Ancient DNA upends European prehistory

Genes reveal striking diversity within similar ice age cultures

1 Mar 2023 By Andrew Curry Original source: https://www.science.org/content/article/ancient-dna-upends-european-prehistory

Thirty thousand years ago, Europe was a land of open steppes with herds of grazing mammoth and other megafauna—and a strikingly uniform human culture. Its inhabitants, whom archaeologists call the Gravettians, dwelled in caves or in shelters built of mammoth bones. They carved palm-size sculptures from mammoth tusk, depicting mammoths, cave lions, and stylized female figurines with elaborate headdresses and exaggerated breasts and buttocks, and left their distinctive art and artifacts from Spain to western Russia. “You can make a case for saying the Gravettian is the first pan-European culture,” says University of Tübingen archaeologist Nicholas Conard.

But despite appearances, the Gravettians were not a single people. New DNA evidence, published today in Nature, shows Gravettians in France and Spain were genetically distinct from groups living in what is now the Czech Republic and Italy. “What we thought was one homogenous thing in Europe 30,000 years ago is actually two distinct groups,” says Mateja Hajdinjak, a molecular biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology who was not part of the new study.

The Gravettian data are part of a larger trove of ancient European DNA that reveals striking genetic diversity within apparently unified prehistoric cultures. The sweeping study analyzed 116 newly sequenced genomes and hundreds of previously published ones, ranging from about 45,000 years ago, when the first modern humans reached the continent, to about 6000 B.C.E., and from the Iberian Peninsula to the western steppes of modern-day Russia. It “fill[s] gaps in space and time,” says the study’s lead author, Cosimo Posth, a geneticist at Tübingen.

In period after period, the genetic evidence suggests conclusions drawn from archaeological evidence such as tools, hunting styles, and burial rituals need to be re-evaluated. “These cultural units archaeologists think about as coherent populations don’t stand up to the test,” says Felix Riede, an archaeologist at Aarhus University who was not part of the study. “It’s a major step forward.”

Many of the samples were in poor condition and some came from unusual contexts, like the now-submerged landscape between the British Isles and the Netherlands known as Doggerland. New analytical methods and increasingly powerful DNA sequencing tools enabled researchers to squeeze information from extremely degraded bones and teeth, including some that contained just 1% of their original genetic material.

When it comes to the Gravettians, the genetic evidence helps explain subtle regional differences in tool types and subsistence strategies that have puzzled archaeologists for decades. Archaeologists had noted “slight cultural differences, but up till now we didn’t know if it was the same or different populations,” Hajdinjak says. For example, only people in Eastern and central Europe constructed mammoth bone shelters. University of Leiden archaeologist Alexander Verpoorte, who was not part of the new study, adds, “When you zoom in a little bit, even the female figurines are made in different ways from different materials, deposited in different settings and found in different contexts.” Now, it seems they were the handiwork of distinct populations.

The DNA also sheds light on what happened to these ancient Europeans when the climate worsened between 25,000 and 19,000 years ago, a time known as the last glacial maximum when much of Northern and central Europe was blanketed in ice more than 1 kilometer thick. Archaeologists had assumed people including the Gravettians retreated into ice-free areas in southern Europe beginning about 26,000 years ago, then filtered back north several thousand years later as the glaciers melted. That scenario appears to hold true in the Iberian Peninsula and the south of France: People living there before the ice reached its peak persist through the worst of the cold spell, then surge back north and east as the continent warms.

But the Italian Peninsula, long thought to have been a relatively secure refuge, showed something different. Despite what looked to archaeologists like evidence of continuous occupation during and after the glacial maximum, DNA reveals the refuge was actually a dead end. “We expected Italy to be a climate refugium, but there’s a sharp and complete turnover—it’s a big surprise,” Posth says. “The Gravettian population completely disappears.” Instead, after the glacial maximum, people in Italy show genetic links to the Near East, suggesting a new population arrived from the Balkans.

About 14,000 years ago, when temperatures across the continent rose sharply in the space of a few centuries, archaeologists recognized cultural changes. But they thought the changes reflected an existing population adapting to hunt in warmer, more heavily forested landscapes. Instead, DNA shows an almost complete population replacement: The people who survived the glacial maximum, known as the Magdalenians, all but vanish and are replaced by populations moving north from postglacial Italy.

The study also looked at the final era of hunter-gatherers in Europe, beginning 10,000 years ago as warming continued to transform the open steppe to dense forests and rich wetlands. Here, again, the genes revealed a surprising wrinkle: Despite broadly similar hunting and gathering lifestyles, people in Western Europe remain genetically distinct from those east of the Baltic Sea.

They even looked different: Genetic data suggest that before the arrival of farmers in northern Europe around 6000 B.C.E., hunter-gatherers in Western Europe had dark skin and light eyes. People in Eastern Europe and Russia, meanwhile, had light skin and dark eyes. Most surprising, despite the lack of geographic barriers between modern-day Germany and Russia, the two groups spent millennia not mingling. “From 14,000 years ago to 8000 years ago, they do not mix at all,” Posth says. But he acknowledges that the team’s samples don’t cover the continent completely, and the likely contact zones—in Poland and Belarus, for example—lack samples. More genetic data from those areas might show the two populations mixing locally.

Archaeologists are expected to welcome the new genetic data, even though they may force many to re-examine old ideas, says Jennifer French, an archaeologist at the University of Liverpool who was not part of the study. “This genetic data shows we’ve oversimplified what was going on in terms of population interaction,” she says. “It provides a lot more nuance than we’ve been able to with archaeological data alone.”

doi: 10.1126/science.adh4071

All credits to original source: https://www.science.org/content/article/ancient-dna-upends-european-prehistory

U.S. Returns $33 Million of Looted Antiquities to Turkey

The collection of 12 items included a headless bronze statue dating to 225 C.E.

One of the 12 antiquities that U.S. authorities returned to Turkey last month Suleyman Elcin / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

By Teresa Nowakowski April 7, 2023 Original Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/33-million-of-antiquities-including-rare-bronze-statue-returned-to-turkey-180981931/

More than 50 years ago, farmers uncovered an archaeological treasure trove at Bubon, a Roman site in southwestern Turkey. The area, likely a shrine used to worship the emperor and his family, contained several rare bronze statues of Roman emperors and empresses.

“Had its contents not vanished, it would have been one of the most stunning archaeological discoveries of the 20th century,” writes Elizabeth Marlowe, director of Colgate University’s museum studies program, in Hyperallergic.

Rather than reporting the find to the government, as required by law, locals sold the statues, which were then smuggled out of the country. “The looting back then was done as a commercial enterprise for the villagers,” Matthew Bogdanos, the head of the Manhattan district attorney’s office’s antiquities trafficking unit, tells the New York Times’ Tom Mashberg and Graham Bowley.

Now, one of these statues is heading back to Turkey: Dating to 225 C.E., the headless bronze figure had been on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art since 2011. Experts think it depicts the Roman emperor Septimius Severus.

The work is one of a dozen artifacts repatriated to Turkey last month following investigations carried out by the Manhattan district attorney’s office. The collection also includes a sculpture of a head dating to 290 C.E., as well as a bronze head of Caracalla, the eldest son of Septimius Severus, made between 211 and 217 C.E. In total, the items are valued at $33 million.

“Many of these pieces, which come from archaeological sites that have been the persistent target of looting, have been circulating across the globe for decades,” says District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr. in a statement. “Now, they are finally being returned to Turkey, where they rightfully belong,” Some of the farmers involved in the looting back in the ’60s are helping investigators, examining images from catalogs and museum websites to identify pieces they had stolen, reports the Times.

Of the items returning to Turkey, three came from the Met—including the Septimius Severus statue, valued at $25 million, which was seized in February. This year, the district attorney’s office has so far seized 17 items from the museum, reports Artnet’s Sarah Cascone.

Several other items were recovered during a criminal investigation into the collection of Shelby White, a philanthropist, art collector and Met trustee.

Authorities officially returned the 12 items to Turkey at a ceremony last month. Reyhan Ozgur, Turkey’s consul general in New York, said that the repatriation “sends a clear and strong message to all smugglers, dealers and collectors that illegal purchase, possession and sale of cultural artifacts will have consequences,” per the Times.

The latest repatriation is part of a growing worldwide effort to return stolen antiquities to their rightful owners. In particular, the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which launched its antiquities trafficking unit in 2017, has been intensifying its efforts to investigate these cases.

Teresa Nowakowski | READ MORE

Teresa Nowakowski is an intern for Smithsonian magazine.

All credits to original source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/33-million-of-antiquities-including-rare-bronze-statue-returned-to-turkey-180981931/

The Easter Bunny: Evolution of a symbol

(Image credit: Alamy)

From lust to Bugs Bunny – the rabbit has taken on different meanings throughout history, in global folklore and artistic symbolism. But how did it become the poster boy for Easter? Matthew Wilson finds out.

By Matthew Wilson 7th April 2023 Original Source: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20230403-the-easter-bunny-evolution-of-a-symbol

Easter is a Christian festival that celebrates the resurrection of Christ after his crucifixion on Good Friday. And yet everywhere we see it symbolised by a floppy-eared, bucktoothed, and egg-dispensing lagomorph. Where exactly did the Easter Bunny tradition derive from? Coming up with an answer is not as easy as it may appear – the hunt will take us down a few rabbit holes, not unlike Alice on her voyage through Wonderland. Three rabbity themes cut across global mythology and religion: bunnies' perceived sacredness, their mystical link to the moon, and their connection with fertility. The chase will incorporate both rabbits and hares – when examining folklore and art history, it is sometimes hard to distinguish between the two. They are both part of the taxonomic order Lagomorpha, and the family Leporidae, and have often been treated in the same way in religions, fables, and in visual culture. Are rabbits connected with Easter because they've often been considered holy? Hares were venerated in Celtic mythology, and are portrayed as canny tricksters in the myths of Native American tribes including the Michabo and Manabush. Similar tales are to be found in Central African fables and the related figure of Br'er Rabbit, the ultimate hero of cunning. It's impossible not to see cartoon rabbits – including Bugs Bunny – also following in this ancient tradition of the animal's craftiness. According to folklore in the United Kingdom, witches can transform into rabbits and hares, and in many cultures they are seen as harbingers of both good and bad luck. Hares are fast and agile runners, which may account for the general perception of them as either wily, or mysterious and obscure.

The 'three hares' symbol has been found across the world, and from more than 1300 years ago (Credit: Alamy)

Backing up this view is the fascinatingly transnational phenomenon of the "three hare" symbol. It depicts three hares running in a never-ending circle with their ears touching to form a triangle. You can find it being used in many medieval churches in the UK – in South Tawton (Devon), Long Melford (Suffolk), Cotehele (Cornwall), St David's Cathedral in Pembrokeshire, and Chester Cathedral. Long considered a native icon to British scholars, it was subsequently discovered across Europe, in cathedrals and synagogues in Germany, in French parish churches – but also on artefacts created in Syria, Egypt and the Swat Valley in Pakistan dating back as far as the 9th Century AD.

The earliest example can be found in the Dunhuang Caves in China, a Buddhist holy site created in 6th Century AD. The appeal of the "three hares" symbol is partly in its central optical illusion – individually each hare has two ears, but it looks like there are three in total. The reason it was dispersed so widely is probably due to international trade in the first millennium AD. Along with many other pervasive artistic symbols, it likely featured on objects that were bought, sold, and exported along the Silk Roads that linked Europe with Asia. It is believed that the symbol implies prosperity and regeneration through its cyclical composition and overlapping forms. The themes of renewal and rebirth seem linked to the Easter message. Could the Easter Bunny have derived from this ancient Buddhist symbol?

The "three hare" symbol is believed to have originated in a story in the Jatakas (tales concerning the lives of Buddha) about the "hare of selflessness". In this story the hare is a previous incarnation of the historical Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama. He is so generous and devout that when he meets a starving priest, he self-sacrificially clambered into a fire to provide him with a meal. As a reward for his virtue, the hare's image was cast on the moon. This story, and hares' lunar associations in general, probably derived from much more ancient religions in India. The moon does indeed have a marking on its surface which looks (with a little imagination and squinting) like a hare.

A mystical hare inhabits the moon in Japanese folklore, as shown in Rabbit Pounding the Elixir of Life Under the Moon by Mori Ippo, 1867 (Credit: New Orleans Museum of Art)

Moon-inhabiting and moon-staring hares proliferate across the visual cultures of China, Japan, and Korea. Taoist traditions in China relate a story about a moon-dwelling rabbit who pounds together the ingredients of the elixir of life. Indigenous North and Central American culture have very similar myths that connect hares and rabbits with the moon, presumably because they also detected lagomorphic markings on the lunar surface. It seems that the rabbit is an honoured creature, synonymous with celestial powers and rejuvenation not just for Christians at Easter, but across the world.

Bunnies and fertility

Even though symbolism and animal fables from the East have entered European iconography, the origins of the Easter Bunny might lie closer to home. Most Christian symbols derive from Biblical sources, although some survived from the art cultures of ancient Greece and Rome.

The Bible offers mixed attitudes towards rabbits. In the books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus, they are referred to as impure animals. However, in Psalms and Proverbs they are described as possessing some intelligence, although ultimately condemned as weak.

What fascinated ancient Greek and Roman writers most about our leporine friends was their fertility. The philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC), for example, noted how rabbits could breed at jaw-dropping speed. Another influential writer, Pliny the Elder (23-79 AD), mistakenly believed that their breakneck procreation was due to the fact that hares were hermaphrodites, and that childbirth was shared by both males and females. Could the Easter Bunny be connected to this classical idea of fertility, used to express the rejuvenation and fecundity of springtime?

In the medieval and Renaissance periods, rabbits could either be symbols of chastity or boundless sexuality, depending on the context

Such astonishing skills in biological reproduction certainly had an impact on European symbolism. In medieval and Renaissance art, rabbits were frequently represented alongside Venus, the ancient Roman goddess of love and sexuality. Lust is one of the seven deadly sins, and when artists depicted it in allegorical form ("Luxuria"), it sometimes took the form of a woman with a bunny.

Rabbits have sometimes been a symbol for lust, as in Venus, Mars, and Cupid (1490) by Piero di Cosimo (Credit: Alamy)

The Roman author Aelian (c175-c235 AD) suggested that hares were capable of superfetation – the ability to gestate an embryo whilst already pregnant. For a long time, this was scoffed at, but recent science has proved that hares are indeed capable of such a feat. Aelian and other observers of this phenomenon believed that hares and rabbits could give birth without copulation. So, weirdly, in the medieval and Renaissance periods, rabbits could either be symbols of chastity or boundless sexuality, depending on the context.

In The Madonna of the Rabbit (1520-30) by Titian, a bunny symbolises chastity (Credit: Getty Images)

This can be seen when we compare Titian's serene and luminous The Madonna of the Rabbit (1520-30) with Pisanello's bewitching Allegory of Luxuria (1426). In Titian's painting, the pure white bunny is a symbol of Mary's celibacy. In Pisanello's drawing, the rabbit symbolises lechery.

Whereas in Pisanello's Allegory of Luxuria (1426), a rabbit takes on a completely different meaning (Credit: Alamy)

These biological traits of rabbits and hares also prompted association with fertility in otherwise disconnected cultures. In Aztec mythology, there was a belief in the Centzon Tōtōchtin – a group of 400 godly rabbits who were said to hold drunken parties in celebration of abundance.

Even within Europe, different societies used rabbits as an icon of fecundity and linked them to deities of reproduction. According to the writings of the Venerable Bede (673-735 AD), an Anglo-Saxon deity named Ēostre was accompanied by a rabbit because she represented the rejuvenation and fertility of springtime. Her festival celebrations occurred in April, and it is commonly believed that through Ēostre we have acquired the name for Easter as well as her rabbit sidekick. If this is right, it means that long ago, Christian iconography appropriated and adopted symbols from older, pagan religions, blending them in with its own.

Does this close the case on the origins of the Easter Bunny? The problem with trying to give any definitive answer is the lack of evidence. Apart from Bede, there is no clear link between Ēostre and Easter, and Bede can't be considered a direct source on Anglo-Saxon religion because he was writing from a Christian perspective. While it might seem very likely, the connection can never be proved for certain.

Rather like in Alice in Wonderland, the white rabbit can never be fully grasped. Through history, rabbits and hares have been seen as sacred and the epitome of craftiness. They have been connected with the enigmatic purity of the moon, with chastity and with superlative powers of fertility. It is with some justness that this supremely enigmatic animal continues to evade meaning. The further we chase the origins of the Easter Bunny, the more he disappears down the dark warrens, teasing our desperation for a logical answer to a surprisingly complex puzzle.

All credits to original source: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20230403-the-easter-bunny-evolution-of-a-symbol