Category Archives: EUROPE

EUROPE, WORLD

How white skin evolved in Europeans: Pale complexions only spread in the region 8,000 years ago, study claims

How white skin evolved in Europeans: Pale complexions only spread in the region 8,000 years ago, study claims

Humans around the world display myriad skin tones and eye colors that are fascinating and wonderful in their variety. Research continues on to see how people have acquired the features they have now and when to complete our puzzle of ancient human history.

New anthropology research now suggests that light-colored skin and the tallness associated with European genetics are relatively recent traits to the continent.

An international team of researchers as headed by Harvard University’s Dr. Iain Mathieson put forth a study at the 84th annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists recently.

Based on 83 human samples from Holocene Europe as analyzed under the 1000 Genomes Project, it is now found that for the majority of the time that humans have lived in Europe, the people had dark skin, and the genes signifying light skin only appear within the past 8,000 years.

This recent and relatively quick process of natural selection suggests to researchers that the traits which spread rapidly were advantageous within that environment, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

This dramatic evidence suggests modern Europeans do not appear as their long ancient ancestors did.

Spreading Genetics

The samples are derived from a wide range of ancient populations, rather than a few individuals, and they supplied researchers with five specific genes associated with skin color and diet.

AAAS reports that the “modern humans who came out of Africa to originally settle Europe about 40,000 years are presumed to have had dark skin, which is advantageous in sunny latitudes.

And the new data confirm that about 8500 years ago, early hunter-gatherers in Spain, Luxembourg, and Hungary also had darker skin: They lacked versions of two genes—SLC24A5 and SLC45A2—that lead to depigmentation and, therefore, pale skin in Europeans today. 

Then, the first farmers from the Near East arrived in Europe; they carried both genes for light skin. As they interbred with the indigenous hunter-gatherers, one of their light-skin genes swept through Europe, so that central and southern Europeans also began to have lighter skin. The other gene variant, SLC45A2, was at low levels until about 5800 years ago when it swept up to high frequency.”

This differed from the situation farther north. Ancient remains from southern Sweden 7,700 years ago were found to have the gene variants indicating light skin and blonde hair, and another gene, HERC2/OCA2, which causes blue eyes.

This indicated to researchers that ancient hunter-gatherers of northern Europe were already pale and blue-eyed. This light skin trait would have been advantageous in the regions of less sunlight.

Natural Selection

Mathieson and colleagues do not specify in the study why the genes were favored and spread as quickly as they did, but it is suggested that Vitamin D absorption likely played a role. Ancient hunter-gatherers in Europe also could not digest milk 8,000 years ago. The ability to do so only came about 4,300 years ago.

Paleoanthropologist Nina Jablonski of Pennsylvania State University notes that people in less sunny climates required different skin pigmentations in order to absorb and synthesize Vitamin D. The pale skin was advantageous in the region, as well was the ability to digest milk.

“Natural selection has favored two genetic solutions to that problem—evolving pale skin that absorbs UV more efficiently or favoring lactose tolerance to be able to digest the sugars and vitamin D naturally found in milk,” writes AAAS.

This new research follows related studies on pre-agricultural European genomes and modern humans in Europe before the rise of farming.

Artist’s depiction of Stone Age peoples

DNA taken from the wisdom tooth of a 7,000-year-old human found in Spain in 2006 overturned the popular image of light-skinned European hunter-gatherers. The study revealed that the individual had dark hair and the dark-skinned genes of an African. However, the man had blue eyes, an unexpected find by researchers. The hunter-gatherer is the oldest known individual in Europe found to have blue eyes.

Artist’s impression of a blue-eyed hunter gatherer

Previous research published in 2008 found that the earliest mutations in the eye-color genes that led to the evolution of blue eyes probably occurred about 10,000 years ago in individuals living in around the Black Sea.

The surprising aspect of the findings is that while it is fundamental to natural selection that advantageous genetic attributes spread, it is not often a speedy process. The study shows that these genetic pale skin traits swept across Europe speedily, and that phenomenon is of particular interest to researchers.

The preprint study “Eight thousand years of natural selection in Europe” by Mathieson and colleagues has been published in the online journal BioRxiv. These new findings shed light on humanity’s genetic past, giving us a clearer vision of our ancient origins.

EUROPE, SPAIN, WORLD

What Discovery of Oldest Human Poop Reveals About Neanderthals’ Diet

What Discovery of Oldest Human Poop Reveals About Neanderthals’ Diet

Neanderthals have consumed vegetables – we know that it has definitely been put under the microscope, thanks to the oldest piece of human fecal matter ever found.

The site where the poop was sampled from

Five soil samples from a known Neanderthal site in El Salt in Spain are thought to be obtained and are estimated to date back around 50,000 years.

The find puts to shame the previous oldest hominid poop discovered in the Western Hemisphere, a 14,000-year-old piece of shit found in an Oregon cave (that particular fecal find is in dispute).

Some brave souls from MIT and the University of La Laguna (“samples were collected by hand,” the researchers said) analyzed the makeup of the samples and found that Neanderthals ate a diet dominated by meat, but definitely ate some plants, as well.

That’s because lead researcher Ainara Sistiaga and his team were able to identify, for the first time, the presence of metabolites such as 5B-stigmastanol and 5B-epistigmastanol, which are created when the body digests plant matter.

The existence of those metabolites “unambiguously record the ingestion of plants,” Sistiage writes in a study published today in PLOS One.

Obtaining the poop wasn’t as gross as you might expect-Sistiage and his team took soil samples, crushed them into a fine powder, and used laboratory equipment to identify tiny pieces of fecal matter.

And direct evidence from something like poop is much better at painting a picture of what Neanderthals ate than analyzing their tools or dental records.

“Except for the evidence of entrapped microfossils and organic residues in Neanderthal teeth, all previous palaeodietary reconstructions have been based on indirect evidence where preferential or selective preservation plays a key role,” Sistiage wrote.

In other words, our previous analyses had a bias toward identifying proteins, because they are easier to detect.

Recent dental records suggested that Neanderthals probably ate plants, but now we know for sure.

We also know, thanks to various biomarkers found in the poop, that Neanderthals had a pretty advanced digestive system that is similar to modern humans. However, Neanderthals wouldn’t have had access to the same medicinal products we have today, such as unify health multi gi 5 and other alternatives that can be used to improve a person’s digestive health. This means that Neanderthals could have been a lot more susceptible to certain illnesses and diseases.

Advanced digestion, healthy diets, and smarts-Neanderthals are beginning to look a lot more like us than we ever could have expected.

EUROPE, ITALY, ROMANIA, WORLD

Archaeologists Discovered a Hidden Chamber in Roman Emperor Nero’s Underground Palace

Archaeologists Discovered a Hidden Chamber in Roman Emperor Nero’s Underground Palace

Archaeologists Discovered a Hidden Chamber in Roman Emperor Nero's Underground Palace
Archaeologists working on the restoration of Emperor Nero’s palace in Rome have stumbled upon a hidden, underground room.

Nearly two thousand years ago, the massive palace designed by the Roman emperor had been hiding a secret.

A hidden underground room adorned with panthers and centaurs has been found by archeologists working on the restoration of the palace in Rome earlier this month.

According to a statement from Colosseum Archeological Park (Parco Archeologico del Colosse), the room, nicknamed “Sphinx Room,” is part of the remains of “Domus Aurea” (Golden House), the huge palace that Nero constructed during the fire of 64 AD, which devastated Rome.

The room was discovered accidentally, while researchers were setting up scaffolding for work on an adjacent room in the complex.

The room’s curved ceilings are 15 feet (4.5 meters) high, and much of the room is still filled in with dirt, the statement reads.

The figure of a centaur was found in one of the walls of the newly discovered room.

With the use of artificial lighting, crews uncovered a vault covered with colorful frescoes, featuring figures such as the god Pan, sea creatures, plant and water ornaments, a centaur, a panther attacking a man with a sword, and a “mute and solitary sphinx.”

One of the walls of the newly discovered room is painted with a little sphinx.

“[The Sphinx Room] tells us about the atmosphere from the years of the principality of Nero,” said Alfonsina Russo, director of the Archaeological Park of the Colosseum.

Nero was the fifth Roman emperor and the last of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. He is remembered as an ineffectual, neglectful and brutal leader, according to the BBC.

The figure of a panther attacking a man with a sword features in the newly-discovered Spinx Room.

When much of Rome was destroyed in the fire of 64 AD, Nero set about the necessary rebuilding of the city, appropriating a large area for a new palace — the Domus Aurea or Golden House — for himself.

The Domus Aurea complex covered parts of the slopes of the Palatine, Esquiline, Oppian and Caelian hills, completed with a man-made lake in the marshy valley.

That lake was eventually covered up by the Flavian Amphitheater — better known as the Roman Colosseum — in 70 AD.

Figures of sea creatures on one of the walls of the Sphinx Room. 

Scholars approximate the size of the Domus Aurea size to be over 300 acres, and it is believed to have included at least 300 rooms.

Experts said they will not excavate the newly discovered underground chamber further for fears for the stability of the complex. They dated the Sphinx Room between 65 and 68 AD.

EUROPE, ITALY, WORLD

Tomb Inscription Translated in Pompeii

Final Years of Life In Pompeii Revealed Through An Inscription

Pompeii was a city that was buried in ash in A.D. 79 as Mount Vesuvius erupted, and many people that lived there died. But before that catastrophic event, Pompeii was a wealthy city, and it was filled with parties and struggles

According to an inscription recently discovered on the wall of a tomb found in Pompeii in 2017.

Pompeii was buried in ash in A.D. 79 in the cataclysmic eruption of Mount Vesuvius
Pompeii was buried in ash in A.D. 79 in the cataclysmic eruption of Mount Vesuvius

The inscription describes a massive coming-of-age party for a wealthy young man. who reaches the age of an adult citizen.

According to the inscription, he threw a massive party that included a banquet serving 6,840 people and a show in which 416 gladiators fought over several days. 

The inscription also tells of harder times, including a famine that lasted four years and another gladiator show that ended in a public riot, Massimo Osanna, the director-general of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, wrote in a paper published in the 2018 issue of the Journal of Roman Archaeology, which is published once a year.

Osanna deciphered the inscription and discussed some of the findings the inscription reveals, including new information that may allow researchers to determine how many people inhabited Pompeii.

An inscription found on the wall of a tomb in Pompeii was recently deciphered, revealing a vast amount of information about what Pompeii was like in the decades before the city was destroyed in A.D. 79.

Coming-of-age party

The inscription says that, when the wealthy man was old enough to wear the “toga virilis” (a toga worn by an adult male citizen), he threw a massive banquet and gladiator shows.

The banquet was served “on 456 three-sided couches so that upon each couch 15 persons reclined,” the inscription reads, as translated by Osanna. 

This information could help researchers determine how many people lived in Pompeii in the decades before it was destroyed, Osanna wrote.

The inscription claims that 6,840 people attended the banquet. Because a banquet like that would likely be served only to adult males with political rights, and those men probably made up about 27% to 30% of Pompeii’s population, Osanna estimates Pompeii’s total population to have been about 30,000 people. 

The gladiator show held by the wealthy man was “of such grandiosity and magnificence as to be able to be compared with [that of] any of the most noble colonies founded by Rome, since 416 gladiators participated,” the inscription says.

A show of this size would have taken several days, if not a week, Osanna wrote, noting that if each gladiator fought one-on-one, there would have been 213 separate fights.

Famine and riots

The newly deciphered inscription discusses a four-year famine in Pompeii and the efforts of a wealthy man to alleviate the distress by distributing free bread. The account could also be depicted in a famous mosaic from Pompeii, which shows bread being distributed during a famine.

The inscription also mentions a famine, during which the wealthy man helped his fellow Pompeii citizens by selling wheat at discounted prices and organizing the distribution of free loaves of bread.

A famous mosaic from Pompeii shows three people, including a child, at a stall waiting to get bread, Osanna said, and it’s possible that the mosaic shows the event mentioned in the inscription. 

Just 20 years before the Vesuvius eruption, in A.D. 59, a riot broke out during a gladiator show, according to the inscription.

The ancient Roman historian Tacitus (AD 56-120) also mentioned this riot in his book “Annals.” The inscription says that, as a penalty for the riot, Emperor Nero “ordered that they [Roman authorities] deport from the City beyond the two-hundredth mile all the gladiatorial households [schools].”Nero also ordered several Pompeii citizens involved in the riot to leave the city, according to the inscription. 

The inscription claims that the wealthy man talked to Nero and convinced the emperor to allow some of the deported citizens to return to Pompeii — an indication of the high regard Nero seems to have held for the man, Osanna wrote. 

Who was the wealthy man?

Osanna believes the wealthy man’s name and position were carved into a part of the tomb, which is now destroyed; it was looted in the 19th century. 

The identity of the wealthy man could be Gnaeus Alleius Nigidius Maius, a man mentioned in other inscriptions from Pompeii, Osanna wrote. Maius is described as a man of great wealth and power who lived around A.D. 59, Osanna wrote. Previous archaeological work shows that a tomb belonging to Maius’ adoptive father, “Marcus Alleius Minius, is located near the tomb with the inscription. 

The translation of the inscription is preliminary, and further studies may provide more information about it, Osanna wrote.

BULGARIA, EUROPE, WORLD

1,700-Year-Old Bronze Document Found in Roman Fortress

1,700-Year-Old Bronze Document Found in Roman Fortress

For more than half a century, Warsaw archeologists have carried out excavations in Novae (near Svishtov).

The document granting Roman citizenship.

Every year their research presents more information about the life of the members of two armies of historic significance: the Eighth Legion of Augustus and the First Italian Legion. In Novae the relics of the camps were maintained two thousand years ago.

In this summer, archeologists came across significant artifacts during excavations in the ruins of a luxurious centurion’s house (a Roman officer).

“It was a fragment part of a document certifying that the emperor granted Roman citizenship to a legionary after he completed his service”, says the head of research at Novae Prof.

Polish excavations at Novae.

Piotr Dyczek from the Antiquity of Southeastern Europe Research Centre of the University of Warsaw. The partially preserved certificate was engraved on a bronze plate. Archaeologists have not yet deciphered the entire text.

In total, approx. 1,000 similar documents are known from the entire area of the Roman Empire, but very few are from the Danube region. This one dates back to over 1,700 years ago when Emperor Gordian III ruled (238-244 AD).

The full document usually consisted of two “pages”. They had small holes at the long edges, through which the chain was threaded to connect attach the two parts.

“Interestingly, not everyone could look inside the document, not even its owner, because each time after checking its content, officials would seal the chains”, says Prof. Dyczek. The goal of this procedure was to prevent copying and forging these important certificates.

In the early years of the Roman Empire, only Roman citizens, people from the Apennine Peninsula, could serve in the Roman army. This changed in the 3rd century AD.

Rome needed more soldiers to defend its borders, which is why barbarians who were allies of the Empire, people from outside the original borders of the Empire, were also allowed to enlist.

Over time, the Empire expanded its borders and troops were recruited in the new lands, even though they were not Roman citizens.

“After a minimum of 25 years of service, legionaries who became veterans were rewarded in various ways. For example, those who were not Roman citizens could obtain citizenship”, says Prof. Dyczek. Why was this so highly valued?

The archaeologist explains that citizenship opened the way to social advancement: a veteran, whose document Polish researchers found, could successfully run for important public offices and, for example, be elected mayor.

Novae.

Professor Dyczek suspects that the owner of the document was 40-45 years old at the time of receipt (because legionnaires enlisted about the age of 20). “This means that he still had some 20-30 years ahead of him and could get rich thanks to his citizenship”, he adds.

A copy of citizenship certificate was archived in Rome in the form of papyrus. But the key was the original document held by the owner. “Its loss could even be treated as a loss of identity”, Prof. Dyczek emphasizes.

The head of research hopes that in half a year when cleaning and conservation of the document are completed, we will learn the name of the awarded veteran and details of his life.

EUROPE, WORLD

Ancient Gold Bracelet Unearthed in Estonia

Ancient Gold Bracelet Unearthed in Estonia

Hobbyists of metal detectors feel lucky when they come across an old button or coin instead of just the usual old nails or scrap metal.

Jegor Klimov holds the treasure
Jegor Klimov holds the treasure

However, amateur hunters don’t even dream of finding the type of thing that set off Jegor Klimov’s metal detector in Saaremaa earlier this month.

Among the items found at a 1,700-year-old sacrificial site were luxurious local crossbow brooches, some made of silver, some gold-plated silver, as well as Scandinavian-looking belt plaques with silver plates, writes regional Saarte Hääl (link in Estonian).

The most unique item to be found at the site, however, is a massive gold bracelet or collar from the 3rd century.

“With this find, the signal was sort of indistinct, sort of heay,” Klimov described. “I doubted whether or not to dig. But here it is! It’s like winning the jackpot! Unearthing something like this is amazing.

And it is amazing for Estonian history too, because nothing like this has been found in Estonia before. Gold finds are rare in Estonia, to begin with; we know of just four or five finds. But this is the coolest of them all.”

Archaeologist Marika Mägi, Ph.D., who led the search team, told Saarte Hääl that gold is rare in Estonian archaeology, and such a massive gold piece, with such fine details and ideological significance, has never been found before, which is why this find is a likely candidate for being the most valuable find of all time in Estonia.

“One can say that this is likely the most valuable single find, in the material sense, to be unearthed in Estonia,” Mägi explained to ETV news broadcast “Aktuaalne kaamera.”

“It is believed that whoever wore these, they were a symbol of belonging to the highest echelons of society. So these are not regular bracelets.

How this particular bracelet ended up in Saaremaa is an exciting question in its own right and one we’ll likely never get a real answer for.

Ancient Gold Bracelet Unearthed in Estonia

This is a type of jewelry which throughout Scandinavia is considered one of the most significant items of the Roman Iron Age, and it is associated with royal power and royal families.”

The find is also significant in archaeological terms as well, she noted, as it presents a rather different picture of the first few centuries C.E. in Estonia.

Estonia’s most valuable jewelry find has been handed over to the Saaremaa Museum where, according to the museum director, it will be given a worthy spot in the museum’s new exhibition, which is currently in the planning stages.

EUROPE, NORWAY, WORLD

1,700-Year-Old Roman Bronze Vessel Discovered in Norway

1,700-Year-Old Roman Bronze Vessel Discovered in Norway

Archaeologists do not every day have the opportunity to discover ancient objects in central Norway.

Sometime in the Gaula River valley, southern Trøndelag, scientists report that about 150-300 CE a person died in the place now called Gylland.

The remains were laid in a bronze vessel after the body was cremated. This was then covered or wrapped in birch bark before being buried under several hundred kilos of stone.

1,700-Year-Old Roman Bronze Vessel Discovered in Norway
The bowl is now being examined in more detail at NTNU’s conservation laboratory.

Now archaeologists from the NTNU University Museum lifted a stone slab and almost lost their breath from excitement when they saw what lay below it.

“We’d gone over the spot with the metal detector, and so we knew that there was something under one of the stone slabs in the burial cairn,” says archaeologist Ellen Grav Ellingsen, who filmed the discovery with her mobile phone when the rock was lifted away.

“When I saw what was lying there, my hands got so shaky that I could hardly film. This is a find an archaeologist is lucky to experience once in their career!” says Ellingsen.

“The cauldron from Gylland belongs to a type of bronze vessel that goes by the name østlandskjele. The name is related to the fact that many vessels of this type are found in graves in Eastern Norway.

NTNU University Museum

This kind of vessel was manufactured in Italy or in the Roman provinces of the Rhine region and came to Scandinavia as a result of either trade or an exchange of gifts.

The vessels were mass-produced and possibly intended for export to the Scandinavian area. In Scandinavia, they often ended up as burial urns.

Although they were mass-produced, this bowl is a rare find,” Norwegian SciTech News reports.

“The last find of a bronze bowl in central Norway was in the 1960s. Nationally, we know of about 50 vessels of this particular type,” says Moe Henriksen, an archaeologist, and the project manager for the excavation in Gylland.

Imported goods like bronze vessels and glass jugs were reserved for society’s upper classes. The discovery in Gylland testifies to the power and prosperity in this region in Roman times.

The bowl was in bad shape and it’s likely that the pressure from the stones compressed it.

“The bowl is now being examined more closely in NTNU’s conservation laboratory. An x-ray of the vessel shows that it doesn’t contain any metal objects,” says Moe Henriksen.

Heidi Fløttum Westgaard (foreground) and Ellen Grav Ellingsen reveal the bowl. Photo: Astrid Kviseth / NTNU University Museum

“But the remains of organic material, like combs and bone needles, may still be hidden in the soil inside the bowl. In the next few weeks we should know whether other objects accompanied the deceased into the grave,” she adds.

EUROPE, IRELAND, WORLD

The Catholic church is ‘shocked’ at the hundreds of children buried at Tuam. Really?

The Catholic church is ‘shocked’ at the hundreds of children buried at Tuam. Really?

Historian Catherine Corless was convinced that there — long-buried in a sewage system under the streets of a little town in Western Ireland — were the discarded remains of babies. Possibly hundreds of them.

For years, no one believed her.

Though, a state-appointed dig uncovered “significant quantities of human remains” at the site of St. Mary’s House — a home for unmarried mothers and children that had run from 1925 to 1961.

Excavators, who have been investigating, found a long underground structure that had been divided into 20 chambers, according to a statement.

Bodies, ranging from premature babies to three-year-olds, were found in 17 of the little rooms.

Subsequent tests suggest most of the remains date from the 1950s.

“This is very sad and disturbing news,” Katherine Zappone, the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, said. “It was not unexpected as there were claims about human remains on the site over the last number of years. Up to now, we had rumors.”

Corless has been poking around the subject for years. Having grown up in the area, she remembers going to school with children from St. Mary’s — which had been owned by the state and run by the Sisters of Bon Secours, a Roman Catholic order.

In Ireland, a country known for its strict Catholicism, women who became pregnant outside of marriage were considered sinners and faced stigma and abuse.

Their children were also shunned, and Corless remembers her St. Mary’s peers appearing malnourished and being kept to one side of the classroom in a school.

She began her investigation of St. Mary’s in earnest when she discovered 796 death certificates for young children but was unable to find any burial records.

She carefully studied the grounds and old documents. The building itself had been torn down in the ’70s and replaced with housing development, but Corless was able to deduce that the children had been buried in an unofficial graveyard — possibly in the sewage treatment facilities.

“Nobody was listening locally or in authority, from the church or from the state,” Corless told The New York Times. “They said, ‘What’s the point?’ And that I shouldn’t view the past from today’s lenses.”

This picture shows a shrine in Tuam, County Galway in memory of the children buried there without a grave.
This picture shows a shrine in Tuam, County Galway in memory of the children buried there without a grave.

But the history of the homes began garnering international attention (due, in part, to the film “Philomena,” which was based on the true story of an Irish woman looking for the son who had been taken from her in a similar home), and the government of Ireland created the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes in 2015.

The commission has been examining abuse allegations in 17 other similar institutions.

Corless said she hopes that the information uncovered by the investigations will help families affected find peace.

“I was thinking of all the survivors of the Tuam home who have brothers and sisters buried there and I knew in my heart and soul that they would be delighted with this announcement because they want a grave to visit,” she told the BBC.

Though the commission itself does not have the power to award compensation, the town’s archbishop has said the church will work with the families to identify remains and provide a “dignified re-interment” in official graves.