Tooth chemistry reveals the origins of St. Helena’s liberated Africans

Summary author: Walter Beckwith

Peer-Reviewed Publication

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)

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The remains of Africans liberated from illegal slave ships and buried on the island of St. Helena are providing new insight into the population history of the transatlantic slave trade. By combining chemical signatures preserved in teeth with ancient DNA and historical records, a new study reconstructs the geographic origins and early-life movements of these individuals. The findings also inform local discussions about remembrance and repatriation. 

The transatlantic slave trade forcibly displaced more than 12.5 million Africans, yet the specific origins and journeys of many individuals remain poorly understood. After the British abolished the slave trade in 1807, the Royal Navy intercepted illegal slave ships and brought many of the liberated Africans to the island of St. Helena. However, nearly a third of those brought to the island died shortly after landing due to malnutrition and disease. Their remains were rediscovered during archaeological excavations in 2007–2008, prompting a community-led effort to better understand and commemorate their lives. 

To enrich the understanding of this population, Xueye Wang and colleagues analyzed strontium isotope (87Sr/86Sr) signatures from the teeth of 152 liberated Africans buried on St. Helena, combining these results with ancient DNA and historical records to better reconstruct their geographic origins. Because tooth enamel preserves chemical traces of the geological environment where a person grew up, these isotopes can provide clues about childhood homelands and migration histories.

 Wang et al. found that these individuals originated from a wide geographic area extending from coastal western Central Africa to regions much farther inland, including locations in modern-day Angola, Zimbabwe, and other parts of southern Africa. What’s more, the authors found direct evidence that some enslaved Africans may have been forcibly relocated years before embarking on transatlantic slave ships. While most individuals remained in the same region during childhood, others showed chemical signatures indicating movement, often toward the coastal slave-trading ports, including one case in which a child appears to have been moved between the ages of seven and nine. 

Wang et al. note that combining strontium isotope analysis with genetic and historical evidence can more precisely identify the likely homelands of people displaced by the transatlantic slave trade, providing valuable information for discussions about the repatriation of human remains. However, the findings also underscore the complexity of such decisions, as many individuals likely originated from widely separated regions. Rather than prescribing where remains should be reburied, the authors argue that scientific evidence can support informed, community-led decisions about commemoration, remembrance, and, where appropriate, repatriation. In a related Perspective, R. Alexander Bentley discusses the findings in greater detail.

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Journal

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.aeb3661 

Ancient Egyptian princesses born 4,000 years ago were skilled archers

 

Strong muscle attachments and healed fractures show that royal women could use the weapons they were buried with — but also that high status didn’t prevent hardship

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The dagger buried with Princess Ita. Photograph by Sameh Abdel Mohsen, Egyptian Museum photographer.

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Credit: Sameh Abdel Mohsen

For decades, scientists have disputed the meaning of the weapons found in the burial chambers of some ancient Egyptian princesses. Were they symbolic or practical tools? Now a reassessment of five royal women’s mummies from the Middle Kingdom has shown that some princesses buried with weapons could use them.  

“Members of the royal family, especially the women, were active participants in skilled, physically demanding activities such as archery and hunting,” said Dr Zeinab Hashesh, lead author of the article in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology. “This conclusion is supported by the way their bones developed to sustain heavy muscle use, which corresponds directly to the weapons discovered in their tombs.” 

Rediscovered skeletons 

The researchers studied six royal mummies found at Dahshur, a funerary complex of pyramids and shaft tombs, in the 1890s. These mummies had been lost for years, and were rediscovered in the Egyptian Museum during a curation project in 2020.  

Four of the six were sisters, daughters of the pharaoh Amenemhat II, buried in matching underground chambers: Princess Ita next to Princess Khenmet, and Princess Itaweret alongside an anonymous woman provisionally identified as Princess Sathathormeryt. They were buried with items like bows and arrows which are traditionally associated with men; Princess Ita’s coffin contained a particularly beautiful dagger. Similar regalia was buried with the other two royals evaluated: Princess Noub-Hotep and King Hor. 

Although all six had been carefully mummified, the soft tissue had turned into powder, and some of the bones weren’t preserved. Unfortunately, this includes the princesses’ skulls, which were lost in the early 1900s. However, the remaining bones were in good condition, which allowed the archaeologists to estimate individuals’ age at death, height, and sex, as well as to uncover evidence of illnesses or injuries.  

“Princess Ita was a young woman aged between 28 and 34 with strong upper-body muscle attachments, suggesting she habitually used weapons like maces or daggers,” said Hashesh. “Princess Khenmet was a woman in her late 30s or 40s who showed signs of thinning bones, but had very robust ligament attachments. Princess Itaweret was a young woman aged between 20 and 34 who survived broken ribs and foot fractures; her skeleton shows she was a skilled archer.”  

The robust muscle attachments on the sisters’ bones indicate that they were highly physically active in ways that align with the use of the weapons in their burials. Similar evidence shows that Princess Noub-Hotep and King Hor were also archers.  

“We found pronounced development in the upper limbs of these individuals, which correlates to repetitive, high-intensity actions like pulling a bowstring or stabilizing a weapon, proving these activities were habitual throughout their lives,” explained Hashesh. “This directly explains the presence of bows, arrows, and maces in the women’s tombs; these were not just symbolic gifts but tools they actively used.” 

Injuries, like Princess Itaweret’s broken ribs — probably caused by a blow or a fall from a height — were common, while several individuals had infections and nutritional deficiencies. The sisters also shared rare spinal abnormalities, which indicates that their parents and wider family were closely related. 

“These injuries were most likely caused by accidents, falls, hard blows, or other impacts linked to an active lifestyle, whether through hunting, military training, or other demanding activities,” said Hashesh. “What is remarkable is that the injuries healed well, which suggests they had access to advanced medical care for their time.” 

Uncovering life stories 

However, the archaeologists point out that the loss of the princesses’ skulls limits their analyses. They also haven’t yet been able to carry out all the analyses they intend to – for example, stable isotope analysis, which could shed more light on possible nutritional deficiencies. 

“Our dream would be to go far beyond simply identifying the Dahshur royals,” said Hashesh. “We would try to tell their full life stories, their families, health, and even their political roles, with as much detail as possible. Beyond the science, we would preserve the remains, create 3D prints for teaching and virtual exhibitions, and display them alongside their jewelry, weapons, and funerary objects. All of this would be done with respect, ensuring the remains are presented ethically, just as they were originally buried. 

“Their objects and jewelry are truly fascinating, breathtaking in their craftsmanship. Yet, while archaeologists have long focused on preserving these treasures, the people themselves were often forgotten. Our study seeks to change that.” 

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Journal

Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology

DOI

10.3389/fearc.2026.1844402 

Large precolonial villages in the Brazilian Cerrado practiced maize-based polyculture

For decades, researchers have debated the subsistence strategies of precolonial societies of the Brazilian Cerrado (tropical savanna): were they hunter-gatherers or intensive maize farmers, and in either case, how did they organize themselves and interact with the land they inhabited? This week, a study published in Science Advances provides the first large-scale direct evidence to answer these questions. The evidence shows that while some populations relied on diverse plants, maize farming played a central role for others. But rather than practicing intensive monoculture, these communities developed diversified maize-based polyculture systems.

“For many years, the Cerrado debate focused on two extremes: highly mobile foraging or intensive sedentary farming,” says Eliane Chim, lead author of the study. “Instead, we found that some societies depended heavily on maize grown within diversified agricultural systems capable of sustaining large villages. This fundamentally changes our understanding of Indigenous food production and settlement in central Brazil.”

The researchers analyzed stable carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen isotopes from the teeth and bones of more than 100 individuals recovered from 37 archaeological sites across the Cerrado, Caatinga and Atlantic Forest biomes. Combined with new radiocarbon dates from human bone collagen, faunal isotope baselines, archaeobotanical evidence and palaeoecological records, the study reconstructs diets across the region during the Late Holocene with chronological precision.

The isotope evidence shows that people associated with the open-air villages obtained a substantial proportion of their diet from maize, whereas contemporaneous populations living in nearby rock shelters consumed much more diverse foods and showed little evidence of intensive maize use. Because these groups occupied similar environments, the differences cannot be explained by ecology alone. Instead, they reveal the coexistence of distinct cultural traditions and economic strategies across the region.

“These results challenge broader ideas about how agriculture developed in tropical South America,” says Prof. Patrick Roberts, director of the Department of Coevolution of Land Use and Urbanisation at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology. “Our findings show that maize was part of resilient polycultural food-production systems that combined domesticated crops with wild plants and local ecological knowledge.”

The findings also place the Cerrado alongside the Amazon as a major centre for understanding Indigenous innovation before European colonization.

“The Cerrado has often been overshadowed by the Amazon in discussions of precolonial land use,” says Prof. André Strauss of the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at the University of São Paulo (Brazil). “Our findings demonstrate that it was also a centre of innovation, where different societies developed distinct ways of interacting with one of the world's most biodiverse tropical landscapes.”

Beyond archaeology, the research contributes to understanding the long history of human influence on one of the world's richest tropical savannas, highlighting sustainable land-use strategies that helped shape Cerrado landscapes for centuries. These findings contribute not only to refining our understanding of past food production but also contribute to contemporary discussions on biodiversity conservation, Indigenous knowledge, and the long-term management of tropical ecosystems.

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Journal

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.aef7066 

 

Hasmonean history is combined with the enigma of the Qumran calendar

 New study by Prof. Eshbal Ratzon of Tel Aviv University

Hasmonean history is combined with the enigma of the Qumran calendar – to solve an ancient mystery of the Dead Sea Scrolls

• According to the study, the 364-day calendar, a crux of the dispute between the Qumran sect and Jerusalem, was actually used for a time by the Qumran community, but was abandoned when it began to drift away from the seasons, and relations with Hasmonean King Alexander Jannaeus improved.

A new study from Tel Aviv University proposes a solution to a historical mystery that has puzzled researchers for decades: Was the unique calendar of the Qumran sect, based on a 364-day year, ever used in practice, or was it merely a theoretical model?

The study hypothesizes that the calendar was indeed used by the sect in its early years, and even stood at the crux of the controversy that drove the sect to isolation in the desert. However, the calendar was later abandoned due to an inherent problem that made it impracticable over time, as well as warming relations with Hasmonean leadership under Alexander Jannaeus.

The study was conducted by Prof. Eshbal Ratzon of the Department of Jewish Philosophy and the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas at the Entin Faculty of Humanities. The paper was published in the Tarbiz Quarterly for Jewish Studies.

The Qumran calendar differed from the lunisolar calendar that served as a basis for Jewish life during the Second Temple period. It consisted of exactly 364 days - a number that is perfectly divisible by seven, and thus every year included 52 full weeks, and every holiday always fell on the same day of the week. For the Qumran sect, this reflected a perfect divine order. In the political sense, the calendar represented a rebellion against the political and religious leadership at the Temple in Jerusalem, which determined all significant dates. The sect believed that these dates had already been set by God during the Creation of the world, and humans must not interfere.

Yet the Qumran calendar's mathematical perfection created a serious difficulty: it diverged by one day and a quarter from the 365-day astronomical year. This difference may appear negligible, but it accumulates rapidly. For instance, if the Qumran calendar was used for twenty years, the festivals would shift by almost four weeks relative to the seasons. After several decades, a spring festival would end up being celebrated in winter, or even in the fall. For a community that regarded festivals as agricultural events connected to the harvest, first fruits, and seasons of the year, this posed a fundamental problem.

To understand the significance of the gap, one can compare the calendar to a clock that deviates by one minute every day. At first, no one notices the problem, but after months and years, such a clock no longer represents reality. The study explains that this is exactly what happened to the Qumran calendar: while ideal from a conceptual and mathematical perspective, over time it drifted further and further away from the natural cycles it sought to govern.

Over the past decades, researchers have proposed various solutions to this enigma. Some maintained that the Qumran sect periodically added days or weeks to its calendar, while others claimed that the calendar had never actually been used in the real world, serving only as a theoretical framework. Prof. Ratzon argues that neither option is supported by the Dead Sea Scrolls. According to her study, the evidence indicates that the calendar was regarded by the sect as a key component of their religious identity and a major point of contention with the Jerusalem establishment.

The study notes that almost twenty of the scrolls found in Qumran deal with calendars and astronomy - an exceptional number that attests to the topic's immense importance for the community. The Book of Jubilees, a central work in the Qumran library, fiercely attacks the prevailing lunar calendar, presenting the 364-day calendar as the original calendar received by Moses on Mount Sinai.

Based on this body of evidence, Prof. Ratzon proposes a new historical reconstruction: she contends that the Qumran calendar was actively used during the sect's formative days in the second century BCE, exacerbating its conflict with the religious leadership in Jerusalem. However, as the years went by, the calendar's accumulating digression from the seasons could no longer be ignored. In addition, the sect's relations with the ruling Hasmonean dynasty warmed during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus, who supported a halacha similar to their own and opposed the Pharisaic leadership. This enabled the Qumran sect to relinquish their previously adamant position and adopt the more practical calendar used at the Temple. They retained their own calendar as a theoretical concept that had been valid at the time of Creation and might be used again in the End of Days.

Prof. Ratzon concludes: "The Qumran calendar has long been regarded as one of the Qumran sect's defining features, but also as one of the most baffling mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This study proposes an alternative for the seeming contradiction between a functional calendar and a theoretical one. It is quite possible that the calendar was in fact used for a certain period of time, but then, losing its practical role due to both inherent problems and political changes, became a religious ideal and a symbol of identity. This would explain both its centrality in the Qumran scrolls and its gradual disappearance from historical reality."

Unusual to share a grave with close relatives in the Middle Ages

 When archaeologists find adults and children buried together in medieval graves, it is often assumed that they were members of the same family. A new study from Stockholm University in Science Advances suggests otherwise.

Researchers at Stockholm University analysed DNA from 142 individuals dating from the late Viking Age and Middle Ages, including more than 60 children and adolescents buried in multiple graves at sites in Sigtuna, close to Stockholm, Västerhus in Jämtland, and Fjälkinge in Skåne.

The results show that close biological relatives were surprisingly rare among people buried in the same grave, even at cemeteries where high levels of kinship could be detected.

”We often assume that adults and children sharing a grave were parents and children or other close family members. In most cases, that was not what we found,” says Maja Krzewińska, Centre for Palaeogenetics, Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies, Stockholm University, lead author of the study.

Instead, the researchers’ findings suggest that factors other than close family ties often influenced who was buried together.

”Archaeologists have debated the relationships between people buried together in this type of grave for a long time. Ancient DNA has finally given us the tool we have been waiting for to test these interpretations directly,” says Anna Kjellström, researcher at the Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies, Stockholm University.

The study also sheds light on the lives of children in early Christian Scandinavia. By using ancient DNA, the researchers could determine the biological sex of children who were too young to be identified osteologically. Boys and girls were often buried according to the same cemetery rules as adults. For example, at Västerhus, where men and women were generally buried on different sides of the churchyard, boys and girls followed the same pattern. This suggests that gender identity was recognised early in life.

”The children were not treated as a separate category. In death, they appear to have been treated according to the same social and religious principles as adult men and women,” says Anders Götherström, Professor of Molecular Archaeology, Centre for Palaeogenetics, Department of Archaeology and Classical Studies, Stockholm University.

The study also identified a remarkable family from the medieval cemetery at Västerhus. One woman, known to researchers as Lady 56, could be linked through DNA to several relatives buried in the churchyard, including her parents, her brother, and two daughters. Yet her story extends far beyond Jämtland.

Buried with her was a scallop shell, a rare object in a medieval Scandinavian grave and a well-known symbol of pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain. The find suggests that she completed one of medieval Europe’s most famous pilgrimages, travelling thousands of kilometres across the continent to the far edge of Christian Europe before returning home. Lady 56 died before the age of 30. Her parents, brother, and daughters were also buried in different part of the same cemetery in Jämtland.

The study demonstrates how archaeogenetics can advance our understanding of medieval society, revealing not only biological relationships but also the social worlds in which people lived, organised their communities, worshipped, and were ultimately laid to rest.

The article “Equal in death: Ancient genomic analysis of children’s early Christian burials” was published in Science Advances, DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aeb8588

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Journal

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.aeb8588 

Evolution of the Pictures of Tilling and Weaving, Southern Song Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty

 Gengzhitu 耕織圖 (Pictures of Tilling and Weaving) functions as a cultural artifact representative of agrarian civilization and dynastic governance, fulfilling dual roles as a vessel for agricultural knowledge and a motivational tool for farming practices. 

Over the course of its transmission from the Southern Song Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, a fascinating relationship emerged between the practical knowledge imparted by the Pictures of Tilling and Weaving and its role as a motivational tool for agricultural practices, creating a dynamic interaction akin to a seesaw effect. The fluctuation between the “form” and the “knowledge” of the Pictures of Tilling and Weaving provides valuable insights into the characteristics of scientific knowledge dissemination in traditional societies. 

This paper investigates the propagation and transformation of the Pictures of Tilling and Weaving, with a particular emphasis on the changes in its acknowledged intellectual merit and political importance throughout various historical epochs. The objective is to deepen comprehension of the interplay between the “form” and the “knowledge” in the conveyance of traditional agronomic knowledge as illustrated by the pictures.

Why the Polynesians suddenly sailed east

 Major drought forced people to migrate across the Pacific beyond Samoa and Tonga and towards the Americas, scientists have discovered.

With the new live action Moana film hitting cinemas on Friday [10 July], a team of geographers and climate scientists from the Universities of Southampton and East Anglia has discovered the true history of the tale.

Moana tells the story of a young Polynesian girl who leaves her threatened home island to sail past its barrier reef to save her island and its people.

The story is built on a period of history called the ‘Long Pause’. Around 3,000 years ago the ancestors of modern Polynesians arrived in Samoa and Tonga, and for 1,700 years they did not sail further east into the Pacific. Then around the years 900-1050 AD, they voyaged east and within 250 years settled the remaining island archipelagos of the South Pacific including Tahiti, Hawai’i and the continental Americas, in what was the greatest seafaring migration in history.

David Sear, Professor of Physical Geography at the University of Southampton and lead author of the study, said: “We have confirmed the theory that the end of the Long Pause coincided with a period of mega drought in the homeland islands of Samoa and Tonga – and also a period of increasing rainfall in the receiving islands. As they headed east, they found wetter islands with nobody on them.

“There was a huge explosion of migration, and within 250 years they had landed and settled every little dot in the South Pacific, from tiny coral atoll islands to larger lands. It was a very rapid process.”

Analysing samples from mud

The research team analysed mud samples from deep beneath swamps and lakes in Samoa, Tonga, French Polynesia and the Cook Islands.

They used ‘biochemical fossils’ produced by freshwater algae and leaves to measure the isotopic ratio of hydrogen to determine historic rainfall levels. This data consistently showed evidence of a severe and prolonged drought just before and during the period of migration.

“Hydrogen in rainwater contains heavier and lighter isotopes, the proportion of which is determined by the amount of precipitation in the tropics– which we were able to analyse in the mud,” explained Dr Mark Peaple, research fellow in paleoclimate at the University of Southampton, who undertook the geochemical analysis. “So analysing the ancient biomarker fossils we can reconstruct rainfall changes from thousands of years.”

When the Long Pause ended, it was the driest period in the last 2,000 years for these islands, so the islands’ populations were forced to move.

Climate modelling

The scientists also used climate modelling to understand the drivers of the dry conditions found in Samoa and Tonga.

Manoj Joshi, Professor of Climate Dynamics at the University of East Anglia, led the climate modelling. He said: “Our research shows that changes in sea surface temperatures across the Pacific Ocean over many decades drove an eastward shift in the vast rain belt that lies over this whole region, causing the dry conditions found in Samoa and Tonga.

“The climate changes we identified would have transformed daily life on these islands. Reduced rainfall would have affected freshwater availability, food production and the resilience of communities, creating powerful incentives for people to seek opportunities elsewhere.”

Dan Skinner, research fellow at the University of East Anglia who undertook climate modelling experiments said: “We now know that the climate – and specifically a period of severe drought for many years, even decades – is a definite factor in forcing this impressive migration.

“These findings illustrate how sensitive human societies can be to long-term changes in climate. Even highly skilled and adaptable communities may be driven to undertake extraordinary journeys when environmental conditions deteriorate over many years.”

Professor Sear added: “Other factors would also have contributed to the tipping point that made the costs of sailing into the eastern Pacific worth risking. There was an increasing population, meaning resources had to stretch further. Also, they had probably developed advanced sailing technology for their voyaging canoes by this point, adapting from U to V-shaped hulls and improving their rigging, which meant they could sail into the wind, which is predominantly east to west across the South Pacific.”  

The research is published in the Journal of Pacific Archaeology.