Videoscope analysis of a Neanderthal skeleton reveals detailed dental information

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IMAGE: AN IMAGE OF THE SKULL, COMBINED WITH A DETAIL OF THE PALATE, WITH THE MAXILLARY TEETH VISIBLE. view more 

CREDIT: SOPRINTENDENZA ABAP PER LA CITTÀ METROPOLITANA DI BARI.

In situ observations on the dentition and oral cavity of the Neanderthal skeleton from Altamura (Italy)

Funding: This work was supported by Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Università e della Ricerca, PRIN 2015 grant to G.M., J.M.-C. and D.M., number 2015WPHSCJ, prin.miur.it. The Soprintendenza A.B.A.P. per la città metropolitana di Bari (formerly Soprintendenza Archeologia per la Puglia); the "G. Sergi" Museum of Anthropology (Sapienza University of Rome) and the Museo delle Civiltà (section "L. Pigorini", Rome) granted access to fossil specimens. The company Olympus (Olympus Italia S.r.l. and Olympus Europe) provided the endoscopic equipment. DentaForm S.r.l. (Pistoia, Italy) provided the NOMAD™ Pro 2 X-ray system and the KaVo ScanXam™. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0241713

African trade routes sketched out by mediaeval beads

An analysis of archaeological glass beads discovered in sub-Saharan West Africa brings to light the full extent of the region's international trade routes between the 7th and 13th centuries

UNIVERSITÉ DE GENÈVE

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IMAGE: THE GLASS BEADS STUDIED, UNEARTHED BY ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXCAVATIONS IN DOUROU-BORO AND SADIA, MALI, AND DJOUTOUBAYA, SENEGAL. view more 

CREDIT: © UNIGE/TRUFFA GIACHET/SPUHLER

The origin of glass beads dates back to early ancient times. The chemical composition of the beads and their morphological and technical characteristics can reveal where they come from; this information can then be used to reconstruct the trade channels between glass production areas and the sites where the beads were used at different times. Archaeologists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), working in partnership with the Institut de Recherche sur les Archéomatériaux at the Centre Ernest-Babelon in Orléans, France, analysed 16 archaeological glass beads found at three rural sites in Mali and Senegal from between the 7th and 13th centuries AD. In the journal Plos One, the scientists demonstrate that the glass they are made of probably came from Egypt, the Levantine coast and the Middle East. The results show that international trade linking Africa to Europe and Asia during the development of the large West African state configurations did not stop at the great urban centres located along the Niger River: it also connected with local and regional trade. In this way, an extensive network including sub-Saharan rural areas and trans-Saharan trade routes took shape.

The glass beads uncovered in Africa do not only come from the well-known junk cargoes shipped by boat to be exchanged for slaves around the 18th century. Their provenance is much older and their places of origin many and diverse. In western sub-Saharan Africa, the beads have been found in urban archaeological sites from the mediaeval period along the Niger River. Several Arabic texts describe these trade routes crossing the Sahara and connecting the African continent to Europe and Asia. «Trans-Saharan caravans traded horses, guns, luxury objects and salt for ivory, gold and slaves», explains Anne Mayor, a researcher in the Anthropology Unit in UNIGE's Faculty of Sciences.

Members of the «Archaeology and Population in Africa Laboratory of UNIGE have been carrying out archaeological excavations for several decades at sites in central Mali and eastern Senegal, including old cemeteries and villages. They have investigated the evolution of lifestyles and techniques. A total of 16 glass beads has been unearthed at three of these sites dating from between the 7th and 13th centuries AD. To understand their provenance and form a picture of what trade was like at a time when the first African kingdoms were developing, the archaeologists embarked on an analysis of their morphological and technical characteristics together with their chemical composition.

Beads: a type of «crystal ball»

Three main components are required for the production of glass. The primary ingredient is silica, which is obtained from quartz ore or sand. This has to be melted, but since its melting point is too high, mineral or vegetable «flux» is added to help the process. Finally, lime from limestone rocks or shells serves as a stabiliser for the glass structure. «By analysing the chemical composition of the glass, we can begin to understand the origin of the raw materials used to manufacture it and, in some cases, the period when it was produced», states the first author of the study, Miriam Truffa Giachet, for whom this work is an integral part of her UNIGE doctoral thesis.

«It's also important to understand that the production of glass beads involves several stages, generally located in different places,» continues the Geneva-based researcher. The first step consists of collecting the raw materials, which are then transported to a primary production centre where the raw glass is made. This is then transported to secondary centres to manufacture glass objects before being distributed to various sites through trade. The scientists cross-referenced the results of the chemical analysis of the beads with historical sources and data from archaeological excavations, thereby obtaining precise information about the origin of the beads.

The lab meets the field

The study's originality lies in the cross-analysis of archaeological field data and laboratory data to further our understanding of African archaeological objects. The scientists used laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) to evaluate the chemical composition of the beads without damaging them, thanks to laser sampling that tests very small quantities of material. In this way, the probable origins of the beads were identified: Egypt, the Levantine coast and the Middle East.

It follows that sub-Saharan agropastoralists (whose dwellings and tombs archaeological excavations have found traces of) were incorporated into very broad trade networks, as revealed by the presence of objects from distant sources. These locations were in a peripheral position in relation to the regional power centres, but at least one of them, in eastern Senegal, was close to gold mines - a resource that made a significant contribution to their wealth. It is interesting to note that none of the beads analysed had the characteristics typical of the solitary African primary production centre active at the time, in Nigeria, despite the fact that there was internal east-west trade.

Sub-Saharan Africa: connected to the rest of the world

The study adds weight to the idea that at this time prestigious goods circulated through trade routes linking sub-Saharan Africa to the rest of the world. «The western popular imagination thinks that Africa was disconnected beyond the Sahara, but this was clearly not the case! It was fully integrated into a large international network that linked Africa, Europe and Asia. It was connected to local trade that brought goods of distant origin to the hinterland,» concludes Dr Mayor.

Population size, density in rise of centralized power in Peru in antiquity

 Early populations shifted from quasi-egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies to communities governed by a centralized authority in the middle to late Holocene, but how the transition occurred still puzzles anthropologists. A University of Maine-led group of researchers contend that population size and density served as crucial drivers.

Anthropology professor Paul "Jim" Roscoe led the development of Power Theory, a model emphasizing the role of demography in political centralization, and applied it to the shift in power dynamics in prehistoric northern coastal societies in Peru.

To test the theory, he, Daniel Sandweiss, professor of anthropology and Quaternary and climate studies, and Erick Robinson, a postdoctoral anthropology researcher at Utah State University, created a summed probability distribution (SPD) from 755 radiocarbon dates from 10,000-1,000 B.P., or before present.

The team found a correlation between the tenets of their Power Theory, or that population density and size influence political centralization, and the change in power dynamics in early Peruvian societies.

The team shared their findings in a report published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.

"I've always been interested in how, in the space of just five to 10,000 years, humans went from biddy little hunter-gatherer groups in which nobody could really push anyone else around to vast industrial states governed by a few people with enormous power. From my fieldwork and other research in New Guinea, it became clear that leaders mainly emerged in large, high-density populations, and Power Theory explained why," Roscoe says. "Unfortunately, it was difficult until recently for archaeologists to get a handle on the size and densities of populations in the past. SPD techniques are a major help in bringing these important variables into understanding how human social life underwent this dramatic transformation."

Scientists have previously posited that population in northern coastal Peru rose during the Late Preceramic, Initial, Early Horizon and Early Intermediate periods, or between about 6,000-1,200 B.P. The SPD from Roscoe and his colleagues validates the notion.

The people who settled in the coastal plain first lived as mobile hunter-gatherers or incipient horticulturalists in low density groups, according to researchers. Millennia afterward in the Late Preceramic period, however, several developments brought increased interaction and shareable resources. People began farming, developed irrigation systems and became more settled as time passed. Eventually, some of the world's first 'pristine' states formed in the plain.

The onset and growth of agriculture, irrigation and sedentism, propelled by upticks in population size and density, fostered the capacity of political agents to interact with and manipulate others. Political centralization and hierarchy formed as a result, according to researchers.

Roscoe and his colleagues demonstrated through their radio-carbon SPD that the rise in centralized authorities in early Peruvian communities that resulted from farming, irrigation and settlement coincided with an uptick in population size. The results of their work demonstrate "a broad, low-resolution congruence between the expectations of Power Theory and what is currently known about coastal Peruvian antiquity," they wrote in their study.

The project also highlights the capability of SPDs for examining the influence of demography in the growth of prehistoric political centralization. Determining the extent of that influence, however, requires additional study.

"We're hoping this work demonstrates the value of SPDs for understanding the role of demography in the emergence and development of power centers on Earth," Roscoe says. "What we need now is to increase the size of our SPD databases and filter out some of the weaknesses we know they contain."

Early human landscape modifications discovered in Amazonia

No evidence of extensive savannah formations during the current Holocene period

UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI

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IMAGE: AERIAL VIEW OF A RESEARCH SITE CALLED SEVERINO CALAZANS. view more 

CREDIT: MARTTI PÄRSSINEN

In 2002 Professor Alceu Ranzi (Federal University of Acre) and Prof. Martti Parssinen (University of Helsinki) decided to form an international research team to study large geometric earthworks, called geoglyphs, at the Brazilian state of Acre in South-western Amazonia. Soon it appeared that a pre-colonial civilization unknown to international scholars built there geometric ceremonial centers and sophisticated road systems. This civilization flourished in the rainforest 2,000 years ago. The discovery supported Prof. William Balee´s (Tulane University) theory of early human impacts on the current Amazonian tropical forest composition that radically altered the notion of the pristine Amazon rainforest.

Now, the team published an article in Antiquity demonstrating that the earthwork-building civilization had a much longer human history behind it than was expected. The team members demonstrate that humans have regularly used fire to clear small open patches in the rainforest. These activities started quite soon after the last Ice Age ended thousands of years before the first geoglyphs were constructed. Thanks to the charcoal the humans left in the Amazonian soil during the last 10 000 years, it was possible to measure systematically carbon-13 isotope values of many samples. By using these values taken from archaeologically dated charcoal it was possible to estimate past vegetation and precipitation. The results published in Antiquity indicate that the forest main vegetation and precipitation have remained quite unchanged during the last ten thousand years until the 20th century. No evidence of drier periods or natural/artificial savannah formations were observed before the current colonization started to penetrate into the southwestern Amazonia from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries onward. Hence, the authors argue that the theories of extensive savannah formations in the South-western Amazonia during the current Holocene period are based on a false interpretation of the connection between charcoal accumulation and natural fires due to drier climatic periods. These interpretations have not taken into account the millennial human presence in Amazonia.

Alceu Ranzi says that "it is possible that opening patches were aimed to attract large mammals such as giant sloths and mastodons until the megafauna disappeared forever. In addition, ash and charcoal fertilized the soil and open areas were prepared for the growing of palms fruits, vegetables and root plants useful for human subsistence." Martti Parssinen adds that "it is probably not a coincidence that today southwestern Amazonia is considered one of the most important centers of domestication: cassava/manioc, squash, chili-pepper and peach palm seem to have been domesticated there almost 10 000 years ago. In every case, domestication processes left important fingerprints on Amazonian forest composition. Therefore there is no such thing as virgin rainforest."

In general, the study shows that indigenous peoples of the Amazon have been able to use their environment in a sustainable manner. Parssinen says that "there is no indication that large areas of Holocene forest would have been deforested before the second half of the 20th century. Deforestation is a current phenomenon."

Cereal, olive and vine pollen reveal market integration in Ancient Greece

 

A new interdisciplinary study indicates agricultural market integration centuries before Roman conquest, suggesting the mechanisms that led to the Anthropocene began much earlier than assumed

MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN HISTORY

In the field of economics, the concept of a market economy is largely considered a modern phenomenon. Influential economists such as Karl Marx and Max Weber, for example, argued that although markets existed in antiquity, economies in which structures of production and distribution responded to the laws of supply and demand developed only as recently as the 19th century. A recent study by an international team of researchers, including Adam Izdebski of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, uses palynology - the study of pollen remains extracted from cored sediments - to challenge this belief and provide evidence for an integrated market economy existing in ancient Greece.

Market integration began earlier than assumed

Using publicly available data from the European Pollen Database, as well as data from other investigators, researchers analyzed pollen assemblages from 115 samples taken from six sites in southern Greece to measure landscape change. Using radiocarbon dating to tie their measurements to historical time, researchers followed the change in percentage values for individual plant taxa between 1000 BCE and 600 CE and observed a decrease in pollen from cereals, a staple of the ancient Greek diet, during a period of apparent population growth. This decrease occurred at the same time as an increase in the proportion of olive and vine pollen. These trends raise an important question: why would local producers chose to plant olives and vines instead of cereal grains, when the demand for this staple food must have been high and mounting?

In the current study, researchers argue that pollen data from southern Greece reveals an export economy based on cash cropping as early as the Archaic period, primarily through olive cultivation. Although archeological evidence from these periods documents the movement of goods, quantifiable data on market integration and structural changes in agricultural production have been very limited. "In this paper," says lead author Adam Izdebski, "we introduce pollen records as a new source of quantitative data in ancient economic history."

From mud to markets: Integrated scientific approaches reveal an integrated ancient economy

Before arriving at their conclusions, researchers compared the trends they observed in the pollen data with three other sources of data in an instance of pioneering scientific research. First, researchers observed a decrease in pollen from uncultivated landscapes corresponding with each increase in settlement numbers. This correlation between the number of settlements and the exploitation of the land supports the methodology of the study and indicates the potential of palynology for future studies in a variety of scientific disciplines.

Researchers then looked for evidence of increased trade activity in Mediterranean shipwrecks, which are routinely used to estimate maritime trade and overall economic activity. After restricting their search to wrecks from the appropriate period and region, scientists observed trends in shipwrecks consistent with trends found in cereal, olive, and vine pollen. Both sources of data suggest an economic boom in the 1st and 2nd century CE, a decline in the 4th and 5th century, and a smaller boom in the 6th century.

Finally, researchers examined trends in the presence of large-scale oil and wine presses in the Mediterranean. The presence of these machines, although not located in Greece, indicates a pattern of broad economic trends in the region and changing incentives for the production of large quantities of olive oil and wine. Again, the researchers found that trends in archaeological findings of oil and wine presses were consistent with trends in cereal, olive, and vine pollen.

As the emergence of integrated markets and capitalist economies of the early modern era is believed to have been at the roots of the Anthropocene, the current epoch in which humanity has become a major geological force, the current study shows that the structural developments that occurred on a large scale through European colonization from the 15th century onward were possible several thousand years before.

Neanderthal thumbs better adapted to holding tools with handles

Neanderthal thumbs were better adapted to holding tools in the same way that we hold a hammer, according to a paper published in Scientific Reports. The findings suggest that Neanderthals may have found precision grips -- where objects are held between the tip of the finger and thumb -- more challenging than power 'squeeze' grips, where objects are held like a hammer, between the fingers and the palm with the thumb directing force.

Using 3D analysis, Ameline Bardo and colleagues mapped the joints between the bones responsible for movement of the thumb -- referred to collectively as the trapeziometacarpal complex -- of five Neanderthal individuals, and compared the results to measurements taken from the remains of five early modern humans and 50 recent modern adults.

The authors found covariation in shape and relative orientation of the trapeziometacarpal complex joints that suggest different repetitive thumb movements in Neanderthals compared with modern humans. The joint at the base of the thumb of the Neanderthal remains is flatter with a smaller contact surface, and better suited to an extended thumb positioned alongside the side of the hand. This thumb posture suggests the regular use of power 'squeeze' grips, like the ones we now use to hold tools with handles. In comparison, these joint surfaces are generally larger and more curved in recent modern human thumbs, an advantage when gripping objects between the pads of the finger and thumb, known as a precision grip.

Although the morphology of the studied Neanderthals is better suited for power 'squeeze' grips, they would still have been capable of precision hand postures, but would have found this more challenging than modern humans, according to the authors.

Comparison of fossil morphology between the hands of Neanderthals and modern humans may provide further insight into the behaviours of our ancient relatives and early tool use.

The economic and cultural aspects of raising turkeys to supply feathers in the ancient Southwest.

 The ancient inhabitants of the American Southwest used around 11,500 feathers to make a turkey feather blanket, according to a new paper in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. The people who made such blankets were ancestors of present-day Pueblo Indians such as the Hopi, Zuni and Rio Grande Pueblos.

A team led by Washington State University archaeologists analyzed an approximately 800-year-old, 99 x 108 cm (about 39 x 42.5 inches) turkey feather blanket from southeastern Utah to get a better idea of how it was made. Their work revealed thousands of downy body feathers were wrapped around 180 meters (nearly 200 yards) of yucca fiber cord to make the blanket, which is currently on display at the Edge of the Cedars State Park Museum in Blanding, Utah.

The researchers also counted body feathers from the pelts of wild turkeys purchased from ethically and legally compliant dealers in Idaho to get an estimate of how many turkeys would have been needed to provide feathers for the blanket. Their efforts show it would have taken feathers from between four to 10 turkeys to make the blanket, depending on the length of feathers selected.

"Blankets or robes made with turkey feathers as the insulating medium were widely used by Ancestral Pueblo people in what is now the Upland Southwest, but little is known about how they were made because so few such textiles have survived due to their perishable nature," said Bill Lipe, emeritus professor of anthropology at WSU and lead author of the paper. "The goal of this study was to shed new light on the production of turkey feather blankets and explore the economic and cultural aspects of raising turkeys to supply the feathers."

Clothing and blankets made of animal hides, furs or feathers are widely assumed to have been innovations critical to the expansion of humans into cold, higher latitude and higher elevation environments, such as the Upland Southwest of the United States where most of the early settlements were at elevations above 5,000 feet.

Previous work by Lipe and others shows turkey feathers began to replace strips of rabbit skin in construction of twined blankets in the region during the first two centuries C.E. Ethnographic data suggest the blankets were made by women and were used as cloaks in cold weather, blankets for sleeping and ultimately as funerary wrappings.

"As ancestral Pueblo farming populations flourished, many thousands of feather blankets would likely have been in circulation at any one time," said Shannon Tushingham, a co-author on the study and assistant professor of anthropology at WSU. "It is likely that every member of an ancestral Pueblo community, from infants to adults, possessed one."

Another interesting finding of the study was the turkey feathers used by the ancestral Pueblo people to make garments were most likely painlessly harvested from live birds during natural molting periods. This would have allowed sustainable collection of feathers several times a year over a bird's lifetime, which could have exceeded 10 years. Archeological evidence indicates turkeys were generally not used as a food source from the time of their domestication in the early centuries C.E. until the 1100s and 1200s C.E., when the supply of wild game in the region had become depleted by over-hunting.

Prior to this period, most turkey bones reported from archaeological sites are whole skeletons from mature birds that were intentionally buried, indicating ritual or cultural significance. Such burials continued to occur even after more turkeys began to be raised for food.

"When the blanket we analyzed for our study was made, we think in the early 1200s C.E., the birds that supplied the feathers were likely being treated as individuals important to the household and would have been buried complete," Lipe said. "This reverence for turkeys and their feathers is still evident today in Pueblo dances and rituals. They are right up there with eagle feathers as being symbolically and culturally important."

In the long run, the researchers said their hope is the study will help people appreciate the importance of turkeys to Native American cultures across the Southwest.

"Turkeys were one of the very few domesticated animals in North America until Europeans arrived in the 1500s and 1600s," Tushingham said. "They had and continue to have a very culturally significant role in the lives of Pueblo people, and our hope is this research helps shed light on this important relationship."