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."
Excavation of Castle Site in Poland Uncovers Royal Kitchen
POZNAŃ, POLAND—Artnet News reports that a kitchen dated to the fourteenth or fifteenth century has been found in the basement of The Museum of Applied Arts in Poznań by researchers from Adam Mickiewicz University. The room measures about 10 feet wide by 16 feet long. The structure was first built as a castle in 1249 by Duke Przemysł I with a tower and square surrounded by a rampart, but was burned, sacked, and rebuilt over time. A Gothic pillar in the basement room, measuring about nine feet wide by 11 feet long, held the royal kitchen’s stove and acted as a hood to filter exhaust and gases. Historical sources indicate that a well had been dug in one corner of the room. The researchers will look for the well next, which is expected to rest under about six feet of rubble. An excavation conducted in the castle’s former courtyard uncovered sixteenth-century pottery, animal bones, and fragments of tile from the castle’s heating system. To read about clay figurines found at a Bronze Age hillfort in Poland, go to "Piggy Playthings."
Meteoritic Iron Detected in Bronze Age Items From Spain
MADRID, SPAIN—El País reports that mass spectrometery analysis of two artifacts from eastern Spain’s Treasure of Villena, conducted by Salvadore Rovira-Llorens of Spain’s National Archaeological Museum, Martina Renzi of the Diriyah Gate Development Authority of Saudi Arabia, and Ignacio Montero-Ruiz of the Institute of History at the Spanish Research Council, suggests that they were crafted with iron from a meteorite sometime in the Late Bronze Age, between 1400 and 1200 B.C. Meteoritic iron can be identified because it contains more nickel than terrestrial iron, and it can contain traces of other elements such as cobalt as well. The first iron artifact, which is decorated with gold, is thought to be the pommel of a sword hilt. The second object is a C-shaped bracelet, now heavily corroded. “These two pieces of iron had enormous value,” Montero Ruiz said. “Who manufactured them and where this material was obtained are still questions that remain to be answered,” he concluded. To read about a piece of Libyan Desert glass found in Tutankhamun's tomb that was formed by a meteorite impact, go to "Scarab From Space."
Poisonous Seed Stash Discovered in the Netherlands
BERLIN, GERMANY—According to a Live Science report, hundreds of black henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) seeds have been discovered in a container made from a hollowed-out goat or sheep thigh bone that had been sealed with a plug made of black birch bark. The container was discovered in a pit at Houten-Castellum, a settlement in the Netherlands, and has been dated to between A.D. 70 and 100, based upon the style of ceramics and a wire brooch that were also recovered from the pit. First-century A.D. Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder wrote that the tiny, highly poisonous seeds could induce insanity and giddiness. The seeds have previously been found at other archaeological sites in Europe, but because the plant grows as a weed, it was not clear if black henbane had been used medicinally. “The find is unique and provides unmistakable proof for the intentional use of black henbane seeds in the Roman Netherlands,” concluded zooarchaeologist Maaike Groot of the Free University of Berlin. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Antiquity. For more on the history of medicinal plants, go to "The Archaeology of Gardens: Medical Gardens."
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