Poor Mesolithic oral health

Members of a hunter-gatherer group that lived in south-western Scandinavia during the Mesolithic era — approximately 10,000 years ago — may have been affected by tooth decay and gum disease, according to a study published in Scientific Reports.

Emrah Kırdök, Anders Götherström and colleagues sequenced the DNA found on three pieces of birch tar — a substance made from heated birch bark — that were excavated in the 1990s from Huseby Klev, Sweden and have been dated to between 9,890 and 9,540 years old. They created profiles of the microbial, plant, and animal species DNA found on each sample and compared these to those previously reported for modern human samples, ancient human dental plaque, and a 6,000 year old chewed birch tar sample

The authors found that the microbial profiles of the birch tar samples were most similar to microbes found in the modern human mouth, in ancient human dental plaque, and in a 6,000 year old chewed birch tar sample. This suggests that the samples from Huseby Klev were chewed by humans. They also found that they contained an increased abundance of several bacteria that are commonly associated with gum disease — such as Treponema denticola, Streptococcus anginosus, and Slackia exigua — and tooth decay — such as Streptococcus sobrinus and Parascardovia denticolens. Based on the relative abundance of microbial species in the birch tar samples and using machine learning models, the authors estimate that the probability that members of the hunter-gatherer group were affected by gum disease is between 70 and 80%. The authors suggest that the wider use of teeth to perform tasks involving gripping, cutting and tearing in ancient hunter-gatherer societies may have increased their risk of coming into contact with microbial species that cause gum disease.

In addition to microbial DNA, the authors identified DNA sequences consistent with those from a range of plant and animal species, including hazelnut, apple, mistletoe, red fox, grey wolf, mallard, limpet, and brown trout. These could reflect the materials that members of the hunter-gatherer group chewed prior to the birch tar samples. The authors speculate that these materials could have included food sources, furs, and bone tools.

The findings highlight the poor oral health of a group of Mesolithic Scandinavian hunter-gatherers and provide insight into their diet, material use, and local environment.

Ancient chewing gum reveals stone age diet

 

What did people eat on the west coast of Scandinavia 10 000 years ago? A new study of the DNA in a chewing gum shows that deer, trout and hazelnuts were on the diet. It also shows that one of the individuals had severe problems with her teeth.

Some 9 700 years ago, a group of people were camping on the west coast of Scandinavia, north of what is today Göteborg. They had been fishing, hunting and collecting resources for food. And some teenagers, both boys and girls, were chewing resin to produce glue, just after munching on trout and deer, as well as on hazelnuts. Due to a bad case of periodontitis (severe gum infection that can lead to tooth loss and bone loss), one of the teenagers had problems eating the chewy deer-meat, as well as preparing the resin by chewing it.

We know this because an international research team has been working with the chewed resin from Huseby Klev for some time. “There is a richness of DNA sequences in the chewed mastic from Huseby-Klev, and in it we find both the bacteria that we know are related to periodontitis, and DNA from plants and animals that they had chewed before”, says Dr. Emrah Kırdök, from Mersin University Department of Biotechnology, who coordinated the metagenomic work on the Mesolithic chewing gum. Emrah Kırdök started to analyse the material when he was a postdoc at the Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies at Stockholm University, but the study has grown much since then.

The site Huseby Klev on the island Orust was excavated 30 years ago. Chewed resin was found together with remains of stone tools in a context dated to c. 9700 years ago. The stone material also indicated a Mesolithic chronology. The chewed material from Huseby Klev has already generated a study on the human genetic data from three individuals, and the DNA in the material that was not of human origin has also been analysed and published.

Identifying the different species present in the kind of mix of DNA that was present in the Mesolithic chewing gum was challenging. Dr Andrés Aravena, from the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Istanbul University spent much time on the computer analysing the data together with Dr. Emrah Kırdök. “We had to apply several computational heavy analytical tools to single out the different species and organisms. All the tools we needed were not ready to be applied to ancient DNA; but much of our time was spent on adjusting them so that we could apply them”, concludes Andrés Aravena. Metagenomics on ancient DNA is an expanding area, but there have yet only been a few studies on this type of chewed material.

Professor Anders Götherström, at the Centre for Palaeogenetics, a collaboration between Stockholm University and the Swedish Museum of Natural History, is the head of the project where this study was conducted. “This provides a snapshot of the life of a small group of hunter-gatherers on the Scandinavian west coast. I think it is amazing, there are other well established methods to work out what nutrition and diet relates to the Stone Age, but here we know that these teenagers were eating deer, trout, and hazelnuts 9 700 years ago on the west coast of Scandinavia, while at least one of them had severe problems with his teeth.”

The study is published in Scientific Reports. Read article: Metagenomic analysis of Mesolithic chewed pitch reveals poor oral health among stone age individuals

Woolly mammoth movements tied to earliest Alaska hunting camps

 

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA FAIRBANKS

 

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ARTWORK SHOWS THREE MAMMOTHS BEING WATCHED BY A FAMILY OF ANCIENT ALASKANS FROM THE DUNES NEAR THE SWAN POINT ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE, A SEASONAL HUNTING CAMP OCCUPIED 14,000 YEARS AGO.

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CREDIT: IMAGE BY JULIUS CSOSTONYI

Researchers have linked the travels of a 14,000-year-old woolly mammoth with the oldest known human settlements in Alaska, providing clues about the relationship between the iconic species and some of the earliest people to travel across the Bering Land Bridge.

Scientists made those connections by using isotope analysis to study the life of a female mammoth, named Élmayųujey'eh, by the Healy Lake Village Council. A tusk from Elma was discovered at the Swan Point archaeological site in Interior Alaska. Samples from the tusk revealed details about Elma and the roughly 1,000-kilometer journey she took through Alaska and northwestern Canada during her lifetime.

Isotopic data, along with DNA from other mammoths at the site and archaeological evidence, indicates that early Alaskans likely structured their settlements to overlap with areas where mammoths congregated. Those findings, highlighted in the new issue of the journal Science Advances, provide evidence that mammoths and early hunter-gatherers shared habitat in the region. The long-term predictable presence of woolly mammoths would have attracted humans to the area.

“She wandered around the densest region of archaeological sites in Alaska,” said Audrey Rowe, a University of Alaska Fairbanks Ph.D. student and lead author of the paper. “It looks like these early people were establishing hunting camps in areas that were frequented by mammoths.”

The mammoth tusk was excavated and identified in 2009 by Charles Holmes, affiliate research professor of anthropology at UAF, and François Lanoë, research associate in archaeology at the University of Alaska Museum of the North. They found Elma’s tusk and the remains of two related juvenile mammoths, along with evidence of campfires, the use of stone tools, and butchered remains of other game. All of this “indicates a pattern consistent with human hunting of mammoths,” said Ben Potter, an archaeologist and professor of anthropology at UAF.

Researchers at UAF’s Alaska Stable Isotope Facility then analyzed thousands of samples from Elma’s tusk to recreate her life and travels. Isotopes provide chemical markers of an animal’s diet and location. The markers are then recorded in the bones and tissues of animals and remain even after they die. 

Mammoth tusks are well-suited to isotopic study because they grew throughout the ancient animals’ lives, with clearly visible layers appearing when split lengthwise. Those growth bands give researchers a way to collect a chronological record of a mammoth’s life by studying isotopes in samples along the tusk.

Much of Elma’s journey overlapped with that of a previously studied male mammoth who lived 3,000 years earlier, demonstrating long-term movement patterns by mammoths over several millennia. In Elma’s case, they also indicated she was a healthy 20-year-old female.

“She was a young adult in the prime of life. Her isotopes showed she was not malnourished and that she died in the same season as the seasonal hunting camp at Swan Point where her tusk was found,” said senior author Matthew Wooller, who is director of the Alaska Stable Isotope Facility and a professor at UAF’s College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences.

The era in which Elma lived may have compounded the challenges posed by the relatively recent appearance of humans. The grass- and shrub-dominated steppe landscape that had been common in Interior Alaska was beginning to shift toward more forested terrain.

“Climate change at the end of the ice age fragmented mammoths’ preferred open habitat, potentially decreasing movement and making them more vulnerable to human predation,” Potter said.

Ancient cities in the Anthropocene

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE OF GEOANTHROPOLOGY

 

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MULTIDISCIPLINARY APPROACHES TO URBAN ARCHAEOLOGY PROVIDE A WEALTH OF INFORMATION ABOUT HOW CITIES SHAPE, AND ARE SHAPED BY, THEIR ENVIRONMENT.

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CREDIT: MICHELLE O'REILLY

Cities play a key role in climate change and biodiversity and are one of the most recognizable features of the Anthropocene. They also accelerate innovation and shape social networks, while perpetuating and intensifying inequalities. Today over half of all humanity lives in cities, a threshold which will rise to nearly 70% by the mid-21st century. Yet despite their importance for the Anthropocene, cities are not a recent phenomenon.

In a new study, an interdisciplinary team of authors from the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology argue that the history of urbanism provides an important resource for understanding where our contemporary urban challenges come from, as well as how we might begin to address them. The paper highlights the ways in which new methodologies are changing our understanding of past cities and providing a reference for urban societies navigating the intensifying climatic extremes of the 21st century.

These methods range from remote sensing techniques like LiDAR, which are documenting cities in places where urban life was once considered impossible, to biomolecular approaches like isotope analysis, which can provide insights into how cities have shaped different organisms and influenced human mobility and connectivity through time. Meanwhile, the study of sediment cores and historical data can show how cities have placed adaptive pressures on different landscapes and human societies – as they still do today.

As understanding of humanity’s influence on the Earth system grows, urbanism is increasingly considered one of the most impactful forms of land use. In this new study, the authors also highlight how multidisciplinary approaches, including Earth system modelling, are revealing the impacts that ancient and historical forms of urbanism had on land use, and, critically, how they compare to the impacts of urban areas today.

Throughout, the authors emphasize that the past does not just provide anecdotal insights, but rather numerical datasets of things like road lengths, building types, population sizes, economic output, environmental impacts, and more. With advances in computational archaeology, this opens up the possibility of quantifying similarities and differences in urban pathways across space and time, directly linking the past to the present.

By reviewing diverse examples from around the world ranging from medieval Constantinople (now Istanbul) to 9th century Bagdad, from Great Zimbabwe to Greater Angkor in Cambodia, this new study highlights the potential of new methodological approaches to reveal historical legacies and predict trajectories of urbanism in the Anthropocene epoch.

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First prehistoric person with Turner syndrome identified from ancient DNA

     

• First prehistoric person with Turner syndrome identified from the Iron Age
• Earliest known person with Jacob’s syndrome identified from Early Medieval Period
• Individuals with Klinefelter syndrome identified across a range of time periods
• New technique developed to measure number of chromosomes in ancient genomes more precisely

Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute, working with University of Oxford, University of York and Oxford Archaeology, have developed a new technique to measure the number of chromosomes in ancient genomes more precisely, using it to identify the first prehistoric person with mosaic Turner syndrome (characterised by one X chromosome instead of two [XX]), who lived about 2500 years ago.

As part of their research published today in Communications Biology, they also identified the earliest known person with Jacob’s syndrome (characterised by an extra Y chromosome - XYY) in the Early Medieval Period, three people with Klinefelter syndrome (characterised by an extra X chromosome - XXY) across a range of time periods and an infant with Down Syndrome from the Iron Age.

Most cells in the human body have 23 pairs of DNA molecules called chromosomes, and the sex chromosomes are typically XX (female) or XY (male), although there are differences in sexual development. ‘Aneuploidy’ occurs when a person’s cells have an extra or missing chromosome. If this occurs in the sex chromosomes, a few differences like delayed development or changes in height can be seen around puberty.

Ancient DNA samples can erode over time and can be contaminated by DNA from other ancient samples or from people handling them. This makes it difficult to accurately capture differences in the number of sex chromosomes.

The team at the Crick developed a computational method which aims to pick up more variation in sex chromosomes. For the sex chromosomes, it involves counting the number of copies of X and Y chromosomes, and comparing the outcome to a predicted baseline (what you would expect to see).

The team used the new method to analyse ancient DNA from a large dataset of individuals collected as part of their Thousand Ancient British Genomes project across British history, identifying six individuals with aneuploidies across five sites in Somerset, Yorkshire, Oxford and Lincoln2. The individuals lived across a range of time periods, from the Iron Age (2500 years ago) up to the Post-Medieval Period (about 250 years ago).

They identified five people who had sex chromosomes which fell outside of the XX or XY categories. All were buried according to their society’s customs although no possessions were found with them to shed more light on their lives.

The three individuals with Klinefelter syndrome lived across very different time periods, but they shared some similarities - all were slightly taller than average and showed signs of delayed development in puberty.

By investigating details on the bones, the research team could see that it was unlikely that the individual with Turner syndrome had gone through puberty and started menstruation, despite their estimated age of 18-22. Their syndrome was shown to be mosaic -some cells had one copy of chromosome X and some had two.

Kakia Anastasiadou, PhD student in the Ancient Genomics Laboratory at the Crick, and first author of the study, said: “Through precisely measuring sex chromosomes, we were able to show the first prehistoric evidence of Turner syndrome 2500 years ago, and the earliest known incidence of Jacob’s syndrome around 1200 years ago. It’s hard to see a full picture of how these individuals lived and interacted with their society, as they weren’t found with possessions or in unusual graves, but it can allow some insight into how perceptions of gender identity have evolved over time.”

Pontus Skoglund, Group Leader of the Ancient Genomics Laboratory at the Crick, said: “Our      method is also able to classify DNA contamination in many cases, and can help to analyse incomplete ancient DNA, so it could be applied to archaeological remains which have been difficult to analyse.

“Combining this data with burial context and possessions can allow for a historical perspective of how sex, gender and diversity were perceived in past societies. I hope this type of approach will be applied as the common resource of ancient DNA data continues to grow.”

The team worked with archaeologists from the University of Oxford, the Wells and Mendip Museum, University of York, University of Bradford, Oxford Archaeology, York Osteoarchaeology and Network Archaeology, acknowledging support from Lincolnshire County Council, Magdalen College and Balfour Beatty for National Highways.

Rick Schulting, Professor of Scientific and Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Oxford, said: “The results of this study open up exciting new possibilities for the study of sex in the past, moving beyond binary categories in a way that would be impossible without the advances being made in ancient DNA analysis.”

Discovered in the Upper Amazon: evidence for early urbanism in the region

A dense system of pre-Hispanic urban centers, characterized by constructed platforms and plazas and connected by large, straight roads, has been discovered in the upper Amazon, according to a new study. The research, based on more than 20 years of interdisciplinary research, suggests that this original 2500-year-old society constitutes the earliest and largest low-density agrarian urbanism documented in the Amazon thus far. Such extensive early development in the Upper Amazon resembles similar Maya urban systems in Central America. 

Although a growing body of research has begun to highlight the scope and scale of pre-Hispanic occupation of the Amazon, evidence for large-scale urbanism has remained elusive. Stéphen Rostain and colleagues present evidence for an agrarian-based civilization that began more than 2500 years ago in the Upano Valley of Amazonian Ecuador, a region in the eastern foothills of the Andes. 

Based on more than 20 years of interdisciplinary research that included fieldwork and light detection and ranging (LIDAR) mapping, Rostain et al. describe urbanism at a scale never before documented in Amazonia, consisting of more than 6000 anthropogenic rectangular earthen platforms and plaza structures connected by footpaths and roads and surrounded by expansive agricultural landscapes and river drainages within the 300 square kilometer survey area. 

The authors identified at least 15 distinct settlement sites of various sizes based on clusters of structures. However, according to Rostain et al., the most notable elements of this built environment are the extensive and complex regional-scale road network connecting urban centers and the surrounding hinterland. 

Archaeological excavations indicate that the construction and occupation of the platforms and roads occurred between ~500 BCE and 300 to 600 CE and was carried out by groups from the Kilamope and later Upano cultures. Rostain et al. note that the Upano sites are different from other monumental sites discovered in Amazonia, which are more recent and less extensive. 

“Such a discovery is another vivid example of the underestimation of Amazonia’s twofold heritage: environmental but also cultural, and therefore Indigenous,” write Rostain et al. “…we believe that it is crucial to thoroughly revise our preconceptions of the Amazonian world and, in doing so, to reinterpret contexts and concepts in the necessary light of an inclusive and participatory science.”

Discovery of immense fortifications dating back 4,000 years in north-western Arabia

 

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DIGITAL RECONSTRUCTION OF THE RAMPART NETWORK FROM THE NORTHERN SECTION OF THE KHAYBAR WALLED OASIS 4,000 YEARS AGO.

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CREDIT: © KHAYBAR LONGUE DURÉE ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROJECT, M. BUSSY & G. CHARLOUX

The North Arabian Desert oases were inhabited by sedentary populations in the 4th and 3rd millennia BCE. A fortification enclosing the Khaybar Oasis—one of the longest known going back to this period—was just revealed by a team of scientists from the CNRS1 and the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU). This new walled oasis is, along with that of Tayma, one of the two largest in Saudi Arabia. While a number of walled oases dating back to the Bronze Age had already been documented, this major discovery sheds new light on human occupation in north-western Arabia, and provides a better grasp of local social complexity during the pre-Islamic period.

Cross-referencing field surveys and remote sensing data with architectural studies, the team estimated the original dimensions of the fortifications at 14.5 kilometres in length, between 1.70 and 2.40 metres in thickness, and approximately 5 metres in height. Preserved today over a little less than half of its original length (41%, 5.9 km and 74 bastions), this colossal edifice enclosed a rural and sedentary territory of nearly 1,100 hectares. The fortification’s date of construction is estimated between 2250 and 1950 BCE, on the basis of radiocarbon dating of samples collected during excavations.

While the study confirms that the Khaybar Oasis clearly belonged to a network of walled oases in north-western Arabia, the discovery of this rampart also raises questions regarding why it was built as well as the nature of the populations that built it, in particular their relations with populations outside the oasis.

This archaeological discovery, whose results will be published on 10 January in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports (JASREP), paves the way for major advances in understanding the prehistoric, pre-Islamic, and Islamic past of the north-western Arabian Peninsula.

 

Notes

1 – From the Orient and Mediterranean Laboratory (CNRS/Collège de France/EPHE-PSL/Sorbonne Université/Université Panthéon-Sorbonne) and the Archéorient – Environments and Societies of the Ancient East Laboratory (CNRS/Université Lumière Lyon 2), in connection with the Khaybar Longue Durée Archaeological Project commissioned by the French Agency for AlUla Development (AFALULA) for the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU).