Landmark new research shows Ice Age teens from 25,000 years ago went through similar puberty stages as modern-day adolescents. In a study published today in the Journal of Human Evolution of the timing of puberty in Pleistocene teens, researchers are addressing a knowledge gap about how early humans grew up.
Found in the bones of 13 ancient humans between 10 and 20 years old is evidence of puberty stages. Co-led by University of Victoria (UVic) paleoanthropologist April Nowell, researchers found specific markers in the bones that allowed them to assess the progress of adolescence.
“By analyzing specific areas of the skeleton, we inferred things like menstruation and someone’s voice breaking,” says Nowell.
The technique was developed by lead author Mary Lewis from the University of Reading. Lewis’s technique evaluates the mineralization of the canines and maturation of the bones of the hand, elbow, wrist, neck and pelvis to identify the stage of puberty reached by the individual at their time of death.
“This is the first time my puberty stage estimation method has been applied to Paleolithic fossils and it is also the oldest application of another method—peptide analysis—for biological sex estimation,” says Lewis.
Life during prehistory was believed to be as Thomas Hobbes described: “nasty, brutish and short.” However, this new study shows these teens were actually quite healthy. Most individuals in the study sample entered puberty by 13.5, reaching full adulthood between 17 and 22 years old. This indicates these Ice Age adolescents started puberty at a similar time to teens in modern, wealthy countries.
“It can sometimes be difficult for us to connect with the remote past, but we all went through puberty even if we experienced it differently,” says Nowell. “Our research helps to humanize these teens in a way that simply studying stone tools cannot.”
One of the 13 skeletons examined was “Romito 2,” an adolescent estimated to be male and the earliest known individual with a form of dwarfism. This new research on puberty assessment provides further information about Romito 2’s likely physical appearance and his social role.
Since he was mid-way through puberty, his voice would be deeper much like an adult male and he would have been able to father children; however, he may still have appeared quite youthful with fine facial hair. Due to his short height, his appearance would have been closer to that of a child, which may have had implications for how he was perceived by his community.
“The specific information about the physical appearance and developmental stage of these Ice Age adolescents derived from our puberty study provides a new lens through which to interpret their burials and treatment in death,” says archaeologist Jennifer French of the University of Liverpool, one of the co-authors of the study.
Researchers from six institutions collaborated internationally to develop this body of knowledge: UVic (Canada), University of Reading and University of Liverpool (UK), Museum of Prehistoric Anthropology of Monaco (Monaco), University of Cagliari (Italy) and University of Siena (Italy). The collaboration continues with research into the lives of Ice Age teenagers and their social roles.
This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, in addition to Nowell’s Lansdowne Fellowship Award.
A fossilized Neanderthal discovered in a cave system in the Rhône Valley, France, represents an ancient and previously undescribed lineage that diverged from other currently known Neanderthals around 100,000 years ago and remained genetically isolated for more than 50,000 years. Genomic analysis indicates that the Neanderthal, nicknamed “Thorin” in reference to the Tolkien character, lived between 42,000–50,000 years ago in a small, isolated community. The discovery, publishing September 11 in the Cell Press journal Cell Genomics,could shed light on the still-enigmatic reasons for the species’ extinction and suggests that late Neanderthals had more population structure than previously thought.
“Until now, the story has been that at the time of the extinction there was just one Neanderthal population that was genetically homogeneous, but now we know that there were at least two populations present at that time,” says first author and population geneticist Tharsika Vimala (@tharsikavimala) of the University of Copenhagen.
“The Thorin population spent 50,000 years without exchanging genes with other Neanderthal populations,” says co-first author and discoverer of Thorin, Ludovic Slimak, CNRS researcher of Université Toulouse Paul Sabatier. “We thus have 50 millennia during which two Neanderthal populations, living about ten days' walk from each other, coexisted while completely ignoring each other. This would be unimaginable for a Sapiens and reveals that Neanderthals must have biologically conceived our world very differently from us Sapiens.”
Thorin’s fossilized remains were first discovered in 2015 in Grotte Mandrin—a well-studied cave system that also housed early Homo sapiens, though not at the same time—and he is still being slowly excavated.
Based on Thorin’s location within the cave’s sediment, the team’s archeologists suspected that he lived around 40–45,000 years ago, making him a “late Neanderthal.” To determine his age and relationships with other Neanderthals, the team extracted DNA from his teeth and jaw and compared his full genome sequence to previously sequenced Neanderthal genomes.
Surprisingly, the initial genomic analysis suggested that Thorin was much older than the archeological age estimate because his genome was very distinct from other late Neanderthals and much more closely resembled the genomes of Neanderthals who lived more than 100,000 years ago.
“We worked for seven years to find out who was wrong—archeologists or genomicists,” says Slimak.
To solve this riddle, the researchers analyzed isotopes from Thorin’s bones and teeth to gain insight into what type of climate he lived in—late Neanderthals lived during the Ice Age, while early Neanderthals enjoyed a much warmer climate. The isotopic analysis showed that Thorin lived in a very cold climate, making him a late Neanderthal.
“This genome is a remnant of some of the earliest Neanderthal populations in Europe,” says population geneticist and senior author Martin Sikora of the University of Copenhagen. “The lineage leading to Thorin would have separated from the lineage leading to the other late Neanderthals around 105,000 years ago.”
Compared to previously sequenced Neanderthal genomes, Thorin’s genome most closely resembled an individual excavated in Gibraltar, and Slimak speculates that Thorin’s population migrated to France from Gibraltar.
“This means there was an unknown mediterranean population of Neanderthals whose population spanned from the most western tip of Europe all the way to the Rhône Valley in France,” says Slimak.
Knowing that Neanderthal communities were small and insular could be key to understanding their extinction because isolation is generally considered to be a disadvantage for population fitness.
“It's always a good thing for a population to be in contact with other populations,” says Vimala. “When you are isolated for a long time, you limit the genetic variation that you have, which means you have less ability to adapt to changing climates and pathogens, and it also limits you socially because you're not sharing knowledge or evolving as a population.”
However, to really understand how Neanderthal populations were structured and why they went extinct, the researchers say that more Neanderthal genomes need to be sequenced.
“I would guess that if we had more genomes from other regions during this similar time period, we would probably find other deeply structured populations,” says Sikora.
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This research was supported by the Service Regional de l’Archeologie Auvergne Rhone-Alpes, the French CNRS, the city of Malataverne, the Lundbeck Foundation and the Danish National Research Foundation, the European Research Council, and the Australian Research Council.
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Rapa Nui or Te Pito o Te Henua (the navel of the world), also known as Easter Island, is one of the most isolated inhabited places in the world. Located in the Pacific, it lies over 1,900 km east of the closest inhabited Polynesian island and 3,700 km west of South America. Although the island, its inhabitants and their rich culture have been extensively studied by archaeologists, anthropologists and geneticists, two key elements of Rapanui history remain very controversial to this day. One of these is the theory of population collapse through "ecocide" or "ecological suicide" in the 1600s, thought to be the result of overpopulation and resource mismanagement. The other major contention is whether the Polynesian ancestors of the Rapanui interacted with Indigenous Americans before contact with Europeans in 1722.
This week's issue of Nature features a genetic study that sheds light on these two debates related to Rapanui history by examining the genomes of 15 Rapanui individuals who lived between 1670 and 1950. The remains of these 15 individuals are currently hosted at the Musée de l’Homme, in Paris. The new study was carried out by an international team of scientists and was spearheaded by Assistant Professor Víctor Moreno-Mayar from the Globe Institute at the University of Copenhagen (Denmark), and PhD student Bárbara Sousa da Mota and Associate Prof. Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas from the Faculty of Biology and Medicine at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland), in close collaboration with colleagues in Rapa Nui as well as in Austria, France, Chile, Australia and U.S.A.
The collapse that never happened
The story of the Rapanui has often been presented as a warning tale against humanity's over-exploitation of resources. After Polynesians from the west peopled the island by 1250, the landscape on Rapa Nui changed drastically. Towering stone statues—the moai—were carved and placed in all corners of the island, while its original forest of millions of palm trees dwindled and, by the 1600s, was all but gone. According to the "ecocide" theory, a population of over 15,000 Rapanui individuals triggered these changes that led to a period of resource scarcity, famine, warfare and even cannibalism culminating in a catastrophic population collapse.
"While it is well established that the environment of Rapa Nui was affected by anthropogenic activity, such as deforestation, we did not know if or how these changes led to a population collapse," comments Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas, Assoc. Professor at the University of Lausanne and group leader at the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Switzerland, last author of the study.
The researchers looked into the genomes of the Ancient Rapanui individuals expecting to find a genetic signature of a population collapse such as a sudden drop in genetic diversity. But surprisingly, the data did not contain any evidence of a population collapse in the 1600s.
"Our genetic analysis shows a stably growing population from the 13th century through to European contact in the 18th century. This stability is critical because it directly contradicts the idea of a dramatic pre-contact population collapse," says Bárbara Sousa da Mota, a researcher at the Faculty of Biology and Medicine at University of Lausanne and first author of the study.
Through their genetic analysis, Moreno-Mayar, Sousa da Mota, Malaspinas and their colleagues have not only provided evidence against the collapse theory, but also stress the resilience of the Rapanui population facing environmental challenges over several centuries until the colonial disruptions that European contact brought after 1722.
Did Polynesians reach the Americas?
Another debate that has tantalized researchers for decades is whether Polynesians ever reached the Americas. Although long-distance maritime navigation using wooden watercraft likely halted after the Rapa Nui forest disappeared, archaeological and genetic evidence from contemporary individuals hints that voyages to the Americas did occur. However, previous studies looking at small amounts of DNA from ancient Polynesians had rejected the hypothesis that transpacific voyages took place. Thus, these findings have put into question whether Polynesians reached the Americas and have suggested that the inferred contact based on present-day genetic data was mediated by European colonial activity after 1722.
By generating high-quality ancient genomes from the 15 Rapanui individuals, the team substantially increased the amount of genomic data from the island and found that about ten percent of the Rapanui gene pool has an Indigenous American origin. But more importantly, they were able to infer both populations met before Europeans arrived in the island and in the Americas.
"We looked into how the Indigenous American DNA was distributed across the Polynesian genetic background of the Rapanui. This distribution is consistent with a contact occurring between the 13th and the 15th centuries, " says first author Víctor Moreno-Mayar, Asst. Professor at the Globe Institute's Section for Geogenetics, University of Copenhagen.
"While our study cannot tell us where this contact occurred, this might mean that the Rapanui ancestors reached the Americas before Christopher Columbus,” says Malaspinas.
Altogether, the results from the new study help settle longstanding debates that have led to years of speculation surrounding Rapanui history.
"Personally, I believe the idea of the ecocide is put together as part of a colonial narrative. That is this idea that these supposedly primitive people could not manage their culture or resources, and that almost destroyed them. But the genetic evidence shows the opposite. Although we have to acknowledge that the arrival of humans dramatically changed the ecosystem, there is no evidence of a population collapse before the Europeans arrived on the island. So we can put those ideas to rest now," says Moreno-Mayar.
“Many thought that present-day Rapanui carry Indigenous American genetic ancestry due to European colonial activity. But instead, the data strongly suggests that Rapanui and Indigenous Americans met and admixed centuries before Europeans made it to Rapa Nui or the Americas. We believe this means that Rapanui were capable of even more formidable voyages across the Pacific than previously established, " adds Sousa da Mota.
Future repatriation efforts
Importantly, the scientists held face-to-face discussions with members of the Rapanui community and the "Comisión Asesora de Monumentos Nacionales" in Rapa Nui (CAMN). These discussions allowed to steer the research and to define a set of research questions that were equally of high interest to the scientists and the community. For instance, the team was able to show that the populations closest to the ancient Rapanui are indeed those currently living on the island.
"We have seen that museum archives contain mistakes and mislabels. Now that we have established that these 15 individuals were in fact Rapanui we know that they belong back in the island," says Moana Gorman Edmunds, an archaeologist in Rapa Nui and co-author of the study.
Furthermore, when ongoing results were presented to representatives of the Rapanui community, the need to repatriate their ancestors was discussed as a central goal for immediate future efforts.
"We now have a strong fact-based argument to start an important discussion about how and when these remains should be returned to the island. Furthermore, through the CAMN, the Rapanui community will stay in control of who gets the genetic data of our ancestors and what they use it for," adds Gorman Edmunds.
Neanderthal remains recently discovered in a cave in France support well-known theory of why the Neanderthals became extinct, researchers behind a new study say.
In recent years, researchers have offered different explanations for why modern humans survived and the Neanderthals became extinct some 40,000 years ago.
A new study from the Globe Institute at the University of Copenhagen supports one of the main hypotheses. The researchers behind the new study discovered Neanderthal remains of a male in a cave in southern France, and the discovery supports the hypothesis that the Neanderthals may have gone extinct because of their antisocial lifestyle.
“When we look at these genomes from Neanderthals, we see that they are quite inbred and therefore don’t have much genetic diversity. They have been living in small groups for many generations. We know that inbreeding reduces genetic diversity in a population, which can be detrimental to their ability to survive if it occurs over a longer term,” one of the researchers behind the new study, Associate Professor Martin Sikora from the Globe Institute, explains and adds:
“The newly found Neanderthal genome is from a different lineage than the other late Neanderthals previously studied. This supports the notion that social organization of Neanderthals was different to early modern humans who seemed to have been more connected.”
In other words, compared to the Neanderthals, early modern humans were more likely to connect with other groups, which is an advantage if you want to survive.
“This is in the more speculative end, but even just the notion of being able to communicate more and exchange knowledge is something humans do that Neanderthals to some extend might not have done, due to their isolated lifestyles by organizing themselves in smaller groups. And that is an important skill to have. We see evidence of early modern humans in Siberia forming so-called mating networks to avoid issues with inbreeding, while living in small communities, which is something we haven’t seen with Neanderthals,” Postdoc Tharsika Vimala says.
DNA sheds light on the history of the Neanderthals
Researchers have found little Neanderthal DNA considering the substantial number of discovered Neanderthal remains across Eurasia. Some of the oldest Neanderthal DNA dates back to 120 thousand years ago and have been recovered from Neanderthals found in the Denisova Cave (Altai Mountains) and caves in Scladina (Belgium) and Hohlenstein-Stadel (Germany). In fact, the “new” Neanderthal genome is merely the fifth of its kind to be found in Western Europe with an age below 50 thousand years old.
“Our team in Copenhagen extracted DNA from his tooth, sequenced the DNA and analysed his nuclear genome, which is the DNA found within the core of the cells. The DNA was analysed along with other known Neanderthal genomes to understand their shared history,” Martin Sikora says.
In addition, the researchers re-analysed the genome of another known late Neanderthal from France and found that this individual also carried ancestry from a distant Neanderthal lineage which is different from the ‘new’ genome. The findings tell us that multiple isolated communities might have been present in Western Europe up until their demise.
According to the researchers, the hypothesis is not new and has previously been found for Neanderthals living in the Altai Mountains which is naturally a more isolated area. Up until now they did not have the genomic evidence to confirm it for the Western European Neanderthals. The new discovery is therefore an important piece in the puzzle of Neanderthal history.
“It is something that we have talked about for a while. But we needed more evidence, and this is some of the evidence that we were looking for and needed to figure out how likely this hypothesis of them going extinct because of their isolated lifestyle is. We do, however, need much more genomic data to paint a better picture of their history,” says Tharsika Vimala.
The earliest humans to settle the Great Lakes region likely returned to a campsite in southwest Michigan for several years in a row, according to a University of Michigan study.
Until recently, there was no evidence that people from the Clovis period had settled the Great Lakes region. Clovis people appeared in North America about 13,000 years ago, during the geologic epoch called the Pleistocene. During the Pleistocene, sheets of glaciers covered much of the world, including Michigan, making the land inhospitable for human settlers. But a 2021 U-M study confirmed that Clovis people built a camp, now called the Belson site, in southwest Michigan.
Now, the same researchers have confirmed that Clovis people traveled to the site annually, probably in the summer, for at least three but likely up to five consecutive years, according to Brendan Nash, lead author of the study and a doctoral student of archaeology. Tools from the site also show evidence that the settlers' diets included a wide variety of animals, ranging from rabbits to musk ox. The team's results are published in the journal PLOS ONE.
At the Belson site, the researchers discovered tools that were made with a type of stone called chert from what is now western Kentucky, about 400 miles from the Belson site. These tools were then resharpened at the Belson site, leaving behind small pieces for researchers to analyze.
Thomas Talbot, an independent researcher who discovered the first Clovis point at the Belson site in Mendon, Michigan, in 2008, also conducts the group's chert analysis. He discovered some of these chert pieces were from Paoli chert, which formed in northeastern Kentucky.
"It took me a year to identify it, and when I did, it was very surprising," Talbot said. "Then we found a broken base, which we call a diagnostic. The broken base was made from that Paoli material. Once you read the paper and look at the data and maps, there are some patterns that are starting to emerge that are pretty cool."
The tools made in what is now Kentucky were traded to people in central Indiana, who then carried them to the Belson site. Nash says this suggests that the people who settled the Belson site likely moved there during summers and lived in central Indiana during the winter. They in turn likely traded for the tools from western Kentucky from people who moved from central Indiana to Kentucky on yearly routes.
"In this way, people formed 'links in a chain' with yearly routes that likely connected the whole continent, from Michigan to Mexico," Nash said. "This is likely why technology from the Clovis period is so similar throughout most of North America."
The Clovis period is characterized by distinctive spear points. The points have a very characteristic central channel through the length of the tool, called a flute. A Clovis person would have used this channel as a place to attach a shaft to the spearhead, creating a composite hunting weapon—a spear that was used to hunt prey of all sizes. Also distinctive to the Clovis people is that they struck large flakes of material off the stone to create their points. The large, detached pieces had razor-sharp edges and would be used as expedient knives themselves.
It is currently unclear where in the Americas Clovis technology was invented, but once it was, it spread quickly, according to archaeological standards. Researchers think they are one of the earliest groups of people to settle the Americas, and prior to the 2021 study, Clovis technology had not been reported from the Great Lakes region.
Talbot found the first Clovis point in the Belson farm field in 2008. He recognized it as a Clovis point both from its distinctive shape and that it was made of Attica chert, a kind of stone found 120 miles from the Belson site, in western Indiana and eastern Illinois. Talbot confirmed his findings with U-M archaeologist Henry Wright.
Wright and Talbot visited the site in 2017, finding finished tools and small flakes of Attica chert, which made them suspect people had lived at the site rather than simply dropping a point or tool cache as they were passing through. Talbot, Wright and Nash's 2021 study described the surface sampling of the site.
The current study examines excavations of buried flakes—chips off of stone created when the Clovis people were resharpening, or creating, their points—and multiple tools buried in less disturbed sediment beneath the plowed surface layers of the field.
The researchers examined three of the dozens of discovered stone tools for traces of protein. They found evidence for musk ox, caribou or deer, hare and peccary, a Pleistocene relative of the pig. The hare and peccary protein came from the same Clovis point, according to Nash.
"Taken together, the ancient protein data suggests that these people had a broad spectrum diet, eating a wide variety of animals," Nash said. "Our findings are contrary to the popular notion that Clovis people were strictly big game hunters, most often subsisting on mammoths and mastodons."
Nash says the Clovis people would have also eaten plants, but plant material does not show up on protein tests, and unlike animal bones, their remains don't typically last for 13,000 years.
"This site teaches us about a way of life lost to time," Nash said. "Through the sourcing of stone and the styles of tools, we are tracking a group of people as they live and travel across the Pleistocene landscape of the American Midwest."
In addition to Wright and Talbot, study co-authors include former U-M graduate student Elliot Greiner and Linda Scott Cummings of the PaleoResearch Institute in Colorado.
The researchers: "According to the common myth, the Romans laid siege to the desert fortress of Masada for three long years. A new survey employing advanced technologies indicates that the siege was probably a much quicker affair."
Researchers from the Sonia & Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University used a range of modern technologies, including drones, remote sensing, and 3D digital modeling, to generate the first objective, quantified analysis of the Roman siege system at Masada. Findings indicate that contrary to the widespread myth, the Roman army's siege of Masada in 73 CE lasted no more than a few weeks.
The study was conducted by the Neustadter expedition from TAU's Sonia & Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology, headed by Dr. Guy Stiebel, together with Dr. Hai Ashkenazi (today Head of Geoinformatics at the Israel Antiquities Authority), and PhD candidates Boaz Gross (from Tel Aviv University and the Israeli Institute of Archaeology) and Omer Ze'evi-Berger (today at the University of Bonn). The study is part of the expedition's extensive mission, implementing advanced tools and posing fresh questions, to attempt a new understanding of what really happened at Masada. The paper was published in the Journal of Roman Archaeology.
Link to the research Video Caption: A view from a drone of the excavation site at the center of the mountain platform of Masada.
Dr. Stiebel: "In 2017 my expedition renewed, on behalf of TAU's Sonia & Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology, excavations at Masada – a world-famous site explored extensively since the early 19th century and throughout the 20th century. Our expedition sets forward several new questions and implements many novel research tools that were not available to previous generations of archaeologists. In this way we intend to obtain fresh insights into what actually happened there before, during, and after the Great Jewish Revolt. As part of this extensive project we devote much scholarly attention to the site’s surroundings. We use drones, remote sensing, and aerial photography to collect accurate high-resolution data from Masada and its environs, with special emphasis on three aspects: the water systems, the trails leading to and from the palatial fortress, and the Roman siege system. The collected information is used to build 3D digital models that provide us with a clear and precise image of the relevant terrains. In the current study we focused on the siege system, which, thanks to the remote location and desert climate, is the best-preserved Roman siege system in the world."
Dr. Stiebel adds: "For many years, the prevailing theory that became a modern myth asserted that the Roman siege of Masada was a grueling three-year affair. In recent decades researchers have begun to challenge this notion, for various reasons. In this first-of-its kind study we examined the issue with modern technologies enabling precise objective measurements."
The researchers used drones carrying remote sensors that provided precise, high-resolution measurements of the height, width, and length of all features of the siege system. This data was used to build an accurate 3D digital model, enabling exact calculation of the structures' volume and how long it took to build them.
Dr. Ashkenazi: "Reliable estimates are available of the quantity of earth and stones a Roman soldier was able to move in one day. We also know that approximately 6,000-8,000 soldiers participated in the siege of Masada. Thus, we were able to objectively calculate how long it took them to build the entire siege system – eight camps and a stone wall surrounding most of the site. We found that construction took merely about two weeks. Based on the ancient historical testimony it is clear that once the assault ramp was completed, the Romans launched a brutal attack, ultimately capturing the fortress within a few weeks at the most. This leads us to the conclusion that the entire siege of Masada lasted no more than several weeks."
Dr. Stiebel: "The narrative of Masada, the Great Jewish Revolt, the siege, and the tragic end as related by Flavius Josephus, have all become part of Israeli DNA and the Zionist ethos, and are well known around the world. The duration of the siege is a major element in this narrative, suggesting that the glorious Roman army found it very difficult to take the fortress and crush its defenders. For many years it was assumed that the siege took three long years, but in recent decades researchers have begun to challenge this unfounded belief. In our first-of-its-kind study we used objective measurements and advanced technologies to clarify this issue with the first data-driven scientific answer. Based on our findings we argue that the Roman siege of Masada took a few weeks at the most. As empires throughout history have done, the Romans came, saw, and conquered, quickly and brutally quelling the uprising in this remote location. Our conclusion, however, detracts nothing from the importance of this historical event, and many baffling questions remain to be investigated. For example: Why did the Romans put so much effort into seizing this remote and seemingly unimportant fortress? To answer this and many other intriguing questions we have initiated a vast, innovative project in and around Masada – collecting data and analyzing it thoroughly in the labs of TAU's Sonia & Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology, in collaboration with other researchers, to ultimately shed new light on the old enigma: What really happened at Masada?"
