0000000000908658
AUTHOR
Domingo C. Salazar-garcía
Understanding the microbial biogeography of ancient human dentitions to guide study design and interpretation
AbstractThe oral cavity is a heterogeneous environment, varying in factors such as pH, oxygen levels, and salivary flow. These factors affect the microbial community composition and distribution of species in dental plaque, but it is not known how well these patterns are reflected in archaeological dental calculus. In most archaeological studies, a single sample of dental calculus is studied per individual and is assumed to represent the entire oral cavity. However, it is not known if this sampling strategy introduces biases into studies of the ancient oral microbiome. Here, we present the results of a shotgun metagenomic study of a dense sampling of dental calculus from four Chalcolithic i…
A combined dietary approach using isotope and dental buccal-microwear analysis of human remains from the Neolithic, Roman and Medieval periods from the archaeological site of Tossal de les Basses (Alicante, Spain)
Stable isotope and dental-microwear analysis are methods commonly used to reconstruct dietary habits in modern and ancient human populations. However, it is rare that they are both used together in the same study, and here both methods are combined to obtain information on human dietary habits from the site of Tossal de les Basses (Alicante, Spain) through time. Middle Neolithic, Late Roman and Medieval (Islamic) individuals have been analyzed for carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratios of bone collagen, as well as for buccal-dental microwear. Overall, δ13C and δ15N isotopic values show that for all periods the diet was mainly based on C3 terrestrial resources. However, the isotopic signa…
Olive oil: composition and health benefits
The production of Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) in Spain is very high, it reached 1 million tonnes in the last olive oil campaign, with over two million hectares planted with olive trees. This crop is distributed in over six different bioclimatic zones and with more than 100 cultivars, many of them native from a pomological point of view. Among the olive areas of Spain, Andalusia, Extremadura, Catalonia and Valencia stand out, next to the Central Region (Castilla-La Mancha). Each one of them is respectively dominated by Picual, Manzanilla, Arbequina and Farga cultivars alongside Cornicabra, all highly diversified. In response to this diversification of olive groves in Spain, we have studied…
Aplicación de la evaluación On-line en asignaturas de contenido morfológico
[EN] The use of active participatory methodologies and therefore the students, practical content attribute meanings and encourage student participation. Allows commitment to the construction of implicating knowledge in the use of materials of initiation provided and designed by teachers but students independently, both individually and collectively, will be expanded and completing then move to a forum such documents and comments tutorial for feedback and participation are drawn directly. This material if necessary be completed, but this possible expansion will be made after public exposure in the classroom and to all colleagues. So the work is evaluated by the collective student-teachers (a…
Reconstructing the deep population history of Central and South America
We report genome-wide ancient DNA from 49 individuals forming four parallel time transects in Belize, Brazil, the Central Andes, and the Southern Cone, each dating to at least ∼9,000 years ago. The common ancestral population radiated rapidly from just one of the two early branches that contributed to Native Americans today. We document two previously unappreciated streams of gene flow between North and South America. One affected the Central Andes by ∼4,200 years ago, while the other explains an affinity between the oldest North American genome associated with the Clovis culture and the oldest Central and South Americans from Chile, Brazil, and Belize. However, this was not the primary sou…
The genomic history of the Iberian Peninsula over the past 8000 years
We assembled genome-wide data from 271 ancient Iberians, of whom 176 are from the largely unsampled period after 2000 BCE, thereby providing a high-resolution time transect of the Iberian Peninsula. We document high genetic substructure between northwestern and southeastern hunter-gatherers before the spread of farming. We reveal sporadic contacts between Iberia and North Africa by ~2500 BCE and, by ~2000 BCE, the replacement of 40% of Iberia's ancestry and nearly 100% of its Y-chromosomes by people with Steppe ancestry. We show that, in the Iron Age, Steppe ancestry had spread not only into Indo-European-speaking regions but also into non-Indo-European-speaking ones, and we reveal that pre…
A Terrestrial Diet Close to the Coast: A Case Study from the Neolithic Levels of Nerja Cave (Málaga, Spain)
Here we present an evaluation of faunal studies and new isotopic results on human and faunal remains from the first farmers at Nerja Cave (Malaga, Spain), and assess the data obtained from a regional perspective and on the basis of the archaeological and archaeozoological context. The evidence shows that the Neolithic peoples who inhabited the cave had a mainly terrestrial diet, even if living on the coastline and in a region with a high marine productivity, as observed during previous periods at the same cave. This sharp dietary shift occurring at the onset of the Neolithic for this region supports the hypothesis that different modes of exploitation during distinct time periods are best ex…
Assessing use and suitability of scanning electron microscopy in the analysis of micro remains in dental calculus
AbstractDental calculus is increasingly recognized as a major reservoir of dietary information. Palaeodietary studies using plant and animal micro remains (e.g. phytoliths, pollen, sponge spicules, and starch grains) trapped in calculus have the potential to revise our knowledge of the dietary role of plants in past populations. The conventional methods used to isolate and identify these micro remains rely on removing them from their microenvironment in the calculus, thus the microenvironment that traps and preserves micro remains is not understood. By using scanning electron microscopy and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM–EDX) on modern chimpanzee calculus from the Taï Forest, Côt…
Genomic transformation and social organization during the Copper Age–Bronze Age transition in southern Iberia
Description
Chemometrics as a tool to discriminate geographical origin of Cyperus esculentus L. based on chemical composition
[EN] In the present study the chemical composition of Cyperus esculentus L. (tiger nut) from four distinct geographical origin (Spain, Egypt, Nigeria, and South Africa) was assessed to observe the possible effect of the cultivation site in the fatty acids profile, sterols composition, and squalene and -tocopherol content. It was verified that the individual fatty acids as well as the different fatty acids fractions were severely affected by the geographical origin. Tiger nut oils were predominantly monounsaturated with lower prevalence of saturated fatty acids, and with capability to provide appreciable amounts of essential fatty acids. The sterols fraction was affected as well, but in lowe…
Ten millennia of hepatitis B virus evolution
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) has been infecting humans for millennia and remains a global health problem, but its past diversity and dispersal routes are largely unknown. We generated HBV genomic data from 137 Eurasians and Native Americans dated between ~10,500 and ~400 years ago. We date the most recent common ancestor of all HBV lineages to between ~20,000 and 12,000 years ago, with the virus present in European and South American hunter-gatherers during the early Holocene. After the European Neolithic transition, Mesolithic HBV strains were replaced by a lineage likely disseminated by early farmers that prevailed throughout western Eurasia for ~4000 years, declining around the end of the 2nd…
Mobility across the pre-Pyrenean mountain ranges during the Chalcolithic through strontium isotopes in human enamel: La Cueva de los Cristales (Sarsa de Surta, Huesca, Spain)
Abstract There is an increasing abundance in the archaeological record in Iberia for the Late Neolithic and the beginning of the Chalcolithic periods, mostly regarding burials. The higher pre-Pyrenean areas began to be settled more frequently, but the poor weather conditions have led researchers to suggest that human presence mostly took the form of sporadic visits. This argument has provoked substantial controversy given the increase not only in the archaeological artefacts recorded but also in the number of burial sites in less accessible places. To shed more light on the knowledge of these Chalcolithic mountain groups, we have carried out strontium isotope analysis of human enamel of ind…
Using Y-chromosome capture enrichment to resolve haplogroup H2 shows new evidence for a two-path Neolithic expansion to Western Europe
Uniparentally-inherited markers on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and the non-recombining regions of the Y chromosome (NRY), have been used for the past 30 years to investigate the history of humans from a maternal and paternal perspective. Researchers have preferred mtDNA due to its abundance in the cells, and comparatively high substitution rate. Conversely, the NRY is less susceptible to back mutations and saturation, and is potentially more informative than mtDNA owing to its longer sequence length. However, due to comparatively poor NRY coverage via shotgun sequencing, and the relatively low and biased representation of Y-chromosome variants on capture assays such as the 1240 k, ancient DNA…
A multi-isotope analysis of Neolithic human groups in the Yonne valley, Northern France: insights into dietary patterns and social structure
With the arrival of the Neolithic to Europe, new ways of life and new subsistence strategies emerged. In the Paris Basin (northern France), the appearance of some monumental funerary structures during the Middle Neolithic highlights in particular the increasing complexity of the social organisation. At the same time, several sites, such as open-air cemeteries, do not display any evidence of such arrangement. In the southeast of this area, the two primary routes of neolithisation meet. Several funerary parameters attest to the diverse influence received from other surrounding cultures. In order to assess potential differences in diet, and therefore on purported social distinctions at the int…
“To ‘seafood’ or not to ‘seafood’?” An isotopic perspective on dietary preferences at the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in the Western Mediterranean
Abstract Stable isotope investigations of the Prehistory of the Western Mediterranean have increased exponentially during the last decade. This region has a high number of Mesolithic and Neolithic carbon and nitrogen isotope ratio data available compared with other world areas, resulting from the interest in the “transition” between hunter-gathering and farming. This type of analysis is important as one of the few tools that give direct information on the poorly understood dietary transition from hunter-gatherer to agro-pastoralist subsistence in the Mediterranean Basin. Carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis on bulk collagen are especially useful for exploring marine vs. terrestrial p…
Dietary evidence from Central Asian Neanderthals: A combined isotope and plant microremains approach at Chagyrskaya Cave (Altai, Russia).
Neanderthals are known primarily from their habitation of Western Eurasia, but they also populated large expanses of Northern Asia for thousands of years. Owing to a sparse archaeological record, relatively little is known about these eastern Neanderthal populations. Unlike in their western range, there are limited zooarchaeological and paleobotanical studies that inform us about the nature of their subsistence. Here, we perform a combined analysis of carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes on bone collagen and microbotanical remains in dental calculus to reconstruct the diet of eastern Neanderthals at Chagyrskaya Cave in the Altai Mountains of Southern Siberia, Russia. Stable isotopes identify…
Isotope evidence for the use of marine resources in the Eastern Iberian Mesolithic
There are relatively few coastal Mesolithic sites in the Iberian Mediterranean region, probably due to a number of factors including sea level changes and the disappearance of sites due to agriculture and urbanisation. However, recent excavations have uncovered inland sites that have marine faunal remains (i.e. molluscs and fish) and lithics from the coastal area, which both indicate interactions between the coast and the upland valleys. These inland sites are located at a distance of 30-50km from today's coastline and are at altitudes higher than 1000m. We report on additional information on the links between the coast and these inland sites through the use of dietary isotope analysis (car…
New insights on Neolithic food and mobility patterns in Mediterranean coastal populations
OBJECTIVES The aims of this research are to explore the diet, mobility, social organization, and environmental exploitation patterns of early Mediterranean farmers, particularly the role of marine and plant resources in these foodways. In addition, this work strives to document possible gendered patterns of behavior linked to the neolithization of this ecologically rich area. To achieve this, a set of multiproxy analyses (isotopic analyses, dental calculus, microremains analysis, ancient DNA) were performed on an exceptional deposit (n = 61) of human remains from the Les Breguieres site (France), dating to the transition of the sixth to the fifth millennium BCE. MATERIALS AND METHODS The sa…
Neanderthal diets in central and southeastern Mediterranean Iberia
During recent decades, Neanderthal diet has been a major research topic in palaeoanthropology. This has been accelerated by the maturation of different techniques, which have produced a plethora of new information. However, this proliferation of data has led to confusing and contradictory results. Furthermore, most of the ecological dietary studies have been carried out on specimens drawn from different time periods and regions, almost exclusively those characterized by cold, open environmental conditions. Subsistence models based on these fragmentary data have been applied to Neanderthals living in a variety of different regions and environments, even though their dietary strategies may ha…
The efficacy of whole human genome capture on ancient dental calculus and dentin
Objectives Dental calculus is among the richest known sources of ancient DNA in the archaeological record. Although most DNA within calculus is microbial, it has been shown to contain sufficient human DNA for the targeted retrieval of whole mitochondrial genomes. Here, we explore whether calculus is also a viable substrate for whole human genome recovery using targeted enrichment techniques. Materials and methods Total DNA extracted from 24 paired archaeological human dentin and calculus samples was subjected to whole human genome enrichment using in-solution hybridization capture and high-throughput sequencing. Results Total DNA from calculus exceeded that of dentin in all cases, and altho…
El yacimiento calcolítico de Karea en el contexto de las cuevas sepulcrales de Gipuzkoa (País Vasco)
En el yacimiento arqueológico de Karea (Aia, Gipuzkoa), integrado por las cavidades contiguas de Karea-A y Karea-B, se recuperaron numerosos restos cerámicos y faunísticos (Karea-A) y vestigios de una inhumación calcolítica (Karea-B). El presente trabajo se ha vertebrado en dos ejes. En primer lugar, el estudio de ambos depósitos mediante diferentes disciplinas: (1) estudio antropológico; (2) estudio del ajuar, compuesto por restos cerámicos y faunísticos; (3) identificación antracológica de los restos leñosos recuperados en el depósito funerario y por último, (4) estudios isotópicos que nos han permitido obtener datos de la alimentación (δ13C y δ15N) y procedencia (87Sr/86Sr) del sujeto in…
Earliest evidence of Neolithic collective burials from Eastern Iberia: Radiocarbon dating at the archaeolgoical site of Les Llometes (Alicante, Spain)
AbstractIn the Valencia region of Spain, the dominant use of natural caves for collective burials during the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods has been documented. Collective burials are central to the hypothesis about social relationships in Copper Age societies from Iberia, and key to interpreting kinship-based societies. Les Llometes (Alcoi, Alicante) is one of the biggest collective burial sites existing in eastern Iberia. This article presents the direct14C dates on 25 skeletal remains at the site. The results indicate that the site was used as a burial place from the end of the 5th millennium cal BC until the end of the 4th millennium cal BC, and is a first milestone for future …
The evolution and changing ecology of the African hominid oral microbiome
Significance The microbiome plays key roles in human health, but little is known about its evolution. We investigate the evolutionary history of the African hominid oral microbiome by analyzing dental biofilms of humans and Neanderthals spanning the past 100,000 years and comparing them with those of chimpanzees, gorillas, and howler monkeys. We identify 10 core bacterial genera that have been maintained within the human lineage and play key biofilm structural roles. However, many remain understudied and unnamed. We find major taxonomic and functional differences between the oral microbiomes of Homo and chimpanzees but a high degree of similarity between Neanderthals and modern humans, incl…
¿Un Ulises campaniforme en el túmulo de Tablada del Rudrón (Burgos)? ADN estépico y pendientes de oro de tipo británico en el enterramiento del fundador
Entre 1979 y 1983 el túmulo de El Virgazal en Tablada de Rudrón (Burgos) fue objeto de cuatro campañas de excavación arqueológica dirigidas por J. Campillo, gracias a las cuales pudieron reconocerse la naturaleza funeraria del yacimiento, su fundación en época campaniforme y su reutilización en la Edad del Bronce (Campillo, 1984; Bohigas et al., 1984: 20-21). Consecuencia de dichos trabajos fue la recuperación de una notable colección de cerámicas campaniformes que, en una época en la que en la provincia de Burgos apenas se conocían otras que las descubiertas por el padre Saturio González en los alrededores de Silos (Delibes, 1988), reportó gran notoriedad al yacimiento. Pero la circunstanc…
Exotic foods reveal contact between South Asia and the Near East during the second millennium BCE
Aunque el papel clave del comercio a larga distancia en la transformación de las cocinas en todo el mundo está bien documentado desde al menos la época romana, la prehistoria del comercio de alimentos euroasiático es menos visible. Con el fin de arrojar luz sobre la transformación de las cocinas del Mediterráneo oriental durante la Edad del Bronce y la Edad del Hierro Temprana, analizamos los microrestos y las proteínas conservadas en el cálculo dental de individuos que vivieron durante el segundo milenio a. Nuestros resultados proporcionan evidencia clara del consumo de alimentos básicos esperados, como cereales (Triticeae), sésamo ( Sesamum ) y dátiles ( Phoenix ). Además, informamos evid…
Chemical characterization of traditional varietal olive oils in East of Spain
Abstract The aim of this work has been to characterize the chemical composition of the eight most emblematic varietal olive oils from the West of the Mediterranean Sea. These were classified into two groups according to the International Olive Council (IOC norms): Sweet oils (Farga, Morruda and Serrana) which were compared with Arbequina as standard of the Spanish sweet oils; and bitter–spicy oils (Alfafara, Blanqueta, and Villalonga) that were compared with Picual, considered as the standard of the bitter–spicy olive oils. For the study, sampled trees were chosen in their geographically separated originating areas. They were cultivated in the traditional conditions. The variety of each sam…
Current Thoughts on the Neolithisation Process of the Western Mediterranean
The analysis of the Neolithisation process constitutes a recurrent theme in the scientific literature given the fundamental change for human populations implied in the transition from a hunting-fishing-gathering economy to one based on domestication and food production. Nonetheless, the majority of the regional syntheses on a European scale published to date have dealt mainly with the historical narrative of the process, focusing on discussing the Neolithisation process from a demographic and/or cultural perspective. In this respect, the work of Ammerman and Cavalli Sforza (1984) without doubt constituted a turning point in a number of aspects relevant to the study of the Neolithisation of …
Reconstruction of human subsistence and husbandry strategies from the Iberian Early Neolithic: A stable isotope approach
Objectives The Early Neolithic involved an important social and economic shift that can be tested not only with the material culture, but also through biomolecular approaches. The Iberian Peninsula presents few Early Neolithic sites where fauna and humans can be analyzed together from an isotopic perspective. Here we present an isotopic study on the site of Cueva de Chaves as an example for understanding the dietary and economical changes that took place during Early Neolithic in Iberia. Material and methods Here we apply carbon and nitrogen stable isotope analysis to bone collagen from 4 humans and 64 faunal samples from 14 different species. The large dataset belongs to the same unique ch…
Dental calculus evidence of Taï Forest Chimpanzee plant consumption and life history transitions
AbstractDental calculus (calcified dental plaque) is a source of multiple types of data on life history. Recent research has targeted the plant microremains preserved in this mineralised deposit as a source of dietary and health information for recent and past populations. However, it is unclear to what extent we can interpret behaviour from microremains. Few studies to date have directly compared the microremain record from dental calculus to dietary records and none with long-term observation dietary records, thus limiting how we can interpret diet, food acquisition and behaviour. Here we present a high-resolution analysis of calculus microremains from wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes ve…
Pathogens and host immunity in the ancient human oral cavity.
Calcified dental plaque (dental calculus) preserves for millennia and entraps biomolecules from all domains of life and viruses. We report the first high-resolution taxonomic and protein functional characterization of the ancient oral microbiome and demonstrate that the oral cavity has long served as a reservoir for bacteria implicated in both local and systemic disease. We characterize: (i) the ancient oral microbiome in a diseased state, (ii) 40 opportunistic pathogens, (iii) the first evidence of ancient human-associated putative antibiotic resistance genes, (iv) a genome reconstruction of the periodontal pathogen Tannerella forsythia, (v) 239 bacterial and 43 human proteins, allowing co…
A tough travesía: Mobility constraints among late Holocene Patagonian hunter-gatherers through oxygen stable isotopes in enamel and water sources
Central-eastern North Patagonia is characterized by a severe environmental fragmentation due to the scarce and heterogeneous distribution of fresh water. The main local wet zones, the Negro and Colorado river valleys in the North and the Somuncura Foothills in the South are separated by a large and harsh dry land, the travesia. In this paper, we assess the effects of this environmental fragmentation in the mobility of the Late Holocene hunter-gatherers through the analysis of the stable isotopes of oxygen in both enamel and water sources. We analyzed the δ18O of the enamel carbonate of 64 human teeth from 42 individuals from the Negro River valley (n = 30) and the Somuncura Foothills (n = 1…
Microwear and isotopic analyses on cave bear remains from Toll Cave reveal both short-term and long-term dietary habits
Dietary habits of the extinct Ursus spelaeus have always been a controversial topic in paleontological studies. In this work, we investigate carbon and nitrogen values in the bone collagen and dental microwear of U. spelaeus specimens recovered in Level 4 from Toll Cave (Moia, Catalonia, NE Iberian Peninsula). These remains have been dated to > 49,000 C-14 BP. The ability of both proxies to provide data on the diet of U. spelaeus at different times in the life-history (isotopes: average diet of life; microwear: last days/weeks before death), allows us to generate high-resolution and complementary data. Our results show lower values (delta C-13 & delta N-15) in cave bears than in strict herb…
Back to the bases: Building a terrestrial water δ18O baseline for archaeological studies in North Patagonia (Argentina)
Archaeology has been using stable oxygen as an isotopic tracer linked with water consumption for decades, and it has been demonstrated to be a powerful tool to assess paleomobility in bioarchaeology. Central-eastern North Patagonia (Argentina) is an especially appropriate region to apply it since it presents a high density of huntergatherer burials, it was a nodal zone criss-crossed by an extensive network of important routes, and it is characterized by a high environmental fragmentation due to the scarcity of fresh water sources. The aim of this paper is to build an empirical stable oxygen isotope baseline of terrestrial surface waters to assess the potentiality of tracing past human movem…
Intrinsic challenges in ancient microbiome reconstruction using 16S rRNA gene amplification
AbstractTo date, characterization of ancient oral (dental calculus) and gut (coprolite) microbiota has been primarily accomplished through a metataxonomic approach involving targeted amplification of one or more variable regions in the 16S rRNA gene. Specifically, the V3 region (E. coli 341–534) of this gene has been suggested as an excellent candidate for ancient DNA amplification and microbial community reconstruction. However, in practice this metataxonomic approach often produces highly skewed taxonomic frequency data. In this study, we use non-targeted (shotgun metagenomics) sequencing methods to better understand skewed microbial profiles observed in four ancient dental calculus speci…
Ten millennia of hepatitis B virus evolution
Hepatitis B virus (HBV) has been infecting humans for millennia and remains a global health problem, but its past diversity and dispersal routes are largely unknown. We generated HBV genomic data from 137 Eurasians and Native Americans dated between ~10,500 and ~400 years ago. We date the most recent common ancestor of all HBV lineages to between ~20,000 and 12,000 years ago, with the virus present in European and South American hunter-gatherers during the early Holocene. After the European Neolithic transition, Mesolithic HBV strains were replaced by a lineage likely disseminated by early farmers that prevailed throughout western Eurasia for ~4000 years, declining around the end of the 2nd…
Diet at the onset of the Neolithic in northeastern Iberia : an isotope-plant microremain combined study from Cova Bonica (Vallirana, Catalonia)
The emergence of Neolithic societies was transformative, impacting many aspects of life, particularly diet. The process of Neolithization in Iberia is increasingly understood as the arrival of new people from the Central Mediterranean, who dispersed along the Iberian coasts introducing cereal production, herding, and Cardial pottery and associated material culture. Although research has clarified aspects of the cultigen-dominated economy of these new people, questions remain due to the limitations of conventional archaeobotanical and archaeozoological methods that tend to produce indirect evidence. The extent to which these early farmers adopted Mesolithic staples, which are often difficult…
Isotopic Anthropology of Rural German Medieval Diet: Intra- and Inter-population Variability
This study investigates the diet of an eleventh century CE parish community located in northwestern Germany. We assessed the isotopic compositions of human (n = 24) and faunal (n = 17) bone collagen (δ 13Ccol, δ 15Ncol) and human structural carbonate (δ 13Csc) using skeletal material recovered from the Dalheim cemetery. Traditional interpretation of the isotopic data indicates that Dalheim residents likely relied on a C3 plant-based diet and consumed some terrestrial animal products without evidence of marine resource input in the diet. Bivariate and multivariate models used as an additional means to assess diet indicate minor consumption of C4 plant foods in this community. The multivariat…
Differential preservation of endogenous human and microbial DNA in dental calculus and dentin.
AbstractDental calculus (calcified dental plaque) is prevalent in archaeological skeletal collections and is a rich source of oral microbiome and host-derived ancient biomolecules. Recently, it has been proposed that dental calculus may provide a more robust environment for DNA preservation than other skeletal remains, but this has not been systematically tested. In this study, shotgun-sequenced data from paired dental calculus and dentin samples from 48 globally distributed individuals are compared using a metagenomic approach. Overall, we find DNA from dental calculus is consistently more abundant and less contaminated than DNA from dentin. The majority of DNA in dental calculus is microb…
Estudio de la dieta en la población mesolítica de Cingle del Mas Nou mediante los análisis de isótopos estables. Del carbono y del nitrógeno sobre restos óseos
Análisis alimentario de individuos del yacimiento del Cingle del Mas Nou mediante análisis de isótopos estables.
Funerary practices or food delicatessen? Human remains with anthropic marks from the Western Mediterranean Mesolithic
Abstract The identification of unarticulated human remains with anthropic marks in archaeological contexts normally involves solving two issues: a general one associated with the analysis and description of the anthropic manipulation marks, and another with regard to the interpretation of their purpose. In this paper we present new evidence of anthropophagic behaviour amongst hunter-gatherer groups of the Mediterranean Mesolithic. A total of 30 human remains with anthropic manipulation marks have been found in the Mesolithic layers of Coves de Santa Maira (Castell de Castells, Alicante, Spain), dating from ca. 10.2–9 cal ky BP. We describe the different marks identified on both human and fa…
Food for the soul and food for the body. Studying dietary patterns and funerary meals in the Western Roman Empire: An anthropological and archaeozoological approach.
Ancient written sources show that Roman funerary rituals were relevant along the entire Roman Republic and Empire, as they ensured the protection of deities and the memory of the deceased. Part of these rituals consisted of funerary offerings and banquets that were held on the day of the burial, in festivities and other stipulated days. The faunal remains recovered inside the graves and around them are evidence of these rituals. Therefore, their study can allow us to know if the funerary meals and rituals developed in the Roman necropolis were special and implied food that differed from everyday dietary habits, according to the importance of these rituals. To test this, we analysed the arch…
Small-scale mobility fostering the interaction networks of Patagonian (Argentina) hunter-gatherers during the Late Holocene: Perspectives from strontium isotopes and exotic items
During the Late Holocene, hunter-gatherer interaction networks significantly grew in intensity and extension across Patagonia. Although this growth is evidenced by the increased flow of exotic items across the region, the mechanisms behind these strengthening social networks remain unclear. Since evidence suggests that some individuals might have performed long-distance trips, this article aims to address the potential relationship between these individuals and the flows of exotic items in North Patagonia. We analyzed 54 enamel teeth for strontium isotopes and reconstructed their probable mobility using mixed-effect models and isotope-based geographic assignments. We inferred population and…
Aportaciones hidrogeológicas al estudio arqueológico de los orígenes de la Edad del Bronce de La Mancha: la cueva monumentalizada de Castillejo del Bonete (Terrinches, Ciudad Real, España)
Estudios recientes indican que las motillas, asentamientos de la Edad del Bronce de La Mancha, pudieron ser las más antiguas captaciones de agua subterránea en la Península Ibérica. Pero ¿por qué no existen motillas en el Campo de Montiel, territorio ubicado tradicionalmente en esta área cultural? En Castillejo del Bonete, sitio arqueológico situado en esa comarca, existe una cueva que fue utilizada y sellada durante la Prehistoria Reciente. Se presenta ahora la primera investigación paleohidrogeológica interdisciplinar en La Mancha, que ha analizado manantiales y niveles de agua subterránea del acuífero de Campo de Montiel, así como el interior de la sima de Castillejo del Bonete. Las conc…
Survival of Late Pleistocene Hunter-Gatherer Ancestry in the Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula in southwestern Europe represents an important test case for the study of human population movements during prehistoric periods. During the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), the peninsula formed a periglacial refugium [1] for hunter-gatherers (HGs) and thus served as a potential source for the re-peopling of northern latitudes [2]. The post-LGM genetic signature was previously described as a cline from Western HG (WHG) to Eastern HG (EHG), further shaped by later Holocene expansions from the Near East and the North Pontic steppes [3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]. Western and central Europe were dominated by ancestry associated with the ∼14,000-year-old individual from Villabruna, Italy…
Reply to Ben-Dor and Barkai: A low Zn isotope ratio is not equal to a low Zn content
However, we are afraid that there was a misunderstanding in the interpretation of our data. Ben-Dor and Barkai (2) wrote that "One explanation presented in the [our] paper was that Neandertals may have consumed body parts and animals that were relatively poor in zinc, like the liver or deer." This sentence is not reflecting our conclusions: We discussed Zn isotope ratios (i.e., 66Zn/64Zn ratio expressed as a δ66Zn value) and not Zn concentrations. To explain low δ66Zn values of the Neandertal tooth, we propose that Neandertals ate food items depleted in heavy Zn isotopes (and therefore enriched in light Zn isotopes), but those foods can have variable Zn contents, independent of the Zn isoto…
Early Holocene ritual complexity in South America: the archaeological record of Lapa do Santo (east-central Brazil)
Early Archaic human skeletal remains found in a burial context in Lapa do Santo in east-central Brazil provide a rare glimpse into the lives of hunter-gatherer communities in South America, including their rituals for dealing with the dead. These included the reduction of the body by means of mutilation, defleshing, tooth removal, exposure to fire and possibly cannibalism, followed by the secondary burial of the remains according to strict rules. In a later period, pits were filled with disarticulated bones of a single individual without signs of body manipulation, demonstrating that the region was inhabited by dynamic groups in constant transformation over a period of centuries.
Personal body ornamentation on the Southern Iberian Meseta: An archaeomineralogical study
Beads and pendants from the Castillejo del Bonete (Terrinches, Ciudad Real) and Cerro Ortega (Villanueva de la Fuente, Ciudad Real) burials were analysed using XRD, micro-Raman and XRF in order to contribute to the current distribution map of green bead body ornament pieces on the Iberian Peninsula which, so far, remain undetailed for many regions. XRD, micro-Raman and XRF analyses showed that most of the beads from Castillejo del Bonete (Late 3rd millennium cal. BC) were made from variscite or green phyllosilicates, while Cerro Ortega's (Late 4th millennium cal. BC) beads were made out of fossil wood or Clinochlore. Significantly enough, while XRD pointed to variscite as the main crystallo…
Dental calculus indicates widespread plant use within the stable Neanderthal dietary niche.
The ecology of Neanderthals is a pressing question in the study of hominin evolution. Diet appears to have played a prominent role in their adaptation to Eurasia. Based on isotope and zooarchaeological studies, Neanderthal diet has been reconstructed as heavily meat-based and generally similar across different environments. This image persists, despite recent studies suggesting more plant use and more variation. However, we have only a fragmentary picture of their dietary ecology, and how it may have varied among habitats, because we lack broad and environmentally representative information about their use of plants and other foods. To address the problem, we examined the plant microremains…
The influence of religious identity and socio-economic status on diet over time, an example from medieval France
International audience; In Southern France as in other parts of Europe, significant changes occurred in settlement patterns between the end of Antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages. Small communities gathered to form, by the tenth century, villages organized around a church. This development was the result of a new social and agrarian organization. Its impact on lifestyles and, more precisely, on diet is still poorly understood. The analysis of carbon and nitrogen isotopes in bone collagen from the inhabitants of the well-preserved medieval rural site Missignac-Saint Gilles le Vieux (fifth to thirteenth centuries, Gard, France) provides insight into their dietary practices and enab…
A Common Genetic Origin for Early Farmers from Mediterranean Cardial and Central European LBK Cultures
Olalde, Iñigo et al.
The Oldest Case of Decapitation in the New World (Lapa do Santo, East-Central Brazil)
We present here evidence for an early Holocene case of decapitation in the New World (Burial 26), found in the rock shelter of Lapa do Santo in 2007. Lapa do Santo is an archaeological site located in the Lagoa Santa karst in east-central Brazil with evidence of human occupation dating as far back as 11.712.7 cal kyBP (95.4% interval). An ultra-filtered AMS age determination on a fragment of the sphenoid provided an age range of 9.19.4 cal kyBP (95.4% interval) for Burial 26. The interment was composed of an articulated cranium, mandible and first six cervical vertebrae. Cut marks with a v-shaped profile were observed in the mandible and sixth cervical vertebra. The right hand was amputated…
Implications for paleomobility studies of the effects of quaternary volcanism on bioavailable strontium: a test case in North Patagonia (Argentina)
Strontium isotopes (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr) are used as geochemical tracers for paleomobility studies because they display predictable and stable patterns in ecosystems primarily controlled by the underlying geological regimes. While bedrock geology is stable over thousands of years, geomorphological processes can influence the ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr in ecosystems over archeologically relevant timescales. Among these geomorphological processes, the deposition and reworking of volcanic sediments over Quaternary timescales are little studied but could be an important control of ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr variations in many archeological regions. North Patagonia is a key archeological region to address animal and human movements, and a…
Anthropic resource exploitation and use of the territory at the onset of social complexity in the Neolithic-Chalcolithic Western Pyrenees: a multi-isotope approach
Carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) stable isotope analyses from bone collagen provide information about the dietary protein input, while strontium isotopes (87Sr/86Sr) from tooth enamel give us data about provenance and potential territorial mobility of past populations. To date, isotopic results on the prehistory of the Western Pyrenees are scarce. In this article, we report human and faunal values of the mentioned isotopes from the Early-Middle Neolithic site of Fuente Hoz (Anuntzeta) and the Late Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic site of Kurtzebide (Letona, Zigoitia). The main objectives of this work are to analyse the dietary and territorial mobility patterns of these populations. Furthermore…