Archaeology News Report

Friday, May 31, 2019

Ancient feces reveal parasites in 8,000-year-old village of Çatalhöyük


New research published today in the journal Antiquity reveals that ancient faeces from the prehistoric village of Çatalhöyük have provided the earliest archaeological evidence for intestinal parasite infection in the mainland Near East.
People first gave up hunting and gathering and turned to farming in the Near East, around 10,000 years ago. The settlement of Çatalhöyük is famous for being an incredibly well preserved early village founded around 7,100 BC. The population of Çatalhöyük were early farmers, growing crops such as wheat and barley, and herding sheep and goats.
"It has been suggested that this change in lifestyle resulted in a similar change in the types of diseases that affected them. As the village is one of the largest and most densely populated of its time, this study at Çatalhöyük helps us to understand that process better," says study lead Dr Piers Mitchell of Cambridge's Department of Archaeology.
The toilet was first invented in the 4th millennium BC in Mesopotamia, 3000 years later than when Çatalhöyük flourished. It is thought the people living at Çatalhöyük either went to the rubbish tip (midden) to open their bowels, or carried their faeces from their houses to the midden in a vessel or basket to dispose of them.
"We would expect this to have put the population at risk of diseases spread by contact with human faeces, and explains why they were vulnerable to contracting whipworm," says the study first author Marissa Ledger.
"As writing was only invented 3000 years after the time of Çatalhöyük, the people were unable to record what happened to them during their lives. This research enables us for the first time to imagine the symptoms felt by some of the prehistoric people living at Çatalhöyük who were infected by this parasite."
To look for the eggs of intestinal parasites, Cambridge researchers Mitchell, Ledger and Evilena Anastasiou used microscopy to study preserved pieces of human faeces (coprolites) from a rubbish tip, and soil formed from decomposed faeces recovered from the pelvic region of burials. The samples dated from 7,100-6150 BC.
To determine whether the coprolites excavated from the midden were from human or animal faeces, they were analysed for sterols and bile acids at the University of Bristol Mass Spectrometry Facility by Helen Mackay, Lisa Marie Shillito, and Ian Bull. This analysis demonstrated that the coprolites were of human origin.
Further microscopic analysis showed that eggs of whipworm were present in two of the coprolites, demonstrating that people from the prehistoric village were infected by this intestinal parasite.
"It was a special moment to identify parasite eggs over 8000 years old," said study co-author Evilena Anastasiou.
Whipworms are 3-5cm in length, and live on the lining of the intestines of the large bowel. Adult worms can live for 5 years. Male and female worms mate and their eggs are mixed in with the faeces. Whipworm is spread by the contamination of food or drink from human faeces that contain the worm eggs. A heavy infection with whipworm can lead to anaemia, diarrhoea, stunted growth and reduced intelligence in children.
"Now we need to find ancient faecal material from prehistoric hunter gathers in the Near East, to help us understand how this change in lifestyle affected their diseases." added Mitchell.
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 6:48 PM No comments:

Latest Archaeology Reports


Neanderthals/Denisovans

Declining fertility rates may explain Neanderthal extinction

Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report – 20 hours ago
A new hypothesis for Neanderthal extinction supported by population modelling is put forward in a new study by Anna Degioanni from Aix Marseille Université, France and colleagues, published May 29, 2019 in the open-access journal *PLOS ONE*. The lack of empirical data allowing testing of hypotheses is one of the biggest challenges for researchers studying Neanderthal extinction. Many hypotheses involve catastrophic events such as disease or climate change. In order to test alternative hypothetical extinction scenarios, Degioanni and colleagues created a Neanderthal population model … more »

Neanderthals and modern humans diverged at least 800,000 years ago, research on teeth shows

Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report – 2 weeks ago
Neanderthal vs human skull (stock image). *Credit: © Bruder / Adobe Stock* Neanderthals and modern humans diverged at least 800,000 years ago, substantially earlier than indicated by most DNA-based estimates, according to new research by a UCL academic. The research, published in *Science Advances*, analysed dental evolutionary rates across different hominin species, focusing on early Neanderthals. It shows that the teeth of hominins from Sima de los Huesos, Spain — ancestors of the Neanderthals — diverged from the modern human lineage earlier than … more »

First hominins on the Tibetan Plateau were Denisovans

Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report – 4 weeks ago
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *The Xiahe mandible, only represented by its right half, was found in 1980 in Baishiya Karst Cave. view more Credit: © Dongju Zhang, Lanzhou University Denisovans – an extinct sister group of Neandertals – were discovered in 2010, when a research team led by Svante Pääbo from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) sequenced the genome of a fossil finger bone found at Denisova Cave in Russia and showed that it belonged to a hominin group that was genetically distinct from Neandertals. “Traces of Denisovan DNA are found in present-day A… more »
Asia

Homo sapiens may have had several routes of dispersal across Asia in the Late Pleistocene

Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report – 20 hours ago
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *Illustrated dispersal routes from the results of the Least Cost Path analysis: The three routes from the “wet ” simulations and the single route from the “dry ” simulation are presented together… view more Credit: Li et al, 2019 *Homo sapiens* may have had a variety of routes to choose from while dispersing across Asia during the Late Pleistocene Epoch, according to a study released May 29, 2019 in the open-access journal *PLOS ONE* by Feng Li of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing and colleagues. After leaving Africa, … more »

Humans used northern migration routes to reach eastern Asia

Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report – 20 hours ago
y [image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *The sand dunes of Mongol Els jutting out of the steppe in Mongolia. Many of these desert barriers only appeared after the Last Glacial Maximum (~20,000 years ago). view more Credit: Nils Vanwezer Northern and Central Asia have been neglected in studies of early human migration, with deserts and mountains being considered uncompromising barriers. However, a new study by an international team argues that humans may have moved through these extreme settings in the past under wetter conditions. We must now reconsider where we look for the earliest traces of o… more »

Origin of Sino-Tibetan language family revealed by new research

Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report – 3 weeks ago
The Sino-Tibetan language family includes early literary languages, such as Chinese, Tibetan, and Burmese, and is represented by more than 400 modern languages spoken in China, India, Burma, and Nepal. It is one of the most diverse language families in the world, spoken by 1.4 billion speakers. Although the language family has been studied since the beginning of the 19th century, scholars’ knowledge of the origin of these languages is still severely limited. An interdisciplinary study published in *PNAS*, led by scientists of the Centre des Recherches Linguistiques sur l’Asie Orien… more »

First hominins on the Tibetan Plateau were Denisovans

Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report – 4 weeks ago
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *The Xiahe mandible, only represented by its right half, was found in 1980 in Baishiya Karst Cave. view more Credit: © Dongju Zhang, Lanzhou University Denisovans – an extinct sister group of Neandertals – were discovered in 2010, when a research team led by Svante Pääbo from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) sequenced the genome of a fossil finger bone found at Denisova Cave in Russia and showed that it belonged to a hominin group that was genetically distinct from Neandertals. “Traces of Denisovan DNA are found in present-day A… more »
Middle Pleistocene human skull reveals variation and continuity in early Asian humans C
Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report – 4 weeks ago
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *The Hualongdong Middle Pleistocene human skull and the collapsed cave site, with the fossil-bearing breccia in beige aournd the limestone blocks view more Credit: WU Xiujie and Erik Trinkaus A team of scientists led by LIU Wu and WU Xiujie from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences reported the first ever Middle Pleistocene human skull found in southeastern China, revealing the variation and continuity in early Asian humans. Their findings were published on April 30 in *Proceedings of the Nat… more »
Israel

Early humans deliberately recycled flint to create tiny, sharp tools

Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report – 20 hours ago
A new Tel Aviv University study finds that prehistoric humans “recycled” discarded or broken flint tools 400,000 years ago to create small, sharp utensils with specific functions. These recycled tools were then used with great precision and accuracy to perform specific tasks involved in the processing of animal products and vegetal materials. CaptionExperimental activity of cutting tubers with a small recycled flake and a close-up of its prehension (inset). CreditFlavia Venditti/AFTAU. Related Journal Article http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2019.03.016 The site of Qesem Cave, l… more »

New reading of the Mesha Stele inscription has major consequences for biblical history

Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report – 3 weeks ago
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *The Mesha Stele, the longest extra-biblical inscription ever found, now at the Louvre Museum in Paris. view more Credit: Public domain photograph. The legendary King Balak from the Book of Numbers may have been a real historical figure, according to a new reading of the Mesha Stele, the longest extra-biblical inscription in existence. The Mesha Stele, an ancient inscribed stone dating to the ninth century BCE, tells the story of the territorial expansion and construction endeavors of King Mesha of Moab, who is also mentioned in the Second Book of Kings in the… more »
Europe

Unique Iron Age shield gives insight into prehistoric technology

Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report – 6 days ago
A unique bark shield, thought to have been constructed with wooden laths during the Iron Age, has provided new insight into the construction and design of prehistoric weaponry. The only one of its kind ever found in Europe, the shield was found south of Leicester on the Everards Meadows site, in what is believed to have been a livestock watering hole. Following analysis of the construction of the shield by Michael Bamforth at the University of York, it became apparent that the shield had been carefully constructed with wooden laths to stiffen the structure, a wooden edging rim, and… more »

Traces of crawling in Italian cave give clues to ancient humans’ social behavior

Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report – 2 weeks ago
Evidence of crawling in an Italian cave system sheds new light on how late Stone Age humans behaved as a group, especially when exploring new grounds, says a study published today in *eLife*. The cave of Bàsura at Toirano and its human and animal fossil traces have been known since the 1950s, with the first studies conducted by Italian archaeologist Virginia Chiappella. In the current study, promoted by the Archaeological Heritage Office of Liguria, researchers from Italy, Argentina and South Africa used multiple approaches to analyse the human traces and identified for the first t… more »

Uncovering a 5000-year-old family tragedy

Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report – 2 weeks ago
Eight years ago, a mass grave was unearthed in the southern Polish village of Koszyce. The circumstances surrounding the 5000-year-old gravesite have been a mystery ever since. The skeletons of 15 women, children and young men were found – each slain by powerful blows to the head. Yet, their bodies were neatly positioned alongside one another and with an abundance of gifts for their final voyage. An international team, composed of researchers from the universities of Copenhagen and Aarhus and the Archaeological Museum in Poznan, Poland, used DNA profiles to demonstrate that the mas… more »

Ancient DNA suggests that some Northern Europeans got their languages from Siberia

Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report – 2 weeks ago
Most Europeans descend from a combination of European hunter-gatherers, Anatolian early farmers, and Steppe herders. But only European speakers of Uralic languages like Estonian and Finnish also have DNA from ancient Siberians. Now, with the help of ancient DNA samples, researchers reporting in *Current Biology* on May 9 suggest that these languages may have arrived from Siberia by the beginning of the Iron Age, about 2,500 years ago, rather than evolving in Northern Europe. The findings highlight the way in which a combination of genetic, archaeological, and linguistic data can con… more »

First examples of Iberian prehistoric ‘imitation amber’ beads at gravesites U

Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report – 4 weeks ago
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *These are amber bead samples studied in this paper view more Credit: Odriozola et al., 2019 Prehistoric Iberians created “imitation amber” by repeatedly coating bead cores with tree resins, according to a study published May 1, 2019 in the open-access journal *PLOS ONE* by Carlos Odriozola from Universidad de Sevilla, Spain, and colleagues. Many studies have confirmed the ornamental and symbolic importance of amber to European prehistoric peoples. This study is the first to discuss potential prehistoric Iberian “imitation amber” beads made using the applicati… more »
Americas

Eastern forests shaped more by Native Americans’ burning than climate change

Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report – 1 week ago
[image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *Pollen and tree survey map. view more Credit: Marc Abrams, Penn State Native Americans’ use of fire to manage vegetation in what is now the Eastern United States was more profound than previously believed, according to a Penn State researcher who determined that forest composition change in the region was caused more by land use than climate change. “I believe Native Americans were excellent vegetation managers and we can learn a lot from them about how to best manage forests of the U.S.,” said Marc Abrams, professor of forest ecology and physiology in the Co… more »

High-quality jadeite tool discovered in underwater ancient salt works in Belize

Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report – 1 week ago
Researchers say the find shows the importance of salt and Maya salt workers more than 1,000 years ago Louisiana State University [image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *LSU anthropologist Heather McKillop discovered this high-quality jadeite tool at the site of an ancient salt works in Belize that has been submerged in water due to sea level rise…. view more Credit: Heather McKillop, LSU. Anthropologists discovered a tool made out of high-quality translucent jadeite with an intact rosewood handle at a site where the ancient Maya processed salt in Belize. The discovery of these high-quality mater… more »

Archaeological discovery upends a piece of Barbados history

Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report – 1 week ago
Which came first, the pigs or the pioneers? In Barbados, that has been a historical mystery ever since the first English colonists arrived on the island in 1627 to encounter what they thought was a herd of wild European pigs. A recent discovery by an SFU archaeologist is shedding new light on the matter. Christina Giovas uncovered the jaw bone of a peccary, a South American mammal that resembles a wild pig, while researching a larger project on prehistoric animal introductions in the Caribbean. “I didn’t give it much notice at the time, but simply collected it along with other bon… more »

Ancient fish ponds in the Bolivian savanna supported human settlement

Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report – 2 weeks ago
A network of fish ponds supported a permanent human settlement in the seasonal drylands of Bolivia more than one thousand years ago, according to a new study published May 15, 2019 in the open-access journal *PLOS ONE* by Gabriela Prestes-Carneiro of Federal University of Western Para, Brazil, and colleagues. The study is the first to document the full range of fish species likely kept in these constructed ponds, and provides new insights into how humans modified the savannah environment to cope with the months-long droug… more »

Abrupt climate change drove early South American population decline

Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report – 2 weeks ago
Abrupt climate change some 8,000 years ago led to a dramatic decline in early South American populations, suggests new UCL research. The study, published in *Scientific Reports*, is the first to demonstrate how widespread the decline was and the scale at which population decline took place 8,000 to 6,000 years ago. “Archaeologists working in South America have broadly known that some 8,200 years ago, inhabited sites in various places across the continent were suddenly abandoned. In our study we wanted to connect the dots between disparate records that span the Northern Andes, thro… more »

Ayahuasca fixings found in 1,000-year-old bundle in the Andes

Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report – 3 weeks ago
New evidence that the mind-blowing brew goes back millennia University of California – Berkeley [image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *Ritual bundle with leather bag, carved wooden snuff tablets and snuff tube with human hair braids, pouch made of three fox snouts, camelid bone spatulas, colorful textile headband and wool… view more Credit: Photos courtesy of Juan Albarracín-Jordán and José Capriles. Today’s hipster creatives and entrepreneurs are hardly the first generation to partake of ayahuasca, according to archaeologists who have discovered traces of the powerfully hallucinogenic potion in … more »
Africa

Earliest evidence of the cooking and eating of starch

Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report – 1 week ago
Early human beings who lived around 120,000 years ago in South Africa were ‘ecological geniuses’ who were able to exploit their environment intelligently for suitable food and medicines University of the Witwatersrand [image: IMAGE] *IMAGE: *The Klasies River cave in the southern Cape of South Africa. view more Credit: Wits University New discoveries made at the Klasies River Cave in South Africa’s southern Cape, where charred food remains from hearths were found, provide the first archaeological evidence that anatomically modern humans were roasting and eating plant starches, suc… more »
Egypt

In Egypt: Colourful wooden coffins and limestone statues dating back to the Old Kingdom

Jonathan KantrowitzatArchaeology News Report – 2 weeks ago
Complete report Egypt’s antiquities ministry on Saturday unveiled a 4,500-year-old burial ground near the Giza pyramids containing colourful wooden coffins and limestone statues dating back to the Old Kingdom. Sarcophagi are seen inside a burial shaft at the Giza pyramid plateau, on the southwestern outskirts of the Egyptian capital Cairo, on May 4, 2019, following the discovery of several Old Kingdom tombs and burial shafts. MAHMOUD KHALED / AFP. The site on the southeastern side of Giza plateau contains tombs and burial shafts from various periods, but the oldest is a lime… more »
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 11:04 AM No comments:

Thursday, May 30, 2019

Ancient DNA illuminates first herders and farmers in east Africa



A collaborative study led by archaeologists, geneticists and museum curators is providing answers to previously unsolved questions about life in sub-Saharan Africa thousands of years ago. The results were published online in the journal Science Thursday, May 30. Researchers from North American, European and African institutions analyzed ancient DNA from 41 human skeletons curated in the National Museums of Kenya and Tanzania, and the Livingstone Museum in Zambia.
"The origins of food producers in East Africa have remained elusive because of gaps in the archaeological record," said co-first author Mary Prendergast, Ph.D., professor of anthropology and chair of humanities at Saint Louis University's campus in Madrid, Spain.
"This study uses DNA to answer previously unresolvable questions about how people were moving and interacting," added Prendergast.
The research provides a look at the origins and movements of early African food producers.
The first form of food production to spread through most of Africa was the herding of cattle, sheep and goats. This way of life continues to support millions of people living on the arid grasslands that cover much of sub-Saharan Africa.
"Today, East Africa is one of the most genetically, linguistically, and culturally diverse places in the world," explains Elizabeth Sawchuk, Ph.D., a bioarchaeologist at Stony Brook University and co-first author of the study. "Our findings trace the roots of this mosaic back several millennia. Distinct peoples have coexisted in the Rift Valley for a very long time."
Previous archaeological research shows that the Great Rift Valley of Kenya and Tanzania was a key site for the transition from foraging to herding. Herders of livestock first appeared in northern Kenya around 5000 years ago, associated with elaborate monumental cemeteries, and then spread south into the Rift Valley, where Pastoral Neolithic cultures developed.
The new genetic results reveal that this spread of herding into Kenya and Tanzania involved groups with ancestry derived from northeast Africa, who appeared in East Africa and mixed with local foragers there between about 4500-3500 years ago. Previously, the origins and timing of these population shifts were unclear, and some archaeologists hypothesized that domestic animals spread through exchange networks, rather than by movement of people.
After around 3500 years ago, herders and foragers became genetically isolated in East Africa, even though they continued to live side by side. Archaeologists have hypothesized substantial interaction among foraging and herding groups, but the new results reveal that there were strong and persistent social barriers that lasted long after the initial encounters.
Another major genetic shift occurred during the Iron Age around 1200 years ago, with movement into the region of additional peoples from both northeastern and western Africa. These groups contributed to ancient ancestry profiles similar to those of many East Africans today. This genetic shift parallels two major cultural changes: farming and iron-working.
The study provided insight into the history of East Africa as an independent center of evolution of lactase persistence, which enables people to digest milk into adulthood. This genetic adaptation is found in high proportions among Kenyan and Tanzanian herders today.
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 3:21 PM No comments:

Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Declining fertility rates may explain Neanderthal extinction


A new hypothesis for Neanderthal extinction supported by population modelling is put forward in a new study by Anna Degioanni from Aix Marseille Université, France and colleagues, published May 29, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.
The lack of empirical data allowing testing of hypotheses is one of the biggest challenges for researchers studying Neanderthal extinction. Many hypotheses involve catastrophic events such as disease or climate change. In order to test alternative hypothetical extinction scenarios, Degioanni and colleagues created a Neanderthal population model allowing them to explore demographic factors which might have resulted in declining populations and population extinction over a period of 4,000-10,000 years (a time frame compatible with known Neanderthal history). The researchers created baseline demographic parameters for their Neanderthal extinction model (e.g. survival, migration, and fertility rates) based on observational data on modern hunter-gatherer groups and extant large apes, as well as available Neanderthal paleo-genetic and empirical data from earlier studies. The authors defined populations as extinct when they fell below 5,000 individuals.
The authors saw that in their model, extinction would have been possible within 10,000 years with a decrease in fertility rates of young (<20 0.4="" 10="" 2.7="" 4="" 8="" a="" amplified="" by="" children="" could="" decrease="" decreased="" extinction="" fertility="" have="" if="" in="" infants="" just="" led="" less="" neanderthal="" occurred="" of="" old="" one="" p="" percent="" rate="" reduction="" survival="" than="" the="" this="" to="" was="" within="" women="" year-old="" year="" years.=""> The authors intended to explore possible Neanderthal extinction scenarios rather than to posit any definitive explanation. However, the researchers note that this study is the first to use empirical data to suggest that relatively minor demographic changes, such as a reduction in fertility or an increase in infant mortality, might have led to Neanderthal extinction. The authors note that modelling can be a useful tool in studying Neanderthals.
The authors add: "This study of the disappearance of the Neanderthals published today in PLOS ONE does not attempt to explain "why" the Neanderthals disappeared, but to identify "how" their demise may have taken place. This original approach is made on the basis of demographic modeling. The results suggest that a very small reduction in fertility may account for the disappearance of the Neanderthal population. According to this research, this decrease did not concern all female Neanderthals, but only the youngest (less than 20 years old)."
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 4:20 PM No comments:

Homo sapiens may have had several routes of dispersal across Asia in the Late Pleistocene


IMAGE
IMAGE: Illustrated dispersal routes from the results of the Least Cost Path analysis: The three routes from the "wet " simulations and the single route from the "dry " simulation are presented together... view more 
Credit: Li et al, 2019
Homo sapiens may have had a variety of routes to choose from while dispersing across Asia during the Late Pleistocene Epoch, according to a study released May 29, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Feng Li of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing and colleagues.
After leaving Africa, Homo sapiens dispersed across the Asian continent during the Late Pleistocene, but it isn't known exactly what routes our species followed. Most models assume that the Gobi Desert and Altai Mountain chains of North and Central Asia formed impassable barriers on the way to the east, so archaeological exploration has tended to neglect those regions in favor of seemingly more likely paths farther north and south.
In this study, Li and colleagues use Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software alongside archaeological and paleoclimate data to reconstruct the conditions of North and Central Asia over the Late Pleistocene and to identify possible routes of travel. Their data suggest that the desert and mountain regions were likely impassable during cold and dry glacial periods, but that during warmer and wetter interglacial times it would have been possible for human populations to traverse these regions via at least three routes following ancient lake and river systems.
The authors caution that these data do not demonstrate definite routes of dispersal and that more detailed models should be constructed to test these results. However, these models do identify specific routes that may be good candidates for future archaeological exploration. Understanding the timing and tempo of Homo sapiens dispersal across Asia will be crucial for determining how culture and technology spread and developed, as well as how our species interacted with our extinct cousins, the Neanderthals and Denisovans.
Roberts adds: "Our modelling of the available geographic and past climate data suggest that archaeologists and anthropologists should look for early human presence, migration, and interaction with other hominins in new parts of Asia that have been neglected as static voids. Given what we are increasingly discovering about the flexibility of our species, it would be of no surprise if we were to find early Homo sapiens in the middle of modern deserts or mountainous glacial sheets all across Asia. Indeed, it may be here that the key to our species' uniqueness lies".
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 4:19 PM No comments:

Humans used northern migration routes to reach eastern Asia


y
IMAGE
IMAGE: The sand dunes of Mongol Els jutting out of the steppe in Mongolia. Many of these desert barriers only appeared after the Last Glacial Maximum (~20,000 years ago). view more 
Credit: Nils Vanwezer
Northern and Central Asia have been neglected in studies of early human migration, with deserts and mountains being considered uncompromising barriers. However, a new study by an international team argues that humans may have moved through these extreme settings in the past under wetter conditions. We must now reconsider where we look for the earliest traces of our species in northern Asia, as well as the zones of potential interaction with other hominins such as Neanderthals and Denisovans.
Archaeologists and palaeoanthropologists are increasingly interested in discovering the environments facing the earliest members of our species, Homo sapiens, as it moved into new parts of Eurasia in the Late Pleistocene (125,000-12,000 years ago). Much attention has focused on a 'southern' route around the Indian Ocean, with Northern and Central Asia being somewhat neglected. However, in a paper published in PLOS ONE, scientists of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Human Science in Jena, Germany, and colleagues at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, China, argue that climate change may have made this a particularly dynamic region of hominin dispersal, interaction, and adaptation, and a crucial corridor for movement.
'Heading North' Out of Africa and into Asia "Archaeological discussions of the migration routes of Pleistocene Homo sapiens have often focused on a 'coastal' route from Africa to Australia, skirting around India and Southeast Asia," says Professor Michael Petraglia of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, a co-author of the new study. "In the context of northern Asia, a route into Siberia has been preferred, avoiding deserts such as the Gobi." Yet over the past ten years, a variety of evidence has emerged that has suggested that areas considered inhospitable today might not have always been so in the past.
"Our previous work in Saudi Arabia, and work in the Thar Desert of India, has been key in highlighting that survey work in previously neglected regions can yield new insights into human routes and adaptations," says Petraglia. Indeed, if Homo sapiens could cross what is now the Arabian Deserts then what would have stopped it crossing other currently arid regions such as the Gobi Desert, the Junggar Basin, and the Taklamakan Desert at different points in the past? Similarly, the Altai Mountains, the Tien Shan and the Tibetan Plateau represent a potentially new high altitude window into human evolution, especially given the recent Denisovan findings from Denisova Cave in Russia and at the Baishiya Karst Cave in China.
Nevertheless, traditional research areas, a density of archaeological sites, and assumptions about the persistence of environmental 'extremes' in the past has led to a focus on Siberia, rather than the potential for interior routes of human movement across northern Asia.
A "Green Gobi"? Indeed, palaeoclimatic research in Central Asia has increasingly accumulated evidence of past lake extents, past records of changing precipitation amounts, and changing glacial extents in mountain regions, which suggest that environments could have varied dramatically in this part of the world over the course of the Pleistocene. However, the dating of many of these environmental transitions has remained broad in scale, and these records have not yet been incorporated into archaeological discussions of human arrival in northern and Central Asia.
"We factored in climate records and geographical features into GIS models for glacials (periods during which the polar ice caps were at their greatest extent) and interstadials (periods during the retreat of these ice caps) to test whether the direction of past human movement would vary, based on the presence of these environmental barriers," says Nils Vanwezer, PhD student at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and a joint lead-author of the study.
"We found that while during 'glacial' conditions humans would indeed likely have been forced to travel via a northern arc through southern Siberia, during wetter conditions a number of alternative pathways would have been possible, including across a 'green' Gobi Desert," he continues. Comparisons with the available palaeoenvironmental records confirm that local and regional conditions would have been very different in these parts of Asia in the past, making these 'route' models a definite possibility for human movement.
Where did you come from, where did you go? "We should emphasize that these routes are not 'real', definite pathways of Pleistocene human movement. However, they do suggest that we should look for human presence, migration, and interaction with other hominins in new parts of Asia that have been neglected as static voids of archaeology," says Dr. Patrick Roberts also of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, co-author of the study. "Given what we are increasingly discovering about the flexibility of our species, it would be of no surprise if we were to find early Homo sapiens in the middle of modern deserts or mountainous glacial sheets."
"These models will stimulate new survey and fieldwork in previously forgotten regions of northern and Central Asia," says Professor Nicole Boivin, Director of the Department of Archaeology at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, and co-author of the study. "Our next task is to undertake this work, which we will be doing in the next few years with an aim to test these new potential models of human arrival in these parts of Asia."
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 4:18 PM No comments:

Early humans deliberately recycled flint to create tiny, sharp tools


A new Tel Aviv University study finds that prehistoric humans "recycled" discarded or broken flint tools 400,000 years ago to create small, sharp utensils with specific functions. These recycled tools were then used with great precision and accuracy to perform specific tasks involved in the processing of animal products and vegetal materials.
 

Caption

Experimental activity of cutting tubers with a small recycled flake and a close-up of its prehension (inset).

Credit

Flavia Venditti/AFTAU.

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2019.03.016
 
The site of Qesem Cave, located just outside Tel Aviv, was discovered during a road construction project in 2000. It has since offered up countless insights into life in the region hundreds of thousands of years ago.
In collaboration with Prof. Cristina Lemorini of Sapienza University of Rome, the research was led jointly by postdoctoral fellow Dr. Flavia Venditti in collaboration with Profs. Ran Barkai and Avi Gopher. All three are members of TAU's Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures. It was published on April 11 in the Journal of Human Evolution.
In recent years, archaeologists working in caves in Spain and North Africa and digs in Italy and Israel have unearthed evidence that prehistoric people recycled objects they used in daily life. Just as we recycle materials such as paper and plastic to manufacture new items today, early hominids collected discarded or broken tools made of flint to create new utensils for specific purposes hundreds of thousands of years ago.
"Recycling was a way of life for these people," Prof. Barkai says. "It has long been a part of human evolution and culture. Now, for the first time, we are discovering the specific uses of the recycled 'tool kit' at Qesem Cave."
Exceptional conditions in the cave allowed for the immaculate preservation of the materials, including micro residue on the surface of the flint tools.
"We used microscopic and chemical analyses to discover that these small and sharp recycled tools were specifically produced to process animal resources like meat, hide, fat and bones," Venditti explains. "We also found evidence of plant and tuber processing, which demonstrated that they were also part of the hominids' diet and subsistence strategies."
According to the study, signs of use were found on the outer edges of the tiny objects, indicating targeted cutting activities related to the consumption of food: butchery activities and tuber, hide and bone processing. The researchers used two different and independent spectroscopic chemical techniques: Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDX).
"The meticulous analysis we conducted allowed us to demonstrate that the small recycled flakes were used in tandem with other types of utensils. They therefore constituted a larger, more diversified tool kit in which each tool was designed for specific objectives," Venditti says.
She adds, "The research also demonstrates that the Qesem inhabitants practiced various activities in different parts of the cave: The fireplace and the area surrounding it were eventually a central area of activity devoted to the consumption of the hunted animal and collected vegetal resources, while the so-called 'shelf area' was used to process animal and vegetal materials to obtain different by-products."
"This research highlights two debated topics in the field of Paleolithic archaeology: the meaning of recycling and the functional role of small tools," Prof. Barkai observes. "The data from the unique, well-preserved and investigated Qesem Cave serve to enrich the discussion of these phenomena in the scientific community."
"Our data shows that lithic recycling at Qesem Cave was not occasional and not provoked by the scarcity of flint," Venditti concludes. "On the contrary, it was a conscious behavior which allowed early humans to quickly obtain tiny sharp tools to be used in tasks where precision and accuracy were essential."
The researchers are continuing to investigate prehistoric recycling by applying their analysis to other sites in Africa, Europe and Asia.
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 4:05 PM No comments:

Thursday, May 23, 2019

Unique Iron Age shield gives insight into prehistoric technology


A unique bark shield, thought to have been constructed with wooden laths during the Iron Age, has provided new insight into the construction and design of prehistoric weaponry.
The only one of its kind ever found in Europe, the shield was found south of Leicester on the Everards Meadows site, in what is believed to have been a livestock watering hole.
Following analysis of the construction of the shield by Michael Bamforth at the University of York, it became apparent that the shield had been carefully constructed with wooden laths to stiffen the structure, a wooden edging rim, and a woven boss to protect the wooden handle.
Although prior evidence has shown that prehistoric people used bark to make bowls and boxes, this is the first time researchers have seen the material used for a weapon of war.
The outside of the shield has been painted and scored in red chequerboard decoration. Radiocarbon dating has revealed that the shield was made between 395 and 255 BC.
The shield was severely damaged before being deposited in the ground, with some of the damage likely to have been caused by the pointed tips of spears. Further analysis is planned to help understand if this occurred in battle or as an act of ritual destruction.
Michael Bamforth, from the University of York's Department of Archaeology, said: "This truly astonishing and unparalleled artefact has given us an insight into prehistoric technology that we could never have guessed at.
"Although we know that bark has many uses, including making boxes and containers it doesn't survive well in the archaeological record. Initially we didn't think bark could be strong enough to use as a shield to defend against spears and swords and we wondered if it could be for ceremonial use.
"It was only through experimentation that we realised it could be tough enough to protect against blows from metal weapons. Although a bark shield is not as strong as one made from wood or metal, it would be much lighter allowing the user much more freedom of movement."
The shield was first discovered by archaeologists at the University of Leicester's Archaeological Services in 2015 at an Iron Age site within a farming landscape known to have been used and managed by Iron Age communities, with the Fosse Way Roman road running close by.
Many cutting-edge analytical techniques have been used to understand the construction of the object, including CT scanning and 3D printing.
Dr Rachel Crellin, Lecturer in later Prehistory at the University of Leicester, who assessed the evidence for impact damage, said: "The first time I saw the shield I was absolutely awed by it: the complex structure, the careful decorations, and the beautiful boss.
"I must admit I was initially sceptical about whether the shield would have functioned effectively, however the experimental work showed that the shield would have worked very effectively, and analysis of the surface of the object has identified evidence of use."
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 2:39 PM No comments:

Tuesday, May 21, 2019

Eastern forests shaped more by Native Americans' burning than climate change


IMAGE
IMAGE: Pollen and tree survey map. view more 
Credit: Marc Abrams, Penn State
Native Americans' use of fire to manage vegetation in what is now the Eastern United States was more profound than previously believed, according to a Penn State researcher who determined that forest composition change in the region was caused more by land use than climate change.
"I believe Native Americans were excellent vegetation managers and we can learn a lot from them about how to best manage forests of the U.S.," said Marc Abrams, professor of forest ecology and physiology in the College of Agricultural Sciences. "Native Americans knew that to regenerate plant species that they wanted for food, and to feed game animals they relied on, they needed to burn the forest understory regularly."
Over the last 2,000 years at least, according to Abrams -- who for three decades has been studying past and present qualities of eastern U.S. forests -- frequent and widespread human-caused fire resulted in the predominance of fire-adapted tree species. And in the time since burning has been curtailed, forests are changing, with species such as oak, hickory and pine losing ground.
"The debate about whether forest composition has been largely determined by land use or climate continues, but a new study strongly suggests anthropogenic fire has been the major driver of forest change in the East," said Abrams. "That is important to know because climate change is taking on an ever larger proportion of scientific endeavor."
But this phenomenon does not apply to other regions, Abrams noted. In the western U.S., for example, climate change has been much more pronounced than in the East. That region has received much more warming and much more drought, he explained.
"Here in the East, we have had a slight increase in precipitation that has ameliorated the warming," said Abrams.
To learn the drivers of forest change, researchers used a novel approach, analyzing both pollen and charcoal fossil records along with tree-census studies to compare historic and modern tree composition in the forests of eastern North America. They looked at seven forest types in the north and central regions of the eastern United States. Those forest types encompass two distinct floristic zones -- conifer-northern hardwood and sub-boreal to the north, and oak-pine to the south.
The researchers found that in the northernmost forests, present-day pollen and tree-survey data revealed significant declines in beech, pine, hemlock and larches, and increases in maple, poplar, ash, oak and fir. In forests to the south, both witness tree and pollen records pointed to historic oak and pine domination, with declines in oak and chestnut and increases in maple and birch, based on present-day data.
"Modern forests are dominated by tree species that are increasingly cool-adapted, shade-tolerant, drought-intolerant pyrophobes -- trees that are reduced when exposed to repeated forest burning," Abrams said. "Species such as oak are largely promoted by low-to moderate-level forest fires. Furthermore, this change in forest composition is making eastern forests more vulnerable to future fire and drought."
Researchers also included human population data for the region, going back 2,000 years, to bolster their findings, which recently were published in the Annals of Forest Science. After hundreds of years of fairly stable levels of fire caused by relatively low numbers of Native Americans in the region, they report, the most significant escalation in burning followed the dramatic increase in human population associated with European settlement prior to the early 20th century. Moreover, it appears that low numbers of Native Americans were capable of burning large areas of the eastern U.S. and did so repeatedly.
After 1940, they found, fire suppression was an ecologically transformative event in all forests.
"Our analysis identifies multiple instances in which fire and vegetation changes were likely driven by shifts in human population and land use beyond those expected from climate alone," Abrams said. "After Smokey Bear came on the scene, fire was mostly shut down throughout the U.S. and we have been paying a big price for that in terms of forest change. We went from a moderate amount of fire to too much fire to near zero fire -- and we need to get back to that middle ground in terms of our vegetation management."
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 1:17 PM No comments:

Monday, May 20, 2019

Earliest evidence of the cooking and eating of starch



Early human beings who lived around 120,000 years ago in South Africa were 'ecological geniuses' who were able to exploit their environment intelligently for suitable food and medicines
University of the Witwatersrand
IMAGE
IMAGE: The Klasies River cave in the southern Cape of South Africa. view more 
Credit: Wits University
New discoveries made at the Klasies River Cave in South Africa's southern Cape, where charred food remains from hearths were found, provide the first archaeological evidence that anatomically modern humans were roasting and eating plant starches, such as those from tubers and rhizomes, as early as 120,000 years ago.
The new research by an international team of archaeologists, published in the Journal of Human Evolution, provides archaeological evidence that has previously been lacking to support the hypothesis that the duplication of the starch digestion genes is an adaptive response to an increased starch diet.
"This is very exciting. The genetic and biological evidence previously suggested that early humans would have been eating starches, but this research had not been done before," says Lead author Cynthia Larbey of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge. The work is part of a systemic multidisciplinary investigation into the role that plants and fire played in the lives of Middle Stone Age communities.
The interdisciplinary team searched for and analysed undisturbed hearths at the Klasies River archaeological site.
"Our results showed that these small ashy hearths were used for cooking food and starchy roots and tubers were clearly part of their diet, from the earliest levels at around 120,000 years ago through to 65,000 years ago," says Larbey. "Despite changes in hunting strategies and stone tool technologies, they were still cooking roots and tubers."
Professor Sarah Wurz from the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa (Wits University) and principal investigator of the site says the research shows that "early human beings followed a balanced diet and that they were ecological geniuses, able to exploit their environments intelligently for suitable foods and perhaps medicines".
By combining cooked roots and tubers as a staple with protein and fats from shellfish, fish, small and large fauna, these communities were able to optimally adapt to their environment, indicating great ecological intelligence as early as 120 000 years ago.
"Starch diet isn't something that happens when we started farming, but rather, is as old as humans themselves," says Larbey. Farming in Africa only started in the last 10 000 years of human existence.
Humans living in South Africa 120 000 years ago formed and lived in small bands.
"Evidence from Klasies River, where several human skull fragments and two maxillary fragments dating 120 000 years ago occur, show that humans living in that time period looked like modern humans of today. However, they were somewhat more robust," says Wurz.
Klasies River is a very famous early human occupation site on the Cape coast of South Africa excavated by Wurz, who, along with Susan Mentzer of the Senckenberg Institute and Eberhard Karls Universit?t Tübingen, investigated the small (c. 30cm in diameter) hearths.
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 1:54 PM No comments:

High-quality jadeite tool discovered in underwater ancient salt works in Belize


Researchers say the find shows the importance of salt and Maya salt workers more than 1,000 years ago
Louisiana State University
IMAGE
IMAGE: LSU anthropologist Heather McKillop discovered this high-quality jadeite tool at the site of an ancient salt works in Belize that has been submerged in water due to sea level rise.... view more 
Credit: Heather McKillop, LSU.
Anthropologists discovered a tool made out of high-quality translucent jadeite with an intact rosewood handle at a site where the ancient Maya processed salt in Belize. The discovery of these high-quality materials--jadeite and rosewood--used as utilitarian tools, demonstrates that salt workers played an important role in the Classic Maya marketplace economy more than 1,000 years ago.
"The salt workers were successful entrepreneurs who were able to obtain high-quality tools for their craft through the production and distribution of a basic biological necessity: salt. Salt was in demand for the Maya diet. We have discovered that it was also a storable form of wealth and an important preservative for fish and meat," said lead researcher and anthropologist Heather McKillop, who is the Thomas & Lillian Landrum Alumni Professor in the LSU Department of Geography & Anthropology.
Jadeite is a hard rock that varies from translucent to opaque. During the Classic Period of A.D. 300-900, high-quality translucent jadeite was typically reserved for unique and elaborate jadeite plaques, figurines and earrings for royalty and other elites. However, McKillop and colleagues recovered the jadeite tool at the site of an ancient salt works in southern Belize called Ek Way Nal. This site is part of a network of 110 ancient salt working sites covering a 3-square-mile area McKillop discovered in 2004.
These sites are located in a saltwater lagoon surrounded by mangrove forest. Sea level rise has completely submerged them underwater and the soggy mangrove soil, or peat, preserves wood, which normally would decay in the rainforest of Central America.
"This jadeite tool is the first of its kind that has been recovered with its wooden handle intact," McKillop said.
Analysis of the wood's structure shows that the handle is made from Honduras rosewood. The jadeite gouge was analyzed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York to determine the object's chemical composition and mineral phases. This study was published in the journal, Antiquity, last month.
Although the jadeite tool was probably not used on wood or hard materials, it may have been used in other activities at the salt works, such as scraping salt, cutting and scraping fish or meat, or cleaning calabash gourds, McKillop said.
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 1:29 PM No comments:

Thursday, May 16, 2019

Archaeological discovery upends a piece of Barbados history



Which came first, the pigs or the pioneers? In Barbados, that has been a historical mystery ever since the first English colonists arrived on the island in 1627 to encounter what they thought was a herd of wild European pigs.
A recent discovery by an SFU archaeologist is shedding new light on the matter. Christina Giovas uncovered the jaw bone of a peccary, a South American mammal that resembles a wild pig, while researching a larger project on prehistoric animal introductions in the Caribbean.
"I didn't give it much notice at the time, but simply collected it along with other bones," says Giovas, the lead author of a study just published in PLOS ONE. "It was completely unexpected and I honestly thought I must have made a mistake with the species identification."
Giovas and collaborators George Kamenov and John Krigbaum of the University of Florida radiocarbon-dated the bone and conducted strontium isotope analysis to determine the age and whether the peccary was born on Barbados or had been imported from elsewhere.
The results showed the peccary was local and dated to 1645-1670, when the English wrote their account of finding wild European pigs on the Caribbean island. The researchers were not only able to show there had been a previously undetected historic peccary introduction but that the region's earliest celebrated maps depicted peccaries that had been mistaken for pigs by the English.
Giovas says the findings upend Barbados' accepted colonial history and reflect how quickly Europeans began to alter New World environments by altering species distributions.
"Checking historical and archaeological records, we determined the most likely source of peccary introduction was from Spanish or Portuguese ships passing the island in the 16th century--and most likely left as a source of meat for future visiting sailors," she says.
###
Link: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0216458
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 1:57 PM No comments:

Neanderthals and modern humans diverged at least 800,000 years ago, research on teeth shows



Neanderthal vs human skull (stock image).
Credit: © Bruder / Adobe Stock
 
Neanderthals and modern humans diverged at least 800,000 years ago, substantially earlier than indicated by most DNA-based estimates, according to new research by a UCL academic.
The research, published in Science Advances, analysed dental evolutionary rates across different hominin species, focusing on early Neanderthals. It shows that the teeth of hominins from Sima de los Huesos, Spain -- ancestors of the Neanderthals -- diverged from the modern human lineage earlier than previously assumed.
Sima de los Huesos is a cave site in Atapuerca Mountains, Spain, where archaeologists have recovered fossils of almost 30 people. Previous studies date the site to around 430,000 years ago (Middle Pleistocene), making it one of the oldest and largest collections of human remains discovered to date.
Dr Aida Gomez-Robles (UCL Anthropology), said: "Any divergence time between Neanderthals and modern humans younger than 800,000 years ago would have entailed an unexpectedly fast dental evolution in the early Neanderthals from Sima de los Huesos."
"There are different factors that could potentially explain these results, including strong selection to change the teeth of these hominins or their isolation from other Neanderthals found in mainland Europe. However, the simplest explanation is that the divergence between Neanderthals and modern humans was older than 800,000 years. This would make the evolutionary rates of the early Neanderthals from Sima de los Huesos roughly comparable to those found in other species."
Modern humans share a common ancestor with Neanderthals, the extinct species that were our closest prehistoric relatives. However, the details on when and how they diverged are a matter of intense debate within the anthropological community.
Ancient DNA analyses have generally indicated that both lineages diverged around 300,000 to 500,000 years ago, which has strongly influenced the interpretation of the hominin fossil record.
This divergence time, however, is not compatible with the anatomical and genetic Neanderthal similarities observed in the hominins from Sima de los Huesos. The Sima fossils are considered likely Neanderthal ancestors based on both anatomical features and DNA analysis.
Dr Gomez-Robles said: "Sima de los Huesos hominins are characterised by very small posterior teeth (premolars and molars) that show multiple similarities with classic Neanderthals. It is likely that the small and Neanderthal-looking teeth of these hominins evolved from the larger and more primitive teeth present in the last common ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans."
Dental shape has evolved at very similar rates across all hominin species, including those with very expanded and very reduced teeth. This new study examined the time at which Neanderthals and modern humans should have diverged to make the evolutionary rate of the early Neanderthals from Sima de los Huesos similar to those observed in other hominins.
The research used quantitative data to measure the evolution of dental shape across hominin species assuming different divergent times between Neanderthals and modern humans, and accounting for the uncertainty about the evolutionary relationships between different hominin species.
"The Sima people's teeth are very different from those that we would expect to find in their last common ancestral species with modern humans, suggesting that they evolved separately over a long period of time to develop such stark differences."
The study has significant implications for the identification of Homo sapiens last common ancestral species with Neanderthals, as it allows ruling out all the groups postdating 800,000 year ago.
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 7:14 AM No comments:

Ancient fish ponds in the Bolivian savanna supported human settlement



A network of fish ponds supported a permanent human settlement in the seasonal drylands of Bolivia more than one thousand years ago, according to a new study published May 15, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Gabriela Prestes-Carneiro of Federal University of Western Para, Brazil, and colleagues. The study is the first to document the full range of fish species likely kept in these constructed ponds, and provides new insights into how humans modified the savannah environment to cope with the months-long droughts that characterize this region of the Amazon Basin.
The Llanos de Mojos region in central Bolivia is a vast plain which receives flooding rains from October to April, and then virtually no precipitation the rest of the year. Beginning about 500 AD, humans began to create monumental earthen mounds in the region, on which permanent settlements were established. One, called Loma Salavtierra, located more than 50 kilometers from the nearest major river, has become an important archaeological site. Previous work has established the existence of a series of shallow ponds rimmed by low earthen walls and connected by canals, which are believed to have captured rainfall and stored it throughout the dry season, potentially built to serve multiple purposes including water storage, drainage, and fish maangement.
In the current study, the authors conducted osteological and taxonomic identifications on the remains of over 17,000 fish found in midden piles at the site with the aid of a comparative collection. They identified more than 35 different taxa of fish, with four types of fish predominating: swamp-eels, armored catfish, lungfish, and tiger-fish, all of which are adapted to conditions of low oxygen and fluctuating water levels, as would be expected to arise in the ponds during the long dry period between annual rains.
Together with evidence of similar pond networks elsewhere in the region, the authors suggest that their results point to the use of these ponds for harvesting fish year-round, far from any rivers, permanent natural ponds, or other open-water habitat. Further studies will be needed to investigate fish storage and holding activities, and whether these activities changed in response to precipitation and landscape fluctuations.
The authors add: "The savanna, in contrast to the large Amazonian rivers, presents a distinct set of fishing habitats where humans likely established specific fishing strategies."
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 7:12 AM No comments:

Tuesday, May 14, 2019

Traces of crawling in Italian cave give clues to ancient humans' social behavior



Evidence of crawling in an Italian cave system sheds new light on how late Stone Age humans behaved as a group, especially when exploring new grounds, says a study published today in eLife.
The cave of Bàsura at Toirano and its human and animal fossil traces have been known since the 1950s, with the first studies conducted by Italian archaeologist Virginia Chiappella. In the current study, promoted by the Archaeological Heritage Office of Liguria, researchers from Italy, Argentina and South Africa used multiple approaches to analyse the human traces and identified for the first time crawling behaviours from around 14,000 years ago.
"In our study, we wanted to see how ancient humans explored this fascinating cave system," says first author Marco Romano, Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. "Specifically, we set out to discover how many people entered the cave, whether they explored as individuals or as a group, their age, gender and what kind of route they took once inside the cave."
To answer these questions, the multidisciplinary team studied 180 tracks from within the cave, including foot and handprints on the clay-rich floor. They applied various modern dating methods, software that analyses the structure of the tracks, and different types of 3D modelling. "Together, these approaches allowed us to construct a narrative of how the humans entered and exited the cave, and their activities once they were inside," Romano explains.
The team determined that five individuals, including two adults, an adolescent of about 11 years old, and two children of three and six years old, entered the cave barefoot and illuminated the way using wooden sticks. This suggests that young children were active group members during the late Stone Age, even when carrying out apparently dangerous activities.
The researchers reported the first evidence of crawling in footprints from a low tunnel - a route that was taken to access the inner part of the cave. Anatomical details in the footprints suggest that the explorers went bare-legged as they navigated this pathway.
When analysing the various handprints, the team found that some of them appear 'unintentional' and relate to exploring the cave only, while others are more 'intentional' and suggest that social or symbolic activities took place within the inner chambers. "Hunter-gatherers may therefore have been driven by fun activities during exploration, as well as simply the need to find food," Romano adds.
"Together, our results show how a varied approach to studying our ancestors' tracks can provide detailed insights on their behaviour," concludes senior author Marco Avanzini, head of the geology department at MUSE - Trento Museum of Science, Italy. "We hope our approach will be useful for painting similar pictures of how humans behaved in other parts of the world and during different periods of time."
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 2:40 PM No comments:

In Egypt: olourful wooden coffins and limestone statues dating back to the Old Kingdom

 Complete report


Egypt's antiquities ministry on Saturday unveiled a 4,500-year-old burial ground near the Giza pyramids containing colourful wooden coffins and limestone statues dating back to the Old Kingdom.




Sarcophagi are seen inside a burial shaft at the Giza pyramid plateau, on the southwestern outskirts of the Egyptian capital Cairo, on May 4, 2019, following the discovery of several Old Kingdom tombs and burial shafts. MAHMOUD KHALED / AFP.


The site on the southeastern side of Giza plateau contains tombs and burial shafts from various periods, but the oldest is a limestone family tomb from the fifth dynasty (around 2500 BC), the ministry said.



An excavation worker works inside a burial shaft at the Giza pyramid plateau, on the southwestern outskirts of the Egyptian capital Cairo, on May 4, 2019, following the discovery of several Old Kingdom tombs and burial shafts. MAHMOUD KHALED / AFP.

The ministry said the tomb was that of two people: Behnui-Ka, who had seven titles including the Priest and the Judge, and Nwi, also known as Chief of the Great State and "purifier" of the pharoah Khafre.

Khafre, known to the Ancient Greeks as Chephren, built the second of the three famous Pyramids of Giza. 
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 8:34 AM No comments:
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