Search results for "ancient"

The Neolithic Transition in the Baltic Was Not Driven by Admixture with Early European Farmers

2017

Summary The Neolithic transition was a dynamic time in European prehistory of cultural, social, and technological change. Although this period has been well explored in central Europe using ancient nuclear DNA [1, 2], its genetic impact on northern and eastern parts of this continent has not been as extensively studied. To broaden our understanding of the Neolithic transition across Europe, we analyzed eight ancient genomes: six samples (four to ∼1- to 4-fold coverage) from a 3,500 year temporal transect (∼8,300–4,800 calibrated years before present) through the Baltic region dating from the Mesolithic to the Late Neolithic and two samples spanning the Mesolithic-Neolithic boundary from the…

Ancient pigs reveal a near-complete genomic turnover following their introduction to Europe

2019

International audience; Archaeological evidence indicates that pig domestication had begun by ∼10,500 y before the present (BP) in the Near East, and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) suggests that pigs arrived in Europe alongside farmers ∼8,500 y BP. A few thousand years after the introduction of Near Eastern pigs into Europe, however, their characteristic mtDNA signature disappeared and was replaced by haplotypes associated with European wild boars. This turnover could be accounted for by substantial gene flow from local Euro-pean wild boars, although it is also possible that European wild boars were domesticated independently without any genetic contribution from the Near East. To test these hyp…

Evolutionary History of the Nesophontidae, the Last Unplaced Recent Mammal Family

2016

The mammalian evolutionary tree has lost several major clades through recent human-caused extinctions. This process of historical biodiversity loss has particularly affected tropical island regions such as the Caribbean, an area of great evolutionary diversification but poor molecular preservation. The most enigmatic of the recently extinct endemic Caribbean mammals are the Nesophontidae, a family of morphologically plesiomorphic lipotyphlan insectivores with no consensus on their evolutionary affinities, and which constitute the only major recent mammal clade to lack any molecular information on their phylogenetic placement. Here, we use a palaeogenomic approach to place Nesophontidae with…

Evaluating ancient Egyptian prescriptions today: Anti-inflammatory activity of Ziziphus spina-christi.

2015

Abstract Background Ziziphus spina-christi (L.) Desf. (Christ's Thorn Jujube) is a wild tree today found in Jordan, Israel, Egypt, and some parts of Africa, which was already in use as a medicinal plant in Ancient Egypt. In ancient Egyptian prescriptions, it was used in remedies against swellings, pain, and heat, and thus should have anti-inflammatory effects. Nowadays, Z. spina-christi, is used in Egypt (by Bedouins, and Nubians), the Arabian Peninsula, Jordan, Iraq, and Morocco against a wide range of illnesses, most of them associated with inflammation. Pharmacological research undertaken to date suggests that it possesses anti-inflammatory, hypoglycemic, hypotensive and anti-microbial e…

The Genetic History of Northern Europe

2017

Recent ancient DNA studies have revealed that the genetic history of modern Europeans was shaped by a series of migration and admixture events between deeply diverged groups. While these events are well described in Central and Southern Europe, genetic evidence from Northern Europe surrounding the Baltic Sea is still sparse. Here we report genome-wide DNA data from 24 ancient North Europeans ranging from ~7,500 to 200 calBCE spanning the transition from a hunter-gatherer to an agricultural lifestyle, as well as the adoption of bronze metallurgy. We show that Scandinavia was settled after the retreat of the glacial ice sheets from a southern and a northern route, and that the first Scandinav…

Herodotus’ awareness of the Peloponnesian War

2020

AbstractThis article aims to discuss the relationship between Herodotus and Thucydides. New scholarly trends date the composition of Herodotus’Historiesto 413 BC, or even later, against high chronology of 431, and suggest Herodotus’ use of Thucydides’ narrative. Herodotus’ debt to Thucydides has been suggested by scholars either cautiously or boldly. This examination will show cases where Herodotus is alluding to events of the Peloponnesian War or even responding to Thucydides’ narrative. In fact, anachronisms, presentisms, and allusions to Thucydides’ text can be found throughout Herodotus’ narrative. We will explore the reasons for Herodotus’ engaging with the events of that War, conjectu…

The New Soviet Man With a Female Body: Mother, Teacher, Tractor Driver…

2020

Naujojo žmogaus sukūrimo idėjos užuomazgų galima rasti senovės Graikijoje ir Romoje, taip pat utopistų, švietėjų kūriniuose, teologiniuose tekstuose, tačiau ši ideologema galutinai susiformavo XIX a. pabaigoje, o bandymai ją realizuoti praktiškai sietini su (para)totalitarizmo įsigalėjimu. Vienas iš žinomiausių tokių bandymų pavyzdžių – siekis sukurti Naująjį sovietinį žmogų. Šis bandymas nuo kitų skiriasi komunistine ideologija, kuri kiekvienam reiškiniui suteikia „papildomų reikšmių ar funkcijų“ (Prozorov, 2013, p. 210). Kitaip tariant, visus dalykus SSRS galima suprasti ir paaiškinti tik diktatūros tikslu – utopinė ateities visuomenė „komunizmas“, kurios vardu valstybė viską ir visus reg…

Dead Sea Scrolls Fragments in the Museum Collection, written by Emanuel Tov, Kipp Davis, and Robert Duke

2017

Das jhwh-Heiligtum am Garizim: ein archäologischer Befund und seine literar- und theologiegeschichtliche Einordnung

2018

AbstractNo later than the midst of the 5th century the recently discovered sanctuary on Mt.Gerizim was the cultic center of the SamarianYhwh-worshippers, later known as the Samaritans. The sanctuary was in every way comparable to its counterpart in Jerusalem. The author investigates the question why there is so little mentioning of the sanctuary in the Bible at all; only the location “Mount Gerizim” is mentioned a few times in the Tora. Albeit its obvious absence in the texts, there seem to be several, enciphered mentions of the Samaria sanctuary in the later part of the (Judean) canon (Ketubim and Nebi’im). Altogether they criticize the cult on Mt.Gerizim in this very indirect way. The aut…

Estimating the dwarfing rate of an extinct Sicilian elephant.

2021

Summary Evolution on islands, together with the often extreme phenotypic changes associated with it, has attracted much interest from evolutionary biologists. However, measuring the rate of change of phenotypic traits of extinct animals can be challenging, in part due to the incompleteness of the fossil record. Here, we use combined molecular and fossil evidence to define the minimum and maximum rate of dwarfing in an extinct Mediterranean dwarf elephant from Puntali Cave (Sicily). 1 Despite the challenges associated with recovering ancient DNA from warm climates, 2 we successfully retrieved a mitogenome from a sample with an estimated age between 175,500 and 50,000 years. Our results sugge…