Papua New Guinea highland research redates Neolithic period
UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO
UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO PROFESSOR OF ARCHAEOLOGY PROFESSOR GLENN SUMMERHAYES WITH FIELD CREW IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA. view more CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF OTAGO
A new report published in Science Advances on the emergence of agriculture in highland Papua New Guinea shows advancements often associated with a later Neolithic period occurred about 1000 years' earlier than previously thought.
University of Otago Archaeology Programme Professor and report co-author Glenn Summerhayes says findings in Emergence of a Neolithic in highland New Guinea by 5000 to 4000 years ago, provide insights into when and how the highlands were first occupied; the role of economic plants in this process; the development of trade routes which led to the translocation of plants and technologies; and an associated record of landscape, environment and climate change through time.
The report details the earliest figurative stone carving and formally manufactured pestles in Oceania, dating to 5050 to 4200 years ago, which were found at a dig site in Waim. Also found were the earliest planilateral axe-adzes uncovered in New Guinea to date, and the first evidence for fibrecraft and interisland obsidian transfer from neighbouring islands over distances of at least 800km.
"The new evidence from Waim fills a critical gap in our understanding of the social changes and technological innovations that have contributed to the developing cultural diversity in New Guinea," Professor Summerhayes says.
The combination of symbolic social systems, complex technologies, and highland agricultural intensification supports an independent emergence of a Neolithic around 1000 years before the arrival of Neolithic migrants, the Lapita, from Southeast Asia. When considered together with a growing corpus of studies indicating expansion and intensification of agricultural practices, these combined cultural elements represent the development of a regionally distinct Neolithic.
The research establishes dating for other finds at the site, including a fire lighting tool, postholes, and a fibrecraft tool with ochre, possibly used for colouring string fibre.
The report suggests increased population pressure on the uneven distribution of natural resources likely drove this process, which is further inferred by language and genetic divergence.
The project arose out of an Australian Research Council Grant awarded to Dr Judith Field (University of New South Wales) and Professor Summerhayes.
"Former Otago postgraduate student Dr Ben Shaw was employed as postdoctoral fellow to do the "leg work in the field" and Dr Anne Ford (Otago Archaeology Programme) contributed to understandings of the stone tool technologies. As it worked out many of these rich discoveries were made by Dr Shaw. It was one of the best appointments Dr Field and I have ever made. I am proud of our Otago graduates who are some of the best in the world."
Professor Summerhayes and his team had previously completed a Marsden funded project in the Ivane Valley of Papua, establishing the beginning of human occupation at 50,000 years ago. The results of this work were published in Science in 2010.
"This project is a follow-on where we wanted to construct a chronology of human presence in the Simbai/Kaironk Valley of Papua New Guinea by systematic archaeological survey with subsequent excavation and analysis of a select number of sites.
"This work tracks long-term patterns of settlement history, resource use and trade, and establishes an environmental context for these developments by compiling vegetation histories, with particular attention paid to fire histories, indicators of landscape disturbance and markers of climate variability. This will add to understandings of peoples' impact on the environment."
Professor Summerhayes received a Marsden grant in late 2019 for his project "Crossing the divide from Asia to the Pacific: Understanding Austronesian colonisation gateways into the Pacific". This will involve work in the Ramu Valley, which was once part of an inland sea, and will tie in the developments of Highland New Guinea, with the movements of Austronesian speakers into the Pacific.
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For further information contact
Professor Glenn Summerhayes
University of Otago, Department of Archaeology
Email: glenn.summerhayes@otago.ac.nz
Milk pioneers: East African herders consumed milk 5,000 years ago
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS
A MODERN DAY KENYAN COLLECTS FRESH COW'S MILK IN A GOURD.
view more CREDIT: OLIVER RUDD
When you pour a bowl of cereal, you probably aren't considering how humans came to enjoy milk in the first place. But animal milk was essential to east African herders at least 5,000 years ago, according to a new study that uncovers the consumption habits in what is now Kenya and Tanzania -- and sheds a light on human evolution.
Katherine M. Grillo, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Florida and a 2012 PhD graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, teamed up with researchers, including Washington University's Fiona Marshall, the James W. and Jean L. Davis Professor in Arts & Sciences, for the study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Julie Dunne at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom is co-first author on the paper with Grillo.
After excavating pottery at sites throughout east Africa, team members analyzed organic lipid residues left in the pottery and were able to see evidence of milk, meat and plant processing.
"(This is) the first direct evidence we've ever had for milk or plant processing by ancient pastoralist societies in eastern Africa," Grillo said.
"The milk traces in ancient pots confirms the story that bones have been telling us about how pastoralists lived in eastern Africa 5,000 to 3,000 years ago -- an area still famous for cattle herding and the historic way of life of people such as Maasai and Turkana," Marshall said.
Marshall continued: "Most people don't think about the fact that we are not really designed to drink milk as adults -- most mammals can't. People who had mutations that allowed them to digest fresh milk survived better, we think, among herders in Africa. But there's a lot we don't know about how, where and when this happened.
"It's important because we still rely on our genetics to be able to drink fresh cow's milk once we are adults."
This research shows, for the first time, that herders who specialized in cattle -- as opposed to hunting the abundant wildlife of the Mara Serengeti -- were certainly drinking milk.
"One of the reasons pastoralism has been so successful around the world is that humans have developed lactase persistence -- the ability to digest milk due to the presence of specific alleles," Grillo said.
Notably, in east Africa there are distinctive genetic bases for lactase persistence that are different from other parts of the world. Geneticists believed that this ability to digest milk in northeast Africa evolved around 5,000 years ago, but archaeologists knew little about the archaeological contexts in which that evolution took place.
The development of pastoralism in Africa is unique as well, where herding societies developed in areas that often can't support agriculture.
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Molecular & isotopic evidence of milk, meat & plants in prehistoric food systems
COOKBOOK COMING SOON
UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL
IMAGE: EXAMPLES OF POTSHERDS ANALYSED view more
CREDIT: KATE GRILLO
A team of scientists, led by the University of Bristol, with colleagues from the University of Florida, provide the first evidence for diet and subsistence practices of ancient East African pastoralists.
The development of pastoralism is known to have transformed human diets and societies in grasslands worldwide. Cattle-herding has been (and still is) the dominant way of life across the vast East African grasslands for thousands of years.
This is indicated by numerous large and highly fragmentary animal bone assemblages found at archaeological sites across the region, which demonstrate the importance of cattle, sheep and goat to these ancient people.
Today, people in these areas, such as the Maasai and Samburu of Kenya, live off milk and milk products (and sometimes blood) from their animals, gaining 60 - 90 percent of their calories from milk.
Milk is crucial to these herders and milk shortages during droughts or dry seasons increase vulnerabilities to malnutrition, and result in increased consumption of meat and marrow nutrients.
Yet we do not have any direct evidence for how long people in East Africa have been milking their cattle, how herders prepared their food or what else their diet may have consisted of.
Significantly though, we do know they have developed the C-14010 lactase persistence allele, which must have resulted from consumption of whole milk or lactose-containing milk products. This suggests there must be a long history of reliance on milk products in the area.
To address this question, the researchers examined ancient potsherds from four sites in Kenya and Tanzania, covering a 4000-year timeframe (c 5000 to 1200 BP), known as the Pastoral Neolithic, using a combined chemical and isotopic approach to identify and quantify the food residues found within the vessels. This involves extracting and identifying the fatty acids, residues of animal fats absorbed into the pot wall during cooking.
The findings, published today in the journal PNAS, showed that by far the majority of the shards yielded evidence for ruminant (cattle, sheep or goat) meat, bones, marrow and fat processing, and some cooking of plants, probably in the form of stews.
This is entirely consistent with the animal bone assemblages from the sites sampled. Across this entire time frame, potsherds preserving milk residues were present at low frequencies, but this is very similar to modern pastoralist groups, such as the heavily milk-reliant Samburu, who cook meat and bones in ceramic pots but milk their cattle into gourds and wooden bowls, which rarely preserve at archaeological sites.
In the broader sense, this work provides insights into the long-term development of pastoralist foodways in east Africa and the evolution of milk-centred husbandry systems. The time frame of the findings of at least minor levels of milk processing provides a relatively long period (around 4,000 years) in which selection for the C-14010 lactase persistence allele may have occurred within multiple groups in eastern Africa, which supports genetic estimates. Future work will expand to studies of other sites within the region.
Dr Julie Dunne, from the University of Bristol's School of Chemistry, who led the study, said: "How exciting it is to be able to use chemical techniques to extract thousands of year-old foodstuffs from pots to find out what these early East African herders were cooking.
"This work shows the reliance of modern-day herders, managing vast herds of cattle, on meat and milk-based products, has a very long history in the region."
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Neolithic genomes from modern-day Switzerland indicate parallel ancient societies
Genetic analysis of 96 ancient individuals traces the arrival and demographic structure of peoples with Steppe-related ancestry into late Neolithic, early Bronze Age Switzerland
MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE FOR THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN HISTORY
IMAGE: TOP VIEW OF THE DOLMEN OF OBERBIPP, ONE OF THE LARGEST BURIAL SITES IN THE STUDY. IN THIS STUDY, RESEARCHERS ANALYZE 96 ANCIENT GENOMES TO TRACE THE ARRIVAL AND... view more CREDIT: URS DARDEL, ARCHÄOLOGISCHER DIENST DES KANTON BERN (SWITZERLAND)
Genetic research throughout Europe shows evidence of drastic population changes near the end of the Neolithic period, as shown by the arrival of ancestry related to pastoralists from the Pontic-Caspian steppe. But the timing of this change and the arrival and mixture process of these peoples, particularly in Central Europe, is little understood. In a new study published in Nature Communications, researchers analyze 96 ancient genomes, providing new insights into the ancestry of modern Europeans.
Scientists sequence almost one hundred ancient genomes from Switzerland
With Neolithic settlements found everywhere from lake shore and bog environments to inner alpine valleys and high mountain passes, Switzerland's rich archeological record makes it a prime location for studies of population history in Central Europe. Towards the end of the Neolithic period, the emergence of archaeological finds from Corded Ware Complex cultural groups (CWC) coincides with the arrival of new ancestry components from the Pontic-Caspian steppe, but exactly when these new peoples arrived and how they mixed with indigenous Europeans remains unclear.
To find out, an international team led by researchers from the University of Tübingen, the University of Bern and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History (MPI-SHH) sequenced the genomes of 96 individuals from 13 Neolithic and early Bronze Age sites in Switzerland, southern Germany and the Alsace region of France. They detect the arrival of this new ancestry as early as 2800 BCE, and suggest that genetic dispersal was a complex process, involving the gradual mixture of parallel, highly genetically structured societies. The researchers also identified one of the oldest known Europeans that was lactose tolerant, dating to roughly 2100 BCE.
Slow genetic turnover indicates highly structured societies
"Remarkably, we identified several female individuals without any detectable steppe-related ancestry up to 1000 years after this ancestry arrives in the region," says lead author Anja Furtwängler of the University of Tübingen's Institute for Archeological Sciences. Evidence from genetic analysis and stable isotopes suggest a patrilocal society, in which males stayed local to where they were born and females came from distant families that did not carry steppe ancestry.
These results show that CWC was a relatively homogenous population that occupied large parts of Central Europe in the early Bronze Age, but they also show that populations without steppe-related ancestry existed parallel to the CWC cultural groups for hundreds of years.
"Since the parents of the mobile females in our study couldn't have had steppe-related ancestry either, it remains to be shown where in Central Europe such populations were present, possibly in the Alpine mountain valleys that were less connected to the lower lands" says Johannes Krause, director of the Department of Archaeogenetics at MPI-SHH and senior author of the study. The researchers hope that further studies of this kind will help to illuminate the cultural interactions that precipitated the transition from the Neolithic to the Early Bronze age in Central Europe.
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FOOD TV
Study sheds light on unique culinary traditions of prehistoric hunter-gatherers
UNIVERSITY OF YORK
IMAGE: POTTERY FRAGMENTS FOUND AT THE HAVNØ KITCHEN MIDDEN, NORTHERN DENMARK. view more CREDIT: HARRY ROBSON, UNIVERSITY OF YORK
Hunter-gatherer groups living in the Baltic between seven and a half and six thousand years ago had culturally distinct cuisines, analysis of ancient pottery fragments has revealed.
An international team of researchers analysed over 500 hunter-gatherer vessels from 61 archaeological sites throughout the Baltic region.
They found striking contrasts in food preferences and culinary practices between different groups - even in areas where there was a similar availability of resources. Pots were used for storing and preparing foods ranging from marine fish, seal and beaver to wild boar, bear, deer, freshwater fish hazelnuts and plants.
The findings suggest that the culinary tastes of ancient people were not solely dictated by the foods available in a particular area, but also influenced by the traditions and habits of cultural groups, the authors of the study say.
A lead author of the study, Dr Harry Robson from the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, said: "People are often surprised to learn that hunter-gatherers used pottery to store, process and cook food, as carrying cumbersome ceramic vessels seems inconsistent with a nomadic life-style.
"Our study looked at how this pottery was used and found evidence of a rich variety of foods and culinary traditions in different hunter-gatherer groups."
The researchers also identified unexpected evidence of dairy products in some of the pottery vessels, suggesting that some hunter-gatherer groups were interacting with early farmers to obtain this resource.
Dr Robson added: "The presence of dairy fats in several hunter-gatherer vessels was an unexpected example of culinary 'cultural fusion'. The discovery has implications for our understanding of the transition from hunter-gatherer lifestyles to early farming and demonstrates that this commodity was either exchanged or perhaps even looted from nearby farmers."
Lead author of the study, Dr Blandine Courel from the British Museum, added: "Despite a common biota that provided lots of marine and terrestrial resources for their livelihoods, hunter-gatherer communities around the Baltic Sea basin did not use pottery for the same purpose.
"Our study suggests that culinary practices were not influenced by environmental constraints but rather were likely embedded in some long-standing culinary traditions and cultural habits."
The study, led by the Department of Scientific Research at the British Museum, the University of York and the Centre for Baltic and Scandinavian Archaeology (Stiftung Schleswig-Holsteinische Landesmuseen, Germany), used molecular and isotopic techniques to analyse the fragments of pottery.
Senior author, Professor Oliver Craig from the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, said: "Chemical analysis of the remains of foods and natural products prepared in pottery has already revolutionized our understanding of early agricultural societies, we are now seeing these methods being rolled out to study prehistoric hunter-gatherer pottery. The results suggest that they too had complex and culturally distinct cuisines."
Organic residue analysis shows sub-regional patterns in the use of pottery by Northern European hunter-gatherers is published in Royal Society Open Science. The research was funded by the European Research Council through a grant awarded to the British Museum.
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50,000 YEARS AGO ICELAND WAS POPULATED?!
Icelandic DNA jigsaw-puzzle brings new knowledge about Neanderthals
An international team of researchers has put together a new image of Neanderthals based on the genes Neanderthals left in the DNA of modern humans when they had children with them about 50,000 years ago
AARHUS UNIVERSITY
IMAGE: DNA OF ICELANDERS PROVIDES NEW KNOWLEDGE ABOUT EXTINCT HUMAN SPECIES view more CREDIT: ASTRID REITZEL, AAARHUS UNIVERSITY
An international team of researchers has put together a new image of Neanderthals based on the genes Neanderthals left in the DNA of modern humans when they had children with them about 50,000 years ago. The researchers found the new pieces of the puzzle by trawling the genomes of more than 27,000 Icelanders. Among other things, they discovered that Neanderthal women gave birth when they were older than the Homo-Sapien women at that time, and Neanderthal men became fathers when they were younger.
It is well-known that a group of our ancestors left Africa and, about 50,000 years ago, met Neanderthals in Europe, and then had children with them.
Now, a new analysis shows that the Neanderthals may have had children with another extinct species of human (Denisovans), before they met Homo Sapiens, and that these children have been fertile and transferred genes from both species further on to modern people.
The analysis also shows that the Neanderthal women living 100,000 - 500,000 years ago on average became mothers at a later age than the contemporary Homo-Sapien women living in Africa. On the other hand, Neanderthal men fathered at a younger age than their Homo-Sapien cousins in Africa.
How can an analysis show all that?
Neanderthals may well be extinct, but small pieces of their DNA live on in us. All living people outside Africa have up to two per cent Neanderthal genes in their DNA.
However, this two per cent is scattered as small fragments in our genomes, and not all individuals have inherited the same fragments. The fragments are like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and if they are put together correctly, they will show a picture of the genome in the Neanderthal population that the modern Homo Sapiens had children with.
New method to find the pieces
First, of course, we have to find these pieces. And this is precisely what the group of researchers from Denmark, Iceland and Germany did to produce their results, published today in the scientific journal Nature.
One of them, Laurits Skov, postdoc from the Bioinformatics Research Centre (BiRC) at Aarhus University, has developed a method for tracing Neanderthal fragments in our DNA. Laurits and PhD student Moisès Coll Macià took the method to Iceland, where the genetics firm deCODE has amassed genetic data and health information for more than half of the Icelandic population.
"We spent several months at deCODE in Reykjavik on what can be called field studies for a computational biologist. By combining my method with deCODE's data and expertise, we have analysed 27,566 genomes, and this makes our study 10-times larger than previous studies of Neanderthal genes in human DNA," says Laurits Skov.
Together, the many fragments account for approximately half of a complete Neanderthal genome.
Denisovan genes gone astray?
However, the researchers also found significant fragments of genetic material from another archaic species of human, Denisovans, in the DNA of the Icelanders, and this was something of a surprise. Up to now, Denisovan genes have primarily been found in Australian Aborigines, East Asians and people in Papua New Guinea. So how did these genes end up in Islanders' DNA? And when?
Based on the distribution of genes and mutations, the researchers came up with two possible explanations.
Either Neanderthals had children with Denisovans before they met the Homo Sapiens. This would mean that the Neanderthals with whom Homo Sapiens had children were already hybrids, who transferred both Neanderthal and Denisovan genes to the children.
"Up to now, we believed that the Neanderthals modern people have had children with were "pure" Neanderthals. It's true that researchers have found the remnants of a hybrid between Denisovans and Neanderthals in a cave in East Asia, but we have not known whether there were more of these hybrids and whether, thousands of years later, they had children with modern humans," explains Professor Mikkel Heide Schierup from BiRC.
Or Homo Sapiens met Denisovans long before they met Neanderthals. So far, it has been thought that modern humans met Neanderthals and had children with them first, and not until tens of thousands of years later did they have children with Denisovans.
"Both explanations are equally likely, and both explanations will be scientific news," says Mikkel Heide Schierup.
Neandertal genes of little importance
The study also shows that the Neanderthal DNA has no great importance for modern humans.
"We have previously thought that many of the Neanderthal variants previously been found in modern human DNA were associated with an increased risk of diseases. However, our study shows that the human gene variants located directly beside the Neanderthal genes are better explanations for the risk. We have also found something that can only be explained by Neanderthal genes, but this doesn't mean that much," says Mikkel Heide Schierup.
The properties and risks of diseases that can be linked to Neanderthal DNA are: slightly lower risk of prostate cancer, lower levels of haemoglobin, lower body length (one millimetre) and slightly faster blood plasma clotting.
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Giant teenage shark from the Dinosaur-era
Fossil vertebrae give insights into growth and extinction of an enigmatic shark group
AND YOU KNOW HOW MUCH TEENAGERS EAT
UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA
IMAGE: HYPOTHETICAL OUTLINES OF †PTYCHODUS SHOWING THE MINIMUM AND MAXIMUM SIZE ESTIMATIONS FOR THE SUB-ADULT SPECIMEN FROM SPAIN. view more CREDIT: © PATRICK L. JAMBURA
In 1996, palaeontologists found skeletal remains of a giant shark at the northern coast of Spain, near the city Santander. Here, the coast comprises meter high limestone walls that were deposited during the Cretaceous period, around 85 million years ago, when dinosaurs still roamed the world. Scientists from the University of Vienna examined this material now and were able to assign the remains to the extinct shark family, Ptychodontidae, a group that was very specious and successful in the Cretaceous but suddenly vanished mysteriously before the infamous end-Cretaceous extinction event.
Shark vertebrae are rare in the fossil record, but precious
Ptychodontid sharks are mainly known from their teeth, which are flattened and allowed them to crush hard-shelled prey, like bivalves or ammonites, similar to some of today's ray species. However, the find of Spain consists only of parts of the vertebral column and placoid scales (teeth-like scales), which are much rarer than teeth in the fossil record.
In contrast to teeth, shark vertebrae bear important information about a species' life history, such as size, growth and age, which are saved as growth rings inside the vertebra, like in the stem of trees. Statistical methods and the comparison with extant species, allowed the scientists to decode these data and reconstruct the ecology of this enigmatic shark group.
Ptychodontid sharks grew big and old
"Based on the model, we calculated a size of 4-7m and an age of 30 years for the examined shark. Astonishing about this data is the fact that this shark was not yet mature when it died despite its rather old age." states Patrick L. Jambura, lead author of the study. Sharks follow an asymptotic growth curve, meaning that they grow constantly until maturation and after that, the growth curve flattens resulting from a reduced growth rate. "However, this shark doesn't show any signs of flattenings or inflections in the growth profile, meaning that it was not mature, a teenager if you want. This suggests that these sharks even grew much larger (and older)!"
The study suggests that ptychodontid sharks grew very slow, matured very late, but also showed high longevity and reached enormous body sizes. "This might have been a main contributor to their success, but also, eventually, demise."
Do modern sharks face a similar fate?
Many living sharks, like the whale shark or the great white shark, show very similar life history traits, a combination of low recruitment and late maturation, which makes them vulnerable to anthropogenic threats, like overfishing and pollution.
"It might be the case that similar to today's sharks, ptychodontid sharks faced changes in their environment, to which they could not adapt quick enough and, ultimately, led to their demise before even dinosaurs went extinct. However, unlike in the Cretaceous period, it is up to us now, to prevent this from happening to modern sharks again and to save the last survivors of this ancient and charismatic group of fishes!"
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Publication in PLOS ONE
Patrick L. Jambura & Jürgen Kriwet (2020) Articulated remains of the extinct shark, Ptychodus (Elasmobranchii, Ptychodontidae) from the Upper Cretaceous of Spain provide insights into gigantism, growth rate and life history of ptychodontid sharks. In PLOS ONE
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0231544
Archaeologists verify Florida's Mound Key as location of elusive Spanish fort
FLORIDA MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
IMAGE: SPANISH HISTORICAL RECORDS NAMED FLORIDA'S MOUND KEY, THE CAPITAL OF THE CALUSA KINGDOM, AS THE SITE OF FORT SAN ANTÓN DE CARLOS, HOME OF ONE OF THE EARLIEST NORTH AMERICAN... view more
CREDIT: VICTOR THOMPSON
GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Florida and Georgia archaeologists have discovered the location of Fort San Antón de Carlos, home of one of the first Jesuit missions in North America. The Spanish fort was built in 1566 in the capital of the Calusa, the most powerful Native American tribe in the region, on present-day Mound Key in the center of Estero Bay on Florida's Gulf Coast.
Archaeologists and historians have long suspected that the fort, named for the Catholic patron saint of lost things, was located on Mound Key. Researchers have been searching for concrete evidence in the area since 2013.
"Before our work, the only information we had was from Spanish documents, which suggested that the Calusa capital was on Mound Key and that Fort San Antón de Carlos was there, too," said William Marquardt, curator emeritus of South Florida archaeology and ethnography at the Florida Museum of Natural History. "Archaeologists and historians had visited the site and collected pottery from the surface, but until we found physical evidence of the Calusa king's house and the fort, we could not be absolutely certain."
The Calusa were one of the most politically complex groups of fisher-gatherer-hunters in the world and resisted European colonization for nearly 200 years, Marquardt said. They are often considered to be the first "shell collectors," using shells as tools, utensils and jewelry and discarding the fragments in enormous mounds. They also constructed massive structures known as watercourts, which acted as fish corrals, providing food to fuel large-scale construction projects and a growing population.
The Calusa kingdom controlled most of South Florida before being devastated by European disease. Researchers believe that by the time the Spanish turned Florida over to the British, any remaining Calusa had already fled to Cuba.
Researchers continue to question how the Spanish survived on Mound Key and met their daily needs despite unreliable shipments of minimal supplies from the Caribbean and strained relations with the Calusa - whose surplus supplies they needed for survival. The only Spanish fort known to be built on a shell mound, Fort San Antón de Carlos was abandoned by 1569 after the Spaniards' brief alliance with the Calusa deteriorated, causing the Calusa to leave the island and the Spanish to follow shortly after.
"Despite being the most powerful society in South Florida, the Calusa were inexorably drawn into the broader world economic system by the Spaniards," Marquardt said. "However, by staying true to their values and way of life, the Calusa showed a resiliency unmatched by most other Native societies in the Southeastern United States."
Researchers from the University of Florida, the University of Georgia and students from UGA's archaeological field school used a combination of remote sensing, coring, ground-penetrating radar and excavations to uncover the walls of the fort and a few artifacts, including ceramic shards and beads.
The fort is also the earliest-known North American example of "tabby" architecture, a rough form of shell concrete.
"Tabby," also called "tabbi" or "tapia," is made by burning shells to create lime, which is then mixed with sand, ash, water and broken shells. At Mound Key, the Spaniards used primitive tabby as a mortar to stabilize the posts in the walls of their wooden structures. Tabby was later used by the English in their American colonies and in Southern plantations.
Marquardt said that while the team uncovered a substantial amount of the walls they found, it is still only a small sample of the entire fort, and there is still much more to learn and excavate.
Discovery of the fort has the potential to reduce archaeologists' dependence on Spanish reports for information about ancient Floridian history, he said.
"Seeing the straight walls of the fort emerge, just inches below the surface, was quite exciting to us," Marquardt said. "Not only was this a confirmation of the location of the fort, but it shows the promise of Mound Key to shed light on a time in Florida's - and America's - history that is very poorly known."
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The Florida Museum's Karen Walker, Amanda Roberts Thompson of UGA and Lee Newsom of Flagler College also co-authored the study.
Examining heart extractions in ancient Mesoamerica
New findings on procedures and meanings of human heart sacrifices in Mesoamerica
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS JOURNALS
IMAGE: HUMAN HEART SACRIFICES IN MESOAMERICA view more
CREDIT: CINVESTAV UNIDAD MÉRIDA
Sacrificial rituals featuring human heart extraction were a prevalent religious practice throughout ancient Mesoamerican societies. Intended as a means of appeasing and honoring certain deities, sacrifices served as acts of power and intimidation as well as demonstrations of devotion and gratitude. Human sacrifices were highly structured, complex rituals performed by elite members of society, and the ceremonies included a myriad of procedures imbued with symbolic significance.
The specific techniques performed, the instrumentation utilized, and the underlying mythology motivating sacrifices varied across civilizations. Given the diversity of sacrificial rituals throughout Mesoamerica, Vera Tiesler and Guilhem Olivier assert an interdisciplinary approach incorporating scientific and humanistic evidence is needed in order to gain more nuanced insights into the procedural elements and the religious implications of human sacrifice during the Classic and Postclassic periods.
In the study, "Open Chests and Broken Hearts: Ritual Sequences and Meanings of Human Heart Sacrifice in Mesoamerica," published in Current Anthropology, Tiesler and Olivier conduct an anatomical analysis of skeletal evidence and compare it with systematically checked historical sources and over 200 instances of ceremonial heart extraction in codices. Focusing on the location of openings created in the chest to allow for the removal of a victim's heart and blood, the authors examine the resulting fractures and marks in articulated skeletons to infer about the nature of the entry wound and the potential instrumentation used.
The breadth of source material and the multitude of disciplinary approaches has led to debate among scholars. While the archaeological record provides evidence of these ceremonies, less tangible elements of the rituals--such as the symbolism of these processes--may be harder to discern. Descriptions of human sacrifice and heart extraction can likewise be found in written witness testimonies and in Mesoamerican iconography. However, witness accounts were often inconsistent, especially concerning the position of the extraction site.
Utilizing forensic data in conjunction with an analysis of ethnohistorical accounts, the authors detail three distinct heart extraction methods: cutting directly under the ribs (subdiaphragmatic thoracotomy); making an incision between two ribs (intercostal thoracotomy); or by horizontally severing the sternum in order to access the heart (transverse bilateral thoracotomy). While previous research indicates subdiaphragmatic thoracotomy was a common practice, Tiesler and Olivier expand upon the existing literature by providing reconstructions of intercostal thoracotomy and transverse bilateral thoracotomy.
In addition to providing a more comprehensive understanding of extraction techniques and devices, the study reveals new interpretations of the relationship between thoracotomy procedures and conceptualizations of the human body as a source of "vitalizing matter," or food for the gods. Hearts and blood were offered as sustenance to deities representing the sun and the earth in recognition of their sacrifices during the creation of the universe. Data--including linguistic analysis of ancient Mesoamerican terminology--reinforce suggestions that these rites served as acts of obligation, reciprocation, and re-enactment.
The interdisciplinary nature of the study enables future research by offering a framework for analyzing sacrificial rituals in other ancient societies, including ancient civilizations in the Andes and India.
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Key words: human heart sacrifice, ritual violence, Aztec, Maya, cosmic mountain, Mesoamerica, cosmology.
Short bios
Vera Tiesler is a research professor at the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, Mexico. She studies bioarchaeology and burial traditions in ancient Mesoamerica. Relevant co-edited publications include New Perspectives in Human Sacrifice and Ritual Body Treatments among the Ancient Maya, and Smoke, Flames, and the Human Body in Mesoamerican Ritual Practice.
Guilhem Olivier is a research professor at the Institute of Historical Research at the Universidad Nacional Autonóma de México. Specialized in Mesoamerican religion, he has authored Mockeries and Metamorphoses of an Aztec God: Tezcatlipoca; Cacería, sacrificio y poder en Mesoamérica: Tras las huellas de Mixcoatl; his co-edited anthologies include El sacrificio humano en la tradición religiosa mesoamericana.
What's the best way to identify male hemp seedlings?
More accurate sex determination could increase yields and lower price of CBD
EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY
IMAGE: A NEW STUDY ASSESSED THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THREE COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE PRIMER PAIRS AT DETERMINING THE SEX OF HEMP SEEDLINGS. SHOWN IS AN IMMATURE INDUSTRIAL HEMP PLANT. view more
CREDIT: ALLISON NALESNIK, SALISBURY UNIVERSITY
Bethesda, MD - The surge in cannabidiol (CBD) popularity means more farmers are growing non-intoxicating strains of cannabis, or hemp, for CBD production. This new market has led to commercial genetic tests for early determination of hemp plant sex. However, a new study has found that these tests may not all produce accurate results.
CBD is used as an alternative treatment for pain and anxiety and various medical conditions. Unfertilized female cannabis plants produce high amounts of the CBD precursor in their flowers, making it important to identify and eliminate male plants at the seedling stage.
"The results from our undergraduate-led project can help hemp growers make accurate sex determination of seedlings," said Allison Nalesnik, senior undergraduate student at Salisbury University. "This could help increase the yield of CBD, which should reduce prices for the public."
Nalesnik was scheduled to present this research at the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology annual meeting in San Diego this month. Though the meeting, to be held in conjunction with the 2020 Experimental Biology conference, was canceled in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the research team's abstract was published in this month's issue of The FASEB Journal.
Commercially available genetic tests use DNA markers known as primer pairs to identify male plants weeks before this could be determined visually. This helps farmers avoid spending time and money on growing plants that don't produce flowers and that could potentially lower CBD production by fertilizing female plants.
The new study was conducted through a molecular genetics course offered at Salisbury University. Over the course of a semester, students in the course followed identical protocols to determine the sex of 13 hemp plants. They collectively assessed the effectiveness of three commercially available primer pairs using modern genetics equipment and techniques.
"Two of the primer pairs -- SCAR119 and MADC2 -- were effective for determining the sex of cannabis seedlings," said Nalesnik. "The ineffective primer set would need to be tested further to more confidently say whether or not it is actually scientifically useful."
Next steps for this research include investigating DNA markers that are only found on the male chromosome to see if these offer a more efficient way to determine the sex of hemp seedlings.
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About Experimental Biology 2020
Experimental Biology is an annual meeting that attracts more than 12,000 scientists and exhibitors from five host societies and more than two dozen guest societies. With a mission to share the newest scientific concepts and research findings shaping clinical advances, the meeting offers an unparalleled opportunity for exchange among scientists from across the U.S. and the world who represent dozens of scientific areas, from laboratory to translational to clinical research. http://www.experimentalbiology.org #expbio
About the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB)
ASBMB is a nonprofit scientific and educational organization with more than 12,000 members worldwide. Founded in 1906 to advance the science of biochemistry and molecular biology, the society publishes three peer-reviewed journals, advocates for funding of basic research and education, supports science education at all levels, and promotes the diversity of individuals entering the scientific workforce. http://www.asbmb.org
About The FASEB Journal
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Find more press materials at: https://www.eurekalert.org/meetings/eb/2020/newsroom/.
