Thursday, June 4, 2020

Ancient DNA provides new insights into the early peopling of the Caribbean


New study reveals multiple waves of settlement and connections to the American mainland
UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN THE FACULTY OF HEALTH AND MEDICAL SCIENCES
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IMAGE: LLLUSTRATION OF ONE OF THE EARLY SETTLERS IN THE CARIBBEAN. view more 
CREDIT: TOM BJÖRKLUND.
According to a new study by an international team of researchers from the Caribbean, Europe and North America, the Caribbean was settled by several successive population dispersals that originated on the American mainland.
he Caribbean was one of the last regions of the Americas to be settled by humans. Now, a new study published in the journal Sciencesheds new light on how the islands were settled thousands of years ago.
Using ancient DNA, a team of archaeologists and geneticists led by researchers from the University of Copenhagen and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History found evidence of at least three population dispersals that brought people to the region.
"The new data give us a fascinating glimpse of the early migration history of the Caribbean. We find evidence that the islands were settled and resettled several times from different parts of the American mainland", says Hannes Schroeder, Associate Professor at the Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, and one of the senior authors of the study.
More data, more details
The researchers analysed the genomes of 93 ancient Caribbean islanders who lived between 400 and 3200 years ago using bone fragments excavated by Caribbean archaeologists from 16 archaeological sites across the region.
Due to the region's warm climate, the DNA from the samples was not very well preserved. But using so-called targeted enrichment techniques, the researchers managed to extract enough information from the remains.
"These methods allowed us to increase the number of ancient genome sequences from the Caribbean by almost two orders of magnitude and with all that data we are able to paint a very detailed picture of the early migration history of the Caribbean," says Johannes Krause, Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, and another senior author of the study.
The researchers' findings indicate that there have been at least three different population dispersals into the region: two earlier dispersals into the western Caribbean, one of which seems to be linked to earlier population dispersals in North America, and a third, more recent "wave", which originated in South America.
Connections across the Caribbean Sea
Although it is still not entirely clear how the early settlers reached the islands, there is growing archaeological evidence indicating that, far from being a barrier, the Caribbean Sea served as a kind of 'aquatic highway' that connected the islands with the mainland and each other.
"Big bodies of water are traditionally considered barriers for humans and ancient fisher hunter gatherer communities are usually not perceived as great seafarers. Our results continue to challenge that view, as they suggest that there was repeated interaction between the islands and the mainland," says Kathrin Nägele, PhD student at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and one of the first authors of the study.
Biological and Cultural Diversity in the Ancient Caribbean
"The new data support our previous observations that the early settlers of the Caribbean were biologically and culturally diverse, adding resolution to this ancient period of our history", says Yadira Chinique de Armas, Assistant Professor in Bioanthropology at the University of Winnipeg who currently co-directs three large scale excavations in Cuba as part of the SSHRC project.
The researchers found genetic differences between the early settlers and the newcomers from South America who, according to archaeological evidence, entered the region around 2800 years ago.
"Although the different groups were present in the Caribbean at the same time, we found surprisingly little evidence of admixture between them", adds Cosimo Posth, group leader at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and joint-first author of the study.
"The results of this study provide yet another layer of data that highlights the diverse and complex nature of pre-Columbian Caribbean societies and their connections to the American mainland prior to the colonial invasion," says Corinne Hofman, Professor of Archaeology at Leiden University and PI of the ERC Synergy project NEXUS1492.
"Genetic data provide a new depth to our findings" agrees Mirjana Roksandic, Professor at the University of Winnipeg and the PI on the SSHRC project.

Wednesday, June 3, 2020

Pinpointing the origins of Jerusalem's Temple Mount


CAPTION

Wilson's Arch excavation area. (A) Map of the old city of Jerusalem and the location Wilson's Arch. Copyrights: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2020. (B) An artistic reconstruction of the Temple Mount in the time of Herod the Great (1st century AD). The arrow points to the arch known today as Wilson's Arch. Copyrights: Ritmeyer Archaeological Design, 2020. (C,D) Photographs of the site. The scale bar in D is 1 meter in length. (E,F) A 3D reconstruction of the site. As the site is under constant renovations, a model is used here to illustrate the location of the various features and strata. A section drawing of strata 1,4,5 was imposed on the Western Wall to illustrate their relative position.
Credit Regev et al, 2020 (PLOS ONE, CC BY 4.0)

Integrating radiocarbon dating and microarchaeology techniques has enabled more precise dating of the ancient Wilson's Arch monument at Jerusalem's Temple Mount, according to a study published June 3, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONEby Johanna Regev from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, and colleagues.
Radiocarbon dating has rarely been used in archaeological explorations of the Classical and Post-Classical age in the Eastern Mediterranean (approximately the 8th century BC-6th century AD) --this is due to the technique's imprecision, as well as a historical reliance on using material culture findings like coins or texts to estimate dates of specific monuments.
In this study, Regev and colleagues focused on pinpointing the specific construction dates for Wilson's Arch, an arch of "The Great Causeway", an ancient bridge linking Jerusalem's Temple Mount to the houses of Jerusalem's upper city, and which was excavated in 2015-2019 as part of a tourist development project. Wilson's Arch has been the subject of much scholarly debate, with construction dates suggested from the time of Herod the Great, Roman colonization, or even the early Islamic period in Jerusalem (a span of about 700 years).
To better understand the specific timing of Wilson's Arch (and the historical context in which it was constructed), Regev and colleagues used an integrative approach in the field during its excavation, conducting radiocarbon dating of 33 construction material samples directly at the site (generally charred organic matter, like seeds or sticks, present in mortar), as well as stratigraphic and microarchaeological analyses.
The authors were able to narrow the dates of construction for the initial Great Causeway bridge structure as having occurred between 20 BC and 20 AD, during the reign of Herod the Great or directly after his death. They also discovered a second stage of construction: between 30 AD and 60 AD, the bridge doubled in size as Wilson's Arch in its current form was finalized (during this period of direct Roman rule, there's evidence the Romans began or expanded on many building projects around Jerusalem, including an aqueduct supplying the Temple Mount with water).
Regev and colleagues note that their technique of using many samples for radiocarbon dating, coupled with stratigraphic analysis, could be broadly applied in many other densely-built ancient cities in order to fine-tune building dates for specific remains.
The authors add: "Radiocarbon high resolution chronology of charred remains reshapes Jerusalem's history, resolving a long-standing debate regarding the entrance to its holiest site: the Temple Mount."

Largest, oldest Maya monument suggests importance of communal work


From the ground, it's impossible to tell that the plateau underfoot is something extraordinary. But from the sky, with laser eyes, and beneath the surface, with radiocarbon dating, it's clear that it is the largest and oldest Mayan monument ever discovered.
Located in Tabasco, Mexico, near the northwestern border of Guatemala, the newly discovered site of Aguada Fénix lurked beneath the surface, hidden by its size and low profile until 2017. The monument measures nearly 4,600 feet long, ranges from 30 to 50 feet high and includes nine wide causeways.
The monument was discovered by an international team led by University of Arizona professors in the School of Anthropology Takeshi Inomata and Daniela Triadan, with support from the university's Agnese Nelms Haury program and under the authorization of the National Institute of Anthropology and History of Mexico.
They used lidar - or light detection and ranging - technology, which uses laser-emitting equipment from an airplane. Laser beams penetrate the tree canopy, and their reflections off the ground's surface reveal the three-dimensional forms of archaeological features. The team then excavated the site and radiocarbon-dated 69 samples of charcoal to determine that it was constructed sometime between 1,000 to 800 B.C. Until now, the Maya site of Ceibal, built in 950 B.C., was the oldest confirmed ceremonial center. This oldest monumental building at Aguada Fénix turned out to be the largest known in the entire Maya history, far exceeding pyramids and palaces of later periods.
The team's findings are published today in the journal Nature.
"Using low-resolution lidar collected by the Mexican government, we noticed this huge platform. Then we did high-resolution lidar and confirmed the presence of a big building," Inomata said. "This area is developed - it's not the jungle; people live there - but this site was not known because it is so flat and huge. It just looks like a natural landscape. But with lidar, it pops up as a very well-planned shape."
The discovery marks a time of major change in Mesoamerica and has several implications, Inomata said.
First, archaeologists traditionally thought Maya civilization developed gradually. Until now, it was thought that small Maya villages began to appear between 1000 and 350 B.C., what's known as the Middle Preclassic period, along with the use of pottery and some maize cultivation.
Second, the site looks similar to the older Olmec civilization center of San Lorenzo to the west in the Mexican state of Veracruz, but the lack of stone sculptures related to rulers and elites, such as colossal heads and thrones, suggests less social inequality than San Lorenzo and highlights the importance of communal work in the earliest days of the Maya.
"There has always been debate over whether Olmec civilization led to the development of the Maya civilization or if the Maya developed independently," Inomata said. "So, our study focuses on a key area between the two."
The period in which Aguada Fénix was constructed marked a gap in power - after the decline of San Lorenzo and before the rise of another Olmec center, La Venta. During this time, there was an exchange of new ideas, such as construction and architectural styles, among various regions of southern Mesoamerica. The extensive plateau and the large causeways suggest the monument was built for use by many people, Inomata said.
"During later periods, there were powerful rulers and administrative systems in which the people were ordered to do the work. But this site is much earlier, and we don't see the evidence of the presence of powerful elites. We think that it's more the result of communal work," he said.
The fact that monumental buildings existed earlier than thought and when Maya society had less social inequality makes archaeologists rethink the construction process.
"It's not just hierarchical social organization with the elite that makes monuments like this possible," Inomata said. "This kind of understanding gives us important implications about human capability, and the potential of human groups. You may not necessarily need a well-organized government to carry out these kinds of huge projects. People can work together to achieve amazing results."
Inomata and his team will continue to work at Aguada Fénix and do a broader lidar analysis of the area. They want to gather information about surrounding sites to understand how they interacted with the Olmec and the Maya.
They also wants to focus on the residential areas around Aguada Fénix.
"We have substantial information about ceremonial construction," Inomata said, "but we want to see how people lived during this period and what kind of changes in lifestyle were happening around this time."

Maize became a key food source in Central America 4,700 years ago


About 9,000 years ago in the Balsas River Valley of southwestern Mexico, hunter-gatherers began domesticating teosinte, a wild grass. Fast-forward to the present, and what was a humble perennial has been turned into the world's biggest grain crop: maize.
Humanity deeply relies on maize, or corn, but just when it became a major food crop in the Americas has been a source of mystery and dispute.
Now, a UC Santa Barbara researcher and his collaborators, by testing the skeletons of an "unparalleled" collection of human skeletal remains in Belize, have demonstrated that maize had become a staple in the Americas 4,700 years ago.
In a new paper, "Early isotopic evidence for maize as a staple grain in the Americas" in the journal Science Advances, Douglas J. Kennett, a UCSB anthropology professor, details how the discovery of human skeletons buried in a rock-shelter over a period of 10,000 years opened a window on maize consumption nearly three millennia before the rise of Maya civilization.
"What this paper shows is that by 4,700 years ago," Kennett said, "there is a significant shift towards maize cultivation and consumption, exceeding what we would consider to be a staple grain. And by 4,000 years ago maize was a persistently used staple and its importance continues through the Classic Maya period and until today."
Kennett, the paper's lead author, said the breakthrough came with the discovery of two rock-shelters with remarkably well-preserved skeletal remains in the Maya Mountains of Belize. Bones in the Neotropics typically degrade because of heat and humidity, but these rock shelters preserved the skeletal material well enough to measure stable isotopes revealing the diets of these people prior to death.
"The lowland Neotropics is not kind to organic material," Kennett said. "Bones degrade quickly if left out in the open. But these are special sites because they provide dry shelter from the elements that helps preserve bones that we were able to extract collagen from for nitrogen and carbon isotope analysis."
Maize synthesizes carbon using a distinctive photosynthetic pathway, which is evident isotopically in people that consume this important cultigen. There are very few plants in the lowland Neotropics that synthesize carbon in this way, so it's clear isotopically when people start eating substantial amounts of maize.
Skeletons dated to older than 4,700 years ago show minimal or no maize consumption. Some individuals dated to 4,700 to 4,000 years ago, however, show about 30% of maize consumption -- what Kennett calls a transitional period. By 4,000 years ago the carbon isotopic evidence indicates that maize consisted of more than 70% of the diet of individuals in the Maya lowlands.
"If you measured the isotopic composition of Maya people today," he said, "they would look very similar because they're consuming a great deal of maize on a daily basis. In terms of broader significance, this is the earliest evidence for the use of maize as a staple in the Americas that we're aware of so far."
The transition to agriculture in the Neotropics, as evidenced by the use of maize as a staple, has tantalizing implications for the rise of Maya civilization. As Kennett notes, where the Maya came from and when they moved into the area are still open questions. Classic Period Maya society didn't start to develop until about 2,000 years ago.
"So the question is, when do Maya people first move into the region and are they the earliest agriculturalists?" he said. "It is possible that the early agriculturalists identified in our study moved into the area and that they are somehow related to the Maya that we associate with emergence of Maya civilization later in time."

Tuesday, June 2, 2020

Doubts about the Nerja cave art having been done by neanderthals



UNIVERSITY OF CÓRDOBA
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IMAGE: THE RESEARCHER JOSÉ LUIS SANCHIDRIÁN AT THE NERJA CAVE view more 
CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF CORDOBA
Dating cave art is a key issue for understanding human cognitive development. Knowing whether the ability for abstraction and conveying reality involved in artistic development is unique to Homo sapiens or if it was shared with other species, or simply knowing at what moment these abilities developed, is vital in order to understand the complexity of human evolution.
Currently in Spain, for the most part, when trying to find out the age of artistic expressions in caves, dating is done with U-series dating, using the two elements uranium and thorium in the underlying and overlapping layers of calcite in the paint itself.
However, the timeline this system proposes seems to provide evidence for erroneous ages and an inverse relationship between the concentration of uranium and the apparent ages. In order to test the reliability of this dating method, Prehistory Professor at the University of Córdoba, José Luis Sanchidrián Torti and associate researcher in Prehistory at UCO María Ángeles Medina Alcaide, who do not doubt the cognitive abilities of the Neanderthals but rather adhere to scientific rigor, performed a study in which they analyzed the reliability of Uranium-thorium dating and refute Neanderthals being the creators of the Paleolithic art in Spanish caves via the Nerja Cave. The key, according to the Cordoba team, seems to be in the mobility of uranium, which would have assigned older (and inaccurate) ages to the cave art in some Spanish caves, ascribing the art to Homo neanderthalensis.
The research team analyzed several samples of calcite related to the chronometric test of a set of rocks in the Nerja Cave, obtaining proof of the complexity of the dating on calcite for the study of the chronology of cave art. In this way, they directly question the generally accepted conclusions to date about the artistic manifestations in several caves being the work of Neanderthals, which had been determined based solely on the Uranium-thorium dating method.
In order to reconstruct the timeline of the history of cave art, Sanchidrián and Medina's research proposes an action protocol for dating Paleolithic art samples that uses data from three measuring systems: Uranium-thorium testing, Carbon 14 (C14) testing and a second mineralogical study of the sample before dating.
It is essential to study in more detail the evolution of these artistic manifestations in order to establish a rigorous and reliable chronological framework that allows us to understand and comprehend human artistic development.

Ancient DNA extracted from Dead Sea Scrolls permits rare glimpse into world of Second Temple Judaism


An interdisciplinary team from Tel Aviv University, led by Prof. Oded Rechavi of TAU's George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Prof. Noam Mizrahi of TAU's Department of Biblical Studies, in collaboration with Prof. Mattias Jakobsson of Uppsala University in Sweden, the Israel Antiquities Authority and Prof. Christopher E. Mason of Weill Cornell Medicine, has successfully decoded ancient DNA extracted from the animal skins on which the Dead Sea Scrolls were written. By characterizing the genetic relationships between different scroll fragments, the researchers were able to discern important historical connections.
The research, conducted over seven years, was published as the cover story in the prestigious journal Cell on June 2 and sheds new light on the Dead Sea Scrolls.
"There are many scroll fragments that we don't know how to connect, and if we connect wrong pieces together it can change dramatically the interpretation of any scroll. Assuming that fragments that are made from the same sheep belong to the same scroll," explains Prof. Rechavi, "it is like piecing together parts of a puzzle."
The Dead Sea Scrolls refers to some 25,000 fragments of leather and papyrus discovered beginning in 1947, mostly in the Qumran caves but also in other sites located in the Judean Desert.
Among other things, the scrolls contain the oldest copies of biblical texts. Since their discovery, scholars have faced the breathtaking challenge of classifying the fragments and piecing them together into the remains of some 1,000 manuscripts, which were hidden in the caves before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE.
Researchers have long been puzzled as to the degree this collection of manuscripts, a veritable library from the Qumran caves, reflects the broad cultural milieu of Second Temple Judaism, or whether it should be regarded as the work of a radical sect (identified by most as the Essenes) discovered by chance.
"Imagine that Israel is destroyed to the ground, and only one library survives -- the library of an isolated, 'extremist' sect: What could we deduce, if anything, from this library about greater Israel?" Prof. Rechavi says. "To distinguish between scrolls particular to this sect and other scrolls reflecting a more widespread distribution, we sequenced ancient DNA extracted from the animal skins on which some of the manuscripts were inscribed. But sequencing, decoding and comparing 2,000-year old genomes is very challenging, especially since the manuscripts are extremely fragmented and only minimal samples could be obtained."
Pnina Shor, founder of the Dead Sea Scrolls Unit at the Israel Antiquities Authority, adds, "The Israel Antiquities Authority is in charge of both preserving the scrolls for posterity and making them accessible to the public and to scholars. Recent scientific and technological advances enable us to minimize physical intervention on the scrolls, thus facilitating multidisciplinary collaborations."
Innovative methods to solve historical mysteries
To tackle their daunting task, the researchers developed sophisticated methods to deduce information from tiny amounts of ancient DNA, carefully filtering out potential contaminations and statistically validating the findings. The team employed these mechanisms to deal with the challenge posed by the fact that genomes of individual animals of the same species (for instance, two sheep of the same herd) are almost identical to one another, and even genomes of different species (such as sheep and goats) are very similar.
For the purpose of the research, the Dead Sea Scrolls Unit of the Israel Antiquities Authority supplied samples -- sometimes only scroll "dust" carefully removed from the uninscribed back of the fragments -- and sent them for analysis by Prof. Rechavi's team: Dr. Sarit Anava, Moran Neuhof, Dr. Hila Gingold and Or Sagi. To prevent DNA contamination, Dr. Anava traveled to Sweden to extract the DNA under the meticulous conditions required for ancient DNA analysis (e.g. wearing special full-body suits) in Prof. Jakobsson's paleogenomics lab in Uppsala, which is equipped with cutting-edge equipment. In parallel to the teams that were studying the animals' ancient DNA, Prof. Mason's metagenomics lab in New York studied the scrolls' microbial contaminants. Prof. Jakobsson says, "It is remarkable that we were able to retrieve enough authentic ancient DNA from some of these 2,000 year old fragments considering the tough history of the animal hides. They were processed into parchment, used in a rough environment, left for two millennia, and then finally handled by humans again when they were rediscovered."
Textual pluralism opens window into culture of Second Temple Jewish society
According to Prof. Rechavi, one of the most significant findings was the identification of two very distinct Jeremiah fragments.
"Almost all the scrolls we sampled were found to be made of sheepskin, so most of the effort was invested in the very challenging task of trying to piece together fragments made from the skin of particular sheep, and to separate these from fragments written on skins of different sheep that also share an almost identical genome," says Prof. Rechavi. "However, two samples were discovered to be made of cowhide, and these happen to belong to two different fragments taken from the Book of Jeremiah. In the past, one of the cow skin-made fragments was thought to belong to the same scroll as another fragment that we found to be made of sheepskin. The mismatch now officially disproves this theory.
"What's more, cow husbandry requires grass and water, so it is very likely that cow hide was not processed in the desert but was brought to the Qumran caves from another place. This finding bears crucial significance, because the cowhide fragments came from two different copies of the Book of Jeremiah, reflecting different versions of the book, which stray from the biblical text as we know it today."
Prof. Mizrahi further explains, "Since late antiquity, there has been almost complete uniformity of the biblical text. A Torah scroll in a synagogue in Kiev would be virtually identical to one in Sydney, down to the letter. By contrast, in Qumran we find in the very same cave different versions of the same book. But, in each case, one must ask: Is the textual 'pluriformity,' as we call it, yet another peculiar characteristic of the sectarian group whose writings were found in the Qumran caves? Or does it reflect a broader feature, shared by the rest of Jewish society of the period? The ancient DNA proves that two copies of Jeremiah, textually different from each other, were brought from outside the Judean Desert. This fact suggests that the concept of scriptural authority -- emanating from the perception of biblical texts as a record of the Divine Word -- was different in this period from that which dominated after the destruction of the Second Temple. In the formative age of classical Judaism and nascent Christianity, the polemic between Jewish sects and movements was focused on the 'correct' interpretation of the text, not its wording or exact linguistic form."
Identification of genetically distinct groups of sheep suggests prominence of ancient Jewish mysticism
Another surprising finding relates to a non-biblical text, unknown to the world before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a liturgical composition known as the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, found in multiple copies in the Qumran caves and in Masada. Apparently, there is surprising similarity between this work and the literature of ancient Jewish mystics of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Both Songs and the mystical literature greatly expand on the visionary experience of the divine chariot-throne, developing the vision of the biblical prophet Ezekiel. But the Songs predates the later Jewish mystical literature by several centuries, and scholars have long debated whether the authors of the mystical literature were familiar with Songs.
"The Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice were probably a 'best-seller' in terms of the ancient world," Prof. Mizrahi says. "The Dead Sea Scrolls contain 10 copies, which is more than the number of copies of some of the biblical books that were discovered. But again, one has to ask: Was the composition known only to the sectarian group whose writings were found in the Qumran caves, or was it well known outside those caves? Even after the Masada fragment was discovered, some scholars argued that it originated with refugees who fled to Masada from Qumran, carrying with them one of their scrolls. But the genetic analysis proves that the Masada fragment was written on the skin of different sheep 'haplogroup' than those used for scroll-making in Qumran. The most reasonable interpretation of this fact is that the Masada Scroll did not originate in the Qumran caves but was rather brought from another place. As such, it corroborates the possibility that the mystical tradition underlying the Songs continued to be transmitted in hidden channels even after the destruction of the Second Temple and through the Middle Ages."
From solved riddles to new mysteries: Yet undiscovered caves?
Since most of the scrolls were found to be written on sheepskin, the team had to find a way to distinguish "in higher resolution" between the very similar genomes of different sheep.
"Mitochondrial DNA can tell us whether it is a sheep or a cow, but it can't distinguish between individual sheep," Prof. Rechavi adds. "We developed new experimental and informatic methods to examine the bits of preserved nuclear DNA, which disintegrated over two millennia in arid caves, and were contaminated in the course of 2,000 years, including recently by the people who handled the scrolls, often without even the use of gloves."
Using these methods, it was discovered that all the sampled scroll-fragments written using a particular scribal system characteristic to the sectarian writings found in the Qumran caves (the "Qumran scribal practice") are genetically linked and differ collectively from other scroll-fragments that were written in different ways and discovered in the very same caves. This finding affords a new and powerful tool for distinguishing between scrolls peculiar to the sect and scrolls that were brought from elsewhere, and potentially reflect the broader Jewish society of the period.
Shor says, "Such an interdisciplinary project is very important indeed. It advances Dead Sea Scrolls research into the 21st century, and may answer questions that scholars have been debating with for decades. We consider the present project, which integrates both extraction of genetic information from the scrolls using novel methods together with classical philological analysis, a very significant contribution to the study of the scrolls."
The project examines not only scroll fragments but also other leather artifacts discovered at various sites throughout the Judean Desert. The genetic differences between them have allowed researchers to discern between different groups of findings.
According to Prof. Mizrahi, many scroll fragments were not found by archaeologists, but by shepherds, delivered to antiquity dealers, and only subsequently handed over to scholars.
"We don't always know precisely where each fragment was discovered, and sometimes false information was given about this matter," says Prof. Mizrahi. "Identifying the place of discovery is important, because it affects our understanding of the historical context of the findings. For this reason, we were excited to learn that one fragment, that was suspected to originate not from Qumran but rather from another site, indeed had a 'genetic signature' that was different from all the other scrolls found in the Qumran caves sampled for this research."
But this finding led to yet another enigmatic discovery pertaining to a fragment containing a text from the Book of Isaiah. This fragment was published as a Qumran scroll, but its genetic signature also turned out to be different from other scrolls in Qumran.

Prof. Mizrahi concludes, "This raises a new curious question: Was this fragment really found in the Qumran caves? Or was it originally found in yet another, unidentified location? This is the nature of scientific research: We solve old puzzles, but then discover new mysteries."

Monday, June 1, 2020

Ancient genomes link subsistence change and human migration in northern China


Genetic analysis of 55 ancient individuals finds that genetic changes in Yellow River, West Liao River and Amur River populations correlate with the intensification of farming and the inclusion of a pastoral economy
IMAGE
IMAGE: HUMAN REMAINS IN HOUSE FOUNDATION F40 OF THE HAMINMANGHA SITE. view more 
CREDIT: YONGGANG ZHU, SCHOOL OF ARCHAEOLOGY JILIN UNIVERSITY



While recent advances in ancient DNA analysis have established the major patterns of prehistoric human migration in western Eurasia, the population history of eastern Eurasia remains little understood. Northern China is of particular importance, as it harboured two of the world's earliest agricultural centres for millet farming: the Yellow and West Liao River basins. Both basins are famous for their rich archaeological cultures and their influence on nearby regions. However, little is known about their genetic interactions and how these affected the dispersal of millet farming over northern China and surrounding regions.
To tackle these questions, a team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (MPI SHH) in Germany collaborated with geneticist Prof. Dr. Yinqiu Cui and her team at the School of Life Sciences at Jilin University in China. With joint forces, they were able to sequence 55 genomes from across northern China dating between 7,500 and 1,700 years ago, covering the Yellow River, West Liao River and Amur River regions. Their results add to discussions concerning the relationship between genetic contacts and subsistence change while providing the first comprehensive genetic overview of northern China.
Correlated changes of genes and subsistence
The researchers find that, contrary to the strong genetic continuity in the Amur basin, genetic profiles in the West Liao River region substantially changed over time. Yellow River, however, showed a general genetic stability but received genetic contribution from populations related to present-day groups in southern China since the middle Neolithic.
"Although the genetic changes in each region differ in timing and intensity, each shift is correlated with changes in subsistence strategy," says lead author Chao Ning of the MPI SHH's eurasia3angle team. "As we look backwards in time, an increase of Amur River affinity in West Liao River corresponds with the inclusion of a pastoral economy during the Bronze Age, prior to that, an increased Yellow River affinity in the same region is correlated with the intensification of millet farming in the late Neolithic. Finally, our earliest results show that an affinity of Yellow River to populations from southern China (e.g. from the Yangtze River basin) since the middle Neolithic is concordant with the northward dispersal of rice farming."
Corresponding author Choongwon Jeong, formerly a geneticist on the eurasia3angle team now affiliated with Seoul National University in South Korea, puts the findings in perspective. "We realize that our current dataset needs ancient genomes from people who brought rice agriculture into northeast China, such as ancient farmers from the Shandong and Lower Yangtze River regions, but nevertheless our study is a major step forward in understanding how this region developed."
"For me, as a linguist, our findings truly are an eye-opener," says senior author Martine Robbeets, principal investigator of the eurasia3angle team. "As the West Liao River Basin is associated with the origin of the Transeurasian language family and the Yellow River Basin with the Sino-Tibetan family, our results fuel the debate on the historical correlation between archaeological cultures, languages and genes."