5200-year-old grains in the eastern Altai Mountains redate trans-Eurasian crop exchange

Agricultural crops dispersed across Eurasia more than five millennia ago, causing significant cultural change in human populations across the ancient world. New discoveries in the Altai Mountains illustrate that this process occurred earlier than believed

MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN HISTORY

IMAGE: DR. XINYING ZHOU AND HIS TEAM FROM THE IVPP IN BEIJING EXCAVATED THE TANGTIAN CAVE SITE DURING THE SUMMER OF 2016. view more 

CREDIT: XINYING ZHOU

Most people are familiar with the historical Silk Road, but fewer people realize that the exchange of items, ideas, technology, and human genes through the mountain valleys of Central Asia started almost three millennia before organized trade networks formed. These pre-Silk Road exchange routes played an important role in shaping human cultural developments across Europe and Asia, and facilitated the dispersal of technologies such as horse breeding and metal smelting into East Asia. One of the most impactful effects of this process of ancient cultural dispersal was the westward spread of northeast Asian crops and the eastward spread of southwest Asian crops. However, until the past few years, a lack of archaeobotanical studies in Central Asia left a dearth of data relating to when and how this process occurred.

This new study, led by scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, provides details of recently recovered ancient grains from the far northern regions of Inner Asia. Radiocarbon dating shows that the grains include the oldest examples of wheat and barley ever recovered this far north in Asia, pushing back the dates for early farming in the region by at least a millenium. These are also the earliest domesticated plants reported from the northern half of Central Asia, the core of the ancient exchange corridor. This study pulls together sedimentary pollen and ancient wood charcoal data with archaeobotanical remains from the Tiangtian archaeological site in the Chinese Altai Mountains to reveal how humans cultivated crops at such northern latitudes. This study illustrates how adaptable ancient crop plants were to new ecological constraints and how human cultural practices allowed people to survive in unpredictable environments.

The Northern Dispersal of Cereal Grains

The ancient relatives of wheat and barley plants evolved to grow in the warm and dry climate of the eastern Mediterranean and southwest Asia. However, this study illustrates that ancient peoples were cultivating these grasses over five and a half thousand kilometers to the northeast of where they originally evolved to grow. In this study, Dr. Xinying Zhou and his colleagues integrate paleoenvironmental proxies to determine how extreme the ecology was around the archaeological cave site of Tangtian more than five millennia ago, at the time of its occupation. The site is located high in the Altai Mountains on a cold,dry landscape today; however, the study shows that the ecological setting around the site was slightly warmer and more humid at the time when people lived in and around this cave.

The slightly warmer regional conditions were likely the result of shifting air masses bringing warmer, wetter air from the south. In addition to early farmers using a specific regional climate pocket to grow crops in North Asia, analysis showed that the crops they grew evolved to survive in such northern regions. The results of this study provide scholars with evidence for when certain evolutionary changes in these grasses occurred, including changes in the programed reliance of day length, which signals to the plant when to flower, and a greater resistance to cold climates.

The Trans-Eurasian Exchange and Crop Dispersal

The ancient dispersal of crops across Inner Asia has received a lot of attention from biologists and archaeologists in recent years; as Dr. Spengler, one of the study's lead authors, discusses in his recent book Fruit from the Sands, these ancient exchange routes shaped the course of human history. The mingling of crops originating from opposite ends of Asia resulted in the crop-rotation cycles that fueled demographic growth and led to imperial formation. East Asian millets would become one of the most important crops in ancient Europe and wheat would become one of the most important crops in East Asia by the Han Dynasty. While the long tradition of rice cultivation in East Asia made rice a staple of the Asian kitchen, Chinese cuisine would be unrecognizable without wheat-based food items like steamed buns, dumplings, and noodles. The discovery that these plants dispersed across Eurasia earlier than previously understood will have lasting impacts on the study of cultivation and labor practices in ancient Eurasia, as well as the history cultural contact and shifts in culinary systems throughout time.

These new discoveries provide reason to question these views, and seem to suggest that mixed small-scale human populations made major contributions to world history through migration and cultural and technological exchange. "This study not only presents the earliest dates for domesticated grains in far North Asia," says Professor Xiaoqiang Li, director of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, "it represents the earliest beginning of a trans-Eurasian exchange that would eventually develop into the great Silk Road".

Dr. Xinying Zhou, who headed the study and directs a research team at the IVPP in Beijing, emphasizes that "this discovery is a testament to human ingenuity and the amazing coevolutionary bond between people and the plants that they maintain in their cultivated fields."

Monumental ninth-century b.c.e Omride ‘Royal Estate’ Found in Northern Israel

Archaeologists have discovered a monumental pillared building at Horvat Tevet, an ancient site in the Jezreel Valley just outside the city of Afula. They believe the complex served as an estate for Israelite officials to collect and redistribute agricultural products in the surrounding region.

The ruins at Horvat Tevet were uncovered as part of an ongoing salvage excavation. Due to the planned construction of a new route for Israel’s Highway 65, archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority and Tel Aviv University have been hurriedly excavating the site for the past two years. According to them, the most prominent remains at the complex date to the ninth-century b.c.e. reigns of Israelite kings Omri and Ahab.

Dr. Omer Sergi, a Tel Aviv University archaeologist who codirects the research of the site, told Haaretz that the pillared “royal estate” at Horvat Tevet is “the best preserved building of the house of Omri ever found in Israel.”

The industrial complex at Horvat Tevet is dominated by the large pillared building. Measuring about 20 meters long and 30 meters wide, the structure was partitioned into three sections: two entrance rooms at the sides and a central hall with two rows of monolithic stone pillars—some of which still stand two meters tall, but would have likely been much higher.

The building’s foundation was constructed from well-chiseled limestone blocks. Because the local stone is basalt, the limestone blocks must have been brought from afar. Sergi also noted that the floors of the building were elegantly paved, which is unusual for the time period (when most interior surfaces were left bare). The sheer size and grandeur of the building seem to indicate that it was used as a royal administrative center, and also show the power and prosperity of Omri’s rule.

Though the name Horvat Tevet (“ruins of Tevet”) does not appear in the Bible, Sergi noted that the area was part of the tribe of Issachar’s allotment (Joshua 19:17-23). Scholars have tried to match the site with either Jezreel or Shunem.

Archaeologists discovered the remains of an earlier pillared structure below the existing Omride building, which may have been used for similar administrative and agricultural purposes. Sergi dated the earlier structure to the beginning of the ninth century b.c.e., to the prosperous reign of King Baasha (third ruler of the northern kingdom of Israel). This building’s use as an agricultural distribution center may indicate some of the prosperity Baasha’s kingdom experienced.

House of Omri

The biblical account continues that, because Baasha “walked in the way of Jeroboam” and “made my people Israel to sin,” God said He would “take away the posterity of Baasha” (1 Kings 16:2-3; King James Version). Baasha’s son, Elah, was killed in a military coup led by Zimri.

After Zimri’s coup, Israel turned to Omri, captain of the army, and made him the new king of Israel. The earlier structure was destroyed just after 900 b.c.e., along with Baasha’s capital Tirzah, likely in the same violent power struggle (verse 17). Omri emerged from the conflict as the sole leader of the northern tribes of Israel. Artifacts such as the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser, the Mesha Stele and the Kurkh Monolith reference King Omri by name.

Omri began ruling from Tirzah, but six years into his reign he purchased the hill of Samaria and built a new capital, establishing a new dynasty (verse 24). Omri’s son, Ahab, continued his monumental building projects and built a house of Baal in Samaria.

The monumental structure at Horvat Tevet matches the large-scale building projects conducted by kings Omri and Ahab.

In one of the entrance rooms, archaeologists found an Israelite-style four-horned stone altar (Exodus 27:2), likely used for sacrifices. Sergi said that the altar does not mean the building was a temple, because at the time it was common for religious activity to take place in administrative centers. This hearkens back to King Jeroboam making “priests from among all the people, that were not of the sons of Levi” (1 Kings 12:31), a practice which continued throughout the northern kingdom’s history.

A large, ancient agricultural industrial zone surrounded the pillared Omride building. Archaeologists found pottery kilns, grinding stones used to mill grain into flour, and several textile workshops. Large Omride-style storage jars found in the complex, used by the royal administration for the distribution of goods, have also linked to other Israelite cities such as Jezreel, Megiddo and Rehov. While only a few dozen such jars have been found in urban centers, hundreds have been found in smaller rural areas. “This suggests that Tevet may have been the point of origin for these jars, or rather, for whatever goods they contained,” Sergi posited. “It was a probably the location where the royal administration collected, stored and redistributed agricultural produce from the entire region.”

The construction and eventual destruction of the Horvat Tevet complex matches the same period of Omride construction and destruction found at Jezreel, Megiddo and Samaria. According to the archaeologists, the pillared royal estate was largely evacuated and its entrances were walled off during a later invasion, most likely by the Arameans in circa 840 b.c.e. The invaders set the pillared structure on fire, which would have caused the roof to collapse on the building, leaving the structure below mostly intact. This may have been part of the Aramean conflict described in 2 Kings 9 and on the Tel Dan Stele.

Oral traditions and volcanic eruptions in Australia

IMAGE: LAKE SURPRISE, BUDJ BIM VOLCANIC COMPLEX, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA. view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO VIA CREATIVE COMMONS.

In Australia, the onset of human occupation (about 65,000 years?) and dispersion across the continent are the subjects of intense debate and are critical to understanding global human migration routes. A lack of ceramic artifacts and permanent structures has resulted in a scarcity of dateable archaeological sites older than about 10,000 years.

Existing age constraints are derived largely from radiocarbon dating of charcoal and/or optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of quartz grains in rock shelter sediments, and there is a need for independent age constraints to test more controversial ages. In southeastern Australia, only six sites (located in Tasmania, New South Wales, and South Australia) older than 30,000 years are considered definitively dated by 14C and/or OSL methods, with ages spanning 37,000-50,000 years.

The strong oral traditions of Australian Aboriginal peoples have enabled perpetuation of ecological knowledge across many generations and can likely provide additional archeological insights. Some surviving traditions allude to different geological events, such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and meteorite impacts. It has been proposed that some of these traditions may have been transmitted for thousands of years.

The Newer Volcanic Province of southeastern Australia contains over 400 basaltic eruption centers, a number of which are thought to have erupted within the last 100,000 years, although precise ages remain elusive for most. Technological improvements over the last decade have firmly established applicability of the 40Ar/39Ar dating technique (which relies on the natural radioactive decay of 40K in minerals) to archeological timescales, enabling many of these younger volcanoes to be dated by this method.

Rare reported occurrences of archaeological evidence beneath volcanic ash deposits and lava flows, and the longevity of Aboriginal oral histories, presents an opportunity for novel investigation into the timing of human occupation of this region. In particular, oral traditions surrounding the Budj Bim Volcanic Complex (previously Mount Eccles) in western Victoria have been interpreted to reference volcanic activity.

This new study published in Geology presents a new 40Ar/39Ar eruption age of 36,900 ± 3,100 thousand years for the Budj Bim Volcanic Complex and an age of 36,800 ± 3,800 thousand years for the nearby Tower Hill Volcanic Complex; the latter is of archaeological significance due to the historical discovery of a stone axe from a sequence of volcanic ash deposits.

These ages fall within the range of 14C and OSL ages reported for the six earliest known occupation sites in southeastern Australia. The age of Tower Hill directly represents the minimum age for human presence in Victoria. If oral traditions surrounding Budj Bim do indeed reference volcanic activity, this could mean that these are some of the longest-lived oral traditions in the world.

Wasp nests used to date ancient Kimberley rock art

12,000-year-old Aboriginal rock art from the Kimberley region, Western Australia,

University of Melbourne

IMAGE: Wasp nests help prove Aboriginal rock art is twice as old as the Giza Pyramids. view more 

Credit: Damien Finch

Mud wasp nests have helped establish a date for one of the ancient styles of Aboriginal rock art in the Kimberley.
University of Melbourne and ANSTO scientists put the Gwion Gwion art period around 12,000 years old.
"This is the first time we have been able to confidently say Gwion style paintings were created around 12,000 years ago," said PhD student Damien Finch, from the School of Earth Sciences at the University of Melbourne. "No one has been able present the scientific evidence to say that before."
One wasp nest date suggested one Gwion painting was older than 16,000 years, but the pattern of the other 23 dates is consistent with the Gwion Gwion period being 12,000 years old.
The rock paintings, more than twice as old as the Giza Pyramids, depict graceful human figures with a wide range of decorations including headdresses, arm bands, and anklets. Some of the paintings are as small as 15cm, others are more than two metres high.
The details of the breakthrough are detailed in the paper 12,000-year-old Aboriginal rock art from the Kimberley region, Western Australia, now published in Science Advances.
More than 100 mud wasp nests collected from Kimberley sites, with the permission of the Traditional Owners, were crucial in identifying the age of the unique rock art.
"A painting beneath a wasp nest must be older than the nest, and a painting on top of a nest must be younger than the nest," Mr Finch said. "If you date enough of the nests, you build up a pattern and can narrow down an age range for paintings in a particular style."
Lack of organic matter in the pigment used to create the art had previously ruled out radiocarbon dating. But the University of Melbourne and ANSTO scientists were able to use dates on 24 mud wasp nests under and over the art to determine both maximum and minimum age constraints for paintings in the Gwion style.
The project was initiated by Professor Andy Gleadow and Professor Janet Hergt, from the School of Earth Sciences, and started in 2014 with funding from the Australian Research Council and the Kimberley Foundation. It is the first time in 20 years scientists have been able to date a range of these ancient artworks.
"The Kimberley contains some of the world's most visually spectacular and geographically extensive records of Indigenous rock art, estimated to include tens of thousands of sites, only a small fraction of which have been studied intensively," said Professor Gleadow.
Professor Hergt said being able to estimate the age of Gwion art is important as it can now be placed into the context of what was happening in the environment and what we know from excavations about other human activities at the same time.
Dr Vladimir Levchenko, an ANSTO expert in radiocarbon dating and co-author, said rock art is always problematic for dating because the pigment used usually does not contain carbon, the surfaces are exposed to intense weathering and nothing is known about the techniques used thousands of years ago.
"Beeswax or resin have also been used - usually on more modern samples," Dr Levchenko said.
"Although soil is full of carbon, most of it is easily degradable. However, charcoal is more likely to survive for longer periods. There is lots of black carbon in Australian soil because of bushfires."

Easter Island society did not collapse prior to European

Easter Island society did not collapse prior to European contact and its people continued to build its iconic moai statues for much longer than previously believed, according to a team of researchers including faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York.
The island of Rapa Nui is well-known for its elaborate ritual architecture, particularly its numerous statues (moai) and the monumental platforms that supported them (ahu). A widely-held narrative posits that construction of these monuments ceased sometime around 1600, following a major societal collapse.
"Our research flies in the face of this narrative," said Carl Lipo, an anthropologist at Binghamton University. "We know, of course, that if we are right, we really need to challenge ourselves (and the archaeological record) to validate our arguments. In this case, we thought to look carefully at the tempo of construction events associated with large platforms."
The researchers, led by the University of Oregon's Robert J. DiNapoli, examined radiocarbon dates, relative architectural stratigraphy and ethnohistoric accounts to quantify the onset, rate and end of monument construction as a means of testing the collapse hypothesis.
"Archaeologists assign ages to the archaeological record by getting what are known as radiocarbon dates," said Lipo. "These dates represent the amount of time since some organisms (a bush, tree, etc.) died. Assembling groups of these dates together to look at patterns requires some sophisticated statistical analyses that have only recently been available to archaeologists. In this paper, we use these tools to provide the first-ever look at the history of platform construction on Easter Island."
The researchers found that construction of these statues began soon after colonization and increased rapidly, sometime between the early-14th and mid-15th centuries, with a steady rate of construction events that continued beyond European contact in 1722.
"What we found is that once people started to build monuments shortly after arrival to the island, they continued this construction well into the period after Europeans arrived," said Lipo. "This would not have been the case had there been some pre-contact "collapse"-- indeed, we should have seen all construction stop well before 1722. The lack of such a pattern supports our claims and directly falsifies those who continue to support the 'collapse' account.
"Once Europeans arrive on the island, there are many documented tragic events due to disease, murder, slave raiding and other conflicts," he added. "These events are entirely extrinsic to the islanders and have, undoubtedly, devastating effects. Yet, the Rapa Nui people -- following practices that provided them great stability and success over hundreds of years -- continued their traditions in the face of tremendous odds. The degree to which their cultural heritage was passed on - and is still present today through language, arts and cultural practices -- is quite notable and impressive. I think this degree of resilience has been overlooked due to the "collapse" narrative, and deserves recognition."
The researchers believe that their model-based approach to test hypotheses regarding the chronology of collapse can be extended to other case studies around the world where similar debates remain difficult to resolve.

Prehistoric skeleton discovered in Southern Mexico

Remains of woman provide important clues on settlement of the American continent

University of Heidelberg

IMAGE: The skeleton was found in the Chan Hol underwater cave near the city of Tulúm on Mexico's Yucatán peninsula. view more 

Credit: Photo: Eugenio Acevez

A prehistoric human skeleton found on the Yucatán Peninsula in southern Mexico is at least 10,000 years old and most likely dates from the end of the most recent ice age, the late Pleistocene. An international research team led by geoscientists from Heidelberg University studied the remains of the approximately 30-year-old woman. The uranium-thorium dating technique was used to determine the age of the fossil record, which provides important clues on the early settlement history of the American continent.
The skeleton was discovered near the city of Tulúm in the Chan Hol cave, which is now water-filled as the result of global warming and sea-level rise approximately 8,000 years ago. Nine other prehistoric skeletons had already been discovered in this intricate submerged cave system near the coast in the eastern part of the peninsula. According to Prof. Dr Wolfgang Stinnesbeck, the leader of the research team, not all of the ten skeletons were complete, but they were well preserved. They offer valuable archaeological, palaeontological and climatic information about the American continent and its first inhabitants, the Paleoindians. The Tulúm skeletons exhibit round-headed - mesocephalic - cranial characteristics different to the long-headed - dolicocephalic - morphology of Paleoindians from Central Mexico and North America, explains Prof. Stinnesbeck, who teaches and conducts research at the Institute of Earth Sciences of Heidelberg University.
To the researchers, the head shape is an indication that two morphologically different groups of Paleoindians must have lived in America at the same time. They may have reached the American continent from different geographical points of origin. Or a small group of early settlers may have been living in isolation on the Yucatán Peninsula and developed a different skull morphology over a short period of time. Prof. Dr Silvia Gonzalez and Dr Sam Rennie, both from Liverpool John Moores University (Great Britain), suggest that the early settlement history of the Americas is therefore more complicated and may date back earlier than commonly believed.
The woman's remains were recovered by Mexican divers Vicente Fito and Iván Hernández and then documented. She was approximately 30 years old at the time of her death. Her skull had multiple injuries, but they may not have been the cause of death. The researchers also discovered signs of a potential treponemal bacterial infection that caused severe alteration of the cranial bones. Like the other Tulúm skeletons, the woman's teeth had cavities, possibly due to a diet high in sugar. In contrast, the teeth of most Paleoindian skeletons from Central Mexico and North American are worn down and cavity-free, suggesting they ate hard food.
To precisely date the find, the researchers used a dating method from physics based on the radioactive decay of uranium and its conversion into thorium. The researchers dated the uranium-thorium isotopes of a lime crust that had grown on the finger bones in the originally dry Chan Hol cave. Prof. Dr Norbert Franck and his team from the Institute of Environmental Physics of Heidelberg University were able to give the skeleton a minimum age of 9,900 years. However, the body was then already skeletonised and the prehistoric find may be older.
In 2017, Wolfgang Stinnesbeck and his team of researchers had already documented another human skeleton from Chan Hol cave, which was then considered to be 13,000 years old based on a stalagmite that had grown on its hip bone. For the researchers, these bone finds prove the unexpectedly early settlement of southern Mexico. Scientists from Germany, Great Britain, and Mexico took part in the research, which was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The results of the research were published in the journal "PLOS ONE".

Israeli archaeologists discover 2900-year-old temple with worship objects

Complete report

In 2012, a monumental Iron Age-temple complex dating to late 10th-early 9th century BCE was discovered at Tel Moẓa near Jerusalem by archeologists of the Israel Antiquities Authority. The site, identified as the biblical city of Motẓa – within the boundary of the tribe of Benjamin (Joshua 18: 26) – served as an administrative center for the storage and redistribution of grain.

Aerial photo of the temple at the end of the 2013 excavation. (Credit: SkyView, Israel Antiquities Authority)

Horse Figurines. (Credit: Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority)

The dig is the site of the only monumental Iron Age temple excavated in the heart of Judah, according to Shua Kisilevitz and Prof. Oded Lipschits of Tel Aviv University’s Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology, principal investigators in the excavation and lead authors of the study that was just published Biblical Archaeology Review after the first analysis of the findings. The Motẓa Expedition Project was led by Tel Aviv University (TAU) and Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) researchers.
Their new research details the project’s exceptional finds at the site, the area under the earliest floor of the complex, which includes cultic installations and artifacts such as anthropomorphic (having human characteristics). and zoomorphic (having or representing animal forms or gods of the animal form) figurines and a large decorated cult stand. 
“Could a monumental temple really exist in the heart of Judah, outside Jerusalem? Did Jerusalem know about it?” wrote doctoral student Kisilevitz. “If so, could this other temple possibly have been part of the Judahite administrative system? The Bible details the religious reforms of King Hezekiah and King Josiah, who consolidated worship practices to Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, and eliminated cultic activity beyond its boundaries.”
But the TAU and IAA analysis of the archeological finds and biblical texts “clearly demonstrates that the temple at Motẓa conformed to ancient Near Eastern religious conventions and traditions and biblical depictions of cult places throughout the land. It has become clear that temples such as the one at Motẓa not only could but also must have existed throughout most of the Iron II period as part of the official, royally sanctioned religious construct,” Kisilevitz continued. 

“Despite the biblical narratives describing Hezekiah’s and Josiah’s reforms, there were sanctioned temples in Judah in addition to the official temple in Jerusalem,” Lipschits added. “Our discoveries thus far have fundamentally changed the way we understand the religious practices of Judahites.” 
In the spring of 2019, the first academic excavation of the site set out to fully unearth and study two cult buildings discovered one on top of the other at Tel Motẓa: The monumental temple complex built in the late 10th-early 9th centuries BCE, and a structure beneath it that has only partially been uncovered, tentatively dated to the 10th century BCE.

Human-shaped Figurine heads. (Credit: Clara Amit, Israel Antiquities Authority)

The rich collection of cultic artifacts and architectural remains at the site – including human-shaped figurines, horse figurines, a cult stand decorated with a pair of lions or sphinxes, a stone-built altar, a stone-built offering table and a pit filled with ash and animal bones – provides an important opportunity to study the formation of cult and religion in the region at the time and provide a framework for the formation of the Kingdom of Judah.
According to the study, the construction of a central cult location with regulated worship dedicated to this purpose was a natural progression for a growing community. As the site’s function as a granary intensified, a temple was constructed to ensure economic success and to strengthen the control of the local leaders over the community that lived around the economic and cultic center.xx