Clovis Hare-Bone Bead Identified in Wyoming

LARAMIE, WYOMING—According to a statement released by the University of Wyoming, a small, tube-shaped bead unearthed at Wyoming’s La Prele Mammoth site has been dated to about 12,940 years ago by Todd Surovell of the University of Wyoming and his colleagues. Previous studies have shown that a young mammoth was butchered at the La Prele Mammoth site; the bone bead was recovered about three feet away from a collection of other artifacts. Analysis of collagen extracted from the bead with mass spectrometry indicates that it was made from the bone of a hare, while the shape of the bone suggests it came from a hare’s paw. Marks on the outside of the bead, which was likely used to decorate clothing or was worn as jewelry, are consistent with marks made by people working with stones or their teeth, Surovell explained. The bead is the first evidence that hares were used by the Clovis people, who were named for the archaeological site in New Mexico where their distinctive stone tools were first unearthed, he added. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Scientific Reports. For more on archaeology at La Prele, go to "Excavating a Mammoth Hunters' Campsite."

Megalithic “Blinkerwall” Found in the Baltic Sea

WARNEMÜNDE, GERMANY—The Guardian reports that a section of wall stretching for nearly one-half mile was found in the Bay of Mecklenburg, off the coast of Germany, during a survey conducted with a multibeam sonar system. Inspection of the wall revealed that it was made up of about 300 boulders connected with some 1,400 smaller stones. The structure is thought to have been constructed more than 10,000 years ago, near a lake or marsh. Jacob Geersen of the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde suggests that the wall may have been part of a driving lane used by hunters in pursuit of reindeer before the area was inundated with almost 70 feet of water some 8,500 years ago. “When you chase the animals, they follow these structures, they don’t attempt to jump over them,” he said. “The idea would be to create an artificial bottleneck with a second wall or with the lake shore,” he explained. The rest of the structure, which has been dubbed the “Blinkerwall,” may be buried in sediments. Geersen and his colleagues plan to search the area for animal bones and projectiles as well. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. To read about stone caribou-hunting structures that are now submerged beneath Lake Huron, go to "Where the Ice Age Caribou Ranged."

Family Relationships in Thailand’s Log Coffin Culture Detected

LEIPZIG, GERMANY—According to a statement released by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Rasmi Shoocongdej of Silpakorn University, Selina Carlhoff of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and their colleagues analyzed DNA samples taken from 33 individuals who were buried in large wooden coffins at five sites in northwestern Thailand between 2,300 and 1,000 years ago. These coffins, each made from a single teak tree carved with geometric, human, and animal shapes, belong to a practice known as Log Coffin culture. Such coffins have been recovered from 40 different limestone caves and rock shelters in Mae Hong Son province. The study suggests that the individuals belonged to a large community featuring two separate ancestries: one from China’s Yangtze River Valley, and the other from China’s Yellow River Valley. The remains of close relatives, such as parents, children, and grandparents, were identified within the same cave system. The genetic analysis also found that these clusters of closely related individuals were then more distantly related to other individuals buried at the same site. Lower levels of relationship were found between groups at different burial sites, suggesting that these groups remained connected even though the burial sites were in different river valleys. “This result is highly significant, since wooden coffins were also used in other archaeological cultures all over Southeast Asia,” Shoocongdej explained. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Nature Communications. To read about a Neolithic settlement in China's Yangtze Delta, go to "Early Signs of Empire."

DNA Analysis Tracks Origins of Scandinavia’s First Farmers

LUND, SWEDEN—According to a statement released by Lund University, DNA analysis of bone and teeth samples from prehistoric human remains unearthed in Denmark suggests that the first farmers to arrive in Scandinavia some 5,900 years ago wiped out the hunter-gatherer population within a few generations. “This transition has previously been presented as peaceful,” said Anne Birgitte Nielsen of Lund University. “However, our study indicates the opposite. In addition to violent death, it is likely that new pathogens from livestock finished off many gatherers,” she added. Then, some 4,850 years ago, seminomadic domestic cattle herders from southern Russia with Yamnaya ancestors entered Scandinavia and replaced those early farmers. This may have also occurred through violence and disease, Nielsen explained. Today’s Scandinavian population in Denmark can be traced to a mix of the Yamnaya and Eastern Europe’s Neolithic people. “We don’t have as much [ancient] DNA material from Sweden, but what there is points to a similar course of events,” Nielsen said. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Nature. For more, go to "Europe's First Farmers."

Intact Roman Egg Examined

BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, ENGLAND—BBC News reports that a micro-computed tomography scan of a 1,700-year-old chicken egg revealed that it still contains its yolk, egg white, and air sac. The egg was one of several discovered in southeastern England during an excavation conducted by researchers from Oxford Archaeology ahead of a construction project between 2007 and 2016, but the only one to have been removed from the site intact. The researchers think the eggs had been thrown into a watery pit, perhaps as part of a Roman funeral rite. Senior project manager Edward Biddulph said that the egg is being housed at the Discover Bucks Museum in Aylesbury while conservators try to figure out how to remove its contents without breaking the shell. “There is a huge potential for further scientific research and this is the next stage in the life of this remarkable egg,” he concluded. To read about ancient ostrich eggshell cups, go to "A Rare Egg."

Stone Tool Innovation Studied

NAGOYA, JAPAN—According to a statement released by Nagoya University, a study conducted by Seiji Kadowaki of Nagoya University and his colleagues has explored the transition from the Middle Paleolithic period, in which modern humans and Neanderthals made similar stone tools, with the Upper Paleolithic period, often understood as a time when other human species went extinct while modern humans developed new cognitive abilities and technologies that gave then an advantage as they then expanded across Eurasia. Kadowaki and his team examined stone tools unearthed at five sites in southern Jordan that were made between 69,000 and 15,000 years ago, from the Late Middle Paleolithic through the Upper Paleolithic periods. First, they measured the length of each tool’s cutting edge, then compared it to the mass of the stone, in order to quantify how efficiently the raw stone material had been used. The study determined that modern humans did not become more economical in their consumption of raw stone materials until after their initial dispersals into Eurasia, at the same time they were developing more portable bladelet technology. “In terms of cutting-edge productivity, Homo sapiens did not start to spread to Eurasia after a quick revolution in stone tool technology, but rather the innovation in the ‘cutting-edge’ productivity occurred later, in tandem with the miniaturization of stone tools like bladelets,” Kadowaki explained. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Nature Communications. For more, go to "Neanderthal Tool Time."

Rapa Nui’s Rongorongo Tablets in Rome Radiocarbon Dated

ROME, ITALY—In the nineteenth century, Roman Catholic missionaries took four wooden tablets bearing rongorongo glyphs from the island of Rapa Nui, which is also called Easter Island, and sent them to the bishop of Tahiti. The tablets eventually landed in a congregation of Catholic nuns based in Rome. Only 27 examples of the script survive, and none of them is housed in Rapa Nui. According to a Live Science report, samples from the four rongorongo tablets in Rome were recently radiocarbon dated by a team of researchers led by philologist Silvia Ferrara of the University of Bologna. The tests revealed that three of the tablets were made from trees cut down in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries. The fourth tablet came from a tree felled sometime between 1493 and 1509, some 200 years before the arrival of Europeans in the 1720s. The date supports the idea that the rongorongo glyphs were developed independently, without the influence of a European writing system, Ferrara said. The analysis also suggests, however, that the wood used to make this tablet may have been a piece of driftwood, since it is from a tree species not native to the island. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Scientific Reports. To read about another discovery from Rapa Nui, go to "Around the World: Chile."