Ancient Campfires Reveal A 50,000-Year-Old Grocer And Pharmacy In Australia

Ancient Campfires Reveal A 50,000-Year-Old Grocer And Pharmacy In Australia

For the first time in Australia, archaeobotany has been used by researchers from The University of Western Australia to examine charcoal from ancient campfires in the Western Desert.

Led by UWA Ph.D. candidate Chae Byrne, the research was the first of its kind in the region and examined charcoal from ancient campfires in desert rock shelters to learn about the earliest uses of firewood in Karnatukul (Serpents Glen) in Katjarra (the Carnarvon Ranges) Wattle and other Acacias were found in the oldest archaeological site on the land of the Martu in the Western Desert.

It showed how wattle has defined culture and been important to Australians for over 50,000 years.

Ancient Campfires Reveal A 50,000-Year-Old Grocer And Pharmacy In Australia
Wattle and other Acacias were found in the oldest archaeological site on the land of the Martu in the Western Desert.

“Wattle was critical to the lives of the Martu and essential to the habitability of the arid landscape of the sandplains and rocky ridges of the Western Desert – and it still is,” Ms. Byrne said.

“Then and now, wattle has been used as firewood, to make tools, as food, and as medicine.”

The study confirmed that early Indigenous explorers settled in this arid part of the country, even during changes in climate which saw widespread drought and desertification as sea levels dropped when the polar ice sheets grew.

The study also found that wattle and other acacias have been constant, dependable resources, crucial to the habitability of an otherwise arid and harsh environment.

Ms. Byrne and the research team worked closely with Traditional Owners of the region, who shared their knowledge about the many uses for wattle and other plants.

“I have walked in Country with Traditional Owners who have been kind enough to share their knowledge surrounding the many uses for the vegetation which surround us,” Ms. Byrne said.

“They have taught me that there is a purpose and significance for every type of tree and bush; an ancient grocer and pharmacy which has provided and prospered for tens of thousands of years.”

The researchers sampled trees growing in the region today, which could then be compared to ancient charcoal fragments from campfires in archaeological sites.

“Looking at the plant remains is particularly useful in studying Australian Indigenous heritage, given the persistent importance of natural resources like trees and the rarity of other cultural remains in the deep time record,” Ms. Byrne said.

“There’s so much we can learn from charcoal, not just about the people that produced it but also in environmental science and climate change.”

Ms. Byrne was a finalist in Fresh Science, a national competition helping early-career researchers find, and then share, their stories of discovery.

The study was conducted by the University of Western Australia.

New Huge Viking Ship Discovered By Radar In Øye, Norway – What Is Hidden Beneath The Ground?

New Huge Viking Ship Discovered By Radar In Øye, Norway – What Is Hidden Beneath The Ground?

A new Viking Age ship has been discovered by archaeologists in Norway during a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey. This exciting find reveals a huge Viking boat buried beneath the ground in Øye, in Kvinesdal.

The Øye Viking Age ship was discovered by archaeologists from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU)

This archaeological discovery is highly significant not only because Viking ship burials are rarely found, but also due to the fact that Kvinesdal was once the home to one of Southern Norway’s largest known burial sites from the Iron and Viking Ages.

Archaeologists from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) said the ancient boat was spotted while researchers conducted geophysical surveys in the area as part of the road-building project E39 led by Nye Veier.

The surveys are a part of the research project “Arkeologi på Ney Veier” (Archaeology on new roads). Based on preliminary reports, archaeologists estimate the Viking boat to be between 8 to 9 meters long.

Several ancient burial mounds have been observed in the vicinity of the Viking ship.

Niku researchers inform that in addition to the boat burial there are traces of several other burial mounds.

At present, it is still unknown how much of the Viking boat remains. Excavations must be carried out and hopefully, the new road project will not interfere with archaeologists’ work.

As previously explained in Ancient Origins, Viking burials were very complex which is the reason why so few boat burials have been unearthed.

When a great Viking chieftain died, he received a ship burial. This involved placing the deceased on the ship, sailing him out to sea, and setting the Viking ship on fire. People could watch flames dance high in the air as they embraced the mighty warrior on his way to the afterlife.

By modern standards, it might sound crude, but Viking burials were intended to be a spectacular ritual. Viking funeral traditions involved burning ships and complex ancient rituals.

Based on discovered archaeological evidence it seems that the funeral boat or wagon was a practice reserved for the wealthy.

This type of burial was not common however and was likely reserved for sea captains, noble Vikings, and the very wealthy. In Old Norse times, boats proper boats took several months to construct and would not have been wasted without a valid cause or a suitable amount of status.

Another option was that the Vikings was burned, and cremation was rather common during the early Viking Age. Ashes were later spread over the waters. The vast majority of the burial finds throughout the Viking world are cremations.

Archaeological discoveries such as the finding of the magnificent Gokstad Viking ship discovered in 1880 offer more insight into the world of the Vikings. When scientists re-opened and examined the grave in 2007 we could finally learn more about the man who became known as one of the most famous Vikings in Norway – the Gokstad Viking Chief and his remarkable ship.

New Huge Viking Ship Discovered By Radar In Øye, Norway – What Is Hidden Beneath The Ground?
The Gokstad Viking ship 1880 when was discovered.

The Gokstad ship was built in about 850, at the height of the Viking period. In those days there was a need for ships that could serve many purposes, and the Gokstad ship could have been used for voyages of exploration, trade, and Viking raids. The ship could be both sailed and rowed. There are 16 oar holes on each side of the ship. With oarsmen, steersmen, and lookout, that would have meant a crew of 34.

In recent years there have been exciting reports of unearthed Viking Age burial ships in Sweden and Norway. The giant Gjellestad Viking ship burial in Norway found some years ago has given a unique opportunity to see the world through the eyes of the Vikings.

The discoveries were made by archaeologists from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) with technology developed by the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology (LBI ArchPro).

– We are certain that there is a ship there, but how much is preserved is hard to say before further investigation”, Morten Hanisch, county conservator in Østfold said at the time.

The reconstruction of the Gjellestad Viking ship burial site.

Later, scientists using modern technology put together an outstanding virtual tour of the Gjellestad Viking ship burial site, allowing viewers to see what the place looked like in ancient times.

The new radar discovery in Øye is promising and hopefully, researchers will be able to unearth and examine the remains of the Viking ship. Once they accomplish this, we will learn more about the boat and its history. Maybe remains of a Viking Chief will also be found.

A Massive, Black Sarcophagus Has Been Unearthed in Egypt, And Nobody Knows Who’s Inside

A Massive, Black Sarcophagus Has Been Unearthed in Egypt, And Nobody Knows Who’s Inside

Archaeological digs around ancient Egyptian sites still have plenty of secrets to give up yet – like the huge, black granite sarcophagus just discovered at an excavation in the city of Alexandria, on the northern coast of Egypt.

What really stands out about the solemn-looking coffin is its size. At 185 cm (72.8 inches) tall, 265 cm (104.3 inches) long, and 165 cm (65 inches) wide, it’s the biggest ever found in Alexandria.

Oh, and then there’s the large alabaster head discovered in the same underground tomb. Experts are assuming it represents whoever is buried in the sarcophagus, though that’s yet to be confirmed.

It’s a fascinating find for archaeologists. Ayman Ashmawy from the Egypt Ministry of Antiquities says the layer of mortar still intact between the lid and the body of the coffin indicates it hasn’t been opened since it was sealed more than 2,000 years ago.

That’s particularly rare for a site like this – ancient Egyptian tombs have often been plundered and damaged over the centuries, which means archaeologists rarely find a final resting place that’s still intact like this one appears to be.

The site as a whole dates back to the Ptolemaic period between 305 BCE and 30 BCE, with this particular, find uncovered five meters (16.4 feet) below the ground.

Originally found while clearing the site for a new building, the tomb is now under guard while experts can work out what exactly lies inside the black sarcophagus. It could almost be the start of a new Indiana Jones film.

As Jason Daley at the Smithsonian reports, down the centuries Alexandria has developed to be such a busy, crowded city that finding relics can be a challenge – anything that has managed to survive is often difficult to get to.

Those are all the details we have of the new find, so we’ll have to wait and see if the identity of the buried Egyptian can be determined. But a sarcophagus of this size could mean someone of pretty high status.

We haven’t been short of incredible finds in Egypt this year.

In February, archaeologists found a hidden network of tombs south of Cairo in the Minya Governorate, which – like the giant granite sarcophagus – have probably lain untouched for 2,000 years. Experts say it’ll take them five years to work through that site.

Then in April, a rare Greco-Roman temple was found. It promises to reveal secrets about the Siwa Oasis, one of the most remote settlements in Egypt, including how foreign rule affected the country between 200-300 BCE.

Every discovery paints a little more detail about how people lived and worked in these ancient times. We’ll be keeping a close eye on this sarcophagus to see what it might reveal.

Archaeology breakthrough as Christopher Columbus’ first tomb found: ‘We got it!’

Archaeology breakthrough as Christopher Columbus’ first tomb found: ‘We got it!’

The burial site of Columbus has been a mystery for some time. He was initially left to rest in Valladolid, a city in northwest Spain, three years after his death in 1506. However, the exact location of this first tomb has never been confirmed, until now.

After being buried in Valladolid, Columbus’ remains were taken to his family mausoleum in the southern city of Seville and were moved several more times over the following centuries before returning to Seville in 1898.

In 1544 his remains were moved from Seville to Santo Domingo, which is the capital of the Dominican Republic, in accordance with the instructions he had left behind.

In 1795 his bones were moved to Havana before being shipped back across the Atlantic and returned to Seville in 1898.

In 2005, researchers from the University of Granada used DNA samples to confirm that it was in fact Columbus’ remains that were left in the Seville tomb.

Researchers have now determined that he was first buried in the San Francisco convent in Valladolid which no longer exists.

This was revealed in a study by Spain’s Naval Museum.

Archaeology news: Columbus was an explorer
Archaeology News: Plaza Mayor in Valldolid

The site is currently a commercial zone near the spacious Plaza Mayor, a broad, pedestrianised expanse surrounded by arcaded buildings painted red.

The first tomb of Columbus is now known to have been located near the Plaza Mayor in Valladolid.

The researchers’ statement follows “a detailed historical investigation, confirmed by ground-penetrating radars.”

Researchers used samples of lead, brick, and gold from the Seville burial report to find the match with the burial spot in Valladolid.

Marcial Castro, who led the research, said: “I was tasked with identifying the location where Columbus was buried from these threads of gold, silver, nails, lead, brick and to my surprise we got it.”

Archaeology news: He was moved to Seville

Historians and archeologists have since recreated in 3D the dimensions of the chapel in Valladolid that housed the remains of Columbus.

Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer and navigator who completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean, opening the way for the widespread European exploration and colonisation of the Americas.

His expeditions, sponsored by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, were the first European contact with the Caribbean, Central America, and South America.

Archaeology news: Columbus was an explorer (Image: getty)
Archaeology news: Columbus discovered the West Indies

But the navigator has also long been blamed for carrying the sexually transmitted infection syphilis from the Americas to Europe through his crewmen.

While the researchers in Spain are confident they have found the true burial spot, The Dominican Republic maintained that the navigator rests in the cathedral in Santo Domingo, in a coffin found in 1877 with the inscription “Christopher Columbus.”

This claim is made due to the fact that the bodies of the explorer and his son were transferred from the Iberian peninsula in 1523 to Hispaniola – a territory that is today divided between the Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic and the French-speaking Haiti – where Christopher Columbus wished to be buried.

A Surprise Cave Finding Has Once Again Upended Our Story of Humans Leaving Africa

A Surprise Cave Finding Has Once Again Upended Our Story of Humans Leaving Africa

Last year, a genetic analysis of bone fragments representing our earliest known presence in Europe raised a few questions over the steps modern humans took to conquer every corner of the modern world.

Whoever the remains belonged to, their family background was more entwined with the East Asian populations of their day than with today’s Europeans, hinting at a far more convoluted migration for our species than previously thought.

Now, researchers from the Universities of Padova and Bologna in Italy have proposed what they think might be the simplest explanation for the unexpected kink in the family tree, based on what we can piece together from genetic relationships and subtle shifts in ancient technology around the world.

If we retrace our footsteps from modern times through the Stone Age and beyond, we’ll inevitably find a moment when a bunch of Homo sapiens took a pivotal step out of Africa onto what we now think of as Eurasian soil.

Earlier, more distant cousins had ventured out numerous times already, settling for a time before dying out. This time, it would all be different. This migration of modern humans stuck, eventually seeding a cultural revolution that would forever change our planet in just a few short millennia. While the outcome of this monumental journey is now obvious, the paths are taken and countless lost branches can only be pieced together from scant surviving artefacts and a legacy of genetic mingling.

The scattering of human bones and stone implements sifted from the sediment of Bacho Kiro Cave in central Bulgaria is just the kind of evidence archaeologists dream of. Uncovered in 2015, they have since been dated to around 45,000 years, officially making them the oldest Upper Paleolithic hominin bones ever found in Europe.

By taking archaeological records into account, we can tell they had descended from a larger community on a 15,000-year-long hiatus in their travels east. If we knew little else about them, we might conclude this person represents some kind of stepping stone between a future in Asia and a past set in Europe – a central hub on Africa’s doorstep from which we expanded and settled ever further abroad.

The genetic evidence preserved in three of those bodies, however, doesn’t match up quite so neatly with this simple scenario. Last year, research led by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany concluded the individuals were “more closely related to present-day and ancient populations in East Asia and the Americas than to later west Eurasian populations.”

Finding closer familial ties with modern and ancient Asian populations than with modern European people introduces some challenging questions regarding the way this ancient hub of humanity might have branched into the east and west.

What’s more, a generous dose of Neanderthal blood had recently been introduced into their family tree, further muddying the waters on how our ancestors might have moved and interacted.

According to the authors of this newest study, one possibility considers the migration of humanity a stutter rather than a surge.

“Then, around 45 thousand years ago, a new expansion emanated from the hub and colonized a wide area spanning from Europe to East Asia and Oceania and is associated with a mode of producing stone tools known as Initial Upper Paleolithic,” says the University of Padua molecular anthropologist, Leonardo Vallini.

Above: An unknown hub in the west, from which humans expanded in waves of migration.

Those who branched into Asia thrived, traces of their bloodlines persisting to this day. But something happened in the west, something which saw a temporary end to the human experiment in Europe.

A second study conducted last year on female remains found in the Czechia provides a clue. While carbon dating is yet to confirm an age for her death, changes in her genes hinted at a date even further back than 45,000 years.

More importantly, the Paleolithic woman’s ancestry wasn’t closely related to either modern Europeans or Asians. Whatever happened to her and her kin, their story wasn’t an enduring one.

“It is curious to note that, around the same time, also the last Neanderthals went extinct,” says Giulia Marciani, an archaeologist from the University of Bologna.

It would have taken a fresh wave of human emigration from this central hub some 7,000 years later to repopulate the west and seed lineages that would go on to produce the rich array of cultures we see today.

Just where this temporary hub of humanity might be found and what prompted its populations to set off, again and again, is a matter for future archaeologists to figure out.

If we’ve learned nothing else, it’s clear we shouldn’t make too many assumptions when it comes to the story of how modern humanity made its way around the world.

This research was published in Genome Biology and Evolution.

Ireland’s Peat Bogs Preserve Sacrificial Bodies & Artefacts

Ireland’s Peat Bogs Preserve Sacrificial Bodies & Artefacts

Ireland is famous for its peat bogs – peat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation or organic matter. They are the most efficient carbon sink on earth and cover 1.4 million square miles of the earth. They also tend to preserve bodies and artefacts that wind up in them, so they are a great source of archaeological findings of the Neolithic and Iron Age periods.

Peat bogs don’t normally make the top lists of things to see and do while in Ireland, but they are a window into the past. Another attraction in Ireland is Sean’s Bar – it is reputed to be the oldest pub in Europe having been established in 900 AD.

The Development Of The Peat Bogs Of Ireland

Bogs are one of the things that characterize Ireland. They cover around 1,200,000 hectares or around a sixth of the island. Only Finland has more bogs relative to its size than Ireland in Europe.

There are two very distinctive types of bogs blanket bogs and raised bogs.

1.Blanket Bogs: Expensive And Generally Form In Wet or Upland Areas
2. Raised Bogs: Smaller And Generally Form In Lowland Areas

Blanket bogs are found wherever there is high rainfall and in Ireland, that’s particularly in the west. They are by far the largest in Ireland and have formed because of human interaction.

After the Ice Age, Ireland was slowly colonized and covered with forests and by 4000 BC Ireland was almost entirely forested. Then the Neolithic Age farmers came and started to clear the land to build farms. First, they cleared the upland areas because forests were not so thick there. But without the trees, the nutrients in the soil became washing out (or leached). The soil became more acidic and the land became waterlogged.

By the Bronze Age around 500 BC, farmers were clearing the lower lands as the uplands were no longer usable. But the debris did not decompose and a layer of peat began to build up. The peat also buried the remains of the Neolithic farms.

By the Norman era around 1,000 AD, the lowlands were almost completely devoid of forests and blanket bogs were well established.

Preserved Kings, Sacrifices, And Artifacts In The Bogs

Go to the National Museum of Ireland and one will see the Kingship and Sacrifice exhibit. It is the result of findings from the museum’s Bog Bodies Research Project. The project was initiated following the discovery of two Iron Age bog bodies at Oldcroghan, Co. Offaly, and Clonycavan, Co. Meath.

The remains of these bodies were dated to between 40 BC and 200 BC and were notable for being in a good state of preservation. The museum offers exhibits based on the theory that human sacrifice and the deposition of the victims in bogs along tribal boundaries are related to sovereignty and kingship rituals during the Iron Age.

Preserved Bog Bodies: Gallagh Man (Co. Galway) Baronstown West Man (Co. Kildare)

Some exhibits include preserved bodies, royal regalia, weapons, boundary markers, horse trappings, and other artefacts. The exhibits also delve into what has been discovered in other Iron Age bogs in Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands, and England.

One can also learn about Cashel Man. He was found naked in at least two meters of peat with his head, neck, and left arm removed by the milling machine.

Cashel Man:

Age: 20-25 Years
Oldest: One Of the Oldest Bog Bodies In Europe
Date: 2,000 BC

He was a young adult male and the wounds on his body suggest he had been the victim of human sacrifice (there were injuries on the lower back and a broken arm). Although the cause of death was not possible to know because of the damage from the milling machine.

It is known that in the past the ritual killing of young men took place in ancient Ireland.

Céide Fields – Neolithic Farms

“Beneath the wild boglands of north Mayo lies a system of fields, dwelling areas and megalithic tombs which together make up the most extensive Stone Age monument in the world.”

Heritage Ireland

The Céide Fields is an archaeological site in the west of Ireland and is described as the most extensive Neolithic site in Ireland. It has the oldest known field system anywhere in the world and is thought to be around 5,500 years old.

Today it is on UNESCO’s tentative list to be World Heritage-listed and was originally discovered in the 1930s.

It wasn’t for another 40 years that they were studied archaeologically. What was discovered under the peat bog was a complex of fields, houses, and megalithic tombs concealed by the growth of blanket bogs over the course of many centuries.

The people who lived there were farmers who cleared large areas of forest to farm.

As of the time of writing the site is closed to the public because of ongoing work, check their website for current information.

Caral: The Oldest Civilization in the Americas

Caral: The Oldest Civilization in the Americas

Caral (also referred to as Caral-Supe) is a stunning ancient city located in the Supe Valley of Peru. Today travellers can visit the Caral Ruins, which are believed to be the remains of one of the oldest cities in the Americas.

Caral: The Oldest Civilization in the Americas
Caral is the oldest civilization in the Americas.

Rewind time and the city of Caral was once a thriving metropolis for its local residents around the same time that the Egyptian pyramids were being built! Interestingly, Caral remains relatively unknown on an international level.

The ancient city of Caral

Caral: A brief history

The Caral Ruins have located about 200 km (125 miles) north of Lima in Peru. Paul Kosok, American history and government professor were one of the first to study Caral in 1948. At the time, his findings were largely ignored due to the fact that he didn’t find any typical and sought after Andean artefacts on site. Peruvian anthropologist and archaeologist, Ruth Shady, later took over the exploration of this desert city of pyramids.

The evidence collected suggests that Caral was inhabited some 5,000 years ago, between 2600 and 2000 BCE (Before the Common Era, or Before Christ). For comparative purposes, the Great Pyramid of Khufu in Egypt was built around 2600 BCE. 

The remains of Caral are well preserved

Excavators described Caral as the oldest American urban centre, but this claim to fame was later challenged when older ancient sites were found close by. Caral is however the largest known ancient city in the Andean region. Researchers believe that the city may have been an urban design model that was later adopted by various Andean civilizations over the course of the next millennia. In this respect, the discovery of Caral answers questions about the development of other early cities built after Caral and the origins of civilization in the Andes.

The size of Caral – think BIG

Caral is approximately 60 hectares in size and was home to 3,000 inhabitants. This makes Caral one of the biggest Norte Chico sites: the Norte Chico civilization was a complex pre-Colombian society encompassing over 30 population centres in what is now known as the Norte Chico region of the north-central Peruvian coast.

Caral is only one of a total of 19 settlements found in the Supe Valley. The remains of the Caral urban complex spreads out more than 150 acres (607,000 ms) and include residential buildings, temples and plazas. The most stunning findings at Caral include the Main Pyramid, the Amphitheater Pyramid, and the residential Quarters of the Elite. The main pyramid at Caral is 60 ft (18 m) tall and almost as large as 4 football fields! Ruth Shady believes that Caral was the main focus of the civilization living in the Supe Valley.

Stairs leading up to a temple excavated at Caral

What sets Caral apart?

What sets Caral apart is not just its size, but also its age. Carbon dating of various organic materials found throughout the site indicates that the pyramids are approximately 5,000 years old!

These visitors admire the beautiful amphitheatre at Caral

Interestingly, the people that lived in Caral were dedicated to buildings with civic intensity, and dedication to construction improvements and additions, and the city saw periods of great change. They were always making and remaking the stone-and-mortar walls, plazas, and residences; building new floors; painting and repainting surfaces; breaking down walls, and making new ones. They were truly one of the first civilizations that we’re focused on making home improvements.

The artefacts: Love, not war

No weapons, battlements or mutilated bodies were found during the Caral excavations. This crucial evidence lead anthropologist Ruth Shady’s research to suggest that this was a peaceful society based on commerce and pleasure.

When excavating one of the pyramids, flutes made from pelican and condor bones were found along with cornetts made from llama and deer bones. The stunning remains of a child found wrapped and buried with a stone bead necklace were also discovered.

Another artefact found at Caral was a quipu. The quipu is a record-keeping system in which knots are tied on a rope. According to Gary Urton, a quipu was used in a binary manner, to record both phonological and logographic data. The Incas later used and perfected this system, providing further proof that the Caral civilization culture impacted the Inca Empire.

An Inca quipu that is on display in Lima’s Larco Museum

The fabled missing link

For many decades, archaeologists have searched for a missing link in archaeology or a “mother city”- a city that could answer questions about why and how humans became civilized. Researchers have long looked for the answer to this question in other parts of the world, such as in Egypt, China, India, and Mesopotamia (Iran). No one expected that the first signs of city life could be found in a Peruvian desert.

For many years historians believed that the fear of war was perhaps a primary motivator for people to build cities and form complex societies to protect themselves against threats. Caral however has no traces of warfare or weapons, yet the city became a thriving metropolis. This finding challenges modern ideas of the origins of cities as based on conflict.

A detailed map of Caral

Ruth Shady explained that Caral was home to a gentle society: “This great civilization was based on trade in cotton. Caral made the cotton for the nets, which were sold to the fishermen living near the coast. Caral became a booming trading centre and the trade spread.”

Caral was built on the basis of trade, not bloodshed. Warfare actually emerged way later in history. And this is what the finding of Caral as a “mother city” indicates: civilizations are not born in conflict – they are born in peace. It is time to re-think the emergence of civilization!

After almost 10 years of excavation, the great proportions of this grand site are now emerging in Caral, but much work remains to be done. When standing in the main plaza with pyramids surrounding you on every side, the power of a long-lost ancient city is felt. Discoveries made in the area continue to help answer the question: how and why did humans become civilized?

What Ancient DNA Reveals About Life in Africa 20,000 Years Ago

What Ancient DNA Reveals About Life in Africa 20,000 Years Ago

What Ancient DNA Reveals About Life in Africa 20,000 Years Ago
Kondoa Irangi rock art in present-day Tanzania features the cultural expressions of hunter-gatherers and pastoralists over a 2,000-year span.

Every person alive on the planet today is descended from people who lived as hunter-gatherers in Africa. The continent is the cradle of human origins and ingenuity, and with each new fossil and archaeological discovery, we learn more about our shared African past. Such research tends to focus on when our species, Homo sapiens, spread out to other landmasses 80,000–60,000 years ago. But what happened in Africa after that, and why don’t we know more about the people who remained?

Our new study, conducted by an interdisciplinary team of 44 researchers based in 12 countries, helps answer these questions. By sequencing and analyzing ancient DNA (aDNA) from people who lived as long ago as 18,000 years, we roughly doubled the age of sequenced aDNA from sub-Saharan Africa. And this genetic information helps anthropologists like us understand more about how modern humans were moving and mingling in Africa long ago.

TRACING OUR HUMAN PAST IN AFRICA

Beginning about 300,000 years ago, people in Africa who looked like us—the earliest anatomically modern humans—also started behaving in ways that seem very human. They made new kinds of stone tools and began transporting raw materials up to 250 miles, likely through trade networks. By 140,000–120,000 years ago, people made clothing from animal skins and began to decorate themselves with pierced marine shell beads.

While early innovations appeared in a patchwork fashion, a more widespread shift happened around 50,000 years ago—around the same time that people started moving into places as distant as Australia. New types of stone and bone tools became common, and people began fashioning and exchanging ostrich eggshell beads. And while most rock art in Africa is undated and badly weathered, an increase in ochre pigment at archaeological sites hints at an explosion of art.

Ostrich eggshell beads were popular trade items, tracing the reach of ancient social networks.

What caused this shift, known as the Later Stone Age transition, has been a longstanding archaeological mystery. Why would certain tools and behaviours, which up until that point had appeared in a piecemeal way across Africa, suddenly become widespread? Did it have something to do with changes in the number of people or how they interacted?

THE CHALLENGE OF ACCESSING THE DEEP PAST

Archaeologists reconstruct human behaviour in the past mainly through things people left behind—remains of their meals, tools, ornaments, and sometimes even their bodies. These records may accumulate over thousands of years, creating views of daily livelihoods that are really averaged over long periods of time. However, it’s hard to study ancient demography, or how populations changed, from the archaeological record alone.

This is where DNA can help. When combined with evidence from archaeology, linguistics, and oral and written history, scientists can piece together how people moved and interacted based on which groups share genetic similarities.

But DNA from living people can’t tell the whole story. African populations have been transformed over the past 5,000 years by the spread of herding and farming, the development of cities, ancient pandemics, and the ravages of colonialism and slavery. These processes caused some lineages to vanish and brought others together, forming new populations. Using present-day DNA to reconstruct ancient genetic landscapes is like reading a letter that was left out in the rain: Some words are there but blurred, and some are gone completely. Researchers need ancient DNA from archaeological human remains to explore human diversity in different places and times, and to understand what factors shaped it.

Unfortunately, aDNA from Africa is particularly hard to recover because the continent straddles the equator and heat and humidity degrade DNA. While the oldest aDNA from Eurasia is roughly 400,000 years old, all sequences from sub-Saharan Africa to date have been younger than around 9,000 years.

BREAKING THE “TROPICAL CEILING”

Because each person carries genetic legacies inherited from generations of their ancestors, our team was able to use DNA from individuals who lived between 18,000–and 400 years ago to explore how people interacted as far back as the last 80,000–50,000 years. This allowed us, for the first time, to test whether demographic change played a role in the Later Stone Age transition.

Our team sequenced aDNA from six individuals buried in what are now Tanzania, Malawi, and Zambia. We compared these sequences to previously studied aDNA from 28 individuals buried at sites stretching from Cameroon to Ethiopia and down to South Africa. We also generated new and improved DNA data for 15 of these people, trying to extract as much information as possible from the small handful of ancient African individuals whose DNA is preserved well enough to study.

Genetic data reveals people’s movements and engagements across the Eastern African Rift Valley during the ice ages.

This created the largest genetic dataset so far for studying the population history of ancient African foragers—people who hunted, gathered, or fished. We used it to explore population structures that existed prior to the sweeping changes of the past few thousand years.

DNA WEIGHS IN ON A LONGSTANDING DEBATE

We found that people did in fact change how they moved and interacted around the Later Stone Age transition. Despite being separated by thousands of miles and years, all the ancient individuals in this study were descended from the same three populations related to ancient and present-day Eastern, Southern, and Central Africans. The presence of Eastern African ancestry as far south as Zambia, and Southern African ancestry as far north as Kenya, indicate that people were moving long distances and having children with people located far away from where they were born. The only way this population structure could have emerged is if people were moving long distances over many millennia.

Additionally, our research showed that almost all ancient Eastern Africans shared an unexpectedly high number of genetic variations with hunter-gatherers who today live in Central African rainforests, making ancient Eastern Africa truly a genetic melting pot. We could tell that this mixing and moving happened about 50,000 years ago when there was a major split in Central African forager populations.

We don’t know why people began “living locally” again. Changing environments as the last ice age peaked and waned between about 26,000 and 11,500 years ago may have made it more economical to forage closer to home, or perhaps elaborate exchange networks reduced the need for people to travel with objects. We also noted that the individuals in our study were genetically most like only their closest geographic neighbours. This tells us that around 20,000 years ago, the foragers in some African regions were almost exclusively finding their partners locally. This practice must have been extremely strong and persisted for a very long time, as our results show that some groups remained genetically independent of their neighbours over several thousand years. It was especially clear in Malawi and Zambia, where the only close relationships we detected were between people buried around the same time at the same sites.

Alternatively, new group identities may have emerged, restructuring marriage rules. If so, we would expect to see artefacts and other traditions, like rock art, diversify, with specific types clumped into different regions. Indeed, this is exactly what archaeologists find—a trend known as regionalization. Now we know that this phenomenon not only affected cultural traditions, but also the flow of genes.

NEW DATA, NEW QUESTIONS

As always, aDNA research raises as many questions as answers. Finding Central African ancestry throughout Eastern and Southern Africa prompts anthropologists to reconsider how interconnected these regions were in the distant past. This is important because Central Africa has remained archaeologically understudied, in part because of political, economic, and logistical challenges that make research there difficult.

Additionally, while genetic evidence supports a major demographic transition in Africa 50,000 years ago, we still don’t know the key drivers. Determining what triggered the Later Stone Age transition will require closer examination of regional environmental, archaeological, and genetic records to understand how this process unfolded across sub-Saharan Africa.

Finally, this study is a stark reminder that researchers still have much to learn from ancient individuals and artefacts held in African museums, and highlights the critical role of the curators who steward these collections. While some human remains in this study were recovered within the past decade, others have been in museums for a half-century.

Even though technological advances are pushing back the time limits for aDNA, it is important to remember that scientists have only just begun to understand human diversity in Africa, past and present.

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