Archaeology News Report

Tuesday, July 23, 2019

White-tailed deer were predominant in pre-Columbian Panama feasts


Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
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IMAGE: After analyzing white-deer remains from a site in Panama occupied between 2,200 and 500 years ago, María Fernanda Martínez-Polanco found some evidence of feasting signs.... view more 
Credit: Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
In pre-Columbian times, the white-tailed deer was among the most abundant and frequently consumed mammals in Panama. It was also an icon, represented on thousands of clay vessels. Through an analysis of deer remains in refuse piles at the Sitio Sierra archaeological site, researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) discovered signs of "feasting behavior" associated with this animal. Their findings were published in Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences.
Spanish conquistadors left some clues. They noted the abundance of deer in indigenous communities along the Pacific coast near Sitio Sierra and highlighted the existence of larders replete with dried and salted deer carcasses. These details suggest that periodic feasts may have taken place, and were likely important for enhancing social relations and strengthening alliances.
The Sitio Sierra site, a large village on the Pacific coastal plain occupied between 2,200 and 500 years ago, was excavated by STRI archaeologist Richard Cooke in the 1970s. María Fernanda Martínez-Polanco, a former pre-doctoral fellow in Cooke's lab at STRI and first author of the study, analyzed some of the evidence of feasting signs.
She found that, in certain units, remains of young white-tailed deer predominated, as well as body parts with high meat values. Most of the cut marks on the bones were due to de-fleshing, as opposed to rodent or carnivore gnawing. She also encountered the carcasses of tasty birds and mammals, a contrast from the typical food remains found around houses, consisting of marine and river fish, iguanas and small turtles.
In those units, pottery sherds were much more numerous and larger than in other contexts. A large pit with post-holes along the periphery contrasted with smaller cooking pits found in or around the structures of former houses. These findings coincide with characteristics of feasting mentioned in the scientific literature.
"This was an important tradition that could have been practiced for several generations, as we have witnessed based on the cut marks in bones, located in identical positions over different time periods," Martínez-Polanco said.
For her, the analyses of deer bone samples in conjunction with the evidence from the pottery and cooking practices, position the feasts at Sitio Sierra as part of a ritual activity. Possible motivations for feasting include ancestor worship, rites of passage, celebrations of cultural awareness and group oral-history and political gatherings designed to enhance the reputation of the provider.
Archaeologists think that Sitio Sierra was probably a low-status village, based on burials in its two cemeteries, suggesting that these feasts were likely not as sumptuous as they could have been in higher-status villages in the area, such as Sitio Conte or El Caño. Offering deer meat may have been considered a great honor for the guests and proof of the provider's status.
"Deer were more than just food for Panamanian pre-Columbian populations," Martínez-Polanco said. "Deer hunting was restricted and their consumption linked to important occasions, as we observed in the archaeological record of Sitio Sierra, allowing ancient Panamanians to share and reinforce social relations at different levels of society."
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 3:24 PM No comments:

Monday, July 22, 2019

Archaeological evidence verifies long-doubted medieval accounts of First Crusade


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IMAGE: This earpiece, perhaps of Egyptian manufacture, is apparent loot from the First Crusade sack of Jerusalem in July, 1099. view more 
Credit: Virginia Withers
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte-led archaeological dig on Jerusalem's Mount Zion has been going on for over a decade, looking at an area where there were no known ruins of major temples, churches or palaces, but nonetheless sacred land where three millennia of struggle and culture has long lain buried, evidence in layer upon layer of significant historical events.
Virtually every dig season, a significant discovery has been made at the site, adding real detail to the records of this globally-renowned city, giving new insights to what has often been imperfectly preserved in ancient histories. This year's findings are no different, confirming previously unverified details from nearly thousand-year-old historical accounts of the First Crusade - history that had never been confirmed regarding the five-week siege, conquest, sack and massacre of the Fatamid (Muslim)-controlled city in July of 1099.
The dig's archeological team --- co-directed by UNC Charlotte professor of history Shimon Gibson, Rafi Lewis, a faculty member at the University of Haifa and Ashkelon Academic College, and James Tabor, UNC Charlotte professor emeritus of religious studies -- has revealed the rumored, but never physically detected, moat-trench the Fatamid defenders dug along the city's southern wall to protect against siege engines - a defense that contemporary accounts claim helped stymie the southern assault.
Through stratigraphic evidence, the archaeologists have been able to confirm the 11th Century date of the 17-meter-wide by 4-meter-deep ditch, which abutted the Fatimid city wall (built in the same place as the current wall near the current Zion Gate), and have also found artifacts from the assault itself, including arrowheads, Crusader bronze cross pendants, and a spectacular piece of Muslim gold jewelry, which is probable booty from the conquest.
In past seasons, the team found remnants of a Fatamid city gate at the site, which, the archaeologists argue, makes the area a likely focal point for the Crusaders' main southern assault on the city wall. Despite reported attempts to fill the trench by the attacking forces, the southern assault was ultimately unsuccessful. The city's defenses were finally breached by a simultaneous operation from the north.
Near the trench, the archaeologists also unearthed an earthquake-damaged Fatamid structure, which was probably already a ruin at the time of the assault. The arrowheads, crosses and jewelry were found on the floor of the structure.
"There was, apparently, an extramural quarter of scattered buildings, outside the city to the south, and we excavated a building that was in a ruinous state, possibly damaged by the earthquake of 1033," Gibson said. "You can imagine the Crusaders coming at and attacking the city from the south and they find the ditch and this ruined building, and they made use of it for cover, and that explains some of the arrowheads because they would have been raining down upon them" Gibson speculated.
"This is enormously important for Crusader scholarship," said Lewis, an expert on medieval warfare, "because not only do we have the remains of the ditch that we only knew about from the sources but we also have the remains of the frontline battle itself."
The archaeology clarifies a historical picture that is mainly only known from contemporary chroniclers who had been considered questionable in their accuracy. By all accounts, the Crusader attack on the city of Jerusalem was a bloody one and took place on two sides of the city. While the principal forces broke into the city from the north, little has been known about the attack from the south.
Peter Tudebode, a contemporary chronicler, recounts that the Provencal forces led by Raymond de Saint Gille on the south side, positioned themselves somewhere on Mount Zion and proceeded to attack the wall. However, there was a ditch in front of the wall and they could not get their wooden siege tower up against the wall, and so Raymond asked his men, under cover of night, to fill in the ditch for payment of gold dinars. Though the siege tower was able to proceed, the southern assault still did not succeed because of the defenders aggressive counter-measures.
Until the current find, however, there was no evidence that a ditch, trench or moat ever existed, calling into question the reality of the accounts of the southern assault.
The Mount Zion dig team's discovery of the trench came through a puzzling observation made in earlier seasons at the site. "Just outside the city wall we noticed that, although the slope of the hill went down [from the wall], we found that the slope of a layer of fill was going in the opposite direction, dipping down [towards the wall]," Gibson noted. "That was our first clue - there was some feature that had been cut into the ground, which had been filled in later."
The fill provided the dating that explained what the structure was: "What was nice was that the ditch itself was sealed with a burnt layer that had coins in it from the time of King Baldwin III," Gibson said.
Baldwin III was an early crusader king who fought a civil war against his mother, in the course of which he burnt much of Jerusalem. Baldwin's fiery attack was known to be in 1153, about half a century after the conquest, thus dating the ditch as a landscape feature in the period before.
"The ditch got filled in and it disappeared - to such an extent that a lot of archaeologists who had been working at different points in time believed that maybe this ditch was a figment of the chroniclers' imaginations," Gibson said. "That's why this discovery is so important - for the first time, we can confirm details that appear in major historical texts."
The artifacts associated with the find provide some intriguing details about the historical moment of the First Crusade. In the ditch's fill the archaeologists found what might be a part of a battle standard made of metal, as well as pieces of Chinese celadon ware pottery, which show active trade with the far east during the Fatamid period.
The jewelry, which includes fine gold workmanship with pearls and colored beads, was found by staff archaeologists John Hutchins and Melanie Samed, and they carefully extracted it from the ruined house, where it had lain for 920 years. Gibson is fairly certain that it is booty from the sack or carried by the soldiers carrying out the attack, rather than a dropped domestic item, noting that looting was a real interest of the crusaders.
"It's large and valuable, not something you would lose, you see, " Gibson said. "This piece of jewelry may have been of Egyptian origin and it seems to have been used as an attachment for the ear, and because of its large size, perhaps also to hold a veil in position around a women's head." The Fatamid dynasty came from Egypt, and the gold work is a familiar Egyptian style of the period, with the use of gold and pearls in jewelry mentioned in documents from the Cairo Genizah.
Details bringing the moment of conquest to life are particularly important because the battle marks a critical moment in Jerusalem's history. The crusaders takeover is one of several catastrophic moments in Jerusalem's dramatic and violent history when the city was essentially wiped out and re-colonized by its conquerors.
"For three days, or perhaps even a week, the crusaders perpetrated every single atrocity under the sun - rape, pillage, murder," Gibson said. "The chroniclers talk about 'rivers of blood' running in the streets of the city, and it may not be an exaggeration. Terrible crimes were committed, and a lot of people died, Christians included. Local Christians were considered just as heretical as the Muslims and the Jews. They turned Jerusalem into a ghost town."
It is expected that further analysis of the artifacts will reveal further insights.
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 2:34 PM No comments:

Pleistocene/early Holocene Mesoamerican stone tool tradition


University of New Mexico
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IMAGE: UNM graduate student Paige Lynch conducting excavations at Mayahak Cab Pek in May 2019, part of ongoing UNM research into the earliest humans in the New World tropics. view more 
Credit: University of New Mexico
From the perspective of Central and South America, the peopling of the New World was a complex process lasting thousands of years and involving multiple waves of Pleistocene and early Holocene period immigrants entering into the Neotropics.
Paleoindian colonists arrived in waves of immigrants entering the Neotropics, a region starting in the humid rainforests of southern Mexico before 13,000 years ago and brought with them technologies developed for adaptation to environments and resources found in North America.
As the ice age ended across the New World people adapted more generalized stone tools to exploit changing environments and resources. In the Neotropics these changes would have been pronounced as patchy forests and grasslands gave way to broadleaf tropical forests.
In new research published recently in PLOS One titled Linking late Paleoindian stone tool technlogies and populations in North, Central and South America, scientists from The University of NewMexico led a study in Belize to document the very earliest indigenous stone tool tradition in southern Mesoamerica.
"This is an area of research for which we have very poor data regarding early humans, though this UNM-led project is expanding our knowledge of human behavior and relationships between people in North, Central and South America," said lead author Keith Prufer, professor from The University of New Mexico's Department of Anthropology.
This research, funded by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Alphawood Foundation, focuses on understanding the Late Pleistocene human colonization of tropics in the broad context of global changes occurring at the end of the last ice age (ca. 12,000-10,000 years ago). The research suggests the tools are part of a human adaptation story in response to emerging tropical conditions in what is today called the Neotropics, a broad region south of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (in S Mexico).
As part of the research, the team conducted extensive excavations at two rock shelter sites from 2014-2018. The excavation sites, located in the Bladen Nature Research, are almost 30 miles from the nearest road or modern human settlement in a large undisturbed rainforest that is one of the best-protected wildlife refuges in Central America.
"We have identified and established an absolute chronology for the earliest stone tool types that are indigenous to Central America," said Prufer. "These have clear antecedents with the earliest known humans in both South America and North America, but appear to show more affinity with slightly younger Late Paleoindian toolkits in the Amazon and Northern Peru than with North America."
The research represents the first endogenous Paleoindian stone tool technocomplex recovered from well-dated stratigraphic contexts for Mesoamerica. Previously designated, these artifacts share multiple features with contemporary North and South American Paleoindian tool types. Once hafted, these bifaces appear to have served multiple functions for cutting, hooking, thrusting, or throwing.
"The tools were developed at a time of technological regionalization reflecting the diverse demands of a period of pronounced environmental change and population movement," said Prufer. "Combined stratigraphic, technological, and population paleogenetic data suggests that there were strong ties between lowland neotropic regions at the onset of the Holocene."
These findings support previous UNM research suggesting strong genetic relationships between early colonists in Central and South America, following the initial dispersal of humans from Asia into the Americas via the arctic prior to 14,000 years ago.
"We are partnering with Belizean conservation NGO Ya'axche Conservation Trust in our fieldwork to promote the importance of ancient cultural resources in biodiversity and protected areas management," said Prufer. "We spend a month every year camped out with no access to electricity, internet, phone or resupplies while we conduct excavations."
This field research involves several UNM graduate students in Archaeology and Evolutionary Anthropology as well as collaborators at Exeter University (UK) and Arizona State University. The analysis for this study was done in part at UNM's Center for Stable Isotopes, as well as with co-authors at Penn State and UC Santa Barbara. At UNM this involved the new radiocarbon preparation laboratories which are part of the Center for Stable isotopes, one of the anchors of UNM's interdisciplinary PAIS research and teaching facility.
The senior co-authors are world leaders in the study of early humans in the tropics and are committed to conservation efforts of cultural resources and regional biodiversity. Additionally, Prufer's long-term collaboration in indigenous Maya communities in the region was critical to the success of this project.
"This research suggests that further exploration of links between early humans living in the neotropics are needed to better understand how knowledge and technologies were shared, and will contribute to our understanding of processes that eventually led to the development of agriculture and sedentary communities," said Prufer. "Further studies on how these tools were used for food processing will be a key aspect of this research."
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 1:25 PM No comments:

Wednesday, July 17, 2019

Stone tool changes may show how Mesolithic hunter-gatherers responded to changing climate


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IMAGE: Reconstruction of a Mesolithic camp-site with a hunter in the front ready to fire an arrow mounted with stone microliths. view more 
Credit: Ulco Glimmerveen
The development of new hunting projectiles by European hunter-gatherers during the Mesolithic may have been linked to territoriality in a rapidly-changing climate, according to a study published July 17, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Philippe Crombé from Ghent University, Belgium.
As a result of warming occurring at a rate of ca. 1.5 to 2°C per century, hunter-gatherers in Europe during the Mesolithic era (approximately 11,000-6,000 years ago) experienced significant environmental changes, very similar to the ones we face today: rising sea levels, increased drought, plant and animal migrations and wildfires. Here, Crombé examined microliths, small stone arrowheads/barbs used in hunting, to see how their design and usage by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers shifted in conjunction with climatic and environmental changes.
Building on archaeological research from the last two decades, Crombé used Bayesian modelling to reveal potential correlations between 228 radiocarbon dates specific to Mesolithic sites along the southern North Sea basin and the different types and shapes of microliths (triangles, crescents, leaf-shaped and mistletoe-shaped microliths, trapezes, etc.) found at these sites.
The new model showed that variation in microlith shapes is much more complex than previously believed, with frequent co-existence between shapes. Crombé hypothesizes in this study that these different shapes of stone microliths were mainly developed as a means to differentiate between different groups living along the North Sea basin (previous research has suggested there were two different, geographically-distinct cultures in this region). As sea levels rose and former occupants of the North Sea basin were forced to new areas, increased resource competition and stress might have increased territoriality, including the use of such symbols of group membership.
Developments in microlith shape also appear linked to short (1 to 2 centuries) but abrupt climactic events (which themselves would have been tied to increasing environmental and demographic change): triangle-shaped microliths were introduced after an abrupt cooling event in the Early Mesolithic associated with erosion and wildfires; a similar climate event 1,000 years later coincided with the appearance of small backed bladelets and invasively retouched microliths, and an even newer trapeze-shaped arrowhead replaced these older microliths at the same time as a third cooling and drought-causing event another 1,000 years later.
More research is needed, but Crombé suggests that a holistic approach can help determine whether these climatic and environmental changes also affected other aspects of Mesolithic behavior.
Crombé adds: "In response to rapid climate warming some 11,500 years ago, hunter-gatherers along the southern North Sea (NW Europe) faced similar environmental changes as we encounter today, such as rapid sea level rise, increased drought and wildfires and migration of people, plants and animals. By studying the hunting equipment, this paper investigates how these hunter-gatherers coped with these changes."
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 1:58 PM No comments:

Largest Neolithic Settlement in Israel: Up to 3,000 People May Have Lived There


Complete article

Archaeologists have known about this location, called the Motza site, for decades. However, now that the government plans to build a new highway entrance and new roundabouts there, the Israel Antiquities Authority sent a team to do a full-scale excavation of the Neolithic settlement, Vardi told Live Science. This effort quickly became the largest excavation of a Neolithic site in the country, he said.
During the Neolithic, hunter-gatherer groups began farming and making permanent settlements. So, it came as no surprise when they found large buildings with rooms where Neolithic people once lived, public facilities and places for rituals. Alleyways ran between the buildings, showing that the settlement had an advanced layout. Some buildings even had plaster floors.
The team also uncovered human burials beneath and around the houses. Some of the burials also held burial goods, likely offerings that may have been given to help the deceased in the afterlife. Some of these grave goods came from far away — including obsidian beads from Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) and seashells from the Mediterranean Sea and Red Sea — indicating that the people at this site traded with neighboring regions.
The excavation also uncovered several stone and mother-of-pearl bracelets, which, given their small size, were likely worn by children or adolescents, Vardi said. He added that one burial showed that these bracelets were worn on the upper arm.
The site also has thousands of stone arrowheads for hunting, axes for felling trees, and sickle blades and knives, as well as figurines whose styles date to the Neolithic. Radiocarbon dating of the seeds found at the site indicates that people lived there between 9,000 and 8,800 years ago, Vardi said. In addition to farming crops and keeping goats, these people kept cows and pigs; they also hunted game, such as gazelle, deer, wolves and foxes, as shown by animal remains found there.
"Based on the data that we have and from the fauna, we have a pretty good notion that the people at the site were farmers and they were specialists in what they did," Vardi said.
After the Neolithic period ended, people continued to live there. It's clear why this spot was so desirable, Vardi said, as it's near a large spring and several smaller springs that supply fresh wate
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 1:21 PM No comments:

Monday, July 15, 2019

Maternal secrets of our earliest ancestors unlocked

Monash University



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IMAGE: Australopithecus africanus impression by Jose Garcia and Renaud Joannes-Boyau, Southern Cross University. view more 
Credit: Jose Garcia and Renaud Joannes-Boyau, Southern Cross University.

  • New research brings to light for the first time the evolution of maternal roles and parenting responsibilities in one of our oldest evolutionary ancestors
  • Australopithecus africanus mothers breastfed their infants for the first 12 months after birth, and continued to supplement their diets with breastmilk during periods of food shortage
  • Tooth chemistry analyses enable scientists to 'read' more than two-million-year-old teeth
  • Finding demonstrates why early human ancestors had fewer offspring and extended parenting role
Extended parental care is considered one of the hallmarks of human evolution. A stunning new research result published today in Nature reveals for the first time the parenting habits of one of our earliest extinct ancestors.
Analysis of more than two-million-year-old teeth from Australopithecus africanus fossils found in South Africa have revealed that infants were breastfed continuously from birth to about one year of age. Nursing appears to continue in a cyclical pattern in the early years for infants; seasonal changes and food shortages caused the mother to supplement gathered foods with breastmilk. An international research team led by Dr Renaud Joannes-Boyau of Southern Cross University, and by Dr Luca Fiorenza and Dr Justin W. Adams from Monash University, published the details of their research into the species in Nature today.
"For the first time, we gained new insight into the way our ancestors raised their young, and how mothers had to supplement solid food intake with breastmilk when resources were scarce," said geochemist Dr Joannes-Boyau from the Geoarchaeology and Archaeometry Research Group (GARG) at Southern Cross University.
"These finds suggest for the first time the existence of a long-lasting mother-infant bond in Australopithecus. This makes us to rethink on the social organisations among our earliest ancestors," said Dr Fiorenza, who is an expert in the evolution of human diet at the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute (BDI).
"Fundamentally, our discovery of a reliance by Australopithecus africanus mothers to provide nutritional supplementation for their offspring and use of fallback resources highlights the survival challenges that populations of early human ancestors faced in the past environments of South Africa," said Dr Adams, an expert in hominin palaeoecology and South African sites at the Monash BDI.
For decades there has been speculation about how early ancestors raised their offspring. With this study, the research team has opened a new window into our enigmatic evolutionary history.
Australopithecus africanus lived from about two to three million years ago during a period of major climatic and ecological change in South Africa, and the species was characterised by a combination of human-like and retained ape-like traits. While the first fossils of Australopithecus were found almost a century ago, scientists have only now been able to unlock the secrets of how they raised their young, using specialised laser sampling techniques to vaporise microscopic portions on the surface of the tooth. The gas containing the sample is then analysed for chemical signatures with a mass spectrometer- enabling researchers to develop microscopic geochemical maps which can tell the story of the diet and health of an individual over time. Dr Joannes-Boyau conducted the analyses at the Geoarchaeology and Archaeometry Research Group at Southern Cross University in Lismore NSW and at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.
Teeth grow similarly to trees; they form by adding layer after layer of enamel and dentine tissues every day. Thus, teeth are particularly valuable for reconstructing the biological events occurring during the early period of life of an individual, simply because they preserve precise temporal changes and chemical records of key elements incorporated in the food we eat.
By developing micro geochemical maps, we are able to 'read' successive bands of daily signal in teeth, which provide insights into food consumption and stages of life. Previously the team had revealed the nursing behaviour of our closest evolutionary relatives, the Neanderthals. With this latest study, the international team has analysed teeth that are more than ten times older than those of Neanderthals.
"We can tell from the repetitive bands that appear as the tooth developed that the fall back food was high in lithium, which is believed to be a mechanism to reduce protein deficiency in infants more prone to adverse effect during growth periods," Dr Joannes-Boyau said.
"This likely reduced the potential number of offspring, because of the length of time infants relied on a supply of breastmilk. The strong bond between mothers and offspring for a number of years has implications for group dynamics, the social structure of the species, relationships between mother and infant and the priority that had to be placed on maintaining access to reliable food supplies," he said.
"This finding underscores the diversity, variability and flexibility in habitats and adaptive strategies these australopiths used to obtain food, avoid predators, and raise their offspring," Dr Adams emphasised.
"This is the first direct proof of maternal roles of one of our earliest ancestors and contributes to our understanding of the history of family dynamics and childhood," concluded Dr Fiorenza.
The team will now work on species that have evolved since, to develop the first comprehensive record of how infants were raised throughout history.
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Read the full paper in Nature titled Elemental signatures in Australopithecus africanus teeth reveal seasonal dietary stress.
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 1:31 PM No comments:

Ancient Roman port history unveiled


Researchers successfully reconstructed anthropic influences on sedimentation, including dredging and canal gates use, in the ancient harbour of Portus - a complex of harbour basins and canals that formed the hub of commerce in the capital of the Roman Empire.
The findings suggest that the Romans were proactively managing their river systems from earlier than previously thought - as early as the 2nd century AD.
The history was reconstructed using a range of high-resolution sediment analysis including piston coring, x-ray scanning, radiocarbon dating, magnetic and physical properties and mineral composition of the ancient harbour sediments.
La Trobe University Archaeology Research Fellow and marine geologist, Dr Agathe Lisé-Pronovost, said that ancient harbours can accumulate sediments more rapidly than natural environments, which is the case of Portus built in a river delta and where sediment accumulated at a rate of about one meter per century. Applying these methods allowed researchers to date and precisely reconstruct the sequence of events of the historical port, including dredging to maintain enough draught and canal gate use.
"Dating ancient harbour sediments is a major challenge, given ports are not only subjected to weather events throughout history, but the lasting effects of human activity," Dr Lisé-Pronovost said.
"The methods we've applied have allowed us to address the dating issue and routine measurements of the sort could greatly improve chronostratigraphic analysis and water depth reconstruction of ancient harbour deposits."
Dr Lisé-Pronovost and her team encourage geoarchaeologists to implement these innovative methods to their work.
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 1:30 PM No comments:

Out of Africa and into an archaic human melting pot


Genetic analysis has revealed that the ancestors of modern humans interbred with at least five different archaic human groups as they moved out of Africa and across Eurasia.
While two of the archaic groups are currently known - the Neandertals and their sister group the Denisovans from Asia ¬- the others remain unnamed and have only been detected as traces of DNA surviving in different modern populations. Island Southeast Asia appears to have been a particular hotbed of diversity.
Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers from the University of Adelaide's Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD) have mapped the location of past "mixing events" (analysed from existing scientific literature) by contrasting the levels of archaic ancestry in the genomes of present-day populations around the world.
"Each of us carry within ourselves the genetic traces of these past mixing events," says first author Dr João Teixeira, Australian Research Council Research Associate, ACAD, at the University of Adelaide. "These archaic groups were widespread and genetically diverse, and they survive in each of us. Their story is an integral part of how we came to be.
"For example, all present-day populations show about 2% of Neandertal ancestry which means that Neandertal mixing with the ancestors of modern humans occurred soon after they left Africa, probably around 50,000 to 55,000 years ago somewhere in the Middle East."
But as the ancestors of modern humans travelled further east they met and mixed with at least four other groups of archaic humans.
"Island Southeast Asia was already a crowded place when what we call modern humans first reached the region just before 50,000 years ago," says Dr Teixeira. "At least three other archaic human groups appear to have occupied the area, and the ancestors of modern humans mixed with them before the archaic humans became extinct."
Using additional information from reconstructed migration routes and fossil vegetation records, the researchers have proposed there was a mixing event in the vicinity of southern Asia between the modern humans and a group they have named "Extinct Hominin 1".
Other interbreeding occurred with groups in East Asia, in the Philippines, the Sunda shelf (the continental shelf that used to connect Java, Borneo and Sumatra to mainland East Asia), and possibly near Flores in Indonesia, with another group they have named "Extinct Hominin 2".
"We knew the story out of Africa wasn't a simple one, but it seems to be far more complex than we have contemplated," says Dr Teixeira. "The Island Southeast Asia region was clearly occupied by several archaic human groups, probably living in relative isolation from each other for hundreds of thousands of years before the ancestors of modern humans arrived.
"The timing also makes it look like the arrival of modern humans was followed quickly by the demise of the archaic human groups in each area."
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 1:26 PM No comments:

Thursday, July 11, 2019

Ancient genomics pinpoint origin and rapid turnover of cattle in the Fertile Crescent


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IMAGE: A zebu-shaped weight from Tel Beth-Shemesh. view more 
Credit: A. Hay, courtesy of the Tel Beth-Shemesh Excavations exhibition.
The keeping of livestock began in the Ancient Near East and underpinned the emergence of complex economies and then cities. Subsequently, it is there that the world's first empires rose and fell. Now, ancient DNA has revealed how the prehistory of the region's largest domestic animal, the cow, chimes with these events.
An international team of geneticists, led by those from Trinity College Dublin, have deciphered early bovine prehistory by sequencing 67 ancient genomes from both wild and domestic cattle sampled from across eight millennia.
"This allowed us to look directly into the past and observe genomic changes occurring in time and space, without having to rely on modern cattle genetic variation to infer past population events," said Postdpoctoral Researcher at Trinity,Marta Verdugo, who is first author of the article that has just been published in leading international journal, Science.
The earliest cattle are Bos taurus, with no ancestry from Bos indicus, or zebu - herds which were from a different origin in the Indus Valley.
"However, a dramatic change occurred around 4,000 years ago when we detect a widespread, wholesale influx of zebu genetics from the east," added Verdugo.
The rapid influx that occurred at this point - despite Near Eastern Bos taurus and zebu having coexisted for previous millennia - may be linked to a dramatic multi-century drought that was experienced across the greater Near East, referred to as the 4.2-thousand years ago climate event. At this time the world's first empires in Mesopotamia and Egypt collapsed and breeding with arid-adapted zebu bulls may have been a response to changing climate by ancient herders.
Professor of Population Genetics at Trinity, Dan Bradley, said: "This was the beginning of the great zebu diaspora that continues to the present day - descendants of ancient Indus Valley cattle are herded in each continental tropics region today."
Sequencing Near Eastern wild cattle, or aurochs, also allowed the team to unpick the domestication of this most formidable of beasts. Whereas their similarity to the early cattle of Anatolia concurs with a primary origin there, it is clear that different local wild populations also made significant additional genetic contributions to herds in Southeast Europe and also in the southern Levant, adding to the distinctive make up of both European and African populations today.
"There is a great power in ancient genomics to uncover new, unforeseen tales from our ancient history," added Professor Bradley.
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 1:58 PM No comments:

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Food may have been scarce in Chaco Canyon


Chaco Canyon, a site that was once central to the lives of pre-colonial peoples called Anasazi, may not have been able to produce enough food to sustain thousands of residents, according to new research. The results could shed doubt on estimates of how many people were able to live in the region year-round.
Located in Chaco Culture National Historic Park in New Mexico, Chaco Canyon hosts numerous small dwellings and a handful of multi-story buildings known as great houses. Based on these structures, researchers think that it was once a bustling metropolis that was home to as many as 2,300 people during its height from 1050 to 1130 AD.
But Chaco also sits in an unforgiving environment, complete with cold winters, blazing-hot summers and little rainfall falling in either season.
"You have this place in the middle of the San Juan Basin, which is not very habitable," said Larry Benson, an adjoint curator at the CU Museum of Natural History.
Benson and his colleagues recently discovered one more wrinkle in the question of the region's suitability. The team conducted a detailed analysis of the Chaco Canyon's climate and hydrology and found that its soil could not have supported the farming necessary to feed such a booming population.
The findings, Benson said, may change how researchers view the economy and culture of this important area.
"You can't do any dryland farming there," Benson said. "There's just not enough rain."
Today, Chaco Canyon receives only about nine inches of rain every year and historical data from tree rings suggest that the climate wasn't much wetter in the past.
Benson, a retired geochemist and paleoclimatologist who spent most of his career working for the U.S. Geological Survey, set out to better understand if such conditions might have limited how many people could live in the canyon. In the recent study, he and Ohio State University archaeologist Deanna Grimstead pulled together a wide range of data to explore where Chaco Canyon residents might, conceivably, have grown maize, a staple food for most ancestral Pueblo peoples.
They found that these pre-colonial farmers not only contended with scarce rain, but also destructive flash floods that swept down the canyon's valley floor.
"If you're lucky enough to have a spring flow that wets the ground ahead of planting, about three-quarters of the time you'd get a summer flow that destroys your crops," Benson said.
The team calculated that Chacoans could have, at most, farmed just 100 acres of the Chaco Canyon floor. Even if they farmed all of the surrounding side valleys--a monumental feat--they would still have only produced enough corn to feed just over 1,000 people.
The researchers also went one step further, assessing whether past Chaco residents could have supplemented this nutritional shortfall with wild game like deer and rabbits. They calculated that supplying the 185,000 pounds of protein needed by 2,300 people would have quickly cleared all small mammals from the area.
In short, there would have been a lot of hungry mouths in Chaco Canyon. Benson and Grimstead published their results this summer in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
For Benson, that leaves two possibilities. Chaco Canyon residents either imported most of their food from surrounding regions 60 to 100 miles away, or the dwellings in the canyon were never permanently occupied, instead serving as temporary shelters for people making regular pilgrimages.
Either scenario would entail a massive movement of people and goods. Benson estimates that importing enough maize and meat to feed 2,300 people would have required porters to make as many as 18,000 trips in and out of Chaco Canyon, all on foot.
"Whether people are bringing in maize to feed 2,300 residents, or if several thousand visitors are bringing in their own maize to eat, they're not obtaining it from Chaco Canyon," Benson said.
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 12:45 PM No comments:

ANCIENT CITY GATE FROM THE TIME OF KING DAVID DISCOVERED IN ISRAEL

Archaeologists in southern Israel have discovered an ancient biblical city from the time of King David.
The site was discovered near the modern city of Kiryat Gat by researchers from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Macquarie University in Australia and the Israel Antiquities Authority.
The Philistine ancient city of Ziklag is mentioned multiple times in the Bible in relation to David, the researchers note, citing 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel. “According to the Biblical narrative, Achish, King of Gat, allowed David to find refuge in Ziklag while fleeing King Saul and from there David also departed to be anointed King in Hebron,” they explain in a statement.
Some 12 other sites in Israel have been considered as the possible location of Ziklag, although experts note that none of the sites has a continuous Philistine settlement and a settlement from the time of King David. The site near Kiryat Gat, however, meets both criteria.
Part of the excavation site. (Israel Antiquities Authority/The Hebrew University in Jerusalem)
Part of the excavation site. (Israel Antiquities Authority/The Hebrew University in Jerusalem)
Excavations at the site began in 2015. “Evidence of a settlement from the Philistine era has been found there, from the 12-11th centuries BC,” explain the researchers. “Spacious, massive stone structures have been uncovered containing finds typical of the Philistine civilization.”
Other discoveries include bowls and an oil lamp, which were offerings laid beneath the building’s floors for good luck. Stone and metal tools were also found at the site.
“Above the remains of the Philistine settlement was a rural settlement from the time of King David, from the early 10th century BC,” the researchers added. “This settlement came to an end in an intense fire that destroyed the buildings.”

1 Samuel 30 describes how the Amalekites, ancient desert nomads, burnt Ziklag.
Pottery jars uncovered at the site. (Israel Antiquities Authority/The Hebrew University in Jerusalem)
Pottery jars uncovered at the site. (Israel Antiquities Authority/The Hebrew University in Jerusalem)
The archaeologists found nearly 100 complete pottery vessels in the ancient city. These are almost identical to pottery vessels found in the fortified Judaean city of Khirbet Qeiyafa, which have been carbon-dated to the time of King David.
“The great range of complete vessels is testimony to the interesting everyday life during the reign of King David,” the researchers said in the statement. “Large quantities of storage jars were found during the excavation- medium and large-which were used for storing oil and wine.”
 
Jugs and bowls decorated in a style typical of King David’s time were also uncovered.
Aerial stills of the excavation site. (Emil Aljem, Israel Antiquities Authority)
Aerial stills of the excavation site. (Emil Aljem, Israel Antiquities Authority)
In another project, archaeologists in Israel’s Golan Heights recently discovered an ancient city gate from the time of King David.
Last year, researchers uncovered an ancient site at Tel ‘Eton in the Judean foothills that may offer fresh insight into the biblical kingdom of David and Solomon. The kingdom is described in the Hebrew Bible but has long divided historians.

While some experts believe that it existed in the 10th century B.C., others have questioned its existence, citing a lack of evidence of royal construction at the center of the region where the kingdom is said to have existed.
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 8:55 AM No comments:

Tuesday, July 9, 2019

Archaeologists say they found town where future King David took refuge from Saul

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 Complete article
 
Carbon 14 dating supports the archaeologists' identification

For decades scholars sought the elusive site of Ziklag, where the Bible says David was given shelter by Philistine King Achish


Volunteers excavate pottery from Khirbet a-Ra'i, which archaeologists have identified as biblical Ziklag. (Excavation expedition to Khirbet a-Ra‘i)
Volunteers excavate pottery from Khirbet a-Ra'i, which archaeologists have identified as biblical Ziklag. (Excavation expedition to Khirbet a-Ra‘i)
In a finding sure to inflame the debate about the historicity of the biblical King David, an international team of archaeologists claims to have identified the lost city of Ziklag.
Based on artifacts and carbon 14 dating results of excavations since 2015, scholars proposed Monday that the archaeological site of Khirbet a-Ra‘i in the Judaean foothills is the site of the elusive Philistine town.
As attested in the books of Samuel, Ziklag, located between Kiryat Gat and Lachish, provided refuge to the future king David when he was on the run from King Saul. After his sojourn in Ziklag, David ascended the throne in Hebron.
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According to a joint press release from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Israel Antiquities Authority, archaeologists discovered remains of a Philistine settlement from the 12-11th centuries BCE, which was followed by a rural settlement dating to the early 10th century BCE, which is in keeping with the biblical account. Carbon 14 dating supports the archaeologists’ timeline and identification, according to the press release.
A volunteer excavates pottery from Khirbet a-Ra’i, which archaeologists have identified as biblical Ziklag. (Excavation expedition to Khirbet a-Ra‘i)
As recorded in the Hebrew Bible, David settled at Ziklag for 14 months under the patronage of the Philistine King Achish of Gat, with 600 of his men and their families, and used it as a base to raid neighboring peoples.
While the then-Philistine vassal David attempted to join the army of his Philistine lord Achish to defeat Saul, retaliating Amalekites razed the town and took off with the Israelites’ women and children, along with much booty. (Spoiler: In the end, David prevailed.)
According to the press release, in addition to the cultural transition between Philistine buildings and the presumed later Israelite camp, the Davidic-era settlement shows remains of an intense fire that destroyed it.
Later in the Hebrew Bible, in the Book of Nehemiah, the town is mentioned again as a base for Jews who returned from Babylon.
A volunteer excavates at Khirbet a-Ra’i, which archaeologists have identified as biblical Ziklag. (Excavation expedition to Khirbet a-Ra‘i)
For decades, archaeologists have sought the location of the elusive Ziklag, for which roughly a dozen sites have been suggested, without scholarly consensus. Those previous sites were largely dismissed due to lack of signs of settlement transitioning from Philistine cultural evidence to Israelite remains from the time of David, or due to lack of evidence of the widespread ruin wrought by the Amalekites, as described in the Hebrew Bible.
According to leading archaeologists Prof. Yosef Garfinkel, head of the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem; the IAA’s Saar Ganor; and Dr. Kyle Keimer and Dr. Gil Davis of Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, the proposed site of Khirbet a-Ra‘i has all the required qualifications.
The joint IAA and Hebrew University press release said that after seven dig seasons that uncovered some 1,000 sq.m., the archaeological team found evidence of a Philistine-era settlement from the 12-11th centuries BCE, among which were massive stone structures and typical Philistine cultural artifacts, including stylized pottery in foundation deposits — good luck offerings laid beneath a building’s flooring.
Those artifacts, along with stone and metal tools, are similar to ones found in other Philistine cities, including Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron and Gath.
Pottery assemblage from Khirbet a-Ra’i, which archaeologists have identified as biblical Ziklag. (Excavation expedition to Khirbet a-Ra‘i)
The name Ziklag is of Philistine origin and does not have roots in Semitic languages. Recently, a large scientific study of Philistine DNA matched their origins to the Aegean region, which had similar pottery styles during the 12th century BCE, the time period in which the Philistine ancestors are thought to have migrated to the Land of Israel.
At Khirbet a-Ra‘i to date, archaeologists have uncovered some 100 complete pottery vessels used for storing wine and oil, among other uses. According to Garfinkel, who led excavations at the contemporary fortified Judaean city of Sha‘arayim (Khirbet Qeiyafa), jugs and bowls decorated with a “red slipped and hand-burnished” finish are typical of the period of King David.
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 4:44 AM No comments:

Monday, July 8, 2019

Ancient molar points to interbreeding between archaic humans and Homo sapiens in Asia IMAGE


IMAGE
IMAGE: The three-rooted lower molar anomaly in a recent Asian individual. Left: tooth sockets showing position of accessory root; right: three-rooted lower first molar tooth. view more 
Credit: Christine Lee
An analysis of a 160,000-year-old archaic human molar fossil discovered in China offers the first morphological evidence of interbreeding between archaic humans and Homo sapiens in Asia.
The study, which appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, centers on a three-rooted lower molar--a rare trait primarily found in modern Asians--that was previously thought to have evolved after H. sapiens dispersed from Africa.
The new research points to a different evolutionary path.
"The trait's presence in the fossil suggests both that it is older than previously understood and that some modern Asian groups obtained the trait through interbreeding with a sister group of Neanderthals, the Densiovans," explains Shara Bailey, a professor of anthropology at New York University and the paper's lead author.
In a previous study, published in Nature, Bailey and her colleagues concluded that the Denisovans occupied the Tibetan Plateau long before Homo sapiens arrived in the region.
That work, along with the new PNAS analysis, focused on a hominin lower mandible found on the Tibetan Plateau in Baishiya Karst Cave in Xiahe, China in 1980.
The PNAS study, which also included NYU anthropologist Susan Antón and Jean-Jacques Hublin, director of the Department of Human Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, centered on the molar, with the aim of understanding the relationship between archaic humans who occupied Asia more than 160,000 years ago and modern Asians.
"In Asia, there have long been claims for continuity between archaic and modern humans because of some shared traits," observes Bailey. "But many of those traits are primitive or are not unique to Asians. However, the three-rooted lower molar trait is unique to Asian groups. Its presence in a 160,000-year-old archaic human in Asia strongly suggests the trait was transferred to H. sapiens in the region through interbreeding with archaic humans in Asia."
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 2:31 PM No comments:

More on 1,600-yr-old Biblical Mosaics Found in Ancient Galilean Village

Complete article
Full mosaic depicting Jonah being swallowed by a giant fish in the ancient Huqoq synagogue. 
In an excavation led by Professor Jodi Magness of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a 1,600-year-old biblical triptych of mosaics made of small stone cubes (or tesserae) was found in a synagogue in the ancient Galilean village of Huqoq in Israel.

“We’ve uncovered the first depiction of the episode of Elim ever found in ancient Jewish art,” said Dr. Magness.

This comes on the heels of earlier mosaic discoveries at this site which include depictions of The Tower of Babel, Jonah, and the Giant Fish, and the Parting of the Red Sea.

Dr. Magness together with a team of researchers and students uncovered the first ancient Jewish depiction of the Elim episode from the Book of Exodus.

The mosaic depicts the experience of the Israelites camping at Elim after leaving Egypt and wandering in the wilderness without water, which is described in Exodus 15:27.

The 15th chapter and 27th verse describe the site of Elim in which exiled Egyptians sought refuge after exhaustive travel.
The parting of the Red Sea mosaic in the ancient Huqoq synagogue.
Magness said that the Elim panel “is interesting as it is generally considered a fairly minor episode in the Israelites’ desert wanderings, which raises the question of why it was significant to this Jewish congregation in Lower Galilee.”
A mosaic depicting the building of the Tower of Babel in the ancient Huqoq synagogue.
Dr. Magness told the Jewish Press, “The mosaic is divided into three horizontal strips or registers. We see clusters of dates being harvested by male agricultural workers wearing loincloths, who are sliding the dates down ropes held by other men.

The middle register shows a row of wells alternating with date palms.

On the left side of the panel, a man in a short tunic is carrying a water jar and entering the arched gate of a city flanked by crenelated towers. An inscription above the gate reads, ‘And they came to Elim.’ ”
A detail from the newly-discovered Elim mosaic.
 
Another important discovery:  “Chapter 7 in the book of Daniel describes four beasts which represent the four kingdoms leading up to the end of days,” Dr. Magness said.
“This year our team discovered mosaics in the synagogue’s north aisle depicting these four beasts, as indicated by a fragmentary Aramaic inscription referring to the first beast: a lion with eagle’s wings.

The lion itself is not preserved, nor is the third beast. However, the second beast from Daniel 7:4 – a bear with three ribs protruding from its mouth – is preserved. So is most of the fourth beast, which is described in Daniel 7:7 as having iron teeth.”
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 5:39 AM No comments:

Thursday, July 4, 2019

Maize-centric diet may have contributed to ancient Maya collapse



The question of how to best adapt to extreme climate is a critical issue facing modern societies worldwide. In "The Role of Diet in Resilience and Vulnerability to Climate Change among Early Agricultural Communities in the Maya Lowlands," published in Current Anthropology, authors Claire Ebert, Julie Hoggarth, Jaime Awe, Brendan Culleton, and Douglas Kennett examine the role of diet in the ability of the ancient Maya to withstand periods of severe climatic stress. The authors found that an increase in the elite Maya's preference for a maize-based diet may have made the population more vulnerable to drought, contributing to its societal collapse.
"Population expansion and anthropogenic environment degradation from agricultural intensification, coupled with socially conditioned food preferences, resulted in a less flexible and less resilient system," Ebert writes. "Understanding the factors promoting resilience in the past can help mitigate the potential for similar sudden and dramatic shifts in our increasingly interconnected modern world."
The study was conducted using the remains of 50 human burials from the ancient Maya community of Cahal Pech, Belize. Using AMS radiocarbon dating, Ebert and collaborators determined the age of the human burials found at Cahal Pech, both from the site core and surrounding settlements. These burials dated as early as the Middle Preclassic Period, between 735-400 B.C., and as late as the Terminal Classic, between approximately 800-850 A.D.
At the Human Paleoecology and Isotope Geochemistry Laboratory at Penn State University, Ebert measured stable carbon and nitrogen isotope values of the bone collagen in the burials to determine characteristics of individual diets and how they changed through time. Of particular interest was the increasing proportion of C4 plants in the diet, which includes the Maya staple crop maize.
For the burials dating to the Preclassic and Early Classic periods, representing the early inhabitants of the Cahal Pech, Ebert's results suggest that both elites and commoners had a diverse diet that, in addition to maize, included wild plants and animals procured through hunting. Ebert suggests that this diversity of food provided a buffer when a multi-century drought impacted the May lowlands between 300-100 B.C. "The resilience of complex social systems at Cahal Pech from the Preclassic through Early Classic was dependent in part upon a broad subsistence strategy that helped to absorb shocks to maize-based food production in the context of drought," Ebert writes.
Things took a turn at during the Terminal Classic period, between 750 and 900 A.D., when growing social hierarchies and population expansion led to the intensifying of agricultural production and increasing reliance on maize. During this time frame, Ebert found that humans from surrounding settlements at Cahal Pech had different carbon values than the site's center, where the elite class lived. "Our results show a pattern of highly restricted stable nitrogen and carbon isotopes for elite individuals in the Late and Terminal Classic, which corresponds to a hyper-specialized maize-based diet that persisted through the final abandonment of the site," Ebert writes. Elite demands on the local population for increased maize production, and a preference for this drought-intolerant crop, was likely a factor that contributed to the failure of the Cahal Pech socio-political system in the face of another severe drought at the end of the Terminal Classic Period.
"The study speaks to the importance of diet in the resilience and decline of ancient societies and contributes to our understanding of vulnerability to climate change among modern traditional farming communities as well as industrialized nations," Ebert writes.
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 7:10 AM No comments:

Murder in the Paleolithic? Evidence of violence behind human skull remains


IMAGE
IMAGE: Right lateral view of the Cioclovina calvaria exhibiting a large depressed fracture. view more 
Credit: Kranoti et al, 2019
New analysis of the fossilized skull of an Upper Paleolithic man suggests that he died a violent death, according to a study published July 3, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by an international team from Greece, Romania and Germany led by the Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, Germany
The fossilized skull of a Paleolithic adult man, known as the Cioclovina calvaria, was originally uncovered in a cave in South Transylvania and is thought to be around 33,000 years old. Since its discovery, this fossil has been extensively studied. Here, the authors reassessed trauma on the skull--specifically a large fracture on the right aspect of the cranium which has been disputed in the past--in order to evaluate whether this specific fracture occurred at the time of death or as a postmortem event.
The authors conducted experimental trauma simulations using twelve synthetic bone spheres, testing scenarios such as falls from various heights as well as single or double blows from rocks or bats. Along with these simulations, the authors inspected the fossil both visually and virtually using computed tomography technology.
The authors found there were actually two injuries at or near the time of death: a linear fracture at the base of the skull, followed by a depressed fracture on the right side of the cranial vault. The simulations showed that these fractures strongly resemble the pattern of injury resulting from consecutive blows with a bat-like object; the positioning suggests the blow resulting in the depressed fracture came from a face-to-face confrontation, possibly with the bat in the perpetrator's left hand. The researchers' analysis indicates that the two injuries were not the result of accidental injury, post-mortem damage, or a fall alone.
While the fractures would have been fatal, only the fossilized skull has been found so it's possible that bodily injuries leading to death might also have been sustained. Regardless, the authors state that the forensic evidence described in this study points to an intentionally-caused violent death, suggesting that homicide was practiced by early humans during the Upper Paleolithic.
The authors add: "The Upper Paleolithic was a time of increasing cultural complexity and technological sophistication. Our work shows that violent interpersonal behaviour and murder was also part of the behavioural repertoire of these early modern Europeans."
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 7:09 AM No comments:

Ancient DNA sheds light on the origins of the Biblical Philistines


An international team, led by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the Leon Levy Expedition, retrieved and analyzed, for the first time, genome-wide data from people who lived during the Bronze and Iron Age (~3,600-2,800 years ago) in the ancient port city of Ashkelon, one of the core Philistine cities during the Iron Age. The team found that a European derived ancestry was introduced in Ashkelon around the time of the Philistines' estimated arrival, suggesting that ancestors of the Philistines migrated across the Mediterranean, reaching Ashkelon by the early Iron Age. This European related genetic component was subsequently diluted by the local Levantine gene pool over the succeeding centuries, suggesting intensive admixture between local and foreign populations. These genetic results, published in Science Advances, are a critical step toward understanding the long-disputed origins of the Philistines.
The Philistines are famous for their appearance in the Hebrew Bible as the arch-enemies of the Israelites. However, the ancient texts tell little about the Philistine origins other than a later memory that the Philistines came from "Caphtor" (a Bronze Age name for Crete; Amos 9:7). More than a century ago, Egyptologists proposed that a group called the Peleset in texts of the late twelfth century BCE were the same as the Biblical Philistines. The Egyptians claimed that the Peleset travelled from the "the islands," attacking what is today Cyprus and the Turkish and Syrian coasts, finally attempting to invade Egypt. These hieroglyphic inscriptions were the first indication that the search for the origins of the Philistines should be focused in the late second millennium BCE. From 1985-2016, the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon, a project of the Harvard Semitic Museum, took up the search for the origin of the Philistines at Ashkelon, one of the five "Philistine" cities according to the Hebrew Bible. Led by its founder, the late Lawrence E. Stager, and then by Daniel M. Master, an author of the study and director of the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon, the team found substantial changes in ways of life during the 12th century BCE which they connected to the arrival of the Philistines. Many scholars, however, argued that these cultural changes were merely the result of trade or a local imitation of foreign styles and not the result of a substantial movement of people.
This new study represents the culmination of more than thirty years of archaeological work and of genetic research utilizing state of the art technologies, concluding that the advent of the Philistines in the southern Levant involved a movement of people from the west during the Bronze to Iron Age transition.
Genetic discontinuity between the Bronze and Iron Age people of Ashkelon
The researchers successfully recovered genomic data from the remains of 10 individuals who lived in Ashkelon during the Bronze and Iron Age. This data allowed the team to compare the DNA of the Bronze and Iron Age people of Ashkelon to determine how they were related. The researchers found that individuals across all time periods derived most of their ancestry from the local Levantine gene pool, but that individuals who lived in early Iron Age Ashkelon had a European derived ancestral component that was not present in their Bronze Age predecessors.
"This genetic distinction is due to European-related gene flow introduced in Ashkelon during either the end of the Bronze Age or the beginning of the Iron Age. This timing is in accord with estimates of the Philistines arrival to the coast of the Levant, based on archaeological and textual records," explains Michal Feldman of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, leading author of the study. "While our modelling suggests a southern European gene pool as a plausible source, future sampling could identify more precisely the populations introducing the European-related component to Ashkelon."
Transient impact of the "European related" gene flow
In analyzing later Iron Age individuals from Ashkelon, the researchers found that the European related component could no longer be traced. "Within no more than two centuries, this genetic footprint introduced during the early Iron Age is no longer detectable and seems to be diluted by a local Levantine related gene pool," states Choongwon Jeong of the Max Planck Institute of the Science of Human History, one of the corresponding authors of the study.
"While, according to ancient texts, the people of Ashkelon in the first millennium BCE remained 'Philistines' to their neighbors, the distinctiveness of their genetic makeup was no longer clear, perhaps due to intermarriage with Levantine groups around them," notes Master.
"This data begins to fill a temporal gap in the genetic map of the southern Levant," explains Johannes Krause of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, senior author of the study. "At the same time, by the zoomed-in comparative analysis of the Ashkelon genetic time transect, we find that the unique cultural features in the early Iron Age are mirrored by a distinct genetic composition of the early Iron Age people."
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 7:07 AM No comments:

Tuesday, July 2, 2019

Millet farmers adopted barley agriculture and permanently settled the Tibetan Plateaus


The permanent human occupation on the Tibetan Plateau was facilitated by the introduction of cold-tolerant barley around 3600 years before present (BP), however, how barley agriculture spread onto the Tibetan Plateau remains unknown. Now by using both genetics and archaeological data, researchers from Kunming Institute of Zoology, CAS and Lanzhou University revealed that the barley agriculture was mainly brought onto the plateau by the millet farmers from northern China. Moreover, the genetic contribution from millet farmers largely promoted the formation of genetic landscape of the contemporary Tibetans. The work was reported on-line in the journal National Science Review.
According to archaeological evidence, before the permanent settlement of modern humans on the high altitudes of the plateau, the lower altitudes in the northeast Tibetan plateau was extensively occupied by the millet farmers during 5200 to 3600 BP. Interestingly, towards the end of this period (since about 4000 BP), a coexistence of indigenous millet and exotic barley-wheat cultivation appeared in the area, making it probable that the millet farmers adopted barley agriculture and further migrated onto the high altitudes. To test this possibility, the team analyzed large-scale mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) data of current Tibetans (8277 samples) and the surrounding populations (58514 samples). Together with radiocarbon dating of cereal remains at different elevations, they identified two haplogroups (M9a1a1c1b1a and A11a1a), whose originations and migrations well matched the dispersal history of millet farming from northern China. Moreover, these components were also found in ancient DNA of human samples excavated from Neolithic sites in which millet was the most important crop (e.g., Yangshao and Majiayao cultural sites), thus would represent the genetic legacy of millet farmers that still retained in the contemporary Tibetans.
Additionally, these millet farmers' genetic components are common in contemporary Tibetans (20.9%), and were probably even more common (40%-50%) in early Tibetans at about 3300 BP (when the barley farmers had already settled on the high altitudes). Meanwhile, these components also contributed to the genetic differentiation between contemporary Tibetans and other East Asians. Therefore, the genetic contribution from Neolithic millet farmers played important roles in the formation of genetic landscape of the current Tibetans.
These results demonstrated substantial genetic components in the Tibetans could trace their ancestry back to the Neolithic millet farmers. The most probable explanation for this observation is that the millet farmers adopted and brought barley agriculture to the Tibetan Plateau and finally occupied the high altitudes permanently. This work thus provide deeper insights into dispersal model of barley agriculture onto the Tibetan Plateau, as well as the origin and migration history of the Tibetans.
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 3:19 PM No comments:

Monday, July 1, 2019

Newly-discovered 1,600-year-old mosaic sheds light on ancient Judaism

 
Elim mosaic detail, Huqoq Excavation Project. Copyright Jim Haberman. All rights reserved. Courtesy: UNC-Chapel Hill.

Copyright Jim Haberman


For nine years running, Carolina professor Jodi Magness has led a team of research specialists and students to the ancient village of Huqoq in Israel's Lower Galilee, where they bring to light the remains of a Late Roman synagogue. For weeks during the summer, they unearth history in the form of art. With each excavation season, the students and researchers build on what little is known about the fifth century CE Jewish community of Huqoq and the artists who crafted depictions of biblical stories with tiny cubes of stone, or tesserae.
Jodi Magness, director of the Huqoq excavations and Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in Early Judaism in the Department of Religious Studies in Carolina's College of Arts & Sciences, explains her team's newest findings and how the art they find connects them to texts written thousands of years ago.
Question: If you could name the biggest new discovery of this summer, what would it be?
Answer: I couldn't name just one from this summer's work, so how about two big discoveries?
First: Chapter 7 in the book of Daniel describes four beasts which represent the four kingdoms leading up to the end of days. This year our team discovered mosaics in the synagogue's north aisle depicting these four beasts, as indicated by a fragmentary Aramaic inscription referring to the first beast: a lion with eagle's wings. The lion itself is not preserved, nor is the third beast. However, the second beast from Daniel 7:4 - a bear with three ribs protruding from its mouth - is preserved. So is most of the fourth beast, which is described in Daniel 7:7 as having iron teeth.
Second: We've uncovered the first depiction of the episode of Elim ever found in ancient Jewish art. This story is from Exodus 15:27. Elim is where the Israelites camped after leaving Egypt and wandering in the wilderness without water. The mosaic is divided into three horizontal strips, or registers. We see clusters of dates being harvested by male agricultural workers wearing loincloths, who are sliding the dates down ropes held by other men. The middle register shows a row of wells alternating with date palms. On the left side of the panel, a man in a short tunic is carrying a water jar and entering the arched gate of a city flanked by crenellated towers. An inscription above the gate reads, "And they came to Elim."
Q: A lot of previous discoveries give so much context for this period. What questions do this year's findings prompt for you?
A: The Daniel panel is interesting because it points to eschatological, or end of day, expectations among this congregation. The Elim panel is interesting as it is generally considered a fairly minor episode in the Israelites' desert wanderings ¬¬- which raises the question of why it was significant to this Jewish congregation in Lower Galilee.
Q: Can you describe the, "Wow- look at this!" moment of this year's dig?
A: The "Wow!" moment came when we understood that the animals depicted in the mosaic in the north aisle are the four beasts in Daniel 7. And that was something we realized only a week after uncovering them, when one of our staff members was able to read the accompanying Aramaic inscription identifying the first beast.
Q: Each year, you and the team uncover pieces of history that are significant to so many people for a variety of reasons. What do you hope this work does for the field and what we know of history?
A: Our work sheds light on a period when our only written sources about Judaism are rabbinic literature from the Jewish sages of this period and references in early Christian literature. The full scope of rabbinic literature is huge and diverse, but it represents the viewpoint of the group of men who wrote it. That group was fairly elite, and we don't have the writings of other groups of Jews from this period. Early Christian literature is generally hostile to Jews and Judaism. So, archaeology fills this gap by shedding light on aspects of Judaism between the fourth to sixth centuries CE - about which we would know nothing otherwise. Our discoveries indicate Judaism continued to be diverse and dynamic long after the destruction of the second Jerusalem temple in 70 CE.
Q: Now in the ninth season of digging at this site, what keeps you and the team coming back?
A: We are committed to completing the excavation of the synagogue before we turn the site over to the state of Israel, with the hope that they will develop and open it to the public in the future. In the meantime, I expect our work will continue to shed light on the past through new discoveries.
The mosaics have been removed from the site for conservation, and the excavated areas have been backfilled. Excavations are scheduled to continue in summer 2020. For additional information, images of previous discoveries and project updates, visit the Huqoq Excavation Project site here.
Posted by Jonathan Kantrowitz at 2:17 PM No comments:
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