Visualisation in Archaeology Conference

Archaeology, School of Humanities

University of Southampton, University Road, SOUTHAMPTON SO17 1BJTel +44 (0)23 8059 5000Fax +44 (0)23 8059 3131

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New challenges at Southampton

Archaeology, School of Humanities

University of Southampton, University Road, SOUTHAMPTON SO17 1BJTel +44 (0)23 8059 5000Fax +44 (0)23 8059 3131

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Dawn of agriculture took toll on health

Public release date: 15-Jun-2011
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Contact: Beverly Clark
beverly.clark@emory.edu
404-712-8780
Emory University

When populations around the globe started turning to agriculture around 10,000 years ago, regardless of their locations and type of crops, a similar trend occurred: The height and health of the people declined.

"This broad and consistent pattern holds up when you look at standardized studies of whole skeletons in populations," says Amanda Mummert, an Emory University graduate student in anthropology.

Mummert led the first comprehensive, global review of the literature regarding stature and health during the agriculture transition, to be published by the journal Economics and Human Biology.

"Many people have this image of the rise of agriculture and the dawn of modern civilization, and they just assume that a more stable food source makes you healthier," Mummert says. "But early agriculturalists experienced nutritional deficiencies and had a harder time adapting to stress, probably because they became dependent on particular food crops, rather than having a more significantly diverse diet."

She adds that growth in population density spurred by agriculture settlements led to an increase in infectious diseases, likely exacerbated by problems of sanitation and the proximity to domesticated animals and other novel disease vectors.

Eventually, the trend toward shorter stature reversed, and average heights for most populations began increasing. The trend is especially notable in the developed world during the past 75 years, following the industrialization of food systems.

"Culturally, we're agricultural chauvinists. We tend to think that producing food is always beneficial, but the picture is much more complex than that," says Emory anthropologist George Armelagos, co-author of the review. "Humans paid a heavy biological cost for agriculture, especially when it came to the variety of nutrients. Even now, about 60 percent of our calories come from corn, rice and wheat."

In 1984, Armelagos and M. N. Cohen wrote a groundbreaking book, "Paleopathology at the Origins of Agriculture," which drew from more than 20 studies to describe an increase in declining health and nutritional diseases as societies shifted from foraging to agriculture.

The book was controversial at the time, but the link between the agricultural transition and declining health soon became widely accepted in what was then the emerging field of bioarcheology.

The current review was undertaken to compare data from more recent studies involving different world regions, crops and cultures. The studies included populations from areas of China, Southeast Asia, North and South America and Europe. All of the papers used standardized methods for assessing health at the individual level and examined how stressors were exhibited within the entire skeleton, rather than a concentration on a particular skeletal element or condition.

"Unless you're considering a complete skeleton, you're not getting a full picture of health," Mummert says. "You could have an individual with perfect teeth, for example, but serious markers of infection elsewhere. You could see pitting on the skull, likely related to anemia or nutritional stress, but no marks at all on the long bones."

Adult height, dental cavities and abscesses, bone density and healed fractures are some of the markers used to try to paint a more complete picture of an individual's health.

"Bones are constantly remodeling themselves," Mummert says. "Skeletons don't necessarily tell you what people died of, but they can almost always give you a glimpse into their ability to adapt and survive."

While the review further supports the link between early agricultural practices and declining stature and health, it's important to keep re-evaluating the data as more studies are completed, Mummert says.

One confounding factor is that agriculture was not adopted in an identical fashion and time span across the globe. In some ancient societies, such as those of the North American coasts, crops may have merely supplemented a seafood diet. "In these cases, a more sedentary lifestyle, and not necessarily agriculture, could have perpetuated decreased stature," Mummert says.

The way the human body adapted to changes we made in the environment 10,000 years ago could help us understand how our bodies are adapting now, she says.

Some economists and other scientists are using the rapid physiological increases in human stature during the 20th century as a key indicator of better health.

"I think it's important to consider what exactly 'good health' means," Mummert says. "The modernization and commercialization of food may be helping us by providing more calories, but those calories may not be good for us. You need calories to grow bones long, but you need rich nutrients to grow bones strong."

Emory University is known for its demanding academics, outstanding undergraduate experience, highly ranked professional schools and state-of-the-art research facilities. Perennially ranked as one of the country's top 20 national universities by U.S. News & World Report, Emory encompasses nine academic divisions as well as the Carlos Museum, The Carter Center, the Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory Healthcare, Georgia's largest and most comprehensive health care system.

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Record greenhouse gas levels: See for yourself

Public release date: 22-Jun-2011
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Contact: Simon Torok
Simon.Torok@csiro.au
61-392-394-645
CSIRO Australia

For the first time, greenhouse gas data are accessed easily on a new CSIRO website. The site shows the levels of greenhouse gases measured in the Southern Hemisphere atmosphere for the past 35 years.

Observed greenhouse gas concentrations ? as measured by CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology at Cape Grim, Tasmania ? can be easily explored by members of the public.

The data are updated monthly from analyses of air measurements at Cape Grim, which, under baseline conditions, experiences some of the cleanest air in the world and accurately reflects global changes in greenhouse gases.

"The atmospheric level of carbon dioxide, which is the most important long-lived greenhouse gas influenced by human activities, is at its highest level in more than a million years," says Dr Paul Fraser from CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research. "It is currently increasing at about 0.5 per cent each year."

Dr Fraser ? who has been analysing atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations for more than 35 years ? says it is important to ensure that the community at large has access to data that clearly illustrate the impact of human activities on the atmosphere.

"The measurements testify to a steady rise in carbon dioxide concentrations in the Earth's atmosphere, mainly caused by the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation," he says. "The graphs we've made available online will enable people to examine the evidence about the major driver of recent climate change. This is fundamental information in determining the global actions needed to avoid greenhouse gases rising to dangerous levels."

The website employs a dynamic interface to allow users to analyse the behaviour of the three important greenhouse gases influenced directly by human activities and natural variability: carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Data for the synthetic greenhouse and ozone depleting gases, such as CFCs, also are available. Water vapour, although an important greenhouse gas, is not significantly influenced directly by human activities.

The website puts the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations over recent decades in the context of longer-term variations over the past 1000 years ? determined by analysing air extracted from tiny bubbles trapped in the Antarctic ice.

Dr Fraser says carbon dioxide is currently rising at nearly 2 parts per million molar (ppm) per year.

"Together, these measurements allow us to trace the dramatic rise in carbon dioxide levels from about 280 ppm before the start of the industrial era around the year 1800, to 388 ppm in 2010. That's an increase of almost 40 per cent, largely due to human activities."

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Tut, tut: Microbial growth in pharaoh's tomb suggests burial was a rush job

Public release date: 8-Jun-2011
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Contact: Caroline Perry
cperry@seas.harvard.edu
617-496-1351
Harvard University

Cambridge, Mass, June 8, 2011 - In the tomb of King Tutankhamen, the elaborately painted walls are covered with dark brown spots that mar the face of the goddess Hathor, the silvery-coated baboons?in fact, almost every surface.

Despite almost a century of scientific investigation, the precise identity of these spots remains a mystery, but Harvard microbiologist Ralph Mitchell thinks they have a tale to tell.

Nobody knows why Tutankhamen, the famed "boy king" of the 18th Egyptian dynasty, died in his late teens. Various investigations have attributed his early demise to a head injury, an infected broken leg, malaria, sickle-cell anemia, or perhaps a combination of several misfortunes.

Whatever the cause of King Tut's death, Mitchell thinks those brown spots reveal something: that the young pharaoh was buried in an unusual hurry, before the walls of the tomb were even dry.

Like many ancient sites, Tutankhamen's tomb suffers from peeling paint and cracking walls. In the oppressive heat and humidity, throngs of tourists stream in and out of the cave, admiring it but also potentially threatening it.

Concerned about the tomb's preservation, the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities approached the Getty Conservation Institute for help. The Getty, in turn, had questions for Mitchell.

What are the brown spots? Are visiting tourists making them worse? Most importantly, do they present a health hazard?

In his investigation, Mitchell, the Gordon McKay Research Professor of Applied Biology at Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), combines classical microbiology with cutting-edge genomic techniques. His research team has been culturing living specimens swabbed from the walls of the tomb as well as conducting DNA sequence analyses.

Meanwhile, chemists at the Getty have been analyzing the brown marks, which have seeped into the paint and the plaster, at the molecular level.

So far, the chemists have identified melanins, which are characteristic byproducts of fungal (and sometimes bacterial) metabolism, but no living organisms have yet been matched to the spots.

"Our results indicate that the microbes that caused the spots are dead," says Archana Vasnathakumar, a postdoctoral fellow in Mitchell's lab. "Or, to put it in a more conservative way, 'not active.'"

Further, analysis of photographs taken when the tomb was first opened in 1922 shows that the brown spots have not changed in the past 89 years.

While the identity of the ancient organism remains a mystery, all of this is good news for tourists and Egyptologists alike, because the evidence suggests that not only are the microbes not growing?they're actually part of the history, offering new clues to the circumstances of King Tut's death.

"King Tutankhamen died young, and we think that the tomb was prepared in a hurry," explains Mitchell. "We're guessing that the painted wall was not dry when the tomb was sealed."

That moisture, along with the food, the mummy, and the incense in the tomb, would have provided a bountiful environment for microbial growth, he says, until the tomb eventually dried out.

Exotic as the project may sound, investigations like this are typical of Mitchell's research in applied microbiology.

In past years, his lab has studied the role of bacteria in the deterioration of the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and the microorganisms living within limestone at Mayan archaeological sites in southern Mexico. Nick Konkol, a former postdoctoral research associate, and Alice DeAraujo, a current research assistant, have developed rapid new ways to detect mold growing within the paper of historical manuscripts, paintings, and museum artifacts.

The field is referred to as "cultural heritage microbiology," and Mitchell literally wrote the textbook on it.

For microbiologists with broad interests, cultural heritage provides an endless supply of surprising, new applications, crossing disciplines and cultures and providing important insight into modern environmental problems.

"This type of research is typical of the interactive activity of SEAS, where modern scientific and engineering techniques are integrated to solve complex problems," Mitchell says.

Just a few years ago, he was called down to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum to investigate the collection of Apollo space suits. In the heat and humidity of the museum's Maryland storage facility, black mold was chewing through the many-layered polymers, damaging the priceless suits.

The relatively simple solution in that case was the installation of a climate control system. Unfortunately, however, there is a difference between prevention and treatment. Once a historical artifact has begun to deteriorate, the damage is usually irreversible.

Mitchell points to the example of the cathedral in Cologne, Germany. Built over the course of 632 years and listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, the walls of the magnificent cathedral feature angels and historical figures carved out of stone.

In just the past 100 years, the angels' faces have been eaten away by air pollution.

"I always use the analogy of cancer," Mitchell says. "You want to get to it early enough that it isn't doing major destruction."

But what to do about King Tut's 3000-year-old microbial vandalism?

The damage is already done, so Mitchell predicts that the conservators will want to leave the spots alone, particularly as they are unique to that site.

"This is part of the whole mystique of the tomb," he says.

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Cutting edge training developed the human brain 80,000 years ago

Public release date: 21-Jun-2011
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Contact: Anders H?gberg
anders.hogberg@sydsvenskarkeologi.se
46-709-124-315
Lund University

Advanced crafting of stone spearheads contributed to the development of new ways of human thinking and behaving.

This is what new findings by archaeologists at Lund University have shown. The technology took a long time to acquire, required step by step planning and increased social interaction across the generations. This led to the human brain developing new abilities.

200 000 years ago, small groups of people wandered across Africa, looking like us anatomically but not thinking the way we do today. Studies of fossils and the rate of mutations in DNA show that the human species to which we all belong ? Homo sapiens sapiens ? has existed for 200 000 years. But the archaeological research of recent years has shown that, even though the most ancient traces of modern humans are 200 000 years old, the development of modern cognitive behaviour is probably much younger. For about 100 000 years, there were people who looked like us, but who acted on the basis of cognitive structures in which we would only partially recognise ourselves and which we do not define today as modern behaviour.

It is precisely that period of transformation that the researchers at Lund University in Sweden have studied. In the next issue of the well renowned Journal of Human Evolution, they present their new findings on the early modern humans that existed in what is now South Africa, approximately 80 000 years ago.

The findings show that people at that time used advanced technology for the production of spearheads and that the complicated crafting process developed the working memory and social life of humans.

"When the technology was passed from one generation to the next, from adults to children, it became part of a cultural learning process which created a socially more advanced society than before. This affected the development of the human brain and cognitive ability", says Anders H?gberg, PhD.

The technology led to increased social interaction within and across the generations. This happened because the crafting of stone spearheads took a long time to learn and required a lot of knowledge, both theoretical and practical. Producing a stone spearhead also required the ability to plan in several stages. This social learning contributed to the subsequent development of early modern humans' cognitive ability to express symbolism and abstract thoughts through their material culture, for example in the form of decorated objects.

"The excavations have been carried out in a small cave; the location we have studied is called Hollow Rock Shelter and lies 250 km north of Cape Town. We are cooperating with the University of Cape Town and the research we have just published is part of a larger research project on this location", says Professor Lars Larsson.

The article is entitled Lithic technology and behavioural modernity: New results from the Still Bay site, Hollow Rock Shelter, Western Cape Province, South Africa. See link below: http://authors.elsevier.com/offprints/YJHEV1563/70884d412686a738f8080c0e473c6c11

For more information, please contact:
Anders H?gberg, mobile 0709-124315 email: anders.hogberg@sydsvenskarkeologi.se
Lars Larsson, mobile 0708-345430 email lars.larsson@ark.lu.se

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Uncovering the Kingdom of Israel

Public release date: 4-Jul-2011
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Contact: Rachel Feldman
rfeldman@univ.haifa.ac.il
972-482-88722
University of Haifa

In addition to many findings dating back to the Kingdom of Israel (some 3,000 years ago), remains of a Persian city (2,400 years ago) and a Byzantine town (1,500 years ago) have been exposed at the site. Plans are in place to develop the excavation site as a public archaeology park

Exceptional detective-archaeological work at the first season of archaeological digs at Tel Shikmona, on the southern edge of Israel's city of Haifa, has uncovered the remains of a house dating back to the period of the Kingdom of Israel. The site was excavated about 40 years ago and due to neglect and layers of earth and garbage that piled up over the decades, the historical remains were hidden and little was known about what lay below. Upon re-exposing the structure, archaeologists from the University of Haifa were amazed to find that it had remained well preserved and may in fact be the best-preserved "Four-Room House" dating back to that period known today. "We had seen the structure in the old photographs, and were sorry that such a rarely preserved finding had disappeared due to neglect. We were not even sure that we would be able to find it again. It was practically a miracle that we managed to locate and uncover it and that it is still so well preserved," said Dr. Shay Bar and Dr. Michael Eisenberg of the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa, who headed the excavation team.

Tel Shikmona, on the southern coast of Haifa, Israel, is located in the Shikmona Nature Reserve and National Park, managed by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority. It was excavated in the 1970s by the late Yosef Algavish on behalf of the Municipality of Haifa, when remains of settlement dating from the late Bronze Age (16th century BCE) to the Muslim occupation of the 7th century CE were found. Over the past decades, however, the archaeological findings at Tel Shikmona have been damaged, construction waste has piled up on the site, and off-road vehicles have ploughed over it. University of Haifa researchers began renewed excavations at the site about 6 months ago, sponsored by the Hecht Foundation in partnership with the Municipality of Haifa, as part of a project intended to transform the area into a public archaeological park. The first season is now culminating and with it a number of fascinating findings.

The old photographs of the 1970s excavations show a house dating back to the 8th-9th centuries BCE, which is the period of the Kingdom of Israel. The structure's design is known as a "four-room house", which was the most common design for houses in that era. It is characterized by the functional division of the structure into four living spaces: three positioned vertically and the fourth horizontally. The other four-room houses exposed to date have been found in relatively bad condition.

Detective work based on the photographs led the researchers to estimate the location of the house ? and luck was on their side as they located the structure and also found it highly preserved. According to Dr. Bar and Dr. Eisenberg, this finding presents a rare opportunity to study and become familiar with everyday life in the days of the Kingdom of Israel, and after a process of conservation they hope to include the structure in the public archaeological park.

An additional rare finding exposed during the excavations belongs to the Israelite period (11th-8th centuries BCE - the settlement and Kingdom of Israel): a personal seal showing an inscription in Hebrew or Phoenician. The researchers hope that deciphering this inscription will give the answer to whether the settlement of that time was in fact Israelite or Phoenician.

Other findings from that period give evidence of expansive trade with Middle Eastern neighbors. These include relics imported from Cyprus and the coast of Lebanon, which arrived in fine, delicate vessels of high-quality ceramic. Also exposed were remains of purple-colored pitcher shards. The researchers explain that these are likely to be rare cases of preserved dye, which is reinforced by the fact that hundreds of the purple dye-producing mollusc shells were also found at the site.

Earlier in the season, a long section of the eastern side of the tell was exposed, revealing remains of terraced Byzantine structures (4th-7th centuries CE) that were built on the slope. Inside the houses, a number of destroyed mosaic floors and storage rooms were uncovered, while dozens of vessels there survived the ruins and were found whole. Many coins, ornaments, pendants, weapons and glass vessels were also found there, providing evidence of the wealth of the inhabitants. Beneath these Byzantine remains, the archaeologists exposed a structure from the Persian era (4th century BCE) in which an oven, clay loom weights and storage pitchers were found, indicating Persian settlement of the area. At another section of the excavations on the tell, the remains of three stages of settlement from the 11th-8th centuries BCE were found. It seems that at the beginning of that era, settlement in the region was relatively sparse but increased over time, becoming a prosperous, fortified city by the first century BCE.

In the course of these excavations, residents of the neighborhoods near Shikmona took an active part in the digs, and the excavating team arranged a special tour and hands-on experience at the site for a group of special needs children.

For more information:
Rachel Feldman
Division of Marketing and Media
University of Haifa
press@univ.haifa.ac.il
+972-54-5352435

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