A TEAM INCLUDING UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING ANTHROPOLOGISTS WORKS AT THE SITE OF A CIRCULAR PLAZA THAT WAS BUILT AROUND 4,750 YEARS AGO IN THE CAJAMARCA BASIN OF NORTHERN PERU
Two University of Wyoming anthropology professors have discovered one of the earliest circular plazas in Andean South America, showcasing monumental megalithic architecture, which refers to construction that uses large stones placed upright with no mortar.
Located at the Callacpuma archaeological site in the Cajamarca Basin of northern Peru, the plaza is built with large, vertically placed megalithic stones -- a construction method previously unseen in the Andes. Associate Professor Jason Toohey, project lead, and Professor Melissa Murphy have been researching this topic since the project’s inception in 2015. Excavations took place in the plaza starting in 2018.
Radiocarbon dating places its initial construction around 4,750 years ago during the Late Preceramic Period, making it one of the earliest instances of such architecture in the Americas.
To better understand this timeline, the team carefully excavated within the plaza, uncovering artifacts related to life in the past and collecting charcoal samples for dating. All material remains then were cleaned, processed and analyzed in the laboratory.
“This structure was built approximately 100 years before the Great Pyramids of Egypt and around the same time as Stonehenge,” Toohey says.
These dates signify that the circular plaza at Callacpuma is the earliest known example of monumental and megalithic architecture in the Cajamarca Valley -- and one of the earliest examples in ancient Peru.
“It was probably a gathering place and ceremonial location for some of the earliest people living in this part of the Cajamarca Valley,” Toohey adds. “These people were living a primarily hunting-and-gathering lifestyle and probably had only recently begun growing crops and domesticating animals.”
The plaza is formed by two concentric walls and measures about 60 feet in diameter.
The project is led by Toohey and Patricia Chirinos Ogata from the University of California-Santa Barbara. The team also includes Murphy, as well as undergraduate and graduate students from Peru and the U.S.
Toohey is an anthropological archaeologist who is dedicated to taking a holistic and multidisciplinary approach to the field. He has conducted fieldwork in the Peruvian Andes since 2003. The department head for anthropology at UW, Murphy is a biological anthropologist specializing in bioarchaeology and committed to multidisciplinary approaches within anthropology.
“As part of our community outreach, we collaborate and work with the residents of the towns on and adjacent to the site of Callacpuma about our findings and their importance,” Toohey says. “We highlight the importance of cultural heritage and, working together, we can continue the scientific investigations and help to preserve the site.”
THESE IMAGES ARE OF A TUBE-SHAPED BEAD MADE OF BONE THAT IS ABOUT 12,940 YEARS OLD. THE BEAD WAS DISCOVERED AT WYOMING’S LA PRELE MAMMOTH SITE BY UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING ARCHAEOLOGY PROFESSOR TODD SUROVELL AND HIS RESEARCH TEAM.
University of Wyoming archaeology Professor Todd Surovell and his team of collaborators have discovered a tube-shaped bead made of bone that is about 12,940 years old.
The bead, found at the La Prele Mammoth site in Converse County, is the oldest known bead in the Americas.
Surovell’s research was published in the peer-reviewed journal Scientific Reports; the paper is titled “Use of hare bone for the manufacture of a Clovis bead.” Members of the research team included people from UW, the Office of the Wyoming State Archaeologist, the University of Manchester, Weber State University and Chico State University.
The La Prele Mammoth site preserves the remains of a killed or scavenged sub-adult Columbian mammoth and an associated camp occupied during the time the animal was butchered.
To determine the origin of the bone bead, the team extracted collagen for zooarchaeology by mass spectrometry, also known as ZooMS, which allowed the group to gain insights about the chemical composition of the bone.
The researchers concluded that the bead was made from either a metapodial (the bones that link the phalanges of the digits to the more proximal bones of the limb) or a proximal phalanx (a bone found in the fingers and toes of humans and other vertebrates) of a hare.
This finding represents the first secure evidence for the use of hares during the Clovis period, which refers to a prehistoric era in North America, particularly prominent about 12,000 years ago. It’s named after the Clovis archaeological site in New Mexico, where distinctive stone tools were discovered.
The bead is about 7 millimeters in length, and its internal diameter averages 1.6 millimeters. The research team considered the possibility that the bead could have been the result of carnivore consumption and digestion and not created by humans; however, carnivores were not common on this site, and the artifact was recovered 1 meter from a dense scatter of other cultural materials.
Additionally, the grooves on the outside of the bead are consistent with creation by humans, either with stones or their teeth. Beads like this one were likely used to decorate their bodies or clothing.
Surovell, who also directs UW’s Frison Institute, is an archaeologist with specialization in Paleoindian period, the earliest period of American archaeology. He has worked primarily in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains but also has field experience in Eurasia. He is interested in factors that structure the archaeological record from decision-making to site formation.
Following the arrival of the first farmers in Scandinavia 5,900 years ago, the hunter-gatherer population was wiped out within a few generations, according to a new study from Lund University in Sweden, among others. The results, which are contrary to prevailing opinion, are based on DNA analysis of skeletons and teeth found in what is now Denmark.
The extensive study has been published as four separate articles in the journal Nature. An international research team, of which Lund University in Sweden is a member, has been able to draw new conclusions about the effects of migration on ancient populations by extracting DNA from skeletal parts and teeth of prehistoric people.
The study shows, among other things, that there have been two almost total population turnovers in Denmark over the past 7,300 years. The first population change happened 5,900 years ago when a farmer population, with a different origin and appearance, drove out the gatherers, hunters and fishers who had previously populated Scandinavia. Within a few generations, almost the entire hunter-gatherer population was wiped out.
“This transition has previously been presented as peaceful. However, our study indicates the opposite. In addition to violent death, it is likely that new pathogens from livestock finished off many gatherers,” says Anne Birgitte Nielsen, geology researcher and head of the Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory at Lund University.
A thousand years later, about 4,850 years ago, another population change took place when people with genetic roots in Yamnaya – a livestock herding people with origins in southern Russia – came to Scandinavia and wiped out the previous farmer population. Once again, this could have involved both violence and new pathogens. These big-boned people pursued a semi-nomadic life on the steppes, tamed animals, kept domestic cattle and moved over large areas using horses and carts. The people who settled in our climes were a mix between Yamnaya and Eastern European Neolithic people. This genetic profile is dominant in today’s Denmark, whereas the DNA profile of the first farmer population has been essentially erased.
“This time there was also a rapid population turnover, with virtually no descendants from the predecessors. We don’t have as much DNA material from Sweden, but what there is points to a similar course of events. In other words, many Swedes are to a great extent also descendants of these semi-nomads,” says Anne Birgitte Nielsen, who contributed quantitative pollen data which shows how the vegetation changed in connection with the population changes.
The results do not just overturn previous theories about amorous and peaceful meetings between groups of people. The study also provides a deepened understanding of historical migration flows, and the interpretation of archaeological finds and changes in vegetation and land use found in palaeoecological data.
“Our results help to enhance our knowledge of our heredity and our understanding of the development of certain diseases. Something that in the long term could be beneficial, for example in medical research,” concludes Anne Birgitte Nielsen.
MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR EVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY
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CAVES AND ROCK SHELTERS DOT THE MOUNTAINS IN THE NORTHWESTERN HIGHLANDS OF THAILAND. OVER 40 IN MAE HONG SON PROVINCE CONTAIN WOODEN COFFINS ON STILTS, DATING BACK 1,000 - 2,300 YEARS.
Decidious and evergreen forests dominate the limestone karst formations of the northwestern highlands of Thailand. A vast number of caves and rock shelters intersperses the mountains. In over 40 such caves in Mae Hong Son province, large wooden coffins mounted on stilts, dating between 2,300 and 1,000 years ago, can be found. During the Iron Age period, each of these up to several-meter-long coffins was crafted from a single teak tree and features refined carvings of geometric, animal- or human-like shapes at the handles of both ends.
This archaeological assemblage has been studied for over two decades by members of the Prehistoric Population and Cultural Dynamics in Highland Pang Mapha Project, led by Professor Rasmi Shoocongdej, from the Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Archaeology, Silpakorn University. “Our research examines the relationship between humans and their environments in the seasonal tropics. One crucial aspect is the exploration of the social structure of these prehistoric communities, as well as explaining their connections with other pre-Neolithic, Neolithic and post-Neolithic groups in this region,” says Rasmi Shoocongdej, an archaeologist and senior author of the study.
To understand the genetic profile of the Log Coffin-associated communities, and the connection of individuals buried in different caves, an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Germany and Thailand has analyzed the DNA of 33 ancient individuals from five Log Coffin sites. The genomes recovered from the ancient individuals allow the first detailed study of the structure of a prehistoric community from Southeast Asia. “This project illustrates how ancient DNA can contribute to our understanding of past communities, their every-day life, and their cross-regional connections”, says first author Selina Carlhoff, a researcher in the Department of Archaeogenetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
Complex genetic landscape in post-Neolithic mainland South East Asia
DNA preservation conditions in tropical regions are challenging and limit ancient population genetic studies from Southeast Asia. Most studies were limited to single individuals or small groups representing a country and period, and identifying only broad patterns, such as genetic admixture of farmers from the Yangtze River valley in southern China with the local Hòabìnhian hunter-gather-associated gene pool during the pre-Neolithic. The current study identifies two separate farmer-associated ancestries in the Log Coffin-associated individuals. One connected to the Yangtze River Valley, and another to the Yellow River valley in China. While previously published individuals from Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam also carry the Yellow River-related ancestry, it was absent in Bronze and Iron Age individuals from Ban Chiang in northeastern Thailand. These genetic differences mirror cultural differences between the two regions, such as mortuary practices and diet, and point towards separate influence spheres and connections to separate initial migration routes during the Neolithic period.
“Our results contribute to the emerging picture of a complex genetic landscape in post-Neolithic mainland Southeast Asia; however, this study provides successful genetic results from samples in limestone caves from the northwestern highlands of Thailand. Future studies of samples retrieved from open-air archaeological sites in the lowlands seem promising. If possible, they can provide additional insight into the genetic history of Mainland Southeast Asia,” says Wibhu Kutanan, a scientist from Naresuan University, Thailand, involved in the conception of the study. Detailed analyses of uniparental markers, which can reveal sex-specific demographic histories of Log Coffin-associated groups, will be provided in a forthcoming study. Further archaeogenetic studies in collaboration with local scholars, as well as novel admixture modelling and dating techniques, will illuminate the developing patterns better and enable direct connections to archaeological findings and hypotheses.
First community-level analysis in Southeast Asian archaeology
On the local scale, the study provided the first community-level analysis in Southeast Asian archaeology. To investigate the relations between individuals, the authors used genetic regions that are identical in two individuals, because they were inherited from a common ancestor. The analysis of so-called IBD blocks (identical-by-descent) helps tracing complex biological relatedness patterns within a site and across regions - and had so far not been applied in archaeogenetic studies of Southeast Asia. The study identified close genetic relatives buried in the same cave system, such as parents and children or grandparents and grandchildren. This cluster of closely related individuals was more distantly connected to all other individuals buried at the site.
While this suggests a selection of burial place under consideration of genetic relatedness, the more distant genetic relationships between Log Coffin sites, a low level of consanguinity, as well as high mitochondrial and low genome-wide diversity suggest that the Log Coffin-associated groups were rather large and constantly connected to each other across different river valleys. “This result is highly significant, since wooden coffins were also used in other archaeological cultures all over Southeast Asia. Comparing relatedness patterns and cross-regional genetic connections would be a fascinating future collaborative project which could potentially explain the cultural dynamics and population interactions within Southeast Asian and other regions”, says Rasmi Shoocongdej.
SIMULATED “MOBILITY HIGHWAYS” OF FARMER-HERDER INTERACTIONS OVERLAID WITH THE GEOLOCATED ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES DATED BETWEEN CA. 3600 AND 2200 BEFORE PRESENT (CREDIT: X. CHEN)
The 1 million-square-mile Tibetan Plateau — often called the “roof of the world” — is the highest landmass in the world, averaging 14,000 feet in altitude. Despite the extreme environment, humans have been permanent inhabitants there since prehistoric times.
Farming and herding play major roles in the economy of the Tibetan Plateau today — as they have throughout history. To make the most of a difficult environment, farmers, agropastoralists and mobile herders interact and move in conjunction with one another, which in turn shapes the overall economy and cultural geography of the plateau.
A new study by researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and Sichuan University in China, published Feb. 2 in Scientific Reports, traces the roots of the longstanding cultural interactions across the Tibetan Plateau to prehistoric times, as early as the Bronze Age.
The researchers used advanced geospatial modeling to compare environmental and archaeological evidence that connects ancient mobility and subsistence strategies to cultural connections forged among farmers and herders in the Bronze and Iron Ages. Their findings show that these strategies influenced the settlement pattern and the transfer of ceramic styles — such as the materials used, characteristics and decorative features of the pottery — among distant prehistoric communities across the plateau.
The research was an enormous undertaking made possible thanks to advances in geospatial data analysis and high-resolution remote sensing, according to Michael Frachetti, a professor of archaeology in Arts & Sciences at WashU and corresponding author of the study.
First, the researchers generated simulations of the optimal pathways of mobility used by prehistoric farmers and herders based on land cover and capacity of the environment to support the needs of their crops or herds. For example, highland herders typically move across zones with rich grass resources toward the more limited arable niches on the plateau. Repeated patterns emerging from these simulations were shown to statistically correlate with the geographic location of thousands of prehistoric sites across the Tibetan Plateau.
To test how these routes may have affected social interaction, the team compiled a large database of published archaeological findings from Bronze and Iron Age sites throughout Tibet and generated a social network based on shared technologies and designs of the ceramics found in these sites. The resulting social network suggests that even distant sites were well connected and in communication thousands of years ago across the Tibetan landmass.
“When we overlay the mobility maps with the social network, we see a strong correlation between routes for subsistence-oriented mobility and strong ties in material culture between regional communities, suggesting the emergence of ‘mobility highways’ over centuries of use,” Frachetti said. “This not only tells us that people were moving according to needs for farming and herding — which was largely influenced by environmental potential — but that mobility was key for building social relationships and the regional character of ancient communities on the Tibetan Plateau.”
Their findings also revealed an interesting caveat: The western part of Tibet did not match these patterns as well as the east. According to the authors, this suggests an alternative cultural orientation toward Central Asia, where similar mobility patterns connected prehistoric communities to the west. These east/west differences have been observed in other archaeological studies, they said.
“Archaeologists have been seeking to understand how and why ancient human communities build social relationships and cultural identities across the extreme terrain in Tibet for decades,” said lead author Xinzhou Chen, who earned his doctorate from WashU in 2023 and now works at the Center for Archaeological Sciences at Sichuan University. “This research provides a new perspective to explore the formation of human social cohesion in archaeology.”
A genetic analysis of bone fragments unearthed at an archaeological site in central Germany shows conclusively that modern humans — Homo sapiens — had already reached Northern Europe 45,000 years ago, overlapping with Neanderthals for several thousand years before the latter went extinct.
The findings establish that the site near Ranis, Germany, which is known for its finely flaked, leaf-shaped stone tool blades, is among the oldest confirmed sites of modern human Stone Age culture in north central and northwestern Europe.
The evidence that Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis lived side by side is consistent with genomic evidence that the two species occasionally interbred. It also feeds the suspicion that the invasion of Europe and Asia by modern humans some 50,000 years ago helped drive Neanderthals, which had occupied the area for more than 500,000 years, to extinction.
The genetic analysis, along with an archaeological and isotopic analysis and radiocarbon dating of the Ranis site, are detailed in a trio of papers appearing today in the journals Nature and Nature Ecology and Evolution.
The stone blades at Ranis, referred to as leaf points, are similar to stone tools found at several sites in Moravia, Poland, Germany and the United Kingdom. These tools that are thought to have been produced by the same culture, referred to as the Lincombian–Ranisian–Jerzmanowician (LRJ) culture or technocomplex. Because of previous dating, the Ranis site was known to be 40,000 years old or older, but without recognizable bones to indicate who made the tools, it was unclear whether they were the product of Neanderthals or Homo sapiens.
The new findings demonstrate that "Homo sapiens made this technology, and that Homo sapiens were this far north at this time period, which is 45,000 years ago," said Elena Zavala, one of four first authors of the Nature paper and a Miller Research Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. "So these are among the earliest Homo sapiens in Europe."
Zavala was a Ph.D. student at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) in Leipzig in 2018 when she first began working on the project, which was a major effort spearheaded by Jean-Jacque Hublin, former director of the institute and a professor at the Collège de France in Paris.
“The Ranis cave site provides evidence for the first dispersal of Homo sapiens across the higher latitudes of Europe. It turns out that stone artifacts that were thought to be produced by Neanderthals were, in fact, part of the early Homo sapiens toolkit,” Hublin said. "This fundamentally changes our previous knowledge about the period: Homo sapiens reached northwestern Europe long before Neanderthal disappearance in southwestern Europe."
Bones from maternal relatives?
Zavala conducted the genetic analysis of hominid bone fragments from the new and deeper excavations at Ranis between 2016 and 2022 and from earlier excavations in the 1930s. Because the DNA in ancient bones is highly fragmented, she employed special techniques to isolate and sequence the DNA, all of it mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) that is inherited solely from the mother.
"We confirmed that the skeletal fragments belonged to Homo sapiens. Interestingly, several fragments shared the same mitochondrial DNA sequences — even fragments from different excavations," she said. "This indicates that the fragments belonged to the same individual or their maternal relatives, linking these new finds with the ones from decades ago."
The bone fragments were initially identified as human through analysis of bone proteins — a field called paleoproteomics — by another first author, Dorothea Mylopotamitaki, a doctoral student at the Collège de France and fomerly of MPI-EVA.
By comparing the Ranis mitochondrial DNA sequences with mtDNA sequences obtained from human remains at other paleolithic sites in Europe, Zavala was able to construct a family tree of early Homo sapiens across Europe. All but one of the 13 Ranis fragments were quite similar to one another and, surprisingly, resembled mtDNA from the 43,000-year-old skull of a woman discovered in a cave at Zlatý kůň in the Czech Republic. The lone standout grouped with an individual from Italy.
"That raises some questions: Was this a single population? What could be the relationship here?" Zavala said. "But with mitochondrial DNA, that's only one side of the history. It's only the maternal side. We would need to have nuclear DNA to be able to start looking into this."
A transitional site between Middle and Upper Paleolithic
Zavala specializes in the analysis of DNA found in long-buried bones, on bone tools and in sediment. Her search through sediment from various levels of the Ranis excavation turned up DNA from a broad array of mammals, but none from hominids. The analysis, combined with morphological, isotopic and proteomic analysis of bone fragments, paints a picture of the environment at that time and of the diet of both humans and animals that occupied the cave over the millennia.
The presence of reindeer, cave bear, woolly rhinoceros and horse bones, for example, indicated cold climatic conditions typical of steppe tundra and similar to conditions in Siberia and northern Scandinavia today, and a human diet based on large terrestrial animals. The researchers concluded that the cave was used primarily by hibernating cave bears and denning hyenas, with only periodic human presence.
“This lower-density archaeological signature matches other Lincombian–Ranisian–Jerzmanowician sites and is best explained by expedient visits of short duration by small, mobile groups of pioneer H. sapiens,” according to one of the papers published in Nature Ecology and Evolution.
“This shows that even these earlier groups of Homo sapiens dispersing across Eurasia already had some capacity to adapt to such harsh climatic conditions,” said Sarah Pederzani, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of La Laguna in Spain, who led the paleoclimate study of the site. “Until recently, it was thought that resilience to cold-climate conditions did not appear until several thousand years later, so this is a fascinating and surprising result."
The Ranis site, called Ilsenhöhle and located at the base of a castle, was initially excavated mainly between 1932 and 1938. The leaf points found there were eventually assigned to the final years of the Middle Paleolithic period — between about 300,000 and 30,000 years ago — or the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic, which begins around 50,000 years ago.
Because of the importance of the Ranis site for understanding the LRJ technocomplex and the transition from the Neanderthal-associated late Middle Paleolithic to the modern human Upper Paleolithic in central Europe, Hublin and his team decided to reexcavate the site using modern tools of archaeology.
The new excavations extended to bedrock, about 8 meters below the surface, and involved removing a rock — likely fallen from the cave ceiling — that had halted the previous excavation. Here, Hublin's team uncovered chips from flint tools and a quartzite flake consistent with the LRJ technocomplex. Subsequent proteomic analysis of thousands of recovered bone chips confirmed that four were from hominids. Of bone chips uncovered during the 1930s excavations, nine were from hominids.
Zavala's DNA analysis confirmed that all 13 bone fragments came from Homo sapiens.
A revised settlement history of Northern Europe
The team also carried out radiocarbon dating of human and animal bones from different layers of the site to reconstruct the site’s chronology, focusing on bones with traces of human modifications on their surfaces, which links their dates to human presence in the cave.
“We found very good agreement between the radiocarbon dates from the Homo sapiens bones from both excavation collections and with modified animal bones from the LRJ layers of the new excavation, making a very strong link between the human remains and LRJ. The evidence suggests that Homo sapiens were sporadically occupying the site from as early as 47,500 years ago,” said another first author, Helen Fewlass, a former Max Planck researcher who is now a European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) Postdoctoral Fellow at the Francis Crick Institute in London.
“The results from the Ilsenhöhle in Ranis fundamentally changed our ideas about the chronology and settlement history of Europe north of the Alps," added Tim Schüler of the Thuringian State Office for the Preservation of Historical Monuments and Archaeology in Weimar, Germany.
Among other co-authors of the Nature paper are co-first author Marcel Weiss of the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg and Shannon McPherron of MPI-EVA, who co-led the Ranis excavation with Hublin, Schüler and Weiss. Zavala, in addition to being co-first author of the Nature paper, co-authored the two papers in Nature Ecology and Evolution.
The arrival of Homo sapiens in cold northern latitudes took place several thousand years before Neanderthals disappeared in southwest Europe
MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR EVOLUTIONARY ANTHROPOLOGY
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STONE TOOLS FROM THE LRJ AT RANIS. 1) PARTIAL BIFACIAL BLADE POINT CHARACTERISTIC OF THE LRJ; 2) AT RANIS THE LRJ ALSO CONTAINS FINELY MADE BIFACIAL LEAF POINTS.
The three published studies describe the Homo sapiens fossils from Ilsenhöhle at Ranis and their associated context (Mylopotamitaki et al.), the diet and lifeways of these first pioneers (Smith et al.), and the environmental conditions they faced in Central and NW Europe (Pederzani et al.). “The Ranis cave site provides evidence for the first dispersal of Homo sapiens across the higher latitudes of Europe. It turns out that stone artefacts that were thought to be produced by Neanderthals were in fact part of the early H. sapiens tool kit. This fundamentally changes our previous knowledge about this time period: H. sapiens reached northwestern Europe long before Neanderthal disappearance in southwestern Europe”, says Jean-Jacques Hublin, Professor at the Collège de France, Paris and emeritus director at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany
Ranis: an 8-metre sequence re-excavated for the first time since the 1930s
An international research team led by Jean-Jacques Hublin (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and Collège de France, Paris), Shannon McPherron (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology), Tim Schüler (Thüringisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie) and Marcel Weiss (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg and Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology) re-excavated Ranis between 2016 and 2022. The aims were to locate remaining deposits from the 1930s excavation, clarify the stratigraphy and chronology of the site, and identify the makers of the LRJ. At the bottom of the 8 metre deep sequence, the researchers discovered layers containing the LRJ. “The challenge was to excavate the full 8-metre sequence from top to bottom, hoping that some deposits were left from the 1930s excavation. We were fortunate to find a 1.7 metre thick rock the previous excavators did not get past. After removing that rock by hand, we finally uncovered the LRJ layers and even found human fossils. This came as a huge surprise, as no human fossils were known from the LRJ before, and was a reward for the hard work at the site”, says Marcel Weiss of the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
Thousands of bone fragments revealed patterns of site use and human diet
Thousands of highly fragmented pieces of bone were recovered at the site. “Zooarchaeological analysis shows that the Ranis cave was used intermittently by denning hyaenas, hibernating cave bears, and small groups of humans,” explained zooarchaeologist Geoff Smith from the University of Kent and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. “While these humans only used the cave for short periods of time, they consumed meat from a range of animals, including reindeer, woolly rhinoceros, and horses” said Smith. “Although the bones were broken into smaller pieces, they were exceptionally well preserved and allowed us to apply the latest cutting-edge methods from archaeological science, proteomics and genetics,” explained Smith.
The first human bones from Ranis were identified using palaeoproteomics
The researchers used the proteins extracted from the morphologically unidentifiable bone fragments to identify the animal and the human remains found in the LRJ layers. “Palaeoproteomics is a relatively new tool to perform taxonomic identifications of previously unidentifiable skeletal remains recovered from archaeological sites. At Ranis, this enabled us to identify the first human remains associated with the LRJ layers, which were then analysed further with the latest methods in ancient DNA, radiocarbon dating, and stable isotope analysis.” says Dorothea Mylopotamitaki, a former PUSHH-Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Fellow at the Collège de France and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
More H. sapiens bones discovered among material from the 1930s excavation
In addition to these new excavations, the team also undertook new analyses of the bone fragments from the old Ranis collection (1932 to 1938 excavations), which are curated and stored at the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt in Germany. This included a study where the bones were examined one by one to potentially identify human remains. “This painstaking work was rewarded by the discovery of several new human bones,” said Hélène Rougier, a palaeoanthropologist at California State University Northridge. “Finding human remains mixed with animal bones that had been stored for almost a century was an unexpected and fantastic surprise,” she added. Further work on these collections is ongoing by Hélène Rougier and researchers from the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt and highlights the enormous value of museum collections.
DNA sequencing showed that the bones were Homo sapiens
Once the 13 human skeletal remains from both the old and new excavations were identified, DNA was extracted from these fossils and analysed. "We confirmed that the skeletal fragments belonged to Homo sapiens. Interestingly, several fragments shared the same mitochondrial DNA sequences – even fragments from different excavations. This indicates that the fragments belonged to the same individual or were maternal relatives, linking these new finds with the ones from decades ago," says Elena Zavala, a Miller Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, and Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. Another important goal was to obtain DNA from the sediments at the site, especially from the LRJ layers. Therefore, in addition to their search for human bone fragments, the team also extracted ancient mammalian DNA from sediment samples to complete the zooarchaeological analysis. Additionally, nuclear DNA analyses are ongoing in collaboration with Arev Sümer at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
Homo sapiens reached northwest Europe as early as 47,500 years ago
Radiocarbon dating was used to understand when humans occupied the cave. Homo sapiens bones from both the 1930s and 2016 to 2022 excavations were directly dated using very small amounts of bone to preserve the material for further analyses. The dates show that these individuals were some of the earliest Homo sapiens to inhabit Europe. The team also carried out radiocarbon dating of animal bones from different layers of the site to reconstruct the site’s chronology. They focused on bones with traces of human modifications on their surfaces, linking the dates to human presence at the cave. “We found very good agreement between the radiocarbon dates from the Homo sapiens bones from both excavation collections and with modified animal bones from the LRJ layers of the new excavation, making a very strong link between the human remains and LRJ. The evidence suggests that Homo sapiens were sporadically occupying the site from as early as 47,500 years ago,” says Helen Fewlass, an EMBO Postdoctoral Fellow at the Francis Crick Institute, London, and formerly of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
Homo sapiens had the capacity to adapt to harsh, cold climatic conditions
Stable isotope analyses on animal teeth and bones allow insights into the climatic conditions and environments that the pioneering groups of Homo sapiens encountered around Ranis. The team combined information from a broad range of different stable isotope ratios and was able to show that a very cold continental climate and open steppe landscapes, similar to those found in Siberia or northern Scandinavia today, prevailed during the time of the LRJ, and climatic conditions cooled even further throughout the LRJ occupations of Ranis. “This shows that even these earlier groups of Homo sapiens dispersing across Eurasia already had some capacity to adapt to such harsh climatic conditions,” says Sarah Pederzani from the University of La Laguna and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, who led the palaeoclimate study of the site. “Until recently it was thought that resilience to cold-climate conditions did not appear until several thousand years later, so this is a fascinating and surprising result. Perhaps cold steppes with larger herds of prey animals were more attractive environments for these human groups than previously appreciated.”
Milestone study on the initial incursions of Homo sapiens into Europe
This comprehensive study, integrating archaeological excavation, morphological and proteomic taxonomic identification, mitochondrial DNA analysis, radiocarbon dating of newly excavated archaeological material and of human remains, zooarchaeology, and isotope analysis marks a significant milestone in understanding the initial incursions of Homo sapiens into Europe north of the Alps during the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition. Furthermore, the team found that Homo sapiens ventured into Europe under severe cold climatic conditions. Moving in small groups, they shared their environment and sites with large carnivores, like hyenas, and they manufactured elaborately crafted leaf-shaped stone tools. “The results from the Ilsenhöhle in Ranis fundamentally change our ideas about the chronology and settlement history of Europe north of the Alps. It is especially exciting that we now have the oldest H. sapiens here in Thuringia, Germany”, says Tim Schüler of the Thüringisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie.
You might think age-related dementia has been with us all along, stretching back to the ancient world.
But a new analysis of classical Greek and Roman medical texts suggests that severe memory loss — occurring at epidemic levels today — was extremely rare 2,000 to 2,500 years ago, in the time of Aristotle, Galen and Pliny the Elder.
The USC-led research, published in theJournal of Alzheimer’s Disease, bolsters the idea that Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias are diseases of modern environments and lifestyles, with sedentary behavior and exposure to air pollution largely to blame.
“The ancient Greeks had very, very few — but we found them — mentions of something that would be like mild cognitive impairment,” said first author Caleb Finch, a University Professor at the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. “When we got to the Romans, and we uncovered at least four statements that suggest rare cases of advanced dementia — we can’t tell if it’s Alzheimer’s. So, there was a progression going from the ancient Greeks to the Romans.”
Ancient Greeks recognized that aging commonly brought memory issues we would recognize as mild cognitive impairment, or MCI, but nothing approaching a major loss of memory, speech and reasoning as caused by Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia.
Finch and co-author Stanley Burstein, a historian at California State University, Los Angeles, pored over a major body of ancient medical writing by Hippocrates and his followers. The text catalogs ailments of the elderly such as deafness, dizziness and digestive disorders — but makes no mention of memory loss.
Centuries later in ancient Rome, a few mentions crop up. Galen remarks that at the age of 80, some elderly begin to have difficulty learning new things. Pliny the Elder notes that the senator and famous orator Valerius Messalla Corvinus forgot his own name. Cicero prudently observed that “elderly silliness … is characteristic of irresponsible old men, but not of all old men.”
Finch speculates that as Roman cities grew denser, pollution increased, driving up cases of cognitive decline. In addition, Roman aristocrats used lead cooking vessels, lead water pipes and even added lead acetate into their wine to sweeten it — unwittingly poisoning themselves with the powerful neurotoxin.
(A few ancient writers recognized the toxicity of lead-containing material, but little progress was made in dealing with the problem until well into the 20th century. Some scholars blame lead poisoning for the fall of the Roman Empire.)
For this paper, Finch did not just think about the Roman Empire or the Greeks. In the absence of demographic data for ancient Greece and Rome, Finch turned to a surprising model for ancient aging: today’s Tsimane Amerindians, an Indigenous people of the Bolivian Amazon.
The Tsimane — like the ancient Greeks and Romans — have a preindustrial lifestyle that is very physically active, and they have extremely low rates of dementia. An international team of cognitive researchers led by Margaret Gatz, a professor of psychology, gerontology and preventive medicine at the USC Leonard Davis School, found among older Tsimane people, only about 1% suffer from dementia. In contrast, 11% of people aged 65 and older living in the United States have dementia, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.
“The Tsimane data, which is quite deep, is very valuable,” Finch said. “This is the best-documented large population of older people that have minimal dementia, all of which indicates that the environment is a huge determinant on dementia risk. They give us a template for asking these questions.”
The paper was supported by funds from the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund and the National Institutes of Health (P01 AG055367 and R01 AG05442).
