History

[CaaC (John)]

They Knew Saber-Toothed Tigers Were Big. Then They Found This Skull.

Then the curator mentioned a huge sabre-toothed tiger skull stored behind the scenes of the National Museum of Natural History in Montevideo, Uruguay, Aldo Manzuetti had to see for himself.

The skull belonged to Smilodon populator. Extinct for about 10,000 years, the heavily muscled species once Hulk-smashed its way through South American fauna in the Pleistocene. To picture a normal individual, start with an African lion. Then double its size and add giant fangs.

But this one wasn’t normal. The skull was 16 inches long, making previous large specimens from the species look small. “I thought I was doing something wrong,” said Mr Manzuetti, a doctoral student in palaeontology at the Uruguay’s University of the Republic. He was using the head to infer the likely size of the animal’s body. “I checked the results a lot of times, and only after doing that I realized I hadn’t made any mistakes.”

His analysis showed the skull sat atop a beast that likely tipped the scales at around 960 pounds. The specimen’s existence, he and colleagues reported earlier this month in the journal Alcheringa, suggests that the largest sabre-toothed tigers might have been able to take down giant plant-eaters, heavy as pickup trucks, that researchers had thought were untouchable.

Ricardo Praderi, an amateur collector, first dug up the prehistoric predator’s skull in September 1989 in southern Uruguay. The site had otherwise yielded only the fossils of herbivores. He then donated it to the archives of the national museum, Mr Manzuetti said.

“I would love to find something like that,” said Margaret Lewis, a palaeontologist at Stockton University in New Jersey who did not participate in the research.

Scientists knew South America was haunted by the ghosts of vanished Pleistocene carnivores. Beyond Smilodon populator, known since 1842 from fossils in a Brazilian cave, the continent also hosted another smaller Smilodon species, as well as jaguars, lions and Arctotherium, the biggest bear ever known. The sabre-tooths were cats, not tigers, although the more fearsome name has stuck in many settings. The first humans to settle the continent, God help them, arrived at around the same time.

But the top tier of possible prey — armoured armadillos comparable to Volkswagens, lumbering mastodons, the 12-foot-tall ground sloth Megatherium — would have challenged even the fiercest hunter.

“We’ve always wondered: Who could take down a giant ground sloth?” said Kevin Seymour, a palaeontologist at Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum who reviewed the research.

The new skull suggests an answer. “If Smilodon is getting this big, there’s a potential for it to be taking down these giant adult herbivores,” Dr Seymour said. Still, whether it actually did depends on a few factors.

Big cats alive today can’t bring down anything too far beyond their own size, because they kill by strangling or breaking the necks of their victims. That forces them to wrestle up close and dodge flailing limbs and hooves. But palaeontologists believe Smilodon may have used more elegant weapons — its signature sabres — to slash a vulnerable area. Then it could step back and wait in safety, putting larger prey on the menu.

If Smilodon hunted in teams, that would also have allowed it to hunt much larger animals. But the evidence it worked in packs is still equivocal, Dr Seymour said.

Mr Manzuetti’s team also pointed out damage on the front of the skull that could suggest an attack from a sabre-bearing rival.

“If that is true, that is a fascinating finding,” Dr Lewis said. But what stood out to her most was the sheer size. “It’s a beautiful thing to look at,” she said. “I just keep thinking of the power, and the potential things that this animal could have been doing out there in the ecosystem.”

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/they-knew-saber-toothed-tigers-were-big-then-they-found-this-skull/ar-BB11gmzS

Edited April 3, 2020 by CaaC (John)

[CaaC (John)]

This ‘wonder chicken’ walked the Earth with dinosaurs

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Twenty years ago, near the border between Belgium and the Netherlands, an amateur fossil hunter named Maarten van Dinther picked up a featureless block of rock the size of a pack of cards. Though he didn’t know it at the time, the little slab contained a tiny and perfect skull from the oldest direct relative of modern birds ever discovered, a fowl that walked the Earth with dinosaurs.

The animal, affectionately dubbed the ‘wonder chicken’ by the international team of scientists that analyzed the fossil, lived 66.7 million years ago, just 700,000 years before the asteroid impact that killed off all non-avian dinosaurs. Named Asteriornis in a paper published today in Nature, the species—known from fossils of its hind limbs in addition to its skull—has features similar to both ducks and chickens, suggesting it was related to the shared ancestor of both groups.

“This is an extraordinary and exciting find, which reveals new insights in a very poorly known chapter of avian evolution,” says Gerald Mayr, an ornithologist and expert on bird evolution at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt, Germany, who was not part of the new study.

Asteriornis was a long-legged shorebird that could probably fly and likely combed the beaches of late Cretaceous Europe, which then had strings of islands in warm and shallow seas and a climate similar to the present-day Bahamas.

Contemporary of T. rex

“This is the first time we've seen the well-preserved skull of a modern bird from the age of dinosaurs,” says study lead author Daniel Field, a palaeontologist at the University of Cambridge. “Asteriornis provides us with our clearest glimpse yet of what modern birds were like at the … the point in time when T. rex and Triceratops were still alive.”

The 66.7-million-year-old fossil comes from the Northern Hemisphere, while all other remains of modern birds from the Cretaceous period have been from the Southern Hemisphere. Such fossils include the bones of a duck-like species named Vegavis, which were found in 66.5-million-year-old rocks of the Antarctic Peninsula and described in 2005.

While many birds lived alongside the dinosaurs, the majority were members of archaic groups, such as the toothed Enantiornithes, which went extinct along with most of the larger land animals. All modern birds emerged from a single group called the Neornithes, which appeared toward the end of the Cretaceous. 

“The specimen is beautiful, the first really nice Neornithine from the Cretaceous,” says Jingmai O’Connor, an expert on fossil birds at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, China, who was not part of the new study.

Until now, most fossils of birds from the Cretaceous that were related to living species have been “fragmentary and dubious,” she says, but the new discovery hints at the potential to find additional well-preserved modern bird relatives that lived prior to the impact and extinction event.

Anatomy of a ‘wonder chicken’

Asteriornis likely resembled the last common ancestor of Anseriformes, an order of birds including ducks and geese, and Galliformes, such as chickens and turkeys. “We knew already that these clades split during the Cretaceous, so we knew the ancestors to these groups were around,” O’Connor says. “But now palaeontologists have finally found one.”

The skulls of living chickens and ducks “are very different in the present day, so the skull of Asteriornis provides the first glimpse we’ve ever had at what the skull of the most recent common ancestor of these groups probably looked like,” Field says.

Other living bird groups that are thought to have appeared during the Cretaceous period include the Paleognath birds, such as ostriches, emus, rheas, and cassowaries. Paleognaths, Anseriformes, and Galliformes are some of the deepest branches in the family tree of modern birds, and many other bird groups may not have appeared until after the asteroid impact.

A chance discovery

After finding the ‘wonder chicken’ fossils in 2000, van Dinther donated the specimens to the Natural History Museum of Maastricht in the Netherlands. The curator of that museum and co-author of the new study, John Jagt, sent the four small blocks of rock with limb bones poking out to Field in 2018.

From the outward appearance of the fossils, Field had low hopes of finding anything more exciting than broken limb bones. But birds from the late Cretaceous are rare, so he decided to run the fossils through a high-resolution CT scanner to visualize what was concealed within the rock.

He and one of his PhD students, Juan Benito, were staggered to discover “a beautifully preserved, nearly complete, 3D skull of a modern bird,” Field says. “It is the first modern bird skull from the entire Mesozoic era, and one of the best-preserved fossil bird skulls of any age.”

The discovery was one of the most exciting moments of Field’s scientific career to date, he says. The study authors named the new species after Asteria, the Greek Titan goddess of falling stars, who transformed herself into a quail—an appropriate name for a bird that lived shortly before the impact that marked the end of the era of dinosaurs, Field says.

Piecing together avian history

A number of finds in recent years have shed light on the prehistoric origins of living bird groups and how these animals managed to survive one of the biggest extinction events in Earth’s history. Fossil birds from both New Zealand and Antarctica that lived shortly after the impact were described as species in the past few years, Mayr says.

Because many of the oldest fossils of modern birds are from the Southern Hemisphere, including the previous record-holder for the oldest modern bird, Vegavis from Antarctica, some palaeontologists suggested that modern birds originated on the southern supercontinent of Gondwana during the time of the dinosaurs. But this new discovery of an even older bird than Vegavis in the Northern Hemisphere throws a wrench into this theory.

“At this point, I think the only thing we can say for sure is that the geographic origins of modern birds are truly mysterious,” Field says. “Only future fossil discoveries will be able to tell us where on Earth modern birds originated.”

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/this-wonderchicken-walked-the-earth-with-dinosaurs/ar-BB11mQWU#image=BB11mQWU_1|3

[CaaC (John)]

Discovery in Tomb Reveals Ancient Game of Donkey Polo

© Image: S. Hu et al., 2020/Antiquity (a) and (b) Donkey pottery figures previously found in Xi’an, (c) Tang Dynasty drawing of donkeys used for hauling.

Archaeologists in China have unearthed a tomb belonging to a 9th-century noblewoman who was buried alongside her donkeys, which she likely rode while playing an ancient version of polo.

New research published this week in Antiquity describes the tomb of Cui Shi, an Imperial Chinese noblewoman who died in 878 CE. Her tomb was found eight years ago in Xi’an, China and appears to have been badly looted. Thankfully, some pieces of little value were left in the tomb, including a stone epitaph that identified the tomb as belonging to Cui Shi, the wife of an esteemed governor.

Much to the surprise of the archaeologists, this elite member of society was buried alongside three donkeys, which the researchers say is the first physical evidence of donkey polo dating back to this time period. Tang Dynasty (618 CE to 907 CE) texts describe the use of donkeys for this ancient sport, but archaeological evidence had been lacking until now. The new paper was led by Songmei Hu from the Shaanxi Academy of Archaeology in Xi’an, China.

Donkeys were a critical resource in ancient times, enabling trade and the transportation of goods (both for commerce and the military), in addition to their use on farms. As for their use in entertainment and leisure activities, not so much is known. The new research is important in that it highlights a rare and unusual role played by donkeys in Imperial China, while also providing a glimpse into the life of high-status Imperial Chinese women.

What’s more, the use of these animals as grave goods points to a potential spiritual role for donkeys as well. The donkeys were buried alongside Cui Shi “so that they could accompany [her] spirit into the afterlife,” according to the new research. To the Imperial Chinese, donkeys were far more than just beasts of burden.

Polo is traditionally played on horseback, and the pastime can be traced back to ancient Persia (now Iran) and the Parthian Empire (circa 247 BCE to 224 CE), according to the researchers. The sport eventually spread to central China and the Tibetan Plateau by the 7th century.

Xi’an was the capital city and a major cultural and economic centre of the Tang Dynasty. Donkeys played an important role as pack animals, but citizens sometimes used these animals for the sport of donkey polo, known as Lvju in Imperial China.

© Image: S. Hu et al., 2020/Antiquity Cross-sections of donkey bones found in the tomb, specifically the humerus.

“Considered a prestigious sport, and originally important for training cavalry, polo was played on horseback by the military and the Tang court in Xi’an, and was esteemed by many Tang emperors,” wrote the authors. “The game, however, was dangerous and occasionally fatal, as the death of Emperor Muzong attests (reigned 821–824). Donkey polo, which used smaller, steadier donkeys rather than horses, became an alternative favourite participation sport for elite women and older individuals, as well as for the less affluent.”

The tomb of Cui Shi was made from brick and featured an entrance, a corridor, and a single burial chamber. In addition to the stone epitaph, the archaeologists found a lead stirrup and walls decorated with figures depicting servants and musicians. The remains of four cattle were also found in the tomb, in addition to the three donkey skeletons.

Written texts from the period describe Cui Shi, who died at age 59, and her husband, Bao Gao, a governor of two districts and an avid horse polo player. Bao Gao was once promoted by the emperor to participate in an important match and even lost an eye to the game, showing just how dangerous the sport really was and why some people chose to play the game on donkeys instead of horses, the authors wrote in the paper.

The analysis showed that all three donkeys were over the age of six when they died, so they would’ve been at a suitable age for the sport. What’s more, they were a bit undersized compared to those used for hauling. Radiocarbon dating placed the animals to the same time period as Cui Shi. The donkeys were “therefore buried at the same time as the occupant of the tomb, although we cannot be certain that the donkeys were used by Cui Shi herself,” wrote the authors in the study, adding that it’s unlikely that the donkeys were added to the tomb at a later date.

The scientists also measured the amount of biomechanical stress exerted onto the donkey bones over the course of their lifetimes, namely the humerus shaft. The authors hypothesized that “if these donkeys were used for polo, shaft geometry would more closely resemble that of wild asses, with locomotion that would be characterised by acceleration, deceleration and turns, rather than the steadier, slower gait of pack donkeys.”

Results showed a pattern consistent with tight turns, including the kinds seen in polo. What’s more, the patterns were inconsistent with those seen in either wild or domestic donkeys, including those used to carry heavy loads. That said, the researchers really had nothing to compare their samples to, as donkeys are no longer used for polo, so they caution that this part of their analysis isn’t fully conclusive.

Still, given the complete body of evidence, the authors conclude that donkeys were used by Cui Shi for sport, not transportation and that the animals were included in her tomb to ensure that she could continue to play polo in the afterlife.

It’s always a good thing when physical archaeological evidence is found to corroborate written texts. That said, more evidence could further bolster some of the claims made in the paper, such as the donkeys being used for polo and that Cui Shi herself was a donkey polo player.

Still, the thought of elaborately dressed Chinese nobles sitting atop donkeys while wielding polo sticks is pretty damned cool.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/discovery-in-tomb-reveals-ancient-game-of-donkey-polo/ar-BB11mP4S

[CaaC (John)]

© Provided by Evening Standard

Mysterious bone circles made from the remains of dozens of mammoths have helped shed light on how ancient communities survived Europe's Ice Age.

Around 70 of these structures are known to exist in Ukraine and the west Russian Plains.

The bones at one site are more than 20,000 years old, a new analysis suggests, making it the oldest such circular structure built by humans discovered in the region.

Researchers said the bones were most likely sourced from animal graveyards, and the circle was then hidden by sediment and is now one foot below current surface level.

The majority of the bones found at the Russian Plains site are from mammoths.

A total of 51 lower jaws and 64 individual mammoth skulls were used to construct the walls of the 30ft by 30ft structure and scattered across its interior.

Scientists also found small numbers of reindeer, horse, bear, wolf, red fox and arctic fox bones.

For the first time, the archaeologists from the University of Exeter found remains of charred wood and other soft non-woody plant remains within the circular structure near the modern village of Kostenki, about 500km south of Moscow.

They say this indicates people were burning wood as well as bones for fuel, and the communities who lived there had learned where to forage for edible plants during the Ice Age.

© Provided by Evening Standard A mysterious bone circle made from the remains of dozens of mammoths on the Russian Plains (PA)

Dr Alexander Pryor, who led the study, said: "Kostenki 11 represents a rare example of Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers living on in this harsh environment.

"What might have brought ancient hunter-gatherers to this site?

"One possibility is that the mammoths and humans could have come to the area en masse because it had a natural spring that would have provided unfrozen liquid water throughout the winter - rare in this period of extreme cold.

"These finds shed new light on the purpose of these mysterious sites.

"Archaeology is showing us more about how our ancestors survived in this desperately cold and hostile environment at the climax of the last Ice Age.

"Most other places at similar latitudes in Europe had been abandoned by this time, but these groups had managed to adapt to find food, shelter and water."

The last Ice Age, which swept northern Europe between 75-18,000 years ago, reached its coldest and most severe stage at around 23-18,000 years ago.

Most communities left the region, probably because of lack of prey to hunt and plant resources they depended upon for survival, scientists say.

Bone circles were eventually also abandoned as the climate continued to get colder and more inhospitable.

Previously, archaeologists have assumed the circular mammoth bone structures were used as dwellings, but the new study suggests this may not always have been the case.

The research, conducted by academics from the University of Exeter, University of Cambridge, Kostenki State Museum Preserve, University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Southampton, is published in the journal Antiquity.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/mysterious-bone-circles-made-of-mammoth-remains-help-explain-how-man-survived-ice-age/ar-BB11jA8R

[CaaC (John)]

Last-survivor of transatlantic slave trade discovered

Her 83-year-old grandson, Johnny Crear, had no idea about his grandmother's historic story.

In the 1960s, he had witnessed violence against civil rights marchers in Selma, where protesters had been addressed by Dr Martin Luther King.

On discovering his grandmother had been enslaved, he told BBC News: "I had a lot of mixed emotions.

"I thought if she hadn't undergone what had happened, I wouldn't be here.

"But that was followed by anger."

FULL REPORT

[CaaC (John)]

Neanderthals ate sharks and dolphins

Neanderthals were eating fish, mussels and seals at a site in present-day Portugal, according to a new study.

The research adds to mounting evidence that our evolutionary relatives may have relied on the sea for food just as much as ancient modern humans.

For decades, the ability to gather food from the sea and from rivers were seen as something unique to our own species.

Scientists found evidence for an intensive reliance on seafood at a Neanderthal site in southern Portugal.

Neanderthals living between 106,000 and 86,000 years ago at the cave of Figueira Brava near Setubal were eating mussels, crab, fish - including sharks, eels and sea bream - seabirds, dolphins and seals.

The research team, led by Dr João Zilhão from the University of Barcelona, Spain, found that marine food made up about 50% of the diet of the Figueira Brava Neanderthals. The other half came from terrestrial animals, such as deer, goats, horses, aurochs (ancient wild cattle) and tortoises.

Neanderthals 'dived in the ocean' for shellfish

Brain-boosters?

Some of the earliest known evidence for the exploitation of marine resources by modern humans (Homo sapiens) dates to around 160,000 years ago in southern Africa.

A few researchers previously proposed a theory that the brain-boosting fatty acids seafood contributed to enhanced cognitive development in early modern humans.

This, the theory goes, could help account for a period of marked invention and creativity that started among modern human populations in Africa around 200,000 years ago. It might also have assisted modern humans to outcompete other human groups such as the Neanderthals and Denisovans

But the researchers found that the Neanderthal inhabitants of Figueira Brava relied on the sea on a scale comparable to modern human groups living at a similar time in southern Africa.

Commenting on the findings, Dr Matthew Pope, from the Institute of Archaeology at UCL, UK, said: "Zilhão and the team claim to have identified 'middens'. This is a shorthand for humanly created structures (piles, heaps, mounds) formed almost entirely of the shell.

"They are important as they suggest a systematic and organised behaviour, from collection to processing to discard."

Dr Pope, who was not involved with the current study, added: "In later periods across the world, coastal shell-hunter-gatherers seem to invest in these structures in monumental ways, even having burials within them.

"So to describe these accumulations as 'middens' is a bold and loaded step.

"Certainly, they make a strong case that these are comparable to similar accumulations in the Middle Stone Age of Africa."

The study is published in the journal Science.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52054653

[CaaC (John)]

'Dinosaurs walked through Antarctic forests'

Scientists drilling off the coast of West Antarctica have found the fossil remains of forests that grew in the region 90 million years ago - in the time of the dinosaurs.

Their analysis of the material indicates the continent back then would have been as warm as parts of Europe are today but that global sea levels would have been over 100m higher than at present.

The research, led from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) in Germany, is published in the journal Nature.

It's emerged from an expedition in 2017 to recover marine sediments in Pine Island Bay.

AWI and its partners, including the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), used a novel cassette drill-mechanism called MeBo to extract core material some 30m under the seafloor.

When the team examined the sediments in the lab, it found traces of ancient soils and pollen and even tree roots.

• Warning from 'Antarctica's vast forests'
• The deepest point on land found in Antarctica
• Journey to the 'doomsday glacier'

FULL REPORT

[CaaC (John)]

FROZEN MUMMIES OF THE ANDES

Human Sacrifices in the Sacred Landscape of the Inca

Team members survey remains of one of the structures on the summit of Llullaillaco.

The Incas are renowned for massive carved stone structures, the construction of thousands of miles of roads, and the establishment of one of the greatest empires in the ancient Americas. However, one of their achievements remains especially impressive. In just over sixty years (ca. 1470–1532 CE), they constructed stone structures on nearly 100 mountains ranging from 17,000 to 22,000 feet (ca. 6,700 m), and they did this in an area spanning 2,000 miles in the Andes.

It is the high altitude of so many ruins that has captured the public’s attention, not least because of the great amount of energy, organization, and in some cases specialized techniques necessary for constructing and maintaining structures at such heights. Even people who have lived all their lives at 13,000 feet (ca. 4,000 m)—the highest that permanent villages are normally found— have difficulty in reaching, let alone working at, altitudes over 17,000 feet (ca. 5,200 m).

Nowhere else on earth have archaeological remains been found at 22,000 feet and, indeed, this altitude would not even be reached again for four centuries after the Incas. The Incas not only managed to overcome physical challenges, such as climbing in thin air, altitude illness, and route-finding in difficult terrain, they also surmounted a psychological barrier brought on by a fear of the deities inhabiting sacred mountains.

The Andean Belief System

FULL REPORT

Edited April 2, 2020 by CaaC (John)

[CaaC (John)]

Earliest known skull of Homo erectus unearthed by Australian-led team

The earliest known skull of Homo erectus has been unearthed by an Australian-led team of researchers who have dated the fossil at two million years old, showing the first of our ancestors existed up to 200,000 years earlier than previously thought.

The lead researcher Prof Andy Herries said the skull was pieced together from more than 150 fragments uncovered at the Drimolen Main Quarry, located about 40km north of Johannesburg in South Africa. It was likely aged between two and three years old when it died.

Herries, a geochronologist and head of archaeology at Melbourne’s La Trobe University, said he “could not stress how rare it is” to find enough fragments to piece together an intact braincase, especially given juvenile skulls are thin and fragile.

“At this age, they are so susceptible to damage,” he said. “It’s so exciting, because our fascination with human evolution is because it’s the story of us, and when we go back this far with a discovery like this, it’s the story of every person living on the planet.

“The group this two or three-year-old was a part of could have been the origin of everyone alive today.”

He said while there was a lot of disagreement of opinion in the field of archaeology and human evolution, one of the reasons Homo erectus is significant is because everyone agreed: “This is the beginning of us, this is the beginning of our genus.”

Herries said it was one of his PhD students working with him at the excavation site, Richard Curtis, who found the fragments in 2015 during his first excavation. Curtis originally thought he had discovered the skull pieces of a baboon.

“I was working a bit further up the hill and you know when someone has found something because a big shout goes up the hill, people come up to you with wide eyes, some of my colleagues start dancing,” Herries said.

“But still, we find a lot of baboons, and that’s what we thought we’d probably found in this case. So it wasn’t until we cleaned the fragments off and my colleagues at the University of Johannesburg started working to put them back together that it was obvious the skull was way too big and round to be a baboon.” It took them five years to reconstruct, date and identify the skull.

“It might seem weird that we can’t tell what is a baboon and what isn’t straight away, but it’s difficult when you have a lot of fragments,” Herries said.

One piece of the skull had actually been uncovered by archaeologists in 2007, but because the fragment was found on its own and was very thin, the researchers did not recognise they had found the skull of a hominin. The fragment was placed in a bag and sat in a vault for about a decade until Herries’ team realised it was a piece of their skull, which they named DMH 134.

“We can now say Homo erectus shared the landscape with two other types of humans in South Africa, Paranthropus and Australopithecus,” he said. “This suggests that one of these other human species, Australopithecus sediba, may not have been the direct ancestor of Homo erectus, or us, as previously hypothesised.”

Herries said the finding was particularly special because in 1924 the Australian anatomist Raymond Dart identified the first fossil ever found of Australopithecus africanus, an extinct hominin closely related to humans and discovered in South Africa.

“Nobody believed him at the time because they thought the origin of humans would be in Europe,” Herries said. “And now, 100 years later, DMH 134 will go sit in the same room as that child he identified, further proving what he found. It’s a testament to the work of Australians on human evolution.”

The findings were published on Friday in the international journal Science.

The archaeologist Dr Ceri Shipton from the Australian National University was not involved in the research but examined the findings, which he said made a good case for Homo erectus and several more species of hominin and other animals emerging at a time of a drying climate 2.3-2 million years ago.

“This fits with the idea of our genus being adapted to the savannah and in particular exploiting the big game that is available on grasslands, which they would then butcher using stone tools,” Shipton said.

“This find is a long way from the previous earliest Homo erectus in East Africa, confirming Homo erectus was wide-ranging from the outset, which is why their early fossils have also been found in Georgia about 1.8 million years ago, and that they likely reached the island of Flores where they became isolated and evolved into Homo floresiensis.”

The geochronologist and quaternary scientist with Macquarie University, Associate Prof Kira Westaway, said recent research into human evolution is increasingly uncovering overlaps between different hominids thought to be separated spatially and temporally.

“These well-dated overlaps indicate that the hominid family tree is much more diverse and complex than previously accepted,” she said. “The most fascinating implication from this research, fuelled by the confirmation of an overlap, is that the cause of Australopithecus extinction can be explored with the new potential that there may have been competition from Homo or Paranthropus – this truly is a new and exciting avenue of research.”

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/earliest-known-skull-of-homo-erectus-unearthed-by-australian-led-team/ar-BB12850m

Edited June 27, 2020 by CaaC (John)

[CaaC (John)]

Medieval shrine from the 14th century discovered by rail workers following a landslide

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A team of rail workers have discovered a small cave believed to be from the 14th century.

Engineers were fixing a landslip near Guildford in Surrey when they found the suspected medieval shrine.

Archaeologists believe it may be linked to the Chapel of St Catherine, the ruins of which are on a nearby hill.

The cave is made up of several sections between 30cm and 70cm high but may have been much larger in the past.

Inside, experts found evidence of writing and other markings in the ceiling.

The cave roof is covered in black dust, thought to be soot from lamps, and the remains of two firepits were also spotted.

A spokesman from Archaeology South-East said: "The cave contained what appear to be shrines or decorative niches, together with carved initials and other markings.

"The old name for St Catherine's Hill is Drakehull 'The Hill of the Dragon', so this has obviously been a site of ritual significance long before the construction of the church on the top of the hill in the late 13th century.

"Work is underway to analyse soot and charcoal found inside the cave, which will hopefully tell us more about how and when it was used."

Mark Killick, Network Rail Wessex route director, said: "This is an unexpected and fascinating discovery that helps to visualise and understand the rich history of the area.

"A full and detailed record of the cave has been made and every effort will be made to preserve elements where possible during the regrading of the delicate and vulnerable sandstone cutting."

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/medieval-shrine-from-the-14th-century-discovered-by-rail-workers-following-landslide/ar-BB12ckIA?li=AAnZ9Ug#image=1

[CaaC (John)]

Researchers Map How Ancient Human Migrations Changed Europe's Landscape Forever

In the wake of the last great ice age, humans flooded across Europe in slow, creeping tides.

A new study suggests some of those mass migrations might have changed the landscape more than others. And, strangely, it's not the people we might have expected that had the biggest impact.

By comparing the timing of significant migrations with changes in vegetation, researchers from across the UK and Europe have found the first farming communities to till the land had a surprisingly small impact on the ecology.

The same can't be said for a second wave of Bronze Age migrants trudging their way west from the Russian steppes, whose movements were associated with a dramatic reduction in broad-leaf forests and an increase in pasture and grassland.

The study relies on a range of assumptions and caveats, so some caution is required. With that in mind, the results add to the emerging story of a Europe transformed by successive waves of cultures introducing new languages, new genes, and new ways of survival.

Pull at the genetic tapestry that is modern Europe and you'll quickly find the threads lead back to different cradles around the Asian continent.

One of the oldest traces its way into the Anatolian Peninsula, a land now dominated by Turkey. Once, hunter-gatherers, the populations picked up a few farming tricks from their neighbours roughly 11,000 years ago before inching their way northwest.

DNA left by this Neolithic wave of Anatolian crop-growers can still be found in modern European populations, along with the genetic legacy of other mass migrations.

The researchers used publicly available ancient and present-day genome studies to produce a map showing the distributions of three different genetic populations across Europe throughout the ages.

One comprised of the original hunter-gather populations who had established themselves across the post-ice-age landscape. The second was the Anatolian farmers, who came next.

A third population are today referred to as the Yamnaya culture, a name borrowed from a Russian word for 'pit' in reference to their signature style of the grave.

These people moved into Europe during the Late Copper to Early Bronze Age more than 5,000 years ago, emerging from the lands to the north of the Black Sea and bringing with them relatively advanced technology of horses and wheels, not to mention a talent for digesting milk.

Comparing the way each of the gene pools dispersed revealed a significant difference in the speed of the two migrations.

Perhaps to nobody's surprise, the Bronze Age Yamnaya took far less time to establish themselves than the Anatolian farmers. Having horses no doubt helped, but there is also the possibility that the land had already been made traversable.

Looking back to the earlier wave of Neolithic agriculturalists, the genetic map shows two prongs slowly marching across the land. A close examination of land cover and climatic variable maps failed to show any great shifts in the kinds of vegetation aligning with their branching movement.

The researchers do note that other studies have identified local impacts on the environment in some parts of the continent, but overall their influence doesn't seem to have been widespread.

When it comes to the Bronze Age migration, the changes were comparatively dramatic, with a large scale depletion in the forest and the establishment of grasslands.

"As these peoples were moving westward, we see increases in the amount of pasture lands and decreases in broadleaf forests throughout the continent," says geogeneticist Fernando Racimo from the University of Copenhagen.

It's important to keep in mind that it's difficult to prove causation. Changes to the climate could also have played a key role in the evolving ecology, laying out feeding grounds for the horses and opening the land to travel.

But the models used by the researchers strongly suggest that swelling populations along the pathway of Bronze Age migration were responsible for the changing vegetation.

Relying heavily on DNA data with its known idiosyncrasies leaves plenty of room for debate, as does the potential for untested variables to be behind the changes to Europe's greenery.

The story of Europe's past is far from complete, but every new detail adds new insights into the ways past cultures might have affected the landscape as they moved, telling us a thing or two about how the land will continue to change in the future.  

"European landscapes have been transformed drastically over thousands of years," says Jessie Woodbridge, a physical geographer at the University of Plymouth in the UK.

"Knowledge of how people interacted with their environment in the past has implications for understanding the way in which people use and impact upon the world today."

This research was published in PNAS.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/researchers-map-how-ancient-human-migrations-changed-europes-landscape-forever/ar-BB12e0mR

[CaaC (John)]

The 13 Most Shocking Things Discovered in the Titanic Wreckage

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Though the RMS Titanic sank on April 14, 1912, the remains of the doomed ship weren't discovered until 1985 on the bottom of the ocean floor off the coast of Newfoundland. And while much of the ship had naturally perished sitting under the sea for decades, divers were still able to rescue and preserve plenty of amazing items. Wonder what surprising artefacts survived the Titanic wreckage? Well, to quote Britney Spears' discography, "[We] went down and got it for you." And for more interesting tidbits about the Hollywood portrayal of Titanic, check out the 20 Facts "Titanic" Gets Wrong.

[CaaC (John)]

Surprise Discovery Reveals Neanderthals Loved Seafood And Were Excellent Fisherpeople

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Neanderthals were apparently much more partial to seafood than previously thought: new research shows that Neanderthal communities living in Portugal during the last ice age were just as keen on fishing as our modern human ancestors. 

Molluscs, crustaceans, fish, birds, and marine mammals like dolphins and seals made up as much as half the diet of these Iberian ancients, the new study shows. That makes them resourceful fisher-hunter-gatherers, with behaviours closer to modern-day Homo sapiens than anyone realised. 

The excavation at the cave of Figueira Brava near Setubal in Portugal revealed middens (domestic waste dumps) dated to around 106,000 and 86,000 years ago, packed with bones and shells from marine animals. These would have been eaten alongside more traditional fare like deer and goats.

The finding is a significant one – the fatty acids provided by this sort of seafood diet, such as Omega-3, can boost brain development. These sorts of eating habits perhaps contributed to the "emergence of cognitive and behavioural modernity" in ancient people, the researchers say.

"Figueira Brava provides the first record of significant marine resource consumption among Europe's Neanderthals," write the researchers in their published paper.

"Consistent with rapidly accumulating evidence that Neanderthals possessed a fully symbolic material culture, the subsistence evidence reported here further questions the behavioural gap once thought to separate them from modern humans."

The sheer amount of seafood remains discovered, and the distance of the settlement from the coast (about two kilometres or a little over a mile), suggests that Neanderthals used baskets and bags to go fishing with, the researchers say.

This ability to plunder food from seas and rivers has long been regarded as an exclusively human trait, not something we shared with Neanderthals – and that makes the findings at this coastal site significant.

Previous evidence for a seafood diet amongst Neanderthals has been patchy: while it has been observed in other parts of the world, it hasn't been clear just how widespread these evolving eating habits actually were.

Experts know much more about the diets of early modern humans in southern Africa around the same time, and the new study suggests that the make-up of this diet isn't all that different from the one adopted by Neanderthals who lived by the coast of Portugal.

Considering that snacking on seafood and exploiting marine resources could well have played a big part in triggering the expansion of the early human beings and pushing forward the increasing sophistication of our societies, pinning down exactly when and where it happened is an intriguing challenge for anthropologists.

As comprehensive as this discovery is, it's only one part of the world – we don't have a pattern yet. The researchers think that traces of other similar communities may have been washed away from rising sea levels during the end of the last ice age, so there might not be any more to find.

Even so, it sheds substantially more light on the lifestyles and behaviours of the Neanderthals – and suggests that in their taste for seafood at least, they perhaps weren't all that different from our early ancestors.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/surprise-discovery-reveals-neanderthals-loved-seafood-and-were-excellent-fisherpeople/ar-BB11UIPw

[CaaC (John)]

50,000-year-old string found at France Neanderthal site

A piece of 50,000-year-old string - the oldest yet discovered - found in a cave in France has cast further doubt on the idea that Neanderthals were cognitively inferior to modern humans.

A study published in Scientific Reports said a tiny, three-ply chord fragment made from bark was spotted on a stone tool recovered from the Abri du Maras.

It implies that Neanderthals understood concepts like pairs, sets and numbers.

Twisted fibres provide the basis for clothes, bags, nets and even boats.

Neanderthals - whose species died out about 40,000 years ago - are already known to have made birch bark tar, art and shell beads.

They also controlled fire, lived in shelters, were skilled hunters of large animals and deliberately buried their dead in graves.

• Neanderthals ate sharks and dolphins
• Neanderthal 'skeleton' is first found in a decade
• Neanderthal 'glue' points to complex thinking

Typically, archaeologists and paleoanthropologists only find faunal remains or stone tools at sites like the Abri du Maras. Perishable materials are usually missing.

But a team of researchers from France, the US and Spain discovered a fragment of chord adhering to the underside of a 60mm- (2.4-inch-) long stone tool.

The chord, believed to have been made with the inner bark of a conifer tree, was approximately 6.2mm long and 0.5mm wide.

Three groups of fibres were separated and twisted clockwise in an "S-twist". Once twisted, the strands were twined anti-clockwise in "Z-twist" to form a chord.

The study - whose lead author was Bruce Hardy of Kenyon College in Ohio - concluded that the production of the chord demonstrated that Neanderthals had a detailed ecological understanding of trees and how to transform them into entirely different functional substances.

The production of the chord also implied a cognitive understanding of numeracy and context-sensitive operational memory, according to the study. That is because it required keeping track of multiple, sequential operations simultaneously.

"Given the ongoing revelations of Neanderthal art and technology, it is difficult to see how we can regard Neanderthals as anything other than the cognitive equals of modern humans," the study said.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52267383

[CaaC (John)]

Melting Ice Reveals Ancient Viking Route in Norway

OSLO — Ice patches that melted from the slopes of a remote mountain pass in Norway have revealed artefacts that provide new insight into the livelihood of hunters, traders and travellers along a route thousands of years old, archaeologists said this month.

The relics of this distant past include tunics and mittens woven with wool, leather shoes, arrows are still adorned with feathers, and snowshoes made for horses. Giant stone cairns mark old pathways once used by traders to find their way through the fog and heavy snow. Antlers, bone and animal dung have also been found, the archaeologists behind the project said.

The discoveries, outlined in the scientific journal Antiquity, were made on the central mountain range in Norway’s Innlandet County by the Glacier Archaeology Program, one of many programs worldwide studying what glaciers and ice patches are laying bare as they shift and melt because of climate change.

Archaeologists said that the discoveries have contributed to evidence that a mountain pass at Lendbreen, on the Lomseggen ridge in north-central Norway, was part of a larger network connecting it to the wider Viking world, making it the “first such ice site discovered in Northern Europe.”

Previously, they said, the archaeology of glaciated mountain passes had been derived from research in the Alps.

“The findings are rich,” said Lars Holger Pilo, a Norwegian archaeologist working on the project. “It is obvious that the mountains have been more active in use than previously believed. Although covered in ice, they have used them to pass, from farms in the area, or from one side of the mountains to the other.”

The program started work on the ice patch at Lendbreen in 2006, but attention increased after a wool tunic, which later was dated to the Bronze Age, was found in 2011. That led to subsequent surveys and discoveries of artefacts such as pieces of sledges, remains of horses and kitchen utensils, suggesting the route was used for trade, hunting and farming.

The findings show the pass was used from about A.D. 300 to 1500, with a peak of activity during the Viking Age in the year 1000 that reflected its importance during a period of long-range trade and commerce in Scandinavia.

The items tell a story of how the route was used and reflect local priorities, such as how farming migrated from the bottom of the valley to higher elevations in summer to take advantage of long daylight hours. It was well travelled, and it connected to other parts of the country and ultimately to ports for export.

“The thing that was really revealing is when you look at the chronology of the artefacts,” said Dr James Barrett, a medieval and environmental archaeologist at the University of Cambridge, who has been working with Norwegian archaeologists on the project since 2012.

“You can literally walk in the footsteps of the past,” he said. “It really is showing that in what would seem to be the most remote possible place, the highest elevation is caught up in broader world trends.”

The research in Norway has contributed to the body of archaeological study centred on items found under ice, either in glaciers that rumble roughshod across the terrain or in ice patches that are more stationary and commonly yield pieces that are intact.

These discoveries have illuminated scientists’ understanding of transhumance, which describes how, where and why people moved from one place to another for trade, food, marriage or customs — sometimes over icy mountain passes rather than through the easier terrain, but longer distances, of valleys.

In 1991, hikers accidentally discovered the remains of a man, later nicknamed Ötzi the Tyrolean Iceman, preserved in 5,300 years’ worth of ice and snow in the Italian Alps. This marked the start of a promising period of archaeology that has gained pace as climate warming has revealed more artefacts, said Dr Stephanie Rogers, a research assistant professor at Auburn University’s department of geosciences.

Examination of bacteria from the Iceman has contributed to the understanding of human migration and the movement of pathogens, including the one that causes stomach ulcers, to other parts of the world.

Dr Rogers, who has done research on glacier archaeology in the Alps, said the discovery of the Iceman “really flipped a switch.”

“What was that person doing up there?” she asked, adding that researchers realized that “if we found something in this place, we are going to find something in other places.”

The field of transhumance has gained momentum in the past 10 to 20 years as artefacts have been laid bare because of the warming climate melting ice patches and moving glaciers, Dr Rogers said.

“Perhaps this site in Norway had the perfect characteristics for transhumance across the border,” she said. “But maybe it was just the perfect setting, passed down for hundreds or thousands of years. It seems like this one, in particular, is a treasure trove in terms of artefacts.”

Dr Pilo said the Norwegian team did not find human remains, possibly because relatives of anyone missing likely would have come to rescue their family members. The tunic might have been flung off by a person in the irrational throes of hypothermia, he said.

Although ice patches move less than glaciers do, some of the finds on the Lendbreen patch were displaced vertically, and others were shifted by meltwater and strong winds.

The ruins of an undated stone-built shelter were situated near the top of the ice patch, making Lendbreen the only one of five mountain passes on the Lomseggen ridge to have such a shelter and a large number of cairns. Transportation-related artefacts, such as remains of sledges, walking sticks and pieces of a Bronze Age ski, were also laid bare.

The movement, or lack of movement, of some objects, can also be telling. Iron horseshoes and nails are less likely to have been displaced than the lighter organic objects, and “should, therefore, provide a reliable indication of the route,” the researchers wrote.

Although some of the artefacts were found in pieces, “they do not obliterate what remains a clear trail of features and finds that delineate a short crossing place over the mountain ridge,” according to the findings.

“It was clearly a route of special significance,” the researchers said.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/melting-ice-reveals-ancient-viking-route-in-norway/ar-BB12KP1I#image=1

Edited June 27, 2020 by CaaC (John)

[CaaC (John)]

While Visitors Are in Quarantine, Museums Are Sharing Their Creepiest Objects on Twitter

Though they may not be open to visitors during the COVID-19 crisis, museums around the world are finding ways to keep busy. Earlier this month, the UK's Yorkshire Museum challenged museums on Twitter to share the creepiest objects in their collections.

The Yorkshire Museum kicked off the #curatorbattle on April 17 by tweeting a picture of a hair bun recovered from a Roman tomb dating back to the 3rd or 4th century. Since then, dozens of institutions have participated.

The Egham Museum in the UK contributed an antique doll with a balding, cracked head that's simply labelled "MC 294." From the British Toy Museum of Penshurst Place came a red-eyed stuffed bear that pretends to drink when you feed it coins. The winner, at least based on Twitter's response, maybe "The Mermaid" of the National Museums of Scotland's Natural Sciences department. The unsettling monstrosity was one of many monkey-fish taxidermy hybrids made popular by P.T. Barnum.

This isn't the first time museums have used social media to show off some of their more unusual items. In October of last year, the History Center of Olmsted County in Rochester, Minnesota, held a contest to determine which of the antique dolls in its collection was the creepiest. This latest challenge is not only a chance for museums to spotlight some underrated objects but also to connect with the public when people are stuck at home.

If you think you can stomach it, you can view even more freaky museum objects under the hashtag #curatorbattle. For a more pleasant virtual museum experience, here are some world-class institutions you can tour online.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/while-visitors-are-in-quarantine-museums-are-sharing-their-creepiest-objects-on-twitter/ar-BB136ajq

Edited April 25, 2020 by CaaC (John)

[CaaC (John)]

What can we learn from Robinson Crusoe writer's 1722 plague book?

More than 300 years ago London was in the grip of the Great Plague. Robinson Crusoe writer Daniel Defoe's account about this time - A Journal of the Plague Year - was an early example of faction, which was written afterwards but based on detailed research. And its story of self-isolation and social distancing feels familiar to us right now.

When the Great Plague broke out in 1665 Defoe was just a child. The book he wrote as an adult was a blend of research, personal memories, imagination and possibly of stories told by an uncle who'd stayed in London throughout. Yet it's become the classic account, with scenes and observations which ring true for readers in 2020.

Today's commentators have pointed out how different our experience of Covid-19 would have been before the social media revolution. In 1722 Defoe reminded his readers that when he was a child newspapers barely existed.

But his skill as a writer gave them a detailed picture of the effects of bubonic plague on a community without health services working to support it.

Early in the novel, Defoe writes: "The face of London was now indeed strangely altered... The voice of mourning was truly heard in the streets."

Defoe was a stranger to the two-metre rule. But the practicalities of his narrator's daily life feel all too familiar.

Dr Paula Backscheider of Auburn University in the US is a Defoe expert. She says his writing was so impressively researched that it remains vivid three centuries later.

"It's what New Journalism gave us in the 1970s, with people like Tom Wolfe. There are the unusually deep research and a wealth of anecdote with interviews and the human interest stories which history so often ignores."

She suggests a parallel between Defoe and those who warned the world wasn't prepared to fight something like Covid-19.

"His book came out in 1722 and there had been a terrible plague in Marseilles just before that with at least 40,000 deaths. He was using the lessons of the 1660s to warn his own day."

The book starts with a basic question frequently asked earlier this year - where has this disaster come from?

"...it was brought some said, from Italy... others said it was brought from Candia (Crete); others from Cyprus. It mattered not from whence it came...," writes Defoe.

Defoe records how each house which contained a plague victim was sealed up, with a red cross painted on the door. In theory the family there wasn't allowed out but Defoe records instances where guile or violence or bribery allowed them to escape.

And the question soon arises of self-isolation for even the healthy.

"And finding that I ventured so often out into the streets, he (a friend) earnestly persuaded me to lock myself up and my family and not to suffer any of us to go out of doors," writes Defoe, continuing, "but as I had not laid in a store of provisions it was impossible that we could keep within doors entirely..."

Defoe also anticipates our contemporary concern with asymptomatic carriers.

"One man, who may have really received the infection, and knows it not, but goes abroad and about as a sound person, may give the plague to a thousand people, and neither the person giving the infection nor the persons receiving it know anything of it," he says.

And he describes how shopkeepers devised a 17th Century form of contactless payment.

"The butcher would not touch the money but had it put into a pot full of vinegar, which he kept for that purpose. The buyers carried always small money to make up any odd sum, that they might make no change. They carried bottles for scents and perfumes in their hands."

Dr Backscheider says most historians accept Defoe's picture of the nightmarish effects bubonic plague had on London.

"I think he was much more a journalist than a novelist and he never exaggerates. He's not setting out to chill the blood - the reality was frightening enough. Sociologists and epidemiologists quote him as a source."

And she thinks one of the reasons the book speaks to us in the current crisis is that Defoe took science seriously.

"An author from the Renaissance would have said what had happened was God's work. But the narrator in the book - who's only ever known as HF - is obsessed with observing and recording in a scientific way.

"In the story, he knows he should leave London but, as with Defoe, there's an intellectual engagement and a need to know what had caused the plague.

"The writing feels modern and the book had things to say to us even before what has happened this year."

Almost all we learn of HF is that he's a well-off, middle-class saddler. Defoe shows a social conscience rare for his era in suggesting that working-class people were the most likely to suffer.

"It must be confessed, that though the plague was chiefly among the poor, yet were the poor the most venturous and fearless of it, and went about their employment with a sort of brutal courage... Scarce did they use any caution, but ran into any business they could get employment in..."

Towards the end of 1665, the death count diminished, reducing erratically but then almost to zero.

Defoe is too honest a writer to supply an easy explanation to end his story with: it would be many decades before plagues began to be understood.

But he'd written a brilliant account of the last major outbreak of bubonic plague in Britain - and it can still educate readers three centuries later.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-52353832

[CaaC (John)]

'Crazy beast' lived among last of dinosaurs

A cat-sized mammal dubbed "crazy beast" lived on Madagascar among some of the last dinosaurs to walk the Earth, scientists have revealed.

The 66-million-year-old fossil is described in the journal Nature.

Its discovery challenges previous assumptions that mammals would have had to be very small - the size of mice - to survive alongside dinosaurs.

Researchers say this individual animal weighed 3kg (6.6lbs) and had not reached its full adult size.

Scientists think that the badger-like creature, known as Adalatherium, would have burrowed - helping it to evade predatory dinosaurs. This could explain how it evolved to such a size.

Before mammals took over the Earth, they probably had to run and hide from the much larger dinosaurs that ruled our planet - not to mention crocodiles and constrictor snakes.

• Fossil 'wonder chicken' could be early fowl
• 'Dinosaurs walked through Antarctic rainforests'
• Ancient Africa home to three human-like species

Scientists hope the find will help them understand how mammals developed into the diverse array of species that we see today.

The name "Adalatherium" is translated from the Malagasy and Greek languages and means "crazy beast".

Its discovery "bends and even breaks lots of rules", said David Krause of Denver Museum of Nature and Science, who led the research,

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52465584

[CaaC (John)]

This Hungarian Village Welcomed Skull-Shaping Immigrants as The Roman Empire Crumbled

As the Roman Empire drew to a dramatic collapse towards the end of the 5th century, ripples were felt across its former territories. Balances shifted as new powers rushed to fill the vacuums Rome's retreats left behind.

The changes to the everyday lives of the people are far less well documented, but a cemetery in Pannonia Valeria - in what is now Hungary - is shedding light on the cultural upheaval. And it seems that the founders of that community welcomed newcomers - and even adopted their customs, including modifying the shape of their skulls.

During this time, "the population decreased and the settlement structure changed drastically. Communities fled to the western provinces with the promise of safety, while others sought refuge in forts and cities looking for protection," the researchers wrote in their paper.

"The newly arriving groups also founded rural settlements often in connection to the former Roman infrastructure, such as roads and fortified places."

Until around 470 CE, a site now called Mözs-Icsei dűlő was the burial ground of just such a settlement. Its 96 graves have been well documented, with work going back decades.

But archaeologists in Germany and Hungary have now closely examined the remains of 87 individuals, analysing the strontium isotopes in the bones to figure out how the community came together.

That's because some stable isotopes - like strontium - are taken up by plants from the soil. When humans eat these plants, the isotopes can replace some of the calcium in teeth and bones, which can then be dated and matched to geological regions known to have particular isotope ratios.

Using this technique, the team was able to identify three distinct populations across two or three generations buried in the Mözs-Icsei dűlő cemetery.

The first population is a small founder population. They were buried in Roman-style brick graves, with Roman and Hun style grave goods, and the strontium isotope ratios in their bones indicated a largely local diet.

The second is a foreign group of 12 individuals who seem to have arrived at the community around a decade after the founders. They all had similar strontium isotope ratios, indicating that they had a shared origin. Ten of them also had modified skulls, suggesting they practised head shaping - the use of tight cloth bindings in infancy to elongate the still-hardening skull.

We still don't know why ancient cultures practised cranial modification. Although it's dying out today, it's an ancient practice, and there's evidence for it dating back thousands of years all around the world - and, interestingly, it seems to have no effect on cognitive function.

The third, slightly later group suggests that the customs of both earlier populations seem to blend together in the following generation. Not only were there founder-style grave goods included in later burials, but head shaping also seems to have exploded in popularity.

In all, the 96 graves contained 51 individuals with deliberately modified skulls, marking the site as one of the biggest concentrations of artificial cranial deformation in the region.

As we have previously reported, reasons for the practice seem varied globally throughout history - from a marker of social status to a side-effect of binding a baby's soft head to protect it while it grows. Or maybe some people just thought it looked really cool.

Whatever the reasons for it, the practice here is a beautiful example of how a community can grow and thrive under regional strife, joining their differences to build something new together.

"The community .. accepted and integrated men, women, and children of different geographical and cultural backgrounds during the two to three generations of its existence. The isotope data indicate that residential changes played a remarkable role and occurred not only on an individual basis but also in groups of a shared cultural background and lifestyle," the researchers wrote in their paper.

"Placed into the historical narrative, this could be understood as the emergence of a Roman-'Barbarian' Mischkultur (mixed culture), in which Romanised 'Barbarians' and 'barbarised' late Roman population groups were indistinguishable."

The research has been published in PLOS One.

[CaaC (John)]

Scientists Discover a New Compound in Medieval Ink That Was Once Lost to Time

Across the Mediterranean region, in fields and on roadsides, thrives a small plant with silvery leaves. It doesn't look like much, and in many cases, it's an annoying weed. But in the Middle Ages, Chrozophora tinctoria was highly prized.

There's a clue in the name - tinctoria means to dye, and common names of the plant include dyer's croton and dyer's litmus plant. Medieval artists used its tiny, three-lobed fruit to produce a delicate blue tint called folium or turnsole, for colouring their famous illuminated manuscripts.

These dyes fell out of favour by the 17th century for more vivid mineral-based hues, and the secrets for how to extract the pigment from the fruit were lost.

But Portuguese scientists studying ancient texts didn't just rediscover and recreate the recipe for folium - they've uncovered the chemical structure of the pigment.

And this structure is unlike any other naturally occurring blue pigment; the newly discovered chemical compound has been named chrozophoridin.

The key to the discovery is a medieval Portuguese treatise called The book on how to make all the colour paints for illuminating books. It dates back to the 15th century CE, and describes, in detail, the materials and steps for creating paints - basically a medieval paint recipe book.

The language used in Portuguese, written phonetically using the Hebrew alphabet, and it was used to create Hebrew sacred texts. A few years ago, the research team started using this book to try and recreate the dyes described therein.

It wasn't a purely academic exercise. The illuminated manuscripts that have survived over the centuries are only going to grow more fragile over time. But if we understand the chemistry of the dyes, we can figure out better ways of preserving the colours for future generations.

And in 2018, the team did it. Using the specific instructions laid out in The book on how to make all the colour paints for illuminating books, the researchers successfully recreated folium.

"It describes when to collect the fruits - in July," chemist Paula Nabais of NOVA University Lisbon told Chemical and Engineering News. "You need to squeeze the fruits, being careful not to break the seeds, and then to put them on linen."

The next step - the focus of the team's new paper - was to try to probe the chemical structure of the compound.

The colour is extracted from the shell of the fruit; breaking the seed pollutes the pigment, producing a poor quality ink. And it's laborious work: the team soaked the fruit in a methanol-water solution, stirring carefully for two hours. Then the methanol was evaporated under a vacuum, leaving behind a crude blue extract that the team further purified, and concentrated the blue pigment.

It was this purified, concentrated pigment that the team analysed using a suite of high-tech techniques, including several types of mass spectrometry and magnetic resonance.

The molecular structure the team found was dissimilar from other blue pigments extracted from plants, such as indigo and anthocyanins, the blue pigment found in berries. But it did have a structure in common with a blue chromophore found in another plant - the medicinal herb Mercurialis perennis, or dog's mercury.

With a key difference: the chromophore in C. tinctoria has a stable glycosylated structure, which means it is water-soluble - and can, therefore, be transformed into a dye.

This discovery means that not only can conservators and scientists recreate the dye to probe its properties, such as its structure and how it reacts to environmental stresses over time, but they can better identify it in medieval manuscripts.

"Chrozophoridin was used in ancient times to make a beautiful blue dye for painting, and it is neither an anthocyanin - found in many blue flowers and fruits - nor indigo, the most stable natural blue dye. It turns out to be in a class of its own," the researchers wrote in their paper.

"Thus, we believe that this will be not our final word on this amazing plant and its story and that further discoveries will follow soon."

The research has been published in Science Advances.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/scientists-discover-a-new-compound-in-medieval-ink-that-was-once-lost-to-time/ar-BB132WqU#image=1

[CaaC (John)]

The Mysterious Desert Towers of Uzbekistan's Lost Civilization

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We drove out of Khiva on a bright and blistering summer morning. The shared taxi passed over the Amu Darya River, pulsing with Himalayan snowmelt, and drove on past rich, irrigated fields and away from the massive domed mosques and medieval tile work of Uzbekistan’s Silk Road cities. We were headed into the former-Soviet Central Asian country’s arid northwestern frontier. 

Read more at The Daily Beast.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/the-mysterious-desert-towers-of-uzbekistans-lost-civilization/ar-BB13zH4E#image=1

[CaaC (John)]

Microplastics Discovered in 150-Year-Old Seabed 7,000 Feet Below Surface

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Researchers have discovered microplastics buried in seabed sediments deep below the ocean surface that are more than 150 years old. The team identified the tiny plastic pieces in core samples collected from the Rockall Trough—a deep-sea basin located to the northwest of Scotland in the North Atlantic.

Led by Winnie Courtene-Jones from the Scottish Association for Marine Science, the scientists examined the sediments—taken from more than 7,000 feet below the ocean surface—in order to reveal the extent and quantity of microplastics within them.

They documented the microplastics throughout the upper 10 centimetres [3 inches] of the sediment core, according to a study published in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin. Finding the plastics in these samples initially left the scientists baffled, given that this group of materials was not mass-produced until the mid-20th century.

"We found microplastics were distributed throughout the sediment cores, up to 10 centimetres below the seafloor, which was the deepest we analyzed," Winnie Courtene-Jones told Newsweek.

"It was very surprising to find microplastics so deep. The layers of sediment down to 4 centimetres [around 1.5 inches] deep were around 150 years old, yet microplastics were found throughout the core.

Plastics were only mass-produced in the 1940s and 1950s, so, therefore, based on this discovery, we found plastics were present in the sediment long before they were mass-produced." In the study, the researchers propose a number of mechanisms for how the microplastics could have ended up in the 150-year-old sediments.

Microplastics enter the marine environment from surface waters, either through the fragmentation of larger plastic items or directly through the synthetic fibres which are shed from our clothing during washing," Courtene-Jones said. "Gradually the microplastics sink from surface waters through the ocean until they reach the seabed."

"Our findings that microplastics were present in sediments dating from long before mass plastic production indicate that processes within the seafloor might redistribute the microplastics deeper.

Burrowing worms live in the seabed and can draw plastics deeper inside their burrows. Another mechanism is that microplastics can move between gaps, so-called pores, within the sediments and so the microplastics can move into deeper layers this way," she said.

Microplastics—tiny pieces of plastic measuring less than 5 millimetres across, according to the most recognized definition—are widely distributed throughout the marine environment, having been documented everywhere from the seafloor to the surface waters of the Arctic.

In fact, earlier this year scientists even announced the discovery of a new species of marine animal in the deepest trench on Earth, which was found to have microplastics in its body.

However, most studies into this form of pollution have focused on beaches and coastal areas, meaning the global extent of microplastics on the deep seafloor remains largely unknown. Thus the findings of the latest study could help scientists to build a better picture of microplastic pollution.

"The findings of this research indicate that microplastics can move through sediments in ways we did not know before," Courtene-Jones said. "This has implications for understanding the fate of plastics in our environment. Also, microplastics could alter the properties of the sediments and cause harm to the organisms living in them."

"Other work has shown plastics can have detrimental impacts on animals, such as reducing their ability to feed and reproduce. The deep seafloor has been little studied in terms of plastic pollution, and our work indicates it could be an important accumulation site for microplastics,' she said.

The latest study builds on previous research that Courtene-Jones and colleagues conducted more than two years ago.

"In 2017, my research found microplastics contained within deep ocean water and that starfish and sea snails living on the ocean floor, over 2,000 meters deep had been eating microplastics. What's more, using historical specimens microplastics were found inside the guts of animals dating all the way back to the 1960s," she said.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/microplastics-discovered-in-150-year-old-seabed-7000-feet-below-surface/ar-BB13Lfn7#image=1

 

[CaaC (John)]

HMS Beagle: Dock for Darwin's ship gets protected status

The remains of a rare 19th Century dock built for Charles Darwin's ship HMS Beagle has been recognised as a site of national importance.

The submerged mud berth on the River Roach in Rochford, Essex, will now be protected against unauthorised change.

The ship, launched in 1820, allowed Darwin to make observations that led to his theory of natural selection.

"We are glad to see this site in a quiet corner of Essex given national protection," said Historic England.

"This is a fascinating example of a rare piece of maritime history."

Paglesham mudflats, near Southend, was thought to be the last resting place of the Beagle and investigations into the site began last year.

The team from Wessex Archaeology were able to reveal the outline of the dock using a drone fitted with a specialist camera.

Historic England commissioned the team to research the area ahead of the bicentenary of the vessel's launch this month.

Darwin was aboard the ship on its second great voyage between 1831 and 1836 to survey the South American coast and the Galapagos Islands.

'Significant site'

Following the Beagle's third and final exploratory voyage in 1843, it was refitted as a static watch vessel for the coastguard in 1845, until sold in 1870.

Historic England said documentary evidence showed the ship was in the Rochford dock in 1870 and was likely dismantled there.

The site has been designated as a scheduled monument by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on the advice of Historic England.

Rochford District Council also plan to build a new observation platform at the RSPB Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project, overlooking the River Roach where the ship was moored.

 

Edited May 12, 2020 by CaaC (John)

[CaaC (John)]

Longer overlap for modern humans and Neanderthals

Modern humans began to edge out the Neanderthals in Europe earlier than previously thought, a new study shows.

Tests on remains from a cave in northern Bulgaria suggest Homo sapiens was there as early as 46,000 years ago.

This is up to 2,000 years older than evidence from Italy and the UK.

Around this time, Europe was populated by sparse groups of Neanderthals - a distinct type of human that vanished shortly after modern humans appeared on the scene.

There's considerable debate about the length of time that modern humans overlapped with Neanderthals in Europe and other parts of Eurasia.

This has implications for the nature of contact between the two groups - and perhaps clues to why Neanderthals went extinct.

Two new scientific papers (here and here) describe the finds at Bacho Kiro cave.

A tooth and four bone fragments were identified as broadly human based on their anatomical features.

Helen Fewlass, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and colleagues determined their ages using scientific techniques. Their analysis, in Nature Ecology & Evolution, says the remains yielded ages between 46,000 and 43,000 years ago, assigning them to a stage known as the Initial Upper Palaeolithic.

In the other paper, published in Nature journal, Jean-Jacques Hublin, also from the Max Planck Institute, and team members, detail features of the tooth that are found in modern humans but are absent from Neanderthals.

Furthermore, they were able to retrieve DNA from these remains, demonstrating that they belonged to Homo sapiens and not their evolutionary cousins.

Prof Chris Stringer, research leader for human evolution at the Natural History Museum in London, who was not involved with the latest study, said: "In my view, this is the oldest and strongest published evidence for an IUP (Initial Upper Palaeolithic) presence of H. sapiens in Europe, several millennia before the Neanderthals disappeared."

The bones were found associated with stone tools and artefacts, such as pendants made from cave bear teeth.

These resemble examples found at later sites believed to have been occupied by Neanderthals.

This could suggest the two groups interacted sufficiently for modern humans to influence Neanderthal behaviour.

On this point, Prof Stringer explained: "That is certainly possible, although evidence suggests that Neanderthals were producing jewellery made from eagle talons and shells long before the IUP."

Dr Matt Pope, from the Institute of Archaeology at University College London, UK, and was not involved in either study, said: "If Neanderthals are living - as we tend to think from the genetic evidence - in relatively small dispersed groups of extended families, there may not be that need for complex social coding and symbolism.

"This for me is the exciting thing - Neanderthals may pick up these kinds of symbolisms as they become enmeshed and entangled in the social networks of contact that Homo sapiens will be carrying with them as they colonise Europe."

Ancient networking

The upper date for the Bacho Kiro remains is older than previous evidence of early Homo sapiens settlement from Kents Cavern in Britain (a jawbone dating to between 44,200 and 41,500 years ago) and from the Italian site of Grotta del Cavallo (two teeth dating to 43,000-45,000 years ago and associated with artefacts belonging to the Uluzzian culture).

However, both the British and Italian evidence has been dated using material from the soil layers they were found in. The new paper relied on dating the bones and teeth themselves.

Prof Stringer said the Kents Cavern and Cavallo evidence was "not generally accepted because of uncertainties about their dating or morphology".

A scientific paper published in 2014 proposed that Neanderthals disappeared from Europe between 41,000 and 39,000 years ago with a 95% probability.

However, other scientists have found evidence that Neanderthals may have survived later in some areas.

At the least, the new finds suggest there were around 5,000 years of chronological overlap between Neanderthals and modern humans in Europe.

Dr Pope said there was "no sudden disappearance" of Neanderthals in Europe.

"The new dates, if they're correct, are pushing back the co-existence of Neanderthals and modern humans a couple of thousand years even further than the evidence from Kents Cavern and the Uluzzian dates," he explained.

"In some places, we're getting direct evidence for interbreeding events, which could be evidence of social networking and cohesion... but in other examples, we can still see evidence of clear Neanderthal morphologies, suggesting populations that aren't - to any degree - hybridising or being absorbed."

Prof Stringer said initial dispersals of modern humans into Europe may have been by small bands which could not sustain their presence in the face of a larger Neanderthal presence. Indeed, DNA evidence suggests some of these early settlers contributed minimally to the gene pools of later populations.

There is even earlier evidence of Homo sapiens in Europe. In 2019, researchers published evidence that a skull fragment from Apidima cave in Greece, dated to 210,000 years ago, belonged to Homo sapiens.

However, scientists say this very early foray into Europe was not permanent, and the Apidima Homo sapiens population was later replaced by Neanderthals.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52614870

[CaaC (John)]

Sinkhole opens near the Pantheon, revealing 2,000-year-old Roman paving stones

© Provided by Live Science Archaeological investigations following the opening of a sinkhole in Piazza della Rotonda in front of the Pantheon in Rome have unearthed the ancient pavement of the imperial era.

A sinkhole unexpectedly opened up in front of the Pantheon in Rome last month, revealing imperial paving stones that were laid over a millennia ago, news sources report. 

The sinkhole, located in the Piazza della Rotonda, is almost 10 square feet (1 square meter) wide and just over 8 feet (2.5 m) deep. Inside the hole, archaeologists found seven ancient slabs made of travertine, a type of sedimentary rock. 

Luckily, no one was hurt when the sinkhole collapsed on the afternoon of April 27, because the normally crowded piazza was empty due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Sinkholes like this one, however, are becoming an increasingly common problem in Rome. 

The stones uncovered by the sinkhole were created around the same time that the Pantheon was built, from 27 B.C. to 25 B.C., according to Daniela Porro, Rome special superintendent. They were designed by Marcus Agrippa, a friend of Emperor Augustus, Porro told Italian news agency ANSA. However, the Pantheon and the piazza were completely rebuilt sometime between A.D. 118 and 128 by the emperor Hadrian, and the area was further modified at the beginning of the third century by the emperors Septimius Severus and Caracalla, according to Encyclopedia Britannica.

This find is actually a rediscovery: The slabs were first found in the 1990s, when service lines were being laid in the piazza, according to ANSA. The new sinkhole swallowed about 40 sanpietrini, or cobblestones, which fell into a service tunnel holding cables and pipelines, according to Roma Today. 

Sinkholes, called "voragine" in Italian, are now fairly common in Rome. For most of the past 100 years or so, Rome typically experienced 30 voragini or other collapses every year; but that number began tripling starting in 2009, according to The Local, an Italian news outlet. For example, in 2018 the city counted a record-breaking 175 sinkholes, and 2019 brought 100 of these voragini, The Local reported. By comparison, Naples had 20 reported sinkholes in 2019.

What causes these sinkholes? Ancient human-made cavities, including those from quarrying, tunnelling and constructing catacombs, have made the ground unstable, especially after heavy rainfall.

"The most sensitive area is eastern Rome, where materials were quarried in ancient times," geologist Stefania Nisio, who is working on a project to map Rome's sinkholes, told Adnkronos. "The main cause of a sinkhole in the city is the presence of an underground cavity."

In addition, much of Rome sits on soft, sandy soil that is easily eroded by water and shaken by the vibrations of cars and scooters, The Local reported. 

The city's leaders announced a multi-million-euro plan to fix its streets in 2018, but progress has been slow, according to The Local. Until these upgrades are made, sinkholes may continue to reveal ancient architecture and artefacts, such as these paving stones. 

"This is further evidence of Rome's inestimable archaeological riches," Porro told ANSA

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/sinkhole-opens-near-the-pantheon-revealing-2000-year-old-roman-paving-stones/ar-BB143j8V