7,000-year-old grains hints at origin of Swiss pile dwellings

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IMAGE: REMAINS OF CROPS FROM THE NEOLITHIC PERIOD LIKE NAKED BARLEY AND NAKED WHEAT INDICATE CONNECTIONS BETWEEN GEOGRAPHICALLY DISTANT SETTLEMENTS. view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO: RAÜL SOTERAS

There is no other place where so many Neolithic pile dwellings have been uncovered as around the Alps. It is a mystery, however, how this “building boom” came to be. Researchers at the University of Basel have now uncovered new clues, and say that settlers at Lake Varese in northern Italy may have played a leading role.

When workers discovered the first pile-dwelling settlement on Lake Zurich in the mid-19th century, a whole new area of archaeological research was born. Since then, 111 pile-dwelling villages in the Alpine region have been made UNESCO World Heritage Sites, but it has so far been unclear where this unique construction method came from. Experts assumed until a few years ago that it was a local phenomenon.

Researchers led by Professor Ferran Antolín from the subject area of Integrative Prehistory and Archaeological Science (IPAS) at the University of Basel, however, have found new clues as to how pile-dwelling culture came to the areas north of the Alps. Prehistoric plant remains from a settlement from Lake Varese in northern Italy show the same composition as the crops from the oldest Swiss pile-dwelling settlements in Zurich and Egolzwil, Canton Lucerne. The researchers have reported their findings in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

Durum wheat, barley, opium poppy and flax

The team took sediment cores around a prehistoric settlement on Isolino Virginia, and determined the age of the crops in the deposits using radiocarbon dating. According to these results, this artificial island appears to have been inhabited as early as 4950 to 4700 BCE. The oldest known pile-dwelling settlements in Switzerland date back to around 4300 BCE.

Comparisons with IPNA’s reference collection enabled the archaeobotanists to identify the composition of the approximately 7,000-year-old plant material from this earliest phase of occupation on Isolino Virginia: durum wheat, barley, opium poppy and flax. The same plant species as those cultivated by the inhabitants of the oldest Swiss pile-dwelling settlements.

Links to the western Mediterranean

These plant species are atypical of the northeastern Italian population of the time, however, whose agriculture was focused on the cultivation of hulled wheats such as emmer. The crops found at Lake Varese tended to be cultivated in the western Mediterranean region. The research team concluded on this basis that the settlement on Isolino di Varese might well have been established by groups that came from the western Mediterranean or were closely linked to it through trade. “These groups probably played a key role in the spread of the pile-dwelling phenomenon north of the Alps,” says Antolín, an archaeobotanist.

The period between 4700 BCE, when the settlement on Isolino di Varese was temporarily abandoned, and 4300 BCE, when the first pile-dwelling villages north of the Alps were established, continues to raise various questions. The researchers suspect that other archaeological evidence, such as further settlements, may still remain undiscovered or could have been lost.

In addition, current research shows that there is plenty of evidence of prehistoric pile dwellings in other areas of Europe, such as the central Balkans. Here, too, the team from the University of Basel is involved in the research of Neolithic pile dwellings. These sites have a different agricultural tradition, however, making a direct connection to the pile dwellings of Switzerland unlikely.

The origin of the pile dwellings remains a complex phenomenon that is almost impossible to clarify based on the remains of the buildings themselves, says Antolín. “Analysis of crop remains can make an important contribution here, though.”

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JOURNAL

Journal of Archaeological Science

DOI

10.1016/j.jasrep.2022.103375 

Study reveals human lifestyle in East Asia 40,000 years ago

 

 

CAPTION

The Xiamabei site and its chronology

CREDIT

IVPP

 

IMAGE: THE XIAMABEI SITE AND ITS CHRONOLOGY view more 

CREDIT: IVPP

A team of researchers from China, Germany, France and Spain, has revealed the lifestyle of humans living in East Asia 40,000 years ago.

The study was published in Nature on Mar. 2.

The study relies on findings from Xiamabei, a well-preserved, ~40,000-year-old archaeological site in the Nihewan Basin, northern China. It was found and excavated by the Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archeology (HPICRA) in 2013–2014.

"One main layer of the site contains the earliest known ochre-processing feature in East Asia, a distinctive miniaturized stone tool assemblage with bladelet-like tools bearing traces of hafting, and a bone tool," said Dr. YANG Shixia from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the co-first and corresponding author of the study.

The Xiamabei findings demonstrate technological innovations and cultural diversification during the worldwide expansion of Homo sapiens and their entry into East Asia.

To establish the chronology of the 290-cm-deep section of the site, the researchers applied two chronological methods, i.e., accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating.

Based on these results, Bayesian analysis showed that the sequence dated to 43,000–28,000 years ago, with the main cultural layer (Layer 6) dating to 41,000–39,000 years ago.

Various scientific methods were used to identify the ochre and the sediment staining. In particular, mineral magnetism (MM) was used to identify the anthropogenic ochre.

With respect to the stone tools, the researchers conducted technological, microscopic use-wear and residue studies. The results indicated that stone tool manufacture was aimed at the production of small items, including blade-like forms, and these miniaturized pieces were hafted.

Interdisciplinary research on the Xiamabei site has provided us a vivid picture of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle 40,000 years ago in North China. People were living in a cool, steppe-like environment. At Xiamabei they conducted activities around a warm campfire, grinding large quantities of ochre powder, hafting blade-like stone tools to conduct a variety of tasks including hide and plant processing, and, most likely, sharing food, including the meat they hunted.

As shown by DNA and fossil evidence of the Tianyuandong individual, modern humans inhabited northern China about 40,000 years ago; however, little is known about their technology and cultures. The findings from Xiamabei will help us further understand the variety of behavioral adaptations and their complexity in East Asia during this critical period.

Although we don't know who occupied Xiamabei ~40,000 years ago, the role of Denisovans and Neanderthals cannot be excluded. The most parsimonious hypothesis is that the site was occupied by Homo sapiens, considering the presence of contemporaneous fossils of modern humans at Tianyuandong, ~100 km away.

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IMAGE: ARCHAEOLOGISTS EXCAVATING THE WELL-PRESERVED SURFACE AT THE XIAMABEI SITE, NORTHERN CHINA, SHOWING STONE TOOLS, FOSSILS, OCHRE AND RED PIGMENTS.view more 

CREDIT: FA-GANG WANG

The discovery of a new culture suggests processes of innovation and cultural diversification occurring in Eastern Asia during a period of genetic and cultural hybridization. Although previous studies have established that Homo sapiens arrived in northern Asia by about 40,000 years ago, much about the lives and cultural adaptations of these early peoples, and their possible interactions with archaic groups, remains unknown. In the search for answers, the Nihewan Basin in northern China, with a wealth of archaeological sites ranging in age from 2 million to 10,000 years ago, provides one of the best opportunities for understanding the evolution of cultural behavior in northeastern Asia.

A new article published in the journal Naturedescribes a unique 40,000-year-old culture at the site of Xiamabei in the Nihewan Basin. With the earliest known evidence of ochre processing in Eastern Asia and a set of distinct blade-like stone tools, Xiamabei contains cultural expressions and features that are unique or exceedingly rare in northeastern Asia. Through the collaboration of an international team of scholars, analysis of the finds offers important new insights into cultural innovation during the expansion of Homo sapiens populations.

“Xiamabei stands apart from any other known archaeological site in China, as it possesses a novel set of cultural characteristics at an early date,” says Dr. Fa-Gang Wang of the Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, whose team first excavated the site.

Cultural Adaptations at Xiamabei

“The ability of hominins to live in northern latitudes, with cold and highly seasonal environments, was likely facilitated by the evolution of culture in the form of economic, social and symbolic adaptations,” says Dr. Shixia Yang, researcher with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, in Jena, Germany. “The finds at Xiamabei are helping us to understand these adaptations and their potential role in human migration.”

One of the significant cultural features found at Xiamabei is the extensive use of ochre, as shown by artefacts used to process large quantities of pigment. The artefacts include two pieces of ochre with different mineral compositions and an elongated limestone slab with smoothed areas bearing ochre stains, all on a surface of red-stained sediment. Analysis by researchers from the University of Bordeaux, led by Prof. Francesco d’Errico, indicates that different types of ochre were brought to Xiamabei and processed through pounding and abrasion to produce powders of different color and consistency, the use of which impregnated the habitation floor. Ochre production at Xiamabei represents the earliest known example of this practice in Eastern Asia.

The stone tools at Xiamabei represent a novel cultural adaptation for northern China 40,000 years ago. Because little is known about stone tool industries in Eastern Asia until microblades became the dominant technology about 29,000 years ago, the Xiamabei finds provide important insights into toolmaking industries during a key transition period. The blade-like stone tools at Xiamabei were unique for the region, with the large majority of tools being miniaturized, more than half measuring less than 20 millimeters. Seven of the stone tools showed clear evidence of hafting to a handle, and functional and residue analysis suggests tools were used for boring, hide scraping, whittling plant material and cutting soft animal matter. The site inhabitants made hafted and multipurpose tools, demonstrative of a complex technical system for transforming raw materials not seen at older or slightly younger sites.

A Complex History of Innovation

The record emerging from Eastern Asia shows that a variety of adaptations were taking place as modern humans entered the region roughly 40,000 years ago. Although no hominin remains were found at Xiamabei, the presence of modern human fossils at the contemporary site of Tianyuandong and the slightly younger sites of Salkhit and Zhoukoudian Upper Cave, suggests that the visitors to Xiamabei were Homo sapiens. A varied lithic technology and the presence of some innovations, such as hafted tools and ochre processing, but not other innovations, such as formal bone tools or ornaments, may reflect an early colonization attempt by modern humans. This colonization period may have included genetic and cultural exchanges with archaic groups, such as the Denisovans, before ultimately being replaced by later waves of Homo sapiens using microblade technologies.

Given the unique nature of Xiamabei, the authors of the new paper argue that the archaeological record does not fit with the idea of continuous cultural innovation, or of a fully formed set of adaptations which enabled early humans to expand out of Africa and around the world. Instead, the authors argue that we should expect to find a mosaic of innovation patterns, with the spread of earlier innovations, the persistence of local traditions, and the local invention of new practices all taking place in a transitional phase.

“Our findings show that current evolutionary scenarios are too simple,” says Professor Michael Petraglia of the Max Planck Institute in Jena, “and that modern humans, and our culture, emerged through repeated but differing episodes of genetic and social exchanges over large geographic areas, rather than as a single, rapid dispersal wave across Asia.”

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JOURNAL

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-022-04445-2 

Native American shell ring villages may have been occupied then abandoned because of climate change

 

IMAGE: LIDAR MAP SHOWING THE SAPELO ISLAND SHELL RING COMPLEX. view more 

CREDIT: CAREY J. GARLAND, CC-BY 4.0 (HTTPS://CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG/LICENSES/BY/4.0/)

Mollusk shells at 4,000-year-old Native American shell ring villages indicate that environmental change may have driven the formation and abandonment of these coastal communities, according to a study by Carey Garland and Victor Thompson in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on March 2, 2022.

Shell ring villages were coastal communities built around fishing, as indicated by their sitting next to shellfish estuaries, and their large mounds of mollusk shells which remain to this day. Shell rings formed some of the earliest human village settlements along the U.S. South Atlantic coast but were abandoned at the end of the Late Archaic around 4,000 years ago. While scholars have proposed socio-ecological explanations, there has been limited examination of the physical evidence for these.

Garland, Thompson and colleagues analyzed the biochemistry and paleobiology of mollusk shells found at three abandoned shell rings on Sapelo Island in Georgia, U.S. For example, they measured the size of oyster shells as an indicator of the health of the environment and compared oxygen isotope values to determine salinity conditions. They integrated their findings with chronological data – such as tree ring analyses - using a Bayesian chronological model, to determine environmental fluctuations over time.  

The researchers found that the three Sapelo shell rings, known as Ring I, Ring II and Ring III, were occupied in the Late Archaic for varying, sometimes overlapping, periods. Ring II appeared to be the oldest and longest-lasting, founded around 4290 years ago and being occupied until 3950 years ago, with Ring I lasting around 150 years in the middle of this period. Ring III was the newest and outlasted the others, before abandonment around 3845 years ago. While Rings I and II featured large oyster shells, those at Ring III were significantly smaller, indicating a decrease in oyster shell size over time. Smaller oysters tend to be less healthy or younger, so this may indicate a depletion in oyster stocks and/or oyster health. Oxygen isotopes also indicated significantly lower salinity conditions by the time of Ring III as compared to Rings I and II.

The analysis suggests that the inhabitants of the shell ring villages experienced environmental fluctuations, especially around the occupation of Ring III. Coastal settlement may have initially been an adaptation to climate change as a way to effectively manage fisheries - which are highly sensitive to such changes. However, by the time of occupation of Ring III, fishing may have become unsustainable, leading to dispersals to other settlements and other forms of subsistence.

The authors believe that their work provides “comprehensive evidence for correlations between large-scale environmental change and societal transformations on the Georgia coast during the Late Archaic period”.

The authors add: “The emergence of village life and adaptation to coastal environments are significant transitions in human history that have occurred at various times and places across the globe. Our research shows that Indigenous peoples who established North America’s first coastal shell ring villages some 4200 years ago were resilient and, through cooperation and collective action, were able to adapt to environmental instability and resource shortfalls.”

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JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0258979 

The tomato domestication involved agricultural societies from Peru to Mexico

The plants we eat have been domesticated. There are no wild chihuahuas, in the wilderness there are wolves and, likewise, there are no wild big and juicy tomatoes, bread wheat or popcorn maize in the wild. Our forebears modified these species to adapt them to their needs, uses, and tastes. The tomato was domesticated by native american cultures thousands of years ago. Unfortunately, there are few tomato archeological remains and many questions to answer. Although some of these issues have been discussed for decades, most of them still have no final answers. For instance, it has been proposed that the domestication could have been carried out in Mesoamerica, the region comprising Mexico and Central America, or, alternatively, in Peru and Ecuador, but there has been no definitive evidence capable of settling the debate.

The plant genomic group at COMAV, a research institute located in the Polytechnic University of Valencia in Spain, in collaboration with researchers from The University of Georgia are publishing in Horticulture Research new findings obtained within Varitome, a National Science Foundation funded project (NSF1564366). The whole genome of 628 wild and cultivated plants have been analyzed to unravel some details of the complex American tomato history.

Most of the contemporary cultivated tomato is very similar to the wild Mesoamerican plants (Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme), however, in its domestication there were also involved wild Ecuadorian and Peruvian species (S. pimpinellifolium). This complex scenario has hampered the study of the tomato domestication for decades, but, thanks to a novel statistical analysis developed for this research, it was possible to find out that although the domestication process started with the Mesoamerican materials, it was quite complex. In a first step, Mesoamerican plants migrated southward to a region located between the Andes foot and the Amazonian forest in Peru and Ecuador. This humid region is known as Ceja de Montaña. This migration was fast and very likely due to the commercial relationships established between different Mesoamerican and Ecuadorian and Peruvian cultures. More recently, some plants, very similar to the ones still grown in Southern Ecuador and Northern Peru, migrated back to Mexico. Surprisingly, the vintage Yucatan tomatoes are more similar to the Peruvian and Ecuadorian Ceja de Montaña ones than to its wild counterparts found in Mexico. Thus, it has been established that some wild tomatoes migrated southward and, then, went back as cultivated.

Moreover, these voyages would change the tomato forever. The growers from Ceja de Montaña did not use pure Mesoamerican plants, but admixtures created crossing the newly arrived plants with wild plants from coastal Peru and Ecuador. It is also there, in Southern Ecuador and Northern Peru, in the region located between Mayo and Chinchipe, where the highest genetic diversity of cultivated tomatoes in the world have been found, and it might be there where the domestication took place. However, to have a final confirmation regarding this question new archeological tomato remains could be needed.

The hybridization between Mesoamerican and Ecuatorial plants was used to take genes needed to adapt the northern tomatoes to the climate and latitude of Ecuador. Without this old hybridization it is unlikely that the tomato could have been easily adapted to climates as different as the Ecuadorian forests and the Mediterranean coasts.

The American tomato history was complex and included very distant agricultural cultures that adapted the crop to their needs and tastes. Like any other crop, the cultivated tomato was created by the genetic modifications fostered by its first growers. In the Americas the tomato was a secondary crop used mainly to prepare sauces. However, this was not the end of its trips, but only the beginning. For instance, after arriving in Europe different varieties were created, and it wasn’t until the industrial revolution that the crop acquired its current relevance. Nowadays we are still creating new varieties adapted, again, to our needs, uses, and tastes. The native american growers defined the past of the tomato, and it is our shared task to define its future. We change the plants we grow, and they, in turn, define us.

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JOURNAL

Horticulture Research

DOI

10.1093/hr/uhac030 

Roman Empire’s emerald mines may have ended in hands of Nomads as early as the 4th Century

 

A team of archaeologists, led by UAB lecturer Joan Oller, has now published the results of the 2020 and 2021 dig seasons at the Roman site of Sikait, in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. The study shows that the Blemmyes, nomad tribes living in the region from the 4th to the 6th centuries CE, may have gained control of the emerald mines until the end of the mining activities. Researchers documented funerary rites, the social organization of inhabitants and workers, the typology of the mines, as well as details on extraction methods and how production was registered. This is the first detailed documentation of the interior of the Roman Empire’s emerald mines.

The international team of archaeologists led by Joan Oller Guzmán, lecturer at the UAB Department of Antiquity and Medieval Studies, published the results of the 2020 and 2021 dig seasons at the Roman site of Sikait, a set of buildings surrounding Roman Egypt’s emerald mines, located in the Eastern Desert. The area was known in Antiquity as “Mons Smaragdus”, given that it was the only place within the Roman Empire where emeralds could be found. This scientific collaboration was conducted jointly with the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology of the University of Warsaw, Poland, and focuses on the study of how emeralds were extracted and commercialized in Antiquity.

The excavations conducted in these past two years correspond to the latest Roman period, from the 4th to the 6th centuries CE, and reveal that some of the buildings were occupied or even built by the Blemmyes, nomad tribes living in the area at the end of the 4th century. The work conducted at the main temple of Sikait, the Large Temple, has allowed archaeologists to document two perfectly preserved ritual sanctuaries, one of which contained the last votive offering to have been made intact (between 4th and 5th centuries CE).

“The discovery confirms the relevance of religion and local rituals in this late period, and this suggests that the exploitation of the mines may have fallen into the hands of the Blemmyes during this time, before the fall of the empire”, Joan Oller explains.

Researchers also excavated one of the most impressive building complex, the Tripartite Building, which was probably used both as a residence and as a warehouse for the emeralds extracted from the mines.

First Topography of the Mines

The two dig seasons began with a detailed surveying of the mining areas in which up to eleven extracting areas were found surrounding Wadi Sikait, the dry valley in which the archaeological site is located. For the first time, archaeologists were able to conduct a detailed topographic study of the two most important mines, one of them consisting of hundreds of galleries and with a depth of more than 40 metres. The survey also allowed them to determine how work was structured inside the mines: large-scale mining only began once the most productive veins were identified. These operations included logistical infrastructures such as small settlements, necropolises, ramps, paths, working areas and watchtowers. A demonstration of the complexity and intensity of the processes needed to extract beryl, the mineral from which emeralds are obtained.

Involvement of the Roman Army

The most remarkable characteristic of this mine is the documentation of an important set of ancient inscriptions which allow researchers to infer information on who worked there and how the tasks were carried out. Among these is an inscription by a Roman legion, which would for the first time demonstrate that the Roman army was directly involved in the exploitation of Egypt’s emerald mines “not only to defend them, but also probably to help in their construction”, Oller explains.

The researchers continued to add to the documentation of emerald mines within the Wadi el Gemal National Park, of which over 300 have already been studied. In addition to the discoveries, the surveying of the area has led researchers to document dozens of new settlements, mines, infrastructures and even a new necropolis with over 100 tombs, which has added to the knowledge of ancient funerary rites and social features of the community living there shortly before the site was abandoned. The research is a huge step forward in understanding how emeralds were extracted and commercialized in the Graeco-Roman and Byzantine periods.

Fifth Dig Season

In January of this year, the archaeological team ended what was the fifth dig season of this site. The new season has focused on the excavation of what is known as the Small Temple, which, among other elements, has yielded part of an inscription in Greek dedicated to different Egyptian divinities. The team will publish the results of their most recent season before the end of this year.

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METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Emerald Mining During the Roman Period in the Egyptian Eastern Desert: Recent Evidence from Wadi Sikait

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

16-Feb-2022

Ancient human impact on Island environment in Africa

 Was Zanzibar’s shoreline destroyed by international trade & settlements?

Humanity’s impact on the environment is often framed in the context of the post-industrial era but new archaeological research reveals how intensive land use by a medieval East African population altered their natural habitat forever.

Unguja Ukuu, an archaeological settlement located on the Zanzibar Archipelago in Tanzania, was a key port of trade in the Indian Ocean by the first millennium when the island was populated by farming societies establishing trade links toward the Indian Ocean, China and beyond.  

New research published in the Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology describes how human activities modified the shoreline at Unguja Ukuu.

Urban growth at the coastal settlements and trade ports on the island, and associated trade, activities may have silted up the lagoon hindering the sea traffic and ultimately impacted fish numbers and played part in the community’s decline.

For millennia, the Indian Ocean was the maritime setting for a budding form of globalization, with extensive trade and exchange networks operating between eastern Africa, Southern Arabia, and Southeast Asia which foreshadowed modern global shipping networks.

“The islands of the Zanzibar Archipelago witnessed numerous environmental and cultural changes as the region became a hub of maritime trade, cross-cultural interaction, and global exchange,” says study’s lead author and Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at Flinders University, Dr Ania Kotarba–Morley.

These changes resulted in the dumping of food remains, general waste and increased agricultural activity and land use, all of which negatively impacted sediment build up along the island.

“Whilst discussion about human impacts on the planet and its natural environments is ever present in our current discourse, they almost always refer to the modern impacts and are focused on agricultural or urban areas such as large cities.

Our study outlines clearly how human interference in a natural environment impacted coastal landforms and sediments on a remote East African island already over 1000 years ago and directly changed the fortunes of the coastal inhabitants in the area as a result.” says a senior author of the study Associate Professor. Mike Morley of Flinders University

The archaeologists applied a variety of standard and cutting-edge techniques to find new patterns which improve our understanding about the changes in the makeup of the sediment along the coastline of local creeks and the bay on the island, directly impacted by human activity.

“To help understand how and why these ancient ports thrived or declined, it is important to know how the coastal landscape influenced the way traders undertook their commercial activities, or drove decisions, including mooring locations and investments of labour and capital by local communities and any central authorities.

From an environmental standpoint, it is crucial to know whether this commercialization had a physical effect on the coastline, anthropogenically modifying the landscape morphology or causing change,” says Dr Kotarba-Morley

The researchers say these processes might be implicated in the decline, and eventual abandonment of Unguja Ukuu at the turn of the second millennium AD—a period of regional socio-political and economic transformation of coastal African societies that marked the emergence of maritime Swahili culture.

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JOURNAL

The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology

DOI

10.1080/15564894.2022.2030441 

Mystery solved about the origin of the 30,000-year-old Venus of Willendor

 

The almost 11 cm high figurine from Willendorf is one of the most important examples of early art in Europe. It is made of a rock called "oolite" which is not found in or around Willendorf.

 

CAPTION

The original Venus from Willendorf. Left: lateral view. Right-top: hemispherical cavities on the right haunch and leg. Right bottom: existing hole enlarged to form the navel.

CREDIT

Kern, A. & Antl-Weiser, W. Venus. (Edition-Lammerhuber, 2008)

 A research team led by the anthropologist Gerhard Weber from the University of Vienna and the two geologists Alexander Lukeneder and Mathias Harzhauser as well as the prehistorian Walpurga Antl-Weiser from the Natural History Museum Vienna have now found out with the help of high-resolution tomographic images that the material from which the Venus was carved likely comes from northern Italy. This sheds new light on the remarkable mobility of the first modern humans south and north of the Alps. The results currently appear in Scientific Reports.

The Venus von Willendorf is not only special in terms of its design, but also in terms of its material. While other Venus figures are usually made of ivory or bone, sometimes also of different stones, oolite was used for the Lower Austrian Venus, which is unique for such cult objects. The figurine found in the Wachau in 1908 and on display in the Natural History Museum in Vienna has so far only been examined from the outside. Now, more than a 100 years later, anthropologist Gerhard Weber from the University of Vienna has used a new method to examine its interior: micro-computed tomography. During several passes, the scientists obtained images with a resolution of up to 11.5 micrometres - a quality that is otherwise only seen under a microscope. The first insight gained is: "Venus does not look uniform at all on the inside. A special property that could be used to determine its origin," says the anthropologist.

Along with the two geologists Alexander Lukeneder and Mathias Harzhauser from the Natural History Museum in Vienna, who had previously worked with oolites, the team procured comparative samples from Austria and Europe and evaluated them. A complex project: Rock samples from France to eastern Ukraine, from Germany to Sicily were obtained, sawn up and examined under a microscope. The team was supported by the state of Lower Austria, which provided funds for the time-consuming analyses.

The inside also gives information about the outside

The tomographic data from the Venus showed that the sediments were deposited in the rocks in different densities and sizes. In between there were also small remnants of shells and six very dense, larger grains, so-called limonites. The latter explains the previously mysterious hemispherical cavities on the surface of Venus with the same diameter: "The hard limonites probably broke out when the creator of the Venus was carving it," explains Weber: "In the case of the Venus navel, he then apparently made it a virtue out of necessity."

Another finding: The Venus oolite is porous because the cores of the millions of globules (ooides) of which it is comprised had dissolved. This is a great explanation for why the resourceful sculptor chose this material 30,000 years ago: It is much easier to work with. The scientists also identified a tiny shell remnant, just 2.5 millimetres long, and dated it to the Jurassic period. This ruled out all other potential deposits of the rock from the much later Miocene geological era, such as those in the nearby Vienna Basin.

A long way for that time

The research team also analysed the grain sizes of the other samples. Hundreds, sometimes even thousands of grains were marked and measured with image processing programs or even manually. None of the samples within a 200-kilometer radius of Willendorf even remotely matched. The analysis finally showed that the samples from the Venus were statistically indistinguishable from samples from a location in northern Italy near Lake Garda. This is remarkable because it means that the Venus (or at least its material) started a journey from south of the Alps to the Danube north of the Alps.

“People in the Gravettian – the tool culture of the time – looked for and inhabited favourable locations. When the climate or the prey situation changed, they moved on, preferably along rivers,” explains Gerhard Weber. Such a journey could have taken generations.

One of the two possible routes from the south to the north would lead around the Alps and into the Pannonian Plain and was described in simulations by other researchers a few years ago. The other way to get from Lake Garda to the Wachau would be via the Alps. Whether this was possible more than 30,000 years ago is unclear due to the climate deterioration that began at that time. This would be a rather improbable variant if there had already been continuous glaciers at that time. However, the 730 km long path along the Etsch, the Inn and the Danube had always been below 1,000 meters above sea level, with the exception of 35 kilometres at Lake Reschen.

Possible, but less likely, connection to eastern Ukraine

The statistics clearly point to northern Italy as the origin of the Venus oolite. Nevertheless, there is another interesting place for the origin of the rock. It is in eastern Ukraine, more than 1,600 kilometres linear distance from Willendorf. The samples there do not fit as clearly as those from Italy, but better than all the rest of the sample. An interesting connection here: Venus figures were found in nearby southern Russia, which are somewhat younger, but look very similar to the Venus found in Austria. Genetic results also show that people in Central and Eastern Europe were connected to one another at this time.

The exciting story of the Lower Austrian Venus could be continued. Only a few systematic studies have so far dealt with the existence of early humans in this time frame in the Alpine region, and with their mobility. The famous "Ötzi", for example, only comes into play much later, namely 5,300 years ago. "We want to use these Venus results and our new Vienna research network “Human Evolution and Archaeological Sciences”, in cooperation with anthropology, archaeology and other disciplines, to further clarify early history in the Alpine region," concludes Weber.

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JOURNAL

Scientific Reports

DOI

10.1038/s41598-022-06799-z