TOLEAN BESSIE UPDATE

First ancient human DNA from islands between Asia and Australia

Credit: University of Hasanuddin


A research team co-led by Griffith University archaeologists has discovered DNA in the remains of a hunter-gatherer woman who died 7200 years ago on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Nicknamed Bessé’, she is the first known skeleton from an early foraging culture called the Toaleans.

Genomic analysis shows that this ancient individual was a distant relative of Aboriginal Australians and Papuans. But it also revealed that Bessé’ is a rare ‘genetic fossil’, in the sense that she belonged to a group with an ancestral history that was unlike that of any previously known human population.

 

Excavations at Leang Panninge cave. Credit: Leang Panninge Research Project.

This surprising find, published in the journal Nature, is the first time ancient human DNA has been reported from ‘Wallacea’, the vast group of islands between Borneo and New Guinea and the gateway to the continent of Australia. 

The Sulawesi remains were excavated in 2015 from a cave called Leang Panninge (‘Bat Cave’). They belong to a young female hunter-gatherer who was about 17-18 years old at time of death. She was buried in a foetal position and partially covered by rocks. Stone tools and red ochre (iron-rich rock used to make pigment) were found in her grave, along with bones of hunted wild animals. 

The University of Hasanuddin archaeologists who discovered the woman affectionately dubbed her Bessé’, following a custom among Bugis royal families of bestowing this nickname on newly born princesses before they were formally named.


This is the first relatively complete skeleton to be found alongside securely dated artefacts of the Toalean culture, according to study co-leader Professor Adam Brumm from Griffith’s Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution.

“The Toaleans were early hunter-gatherers who lived a secluded existence in the forests of South Sulawesi from around 8,000 years ago until 1,500 years ago, hunting wild pigs and collecting edible shellfish from rivers,” Professor Brumm said.  

Professor Brumm’s team re-excavated Leang Panninge in 2019 to clarify the context of the burial and collect more samples for dating. Through radiocarbon dating the team was able to constrain the age of Bessé’ to between about 7300 to 7200 years old.

Toalean artefacts have only been found in one small part of Sulawesi, encompassing about 6% of the total land area of the island, the world’s eleventh largest.

“This suggests that this past culture had limited contact with other early Sulawesi communities or people in nearby islands, existing for thousands of years in isolation,” said study co-author Adhi Agus Oktaviana, a researcher in Indonesia’s national archaeological research institute (Pusat Penelitian Arkeologi Nasional) and a doctoral candidate in the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research.


Archaeologists have long debated the origins of the Toaleans. But now analyses of ancient DNA from the inner ear bone of Bessé’ partly confirm existing assertions that Toalean foragers were related to the first modern humans to enter Wallacea some 65,000 years ago, the ancestors of Aboriginal Australians and Papuans. 

“These seafaring hunter-gatherers were the earliest inhabitants of Sahul, the supercontinent that emerged during the Pleistocene (Ice Age) when global sea levels fell, exposing a land bridge between Australia and New Guinea,” Professor Brumm said.

Professor Adam Brumm.

“To reach Sahul, these pioneering humans made ocean crossings through Wallacea, but little about their journeys is known.”

The genomic analyses were led by Selina Carlhoff from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History at Jena, Germany, under the supervision of Professor Cosimo Posth (University of Tübingen) and Professor Johannes Krause (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig).

The results show that Bessé’ shares about half of her genetic makeup with present-day Indigenous Australians and people in New Guinea and the Western Pacific islands. This includes DNA inherited from the now-extinct Denisovans, distant cousins of Neanderthals whose fossils have only been found in Siberia and Tibet. 


“In fact, the proportion of Denisovan DNA in Bessé’ relative to other ancient as well as present-day groups in the region may indicate that the crucial meeting point between our species and Denisovans was in Sulawesi or another Wallacean island,” Professor Posth said.

The research could suggest that ancestors of Bessé’ were among the first modern humans to reach Wallacea, but instead of island hopping eastward to Sahul they remained in Sulawesi.

If so, it may have been the forebears of Bessé’ who created the very old cave paintings found in South Sulawesi. As recently shown by Griffith University researchers, this rock art dates to at least 45,500 years ago and includes what may be the earliest known human representations of animals.  

But analyses also revealed something unexpected in the genome of Bessé’: a deep ancestral signature from an early modern human population of Asian origin. This group did not intermix with the predecessors of Aboriginal Australians and Papuans, suggesting it may have entered the region after the initial peopling of Sahul. 

“It is unlikely we will know much about the identity of these early ancestors of the Toaleans until more ancient human DNA samples are available from Wallacea,” said Indonesian senior author Professor Akin Duli from the University of Hasanuddin.


“But it would now appear that the population history and genetic diversity of early humans in the region were more complex than previously supposed.”

The researchers could detect no ancestry resembling that of Bessé’ in the DNA of people who live in Sulawesi today, who seem to largely descend from Neolithic farmers (‘Austronesians’) who arrived in the region from Taiwan some 3,500 years ago.

This is not unexpected, given that the last traces of Toalean culture vanished from the archaeological record by the fifth century AD. The scientists do note, however, that more extensive genomic sampling of Sulawesi’s diverse population could reveal evidence for the genetic legacy of Toaleans.

“The discovery of Bessé’ and the implications of her genetic ancestry show just how little we understand about the early human story in our region, and how much more there is left to uncover,” Professor Brumm said.

Who were the Toaleans? Ancient woman’s DNA provides first evidence for the origin of a mysterious lost culture

Stone arrowheads (Maros points) and other flaked stone implements from the Toalean culture of South Sulawesi. 

Shahna Britton/Andrew Thomson, Author provided

August 25, 2021 

In 2015, archaeologists from the University of Hasanuddin in Makassar, on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, uncovered the skeleton of a woman buried in a limestone cave. Studies revealed the person from Leang Panninge, or “Bat Cave”, was 17 or 18 years old when she died some 7,200 years ago.

Her discoverers dubbed her Bessé’ (pronounced bur-sek¹) — a nickname bestowed on newborn princesses among the Bugis people who now live in southern Sulawesi. The name denotes the great esteem local archaeologists have for this ancient woman.

She represents the only known skeleton of one of the Toalean people. These enigmatic hunter-gatherers inhabited the island before Neolithic farmers from mainland Asia (“Austronesians”) spread into Indonesia around 3,500 years ago.

Burial of a Toalean hunter-gatherer woman dated to 7,200 years ago. Bessé’ was 17-18 years old at time of death. She was buried in a flexed position and several large cobbles were placed on and around her body. Although the skeleton is fragmented, ancient DNA was found preserved in the dense inner ear bone (petrous). University of Hasanuddin

Our team found ancient DNA that survived inside the inner ear bone of Bessé’, furnishing us with the first direct genetic evidence of the Toaleans. This is also the first time ancient human DNA has been reported from Wallacea, the vast group of islands between Borneo and New Guinea, of which Sulawesi is the largest.

Genomic analysis shows Bessé’ belonged to a population with a previously unknown ancestral composition. She shares about half of her genetic makeup with present-day Indigenous Australians and people in New Guinea and the Western Pacific. This includes DNA inherited from the now-extinct Denisovans, who were distant cousins of Neanderthals.

In fact, relative to other ancient and present-day groups in the region, the proportion of Denisovan DNA in Bessé’ could indicate the main meeting point between our species and Denisovans was in Sulawesi itself (or perhaps a nearby Wallacean island).

Read more: Evolutionary study suggests prehistoric human fossils 'hiding in plain sight' in Southeast Asia

The ancestry of this pre-Neolithic woman provides fascinating insight into the little-known population history and genetic diversity of early modern humans in the Wallacean islands — the gateway to the continent of Australia.

Sulawesi is the largest island in Wallacea, the zone of oceanic islands between the continental regions of Asia and Australia. White shaded areas represent landmasses exposed during periods of lower sea level in the Late Pleistocene. The Wallace Line is a major biogeographical boundary that marks the eastern extent of the distinctive plant and animal worlds of Asia. The Toalean cave site Leang Panninge (where Bessé’ was found) is located in Sulawesi’s southwestern peninsula (see inset panel). Toalean archaeological sites have only been found in a roughly 10,000 km² area of this peninsula, south of Lake Tempe. Kim Newman

Toalean culture

The archaeological story of the Toaleans began more than a century ago. In 1902, the Swiss naturalists Paul and Fritz Sarasin excavated several caves in the highlands of southern Sulawesi.

Their digs unearthed small, finely crafted stone arrowheads known as Maros points. They also found other distinctive stone implements and tools fashioned from bone, which they attributed to the original inhabitants of Sulawesi — the prehistoric “Toalien” people (now spelled Toalean)

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A Toalean stone arrowhead, known as a Maros point. Classic Maros points are small (roughly 2.5cm in maxiumum dimension) and were fashioned with rows of fine tooth-like serrations along the sides and tip, and wing-like projections at the base. Although this particular stone technology seems to have been unique to the Toalean culture, similar projectile points were produced in northern Australia, Java and Japan.                Shahna Britton/Andrew Thomson.

Some Toalean cave sites have since been excavated to a higher scientific standard, yet our understanding of this culture is at an early stage. The oldest known Maros points and other Toalean artefacts date to about 8,000 years ago.

Excavated findings from caves suggest the Toaleans were hunter-gatherers who preyed heavily on wild endemic warty pigs and harvested edible shellfish from creeks and estuaries. So far, evidence for the group has only been found in one part of southern Sulawesi.

Toalean artefacts disappear from the archaeological record by the fifth century AD — a few thousand years after the first Neolithic settlements emerged on the island.

Prehistorians have long sought to determine who the Toaleans were, but efforts have been impeded by a lack of securely-dated human remains. This all changed with the discovery of Bessé’ and the ancient DNA in her bones.

Toalean stone arrowheads (Maros points), backed microliths (small stone implements that may have been hafted as barbs) and bone projectile points. These artefacts are from Indonesian collections curated in Makassar and mostly comprise undated specimens collected from the ground surface at archaeological sites. Basran Burhan

The ancestral story of Bessé’

Our results mean we can now confirm existing presumptions the Toaleans were related to the first modern humans to enter Wallacea some 65,000 years ago or more. These seafaring hunter-gatherers were the ancestors of Aboriginal Australians and Papuans.

They were also the earliest inhabitants of Sahul, the supercontinent that emerged during the Pleistocene (ice age) when global sea levels fell, exposing a land bridge between Australia and New Guinea. To reach Sahul, these pioneering humans made ocean crossings through Wallacea, but little about their journeys is known.

Read more: Island-hopping study shows the most likely route the first people took to Australia

It is conceivable the ancestors of Bessé’ were among the first people to reach Wallacea. Instead of island-hopping to Sahul, however, they remained in Sulawesi.

But our analyses also revealed a deep ancestral signature from an early modern human population that originated somewhere in continental Asia. These ancestors of Bessé’ did not intermix with the forebears of Aboriginal Australians and Papuans, suggesting they may have entered the region after the initial peopling of Sahul — but long before the Austronesian expansion.

Who were these people? When did they arrive in the region and how widespread were they? It’s unlikely we will have answers to these questions until we have more ancient human DNA samples and pre-Neolithic fossils from Wallacea. This unexpected finding shows us how little we know about the early human story in our region.
A new look at the Toaleans

With funds awarded by the Australian Research Council’s Discovery program we are initiating a new project that will explore the Toalean world in greater detail. Through archaeological excavations at Leang Panninge we hope to learn more about the development of this unique hunter-gatherer culture.

Excavations at Leang Panninge cave, Mallawa, South Sulawesi.

 Leang Panninge Research Team.

We also wish to address longstanding questions about Toalean social organisation and ways of life. For example, some scholars have inferred the Toaleans became so populous that these hitherto small and scattered groups of foragers began to settle down in large sedentary communities, and possibly even domesticated wild pigs.

It has also recently been speculated Toaleans were the mysterious Asian seafarers who visited Australia in ancient times, introducing the dingo (or more accurately, the domesticated ancestor of this now-wild canid). There is clearly much left to uncover about the long island story of Bessé’ and her kin.

¹The “bur” syllable is pronounced as in the English word “bursary”. The “k” is essentially a strangulated stop in the throat, akin to the “t” in the Cockney “bo'ol”, for bottle. (With thanks to Professor Campbell Macknight).