Genomes of Modern Japanese People Analyzed

YAKOHAMA, JAPAN—A new genetic study conducted by Xiaoxi Liu of the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences and his colleagues suggests that modern Japanese people are mostly descended from three ancestral groups, according to a Live Science report. Those three groups include Jomon hunter-gatherers; a group thought to be the predecessors of the Han people of China; and an unidentified group with ties to Northeast Asia. It had been previously thought that the Japanese were descended from the Jomon and Yayoi farmers who migrated to the islands of Japan from continental Asia. The new study also identified 42 pieces of DNA in the population of Japan that were inherited from Neanderthals and two from Denisovans. Most of this DNA is unique to East Asians, the researchers explained. Some of this DNA has been associated with the development of type 2 diabetes; height; coronary artery disease; prostate cancer; and rheumatoid arthritis. The genetic data and relevant clinical information collected from the study’s 3,200 participants have been entered into a new database dubbed the Japanese Encyclopedia of Whole-Genome/Exome Sequencing Library, or JEWEL. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Science Advances. For more, go to "Japan's Genetic History."

Burned Bodies at Maya Site May Reflect Regime Change

GUATEMALA CITY, GUATEMALA—According to a CNN report, burned human remains and artifacts have have been discovered under a pile of discarded construction materials in a room beneath a temple at Guatemala’s Maya site of Ucanal by a team of researchers led by Christina T. Halperin of the University of Montreal. The warped, shrunken condition of the bones, thought to represent four adults, indicates that they had been burned at high temperatures, Halperin said. Radiocarbon dating indicates that the burning of the remains occurred between A.D. 773 and 881, when the remains were already about 100 years old. The types of artifacts found with the bones, including body ornaments made of greenstone, pendants made of mammal teeth, shell beads, and weapons, suggest that the dead may have been royal rulers, she added. Yet no scorch marks were found at the site, suggesting that the burning of the bones took place at another location. A possible clue to the reason for this unusual burial may come in the form of inscriptions mentioning the name Papmalil, who was labeled a “ochk’in kaloomte,” or “western overlord,” which have also been found at Ucanal. These inscriptions have been dated to about the same time as the burning of the deceased rulers’ remains. Halperin and her colleagues suggest that the bones of the former leaders may have been removed from their tombs and burned in a ceremony to mark a shift in the city’s leadership. “It was such an extraordinary burning that it had to have been known by the public at large,” Halperin explained. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Antiquity. To read about ritual pendants and stones from Ucanal, go to "World Roundup: Guatemala."

Occupation of Cave in Saudi Arabia Dates Back 10,000 Years

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA—Nature News reports that hundreds of human and animal bones and more than 40 fragments of stone tools have been uncovered at the entrance to a lava tube cave in northwestern Saudi Arabia. The stone tools are thought to be as much as 10,000 years old, while the oldest human bone fragment has been dated to about 7,000 years ago. Zooarchaeologist Mathew Stewart of Griffith University and his colleagues said that the distribution of the artifacts indicates that the cave was occupied intermittently, for short periods. Nearby rock art depicting people with goats and sheep suggests that herders may have come to the cave for rest and shelter while traveling from oasis to oasis across the basalt plain of Harrat Khaybar, as they still do today. These routes have probably been used for thousands of years, explained Melissa Kennedy of the University of Sydney, since 4,500-year-old tombs have been found in the region. “People are very lazy,” she said. “You find the easiest route and you stick to it.” Read the original scholarly article about this research in PLOS ONE. To read about occupation of Icelandic lava tubes in the Viking Age, go to "The Blackener's Cave."

What Factors Drove Human Evolution?

CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND—According to a Cosmos Magazine report, Laura van Holstein of the University of Cambridge and her colleagues examined the rate of evolution of hominin species over a period of five million years. First, Van Holstein created a database of the 385 known hominin species, and then she modeled a timeline for the emergence and disappearance of species to fill out the incomplete fossil record. Vertebrates, she noted, usually evolve to fill in “niches” in the environment. For example, the teeth of an early hominin species may have adapted to eat different foods. “The pattern we see across many early hominins is similar to all other mammals,” Van Holstein said. “Speciation rates increase and then flatline, at which point extinction rates start to increase. This suggests that interspecies competition was a major evolutionary factor,” she said. But in the group Homo, she explained, this trend was reversed. “The more species of Homo there were, the higher the rate of speciation,” she said. “So when those niches got filled, something drove even more species to emerge.” The ability to adapt behavior, she explained, such as using tools or fire, or adopting new hunting techniques, may have allowed Homo species to create new ecological niches quickly, without having to survive the evolution of new body plans. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Nature Ecology & Evolution. To read about hominin behavior that is thought to have been crucial to human evolution, go to "Marrow of Humanity."

Traded Tasmanian Devil Tooth Uncovered in Australia

PILBARA, AUSTRALIA—ABC News Australia reports that an excavation conducted at the site of a rock shelter destroyed by mine blasting in 2020 in north Western Australia’s Juukan Gorge has uncovered a tooth from a Tasmanian devil. Archaeologist Michael Slack said that the tooth likely reached the rock shelter through trade with people living on the coast to the south, since there is no evidence that Tasmanian devils ever lived in the region surrounding the rock shelter. Evidence does indicate that the animals lived in southwestern Western Australia some 3,000 years ago, however. Pieces of braided human hair, a shell bead, and artifacts made of quartz held together with resin were also found. Pieces of braided human hair discovered at the rock shelter in 2014 have been dated to about 5,000 years ago and linked to Aboriginal people living in the Pilbara today. To read about 20,000-year-old butchered kangaroo bones that archaeologists found in a Pilbara cave, go to "World Roundup: Australia."

Sumerian Sculpture Repatriated to Iraq

NEW YORK, NEW YORK—According to a statement released by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, museum officials handed over a Sumerian sculpture to representatives from Iraq in a ceremony conducted in Washington, D.C. The copper alloy figurine, dated to between 2900 and 2600 B.C., depicts a man carrying a box or potential temple offering on his head. The Met purchased the sculpture in 1955 and decided to return the artifact to Iraq after an internal review of its provenance. To read about the composer of 4,000-year-old Sumerian songs, go to "Priestess, Poet, Politician."

Contents of Roman Lead Coffin Examined in England

WEST YORKSHIRE, ENGLAND—Newsweek reports that the examination of the contents of a Roman lead coffin discovered in 2022 in the city of Leeds has identified the partial remains of a child. The initial evaluation of the coffin’s poorly preserved contents found the remains of a woman between the ages of 25 and 35 at the time of her death some 1,600 years ago, a bracelet, a glass bead necklace, and a finger ring or an earring. Researchers at Leeds City Museum have now determined that the remains a child of about 10 years of age had also been placed in the coffin. “We won’t know—and probably never will—who the child was or what their relationship was to the Roman woman, but we do know that their burials took place around the same period,” explained Stuart Robinson of Leeds City Council. To read about a rare Roman gravestone uncovered in western England, go to "What's in a Name?"

2,200-Year-Old Chu State Tomb Excavated in China

HUAINAN, CHINA—China Daily reports that a tomb built by the Chu vassal state at the end of the Warring States Period (475–221 B.C.) has been excavated at the Wuwangdun site in eastern China. Looting has severely damaged the tomb, prompting this rescue excavation. The site features a cemetery surrounded by a moat. The largest tomb, made up of eight chambers arranged in the shape of a cross around a central chamber, had been topped with an earthen mound. Each of the eight chambers was covered with four layers of planks inscribed in ink and bamboo mats. So far, 78 of these bamboo mats have been removed and stabilized. “This is currently the largest-scale ancient bamboo mat extraction project conducted worldwide,” said Zhang Zhiguo of the National Center for Archaeology. The inscriptions on the layers of planks described the function of each chamber, added archaeologist Gong Xicheng of the Anhui Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. Lacquer objects, bronze ritual artifacts, utensils, wooden figurines, and musical instruments were found in these chambers. Smaller tombs, chariot pits, and sacrificial deposits have also been uncovered in the cemetery. To read about a burial in China's Henan province that researchers believe belonged to the Luhun Rong, a people that were eliminated during the Warring States Period, go to "Tomb from a Lost Tribe."

Australia’s Ice Age Tools Analyzed

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA—According to a Live Science report, David Zeanah of California State University, Sacramento, representatives of the Buurabalayji Thalanyji Aboriginal Corporation, and their colleagues have analyzed more than 4,400 cutting and grinding tools recovered from open-air sites on Barrow Island, which is located off the coast of northwestern Australia. Between 29,000 and 19,000 years ago, when sea levels were lower, the island would have been a high plateau connected to what is now Australia by a coastal plain. Zeanah said that most of the tools found in caves on Barrow Island were made from limestone, which was readily available in the area. The tools recovered from open-air sites, however, were made mostly of rocks that match sources on what is now mainland Australia. “The open sites provide clear links to the mainland geologies, and that infers that people were using the coastal plain that’s underwater now,” Zeanah said. As for the number of limestone tools recovered in caves, Zeanah thinks that limestone tools left at open-air sites may not have survived the millennia of exposure to the elements. Then, as sea levels rose and Barrow Island was separated from the mainland, people who settled in the caves would have had to rely on the local limestone to make tools, he explained. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Quaternary Science Reviews. To read about stone tools found at an Aboriginal site that is now underwater in the Dampier Archipelago, go to "Around the World: Australia."