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Direct genetic traces of the earliest Native Americans have been identified for the first time in a new study. The genetic evidence suggests that people may have entered the continent in a single migratory wave, perhaps arriving more than 20,000 years ago.

The data, which came from archaeological finds in Alaska, also points to the existence of a previously unknown Native American population, whom academics have named “Ancient Beringians”.

The findings are being published in the journal Nature and present possible answers to a series of long-standing questions about how the Americas were first populated.

It is widely accepted that the earliest settlers crossed from what is now Russia into Alaska via an ancient land bridge spanning the Bering Strait which was submerged at the end of the last Ice Age. Issues such as whether there was one founding group or several, when they arrived, and what happened next, are the subject of extensive debate, however.

In the new study, an international team of researchers led by academics from the Universities of Cambridge and Copenhagen sequenced the full genome of an infant – a 6-week-old girl named Xach’itee’aanenh t’eede gay, or Sunrise Child-girl, by the local Native community – whose remains were found at the Upward Sun River archaeological site in Alaska in 2013.

To their surprise, they found that although the child had lived around 11,500 years ago, long after people first arrived in the region, her genetic information did not match either of the two recognised branches of early Native Americans, which are referred to as Northern and Southern. Instead, she appeared to have belonged to an entirely distinct Native American population, which they called Ancient Beringians. 

The DNA from the infant has provided an unprecedented window into the history of her people, said Ben Potter, one of the lead authors of the study and a professor of anthropology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. She and the 11,500-year-old remains of a younger female infant, also found at the Upward Sun River site in 2015, were closely related, likely first cousins. The younger infant has been named “Ye?kaanenh T’eede Gaay” (dawn twilight girl-child).

Further analyses then revealed that the Ancient Beringians were an offshoot of the same ancestor population as the Northern and Southern Native American groups, but that they separated from that population earlier in its history. This timeline allowed the researchers to construct a picture of how and when the continent might have been settled by a common, founding population of ancestral Native Americans, that gradually divided into these different sub-groupings.

The study was led by Professor Eske Willerslev, who holds positions both at St John’s College, University of Cambridge, UK, and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.

“The Ancient Beringians diversified from other Native Americans before any ancient or living Native American population sequenced to date. It’s basically a relict population of an ancestral group which was common to all Native Americans, so the sequenced genetic data gave us enormous potential in terms of answering questions relating to the early peopling of the Americas,” he said.

“We were able to show that people probably entered Alaska before 20,000 years ago. It’s the first time that we have had direct genomic evidence that all Native Americans can be traced back to one source population, via a single, founding migration event.”

The study compared data from the Upward Sun River remains with both ancient genomes, and those of numerous present-day populations. This allowed the researchers first to establish that the Ancient Beringian group was more closely related to early Native Americans than their Asian and Eurasian ancestors, and then to determine the precise nature of that relationship and how, over time, they split into distinct populations.

Until now, the existence of two separate Northern and Southern branches of early Native Americans has divided academic opinion regarding how the continent was populated. Researchers have disagreed over whether these two branches split after humans entered Alaska, or whether they represent separate migrations.

The findings suggest two new scenarios for populating the New World: One is that there were two distinct groups of people who crossed over the Beringian land bridge. A second is that one group of people crossed over the land bridge and then split in Beringia into two groups: Ancient Beringians and other Native Americans, with the latter moving south of the ice sheets 15,700 years ago.

In any case, the Upward Sun River genome shows that Ancient Beringians were isolated from the common, ancestral Native American population, both before the Northern and Southern divide, and after the ancestral source population was itself isolated from other groups in Asia. The researchers say that this means it is likely there was one wave of migration into the Americas, with all subdivisions taking place thereafter.

According to the researchers’ timeline, the ancestral population first emerged as a separate group around 36,000 years ago, probably somewhere in northeast Asia. Constant contact with Asian populations continued until around 25,000 years ago, when the gene flow between the two groups ceased. This cessation was probably caused by brutal changes in the climate, which isolated the Native American ancestors. “It therefore probably indicates the point when people first started moving into Alaska,” Willerslev said.

Around the same time, there was a level of genetic exchange with an ancient North Eurasian population. Previous research by Willerslev has shown that a relatively specific, localised level of contact between this group, and East Asians, led to the emergence of a distinctive ancestral Native American population.

Ancient Beringians themselves then separated from the ancestral group earlier than either the Northern or Southern branches around 20,000 years ago. Genetic contact continued with their Native American cousins, however, at least until the Upward Sun River girl was born in Alaska around 8,500 years later.

The geographical proximity required for ongoing contact of this sort led the researchers to conclude that the initial migration into the Americas had probably already taken place when the Ancient Beringians broke away from the main ancestral line. Jos Vctor Moreno-Mayar, from the University of Copenhagen, said: “It looks as though this Ancient Beringian population was up there, in Alaska, from 20,000 years ago until 11,500 years ago, but they were already distinct from the wider Native American group.”

Finally, the researchers established that the Northern and Southern Native American branches only split between 17,000 and 14,000 years ago which, based on the wider evidence, indicates that they must have already been on the American continent south of the glacial ice.

The divide probably occurred after their ancestors had passed through, or around, the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets – two vast glaciers which covered what is now Canada and parts of the northern United States, but began to thaw at around this time.

The continued existence of this ice sheet across much of the north of the continent would have isolated the southbound travellers from the Ancient Beringians in Alaska, who were eventually replaced or absorbed by other Native American populations. Although modern populations in both Alaska and northern Canada belong to the Northern Native American branch, the analysis shows that these derive from a later “back” migration north, long after the initial migration events. What this suggests is that the Ancient Beringian people remained in the Far North for thousands of years, while the ancestors of other Native American peoples spread south throughout the rest of North America. The DNA results, along with other archaeological data, suggest that Athabascan ancestors moved north again, possibly around 6,000 years ago, eventually absorbing or replacing the Ancient Beringian population and establishing deep roots in their ancestral lands.

“One significant aspect of this research is that some people have claimed the presence of humans in the Americas dates back earlier – to 30,000 years, 40,000 years, or even more,” Willerslev added. “We cannot prove that those claims are not true, but what we are saying, is that if they are correct, they could not possibly have been the direct ancestors to contemporary Native Americans.”

The study, Terminal Pleistocene Alaskan genome reveals first founding population of Native Americans, is published in Nature.

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Excavations at the Upward Sun River archaeological site in Alaska. The new study shows that the remains found there belonged to members of a previously unknown Native American population, whom academics have named “Ancient Beringians”. Credit: Ben Potter

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Article Source: Edited from news releases of St. John’s College, University of Cambridge, and the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

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UNIVERSITY OF GRANADA—An international team, including researchers from the UGR’s anthropology group led by Prof. Miguel Cecilio Botella López of the Department of Legal Medicine, Toxicology and Physical Anthropology, has discovered the world’s oldest known cases of breast cancer and multiple myeloma (a type of bone marrow cancer). The discoveries were made by conducting CT scans of two mummies found in the pharaonic necropolis of Qubbet el-Hawa in Aswan, Egypt.

Following their thorough analysis of the mummies, the international research team has established that the woman with breast cancer died around 2000 B.C., while the man with multiple myeloma died around 1800 B.C. Both individuals belonged to the ruling classes (or at least to the wealthy classes) of the governing Egyptian families of Elephantine.

The researchers employed computed tomography scanning techniques (CT scans) to analyse the mummies. CT scanning techniques provide better results than traditional methods, which invariably lead to significant loss of the mummy wrapping as well as to partial destruction of the dressing and the body itself.

Moreover, tomography scanning techniques are more precise when it comes to ascertaining information about the insides of the mummies, as well as capturing minute details in the dressing and about the embalming techniques employed.

The same CT scanning technique was also applied to two fully intact mummies from the Late Period of ancient Egypt — the dressings on which were also still intact.

Prof. Botella López explains: “Both mummies were still wrapped in spectacular shrouds of multi-coloured faience beads, which in turn resemble a mask. The body structures of mummies from this period are superbly preserved and we can discern very clearly what their faces looked like.” Through reconstructions carried out using specific software, researchers were able to conduct detailed studies of these mummies from the Late Period, one of which is the body of a boy around 9 years of age, while the other is that of a young teenage girl.

Meanwhile, the two oldest mummies — those which have been affected by cancer—have been reduced to bones and are wrapped in a considerable number of bandages. Details such as these suggest that embalming techniques changed over time and that the techniques described by the Greek historian Herodotus were only established in the Late Period, at least in that southern part of Ancient Egypt, from the 10th century onward.

The research team, led by Dr. Mamoun, obtained the images at the Radiodiagnosis Service of Aswan University Hospital. They employed a next-generation CT scanner capable of performing 124 tomographic slices simultaneously and with a very high degree of precision. Staff from the Radiodiagnosis Service of the “Campus de la Salud” Hospital in Granada have also collaborated on this groundbreaking research project.

Studies conducted on the two oldest mummies, which reveal evidence of breast cancer and multiple myeloma—the oldest known cases to date—have enabled researchers to confirm that these diseases were already present in humans in ancient times. The research findings also confirm that these individuals belonged to an advanced society with enough resources to support and care for them throughout the long course of their diseases, at a time when no cures or treatments were available.

No traces of disease have been found in the mummies from the Late Period. Consequently, researchers posit acute infections as the probable cause of death in these instances, since infections either result in death or are cured within short time periods and, as a result; they do not leave any marks on bones. In ancient times, infections were the most common cause of death and, overall, they are currently still the most common cause of death across the globe, despite the vast range of treatment options that have been made available in modern times.

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Image of the mummy obtained using the CT scanner. Credit: Patricia Mora 

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Article Source: University of Granada news release

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UNIVERSITY OF EXETER—Bones dug up from under an Exeter street may be the remains of the first ever turkey dinner in England, archaeologists believe.

The 16th century bones – two femurs (thigh bones) and an ulna (wing) – have been analysed by University of Exeter archaeologists and identified as among some the first turkeys to be brought to England from the Americas. The bones are on display at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery (RAMM) where Spanish, German and Italian pottery and glassware from the same site are also displayed. These items could have been on the table when the turkey dinner was served. The first turkeys were introduced to England in 1524 or 1526 by William Strickland, a member of Parliament in the reign of Elizabeth the first, following a voyage to the Americas.

Strickland is recorded to have bought six turkeys from Native American traders, and after he sailed back with them to Bristol, which is 80 miles away from Exeter, sold them for tuppence each.

When turkeys first appeared in England they would have been a rare sight and the first ones are more likely to have been kept as pets for display of wealth rather than served as food.

The bird became very popular after 1550 and already a common sight at Christmas dinners by the 1570s, before Thanksgiving in America was even invented. Popular history even suggests that Henry VIII may have had turkey for Christmas. The bird became so popular that thousands of turkeys were driven in to London like cattle in the 17th century.

The bones were found in 1983 as part of excavations at Paul Street, in central Exeter, before the building of a shopping centre but have never been identified or dated. Archaeologists at the University of Exeter have now examined the bones and judging from pottery lying beside them, they date from the period 1520 to 1550.

Professor Alan Outram, zooarchaeologist and Head of Archaeology at Exeter, said: “As the date of these bones overlaps with the historical evidence of Stickland’s introduction of the birds, the remains of this feast may well represent the earliest physical evidence for a turkey dinner in Britain. This is an important discovery and could allow more research to be carried out about early domestic breeds and how the turkey has changed genetically since the 16th century.”

Analysis by Malene Lauritsen, a post-graduate researcher in the University of Exeter’s archaeology department, has proved from the bones that the turkeys were butchered and were probably eaten as part of a feast by wealthy people. The pottery lying alongside was also of high quality.

They were found together with the remains of a veal calf, several chickens, at least one goose and a sheep. This selection of food – some of which were very expensive at the time – suggests this was the rubbish created by a feast attended by people of high status.

“What is exciting about these turkey bones found in Exeter is that they date from almost exactly the same time as the first birds came to England. Their age certainly means it is possible that these are the remains of one of the first turkeys to come to England, or a turkey bred from this group,” Ms Lauritsen said.

“It is extremely rare to find turkey bones from this period. Remains from the first half of the 16th century have only been found in two other sites in Britain, the oldest from at St Alban’s Abbey in Hertfordshire. I have found cut marks on the bones, showing the birds were butchered. We can only guess at who ate them, and for what reason, but turkey would have been very expensive and the same household certainly ate other pricy meat too, so this must have been a special occasion.”

Wild turkeys were eaten by native Americans and their feathers were also used for ceremonial purposes, including headdresses and robes.

They were first brought to Britain from America by William Strickland, a Puritan, who traded them with Native Americans. He continued to import them and made so much money, he was able to build a stately home in Yorkshire.

Strickland, who became an MP and was known for his ferocious debating style, adopted the turkey as the symbol on his family crest in 1550. His coat of arms is reported to be the first depiction of the turkey in Britain. The village church where Strickland is buried has images of turkeys depicted in stained-glass windows, a carved lectern and even stone sculptures on the walls. The bones found during excavations at Paul street, in central Exeter, have been stored in boxes in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum’s stores, and are on temporary display.

The bones are part of the collections at RAMM, and are on temporary display to celebrate the new discovery about their origins. In February 2020, the bones will be displayed in RAMM’s Making History Gallery alongside all the discoveries made from a wider archaeological research project with the University of Exeter called “Exeter: A Place in Time”.

RAMM Assistant Curator Tom Cadbury said: “This is a fascinating discovery and really shows what an international place Tudor Exeter was. RAMM already displays some of the Spanish, German and Italian pottery and glassware found on the site, perhaps the turkey dinner was eaten off one of these. RAMM welcomes research on the archaeological finds from Exeter in the museum; evidence such as this helps us uncover stories about the lives of past people in Exeter.”

Cllr Rachel Sutton, Lead Councillor for Economy & Culture and Deputy Leader of Exeter City Council said: “Exeter is blessed having a museum and a university that are both world-class. Working together, they are uncovering information about Exeter’s past that would have been inconceivable only decades ago. Collaborations such as these are vital to Exeter’s success.”

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Article Source: University of Exeter news release

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A team of archaeologists excavating at the site of Ziyaret Tepe in southeastern Turkey discovered a rare and unique cuneiform tablet — one that tells a story of frustration and desperation expressed by an ancient Assyrian official, providing a glimpse of conditions in the Assyrian Empire just before its collapse in the 7th century, B.C.  

Recovered within the remains of what archaeologists have identified as an administrative complex, the clay tablet, small enough to be held in the palm of one’s hand, features, in cuneiform script, a letter written by Mannu-ki-libbali, who was a senior official of the Assyrian provincial capital of Tushan. Tushan was a 7th-century city that governed an area on the outskirts of the Assyrian Empire. In the letter, he responds to an order to assemble a unit of chariotry, but he explains that all of the skilled professionals he needed to accomplish it had already fled the city. He expresses his frustration and resignation with these final statements:   

“How can I command? ….. Death will come out of it. No one will escape. I am done!”

“This letter is unparalleled,” writes the excavation leadership in an article published in Popular Archaeology Magazine. “It can only have been written as the front line drew close to Tushan and the infrastructure of the empire collapsed. As a first-hand account of Assyria in its death-throes it is unique.”

The administrative complex in which the tablet was found also yielded a remarkable archive of cuneiform tablets. Totaling 27, they were discovered in fragments on the floors of the rooms of the complex. “The contents of the tablets include movements of grain, the loan of a slave, lists of personnel, the resettlement of people and a census enumerating military officers and their agricultural holdings,” wrote the excavation leadership about the finds. “But the majority of the tablets deal with transactions of barley – deliveries from outlying farmsteads, loans and payments for rations.”  They span the period from 614 BC to 611 BC — around the time of the the fall of Nineveh. 

“This is the first time that Assyrian administrative texts from this period have ever been found,” stated dig directors Timothy Matney and John MacGinnis. The archive provides a window on the Assyrian world as the Babylonian king Nabopolassar was waging military campaigns against a disintegrating Assyrian empire.

Full-scale excavations at Ziyaret Tepe began in 2000 and lasted for 12 seasons. Located on the upper Tigris river abut 60 km east of Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey, the site consists of a central mound 30 m high and the remains of a surrounding lower town about 30 hectares in area. The project, which was headed in the field by Prof. Timothy Matney of the University of Akron, Ohio, began with geophysical prospection and ceramic surface collection, and work at the site eventually yielded structural and artifact remains that evidenced a massive provincial capital that flourished for almost 300 years. According to written records, it was founded on a previously occupied site by the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II in 882 BC, but was then finally captured by the Babylonian king Nabopolassar in 611 BC. Archaeologists have uncovered a palace, an administrative complex, elite residences, and a military barracks at the site.

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 Letter ZTT 22, in which the writer Mannu-ki-libbali reports on the disintegration of the military infrastructure as the Assyrian empire collapsed. Ziyaret Tepe Archaeological Project

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 Aerial view of work in progress in the palace. Ziyaret Tepe Archaeological Project

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An in-depth feature article about the excavations at Ziyaret Tepe, anciently known as Tushan, has been published in the Winter 2018 issue of Popular Archaeology Magazine.

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Readers may also acquire a copy of the book, which relates much more detail about the excavations and the discoveries, at this website. 

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Climate change could have played a major role in shaping and changing the sociopolitical development of ancient civilizations in the Indian subcontinent, according to a new study. Although past research has attempted to explore the relationship between climate change and civilization, links between Indian summer monsoon (ISM) variability and historic regional events have been challenging to derive, due largely to the lack of detailed, high-resolution climate records. To bridge this knowledge gap, Gayatri Kathayat and colleagues utilized a high-resolution and precisely dated record of speleothem oxygen isotopes from two stalagmite profiles in Sahiya Cave, North India. This region is strongly influenced by upstream changes in ISM circulation and rainfall, making the stalagmites found in Sahiya Cave reliable records of past climate change. Kathayat and colleagues combined these new records with previous Sahiya Cave speleothem oxygen isotope records they had obtained during a prior study – forming one of the most thorough recordings of ISM variability over the last 5,700 years ever established. This detailed record revealed a trend in drier conditions, which began approximately 4,100 years ago, but spanned multiple centuries and perhaps contributed to the deurbanization of the Indus Valley civilization, they say. Kathayat and colleagues believe climate change could have contributed to the downfall of the Guge Kingdom in western Tibet around 1620 A.D., as the speleothem oxygen isotope record indicates the region experienced severe drought around this time. The authors acknowledge possible anthropogenic factors that could have contributed to changes in ancient Indian civilizations as well; therefore, they believe future studies of archeological and paleoclimate data are necessary.

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The ruins at Tsaparang, the ancient capital city of the Guge Kingdom in western Tibet, approximately 150 km (as the crow flies) from Sahiya Cave, North India. The Guge Kingdom thrived for 700 years but suddenly collapsed around the 1630s following two decades of dramatic downturns in Indian monsoon rainfall and Northern Hemisphere temperature. Credit: Dr. Houyuan Lu in 2013

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

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MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN HISTORY—The Chachapoyas region was conquered by the Inca Empire in the late 15th century. Knowledge of the fate of the local population has been based largely on Inca oral histories, written down only decades later after the Spanish conquest. The Inca accounts claim that the native population was forcibly resettled out of Chachapoyas and dispersed across the Inca Empire. However, a new study in Scientific Reports, by an international team including researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, uses genetic evidence to reveal that despite Inca conquest, the population of Chachapoyas has remained genetically distinct, and not assimilated with that of the Inca heartland.

Despite their spectacular achievements, from the first cities of the Americas to the Inca Empire, the indigenous peoples of the Andes left no written histories. One legacy that can now be read, however, is the genetic diversity of their descendants today, especially when taken together with the rich archaeology of the Andes and the prehistory of its native languages. This is the approach taken in a new study in Scientific Reports to test the demographic legacy of the Incas.

The study emerges out of a collaboration between research institutes in Peru and in Germany, including the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. The focus is on a key region in the cloud-forest transition between the Andes and Amazonia in northern Peru. Here the Incas encountered fierce resistance from the “Warriors of the Clouds,” the Chachapoyas culture, noted particularly for its distinctive body-shaped sarcophagi and the monumental fortress of Kuelap, the “Machu Picchu of the north.” Particularly to punish and to secure control over such rebellious lands, the Incas are thought to have resettled millions of people across the “Four Quarters” of their empire, Tawantinsuyu. Chachapoyas was reportedly singled out for such treatment, making it an ideal case for using genetics to test the accuracy of Inca oral histories, which were not written down until almost a century later, by the Spanish conquistadors.

“By targeting various linguistic indicators, we were able to pinpoint a genetic signal in Chachapoyas that turned out to be far more diverse than we expected, especially in the male line, from father to son,” explains Chiara Barbieri, a geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany, and lead author of the study. “First of all, there’s still a strong surviving Native American component, despite all the admixture with European genes ever since the Spanish conquest. What’s more, here the native component is quite different from the main genetic network in the highlands of central and southern Peru. This is where the Inca Empire and its predecessors originated, and their conquests, road networks and empire-building ended up homogenizing the genetic make-up here.” The current study reveals how the people of Chachapoyas, by contrast, remained relatively isolated. “So it seems that some genetic legacy of the Chachapoyas did indeed resist Inca impacts, all the way through to today,” explains Barbieri.

Two Peruvian geneticists, José Sandoval and Ricardo Fujita of the Universidad San Martin de Porres in Lima, Peru, also took part in the study. “These latest samples are part of a wider genetic coverage of Peru that we’ve been building up for years. It’s these groups like the Chachapoya, culturally and linguistically highly distinctive, who have the most to tell us about our ancestors: where they came from, where they migrated to, what interactions they had with each other, and so on. Also, the Chachapoyas culture left such extensive archaeological remains that there are good prospects for recovering ancient DNA, to complement the modern picture.”

Paul Heggarty, a linguist and senior author of the study, also of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, was first motivated to launch this project after unexpected results from a linguistic fieldwork trip to Chachapoyas. He was able to find a few remaining elderly speakers of an indigenous language that most assumed was already extinct in this region. “Quechua is one of our most direct living links to the people of the New World before Columbus. It still has millions of speakers, more than any other language family of the Americas – but not in Chachapoyas anymore. There are only a dozen or so fluent speakers now, in a few remote villages, so we need to act fast if we’re to work out its real origins here.”

The Chachapoyas form of Quechua has usually been classified as most closely related to the Quechua spoken in Ecuador, but the new DNA results show no close connections between the Quechua-speakers in these two areas. “Linguists need to rethink their traditional view of the family tree of Quechua languages, and the history of how they spread through the Andes,” notes Heggarty. “It seems that Quechua reached Chachapoyas without any big movement of people. This also doesn’t fit with the idea that the Incas forced out the Chachapoyas population wholesale.”

Jairo Valqui, another linguist co-author from the National University of San Marcos in Lima, adds a further perspective on an even earlier language layer. “Once Quechua and Spanish arrived, the local Chachapoyas languages died out. Recovering anything from them is a real puzzle and a challenge for linguists. They left very few traces, but there are some characteristic combinations of sounds, for example, that still survive in people’s surnames and in local placenames, like Kuelap itself.”

Valqui, himself a Chachapoyano, also makes a point of taking these genetic results back to the local population. “For Peruvian society today, this matters. There’s long been an appreciation of the Incas, but often at the cost of sidelining everything else in the archaeological record across Peru, and the diversity in our linguistic and genetic heritage too. As these latest findings remind us: Peru is not just Machu Picchu, and its indigenous people were not just the Incas.”

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CLUSTER OF EXCELLENCE “RELIGION AND POLITICS”—Classical scholars from the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” of the University of Münster discovered a large number of sealings in south-east Turkey. “This unique group of artefacts comprising more than 1,000 pieces from the municipal archive of the ancient city of Doliche gives many insights into the local Graeco-Roman pantheon – from Zeus to Hera to Iuppiter Dolichenus, who turned into one of the most important Roman deities from this site”, classical scholar and excavation director Prof. Dr. Engelbert Winter from the Cluster of Excellence explains at the end of the excavation season. “The fact that administrative authorities sealed hundreds of documents with the images of gods shows how strongly religious beliefs shaped everyday life. The cult of Iuppiter Dolichenus did not only take place in the nearby central temple, but also left its mark on urban life”, says Prof Winter. “It also becomes apparent how strongly Iuppiter Dolichenus, originally worshipped at this location, was connected with the entire Roman Empire in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD: many of the images show the god shaking hands with various Roman emperors.”

The excavation team has been exploring the temple of the soldier god Iuppiter Dolichenus for 17 years. This year, the team focussed on the urban area. “Under a mosaic dated to 400 AD within a complex of buildings, we were able to uncover an even older mosaic floor of equally high quality”, Prof. Winter explains. “According to the present findings, there is much evidence of a late antique church. This could turn out to be an important contribution to understanding the history of early Christianity in this region.” The excavations in the three-local aisled building complex began in 2015. Up to the present, 150 square metres of the large central nave bordered by columns have been uncovered. Engelbert Winter: “Apart from the architecture, small finds from the surrounding area also point to the existence of a church, such as the fragments of a marble table or the mentioning of a deacon attested by an inscription.”

City center discovered

The researchers have now also discovered the public center of the city of Doliche, which they had first located in the eastern part of the city by geophysical prospecting. “This assumption has been confirmed”, the excavation director explains. “We were able to uncover parts of a very large building: it is a public bath from the Roman Iron Age with well-preserved mosaics. Since hardly any Roman thermal baths are known so far in the region, this discovery is of great academic importance.” The research team from Münster also gained new insights to the extension of the urban area and the chronology of the city: an intensive survey carried out this year on the settlement hill of the ancient city, Keber Tepe, led to quite surprising results. “A large number of finds from the Stone Age indicate that Keber Tepe was obviously an extremely important place very early on. Doliche reached its greatest extent later, in the Roman and early Byzantine periods.”

Excavation director Winter says about the large number of discovered sealings: “Many sealings can be attributed to the administrative or official seals of the city due to their size, frequent occurrence, and in some cases also due to inscriptions. In addition to the images of the ‘city goddess’ Tyche, the depictions of Augustus and Dea Roma deserve special attention, since they point to the important role of the Roman emperor and the personified goddess of the Roman state for the town of Doliche, which lies on the eastern border of the Roman Empire. However, the central motif is the most important god of the city, Iuppiter Dolichenus. In the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, his cult spread into large parts of the Mediterranean world, extending as far as Britain”, explains Prof. Winter. Therefore, it is not surprising that hundreds of documents were sealed with images showing a handshake between this deity and an emperor. “It was a sign of the god’s affinity to the Roman state.”

The images also provide insights into the cult itself. In addition to sealings showing busts of Iuppiter and his wife Iuno, there are depictions of the divine twins Castor and Pollux, the sons of Zeus. “The sons of Zeus, also known as Dioscuri or Castores Dolicheni, are often portrayed as companions of Iuppiter and therefore play an important role in the cult”, Prof. Winter explains.

Archaeological park for tourists

Under the supervision of Prof. Winter from the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics”, the Asia Minor Research Centre of the University of Münster has been excavating the main temple of Iuppiter Dolichenus with the support of the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) since 2001. Each year, the international group of archaeologists, historians, architects, restorers, archaeozoologists, GIS analysts and excavation assistants have uncovered finds from all periods of the 2,000-year history of the place of worship. Among them were the massive foundations of the first Iron Age sanctuary, numerous monumental architectural fragments of the Roman main temple, but also the extensive ruins of an important Byzantine monastery which was built by followers of the Christian faith after the fall of the ancient sanctuary. In order to make the excavation site near the ancient town of Doliche accessible to a broad public, an archaeological park is being developed. Prof. Winter’s research project at the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” is closely connected with the excavation. It is titled “Syriac Cults in the Western Imperium Romanum”. (maz/vvm)

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Sealings from the archive of Doliche. Asia Minor Research Centre 

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Article Source: Cluster of Excellence Religion and Politics news release

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MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN HISTORY—Most people are now familiar with the traditional “Out of Africa” model: modern humans evolved in Africa and then dispersed across Asia and reached Australia in a single wave about 60,000 years ago. However, technological advances in DNA analysis and other fossil identification techniques, as well as an emphasis on multidisciplinary research, are revising this story. Recent discoveries show that humans left Africa multiple times prior to 60,000 years ago, and that they interbred with other hominins in many locations across Eurasia.

A review of recent research on dispersals by early modern humans from Africa to Asia by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the University of Hawai’i at Manoa confirms that the traditional view of a single dispersal of anatomically modern humans out of Africa around 60,000 years ago can no longer be seen as the full story. The analysis, published in the journal Science, reviews the plethora of new discoveries being reported from Asia over the past decade, which were made possible by technological advances and interdisciplinary collaborations, and shows that Homo sapiens reached distant parts of the Asian continent, as well as Near Oceania, much earlier than previously thought. Additionally, evidence that modern humans interbred with other hominins already present in Asia, such as Neanderthals and Denisovans, complicates the evolutionary history of our species.

New model: Multiple dispersals of modern humans out of Africa, beginning as early as 120,000 years ago

The authors brought together findings from multiple recent studies to refine the picture of human dispersals out of Africa and into Asia. While scientists once thought that humans first left Africa in a single wave of migration about 60,000 years ago, recent studies have identified modern human fossils in far reaches of Asia that are potentially much older. For example, H. sapiens remains have been found at multiple sites in southern and central China that have been dated to between 70,000 and 120,000 years ago. Additional finds indicate that modern humans reached Southeast Asia and Australia prior to 60,000 years ago.

However, other recent studies do confirm that all present-day non-African populations branched off from a single ancestral population in Africa approximately 60,000 years ago. This could indicate that there were multiple, smaller dispersals of humans out of Africa beginning as early as 120,000 years ago, followed by a major dispersal 60,000 years ago. While the recent dispersal contributed the bulk of the genetic make-up of present-day non-Africans, the earlier dispersals are still evident.

“The initial dispersals out of Africa prior to 60,000 years ago were likely by small groups of foragers, and at least some of these early dispersals left low-level genetic traces in modern human populations. A later, major ‘Out of Africa’ event most likely occurred around 60,000 years ago or thereafter,” explains Michael Petraglia of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

Multiple interbreeding events

Recent genetic research has resolved the question of whether or not modern humans interbred with other ancient hominins – they definitely did. Modern humans interbred not only with Neanderthals, but also with our recently-discovered relatives the Denisovans, as well as a currently unidentified population of pre-modern hominins. One estimate is that all present-day non-Africans have 1-4% Neanderthal heritage, while another group has estimated that modern Melanesians have an average of 5% Denisovan heritage. In all, it is now clear that modern humans, Neanderthals, Denisovans and perhaps other hominin groups likely overlapped in time and space in Asia, and they certainly had many instances of interaction.

The increasing evidence of interactions suggests that the spread of material culture is also more complicated than previously thought. “Indeed, what we are seeing in the behavioral record is that the spread of so-called modern human behaviors did not occur in a simple time-transgressive process from west to east. Rather, ecological variation needs to be considered in concert with behavioral variation between the different hominin populations present in Asia during the Late Pleistocene,” explains Christopher Bae of the University of Hawai’i at Manoa.

In light of these new discoveries, our understanding of human movements across the Old World has become much more complex, and there are still many questions left open. The authors argue for the development of more complicated models of human dispersals and for conducting new research in the many areas of Asia where none has been done to date. Additionally, it will be important to review materials collected prior to the development of modern analytic methods, to see what more can now be learned from them. “Fortunately,” states Katerina Douka, also of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, “there have been an increasing number of multidisciplinary research programs launched in Asia over the past few decades. The information that is being reported is helping to fill in the gaps in the evolutionary records.”

“It is an exciting time to be involved with interdisciplinary research projects across Asia,” adds Bae.

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Map of sites and postulated migratory pathways associated with modern humans dispersing across Asia during the Late Pleistocene. Credit: Bae et al. 2017. On the origin of modern humans: Asian perspectives. Science. Image by: Katerina Douka and Michelle O’Reilly

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

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PURDUE UNIVERSITY, WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.—Researchers, led by a Purdue University anthropology professor, have found that statistical methods and 3D imaging can be used to accurately measure animal bone cut marks made by prehistoric human butchery, and to help answer pressing questions about human evolution.

Archaeologist and biostatistician Erik Otárola-Castillo leads the research team that used 3-D imaging, shape analysis and Bayesian statistics to identify butchery cut marks with an 88 percent success rate in classifying butchery behaviors. The 3-D imaging technology is similar to what engineers use to measure scratches on microchips and surgical blade sharpness.

“This approach represents a major improvement in accuracy when compared to many archaeological methods, and improving this technique will help us get the human evolution story correct,” Otárola-Castillo said. “By strengthening quantitative methods to evaluate archaeological evidence, we will be able to learn more about early humans much more quickly.”

The findings are published in the Journal of Archaeological Science. Otárola-Castillo is an assistant professor of the Department of Anthropology.

“In archaeology, butchery marks on animal bones are a key piece of evidence used to answer questions about food acquisition in prehistoric hunter and gatherer populations,” said Otárola-Castillo, who studies hunters-gatherers’ diets to answer questions about human evolution. His expertise spans North American hunters-gatherers archaeology, evolutionary biology, statistics and computational modeling.

Human-made stone tools leave cut marks on animal bone, such as sheep, deer or bison, through butchery. These cut marks can vary in size from 1 to 5 centimeters, but the depth of the cuts is often tiny, measuring at approximately 1/15 of a millimeter. Archaeologists often attempt to distinguish between cut marks made by a human’s stone tool, which leaves a “V” shape, and other damage, such as trampling by a hooved animal, which can leave marks with more of a “U” shape.

Archaeologists have attempted to identify butchering marks since the 1800s. While the methods of analyzing bone marks have improved over the decades, there is still quite a lot of uncertainty and lack of consensus on how they are best measured. Current measurement techniques range from naked eye qualitative assessments to high-powered microscopy, such as scanning electron microscopy or micro-photogrammetry.

Otárola-Castillo and research teammates Emma James from The University of Queensland; Curtis W. Marean from Arizona State University; and Jessica C. Thompson from Emory University, specialize in evaluating cut marks on bone.

There are cases when marks can be ambiguous. In 2010, a couple of research teams published contradicting findings regarding bone marks from a prehistoric site, Dikika in Ethiopia. Results from their analyses varied so much they disagreed whether the marks were made by humans’ tools or animals’ hooves, or perhaps scratched by sand particles or other rock edges. Fresh debate now contends that some of these marks could have been made by feeding crocodiles.

“The tension over this debate has been great, because the source of the cuts matters significantly. If made by stone tools, then this is an example of stone tool-use by some of the earliest human ancestors,” Otárola-Castillo said. “Recently, researchers sent bones with cut marks to various experts for analysis. The goal was to evaluate the convergence of different experts’ assessments of the characteristics of the bone marks using traditional methods. Alarmingly, results showed that the qualitative assessments were inconsistent between all experts. Similar concerns also relate to modern forensics evidence, so our work is a finding that may be of interest to that field as well.”

Otárola-Castillo, Marean, Thompson, and Shannon P. McPherron from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, began working on methodological improvements for bone mark analysis in 2010. Other team members are Jacob A. Harris from Arizona State University, Purdue graduate student Melissa G. Torquato and Purdue undergraduate student Hannah C. Hawkins. McPherron and Marean were members of one of the teams evaluating bones from the Dikika site in Ethiopia.

In their new study, Otárola-Castillo and the team used more than 40 cuts and slices made by volunteer butchers on sheep bones using stone tools. A “cut” represents a 90-degree incision angle, and a “slice” represents a 45-degree incision angle. The researchers then measured the cuts with a profilometer, a 3-D microscope that measures topography, roughness and layer thickness in the micro- and nanometer ranges. After measuring them, the researchers conducted a 3-D shape and size analysis of the curves and surfaces to compare the cut marks.

“Once the digital data were compared, we used Bayesian statistics, which provide a quantitative measure of scientific believability. For example, given the evidence, the probability of accurately determining the identity of a mark on a bone is 88 percent in this case,” Otárola-Castillo said.

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Archaeologist and biostatistician Erik Otárola-Castillo leads the research team that used 3-D imaging, shape analysis and Bayesian statistics to identify butchery cut marks with an 88 percent success rate in classifying butchery behaviors. The 3D imaging technology is similar to what engineers use to measure scratches on microchips and surgical blade sharpness. The findings are published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.Purdue University photo/Mark Simons

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Article Source: Purdue University news release

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This research was funded by a variety of sources, including the National Science Foundation, Margo Katherine Wilke Undergraduate Research Fund at Purdue University, Purdue’s College of Liberal Arts ASPIRE, and a grant from the John Templeton Foundation to the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University. Purdue’s Department of Anthropology is housed in the College of Liberal Arts.

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Johannesburg – 6 December 2017 – South Africa’s status as a major cradle in the African nursery of humankind has been reinforced with today’s unveiling of “Little Foot”, the country’s oldest, virtually complete fossil human ancestor.

Little Foot is the only known virtually complete Australopithecus fossil discovered to date. It is by far the most complete skeleton of a human ancestor older than 1.5 million years ever found. It is also the oldest fossil hominid in southern Africa, dating back 3.67 million years. The unveiling will be the first time that the completely cleaned and reconstructed skeleton can be viewed by the national and international media.

Discovered by Professor Ron Clarke from the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, the fossil was given the nickname of “Little Foot” by Prof. Phillip Tobias, based on Clarke’s initial discovery of four small footbones. Its discovery is expected to add a wealth of knowledge about the appearance, full skeletal anatomy, limb lengths and locomotor abilities of one of the species of our early ancestral relatives.

“This is one of the most remarkable fossil discoveries made in the history of human origins research and it is a privilege to unveil a finding of this importance today,” says Clarke.

After lying undiscovered for more than 3.6 million years deep within the Sterkfontein caves about 40km north-west of Johannesburg, Clarke found several foot bones and lower leg bone fragments in 1994 and 1997 among other fossils that had been removed from rock blasted from the cave years earlier by lime miners. Clarke sent his assistants Stephen Motsumi and Nkwane Molefe into the deep underground cave to search for any possible broken bone surface that might fit with the bones he had discovered in boxes. Within two days of searching, they found such a contact, in July 1997.

Clarke realised soon after the discovery that they were on to something highly significant and started the specialized process of excavating the skeleton in the cave up through 2012, when the last visible elements were removed to the surface in blocks of breccia. 

“My assistants and I have worked on painstakingly cleaning the bones from breccia blocks and reconstructing the full skeleton until the present day,” says Clarke.

In the 20 years since the discovery, they have been hard at work to excavate and prepare the fossil. Now Clarke and a team of international experts are conducting a full set of scientific studies on it. The results of these studies are expected to be published in a series of scientific papers in high impact, peer reviewed international journals in the near future.

This is the first time that a virtually complete skeleton of a pre-human ancestor from a South African cave has been excavated in the place where it was fossilised.

“Many of the bones of the skeleton are fragile, yet they were all deeply embedded in a concrete-like rock called breccia,” Clarke explains.

“The process required extremely careful excavation in the dark environment of the cave. Once the upward-facing surfaces of the skeleton’s bones were exposed, the breccia in which their undersides were still embedded had to be carefully undercut and removed in blocks for further cleaning in the lab at Sterkfontein,” says Clarke.

The 20-year long period of excavation, cleaning, reconstruction, casting, and analysis of the skeleton has required a steady source of funding, which was provide_­­­­d_­­­­­ by the Palaeontological Scientific Trust (PAST) – a Johannesburg-based NGO that promotes research, education and outreach in the sciences related to our origins. Among its many initiatives aimed at uplifting the origin sciences across Africa, PAST has been a major funder of research at Sterkfontein for over two decades.

Professor Adam Habib, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of the Witwatersrand says: “This is a landmark achievement for the global scientific community and South Africa’s heritage. It is through important discoveries like Little Foot that we obtain a glimpse into our past which helps us to better understand our common humanity.”

PAST’s chief scientist Professor Robert Blumenschine labels the discovery a source of pride for all Africans. “Not only is Africa the storehouse of the ancient fossil heritage for people the world over, it was also the wellspring of everything that makes us human, including our technological prowess, our artistic ability, and our supreme intellect,” he says.

The scientific value of the find and much more will be unveiled in a series of papers that Prof Clarke and a team of international experts have been preparing, with many expected in the next year.

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 Prof. Ron Clarke at the site of the Little Foot finds in Sterkfontein caves. Credit: Paul Myburgh

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 Little Foot embedded in its breccia block, set in Sterkfontein caves with Ron Clarke. Credit: Paul Myburgh 

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 Little Foot skull separated from its block. Profile of Ron Clarke to the right. Credit: Paul Myburgh

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Little Foot excavators Stephen Motsumi, Ron Clarke and Nikwane Molefe. Credit: Paul Myburgh 

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Article Source: News release written by Schalk Mouton of the University of the Witwatersrand

If you liked this article, you may like The Age of Little Foot, a premium article oublished in Popular Archaeology Magazine.

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UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD—Was St Nicholas, the fourth century saint who inspired the iconography of Santa Claus, a legend or was he a real person?

New Oxford University research has revealed that bones long venerated as relics of the saint, do in fact date from the right historical period.

One of the most revered Orthodox Christian saints, the remains of St Nicholas have been held in the Basilica di San Nicola, Bari, Southern Puglia, since 1087, where they are buried in a crypt beneath a marble alter. Over the years relic fragments have been acquired by various churches around the world, calling into question how the bones can all be from the same person.

Using a micro-sample of bone fragment, Professor Tom Higham and Dr Georges Kazan, the Directors of the Oxford Relics Cluster at Keble College’s Advanced Studies Centre, have for the first time tested one of these bones. The radiocarbon dating results pinpoint the relic’s age to the fourth century AD – the time that some historians allege that St Nicholas died (around 343 AD). The results suggest that the bones could in principle be authentic and belong to the saint.

Professor Higham said: “Many relics that we study turn out to date to a period somewhat later than the historic attestation would suggest. This bone fragment, in contrast, suggests that we could possibly be looking at remains from St Nicholas himself.” St Nicholas is thought to have lived in Myra, Asia Minor, which is now modern day Turkey. According to legend he was a wealthy man who was widely known for his generosity, a trait that inspired the legend of Father Christmas as a bringer of gifts on Christmas Day.

Believed to have been persecuted by the Emperor Diocletian, the saint died in Myra, where his remains became a focus of Christian devotion. His remains are said to have been taken away by a group of Italian merchants and transported to Bari, where the bulk of them sit to this day in the Basilica di San Nicola.

The bone analyzed is owned by Father Dennis O’Neill, of St. Martha of Bethany Church, Shrine of All Saints in Morton Grove Illinois, USA.

The relic originally came from Lyon in France but most of the bones believed to be from St Nicholas are still preserved in Bari, with some in the Chiesa di San Nicolo al Lido in Venice. Fr. O’Neill has acquired his collection over many years, mainly from churches and private owners in Europe, and includes a relatively large bone fragment which has been identified as part of a human pelvis, believed to be a relic of St Nicholas.

Interestingly, the Bari collection does not include the saint’s full pelvis, only the left ilium (from the upper part of the bone). While Fr. O’Neil’s relic is from the left pubis (the lower part of the bone) it suggests that both bone fragments could be from the same person.

Dr Kazan said: “These results encourage us to now turn to the Bari and Venice relics to attempt to show that the bone remains are from the same individual. We can do this using ancient palaeogenomics, or DNA testing. It is exciting to think that these relics, which date from such an ancient time, could in fact be genuine”.

The relics held in Venice consist of as many as 500 bone fragments, which an anatomical study concluded were complementary to the Bari collection, suggesting that both sets of relics could originate from the same individual. It remains to be confirmed what fragments of the pelvis are contained amongst the Venice relics, if any.

The archaeologists’ work has revealed that the bone has been venerated for almost 1700 years, making it one of the oldest relics that the Oxford team has ever analyzed. As radiocarbon dating technology has become more sophisticated in recent years, ancient relics have become more accessible in ways that previously would have been considered too invasive to study. Dr Kazan added: “Where once we needed physical portions of a bone sample, we can now test milligram size, micro-samples – opening up a new world of archaeological study.”

In the 16th century stories about St Nicholas become popular, and the legend of Father Christmas was born. December 6 is known and celebrated in several European countries – particularly Holland, as St Nicholas Feast Day. On the eve of the feast, children leave out clogs and shoes to be filled with presents. Of the possible authenticity of the relic itself, Professor Higham concludes: “Science is not able to definitely prove that it is, it can only prove that it is not, however”.

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 Relic of St Nicholas (pelvis fragment) at St. Martha of Bethany Church/Shrine of All Saints, Morton Grove IL, USA Image Credit T. Higham & G. Kazan

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Article Source: University of Oxford news release

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UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN – FACULTY OF HUMANITIES—New research by a team of scientists and archaeologists based at the Weizmann Institute of Science and the University of Copenhagen suggests that the 15,000-year-old ‘Natufian Culture’ could live comfortably in the steppe zone of present-day eastern Jordan – this was previously thought to be either uninhabitable or only sparsely populated.

The hunter-gatherers of the Natufian Culture, which existed in modern-day Israel, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria between c. 14,500 – 11,500 years ago, were some of the first people to build permanent houses and tend to edible plants. These innovations were probably crucial for the subsequent emergence of agriculture during the Neolithic era. Previous research had suggested that the centre of this culture was the Mount Carmel and Galilee region, and that it spread from here to other parts of the region. The new study by the Copenhagen-Weizmann team, published in Scientific Reports, challenges this ‘core region’ theory.

The new paper is based on evidence from a Natufian site located in Jordan, c. 150 km northeast of Amman. The site, called Shubayqa 1, was excavated by a University of Copenhagen team led by Dr. Tobias Richter from 2012-2015.

The excavations uncovered a well-preserved Natufian site, which produced a large assemblage of charred plant remains. These kinds of botanical remains are rare at many other Natufian sites in the region, and enabled the Weizmann-Copenhagen team to obtain the largest number of dates for any Natufian site yet in Israel or Jordan.

“We dated more than twenty samples from different layers of the site, making it one of the best and most accurately dated Natufian sites anywhere. The dates show, among other things, that the site was first settled not long after the earliest dates obtained for northern Israel, ca. 14,600 years ago. This suggests that the Natufian either expanded very rapidly, which we think is unlikely, or that it emerged more or less simultaneously in different parts of the region,” Dr. Richter reports, adding:

“The early date of Shubayqa 1 also shows that Natufian hunter-gatherers were more versatile than previously thought. Past research had linked the emergence of the Natufian to the rich habitat of the Mediterranean woodland zone. But the early dates from Shubayqa show that these late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers were also able to live quite comfortably in more open parkland steppe zones further east. Some of their subsistence appears to have relied heavily on the exploitation of club rush tubers, as well as other wild plants. They also hunted birds, gazelle and other animals,” says Tobias Richter.

Precise dating methodology

The dating was undertaken by Professor Elisabetta Boaretto at the Weizmann Institute of Science using Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, or AMS, dating. Boaretto is head of the D-REAMS lab in the Weizmann Institute – one of the few labs in the world that works with the technology and methods to analyze even the smallest organic remains from a site and precisely date them.

Using a specially designed mass spectrometer, Boaretto is able to reveal the amount of carbon-14 in a sample down to the single atom. Based on the half-life of the radioactive carbon-14 atoms, the dating done in her lab is accurate to around 50 years, plus or minus. For the analysis of the specimen from Shubayqa, the team was able to select only short-lived plant species or short-lived plant parts, such as seeds or twigs, to obtain the dates. This ensured the highest possible accuracy for the dates.

Boaretto says that the “core area” theory may have come about, in part, because the Mt. Carmel sites have been the best preserved and studied, until now. In addition to calling into question the idea of the Natufian beginning in one settlement and spreading outwards, the study suggests that the hunter-gatherers who lived 12,000 to 15,000 years ago were ingenious and resourceful. They learned to make use of numerous plants and animals where ever they were, and to tend them in a way that led to early settlement.

The authors say that this supports a view in which there were many pathways to agriculture and “the ‘Neolithic way of life’ was a highly variable and complex process that cannot be explained on the basis of single-cause models.”

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

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Read the research paper ‘AMS Radicarbon Dates Suggest Complex Origins of the Late Epipalaeolithic Natufian in the Levant’ in Scientific Reports.

Read more about the Late Epipalaeolithic and Early Neolithic Occupation of the Black Desert project

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LOMONOSOV MOSCOW STATE UNIVERSITY—Vladislav Zhitenev, a Russian archaeologist from MSU, studied bone jewelry found at Sungir Upper Paleolithic site. A group led by Vladislav Zhitenev found out that many items were crafted specifically for burial purposes, while others were worn on a daily basis. The style of the jewelry was influenced by many cultures of Europe and the Russian Plain. The article was published in EPAUL 147.

Sungir Upper Paleolithic site is located in Vladimir Region and is dated back to 29,000-31,000 years. Scientist began to study his place over thirty years ago. The encampment of prehistoric hunters includes a burial site of a 40-50 year old man and a grave of two children who died 10-14 years of age. Archaeological excavation revealed over 80 thousand different objects.

“This children’s grave contains more adornments and other burial items than any other Upper Paleolithic burial site in Eurasia,” – says Vladislav Zhitenev, the author of the study, doctor of historical sciences, and assistant professor of the Archaeology Department of the Faculty of History, MSU. Currently all findings are kept in the State Vladimir-Suzdal Museum Reserve.

Having studied pendants made from the teeth of Arctic fox, bone beads, and other personal ornaments, scientists found out that these items were worn for a long time as they exhibited rubbing marks and other signs of tear. Other ornaments found at the burials were made in a hurry and don’t look so smooth and convenient. Evidently, they were crafted specifically for the burial ceremony. These items include a large horse figurine with a disproportionately short back led. Although the surface of the figurine had been polished, it has a lot of manufacturing and processing marks.

It is still unknown why the grave of children appeared to contain so many objects including worn ones. According to one version, people used the child burial to make a sacrifice to save the community from an adversity of some kind, such as illness or hunger. Burial items were made not only by experienced craftsmen, but by children as well. One of the tusk disks found in the children’s grave was made carelessly and unskillfully. It is likely it was crafted by a kid.

Adornments are elements of a non-verbal language used by prehistoric people to tell friends from enemies and to learn about one’s social status and standing. By studying personal ornaments scientists learn more about different aspects of intercultural communication in the Upper Paleolithic period.

Vladislav Zhitenev found out that the man and the children lived relatively at the same time separated by several generations at most. This is confirmed by the identical style of peronal ornaments found in their graves. The children were buried at the same time, but the time period between their death and the passing of the man is still unknown. Radiocarbon dating method failed to provide an answer as it is not accurate to the year when applied to such prehistoric specimens. But when radiocarbon dating gives only approximate results, archaeologists turn to implicit data.

“When looking at an item, one can always see a master’s hand. Many adornments from the burial sites of the man and the children were crafted in the same way, as if by the same person. Alternatively, this technique could have been passed within the family, say, from father to son or from grandmother to granddaughter,” – explains Vladislav Zhitenev. Therefore, the man and the children were separated in time by no more than several dozen years.

Sungir adornments are difficult to classify and include into a certain cultural tradition, as they had been influenced by many cultures. On the one hand, they have a lot in common with the Aurignacian culture that was widely spread in Western and Central Europe in the Early Upper Paleolithic Stone Age. On the other hand, Sungir findings resemble those from some early sites in Kostenki. Finally, all these items are combined with stone objects crafted using a Neanderthal technology, although the remains found in Sungir belonged to Homo sapiens.

Having studied Sungir adornments, scientists found out that a part of them was crafted specifically for the burial ceremony, and another one was worn on a daily basis; the man and the children lived roughly at the same time; and the crafting style was influenced by many cultures including the Aurignacian culture and the culture of the Russian Plain.

In his further studies Vladislav Zhitenev plans to focus on intercultural communication, for example, to find difference between the sites with and without a Neanderthal component.

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 This is bone jewelry found at Sungir in the burial of children (1-3) and in the cultural layer (4). Credit: Vladislav Zhitenev

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Article Source: LOMONOSOV MOSCOW STATE UNIVERSITY news release.

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NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY—Who is she, this little mummy girl? Northwestern University scientists and students are working to unravel some of her mysteries, including how her body was prepared 1,900 years ago in Egypt, what items she may have been buried with, the quality of her bones and what material is present in her brain cavity.

As part of a comprehensive scientific investigation, the mummy traveled from Evanston to Argonne National Laboratory on Nov. 27 for an all-day X-ray scattering experiment. It was the first study of its kind performed on a human mummy.

“This is a unique experiment, a 3-D puzzle,” said Stuart R. Stock, research professor of cell and molecular biology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who led the synchrotron experiment. “We have some preliminary findings about the various materials, but it will take days before we tighten down the precise answers to our questions. We have confirmed that the shards in the brain cavity are likely solidified pitch, not a crystalline material.”

The Roman-Egyptian mummy—which resides at the Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary on Northwestern’s Evanston campus—is one of only approximately 100 portrait mummies in the world. These mummies have an extremely lifelike painting of the deceased individual incorporated into the mummy wrappings and placed directly over the person’s face. The Romans introduced to Egypt these 2-D portraits of the dead after almost 3,000 years of idealized 3-D images. (Think King Tut).

Just over three feet long, the little girl’s body is swaddled in a copious amount of linen. The outermost wrappings have been arranged in an ornate geometric pattern of overlapping rhomboids and also serve to frame the portrait. The face, painted with beeswax and pigment, gazes serenely outward, her dark hair gathered at the back. She is wearing a crimson tunic and gold jewelry.

The study of this rare archeological object, owned by Garrett-Evangelical, is part of an interdisciplinary class at Northwestern focused, in part, on filling out the contextual story of where this mummy came from and who she was.

Thirteen materials science and humanities students are examining the materials and methods used to create both this intact portrait mummy and a well-preserved collection of Roman-Egyptian mummy portraits for an upcoming exhibition at Northwestern’s Block Museum of Art. Earlier in the quarter, the class traveled to California to study the portraits at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, which will loan the portraits to the Block Museum. (Unlike the Garrett mummy, each of these portraits has been separated from its mummy.)

The students already have discovered that the Garrett mummy’s portrait was put together in a very different way from the Hearst Museum portraits and likely is from a different workshop. These findings and others yet to come, including results from the synchrotron X-ray study of the Garrett mummy, will culminate in the Block Museum exhibition, “Paint the Eyes Softer: Mummy Portraits from Roman Egypt.”

“Intact portrait mummies are exceedingly rare, and to have one here on campus was revelatory for the class and exhibition,” said Marc Walton, a research professor of materials science and engineering at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering. He is teaching the fall quarter class with Taco Terpstra, assistant professor of classics and history at the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.

The “Paint the Eyes Softer” exhibition will reunite ancient neighbors: the girl portrait mummy is from the site of Hawara, a site close to Tebtunis, where the Hearst Museum’s mummy portraits are originally from. The Hawara, or Garrett, mummy is believed to be from a high-status family and was entombed in an underground chamber with four other mummies.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our undergraduate students—and for me—to work at understanding the whole object that is this girl mummy,” Walton said. “Today’s powerful analytical tools allow us to nondestructively do the archaeology scientists couldn’t do 100 years ago.”

The synchrotron experiment at Argonne is a modern-day version of 19th-century England’s “mummy unwrapping” parties, Walton said. The Northwestern team collaborated with scientists at Argonne and used the extremely brilliant high-energy synchrotron X-rays produced by Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source to probe the materials and objects inside the mummy, while leaving the mummy and her wrappings intact.

“From a medical research perspective, I am interested in what we can learn about her bone tissue,” Stock said. “We also are investigating a scarab-shaped object, her teeth and what look like wires near the mummy’s head and feet.”

Prior to its trip to Argonne, the mummy had a CT scan at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in August, also led by Stock. The scan gave the researchers a 3-D map of the structure of the mummy and enabled them to confirm the girl is 5 years old (give or take nine months).

At the Advanced Photon Source, Stock and his team shined the pencil-shaped X-ray beam (about twice the diameter of a human hair) on areas of high-density in the mummy that were identified by the CT scan. They now will use the X-ray diffraction patterns as “fingerprints” to identify each crystalline material. For example, is the black rounded object seen on the CT scan a gold object or a rock?

The findings from the synchrotron experiment, CT scan and other scientific analyses and studies of history conducted by the students will help researchers and historians better understand the context in which the Garrett mummy was excavated in 1911 as well as Roman-period mummification practices. Also, conservators will use the information to best preserve the mummy.

“We’re basically able to go back to an excavation that happened more than 100 years ago and reconstruct it with our contemporary analysis techniques,” Walton said. “All the information we find will help us enrich the entire historic context of this young girl mummy and the Roman period in Egypt.”

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UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE—A new study comparing the bones of Central European women that lived during the first 6,000 years of farming with those of modern athletes has shown that the average prehistoric agricultural woman had stronger upper arms than living female rowing champions.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology say this physical prowess was likely obtained through tilling soil and harvesting crops by hand, as well as the grinding of grain for as much as five hours a day to make flour.

Until now, bioarchaeological investigations of past behaviour have interpreted women’s bones solely through direct comparison to those of men. However, male bones respond to strain in a more visibly dramatic way than female bones.

The Cambridge scientists say this has resulted in the systematic underestimation of the nature and scale of the physical demands borne by women in prehistory.

“This is the first study to actually compare prehistoric female bones to those of living women,” said Dr Alison Macintosh, lead author of the study published today in the journal Science Advances.

“By interpreting women’s bones in a female-specific context we can start to see how intensive, variable and laborious their behaviours were, hinting at a hidden history of women’s work over thousands of years.”

The study, part of the European Research Council-funded ADaPt (Adaption, Dispersals and Phenotype) Project, used a small CT scanner in Cambridge’s PAVE laboratory to analyse the arm (humerus) and leg (tibia) bones of living women who engage in a range of physical activity: from runners, rowers and footballers to those with more sedentary lifestyles.

The bones strengths of modern women were compared to those of women from early Neolithic agricultural eras through to farming communities of the Middle Ages.

“It can be easy to forget that bone is a living tissue, one that responds to the rigours we put our bodies through. Physical impact and muscle activity both put strain on bone, called loading. The bone reacts by changing in shape, curvature, thickness and density over time to accommodate repeated strain,” said Macintosh.

“By analysing the bone characteristics of living people whose regular physical exertion is known, and comparing them to the characteristics of ancient bones, we can start to interpret the kinds of labour our ancestors were performing in prehistory.”

Over three weeks during trial season, Macintosh scanned the limb bones of the Open- and Lightweight squads of the Cambridge University Women’s Boat Club, who ended up winning this year’s Boat Race and breaking the course record. These women, most in their early twenties, were training twice a day and rowing an average of 120km a week at the time.

The Neolithic women analysed in the study (from 7400-7000 years ago) had similar leg bone strength to modern rowers, but their arm bones were 11-16% stronger for their size than the rowers, and almost 30% stronger than typical Cambridge students.

The loading of the upper limbs was even more dominant in the study’s Bronze Age women (from 4300-3500 years ago), who had 9-13% stronger arm bones than the rowers but 12% weaker leg bones.

A possible explanation for this fierce arm strength is the grinding of grain. “We can’t say specifically what behaviours were causing the bone loading we found. However, a major activity in early agriculture was converting grain into flour, and this was likely performed by women,” said Macintosh.

“For millennia, grain would have been ground by hand between two large stones called a saddle quern. In the few remaining societies that still use saddle querns, women grind grain for up to five hours a day.

“The repetitive arm action of grinding these stones together for hours may have loaded women’s arm bones in a similar way to the laborious back-and-forth motion of rowing.”

However, Macintosh suspects that women’s labour was hardly likely to have been limited to this one behaviour.

“Prior to the invention of the plough, subsistence farming involved manually planting, tilling and harvesting all crops,” said Macintosh. “Women were also likely to have been fetching food and water for domestic livestock, processing milk and meat, and converting hides and wool into textiles.

“The variation in bone loading found in prehistoric women suggests that a wide range of behaviours were occurring during early agriculture. In fact, we believe it may be the wide variety of women’s work that in part makes it so difficult to identify signatures of any one specific behaviour from their bones.”

Dr Jay Stock, senior study author and head of the ADaPt Project, added: “Our findings suggest that for thousands of years, the rigorous manual labour of women was a crucial driver of early farming economies. The research demonstrates what we can learn about the human past through better understanding of human variation today.”

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Cambridge University Women’s Boat Club openweight crew rowing during the 2017 Boat Race on the river Thames in London. The Cambridge women’s crew beat Oxford in the race. The members of this crew were among those analysed in the study. Credit: Alastair Fyfe for the University of Cambridge

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Article Source: University of Cambridge news release

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