Category Archives: WORLD

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

Roman-Era Pottery Workshop Uncovered in Egypt

Roman-Era Pottery Workshop Uncovered in Egypt

Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered an ancient pottery workshop — with the remains of rounded vessels, coins, figurines and even a ‘ritual room’ — dating to the beginning of the Roman period in Tabba Matouh, West Alexandria. 

Roman-Era Pottery Workshop Uncovered in Egypt
Archaeologists discovered a number of fragments of terracotta statues at the site in Alexandria.

Ancient workers primarily used the site for crafting amphorae —  two-handed vessels with a neck narrower than the main body that was used for the storage and transportation of goods such as oil and grain, according to the University of Oxford’s Classical Art Research Center. 

Archaeologists with the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities discovered a number of buildings at the site, including a workshop containing a group of kilns.

Two of these were carved into the rock and one remains in excellent condition, the ministry announced in a translated statement. 

During the Byzantine era (A.D. 330 to 1453), long after ceramic production ended at the site, the buildings were likely used for another purpose: lime production, Mustafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said in the statement.

The archaeologists also uncovered graves, with burial holes dug into the rock, suggesting the site was later used as a cemetery during the medieval period. One of the graves held the remains of a pregnant woman.

A view of the site at Tabba Matouh, west Alexandria, Egypt

The archaeologists also discovered a storage room, which contained cooking utensils and tableware. A number of limestone buildings were most likely used as temporary residences for workers at the site. One room was discovered with a raised platform and the remains of terracotta statues, suggesting it was likely used for rituals.

Some of these statues represent the god Harpocrates, the juvenile form of the falcon-headed god Horus.

Another room that had stoves and the remains of amphorae containing preserved fish bones was most likely used for cooking and selling food, according to the statement. 

The site dates back to early Roman Egypt, which began in 30 B.C. following future Roman emperor Octavian’s defeat of Anthony and Cleopatra, according to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Following the Roman conquest, Egypt became a highly prosperous Roman province that supplied the rest of the Roman Empire with a variety of craft-based products, including pottery.

“Pottery is the most common artefact recovered through excavation and survey of Roman sites [in ancient Egypt],” Scott Gallimore, an archaeologist at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada who was not involved in the new excavation, wrote in a 2010 paper for the Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists. 

The archaeological team also unearthed a number of smaller items at the site, such as firewood, small statues, animal bones and a number of coins featuring the likeness of Cleopatra and Alexander the Great, according to Heritage Daily.

An amulet of the ancient Egyptian god Bes and a feathered crown associated with Bes were also discovered. Bes was seen as the god of music, merriment and childbirth, according to the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in California. Fishing hooks and the anchor of a boat were also among the items discovered.

AUSTRIA, EUROPE, WORLD

Gold ‘sun bowl’ discovered near Bronze Age swamp

Gold ‘sun bowl’ discovered near Bronze Age swamp

Archaeologists excavating a 3,000-year-old settlement in Austria have unearthed a golden bowl with the image of a sun adorning its underside. 

“At the bottom of the bowl, a sun disc with 11 rays is depicted,” Michał Sip, an archaeologist with the German company Novetus, who is leading excavations at the site, told Live Science in an email. The artisan (or artisans) who crafted the bowl also included a “circular motif [images] of circles and dots” decorating the bowl’s exterior, Sip said. 

The fragile bowl was shaped out of gold sheet metal, and it “probably had a cultic function,” Sip added. 

Gold 'sun bowl' discovered near Bronze Age swamp
A photo of the sun bowl is seen here. The bottom has a sun disc with 11 rays coming out. There are also circular motifs decorating the bowl.

Archaeologists know of about 30 similar bowls from ancient Europe, but “this is the first find of this type in Austria, and the second to the east of the alpine line,” Sip told Science in Poland.

These bowls were produced in the regions of what is now Germany, Scandinavia and Denmark, he noted.

At nearly 8 inches (20 centimetres) in diameter, the bowl is slightly larger than a person’s hand. But it’s very shallow — just 2 inches (5 cm) tall. An analysis revealed that the vessel is about 90% gold, 5% silver and 5% copper, and researchers are now hoping to discover where its raw materials originated, according to Science in Poland.

The bowl wasn’t the only stunning artefact found at the site. Two bracelets made from twisted gold wires were found with the bowl, and some organic remains, possibly fabric or leather, still cling to them.

The team is doing DNA tests to try to determine what the organic remains are, Sip said.

The bowl was found near the wall of one of the houses at the Bronze Age settlement, said Sip, adding that it’s possible that the bowl was wrapped in the gold wires and intentionally deposited at this location, perhaps during a religious ceremony honouring the sun.

The settlement dates back to before writing was used in the area, making it harder to determine what exactly the bowl would have been used for.

The prehistoric settlement lies beneath the modern-day town of Ebreichsdorf, Austria, and excavations are being conducted prior to the construction of a train station at the site.

During their excavations, the archaeologists also found nearly 500 bronze objects, including daggers, pins and knives, in a now-dry area south of the settlement that was once a swamp.

None of these objects is damaged, meaning that the swamp wasn’t used as a garbage dump for broken goods. Rather, these bronze objects were likely thrown into the water during rituals, Sip told Science in Poland.

After excavations are complete, the site will be returned to the Austrian Federal Railways, Sip said. Excavation of the site and analysis of its remains is ongoing. The gold bowl will soon go on display at Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

EUROPE, FRANCE, WORLD

First Modern Humans Arrived in Europe Earlier Than Previously Known

First Modern Humans Arrived in Europe Earlier Than Previously Known

Some 30 years of archaeological and other types of scientific research around the ancient artefacts and human remains in the Grotte Mandarin, located in the Rhone River Valley in southern France, has revealed that humans may have arrived in Europe about 10,000 years earlier than originally thought.

This conclusion, drawn by an international team of researchers including Jason Lewis, PhD, of Stony Brook University, will help scientists rethink the arrival of humans into Europe and their replacement of and interactions with Neanderthals who also lived in the cave.

The research is detailed in a paper published in Science Advances.

Previous studies have suggested that the first modern humans reached the European continent – originally from Africa and via the Levant, the eastern Mediterranean crossroads – between 43,000 and 48,000 years ago.

But this discovery of modern human presence in the heart of the Rhone River Valley at Grotte Mandrin points to about 54,000 years ago.

Close-up of the Grotte Mandrin in southern France where scientists have uncovered layers of history that include both modern human and Neanderthal activity.

The area of the cave excavated and analyzed that proved the evidence of modern human presence is Mandrin’s Layer E. It is sandwiched between 10 other layers of artefacts and fossils that contain evidence of Neanderthal life.

“The first curious signal to emerge during the initial decade of excavations were thousands of tiny triangular stone points, resembling arrowheads, some less than a centimetre in length,” explains Lewis.

“These had no technical precursors or successors in the surrounding Neanderthal layers.”

Lewis explained that the well-preserved cave, discovered in the 1960s, includes uppermost layers that contain materials from the Bronze Age and Neolithic periods. But over the past quarter-century, the international scientific team has analyzed three meters of sediment and evidence from the Paleolithic – a period when Neanderthals and their ancestors occupied Europe and periodically had contact with evolving modern humans.

The consensus theory until now was that these modern humans expanded into the southeastern European region about 50,000 years ago and the Neanderthals progressively disappeared.

The research involved analyses of various types of hundreds of fossils, stone tools, and ancient human teeth.

The team used radiocarbon and luminescence dating, DNA and another molecular testing, and lithic technological analysis.

Co-author Marine Frouin, PhD, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geosciences at Stony Brook University, completed luminescence dating work at Mandarin that helped estimate dates when humans occupied the cave.

“I joined the team in 2014 to obtain the first luminescence dates at the site,” explains Frouin.

“Due to advances in our dating methods and new collaborations that developed a few years later, we were able to put together a precise and robust timeline for when modern humans and Neanderthals were there.”

Many small triangular stone points from Mandrin’s Layer E helped lead scientists to determine modern humans lived in the cave, and therefore their presence in Europe was 10,000 years earlier than previously suspected.

Intriguingly, the international scientific team also determined that the evidence of humans at and around the ancient cave showed they occupied the territory for only one or two generations. Then, they disappeared just as mysteriously and quickly as they had arrived and Neanderthals reoccupied the region and site.

“Our overall discovery changes the landscape regarding the time humans arrived in Europe and raises other questions, some of which we think we can answer and others that require more investigation,” adds Lewis

Such questions are: How did modern humans know about the stone resources around the cave in France around the varied landscape in such a short time? Did they have relationships with Neanderthals, such as exchanging of information, and goods and acting as guides? Did these two hominin groups interbreed more frequently than science has previously suggested? Additional discoveries from Mandarin will soon be announced that will shed light on these and other questions about our ancient ancestors.

EUROPE, FRANCE, WORLD

Prehistoric Artworks May Have Been Carved by Firelight

Prehistoric Artworks May Have Been Carved by Firelight

Our early ancestors probably created intricate artwork by firelight, an examination of 50 engraved stones unearthed in France has revealed. The stones were incised with artistic designs around 15,000 years ago and have patterns of heat damage which suggests they were carved close to the flickering light of a fire, the new study has found.  

Prehistoric Artworks May Have Been Carved by Firelight
Photograph showing ambient light levels and the position of replica plaquettes in relation to the fire.

The study, by researchers at the Universities of York and Durham, looked at the collection of engraved stones, known as plaquettes, which are now held in the British Museum.

They are likely to have been made using stone tools by Magdalenian people, an early hunter-gatherer culture dating from between 23,000 and 14,000 years ago.

The researchers identified patterns of pink heat damage around the edges of some of the stones, providing evidence that they had been placed in close proximity to a fire. 

Recreate

Following their discovery, the researchers have experimented with replicating the stones themselves and used 3D models and virtual reality software to recreate the plaquettes as prehistoric artists would have seen them: under fireside light conditions and with the fresh white lines engravers would have made as they first cut into the rock thousands of years ago.

Lead author of the study, Dr Andy Needham from the Department of Archaeology at the University of York and Co-Director of the York Experimental Archaeology Research Centre said: “It has previously been assumed that the heat damage visible on some plaquettes was likely to have been caused by accident, but experiments with replica plaquettes showed the damage was more consistent with being purposefully positioned close to a fire.

“In the modern-day, we might think of art as being created on a blank canvas in daylight or with a fixed light source; but we now know that people 15,000 years ago were creating art around a fire at night, with flickering shapes and shadows.”

Dramatic

Working under these conditions would have had a dramatic effect on the way prehistoric people experienced the creation of art, the researchers say. It may have activated an evolutionary capacity designed to protect us from predators called “Pareidolia”, where perception imposes a meaningful interpretation such as the form of an animal, a face or a pattern where there is none.    

Dr Needham added: “Creating art by firelight would have been a very visceral experience, activating different parts of the human brain.

We know that flickering shadows and light enhance our evolutionary capacity to see forms and faces in inanimate objects and this might help explain why it’s common to see plaquette designs that have used or integrated natural features in the rock to draw animals or artistic forms.”  

Flourishing

The Magdalenian era saw a flourishing of early art, from cave art and the decoration of tools and weapons to the engraving of stones and bones.

Co-author of the study, PhD student Izzy Wisher from the Department of Archaeology at the University of Durham, said: “During the Magdalenian period conditions were very cold and the landscape was more exposed.

While people were well-adapted to the cold, wearing warm clothing made from animal hides and fur, the fire was still really important for keeping warm. Our findings reinforce the theory that the warm glow of the fire would have made it the hub of the community for social gatherings, telling stories and making art.

“At a time when huge amounts of time and effort would have gone into finding food, water and shelter, it’s fascinating to think that people still found the time and capacity to create art. It shows how these activities have formed part of what makes us human for thousands of years and demonstrate the cognitive complexity of prehistoric people.”

NEW ZEALAND, WORLD

Remains of 19th-Century Bridge Found in New Zealand

Remains of 19th-Century Bridge Found in New Zealand

Archaeologists have dug up parts of an old bridge in Picton, a project the community once fought to have constructed. WSP archaeologist Kirsty Sykes discovered the site, at the Waitohi Stream on State Highway 1, when she was playing with her daughter Maddy, who goes to a nearby kindergarten.

Archaeologist Kirsty Sykes with part of an original wooden bridge on State Highway 1, Picton, thought to date back to the 1860s.

She noticed part of the old bridge foundation in the ground, likely from a structure built-in 1866.

“In 1866, there was a whole lot of people complaining about the disgrace that Picton doesn’t have a nice big bridge,” Sykes said.

“I’ve got a newspaper article from 1913, where the speed limit over the bridge was a walking pace. The bridge by that point was getting quite old, and people were getting fines for going too fast over the bridge.”

She said sometime in the early 20th century, a new bridge was built. But in doing so, they left some of the old piles in the ground, which were the material archaeologists dug up this month.

“It was in the ground, it’s pretty waterlogged in the top. When they put the new bridge in they just decided it was easier to chop it off.”

It was an exciting find as an archaeologist because it was part of the community’s history.

Sykes with a piece of the wood from the old bridge.

“It brings the past and the present, and the future together. So finding something like this is the real tangible link to the past, that you can touch it right, and you can relate to it.”

She said a piece of the wood would be sent off to sample what exactly it was. The rest would go to the Picton Museum for display.

Sykes also worked on Blenheim’s new Ōpaoa Bridge, when in early 2019, workers accidentally stumbled across a wooden bridge pile and century-old bottles at the worksite.

Remains of 19th-Century Bridge Found in New Zealand
Archaeologists work to dig up the old bridge foundation.

“We found a bridge pile there that was nearly 7 metres, but it had lost the very end, so this is a very nice example of that end,” she said.

Workers found the old wooden pile while driving new piles into the ground. The pile hit the wood and sliced part of it off.

It was thought that the old bridge at the Ōpaoa site was built in 1868.

By 1913, people were being charged for riding and driving over the bridge at “other than a walking pace”.

A spokesperson from Waka Kotahi said the current Waitohi Stream bridge is undergoing scour protection works to protect its abutments from potential river water and flood damage.

“The team will install concrete blocks and rock rip rap in front of the existing abutments and fill a void under the existing rock baskets to maintain the stability of the bridge supports,” the spokesperson said.

This was expected to be completed by the end of April.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

Archaeologists were left baffled by a grim Roman discovery made in Wales: ‘Quite peculiar’

Archaeologists were left baffled by a grim Roman discovery made in Wales: ‘Quite peculiar’

Archaeologists were left baffled by a grim Roman discovery made in Wales: 'Quite peculiar'
This decapitated man, whose head was placed at his feet, was found in a Romano-British burial.

Archaeologists have discovered the remains of a possible Roman mercenary buried with his sword and the skeleton of another Roman-period man whose decapitated head lay at his feet in Wales, in the United Kingdom. 

Investigations into these two distinct burials are ongoing, as is an examination of the other burials at the site, which has been used by humans since the Stone Age. One spot, for instance, has hundreds of burials from two different time periods; people who lived during the early medieval period (A.D. 410 to 1169) chose to bury their dead within a mound that had been used as a burial ground during the Bronze Age (2500 B.C. to 800 B.C.), the team found.

“[The early medieval people] went back to the prehistoric site to make this burial mound, even though it was a Christian period, and you would expect them to be buried around a chapel or a church,” excavation project director Mark Collard, an archaeologist and director of Rubicon Heritage, an Ireland-based archaeological firm, told Live Science. 

Archaeologists first discovered the site in the 1960s, upon finding the remains of Iron Age roundhouses (800 B.C. to A.D. 43) and the Whitton Lodge Roman Villa built on a farmstead dating to the Roman period (A.D 43 to 410).

However, it wasn’t until recently that, during an archaeological survey ahead of a road construction project, archaeologists realized the site preserved far more history.

The Whitton Lodge Roman Villa was first discovered in the 1960s.

From 2017 through most of 2018, Rubicon Heritage excavated the site and since then has been working on a monograph or a detailed, peer-reviewed description of the site. In March, Rubicon Heritage released an eBook and an online interactive map of the site, known as 5 Mile Lane.

The earliest evidence at 5 Mile Lane is hunter-gather flint tools dating to the Mesolithic, or the Middle Stone Age (8000 B.C. to 4000 B.C.), Collard said. “It shows that Mesolithic people are going through the area” and hunting animals such as aurochs (Bos primigenius), an extinct cattle species, he said. 

People living there during the Neolithic, or New Stone Age (4000 B.C. to 2500 B.C.), built some type of communally-used ritual structure, according to several large pits or postholes that archaeologists found. “It basically looks like a large post alignment running across the countryside,” Collard said.

The team also unearthed the remains of a person in a crouched position buried nearby, suggesting that the burial was tied to this ritual landscape, he said.

A late Bronze Age crouch burial at the base of the monument.
A late Bronze Age crouch burial at the base of the monument.

Archaeologists found the remains of several roundhouses and mound burials dating to the Bronze Age. But it wasn’t until the Iron Age that the landscape became more settled with small, timber-built and thatched round houses and cultivated farmland, Collard said. These farms were close together — less than 1 mile (1.6 kilometres) apart — and had domesticated animals and grain processing.

“It shows how dense the settlement was,” Collard said. These people were also producing iron tools, such as knives, he noted. Eventually, people switched from round houses to rectangular stone Roman buildings.

“We don’t know if it was the same owners or the same family, but we like to think that the continuity was there. And they just took on with new fashions and assimilated into the Roman Empire,” he said.

Collard and his colleagues plan to test whether there actually was continuity by examining preserved DNA found in the human burials, especially the roughly 450 burials found in the mound used by both the Bronze Age and early medieval peoples. 

It’s likely that this gently sloped area at 5 Mile Lane was well-used because “it’s very rich farming land around there,” Collard said. “It’s good for growing crops but also for keeping animals” pastured and had “access to the sea, which is a couple of miles away,” he said. It was also “close to the highway” — a nearby Roman road that was heavily trafficked.

An aerial view of the Bronze Age burial monument that was reused during medieval times.
Binoculars found at 5 Mile Lane date to World War II.

The mercenary and the decapitated man

The possible mercenary had a “quite peculiar” burial, Collard said. “It’s in the middle of a field near the Roman villa looking out over the valley and over the sea … It’s a great place to be buried.” The deceased was buried prone, or face down, with a long iron sword, a silver crossbow brooch and hobnail boots inside a coffin closed with iron nails. The sword and brooch are indicative of Roman military regalia dating to the late fourth to early fifth centuries A.D., the researchers found.

It’s not certain how the man — who stood up to 5 feet, 9 inches (1.75 meters) tall and was in his early 20s — died, but he may have suffered from a middle-ear infection that spread to his skull, the team found.

During the late Roman period, when this man was alive, Roman control broke down in what is now the United Kingdom, leading the empire to take on mercenaries to fight off invaders, Collard said. So, it’s possible that this man, whose brooch looks like those found in continental Europe, was a Roman mercenary or possibly even an invader who took over the Roman villa, Collard said. Genetic analysis of the man’s remains will hopefully shed light on his roots, Collard added.

The decapitated man was also in his 20s when he died during the Roman period. His skull had been removed and placed at the feet, and the remains of wood and iron nails indicate that he was buried in a coffin or a board that had a shroud over it, the team found.

About 2% to 3% of burials at Roman sites include decapitated people, likely from executions, according to a 2021 study in the journal Britannia. This practice may have been used to separate the soul from the body or to prevent the body from rising again, Collard said.

CHILE, SOUTH AMERICA, WORLD

Drowned Stone Age fishermen were examined with a forensic method that could rewrite prehistory

Drowned Stone Age fishermen were examined with a forensic method that could rewrite prehistory

Human bones dating to the Stone Age found in what is now northern Chile are the remains of a fisherman who died by drowning, scientists have discovered.

Drowned Stone Age fishermen were examined with a forensic method that could rewrite prehistory
Archaeologists unearthed the skeleton in a coastal area near Chile’s Atacama Desert.

The man lived about 5,000 years ago, and he was around 35 to 45 years old when he died. Scientists found the skeleton in a mass burial in the coastal region of Copaca near the Atacama Desert, and the grave held four individuals: three adults (two males and one female) and one child. 

The man would have been about 5 feet, 3 inches (1.6 meters) tall when alive, and his remains showed signs of degenerative diseases and metabolic stress, researchers reported in the April 2022 issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science.

The bones revealed traces of osteoarthritis in his back and both elbows; the back of his skull had evidence of healed injuries from blunt trauma; his teeth and jaws were marred by tartar, periodontal disease and abscesses; and lesions in his eye sockets hinted at an iron deficiency caused by ingesting a parasite found in marine animals, according to the study. 

Other marks on the arm and leg bones where muscles were once attached told of repetitive activities related to fishing, such as rowing, harpooning and squatting to harvest shellfish. If the individual was a fisherman, perhaps he died by drowning, the researchers proposed.

When forensic teams examine modern skeletons that were found without any soft tissue attached, experts can confirm drowning as the cause of death by looking inside large bones for delicate microscopic algae, called diatoms, which live in watery habitats and soil.

When a person drowns, inhaled water can enter the bloodstream and travel throughout the body after the lungs rupture, even reaching the “closed system” of bone marrow through capillaries, the authors reported. Looking at diatom species in bone marrow can thereby reveal if the person ingested saltwater. However, this method had never been used to examine ancient bones.

Algae, sponge spines and parasitic eggs

For the new study, the scientists decided that the modern diatom test was too “chemically aggressive,” and in removing bone marrow from samples, it also destroyed small particles and organisms that weren’t diatoms. Such particles could be highly significant for analyzing Stone Age bones, according to the study.

The researchers, therefore, adopted “a less aggressive process” that eliminated residual bone marrow in their samples, while preserving a wider range of microscopic material absorbed by the marrow, which could then be detected by scanning electron microscopy (SEM).

Their SEM scans revealed a microorganism jackpot. While there was no marine material clinging to the outside of the bones, the scans showed that the marrow contained plenty of tiny ocean fossils, including algae, parasitic eggs and broken sponge structures called spicules. This variety of marine life deep inside the man’s bones suggests that he died by drowning in saltwater. 

It’s possible that the cause of death was a natural disaster, as the geologic record in this coastal region of Chile preserves evidence of powerful tsunamis dating to around 5,000 years ago, the scientists reported. But with ample skeletal evidence that the person was a fisherman, the more likely explanation is that he died during a fishing accident, they said.

Damage to the skeleton — missing shoulder joints, cervical vertebrae that were replaced with shells and a broken ribcage — could have happened when waves pummeled the drowned man’s body and then washed it ashore, the researchers explained.

Interior analysis of the man’s bones revealed traces of microscopic sea life, such as parasite eggs and algae. This image shows a degraded unicellular green alga that lives in marine ecosystems.

As to why the man was buried in a mass grave, “what we can assess from similar contexts is that they probably belonged to the same family group,” said lead study author Pedro Andrade, an archaeologist and a professor of anthropology at the University of Concepción in Chile.

The individuals likely shared an ancestor but weren’t immediate family members, as the dates of the skeletons spanned about 100 years, Andrade told Live Science in an email. 

By expanding the range of the modern diatom test to include a broader selection of microscopic marine life in their search through the interior cavities of prehistoric bones, “we’ve cracked open a whole new way to do things,” study co-author James Goff, a visiting professor in the School of Ocean and Earth Science at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, said in a statement. 

“This can help us understand much more about how tough it was living by the coast in prehistoric days — and how people there were affected by catastrophic events, just as we are today,” Goff said.

Applying this method across other archaeological sites in coastal areas with mass graves could offer game-changing insight into how ancient people survived — and often died — while living under potentially perilous conditions, Andrade told Live Science.

While there are many coastal mass burial sites worldwide that have been investigated by scientists, “the fundamental question of what caused so many deaths has not been addressed,” Goff added. 

WORLD

Blue-eyed humans have a single, common ancestor

Blue-eyed humans have a single, common ancestor

People with blue eyes have a single, common ancestor, according to new research. A team of scientists has tracked down a genetic mutation that leads to blue eyes. The mutation occurred between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago. Before then, there were no blue eyes.

Blue-eyed humans have a single, common ancestor
Reese Witherspoon.

“Originally, we all had brown eyes,” said Hans Eiberg from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Copenhagen.

The mutation affected the so-called OCA2 gene, which is involved in the production of melanin, the pigment that gives colour to our hair, eyes and skin.

“A genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in our chromosomes resulted in the creation of a ‘switch,’ which literally ‘turned off’ the ability to produce brown eyes,” Eiberg said.

The genetic switch is located in the gene adjacent to OCA2 and rather than completely turning off the gene, the switch limits its action, which reduces the production of melanin in the iris. In effect, the turned-down switch diluted brown eyes to blue. If the OCA2 gene had been completely shut down, our hair, eyes and skin would be melanin-less, a condition known as albinism.

“It’s exactly what I sort of expected to see from what we know about selection around this area,” said John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, referring to the study results regarding the OCA2 gene. Hawks was not involved in the current study.

Baby blues

Eiberg and his team examined DNA from mitochondria, the cell’s energy-making structures, of blue-eyed individuals in countries including Jordan, Denmark and Turkey. This genetic material comes from females, so it can trace maternal lineages.

They specifically looked at sequences of DNA on the OCA2 gene and the genetic mutation associated with turning down melanin production.

Over the course of several generations, segments of ancestral DNA get shuffled so that individuals have varying sequences. Some of these segments, however, that haven’t been reshuffled are called haplotypes.

If a group of individuals shares long haplotypes, that means the sequence arose relatively recently in our human ancestors. The DNA sequence didn’t have enough time to get mixed up.

“What they were able to show is that the people who have blue eyes in Denmark, as far as Jordan, these people all have this same haplotype, they all have exactly the same gene changes that are all linked to this one mutation that makes eyes blue,” Hawks said in a telephone interview.

Melanin switch

The mutation is what regulates the OCA2 switch for melanin production. And depending on the amount of melanin in the iris, a person can end up with eye colours ranging from brown to green.

Brown-eyed individuals have considerable individual variation in the area of their DNA that controls melanin production. But they found that blue-eyed individuals only have a small degree of variation in the amount of melanin in their eyes. 

“Out of 800 persons we have only found one person which didn’t fit — but his eye colour was blue with a single brown spot,” Eiberg told LiveScience, referring to the finding that blue-eyed individuals all had the same sequence of DNA linked with melanin production.

“From this, we can conclude that all blue-eyed individuals are linked to the same ancestor,” Eiberg said. “They have all inherited the same switch at exactly the same spot in their DNA.” Eiberg and his colleagues detailed their study in the online edition of the journal Human Genetics. 

That genetic switch somehow spread throughout Europe and now other parts of the world.

“The question really is, ‘Why did we go from having nobody on Earth with blue eyes 10,000 years ago to having 20 or 40 per cent of Europeans having blue eyes now?” Hawks said. “This gene does something good for people. It makes them have more kids.”