Archaeologists research tree rings of timbers from first Australian 17th -century Dutch voyages

 

IMAGE: AOIFE DALY EXTRACTING A TREE-RING SAMPLE FROM THE BATAVIA SHIP’S HULL PLANKING IN STRAKE 14 view more 

CREDIT: (PHOTO: W. VAN DUIVENVOORDE).

Many Dutch ships passed the West Australian coast while enroute to Southeast Asia in the 1600s – and the national heritage listed shipwreck, Batavia, has revealed through its timbers the history of the shipbuilding materials that enabled Dutch East India Company (VOC) to flourish against major European rivals for the first time.

Built in Amsterdam in 1626-1628 and wrecked on its maiden voyage in June 1629 on Morning Reef off Beacon Island (Houtman Abrolhos Archipelago), Batavia epitomises Dutch East India (VOC) shipbuilding at its finest in a Golden Age, experts reveal in a study led by Flinders University archaeologist Associate Professor Wendy van Duivenvoorde with co-authors, Associate Professor and ERC grantee Aoife Daly at the University of Copenhagen and Marta Domínguez-Delmás, Research Associate and VENI Fellow at the University of Amsterdam.

“The use of wind-powered sawmills became common place in the Dutch republic towards the mid-17th century, allowing the Dutch to produce unprecedented numbers of ocean-going ships for long-distance voyaging and interregional trade in Asia, but how did they organise the supply of such an intensive shipbuilding activity? The Dutch Republic and its hinterland certainly lacked domestic resources” says Wendy van Duivenvoorde.

In-depth sampling of Batavia’s hull timbers for dendrochronological research, published in open-access journal PLOS ONE, offers a piece of the puzzle of early Dutch 17th century shipbuilding and global seafaring that was still missing.

In the 17th century, the VOC grew to become the first multinational trading enterprise, prompting the rise of the stock market and modern capitalism. During this century, a total of 706 ships were built on the VOC shipyards in the Dutch Republic and 75 of these were shipwrecked and 23 captured by enemy forces or pirates.

However, little is understood about the timber materials that enabled the Dutch to build their ocean-going vessels and dominate international trade against competitors in France, Portugal, and continental Europe.

“Oak was the preferred material for shipbuilding in northern and western Europe, and maritime nations struggled to ensure sufficient supplies to meet their needs and sustain their ever-growing fleets. Our results demonstrate that the VOC successfully coped with timber shortages in the early 17th century through diversification of timber sources” explains Marta Domínguez Delmás.”

Fortunately, the Batavia ship remains were raised in the 1970s and are on display at the Western Australian Shipwrecks Museum in Fremantle.

This allowed archaeologists and dendrochronologists from Flinders University, the University of Amsterdam, and University of Copenhagen to undertake the sampling and analysis of the hull timbers.

“The preference for specific timber products from selected regions demonstrates that the choice of timber was far from arbitrary. Our results illustrate the variety of timber sources supplying the VOC Amsterdam shipyard in the 1620s and demonstrate the builders’ careful timber selection and skilled craftsmanship” says Aoife Daly.

“Our results contribute to the collective knowledge about north European timber trade and illustrate the geographical extent of areas supplying timber for shipbuilding in the Dutch Republic in the 17th century” concludes Wendy van Duivenvoorde.

Researchers use new x-ray technique to conserve Henry VIII’s favorite warship

A multidisciplinary team of researchers from Columbia Engineering, European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), University of Sheffield, Mary Rose Trust, and the University of Copenhagen used a new X-ray technique developed by Columbia and ESRF to discover that there are zinc-containing nanoparticles lodged within the wooden hull of the Mary Rose, Henry VIII’s favorite warship. These nanoparticles are leading to deterioration of the remains of the ship, which sank in battle in 1545 and was raised from the Solent in 1982. The Tudor ship and its collection of 10,000 artifacts are now housed in the Mary Rose museum in Portsmouth, UK.

 

CAPTION

A multidisciplinary team of researchers from Columbia Engineering, European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), University of Sheffield, Mary Rose Trust, and the University of Copenhagen used a new X-ray technique developed by Columbia and ESRF to discover that there are zinc-containing nanoparticles lodged within the wooden hull of the Mary Rose, Henry VIII’s favorite warship. These nanoparticles are leading to deterioration of the remains of the ship, which sank in battle in 1545 and was raised from the Solent in 1982. The Tudor ship and its collection of 10,000 artifacts are now housed in the Mary Rose museum in Portsmouth, UK.

CREDIT

Mary Rose Museum

The new technique--computed tomography PDF (ctPDF)--used to examine the ship’s remains was originally developed in a study co-authored  by Columbia Engineering/Brookhaven National Laboratory and ESRF members of the team to study catalysts and batteries. When approached by Serena Cussen, chair in functional nanomaterials at the University of Sheffield, Simon Billinge, a materials scientist at Columbia who helped develop the method for his studies using a synchrotron at Brookhaven, thought ctPDF might be a good way to see what was going on inside the remains of the ship. Billinge’s group imaged how X-rays scattered through sample cross sections at the nanoscale and then precisely characterized the nature of the materials hidden deep in the Tudor wood. Comparing the resulting images pixel by pixel allowed them to determine that over centuries the wood had become riddled with nanoparticles of zinc sulfide. 

“It was especially exciting to get a glimpse into the history of the Mary Rose in the years since it sank,” said Billinge, who has a joint appointment at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and is a co-author of the paper published today by Matter. “The zinc sulphide deposits come from anaerobic bacteria living in the wood as it sat sunk in the seabed--they are essentially bacteria poop. Our results were like a microscale archeological dig where, by studying the location and composition of the deposits, we could see how the bacteria colonised the wood and what they ate.”

The team also found polymer deposits within the ship’s wood. The polymer was sprayed on the ship to help preserve its remains after it was raised from the seabed 39 years ago, when it was thought that the polymer would lend mechanical stability. However, there is some recent evidence that this polymer can itself degrade and act as a source of degrading acids to the materials that surround it.

The new X-ray technique now enables researchers to track the polymer within the ship’s wood--a vital step in developing conservation strategies. The new method could inform future strategies to preserve the Mary Rose and other important archaeological discoveries.

“This is the first time that we have used the technique of X-ray total scattering with computed tomography to successfully study cultural heritage samples at the nanoscale. This work opens doors to new experiments in the domain of conservation," said Marco Di Michiel, scientist in charge of beamline ID15 at ESRF.

Efforts are now underway to understand in detail the degradation effects these zinc-based particles may have had on the Mary Rose and how they might be neutralized. 

Experts name new species of human ancestor

 

 

IMAGE: ARTIST RENDERING OF HOMO BODOENSIS. view more 

CREDIT: ETTORE MAZZA

An international team of researchers, led by University of Winnipeg palaeoanthropologist Dr. Mirjana Roksandic, has announced the naming of a new species of human ancestor, Homo bodoensis. This species lived in Africa during the Middle Pleistocene, around half a million years ago, and was the direct ancestor of modern humans.

The Middle Pleistocene (now renamed Chibanian and dated to 774,000-129,000 years ago) is important because it saw the rise of our own species (Homo sapiens) in Africa, our closest relatives, and the Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) in Europe.

However, human evolution during this age is poorly understood, a problem which paleoanthropologists call “the muddle in the middle”. The announcement of Homo bodoensishopes to bring some clarity to this puzzling, but important chapter in human evolution.

The new name is based on a reassessment of existing fossils from Africa and Eurasia from this time period. Traditionally, these fossils have been variably assigned to either Homo heidelbergensis or Homo rhodesiensis, both of which carried multiple, often contradictory definitions.

“Talking about human evolution during this time period became impossible due to the lack of proper terminology that acknowledges human geographic variation” according to Roksandic, lead author on the study.

Recently, DNA evidence has shown that some fossils in Europe called H. heidelbergensis were actually early Neanderthals, making the name redundant. For the same reason, the name needs to be abandoned when describing fossil humans from east Asia according to co-author, Xiu-Jie Wu (Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Beijing, China).

Further muddling the narrative, African fossils dated to this period have been called at times both H. heidelbergensis and H. rhodesiensis.  H. rhodesiensis is poorly defined and the name has never been widely accepted. This is partly due to its association with Cecil Rhodes and the horrendous crimes carried out during colonial rule in Africa – an unacceptable honour in light of the important work being done toward decolonizing science.

The name “bodoensis” derives from a skull found in Bodo D’ar, Ethiopia, and the new species is understood to be a direct human ancestor. Under the new classification, H. bodoensis will describe most Middle Pleistocene humans from Africa and some from Southeast Europe, while many from the latter continent will be reclassified as Neanderthals, 

The co-first author Predrag Radović (Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, Serbia) says, “Terms need to be clear in science, to facilitate communication. They should not be treated as absolute when they contradict the fossil record.”

The introduction of H. bodoensis is aimed at “cutting the Gordian knot and allowing us to communicate clearly about this important period in human evolution” according to one of the co-authors Christopher Bae (Department of Anthropology, University of Hawai’i at Manoa).

Roksandic agrees: “Naming a new species is a big deal, as the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature allows name changes only under very strictly defined rules. We are confident that this one will stick around for a long time, a new taxon name will live only if other researchers use it.”

Red paint on 1,000-year-old gold mask from Peru contains human blood proteins

 

Peer-Reviewed PublicationPrint

Thirty years ago, archeologists excavated the tomb of an elite 40–50-year-old man from the Sicán culture of Peru, a society that predated the Incas. The man’s seated, upside-down skeleton was painted bright red, as was the gold mask covering his detached skull. Now, researchers reporting in ACS’ Journal of Proteome Research have analyzed the paint, finding that, in addition to a red pigment, it contains human blood and bird egg proteins.

The Sicán was a prominent culture that existed from the ninth to 14th centuries along the northern coast of modern Peru. During the Middle Sicán Period (about 900–1,100 A.D.), metallurgists produced a dazzling array of gold objects, many of which were buried in tombs of the elite class. In the early 1990s, a team of archaeologists and conservators led by Izumi Shimada excavated a tomb where an elite man’s seated skeleton was painted red and placed upside down at the center of the chamber. The skeletons of two young women were arranged nearby in birthing and midwifing poses, and two crouching children’s skeletons were placed at a higher level. Among the many gold artifacts found in the tomb was a red-painted gold mask, which covered the face of the man’s detached skull. At the time, scientists identified the red pigment in the paint as cinnabar, but Luciana de Costa Carvalho, James McCullagh and colleagues wondered what the Sicán people had used in the paint mix as a binding material, which had kept the paint layer attached to the metal surface of the mask for 1,000 years.

To find out, the researchers analyzed a small sample of the mask’s red paint. Fourier transform-infrared spectroscopy revealed that the sample contained proteins, so the team conducted a proteomic analysis using tandem mass spectrometry. They identified six proteins from human blood in the red paint, including serum albumin and immunoglobulin G (a type of human serum antibody). Other proteins, such as ovalbumin, came from egg whites. Because the proteins were highly degraded, the researchers couldn’t identify the exact species of bird’s egg used to make the paint, but a likely candidate is the Muscovy duck. The identification of human blood proteins supports the hypothesis that the arrangement of the skeletons was related to a desired “rebirth” of the deceased Sicán leader, with the blood-containing paint that coated the man’s skeleton and face mask potentially symbolizing his “life force,” the researchers say.

The surprising origins of the Tarim Basin mummies

 

Genomic study of the Tarim Basin mummies in western China reveals an indigenous Bronze Age population that was genetically isolated but culturally cosmopolitan

 

IMAGE: AERIAL VIEW OF THE XIAOHE CEMETERY.view more 

CREDIT: WENYING LI, XINJIANG INSTITUTE OF CULTURAL RELICS AND ARCHAEOLOGY

As part of the Silk Road and located at the geographical intersection of Eastern and Western cultures, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region has long served as a major crossroads for trans-Eurasian exchanges of people, cultures, agriculture, and languages. Since the late 1990s, the discovery of hundreds of naturally mummified human remains dating to circa 2,000 BCE to 200 CE in the region’s Tarim Basin has attracted international attention due to their so-called ‘Western’ physical appearance, their felted and woven woolen clothing, and their agropastoral economy that included cattle, sheep and goat, wheat, barley, millet, and even kefir cheese. Buried in boat coffins in an otherwise barren desert, the Tarim Basin mummies have long puzzled scientists and inspired numerous theories as to their enigmatic origins.

The Tarim Basin mummies’ cattle-focused economy and unusual physical appearance had led some scholars to speculate that they were the descendants of migrating Yamnaya herders, a highly mobile Bronze Age society from the steppes of the Black Sea region of southern Russia. Others have placed their origins among the Central Asian desert oasis cultures of the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC), a group with strong genetic ties to early farmers on the Iranian Plateau.

To better understand the origin of the Tarim Basin mummies’ founding population, who first settled the region at sites such as Xiaohe and Gumugou circa 2,000 BCE, a team of international researchers from Jilin University, the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Seoul National University of Korea, and Harvard University generated and analyzed genome-wide data from thirteen of the earliest known Tarim Basin mummies, dating to circa 2,100 to 1,700 BCE, together with five individuals dating to circa 3,000 to 2,800 BCE in the neighboring Dzungarian Basin. This is the first genomic-scale study of prehistoric populations in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and it includes the earliest yet discovered human remains from the region.

The Tarim Basin mummies were not newcomers to the region

To their great surprise, the researchers found that the Tarim Basin mummies were not newcomers to the region at all, but rather appear to be direct descendants of a once widespread Pleistocene population that had largely disappeared by the end of the last Ice Age. This population, known as the Ancient North Eurasians (ANE), survives only fractionally in the genomes of present-day populations, with Indigenous populations in Siberia and the Americas having the highest known proportions, at about 40 percent. In contrast to populations today, the Tarim Basin mummies show no evidence of admixture with any other Holocene groups, forming instead a previously unknown genetic isolate that likely underwent an extreme and prolonged genetic bottleneck prior to settling the Tarim Basin.

“Archaeogeneticists have long searched for Holocene ANE populations in order to better understand the genetic history of Inner Eurasia. We have found one in the most unexpected place,” says Choongwon Jeong, a senior author of the study and a professor of Biological Sciences at Seoul National University.

In contrast to the Tarim Basin, the earliest inhabitants of the neighboring Dzungarian Basin descended not only from local populations but also from Western steppe herders, namely the Afanasievo, a pastoralist group with strong genetic links to the Early Bronze Age Yamanya. The genetic characterization of the Early Bronze Age Dzungarians also helped to clarify the ancestry of other pastoralist groups known as the Chemurchek, who later spread northwards to the Altai mountains and into Mongolia. Chemurchek groups appear to be the descendants of Early Bronze Age Dzungarians and Central Asian groups the from Inner Asian Mountain Corridor (IAMC), who derive their ancestry from both local populations and BMAC agropastoralists.

“These findings add to our understanding of the eastward dispersal of Yamnaya ancestry and the scenarios under which admixture occurred when they first met the populations of Inner Asia,” says Chao Ning, co-lead author the study and a professor of School of Archaeology and Museology at Peking University.

The Tarim Basin groups were genetically but not culturally isolated

These findings of extensive genetic mixing all around the Tarim Basin throughout the Bronze Age make it all the more remarkable that the Tarim Basin mummies exhibited no evidence of genetic admixture at all. Nevertheless, while the Tarim Basin groups were genetically isolated, they were not culturally isolated. Proteomic analysis of their dental calculus confirmed that cattle, sheep, and goat dairying was already practiced by the founding population, and that they were well aware of the different cultures, cuisines, and technologies all around them.

“Despite being genetically isolated, the Bronze Age peoples of the Tarim Basin were remarkably culturally cosmopolitan – they built their cuisine around wheat and dairy from the West Asia, millet from East Asia, and medicinal plants like Ephedra from Central Asia,” says Christina Warinner, a senior author of the study, a professor of Anthropology at Harvard University, and a research group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

“Reconstructing the origins of the Tarim Basin mummies has had a transformative effect on our understanding of the region, and we will continue the study of ancient human genomes in other eras to gain a deeper understanding of the human migration history in the Eurasian steppes,” adds Yinquiu Cui, a senior author of the study and professor in the School of Life Sciences at Jilin University.

Living descendant of Sitting Bull confirmed by analysis of DNA from the legendary leader’s hair

 

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

 

IMAGE: HAIR FROM LAKOTA SIOUX LEADER SITTING BULL’S SCALP LOCK, FROM WHICH DNA WAS EXTRACTED FOR ANALYSIS view more 

CREDIT: SITTING BULL'S SCALP LOCK. CREDIT: ESKE WILLERSLEV.

A man’s claim to be the great-grandson of legendary Native American leader Sitting Bull has been confirmed using DNA extracted from Sitting Bull’s scalp lock. This is the first time ancient DNA has been used to confirm a familial relationship between living and historical individuals.

The confirmation was made possible using a new method to analyse family lineages using ancient DNA fragments, developed by a team of scientists led by Professor Eske Willerslev of the University of Cambridge and Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre. The results are published today in the journal Science Advances.

The technique searches for ‘autosomal DNA’ in the genetic fragments extracted from a body sample. Since we inherit half of our autosomal DNA from our father and half from our mother, this means genetic matches can be checked irrespective of whether an ancestor is on the father or mother’s side of the family.

Autosomal DNA from Lakota Sioux leader Sitting Bull’s scalp lock was compared to DNA samples from Ernie Lapointe and other Lakota Sioux. The resulting match confirms that Lapointe is Sitting Bull’s great-grandson, and his closest living descendant.

“Autosomal DNA is our non-gender-specific DNA. We managed to locate sufficient amounts of autosomal DNA in Sitting Bull’s hair sample, and compare it to the DNA sample from Ernie Lapointe and other Lakota Sioux – and were delighted to find that it matched,” said Professor Eske Willerslev in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology and Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre, senior author of the report.

Lapointe said: “over the years, many people have tried to question the relationship that I and my sisters have to Sitting Bull.”

Lapointe believes that Sitting Bull’s bones currently lie at a site in Mobridge, South Dakota, in a place that has no significant connection to Sitting Bull and the culture he represented. He also has concerns about the care of the gravesite. There are two official burial sites for Sitting Bull - at Fort Yates, North Dakota and Mobridge - and both receive visitors.

With DNA evidence to back up his claim of a bloodline, Lapointe now hopes to rebury the great Native American leader’s bones in a more appropriate location.

The new technique can be used when very limited genetic data are available, as was the case in this study. The work paves the way for similar DNA testing of the relationship between many other long-dead historical figures and their possible living descendants.

The technique could also be used to answer important questions based on old human DNA that might previously have been considered too degraded to analyse – for example in forensic investigations.

“In principle, you could investigate whoever you want – from outlaws like Jesse James to the Russian tsar’s family, the Romanovs. If there is access to old DNA – typically extracted from bones, hair or teeth, they can be examined in the same way,” said Willerslev, who is a Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge.

It took the scientists 14 years to find a way of extracting useable DNA from the 5-6cm piece of Sitting Bull’s hair. The hair was extremely degraded, having been stored for over a century at room temperature in Washington’s Smithsonian Museum before it was returned to Lapointe and his sisters in 2007.

The technique differs from traditional approaches to DNA analysis, which look for a genetic match between specific DNA in the Y chromosome passed down the male line, or, if the long-dead person was female, specific DNA in the mitochondria passed from a mother to her offspring. Neither are particularly reliable, and in this case neither could be used as Lapointe claimed to be related to Sitting Bull on his mother’s side.

Tatanka-Iyotanka, better known as the Native American leader and military leader Sitting Bull (1831-1890), led 1,500 Lakota warriors at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 and wiped out US General Custer and five companies of soldiers. The blood-soaked feat - also known as ‘the Battle of the Greasy Grass’ - will forever symbolise the resistance of Native Americans to the white man’s insatiable appetite for empire-building. Sitting Bull was assassinated in 1890 by the ‘Indian Police’, acting on behalf of the US government.

“Sitting Bull has always been my hero, ever since I was a boy. I admire his courage and his drive. That’s why I almost choked on my coffee when I read in a magazine in 2007 that the Smithsonian Museum had decided to return Sitting Bull’s hair to Ernie Lapointe and his three sisters, in accordance with new US legislation on the repatriation of museum objects,” said Willerslev.

He added: “I wrote to Lapointe and explained that I specialised in the analysis of ancient DNA, and that I was an admirer of Sitting Bull, and I would consider it a great honour if I could be allowed to compare the DNA of Ernie and his sisters with the DNA of the Native American leader’s hair when it was returned to them.”

Until this study, the familial relationship between LaPointe and Sitting Bull was based on birth and death certificates, a family tree, and a review of historical records. This new genetic analysis provides an additional line of evidence to strengthen his claim.

Before the remains from the Mobridge burial site can be reburied elsewhere, they will have to be analysed in a similar way to the hair sample to ensure a genetic match to Sitting Bull. Under US law, Lapointe owns the legal rights to Sitting Bull’s genetic data so can decide who should do the analysis.

Evidence of prehistoric human activity in Falkland Islands

 

IMAGE: KIT HAMLEY HOLDS A LARGE MALE SEA LION SKULL FROM A BONE PILE AT NEW ISLAND. DOZENS OF INDIVIDUAL SEA LIONS WERE PRESENT THROUGHOUT THE BONE PILE ASSEMBLAGES EXCAVATED AT NEW ISLAND. view more 

CREDIT: KIT HAMLEY

Since its first recorded sighting by European explorers in the 1600s, scientists and historians have believed that Europeans were the first people to ever set foot on the Falkland Islands. Findings from a new University of Maine-led study, however, suggests otherwise; that human activity on the islands predates European arrival by centuries. 

Kit Hamley, National Science Foundation graduate research fellow with the UMaine Climate Change Institute, spearheaded the first-ever scientific investigation into prehistoric human presence on the Southern Atlantic archipelago. She and her team collected animal bones, charcoal records and other evidence from across the islands over multiple expeditions and examined them for indications of human activity using radiocarbon dating and other laboratory techniques.

One notable sign of pre-European human activity derived from a 8,000-year-old charcoal record collected from a column of peat on New Island, located in the southwestern edge of the territory. According to researchers, the record showed signs of a marked increase in fire activity in 150 C.E., then abrupt and significant spikes in 1410 C.E., and 1770 C.E., the latter of which corresponds with initial European settlement. 

Researchers also gathered sea lion and penguin samples on New Island near the site where a landowner discovered a stone projectile point that is consistent with the technology Indigenous South Americans have used for the past 1,000 years. The bones were heaped in discrete piles at one site. Hamley says the location, volume and type of bones indicated that the mounds were likely assembled by humans. 

Most of the evidence Hamley and her colleagues collected indicated that Indigenous South Americans likely travelled to the Falkland Islands between 1275 C.E. and 1420 C.E. Arrival dates prior to 1275 C.E., however, cannot be ruled out because some evidence dates back even earlier, according to researchers. For example, the team found a tooth from an extinct Falkland Islands fox called the warrah with a radiocarbon date of 3450 B.C.E., the oldest for the species. Regardless, all of the team’s findings indicate that people landed in the archipelago before British navigator John Strong in 1690, the first European to set foot on the archipelago. 

Indigenous people likely visited the islands for multiple short-term stays, as opposed to long-term occupation, according to the UMaine researchers. As a result, they left few cultural materials there, but enough for Hamley and her colleagues to find a discernible anthropogenic and paleoecological footprint and conduct their study. 

“These findings broaden our understanding of Indigenous movement and activity in the remote and harsh South Atlantic Ocean,” says Hamley, a UMaine Ph.D. student of ecology and environmental sciences. “This is really exciting because it opens up new doors for collaborating with descendant Indigenous communities to increase our understanding of past ecological changes throughout the region. People have long speculated that it was likely that Indigenous South Americans had reached the Falkland Islands, so it is really rewarding to get to play a role in helping bring that part of the past to life of the islands."

UMaine researchers who participated in the study with Hamley include her adviser, Jacquelyn Gill, an associate professor of paleoecology and plant ecology; Daniel Sandweiss, a professor of anthropology; and Brenda Hall, a professor of glacial geology. 

Other investigators involved in the research include Dulcinea Groff, a postdoctoral research scientist at the University of Wyoming and former UMaine Ph.D. student; Kathryn Krasinski, an assistant professor of anthropology at Adelphi University; John Southon; a researcher with the Department of Earth System Science at the University of California-Irvine; Paul Brickle, executive director of the South Atlantic Environmental Research Institute; and Thomas Lowell, a geology professor with the University of Cincinnati. 

Science Advances, a journal from the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS), published a report of their findings. 

Hamley’s most recent study builds on her research into the warrah (Dusicyon australis), an extinct species of fox. The warrah was the only native and terrestrial mammal to reside on the Falkland Islands at the time of European arrival. Subsequent hunting wiped the species out in 1856, making it the first extinct canid in the historic record, Hamley says. 

For years, various scholars, including Charles Darwin, have debated the warrah’s origins and how it came to the islands. Hamley hypothesizes that humans may have introduced the species to the archipelago prior to European settlement. Many previously rejected the theory based on a prior lack of scientific evidence, but the latest findings from Hamley’s team reopens that possibility, she says. Indigenous South Americans may have domesticated warrah as they have with other foxes and canids, and brought them to the islands during their voyages and short-term stays. 

During a 2018 expedition to the islands, Hamely and her colleagues found three warrah bone samples at Spring Point Farm in West Falkland. Carbon dating and isotopic analysis revealed the warrah whose bones were analyzed “had a marine-based diet consisting primarily of apex marine predators” like sea lions and fur seals, a similar diet to seafaring Indigenious South Americans in prehistoric times, according to researchers. While these findings could reflect coastal scavenging, it may exemplify the food their potential human counterparts were procuring and eating, researchers say. 

“This study has the potential to change the trajectory of future ecological research in The Falklands,” says Hamley. “The introduction of a top predator, like the warrah, could have had profound implications for the biodiversity of the islands, which are home to ground nesting seabirds such as penguins, albatross and cormorants. It also changes the ever-captivating story of past human-canine relationships. We know that Indigenous South Americans domesticated foxes, but this study helps show how potentially important these animals were to those communities extending back thousands of years." 

Hamley conducted her research during three expeditions to the Falkland Islands in 2014, 2016 and 2018. During the 2016 journey, she participated in UMaine’s Follow a Researcher program, through which scientists give K–12 students a glimpse of their work through live expedition updates, Twitter chats and videos. 

The study led by Hamley contributes to the growing body of scientific investigations into the ecological, anthropological and climate history of the Falklands Islands conducted by UMaine researchers. A 2020 UMaine-led study discovered that the establishment of seabird colonies on the islands in response to an abrupt regional cooling period 5,000 years ago changed its ecosystems. 

“As the world warms, we hope our growing understanding of the pre-colonial history of the Falklands will help decision-makers balance the needs of wildlife and people, who rely on ecotourism, fisheries and other industries,” says Gill, an NSF CAREER researcher who was named a 2020 Friend of the Planet by the National Center for Science Education. “We’re only just beginning to piece together the role people played in the Falklands before European settlement. Because of centuries of colonialism on the mainland, a lot of the oral knowledge about this period was lost. Western science needs updating, and we hope future work will be done in collaboration with the modern-day Indigenous people in the region; their ancestors were the first experts here.”

​​More than ceremonial, ancient Chaco Canyon was home

 

While some current scientific theories point to ancient Chaco Canyon, a distinctive archaeological site in the American southwest, as simply a prehistoric ceremonial site populated only during sacred rituals — University of Cincinnati researchers are turning that popular belief on its head.

“The ancestral puebloans interacted with the local ecosystem in ways that helped them adapt and thrive for over a millennium,” says David Lentz, UC professor of biology and co-author of the study published in the journal PLOS ONE titled, “Ecosystem impacts by the ancestral Puebloans of Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, USA.” 

“Many active researchers, however, align with the idea that Chaco Canyon was too arid to sustain day-to-day living, arguing that the land and architectural structures were not permanent dwellings. 

“Basically, they contend that the massive stone and timber infrastructure at Chaco Canyon, built over many centuries, was used only as a periodic ceremonial center and storage facility. But it was not that simple and our evidence contradicts many of the currently proposed theories about the occupation of Chaco Canyon in ancient times.”

Through on-site pollen and botanical analysis and lidar mapping technology during the last decade, Lentz and a team of interdisciplinary researchers from UC’s departments of anthropology, geology, geography and biology, including a select group of national collaborative scientists, reveal the economic and environmental impact of ancestral puebloans in Chaco Canyon during the culture’s great preeminence. 

“Our goals focused on providing fresh insight into the sustainability of land use practices in Chaco Canyon during the ancestral puebloan occupation,” adds Lentz. “Our findings add new data that reveal measurable changes in the juniper pinyon woodlands that occurred before 600 B.C. when the food procurement system transitioned from hunting and gathering to agricultural production.”

The shift in ancestral puebloan food resource management enhanced their ability to sustain larger populations in a harsh, barren landscape for several centuries during the pre-Columbian era. 

“But with their landscape modifications came serious environmental ramifications. At the cost of major reduction of tree density in the local woodlands, their activities ultimately contributed to a destabilizing environmental impact prior to their final exodus,” adds Lentz. 

This innovative interdisciplinary research is a stellar example of academic excellence, an ongoing tenet of UC’s strategic direction called Next Lives Here.

Early pueblo builders of the southwest

Chaco Canyon, a 34,000-acre center of social complexity located in the southwestern region of the U.S., flourished during the height of the Chaco culture between (800 to 1140 A.D.), a period Lentz refers to as the Bonito phase.

During the cultural flourishment, the hierarchical society was known for elaborate ceremonial activities, the maintenance of long-distance trade routes and impressive architectural complexes, including more than a dozen immense structures that Lentz and archaeologists refer to as “great houses.” One of the houses, known today as "Pueblo Bonito," may have had over 600 rooms, including crypts that housed more than 100 burials. 

Earlier research revealed a system of roads that connect many Chaco culture sites with evidence of astronomical alignments, indicating that some of the structures were oriented toward the solstice sun and lunar standstills.

Against this backdrop, archaeologists generally agree that Chaco Canyon functioned as a remote trade center and ceremonial site for the Chaco culture. Until now, however, Lentz says studies lacked evidence to support human management of the canyon’s precarious environment for daily living.

Hidden clues

Using lidar aerial mapping technology and the analysis of various ancient substances including carbon isotopes, pollen content, macrobotanical remains and chemical composition of soils, the research team evaluated alternative hypotheses relating to environmental impacts by the ancestral puebloans.

It became clear to the researchers that as ancient puebloans tussled with the unpredictable environment, they kept their society thriving for more than 1,000 years through agriculture by growing a variety of crops such as corn, beans and squash in the canyon while simultaneously harnessing local pinyon and juniper tree woodlands for architectural needs, food resources and firewood for cooking.

“This is a very arid area,” says Lentz. “In arid woodlands the trees are essential for holding the soil in place. When the puebloan inhabitants removed those woodlands, the result was eventually severe erosion and the deterioration of croplands.”

The researchers found a gradual degradation of the local woodlands beginning around 600 B.C., much earlier than previously thought, Lentz says. In spite of the woodland clearance, the people living in the canyon flourished for nearly a millennium through indigenous agricultural practices while using water irrigation methods from the nearby Chaco, Escavada and Fajada Wash tributaries. 

Research team director, Vernon Scarborough, UC professor of anthropology, emphasizes the highly interdisciplinary character of the project, noting that, “Although the focus of our work was on the identification of ancient ancestral puebloan water systems within this arid environment, past landscape alterations were more broadly brought to light.”

Critical evidence for utilizing the local juniper trees for firewood to cook locally cultivated corn, beans and squash was especially important, says Lentz. The pinyon pine nuts provided a valuable source of food, so the Chacoans protected the pinyon trees from over-harvesting for firewood. But the juniper trees, an excellent source of fuel, were not spared from this extensive harvesting.

“We found a reduction of the pinyon-juniper woodlands, with a loss of mostly juniper trees, happened at about the same time there was an introduction of agriculture into the canyon along with the technology for making pottery,” says Lentz. “Through radiocarbon dating from previous studies, we know that the woodlands were established and flourishing in that area as far back as 5,000 years ago, centuries before the puebloans began the use of agriculture.”

Early environmental impact

While the juxtaposition of utilizing agriculture and local wood for cooking had shifted the way the puebloans ate and prepared food, the ongoing clearing of the juniper trees placed an inexorable demand on the woodlands, say the researchers, eventually drastically reducing the number of trees.

“In this arid area, rain tends to come in buckets,” says Lentz. “After hundreds of years of thinning out the tree root systems that hold the soil in place, the rain began washing away much of the fertile topsoil, creating an environment that suffered continuous degradation.”

Prior to the emigration of many of Chaco’s residents from the canyon, these unsustainable land use practices resulted in bouts of erosion, which reduced the resilience of the landscape and likely exacerbated the ability of the ancestral puebloans to endure the period of extensive droughts and aridity that followed, says Lentz.

Present-day Chaco Canyon

With Chaco Canyon now declared a national park and UNESCO World Heritage site, visitors to Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico can marvel at the remains of 12 great houses and more than 4,000 areas of archaeological interest in the rocky landscape. The structures and ruins are protected from destruction and development and given national monument designation by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907.

Because skywatching is deeply ingrained in the site’s past, Chaco Canyon’s 34,000-acre park was proclaimed a dark sky park in 2013, a designation intended to keep it free of light pollution, allowing visitors to see the stars. 

“This study markedly enhanced our revelation about the rate and process of early environmental change by ancient societal consumption practices and the climatic fluctuations,” says Scarborough. “This work, as well as that of others, ought to be yet another wake-up call for what is happening to our planet more generally today.”

 

Publication of 500-year-old manuscript exposes medieval beliefs and religious cults

 

IMAGE: THE BROMHOLM PRAYER ROLL, INK, SILVER AND GOLD ON PARCHMENT, 1370X130MMview more 

CREDIT: CREDIT GAIL TURNER / JOURNAL OF THE BRITISH ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION

A rare English illuminated medieval prayer roll, believed to be among only a few dozen still in existence worldwide, has been analysed in a new study to expose Catholic beliefs in England before the Reformation in the sixteenth century.

Now in private hands and previously unknown to experts, this metre-long roll provides fresh insights into Christian pilgrimage, and the cult of the Cross before Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries.

Examination of the ancient roll’s illustrations and text, including religious verse in Latin and English, are published in the peer-reviewed Journal of the British Archaeological Association.

“In particular,” art historian, and study author, Gail Turner states, “the study demonstrates Christian devotion in medieval England.

“It gives insight into the devotional rituals connected to a large crucifix (‘Rood’) at Bromholm Priory, in Norfolk, and uncovers a direct link between this 16th century artefact and a famous religious relic once associated among Christians with miracles.”

The first illumination of the roll (IMAGE)

TAYLOR & FRANCIS GROUP

 

The ‘Rood of Bromholm’, as it is known to historians, supposedly contained a fragment of the cross upon which Jesus was crucified. The relic transformed the Priory into a popular pilgrimage site mentioned by Geoffrey Chaucer and in The Vision of Piers Plowman.

Images of the Rood in black, with gold outlines, feature several times in the Bromholm roll, and there is one direct reference to ‘the crosse of bromholme’.

The second illumination on the script (IMAGE)

TAYLOR & FRANCIS GROUP

 

Turner’s analysis suggests a prosperous pilgrim was possibly the owner of the Bromholm prayer roll – made from two pieces of vellum stitched together, and bought by a private collector in the 1970s.

“The roll reflects a time when the laity (non-clergy) had a real belief in both visible and invisible enemies,” says Turner, who has worked at Tate Britain, the Arts Council, and as a consultant for Christie’s and at the Courtauld.

“For their owners, prayer rolls…were prized as very personal inspirations to prayer, although during the Reformation and after they were commonly undervalued and dismissed.

“The survival of such a magnificent roll for over 500 years is therefore remarkable.”

Attaching animal skin pieces end to end in a continuous strip to make a ‘roll’ was once the standard method of presenting text. Few medieval prayer rolls survive today because they lacked covers yet were made to be handled. This one is 13cm wide, by a metre long.

Worshippers regularly touched or kissed images of Jesus on the cross in an attempt, says Turner, ”to experience Christ’s Passion more directly and powerfully”. Indeed, the historian reveals abrasion marks are visible on the Bromholm roll where the owner has engaged in such a ‘devotional act identified in other similar rolls’.

Turner has been able to estimate the document’s age through a reference in the roll to ‘John of Chalcedon’ or John Underwood, the penultimate prior of Bromholm. A passionate supporter of the Roman Catholic church, Underwood became auxiliary bishop of Norfolk in 1505 then lost his position in 1535 so it’s likely the roll was made between these dates.

Further connections between the roll, the Rood and Underwood can be made through the imagery of the five wounds Christ received during his crucifixion, according to the study.

Symbols representing the five wounds are depicted on Underwood’s tomb in Norwich, despite not being commonly found in Norfolk’s churches. In addition, the five wounds were focal to Bromholm Priory’s key devotional feasts – the Passion and the Exaltation of the Cross – when pilgrims came to venerate the Rood.

The original owner of the roll is likely to have been a ‘devout worshipper’ familiar with Bromholm’s feasts, says Turner. A patron of the priory, a member of the local Paston family, or a friend of John Underwood’s are among her suggestions.

Today, the priory stands in ruins in a field near the village of Bacton. As to the Rood of Bromholm’s fate, the study suggests it was taken to London. This is according to a letter written in 1537 to Thomas Cromwell by Sir Richard Southwell, a courtier from Norfolk.

After that, the trail appears to go cold, according to Turner, who adds it is ‘presumed to have been destroyed in London with many other relics, although its fate remains uncertain’.

Adoption of new military technologies in pre-industrial societies

 A new analysis spanning 10,000 years of history and ten major world regions has identified world population size, major technological advances, and geographical connectivity as key drivers of the evolution of military technology prior to the Industrial Revolution. Peter Turchin of Complexity Science Hub in Vienna, Austria, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on October 20, 2021.

Despite extensive speculation, the mechanisms that drove innovation, spread, and adoption of new military technologies in pre-industrial societies have been unclear. Prior research into this topic has often been criticized as being overly subjective, and many research efforts have been limited to narrow geographic regions or time periods.

To help clarify drivers of military technological evolution, Turchin and colleagues developed a new, systematic methodology that employs a resource known as Seshat: Global History Databank. This databank, originally developed by Turchin and others, serves as a growing collection of historical and archaeological data for numerous societies dating from the late Neolithic to the present.

For the new study, the researchers developed a quantitative approach for analyzing Seshat data that incorporates mathematical modeling and statistical analysis. They applied this methodology to empirically test prior hypotheses about military technological advancement in pre-industrial societies.

The researchers found support for several prior hypotheses; namely, that pre-industrial military technological evolution was indeed driven by world population size, connectivity between regions where technology is innovated and adopted, and key innovations, such as improvements in metallurgy. Meanwhile, they found, pre-industrial military technological evolution was not driven by smaller state-level factors, such as the population of a society, the size of its territory, or the sophistication of its government.

The authors view this study and their methodology as a significant first step towards better understanding of the drivers of both military technological advancement and technological advancements in general. They hope that future research will refine and extend this work; for example, by exploring the development of various technologies impacts equality and public well-being.

The authors add: "In this paper we set out to study the processes driving the evolution of military technology in the pre-industrial world. We were surprised to find that the size and internal complexity of states had very little impact. Instead, increased connectivity -- and growing conflict -- between societies across great distances, as well as the adoption of certain key innovations like cavalry and iron metallurgy, emerged as key drivers of military technological evolution."