In the long run
Humans thrived in South Africa through the Toba eruption about 74,000 years ago
Eugene Smith et al.
Nature, 22 March 2018, Pages 511–515
Abstract:
Approximately 74 thousand years ago (ka), the Toba caldera erupted in Sumatra. Since the magnitude of this eruption was first established, its effects on climate, environment and humans have been debated. Here we describe the discovery of microscopic glass shards characteristic of the Youngest Toba Tuff — ashfall from the Toba eruption — in two archaeological sites on the south coast of South Africa, a region in which there is evidence for early human behavioural complexity. An independently derived dating model supports a date of approximately 74 ka for the sediments containing the Youngest Toba Tuff glass shards. By defining the input of shards at both sites, which are located nine kilometres apart, we are able to establish a close temporal correlation between them. Our high-resolution excavation and sampling technique enable exact comparisons between the input of Youngest Toba Tuff glass shards and the evidence for human occupation. Humans in this region thrived through the Toba event and the ensuing full glacial conditions, perhaps as a combined result of the uniquely rich resource base of the region and fully evolved modern human adaptation.
Population genomic analysis of elongated skulls reveals extensive female-biased immigration in Early Medieval Bavaria
Krishna Veeramah et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, forthcoming
Abstract:
Modern European genetic structure demonstrates strong correlations with geography, while genetic analysis of prehistoric humans has indicated at least two major waves of immigration from outside the continent during periods of cultural change. However, population-level genome data that could shed light on the demographic processes occurring during the intervening periods have been absent. Therefore, we generated genomic data from 41 individuals dating mostly to the late 5th/early 6th century AD from present-day Bavaria in southern Germany, including 11 whole genomes (mean depth 5.56×). In addition we developed a capture array to sequence neutral regions spanning a total of 5 Mb and 486 functional polymorphic sites to high depth (mean 72×) in all individuals. Our data indicate that while men generally had ancestry that closely resembles modern northern and central Europeans, women exhibit a very high genetic heterogeneity; this includes signals of genetic ancestry ranging from western Europe to East Asia. Particularly striking are women with artificial skull deformations; the analysis of their collective genetic ancestry suggests an origin in southeastern Europe. In addition, functional variants indicate that they also differed in visible characteristics. This example of female-biased migration indicates that complex demographic processes during the Early Medieval period may have contributed in an unexpected way to shape the modern European genetic landscape. Examination of the panel of functional loci also revealed that many alleles associated with recent positive selection were already at modern-like frequencies in European populations ∼1,500 years ago.
Long-distance stone transport and pigment use in the earliest Middle Stone Age
Alison Brooks et al.
Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous research suggests that the complex symbolic, technological, and socio-economic behaviors that typify Homo sapiens had roots in the middle Pleistocene
Reconstructing the genetic history of late Neanderthals
Mateja Hajdinjak et al.
Nature, forthcoming
Abstract:
Although it has previously been shown that Neanderthals contributed DNA to modern humans, not much is known about the genetic diversity of Neanderthals or the relationship between late Neanderthal populations at the time at which their last interactions with early modern humans occurred and before they eventually disappeared. Our ability to retrieve DNA from a larger number of Neanderthal individuals has been limited by poor preservation of endogenous DNA and contamination of Neanderthal skeletal remains by large amounts of microbial and present-day human DNA. Here we use hypochlorite treatment of as little as 9 mg of bone or tooth powder to generate between 1- and 2.7-fold genomic coverage of five Neanderthals who lived around 39,000 to 47,000 years ago (that is, late Neanderthals), thereby doubling the number of Neanderthals for which genome sequences are available. Genetic similarity among late Neanderthals is well predicted by their geographical location, and comparison to the genome of an older Neanderthal from the Caucasus indicates that a population turnover is likely to have occurred, either in the Caucasus or throughout Europe, towards the end of Neanderthal history. We find that the bulk of Neanderthal gene flow into early modern humans originated from one or more source populations that diverged from the Neanderthals that were studied here at least 70,000 years ago, but after they split from a previously sequenced Neanderthal from Siberia around 150,000 years ago. Although four of the Neanderthals studied here post-date the putative arrival of early modern humans into Europe, we do not detect any recent gene flow from early modern humans in their ancestry.
Fish and salt: The successful recipe of White Nile Mesolithic hunter-gatherer-fishers
Lara Maritan et al.
Journal of Archaeological Science, April 2018, Pages 48–62
Abstract:
In prehistoric hunter-gatherer-fisher communities, demographic growth and a more sedentary life-style are usually associated with locally concentrated food resources. Technologies believed to have been employed for preserving excess food resources include, among many others, salting, smoking, and/or sun-drying of fish and meat. However, direct proof of salting is often lacking, as salt is highly soluble. We present here the first robust evidence of the earliest known examples of fish salting from Middle Mesolithic structures at an archaeological site in Central Sudan (7th millennium BC). A multidisciplinary approach was applied, including a contextual geoarchaeological study (field analysis; micromorphological and scanning electron microscopy), a mineralogical-microstructural analysis of salt crystallization (X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy), and a chemical analysis of salt concentration (ionic chromatography) in the soil in which salted fish bones have been found. The results indicate that salting fish with the aim of preserving it was common at the site of Al Khiday since the Middle Mesolithic and this habit cannot be related to post-depositional precipitation due to aridification of the area. A clear-cut emphasis on fishing characterized the economy of the human population of the time. This foraging system, together with salting and storing fish seems to be closely connected with its nearly sedentary status.
Chronology of the Acheulean to Middle Stone Age transition in eastern Africa
Alan Deino et al.
Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
The origin of the Middle Stone Age (MSA) denotes the transition from a highly persistent mode of stone toolmaking, the Acheulean, to a period of increasing technological innovation and cultural indicators associated with the evolution of Homo sapiens. Here we use 40Ar/39Ar and U-series dating to calibrate the chronology of Acheulean- and early MSA-rich sedimentary deposits in the Olorgesailie Basin, South Kenya Rift. We establish the age of late Acheulean tool assemblages from 615 to 499 ka, after which a large technological and faunal transition occurred, with definitive MSA lacking Acheulean elements beginning most likely by ~320 ka, but at least by 305 ka. These results establish the currently oldest repository of MSA in eastern Africa.
Environmental dynamics during the onset of the Middle Stone Age in eastern Africa
Richard Potts et al.
Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Development of the African Middle Stone Age (MSA) before 300 thousand years ago (ka) raises the question of how environmental change influenced the evolution of behaviors characteristic of early Homo sapiens. We use temporally well-constrained sedimentological and paleoenvironmental data to investigate environmental dynamics before and after the appearance of the early MSA in the Olorgesailie Basin, Kenya. In contrast to the Acheulean archeological record in the same basin, MSA sites are associated with a dramatically different faunal community, more pronounced erosion-deposition cycles, tectonic activity, and enhanced wet-dry variability. As early as 615 ka, aspects of Acheulean technology in this region imply that greater stone material selectivity and wider resource procurement coincided with an increased pace of land-lake fluctuation, potentially anticipating the adaptability of MSA hominins.
Pleistocene North African genomes link Near Eastern and sub-Saharan African human populations
Marieke van de Loosdrecht et al.
Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
North Africa is a key region for understanding human history, but the genetic history of its people is largely unknown. We present genomic data from seven 15,000-year-old modern humans from Morocco, attributed to the Iberomaurusian culture. We find a genetic affinity with early Holocene Near Easterners, best represented by Levantine Natufians, suggesting a pre-agricultural connection between Africa and the Near East. We do not find evidence for gene flow from Paleolithic Europeans into Late Pleistocene North Africans. The Taforalt individuals derive one third of their ancestry from sub-Saharan Africans, best approximated by a mixture of genetic components preserved in present-day West and East Africans. Thus, we provide direct evidence for genetic interactions between modern humans across Africa and Eurasia in the Pleistocene.
Analysis of Human Sequence Data Reveals Two Pulses of Archaic Denisovan Admixture
Sharon Browning et al.
Cell, 22 March 2018, Pages 53–61
Abstract:
Anatomically modern humans interbred with Neanderthals and with a related archaic population known as Denisovans. Genomes of several Neanderthals and one Denisovan have been sequenced, and these reference genomes have been used to detect introgressed genetic material in present-day human genomes. Segments of introgression also can be detected without use of reference genomes, and doing so can be advantageous for finding introgressed segments that are less closely related to the sequenced archaic genomes. We apply a new reference-free method for detecting archaic introgression to 5,639 whole-genome sequences from Eurasia and Oceania. We find Denisovan ancestry in populations from East and South Asia and Papuans. Denisovan ancestry comprises two components with differing similarity to the sequenced Altai Denisovan individual. This indicates that at least two distinct instances of Denisovan admixture into modern humans occurred, involving Denisovan populations that had different levels of relatedness to the sequenced Altai Denisovan.
Agricultural origins on the Anatolian plateau
Douglas Baird et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper explores the explanations for, and consequences of, the early appearance of food production outside the Fertile Crescent of Southwest Asia, where it originated in the 10th/9th millennia cal BC. We present evidence that cultivation appeared in Central Anatolia through adoption by indigenous foragers in the mid ninth millennium cal BC, but also demonstrate that uptake was not uniform, and that some communities chose to actively disregard cultivation. Adoption of cultivation was accompanied by experimentation with sheep/goat herding in a system of low-level food production that was integrated into foraging practices rather than used to replace them. Furthermore, rather than being a short-lived transitional state, low-level food production formed part of a subsistence strategy that lasted for several centuries, although its adoption had significant long-term social consequences for the adopting community at Boncuklu. Material continuities suggest that Boncuklu’s community was ancestral to that seen at the much larger settlement of Çatalhöyük East from 7100 cal BC, by which time a modest involvement with food production had been transformed into a major commitment to mixed farming, allowing the sustenance of a very large sedentary community. This evidence from Central Anatolia illustrates that polarized positions explaining the early spread of farming, opposing indigenous adoption to farmer colonization, are unsuited to understanding local sequences of subsistence and related social change. We go beyond identifying the mechanisms for the spread of farming by investigating the shorter- and longer-term implications of rejecting or adopting farming practices.
Population Turnover in Remote Oceania Shortly after Initial Settlement
Mark Lipson et al.
Current Biology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Ancient DNA from Vanuatu and Tonga dating to about 2,900–2,600 years ago (before present, BP) has revealed that the “First Remote Oceanians” associated with the Lapita archaeological culture were directly descended from the population that, beginning around 5000 BP, spread Austronesian languages from Taiwan to the Philippines, western Melanesia, and eventually Remote Oceania. Thus, ancestors of the First Remote Oceanians must have passed by the Papuan-ancestry populations they encountered in New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago, and the Solomon Islands with minimal admixture. However, all present-day populations in Near and Remote Oceania harbor >25% Papuan ancestry, implying that additional eastward migration must have occurred. We generated genome-wide data for 14 ancient individuals from Efate and Epi Islands in Vanuatu from 2900–150 BP, as well as 185 present-day individuals from 18 islands. We find that people of almost entirely Papuan ancestry arrived in Vanuatu by around 2300 BP, most likely reflecting migrations a few hundred years earlier at the end of the Lapita period, when there is also evidence of changes in skeletal morphology and cessation of long-distance trade between Near and Remote Oceania. Papuan ancestry was subsequently diluted through admixture but remains at least 80%–90% in most islands. Through a fine-grained analysis of ancestry profiles, we show that the Papuan ancestry in Vanuatu derives from the Bismarck Archipelago rather than the geographically closer Solomon Islands. However, the Papuan ancestry in Polynesia — the most remote Pacific islands — derives from different sources, documenting a third stream of migration from Near to Remote Oceania.