The genetic makeup of high-altitude Himalayan populations has remained stable for millennia despite multiple cultural transitions, according to a study*. The Himalayan mountain range and the Tibetan plateau were among the last places colonized by prehistoric humans because of the unique challenges associated with living at high altitudes. However, conflicting cultural, linguistic, genetic, and archaeological evidence from modern-day populations has left the origins of the earliest Himalayan inhabitants unclear. Christina Warinner and colleagues sequenced the nuclear and mitochondrial genomes of eight high-altitude Nepalese individuals dating to three distinct cultural periods spanning 3,150–1,250 years ago. The authors compared these ancient DNA sequences to genetic data of diverse modern humans, including four Sherpa and two Tibetans from Nepal. All eight prehistoric individuals across the three time periods were most closely related to contemporary high-altitude East Asian populations, namely the Sherpa and Tibetans. Moreover, both prehistoric individuals and contemporary Tibetan populations shared beneficial mutations in two genes, EGLN1 and EPAS1, which are implicated in adaptation to low-oxygen conditions of high altitudes. Taken together, the findings demonstrate that the genetic makeup of high-altitude Himalayan populations has remained remarkably stable for millennia. According to the authors, the diverse material culture of prehistoric Himalayan populations might be the result of acculturation or cultural diffusion rather than large-scale gene flow or population replacement from outside East Asia.
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Sequencing of prehistoric dental samples revealed origins of high-altitude Himalayans. Image courtesy of Christina Warinner, University of Oklahoma.
*“Long-term genetic stability and a high-altitude East Asian origin for the peoples of the high valleys of the Himalayan arc,” by Choongwon Jeong et al.
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
For the first time, Popular Archaeology Magazine will be actively engaged in co-hosting a group to tour a number of archaeological sites in what has traditionally long been known to many as the ‘Holy Land’. The region, as most people know, is rich with sites that hold historical, cultural, and religious value to people of three major world faiths. Since its inception, the online magazine has published numerous articles as major feature articles as well as brief news stories about the archaeological discoveries being made in the region in recent years.
“But reading about it really is nothing like actually being there and seeing these places in person,” says magazine editor Dan McLerran. “The real feel of a place — the air, the sounds, the smell, the feel of ancient stones at your touch, the visual experience that is quite different than the pictures — there is no adequate substitute.”
In addition to his two-week participation in an excavation at the ancient site of Bethsaida in 1998, McLerran recently embarked on a one-week tour of a number of important archaeological sites in Jerusalem and in surrounding areas, as far north as the site of Banias near the Syrian border to as far south as the site of ancient Tamar in the desert south of the Dead Sea.
“Along with just being there,” says McLerran, “the sites really came alive when a very special ‘celebrity’ expert guide related the history, story and meaning behind them.”
In that trip, McLerran, along with a group of others, traveled with Dr. James Tabor, a world-renowned scholar on Second Temple period Judaism and early Christianity. Tabor is known not only for his scholarship but also for his affiliation with recent controversial discoveries connected to Jesus of Nazareth. His views or interpretations of the Jesus movement and certain recently discovered artifacts have drawn fire from other scholars who interpret the finds differently. But he has also amassed a large following of individuals and some scholars who subscribe to many of his views.
“The controversy and the outstanding questions about many of these sites and artifacts make them all the more interesting to me,” says McLerran. “So in addition to the traditional experience and feeling of actually being in these places, I got a perspective-broadening experience — the stimulation of knowing there is something more than the long-standing traditional way of seeing these things.”
The group, led by Ross Nichols, that McLerran will help to host will be visiting Jerusalem and the surrounding areas beginning March 3, 2017. Among the group leaders will be Tabor himself, who will take the group to key sites in Jerusalem, provide lectures, and answer questions.
“I’m hoping this will be a rich educational and eye-opening experience for everyone, because that is what it is designed to accomplish. Everyone should walk away with not only a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but also with an endowment of deeper knowledge and appreciation for the history, events, people, and places that have made this part of the world a magnet for scholars and archaeology and history buffs alike — as well as for those who feel a deep religious or emotional connection to this region.”
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Above: A tomb on the Mount of Olives. Dr. Tabor suggests that the site of the crucifixion and the temporary “new” tomb in which Jesus was laid was more likely located on the Mount of Olives. This is an example of one of the sites the group may be visiting.
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A view of the site where Dr. Tabor suggests Jesus stood in judgment before Pontius Pilate. It is one of the sites that will be visited on the tour.
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The ancient remains of Tamar, an Israelite fortress during the Iron Age and a Roman fortress during the Roman period. This is one of the many sites that will be visited on the tour.
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Dr. Tabor stands before the Herodian stonework remains of the building that tradition holds was the site of the “Last Supper” and, according to Tabor, served as the Jerusalem ‘headquarters’ of the early Christian movement before the destruction in 70 C.E. This is one of the many sites that will be visited on the tour. Photo by Victoria Brogdon
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Included, although optional, will be the opportunity to stay for a few days inside the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City for a more up-close-and-personal experience with the ancient ambience of the city.
More information about participation in this special tour can be found here.
UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE—Giant Ice Age species including elephant-sized sloths and powerful sabre-toothed cats that once roamed the windswept plains of Patagonia, southern South America, were finally felled by a perfect storm of a rapidly warming climate and humans, a new study has shown.
Research led by the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD) at the University of Adelaide, published today in Science Advances, has revealed that it was only when the climate warmed, long after humans first arrived in Patagonia, did the megafauna suddenly die off around 12,300 years ago.
The timing and cause of rapid extinctions of the megafauna has remained a mystery for centuries.
“Patagonia turns out to be the Rosetta Stone – it shows that human colonisation didn’t immediately result in extinctions, but only as long as it stayed cold,” says study leader Professor Alan Cooper, ACAD Director. “Instead, more than 1000 years of human occupation passed before a rapid warming event occurred, and then the megafauna were extinct within a hundred years.”
The researchers, including from the University of Colorado Boulder, University of New South Wales and University of Magallanes in Patagonia, studied ancient DNA extracted from radiocarbon-dated bones and teeth found in caves across Patagonia, and Tierra del Fuego, to trace the genetic history of the populations. Species such as the South American horse, giant jaguar and sabre-toothed cat, and the enormous one-tonne short-faced bear (the largest land-based mammalian carnivore) were found widely across Patagonia, but seemed to disappear shortly after humans arrived.
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Partial jaw of a large, extinct jaguar discovered in a cave in the Ultima Esperanza region of Patagonia.Credit: Fabiana Martin/CEHA
The pattern of rapid human colonisation through the Americas, coinciding with contrasting temperature trends in each continent, allowed the researchers to disentangle the relative impact of human arrival and climate change.
“The America’s are unique in that humans moved through two continents, from Alaska to Patagonia, in just 1500 years,” says Professor Chris Turney, from the University of New South Wales. “As they did so, they passed through distinctly different climate states – warm in the north, and cold in the south. As a result, we can contrast human impacts under the different climatic conditions.”
The only large species to survive were the ancestors of today’s llama and alpaca – the guanaco and vicuna — and even these species almost went extinct.
“The ancient genetic data show that only the late arrival in Patagonia of a population of guanacos from the north saved the species, all other populations became extinct,” says lead author Dr Jessica Metcalf, from the University of Colorado Boulder.
“In 1936 Fell’s cave, a small rock shelter in Patagonia, was the first site in the world to show that humans had hunted Ice Age megafauna. So it seems appropriate that we’re now using the bones from the area to reveal the key role of climate warming, and humans, in the megafaunal extinctions,” says Dr Fabiana Martin, at the University of Magallanes.
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
Stromness Museum, Orkney, Scotland—A long-lost Neolithic human figurine found at Skara Brae in the 1860s has been rediscovered in the collections of Stromness Museum, Orkney.
Dr David Clarke identified the figurine among artifacts from Skaill House donated to the museum without provenance in the 1930s, while undertaking research on Skara Brae funded by Historic Environment Scotland. David Clarke said:
“Amazingly, we found it in the last box of the day. I’ve always thought this figurine to be lost forever so seeing it staring back at me from its bed of tissue paper was completely unexpected and very exciting.”
Kathleen Ireland, Chair of Stromness Museum said:
“Stromness Museum has a superb collection of artifacts from Skara Brae, but this figurine has instantly become the new jewel in our collections. We are always pleased to welcome researchers and this rediscovery highlights what can found through painstaking research in museum stores.”
The representation has been carved from a piece of whalebone and measures 9.5cm high by 7.5cm wide. Eyes and a mouth have been cut in the face and the body has a navel, but is otherwise unadorned. Holes through the head and body may have been used to suspend the figurine.
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The Neolithic figurine carved from whalebone. Credit: Stromness Museum and Rebecca Marr
The figurine was originally discovered by William G. Watt, the local laird, when excavating a stone bed compartment in House 3 of the Neolithic village after a storm in 1850. Skara Brae is a stone-built late Neolithic (c.2900-2400 BC) settlement on the Bay of Skaill, Mainland, Orkney.
Watt’s find was briefly described as a ‘idol’ or ‘fetish’ in a report of discoveries at Skara Brae by the antiquarian George Petrie in 1867, but was otherwise only known by a sketch in Petrie’s notebooks, now held in the manuscripts of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.
Prehistoric representations of the human form are exceptionally rare in Britain. This figurine was the first Neolithic example discovered, but was largely forgotten. Hugh Morrison, Collections Manager for Historic Environment Scotland said:
“The rediscovery of the figure is significant as it emphasises many of the similarities in the late Neolithic assemblages and structures from Skara Brae and Links of Noltland. It’s also hugely exciting, because it opens the door for re-examining other objects in our collections and may shed light on other figurines found at HES commissioned excavations, such as the Westray Wife discovered at Links of Noltland.”
This understated but hugely important figurine, nicknamed the ‘Skara Brae Buddo’, is now being displayed for the first time in Stromness Museum alongside artifacts from Skara Brae that have not previously been displayed.
See the 3D interactive view of the figurine below.
Source: Adapted and edited from the subject press release of the Stromness Museum.
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX—A farming technique practised for centuries by villagers in West Africa, which converts nutrient-poor rainforest soil into fertile farmland, could be the answer to mitigating climate change and revolutionising farming across Africa.
A global study, led by the University of Sussex, which included anthropologists and soil scientists from Cornell, Accra, and Aarhus Universities and the Institute of Development Studies, has for the first-time identified and analysed rich fertile soils found in Liberia and Ghana.
They discovered that the ancient West African method of adding charcoal and kitchen waste to highly weathered, nutrient poor tropical soils can transform the land into enduringly fertile, carbon-rich black soils which the researchers dub ‘African Dark Earths’.
From analysing 150 sites in northwest Liberia and 27 sites in Ghana researchers found that these highly fertile soils contain 200-300 percent more organic carbon than other soils and are capable of supporting far more intensive farming.
Professor James Fairhead, from the University of Sussex, who initiated the study, said: “Mimicking this ancient method has the potential to transform the lives of thousands of people living in some of the most poverty and hunger stricken regions in Africa.
“More work needs to be done but this simple, effective farming practice could be an answer to major global challenges such as developing ‘climate smart’ agricultural systems which can feed growing populations and adapt to climate change.”
Similar soils created by Amazonian people in pre-Columbian eras have recently been discovered in South America – but the techniques people used to create these soils are unknown. Moreover, the activities which led to the creation of these anthropogenic soils were largely disrupted after the European conquest.
Encouragingly researchers in the West Africa study were able to live within communities as they created their fertile soils. This enabled them to learn the techniques used by the women from the indigenous communities who disposed of ash, bones and other organic waste to create the African Dark Earths.
Dr Dawit Solomon, the lead author from Cornell University, said: “What is most surprising is that in both Africa and in Amazonia, these two isolated indigenous communities living far apart in distance and time were able to achieve something that the modern-day agricultural management practices could not achieve until now.
“The discovery of this indigenous climate smart soil-management practice is extremely timely. This valuable strategy to improve soil fertility while also contributing to climate-change mitigation and adaptation in Africa could become an important component of the global climate-smart agricultural management strategy to achieve food security.”
The study, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, entitled “Indigenous African soil enrichment as a climate-smart sustainable agriculture alternative”, has been published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Environment.
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Ghana farmers in the field of a demonstration farm. Trees for the Future, Wikimedia Commons
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
Bluff, UT – As the nation marks the 110th anniversary of the Antiquities Act, more than 700 archaeologists have signed a letter to President Barack Obama urging him to designate a Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah.
“From an archaeological perspective, the value of the Bears Ears area is beyond question,” said Bill Lipe, a member of the board of trustees of the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center and a past president of the Society for American Archaeology. Lipe has researched the archaeology of the region for more than 50 years.
With more than 100,000 archaeological sites, the Bears Ears region is America’s most significant unprotected cultural landscape. It is famous for the incredible preservation of its back-country cliff dwellings, numerous rock art panels and surface sites (e.g. towers, shrines, and pueblos), unique artifacts, and Native American burials.
There have been efforts to preserve the archaeological sites of the Cedar Mesa/Bears Ears region in southeastern Utah for more than a century, dating back to a report in 1903 by T. Mitchel Prudden, a scientist who explored the region’s Ancestral Pueblo sites.
A coalition of five sovereign tribal nations – Navajo, Hopi, Ute Mountain Ute, Uintah and Ouray Ute, and Zuni – called the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition – has proposed a 1.9 million-acre national monument that would honor Native American connections to the land and protect cultural resources.
“These archaeological sites, these artifacts are the footprints of our people,” said Leigh Kuwanwisiwma, director of the Cultural Preservation Office for the Hopi Tribe. “We do not see these sites as ‘ruins’ or as being abandoned. The spirits of our ancestors still inhabit the Bears Ears. When these sites are looted or damaged, not only our history but our future is disrespected.”
The Antiquities Act was created in June 1906 in response to rampant looting of Native American artifacts in the southwest. Yet because of Utah’s unique politics, the Act has never been used to establish a national monument that would protect the antiquities of Bears Ears.
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Prehistoric granary overlooks Cedar Mesa. Photographer: Josh Ewing
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Petroglyph graces the Comb Ridge. Photographer: Josh Ewing
Grave robbing, looting, and serious archaeological site damage at Bears Ears continues at an alarming pace. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) documented 26 incidents of serious cultural resource damage since 2011 in San Juan County (where Bears Ears is located), with seven incidents in the past six months. The BLM currently has only one law enforcement officer assigned to patrol the Bears Ears area.
Despite ongoing damage to cultural sites, no bill has yet been introduced in Congress that would protect the Bears Ears area. The archaeologists’ letter urges President Obama to create a national monument should Congress fail to pass meaningful legislation this year to protect Bears Ears.
“Cedar Mesa was a formative place in American archaeology, where the Basketmaker culture was discovered,” said Lipe. “The Bears Ears holds enormous scientific potential to continue to inform us about the American pre-history. Each day it remains unprotected, we are losing a window to the past.”
About Crow Canyon Archaeological Center: Located just 45 miles from the proposed Bears Ears National Monument, the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to understanding and teaching the rich history of the ancestral Pueblo Indians who inhabited the canyons and mesas of the Mesa Verde region more than 700 years ago.
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
As Founder and Editor of Popular Archaeology Magazine, Dan is a freelance writer and journalist specializing in archaeology. He studied anthropology and archaeology in undergraduate and graduate school and has been an active participant on archaeological excavations in the U.S. and abroad. He is the creator and administrator of Archaeological Digs, a popular weblog about archaeological excavation and field school opportunities.
In this place, you can peer out over a grand oceanic vista. Standing on the top of a cliff and looking down, you see waves crash against rugged rock formations of various hues of brown—natural stone monuments sculpted by wind, water and time. If you look more closely, you can see dolphins among the waves and seals on the rocks. It’s perfect coastal hiking territory.
The coast of northern California?
Think again.
You’re on the southeastern coast of South Africa, on a rocky headland called Pinnacle Point just south of the town of Mossel Bay.
Other than its majestic scenery, Pinnacle Point would mean little to most people. But for archaeologists and others who know about its significance, it is one of a number of locations where evidence has been found bearing on the dawn of modern humans. People lived here as long ago as 100,000 years and more—near the beginnings of modern humanity, as the current thinking goes. (Archaeological and genetic research has shown that the first modern humans likely arose about 160,000 to 200,000 year ago).
For almost countless millennia to the present, cave shelters have helped to define the coastline cliffs here. They have also helped to define a relatively good living for prehistoric people. One of these shelters, designated by archaeologists as ‘PP13B’, was first excavated more than a decade ago by an international team under the direction of palaeoanthropologist Curtis Marean of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University. He and his team are still excavating at Pinnacle Point, which also includes a second cave shelter known as PP 5-6. Between the two shelters, scientists have uncovered a wealth of information that has enlightened current understanding about what kind of people these early occupants were and what they could tell us about human evolution and human behavior tens of thousands of years ago. (Shown above, team excavating at a Pinnacle Point cave shelter. Andrew Hall, Wikimedia Commons)
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View looking down at the Pinnacle Point cave shelter area. Courtesy Kate Leonard
For a brief time in early 2016, Kate Leonard, a young Canadian PhD-credentialed archaeologist, joined the team as part of her global year-long journey to work at twelve different archaeological sites in 12 separate countries. She calls her project Global Archaeology: A Year of Digs. Popular Archaeology has been following her on her journey as she makes her rounds across the world. Pinnacle Point now makes the 5th stop on her global trek.
As part of any dig crew, Leonard knows that there are sometimes a few challenges that come with the outdoor experience of a dig, and Pinnacle Point was no exception. “To reach the site itself,” says Leonard, “the team walks down a long wooden staircase — that can be a bit slippery after a rainfall — and along the coastline. After a long day of digging it can be daunting to look up at all those steps with your frame-pack loaded with archaeological gear. Because the site is inaccessible except by foot much of the valuable equipment has to be trekked in and out by the team members.”
But there are benefits.
“A very positive aspect of this trek is the beautiful view over the Indian Ocean: it was wonderful to see the sunrise over the waves as we headed to the site in the morning,” she adds. But even more satisfying, as Leonard would be the first to say, is the opportunity to be a critical part of a major scientific investigation at a site that is having a salient impact on our understanding of human evolution. Archaeology at Pinnacle Point has been one of those undertakings leading the way. “All archaeological investigations are important and further our understanding of why humans do the things we do,” Leonard states. “But to be revealing evidence of human activity from so long ago is an even greater responsibility.”
Unlike excavating great ancient monumental structures of more recent human history, the investigation and retrieval of evidence of human occupation at prehistoric sites require recognizing and recovering objects and material that are generally far more subtle. It often requires the application of advanced techniques in the most careful way possible. “Archaeology is ‘preservation through destruction’: you only get one chance to put your trowel in the ground because after you remove the archaeological material it can never be put back,” explains Leonard. “That is why the work of recording the excavation process is so essential. At Pinnacle Point the level of detail being recorded is truly astounding. We plot every ‘find’ with no size restriction – so even pieces of shell that are 0.25 cm in size are digitally mapped with the total station [a high-tech piece of survey equipment that makes digital 3D maps]. This creates a rich database of information that can be intensively analyzed. When over 50,000 artifacts are being collected over the course of one field season precision and organization is paramount!”
Unique to the Pinnacle Point excavation is the integration of bar code scanners to record artifacts, archaeological features and buckets of sieved soil. The scanners are connected to hand-held computers, which are in turn connected to a total station. Currently, the excavation team is focusing on shelter PP 5-6, where they have set up 5 total stations with two team members functioning as site recorders moving among the excavators to carefully record the data with tablets. “There is a lot riding on the site recorders,” says Leonard, who worked as one of the recorders. “They have to ensure that all data is logged correctly and nothing is left out. It is amazing to see the activity on site with excavators furiously digging, the site recorders moving between their workstation and the excavators, and the 5 total stations being run simultaneously to keep up with the amount of archaeology being revealed.”
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The team walking to the site in the morning. Courtesy Kate Leonard
Exploration at Pinnacle Point has taken scientists to a series of cave shelter sites. But the two cave shelters, PP13B and PP5-6, have stood out most prominently in the ongoing investigations. Cave PP13B alone has provided a glimpse of the surprisingly early sophistication and innovation of our modern human ancestors. “It has given us the earliest evidence for human consumption of shellfish – dated to around 164,000 years ago,” says Leonard. “Shellfish collecting can only be done at low spring tide (a new and full moon) and therefore a knowledge/awareness of the lunar cycle is implied. Once this knowledge began to be implemented to harvest shellfish the people living at Pinnacle Point had a predictable source of calorie rich protein with which to supplement their diet.” Cave PP13B also contained evidence for early use of ochre pigment and heat treatment of stone artifacts.” (See videos below — and wait during the momentary pauses within each video for the following video session).
Cave shelter PP5-6, where the team is now working, has added yet more. Containing material dated from 50,000 to 90,000 years ago, it has provided the earliest known evidence for the knapping of microliths to make composite tools, including intentional heat treatment of the stone. “This may be the earliest evidence for projectile points around 71,000 years ago, and to make those microliths they focused on heat treatment to improve the stone,” Leonard adds. Using the controlling elements of simple hearths, the shelter occupants employed a complex process to heat the stone (in this instance silcrate) and thus change its properties for better flaking to produce the micro blades or microliths for more advanced toolmaking. Many scientists consider this to be the foundation for pyrotechnology and a precursor to later technologies, such as the making of ceramics and the manufacturing of metals.
And that’s not all. “The types of innovations that have been revealed by the excavations in the Pinnacle Point complex share some major traits: cooperation, organization and planning,” says Leonard. And these were critical to the later development of agriculture and urbanization, basic elements of civilization.
Moving on
Although the work at Pinnacle Point will likely go on for seasons to come, for Leonard, her global trek has led north to Naxos, Greece, the next stop on her year-long journey. There will be more on this to come.
Popular Archaeology will be following and reporting on Leonard’s worldwide experiences periodically throughout 2016 as she hops from one location to another during her global journey. To continue the work, however, Leonard will need financial support from donors. Readers interested in reading about and supporting her self-directed Global Archaeology crowdfunded project can learn more at gofundme.com/globalarchaeology.
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
NAGOYA UNIVERSITY—Nagoya, Japan – Domestic goats first appeared in the Fertile Crescent, in modern-day Iran and Turkey, around 10,000 years ago through domestication of the Bezoar wild goat. However, as this wild goat species is distributed across a large part of the Middle East, it is still unclear whether all domestic goats in this region descend from a single domestication event, or if multiple domestications occurred.
A research team based at Nagoya University and including members in Tokyo and Azerbaijan has revealed that goats were first introduced into the Southern Caucasus, in present-day Azerbaijan, from the Fertile Crescent around 7,500-8,000 years ago. This finding corresponds with archeological evidence showing sudden large cultural changes associated with the introduction of agriculture in this area.
Genetic sequencing technology combined with the ability to extract and isolate ancient DNA lets researchers obtain detailed information about ancient organisms, and compare them with their modern equivalents. This is particularly useful for studying animal and plant domestication and finding wild species that are the ancestors of present-day domestic animals and plants. The research team focused this technology on domestic goats, building on earlier findings about their main wild ancestor, and the location and timing of their initial domestication, to provide more details about how goats were distributed throughout the Middle East.
In the study*, reported in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, the researchers extracted and sequenced DNA from goat bones obtained from excavations at early agricultural settlements in Azerbaijan, and which radiocarbon dating revealed to be 7,500-8,000 years old. They then compared the DNA sequences with those of present-day domestic and wild goats from the same geographic region, as well as those of other Neolithic goats reported in previous studies.
“Our analysis of mitochondrial DNA showed that the haplotypes of the present-day and Neolithic domestic goats in the Southern Caucasus matched,” co-author Keiko Ohnishi says. “Yet they didn’t match the haplotype of the wild goats of the same region, suggesting that these wild goats are not the ancestors of the region’s domestic goats. The genetic match between domestic goats in the Southern Caucasus and wild goats in the Fertile Crescent suggests goats were not domesticated independently in the Caucasus, but rather that already-domesticated goats were introduced.”
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Ancient goat bone used for DNA analyses (from Göytepe). Credit: Seiji Kadowaki
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By combining the genetic results with archeological findings from excavations at the two sites in west Azerbaijan, the research team also drew some wider conclusions about a period of relatively rapid social change in the region.
“The sites where these bones were found are the earliest agricultural settlements in the Caucasus. Other novel signs of agriculture and cultural artifacts also suddenly started to appear in what were hunting-and-gathering areas,” lead author Seiji Kadowaki says. “This ties in well with the introduction of domesticated goats from the Fertile Crescent around the same time, suggesting that populations moved or indigenous hunter-gatherers in the Caucasus accepted agricultural lifestyles from the Fertile Crescent about 7,500-8,000 years ago.”
The study provides useful information about the spread of agriculture and domesticated animals throughout the Middle East, which appears to have been accompanied by the spread of other cultural practices. It also provides a foundation for further studies unravelling the relative contributions of human population movements and the adoption of novel practices by indigenous groups to the spread of domesticated animals.
*The article “Mitochondrial DNA Analysis of Ancient Domestic Goats in the Southern Caucasus: A Preliminary Result from Neolithic Settlements at Göytepe and Hac? Elamxanl? Tepe” was published in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology at doi: 10.1002/oa.2534
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
Popular Archaeology Magazine is pleased to announce the release of the Summer 2016 issue. This issue includes a major special feature article focusing on the historical Jesus, relating the perspective of a world-renowned scholar of 1st Century Judaism and early Christianity. Also featured is the newly released Popular Archaeology Discovery Edition for 2016, which publishes for the first time in one issue an anthology of the best major feature articles of Popular Archaeology over the past five years. Here is a listing of the articles appearing in this issue:
1. In Search of the Historical Jesus (Premium Article)
The recent controversial discoveries, and a renowned scholar’s quest to uncover the historical truth about Jesus of Nazareth.
2. Five Years of Popular Archaeology
The Best-of-the-Best feature articles of Popular Archaeology from the past five years.
3. Before Clovis: Ancient Voyages and New Data (Premium Article)
Scientists are shifting their thinking about the first peopling of the Americas.
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UNIVERSITY OF THE BASQUE COUNTRY—A team of researchers belonging to the Prehistory Area of the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country has published the results* of its recent investigations in the San Cristóbal Rock-shelter (Sierra de Cantabria. Laguardia. Álava, Basque Country). This is the first time that empirical data have been presented and which demonstrate the use of rock-shelters as enclosures (for sheep/goats) by agropastoral communities from the early Chacolithic onwards (about 5,000 years ago) in the area of the Basque Country and throughout the northwest of the Iberian Peninsula.
The UPV/EHU team was led by the Professor of Prehistory Javier Fernández-Eraso and the work is the outcome of interdisciplinary collaboration coordinated from the UPV/EHU’s Prehistory Area in which experts from the University of Barcelona and the CSIC have also participated.
Previous studies conducted by this same UPV/EHU research team had documented the existence of livestock enclosures dating back to the Ancient Neolithic (over 6,000 years ago) at other sites on the Sierra de Cantabria. Nevertheless, this is the first time that data of a geoarchaeological (microsedimentological analyses) and palaeobotanical (phytoliths, pollen, charcoal and seeds) nature have been incorporated. The aim is to find out about the specific practices that the human groups in the area were engaged in inside these shelters, and to know what function was fulfilled by these practices in their economy and in their strategies for organising the territory during the Chalcolithic.
“This is a piece of pioneering work in the studies on agropastoral communities on the Iberian Peninsula. We have evidence that the human groups that occupied San Cristóbal during the Chacolithic used the shelter as a pen for goats and/or sheep and that this use, although repetitive throughout hundreds of years, was not ongoing but of a temporary nature linked to a seasonal exploitation of the rich natural resources available on the Sierra de Cantabria. We also know thanks to the microscopic study of the sediments that every now and again they used to burn the debris that had built up, probably to clean up the space that had been occupied and that this combustion process was carried out in line with some specific habits: they used to pile up the debris and on top of them pile up woody remains, perhaps to help to get the fire going before going on to burn the debris,” explained Ana Polo-Diaz, a researcher in the UPV/EHU’s Department of Geography, Prehistory and Archaeology.
On the other hand, the correlation of the microsedimentological and phytolith analyses (mineral remains that make up the skeleton of plants) has made it possible to determine what the livestock ate, and which was largely based on the grazing available around the shelter.
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Pile of burnt debris of the Chalcolithic period unearthed at San Cristobal (Alava, Basque Country, Spain). Credit: UPV/EHU
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Hazelnut trees and oaks
The data on the pollen have revealed that a forest, in which hazelnut trees predominated along with deciduous oaks (possibly gall oaks), grew in the immediate surroundings of San Cristóbal during the period studied. There is also evidence of holm oaks, box and pine.
The study of the charcoal remains preserved on the site has made it possible to go into how the timber available on the Sierra de Cantabria was used, and the results indicate a clear change in the selection of woody materials throughout the Chalcolithic occupation of the shelter: during the oldest phase a predominance of pine followed by yew is observed while in the most recent phase there is an increase in the use of species such as oak, holm oak, the rose family and box.
The pollen analysis also indicates the existence of grazing areas and farmland fairly close to the shelter, so the use of San Cristobal as an enclosure has to be understood in the context of a way of life in which agricultural and livestock activities were combined as a means of subsistence. Although it has not as yet been possible to locate any site in the open air in the area close to San Cristóbal, a settlement may well have existed close by from which during specific periods of the year the livestock were moved to make use of the resources on the ridge.
The correlation of the data obtained at San Cristóbal with the information provided by the neighbouring sites on the Sierra de Cantabria itself and its immediate area has also revealed that San Cristobal also formed part of a network of shelters-cum-enclosures used at the same time and for the same purpose by human groups with similar cultural features; it has also emerged that the communities that occupied these shelters-cum-enclosures were very likely the same ones that used the dolmen constructions of the Rioja Alavesa area during the Chalcolithic.
*Polo-Díaz, A., Alonso Eguíluz, M., Ruiz, M., Pérez, S., Mújika, J., Albert, R.M., Fernández Eraso, J. ‘Management of residues and natural resources at San Cristobal rock-shelter: Contribution to the characterisation of chalcolithic agropastoral groups in the Iberian Peninsula’. Quaternary International. Available online 19 May 2016. doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2016.02.013.
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY—Griffith University researchers are part of an international team of scientists that has announced the discovery of ancestors of Homo floresiensis – the enigmatic species of pygmy-like humans discovered more than a decade ago on the Indonesian island of Flores.
In September 2003, the partial skeleton of a primitive human adult female was excavated from Liang Bua, a limestone cave in the west of Flores. Known as LB1, this skeleton is the most extreme human ever discovered – astonishingly short, only about a metre tall, and with a brain smaller than that of a chimp, this tiny individual lived and died around 70,000 years ago.
Now, as reported in Nature this week, fossil remains of hominins that are similar in size but at least ten times older have been excavated at Mata Menge, a site in open grasslands 70 km east of Liang Bua, in Indonesia. A fragment of a hominin lower jaw and several isolated teeth were found in a layer of sandstone which had been deposited by a lakeside stream around 700,000 years ago.
Dr Adam Brumm from Griffith’s Research Centre of Human Evolution says this new finding is the most stunning breakthrough yet to help with our understanding of the origin of ‘hobbits’.
“We have unearthed fossils from at least three individuals, including two children, along with stone tools that are almost identical to those made by the much younger Homo floresiensis,” said Dr Brumm, an archaeologist who first commenced fieldwork at Mata Menge in 2004 along with colleagues from the Geology Museum and Geological Survey Institute in Bandung, Indonesia.
“There is a striking similarity in size and form between the Mata Menge hominins and the Liang Bua hobbit, which is surprising given the former are at least several hundred millennia older.
“This suggests the Mata Menge individuals belonged to a population of ancient hobbit-like hominins that gave rise to Homo floresiensis. They may even have been a very early form of hobbits, which would mean this species existed for far longer than anyone had anticipated.”
Ever since the first hobbit bones were discovered scientists have struggled to make sense of where the previously unknown species, Homo floresiensis, fits into the human family tree.
It is thought that these creatures evolved from an archaic branch of hominins that existed long before the emergence of our own species in Africa some 200,000 years ago. However, the experts are divided over just which member of the hominin group spawned the Flores hobbits.
The distinctive anatomy of Homo floresiensis has led to two intriguing hypotheses. The first is that hobbits descend from Asian Homo erectus, or ‘Java Man’, an early hominin that reached the island of Java to the west of Flores roughly 1.5 million years ago, and which was similar in height to modern humans. It is suggested a small group of these hominins may have become stranded on Flores and over time reduced in body size. This would be a unique case of hominins conforming to the ‘Island Rule’, whereby mammals cut off on islands with limited food and no predators become small if they were big (dwarfism) or big if they were small (gigantism).
The second possibility is that Homo floresiensis stems from far more ancient precursors, such as Homo habilis or even an ape-like australopithecine, primitive hominin forerunners currently known only from the early fossil record of Africa.
All of this speculation about the origin of Homo floresiensis had reached a standstill until the discovery of these latest fossils.
“While only a handful of fossils has been found at Mata Menge so far, characteristic features of the teeth strongly imply an ancestral relationship with Homo erectus,” Dr Brumm said.
“This lends weight to the theory that the hobbit was a dwarfed version of the famous Java Man, which somehow got marooned on the island. The fact that they were found with fossils of extinct pygmy elephants (Stegodon) and giant rats also supports the idea of an isolated group of Homo erectus undergoing a dramatic evolutionary change owing to the Island Rule.”
Until more complete hominin fossils are revealed, however, Dr Brumm says the mystery of the hobbit’s beginning has not yet been conclusively resolved.
“We were expecting a simple answer,” he says. “We didn’t get one: no one thought the ancestor of the hobbit would itself have looked like a hobbit. I do think Homo floresiensis was a dwarfed Homo erectus, but identifying the true ancestor requires more fossil evidence”.
The presence of fossils from multiple individuals at Mata Menge, however, does suggest additional skeletal remains are likely to be found, and the team is now searching for funds to expand the scale of excavations at this site and at other fossil localities on the island.
“Mata Menge is a goldmine,” says Dr Brumm. “I expect that further excavations at this site will eventually yield a hominin skull, which will finally allow us to put a face and a name to the hobbit’s ancestor. Then we will know how this experiment in human evolution got started”.
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Dr. Adam Brumm from Griffith University’s Centre For Human Evolution. Credit: Adam Brumm
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
PLOS—Analysis of oxygen isotopes in fossil teeth from red deer near the Adriatic Sea suggest that they migrated seasonally, which may have driven the movements of the Paleolithic hunter-gatherers that ate them, according a study* published June 8, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Suzanne Pilaar Birch from University of Georgia, USA, and colleagues.
Migration patterns of large herbivores, such as red deer (Cervus elaphus), have been used as a proxy to estimate the movements of the prehistoric hunter-gatherers in Europe who relied on them for sustenance. However, interpretation of prehistoric migrations often relies on data from modern populations that may be very different from those that lived before the end of the last ice age. Assessing isotope variation in fossil teeth can be a more accurate indicator of ancient migration patterns, as the teeth of migrating animals have less variation in levels of the oxygen isotope δ18O than the teeth of animals which do not.
In the present study, Birch and colleagues analyzed oxygen isotope variation in the teeth from 10 red deer and 14 mountain goats collected at three cave sites in the Adriatic, which hunter-gatherers used as hunting outposts 12,000-8,000 years ago, to directly reconstruct the migratory behavior of red deer.
Although relying on a small dataset, the researchers found differences in the δ18O ranges in red deer teeth from the Pleistocene/Late Upper Paleolithic compared to the Holocene/Mesolithic, and found less isotope variation within red deer teeth compared to teeth from mountain goats. The authors suggest that, while mountain goats mainly stayed put, red deer may have migrated seasonally in the Pleistocene/Late Upper Paleolithic, moving over smaller ranges in the Holocene/Mesolithic. These migration patterns may, in turn, have influenced human mobility strategies during this period.
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This view from Nugljanska Cave was potentially a good lookout for surveying the prey below 10,000 years ago. Credit: Suzanne Pilaar Birch
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
MIDWESTERN UNIVERSITY—Analysis of a wealth of new data contradicts an earlier claim that LB1, an ~80,000 year old fossil skeleton from the Indonesian island of Flores, had Down syndrome, and further confirms its status as a fossil human species, Homo floresiensis.
From the start, fossils of a tiny population of human-like creatures from Flores (the so-called “Hobbits” of Southeast Asia) have been controversial. Are these remains evidence of a new species of fossil human, Homo floresiensis? Or are these remains simply a population of small-bodied humans (Homo sapiens), like ourselves, but with one or more individuals suffering from a developmental disorder? Researchers recently diagnosed LB1, the most complete individual recovered, with Down syndrome.
New analysis of features from across the skeleton by an international team of researchers led by Karen Baab, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Anatomy at Midwestern University in Glendale, AZ, convincingly demonstrates that LB1 did not have Down syndrome. In addition to measuring individual bones, the scientists used CT scanning to reconstruct the brain and view internal structures of the skull, as well as assessing the 3-dimensional (3D) shape of the skull.
The study*, titled “A Critical Evaluation of the Down Syndrome Diagnosis for LB1, Type Specimen of Homo floresiensis,” is published in the June 8, 2016 edition of PLOS ONE.
Down Syndrome
The diagnosis of Down syndrome is the most recent in a long line of diseases attributed to this particular skeleton. Down syndrome is a chromosomal disorder characterized by cognitive delays and often certain physical features, including reduced stature and brain size. The original diagnosis also emphasized the wide and short (front-to-back) shape of the skull, shape of the chin, and short femur (thigh bone) in LB1 as evidence of Down syndrome. Diagnosing Down syndrome in fossils is complicated by the fact that many common features are found in the soft tissues of the body, which do not fossilize. Nevertheless, this study provides new information about the size and shape of the brain and skull in the Down syndrome population.
Down Syndrome Diagnosis a Bust
For the current study, the team compared physical traits preserved in the skeleton of LB1 to those found in Down syndrome. While people with Down syndrome are not identical to one another, it was nevertheless clear that LB1 was very distinct from all humans, including those with Down syndrome.
The study found that LB1’s brain was much smaller than that seen in Down syndrome individuals. Likewise, the shape of the skull vault, which surrounds the brain, and chin anatomy were both outside the range seen in humans, with or without Down syndrome. Moreover, the diminutive LB1 individual, estimated to be just over a meter (1.09 m) in height (or 3′ 7″), was well below the height range of comparable individuals with Down syndrome. In fact, females with Down syndrome from Turkey reach a comparable height as the adult LB1 by 6.5 years of age and are considerably taller as adults (1.45 m or 4′ 9″ on average). The femur is disproportionately short in LB1 relative to the feet and arms compared to all humans, regardless of whether they have Down syndrome.
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Profiles of the midline of the skull as seen in an x-ray or CT scan for people with and without Down syndrome as well as LB1, the type specimen of Homo floresiensis. The differences between the two groups of humans are minor compared to the very distinct shape of LB1. Credit: Courtesy of the study authors
One theory has explained Homo floresiensis as a modern human who was deformed by encephalization—a shrunken cranial capacity. The Homo floresiensis skull (left) compared to a skull of a modern human encephalized skull. Avandergeer, Wikimedia Commons
LB1 Remains are the Type Specimen of Homo Floresiensis
Importantly, this study indicated that LB1 not only differed from individuals with Down syndrome, but was more clearly aligned with more archaic human species. Its small brain, low cranial vault shape, absence of a chin, smaller body size and limb proportions all point to a pre-Homo sapiens ancestry. The authors conclude: “The skeletal evidence overwhelmingly contradicts a diagnosis of Down syndrome. Rather, our study is yet further evidence that Homo floresiensis was a distinct species with a fascinating, if somewhat nebulous, evolutionary history.”
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
PURDUE UNIVERSITY—WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.—Two leaded bronze artifacts found in northwestern Alaska are the first evidence that metal from Asia reached prehistoric North America prior to contact with Europeans, according to new Purdue University research.
“This is not a surprise based on oral history and other archaeological finds, and it was just a matter of time before we had a good example of Eurasian metal that had been traded,” said H. Kory Cooper, an associate professor of anthropology, who led the artifacts’ metallurgical analysis. “We believe these smelted alloys were made somewhere in Eurasia and traded to Siberia and then traded across the Bering Strait to ancestral Inuits people, also known as Thule culture, in Alaska. Locally available metal in parts of the Arctic, such as native metal, copper and meteoritic and telluric iron were used by ancient Inuit people for tools and to sometimes indicate status. Two of the Cape Espenberg items that were found—a bead and a buckle—are heavily leaded bronze artifacts. Both are from a house at the site dating to the Late Prehistoric Period, around 1100-1300 AD, which is before sustained European contact in the late 18th century.”
The findings are published in Elsevier’s Journal of Archaeological Science, and the research was funded by the National Science Foundation’s Office of Polar Programs Arctic Social Sciences.
“This article focuses on a small finding with really interesting implications,” said Cooper, who also has a courtesy appointment in materials engineering and is an expert in metallurgy and archaeology in the western Arctic and Subarctic. “This will cause other people to think about the Arctic differently. Some have presented the Arctic and Subarctic regions as backwater areas with no technological innovation because there was a very small population at the time. That doesn’t mean interesting things weren’t happening, and this shows that locals were not only using locally available metals but were also obtaining metals from elsewhere.”
The items were found on Alaska’s northwest coast at Cape Espenberg on the Seward Peninsula where the Thule people lived in houses. The field work was led by Owen K. Mason and John F. Hoffecker, both of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado, Boulder. From 2009-2011, their team excavated a variety of artifacts including six items with metal. Cooper coordinated the metallurgical analysis.
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A Thule (Copper Inuit) archaeological site. Angar Walk, Wikimedia Commons
Metal artifacts are rarely found because they were usually used until they were worn down and, therefore, not well preserved at field sites.
“These items are remarkable due to curation and preservation issues,” Cooper said.
The cylindrical bead and a fragment of a small buckle strap-guide are composed of leaded bronze, which is an alloy of copper, tin and lead. The fragmented leather strap on the buckle provided radiocarbon dating, and the item was dated to 500-800 years old, although the metal could be older.
“The belt buckle also is considered an industrial product and is an unprecedented find for this time,” Cooper said. “It resembles a buckle used as part of a horse harness that would have been used in north-central China during the first six centuries before the Common Era.”
Three of the other four items from another house were determined to be copper – a piece of bone fishing tackle with a copper hook, an eyed copper needle and a small fragment of sheet copper. The final item was a bone fishing lure with iron inset eyes. All items were analyzed with X-ray fluorescence technology.
This house is considerably younger, dating to the 17th to 18th centuries, and is part of a trading network in Alaskan native copper.
Also part of the research team was Robert J. Speakman, of the Center for Applied Isotope Studies at the University of Georgia, and Victor Mair, of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania.
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
YALE SCHOOL OF FORESTRY & ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES—As the growth of cities worldwide transforms humans into an “urban species,” many scholars question the sustainability of modern urbanization. But in reality there aren’t much data on long-term historical urbanization trends and patterns.
Now, a new Yale-led study offers fresh clarity on these historical trends, providing the first spatially explicit dataset of the location and size of urban settlements globally over the past 6,000 years.
By creating maps through digitizing, transcribing, and geocoding a deep trove of historical, archaeological, and census-based urban population data previously available only in tabular form, the authors have produced accessible information on urban centers from 3700 B.C. to 2000 C.E.
They have also created a “reliability ranking” for each geocoded location to assess the geographic uncertainty of each data point.
Their findings were published in the journal Scientific Data.
“To better understand urbanization today it is helpful to know what urbanization looked like through history,” said Meredith Reba, a Research Associate at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES) and lead author of the paper. “By understanding how cities have grown and changed over time, throughout history, it might tell us something useful about how they are changing today.”
Other contributors were Karen Seto, a Professor of Geography and Urbanization Science at F&ES, and Femke Reitsma, a Senior Lecturer in Geographical Information Systems at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.
The findings have broad applications. The dataset offers an important first step toward understanding the geographic distribution of urban populations throughout history and across the world. Currently the only spatially explicit data available at a global scale is the United Nations World Urbanization Prospects, which provides population values, latitudes, and longitudes for places with populations of 300,000 or more. However, this resource goes back only to 1950.
For their dataset, the authors have drawn on two principle sources: Four Thousand Years of Urban Growth: A Historical Census (1987), by historian Tertius Chandler, which estimated the city-level populations from 2250 B.C. to 1975; and World Cities: -3,000 to 2,000 (2003), by political scientist George Modelski, which documents the world’s most important cities during three eras of history (ancient, classical, and modern). Modelski was able to extend Chandler’s work by 1,475 years by using archaeological site assessments and population-density estimates.
Although both books are cited regularly by scholars, they are neither widely accessible nor easy to use since the data are not available in digital format. The new dataset, which is digitized and easily accessible, makes the historical information available for examination by other researchers, including geographers, historians, archaeologists, and ecologists.
The dataset allows researchers to map and visualize city level population changes through time. For example, Istanbul, Turkey (previously known as Constantinople) underwent a major period of population decline between AD 1057 and AD 1453. During this time the population dropped from approximately 300,000 to 45,000 due to a series of events including a city sacking by the Crusaders and a bout with the plague.
According to the authors, the ability to pinpoint the size and location of human populations over time will help researchers understand the evolving characteristics of the human species—particularly human interactions with the environment.
“We see this as just a starting point onto which others can add and develop into a larger record on historical population trends,” Reba said.
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY—Griffith University researchers have found evidence that demonstrates Aboriginal people were the first to inhabit Australia, as reported in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal this week.
The work refutes an earlier landmark study that claimed to recover DNA sequences from the oldest known Australian, Mungo Man.
This earlier study was interpreted as evidence that Aboriginal people were not the first Australians, and that Mungo Man represented an extinct lineage of modern humans that occupied the continent before Aboriginal Australians.
Scientists from Griffith University’s Research Centre for Human Evolution (RCHE), recently used new DNA sequencing methods to re-analyse the remains of Mungo Man from the World Heritage listed landscape of the Willandra Lakes region, in far western New South Wales.
Professor Lambert, from RCHE, said it was clear that incorrect conclusions had been drawn in relation to Mungo Man in the original study.
“The sample from Mungo Man which we retested contained sequences from five different European people suggesting that these all represent contamination,” he said.
“At the same time we re-analysed more than 20 of the other ancient people from Willandra. We were successful in recovering the genomic sequence of one of the early inhabitants of Lake Mungo, a man buried very close to the location where Mungo Man was originally interred.
“By going back and reanalysing the samples with more advanced technology, we have found compelling support for the argument that Aboriginal Australians were the first inhabitants of Australia.”
Professor Lambert explained that the results proved that the more advanced genomic technology was capable of unlocking further secrets from Australia’s human past.
“We now know that meaningful genetic information can be recovered from ancient Aboriginal Australian remains,” he said.
“This represents the first time researchers have recovered an ancient mitochondrial genome sequence from an Aboriginal person who lived before the arrival of the Europeans.”
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South Australian, Moroya Tribe. Wikimedia Commons
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The research, which has just been published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal, was planned and conducted with the support of the Barkindjii, Ngiyampaa and Muthi Muthi indigenous people.
There has been considerable debate in Australia and around the world about the origins of the first Australians since the publication in 1863 of Thomas Henry Huxley’s Man’s Place in Nature.
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY—Cleveland . . . If “Lucy” wasn’t alone, who else was in her neighborhood? Key fossil discoveries over the last few decades in Africa indicate that multiple early human ancestor species lived at the same time more than 3 million years ago. A new review of fossil evidence from the last few decades examines four identified hominin species that co-existed between 3.8 and 3.3 million years ago during the middle Pliocene. A team of scientists compiled an overview that outlines a diverse evolutionary past and raises new questions about how ancient species shared the landscape.
The perspective paper, “The Pliocene hominin diversity conundrum: Do more fossils mean less clarity?” will be published June 6, 2016 as part of a Human Origins Special Feature in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Authors Dr. Yohannes Haile-Selassie and Dr. Denise Su of The Cleveland Museum of Natural History and Dr. Stephanie Melillo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany provide an up-to-date review of middle Pliocene hominin fossils found in Ethiopia, Kenya and Chad. The researchers trace the fossil record, which illustrates a timeline placing multiple species overlapping in time and geographic space. Their insights spur further questions about how these early human ancestors were related and shared resources.
“It is now obvious that more than one species of early hominin co-existed during Lucy’s time,” said lead author Dr. Yohannes Haile-Selassie, curator of physical anthropology at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History. “The question now is not whether Australopithecus afarensis, the species to which the famous Lucy belongs, was the only potential human ancestor species that roamed in what is now the Afar region of Ethiopia during the middle Pliocene, but how these species are related to each other and exploited available resources.”
The 1974 discovery of Australopithecus afarensis, which lived from 3.8 to 2.9 million years ago, was a major milestone in paleoanthropology that pushed the record of hominins earlier than 3 million years ago and demonstrated the antiquity of human-like walking. Scientists have long argued that there was only one pre-human species at any given time before 3 million years ago that gave rise to another new species through time in a linear manner. This was what the fossil record appeared to indicate until the end of the 20th century. The discovery of Australopithecus bahrelghazali from Chad in 1995 and Kenyanthropus platyops from Kenya in 2001 challenged this idea. However, these two species were not widely accepted, rather considered as geographic variants of Lucy’s species, Australopithecus afarensis. The discovery of the 3.4 million-year-old Burtele partial foot from the Woranso-Mille announced by Haile-Selassie in 2012 was the first conclusive evidence that another early human ancestor species lived alongside Australopithecus afarensis. In 2015, fossils recovered from Haile-Selassie’s ongoing research site at the Woranso-Mille area of the Afar region of Ethiopia were assigned to the new species Australopithecus deyiremeda. However, the Burtele partial foot was not included in this species.
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Donald Johanson of the Institute of Human Origins, Arizona State Univeristy, first discovered fossils of Australopithecus afarensis, the individual remains of which are famously known as ‘Lucy’, in Ethiopia in 1974.
“The Woranso-Mille paleontological study area in Ethiopia’s Afar region reveals that there were at least two, if not three, early human species living at the same time and in close geographic proximity,” said Haile-Selassie. “This key research site has yielded new and unexpected evidence indicating that there were multiple species with different locomotor and dietary adaptations. For nearly four decades, Australopithecus afarensis was the only known species—but recent discoveries are opening a new window into our evolutionary past.”
Co-author Dr. Denise Su, curator of paleobotany and paleoecology at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, reconstructs ancient ecosystems. “These new fossil discoveries from Woranso-Mille are bringing forth avenues of research that we have not considered before,” said Su. “How did multiple closely related species manage to co-exist in a relatively small area? How did they partition the available resources? These new discoveries keep expanding our knowledge and, at the same time, raise more questions about human origins.”
Paleoanthropologists face the challenges and debates that arise from small sample sizes, poorly preserved prehistoric specimens and lack of evidence for ecological diversity. Questions remain about the relationships of middle Pliocene hominins and what adaptive strategies might have allowed for the coexistence of multiple, closely related species.
“We continue to search for more fossils,” said Dr. Stephanie Melillo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany. “We know a lot about the skeleton of A. afarensis, but for the other middle Pliocene species, most of the anatomy remains unknown. Ultimately, larger sample sizes will be the key to sorting out which species are present and how they are related. This makes every fossil discovery all the more exciting.”
The Woranso-Mille Project: The Woranso-Mille Paleontological project conducts field and laboratory work in Ethiopia every year. This multidisciplinary project is led by Dr. Yohannes Haile-Selassie of The Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Graduate and undergraduate students from Ethiopia and the United States of America also participate in the field and laboratory activities of the ongoing project.
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD—‘Pristine’ landscapes simply do not exist anywhere in the world today and, in most cases, have not existed for at least several thousand years, says a new study* in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). An exhaustive review of archaeological data from the last 30 years provides details of how the world’s landscapes have been shaped by repeated human activity over many thousands of years. It reveals a pattern of significant, long-term, human influence on the distribution of species across all of the earth’s major occupied continents and islands.
The paper by lead author Dr Nicole Boivin from the University of Oxford and Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, with researchers from the UK, US, and Australia, suggests that archaeological evidence has been missing from current debates about conservation priorities. To say that societies before the Industrial Revolution had little effect on the environment or diversity of species is mistaken, argues the paper. It draws on new datasets using ancient DNA, stable isotopes, and microfossils, as well as the application of new statistical and computational methods. It shows that many living species of plants, trees and animals that thrive today are those that were favored by our ancestors; and that large-scale extinctions started thousands of years ago due to overhunting or change of land use by humans. The paper concludes that in light of this and other evidence of long-term anthropogenic change, we need to be more pragmatic in our conservation efforts rather than aiming for impossible ‘natural’ states.
The paper identifies four major phases when humans shaped the world around them with broad effects on natural ecosystems: global human expansion during the Late Pleistocene; the Neolithic spread of agriculture; the era of humans colonising islands; and the emergence of early urbanised societies and trade.
It draws on fossil evidence showing Homo sapiens was present in East Africa around 195,000 years ago and that our species had dispersed to the far corners of Eurasia, Australia, and the Americas by 12,000 years ago. This increase in global human populations is linked with a variety of species extinctions, one of the most significant being the reduction by around two-thirds of 150 species of ‘megafauna’ or big beasts between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago, says the paper, with their disappearance having ‘dramatic effects’ on the structure of the ecosystem and seed dispersal.
The second phase, the advent of agriculture worldwide, placed new evolutionary pressures on plants and animals that had ‘unprecedented and enduring’ effects on the distribution of species, according to the paper. The data highlighted shows that domesticated sheep, goats and cattle were first in the Near East 10,500 years ago, and arrived in Europe, Africa and South Asia within a few millennia. Chickens, originally domesticated in East Asia, reached Britain by the second half of the last millennium and now outnumber people by more than three to one globally, says the paper. Meanwhile, it also highlights research showing that the domestication of dogs happened before the emergence of agricultural societies, with around 700 million to one billion dogs in the world today. By contrast with domesticated animals, the percentage of truly wild vertebrates left today as a result of these long-term processes is described as ‘vanishingly small’.
Thirdly, the paper outlines the impact of the human colonisation of islands. It observes that the resulting movement of species was so common that archaeologists speak of ‘transported landscapes’. With the humans came new species, fire, deforestation and predatory threats to indigenous animals and birds.
Finally, the paper outlines the effects of an expansion in trade from the Bronze Age onwards, with a period of intense farming in response to growing human populations and emerging markets across the Old World. In the Near East, deciduous trees were turned over to evergreen oak, and indigenous forest became cultivated with the introduction of crops like olive, grape and fig. Around 80-85% of areas suited to agriculture were cultivated in the Near East 3,000 years ago, says one study highlighted in the paper. It also shows plants in ‘ancient’ forests in France are strongly linked with what would have once grown in Roman sites, and cites a recent estimate that at least 50 new plant foods – mainly fruits, herbs and vegetables – were introduced to Britons in the Roman period alone.
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Archaeological research has shown that the human presence has profoundly impacted and changed the planet since as far back as the end of the Late Pleistocene.
Lead author Dr Nicole Boivin, from the School of Archaeology at the University of Oxford, and Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, says: ‘Archaeological evidence is critical to identifying and understanding the deep history of human effects. If we want to improve our understanding of how we manage our environment and conserve species today, maybe we have to shift our perspective, by thinking more about how we safeguard clean air and fresh water for future generations and rather less about returning planet Earth to its original condition.’
She also emphasises the importance of the study to current debates about a human role in climate warming: ‘Cumulative archaeological data clearly demonstrates that humans are more than capable of reshaping and dramatically transforming ecosystems. Now the question is what kind of ecosystems we will create for the future. Will they support the wellbeing of our own and other species or will they provide a context for further large-scale extinctions and irreversible climate change?’
*The paper, ‘Ecological consequences of human niche construction: Examining long-term anthropogenic shaping of global species distributions’, is by Nicole Boivin, Melinda Zeder, Dorian Fuller, Alison Crowther, Greger Larson, Jon Erlandson, Tim Denham, and Michael Petraglia. The authors are from the University of Oxford; the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Germany; Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC; Santa Fe Institute, USA; University College London; University of Queensland, Australia; University of Oregon, USA; and Australian National University.
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
THE EARTH INSTITUTE AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY—Buried deep in seabed sediments off east Africa, scientists have uncovered a 24-million-year record of vegetation trends in the region where humans evolved. The authors say the record lends weight to the idea that we developed key traits—flexible diets, large brains, complex social structures and the ability to walk and run on two legs—while adapting to the spread of open grasslands. The study appears today in a special human-evolution issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Based on genetic evidence, the earliest hominins, or human ancestors, are thought to have split off from chimpanzees some 6 million to 7 million years ago. Many scientists have argued that they were set on the path to become modern humans as east Africa’s vegetation gradually shifted from dense forest to savanna—open grasslands punctuated by woodland patches and rivers. This would have forced our ancestors to descend from the trees, move rapidly over open ground, and develop social skills needed for survival. In recent years, the long-held notion that humans evolved in grasslands alone has given way to a more nuanced view: that it was the increasing diversity of such landscapes including the grasses that led to the success of the hominins who were smartest and most flexible at adapting to a changing world.
The new study supplies by far the longest and most complete record of ancient plant life in much of what is now Ethiopia and Kenya, the assumed birthplace of humanity. It strongly suggests that between 24 million and 10 million years ago—long before any direct human ancestors appeared—there were few grasses, and woodlands thus presumably dominated. Then, with an apparent shift in climate, grasses began to appear. The study shows that the trend continued through all known human evolution, leading to a dominance of grasses by a few million years ago.
“The entire evolution of our lineage has involved us living and working in or near grasslands,” said lead author Kevin Uno, a postdoctoral research scientist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. “This now gives us a timeline for the development of those grasses, and tells us they were part of our evolution from the very beginning.” Uno says the grasslands were probably small and patchy at first, and thus were not the only factor. Rather, he, said, it “probably led to a more diverse set of niches we could occupy and compete in successfully.” For instance, he said, one could imagine that in a more open landscape, hominins “would learn how to team up. Some could hunt or scavenge prey. Some could throw stones at the hyenas to keep them away, while someone else would run in and grab the meat.”
Scientists have previously collected plant pollen, chemical isotopes and other evidence from land-based sediments suggesting that grasslands became dominant around the time humans evolved. But these records come only from scattered finds in highly eroded outcrops, and most go back only about 4 million years.
In the new study, the researchers examined a series of sediment cores drilled by a research ship in the Red Sea and the western Indian Ocean, off northeast Africa. The cores contain chemicals created by vegetation on land that were later washed or blown out to sea and laid down in layers for tens of millions of years. “The deep ocean might seem like a funny place to look for signs of vegetation, but it’s one of the best, because everything is buried and preserved. It’s like a bank vault,” said Uno. Using a fairly new technique, Uno and his colleagues analyzed carbon-based chemicals called alkanes, which make up the waxy outer parts of leaves, and contain the fingerprints of different plant types.
Sediments older than 10 million years had alkanes signaling a form of photosynthesis used mainly by woody plants, the so-called C3 pathway. But starting 10 million years ago, a different form linked mainly to grasses—the C4 pathway—began showing up. The area covered by grass seemed to grow 7 or 8 percent every million years, until it apparently dominated by 2 million or 3 million years ago. This kind of vegetation is still the main plant life in east Africa today. Other scientists have shown that grasslands spread also in south Asia, the Americas and southern Africa somewhat later.
Uno says the study data matches chemical analyses of tooth enamel from ancient elephants and other large herbivores showing that some east African animals began switching to more grass-based diets around 10 million years ago. The earliest known hominins appeared several million years later. By 3.8 million years ago, tooth enamel shows they developed a flexible diet, including foods based on grasses—if not the grass itself, presumably meat of creatures that ate grass. A study last year coauthored by Lamont scientist Christopher Lepre showed that hominins were making stone tools in northwest Kenya by 3.3 million years ago. Pronounced elongation of the legs, larger brains and other traits followed, until the emergence of recognizable Homo sapiens—our own species—by about 200,000 years ago.
“Lots of people have conjectured that grasslands had a central role in human evolution,” said study coauthor Peter deMenocal, a climate scientist at Lamont-Doherty. “But everyone has been waffling about when those grasslands emerged and how widespread they were. This really helps answer the question.”
Thure Cerling, a geologist at the University of Utah who has assembled some of the most important land-based African vegetation records, said the study gives an unprecedented “long-term view of the regional vegetation,” and thus the environments in which humans evolved. But, he said, “it will always be hard to associate a cause with an effect.”
Smithsonian Institution anthropologist Richard Potts, another authority in the field, said that the paper “is the very best examination and most compelling demonstration” of long-term grassland expansion.” But he said, “the broad-brush time scale of the analysis appears to miss the details of environmental dynamics on time scales that influence gene pools.” Potts says there is ample evidence from finer-scale studies that even as grasses spread, east Africa’s climate swung from wet to dry over much shorter time periods. These swings became most intense over the last few million years, and he argues that this is the perhaps the real key. Potts says that grasses spread because they were flexible enough to adapt to such swings—as were humans. “Bipedality emerged as a way of combining walking on the ground and climbing trees; toolmaking expanded the adjustments to a much wider range of foods; brains are the quintessential organ of flexibility,” he said. “Geographic expansion requires adaptability to change.”
The other authors of the study are Pratigya Polissar, also of Lamont-Doherty; and Kevin Jackson of Lafayette College.
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Humans are believed to have evolved in east Africa, as the landscape changed from forest to grassland. Here, children cross the Turkwel River in northern Kenya, where many key fossils have been found. Credit: Kevin Krajick/Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
Key human traits including the ability to plan, work together and make tools, emerged as human ancestors adapted to a changing landscape. Here, a projectile point, age and makers unknown, lying on the ground in the Lake Turkana region of Kenya. Credit: Kevin Krajick/Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA – SANTA CRUZ—Scientists using evidence from bison fossils have determined when an ice-free corridor opened up along the Rocky Mountains during the late Pleistocene. The corridor has been considered a potential route for human and animal migrations between the far north (Alaska and Yukon) and the rest of North America, but when and how it was used has long been uncertain.
The researchers combined radiocarbon dating and DNA analysis to track the movements of bison into the corridor, showing that it was fully open by about 13,000 years ago. Their findings, published June 6 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, indicate that the corridor could not account for the initial dispersal of humans south of the ice sheets, but could have been used for later movements of people and animals, both northward and southward.
In the 1970s, geological studies suggested that the corridor might have been the pathway for the first movement of humans southward from Alaska to colonize the rest of the Americas. More recent evidence, however, indicated that the Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets coalesced at the height of the last ice age, around 21,000 years ago, closing the corridor much earlier than any evidence of humans south of the ice sheets. The initial southward movement of people into the Americas more than 15,000 years ago now seems likely to have been via a Pacific coastal route, but the Rocky Mountains corridor has remained of interest as a potential route for later migrations.
“The opening of the corridor provided new opportunities for migration and the exchange of ideas between people living north and south of the ice sheets,” said first author Peter Heintzman, a postdoctoral researcher at UC Santa Cruz who led the DNA analysis.
Previous work by coauthor Beth Shapiro, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz, had shown that the bison populations north and south of the ice sheets were genetically distinct by the time the corridor opened. By analyzing bison fossils from within the corridor region, the researchers were able track the movement of northern bison southward into the corridor and southern bison northward.
“The radiocarbon dates told us how old the fossils were, but the key thing was the genetic analysis, because that told us when bison from the northern and southern populations were able to meet within the corridor,” Heintzman said.
The results showed that the southern part of the corridor opened first, allowing southern bison moving northward as early as 13,400 years ago, before the corridor fully opened. Later, there was some movement of northern bison southward, with the two populations overlapping in the corridor by 13,000 years ago.
“Bison fossils are the most widespread Quaternary mammal in western North America and of interest because they survived the extinctions at the end of the Pleistocene, unlike most other North American large mammals,” said coauthor Duane Froese of the University of Alberta. “We were able to sample bison fossils, largely from museum collections, including critical ones from central Alberta that dated to the initial opening of the corridor.”
According to Shapiro, archeological evidence suggests that human migration within the corridor was mostly from south to north. Sites associated with the Clovis hunting culture and its distinctive fluted point technology were widespread south of the corridor around 13,000 years ago and decline in abundance from south to north within the corridor region. A Clovis site in Alaska has been dated to no earlier than 12,400 years ago.
“When the corridor opened, people were already living south of there. And because those people were bison hunters, we can assume they would have followed the bison as they moved north into the corridor,” Shapiro said.
The steppe bison of the Pleistocene (Bison priscus) were much bigger than modern bison (Bison bison), she said. Before the corridor closed, prior to the last glacial maximum, they moved freely up and down between the ice-free regions in the north and grasslands south of the ice sheets. After the ice sheets coalesced, the population that was cut off to the south contracted, leaving one genetically distinct southern lineage.
The DNA analysis used in this study focused on mitochondrial DNA, which is easier to recover from fossils than the DNA in chromosomes, because each cell has thousands of copies of the relatively short mitochondrial DNA sequence. While Shapiro’s lab led the DNA analyses, Froese’s lab led the radiocarbon dating work.
Many of the fossils they analyzed came from collections at the Royal Alberta Museum in Edmonton and other institutions. “Thousands of steppe bison fossils are recovered in northern Canada every year,” said coauthor Grant Zazula of the Government of Yukon Palaeontology Program in Whitehorse. “Most of these fossils are uncovered by mining or gravel pit operators and later made available to scientists for study. These results speak to the importance of collecting and preserving fossils in order to better understand our history.”
The steppe bison had much larger horns than modern bison. Radiocarbon dating and DNA analysis of bison fossils enabled researchers to track the migration of Pleistocene steppe bison into an ice-free corridor that opened along the Rocky Mountains about 13,000 years ago. Credit:Government of Yukon
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Grant Zazula of the Yukon Paleontology Program with the skull of a Pleistocene steppe bison. Credit:Government of Yukon
This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Recent findings shedding new light on the whereabouts of the remains of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great; how an archaeologist-sculptor is bringing bones of the dead back to life; archaeologists uncovering town life at the dawn of civilization; an exclusive interview with internationally acclaimed archaeologist James M. Adovasio about what makes the Meadowcroft Rockshelter prominent in the ongoing search for the first Americans; what archaeologists are finding at the site of the ancient city of Gath, the home town of the biblical Philistine giant, Goliath; and how scientists are redrawing the picture of human evolution in Europe. Find it on Amazon.com.
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