ASIA, EUROPE, RUSSIA, WORLD

14,000-Year-Old Ancestor of Native Americans Identified in Russia

14,000-Year-Old Ancestor of Native Americans Identified in Russia

Since the Upper Paleolithic, modern humans have lived near Baikal Lake, and left a rich archeological record behind.

Russian archaeologists in 1976 excavating the Ust’-Kyakhta-3 site on the banks of the Selenga River

The region’s ancient genomes also uncovered multiple genetic turnovers and admixture events, indicating that the transition from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age was facilitated by human mobility and complex cultural interactions. The nature and timing of these interactions, however, remains largely unknown.

The reports of 19 newly sequenced human genomes, including one of the oldest ones recorded by the area of Lake Baikal, are presently in a new study published in the journal Cell.

Led by the Department of Archaeogenetics at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, the study illuminates the population history of the region, revealing deep connections with the First Peoples of the Americas, dating as far back as the Upper Paleolithic period, as well as connectivity across Eurasia during the Early Bronze Age.

The deepest link between peoples

“This study reveals the deepest link between Upper Paleolithic Siberians and First Americans,” says He Yu, the first author of the study. “We believe this could shed light on future studies about Native American population history.”

Past studies have indicated a connection between Siberian and American populations, but a 14,000-year-old individual analyzed in this study is the oldest to carry the mixed ancestry present in Native Americans.

Using an extremely fragmented tooth excavated in 1976 at the Ust-Kyahta-3 site, researchers generated a shotgun-sequenced genome enabled by cutting edge techniques in molecular biology.

A fragmented tooth belonging to a close cousin of today’s Native Americans

This individual from southern Siberia, along with a younger Mesolithic one from northeastern Siberia, shares the same genetic mixture of Ancient North Eurasian (ANE) and Northeast Asian (NEA) ancestry found in Native Americans and suggests that the ancestry which later gave rise to Native Americans in North- and South America was much more widely distributed than previously assumed.

Evidence suggests that this population experienced frequent genetic contacts with NEA populations, resulting in varying admixture proportions across time and space.

“The Upper Paleolithic genome will provide a legacy to study human genetic history in the future,” says Cosimo Posth, a senior author of the paper. Further genetic evidence from Upper Paleolithic Siberian groups is necessary to determine when and where the ancestral gene pool of Native Americans came together.

A web of prehistoric connections

In addition to this transcontinental connection, the study presents connectivity within Eurasia as evidenced in both human and pathogen genomes as well as stable isotope analysis.

Combining these lines of evidence, the researchers were able to produce a detailed description of the population history in the Lake Baikal region.

The presence of Eastern European steppe-related ancestry is evidence of contact between southern Siberian and western Eurasian steppe populations in the preamble to the Early Bronze Age, an era characterized by increasing social and technological complexity. The surprising presence of Yersinia pestis, the plague-causing pathogen, points to further wide-ranging contacts.

Recent view on the Selenga River close to the archeological site Ust-Kyakhta-3

Although spreading of Y. pestis was postulated to be facilitated by migrations from the steppe, the two individuals here identified with the pathogen were genetically northeastern Asian-like. Isotope analysis of one of the infected individuals revealed a non-local signal, suggesting origins outside the region of discovery.

In addition, the strains of Y. pestis the pair carried is most closely related to a contemporaneous strain identified in an individual from the Baltic region of northeastern Europe, further supporting the high mobility of those Bronze age pathogens and likely also people.

“This easternmost appearance of ancient Y. pestis strains is likely suggestive of long-range mobility during the Bronze Age,” says Maria Spyrou, one of the study’s co-authors.

“In the future, with the generation of additional data we hope to delineate the spreading patterns of plague in more detail,” concludes Johannes Krause, senior author of the study.   

ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

Researchers Find 1,400-Year-Old Rooms Under Jerusalem’s Western Wall

Researchers Find 1,400-Year-Old Rooms Under Jerusalem’s Western Wall

Previously, archeologists discovered three ancient subterranean chambers located in the bedrock under the Western Wall plaza in Jerusalem. 

The excavation was part of a larger project to create an underground expanse showcasing various eras.

Two thousand years ago, the chambers were consisting of an open courtyard and two rooms, were carved on top of one another and connected by hewn staircases.

According to a statement from the Israel Ancientities Authority, inside the chambers, archaeologists discovered clay-cooking pots, cores of oil lamps, a stone mug, and a qalal or a large stone basin that was used to hold water for rituals.

The archeologists also found a long carving at the entrance to the chambers for shelves and depressions for door hinges and bolts, as well as round, square and triangular niches carved into the walls, some of which could have been used to place oil-lamps in.

These findings likely mean that these chambers were used daily, according to the statement. But it’s not clear what they were actually used for.

“Perhaps, it served as a pantry for an overhead structure that didn’t survive, or as a hewn space” for living underground, Mordechai Eliav, the director of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, said in the statement.

Oil candles were among the items discovered in the underground chambers.

“We’re asking ourselves what was the function of this very complex rock-cut system?” co-director of the excavation Barak Monnickendam-Givon said in an accompanying video.

People could have lived in these underground chambers or stored food or groceries there for possibly another long-gone building above it.

“Another possibility is that this system was used for hiding during the siege on Jerusalem 2000 years ago when the Roman legions conquered the city,” he said.

The subterranean chambers were hidden beneath the white mosaic floor of a public building that was created around 1,400 years ago during the Byzantine period.

The building was renovated about 1,250 years ago, during the Abbasid period, according to the statement. In the 11th century, the building was destroyed and the subterranean chambers, along with other finds, were buried and stayed hidden for centuries.

These chambers were found in the “Beit Strauss” complex, beneath the entrance lobby to the Western Wall Tunnels, which helped the builders of the wall support its massive weight. (The tunnels also contained channels that supplied water to the Second Temple, according to Atlas Obscura).

Archeologists discovered this measuring cup in the chambers.

The complex was likely used by residents of the city during the early Roman period, before Jerusalem was destroyed in A.D. 70, according to a statement from the Israel Antiquities Authority.

The Western Wall is the only remaining part of the Second Temple of Jerusalem, which the Romans destroyed along with the rest of the city, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica.

NORTH AMERICA, U.S.A, WORLD

25 Million Old Moqui marbles naturally occurring iron oxide concretions that arise from Navajo sandstone

25 Million Old Moqui marbles naturally occurring iron oxide concretions that arise from Navajo sandstone

Walkers wandering through the sandy canyons of Utah sometimes come across a strange sight. Where the Navajo Sandstone loses its iconic peach, orange, and red stripes, hundreds of round, iron-coated stones often litter the ground.

Sandstone balls are cemented with a strong layer of iron oxide minerals. Moqui marbles, the colored stones spread over the Utah and Arizona, are often called as a stone, and they fall off pale, cream-colored Navajo Sandstone beds when wind and water wash away the softer rock are often known by the name Moqui.

For decades, the rocks were simply a geological oddity. Then, look-alikes were discovered on Mars (the so-called Martian blueberries). The milestone — among the early evidence for water on Mars — boosted interest in Earth’s iron baubles. 

Now, a new study reveals that the Moqui marbles are no more than 25 million years old — a sharp contrast to the 190-million-year-old Navajo Sandstone. Marbles scattered on sandstone slopes in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument are only 2 million to 5 million years old. And on Arizona’s Paria Plateau, the marbles’ iron oxide rind is as young as 300,000 years old, researchers report in the September 2014 issue of the Geological Society of America Bulletin.

“They really represent a record of how water moved the rock millions of years ago, and the next generation can use them to understand water and life on other planets,” said Marjorie Chan, co-author of the new study and a geologist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

Odd balls

The moqui marbles’ precise ages come from a radioactive clock. The iron oxide minerals contain traces of radioactive uranium and thorium, and these decay by expelling helium. Tallying the elements reveals the time since the minerals formed. The innovative technique may help resolve different models of how the stone spheres formed. Scientists agree that the iron comes from the bone-white Navajo Sandstone layers, stripped bare of their mineral paint by percolating groundwater. A subtle film of hematite, or iron oxide, colors the iconic red cliffs and canyons.

Chemical reactions fused the moqui marbles with iron, but the details haven’t been settled. Some researchers now think tiny microbes spurred the chemical process, and that similar concretions on Mars may one day reveal signs of ancient life.

“The discoveries on Mars helped push us to better understand the setting here on Earth, and what we do on Earth feeds back into helping interpret Mars,” Chan told fox news.

Concretions of all shapes and sizes are found all over the world. The curious rocks have inspired fantastical tales of fairies, meteorites and dinosaur eggs, but their origin is fairly mundane. Water flowing through sedimentary rock leaves behind minerals that glue together masses of sand, mud, or other particles. Sometimes, a treasure — like a bone or a shell — hides inside.

The Moqui marbles crop up in the Navajo Sandstone in Arizona and in Utah’s public lands, eroding from the spectacular white cliffs in Zion National Park and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Collecting concretions in the parks is prohibited.

Red and white Navajo sandstone in Zion National Park

The iron stones appear almost black, with a pitted surface polished by blowing sand. Other rusty structures formed too, including discs, “flying saucers,” pipes and flat plates. Spiritualists have endowed the marbles with “energy” and dubbed the distinctive shapes as male and female, making them among the only rocks with a gender. Quietly sitting and holding one in each hand is said to calm the spirit, just like meditation.

“I don’t believe that,” Chan said. “I do believe these are important resources, and the geologic landscape is our heritage.”

Cloaked in iron

The Navajo Sandstone was once the biggest expanse of dunes on Earth. Its color comes from flakes of iron-rich minerals blown in and buried with the quartz sand. After the dunes were blanketed and buried by younger geologic layers, the iron enrobed the sand grains, giving the Navajo Sandstone its amazing colors and patterns.

Eons later, the moqui marbles were born. The concretions owe their existence to massive tectonic shifts in the Southwest, researchers think. Some 20 million years ago, the Colorado Plateau started to bob up like a cork. The entire plateau has lifted about 1.2 miles (2 kilometers).

The tectonic uplift warped its rock layers, trapping oil and gas. When a mixture of water and natural gas flowed through the Navajo Sandstone, it stripped away the rusty coating, bleaching the rocks from red to creamy white. Chan thinks this iron-rich water crept through the sandstone until it reached a crack, hole, or layer where the water chemistry was different and iron settled out of the water.

The chemical reactions first covered each sand grain with iron, creating tiny spheres. The spheres grew, layer by layer, making contact with others nearby until some spheres connect into one large mass. Collectors on private property sometimes find odd, knobby clumps that appear to be partially formed spheres, where the process may have halted halfway through.

The spheres grew layer by layer, making contact with others nearby until many spheres became one large ball.

“These round concretions have a self-organizing pattern, like people at a party,” Chan said. “The natural pattern is for people to gather together in conversation groups, and the groups are going to be round.”

The results of the new study suggest that the first iron-oxide batch formed 20 million to 25 million years ago, and the next set was added 2 million to 3 million years ago. This younger group matches up with another major event: It’s when the Colorado River started cutting through the Navajo Sandstone near the mouth of the Escalante River, which likely changed groundwater flow through the region. These younger marbles are mostly goethite instead of hematite, which may reflect the changing chemistry of the groundwater.

Iron eaters

The younger ages also support a different model for how the concretions formed, according to David Loope, a geologist at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, who was not involved in the study. Loope thinks the Moqui marbles were transformed by microbes, morphing from one kind of mineral to another as the region’s groundwater chemistry changed.

According to Loope’s model, the marbles were originally siderite, an iron carbonate mineral. The same fluids Chan said had bleached the sandstone deposited the carbonate spheres, only with an added boost of carbon dioxide gas dissolved in the water. When the Colorado River sliced into the Navajo Sandstone 2 million years ago, the groundwater flow and the mineral levels shifted.

The researchers think bacteria helped convert the siderite into hematite. With a powerful microscope, the researchers also discovered tiny structures suggestive of microbial life inside the concretions, similar to tubes seen in Martian meteorites. Some of the hematite rinds resemble siderite crystals — a clue that one mineral ousted the other, Loope, and his colleagues reported in August 2012 in the journal Geology. “We are completely convinced the concretions had siderite precursors,” Loope said.

Link to the past

“Moqui” is a Hopi word that means “dear departed ones.” According to Hopi tradition, spirits of the dead would play with the marbles at night, leaving them behind in the morning to reassure the living that they were happy in the afterlife.

Just as the Moqui marbles embody the Hopi idea of life after death, the iron stones are links to ancient environments on the Colorado Plateau. With the new dating technique, Chan has shown that scientists can start to pinpoint where and when water flowed through rock. The search for historic water routes in the Southwest has engaged researchers for more than century, since the first geologists tried to puzzle out how the Colorado River carved the Grand Canyon.

“A lot of people are just fascinated by these concretions, and maybe geologists haven’t been able to take them seriously in the past,” Loope told Fox News. “I think they pretty clearly hold a lot of information.”

NORTH AMERICA, U.S.A, WORLD

A New Unified Model For Cave Pearls: Insights from Cave Pearls in Carlsbad Cavern, New Mexico, U.S.A.

A New Unified Model For Cave Pearls: Insights from Cave Pearls in Carlsbad Cavern, New Mexico, U.S.A.

The Cave of Lechuguilla is the deepest of the Americas, but it is most notable because of its unique shapes, its peculiar geology, and its impermanence.

 Nigel Ball in the Chandelier Ballroom in Lechuguilla Cave Carlsbad Boneyard

Agave lechuguilla, a plant species found near his entrance, is called the cavern. Lechuguilla is located in the National Park of Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico.

Entry to the cave is limited to licensed scientists, survey and excavation teams, and management trips for the national park service.

Lechuguilla Cave offers more than extreme size. It holds a variety of rare speleothems, including lemon-yellow sulfur deposits, 20 feet (6.1 m) gypsum chandeliers, 20 feet (6.1 m) gypsum hairs and beards, 15 feet (4.6 m) soda straws, hydromagnesite balloons, cave pearls, subaqueous helictites, rusticles, U-loops and J-loops.

Lechuguilla Cave surpasses its nearby sister, Carlsbad Caverns, in size, depth, and variety of speleothems, though no room has been discovered yet in Lechuguilla Cave that is larger than Carlsbad’s Big Room.

Scientific exploration has been conducted. For the first time, a Guadalupe Mountains cave extends deep enough that scientists may study five separate geologic formations from the inside.

The profusion of gypsum and sulfur lends support to speleogenesis by sulfuric acid dissolution.

The sulfuric acid is believed to be derived from hydrogen sulfide that migrated from nearby oil deposits.

Therefore this cavern formed from the bottom up, in contrast to the normal top-down carbonic acid dissolution mechanism of cave formation.

Rare, chemolithoautotrophic bacteria are believed to occur in the cave. These bacteria feed on the sulfur, iron, and manganese minerals and may assist in enlarging the cave and determining the shapes of unusual speleothems.

The claim in the BBC documentary series Planet Earth that these bacteria do not derive any energy from the sun is incorrect, as the majority are sulfur-oxidizing bacteria that utilize primarily atmospheric oxygen (derived from sunlight-driven photosynthesis) as an electron acceptor.

Other studies indicate that some microbes may have medicinal qualities that are beneficial to humans.

Lechuguilla Cave lies beneath a park wilderness area. The cave’s passages may extend out of the park into adjacent Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land.

A major threat to the cave is proposed gas and oil drilling on BLM land. Any leakage of gas or fluids into the cave’s passages could kill cave life or cause explosions.

Cave pearl

Small, almost spherical concretion of calcite that is formed in a pool of water in a cave and is not attached to the surface on which it forms. Occasionally saturated water drips into small pools with such vigour that a stalagmite cannot form.

A bit of foreign matter may become coated with calcite, and slight movements of the water may keep the bit in motion while new layers of calcite are added. Concentric layers are added and polished in this way until the cave pearl becomes too large to remain in motion and becomes attached.

Cave pearls in the Pearlsian Gulf, Lechguilla Cave.
Lechuguilla cave

Cave pearls in the Pearlsian Gulf, Lechguilla Cave.
The Pearlsian Gulf, Lechguilla Cave. 
EUROPE, GERMANY, WORLD

archaeologists discover almost complete 300,000-year-old elephant skeleton

Archaeologists discover almost complete 300,000-year-old elephant skeleton

300,000 years ago in Lower Saxony elephants spread around Schoningen. In recent years there were the remains of at least ten elephants at Palaeolithic sites situated on the edges of the former opencast lignite mine.

Eurasian straight-tusked elephant died by the shores of a lake in Schoningen, Lower Saxony

In cooperation with the National Saxony State Office for Heritage, archeologists at the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tubingen have collected for the first time in Schoningen an almost complete skeleton of the Eurasian straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon Antiquus).

The species has died in what had been the western shore of the lake — what exactly happened and what the biotope surrounding the area was like 300,000 years ago is now being carefully reconstructed by the team. The preliminary study will be published in Archaologie in Deutschland and will be first presented at a press conference in Schoningen on Tuesday the 19th of May.

“The former open-cast mine in Schoningen is the first-rate archive of climate change, as stated by Bjorn Thumler, Lower Saxony’s Science Minister: This must be made even clearer in the future. This is a place where we can trace how humankind went from being a companion of nature to a designer of culture.”

Head of the excavation, Jordi Serangeli, wipes sediment away from the elephant’s foot

The elephant skeleton lies on the 300,000 years old lakeshore in water-saturated sediments. Like most of the finds at Schoningen, it is extraordinarily well preserved as Jordi Serangeli, head of the excavation in Schoningen explains. “We found both 2.3-meter-long tusks, the complete lower jaw, numerous vertebrae and ribs as well as large bones belonging to three of the legs and even all five delicate hyoid bones.”

The elephant is an older female with worn teeth, as archaeozoologist, Ivo Verheijen explains. “The animal had a shoulder height of about 3.2 meters and weighed about 6.8 tonnes—it was, therefore, larger than today’s African elephant cows.”

Pictured above is a composite photograph of the find. Archaeologists suggested the elephant had died due to old age, although they didn’t rule out human hunting

It most probably died of old age and not as a result of human hunting. “Elephants often remain near and in the water when they are sick or old,” says Verheijen. “Numerous bite marks on the recovered bones show that carnivores visited the carcass.” 

However, the hominins of that time would have profited from the elephant too; the team found 30 small flint flakes and two long bones which were used as tools for knapping among the elephant bones. Barbara Rodriguez Alvarez was able to find micro flakes embedded in these two bones, which proves that the resharpening of stone artifacts took place near to the elephant remains. She also refits two small flakes, this confirms that flint knapping took place at the spot where the elephant skeleton was found.

“The Stone Age hunters probably cut meat, tendons and fat from the carcass,” says Serangeli. Elephants that die may have been a diverse and relatively common source of food and resources for Homo heidelbergensis. Serangeli says that according to current data, although the Palaeolithic hominins were accomplished hunters, there was no compelling reason for them to put themselves in danger by hunting adult elephants. Straight-tusked elephants were a part of their environment, and the hominins knew that they frequently died on the lakeshore.

Several archaeological sites in the world have yielded bones of elephants and stone artifacts, e.g. Lehringen in Lower Saxony, Bilzingsleben in Thuringia, Grobern in Saxony-Anhalt, Benot Ya’aqov in Israel, Aridos 1 and 2 as well as Torralba and Ambrona in Spain, Casal dei Pazzi in Rome, Cimitero di Atella, Poggetti Vecchi in Italy and Ebbsfleet in England. Some of these sites have been interpreted as examples of elephant hunts in the Lower or Middle Palaeolithic. 

Reconstruction of the Schöningen lakeshore as the humans discovered the carcass of the straight-tusked elephant.

“With the new find from Schoningen we do not seek to rule out that extremely dangerous elephant hunts may have taken place, but the evidence often leaves us in some doubt. To quote Charles Darwin: ‘It is not the strongest that survives, but the one who can adapt best’. According to this, the adaptability of humans was the decisive factor for their evolutionary success and not the size of their prey.”

The fact that there were numerous elephants around the Schoningen lake is proven by footprints left behind and documented approximately 100 meters from the elephant excavation site. Flavio Altamura from Sapienza University of Rome who analysed the tracks, tells us that this is the first find of its kind in Germany.

“A small herd of adults and younger animals must have passed through. The heavy animals were walking parallel to the lakeshore. Their feet sank into the mud, leaving behind circular tracks with a maximum diameter of about 60 centimeters.”

The Schoningen sites have already provided a great deal of information about plants, animals and human existence 300,000 years ago during the Reinsdorf interglacial. The climate at that time was comparable to that of today, but the landscape was much richer in wildlife.

About 20 large mammal species lived around the lake in Schoningen at that time, including not only elephants but also lions, bears, sabre-toothed cats, rhinoceroses, wild horses, deer and large bovids. “The wealth of wildlife was similar to that of modern Africa,” says Serangeli.

The discoveries in Schoningen include some of the oldest fossil finds of an auroch in Europe, of a water buffalo, and three saber-toothed cats. In Schoningen archaeologists also recovered some of the world’s oldest and best-preserved hunting weapons: ten wooden spears and at least one throwing stick.

Stone artifacts and bone tools complete the overall picture of the technology of the time. “The lakeshore sediments of Schoningen offer unique preservation and frequently provide us with detailed and important insights into the culture of Homo heidelbergensis,” says Nicholas Conard, head of the Schoningen research project.

Further detailed analyses of the environmental and climatic conditions at the time of the elephant’s death are taking place at the Technische Universitat Braunschweig, the University of Luneburg, and the University of Leiden (The Netherlands). The excavations in Schoningen are financed by the Ministry of Science and Culture of Lower Saxony.

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

70 million animal mummies: Egypt’s dark secret

70 million animal mummies: Egypt’s dark secret

In what is described as Egypt’s “dark secret,” a staggering 70 million mummified animals have been found in underground catacombs across Egypt, including cats, birds, rodents, and even crocodiles. But surprises awaited a research team when they scanned the animal-shaped mummies and found many of them empty!

Hidden: Among the remains scanned for the project using a CT Scanner and an X-ray machine where wading birds, shrews, and even a litter of tiny baby crocodiles. A cat is pictured in this X-ray

Radiographers and Egyptologists from the University of Manchester have used the latest medical imaging technology to scan hundreds of elaborately-prepared animal mummies which were collected from over thirty sites across Egypt during the 19 th and 20 th centuries, reports BBC News.

The University of Manchester program used CT scans and X-rays to look into 800 mummies, dating between 1000 B.C. and 400 A.D.

Various animal mummies from ancient Egypt.
Various animal mummies from ancient Egypt.

BBC program will investigate the huge animal mummification industry of ancient Egypt, and why many of the carefully prepared, elaborately wrapped mummies were found to have no bodies inside.

In a press release by the University of Manchester, research leader Dr Lidija Mcknight said, “We always knew that not all animal mummies contained what we expected them to contain, but we found around a third don’t contain any animal material at all – so no skeletal remains.”

Many gods in animal form were worshipped by the ancient Egyptians. The mummified animals were considered sacred gifts and were used as offerings. Because this was such a popular religious practice, and demand was so high, some animals are thought to have suffered near or total extinction locally.

Animals and animal parts were preserved and wrapped to use as offerings in ancient Egypt.

McKnight told The Washington Post , “You’d get one of these mummies and you’d ask it to take a message on your behalf to the gods and then wait for the gods to do something in return.

That’s kind of their place in the religious belief system of ancient Egypt, and that’s why we think there were so many of them. It was almost sort of an industry that sprang up at the time and continued for more than a 1,000 years.”

Various animal mummies were examined during the study, including wading birds, cats, falcons and shrews, and a five-foot-long crocodile. Scans revealed that the mummified crocodile contained eight baby crocodiles that had been carefully prepared and bound together, and wrapped with the mother in one big crocodile-shaped mummy.

One of the prizes finds of the project was a family of baby crocodiles carefully wrapped together and packed into one large crocodile shaped mummy

One cat-shaped mummy held only a few pieces of cat bone, and some artifacts contained no animal parts whatsoever, but instead held fillers like mud, sticks, reeds and eggshells, writes news site HNGN. The filler items were considered special as they had a connection to the animals and are thought to have served as symbolic remains.

Egyptian animal mummies in the British Museum.

One of the catacombs contained around two million mummified ibis birds alone, and a network of tombs housed up to eight million mummified dogs.

These incredible numbers and the surprising way in which the bodies were preserved suggest that the animal mummification industry of ancient Egypt was huge.

The BBC reports, “some experts suggest animal mummies were being made to be sold to Egyptian pilgrims and so the ancient embalmers could make more profit by selling ‘fake’ mummies, others like Lidija believe its evidence the ancient embalmers considered even the smallest parts of the animals to be sacred [and] went to just as much efforts to mummify them correctly.”

The temple complex in Saqqara holds millions of animal mummies to this day, yet to be excavated and catalogued by experts. Molecular biologist Sally Wasef from Griffith University, Australia has collected samples of bones from these mummies in order to analyze their DNA and determine if they had been ‘farmed’ or intensely bred. It is thought that millions of animals were required for such a massive industry, described as a “national obsession.”

The artistically carved face of a mummified cat found in ancient catacomb in Egypt.

In 2011, Smithsonian curator Melinda Zeder spoke of the phenomenally large animal offering industry to the BBC, saying: “The ancient Egyptians weren’t obsessed with death – they were obsessed with life. And everything they did to prepare for mummification was really looking at life after death and a way of perpetuating oneself forever.”

“The priests would sacrifice the animal for you, mummify it and then place it in a catacomb in your name. So this was a way of obtaining good standing in the eyes of whatever god it was,” she noted.

Though the University of Manchester research raises many questions about the mummification industry, McKnight says the preserved offerings serve as tiny time capsules, allowing modern science a peek into the ancient techniques and rituals associated with religion, life and death.

ASIA, JAPAN, WORLD

Dental Tartar Yields Food Data from Japan’s Edo Period

Dental Tartar Yields Food Data from Japan’s Edo Period

Rikai Sawafuji of the University of the Ryukyus, Shintaroh Ueda of the University of Tokyo, and their colleagues analyzed samples of tartar from the teeth of 13 people who were buried in what is now eastern Tokyo in the latter half of the Edo Period, from A.D. 1603 to 1867. DNA from the rice was identified in the tartar of eight of the individuals. The DNA of other foods, including daikon radish, the minty herb “shiso” perilla, green onion, Japanese chestnut, carrot, and the pumpkin was also identified. 

A tartar formation found on teeth (Provided by Rikai Sawafuji)

However, the scientists from the University of the Ryukyus, the University of Tokyo, and elsewhere identified even the families and genera of plants eaten at the time by surveying calculus on the teeth of human remains.

The findings, expected to shed light on the dietary and other habits of people of the time, were published in the academic journal Plos One. The team of scientists sampled the DNA from teeth on the bones of 13 people unearthed in Tokyo’s Koto Ward that date to the latter half of the Edo Period.

The researchers studied what plant the samples are from, as recent research has revealed tartar contains the DNA of what was consumed by the individuals. According to the team’s findings, rice-derived DNA was detected from calculus specimens of eight people, while DNA highly likely connected to such plants as the daikon radish, “shiso” perilla, Welsh onion, Japanese chestnut, carrot and pumpkin from nine genera in seven families were also discovered.

Those plants are, according to the scientists, described as foods in records from the period. Meanwhile, DNA from the tobacco genus was identified as well, reinforcing the theory that smoking had already become a popular practice by that time.

A Dipterocarpaceae-linked DNA sample, which is typically found in the tropics, indicates that the resin of the plant was used as an ingredient for tooth powder in the Edo Period, the scientists said.

Team members included Rikai Sawafuji from the University of the Ryukyus, a research fellow affiliated with the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science who now belongs to the Graduate University for Advanced Studies; and Shintaro Ueda, a professor emeritus of bioscience at the University of Tokyo. 

Sawafuji expressed high expectations for the possibility of the DNA analysis allowing researchers in the future to determine even people’s personal favorites based on the remnants left behind on their teeth.

“The technique will make it possible to survey what each individual ate,” said Sawafuji.

Another anticipated benefit of the method is that how plants were used, including the staple foods of each era, which can be determined, because “plants detected from the teeth of many people’s remains were likely widely consumed.”

Tartar as Research Specimen

In the past, calculus formations remaining in human skulls were often simply removed, since their presence made it difficult to examine the shapes of teeth and other factors.

But DNA, starch particles, proteins, and other substances contained in tartar can currently be surveyed in detail, adding to calculus’ significance for research purposes.

Among other ways to take advantage of tartar, the DNA analysis was introduced 10 or so years ago, although more than 99 percent of DNA detected from the object come from bacilli and the method was first adopted to research changing bacterial floras in the oral cavity.

In the early stage of the development, a study was carried out in 2014 to collect DNA from pork and wheat ingested by Germans in the medieval period.

In 2017, the results of the analysis of calculus from Neanderthal men dating to 50,000 years ago were released, showing they ate different foodstuffs in different regions because DNA from mutton and other kinds of meat, as well as moss and mushrooms, were found.

As the poplar-derived DNA was also discovered, speculation swirled that the plant, currently used for making aspirin, “could be used to ease the pain.”

Hiroki Ota, a bioscience professor at the University of Tokyo, noted, however, that the DNA-based method should be combined with various other techniques for improved research.

“Tartar DNA no doubt reflects what the person ate, so use of the substance will spread further,” said Ota. “But calculus could be formed differently in differing dietary cultures. So the research accuracy needs to be improved by conducting a variety of methods using coprolites (fossilized feces) and other objects to uncover all details.”

ASIA, ISRAEL, WORLD

Text Found on Supposedly Blank Dead Sea Scroll Fragments

Text Found on Supposedly Blank Dead Sea Scroll Fragments

Four fragments of the manuscript Dead Sea Scroll, located in the John Rylands Library of the University of Manchester, which were previously thought to be blank, do in fact contain text.

The Hebrew word “Shabbat” is visible in the upper right-hand corner. A lamed (the letter “L” in Hebrew) is written on the left side of the fragment.

The finding reveals that Manchester University is the only UK institution with authenticated textual fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The research was carried out as part of a Leverhulme-funded study conducted at King’s College London and was conducted jointly by Professor Joan Taylor (King’s College London), Professor Marcello Fidanzio (Lugano Theology Faculty) and Dr. Dennis Mizzi (Malta University).

Joan Taylor examining the Dead Sea Scrolls fragments in the John Rylands Library Reading Room (DQCAAS)

Unlike the recent cases of forgeries assumed to be Dead Sea Scrolls fragments, all of these small pieces were unearthed in the official excavations of the Qumran caves and were never passed through the antiquities market.

In the 1950s, the fragments were gifted by the Jordanian government to Ronald Reed, a leather expert at the University of Leeds, so he could study their physical and chemical composition.

It was assumed that the pieces were ideal for scientific tests, as they were blank and relatively worthless. These were studied and published by Reed and his student John Poole, and then stored safely away.

In 1997 the Reed Collection was donated to The University of Manchester through the initiative of Rylands Professor of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis, George Brooke. These fragments have been stored in Reed’s own labeled boxes in The John Rylands Library, and have been relatively untouched since then.

When examining the fragments for the new study, Professor Taylor thought it possible that one of them did actually contain a letter, and therefore decided to photograph all of the existing fragments over 1 cm that appears blank to the naked eye, using multispectral imaging.

51 fragments were imaged front and back. Six were identified for further detailed investigation—of these, it was established that four have readable Hebrew/Aramaic text written in carbon-based ink. The study has also revealed ruled lines and small vestiges of letters on other fragments.

The most substantial fragment has the remains of four lines of text with 15-16 letters, most of which are only partially preserved, but the word Shabbat (Sabbath) can be clearly read. This text (pictured) may be related to the biblical book of Ezekiel (46:1-3). One-piece with text is the edge of a parchment scroll section, with sewn thread, and the first letters of two lines of text may be seen to the left of this binding.

“Looking at one of the fragments with a magnifying glass, I thought I saw a small, faded letter—a lamed, the Hebrew letter “L,'” said Professor Taylor. “Frankly, since all these fragments were supposed to be blank and had even been cut into for leather studies, I also thought I might be imagining things. But then it seemed maybe other fragments could have very faded letters too.”

“With new techniques for revealing ancient texts now available, I felt we had to know if these letters could be exposed. There are only a few on each fragment, but they are like missing pieces of a jigsaw puzzle you find under a sofa.”

The research team is currently undertaking further investigations of these fragments in consultation with The John Rylands Library and Professor Brooke, as part of a larger project studying the various Qumran artifacts at the John Rylands Library. The results will be published in a forthcoming report.

“I am hugely grateful to Professor Joan Taylor and her colleagues, and to the brilliant work of our imaging specialists, for bringing this astonishing discovery to light.

Our University is now the only institution in the United Kingdom to hold authenticated textual fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Close-up of Dead Sea Scrolls fragment (DQCAAS)

It is particularly fitting that these fragments are held here at The John Rylands Library, one of the world’s greatest repositories of Judaeo-Christian texts,” says Professor Christopher Pressler, John Rylands University Librarian and Director of the University of Manchester Library.

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