Ancient parrot DNA reveals sophisticated, long-distance animal trade network that pre-dates the Inca Empire

 

New analysis of ancient parrot DNA has revealed vibrant Amazonian parrots were transported alive across the Andes to coastal Peru centuries before the Inca Empire, highlighting a sophisticated pre-Inca, long-distance trade network spanning rainforest, highlands and deserts. 

The international team of researchers, including scientists from The Australian National University (ANU), analysed parrot feathers that were discovered at Pachacamac, Peru – one of the preeminent religious centres of the Andean civilisation – far outside the birds’ native rainforest range. The research is published in Nature Communications.   

According to lead author Dr George Olah from ANU, the sequencing of the ancient parrot DNA has uncovered a thriving network of trade and animal transportation that connected Amazonian forests with arid communities across the Andes.  

“Through combining ancient DNA sequencing, isotope chemistry and computational landscape modelling, we have been able to trace how and where these birds were moved across the landscape,” Dr Olah said. 

“Our ancient habitat modelling confirmed that the western side of the Andes was just as inhospitable to these species one thousand years ago as it is today. These parrots are strictly rainforest dwellers with a natural home range of around 150 kilometres. 

“The fact that they ended up more than 500 kilometres away, on the other side of South America's highest mountain range, proves human intervention. They do not naturally fly over the Andes.”   

The research team’s findings show that several species of Amazonian macaw parrots – native to the lowland rainforest just east of the Andes – were captured in the wild, carried high over mountain passes and kept alive on the coast long enough to grow new feathers in their new environment.  

Genomic analysis identified four Amazonian species in the burial feather assemblage – the Scarlet Macaw, Blue-and-yellow Macaw, Red-and-green Macaw and Mealy Amazon – all native to rainforest habitat hundreds of kilometres from the Pacific coast.  

Transport likely took weeks or even months, as travellers navigated rugged mountain passes and steep plateaus.    

“We can now demonstrate with genetic and isotopic evidence that these parrots weren’t just traded as feathers – they were transported alive, across dramatic terrain, into coastal ritual contexts,” Dr Olah said. 

By analysing the chemical signatures contained in the feathers, the researchers discovered that the birds’ diets shifted to C4 plants, such as maize, and marine protein, showing they were kept alive after crossing the Andes. 

“Our analysis reveals the parrots were fed the same nitrogen-enriched diet consumed by their captors – a clear sign of prolonged care after their removal from the rainforest,” Dr Olah said.  

Landscape modelling further identified likely trans-Andean corridors and river routes used to transport the birds, revealing sophisticated overland and fluvial exchange networks. 

The birds were prized for their vibrant feathers, which held deep cultural value across pre-Hispanic societies and were often used in ritual and high-status burial contexts.  

“This discovery challenges long-held assumptions that pre-Inca societies were isolated or fragmented,” Dr Olah said.    

“Instead, we see evidence of organised exchange, ecological knowledge and logistical planning that connected vastly different environments long before imperial roads formalised these connections.” 

The research also marks one of the first successful ancient DNA studies of fragile archaeological feathers, opening new avenues for tracking how organic materials moved through ancient trade networks worldwide.  

Aside from its deep historical implications, the study also sheds new light on the longstanding cultural significance of parrots in Andean societies – a fascination that continues today and that contributes to ongoing conservation challenges for these iconic species.  

This work also involved scientists from Adelaide University and researchers in Peru, Spain, the United States and the United Kingdom. 

Images available to download here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jb_oBkiE1ilWytqvlV1D_wx-cgbwQIbx  

---

Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-026-69167-9 

Ancient needles and awls served many purposes

 A study led by McKenna Litynski, a recent Ph.D. graduate in anthropology and adjunct assistant professor at the University of Wyoming, confirms that ancient needles and awls enabled humans to survive in cold climates and shows these tools served a variety of purposes beyond clothing production, from medicine to ceremony.

Some 100,000 years ago, humans began to expand around the globe, including into some of the world’s coldest environments. Scholars have long hypothesized that this remarkable expansion was made possible by a profoundly humble technology: the bone sewing needle.

The theory suggests that the invention of the needle allowed early humans to make tailored leather clothing which, in turn, allowed survival in frigid climates. While plausible, the theory has been difficult to verify.

However, Litynski led a quantitative study that provides strong support for the theory. Drawing on hundreds of ethnographic documents from the 18th through 20th centuries in North America, she analyzed patterns of needle and awl use.

Her article, which was co-written by UW Department of Anthropology Professors Sean Field and Randy Haas and is published in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE, shows that clothing production is the most common activity associated with sewing needles and awls.

Statistical modeling also revealed that mentions of these tools increase significantly in colder environments, confirming the role of sewing technology in thermoregulation and survival.

The study also uncovered a surprising pattern in the data. While manufacturing clothing accounted for 14 percent of observations, needles and awls were widely used for other purposes, including medical suturing, fishing, tattooing, basketry and ceremonial activities, meaning needles and awls are not limited to cold environments.

These findings demonstrate that the sewing needle not only helped humans survive in extreme climates, but also played a versatile role in daily life and cultural practices.

The research provides new insight into how environmental and social factors shaped human behavior and tool use, offering archaeologists a richer understanding of one of the most common artifact types in the perishable archaeological record.

“Ultimately, it is not only the tools themselves that are significant, but also the people who once used these objects in the past,” Litynski says. “It is through examining needles and awls from different lenses that archaeologists like me can reveal their capacity to unravel the broader story of human ingenuity, adaptability and cultural evolution over the last several thousands of years and throughout the world.”

Litynski is an archaeologist with research interests in zooarchaeology, environmental archaeology, hunter-gatherers and experimental archaeology. To learn more about her research, email her at mlitynsk@uwyo.edu.

---

Journal

PLOS One

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0343888 

Charred food in pot revealsprehistoric Europeans had surprisingly complex cuisines

 Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

FacebookXLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

Example of Mesolithic pottery vessel analysed in this study.

view more 

Credit: Lara González Carretero (CC-BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Thousands of years ago, European communities used a variety of plant and animal products to create elaborate meals, according to a study published March 4, 2026 in the open-access journal PLOS One by Lara González Carretero of the University of York, U.K. and colleagues.

A common technique for interpreting the diets of ancient cultures involves analyzing fatty residues in ancient pottery. This method is limited, however, as it mostly provides insights only into animal remains. In this study, the authors combined multiple techniques, including microscopic examination and chemical analysis, to identify the remains of plants that were eaten by ancient European hunter-gatherers.

Researchers examined organic remains found in 58 pieces of pottery uncovered at 13 archaeological sites across Northern and Eastern Europe dating between the 6th and 3rd millennium BC. This method recovered tissue samples of a wide variety of plants, including grasses, berries, leaves, and seeds. In many cases, plant remains were found alongside those of animals, most often fish and other seafood. The exact mixtures and ingredients varied from region to region, most likely reflecting which resources were locally available as well as local cultural practices.

These findings emphasize the important role of plants and aquatic foods in the diets of early Europeans. These results also support the idea that these communities regularly used pottery technology for food preparation and that each culture had their own complex culinary traditions. This study also demonstrates that combining multiple analytical techniques can yield detailed insights that are overlooked by traditional methods, particularly when it comes to the plants that ancient peoples were eating.

The authors add: “While conventional chemical analysis tends to highlight the animal-based components of ancient meals, our combined microscopic approach has brought these prehistoric recipes back into focus. We found that hunter-gatherer-fishers were not living on fish alone; they were actively processing and consuming a wide variety of plants. This research underscores that to truly understand ancient diets, we need to take a closer look at these food crusts, quite literally!”

 The freely available article in PLOS One: https://plos.io/4ryU2Ha

3.67 million year old fossil, Little Foot, gets a virtual facelift

 

Digital reconstruction of iconic fossil reveals unexpected similarities with Ethiopian specimens, contributing to debates on early hominin relationships.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

University of the Witwatersrand

FacebookXLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

The digital reconstruction of the iconic fossil, Little Foot, reveals unexpected similarities with Ethiopian specimens, contributing to debates on early hominin relationships.

view more 

Credit: Amelie Beaudet/Wits University

A new digital reconstruction of the face of the 3.67‑million‑year‑old Australopithecus fossil, Little Foot, provides new insight into the evolution of the human face. 

The new findings, published in Comptes Rendus Palevol, offer fresh insight into the diversity of the fossil hominin (i.e., extant human and their ancestors and relatives) face across Africa 4-3 million years ago.

Little Foot was discovered at the Wits Sterkfontein Caves, located about 40km North West of Johannesburg, South Africa, in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site. It is the most complete early hominin skeleton ever found. While much of the skeleton has been, and continues to be, studied, the face has been distorted by millions of years of geological processes that were impossible to correct using physical reconstruction methods. Using high‑resolution synchrotron scanning at the Diamond Light Source synchrotron in the UK and advanced virtual reconstruction techniques, an international research team led by Dr. Amelie Beaudet and Professor Dominic Stratford has now digitally reassembled the facial bones, producing one of the most complete Australopithecus faces known.

The team analysed nine linear facial measurements and applied three‑dimensional geometric morphometrics to compare Little Foot to those of several other extant great apes as well as with three other Australopithecus fossils. These included a younger specimen from South Africa and two Ethiopian specimens. The results show that the overall size of the face, the shape and dimensions of the eye sockets, and the general facial architecture of Little Foot more closely resemble the East African fossils than the younger South African comparative specimen, although the study is limited to a couple of fossil specimens due to the scarcity of complete faces.

“This pattern is unexpected, given the geographic origin of Little Foot and suggests a more dynamic evolutionary history than previously assumed,” says Beaudet, a previous post-doctoral fellow and current honorary researcher of Wits University. Little Foot, for instance, may represent a lineage closely related to East African populations, while later South African hominins developed more distinct facial features through local evolutionary processes.

The study also identified evidence of selective pressures acting on the orbital region (the eyes), which may relate to changes in visual capacity and ecological behaviour. 

“Besides the fact that our study, limited to one anatomical region and a couple of comparative fossil specimens, provides additional data on the affinities between Australopithecus populations across Africa, we demonstrate that the orbital part of the face has possibly been under evolutionary pressure at that time,” says Beaudet.

“While we know that the hominin face evolved through time to become less projected and more gracile, we still ignore when such changes occur, and the nature of the evolutionary mechanisms involved.” 

“Rather than viewing early hominin evolution as occurring in isolated regions, the study supports the idea of Africa as a connected evolutionary landscape, with populations adapting to ecological pressures while remaining linked through shared ancestry,” says Stratford, who is also Director of Research at the Wits Sterkfontein Caves. 

Through digestive, visual, respiratory, olfactory, and non-verbal communication systems, the face plays a central role in the interactions primates have with their physical and social environments. In this context, the face is a key anatomical region for understanding how the hominins adapted to, and engaged with, their surroundings.

“Only a handful of Australopithecus fossils preserve an almost complete face, making Little Foot a rare and valuable reference point. Little Foot’s face preserves key anatomical regions involved in vision, breathing and feeding, and its skull will offer further key elements for understanding our evolutionary history,” says Beaudet. 

As further virtual reconstructions are completed, the researchers hope to refine our understanding of how early hominins moved, interacted and diversified across Africa.

“The face is only part of the story. Other parts of the skull, especially the braincase, remain distorted by plastic deformation and will require similar digital reconstruction to better understand brain size and organisation in this early hominin,” says Beaudet.

---

Journal

Comptes Rendus Palevol

Maize may have more importance in pre-European Michigan than previously thought

 

Indigenous people who were the first to inhabit the area now known as Michigan — before the Europeans arrived — may have cultivated maize (corn) more prominently than previously assumed for such a northern population. Researchers from the University of New Hampshire found that using modern global satellite data in a novel way helped them connect archaeological features — like ancient burial mounds — to environmental   data of lake temperatures and gain new insights into past human–environment relationships.

In their study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, or PNAS, the researchers compared ten years of modern temperature data (2014 – 2024), obtained from NASA’s Landsat 8 satellite thermal sensor, to the locations of burial mounds built between A.D. 1200 and A.D. 1600. Through this process the researchers were able to analyze the temperature patterns across thousands of Michigan’s inland lakes. They found that Indigenous communities in the Great Lakes area, known as the Anishinaabeg, built burial mounds near lakes that warmed later in spring, cooled later in fall and were more circular than lakes without mounds. This suggests that placement of the mounds may have been associated with an extended maize-growing season, hinting at a greater cultural role and ceremonial significance for maize than previously thought.

“When we ran this model and we looked at the temperature of lakes and the association of burial mounds with inland lakes, what became really clear is [indigenous people] were understanding their environment so much that they're putting their mounds on lakes where they can grow corn right into an extended fall season,” said Meghan Howey, professor of anthropology and lead author. “There may even be more of a story that they were also growing maize in sophisticated and complicated ways.”

The researchers focused on maize which is a Mesoamerican crop that transformed the early societies that domesticated it for everyday living. Maize has been widely considered a marginal crop to Indigenous people in cold climates like the Great Lakes.

Burial mounds are important ceremonial monuments that signaled a shift in how Anishinaabeg communities in Michigan’s lower peninsula related to places and used resources like maize.

“When you put the ancestors somewhere, you’re staking more of a claim to your resource territories and you’re creating paths for people to come back and visit those places and remember them,” said Howey.

The global satellite-based work — done by co-author Michael Palace, associate professor of Earth sciences and a remote sensing expert — taps into a method of connecting Landsat satellite data with temperature values that Palace previously used to track cyanobacteria and algae blooms in New England lakes. Archaeologists have long used drones, satellites and even hot-air balloons to discover archaeological sites from the sky but utilizing geospatial tools to find relationships between landscapes and ecosystems represents a new frontier.

“It's a cool example of taking a free global data tool developed for an ecological application and using it for archaeological research,” said Howey.

The researchers say that study’s methodology is easily replicable, making it adaptable for analyses across the globe, advancing data-driven and landscape-focused archaeology.

Chimps’ love for crystals could help us understand our own ancestors’ fascination with these stones

 

Ancestors of modern humans collected crystals for which they had no apparent use. A new chimp study could help researchers understand the roots of this infatuation

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Frontiers

FacebookXLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

Chimp Toti attentively observes the quartz crystal during Experiment 1. 

view more 

Credit: García-Ruiz et al., 2026

Crystals have repeatedly been found at archaeological sites alongside Homo remains. Evidence shows hominins have been collecting these stones for as long as 780,000 years. Yet, we know that our ancestors did not use them as weapons, tools, or even jewelry. So why did they collect them at all?

Now, in a new Frontiers in Psychology study, scientists in Spain investigated which characteristics of crystals may have made them so fascinating to our ancestors. They designed experiments with chimpanzees – one of the two great ape species most closely related to modern humans – to identify the physical properties of crystals that may have attracted early hominins.

“We show that enculturated chimpanzees can distinguish crystals from other stones,” said lead author Prof Juan Manuel García-Ruiz, an Ikerbasque Research Professor on crystallography at the Donostia International Physics Center in San Sebastián. “We were pleasantly surprised by how strong and seemingly natural the chimpanzees’ attraction to crystals was. This suggests that sensitivity to such objects may have deep evolutionary roots.”

The Monolith

Modern humans diverged from chimps between six and seven million years ago, so we share substantial genetic and behavioral similarities. To find out if fascination with crystals is one of them, the researchers provided two groups of enculturated chimpanzees (Manuela, Guillermo, Yvan, Yaki, and Toti in group one and Gombe, Lulú, Pascual, and Sandy in group two) from the Rainfer Foundation with access to crystals.

In the first experiment, a large crystal – the monolith – was placed on a platform, along with a normal rock of similar size. While initially both objects caught the chimps’ attention, soon the crystal was preferred and the rock disregarded. Once they had removed it from the platform, all chimps inspected the crystal, rotating and tilting it so they could view it from specific angles. Yvan then picked up the crystal and decisively carried it to the dormitories.

Interest was strongest early after exposure and declined very gradually over time, the team observed. The same pattern is found in humans as the novelty of an objects fades. When caretakers tried to retrieve the crystal from the chimps’ enclosure, they had to exchange it for favored snacks: bananas and yogurt.

A crystal-clear preference

A second experiment showed that the chimps could identify and select smaller quartz crystals – similar in size to those collected by hominids – from a pile of 20 rounded pebbles within seconds. When pyrite and calcite crystals, which have different shapes than quartz crystals, were added to the pile, chimps still were able to pick out crystal-type stones. “The chimpanzees began to study the crystals’ transparency with extreme curiosity, holding them up to eye level and looking through them,” García-Ruiz said. Chimps repeatedly examined the crystals for hours.

Sandy, for example, carried pebbles and crystals in her mouth to a wooden platform where she separated them. “She separated the three crystal types, which themselves differed in transparency, symmetry, and luster, from all the pebbles. This ability to recognize crystals despite their differences amazed us,” García-Ruiz said. Chimps also do not usually use their mouths to carry objects, so this behavior could mean they were hiding them a behavior consistent with treating the crystals as valuable, the team pointed out.

Crystals in our minds

The study did not examine if some chimps were more interested or laid more claim to crystals than others, although future studies should take chimp personalities into account, the team said. “There are Don Quixotes and Sanchos: idealists and pragmatists. Some may find the transparency of crystals fascinating, while others are interested in their smell and whether they’re edible,” García-Ruiz pointed out. The chimps tested here also are used to contact with humans and familiar with objects not found in the natural world. Therefore, the same experiments should be carried out with less enculturated species, ideally wild apes.

The combined observations from the experiments identified both transparency and shape as alluring properties. It might have been the same qualities attracting early humans to these rocks. The clouds, trees, mountains, animals, and rivers of the natural world surrounding our ancestors were defined by curvature and ramification, so few items had straight lines and flat surfaces. Crystals are the only natural polyhedral, meaning the only natural solids with many flat surfaces. When early humans tried to make sense of their environment, their cognitive processes might have been drawn to patterns that were unlike what they knew. 

“Our work helps explain our fascination with crystals and contributes to the understanding of the evolutionary roots of aesthetics and worldview,” concluded García-Ruiz. “We now know that we’ve had crystals in our minds for at least six million years.”

---

Journal

Frontiers in Psychology

DOI

10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1633599 

Life and death in Late Bronze Age Central Europe

 

• Insights into the lives of people in the Late Bronze Age: Interdisciplinary analyses (DNA, isotopes) shed light on the ancestry, mobility, diet, health, and burial practices of people in Central Europe during this period.
• Genetic ancestry: Genetic data reveal gradual, regionally varying changes in ancestry, along with growing ties to the Danube region, without replacing local traditions.
• Experimenting with millet: The temporary shift to broomcorn millet as a staple food occurred within existing communities as a flexible adaptation. Later, its cultivation decreased in favour of wheat and barley.
• Health, disease, and death: Communities exhibit diverse burial practices. There is evidence of physically demanding yet stable living conditions, but no evidence of major epidemics.

A new interdisciplinary study published in Nature Communications provides the first detailed insights, from a biomolecular and archaeological perspective, into the lives of people living in Central Europe during the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1300–800 BCE), the so-called Urnfield period which was marked by cultural changes such as the widespread adoption of cremation.

Because cremation destroys biological material, this period has long remained a blind spot for genetic and isotopic research. By focusing on rare inhumation burials from Germany, Czechia and Poland, an international team of archaeogeneticists, archaeologists, and other biomolecular scientists was able to provide new insights into patterns of ancestry, mobility, diet, physiological stress and mortuary practices of LBA communities.

The study analysed ancient DNA, stable oxygen and strontium isotopes, and osteoarchaeological data from non-cremated individuals, alongside strontium isotope data from cremated individuals buried at the sites of Kuckenburg and Esperstedt in Central Germany, excavated by the State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony-Anhalt. These results were placed in a broader regional context by comparing them with contemporaneous genetic data from neighbouring regions.

Living in times of change

“This study allows us to see how people lived through change,” says Eleftheria Orfanou, PhD candidate at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig and lead author of the study. “The Late Bronze Age was not experienced as a single moment of change, but as a series of choices, about food and subsistence strategies, burial, and social relationships, made within communities that were closely connected to their landscapes but also to their neighbours”.

The genetic evidence in this study reveals gradual, regionally varied changes in ancestry that took place alongside established local traditions. In Central Germany, these changes became visible only in the later phases of the Late Bronze Age, highlighting how communities participated in wider networks of interaction, including increasing connections with regions to the south and southeast of the Danube.

Moreover, strontium and oxygen isotope analyses employed in this study act like a chemical record of where people grew up and lived, allowing researchers to assess whether individuals were local or had moved from elsewhere. Most individuals from Central Germany, both cremated and non-cremated, show local isotope signatures, suggesting that new ideas and practices circulated primarily through contact and exchange rather than through the movement of large numbers of people.

Introduction of millet to Europe

Dietary evidence also highlights the flexibility of Late Bronze Age societies. During the early phase of the Late Bronze Age, people began consuming broomcorn millet (a crop that had recently arrived in Europe from northeast China), likely in response to environmental or economic pressures. This dietary shift did not coincide with evidence of large-scale demographic or genetic changes, suggesting that millet adoption occurred within existing communities. However, during the later phase of the Late Bronze Age, millet consumption appears to decline, with people returning to more traditional crops such as wheat and barley. This pattern points to experimentation, adaptation, resilience, and cultural preference rather than a trajectory towards intensification in the cultivation of millet. 

The researchers also looked for traces of ancient disease and combined this information with evidence from the people’s skeletons. They found DNA from bacteria commonly associated with oral health issues, such as dental disease, but no signs of widespread epidemic infection. Evidence of childhood stress, degenerative joint conditions, and occasional trauma points to physically demanding lives. Nevertheless, most individuals appear to have been in generally good condition.

Diverse funerary culture

The study also provides insights into a diverse mortuary world that may seem unfamiliar from a modern Western perspective, including cremation, inhumation, skull-only depositions, and multi-stage rites, all of which coexisted within the same communities. “These practices do not appear to be marginal or atypical,” Orfanou explains, “but are part of a broader repertoire that people could choose from during the Urnfield period, linked to the creation of memory, identity, and ideas about what it meant to be a person in the Late Bronze Age.”

By integrating archaeological, anthropological, genetic, and isotopic evidence, the study reconstructs Late Bronze Age societies as dynamic social worlds. “Change and innovation were incorporated into existing traditions. These communities actively shaped their lifeways, and created hybrid practices that were locally meaningful within an increasingly interconnected world”, concludes Wolfgang Haak, leader of the project at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

---

Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-026-69895-y