Oldest recorded solar eclipse helps date the Egyptian pharaohs

Researchers have pinpointed the date of what could be the oldest solar eclipse yet recorded. The event, which occurred on 30 October 1207 BC, is mentioned in the Bible, and could have consequences for the chronology of the ancient world.

Using a combination of the biblical text and an ancient Egyptian text, the researchers were then able to refine the dates of the Egyptian pharaohs, in particular the dates of the reign of Ramesses the Great. The results are published in the Royal Astronomical Society journal Astronomy & Geophysics.

The biblical text in question comes from the Old Testament book of Joshua and has puzzled biblical scholars for centuries. It records that after Joshua led the people of Israel into Canaan - a region of the ancient Near East that covered modern-day Israel and Palestine - he prayed: "Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and Moon, in the Valley of Aijalon. And the Sun stood still, and the Moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies."

"If these words are describing a real observation, then a major astronomical event was taking place - the question for us to figure out is what the text actually means," said paper co-author Professor Sir Colin Humphreys from the University of Cambridge's Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy, who is also interested in relating scientific knowledge to the Bible.

"Modern English translations, which follow the King James translation of 1611, usually interpret this text to mean that the sun and moon stopped moving," said Humphreys, who is also a Fellow of Selwyn College. "But going back to the original Hebrew text, we determined that an alternative meaning could be that the sun and moon just stopped doing what they normally do: they stopped shining. In this context, the Hebrew words could be referring to a solar eclipse, when the moon passes between the earth and the sun, and the sun appears to stop shining. This interpretation is supported by the fact that the Hebrew word translated 'stand still' has the same root as a Babylonian word used in ancient astronomical texts to describe eclipses."

Humphreys and his co-author, Graeme Waddington, are not the first to suggest that the biblical text may refer to an eclipse, however, earlier historians claimed that it was not possible to investigate this possibility further due to the laborious calculations that would have been required.

Independent evidence that the Israelites were in Canaan between 1500 and 1050 BC can be found in the Merneptah Stele, an Egyptian text dating from the reign of the Pharaoh Merneptah, son of the well-known Ramesses the Great. The large granite block, held in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, says that it was carved in the fifth year of Merneptah's reign and mentions a campaign in Canaan in which he defeated the people of Israel.

Earlier historians have used these two texts to try to date the possible eclipse, but were not successful as they were only looking at total eclipses, in which the disc of the sun appears to be completely covered by the moon as the moon passes directly between the earth and the sun. What the earlier historians failed to consider was that it was instead an annular eclipse, in which the moon passes directly in front of the sun, but is too far away to cover the disc completely, leading to the characteristic 'ring of fire' appearance. In the ancient world the same word was used for both total and annular eclipses.

The researchers developed a new eclipse code, which takes into account variations in the Earth's rotation over time. From their calculations, they determined that the only annular eclipse visible from Canaan between 1500 and 1050 BC was on 30 October 1207 BC, in the afternoon. If their arguments are accepted, it would not only be the oldest solar eclipse yet recorded, it would also enable researchers to date the reigns of Ramesses the Great and his son Merneptah to within a year.

"Solar eclipses are often used as a fixed point to date events in the ancient world," said Humphreys.

Using these new calculations, the reign of Merneptah began in 1210 or 1209 BC. As it is known from Egyptian texts how long he and his father reigned for, it would mean that Ramesses the Great reigned from 1276-1210 BC, with a precision of plus or minus one year, the most accurate dates available.

The precise dates of the pharaohs have been subject to some uncertainty among Egyptologists, but this new calculation, if accepted, could lead to an adjustment in the dates of several of their reigns and enable us to date them precisely.

The relentless rise of migration in Europe over last 10,000 years

IMAGE: Rise in mobility has occurred in at least three distinct pulses. view more 

Credit: Mark Thomas

The new method, published today in PNAS, allows, for the first time, to directly quantify changes in prehistoric migration rates using ancient genetic data over the last 30,000 years.

The researchers found that migration has been on the rise since the beginning of the Holocene (the unusually warm and stable climatic period we have been in for the last approximately 11,000 years). Interestingly, this rise in mobility has not been gradual but instead has occurred in at least three distinct pulses (see figure).

The first occurred when agriculture spread across Europe from the Near East. The second coincided with the beginning of the Bronze Age; a time when complex civilizations were emerging, horses became a major means of transport, carts and chariots were invented, and new trade networks across Asia and Europe became established. The third mobility pulse occurred in the Iron Age, a period that saw significant increases in population sizes, trade and warfare.

"These findings suggest a strong link between technological change and human mobility" said Professor Mark Thomas (UCL Genetics, Evolution & Environment), an author of the study.
The researchers also found that mobility among the hunter-gatherers who lived in Europe before the migration of farmers was comparatively low, particularly after the peak of the last Ice Age (ca. 20,000 years ago).

"These are fascinating results - we associate a hunting and gathering lifestyle with nomadism and high mobility, and the development of the first farming villages and towns with sedentary societies. Yet, early farmers were on the move in search of more and more land to match their progressively larger populations, while the post-glacial hunters seemed to have met their needs locally" said Professor Marta Mirazón Lahr (Cambridge University), an author of the study.

"The relatively greater mobility of hunters as the climate deteriorated dramatically before 20,000 years ago shows how vulnerable human communities are to climate change".

Human mobility is ubiquitous and has influenced many aspects of our history and evolution. It shapes our genetic makeup, can influence how we evolve and adapt to changes in our environment, helps to maintain and spread ideas and technologies, and plays a key role in innovation. Ultimately, it enriches our biology and our culture.

For many years archaeologists - and more recently, geneticists - have been interested in how much people have moved around in the past. To detect migration episodes beyond the reach of written history, archaeologists have looked for clues in the changing distribution of artefacts (stone tools, pottery, crop species, coins, etc) belonging to different cultures. But these clues are not without controversy, as objects and ideas can spread without the wholesale movement of human populations.

More recently geneticists - particularly those who study DNA from long-dead human bones - have found convincing signatures of major past migrations in Europe. However, these studies focused on large migrations from one place to another, rather than the general hubbub of mobility in all directions, and did not allow researchers to compare the mobility of prehistoric people between different time periods or different regions.

The new method detailed in this study isn't limited in its application to genetic data. "One of the great features of this new method is that it can be used not only on genetic data, but also on the variation in the shape of ancient fossils. This means that the mathematical framework behind our method can easily be extended beyond the study of human movement: We can now explore changes in migration rates through time in animals that are long extinct", said Liisa Loog, the first author of the study.

"In theory, our method could also be applied to cultural data", added Professor Thomas. "This would enable us not only to identify changes in the rates of movement of people, but also in the rate with which ideas and objects spread".

Earliest known marine navigation tool revealed

---

Scan of the astrolabe artefact, revealing the etches.

Credit: Image courtesy of University of Warwick

Details of the earliest known marine navigation tool, discovered in a shipwreck, have been revealed thanks to state-of-the-art scanning technology at WMG, University of Warwick.

Professor Mark Williams from WMG was tasked with scanning the artefact -- an astrolabe from the late fifteenth century, used by mariners to measure the altitude of the sun during voyages -- which was excavated in 2014 by Blue Water Recovery.

When the team found the object, no markings were visible -- they believed it was an astrolabe, but they could not see any navigational markings on it.

They then approached Professor Williams, who conducts pioneering scanning analyses in his laboratory at WMG, to reveal the artefact's invisible details.

The scans showed etches around the edge of the object, each separated by five degrees -- proving that it is an astrolabe.

These markings would have allowed mariners to measure the height of the sun above the horizon at noon to determine their location so they could find their way on the high seas.

The technology was able to accurately scan the item to within 0.1mm and reproduce a high-resolution 3D model.

Professor Mark Williams commented:

"It was fantastic to apply our 3D scanning technology to such an exciting project and help with the identification of such a rare and fascinating item.

"Usually we are working on engineering-related challenges, so to be able to take our expertise and transfer that to something totally different and so historically significant was a really interesting opportunity."

The astrolabe is a bronze disc, which measures 17.5cm in diameter, and is engraved with the Portuguese coat of arms and the personal emblem of Don Manuel I, the King of Portugal from 1495-1521.

It is believed to date from between 1495 and 1500, and was recovered from the wreck of a Portuguese explorer ship which sank during a storm in the Indian Ocean in 1503.

The boat was called the Esmeralda and was part of a fleet led by Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, the first person to sail directly from Europe to India.

David Mearns, from Blue Water Recovery, who led the excavation, commented:

"It's a great privilege to find something so rare, something so historically important, something that will be studied by the archaeological community and fills in a gap.
"It was like nothing else we had seen […] it adds to the history, and hopefully astrolabes from this period can be found."

A cuneiform archive of 93 clay tablets dating from 1250 BCE -- the period of the Middle Assyrian Empire

Bassetki (Iraqi Kurdistan) 2017: Assyrian cuneiform clay tablets as they were discovered inside a clay vessel.
Credit: Peter Pfälzner, University of Tübingen

University of Tübingen archaeologists headed by Professor Peter Pfälzner have made sensational finds in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. The researchers from the Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies found a cuneiform archive of 93 clay tablets datingfrom 1250 BCE -- the period of the Middle Assyrian Empire. What the tablets record remains a mystery for the time being. The researchers will have to decipher them -- a long and difficult task.

The tablets were found at the Bronze Age city site of Bassetki, which was only discovered in 2013 by archaeologists from the Tübingen collaborative research center 1070, ResourceCultures. The Tübingen archaeologists continued their work undisturbed even in September and October of this year -- despite the turbulence caused by the Kurdish independence referendum and the sharp responses of governments in the region.

In recent months, the researchers excavated layers of settlement dating from the Early, Middle, and Late Bronze Age, as well as from the subsequent Assyrian period. "Our finds provide evidence that this early urban center in northern Mesopotamia was settled almost continuously from approximately 3000 to 600 BCE. That indicates that Bassetki was of key significance on important trade routes," Pfälzner says.

A layer of settlement from the little-researched Mittani Kingdom

The researchers unearthed a layer from the little-known Mittani Kingdom (approx. 1550 -- 1300) for the first time at this location. Two Mittani cuneiform tablets found in this level document intense trade conducted by the city's inhabitants around the middle of the second millennium BCE; business is likely to have flourished due to Bassetki's location along trade routes from Mesopotamia to Anatolia and Syria.

The city blossomed again in the subsequent Middle Assyrian Empire. The Tübingen researchers, who are working with Dr. Hasan Qasim of the Dohuk Antiquities Directorate, discovered the archive of 93 clay tablets from that later period -- around 1250 BCE. Sixty of the valuable records had been deposited in a ceramic pot which was presumably used for clay tablet storage. The vessel was discovered in a room of a Middle Assyrian building which had been destroyed; along with two further pots, it has been wrapped in a thick coating of clay.

"The vessels may have been hidden this way shortly after the surrounding building was destroyed. Perhaps the information inside it was meant to be protected and preserved for posterity," Pfälzner explains. It is not yet known if the tablets contain business, legal, or religious records. "Our philologist Dr. Betina Faist has deciphered one small fragment of a clay tablet. It mentions a temple to the goddess Gula, suggesting that we may be looking at a religious context," he adds.

The challenge of unlocking ancient secrets

Working at the site, the researchers made images of the clay tablets based on a computational photographic method (rti), which enables interactive re-lighting of the objects from any direction. The intense work of reading and translating the 93 cuneiform tablets will begin in Germany, now that the team has returned home. Many of the clay tablets are unbaked and badly worn, so reading them will be a major challenge and will take a considerable amount of time. Peter Pfälzner hopes the texts will yield a wide variety of detail about the history, society, and culture of this little-researched area of northern Mesopotamia in the second millennium BCE.

How Neanderthals influenced human genetics at the crossroads of Asia and Europe

When the ancestors of modern humans migrated out of Africa, they passed through the Middle East and Turkey before heading deeper into Asia and Europe.

Here, at this important crossroads, it's thought that they encountered and had sexual rendezvous with a different hominid species: the Neanderthals. Genomic evidence shows that this ancient interbreeding occurred, and Western Asia is the most likely spot where it happened.

A new study explores the legacy of these interspecies trysts, with a focus on Western Asia, where the first relations may have occurred. The research, published on Oct. 13 in Genome Biology and Evolution, analyzes the genetic material of people living in the region today, identifying DNA sequences inherited from Neanderthals.

"As far as human history goes, this area was the stepping stone for the peopling of all of Eurasia," says Omer Gokcumen, PhD, an assistant professor of biological sciences in the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences. "This is where humans first settled when they left Africa. It may be where they first met Neanderthals. From the standpoint of genetics, it's a very interesting region."

The study focused on Western Asia. As part of the project, scientists analyzed 16 genomes belonging to people of Turkish descent.

"Within these genomes, the areas where we see relatively common Neanderthal introgression are in genes related to metabolism and immune system responses," says Recep Ozgur Taskent, the study's first author and a UB PhD candidate in biological sciences. "Broadly speaking, these are functions that can have an impact on health."

For example, one DNA sequence that originated from Neanderthals includes a genetic variant linked to celiac disease. Another includes a variant tied to a lowered risk for malaria.

The bottom line? The relations that our ancestors had with Neanderthals tens of thousands of years ago may continue to exert an influence on our well-being today, Gokcumen says.

He led the study with Taskent and Mehmet Somel, PhD, from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. Co-authors included Nursen Duha Alioglu and Evrim Fer from the Middle East Technical University, and Handan Melike Donertas from the Middle East Technical University and European Bioinformatics Institute.

Early contact with Neanderthals, but relatively little Neanderthal DNA

In addition to exploring the specific functions of genetic material that the Turkish population inherited from Neanderthals, the study also examined the Neanderthals' influence on human populations in Western Asia more broadly.

The region is thought to be where modern humans first interbred with their Neanderthal kin. And yet, research has shown that people living in this area today have relatively little Neanderthal DNA compared to people in other parts of the world.

The new study supports this finding. The research team analyzed genomic data from dozens of Western Asian individuals, and observed that, on average, with a few exceptions, these populations carry less Neanderthal DNA than Europeans, Central Asians and East Asians.

The differences in Neanderthal ancestry between Western Asian and other populations may be due to the region's unique position in human history, Taskent says.

Tens of thousands of years ago, when modern humans first left Africa to populate the rest of the world, Western Asia was the first stopping point -- the only land-based route for accessing the rest of Eurasia.

People who live in Europe, Central Asia and East Asia today may be descended from human populations that treated Western Asia as a waystation: These human populations lived there temporarily, mating with the region's Neanderthals before moving on to other destinations.

In contrast, the ancestors of present-day Western Asians had a deeper connection to the region: They settled in Western Asia instead of just passing through. These ancient humans had contact with Neanderthals, too, but two factors may have diluted the Neanderthals' influence.

The first was a constant influx of genetic material from ancient Africans, who had no Neanderthal DNA and who continued to pass through Western Asia for thousands of years as human societies grew in Europe and Asia. The second was the hypothesized presence of a "basal Eurasian" population -- a population of Western Asians that never interbred with Neanderthals.

"Both of these factors may have helped to limit the amount of Neanderthal DNA that was retained by human populations in the region," Taskent says.

A collection of seals (bullae) from the late First Temple period, discovered in the City of David excavations

Who was Achiav ben Menachem? A collection of dozens of sealings, mentioning the names of officials dated to the days of the Judean kingdom prior to the Babylonian destruction, was unearthed during excavations by the Israel Antiquities Authority in the City of David National Park in the area of the walls of Jerusalem, funded by the ELAD (El Ir David) organization.

 
The sealings (bullae- from which the Hebrew word for stamp, “bul”, is derived) are small pieces of clay which in ancient times served as seals for letters. A letter which arrived with its seal broken was a sign that the letter had been opened before reaching its destination. Although letters did not survive the horrible fire which consumed Jerusalem at its destruction, the seals, which were made of the abovementioned material that is similar to pottery, were actually well preserved thanks to the fire, and attest to the existence of the letters and their senders.

According to Ortal Chalaf and Dr. Joe Uziel, directors of the excavation for the Israel Antiquities Authority, “In the numerous excavations at the City of David, dozens of seals were unearthed, bearing witness to the developed administration of the city in the First Temple period. The earliest seals bear mostly a series of pictures; it appears that instead of writing the names of the clerks, symbols were used to show who the signatory was, or what he was sealing. In later stages of the period – from the time of King Hezekiah (around 700 BCE) and up to the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE - the seals bear the names of clerks in early Hebrew script. Through these findings, we learn not only about the developed administrative systems in the city, but also about the residents and those who served in the civil service.”

Some of the seals bear biblical names, several of which are still used today, such as Pinchas. One particularly interesting seal mentions a man by the name of “Achiav ben Menachem.” 

These two names are known in the context of the Kingdom of Israel; Menachem was a king of Israel, while Achiav does not appear in the Bible, but his name resembles that of Achav (Ahab) –
the infamous king of Israel from the tales of the prophet Elijah.  Though the spelling of the name differs somewhat, it appears to be the same name. The version of the name which appears on the seal discovered – Achav – appears as well in the Book of Jeremiah in the Septuagint, as well as in Flavius Josephus (Antiquities of the Jews 15: 7-8).

Chalaf and Uziel add that the appearance of the name Achiav is interesting for two main reasons. First - because it serves as further testimony to the names which are familiar to us from the kingdom of Israel in the Bible, and which appear in Judah during the period following the destruction of the kingdom of Israel. “These names are part of the evidence that after the exile of the Tribes of Israel, refugees arrived in Jerusalem from the northern kingdom, and found their way into senior positions in Jerusalem’s administration”.

Furthermore, the sealings is the fact that the two names which appear on the seal- Achiav and Menachem- were names of kings of Israel. Though Achav (Ahab) is portrayed as a negative figure in the Bible, the name continues to be in use- though in a differently spelled version- both in Judea in the latter days of the First Temple, as reflected in Jeremiah and on the seal, and also after the destruction- in the Babylonian exile and up until the Second Temple period, as seen in the writings of Flavius Josephus.

The various stamps, along with other archaeological findings discovered in the recent excavations, will be exhibited to the public for the first time at the 18^th City of David research conference, the annual archaeological conference held by the Megalim Institute, on September 7^th at the City of David National Park.

Remains of decapitated toads found in a jar in a 4,000-year-old tomb

.

---

 

 

Why were decapitated toads placed in a jar in a 4,000-year-old tomb in Jerusalem? Fascinating findings from an Israel Antiquities Authority excavation near the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo shed light on burial customs in the Canaanite period (the Middle Bronze Age). The archaeological excavation, which took place in 2014 with funding from the Housing Ministry (the Arim Urban Development Company) prior to the expansion of the Mana?at neighborhood, yielded the remains of at least nine toads, and evidence of the cultivation of date palms and myrtle in the area. 

In the new research, to be presented for the first time at the conference “New Studies in the Archaeology of Jerusalem and its Region,” remains that were found in vessels placed in the tomb as funerary offerings were examined. The examination, using advanced scientific methods, was a cooperative effort among various academic institutions, led by Shua Kisilevitz and Zohar Turgeman-Yaffe of the Israel Antiquities Authority, with Dr. Dafna Langgut of Tel Aviv’s Institute of Archaeology and Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, Dr. Lior Weisbrod of the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa, Dr. David Ilan, director of the Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology at the Hebrew Union College and Nathan Ben-Ari of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

According to the excavation directors on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, Shua Kisilevitz and Zohar Turgeman-Yaffe: “This section of the Nahal Repha’im basin was fertile ground for settlement throughout time, especially during the Canaanite period. In recent years excavations in the area have uncovered two settlement sites, two temples and a number of cemeteries, which provide new insight into the life of the local population at that time.” According to Kisilevitz and Turgeman-Yaffe: “For an archaeologist, finding tombs that were intentionally sealed in antiquity is a priceless treasure, because they are a time capsule that allows us to encounter objects almost just as they were originally left. At that time, it was customary to bury the dead with offerings that constituted a kind of “burial kit,” which, it was believed, would serve the deceased in the afterworld. 
When we removed the stone that blocked the tomb opening, we were excited to discover intact bowls and jars. In one of the jars, to our surprise, we found a heap of small bones. The study of the bones, by Dr. Lior Weisbrod of the University of Haifa, revealed at least nine toads. Interestingly, they had been decapitated.” Another intriguing finding came to light through analysis of sediments collected from the clay jars and examined under a microscope. 

The examination, by Dr. Dafna Langgut of Tel Aviv University, revealed that shortly before the vessels were placed in the tomb, they came into contact with various plants including date palms and myrtle bushes. This fact is interesting because this is not the natural habitat for those species, and they therefore seem to have been planted here intentionally. 

According to Dr. Langgut, in this period the date palm symbolized fertility and rejuvenation, which could explain why the ancients cultivated the trees in this environment, where they do not grow naturally. According to the scholars, these plants may have been part of an orchard planted in an area where funeral rituals were held, during which offerings of food and objects were made to the deceased. The scholars surmise that the jar with the headless toads was among these offerings.
The research will be presented for the first time on Thursday, October 18, at the conference “New Studies in the Archaeology of Jerusalem and its Region,” open to the public, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

New Stone Courses Discovered in the Western Wall Tunnels Reaching the Depths of the Western Wall; Ancient Theater Discovered as Well

.

---

Excavations conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority, with the participation of volunteers, have uncovered large portions of courses of the Western Wall that have been hidden for 1,700 years. 

 

 

Eight stone courses of the Western Wall that had been buried under an 8-meter layer of earth were recently uncovered in excavations conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority in the Western Wall Tunnels in Jerusalem.  These stone courses, completely preserved, are built of massive stones and are outstanding in the quality of their construction.  
Furthermore, after the removal of this layer of soil, the archaeologists were surprised to discover that it covered the remnants of an extraordinary theater-like structure from the Roman period confirming historical writings that describe a theater near the Temple Mount.  These exciting findings will be presented to the public during a conference titled New Studies in the Archaeology of Jerusalem and its Environs, which will take place at the Hebrew University. This year’s conference will mark 50 years of archaeology since the unification of the city.
                                                                                                                            
At a press conference this morning (Monday) beneath Wilson’s Arch in the Western Wall Tunnels, the stone courses and the amazing remnants of the theater were presented. Apparently, a great deal was invested in the construction of the theater which contained approximately 200 seats. The press conference was conducted with the participation of the Western Wall rabbi, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, Israel Antiquities Authority director, Israel Hasson, Western Wall Heritage Foundation director, Mr. Mordechai (Suli) Eliav, Israel Antiquities Authority district archaeologist Dr. Yuval Baruch, and the excavation directors. 

From the very beginning of archaeological research in Jerusalem over 150 years ago, scholars have been seeking the public buildings mentioned in the historical sources. Particularly prominent among them, theaters or theater-like structures are mentioned. These descriptions are found in written sources from the Second Temple period (such as Josephus Flavius), and in sources from the period following the destruction of the Second Temple, when Jerusalem became the Roman colony of Aelia Capitolina. Many theories were advanced as to the location of these complexes, but they were without archaeological foundation. That is, until this latest discovery.

Wilson’s Arch is in fact the only intact, visible structure remaining from the Temple Mount compound of the Second Temple period. The arch, built of enormous stones, is the last of a series of such arches that once constituted a gigantic bridge leading to the Temple Mount from the west.
The arch stands high above the foundations of the Western Wall, and it served, among other purposes, as a passageway for people entering the Temple Mount compound and the Temple. A huge aqueduct also passed over the arch.

According to site excavators Dr. Joe Uziel, Tehillah Lieberman and Dr. Avi Solomon: “From a research perspective, this is a sensational find. The discovery was a real surprise. When we started excavating, our goal was to date Wilson’s Arch.  We did not imagine that a window would open for us onto the mystery of Jerusalem’s lost theater. Like much of archaeological research, the expectation is that a certain thing will be found, but at the end of the process other findings, surprising and thought-provoking, are unearthed. There is no doubt that the exposure of the courses of the Western Wall and the components of Wilson’s Arch are thrilling discoveries that contribute to our understanding of Jerusalem. But the discovery of the theater-like structure is the real drama.”

The excavators note: “This is a relatively small structure compared to known Roman theaters (such as at Caesarea, Bet She’an and Bet Guvrin). This fact, in addition to its location under a roofed space – in this case under Wilson’s Arch – leads us to suggest that this is a theater-like structure of the type known in the Roman world as an odeon. In most cases, such structures were used for acoustic performances. Alternatively, this may have been a structure known as a bouleuterion – the building where the city council met, in this case the council of the roman colony of Aelia Capitolina – Roman Jerusalem.”

Interestingly, the archaeologists believe the theater was never used. A number of findings at the site indicate this – among them a staircase that was never completely hewn. It is clear that great effort was invested in the building’s construction but oddly, it was abandoned before it was put to use. The reasons for this are unknown, but they may have been connected to a significant historical event, perhaps the Bar Kokhba Revolt; construction of the building may have been started, but abandoned when the revolt broke out. Additional evidence of unfinished buildings from this period has been uncovered in the past in the excavations of the Eastern Cardo in the Western Wall Plaza.  

Numerous findings have been unearthed in the excavations beneath Wilson’s Arch, some of which are unique, including pottery vessels, coins, architectural and architectural elements, and more. Advanced research methods from various fields were employed to uncover remains invisible to the naked eye, but only viewable through a microscope. This enables conclusions to be drawn at a level of precision that would have been impossible in the past, transforming the study of the findings at Wilson’s Arch into pioneering, cutting-edge micro-archaeological research.

Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovitch, rabbi of the Western Wall and the holy places said: “Time after time the amazing archaeological findings allow our generation to actually touch the ancient history of our people and Jewish heritage and its deep connection to Jerusalem. Each finding thrills me to new and powerful heights. We have a great deal of archaeological work ahead and I am certain that the deeper we dig, the earlier the periods we will reach, further anchoring the profound connection of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and to Jerusalem.”   

Israel Hasson, director-general of the Israel Antiquities Authority Says: The Israel Antiquities Authority is working toward advancing a national project to unveil ancient Jerusalem. The project was approved by the government in its meeting marking 50 years of the unification of Jerusalem. The exciting finds from the excavations beneath Wilson's Arch enhance the importance of expanding the archaeological excavations in this region, and I hope that these finds will help push forward the general plan, so that we each get to see and be awed by Jerusalem's glorious past. We hope to complete the excavations in WIlson's Arch and all around ancient Jerusalem with the help of high school seniors, as part of the program "I have a stone from Jerusalem" 
.
According to Dr. Yuval Baruch, the Jerusalem District Archaeologist of the Israel Antiquities Authority: "The exposure of finds beneath Wilson's Arch began as a joint venture between the Western Wall Heritage Foundation and the Israel Antiquities Authority, in an interest to create a new tourist path in the Western Wall Tunnels, providing the visitor with a new perspective and exposure to the grandiose finds of recent years. the findings include portions of a magnificent structure from the Second Temple period, ritual baths and now the truly exceptional finds beneath WIlson's Arch. Upon completing the excavations, the Israel Antiquities Authority together with the Western Wall Heritage Foundation will begin to plan the preservation and presentation of the findings."

The director of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, Mordechai (Suli) Eliav, said: “This is indeed one of the most important findings in all my 30 years at the Western Wall Heritage Foundation. This discovery joins many other findings uncovered in the area of the Western Wall Plaza, which together create a living historical mosaic of Jerusalem and the Western Wall for which the generations longed so powerfully. There is no doubt as to the immeasurably rich scientific value of the discoveries in this area. The findings symbolize the guests from past empires that were here over the years, as opposed to the Jewish people, who held fast to this place some 3,000 years ago and have been here ever since and always. The uncovering, for the first time after some 1,700 years, of these stones from lower courses of the Western Wall is very exciting. The Western Wall, a remnant of our Temple, and the abundant findings surrounding it, reveal thousands of years of our presence here and are a lodestone for the hundreds of thousands of people, and more, who visit the site, as we witnessed recently during the High Holy Days and Sukkot.”

Older Neandertal survived with a little help from his friends

Despite deafness, missing forearm and limp, he lived into his 40s

IMAGE: The skull of a Neandertal known as Shanidar 1 shows signs of a blow to the head received at an early age. view more 

Credit: Erik Trinkaus

An older Neandertal from about 50,000 years ago, who had suffered multiple injuries and other degenerations, became deaf and must have relied on the help of others to avoid prey and survive well into his 40s, indicates a new analysis published Oct. 20 in the online journal PLoS ONE.

"More than his loss of a forearm, bad limp and other injuries, his deafness would have made him easy prey for the ubiquitous carnivores in his environment and dependent on other members of his social group for survival," said Erik Trinkaus, study co-author and professor of anthropology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

Known as Shanidar 1, the Neandertal remains were discovered in 1957 during excavations at Shanidar Cave in Iraqi Kurdistan by Ralph Solecki, an American archeologist and professor emeritus at Columbia University.

Previous studies of the Shanidar 1 skull and other skeletal remains had noted his multiple injuries. He sustained a serious blow to the side of the face, fractures and the eventual amputation of the right arm at the elbow, and injuries to the right leg, as well as a systematic degenerative condition.

In a new analysis of the remains, Trinkaus and Sébastien Villotte of the French National Centre for Scientific Research confirm that bony growths in Shanidar 1's ear canals would have produced profound hearing loss. In addition to his other debilitations, this sensory deprivation would have made him highly vulnerable in his Pleistocene context.

As the co-authors note, survival as a hunter-gatherer in the Pleistocene presented numerous challenges, and all of those difficulties would have been markedly pronounced with sensory impairment. Like other Neandertals who have been noted for surviving with various injuries and limited arm use, Shanidar 1 most likely required significant social support to reach old age.

"The debilities of Shanidar 1, and especially his hearing loss, thereby reinforce the basic humanity of these much maligned archaic humans, the Neandertals," said Trinkaus, the Mary Tileston Hemenway Professor.

Research sheds new light on early turquoise mining in Southwest

IMAGE: This is an image of a turquoise artifact linked to Canyon Creek. view more 

Credit: Courtesy of Saul Hedquist

Turquoise is an icon of the desert Southwest, with enduring cultural significance, especially for Native American communities. Yet, relatively little is known about the early history of turquoise procurement and exchange in the region.

University of Arizona researchers are starting to change that by blending archaeology and geochemistry to get a more complete picture of the mineral's mining and distribution in the region prior to the 16th-century arrival of the Spanish.

In a new paper, published in the November issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science, UA anthropology alumnus Saul Hedquist and his collaborators revisit what once was believed to be a relatively small turquoise mine in eastern Arizona. Their findings suggest that the Canyon Creek mine, located on the White Mountain Apache Indian Reservation, was actually a much more significant source of turquoise than previously thought.

With permission from the White Mountain Apache Tribe, Hedquist and his colleagues visited the now essentially exhausted Canyon Creek source -- which has been known to archaeologists since the 1930s -- to remap the area and collect new samples. There, they found evidence of previously undocumented mining areas, which suggest the output of the mine may have been 25 percent higher than past surveys indicated.

"Pre-Hispanic workings at Canyon Creek were much larger than previously estimated, so the mine was clearly an important source of turquoise while it was active," said Hedquist, lead author of the paper, who earned his doctorate from the UA School of Anthropology in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences in May.

In addition, the researchers measured ratios of lead and strontium isotopes in samples they collected from the mine, and determined that Canyon Creek turquoise has a unique isotopic fingerprint that distinguishes it from other known turquoise sources in the Southwest. The isotopic analysis was conducted in the lab of UA College of Science Dean Joaquin Ruiz in the Department of Geosciences by study co-author and UA geosciences alumna Alyson Thibodeau. Now an assistant professor at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, Thibodeau did her UA dissertation on isotopic fingerprinting of geological sources of turquoise throughout the Southwest.

"If you pick up a piece of turquoise from an archaeological site and say 'where does it come from?' you have to have some means of telling the different turquoise deposits apart," said David Killick, UA professor of anthropology, who co-authored the paper with Hedquist, Thibodeau and John Welch, a UA alumnus now on the faculty at Simon Fraser University. "Alyson's work shows that the major mining areas can be distinguished by measurement of major lead and strontium isotopic ratios."

Based on the isotopic analysis, researchers were able to confidently match turquoise samples they collected at Canyon Creek to several archaeological artifacts housed in museums. Their samples matched artifacts that had been uncovered at sites throughout much of east-central Arizona -- some more than 100 kilometers from the mine -- suggesting that distribution of Canyon Creek turquoise was broader than previously thought, and that the mine was a significant source of turquoise for pre-Hispanic inhabitants of the Mogollon Rim area.

The researchers also were able to pinpoint when the mine was most active. Their samples matched artifacts found at sites occupied between A.D. 1250-1400, suggesting the mine was primarily used in the late 13th and/or 14th centuries.

"Archaeologists have struggled for decades to find reliable means of sourcing archaeological turquoise -- linking turquoise artifacts to their geologic origin -- and exploring how turquoise was mined and traded throughout the greater pre-Hispanic Southwest," said Hedquist, who now lives in Tempe, Arizona, and works as an archaeologist and ethnographer for Logan Simpson Inc., a cultural resources consulting firm. "We used both archaeology and geochemistry to document the extent of workings at the mine, estimate the amount of labor spent at the mine and identify turquoise from the mine in archaeological assemblages."

Research Paves Way for Future Studies 

Turquoise is a copper mineral, found only immediately adjacent to copper ore deposits. While detailed documentation of pre-Hispanic turquoise mines is limited, the work at Canyon Creek could pave the way for future investigations.

"I think our study raises the bar a bit by combining archaeological and geochemical analyses to gain a more complete picture of operations at one mine: when it was active, how intensely it was mined and how its product moved about the landscape," Hedquist said. "Researchers have only recently developed a reliable means of sourcing the mineral, so there's plenty of potential for future research."

Similar work involving the UA is already underway to explore the origin of turquoise artifacts found at the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan in Mexico.

"Canyon Creek is but one of many ancient turquoise mines," Hedquist said. "This study provides a standard for the detailed documentation of ancient mineral procurement and a framework for linking archaeological turquoise to specific geologic locations. Building on other archaeological patterns -- the circulation of pottery and flaked stone artifacts, for example -- we can piece together the social networks that facilitated the ancient circulation of turquoise in different times and places."

A better understanding of the pre-Hispanic history of turquoise is important not only to archaeologists and mining historians but to modern Native Americans, Killick said.

"It's of great interest to modern-day Apache, Zuni and Hopi, whose ancestors lived in this area, because turquoise continues to be ritually important for them," he said. "They really have shown a great deal of interest in this work, and they've encouraged it."

40,000-year-old man in China reveals complicated genetic history of Asia Chinese Academy

The biological makeup of humans in East Asia is shaping up to be a very complex story, with greater diversity and more distant contacts than previously known, according to a new study in Current Biology analyzing the genome of a man that died in the Tianyuan Cave near Beijing, China 40,000 years ago. His bones had enough DNA molecules left that a team led by Professor FU Qiaomei, at the Molecular Paleontology Lab at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP), could use advanced ancient DNA sequencing techniques to retrieve DNA from him that spans the human genome.

Though several ancient humans have been sequenced in Europe and Siberia, few have been sequenced from East Asia, particularly China, where the archaeological record shows a rich history for early modern humans. This new study on the Tianyuan man marks the earliest ancient DNA from East Asia, and the first ancient genome-wide data from China.

The Tianyuan man was studied in 2013 by the same lab. Then, they found that he showed a closer relationship to present-day Asians than present-day Europeans, suggesting present-day Asian history in the region extends as far back as 40,000 years ago. With new molecular techniques only published in the last two years, Professor FU and her team, in a joint collaboration with experts at the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology and UC Berkeley, sequenced and analyzed more regions of the genome, particularly at positions also sequenced in other ancient humans.

Since 2013, DNA generated from ancient Europeans has shown that all present-day Europeans derive some of their population history from a prehistoric population that separated from other early non-African populations soon after the migration out of Africa. The mixed ancestry of present-day Europeans could bias tests of genetic similarity, including the results found for the Tianyuan man. With the newly published data, however, the Fu lab showed that his genetic similarity to Asians remained in comparisons including ancient Europeans without mixed ancestry. They confirmed that the closest relationship he shares is with present-day Asians. That was not, however, the most exciting result they found.

With a close relationship to present-day Asians, they expected him to act similarly to present-day Asian populations with respect to Europeans. It was a surprise when they found that a 35,000-year-old individual from Belgium, GoyetQ116-1, who in other ways behaved as an ancient European, shared some genetic similarity to the Tianyuan individual that no other ancient Europeans shared. It is unlikely that this is due to direct interactions between populations near the east and west coasts of Eurasia, since other ancient Europeans do not show a similar result. Instead, the researchers suggested that the two populations represented by the Tianyuan and GoyetQ116-1 individuals derived some of their ancestry from the same sub-population prior to the European-Asian separation. The genetic relationship observed between these two ancient individuals is direct evidence that European and Asian populations have a complex history.

A second unexpected result shed some light on human genetic diversity in prehistoric East Asia. In 2015, a study comparing present-day populations in Asia, the Pacific and the Americas showed that some Native American populations from South America had an unusual connection to some populations south of mainland Asia, most notably the Melanesian Papuan and the Andamanese Onge.
That study proposed that the population that crossed into the Americas around 20,000 years ago could not be thought of as a single unit. Instead, one or more related but distinct populations crossed at around the same time period, and at least one of these groups had additional ties to an Asian population that also contributed to the present-day Papuan and Onge.

No trace of this connection is observed in present-day East Asians and Siberians, but unlike them, the Tianyuan man also possesses genetic similarities to the same South Americans, in a pattern similar to that found for the Papuan and Onge. The new study directly confirms that the multiple ancestries represented in Native Americans were all from populations in mainland Asia. What is intriguing, however, is that the migration to the Americas occurred approximately 20,000 years ago, but the Tianyuan individual is twice that age. Thus, the population diversity represented in the Americas must have persisted in mainland Asia in two or more distinct populations since 40,000 years ago.

The Tianyuan man is only one individual, but the deeper sequencing of his genome by Professor FU and her team reveals a complicated separation for ancient Europeans and Asians and hints at a diverse genetic landscape for humans in East Asia. Their study also showed that he derives from a population that is related to present-day East Asians, but is not directly ancestral to these populations, further suggesting that multiple genetically distinct populations were located in Asia from 40,000 years ago until the present.

The Tianyuan man shows us that between 40,000 years ago and the present, there are many unanswered questions about the past populations of Asia, and ancient DNA will be the key solving those questions.

Indigenous people have been on the far northeastern edge of Canada for most of the last 10,000 years, moving in shortly after the ice retreated from the Last Glacial Maximum. Archaeological evidence suggests that people with distinct cultural traditions inhabited the region at least three different times with a possible hiatus for a period between 2,000 and 3,000 years ago.

• This schematic shows the settlement history of Newfoundland encompassing occupations by at least three distinct cultural groups: MA, Dorset Palaeoeskimo, and Beothuk.

• Credit

• Produced by Deirdre Elliott with QGIS 2.18.44, and data from Stephen Hull and Natural Earth.

Now, researchers who've examined genetic evidence from mitochondrial DNA provide evidence that two of those groups, known as the Maritime Archaic and Beothuk, brought different matrilines to the island, adding further support to the notion that those groups had distinct population histories. The findings are published in Current Biology on October 12.

"Our paper suggests, based purely on mitochondrial DNA, that the Maritime Archaic were not the direct ancestors of the Beothuk and that the two groups did not share a very recent common ancestor," says Ana Duggan of McMaster University. "This in turn implies that the island of Newfoundland was populated multiple times by distinct groups."

The relationship between the older Maritime Archaic population and Beothuk hadn't been clear from the archaeological record. With permission from the current-day indigenous community, Duggan and her colleagues, led by Hendrik Poinar, examined the mitochondrial genome diversity of 74 ancient remains from the island together with the archaeological record and dietary isotope profiles. All samples were collected from tiny amounts of bone or teeth.

The sample set included a Maritime Archaic subadult more than 7,700 years old found in the L'Anse Amour burial mound, the oldest known burial mound in North America and one of the first manifestations of the Maritime Archaic tradition. The majority of the Beothuk samples came from the Notre Dame Bay area, where the Beothuk retreated in response to European expansions. Most of those samples are from people that lived on the island within the last 300 years. The DNA evidence showed that the two groups didn't share a common maternal ancestor in the recent past, but rather one that coalesces sometime in the more distant past.

"These data clearly suggest that the Maritime Archaic people are not the direct maternal ancestors of the Beothuk and thus that the population history of the island involves multiple independent arrivals by indigenous peoples followed by habitation for many generations," the researchers write. "This shows the extremely rich population dynamics of early peoples on the furthest northeastern edge of the continent."

No trace of early contact between Rapanui and South Americans in ancient DNA

• IMAGE: This photograph shows moai on Rapa Nui. view more 
  

  Credit: Terry Hunt

Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile) has long been a source of intrigue and mystery. How did such a small community of people build so many impressively large statues? And what happened to cause that community to collapse? Researchers have also been curious about what kind of contact Rapa Nui's inhabitants, known as Rapanui, might have had with South Americans prior to the arrival of Europeans. Earlier evidence seemed to support early contact between the Rapanui and Native Americans .

But a new study of ancient DNA evidence collected from archaeological samples and reported in Current Biology on October 12th calls those findings back into question. The new study finds no genetic evidence that ancient inhabitants of Rapa Nui intermixed with South Americans. While the findings can't exclude the possibility that cultural contact took place between the two populations, if long-distance treks across the ocean did occur, "they did not leave genetic traces among the individual samples," said Lars Fehren-Schmitz of the University of California, Santa Cruz. "We were surprised that we didn't find any Native American admixture in our ancient Rapanui specimens."

The idea that there had been early Pacific contact with South America, or even that a Southern Pacific migration route contributed to the peopling of the Americas, has been a long-standing debate in the field. In their new study, Fehren-Schmitz and colleagues wanted to find out what DNA from ancient Rapanui samples had to say on the matter.

The researchers sequenced DNA from five individual samples representing Rapanui both before and after European contact. They report that the DNA, including both complete mitochondrial genomes and low-coverage autosomal genomes, indicates that the DNA of the sampled individuals falls within the genetic diversity of present-day and ancient Polynesians.

"We can reject the hypothesis that any of these individuals had substantial Native American ancestry," Fehren-Schmitz said. "Our data thus suggest that the Native American ancestry in contemporary Easter Islanders was not present on the island prior to European contact and may thus be due to events in more recent history."

The new study highlights the value of ancient DNA for testing hypotheses about the past. It's clear from earlier evidence that living Rapanui do have a small proportion of Native American ancestry. But, the researchers in the new study say, "it is especially difficult to disentangle movements of people in the prehistoric period from more recent times." The question remains: How and when did this population exchange happen?

The researchers say they'd now like to generate genome-wide data from additional ancient Oceania and western South American populations. The goal is to develop a more detailed picture of the populations that lived within each of these regions and potential interactions among them.

Amazon farmers discovered the secret of domesticating wild rice 4,000 years ago

                     

IMAGE: Monte Castelo excavation in progress -- collecting samples. view more 

Credit: University of Exeter

Amazonian farmers discovered how to manipulate wild rice so the plants could provide more food 4,000 years ago, long before Europeans colonised America, archaeologists have discovered.

Experts from the UK and Brazil have found the first evidence that ancient South Americans learned how to grow bigger rice crops with larger grains, but this expertise may have been lost after 1492 when the indigenous population was decimated, research shows.

The evidence of the success of early rice farmers on the vast wetlands near the Guaporé River in Rondônia state, Brazil, could help modern day plant breeders develop rice crops which are less susceptible to disease and more adaptable to the effects of climate change than the Asian varieties. Different species of rice were first grown approximately 11,000 years ago in the Yangtze River, China, and around 2,000 years ago in West Africa.

The University of Exeter study, funded in part by the European Research Council, also shows how important the huge wetlands and tropical forests of lowland South America were in providing food for early human settlers in South America. Ancient inhabitants managed to domesticate cassava, peanuts and chilli peppers crops for food.

The archaeologists analysed 16 samples of microscopic plant remains from ten different time periods found during excavations during 2014 led by the University of São Paulo in South West Amazonia. More phytoliths, hard, microscopic pieces of silica made by plant cells, were found at higher ground level, suggesting rice began to play a larger role in the diet of people who lived in the area - and more was farmed - as time went on.

Changes in the ratio of husk, leaf and stem remains found at different ground levels also suggest the Amazon residents became more efficient harvesters over time, bringing more grain and fewer leaves to the site. The rice grown, Oryza sp, also became bigger over time compared to the wild rice first cultivated by the South Americans. This area has been occupied by humans for at least 10,000 years.

Professor Jose Iriarte, from the University of Exeter, who led the research, said: "This is the first study to identify when wild rice first began to be grown for food in South America. We have found people were growing crops with larger and larger seeds. Even though they were also eating wild and domesticated plants including maize, palm fruits, soursop and squash, wild rice was an important food, and people began to grow it at lake or river edges.

"During a time when the climate was getting wetter and the wetlands expanding, this critical seasonal resource that is ripe at the peak of the flooding season when other resources are dispersed and scarce, residents of Monte Castelo began to grow larger rice."

Evidence for mid-Holocene rice domestication in the Americas by Lautaro Hilbert and Jose Iriarte from the University of Exeter, Elizabeth Veasey, Carlos Augusto Zimpel, Eduardo Goes Neves and Francisco Pugliese from the Universidade de São Paulo, Bronwen S. Whitney from Northumbria University and Myrtle Shock from the Universidade Federal do Oeste de Pará, is published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution. 

More traits associated with your Neandertal DNA

After humans and Neandertals met many thousands of years ago, the two species began interbreeding. Although Neandertals aren't around anymore, about two percent of the DNA in non-African people living today comes from them. Recent studies have shown that some of those Neandertal genes have contributed to human immunity and modern diseases. Now researchers reporting in the American Journal of Human Genetics on October 5th have found that our Neandertal inheritance has contributed to other characteristics, too, including skin tone, hair color, sleep patterns, mood, and even a person's smoking status.

Inspired by an earlier study that found associations between Neandertal DNA and disease risk, Janet Kelso at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany says her team was interested in exploring connections between Neandertal DNA and traits unrelated to disease. In other words, they wanted to uncover the "influence Neandertal DNA might be having on ordinary variation in people today."

Because Neandertal alleles are relatively rare, the researchers needed data representing a really large number of people. They found what they were looking for in data representing more than 112,000 participants in the UK Biobank pilot study. The Biobank includes genetic data along with information on many traits related to physical appearance, diet, sun exposure, behavior, and disease.

Earlier studies had suggested that human genes involved in skin and hair biology were strongly influenced by Neandertal DNA, Kelso says. But it hadn't been clear how.

"We can now show that it is skin tone, and the ease with which one tans, as well as hair color that are affected," Kelso says.

The researchers observe multiple different Neandertal alleles contributing to skin and hair tones. What they found somewhat surprising is that some Neandertal alleles are associated with lighter skin tones and others with darker skin tones. The same was true for hair color.

"These findings suggest that Neandertals might have differed in their hair and skin tones, much as people now do" adds Michael Dannemann, first author of the study.

Kelso notes that the traits influenced by Neandertal DNA, including skin and hair pigmentation, mood, and sleeping patterns are all linked to sunlight exposure. When modern humans arrived in Eurasia about 100,000 years ago, Neandertals had already lived there for thousands of years. They were likely well adapted to lower and more variable levels of ultraviolet radiation from the sun than the new human arrivals from Africa were accustomed to.

"Skin and hair color, circadian rhythms and mood are all influenced by light exposure," the researchers wrote. "We speculate that their identification in our analysis suggests that sun exposure may have shaped Neandertal phenotypes and that gene flow into modern humans continues to contribute to variation in these traits today."

Kelso and her colleagues say they'll continue to explore Neandertals' influence on modern-day traits as more data becomes available.

New Neandertal genomes advance our understanding of human evolution

Two new studies on ancient genomes provide valuable insights into the lives of our ancestors and their cousins, the Neandertals. First, scientists have sequenced a new genome of a female Neandertal, which is only the second genome of the species to be fully sequenced with such a high level of quality. The advancement confirms a number of theories about Neandertals, but also reveals new genetic contributions of the species to modern-day humans. Neandertals are the closest evolutionary relatives of all present-day humans and therefore provide a unique perspective on human biology and history. Five Neandertal genomes have been sequenced to date, yet only one yielded high-quality data, an individual found in Siberia known as the "Altai Neandertal."

Three less well-defined genomes come from individuals found in a cave, Vindija, in Croatia, and one from Mezmaiskaya Cave, in Russia. Here, Kay Prüfer and colleagues successfully analyzed billions of DNA fragments sampled from a new individual in the Croatian cave, dubbed Vindija 33.19, a female who lived roughly 52,000 years ago. Similar to previous findings, the genetic data suggest that Neandertals lived in small and isolated populations of about 3,000 individuals.

The previously sequenced Altai Neandertal genome suggested that the individual's parents were half-siblings, prompting scientists to wonder if Neandertals commonly interbred with family members - yet the new Vindija genome does not have similar incestual patterns, suggesting that the extreme inbreeding between the parents of the Altai Neandertal may not have been ubiquitous among Neandertals. Vindija 33.19 does appear to share a maternal ancestor with two of the three other individuals from the Croatian cave who were genetically sequenced, however.

The authors use the Vindija 33.19 genome to analyze divergences and gene flow among Neandertals, Denisovans (another extinct species of hominin), and modern humans. Among many findings, they report that early modern human gene flow into Neandertal populations occurred between 130,000 and 145,000 years ago, before the Croatian and Siberian Neandertals diverged.

Based on the new high-quality genome, the authors estimate that modern non-African populations carry between 1.8-2.6% Neandertal DNA, which is higher than previous estimates of 1.5-2.1%.

Lastly, they identify a wealth of new gene variants in the Neandertal genome that are influential in modern day humans, including variants related to plasma levels of LDL cholesterol and vitamin D, eating disorders, visceral fat accumulation, rheumatoid arthritis, schizophrenia and responses to antipsychotic drugs.

Prehistoric humans are likely to have formed mating networks to avoid inbreeding

Early humans seem to have recognised the dangers of inbreeding at least 34,000 years ago, and developed surprisingly sophisticated social and mating networks to avoid it, new research has found.
The study, reported in the journal Science, examined genetic information from the remains of anatomically modern humans who lived during the Upper Palaeolithic, a period when modern humans from Africa first colonised western Eurasia. The results suggest that people deliberately sought partners beyond their immediate family, and that they were probably connected to a wider network of groups from within which mates were chosen, in order to avoid becoming inbred.
This suggests that our distant ancestors are likely to have been aware of the dangers of inbreeding, and purposely avoided it at a surprisingly early stage in prehistory.

The symbolism, complexity and time invested in the objects and jewellery found buried with the remains also suggests that it is possible that they developed rules, ceremonies and rituals to accompany the exchange of mates between groups, which perhaps foreshadowed modern marriage ceremonies, and may have been similar to those still practised by hunter-gatherer communities in parts of the world today.

The study's authors also hint that the early development of more complex mating systems may at least partly explain why anatomically modern humans proved successful while other species, such as Neanderthals, did not. However, more ancient genomic information from both early humans and Neanderthals is needed to test this idea.

The research was carried out by an international team of academics, led by the University of Cambridge, UK, and the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. They sequenced the genomes of four individuals from Sunghir, a famous Upper Palaeolithic site in Russia, which is believed to have been inhabited about 34,000 years ago.

The human fossils buried at Sunghir represent a rare and highly valuable, source of information because very unusually for finds from this period, the people buried there appear to have lived at the same time and were buried together. To the researchers' surprise, however, these individuals were not closely related in genetic terms; at the very most, they were second cousins. This is true even in the case of two children who were buried head-to-head in the same grave.

Professor Eske Willerslev, who holds posts both as a Fellow at St John's College, Cambridge, and at the University of Copenhagen, was the senior author on the study.

What this means is that even people in the Upper Palaeolithic, who were living in tiny groups, understood the importance of avoiding inbreeding, he said.

The data that we have suggest that it was being purposely avoided.

This means that they must have developed a system for this purpose. If small hunter-gatherer bands were mixing at random, we would see much greater evidence of inbreeding than we have here.
Early humans and other hominins such as Neanderthals appear to have lived in small family units. The small population size made inbreeding likely, but among anatomically modern humans it eventually ceased to be commonplace; when this happened, however, is unclear.

Small family bands are likely to have interconnected with larger networks, facilitating the exchange of people between groups in order to maintain diversity, Professor Martin Sikora, from the Centre for GeoGenetics at the University of Copenhagen, said.

Sunghir contains the burials of one adult male and two younger individuals, accompanied by the symbolically-modified incomplete remains of another adult, as well as a spectacular array of grave goods. The researchers were able to sequence the complete genomes of the four individuals, all of whom were probably living on the site at the same time. These data were compared with information from a large number of both modern and ancient human genomes.

They found that the four individuals studied were genetically no closer than second cousins, while an adult femur filled with red ochre found in the children's' grave would have belonged to an individual no closer than great-great grandfather of the boys.

This goes against what many would have predicted, Willerslev said.

I think many researchers had assumed that the people of Sunghir were very closely related, especially the two youngsters from the same grave.

The people at Sunghir may have been part of a network similar to that of modern day hunter-gatherers, such as Aboriginal Australians and some historical Native American societies. Like their Upper Palaeolithic ancestors, these people live in fairly small groups of around 25 people, but they are also less directly connected to a larger community of perhaps 200 people, within which there are rules governing with whom individuals can form partnerships.

Most non-human primate societies are organised around single-sex kin where one of the sexes remains resident and the other migrates to another group, minimising inbreeding says Professor Marta Mirazón Lahr, from the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies at the University of Cambridge.

At some point, early human societies changed their mating system into one in which a large number of the individuals that form small hunter-gatherer units are non-kin. The results from Sunghir show that Upper Palaeolithic human groups could use sophisticated cultural systems to sustain very small group sizes by embedding them in a wide social network of other groups.

By comparison, genomic sequencing of a Neanderthal individual from the Altai Mountains who lived around 50,000 years ago indicates that inbreeding was not avoided. This leads the researchers to speculate that an early, systematic approach to preventing inbreeding may have helped anatomically modern humans to thrive, compared with other hominins.

This should be treated with caution, however:

We don't know why the Altai Neanderthal groups were inbred, Sikora said.

Maybe they were isolated and that was the only option; or maybe they really did fail to develop an available network of connections. We will need more genomic data of diverse Neanderthal populations to be sure.

Willerslev also highlights a possible link with the unusual sophistication of the ornaments and cultural objects found at Sunghir. Group-specific cultural expressions may have been used to establish distinctions between bands of early humans, providing a means of identifying who to mate with and who to avoid as partners.

The ornamentation is incredible and there is no evidence of anything like that with Neanderthals and other archaic humans, Willerslev added.

When you put the evidence together, it seems to be speaking to us about the really big questions; what made these people who they were as a species, and who we are as a result.

The research paper, Ancient genomes show social and reproductive behaviour of early Upper Paleolithic foragers, is published in the October 5 issue of Science.

Ornamented artifact may indicate long-distance exchange between Mesolithic communities

Caption

This is an ornamented bâton percé.

Credit

Osipowicz et al (2017)


An ornamented bâton percé found in Central Poland may provide evidence of exchange between Mesolithic communities, according to a study published October 4, 2017 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE : http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0184560by Grzegorz Osipowicz from Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland, and colleagues.

Artifacts and raw materials can provide insight into how Prehistoric communities exchanged gifts, such as stone transported for its technological significance, or metal products adorning graves. Recently, researchers found an ornamented bâton percé carved from antler of unknown origin in the Go??biewo site in Central Poland.

To investigate the antler source species and its geographic origin, the researchers conducted DNA and stable isotope analyses of the artifact. The source material was identified as antler from a reindeer species which dispersion analysis revealed to have a range limited to northern Scandinavia and north-western Russia during the Early-Holocene. This may suggest that the artifact was transported from North Karelia to Central Poland.

The reasons why this artifact was transported are subject to speculation, but the authors suggest that their results are possible evidence for the flow of goods between hunter-gatherer groups at a large distance. This study provides new insight into how ideas and items were exchanged in Mesolithic communities within North Eastern Europe.

"The route taken for transporting the Rangifer tarandus antler from nearby North Karelia to Central Poland, and the motive for transporting it, remain impossible to determine conclusively," says Osipowicz. "However, the obtained results are the first direct evidence for the flow of goods between hunter-gatherer groups in the Early Holocene at such a great distance."

Ancient humans left Africa to escape drying climate

Humans migrated out of Africa as the climate shifted from wet to very dry about 60,000 years ago, according to research led by a University of Arizona geoscientist.

Genetic research indicates people migrated from Africa into Eurasia between 70,000 and 55,000 years ago. Previous researchers suggested the climate must have been wetter than it is now for people to migrate to Eurasia by crossing the Horn of Africa and the Middle East.

"There's always been a question about whether climate change had any influence on when our species left Africa," said Jessica Tierney, UA associate professor of geosciences. "Our data suggest that when most of our species left Africa, it was dry and not wet in northeast Africa."

Tierney and her colleagues found that around 70,000 years ago, climate in the Horn of Africa shifted from a wet phase called "Green Sahara" to even drier than the region is now. The region also became colder.

The researchers traced the Horn of Africa's climate 200,000 years into the past by analyzing a core of ocean sediment taken in the western end of the Gulf of Aden. Tierney said before this research there was no record of the climate of northeast Africa back to the time of human migration out of Africa.
"Our data say the migration comes after a big environmental change. Perhaps people left because the environment was deteriorating," she said. "There was a big shift to dry and that could have been a motivating force for migration."

"It's interesting to think about how our ancestors interacted with climate," she said.

The team's paper, "A climatic context for the out-of-Africa migration," is published online in Geology this week. Tierney's co-authors are Peter deMenocal of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York, and Paul Zander of the UA.

The National Science Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation funded the research.
Tierney and her colleagues had successfully revealed the Horn of Africa's climate back to 40,000 years ago by studying cores of marine sediment. The team hoped to use the same means to reconstruct the region's climate back to the time 55,000 to 70,000 years ago when our ancestors left Africa.

The first challenge was finding a core from that region with sediments that old. The researchers enlisted the help of the curators of the Lamont-Doherty Core Repository, which has sediment cores from every major ocean and sea. The curators found a core collected off the Horn of Africa in 1965 from the R/V Robert D. Conrad that might be suitable.

Co-author deMenocal studied and dated the layers of the 1965 core and found it had sediments going back as far as 200,000 years.

At the UA, Tierney and Paul Zander teased out temperature and rainfall records from the organic matter preserved in the sediment layers. The scientists took samples from the core about every four inches (10 cm), a distance that represented about every 1,600 years.

To construct a long-term temperature record for the Horn of Africa, the researchers analyzed the sediment layers for chemicals called alkenones made by a particular kind of marine algae. The algae change the composition of the alkenones depending on the water temperature. The ratio of the different alkenones indicates the sea surface temperature when the algae were alive and also reflects regional temperatures, Tierney said.

To figure out the region's ancient rainfall patterns from the sediment core, the researchers analyzed the ancient leaf wax that had blown into the ocean from terrestrial plants. Because plants alter the chemical composition of the wax on their leaves depending on how dry or wet the climate is, the leaf wax from the sediment core's layers provides a record of past fluctuations in rainfall.

The analyses showed that the time people migrated out of Africa coincided with a big shift to a much drier and colder climate, Tierney said.

The team's findings are corroborated by research from other investigators who reconstructed past regional climate by using data gathered from a cave formation in Israel and a sediment core from the eastern Mediterranean. Those findings suggest that it was dry everywhere in northeast Africa, she said.

"Our main point is kind of simple," Tierney said. "We think it was dry when people left Africa and went on to other parts of the world, and that the transition from a Green Sahara to dry was a motivating force for people to leave."

Major Exhibition of Artifacts from the Ancient City of Teotihuacan, Many Recently Excavated or Never Before Seen in the U.S.

de Young Museum in San Francisco 

September 30, 2017, through February 11, 2018

 

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) 

March 25 through July 15, 2018

• Circular relief, 300–450. Stone, 49 1/4 x 40 1/2 x 9 7/8 in. (125 x 103 x 25 cm). Museo Nacional de Antropología / INAH, 10-81807. Archivo Digital de las Colecciones del Museo Nacional de Antropología / INAH-CANON

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) are pleased to premiere Teotihuacan: City of Water, City of Fire, the first major U.S. exhibition on Teotihuacan in over twenty years. The ancient metropolis of Teotihuacan is one of the largest and most important archaeological sites in the world, and the most-visited archaeological site in Mexico. At its peak in 400 CE, Teotihuacan was the cultural, political, economic, and religious center of Mesoamerica and inhabited by a multiethnic population of more than 100,000 people. This historic exhibition will feature more than 200 artifacts and artworks from the site and is a rare opportunity to view objects drawn from major collections in Mexico, some recently excavated – many on view in the U.S. for the first time – together in one spectacular exhibition.

 

“We are proud to have been working in collaboration with our cultural partners in Mexico for over 30 years,” says Max Hollein, Director and CEO of FAMSF. “In this groundbreaking exhibition, an abundance of recent archaeological discoveries will offer visitors to the de Young insight into the life of the ancient city and give greater context and significance to the Teotihuacan murals in our own collection.”

Located approximately 30 miles outside of modern-day Mexico City, Teotihuacan was founded in the first century BCE near a set of natural springs in an otherwise arid corner of the Valley of Mexico. At its height  a few centuries later, the city covered nearly eight square miles and featured enormous pyramids, long avenues, and residential compounds. Highlights of the exhibition will include artifacts recently excavated from the site of the Feathered Serpent Pyramid, as well as objects from both recent and historic excavations of the Moon Pyramid, and the Sun Pyramid—the three largest pyramids at Teotihuacan.
The exhibition, which will travel to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), will also reunite exquisite mural fragments in FAMSF’s collection with others originating from the same residential compound at Teotihuacan. In 1986, FAMSF repatriated a number of murals as part of an unprecedented joint agreement with Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH). Together they established a program of collaborative conservation and exhibition. Alongside these murals will be monumental and ritual objects from the three pyramids, as well as ceramics and stone sculptures from the city’s apartment compounds, which were inhabited by diverse peoples from many parts of Mexico.

“The past ten years have seen major revelations in Teotihuacan archaeology. With these discoveries comes a new sense of Teotihuacan that will have an impact for generations to come,” says Diego Prieto Hernández, INAH General Director. “We are grateful for the enthusiastic and abiding partnerships we have developed with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Such exchanges are crucial to create a shared understanding and vision across countries and cultures, a common basis for our human experience."

The national and international teams working at the main pyramids have made significant discoveries since the last major Teotihuacan exhibition in 1993, when the de Young hosted Teotihuacan: Art from the City of the Gods. By bringing objects from various excavations together and encouraging visitors to understand the context of specific sites within the city, the new exhibition will provide a rare opportunity for Bay Area audiences and visitors to experience a significant place in Mexico's historical and cultural landscape.

“This exhibition will give visitors the chance to be immersed in the history of Teotihuacan and its urbanism through encounters with 200 objects,” says exhibition curator Matthew H. Robb. “It is an opportunity to anchor these objects on the map of the site to understand how art held communities together in a large, complex, cosmopolitan city— offering valuable lessons for contemporary audiences.”

In the sixth century, a devastating fire in the city center led to Teotihuacan’s rapid decline, but the city was never completely abandoned or forgotten; the Aztecs revered the city and its monuments, giving many of them the names we still use today. Teotihuacan is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and attracts upwards of four million visitors annually.

Teotihuacan: City of Water, City of Fire is curated by Matthew H. Robb, chief curator of the Fowler Museum at UCLA and former curator of the arts of the Americas at FAMSF.

In Detail
 
Teotihuacan: City of Water, City of Fire brings together art and artifacts from recent excavations with objects found as long as a century ago. These finely crafted works demonstrate how the city’s dominant ideology permeated everyday spaces, united a diverse population, and provided a guide for citizens as they navigated Teotihuacan’s streets. The Aztecs revered Teotihuacan and gave the city and its major monuments their names. This exhibition is organized geographically around these places.

The exhibition begins with recent discoveries from a tunnel found underneath the Feathered Serpent Pyramid by Mexican archaeologists in 2003. Over a decade of explorations yielded an astonishing array of objects: enigmatic sculptures that may represent Teotihuacan’s founding ancestors and large quantities of vessels depicting one of Teotihuacan’s most important deities, the Storm God. Shells likely originating from the Gulf of Mexico were also found, some incised with designs from other parts of Mesoamerica, indicating that even early in its history Teotihuacan was already a major regional hub.

Teotihuacan was a highly organized city, built in a grid like plan over roughly eight square miles, situated along the north-south axis formed by the Street of the Dead, and made up largely of architecturally similar single-story residential buildings varying in size and level of luxury. These apartment compounds housed many of Teotihuacan’s residents. 

The first gallery introduces the art forms for which Teotihuacan is best known and highlights important deities, including the Storm God, with his goggle eyes and distinctive nose plaque; the Old Fire God, an elderly figure who sits cross-legged and bears a brazier atop his head; the Water Goddess, known from large monuments; and the Maize God, who symbolized the life-sustaining power of this crop and may be the subject of Teotihuacan’s famous stone masks.

The next gallery showcases objects from a range of residential compounds, demonstrating aspects of daily and ceremonial life for Teotihuacan’s citizens. Immigrant groups from across Mesoamerica frequently occupied distinct neighborhoods, or barrios. Here they maintained traditions from their places of origin and simultaneously integrated themselves into the fabric of the city and its dominant ideology. In a compound on the city’s western edge, for example, people from Oaxaca carried out Zapotec lifeways, including the use of Zapotec calendrical signs. An offering on the city’s eastern edge included delicately painted ceramic figurines of women and infants. And on the city’s southern periphery, the working-class residents of Tlajinga specialized in the mass production of utilitarian obsidian blades and played a crucial role in Teotihuacan’s economy.

• Tripod vessel with blowgunner, 450–550. Ceramic with post-fire stucco and pigment, 5 3/8 x 5 3/4 in. (13.7 x 14.6 cm). Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Gift of Constance McCormick Fearing, AC1998.209.15. Photo © Museum Associates / LACMA Image courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

La Ventilla, to the southwest of Teotihuacan’s ceremonial core, is presented as an archetypal Teotihuacan residential area. Artisans from La Ventilla created spectacular artworks to satisfy local and regional markets. These included iconic ceramic tripod vessels and elaborate incense burners—or incensarios. More incensarios have been found at La Ventilla than anywhere else in the city. They were often decorated with mass-produced, mold-made clay decorations that were applied to their surfaces.

The Feathered Serpent Pyramid and the surrounding Ciudadela are next explored. Though smaller in comparison to the Sun and Moon Pyramids, the Feathered Serpent Pyramid was covered in elaborate, monumental carvings of undulating serpents. At the time of its construction, around 250 CE, a series of large-scale sacrificial offerings were made, including the burial of more than 200 individuals. Many of the victims wore necklaces of shell carved to look like human teeth—a few included actual human jawbones – and were discovered in positions that imply they were tied and bound at the time of death. These sacrifices suggest an era of significant military might at Teotihuacan.

• View of the Sun Pyramid looking east. At 63 meters tall, the Sun Pyramid was one of the largest and tallest structures in the Western Hemisphere until the development of the skyscraper in the nineteenth century. Photograph by Jorge Pérez de Lara Elías, © INAH Image courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

The Sun Pyramid is Teotihuacan’s largest structure and one of the largest ever built in the ancient world. It rises about 206 feet high and was built in one single, massive construction effort around 200 CE. Recent excavations have uncovered offerings of greenstone objects and evidence for programs of exterior sculpture depicting motifs related to fire and jaguars. Large pieces have also been discovered at the pyramid’s summit, including a statue of the Old Fire God—a deity with deep roots in central Mexico; early Teotihuacan leaders sought to bind the different ethnic groups inhabiting the city together by creating a single, modified version of the Old Fire God.

• Feathered Serpents and Flowering Trees mural (Feathered Serpent 1), 500–550. Earthen aggregate, stucco, and mineral pigments, 22 1/4 x 160 1/4 in (56.5 x 407 cm). Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Bequest of Harald J. Wagner, 1985.104a Image courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

After its monumental architecture, Teotihuacan is perhaps best known for its complex fresco murals, which decorated the city’s apartments and administrative centers. Stunning murals from high-status compounds in the Techinantitla section just east of the Moon Pyramid are on view in the next gallery, featuring exceptional mural fragments from FAMSF’s collection reunited with others from the same compound.

• Mexico, Anahuac, Teotihuacan, Moon Pyramid. (Photo by: Eye Ubiquitous/UIG via Getty Images) Image courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

The Moon Pyramid, Teotihuacan’s second-largest structure, at a height of approximately 141 feet, is explored next. Excavations there have revealed a seven-phase construction sequence beginning sometime between 50 and 150 CE, with the monument achieving its largest size between 300 and 400 CE. During the fourth phase of construction, the pyramid was greatly enlarged, indicating a period of increasing wealth and political centralization. 

The completion of the construction was marked by a dedication event that involved the sacrifice of many humans and predatory animals. The sacrificial offering also included objects made of exceptionally precious materials such as greenstone, obsidian, slate, and pyrite. Many of these offerings, which were carefully arranged, seem to have connections to rituals relating to the origin of the cosmos.

The exhibition concludes at the compound of Xalla, located to the east of the Moon Pyramid plaza and just north of the Sun Pyramid. The compound was likely a site for the city’s powerful ruling elite, indicated by its architectural complexity and the large quantity of ornamental sculpture found there. Many objects from Xalla bear evidence of a violently destructive event that marked the beginning of Teotihuacan’s collapse. 

 At around 550 CE, the ceremonial center of the city was burned; ritual objects, such as the large marble sculpture shown in the final gallery, were intentionally smashed and scattered. After the great fire, the systems of urban and religious maintenance that had been successful for more than 400 years fell apart. Much of the population left the city, and Teotihuacan’s regional dominance ended. But the site itself was never forgotten, and its legacy lives on as a powerful model of ancient Mesoamerican urbanism.