Evolutionary Insights by Anthropology.net

IZt’s not where archaeologists expected to find a boomerang. And certainly not one carved from a mammoth tusk.

In the chill shadows of Obłazowa Cave in southern Poland, beneath layers of Pleistocene debris and calcified history, a curved artifact was unearthed in the 1990s. Carved with care from the tusk of Mammuthus primigenius, the ivory tool looked vaguely familiar to modern eyes. Roughly 72 centimeters long, slightly asymmetrical, with one rounded end and subtle incised grooves for grip—its function became obvious when a replica was thrown. It flew straight and true, though it did not return. Like some Aboriginal Australian hunting boomerangs, this one was built for striking, not circling back.

What puzzled researchers most was its age. Initially dated to 18,000 years ago, the boomerang already stood out as one of the oldest non-returning examples known. But a team led by Sahra Talamo at the University of Bologna has now revised that estimate. Drawing on radiocarbon samples from the same stratigraphic layer of the cave—notably 13 animal bones and a human thumb—their analysis pushes the date of the artifact back to roughly 40,000 years ago. That not only makes it much older than previously thought, but also situates it in a critical and poorly understood moment of European prehistory.

“This boomerang reflects a unique choice by the group at Obłazowa Cave,” the team wrote. The decision to carve such a specialized tool from mammoth ivory, despite the labor and time involved, hints at something deeper than simple utility.

Artifacts of the Cold Steppe

The updated chronology places the boomerang in a time of profound climatic stress. After about 42,000 years ago, a cascade of environmental changes swept through central Europe. Permafrost crept south, and the steppe turned to tundra. Much of northern Europe became increasingly inhospitable. Yet at Obłazowa, humans persisted.

“Environmental shifts after 42,000 years ago, associated with central European climatic deterioration, positioned the cold-steppe landscapes north of 49 degrees North as challenging for sustained settlements,” Talamo and colleagues explain.

Obłazowa Cave offers a counternarrative. The site shows evidence of occupation lasting more than three millennia through this bitter climatic window. Tools, ornaments, hunting debris—and now the boomerang—suggest that small human groups not only survived but thrived here. The ivory implement, shaped and incised with decorative grooves filled in with red pigment, was as much a statement as a tool.

And it was found not in isolation. Nearby were worked antlers, pendants fashioned from arctic fox teeth, a bone bead—and a single human thumb bone.

“The boulders appear to have been transported from the nearby river and intentionally placed,” the team writes, suggesting a ritual context. Whether these arrangements reflect burial, hunting magic, or something unknowable is uncertain. But they point to meaning beyond the practical.

Ivory and Intent

Working mammoth ivory is no small feat. Unlike wood or bone, it requires intensive labor to cut, shave, and shape. Tusks from female mammoths could reach 9 centimeters in diameter; males twice that. To sculpt a thin aerodynamic boomerang from such material meant removing massive quantities of ivory, smoothing it into a flight-worthy arc, and engraving it with deliberate care.

This wasn’t expedient technology. It was a piece made to last—and perhaps, to communicate.

The red pigment embedded in its incised lines was almost certainly added intentionally. Whether symbolic, ritualistic, or aesthetic, the decoration suggests that form and meaning were as important as function.

“We now have strong evidence that Upper Paleolithic humans in central Europe weren’t just surviving—they were expressing, transmitting, and embodying complex cultural practices,” says Talamo.

The boomerang’s resemblance to Australian Aboriginal designs is likely a coincidence of convergent innovation. Humans across continents have repeatedly arrived at similar solutions to the age-old problem of hitting something at a distance. But what makes this artifact exceptional is its context: mammoth ivory used for a projectile weapon, carved at the cusp of the Last Glacial Maximum in a cave full of other symbolic objects.

Hunters, Rituals, and Resilience

Was this object used for hunting, display, or both? That remains unclear. But its presence in Obłazowa Cave underscores the resourcefulness—and resilience—of Upper Paleolithic communities. These were people who faced hostile climates, sparse prey, and fleeting seasons. Yet they made time for meticulous craftsmanship, symbolic expression, and perhaps even ritual ceremony.

Their material culture doesn’t just tell a story of hardship. It tells a story of adaptation, persistence, and the human need to mark meaning into the world—even when the world turns to ice.

Suggested Related Research

* Riede, F. (2009). “The loss and re-introduction of bow-and-arrow technology: A case study from the Southern Scandinavian Late Paleolithic.” Antiquity, 83(322), 95–108. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003598X00098261

* Vanhaeren, M., & d’Errico, F. (2006). “Aurignacian ethno-linguistic geography of Europe revealed by personal ornaments.” Journal of Archaeological Science, 33(8), 1105–1128. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2005.11.017

* Osborn, A. J., & Motz, C. J. (2009). “Projectile Technology and Hunter-Gatherer Mobility: Experimental Results from a High Altitude Rocky Mountain Setting.” American Antiquity, 74(3), 431–454. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0002731600038641

* Pettitt, P. (2011). The Palaeolithic Origins of Human Burial. Routledge.

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For decades, Papua New Guinea's rich maritime history was told through the lens of wind and war canoes. The story centered on the men—brave seafarers who launched long-distance expeditions along the south coast, carrying vast loads of pottery across hundreds of kilometers of ocean. The pots, the tales went, were forged by these navigators and traded for sago and food in far-off communities. But recent archaeological work has begun to reshape that narrative. A different force linked coastal societies—not only the wind in men’s sails, but the skill in women’s hands.

A study published in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory has uncovered new evidence of pottery production in Hood Bay, 100 kilometers east of Motupore Island. Using scanning electron microscopy to analyze the mineral signatures of clay and sand in pottery sherds, researchers discovered that what was long assumed to be traded ware from the west was, in fact, made locally. And the pots bore identical designs to those found at Motupore Island.

"This is the first direct evidence that earthenware pottery was made in Hood Bay," said Rebecca Skelly, the study's lead author. *"That craft tradition had disappeared sometime in the past few centuries, and its absence had long misled us about the nature of past exchange."

Parallel Pots, Shared Knowledge

The designs etched onto the Hood Bay pots are nearly indistinguishable from those of the Motu people of Port Moresby. Yet there was no evidence of direct seaborne trade linking the two sites. Instead, the study suggests something more subtle and human: a shared knowledge tradition, passed from woman to woman, across generations and geography.

"If the same pottery designs show up 100 kilometers apart, and men weren't involved in making them, then it points to a cultural transmission among women," said co-author Barbara Etschmann.

Indeed, historical accounts from the colonial era often overlook the role of women in crafting and knowledge-sharing. Much of what is known about Papua New Guinea's early trade comes from male anthropologists like Bronislaw Malinowski, whose famous 1922 work, Argonauts of the Western Pacific, likened the region's sailors to Homeric heroes. But the women, whose artistry fed those same trade networks, rarely made it into the pages.

When Pottery Carries Memory

Archaeologists excavating Hood Bay with the local Keapara community recovered pottery fragments strikingly similar to those at Motupore. But unlike past finds, these sherds revealed through microscopic analysis that they were made from local clay. This meant the similarities in design weren't the result of commodity exchange; they were the result of cultural exchange.

"The women who made these pots likely learned their craft not from traders but from other women—aunts, mothers, in-laws—possibly through marriage or prolonged contact," said co-author Tamara Beni.

The study also noted that the tattoo motifs worn by Motu and Keapara women in the 19th century were nearly identical. These tattoos marked major life transitions such as marriage and were deeply embedded in women’s cultural practices. Though the meaning of some of these shared patterns had already been forgotten by the time anthropologists began recording them, their distribution suggests sustained female interaction.

A Story of Interwoven Lives

The findings recast the role of women in shaping the south coast’s interconnectedness. While men navigated the sea, women wove together communities through knowledge. In the quiet acts of potting, tattooing, and mentoring, they maintained ties that extended beyond the horizon.

Pottery making is not a skill easily improvised. Among the Motu, women trained for years under the guidance of elder relatives, mastering clay selection, shaping, and decoration. The level of shared design seen across distant sites cannot be explained by coincidence or mimicry. It speaks to intentional learning, passed along routes invisible to the conventional trade maps: the movements of women.

"Pottery is more than a vessel," said co-author Fiona Petchey. *"It’s a container of memory, of skill, of relationship. And when we find its traces, we find the fingerprints of cultural continuity."

The Hidden Currents of History

This study offers a corrective to earlier models of cultural diffusion that emphasized objects over people, and male traders over female crafters. It proposes that, long before the colonial gaze settled on the daring exploits of seagoing men, generations of women were quietly sustaining and shaping cultural landscapes.

"We need to widen our view of what exchange means," said Jonathan Brugger, a mineralogist on the team. *"It’s not always about what moved across the water. Sometimes, it’s about what moved through memory."

As researchers continue work along the south coast of Papua New Guinea, attention is shifting toward the inland and the intimate—the places and relationships that stored cultural knowledge far from the gaze of early ethnographers.

The pottery, buried for centuries, tells a story that no trade manifest could capture: that the architects of tradition were not only the men who sailed, but the women who stayed—and shared.

Suggested Related Research:

* Gosden, C. & Knowles, C. (2001). Collecting Colonialism: Material Culture and Colonial Change. Berg Publishers.

* David, B., & Thomas, J. (2008). Landscape archaeology and the body: A review. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 18(2), 231–244. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959774308000345

* Kuechler, S. (2002). The Place of Cultural Exchange: Ritual and Agency in Pacific Pottery. Journal of Material Culture, 7(3), 299–314. https://doi.org/10.1177/135918350200700303

* Torrence, R., & Summerhayes, G. R. (1997). Sociality and the short distance trader: Inference from obsidian artifacts in the Papua New Guinea highlands. World Archaeology, 29(3), 335–349. https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.1997.9980394

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In the shadow of South Africa’s southern coast, the archaeological layers of Blombos Cave have long preserved early expressions of symbolic life. Beads strung from seashells, abstract engravings on ochre, and ochre-stained toolkits have come to define the Middle Stone Age (MSA) as a formative chapter in the story of Homo sapiens. But a new study offers a shift in focus: not on what early humans adorned, but on what they shaped.

Between 90,000 and 70,000 years ago, residents of Blombos Cave weren’t just using ochre for decoration or ritual. They were shaping it into specialized tools. Tools not for scraping hides or painting walls—but for refining stone points with remarkable care. These ochre pieces were deliberately modified, carefully maintained, and wielded in a technical craft central to human survival: the making of stone tools.

“We now have direct evidence that ochre was being shaped and used as a retouching tool in lithic production,” said archaeologist Elizabeth Velliky, lead author of the study. “These were not casual or opportunistic implements. They were curated, rejuvenated, and built for purpose.”

A Toolkit Hidden in Plain Sight

The study, published in Science Advances, documents seven ochre artifacts recovered from the deep layers of Blombos Cave’s Still Bay and pre-Still Bay deposits. Each piece bore signs of deliberate shaping—pecking, grinding, scraping—and use-wear consistent with either percussion-based or pressure flaking techniques.

What might seem like modest iron-rich stones, were in fact retouchers: tools used to refine the edges of stone blades. Some were ground to a point; others showed the impact scars and striations left by repeated contact with silcrete flakes. At least four were likely used in pressure flaking, a delicate technique demanding both fine motor control and an understanding of fracture mechanics.

Pressure flaking has been considered a hallmark of advanced toolmaking, one that didn’t appear widely until much later. Yet here it was, practiced in southern Africa by early Homo sapiens, tens of thousands of years before its proliferation in Europe.

"The sophistication of these tools implies a community of skilled individuals," said Francesco d’Errico, co-author and expert in cognitive archaeology. *"We are seeing technological knowledge passed down and refined over generations."

Not Just Any Ochre

The ochre artifacts didn’t come from a single moment in time. Some dated to the Still Bay period (~77,000 to 73,000 years ago), known for its iconic bifacial points and ornamental shell beads. Others came from older layers, including one piece—artifact CH/CI.154—with an almost perfectly elliptical form, marked by use and rejuvenation.

That piece, now broken, was shaped with such care that it likely belonged to a specialized toolmaker. It showed symmetrical striations on both sides, indicating it was used in a bidirectional manner. Pecking marks suggested it was intentionally shaped for durability and function.

"This wasn’t just a hunk of ochre used incidentally. It was engineered for retouching. That suggests foresight, expertise, and perhaps even ownership," said Velliky.

Rethinking the Role of Ochre

For decades, ochre has been studied primarily for its symbolic role. It was applied to skin, engraved with geometric designs, and used in burials. But its practical uses have often been relegated to the background or inferred from ethnographic analogy. This study provides direct archaeological evidence of ochre as a functional tool.

And not just functional—specialized. These artifacts were shaped to fulfill a single task: refining stone tools. This doesn’t rule out symbolic significance. The act of shaping ochre might have carried meaning, or these tools may have been imbued with social identity. But it expands the scope of what ochre meant in the MSA: it was material, medium, and machine.

Ochre, Identity, and Craft

If these tools were shaped and curated by individual knappers, they may also represent some of the earliest evidence of personalized technology. Their distinct forms, use patterns, and signs of rejuvenation suggest they weren’t shared casually. In a context where bone tools and shell beads have been interpreted as indicators of social roles, these ochre retouchers may tell a similar story.

"What we’re possibly seeing is the material signature of technical identity," said Karen van Niekerk, co-author and excavation director at Blombos Cave. *"An expert flint knapper might have carried their retoucher much like a modern craftsperson holds onto a favorite chisel."

The Implications of an Ancient Practice

Blombos Cave continues to offer one of the richest records for early symbolic and technological behavior in Africa. With over 8,000 ochre artifacts recovered, and more being analyzed, the cave is redefining how archaeologists think about early human cognition and craft.

This study opens the door for reinterpreting ochre at other sites—not just as pigment, but as a medium of shaping. It also strengthens the view that behavioral modernity didn’t arrive in a single burst, but through accumulations of skill, knowledge, and intention over time.

"The lines we draw between symbolic and functional behaviors are often too sharp," said Christopher Henshilwood, co-author and director of SapienCE. *"These artifacts sit at the intersection—they are tools, but they are also expressions of human thought."

Related Research:

* d'Errico, F., & Stringer, C. (2011). "Evolution, revolution or saltation scenario for the emergence of modern cultures?" Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 366(1567), 1060-1069. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2010.0340

* Rosso, D. E., d’Errico, F., Queffelec, A. (2017). "Patterns of change and continuity in ochre use during the late Middle Stone Age of the Horn of Africa: The Porc-Epic Cave record." PLOS ONE, 12(5): e0177298. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0177298

* Watts, I. (2009). "Red ochre, body painting, and language: interpreting the Blombos ochre." In R. Botha & C. Knight (Eds.), The Cradle of Language. Oxford University Press.

* Mourre, V., Villa, P., & Henshilwood, C. (2010). "Early use of pressure flaking on lithic artifacts at Blombos Cave, South Africa." Science, 330(6004), 659-662. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1195550

* Hodgskiss, T. (2013). "Ochre use in the Middle Stone Age at Sibudu, South Africa: Grinding, rubbing, scoring and engraving." Journal of African Archaeology, 11(1), 75–95. https://doi.org/10.3213/2191-5784-10243

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For decades, the prevailing narrative in medical archaeology held that leprosy—specifically, Hansen's disease—was a disease that came to the Americas with European colonizers. It left no detectable traces in Indigenous communities before the 16th century. But new genomic evidence from skeletal remains in northern Chile is challenging that view in a way that reshapes our understanding of ancient disease ecology and human-pathogen co-evolution in the Americas.

A recent study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution reconstructs two high-coverage genomes of Mycobacterium lepromatosis from archaeological human remains dated to approximately 4,000 years ago. These remains, unearthed at the La Herradura and El Cerrito sites near the Pacific Coast, belong to adult males whose bones bore signs of chronic infection. The findings mark the first ancient evidence of M. lepromatosis—a lesser-known bacterial cousin of M. leprae, the more commonly recognized cause of leprosy—anywhere in the world.

"This pathogen was not an Old World stowaway that arrived on colonial ships," said study co-author Kirsten Bos of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. "It was already here, entrenched in the pre-Columbian disease landscape."

A Rare and Elusive Pathogen

Since its discovery in 2008, M. lepromatosis has remained a microbiological mystery. Unlike M. leprae, which has been detected in numerous archaeological contexts across Europe and Asia, its newly described cousin has been found only in a few modern human cases and in red squirrels from the British Isles. The clinical form it causes—diffuse lepromatous leprosy (DLL) and the rare Lucio's phenomenon—is severe, often affecting skin, peripheral nerves, and internal organs.

In this study, researchers screened 54 skeletal elements from five archaeological sites using ancient DNA (aDNA) methods designed to detect a wide range of pathogens. Only two samples—one tibia and one tooth—showed strong genomic signals for M. lepromatosis. Both individuals also showed osteological changes suggestive of chronic infection, including nasal aperture modification and lesions on long bones and small hand bones.

Genetic Time Capsules

Once sequenced, the ancient bacterial genomes revealed astonishing levels of preservation—an uncommon feat for microbial DNA in tropical and semi-arid conditions. The reconstructed genomes, designated ECR001 and ECR003, showed more than 40-fold average genomic coverage. Comparisons with modern genomes of M. lepromatosis revealed a clear phylogenetic separation between ancient and modern lineages, with the ancient Chilean strains forming a sister clade to contemporary human-associated strains from Mexico.

"The genetic divergence suggests that M. lepromatosis has been evolving independently in the Americas for tens of thousands of years," said lead author Darío Ramirez of the University of Córdoba.

The team estimated the most recent common ancestor of all human-associated M. lepromatosis lineages to date back around 12,600 years, with the broader species likely emerging closer to 27,000 years ago. These dates suggest a deep evolutionary presence in the Americas—possibly even predating the peopling of South America itself.

Rethinking the Disease Landscape of the Americas

The implications are significant. For years, archaeological efforts to detect leprosy in pre-contact American contexts came up empty, reinforcing the idea that it was a European import. But if M. lepromatosis was already established in South America millennia before colonization, then the continent hosted at least one lineage of Hansen's disease long before Europeans arrived.

"The idea that this pathogen has a New World origin forces us to reassess not only the history of leprosy but the broader assumptions we make about Old World diseases in the Americas," said Rodrigo Nores, co-author and professor of anthropology at the University of Córdoba.

The study raises the possibility that M. lepromatosis was part of a deeper, endemic disease ecology in the Americas, one that has left little in the way of morphological signatures and has been overlooked due to the rarity and diagnostic ambiguity of skeletal lesions.

A Broader Host Range?

The modern distribution of M. lepromatosis is geographically limited, with confirmed cases largely clustered in Mexico and parts of Southeast Asia. Interestingly, it has also been found in red squirrels in Ireland and the UK, hinting at zoonotic potential. However, neither of the ancient Chilean individuals was found near modern armadillo ranges—currently considered a potential reservoir for leprosy-causing bacteria in the Americas.

This has led researchers to ask whether other, yet-undiscovered animal hosts might have played a role in maintaining the bacterium in the environment or facilitating its spread among humans.

The Next Frontier: Ancient Genomes and Disease Origins

This discovery joins a growing body of ancient pathogen research that is rewriting the timeline and geography of infectious diseases. Just as Yersinia pestis has been traced to the Eurasian steppe and Treponema pallidum (the syphilis family) to the Americas, M. lepromatosis now appears to have deep roots in the pre-Columbian New World.

Future work will require broader pathogen screening, better molecular diagnostics, and coordinated collaborations with local institutions during development projects—particularly in coastal and riverine contexts where ancient DNA preservation is more favorable.

"This study is a reminder that the pathogens we know today have histories we’ve only begun to chart," said Bos. *"And many of those histories are still buried—sometimes literally—in the archaeological record."

Suggested Further Reading

* Han XY et al. (2008). A new mycobacterium species causing diffuse lepromatous leprosy. Am J Clin Pathol, 130:856–864. https://doi.org/10.1309/AJCPQ6M3TH1EVW1L

* Avanzi C et al. (2016). Red squirrels in the British Isles are infected with leprosy bacilli. Science, 354:744–747. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aah3783

* Pfrengle S et al. (2021). Mycobacterium leprae diversity and population dynamics in medieval Europe from novel ancient genomes. BMC Biol, 19:220. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-021-01158-8

* Barquera R et al. (2024). A deep history of treponemal disease in the Americas revealed through ancient genomic analyses. Nature, 640:186–193. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07018-5

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n the Java Sea, beneath the sediment-rich waters of the Madura Strait, archaeologists have found something that rewrites part of the story of human evolution in Southeast Asia. Two fragments of hominin skull—unearthed not by excavation but by industrial dredging for port construction—have offered the first direct fossil evidence of Homo erectus from a region long assumed lost to the sea. The find, announced in Quaternary Environments and Humans by Harold Berghuis and colleagues, pushes forward our understanding of hominin range and behavior during the late Middle Pleistocene.

The Madura Strait site lies on the submerged Sunda Shelf, a now-drowned landmass that once connected modern-day Indonesia to mainland Southeast Asia. During glacial periods, sea levels dropped dramatically, exposing vast plains. These corridors, scientists believe, played a critical role in the dispersal of ancient human relatives. But until now, the shelf's fossil record remained inaccessible—lost beneath tens of meters of seawater.

In 2015, a port development company dredged millions of cubic meters of sand from the seafloor to build an artificial island off the coast of Java. Later surveys of the fill material uncovered a trove of vertebrate fossils—over 6,000 specimens, including Stegodon, Duboisia, and water buffalo ancestors. But the most unexpected discoveries were two cranial fragments, designated Madura Strait 1 (MS1) and Madura Strait 2 (MS2), recognized as hominin.

A Window into MIS6

Geological studies and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating placed the fossil-bearing sediments within the Marine Isotope Stage 6 (MIS6), a cold and dry glacial period dating between 191,000 and 130,000 years ago. The preserved river valley, a paleo-channel of the Solo River system, had filled with fluvial sand and gravels before being submerged during the subsequent interglacial.

MS1, a fragment of frontal bone, carries features consistent with late Homo erectus from Java: a prominent supraorbital torus, weak postorbital constriction, and a flattened brow. Metric comparisons with fossils from Ngandong and Sambungmacan—sites along the Solo River known for producing late-surviving Homo erectus—suggest that MS1 fits within this lineage. MS2, a parietal fragment, is less diagnostic but appears morphologically archaic.

"MS1 exhibits characteristic features of the late Javanese Homo erectus, including a flat supratoral plane and a weak postorbital constriction," the authors write. "It is most similar to the Sambungmacan crania, though slightly thinner in torus thickness."

This identification extends the known geographic range of Homo erectus eastward onto what would have been dry lowland plains during the Pleistocene—a reminder that our maps of early human habitats remain partial reconstructions.

Submerged Histories

These fossils challenge long-standing assumptions that Java's Homo erectus populations were geographically isolated. While debates have swirled over the reasons for their prolonged survival—some suggesting ecological refugia or limited competition—the Madura Strait remains point to a broader distribution and a more dynamic picture of hominin movement across Sundaland.

"The Madura Strait skull fragments show that the MIS6 Homo erectus we know from Java also dispersed over the surrounding lowland plains, possibly following the course of the Solo," Berghuis and colleagues argue.

The implications extend beyond just one species. Genetic evidence suggests that Denisovans—a sister lineage to Neanderthals—once lived in parts of Southeast Asia. Yet fossils remain elusive. Submerged valleys like the one in the Madura Strait may hold those answers, though accessing them requires extraordinary circumstances.

"Extracting seabed sand is very expensive. You will only get this done for construction work. So, the only thing we can do is keep in good contact with the local port authorities and developers," the authors note.

Seafloor Archives

As climate change reshapes coastlines and development expands into new marine zones, paleontologists face both opportunities and ethical challenges. The Sundaland seabed—once a Pleistocene landscape teeming with megafauna and archaic humans—now lies beneath shipping lanes and dredgers.

But every fossil hauled from the deep is a fragment of a deeper past: a child’s brow ridge, a deer’s molar, a bone flake bearing cut marks. Together, they tell a story not of isolated survival but of resilience across a vanished continent.

"The answers may very well be at the bottom of the sea."

Related Research

* Kaifu, Y., Aziz, F., Indriati, E., et al. (2008). Cranial morphology of Homo erectus from Sangiran. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 135(4), 431–442. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.20763

* Rizal, Y., Westaway, K. E., Zaim, Y., et al. (2020). Last appearance of Homo erectus at Ngandong, Java, 117,000–108,000 years ago. Nature, 577(7792), 381–385. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1863-2

* Teixeira, J. C., et al. (2021). Widespread Denisovan ancestry in Island Southeast Asia. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 5(5), 612–619. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-021-01475-8

* Louys, J., & Turner, A. (2012). Environment, sea level, and hominin dispersal across Sunda and Sahul. Current Anthropology, 53(5), 677–691. https://doi.org/10.1086/667321

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.anthropology.net/subscribe

By the time a small group of humans stepped into Eurasia around 50,000 years ago, all earlier attempts at migration beyond Africa had faded into evolutionary silence. Why did this single dispersal succeed when others had failed? A new study, published in Nature by Emily Hallett, Michela Leonardi, Eleanor Scerri, and colleagues, suggests that the answer may lie not in a sudden innovation or favorable climate window, but in something more gradual and deeply ecological: a profound expansion in the habitats Homo sapiens could call home.

"Humans dispersing out of Africa after 50,000 years ago were equipped with a distinctive ecological flexibility among hominins," write the authors. "This provided a key mechanism for their adaptive success."

The Problem of Failed Migrations

We know from fossil evidence that Homo sapiens ventured out of Africa multiple times before the successful dispersal. Sites from Israel to Arabia preserve traces of these early excursions, dating back over 100,000 years. Yet none of those lineages appear in the DNA of people alive today. Whatever drove them to leave, it wasn't enough to sustain them outside Africa.

Some have blamed technology. Others have pointed to climate—a series of "green corridors" opening during humid interglacials. But no single explanation has held up to scrutiny. The tools used by those early migrants weren’t radically different from those used later. And while climate change certainly influenced migration corridors, favorable conditions didn’t always lead to long-term settlement.

This new research offers a different lens.

A Wider Niche at Home

The research team compiled a comprehensive database of 479 radiometrically dated archaeological sites across Africa spanning the last 120,000 years. They then used species distribution models (SDMs) to map the kinds of environments those sites were located in, and how that changed through time. The central question: did the ecological range of Homo sapiens expand before their global dispersal?

The answer was yes—emphatically so. Beginning around 70,000 years ago, human populations began occupying a dramatically broader array of habitats across Africa. Not just savannahs and woodlands, but dense tropical forests and hyper-arid deserts. This ecological expansion wasn't due to climate alone. Compared to control models where niche remained fixed, the changes observed required behavioral or technological flexibility on the part of humans themselves.

"Use of areas in which the wettest quarter was both warmer and wetter increased," the study notes. "Use of deserts expanded progressively, underpinned by increased use of regions with large annual temperature ranges and sparse vegetation."

These were not the easiest places to live. Surviving in such regions likely required new foraging strategies, broader diets, long-distance networking, and perhaps storage or mobility innovations. In other words, adaptability became the hallmark of Homo sapiens.

The Timing of Success

Critically, this expansion in the human niche began well before the major out-of-Africa event. By the time populations left the continent, they had already proven themselves capable of surviving in highly variable environments. Earlier migrations lacked this versatility. They were, in ecological terms, narrower.

This broadened niche didn’t mean larger populations necessarily. Arid and forested zones often have lower carrying capacities. But it did mean that human groups could survive in more patchy, marginal environments—and move between them.

"The expansion of the human niche indicates that humans were able to move among several habitats and locations, probably increasing the encounter rate between different groups over time," the authors write.

Implications for Human Evolution

These findings add weight to the idea that Homo sapiens did not follow a linear path toward modernity, but rather evolved mosaically across Africa. Regions as different as West African forests, the Sahel, and the Horn of Africa all contributed to this expanding behavioral repertoire.

By 50,000 years ago, this flexibility paid off. It wasn’t superior spears or symbolic thinking that distinguished the successful migrants from those who failed—those traits already existed in Africa. It was, instead, a learned resilience. A capacity to thrive in ecosystems ranging from dripping jungles to desolate plains.

That same flexibility would allow our species to eventually occupy the Arctic, the Amazon, and even orbit.

Related Research

* d'Errico, F., Banks, W. E., et al. (2017). Identifying early modern human ecological niche expansions and associated cultural dynamics in the South African Middle Stone Age. PNAS, 114(30), 7869–7876. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1620752114

* Roberts, P., & Stewart, B. A. (2018). Defining the 'generalist specialist' niche for Pleistocene Homo sapiens. Nature Human Behaviour, 2, 542–550. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0362-9

* Zeller, E., Timmermann, A. (2024). The evolving three-dimensional landscape of human adaptation. Science Advances, 10, eadq3613. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adq3613

* Beyer, R. M., Krapp, M., & Manica, A. (2020). High-resolution terrestrial climate, bioclimate and vegetation for the last 120,000 years. Scientific Data, 7, 236. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-020-0535-3

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In a Sacred Cave, Traces of a Distant Homeland

On the northern shore of Guam, inside a beachside cave shaped by salt and wind, researchers have found evidence of one of the oldest rice traditions in the Pacific. But this was no granary. The charred husks of domesticated rice, lodged into pottery shards and buried in sediment, suggest something more symbolic. They tell a story not just of cultivation, but of memory, meaning, and the ritual heartbeat of an ancient voyage.

According to a new study published in Science Advances, this discovery at Ritidian Beach Cave marks the earliest known presence of rice in Remote Oceania. The findings push back the timeline of rice in the region by millennia and settle long-standing questions about the cultural baggage brought by the first people to settle the Mariana Islands over 3,000 years ago.

"This study provides strong evidence that the first long-distance ocean crossings into the Pacific were not accidental," said archaeologist Mike Carson. "These early seafarers brought rice with them deliberately—as a vital part of their cultural identity."

Across the Ocean with Rice

The story begins more than 3,500 years ago, when the ancestors of today’s Chamorro people set sail from the northern Philippines. They crossed at least 2,300 kilometers of open Pacific Ocean—an extraordinary act of navigation and planning, without maps or compasses.

Archaeological, genetic, and linguistic evidence already confirmed these early islanders had roots in Southeast Asia, and ultimately Taiwan. But how they fed themselves during the journey, and what foods they intended to grow or carry for ritual use, remained unclear.

Rice, domesticated in China around 9,000 years ago, had long been part of Austronesian foodways. Its spread into Taiwan and Island Southeast Asia was well documented. Yet until now, direct evidence of its arrival in the Marianas had eluded archaeologists.

Rice in the Shards

The breakthrough came not from a field or midden, but from a cave. In a small number of pottery fragments from Ritidian Beach Cave, researchers found silica structures known as phytoliths—microscopic plant residues that can survive long after a plant decays. Among them were clear indicators of domesticated Oryza sativa.

But phytoliths alone aren’t always definitive. To confirm the identification, the team used high-powered microscopy to analyze the morphology of husk impressions preserved in the clay surface of the pots. Crucially, the rice husks were not used to temper the pottery—a technique that can complicate interpretation. Instead, the husks were residues from a separate activity, likely involving cooked or processed rice inside the vessel.

The context of the cave—recognized in Chamorro oral tradition as a sacred place—suggests the bowls and the rice were not used for everyday meals. They may have played a role in ceremonial or ritual activities.

"Rice consumption in early Guam seems to have been restricted, symbolic, and tied to life-cycle events or spiritual practice," Carson noted.

More Than a Staple

Rice today is often seen as a food of abundance. But in early Guam, it was likely precious. Spanish records from the 16th century describe rice as rare, cultivated only in small quantities and reserved for death rites or exceptional moments.

That tradition may stretch back to the island’s founding settlers. The rice fragments from Ritidian suggest that even if rice wasn’t grown at scale, it was present—and valued.

Whether rice farming took hold in the islands immediately or centuries later remains uncertain. The cave evidence shows presence, not production. But its early appearance in such a symbolic context points to rice not as a crop of necessity, but as a vessel of identity.

"They didn’t just bring food—they brought meaning," said co-author Hung Hsiao-chun. "Rice may have been more about connection to homeland than nutrition."

Navigators, Not Castaways

The larger implication of the study lies in its affirmation of intentionality. For decades, scholars debated whether early Pacific islanders drifted into Remote Oceania by accident. The presence of domesticated rice—difficult to grow, not native to the region, and reserved for ritual—strongly suggests otherwise.

These voyagers didn’t just survive a journey across vast seas. They prepared for it. They curated their tools, seeds, and stories. They carried not only what they needed to eat, but what they needed to remember.

"One of the most extraordinary human voyages began with both survival gear and spiritual cargo," Carson reflected. "Rice was part of both."

Additional Related Research

* Carson, M. T., et al. (2020). First settlement of Remote Oceania: Archaeological evidence and recent perspectives. Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, 15(2), 232–250. https://doi.org/10.1080/15564894.2020.1741739

* Bellwood, P. (2017). First Islanders: Prehistory and Human Migration in Island Southeast Asia. Wiley Blackwell.

* Hung, H.-C., et al. (2011). The first settlers of Remote Oceania: Evidence from archaeological and linguistic sources. Science, 333(6047), 1624–1627. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1208135

* Denham, T. (2011). Early agriculture and plant domestication in New Guinea and Island Southeast Asia. Current Anthropology, 52(S4), S379–S395. https://doi.org/10.1086/659998

* Carson, M. T., et al. (2025). Earliest evidence of rice cultivation in Remote Oceania: Ritual use by the first islanders in the Marianas 3500 years ago. Science Advances, 11(26), eadw3591. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adw3591

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A Different Kind of Agricultural Revolution

The usual story goes something like this: climate change, population pressure, dwindling game. Faced with scarcity, ancient foragers had no choice but to settle down and sow crops. Farming, in this version of events, was born of necessity—a last resort that traded freedom for calories.

But in the southern Andes, this narrative doesn’t hold up.

New research from the Lake Titicaca Basin suggests a slower, savvier story—one shaped not by hardship but by resilience. Drawing on isotopic, zooarchaeological, and botanical evidence, a team led by Luis Flores-Blanco and colleagues reveals that the shift from foraging to farming in the Altiplano was a process of stability and innovation, not subsistence stress.

"Our research shows that the origin of agriculture in the Titicaca Basin was a resilient process," said Flores-Blanco. "People didn't abandon foraging because it failed. They managed it effectively, then added farming to the mix."

The study, published in PLOS ONE (2025), tracked the diets of individuals buried at the sites of Kaillachuro and Jiskairumoko between 5,500 and 3,000 years ago—a period spanning the onset of plant domestication and sedentism.

Isotopes in the Bone, Plants on the Plate

Using stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis, the researchers examined the ratio of plant to animal protein in the diets of 16 individuals. The results were remarkably consistent. Roughly 84% of dietary input came from plant sources across the entire sample, with the remainder from large mammals—most likely domesticated camelids and wild game.

These dietary ratios showed no significant shifts over time. Early foragers and later farmers alike ate in strikingly similar ways, with no evidence of caloric crisis or abrupt subsistence changes.

"The same foods that sustained Archaic foragers continued to support the first farmers," said Flores-Blanco.

The implication is clear: rather than abandoning one mode of subsistence for another, ancient Andean communities layered them. They cultivated wild plants they already knew—quinoa, potatoes, tubers—while continuing to hunt, herd, and trade.

Ceramic Pots and Camelid Herds

What made this gradual transition possible? Cultural technology.

As the researchers note, this period saw major innovations: the appearance of ceramic vessels, expanded trade routes, and new uses of camelids not just as game but as herded animals. These developments weren’t flashy revolutions, but quiet reinforcements of economic resilience.

Ceramics enabled long-term storage and new cooking methods. Trade networks brought unfamiliar plants and tools into local economies. And the shift from hunting to managing camelids created more reliable access to meat, wool, and transport.

"This article challenges the traditional idea that agriculture arose from crisis," said co-author Luisa Hinostroza. "In the Altiplano, we see stability and food sufficiency sustained for thousands of years."

A Landscape of Abundance

The Andes are not easy country. The Titicaca Basin sits at over 3,800 meters above sea level. Frost, drought, and altitude conspire against the unwary. But for ancient residents, these challenges were not barriers—they were familiar parameters.

Through trial, observation, and deep ecological knowledge, Altiplano communities identified the plants and animals that thrived in their environment and invested in their propagation. Rather than over-exploiting resources, they tended them.

The archaeological record at sites like Jiskairumoko supports this. There is continuity in housing structures, burial traditions, and diet that points to social cohesion, not collapse.

"These results constitute crucial evidence revealing the capacity of Andean societies to efficiently manage their resources," Hinostroza added.

Rethinking Origins

The study doesn’t just rewrite the history of agriculture in one part of the world. It contributes to a growing global reevaluation of how farming began.

Across regions, new data are pushing back against older models of agricultural origins rooted in crisis. In coastal East Asia, early cultivation coincided with stable foraging. In parts of North America, maize spread slowly through interwoven economies of foraging and farming.

The story from the Andes reinforces the idea that people didn’t adopt agriculture because they had to. They adopted it because it worked—and because they could.

"This was not a revolution," Flores-Blanco emphasized. "It was an adaptation, built on knowledge, flexibility, and choice."

Additional Related Research

* Bruno, M. C. (2014). A paleoethnobotanical perspective on Andean raised field agriculture. Latin American Antiquity, 25(1), 31–58. https://doi.org/10.7183/1045-6635.25.1.31

* Moore, K. M. (2011). Camelid economies in the South-Central Andes, 5000–1000 B.P. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 30(2), 193–210. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2011.01.002

* Stanish, C. (2003). Ancient Titicaca: The Evolution of Complex Society in Southern Peru and Northern Bolivia. University of California Press.

* Isbell, W. H. (2008). Wari and Tiwanaku: International identities in the central Andean Middle Horizon. Journal of Anthropological Research, 64(2), 151–184.

* Flores-Blanco, L., et al. (2025). Altiplano agricultural origins was a process of economic resilience, not hardship: Isotope chemistry, zooarchaeology, and archaeobotany in the Titicaca Basin, 5.5–3.0 ka. PLOS ONE, 20(6), e0325626. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0325626

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Carving a Passage Through Time

Some 30,000 years ago, a band of early modern humans stood on the rocky coast of what is now northern Taiwan and stared into a horizon without maps. What lay ahead was no calm lagoon but the Kuroshio Current, one of the strongest ocean flows on Earth. On the far side, hidden beyond 225 kilometers of open sea, were the Ryukyu Islands—including Yonaguni and Okinawa. And somehow, those Paleolithic pioneers made it across.

How?

That question has challenged archaeologists and oceanographers alike. Fossils and stone tools place humans on those islands during the Upper Paleolithic, but little was known about how they arrived. Two recent studies led by Professor Yousuke Kaifu of the University of Tokyo have changed that, combining simulation and experimental archaeology to explore the plausibility of a long-distance sea crossing in a dugout canoe.

A Canoe Called Sugime

In 2019, Kaifu's team constructed a 7.5-meter dugout canoe using replicas of Paleolithic stone tools and a single Japanese cedar. The result, named Sugime, wasn’t a modern watercraft. It was slow, heavy, and rudimentary by today's standards—yet it proved to be seaworthy enough to attempt the crossing.

Navigating by sun, stars, swells, and instinct alone, the crew paddled Sugime 225 kilometers from Taiwan to Yonaguni in 45 hours. For most of that journey, they had no visual contact with land.

"Those male and female pioneers must have all been experienced paddlers with effective strategies and a strong will to explore the unknown," Kaifu said.

Testing the Current

A one-off voyage can offer clues, but it cannot answer all the questions. So the team also turned to ocean modeling. Led by Yu-Lin Chang, an oceanographer with the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, the team ran hundreds of simulations under varying ancient and modern sea conditions.

"The Kuroshio is usually considered a death sentence to early boats," Chang noted. "But with the right strategy, the results were far more promising than expected."

The key was launching from northern Taiwan and paddling southeast—not straight toward the destination. This trajectory allowed early navigators to counter the current's flow and use its energy rather than be swept away by it.

No Return Ticket

The simulations and voyage both suggest that this was not a casual fishing trip. Those who made the crossing likely had no expectation of returning. There were no maps, no recorded charts, and no back-up plan.

"If you have a map and understand the Kuroshio, maybe you can go back. But Paleolithic people likely couldn’t," said Kaifu. "This was a one-way leap into the unknown."

That leap, however, was calculated. Early seafarers seem to have understood wave patterns, wind, stellar navigation, and how to read the ocean's subtle signs. The skills bear a resemblance to what is seen in later Pacific voyaging cultures like the Polynesians, though separated by tens of thousands of years.

Experimental Archaeology with a Pulse

The Sugime expedition is more than a reenactment; it's a methodological bridge between the abstract past and material possibility. The canoe’s construction process was just as important as the journey itself. It required over 50 days of labor using stone adzes and chisels, revealing the tremendous investment such a voyage demanded.

The project adds momentum to a growing body of research challenging long-held views of early humans as primarily terrestrial. Increasingly, evidence supports the idea that coastal and marine pathways were as vital as land corridors during human dispersals.

From Taiwan to the World

This research doesn’t just illuminate migration into the Ryukyus. It reshapes broader theories of early migration into the Japanese archipelago and island Southeast Asia. Previous assumptions held that open-ocean crossings were unlikely without advanced boats. But the Sugime test suggests otherwise: with stone tools, cedar trees, and a deep understanding of sea behavior, humans could cross even the most forbidding waters.

"Our Paleolithic ancestors were not simply drifting on currents," Kaifu emphasized. "They were taking strategic risks to advance their reach."

Related Research and Comparative Studies

* Chang, Y.-L. K., et al. (2025). Traversing the Kuroshio: Paleolithic migration across one of the world’s strongest ocean currents. Science Advances, 11(26). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adv5508

* Kaifu, Y., et al. (2025). Paleolithic seafaring in East Asia: An experimental test of the dugout canoe hypothesis. Science Advances, 11(26). https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adv5507

* Anderson, A. (2010). The First Migration: Oceanic Settlement and Polynesian Voyaging. University of Hawai‘i Press.

* Erlandson, J. M. (2007). Seafaring before the Neolithic: Testing the coastal migration hypothesis. In Human Migration: A Genetic, Archaeological and Anthropological Perspective (pp. 59-75).

* Fujita, M., et al. (2016). Paleolithic to Neolithic transition in the Japanese Archipelago: New insights from shell midden and submerged site research. Quaternary International, 416, 157-174. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2015.11.059

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Seeds on the Move: The Archaeology of Early Farming Migrations

In the deserts of southern Arizona and northern Sonora, beneath millennia of sediment and silence, archaeologists are tracing the faint signatures of small-scale migration. These weren’t the dramatic mass movements chronicled in oral histories or mythology. Instead, the evidence emerges in the form of a particular type of dart point, an unusual burial, or a subtle variation in cranial shape. Together, they offer a rare glimpse into the slow, human process by which maize agriculture took root in the ancient Sonoran Desert.

"We’re talking about subtle signals," noted one archaeologist familiar with the region's cultural complexity. "But those signals reflect real movements of people, real decisions, and real consequences for how communities took shape."

Projectile Points as Cultural Signatures

One of the clearest clues comes from stone tools. Dart points from the Early Agricultural Period (EAP), dated between 2100 BCE and 50 CE, differ not just in form, but in origin. At the Las Capas site near Tucson, archaeologists found a concentration of Empire-style dart points—long, narrow, finely serrated blades that stand apart from the broader, corner-notched San Pedro points typical of the Tucson Basin.

"Empire points aren’t just a different design," one lithics analyst remarked. "They likely represent a different identity."

The Empire points appear to have come from northern Sonora, suggesting that a distinct group of people migrated northward into the Tucson Basin during the early San Pedro phase. After a major flood event at Las Capas around 1000 BCE, the site was reoccupied. But this time, the migrants had either adopted local technologies or had been replaced by local people—San Pedro points dominated the assemblage.

The story encoded in these dart points isn’t just technological; it’s social. In a world where projectile point style could signal group membership or male identity, the shift from Empire to San Pedro forms reflects a deeper integration into the local community.

Mortuary Practices and Cultural Boundaries

Burial customs offer another lens on migration. At sites like La Playa in Sonora and Las Capas in Arizona, researchers compared mortuary traits including body position, pigmentation, and grave goods.

La Playa burials often featured ochre pigment and more varied body positions—prone, extended, or seated. In contrast, burials in the Tucson Basin were more standardized: flexed bodies, oriented north-south, with minimal adornment.

"These aren’t just preferences. Mortuary practices express group identity and cultural norms. Their differences matter."

The divergence supports the idea that migrants from La Playa initially maintained their own mortuary traditions before eventually adopting local ones. This echoes the pattern seen in projectile point styles: a distinct identity giving way to shared community practices.

Bioarchaeology: Migration in the Bones

If projectile points and mortuary customs suggest cultural differences, bones offer clues about biology and mobility. Studies of crania and postcranial measurements indicate subtle phenotypic differences between groups. Males, in particular, show higher variability—suggesting gene flow, perhaps through exogamous marriage or migration.

One study found that men had greater cross-sectional femur strength, implying higher mobility—perhaps tied to hunting or intergroup contact. Dental studies revealed closer affinities between individuals at Las Capas and La Playa than among other Tucson Basin sites. Together, these data suggest that men were the primary agents of movement during this period.

"If there was migration, it was likely male-centered," said one bioarchaeologist. "We see the genetic echoes of that movement in their bones."

Migration Beyond the Desert: Toward the Colorado Plateau

Evidence also points beyond the desert. Some archaeologists argue that descendants of San Pedro phase farmers migrated north, laying the foundations of the Western Basketmaker II culture on the Colorado Plateau.

While projectile point types from the two traditions differ in size and morphology, bioarchaeological data are more telling. Craniometric and dental studies show closer phenetic ties between Early Agricultural and Western Basketmaker II populations than between Eastern and Western Basketmaker groups.

"This isn’t just cultural diffusion," noted one researcher. "It looks like a movement of people."

The genetic link is clearest in mitochondrial and Y-chromosome patterns that hint at family groups or male-line migrations from the Sonoran Desert into the Four Corners region.

A Web of Subtle Movements

What emerges is not a singular migration narrative, but a web of local and regional movements. Early farmers in the Sonoran Desert migrated into new niches, likely driven by environmental shifts, access to arable land, and social ties. These migrations were not en masse. Instead, they were gradual and partial—a family here, a group of hunters there.

By tracing these movements through the detritus of daily life—stone points, burial rites, and bone structure—archaeologists are beginning to piece together the mosaic of early farming life in the Southwest.

Migration didn’t just carry maize north. It carried identities, ideas, and technologies that would shape the Southwest for millennia to come.

Related Research

* Byrd, R. M. (2019). Biodistance Evidence for Migration and Gene Flow in the North American Southwest, 2100 BC–AD 1700. University of Arizona. [ProQuest link]

* Coltrain, J. B., & Janetski, J. C. (2019). Reevaluation of Basketmaker II Origins. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 56, 101085. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2019.101085

* LeBlanc, S. A., et al. (2007). Mitochondrial DNA analysis of early Basketmaker quids from southeastern Utah. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 133(3), 734-741. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.20572

* Watson, J. T., et al. (2025). Small-Scale Migrations among Early Farmers in the Sonoran Desert. American Antiquity, 90(2), 359–378. https://doi.org/10.1017/aaq.2024.78

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