Baltic hunter-gatherers began farming without influence of migration, ancient DNA suggests

Levantine farmers did not contribute to hunter-gatherers in the Baltic as they did in Central and Western Europe.

New research indicates that Baltic hunter-gatherers were not swamped by migrations of early agriculturalists from the Middle East, as was the case for the rest of central and western Europe. Instead, these people probably acquired knowledge of farming and ceramics by sharing cultures and ideas -- rather than genes -- with outside communities.

Scientists extracted ancient DNA from a number of archaeological remains discovered in Latvia and the Ukraine, which were between 5,000 and 8,000 years old. These samples spanned the Neolithic period, which was the dawn of agriculture in Europe, when people moved from a mobile hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a settled way of life based on food production.

We know through previous research that large numbers of early farmers from the Levant (the Near East) -- driven by the success of their technological innovations such as crops and pottery -- had expanded to the peripheral parts of Europe by the end of the Neolithic and largely replaced hunter-gatherer populations.

However, the new study, published in the journal Current Biology, shows that the Levantine farmers did not contribute to hunter-gatherers in the Baltic as they did in Central and Western Europe.

The research team, which includes scientists from Trinity College Dublin, the University of Cambridge, and University College Dublin, says their findings instead suggest that the Baltic hunter-gatherers learned these skills through communication and cultural exchange with outsiders.

The findings feed into debates around the 'Neolithic package,' -- the cluster of technologies such as domesticated livestock, cultivated cereals and ceramics, which revolutionised human existence across Europe during the late Stone Age.

Advances in ancient DNA work have revealed that this 'package' was spread through Central and Western Europe by migration and interbreeding: the Levant and later Anatolian farmers mixing with and essentially replacing the hunter-gatherers.

But the new work suggests migration was not a 'universal driver' across Europe for this way of life. In the Baltic region, archaeology shows that the technologies of the 'package' did develop -- albeit less rapidly -- even though the analyses show that the genetics of these populations remained the same as those of the hunter-gatherers throughout the Neolithic.

Andrea Manica, one of the study's senior authors from the University of Cambridge, said: "Almost all ancient DNA research up to now has suggested that technologies such as agriculture spread through people migrating and settling in new areas."

"However, in the Baltic, we find a very different picture, as there are no genetic traces of the farmers from the Levant and Anatolia who transmitted agriculture across the rest of Europe."

"The findings suggest that indigenous hunter-gatherers adopted Neolithic ways of life through trade and contact, rather than being settled by external communities. Migrations are not the only model for technology acquisition in European prehistory."

While the sequenced genomes showed no trace of the Levant farmer influence, one of the Latvian samples did reveal genetic influence from a different external source -- one that the scientists say could be a migration from the Pontic Steppe in the east. The timing (5-7,000 years ago) fits with previous research estimating the earliest Slavic languages.

Researcher Eppie Jones, from Trinity College Dublin and the University of Cambridge, was the lead author of the study. She said: "There are two major theories on the spread of Indo-European languages, the most widely spoken language family in the world. One is that they came from the Anatolia with the agriculturalists; another that they developed in the Steppes and spread at the start of the Bronze Age."

"That we see no farmer-related genetic input, yet we do find this Steppe-related component, suggests that at least the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family originated in the Steppe grasslands of the East, which would bring later migrations of Bronze Age horse riders."

The researchers point out that the time scales seen in Baltic archaeology are also very distinct to the rest of Europe, with a much more drawn-out and piecemeal uptake of Neolithic technologies, rather than the complete 'package' that arrives with migrations to take most of Europe by storm.

Andrea Manica added: "Our evidence of genetic continuity in the Baltic, coupled with the archaeological record showing a prolonged adoption of Neolithic technologies, would suggest the existence of trade networks with farming communities largely independent of interbreeding."

"It seems the hunter-gatherers of the Baltic likely acquired bits of the Neolithic package slowly over time through a 'cultural diffusion' of communication and trade, as there is no sign of the migratory wave that brought farming to the rest of Europe during this time.

"The Baltic hunter-gatherer genome remains remarkably untouched until the great migrations of the Bronze Age sweep in from the East."

Read more at Science Daily

Toilet Break Discovery Rewrites Aboriginal History

The chance discovery of a rock shelter in the Flinders Ranges has unearthed one of the most important prehistoric sites in Australia.

The site, known as Warratyi, shows Aboriginal Australians settled the arid interior of the country around 49,000 years ago — some 10,000 years earlier than previously thought.

The shelter, about 550 kilometers north of Adelaide, also contains the first reliably dated evidence of human interaction with megafauna.

Artefacts excavated at the site also push back the earliest-known dates on the development of key bone and stone axe technologies and the use of ochre in Australia.

Lead author Giles Hamm, a consultant archaeologist and doctoral student at La Trobe University, found the site with local Adnyamathanha elder Clifford Coulthard while surveying gorges in the northern Flinders Ranges.

"A man getting out of the car to go to the toilet led to the discovery of one of the most important sites in Australian pre-history."

Mr Hamm said during a survey of the gorge they noticed a rock shelter with a blackened roof about 20 meters above the creek bed.

"Immediately when we saw that we thought, 'Wow, that's people lighting fires inside that rock shelter, that's human activity'," he said.

At the time they had no idea how significant the find was, Mr Hamm admitted, and thought maybe it would reach back about 5,000 years.

Working with the Adnyamathanha people over the past nine years, Mr Hamm and colleagues recovered from the one-meter-deep excavations around 4,300 artifacts and 200 bone fragments from 16 mammals and one reptile.

Importantly dating of the artifacts and fossil finds show humans occupied the site from 49,000 to 46,000 years ago.

Mr Hamm said the significance of the site was the combination of its age and geographic location.

The previous oldest-known site in the arid zone, located at Puritjarra in western Central Australia, is around 38,000 years old.

However, Mr Hamm said it was likely the climate was more favorable when they arrived.

"They got there before it became really arid," he said.

"In one sense they were trapped in the Flinders Ranges because once the climate changed [due to the last glacial maximum] it was too risky to move out of these well-watered ranges that had these permanent springs."

It was a view supported by palaeoanthropologist Michael Westaway at Griffith University, who was part of a recent genomic study that confirmed modern Aboriginal Australians are the descendants of the first people to inhabit Australia and showed they adapted genetically to survive in the desert.

"Our DNA paper suggested the arid center at 50,000 years ago was not really a barrier to the movement of people, and this seems to be what Giles is suggesting — people were able to migrate south quite quickly," Dr Westaway said.

Among the other significant artifact finds at the site was the earliest-known use of ochre in Australia and South-East Asia around 49,000-46,000 years ago.

Mr Hamm said they had pushed back the dates on the development of technologies such as bone needles (40,000-38,000 years ago), wood-handled stone tools (at least 24,000 years ago) and gypsum use (40,000-33,000 years ago).

The site also provided reliably dated evidence of hafted axe technology about 38,000 years ago.

Co-author Professor Gavin Prideaux pointed to the discovery of bones from the extinct giant wombat-like Diprotodon optatum and eggs from an ancient giant bird as important evidence of interaction with ancient humans which would have an impact on the debate over the extinction of megafauna.

Professor Prideaux, from Flinders University's School of Biological Sciences, said the only previous site in Australia where megafauna remains and human artifacts had been found together was Cuddie Springs in NSW, which had become the subject of controversy over the accuracy of dating.

"One good thing about this study ... is there's no doubt there are megafauna remains in the form of Diprotodon and a giant bird in that rock shelter in a well-dated, well-stratified context sometime between 45,000 and 50,000 years ago," Professor Prideaux said.

"The only way those bones and shells got there [because of the steep incline up to the rock shelter] is because people brought them there [to eat] ... in terms of megafauna that's the really significant finding."

Read more at Discovery News

Mastodon Skeleton in Michigan Best Since 1940s

The most complete mastodon skeleton found in Michigan in some 75 years has been unearthed in the state's "Thumb" region, according to paleontologists from the University of Michigan (UM).

Researchers with the university say about 70% of the creature's skeletal mass has been recovered from the Fowler Center for Outdoor Learning, near Mayville.

While parts of hundreds of mastodons have been found in Michigan, the researchers estimate that the new find is more complete than all but a handful of them.

"This is the most complete Michigan mastodon skeleton in many decades," said UM paleontologist and leader of the dig, Daniel Fisher, in a statement. "I think the last time a mastodon this complete was found in Michigan was in the 1940s."

Mastodons, extinct relatives of modern elephants, roamed North and Central America in grazing herds and died out about 10,000 to 11,000 years ago.

Further testing will be done to narrow its age estimate and even the season in which it died, but much is already known about the skeleton. It belonged to a male estimated to have lived between 11,000 and 13,000 years ago, and the animal was likely around 30 years old at time of death, based on tooth size and wear.

What's more, the mastodon looks to have been the victim of early human hunters.

"I would say it is roughly 80 percent likely that humans were involved and responsible for major portions of what we see at this site," Fisher said.

Fisher and his team noted that the mastodon's bones were still aligned correctly, relative to each other. Had it died of natural causes, they said, the animal's carcass would have been scavenged and the bones scattered from their original location. Indeed early indications are the creature was processed by humans, with some fully aligned bone sections seemingly separated into piles.

The location of the bones, near a lake that no longer exists, suggests another intriguing possibility.

The mastodon was "apparently brought to a lake and, we think, stored in this lake as a strategy for meat storage by early humans who lived in this part of the world at that same time," Fisher said. The researcher has studied other Great Lakes pond-storage sites, where the cold pond bottom, coupled with lowered oxygen, would have helped keep the meat from spoiling.

"Finding a specimen like this also tells us something about human history," Fisher said. "What did it take to feed a family, to raise a family? What did it take to make a life in early Michigan, soon after the recession of the ice at the end of the ice age?"

Read more at Discovery News

Ancient Civilization in Mexico Bred, Ate Rabbits

Shown is an illustration of the leporid sculpture from the Oztoyahualco compound of Teotihuacan.

Native people living in the ancient city of Teotihuacan, now a World Heritage site located in modern-day Mexico, likely bred rabbits to eat and used their bones for tools, researchers said Wednesday.

The study in the open-access journal PLOS ONE represents one of the first known examples of small mammal breeding in an indigenous culture that existed from the first to the seventh century AD.

"Because no large mammals such as goats, cows or horses were available for domestication in pre-Hispanic Mexico, many assume that Native Americans did not have as intensive human-animal relationships as did societies of the Old World," said lead author Andrew Somerville, a researcher at the University of California, San Diego.

"Our results suggest that citizens of the ancient city of Teotihuacan engaged in relationships with smaller and more diverse fauna, such as rabbits and jackrabbits, and that these may have been just as important as relationships with larger animals."

Many archaeological excavations have been done at the site, which covers eight square miles (20 square kilometers) and was home to some 100,000 residents, making it the largest urban center of its time, said the study.

Analyses have shown that wild rabbits were among the most common mammals there, making up 48 percent of all identified fauna remains near a residential compound called Oztoyahualco.

Evidence of animal butchering was found in several rooms, where "high soil phosphate levels in the floor suggest the presence of disintegrated fecal matter or blood from butchering," said the study.

Researchers found obsidian blades, multiple rabbit foot bones and low stone walls that may have been used as pens for keeping rabbits.

There is also "a unique stone sculpture of a rabbit" in a nearby public courtyard.

The study said many of the rabbits were likely acquired through the practice of garden-hunting.

Villagers would have nabbed rabbits from fields where squash, maize and beans were grown. Similar practices were seen in other pre-Hispanic societies of the era.

But saving their crops was not the only reason for the high number of rabbit remains, the study said.

Stable carbon and oxygen isotope analysis of 134 rabbit and hare bone specimens from the ancient city and 13 modern wild specimens from central Mexico showed that those inside the compound were eating more human-farmed crops, such as maize, suggesting that people were feeding them and raising them in Oztoyahualco.

Read more at Discovery News