Malaria in the Medici era

 

IMAGE: TISSUE FROM ONE OF THE MEDICI EMBALMING VESSELS WAS SUBJECTED TO MICROSCOPIC AND MOLECULAR ANALYSIS. view more 

CREDIT: EURAC RESEARCH

The powerful dynasty buried its dead according to a special ritual: during embalming, the entrails were removed and placed in large terracotta vessels called orci which were buried together with the coffins in the Basilica di San Lorenzo in Florence. In 2010, researchers were allowed to sample nine of these orci which were decorated with the family’s coat-of-arms. Of the nine, two bore the names of specific family members.

Using long tweezers, the team retrieved something that at first glance seemed to Anthropologist Albert Zink who was leading the investigation, to be “rather insignificant,”. He went on to explain, “However, these fragments, which to the untrained eye, could have been pieces of cloth, were in fact mummified tissues of unknown origin. So, our first interest was to find out what we were actually looking at. Then, to find out if the structure of the organ was intact enough to see if we could identify the organ it came from.” The researchers took a total of 24 samples, which they then subjected to microscopic and molecular analyses.

The molecular investigations did not lead much further. The material was too degraded, the Arno had flooded Florence several times since the Medici period and acute temperature fluctuations had done the rest, “proteins or DNA were almost no longer present,” explains first author of the study, Microbiologist Frank Maixner. “But it wasn’t all bad news, the microscopic structure was in fact, very exciting.” Thin tissue sections revealed a potential blood vessel that still contained collections of red blood cells. When a special method called Giemsa staining was used, evidence of a parasite inside these blood cells was revealed.

What Maixner described “a surprising finding” was not conclusive. The parasites could have been plasmodia – a parasite responsible for malaria or even another parasite called babesia.

The team went on to employ an even more precise technique, atomic force microscopy whereby the tissue surface was scanned with a nanoscopic needle which rendered even the tiniest differences in height and three-dimensional structure visible. This analysis revealed the typical ring-shaped structures that characterize one of the developmental stages of the plasmodia parasites. However, the same shapes can also be formed by babesia. Finally, it was the immunohistochemical method, which enables the detection of antigens in tissue sections, that provided certainty. And so, the parasite was determined unambiguously: Plasmodium falciparum, the causative agent of the deadliest form of malaria, malaria tropica, which occurs mainly in the equatorial region.

Parasites were detected in many of the blood cells examined. In addition, typical membrane structures formed by the Plasmodium falciparum pathogen itself during the course of infection could be detected within the individual blood cells. “These so-called Maurer's clefts are cell organelles that are important for interaction between host and parasite. Among other things, they are involved in the transport of parasite proteins and as such significantly influence the course of the disease," explains co-author and Malaria Researcher Nicole Kilian from the University of Heidelberg/University Hospital Heidelberg.

In a further analysis, the scientists examined the sugar structures on the surface of the blood cells, which decisively influence blood group. The result: the infected individual belonged to blood group B and, people from this blood group are less resistant to malaria. However, it is no longer possible to find out which family member the results pertain as the orci from which the sample was taken does not bear a name.

 

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JOURNAL

Emerging Infectious Diseases

DOI

10.3201/eid2906.230134 

The first prehistoric wind instruments discovered in the Levant

 

 

IMAGE: THE SEVEN AEROPHONES DISCOVERED AT EYNAN-MALLAHA view more 

CREDIT: © LAURENT DAVIN

Although the prehistoric site of Eynan-Mallaha in northern Israel has been thoroughly examined since 1955, it still holds some surprises for scientists. Seven prehistoric wind instruments known as flutes, recently identified by a Franco-Israeli team1, are the subject of an article published on 9 June in Nature Scientific Reports. The discovery of these 12,000 -year-old aerophones is extremely rare – in fact, they are the first to be discovered in the Near East. The “flutes”, made from the bones of a small waterfowl, produce a sound similar to certain birds of prey (Eurasian sparrowhawk and common kestrel) when air is blown into them. The choice of bones used to make these instruments was no accident – larger birds, with bigger bones that produce deeper sounds, have also been found at the site. The Natufians, the Near Eastern civilisation that occupied this village between 13,000 and 9,700 BC, deliberately selected smaller bones in order to obtain the high-pitched sound needed to imitate these particular raptors. The instruments may have been used for hunting, music or to communicate with the birds themselves. Indeed, it is clear that the Natufians attributed birds with a special symbolic value, as attested by the many ornaments made of talons found at Eynan-Mallaha. The village, located on the shores of Lake Hula, was home to this civilisation throughout its 3,000 years of existence. It is therefore of vital importance in revealing the practices and habits of a culture at the crossroads between mobile and sedentary lifestyles, and the transition from a predatory economy to agriculture.

Lingering effects of Neanderthal DNA found in modern humans

Recent scientific discoveries have shown that Neanderthal genes comprise some 1 to 4% of the genome of present-day humans whose ancestors migrated out of Africa, but the question remained open on how much those genes are still actively influencing human traits — until now.

A multi-institution research team including Cornell University has developed a new suite of computational genetic tools to address the genetic effects of interbreeding between humans of non-African ancestry and Neanderthals that took place some 50,000 years ago. (The study applies only to descendants of those who migrated from Africa before Neanderthals died out, and in particular, those of European ancestry.)

In a study published in eLife, the researchers reported that some Neanderthal genes are responsible for certain traits in modern humans, including several with a significant influence on the immune system. Overall, however, the study shows that modern human genes are winning out over successive generations. 

“Interestingly, we found that several of the identified genes involved in modern human immune, metabolic and developmental systems might have influenced human evolution after the ancestors’ migration out of Africa,” said study co-lead author April (Xinzhu) Wei, an assistant professor of computational biology in the College of Arts and Sciences. “We have made our custom software available for free download and use by anyone interested in further research.”

Using a vast dataset from the UK Biobank consisting of genetic and trait information of nearly 300,000 Brits of non-African ancestry, the researchers analyzed more than 235,000 genetic variants likely to have originated from Neanderthals. They found that 4,303 of those differences in DNA are playing a substantial role in modern humans and influencing 47 distinct genetic traits, such as how fast someone can burn calories or a person’s natural immune resistance to certain diseases.

Unlike previous studies that could not fully exclude genes from modern human variants, the new study leveraged more precise statistical methods to focus on the variants attributable to Neanderthal genes.

While the study used a dataset of almost exclusively white individuals living in the United Kingdom, the new computational methods developed by the team could offer a path forward in gleaning evolutionary insights from other large databases to delve deeper into archaic humans’ genetic influences on modern humans. 

“For scientists studying human evolution interested in understanding how interbreeding with archaic humans tens of thousands of years ago still shapes the biology of many present-day humans, this study can fill in some of those blanks,” said senior investigator Sriram Sankararaman, an associate professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. “More broadly, our findings can also provide new insights for evolutionary biologists looking at how the echoes of these types of events may have both beneficial and detrimental consequences.”

The other co-lead author on the study is Christopher Robles, postdoctoral researcher at UCLA. Additional authors are UCLA doctoral student Ali Pazokitoroudi; Andrea Ganna of Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Alexander Gusev and Arun Durvasula of Harvard Medical School; Steven Gazal of USC; Po-Ru Loh of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; and David Reich of Harvard University. 

The research was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, with additional funding from an Alfred P Sloan Research Fellowship and a gift from the Okawa Foundation. Other authors received funding support from the Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group, the John Templeton Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the Next Generation Fund at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

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JOURNAL

eLife

DOI

10.7554/eLife.80757 

Ancient genomes show that the farming lifestyle in northwestern Africa was ignited by oversea-migrants from Iberia 7,400 years ago

 

 

IMAGE: VIEW OF THE SITE KAF TAHT EL-GHAR (KTG). view more 

CREDIT: VIEW OF THE SITE KAF TAHT EL-GHAR (KTG). PHOTOGRAPHER: JUAN CARLOS VERA

A genomic analysis of ancient human remains from Morocco in northwest Africa revealed that food production was introduced by Neolithic European and Levantine migrants and then adopted by local groups. A research team from Sweden, Spain and Morocco present their results in Nature on June 7th.

In northwestern Africa, lifestyle transitioned from foraging to farming some 7,400 years ago, but what sparked that change remained unclear. Previous studies support conflicting views: that migrant European Neolithic farmers brought the new way of life to North Africa, or that local hunter-gatherers adopted farming practices.

“We found a remarkable population continuity up until seven and a half thousand years ago in northwestern Africa, where a group of local foragers had been living – isolated – for at least 8,000 years, perhaps since much further back in time”, says Professor Mattias Jakobsson, Uppsala University, who led the study.

Then something happened.

After being isolated for so long, northwestern Africa received two new ancestries within ca. 1000 years, one migration wave following the northern Mediterranean coast, and another, the southern.

“A foreign ancestry related to the first European Farmers is found in North Africa in the remains of the earliest Neolithic context around 7500 years ago”, says Dr. Luciana Simoes from Uppsala University, first author of the study, indicating that migrants from Europe introduced this new lifestyle.

“Inspired by their new neighbours, within a few hundred years, the local foragers started to change their way of life to farming and the two groups lived side by side for at least another century”, says Dr. Cristina Valdiosera from University of Burgos in Spain, who co-led the study.

“This phenomenon has not been seen in any other part of the world” says Dr. Torsten Günther from Uppsala University

Around 6,300 years ago, a new genetic ancestry appeared in the human remains, likely as a consequence of migrants from the Levant arriving at the same time as pastoralism arrives in the region. Later, all three ancestries blend together during the Late Neolithic.

“I think it is great that the genomic data generated in this study confirms what the ceramic decoration was already pointing to: a unidirectional diffusion from the Iberian coast to the Tingitana Peninsula, around 7500 years ago”, says Dr. Rafael Martínez Sánches from the University of Córdoba, Spain

“Filling these key chronological gaps in the Maghreb proved crucial to better understand how the different subsistence strategies were acquired in this region” says Dr. Youssef Bokbot from L’Institut National des Sciences de l’Archéologie et du Patrimoine désigné ci-dessous in Morocco.

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JOURNAL

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-023-06166-6 

Tracing Chile’s indigenous roots through genetics and linguistics

 

IMAGE: THE STUDY WAS DEVELOPED THROUGH DIRECT EXCHANGE WITH THE PARTICIPANTS. view more 

CREDIT: RENATO GIUGLIANO

How do today’s indigenous communities of South America trace back to the history of human migration and contact in the continent? An international team has worked to reconstruct the legacy of Chile’s largest indigenous community, the Mapuche, in a quest to strengthen their representation in the history of the continent. It appears the Mapuche long lived in relative isolation but do bear some influences from other populations of the Central Andes and the far south of Chile.

South America was the last continent to be settled by humans. The first migrants moved in rapidly from North to South America in the Late Pleistocene, around 15,000 years ago, as testified by early traces of human presence in what today is central-southern Chile. Human migrations brought in multiple ancestry streams, but how they interacted and the exact routes they took are not well resolved. A new international study sheds light on those missing links, starting out by contextualizing present-day indigenous ancestries, and highlighting the depth of their pre-Hispanic roots in the Americas.

Genetic origins in the Southern Andes

A research team led by the University of Zurich (UZH), in collaboration with the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, studied the genetic ancestry of the Mapuche in concert with linguistic, archaeological and historical data. “We compared the genetic profile of participants of Mapuche descent against data from many other populations of the Americas, including ancient DNA from archaeological excavations,” says Epifanía Arango-Isaza, a Ph.D. student at UZH who conducted the study.

The genetic ancestry of the Mapuche is typical of the Southern Cone, the southernmost part of the continent, which so far has been underrepresented in genetic and historical studies. Other major genetic ancestries in South America include one found mostly in the Central Andes and another mostly in Amazonia. “The ancestors of the Mapuche separated from inhabitants of the Far South over 4,000 years ago and did not meet with later migration streams from the north that reached the Central Andes and parts of Amazonia”, says the first author.

Relationships within the Andes and the South

The Andes form the world’s longest mountain range. European ethnographers once tended to conceive of the Andes as a homogeneous and inter-related cultural unit. However, past relationships between populations of the Andes now appear more nuanced. Chiara Barbieri, lead author of the study at UZH, says: “We see that distinctive Mapuche lineages originated locally and have remained in relative isolation. This general isolation is punctuated by episodes of contact with other South American populations over the last millennium or so”.

Paul Heggarty, a linguist based at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology during this study, adds: “The main genetic link is to the Central Andes, mirroring how domesticated crops like the potato also spread south, as did a handful of loanwords borrowed from Quechua into Mapudungun, the language of the Mapuche”. This contact may date back to before contact with the Inca Empire.

Other specific connections point southwards, to the southernmost tip of the Andes. “We found that different Mapuche territorial identities – Pehuenche from the Andes, Lafkenche on the coast, and Huilliche from the island of Chiloé – are related to each other, but the Huilliche still bear traces of genetic contact with the Far South. This may be a signature of genetic structure originating in other groups known as the Chono, who once inhabited Chiloé”, explains Kentaro Shimizu, professor of genetics and director of the “University Research Priority Program in Evolution in Action” at UZH.

Participation of indigenous and local communities

The study was developed through direct exchange with the participants. “Traditional stories and reports relate a profound legacy of Mapuche culture in the region. Our work has value for the participants in how they feel represented,” says María José Aninao, a Mapuche linguist and co-author of the study. Chiara Barbieri concludes: “We also recorded the process of discussing the results with participants and cultural representatives in a documentary that is now ready to be distributed. In it we seek to explain the complexity of indigenous identities today, from conversations with people in Chile who had Mapuche ancestors or indeed self-identify as Mapuche”.

Icelandic lineage could be traced to a Native American origin from Viking voyages to the Americas that commenced in the 10th century. I

 Old report but interesting:

Although most mtDNA lineages observed in contemporary Icelanders can be traced to neighboring populations in the British Isles and Scandinavia, one may have a more distant origin. This lineage belongs to haplogroup C1, one of a handful that was involved in the settlement of the Americas around 14,000 years ago. Contrary to an initial assumption that this lineage was a recent arrival, preliminary genealogical analyses revealed that the C1 lineage was present in the Icelandic mtDNA pool at least 300 years ago. This raised the intriguing possibility that the Icelandic C1 lineage could be traced to Viking voyages to the Americas that commenced in the 10th century. In an attempt to shed further light on the entry date of the C1 lineage into the Icelandic mtDNA pool and its geographical origin, we used the deCODE Genetics genealogical database to identify additional matrilineal ancestors that carry the C1 lineage and then sequenced the complete mtDNA genome of 11 contemporary C1 carriers from four different matrilines. Our results indicate a latest possible arrival date in Iceland of just prior to 1700 and a likely arrival date centuries earlier. Most surprisingly, we demonstrate that the Icelandic C1 lineage does not belong to any of the four known Native American (C1b, C1c, and C1d) or Asian (C1a) subclades of haplogroup C1. Rather, it is presently the only known member of a new subclade, C1e. While a Native American origin seems most likely for C1e, an Asian or European origin cannot be ruled out. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2010. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

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Archaeology project to examine fortress community resilience in the transition from the Bronze to Iron Age

 A Cranfield University-led project excavating a fortress site in southern Georgia aims to uncover why communities in this area were more resilient than in some other parts of the world at the end of the Bronze Age – a period of significant change, around 1200 BC.

The project – Surviving the Crisis Years: The Foundations of Societal Resilience in the Caucasus at the End of the Bronze Age – has received a Gerda Henkel Grant of €132,308 and will begin in June 2023. The project is led by Dr Nathaniel Erb-Satullo, Lecturer in Archaeological Science at Cranfield University, in collaboration with Dimitri Jachvliani, an archaeologist from the Georgian National Museum in Tbilisi. Cranfield osteoarchaeologist Dr Nivien Speith, and a wide range of specialist partners from Cornell University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Oxford will also join the project.

Fortress settlement will give clues to community resilience

During the so-called ‘12th Century BC crisis’ and its aftermath, most areas of the Middle East experienced a period of huge disruption with the collapse of empires, famine, failed harvests, warfare, and migration. The Caucasus (present-day Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan) seem, by contrast, to have been insulated from this chaos, displaying only gradual change in material culture and settlement patterns. Either the region escaped the wider disruption entirely, or it did not have the same cultural, economic, and political impact on communities in the area – implying they were perhaps more resilient than other areas.

Dr Erb-Satullo commented: “The key to understanding why the Bronze Age-Iron Age transition is different in the Caucasus is to study the fortress communities that dot the landscape during this period. We’re looking for clues about life in the Late Bronze Age through examining areas such as ceramics, burial rituals, farming practices, tools and social structures.

“Given the upheaval at that time in other nearby regions, we are intrigued to find out more about one of these sites and determine what underlies their apparent resilience.”

Specialist team will be joined by local experts and residents

The fortress site, called Dmanisis Gora, is based in the Kvemo Kartli region of Georgia and an international team of up to 30 people will work to excavate the site. The team includes Cranfield students and graduates, Georgian archaeologists, and specialists from a number of UK and US universities. Local residents from the modern town nearby the site will also assist in excavation.

The project builds on initial pilot excavations at the site conducted before the pandemic, as well as a comprehensive drone-based photogrammetric survey conducted in Autumn 2022 and will continue existing research on the topic. It will be using the latest forensic technologies including isotopic analysis of animal remains, metallurgy, magnetometry and deploying drones to scan the area.

“What’s really exciting about this site is its size, preservation, and the fact that it has layers dating precisely to the years around the 12th Century BC crisis,” continued Dr Erb-Satullo. “Many fortresses are on hills which are prone to erosion. But this one has relatively flat topography, so the sediment will have built up in layers over time, helping to preserve artefacts and archaeological clues from the Late Bronze age.”