features using LiDAR data from Beaufort County, S.C., and an OBIA approach. The result improves the overall knowledge of settlement patterns by providing systematic knowledge about past landscapes, said Lipo.

“Through the use of OBIA, archaeologists can now repeatedly generate data about the archaeological record and find historic and pre-contact sites over massive areas that would be cost-prohibitive using pedestrian survey. We can now also peer beneath the dense canopy of trees to see things that are otherwise obscured. In areas like coast South Carolina, with large swaths of shallow bays, inlets and bayous that are covered in forest, OBIA offers us our first look at this hidden landscape.”

Having demonstrated the effectiveness for using OBIA in conditions of dense vegetation and after optimizing our processing, Lipo and his team are expanding their efforts to include much-larger areas.

“Fortunately, satellite and LiDAR data are now available for much of the eastern seaboard, so undertaking a large-scale project is now a task that is achievable,” said Lipo. “Due to climate change and sea-level rise, many major mounds and middens on the East Coast are threatened by erosion and inundation. It is urgent we document this pre-contact landscape as soon as possible, in order to learn as much as we can about the past before it is gone forever.”

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Four shell ring features identified using the object-based image analysis (OBIA) algorithm. The ring on the top right has been confirmed as a shell ring site. Carl Lipo

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The team’s approach successfully identified ring and mound sites (indicated by arrows) within a stretch of forest that had not been previously surveyed by archaeologists. Carl Lipo

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Two previously identified shell rings on Daws Island, S.C. These features were also picked up by the new approach utilized by Davis, Sanger, and Lipo (2018). Carl Lipo

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Article Source: Binghamton University news release

*The paper, “Automated mound detection using LiDAR and Object-Based Image Analysis in Beaufort County, SC,” was published in Southeastern Archaeology.

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SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY, DALLAS (SMU) – Native American communities actively managed North American prairies for centuries before Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the New World, according to a new study led by Southern Methodist University (SMU) archaeologist Christopher I. Roos.

Fire was an important indigenous tool for shaping North American ecosystems, but the relative importance of indigenous burning versus climate on fire patterns remains controversial in scientific communities. The new study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), documents the use of fire to manipulate bison herds in the northern Great Plains. Contrary to popular thinking, burning by indigenous hunters combined with climate variability to amplify the effects of climate on prairie fire patterns.

The relative importance of climate and human activities in shaping fire patterns is often debated and has implications for how we approach fire management today.

“While there is little doubt that climate plays an important top-down role in shaping fire patterns, it is far less clear whether human activities – including active burning – can override those climate influences,” said Roos. “Too often, if scientists see strong correlations between fire activity and climate, the role of humans is discounted.”

Anthropologists and historians have documented a wide variety of fire uses by Native peoples in the Americas but fire scientists have also documented strong fire-climate relationships spanning more than 10,000 years.

“People often think that hunter-gatherers lived lightly on the land,” said Kacy L. Hollenback, an anthropologist at SMU and co-author of the study. “Too often we assume that hunter-gatherers were passive in their interaction with their environment. On the Great Plains and elsewhere, foragers were active managers shaping the composition, structure, and productivity of their environments. This history of management has important implications for contemporary relationships between Native American and First Nations peoples and their home landscapes – of which they were ecosystem engineers.”

Working in partnership with the Blackfeet Tribe in northern Montana, Roos and colleagues combined landscape archaeology and geoarchaeology to document changes in prairie fire activity in close spatial relationship to stones piled in formations up to a mile long that were used to drive herds of bison off of cliffs to be harvested en masse. These features are known as drivelines.

“We surveyed the uplands for stone features that delineate drivelines within which bison herds would be funneled towards a jump,” said anthropologist María Nieves Zedeño of the University of Arizona, co-author of the study. “By radiocarbon dating prairie fire charcoal deposits from the landscape near the drivelines, we were able to reconstruct periods of unusually high fire activity that are spatially associated with the drivelines,” says Roos.

The overlap between peak periods of driveline use (ca. 900-1650 CE) and prairie fire activity (ca. 1100-1650 CE) suggests that fire was an important tool in the hunting strategy involving the drivelines. Roos and colleagues suggest that fire was used to freshen up the prairie near the mouth of the drivelines to attract herds of bison, who prefer to graze recently burned areas. Episodes of high fire activity also correspond to wet climate episodes, when climate would have produced abundant grass fuel for prairie fires.

The absence of deposits indicating high prairie fire activity before or after the period of driveline use, even though comparable wet climate episodes occurred, suggests that anthropogenic burning by Native hunters amplified the climate signal in prairie fire patterns during the period of intensive bison hunting.

“We need to consider that humans and climate have more complicated and interacting influences on historical fire patterns,” said Roos. “Moreover, we need to acknowledge that hunter-gatherers can be active influences in their environments, particularly through their use of fire as a landscape tool. We expect that future studies of human/climate/fire interactions will further document the complexity of these relationships. Understanding that complexity may prove important as we try to navigate the complex wildfire problems we face today.”

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Bison (or buffalo) jump near Ulm, Montana. Formerly called Ulm Pishkun, now called First People’s Buffalo Jump. Square Butte in background. Naawada2016, Wikimedia Commons

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Article Source: Southern Methodist University news release

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UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN – FACULTY OF HUMANITIES—At an archaeological site in northeastern Jordan, researchers have discovered the charred remains of a flatbread baked by hunter-gatherers 14,400 years ago. It is the oldest direct evidence of bread found to date, predating the advent of agriculture by at least 4,000 years. The findings suggest that bread production based on wild cereals may have encouraged hunter-gatherers to cultivate cereals, and thus contributed to the agricultural revolution in the Neolithic period.

A team of researchers from the University of Copenhagen, University College London and University of Cambridge have analyzed charred food remains from a 14,400-year-old Natufian hunter-gatherer site – a site known as Shubayqa 1 located in the Black Desert in northeastern Jordan. The results, which are published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provide the earliest empirical evidence for the production of bread:

“The presence of hundreds of charred food remains in the fireplaces from Shubayqa 1 is an exceptional find, and it has given us the chance to characterize 14,000-year-old food practices. The 24 remains analyzed in this study show that wild ancestors of domesticated cereals such as barley, einkorn, and oat had been ground, sieved and kneaded prior to cooking. The remains are very similar to unleavened flatbreads identified at several Neolithic and Roman sites in Europe and Turkey. So we now know that bread-like products were produced long before the development of farming. The next step is to evaluate if the production and consumption of bread influenced the emergence of plant cultivation and domestication at all,” said University of Copenhagen archaeobotanist Amaia Arranz Otaegui, who is the first author of the study.

University of Copenhagen archaeologist Tobias Richter, who led the excavations at Shubayqa 1 in Jordan, explained:

“Natufian hunter-gatherers are of particular interest to us because they lived through a transitional period when people became more sedentary and their diet began to change. Flint sickle blades as well as ground stone tools found at Natufian sites in the Levant have long led archaeologists to suspect that people had begun to exploit plants in a different and perhaps more effective way. But the flat bread found at Shubayqa 1 is the earliest evidence of bread making recovered so far, and it shows that baking was invented before we had plant cultivation. So this evidence confirms some of our ideas. Indeed, it may be that the early and extremely time-consuming production of bread based on wild cereals may have been one of the key driving forces behind the later agricultural revolution where wild cereals were cultivated to provide more convenient sources of food.”

Charred remains under the microscope

The charred food remains were analysed with electronic microscopy at a University College London lab by PhD candidate Lara Gonzalez Carratero (UCL Institute of Archaeology), who is an expert on prehistoric bread:

“The identification of ‘bread’ or other cereal-based products in archaeology is not straightforward. There has been a tendency to simplify classification without really testing it against an identification criteria. We have established a new set of criteria to identify flat bread, dough and porridge like products in the archaeological record. Using Scanning Electron Microscopy we identified the microstructures and particles of each charred food remain,” said Gonzalez Carratero.

“Bread involves labour intensive processing which includes dehusking, grinding of cereals and kneading and baking. That it was produced before farming methods suggests it was seen as special, and the desire to make more of this special food probably contributed to the decision to begin to cultivate cereals. All of this relies on new methodological developments that allow us to identify the remains of bread from very small charred fragments using high magnification,” said Professor Dorian Fuller (UCL Institute of Archaeology).

Research into prehistoric food practices continues

A grant recently awarded to the University of Copenhagen team will ensure that research into food making during the transition to the Neolithic will continue:

“The Danish Council for Independent Research has recently approved further funding for our work, which will allow us to investigate how people consumed different plants and animals in greater detail. Building on our research into early bread, this will in the future give us a better idea why certain ingredients were favored over others and were eventually selected for cultivation,” said Tobias Richter.

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One of the stone structures of the Shubayqa 1 site. The fireplace, where the bread was found, is in the middle. Alexis Pantos

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Dr. Amaia Arranz-Otaegui and Ali Shakaiteer sampling cereals in the Shubayqa area. Joe Roe

Article Source: University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Humanities news release

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UNIVERSITY OF YORK—A study into some of the earliest known pottery remains has suggested that the rise of ceramic production was closely linked with intensified fishing at the end of the last Ice Age.

Scientists examined 800 pottery vessels in one of the largest studies ever undertaken, focussing mainly on Japan- a country recognized as being one of the earliest centers for ceramic innovation.

A three year study led by researchers at BioArCh, the University of York, concluded that the ceramic vessels were used by our hunter-gatherer ancestors to store and process fish, initially salmon, but then a wider range including shellfish, freshwater and marine fish and mammals as fishing intensified.

Scientists say this association with fish remained stable even after the onset of climate warming, including in more southerly areas, where expanding forests provided new opportunities for hunting game and gathering plants.

The research team was able to determine the use of a range of ceramic vessels through chemical analysis of organic food compounds that remained trapped in the pots despite ca. 10,000 years of burial.

The samples analyzed are some of the earliest found and date from the end of the Late Pleistocene – a time when our ancestors were living in glacial conditions – to the post-glacial period when the climate warmed close to its current temperature and when pottery began to be produced in much greater quantity.

The study has shed new light on how prehistoric hunter-gatherers processed and consumed foods over this period – until now virtually nothing was known of how or for what early pots were used.

As part of the study, researchers recovered diagnostic lipids from the charred surface deposits of the pottery with most of the compounds deriving from the processing of freshwater or marine organisms.

Lead author, Dr Alex Lucquin, from BioArCh, Department of Archaeology, University of York, said: “Thanks to the exceptional preservation of traces of animal fat, we now know that pottery changed from a rare and special object to an every-day tool for preparing fish.

“I think that our study not only reveals the subsistence of the ancient Jomon people of Japan but also its resilience to a dramatic change in climate.

Professor Oliver Craig, from the Department of Archaeology and Director of the BioArCh research center at York, who led the study, said: “Our results demonstrate that pottery had a strong association with the processing of fish, irrespective of the ecological setting.

“Contrary to expectations, this association remained stable even after the onset of warming, including in more southerly areas, where expanding forests provided new opportunities for hunting and gathering.

“The results indicate that a broad array of fish was processed in the pottery after the end of the last Ice Age, corresponding to a period when hunter-gatherers began to settle in one place for longer periods and develop more intensive fishing strategies”

“We suggest this marks a significant change in the role of pottery of hunter-gatherers, corresponding to massively increased volume of production, greater variation in forms and sizes and the onset of shellfish exploitation.”

Dr Simon Kaner, from the University of East Anglia, who was involved in the study, added: “The research highlights the benefits of this kind of international collaboration for unlocking some of the big questions about the human past, and the potential of engaging with established research networks as created by the Sainsbury Institute over the years.”

The findings are published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and the study was funded by the AHRC. It was an international collaboration including researchers in Japan, Sweden and the Netherlands.

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This is incipient Jomon pottery from Hanamiyama site, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Nara National Research Institute for Cultural Properties

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Article Source: University of York news release

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UNIVERSITY OF BASEL—Since the 16th century, Basel has been home to a mysterious papyrus. With mirror writing on both sides, it has puzzled generations of researchers. A research team from the University of Basel has now discovered that it is an unknown medical document from late antiquity. The text was likely written by the famous Roman physician Galen.

The Basel papyrus collection comprises 65 papers in five languages, which were purchased by the university in 1900 for the purpose of teaching classical studies – with the exception of two papyri. These arrived in Basel back in the 16th century, and likely formed part of Basilius Amerbach’s art collection.

One of these Amerbach papyri was regarded until now as unique in the world of papyrology. With mirror writing on both sides, it has puzzled generations of researchers. It was only through ultraviolet and infrared images produced by the Basel Digital Humanities Lab that it was possible to determine that this 2,000-year-old document was not a single papyrus at all, but rather several layers of papyrus glued together. A specialist papyrus restorer was brought to Basel to separate the sheets, enabling the Greek document to be decoded for the first time.

A literary papyrus

“This is a sensational discovery,” says Sabine Huebner, Professor of Ancient History at the University of Basel. “The majority of papyri are documents such as letters, contracts and receipts. This is a literary text, however, and they are vastly more valuable.”

What’s more, it contains a previously unknown text from antiquity. “We can now say that it’s a medical text from late antiquity that describes the phenomenon of ‘hysterical apnea’,” says Huebner. “We therefore assume that it is either a text from the Roman physician Galen, or an unknown commentary on his work.” After Hippocrates, Galen is regarded as the most important physician of antiquity.

The decisive evidence came from Italy – an expert saw parallels to the famous Ravenna papyri from the chancery of the Archdiocese of Ravenna. These include many antique manuscripts from Galen, which were later used as palimpsests and written over. The Basel papyrus could be a similar case of medieval recycling, as it consists of multiple sheets glued together and was probably used as a book binding. The other Basel Amerbach papyrus in Latin script is also thought to have come from the Archdiocese of Ravenna. At the end of the 15th century, it was then stolen from the archive and traded by art collectors as a curiosity.

Utilizing digital opportunities in research

Huebner made the discovery in the course of an editing project funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. For three years, she has been working with an interdisciplinary team in collaboration with the University of Basel’s Digital Humanities Lab to examine the papyrus collection, which in the meantime has been digitalized, transcribed, annotated and translated. The project team has already presented the history of the papyrus collection through an exhibition in the University Library last year. They plan to publish all their findings at the start of 2019.

With the end of the editing project, the research on the Basel papyri will enter into a new phase. Huebner hopes to provide additional impetus to papyrus research, particularly through sharing the digitalized collection with international databases. As papyri frequently only survive in fragments or pieces, exchanges with other papyrus collections are essential. “The papyri are all part of a larger context. People mentioned in a Basel papyrus text may appear again in other papyri, housed for example in Strasbourg, London, Berlin or other locations. It is digital opportunities that enable us to put these mosaic pieces together again to form a larger picture.”

The Basel Papyrus Collection

In 1900, the University of Basel was one of the first German-speaking universities and the first in German-speaking Switzerland to procure a papyrus collection. At that time, papyrology was booming – people hoped to discover more about the development of early Christendom and to rediscover works of ancient authors believed to be lost. The Voluntary Museum Association of Basel provided CHF 500 to purchase the papyri, an amount equivalent to around CHF 5,000 today.

The current value of such a papyrus collection, however, would be in the hundreds of thousands. The Basel collection contains 65 documents in five languages from the Ptolemaic and Roman periods and late antiquity. Most of the collection is made up of documentary papyri, which are primarily of social, cultural and religious historical interest as they record the daily life of ordinary people 2,000 years ago. Most of the Basel papyri have not been published and remained largely ignored by research until now.

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After conservation: cleaned, smoothed and consolidated. A specialized papyrus conservator was brought to Basel to make this 2,000-year-old document legible again. University of Basel

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At the papyrus workshop: the conservation of papyrus requires above all craftsmanship, expertise and time. A specialized papyrus conservator was brought to Basel to make this 2,000-year-old document legible again. University of Basel

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Article Source: University of Basel news release

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AAAS—In the lowest layer of the Area 15 archaeological grounds at the Gault Site in Central Texas, researchers have unearthed a projectile point technology never previously seen in North America, which they date to be at least 16,000 years old, or a time before Clovis. While clear evidence for the timing of the peopling of the Americas remains elusive, these findings suggest humans occupied North America prior to Clovis – considered one of the oldest, if not the oldest, Paleo-Indian culture of North America, and dated to around 11,000 years ago. In 2002, Area 15 of the Gault Site in Central Texas was identified as an ideal area to search for remnants of early cultures. The site features five distinct layers in the stratigraphic profile that showcase different cultural components, each with stratigraphic separation between the cultural depositions. Here, Thomas J. Williams and colleagues focused on the Gault Assemblage, the oldest deposit, which they compared to materials found in the Clovis layer (stratified above the Gault Assemblage). Based on optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating, the Gault Assemblage sediment samples are approximately 16- to 20-thousand-years-old, the authors say. Additionally, Williams et al. discovered ancient materials in the lowest Gault deposit, including small projectile point technology, biface stone tools, blade-and-core tools, and flake tools. The authors compared these Gault Assemblage artifacts to Clovis tools and found that the blade-and-core traditions, in particular, are similar to Clovis blade-and-cores (meaning they continued into the time of Clovis), but biface traditions underwent significant changes in the Clovis level. Meanwhile, the early projectile point technology is “unrelated” to Clovis at all, they say.

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Stone tool assemblage recovered from the Gault Site. Produced by N Velchoff ©The Gault School of Archaeological Research

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Gault Assemblage projectile point fragments with soil layers and ages. Produced by A. Gilmer ©The Gault School of Archaeological Research

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

See the feature articles about early Homo sapiens in Africa and Arabia in the Summer 2018 issue of Popular Archaeology.

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UNIVERSITY OF EXETER—Ancient tools and bones discovered in China by archaeologists suggest early humans left Africa and arrived in Asia earlier than previously thought.

The artifacts show that our earliest human ancestors colonised East Asia over two million years ago. They were found by a Chinese team led by Professor Zhaoyu Zhu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and included Professor Robin Dennell of Exeter University. The tools were discovered at a locality called Shangchen in the southern Chinese Loess Plateau. The oldest are ca. 2.12 million years old, and are c. 270,000 years older than the 1.85 million year old skeletal remains and stone tools from Dmanisi, Georgia, which were previously the earliest evidence of humanity outside Africa.

The artifacts include a notch, scrapers, cobble, hammer stones and pointed pieces. All show signs of use – the stone had been intentionally flaked. Most were made of quartzite and quartz that probably came from the foothills of the Qinling Mountains 5 to 10 km to the south of the site, and the streams flowing from them. Fragments of animal bones 2.12 million years old were also found.

The Chinese Loess Plateau covers about 270,000 square kilometres, and during the past 2.6m years between 100 and 300m of wind-blown dust – known as loess – has been deposited in the area.

The 80 stone artifacts were found predominantly in 11 different layers of fossil soils which developed in a warm and wet climate. A further 16 items were found in six layers of loess that developed under colder and drier conditions. These 17 different layers of loess and fossil soils were formed during a period spanning almost a million years. This shows that early types of humans occupied the Chinese Loess Plateau under different climatic conditions between 1.2 and 2.12 million years ago.

The layers containing these stone tools were dated by linking the magnetic properties of the layers to known and dated changes in the earth’s magnetic field.

Professor Dennell said: “Our discovery means it is necessary now to reconsider the timing of when early humans left Africa”.

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Site of the discovery of ancient tools in China. Prof. Zhaoyu Zhu

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Artifact found at the site, Shangchen. Prof. Zhaoyu Zhu

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Article Source: University of Exeter news release

Hominin occupation of the Chinese Loess Plateau since about 2.1 million years ago was published in Nature on Wednesday, July 11 2018.

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See the feature articles about early Homo sapiens in Africa and Arabia in the Summer 2018 issue of Popular Archaeology.

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MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN HISTORY—A scientific consortium led by Dr. Eleanor Scerri, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oxford and researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, has found that human ancestors were scattered across Africa, and largely kept apart by a combination of diverse habitats and shifting environmental boundaries, such as forests and deserts. Millennia of separation gave rise to a staggering diversity of human forms, whose mixing ultimately shaped our species.

While it is widely accepted that our species originated in Africa, less attention has been paid to how we evolved within the continent. Many had assumed that early human ancestors originated as a single, relatively large ancestral population, and exchanged genes and technologies like stone tools in a more or less random fashion.

In a paper published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution, this view is challenged, not only by the usual study of bones (anthropology), stones (archaeology) and genes (population genomics), but also by new and more detailed reconstructions of Africa’s climates and habitats over the last 300,000 years.

One species, many origins

“Stone tools and other artifacts – usually referred to as material culture – have remarkably clustered distributions in space and through time,” said Dr. Eleanor Scerri, researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the University of Oxford, and lead author of the study. “While there is a continental-wide trend towards more sophisticated material culture, this ‘modernization’ clearly doesn’t originate in one region or occur at one time period.”

Human fossils tell a similar story. “When we look at the morphology of human bones over the last 300,000 years, we see a complex mix of archaic and modern features in different places and at different times,” said Prof. Chris Stringer, researcher at the London Natural History Museum and co-author on the study. “As with the material culture, we do see a continental-wide trend towards the modern human form, but different modern features appear in different places at different times, and some archaic features are present until remarkably recently.”

The genes concur. “It is difficult to reconcile the genetic patterns we see in living Africans, and in the DNA extracted from the bones of Africans who lived over the last 10,000 years, with there being one ancestral human population,” said Prof. Mark Thomas, geneticist at University College London and co-author on the study. “We see indications of reduced connectivity very deep in the past, some very old genetic lineages, and levels of overall diversity that a single population would struggle to maintain.”

An ecological, biological and cultural patchwork

To understand why human populations were so subdivided, and how these divisions changed through time, the researchers looked at the past climates and environments of Africa, which give a picture of shifting and often isolated habitable zones. Many of the most inhospitable regions in Africa today, such as the Sahara, were once wet and green, with interwoven networks of lakes and rivers, and abundant wildlife. Similarly, some tropical regions that are humid and green today were once arid. These shifting environments drove subdivisions within animal communities and numerous sub-Saharan species exhibit similar phylogenetic patterns in their distribution.

The shifting nature of these habitable zones means that human populations would have gone through many cycles of isolation – leading to local adaptation and the development of unique material culture and biological makeup – followed by genetic and cultural mixing.

“Convergent evidence from these different fields stresses the importance of considering population structure in our models of human evolution,” says co-author Dr. Lounes Chikhi of the CNRS in Toulouse and Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência in Lisbon.”This complex history of population subdivision should thus lead us to question current models of ancient population size changes, and perhaps re-interpret some of the old bottlenecks as changes in connectivity,” he added.

“The evolution of human populations in Africa was multi-regional. Our ancestry was multi-ethnic. And the evolution of our material culture was, well, multi-cultural,” said Dr Scerri. “We need to look at all regions of Africa to understand human evolution.”

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The patchwork of diverse fossils, artifacts and environments across Africa indicate that our species emerged from the interactions between a set of interlinked populations living across the continent, whose connectivity changed through time. Yasmine Gateau/Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History

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Evolutionary changes of braincase shape from an elongated to a globular shape. The latter evolves within the Homo sapiens lineage via an expansion of the cerebellum and bulging of the parietal. Left: micro-CT scan of Jebel Irhoud 1 (~300 ka, Africa); Right: Qafzeh 9 (~95 ka, the Levant). Philipp Gunz, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

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Middle Stone Age cultural artifacts from northern and southern Africa. Eleanor Scerri/Francesco d’Errico/Christopher Henshilwood

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

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See the feature articles about early Homo sapiens in Africa and Arabia in the Summer 2018 issue of Popular Archaeology.

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UNIVERSITY OF YORK—Two thousand years ago the Mediterranean Sea was a haven for two species of whale which have since virtually disappeared from the North Atlantic, a new study analysing ancient bones suggests.

The discovery of the whale bones in the ruins of a Roman fish processing factory located at the strait of Gibraltar also hints at the possibility that the Romans may have hunted the whales.

Prior to the study, by an international team of ecologists, archaeologists and geneticists, it was assumed that the Mediterranean Sea was outside of the historical range of the right and gray whale.

Academics from the Archaeology Department at the University of York used ancient DNA analysis and collagen fingerprinting to identify the bones as belonging to the North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) and the Atlantic gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus).

After centuries of whaling, the right whale currently occurs as a very threatened population off eastern North America and the gray whale has completely disappeared from the North Atlantic and is now restricted to the North Pacific.

Co-author of the study Dr Camilla Speller, from the University of York, said: “These new molecular methods are opening whole new windows into past ecosystems. Whales are often neglected in archaeological studies, because their bones are frequently too fragmented to be identifiable by their shape.

“Our study shows that these two species were once part of the Mediterranean marine ecosystem and probably used the sheltered basin as a calving ground.

“The findings contribute to the debate on whether, alongside catching large fish such as tuna, the Romans had a form of whaling industry or if perhaps the bones are evidence of opportunistic scavenging from beached whales along the coast line.”

Both species of whale are migratory, and their presence east of Gibraltar is a strong indication that they previously entered the Mediterranean Sea to give birth.

The Gibraltar region was at the center of a massive fish-processing industry during Roman times, with products exported across the entire Roman Empire. The ruins of hundreds of factories with large salting tanks can still be seen today in the region.

Lead author of the study Dr Ana Rodrigues, from the French National Centre for Scientific Research, said: “Romans did not have the necessary technology to capture the types of large whales currently found in the Mediterranean, which are high-seas species. But right and gray whales and their calves would have come very close to shore, making them tempting targets for local fishermen.”

It is possible that both species could have been captured using small rowing boats and hand harpoons, methods used by medieval Basque whalers centuries later.

The knowledge that coastal whales were once present in the Mediterranean also sheds new light on ancient historical sources.

Anne Charpentier, lecturer at the University of Montpellier and co-author in the study, said: “We can finally understand a 1st-Century description by the famous Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder, of killer whales attacking whales and their new-born calves in the Cadiz bay.

“It doesn’t match anything that can be seen there today, but it fits perfectly with the ecology if right and gray whales used to be present.”

The study authors are now calling for historians and archaeologists to re-examine their material in the light of the knowledge that coastal whales where once part of the Mediterranean marine ecosystem.

Dr Rodriguez added: “It seems incredible that we could have lost and then forgotten two large whale species in a region as well-studied as the Mediterranean. It makes you wonder what else we have forgotten”.

Forgotten Mediterranean calving grounds of gray and North Atlantic right whales: evidence from Roman archaeological records is published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B.

The study was an international collaboration between scientists at the universities of York, Montpellier (France), Cadiz (Spain), Oviedo (Spain) and the Centre for Fishery Studies in Asturias, Spain.

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Aerial view of some of the fish-salting tanks (cetaria) in the ancient Roman city of Baelo Claudia, near today’s Tarifa in Spain. The largest circular tank is 3 meters wide, with a 18m3 capacity. These tanks were used to process large fish, particularly tuna. This study supports the possibility that they could have also been used to process whales. D. Bernal-Casasola, University of Cadiz

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Article Source: University of York news release

UNIVERSITY OF SEVILLE—Members of the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology of the University of Seville have published a study that includes 130 radiocarbon datings, obtained in laboratories in Oxford and Glasgow (United Kingdom) and in the Centro Nacional de Aceleradores – CAN (National Accelerator Center) – at the University of Seville. Together with the 45 previous datings, with 180 C14 datings, the archaeological site in Valencina de la Concepción (Seville) has become the site with currently the most radiocarbon dating in all recent Iberian prehistory (which includes the Neolithic period, the Copper Age and the Bronze Age).

This project, the result of a five-year collaboration between the Universities of Seville, Huelva, Cardiff and the Museum of Valencina, includes a statistically modeled complex of radiocarbon datings to give a more precise approximation of the time of use of the Valencina site, and to know in greater detail the social processes and cultural phenomena that occurred there during the near thousand years that it was inhabited, between 3200 and 2300 BCE.

Among the main conclusions highlighted by the experts is that the oldest parts of the site, which date from the 32nd century BCE, were funerary in nature, specifically hypogeum cavities that were used for collective sequential burials (for example, this is the case with the hypogea that were found in La Huera, Castilleja de Guzmán, and in Calle Dinamarca, Valencina).

“This data is important in the debate about the nature of this great site during its long history, as it is clear that funerary practices had a determining importance in its genesis”, comments the University of Seville Professor of Prehistory Leonardo García Sanjuán.

On the other hand, obtaining a series of C14 dates for four of the great Megalithic monuments of the site has allowed for a first orientative sequence to be established for its construction and use. In this respect, it is necessary to highlight that the oldest monuments, built between the 30th and 28th centuries BCE (Cerro de la Cabeza, Structure 10.042-10.049 and the Montelirio tholos) were characterized by the use of great slabs of slate to line the walls and the chambers, which were probably made of mud dried by the sun, and by their ‘canonical’ solar orientation (to the rising or setting of the sun). After what seems like a long period in the reduction of activity in the 27th century BCE, the tholos of La Pastora was probably built, with very different architectural characteristics: without great slabs of slate, but with a roofed chamber with a false stone dome, an important technical and aesthetic innovation, and with a “heretical” orientation towards the south east, facing away from the sunrise. “It is very probable that these changes in the monumental architecture were due to changes in the social and ideological sphere, including, perhaps, religious “heterodoxies”, the researcher adds.

Thirdly, the experts have shown the end of the occupation of this part of the province of Seville happened between the 24th and 23rd centuries BCE, despite evidence of it being frequented and used in the Bronze Age (c. 2200-850 BCE). “In fact, the abandonment of the site seems rather abrupt, without a gradual transition towards a different social model. The possibility that the end of the Valencina settlement was due to a social crisis has been hinted at by the dates obtained from several human skulls separated from the rest of the skeletons in a pit in a Calle Trabajadores in Valencina”, states the director of the research group.

According to the data obtained from the radiocarbon dating, all these individuals almost died at the same time, which opens the possibility of a violent episode (killing, crime or sacrifice). The fact that several of the skulls were treated in a ritual manner, showing marks of having had the flesh removed and that this ‘special’ mortuary deposit appears to be associated with the greatest collection of pottery beakers found on the site, suggests that the episode had great symbolic significance.

The paleoenvironmental data for the Mediterranean and Europe indicate that between the 24th and 23rd centuries BCE, a period of greater aridity and dryness began globally, which could have had severe consequences for many of the planet’s societies, including droughts. At this time, the Iberian Peninsula saw the end of chalcolithic way of life and the abandonment of some of the most important sites with ditched enclosures, as now seems to be the case with Valencina de la Concepción. In broad strokes, this coincides with the end of the Old Kingdom in the Nile Valley, with a great crisis that brought about the end of the period of construction of the great pyramids.

This project has been published in Journal of World Prehistory, whose cover is dedicated to the stone arrow heads from the Montelirio tholos. It is the second time in less than a year that the work of this research group in the archaeological area of Valencina-Castilleja has been featured on the cover of this prestigious review.

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Artistic reconstruction of the Great Chamber of the Montelirio tholos in the final phase of its use. Design: Ana García, ATLAS Research Group (University of Seville)

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Mylonite arrowheads found in the Montelirio tholos: Photography: Miguel Ángel Blanco de la Rubia. ATLAS Research Group (University of Seville)

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Article Source: University of Seville news release

The world-renowned general Julius Caesar may have been rather less heroic than we imagine, in terms of victories as well as physique. Caesar was largely bald and had a deformed skull, resulting from difficulties during his birth. As for military campaigns, he suffered his greatest defeat in the Low Countries, possibly near the Dutch city of Maastricht, according to new research suggesting that he fought a substantial proportion of the Gallic Wars in the northern part of Gaul. These findings emerged from the research conducted by the archaeologist and author Tom Buijtendorp on Caesar’s activities in the Low Countries, in response to mounting clues for his presence here. Buijtendorp’s research was recently published in the book, Caesar in de Lage Landen (Caesar in the Low Countries). His findings about Caesar’s countenance in combination with one of the oldest portraits of Caesar from the collection of the Dutch national museum of antiquities (the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden), were the basis for an alternative ’new’ face. The reconstruction of this face is currently on show in the museum. 

The face of Julius Caesar

Recently, on 22 June 2018, a lifelike interpretation of the general’s ‘new’ face was presented at the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, in which the asymmetric shape of the skull and the receding hairline differ significantly from the traditional images. According to Buijtendorp, Caesar’s head displays clear signs of a difficult birth – a new fact in Caesar’s biography. The specific skull abnormality enabled Buijtendorp to identify the so-called Tusculum bust (Museo Archeologico, Turin) as the most authentic portrait of Caesar, which differs markedly from the marble posthumous busts that are most commonly displayed, and fits well with the Caesar contemporary coin portrait.

Subsequently archaeologist and physical anthropologist Maja d’Hollosy was asked to make an alternative, more lifelike “Caesar of the Low Countries”, so to speak, based on one of the Caesar portraits from the collection in Leiden. Sources as the Tusculum bust and the coin portrait were used to add the missing features. Furthermore, Buijtendorp’s research gave instructions about skin, eye color and hair. The result is a mix between the three sources, with the museum bust as base. Since 100 percent reliable sources were lacking, a major aim was to make Caesar more alive, not to creat the ultimate Ceasar bust. According to Buijtendorp, this reconstruction of Caesar’s portrait reminds us that the traditional image of Caesar is unrealistic, but also shows the remaining uncertainties about details like the eyes: ‘Though the new version likewise does not represent an absolute truth, it does provide a more credible alternative to the existing picture, rejecting the symmetric head and hair image we got used to’.

The reconstruction was made possible by financial support from the Dutch province of South Holland. 

A less heroic Caesar

The reconstruction of Caesar’s appearance symbolizes that we have to reconsider Caesar’s image in a wide sense. His own statistics on killed Roman soldiers suggest that roughly half of these deaths took place in the north, in Gallia Belgica. In this harsh northern region Caesar encountered his largest defeat ever, and faced a second defeat at the same place the year after. The northern military effort was so burdensome that Caesar had to limit his British ambition. Caesar’s idea of the Rhine as natural border would impact the strategy of the Roman Empire for a long time.

Buijtendorp’s research for his book ‘Caesar in de Lage Landen’ (Caesar in the Low Countries) was based in part on recently-excavated Caesarian camps, an analysis of indigenous gold coins, geographical analyses, and a renewed assessment of Caesar’s own statistics. The findings for example suggests that a hilltop stronghold near Maastricht may have served in 54 and 53 BC as the camp and logistics center of Caesar’s army, site of his largest loss. This is indicated, for instance, by a detailed analysis of gold coins and the camp’s size, which was recently established. Caesar’s description of the battle site fits quite well with the environment. In addition, the site becomes a logical choice when looking at the reconstruction of Caesar’s northern campaign. And new insights in the possible location of other camps also provide a possible match. This new perspective generates a working hypothesis that may help to actually discover archaeological remains and protect sites. The recently recognized unique shape of the hobnails in the boots of Caesar’s soldiers, since 2010 enabled researchers to link three northern camps to Caesar. New discoveries may follow, for which the book – which is written in the manner of a travel guide – identifies several possible sites. This remains challenging for marching camps. A large excavation at Limburg-Eschhofen only revealed three hobnails, while at Hermeskeil a gate probably used for several months was a special hobnail find spot. Mauchamp with clear old traces of Caesars’ large camp, did not provide related finds lacking sizeable modern excavations.

Much work lies ahead

Buijtendorp emphasises that his research is only the beginning. “Given the growing fund of clues for Caesar’s presence in the Low Countries, new work lies ahead. The research presented here will hopefully serve as a basis for further studies to test various hypotheses, as much remains uncertain.”

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New face of Julius Caesar. Reconstruction and photo by Maja D’Hollosy

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Article Source: Rijksmuseum van Oudheden news release

Tom Buijtendorp, Caesar in de Lage Landen: De Gallische Oorlog langs Rijn en Maas (in Dutch) paperback, 384 pages, ill., €25., ISBN 9789401913898, www.omniboek.nl

Chapel Hill, N.C.— July 9, 2018 — Recent discoveries by a team of specialists and students at Huqoq in Israel’s Galilee, led by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor Jodi Magness, shed new light on the life and culture of an ancient Jewish village. The discoveries indicate villagers flourished under early fifth century Christian rule, contradicting a widespread view that Jewish settlement in the region declined during that period. The large size and elaborate interior decoration of the Huqoq synagogue point to an unexpected level of prosperity.

“The mosaics decorating the floor of the Huqoq synagogue revolutionize our understanding of Judaism in this period,” said Magness. “Ancient Jewish art is often thought to be aniconic, or lacking images. But these mosaics, colorful and filled with figured scenes, attest to a rich visual culture as well as to the dynamism and diversity of Judaism in the Late Roman and Byzantine periods.”

The first mosaics in the Huqoq synagogue were discovered by Magness’ team in 2012. Since then, Magness, director of the Huqoq excavations and Kenan Distinguished Professor of Early Judaism in the department of religious studies in Carolina’s College of Arts & Sciences, assisted by Shua Kisilevitz of the Israel Antiquities Authority and Tel Aviv University have uncovered additional mosaics every summer. This year, the team’s specialists and students focused their efforts on a series of mosaic panels in the north aisle. Magness said this series is part of the richest, most diverse collection of mosaics ever found in an ancient synagogue. 

Along the north aisle, mosaics are divided into two rows of panels containing figures and objects with Hebrew inscriptions. One panel labeled “a pole between two” depicts a biblical scene from Numbers 13:23. The images show two spies sent by Moses to explore Canaan carrying a pole with a cluster of grapes. Another panel referencing Isaiah 11:6 includes the inscription “a small child shall lead them.” The panel shows a youth leading an animal on a rope. A fragmentary Hebrew inscription concluding with the phrase “Amen selah,” meaning “Amen forever,” was uncovered at the north end of the east aisle.

During this eighth dig, the team also continued to expose a rare discovery in ancient synagogues: columns covered in colorful, painted plaster still intact after nearly 1,600 years.

The mosaics have been removed from the site for conservation and the excavated areas have been backfilled. Excavations are scheduled to continue in the summer of 2019. Additional information and updates can be found at the project’s website: www.huqoq.org.

Mosaics uncovered by this project include:

• 2012: Samson and the foxes
• 2013: Samson carrying the gate of Gaza on his shoulders
• 2013, 2014 and 2015: a Hebrew inscription surrounded by human figures, animals and mythological creatures including cupids; and the first non-biblical story ever found decorating an ancient synagogue — perhaps the legendary meeting between Alexander the Great and the Jewish high priest
• 2016: Noah’s Ark; the parting of the Red Sea showing Pharaoh’s soldiers being swallowed by giant fish
• 2017: a Helios-zodiac cycle; Jonah being swallowed by three successive fish; the building of the Tower of Babel

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The Spies Panel. Jim Haberman via UNC Chapel Hill

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Fish swallowing Pharoah’s soldier in the Parting of the Red Sea.  Jim Haberman via UNC-Chapel Hill

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Wood worker in the Tower of Babel scene. Jim Haberman via UNC Chapel Hill

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Month of Teveth (December-January) with the sign of Capricorn. Jim Haberman via UNC Chapel Hill

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2018 Huqoq dig team. Jim Haberman via UNC at Chapel Hill

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Article Source: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill news release

Sponsors of the project include UNC-Chapel Hill, 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 2018 season was also provided by the Friends of Heritage Protection, the National Geographic Society, the William R. Kenan Jr. Charitable Trust and the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies.

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UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE—Two competing theories about the human occupation of Southeast Asia have been debunked by ground-breaking analysis of ancient DNA extracted from 8,000 year-old skeletons.

Southeast Asia is one of the most genetically diverse regions in the world, but for more than 100 years scientists have disagreed about which theory of the origins of the population of the area was correct.

One theory believed the indigenous Hòabìnhian hunter-gatherers who populated Southeast Asia from 44,000 years ago adopted agricultural practices independently, without the input from early farmers from East Asia. Another theory, referred to as the ‘two-layer model’ favours the view that migrating rice farmers from what is now China replaced the indigenous Hòabìnhian hunter-gatherers.

Academics from around the world collaborated on new research just published in Science, which found that neither theory is completely accurate. Their study discovered that present-day Southeast Asian populations derive ancestry from at least four ancient populations.

DNA from human skeletal remains from Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Laos and Japan dating back as far as 8,000 years ago was extracted for the study – scientists had previously only been successful in sequencing 4,000-year-old samples from the region. The samples also included DNA from Hòabìnhian hunter-gatherers and a Jomon from Japan – a scientific first, revealing a long suspected genetic link between the two populations.

In total, 26 ancient human genome sequences were studied by the group and they were compared with modern DNA samples from people living in Southeast Asia today.

The pioneering research is particularly impressive because the heat and humidity of Southeast Asia means it is one of the most difficult environments for DNA preservation, posing huge challenges for scientists.

Professor Eske Willerslev, who holds positions both at St John’s College, University of Cambridge, and the University of Copenhagen, led the international study.

He explained: “We put a huge amount of effort into retrieving ancient DNA from tropical Southeast Asia that could shed new light on this area of rich human genetics. The fact that we were able to obtain 26 human genomes and shed light on the incredible genetic richness of the groups in the region today is astonishing.”

Hugh McColl, PhD student at the Centre for GeoGenetics in the Natural History Museum of Denmark of the University of Copenhagen, and one of the lead authors on the paper, said: “By sequencing 26 ancient human genomes – 25 from South East Asia, one Japanese J?mon – we have shown that neither interpretation fits the complexity of Southeast Asian history. Both Hòabìnhian hunter-gatherers and East Asian farmers contributed to current Southeast Asian diversity, with further migrations affecting islands in South East Asia and Vietnam. Our results help resolve one of the long-standing controversies in Southeast Asian prehistory.”

Dr Fernando Racimo, Assistant Professor at the Centre for GeoGenetics in the Natural History Museum of the University of Copenhagen, the other lead author, said: “The human occupation history of Southeast Asia remains heavily debated. Our research spanned from the Hòabìnhian to the Iron Age and found that present-day Southeast Asian populations derive ancestry from at least four ancient populations. This is a far more complex model than previously thought.”

Some of the samples used in the two and a half year study were from The Duckworth Collection, University of Cambridge, which is one of the world’s largest repositories of human remains. Professor Marta Mirazón Lahr, Director of the Duckworth Laboratory and one of the authors on the paper, said: “This study tackles a major question in the origins of the diversity of Southeast Asian people, as well as on the ancient relationships between distant populations, such as Jomon and Hòabìnhian foragers, before farming. The fact that we are learning so much from ancient genomes, such as the one from Gua Cha, highlights the importance of amazing collections such as the Duckworth.”

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Skull from a Hòabìnhian person from the Gua Cha archaeological site, Malaysian Peninsula. Fabio Lahr

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Article Source: University of Cambridge news release

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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN—CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A study reported in the journal Science offers an enhanced view of the origins and ultimate fate of the first dogs in the Americas. The dogs were not domesticated North American wolves, as some have speculated, but likely followed their human counterparts over a land bridge that once connected North Asia and the Americas, the study found.

This is the first comprehensive genomic study of ancient dogs in the Americas to analyze nuclear DNA, which is inherited from both parents, along with mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down only from mothers to their offspring. By comparing genomic signatures from 71 mitochondrial and seven nuclear genomes of ancient North American and Siberian dogs spanning a period of 9,000 years, the research team was able to gain a clearer picture of the history of the first canine inhabitants of the Americas.

The oldest dog remains in the Americas date to about 9,000 years ago, many thousands of years after people began migrating over a land bridge connecting present-day Siberia and Alaska. The ancient dogs analyzed in the new study likely originated in Siberia, the researchers found. The dogs dispersed to every part of the Americas, migrating with their human counterparts.

These dogs persisted for thousands of years in the Americas, but almost completely vanished after European contact, the researchers found.

“This suggests something catastrophic must have happened, and it’s likely associated with European colonization,” said senior lead author Laurent Frantz, a lecturer at Queen Mary University and co-investigator at the University of Oxford. “But we just do not have the evidence to explain this sudden disappearance yet.”

“By looking at genomic data along with mitochondrial data, we were able to confirm that dogs came to the Americas with humans, and that nearly all of that diversity was lost – most likely as a result of European colonization,” said Kelsey Witt, who led the mitochondrial DNA genome work as a graduate student in the laboratory of University of Illinois anthropology professor Ripan Malhi, who also is an author of the study.

“Few modern dogs have any trace of these ancient lineages,” said Witt, now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Merced.

The team also discovered that the genomic signature of a transmissible cancer that afflicts dogs appears to be one of the last “living” remnants of the genetic heritage of dogs that populated the Americas prior to European contact.

“This suggests that this tumor originated in or near the Americas,” Witt said.

The new findings reinforce the idea that early human and dog inhabitants of the Americas faced many of the same challenges after European contact, Malhi said.

“It is known how indigenous peoples of the Americas suffered from the genocidal practices of European colonists after contact,” he said. “What we found is that the dogs of indigenous peoples experienced an even more devastating history and a near-total loss, possibly as a result of forced cultural changes and disease.”

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A new study adds to the evidence that dogs were domesticated before first migrating to the Americas. The dogs’ history parallels that of ancient humans who migrated from North Asia to North America, dispersed throughout the Americas and suffered major population declines upon contact with European colonists. Dots represent sites from which the bones of ancient dogs were collected for the new analysis and the relative ages of the bones. Graphic by Julie McMahon / Photo by Angus McNab

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A ritual burial of two dogs at a site in Illinois near St. Louis suggests a special relationship between humans and dogs at this location and time (660 to 1350 years ago). Photo courtesy Illinois State Archaeological Survey.

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Ancient dog burials like this one found at the Janey B. Goode site near Brooklyn, Illinois, provided genetic material for a new study of dogs in the Americas. Photo courtesy Illinois State Archaeological Survey, Prairie Research Institute.

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Article Source: UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN news release.

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A rare juvenile foot fossil of our early hominin ancestor, Australopithecus afarensis, exhibits several ape-like foot characteristics that could have aided in foot grasping for climbing trees, a new study shows. This finding further challenges a long-held assumption that A. afarensis, a hominin that lived over 3 million years ago, was exclusively bipedal (using only two legs for walking) and only occasionally climbed into trees. 

“For the first time, we have an amazing window into what walking was like for a 2½-year-old, more than 3 million years ago,” says lead author, Jeremy DeSilva, an associate professor of anthropology at Dartmouth College, who is one of the world’s foremost authorities on the feet of our earliest ancestors. “This is the most complete foot of an ancient juvenile ever discovered.”

The tiny foot, about the size of a human thumb, is part of a nearly complete 3.32-million-year-old skeleton of a young female Australopithecus afarensis discovered in 2002 in the Dikika region of Ethiopia by Zeresenay (Zeray) Alemseged, a professor of organismal biology and anatomy at the University of Chicago and senior author of the study. Alemseged is internationally known as a leading paleontologist on the study of human origins and human evolution. Although this 3.32-million-year-old fossil was announced in a previous 2006 study, many of the skeleton’s elements, including the partial foot known as DIK-1-1f, were encased in sediment and therefore had to be carefully uncovered. Many of these structures have now been exposed after additional preparatory work through 2013. 

“Placed at a critical time and the cusp of being human, Australopithecus afarensis was more derived than Ardipithecus (a facultative biped) but not yet an obligate strider like Homo erectus. The Dikika foot adds to the wealth of knowledge on the mosaic nature of hominin skeletal evolution” explained Alemseged.

Given that the fossil of the tiny foot is the same species as the famous Lucy fossil and was found in the same vicinity, it is not surprising that the Dikika child was erroneously labeled “Lucy’s baby” by the popular press, though this youngster lived more than 200,000 years before Lucy.

In studying the fossil foot’s remarkably preserved anatomy, the research team strived to reconstruct what life would have been like years ago for this toddler and how our ancestors survived. They examined what the foot would have been used for, how it developed and what it tells us about human evolution. The fossil record indicates that these ancient ancestors were quite good at walking on two legs. “Walking on two legs is a hallmark of being human. But, walking poorly in a landscape full of predators is a recipe for extinction,” explained DeSilva.

At 2½ years old, the Dikika child was already walking on two legs, but there are hints in the fossil foot that she was still spending time in the trees, hanging on to her mother as she foraged for food. Based on the skeletal structure of the child’s foot, specifically, the base of the big toe, the kids probably spent more time in the trees than adults. “If you were living in Africa 3 million years ago without fire, without structures, and without any means of defense, you’d better be able get up in a tree when the sun goes down,” added DeSilva. “These findings are critical for understanding the dietary and ecological adaptation of these species and are consistent with our previous research on other parts of the skeleton, especially, the shoulder blade,” Alemseged noted.

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Left block of images: The 3.32 million-year-old foot from an Australopithecus afarensis toddler shown in different angles. Right block of images: The child’s foot (bottom) compared with the fossil remains of an adult Australopithecus foot (top). Jeremy DeSilva & Cody Prang

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The 3.32 million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis foot from Dikika, Ethiopia, superimposed over a footprint from a human toddler. Jeremy DeSilva

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The Dikika foot is one part of a partial skeleton of a 3.32 million-year-old skeleton of an Australopithecus afarensis child. Zeray Alemseged

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Article Source: AAAS and Dartmouth College news releases.

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UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI—Researchers think they have a better understanding for how ancient North Americans thrived for centuries in northwestern New Mexico’s arid desert.

A multidisciplinary team of experts from the University of Cincinnati determined that the sandy soils of Chaco Canyon were not too salty to grow crops such as maize, beans and squash for the more than 1,200 people who occupied this beautiful but harsh landscape during its most prolific years.

Researchers have long debated whether the people who lived here between 800 and 1300 AD were self-sufficient or relied partially or entirely on imported food to survive. These ancestral Puebloans built elaborate adobe structures, some of them four stories tall and recessed among cliff faces under the hot New Mexico sun.

Some previous research suggested that the desert soils simply were too saline for agriculture. The implication was that Chaco Canyon could not support a large resident population without lots of outside help. Alternately, researchers speculated that Chaco Canyon, a place of religious importance, maintained a small resident population that served and benefited from a larger population of visitors making pilgrimages.

But UC’s soil analysis suggests that the most significant challenge for growing crops was irrigation. That’s where ancestral Puebloans demonstrated particularly adroit farming skills and perceptive land management, said Jon-Paul McCool, a UC graduate and lead author of the study.

“The major limitation is water. You couldn’t rely on rain for field agriculture,” McCool said. “You’d have to gather and control water, which we know people in the region did.”

McCool earned PhD and master’s degrees in geography and museum studies at UC and now teaches at Valparaiso University.

Chaco Canyon has evidence of constructed canals — water-diversion channels designed to direct rainfall to farm fields.

“If you have a population of 1,200 people, how did they survive?” McCool asked. “The part I’m interested in is the interrelationships between people and their environment and how each of them influences the other.”

The study was published in June in the journal PLOS ONE.

One prevailing theory is that residents of Chaco Canyon depended heavily on outside assistance for sustenance. But the most likely resource for imported agriculture was in the Chuska Mountains on the Arizona border, more than 50 miles from Chaco Canyon.

Traveling great distances in a dry environment is commonplace in other parts of the world. But what makes travel in the ancient Southwest especially taxing is that every step was taken on foot — human foot.

Ancient North Americans had no camels, horses, mules, llamas, alpacas, oxen or sled dogs to carry supplies. There were precious few navigable waterways. So if you wanted to bring something on such a trip, you were carrying it every step, said Nicholas Dunning, a professor of geography in UC’s McMicken College of Arts and Science.

“You have to go to the Andes before you find a native beast of burden in the New World,” Dunning said. “So if you’re using human porters, you quickly reach a point of diminishing returns.”

Dunning said the study was able to determine that the soils could support agriculture in Chaco Canyon and that irrigation canals found at the site were built at least as early as the eighth century.

“The evidence is compelling that they produced most of the food that they consumed in Chaco Canyon and devised sophisticated irrigation strategies to do it,” Dunning said.

Today, Chaco Canyon sees about 9 inches of rain per year, four times less than the breadbasket of the American Midwest. To make the most of this precious resource, ancestral Puebloans built elaborate canals to divert rainfall to their farm fields.

UC researchers re-examined soil samples taken from sites in and around Chaco Canyon. While some of these sites indeed did have saline levels too high to support agriculture, that was the exception, researchers found.

Instead, researchers found that the desert soils were not much different from soils in other parts of the Southwest where agriculture was practiced.

“The evidence is persuasive that they grew their own food,” Dunning said.

“My experience in traditional societies is farmers and agricultural populations are very risk averse,” Dunning said. “So you tend to think in ways of making sure you have enough to eat yourself each year along with seed for next year.”

UC’s team consisted of geologists, archaeologists and biologists. They spent weeks each summer studying different aspects of Chaco Canyon. Many of the study sites are accessible only by foot so researchers would hike in at dawn before the afternoon heat became too oppressive. A collapsible tent shelter provided some relief from the sun.

Researchers could drink as much as four liters of water each workday, packing in provisions and packing out soil samples. Dunning said New Mexico’s evening sky was full of stars.

“The skies were extraordinary. We were there for the Perseid meteor shower,” Dunning said. “The environment is quite amazing. We would set off for work before dawn. We wanted to be at the excavation sites before the sun came up because the morning was the only decent time to work.”

UC’s research is adding to what scientists already know about ancestral Puebloans in New Mexico. These former occupants of Chaco Canyon left behind evidence of having traded goods with people from distant places. Archaeologists have found seashells from California and macaw feathers and cacao from Mexico.

Co-author and UC research associate Samantha Fladd thinks it is improbable that residents would rely on regular deliveries of staple goods from places so far away, especially if they could grow food themselves.

“It seems highly unlikely that this would be a sustainable system,” Fladd said.

“It makes more sense to me that there would be trade relationships where populations would help each other in bad years. To rely on one location for most of your food would not be the most sustainable system,” she said. “I would be skeptical you would see that much patronage.”

Fladd said a round trip between Chaco Canyon and the Chuska Mountains would take as long as a week, depending on how many supplies were carried.

The people of Chaco Canyon left behind petroglyphs carved into the rock — drawings of animals, people and symbols. These included the famed “Sun Dagger,” a notch in a slot canyon that casts a dagger-shaped beam of light onto a shaded rock face upon which is a carved petroglyph spiral that marks the sun dagger’s path across the wall over the four seasons.

They also were known for their turquoise carvings, including a famous frog figure among the collection of the National Park Service.

UC professor emeritus Vernon Scarborough, one of the paper’s co-authors, spent his career studying ancient land-use strategies around the world. Chaco Canyon demonstrates how people were able to engineer their landscape in a resourceful and sustainable way, he said.

“Chaco Canyon captures the ingenuity and creativity of the human spirit like few other places,” Scarborough said.

“Our work and that of other colleagues is beginning to show the significance of low-tech adaptations in attempting to accommodate life on Earth,” Scarborough said. “A greater understanding of just how these ancient, ‘primitive’ systems adapted and function merits a thoughtful assessment given the social and environmental stress we face globally today.”

Scientists still aren’t sure why the population of Chaco Canyon declined over the centuries. Chaco Canyon continued to be occupied intermittently after 1300.

“Every civilization comes to an end. But they went through a lot,” McCool said. “What strategies allowed that civilization to continue? You’re dealing with people who lived in a place for hundreds of years. What adaptations did they make to deal with changing circumstances?”

Fladd said when she goes to Chaco Canyon, she likes to hike up the Pueblo Alto trail. From the top of the mesa, she can survey all of Pueblo Bonito below her.

“I don’t want to pretend I can understand their concerns 800 years ago,” Fladd said. “But I am in awe of what they were able to do. It’s a testament to how adaptable and creative they were.”

Chaco Canyon has a long history of generating academic debates, in part because it’s such a fascinating place. Chaco Canyon has been studied or referenced in thousands of research papers.

“Archaeology is a fun science because it requires a lot of imagination,” Dunning said. “You’re never dealing with complete data sets, so one has to fill in the holes. That’s where the controversy comes in.”

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View from a mesa of a Chaco Canyon great house called Kin Kletso. Samantha Fladd/UC

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University of Cincinnati doctoral student Jon-Paul McCool works at an excavation site at Chaco Canyon. Nicholas Dunning/UC

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Article Source: University of Cincinnati news release

The study was funded by the University of Cincinnati Research Council, the Charles Phelps Taft Foundation and the Court Family Foundation. Co-authors included UC professors Lewis Owen, Brooke Crowley, Kenneth Tankersley, David Lentz, Warren Huff and Christopher Carr as well as UC graduates Elizabeth Haussner and Jessica Thress. Other contributors were Stephen Plog (University of Virginia), Adam Watson (American Museum of Natural History) and Katlyn Bishop (University of California).

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MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN HISTORY—A team of scholars, led by William Taylor of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, analyzed horse remains from an ancient Mongolian pastoral culture known as the Deer Stone-Khirigsuur Culture (ca. 1300-700 BC). Deer stones, with their beautiful deer carvings, and their accompanying stone mounds (khirigsuurs) are famous for the impressive horse burials that are found alongside them in the dozens, hundreds, or even thousands. Through careful study of skeletal remains from these burials, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and funded in part by a grant from the National Geographic Society, Taylor and colleagues found that Deer Stone-Khirigsuur people began using veterinary dental procedures to remove baby teeth that would have caused young horses pain or difficulty with feeding – the world’s oldest known evidence for veterinary dental care.

Previous research has shown that these early herders were the first in eastern Eurasia to rely heavily on horses as livestock for food products, and may have been among the first to use horses for mounted riding. Drawing on insights from his Mongolian colleagues, Jamsranjav Bayarsaikhan and Tumurbaatar Tuvshinjargal of the National Museum of Mongolia, Taylor argues that the development of horseback riding and a horse-based pastoral economy was a key driver for the invention of equine veterinary care. “We may think of veterinary care as kind of a Western science,” he says, “but herders in Mongolia today practice relatively sophisticated procedures using very simple equipment. The results of our study show that a careful understanding of horse anatomy and a tradition of care was first developed, not in the sedentary civilizations of China or the Mediterranean, but centuries earlier, among the nomadic people whose livelihood depended on the well-being of their horses.”

Additionally, Taylor and his team discovered that changes in horse dentistry accompanied major developments in horse control technology, including the incorporation of bronze and metal mouthpieces into bridles used for riding. This equipment, which spread into eastern Eurasia during the early first millennium BC, gave riders more nuanced control over horses, and allowed them to be used for new purposes – especially warfare. However, using metal to control horses also introduced new oral problems, including painful interactions with a vestigial tooth that develops in some animals, known as a “wolf tooth.” Taylor and his team discovered that, as herders began to use metal bits, they also developed a method for extracting this problematic tooth – similar to the way most veterinary dentists would remove it today.

In doing so, these early riders could control their horses in high-stress situations using a metal bit, without accompanying behavioral or health complications, which may have had major implications for the ancient world. Nicole Boivin, Director of the Department of Archaeology at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, explains, “In many ways, the movements of horses and horse-mounted peoples during the first millennium BCE reshaped the cultural and biological landscapes of Eurasia. Dr. Taylor’s study shows that veterinary dentistry – developed by Inner Asian herders – may have been a key factor that helped to stimulate the spread of people, ideas, and organisms between East and West.”

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Horses congregate near a deer stone site in Bayankhongor, in central Mongolia’s Khangai mountains. William Taylor

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A horse skull placed next to a deer stone in central Mongolia. Horse skulls are revered by modern herders, as are deer stones — this one has been decorated with a ceremonial blue prayer scarf. William Taylor

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

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UNIVERSITY OF SEVILLE—The ATLAS research group from the University of Seville has just published a study of a high resolution analysis of one of the most important sections of the Peña de los Enamorados, a natural formation included in the Antequera Dolmens Site, declared a World Heritage Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

Specifically, the researchers have studied the site known as the “Abrigo de Matacabras”, which contains cave paintings in the schematic style. This small cave has a first-class visual and symbolic relationship with the Menga dolmen, establishing landscape relationships that are possibly unique in European prehistory.

The Abrigo de Matacabras is set deep in the northern sector of the Peña de los Enamorados, which, due to its shape, is reminiscent of a sleeping woman.

For this investigation, a latest-generation multidisciplinary archaeological method was used, which included a photogrammetric reconstruction of the entire cave, analysis of its graphic motifs by means of digital image processing and colorimetry, uranium-thorium dating of the rock layers that carried the motifs, archaeometric analysis of the ceramics associated with the cave and the neighbouring site of Piedras Blancas I. situated at the foot of the Peña, by means of neutron activation analysis and X-ray diffraction, as well as a complete stylistic analysis of the motifs.

The results obtained indicate the Neolithic chronology of the cave (probably, at least, at the beginning of the 4th millennium BC) and its importance as a place of reference for the Neolithic (and possibly even older) population of the region, which would explain the anomalous orientation of the Menga dolmen. “In addition, the data obtained allows us, for the first time, to consider the Abrigo de Matacabras from the point of view of its future conservation, and diagnosis anything that might threaten or damage the motifs”, says Leonardo García Sanjuán, Professor of Prehistory at the University of Seville.

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The Menga dolmen. Manfred Werner, Wikimedia Commons

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Article Source: University of Seville news release

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