Real Old
Middle Pleistocene Homo behavior and culture at 140,000 to 120,000 years ago and interactions with Homo sapiens
Yossi Zaidner et al.
Science, 25 June 2021, Pages 1429-1433
Abstract:
Fossils of a Middle Pleistocene (MP) Homo within a well-defined archaeological context at the open-air site of Nesher Ramla, Israel, shed light on MP Homo culture and behavior. Radiometric ages, along with cultural and stratigraphic considerations, suggest that the fossils are 140,000 to 120,000 years old, chronologically overlapping with H. sapiens in western Asia. Lithic analysis reveals that MP Homo mastered stone-tool production technologies, previously known only among H. sapiens and Neanderthals. The Levallois knapping methods they used are indistinguishable from that of concurrent H. sapiens in western Asia. The most parsimonious explanation for such a close similarity is the cultural interactions between these two populations. These findings constitute evidence of contacts and interactions between H. sapiens and MP Homo.
A Middle Pleistocene Homo from Nesher Ramla, Israel
Israel Hershkovitz et al.
Science, 25 June 2021, Pages 1424-1428
Abstract:
It has long been believed that Neanderthals originated and flourished on the European continent. However, recent morphological and genetic studies have suggested that they may have received a genetic contribution from a yet unknown non-European group. Here we report on the recent discovery of archaic Homo fossils from the site of Nesher Ramla, Israel, which we dated to 140,000 to 120,000 years ago. Comprehensive qualitative and quantitative analyses of the parietal bones, mandible, and lower second molar revealed that this Homo group presents a distinctive combination of Neanderthal and archaic features. We suggest that these specimens represent the late survivors of a Levantine Middle Pleistocene paleodeme that was most likely involved in the evolution of the Middle Pleistocene Homo in Europe and East Asia.
Hydroclimate changes in eastern Africa over the past 200,000 years may have influenced early human dispersal
Frank Schaebitz et al.
Communications Earth & Environment, June 2021
Abstract:
Reconstructions of climatic and environmental conditions can contribute to current debates about the factors that influenced early human dispersal within and beyond Africa. Here we analyse a 200,000-year multi-proxy paleoclimate record from Chew Bahir, a tectonic lake basin in the southern Ethiopian rift. Our record reveals two modes of climate change, both associated temporally and regionally with a specific type of human behavior. The first is a long-term trend towards greater aridity between 200,000 and 60,000 years ago, modulated by precession-driven wet-dry cycles. Here, more favorable wetter environmental conditions may have facilitated long-range human expansion into new territory, while less favorable dry periods may have led to spatial constriction and isolation of local human populations. The second mode of climate change observed since 60,000 years ago mimics millennial to centennial-scale Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles and Heinrich events. We hypothesize that human populations may have responded to these shorter climate fluctuations with local dispersal between montane and lowland habitats.
Reopening graves in the early Middle Ages: From local practice to European phenomenon
Alison Klevnäs et al.
Antiquity, forthcoming
Abstract:
Across Europe early medieval archaeologists have long recognised significant numbers of graves displaying evidence for the intentional post-burial disturbance of skeletons and artefacts. The practice of reopening and manipulating graves soon after burial, traditionally described -- and dismissed -- as ‘robbing’, is documented at cemeteries from Transylvania to southern England. This article presents a synthesis of five recent regional studies to investigate the evidence of and the motivations for the reopening of early medieval graves. From the later sixth century AD, the reopening of individual graves and removal of selected artefact types rapidly became part of the shared treatment of the dead across this wide area.
Pleistocene sediment DNA reveals hominin and faunal turnovers at Denisova Cave
Elena Zavala et al.
Nature, forthcoming
Abstract:
Denisova Cave in southern Siberia is the type locality of the Denisovans, an archaic hominin group who were related to Neanderthals. The dozen hominin remains recovered from the deposits also include Neanderthals and the child of a Neanderthal and a Denisovan, which suggests that Denisova Cave was a contact zone between these archaic hominins. However, uncertainties persist about the order in which these groups appeared at the site, the timing and environmental context of hominin occupation, and the association of particular hominin groups with archaeological assemblages. Here we report the analysis of DNA from 728 sediment samples that were collected in a grid-like manner from layers dating to the Pleistocene epoch. We retrieved ancient faunal and hominin mitochondrial (mt)DNA from 685 and 175 samples, respectively. The earliest evidence for hominin mtDNA is of Denisovans, and is associated with early Middle Palaeolithic stone tools that were deposited approximately 250,000 to 170,000 years ago; Neanderthal mtDNA first appears towards the end of this period. We detect a turnover in the mtDNA of Denisovans that coincides with changes in the composition of faunal mtDNA, and evidence that Denisovans and Neanderthals occupied the site repeatedly—possibly until, or after, the onset of the Initial Upper Palaeolithic at least 45,000 years ago, when modern human mtDNA is first recorded in the sediments.
Massive cranium from Harbin in northeastern China establishes a new Middle Pleistocene human lineage
Xijun Ni et al.
The Innovation, June 2021
Abstract:
It has recently become clear that several human lineages coexisted with Homo sapiens during the late Middle and Late Pleistocene. Here, we report an archaic human fossil that throws new light on debates concerning the diversification of the Homo genus and the origin of H. sapiens. The fossil was recovered in Harbin city in northeastern China, with a minimum uranium-series age of 146 ka. This cranium is one of the best preserved Middle Pleistocene human fossils. Its massive size, with a large cranial capacity (∼1,420 mL) falling in the range of modern humans, is combined with a mosaic of primitive and derived characters. It differs from all the other named Homo species by presenting a combination of features, such as long and low cranial vault, a wide and low face, large and almost square orbits, gently curved but massively developed supraorbital torus, flat and low cheekbones with a shallow canine fossa, and a shallow palate with thick alveolar bone supporting very large molars. The excellent preservation of the Harbin cranium advances our understanding of several less-complete late Middle Pleistocene fossils from China, which have been interpreted as local evolutionary intermediates between the earlier species Homo erectus and later H. sapiens. Phylogenetic analyses based on parsimony criteria and Bayesian tip-dating suggest that the Harbin cranium and some other Middle Pleistocene human fossils from China, such as those from Dali and Xiahe, form a third East Asian lineage, which is a part of the sister group of the H. sapiens lineage. Our analyses of such morphologically distinctive archaic human lineages from Asia, Europe, and Africa suggest that the diversification of the Homo genus may have had a much deeper timescale than previously presumed. Sympatric isolation of small populations combined with stochastic long-distance dispersals is the best fitting biogeographical model for interpreting the evolution of the Homo genus.
An ancient viral epidemic involving host coronavirus interacting genes more than 20,000 years ago in East Asia
Yassine Souilmi et al.
Current Biology, forthcoming
Abstract:
The current severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has emphasized the vulnerability of human populations to novel viral pressures, despite the vast array of epidemiological and biomedical tools now available. Notably, modern human genomes contain evolutionary information tracing back tens of thousands of years, which may help identify the viruses that have impacted our ancestors — pointing to which viruses have future pandemic potential. Here, we apply evolutionary analyses to human genomic datasets to recover selection events involving tens of human genes that interact with coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2, that likely started more than 20,000 years ago. These adaptive events were limited to the population ancestral to East Asian populations. Multiple lines of functional evidence support an ancient viral selective pressure, and East Asia is the geographical origin of several modern coronavirus epidemics. An arms race with an ancient coronavirus, or with a different virus that happened to use similar interactions as coronaviruses with human hosts, may thus have taken place in ancestral East Asian populations. By learning more about our ancient viral foes, our study highlights the promise of evolutionary information to better predict the pandemics of the future. Importantly, adaptation to ancient viral epidemics in specific human populations does not necessarily imply any difference in genetic susceptibility between different human populations, and the current evidence points toward an overwhelming impact of socioeconomic factors in the case of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Helicobacter pylori’s historical journey through Siberia and the Americas
Yoshan Moodley et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 22 June 2021
Abstract:
The gastric bacterium Helicobacter pylori shares a coevolutionary history with humans that predates the out-of-Africa diaspora, and the geographical specificities of H. pylori populations reflect multiple well-known human migrations. We extensively sampled H. pylori from 16 ethnically diverse human populations across Siberia to help resolve whether ancient northern Eurasian populations persisted at high latitudes through the last glacial maximum and the relationships between present-day Siberians and Native Americans. A total of 556 strains were cultivated and genotyped by multilocus sequence typing, and 54 representative draft genomes were sequenced. The genetic diversity across Eurasia and the Americas was structured into three populations: hpAsia2, hpEastAsia, and hpNorthAsia. hpNorthAsia is closely related to the subpopulation hspIndigenousAmericas from Native Americans. Siberian bacteria were structured into five other subpopulations, two of which evolved through a divergence from hpAsia2 and hpNorthAsia, while three originated though Holocene admixture. The presence of both anciently diverged and recently admixed strains across Siberia support both Pleistocene persistence and Holocene recolonization. We also show that hspIndigenousAmericas is endemic in human populations across northern Eurasia. The evolutionary history of hspIndigenousAmericas was reconstructed using approximate Bayesian computation, which showed that it colonized the New World in a single migration event associated with a severe demographic bottleneck followed by low levels of recent admixture across the Bering Strait.