A Seven Year Old Boy Exposed a 3,400 Year Old Figurine during a Trip to Tel Rehov in the Bet Shean Valley

  

A 3,400 year old statue was recently uncovered by a 7 year old boy while on an outing with friends. Seven year old Ori Greenhut, from the communal settlement of Tel Te’omin in the Bet She?an Valley, went out on a trip earlier this week with friends, accompanied by the father of one of the children. While they were climbing up the archaeological mound at Tel Rehov, Ori came across a stone that had shifted and suddenly saw an image of a person covered with soil. Ori rubbed away the mud that adhered to the object and thus discovered the clay figurine.

Moriya Greenhut, Ori's mother, says. “Ori returned home with the impressive figurine and the excitement was great. We explained to him this is an ancient artifact and that archaeological finds belong to the State”.

The Greenhut family turned the find over to the Israel Antiquities Authority, and representatives of the IAA came to the Shaked Elementary School in Kibbutz Sede Eliyahu in order to present Ori with a certificate of appreciation for good citizenship and tell him what they know about the figurine. Esther Ledell, Ori’s teacher, said, “It was an amazing occasion! The archaeologists entered the class during a Torah lesson, just when we were learning about Rahel stealing her father’s household gods (trafim; Genesis 31). I explained that the household gods were statues that were used in idol worship, and all of a sudden I realize that these very same idols are here in the classroom!”

The clay figurine portrays a naked standing woman which was prepared by pressing soft clay into a mold.

Amihai Mazar, professor emeritus at Hebrew University and expedition director of the archaeological excavations at Tel Rehov, examined the figurine and stated, “It is typical of the Canaanite culture of the 15th–13th centuries BCE. Some researchers think the figure depicted here is that of a real flesh and blood woman, and others view her as the fertility goddess Astarte, known from Canaanite sources and from the Bible. It is highly likely that the term trafim mentioned in the Bible indeed refers to figurines of this kind”. Mazar added, “Evidently the figurine belonged to one of the residents of the city of Rehov, which was then ruled by the central government of the Egyptian pharaohs".

Burial rituals, genetic analysis indicate 8th century skeletons of Muslims of North African descent buried in France

Archaeological and genetic analysis may indicate that three skeletons buried in medieval graves in France may have been Muslim, according to a study published February 24, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Yves Gleize from the French National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap) and University of Bordeaux, France, Fanny Mendisco from University of Bordeaux, France, and colleagues.

The rapid Arab-Islamic conquest during the early Middle Ages led to major political and cultural changes in the Mediterranean. Although the early medieval Muslim presence in the Iberian Peninsula is well documented, scientists have less evidence of the Muslim expansion north of the Pyrenees. The authors of this study aimed to determine if the skeletons in three graves from a medieval site at Nimes, France are related to the Muslim presence in France in the 8th century. Specifically, they analyzed the funerary practices at the site, analyzed the skeleton's DNA, and determined the sex and age of the skeletons.

The authors found that the burials appear to follow Islamic rites, including the position of the body and the head orientation towards Mecca. They also found genetic evidence indicating their paternal lineage may show North African ancestry. Radiocarbon dating shows that the skeletons were likely from the 7th-9th centuries. Given all of these data, the authors propose that the skeletons from the Nimes burials belonged to Berbers integrated into the Umayyad army during the Arab expansion in North Africa in the 8th century. Despite the low number of Muslim graves discovered, the authors believe that these observations provide some of the first archeological and anthropological evidence for Muslim communities in the South of France.

Dr. Gleize added, "The joint archaeological, anthropological and genetic analysis of three early medieval graves at Nimes provides evidence of burials linked with Muslim occupation during the 8th c. in south of France.

Tel Aviv University discovers fabric collection dating back to Kings David and Solomon

A fine wool textile dyed red and blue, found at Timna. The textile used the various colors of natural animal hair to create black and orange-brown colors for decorative bands.
CREDIT
Clara Amit, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority

The ancient copper mines in Timna are located deep in Israel's Arava Valley and are believed by some to be the site of King Solomon's mines. The arid conditions of the mines have seen the remarkable preservation of 3,000-year-old organic materials, including seeds, leather and fabric, and other extremely rare artifacts that provide a unique window into the culture and practices of this period.

A Timna excavation team from Tel Aviv University led by Dr. Erez Ben-Yosef has uncovered an extensive fabric collection of diverse color, design and origin. This is the first discovery of textiles dating from the era of David and Solomon, and sheds new light on the historical fashions of the Holy Land. The textiles also offer insight into the complex society of the early Edomites, the semi-nomadic people believed to have operated the mines at Timna.

The tiny pieces of fabric, some only 5 x 5 centimeters in size, vary in color, weaving technique and ornamentation. "Some of these fabrics resemble textiles only known from the Roman era," said Dr. Orit Shamir, a senior researcher at the Israel Antiquities Authority, who led the study of the fabrics themselves.

"No textiles have ever been found at excavation sites like Jerusalem, Megiddo and Hazor, so this provides a unique window into an entire aspect of life from which we've never had physical evidence before," Dr. Ben-Yosef said. "We found fragments of textiles that originated from bags, clothing, tents, ropes and cords.

"The wide variety of fabrics also provides new and important information about the Edomites, who, according to the Bible, warred with the Kingdom of Israel. We found simply woven, elaborately decorated fabrics worn by the upper echelon of their stratified society. Luxury grade fabric adorned the highly skilled, highly respected craftsmen managing the copper furnaces. They were responsible for smelting the copper, which was a very complicated process."

A trove of the "Seven Species"

The archaeologists also recently discovered thousands of seeds of the Biblical "Seven Species" at the site -- the two grains and five fruits considered unique products of the Land of Israel. Some of the seeds were subjected to radiocarbon dating, providing robust confirmation for the age of the site.

"This is the first time seeds from this period have been found uncharred and in such large quantities," said Dr. Ben-Yosef. "With the advancement of modern science, we now enjoy research options that were unthinkable a few decades ago. We can reconstruct wine typical of King David's era, for example, and understand the cultivation and domestication processes that have been preserved in the DNA of the seed."

The power of copper

Copper was used to produce tools and weapons and was the most valuable resource in ancient societies. Its production required many levels of expertise. Miners in ancient Timna may have been slaves or prisoners -- theirs was a simple task performed under difficult conditions. But the act of smelting, of turning stone into metal, required an enormous amount of skill and organization. The smelter had to manage some 30 to 40 variables in order to produce the coveted copper ingots.

"The possession of copper was a source of great power, much as oil is today," Dr. Ben-Yosef said. "If a person had the exceptional knowledge to 'create copper,' he was considered well-versed in an extremely sophisticated technology. He would have been considered magical or supernatural, and his social status would have reflected this."

To support this "silicon valley" of copper production in the middle of the desert, food, water and textiles had to be transported long distances through the unforgiving desert climate and into the valley. The latest discovery of fabrics, many of which were made far from Timna in specialized textile workshops, provides a glimpse into the trade practices and regional economy of the day.

"We found linen, which was not produced locally. It was most likely from the Jordan Valley or Northern Israel. The majority of the fabrics were made of sheep's wool, a cloth that is seldom found in this ancient period," said TAU masters student Vanessa Workman. "This tells us how developed and sophisticated both their textile craft and trade networks must have been."

"'Nomad' does not mean 'simple,'" said Dr. Ben-Yosef. "This discovery strengthens our understanding of the Edomites as an important geopolitical presence. The fabrics are of a very high quality, with complex designs and beautiful dyes."

Internal dissension cited as reason for Cahokia's demise

Dr. Thomas E. Emerson and Dr. Kristin M. Hedman from the Illinois State Archaeological Survey-Prairie Research Institute at the University of Illinois present a new case for Cahokia's demise. The new theory was published in Southern Illinois University Press' volume, Beyond Collapse: Archaeological Perspectives on Resilience, Revitalization, and Transformation in Complex Societies. Emerson and Hedman contributed a chapter to the volume entitled, The Dangers of Diversity: The Consolidation and Dissolution of Cahokia, Native North America's First Urban Polity, that explores internal divisions that led to the collapse of Cahokia.

The archaeologists claim internal conflict by social, political, ethnic, and religious factions are a more reasonable description of events that led to Cahokia's collapse than environmental causes, as is the popular theory. They present new bioarchaeological evidence that demonstrates that as many as one-third of the Cahokian residents were immigrants and that these immigrants likely represented groups that were culturally, ethnically, and perhaps linguistically distinct from local populations. Emerson clarifies further,

"There is no smoking gun if you want to pin Cahokia's dissolution on environmental factors. ...It makes more sense, given the heterogeneous population with differences in language, and social, religious, and political cultures to look to internal dissension at Cahokia as the underlying reason..."

Emerson and Hedman go on to say that Cahokia does not have a clear history of significant environmental degradation that can be linked to dissolution.

"Cahokia may be an interesting example of political experiment in the unification of social and ethnic diversity that failed - probably by design"

Letting the Past Speak

Hedman and Emerson claim the remains of the inhabitants of Cahokia have a story to tell. Archaeologists have been able to gather information about the lifestyle, diet, health and place of birth of those buried at Cahokia This information provided vital clues in assessing factors involved in the final demise of Cahokia.

For the past 15 years, ISAS archaeologists have studied curated collections from Greater Cahokia. Evidence from osteological and isotopic analyses and radiocarbon dating was used to establish temporal and cultural context and to assess the population that once occupied the urban center of Cahokia This newly acquired data and reevaluation of existing documentation are continuing to offer new insights about the people of Cahokia and what may have caused the demise of America's first city.

Newly-excavated village in the Jordan Valley sheds light on the historical shift from foraging to agriculture

Archaeologists from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem revealed in Israel a prehistoric village, dated around 12,000 years ago, in excavations in the fertile Jordan Valley.

The site, named NEG II, is located in Nahal (wadi) Ein-Gev, at the middle of the perennial stream that flows west to the Sea of Galilee.

A series of excavations on site revealed an abundance of findings, including human burial remains, flint tools, art manifestations, faunal assemblage, ground stone and bone tools. The excavated area revealed an extensive habitation with deep cultural deposits (2.5 to 3 meters deep) and the site is estimated as covering roughly 1200 m2.

Surprisingly, the village differs markedly from others of its period in Israel. The findings encapsulate cultural characteristics typical of both the Old Stone Age -- known as the Paleolithic period, and the New Stone Age -- known as the Neolithic period.

"Although attributes of the lithic tool kit found at NEG II places the site chronologically in the Paleolithic period, other characteristics - such as its artistic tradition, size, thickness of archaeological deposits and investment in architecture - are more typical of early agricultural communities in the Neolithic period," said Dr. Leore Grosman, from the Institute of Archaeology at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who led the excavations.

"Characterizing this important period of potential overlap in the Jordan Valley is crucial for the understanding of the socioeconomic processes that marked the shift from Paleolithic mobile societies of hunter-gatherers to Neolithic agricultural communities," added Dr. Grosman.

The Paleolithic period is the earliest and the longest period in the history of mankind. The end of this period is marked by the transition to settled villages and domestication of plants and animals as part of the agricultural life-ways in the Neolithic period.

In a research paper, published in the journal PLOS ONE, the archeologists described the village as one of the latest settlements in the Levant region of the Late Natufian - the last culture of the Paleolithic period.

The Natufian culture (about 15,000-11,500 years B.P.) is known from sites all over the Levant - from the Negev and the Sinai in the south to Syria and Lebanon in the north.

NEG II was occupied in the midst of the cold and dry global climatic event known as the Younger Dryas (12,900-11,600 years B.P.), where temperature declined sharply over most of the northern hemisphere. Affected by climatic changes, Late Natufian groups in the Mediterranean zone became increasingly mobile and potentially smaller in size.

However, excavations at NEG II show that groups in the Jordan Valley became more sedentary and potentially larger in size.

"The buildings represent at least four occupational stages and the various aspects of the faunal assemblage provide good indications for site permanence. In addition, the thick archaeological deposits, the uniformity of the tool types and the flint knapping technology indicate intensive occupation of the site by the same cultural entity," said Dr. Grosman.

Researchers say that this shift in settlement pattern could be related to greater climatic stability due to a lesser effect of the Younger Dryas in the region, higher cereal biomass productivity and better conditions for small-scale cultivation.

These factors had provided the ingredients necessary to taking the final steps toward agriculture in the southern Levant, researchers say.

"It is not surprising that at the very end of the Natufian culture, at a suite of sites in the Jordan Valley, that we find a cultural entity that bridges the crossroads between Late Paleolithic foragers and Neolithic farmers," said Dr. Grosman.

Researchers find first genetic evidence of modern human DNA in a Neanderthal individual

Today in Nature the team publishes evidence of interbreeding that occurred an estimated 100,000 years ago. More specifically the scientists provide the first genetic evidence of a scenario in which early modern humans left the African continent and mixed with archaic (now-extinct) members of the human family prior to the migration "out of Africa" of the ancestors of present-day non-Africans, less than 65,000 years ago.

This finding, the result of several kinds of advanced computer modeling algorithms comparing complete genomes of hundreds of contemporary humans with complete and partial genomes of four archaic humans, has implications for our knowledge of human migration patterns.

People living today who are of European, Eurasian and Asian descent have well-identified Neanderthal-derived segments in their genome. These fragments are traces of interbreeding that followed the "out of Africa" human migration dating to about 60,000 years ago. They imply that children born of Neanderthal-modern human pairings outside of Africa were raised among the modern humans and ultimately bred with other humans, explaining how bits of Neanderthal DNA remain in human genomes.

Contemporary Africans, however, do not have detectable traces of Neanderthal DNA in their genomes. This indicates that whatever sexual contact occurred between modern humans and Neanderthals occurred among humans who left the African continent. "Ancestors of present-day African populations likely didn't have the opportunity to interbreed with Neanderthals, who lived largely outside of Africa," explains co-author Ilan Gronau.

The team's evidence of "gene flow" from descendants of modern humans into the Neanderthal genome applies to one specific Neanderthal, whose remains were found some years ago in a cave in southwestern Siberia, in the Altai Mountains, near the Russia-Mongolia border. The modern human ancestor who contributed genes to this particular Neanderthal individual - called the "Altai Neanderthal," and known from a tiny toe bone fragment - must have migrated out of Africa long before the migration that led Africans into Europe and Asia 60,000 years ago, the scientists say.

In contrast, the two Neanderthals from European caves that were sequenced for this study -- one from Croatia, another from Spain -- both lack DNA derived from ancestors of modern humans. The team also included in their analysis DNA from another archaic human relative, a Denisovan individual, whose remains were found in the same cave in the Altai Mountains. Denisovans, like Neanderthals, are members of the human line that eventually became extinct. Both of these archaic human cousins lived in the same cave, although at different times in the past.

The Denisovan analyzed in this study did not have traces of modern human DNA, unlike the Neanderthal found in the same cave. That doesn't mean modern human ancestors never mated with Denisovans or European Neanderthals.

What is does mean, Siepel clarifies, is that "the signal we're seeing in the Altai Neanderthal probably comes from an interbreeding event that occurred after this Neanderthal lineage diverged from its archaic cousins, a little more than 100,000 years ago."

The modern human sequences in the Altai Neandertal appear to derive from a group of modern human ancestors from Africa that separated early from other humans, about the time present-day African populations diverged from one another, around 200,000 years ago. Thus, there must have been a long lag between the time when this group branched off the modern human family tree, roughly 200,000 years ago, and the time they left their genetic mark in the Altai Neandertal, about 100,000 years ago, before being lost to extinction themselves.

The team's analysis included more than 500 genomes of contemporary Africans. "I was looking to see if I could find genomic regions where the Altai Neanderthal has sequences resembling those we see in humans," says Martin Kuhlwilm. "We know that contemporary non-Africans have traces of Neanderthal in them, so they were not useful in this search. Instead, we used the genomes of contemporary individuals from five populations across Africa to identify mutations which most of them have in common."

This was the data that provided evidence of "regions in the Altai Neanderthal genome that carry mutations observed in the Africans - but not in the Denisovan" or in Neanderthals found in European caves.

"This is consistent with the scenario of gene flow from a population closely related to modern humans into the Altai Neanderthal. After ruling out contamination of DNA samples and other possible sources of error, we are not able to explain these observations in any other way," Siepel says.

Separate paths

The modern human DNA sequences in the Altai Neanderthal appear to derive from a modern human group that separated early from other humans, "about the time present-day African populations diverged from one another, around 200,000 years ago," adds Gronau, co-first author of this work.

The modern human who contributed genes to this particular Neanderthal individual must have come from a population that left Africa long before the migration of the ancestors of present-day Europeans and Asians from Africa less than 65,000 years ago, the scientists say. Thus, there must have been a long lag between when this group branched off the modern human family tree, roughly 200,000 years ago, and when they left their genetic mark in the Altai Neanderthal, about 100,000 years ago, before themselves being lost to extinction.

Neandertal-derived DNA may influence depression and more in modern humans

Researchers have found correlations between Neandertal-derived genes and disease states in modern humans - including those influencing the skin, the immune system, depression, addiction, and metabolism. The results show how ancient liaisons between Neandertals and anatomically modern humans (AMH) continue to impact our genetic heritage.

Previous studies have suggested that when AMH populations migrated out of Africa, they interbred with Neandertals. More recently, scientists have identified parts of the human genome carrying Neandertal genetic variants, but - in part because Neandertal-derived DNA is so hard to identify and also because of the expense of performing tests for its influence on individuals - scientists still don't fully understand how Neandertal-derived variants influence modern human traits.

Now, by comparing a recent genome-wide map of Neanderthal haplotypes, or gene groups, with health records of 28,000 adults of European ancestry, Corinne Simoniti and colleagues have documented the lingering effects of Neandertal-derived alleles. The researchers first defined about 135,000 "high-confidence" Neandertal genetic variations (or SNPs) in modern humans. Next, they looked at the relationships between these SNPs and conditions Neandertal-derived alleles are thought to influence, ultimately finding that Neandertal alleles were significantly correlated with the risk for 12 traits, including depression, myocardial infarction, and blood disorders.

It is possible, the authors say, that some Neandertal alleles provided a benefit in early AMH populations as they moved out of Africa, but then became detrimental in modern Western environments.

New 'Little Ice Age' coincides with fall of Eastern Roman Empire and growth of Arab Empire

Researchers from the international Past Global Changes (PAGES) project write in the journal Nature Geoscience that they have identified an unprecedented, long-lasting cooling in the northern hemisphere 1500 years ago. The drop in temperature immediately followed three large volcanic eruptions in quick succession in the years 536, 540 and 547 AD (also known as the Common Era CE). Volcanoes can cause climate cooling by ejecting large volumes of small particles - sulfate aerosols - that enter the atmosphere blocking sunlight.

Within five years of the onset of the "Late Antique Little Ice Age", as the researchers have dubbed it, the Justinian plague pandemic swept through the Mediterranean between 541 and 543 AD, striking Constantinople and killing millions of people in the following centuries. The authors suggest these events may have contributed to the decline of the eastern Roman Empire.

Lead author, dendroclimatologist Ulf Büntgen from the Swiss Federal Research Institute said, "This was the most dramatic cooling in the Northern Hemisphere in the past 2000 years."

A later "Little Ice Age" between 14th and 19th centuries has been well documented and linked to political upheavals and plague pandemics in Europe, but the new study is the first to provide a comprehensive climate analysis across both Central Asia and Europe during this earlier period.

"With so many variables, we must remain cautious about environmental cause and political effect, but it is striking how closely this climate change aligns with major upheavals across several regions," added Büntgen.

The multidisciplinary research team made up of climatologists, naturalists, historians and linguists mapped the new climate information against a particularly turbulent period in history in Europe and central Asia. The volcanic eruptions probably affected food supplies - a major famine struck the region at precisely this time followed immediately by the pandemic.

Further south, the Arabian Peninsula received more rain allowing more vegetation to grow. The researchers speculate this may have driven expansion of the Arab Empire in the Middle East because the vegetation would have sustained larger herds of camels used by the Arab armies for their campaigns.

In cooler areas, several tribes migrated east towards China, possibly driven away by a lack of pastureland in central Asia. This led to hostilities between nomadic groups and the local ruling powers in the steppe regions of northern China. An alliance between these steppe populations and the Eastern Romans brought down the Sasanian Empire in Persia, the final empire in the region before the rise of the Arab Empire.

The researchers write, "The Late Antique Little Ice Age fits in well with the main transformative events that occurred in Eurasia during that time."

Large volcanic eruptions can affect global temperature for decades. The researchers suggest that the spate of eruptions combined with a solar minimum, and ocean and sea-ice responses to the effects of the volcanoes, extended the grip of the freezing climate for over a century.

Büntgen points out that their study serves as an example of how sudden climatological shifts can change existing political systems. "We can learn something from the speed and scale of the transformations that took place at that time," he said.

The temperature reconstruction, based on new tree-ring measurements from the Altai mountains where Russia, China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan meet, corresponds remarkably well with temperatures in the Alps in the last two millennia. The width of tree rings is a reliable way to estimate summer temperatures.

The research is part of the Euro-Med2k working group of the international Past Global Changes (PAGES) project. Last week, (29 January 2016) members of the group published a comprehensive analysis of summer temperatures in Europe in the last 2000 years, concluding that current summer temperatures are unprecedented during this period. The Euro-Med2k Working Group reconstructs and models past climate in the Europe and Mediterranean regions (including southern Europe, the Middle East and northern Africa) over the last 2,000 years. PAGES is part of Future Earth - a major international research program to study global sustainability.

Signs of early settlement in the Nordic region date back to the cradle of civilization

The discovery of the world's oldest storage of fermented fish in southern Sweden could rewrite the Nordic prehistory with findings indicating a far more complex society than previously thought. The unique discovery by osteologist Adam Boethius from Lund University was made when excavating a 9,200 year-old settlement at what was once a lake in Blekinge, Sweden.

"Our findings of large-scale fish fermentation, a traditional way of preserving fish, indicate that not only was this area in Sweden settled at that time, it was also able to support a large community", says Adam Boethius, whose findings are now being published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

The discovery is also an indication that Nordic societies were far more developed 9,200 years ago than what was previously believed. The findings are important as it is usually argued that people in the north lived relatively mobile lives, while people in the Levant -- a large area in the Middle East -- became settled and began to farm and raise cattle much earlier.

"These findings indicate a different time line, with Nordic foragers settling much earlier and starting to take advantage of the lakes and sea to harvest and process fish. From a global perspective, the development in the Nordic region could correspond to that of the Middle East at the time," says Adam Boethius.

"The discovery is quite unique as a find like this has never been made before. That is partly because fish bones are so fragile and disappear more easily than, for example, bones of land animals. In this case, the conditions were quite favourable, which helped preserve the remains", says Adam Boethius.

The fermentation process is also complex in itself. Because people did not have access to salt or the ability to make ceramic containers, they acidified the fish using, for example, pine bark and seal fat, and then wrapped the entire content in seal and wild boar skins and buried it in a pit covered with muddy soil. This type of fermentation requires a cold climate.

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Download article: Something Rotten in Scandinavia: The World's Earliest Evidence of Fermentation (2016). By Boethius, Adam, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440316000170

DNA evidence uncovers major upheaval in Europe near end of last Ice Age

DNA evidence lifted from the ancient bones and teeth of people who lived in Europe from the Late Pleistocene to the early Holocene -- spanning almost 30,000 years of European prehistory -- has offered some surprises, according to researchers who report their findings in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on Feb. 4, 2016. Perhaps most notably, the evidence shows a major shift in the population around 14,500 years ago, during a period of severe climatic instability.

"We uncovered a completely unknown chapter of human history: a major population turnover in Europe at the end of the last Ice Age," says leading author Johannes Krause of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany.

The researchers pieced this missing history together by reconstructing the mitochondrial genomes of 35 hunter-gatherer individuals who lived in Italy, Germany, Belgium, France, the Czech Republic, and Romania from 35,000 to 7,000 years ago. Mitochondria are organelles within cells that carry their own DNA and can be used to infer patterns of maternal ancestry.

"There has been a real lack of genetic data from this time period, so consequently we knew very little about the population structure or dynamics of the first modern humans in Europe," Krause says.

The new data show that the mitochondrial DNA of three individuals who lived in present-day Belgium and France before the coldest period in the last Ice Age -- the Last Glacial Maximum -- belonged to haplogroup M. This is remarkable because the M haplogroup is effectively absent in modern Europeans but is extremely common in modern Asian, Australasian, and Native American populations.

The absence of the M haplogroup and its presence in other parts of the world had previously led to the argument that non-African people dispersed on multiple occasions to spread across Eurasia and Australasia. The researchers say the discovery of this maternal lineage in Europe in the ancient past now suggests instead that all non-Africans dispersed rapidly from a single population, at a time they place around 50,000 years ago. Then, at some later stage, the M haplogroup was apparently lost from Europe.

"When the Last Glacial Maximum began around 25,000 years ago, hunter-gatherer populations retreated south to a number of putative refugia, and the consequent genetic bottleneck probably resulted in the loss of this haplogroup," explains first author of the study Cosimo Posth of Germany's University of Tübingen.

The researchers say their biggest surprise, however, was evidence of a major turnover of the population in Europe around 14,500 years ago, as the climate began to warm. "Our model suggests that during this period of climatic upheaval, the descendants of the hunter-gatherers who survived through the Last Glacial Maximum were largely replaced by a population from another source," says Adam Powell, another senior author at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

The researchers say the next step is to construct a more comprehensive picture of the past by analyzing the complete genomes of these ancient individuals along with additional specimens representing more times and places.

Humans evolved by sharing technology and culture

Our early ancestors, Homo sapiens, managed to evolve and journey across the earth by exchanging and improving their technology.

Blombos Cave in South Africa has given us vast knowledge about our early ancestors. In 2015, four open access articles, with research finds from Blombos as a starting point, have been published in the journal PLOS ONE.

"We are looking mainly at the part of South Africa where Blombos Cave is situated. We sought to find out how groups moved across the landscape and how they interacted," says Christopher S. Henshilwood, Professor at the University of Bergen (UiB) and University of the Witwatersrand and one of the authors of the articles.

The technology of our ancestors

Since its discovery in the early 1990s, Blombos Cave, about 300 kilometres east of Cape Town, South Africa, has yielded important new information on the behavioural evolution of the human species. The cave site was first excavated in 1991 and field work has been conducted there on a regular basis since 1997 - and is on-going. Blombos contains Middle Stone Age deposits currently dated at between 100,000 and 70,000 years, and a Later Stone Age sequence dated at between 2,000 and 300 years.

The researchers from UiB and Witswatersrand have now been looking closer at technology used by different groups in this and other regions in South Africa, such as spear points made of stone, as well as decorated ostrich eggshells, to determine whether there was an overlap and contact across groups of Middle Stone Age humans. How did they make contact with each other? How would contact across groups affect one group? How did the exchange of symbolic material culture affect the group or groups?

Adapting and evolving

"The pattern we are seeing is that when demographics change, people interact more. For example, we have found similar patterns engraved on ostrich eggshells in different sites. This shows that people were probably sharing symbolic material culture, at certain times but not at others" says Dr Karen van Niekerk, a UiB researcher and co-author.

This sharing of symbolic material culture and technology also tells us more about Homo sapiens' journey from Africa, to Arabia and Europe. Contact between cultures has been vital to the survival and development of our common ancestors Homo sapiens. The more contact the groups had, the stronger their technology and culture became.

"Contact across groups, and population dynamics, makes it possible to adopt and adapt new technologies and culture and is what describes Homo sapiens. What we are seeing is the same pattern that shaped the people in Europe who created cave art many years later," Henshilwood says.

English towns that welcomed medieval Jews more tolerant of modern-day immigration

Modern-day tolerance towards immigrants is significantly higher in English towns that welcomed medieval Jews, according to new research into persistent regional variations in attitudes to immigration.

A study by Professor David Fielding, an economist at New Zealand's University of Otago, shows that, on average, feelings towards 21st-century immigrants are significantly more positive among survey respondents in constituencies in England that were home to a Jewish immigrant community in the Middle Ages.

Towns with a substantial medieval Jewish population were identified by the presence of a chest, or archa, where by law all local contracts between Jews and Christians had to be deposited. By the mid-13th century, 30 English towns housed such chests.

The study, published in the British Journal of Political Science, additionally found that people surveyed in these constituencies also showed less support for the anti-immigration UKIP and BNP political parties.

The research involved modelling responses to survey questions from the British Election Studies of 2005 and 2010 while taking respondents' socioeconomic and constituency characteristics into account.

In the journal article, Professor Fielding writes that, "the results consistently point to a significant difference between English towns with a Jewish heritage and those without: in the twenty-first century, towns that welcomed medieval Jews show less anti-immigrant sentiment and less support for far-right parties."

"The results here also suggest the persistence of an underlying cultural trait, of which attitudes towards a specific ethnic minority are just one expression, since the Jewish community was expelled from England in 1290 and there was no substantial foreign immigration until four centuries later."

Professor Fielding says the findings imply that certain cities have an inherent ability to cope more easily with ethnic diversity.

"Policies that persuade such cities to take advantage of this ability by encouraging immigration or investment in activities that require more racial tolerance (such as international trade and tourism) could promote economic growth at the local and national levels."

Turtle soup, perchance? Prehistoric man had a penchant for tortoises

Grilled, boiled or salted? Turtles, or tortoises, are rarely consumed today, but a select few cultures, primarily those in East Asia, still consider turtle soup, made from the flesh of the turtle, a delicacy.

According to a new discovery at Qesem Cave near Tel Aviv, the site of many major findings from the late Lower Paleolithic period, they are not alone in their penchant for tortoise. Tel Aviv University researchers, in collaboration with scholars from Spain and Germany, have uncovered evidence of turtle specimens at the 400,000-year-old site, indicating that early man enjoyed eating turtles in addition to large game and vegetal material. The research provides direct evidence of the relatively broad diet of early Paleolithic people -- and of the "modern" tools and skills employed to prepare it.

"Culinary and cultural depth" to the Paleolithic diet

"Until now, it was believed that Paleolithic humans hunted and ate mostly large game and vegetal material," said Prof. Barkai. "Our discovery adds a really rich human dimension -- a culinary and therefore cultural depth to what we already know about these people."

The research team discovered tortoise specimens strewn all over the cave at different levels, indicating that they were consumed over the entire course of the early human 200,000-year inhabitation. Once exhumed, the bones revealed striking marks that reflected the methods the early humans used to process and eat the turtles.

"We know by the dental evidence we discovered earlier that the Qesem inhabitants ate vegetal food," said Prof. Barkai. "Now we can say they also ate tortoises, which were collected, butchered and roasted, even though they don't provide as many calories as fallow deer, for example."

According to the study, Qesem inhabitants hunted mainly medium and large game such as wild horses, fallow deer and cattle. This diet provided large quantities of fat and meat, which supplied the calories necessary for human survival. Until recently, it was believed that only the later Homo sapiens enjoyed a broad diet of vegetables and large and small animals. But evidence found at the cave of the exploitation of small animals over time, this discovery included, suggests otherwise.

Open questions remain

"In some cases in history, we know that slow-moving animals like tortoises were used as a 'preserved' or 'canned' food," said Dr. Blasco. "Maybe the inhabitants of Qesem were simply maximizing their local resources. In any case, this discovery adds an important new dimension to the knowhow, capabilities and perhaps taste preferences of these people."

According to Prof. Gopher, the new evidence also raises possibilities concerning the division of labor at Qesem Cave. "Which part of the group found and collected the tortoises?" Prof. Gopher said. "Maybe members who were not otherwise involved in hunting large game, who could manage the low effort required to collect these reptiles -- perhaps the elderly or children."

"According to the marks, most of the turtles were roasted in the shell," Prof. Barkai added. "In other cases, their shells were broken and then butchered using flint tools. The humans clearly used fire to roast the turtles. Of course they were focused on larger game, but they also used supplementary sources of food -- tortoises -- which were in the vicinity."

The researchers are now examining bird bones that were recently discovered at Qesem Cave.