Evolutionary Insights by Anthropology.net

In two cemeteries on England’s south coast, archaeologists have found something that rewrites the quiet assumptions about early medieval Britain. Among the graves of the 7th century, nestled between the burials of people with familiar northern European or western British ancestry, lie two individuals whose family stories reached far beyond the North Sea or the Channel. Genetic analysis shows that each had a paternal grandparent from West Africa.

The findings come from two separate sites: Updown in Kent and Worth Matravers in Dorset. The projects, published in Antiquity, blend archaeology and ancient DNA to probe who these people were and how they were remembered by their communities.

Kent’s continental gateway

Kent has long been known as a historical crossroads, absorbing influences from the continent. In the 6th century, it experienced what archaeologists describe as its “Frankish phase,” a time of intensive connection to mainland Europe. Updown cemetery lies near Finglesham, a royal center in early Kentish politics.

The burial with West African ancestry here contained a pot likely imported from Frankish Gaul and a spoon possibly tied to Christian ritual. These artifacts, alongside the DNA results, hint at a life entangled in trade routes and political networks that reached deep into Europe and, indirectly, into Africa.

Dorset’s western edge

The second individual, buried at Worth Matravers on the Dorset coast, lived in a region less saturated by Anglo-Saxon influence and more connected to Britain’s sub-Roman west. Here, the grave goods tell a different story: a local limestone anchor and the presence of another individual of British ancestry in the same burial.

Yet in both cases, there is no sign these individuals were treated as outsiders. They were interred according to local customs, suggesting they were accepted and integrated into their communities.

“It is significant that it is human DNA—and therefore the movement of people, not just objects—that is now starting to reveal the nature of long-distance interaction to the continent, Byzantium, and sub-Saharan Africa,” notes archaeologist Duncan Sayer.

Kinship and connection

One of the most intriguing aspects is that both individuals carried northern European mitochondrial DNA—passed down maternally—paired with autosomal DNA linking them to present-day Yoruba, Mende, Mandenka, and Esan groups. This pattern implies that their fathers, or paternal grandfathers, were of recent West African origin, while their maternal lines were local.

The evidence pushes beyond the idea of exotic goods arriving through intermediaries. Here, it is people themselves who embody the connections, suggesting a more cosmopolitan and diverse early medieval England than often imagined.

A broader view of mobility

The discoveries fit into a growing pattern: the early medieval world was not a static map of closed ethnic zones, but a dynamic network of movements, marriages, and cultural blending. Long-distance mobility—whether through trade, diplomacy, or enslavement—could bring people from vastly different origins into new communities.

At both Updown and Worth Matravers, the archaeological record shows that such newcomers were fully integrated. The graves reveal no social marginalization in death, even if their life stories may have been marked by difference.

The authors stress that these findings, though based on just two individuals, demonstrate the potential of ancient DNA to illuminate histories that traditional archaeology alone might miss. They open new questions about how such connections were made—whether through Mediterranean trade, northern European maritime networks, or other routes that remain to be mapped.

Related research:

* Schiffels, S., & Wang, K. (2020). Inferring human population size and separation history from multiple genome sequences. Nature Genetics, 52, 674–681. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-020-0625-5– Discusses genetic modeling methods relevant to interpreting ancient DNA in historical contexts.

* Lazaridis, I., et al. (2022). Genetic origins of the Minoans and Mycenaeans. Nature, 548, 214–218. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature23310– Demonstrates the role of genetic analysis in tracing complex ancestries in ancient populations.

* Olalde, I., et al. (2018). The Beaker phenomenon and the genomic transformation of northwest Europe. Nature, 555, 190–196. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature25738– Shows how mobility and ancestry shifts shaped European populations during prehistory.

* Hellenthal, G., et al. (2014). A genetic atlas of human admixture history. Science, 343(6172), 747–751. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1243518– Offers a global framework for understanding human genetic mixing, including African–European interactions.

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Deep in the foothills of the Victorian Alps lies Waribruk, a limestone cave whose walls glitter under lamplight. Today it is silent and still, but thousands of years ago, this was a place of movement, touch, and sacred purpose.

Archaeologists, working in partnership with the GunaiKurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation, recorded nearly a thousand sets of grooves pressed into the soft, crystal-coated walls and ceilings. These were not casual marks. They are the physical traces of hands—adult and child—dragged deliberately through stone softened by water and time.

“The grooves occur only where calcite microcrystals coat the walls,” researchers note. “They never appear in areas of the cave without this glittering surface.”

Radiocarbon dating of tiny charcoal flecks and ash fragments, likely from firesticks, places the activity between 8,400 and 1,800 years ago. No hearths or domestic debris mark this space. Instead, oral traditions speak of mulla-mullung, medicine men and women whose power was tied to crystals.

One panel bears 96 sets of overlapping grooves, the earliest drawn horizontally, later intersected by vertical and diagonal lines. Two parallel sets of fine impressions—just 3 to 5 millimetres wide—suggest a child’s hands, positioned so high they must have been lifted.

Elsewhere, 262 grooves mark a low ceiling above a sloping clay bench. The patterns imply people balancing or crawling to press their hands against the glittering rock. Another stretch of 193 grooves traces a single direction above a creek bed, each indentation recording a step forward.

“These are gestures preserved in stone,” says the research team. “They are moments of deliberate action in a place set apart from ordinary life.”

For the GunaiKurnai, such caves were not dwellings but places where knowledge was practiced and passed on. The grooves, aligned with crystal-coated surfaces, resonate with this tradition. They are not merely “rock art” but records of embodied cultural practice—an exchange between human movement and the cave’s material power.

In Waribruk, the marks remain luminous under artificial light, connecting modern visitors to the actions of those who walked its dark passages millennia ago. Each groove is a trace of intent, of ritual, and of identity, anchored in stone yet alive in memory.

Related research:

* Bahn, P. G., & Vertut, J. (1997). Journey through the Ice Age. University of California Press. [Cave art context, includes finger fluting parallels]

* Sharpe, K., & Van Gelder, L. (2006). The study of finger flutings. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 16(3), 281–295. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774306000173

* Morwood, M. J., & Trezise, P. J. (1989). Edge-ground axes in Pleistocene contexts in northern Australia. Antiquity, 63(240), 354–358. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00075965

* Ross, J., & Davidson, I. (2006). Rock art and ritual: An archaeological analysis of Aboriginal rock art in western Arnhem Land. Australian Aboriginal Studies, (1), 54–65.

* Gunn, R. G., Douglas, L., & Whear, R. L. (2010). What bird is that? Identifying birds depicted in rock paintings in western Arnhem Land. Australian Archaeology, 71(1), 29–37. https://doi.org/10.1080/03122417.2010.11689379

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In a limestone cave on the Ligurian coast, archaeologists have uncovered something extraordinary: the earliest known example of intentional cranial modification in Europe. Buried during the last breaths of the Pleistocene, the elongated skull of an individual now known as AC12 shows that reshaping the human head was already part of cultural life more than 12,000 years ago.

Body modification is often treated as a modern flourish, but the archaeological record says otherwise. Long before needles inked skin or metal passed through ears, people were altering their bodies in ways that left lasting skeletal signatures. While tattoos and piercings vanish with time, bone tells a more persistent story. Among the most visually striking examples is artificial cranial modification (ACM), achieved by shaping an infant’s skull while the bones remain soft and malleable.

The Art and Method of Shaping the Skull

ACM comes in many forms, but two broad techniques dominate the archaeological record. Tabular modification involves pressing the head between rigid boards, flattening the front and back while widening the sides. Annular, or circumferential, modification uses bands of cloth or other soft materials to gently but persistently compress the skull, lengthening it into an ovoid form. Both methods must begin in infancy, when cranial bones have not yet fused, and both result in lifelong changes to the head’s profile.

The global reach of ACM is remarkable. From the Andes to the Eurasian steppe, the practice appears in contexts spanning the end of the Ice Age to recent centuries. Its meanings vary—sometimes signaling social status, sometimes marking ethnic identity, sometimes linked to beauty standards—but in all cases, it transforms the body into a visible emblem of belonging.

The Discovery at Arene Candide

The Arene Candide Cave, a large karst chamber overlooking the Mediterranean, has yielded a Late Upper Paleolithic necropolis dated to the Younger Dryas, between 12,900 and 11,600 years ago. Among at least 22 individuals interred there, AC12’s burial stands out. The cranium was set deliberately atop another individual (AC15) within a stone niche, while the mandible and other bones lay nearby in a separate cluster. Radiocarbon dating places AC12 between 12,620 and 12,190 years before present.

Advanced imaging was key to identifying the modification. Researchers created four separate digital reconstructions of the skull using CT scanning, manual segmentation, and 3D alignment techniques. They then compared AC12’s morphology to Late Upper Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic Italian crania, as well as to pathological cases and a worldwide dataset of known ACM examples.

The results were clear:

“Principal component analyses place AC12 firmly within the cluster of annular-type cranial modifications,” the authors report, noting that statistical models classified the skull as intentionally modified in every case.

The elongated, flattened neurocranium does not match any known cranial pathology. Nor does it resemble the unmodified crania of other individuals from the same site.

A Cultural Marker, Not a Universal Practice

Only one of the five intact skulls from Arene Candide shows this alteration, suggesting ACM was not practiced universally within the community. Instead, it may have marked membership in a particular subgroup, family line, or social role. Because the reshaping must be done in infancy, it speaks to an identity assigned from birth, potentially tied to lineage or ceremonial function.

The burial context reinforces this interpretation. AC12 was interred as part of a carefully organized mortuary program, with deliberate placement of skeletal elements and proximity to other individuals. Such treatment suggests the modification was not incidental—it carried meaning recognized by others in the community.

Rethinking the Origins of Cranial Modification

This find pushes the practice of ACM in Europe back to the very end of the Ice Age, centuries before the agricultural transformations of the Neolithic. Its presence in a hunter-gatherer society challenges the assumption that such elaborate identity markers arose primarily in complex, sedentary communities.

Instead, the evidence points to a deeper origin, one in which body modification served as a durable way to encode belonging and transmit social identity across generations, even in highly mobile foraging groups. The head, reshaped in infancy, became a living archive of who a person was—and who they were meant to be.

Related Research

* Torres-Rouff, C., & Yablonsky, L. T. (2005). Cranial vault modification as a cultural artifact: A comparison of the Eurasian steppes and the Andes. HOMO - Journal of Comparative Human Biology, 56(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jchb.2004.09.003

* White, C. D. (1996). Sutural effects of fronto-occipital cranial modification. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 100(3), 397–410. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1096-8644(199607)100:3<397::AID-AJPA4>3.0.CO;2-Q

* Tiesler, V. (2014). The Bioarchaeology of Artificial Cranial Modifications: New Approaches to Head Shaping and its Meanings in Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and Beyond. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-07440-8

* Gerszten, P. C., & Gerszten, E. (1995). Intentional cranial deformation: A disappearing form of self-mutilation. Neurosurgery, 37(2), 374–382. https://doi.org/10.1227/00006123-199508000-00031

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Around 5,000 years ago, a mysterious form of plague spread across Eurasia. This “Late Neolithic Bronze Age” (LNBA) lineage of Yersinia pestis infected human communities for nearly 3,000 years before disappearing without a trace. Unlike the later medieval plague that killed millions, the LNBA strain lacked the genetic machinery for flea-borne transmission, leaving researchers puzzled about how it spread.

A recent study published in Cell offers an unexpected lead. For the first time, scientists have identified the LNBA plague in an animal—a 4,000-year-old domesticated sheep from the pastoralist site of Arkaim in the Western Eurasian Steppe.

"We have over 200 Y. pestis genomes from ancient humans, but humans aren’t the natural host," said Ian Light-Maka, the study’s lead author. "Finding it in livestock changes how we think about the ecology of this ancient disease."

Sheep in the crosshairs of plague transmission

Arkaim belonged to the Sintashta-Petrovka cultural complex, known for its innovations in horse and livestock management. These pastoralists did not store large quantities of grain that could attract rats, making the classic rat–flea–human transmission model unlikely. The new finding raises the possibility that domesticated animals played a central role in sustaining and transmitting the plague.

When researchers compared the sheep’s Y. pestis genome to others from the same period, they found it was nearly identical to one recovered from a human burial site nearby.

"If we didn’t know it was from a sheep, everyone would have assumed it came from a human," said Christina Warinner of Harvard University. "This suggests livestock and people were sharing the same pathogen population."

In regions where plague persists today, sheep can contract the disease from infected wild rodents. Handling or consuming these sheep can then transmit the infection to humans. The Bronze Age steppe, with its expansive herding practices and close contact between humans, animals, and wildlife, may have created similar conditions.

The missing reservoir

The researchers suspect both human and sheep infections were spillovers from a still-unidentified wild reservoir. Genetic evidence shows the LNBA lineage remained remarkably uniform across nearly 6,000 kilometers—very different from the more diverse plague strains seen today.

"The ancient lineage evolved under elevated pressure," said Felix M. Key of the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology. "This is in contrast to modern Y. pestis. These infections were likely isolated spillovers from a reservoir we still haven’t found."

Finding that reservoir remains a challenge. Sheep and humans were probably not the main drivers of the plague’s vast spread, given how quickly nearly identical strains appear in far-flung locations.

Bones in storage, answers in waiting

The researchers believe the search for answers may lie in archaeological storerooms. Excavations often yield thousands of animal bones, most of which have never been tested for ancient pathogens.

"There will be more and more interest in analyzing these collections," Key said. "They give us insights that no human sample can."

If more infected animal remains are found, it could reshape our understanding of how pathogens moved through ancient ecosystems—offering a glimpse into the web of relationships between humans, their animals, and the microbes that traveled alongside them.

Related research:

* Rascovan, N., Sjögren, K. G., Kristiansen, K., Nielsen, R., Willerslev, E., Desnues, C., & Rasmussen, S. (2019). Emergence and spread of basal lineages of Yersinia pestis during the Neolithic decline. Cell, 176(1-2), 295–305.e10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2018.11.005

* Andrades Valtueña, A., Neumann, G. U., Spyrou, M. A., Musralina, L., Aron, F., Beisenov, A., ... & Krause, J. (2022). Stone Age Yersinia pestis genomes shed light on the early evolution, diversity, and ecology of plague. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(44), e2209813119. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2209813119

* Valtueña, A. A., Mittnik, A., Key, F. M., Haak, W., Allmäe, R., Belinskij, A., ... & Krause, J. (2017). The Stone Age plague and its persistence in Eurasia. Current Biology, 27(23), 3683–3691.e8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.10.025

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Perched just 1.5 kilometers from the Pacific and 6.5 kilometers from the mouth of the Huaura River, the ancient settlement of Vichama might seem like an obvious candidate for a seafood-heavy diet. Yet new isotopic analysis of human remains suggests otherwise.

Researchers examined the bones and teeth of 38 individuals from two distinct periods: the Early Formative-1 (1800–1500 BCE), when Vichama was rising as a center of monumental architecture, and the Late Intermediate Period (1000–1300 CE), a time of shifting political landscapes and changing climate.

Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data show that in the earlier period, residents leaned heavily on C3 plants—beans, tubers, fruits, and chilies—while marine foods made up less than a quarter of the average diet. Even C4 crops such as maize, despite being present in the region, were barely consumed.

“Theoretically, the valley is suitable for maize cultivation; however, local farmers have traditionally focused on other crops,” said lead author Luis Pezo-Lanfranco. “Maize may have been reserved for rituals rather than everyday meals.”

Climatic instability during the Early Formative may have discouraged reliance on maize, which requires consistent irrigation. Communities in broader, more fertile valleys to the north may have specialized in maize cultivation, while Vichama residents opted for resilient crops like cucurbits and tubers.

Three millennia later, isotope evidence from the Late Intermediate Period shows marine foods playing a larger role, coinciding with cooler sea surface temperatures that boosted coastal productivity. Yet farming—especially of C3 plants—remained dominant.

This dietary flexibility suggests a society attuned to environmental rhythms. Vichama’s residents intensified fishing or farming depending on prevailing conditions, without abandoning their agricultural backbone.

The research team plans to expand their study to include plant micro-remains in dental calculus, indicators of physiological stress, and pollen data to reconstruct local climate. They are also exploring the role of long-distance contacts, as artifacts from the Amazon—over 300 kilometers east—hint at possible seasonal or permanent mobility.

“We want to know why the center of regional power shifted from Caral to Vichama,” Pezo-Lanfranco noted. “The global 4.2 ka Event may have been part of the story.”

Vichama’s story is one of resilience, adaptation, and the enduring importance of farming, even in a landscape rich with marine life.

Related Research

* Dillehay, T. D., et al. (2012). Early Holocene foragers and farmers in coastal Peru. Antiquity, 86(334), 762–781. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00047824

* Haas, J., Creamer, W., & Ruiz, A. (2004). Dating the Late Archaic occupation of the Norte Chico region in Peru. Nature, 432(7020), 1020–1023. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature03146

* Quilter, J., & Stocker, T. (2018). Climate and societal change in the Central Andes: Insights from archaeology. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(47), 11864–11871. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1812014115

* Shady, R., Haas, J., & Creamer, W. (2001). Dating Caral, a preceramic site in the Supe Valley on the central coast of Peru. Science, 292(5517), 723–726. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1059519

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In the rolling hills of northern Spain’s Burgos province lies the Sierra de Atapuerca, an archaeological landscape famous for its deep record of human history. Among its many sites, El Mirador Cave has now yielded grim evidence of a violent episode that ended not only in death but in the consumption of human flesh.

A team of archaeologists examined 5,056 human remains from the cave, belonging to at least 11 individuals. Microscopic analysis revealed a chilling pattern: slice marks from stone tools, scraping along bones, chop marks, burning, peeling, fresh fractures, and human tooth impressions. These were not the random scars of decay or burial. They told a story of people who had been skinned, disarticulated, cooked, and eaten.

Radiocarbon dates place the event between 5,700 and 5,570 years ago, within the Late Neolithic, a time when farming communities herded animals, cultivated crops, and competed for territory. Strontium isotope analysis indicated the victims were locals, suggesting the violence was not an attack by distant strangers but a conflict between neighboring groups.

“Cannibalism is one of the most complex behaviors to interpret, due to the inherent difficulty of understanding the act of humans consuming other humans,” explained Palmira Saladié of IPHES-CERCA and the Universitat Rovira i Virgili. “Societal biases tend to interpret it invariably as an act of barbarism.”

A Pattern of Violence in Neolithic Europe

Cannibalism at Atapuerca is not new. Earlier finds from the Gran Dolina cave, dating to the Early Bronze Age and even deeper into prehistory, also bear marks of butchery and consumption. Yet the El Mirador remains are distinctive. The proportion of modified bones is far higher than in funerary rites, where only a small fraction of bones are altered. The injuries are also distributed across the skeleton in ways consistent with butchering for meat, marrow, and brain.

Importantly, paleoenvironmental data did not indicate famine. The age range of the victims—spanning young to old—does not match the demographic profile expected in starvation events, which often claim the most vulnerable first. The authors argue that this was neither ritual cannibalism associated with burial nor survival cannibalism during hunger.

“The evidence points to a violent episode, given how quickly it all took place—possibly the result of conflict between neighboring farming communities,” said Francesc Marginedas of IPHES-CERCA and URV.

Consuming the Enemy

Ethnographic parallels reveal that in some small-scale societies, killing an enemy was not always the final act. Consuming the body could serve as the ultimate form of elimination—a denial of burial, a symbolic act of dominance, or a means of absorbing the enemy’s perceived strength.

Antonio Rodríguez-Hidalgo of the Institute of Archaeology–Mérida noted:

“Even in the less stratified and small-scale societies, violent episodes can occur in which the enemies could be consumed as a form of ultimate elimination.”

This find at El Mirador joins a growing catalogue of Neolithic massacres in Europe, from Talheim in Germany to San Juan ante Portam Latinam in Spain. Many involved not only killing but systematic treatment of bodies that speaks to deeply rooted cultural responses to conflict.

What Remains to Be Learned

The El Mirador bones capture a single violent event frozen in time. Yet questions remain. Were the victims targeted for political reasons, or was the violence rooted in resource competition? Was cannibalism an opportunistic act following slaughter, or was it a deliberate part of warfare? The archaeological record cannot yet answer these definitively. But the evidence is clear: for at least some Neolithic communities, the end of conflict was not the end of the enemy’s story.

Related Research

* Fernández-Crespo, T., et al. (2020). Interpersonal violence at the dawn of the Neolithic in northwestern Mediterranean Europe. Scientific Reports, 10, 6450. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-63426-5

* Boulestin, B., et al. (2009). Mass cannibalism in the Linear Pottery Culture at Herxheim (Palatinate, Germany). Antiquity, 83(321), 968–982. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00099300

* Alt, K. W., et al. (2020). A massacre of early Neolithic farmers in the high Pyrenees at Els Trocs, Spain. Scientific Reports, 10, 2136. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-59095-w

* Saladié, P., et al. (2012). Intergroup cannibalism in the European Early Pleistocene: The range expansion and imbalance of power hypotheses. Journal of Human Evolution, 63(5), 682–695. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2012.07.002

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The Southern Caucasus has always sat at a strategic hinge point between Europe, the Near East, and Central Asia. Traders, pastoralists, and armies passed through its valleys for thousands of years. Yet, according to a new study in Cell, the people who lived there held onto a distinctive genetic identity for over 5,000 years.

The research, led by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in collaboration with scholars from Georgia, Armenia, Norway, and Germany, analyzed the genomes of 230 individuals from 50 archaeological sites spanning from the Early Bronze Age, around 3500 BCE, through the early medieval period, after 500 CE.

“The persistence of a deeply rooted local gene pool through several shifts in material culture is exceptional,” noted Harald Ringbauer, who led the population genetic analyses. “This stands out compared to other regions of Western Eurasia, where cultural transitions often came with large-scale population replacement.”

Bronze Age Visitors, Enduring Roots

Although the genetic signal remained remarkably stable, it was not completely sealed off. During the Late Bronze Age, the data revealed traces of migrants from Anatolia and the Eurasian steppe. These movements coincided with major cultural shifts, including changes in burial practices, the spread of mobile pastoralism, and the adoption of new technologies.

These outside genetic contributions, however, often appear as brief episodes rather than permanent reshaping. Many migrant markers fade in subsequent generations, replaced once more by the dominant local profile.

When Migration Becomes Tradition

One of the most striking examples of cultural exchange without wholesale population change comes from the early medieval Kingdom of Iberia, in what is now eastern Georgia. Archaeologists found numerous burials with intentionally deformed skulls—a custom long associated with nomadic groups from the Central Eurasian steppe, such as the Avars and Huns.

“We identified numerous individuals with deformed skulls who were genetically Central Asian,” said lead author Eirini Skourtanioti. “Yet most who practiced this tradition were locals. This is a compelling example of the adoption of a migrant custom by the resident population.”

The finding overturns earlier assumptions that such skull modifications necessarily marked immigrant identities. Instead, it appears to have been a borrowed practice that became embedded in local cultural life.

Cities as Crossroads

By Late Antiquity, urban centers and early Christian sites in eastern Georgia became gathering points for people of varied ancestries. Ancient DNA reveals that towns functioned as genuine melting pots, where local residents lived alongside individuals whose origins ranged far beyond the Caucasus.

“Historical sources describe the Caucasus Mountains as both a barrier and a corridor for movement,” observed co-lead author Xiaowen Jia. “Our genetic data confirm that these urban centers were magnets for mobility.”

Continuity Through Change

Taken together, the findings portray the Southern Caucasus as a region where movement and exchange were constant, yet the core population’s genetic signature persisted across major political, cultural, and environmental changes.

The work also demonstrates the power of integrating archaeogenetics with traditional archaeology, producing a picture that is both granular and deeply historical.

Additional Related Research

* Skourtanioti, E., et al. (2020). Genomic history of Neolithic to Bronze Age Anatolia, Northern Levant, and Southern Caucasus. Cell, 181(5), 1158–1175.e28. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2020.04.044

* Wang, C. C., et al. (2019). Ancient human genome-wide data from a 3000-year interval in the Caucasus corresponds with eco-geographic boundaries. Nature Communications, 10, 590. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-08220-8

* Lazaridis, I., et al. (2022). The genetic history of the Southern Arc: A bridge between West Asia and Europe. Science, 377(6609), eabm4247. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abm4247

* Margaryan, A., et al. (2020). The genomic origin of the Bronze Age Tarim Basin mummies. Nature, 599, 256–261. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-04052-7

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The Island That Time Forgot

Rising from the marine depths between Borneo and the Banda Sea, the island of Sulawesi holds clues to one of the least understood chapters in the human story. Though modern humans didn’t arrive until the Holocene, archaeologists have long suspected that earlier hominins reached these shores far earlier. Now, stone tools unearthed from the island’s southern interior point to an astonishing timeline: hominins were shaping tools and living on Sulawesi at least 1.04 million years ago.

The evidence comes from the Calio site in the Walanae Depression, where researchers from Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) and Griffith University in Australia have excavated flakes of stone chipped from river pebbles. These tools are unremarkable in shape, but exceptional in implication. Their age, determined through paleomagnetic analysis of the surrounding sediments and dating of a fossilized pig molar pushes back the presence of hominins on Sulawesi by nearly a million years.

This makes the Calio artifacts the oldest archaeological evidence yet found in Wallacea, the biogeographic transition zone between Asia and Australia. More importantly, they suggest that these early humans had the technological or cognitive capacity to cross significant ocean gaps long before Homo sapiens ever built a boat.

“It’s a significant piece of the puzzle, but the Calio site has yet to yield any hominin fossils,” said Adam Brumm, co-leader of the study and professor at the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution.

“So while we now know there were tool-makers on Sulawesi a million years ago, their identity remains a mystery.”

Crossing the Wallace Line

Sulawesi lies east of the Wallace Line, a deep-sea boundary that even today separates Asian and Australasian ecosystems. On one side: tigers, elephants, and primates. On the other: marsupials, birds of paradise, and giant flightless birds. The Wallace Line was once thought to be impassable without boats, but this discovery suggests that archaic hominins had crossed it much earlier than expected.

Previously, the earliest firm evidence of hominins in Wallacea came from stone tools found on Flores, dating to about 1.02 million years ago. That site eventually led to the discovery of Homo floresiensis, the famously diminutive “hobbits” of Liang Bua cave, who stood barely over a meter tall. More recent work at the site of Talepu, also in Sulawesi, had placed hominin activity there at around 194,000 years ago.

The Calio site predates both.

“This discovery adds to our understanding of the movement of extinct humans across the Wallace Line, a transitional zone beyond which unique and often quite peculiar animal species evolved in isolation,” Brumm said.

But unlike Flores, where fossils of H. floresiensis and even their ancestors have been recovered, Sulawesi has yet to yield a single bone. The lack of skeletal evidence makes it difficult to identify which hominin lineage left these tools. Were they Homo erectus? Were they related to the Flores hobbits? Or might they represent an entirely unknown hominin?

Island Lab of Evolution

Sulawesi is no small rock in the ocean. It is more than 12 times the size of Flores, with dramatically diverse environments ranging from highland forests to lowland river valleys. In theory, a group of hominins isolated on such a large landmass for over a million years could have evolved in unpredictable ways.

“Sulawesi is a wild card—it’s like a mini-continent in itself,” Brumm remarked.

“If hominins were cut off on this huge and ecologically rich island for a million years, would they have undergone the same evolutionary changes as the Flores hobbits? Or would something totally different have happened?”

Island dwarfism, a well-known evolutionary phenomenon, may explain the small body size of H. floresiensis on Flores. But would Sulawesi's vastly different environmental pressures have produced giants, grazers, or cognitively unique hominins?

Until bones are found, these remain open questions.

Tools Without a Maker

The Calio tools are small, sharp flakes; simple in form, but rich in implications. Produced by striking river pebbles with other stones, the technique mirrors that used by Homo erectus elsewhere in Southeast Asia. But without fossil remains, these tools stand alone as silent witnesses to a vanished people.

Similar findings in the Philippines and on Timor have shown that hominins likely crossed significant marine barriers repeatedly, whether by accident or by intent. Wallacea, once considered a fringe zone, now looks more like a central corridor in the story of archaic human movement across Asia.

A Mystery in the Making

The Calio site, despite its modest yield, just seven tools so far, is now one of the most tantalizing hominin localities in Asia. Its importance lies not in its size, but in its age and geography. It reshapes how archaeologists think about early human dispersal, and it opens the possibility that other hominin species, previously confined to the mainland, ventured far beyond what their skeletal anatomy alone might suggest.

And yet, the hominins of Sulawesi remain nameless.

Related Research

* van den Bergh, G. D., Meijer, H. J. M., Brumm, A., et al. (2016). The Homo floresiensis remains from Liang Bua, Flores: A review. Journal of Human Evolution, 95, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2016.02.003

* Archaeology of Flores and Early Hominin Dispersal: Brumm, A., et al. (2010). Hominins on Flores, Indonesia, by one million years ago. Nature, 464(7289), 748–752. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature08844

* Ingicco, T., et al. (2018). Earliest known hominin activity in the Philippines by 709,000 years ago. Nature, 557(7704), 233–237. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0072-8

* Westaway, K. E., et al. (2017). An early Homo sapiens presence in Sumatra 73,000–63,000 years ago. Nature, 548(7666), 322–325. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature23452

* Brumm, A., Hakim, B., et al. (2025). Hominins on Sulawesi during the early Pleistocene. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09348-6

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In the tangled rainforests of the Yucatán Peninsula, traces of a civilization long thought to be rural and scattered are now being reimagined as highly structured and densely populated. New research published in Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports by Francisco Estrada-Belli, Marcello Canuto, Ivan Šprajc, and Juan Carlos Fernandez-Diaz upends conventional narratives about the Classic Maya. The study uses a vast new dataset of lidar (light detection and ranging) imagery to suggest that as many as 16 million people may have lived in the Central Maya Lowlands during the Late Classic period, between 600 and 900 CE.

This population estimate represents a 45% increase over earlier numbers and is remarkable not only for its scale, but for where it is concentrated. The study suggests that the northern Maya Lowlands—once thought to be sparsely populated farmland dotted with ceremonial centers—may have been just as urbanized, if not more, than the southern regions historically associated with major sites like Tikal.

“Our analysis of lidar data from both the northern and southern Central Maya Lowlands indicates that the Late Classic period population in the northern region was significantly larger than previously recognized,” the authors write.

Lidar as Time Machine

The study relies on 853 square kilometers of reprocessed and integrated lidar data collected from various public and private sources, including environmental scans conducted by NASA’s Goddard Lidar, Hyperspectral and Thermal Imager (G-LiHT). This is no small leap in methodology. Traditional archaeological methods have long been hindered by the sheer density of jungle vegetation, limiting researchers to pedestrian surveys and targeted excavations. Lidar, however, can see through the canopy, revealing subtle changes in topography that indicate buildings, roads, terraces, and agricultural fields.

And what it found was not a scattered mosaic of huts and temples. The landscape is structured around elite-controlled plaza groups, forming civic-ceremonial centers across both densely and sparsely populated areas. Nearly all residential structures identified in the study were within five kilometers of one of these plaza groups—suggesting a level of regional planning and integration that has more in common with low-density cities than isolated homesteads.

“These findings challenge the notion of isolated rural Maya households,” the authors argue. “Even in sparsely settled areas, households were spatially integrated into a broader network of elite nodes.”

The Myth of the Rural North

Until now, most large-scale population studies in the Maya region focused on southern Guatemala’s Peten region, with lidar studies centered around known sites such as Tikal, Holmul, and La Corona. These earlier datasets had estimated average population densities at around 80 to 120 people per square kilometer. But in the new study, which samples both northern and southern regions, the northern dataset shows dramatically higher densities—ranging from 154 to 260 people per square kilometer.

“The northern half of the Central Maya Lowlands was consistently more densely occupied than its southern counterpart,” the researchers write, “despite lidar transects avoiding known large urban centers like Calakmul and Dzibanché.”

Even when researchers restricted their estimates to upland areas—excluding wetlands that were likely uninhabitable—the figures remained robust: 180 to 305 people per square kilometer, consistent across both north and south.

A Uniform Model of Maya Urbanism

One of the study’s most striking conclusions is the identification of a consistent pattern of urban-rural integration across the entire 95,000-square-kilometer area studied. The data show a uniform spatial model: residences and agricultural features radiating out from ceremonial and administrative centers. These centers formed a multi-tiered network, suggesting governance and exchange were managed in both urban and rural zones.

“Markets and elite administrative nodes were fundamental elements of Maya urbanism,” the study notes. “This model extends beyond cities and into rural areas, implying that no community was truly isolated.”

Even the placement of agricultural infrastructure—stone walls, terraces, ditches—was coordinated. The study found greater investment in agriculture in the northern region, correlating with its higher population densities. These were not random farms; they were carefully engineered landscapes connected to the civic core.

Rewriting the Narrative of Collapse

This rethinking of Maya demographic and spatial structure has implications far beyond settlement numbers. It revises how archaeologists understand the complexity, resilience, and vulnerability of the Maya world. A densely networked population with overlapping layers of civic, ritual, and agricultural coordination could offer new explanations for both the success and collapse of the Classic Maya.

Such a system may have supported large populations efficiently, but it may also have introduced new stress points. The more interconnected the system, the more susceptible it might have been to political disruption, environmental strain, or resource competition.

Still, the scale of integration and planning reflected in the new lidar data is striking. In the northern forests where earlier scholars expected scattered hamlets, researchers now find the shadows of cities. A civilization once imagined as rural and decentralized now appears much more like a deeply entangled landscape of regional capitals, elite-managed farms, and civic plazas—cities without walls, forested but densely lived.

“This study suggests that ancient Maya urbanism was more widespread, more structured, and more interconnected than previously recognized,” the authors conclude.

Related Research

For those interested in broader applications of lidar and ancient urbanism, consider the following related studies:

* Canuto, M. A., et al. (2018). “Ancient lowland Maya complexity as revealed by airborne laser scanning of northern Guatemala.” Science, 361(6409). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aau0137

* Garrison, T. G., et al. (2019). “Lidar survey of northern Guatemala reveals interconnected centers and previously unknown sites.” Nature Communications, 10(1), 2736. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-10215-y

* Hutson, S. R., et al. (2021). “Low-density urbanism and agricultural intensification in the northern Maya Lowlands: new lidar data from Yucatan, Mexico.” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 62, 101265. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2021.101265

* Chase, A. F., & Chase, D. Z. (2020). “E Pluribus Unum: Lidar and the Maya City.” In Ancient Mesoamerica, 31(2), 247–259. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536120000128

Estrada-Belli, F., Canuto, M. A., Šprajc, I., & Fernandez-Diaz, J. C. (2025). New regional-scale Classic Maya population density estimates and settlement distribution models through airborne lidar scanning. Journal of Archaeological Science, Reports, 66(105288), 105288. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2025.105288

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Hominin brains, tweaked at the molecular level

More than half a million years ago, a quiet change took place in the chemistry of our ancestors' brains. Not a wholesale rewiring or a sudden expansion in skull size, but a slight nudge—a single swap of one amino acid in a metabolic enzyme called adenylosuccinate lyase, or ADSL. Today, that change sits in the cells of nearly every living human but is absent in our extinct cousins, the Neanderthals and Denisovans.

A new study published in PNAS by a collaborative team from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology suggests that this tiny molecular substitution may have nudged our lineage in a new behavioral direction. At its heart is a question that cuts to the core of human evolution: how do the smallest molecular shifts ripple out to influence cognition, competition, and survival?

"This enzyme underwent two separate rounds of selection that reduced its activity—first through a change to the protein's stability and second by lowering its expression," explained Dr. Shin-Yu Lee, a geneticist at OIST.

"Evidently, there's an evolutionary pressure to lower the activity of the enzyme enough to provide the effects that we saw in mice, while keeping it active enough to avoid ADSL deficiency disorder."

An enzyme’s delicate balance

ADSL is a workhorse enzyme in the brain. It’s critical in the biosynthesis of purines—key building blocks for DNA, RNA, and molecules that help shuttle energy through cells. ADSL deficiency in humans leads to severe developmental delays, seizures, and cognitive impairments. Yet the modern human version of ADSL has been subtly disabled, not by disease, but by evolution.

The authors found two distinct changes that reduced ADSL function. One is a substitution of valine for alanine at position 429 in the enzyme, a small tweak that makes the protein less stable. The second is a cluster of changes in a non-coding region of the gene, which reduces the amount of ADSL that gets made. The outcome? A measurable drop in ADSL activity in the brain.

Why this would be favored by natural selection remains an open question. But the answer may lie in how animals behave under competition.

A curious advantage in a thirsty mouse

To explore the behavioral effects of the modern human variant of ADSL, the researchers engineered mice to carry the valine mutation at position 429. When these mice were placed in a competitive test involving limited access to water, a curious pattern emerged. The female mice with the human-like ADSL variant were better at securing water than their littermates.

"Accessing water proficiently involves processing sensory information, learning which actions lead to rewards, navigating social interactions, motor planning, and many other processes," noted Professor Izumi Fukunaga, a co-author on the study.

"Each of these may involve multiple brain regions."

This behavioral edge, subtle as it was, raises the possibility that a similar advantage once helped early Homo sapiensoutcompete their archaic relatives, perhaps in environments where success hinged on fast decisions, social coordination, or nuanced cognitive control.

A change unique to our lineage

Importantly, these changes are found in nearly all modern humans but in neither Neanderthals nor Denisovans. Genetic comparisons across ancient and present-day genomes suggest the amino acid substitution and associated regulatory variants emerged after modern humans split from their common ancestors with archaic hominins but before they expanded out of Africa.

“There are a small number of enzymes that were affected by evolutionary changes in the ancestors of modern humans,” said Professor Svante Pääbo, co-author and director at Max Planck.

“ADSL is one of them.”

This means that for tens of thousands of years, as early modern humans began to shape tools, bury their dead, and engage in long-distance migrations, they were also carrying a version of ADSL that functioned slightly less efficiently in the brain. And yet, rather than harming them, it may have offered a behavioral benefit.

The paradox of less

In most evolutionary stories, efficiency is king. But the case of ADSL suggests that sometimes, doing less may do more. Lower enzyme activity in key brain circuits may have subtly shifted how ancient humans processed rewards, handled stress, or competed for limited resources.

There’s precedent for this in evolutionary biology. Reduced expression of certain genes is thought to underlie domestication traits, from floppy ears in dogs to more docile behavior in horses. If lower ADSL activity fine-tuned brain chemistry in ways that helped our ancestors solve problems or share resources more effectively, it may have laid neurological groundwork for the behaviors that followed.

Still, the researchers urge caution in drawing conclusions.

“It’s too early to translate these findings directly to humans,” noted Dr. Xiang-Chun Ju of OIST.

“The neural circuits of mice are vastly different. But the substitution might have given us some evolutionary advantage in particular tasks relative to ancestral humans.”

Open questions for a changing brain

The effects of ADSL remain far from fully understood. Why was the behavioral effect observed only in female mice? Could reduced ADSL activity have influenced social cognition, memory, or risk-taking in early humans? Might it be linked to known shifts in brain wiring or energy use during the evolution of Homo sapiens?

The path forward will require integrating behavioral neuroscience, genomics, and comparative archaeology. But for now, the study adds a key puzzle piece to the growing recognition that the human brain evolved not only through size and shape, but also through subtle chemical tuning.

And with each enzyme, gene, or regulatory element that is traced across the hominin family tree, another layer of our evolutionary story comes into view.

Related Research

* Pääbo, S. (2014). The human condition—a molecular approach. Cell, 157(1), 216–226.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2013.12.036

* Gokhman, D., et al. (2017). Reconstructing the DNA methylation maps of the Neandertal and the Denisovan. Science, 344(6183), 523–527.https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1250368

* Trujillo, C. A., et al. (2021). Reintroduction of the archaic variant of NOVA1 in cortical organoids alters neurodevelopment. Science, 371(6529), eaax2537.https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aax2537

* Fu, Q., et al. (2015). An early modern human from Romania with a recent Neanderthal ancestor. Nature, 524(7564), 216–219.https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14558

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