Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Sicilian amber in western Europe pre-dates arrival of Baltic amber by at least 2,000 years


University of Cambridge
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IMAGE: This is a geological amber sample from Cuchía, analysed as part of the study. view more 
Credit: M. Murillo-Barroso and Alvaro Fernandez Flores
Amber and other unusual materials such as jade, obsidian and rock crystal have attracted interest as raw materials for the manufacture of decorative items since Late Prehistory and, indeed, amber retains a high value in present-day jewellery.

'Baltic' amber from Scandinavia is often cited as a key material circulating in prehistoric Europe, but in a new study published today in PLOS ONE researchers have found that amber from Sicily was travelling around the Western Mediterranean as early as the 4th Millennium BC - at least 2,000 years before the arrival of any Baltic amber in Iberia.

According to lead author Dr Mercedes Murillo-Barroso of the Universidad de Granada, "The new evidence presented in this study has allowed the most comprehensive review to date on the provision and exchange of amber in the Prehistory of Iberia. Thanks to this new work, we now have evidence of the arrival of Sicilian amber in Iberia from at least the 4th Millennium BC."

"Interestingly, the first amber objects recovered in Sicily and identified as being made from the local amber there (known as simetite) also date from the 4th Millennium BC, however, there is no other evidence indicating direct contact between Sicily and Iberia at this time."

"Instead, what we do know about are the links between the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa. It is plausible that Sicilian amber reached Iberia through exchanges with North Africa. This amber appears at southern Iberian sites and its distribution is similar to that of ivory objects, suggesting that both materials reached the Iberian Peninsula following the same or similar channels."

Senior author Professor Marcos Martinón-Torres, of the Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge adds, "It is only from the Late Bronze Age that we see Baltic amber at a large number of Iberian sites and it is likely that it arrived via the Mediterranean, rather than through direct trade with Scandinavia."

"What's peculiar is that this amber appears as associated with iron, silver and ceramics pointing to Mediterranean connections. This suggests that amber from the North may have moved South across Central Europe before being shipped to the West by Mediterranean sailors, challenging previous suggestions of direct trade between Scandinavia and Iberia."

Murillo-Barroso concludes, "In this study, we've been able to overcome traditional challenges in attempts at assigning corroded amber to a geological source. These new analytical techniques can be used a reference to identify Sicilian amber, even from highly deteriorated archaeological samples."
"There are still unresolved issues to be investigated in the future - namely exploring the presence of amber in North African contexts from the same time period and further researching the networks involved in the introduction and spread of Baltic amber in Iberia and the extent to which metals or other Iberian commodities were provided in return."

Amber in prehistoric Iberia: New data and a review is published in PLOS ONE.

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Archaeological evidence for glass industry in ninth-century city of Samarra


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IMAGE: Glass artefacts from Samarra, including a range of vessel types, optical properties, and decorative techniques. view more 
Credit: Images A, C and D from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London [http://collections.vam.ac.uk]; images B and E from the Museum für islamische Kunst / Staatliche Museen zu Berlin [www.smb-digital.de/eMuseumPlus]...
The palace-city of Samarra, capital of the former Abbasid Caliphate, was home to an advanced industry of glass production and trade, according to a study published August 22, 2018 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Nadine Schibille of the CNRS, France and colleagues.

Located in Iraq about 125km north of Baghdad, Samarra was the Abbasid capital from 836-892CE. Noted for its abundance of decorative architectural glass, the city represents an important source of archaeological information on early Islamic art and architecture. However, details of the production of Samarra's glass artefacts, as well as their role in the city's economy, have been elusive.

In this study, the authors examined 265 Samarra glass artefacts housed in museum collections in Germany and England, including bowls, lamps, bottles, decorative and architectural glasses, and more. Trace elements in the glass, identified using mass-spectrometric analysis, offered clues to the geographic origin of the raw materials used in the making of the different types of glass artefacts.

The results suggest that a portion of Samarra's glass was imported from other regions, such as the Levant and Egypt. But the majority of the glass artefacts were so similar in composition that the authors strongly suspect much of the glass was being produced locally. This paints a picture of a city with an important industry of glass production and trade, confirming earlier hypotheses based on writings from this time period. The fact that the highest-quality glass was used to decorate the city's main caliphal palace suggests that glass was of great cultural and economic value at this time.

Schibille notes: "High-resolution chemical analysis of ninth-century glasses from Samarra reveals a sophisticated Abbasid glass industry as well as selective imports of specific glass objects. Our analytical data thus confirm written sources about the production of glass in the vicinity of the new capital city."

Neandertal mother, Denisovan father!


Together with their sister group the Neandertals, Denisovans are the closest extinct relatives of currently living humans. "We knew from previous studies that Neandertals and Denisovans must have occasionally had children together", says Viviane Slon, researcher at the MPI-EVA and one of three first authors of the study. "But I never thought we would be so lucky as to find an actual offspring of the two groups."

The ancient individual is only represented by a single small bone fragment. "The fragment is part of a long bone, and we can estimate that this individual was at least 13 years old", says Bence Viola of the University of Toronto. The bone fragment was found in 2012 at Denisova Cave (Russia) by Russian archaeologists. It was brought to Leipzig for genetic analyses after it was identified as a hominin bone based on its protein composition.

"An interesting aspect of this genome is that it allows us to learn things about two populations - the Neandertals from the mother's side, and the Denisovans from the father's side", explains Fabrizio Mafessoni from the MPI-EVA who co-authored the study. The researchers determined that the mother was genetically closer to Neandertals who lived in western Europe than to a Neandertal individual that lived earlier in Denisova Cave. This shows that Neandertals migrated between western and eastern Eurasia tens of thousands of years before their disappearance.

Analyses of the genome also revealed that the Denisovan father had at least one Neandertal ancestor further back in his family tree. "So from this single genome, we are able to detect multiple instances of interactions between Neandertals and Denisovans", says Benjamin Vernot from the MPI-EVA, the third co-author of the study.

"It is striking that we find this Neandertal/Denisovan child among the handful of ancient individuals whose genomes have been sequenced", adds Svante Pääbo, Director of the Department of Evolutionary Genetics at the MPI-EVA and lead author of the study. "Neandertals and Denisovans may not have had many opportunities to meet. But when they did, they must have mated frequently - much more so than we previously thought."

Roman Skeletons Show Vitamin D Deficiency in Children Was a Widespread Problem 2,000 Years Ago

  • New study by Historic England and McMaster University in Canada looked at 2,787 skeletons from 18 cemeteries across the Roman Empire
  • Evidence for rickets, caused by vitamin D deficiency, found in more than one in 20 children - with most cases seen in infants
  • ‘Study shows that vitamin D deficiency is far from being a new problem’

Vitamin D deficiency is not a new problem. A century ago rickets in children was rife due to crowded urban living and industrial pollution. However, a new study published today in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology reveals that it was already widespread as far back as Roman times.

The study, carried out by researchers from Historic England and McMaster University in Canada, looked at 2,787 human skeletons from 18 cemeteries across the Roman Empire (1st - 6th centuries AD), ranging from northern England to southern Spain. The findings of the study showed that vitamin D deficiency was not as bad in Roman times as it became in the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, but it was still a significant problem. Among children, more than 1 in 20 showed evidence for rickets, with most cases in infants.

The results also revealed that, in general, rickets in children was more common in northern parts of the Roman Empire than in Mediterranean lands. Weaker sunshine at northern latitudes means it is less effective for vitamin D synthesis, but the high number of rickets cases in the very young suggests that infant care practices may also have been to blame. Colder conditions in northern areas may have meant people more often kept their babies indoors, away from direct natural light. Also, pregnant mothers may have been vitamin D deficient and passed this onto their babies.

Unlike in Victorian times, vitamin D deficiency in the Roman Empire was not more common in towns than in the countryside, according to the results of this study. The researchers concluded that this was because most Roman towns were fairly small by later standards and industrial pollution would not have been enough to obscure sunlight. However, there was one place in the study, a cemetery near Ostia in Italy that was an exception to this, showing a high number of skeletons with rickets. Ostia was a port on the River Tiber, not far from Rome. It was densely populated and many people lived in multi-storey apartment buildings.
Commenting on this, Megan Brickley of McMaster University, the principle investigator on the project, said: “Living in apartments with small windows, in blocks that were closely spaced around courtyards and narrow streets, may have meant that many children weren’t exposed to enough sunlight to prevent vitamin D deficiency”.
 
Simon Mays, a Human Skeletal Biologist at Historic England, said: “Our study shows that vitamin D deficiency is far from being a new problem – even 2,000 years ago people, especially babies, were at risk. Being indoors away from sunshine was probably a key factor. Infant care practices that were innocuous in a Mediterranean climate may have been enough to tip babies into vitamin D deficiency under cloudy northern skies.”
Illustration showing a mother and her infant indoors, away from direct natural light, in Roman times. Credit Judith Dobie.
Illustration showing a mother and her infant indoors, away from direct natural light, in Roman times. Credit Judith Dobie. © Historic England

The role of Vitamin D

Vitamin D is vital to health – most vitamin D is made in the body when the skin is exposed to sunlight. Deficiency can lead to rickets in children, the main signs of which are skeletal deformity with bone pain or tenderness, and muscle weakness. It can also make them more vulnerable to infections.
Today, many people living in England have low vitamin D levels, linked to indoor lifestyles. According to National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidance, surveys suggest that 8 to 24% of children (depending on age and gender) and around 1 in 5 adults may have low vitamin D status. This is not the same as being deficient in vitamin D which is more severe.
In 2012 all UK Health Departments recommended a daily vitamin D supplements for infants and young children aged 6 months to 5 years (unless fed instant formula which is fortified with vitamin D), and for all pregnant and breastfeeding women.

Hot Dry Summer Reveals Hidden Archaeological Sites in England


  • Exceptional dry conditions reveal ancient sites from the air
  • Prehistoric settlements, burial mounds and Iron Age, Bronze Age and Roman farms discovered
  • Neolithic cursus monuments - one of the oldest monument types in England discovered
Mysterious Neolithic ceremonial monuments, Iron Age settlements, square barrows and a Roman farm have been newly discovered by Historic England’s flying archaeologists who have been surveying the parched landscape from the skies during this spell of prolonged dry weather.
This summer’s heatwave is particularly good for aerial archaeologists as cropmarks form faster and are more obvious when the soil is very dry. Over the past few months, Historic England’s archaeologists in the skies have been looking for patterns in crops and grass that reveal thousands of years of buried English history.

Aerial view of two Neolithic cursus monuments
Two Neolithic cursus monuments near Clifton Reynes, Milton Keynes. They are one of the oldest monument types in the country, usually dating from between 3600 and 3000BC. Until this year, the enclosure on the right has lain hidden beneath a medieval bank known as a headland that is being ploughed away. They are generally thought to be enclosed paths or processional ways, while they may also have served to demarcate or even act as a barrier between different landscape zones. © Historic England

Aerial photography of cropmarks

Historic England uses aerial photography of cropmarks to produce archaeological maps which help to determine the significance of buried remains. This can help when making decisions about protecting them from future development or damage caused by ploughing.
Duncan Wilson, Chief Executive of Historic England said: “This spell of very hot weather has provided the perfect conditions for our aerial archaeologists to ‘see beneath the soil’ as cropmarks are much better defined when the soil has less moisture. The discovery of ancient farms, settlements and Neolithic cursus monuments is exciting. The exceptional weather has opened up whole areas at once rather than just one or two fields and it has been fascinating to see so many traces of our past graphically revealed.”
Aerial view of Prehistoric ceremonial landscape
Prehistoric ceremonial landscape near Eynsham, Oxfordshire. The cropmarks reveal buried remains of later Prehistoric (circa 4000BC-700BC) funary monuments, together with settlement. This site was known about and is protected as a scheduled monument, but there are features, such as a circle of pits that have not been visible for years. © Historic England
Helen Winton, Historic England Aerial Investigation and Mapping Manager said: “This is the first potential bumper year in what feels like a long time. It is very exciting to have hot weather for this long. 2011 was the last time we had an exceptional year when we discovered over 1,500 sites, with most on the claylands of eastern England."
Damian Grady, Historic England Aerial Reconnaissance Manager said: “This has been one of my busiest summers in 20 years of flying and it is has been very rewarding making discoveries in areas that do not normally reveal cropmarks.”

The new discoveries

Two Neolithic cursus monuments near Clifton Reynes, Milton Keynes

These long rectangles are believed to be Neolithic cursus monuments, one of the oldest monument types in the country, usually dating from between 3600 and 3000 BC. The rectangular feature on the left was recently mapped as part of a project funded by Historic England to record all archaeology from aerial photographs and airborne laser scanning (lidar) in North Bedfordshire. Until this year, the enclosure on the right has lain hidden beneath a medieval bank known as a headland, that is being gradually ploughed away.
Cursus monuments range in length from around 100 metres to nearly 10 kilometres in the case of the Dorset Cursus. Their exact function is still a mystery but they are generally thought of as enclosed paths or processional ways, while they may also have served to demarcate or even act as a barrier between different landscape zones. Most of the 100 plus cursus monuments known in England were discovered through aerial survey.

Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Prehistoric mummy reveals ancient Egyptian embalming 'recipe' was around for millennia


 
The mummy has been housed in the Egyptian Museum in Turin since 1901.
Credit: Dr Stephen Buckley, University of York
 
It is the first time that extensive tests have been carried out on an intact prehistoric mummy, consolidating the researchers' previous findings that embalming was taking place 1,500 years earlier than previously accepted.

Dating from c.3700-3500 BC, the mummy has been housed in the Egyptian Museum in Turin since 1901, but unlike the majority of other prehistoric mummies in museums, it has never undergone any conservation treatments, providing a unique opportunity for accurate scientific analysis.

Like its famous counterpart Gebelein Man A in the British Museum, the Turin mummy was previously assumed to have been naturally mummified by the desiccating action of the hot, dry desert sand.

Using chemical analysis, the scientific team led by the Universities of York and Macquarie uncovered evidence that the mummy had in fact undergone an embalming process, with a plant oil, heated conifer resin, an aromatic plant extract and a plant gum/sugar mixed together and used to impregnate the funerary textiles in which the body was wrapped.

This 'recipe' contained antibacterial agents, used in similar proportions to those employed by the Egyptian embalmers when their skill was at its peak some 2,500 years later.

The study builds on the previous research from 2014 which first identified the presence of complex embalming agents in surviving fragments of linen wrappings from prehistoric bodies in now obliterated tombs at Mostagedda in Middle Egypt.

The team, which includes researchers from the Universities of York, Macquarie, Oxford, Warwick, Trento and Turin, highlight the fact that the mummy came from Upper (southern) Egypt, which offers the first indication that the embalming recipe was being used over a wider geographical area at a time when the concept of a pan-Egyptian identity was supposedly still developing.

Archaeological chemist and mummification expert, Dr Stephen Buckley, from the University of York's BioArCh facility, said: "Having identified very similar embalming recipes in our previous research on prehistoric burials, this latest study provides both the first evidence for the wider geographical use of these balms and the first ever unequivocal scientific evidence for the use of embalming on an intact, prehistoric Egyptian mummy.

"Moreover, this preservative treatment contained antibacterial constituents in the same proportions as those used in later 'true' mummification. As such, our findings represent the literal embodiment of the forerunners of classic mummification, which would become one of the central and iconic pillars of ancient Egyptian culture."

Dr Jana Jones, Egyptologist and expert on ancient Egyptian burial practices from Macquarie University, said: "The examination of the Turin body makes a momentous contribution to our limited knowledge of the prehistoric period and the expansion of early mummification practices as well as providing vital, new information on this particular mummy.

"By combining chemical analysis with visual examination of the body, genetic investigations, radiocarbon dating and microscopic analysis of the linen wrappings, we confirmed that this ritual mummification process took place around 3600 BC on a male, aged between 20 and 30 years when he died."

Professor Tom Higham, Deputy Director Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, said: "There are very few mummies of this 'natural' type available for analysis. Our radiocarbon dating shows it dates to the early Naqada phase of Egyptian prehistory, substantially earlier than the classic Pharaonic period, and this early age offers us an unparalleled glimpse into funerary treatment before the rise of the state.

"The results change significantly our understanding of the development of mummification and the use of embalming agents and demonstrate the power of interdisciplinary science in understanding the past."

Monday, August 20, 2018

A timescale for the origin and evolution of all of life on Earth


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IMAGE: A timescale for the evolution of life on planet Earth summarising the findings of Betts et al. study. view more 

Credit: University of Bristol
A new study led by scientists from the University of Bristol has used a combination of genomic and fossil data to explain the history of life on Earth, from its origin to the present day.

Palaeontologists have long sought to understand ancient life and the shared evolutionary history of life as a whole.

However, the fossil record of early life is extremely fragmented, and its quality significantly deteriorates further back in time towards the Archaean period, more than 2.5 billion years ago, when the Earth's crust had cooled enough to allow the formation of continents and the only life forms were microbes.

Holly Betts, lead author of the study, from the University of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences, said: "There are few fossils from the Archaean and they generally cannot be unambiguously assigned to the lineages we are familiar with, like the blue-green algae or the salt-loving archaebacteria that colours salt-marshes pink all around the world.

"The problem with the early fossil record of life is that it is so limited and difficult to interpret - careful reanalysis of the some of the very oldest fossils has shown them to be crystals, not fossils at all."

Fossil evidence for the early history of life is so fragmented and difficult to evaluate that new discoveries and reinterpretations of known fossils have led to a proliferation of conflicting ideas about the timescale of the early history of life.

Co-author Professor Philip Donoghue, also from Bristol's School of Earth Sciences, added: "Fossils do not represent the only line of evidence to understand the past. A second record of life exists, preserved in the genomes of all living creatures."

Co-author Dr Tom Williams, from Bristol's School of Biological Sciences, said: "Combining fossil and genomic information, we can use an approach called the 'molecular clock' which is loosely based on the idea that the number of differences in the genomes of two living species (say a human and a bacterium) are proportional to the time since they shared a common ancestor."

By making use of this method the team at Bristol and Mark Puttick from the University of Bath were able to derive a timescale for the history of life on Earth that did not rely on the ever-changing age of the oldest accepted fossil evidence of life.

Co-author Professor Davide Pisani said: "Using this approach we were able to show that the Last Universal Common Ancestor all cellular life forms, 'LUCA', existed very early in Earth's history, almost 4.5 Billion years ago - not long after Earth was impacted by the planet Theia, the event which sterilised Earth and led to the formation of the Moon.

"This is significantly earlier than the currently accepted oldest fossil evidence would suggest.
"Our results indicate that two "primary" lineages of life emerged from LUCA (the Eubacteria and the Archaebacteria), approximately one Billion years after LUCA.

"This result is testament to the power of genomic information, as it is impossible, based on the available fossil information, to discriminate between the oldest eubacterial and archaebacterial fossil remains."

The study confirms modern views that the eukaryotes, the lineage to which human life belongs (together with the plants and the fungi, for example), is not a primary lineage of life. Professor Pisani added: "It is rather humbling to think we belong to a lineage that is billions of years younger than life itself."

Massive monumental cemetery built by Eastern Africa's earliest herders discovered in Kenya



An international team, including researchers at Stony Brook University and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, has found the earliest and largest monumental cemetery in eastern Africa. The Lothagam North Pillar Site was built 5,000 years ago by early pastoralists living around Lake Turkana, Kenya. This group is believed to have had an egalitarian society, without a stratified social hierarchy. Thus their construction of such a large public project contradicts long-standing narratives about early complex societies, which suggest that a stratified social structure is necessary to enable the construction of large public buildings or monuments.

The study, led by Elisabeth Hildebrand, of Stony Brook University, is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The Lothagam North Pillar Site was a communal cemetery constructed and used over a period of several centuries, between about 5,000 and 4,300 years ago. Early herders built a platform approximately 30 meters in diameter and excavated a large cavity in the center to bury their dead.

After the cavity was filled and capped with stones, the builders placed large, megalith pillars, some sourced from as much as a kilometer away, on top. Stone circles and cairns were added nearby. An estimated minimum of 580 individuals were densely buried within the central platform cavity of the site. Men, women, and children of different ages, from infants to the elderly, were all buried in the same area, without any particular burials being singled out with special treatment.

Additionally, essentially all individuals were buried with personal ornaments and the distribution of ornaments was approximately equal throughout the cemetery. These factors indicate a relatively egalitarian society without strong social stratification.

Historically, archeologists have theorized that people built permanent monuments as reminders of shared history, ideals and culture, when they had established a settled, socially stratified agriculture society with abundant resources and strong leadership. It was believed that a political structure and the resources for specialization were prerequisites to engaging in monument building. Ancient monuments have thus previously been regarded as reliable indicators of complex societies with differentiated social classes. However, the Lothagam North cemetery was constructed by mobile pastoralists who show no evidence of a rigid social hierarchy.

"This discovery challenges earlier ideas about monumentality," explains Elizabeth Sawchuk of Stony Brook University and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. "Absent other evidence, Lothagam North provides an example of monumentality that is not demonstrably linked to the emergence of hierarchy, forcing us to consider other narratives of social change."

The discovery is consistent with similar examples elsewhere in Africa and on other continents in which large, monumental structures have been built by groups thought to be egalitarian in their social organization. This research has the potential to reshape global perspectives on how - and why - large groups of people come together to form complex societies.

In this case, it appears that Lothagam North was built during a period of profound change. Pastoralism had just been introduced to the Turkana Basin and newcomers arriving with sheep, goats, and cattle would have encountered diverse groups of fisher-hunter-gatherers already living around the lake.

Additionally, newcomers and locals faced a difficult environmental situation, as annual rainfall decreased during this period and Lake Turkana shrunk by as much as fifty percent. Early herders may have constructed the cemetery as a place for people to come together to form and maintain social networks to cope with major economic and environmental change.

"The monuments may have served as a place for people to congregate, renew social ties, and reinforce community identity," states Anneke Janzen also of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. "Information exchange and interaction through shared ritual may have helped mobile herders navigate a rapidly changing physical landscape." After several centuries, pastoralism became entrenched and lake levels stabilized. It was around this time that the cemetery ceased to be used.

"The Lothagam North Pillar Site is the earliest known monumental site in eastern Africa, built by the region's first herders," states Hildebrand. "This finding makes us reconsider how we define social complexity, and the kinds of motives that lead groups of people to create public architecture."

Stone tools reveal modern human-like gripping capabilities 500,000 years ago


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IMAGE: Comparison between a Handaxe and a Clovis Point view more 
Credit: Alastair Key and Metin Eren
This research is the first to link a stone tool production technique known as 'platform preparation' to the biology of human hands. Demonstrating that without the ability to perform highly forceful precision grips, our ancestors would not have been able to produce advanced types of stone tool like spear points.

The technique involves preparing a striking area on a tool to remove specific stone flakes and shape the tool into a pre-conceived design.

Platform preparation is essential for making many different types of advanced prehistoric stone tool, with the earliest known occurrence observed at the 500,000-year-old site of Boxgrove in West Sussex (UK).

The study, led by Dr Alastair Key, of the University's School of Anthropology and Conservation, and funded by the British Academy, investigated how hands are used during the production of different types of early stone technology.

Using sensors attached to the hand of skilled flint knappers (stone tool producers), the researchers were able to identify that platform preparation behaviours required the hand to exert significantly more pressure through the fingers when compared to all other stone tool activities studied.

The research demonstrates that the Boxgrove hominins (early humans) would have needed significantly stronger grips compared to earlier populations who did not perform this behaviour. It further suggests that highly modified and shaped stone tools, such as the handaxes discovered at Boxgrove and stone spear points found in later prehistory, may not have been possible to produce until humans evolved the ability to perform particularly forceful grips.

This discovery is particularly important because human hand bones rarely survive in the fossil record.
Dr Key said: 'Hand bones from before 300,000 years ago are rare, particularly when compared to other human fossils such as teeth, so the fact we can study the manipulative capabilities of our early ancestors from the stone tools they produced is incredibly exciting'.

###

The findings Manual restrictions on Palaeolithic technological behaviours Key, A. and Dunmore, C.J. 2018 are published open access in PeerJ 6: e5399 and are freely available here:

https://peerj.com/articles/5399/

DNA analysis of 6,500-year-old human remains in Israel points to origin of ancient culture


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IMAGE: Ossuaries from the Chalcolithic Period, excavated at Peqi'in Cave. view more 
Credit: Mariana Salzberger, courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
An international team of researchers from Tel Aviv University, the Israel Antiquities Authority and Harvard University has discovered that waves of migration from Anatolia and the Zagros mountains (today's Turkey and Iran) to the Levant helped develop the Chalcolithic culture that existed in Israel's Upper Galilee region some 6,500 years ago.

The study is one of the largest ancient DNA studies ever conducted in Israel and for the first time sheds light on the origins of the Chalcolithic culture in the Levant, approximately 6,000-7,000 years ago.

Research for the study was led by Dr. Hila May and Prof. Israel Hershkovitz of the Department of Anatomy and Anthropology, Dan David Center for Human Evolution and Biohistory Research, at TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine; Dr. Dina Shalem of the Institute for Galilean Archaeology at Kinneret College and the Israel Antiquities Authority; and Éadaoin Harney and Prof. David Reich of Harvard University. It was published today in Nature Communications.

In 1995, Zvi Gal, Dina Shalem and Howard Smithline of the Israel Antiquities Authority began excavating the Peqi'in Cave in northern Israel, which dates to the Chalcolithic Period in the Levant. The team unearthed dozens of burials in the natural stalactite cave that is 17 meters long and 5-8 meters wide.

The large number of unique ceramic ossuaries and the variety of burial offerings discovered in the cave suggest that it was once used as a mortuary center by the local Chalcolithic people.
"The uniqueness of the cave is evident in the number of people buried in it -- more than 600 -- and the variety of ossuaries and jars and the outstanding motifs on them, including geometric and anthropomorphic designs," Dr. Shalem says. "Some of the findings in the cave are typical to the region, but others suggest cultural exchange with remote regions.

"The study resolves a long debate about the origin of the unique culture of the Chalcolithic people. Did the cultural change in the region follow waves of migration, the infiltration of ideas due to trade relations and/or cultural exchange, or local invention? We now know that the answer is migration."
The researchers subjected 22 of the skeletons excavated at Peqi'in, dating to the Chalcolithic Period, to a whole genome analysis.

"This study of 22 individuals is one of the largest ancient DNA studies carried out from a single archaeological site, and by far the largest ever reported in the Near East," Dr. May says.

"The genetic analysis provided an answer to the central question we set out to address," says Prof. Reich. "It showed that the Peqi'in people had substantial ancestry from northerners -- similar to those living in Iran and Turkey -- that was not present in earlier Levantine farmers."

"Certain characteristics, such as genetic mutations contributing to blue eye color, were not seen in the DNA test results of earlier Levantine human remains," adds Dr. May. "The chances for the success of such a study seemed slim, since most of the ancient DNA studies carried out in Israel have failed due to difficult climatic conditions in the region that destroy DNA."

"Fortunately, however, human DNA was preserved in the bones of the buried people in Peqi'in cave, likely due to the cool conditions within the cave and the limestone crust that covered the bones and preserved the DNA," says Prof. Hershkovitz.

"We also find that the Peqi'in population experienced abrupt demographic change 6,000 years ago," concludes Harney, who led the statistical analysis for the study.

"Indeed, these findings suggest that the rise and falls of the Chalcolithic culture are probably due to demographic changes in the region," says Dr. May.

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

World's oldest cheese found in Egyptian tomb


Aging usually improves the flavor of cheese, but that's not why some very old cheese discovered in an Egyptian tomb is drawing attention. Instead, it's thought to be the most ancient solid cheese ever found, according to a study published in ACS' journal Analytical Chemistry.

The tomb of Ptahmes, mayor of Memphis in Egypt during the 13th century BC, was initially unearthed in 1885. After being lost under drifting sands, it was rediscovered in 2010, and archeologists found broken jars at the site a few years later. One jar contained a solidified whitish mass, as well as canvas fabric that might have covered the jar or been used to preserve its contents. Enrico Greco and colleagues wanted to analyze the whitish substance to determine its identity.

After dissolving the sample, the researchers purified its protein constituents and analyzed them with liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry. The peptides detected by these techniques show the sample was a dairy product made from cow milk and sheep or goat milk. The characteristics of the canvas fabric, which indicate it was suitable for containing a solid rather than a liquid, and the absence of other specific markers, support the conclusion that the dairy product was a solid cheese.

Other peptides in the food sample suggest it was contaminated with Brucella melitensis, a bacterium that causes brucellosis. This potentially deadly disease spreads from animals to people, typically from eating unpasteurized dairy products. If the team's preliminary analysis is confirmed, the sample would represent the earliest reported biomolecular evidence of the disease.

Origins and spread of Eurasian fruits traced to the ancient Silk Road



Studies of ancient preserved plant remains from a medieval archaeological site in the Pamir Mountains of Uzbekistan have shown that fruits, such as apples, peaches, apricots, and melons, were cultivated in the foothills of Inner Asia. The archaeobotanical study, conducted by Robert Spengler of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, is among the first systematic analyses of medieval agricultural crops in the heart of the ancient Silk Road. Spengler identified a rich assemblage of fruit and nut crops, showing that many of the crops we are all familiar with today were cultivated along the ancient trade routes.

The Silk Road was the largest vector for cultural spread in the ancient world -- the routes of exchange and dispersal across Eurasia connected Central Asia to the rest of the world. These exchange routes functioned more like the spokes of a wagon wheel than a long-distance road, placing Central Asia at the heart of the ancient world. However, most historical discussions of the ancient Silk Road focus on the presence of East Asian goods in the Mediterranean or vice versa.

The present study, published in PLOS ONE, looks at archaeological sites at the center of the trans-Eurasian exchange routes during the medieval period, when cultural exchange was at its highest. Additionally, scholarship has focused on a select handful of goods that moved along these trade routes, notably silk, metal, glass, and pastoral products. However, historical sources and now archaeological data demonstrate that agricultural goods were an important commodity as well. Notably, higher value goods, such as fruits and nuts, spread along these exchange routes and likely contributed to their popularity in cuisines across Europe, Asia, and North Africa today. Ultimately this study helps demonstrate how the Silk Road shaped what foods we all eat today.

Our everyday fruits and nuts have their roots in the Silk Road

Spengler analyzed preserved ancient seeds and plant parts recovered from a medieval archaeological site in the foothills of the Pamir Mountains of eastern Uzbekistan. The site, Tashbulak, is currently under excavation by a collaborative international Uzbek/American project co-directed by Michael Frachetti, of Washington University in St. Louis, and Farhod Maksudov, of the Institute for Archaeological Research, Academy of Sciences in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The plant remains recovered from this site represent one of the first systematic studies of the crops that people were growing along the Silk Road. In the article, archaeobotanical data are contrasted with historical and other archaeological evidence in order to discuss the timing and routes of spread for the cultivated plants. These plant remains date to roughly a millennium ago and include apple, grape, and melon seeds, peach and apricot pits, and walnut and pistachio shells.
This study helps demonstrate that there was a rich and diverse economy in Central Asia during this period, including a wide array of cultivated grains, legumes, fruits, and nuts. The site of Tashbulak is located at 2100 meters above sea level, above the maximum elevations at which many of these fruit trees can be grown, suggesting that the fruit remains recovered at the site were carried from lower elevations. Historical sources attest to the importance of fresh and dried fruits and nuts as a source of commerce at market bazaars across Inner Asia. These trade routes facilitated the spread of many of our most familiar crops across the ancient world. For example, the earliest clear archaeological evidence for peaches and apricots comes from eastern China, but they were present in the Mediterranean by the Classical period. Likewise, grapes originated somewhere in the broader Mediterranean region, but grape wine was a popular drink in the Tang Dynasty. We can now say that all of these fruit crops were prominent in Central Asia by at least a millennium ago, likely much earlier. As Spengler points out, "The ecologically rich mountain valleys of Inner Asia fostered the spread of many cultivated plants over the past five millennia and, in doing so, shaped the ingredients in kitchens across Europe and Asia."
Central Asia is a key homeland and dispersal point for many important arboreal crops, such as apples and pistachios
Spengler also points out that many economically important fruit crops originated in the foothill forests of eastern Central Asia. For example, studies suggest that much of the genetic material for our modern apples comes from the Tien Shan wild apples of southeastern Kazakhstan, and pistachios originated in southern Central Asia. Despite the importance of these arboreal crops in the modern world economy, relatively limited scholarly focus has gone into the study of their origins and dispersal. The data from Tashbulak are an important contribution to that study. The article shows the importance of archaeological research in Central Asia, highlighting its role in the development of cultures across the ancient world.
In his forthcoming book, "Fruit from the Sands," Spengler traces the spread of domesticated plants across Central Asia. In the book, set to hit shelves in April 2019, he states, "The plants in our kitchens today are archaeological artifacts, and part of the narrative for several of our favorite fruits and nuts starts on the ancient Silk Road."
Excavations at Tashbulak are ongoing, with support from Washington University in St. Louis, the Max von Berchem Foundation, and the National Geographic Society. Over the next few years, the research team expects that their research will better elucidate the nature of interaction and contact in the mountains of Central Asia. Frachetti notes, "The insights gained from this archaeobotanical study help link the juicy details of ancient cuisine to our modern tables, and in doing so highlights the long-term impact of interactions between diverse communities and regions on a global scale."

Tuesday, August 14, 2018

Scarlet macaw DNA points to ancient breeding operation in Southwest




Scarlett macaw.
Credit: © sarahjane71 / Fotolia
Somewhere in the American Southwest or northern Mexico, there are probably the ruins of a scarlet macaw breeding operation dating to between 900 and 1200 C.E., according to a team of archaeologists who sequenced the mitochondrial DNA of bird remains found in the Chaco Canyon and Mimbres areas of New Mexico.

Remains of a thriving prehistoric avian culture and breeding colony of scarlet macaws exist at the northern Mexican site of Paquimé, or Casas Grande. However, this community existed from 1250 to 1450, well after the abandonment of Chaco Canyon, and could not have supplied these birds to Southwest communities prior to the 13th century, said Richard George, graduate student in anthropology, Penn State.

Historically, scarlet macaws lived from South America to eastern coastal Mexico and Guatemala, thousands of miles from the American Southwest. Previously, researchers thought that ancestral Puebloan people might have traveled to these natural breeding areas and brought birds back, but the logistics of transporting adolescent birds are difficult. None of the sites where these early macaw remains were found contained evidence of breeding -- eggshells, pens or perches.

"We were interested in the prehistoric scarlet macaw population history and the impacts of human direct management," said George. "Especially any evidence for directed breeding or changes in the genetic diversity that could co-occur with different trade networks."

The researchers sequenced the mitochondrial DNA of 20 scarlet macaw specimens, but were only able to obtain full sequences from 14. They then directly radiocarbon-dated all 14 birds with complete or near complete genomes and found they fell between 900 and 1200 CE.

"We looked at the full mitochondrial genome of over 16,000 base pairs to understand the maternal relationships represented in the Chaco Canyon and Mimbres regions," said George.

Mitochondrial DNA exists separate from the cell nucleus and is inherited directly from the mother. While nuclear DNA combines the DNA inherited from both parents, mitochondrial DNA can show direct lineage because all siblings have the same mtDNA as their mother, and she has the same mtDNA as her own siblings and mother, all the way back through their ancestry.

Scarlet macaws in Mexico and Central America have five haplogroups -- genetically similar, but not identical mitochondrial DNA lines -- and each haplogroup has a number of haplotypes containing identical DNA lines. The researchers found that their scarlet macaws were all from haplogroup 6 and that 71 percent of the birds shared one of four unique haplotypes. They report the results of this analysis today (Aug 13) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers found that the probability of obtaining 14 birds from the wild and having them all come from the same haplogroup, one that is small and isolated, was extremely small. A better explanation, especially because these specimens ranged over a 300-year period, is that all the birds came from the same breeding population and that this population existed somewhere in the American Southwest or northern Mexico.

"These birds all likely came from the same source, but we don't have any way to support that assumption without examining the full genome," said George. "However, the genetic results likely indicate some type of narrow breeding from a small founder population with little or no introgression or resupply."

However, no one has found macaw breeding evidence dating to the 900 to 1200 period in the American Southwest or northern Mexico.

"The next step will be to analyze macaws from other archaeological sites in Arizona and northern Mexico to narrow down the location of this early breeding colony," said Douglas Kennett, professor and head of anthropology, Penn State, and co-director or the project.

Monday, August 13, 2018

Ancient Greek earring found at east Jerusalem site

 An Israeli archaeologist shows a golden earring believed to be more than 2,000 years old discovered at the site of a national park in annexed east Jerusalem near the Old City walls

Best Photos of the Day
An Israeli archaeologist shows a golden earring believed to be more than 2,000 years old discovered at the site of a national park in annexed east Jerusalem near the Old City walls

Israel on Wednesday unveiled a golden earring dating from the second or third century BC, found in the shadow of the Old City walls in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said the artifact, in the Hellenistic style and shaped like a horned animal, was found in October in the City of David National Park, between the Old City and the flashpoint Palestinian neighbourhood of Silwan.

The find was not announced publicly until now to give archeologists time to study the find and publish an academic paper.

"It is unclear whether the gold earring was worn by a man or a woman, nor do we know their cultural or religious identity, but we can say for certain that whoever wore this earring definitely belonged to Jerusalem's upper class," an IAA statement said, citing "the quality of the gold piece of jewelry".

Following the conquest of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC, Jerusalem remained under Hellenist rule for the next 200 years.

Ancient pottery factory unveiled in Israel


Israeli archaeologists have unveiled what they said was a major pottery plant which produced wine storage jars continuously from Roman to Byzantine times.

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said that excavations near the town of Gedera, south of Tel Aviv, revealed the factory and an adjacent leisure complex of 20 bathing pools and a room used for board games.



Excavation director Alla Nagorsky told journalists at the site that from the third century AD the plant produced vessels of a type known to historians as "Gaza" jars for an unbroken period of 600 years.
"This kind of a place is not built in an instant," she said. "An engineer worked on it. The site is very designed."

An IAA statement added that the jars' main function was storage and shipment of wine, which was a flourishing local industry at the time, with large-scale exports.

"The continuous production of these jars probably indicates that the business was a family one, which passed from generation to generation to generation," the IAA said in a statement.

It said the remains of around 100,000 jars found buried at the site were probably discarded rejects.
Alongside the factory, it added, were two Byzantine bathhouses, at least one with a heating boiler and 20 "finely constructed" pools, connected to one another by channels and pipes.

"The archaeologists consider that the water complex served both the local population and the many travellers along the ancient main road connecting the port of Gaza with the centre of the country," the statement said.

Gaza City lies about 30 miles (48 kilometres) southwest of Gedera, on the Mediterranean coast. During its long history, Gaza has been ruled by the Romans, Byzantines, Crusaders, Mamluks and Ottomans.

At Gedera, the IAA said, the games room was "a rare and surprising discovery".
In it were boards used for playing backgammon and "mancala", games which are still popular in the area.

The statement said the Gedera pottery works may have built the leisure centre for its employees, just as today's hi-tech companies provide recreation facilities for their workers.
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1. Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist Alla Nagorsky carries a 1,600-year-old Mancala game from the Byzantine time found during a large excavation in the central Israeli town of Gedera

 

2. An Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist shows shows pottery shreds with finger prints on them from the Byzantine time found during a large excavation in the central Israeli town of Gedera


Israeli archaeologists on Tuesday unveiled what they said was a major pottery plant which produced wine storage jars continuously from Roman to Byzantine times.


Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-07-ancient-pottery-factory-unveiled-israel.html#jCp


Israeli archaeologists on Tuesday unveiled what they said was a major pottery plant which produced wine storage jars continuously from Roman to Byzantine times.


Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-07-ancient-pottery-factory-unveiled-israel.html#jCp
Israeli archaeologists on Tuesday unveiled what they said was a major pottery plant which produced wine storage jars continuously from Roman to Byzantine times.


The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said that excavations near the town of Gedera, south of Tel Aviv, revealed the factory and an adjacent leisure complex of 20 bathing pools and a room used for board games.
Excavation director Alla Nagorsky told journalists at the site that from the third century AD the plant produced vessels of a type known to historians as "Gaza" jars for an unbroken period of 600 years.
"This kind of a place is not built in an instant," she said. "An engineer worked on it. The site is very designed."
An IAA statement added that the jars' main function was storage and shipment of wine, which was a flourishing local industry at the time, with large-scale exports.
"The continuous production of these jars probably indicates that the business was a family one, which passed from generation to generation to generation," the IAA said in a statement.
It said the remains of around 100,000 jars found buried at the site were probably discarded rejects.
Alongside the factory, it added, were two Byzantine bathhouses, at least one with a heating boiler and 20 "finely constructed" pools, connected to one another by channels and pipes.


Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-07-ancient-pottery-factory-unveiled-israel.html#jCp


Ancient pottery factory unveiled in Israel

July 31, 2018


Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist Alla Nagorsky carries a 1,600-year-old Mancala game from the Byzantine time found during a large excavation in the central Israeli town of Gedera
Israeli archaeologists on Tuesday unveiled what they said was a major pottery plant which produced wine storage jars continuously from Roman to Byzantine times.
The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said that excavations near the town of Gedera, south of Tel Aviv, revealed the factory and an adjacent leisure complex of 20 bathing pools and a room used for board games.
Excavation director Alla Nagorsky told journalists at the site that from the third century AD the plant produced vessels of a type known to historians as "Gaza" jars for an unbroken period of 600 years.
"This kind of a place is not built in an instant," she said. "An engineer worked on it. The site is very designed."
An IAA statement added that the jars' main function was storage and shipment of wine, which was a flourishing local industry at the time, with large-scale exports.
"The continuous production of these jars probably indicates that the business was a family one, which passed from generation to generation to generation," the IAA said in a statement.
It said the remains of around 100,000 jars found buried at the site were probably discarded rejects.
Alongside the factory, it added, were two Byzantine bathhouses, at least one with a heating boiler and 20 "finely constructed" pools, connected to one another by channels and pipes.
An Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist shows shows pottery shreds with finger prints on them from the Byzantine time found during a large excavation in the central Israeli town of Gedera
"The archaeologists consider that the water complex served both the local population and the many travellers along the ancient main road connecting the port of Gaza with the centre of the country," the statement said.
Gaza City lies about 30 miles (48 kilometres) southwest of Gedera, on the Mediterranean coast. During its long history, Gaza has been ruled by the Romans, Byzantines, Crusaders, Mamluks and Ottomans.
At Gedera, the IAA said, the games room was "a rare and surprising discovery".
In it were boards used for playing backgammon and "mancala", games which are still popular in the area.
The statement said the Gedera pottery works may have built the leisure centre for its employees, just as today's hi-tech companies provide recreation facilities for their workers.


Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-07-ancient-pottery-factory-unveiled-israel.html#jCp

How Neolithic people adapted to climate change



IMAGE
IMAGE: In situ pottery at the archaeological site of Çatalhöyük. view more 
Credit: Çatalhöyük Research Project.
Research led by the University of Bristol has uncovered evidence that early farmers were adapting to climate change 8,200 years ago.

The study, published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), centred on the Neolithic and Chalcolithic city settlement of Çatalhöyük in southern Anatolia, Turkey which existed from approximately 7500 BC to 5700 BC.

During the height of the city's occupation a well-documented climate change event 8,200 years ago occurred which resulted in a sudden decrease in global temperatures caused by the release of a huge amount of glacial meltwater from a massive freshwater lake in northern Canada.

Examining the animal bones excavated at the site, scientists concluded that the herders of the city turned towards sheep and goats at this time, as these animals were more drought-resistant than cattle. Study of cut marks on the animal bones informed on butchery practices: the high number of such marks at the time of the climate event showed that the population worked on exploiting any available meat due to food scarcity.

The authors also examined the animal fats surviving in ancient cooking pots. They detected the presence of ruminant carcass fats, consistent with the animal bone assemblage discovered at Çatalhöyük. For the first time, compounds from animal fats detected in pottery were shown to carry evidence for the climate event in their isotopic composition.

Indeed, using the "you are what you eat (and drink)" principle, the scientists deducted that the isotopic information carried in the hydrogen atoms (deuterium to hydrogen ratio) from the animal fats was reflecting that of ancient precipitation. A change in the hydrogen signal was detected in the period corresponding to the climate event, thus suggesting changes in precipitation patterns at the site at that time.

The paper brings together researchers from the University of Bristol's Organic Geochemistry Unit (School of Chemistry) and the Bristol Research Initiative for the Dynamic Global Environment (School of Geographical Sciences).

Co-authors of the paper include archaeologists and archaeozoologists involved in the excavations and the study of the pottery and animal bones from the site.

Dr Mélanie Roffet-Salque, lead author of the paper, said: "Changes in precipitation patterns in the past are traditionally obtained using ocean or lake sediment cores.

"This is the first time that such information is derived from cooking pots. We have used the signal carried by the hydrogen atoms from the animal fats trapped in the pottery vessels after cooking.
"This opens up a completely new avenue of investigation - the reconstruction of past climate at the very location where people lived using pottery."

Co-author, Professor Richard Evershed, added: "It is really significant that the climate models of the event are in complete agreement with the H signals we see in the animal fats preserved in the pots.

"The models point to seasonal changes farmers would have had to adapt to - overall colder temperatures and drier summers - which would have had inevitable impacts on agriculture."

Friday, August 10, 2018

Laziness helped lead to extinction of Homo erectus


New archaeological research from The Australian National University (ANU) has found that Homo erectus, an extinct species of primitive humans, went extinct in part because they were 'lazy'.
An archaeological excavation of ancient human populations in the Arabian Peninsula during the Early Stone Age, found that Homo erectus used 'least-effort strategies' for tool making and collecting resources.

This 'laziness' paired with an inability to adapt to a changing climate likely played a role in the species going extinct, according to lead researcher Dr Ceri Shipton of the ANU School of Culture, History and Language.

"They really don't seem to have been pushing themselves," Dr Shipton said.

"I don't get the sense they were explorers looking over the horizon. They didn't have that same sense of wonder that we have."

Dr Shipton said this was evident in the way the species made their stone tools and collected resources.

"To make their stone tools they would use whatever rocks they could find lying around their camp, which were mostly of comparatively low quality to what later stone tool makers used," he said.

"At the site we looked at there was a big rocky outcrop of quality stone just a short distance away up a small hill.
"But rather than walk up the hill they would just use whatever bits had rolled down and were lying at the bottom.
"When we looked at the rocky outcrop there were no signs of any activity, no artefacts and no quarrying of the stone.
"They knew it was there, but because they had enough adequate resources they seem to have thought, 'why bother?'".
This is in contrast to the stone tool makers of later periods, including early Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, who were climbing mountains to find good quality stone and transporting it over long distances.
Dr Shipton said a failure to progress technologically, as their environment dried out into a desert, also contributed to the population's demise.
"Not only were they lazy, but they were also very conservative," Dr Shipton said.
"The sediment samples showed the environment around them was changing, but they were doing the exact same things with their tools.
"There was no progression at all, and their tools are never very far from these now dry river beds. I think in the end the environment just got too dry for them."
The excavation and survey work was undertaken in 2014 at the site of Saffaqah near Dawadmi in central Saudi Arabia.
The research has been published in a paper for the PLoS One scientific journal.

Thursday, August 9, 2018

Prehistoric peopling in southeast Asia -- genomics of Jomon and other ancient skeletons



IMAGE
IMAGE: These are experiments concerning genome analysis of ancient skeleton. (In the clean room specialized for ancient DNA analyses, Kitazato University School of Medicine.) Top left: DNA extraction in a clean... view more 
Credit: Kanazawa University
Background
 
Uncovering the expansion processes of human habitats in the past is of great importance for understanding the origins and establishment of present-day populations and the acquisition of genetic characteristics of individuals as well as for investigating mechanisms of resistance against diseases and pathogens. Previous genetic/genomic studies aimed to uncover the expansion processes using present-day human genomes of different individuals and locations.

However, it is not always possible to elucidate the expansion processes based on the genomic similarity of present-day populations due to the possibility of migrations of populations between regions in various periods. It is therefore impossible to uncover the precise expansion processes of populations in the past without knowledge of the genomic information existing in a designated region and period. Thus, expansion processes hypothesized so far were nothing but speculations based on assumptions about present-day genomes.


Recent developments of DNA analysis technology have made it possible to obtain whole genome information from ultratrace amounts of DNA; we are now in an era where whole genome information can be obtained directly from ancient human skeletons discovered at archaeological sites. There remain, however, technical problems for obtaining whole genome information of ancient human skeletons.

In particular, there are two main problems: first, genomic analyses*1) of poorly-preserved ancient remains in hot and humid regions of the world have up until now failed (Figure 1). Secondly, there is the risk of contamination of present-day human DNA in the DNA samples of ultratrace amounts from prehistoric remains.

To evaluate objectively the possibility of such contamination, several different research groups must cross-check*2) one another in order to achieve exact genome sequencing; in other words, establishment of a collaborative research system is a prerequisite for attaining the highest level of scientific authenticity.

In order to cope with these problems, the present international research team, led by researchers from the University of Copenhagen with the participation of three researchers from Kanazawa University has established technologies to efficiently extract human DNA from skeletons discovered at prehistoric remains even under very poor conditions for DNA preservation. At the same time, an international system of research collaboration has been established for objectively evaluating the effects of contamination by present-day human DNA. Thanks to these efforts, the team has uncovered the expansion processes of human habitats and genetic interactions in hot and wet Southeast Asia, which was not possible previously with conventional technologies and research systems (Figure 2).

Worthy of special mention, the present study has been successful in determining the "whole genome" sequence of an individual with typical Jomon culture, while previous studies were only able to show a very limited "partial genome" sequence of two Jomon individuals. Thus, the present study is the first successful example to show the possibility of whole genome sequencing of prehistoric individuals in regions like Japan where preservation conditions are quite poor, possibly leading to further major progress in prehistoric genome studies.

Results
 
In the present study, the international research team succeeded in extracting and sequencing DNA from 25 ancient individuals' skeletons from Southeast Asian remains, where the condition of DNA preservation is very poor, and from one Japanese Jomon female skeleton. Upon comparison of the genomic data of ancient human skeletons with those of present-day human skeletons, it has become clear that those prehistoric populations in Southeast Asia can be classified into six groups (Figure 3).
Group 1 contains Hoabinhians from Pha Faen, Laos, hunter-gatherers (~8000 years ago), and prehistoric populations discovered from Gua Cha, Malaysia (~4000 years ago), being genetically close to present-day Önge and Jarawa from the Andaman Islands and Jehai from the Peninsular Malaysia. To our surprise, group 1 has higher genetic affinities with Ikawazu*3) Jomon individual (Tahara, Aichi), a female adult*4), than other present-day Southeast Asians. In addition, the Ikawazu Jomon genome*5) is best modelled contributing genetically present-day Japanese.

 On the other hand, Groups 2-6 consist of ancient skeletons from the Neolithic Age, when farming started, until ~500 years ago. It is now found that they are genetically much different from Hoabinhians, each group having histories of migration and genetic interaction, i.e., inter-population mixture. Group 2 is found to be genetically close to the present-day Austroasiatic language-speaking groups such as Mlabri, but to have few genetic components common with the present-day East Asian populations. Group 3 is found to be genetically close to Kradai, Thailand, in the present-day Southeast Asian populations and to the Austronesian language-speaking groups. Group 4 is found to be genetically close to the present-day populations in South China. Group 5 is genetically close to the present-day populations in the western part of Indonesia. Group 6 is most closely related to present day Austronesian populations, with one individual showing slightly elevated Denisovan ancestry, an archaic hominin which is classified as a sister group of Neanderthals.

As above, Neolithic Southeast Asians are found to have been partially genetically influenced by ethnic groups in South China and to have had a genetic connection with populations in Taiwan; Neolithic Southeast Asians are found not to have been indigenous hunter-gatherers passively accepting farming but to have accepted farming gradually in the process of migrations of populations between the continent and islands. Conventional archaeology proposed the two-layer hypothesis that, in those periods, a large population with farming culture with rice and millet migrated into Southeast Asia and that they replaced the indigenous population.

Additionally, the present study indicates that the genetic influence from South China with rice farming was only partial and that the migrating population did not replace the indigenous population completely. The present analysis shows that there were at least four big migration waves; migrations of Southeast Asians should be investigated with a new "complex model" framework.

The present study successfully elucidates for the first time the expansion/migration of prehistoric populations by genome analysis of skeletons discovered in Southeast Asia; conventionally, it was thought that such population expansion/migration could only be investigated using archaeological artifacts. An important outcome of the present study is that the same or analogous analyses could be applied to various regions to evaluate the history of population expansion/migration in much more detail and in a more scientific manner.
[Future prospects]
The genomic data obtained from ancient skeletons in Southeast Asia and from a Ikawazu Jomon individual provides an important basis for investigations on the origins of populations in wider East Asia. The whole genome information of a Jomon individual will be useful for direct comparison of genomic similarity with ancient East Asians of the corresponding period to Jomon in present-day Korea, China, Russia and others in the vicinity of the Japanese archipelago. More comparative studies are in progress on populations in wider areas. Note that the whole genome sequence obtained in this study for a Jomon individual corresponds to the Draft Genome Sequence in the Human Genome Project for the present-day humans. We aim at Complete Genome Sequence with higher accuracy.
This study is an interdisciplinary undertaking combining anthropology and archaeology in a close collaboration, allowing us to establish ourselves at the starting point for research on the origin of Jomon and its diversity. By more genome analyses of more Jomon skeletons from different Jomon sites, genetic diversity of Jomon populations will be explored over the Japanese archipelago. It is expected through such studies that various interactions among Jomon groups should be revealed together with migrations of archaeological artifacts such as potteries and stone tools as well as migrations of populations. Based on the outcome of the present study, novel anthropological and archaeological approaches would be further developed.
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[Glossary]
*1) Genomic Analysis
Analysis of whole genome of a species.
*2) Cross-check analysis
Cross-check analysis is an analytical method that evaluates whether the same result will be produced irrespective of different research institutions, different analytical methods, and so on. It is an important scientific index in research on ancient DNA.
*3) Ikawazu kaizuka (shellmound)
A kaizuka (shellmound) site at Tahara city, Aichi prefecture, dating back to late and final Jomon period. One of the best known archaeological site of Jomon period, where more than 200 individual skeletons have been discovered from Meiji era till today. A number of renowned anthropologists like Profs. Yoshikiyo KOGANEI and Hisashi SUZUKI performed morphological research on prehistoric skeletons from this site. There are also other kaizuka sites in Tahara city, such as Yoshigo kaizuka and Hobi kaizuka, representative Jomon sites. Those sites have been well studied and many skeletons have been excavated.
*4) A female skeleton dating back to late Jomon period, ~2500 years ago.
A Jomon skeleton discovered from Ikawazu kaizuka site in 2010. Recent studies indicate the beginning of Yayoi period to be ~3000 years ago, but the arrival of Yayoi culture differed depending on regions. The female adult skeleton from Ikawazu kaizuka site is accompanied with a pottery that is validated to date back to the period of Gokanmori type pottery, indicating that the period was still Jomon at those sites in Atsumi peninsula, Aichi prefecture. In addition, the female skeleton analyzed here shows typical Jomon morphology.
*5) Whole genome sequence
Whole genome sequence is the total DNA sequence of a species covering not only DNA sequences for genes but also DNA sequences for non-gene regions.