Past Out
Inebriation and the early state: Beer and the politics of affect in Mesopotamia
Tate Paulette
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, forthcoming
Abstract:
Many early states were deeply invested in alcoholic beverages. In focusing on the political instrumentality of these beverages, however, archaeologists have often lost sight of what makes them such an effective tool of statecraft. People seek out alcoholic beverages because of their inebriating potential, their ability to transform people, places, atmospheres, and events. In this article, I consider the politics of affect and the enduring connection between alcohol and the state-making project. I argue that alcohol has long served as an affective technology, a means of intervening in the affective domain. As a case study, I explore the evidence for beer in early Mesopotamia. A fundamental element in the state-making arsenal, beer was recognized to produce distinctive effects on imbibers, but this affective dimension has often been sidestepped in the archaeological literature. I approach the topic from two angles: (1) Mesopotamian perspectives on the effects of beer consumption and (2) key parameters that need to be clarified if we are to assess the role of beer as affective technology. I hope that the roadmap laid out here will help to spark deeper archaeological engagement with the affective dimensions of alcohol consumption and the politics of affect in Mesopotamia and beyond.
Communal drinking rituals and social formations in the Yellow River valley of Neolithic China
Li Liu
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, forthcoming
Abstract:
China’s long history of alcoholic beverage production can be traced to the beginning of the Neolithic period when feasting with such drinks became essential in ritual and political contexts, thus setting the pattern throughout Chinese history. Recent studies employing multi-disciplinary approaches have generated new data on the early development of alcoholic fermentation in prehistory. This paper synthesizes the current understanding about alcoholic beverage production and consumption in the Yellow River region of north China during the Neolithic period, with a focus on the Yangshao culture (ca. 7000–4700 cal. BP). Discussion topics include the development of beer brewing methods, changing forms of fermentation vessels, symbolic meanings of surface decoration on brewing vessels, settlement layouts and public buildings in relation to feasting activities, alcoholic beverages as a luxury food item associated with emergent elite powers, and the underlying dynamics related to the unprecedented regional expansion of Yangshao communities in association with drinking rituals. The intensified ritual activities involving communal drinking may have been intended to build and expand social networks, sustain intra- and inter-group solidarity and support, as well as to help elites gain and maintain power during a period of climatic fluctuation with diminishing precipitation in north China.
Middle Pleistocene fire use: The first signal of widespread cultural diffusion in human evolution
Katharine MacDonald et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 3 August 2021
Abstract:
Control of fire is one of the most important technological innovations within the evolution of humankind. The archaeological signal of fire use becomes very visible from around 400,000 y ago onward. Interestingly, this occurs at a geologically similar time over major parts of the Old World, in Africa, as well as in western Eurasia, and in different subpopulations of the wider hominin metapopulation. We interpret this spatiotemporal pattern as the result of cultural diffusion, and as representing the earliest clear-cut case of widespread cultural change resulting from diffusion in human evolution. This fire-use pattern is followed slightly later by a similar spatiotemporal distribution of Levallois technology, at the beginning of the African Middle Stone Age and the western Eurasian Middle Paleolithic. These archaeological data, as well as studies of ancient genomes, lead us to hypothesize that at the latest by 400,000 y ago, hominin subpopulations encountered one another often enough and were sufficiently tolerant toward one another to transmit ideas and techniques over large regions within relatively short time periods. Furthermore, it is likely that the large-scale social networks necessary to transmit complicated skills were also in place. Most importantly, this suggests a form of cultural behavior significantly more similar to that of extant Homo sapiens than to our great ape relatives.
The genomic history of the Middle East
Mohamed Almarri et al.
Cell, forthcoming
Abstract:
The Middle East region is important to understand human evolution and migrations but is underrepresented in genomic studies. Here, we generated 137 high-coverage physically phased genome sequences from eight Middle Eastern populations using linked-read sequencing. We found no genetic traces of early expansions out-of-Africa in present-day populations but found Arabians have elevated Basal Eurasian ancestry that dilutes their Neanderthal ancestry. Population sizes within the region started diverging 15–20 kya, when Levantines expanded while Arabians maintained smaller populations that derived ancestry from local hunter-gatherers. Arabians suffered a population bottleneck around the aridification of Arabia 6 kya, while Levantines had a distinct bottleneck overlapping the 4.2 kya aridification event. We found an association between movement and admixture of populations in the region and the spread of Semitic languages. Finally, we identify variants that show evidence of selection, including polygenic selection. Our results provide detailed insights into the genomic and selective histories of the Middle East.
Rare crested rat subfossils unveil Afro–Eurasian ecological corridors synchronous with early human dispersals
Ignacio Lazagabaster et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 3 August 2021
Abstract:
Biotic interactions between Africa and Eurasia across the Levant have invoked particular attention among scientists aiming to unravel early human dispersals. However, it remains unclear whether behavioral capacities enabled early modern humans to surpass the Saharo–Arabian deserts or if climatic changes triggered punctuated dispersals out of Africa. Here, we report an unusual subfossil assemblage discovered in a Judean Desert’s cliff cave near the Dead Sea and dated to between ∼42,000 and at least 103,000 y ago. Paleogenomic and morphological comparisons indicate that the specimens belong to an extinct subspecies of the eastern African crested rat, Lophiomys imhausi maremortum subspecies nova, which diverged from the modern eastern African populations in the late Middle Pleistocene ∼226,000 to 165,000 y ago. The reported paleomitogenome is the oldest so far in the Levant, opening the door for future paleoDNA analyses in the region. Species distribution modeling points to the presence of continuous habitat corridors connecting eastern Africa with the Levant during the Last Interglacial ∼129,000 to 116,000 y ago, providing further evidence of the northern ingression of African biomes into Eurasia and reinforcing previous suggestions of the critical role of climate change in Late Pleistocene intercontinental biogeography. Furthermore, our study complements other paleoenvironmental proxies with local — instead of interregional — paleoenvironmental data, opening an unprecedented window into the Dead Sea rift paleolandscape.
The symbolic role of the underground world among Middle Paleolithic Neanderthals
Africa Pitarch Martí et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 17 August 2021
Abstract:
Cueva de Ardales in Málaga, Spain, is one of the richest and best-preserved Paleolithic painted caves of southwestern Europe, containing over a thousand graphic representations. Here, we study the red pigment in panel II.A.3 of “Sala de las Estrellas,” dated by U-Th to the Middle Paleolithic, to determine its composition, verify its anthropogenic nature, infer the associated behaviors, and discuss their implications. Using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, micro-Raman spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction, we analyzed a set of samples from the panel and compared them to natural coloring materials collected from the floor and walls of the cave. The conspicuously different texture and composition of the geological samples indicates that the pigments used in the paintings do not come from the outcrops of colorant material known in the cave. We confirm that the paintings are not the result of natural processes and show that the composition of the paint is consistent with the artistic activity being recurrent. Our results strengthen the hypothesis that Neanderthals symbolically used these paintings and the large stalagmitic dome harboring them over an extended time span.
Tracking the transition to agriculture in Southern Europe through ancient DNA analysis of dental calculus
Claudio Ottoni et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 10 August 2021
Abstract:
Archaeological dental calculus, or mineralized plaque, is a key tool to track the evolution of oral microbiota across time in response to processes that impacted our culture and biology, such as the rise of farming during the Neolithic. However, the extent to which the human oral flora changed from prehistory until present has remained elusive due to the scarcity of data on the microbiomes of prehistoric humans. Here, we present our reconstruction of oral microbiomes via shotgun metagenomics of dental calculus in 44 ancient foragers and farmers from two regions playing a pivotal role in the spread of farming across Europe — the Balkans and the Italian Peninsula. We show that the introduction of farming in Southern Europe did not alter significantly the oral microbiomes of local forager groups, and it was in particular associated with a higher abundance of the species Olsenella sp. oral taxon 807. The human oral environment in prehistory was dominated by a microbial species, Anaerolineaceae bacterium oral taxon 439, that diversified geographically. A Near Eastern lineage of this bacterial commensal dispersed with Neolithic farmers and replaced the variant present in the local foragers. Our findings also illustrate that major taxonomic shifts in human oral microbiome composition occurred after the Neolithic and that the functional profile of modern humans evolved in recent times to develop peculiar mechanisms of antibiotic resistance that were previously absent.
Blood groups of Neandertals and Denisova decrypted
Silvana Condemi et al.
PLoS ONE, July 2021
Abstract:
Blood group systems were the first phenotypic markers used in anthropology to decipher the origin of populations, their migratory movements, and their admixture. The recent emergence of new technologies based on the decoding of nucleic acids from an individual’s entire genome has relegated them to their primary application, blood transfusion. Thus, despite the finer mapping of the modern human genome in relation to Neanderthal and Denisova populations, little is known about red cell blood groups in these archaic populations. Here we analyze the available high-quality sequences of three Neanderthals and one Denisovan individuals for 7 blood group systems that are used today in transfusion (ABO including H/Se, Rh (Rhesus), Kell, Duffy, Kidd, MNS, Diego). We show that Neanderthal and Denisova were polymorphic for ABO and shared blood group alleles recurrent in modern Sub-Saharan populations. Furthermore, we found ABO-related alleles currently preventing from viral gut infection and Neanderthal RHD and RHCE alleles nowadays associated with a high risk of hemolytic disease of the fetus and newborn. Such a common blood group pattern across time and space is coherent with a Neanderthal population of low genetic diversity exposed to low reproductive success and with their inevitable demise. Lastly, we connect a Neanderthal RHD allele to two present-day Aboriginal Australian and Papuan, suggesting that a segment of archaic genome was introgressed in this gene in non-Eurasian populations. While contributing to both the origin and late evolutionary history of Neanderthal and Denisova, our results further illustrate that blood group systems are a relevant piece of the puzzle helping to decipher it.