American Association for the Advancement of Science
Archaeological discoveries from the Cooper's Ferry site in western
Idaho indicate that humans migrated to and occupied the region by nearly
16,500 years ago. The findings expand the timing of human settlement in
the Americas to a period predating the appearance of an ice-free
corridor linking Beringia and the rest of North America and support the
growing notion that the very first Americans likely landed upon the
shores of the Pacific coast.
How and when human populations first
arrived and settled in the Americas remains debated. A longstanding and
influential hypothesis proposes that travelers initially entered North
America and parts beyond from eastern Beringia, by way of a deglaciated
ice-free corridor that separated the Cordilleran and Laurentide ice
sheets approximately 14,800 years ago. However, a small but growing body
of research has shown that human populations were present and likely
well-established south of the Late Pleistocene ice sheets long before
such a passage; its proponents hypothesize a Pacific coastal migration
route.
Loren Davis and colleagues present new findings from Cooper's
Ferry that provide evidence of repeated occupation beginning between
16,560 to 15,280 years ago. Artifacts recovered from the site's earliest
contexts indicate the use of unfluted and stemmed stone projectile
point technologies before the use of fluted, broad-based points of the
widespread Clovis Paleoindian Tradition.
According to Davis et al., the
age, design and manufacture of Cooper's Ferry's distinctive stemmed
points closely resemble features of artifacts found in Late Pleistocene
archeological sites in northeastern Asia. The results suggest an initial
migration along the Pacific Coast more than 16,000 years ago.
IMAGE: The differences in dental morphology are obvious between Australopithecus africanus (TM1518 to the left) and early Homo (SK27 to the right), but these teeth are also different in their calcium...
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Credit: Vincent Balter
By analysing the fossilised teeth of some of our most ancient
ancestors, a team of scientists led by the universities of Bristol (UK)
and Lyon (France) have discovered that the first humans significantly
breastfed their infants for longer periods than their contemporary
relatives.
The results, published in the journal Science Advances, provide a first insight into the practice of weaning that remain otherwise unseen in the fossil record.
The team sampled minute amounts from nearly 40 fossilised teeth of
our South African fossil relatives, early Homo, Paranthropus robustus
and Australopithecus africanus.
They measured the proportions of their stable calcium isotopes in
the tooth enamel, which are a function of the mother milk intake by
infants.
By reconstructing the age at tooth enamel development, they show
that early Homo offspring was breastfed in significant proportions until
the age of around three to four years, which likely played a role in
the apparition of traits that are specific to human lineage, such as the
brain development.
In contrast, infants of Paranthropus robustus, that became extinct
around one million years ago and were a more robust species in terms of
dental anatomy, as well as infants of Australopithecus africanus,
stopped drinking sizeable proportions of mother milk in the course of
the first months of life.
These differences in nursing behaviours likely come with major
changes in the social structures of groups as well as the time between
the birth of one child and the birth of the next.
One of the study's lead authors, Dr Theo Tacail from the University
of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences, said: "The practice of weaning -
the duration of breastfeeding, age at non-milk food introduction and the
age at cessation of suckling - differs among the modern members of the
hominid family which includes humans and modern great apes: orangutan,
gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos.
"The development of such behavioural differences likely played major
roles in the evolution of the members of human lineage, being
associated for instance with size and structure of social groups, brain
development or demography.
"However, getting insights into these behavioural changes from
fossils that are millions of years old is a challenge and, so far,
little evidence allow discussing nursing practices in these fossil
species.
"The findings stress the need for further exploration of calcium
stables isotopes compositions in the fossil record in order to
understand the co-evolution of weaning practices with other traits such
as brain size or social behaviours."
Humans started making an impact on the global
ecosystem through intensive farming much earlier than previously
estimated, according to a new study published in the journal Science.
Humans caused significant
environmental change around the globe by about 3,000-4,000 years ago,
much earlier than prior estimates, as revealed by a new international
study
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
IMAGE: Human transformation of slopes for rice farming, Ubud, Bali.
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Credit: Andrea Kay
Land use by early farmers, pastoralists and even hunter-gatherer
societies was extensive enough to have created significant global
landcover change by 3,000-4,000 years ago. This is much earlier than has
been recognised, and challenges prevailing opinions concerning a
mid-20th century start date for the Anthropocene. These are the findings
of a new study published this week in Science, by a large international team of archaeologists and environmental scientists.
This study brought together several hundred archaeologists from
around the world, who pooled extensive datasets summarising decades of
archaeological research. Nicole Boivin, Director of the Department of
Archaeology at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
and a lead author on the study, notes that "archaeologists possess
critical datasets for assessing long-term human impacts to the natural
world, but these remain largely untapped in terms of global-scale
assessments". She observes that "this novel crowd-sourcing approach to
pooling archaeological data is extremely innovative, and has provided
researchers with a unique perspective". Unique collaboration allows for creation of large database of archaeological data to study past environmental change
The ArchaeoGLOBE project was coordinated by an international team of
researchers who developed an online survey to gather past land-use
estimates from archaeologists with regional expertise. The current study
offers a novel way to assess archaeological knowledge on human land use
across the globe over the past 10,000 years. By incorporating online
archaeological crowdsourcing, the study was able to incorporate the
local expertise of 255 archaeologists to reach an unprecedented level of
global coverage. This global archaeological assessment, and the
collaborative approach it represents, will help stimulate and support
future efforts towards the common goal of understanding early land use
as a driver of long-term global environmental changes across the Earth
system, including changes in climate.
"This type of work causes us to rethink the role of humans in
environmental systems, particularly in the way we understand 'natural'
environments," said Lucas Stephens of the University of Maryland
Baltimore County, University of Pennsylvania and Max Planck Institute
for the Science of Human History, who led the global collaboration of
archaeologists that produced the study. "It also allows us to identify
patterns in the distribution of our data and prioritize future
collection areas to improve the reliability of global datasets." Study of archaeological data reveals huge impact of humans over thousands of years
"While modern rates and scales of anthropogenic global change are
far greater than those of the deep past, the long-term cumulative
changes wrought by early food producers are greater than many realize,"
said Andrea Kay of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human
History and The University of Queensland, a lead author on the study.
"Even small-scale or shifting agriculture can cause global change when
considered at large scales and over long time-periods," she adds.
By acknowledging the deep time impact of humans on this planet and
better understanding human-environment interactions over the long term,
the researchers believe we can better plan for future climate scenarios
and possibly find ways of mitigating negative impacts on soils,
vegetation, and climate. "It's time to get beyond the mostly recent
paradigm of the Anthropocene and recognize that the long-term changes of
the deep past have transformed the ecology of this planet, and produced
the social-ecological infrastructures - agricultural and urban - that
made the contemporary global changes possible," said Erle Ellis of
University of Maryland Baltimore County, a senior author who initially
proposed and helped design the study. "These past changes produced the
social-ecological infrastructures - agricultural and urban - that made
the contemporary global changes possible."
Led by archeologist Lucas Stephens, a researcher affiliated with the
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, ArchaeoGLOBE
used a crowdsourcing approach, inviting experts in ancient land use to
contribute to a questionnaire on 146 regions (covering all continents
except Antarctica) at ten historical time intervals to assess and
integrate archaeological knowledge at a global scale. The result was a
complete, though uneven, meta-analysis of global land use over time.
Significantly, the study also reveals that hunting and gathering was
more varied and complex than originally thought, helping archeologists
to recognize that foragers "may have initiated dramatic and sometimes
irreversible environmental change." Intensive forms of agriculture
reported around the world included activities like clearing land,
creating fields that were fixed on the landscape, raising large herds of
animals, and putting increasing amounts of effort into growing food.
SMU anthropologist and ArchaeoGLOBE team member K. Ann Horsburgh
notes the rise in agriculture and livestock is primarily due to growing
populations needing to be fed.
"Food production such as agriculture and pastoralism, when compared
with foraging in the same environment, is linked to a faster population
growth and can sustain higher population densities," said Horsburgh.
Horsburgh, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, and McCoy, Associate
Professor of Anthropology, provided information on land use in Africa
and the remote islands of the Pacific, respectively. McCoy also brought
his expertise in geospatial technology to study how people in the past
inhabited and shaped the world around them, while Horsburgh brought her
knowledge of ancient DNA to retrace the spread of domesticated animals.
The map could provide new light on how the spread of farming and herding were linked to major migrations in human prehistory.
"This is first time that regional expertise on ancient land use has
been synthesized on this scale," Horsburgh said. "That matters because
we know that although the shift from foraging to farming tends to be a
'one-way' transition, it did not progress the same way around the world.
The details of how it did progress has shaped everything from our diets
to the languages we speak today."
Horsburgh went on to say, "What remains the topic of intense study
is how much of the transition is food producers spreading and displacing
foragers, and how much is it foragers adopting or marrying into food
producing groups, or some other scenario. Most of this was done in the
absence of written records, so it is up to anthropology to sort things
out.
"The natural next step for this revised model of the spread of
different types, and intensities, of land use is to compare them with
human genetics and linguistics and integrate these findings into the big
story of humanity," said Horsburgh.
IMAGE: Reconstructed virtual E-W-cut through the burial Loc. C10:408, facing south.
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Credit: Benz et al., 2018
Elaborate burial sites can provide insight to the development of
socio-political hierarchies in early human communities, according to a
study released August 28, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE
by an international team of archaeologists, anthropologists and
neuroscientists of the Ba'ja Neolithic Project hosted at the Free
University of Berlin in cooperation with the Department of Antiquities
of Jordan. The interdisciplinary investigations on the 9000-year-old
extraordinary grave studied here gives new evidence on emerging
leadership in the first farming villages of the Near East.
As early farming communities gave rise to larger, more complex
sedentary societies, new social hierarchies arose, presenting
opportunities for individual people to achieve positions of importance.
The authors cite two archetypal "pathways to power" such individuals
might follow: one self-aggrandizing and often autocratic, and the other
more group-oriented and egalitarian. But how these "pathways" were
expressed in early cultures remains unclear.
This study focused on a single burial in the Ba'ja settlement of
southern Jordan, dating between 7,500-6,900 BC, during the Late
Pre-Pottery B Period. The elaborate construction of this grave and
sophistication of associated symbolic objects suggest the deceased was a
person of importance in the ancient society. The authors suggest that
the presence of exotic items in the grave indicate a person who achieved
individual prestige by access to trade networks, while the proximity of
the grave to other less elaborate graves indicates that they were
nonetheless considered close in status to the broader community, not
neatly fitting either archetype of a powerful individual.
The authors propose that this sort of data can provide insights into
cultural views toward leadership and social hierarchy in early
cultures. They also suggest that further investigations of this body and
others in Ba'ja, including ancient DNA analysis to illuminate familial
relationships, may combine with grave information to create a more
refined picture of early community social structures.
The authors add: "We suggest that leadership can be understood only
by studying the social contexts and the pathways to power (not only the
burials of extraordinary individuals). In fact, studying rich tombs to
interpret social structures has been done before, but our new approach
emphasizes the social environments of leadership. The key study of the
elaborate burial of the late PPNB site of Ba'ja lets us surmise that
access to leadership was possible through corporate leadership-type of
primus inter pares than by autocratic coercive power."
Cleveland Museum of Natural
History Curator and Case Western Reserve University Adjunct Professor
Dr. Yohannes Haile-Selassie and his team of researchers have discovered a
"remarkably complete" cranium of a 3.8-million-year-old early human
ancestor from the Woranso-Mille paleontological site, located in the
Afar region of Ethiopia. Working for the past 15 years at the site, the
team discovered the cranium (MRD-VP-1/1), here referred to as "MRD," in
February 2016. In the years following their discovery,
paleoanthropologists of the project conducted extensive analyses of MRD,
while project geologists worked on determining the age and context of
the specimen. The results of the team's findings are published online in
two papers in the international scientific journal Nature.
The 3.8-million-year-old fossil cranium (MRD) represents a time
interval between 4.1 and 3.6 million years ago when early human ancestor
fossils are extremely rare, especially outside the Woranso-Mille area.
MRD generates new information on the overall craniofacial morphology of Australopithecus anamensis, a species that is widely accepted to have been the ancestor of Lucy's species, Australopithecus afarensis.
MRD also shows that Lucy's species and its hypothesized ancestor, A.
anamensis, coexisted for approximately 100,000 years, challenging
previous assumptions of a linear transition between these two early
human ancestors. Haile-Selassie said, "This is a game changer in our
understanding of human evolution during the Pliocene." Discovery of MRD-VP-1/1 ("MRD"):
The Woranso-Mille project has been conducting field research in the
central Afar region of Ethiopia since 2004. The project has collected
more than 12,600 fossil specimens representing about 85 mammalian
species. The fossil collection includes about 230 fossil hominin
specimens dating to between >3.8 and ~3.0 million years ago.
The first piece of MRD, the upper jaw, was found by Ali Bereino (a
local Afar worker) on February 10, 2016, at a locality known as Miro
Dora, Mille District of the Afar Regional State. The specimen was
exposed on the surface, and further investigation of the area resulted
in the recovery of the rest of the cranium. "I couldn't believe my eyes
when I spotted the rest of the cranium. It was a eureka moment and a
dream come true," said Haile-Selassie. Location of the Discovery
MRD was found in the Woranso-Mille Paleontological Project study
area located in Zone 1, Mille District of the Afar Regional State of
Ethiopia. Miro Dora is the local name of the area where MRD was found.
It is about 550 km northeast of the capital, Addis Ababa, and 55 km
north of Hadar ("Lucy's" site). Geology and Age Determination
In a companion paper published in the same issue of Nature,
Beverly Saylor of Case Western Reserve University and her colleagues
determined the age of the fossil as 3.8 million years by dating minerals
in layers of volcanic rocks nearby. They mapped the dated levels to the
fossil site using field observations and the chemistry and magnetic
properties of rock layers. Saylor and her colleagues combined the field
observations with analysis of microscopic biological remains to
reconstruct the landscape, vegetation and hydrology where MRD died.
MRD was found in the sandy deposits of a delta where a river entered
a lake. The river likely originated in the highlands of the Ethiopian
plateau while the lake developed at lower elevations, where rift
activity caused the Earth surface to stretch and thin, creating the
lowlands of the Afar region. Debris flows and volcanic ejecta
occasionally descended into the otherwise quiet lake, which was
ultimately buried by basalt lava flows. This kind of volcanic activity
and dramatic landscape change is common in rift settings. "Incredible
exposures and the volcanic layers that episodically blanketed the land
surface and lake floor allowed us to map out this varied landscape and
how it changed over time," said Saylor.
Fossil pollen grains and chemical remains of fossil plant and algae
that are preserved in the lake and delta sediments provide clues about
the ancient environmental conditions. Specifically, they indicate that
the lake near where MRD finally rested was likely salty at times and
that the watershed of the lake was mostly dry, but that there were also
forested areas on the shores of the delta or alongside the river that
fed the delta and lake system. "MRD lived near a large lake in a region
that was dry. We're eager to conduct more work in these deposits to
understand the environment of the MRD specimen, the relationship to
climate change and how it affected human evolution, if at all," said
Naomi Levin, a co-author on the study from University of Michigan. Significance of the Discovery
1. Among the most important findings was the team's conclusion that Australopithecus anamensis and its descendant species, the well-known Australopithecus afarensis,
coexisted for a period of at least 100,000 years. This finding
contradicts the long-held notion of an anagenetic relationship between
these two taxa, whereby one species disappears only by giving rise to a
new species in a linear fashion.
2. Australopithecus anamensis is the oldest known member of the genus Australopithecus.
The species was previously only known through teeth and jaw fragments,
all dated to between 4.2 and 3.9 million years ago. The similarities
between the preserved dentition of the 3.8-million-year-old MRD and the
previously known teeth and jaw fragments of A. anamensis led to a
positive identification of MRD as a member of A. anamensis.
Additionally, due to the cranium's rare near-complete state, the
researchers identified never-before-seen facial features in the species.
"MRD has a mix of primitive and derived facial and cranial features
that I didn't expect to see on a single individual," Haile-Selassie
said. Dr. Stephanie Melillo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary
Anthropology in Germany, co-author of the papers, further said, "A.
anamensis was already a species that we knew quite a bit about, but this
is the first cranium of the species ever discovered. It is good to
finally be able to put a face to the name."
Some characteristics were shared with its descendant species, Australopithecus afarensis,
while others differed significantly and had more in common with those
of even older and more primitive early human ancestor groups, such as
Ardipithecus and Sahelanthropus.
3. The distinct differences between the 3.8-million-year-old MRD
specimen and a previously unassigned 3.9-million-year-old hominin
cranium fragment--commonly known as the Belohdelie frontal and
discovered in the Middle Awash of Ethiopia by a team of paleontologists
in 1981--also proved significant. The preserved features of the
Belohdelie frontal differed from those of MRD but were significantly
similar to those of the known cranial specimens of Lucy's species. As a
result, the new study confirms that the Belohdelie frontal belonged to
an individual of Lucy's species. This identification extends the
earliest record of Australopithecus afarensis back to 3.9 million years ago, indicating a period of at least 100,000 years' overlap with its ancestor, Australopithecus anamensis.
4. The 3.8-million-year-old MRD specimen was buried in a river delta
on the margin of a lake that formed in an actively rifted landscape
with steep hillsides and volcanic eruptions that blanketed the land
surface with ash and lava. There were forested areas on the shores of
the delta or along the edges of the river that flowed into the delta and
lake system, but the watershed that fed the river, delta and lake
system was mostly dry with few trees.
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *Rectangular bronze weight (around 4.8 cm long; 29.8 g) from Salcombe, Devon, England. view more Credit: British Museum People in England were using balance weights and scales to measure the value of materials as early as the late second and early first millennia BC. This is what Professor Lorenz Rahmstorf, scientist at the University of Göttingen and project manager of the ERC "Weight and Value" project, has discovered. He compared Middle and Late Bronze Age gold objects from the British Isles and Northern France and found that they were based on the same u... more »
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *Photograph of grave IIIN199, shortly after excavation in 1928. view more Credit: Institute of Archaeology of the CAS, Prague Castle Excavations Used as a propaganda tool by the Nazis and Soviets during the Second World War and Cold War, the remains of a 10th century male, unearthed beneath Prague Castle in 1928, have been the subject of continued debate and archaeological manipulation. The mysterious skeleton and associated grave goods, including a sword and two knives, were identified as Viking by the Nazis, as a Slavonic warrior by the Soviets and became p... more »
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *CT scans of the so called circular-erect type cranial deformation. view more Credit: M Kavka People in Croatia during the 5th to 6th centuries may have used cranial modifications to indicate their cultural affiliations, according to a study published August 21, 2019 in the open-access journal *PLOS ONE* led by Ron Pinhasi of the University of Vienna and Mario Novak of the Institute for Anthropological Research in Zagreb, Croatia. The Hermanov vinograd archaeological site in Osijek Croatia has been known since the 1800s. A new pit excavated in 2013 contained t... more »
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *Teeth from male individual from the site of Gjerrild (Rise 73a) view more Credit: Marie Louise Jørkov Migration patterns in present-day Denmark shifted at the beginning of the Nordic Bronze Age, according to a study published August 21, 2019 in the open-access journal *PLOS ONE* by Karin Frei of the National Museum of Denmark and colleagues. Migrants appear to have come from varied and potentially distant locations during a period of unprecedented economic growth in southern Scandinavia in the 2nd millennium BC. The 2nd and 3rd millennia BC are known to have ... more »
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *Scan of ossicle bone view more Credit: Kevin Mackenzie at the University of Aberdeen Archaeologists from the University of Bradford have examined ear ossicles taken from the skeletons of 20 juveniles, excavated from an 18th and 19th century burial ground in Blackburn. They were chosen to represent those with and without dietary disease such as rickets and scurvy. These children, who were excavated by Headland Archaeology, were examined at the University by Masters student Tamara Leskovar, under the supervision of Dr Julia Beaumont. The new method has provided... more »
National Oceanography Centre, UK [image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *This is historian Dan Snow inspecting the site. view more Credit: Maritime Archaeological Trust The Maritime Archaeological Trust has discovered a new 8,000 year old structure next to what is believed to be the oldest boat building site in the world on the Isle of Wight. Director of the Maritime Archaeological Trust, Garry Momber, said "This new discovery is particularly important as the wooden platform is part of a site that doubles the amount of worked wood found in the UK from a period that lasted 5,500 years." The site lie... more »
New research published today in the journal *Parasitology* shows how the prehistoric inhabitants of a settlement in the freshwater marshes of eastern England were infected by intestinal worms caught from foraging for food in the lakes and waterways around their homes. The Bronze Age settlement at Must Farm, located near what is now the fenland city of Peterborough, consisted of wooden houses built on stilts above the water. Wooden causeways connected islands in the marsh, and dugout canoes were used to travel along water channels. The village burnt down in a catastrophic fire around ... more »
Complete article The Apidima 1 partial cranium (right) and its reconstruction from posterior view (middle) and side view (left). The rounded shape of the Apidima 1 cranium a unique feature of modern humans and contrasts sharply with Neanderthals and their ancestors. by Patrick Galey 14 *PARIS* *(AFP)**.-* A 210,000-year-old skull has been identified as the earliest modern human remains found outside Africa, putting the clock back on mankind's arrival in Europe by more than 150,000 years, researchers said Wednesday. In a startling discovery that changes our understanding of... more »
New research led by Oxford University and Queen Mary University of London has resolved a pig paradox. Archaeological evidence has shown that pigs were domesticated in the Near East and as such, modern pigs should resemble Near Eastern wild boar. They do not. Instead, the genetic signatures of modern European domestic pigs resemble European wild boar. Published in *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences*, the study shows how this has happened. Working with more than 100 collaborators, researchers from Oxford's School of Archaeology sequenced DNA signatures from more than 2,0... more »
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *A team of researchers examined an ancient papyrus with a supposed empty spot. With the help of several methods, they discovered which signs once stood in this place and which... view more Credit: HZB The first thing that catches an archaeologist's eye on the small piece of papyrus from Elephantine Island on the Nile is the apparently blank patch. Researchers from the Egyptian Museum, Berlin universities and Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin have now used the synchrotron radiation from BESSY II to unveil its secret. This pushes the door wide open for analysing the gia... more »
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *The lake was thought to be the site of an ancient catastrophic event that left several hundred people dead, but the first ancient whole genome data from India shows that... view more Credit: Atish Waghwase A large-scale study conducted by an international team of scientists has revealed that the mysterious skeletons of Roopkund Lake - once thought to have died during a single catastrophic event - belong to genetically highly distinct groups that died in multiple periods in at least two episodes separated by one thousand years. The study, published this week i... more »
Stone tools uncovered in Mongolia by an international team of archaeologists indicate that modern humans traveled across the Eurasian steppe about 45,000 years ago, according to a new University of California, Davis, study. The date is about 10,000 years earlier than archaeologists previously believed. The site also points to a new location for where modern humans may have first encountered their mysterious cousins, the now extinct Denisovans, said Nicolas Zwyns, an associate professor of anthropology and lead author of the study. Zwyns led excavations from 2011 to 2016 at the Tolbo... more »
Excavations in Israel's Galilee have uncovered remains of an ancient church said to mark the home of the apostles Peter and Andrew, the dig's archaeological director said Friday. Mordechai Aviam of Kinneret Academic College, on the shore of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel, said this season's dig at nearby El-Araj confirmed it as the site of Bethsaida, a fishing village where Peter and his brother Andrew were born according to the Gospel of John. The Byzantine church was found near remnants of a Roman-era settlement, matching the location of Bethsaida as described by the first... more »
Archaeologists working in Israel's Negev desert have discovered an ancient rural mosque, thought to be one of the earliest in the world. [image: Article Image] The mosque, which dates back to the 7th or 8th century, was discovered by researchers from the Israel Antiquities Authority as they prepared to build a new neighborhood in the southern Israeli Bedouin city of Rahat. The archaeologists said in a statement that large mosques from the period have been found in Mecca and Jerusalem but that it was rare to find such a building in the area, which is north of the city of Beer Sheva. ... more »
Complete article The ruins of a 1200 year old rural mosque, one of the earliest mosques in the world, were uncovered in an archaeological dig in the predominately Bedouin city of Rahat north of Beersheba. “A local rural mosque from this early period is a rare find in the Middle East and in the world in general and especially in the area north of Beersheba in which a similar building has not been found until now,” said Shahar Zur and Dr. Jon Seligman, the directors of the excavation on behalf of the Antiquities Authority. “From this period, there are large known mosques in Jerusale... more »
Complete article On a Galilean mountaintop, in about 1150, King Baldwin III stopped grousing at his mother, Queen Melisende of Jerusalem, and built a castle in the village of Mi’ilya, from which he sought to consolidate his shrunken share of the Frankish Crusader kingdom in the Holy Land. Almost 900 years later, residents of this village have come together in a unique venture spearheaded by a local archaeologist, to fix and restore the dangerously crumbling castle. In parallel, next door to the castle, a curious gas-station owner named Salma Assaf privately funded an excavation bene... more »
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *This is one of the Scythian type arrowheads found in the destruction layer from 587/586 BCE. view more Credit: Mt Zion Archaeological Expedition/Virginia Withers Researchers digging at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte's ongoing archaeological excavation on Mount Zion in Jerusalem have announced a second significant discovery from the 2019 season - clear evidence of the Babylonian conquest of the city from 587/586 BCE. The discovery is of a deposit including layers of ash, arrowheads dating from the period, as well as Iron Age potsherds, lamps and... m
The site of Khirbet Al-Rai has been excavated by researchers who are with the Israel Antiquities Authority. These researchers have said that they believe that the settlement they’ve discovered is perhaps the remnants of Ziklag. The Bible tells the tale of how King David escaped Israel and King Saul by fleeing to Ziklag. In Ziklag, King David lived among the Philistines. The Philistines are believed to originate from the Mediterranean. The team isn’t the first group of researchers who happened to look for the settlement. Many archaeologists out there have gone on several many exca... more »
Complete article A cache of copper artifacts made some 6,300 years ago may contain a secret code used by ancient Levantine metal workers, which would make this one of the earliest forms of primitive writing in the world. That’s the new and controversial theory of an Israeli researcher who believes he has deciphered the meaning of the exquisite but as-yet-enigmatic artifacts that were uncovered decades ago in a remote desert cave in Israel. More than 400 copper objects were found in 1961, wrapped in a tattered mat in a cavern on the nearly inaccessible slopes of Nahal Mishmar, a se... more »
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *The Fincha Habera rock shelter in the Ethiopian Bale Mountains served as a residence for prehistoric hunter-gatherers. view more Credit: Götz Ossendorf People in Ethiopia did not live in low valleys during the last ice age. Instead they lived high up in the inhospitable Bale Mountains. There they had enough water, built tools out of obsidian and relied mainly on giant rodents for nourishment. This discovery was made by an international team of researchers led by Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) in cooperation with the Universities of Cologne, B... more »
Archaeologists have uncovered the earliest evidence of high-altitude prehistoric living in the form of a rock shelter in Ethiopia, though whether the site was inhabited permanently is unclear. According to the report - based on archeological, biogeochemical, glacial chronological and other analyses - more than 30,000 years ago, the Fincha Habera rock shelter, a site situated more than 11,000 feet above sea level in the Bale Mountains of Ethiopia, was home to Middle Stone Age foragers who made use of nearby resources and feasted upon plentiful giant mole-rats. Life at high-altitude... more »
The first Americans - humans who crossed onto the North American continent and then dispersed throughout Central and South America - all share common ancestry. But as they settled different areas, the populations diverged and became distinct. A new study from North Carolina State University shows that facial differences resulting from this divergence were due to the complex interaction of environment and evolution on these populations and sheds light on how human diversification occurred after settlement of the New World. "If we want to understand variation in modern populations in... more »
Evidence of extreme warfare from Classic period disputes role of violence in civilization's decline University of California - Berkeley [image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *UC Berkeley's David Wahl and Lysanna Anderson of USGS with a local assistant taking a sediment sample from the center of Lake Ek'Naab from an inflatable platform. All the equipment... view more Credit: Francisco Estrada-Belli, Tulane The Maya of Central America are thought to have been a kinder, gentler civilization, especially compared to the Aztecs of Mexico. At the peak of Mayan culture some 1,500 years ago, warfare seemed... more »
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *The La Chapelle-aux-Saints Neandertal skull, with the external auditory exostoses ( "swimmer's ear " growths) in the left canal indicated. view more Credit: Erik Trinkaus Abnormal bony growths in the ear canal were surprisingly common in Neanderthals, according to a study published August 14, 2019 in the open-access journal *PLOS ONE* by Erik Trinkaus of Washington University and colleagues. External auditory exostoses are dense bony growths that protrude into the ear canal. In modern humans, this condition is commonly called "swimmer's ear" and is known to ... more »
IMAGE: Rectangular bronze weight (around 4.8 cm long; 29.8 g) from Salcombe, Devon, England.
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Credit: British Museum
People in England were using balance weights and scales to measure
the value of materials as early as the late second and early first
millennia BC. This is what Professor Lorenz Rahmstorf, scientist at the
University of Göttingen and project manager of the ERC "Weight and
Value" project, has discovered. He compared Middle and Late Bronze Age
gold objects from the British Isles and Northern France and found that
they were based on the same unit of weight. This confirmed the
hypothesis of the research team of the project that there was already
expertise in using standard weights and measures in many regions of
Europe at that time. The results were published in the journal Antiquity.
Until now, it had often been assumed that trade during the Bronze
Age in northwestern Europe was primarily socially embedded - for example
as in the exchange of gifts. The existence of precise units of
measurement, however, enabled people even at that time to compare exact
ratios of material values of different goods such as metals, possibly
also wool and grain. They were also able to calculate profits, to create
currencies and to save up measurable quantities of metal. "Obviously,
the exchange was already based on the economic interests of trading
partners," explains Rahmstorf, director of the Institute for Prehistory
and Early History at the University of Göttingen. "So it is clear we are
talking about real trade."
What is surprising about the statistical analysis of the unit of
weight that has been identified, is that it is very nicely compatible
and possibly even identical with the dominant East Mediterranean weight
of that time. This would be an indication that knowledge about standard
weights and measures has been widely disseminated and possibly passed on
through travelling traders. It was already known that people in the
technologically advanced, literate cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean
and Western Asia - for example Greece, Egypt or Mesopotamia - used such
weights and scales as an aid. However, these findings now indicate that
such value measurement systems already existed in many if not all parts
of prehistoric Bronze Age Europe. "The results of our research show
that we have so far underestimated the complexity of the early
commercial transactions during the Bronze Age in Europe," said
Rahmstorf. Further information on the "Weight and Value" project can be
found at http://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/572018.html.
IMAGE: Photograph of grave IIIN199, shortly after excavation in 1928.
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Credit: Institute of Archaeology of the CAS, Prague Castle Excavations
Used as a propaganda tool by the Nazis and Soviets during the Second
World War and Cold War, the remains of a 10th century male, unearthed
beneath Prague Castle in 1928, have been the subject of continued debate
and archaeological manipulation.
The mysterious skeleton and associated grave goods, including a
sword and two knives, were identified as Viking by the Nazis, as a
Slavonic warrior by the Soviets and became part of the Czech
independence movement in more recent years.
Writing in the journal Antiquity, a team of archaeologists,
including two emeritus professors from the University of Bristol,
unravel the complex story of the discovery of the remains, which were
kept out of public view until 2004, and attempt to answer the
decades-long question of who this man actually was.
The remains were discovered under the courtyard of Prague Castle in
July 1928 as part of an excavation project by the National Museum of the
newly established Czechoslovakia to discover the earliest phases of the
castle.
The body was located on the edge of an old burial ground from when a
hill fort was built on the site, likely dating to AD 800-950/1000.
It was discovered by Ivan Borkovský, a Ukrainian who fought for
both the Austro-Hungarians and the Russians in the early 20th century,
before escaping to Czechoslovakia in 1920 but he did not immediately
publicise or publish anything about the remains or the artefacts.
In 1939, the German army invaded Czechoslovakia and immediately
accused Borkovský of not publishing because he was part of a Czech
conspiracy to hide the truth¬--that the remains were German, rather than
Slavic (or maybe Viking).
As a German ancestor, the remains supported the German propagandist
efforts to argue for a German heritage that 'extended over national
borders and reached deep into the past'.
Under the Nazi regime, the remains became 'proof' for the Germanic, rather than Slavic, origin of Prague Castle.
When Borkovský published a book identifying the oldest Slavic
pottery in central Europe, the Nazi's condemned the text and he was
forced to withdraw it under threat of imprisonment in a concentration
camp. When he published the Prague Castle remains a year later, it was
overt in its 'Nazi-influenced Nordic interpretation'.
After the war, Czechoslovakia was occupied by the Soviets and in
1945, Borkovský narrowly escaped being sent to a Siberian Gulag because
of former anti-Communist activities.
He explained that he had been forced into the pro-Nazi
interpretation of the remains and published a second article in 1946
which interpreted the burial 'as that of an important person who was
related to the early Western Slav Przemyslid dynasty'.
Lead author Professor Nicholas Saunders, from Bristol's Department
of Anthropology and Archaeology, said: "A number of studies have
recently begun to re-interpret the remains and ours provides a new
analysis.
"The goods found with the remains are a mix of foreign (non-Czech)
items, such as the sword, axe and fire striker (a common piece of Viking
equipment), and domestic objects, such as the bucket and the knives.
"The sword is especially unique as it is the only one discovered in 1,500 early medieval graves so far found in Prague Castle.
"Perhaps he was a Slav from a neighbouring region, who had mastered
Old Norse as well as Slavonic, or perhaps he regarded himself as a
genuine Viking.
"Identities were complex in the medieval period, and the story of
Borkovský and the Prague Castle warrior grave reminds us that the
identities of such past people frequently fuel modern political
conflicts."
IMAGE: CT scans of the so called circular-erect type cranial deformation.
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Credit: M Kavka
People in Croatia during the 5th to 6th centuries may have used
cranial modifications to indicate their cultural affiliations, according
to a study published August 21, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE
led by Ron Pinhasi of the University of Vienna and Mario Novak of the
Institute for Anthropological Research in Zagreb, Croatia.
The Hermanov vinograd archaeological site in Osijek Croatia has been
known since the 1800s. A new pit excavated in 2013 contained three
human skeletons dating to 415-560 CE, during the Great Migration Period,
a time of significant movement and interaction of various European
cultures. Two of the skeletons showed dramatically modified head shapes,
one whose skull had been lengthened obliquely and another whose skull
had been compressed and heightened. This is the oldest known incidence
of Artificial Cranial Deformation (ACD) in Croatia.
ACD is the practice of modifying the skull from infancy to create a
permanently altered shape, often to signify social status. In this
study, genetic, isotopic and skeletal analysis of the bodies revealed
that all were males between 12 and 16 years of age at death and that
they all suffered from malnutrition. They are not obviously of different
social status, but genetic analysis found that the two with cranial
modifications exhibited very distinct ancestries, one from the Near East
and the other from East Asia. The latter is the first individual from
the Migration Period with a majority East Asian ancestry to be found in
Europe.
The authors suggest the ACD observed here may have functioned to
distinguish members of different cultural groups as these groups
interacted closely during the Migration Period. From the evidence at
hand, it is unclear if these individuals were associated with Huns,
Ostrogoths, or another population. It is also unclear whether the use of
ACD to signify cultural identity was a widespread practice or something
peculiar to these individuals.
Dr Novak adds: "The most striking observation, based on nuclear
ancient DNA, is that these individuals vary greatly in their genetic
ancestries: the individual without artificial cranial deformation shows
broadly West Eurasian associated-ancestry, the individual with the
so-called circular-erect type cranial deformation has Near Eastern
associated-ancestry, while the individual with the elongated skull has
East Asian ancestry."
IMAGE: Teeth from male individual from the site of Gjerrild (Rise 73a)
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Credit: Marie Louise Jørkov
Migration patterns in present-day Denmark shifted at the beginning
of the Nordic Bronze Age, according to a study published August 21, 2019
in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Karin Frei of the
National Museum of Denmark and colleagues. Migrants appear to have come
from varied and potentially distant locations during a period of
unprecedented economic growth in southern Scandinavia in the 2nd
millennium BC.
The 2nd and 3rd millennia BC are known to have been a period of
significant migrations in western Europe, including the movement of
steppe populations into more temperate regions. Starting around 1600 BC,
southern Scandinavia became closely linked to long-distance metal trade
elsewhere in Europe, which gave rise to a Nordic Bronze Age and a
period of significant wealth in the region of present-day Denmark.
In this study, Frei and colleagues investigated whether patterns of
migration changed during this Nordic Bronze Age. They examined skeletal
remains of 88 individuals from 37 localities across present-day Denmark.
Since strontium isotopes in tooth enamel can record geographic
signatures from an early age, analysis of such isotopes was used to
determine individuals' regions of provenance. Radiocarbon dating was
used to determine the age of each skeleton and physical anthropological
analyses were also conducted to add information on sex, age and
potential injuries or illness.
From c. 1600 BC onwards, around the beginning of the Nordic Bronze
Age, the geographic signal of migrants became more varied, an indication
that this period of economic growth attracted migrants from a wide
variety of foreign locales, possibly including more distant regions. The
authors suggest this might reflect the establishment of new cultural
alliances as southern Scandinavia flourished economically. They propose
that further study using ancient DNA may further elucidate such social
dynamics at large scales.
Co-author Kristian Kristiansen notes: "Around 1600 BC, the amount of
metal coming into southern Scandinavia increased dramatically, arriving
mostly from the Italian Alps, whereas tin came from Cornwall in south
England. Our results support the development of highly international
trade, a forerunner for the Viking Age period."
Karin Frei adds: "Our data indicates a clear shift in human mobility
at the breakthrough point of the Nordic Bronze Age, when an
unprecedented rich period in southern Scandinavia emerged. This suggests
to us that these aspects might have been closely related."
Credit: Kevin Mackenzie at the University of Aberdeen
Archaeologists from the University of Bradford have examined ear
ossicles taken from the skeletons of 20 juveniles, excavated from an
18th and 19th century burial ground in Blackburn. They were chosen to
represent those with and without dietary disease such as rickets and
scurvy.
These children, who were excavated by Headland Archaeology, were
examined at the University by Masters student Tamara Leskovar, under the
supervision of Dr Julia Beaumont.
The new method has provided a link between the maternal
pre-pregnancy diet and the late pregnancy diet found in the earliest
tooth tissue. In particular it provides information on the health of the
mother and baby in the first two trimesters of pregnancy.
Building on Dr Beaumont's previous research using teeth, the team
identified that a person's ossicles can provide a correlation between
diet and physiology, with the potential to identify children at risk of
disease in later life and to study maternal and infant health in ancient
populations.
Dr Beaumont said: "Our previous research has shown that teeth can
tell us a lot more than people think. What we didn't realise is just how
much one of the smallest bones in the body, our ear ossicle, can also
tell us.
"It is formed early on, when the child is in the womb and finishes
developing in the first two years. Unlike other bones, it then doesn't
remodel, therefore providing a unique snapshot of the health of the
mother during the early stages of pregnancy."
"This is the first time human ear bones have been used to
investigate diet in the womb. This will allow us, in combination with
the dentine, to work out the health of childbearing women who because of
the slow rate of bone turnover have been invisible to us."
IMAGE: The lake was thought to be the site of an
ancient catastrophic event that left several hundred people dead, but
the first ancient whole genome data from India shows that...
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Credit: Atish Waghwase
A large-scale study conducted by an international team of scientists
has revealed that the mysterious skeletons of Roopkund Lake - once
thought to have died during a single catastrophic event - belong to
genetically highly distinct groups that died in multiple periods in at
least two episodes separated by one thousand years. The study, published
this week in Nature Communications, involved an international team of 28 researchers from institutions in India, the United States and Europe.
Situated at over 5000 meters above sea-level in the Himalayan
Mountains of India, Roopkund Lake has long puzzled researchers due to
the presence of skeletal remains from several hundred ancient humans,
scattered in and around the lake's shores, earning it the nickname
Skeleton Lake or Mystery Lake. "Roopkund Lake has long been subject to
speculation about who these individuals were, what brought them to
Roopkund Lake, and how they died," says senior author Niraj Rai, of the
Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences in Lucknow, India, who began
working on the Roopkund skeletons when he was a post-doctoral scientist
at the CSIR Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) in
Hyderabad, India.
The current publication, the final product of a more than
decade-long study that presents the first whole genome ancient DNA data
from India, reveals that the site has an even more complex history than
imagined. First ancient DNA data from India shows diverse groups at Roopkund Lake
Ancient DNA obtained from the skeletons of Roopkund Lake -
representing the first ancient DNA ever reported from India - reveals
that they derive from at least three distinct genetic groups. "We first
became aware of the presence of multiple distinct groups at Roopkund
after sequencing the mitochondrial DNA of 72 skeletons. While many of
the individuals possessed mitochondrial haplogroups typical of
present-day Indian populations, we also identified a large number of
individuals with haplogroups that would be more typical of populations
from West Eurasia," says co-senior author Kumarasamy Thangaraj of CCMB,
who started the project more than a decade ago, in an ancient DNA clean
lab that he and then-director of CCMB Lalji Singh (deceased) built to
study Roopkund.
Whole genome sequencing of 38 individuals revealed that there were
at least three distinct groups among the Roopkund skeletons. The first
group is composed of 23 individuals with ancestries that are related to
people from present-day India, who do not appear to belong to a single
population, but instead derived from many different groups.
Surprisingly, the second largest group is made up of 14 individuals with
ancestry that is most closely related to people who live in the eastern
Mediterranean, especially present-day Crete and Greece. A third
individual has ancestry that is more typical of that found in Southeast
Asia. "We were extremely surprised by the genetics of the Roopkund
skeletons. The presence of individuals with ancestries typically
associated with the eastern Mediterranean suggests that Roopkund Lake
was not just a site of local interest, but instead drew visitors from
across the globe," says first-author Éadaoin Harney of Harvard
University. Dietary analysis of the Roopkund individuals confirms diverse origins
Stable isotope dietary reconstruction of the skeletons also supports
the presence of multiple distinct groups. "Individuals belonging to the
Indian-related group had highly variable diets, showing reliance on C¬3
and C4 derived food sources. These findings are consistent with the
genetic evidence that they belonged to a variety of socioeconomic groups
in South Asia," says co-senior author Ayushi Nayak of the Max Planck
Institute for the Science of Human History. "In contrast, the
individuals with eastern Mediterranean-related ancestry appear to have
consumed a diet with very little millet." Two major groups at Roopkund Lake date to 1000 years apart, with the more recent around 1800 AD
The findings also revealed a second surprise about the skeletons of
Roopkund Lake. Radiocarbon dating indicates that the skeletons were not
deposited at the same time, as previously assumed. Instead, the study
finds that the two major genetic groups were actually deposited
approximately 1000 years apart. First, during the 7th-10th centuries CE,
individuals with Indian-related ancestry died at Roopkund, possibly
during several distinct events. It was not until sometime during the
17th-20th centuries that the other two groups, likely composed of
travelers from the eastern Mediterranean and Southeast Asia arrived at
Roopkund Lake. "This finding shows the power of radiocarbon dating, as
it had previously been assumed that the skeletons of Roopkund Lake were
the result of a single catastrophic event," says co-senior author
Douglas J. Kennett of the University of California, Santa Barbara.
"It is still not clear what brought these individuals to Roopkund
Lake or how they died," says Rai. "We hope that this study represents
the first of many analyses of this mysterious site."
"Through the use of biomolecular analyses, such as ancient DNA,
stable isotope dietary reconstruction, and radiocarbon dating, we
discovered that the history of Roopkund Lake is more complex than we
ever anticipated, and raises the striking question of how migrants from
the eastern Mediterranean, who have an ancestry profile that is
extremely atypical of the region today, died in this place only a few
hundred years ago," concludes co-senior author David Reich of Harvard
Medical School. "This study highlights the power of biomolecular tools
to provide unexpected insights into our past."
IMAGE: This is historian Dan Snow inspecting the site.
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Credit: Maritime Archaeological Trust
The Maritime Archaeological Trust has discovered a new 8,000 year old
structure next to what is believed to be the oldest boat building site
in the world on the Isle of Wight.
Director of the Maritime Archaeological Trust, Garry Momber, said
"This new discovery is particularly important as the wooden platform is
part of a site that doubles the amount of worked wood found in the UK
from a period that lasted 5,500 years."
The site lies east of Yarmouth, and the new platform is the most
intact, wooden Middle Stone Age structure ever found in the UK. The site
is now 11 meters below sea level and during the period there was human
activity on the site, it was dry land with lush vegetation. Importantly,
it was at a time before the North Sea was fully formed and the Isle of
Wight was still connected to mainland Europe.
The site was first discovered in 2005 and contains an arrangement of
trimmed timbers that could be platforms, walkways or collapsed
structures. However, these were difficult to interpret until the
Maritime Archaeological Trust used state of the art photogrammetry
techniques to record the remains. During the late spring the new
structure was spotted eroding from within the drowned forest. The first
task was to create a 3D digital model of the landscape so it could be
experienced by non-divers. It was then excavated by the Maritime
Archaeological Trust during the summer and has revealed a cohesive
platform consisting of split timbers, several layers thick, resting on
horizontally laid round-wood foundations.
Garry continued "The site contains a wealth of evidence for
technological skills that were not thought to have been developed for a
further couple of thousand years, such as advanced wood working. This
site shows the value of marine archaeology for understanding the
development of civilisation.
Yet, being underwater, there are no regulations that can protect it.
Therefore, it is down to our charity, with the help of our donors, to
save it before it is lost forever."
The Maritime Archaeological Trust is working with the National
Oceanography Centre (NOC) to record and study, reconstruct and display
the collection of timbers. Many of the wooden artefacts are being stored
in the British Ocean Sediment Core Research facility (BOSCORF),
operated by the National Oceanography Centre.
As with sediment cores, ancient wood will degrade more quickly if it
is not kept in a dark, wet and cold setting. While being kept cold,
dark and wet, the aim is to remove salt from within wood cells of the
timber, allowing it to be analysed and recorded. This is important
because archaeological information, such as cut marks or engravings, are
most often found on the surface of the wood and are lost quickly when
timber degrades. Once the timbers have been recorded and have
desalinated, the wood can be conserved for display.
Dr Suzanne Maclachlan, the curator at BOSCORF, said "It has been
really exciting for us to assist the Trust's work with such unique and
historically important artefacts. This is a great example of how the
BOSCORF repository is able to support the delivery of a wide range of
marine science."
When diving on the submerged landscape Dan Snow, the history
broadcaster and host of History Hit, one of the world's biggest history
podcasts, commented that he was both awestruck by the incredible remains
and shocked by the rate of erosion.
This material, coupled with advanced wood working skills and finely
crafted tools suggests a European, Neolithic (New Stone Age) influence.
The problem is that it is all being lost. As the Solent evolves,
sections of the ancient land surface are being eroded by up to half a
metre per year and the archaeological evidence is disappearing.
Research in 2019 was funded by the Scorpion Trust, the Butley
Research Group, the Edward Fort Foundation and the Maritime Archaeology
Trust. Work was conducted with the help of volunteers and many
individuals who gave their time and often money, to ensure the material
was recovered successfully.
Excavations in Israel's Galilee have uncovered remains of an
ancient church said to mark the home of the apostles Peter and Andrew, the
dig's archaeological director said Friday.
Mordechai Aviam of Kinneret Academic College, on the shore
of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel, said this season's dig at nearby
El-Araj confirmed it as the site of Bethsaida, a fishing village where Peter
and his brother Andrew were born according to the Gospel of John.
The Byzantine church was found near remnants of a Roman-era
settlement, matching the location of Bethsaida as described by the first
century AD Roman historian Flavius Josephus, Aviam said.
The newly-discovered church, he added, fitted the account of
Willibald, the Bavarian bishop of Eichstaett who visited the area around 725 AD
and reported that a church at Bethsaida had been built on the site of Peter and
Andrew's home.
According to Willibald, Aviam says, Bethsaida lay between
the biblical sites of Capernaum and Kursi.
"We excavated only one third of the church, a bit less,
but we have a church and that's for sure," Aviam told AFP.
"The plan is of a church, the dates are Byzantine, the
mosaic floors are typical... chancel screens, everything that is typical of a
church."
"Between
Capernaum and Kursi there is only one place where a church is described by the
visitor in the eighth century and we discovered it, so this is the one,"
he said.
