Archaeologists identify elders in Iron Age Israel through household artifacts

 

New Bar-Ilan University research sheds light on the daily lives, status, and household roles of older adults more than 2,700 years ago -- a group long overlooked in archaeology

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Bar-Ilan University

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Building 101, on the eve of its destruction by the Assyrian army in the late 8th century BCE

 

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Credit: Vered Yacobi

A new study from Bar-Ilan University is shedding light on a long-overlooked social group in archaeology: the elderly. While research on women and children has flourished in recent decades, older adults have remained largely invisible, their lives reconstructed primarily through skeletal remains. Now, Bar-Ilan archaeologists present a new and innovative study, identifying the elderly through household artifacts, offering a fresh window into their daily lives and social roles.

The study, now accessible as FirstView in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal, focuses on Building 101 at Tel ʿEton, located in the southeastern Shephelah, Israel. This large, high-quality residence, with its multiple rooms spanning the building’s two floors, was destroyed during an Assyrian military campaign in the late 8th century BCE, leaving hundreds of pottery vessels and additional artifacts sealed within the destruction debris, and providing an exceptionally detailed case study for understanding domestic life.

Using an innovative approach that combined analysis of artifacts, architectural features, activity areas, and comparative ethnographic perspectives on aging and household life, Prof. Avi Faust and his team reconstructed the lived experiences and social roles of older adults within the house. The building was the home of an extended family of some three generations. Room B, likely occupied by the household’s senior couple, had several unique qualities. It was the largest room in the building, the only room on the ground floor that was used for living and sleeping (rather than specialized activities like storage, cooking, etc.). The room’s location within the building is important for a number of reasons. First, the strategic location, opposite the entrance, enabled the residents to watch the entire courtyard and the entrances to the other rooms. Second, the fact that this was the only bedroom on the ground floor reflects the difficulty the elderly would have had climbing a ladder several times a day to reach the other sleeping quarters located on the second floor. The room contained various special finds, including a unique footbath, associated with entertaining important guests, and burnt cedar, perhaps the remains of an impressive chair. The patriarch, sitting on a large chair, could have watched comings and goings and entertained guests, whereas the matriarch could have overseen all household activities. Adjacent spaces, including a room for food preparation with a large loom, and a partially enclosed courtyard, were associated with the elder matriarch’s activities, such as childcare and weaving, highlighting her central role in daily domestic management.

The study advances beyond traditional methods of identifying the elderly, which rely almost exclusively on skeletal analysis in cemeteries. These conventional approaches are often limited, incomplete, or biased, especially in Iron Age Israel, where burial evidence is sparse and fragmentary. By contrast, this material-based approach exposes the elders within the domestic space, revealing their social status, influence, and integration within family and household structures, moving beyond chronological age to capture lived experience.

“For years, the elderly have remained largely invisible in archaeological research,” said Prof. Avi Faust, from the Department of General History at Bar-Ilan University, director of excavations at Tel ʿEton and author of the study. “By analyzing household artifacts rather than skeletal remains, we have a more effective way to identify elders and uncover their roles and influence within the family, a perspective archaeology has long overlooked.”

According to Faust the findings show that the elderly were not merely passive members of the household. Rather, they actively participated in managing resources, supervising domestic work, and maintaining family cohesion. The research underscores the potential of household archaeology to illuminate aspects of daily life that skeletal or textual data alone cannot capture.

This study marks a significant step in the archaeology of old age, opening a new avenue for identifying and understanding elders in other ancient societies. As Prof. Faust notes, "By meticulously examining small finds within domestic spaces, interpreting them in light of textual evidence and ethnographic data about the life of the elderly, we can give them the visibility they deserve in reconstructing past societies.”

H. erectus appeared in Yunxian, China 1.7 million years ago, about 600,000 years earlier than previous studies indicated

 What if Homo erectus (H. erectus), the direct ancestor of modern humans, arrived in China much earlier than we thought? New research published in Science Advances on February 18, may rewrite our understanding of early human dispersal in that area.

A study by a team of geoscientists and anthropologists, including corresponding author Christopher J. Bae from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Department of Anthropology in the College of Social Sciences, confirms that H. erectus appeared in Yunxian, China 1.7 million years ago, about 600,000 years earlier than previous studies indicated.

Prior to this study, which was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the U.S. National Science Foundation, the oldest Yunxian H. erectus fossils were reported to be about 1.1 million years old. The revised timeline reshapes one of the earliest chapters of human history, suggesting our ancestors spread across continents earlier—and possibly more successfully—than scientists once believed.

“While Homo erectus, our distant ancestor, is widely recognized to have originated in Africa before dispersing into Eurasia, the precise timeline of its arrival in eastern Asia was unknown,” said Bae. “Using the combination of the Yunxian H. erectus fossils and burial dating data, we have now been able to recreate a fairly robust dating reconstruction of when these hominins appeared in eastern Asia.”

Calculating burial data

The researchers used Aluminum-26 (Al-26) and Beryllium-10 (Be-10) burial dating to determine the age of the Yunxian fossils. Hua Tu, lead author, describes the method as using aluminum and beryllium isotopes in sediment from the same stratigraphic level as the fossils to determine when it was first buried and shielded from cosmic radiation. 

“Al-26 and Be-10 isotopes are produced when cosmic rays hit quartz minerals. Once buried deeply underground, isotope production stops and radioactive decay takes over. By using aluminum’s and beryllium’s known decay rates, and comparing the ratio of the two types of atoms left in sediment samples surrounding a fossil, researchers can calculate how long a fossil has been buried. This is key as traditional Carbon-14 dating is limited to the last 50,000 years while the Al-26/Be-10 method allows researchers to accurately date materials as far back as 5 million years ago,” said Tu, from the Institute of Marine Sciences, Shantou University and College of Geographical Sciences, Nanjing Normal University.

Bae added, “These findings challenge long-held assumptions regarding when the earliest hominins are thought to have moved out of Africa and into Asia. While these results are significant, the mystery of exactly when H. erectus first appeared and last appeared in the region remains. If H. erectus was not the earliest occupant to reach Asia, alternative species must be considered. The updated chronology for Yunxian is a critical step toward resolving these debates.”

In addition to Bae and Tu, other team members include:

• Xiaobo Feng: School of History and Culture, Shanxi University

• Lan Luo: Department of Physics and Astronomy, Purdue Rare Isotope Measurement Laboratory, Purdue University

• Zhongping Lai: Institute of Marine Sciences, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Marine Disaster Prediction and Prevention, Shantou University and Alpine Paleoecology and Human Adaptation Group (ALPHA), State Key Laboratory of Tibetan Plateau Earth System, Environment and Resources, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences

• Darryl Granger: Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Purdue University

• Guanjun Shen: College of Geographical Sciences, Nanjing Normal University and Institute of Marine Sciences, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Marine Disaster Prediction and Prevention, Shantou University

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Journal

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.ady2270 

New evidence pushes the origins of diseases closely related to syphilis back more than 5,000 years

 An article by Mississippi State Professor of Anthropology Molly Zuckerman and her graduate student Lydia Bailey has been published in Science, one of the foremost scientific journals in the world.

Zuckerman and Bailey’s piece examines new evidence from ancient DNA that pushes the origins of diseases closely related to syphilis back more than 5,000 years and strongly supports an American rather than European origin for a close relative of the disease. Drawing on recent paleogenomic discoveries from Colombia and Mexico, the article demonstrates how advances in ancient DNA research are transforming long-standing debates about human disease, evolution and global health. The article is available at www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.aee7963.

Zuckerman said the research is important because it “moves us further into understanding the origins and adaptability of a disease that is harmfully resurging in human populations, especially in the U.S., and thus its potential for future change.”

Zuckerman said her career was profoundly shaped by her graduate mentor who intentionally included her in research on the origins of syphilis. She said now her inclusion of Bailey in current research is “a meaningful way to pay that mentorship forward” by providing the same kind of hands-on, scholarly opportunity that once helped launch her own research path.

An applied anthropology master’s student from Lafayette, New Jersey, Bailey said her inclusion in the project highlights how examining infectious diseases “in deep time can inform how we think about the roles of human mobility, environment and behavior in shaping infectious disease spread today.” As she pursues a research career focused on children’s health and public policy, she said publishing in “Science” is especially significant because it allows the team to share these insights “beyond anthropology and into public conversations that can help destigmatize infectious disease,” ultimately supporting more informed and equitable public health efforts.

For more information about MSU’s College of Arts and Sciences and its Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures, visit www.cas.msstate.edu and www.amec.msstate.edu.

Mississippi State University is taking care of what matters. Learn more at www.msstate.edu.

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Journal

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.aee7963 

Family relationships identified in Stone Age graves on Gotland

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Uppsala University

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4. The 8-10-year-old girl placed stretched out on her back with a bone cluster that belongs to a young adult female who was a third-degree relative of the girl. Photo: Johan Norderäng

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Credit: Johan Norderäng

A woman was buried with two children, but they were not her own. In another grave, two children were placed. They were not siblings and were more distantly related, perhaps cousins. In a new study, researchers at Uppsala University have clarified family relationships in four graves from a 5,500-year-old hunter-gatherer culture at Ajvide on Gotland. DNA analyses suggest that the people were well aware of family lineages and that relationships beyond the immediate family played an important role.

Ajvide is one of the most important Stone Age sites in Scandinavia and is known for its well-preserved graves and rich archaeological finds. Around 5,500 years ago, hunter-gatherers lived there, supporting themselves primarily by hunting seals and fishing. By this time, agriculture had spread across Europe, but in the north, hunter-gatherer cultures persisted and remained genetically distinct from the farmers.

The large burial site contains 85 known graves. Among the findings here, eight graves have been discovered that hold two or more individuals. Researchers at Uppsala University have now analysed DNA from the remains that lay in four these shared graves to investigate the kinship between the individuals. 

“Surprisingly enough, the analysis showed that many of those who were buried together were second- or third-degree relatives, rather than first-degree relatives – in other words, parent and child or siblings – as is often assumed. This suggests that these people had a good knowledge of their family lineages and that relationships beyond the immediate family played an important role,” says archaeogeneticist Helena Malmström, who was responsible for the design of the study.

At least one child in most graves

In one of the graves, a 20-year-old woman was found lying on her back. Two children lay on either side of her, one of them was a four-year old and the other a one-and-a-half years old. The DNA analysis shows that the children – a boy and a girl – are full siblings, but that the woman is not their mother. She is most likely their father’s sister or their half-sister.

In the second grave, a young individual was discovered. Lying alongside were the remains of an adult man that had probably been moved to the grave from somewhere else. The analysis shows that the young person was a girl and that the man is her father.

In the third grave, two children – a boy and a girl, were buried together. Their relationship was a little more distant and was measured as third-degree, which likely means they were cousins.

In the fourth grave, there was a girl and a young woman. The analysis showed that they were third-degree relatives, with one of them probably being the other’s great-aunt or cousin.

“As it is unusual for these kinds of hunter-gatherer graves to be preserved, studies of kinship in archaeological hunter-gatherer cultures are scarce and typically limited in scale,” says population geneticist Tiina Mattila, who had lead responsibility for the genetic analyses.

“The analyses provide insight into social organisation in the Stone Age,” says Paul Wallin, Professor of Archaeology and an expert on the Ajvide burial ground.

The archaeogenetic analysis of the co-burials in Ajvide burial ground is the first pilot study exploring family relationships among Scandinavian Neolithic hunter-gatherers. The researchers will now continue with interdisciplinary studies of the remains of more than 70 individuals from the burial ground. In this way, they hope to learn more about the social structure, life histories and burial rites of the ancient hunter-gatherer cultures.

Facts: How sex and kinship were determined

The researchers were able to find out sex and kinship by analysing DNA from teeth and bones from the ten individuals. The children’s sex cannot be seen from the skeletons but could be determined by investigating whether the deceased had two X chromosomes (girl) or one X and one Y chromosome (boy). Kinship could be identified by looking at how large a proportion of the DNA the individuals share. Individuals who are first-degree relatives, such as parents and children or full siblings, share half of their DNA. Second-degree relatives, such as grandparents and grandchildren or half-siblings, share a quarter of their DNA. Cousins or great-grandparents and great-grandchildren are third-degree relatives and share an eighth of their DNA.

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Journal

Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences

DOI

10.1098/rspb.2025.0813 

Ancestors of crops like wheat, barley, and rye were much less widespread 12,000 years ago than previously believed

 

New study maps where wheat, barley and rye grew before the first farmers found them

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Dr. Amaia Arranz-Otaegui and Ali Shakaiteer sampling cereals in the Shubayqa area. 

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Credit: Photo: Joe Roe, University of Copenhagen

In a new study in the journal Open Quaternary, researchers from the University of Copenhagen and the University of the Basque Country have reconstructed the likely ancient geographic ranges of 65 wild plant species closely associated with early farming in West Asia. These include the wild ancestors of wheat, barley, rye, lentils, and other crops that sparked the agricultural revolution more than 10,000 years ago.

“The first farming societies were established in the Middle East about 12,000 years ago. We know this from the artifacts, seeds, and animal bones that archaeologists have recovered from excavations. But we know little about the natural background vegetation in these areas, which means that we also don’t know exactly where the Neolithic peoples found the plants that they eventually domesticated,” says archaeologist and lead author Joe Roe from the University of Copenhagen. He adds:

“Based on our new data, it looks like the ancestors of some of the plants most important to modern agriculture – wheat, rye and barley, etc. – did not grow where we expected and also that they were much less widespread than we thought.”

Joe Roe and his co-author, archaeobotanist Amaia Arranz-Otaegui, were surprised to find that many early crop ancestors appear to have been concentrated in the Mediterranean coast of the Levant, suggesting this area acted as “refugium” during the rather extreme climate of the late Ice Age.

“This suggests that many wild crops were well-adapted to quite cold and dry conditions and did not necessarily expand with the arrival of the warmer and wetter climate in which the first farming communities established themselves,” says Amaia Arranz-Otaegui.

Together, these findings provide the clearest picture yet of where the world’s earliest agricultural plants once grew and the kind of landscapes ancient communities lived in when they transitioned from foraging to farming.

A methodological breakthrough

The study also marks an important step forward for how researchers model past ecosystems. By combining large, open datasets on where specific plant species grow today with advanced computer simulations of past global climate, they were able to create detailed maps showing where ancient plants were likely to have grown.

“Essentially, we used the same climate simulations that IPPC uses to predict our future climate, just turned backwards, and combined them with a machine learning model of what kinds of environment these plants are adapted to,” says Amaia Arranz-Otaegui.

According to the researchers, this modelling approach represents a new line of evidence for understanding the ecological context of early agriculture. Because it does not rely on archaeological preservation, which can be distorted by burial, human activity, and recovery biases, it offers an independent and complementary picture of ancient plant environments.

“This gives us a whole new window onto the ecological backdrop of the world’s first farmers independent,” the two authors conclude.

The article Biogeography of Crop Progenitors and Wild Plant Resources in the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene of West Asia, 14.7–8.3 ka has been published in the open access journal Open Quaternary.

Hunter-gatherers northwestern Europe adopted farming from migrant women

 

Ancient DNA has revealed that hunter-gatherers in Belgium, the Netherlands and nearby parts of Germany adapted to farming thousands of years later than elsewhere in Europe. It has also uncovered the pivotal role of women in the process

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Map showing dispersion of Hunter-Gatherers

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Credit: Bournemouth University

A new study has used ancient DNA to reveal that hunter-gatherers in Belgium, the Netherlands and nearby parts of Germany adapted to farming thousands of years later than elsewhere in Europe. It has also uncovered the pivotal role of women in the process.  

The research, published in Nature, involved scientists from Bournemouth University (BU) and the University of Huddersfield and was led by David Reich at Harvard University.  

Palaeoecologist Professor John Stewart at BU has been excavating caves in the region for over 20 years. He worked with archaeologists at the Université de Liège in Belgium to excavate ancient human remains from the Meuse and Lower Rhine regions of modern-day Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, between 8500 and 1700 BCE which were used in the research. 

The analysis of the DNA from the human remains was carried out at the University of Huddersfield by research students under the supervision of Dr Maria Pala, Professor Martin B. Richards, and Dr Ceiridwen Edwards. 

The Neolithic period was a crucial phase in European prehistory when a series of major population and cultural shifts happened that shaped the genetic composition of modern Europeans. At a time before national borders existed, people moved freely across large distances. In Europe, these movements influenced genetically distinct populations that intermixed creating new languages, cultures, and ways of life.  

During this time European populations had three distinct ancestral components: a hunter-gatherer component inherited from the first modern human (Homo sapiens) inhabitants of the continent, a Neolithic component brought by the first farmers from the Near East, and a third component associated with pastoralists from south Russia. 

DNA analysis from the remains of these ancient populations has helped peal back the layers of time and revealed that the arrival of farming in the Meuse and Lower Rhine regions, around ~4500 BCE did not result in anything like the major shift in genetic composition that took place across the rest of Europe. Instead, the hunter-gather practices were still being used, and the adoption of farming was slower to be introduced by up to 3,000 years.  

Strikingly, the data from the study suggest that this farmer influx was mostly from women marrying into the local hunter-gatherer communities, bringing with them their know-how as well as their genes. This pattern was limited to the water-rich environments (riverine, wetlands and coastal areas) across the region. The wealth of natural resources seems to have allowed the local people to selectively embrace some aspects of farming while also preserving many hunter-gatherer practices (and genes). 

The high levels of hunter-gatherer ancestry persisted until the end of the Neolithic, around 2500 BCE, when the famous “Bell Beaker” pottery first appeared. At this point, new people, with ancestry from Russia, spread across Europe. This time however, the newcomers overwhelmed the local communities, and the ancient lineages that had survived for so long dwindled.  

The study also has consequences for the history of Britain. The analysis revealed that British Early Bronze Age populations after 2500 BCE traced more than 90 per cent of their ancestry to those continental Bell Beaker populations – the earlier people, who built Stonehenge, seem to have almost completely vanished. 

Professor John Stewart commented: "We expected a clear change between the older hunter-gatherer populations and the newer agriculturalists but apparently in the lowlands and along the rivers of the Netherlands and Belgium the change was less immediate. It's like a Waterworld where time stood still." 

Dr Maria Pala said: “This study has also brought to light the crucial role played by women in the transmission of knowledge from the incoming farming communities to the local hunter-gatherers. Thanks to ancient DNA studies we can not only uncover the past but also give voice to the invaluable but often overlooked role played by women in shaping human evolution.” 

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Journal

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41586-026-10111-8