Scientists have revealed tin ingots from more than 3,000 years ago
found in Israel. They have established that ancient tin ingots found in
Israel actually came from what is now modern-day Britain.
Archaeologists believe it shows that tin was transported over long
distances about 3000 years ago. Moreover, the researchers may have
solved the mystery of the origin of the tin that was so vital for Bronze
Age cultures.
The origins of Bronze-age tin ingots have been investigated by
researchers from the University of Heidelberg and the Curt Engelhorn
Center for Archaeometry in Mannheim. Tin ingots from the Bronze Age
discovered by marine archaeologists off the coast of Israel.
According to Phys.org, the researchers used “lead and tin isotope
data as well as trace element analysis” to identify where the metal was
originally mined. What they found was totally unexpected.
The researchers established that the “3,000-year-old tin ingots found
in Israel are actually from Cornwall and Devon” reports the Daily Mail.
These areas are in southwest Britain and were the sites of tin mines
until modern times. The experts then analyzed tin ingots that were found
in Greece and Turkey and they discovered that they had also come from
Devon and Cornwall.
The original discovery of the tin ingots.
Tin was essential in the Bronze Age. This is because bronze is
an alloy of copper and tin. The ability to make bronze transformed
societies and the technology to make the metal was distributed all over
the Middle East, Europe, and Asia.
Recent highlights from the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution
Molecular Biology and Evolution (Oxford University Press)
IMAGE: To better understand the broad
demographic history of pre-Hispanic Mexico and to search for signatures
of adaptive evolution, an international team led by Mexican scientists
have sequenced the complete protein-coding...
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Credit: Ruben Mendoza, National Laboratory of Genomics for Biodiversity (LANGEBIO) - UGA, CINVESTAV
As more and more large-scale human genome sequencing projects get
completed, scientists have been able to trace with increasing confidence
both the geographical movements and underlying genetic variation of
human populations.
Most of these projects have favored the study of European
populations, and thus, have been lacking in representing the true ethnic
diversity across the globe.
To better understand the broad demographic history of pre-Hispanic
Mexico and to search for signatures of adaptive evolution, an
international team led by Mexican scientists have sequenced the complete
protein-coding regions of the genome, or exomes, of 78 individuals from
five different indigenous groups from Northern (Rara?muri or
Tarahumara, and Huichol), Central (Nahua), South (Triqui, or TRQ) and
Southeast (Maya, or MYA) Mexico. The genomic study, the largest of its
kind for indigenous populations from the Americas, appeared recently in
the advanced online edition of Molecular Biology and Evolution.
"We modeled the demographic history of indigenous populations from
Mexico with northern and southern ethnic groups (Tarahumara and Huichol)
splitting 7.2 kya and subsequently diverging locally 6.5 kya (Huichol
groups) and 5.7 kya (Triqui and Maya), respectively," said lead author
Maria A?vila-Arcos, of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. The
Nahua were excluded from the final analysis due to the noise it brought
to the overall analysis.
Overall, they identified 120,735 single nucleotide variants (SNV)
among the individuals studied, which were used to trace back the
population history. Furthermore, they were able to reconcile their data
with the demographic history and fossil records of ancestral Native
Americans.
"The split times we found are also coherent with previous estimates
of ancestral Native Americans diverging ~17.5-14.6 KYA into Southern
Native Americans or "Ancestral A," comprising Central and Southern
Native Americans) and Northern Native Americans or "Ancestral B," and
with an initial settlement of Mexico occurring at least 12,000 years
ago, as suggested by the earliest skeletal remains dated to
approximately this age found in Central Mexico and the Yucata?n
peninsula," said Avila-Arcos. "Studies on genome-wide data from ancient
remains from Central and South America reveal genetic continuity between
ancient and modern populations in some parts of the Americas over the
last 8,500 years."
"This suggests that, by that time, the ancestral population of MYA
was not yet genetically differentiated from others, so our estimates of
northern/southern split at 7.2 KYA and Mayan/Triqui divergence at 5.7
KYA fit with this scenario."
Next, they scanned the data to identify candidate genes most important for adaptation.
"Interestingly, some of these genes had previously been identified
as targets of selection in other populations," said co-corresponding
author Andrés Moreno Estrada, principal investigator at National
Laboratory of Genomics for Biodiversity (LANGEBIO) - UGA, CINVESTAV.
These genes include SLC24A5, involved in skin pigmentation, and FAP,
which was previously suggested to be under adaptive archaic
introgression in Peruvians and Melanesians. Three genes were involved in
the immune response. These include SYT5, implicated in innate immune
response, and interleukins IL17A and IL13. The remaining candidate genes
were involved in signal transduction (MPZL1), protein localization and
transport (GRASP and ARFRP1), cell differentiation and spermatogenesis
(GMCL), Golgi apparatus organization (UBXN2B), neuron differentiation
(MANF), signaling and cardiac muscle contraction (ADRBK1), cell cycle
(CDK5), microtubule organization and stabilization (NCKAP5L), and stress
fiber formation (NCKIPSD).
A couple of genes stood out for the team. These included, BCL2L13,
which is highly expressed in skeletal muscle and could be related to
physical endurance, including high endurance long-distance running, a
well-known trait of the northern Mexico Rara?muri. The KBTBD8 gene has
been associated with idiopathic short stature (also found in Koreans)
and the team found it to be highly differentiated in Triqui, a southern
indigenous group from Oaxaca whose height is extremely low compared to
other Native populations.
"We carried out the most comprehensive characterization of
potentially adaptive functional variation in Indigenous peoples from the
Americas to date," said Moreno Estrada. "We identified in these
populations over four thousand new variants, most of them singletons,
with neutral, regulatory, as well as protein-truncating and missense
annotations. The average number of singletons per individual was higher
in Nahua (NAH) and Maya (MYA), which is expected given these two
Indigenous groups embody the descendants of the largest civilizations in
Mesoamerica, and that today Nahua and Maya languages are the most
spoken Indigenous languages in Mexico. Furthermore, the generated data
also allowed us to propose a demographic model inferred from genomic
data in Native Mexicans and to identify possible events of adaptive
evolution in pre-Columbian Mexico."
Analysis reveals where prehistoric Italian communities got their copper, from Tuscany and beyond
PLOS
IMAGE: Articulated burial and dismembered human remains from Ponte San Pietro, tomb 22.
The chamber tomb is typical of the Rinaldone burial custom, central Italy, c.3600-2200 BC. Reprinted from Miari 1995 under...
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Credit: Dolfini et al, 2020
During the 4th and 3rd millennia BC, Italy was home to complex
networks of metalwork exchange, according to a study published January
22, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Andrea Dolfini of Newcastle University (UK), and Gilberto Artioli and Ivana Angelini of the University of Padova (Italy).
Research in recent decades has revealed that copper mining and
metalwork in Italy began earlier and included more complex technologies
than previously thought. However, relatively little is known about
metalwork exchange across the country, especially south of the Alps. In
this study, Dolfini and colleagues sought to understand how commonly and
how widely copper was imported and exchanged throughout Late Neolithic
(Copper Age) Italy.
The researchers conducted an analysis of 20 copper items, including
axe-heads, halberds, and daggers, from central Italy dating to the
Copper Age, between 3600 and 2200 BC. Comparing archaeological data and
chemical signatures of these items to nearby sources of copper ore, as
well as to other prehistoric sites, they were able to determine that
most of the examined objects were cast from copper mined in Tuscany,
with the rest sourced from the western Alps and possibly the French
Midi.
These results not only confirm the importance of the Tuscan region
as a source of copper for Copper Age communities in Italy, reaching as
far as the Tyrolean area home of the Alpine Iceman, but also reveal the
unexpected finding that non-Tuscan copper was a significant import to
the region at this time. These data contribute to a growing picture of
multiple independent networks of Copper Age metal exchange in the Alps
and neighboring regions. The authors note that future research might
uncover other early sources of copper, as well as more details of the
interactions between these early trade networks.
The authors add: "The first systematic application of lead isotope
analysis (a geological sourcing technique) to Copper Age metal objects
from central Italy, 3600-2200 BC, has shed new light on the provenance
of the copper used to cast them. The research has revealed that, while
some of the copper was sourced from the rich ore deposits of Tuscany, as
was expected, some is from further afield. This unforeseen discovery
demonstrates that far-reaching metal exchange networks were in operation
in prehistoric Europe over a thousand years before the Bronze Age."
Early evidence of complex system of hunter-gatherer practices just before domestication
University of Toronto
TORONTO, ON - Anthropologists at the University of Toronto (U of T)
have confirmed the existence more than 10,000 years ago of a hunting
camp in what is now northeastern Lebanon - one that straddles the
period marking the transition from nomadic hunter-gatherer societies to
agricultural settlements at the onset of the last stone age.
Analysis of decades-old data collected from Nachcharini Cave high in
the Anti-Lebanon mountain range that forms the modern-day border
between Lebanon and Syria, shows the site was a short-term hunting camp
that served as a temporary outpost to emerging and more substantial
villages elsewhere in the region, and that sheep were the primary game.
The finding confirms the hypothesis of retired U of T archaeologist
Bruce Schroeder, who excavated the site on several occasions beginning
in 1972, but who had to discontinue his work when the Lebanese Civil War
began in 1975.
"The site represents the best evidence of a special-purpose camp -
not a village or settlement - in the region," said Stephen Rhodes, a PhD
candidate in the Department of Anthropology in the Faculty of Arts
& Science at U of T and lead author of a study published today in PLOS ONE.
"The cave was a contemporary of larger settlements further south in the
Jordan Valley, and is the first site of its kind to show the
predominance of sheep among the animals hunted by its temporary
inhabitants."
Radiocarbon dating of animal bones recovered from the site shows
that it dates to an era known as the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA), a
period from about 10,000-8,000 BCE during which the cultivation of
crops, the construction of mud-brick dwellings and other practices of
domestication began to emerge. The stone tools found at the sites are
mostly tiny arrowheads used for hunting.
The new dates presented place the main deposits at the cave securely in the PPNA.
"Previous dates established in the 1970s were problematic and far
too recent for unknown reasons, possibly due to contamination or
incorrect processing," said Rhodes, who coauthored the study with
Professors Edward Banning and Michael Chazan, both members of the
Department of Anthropology at U of T. "The results highlight the fact
that people in the PPNA took advantage of a wide variety of habitats in a
complex system of subsistence practices."
It was already known that sheep hunting was practiced in this region
throughout periods that preceded the PPNA, and the evidence found at
Nachcharini Cave reinforces that understanding. According to Rhodes, it
consolidates our knowledge of the natural range of sheep, which pertains
to a potential beginning of domestication in later years.
"We are not saying that hunters at Nachcharini were engaged in early
stages of this domestication," he said. "But the evidence of a local
tradition makes this area a possible centre of sheep domestication later
on."
Discovery illuminates bureaucratic apparatus of ancient kingdom of Israel, say Tel Aviv University researchers
American Friends of Tel Aviv University
IMAGE: Ostraca (ink on clay inscriptions) from
Samaria, the capital of biblical Israel. The inscriptions are dated to
the early 8th century BCE. Colorized Ostraca images are courtesy of the
Semitic...
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Credit: American Friends of Tel Aviv University. Colorized images courtesy of the Semitic Museum, Harvard University.
The ancient Samaria ostraca -- eighth-century BCE ink-on-clay
inscriptions unearthed at the beginning of the 20th century in Samaria,
the capital of the biblical kingdom of Israel -- are among the earliest
collections of ancient Hebrew writings ever discovered. But despite a
century of research, major aspects of the ostraca remain in dispute,
including their precise geographical origins -- either Samaria or its
outlying villages -- and the number of scribes involved in their
composition.
A new Tel Aviv University (TAU) study finds that just two writers
were involved in composing 31 of the more than 100 inscriptions and that
the writers were contemporaneous, indicating that the inscriptions were
written in the city of Samaria itself.
Research for the study was conducted by Ph.D. candidate Shira
Faigenbaum-Golovin, Dr. Arie Shaus, Dr. Barak Sober and Prof. Eli
Turkel, all of TAU's School of Mathematical Sciences; Prof. Eli
Piasetzky of TAU's School of Physics; and Prof. Israel Finkelstein,
Jacob M. Alkow Professor of the Archaeology of Israel in the Bronze and
Iron Ages, of TAU's Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology. The
study was published in PLOS ONE on January 22, 2020.
The inscriptions list repetitive shipment details of wine and oil
supplies to Samaria and span a minimal period of seven years. For
archaeologists, they also provide critical insights into the logistical
infrastructure of the kingdom of Israel. The inscriptions feature the
date of composition (year of a given monarch), commodity type (oil,
wine), name of a person, name of a clan and name of a village near the
capital. Based on letter-shape considerations, the ostraca have been
dated to the first half of the eighth century BCE, possibly during the
reign of King Jeroboam II of Israel.
"If only two scribes wrote the examined Samaria texts
contemporaneously and both were located in Samaria rather than in the
countryside, this would indicate a palace bureaucracy at the peak of the
kingdom of Israel's prosperity," Prof. Finkelstein explains.
"Our results, accompanied by other pieces of evidence, seem also to
indicate a limited dispersion of literacy in Israel in the early eighth
century BCE," Prof. Piasetzky says.
"Our interdisciplinary team harnessed a novel algorithm, consisting
of image processing and newly developed machine learning techniques, to
conclude that two writers wrote the 31 examined texts, with a confidence
interval of 95%," said Dr. Sober, now a member of Duke University's
mathematics department.
"The innovative technique can be used in other cases, both in the
Land of Israel and beyond. Our innovative tool enables handwriting
comparison and can establish the number of authors in a given corpus,"
adds Faigenbaum-Golovin.
The new research follows up from the findings of the group's 2016
study, which indicated widespread literacy in the kingdom of Judah a
century and a half to two centuries later, circa 600 BCE. For that
study, the group developed a novel algorithm with which they estimated
the minimal number of writers involved in composing ostraca unearthed at
the desert fortress of Arad. That investigation concluded that at least
six writers composed the 18 inscriptions that were examined.
"It seems that during these two centuries that passed between the
composition of the Samaria and the Arad corpora, there was an increase
in literacy rates within the population of the Hebrew kingdoms," Dr.
Shaus says. "Our previous research paved the way for the current study.
We enhanced our previously developed methodology, which sought the
minimum number of writers, and introduced new statistical tools to
establish a maximum likelihood estimate for the number of hands in a
corpus."
Next, the researchers intend to use their methodology to study other corpora of inscriptions from various periods and locations.
A team of international researchers
dug deep to find some of the oldest African DNA on record, in a new
study published in Nature
Saint Louis University
IMAGE: The Shum Laka rock shelter in Cameroon,
home to an ancient population that bears little genetic resemblance to
most people who live in the region today.
view more
Credit: Photo by Pierre de Maret.
A team of international researchers, which includes a Saint Louis
University Madrid anthropologist, dug deep to find some of the oldest
African DNA on record, in a new study published in Nature.
Africa is the homeland of our species and harbors greater human
genetic diversity than any other part of the planet. Studies of ancient
DNA from African archaeological sites can shed important light on the
deep origins of humankind. The research team sequenced DNA from four
children buried 8,000 and 3,000 years ago at Shum Laka in Cameroon, a
site excavated by a Belgian and Cameroonian team 30 years ago.
The findings, "Ancient West African foragers in the context of African population history," published Jan. 22 in Nature,
represent the first ancient DNA from West or Central Africa, and some
of the oldest DNA recovered from an African tropical context. They
enable a new understanding of the deep ancestral relationships among
early Homo sapiens in sub-Saharan Africa.
This study was the product of collaboration among geneticists,
archaeologists, biological anthropologists and museum curators based in
North America (including Harvard Medical School and the Université de
Montréal); Europe (Royal Belgian Museum of Natural Sciences, Royal
Museum for Central Africa, Université Libre de Bruxelles and Saint Louis
University's Madrid campus); Cameroon (University of Yaoundé,
University of Buea); and China (Duke Kunshan University). A unique archaeological site with exceptional preservation
Shum Laka is a rock shelter located in the 'Grassfields' region of
Cameroon, a place long pinpointed by linguists as the probable cradle of
Bantu languages, a widespread and diverse group of languages spoken by
more than a third of Africans today.
"Linguists, archaeologists and geneticists have been studying the
origin and spread of Bantu languages for decades, and the Grassfields
region is key to this question," said Mary Prendergast, Ph.D., a
professor of anthropology and chair of humanities at Saint Louis
University's campus in Madrid, and a co-supervising author of the study.
"The consensus is that the Bantu language group originated in
west-central Africa, before spreading across the southern half of the
continent after about 4,000 years ago."
This expansion is thought to be the reason why most people from
central, eastern and southern Africa are genetically closely related to
each other and to West Africans.
"Shum Laka is a reference point for understanding the deep history
of west-central Africa," said Isabelle Ribot, Ph.D., a University of
Montreal anthropologist who excavated and studied the burials, and is a
key author of the study.
The Shum Laka rockshelter was excavated in the 1980s and 1990s by
archaeologists from Belgium and Cameroon. It boasts an impressive and
well-dated archaeological record, with radiocarbon dates spanning the
past 30,000 years. Stone tools, plant and animal remains, and eventually
pottery collectively indicate long-term forest-based hunting and
gathering and an eventual transition to intensive tree fruit
exploitation.
Shum Laka is emblematic of the 'Stone to Metal Age,' a critical era
in west-central African history that ultimately gave rise to Iron Age
metallurgy and farming. During this era, the site repeatedly served as a
burial ground for families, with 18 individuals (mainly children)
buried in two major phases at about 8,000 and 3,000 years ago.
"Such burials are unique for West and Central Africa because human
skeletons are exceedingly rare here prior to the Iron Age," said Ribot.
"Tropical environments and acidic soils are not kind to bone
preservation, so the results from our study are really remarkable."
Scientists at Harvard Medical School sampled petrous (inner-ear)
bones from six individuals buried at Shum Laka. Four of these samples
produced ancient DNA, and were directly dated at the Pennsylvania State
University Radiocarbon Laboratory. The molecular preservation was
impressive given the burial conditions, and enabled whole-genome ancient
DNA analysis. A newly documented population of hunter-gatherers
Surprisingly, the ancient DNA sequenced from the four children - one
pair buried 8,000 years ago, the other 3,000 years ago - reveals
ancestry very different from that of most Bantu-speakers today. Instead,
they are closer to central African hunter-gatherers.
"This result suggests that Bantu-speakers living in Cameroon and
across Africa today do not descend from the population to which the Shum
Laka children belonged," said Mark Lipson, Ph.D., Harvard Medical
School, lead author of the study. "This underscores the ancient genetic
diversity in this region and points to a previously unknown population
that contributed only small proportions of DNA to present-day African
groups."
The spreads of farming and herding in Africa - as in other parts of the world - were accompanied by many movements of people.
"If you go back 5,000 years ago, virtually everyone living south of
the Sahara was a hunter-gatherer," said Prendergast. "But look at a map
of Africa showing foraging groups today, and you'll see they are very
few and far between."
This study contributes to a growing body of ancient DNA research
demonstrating ancient genetic diversity and population structure that
has since been erased by the demographic changes that accompanied the
spread of food production. A rare paternally inherited lineage with deep roots
One of the sampled individuals - an adolescent male - carried a rare
Y chromosome haplogroup (A00) found almost nowhere outside western
Cameroon today. A00 is best documented among the Mbo and Bangwa ethnic
groups living not far from Shum Laka, and this is the first time it has
been seen in ancient DNA. A00 is a deeply divergent haplogroup, having
split from all other known human lineages about 300,000-200,000 years
ago. This shows that this oldest known lineage of modern human males has
been present in west-central Africa for more than 8,000 years, and
perhaps much longer. New light on human origins
While the findings do not speak directly to Bantu language origins,
they do shed new light on multiple phases of the deep history of Homo
sapiens. The researchers examined the DNA of the Shum Laka children
alongside published DNA from ancient hunter-gatherers from eastern and
southern Africa, as well as DNA from many present-day African groups.
Combining these datasets, they could construct a model of diverging
lineages over the course of the human past.
"Our analysis indicates the existence of at least four major deep
human lineages that contributed to people living today, and which
diverged from each other between about 250,000 and 200,000 years ago,"
said David Reich, Ph.D., of Harvard Medical School, senior author of the
study.
These lineages are ancestral to present-day central African
hunter-gatherers, southern African hunter-gatherers, and all other
modern humans, with a fourth lineage being a previously unknown 'ghost
population' that contributed a small amount of ancestry to both western
and eastern Africans.
"This quadruple radiation--including the position of a
deeply-splitting 'ghost' modern human lineage--had not been identified
before from DNA," Reich said.
Previous models for human origins suggested that present-day
southern African hunter-gatherers, who split from other populations
about 250,000-200,000 years ago, represent the deepest known branch of
modern human variation. However, Lipson said, "the new analysis suggests
that the lineage contributing to central African hunter-gatherers is
similarly ancient and diverged from other African populations around the
same time."
This finding adds to a growing consensus among archaeologists and
geneticists that human origins in Africa may have involved deeply
divergent, geographically separated populations.
Analysis also revealed another set of four human lineages branching
between 80,000 and 60,000 years ago, including the lineages contributing
most the ancestry in present-day eastern and western Africans and all
non-Africans.
Considering this new model of human population relationships, the
authors could show that about one third of the ancestry of the Shum Laka
children derived from a lineage closely related to central African
hunter-gatherers, and about two thirds of their ancestry came from a
distinctive lineage distantly related to a majority of present-day West
Africans.
"These results highlight how the human landscape in Africa just a
few thousand years ago was profoundly different from what it is today,
and emphasize the power of ancient DNA to lift the veil over the human
past that has been cast by recent population movements," Reich said. International collaboration
The international research team plans to return to Shum Laka this
year, in part to help communicate findings to the Cameroonian academic
and broader communities. "Interdisciplinary collaborations like this one
are an essential part of ancient DNA research," says Reich. Key Take-Aways
The study examines DNA from four people buried in the Shum Laka
rockshelter in Cameroon, about 8,000 years ago and 3,000 years ago, at
the transition from the Stone to Iron Ages. This study reports the first
ancient DNA recovered from West or Central Africa, and includes some of
the oldest DNA recovered from the African tropics.
This part of west-central Africa - the 'Grassfields' region of
Cameroon - has been identified as the probable cradle of Bantu
languages, the most widespread and diverse group of languages in Africa
today. For decades, linguists, archaeologists, and geneticists have
investigated the origin of Bantu languages and their spread.
None of the sampled individuals from Shum Laka are closely related
to most present-day Bantu-speakers. Instead, they were part of a
separate population that lived in the region for at least five
millennia, and was later almost completely replaced by very different
populations whose descendants comprise most people living in Cameroon
today.
The Shum Laka individuals harbored about two-thirds of their
ancestry from a previously unknown lineage distantly related to
present-day West Africans and about one-third of their ancestry from a
lineage related to present-day central African hunter-gatherers. This
finding reveals previously unknown genetic diversity prior to the spread
of food production.
Analysis of whole-genome ancient DNA data from these individuals
provided insights into the relationships among several early-branching
African human lineages. Results suggest that lineages leading to today's
central African hunter-gatherers, southern African hunter-gatherers,
and all other modern humans diverged in close succession about
250,000-200,000 years ago.
Another set of genetic divergences was identified dating to about
80,000-60,000 years ago, including the lineage leading to all
present-day non-Africans.
These findings strengthen arguments recently made by archaeologists
and geneticists that human origins in Africa may have involved deeply
divergent, geographically separated populations.
The
1.93-kilogram bar was found by a construction worker during excavations
for a new building along the Alameda. Photo: MNA-INAH.
A gold bar found in a Mexico City park in 1981 was part of the Aztec
treasure looted by Hernan Cortes and the Spanish conquistadors 500 years
ago, a new study says.
The 1.93-kilogram bar was found by a construction worker during
excavations for a new building along the Alameda, a picturesque park in
the heart of the Mexican capital.
For 39 years, its origins remained a mystery.
But thanks to specialized X-rays, Mexico's National Institute of
Anthropology and History (INAH) says it has now confirmed where the bar
came from: the Spaniards' hasty, though temporary, retreat during the
so-called "Noche Triste," or "Sad Night."
That night -- June 30, 1520 -- the Aztecs, furious over the
slaughter of their nobles and priests, drove the Spanish invaders from
their capital, Tenochtitlan.
The conquistadors escaped with as much looted Aztec treasure as they
could carry, including, apparently, the gold bar in question.
