Science. According to Hershkovitz, the findings provide new context for a range of other recent discoveries.
“Our research makes sense of many recent anthropological and genetic finds,” Prof. Hershkovitz said. “About a year ago, scientists reported finding the remains of modern humans in China dating to about 80,000-100,000 years ago. This suggested that their migration occurred earlier than previously thought, but until our discovery at Misliya, we could not explain it.
“Numerous different pieces of the puzzle — the occurrence of the earliest modern human in Misliya, evidence of genetic mixture between Neanderthals and humans, modern humans in China — now fall into place,” he continued.
Horse Evolution Mystery Solved?
The genetic ancestors of the modern horse were animals with five toes. Generally, it is believed that horses evolved to have fewer digits, but new research is challenging that theory and arguing that remnants of the five toes are still present in modern hooves.
Humans and horses actually evolved from the same common ancestor, a creature with five digits. As a consequence of living on open grassland, horses adapted to move across these plains. Scientist’s widely believe that this adaption saw horses evolve to have fewer digits. The first horse only had four digits, its later descendant had three, while modern horses have just a central digit, known as the metacarpal.
In research published in a recent issue of Royal Society Open Science, a team of scientists are proposing that rather than horses simply losing four digits, all five merged to form the compacted forelimbs with hooves seen today.
Currently, scientists accept that splints, small bones found along the outer sides of the metacarpal in modern horses, are partially formed remnants of second and fourth digits. Tapering mid-way down the metacarpal, these fragments were inherited from an earlier ancestor, but ceased to develop into fully formed digits in modern horses. The authors of the new paper claim that this theory is incomplete, failing to account for the animals’ first and fifth digits.
“With a distinct surface from the metacarpal, we know the splints on today’s horses to be the remnants of the second and fourth digits,” said Nikos Solounias, a paleontologist from New York Institute of Technology (NYITCOM) and an author on the study. “However, these partially formed digits also appear to contain their own elevated surfaces which hold additional evolutionary clues. We find these ridges, located on the posterior of each splint, to be the partially formed remains of the first and fifth digits, which were once connected to the cartilages of the hoof.”
Key to the research are the famous Laetoil footrprints in Tanzania, which show that the famous, eight-million-year-old horse known as Hipparion primigenium walked alongside early humans and had three digits. According to a NYITCOM statement, Solounias analysed the footprints and came to the conclusion that Hipparion actually had five compacted toes, the forelimb divided into five sections – suggesting the small toes had binded together.
“Interestingly, we not only find hints of the missing digits on the modern horse, but also its ancestors, such as Hipparion and Mesohippus, two species believed to have three toes,” said Solounias.
Neurovascular evidence has provided further support to the NYITCOM researchers’ theory, with dissections of modern equine foetus forelimbs revealing a greater number of arteries and nerves than would be expected in a single digit.
“If today’s horse does indeed have one digit per forelimb, we would expect each forelimb to have a total of two veins, two arteries, and two nerve bundles,” said Melinda Danowitz, a recent NYITCOM graduate who worked with Solounias on the study. “However, our dissections found between five and seven neurovascular bundles per forelimb, suggesting that additional toes begin to develop, but do not become fully differentiated.”
King Ramses Statue Moved to New Home
A colossal, 83 tonne, 3,200 year old statue of the Ancient Egyptian King Ramses II has been moved to a new home, according to Reuters. The complex operation, which saw the statue moved 400m to Cairo’s new Grand Egyptian Museum, required army engineers and specialist contractors.
Reuters reports that the statue was put inside a cage, mounted on a truck and suspended from a steel beam to help reduce the impact of any jolts during the journey. Road surfaces on the route were treated with special materials to ensure they could adequately take the massive weight of the statue.
The entire operation cost 13.6 million Egyptian pounds ($770,000).
The statue was first discovered at the Mit Rahina archaeological site in 1820. Brought to Ramses Square in Cairo in 1955, it was moved again in 2006 due to pollution and congestion, according to Reuters. It was placed in a storage area away from public view, until now.
It will be the first site visitors to the Grand Egyptian Museum will see. The museum is set to partially open this year, before its full launch in 2022.
Featured image: Reconstruced maxilla from microCT images of the jawbone discovered in Israel. Image credit: Gerhard Weber, University of Vienna, Austria]]>
Europe’s Forests Halved over last 6,000 years
More than 50% of Europe’s forests have disappeared in the last 6,000 years, new research claims. Authors of the new study identify the need for agricultural land and wood as a source of fuel as causing the massive deforestation.
The shocking findings were made through pollen analysis at over 1,000 different sites on the continent. They reveal that at one point more than two thirds of northern and central Europe were covered by trees. By contrast, now only a third of the region is covered with forest. In the UK, Ireland and other coastal areas, the amount has plummeted to less than 10%.
Published in the journal Scientific Reports, the study points out that this trend of massive deforestation is now starting to reverse due to new types of fuel and building techniques, and ecological initiatives.
“Most countries go through a forest transition and the UK and Ireland reached their forest minimum around 200 years ago,” said study lead author Neil Roberts, Professor of Physical Geography at the University of Plymouth.
“Other countries in Europe have yet to reach that point, and some parts of Scandinavia – where there is not such a reliance on agriculture – are still predominantly forest. But generally, forest loss has been a dominant feature of Europe’s landscape ecology in the second half of the current interglacial, with consequences for carbon cycling, ecosystem functioning and biodiversity.”
Along with Roberts, the study also involved scientists from Estonia, France, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland. Remarkably, in their bid to track the development of Europe’s forests over the last 11,000 years, the authors found that between 11,000 and 6,000 years ago the amount of forest coverage increased, from 60& to 80%.
The introduction of ‘modern’ farming practices in the Neolithic period started the drastic decline that accelerated towards the end of the Bronze Age and has lasted until the present.
Glass Was Made in Sub-Saharan Africa Centuries Before Europeans Arrived
Glass was being made in Sub-Saharan Africa centuries before the arrival of Europeans, new research has discovered.
Scientists from Rice University, University College London and the Field Museum say the findings represent a new chapter in the history of glass making.
Abidemi Babatunde Babalola, a recent graduate of Rice with a PhD in anthropology and a visiting fellow at Harvard University, came across evidence of early glass making during archaeological excavations at Igbo Olokun, located on the northern periphery of Ile-Ife in southwestern Nigeria. He recovered more than 12,000 glass beads and several kilograms of glass-working debris.
“This area has been recognised as a glass-working workshop for more than a century,” Babalola said. “The glass-encrusted containers and beads that have been uncovered there were viewed for many years as evidence that imported glass was remelted and reworked.”
A decade ago, it was found that the chemical composition of the glass from Ile-Ife was different to other known glass production areas, raising the possibility the glass was actually produced in Ile-Ife.
The excavations at Igbo Olokun have confirmed that possibility. The researchers analysed 52 of the glass beads discovered, revealing that none matched the chemical composition of any glass production area in the ‘Old World’. The excavations revealed that glass production at Igbo Olokun dates to the eleventh through fifteenth centuries CE, long before Europeans arrived at the west coast of Africa.
The teams’ findings have been published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
Featured Image: The Two Brothers are the Museum’s oldest mummies and amongst the best-known human remains in its Egyptology collection. They are the mummies of two elite men — Khnum-nakht and Nakht-ankh — dating to around 1800 BCE. Credit: Manchester Museum, The University of Manchester]]> 
Dual Migration Routes to Scandinavia Suggested by new Genomic Data
The first human settlers to Scandinavia arrived by two distinct migration routes, new research suggests. The new study, which has been published in the journal PLOS Biology, also suggests that the resulting mixed population genetically adapted to the extreme environmental conditions.
Although there is consistent evidence of a human presence in the Scandinavian peninsula from around 11,700 years ago, the migration routes and genetic makeup of the first Scandinavians have until now remained elusive.
Researchers from Uppsala University sequenced the genomes of seven hunter-gatherers excavated from across Scandinavia and dated to be between 9,500 to 6,000 years old. They determined from their findings that migrations into Scandinavia likely followed two routes, one from central Europe and one from the Northeast along the Norwegian Atlantic Coast.
The two groups met and mixed in Scandinavia, creating a genetically diverse population with variants that haven’t been passed along to modern Europeans.
Several genetic variants in the hunter-gatherers were found to be linked to a gene associated with physical performance. The study authors hypothesise that this could be part of the physical adaption to cold weather. In addition, the hunter-gatherers had a high-frequency of genetic variants linked to reduced skin pigmentation, a known adaptation to environments with low UV radiation, such as those at high latitude.
“We used cutting-edge genomic approaches to investigate hypotheses about the early colonization of northern Europe after the ice-sheet of the last glaciation retracted. It is really great to see how evidence from different disciplines can be combined to understand these complex past demographic processes,” said population geneticist Torsten Günther, one of the lead authors, in a press release.
Council Accused of Covering Up Major Archaeological Find
North Somerset Council in the UK has been accused of trying to keep a major archaeological find quiet, according to the BBC.
The pre-Christian cemetery, containing over 300 graves, was discovered in the village of Yatton in 2017, during works to develop the land for housing. Some have claimed that the local council attempted to keep the find “hush-hush”, although the council told the BBC that publicising cemetery excavations was not common practice.
“I’m amazed there hasn’t been more public communication between the archaeologists, the developer and the local community – it’s almost scandalous,” Mark Horton, professor of archaeology at the University of Bristol, told the BBC.
“It’s normal procedure – even if the public aren’t allowed inside – to put information on the outside about what’s been found and it does seem to be really bad practice that there’s such secrecy about this project.”
The remarkable site is close to both an Iron Age fort and a Roman hill fort.
An archaeologist for the council claimed that the fact human remains were found at the site meant that information about it was not made widely available to the public.
“It seems like we’ve been covering it up, but it’s common practice not to publicise the excavation of cemeteries like this to avoid risking the integrity of the site,” said Cat Lodge, archaeologist for the council.
Boor Homes, the company developing the site, said in a statement to the BBC that “no identified grave goods” or “datable artefacts” had been unearthed, while the skeletons “are in varying states of survival”.
Featured image: North-south section of the Great Pyramid showing (dust-filled area) the hypothetical project of the chamber, in connection with the lower southern shaft. The upper southern shaft does not intersects the chamber (as instead suggested by the section) because, when viewed in plan, it is displaced to the west with respect to the Great Gallery. Courtesy of Giulio Magli]]> 