Violence at a time of crisis in ancient Peru

 

Analysis of skeletons exhumed at a burial ground dating from the period 500-400 BCE, shortly after the collapse of the Chavín culture, revealed lethal injuries inflicted on men, women and children, as well as signs of material poverty

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FUNDAÇÃO DE AMPARO À PESQUISA DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO

 

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VARIOUS TRAUMATIC INJURIES IN ONE OF THE INDIVIDUALS STUDIED: A) PERIMORTEM PENETRATING FRACTURE IN RIGHT PARIETAL PRODUCED BY BLUNT FORCE TRAUMA; B) CUT MARK IN RIGHT SUPERCILIARY ARCH RELATING TO SHARP FORCE TRAUMA, AND PERIMORTEM INJURY RELATING TO STONE FLAKE, WHICH REMAINS EMBEDDED IN RIGHT WALL OF NASAL PYRIFORM APERTURE; C) HEALED LINEAR PENETRATING FRACTURE AND CUT MARKS IN LEFT ZYGOMATIC BONE RELATING TO SHARP-BLUNT FORCE TRAUMA, AND HEALED NASAL FRACTURE 

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CREDIT: LUIS PEZO-LANFRANCO

The transition from the fifth to the fourth century BCE (Before the Common Era) seems to have been a critical period for the Central Andes, a region now part of Peru. Researchers have found evidence of turbulence during the passage from the Middle Formative period (1200-400 BCE) to the Late Formative period (400-1 BCE). Political disintegration and intergroup violence were apparently part of the context, possibly associated with a shift from theocracy to secular government. A new study, published in the journal Latin American Antiquity, consistently reinforces these suppositions. 

The study was conducted by a team of Peruvian, Colombian and Brazilian researchers led by Peruvian bioarcheologist Luis Pezo-Lanfranco, then affiliated with the Biological Anthropology Laboratory at the University of São Paulo’s Institute of Biosciences (IB-USP) in Brazil. The project was supported by FAPESP via the Grant Program for Young Investigators in Emerging Research Centers. 

“We made a detailed analysis of the skeletal remains of 67 individuals excavated at a burial ground dating from the period 500-400 BCE and located in the Supe Valley region, a few kilometers from Caral, a famous ceremonial center that functioned between 2900 and 1800 BCE. There we detected injury patterns characteristic of repeated events of interpersonal violence. Among the individuals examined, 80% of the adults and adolescents died from inflicted traumatic injuries,” Pezo-Lanfranco told Agência FAPESP. He currently works in the Department of Prehistory at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) in Spain. 

Perimortem injuries to the skull, face and chest observed in several individuals are compatible with lethal, probably intercommunity, violence, whose victims included children. “Our hypothesis is that a group of strangers came to the community and committed the murders. After the aggressors left, the murder victims were buried by their own people with the usual funeral rites, as suggested by the burial patterns,” he said.

Perimortem means at or near the time of death. Bone damage in perimortem injuries shows no evidence of healing. Bone damage in antemortem injuries shows evidence of healing.

Although perimortem trauma was the most frequent type of injury among the adult skeletons studied, as well as some of the child remains, many examples of antemortem trauma were also found, and several individuals displayed both, suggesting the occurrence of at least two violent events during their lives. The first led to injuries that healed, while the second killed them.

“The markers point to exposure to repetitive and lethal violence during the course of their lives,” Pezo-Lanfranco said. The most frequent injuries were depressed fractures of the cranial vault, other maxillofacial fractures, thoracic fractures (mainly in ribs and scapulae), and “defensive” fractures of the ulna (forearm, indicating an attempt to parry a blow).

Sixty-four of the 67 individuals studied were buried in a fetal position: 12 in dorsal decubitus (lying on their back), four in ventral decubitus (on their stomach), seven in left lateral decubitus (on their left side), and 41 in right lateral decubitus. The fetal position is a recurring burial pattern in prehistoric and ancient communities worldwide. Given its association with the womb, some experts believe it reflects the expectation of rebirth after death. 

Besides the signs of violence, the analysis of the bones showed a high incidence of non-specific stresses and infectious diseases, possibly associated with adverse living conditions due to a combination of a shortage of resources and population growth. The simplicity of most of the grave goods also points to poverty. Many of the skeletons were buried with plain cotton fabric, woven mats and basketry, gourds containing vegetables, cotton seeds and roots, necklaces, and pottery. “Stable isotope studies showed that staple crops were the basis for their subsistence,” Pezo-Lanfranco said.

Competition for scant resources in the Supe Valley region was probably a major factor in the collapse of the Chavín culture, which spread through Peru’s mountains and coast between 1200 and 500 BCE. Its center was Chavín de Huantar, a monumental ceremonial site in northern Peru in the Marañon River basin. The Marañón rises in the Peruvian Andes at about 5,800 m, first flowing northwest and then turning northeast to meet the Ucayali and become the Upper Amazon and Solimões in Brazil.

“The Chavín system reached exhaustion during the Middle to Late Formative transition, around 500-400 BCE. Several ceremonial centers, including Chavín de Huantar, were desacralized and abandoned. Political formations organized around the religious sphere disintegrated, perhaps characterizing the decline of theocracy and the emergence of secular government,” Pezo-Lanfranco said.

The Chavín people worshipped a “zooanthropomorphic” deity resembling a man-jaguar. Gods that combine animal and human attributes are featured in many ancient cultures around the world, including those of Crete, India and Egypt. In a purely speculative approach, some scholars think they may be later re-elaborations of prehistoric shamanic traditions in which the virtues of tutelary animals are syncretized in the figure of the shaman. This hypothesis cannot be confirmed on the basis of existing knowledge.

The name of the Chavín man-jaguar god is unknown. Unlike ancient civilizations in the Old World, the Andean people who worshiped the deity left no written records that could be deciphered to furnish more detailed information. It is worth stressing that the period in question preceded the formal establishment of the Inca Empire by almost 2,000 years. Founded by Pachacuti in 1438 CE (Common Era), the Inca Empire was the ultimate expression of thousands of years of Andean civilizations, yet it lasted for less than 100 years. The Spanish executed the last reigning Inca Emperor, Atahualpa, in 1533, and in 1572 captured and killed Túpac Amaru in Vilcabamba, where he had been leading the resistance. 

For the researchers who conducted the study, the results are particularly important because of what they reveal about an era of ancient Andean history that has so far been poorly documented. Few burial grounds from the period in the Central Andes have been excavated, and still fewer have been found to contain remains as well-conserved as these. Their conservation is due mainly to the dry climate in the region, permitting detailed observation of injuries in almost intact bones. 

“The study belongs to a field we call the ‘bioarcheology of violence”, which helps understand the nature of interpersonal conflict around the middle of the first millennium before the common era. On the other hand, data from the same analysis, to be published soon, offers several answers regarding factors in this society that modulated morbidity and mortality, which developed in the hypothetical context of population pressure and political transition associated with the collapse of belief systems in a highly resource-poor environment,” Pezo-Lanfranco said.

Plant and animal domestication entailed a few thousand years across extensive geographies

 Archaeologist Xinyi Liu at Washington University in St. Louis teamed up with Martin Jones of the University of Cambridge to write a new paper for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that explains how recent research is connecting the science of biological domestication to early food globalization.

Liu, an associate professor of archaeology and associate chair of the Department of Anthropology in Arts & Sciences, proposes a new conceptual framework to understand domestication, which is relevant not only to anthropology but other fields such as biology and ecology.

In this Q&A, he also offers his perspective on how understanding the past conditions can help us to forge a vision for the future.

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The domestication of plants and animals is among the most significant transitions in human history. How has our understanding of domestication changed recently?

Our new article focuses on how we conceptualize domestication. A considerable intellectual legacy has depicted domestication as a series of short-lived, localized and episodic events. Some of the literature, particularly those pieces dating back to the early 20th century, envisioned the process as a transition from humans within nature to humans controlling nature in a revolutionary fashion.

The metaphor there is “revolution.” So, as people described it, there was a “Neolithic Revolution” that functioned in a similar way as the “Industrial Revolution” or the “scientific revolution” — a rapid technological shift followed by changes in societies, according to some narratives.

It is time to reconsider all this. Newly emergent evidence from the last 15 years challenges the idea of rapid domestication. This evidence shows unambiguously that plant and animal domestication in a range of species entailed a more gradual transition spanning a few thousand years across extensive geographies.

How has archaeology contributed to this line of inquiry?

Much of this evidence was brought to light by archaeological and scientific investigations. For example, it took about 5,000 years for the domestication traits of wheat to be fully developed from its wild morphology, according to archaeobotanical work in the Near East. In the lower Yangtze Valley in China, research informed a similar process that ancient communities had cultivated rice for a few millennia before the plant reached domesticated states, in the biological sense.

So domestication has extended in time. But you also argue that it has extended in space. What does that mean?

Over the last 15 years we’ve also seen an improvement in the understanding of how people have moved domesticated plants and animals over continents. In some cases, people moved crops and stocks before the genetic changes associated with domestication were fully fixed within the species. This raises questions about the role translocations played in the domestication process.

Central to our inquiry is the relationship between domesticated crops and stocks and their free-living ancestors, or progenitors. Newer genetic evidence suggests that long-term gene flow between wild and domestic species was much more common than previously appreciated.

It makes sense: At the so-called domestication center, where ancestral varieties were dominant, such gene flow would have been very strong. No meaningful mechanism could have stopped the introgression.

But if farmers took their crops, or herders their stocks, and moved to a new environment beyond the natural distribution of the ancestors, then selection pressures would have changed dramatically. Eventually you are domesticating in a single pathway, with no return. Such a process has been documented genetically and archaeologically in a number of domesticated species, such as maize and wheat.

How do human preferences or traditions factor in?

If crop or stock movements were entangled with the domestication process, the newly introduced species would have to adapt to the new physical environment encountered. But they would have also been adapted to align with new cultural habits. We envision both the physical and cultural adaptation played roles in the fixation of some domestication traits.

Does this research have any implications for modern agriculture?

Understanding the past conditions can help us to forge visions about the future. In that sense, archaeology plays a key role in establishing the historical and community roots of a range of contemporary challenges, such as food security, planetary health and sustainability, providing solutions drawing from humanity at the deepest level.

One such example is the positive impact that archaeogenetic research about millet made on the livelihoods of farmers across the globe. At its 75th session, the United Nations General Assembly declared 2023 the International Year of Millets to raise awareness of the crop’s deep community roots and future potential. There has been considerable recent momentum in understanding the biodiversity and historical geography of millets, which are a diverse group of cereals originating from several continents, including pearl, proso (or broomcorn), foxtail, barnyard, little, kodo, browntop, finger and fonio millets.

Millets can grow on arid lands with minimal inputs and are resilient to changes in climate. They are, therefore, an ideal solution for communities to increase self-sufficiency and reduce reliance on imported cereal grains.

These grains once sustained ancient populations by large. Archaeology played a key role in establishing the original biogeography, domestication and early dispersals of millets. The knowledge we have gained consequently has profoundly impacted food security and conservation in areas where millets are culturally relevant.

Ancient DNA reveals the appearance of a 6th century Chinese emperor

 

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CELL PRESS

 

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THE FACIAL RECONSTRUCTION OF EMPEROR WU WHO WAS ETHNICALLY XIANBEI

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CREDIT: PIANPIAN WEI

What did an ancient Chinese emperor from 1,500 years ago look like? A team of researchers reconstructed the face of Chinese Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou using DNA extracted from his remains. The study, published March 28 in the journal Current Biology, suggests the emperor’s death at the age of 36 might be linked to a stroke. It also sheds light on the origin and migration patterns of a nomadic empire that once ruled parts of northeastern Asia.

Emperor Wu was a ruler of the Northern Zhou dynasty in ancient China. Under his reign from AD 560 to AD 578, Emperor Wu built a strong military and unified the northern part of ancient China after defeating the Northern Qi dynasty.

Emperor Wu was ethnically Xianbei, an ancient nomadic group that lived in what is today Mongolia and northern and northeastern China.

“Some scholars said the Xianbei had ‘exotic’ looks, such as thick beard, high nose bridge, and yellow hair,” says Shaoqing Wen, one of the paper’s corresponding authors at Fudan University in Shanghai. “Our analysis shows Emperor Wu had typical East or Northeast Asian facial characteristics,” he adds.

In 1996, archaeologists discovered Emperor Wu’s tomb in northwestern China, where they found his bones, including a nearly complete skull. With the development of ancient DNA research in recent years, Wen and his team managed to recover over 1 million single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) on his DNA, some of which contained information about the color of Emperor Wu’s skin and hair. Combined with Emperor Wu’s skull, the team reconstructed his face in 3D. The result shows Emperor Wu had brown eyes, black hair, and dark to intermediate skin, and his facial features were similar to those of present-day Northern and Eastern Asians.

“Our work brought historical figures to life,” says Pianpian Wei, the paper’s co-corresponding author at Fudan University. “Previously, people had to rely on historical records or murals to picture what ancient people looked like. We are able to reveal the appearance of the Xianbei people directly.”

Emperor Wu died at the age of 36, and his son also died at a young age with no clear reason. Some archaeologists say Emperor Wu died of illness, while others argue the emperor was poisoned by his rivals. By analyzing Emperor Wu’s DNA, researchers found that the emperor was at an increased risk for stroke, which might have contributed to his death. The finding aligns with historical records that described the emperor as having aphasia, drooping eyelids, and an abnormal gait—potential symptoms of a stroke.

The genetic analysis shows the Xianbei people intermarried with ethnically Han Chinese when they migrated southward into northern China. “This is an important piece of information for understanding how ancient people spread in Eurasia and how they integrated with local people,” Wen says.

Next, the team plans to study the people who lived in ancient Chang’an city in northwestern China by studying their ancient DNA. Chang’an was the capital city of many Chinese empires over thousands of years and the eastern terminus of the Silk Road, an important Eurasian trade network from the second century BC until the 15th century. The researchers hope that the DNA analysis can reveal more information about how people migrated and exchanged cultures in ancient China.

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Funding information for this paper can be found in the paper text. The authors declare no competing interests.

Current Biology, Du et al. “Ancient genome of the Chinese emperor Wu of Northern Zhou” https://cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(24)00240-9

4,000-year-old teeth illuminate the impact of changing human diets over the centurie

 

Researchers at Trinity College Dublin have recovered remarkably preserved microbiomes from two teeth dating back 4,000 years, found in an Irish limestone cave. Genetic analyses of these microbiomes reveal major changes in the oral microenvironment from the Bronze Age to today. The teeth both belonged to the same male individual and also provided a snapshot of his oral health.

The study, carried out in collaboration with archaeologists from the Atlantic Technological University and University of Edinburgh, was published today in leading journal Molecular Biology and Evolution. The authors identified several bacteria linked to gum disease and provided the first high-quality ancient genome of Streptococcus mutans, the major culprit behind tooth decay. 

While S. mutans is very common in modern mouths, it is exceptionally rare in the ancient genomic record. One reason for this may be the acid-producing nature of the species. This acid decays the tooth, but also destroys DNA and stops plaque from fossilising. While most ancient oral microbiomes are retrieved from fossilised plaque, this study targeted the tooth directly. 

Another reason for the scarcity of S. mutans in ancient mouths may be the lack of favorable habitats for this sugar-loving species. An uptick of dental cavities is seen in the archaeological record after the adoption of cereal agriculture thousands of years ago, but a far more dramatic increase has occurred only in the past few hundred years when sugary foods were introduced to the masses. 

The sampled teeth were part of a larger skeletal assemblage excavated from Killuragh Cave, County Limerick, by the late Peter Woodman of University College Cork. While other teeth in the cave showed advanced dental decay, no cavities were visible on the sampled teeth. However, one tooth produced an unprecedented amount of S. mutans DNA, a sign of an extreme imbalance in the oral microbial community.

“We were very surprised to see such a large abundance of S. mutans in this 4,000-year-old tooth,” said Dr Lara Cassidy, an assistant professor in Trinity’s School of Genetics and Microbiology, and senior author of the study. “It is a remarkably rare find and suggests this man was at a high risk of developing cavities right before his death.”

The researchers also found that other streptococcal species were virtually absent from the tooth. This indicates the natural balance of the oral biofilm had been upset – mutans had outcompeted the other streptococci leading to the pre-disease state.

The team also found evidence to support the "disappearing microbiome" hypothesis, which proposes modern microbiomes are less diverse than those of our ancestors. This is cause for concern, as biodiversity loss can impact human health. The two Bronze Age teeth produced highly divergent strains of Tannerella forsythia, a bacteria implicated in gum disease.

“These strains from a single ancient mouth were more genetically different from one another than any pair of modern strains in our dataset, despite the modern samples deriving from Europe, Japan and the USA,” explained Iseult Jackson, a PhD candidate at Trinity, and first author of the study. “This represents a major loss in diversity and one that we need to understand better.” 

Very few full genomes from oral bacteria have been recovered prior to the Medieval era. By characterising prehistoric diversity, the authors were able to reveal dramatic changes in the oral microenvironment that have happened since. 

Dr Cassidy added: “Over the last 750 years, a single lineage of T. forsythia has become dominant worldwide. This is the tell-tale sign of natural selection, where one strain rises rapidly in frequency due to some genetic advantage it holds over the others. T. forsythia strains from the industrial era onwards contain many new genes that help the bacteria colonise the mouth and cause disease.

“S. mutans has also undergone recent lineage expansions and changes in gene content related to pathogenicity. These coincide with humanity’s mass consumption of sugar, although we did find that modern S. mutans populations have remained more diverse, with deep splits in the S. mutans evolutionary tree pre-dating the Killuragh genome.” 

The scientists believe this is driven by differences in the evolutionary mechanisms that shape genome diversity in these species.

“S. mutans is very adept at swapping genetic material between strains,” said Dr Cassidy. “This means an advantageous innovation can be spread across S. mutans lineages like a new piece of tech. This ability to easily share innovations may explain why this species retains many diverse lineages without one becoming dominant and replacing all the others.”

In effect, both these disease-causing bacteria have changed dramatically from the Bronze Age to today, but it appears that very recent cultural transitions in the industrial era have had an inordinate impact.

The reason for the proximity between Paleolithic extensive stone quarries and water sources: Elephant hunting by early humans

 

 

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ILLUSTRATION OF ELEPHANT HUNTING USING SPEARS BY DANA ACKERFELD

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CREDIT: DANA ACKERFELD

Archaeologists from Tel Aviv University have uncovered the mystery surrounding extensive Paleolithic stone quarrying and tool-making sites: Why did Homo erectus repeatedly revisit the very same locations for hundreds of thousands of years? The answer lies in the migration routes of elephants, which they hunted and dismembered using flint tools crafted at these quarrying sites.

 

The research was led by Dr. Meir Finkel and Prof. Ran Barkai of Tel Aviv University’s Jacob M. Alkow Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures

The study was published in the journal Archaeologies.

 

Prof. Ran Barkai explains: “Ancient humans required three things: water, food and stone. While water and food are necessities for all creatures, humans relied on stone tools to hunt and butcher animals, as they lack the sharp claws or fangs of other predators. The question is, why do we find rock outcrops that were used for the production of flint tools, surrounded by thousands of stone tools, and next to them rock outcrops containing flint that was not used for the production of tools? A study of indigenous groups that lived until recently, with some still alive today, shows that hunter-gatherers attribute great importance to the source of the stone — the quarry itself — imbuing it with potency and sanctity, and hence also spiritual worship. People have been making pilgrimages to such sites for generations upon generations, leaving offerings at the rock outcrop, while adjacent outcrops, equally suitable for stone tool production, remain untouched. We sought to understand why; what is special about these sites?”

 

For nearly 20 years, Prof. Barkai and his colleagues have been researching flint quarrying and tool-making sites in the Upper Galilee. These sites are characterized by large nodules of flint convenient for crafting and are located within walking distance of the major Paleolithic sites of the Hula Valley — Gesher Benot Ya’akov and Ma’ayan Baruch. These sites boast thousands of quarrying and extraction localities where, until half a million years ago, in the Lower Paleolithic period, prehistoric humans fashioned tools and left offerings, despite the presence of flint in other geological formations in various places. Because elephants were the primary dietary component for these early humans, the Tel Aviv University researchers cross-referenced the database of the sites’ distribution with the database of the elephants’ migration routes, and discovered that the flint quarrying and knapping sites were situated in rock outcrops near the elephants’ migration paths.

“An elephant consumes 400 liters of water a day on average, and that’s why it has fixed movement paths,” says Dr. Finkel. “These are animals that rely on a daily supply of water, and therefore on water sources — the banks of lakes, rivers and streams. In many instances, we discover elephant hunting and processing sites at “necessary crossings” — where a stream or river passes through a steep mountain pass, or when a path along a lakeshore is limited to the space between the shore and a mountain range. At the same time, given the absence of available means of preservation and the presence of predatory animals in the area, the window of opportunity for a group of hunter-gatherers to exhaust their elephant prey was limited. Therefore, it was imperative to prepare suitable cutting tools in large quantities in advance and nearby. For this reason, we find quarrying and knapping sites in the Upper Galilee located a short distance from elephant butchering sites, which are positioned along the elephants’ movement paths.”

 

Subsequently, the researchers sought to apply an adapted model from the one they developed in Israel to several sites from the Lower Paleolithic period in Asia, Europe and Africa, where such a “triad” exists. These included both sites where the hunted animals were elephants or mammoths, as well as later sites where other animals, such as hippos, camels, and horses, were the prey.

 

“It appears that the Paleolithic holy trinity holds true universally: Wherever there was water, there were elephants, and wherever there were elephants, humans had to find suitable rock outcrops to quarry stone and make tools in order to hunt and butcher their favorite mega herbivores,” says Prof. Barkai. “It was a tradition: For hundreds of thousands of years the elephants wandered along the same route, while humans produced stone tools nearby. Ultimately, those elephants became extinct, and the world changed forever.”

 

Link to the article:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11759-024-09491-y

 

20,000 years of shared history on the Persian plateau

 

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PERSIAN PLATEAU, THE MOST LIKELY PLACE WHERE THE ANCESTORS OF ALL PRESENT DAY NON AFRICANS LIVED FOR THE 20.000 YEARS THAT FOLLOWED THEIR MIGRATION OUT OF AFRICA. A PERIOD DURING WHICH THEY ALSO MIXED THEIR GENES WITH THE ONES OF THE NEANDERTHALS.

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CREDIT: CREDITS: THE AUTHORS OF THE ORIGINAL PUBLICATION

All present day non African human populations are the result of subdivisions that took place after their ancestors left Africa at least 60.000 years ago. How long did it take for these separations to take place? Almost 20.000 years, during which they were all part of a single population. Where did they live for all this time? We don’t know, yet.

This is a conversation that could have taken place one year ago, now it is possible to give clearer answers to these questions thanks to the study recently published in Nature Communications (1) led by the researchers from the University of Padova, in collaboration with the University of Bologna (Department of Cultural Heritage), the Griffith University of Brisbane, the Max Planck Institute of Jena and the University of Turin.

The ancestors of all present day Eurasians, Americans and Oceanians, moved Out of Africa between 70 and 60 thousand years ago. After reaching Eurasia these early settlers idled for some millennia as a homogeneous population, in a presumably localized area, before expanding their range across the whole continent and beyond. This event set the basis for the genetic divergence between present day Europeans and East Asians, and can be dated to around 45 thousand years ago. On the one hand, the dynamics that led to the broader colonization of Eurasia have been already reconstructed by some of the authors in a previous publication in 2022 (2), and occurred through a series of chronologically, genetically and culturally distinct expansions. On the other hand, the geographic area where the ancestors of all non Africans lived  after the Out of Africa and that acted as a “Hub” for  the subsequent movements of Homo sapiens has been the matter of a long standing debate, with most of West Asia, North Africa, South Asia or even South East Asia having been listed as potentially suitable locations.

In their latest work, the authors deployed a novel genetic approach and identified ancient and modern populations from the Persian Plateau as the ones carrying genetic traces that most closely resemble the features of the Hub population, pinpointing the area as the likely homeland of all early Eurasians. “The most difficult part” says Leonardo Vallini, first author of the study, “has been to disentangle the various confounding factors constituted by 45 thousand years of population movements and admixtures that took place after the Hub was settled”.

The multidisciplinary study also investigated the paleoecological characteristics of the area at the time, and confirmed it as suitable for human occupation, potentially capable of sustaining a larger population than other parts of West Asia. “Identifying the Persian Plateau as a Hub for early human migration opens new doors for archaeological and palaeoanthropological research” added co-author Professor Michael Petraglia of Griffith University in Brisbane.

In fact, the Persian plateau will be the focus of the ERC Synergy Project 'LAST NEANDERTHALS', recently awarded to co-author Stefano Benazzi, professor at the University of Bologna (Department of Cultural Heritage). "In line with the results of the study," says Benazzi, "this ERC project aims to explore and unravel the intricate biocultural events that occurred between 60,000 and 40,000 years ago, focusing also on the Persian Plateau".

“With our work we found a home to 20,000 years of shared history between Europeans, East Asians, Native Americans and Oceanians. This leg of the human journey out of Africa is fascinating, since it is the one where we also met and mixed our genes with the ones of Neanderthals” concluded Professor Luca Pagani, senior author of the study.

References

1. Leonardo Vallini, Carlo Zampieri, Mohamed Javad Shoaee, Eugenio Bortolini, Giulia Marciani, Serena Aneli, Telmo Pievani, Stefano Benazzi, Alberto Barausse, Massimo Mezzavilla, Michael D. Petraglia, Luca Pagani, The Persian Plateau served as Hub for Homo sapiens after the main Out of Africa dispersal, Nature Communications [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-46161-7]
2. Leonardo Vallini, Giulia Marciani, Serena Aneli, Eugenio Bortolini, Stefano Benazzi, Telmo Pievani, Luca Pagani. Genetics and Material Culture Support Repeated Expansions into Paleolithic Eurasia from a Population Hub Out of Africa, Genome Biology and Evolution, Volume 14, Issue 4, April 2022, evac045, https://doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evac045

 

Link to the study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-46161-7

Tudor era horse cemetery in Westminster revealed as likely resting place for elite imported animals

 

Archaeological analysis of a near unique animal cemetery discovered in London nearly 30 years ago has revealed the international scale of horse trading by the elites of late medieval and Tudor England.

Using advanced archaeological science techniques, including studying chemical composition, researchers have been able to identify the likely origins of several physically elite horses and the routes they took to reach British shores during the formative years of their life.

These animals – akin to modern supercars – were sourced from a variety of locations across Europe specifically for their height and strength and imported for use in jousting tournaments and as status symbols of 14th- to 16th-century life. They include three of the tallest animals known from late medieval England, standing up to 1.6 metres or 15.3 hands high, which while quite small by modern standards would have been very impressive for their day.

The skeletons of the horses were recovered from a site under the modern-day Elverton Street in the City of Westminster, which was excavated in advance of building works in the 1990s. In medieval times, the cemetery would have been located outside the walled City of London but was close to the royal palace complex at Westminster.

The research, led by the University of Exeter, and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, is published in the latest edition of Science Advances.

“The chemical signatures we measured in the horse’s teeth are highly distinctive and very different to anything we would expect to see in a horse that grew up in the UK,” said Dr Alex Pryor, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology and lead researcher. “These results provide direct and unprecedented evidence for a variety of horse movement and trading practices in the Middle Ages. Representatives for the King and other medieval London elites were scouring horse trading markets across Europe seeking out the best quality horses they could find and bringing them to London. It’s quite possible that the horses were ridden in the jousting contests we know were held in Westminster, close to where the horses were buried.”

In the first experiment of its kind to be conducted on medieval horse remains, the researchers took 22 molar teeth from 15 individual animals and drilled out portions of the enamel for isotope analysis. By measuring isotope ratios of the elements strontium, oxygen and carbon present within the teeth and comparing the results with known ranges in different geographies, the team was able to identify the potential origin of each horse – and accurately rule out others, including prime European horse-breeding centres such as Spain and southern Italy. 

Dr Pryor said that at least half of the horses had diverse international origins, possibly Scandinavia, the Alps and other northern and eastern European locations. The results, the researchers conclude, were consistent with the breeding patterns of royal stud farms, where horses would reside until their second or third year, before they would either be broken and trained or sent elsewhere to be sold.

Physical analysis of the teeth revealed wear suggestive of heavy use of a curb bit, often employed with elite animals, especially those groomed for war and tournaments after the 14th century. Bit wear on two of the mares also suggested they were used under saddle or in harness and for breeding. And analysis of the skeletons revealed many of them to be well above average size, with several instances of fused lower thoracic and lumbar vertebrae indicative of a life of riding and hard work.

“The finest medieval horses were like modern supercars – inordinately expensive and finely tuned vehicles that proclaimed their owner’s status,” added Professor Oliver Creighton, a medieval specialist at the University of Exeter and part of the research team. “And at Elverton Street, our research team seem to have found evidence for horses used in jousting – the sport of kings, in which riders showcased their fighting skills and horsemanship on elite mounts.

“The new findings provide a tangible archaeological signature of this trade, emphasising its international scale. It is apparent that the medieval London elite were explicitly targeting the highest quality horses they could find at a European scale.”

The paper, Isotopic biographies reveal horse rearing and trading networks in medieval London, can be accessed via Science Advances.

Supereruption but may have facilitated the dispersal of modern humans out of Africa and across the rest of the world.

 

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EXCAVATIONS AT A MIDDLE STONE AGE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE, SHINFA-METEMA 1, IN THE LOWLANDS OF NORTHWEST ETHIOPIA REVEALED A POPULATION OF HUMANS AT 74,000 YEARS AGO THAT SURVIVED THE ERUPTION OF THE TOBA SUPERVOLCANO. 

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Modern humans dispersed from Africa multiple times, but the event that led to global expansion occurred less than 100,000 years ago. Some researchers hypothesize that dispersals were restricted to “green corridors” formed during humid intervals when food was abundant and human populations expanded in lockstep with their environments. But a new study in Nature, including ASU researchers Curtis Marean, Christopher Campisano, and Jayde Hirniak, suggests that humans also may have dispersed during arid intervals along “blue highways” created by seasonal rivers. Researchers also found evidence of cooking and stone tools that represent the oldest evidence of archery.

Working in the Horn of Africa, researchers have uncovered evidence showing how early modern humans survived in the wake of the eruption of Toba, one of the largest supervolcanoes in history, some 74,000 years ago. The behavioral flexibility of these people not only helped them live through the supereruption but may have facilitated the later dispersal of modern humans out of Africa and across the rest of the world.

“This study confirms the results from Pinnacle Point in South Africa – the eruption of Toba may have changed the environment in Africa, but people adapted and survived that eruption-caused environmental change,” said Marean, research scientist with the Institute of Human Origins and Foundation Professor with the School of Human Evolution and Social Change.

The team investigated the Shinfa-Metema 1 site in the lowlands of present-day northwestern Ethiopia along the Shinfa River, a tributary of the Blue Nile River.

The supereruption occurred during the middle of the time when the site was occupied and is documented by tiny glass shards whose chemistry matches that of Toba.

Pinpoint timing through cryptotephra

“One of the ground-breaking implications of this study,” said Marean, “is that with the new cryptotephra methods developed for our prior study in South Africa, and now applied here to Ethiopia, we can correlate sites across Africa, and perhaps the world, at a resolution of several weeks of time.” 

Cryptotephra are signature volcanic glass shards that can range from 80–20 microns in size, which is smaller than the diameter of a human hair. To extract these microscopic shards from archaeological sediment requires patience and great attention to detail. 

“Searching for cryptotephra at these archaeological sites is like looking for a needle in a haystack, but not knowing if there is even a needle. However, having the ability to correlate sites 5,000 miles apart, and potentially further, to within weeks instead of thousands of years makes it all worth it,” said Christopher Campisano, research scientist with the Institute of Human Origins and professor with the School of Human Evolution and Social Change.

“This study, once again,” said Campisano, “highlights the importance of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas/Arizona State University team pushing the limits for successfully analyzing extremely low abundance cryptotephra to date and correlate archaeological sites across Africa.” 

The methods for identifying low abundance cryptotephra at Pinnacle Point were first developed at University of Nevada Las Vegas led by the late Gene Smith and Racheal Johnsen and now carried on at Arizona State University’s Sediment and TEphra Preparation (STEP) Lab.

School of Human Evolution and Social Change graduate student Jayde Hirniak led ASU’s effort to create its own cryptotephra lab—the STEP Lab—working with Campisano and building on methods developed at UNLV. Hirniak also collaborated with cryptotephra labs in the United Kingdom that work with sediment samples preserving hundreds or thousands of glass shards. Now Hirniak’s primary expertise is in tephrochronology, which involves the use of volcanic ash to link archaeological and paleoenvironmental records and place them on the same timeline, which was her contribution to this research.

“Our lab at ASU was built to process extremely low abundance cryptotephra horizons (<10 shards per gram) using a highly specialized technique. There are only a few labs in the world with these capabilities,” said Hirniak.

Migrations along “blue highways”

Based on isotope geochemistry of the teeth of fossil mammals and ostrich eggshells, they concluded that the site was occupied by humans during a time with long dry seasons on a par with some of the most seasonally arid habitats in East Africa today. Additional findings suggest that when river flows stopped during dry periods, people adapted by hunting animals that came to the remaining waterholes to drink. As waterholes continued to shrink, it became easier to capture fish without any special equipment, and diets shifted more heavily to fish.

Its climatic effects appear to have produced a longer dry season, causing people in the area to rely even more on fish. The shrinking of the waterholes may also have pushed humans to migrate outward in search of more food.

“As people depleted food in and around a given dry season waterhole, they were likely forced to move to new waterholes,” said John Kappelman, a UT anthropology and earth and planetary sciences professor and lead author of the study. “Seasonal rivers thus functioned as ‘pumps’ that siphoned populations out along the channels from one waterhole to another, potentially driving the most recent out-of-Africa dispersal.

The humans who lived at Shinfa-Metema 1 are unlikely to have been members of the group that left Africa. However, the behavioral flexibility that helped them adapt to challenging climatic conditions such as the Toba supereruption was probably a key trait of Middle Stone Age humans that allowed our species to ultimately disperse from Africa and expand across the globe.

The people living in the Shinfa-Metema 1 site hunted a variety of terrestrial animals, from antelope to monkey, as attested to by cut marks on the bones, and apparently cooked their meals as shown by evidence of controlled fire at the site. The most distinctive stone tools are small, symmetrical triangular points. Analyses show that the points are most likely arrowheads that, at 74,000 years in age, represent the oldest evidence of archery. 

Early settlers of Easter Island (

 Early settlers of Easter Island (Rapa Nui) cultivated both traditional Polynesian and South American crops, including breadfruit, yam, and sweet potato, according to starch analysis of their tools

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Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0298896

The first Neolithic boats in the Mediterranean

 

Canoes from Italy reveal early development of advanced nautical technology

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

 

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EXCAVATION OF CANOE 5.

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CREDIT: GIBAJA ET AL., 2024, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (HTTPS://CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG/LICENSES/BY/4.0/)

More than 7,000 years ago, people navigated the Mediterranean Sea using technologically sophisticated boats, according to a study published March 20, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Juan F. Gibaja of the Spanish National Research Council, Barcelona and colleagues.

Many of the most important civilizations in Europe originated on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. During the Neolithic, communities clearly traveled and traded across the water, as evidenced by watercraft in the archeological record and the presence of settlements on coasts and islands. In this study, Gibaja and colleagues provide new insights into the history of seafaring technology through analysis of canoes at the Neolithic lakeshore village of La Marmotta, near Rome, Italy.

Excavation at this site has recovered five canoes built from hollowed-out trees (dugout canoes) dating between 5700-5100BC. Analysis of these boats reveals that they are built from four different types of wood, unusual among similar sites, and that they include advanced construction techniques such as transverse reinforcements. One canoe is also associated with three T-shaped wooden objects, each with a series of holes that were likely used to fasten ropes tied to sails or other nautical elements. These features, along with previous reconstruction experiments, indicate these were seaworthy vessels, a conclusion supported by the presence at the site of stone tools linked to nearby islands.

The authors describe these canoes as exceptional examples of prehistoric boats whose construction required a detailed understanding of structural design and wood properties in addition to well-organized specialized labor. Similarities between these canoes and more recent nautical technologies support the idea that many major advances in sailing were made during the early Neolithic. The authors suggest there may be more boats preserved near La Marmotta, a potential avenue for future research.

The authors add: “Direct dating of Neolithic canoes from La Marmotta reveals them to be the oldest in the Mediterranean, offering invaluable insights into Neolithic navigation. This study reveals the amazing technological sophistication of early agricultural and pastoral communities, highlighting their woodworking skills and the construction of complex vessels.”

The freely available article in PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0299765

Prehistoric stilt-house dwellers in England’s ancient marshland

A major report on the remains of a stilt village that was engulfed in flames almost 3,000 years ago reveals in unprecedented detail the daily lives of England’s prehistoric fenlanders.  

Must Farm, a late Bronze Age settlement, dates to around 850BC, with University of Cambridge archaeologists unearthing four large wooden roundhouses and a square entranceway structure – all of which had been constructed on stilts above a slow-moving river.

The entire hamlet stood approximately two metres above the riverbed, with walkways bridging some of the main houses, and was surrounded by a two-metre-high fence of sharpened posts.  

The settlement was less than a year old when it was destroyed by a catastrophic fire, with buildings and their contents collapsing into the muddy river below. The combination of charring and waterlogging led to exceptional preservation. The site has been described as “Britain’s Pompeii”. 

Years of research conducted on thousands of artefacts from the site have now shown that early Fen folk had surprisingly comfortable lifestyles, with domestic layouts similar to modern homes, meals of “honey-glazed venison” and clothes of fine flax linen, and even a recycling bin.  

The settlement-on-stilts also contained a stack of spears with shafts over three metres long, as well as a necklace with beads from as far away as Denmark and Iran, and a human skull rendered smooth by touch, perhaps a memento of a lost loved one. 

The Cambridge archaeologists say the site provides a unique “blueprint” for the circular architecture, home interiors and overall domesticity of those who inhabited the swampy fenland of East Anglia some eight centuries before Romans set foot on British shores.

Full findings from the Must Farm site – excavated by the Cambridge Archaeological Unit (CAU) in 2015-16 after its discovery on the edge of Whittlesey near Peterborough – are published in two reports, both made available by Cambridge’s McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.

“These people were confident and accomplished home-builders. They had a design that worked beautifully for an increasingly drowned landscape,” said CAU’s Mark Knight, report co-author and excavation director.

“While excavating the site there was a sense that its Bronze Age residents had only just left. You could almost see and smell their world, from the glint of metal tools hanging on wattled walls to the sharp milkiness of brewed porridge.”

‘Mirror’ of ancient home interiors

The ruins of five structures were uncovered, along with walkways and fencing, but the original settlement was likely twice as big – half the site was removed by 20th century quarrying – with researchers saying it may have held up to sixty occupants in family units.

The river running underneath the community would have been shallow, sluggish and thick with vegetation. This cushioned the scorched remains where they fell, creating an archaeological “mirror” of what had stood above – allowing researchers to map the layout of the structures.

One of the main roundhouses, with almost fifty square metres of floor space, appeared to have distinct activity zones comparable to rooms in a modern home.

“Conducting research on Must Farm is a bit like getting an estate agent’s tour of a Bronze Age stilt house,” said David Gibson, report co-author and Archaeological Manager at CAU.  

Ceramic and wooden containers, including tiny cups, bowls, and large storage jars, were found in the northeast quadrant of “Structure One”, the location of a kitchen. Some pots were even nested: designed to stack inside one another to save space.

Metal tools were stored along the building’s eastern side, while the empty northwest area was probably reserved for sleeping. The southeast space had lots of cloth fragments, along with bobbins and loom weights. This was close to a likely entrance, where extra light would have helped with textile work.

The roundhouse’s southwest quadrant was reserved for keeping lambs indoors. There was no evidence of humans dying in the fire, but several young sheep had been trapped and burnt alive.

Skeletal remains showed the lambs were three to six months old, suggesting the settlement was destroyed sometime in late summer or early autumn. Evidence that the wooden architecture was still “green” confirms construction took place around nine months to a year earlier.

Tool kits, textiles and a token of good luck   

Household inventories were remarkably consistent. All the roundhouses contained a metalwork “tool kit” that included sickles (crop-harvesting blades) along with axes and curved “gouges” used to hack and chisel wood, as well as hand-held razors for cutting hair.

Most buildings had objects for making textiles, from spindle whorls to thread bobbins, although the distribution suggests that “spinning” – the process of twisting fibres together – was conducted in three of the roundhouses, but Structure One was where this yarn got converted to fabrics.

The textiles are the finest of this period found in Europe, with details such as “pile tufts” that would have given garments a soft, almost velvety feel, and “tubular selvedge” for neat seams and hems. 

Each roundhouse roof had three layers: insulating straw topped by turf and completed with clay – making them warm and waterproof but still well ventilated. “In a freezing winter, with winds cutting across the Fens, these roundhouses would have been pretty cosy,” said CAU project archaeologist Dr Chris Wakefield.

Structure Four, a smaller square building, may also have acted as the settlement’s entrance. A large wooden bucket had been kept within, containing several damaged bronze objects and worn axe-heads, waiting to be smelted down and recycled into new tools.

Encircling the footprint of each roundhouse were “middens”, haloes of rubbish dumped from the stilt village above, included broken pots, butchered animal bone, and “coprolites” or fossilised faeces. Some human coprolites had parasite eggs, suggesting inhabitants struggled with intestinal worms.

One item, however, had been placed in the silt directly beneath Structure One: an intact hafted axe, perhaps a token of good fortune, or an offering to some kind of spirit on completion of the build.  

‘Meaty porridge’  

Despite millennia in the mud, many artefacts still bore traces of daily life – along with its sudden interruption as inhabitants abandoned their possessions to escape the blaze. 

For example, a pottery bowl with the finger-marks of its maker captured in the clay was found still holding its final meal: a wheat-grain porridge mixed with animal fats (possibly goat or red deer). The wooden spatula used for stirring was resting against the inside of the bowl.

“It appears the occupants saved their meat juices to use as toppings for porridge,” said Dr Chris Wakefield. “The site is providing us with hints of recipes for Bronze Age breakfasts and roast dinners.”   

“Chemical analyses of the bowls and jars showed traces of honey along with ruminant meats such as deer, suggesting these ingredients were combined to create a form of prehistoric honey-glazed venison.”

The stilt-house dwellers even had favourite cuts of meat, often only bringing the forelegs of a boar back for roasting, for example. Preferred aquatic dishes included pike and bream.

Several small dog skulls suggest the animals were kept domestically, perhaps as pets but also to help flush out prey on a hunt. Dog coprolites show they fed on scraps from their owners’ meals. 

Must Farm’s residents used the local woodlands – evidence suggests within a two-mile radius – to hunt boar and deer, graze sheep, and harvest crops such as wheat and flax as well as wood for construction. Waterways were vital for transporting all these materials.

The remains of nine log-boats, canoes hollowed from old tree trunks, were found upstream, dating from across the Bronze and into the Iron Age, included some that were contemporary to Must Farm. 

“Boat journeys through reed swamps to the woodlands would have been made many times during the site’s short life,” said Wakefield. “In summer, that meant traversing clouds of mosquitos.”

Much of what was retrieved from Must Farm were everyday items, the Bronze Age equivalent to the TV remotes and coffee mugs of our own lives. However, some items would have been precious.

A necklace of beads made from glass, amber, siltstone and shale had been lost in the fire. In fact, decorative beads were found right across the site. All but one of Must Farm’s 49 glass beads came from far-flung places, including Northern and Eastern Europe, and even the Middle East.

“Such items would gradually make their way across thousands of miles in a long series of small trades,” said Wakefield.   

Up in flames…

The researchers say that, while the Bronze Age could be violent, and aspects of the site’s structure are clearly defensive, its location may be as much to do with resources. Spears found on site, up to 3.4 metres in length, as well as swords, were as likely to be used in animal hunts as on rival groups.

A few human remains were recovered, including the skull of an adult woman polished by repeated touch – a sign this may have been a keepsake of love rather than war.

“The cause of the fire that tore through the settlement will probably never be known,” said CAU’s David Gibson. “Some argue it may have come under attack, as the occupants never returned for their goods, which would have been fairly easy to retrieve from the shallow waters”.

However, others think it more likely to have been an accident. If an internal fire took hold in one of the roundhouses, it would spread between the tightknit structures within minutes.

Added Gibson: “A settlement like this would have had a shelf-life of maybe a generation, and the people who built it had clearly constructed similar sites before. It may be that after the fire, they simply started again.”

“There is every possibility that the remains of many more of these stilted settlements are buried across Fenland, waiting for us to find them.”