Archaeologists working in two Italian
caves have discovered some of the earliest known examples of ancient
humans using an adhesive on their stone tools -- an important
technological advance called "hafting."
The new study, which included CU Boulder's Paola Villa, shows that
Neanderthals living in Europe from about 55 to 40 thousand years ago
traveled away from their caves to collect resin from pine trees. They
then used that sticky substance to glue stone tools to handles made out
of wood or bone.
The findings add to a growing body of evidence that suggests that
these cousins of Homo sapiens were more clever than some have made them
out to be.
"We continue to find evidence that the Neanderthals were not inferior
primitives but were quite capable of doing things that have
traditionally only been attributed to modern humans," said Villa,
corresponding author of the new study and an adjoint curator at the CU
Museum of Natural History.
That insight, she added, came from a chance discovery from Grotta del
Fossellone and Grotta di Sant'Agostino, a pair of caves near the
beaches of what is now Italy's west coast.
Those caves were home to Neanderthals who lived in Europe during the
Middle Paleolithic period, thousands of years before Homo sapiens set
foot on the continent. Archaeologists have uncovered more than 1,000
stone tools from the two sites, including pieces of flint that measured
not much more than an inch or two from end to end.
In a recent study of the tools, Villa and her colleagues noticed a
strange residue on just a handful of the flints -- bits of what appeared
to be organic material.
"Sometimes that material is just inorganic sediment, and sometimes
it's the traces of the adhesive used to keep the tool in its socket"
Villa said.
To find out, study lead author Ilaria Degano at the University of
Pisa conducted a chemical analysis of 10 flints using a technique called
gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. The tests showed that the stone
tools had been coated with resin from local pine trees. In one case,
that resin had also been mixed with beeswax.
Villa explained that the Italian Neanderthals didn't just resort to
their bare hands to use stone tools. In at least some cases, they also
attached those tools to handles to give them better purchase as they
sharpened wooden spears or performed other tasks like butchering or
scraping leather.
"You need stone tools to cut branches off of trees and make them into a point," Villa said.
The find isn't the oldest known example of hafting by Neanderthals in
Europe -- two flakes discovered in the Campitello Quarry in central
Italy predate it. But it does suggest that this technique was more
common than previously believed.
The existence of hafting also provides more evidence that
Neanderthals, like their smaller human relatives, were able to build a
fire whenever they wanted one, Villa said -- something that scientists
have long debated. She said that pine resin dries when exposed to air.
As a result, Neanderthals needed to warm it over a small fired to make
an effective glue.
"This is one of several proofs that strongly indicate that
Neanderthals were capable of making fire whenever they needed it," Villa
said.
In other words, enjoying the glow of a warm campfire isn't just for Homo sapiens.
------------------------------ Nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes mountains, Peru's coastal region relies on surface water from the Andes for drinking water, industry, and animal and crop farming. The region, which includes Peru's capital city Lima, is often overwhelmed with rain in the wet season -- but by the time the dry season comes, water is scarce. These factors, together with Lima's rapidly growing population, mean the city struggles to supply water to its 12 million residents during the dry months of May to October. Now, Imperial researchers and their colleagues ... more »
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *Raised fields in the Bolivian Llanos de Moxos region. view more Credit: Umberto Lombardo Climate change had a significant impact on people living in the Amazon rainforest before the arrival of Europeans and the loss of many indigenous groups, a new study shows. Major shifts in temperature and rainfall caused the disappearance of communities long before 1492, researchers have found. In contrast other cultures still flourished just before the Spanish colonisation of the Americas. New analysis of what the climate was like in the Amazon from 700 to 1300 shows the... more »
The first humans in North America arrived from Asia some time before 14,500 years ago. The next major stream of gene flow came about 5000 years ago, and is known to archaeologists as Paleo-Eskimos. About 800 years ago, the ancestors of the present-day Inuit and Yup'ik people replaced this population across the Arctic. By about 700 years ago, the archaeological evidence for the Paleo-Eskimo culture disappeared. Their genetic legacy in living populations has been contentious, with several genetic studies arguing that they made little contribution to later North Americans. In the curren... more »
University of Helsinki [image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *Archaeological findings of Levänluhta in the Finnish National Museum's exhibition. In the front arm rings and necklaces found from the burial site, made out of copper alloy. view more Credit: Elisabeth Holmqvist-Sipilä The Levänluhta water burial site, dating back to the Iron Age (300-800 CE), is one of Finland's most famous archaeological sites. Nearly one hundred individuals, mainly women or children, were buried in a lake located at Isokyrö in SW Finland, during the Iron Age. Some of the deceased were accompanied by arm rings and ne... more »
During the Iron Age around 300 AD something extraordinary was initiated in Levänluhta area in Isokyrö, SW Finland. The deceased were buried in a lake, and this habit was continued for at least 400 years. When trenches were dug in the local fields in mid-1800's skulls and other human bones were surfacing. These bones had been preserved almost intact in the anoxic, ferrous water. Archaeologists, historians and locals have been wondering about these finds for over 150 years now. In 2010, a multidisciplinary research group at the University of Helsinki ... more »
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *Selection of the Early Celtic vessels held in the archive of the Württemberg State Museum. view more Credit: Victor S. Brigola Early Celts in eastern France imported Mediterranean pottery, as well as olive oil and wine, and may have appropriated Mediterranean feasting practices, according to a study published June 19, 2019 in *PLOS ONE*, by Maxime Rageot from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and the University of Tübingen, and colleagues. Hundreds of fragments of imported Mediterranean pottery have been excavated from the Early Celtic hillfort site of... more »
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *This is the ancient geomorphology of the city of Cordoba. view more Credit: Antonio Monterroso-Checa On the land where Cordoba is located in the 21st century, two cities coexisted in the past, each on a hill. An Iberian city was located where Cruz Conde Park lies today, and a Roman city, which was founded at a later time, was located about 500 meters away. Archaeology has had to depend upon geological studies up to now in order to determine how the city developed throughout history, but now, thanks to LiDAR technology, 3D images have been obtained that show... more »
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *This is a scaffold platform above Must Farm's 'structure 1'. view more Credit: D. Webb Must Farm, an extraordinarily well-preserved Late Bronze Age settlement in Cambridgeshire, in the East of England, drew attention in national and international media in 2016 as 'Britain's Pompeii' or the 'Pompeii of the Fens'. The major excavation was funded by Historic England and Forterra Building Products Ltd, which owns the Must Farm quarry. Now for the first time, published today in *Antiquity*, archaeologists from the Cambridge Archaeological Unit present a definitiv... more »
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *This is an aerial photo of the Portus Project excavations in 2009. view more Credit: Portus Project Portus Romae was established in the middle of the first century AD and for well over 400 years was Rome's gateway to the Mediterranean. The port played a key role in funnelling imports - e.g. foodstuffs, wild animals, marble and luxury goods - from across the Mediterranean and beyond to the citizens of Rome and was vital to the pre-eminence of the city in the Roman Mediterranean. But, what of the people who lived, worked and died there? In a study published t... more »
A grape variety still used in wine production in France today can be traced back 900 years to just one ancestral plant, scientists have discovered. With the help of an extensive genetic database of modern grapevines, researchers were able to test and compare 28 archaeological seeds from French sites dating back to the Iron Age, Roman era, and medieval period. Utilising similar ancient DNA methods used in tracing human ancestors, a team of researchers from the UK, Denmark, France, Spain, and Germany, drew genetic connections between seeds from different archaeological sites, as well... more »
Researchers from the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology at the University of Seville have studied the archaeological evidence of prehistoric societies in the Neolithic Period in the Iberian Peninsula from the perspective of gender. According to the results of their work, which address the analysis from the point of view of bioarchaeology and funerary archaeology, it was in the Neolithic that gender differences first appeared which meant male domination in later periods of history. To arrive at these conclusions, the researchers have analysed two groups of indicators. On the on... more »
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *The annular objects from the find assemblage in the debris layer of pit V5400. view more Credit: Heiss et al, 2019 Strange ring-shaped objects in a Bronze Age hillfort site represent a unique form of cereal-based product, according to a study published June 5, 2019 in the open-access journal *PLOS ONE* by Andreas G. Heiss of the Austrian Archaeological Institute (ÖAW-ÖAI) and colleagues. Agricultural practices are well known in the archaeological record, but less understood is how food was produced and prepared by ancient cultures. In this study, Heiss and co... more »
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *Lunel-Viel (Languedoc-Southern France). Victim of the plague thrown into a demolition trench of a Gallo-Roman house; end of the 6th-early 7th century. view more Credit: 1990; CNRS - Claude Raynaud An international team of researchers has analyzed human remains from 21 archaeological sites to learn more about the impact and evolution of the plague-causing bacterium *Yersinia pestis* during the first plague pandemic (541-750 AD). In a study published in *PNAS*, the researchers reconstructed 8 plague genomes from Britain, Germany, France and Spain and uncovered... more »
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *A large green artifact found in situ at the Bokol Dora site. Right: Image of the same artifact and a three dimensional model of the same artifact. view more Credit: David R. Braun A new archaeological site discovered by an international and local team of scientists working in Ethiopia shows that the origins of stone tool production are older than 2.58 million years ago. Previously, the oldest evidence for systematic stone tool production and use was 2.58 to 2.55 million years ago. Analysis by the researchers of early stone age sites, published this week in... more »
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *Arrival of First Australians infographic view more Credit: Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH) New insights into how people first arrived in Australia have been revealed by a group of experts brought together to investigate the continent's deep history. They used sophisticated modelling to determine not only the likely routes travelled by Aboriginal people tens of thousands of years ago, but also the sizes of groups required for the population to survive in harsh conditions. The research, published ... m
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *Making barkcloth from paper mulberry bark in Buda village, Viti Levu, Fiji. view more Credit: A. Seelenfreund The migration and interaction routes of prehistoric humans throughout the islands of Oceania can be retraced using genetic differences between paper mulberry plants, a tree native to Asia cultivated for fibers to make paper and introduced into the Pacific in prehistoric times to make barkcloth. Daniela Seelenfreund of the University of Chile and Andrea Seelenfreund of the Academia de Humanismo Cristiano University, Chile report on prehistoric human m... more »
Researchers at the University of Tokyo conducted a census of the Japanese population around 2,500 years ago using the Y chromosomes of men living on the main islands of modern-day Japan. This is the first time analysis of modern genomes has estimated the size of an ancient human population before they were met by a separate ancient population. "Evidence at archaeological dig sites has been used to estimate the size of ancient human populations, but the difficulty and unpredictability of finding those sites is a big limitation. Now we have a method that uses a large amount of moder... more »
Chemical analysis of several wooden braziers recently excavated from tombs in western China provides some of earliest evidence for ritual cannabis smoking, researchers report. The study suggests that smoking cannabis for ritual and religious activities was practiced in western China by at least 2500 years ago, and that the cannabis plants involved were producing high levels of psychoactive compounds, indicating that people were aware of and interacting with specific populations of the plant. Cannabis, one of the oldest cultivated plants in East Asia, is also one of the most widely ... more »
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *Map of millet and wheat/barley consumption over time: a) 1000-500 cal BC, b) 500-200 cal BC, and c) 200 BC-AD 400. view more Credit: I. Reese and A. R. Ventresca Miller, 2017 A meta-analysis of dietary information recorded in the bones of ancient animals and humans recovered from sites scattered across the Eurasian steppe, from the Caucasus region to Mongolia, demonstrates that pastoralists spread domesticated crops across the steppe through their trade and social networks. Researchers from Kiel University sifted through previously published stable isotopic d... more »
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *Alla Mashezerskaya maps the artefacts in the area where two 31,000-year-old milk teeth were found. view more Credit: Elena Pavlova Two children's milk teeth buried deep in a remote archaeological site in north eastern Siberia have revealed a previously unknown group of people lived there during the last Ice Age. The finding was part of a wider study which also discovered 10,000 year-old human remains in another site in Siberia are genetically related to Native Americans - the first time such close genetic links have been discovered outside of the US. The int... more »
Complete article A watchtower dating from the time of the Kingdom of Judah (8th century BCE – during the reign of King Hezekiah) was recently uncovered during archeological excavations by IDF soldiers, together with the Israel Antiquities Authority, at a paratroopers base in the south of the country. The tower, whose dimensions in antiquity is estimated to have been 5 x 3.5 m, was erected at a high geographic site, and as such, was an observation point to the Hebron Mountains, the Judean plain and the Ashkelon vicinity. It was built of especially large stones, some 8 tons in weight... more »
Complete article A city gate from the time of King David was discovered after 32 years of excavation in the ancient city of Bethsaida in the Golan Heights’ Jordan Park, opening up a world of new possibilities, opinions and theories about the ancient landscape of the Land of Israel. According to Professor Rami Arav of the University of Nebraska, chief archaeologist overseeing the excavations, told the *Jerusalem Post* that the gate and further findings found within the ancient city give the notion that it was possible that Solomon and David might not have been the sole kings of the... more »
Çatalhöyük had overcrowding, violence, environmental troubles [image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *These are excavations in a number of Neolithic buildings at Catalhoyuk. view more Credit: Scott Haddow COLUMBUS, Ohio - Some 9,000 years ago, residents of one of the world's first large farming communities were also among the first humans to experience some of the perils of modern urban living. Scientists studying the ancient ruins of Çatalhöyük, in modern Turkey, found that its inhabitants - 3,500 to 8,000 people at its peak - experienced overcrowding, infectious diseases, violence and environment... more »
New research published today in the journal *Antiquity* reveals that ancient faeces from the prehistoric village of Çatalhöyük have provided the earliest archaeological evidence for intestinal parasite infection in the mainland Near East. People first gave up hunting and gathering and turned to farming in the Near East, around 10,000 years ago. The settlement of Çatalhöyük is famous for being an incredibly well preserved early village founded around 7,100 BC. The population of Çatalhöyük were early farmers, growing crops such as wheat and barley, and herding sheep and goats. "It h... more »
Nestled between the Pacific Ocean and
the Andes mountains, Peru's coastal region relies on surface water from
the Andes for drinking water, industry, and animal and crop farming.
The region, which includes Peru's capital city Lima, is often
overwhelmed with rain in the wet season -- but by the time the dry
season comes, water is scarce.
These factors, together with Lima's rapidly growing population, mean
the city struggles to supply water to its 12 million residents during
the dry months of May to October.
Now, Imperial researchers and their colleagues at the Regional
Initiative for Hydrological Monitoring of Andean Ecosystems in South
America, have outlined how reviving ancient water systems could help
save wet season water for the dry season, where it is desperately
needed.
To do so, they studied a water system in Huamantanga, Peru -- one of the last of its kind.
Coastal Peru's continuously stressed systems struggle to cope with
increasing demand and are fragile -- a landslide, for example, could
easily cut off Lima's water supply.
Senior author Dr Wouter Buytaert, of Imperial's Department of Civil
and Environmental Engineering, said: "The people of Lima live with one
of the world's most unstable water situations. There's too much water in
the wet seasons, and too little in the dry ones.
"The indigenous peoples of Peru knew how to get around this, so we're looking to them for answers."
Ancient Peruvian civilisations in 600 AD created systems within
mountains to divert excess rainwater from source streams onto mountain
slopes and through rocks.
The water would take some months to trickle through the system and resurface downstream -- just in time for the dry season.
To study this, the researchers looked at one such system in
Huamantanga. They used dye tracers and hydrological monitoring to study
the system from the wet to dry seasons of 2014-2015 and 2015-2016.
Social scientists involved also worked with Huamantanga's local people
to understand the practice and help map the landscape.
They found the water took between two weeks and eight months to
re-emerge, with an average time of 45 days. From these time scales, they
calculated that, if governments upscale the systems to cater to today's
population size, they could reroute and delay 35 per cent of wet season
water, equivalent to 99 million cubic metres per year of water through
Lima's natural terrain.
This could increase the water available in the dry season by up to 33
per cent in the early months, and an average of 7.5 per cent for the
remaining months. The method could essentially extend the wet season,
providing more drinking water and longer crop-growing periods for local
farmers.
The study, published in Nature Sustainability, is the first
to examine the pre-Inca system in this much detail to find answers to
modern problems. The authors say their research shows how indigenous
systems could complement modern engineering solutions for water security
in coastal Peru.
Lead author Dr Boris Ochoa-Tocachi, also from Imperial's Department
of Civil and Environmental Engineering, said: "With the advent of modern
science, you'd be forgiven for wondering how ancient methods could
apply to modern day problems. However, it turns out that we have lots to
learn from our ancestors' creative problem-solving skills."
Dr Buytaert said: "Like many tropical cities, Lima's population is
growing fast -- too fast for water reserves to keep up during dry
seasons.
"Upscaling existing pre-Inca systems could help relieve Peru's wet months of water and quench its dry ones."
The seasonal variability typical of coastal Peru is worsened by human
impacts -- particularly by melting glaciers caused by global warming.
Humans also contribute to soil erosion, which renders soil too weak to
support dams big enough to hold all the water.
Climate change also makes wet seasons wetter, and dry seasons drier
-- making the need for effective water storage in Peru even more urgent.
In addition, the uncertainty of our climate's future makes it
difficult to design and build systems that are intended to last for
decades into the future.
The authors say combining pre-Inca systems with classic structures,
such as smaller dams, could spread the workload across methods and
increase adaptability in an unpredictable climate.
Dr Buytaert explained: "Because we can't rely fully on one method, we
must be open-minded and creative -- but our study shows we have lots to
learn from the way Peru's indigenous population intelligently managed
their landscape 1,400 years ago."
The researchers looked only at one system, so the results of similar
work will likely differ throughout Peru's coastal areas. However, they
say their work presents a strong argument for using nature-based
solutions to improve water security, which currently tops water agendas
both locally and globally.
They continue to study the area to learn more about how indigenous
knowledge, practices, and systems can help supply water to large urban
populations in water-unstable, dry environments. In doing so, they hope
to improve coastal Peru's water security and resilience to a changing
and unpredictable climate.
Dr Ochoa-Tocachi concluded: "This is a fascinating example of
ingenuity within local communities and shows the enormous potential of
indigenous knowledge to complement modern science.
"Beyond this fascinating example of ingenious problem-solving, our
research shows the enormous potential for indigenous knowledge and rural
science to complement modern science."
IMAGE: Archaeological findings of Levänluhta in
the Finnish National Museum's exhibition. In the front arm rings and
necklaces found from the burial site, made out of copper alloy.
view more
Credit: Elisabeth Holmqvist-Sipilä
The Levänluhta water burial site, dating back to the Iron Age
(300-800 CE), is one of Finland's most famous archaeological sites.
Nearly one hundred individuals, mainly women or children, were buried in
a lake located at Isokyrö in SW Finland, during the Iron Age. Some of
the deceased were accompanied by arm rings and necklaces made out of
copper alloy, bronze or brass. Style of jewellery domestic but material from abroad
"The origin of the metals used in these pieces of jewellery was
determined on the basis of the objects' geochemical and lead isotope
compositions. The jewellery of the deceased is stylistically typical
Finnish Iron Age jewellery, making it probable that they were cast in
local workshops. However, the metals used to make these objects are
unlikely to be originally from the region, since copper ores had not yet
been discovered here during the Iron Age," says Elisabeth
Holmqvist-Sipilä, a postdoctoral researcher.
Up to now, archaeologists have assumed that copper used in the Iron
Age came mainly from the copper ores discovered in southern Scandinavia.
However, this interpretation has in recent years been called into
question, since the copper found in archaeological metal discoveries in
Sweden has also been determined to be imported.
In a study conducted in collaboration between archaeologists at
the University of Helsinki and the Geological Survey of Finland, the
origin of the bronze and brass jewellery found at Levänluhta was
investigated by comparing their geochemical composition and lead isotope
ratios to known copper ores in Finland, Sweden and elsewhere in Europe.
The study was published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. Copper tracks lead to southern Europe
"The results demonstrate that the copper used in the objects was not
from Finland or the nearby regions; rather, it has travelled to Finland
along extensive exchange networks, most likely from southern Europe,"
says Holmqvist-Sipilä.
Based on the lead isotope ratios, the copper in the objects has its
origins in the copper ores found in Greece and Bulgaria. These regions
produced a large quantity of copper in the Bronze and Iron Age, which
spread around Europe as various object forms, distributed as presents,
loot and merchandise. Metals were also recycled by melting old objects
into raw material for new casts. It may be possible that metals that
ended up in Finland during the Bronze Age were recycled in the
Levänluhta region.
The findings of this project, funded by the Emil Aaltonen
Foundation, demonstrate that products of the copper exchange network of
continental Europe also reached Finland across the Baltic Sea, thus
making it possible to link the region with the extensive copper exchange
system known to have extended throughout Europe. The results also
illustrate the temporally and technologically multi-layered nature of
prehistoric metal artefacts: raw materials found their way here through a
number of hands, most likely over a long period of time and across very
great distances. In domestic artisan workshops, these metals of
international origin were manufactured into pieces of jewellery in
domestic Iron Age fashion, perhaps embodying the local identity and
place of residence of the bearer.
Researchers at the University of Tokyo conducted a census of the
Japanese population around 2,500 years ago using the Y chromosomes of
men living on the main islands of modern-day Japan. This is the first
time analysis of modern genomes has estimated the size of an ancient
human population before they were met by a separate ancient population.
"Evidence at archaeological dig sites has been used to estimate the
size of ancient human populations, but the difficulty and
unpredictability of finding those sites is a big limitation. Now we have
a method that uses a large amount of modern data," said Associate
Professor Jun Ohashi, an expert in human evolutionary genetics and
leader of the research team that performed the analysis. Archaeological mystery
The current theory on human migrations into Japan is that the
original inhabitants, the Jomon people, were met about 2,500 years ago
by a separate group coming mainly from the Korean Peninsula, the Yayoi
people.
Archaeologists have identified fewer Jomon sites from the Late Jomon
Period, the era immediately before the Yayoi arrival. Global
temperatures and sea levels dropped during that period, which could have
made life more difficult for the hunter-gatherer Jomon people.
When the Yayoi people arrived, they brought wet rice farming to
Japan, which would have led to a more stable food supply for the
remaining Jomon people living with the new Yayoi migrants.
The lesser amount of archaeological remains from the Late Jomon
Period could be evidence of an actual population decline, or just that
the archaeological dig sites have not yet been found. Genetic evidence
Ohashi's research team decided to start digging through the human
genome to address this archaeological mystery. They began by comparing
the Y-chromosome sequences of modern Japanese men to those of Korean and
other East Asian men. Y chromosomes are passed on from father to son
with very little change over generations, so modern Y-chromosome
sequences can reliably estimate the Y chromosomes of men thousands of
years ago.
Researchers used DNA samples collected before 1990 from 345 men
whose families were from the three main islands of Honshu, Shikoku, and
Kyushu in Japan.
The research team identified one group of DNA sequences that only
Japanese men had. That unique sequence group likely came from the Jomon
people. The researchers identified six sequence groups common to both
Japanese men and men with other East Asian heritage (Korean, Vietnamese,
Chinese), which likely came from the Yayoi people or other ancestors
common to Japanese and East Asian people. DNA confirms archaeology
Researchers built evolutionary family trees using the
Y-chromosome sequences and saw a pattern indicative of a population
decrease and sudden increase: a remarkable decrease in the number of
ancestral Y-chromosome sequences around 2,500 years ago.
Interestingly, modern Japanese men seem to have a greater percentage
of Jomon ancestral DNA in their Y chromosomes than the rest of their
genomes.
Previous genetic analyses concluded that modern ethnically Japanese
people get about 12 percent of their entire genomes from Jomon ancestors
and the rest from Yayoi ancestors. Ohashi's research team calculated
that the one group of Jomon sequences they identified accounted for 35.4
percent of the entire Y chromosome, indicating that the specific
sequence would have been extremely common in Jomon men.
Since it is easier for a sequence to become common in a small
population, this is another indication that the size of the Jomon
population decreased during the Late Jomon Period before the arrival of
the Yayoi people.
"We hope this method might be useful to confirm other ancient human dynamics not fully explained by archaeology," said Ohashi.
###
Research Article
Yusuke Watanabe, Izumi Naka, Seik-Soon Khor, Hiromi Sawai, Yuki
Hitomi, Katsushi Tokunaga, Jun Ohashi. 2019. Analysis of whole
Y-chromosome sequences reveals the Japanese population history in the
Jomon period. Scientific Reports (in press). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-44473-z
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-44473-z
IMAGE: Arrival of First Australians infographic
view more
Credit: Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH)
New insights into how people first arrived in Australia have been
revealed by a group of experts brought together to investigate the
continent's deep history.
They used sophisticated modelling to determine not only the likely
routes travelled by Aboriginal people tens of thousands of years ago,
but also the sizes of groups required for the population to survive in
harsh conditions.
The research, published today in two companion papers (one in Scientific Reports and the other in Nature Ecology and Evolution),
confirms the theory that people arrived in several large and deliberate
migrations by island-hopping to reach New Guinea more than 50,000 years
ago.
While many Aboriginal cultures believe people have always been here,
others have strong oral histories of ancestral beings arriving from the
north.
"We know that Aboriginal people have lived here for more than 50,000
years. This research offers a greater understanding of how migration
events took place and further evidence of the marine and navigation
capabilities used to make these deliberate journeys," said Professor
Michael Bird, from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence
for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH) and James Cook
University.
The team of multidisciplinary researchers from CABAH and the CSRIO
set out to establish the most likely route travelled to reach the
ancient mega-continent, known as Sahul (New Guinea, Australia and
Tasmania joined at times of low sea level).
"We developed demographic models to determine which island-hopping
route ancient people most likely took," said CABAH's Professor Corey
Bradshaw, from Flinders University.
"A northern route connecting the islands of Mangoli, Buru, and Seram
into West Papua New Guinea would probably have been easiest to navigate
and survive. This route was easiest when compared to the southern route
from Timor that leads to the now-drowned Sahul Shelf in the modern-day
Kimberley region."
The researchers also used complex mathematical modelling --
considering factors including fertility, longevity, past climate
conditions, and other ecological principles -- to calculate the numbers
of people required for the population as a whole to survive.
The simulations indicate that at least 1300 people arrived in either
a single migration event or smaller, successive waves averaging at
least 130 people every 70 years or so, over the course of about 700
years.
"This suggests planned and well-organised maritime migration, rather than accidental arrival" Professor Bradshaw added.
The studies confirm the ancestors of Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander people possessed sophisticated technology and knowledge to
build watercraft. This research also showcases the remarkable ability at
that time to plan, navigate, and make multiple complicated, open-ocean
voyages to directly transport large numbers of people.
"Both studies are unique because they relied on past environmental
information and did not use any genetic data. We are very excited to see
how further archaeological and genetics studies in CABAH can contribute
to this story," says Dr Laura Weyrich, a CABAH investigator at the
University of Adelaide.
The papers Early human settlement of Sahul was not an accident and
Minimum founding populations for the first peopling of Sahul, were
co-authored by scientists from around Australia, including Flinders
University, James Cook University, University of Wollongong, University
of New South Wales, University of Adelaide, Australian National
University, and the CSIRO.
CABAH brings together expertise from diverse academic disciplines to
answer fundamental questions about the natural and human history of our
region, including how and when people first came to Australia.
IMAGE: Selection of the Early Celtic vessels held in the archive of the Württemberg State Museum.
view more
Credit: Victor S. Brigola
Early Celts in eastern France imported Mediterranean pottery, as
well as olive oil and wine, and may have appropriated Mediterranean
feasting practices, according to a study published June 19, 2019 in PLOS ONE, by Maxime Rageot from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and the University of Tübingen, and colleagues.
Hundreds of fragments of imported Mediterranean pottery have been
excavated from the Early Celtic hillfort site of Vix-Mont Lassois in
Burgundy, France. This study is the first to investigate the impact of
these Mediterranean imports and of Mediterranean feasting/consumption
practices on Early Celtic culture (7th - 5th century BC), using
molecular organic residue analysis techniques. The authors performed gas
chromatography and GC-mass spectrometry analyses on organic residues
extracted from 99 ceramic fragments found at Vix-Mont Lassois: some from
16 vessels imported from the Mediterranean and some from locally
produced vessels from different contexts (elite, artisan, ritual, and
military).
The results showed that the imported vessels were not only used for
wine drinking as an appropriation of Mediterranean feasting practices,
but also to drink local beers spiced with pine resins, in what appears
to be an intercultural adaptation. Additional home-grown beverages were
also found in local pottery, including what may have been millet-based
beer, probably consumed only by low-status individuals, and barley-based
beer and birch-derived beverages, which seemed to be consumed by
high-status individuals. Local pine resins and plant oils were also
identified. Beeswax was present in around 50% of the local pottery
vessels, possibly indicating that mead was a popular fermented beverage
or that the Early Celts liked to sweeten their beverages with honey.
The authors note that common foods such as wheat, barley and rye
might have been present in the vessels but could not be detected by
their analysis centuries later. Despite this limitation, this study
sheds new light on the role of imported Mediterranean food and drink in
helping shape Early Celtic feasting practices and demonstrates the
potential of this type of molecular analysis also for other
archaeological sites.
The authors add: "The Celts in the Early Iron Age did not just drink
imported Greek wine from their imported Greek pottery. They also used
the foreign vessels in their own way for drinking different kinds of
local beer, as organic residue analysis of ca. 100 Early Iron Age local
and Mediterranean drinking vessels from Mont Lassois (France) shows."
IMAGE: Making barkcloth from paper mulberry bark in Buda village, Viti Levu, Fiji.
view more
Credit: A. Seelenfreund
The migration and interaction routes of prehistoric humans
throughout the islands of Oceania can be retraced using genetic
differences between paper mulberry plants, a tree native to Asia
cultivated for fibers to make paper and introduced into the Pacific in
prehistoric times to make barkcloth. Daniela Seelenfreund of the
University of Chile and Andrea Seelenfreund of the Academia de Humanismo
Cristiano University, Chile report on prehistoric human movements based
on the genetic analysis of this plant in a new paper published June 19
in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.
The colonization of the remote, long-uninhabited Pacific islands has
fascinated early European explorers, current scientists and members of
Pacific Island communities today. One way to study this migration, which
occurred over the last 3,000 years, is to track the plants and animals
that humans carried with them. One such plant is the paper mulberry.
Native to Asia, it was transported by humans in their colonizing voyages
across Oceania, and planted from New Guinea to Fiji, and to the remote
islands to the east, such as Hawaii and Rapa Nui (Easter Island). In
the current study, researchers analyzed 313 modern-day plant samples and
67 preserved specimens from herbariums with various genetic tools.
The analysis demonstrates the existence of a clear genetic structure
in paper mulberry populations in Oceania, in spite of having been
introduced only 3000 years ago into the region. The researchers also
found that current plant populations have less genetic diversity than
herbarium samples collected in the nineteenth and early twentieth
century. The observed genetic structure reveals a general tendency of
dispersion of the plant from west to east in agreement with
archaeological, linguistic and other genetic data that indicates that
the region was colonized and settled in this general direction. They
also detected three centers of dispersion and interaction: one that
includes the Tonga and Fiji archipelago, another between the islands of
Samoa, Wallis and New Caledonia and finally a center of dispersion and
interaction that includes all the islands and archipelagos of the east
of the Polynesian triangle , that is, between Tahiti, Hawaii, Marquesas
Islands, Austral Islands and Rapanui. The results obtained from this
study allow inferring dispersion patterns that reflect the interactions
between past human populations that inhabited the different island
groups.
The genetic connections between modern and herbarium samples of
paper mulberry detected in the study provide the most comprehensive
picture to date of prehistoric human movements across Oceania. The
genetic connections detected in contemporary and herbarium samples from
paper mulberry reflect prehistoric human movements between multiple
islands in Remote Oceania and, to date, provide a more comprehensive
picture than other model species.
A. Seelenfreund adds: "This is the first study of a commensal
species to show genetic structuring within Remote Oceania. Our data,
based on the combined analysis of extant and herbarium paper mulberry
samples from Oceania, is the result of a comprehensive sampling of 33
islands of Remote Oceania, and compared to samples from New Guinea, the
Solomon Islands and Asia. Our data detect a complex structure of three
central dispersal hubs linking West Remote Oceania with East Remote
Oceania. despite its vegetative propagation and short timespan since
its introduction into the region by prehistoric Austronesian speaking
colonists."
#
During the Iron Age around 300 AD
something extraordinary was initiated in Levänluhta area in Isokyrö, SW
Finland. The deceased were buried in a lake, and this habit was
continued for at least 400 years. When trenches were dug in the local
fields in mid-1800's skulls and other human bones were surfacing. These
bones had been preserved almost intact in the anoxic, ferrous water.
Archaeologists, historians and locals have been wondering about these
finds for over 150 years now.
In 2010, a multidisciplinary research group at the University of
Helsinki decided to re-investigate the mystery of Levänluhta. The site,
thought to be e.g. a sacrificial spring, is exceptional even in global
scale and has yielded altogether c. 75 kg human bone material. The
research group, led by docent Anna Wessman, had an ambitious aim: to
find who the deceased buried in Levänluhta were, and why they were
exceptionally buried under water so far from dwelling sites. Now, after
several years of scientific work, the group reports their results in the
most recent issue of Nature. The results are part of a more
extensive international study shedding light on the colonization and
population history of Siberia with DNA data from ancient -- up to 31 000
years old -- human bones.
"In our part, we wanted especially to find out the origins of the
Iron Age remains found from Levänluhta," says the group leader Anna
Wessman.
New results with DNA sequencing technology
This was investigated using cutting edge ancient DNA sequencing
technology, which Department of Forensic Medicine is interested in due
to the forensic casework performed at the department. Professor Antti
Sajantila explains that the early phases of this project were demanding.
"Unability to repeat even our own results was utterly frustrating,"
Sajantila tells about the first experiments in the laboratory.
The methods were developing rapidly during the international
co-operation, and ultimately the first Finnish results were shown to be
accurate. Yet, it was surprising that the genomes of three Levänluhta
individuals clearly resembled those of the modern Sámi people.
"We understood this quite early, but it took long to confirm these findings," tells docent Jukka Palo.
Locals or by-passers?
The results were suggesting that the Isokyrö region was inhabited by
Sámi people in ancient times -- according to carbon datings the bones
belonged to individuals that had died 500 -- 700 AD. This would be a
concrete proof of Sámi in southern Finland in the past. But were the
people locals, recent immigrants or haphazard by-passers? To find out,
other techniques than DNA were needed. The solution lied in the enamel
of teeth.
Curator Laura Arppe from the Finnish Museum of Natural History tells
that strontium isotopes found in the enamel strongly suggest that the
individuals grew up in the Levänluhta region.
The current genomes of the people in Finland carry both eastern
Uralic and western Scandinavian components, and the genome of one the
Levänluhta individuals examined had clear ties to present day
Scandinavians. As a whole the replacement of the Sámi people in southern
and central Finland reflects the replacement processes in Siberia,
clarified in the present article. This has probably been a common
feature in the Northern latitudes.
"The Levänluhta project demands further studies, not only to broaden
the DNA data but also to understand the water burials as a phenomenon.
The question "Why?" still lies unanswered," ponders the bone specialist,
docent Kristiina Mannermaa.
The project was funded primarily by the Emil Aaltonen Foundation and
the participating researchers represented various disciplines and
departments at the University of Helsinki. As authors of the current Nature
publication were: Anna Wessman, Kristiina Mannermaa and Tarja Sundell
(archaeology), Antti Sajantila, Jukka Palo and Mikko Putkonen (forensic
medicine), and Laura Arppe (geosciences).
A watchtower dating from the time of the Kingdom of Judah (8th
century BCE – during the reign of King Hezekiah) was recently uncovered
during archeological excavations by IDF soldiers, together with the
Israel Antiquities Authority, at a paratroopers base in the south of the
country.
The tower, whose dimensions in antiquity is estimated to have been 5 x
3.5 m, was erected at a high geographic site, and as such, was an
observation point to the Hebron Mountains, the Judean plain and the
Ashkelon vicinity. It was built of especially large stones, some 8 tons
in weight, and its height today reaches around 2 m.
According to Sa'ar Ganor and Valdik Lifshitz, excavation directors on
behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, "The strategic location of
the tower served as a lookout and warning point against the Philistine
enemy, one of whose cities was Ashkelon. In the days of the First
Temple, the Kingdom of Judah built a range of towers and fortresses as
points of communication, warning and signaling, to transmit messages and
field intelligence.
This tower is one of the observation points connecting the large
cities in the area, located in the Beit Mirsim (Mirsham), Tel Eton and
Tel Lachish sites. In ancient times, to transmit messages, beacons of
smoke were lit during the day and beacons of fire at night. It is
probable that the watchtower now uncovered is one of the towers that
bore some of the beacons."
In the Bible, beacons, or, in the language of the Bible,
"pillars" are mentioned several times. Thus, in the story of the
Concubine in Gibeah, the use of pillars of smoke is described: "The
Israelites had arranged with the ambush that they should send up a great
cloud of smoke from the city, and then the Israelites would counter
attack .The Benjamites had begun to inflict casualties on the Israelites
(about thirty), and they said, “We are defeating them as in the first
battle.” But when the column of smoke began to rise from the city, the
Benjamites turned and saw the whole city going up in smoke" (Judges 20:
38-40). The prophet Jeremiah also describes the manner in which the
beacons were passed: "Flee for safety, people of Benjamin! Flee from
Jerusalem! Sound the trumpet in Tekoa! Raise the signal over Beth
Hakkerem! For disaster looms out of the north, even terrible
destruction" (Jeremiah 6:1). Evidence from another source is known from one of the ostracons
(letters on clay) discovered at Tel Lachish. At the end of letter no. 4
it is written, "May God cause my lord to hear reports of good news this
very day …. Then it will be known that we are watching the (fire)
signals of Lachish according to the code which my lord gave us for we
cannot see Azekah."
This letter shows that the existence of the beacons and the
interpretation of the signals were part of the defense system and the
idea of routine security, and security in times of emergency, in the
Kingdom of Judea during the Iron Age.
Activity
in the ancient tower, uncovered in the area of the military base,
ceased on the eve of the expedition of Sennacherib, King of Assyria, to
Judah in 701 BCE. Archaeological excavations revealed that the entrance
to the tower was blocked, and the force stationed there apparently
converged on one of the nearby fortified towns.
From biblical testimonies and archeological findings in the area, we
know that Sennacherib's attack virtually destroyed Judah, including 46
cities and 2,000 villages and farms. Now, some 2700 years after
Sennacherib's expedition to the Land of Judah, IDF soldiers uncovered an
observation tower belonging to Judean army soldiers, similar to the
watchtowers used today by the army.
LSU College of the Coast & Environment Distinguished Professor
Emeritus John Day has collaborated with archeologists on a new analysis
of societal development. They report that over the past 10,000 years,
humanity has experienced a number of foundational transitions, or
"bottlenecks." During these periods of transition, the advance or
decline of societies was related to energy availability in the form of a
benign climate and other factors.
"Studying the factors that led to the advancement and contraction of
past societies provides insight into how our globalized society might
become more or less sustainable," Day said.
Day's collaborators include Joel Gunn of the University of North
Carolina at Greensboro, William Folan of the Universidad Autonoma de
Campeche in Mexico and Matthew Moerschbaecher of the Louisiana Oil Spill
Coordinators Office. Gunn and Folan are Mayan archeologists and
Moerschbaecher is a graduate of LSU's oceanography program.
With the human population having exceeded the capacity of Earth's
resources, this analysis suggests that a transition toward
sustainability for the current energy-dense, globalized industrial
society will be very difficult if not impossible without dramatic
changes.
The authors say that these past transitions were caused by a
combination of social, astronomical and biogeophysical events such as
volcanic eruptions, changes in solar emissions, sea-level rise and ice
volume, biogeochemical and ecological changes, and major social and
technological innovations. One example is the worldwide crisis that
began in 536 AD, which was caused by three major volcanic eruptions
within a decade. This event led to the destruction of half the
population of Europe via the Black Death plague, starvation and wars. In
China and the Mayan region, it led to crop failures, famine and
plagues.
They found that when energy was abundant, societies expanded and
prospered. Conversely, when energy sources declined, there was societal
contraction and collapse. The previous example implies that changes are
more likely to transpire due to planetary-scale disturbances and
constraints, whether societal or environmental, and will likely lead to
strong societal disruptions.
However, in the past, major changes sometimes moved toward a more
sustainable social organization. For example, after one disruption, the
Mayans switched to a more efficient use of energy and marine
transportation and, at the time of European contact, they were leading a
sustainable lifestyle.
Çatalhöyük had overcrowding, violence, environmental troubles
IMAGE: These are excavations in a number of Neolithic buildings at Catalhoyuk.
view more
Credit: Scott Haddow
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Some 9,000 years ago, residents of one of the
world's first large farming communities were also among the first humans
to experience some of the perils of modern urban living.
Scientists studying the ancient ruins of Çatalhöyük, in modern
Turkey, found that its inhabitants - 3,500 to 8,000 people at its peak -
experienced overcrowding, infectious diseases, violence and
environmental problems.
In a paper published June 17, 2019 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
an international team of bioarchaeologists report new findings built on
25 years of study of human remains unearthed at Çatalhöyük.
The results paint a picture of what it was like for humans to move
from a nomadic hunting and gathering lifestyle to a more sedentary life
built around agriculture, said Clark Spencer Larsen, lead author of the
study, and professor of anthropology at The Ohio State University.
"Çatalhöyük was one of the first proto-urban communities in the
world and the residents experienced what happens when you put many
people together in a small area for an extended time," Larsen said.
"It set the stage for where we are today and the challenges we face in urban living."
Çatalhöyük, in what is now south-central Turkey, was inhabited from
about 7100 to 5950 B.C. First excavated in 1958, the site measures 13
hectares (about 32 acres) with nearly 21 meters of deposits spanning
1,150 years of continuous occupation.
Larsen, who began fieldwork at the site in 2004, was one of the
leaders of the team that studied human remains as part of the larger
Çatalhöyük Research Project, directed by Ian Hodder of Stanford
University. A co-author of the PNAS paper, Christopher Knüsel of Université de Bordeaux in France, was co-leader of the bioarchaeology team with Larsen.
Fieldwork at Çatalhöyük ended in 2017 and the PNAS paper represents the culmination of the bioarchaeology work at the site, Larsen said.
Çatalhöyük began as a small settlement about 7100 B.C., likely
consisting of a few mud-brick houses in what researchers call the Early
period. It grew to its peak in the Middle period of 6700 to 6500 B.C.,
before the population declined rapidly in the Late period. Çatalhöyük
was abandoned about 5950 BC.
Farming was always a major part of life in the community. The
researchers analyzed a chemical signature in the bones - called stable
carbon isotope ratios - to determine that residents ate a diet heavy on
wheat, barley and rye, along with a range of non-domesticated plants.
Stable nitrogen isotope ratios were used to document protein in
their diets, which came from sheep, goats and non-domesticated animals.
Domesticated cattle were introduced in the Late period, but sheep were
always the most important domesticated animal in their diets.
"They were farming and keeping animals as soon as they set up the
community, but they were intensifying their efforts as the population
expanded," Larsen said.
The grain-heavy diet meant that some residents soon developed tooth
decay - one of the so-called "diseases of civilization," Larsen said.
Results showed that about 10 to 13 percent of teeth of adults found at
the site showed evidence of dental cavities.
Changes over time in the shape of leg bone cross-sections showed
that community members in the Late period of Çatalhöyük walked
significantly more than early residents. That suggests residents had to
move farming and grazing further from the community as time went on,
Larsen said.
"We believe that environmental degradation and climate change forced
community members to move further away from the settlement to farm and
to find supplies like firewood," he said. "That contributed to the
ultimate demise of Çatalhöyük."
Other research suggests that the climate in the Middle East became
drier during the course of Çatalhöyük's history, which made farming more
difficult.
Findings from the new study suggest that residents suffered from a
high infection rate, most likely due to crowding and poor hygiene. Up
to one-third of remains from the Early period show evidence of
infections on their bones.
During its peak in population, houses were built like apartments
with no space between them - residents came and left through ladders to
the roofs of the houses.
Excavations showed that interior walls and floors were re-plastered
many times with clay. And while the residents kept their floors mostly
debris-free, analysis of house walls and floors showed traces of animal
and human fecal matter.
"They are living in very crowded conditions, with trash pits and
animal pens right next to some of their homes. So there is a whole host
of sanitation issues that could contribute to the spread of infectious
diseases," Larsen said.
The crowded conditions in Çatalhöyük may have also contributed to
high levels of violence between residents, according to the researchers.
In a sample of 93 skulls from Çatalhöyük, more than one-fourth - 25
individuals - showed evidence of healed fractures. And 12 of them had
been victimized more than once, with two to five injuries over a period
of time. The shape of the lesions suggested that blows to the head from
hard, round objects caused them - and clay balls of the right size and
shape were also found at the site.
More than half of the victims were women (13 women, 10 men). And
most of the injuries were on the top or back of their heads, suggesting
the victims were not facing their assailants when struck.
"We found an increase in cranial injuries during the Middle period,
when the population was largest and most dense," Larsen said.
"An argument could be made that overcrowding led to elevated stress and conflict within the community."
Most people were buried in pits that had been dug into the floors of
houses, and researchers believe they were interred under the homes in
which they lived. That led to an unexpected finding: Most members of a
household were not biologically related.
Researchers discovered this when they found that the teeth of
individuals buried under the same house weren't as similar as would be
expected if they were kin.
"The morphology of teeth are highly genetically controlled," Larsen
said. "People who are related show similar variations in the crowns of
their teeth and we didn't find that in people buried in the same
houses."
More research is needed to determine the relations of people who
lived together in Çatalhöyük, he said. "It is still kind of a mystery."
Overall, Larsen said the significance of Çatalhöyük is that it was
one of the first Neolithic "mega-sites" in the world built around
agriculture.
"We can learn about the immediate origins of our lives today, how we
are organized into communities. Many of the challenges we have today
are the same ones they had in Çatalhöyük - only magnified."
IMAGE: Raised fields in the Bolivian Llanos de Moxos region.
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Credit: Umberto Lombardo
Climate change had a significant impact on people living in the
Amazon rainforest before the arrival of Europeans and the loss of many
indigenous groups, a new study shows.
Major shifts in temperature and rainfall caused the disappearance of
communities long before 1492, researchers have found. In contrast other
cultures still flourished just before the Spanish colonisation of the
Americas.
New analysis of what the climate was like in the Amazon from 700 to
1300 shows the changing weather led to the end of communities who farmed
intensively, and had a strong class structure. Those who lived without
political hierarchy, who grew a greater variety of crops, and took more
care to look after the land so it remained fertile, were able to adapt
and were less affected.
During this period the Amazon was home to dozens of sophisticated
communities who lived in flourishing towns and villages. Conflict
between these communities, and migration, also contributed to the
downfall of some.
Dr Jonas Gregorio de Souza, who led the research while at the
University of Exeter and is now based at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra,
said: "Some Amazon communities were in decline or had changed
drastically before 1492. Our research shows climate change was one of
the responsible factors, but some groups survived because they had been
working with their natural environment rather than against it. Those who
farmed intensively, and had more pressure to produce surplus food
because of a strong class structure, were less able to cope."
It is thought the population of indigenous communities declined by
90 per cent to 95 per cent after Europeans came to Amazonia due to
epidemics and violence. Before this up to 10 million people had lived in
Amazonia, and this loss reshaped landscapes and cultural geographies
across the region.
Experts analysed the climate in ancient Amazonia through analysis of
pollen and charcoal remains, sediments from lakes and stalagmites. This
allowed them to track how much rainfall there was in the region from
year-to-year. They also analysed archaeological remains showing crops
grown by communities in the past, and the structures they lived in.
In the Eastern Amazon the Marajoara elite lived on large mounds,
which each could have been home to around 2,000 people. These chiefdoms
disintegrated after 1200. It had been thought this was due to the
arrival of Aruã nomadic foragers, but the study suggests decreasing
rainfall also played a part. Communities
used the mounds to manage water, with the rich monopolising resources.
This made them sensitive to prolonged droughts.
At the same time Santarém culture, established in around 1100, was
flourishing. They grew a variety of crops - maize, sweet potato, squash -
and worked to enrich the forest. This meant drier conditions had less
impact.
Experts have found communities in the Amazon built canals to manage
seasonal floods. In the southern Amazon people fortified their ditches,
walled plazas, causeways and roads as the climate became more volatile.
Professor Jose Iriarte, from the University of Exeter, said:
"This study adds to the growing evidence that the millennium preceding
the European encounter was a period of long-distance migrations,
conflict, disintegration of complex societies and social re-organisation
across lowland South America. It shows the weather had a real impact."
The research, part of the Pre-Columbian Amazon-Scale Transformations
project, funded by the European Research Council, was carried out by
academics at the University of Exeter, Pennsylvania State University,
Baylor University, Universität Bern, Universidade de São Paulo,
Instituto Geofísico del Peru, Northumbria University, Universidade
Federal do Pará, French National Centre for Scientific Research, The
University of Utah, University of Reading, Reading and the Universiteit
van Amsterdam.
Climate change and cultural resilience in late pre-Columbian Amazonia is published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.
###
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