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Pathogens found in Iceman’s stomach

Posted on January 7, 2016 by No Author -

EUROPEAN ACADEMY OF BOZEN/BOLZANO (EURAC)—Scientists are continually unearthing new facts about Homo sapiens from the mummified remains of “Ötzi”, the Copper Age man, who was discovered in a glacier in 1991. Five years ago, after Ötzi’s genome was completely deciphered, it seemed that the wellspring of spectacular discoveries about the past would soon dry up. An international team of scientists working with paleopathologist Albert Zink and microbiologist Frank Maixner from the European Academy (EURAC) in Bozen/Bolzano have now succeeded in demonstrating the presence of Helicobacter pylori in Ötzi’s stomach contents, a bacterium found in half of all humans today. The theory that humans were already infected with this stomach bacterium at the very beginning of their history could well be true. The scientists succeeded in decoding the complete genome of the bacterium.

When EURAC’s Zink and Maixner first placed samples from the Iceman’s stomach under the microscope in their ancient DNA Lab at EURAC, almost three years ago, they were initially sceptical.

“Evidence for the presence of the bacterium Helicobacter pylori is found in the stomach tissue of patients today, so we thought it was extremely unlikely that we would find anything because Ötzi’s stomach mucosa is no longer there,” explains Zink. Together with colleagues from the Universities of Kiel, Vienna and Venda in South Africa as well as the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, the scientists tried to find a new way to proceed. “We were able to solve the problem once we hit upon the idea of extracting the entire DNA of the stomach contents,” reports Maixner. “After this was successfully done, we were able to tease out the individual Helicobacter sequences and reconstruct a 5,300 year old Helicobacter pylori genome.”

The scientists found a potentially virulent strain of bacteria, to which Ötzi’s immune system had already reacted. “We showed the presence of marker proteins which we see today in patients infected with Helicobacter,” said the microbiologist.

A tenth of infected people develop further clinical complications, such as gastritis or stomach ulcers, mostly in old age. “Whether Ötzi suffered from stomach problems cannot be said with any degree of certainty,” says Zink, “because his stomach tissue has not survived and it is in this tissue that such diseases can be discerned first. Nonetheless, the preconditions for such a disease did in fact exist in Ötzi.”

After completing their stomach biopsy, the two EURAC scientists transferred the genome data for analysis by their colleague Thomas Rattei from the University of Vienna. Rattei, in collaboration with geneticists from the USA, South Africa and Germany, came to a surprising conclusion: “We had assumed that we would find the same strain of Helicobacter in Ötzi as is found in Europeans today,” explains the computational biologist. “It turned out to be a strain that is mainly observed in Central and South Asia today.”

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Eduard Egarter-Vigl (left) and Albert Zink (right) taking a sample from the Iceman in November 2010. Credit: EURAC/Marion Lafogler

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Closeup view of Iceman hand. Credit: EURAC/Marion Lafogler

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The Iceman (reconstruction by Adrie and Alfons Kennis). Credit: South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology, Foto Ochsenreiter

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X-ray imaging of the Iceman’s stomach and intestine. Credit: Central Hospital Bolzano

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Helicobacter pylori concentrations in the Iceman’s stomach and intestine. Credit: Südtiroler Archäologiemuseum/EURAC/Marco Samadelli-Gregor Staschitz-Central Hospital Bolzano

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The scientists assume that there were originally two strain types of the bacterium, an African and an Asian one, which at some point recombined into today’s European version. Since bacteria are usually transmitted within the family, the history of the world’s population is closely linked to the history of bacteria. Up till now, it had been assumed that Neolithic humans were already carrying this European strain by the time they stopped their nomadic life and took up agriculture. Research on Ötzi, however, demonstrates that this was not the case.

“The recombination of the two types of Helicobacter may have only occurred at some point after Ötzi’s era, and this shows that the history of settlements in Europe is much more complex than previously assumed,” says Maixner.

Further studies will be needed to show to what extent these bacteria living inside the human body can help us understand how humans developed. The current investigations, the results of which have just been published in Science magazine, invite further research.

“Now that we are aware of how it works,” says Zink, “we are keen to continue.” Several research projects to take place in South America and Asia are currently at the planning stage.

Source: News release of the European Academy of Bozen/Bolzano (EURAC)

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This richly illustrated issue includes the following stories: Two remarkable discoveries that are shedding light on human beginnings in Africa; a traveling exhibit and an archaeological site that show how knowledge is more valuable than gold; a Spanish cave and a unique burial that are offering a tantalizing glimpse on the lives of Ice Age hunter-gatherers in Europe; the stunning visual reconstruction of an ancient Roman town; enlightening new finds at a remarkably well-preserved site of ancient Hellenistic-Roman culture overlooking the Sea of Galilee; rare finds that are shedding light on occult practices among ancient Greeks in Sicily; and an overview of the overwhelmingly rich archaeological heritage of Britain. Find it on Amazon.com.

Neanderthal genes gave modern humans an immunity boost and allergies

Posted on January 7, 2016 by No Author -

CELL PRESS—When modern humans met Neanderthals in Europe and the two species began interbreeding many thousands of years ago, the exchange left humans with gene variations that have increased the ability of those who carry them to ward off infection. This inheritance from Neanderthals may have also left some people more prone to allergies.

The discoveries reported in two independent studies in the American Journal of Human Genetics on January 7 add to evidence for an important role for interspecies relations in human evolution and specifically in the evolution of the innate immune system, which serves as the body’s first line of defense against infection.

“We found that interbreeding with archaic humans—the Neanderthals and Denisovans—has influenced the genetic diversity in present-day genomes at three innate immunity genes belonging to the human Toll-like-receptor family,” says Janet Kelso of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

“These, and other, innate immunity genes present higher levels of Neanderthal ancestry than the remainder of the coding genome,” adds Lluis Quintana-Murci of the Institut Pasteur and the CNRS in Paris. “This highlights how important introgression events [the movement of genes across species] may have been in the evolution of the innate immunity system in humans.”

Earlier studies have shown that one to six percent of modern Eurasian genomes were inherited from ancient hominins, such as Neanderthal or Denisovans. Both new studies highlight the functional importance of this inheritance on Toll-like receptor (TLR) genes—TLR1, TLR6, and TLR10. These TLR genes are expressed on the cell surface, where they detect and respond to components of bacteria, fungi, and parasites. These immune receptors are essential for eliciting inflammatory and anti-microbial responses and for activating an adaptive immune response.

Quintana-Murci and his colleagues set out to explore the evolution of the innate immune system over time. They relied on vast amounts of data available on present-day people from the 1000 Genomes Project together with the genome sequences of ancient hominins. Quintana-Murci’s team focused on a list of 1,500 genes known to play a role in the innate immune system. They then examined patterns of genetic variation and evolutionary change in those regions relative to the rest of the genome at an unprecedented level of detail. Finally, they estimated the timing of the changes in innate immunity and the extent to which variation in those genes had been passed down from Neanderthals.

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An artist’s model depiction of a Neanderthal, at the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn, Germany. Celldex, Wikimedia Commons

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This world map shows the frequencies of Neandertal-like TLR DNA in a 1000 Genomes dataset. The size of each pie is proportional to the number of individuals within a population. Credit: Dannemann et al./American Journal of Human Genetics 2016

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These investigations revealed little change over long periods of time for some innate-immunity genes, providing evidence of strong constraints. Other genes have undergone selective sweeps in which a new variant came along and quickly rose to prominence, perhaps because of a shift in the environment or as a result of a disease epidemic. Most adaptations in protein-coding genes occurred in the last 6,000 to 13,000 years, as human populations shifted from hunting and gathering to farming, they report.

But, Quintana-Murci says, the biggest surprise for them “was to find that the TLR1-6-10 cluster is among the genes presenting the highest Neanderthal ancestry in both Europeans and Asians.”

Kelso and her colleagues came to the same conclusion, but they didn’t set out to study the immune system. Their interest was in understanding the functional importance of genes inherited from archaic humans more broadly. They screened present-day human genomes for evidence of extended regions with high similarity to the Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes,then examined the prevalence of those regions in people from around the world. Those analyses led them to the same three TLR genes.

Two of those gene variants are most similar to the Neanderthal genome, whereas the third is most similar to the Denisovan genome, Kelso’s group reports. Her team also provides evidence that these gene variants offered a selective advantage. The archaic-like variants are associated with an increase in the activity of the TLR genes and with greater reactivity to pathogens. Although this greater sensitivity might protect against infection, it might also increase the susceptibility of modern-day people to allergies.

“What has emerged from our study as well as from other work on introgression is that interbreeding with archaic humans does indeed have functional implications for modern humans, and that the most obvious consequences have been in shaping our adaptation to our environment – improving how we resist pathogens and metabolize novel foods,” Kelso says.

As surprising as it may seem, it does make a lot of sense, she adds. “Neanderthals, for example, had lived in Europe and Western Asia for around 200,000 years before the arrival of modern humans. They were likely well adapted to the local climate, foods, and pathogens. By interbreeding with these archaic humans, we modern humans gained these advantageous adaptations.”

Source: Cell Press subject news release

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Paper 1: American Journal of Human Genetics, Deschamps et al.: “Genomic Signatures of Selective Pressures and Introgression from Archaic Hominins at Human Innate Immunity Genes” http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2015.11.014

This work was primarily supported by the Institut Pasteur, the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), and the Agence Nationale de la Recherche.

Paper 2: American Journal of Human Genetics, Dannemann et al.: “Introgression of Neandertal- and Denisovan-like Haplotypes Contributes to Adaptive Variation in Human Toll-like Receptors” http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ajhg.2015.11.015

Funding was provided by the Max Planck Society and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft.

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How ancient communities resisted new farming practices

Posted on January 6, 2016 by No Author -

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE—A box of seemingly unremarkable stones sits in the corner of Dr Giulio Lucarini’s office at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research where it competes for space with piles of academic journals, microscopes and cartons of equipment used for excavations.

These palm-sized pebbles were used as grinding tools by people living in North Africa around 7,000 years ago. Tiny specks of plant matter recently found on their surfaces shine light on a fascinating period of human development and confirm theories that the transition between nomadic and settled lifestyles was gradual.

The artefacts in Lucarini’s office come from a collection held in the store of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA) just a couple of minutes’ walk away. In the 1950s the well-known Cambridge archaeologist Sir Charles McBurney undertook an excavation of a cave called Haua Fteah located in northern Libya. He showed that its stratigraphy (layers of sediment) is evidence of continuous human habitation from at least 80,000 years ago right up to the present day. Finds from McBurney’s excavation were deposited at MAA.

In 2007, Professor Graeme Barker, also from Cambridge, started to re-excavate Haua Fteah with support from the ERC-funded TRANS-NAP Project. Until 2014, Barker and his team had the chance to spend more than one month each year excavating the site and surveying the surrounding Jebel Akhdar region, in order to investigate the relationships between cultural and environmental change in North Africa over the past 200,000 years.

Now an analysis of stone grinders from the Neolithic layers of Haua Fteah (dating from 8,000-5,500 years ago), carried out by Lucarini as his Marie Sklodowska-Curie Project ‘AGRINA’, in collaboration with Anita Radini (University of York) and Huw Barton (University of Leicester), yields new evidence about people living at a time seen as a turning point in human exploitation of the environment, paving the way for rapid expansion in population.

Around 11,000 years ago, during the early phase of the geological period known as Holocene, nomadic communities of Near Eastern regions made the transition from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a more settled farming existence as they began to exploit domesticated crops and animals developed locally. The research Lucarini is carrying out in Northern Libya and Western Egypt is increasingly revealing a contrasting scenario for the North African regions.

In a paper published today, Lucarini and colleagues explain that the surfaces of the grinders show plant use-wear and contain tiny residues of wild plants that date from a time when, in all likelihood, domesticated grains would have been available to them. These data are consistent with other evidence from the site, notably those from the analysis of the plant macro-remains carried out by Jacob Morales (University of the Basque Country), which confirmed the presence of wild plants alone in the site during the Neolithic. Together, this evidence suggests that domesticated varieties of grain were adopted late, spasmodically, and not before classical times, by people who lived in tune with their surroundings as they moved seasonally between naturally-available resources.

Lucarini is an expert in the study of stone tools and has a particular interest in the beginning of food production economies in North Africa. Using an integrated approach of low and high-power microscopy in the George Pitt-Rivers Lab at the McDonald Institute, and in the BioArCh Lab at the University of York, he and his colleagues were able to spot plant residues, too small to be visible to the naked eye, caught in the pitted surface of several of the stones from Haua Fteah. Some of the grinders themselves exhibit clear ‘use-wear’ with their surfaces carrying the characteristic polish of having been used for grinding over long periods.

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Haua Fteah, Cyrenaica, Libya. The cave’s entrance (photo Giulio Lucarini)

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Anita Radini collecting plants and algae for reference collection. Photo Haddad

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Haua Fteah, Cyrenaica, Libya. Upper grinder found. Photos by Giulio Lucarini

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“It was thrilling to discover that microscopic traces of the plants ground by these stones have survived for so long, especially now that we’re able to use powerful high-power microscopes to look at the distinctive shape of the starch granules that offer us valuable clues to the identities of the plant varieties they come from,” says Lucarini.

By comparing the characteristic shape and size of the starch found in the grinders’ crevices to those in a reference collection of wild and domestic plant varieties collected in different North African and Southern European countries, Lucarini and Radini were able to determine that the residues most probably came from one of the species belonging to the Cenchrinae grasses.

Various species of the genus Cenchrus are still gathered today by several African groups when other resources are scarce. Cenchrus is prickly and its seed is laborious to extract. But it is highly nutritious and, especially in times of severe food shortage, a highly valuable resource.

“Haua Fteah is only a kilometre from the Mediterranean and close to well-established coastal routes, giving communities there access to commodities such as domesticated grain, or at least the possibility to cultivate them. Yet it seems that people living in the Jebel Akhdar region may well have made a strategic and deliberate choice not to adopt the new farming practices available to them, despite the promise of higher yields but, instead, to integrate them into their existing practices,” says Lucarini.

“It’s interesting that today, even in relatively affluent European countries, the use of wild plants is becoming more commonplace, complementing the trend to use organically farmed food. Not only do wild plants contribute to a healthier diet, but they also more sustainable for the environment.”

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Cenchrinae starch granules from Haua Fteah. Photos Anita Radini

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Lucarini suggests that North African communities delayed their move to domesticated grains because it suited their highly mobile style of life. “Opting to exploit wild crops was a successful and low-risk strategy not to rely too heavily on a single resource, which might fail. It’s an example of the English idiom of not putting all your eggs in one basket. Rather than being ‘backward’ in their thinking, these nomadic people were highly sophisticated in their pragmatism and deep understanding of plants, animals and climatic conditions,” he says.

Evidence of the processing of wild plants at Haua Fteah challenges the notion that there was a sharp and final divide between nomadic lifestyles and more settled farming practices – and confirms recent theories that the adoption of domesticated species in North Africa was an addition to, rather than a replacement of, the exploitation of wild resources such as the native grasses that still grow wild at the site.

“Archaeologists talk about a ‘Neolithic package’ – made up of domestic plants and animals, tools and techniques – that transformed lifestyles. Our research suggests that what happened at Haua Fteah was that people opted for a mixed bag of old and new. The gathering of wild plants as well as the keeping of domestic sheep and goats chime with continued exploitation of other wild resources – such as land and sea snails – which were available on a seasonal basis with levels depending on shifts in climatic conditions,” says Lucarini.

“People had an intimate relationship with the environment they were so closely tuned to and, of course, entirely dependent on. This knowledge may have made them wary of abandoning strategies that enabled them to balance their use of resources – in a multi-spectrum exploitation of the environment.”

Haua Fteah continues to pose puzzles for archaeologists. The process of grinding requires two surfaces – a hand-held upper grinding tool and a base grinding surface. Excavation has yielded no lower grinders which made have been as simple as shallow dish-shaped declivities in local rock surfaces. “Only a fraction of the extensive site has been excavated so it may be that lower grinders do exist but they simply haven’t been found yet,” says Lucarini.

The uncertain political situation in Libya has resulted in the suspension of fieldwork in Haua Fteah, in particular the excavation of the Neolithic and classical layers of the cave. Lucarini hopes that a resolution to the current crisis will allow work to resume within the next few years. He says: “Haua Fteah, with its 100,000 years of history and continuous occupation by different peoples, is a symbol of how Libya can be hospitable and welcoming. We trust in this future for the country.”

Source: University of Cambridge subject news release.

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Early 17th century church at Jamestown to be excavated

Posted on January 5, 2016 by No Author -

Archaeologists currently at work at the site of Jamestown, Virginia, the earliest successful English settlement in the Americas, plan to begin excavations at the spot of the 1907 Memorial Church on Jamestown Island. According to a recent published news update, beginning in the summer of 2016 they plan to excavate into the floor of the church in sections while keeping the historic church site open to visitors. The efforts will include an investigation into the remains of the 1617 church where English colonial America’s first representative government met in 1619.

The excavations at Jamestown are best known for the rediscovery of the remains of the 1607 James Fort by William Kelso in the mid-1990’s. Since then, archaeologists have recovered more than 2 million artifacts and thousands of features that evidence the remains of various structures, particularly those associated with the original 1607 James Fort. The findings testify to the successful establishment and growth of a key English colony and the place where the first English colonial government had its birth.

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Inside the currently reconstructed 1907 Memorial Church at Jamestown.

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The original 1639 church tower, at the site where excavations will take place. GDFL, Wikimedia Commons

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The foundations of the earlier church as seen within the currently reconstructed 1907 Memorial Church. CC-BY-SA-3.0, Wikimedia Commons

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Video: The silver box found at Jamestown

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The first European farmers are traced back to Anatolia

Posted on January 5, 2016 by No Author -

STOCKHOLM UNIVERSITY—Human material from the Anatolian site Kumtepe was used in the study. The material was heavily degraded, but yielded enough DNA for the doctorate student Ayca Omrak to address questions concerning the demography connected to the spread of farming. She conducted her work at the Archaeological Research Laboratory.

“I have never worked with a more complicated material. But it was worth every hour in the laboratory. I could use the DNA from the Kumtepe material to trace the european farmers back to Anatolia. It is also fun to have worked with this material from the site Kumtepe, as this is the precursor to Troy”, says doctorate student Ayca Omrak, at the Archaeological Research Laboratory Stockholm University.

Jan Storå, associate professor in osteoarchaeology and coauthor to the study agrees with Ayca. The results confirms Anatolias importance to Europe’s cultural history. He also thinks that material from the area needs to be researched further.

“It is complicated to work with material from this region, it is hot and the DNA is degraded. But if we want to understand how the process that led from a hunter-gatherer society proceeded to a farming society, it is this material we need to exhaust”, says Jan Storå, associate professor in osteoarchaeology, Stockholm University.

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A large part of results come from grave 6 in Kumtepe, excavated in 1994. Here the upper part of a skeleton. Photo provided by Project Troia, thanks to Peter Jablonka. Photo provided by Project Troia, thanks to Peter Jablonka.

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Anders Götherstörm who heads the archaeogenetic research at the Archaeological Research Laboratory agrees that this study indicates further possibilities:

“Our results stress the importance Anatolia has had on Europe’s prehistory. But to fully understand how the agricultural development proceeded we need to dive deeper down into material from the Levant. Jan is right about that.”

The archaeogenetic group in Stockholm is presently advancing its collaboration with colleagues in Anatolia and Iran.

Source: Stockholm University press release

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Latest study suggests early human dispersal into Spain through Strait of Gibraltar

Posted on January 2, 2016 by No Author -

Using state-of-the-art dating methodologies, a team of scientists have obtained or confirmed a date range between .9 and .85 Mya (million years ago) as a time when a species of Old World monkey (Theropithecus) and an early species of human occupied the cave site of Cueva Victoria in southeastern Spain. It is a location not far from where many scientists have hypothesized that humans may have crossed over into Europe from North Africa through the Strait of Gibraltar at a time when seal levels were low enough to provide a land bridge between the two continents.

Using paleomagnetism, uranium-thorium, and vertebrate biostratigraphy dating techniques, Luis Gibert of the University of Barcelona, Spain, and colleagues from several other institutions conducted testing on fossiliferous breccia samples and other deposit samples from the cave. Their results showed that the fossil evidence for the Theropithecus presence was constrained to a range between .9 and .85 Mya. Similar dates have been obtained through previous studies on the Cueva Negra cave in the same region of Spain, which contained evidence of early human (Homo) fossils associated with what is arguably considered to be the earliest Acheulean-type stone tools in Europe.

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The interior of Cueva Victoria. Nano Sanchez, Wikimedia Commons

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Fossil phalange identified as belonging to a hominin, found at Cueva Victoria. Wikimedia Commons

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The authors of the study suggest that the presence of the same species of Theropithecus, including Homo, at about the same time in North Africa, coupled with the absence of Theropithecus fossils elsewhere in Europe, supports the hypothesis of a dispersal of the two primates (Theropithecus and Homo) through the Strait of Gibraltar almost 1 million years ago. During this time, sea levels were low enough to create a land bridge at the Strait between Africa and Europe.

Previous studies by other teams have also suggested another, earlier human dispersal into southeastern Spain through the Strait of Gibraltar at about 1.3 million years ago, and the famous research and Homo fossil discoveries at Dmanisi in Georgia have suggested an even earlier Homo dispersal out of Africa, possibly through the Levant and up through Anatolia to the southern Caucasus at around 1.8 million years ago.

The study* is published in press in the Journal of Human Evolution.

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*Luis Gibert, et al., Chronology for the Cueva Victoria fossil site (SE Spain): Evidence for Early Pleistocene Afro-Iberian dispersals, 12 November 2015, Journal of Human Evolution. doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2015.08.002

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New Insights Emerging on America’s First English Colony

Posted on December 30, 2015 by No Author -

Archaeologists who have surveyed and dug for decades on Roanoke Island and other locations in North Carolina have accumulated important, albeit comparatively scant, evidence that have raised new questions about the whereabouts of America’s first main English settlement location and the mystery of the ‘lost colony’ of 1587.

Busy at work at a site known as Salmon Creek (otherwise known as ‘Site X’), which has yielded evidence of a long-gone Native American village settlement not far from the waterline on land bordering the Western Albemarle Sound of North Carolina, archaeologists have recently recovered some tantalizing fragments. Among scores of artifacts that tell of the 16^th-17^th century presence of Native Americans at the location, the archaeologists have uncovered artifacts that are clearly European in origin. The finds included 27 sherds representing perhaps 4 vessels of 16^th century Surrey-Hampshire Border ware; 3 sherds of a North Devon plain baluster jar—a ceramic ware commonly used during the 16^th and 17^th centuries as provisioning jars on sea voyages—a tenter hook, of a type similar to that used at the early Jamestown settlement and possibly used to stretch canvas to create temporary shelters or to stretch and dry animal skins; a priming pan from an early (possibly 16^th century) flintlock gun as well as another possibly from a 16^th century snaphaunce gun; an aglet of the type that would have secured Elizabethan clothing; a fragment from an iron buckle typical of the style worn in the 16^th and 17^th centuries; and a lead cloth seal that may possibly be 16^th or 17^th century. The site investigators say that the finds are significant in that the earliest recorded presence of English settlement in the western Albemarle Sound area did not occur earlier than about 1655.

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Excavations underway at the Salmon Creek site, or ‘Site X’. Courtesy First Colony Foundation

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Sherds of yellow and green glazed Surrey-Hampshire Border Ware, excavated from Site X. Courtesy First Colony Foundation

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The recent findings have made news headlines at a variety of venues in 2015. But is it unequivocal evidence for the long-sought whereabouts of the famous ‘lost colony’ of 1587?

Yes and no, say the archaeologists of the First Colony Foundation, the organization under which recent excavations have been conducted at the site.

“The First Colony Foundation believes [hypothesizes] that it has uncovered archaeological evidence of Roanoke colonists’ presence at Site X,” write the site investigators in their report.* However, they qualify their statement with another statement documented in the same report: They “do not contend that Site X on its own represents the relocation site for the majority of 1587 colonists.”* They suggest that any habitation by Roanoke colonists at the site may have only consisted of a small surviving part of the original 1587 group.

So where did the rest go?

When colony Governor John White finally returned in 1590 to the 1587 settlement site after three frustrating years held in England due to the British Crown’s maritime conflict with Spain, he found them vanished, with no trace of their whereabouts other than the word ‘Croatoan’ carved into a tree or post at the abandoned settlement site. The Croatoans were Indians who inhabited an area in present-day Hatteras Island, in the southern North Carolina Outer Banks. His subsequent search effort in that direction ended in failure, after which he returned to England, never to see the colonists again. But recent excavations at a site known as Cape Creek on Hatteras Island have turned up, like Site X further north and west, some compelling artifacts that could give clues about a 16^th century European presence there. Under a joint effort in 2015 carried out by Bristol University and the Croatoan Archaeological Society, findings at that site have included a small fragment of slate that may have been used as a writing tablet (showing a small letter “M” in one corner and found near a lead pencil) similar to that found at the 1607 James Fort excavations on Jamestown Island, Virginia; a part of the hilt of an English iron rapier (a sword of the type used in England during the 16^th century); an iron bar; and a large copper ingot. But even before that, in 1998, investigations of the site by archaeologists under a East Carolina University project yielded a 10-carat gold signet ring thought to date to the 16^th century. Engraved with the image of a lion or horse, it is suggested that it likely originally belonged to an English gentleman, as such items would have been more typically worn by English noblemen.

“We interpreted the site as a 17th century Croatoan Indian workshop complete with hearths for working and lots of metal working related items,” said Edward “Clay” Swindell, a key archaeologist who participated in the 1998 excavations where the signet ring was found. But he expresses an air of caution. “We need to be very careful about how we interpret our finds at these sites,” he emphasizes. “It’s easy to catch the ‘fever’ of looking for the ‘lost colony’, and this can color our conclusions. We’re looking at sites that bear a paltry few artifacts (related to European presence), and so it’s easy to cave into the temptation of saying, ‘this is it’ about the lost Roanoke settlement or the lost colony.”

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16th century gunlock excavated at Cape Creek site. Courtesy Dr. David S. Phelps and Charles L. Heath

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16th century gentleman’s signet ring excavated at Cape Creek site. Courtesy Dr. David S. Phelps and Charles L. Heath

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In any case, though it appears that the original ‘lost colony’ group may have possibly split into smaller groups, for whatever reasons, and dispersed to different locations, excavations will continue at both locations and the archaeologists maintain that much more evidence must be unearthed and interpreted before any reasonable conclusions can be securely drawn about the how and where of the lost colonists’ fate.

Archaeologically speaking, however, a much larger question revolves around the actual location of the original 1587 main settlement site. For decades, it has been traditionally thought that the first colony site was located in the northern part of Roanoke Island. Since 1947, when National Park Service archaeologist Jean “Pinky” Harrington first began excavations, a succession of archaeologists have uncovered 16^th century European artifacts at four different but closely associated sites in the area of the present-day Fort Raleigh National Historic site visitor center and museum. The museum displays some of the more significant relevant finds. But those sites, according to the archaeologists, have not yielded any evidence that would support domestic habitation, as has been found at the Jamestown (1607 James Fort) site much further north in Virginia. Now, archaeologists suggest that the main Elizabethan settlement likely may not be found in the vicinity of the Fort Raleigh National Historic site, but farther south and west on the island. The ‘Fort Raleigh’ sites may have actually only been northern extensions or stations connected to the larger domestic settlement located elsewhere.

With this, Popular Archaeology asked Swindell where he thought the main settlement might actually be located.

“Even Pinky suspected that the main settlement and fort was down south in the vicinity of Shallowbag Bay,” said Swindell.

Roanoke’s main town of Manteo abuts Shallowbag Bay, home to the town’s main marina and an ideal waterfront for docking boats of a variety of capacities. “This is a nice, deep area for portage and docking,” he says. “The entrance to the Outer Banks is more easily accessible. You have this nice sheltered bay that better accommodates the docking of ships. So you can imagine that this would be a better place to protect your ships and to actually bring supplies in, whereas toward the north (where the current archaeological sites are) there is really no (workable) place to keep your boats and offload supplies.”

Some (unprovenanced) small finds have popped up in the Shallowbag Bay area, but none of them have been pursued archaeologically, said Swindell. “We are hoping to pursue some of these leads, among other things.”

According to Swindell, there are plans to hopefully return to Roanoke to investigate more areas in search of the main colony site. For now, however, eyes and resources are focusing on places like Site X, where archaeologists hope to uncover more finds that will shed light on one of America’s most compelling historical mysteries.

A more in-depth feature article, Unearthing New Clues to America’s First English Colony, is published in the Winter 2015/2016 issue of Popular Archaeology Magazine.

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* From First Colony Foundation Report, An Archaeological Brief for Site X.

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New insights on origin of Polynesians

Posted on December 28, 2015 by No Author -

Analysis of the oldest-known cemetery in the South Pacific may help resolve a longstanding debate over the origins and ancestry of Polynesians. Modern-day Polynesians bear strong cultural and linguistic similarities to the ancient people associated with the Lapita Culture who settled on Vanuatu more than 3,000 years ago. However, the origin of the Lapita people remains debated, with recent biological studies suggesting that the group may be of mixed ancestry with a strong contribution from Melanesian populations, who were already established on islands to the west near New Guinea. Frederique Valentin, Matthew Spriggs, and colleagues conducted morphological analyses involving craniometric measurements of skeletons from a roughly 3,000-year-old cemetery at Teouma on the south coast of Vanuatu’s Efate Island. Measurements were taken on five ca. 3,000 to 2,850-year-old skulls recovered from the Teouma site and 270 more skulls from Australia, Melanesia, Western Micronesia, Polynesia, and China. They found that early Lapita remains comport with present-day Polynesian and Asian populations. Later generations, by contrast, begin to exhibit characteristics associated with a Melanesian phenotype.

Combined with archaeological data, their findings* suggest that Lapita settlers in Vanuatu expanded relatively quickly into Polynesia to become the primary contributor to modern Polynesians’ biological make-up. Melanesian migration from previously established areas followed during a time when the early Polynesians were effectively isolated, eventually dominating the original Lapita phenotype, according to the authors.

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The Lapita are perhaps best known for their distinctive pottery, an example of which is shown here. Torbenbrinker, Wikimedia Commons

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*“Early Lapita skeletons from Vanuatu show Polynesian craniofacial shape: Implications for Remote Oceanic settlement and Lapita origins,” by Frédérique Valentin, Florent Détroit, Matthew Spriggs, and Stuart Bedford.

Source: Adapted and edited from a news release of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

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Scientists sequence first ancient Irish human genomes

Posted on December 28, 2015 by No Author -

TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN, Dublin, Ireland, Dec. 28th, 2015 – A team of geneticists from Trinity College Dublin and archaeologists from Queen’s University Belfast has sequenced the first genomes from ancient Irish humans, and the information buried within is already answering pivotal questions about the origins of Ireland’s people and their culture.

The team sequenced the genome of an early farmer woman, who lived near Belfast some 5,200 years ago, and those of three men from a later period, around 4,000 years ago in the Bronze Age, after the introduction of metalworking. Their landmark results are published today in international journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA.

Ireland has intriguing genetics. It lies at the edge of many European genetic gradients with world maxima for the variants that code for lactose tolerance, the western European Y chromosome type, and several important genetic diseases including one of excessive iron retention, called haemochromatosis.

However, the origins of this heritage are unknown. The only way to discover our genetic past is to sequence genomes directly from ancient people, by embarking on a type of genetic time travel.

Migration has been a hot topic in archaeology. Opinion has been divided on whether the great transitions in the British Isles, from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one based on agriculture and later from stone to metal use, were due to local adoption of new ways or whether these influences were derived from influxes of new people.

These ancient Irish genomes each show unequivocal evidence for massive migration. The early farmer has a majority ancestry originating ultimately in the Middle East, where agriculture was invented. The Bronze Age genomes are different again with about a third of their ancestry coming from ancient sources in the Pontic Steppe.

“There was a great wave of genome change that swept into Europe from above the Black Sea into Bronze Age Europe and we now know it washed all the way to the shores of its most westerly island,” said Professor of Population Genetics in Trinity College Dublin, Dan Bradley, who led the study, “and this degree of genetic change invites the possibility of other associated changes, perhaps even the introduction of language ancestral to western Celtic tongues.”

“It is clear that this project has demonstrated what a powerful tool ancient DNA analysis can provide in answering questions which have long perplexed academics regarding the origins of the Irish,” said Dr Eileen Murphy, Senior Lecturer in Osteoarchaeology at Queen’s University Belfast.

Whereas the early farmer had black hair, brown eyes and more resembled southern Europeans, the genetic variants circulating in the three Bronze Age men from Rathlin Island had the most common Irish Y chromosome type, blue eye alleles and the most important variant for the genetic disease, haemochromatosis.

The latter C282Y mutation is so frequent in people of Irish descent that it is sometimes referred to as a Celtic disease. This discovery therefore marks the first identification of an important disease variant in prehistory.

“Genetic affinity is strongest between the Bronze Age genomes and modern Irish, Scottish and Welsh, suggesting establishment of central attributes of the insular Celtic genome some 4,000 years ago,” added PhD Researcher in Genetics at Trinity, Lara Cassidy.

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Excavated near Belfast in 1855, the skeleton of the Neolithic early farmer woman had lain in a Neolithic tomb chamber for 5,000 years; subsequently curated in Queens University Belfast. Credit: Daniel Bradley, Trinity College Dublin

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This is a reconstruction of the Neolithic early farmer woman head and face by Elizabeth Black. Her genes tell us she had black hair and brown eyes. Credit: Barrie Hartwell.

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Source: Trinity College subject press release.

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Religion a key to early state formation in ancient Mexico

Posted on December 22, 2015 by No Author -

UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA—University of Colorado anthropology Professor Arthur A. Joyce and University of Central Florida Associate Professor Sarah Barber found evidence in several Mexican archeological sites that contradict the long-held belief that religion acted to unite early state societies. It often had the opposite effect, the study says.

“It doesn’t matter if we today don’t share particular religious beliefs, but when people in the past acted on their beliefs, those actions could have real, material consequences,” Barber said about the team’s findings. “It really behooves us to acknowledge religion when considering political processes.”

Sounds like sage advice in today’s world that has multiple examples of politics and religion intersecting and resulting in conflict.

The team published its findings “Ensoulment, Entrapment, and Political Centralization: A Comparative Study of Religion and Politics in Later Formative Oaxaca,” after spending several years conducting field research in the lower Río Verde valley of Oaxaca, Mexico’s Pacific coastal lowlands. They compared their results with data from the highland Valley of Oaxaca.

Their study viewed archaeological evidence from 700 B.C. to A.D. 250, a period identified as a time of the emergence of states in the region. In the lower Verde, religious rituals involving offerings and the burial of people in cemeteries at smaller communities created strong ties to the local community that impeded the creation of state institutions.

And in the Valley of Oaxaca, elites became central to mediating between their communities and the gods, which eventually triggered conflict with traditional community leaders. It culminated in the emergence of a regional state with its capital at the hilltop city of Monte Albán.

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The archaeological site of Monte Albán. Hajor, Wikimedia Commons

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“In both the Valley of Oaxaca and the Lower Río Verde Valley, religion was important in the formation and history of early cities and states, but in vastly different ways,” said Joyce, lead author on the study. “Given the role of religion in social life and politics today, that shouldn’t be too surprising.”

The conflict in the lower Río Verde valley is evident in rapid rise and fall of its state institutions. At Río Viejo, the capital of the lower Verde state, people had built massive temples by AD 100. Yet these impressive, labor-intensive buildings, along with many towns throughout the valley, were abandoned a little over a century later.

“An innovative aspect of our research is to view the burials of ancestors and ceremonial offerings in the lower Verde as essential to these ancient communities,” said Joyce, whose research focuses on both political life and ecology in ancient Mesoamerica. “Such a perspective is also more consistent with the worldviews of the Native Americans that lived there.”

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Associate Professor Sarah Barber found evidence in several Mexican archeological sites that contradict the long-held belief that religion acted to unite early state societies. It often had the opposite effect, the study says. Credit: UCF: Nick Russet

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Source: Subject news release of the University of Central Florida

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Agriculture did not lead to increased population growth

Posted on December 21, 2015 by No Author -

Something else other than the rise of agriculture spurred the accelerated growth in human population sizes that in turn gave rise to urbanized civilization. At least, so suggests a recent study* conducted by H. Jabran Zahid of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, and his colleagues from the University of Wyoming, the results of which are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Using a statistical analysis of radiocarbon dates, the researchers estimated the long-term population growth rate for foraging societies in Wyoming and Colorado during the period 6,000-13,000 years ago, and found that the growth rate is comparable to growth rates previously determined for contemporaneous farming societies in Europe. It is a growth rate that supports the suggestion that the introduction of agriculture was not directly related to the long-term annual rate of population growth that so many scholars have traditionally theorized. The results are also consistent with recent genetic studies that have shown that worldwide human population expansion actually occurred before the advent of agriculture, during prehistoric times. The sudy authors report that the same rate of growth occurred across differentiating environments, suggesting that human populations successfully adapted to their environments and that population expansion may have occurred based on other factors, such as global climate change or endogenous biological factors.

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A scene in Wyoming. Greg Willis, Wikimedia Commons

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Source: Some of this article was adapted and edited from a PNAS press release.

* “Agriculture, population growth, and statistical analysis of the radiocarbon record,” by H. Jabran Zahid, Erick Robinson, and Robert L. Kelly.

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Archaeologists find traces of violent coup in ancient Kingdom of Bosporus

Posted on December 19, 2015 by No Author -

ANAPA, DECEMBER, 2015 – The Volnoe Delo Oleg Deripaska Foundation, one of the largest private charities in Russia, has announced that Russian archaeologists working at the site of the ancient Greek city of Phanagoria near the Black Sea have discovered traces of a violent coup at the site, which at one time was the capital of the Kingdom of Bosporus in the 5th-4th century BC.

Following the Foundation-supported 12th archaeological season at the site of ancient Phanagoria, archaeologists reached ancient layers dating back to the 6th-5th century BC. They unearthed fragments of a city destroyed by a massive fire in 480-470 BC. It matches historic chronicles about power transition in the Kingdom of Bosporus when a Thracian dynasty of Spartocids deposed the ruling Archaeanactids dynasty in the 5th century BC.

The discovery suggests that the ruling dynasty’s takeover was accompanied by violent clashes that destroyed the entire city. Archaeologists will conduct a more thorough study of the city’s remains next year, as the recent archaeological season at Phanagoria was marred by heavy rains that hindered access to the finds. Among the recent discoveries thus far, however, are remains of a two-room sun-dried earth brick building dated to the 6th century BC. If the further studies confirm it was part of an acropolis, it will be the most ancient shrine found on modern Russian territory.

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Archaeologists excavating at Phanagoria’s eastern acropolis. Courtesy Volnoe Delo Oleg Deripaska Foundation

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Fragments of a building dated to the 5th century with Roman holes. Courtesy Volnoe Delo Oleg Deripaska Foundation

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Among other finds in 2015 is evidence that supports the accounts of the city’s fall in the 10th century when the residents abandoned the area for unknown reasons. Archaeological finds, together with historic documents now confirm that Phanagoria was one of the main cities of Khazar Kaganate in the 10th century A.D., and that it was besieged by the Slavic warlord Helgu (often interpreted as Oleg) who was known as a diplomatic invader. He was believed to have forced locals to flee the city in exchange for immunity.

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The Khazar layers at Phanagoria. Courtesy Volnoe Delo Oleg Deripaska Foundation

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The site of Phanagoria is known to have yielded a rich array of rare historic artifacts. Among them is an ancient naval ram used by the army of Mithradates VI of the Bosporan Kingdom to quell a popular uprising against him in 63 BC, as well as a palace of Mithradates VI dated to the 1st century BC, an ancient tomb with a stepped ceiling, the oldest temple unearthed on Russian territory dating back to the 5th century BC, and a number of submerged objects, e.g., the ancient city’s streets covered with sand, Phanagoria’s port structures, and ship debris.

The history of the site goes back to the time when it was first established as a colony by the Milesian Greeks in the 7^th and 6^th centuries B.C.

Says Vladimir Kuznetsov, the head of the Phanagoria expedition:

“One of the main results of the Phanagoria fieldwork this year is the hypothesis about possible reasons for the residents’ exodus in the 10th century. Phanagoria studies allow us to tie the history of the Byzantine Empire, Khazar Kaganate and Ancient Rus together. We can see that the emerging Old Russian state had a strong political and social influence in the region. As for the ancient cultural layers, we possess unique historical artifacts that have no analogues in the world. We’re currently working with 6th-5th century BC layers covering 1,000 sq.m, so the new finds are to follow.”

Adapted and edited from the subject Basic Element press release.

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Popular Archaeology Releases Winter 2015/2016 Issue

Posted on December 17, 2015 by No Author -

Popular Archaeology Magazine is pleased to announce the release of the Winter 2015/2016 issue on this, the 5^th anniversary of the publication. This issue features some of the best content the magazine has ever published. Here are the exciting subjects in store for all premium subscribers:

1. Unearthing Clues to America’s First English Colony

New evidence and insight may help solve two of historic America’s most compelling mysteries: The fate of the “lost colony” and the elusive location of the first English settlement on Roanoke Island.

2. The Tomb of the Griffin Warrior

A rare and rich tomb discovery in Greece opens a window on early Mycenaeans who lived generations before their legendary heroes fought at Troy.

3. Antonia: The Fortress Jerusalem Forgot

A controversial and provocative theory challenges long-held tradition and scholarship on the Fortress of Antonia, with game-changing implications for the location of the Jerusalem temple of biblical times.

4. Joya de Cerén: An Intimate Portrait of the Ancient Maya

Remarkably preserved in volcanic ash, a Maya village yields an unprecedented picture of ancient small-town Central American life.

5. On the Roof of the World: Discovering the Forgotten Civilization of Zhang Zhung

The evidence for ancient Tibet’s astonishing first great civilization.

6. The Ancient Roman Villa of Vacone

Archaeologists are uncovering a large, complex Roman villa in the town where tradition holds the great Roman poet Horace lived.

7. The Mystery of Red Deer Cave (FREE to the public)

New insights emerge about the enigmatic archaic human remains found in a Chinese cave.

8. The Citadel of El Pilar (coming soon)

Archaeologists have discovered an unusual Maya citadel-like structure overlooking the great ancient Maya city of El Pilar.

For those who are not premium subscribers, see our webpage about the publication and how you can subscribe.

We at Popular Archaeology hope you enjoy this latest release, and please feel free to write us with feedback at any time.

‘Virtual fossil’ reveals last common ancestor of humans and Neanderthals

Posted on December 17, 2015 by No Author -

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE—We know we share a common ancestor with Neanderthals, the extinct species that were our closest prehistoric relatives. But what this ancient ancestral population looked like remains a mystery, as fossils from the Middle Pleistocene period, during which the lineage split, are extremely scarce and fragmentary.

Now, researchers have applied digital ‘morphometrics’ and statistical algorithms to cranial fossils from across the evolutionary story of both species, and recreated in 3D the skull of the last common ancestor of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals for the first time.

The ‘virtual fossil’ has been simulated by plotting a total of 797 ‘landmarks’ on the cranium of fossilised skulls stretching over almost two million years of Homo history—including a 1.6 million-year-old Homo erectus fossil, Neanderthal crania found in Europe and even 19th century skulls from the Duckworth collection in Cambridge.

The landmarks on these samples provided an evolutionary framework from which researchers could predict a timeline for the skull structure, or ‘morphology’, of our ancient ancestors. They then fed a digitally-scanned modern skull into the timeline, warping the skull to fit the landmarks as they shifted through history.

This allowed researchers to work out how the morphology of both species may have converged in the last common ancestor’s skull during the Middle Pleistocene—an era dating from approximately 800 to 100 thousand years ago.

The team generated three possible ancestral skull shapes that corresponded to three different predicted split times between the two lineages. They digitally rendered complete skulls and then compared them to the few original fossils and bone fragments of the Pleistocene age.

This enabled the researchers to narrow down which virtual skull was the best fit for the ancestor we share with Neanderthals, and which timeframe was most likely for that last common ancestor to have existed.

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Top left: Early Homo skull from East Turkana in Kenya, around 1.6 million years old. Now curated in the National Museums of Kenya in Nairobi.

Top: Neanderthal skull found in La Ferrassie, France, and dating from 53 to 66 thousand years ago. Now curated in the Musée de l’Homme in Paris.

Middle and bottom: Two 19th century modern human skulls, one East African and one Italian. Both now curated as part of the Duckworth Collection at the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, University of Cambridge. Credit: Dr. Aurélien Mounier

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Above and below: The “virtual fossil” of the last common ancestor. Credit: Dr. Aurélien Mounier

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Top: Modern human skull from 19th century South Africa. Now part of the Duckworth Collection at the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, University of Cambridge.

Middle: ‘Virtual fossil’ of Last Common Ancestor

Bottom: Neanderthal skull found in La Ferrassie, France, and dating from 53 to 66 thousand years ago. Now curated in the Musée de l’Homme in Paris. Credit: Dr. Aurélien Mounier

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Previous estimates based on ancient DNA have predicted the last common ancestor lived around 400,000 years ago. However, results from the ‘virtual fossil’ show the ancestral skull morphology closest to fossil fragments from the Middle Pleistocene suggests a lineage split of around 700,000 years ago, and that—while this ancestral population was also present across Eurasia—the last common ancestor most likely originated in Africa.

The results of the study are published in the Journal of Human Evolution.

“We know we share a common ancestor with Neanderthals, but what did it look like? And how do we know the rare fragments of fossil we find are truly from this past ancestral population? Many controversies in human evolution arise from these uncertainties,” said the study’s lead author Dr Aurélien Mounier, a researcher at Cambridge University’s Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies (LCHES).

“We wanted to try an innovative solution to deal with the imperfections of the fossil record: a combination of 3D digital methods and statistical estimation techniques. This allowed us to predict mathematically and then recreate virtually skull fossils of the last common ancestor of modern humans and Neanderthals, using a simple and consensual ‘tree of life’ for the genus Homo,” he said.

The virtual 3D ancestral skull bears early hallmarks of both species. For example, it shows the initial budding of what in Neanderthals would become the ‘occipital bun’: the prominent bulge at the back of the skull that contributed to elongated shape of a Neanderthal head.

However, the face of the virtual ancestor shows hints of the strong indention that modern humans have under the cheekbones, contributing to our more delicate facial features. In Neanderthals, this area—the maxillia—is ‘pneumatized’, meaning it was thicker bone due to more air pockets, so that the face of a Neanderthal would have protruded.

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A comparison between the Homo neanderthalis (Neanderthal), Homo sapiens (Modern Human), and the ‘Virtual Last Common Ancestor”. Credit: Dr. Aurélien Mounier

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Research from New York University published last week showed that bone deposits continued to build on the faces of Neanderthal children during the first years of their life.

The heavy, thickset brow of the virtual ancestor is characteristic of the hominin lineage, very similar to early Homo as well as Neanderthal, but lost in modern humans. Mounier says the virtual fossil is more reminiscent of Neanderthals overall, but that this is unsurprising as taking the timeline as a whole it is Homo sapiens who deviate from the ancestral trajectory in terms of skull structure.

“The possibility of a higher rate of morphological change in the modern human lineage suggested by our results would be consistent with periods of major demographic change and genetic drift, which is part of the history of a species that went from being a small population in Africa to more than 7 billion people today,” said co-author Dr Marta Mirazón Lahr, also from Cambridge’s LCHES.

The population of last common ancestors was probably part of the species Homo heidelbergensis in its broadest sense, says Mounier. This was a species of Homo that lived in Africa, Europe and western Asia between 700 and 300 thousand years ago.

For their next project, Mounier and colleagues have started working on a model of the last common ancestor of Homo and chimpanzees. “Our models are not the exact truth, but in the absence of fossils these new methods can be used to test hypotheses for any palaeontological question, whether it is horses or dinosaurs,” he said.

Source: University of Cambridge subject press release

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Millet: The missing link in prehistoric humans’ transition from hunter-gatherer to farmer

Posted on December 13, 2015 by No Author -

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE—New research shows a cereal familiar today as birdseed was carried across Eurasia by ancient shepherds and herders laying the foundation, in combination with the new crops they encountered, of ‘multi-crop’ agriculture and the rise of settled societies. Archaeologists say ‘forgotten’ millet has a role to play in modern crop diversity and today’s food security debate.

The domestication of the small-seeded cereal millet in North China around 10,000 years ago created the perfect crop to bridge the gap between nomadic hunter-gathering and organised agriculture in Neolithic Eurasia, and may offer solutions to modern food security, according to new research.

Now a forgotten crop in the West, this hardy grain – familiar in the west today as birdseed – was ideal for ancient shepherds and herders, who carried it right across Eurasia, where it was mixed with crops such as wheat and barley. This gave rise to ‘multi-cropping’, which in turn sowed the seeds of complex urban societies, say archaeologists.

A team from the UK, USA and China has traced the spread of the domesticated grain from North China and Inner Mongolia into Europe through a “hilly corridor” along the foothills of Eurasia. Millet favours uphill locations, doesn’t require much water, and has a short growing season: it can be harvested 45 days after planting, compared with 100 days for rice, allowing a very mobile form of cultivation.

Nomadic tribes were able to combine growing crops of millet with hunting and foraging as they travelled across the continent between 2500 and 1600 BC. Millet was eventually mixed with other crops in emerging populations to create ‘multi-crop’ diversity, which extended growing seasons and provided our ancient ancestors with food security.

The need to manage different crops in different locations, and the water resources required, depended upon elaborate social contracts and the rise of more settled, stratified communities and eventually complex ‘urban’ human societies.

Researchers say we need to learn from the earliest farmers when thinking about feeding today’s populations, and millet may have a role to play in protecting against modern crop failure and famine.

“Today millet is in decline and attracts relatively little scientific attention, but it was once among the most expansive cereals in geographical terms. We have been able to follow millet moving in deep history, from where it originated in China and spread across Europe and India,” said Professor Martin Jones from the University of Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, who is presenting the research findings today at the Shanghai Archaeological Forum.

“These findings have transformed our understanding of early agriculture and society. It has previously been assumed that early agriculture was focused in river valleys where there is plentiful access to water. However, millet remains show that the first agriculture was instead centred higher up on the foothills – allowing this first pathway for ‘exotic’ eastern grains to be carried west.”

The researchers carried out radiocarbon dating and isotope analysis on charred millet grains recovered from archaeological sites across China and Inner Mongolia, as well as genetic analysis of modern millet varieties, to reveal the process of domestication that occurred over thousands of years in northern China and produced the ancestor of all broomcorn millet worldwide.

“We can see that millet in northern China was one of the earliest centres of crop domestication, occurring over the same timescale as rice domestication in south China and barley and wheat in west China,” explained Jones.

“Domestication is hugely significant in the development of early agriculture – humans select plants with seeds that don’t fall off naturally and can be harvested, so over several thousand years this creates plants that are dependent on farmers to reproduce,” he said.

“This also means that the genetic make-up of these crops changes in response to changes in their environment – in the case of millet, we can see that certain genes were ‘switched off’ as they were taken by farmers far from their place of origin.”

As the network of farmers, shepherds and herders crystallised across the Eurasian corridor, they shared crops and cultivation techniques with other farmers, and this, Jones explains, is where the crucial idea of ‘multi-cropping’ emerged.

“The first pioneer farmers wanted to farm upstream in order to have more control over their water source and be less dependent on seasonal weather variations or potential neighbours upstream,” he said. “But when ‘exotic’ crops appear in addition to the staple crop of the region, then you start to get different crops growing in different areas and at different times of year. This is a huge advantage in terms of shoring up communities against possible crop failures and extending the growing season to produce more food or even surplus.

“However, it also introduces a more pressing need for cooperation, and the beginnings of a stratified society. With some people growing crops upstream and some farming downstream, you need a system of water management, and you can’t have water management and seasonal crop rotation without an elaborate social contract.”

Towards the end of the second and first millennia BC larger human settlements, underpinned by multi-crop agriculture, began to develop. The earliest examples of text, such as the Sumerian clay tablets from Mesopotamia, and oracle bones from China, allude to multi-crop agriculture and seasonal rotation.

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Researchers at the Neolithic site of Mogou, West China, where eastern and western cereals met. Courtesy Martin Jones

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Harriet Hunt growing foxtail millet in the Unilever Discover greenhouse facilities at Colworth Science Park. Courtesy Martin Jones

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Inner Mongolian millet farmer in Chifeng. Courtesy Martin Jones

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Martin Jones with millet in North China. Courtesy Martin Jones

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But the significance of millet is not just in transforming our understanding of our prehistoric past. Jones believes that millet and other small-seeded crops may have an important role to play in ensuring future food security.

“The focus for looking at food security today is on the high-yield crops, rice, maize and wheat, which fuel 50% of the human food chain. However, these are only three of 50 types of cereal, the majority of which are small-grained cereals or “millets”. It may be time to consider whether millets have a role to play in a diverse response to crop failure and famine,” said Jones.

“We need to understand more about millet and how it may be part of the solution to global food security – we may have a lot still to learn from our Neolithic predecessors.”

Source: University of Cambridge press release

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Studies show early human hunters more advanced than previously thought

Posted on December 11, 2015 by No Author -

The Paleolithic site of Schöningen in north-central Germany is best known for the earliest known, completely preserved wooden spears (at least 10 recovered) by archaeologists under the direction of Dr. Hartmut Thieme between 1994 and 1998 at an open-cast lignite mine. Deposited in organic sediments on an ancient lakeshore, they were found in combination with the remains of about 16,000 animal bones, including 20 to 25 butchered wild horses, whose bones featured numerous butchery marks, including one pelvis that still had a spear protruding from it. The finds are considered evidence that early humans were active hunters with specialized tool kits as early as 300,000 or more years ago.

Now, a series of detailed study reports on the Schöningen findings have been published online in the Journal of Human Evolution. Altogether, they present a picture of groups of prehistoric hunters who sojourned at sites in the Schöningen area about 300,000+ years ago and hunted and processed mammalian species such as wild horse and red deer using tools/weapons made of wood, stone and bone. The findings have changed the long-accepted paradigm of a more primitive early human hunting culture during this time period that featured primarily stone tools and weapons and a somewhat more limited subsistence strategy.

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The Schöningen excavation site. Tangelnfoto, Wikimedia Commons

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Spear no. 8 at Schöningen in situ. P. Pfarr NLD, Wikimedia Commons

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One study describes an extraordinary assemblage of no less than 88 bone tools, consisting of modified mammal bones from various parts of the skeletons and testifying to the earliest known use of multi-purpose bone tools in the archaeological record. The authors note that it suggests a more advanced planning depth among early humans of this time period than traditionally thought.

On the other hand, another study dismisses the notion that the Schöningen humans had regular control of fire as part of their repertoire of skills. Upon examining purported hearths and burned wood and heated flints using multi-analytical and micro-contextual methods, the study authors concluded that there was no convincing evidence for the human control or use of fire. This challenges previous scholarly suggestions for evidence at Schöningen for the control of fire in Northern Europe during the late Lower Paleolithic.

Although no archaic human remains have been found at Schöningen, many scholars suggest that the ancient hunters were either members of the Homo heidelbergensis species or early Neanderthals. The findings at Schöningen are thought to have revolutionized the thinking on the cultural and social capacities of these early humans.

The series of studies are currently accessible in the Journal of Human Evolution.

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New discoveries redefine Angkor Wat’s history

Posted on December 10, 2015 by No Author -

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY—The temple of Angkor Wat was much larger and more complex than previously thought, University of Sydney archaeologists have discovered.

The University of Sydney’s Professor Roland Fletcher and Dr Damian Evans lead the Greater Angkor Project in Cambodia, a major international research collaboration which is using airborne laser scanning (LiDAR) technology, ground-penetrating radar and targeted excavation to map the great pre-industrial temple.

The landscape of Angkor Wat redefined

The team has discovered that the Angkor Wat complex was far larger than expected, had more components than previously envisaged, and was bounded on its south side by a unique and massive structure.

“This structure, which has dimensions of more than 1500m×600m, is the most striking discovery associated with Angkor Wat to date. Its function remains unknown and, as yet, it has no known equivalent in the Angkorian world,” said Professor Fletcher, from the University’s Department of Archaeology.

The team also discovered Angkor Wat included an entire ensemble of buried ‘towers’ built and demolished during the construction and initial use of the main temple, remains of what is thought might be a shrine used during the construction period.

Roads and homes hint at workers’ role

The areas surrounding Angkor Wat have long been assumed to be sacred precincts or ‘temple-cities’. However, the research has revealed evidence of low-density residential occupation in the region, including a grid of roads, ponds and mounds, possibly used by people servicing the temple.

“This challenges our traditional understanding of the social hierarchy of the Angkor Wat community and shows that the temple precinct, bounded by moat and wall, may not have been exclusively the preserve of the wealthy or the priestly elite,” said Dr Fletcher.

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View over Angkor Wat from the west, looking towards the Kulen hills; the extent of one quarter of Greater Angkor is indicated by the distance between Angkor Wat and the north-eastern outer edge of the urban complex near the grey line of the base of the hills. Image courtesy of Mike Coe.

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Fortifications offer clues about Angkor’s demise

The team has also discovered that Angkor Wat was fortified with wooden structures sometime late in its history. Dr Fletcher said the results reveal how Angkor Wat may have made its last attempt at defence.

“Angkor Wat is the first and only known example of an Angkorian temple being systematically modified for use in a defensive capacity,” he said.

“The available evidence suggests it was a late event in the history of Angkor, either between AD 1297 and 1585, along with other defensive works around Angkor, or perhaps sometime between AD 1585 and the 1630s, representing a final attempt to defend Angkor against the growing influence of [neighbouring city] Ayutthaya. Either date makes the defences of Angkor Wat one of the last major constructions at Angkor and is perhaps indicative of its end.”

The team’s latest discoveries are published in this month’s issue of the journal Antiquity.

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In addition, the latest Popular Archaeology ebook is now available.

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NYU-led research differentiates facial growth in Neanderthals and modern humans

Posted on December 8, 2015 by No Author -

New York University—international research team, led by Rodrigo Lacruz, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Basic Science and Craniofacial Biology at New York University’s College of Dentistry (NYUCD), has just published a study describing for the first time the developmental processes that differentiate Neanderthal facial skeletons from those of modern humans.

Lacruz’s research team showed that the Neanderthals, who appeared about 200,000 years ago, are quite distinct from Homo sapiens (humans) in the manner in which their faces grow, adding to an old but important debate concerning the separation of these two groups. The paper, “Ontogeny of the Maxilla in Neanderthals and their Ancestors,” appears in Nature Communications

“This is an important piece of the puzzle of evolution,” says Lacruz, a paleoanthropologist and enamel biologist. “Some have thought that Neanderthals and humans should not be considered distinct branches of the human family tree. However, our findings, based upon facial growth patterns, indicate they are indeed sufficiently distinct from one another.

In conducting the research, the team set out to understand the morphological processes that distinguish Neanderthals’ faces from modern humans’–a potentially important factor in understanding the process of evolution from archaic to modern humans.

Bone is formed through a process of bone deposition by osteoblasts (bone-forming cells) and resorption by osteoclast (bone-absorbing) cells, which break down bone. In humans, the outermost layer of bone in the face consists of large resorptive fields, but in Neanderthals, the opposite is true: In the outermost layer of bone, there is extensive bone deposition.

The team used an electron microscope and a portable confocal microscope, developed by co-author Dr. Timothy Bromage of NYUCD’s Department of Biomaterials, himself a pioneer in the study of facial growth remodeling in fossil hominins, to map for the first time the bone-cell growth processes (resorption and deposition) that had taken place in the outer layer of the facial skeletons of young Neanderthals.

“Cellular processes relating to growth are preserved on the bones,” says Bromage. “Resorption can be seen as crater-like structures–called lacunae–on the bone surface, whereas layers of osteoblast deposits have a relatively smooth appearance.”

The study found that in Neanderthals, facial bone-growth remodeling–the process by which bone is deposited and reabsorbed, forming and shaping the adult skeleton–contributed to the development of a projecting (prognathic) maxilla (upper jawbone) because of extensive deposits by osteoblasts without a compensatory resorption–a process they shared with ancient hominins. This process is in stark contrast to that in human children, whose faces grow with a counter-balance action mediated by resorption taking place especially in the lower part of the face, leading to a flatter jaw relative to Neanderthals.

The team studied several well-preserved Neanderthal child skulls unearthed in 1926 in the British territory of Gibraltar and from the La Quina site in southwestern France, also excavated in the early 1900s. They also compared Neanderthal facial-growth remodeling with that of four Middle Pleistocene (about 400,000 years ago) hominin faces of teenagers from the fossil collection of the Sima de los Huesos in north-central Spain. The Sima fossils are considered likely Neanderthal ancestors based on both anatomical features and genomic DNA analysis.

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Growth directions of the maxilla in the Sima de los Huesos (SH) and Neanderthals compared to modern humans. This impacts facial growth in at least two ways. (i) Extensive bone deposits over the maxilla in the fossils are consistent with a strong forward growth component (purple arrows); whereas resorption in the modern human face attenuates forward displacement (blue arrow). (ii) Deposition combined with larger developing nasal cavities in the fossils displaces the dentition forward generating the retromolar space characteristic of Neanderthals and also in some SH fossils. Credit: Rodrigo S Lacruz

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Scanning electron microscope images show details of bone microanatomy. Scale bars, 100 mm. (a) Bone-forming surfaces are relatively smooth, presenting collagen deposits by osteoblast cells. Image taken on the maxillary bone of the Devil’s Tower Neanderthal. (b) Resorption is identified as irregular surfaces carved by osteoclasts on the bone surface as they dissolve and remove bone matrix. Image taken from the maxillary bone of the SH hominin Cranium 16. Credit: Rodrigo S Lacruz

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“We always considered Neanderthals to be a very different category of hominin,” said Lacruz. “But in fact they share with older African hominins a similar facial growth pattern. It’s actually humans who are developmentally derived, meaning that humans deviated from the ancestral pattern. In that sense, the face that is unique is the modern human face, and the next phase of research is to identify how and when modern humans acquired their facial-growth development plan.”

Moreover, Lacruz says, understanding the process of facial ontogeny can help explain the variation in facial size and shape among modern humans.

Cover image, top left: A Neanderthal skull from Forbes’ Quarry, Gibraltar. Discovered 1848. Aquila Gib, Wikimedia Commons

Artilce source: New York Universoty subject news release.

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In addition to Drs. Lacruz and Bromage, coauthors included: Dr. Paul O’Higgins, Centre for Anatomical and Human Sciences, Department of Archaeology and Hull York Medical School, University of York, United Kingdom; Dr. Juan Luis Arsuaga, Universidad Complutense de Madrid-Instituto Carlos III (UCM-ISCHI), Centre de Investigacion de la Evolucion y Comportamiento Humanos, Madrid, Spain; Dr. Chris Stringer, Department of Earth Sciences, Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom; Dr. Ricardo Godinho, Centre for Anatomical and Human Sciences, Department of Archaeology and Hull York Medical School, University of York, United Kingdom; Dr. Johanna Warshaw, Department of Basic Science and Craniofacial Biology, NYU College of Dentistry, United States; Dr. Ignacio Martinez, Department de Ciencia de la Vida, Universidad de Alcala (Alcala de Henares), Spain; Dr. Ana Gracia-Tellez, Department Geologia, Geografia y Medio Ambient, Fac. De Biologia, Ciencias Ambientales y Quimica, Universidad de Alcala, Madrid Spain; Dr. Jose Maria Bermudez de Castro, Centro Nacional de Investigacion sobre la Evolucion Humana, Burgos, Spain; and Dr. Eudald Carbonell, Institut Catala de Paleoecologia Humano i Evolucio Social, Tarragona, Spain.

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Unexpected wood source for Chaco Canyon great houses

Posted on December 7, 2015 by No Author -

UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA—The wood in the monumental “great houses” built in Chaco Canyon by ancient Puebloans came from two different mountain ranges, according to new research from the University of Arizona Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research.

The UA scientists are the first to report that before 1020, most of the wood came from the Zuni Mountains about 50 miles (75 km) to the south. The species of tree used in the buildings did not grow nearby, so the trees must have been transported from distant mountain ranges.

About 240,000 trees were used to build massive structures, some five stories high and with hundreds of rooms, in New Mexico’s arid, rocky Chaco Canyon during the time period 850 to 1140. The buildings include some of the largest pre-Columbian buildings in North America.

“The casual observer will see hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of beams sticking out of the walls. There’s wood all over the place in these structures,” said lead author Christopher Guiterman. “They’re built out of stone and wood.”

To figure out where the trees for the beams had grown, Guiterman used a method known as dendroprovenance that had not been used in the American Southwest before.

By 1060, the Chacoans had switched to harvesting trees from the Chuska Mountains about 50 miles (75 km) to the west.

The switch in wood sources coincides with several important developments in Chacoan culture, said Guiterman, a doctoral candidate in UA’s School of Natural Resources and the Environment.

“There’s a change in the masonry style–the architectural signature of the construction. There’s a massive increase in the amount of construction—about half of ‘downtown Chaco’ houses were built at the time the wood started coming from the Chuska Mountains,” he said.

By reviewing archaeological records, the team found other materials coming to Chaco from the Chuskas at the same time.

“There’s pottery and there’s chipped-stone tools–things like projectile points and carving devices,” he said.

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Chetro Ketl, built during the 10th and 11th centuries, is one of the largest great houses in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. Despite the harsh, high desert environment, thousands of people once lived in and around what is now a World Heritage Site at Chaco Culture National Historical Park. Credit: National Park Service

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This photo from the 1930s shows the back wall of Pueblo Bonito, the largest structure found in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. Archaeologists estimate the intact structure was 5 stories high and had about 500 rooms. University of Arizona tree-ring studies of building’s wooden beams revealed the structure was built in phases from 850 to 1120. Credit: George A. Grant/ National Park Service

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Chris Baisan of the University of Arizona’s Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research samples a dead tree in New Mexico’s Chuska Mountains. The tree dates from the time that ancient Puebloans were building massive structures in Chaco Canyon, about 50 miles away. Credit: Christopher H. Guiterman

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The new research corroborates previous research from the UA that used the chemistry of Chaco Canyon beams to figure out that Chuska Mountain trees were a wood source.

Guiterman, UA Regents’ Professor Emeritus Thomas Swetnam and UA Professor Emeritus Jeffrey Dean will publish their paper, “Eleventh-Century Shift in Timber Procurement Areas for the Great Houses of Chaco Canyon,” in an upcoming issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Western National Parks Association and the National Park Service funded the research.

To learn how ancient people interacted with Southwestern forests, Guiterman and Swetnam decided to study the wood used in Chaco Canyon buildings.

Guiterman wondered if the annual growth rings of trees could reveal the origin of beams. Doing such a study would also test the results from the chemical method of determining the wood’s source.

He decided to try the dendroprovenance technique, which has been used in Europe to figure out the source of wood in artifacts.

Guiterman had the necessary materials at hand: Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research founder A.E. Douglass and his student Emil Haury collected wood from ancient Puebloan structures and nearby mountain ranges throughout the Southwest starting in the 1920s and used the material to date the great ruins of the Southwest.

Douglass’ and Haury’s dated samples are archived in the laboratory’s basement, along with wood collected all over the Southwest ever since by legions of archaeologists, including dendroarchaeologist Dean.

The laboratory’s archives contain cardboard box after cardboard box after cardboard box–all carefully labeled–of wood samples. Guiterman said there are more than 6,000 wood specimens from Chaco Canyon great houses alone.

“We pulled stuff out of the archive that hasn’t been looked at in 30 or 40 years,” he said. “It was pretty cool to open those boxes.”

The annual growth rings in trees reflect regional climate–rings are wider in good growing years and thinner in bad ones. The patterns of thick-and-thin rings in trees that grow in the mountain ranges that surround Chaco Canyon are similar because the climate is the same.

However, each mountain range has slightly different conditions. Therefore, growth patterns of trees from one mountain range are not identical to those of trees in nearby ranges.

To pinpoint the origin of a tree that became a building beam, the dendroprovenance method requires finding a strong match between the tree-ring patterns in a beam and the average tree-ring patterns from trees of the same age known to be from a particular mountain range.

It sounds easy, but the work is painstaking. Guiterman had to compare the patterns on 170 individual beams with archived tree-ring patterns from seven different nearby mountain ranges.

The task took him four years.

Swetnam said, “We think this is a powerful new method to use in the Southwest. We tested the method using modern trees and could determine their source of origin with 90 percent accuracy.”

More than 70 percent of the 170 timbers were from the Zuni or Chuska mountain ranges. Guiterman said the 11th-century switch to the Chuskas coincided with an expansion of the Chacoan culture and indicates the cultural importance of that mountain range.

“We’re learning more and more about what these people did so long ago and how they utilized and interacted with their environment,” he said.

One possible next step, Guiterman said, is looking for the source of beams in other ancient Puebloan structures in the region.

Source: University of Arizona subject press release.

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PNAS Article #15-14272: “Eleventh-century shift in timber procurement areas for the great houses of Chaco Canyon,” by Christopher H. Guiterman, Thomas W. Swetnam, and Jeffrey S. Dean.

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In addition, the latest Popular Archaeology ebook is now available.

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Travel and learn with Far Horizons.

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Glacial Rock in Greenland Offers Clues to Norse Migration Patterns

Posted on December 4, 2015 by No Author -

A new analysis of glacial debris in Baffin Island and western Greenland indicates that this region may have been relatively cool during the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), with glaciers there at the time achieving sizes close to those typical of glaciers in the Little Ice Age (LIA). According to research by Nicolás Young et al. in a recently published report in Science Advances, the results have implications for understanding Norse migration patterns, which are debated. Past fluctuations in glacier extent can be used to reconstruct historic changes in climate. In particular, accumulations of dirt and rock on glaciers, known as moraines, can be leveraged for this work. Young et al. focused on uniquely well-preserved moraines on Baffin Island and in western Greenland. They used a rare isotope (beryllium-10) dating technique on the moraines to determine when glaciers in the region may have retreated during the Medieval Warm Period.

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Glaciers and Little Ice Age moraines in western Greenland. Credit: Jason Briner

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Sampling a moraine boulder for beryllium-10 surface exposure dating, Baffin Island. Credit: Nicolás Young

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The researchers determined that glaciers in the region were actually extended during the MWP, possessing thick amounts of ice characteristic of the Little Ice Age. Reasons behind initial Norse settlement in Greenland, timed around the start of the MWP, and this population’s eventual exit, which coincided with the start of the LIA, remain controversial, but some suggest the deteriorating climate during the LIA was a primary factor. The work of Young et al. hints that the Norse lived in this region during a period that was cooler than previously thought, and suggests their exodus from the region was triggered by factors other than climate, such as the devaluation of walrus tusks, which may have affected trading, or increased hostilities with the local Inuit.

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

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In addition, the latest Popular Archaeology ebook is now available.

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Travel and learn with Far Horizons.

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Unexpected wood source for Chaco Canyon great houses

Glacial Rock in Greenland Offers Clues to Norse Migration Patterns

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