A new study led by the University of South Florida has shed light on the human colonization of the western Mediterranean, revealing that humans settled there much earlier than previously believed. This research, detailed in a recent issue of the journal, Communications Earth & Environment, challenges long-held assumptions and narrows the gap between the settlement timelines of islands throughout the Mediterranean region.
Reconstructing early human colonization on Mediterranean islands is challenging due to limited archaeological evidence. By studying a 25-foot submerged bridge, an interdisciplinary research team – led by USF geology Professor Bogdan Onac – was able to provide compelling evidence of earlier human activity inside Genovesa Cave, located in the Spanish island of Mallorca.
"The presence of this submerged bridge and other artifacts indicates a sophisticated level of activity, implying that early settlers recognized the cave's water resources and strategically built infrastructure to navigate it,” Onac said.
The cave, located near Mallorca’s coast, has passages now flooded due to rising sea levels, with distinct calcite encrustations forming during periods of high sea level. These formations, along with a light-colored band on the submerged bridge, serve as proxies for precisely tracking historical sea-level changes and dating the bridge's construction.
Mallorca, despite being the sixth largest island in the Mediterranean, was among the last to be colonized. Previous research suggested human presence as far back as 9,000 years, but inconsistencies and poor preservation of the radiocarbon dated material, such as nearby bones and pottery, led to doubts about these findings. Newer studies have used charcoal, ash and bones found on the island to create a timeline of human settlement about 4,400 years ago. This aligns the timeline of human presence with significant environmental events, such as the extinction of the goat-antelope genus Myotragus balearicus.
By analyzing overgrowths of minerals on the bridge and the elevation of a coloration band on the bridge, Onac and the team discovered the bridge was constructed nearly 6,000 years ago, more than two-thousand years older than the previous estimation – narrowing the timeline gap between eastern and western Mediterranean settlements.
“This research underscores the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in uncovering historical truths and advancing our understanding of human history,” Onac said.
Rates of violence in Viking Age societies were long believed to be comparable. New research challenges that assumption.
– Rates of violence in Viking Age Norway and Denmark were long believed to be comparable. A team of researchers including University of South Florida sociologist David Jacobson challenges that assumption.
Their findings show that interpersonal violence – violence not meted out as punishment by authorities -- was much more common in Norway. This is evident in the much greater rates of trauma on skeletons and the extent of weaponry in Norway. The study, published in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, sheds new light on how Viking Age societies in Norway and Denmark differed in their experiences with violence and the role social structures played in shaping those patterns.
Jacobson is part of an interdisciplinary team that combined archaeology and sociology along with the study of skeletons and of runestones – raised stones bearing inscriptions – to reveal key differences in how violence, social hierarchies and authority influenced these dynamics in the two regions. The other scholars on the team are from Norway and Germany.
“The interdiscipilinary approach taken in this study shows us how social and political patterns can be revealed, even when there are a paucity of written sources,” Jacobson said.
Norway: A More Violent Society?
Researchers analyzed skeletal remains from Viking Age Norway and Denmark and found that 33% of the Norwegian skeletons showed healed injuries, indicating that violent encounters weren’t uncommon. By comparison, 37% of the skeletons showed signs of lethal trauma, highlighting the frequent and often fatal use of weapons in Norway.
A notable feature in Norway was the presence of weapons, particularly swords, alongside skeletons in graves. The study identified more than 3,000 swords from the Late Iron Age and Viking periods in Norway, with just a few dozen in Denmark. These findings suggest weapons played a significant role in Norwegian Viking identity and social status – further emphasizing the culture’s connection to violence.
Denmark: Steeper Social Hierarchies and Controlled Violence
In Denmark, the findings show a different pattern. Danish society was more centralized, with clearer social hierarchies and stronger central authority. Violence was more organized and controlled, often linked to official executions rather than acts of personal violence.
For example, skeletal remains in Denmark showed fewer signs of weapon-related injuries but included evidence of executions such as decapitations. Skeletal evidence suggests about 6% of Viking Danes died violently, almost all from executions.
Denmark’s more structured society also had a smaller percentage of graves containing weapons than Norway’s. Instead, social order was maintained through political control, reflected in the construction of large earthworks and fortifications. These monumental structures, particularly during the reign of King Harald Bluetooth in the 10th century, demonstrated Denmark’s greater capacity for coordinated labor and more organized social hierarchies.
Why the Differences?
The study suggests that Denmark's more rigid social structure meant that violence was less frequent but more systematically enforced through official channels, such as executions. Meanwhile, Norway’s more decentralized society experienced more peer-to-peer violence, as indicated by the higher levels of trauma found in skeletons.
The findings also support the broader theory that stronger authority and steeper social hierarchies can reduce the overall levels of violence in a society by centralizing the use of force under official control.
“The findings of these patterns suggest that we are talking of distinct societies in the regions of Norway and Denmark,” Jacobson said. “This is quite striking, as the assumption has been that socially Viking Scandanavia was largely a singular space.”
Broader Implications
The research contributes to a growing body of work that explores how social structures influenced violence in historical societies. Similar patterns have been observed in other parts of the world, such as the Andes region of South America and in areas of North America, where less centralized societies also experienced higher levels of violence.
Jacobson said he hopes the study “is a step towards a new explanatory model, especially when written sources from the period are partial or even nonexistent.”
Aerial view of the excavated area in the early medieval settlement of Las Gobas (Condado de Treviño, Spain). / GPAC (Grupo de investigación en Patrimonio Construido) Basque Country University
Credit: GPAC (Grupo de investigación en Patrimonio Construido) Basque Country University
An archaeogenetic study sheds new light on the isolated medieval community Las Gobas in northern Spain. Besides isolation and endogamy, the researchers have also identifiedthe variola virus which can offer a new explanation on how smallpox entered Iberia.
Researchers from Sweden and Spain have conducted a comprehensive archaeogenetic study on a community that lived on the border between the northern Christian kingdoms and Al-Andalus during the early Medieval period. This dynamic era, especially in the Iberian Peninsula, was marked by religious competition, power struggles, and significant human mobility—factors that shaped the foundation of modern Europe.
The study, published in the journal Science Advances, focused on Las Gobas, a rural site in northern Spain's Burgos province, near the village of Laño. The community existed from the mid-6th to the 11th century and is notable for its church and living areas carved into caves. The site also provides evidence of violence, likely from sword blows, found on some of the buried individuals. Forty-one burials were excavated, and 39 of them were subjected to archaeogenetic analysis.
The interdisciplinary research, led by Ricardo Rodríguez Varela from the Centre for Palaeogenetics (CPG)* in Stockholm integrated genetic, archaeological, and historical data to reveal the presence of an endogamous community in northern Iberia that remained relatively isolated despite centuries of turbulent regional history.
"Our findings indicate that this community stayed relatively isolated for at least five centuries," said Rodríguez Varela. Although Las Gobas is located just north of regions under Islamic rule, "we found relatively low levels of North African and Middle Eastern ancestry compared to other medieval individuals from the Iberian Peninsula, and we did not observe a significant increase in these ancestries after the Islamic conquest of Iberia," he concluded.
Zoé Pochon, also from CPG, highlighted the discovery of several understudied pathogens in Las Gobas human remains. "For example, Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae, a bacterium that causes skin disease through contamination of open wounds, often infects humans via domestic animals, suggesting that animal-keeping was important for this community."
She also identified the variola virus, the causative agent of smallpox, in an individual from one of the more recent burials. This specific strain is similar to those found in Scandinavia, Germany, and Russia, underscoring the pan-European presence of smallpox during the Middle Ages.
Anders Götherström, the senior author of the study and also based at CPG, emphasized the exhaustive nature of their research: "It is amazing how much information we were able to gather on this group of people through our archaeogenetic investigation." He further explained, "An endogamous group, familiar with violence, appears to have established itself in Las Gobas during the 6th or 7th century. By the 10th century, smallpox seems to have affected Las Gobas, likely spreading through Europe rather than via Islamic routes, as was previously theorized for how smallpox entered Iberia."
This study provides new insights into the complex social, genetic, and health dynamics of a long-isolated community in early Medieval Spain.
Publication Details: The study is published in Science Advances, DOI: 10.1126/scieadv.adp8625.
This study is led by Hui Shen, Keliang Zhao, Xinying Zhou, Xiaoqiang Li from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Zhenwei Qiu from National Museum of China. The researchers have reconstructed how early millet farmers explored and shaped local woody plants, and the protection and management of Prunus fruit trees to acquire more food resources since 8000 yr BP.
Wood charcoal identification at Xinglong revealed a variety of woody plants, including Prunus, Populus, Ulmus, Acer, Juniperus, Rhamnus, and Tamarix, showing the presence of large-scale woodland distributions around the site. The abundance of Prunus wood likely correlates with an importance of fleshy fruits at ancient Xinglong. On the basis of the habitats of identified plants, Xinglong people appear to have made full use of available wood resources, including riparian woodlands, shrubs on sunny slopes, and sparse forests in mountain valleys. Populus and Ulmus were the main sources of fuel. During 8000–7000 yr BP, the warm and humid climate promoted the emergence of Acer, Juniper, Tamarix, and Rhamnus plants, and the expansion of riparian Populus woodland, contributing to the increased harvesting of poplar woods.
The measurement of tree-ring curvature indicates that people mainly collected trunks or large branches of Ulmus, Populus, Acer, and Juniperus plants. Meanwhile, Xinglong people probably had mastered the knowledge of how to protect and manage Prunus woodlands via pruning and increasing the cutting of nonfruit trees to increase food supply, demonstrating the active response and adaptation of early millet cultivators to their environments.
See the article:
Shen H, Qiu Z, Zhao K, Zhou X, Li X. 2024. Wood use and forest management by Neolithic millet farmers at the Xinglong site, northern China.
UC Berkeley archeologists say the findings might help resolve the debate about Clovis points and reshape how we think about what life was like roughly 13,000 years ago
Clovis points are distinguishable, in part, due to their distinctive flute or channel flake scar near the base, as shown in these replicas. UC Berkeley researchers studied how the points functioned as part of a system and were used to bring down megafauna in the Ice Age.
How did early humans use sharpened rocks to bring down megafauna 13,000 years ago? Did they throw spears tipped with carefully crafted, razor-sharp rocks called Clovis points? Did they surround and jab mammoths and mastadons? Or did they scavenge wounded animals, using Clovis points as a versatile tool to harvest meat and bones for food and supplies?
UC Berkeley archaeologists say the answer might be none of the above.
Instead, researchers say humans may have braced the butt of their pointed spears against the ground and angled the weapon upward in a way that would impale a charging animal. The force would have driven the spear deeper into the predator's body, unleashing a more damaging blow than even the strongest prehistoric hunters would have been capable of on their own.
Drawing upon multiple sources of writings and artwork, a team of Berkeley archaeologists reviewed historical evidence from around the world about people hunting with planted spears.
They also ran the first experimental study of stone weapons that focused on pike hunting techniques, revealing how spears react to the simulated force of an approaching animal. Once the sharpened rock pierced the flesh and activated its engineered mounting system, they say, the spear tip functioned like a modern day hollow-point bullet and could inflict serious wounds to mastodons, bison and saber-toothed cats.
"This ancient Native American design was an amazing innovation in hunting strategies," said Scott Byram, a research associate with Berkeley's Archeological Research Facility and first-author of a paper on the topic published today in the journal PLOS ONE. "This distinctive Indigenous technology is providing a window into hunting and survival techniques used for millennia throughout much of the world."
The historical review and experiment may help solve a puzzle that has fueled decades of debate in archaeology circles: How did communities in North America actually use Clovis points, which are among the most frequently unearthed items from the Ice Age?
Named for the town of Clovis, New Mexico, where the shaped stones were first recovered nearly a century ago, Clovis points were shaped from rocks, such as chert, flint or jasper. They range from the size of a person's thumb to that of a midsize iPhone and have a distinct, razor-sharp edge and fluted indentations on both sides of their base. Thousands of them have been recovered across the U.S. — some have even been unearthed within preserved mammoth skeletons.
They've also been a pop culture plot point. Characters in the video game "Far Cry Primal" use spears tipped with stone points to ambush mastodons. The movie 10,000 B.C. uses a similar spear to hunt mammoths. Scholars and hobbyists reconstruct Clovis points — and some even document on YouTube the process of building them and using them to hunt bison.
Those depictions make for a good story. But they likely fail to consider the realities of life in the Ice Age, said Byram and his co-author, Jun Sunseri, a Berkeley associate professor of anthropology.
Clovis points are often the only recovered part of a spear. The intricately designed bone shafts at the end of the weapon are sometimes found, but the wood at the base of the spear and the pine pitch and lacing that help make them function as a complete system have been lost to time.
Plus, research silos limit that kind of systems thinking about prehistoric weaponry, Jun said. And if stone specialists aren’t experts in bone, they might not see the full picture.
"You have to look beyond the simple artifact," he said. "One of the things that's key here is that we're looking at this as an engineered system that requires multiple kinds of sub-specialties within our field and other fields."
Building tools as strong, effective systems was likely a priority for communities 13,000 years ago. The tools needed to be resilient. The people had a limited number of suitable rocks to work with while traversing the land. They might go hundreds of miles without access to the right kind of long, straight poles from which to fashion a spear. So it stands to reason they wouldn't want to risk throwing or destroying their tools without knowing if they'd even land the animal, said Byram, who mined archival records, spanning anthropology to art to Greek history, to trace the arc of planted pikes as weapons.
"People who are doing metal military artifact analysis know all about it because it was used for stopping horses in warfare," Byram said. "But prior to that, and in other contexts with boar hunting or bear hunting, it wasn't very well known. It's a theme that comes back in literature quite a bit. But for whatever reason, it hasn't been talked about too much in anthropology."
To evaluate their pike hypothesis, the Berkeley team built a test platform measuring the force a spear system could withstand before the point snapped and/or the shaft expanded. Their low-tech, static version of an animal attack using a braced, replica Clovis point spear allowed them to test how different spears reached their breaking points and how the expansion system responded.
It was based on prior experiments where researchers fired stone-tipped spears into clay and ballistics gel — something that might feel like a pinprick to a 9-ton mammoth.
"The kind of energy that you can generate with the human arm is nothing like the kind of energy generated by a charging animal. It's an order of magnitude different," Jun said. "These spears were engineered to do what they're doing to protect the user."
The experiment put to the test something Byram had mulled for decades. When he was in graduate school and analyzing prehistoric stone tools, he crafted replica Clovis points and fashioned spears using traditional techniques. He remembered thinking how time-intensive a process it was to invest in a stone Clovis point — and how important it would be for the point to function effectively.
"It just started to make sense to me that it actually had a different purpose than some of the other tools," Byram said. "Unlike some of the notched arrowheads, it was a more substantial weapon. And it was probably also used defensively."
Conversations around a campfire early in the pandemic between Jun, a zooarchaeologist who learned from local communities during his time in Africa, and Kent Lightfoot, a Berkeley anthropology professor emeritus, prompted them to dig into the mystery. Through talks with his VhaVenda mentors, Jun learned how the engineering that went into the butt of some spears was just as critical as the work that went into the points.
"The sophisticated Clovis technology that developed independently in North America is testimony to the ingenuity and skills that early Indigenous people employed in their cohabitation of the ancient landscape with now-extinct megafauna," said Lightfoot, a co-author of the study.
In the coming months, the team plans to further test its theory by building something akin to a replica mammoth. Using a type of slide or pendulum, they hope to simulate what an attack might have looked like as a planted Clovis-tipped pike made impact with a massive, fast-moving mammal.
"Sometimes in archaeology, the pieces just start fitting together like they seem to now with Clovis technology, and this puts pike hunting front and center with extinct megafauna," Byram said. "It opens up a whole new way of looking at how people lived among these incredible animals during much of human history."
Drone photo of Cluster 27 in northeastern Mongolia. A red circle marks the location of the excavated burial. The inset map shows the location of Cluster 27 in red and two other enclosure sites along the long wall (Clusters 23 and 24) in black.
A team of archaeologists led by Professors Gideon Shelach-Lavi from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Amartuvshin Chunaga from the National University of Mongolia and William Honeychurchfrom Yale University, has unearthed an elite grave dating back to the pre-Mongol period in Dornod Province, Mongolia. This finding, part of the Mongol-Israeli-American Archaeological Project, sheds new light on a poorly understood era on the Mongolian plateau, spanning the collapse of the Kitan Empire around 1125 CE to the rise of the Mongol Empire under Chinggis Khan in 1206 CE.
The Khar Nuur burial, as it is now known, was found within the enclosure wall of a Kitan-era frontier fortress. The grave, which likely postdates the use of the fortress, contains the remains of an older woman, suggesting she belonged to a prestigious lineage with significant political standing. This discovery provides crucial insights into the local communities, their networks, and their organization during the 12th century CE—a period marked by post-imperial destabilization and intense political competition.
Archaeological Context and Significance
The Mongol-Israeli-American Archaeological Project has been conducting surveys and excavations along Kitan frontier 'long-walls' in northeastern Mongolia since 2018. The discovery of the Khar Nuur burial is one of the most significant findings of the project, offering valuable evidence of the cultural and political shifts that occurred in the lead-up to the rise of the Mongol Empire.
Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain the choice of burial location:
1. The Khar Nuur steppe nomads may have perceived the abandoned Kitan fortress as part of their own history and indigenous territory, using it to affirm local identity and social memory.
2. The fortress may have held symbolic prestige, making it a fitting site for the burial of a leading community member.
3. The burial could have been a deliberate display of power and territorial possession amid the political competition of the time.
These theories, while not mutually exclusive, offer a combined explanation for the social and political processes taking place on the eastern steppe during the post-Kitan period. As imperial authority waned and steppe groups vied for control, the Khar Nuur burial stands as a poignant symbol of identity, memory, and power in a time of transition.
Historical Implications
The discovery adds a vital piece to the puzzle of Mongolian history, providing a deeper understanding of the events and communities that shaped the region before the rise of the Mongol Empire. It offers valuable insights into how local communities maintained their networks and organization during a period of significant change and political competition.
"The Khar Nuur burial represents a unique window into the complex social and political landscape of 12th century Mongolia," added Prof. Shelach-Lavi. "It demonstrates how local elites may have used symbolic connections to past empires to legitimize their own power and status, even as they navigated a rapidly changing political environment."
This remarkable find not only enriches our understanding of pre-Mongol Empire Mongolia but also highlights the importance of continued archaeological research in uncovering the nuanced history of the region. As further analysis of the burial and its contents continues, researchers anticipate gaining even more insights into this pivotal period in Mongolian and world history.
A major international study has explained how bread wheat helped to transform the ancient world on its path to becoming the iconic crop that today sustains a global population of eight billion.
“Our findings shed new light on an iconic event in our civilisation that created a new kind of agriculture and allowed humans to settle down and form societies,” said Professor Brande Wulff, a wheat researcher at KAUST (King Abdullah University of Science and Technology) and one of the lead authors of the study which appears in Nature.
Professor Cristobal Uauy, a group leader at the John Innes Centre and one of authors of the study said: “This work exemplifies the importance of global collaboration and sharing of data and seeds across countries; we can achieve so much by combining resources and expertise across institutes and across international boundaries.”
The secret of bread wheat’s success, according to the research by institutes that make up the Open Wild Wheat Consortium (OWWC), lies in the genetic diversity of a wild grass called Aegilops tauschii.
Bread wheat is a hybrid between three wild grasses containing three genomes, (A, B and D) within one complex plant.
Aegilops tauschii, an otherwise inconspicuous weed, provided bread wheat’s D-genome when it crossed with early cultivated pasta wheat in the Fertile Crescent sometime between eight and eleven thousand years ago.
The chance hybridisation on the banks of the southern Caspian Sea spawned an agricultural revolution. Cultivation of bread wheat rapidly spread across a wide new range of climates and soils as farmers enthusiastically adopted this dynamic new crop, with its high gluten content that creates an airier elasticated breadmaking dough.
This rapid geographical advance has puzzled wheat researchers. There is no wild bread wheat: and the kind of hybridisation event that added the new D genome to wheat’s existing A and B genomes created a genetic bottleneck, whereby the new species had a much-reduced genetic diversity compared to its surrounding wild grasses.
This bottleneck effect coupled with the fact that wheat is an in-breeding species - meaning it is self-pollinating - would suggest that bread wheat might struggle outside its Fertile Crescent origins. So how did it become well-travelled and widely adopted across the region?
In solving this conundrum, the international collaboration assembled a diversity panel of 493 unique accessions spanning the geographical range of Aegilops tauschii from north-western Turkey to eastern China.
From this panel the researchers selected 46 accessions reflecting the species traits and genetic diversity, to create a Pangenome, a high-quality genetic map of Aegilops tauschii.
Using this map, they scanned 80,000 bread wheat landraces - locally adapted varieties - held by CIMMYT and collected from around the world.
This data showed that around 75% of the bread wheat D-genome is derived from the lineage (L2) of Aegilops tauschii which originates from the southern Caspian Sea. The remaining 25% of its genetic make-up is derived from lineages across its range.
“This 25% influx of genetic material from other lineages of tauschii has contributed and defined the success of bread wheat,” said Professor Simon Krattinger, lead author of the study.
“Without the genetic viability that this diversity brings, we would most likely not eat bread on the scale we do today. Otherwise, bread wheat today would be a regional crop - important to the Middle East but I doubt that it would have become globally dominant without this plasticity that enabled bread wheat to adapt.”
A previous study by OWWC revealed the existence of a distinct lineage of Aegilops tauschii geographically restricted to present day Georgia in the Caucasus region - 500 kilometers from the Fertile Crescent. This Aegilops tauschii lineage (L3) is significant because it has provided bread wheat with the best-known gene for dough quality.
In this study the researchers hypothesised that if this were an historic introgression, akin to a Neanderthal genetic footprint in the human genome, they would find landraces in the CIMMYT collections that had a higher proportion of it.
Data analysis showed that CIMMYT wheat landraces collected from the Georgian region contained 7% L3 introgressions in the genome, seven times more than that of bread wheat landraces collected from the Fertile Crescent.
“We used the L3 tauschii accessions as a guinea pig to track and trace the hybridizations using 80,000 bread wheat landraces,” said Professor Krattinger.
“The data beautifully supports a picture where bread wheat emerges in the southern Caspian, then with migration and agricultural expansion it reached Georgia and here with gene flow and hybridisations with the peculiar, genetically distinct and geographically restricted L3 accessions it resulted in the influx of new genetic material.”
“This is one of the novel aspects of our study and it confirms that using our new resources we can trace the dynamics of these introgressions in bread wheat.”
In addition to solving this age-old biological mystery the new Aegilops tauschii open source Pangenome and germplasm made available by the OWWC, are being used by researchers and breeders worldwide to discover new disease resistance genes that will protect wheat crops against age-old agricultural plagues like wheat rust. They can also mine this wild grass species for climate resilient genes which can be bred into elite wheat cultivars.
Researchers at the John Innes Centre worked closely with colleagues from KAUST using bioinformatic approaches to track levels of DNA contributed to bread wheat by the L3 lineage of Aegilops tauschii.
Professor Uauy concluded: “The study highlights the importance of maintaining genetic resources such as the BBSRC funded Germplasm Resources Unit here at the John Innes Centre which maintains historic collections of wild grasses that can be used to breed valuable traits such as disease resistance and pest resistance into modern wheat.”
Origin and evolution of the bread wheat D genome appears in Nature.
The beginning of agriculture is one of the most significant events in human history. The origin and spread of agriculture accelerated the development of human society and economy and fundamentally altered humans’ role in the Earth’s ecosystem. This allows humans to transform nature while increasing food production and stability, laying the groundwork for human reproduction and civilizational development. China is one of the world’s three largest agricultural production centers. Our ancestors domesticated dryland crops, such as millet, in northern China as early as 10,000 years ago.
Archaeologists have proposed a variety of hypotheses about the origins of agriculture in northern China over the last several decades. Among them, three types of hypotheses are commonly used: stress caused by climatic instability, socioeconomic competition, and human-environment coevolution. In general, the debates over the factors driving the origin of millet cultivation in northern China highlight the importance of locating an archaeological site to investigate human use of plant resources, reconstruct the climate and vegetation evolution process before and during human presence, and further investigate why humans began to practice agriculture in northern China around the middle Holocene.
Archaeological work in northern China’s farming-pastoral zone since 2015 has led to the recognition of the Yumin Culture (~8 ka BP) as the start of Neolithic culture in Inner Mongolia. Several archaeological sites have been excavated, including Yumin, Simagou, Xinglong, and Sitai. These archaeological sites have yielded a large number of pottery and agricultural stone tools, as well as some animal bones and plant remains, providing evidence for the origins of agriculture in northern China’s farming-pastoral zone. The Yumin site in northern China’s farming-pastoral zone offers a new perspective on human-environmental interactions during the early Neolithic period, and studying the origins of agriculture in this area is critical to understanding the formation of northern China’s traditional dryland farming system.
To better explain the relationship between the formation of the traditional dryland agricultural system and the changes in the geographical environment in northern China, Xin Jia and Zhiping Zhang of the Nanjing Normal University and Yonggang Sun of the Chifeng University led a research team composed of the Nanjing University, Lanzhou University, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology CAS, Institute of Archaeology CASS, Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and Ulanqab Museum to examine the relationship between the origins of agriculture and climate change by combining high-resolution ancient environmental records from the Yumin Cultural Circle in Northern China. The team conducted quartz optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating on the sedimentary profiles of Yumin and Banan sites belonging to the Yumin culture. They obtained soil samples via flotation and collected and identified carbonized plant seeds during the excavation of the Yumin site. The team also employed multiple proxies such as fossil pollen, magnetic susceptibility, grain size, and chemical elements to analyze the above-mentioned sedimentary profiles. Then, information about agricultural activities and climate change was obtained at the Yumin site. Their research findings were recently published in Science China Earth Sciences.
Their research illustrates that agriculture had already begun in northern China’s farming-pastoral zone during the Yumin culture period (around 8,000 years ago), as evidenced by carbonized millet at the house site (F6) of the Yumin site and combined with agricultural production and processing tools discovered during excavation, as well as 16 representative residences. The origin of agriculture at the Yumin site occurred later than a significant increase in precipitation during the early Holocene but coincided with a substantial rise in vegetation around 8.4 ka. Their findings indicate that the gradual improvement of hydrothermal conditions since the beginning of the Holocene has resulted in the gradual conversion of the land surface from infertile sand to organic-rich soil, providing an appropriate environmental foundation for the origin of dryland farming in northern China around 8.4 ka. The “accumulative environmental effects” during the early Holocene played an essential role in the origin of agriculture in northern China, and it provided a reference for agricultural management in the face of future climate change.
Credit: Lars Kennerstedt/the Swedish National Heritage Board
A new interpretation of the runic inscription on the Forsa Ring (Forsaringen in Swedish), provides fresh insights into the Viking Age monetary system and represents the oldest documented value record in Scandinavia. The inscription describes how the Vikings handled fines in a flexible and practical manner. This is highlighted in research from the Department of Economic History and International Relations at Stockholm University, recently published in the Scandinavian Economic History Review.
“The Forsaringen inscription "uksa … auk aura tua" was previously interpreted to mean that fines had to be paid with both an ox and two ore of silver. This would imply that the guilty party had to pay with two different types of goods, which would have been both impractical and time-consuming,“ says Rodney Edvinsson, Professor of Economic History at Stockholm University, who conducted the study.
The Forsa Ring is an iron ring from Hälsingland, dated to the 9th or 10th century. The runic inscription on the ring describes fines for a specific offense, where payment was to be made in the form of oxen and silver. The ring is believed to have been used as a door handle and is currently the oldest known preserved legal text in Scandinavia. By changing the translation of the word "auk" from the previous interpretation "and" to the new interpretation "also," the meaning changes so that fines could be paid either with an ox or with two ore of silver. An ore was equivalent to about 25 grams of silver.
“This indicates a much more flexible system, where both oxen and silver could be used as units of payment. If a person had easier access to oxen than to silver, they could pay their fines with an ox. Conversely, if someone had silver but no oxen, they could pay with two ore of silver,“ says Rodney Edvinsson.
The new interpretation shows that the Vikings had a system where both oxen and silver served as units of payment. This system allowed for multiple types of units of accounts to be used concurrently, reducing transaction complexity and making it easier for people to meet their financial obligations. The new interpretation also aligns better with how the system functioned later according to later regional laws and is, according to Rodney Edvinsson, significant for our understanding of both Scandinavian and European monetary history.
“As an economic historian, I particularly look for historical data to be economically logical, that is, to fit into other contemporary or historical economic systems. The valuation of an ox at two ore, or 50 grams of silver, in 10th-century Sweden resembles contemporary valuations in other parts of Europe, indicating a high degree of integration and exchange between different economies,“ says Rodney Edvinsson.
He has previously contributed to developing a historical consumer price index extending back to the 13th century, but this new interpretation provides insights into price levels even earlier in history.
“The price level during the Viking Age in silver was much lower than in the early 14th century and late 16th century, but approximately at the same level as in the late 15th century and the 12th century, when there was a silver shortage,“ says Rodney Edvinsson.
The study highlights the importance of using modern economic theories to interpret historical sources. By combining economic theory with archaeological and historical findings, new opportunities for interdisciplinary research and a deeper understanding of early economic systems are opened up.
What Did Things Cost During the Viking Age?
According to the new interpretation, an ox would cost 2 öre of silver, about 50 grams of silver, during the Viking Age. This corresponds to roughly 100,000 Swedish kronor today, if compared to the value of an hour's work. The Forsa Ring’s fine amount was therefore quite high. One öre was likely equivalent to about nine Arabic dirhams, a currency that circulated in large quantities among the Vikings. A common price for a thrall was 12 öre of silver, or approximately 600,000 Swedish kronor today. The wergild for a free man, i.e., the fine paid to the family of the murdered to avoid blood revenge, was much higher, around 5 kilos of silver, which is about 10 million Swedish kronor today. The significant difference in value between a thrall and a free man reflects the power dynamics between free individuals and thralls in a slave society.
The relevant inscription of the Forsa Ring translated to modern English: One ox and [also/or] two öre of silver to the staff for the restoration of a sanctuary in a valid state for the first time; two oxen and [also/or] four öre of silver for the second time; but for the third time four oxen and eight öre of silver.
New Haven, Conn. — Since its discovery by modern researchers a century ago, an ancient structure known as the “Christian building” has become widely considered the cornerstone of early Christian architecture. Constructed around 232 C.E. in the ancient city of Dura-Europos, a Roman garrison town in what is now eastern Syria, the building is the only example of a “house church,” or domus ecclesiae, a domestic space that was renovated for worship by Christians at a time when the open practice of their faith is thought to have made them subject to persecution.
But a new study published in the Journal of Roman Archaeology challenges that conventional belief, arguing that the building was almost certainly not domestic in form or function after undergoing renovations to accommodate religious rituals. The findings call into question the validity of the category of the domus ecclesiae in its totality.
A careful comparison of the building’s later architectural features with those of other domestic structures in Dura-Europos — and an analysis of the way renovations impacted natural light flow within the building — provide considerable evidence that it was not a house church at all, said Camille Leon Angelo, a Ph.D. candidate in Yale’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and one of the researchers.
“Dialogues within the academy as well as in popular culture give the impression that Christians had, prior to Emperor Constantine, gathered and worshipped in pseudo-domestic spaces,” said Leon Angelo, who is part of Yale’s Department of Religious Studies. “But if this is the only securely dated example we have, and it wasn’t in fact particularly or even somewhat domestic, then why do we keep up that perception?”
Her co-author on the study is Joshua Silver, a postgraduate doctoral researcher at the University of Manchester with the Manchester Architectural Research Group.
It was during a 10-year excavation of Dura-Europos in the 1920s and ’30s that the Christian building, along with a synagogue and a Mithraeum, was unearthed by a team of scholars from Yale and the French Academy of Inscriptions and Letters. Their excavation journals and photographs (along with thousands of artifacts) are archived at the Yale University Art Gallery.
It was believed that the structure was originally a private residence but was renovated around 234 C.E. to make it suitable for Christian worship. Scholars came to consider it an architectural steppingstone — the domus ecclesiae — connecting the private homes used for Christian worship that are referenced in the New Testament (e.g., Acts 12:12) with the basilicas constructed under Constantine.
It remained in use until around 254-56 C.E., when Sasanians besieged the city and the Romans attempted to fortify the city’s western fortification wall with a massive earthen embankment that sealed off many buildings. After the city was conquered and abandoned, the remaining embankment served to preserve the structures extraordinarily well over centuries.
The Christian building was on the same street as the synagogue and Mithraeum, both of which also began as private homes that were later renovated, Leon Angelo said.
“But we don’t say ‘house synagogue,’ or ‘house Mithraeum.’ We allow them to stand on their own,” she said. “So if we have a building that follows the same architectural trajectory in the city, why are we emphasizing the structure’s domestic origins? We wanted to know, how domestic was it, and how would it have been seen by the community?”
Understanding a community and its story
To answer these questions, the researchers pored through all the archived excavation reports to understand what houses in Dura-Europos looked like, what they contained, and the functions they served. After gaining a thorough understanding of what constituted domestic space for that community, they juxtaposed it against the features of the Christian building. And they found significant differences.
For example, the building as it was preserved had figural wall paintings, a courtyard staircase, and no cistern for storing water. No other house in the researchers’ data set had such a combination of features.
The removal of the cistern, as well as the building’s food preparation area, also suggested that people interacted differently with the space than with their dwellings.
Its ground-floor rooms were modified to create one that was uncommonly large and another, used as a baptistery, that was uncommonly small, relative to other homes in the city.
In addition, researchers studied changes in how people circulated through the rooms, and the use of different surfaces and seating formations, which suggested moving away from a domestic environment. They used simulations of changing sunlight to determine that certain renovations to the building meant that a greater area of the rooms off the courtyard could be used at more times throughout the day without needing a lamp or candle.
“The Christian building had little akin to any domestic space at Dura, and therefore calls the narrative of early Christianity’s material origins into question,” Leon Angelo said.
She said she fully expects pushback against such a bold challenge of entrenched understandings of what early Christianity looked like.
“Those understandings hold a lot of weight and power,” she said. “We are deeply interested in early Christianity too. But we want to do justice to Dura’s Christian community and their story and try to understand them on their own terms, rather than through assumptions that scholars have projected onto their space.”
Scholarship around Dura-Europos is ongoing. The recently launched International (Digital) Dura-Europos Archive, or IDEA, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, aims to reassemble and provide digital access to the artifacts and archival documentation derived from excavations of the city and now housed at various museums across the world. The initiative was founded by Anne Hunnell Chen, a former postdoctoral associate at Yale who is now an assistant professor of art history and visual culture at Bard College.
